"You give us hope"

Kucinich on fire at Maine Democratic State Convention

Dennis Kucinich "owned" the Maine Democratic State Convention on Saturday May 22. He entered the Convention entitled to zero delegates because he finished just shy of the 15% threshold in the February caucus. He goes to the National with six Maine delegates, including our own Scott R.! Here here for the tenacious post-caucus organizing done by Maine for Kucinich!!

The speech Dennis gave was astonishing. Everyone in the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland was bowled over by his heart-felt, awesomely inspiring oratory. Many were crying. "You give us hope", was heard as Dennis left the hall.

Video of Dennis's entire 20-minute entrance, speech, and exit is available HERE.

Here is another short, 1-minute video clip that I shot myself with the Olympus digital camera:

...peace is inevitable...and we must challenge a White House that has led us into war, who has sold us the old lie that war is inevitable, and sold the American people the lie that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 911, which he did not. We must challenge this administration for lying to the American people to get us into a war against Iraq.

Because Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 911, with al Qaeda on 911, with the anthrax attacks upon this country. Iraq had neither the intention nor the capability of attacking the United States, they were not trying to get uranium from Niger, they did not have weapons of mass destruction

It was wrong to go in, it is wrong to stay in. It * is * time * to * bring them home! Bring them hoooooommmme,..., bring them home!

Besides Dennis Kucinich, one other fire burned brightly — the desire to defeat President Bush in the November election. The Democrats should be able to win big against President Bush on November 2. But...

Kerry less inspired or inspiring
The Kerry campaign in effect snubbed Maine Democrats by failing to send the candidate, a high campaign official, or even a family member to Maine on Saturday. They blew it.

Not very many heard John Kerry on Sunday morning when he finally made an audio-only appearance over the Civic Center media system. Most other delegates were milling around after their county caucuses at the time Kerry appeared.

According to a Bangor Daily News story , Kerry did focus his Sunday remarks on the Iraq war, "the unilateral bungling of which, he said, has compromised America's position as a world leader.

"'Working with other nations is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength,' said Kerry, pictures of whom were displayed on giant screens at the Cumberland County Civic Center. 'We are going to mend those relationships'".

You know what, though? Every Kucinich supporter and every Dean supporter will work to elect Kerry. It's that important, despite Kerry's shortcomings.

Iraq wedding massacre

The mowing down last Wednesday of 45 people in a wedding party, including many women and children, is yet another sickening episode that has become all too routine in American military operations. But perhaps most sickening are the outrageous falsehoods issued by a US military spokesman to cover ass in the incident.

'Contrary to media reports, there was no wedding tent and no nuptial tent in the area', Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Multinational Force Iraq said during a Baghdad news conference... 'But there are still not reports of any children being killed'.

Kimmitt said a videotape distributed to the media showing at least a dozen bodies, including small children, wrapped in blankets for burial, being unloaded from a truck doesn't look like the video taken at the site of the attack....

...Bad people have parties too....

A new AP release on the incident, however, describes a lengthy video of the scene attacked by the Americans:

The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.

As expected, women are out of sight — but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.

Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed....

...an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.

Emphasis is added above to show where key aspects of the incident are reported to be at direct variance with the tale Kimmitt has chosen to spin.

The US apparently feels the need to justify its heavy-handed killings through mythic "intelligence" concerning foreign fighters and safe houses. Ordinary Iraqis celebrating have become the "bad" people. If this method of extermination of these dehumanized people continues, America should not be surprised if the insurgency against it in Iraq grows.

Oil soaring

The 280-mile round trip from here to Portland and back just cost us over $25 in gas. That is a record for the Subaru. Fuel price placards all over the place in Bangor have cracked $2.10/gal. for unleaded regular. Everyone is abuzz about the soaring gasoline price.

There is an interesting rationale going around to explain these recent surges in the oil price, now over $40/barrel: there is a terror premium. That's probably quite true. Last week, the New York Times reported that, "Attacks drive price of oil to $40 a barrel".

According to the Times, "Attacks on oil facilities in Iraq and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks have largely been responsible for driving up the price, industry experts said".

Furthermore, I think we are beginning to see cracks in the OPEC swing production role. Today's news really is terrible for price futures if the following quoted remarks from the Times story are true:

"The rise in crude oil prices comes one day after the Saudi Arabian oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, called for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase its production quota by 1.5 million barrels a day, to 25 million. Since the 11-nation cartel is already overproducing its quota to cash in on high prices, pumping about 25.7 million barrels a day, Mr. al-Naimi's proposal was seen as a gesture intended to calm the market and signal that the Saudis do not want to imperil the global economy, according to Leonidas F. Drollas, chief economist at the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London consulting firm".

Additional stories agreed with the point implied by the preceding excerpt, for it seems that "OPEC [is] powerless to stem oil price surge.

"OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro of Indonesia said on Wednesday the cartel is already pumping more than two million barrels daily in excess of official supply limits in a bid to cool world oil prices.

"We have not discouraged our members from producing more because we want to do everything we can to stabilise prices," Purnomo was quoted as saying in a statement released from OPEC headquarters".

A BBC story puts it more bluntly:

"... major oil producing countries are adding an extra 2 million barrels per day—2.5% of worldwide demand—without having an effect on prices".

Very similar remarks from Oil Minister Obaid al-Nasseri of the United Arab Emirates are being reported today by Forbes:

"'I don't think that control is in OPEC's hands', said Nasseri on his arrival in Amsterdam for talks between oil producers and consumers starting on Saturday. 'There are many factors behind these prices'".

Financial machinations
Reasons for the run-up reported by mainstream media run the gamut. This Reuters story gives a pretty good summary. Pay close attention to the buried lead, however: "A wave of mergers following 1998-1999's price crash also reduced the number of companies holding inventory".

The story goes on to describe in pretty clear detail how the financial machinations that followed these mergers work, especially because, "'OPEC strategy has shaped oil markets into a bullish machine in a tense international environment', said consultants PFC Energy. 'This has caught the attention of speculators and hedge funds, who have magnified the current pressures in oil markets'".

A March report from Public Citizen gives a good background on recent sharp increases. They say, "Since 2001, President Bush has been removing more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day from the market to stock the SPR, filling it by more than 100 million barrels since he’s been in office to over 640 million barrels—well more than 90% capacity..."

But the causes of the increases are really much worse than just this. The underlying uncompetitive environment has led, "Over the past few years, [to] mergers between giant oil companies—Exxon and Mobil, Chevron and Texaco, Conoco and Phillips, just to name a few—[these mergers] have resulted in just a few companies controlling a significant amount of the U.S.’s gasoline market, squelching competition. As a result, consumers are paying more at the pump than if they had access to competitive markets and five oil companies are reaping some of the largest profits in history."

Democrat presidential contender John Kerry may ask for release of Strategic Reserve oil, but he won't do too much more. He's locked into corporate oil in many surprising ways. Plus, both the Administration and the Democrats understand the importance of oil profits for financing the war, and the rest of the huge budget deficit. The US Treasury has to have someone with a lot of extra money in order to sell its paper at 1% to 4% rates.

We ain't seen nothin' yet
Not immediately, but perhaps just a few years into the future, petrol sharply will double in real terms, perhaps two, three, four or more times over. This is because world production rate will reach a maximum, beyond which increasing demand will not be satisfied. This is a phenomenon known as peak oil.

We'll know we're there when gas lines form until demand sinks to a satisfiable level. This hasn't happened just yet, so we know that right now the immediate cause of the high prices is artificial profiteering.

People better pay attention. While we don't have a serious supply shock, yet, the world oil supply system is fragile. It is especially vulnerable now, because

* world tension is high,

* capital requirements in the world's largest economy are massive,

* the worldwide oil production peak is approaching rapidly, and,

* the loudest message citizens of the US and other key parts of the world hear is promotion of consumption – China has a rapidly growing demand for new vehicles.

Only a very few producers have any ability at all to significantly increase production. The only significant "swing producer" is unstable Saudi Arabia. To a much lesser degree, some other OPEC members may have some extra capacity. Iraq will be a basket case for years and everyone else in the world has every significant oil valve they have in the wide open position.

This is a recipe for disaster. The US taking of Iraq will not solve the problem.

The idiotic Don't Buy Gas Day email

Like clockwork when the price of gasoline goes up, the incessant forwarders among us seem to send out about a million copies each of this sort of email:

It has been calculated that if everyone in the United States did not purchase a drop of gasoline for one day and all at the same time, the oil companies would choke on their stockpiles.

At the same time it would hit the entire industry with a net loss of over 4.6 billion dollars which affects the bottom lines of the oil companies.

Therefore May 19th has been formally declared "stick it up their behind" day and the people of this nation should not buy a single drop of gasoline that day.

The only way this can be done is if you forward this email to as many people as you can and as quickly as you can to get the word out.

Waiting on this administration to step in and control the prices is not going to happen. What happened to the reduction and control in prices that the Arab nations promised two weeks ago?

Remember one thing, not only is the price of gasoline going up but at the same time airlines are forced to raise their prices, trucking companies are forced to raise their prices which effects prices on everything that is shipped. Things like food, clothing, building materials, medical supplies, etc. Who pays in the end? We do!

We can make a difference. If they don't get the message after one day, we will do it again and again.

So do your part and spread the word. Forward this email to everyone you know. Mark your calendars and make May 19 the day that the citizens of the United States say "enough is enough".

The magnitude of the silliness of this proposal is only exceeded by the mathematical illiteracy of its proponents.

Change in only two things can affect total gasoline consumption — overall fleet efficiency and total number of vehicle-miles driven. Because overall fleet efficiency takes a very long time to change significantly, the only way to reduce gasoline company sales in the short term is for consumers to drive fewer miles. The proposal makes no mention of doing this.

While its true that worldwide volume of petrol stocks in storage is not very big, there is some such capacity. Stored stocks, save for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, are nearly empty right now. And that is one cause of the big price increase! (The Republicans don't want to open themselves to the same criticism they heaped on Al Gore during the 2000 election season by opening the reserve, but they might have to if gas lines develop.)

One day of reduced deliveries might even help the companies catch up a bit. But given the current situation, it'll hardly matter. If everyone drove 10% fewer miles for a week (savings of nearly 10 million barrels of fuel), then the price might nudge a bit. Send that out, you forwarders!

New Host and New Design

I've decided to make some changes to Deep Blade Journal. Since we are already paying for one hosting account with lots of bandwidth and storage, the separate host we are using for Deep Blade seems redundant. And now, Blogger has come around with a fantastic deal: free blogging with a set of excellent new blog designs and tools! How can we not migrate?

Until mid June, the old blog still will be accessible. Meanwhile, I am busily archiving most of the old posts. So far, May 2004 is available. Detailed contents pages with links will become available shortly...