Continuing Crunch

A big question in my mind and probably others is how big is the investment of our "leaders" and others?
It's hard to find figures on this but there are some articles that provide some ideas:

"Henry Paulson, who was recently nominated to be the next treasury secretary, is facing a lot of tough choices. Should the former CEO of Goldman Sachs continue to promote environmental causes in an administration that loathes them? What should he say about the dollar? Should he buy a condo in Washington, or a mansion? Then there's the trickiest question of all: What should he do with the mountain of money he's earned at Goldman Sachs over the years?

Not since Nelson Rockefeller served as vice president during the Ford administration has a senior government official arrived in Washington with such a high net worth. Paulson owns some 4.58 million shares in Goldman Sachs (including restricted stock) worth about $700 million at today's price and surely has millions more in other instruments.

Conflict-of-interest laws say senior government officials can't hold on to investments that could benefit from decisions they might make. Meeting this requirement is comparatively easy for an upper-middle-class secretary of agriculture. Sell your stock in Archer Daniels Midland and direct your financial adviser to avoid it and similar stocks. But for a plutocrat who is about to become secretary of treasury, it's a much more difficult call. He can't choose the default mode that worked so well for former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who put his cash into government bonds. Treasury secretaries are forbidden from buying government debt—after all, they issue that debt. (The T-bill strategy worked out remarkably well for Greenspan, who saw his net worth rise every time he slashed rates.) And putting the money in the simplest form of investment—a dollar-denominated savings account—would be both a poor investment for Paulson and a potential conflict of interest. After all, treasury secretaries frequently discuss currency exchange rates."

Trying to find info on Bernake has proven even more opaque. According to this he has modest holdings (not):

"With his income-earning potential, this is a man who can afford to take on a little more risk.

This assessment is based on news stories written when the Federal Reserve last week released the chairman's financial disclosure form that outlines in broad terms his personal finances. The annual disclosure is mandated by law with the Federal Reserve board members reporting their assets and income within broad ranges rather than by exact figures.

News reports on release of the disclosure form highlighted Bernanke's holdings in Canadian treasury bonds. What caught my eye, however, is the fact that the bulk of his portfolio is tied up in just two funds: a large cap stock fund and a fixed-rate annuity.

The CREF Stock Large Cap Blend fund and TIAA Traditional Bernanke holds are valued each at somewhere between $500,001 and $1 million, the Associated Press reported.

Bernanke, Fed chairman since February 2006, reported total assets ranging between $1.2 million and $2.5 million. That means the CREF stock fund and the TIAA annuity together could account for up to about 80 percent of his overall portfolio, depending upon where the exact asset figures fall within the broad ranges given."

This puts the concerns of an average American somewhere in the unmeasurable range of human suffering!

The Growing Planetary "Meth" Problem

It may turn out that Nature's activities will over shadow the recent implosion on Wall Street. According to the Independent massive releases of methane are now being observed for the first time off the coast of northern Siberia:

"The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats....

Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.

"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."

At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.

"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."

The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union, are being overseen by Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots", which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments on board the Jacob Smirnitskyi."

That was two days ago, now British scientists report the existence of more methane plumes in the arctic:

"British scientists have discovered hundreds more methane "plumes" bubbling up from the Arctic seabed, in an area to the west of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. It is the second time in a week that scientists have reported methane emissions from the Arctic."

The implications of this are potentially severe:

"Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species."

Voter Suppression Underway In Wisconsin

In one of the most egregious exercises in voter suppression I've ever seen, J.B. Van Hollen, Republican State Attorney General of Wisconsin, is attempting a last minute blatant purging of voter records in the state which could affect as many as 1 million voters in Wisconsin.As noted :

"Van Hollen's suit would require election officials to conform to a recent federal law and cross check all new voter registrations or voter change of address since 2006. Opponents said that would create havoc during the election."

In a prepostorous statement on Thursday he denied consulting with Republican party officials or the McCain campaign:

"Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said this afternoon he never discussed his lawsuit against the state's election authority with the state Republican Party or the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona before he filed the suit.

"There was no discussion with anybody involved in leadership with the Republican Party (or the McCain campaign) about this lawsuit before it was brought," he said.

The comments from Van Hollen came just hours after Van Hollen aide Kevin St. John left open the possibility that had happened.

Van Hollen said he did not believe any of his aides discussed the matter with the party or campaign either.

"I can't say for certain what they have or haven't done with every minute of their day any more than they could speak about mine, but I have no reason to believe - none of them have reported to me - that anybody involved in the Republican Party or the McCain campaign about this lawsuit," he said."

Oh, by the way, Van Hollen is the co-chair of the McCain campaign in Wisconsin. Sensing that the credulity of even the most brain-dead observer was being streched thin a new statement was issued:

"The lead Department of Justice attorney for Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s lawsuit against the state’s election authority met with Republican Party representatives about a week before filing the suit.Justice attorney Steven Means said Friday he met with Republican attorneys Chris Mohrman and Jim Troupis at their request to discuss the Government Accountability Board’s policy on checking voter information. Other Republicans participated in the meeting via conference call, but Means said he could not recall who they were.

Van Hollen sued the board last week to force it to check more voters to make sure their voter registration information matches driver’s license records. The suit could affect 241,000 to 1 million voters.

Van Hollen, a Wisconsin co-chairman of the presidential campaign of John McCain, has said the lawsuit was not motivated by partisan ties. On Thursday, he said he knew of no contacts between his agency and the Republican Party about the issue.

Since then, the department has said at least two attorneys had contact with the party before the suit was filed."

At this point citizens of some countries would be re-enacting the villagers' march on Baron von Frankenstein's castle, the Democrats, however could only muster the following somewhat less than outraged comment:

"State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke said the visit by Means to GOP lawyers showed that Republicans are “using the chief law enforcement officer of the state to do Republican shenanigans.”

Shenanigans hardly describes mass disenfranchisment of the electorate. Is it too late to call in observers from the EU or perhaps the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation?

The Big Melt 2008 Edition

The above photos are illustrations of a huge ice shelf that recently disintegrated from Ellsmere Island in the Canadian arctic last month.According to a report by the BBC the above piece is approximately 20 square miles and according to a climatologist at Trent University "these changes are irreversible under the present climate." More startling views can be found here.
Meanwhile the Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis site reports that August of 2008 has seen the second lowest extent of sea ice on record following last year's all-time (so far) record.
Most disconcerting is to observe the antics of the Republicans' nominee for V.P. as she tries to maintain her credibility with her Low Information base while at the same time not wanting to appear as totally Reality-Challenged to the muddled masses of the American political center.

Three Fests in One Week

Living in Wisconsin has some advantages besides cheese and beer and last week was a great illustration. Labor Day was marked by Labor Fest which was topped off by a visit by Barak Obama to a crowd of 20,000 enthusiastic people. His speech was short on specifics which was partially due to Hurricane Gustav, the National Disaster that wasn't, and the vacuous nature of American politics courtesy of our neutered media.

Fighting Bob Fest met for the 7th time Saturday September 6th, and was attended by a record crowd of 10,000 people who were inspired by the likes of Robert McChesney, Phil Donahue, Bill McKibben, Jim Hightower, Matt Rothschild, and Scott Ritter. Scott Ritter in particular was a compelling speaker, an embodiment of real patriotism in an era of phony bullshit, ala Bush, Cheney, and Palin. His call for all of us to become "people of interest" to the government harkens back to the words of Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

Lastly today we visited "Indian Summer Festival" a reminder of the true origins of America accompanied by a visitor from Yakutsk Siberia who might be closer to our roots than most of the Europeans there.

Arctic Sea Ice Update

The Arctic sea ice meltdown seems to be approaching historical proportions as per Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis:

"Sea ice extent has fallen below the 2005 minimum, previously the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era. Will 2008 also break the standing record low, set in 2007? We will know in the next several weeks, when the melt season comes to a close. The bottom line, however, is that the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent characterizing the past decade continues."

BTW the Northwest Passage is or will be open momentarily.

Wisconsin Visitors to the Twin Cities

With the upcoming Republican convention heading for the Twin Cities visitors from nearby states are making plans. The visitors from Wisconsin promise to be a diverse lot including Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. Interestingly in case of too much Peace and Justice Milwaukee's finest have stepped to do their part to "protect the convention". Protect from what is not exactly clear. From the Journal Sentinal:

"Milwaukee aldermen voted 13-0 Tuesday to send 36 police officers to help protect the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., next month.Police Chief Edward Flynn also revealed for the first time that he and Deputy Inspector Denita Ball will travel to St. Paul to observe the Milwaukee unit’s performance for one or two days of the four-day convention. Flynn said he believed the federal government would pay all expenses for him and Ball, even though they won’t be there for crowd control.

St. Paul police appealed to other Midwestern law enforcement agencies — including the Wisconsin State Patrol and the Madison Police Department, which aren’t sending officers — for help in dealing with the crowds of spectators and protesters expected to descend on the convention Sept. 1-4. Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney plan to speak at the convention.

Because the U.S. Secret Service is in charge of convention security, the federal government is reimbursing all police costs.

Flynn told the Common Council he wanted to send a platoon from his Major Incident Response Team partly in the spirit of mutual aid, and partly to give his officers valuable training to prepare for presidential candidate visits in an election year.

The chief promised aldermen that police would maintain full staffing throughout the city while their colleagues are away. All of the officers involved will use time off to attend the convention, and the federal government will pay them at overtime rates, Flynn said.

Ald. Jim Witkowiak said his constituents were worried that police response time in Milwaukee would deteriorate during the convention. But Witkowiak said he was reluctantly supporting the deployment for training purposes, based on commitments from Flynn and his command staff to maintain normal service levels.

Council President Willie Hines Jr. said aldermen may have responded differently if the request came earlier in the summer, when major incidents have been more common. But with crime down, the assurances that the trip wouldn’t affect police service and wouldn’t cost local taxpayers anything were the keys to approving Flynn’s request, Hines said.

Mayor Tom Barrett’s spokeswoman has said Barrett supports the deployment for the same reasons.

In response to questions from aldermen, Flynn said his officers would be on the front lines alongside St. Paul police, but they wouldn’t have arrest powers. That means they could handcuff suspects, but officially a St. Paul officer would make the arrest and the Milwaukee officer would be considered a witness, the chief said.

Wisconsin State Patrol Superintendent Dave Collins refused to send any of his state troopers after state lawyers ruled they couldn’t have arrest powers.

St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said the State Patrol and Madison police agreed to send officers but then backed out. Collins said he never agreed to anything. Madison Police Capt. Tom Snyder told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he had voiced interest months ago in sending officers, but the formal request from St. Paul came too late to work out schedule conflicts with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers football home opener and an Ironman triathlon.

In addition to officers from other cities, St. Paul police will receive logistical support from the Minnesota National Guard, Walsh said.

The council interrupted its August recess to approve Flynn’s request and to grant late applications from downtown bars seeking permission for outdoor liquor sales during the 105th anniversary festivities for Harley-Davidson Inc. Hines took pains to note the recess was not a monthlong vacation."

No arrest powers but at least a chance beat the shit out of those who take too literally the Bill of Rights.

Georgian Potpouri

The Georgian Russian Osettian Abkhazian American Israeli stand-off has cooled a bit and I've had a chance to review various reactions including the video above which reflects Russian concerns with the mental health of Mr. Saakashvili that aren't frequently noted in the American media. Some of the most insightful comments have, ironically, come from the U.S.Among my favorites include Jim Kuntsler from "Clusterfuck Nation", who sets the scene very well:

" For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region -- first opened to drilling in the 19th century -- proved somewhat disappointing. US officials had been touting it as like unto "another Saudi Arabia" but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.
Meanwhile, Russia got its house in order under the non-senile, non-alcoholic Vladimir Putin, and woke up along about 2007 to find itself the leading oil and natural gas producer in the world. Among the various consequences of this was Russia's reemergence as a new kind of world power -- an energy resource power, with the energy destiny of Europe pretty much in its hands. Also, meanwhile, the USA had set up other client states in the ring of former Soviet republics along Russia's southern underbelly, complete with US military bases, while fighting active engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, if this wasn't the dumbest, vainest move in modern geopolitical history!
It's one thing that US foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world...? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?
So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the US can pretend to do about it."

Another alternative source would be Dmitri Orlov who has impeccable credentials:

"It turns out that I am somewhat qualified to write on the subject: when I was in grad school (linguistics) I studied Abkhaz, the curious language spoken by the indigenous population of the separatist republic of Abkhazia. (Abkhazia is involved in the current conflict, working to flush Georgian forces out of the Kodor gorge, which is the one piece of their territory that remains under nominal Georgian control, as well as providing volunteers to help the South Ossetian side.) Later, finding that the Abkhaz side was woefully underrepresented, I started a web site, Apsny.org ("Apsny" being the Abkhaz word for Abkhazia), where, with help from Prof. Hewitt of the School of Oriental and African Languages in London, Prof. Chirikba, an Abkhaz linguist, and many others, I tried to present facts uncurried by extreme nationalist sentiments. At that time, the internet was dominated by the Georgian side, which was eager to accuse the Abkhaz of atrocities while discounting their own role in the bloody and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to regain control of the breakaway republic, in which some ten thousand people had died and many more had been displaced. For my diligent service, which spanned more than a decade, I received voluminous hate mail and many death threats from the Georgian side, as well as official expressions of gratitude from the Abkhaz side. Be that as it may, I find both the Georgians and the Abkhaz quite amazing, I am sure that the world would be much poorer without them, and I wish they would leave each other in peace, so that I can go and visit either place as I wish."

I especially appreciated the following:

"To the conquering Russians, Georgia represented the rich, creamy heart of the incredibly tough nut of the Caucasus region. In contrast to the many small and taciturn mountain tribes, many of them either Moslem or animist, here was an Orthodox Christian nation with great traditions of art, music, architecture, poetry, an unparalleled joie de vivre, and a delicious national cuisine. Georgians easily secured for themselves a pleasant role within the empire. Leaving administrative chores to the Russians and commerce and the trades to the Armenians, they were free to indulge in more pleasant pursuits, such as feasting, falconry, and entertaining foreign visitors. This trend had carried over into Soviet times, making Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic a favored tourist destination, a prosperous place complete with amusing wines, delicious food, an exuberantly friendly population that spoke your language, and majestic mountains for a backdrop. In the interest of maintaining public order, the Russians tried to be even-handed in their treatment of the non-Georgian tribes. Knowing full well just how much trouble they can be, they administered their territories as autonomous units within Georgia. One of the more glaring exceptions to this was the arbitrary administrative inclusion of Abkhazia within Georgia, which was done by Joseph Stalin (Dzhugashvili), who was a Georgian, and which in many ways laid the ground for the current conflict.

Their being so well coddled within the fold of the great empire cultivated in the Georgians a sense of exceptionalism and entitlement vis à vis their smaller and poorer neighbors, which, once the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russians departed, gave rise to a particularly rabid, venomous, and ultimately self-destructive brand of nationalism. The first post-independence Georgian leader, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was killed rather quickly. Part of his nationalist rhetoric involved labeling other tribes, such as the Abkhaz and the Ossetians, as newcomers and gypsies, who are only welcome as "guests" on Georgian soil. Next up was Eduard Shevardnadze, who was Foreign Minister of the USSR under Gorbachev, and who was more or less handed Georgia as his personal fiefdom by the West, as his reward for idly standing by and smiling pleasantly while the Berlin wall was being torn down. He was given UN recognition and foreign aid, and told to go ahead and try to preserve "Georgia's territorial integrity." At this he failed miserably, causing a senseless bloodbath and a flood of refugees. Shevardnadze slowly sank into a morass of corruption and national decay, until finally even the West decided that he smelled bad and unceremoniously replaced him with a shiny new face: the American-educated Mikhail Saakashvili. And this brings us to the current conflict, which he started. It is unclear why he decided to start it, but then his American education might offer a clue: the US doesn't seem to need good reasons to start wars either.

It may be difficult for some people to grasp why it is that the Abkhaz or the Ossetians do not much fancy suddenly becoming Georgian, so let me offer you a precise analogy. Suppose Los Angeles, California, were to collapse as the USSR once did, and East L.A. quickly moved to declare its independence. Suppose, further, that the 88% of its population that is Hispanic/Latino voted that the other 12% were free to stay on as "guests," provided they only spoke Spanish. The teaching of English were to be forbidden. After some bloody skirmishes, East L.A. split up into ethnic enclaves. Then some foreign government (say, Russian, or Chinese) stepped in and started shipping in weapons and providing training to the Latino faction, in support of their efforts to restore East L.A.'s "territorial integrity." As a non-Hispanic resident of East L.A., would you then (1) run and hide, (2) stay and fight, or (3) pick up a copy of "Spanish for Dummies" and start cramming?

The Abkhaz and the South Ossetians have made their preference very clear by applying for and being issued with a Russian passport. That's right, the majority of the present native population of these two "separatist enclaves" are bona fide citizens of the Russian Federation with all the privileges appertaining thereto. Lacking any other options, they are happy to accept protection from Russia, use Russian as their lingua franca, and fight for their right to be rid of Georgians once and for all. One of the privileges of being a Russian citizen at this stage, when Russia has recovered from its political and economic woes following the Soviet collapse, is that if some foreign entity comes and shells a settlement full of Russian citizens, you can be sure that Russia will open one amazingly huge can of whoop-ass on whoever it feels is responsible. Add to that the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Georgian forces, such as finishing off wounded Russian peacekeepers, and you can see why the normally shy and reticent Russian army might get behind the idea of making sure Georgia no longer poses a military threat to anyone. The Georgians have really done it to themselves this time, and we should all feel very sorry for them. They are not evil people, just incredibly misguided by their horrible national politicians. The West, and the US in particular, bear responsibility for enabling this bloodbath by providing them with arms, training, and encouraging them to fight for their "territorial integrity."

Don't expect these subtlies to see the light of day in the U.S. anytime soon.

Georgia Israel Connection

With each day it becomes more obvious who is involved with the Georgian-Russian fiasco and the finger points more and more to the Neo-Con Right and their Israeli Partners in Insanity, the same folks who lead us into Iraq and would love to see the same irrationality in Iran. As the Israeli source says:

"Israel is following with great concern the developments in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and hopes the violence will end," its foreign ministry said, adding with uncharacteristic doveishness, "Israel recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia and calls for a peaceful solution."

There is a reason for this that is quite obvious as explained in Electronic Intifada:

"While Israel was keen to downplay its role, Georgia perhaps hoped that flattery might draw Israel further in. Georgian minister Temur Yakobashvili -- whom the Israeli daily Haaretz stressed was Jewish -- told Israeli army radio that "Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers." Yakobashvili claimed rather implausibly, according to Haaretz, that "a small group of Georgian soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to the Israeli training" ("Georgian minister tells Israel Radio: Thanks to Israeli training, we're fending off Russian military," Haaretz, 11 August 2008).

Since 2000, Israel has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in arms and combat training to Georgia. Weapons included guns, ammunition, shells, tactical missile systems, antiaircraft systems, automatic turrets for armored vehicles, electronic equipment and remotely piloted aircraft. These sales were authorized by the Israeli defense ministry (Arie Egozi, "War in Georgia: The Israeli connection," Ynet, 10 August 2008).

Training also involved officers from Israel's Shin Bet secret service -- which has for decades carried out extrajudicial executions and torture of Palestinians in the occupied territories -- the Israeli police, and the country's major arms companies Elbit and Rafael.

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to have been cemented at the highest levels, and according to YNet, "The fact that Georgia's defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation." Others involved in the brisk arms trade included former Israeli minister and Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo as well as several senior Israeli military officers.

The key liaison was Reserve Brigadier General Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon during the July 2006 Second Lebanon War. (Yossi Melman, "Georgia Violence - A frozen alliance," Haaretz, 10 August 2008). He resigned from the army after the Winograd commission severely criticized Israel's conduct of its war against Lebanon and an internal Israeli army investigation blamed Hirsch for the seizure of two soldiers by Hizballah.

According to one of the Israeli combat trainers, an officer in an "elite" Israel army unit, Hirsch and colleagues would sometimes personally supervise the training of Georgian forces which included "house-to-house fighting." The training was carried out through several "private" companies with close links to the Israeli military.

As the violence raged in Georgia, the trainer was desperately trying to contact his former Georgian students on the battlefront via mobile phone: the Israelis wanted to know whether the Georgians had "internalized Israeli military technique and if the special reconnaissance forces have chalked up any successes" (Jonathan Lis and Moti Katz, "IDF vets who trained Georgia troops say war with Russia is no surprise," Haaretz, 11 August 2008).

Yet on the ground, the Israeli-trained Georgian forces, perhaps unsurprisingly overwhelmed by the Russians, have done little to redeem the image of Israel's military following its defeat by Hizballah in July-August 2006.

The question remains as to why Israel was involved in the first place. There are several reasons. The first is simply economic opportunism: for years, especially since the 11 September 2001 attacks, arms exports and "security expertise" have been one of Israel's growth industries. But the close Israeli involvement in a region Russia considers to be of vital interest suggests that Israel might have been acting as part of the broader US scheme to encircle Russia and contain its reemerging power.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been steadily encroaching on Russia's borders and expanding NATO in a manner the Kremlin considers highly provocative. Shortly after coming into office, the Bush Administration tore up the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and, like the Clinton administration, adopted former Soviet satellite states as its own, using them to base an anti-missile system Russia views as a threat. In addition to their "global war on terror," hawks in Washington have recently been talking up a new Cold War with Russia.

Georgia was an eager volunteer in this effort and has learned quickly the correct rhetoric: one Georgian minister claimed that "every bomb that falls on our heads is an attack on democracy, on the European Union and on America." Georgia has been trying to join NATO, and sent 2,000 soldiers to help the US occupy Iraq. It may have hoped that once war started this loyalty would be rewarded with the kind of round-the-clock airlift of weapons that Israel receives from the US during its wars. Instead so far the US only helped airlift the Georgian troops from Iraq back to the beleaguered home front.

By helping Georgia, Israel may have been doing its part to duplicate its own experience in assisting the eastward expansion of the "Euro-Atlantic" empire. While supporting Georgia was certainly risky for Israel, given the possible Russian reaction, it has a compelling reason to intervene in a region that is heavily contested by global powers. Israel must constantly reinvent itself as an "asset" to American power if it is to maintain the US support that ensures its survival as a settler-colonial enclave in the Middle East. It is a familiar role; in the 1970s and 1980s, at the behest of Washington, Israel helped South Africa's apartheid regime fight Soviet-supported insurgencies in South African-occupied Namibia and Angola, and it trained right-wing US-allied death squads fighting left-wing governments and movements in Central America. After 2001, Israel marketed itself as an expert on combating "Islamic terrorism."

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently denounced Colombia - long one of the largest recipients of US military aid after Israel -- as the "Israel of Latin America." Georgia's government, to the detriment of its people, may have tried to play the role of the "Israel of the Caucasus" -- a loyal servant of US ambitions in that region -- and lost the gamble. Playing with empires is dangerous for a small country.

As for Israel itself, with the Bush Doctrine having failed to give birth to the "new Middle East" that the US needs to maintain its power in the region against growing resistance, an ever more desperate and rogue Israel must look for opportunities to prove its worth elsewhere. That is a dangerous and scary thing."

I suppose this may potentially involve the U.S. in the Iranian-Israeli conflict.God help us Inshallah.

Deadly Chickens Return to Roost in The Caucases

With the outbreak of war in the Caucasuses Americans are experiencing a new onslaught of mis-information that will assure that no one has any sort of historically informed sense of what really is going on. A good example was the address to the American people by Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia that I happened to catch on CNN yesterday morning. There Saakashvili portrayed a small democratic nation being attacked with little regard for civilians, hospitals, small babies, and everything else that Americans hold dear, by Russians. And thus the Cold War is defrosted, warmed up, and served anew.
The American people may be forgiven for their usual state of historical amnesia but claims from the likes of Condeleeza Rice and George Bush of American impartiality and desire for peace should be viewed with suspicion to say the least.

F. William Engdahl provides an insightful look into the situation in an article written two weeks ago:

"The Caucasus Republic of Georgia as nations go does not appear to be a major global player. Yet Washington has invested huge sums and organized to put its own despot, Mikhail Saakashvili, in the Presidency in order to close a nuclear NATO iron ring around Russia. Now US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Tbilisi making sharp statements against Moscow for supporting the independent neighbor states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in essence blaming Moscow for an imminent war Washington has incited in order to bring Georgia into NATO by the December NATO Summit.

The Western media has either ignored the growing tensions in the strategic Caucasus region or has intimated, as suggested by Condoleeza Rice, that the entire conflict is being caused by Moscow’s silly support of "breakaway" republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In reality, a quite different chess game is being played in the region, one which has the potential to detonate a major escalation of tensions between Moscow and NATO.

Since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, one after another, former members as well as former states of the USSR have been coaxed and in many cases bribed with false promises by Washington into joining the counter organization, NATO.

Rather than initiate discussions after the 1991 dissolution of the Warsaw Pact about a systematic dissolution of NATO, Washington has systematically converted NATO into what can only be called the military vehicle of an American global imperial rule, linked by a network of military bases from Kosovo to Poland to Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1999, former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia followed suit in March 2004. Now Washington is putting immense pressure on the EU members of NATO, especially Germany and France, that they vote in December to admit Georgia and Ukraine."

He further goes on to suggest that the U.S. has actively encouraged the Georgians in their nationalistic delusions and also connects the dots to Western policy in Kosovo:

"The Bush Administration is adding gasoline to the fire in the Caucasus. In Tbilisi on July 10 the US Secretary of State, Rice, told the press, "Russia needs to be a part of resolving the problem and solving the problem and not contributing to it. I have said it to the Russians publicly. I have said it privately."

The effect of her comments, blaming Moscow for the escalating tensions, is to signal US support for the Georgia side in their efforts to force Russian troops form South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

This past May Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh said he was willing to conclude a military treaty with Moscow similar to that between USA and Taiwan. "Abkhazia will propose to Russia the signing of a military treaty that would guarantee security to our republic," Bagapsh stated. "We are also prepared to host Russian military bases on our territory within the framework of this treaty. I would like to emphasize that this would not go against the precedents already existing in international practice. For instance, this treaty could be analogous to the treaty between the US and Taiwan."

Just as Moscow refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Kosovo, so Washington refuses to admit the sovereignty of Abkhazia. In May a senior US State Department delegation was in Abkhazia meeting with local Non Governmental Organizations there as well as the President. In the past, from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine, Washington intelligence agencies have used various NGOs, the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA-linked Freedom House and Gene Sharp’s misleadingly-named Albert Einstein Institution to steer a wave of regime changes which became known as "Color Revolutions." In each case the new regime was pro-Washington and anti-Moscow as in the case of Saakashvili in Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine. Both countries begin seeking NATO entry after the success of the US-financed Color Revolutions.

In all this Washington is definitely playing with potential nuclear fire by escalating pressure to push Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. The Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, Karl Schwarzenberg on July 8 signed an agreement allowing US deployment of special radar facilities on Czech soil as part of the top secret US "missile defense" it alleges is aimed at rogue missile threats from Iran. As even former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently pointed out, the Bush Administration’s categorical refusal to pursue the 2007 counter-offer of then-President Vladimir Putin to station US radar at the Russian leased reconnaissance facility in Azerbaijan instead, was a provocative mistake. It makes abundantly clear that Washington is aiming its military strategy at the dismantling of Russia as a potential adversary. That, as I have written previously, is a recipe for a possible nuclear war by mis-calculation. Rice’s latest Caucasus and Czech visit only added to that growing danger. "

Mark Almond at the Guardian describes some additional background to Saakashvili's calculations and likens him to General Galtieri of Argentina and the ill-fated Malvinas war:

"Unlike in eastern Europe, for instance, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians.

In 1992, the west backed Eduard Shevardnadze's attempts to reassert Georgia's control over these regions. The then Georgian president's war was a disaster for his nation. It left 300,000 or more refugees "cleansed" by the rebel regions, but for Ossetians and Abkhazians the brutal plundering of the Georgian troops is the most indelible memory.

Georgians have nursed their humiliation ever since. Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 - apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development - he has spent 70% of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles.

Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not.

Like Galtieri in 1982, Saakashvili faces a domestic economic crisis and public disillusionment. In the years since the so-called Rose revolution, the cronyism and poverty that characterised the Shevardnadze era have not gone away. Allegations of corruption and favouritism towards his mother's clan, together with claims of election fraud, led to mass demonstrations against Saakashvili last November. His ruthless security forces - trained, equipped and subsidised by the west - thrashed the protesters. Lashing out at the Georgians' common enemy in South Ossetia would certainly rally them around the president, at least in the short term."

He too illuminates American and European duplicity and the possible consequences:

"Western geopolitical commentators stick to cold war simplicities about Russia bullying plucky little Georgia. However, anyone familiar with the Caucasus knows that the state bleating about its victim status at the hands of a bigger neighbour can be just as nasty to its smaller subjects. Small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured.

Worse still, western backing for "equip and train" programmes in Russia's backyard don't contribute to peace and stability if bombastic local leaders such as Saakashvili see them as a guarantee of support even in a crisis provoked by his own actions. He seems to have thought that the valuable oil pipeline passing through his territory, together with the Nato advisers intermingled with his troops, would prevent Russia reacting militarily to an incursion into South Ossetia. That calculation has proved disastrously wrong.

The question now is whether the conflict can be contained, or whether the west will be drawn in, raising the stakes to desperate levels. To date the west has operated radically different approaches to secession in the Balkans, where pro-western microstates get embassies, and the Caucasus, where the Caucasian boundaries drawn up by Stalin, are deemed sacrosanct.

In the Balkans, the west promoted the disintegration of multiethnic Yugoslavia, climaxing with their recognition of Kosovo's independence in February. If a mafia-dominated microstate like Montenegro can get western recognition, why shouldn't flawed, pro-Russian, unrecognised states aspire to independence, too?

Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics' right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western?

Other people's nationalisms are like other people's love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don't get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade - but then, how many wars are?"

Journalistic Tragedy Shakes Russia

The Russian government has shut down one of the most thought provoking, at least in my small mind, and unconventional sites on the web, The Exile. As reported in it's new form at The Exiled the whole shoddy affair is covered in detail from their new hideout in Panama:

"One month ago, our newspaper The eXile got stomped into extinction by some ham-fisted Russian government officials, who decided that since there’s a new president in the Kremlin who’s talking up some nonsense about a new “liberal era,” what better way to show your boss that you understand what he means by “liberal”—with a big wink-wink—than to shut down the only good thing that Russia ever had going for it.

On June 5, four officials from the Ministry to Defend Russian Culture—one of whom was an FSB lawyer seconded out to ministry—arrived at our radon-poisoned basement office in Chisty Prudy to carry out an “unplanned [ie: ordered] audit” of The eXile’s articles. As the head of the Glasnost Defense Fund NGO told us, we were the first and still only Moscow newspaper to ever be subjected to an “unplanned audit” of our editorial content. What a fucking honor it was.

They came exactly on time, 11am—just like Stalin’s proverbial trains. There they were, all fitted out in their crusty retro-Soviet outfits, subjecting us to a three-hour interrogation about Edward Limonov and the Recession Penis and why did we write the things we write and why do we mock and insult Russia’s great culture and great traditions… The officials were surprisingly polite and by-the-books during the audit, but that didn’t matter, because they still scared the shit out of anyone with an understanding of Russia’s past and present. The Ministry to Defend Russian Culture (since renamed the “Federal Agency for Media and Communications”) is merely the least scary ministry in the extremely-scary Russian state apparatus—so saying that the RosOkhranKultury wasn’t all that scary is like saying that the eyeball-like pits on the sides of a Flecker’s Box Jellyfish’s bell aren’t all that scary compared to its 60 deadly tentacles—which pack the most toxic venom in planet earth’s seas. The slightest contact with one of the box jellyfish’s 10-foot-long tentacles, and you’d wish that you could trade places with one of Mengele’s victims: the box jellyfish’s venom literally sizzles through your flesh like Alien blood, eating its way into your blood vessels, racing through your circulation system like a burning gunpowder fuse, until finally the venom reaches your vital organs and napalms the entire fucking thing like it’s a Vietnamese village, turning your organs into a pot of boiling jelly, and transforming you—brave, chin-up little you—into a screaming, gargling, blood-puking freak—a one-note freak, to be precise—that note being: “PLEASE SOMEONE FUCKING KILL ME NOW! AGGGHHHH!!!!”

So when the four Russian government officials finally left our offices, and we realized we weren’t dead or in jail, at first we were kinda relieved, like, “Hey, we bumped into a Flecker’s Box Jellyfish and all we touched were its slit-eyes, and you know, there’s more to that creature than venom and tentacles.” But then a few hours later we came to our senses and realized, “Um, wait a minute—as a matter of fact, there isn’t much more to that creature than venom and tentacles.” And speaking of venomous tentacles, a Duma deputy (and former Nashi spokesman) Robert Schlegel went on Govorit Moskva radio a few days after the audit and announced, “I don’t have to read The eXile to understand that it is guilty of extremism.”

It was time to get out of the venomous-vermin-infested waters. We’d been spotted by the jellyfish’s eye-like pits. The Flecker’s Box Jellyfish doesn’t have a brain, but it does have four “nerve-nets” connecting the eye-pits to the tentacles. Only a fool would stick around to see how the Flecker’s Box Jellyfish, or its human variant “the Russian government,” will react after it takes a stack of eXile articles for “analysis,” articles which contain lines like “Russian Government is bloody beast eating human flesh” and we “fart in Russia’s face” and “urinate into the president’s mouth.” How does a jellyfish’s nerve-net read lines like that? Does it get angry and want to thrash its venomous tentacles around? Since we don’t want to be the subject of some future Werner Herzog documentary called “Flecker’s Box Jellyfish Man,” we decided to respect Mother Nature and leave the venomous jellyfish to their brainless floating-death world, while we’ll go back to ours. Flee: it’s what our investors did when they pulled a David Copperfield disappearing act on us a week before the auditors rolled into our office…and that’s what we did after the Russian government’s highly-unusual audit of our paper.

And that’s how The eXile died: just as it was born: in sin and in epic glory. We were never like the others: the fake-alternative, fake-angry papers. That’s why our spectacular death has pissed off so many people who never had the nerve to go where we went, and who always wanted to see us snuffed out—quietly, without a fuss. We lived out our name as we lived out everything else. We’re now in true eXile, just as we’d announced from the beginning 11 years ago—and that is why we’ve named the new online webzine that we’re launching today “The eXiled.” It’s now an accomplished fact."

Reality's Rude Intrusion

Matthew Simmons wrote one of the most influential books of recent times in"Twilight the Desert" which explains the phenomena of peak oil in terms of Saudi and Gulf oil supplies and why we should all be very worried. The above video gives additional insight as to why things are worse than they seem.The apparently dumb struck expressions of the other panelists is, as they say, priceless.

The Road to Ruin and Irrelevancy

After spending 536 billion dollars and loosing over 4,100 service members it appears that the writing is on the wall for the exit of American forces in Iraq. Reports now suggest the U.S. is considering accelerated withdrawal ostensibly for increased deployment in Afghanistan where the war also is not going well.

In Iraq the Shia supported government of Al-Maliki has made known its objections to the Bush administration's plans for long-term deployment and accompanying bases.The only people who seem not to recognize the implications of this nascent nationalism in what had previously been a relatively compliant Iraqi state are U.S. politicians and the ever-malinformed American public. While the Bush administration attempts to down play the differences the strain is quite obvious. This was vividly displayed during an interview on Aljazeera, with ambassador Ryan Crocker.

The interview is also significant for the intense scrutiny the has been absent in the U.S. press as well as from the supine Democratic opposition. Truth be told, it probably makes no difference what anyone in the U.S., including the marginalized anti-war movement, the presidential candidates of either party, or the present administration, thinks about the Iraq situation. The U.S. has succeeded in becoming irrelevant in it's own war.

Iraq symbolizes not only the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of George Bush but the literal financial bankruptcy of the country itself. Iraq has accelerated a process of slow-motion collapse of the financial and energy infra-structure that has been developing over the last 30 years or more. Massoud Hedeshi sums it up quite clearly and illustrates what most of the world already knows except the American public:

"The US economic power horse is running out of ideas and cash as it jostles with a massive national debt, housing and financial crises, rising inflation, and a depreciating currency.

This has all contributed to a growing tendency to live off credit amassed through petrodollars and foreign loans, leaving repayment for future generations.

Today, in much of America, communities and suburbs are dealing with a drastic increase in foreclosures and short sales. This has not been helped by the fact that gas is selling at over $1 a litre ($4 a gallon).

Standard monetary tools such as lowering or increasing interest rates can no longer provide quick fixes to the situation for both economic and political reasons.

Raising interest rates would compound the mortgage crisis while lowering it would drive the value of the US dollar abroad even lower.

But exercising control over the money supply could also damage the US economy: increasing the supply would lower the dollar's value even more, while decreasing supply would exacerbate the loans crisis.

In any case, control over the money supply would be anathema to US economic policy given the country's 'addiction' to deficit financing and run-away consumerism in recent decades.

So the US Federal Reserve is left virtually helpless........."

And so further devaluation of the dollar and American influence appears unavoidable as developing countries look for stability elsewhere.

"As America struggles to avoid recession, the world economic order appears to be heading for a drastic overhaul.

Despite a trend by some economists and politicians to blame the current food and energy commodity price hikes on Opec or overpopulation, there is a clear picture emerging of deep structural problems in the world economy.

In particular, the main currency used for global trade in commodities, the US dollar, has been in steady decline not just against the Euro, but also against most other convertible currencies.

According to the US Federal Reserve, the dollar has dropped by around 65 per cent against the Euro, 31 per cent against the British Sterling, 45 per cent against the Canadian Dollar, and by 59 per cent against the Australian Dollar over the eight-year period since June 2000.

While the causes for this slide are debatable (and largely attributed to poor fundamentals in the US economy), the global impact of such a major drop in the value of the dollar is undeniable for two important reasons.

First, most global commodities traders utilise - and favour - the greenback over other currencies, despite a severe decline in its purchasing power.

Secondly, most countries - mainly in east Asia and among the major oil and gas exporters of the Arab Middle East - use the dollar as their reserve currency.

But they are paying the price. Despite their booming economies and elevated public spending, they are experiencing depreciating terms of trade and rising inflation.

More importantly, they have seen the value of their strategic currency reserves drop with the dollar's waning global strength."

Meanwhile the U.S. and it's allies shift their efforts for a "last stand " of sorts in the wilds of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Canada Reconsiders American War Resisters

A Canadian appeal court will re-examine the case of American war resisters in a set back to the Bush administration and the Steven Harper neo-conservative regieme in Ottawa. As per the BBC:

"A Canadian court has ordered the country's refugee board to re-examine an American deserter's rejected attempt for asylum in Canada.

The court ruled that the board made mistakes when it turned down Joshua Key's claim for asylum.

Mr Key served in Iraq in 2003 before deserting to Canada with his family while on leave in the US.

The ruling could affect scores of other US soldiers sheltering in Canada who have refused to fight in Iraq.

Possible deportations

Joshua Key served in Iraq as a US combat engineer in Iraq in 2003.

He claims that he witnessed several cases of abusive acts against civilians and the killing of innocent people.

While on leave at home in Oklahoma, he decided that he would not return to duty and took his family to Canada where he applied for asylum.

Although the Canadian refugee board found Mr Key credible, it rejected his application, saying that unless his claims of abuse constituted a war crime, they did not justify his desertion from the US army.

In its ruling, the federal court has disagreed with that analysis, saying that being forced to participate in military misconduct, even if it stops short of a war crime, may support a claim to protection in Canada.

There are at least 200 American war deserters in Canada and many face deportation after their asylum cases were also rejected.

Joshua Key's lawyer said that the ruling may help their cases.

The Canadian government is reviewing the court's decision and has not said whether it will appeal."

Big Melt 2008

The National Ice and Snow Data Center gives the most recent view of Arctic Sea Ice melting suggesting this year will be worse than last year's record setting fiasco. Many interesting graphs, satellite photos, and other data.

Art and the Enema

Sometimes one needs a break from the plummeting dollar, sky rocketing oil prices, potential and real food shortages, as well as haywire weather and do as the good citizens of Zheleznovodsk have done and celebrate in statuary the....enema, as reported in Russia Today:

"While enemas undoubtedly have a place in medical practice, their role in art is open to debate. But that hasn’t stopped a health spa in the resort of Zheleznovodsk in Russia's Stavropol region from erecting a giant monument to enemas.

The 350-kilo bronze monument features three baby angels holding up a pear-shaped enema bulb and nozzle.

The idea for the sculpture belongs to spa director Aleksandr Kharchenko, who says that a monument to the enema should have been set up a long time ago.

“Someone has to know about it! We have the most enemas in the world done here!” he said."

Probably the largest and perhaps only commeration of this subject no doubt.

Permafrost Not So Permanent

While we are waiting to see the extent of this years Arctic Ocean ice melt the the National Snow and Ice Data Center has disturbing news regarding the so-called permafrost of the Arctic: it's melting also:

"The rate of climate warming over northern Alaska, Canada, and Russia could more than triple during extended episodes of rapid sea ice loss, according to a new study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The findings raise concerns about the thawing of permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, and the potential consequences for sensitive ecosystems, human infrastructure, and the release of additional greenhouse gases.

“The rapid loss of sea ice can trigger widespread changes that would be felt across the region,” said Andrew Slater, NSIDC research scientist and a co-author on the study, which was led by David Lawrence of NCAR. The findings will be published Friday in Geophysical Research Letters.

Last summer, Arctic sea ice extent shrank to a record low. From August to October last year, air temperatures over land in the western Arctic were also unusually warm, reaching more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the 1978-2006 average. This led the researchers to question whether the unusually low sea ice extent and warm land temperatures were related.

Lawrence, Slater, and colleagues used a climate model to explore the relationship between low sea ice extent, increased air temperatures, and permafrost thawing. Previous climate change simulations identified periods of rapid sea ice loss that last 5 to 10 years. The new study shows that during such episodes, Arctic land would warm 3.5 times faster than average rates of warming predicted by global climate models for the 21st century.

The findings point to a link between rapid sea ice loss and enhanced rate of climate warming, which could penetrate as far as 900 miles inland. In areas where permafrost is already at risk, such as central Alaska, the study suggests that periods of abrupt sea ice loss can lead to rapid soil thaw.

Thawing permafrost may have a range of impacts, including buckled highways and destabilized houses, as well as changes to the delicate balance of life in the Arctic. In addition, scientists estimate that Arctic soils hold at least 30 percent of all the carbon stored in soils worldwide. While scientists are uncertain what will happen if this permafrost thaws, it has the potential to contribute substantial amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Funding for the research came from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

To read the full NCAR press release, visit the NCAR News Center at http://www.ucar.edu/news/."

In addition to the obvious other implications of permafrost melt include accelerated release of greenhouse gases especially methane which is far more potent than CO2. As per Kuuvik River:

"The trends for methane emissions from “not-so-perma” permafrost terrain in the Northern Hemisphere are ominous. In Siberia, a region with colossal stores of partially decomposed organic matter sealed below frozen substrate, methane flux to the atmosphere was recently documented to be occurring five times faster than estimated before. Accordingly, Russian and American scientists have calculated that methane emissions for the region have increased at least 58% since 1974. Moreover, radiocarbon dating of methane emitted from the Siberian research sites indicates that at least 40% of the methane emitted at those locations is from vegetatation that lived and froze 35,260–42,900 years ago; thus vegetation frozen since the Pleistocene epoch is now decomposing and emitting methane.

During the Pleistocene epoch most of the northern Siberian plains were unglaciated and accumulated vast volumes of organic carbon in sediments. Hence in just one part of Siberia, for instance, an area known as the Yedoma Ice Complex, the Siberian landscape is currently storing about 500Gt of near-surface carbon. This high-latitude carbon sink is vulnerable and could greatly intensify global warming via greenhouse gas emissions if northeast Siberia continues to warm in the future, as computer climate models suggest it will. Not counting future greenhouse gas emissions from everywhere else in the world, the Yedoma Ice Complex alone has the potential to release an amount of methane that is about ten times the amount now in Earth’s atmosphere. According to the Earth System scientists who have verified the accelerating Siberian emissions “the large pool of still-frozen Pleistocene-age C in Siberia is a methane time bomb” -- a time bomb ticking to emit about 100 times the amount of carbon that humans currently pollute each year via burning fossil fuels.

Permafrost is a temperature sensitive indicator of millennial climatic variability -- that fact is increasingly obvious to more and more people. With Arctic temperatures now warming and snow and ice decreasing, permafrost is melting. Which raises the logical question: how much permafrost will melt worldwide, and how soon will it happen? An American climate model run answered this question in 2005, and calculated that up to 90% of all Northern Hemisphere permafrost will melt before the year 2100. The very serious implications of this model result, incidentally, would only be further accentuated if such a climate model were to factor-in the since discovered accelerating methane flux emanating from the Yedoma Ice Complex. Simple lesson then -- we humans, via our naive meddling with the chemistry of the atmosphere that keeps us alive, have sparked unusual biogeochemical fluxes in our Earth System that are serious and seemingly irreversible."

Mexican Oil Decline Cont.

As noted here before Mexican oil production, which was the 3rd largest producer for the U.S. is in significant decline. Here is more info from Peak Opportunities as to why the downward slope gets slipperier:

"Update on Mexican Production, Exports
The May 5, 2008 issue of the Oil & Gas Journal included the following articles:

Mexico imports more gasoline as oil production drops

* Gasoline imports rose to 367,000 bbls per day in March 2008 (6.5 % increase from February).
* Oil production declined in the first quarter of 2008 to 2.91 MMBO/D.
* And this shocker: "Mexico's premier Cantarell field produced 1.15 MMBO/D in March 2008 ..." Note that this is below the year end rate we projected in our last post, shown below.

Mexico to reduce oil exports to US in 2008

(Didn't take long for our March "prophecy" to be manifest.)

* "Mexico will reduce its crude exports to the US by an average of 184,000 BO/D throughout 2008, a situation that could continue for 2 years longer ..." The latter, quite an understatement!
* "... original plan for exports in 2008 envisioned some 1.678 MMBO/D ..."
* "... US EIA earlier this month predicted a 13.2 % shortfall of imports from Mexico during the current fiscal year. According to EIA figures, Mexico exported 1.533 MMBO/D to the US in 2007."
* "Based on its December 2007 Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA forecast Mexico would produce 3.52 MMBO/D in 2007 and 3.32 MMBO/D in 2008." It looks like the EIA's forecast for 2008, done in December 2007, is off by some 410,000 BO/D - for the first quarter of 2008! You'd think they could get a little closer than that!

To refresh your memory, Mexico nationalized oil in 1938. A Constitutional provision was created that prohibited ownership of oil and gas reserves by anyone other than the Mexican government. Mexico and Mexicans take great pride in their nationalism regarding their oil resources. Pemex is the national oil company which are operates Mexico's oil and gas projects.

Unfortunately, some of Mexico's largest remaining reserves likely exist in a "deepwater" (water depths greater than 1300') area in the Gulf of Mexico. And despite the fact that Pemex employs some very intelligent folks, they don't have the years of experience in research, development, engineering and construction of deepwater drilling and production projects.

Previously, it was believed that Pemex could rely on the world's largest, most capable service companies - Schlumberger and Halliburton - in order to provide everything needed for deepwater exploration and production. However, Schlumberger and Halliburton cannot even do this. Deepwater exploration and production is the realm of Shell Offshore, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, BP and just a few others. To give one an idea of what is required, a deepwater project can cost several billion dollars, and each well can cost $20 - $50 million. And ExxonMobil invests $200 million dollars per year in just researching deepwater technologies.

Now, none of the the companies listed above desire to risk billions of dollars if they don't get a share of the oil and gas that might be found. Their shareholders insist on this! But the current Mexican Constitution won't allow it. Talks have been held, followed by intense protests, led by the former mayor of Mexico City and defeated Presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. It doesn't look good for the development of Mexican deepwater areas - but anything could happen.

On the other hand, to give you an idea of the scope of the problem with the dwindling giant oilfields like Cantarell, take a look at Shell's Perdido project, which was in the news in early June. Perdido will be anchored not far from Mexican deepwater areas, in 8000' of water. It is costing billions, has taken years to construct and when in place, it will produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

That is about one-third of what Cantarell LOST in only 3 months, from December 2007 through March 2008! Getting the picture about Peak Oil?"

Many do not get the picture but suffice it to say there is a major piece missing which I and others refer to as the "Ever Receding Horizon", in other words as the price of energy continues to go up the associated costs do as well. What this translates into is ever increasing prices for development that are never figured into costs that will inevitably occur.

Loose Nukes American Style

More disconcerting news regarding the day to day security of American nuclear weapons, this one from that hotbed of disarmament the Stars and Stripes :

" KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — An internal Air Force investigation has found that most military bases in Europe that store nuclear bombs do not meet the most basic Defense Department security regulations.

The report reveals some startling deficiencies in nuclear security in Europe in the wake of nuclear safety concerns and a historic Air Force leadership shake-up.

The report stated that each site had "unique security challenges."

"Inconsistencies in personnel, facilities, and equipment provided to the security mission by the host nation were evident as the team traveled from site to site," the study reads. "Examples of areas noted in need of repair at several of the sites include support buildings, fencing, lighting, and security systems."

At some places, the duty of protecting nuclear weapons fell upon foreign conscripts with as little as nine months of military experience, the report said.

The Pentagon released a summary of the report, titled "The Blue Ribbon Review of Nuclear Weapons Policies and Procedures," in February. The study found that the Air Force needed to improve how it safeguards its most lethal weapons and that numerous factors led to a B-52 mistakenly carrying six live nuclear warheads from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., last year.

Problems with nuclear safety at bases in Europe was unknown until Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists obtained a declassified version of the full report and posted it on his blog earlier this week.

"A consistently noted theme throughout the visits," the report states, "was that most sites require significant additional resources to meet DOD security requirements."

Investigators also found that periodic and routine inspections might not have been as effective as they could be because Air Force inspectors had to give prior notice to host nations and NATOs before visiting the sites....
The U.S. military does not reveal the number of nuclear weapons it has at European bases due to security reasons, but the Federation of American Scientists estimates there are between 200 and 350 warheads at bases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom and Turkey.

Kristensen wrote in his blog that the report shows that nuclear weapons in Europe have been "a security risk" for the past decade.

"But why it took an investigation triggered by the embarrassing Minot incident to discover the security problems in Europe is a puzzle," he wrote.

Air Force leaders launched the internal investigation after the Minot incident involving the B-52 and the live nuclear warhead. Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the Air Force’s top uniformed and civilian leaders for allowing nuclear safety to slip."

I beleive this is the same country that was going to "show" the Russians how to secure their nuclear weapons.

Bakken-Oil Boom or Boondogle

Lately I've been hearing from normally sane people about the "undeveloped" oil riches of North America in particular the Bakken Oil fields of the northern prairies. While I would like to think my Brother Blue Eyed Arabs of the North have finally stumbled on the mother lode, the reality is likely to be less than optimal as per the "Oil Drum":

"What's next for the Bakken?

Bakken production is trending upward and should continue for some time. The October 2007 production of 75,000 BOPD equates to 27 million barrels per year, a substantial amount by most measures for the US onshore sector. This only amounts to about 0.4% of US consumption (using a base of 20,700 BOBP, based on EIA data), or 0.6% of US imports.

Drilling activity in the Bakken continues at a frenetic pace. It's difficult to predict how long the upward trend in production will continue. Over the long term, economics will play a significant role in determining how much production will be expanded.

Conclusions

1. The Bakken shale has produced about 111 million barrels of oil during the last 50+ years in Montana and North Dakota.

2. Total Bakken production is still rising, and producing at the rate of 75,000 BOPD in October 2007.

3. Because of the highly variable nature of shale reservoirs, the characteristics of the historical Bakken production, and the fact that per-well rates seem to have peaked, it seems unlikely that total Bakken production will exceed 2x to 3x current rate of 75,000 BOPD.

4. The latest boom in Bakken production is driven by the application of horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing technology, which has added about 70 million barrels of production in 7 years. Ultimate recovery of the already-drilled wells should be at least double this volume.

5. The USGS estimates the mean volume of technically recoverable hydrocarbons to be 3,649 million barrels of oil. This is roughly 7 to 12 times the size of already known resources.

6. Based on current production and areas likely to be drilled, the USGS estimate of technically recovery resources seems optimistic.

7. The Bakken potential resource, while large by US onshore field standards, will have only a minor effect on US production or imports. Using 2006 US imports and consumption for comparison, the Bakken undiscovered resource of 3,649 million barrels of oil, if subsequently discovered and fully developed, would provide us with the equivalent of six months of oil consumption or 10 months of imports, spread over 20 or more years. In reality, the reserves developed are likely to be many times smaller than this value.

8. The October 2007 production rate of 75,000 BOPD amounts only 0.4% of US oil consumption, or 0.6% of imports.

9. Per-well Bakken production peaked in August 2005 at 116 barrels a day, and was down to 79 barrels a day in October 2007. If the Bakken production history in the 1990s can be used as a guide, the peaking of per-well production may portend a peak in total Bakken production."

I think point #7 is especially well taken, for in the long run world demand will overshadow American demand and production by a long shot. We can only wonder when U.S. politicians on the Right and Left will start dealing with reality or in other words Peak Oil.