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9/3/2005

Rehnquist Dead :.

Oh man. Now what.



U.S. Military Begins Combat Operations in New Orleans :.

Insurgency?

Combat operations are underway on the streets "to take this city back" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"This place is going to look like Little Somalia," Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. "We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.

Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

"We're here to do whatever they need us to do," Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard's 1345th Transportation Company. "We packed to stay as long as it takes."

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.


9/2/2005

HALLIBURTON HIRED FOR STORM CLEANUP :.

Cui bono? Cheney, that's who. Man, wherever there are corpses, Cheney stands ready to harvest profits:

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.



More Cruel Than Crazy :.

this is what it means to have an alcoholic psychopath as our national father.

when he's drunk, you never know which one he'll take a swing at. we write checks to the red cross with one hand and squeeze the last drop from the pump with the other, because we know when he tires of one target, if he's still full o piss he'll find another. and who’s next?

when he's sober it's worse, that's when your hopes reawaken and your hands stretch out to receive him. you might get a cuddle and a meal, but there's a bottomless coldness to his affection. he senses your need and dangles it in front of you. sometimes he goes away for days, sometimes for good. the abandonment in all its forms is not an accident, it's strategic. he's slowly trying to kill you.

even though for most of us the punishment is vicarious, the strategy is working. five long obvious days we have watched, waited. we squirm in disbelief. where have you been, papa? surely you could not mean to do that, i know you love me, you must have just been passed out somewhere.



For the Commodity Traders Out There

DISCLAIMER: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

To me, this looks like a, "Shaking the apple tree," formation, or what TR referred to as the Magic Mystery Dot play. In an uptrend, weak hands sell at the first sign of a pull back. What's the larger trend? The smart money buys long contracts at a discount before the next leg up.

If you have a good strategy for timing entry into a long play from here, my hat is off to you. Out of the money call options might be the way to go for more risk averse traders.



More Americans Living in Poverty :.

Does anyone admit voting for Bush anymore? (Not that it matters.)

Even as the economy strengthened in 2004, Census Bureau figures show 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003.



A Can't-Do Government :.

America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job.

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.


Research Credit: AV



Bush Gives New Reason for Iraq war: Oil :.

Shocker:

"If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. "They'd seizeoil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."



Energy Prices Drop Sharply

Oil, gasoline and natural gas are all down this morning. It's nice to finally be able to post good news; no matter how fleeting it may be.


9/1/2005

Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel :.

Pentagon officials said Thursday they have found three more people who recall an intelligence chart that identified Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta as a terrorist one year before the attacks on New York and Washington. But they have been unable to find the chart or other evidence that it existed.



GASOLINE DELIVERIES FALTER :.

The more you fight it, the worse your pain will be:

"Out of Gas" signs and yellow caution tape were draped across pumps in parts of the United States early Thursday after many retailers were overrun by panicked motorists looking to top off their tanks as prices soared past $3 per gallon and reports of shortages spread.

Gas stations in and around downtown Atlanta had temporarily run out of gas. The same was reported elsewhere, including parts of North Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Arizona. Many retailers who did have gas had no clue when their next shipments would come in.

"People have kind of panicked and they're waiting in long lines because they're afraid the prices are going to go up," said Jan Vineyard, executive director of the West Virginia Oil Marketers And Grocers Association. "We're going to have some outages."

Price hikes were first evident at stations nationwide Wednesday as gasoline costs breached $3 a gallon for the first time in numerous states, the result of fuel pipeline shutdowns and delayed deliveries since Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and Mississippi earlier this week.



U.S. GOVERNMENT: REFINERIES SHUT FOR MONTHS :.

Eleven percent cut in refinery capacity?! Uh... I honestly thought we had until 2007 until this thing came down via the energy scenario:

The Energy Department's analytical arm said nine major oil refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi remained shut from the hurricane. Those refineries account for about 11 percent of total U.S. refining capacity.


8/31/2005

AT LEAST TEN U.S. AIRPORTS FACE CLOSURE DUE TO JET FUEL SHORTAGES :.

Airlines and oil companies are working on plans to supply jet fuel to at least ten U.S. airports that could be shut down due to a lack of jet fuel caused by refinery and pipeline shutdowns from hurricane Katrina. The airports in most jeopardy for closure include Atlanta, Charlotte, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Tampa, Washington Dulles and West Palm Beach.



Post Katrina Pictures :.

Some of these images are unbelievable.



Gas Shortages Impacting Now :.

Hopefully, theoildrum will keep this thread current. They have been a great resource for tactical information as this crisis has unfolded.

Research Credit: oilempire.us



Eight Refineries Shut Due to Storm :.

Roughly two million barrels of gasoline (per day) have been removed from the system:

Eight Gulf of Mexico refineries remain shut and one is operating at a reduced rate while damage from Hurricane Katrina continues to be assessed by oil and gas companies.

Access to some of the refineries is difficult. Conditions at those locations are as follows:

Baton Rouge, La. - At nearly 394,000 barrels a day, one of the gulf's largest refinery owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. is running at a reduced capacity.

Pascagoula, Miss. - Chevron Corp.'s 325,000 barrel a day refinery remains shut. The company says access to the refinery remains difficult.

Norco, La. - Valero Energy Corp.'s St. Charles refinery is not likely to resume its 260,000 barrel a day operations for up to two weeks.

Garyville, La. - Marathon Oil Corp.'s 245,000 barrel a day refinery remains shut. Access is limited.

Belle Chasse, La. - ConocoPhillips' Alliance refinery remains shut. Road closures have kept the company from fully assessing damage to the 255,000 barrel a day facility, viewed only by aircraft thus far.

Convent, La. -- Motiva Enterprises's 255,000 barrel a day facility sustained minimal damage. It remains shut.

Norco, La. - Access to Motiva Enterprises's 242,000 barrel a day refinery is limited. The plant is shut while damage is being assessed.

Chalmette, La. - Exxon Mobil has not been able to visit the 183,000 barrel a day refinery, which shut down on Sunday.

Meraux, La. - The 125,000 barrel a day facility by Murphy Oil Corp. remains shut down as access remains limited because of cloased roadways.



Gunmen Roaming New Orleans :.

In a state of nature, the power vacuum doesn't last long. Warlords emerge fairly quickly:

The top Homeland Security official in New Orleans said bands of gunmen are roaming through New Orleans.

Terry Ebbert said looters have been breaking into stores all over town to steal guns. The Times-Picayune newspaper reported the gun section at a new Wal-Mart has been cleaned out. And the thieves are apparently using their new guns, with shots heard through the night.



U.S. COAST GUARD: 20 OIL RIGS MISSING IN THE GULF OF MEXICO :.

Jaw dropper:

At least 20 oil rigs and platforms are missing in the Gulf of Mexico and a ruptured gas pipeline is on fire after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region, a US Coast Guard official said.

"We have confirmed at least 20 rigs or platforms missing, either sunk or adrift, and one confirmed fire where a rig was," Petty Officer Robert Reed of the Louisiana Coast Guard told AFP.

All of the missing rigs were in the Gulf of Mexico, Reed said citing Coast Guard overflights of the area and information from oil companies.


Research Credit: RP



NOT CONFIRMED: Report from an Anonymous Insider :.

UPDATE: See story above.

Take it with a grain of salt. Take it any way you can:

I don't know how long companies can wait before they would have to disclose the loss of these assets. My guess is that they'll get long as the oil futures stabilize (on the release of oil from the SPR). That's when the "lost platform" talk will ramp up:

There are MANY production platforms missing (as in not visible from the air). This means they have been totally lost. I am talking about 10's of platforms, not single digit numbers.



Shell's Crown Jewel: The Destroyed Mars Oil Platform :.

Wow.



Water and Food

Have extra water and food on hand, in that order.

I'm not saying that a gas crisis is a mathematical certainty, but I'm seeing gas running out in different parts of the U.S., lack of jet fuel causing the cancellation of flights, and reports of multiple oil platforms that have either been sunk or severely damaged.

The release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve might be able to ameliorate the situation for a while. The immediate question, however, is refining capacity. With virtually no excess capacity in the system before Katrina, where are we now? <--- Rhetorical question.

Just look at the Nymex gasoline futures contracts. Those blinking digits are going to profoundly affect all of our lives in the days and weeks ahead.

The comments of a White House economic adviser, Ben Bernanke, are what convinced me to tell all of you to consider making emergency preparations:
"As long as we find that the energy impact is only temporary and there's not permanent damage to the infrastructure, my guess is that the effects on the overall economy will be fairly modest."
Did you get that? If people like me know that there is substantial infrastructure damage, and that capacity was against the wall before Katrina, I would expect that Ben Bernanke knows the real score.

Water and food, in that order.



GASOLINE PRICES GAP UP, AGAIN :.

Gas shortages are beginning:

Gasoline futures rose as much as 13 percent, the biggest fluctuation of any commodity today, to a record for the third straight day after Hurricane Katrina shut oil refineries near the Gulf of Mexico, leading to fuel rationing across most of the U.S.

Refiners and wholesalers are restricting the amount of fuel retailers can buy. Gasoline and diesel supplies ran out yesterday at some wholesale terminals in parts of the Midwest, South and Southeast, Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, said yesterday.

"There's still some serious supply vulnerability to the whole system," said Andy Lebow, a broker with Man financial Inc. in New York.

Gasoline for September delivery rose 20.5 cents, or 8.3 percent, to $2.68 a gallon as of 10:43 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price reached a record $2.80 a gallon in earlier trading. Prices soared 20 percent yesterday, the biggest single-day increase since the contract began trading in 1984.



CNN: GAS CRISIS LOOMS :.

The impact of Hurricane Katrina on U.S. oil production and refinery capabilities may be worse than initial reports estimated and could lead to a national gas crisis in the short-term, analysts warned Tuesday.


8/30/2005

NEW ORLEANS: STATE OF NATURE :.

In case you don't know what a state of nature looks like:

Mike Perlstein and Brian Thevenot wrote that at a Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, mass looting broke out after a giveaway of supplies was announced at that location. While some did indeed carry away food and essentials, others "cleared out jewelry racks and carted out computers, TVs and appliances on handtrucks. Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television.

"Throughout the store and parking lot, looters pushed carts and loaded trucks and vans alongside officers. One man said police directed him to Wal-Mart from Robert's Grocery, where a similar scene was taking place. A crowd in the electronics section said one officer broke the glass DVD case so people wouldn't cut themselves.

"The police got all the best stuff. They're crookeder than us," one man said. Most officers, though, simply stood by powerless against the tide of law breakers.



NEW ORLEANS: MARTIAL LAW DECLARED :.

Martial Law has been declared in parts of New Orleans as conditions continued to deteriorate. Water levels in The Big Easy and it's suburbs are rising at dangerous levels and officials stated they don't know where the water is coming from. Residents are being urged to get out of New Orleans in any way they can as officials fear "life will be unsustainable" for days or even weeks.



ROYAL DUTCH SHELL MARS PLATFORM DAMAGED :.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said its 220,000 barrel-a-day Mars platform, equivalent to 15 percent of total U.S. Gulf oil output, suffered damage.



NYMEX GASOLINE GAPS UP 10% 15% 20%

* Hands shaking as I type this *

Oil is kissing $70 again.



Soy Ruled No Health Food :.

The Israeli Health Ministry recently issued a health advisory strongly recommending that soy foods be eaten only in moderation. They also recommended that soy formula be avoided altogether by infants.


8/29/2005

8 REFINERIES SHUT DOWN :.

At least eight Gulf Coast refineries in the path of Hurricane Katrina shut down or reduced operations by Monday, according to company and U.S. Department of Energy reports. The eight represent about 2.3 million barrels of daily refining capacity.



OIL RIGS AND PLATFORMS ADRIFT IN THE GULF :.

I'm following several unconfirmed reports on the status of the LOOP. Standby.

In the meantime:

The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it received early reports of oil platforms and rigs adrift in the storm's wake. Shell said that two of its oil drilling rigs under contract were adrift.



Xtreme Defense :.

This is an astonishing article. You MUST read this in its entirety. I'll post a local copy of it soon.

To sum up: Satan won the Battle of Good vs. Evil. He turned the U.S. into Jesus Land. Satan's minions, always fawning at the feet of evil, are climbing all over themselves in an attempt to see who can devise the most evil weapon systems for Uncle Sam's Satan's high level managers here in Jesus Land. Why work on anything that could actually benefit society when Uncle Satan's low hanging fruit is so simple to pluck?

You don't need suitcases full of cash and hookers to be an arms magnate in the U.S. anymore. If you can mumble nonsense about Jesus and have an evil enough idea, Uncle Satan will provide the funding to make all of your dreams come true!

What a country:

Lightning guns, heat rays, weapons that can make you hear the voice of God. This is what happens when the war on terror meets the entrepreneurial spirit.



Jellyfish Cause Shutdown of Swedish Nuclear Reactor :.

Believe it or not:

A Swedish nuclear power plant shut down one of its three reactors Monday because of an abnormal accumulation of jellyfish in the cooling system.

"When there are too many jellyfish in the cooling water, the flow is hindered and we have to clean it to keep the reactor going at full effect," plant spokesman Erik Mattsen said.

Operator OKG said there was no danger to the public. The reactor was to be restarted Tuesday.

The Oscarshamn plant supplies about 10 percent of the electricity used in Sweden.



Colonization Redux :.

A friend of mine started hereticfig.com. Check it out. And why don't more women write about these issues? Come on, Cryptogon girls! Fire it up!

why should we care about the color of lentils in liberia? do we really need all those silly heirloom tomatoes? we do. because the endpoint of this process is the destruction of the bare-bones ability to feed oneself, which, by the way, is not the same as having twelve flavors of ruffles to choose from.


8/28/2005

KATRINA TARGETING U.S. OIL OPERATIONS :.

With crude oil prices near record levels, a hurricane targeted the heart of America's oil and refinery operations Sunday, shutting down an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity and sharply curbing offshore production throughout the region.

Katrina, a Category 5 storm expected to strike New Orleans early Monday, was churning through the Gulf of Mexico. The area is crucial to the nation's energy infrastructure---offshore oil and gas production, import terminals, pipeline networks and numerous refining operations throughout southern Louisiana and Mississippi.

The impact was immediate Sunday night when electronic trading resumed on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as crude oil futures spiked $4.50 per barrel, putting the cost above $70 for the first time since oil began trading there in 1983.



OIL GAPS UP TO $70.80 ON HURRICANE KATRINA :.

The Machine is incredibly fragile:

Crude oil soared to a record $70.80 a barrel in New York after Hurricane Katrina moved into production regions of the Gulf of Mexico, forcing companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. to shut operations.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it shut 420,000 barrels of daily oil production in the Gulf. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which handles about 11 percent of U.S. imports, closed Aug. 27. Katrina, with 165 mile-an-hour winds, is one of the most powerful storms ever to enter the Gulf, source of about 30 percent of U.S. oil production and 24 percent of the country's natural gas.

"Forecasters are saying Katrina could do more energy damage than any storm in recent years," Jason Schenker an economist with Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina, said before the start of trading. "It's not just that there's going to be outages for the next couple of days. With shutdowns and damage at platforms and refineries, the bullish impact could be felt for the rest of the year."

Crude oil for October delivery rose as much as $4.67, or 7 percent, to $70.80 a barrel in electronic after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $70.50 a barrel at 7:05 a.m. Singapore time.




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Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
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Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.