She's Lost Control

I noticed this short story in the Dominion Post yesterday, regarding the legendary Ian Curtis wall.













And it got me thinking about the original. No not the last original - this was the last one, which has it's merits - or should I say had, thanks to Wellington City Councils anti-tagging unit.

But the original original, circa 1980. I remember going to Welly Polytech and seeing it everyday. I remember having a vinyl copy of Love Will Tear Us Apart - and remembering how amazing it was as a song.

I thought to myself Ian Curtis would be about 53 yrs old. That's not that old. He could be still making music. But then so could have Kurt Cobain.



The Ian Curtis wiki page reports the wall has been repainted - last night, 17th 2009. I was hoping to make a short documentary of the subsequent repainting, too late, I guess I played my part. ;-)

General Motors seeks US$30b to avoid failure.

Have the Governments of the world forgotten how economics works?

If you can't sell enough product to survive then you have no right to be here. What the Governments of the world are doing is allowing business to believe they have rights outside of operating in a market. OK, there is an economic downturn. But ask yourself why? I'm not going to answer that but what I will say is this.

The post-war project of endless economic growth and the resultant suburban dream is over. We won't be resuming revolving credit anytime soon. The growth cycle is over. And I'm not talking about the supposed 7 year residential property cycle. I'm talking the industrial/information age in its current disguise, is over.

Ok, lets assume the US Govt prop up General Motors with a $30b bail out. Then what? Who's buying cars?

Remember how much oil was per barrel before this fiasco all started? I'll ask again, what do you think caused this "economic collapse" in the first place.

IEA admits Peak Oil

Traditionally the (International Energy Agency) IEA, has shyed away from the question of peak oil, the idea that we have, or are about to hit the maximum level of global oil production, after which we will begin an irrecoverable decline. However George Monbiot, award winning journalist from the Guardian discusses the question with Fatih Birol, the IEAs chief economist. The results are interesting.




On Peak Oil and the Current Economic "Situation"
Interestingly, or perhaps amazingly almost no one has been willing to admit (or perhaps even understands) the reasons for the current global economic financial crisis. I have always been of the view that the rapid surge in energy (oil) prices created the financial conditions whereby continued "economic growth" would grind to a halt. Incidently I've been saying this for years, take a stroll through this blog site to see that. Once oil hit a certain price I predicted that global growth would slow and eventually halt. In my opinion $150 a barrel oil is what triggered the credit crisis, basically the downturn hit the most vulnerable part of the financial sector - what is now called "toxic assets".

Finally I have a reference - Reggie Abaca of Market Rap is saying the same thing.

And in case you are shocked that I'm writing about peak oil again, well, just so you know, I spent the day editing a publication on Information Ethics for inclusion in a selection of papers from the 2008 ITPNZ Research Forum. The PhD is still in the forefront of my mind. Finally, Mike Moreu's cartoon today sums a lot up. Kiwi's still seem to be in denial regarding this economic situation.

mala tempora currunt

PhD update (now there's an excuse for not blogging)

Is there a rule that every blog entry should begin with a (Smiths) song lyric, or a latin phrase?

I've omitted the song lyric and I couldn't figure out the latin for "told ya so". And anyway that sounds petty and immature, and as readers, you will no doubt be aware, that I'm trying to not do petty and immature anymore. Call it a New Years resolution if you like.

Well, when I say every blog entry, I guess I mean... um, just my blog entries. I wouldn't expect that rabble of kiwi political bloggers - the boring lot that seem obsessed with blogging about current affairs and what John Key is doing and etc. That incestuous crowd that all quote each others blogs and use such tiresome bloggese like, "hat tip", or "blog roll". oops there's me going all petty again. (yes, that was meant to be so unfunny as to be funny - weird how circular humour can be)

Mala tempora currunt means something like bad times are upon us.

Upon me I mean, no I'm not talking about the "credit crunch" or the "global downturn", "banking crisis" (whatever), we "talked ourselves into this recession" don't you know. And we're now busily talking ourselves into a depression (apparently) - yippee. I love natural disasters, I remember racing off to view the Hutt River in full flood as a kid wondering what it would look like if it actually broke it's banks. I remember in my mid 20s being fascinated by an approaching "dangerous" cyclone whilst living on the Gold Coast.


Perhaps a Samuel Butler quote would work. I discovered this by reading Norbert Wiener's, Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation. Wiener is generally credited for bringing to our attention, in the 1950s, computer ethics - he contended that "machines can and do transcend some of the limitations of their designers (and today we'd probably have to add, their users) and that in doing so they may be both effective and dangerous".

However, Butler's predictions were far more extreme - in 1863 he wrote an essay which was published in the Christchurch Press, he said

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life.

I think it was, to some extent, Butler who inspired Wiener. A few years ago I walked past Butlers Forest Stream hut. Forest Stream is a tributary of the Rangitata, it runs up into the Two Thumb range, for a summer expedition i traversed the range solo - a far more satisfactory pursuit than blogging under any conditions. Which reminds me, I need some mountain time. I didn't go up to Butlers hut, it was on the other side of the river and I didn't feel like crossing it - not that it was overly dangerous, just the previous year I'd had a minor scare in a swollen MaCauley river (on the Lake Tekapo side of the two thumb range) and crossing swiftly flowing streams unecessarily (a kind of natural disaster) wasn't on my wish list.

Anyway, back to the writing. (progress report - literature review of Information Ethics)

Life, love and in vino veritas

Every day is like sunday,
Every day is silent and grey.


Happiness part 1.

There is some chimerical line that is crossed, somewhere between 35 and 45. It's the point of no *romantic* return. Mortgages, kids and flat screen TVs take precedence over "well up for it" tottie. Maybe I should be saying "real love", or maybe what idealists might call "true happiness", takes over.

But hold on a minute, "happiness", jesus what the hell is that, happiness is truely dumb. Movies and weddings end in happiness. Happiness is an afternoon nap, on a blissfully languid sunday afternoon. Happiness is something, but it's not life, certainly not a life lived. When you look back, on your one and only life, what more a tragic thought could one ponder than, i never really lived.



I'm happy with not being happy, this fact confuses people. I'm often accused of being "a little bit of a lost soul", perhaps I'd be happier if I saw a spiritual advisor, or meditated or something. Please don't make the logical mistake (no apologies however for the 98% of you that do) I'm not saying I am unhappy (denying the antecedent for the geeks). What I am saying is that "happiness" is overated.



Personally I think excitement rates higher than happiness. Forget contentment, lifes too short for that, you can be content when you are dead. The problem with excitement is that it comes barbed, particularly in your suburban nuclear family setting. Excitement is as inherently risky as happiness precedes brain-dead mediocrity. Given the choice of excitement vs happiness, You can guess what I'd choose. It's a boy thing, no fuck it, it's a man thing - nothing wrong with that is there - we love adventure. Why do I skate, climb mountains on my own etc (at 45) because the alternative sucks - I see the 30-something risk-averse-daddys with 50-something guts supervising their scooter riding kids at Waitangi Park tragically dressed by their pursed-lipped wives - that's happiness!??

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with "relationships", or kids, I have both, in fact I recommend them both - but you die one day, get that, one day you are going to die. In reality, love and death are the only things that really matter.

A historic moment.

As many of you know, I have been talking about oil and our global economy, for a few years now. Many of the events now unfolding in the face of complete disbelief to many people are right here in this blog. In the last few days we have seen the highest single day spike of oil since it was first pumped out of the ground.

It's timely to compile a few links to my articles/rantings/predictions - from the beginning of this blog.

Suburbias Looming Fire Sale - 2004 (and of course this has now started)
People are deluded if they think the way we live can continue indefinately. More suburban sprawl and housing estates, DVD's, Plasma screen TV's, never ending ships with full of imported Cherokee Jeeps... this is all gonna end - soonish.

During 2004 I invented a "Lobby Group" to get the word out. Here's an early PowerLess NZ press release.
New Zealand politicians are intent on ignoring the problem and continue to build and plan a multibillion-dollar fossil fuel dependant infrastructure.

All the PowerLess NZ Releases I wrote are here.
Here is a quote of mine from 2005.
The credit-card-fed/mortgage orgy will not be sustainable once the hand-brake of late 80s like interest rates bite as oil prices go through the canopy.

I predicted Stagflation back in April 2004. Here is the wikipedia explanation of Stagflation.
Economic growth necessarily depends on a cheap energy subsidy, to grow economically one needs to increase energy consumption. As the price of oil continues to creep upwards the spectre of oil-shock induced stagflation looms.

An essay I wrote for the NZ Futures Trust.
The article was called Peak Oil: An Austere Future - I hate to say "told you so" but unfortunately, it seems to be the case.

Once the peak does occur the price for a commodity for which demand now supplants supply will result inevitably in lower or negative growth.

If you've only just started thinking about this - look around you. Look at what's happening, and look how long I've been talking about it. It's going to get worse. Get to grips with the reality as soon as you can.

Playing Favorites #4

The long awaited 4th track on my playing favorites. I just had a feeling, right now of sadness, because I'm on the other side of peak. I only have one more track after this, so the pressure naturally gets tighter on this side of the five. There could be a significant delay before #5.

Wigan's The Verve are a band that I didn't pay too much attention to in the early 90s when they were at the top of their game. I was busy doing the electronica thing, dance parties, raves, ecstacy etc. Although I always loved rock.

So, a long time after the event, I'm putting on the CD player all those bands that actually started the whole thing, the Madchester sound. I wouldn't blame you if you thought that some of the Verve is sentimental - it is. But in amongst that sentimentality is some pure class, pure rock. This track, has it's namesake in Oasis, but it's a totally different track. Slide Away. The Verves version is glam, dark, slightly goth, probably what today kids would call emo. Fully emo in actual fact. This Is Music. And it's true. You can hear almost everyone in this, everyone from The Cult, thru aussies class late 80s pub act The Screaming Tribesman, Vedder, NZ's Bailterspace - I could go on. If Cobain was alive today you could be sure he'd have this track in his collection - so would Ian Curtis for that matter.

Ironically it wasn't until 97 that the Verve were featured on the cover of NME a few years after their big American outing at Lolapalooza. And a year before that this track topped the UK indie charts. The Verve are arguably the most underated of the brit rock bands - overshadowed at the time by Oasis and the Stone Roses. But, then, there is always something cool about the underdog.

I give you number 4. The Verve's, Slide Away - you can hear it at their myspace page. From their debut album "a storm in heaven" - A true rock classic. If you consider yourself cool in anyway whatsoever - you need this in your collection - get it tomorrow. Put it on at your next party.

Verve - Slide Away
So take your time
I wonder if you're here just to use my mind
Don't take it slow
You know I've got a place to go
You always do that
Something I'm not sure of
But just for today
Let go and slide away

I was thinking maybe we could go outside
Let the night sky cool your foolish pride
Don't you feel alive
These are your times and our highs

So take your time
I wonder which cup you'll drink from
I hope it's mine
Beause you always do that something
Something I'm not sure of
But just for today
Let go and burn away
'Cause I read your mind
I need it because it takes me where I can't find
Because you always do that something
Something I'm not sure of
But just for today
Let go and burn away

[repeat]

Slide Away burn away
Slide Away burn away
I read your mind
I read your mind
'Cause it takes me to where I can't find...

Am I scaring you?

I think it's because I'm clumsy

I try not to talk too loud

Maybe it's because I'm crazy

I try not to act too proud

An Apology.

Last week I published a blog here (subsequently deleted) running down a NZ academic organisation. The blog also referenced a few individuals which I may well have inadvertantly offended. I didn't have that intention. The blog was written in the heat of a moment, overly emotive - a few swear words thrown in. But, it was over the top.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But there are better more appropriate ways to voice them than just lashing out. I've always been something of a subversive - however I'm upset myself, that I have upset a few people that I have a lot of respect for.

I apologise for the article - particularly to those that I upset or offended. It was silly and somewhat childish - sorry.

Sincerely
Steve.

Scooter Rage - It's a mod thing

What is it about the general (generally stupid) public that they feel they have the duty to accost scooter riders and make motherly obtuse comments about our riding ability or behaviours? Not to mention moronic retards driving several tonnes of metal who think it their god given function in life to run you off the road because you sneaked ahead of them in a queue.

I mean for fucks sake if I was on a Triumph Bonneville 850 they wouldn't dare come near me.

Riding to work this morning at a round about a queue of traffic was banked up, my usual behaviour in this situation is to carefully pick my way to the start of the queue - gods sake, that's the reason WHY I ride a scooter. As I slowed scooted my way to the front a car in front of me spotted me and move forward and right to stop my progress, this just made me laugh because I simply ran the diagonal directly behind her and continued up the left hand side of the stationary traffic.

I glanced in the passenger side window as I cruised past only to see this haggard frustrated middle aged cow who's spent far too long sunbathing in her youth mouthing obsenities that I had no chance of hearing - her head was doing figure 8 movements with irritation at the fact that I didn't have to sit like her in a non-moving vehicle.

Anyway - the story continues. I stopped at pak-and-save for a muffin, they do the best muffins, great price too. As I emerged with my muffin, there she was, she was visiting pak and save too. She let rip with this tirade about how I ought to be careful - blah blah blah. I just laughed and scooted off.

***

I think it was Nietzsche that said the 'ideal world' is lie concocted to deprive reality of its value, its meaning, its truth. How can people bear to move through their lives with this collectively imposed ideology of mediocrity. Why should I want to live by the ideals of others, others that hold no importance or significance to me. I feel sorry for that woman, living her life with little more than the empty blandishments offered up via her motherly chastisements and passionless asceticism.

Ok, enough - I'm going to eat my muffin now.

A couple of post-scripts

Seems like nobody needs or wants Tamiflu anymore - " Thousands of doses of bird-flu medication languish on pharmacy shelves after the public ordered them in a state of pandemic hysteria – but never bothered picking them up."

Doh, wasn't this supposed to be the pandemic that wiped the fucking earth clean? Rush out guys, tamiflu on special at your local pharmacy.

Oil is almost $100 a barrel. Um... I think I mentioned a couple of years ago that by 2007 we'd be looking at $100 a barrel oil. Interestingly mainstream media are still oblivious to the issue, fascinated with pop-gun terrorists in the far north and Heathrow hotel All Black shennanigans. Before long NZ's answer to exburban redneck bogans and their soccer mom wives, "Straight Outa Riverstone Terraces" will be whinging and moaning about the cost of filling up the VW toe rag. The cost of transporting the kids to school 2 blocks away suddenly went postal. How the hell will mum with her 2 hour daily commute to her $35,000 pa job on the Terrace afford the weekly petrol bill?

And to think everyone thought Robert Atack (http://www.oilcrash.com/) was a fruitloop. He told us years ago to expect this... and there is more to come soon - stay tuned folks.

A Previous Comment

I did say it, back in February actually, that I thought blogging was pretty dull. As one might guess from the temporal gap between this blog and the previous, my actions are reconciled with my fingertips.

I think blogging is dull - I just felt like saying it again. It's had it's day. Please note - this doesn't mean I think all bloggers are dull, although most are, I know one that is not.

I've moved to a new more expressive, yet less precise medium. I've always been novelty driven - so call me shallow, do I look like I care.

I suppose I won't be able to help myself and pass comment as I see fit. However, currently I've stuck to minimalistic titles and left interpretation up to the viewer. Mostly this is where I hang out these days. You get the picture, follow the link.

I can just about smell the CO2 on your breath

On Thursday 14th June I fly to Amsterdam to attend E-CAP'07, a Philosophy and Computing Conference. Check out the Conference Programme - in vivid technicolour, I am scheduled in to talk on the Saturday, just before lunch in the "Philosophy of Information and Information Technology" stream. After the conference I've been invited to visit Oxford University (PhD Supervisor is currently in residence there) later I'm heading up to Scotland.

To hell with the carbon footprint. I'm there for "academic purposes" and I'm bringing my new toy so I'll post up shots of locations and interesting sights on google maps for those interested. I've set up a "Steve in Amsterdam" map set on Google Maps - keep an eye from Saturday 16th June onwards.

Flickr Photo set (to date)

I'll be checking email and will use my blog site (here!) as a virtual base. Feel free to leave comments.

(I've disabled comment moderation so comment away willy nilly...)

Playing Favorites #3

I said to my gorgeous brother Stu last night, whom with his lovely partner Fritha hosted me for dinner and quality beverage, that I want to totally revise my Top 5 "imaginary Kim Hill playing favorites", incidently it's become a game...

We couldn't agree about whether you ought to include a novelty track, and the definition of a novelty track couldn't be adequately agreed upon either, it could be a reference, or dedication type track, one that you remember whilst growing up, or that your parents played, or it could simply be pure novelty, excluding the chicken dance song, the following selection might help the confused - I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt, Hands Up Baby Hands Up, Baby Got Back - Sir Mixalot. Hammond Organs featured as instruments appropriate for novelty tracks, but by the time we'd agreed to our inability to form a consensus, we'd discussed again all the tracks we know that have dogs barking in them, and I had played the Pixies and Stu was scanning a Joy Division CD cover, and we were onto the single malt.

Anyway - Chris Bourke (what happened to Mark?), I am now officially a D-list celeb, I got mentioned in the first paragraph of Dave Hansford's Listener article last week. So - come on mate. I'd so get on with Kim, and I'd tell her all about (re: the infamous John Campbell letter) how I had to shared a jersey with my younger brother, growing up in Waitangirua. The poor immigrant Scottish family and how I'm doing a PhD in Philosophy - and one of my supervisors is in residence at Oxford University, the other at Australian National University. As Ian Dury correctly points out, "There ain't half been some clever bastards, lucky bleeders"

So, in anycase, and as the case may be, in fact as the case is, at least in this case. My top 5 has a distinctively British rock theme - and so, I may as well continue where I left off.

Here it is number 3. Ready for the weekend. Mark, I am in Holland, Oxford and the UK in a couple of weeks on academic business so will be unavailable until mid july. But, well mate, I'll await the call up.

Nothing Precious At All. Stereophonics, from the "You Gotta Go There to Come Back" album.

I'm a nostalgia freak, like I said earlier, I'm not sure if it is an affliction bought about by listening to music after having a few wines, or if it is indeed a mental condition in it's own right. Whatever, this song does it for me. It burns nostalgia. It reminds me of glory days, maybe it's the old school piano riff at the beginning, but then it slots beautifully into a punchy bass line, and then there is Kelly Jone's inimitable voice. Sublime! "She's got red hair and a motorbike and lime green shoes" - it's hard not to sympathise with the character in Jone's lyrics. The song could have come straight out of the 70s, but it has a distinctive 21st century feel.

If you are going to buy one Stereophonics album - get this one.

Nothing Precious At All

I been people watching again

I think they watch me too

There's a new girl at the coffee house

She's got first day blues

She's got red hair and a motorbike

And lime green shoes

A mohair hat and a summers dress

And black tattoos

And then she fly away

In her high heel feet

And her fire dress

And she's throwing things

That took her time to save it up

And buy what's special

Then she look around

And sees what's left

And it's nothing much

Nothing precious at all

Nothing precious at all

Gonna drink herself to sleep tonight

And that's nothing new

She goes out almost nine every night

And gets high as the moon

She takes photographs of American cars

Where she went to school

She likes fireworks and candlelight

And fake bad news

And then she fly away

In her high heel feet

And her fire dress

And she's throwing things

That took her time to save it up

And buy what's special

Then she look around

And sees what's left

And it's nothing much

Nothing precious at all

Nothing precious at all

Nothing precious at all

Is she a loner or a mother's girl

That's up to you

She got fine lines round her tired eyes

And they're painted blue

She could sleep around with anyone

If she wanted to

Gotta go my time is up right now

Got stuff to do

Focus















... however, the dilemma we face is never too far from my mind

Just fingering it out

"I look around at a beautiful life, been the upperside of down, been the inside of out, but we breathe, we breathe" Stereophonics

At the urging of a friend (I was going to say incessant urging but that would be labouring the point, not to mention exaggerating) I've decided to write an entry about - well, nothing at all, about what blog entries are usually about. Life, irritation, frustration, joy, sex (or lack thereof), drinking (are there blog entries about drinking?).

It's meant to be revealing, and honest or at least frank (there is a subtle difference) I think, therefore - something or other. But this kind of "creative" (kick) writing isn't my forte. I'm caught, my life that is, in non-fiction, and on the creative kick I'd usually resort to plaigerising Byork lyrics, like tell me the stories, play me the tunes that crack you up. Or, that I'm no fucking buddhist but this is enlightenment...

Probably that is enough, I mean above. But I haven't told you much at all. I wish I was, just for a moment a beat poet. Then I could say something cool and subliminally meaningful or at least evocative, stirring and

Maybe I need a topic - Nostalgia. There you go. I'll create a whole new blogger label for it. It's a funny thing (nostalgia) it's almost like a mental condition. He's suffering from nostalgia, which is contributing to his alcohol abuse. Or perhaps the causation runs the other way, it's the alcohol that causes the nostalgia. Don't ever drink alcohol whilst listening to this CD. That should be a warning sticker on CD's that contain ballads from about 10 years ago...

What happened to my youth? It feels like someone else lived it. Not me. That doesn't seem fair.

Playing Favorites #2

Thought it was about time I published song number 2 on the list of 5. "Playing Favorites" is slot on Saturday morning Radio NZ National. The producer of the show hosted by Kim Hill is a bloke called Mark Cubey, quite an affable character, check out my previous Playing Favorites selection, over time I will produce five of them. If you reckon I'd sound ok ranting and raving about nothing on National Radio, email Mark Cubey and tell him "put Steve on playing favs..."

Wot a fuckin tragedy

In 2003 I read an interview with Paul Weller, he rated this band I'd never heard of called the Libertines, (produced by The Clash's Mick Jones it held some mysterious promise, particular given Joe Strummers untimely death).
I scoured Wellington for a copy of Up The Bracket, their first album that barely made it onto the UK album charts despite good reviews from NME. What the fuck were you listening to back then - Westlife?

The Libertines changed everything. As Anthony Thornton rightly argues - post-Libertines bands rule the UK charts now - Arctic Monkeys, Brightons Kooks, and Scotlands Dundee boys The View. All couldn't have existed if Pete Doherty and Carl Barat didn't.

The tragedy, Doherty's obsession with heroin and cocaine. If only he could deal with this the project that is the Libertines would no longer be on hold and the music world would be better for it. The last Libertines self-titled album (pictured) was released in 2004, since then Barat went on to form Dirty Pretty Things, and Doherty when coherent has dabbled with Babyshambles. Doherty who studied English literature, I reckon, is a genius!

If you loved The Clash, The Jam, you will find your mid-life-nirvana in the Libertines, if you like Arctic Monkeys and the nu-uk-rock - discover the roots.

My second favorite is from the first album, Up The Bracket, track 4 - Time for Heroes.

Did you see the stylish kids in the riot
We were shovelled up like muck
Set the night on fire
Wombles bleed truncheons and shields
You know I cherish you my love

But there's a rumour spread nasty diseases around town
Caught round the houses with your trousers down
A headrush in the bush
You know I cherish you my love
How i cherish you my love

What can you want now you've got it all
The whole scene is obscene
Time will strip it away
A year and a day
And Bill Bones
Bill Bones he knows what I mean

Yes it's eating no it's chewing me up
It's not right for young lungs to be coughing up blood
Oh it's all
It's all in my hands
And its all up the walls

Well the stale chips are up and the hopes stakes are down
Its these ignorant faces that bring this town down
Yeah I sighed and sunken with pride
I passed myself down on my knees
Yes I passed myself down on my knees

What can you want now you've got it all
The whole scene is obscene
Time will strip it away
A year and a day
And Bill Bones
Bill Bones knows what I really mean

There are fewer more distressing sights than that
Of an Englishman in a baseball cap
Yeah we'll die in the class we were born
That's a class of our own my love
Were in a class of our own my love

Did you see the stylish kids in the riot
We were shovelled up like muck
Then set the night on fire
Wombles bleed truncheons and shields
You know I cherish you my love
Oh how I cherish you my love.

Planet of Slums

Jeremy Harding gives a great review of Mike Davis' Planet of Slums - here is a snip:

Homogeneity, Davis would argue, is what late capitalism does: already a billion people live in roughly the same extraordinary way in roughly similar environments. Vast, contiguous slums are the habitat of the future for even larger numbers, yet the future looks more and more like it did the day before yesterday.

By 2015 there will be at least 550 cities with a population of more than one million.

Already this aggregate population is growing ‘by a million babies and migrants each week’.


The peak will come in 2050, when ten billion people, by then the great majority of humankind, will be living in cities: ‘95 per cent of this final build-out of humanity will occur in the urban areas of developing countries, whose populations will double to nearly four billion over the next generation.’ ...



On another front I picked this superb little article up from Antonio Lopez's blog Media Mindfulness.

Saudi Oil Production Down 8%

Matt Simmons, peak oil guru is on record as saying "once Saudi peaks the world has peaked" (End of Suburbia). If he is right the the Reserve Bank won't have to worry too much about quelling the volatile housing market with interest rate hikes - hyperinflation will be the wolf at the door.

Yet breaking news that Saudi oil production figures are down 8% for 2006 has barely registered in the mainstream (braindead) media.

The other day I responded to an "associate professor" (Jason D Scorse) who with all the critical analysis skills of my first year computing students, claimed peak oil was debunked because he spotted this article in the New York Times. "Sure looks that way from the available evidence. it's comforting that, yet again, the doom and gloom crowd gets it wrong." Scorse declares. To be honest as is typical in this debate, it appears Scorse is expressing an emotional response, usually associated with those that wish (upon a star) that life will continue "business as usual" @ 3.5% growth per annum. Anything that doesn't fit within the happy go motoring/shopping future as imagined by people like Scorse is just ridiculed and dismissed with lashings of fuckwittery that all 1st year philosophy students would see through immediately.

It's lucky Associate Professor Scorse isn't one of those first year students - he'd fail his assignment.

Here is the guts.

To make the claim that peak oil is debunked you have to claim that oil production will continue to grow annually forever. In debunking peak oil one must necessarily assume that oil is an infinite resource. If Scorse believes that then not only is he a bloody idiot, but he probably shouldn't be an associate professor.

The debate isn’t about whether the peak oil observation is true or not. It is! As is evidenced time and time again with every oil feild, every country, every region on the planet that has already passed peak. Please check out the BP Annual figures for the empirical evidence supporting this claim. It isn’t up for debate. It is merely a fact.

The issue, as many of us have said time and again, is not if there will be a peak but when will the world peak?

And, it looks possible, if Matt Simmons is correct that that date has arrived. (Unless of course Saudi intentionally cut production)

If it is indeed so then the last pint in the pub has been consumed, and we are faced with scrounging around the cupboards for half empty bottles of sherry. And the drunks are brawling on the pavement outside.

Blogging : It's so 2006

Well and truely back into the work-life, so I spent 3 minutes browsing a few blogs that I was reading last year, and to be honest the NZ blogs - the ones linked from Scoop.co.nz - well they are so goddamn boring.

So much so, that to be frank, I can't be bothered participating in such nonsense. This isn't called apathy, it's just that I'd rather do something more fun. Like skating, or sitting on the deck with a cold beer. Even my PhD is more fun than writing some shite about the state of the world. We all know it's in a shit of a mess. You don't need me to remind you.

There is always an exception to the rule - I've become a bit of a fan of Antonio Lopez read his blog, it's way more entertaining than mine. Don't read any of those NZ blogs - esp the ones linked from scoop - they are all a pack of dreary wankers.

In the meantime, here is a photo of Jack (my son) throwing a backside ollie out of our quarter ramp at home.

Barrels of fun and minimal carbon footprint.