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.

Clueless Fuckwittery Continues Unabated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued Friday argues that the effects of anthropological emissions on climate will be with us for 1000 years. Worst case scenarios involve millions dead and trillions of dollars lost, extreme weather, droughts, wildfires, melting ice sheets, sea level rises, hurricanes - roll out the usual suspects.

However those clinging to a business as usual fantasy still don't get it. NZ Business Council for 'sustainable' development - read that as sustain economic growth at all and any costs, view the report as "an exciting opportunity" what a pack of clueless fuckwits - this is like arguing complete and utter chaos and anarchy is an exciting opportunity for looters, thugs or, freely accessible Rohypnol an exciting opportunity for sexual predators.

The Business Council for Sustainable Development says "a gloomy attitude towards climate change is not helpful". Oh dear me, somebody should tell those pesky scientists that reports like this just ain't good for business. Can they please tart up the message or at least hire Satchi to market the report with a positive spin.

Responses such as this just go to show how much the gap between science and popular culture has grown. We live in a world where personal success is determined by how much money you have, or how big your car or house is. Where technology like the calvalry will come to our rescue, where "they" will come up with something "won't they". Opportunity and sustainability have been hijacked by those seeking to increase their wealth out of others misfortune.

Interesting Headlines

Scientists 'pressured on climate findings'
The US continues to live in a fantasyland where the oil supply is infinite, entropy doesn't exist and anyone they don't like have WMDs.

Sydney will boil if PM fails: Iemma
It's already boiling - isn't it the worst drought in living memory? No matter, the Federal Government don't recognise climate change so everything should be ok.

Happy New Year.

Freedom Hits 2006

True automotive freedom has to be 3 to 4 hour delays driving out of Wellington north bound on State Highway 1. Merry Xmas and thank Christ for the motor vehicle. I can just hear the collective anger, frustration, whinging kids... Just what you needs to begin your holidays. And if you think more roads will solve this you head is up your arse.

Thank god for America - I mean what would the citizens of Iraq done if they hadn't been libertated. The world is a safer place, and the citizens of Iraq must be enjoying the blandishments of democracy this Christmas. On another note "Iraqi insurgents", freedom fighters, terrorists, criminals, thugs whatever you like to call them have offered the US a 30 day truce to get the fuck out of Iraq on news of several more dead americans fighting for the continuation of the American Way of Life - What a choice, either leave the place to the Shiite death squads or continue sending Marines home in body bags, as long as you are able to fill up the Ford Explorer it's worth, isn't that right punters.

Imagine trying to sleep with the temperature 27 degrees C, at night. Melbourne is currently enjoying such conditions - nothing to do with Global Warming however, continue burning whatever you need to burn to ensure the economy ticks along at 3% growth per annum.

While we are on the topic of Australia, the drought is certainly putting constraints on peoples freedom to water their gardens and wash their cars. Once again - nothing to do with global warming I am sure...

Feel free to add your freedom picks for the year in the comments.

Share the love
Merry Xmas
Steve

Playing Favorites #1

I've been trying to convince Mark Cubey to invite me on to Saturday National Radio to play my favorites. Usually you have to be someone - like be on TV, or have written some book, or saved a swamp or something. I haven't done any of that stuff - but I reckon my favorites would rate.

My first track would be the natural rejoinder to the Beach Boys Surfing Safari - the Clash's Charlie Don't Surf.

The Beach Boys were the pin ups for the theoretical but mendacious post world war Amercan consumer culture where everybody would live in suburban utopia and embrace absolute automobile freedom. Sometime after the "good vibrations" faded away and like Elvis before him, Brian Wilson descended inevitably into a drug and alcohol induced stupor - obesity, paranoia and depression took over ironically mirroring American society today.

On the exterior the free world puts up a brave front - but it ain't easy work ramming freedom Vegas style down the throats of infidels.

Todays Charlie includes Iraqi insurgents, the people of the Occupied Territories (kia kaha), Lebanon and Syria, probably Muslims in general however when the Clash wrote this track Charlie was the North Vietnamese VC or Viet-Cong also referred to as "Victor Charlie", or ... Charlie for short.

I give you track one of my playing favorites.

Charlie Don't Surf - The Clash - (Sandinista)

Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star

Everybody wants to rule the world
Must be something we get from birth
One truth is we never learn
Satellites will make space burn

We've been told to keep the strangers out
We don't like them starting to hang around
We don't like them all over town
Across the world we are going to blow them down

The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can't free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their Coca Cola

It's a one a way street in a one horse town
One way people starting to brag around
You can laugh, put them down
These one way people gonna blow us down

Charlie don't surf he'll never learn
Charlie don't surf though he's got a gun
Charlie don't surf think that he should
Charlie don't surf we really think he should
Charlie don't surf

Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie don't surf

Booyah!

The neoconservative geniuses who believed invading Iraq would bolster both U.S. and Israeli interests in fact have accomplished the exact opposite -- handing both military and public-relations victories to their sworn enemies. ... If the Bush administration dares to move militarily against Iran, as it has an almost uncontrollable itch to do, we will become mired in a bloody conflict that will know no borders.
Robert Scheer

Creating 5 problems by solving 1

I remember when I was about 10 years old. The school I went to, this one summer, had a nasty wasp nest which of course held the attention of all the hubristic, testosterone ravaged lads of my age (including myself of course). The trick was to tease and irritate the wasps into a frenzy, then we'd all run around laughing slapping wasps off our legs, bodies and faces. Endless fun for 10 yr old boys.

Slowly but surely some of the lads developed and a courage that exceeded the potential of the situtation. One such boy, whose name will remain unsaid, stuck a fennel stick well into the wasp nest. Got it right in there and well fucked off the wasps. Well, within 5 seconds he was covered in a hundred or more wasps. There was little we could do as a group and he ended up in hospital for the afternoon. After that some pest eradication guys came around and killed off the nest - no more fun for 10 year old boys that summer.

I hope this summer is just as much fun.

**********
Just a few random thoughts
On another front I notice Obaid (ex Saudi Foreign Minister) has recently argued the US intervention in Iraq and it's recent murmurings of "an exit strategy" would leave Saudi little option but to take up the current US role of keeping Iranian backed Shiite militias from continuing their butchering of Iraqi Sunnis. There is already talk of Saudi providing the Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support - get a feeling of deja-vue, a re-run of the Iraq/Iranian troubles.

There are faults on both sides - however it's clear that if allowed to continue a program of ethnic cleansing by Shiite death squads would be responsible for clearing out the Sunni minority within a pretty short space of time. Saudi would have little option but to intervene thus sparking a regional conflict.

We can be pretty clear of one thing. The US are unlikely to withdraw while there is any question about access to cheap oil. The US are in Iraq primarily to secure a cheap supply of the commodity that keeps the not negotiable wheels of easy motoring life in the States ticking along. If a withdrawal threatened that supply, and in all likelyhood it would then a withdrawal is unlikely.

Far Quitery Knows No Bounds.
or, please do not post pointless points in my comments

The biggest flaw of the pseudo-philosophy called "objectivism" is that its principle tenents are a priori inalienable self-evident truths. Essentially this is a necessary condition for the belief that any particular act is objectively right or wrong. Additionally not helping the cause is the fact that the dogma is overly represented by juvenille pimply faced boys whom after discovering it promptly annoint themselves all knowing rational pedants ready to comment (logically of course) on everything and anything.

Now, I like to think of myself as a philosopher, but unlike Paris Hilton I don't always go out wearing my makeup. Generous helpings of narrative bullshit, satire, illogical mutterings, irrational polemic piffle, and off the cuff thoughts and notions is all wonderful stuff. Living your life with the stupid attitude that prompts you to attempt to logify every sentence you write or utter is about as boring and pointless as it gets.

The reductio of this position is inherent in this little gem by Kane Bunce. Now I don't know much about Mr Bunce other than what can be gleaned by his posts (and his occasional comments on various blogs) but by a strange paradoxical reason that just occurred to me governmental control is most certainly needed such that utter fuckwits like this don't get to make any decisions about matters of public and private good. Bunce is a cartoon of his own ideology. His ridiculous comments policy stands against everything his ideology stands for.

For your amusement I have assembled a brief selection of quotes from Mr Bunce.

• "Why is it that Iran and North Korea are merely considered rogue states? Both are more than rogue states. They are a threat to the West. Western nations should pull out of Iraq and send their troops to these two countries instead. ... And while they are at it why not deal to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon?" (get in touch with the redneck within) These people are terrorists and the world would be a safer place without them, were gonna bring these suckers to justice!!!
  
  
• "To teach a child, or an adult for that matter, that they have a responsibility to others will lower their mental health not raise it" What lower it below their nose, or below their crotch?
  
  
• "No person has any responsibility to others" Oh, I wish I could apply this to my son sometimes.
  
• "Is the extinction of great white sharks a travesty for humanity? No, I don't think it is. It is not a species we rely on to survive, so it is no travesty to humanity." It's just lucky we NZers rely so heavily on the kiwi.
  
• "And he said a world without tigers would not be worth living in. Clearly he values tigers above humans." I think I might be overly valuing porn and alcohol.
  
• "And as the science gets older it gets safer, like all scientists" It's just a shame the chemist that developed thalidomide wasn't 85.
  
• "So we here in New Zealand will receive local cooling, which is contrary to global warming" Oh, this science obviously isn't old enough yet! What a relief.
  

nb. I think free speech is overated - therefore I have comment moderation turned on - I do not have a comments policy - I just make it up as I go along. I reject capitalism per se as a farce and a joke nevertheless I have little option but to participate in it - however I can think of better ideas, I have issues with democracy just because a majority of individuals believe something, it does not necessarily follow that it is either true or good. And I certainly do not believe in a fundamentalist approach to private property rights. That is overall I typically disagree with capitalism's consequentialist approach to ethics, in favour of perhaps a combo of deontological and virtue or character based approaches. Sometimes the ends never justifies the means. And if you disagree with that, well, you simply aren't thinking about it.

Joe Bennett and Asian Knickers

I've always like Joe Bennetts humour, ironic, satirical and kiwish. This article suggests, him and I, we're on the same team - on ya Joe.

Closing the Collapse Gap
by Dimtry Orlov

Article Sourced from Energy Bulletin

Highly recommended compelling reading !

Nicky Hager: Late-Capitalisms True Punk Rocker
Published on 1st Dec on Scoop

The fetish we call “freedom of speech” is resolutely defended in particular, we note, by the liberal right. Yet this creates a very uneasy tension. The pretence of the rational, utilitarian individual, very much aware of how things really are is contrasted heavily against the embodiment of the renounced belief in the fetish. We the public readily and eagerly (pretend to) accept the reality regurgitated weekly in the tabloid (and mainstream) press – a self-increasing spiral of production which perpetuates the very market it is responsible for creating, generating in the process of all manner of titillating, facile shite that many claim, we have the “right to know” – no matter how distasteful it is.

Hager playing the NZ media like Nintendo, is NZs answer to Malcolm McLaren, a rude, brazen punk with little regard for the public, politicians, the media or the truth. According to McLaren, “Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world”. Clearly we observe Hager at the peak of his art form, it’s hard not to admire his gall. The creation of a narrative that can topple political parties, must have the marketing gurus in a right tiss. In a world where the public gobble up any and all debris dished up to them by the braindead media - we deserve Hager, we need him and, we created him.

We live within an era of ambiguity between surplus-value and surplus-enjoyment. At the apogee of post-industrialism, a directionless society generates and consumes its own myths bringing forth into existence Marx’s vision of late capitalistic production – production creates the need for the consumption of the products it creates. Nicky Hager embodies this irony of capitalism. It’s hypocritical of those individuals who would enjoy the spoils of the fetish of freedom of speech, the West’s most overrated idea, whilst sneering at Hager. The great irony of capitalism, predicated on freedom, is that its most adherent proponents compulsively re-enslave themselves to its spoils. (cp. US’s entrenchment in a war against the "theft of enjoyment"). One can't help but wonder at the intellectual moralising of those that worship this fiasco. It's called freedom people, and it has you in chains.

In respect of Truth, it is irrelevant. Truth isn’t what Hager is about, Truth isn’t what anything is about. Truth is always balanced against the compulsion to enjoy. The stronger consumptive desire deprives us of autonomy turning us into clowns; it dresses us like babies and shoddier still – renders us manipulated, craving and drooling puppets.

The idiotic jouissance over Hager’s book is contra-posed against libertarian capitalistic ideals manifest in our so-called free “society of consumption”. We are obsessed with celebrity and scandal, we applaud individualism and freedom, we condemn governmentally imposed orders, yet seemingly the loudest cry of injustice regarding the Hager incident comes from the very group defending such idealism – no doubt because it has toppled their champion. I’m reminded of the old Marxist claim: capitalism unleashes a contradictory dynamic that it cannot contain. The ultimate obstacle to capitalism is capitalism itself.

Wednesday Morning Ramble, 29 Nov.

Seeking my muse, or in order to find inspiration to write about this I browsed PCs blog - the fatuous nature of a lot of his content usually irritates me enough to write, for that I guess he deserves thanks. Sure enough I found inspiration in footnotes titled Saturday Morning Ramble, 25 Nov. The informal blog begins with this rather facile truisim (paraphrased).

As the world becomes more technologically, scientifically and economically advanced ... what?

The overweening gleeful pride in this statement almost made me gag. And so an inspired rant begins.

I was reminded of my drive from Canberra to Sydney after meeting with my PhD supervisors in late August this year. Scrub and Australian gum trees skirt the road for hundreds of kilometres until you hit the hideous chain store corridors and seemingly endless "nappy valley" subdivision developments that is Sydneys 1.5 hour commute exurban sprawl. At one point, during the drive, I glanced at the road shoulder. The verge was littered with empty plastic and glass bottles, plastic bags, confectionary and fast food wrappings, all manner of trash. Kilometre after kilometre this continued. People (Australians), with absent regard, simply toss their rubbish out of their vehicles as they speed along at 110k towards Sydney, creating a roadside rubbish tip.

It makes me think this unrelenting march towards technological, scientific and economic utopia is ultimately a race to process as much natural resource turning it into eventual landfill (or highway verge) fodder as quickly and efficiently as possible - and this is supposed to be a good thing. I notice Walmart is entering the Indian market - in a bizzare kind of uroborian feedback cycle - the west sells the same shit back to those that produce it and steel the profit from the exercise.

Technological, scientific and economic advance blurs the senses, it distorts our sense of place within the world. It separates us and socialises away our connection with nature. The ultimately doomed project, apollonian idealism, is the driver of technological, scientific and economic advance - the re-birth of tragedy, hedonistic out of control desire surrenders to technological gadgets and the faux status symbols that fill the chain stores. It has turned us into clowns, made a circus of civil society, it dresses us like babys.

Western society knows by seeing. This perceptual vice is at the heart of our culture responsible for producing everything from monstrocities of titanic proportions to the electronic baubles and trinkets that consume us. Our attempts to distance ourselves from Darwinian waste and squalor drive us toward clown-like idiotic ritualised behaviour overtly emphasised in late-capitalisms consumptive society. Browsing with serious concern the endless array of crap we consume which don't actually meet or satisfy any actual need but indeed create the need they claim to satisfy.

The great irony of Capitalism, predicated on freedom is that its most adherent proponents compulsively re-enslave themselves to its spoils. (So much so that the US are now entrenched in a war against the "theft of enjoyment"). One can't help but wonder at the intellectual moralising of those that worship this fiasco. It's called freedom people, and it has you in chains.

New York Magic

I'd do anything to get to this.

If you are in New York - don't miss it, do not miss it! Weller truely captures the essence of a generation, from late 70s punk (The Jam), thru the 80s (Style Council) to the current rock revival with his solo work.

Black Out

As I drove my son home from swim squad tonight I (indicated then) pulled into a lane just in front of a morbidly obese brain-dead male driving a very new and expensive looking Mercedes Benz two door sport version - I mean the guy was so fat I'd have sworn someone had rammed a Humvee up his arse. I was (just) doing the speed limit. It really irritated him that I didn't accelerate away with the torque that no doubt his mostly pointless piece of German engineering could. So much so that he sat about a metre or two surging closer every now and then towards my towbar as we continued the short journey home.

I laughed to myself knowing he wouldn't dare risk hitting me, I could tell he cared a helluva lot more about his wanky status symbol than his health for a start. All this rekindled my wonder as to what would become of the ignorant, impatient obese in the coming long emergency. Fat and can afford to be tasteless is in for a shock.

Something I noticed in the news this evening confirmed the almost fatalistic course of events now unfolding subtley before our very eyes. The lights went out across Europe today in an unprecedented continent wide power outage - and the world barely blinked an eye.

Richard Duncan (2000) argues we are at the beginning of what he calls the olduvai slide. Marked ostensibly by the escalating violence in the middle east, the Jerusalem Jihad, we are at the beginning of ever increasing dysfunction across global energy markets. Financial markets will follow close behind.

The power shortages in California and elsewhere are the product of the nation's long economic boom, the increasing use of energy-guzzling computer devices, population growth and a slowdown in new power-plant construction amid the deregulation of the utility market. As the shortages threaten to spread eastward over the next few years, more Americans may face a tradeoff they would rather not make in the long-running conflict between energy and the environment: whether to build more power plants or to contend with the economic headaches and inconveniences of inadequate power supplies. (Carlton, 2000)

The electricity business has also run out of almost all-existing generating capacity, whether this capacity is a coal-fired plant, a nuclear plant or a dam. The electricity business has already responded to this shortage. Orders for a massive number of natural gas-fired plants have already been placed. But these new gas plants require an unbelievable amount of natural gas. This immediate need for so much incremental supply is simply not there. (Simmons, 2000)

Civilisation came to an abrupt halt (albeit a shortish pause) for most of Europe today. A cold snap encouraged millions of Germans to turn up the heating causing the electricity grid to collapse "like a house of cards" the guardian reported.

"One power company chief said the continent had been close to a total blackout"

Duncan argues Industrial Civilisation is beholden to electricity. What will modern cities be like to live in without electricity? Millions of people packed likes sardines into highrise apartment complexes - inherently everything connected to this way of life utterly and totally depends on electricity. Yet the average punter is totally clueless in regard to the complexity, the fragility and the implications of electricity and large cities.

The reliability of the worlds electricity networks is faltering. As an individual, and in light of Duncan's compelling argument, I urge you to consider what you might do.

Richard Duncan's Olduvai Theory
http://dieoff.com/page224.htm

All Quiet on the Industrial Front

People are probably wondering now, what use could a blog on peak oil be - the oil bubble has finally burst and we are seeing a return to normal prices, let the carbon monoxide flow... As consumer confidence perks it's time to go hoc a new plasma screen TV.

I could go on, I could attempt a rebut of the gloating haha's I hear from the students of professor Pangloss. But, to be honest James Kunster and Tom Whipple do it better than me.

The Twilight of Mechanized Lumpenleisure.
James Howard Kunstler
Among the many wonders and marvels of American life in the twentieth century, especially after World War Two, when our country ruled much of the world economically, was the astounding rise in standards of living among social classes who had hardly known leisure or had a dollar to spare on the accoutrements of it from time immemorial.

Continue reading The Twilight of Mechanized Lumpenleisure...


The Peak Oil Crisis: Turning Points
Tom Whipple
From a peak oil perspective, the last couple of weeks seemed pretty quiet. Oil prices continued to drift down into the $50s amid gloats from peak oil skeptics. The Dow Jones climbed to all-time highs, in part, due to optimism the "oil bubble" had finally burst and there would be lower inflation and lower interest rates ahead.

Continue reading The Peak Oil Crisis: Turning Points...


For those that were interested, the PhD topic, no not to do with Peak Oil. Have a read of Luciano Floridi's Problems in the Philosophy of Information, problem 13 and 14 in particular. Should epistemology be based upon a theory of information? Is science reducible to information modelling. (exciting stuff).

Steve

You could be excused for thinking I was dead.

I actually nearly almost was - well in a metaphorical way. I have officially started the PhD. In itself not so scary, you have to break it all down into easily digestable bits. So, at present it is reading, reading, reading - and worrying, about what I am reading, that is, if it is relevant. A this stage it probably doesn't matter toooo much. The idea initially is to develop a comprehensive annotated bibliography, one that summarises all the major angles around the topic one is studying. You need, I guess a hundred or so significant pieces of work that capture the main debates and wisdom of the area.

That's what I'm doing at present. I've discovered a cool piece of software called Scholars Aid which helps one do this very well. The chopped down freeware version (Scholars Aid Lite) is available.

The Topic!?
Ok, lets run a little competition here. If you think you know post a comment. Haha, no one will guess (that is no one that doesn't already know).

$80 a Barrel - Just around the Corner

Nymex Crude Futures currently trading at US$78.05

Watch for further rises at the pump by mid next week if we don't see a drop soon.

This spike has been building over the last couple of weeks. I suspect we'll see the psychological $80 a barrel mark tested. Before oil settles yet another $10 a barrel higher.

Fill up the Ford Explorer today folks.

... but don't worry people - your government has told you that oil will settle back to US$25 a barrel sometime soon and for the forseeable future.

Four Corners - Investigative Journalism - still - at its best.

Well done to ABC's premier current affairs show, breaking Peak Oil to Australia.

The wankers in New Zealand media should be ashamed. I've been begging them to run a story like this for several years.

Enjoy on broadband.
Highly Recommended.

http://abc.net.au/4corners/

NZ's Energy Problems Coming Home to Roost!


The trade deficit is out of control and while the evidence mounts that we are at peak oil now, or at least before the end of the decade rabid fuckwittery by the government is not in short supply with yet further announcements of motorway building spending sprees...
Trade deficit explodes Govt crosses its fingers












Aucklanders ought to prepare themselves for further power cuts this winter as energy consumption maxes out with tedious regularity.
Electricity demand hits another high

Don't expect to catch public transport - railway industrial action means there is no room on the trains.

And as the US "driving season" gets underway - expect further rises in the price of petrol.
Oil Prices Surge as Stocks Plunge

Yet the comatose obese public (continue to be fed by the equally corpulent, brain-dead media) all pimped out on "Dancing with the Stars" and Nicole Kidmans wedding worry about whether they should hock the mortgage to buy the new Ford Explorer, as they continue to munch down the Cheezels. Cluelessness abounds as we steadily march towards the cliff all the while extending the quarter acre suburban dream beyond the 1 hour commute barrier.

Don't worry punters "I'm sure they'll come up with something" (yeah right)

Hon Harry Duynhoven at odds with Prime Minister

I suggested to Harry Duynhoven that mainstream opinion about when peak oil might occur was not synonymous for bullshit "business as usual" international energy agency rhetoric. I pointed out to Harry that the Prime Minister agrees with me, not him nor the IEA. And I suggested he should garner the guts to say that the Prime Minister's opinion like mine and many others is just scaremongering nonsense as he (by inference) suggests?

Rt. Hon Helen Clark
18/04/2006
"we're probably not too far short of peak production, if we're not already there"

Hon Harry Duynhoven
8/04/2006
"Based on current advice, oil production seems likely to peak sometime between 2021 and 2067, with probability highest around 2037. It is not the mainstream opinion for oil to peak in this decade."

This morning I received a letter from the Hon Harry Duynhoven, it simply restated the above quote. It's hard to imagine Harry Duynhoven as anything more intelligent than a retarded parrot, furthermore by calling me stupid (by inference) he's in fact calling the Prime Minister stupid. She should sack him, he's a gutless waste of space.

Steve McKinlay