Peak Oil (can of worms related)
BigSpliff
3,266 Posts
Currently watching this docu about the end of suburbia. Lots of goateed sociology professor types talking over vintage footage. Good stuff.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2215604490907671840&q="end+of+suburbia"
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I am preparing for the erra when the mainstream whites all leave
suburbia, and then there will be New Suburban Ghettos, with all
the requisite abandoned homes, street gangs and underground economy,
except in the New Suburban Ghettos some of the harshest areas will
have names like Hawthorne Trace and Bouldercrest Court.
And instead of rat-infested alleys and grid-streets, the hobos and
little ganstas will run away from the cops through the woods and
over creeks, and will hide out in camoflaged treehouses and lean-tos.
Indignant and stubborn homeowners will fortify their split-level
ranches with barbed wire fencing, bear traps and steel plating.
House-to-house gunfire will become a factor as resources are stretched
thinner and thinner.
LOCK 'N LOAD, BATCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i truly think we will see this future soon.
splifff, i thought the movie could have been better and had a wider variety of perspectives. still, highly relevant and extremely unsettling.
my not so short term plans and not so long term plans are definitely factoring peak oil into the equation.
if anyone needs a dvd copy, lemme know and i'll try to send one out
be well,t
prince georges county, MD
Pr. George's Police Increase To Meet Upsurge in Crime
By Ovetta Wiggins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 22, 2005; Page B02
Prince George's County's current police academy class will push the chronically short-staffed department's ranks to 1,478 officers, the highest number in the county's history, County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) announced yesterday.
"We have delivered what we promised to the people of Prince George's: a police force growing to meet the needs of a growing county," said Johnson, standing beside Chief Melvin C. High and in front of the 160 recruits on track to graduate next year.
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The announcement comes as Johnson begins his reelection campaign and as the police department deals with an increased number of major crimes. With killings in the county at a record high, Johnson's handling of crime is certain to play a prominent role in the 2006 election. So far this year, 167 homicides have been reported; the previous high was 154 in 1991.
Meanwhile, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) offered help yesterday in dealing with car thefts, another crime that has plagued Prince George's. Ehrlich announced the approval of a supplemental budget request of $600,000 for the state's vehicle theft prevention program on top of the $1.4 million spent on the program this year.
Capt. Andrew Ellis, a spokesman for the department, said 43 student officers will graduate in March and an additional 117 recruits are expected to finish their training in August.
Once those graduates are on the street, the force is expected to be at or near its authorized strength of 1,470 officers, Ellis said.
Percy Alston, president of the Prince George's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89, said yesterday that the total probably will be closer to 1,420.
Some recruits will not make it to graduation, and some current officers will leave the force, Alston said. "It's not a negative on their part; some recruits just aren't cut out for the job," he said. "And we're losing an average of seven officers a month to attrition."
Still, Alston said he was pleased with the county's recruiting effort.
"It's not enough, but we are headed in the right direction," he said.
Alston and Johnson agreed that the attrition rate appears to be slowing. Both said it is probably due in part to the county's new contract with the police. The new starting salary for county officers is $42,000 a year, up from $38,000.
besides peak oil, suburbs already have car culture stacked up against them.
areas designed only for car transport essentially isolate youth, elderly and the poor. in effects, an equal rights issue and a big one.
also, maybe more debatable, the general isolation and segregation that takes place when everyone has to drive to get everywhere.
good science fiction: "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler
guns & bikes & community fortresses = future southern cali?
A myth propogated by the oil companies to create an artificial scarcity and justify rediculous price hikes on fossil fuels. What if we didnt go to iraq to get saddam's oil, but instead we went there to make sure he stops selling it to emerging u.s. economic competitors like china. Dude wasnt cooperating with opek so we had to go put the smack down. What if every year oil companies were reporting record high profit margins while at the same time closing refineries every day.
Indeed, the myth of peak oil:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm
That article quotes verbatim from the Saudi Oil Ministry
"WASHINGTON, 29 April 2004 ??? Officials from Saudi Arabia???s oil industry and the international petroleum organizations shocked a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington yesterday with an announcement that the Kingdom???s previous estimate of 261 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum has now more than tripled, to 1.2 trillion barrels.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia???s key oil and finance ministers assured the audience ??? which included US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan ??? that the Kingdom has the capability to quickly double its oil output and sustain such a production surge for as long as 50 years."
Maybe he's not a wacko then. The chances that 'peak oil' is a scam have to be very high. After all those who will profit from it are those who are profitting from the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis/Afghans/US soldiers/UK soldiers etc. The lies regarding the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have made them enormous amounts of money and people buying into the 'peak oil' theory will make them more.
There's a whole slew of articles luring around on the net covering 'peak oil'. It's worth Googling around and reading a few more.
Peak oil is a useful concept, for the most part because it is the only concept we have to describe the end of the fossil fuel age. There are no other concepts, just pie in the sky fantasies of solar panels you can order from L.L. Bean or wherever. Denial is not a concept either.
I think the interesting, and most worrying question is how does the planet transition from fossil fuel to non? Any way you look at it, it just isn't possible without massive upheaval and/or leaving large sections of the planet behind. All of those hi-tech futuristic nano materials are in the ground in Africa and need heavy machinery with combustion engines to extract them. The price of oil will be prohibitative if demand is still higher than or equal to supply. And no first world nation will take the competitive disadvantage to go green while China and India get the cheaper oil, which would drop in price dramatically if the unlikely scenario that the US could wean itself off it. High oil prices, recession, war... these are all here to stay for the foreseeable.
And the dude who in 1956 got ridiculed for correctly predicting US peak oil in 1971.