Hi all

Are any out there aware that the biggest war games ever staged in Australia commence tomorrow?

Called Operation Talisman Sabre they will involve 17000 military participants from the ADF and US Defence forces with the main site being at Shoalwater Bay north of Rockhampton, a fragile ecosystem supporting dugongs, humpback whales and right next to the Great Barrier Reef.

Other exercises will take place all around Australia but particularly Darwin and Townsville with extensive naval operations in the Coral, Tasman and Timor Sea.

In all probability nuclear submarines will be in our waters( the US will exercise it's neither confirm nor deny policy) as well as use of the full range of weaponry including depleted uranium tipped weaponry.

There are advanced plans to have permanent bases for US Military bases in Australia in Darwin and WA, with unknown quanitities of troops etc.

This is the consequence of being the US deputy sherriff in the region, but what do the ordinary citizens of Australia and North Qld know about this and the possible risks to both their health through exposure to military weaponry and their security?

There are protesters heading to Shoalwater Bay this weekend to let our Govt know we do not want to be a military oligarchy, we criticise Indonesia  for their lack of democracy and for being controlled by a corrupt military,  where to for Australia? Will we realise too late what we have become?

If you want to know more you can go to a website www.geocities.com/peaceconvergence

in unity,

Maggie

‘As the costs of the Iraq occupation spiral, British and American oil companies meet in secret next week to carve up the country's oil reserves for themselves.

The Iraq war has so far cost America & Britain £105billion. But the financial clawback is gathering pace as British and American oil giants work out how to get their hands on the estimated £3trillion worth of oil.

Executives from BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil & Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old firm, are expected to congregate at the Paddington Hilton for a two-day chinwag with top-level officials from Iraq's oil ministry. The gathering, sponsored by the British Government, is being described as the ‘premier event’ for those with designs on Iraqi oil & will go ahead despite opposition from Iraqi oil workers, who fear their livelihoods are being flogged to foreigners. The Met will be on hand to secure the venue ahead of the conference.

Tom Burgis of the London Line reports.

The Carve-Up Begins

See "Alfred Deakin Lecture Five" blog by Gus...
In the major part of this blog, I indicated why war was so profitable for the US contrary to the professor in this lecture...

Short extract of the blog here :
___________

"The world consumes a minimum 80 million barrels of oil per day... of which Iraq produces 2 million per day... In money terms this amounts to say 100 million US dollar per day (50 dollar/barrel) and that over a year Iraq oil revenue would only be about 36 billion per annum... The expenditure for war is already running at 250 BILLION dollars and demanding the US spends about one billion a month roughly... So it appears that even if the US were to pocket all the cash from Iraqi oil sale the gain is a loss, but not so minuscule, in relation to the expenditure...

But one cannot stop here. There are many other factors that enter this complex equation."
____________

Now? The price of petrol is going up.

From the New York Times
House Narrowly Approves Bill to Promote Refineries

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 7, 2005

Filed at 6:18 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted to encourage U.S. oil companies to build new refineries Friday in a raucous roll call that Republican leaders extended 40 minutes while they buttonholed their own members to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

Democrats crying ''shame, shame'' -- and some GOP moderates -- called the bill a sop to rich oil companies that would do nothing to ease energy costs including expected soaring heating bills this winter.

The bill would streamline government permits for refineries, open federal lands including closed military bases for future refinery construction and limit the number of gasoline blends refiners have to produce, eliminating many blends now designed to reduce air pollution.

Yes Gus. 

Lots of pigs at this particular trough. 

As mentioned in my blog this time last month more bait & switch the problem in the US is that the oil industry has deliberately closed half its refineries in the last 25 years (down from 300 to 149) & only one new refinery has been built in that time. 

The problem is not a lack of oil but a deliberate chocking-off of refining capacity by the oil cartel. With US fuel demand up by 24% in the same period, refining capacity has peaked & the US has become a fuel importer. 

All of this has ensured that the oil companies are now raking in record profits (Exxon Mobil made US$7.64 billion in profits in the last June quarter alone), without having made any investment. 

And now Congress has given the US oil majors a further US$1.6 billion in tax breaks as an ‘incentive’ for them to increase exploration, drilling & refining. One would have thought their record profits would have been a sufficient incentive? 

By the way, george’s mates from the oil cartels spent a cool US367 million over the past 2 years lobbying Congress to get this legislation up. 

No wonder our little global statesman is looking for a job in the private sector.

From the New York Times

A Greener Way to Cut the Grass Runs Afoul of a Powerful Lobby

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: April 24, 2006
ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Some have automatic transmissions. Drink holders. Electrical outlets. That staple of the American suburb, the lawn mower, now has many features of a late-model car. But not a catalytic converter, a muscular piece of antipollution engineering. At least not yet.

So when Heidi Ramaekers mows her yard here in lush exurban Atlanta, she inhales the competing scents of spring: the damp sweetness of grass cuttings and an acrid chaser of hydrocarbons. Mix in some of the nitrogen oxides from her push mower's exhaust and cook it in the sun for a bit. Presto, she has made smog.

As warm days move north and America's lawns awake and grow, homeowners and lawn care services are revving up some of the dirtiest engines in the national garage.

Gallon for gallon — or, given the size of lawnmower tanks, quart for quart — the 2006 lawn mower engines contribute 93 times more smog-forming emissions than 2006 cars, according to the California Air Resources Board. In California, lawn mowers provided more than 2 percent of the smog-forming pollution from all engines.

But as soon as air pollution regulators suggested adding a golf-ball-size catalytic converter to the lawn mower, they found themselves in one of their fiercest political battles of the past decade.

On one side, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators in California. On the other, the largest lawn and garden equipment maker in the country and a powerful Republican senator. And in the middle, the six million or so lawn mowers shipped to retailers every year...

Read more at the new York Times

..........

Gus: The grass is always greener on the other side of the climatic change... bring on the catalytic converters... or the cheap push-mowers made in China...

From the SMH

Bush calls for petrol pprice probe
Email

US President George W Bush has asked US authorities to launch inquiries into possible illegal manipulation in the petrol markets amid concerns over steep prices at the pump in the United States, the White House says.

At Bush's direction, "the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the price of gasoline has been unfairly manipulated in any way since the hurricanes struck last year", White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters yesterday.

"And also he's directed (the) Department of Energy and Department of Justice to conduct inquiries into possible cheating or illegal manipulation in the gasoline markets.

"I think you all heard the president say very clearly that we will not tolerate price gouging," McClellan said.

AFP
read more at the SMH
-__________________________

Gus is laughing all the way to the petrol pump...

The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald.                                                 April 25, 2006. 

President George Bush says he
won’t tolerate fuel price gouging (‘Bush calls for petrol price probe’, Herald,
April 25). 

Doubtless he could explain how
the US oil industry managed to book US$96 billion in profits in 2005, nearly
four times the industry’s average annual profit of US$24.3 billion over the
previous five years, whilst Exxon alone reported an astounding US$36 billion
profit? 

Meanwhile, George’s “deputy
decider”, John Howard, continues to claim that his government can do nothing
about the scandalous fraud being perpetrated against Australian motorists.

From the New york Times

As Cuba Plans Offshore Wells, Some Want U.S. to Follow Suit

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: May 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 8 — In 1977, the United States and Cuba signed a treaty that evenly divided the Florida Straits to preserve each country's economic rights. They included access to vast underwater oil and gas fields on both sides of the line.

Now, with energy costs soaring, plans are under way to drill this year — but all on the Cuban side.

With only modest energy needs and no ability of its own to drill, Cuba has negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources for themselves and for Cuba.

Cuba's drilling plans have been in place for several years, but now that China, India and others are involved and fuel prices are unusually high, a growing number of lawmakers and business leaders in the United States are starting to complain. They argue that the United States' decades-old ban against drilling in coastal waters is driving up domestic energy costs and, in this case, is giving two of America's chief economic competitors access to energy at the United States' expense.

read more at the New York Times

From the NYT

Report on Gas Prices Finds No Collusion
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: May 22, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 22 — A federal investigation concluded today that
rapidly rising gasoline prices over the last year have not been the result
of unlawful price manipulation by the industry.
In a report that Congress ordered last summer after price spikes
following the hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast, the Federal Trade
Commission said that the sharp jump at the pump was attributable to
market forces — namely big drops in supply and production as well as
runs on inventories after major damage to refineries, ports and pipelines. The
commission found no evidence of price collusion, or improper reductions of inventory or
supplies to increase company profits.
-----------------------

Yes... Gus mulls, market forces are a funny beast that can be manipulated by in a lot of ways... Advertising, government regulations, reduced supply, higher demand and Bingo! All done above board of course... But to some extend what we loose on the swings... For example, the SMH this morning shows that the car industry laments that car sales are going down due to the high cost of fuel... same with toll-way companies... cry baby cry... Is the Sydney cross city tunnel quiet like a mortuary?

From the ............... Times

The Folly of Renationalization

By Anders Aslund
Something strange is happening in the ............ economy. Since 1999, it has delivered stellar growth numbers of almost ... percent per year, with virtually all of the growth coming from the private sector, which has been led not only by the recovery in the oil and metals sectors, but also by retail and construction. It only took off a few years after privatization, because other market reforms were lagging and new owners needed to consolidate their ownership.

The state, by contrast, has learned little, and continues to fail. Most branches of the state, including law enforcement, the armed forces, public health care and education, the bureaucracy and public infrastructure, are patently flawed. The common denominator in all of these problematic sectors is public ownership.

Read more at the ......... Times

---------------------------------------------

Gus comments:

Of course, here we have the missing words, Moscow, Russia and 7 per cent per year... But, there is something sinister about this report... It mirrors what we have seen here, in Aussieland, but the design of this article is to promote privatization of anything that moves...

Mercenaries for armed forces? Yes sure they are shooting for the highest bidder...

Public health care — we all know that Cuba has the best health care in the world and the US the most expensive and the most unfair as well as the least effective system

Education — private education is the bane of democracy as it eventually create segregation within the echelons of social moires. It also can lead to promoting religious beliefs that enter the ruling culture.

Public infrastructure — we all know how the states and the commonwealth have passed on the baby to private enterprise by selling airports, road rights and the like... Now the Snowy River Scheme to become the icing on the cake.

We know how market forces can be manipulated by industries with clout... All in all it is obvious the Russians are not taxing enough the profits of private enterprise... Mind you they had to put a few people in prison — those privateers who were robbing the state by billion of dollars in roubles... Yes one can see a little planting of titbits of information, even at the Moscow Times, designed to upset perceptions about problem that do not exist... or only have a public solution. A bit like pharmaceuticals: "Have we got the cure for the disease you don't know you have yet! Here are the symptoms... And if you do not feel now or have not felt these symptoms before, something must be wrong with you... So here is another pill..."

For the last ten years, it seems we have made much progress towards solving the climate change problem. The lot of it has been wallpapering. In Obama's tenure, the fossil fuel consumption has increased. The whole world consumption of fossil fuel has increased. Despite a few windmills and solar panels, some new electricity storage systems and sustainability, we are still pushing the atmosphere beyond breaking point. And why, you may ask? It's simply due to greed and cash: how much is how much, without any considerations, but lip service, to the ENORMITY of the problem. The distance between "our" solution and the need to really solve global warming is stretching by the minute...

Buried in the detail of the Paris Accord could be some innocuous-looking words that will have a powerful impact on whether it ever delivers the greenhouse gas reductions it promises.

The words could “paper over” deep divisions about whether countries ever have to properly report and account for the promised emission reductions that collectively limit global warming to the already-dangerous 2.7 degrees.

Key to the negotiations will be a trade off between developing countries’ demands for financing to reduce their own emissions and adapt to locked-in climate change and the insistence by both rich nations like the United States and climate-vulnerable countries like the small island states that every country should be required to at least work towards the same rules for reporting and checking their emission reductions.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/04/the-red-line-issue-that-exposes-deep-divisions-in-the-paris-climate-talks

See toon at top...