Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/qti8Q8IKNXE/this-is-what-google-glasses-could-have-been
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Friday, July 27, 2012
This Is What Google Glasses Could Have Been [Video]
Eating Disorders, Self-Image And Self-Esteem Educational Video PSA
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Eating Disorders and Self-Image Video PSA. Courtesy of the National Eating Disorder Information Centre; The National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC) is a Canadian, non-profit organization, established in 1985 to provide information and resources on eating disorders and weight preoccupation. Our goal is to promote healthy lifestyles that allow people to be fully engaged in their lives. If you, or someone you know, is struggling with an eating disorder or is preoccupied with weight and dieting, please read our Give & Get Help section for valuable information and resources. There are many different kinds of food and weight preoccupations, including eating disorders. This section aims at de-mystifying issues relating to dieting, food, weight concerns, shape concerns, self-esteem and body image. To do so, we will be looking at those influences that most contribute to how we feel about our selves and our bodies, and that ultimately can help us make healthier choices for more enjoyable lives. Body image is the mental picture you have of your body ? what it looks like, what you believe about it, and how you feel about your body. Self-esteem is the ?real? opinion you have of yourself. how you value and respect yourself as a person. Your self-esteem has a direct effect on how you take care of yourself, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Self-esteem and body image also exert influences on each other ? it is hard to feel good about yourself if you hate your body ?
HERE! The Link: WeightLossFastSystem.com 7. . Your Spiritual and Mental Health. If you have other reasons for being overweight?past hurts that you\?ve used food to deal with, depression or other problems, it\?s hard to lose weight. For many of us, food is a comfort and something we\?ve relied on all of our lives to help us deal with emotional problems. If that\?s the case for you, pinpointing those behaviors and what drives them is important for becoming aware of what you\?re doing and why. A counselor can help you with this or take some time to read about emotional eating. Be willing to learn why you make the choices you make and to confront them. 8. . Your Goals. If you\?ve set impossible goals, you are guaranteed to fail. Weight loss becomes hard to achieve if you feel like a constant failure?who wants to feel like that? If that\?s how your weight loss experience is, it\?s no wonder you keep quitting. The key is to set reasonable goals. So what is reasonable? That\?s going to be different for each person depending on your genetics, eating habits, exercise, and metabolism to name a few. You\?re better off setting a long-term goal (whether it\?s to lose weight or compete in a race) and then focusing your attention on daily or weekly goals. Your weekly goal might be to get in 3 cardio workouts, minimum. Pick things you KNOW you\?ll achieve so you\?re always successful. It can be as small as you like, as long as it\?s reachable. 9. . Your Flexibility. You hear a lot ?
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Celebrating the best of Cowley's heritage with classic car show ...
Celebrating the best of Cowley's heritage with classic car show
12:10pm Friday 27th July 2012 in Oxford
AUTO enthusiasts are gearing up for the highlight of the classic car calendar.
Oxfordshire?s finest Morris Minors, Minis and MGs will take over Court Place Farm in Marston for the fifth Cowley Classic Car Show on Sunday, August 12, from noon.
Most vehicles will have a connection with Cowley ? including a Morris Motors factory fire engine from the1930s.
Oxford Isis Rotary Club press officer and event co-organiser Malcolm Fearn said: ?We anticipate having some 200 vehicles, with around 150 pre-registered.
?It started off as a celebration of vehicles with a Cowley connection, Morris, Minis and MGs.
?This year we have spread our wings and said anyone who thinks their car is a classic should bring it along.?
Last year?s oldest car was made in 1907, and the oldest this time is currently a 1924 Swift.
The exhibition, organised by the rotary club, will raise funds for the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance.
Also on display will be an Issetta bubble car, a variety of Rolls Royces and Bentleys.
There will also be Reliant Robin that three Brize Norton servicemen ? Cpl James Booth, Sgt Mark McNeil, and Snr Aircraftsman Daniel Wellstead ? aim to drive to Malta in aid of the Everyman male cancer charity.
One family will be bringing five of their seven Minis down to show off.
Tanya Field, from Headington, who met her husband Jason whilst working at what is now Mini Oxford plant, said: ?We have five between us, and our children have one each. In short, it?s because we?re insane.
?I love the Cowley show because it?s relatively small, so it?s got a real intimacy, but they have a great diversity.?
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Thursday, July 26, 2012
Crowdsourcing serves up the subtitles to your life
DEAF people could soon receive subtitles for live events via their smartphone, thanks to a new online system for crowdsourcing captions.
Professional stenographers can provide real-time captions, but they cost up to $200 per hour and cannot be hired at the last minute or for short sessions, while automatic speech recognition systems have high error rates. So computer scientist Jeffrey Bigham at the University of Rochester, New York, and colleagues have turned to teams of non-expert workers who can be hired on demand and for much lower cost.
When users boot up the app, calledScribe, it connects to a central server and recruits workers through Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing service. Previous studies have shown that a willing group can be assembled within seconds. Each worker listens to a live audio stream from the user's phone and attempts to write subtitles as quickly as possible.
All workers hear the full audio stream but the volume of different sections is raised and lowered, encouraging each person to focus on transcribing a particular part. Scribe then combines the partial transcriptions with software normally used to align evolutionarily related sequences of DNA. Bigham modified the software to account for common typos based on the layout of a keyboard - for example, if someone types "fqll", it is more likely they mean "fall" than "fill", because "a" is nearer to "q" than "i" is. The software then chooses the words that a majority of the workers have typed.
In tests, Scribe was able to accurately capture 74 per cent of words spoken, compared with 88.5 per cent using professional transcription. "We hope in the next few months to get a version of this out to deaf and hard of hearing students to better understand how they want to use the captions," says Bigham, who will present the work at the Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October. Tabitha Allum, chief executive of UK charity Stagetext, says Scribe could help meet an increasing need for captions. "As our population gets older and people become more deaf, the demand for accessible talks and lectures is only going to get bigger," she says.
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Pets and More Pets ? A Horse Coat Supplement To Make You ...
A horse coat supplement can make your horse not just good looking, it could make it strong and healthy also. But did you know that it could also cause you to be, the owner, stronger and healthier too? You do not have to ingest it personally but you still get the key benefits of it. Exactly how? By providing you the comfort that your horse is getting all of the necessary nutrients and vitamins that it needs. With a healthy horse, you don?t have to fret and be worried about your pet. You are confident that it is good, strong and also healthy.
Horses are usually obtained or owned since they are going to be ridden. This is healthy for you because riding a horse can give you some physical exercise which is very important for our health. You need upper body strength and a stable core to effectively go along with your horse. If you don?t have these traits now, your constant riding will help you develop your body. Riding also makes us inhale fresh air which can help clear not only our lungs but also our heads. The peace along with tranquility that riding a horse can give you will help you recharge your body and mind.
It?s a fantastic stress reliever because all the suppressed energy inside of you is launched as your horse rushes. I don?t understand what it is with galloping in full speed but it appears as if all of the cares on the planet, all the problems of everyday life, are left trailing in the dust after a good long ride. It could be because the hanging on for your life experience as the horse rushes enables you to just focus on the task in front of you. Rather than consider other things, you are totally focused on you and your horse. As you go over the horse, not only is your physical body a lot stronger, your spirit is enhanced too.
Besides the physical advantages that you get from connecting together with your horse, it furthermore develops your character. If you are accustomed to just looking after yourself, taking care of your horse can help you enhance your nurturing skill. Many people might think that growing your nurture skills is usually for females or effeminate people only. But this isn?t the case. Concern for another creature is a mandate which all races respect. This is developed as you take care of your horse. Simple tasks as feeding your horse or working out the animal may seem mundane to you but for the horse, this means everything.
As you choose the horse coat supplement that the horse will make use of, you?re thinking of its welfare first. You don?t simply get a thing for the reason of simply buying it. You choose wisely since you do not want the horse to become ill and you would like what is best for it. As you put the horse?s needs first, something is in fact changing within you. You start to view the world differently. The planet doesn?t revolve around you anymore. Instead, you think of the things that you may contribute for the world. The funny thing is, as you put others first, you feel better. That is because you?re freed of trying to have things your way. And as other people look at you differently, they start to treat you differently also. The things that made you stressed before are no longer there. So just like what I said at the start of this post, a horse coat supplement can certainly make you feel much better.
Horse Coat Supplement experts possess a variety of tips and expert thoughts on the way you take proper care of your cherished equines while using the best horse coat supplements inside their day to day diet plan.
Source: http://petsandmorepets.com/2012/07/a-horse-coat-supplement-to-make-you-healthier/
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Obama calls for better background checks on gun buyers
President Obama made a statement in favor of gun control, saying large-scale shootings, as well as every-day crime, need to be combatted.
President Barack Obama speaks at a fundraiser at the House of Blues in New Orleans, Wednesday.
Gerald Herbert/AP
EnlargeThe politics of guns leapt to the top of the presidential race Wednesday, as President Barack Obama embraced some degree of control of weapons sales and Republican Mitt Romney seemed to suggest an alleged mass killer in Colorado had obtained his weapons illegally even though he hadn't.
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Speaking to a mostly black audience in New Orleans, Obama said he would seek a consensus on combating violence. He said some responsibility also rests with parents, neighbors and teachers to ensure that young people "do not have that void inside them."
Obama's remarks came five days after the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and dozens wounded. He pledged to work with lawmakers of both parties to stop violence ? not only the sudden massacres that have bedeviled the nation, but also the steady drip of urban crime that has cost many young lives.
The president called for stepped-up background checks for people who want to buy guns and restrictions to keep mentally unbalanced individuals from buying weapons. He said those steps "shouldn't be controversial, they should be common sense."
Romney, meanwhile, said many of the weapons deployed by the shooting suspect in Colorado were possessed illegally and that changing laws wouldn't prevent gun-related tragedies. His comments added a confusing layer to the debate because authorities say the firearms that James Holmes allegedly used to kill 12 people were obtained legally.
"This person shouldn't have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices, and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already," Romney told NBC News in an interview in London. "But he had them. And so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won't."
Authorities say Holmes broke no laws when he bought an assault-style rifle, a shotgun and Glock handgun, and he passed the required background checks.
Aides to Romney said the former Massachusetts governor was alluding only to homemade bombs, reportedly used as attempted booby-traps in Holmes' apartment, when he spoke of items "illegal for him to have."
"The illegality the governor is referencing is the ordinances, the devices that were in the home," said campaign spokesman Danny Diaz. "He was not referencing the weapons carried to the theater."
In a separate interview with KRNV-TV in Nevada, Romney seemed more precise. He said Holmes "had various incendiary devices, bombs of some kind. The idea that saying those things, of course, were illegal, but he had them, simply passing laws does not make the threat of an individual who is deranged, disappear."
Romney's campaign acknowledged Wednesday that Holmes' gun purchases apparently were legal.
Aurora authorities disassembled the booby traps in the apartment, and they did not explode. It's unclear if the suspect obtained the bomb materials illegally, but it's against Colorado law to build an explosive device.
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New dance company created for new reality show
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) ? Reality TV mogul Nigel Lythgoe is producing a new competition series where a dance company is created in just 28 days.
The Ovation network said Wednesday that "A Chance to Dance" will follow the audition and training process leading up to a live performance in New York by the new dance company.
The network says choreographers Michael Nunn and Bill Trevitt will audition and select dance hopefuls in Washington, Salt Lake City and Austin, Tex.
"A Chance to Dance" is executive-produced by Lythgoe, a creator of "American Idol" and a judge on "So You Think You Can Dance," in partnership with his son Simon Lythgoe.
The seven-part series premieres Aug. 17 on Ovation, an arts-oriented cable network available in 50 million U.S. homes.
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TEXT-S&P summary: DBS Bank Ltd.
(The following statement was released by the rating agency)
July 24 -
===============================================================================
Summary analysis -- DBS Bank Ltd. --------------------------------- 24-Jul-2012
===============================================================================
CREDIT RATING: AA-/Stable/A-1+ Country: Singapore
Primary SIC: Commercial banks,
nec
Mult. CUSIP6: 233048
Mult. CUSIP6: 23305D
Mult. CUSIP6: 23305E
Mult. CUSIP6: 23305G
Mult. CUSIP6: 24023C
Mult. CUSIP6: 24023D
Mult. CUSIP6: 251594
===============================================================================
Credit Rating History:
Local currency Foreign currency
10-Jul-2005 AA-/A-1+ AA-/A-1+
16-Jul-1999 A+/A-1 A+/A-1
===============================================================================
Ratings Score Snapshot
Issuer Credit Rating AA-/Stable/A-1+
SACP a
Anchor bbb+
Business Position Strong (+1)
Capital and Earnings Adequate (0)
Risk Position Adequate (0)
Funding and Liquidity Above Average
and Strong (+1)
Support +2
GRE Support 0
Group Support 0
Sovereign Support +2
Additional Factors 0
Major Rating Factors
Strengths:
-- Market leader in Singapore with a strong franchise
-- Strong funding profile
-- Strong risk management capabilities to safeguard loan quality
Weaknesses:
-- Exposure to increasing economic and credit risk due to continuous
expansion in emerging Asian markets
-- Pressure on capitalization due to loan book expansion
Outlook
The stable outlook on DBS reflects our belief that DBS will remain a bank with
"high systemic importance" in Singapore, and its SACP will stay within the 'a'
category over the next one to two years. The outlook also reflects the outlook
on the sovereign credit rating on Singapore.
We could downgrade DBS if: (1) we lower the sovereign credit rating on
Singapore; (2) we no longer believe DBS has high systemic importance in
Singapore; (3) the bank's SACP declines by two notches; or (4) the wider DBS
group's credit profile significantly weakens. We could lower DBS' SACP if the
bank's risk-adjusted capital ratio is likely to decline below 7% due to
aggressive expansion or if the bank's asset quality declines substantially.
The wider DBS group's credit profile could weaken if it undertakes further
aggressive or debt-funded acquisitions or its overall asset quality
deteriorates.
We consider an upgrade of DSB unlikely in the next one to two years. We could
raise the rating if the bank strengthens its capitalization and business
position, such that we raise the SACP by two notches.
Rationale
We base our ratings on DBS Bank Ltd. on the bank's "strong" business position,
"adequate" capital and earnings, "adequate" risk position, "above-average"
funding, and "strong" liquidity, as our criteria define those terms. The
stand-alone credit profile (SACP) on DBS is 'a'.
Our 'bbb+' anchor SACP for DBS draws on our Banking Industry Country Risk
Assessment methodology and our view of the economic and industry risks in the
countries where the bank operates. The economic risk score of '4' is based on
the weighted average of DBS' private-sector loans to nonbanks in each country
in which it operates, including over 40% in Singapore, about 20% in Hong Kong,
and the rest across Asia. Our economic risk assessment of Singapore reflects
its high income, and diverse and resilient economy, although we believe some
potential imbalances are building up in the property sector. DBS' industry
risk score of '2' benefits from Singapore's well-developed institutional
framework, prudent banking practices, and stable funding support of core
customer deposits.
DBS' strong market leader position in Singapore, with the largest branch
network and customer deposit base, contributes to our assessment of the bank's
business position. We expect DBS to maintain its resilient revenue stream and
high customer retention despite the increasingly challenging macroeconomic
conditions in Asia. The bank is likely to further diversify its revenue mix
and increase contribution from markets outside Singapore over the next few
years.
We expect DBS's risk-adjusted capital ratio to stay above 7% over the next two
years. This is based on the assumption that loan growth will slow down
substantially, as compared to the rapid growth rate in 2011. We also believe
the bank's profit generation and retention will partially mitigate the
negative impact of continuous loan growth on capitalization. In our view, the
bank's net interest margin and profitability will remain fairly stable. These
factors support our assessment of the bank's capital and earnings.
Our risk position assessment for DBS reflects our expectation that the bank's
credit risk exposure is likely to shift continuously towards emerging markets,
such as China and India, where the inherent economic risk is higher, in our
view. We believe the bank will maintain its conservative underwriting
standards and focus on selective market segments while expanding in these
countries.
DBS' strong customer deposit franchise in Singapore, with the largest retail
branch network in the country, supports its funding profile. We assess DBS'
liquidity as strong because of the bank's rich pool of liquid assets. We
expect the bank to manage its liquidity in a prudent manner despite a surge in
the U.S. dollar loan-to-deposit ratio over the past two years.
The rating on DBS is two notches higher than the SACP, reflecting our view of
a high likelihood of support from the government of Singapore
(AAA/Stable/A-1+; axAAA/axA-1+). This is due to DBS' "high systemic
importance" in Singapore and our assessment of the government as "highly
supportive" to the banking sector. The bank has the largest market share of
loans and deposits in Singapore.
DBS' parent, DBS Group Holdings Ltd. (DBSGH; not rated), proposes to acquire
PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk. (Danamon; BB/Positive/B). The deal is now
pending regulatory approvals. In our view, the move will not directly affect
the financial strength of DBS. However, Danamon's business has higher credit
risks than DBSGH's and integration will involve execution risks. Nonetheless,
the immediate negative pressure on the credit profile of the DBS group is
limited due to Danamon's relatively small size and stronger profitability.
Related Criteria And Research
-- Hong Kong And Singapore Banks' Credit Quality Can Withstand A Mild
Recession In Europe, May 17, 2012
-- Research Update: DBS Bank Ltd. And DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd.
'AA-/A-1+' Ratings Affirmed On Parent's Announced Acquisition Of Danamon,
April 3, 2012
-- Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment: Singapore, March 16, 2012
-- Banks: Rating Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 9, 2011
-- Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment Methodology And Assumptions,
Nov. 9, 2011
-- Group Rating Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 9, 2011
-- Bank Hybrid Capital Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 1, 2011
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/text-p-summary-dbs-bank-ltd-102353319--sector.html
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Environmental News and Agricultural News: Top Stories
Vienna pitches urban chic to beleaguered bee colonies
by Georgina Prodhan
by Georgina Prodhan
Reuters ???Translate This Article
25 July 2012
VIENNA (Reuters) - Felix Munk gets stung up to 20 times a day but that doesn't stop him from regularly clambering up to the roof of the Vienna Opera and other city landmarks to check on the bees living above the heads of unsuspecting music lovers and government ministers.
Munk is a member of Vienna's Stadtimker, one of a growing number of urban beekeepers' associations who are trying to encourage bees to make their homes in cities, as pesticides and crop monocultures make the countryside increasingly hostile.
Bee populations are in sharp decline around the world, under attack from a poorly understood phenomonenon known as colony collapse disorder, whose main causes are believed to include a virus spread by mites that feed on haemolymph?bees' 'blood'.
As well as making honey, bees are important pollinators of flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables. A 2011 United Nations report estimated that the work of bees and other pollinators was worth 153 billion euros ($186 billion) a year.
'Bees do very well in cities,' says Stephen Martin of the University of Sheffield, an expert on the deadly Varroa mite that has wrought destruction on honey bee colonies around the world since being exported from its native Asia in the 1960s.
'There are lots of plants and flowers in cities for bees to live on. Keeping them on rooftops is a great idea because it keeps them out of the way of people.'
'I think these initiatives are really good, as long as they maintain them properly,' he said. 'Once the mite gets into a colony, which it will do, in a period of two to four years the colony will be killed.'
London, Paris and Melbourne are among the cities trying the same approach.
The Vienna Stadtimker get no central help from government but have persuaded officials at many of the city's landmark buildings to let them build 'bee hotels' on the rooftops that overlook Vienna's parks and boulevard ring road.
Speaking to Reuters while swapping out honeycombs on the roof of the 18th century Chancellery where the government holds its weekly cabinet meetings, Munk said the honey harvest would go to the building's officials as gifts.
'It was surprisingly easy to persuade them to allow us to do this,' he said. 'Many of them are really concerned about the environment and wanted to do something.'
Munk, 39, works part-time at his software programming job to devote as much time as he can to bees. He learned his craft from his aunt and uncle at the age of seven, but is a rarity in Austria, where most beekeepers are 55 or older.
'It's an old man's hobby,' said Robert Brodschneider, a researcher at the Zoology Institute at the University of Graz and Austria's foremost expert on bees. 'There's a shortage not only of colonies but also of beekeepers.'
Brodschneider, who has been collecting data on bee populations in the region for five years, said he had seen a sharp rise in the percentage of bee colonies dying out in the past winter, according to early results of his latest survey.
In Austria alone, where bees have until now fared relatively well, one in four colonies died last winter, compared with a previous range of 9 to 16 percent, said Brodschneider.
'I think it's going to be the highest year for losses all over central Europe,' he told Reuters, adding that it was not yet clear whether it was a blip or a sign of an acceleration in bee colony deaths. 'We don't know what is going on.'
Munk is realistic about how fast his work can make a difference. 'I'd say in under a generation we can't achieve much,' he said. 'But everything in life takes time.'
($1 = 0.8219 euros) (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Paul Casciato)
? Copyright 2012 Reuters
Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. 'Reuters' and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. For additional information on other Reuters media services please visit reuters.com/newsagency.
Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world from good news reported by the press; and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law based-Total Knowledge based-programmes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.
Source: http://www.globalgoodnews.com/environmental-news-a.html?art=134322528232826894
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Wednesday, July 25, 2012
PraiseWorks Health and Wellness - Total Wellness Mind,Body and ...
Bonus Tip - obsessing over what you see on the scale is not effective
Lately I have been reading a lot of misinformation regarding health and wellness, especially when it comes to weight management.? First of all everyone is different and much of the advice is general so use wisdom and do what works best for YOU. Second, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, many times people will give the same advice in a different way, again use wisdom and do what is best for YOU.??
Here are some tips from CoachCalerie.com that I like and have worked for me. I hope they are helpful!
- Weight loss is not a physical challenge ? it?s a mental one
- Eating at night does not make you fat ? overeating does.
- Eating healthy is not more expensive than a junk food diet
.
- If bad food is in the house, you?ll be more likely to eat it.
- The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest
- You can lose weight and still gain muscle; likewise, you can also gain weight while still losing fat
- Consistency and patience are key to long term successful weight loss
- Being vegetarian doesn?t just mean you don?t eat meat ? it means you follow a plant-based diet.
- ?The perimeter of the grocery store is where 90% of the healthy food is.
Source: http://praiseworkshealthandwellness.blogspot.com/2012/07/10-fitness-facts-for-your-health-and.html
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Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The Cultural Legacy of Postage
Image by Simon Davies, CC. Click on image for license and information.
Ed note: A version of this post originally appeared on AiP on Sept. 20th, 2010.
While the primary purpose of stamps has been to pre-pay for the transportation and delivery of mail, postage has helped preserve histories around the world. The world?s first postage stamp was the Penny Black invented by Sir Rowland Hill, founder of the Penny Post. It was issued in 1840 by the United Kingdom, and depicted a young Queen Victoria. Seven years later, in an effort to modernize the American postal system, the Benjamin Franklin, 5-cent stamp was issued. Franklin, the first American postmaster, was selected for the image over the recently deceased Andrew Jackson?in part, because he would be recognized as a unifying figure between the conflicted states.
Kristi Evans (1992) has a nice study that demonstrates how this type of cultural record can tell us about Polish history. Evans discusses unofficial stamps that were created by the outlawed Solidarity union, which presents a particular snapshot of Poland in the 1980s.
Solidarity positioned itself as representing the desire of the Polish nation (the people) to oppose the state (recognized as ?Eastern, alien, despotic?as in a word, Russian?) (Evans 1992: 751). The stamps often included imagery suggesting sacrifice on the part of the nation in enduring the state. They highlighted events that could take on huge symbolic import for the nation and become integral to identity?a shared national memory remembered through the printing and use of stamps.
For example, in Poland in 1940 Soviet secret police murdered Polish nationals in the Katyn Forest. The order was based on a proposal to execute the Polish Officer Corps, and some 22,000 people were killed. This event came to be known as the Katyn massacre. Evans describes some of the Katyn stamps in her research (1992: 754):
A. The word ?Katyn? alone, constructed from crosses.
B. ?Katyn,? with a forest and the emblem of the Soviet Union.
C. ?Matka Boska Katynska? (Madonna of Katyn) with crosses in a clearing. A box in the upper lefthand corner of the stamp frames the picture of a weeping mother and child.
D. ?Katyn,? with a stylized drawing of a person standing like a cross and weeping.
E. ?Katyn,? with a gun pointed at the head of a blindfolded man.
F. ?Katyn,? with white candles (against a black background flickering in a triangular formation.
G. ?Katyn 1940,? with a prominent red star, a skill wearing a Polish military cap, and the exclamation ?[We remember!!!]? written in red and stylized graffiti.
The images evoke a sense of ?betrayal and sacrifice,? and in connection with Polish history create a very specific point of identity:
By grounding Poland?s defining events in a particular space, representations by place creates a geographically situated consciousness of history and ?Poland.? Poland is defined in opposition to Russia, to the Soviets, and to the Communists, and all three are collapsed into the Katyn image (Evans 1992: 756).
Stamps helped transmit these ideas via circulation, and ensured their longevity as collectors preserved them for posterity. In owning stamps, people claimed a certain connection to the nation and to a shared history. This is a particularly salient point given that the majority of Solidarity stamps were unofficial and not used to circulate mail:
In collecting underground stamps, individuals can appropriate for themselves the subversive images of the imagined community and locate themselves within a community partially defined by the circulation of these images (Evans 1992: 750).
This sense of sharedness, this connection, can help us understand the significance of certain events as experienced by nations and the ways in which they choose to represent themselves. This is evident in the American postal stamp history: a survey of the stamps displayed by the American Art collection highlights advances in transportation, communication, and industry, as well as achievements in the arts and sciences.
In addition to national social commentary, stamp choices can tell us a lot about the individual, as well. Choosing Katyn-themed stamps aligns the individual with Solidarity. But stamps can also tell us about the everyday interests of the individual?from baseball to cars to movie stars to cartoons, there are stamps to match hobbies and passions and past times. While using a particular stamp might not correlate with whether that person played sports or drove a Formula 1 racer, it can tell us about what appeals to an individual. Finding an old shoe box with envelopes bearing canceled stamps can provide a lot of information about the public and private histories of an individual:
Stamps, which are the basis for the circulation of correspondence, facilitate communication while simultaneously expressing certain ideas and emotions through their own imagery (Evans 1992: 750).
Stamps may face an uncertain future as we move increasingly toward digital means of communication. Snail mail may never be entirely eradicated, but there may be less of a need for decorative postage as time goes by. It will be interesting to see whether stamps take on purely a symbolic role, or if they are destined to be removed as cultural currency entirely.
Cited:
Evans, K. (1992). The Argument of Images: Historical Representation In Solidarity Underground Postage, 1981-87 American Ethnologist, 19 (4), 749-767 DOI: 10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00070
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=34a7387fde9176e16b99ae3c9a50b576
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Changed standards benefit Afghan force report: watchdog
[ [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]
[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/changed-standards-benefit-afghan-force-report-watchdog-230330444.html
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Video: Mystery solved: Katherine Jackson safe in Ariz.
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48283202#48283202
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Monday, July 23, 2012
Property Management Insurance Solutions & Expert Advice
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Workers Compensation Insurance
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Source: http://www.contractors1stinsurance.com/property-management-insurance
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Penn State awaits major sanctions from NCAA
Across his 20 months as NCAA president, the frustration continued to mount for Mark Emmert, multiple sources close to him say. The job, he's found, is as much spokesman as statesman. Too little power. Too much blame.
Emmert saw basic initiatives such as providing athletes with a $2,000 stipend to cover the cost of living stall out in the NCAA system of committees and votes. He's watched seemingly simple infractions cases, such as the one involving University of Oregon football, drag on.
In the meantime, he became the public face in the center of the dartboard, bashed for the NCAA's inaction, corruption and hypocrisy. Yet he can fix nothing. He can do little. 
NCAA president Mark Emmert will announce sanctions against Penn State. (AP)
So now comes Monday morning in Indianapolis, when in a show of force Mark Emmert, the fifth president of the NCAA, will seize long-dormant power and announce significant sanctions on the Penn State football program for its role in the Jerry Sandusky sexual molestation crisis.
Sources say the school will continue to field a team. However, it will deal with heavy scholarship losses over the next three-to-five years as well as a multiyear ban in postseason competition and multimillion dollar financial penalties.
The standard line rippling through college sports Sunday is that while Penn State will be spared the death penalty, the penalties will make them wish they weren't.
The decision came almost solely from Emmert, sources say. He used the significance of the scandal to allow the NCAA Board of Directors to provide him with powers not seen since the iron-fisted Walter Byers ran the organization from 1951-1988.
"Unprecedented," said one NCAA source. "This is just unprecedented."
[Related: Charles Robinson: Staggering penalties likely for Penn State]
Rather than allowing the tedious infractions process to churn on for years, there was no NCAA investigation, no hearings, no letter of inquiry, no reports, no chance for formal response, no nothing. Rather than wait for criminal cases and every last bit of evidence to trickle in, this was Emmert reading the school's own Freeh Commission report and deciding enough was enough.
"When he took the job he thought he could push things through," said a NCAA source close with Emmert. "He's become frustrated with how the organization works. It's slow, bureaucratic. Mark has tried to change that."
The gray-haired, congenial, 59-year old former campus CEO at Washington and LSU has been focused on Penn State since Sandusky and two school administrators were indicted Nov. 5, 2011. That night, while attending the LSU-Alabama game in Tuscaloosa, he just shook his head with a look of disgust when asked for an initial reaction.
Within days, however, he laid down the possibility of NCAA punishment, which would be an expansive move considering the scandal involved no current or former players and only benefited the Nittany Lions program by avoiding negative publicity that could have impacted recruiting.
[Related: Pat Forde: Penn State should donate football profits to child-abuse causes ]
Now he's following up, sources say. He took precise political action, gaining approval from the Board of Directors, to use broad ideals spelled out in the NCAA rulebook that call for "intercollegiate athletics to promote the character development of participants, to enhance the integrity of higher education."
The goal of the sanctions is to pound the NCAA's fist down and declare that what's wrong is wrong. On a case this terrible the organization simply can't be soft, can't worry about procedure, can't rely on the same old failed methods of enforcement, Emmert is arguing, according to sources.
This was an unheard of scandal, with what the Freeh report concluded was a breathless cover-up at the highest levels. Now comes a similar trailblazing response from the NCAA.
How making it less likely that Penn State wins football games provides relief for Sandusky's victims or helps in the fight against child abuse is open to debate. Cutting scholarships just means some players who never met Jerry Sandusky, let alone Joe Paterno, don't get scholarships. There will be understandable anger coming from State College. Harming the football program impacts innocent players and coaches.
That's how the world works, of course. The kids always pay for the sins of the father. The ripples of Penn State's concealment of Sandusky were felt far and wide. Now the punishment will as well. Although, it's worth noting, losing a few more football games isn't the end of the world.
Penn State coach Joe Paterno, right, and president Graham Spanier, left, concealed child abuse. (AP)
Former athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz still face criminal trials for their roles. So they may pay directly. Paterno, the late iconic coach, was fired, disgraced and had his statue outside Beaver Stadium taken down Sunday.
Then there is Graham Spanier, the former president who was prominently blamed in the Freeh report. A source described Emmert as feeling "betrayed" by Spanier, who served closely with Emmert on multiple powerful committees and boards over the years.
[Related: Eric Adelson: Joe Paterno statue debate misses the point]
The attorney general has not ruled out indicting Spanier. In the interim, the program he too often failed to monitor will pay for his failures.
Emmert's power play Monday will generate debate across the country, including, perhaps most intensely, inside the upper reaches of the NCAA itself. This isn't how the Association has conducted business in decades. Toes were stepped on.
The man with a Ph.D in public administration just went pseudo dictator in a move right out of the playbook of Roger Goodell or Bud Selig.
Once Mark Emmert concluded Penn State was wrong, he was going to do his part to set it right by charting a direct and long-forgotten course of action.
The school never stood a chance in this bold, and perhaps new era for college athletics.
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Sunday, July 22, 2012
Japan investigates alleged cover-up at nuclear plant
Workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant may have been forced to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to.
Workers in protective suits and masks wait to enter the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan in November 2011. Japanese labor officials said they are investigating subcontractors on suspicion they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport their dosimeter readings so they could stay on the job longer.
David Guttenfelder/AP/File
EnlargeJapanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion that they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer.
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Labor officials said Sunday that an investigation had begun over the weekend following media reports of a cover-up at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters.
A subcontractor of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, acknowledged having nine workers cover their dosimeters with lead plates late last year so the instrument would indicate a lower level of radiation exposure.
The investigation marks the first time the government has looked into the case, believed to be part of a widespread practice at the plant since it was hit by the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.
The government more than doubled the emergency radiation exposure limit soon after the accident, but lowered it back to the previous level in December. The law now sets the exposure limit at 50 millisieverts per year, or a five-year total of 100 millisieverts.
Dosimeter readings are crucial personal records that determine how much longer a worker can stay on a plant job. Work at highly contaminated areas could quickly eat up a worker's quota.
The issue reflects a growing concern among the government and TEPCO about how to secure a continuous flow of workers to finish cleaning up the plant. Officials say it will take about 40 years to decommission the plant's four wrecked reactors ? three with melted cores and another with a spent fuel pool in a shattered building.
Labor officials made onsite inspections at the Fukushima plant to examine dosimeter readings of the workers and other records, said Yasuhiro Kishi, an official at the Fukushima Labor Bureau.
Health and Labor Ministry officials repeatedly issued warnings to TEPCO during the first few months of the crisis about the company's lax oversight of workers' exposures. Officials have also said TEPCO had several workers share a dosimeter not just early in the crisis when the equipment was in short supply due to tsunami damage, but even after a full stock had been regained.
Takashi Wada, president of Fukushima-based subcontractor Build-Up, acknowledged this weekend that the dosimeter falsification had taken place. He said a supervisor of the group of nine workers came up with the idea when his dosimeter alarm went off during his short preview visit to the area where the workers were assigned.
"We should have never done that," Wada told an interview with TBS network broadcast Saturday.
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Home Based Business Opportunities Simply For You | ApostolicCM ...
Legally it?s over. But the global financial crisis is still believed by many people. The price of the money is not what the value was once. A second task may be needed by you to enhance your income but acquiring a second job isn?t so simple. There is still hope, particularly when you?ve toddlers at home or an prevented you from likely to work. You will find several home based online business offerings right on the internet. Because he was 3 years old working at home has become a practical option.Mark, 23 years old was blind. His family has acknowledged the fact that he may not be able to help himself so they try to help him as much as they may. But Mark desired to be financially independent. So he enrolled as a short-term course to be able to become a medical transcriptionist. Today Mark makes around his other siblings. Being a medical transcriptionist is merely one of the hundreds of work you can do at home. The possibilities of working at home are countless, you only have to persevere and look for the right opportunity for you.Direct sales is one of the most profitable home company you can perform. You work at your personal pace and you?ll generate as much as you wish to. There are numerous direct sales organizations which will help you. They?ll provide you with the required courses and generally holds year long seminars on marketing for their sales staff. There are many organizations today who are outsourcing many of their requirements. If you are a sales scholar, you can perform accounting in the home. You?ll have multiple clients with all the work you do right in the convenience of your home. Now you can take care of your family and work on the same time.Your abilities and abilities can be the origin of your home based online business offerings. If you can create short websites or do format style, then your home based profession might begin from that. But understand that home control will be your most important advantage when you work at home. Provided that you know how to manage your time and effort, then working at home might be the right thing for you.
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Source: http://answers.apostoliccm.com/2012/07/home-based-business-opportunities-simply-for-you/
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Syria revolt reaches Aleppo; rebels target cities
BEIRUT (AP) ? Riding a wave of momentum, Syrian rebels made a run on Aleppo Saturday in some of the fiercest fighting seen in the country's largest city, which has been a key bastion of support for President Bashar Assad over the course of the 17-month-old uprising.
The rebels also took over a third border crossing ? and the second one along Syria's frontier with Iraq ? another sign the regime's tight grip on the country is wobbling.
The fighting in Aleppo comes on the heels of intense clashes in the capital, Damascus, as rebel forces target the pillars of regime power in their attempts to usher in what they hope will be the end of Assad's rule.
"There were huge explosions and the gunfire didn't stop for several hours," Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed told The Associated Press via Skype. "The uprising has finally reached Aleppo."
The city has remained largely loyal to Assad and been spared the kind of daily bloodshed that has plagued other areas.
But Saeed said dozens of fighters from the rag-tag Free Syrian Army entered Aleppo ? a commercial hub ? from the countryside and were fighting regime troops from inside.
It was the first sustained fighting in the city center, focused on the Salaheddine district, although there have been protests in Aleppo and violence on the outskirts.
The rebels have put the regime on the defensive after a week of battles in the capital, Damascus, including a bombing that struck at the heart of the regime, killing four high-level government officials. The coming days will be crucial to determining whether the regime can recover from the blows, which have punctured the sense that Assad's hold on the country is impenetrable.
Rebels also took over the Syrian side of the border crossing at the Iraqi town of Rabiya, 520 kilometers (320 miles) northwest of Baghdad, according to Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Iraq's Ninevah province.
Iraqi officials said rebels tore up and shot at posters of Assad but did not face any resistance from regime authorities who surrendered the sprawling, dusty border crossing peacefully. Iraqi officials quickly barricaded the crossing and ordered additional troops to secure the area.
Rebels also seized the Syrian side of the border crossing at the Iraqi border town of Qaim on Thursday. Rebels also attacked a remote Syrian military post near the border on Thursday, killing 21 soldiers, and overran a border checkpoint with Turkey last week.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Assad to prepare to leave.
"Bashar Assad's regime is condemned by his own people, who show great courage," Fabius said. "It's time to prepare for the transition and the day after."
He also encouraged the opposition ? which is fractious and beset by infighting ? to unite.
"It's time for the opposition to get started on taking control of the country," he said. "We want the rapid formation of an interim government that will be representative of the diversity of Syrian society."
Damascus and Aleppo are both home to elites who have benefited from close ties to Assad's regime, as well as merchant classes and minority groups who worry their status will suffer if Assad falls.
But for months, rebels have been gaining strength in poorer towns and cities in the Aleppo countryside, gaining footholds near the Turkish border.
Anger has been building inside Aleppo at the government's deadly crackdown on the uprising and in recent months, huge anti-government demonstrations have broken out, particularly among students at Aleppo University.
In May, Syrian forces stormed student dormitories during an anti-government protest at the university, firing tear gas and bullets in an hours-long siege that killed four students and forced the closure of the state-run school.
An amateur video posted online by activists showed Aleppo residents walking with bags of belongings or packing into cars and driving away.
Another video showed protesters pounding an iron bust of Assad's late father, Hafez, with rocks in an attempt to break it. The videos could not be independently verified.
Activists and residents reported relative calm in Damascus on Saturday, although sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard.
Two residents who did not want to be identified for safety reasons said by telephone that the fighting peaked between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. local time.
One of the residents said most shops in the capital were closed Saturday and traffic was light.
Authorities have set up checkpoints at the entrances of Damascus in an effort to separate it from rebellious suburbs, and the resident said many grocery stores and vegetable vendors were unable to get supplies.
Piles of rubbish were starting to pile up in many parts of the city.
"The tension is palpable, people are scared about what might be coming," the resident said by telephone from the upscale middle class Mazzeh district. "A lot of people are just staying at home."
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a Damascus-based activist said two people were found dead in the Midan district after regime forces stormed their apartment. The activist, who gave his name as Omar al-Dimashqi, said the pair had been stabbed with knives, but that could not be independently confirmed.
Syrian forces recaptured the battle-scarred neighborhood on Friday and proudly showed reporters the dead bodies of rebel fighters lying in rubble-strewn streets.
The fighting in Damascus has sent thousands of Syrians pouring into neighboring Lebanon and Iraq.
Iraqi officials said about 1,000 nationals had left in eight flights from Damascus over the last two days to escape the escalating civil war. An estimated 5,000 more has poured through a land crossing by Saturday, despite the rebel takeover of a major Syria border post farther north.
Capt. Saad al-Khafaji of the state-owned Iraqi Airways said Iraqi authorities sent four airplanes to Damascus airport Saturday to evacuate Iraqis stranded in the Syrian capital.
"The planes are waiting for Iraqi passengers, but few are showing up at Damascus airport," he said, adding it was due to difficulties in reaching the airport because of the violence.
Also Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is sending U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous to Syria to assess the situation.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Friday renewing the 300-strong U.N. observer force in Syria for 30 days. The resolution was a lifeline for the unarmed observers who were sent to Syria three months ago to monitor a cease-fire that never happened.
Ban urged all sides to stop the violence, but he singled out the Syrian government, saying it must "stop the killing and the use of heavy weapons against the population centers."
___
Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-revolt-reaches-aleppo-rebels-target-cities-183627382.html
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Saturday, July 21, 2012
Oil, politics and resource wars | Peak Oil News and Message Boards
At the 10th conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas in Vienna, Austria, Dr Robert Hirsch, Professor Michael T Klare, Dr Karin Kneissl, Dr Daniele Ganser, and Jeremy Gilbert discussed for Asia Times Online and Matterhorn Asset MGMT different important aspects of oil .
Robert Hirsch: Chaos is going to occur just because of the announcement that Peak Oil is real.
Hirsch is a senior energy program advisor at Science Applications International Corporation, a senior energy advisor at MISI, and a consultant in energy, technology, and management. He is a former manager of Petroleum Exploratory Research at Exxon and
assistant administrator of the US Energy Research and Development Administration responsible for renewables. (See end for full biographies)
Lars Schall: Mr Hirsch, in 2005 you were given the task to come up with a report related to Peak Oil. How did this came about?
Robert Hirsch: It came about because I did an analysis to look at the big problems that energy research and development should look into in the future, and I came across something called Peak Oil. Even though I have worked in the oil industry for many years, I?d never heard of Peak Oil. I started to dig deeper and deeper into it, and the deeper I got the more difficult and dangerous the concept was.
I knew that oil was a finite resource, I knew that you can only get so much out so fast. I had been in that part of the business, and when I thought about what that could do to economies worldwide it frightened me. What I did was then that I went to a laboratory of the US Department of Energy and said, the problem looks like it?s real, when it hits we clearly have to do something about it, please give us some money, me and two colleagues, to be able to look into it and see the best we can do to in way of mitigating the problem. So I proposed the study to the government, the laboratory I was working with provided the funding, and then we did the study that we did. [1]
LS: And what did the government do with the study?
RH: As we worked through the study we coordinated with people at the laboratory, and we got their ideas, and we told them about the content of the study and so forth ? so they were aware of what was happening. When we handed in the final report in they were shocked, and they were shocked because it made sense and because it indicated that to fix that problem it would take a huge amount of money and a significant period of time. This is not a problem that you could fix quickly.
They didn?t knew what to do with the study because they were frightened. It turns out that the person who was the director of the laboratory was retiring, and she said: ?I?ll sign the report.? She signed the report, but they tried to bury it. But then people in the Internet found the report and it was then made public.
LS: Is the fact that the US government is afraid of Peak Oil also the reason why it never talked about the problem during the administration of George W Bush really in public, even though they had this Energy Task Force in spring of 2001 where they looked into it because [then vice president] Richard Cheney was for sure aware of it?
RH: When somebody in authority stands up and says to the world that Peak Oil is real and that we have to deal with it, chaos is going to occur just because of the announcement. People will get frightened, they will start hoarding gasoline, they will begin what they did before, which is to tap-off their gasoline tanks and their automobiles, and that will pull the system dry and give you shortages immediately; businesses will revise their plans and become much more defensive, stock markets will see the uncertainty and undoubtedly will drop dramatically.
There will be chaos when someone of significance stands up and says that there is a problem. My assumption is that whoever does that, if it happens, they will also say what they or their company is going to do to mitigate the problem and minimize the loss of business that will be associated with whoever or whatever organization is involved.
LS: Another part of the equation are the big oil majors. How are they dealing with the problem, because it endangers their business model?
RH: The major oil companies with one exception have denied that the problem exists. One has to wonder why? The answer probably is because it would create chaos and cause them trouble in what they are doing now. My view is that of the things that can be done to mitigate, to provide oil from other sources ? heavy oil, coal to liquids, gas to liquids ? the major oil companies will be the companies that will best be able to build the plants, the production facilities that are involved, because they know how to do that kind of thing, they have that expertise.
So they may suffer from a short-term hit in terms of how their stocks are viewed, but they also will benefit, because the oil that they have will be worth much more, also because they have the capability to build the mitigation plants that will be necessary to get us out of the immediate problem. It won?t happen quickly, it will happen over time.
LS: In your study have you run into the problem related to reserves? There is a huge uncertainty with regards to the different types of reserves and the connected secrecy.
RH: The reserves problem is a very complicated one, and that?s why it took me personally a number of years to work through and develop the understanding that I have today. There are a number of organizations that are lying, outright lying, about their reserves for their own political purposes. That?s true also with some countries in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC]. I think there is very, very little question about that. Moreover, there are other countries and companies that are not very good, and so they are not making not very good estimates, and if you are not going to make a good estimate you might do it rather on the high side rather than on the low side because people like to hear a larger number.
The reserves that different companies have are company secrets. The information is kept very much for themselves. There are outside organizations and individuals that have tried to analyze and determine what reasonable reserves are with the countries or companies that are involved, and I think some reasonable estimates have been made, but they are not perfect. Even at that, when you would go in and look within a company, there are some that are better able to make good reserve numbers and there are others that are just technically not able to do a very good job. So it is squishy.
LS: Related to Peak Oil you believe this is rather a liquid fuel problem and not an energy problem. Why so?
RH: There is something like $50 trillion to $100 trillion of capital equipment worldwide that is built to operate on liquid fuels ? and I am talking about cars, busses, ships, trains, airplanes, and golfcarts. You don?t quickly convert those or replace them, particularly if the problem takes place in a worldwide recession ? there is less money available, governments are already weakened because of the present recession, governments will not be able to afford to do this kind of a thing.
So it?s going to be very difficult and it is going to take a considerable amount of time to either convert an existing piece of equipment to operate on something else or to build a whole new one and have it put into operation, because what we are talking about is a scale that is absolutely enormous as far as the world is concerned.
LS: You are personally investing in gold, and the reason for this is called inflation. You are also comparing what we are facing in the near future according to your analysis and what has happened in 1973/74. Can you bring both things together for us, please?
RH: I look at history because there are often parallels to what may happen in the future, and if you don?t pay attention to history you are doomed to relive it, as has been said. Looking at 1973/74, even though the economic circumstances were different then in many ways, in other ways they are not. People are the same, and we react the way we react. And most people, I believe, understand how we all react ? we don?t like bad news, we tend to ignore problems until they hit us directly.
What happened in 1973/74, I think, provides guidance as to what is likely to happen again because it will be largely a human reaction that will affect not only people but economies and businesses and international trade, and so forth. So I believe looking at what happened back then, when there really was a shortage, not just a spike in prices, there was a real shortage, that you can gain a good deal of understanding as to what is going to happen when this thing hits in the near future.
LS: Related to the pricing of oil do you think that there will be changes? For example, you are surely aware that India and Iran are doing their dealings in gold.
RH: Probably changes will occur. But it is very difficult for me ? knowing what I know and looking at what economists know ? to forecast such things. I think many different things are likely to happen. No one should be surprised that changes occur. I tend to look at things from a fundamental point of view of how much material is there and what it takes in terms of human activity to take whatever material we are talking about and bring liquid fuels to a point where consumers can use it.
So I tend to look at that problem, and problems of changes in finance and inflation associated with one currency that is stronger than another and so forth, those things will damp out in my opinion over time. They will have short-term effects that could be significant, which can either help or hurt some of the people involved, but they are not as fundamental as the fact that we are dealing with a limited resource
LS: Okay, we have a limited resource, but then again we have almost unlimited money creation. Doesn?t this cause a little problem?
RH: That goes back to your earlier question. If you print a lot of money you are inherently going to have inflation, and in inflationary times people in the past have gone to gold as a hedge, as something that is limited, that you can?t print, that has value, and that has happened many, many times over the years. Therefore, I believe that to protect assets that I have I need to have some of my assets in gold.
LS: Off the record you have already told me that you have a problem with the term ?Peak Oil?. Why?
RH: I have a problem with that term because it implies a sharp peak, like a top of a mountain, an inverted V, and it has the connotation that after that occurs there would be disaster. The term I like better is ?The Onset of the Decline of World Oil Production?, because what happened is that we had a little peak already that people call the peak of conventional oil production, and yet nothing terrible has happened. It?s a tiny peak. It?s almost imperceivable looking at graphs. So I have trouble with the term ?Peak Oil? because it implies imminent disaster, whereas the term ?The Onset of the Decline of World Oil Production? is longer, it has more words, but is in fact a much better indicator of the unset of serious problems.
Michael T Klare: The control over the global flow of oil is the 21st century equivalent of nuclear supremacy in the 20th century
Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies (a joint appointment at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst). His books include The Race for What?s Left: The Global Scramble for the World?s Last Resources and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.
Lars Schall: Michael Klare, why are oil and geopolitics so close aligned?
Michael Klare: It began because oil is crucial for warfare, that was how the link with geopolitics began, and this happened during World War I. When oil-powered weapons first made their appearance on the battlefield with oil-powered tanks, airplanes, submarines, and war ships it proved decisive in many ways, and
leaders understood that the future of warfare would be decided by oil-powered weapons. Therefore, it was essential for any major power to have a secure supply of oil in order to supply their armed forces. So a lot of the diplomacy during and after World War I was aimed at securing a supply of oil for the military. This is the beginning of oil geopolitics.
After World War II, it became clear that oil was also essential for the economy of most countries, and therefore it acquired an economic as well as a geopolitical dimension. This is expressed most clearly, I think, in the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which says that the flow of oil from the Middle East is a vital national interest of the United States, not just in military terms, but also in
economic terms, and to protect that flow the United States will use any means necessary, including military force. It was on that very basis that US president George Herbert Walker Bush legitimized the US intervention in the Persian Gulf War of 1990/91.
LS: And you think it remains a dominant factor in US foreign policy today?
MK: Absolutely. Not only for America?s own requirements, although that is very important. The US also seeks to be the most powerful player in controlling the global flow of oil because oil is so crucial to the world?s economy; by controlling the flow of oil the US has control over the world economy in a sense. As I see it, this is the 21st century equivalent of nuclear supremacy in the 20th century.
LS: Yes, and in fact, in Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet you are talking about the equation between oil exporters and oil importers, and you are talking in that respect explicitly about a specific kind of New World Order. What do you mean by that?
MK: I think in a world where energy is essential for economies and where energy is never going to be sufficient to meet growing needs, countries that have a surplus of energy to export are going to be in a privileged, powerful position, and countries that have insufficient energy to meet their needs and are dependent on energy imports are in a disadvantaged situation. The world power hierarchy will be shaped by those with energy-to-export countries; those countries will be in a more dominant position. And countries that are dependent on energy imports are in a more subordinate position.
LS: Do you think that oil exporters like Russia are, related to the high oil price, in a better position than China in the sense that a high oil price is bad for China, and the United States is somewhere in between?
MK: Well, both China and the United States do produce some of their own energy, they are not wholly dependent on imports, they are both in an in-between position. But they do have vulnerabilities because for their liquid fuel, for their oil, they depend on imports from places that are at risk. So their economies will always be hostage to what happens in other places that they cannot control, and it?s that vulnerability that has shaped the foreign policy of the US ever since the Carter Doctrine.
China is now becoming like the United States in a position of vulnerability, and its foreign policy increasingly is being governed in the same way by efforts to get better control over its dependence on foreign suppliers. So this puts it at a disadvantage.
Russia is the only great power of the major powers today that has sufficient domestic energy to supply all of its needs, and it does give it a swagger in international relations that it wouldn?t otherwise enjoy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, if you look at the literature, the assessments made at that time, people thought that Russia would be a declining, disappearing power, it would be reduced to a Third World country; that?s how people spoke about it. That is not true today. And the reason is not because it has a strong military or a strong economy, it doesn?t, it?s because it has tremendous energy resources that puts it in a disproportionately powerful position in the world economy.
LS: Would you say that at least one of the reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed was linked to the low oil price that was coordinated between Washington and Riyadh?
MK: I think there is good evidence that that was part of it, yes. But it was also the fact that the [Ronald] Reagan administration embarked on a military expansion at that time which was very expensive, and the US economy at that time in the Reagan period was capable of a massive military expenditure, which had the calculated intent of forcing the Soviets to keep up. They had then to divert tremendous amounts of money from domestic spending and their foreign clients in order to match US military expenditure, and they couldn?t. The system collapsed under the weight of diminished oil income and higher military expenditures and declining capacity to satisfy their own citizens? expectations.
LS: One result of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the new republics in Central Asia. They see for two decades now a race by different foreign powers to establish pipelines.
MK: Exactly.
LS: Will this continue?
MK: Absolutely. The struggle for Central Asian energy is still very much an active struggle. What?s different from where it was 10 years ago is that China has emerged as a major competitor in this game. China is now investing vast amounts of money to build pipelines from the edge of the Caspian Sea all the way across Central Asia to China. These are some of the most ambitious pipeline projects ever undertaken anywhere in the world. This was not anticipated even a few years ago, but China now is building large pipeline projects.
LS: Why is this the case?
MK: As I see it, this is a response to China?s vulnerability to dependance on sea-borne trade in oil. As China becomes more dependent on oil imports, more and more of it comes by sea from the Middle East and Africa via sea lanes that are dominated by the US Navy, and the Chinese have come to understand that this is a double strategic vulnerability: on one hand they are dependent on imported oil which could be cut-off because of conflict or whatever, on the other hand they can?t even protect their own sea lanes because the US Navy is so much more powerful. So China is very keen to expand its internal lines of communication, the overland lines of communication with pipelines to Central Asia and Russia ? if they can work out the arrangement with the Russians for oil and gas coming from Siberia to minimize their vulnerability to sea-borne oil and gas imports.
LS: For the time being it seems that the most dangerous flash point in the world is the Strait of Hormuz, but in the long run the really most dangerous flash point is the South China Sea, correct?
MK: Yes. At this moment in time the most dangerous place is the Strait of Hormuz because if the current negotiations between the West and Iran fail there is the likelihood that either Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz as a response to tightened economic sanctions, which will then lead to US military action, or the US itself or Israel will initiate military action to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities. I see a high likelihood that military action will occur in the Persian Gulf. But if that happens that will be a rather limited conflict in most likely outcome.
The South China Sea I don?t think is going to produce in the short-term a violent conflict, but it is indeed more dangerous over the long-term because it poses the risk of a conflict between the two greatest powers of the day, China and the United States, because China claims the South China Sea as its national territory, and that claim is contested by other countries ? the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia ? and those countries are allied to the United States; and the United States has said that it will support its Allies in a confrontation with China, and therefore emerges the possibility of naval clashes occurring that will bring both major powers into conflict.
LS: Which role will the energy issue have for the presidential campaign in the US?
MK: I believe that energy will be a dominant, if not the dominant, issue in the presidential campaign because the Republicans with strong support from the oil industry are making this a central feature of their campaign to push for the maximal production of domestic oil and gas resources; pushing energy independence as a national security objective, claiming that this will create jobs, creating the false impression this will lead to cheaper energy prices, [They are] also using all kinds of emotional appeals to a vision of a America of the past when oil was cheap, when suburbia was in bloom, when America was more powerful, claiming that the Obama administration is dominated by environmentalists who want to put their environmentalist agenda ahead of the well-being of ordinary Americans who will benefit presumably from the unlimited exploitation of domestic oil and gas.
Karin Kneissl: Spikes in oil prices are driven artificially.
Kneissl works as an independent energy-analyst, university teacher and writer. She studied law and Arabic at Vienna University, has done postgraduate studies in the USA, Israel, Jordan and Italy and has taught seminars in Turkmenistan and Lebanon, where she is a guest-lecturer in Beirut. Her books include The Energy Poker, which discusses the repercussions of the current financial market crisis on the price of oil and natural gas.
Lars Schall: Ms Kneissl, how did you become interested at all in energy issues?
Karin Kneissl: When I quit from my job at the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs without regrets some years ago, I started as a freelancer to concentrate on energy issues, because in 2000/01 for me it became really the name of the game. For example, when I suggested to teach academic courses on energy issues, the only people who were interested in it were the military people.
These people understood ever since the beginning of the 20th century that there is an immediate link between physical access to oil fields and energy security. This is illustrated by the fact that oil alliances are mostly resulting in military alliances, too. Sheikh Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister, said once back in the 1970s: ?Oil alliances are more solid than Catholic marriages? ? because they are simply meant to remain for a very long time and nobody can cancel them.
LS: Do you think the so called ?War on Terror? is linked to energy?
KK: Fortunately this term doesn?t exist anymore in official terminology of US politics. In 2001 it was meant to fail in many regards for the simple reason that to fight a non-territorial enemy is doomed to fail. There certainly is some linkage due to the fact that several persons inside the Bush administration did back then their utmost to create some sort of linkage between 9/11 and the situation in Afghanistan and the Iraqi regime. But what I would like to point out is the fact that out of the 19 alleged terrorists of the 9/11 attacks, 15 had a Saudi passport and not one of them was of Afghani or Iraqi descent.
LS: And do you think it is by chance that those, let us say, ?phantom enemies? of the US are based where oil and natural gas are based in large amounts, too?
KK: No. But what I think is weird in the whole thing is ? and I am personally against every form of attacking any kind of ?phantom target ? if you would like to be really honest about the dilemma
and if they are insisting on an attack then that should have been made against the central bank of Saudi Arabia because it is the one which is channeling major funds.
LS: Do economists in your view pay enough attention to issues of energy and geopolitics?
KK: What I often realized when teaching courses to people who come from economics or investment is that they lack basic knowledge in history. They have a tendency to interpret supply and demand and price developments purely through their PC screen and rarely undertake the effort to learn more about the
people and the places they are involved with by traveling there or even only by thinking a little bit about the historical contexts.
LS: Is it more difficult to overcome the financial crisis when there is an energy crisis with high oil prices?
KK: I wouldn?t be fixed about high oil prices. The spikes in the oil price of the past years were always driven artificially. There definitely is a current major problem between a sense of bankruptcy in many places and the energy prices, but I wouldn?t really refer them to Peak Oil or other aspects. The major obstacle is in financing the new infrastructure that is needed when it comes to Germany, for example, and the high-voltage highways and new grids. This will be needed in order to to make energy from renewable energy sources come online. France faces similar problems in order to innovate the grids, and in order to keep maintenance costs for fairly old nuclear power plants.
LS: Do you consider it as important that Iran is looking for different means for the pricing of oil like gold? [2]
KK: Iran has announced different options for many years, but so far nothing has really materialized. In my eyes, the whole Iran factor is hyped by the media. Moreover, when I talk to people from OPEC, of course, there is a lot of thinking of finding new currency baskets ? though this is something that is not only driven by oil producing countries, but rather as far as I have understood by major consuming nations, inter alia the People?s Republic of China. And even The Economist published some years ago several articles in the sense that there?s a need for a currency basket that truly reflects the current situation and that the US dollar as the lead currency should be replaced by a more balanced currency basket, where gold could be one of the ingredients.
LS: Have the countries in the Middle East a special affinity for gold?
KK: I think they trust gold to the same extent as many other countries. Russia considers gold as a solid form of currency and not as a commodity as it has been treated by several banks and governments of the Western hemisphere. This is not something exclusive specific to Middle Eastern countries. India would be another example.
LS: Since 2002, the peak of oil production in Europe has been passed. [3] What does this mean for this continent and its relations to the central and eastern parts of Eurasia ? since that?s where the oil and gas is?
KK: Well, when you go to Eurasia ? I have been in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan several times over the past years ? , the pipelines there are all turning to the East and the South. Nabucco [a proposed pipeline to transport gas to Europe from the Caspian] is just the most famous failure of the European effort to diversify and to bring natural gas in from Central Asia. Europe has no energy strategy, and the countries in Eurasia have no one they can negotiate with ? the energy commissioner of the EU, for example, has a very limited mandate. In the end they will always have to sit down with the people from the energy companies.
LS: Since we have talked about the oil price, what kind of a role do you think the futures market and banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup play regarding the oil price? And would you agree with me that the Peak Oil people underestimate the forces of the futures markets?
KK: Well, I must admit that I am not too familiar with the level of knowledge of the Peak Oil people related to the futures markets. Personally, I think that you have to take it most definitely into account. When I am asked about the factors that drive the price of oil and also many other forms of energy, it?s the supply and demand, of course, it?s geopolitics, it?s the weather, it?s demography, but it?s also the financial markets, and the latter is a very important force.
LS: Do the financial markets need to be regulated in this market in a much tougher manner?
KK: Oh, the financial markets need to be regulated in so many areas. I am afraid that the regulation that will come will be the big bang of nationalization and centralization ? that is not the kind of form of regulation that I am waiting for. I studied law in the early 1980s, and the law that I studied when it comes to financial market affairs by and large had nothing to do with the absence of law as it is practiced today, which is the result of the liberalization of the markets.
You have to put certain control mechanisms and sanctions into place when something wrong is committed. We have seen that the financial markets today simply went out of control. And I think that the volatility of the oil market, in particular in 2008, was a pre-taste of what we have seen afterwards in so many other areas ? food prices, for example. In general, as far as I am concerned, the financial markets have lost all logic.
Daniele Ganser: 9/11 and Peak Oil must be linked in a coherent geostrategic analysis
Ganser is a Swiss historian who specializes in international relations and international history from 1945 to today. He is director of the Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER) and teaches at Swiss universities, including the history department of Basel University. He is the author of NATO?s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe
Lars Schall: Mr Ganser, you are here at the ASPO conference the only researcher who?s willing to connect Peak Oil with 9/11. What is your experience with this approach?
Daniele Ganser: There was a book published in the US a few years ago by Michael Ruppert which was called Crossing the Rubicon, and Ruppert basically said that Richard Cheney, the vice president of the Bush administration, manipulated the terror attacks of 9/11 in order to have the whole population of the United States ready for resource wars that would be fought under the pre-text of fighting terrorism. [4]
And Michael Ruppert has put up a very important question, he asked: is it really a hunt for bin Laden or is it a hunt for oil and gas? He has been very clear about his answer: the whole bin Laden thing is nonsense, it is actually and very clearly a hunt for oil and gas. And here within the ASPO network people know that oil and gas are in decline, and therefore I added this 9/11 debate, and some people were scared because of it and others thought that these are exactly the right questions to ask.
LS: With regards to Richard Cheney, he headed in spring of 2001 a very important Energy Task Force. The records of this Energy Task Force are kept secret. In 2012 we are still discussing at this conference the uncertainty related to reserves and data secrecy. Wouldn?t it be necessary to open the records of this Energy Task Force to the public because they might contain the most accurate reserve data?
DG: Well, it would certainly be interesting to see those records. We know from a speech that Cheney gave in 1999 in London at the Petroleum Institute that he was very well aware of the problem of oil depletion. [5] Cheney?s solution to the problem was violence. He was wrong with that. He was right that the oil supply is in decline and that the big reserves are in the Middle East ? and that?s exactly what you find in the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), the data that is available indicates that Cheney and his group were looking at this very, very closely.
LS: And so you would say that the 9/11 research is incomplete without a thorough investigation of what the NEPDG did?
DG: Yes, and we would learn a lot about oil through this. The debate of the Bush administration for six months was an energy debate, and it was basically a debate during which the NEPDG was looking at global oil supply. Already at that time they were talking about the supplies in Iraq and a war in Iraq ? we know this from Paul O?Neill, for instance, the US Treasury Secretary back then. [6]
So it was an energy debate in the first half of 2001, and in the second half of 2001 everything changed ? it was then a debate about terrorism. I find this very peculiar because it actually started with 9/11. And yes, I believe you are absolutely right: 9/11 and Peak Oil must be linked in a coherent geostrategic analysis.
LS: Is this also a reason why you focus in your work increasingly on the topic of resource wars?
DG: I think that the war in Iraq in 2003 was a resource war in which hundred of thousands of people were killed. So this is a very important phenomenon for peace research. I am very much engaged in the peace research movement, thus I have focussed in 2011 on Libya because that war to me was again a resource war. Now we have this debate whether we?ll have a war against Iran or not. Of course, I hope we won?t have a war against Iran, but obviously Iran has some of the biggest conventional crude oil supplies in the world. They also have very huge supplies of natural gas.
Then we have a conflict between North and South Sudan, we see tensions between China and the Philippines because of the energy resources in the South China Sea, and all these issues must be addressed directly; we cannot say all of these things are a promotion of democracy as was said in the Libya case, or it is about weapons of mass destruction as was argued in the case of Iraq. That?s why I think that we must talk about these issues openly so that people know that Peak Oil wars are going on, and if they know it I hope they will ask the logical question: what is Peak Oil?
LS: In the case of Iran, do you perceive it as interesting that the Iranians are trying to get away from the pricing of oil in US dollars?
DG: I know that there is a debate about this, but until now we see that the dollar still dominates the global crude oil market, which means if you want to buy oil you have to have dollars and that actually gives the Americans a lot of influence and power. Obviously after Nixon abandoned the link between gold and the dollar in 1971, the US can actually create dollars at no costs, and this has lead to a situation in which they have flooded the system, there is a lot of money in the system that is created out of thin air, out of nothing. Thus, on the one hand we are facing the limits of nature, but on the other hand we don?t see it because we put a lot of dollar over it.
LS: As you know there is a growing number of people ? and these are not stupid people ? that say Peak Oil is a myth, invented by the oil companies to prop up their revenues. How do you counter this?
DG: I know that F William Engdahl, for instance, says this, and Engdahl is a highly intelligent man, no doubt about it. [7] I don?t agree with him, but that?s the point: the world is a complex place and organism, and many people who are intelligent come to different conclusions related to what is actually going on. As to the specific question of biotic and abiotic oil, I look at the decline of the oil supply in the North Sea, I look at the decline of the British and Norwegian production, and I come to the conclusion that this decline is real. The British are now net importers of oil at a price of roughly US$100, they sold their oil when it was at $10 or $15. Of course, they would not import any oil unless it was not absolutely necessary. They do it to my understanding because they really have this problem of depletion.
Jeremy Gilbert: We need an independent view of what the oil reserves are.
Gilbert is managing director of Barrelmore Ltd, which provides
technical audit and training support to the oil industry worldwide. He retired from British Petroleum (BP) in 2001 where he was responsible as resource development manager for the company?s worldwide petroleum engineering performance and associated research and development program.
Lars Schall: How did you come to the topic of Peak Oil as someone who worked for the oil industry?
Jeremy Gilbert: Well, that?s an interesting question. I worked for the oil industry for nearly 40 years, and I still work in the oil industry although I am retired from my job at BP. When I worked for the industry, my job was basically trying to increase the company?s reserves ? my responsibility was coming up with ways of improving recovery efficiency. I suppose I didn?t really think an awful lot about the world situation, I thought about the countries I was working in and I thought about the company?s situation.
When I retired and went back to live in Ireland where I came from originally, I found myself living just a few miles from another retired oil man, whose name is Colin Campbell. He was one of the people who on his retirement had become involved in studying world oil reserves and world oil supply based on those reserves. He convinced himself and a few other people that the world was heading towards a point where supply was going to reach a limit. My initial reaction was that this was rubbish. Granted, there would be a limit ultimately, but I thought it was many, many decades away.
So I set myself the challenge of proving to Colin that he was wrong. I spent a lot of time with Colin, and I ended up failing to convince him that he was wrong, in fact I convinced myself that I was wrong. I became a convert to the concept of an early peak in oil supply and the fact that it is going to come to a maximum sometime in the near future.
LS: There is a huge problem connected with the issue of Peak Oil and that is the data secrecy related to reserves. Why is it important to overcome this secrecy?
JG: Currently, when we talk about oil supply we are completely dependant on data given to us by the oil producing countries and oil producing companies. We have no way of assessing the accuracy of that data, and in fact we know that a lot of uncertainty is associated with it, but we don?t know how much uncertainty is associated with it. Because oil is so important to the world economy, I believe that we need to be able to independently check the accuracy of the data given to us by the oil industry.
LS: And why is it important to know more about the reserves?
JG: It?s important to know more about the reserves because the size of the reserve determines how quickly we could produce that oil ? if the reserves are very large then we can tolerate high production rates for a long time, if the reserves are small we may still be able to produce oil at high rates as we do currently, but the oil won?t last very long. So we do need an independent view of what those reserves are. The evidence that we have suggests that some countries have grossly overestimated or over-reported their reserves.
LS: Then there is also the problem with the maximum bearable costs of oil for the economy.
JG: Well, I?m not an economist, but it seems to me that when the oil price peaked four years ago at round about $147 per barrel, it peaked just about at the level where people were unwilling to pay for it. Of course, there is a lot of talk about whether or not speculators drove the price up to that level, but whatever got the price up there, it was falling demand that got it down again.
So I think there is a maximum price level that people are prepared to tolerate or can afford to pay, whether they are poor farmers in Bangladesh or whether they are millionaires in Manhattan, and that maximum sets the price that the oil industry gets for its oil and sets a limit on the technology the industry can apply to developing their reserves. Therefore, we really need to know what the reserves are, we need to know how those reserves can be translated into supply, and we need to know how people?s need for oil is effected by the price they have to pay for it.
LS: Why do you think there is no meaningful debate going on between the oil industry and people like you?
JG: I genuinely think that people in the industry are still to some extent in ignorance about what?s happening around them. So they are reluctant to talk to us, partly because they are afraid of showing their ignorance, and partly, of course, because if there truly is a peak and a significant decline in oil supply coming, the oil companies don?t want to spur research into alternative forms of energy.
So I think there is an element of fooling themselves, an element of not really understanding the true situation, and an element of fear.
Notes:
1. ?Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management? by Robert L Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, Robert Wendling. February 2005.
2. See ?Sinking the Petrodollar in the Persian Gulf? by Pepe Escobar. Tom Dispatch, January 17, 2012.
3. See ?Europa am Peak? by Norbert Rost. Telepolis July 9, 2012.
4. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C Ruppert. New Society Publishers, 2004.
5. Full text of Dick Cheney?s speech at the Institute of Petroleum Autumn Lunch, 1999. Energy Bulletin, June 8, 2004.
6. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O?Neill, by Ron Suskind. Simon and Schuster, 2004.
7. See ?Confessions of an ?ex? Peak Oil Believer,? F William Engdahl. September 14, 2007.
Biographies:
Robert Hirsch is a Senior Energy Program Advisor at SAIC, a Senior Energy Advisor at MISI, and a consultant in energy, technology, and management. Previously, he was a senior staff member at RAND (energy policy analysis), Executive Advisor at Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (environmental and defense R & D), Vice President of the Electric Power Research Institute, and Vice President and Manager of Research and Technical Services for Atlantic Richfield Co. (oil and gas exploration and production). He was the founder and CEO of APTI (commercial & defense technologies), manager of Exxon?s synthetic fuels research laboratory (coal & shale conversion), manager of Petroleum Exploratory Research at Exxon (refining R & D), assistant administrator of the US Energy Research and Development Administration responsible for renewables, fusion, geothermal and basic research (presidential appointment), and director of fusion research at the US Atomic Energy Commission and ERDA. His education is in engineering and physics.
Michael T Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies (a joint appointment at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), and Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies, a position he has held since 1985. Before assuming his present post, he served as Director of the Program on Militarism and Disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC (1977-84). Professor Klare has written widely on US defense policy, the arms trade, and world security affairs. He is the author of numerous books including The Race for What?s left: The Global Scramble for the World?s Last Resources (Metropolitan Books, 2012), Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy?(Metropolitan Books, 2008), and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America?s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (Metropolitan Books, 2004). Professor Klare received his BA and MA from Columbia University in 1963 and 1968, respectively, and his PhD from the Graduate School of the Union Institute in 1976.
Karin Kneissl works as an independent energy-analyst, university teacher and writer. She authored several books and articles on energy and Middle East related topics. From 1990 to 1998 she served in the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She studied law and Arabic at Vienna University, did several postgraduate studies in the USA, Israel, Jordan and Italy. Recently, she taught several seminars in Turkmenistan and Lebanon, where she works as guest-lecturer in Beirut. She teaches in Vienna (Diplomatic Academy, Military Academy) and at the European Business School (Frankfurt). Her publications range from books on the Middle East (The Cycle of Violence, 2007) to diplomacy (The Invention of Diplomacy, 2009). In 2008 a second and revised edition of the book The Energy Poker was launched in Munich, wherein the repercussions of the current financial market crisis on the price of oil and natural gas are tackled. Her articles on the energy market have been published in peer-reviewed journals, notably in India, Poland and France.
Daniele Ganser is a Swiss historian who specializes in international relations and international history from 1945 to today. His research interests are peace research, geostrategy, secret warfare, resource wars, globalization and human rights. He is Director of the Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER) and teaches at Swiss universities, including the history department of Basel University. He is author of the book NATO?s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe (Routledge, 2004). From 2001 to 2003 Mr Ganser was a senior researcher with the Think Tank Avenir Suisse in Zurich, after which he became a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH in Zurich, a position he held until 2006. Mr Ganser has researched at the Military Academy of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He has been invited several times by the Swiss parliament to offer his expertise on matters of foreign and security policy. He obtained his Master in history in 1998 summa cum laude and his PhD in history in 2001 insigni cum laude.
Jeremy Gilbert is managing director of Barrelmore Ltd, a company providing technical audit and training support to the oil industry worldwide. He retired from British Petroleum (BP) in 2001 where he was responsible as resource development manager for the company?s worldwide petroleum engineering performance and associated research and development program. He joined BP in 1964, worked as production engineer in Libya, the US, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi ? prior to eight years in Iran in reservoir engineering posts and as planning manager. From 1979, he supervised BP?s North Sea reservoir engineering and later managed all BP?s UK petroleum and reservoir engineering activities. He has worked in San Francisco as vice president of BP Alaska Exploration before returning to UK in 1987 as technical manager. In 1988 he was appointed BP?s chief petroleum engineer. He has been chairman of Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh)?s Industrial Advisory Board, a member of Imperial College (London)?s and of University of Alaska (Fairbanks)?s Industrial Advisory Boards, and an external examiner for Masters? courses at Robert Gordon?s University (Aberdeen) and Heriot-Watt Universities.
Asia Times Online
Source: http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/oil-politics-and-resource-wars/
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