lol jo6pac..
here is what i said on the other thread.. maybe someone else would like to offer some alternative viewpoint on this :
was blackwater viewed as anything then a group of terrorists to the iraqi people? com’n with the bs about what is or isn’t a terrorist as opposed to a moderate.. they are all terrorists to the people who are being murdered or terrorized by there presence, even if it is state sponsored terrorism which the usa does has engaged in for eons.. the cia is a terrorist organization.. if they want to label some group as ‘moderates’ – they can go ahead, but only a complete sucker would believe that bs. if the usa was to want to get rid of terrorism, start by getting rid of the cia and it’s interventionist, and constantly meddling role in international affairs.. otherwise – the usa is ripe for acts of terror on it’s own soil.

Posted by: james | Nov 30 2014 19:24 utc | 3

@James – thanks for the Spiegel story, I missed that one. Looks like slowly the German media is letting out what happend and what is going on, though it still looks reluctantly.

Posted by: Fran | Nov 30 2014 19:40 utc | 5

The color revolution in Mexico, safely out of sight of the Western media, but every bit as much a security state as Egypt.
“In December 2013, Peña Nieto pushed through historic reforms to Article 27 of the constitution that broke up the state monopoly over the oil industry and opened the floodgates to speculation and vast private investment by international oil giants. The majority of Mexicans adamantly rejected these reforms, but they were steamrolled through the National Congress and passed by a majority of the state legislatures in only 10 days without debate and in flagrant violation of the democratic process.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/11/mexico-pea-a-nietoprotestsdemocracy.html

Posted by: JohnH | Nov 30 2014 20:26 utc | 7

@JohnH: Are you referring to the protests happening now in Mexico as a US Color Revolution? If so, for what reason?
It seems to me to be a genuine revolution – after all, the target of the protests are the pro-US Mexican government and President Peña Nieto – a man who is certainly a lap dog of the USA.
The protests, IMHO, are aimed at ending this nexus of corruption and murder (the governments and the drug gangs) which have kept the Mexican people from joining the other countries of Latin America in the move towards social democracy and away from fascism.
The real start of Mexico’s current troubles was the fraudulent victory of Calderon in 2006. Calderon, in the face of massive protests questioning the legitimacy of his election victory, donned a camouflage uniform and declared an internal “war on drugs” which has killed by some estimates as many as the conflict in Syria but has also turned Mexico into a country where anybody can murder with impunity – some 95% of murders in Mexico go not only unsolved, but simply uninvestigated. It has turned Mexico into a place where a corrupt mayor can hire the local mafia to have his local opposition murdered by the score: all for questioning social “reforms”. Not to mention the rampant unchecked violence that occured in places like Ciudad Juarez – a city that represents the worst aspects of neoliberal “reform” – a poison stew of free trade, drug violence, and social problems that turned it – for a few years -into the murder capital of the world.
The fact that neoliberal “progress” and inequality have brought wealth to a few in Mexico has caused the usual suspects in the USA to declare the country a success story, but the Mexican people – who live with the fear, the daily violence, and the weight of corruption – know better. The neoliberals in America even have the gall to lump Mexico into a mini-BRICS like bloc with Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey, giving them the cute acronym “the MINT” – most likely because certainly the hedgefunds and multinationals are cashing in off of the labor and resources of the countries. But the fact is that – though the MINT countries might look like successes when viewed through the portfolios of investors – all of the countries on that list are deeply, deeply troubled.
The fact is that the Drug War – every bit the invention of the Mexican Government and the United States – has turned Mexico is one of the modern world’s true horror stories. Something has to change there, and I hope this is the revolution – the real revolution – that does it.

Posted by: guest77 | Nov 30 2014 22:13 utc | 9

It is astonishing to read both these articles, neither of which mentioning the US neo-cons while implicitly taking the neo-con view. Imposing the neo-con view. “Fuck the EU”.
@2
The Quiet German

In early 2008, when President George W. Bush sought to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, Merkel blocked the move out of concern for Russia’s reaction and because it could cause destabilization along Europe’s eastern edge. Later that year, after Russia invaded two regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Merkel changed her position and expressed openness to Georgia’s joining NATO. She remained careful to balance European unity, the alliance with America, German business interests, and continued engagement with Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm I is supposed to have remarked that only Bismarck, who tied Germany to a set of countervailing alliances, could juggle four or five balls. Bismarck’s successor, Leo von Caprivi, complained that he could barely manage two, and in 1890 he ended Germany’s treaty with Russia, helping set the stage for the First World War.

@4
How the EU Lost Russia over Ukraine

Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “”We should ask ourselves … whether we have overlooked the fact that it is too much for this country to have to choose between Europe and Russia.”

One would have thought that it was too much for the German political class to choose between Germany and the USA, but that’s exactly what happened, and the ‘EU’ went along in their train. Merkel couldn’t even juggle one ball.
It is the Ukrainians, of course, who have to pay the price for the greed of the US and the cowardice and stupidity of the so-called ‘EU’ … the US’ European Unit.
I imagine the temperature is dropping … 5 below in Kyiv, 4 below and snowing in Donetsk.
Gaza, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine … all devastated by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, with the help of his European Unit.

Posted by: john francis lee | Nov 30 2014 23:51 utc | 11

The moves of the empire are so tattered and threadbare. Any empire that routinely has to execute its citizens in cold blood has passed the respectability of any decent person. The gruesome repast reaped from the peripheral souls who lie in our way, well– may god bless our soul.

Posted by: Jay M | Dec 1 2014 1:49 utc | 13

oh, and Afghanistan is hotting up — first Obama extends the war (described differently on different sites), then the president allows night raids (the banning which was one of Karzai’s better successes) and now the new president Ashraf Ghani has fired all the ministers — and the Kabul chief of police is expected to be fired next. The bastardized co-presidency (one’s president, one is “CEO” isn’t working well either…
Thanks so much for the article on Mexico — will add to my check-daily list. Thanks also for Merkel which will wait for bedtime reading.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Dec 1 2014 2:17 utc | 15

Russian Spring
11/30/2014-23:38
Summary from fronts by combatant Prokhorov:
In Chernukhino (near Debal`tsevo) a battle is being fought for two hours already.
Ukrainians were hit near Stanitsa-Luganskaya and in proximities of Valuyskiy and Ol`khovoye (northern part of Lugansk front).
In attempt to enter airport before noon, Ukrainians again suffered casualties (by intercepted radio, at least 1 200th (killed)). From yesterday, 95th lost 8 fallen, 72nd – 2; having fallen are 93rd and a repair brigade from Zaporozh`ye.
Also yesterday, Opitnoye (little north of Donetsk airport) was rid of Ukrainians.
In proximities of Avdeevka, Ukrainians were pushed off headquarters of a military unit.
Russian Spring
11/30/2014-18:35
Daily summary by Council of National Security of Ukraine:
“The combatants shelled by tanks, artillery, and grenade launchers, shot firearms and attacked twice positions of Ukrainian troops on the territory of airport…
… Incessantly shelled was area of Bakhmutka. Here artillery targeted bases near hamlets Trekhisbenka and Sokol`niki…
… Towards Mariupol`, artillery, mortars and grenade launchers fired at bases and checkpoints near Novolasta, Granitnoye, Chermalik, Nikolayevka.
By the end of the day, 3 Ukrainian troops fell, 15 were wounded”
Remark of combatant Prokhorov:
“Ukrainians launch “Grads” right from Lisichansk downtown. Are not they scum? What if we fire back? No bit of concern about civilians.”

Posted by: Fete | Dec 1 2014 3:25 utc | 17

check this out:
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/11/para-military-police-caught-setting.html

Posted by: ben | Dec 1 2014 4:48 utc | 19

The Geopolitical Impact of Cheap Oil makes the same feckless mistake as other ‘strategic analysts’ have in the past, of approaching crude oil as a ‘supply and demand’ market condition.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. W
hen Bonnie Prince Bandar stated in 2003 that the KSA regime ‘would like to see crude oil trading at $25 a barrel’, he set up Cheney’s Operation Bake Me A Yellow Cake, that spiked crude from $15 a barrel under Saddam, (net zero profit to KSA), to $150 a barrel, giving the Saudis an instant 700% profit margin sustained, renewed, rolled over, and making them TRILLIONAIRES over the course of the last decade, at one billion dollars a day in excess profits, just based the US demand alone.
This much Hot Black Blood chasing investments must also cause Great Evil, as for example, I$I$, created, armed and funded for the express purpose of driving Iraqi oil production back below pre-war production levels, and capping for now Iraq’s dream of achieving 8MMB/D crude production by 2015-2016, as they had announced in June. That much Hot Black Blood can also be used to quash the Alberta Tar Sands, now that the Republican Right has taken over the US Congress, and is sure to lobby State for approval of the KXL pipeline. Alberta Tar Sands cease to be profitable at $80. The Saudis know this. Fracking for the most part, except in the East, also ceases to be profitable. Wells are being abandoned by the 100s in the US West (leaving taxpayers with the cementing, capping and cleanup…zing!).
There has never been a 1000% spike in a crucial strategic mineral or energy source in global history, and yet there is NOTHING written about the Yellow Cake Oil War. NOTHING!
‘It just happened’, with 3rd-person passivized language substituted into ‘market dynamics’ trope to conceal what was, and remains, a HIGH LEVEL CIA-STATE COLLUSION ON BEHALF OF KSA,
the same folks who slammed two planes into the WTC, the same folks who made up the largest part of the Iraq resistance to US occupation (60% Saudi fighters is the best estimate), the same folks now who are holding production high to crush Iraq, crush Canada, crush USA, and subversibly enable the illegal CIA-STATE sanctions against Venezuala, Iran and Russia.
That’s all that Hot Black Blood does. Much Death. Many Kill.
The ‘geopolitical impact of cheap oil’ has absolutely nothing to do with market forces, but with hot money monopolies, in collusion with corrupt state apparatus. It’s the essence of ‘Trotskyism for the Royals’, the REAL Royals, not those limp-wrist fops in US, UK and EU. What will come of this can ONLY be a global depression, once competing oil supplies are quashed, once investments are cancelled, once ‘pipelines in the pipeline’ are pushed off for the decade it will take fracking to boom and fizzle. Then the Saudis and Qataris and their OPEC royals will cut supplies and the world will hit a brick wall.
At that point, the greatest revolution in human history will occur, as the corrupt bloated bureacracies and war machines steal 100% of budgets and leave nothing for health and human services for soon billions of unemployed, starved of energy, utilities, heat, transport. Just look around you at the massive waste of energy in transport for the food ‘cold chain’.
It all began with Operation Bake Me A Yellow Cake, leading to a trillionaire plutarchy, and has nothing to do with The Geopolitical Impact of Cheap Oil ‘invisible hand of the market’.

Posted by: ChipNikh | Dec 1 2014 5:54 utc | 21

Landmarks of Loss and Love: Being Human in Horrible Times By Chris Floyd
This is worth the time spent to read. Although it spotlights the serious issue of silencing political critics in the US and Russia, I still maintain that foreign policy wise Russia is currently a better and more responsible actor on the world stage.

Posted by: really | Dec 1 2014 8:04 utc | 23

“…Clearly, President Obama is no more his own master than was George W. Bush, and there is every reason to believe that he has gradually rallied behind the secret policies of his own administration. Thus, the man who had proclaimed the end of nuclear deterrence, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and pledged to abandon the war on terror, is in actual fact taking the opposite course: he is poised to modernize and expand nuclear weapons, to send soldiers back to Afghanistan and Iraq, and to rekindle the threadbare concept of the war on terrorism…”
Does Obama still have a military policy? by Thierry Meyssan
Although I usually agree with the aurhor on most of his subject matter, I think Obama may not be on board with all the war mongering that is going on in his name. The powers that be who currently are the financial overlords of the empire and its political apparatus have carte blanche and currently reap whatever their blackened hearts desire. So I would not be so quick to jump in Obama’s head and say he is totally in favor of all the drone strikes and proxy war mongering. We must Remember what happens to presidents and activists who lock horns with the old gray ashy skinned white men who make up the powers that oversee the empire. Just look at what happened to MLK, Malcolm X and JFK.

Posted by: really | Dec 1 2014 12:10 utc | 25

@25
‘ So I would not be so quick to jump in Obama’s head and say he is totally in favor of all the drone strikes and proxy war mongering. ‘
Tell me it ain’t so, Joe! It’s so. Really, it’s so. Some people die still believing in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, I guess.
Barack Obama is demonstrably the best liar I’ve ever seen, even people at MoA still believe in him. Being in favor of drone strikes and war mongering is like being pregnant … you are or you’re not. Obama is.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 12:44 utc | 27

re oil , you know low price is exactly what they currently want, right ?
now the chances of success putting Iran & Russia on their knees is still quite low, but it doesn’t hurt (Saudi/Qatar) too much (for now) to try

Posted by: zingaro | Dec 1 2014 14:05 utc | 29

zingaro
Yes I agree on Russia/Iran but why would arabs want less money? That doesnt make any sense?

Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 1 2014 14:57 utc | 31

@31 Supply and demand. It’s not the ‘arabs’. It’s not even OPEC. The Saudis are the only ones who can make a difference to the price. Yes they can cut production….but they will lose market share and sell less.

Posted by: dh | Dec 1 2014 15:20 utc | 33

Low oil prices will also put a dent in pursuing alternative energy sources and conservation, which will also benefit oil producers over the long term.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Dec 1 2014 15:54 utc | 35

The Saudis can withstand the low ppb better than any other producer. My understanding is that it is a dicey game tacitly approved by the US to wreck the Russian economy, but at the cost of over-leveraged fracking and investment reliant extraction operations in the US. The domestic independents and small producers will be the first to fold, but how long can the US support this price war when the multi-nationals start clamoring for a rebound in prices. They presumably hold a lot of sway, so they are either being promised something in the long run (contracts, drilling rights, policy changes…) or heads will roll if this goes on for too long.
To me, the Saudi/US connection is about to run its course and these types of drastic measures look like desperate last gasps. I’m curious what you folks think?

Posted by: IhaveLittleToAdd | Dec 1 2014 17:59 utc | 37

Just in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdQK5VmD-qw
The little brown people are fighting for all of us.

Posted by: ruralito | Dec 1 2014 18:34 utc | 39

Please Mr. Putin drop some huge bomb on the pedophile royalty that rules KSA.
I’m under the impression that they think can get away with anything. Wrecking economies, flying planes into buildings, backing up the Iraqi resistance in a big way, no doubt funding and providing people for ISIS/ISIL…though it will not happen unless last resort please set their palaces and their oil wells on fire and give them the massive punch in the nose they have had coming for a long time.
The Troika of Twats: Hebrew Klansmen State of Israel, The USSA and their child molesting Saudi apes.

Posted by: farflungstar | Dec 1 2014 18:46 utc | 41

The Saudi move has got to be USG inspired. It’s a facet of total war against Russia. I think they have miscalculated. China needs Russian oil and gas and a US/EU takeover of Russia would cause too much insecurity to the regime there. Together Russia and China can prove that TIAA, there is an alternative, to the US’ financial World War.
Who knows, maybe the US is setting up the Saudis for a little shock and awe of their own. How long would it take the US to turn Saudi Arabia into Iraq?
All this talk of Saudi rather that Israeli involvement in 9/11 seems to be preparing the American sheeple for yet another of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate’s adventures in furthering ‘the peace process’.
Long cold winter ahead.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 19:59 utc | 43

US drone strike claims eight lives in eastern Afghanistan

Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, a spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial police department, said the unmanned aerial vehicle fired a missile at a compound in Sherzad district of the province, situated about 90 kilometers (50 miles) east of the capital, Kabul, at around 1:00 p.m. local time (0830 GMT) on Monday.
He further noted that the assault targeted a Taliban hideout and those killed in the airstrike were members of the militant group.
On November 27, a drone attack in the troubled southern province of Helmand left at least seven people dead. A similar attack in the Chak district of Afghanistan’s central-eastern province of Maidan Wardak killed three people earlier in the day.
On November 19, at least four people lost their lives when US forces mounted a drone strike in the Ghaziabad district of the northeastern province of Kunar.
Washington claims the targets of the drone attacks are militants, but local officials and witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of such airstrikes over the past few years.

Not only are the USA’s physical assassination machines without human pilots, the entire USA is without one as well. I wonder if there are handrails in the White House the occupants can cling to, to avoid slipping and falling in the blood that flows so freely there.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 20:46 utc | 45

The Saudis seem to be genuine loose cannons when it comes for foreign affairs. They are building a multimillion dollar “Islamic center to fight terrorism” in Kabul … which was speculated, I read, to be “trying to counter Iranian influence” … which is ridiculous since Iran shares an extensive border which it maintains along with roads to Afganistan’s benefit, houses about a million Afghan refugees and has “traditional ties” … The Saudi’s and their madrassas and the mujahadeen brought the Taliban. I’m doubtful that Iran’s Shiia influence much needs to be countered with the Taliban so ever present in everyone’s life.
If Afghanistan were not such an utter basketcase of an economy, normal rules of influence might make sense, but this like trading baseball cards or playing paperdolls. Haven’t heard much from Pakistan (that I recall anyway) and/or their intense rivalry/providing war in “providing aid to Afghanistan” either. (Oh, a bunch of Indian Maoists killed a bunch of Indian border guards) [13 CRPF men killed in Maoist ambush in Chhattisgarh close to Odisha border; http://odishasuntimes.com/101686/13-crpf-men-killed-maoist-ambush-chhattisgarh-close-odisha-border/%5D
Hah, I can barely still find it on the map: https://www.google.com/maps/search/Odisha+India+Chhattisgar/@20.951725,86.310284,8z/data=!3m1!4b1

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Dec 1 2014 20:56 utc | 47

@12 ben
Yes, there was a medics demonstration in Moscow, 2nd in two weeks actually. They are trying to roll back the downsizing by embarrassing the government. The government is somewhat sensitive to such demos when they come from “real people” whose agenda is not political, so they might succeed.
In other news, South Stream was cancelled today. Basically, Putin admits that negotiations with Europe failed and long-term economic cooperation no longer feasible. Logically, more confrontation should follow

Posted by: Andrey Subbotin | Dec 1 2014 20:59 utc | 49

@49 andrey.. further to andreys comment, gazprom has announced plans to build a new pipeline across the black sea to turkey which will serve, turkey, greece and southern europe.

Posted by: james | Dec 1 2014 21:20 utc | 51

@ 46
‘ the disgusting Canadian tar sands to provide an inexhaustible supply of oil ‘
That’s like saying that Prometheus has an inexhaustible supply of liver. I guess it’s correct. Hadn’t looked at it that way before.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 22:31 utc | 53

Today, Turkey … tomorrow Greece,Italy, and Spain!

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 22:41 utc | 55

@46 Posted by: chet380 | Dec 1, 2014 3:46:30 PM

Keep in mind that the US has the disgusting Canadian tar sands to provide an inexhaustible supply of oil.

(1) They are called Oil Sands. Only people who know zip about them call them Tar Sands.
(2) The outdoor air quality in Fort McMurray, where the Oil Sands activity is headquartered, is better than the city of Montreal. Download Environment Canada “Air Quality Health Index” for both Fort McMurray and Montreal, and watch them daily. I did. I was shocked.
(3) Dilbit is apparently known as “Access Western Blend.”
(4) The dirtiest oil in North America is not Access Western Blend, Dilbit. Peter Burn, senior advisor in the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Directorate in Environment Canada, and as an advisor to Environment Minister Jim Prentice, reported this on July 18, 2014. http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/07/18/how-clean-is-our-dirty-oil-youd-be-surprised/

Researchers for California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard have recently released new data measuring the carbon intensity of various crude oil blends, including diluted bitumen (a.k.a. ‘dilbit’) and upgraded synthetic crude oil (‘SCO’) from the Canadian oilsands. […]
• There are 13 oil fields in California, plus crude oil blends originating in at least six other countries, that generate a higher level of upstream greenhouse gas emissions than Canadian dilbit blends;
• Crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope, which makes up about 12 per cent of California’s total crude slate, is actually “dirtier” than the Canadian dilbit known as “Access Western Blend”;
• The “dirtiest oil in North America” is not produced in Canada, but just outside Los Angeles, where the Placerita oil field generates about twice the level of upstream emissions as Canadian oilsands production; and
• The title of “world’s dirtiest oil” goes to Brass crude blend from Nigeria, where the uncontrolled release of methane during the oil extraction process generates upstream GHG emissions that are over four times higher than Canadian dilbit.

The truth matters.

Posted by: MRW | Dec 1 2014 22:58 utc | 57

@52 dh.. i thought the break even cost for getting it was higher then 64$ a barrel. interesting..
@54 jfl.. lol… i suppose… the msm has worked hard to pain erdogan as a monster since about the time of the boat flotilla.. this will be more traction for their agenda.
@57 mrw.. that may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact these oil or tar sands are a nightmare for the people in the north. the athabasca river is an important part of the health of a very large eco-system and is being seriously undermined by this mega project.. another stamped and sealed deal by the oil corps in association with our idiot leader harper who never misses a chance to exploit the environment at the expense of the environment and people..

Posted by: james | Dec 1 2014 23:28 utc | 59

“The Saudis can withstand the low ppb better than any other producer.”
Of course. All unimaginable oil wealth with only a small royal family having to be kept up. The rest of their population can be pampered, deluded and/or repressed as needed. Any dissent ends in death. Truly the most reactionary, regressive, and backwards society on the face of the earth. And it only exists because of US power. To buy the products of the MIC. And to be a bulwark against whatever force happens to threaten US interests in the region.
There would be no more positive geopolitical development in the world than the fall of the Saudi Royal family. All else would come from that:
1) the elimination of global terrorism
2) the smashing of the petro-dollar
3) Racist Israel reigned in and friendless in the region
4) the end of the genocide being carried out against the Shia
5) oil being produced for the benefit of the people in the countries that produce it instead of to feed the US MIC and the US dollar
6) freedom in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen…not to mention Saudi Arabia.
On and on and on. The benefit to world peace and prosperity would be immediate.
The Saudi Royals – with their unmatched wealth and accountable to few outside the highest halls of power in the United States – are the lynchpin of nearly every political and economic problem which manifests itself in our world today.

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 1 2014 23:47 utc | 61

See Global Price Comparison for Oil Supply for an interesting table of production and transportation costs of ‘oil’ and profit per $70 barrel. Russia ‘onshore’ is right up there at $40, although Russia ‘arctic’ is at -$55. Canada ‘Sand’ is at -$35. Saudi Arabia ‘onshore’ is at $65.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1 2014 23:49 utc | 63

Further down the same page as above …

by ian807 » Fri 28 Sep 2012, 17:01:15
The fact of the matter is that oil shale or not, we’re in a position of running as hard as we can just to stay in place. Remember, it’s all about net energy. If you’re not getting more energy from the oil, than it takes to extract the oil, what’s the point? And you have to get a lot more. It has to be enough to support extraction, refining and distribution PLUS the economic activities for which it’s intended, mostly transportation.The first Pennsylvania oil wells were getting estimated energy returns of 1000:1. In West Texas in the 1960s, estimates ran to 100:1. These days, even the Saudi’s are only getting estimates of 30:1 and oil sands in Canada have nice low returns of 4:1. Bottom line?
The total net energy in first half of the conventional oil (energy return x quantity) was much greater than the total net energy remaining in the second half of the conventional oil. Imagine a battery that lasted 10 hours, but on the first hour, you got 1000 watts, the 5th hour, you got 100 watts, and at the 10th hour, you’re pulling barely a watt. That’s roughly analogous to our situation with oil. The oil is there, for sure, but we got the high net energy stuff first (i.e. light sweet crude, close to the surface). What’s left is, for lack of a better word, crud. Yes, we can get it. Yes, it’ll work, but it just takes more energy to get it out and refined than it used to, increasing the price and decreasing the utility forevermore. There will be price fluctuations as with any commodity, but the long term price trend-line goes up from here on out.

There is an alternative … photosynthetic Hydrogen.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 2 2014 0:09 utc | 65

They had the oppotunity to do right from the beginning and what do they choose to do…the wrong thing of course. Profit margin always takes precedence. Situations like this are so tiring for those of us who are aware and give a damn.

Posted by: really | Dec 2 2014 0:57 utc | 67

NEW VIDEO: SEVERAL Michael Brown Witnesses Admitted They Lied about Shooting!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJQ1ZjBh8k&list=PLfrlsC1yJ2dQOckJb6fZvL-iNE6bqY5Nx #HandsUpWalkout #FergusonDecision

Posted by: Tom Murphy | Dec 2 2014 1:12 utc | 69

Netanyahu’s proposed bill against both Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs:

Israeli Arabs caught engaging or cooperating with terror will automatically lose their citizenship – or Palestinian Authority residency, in the case of Palestinians.
After completing their prison term, terrorists will be deported from Israel.
Those killed during their attempt to conduct a terror attack will not receive a funeral.
The body of terrorists will not be transferred to their families, and will be buried in an unknown location, without ceremony and without future access for their families
Terrorists’ houses will be destroyed within 24-hours of the attack
Masked stone throwers and those inciting for terror and violence participating in illegal protests in which firebombs or fireworks were thrown will be arrested and held in remand until the completion of legal procedures against them. The same measures will be taken against those who waved an ‘enemy flag’ during the protests, including the Palestinian flag. Anyone convicted at the end of their remand will lose their social welfare benefits and driving license for a 10 year period.
Families of terrorists will lose their citizenship and will be deported to Gaza should they express support for their relative’s deed. Support, according to the bill, can be expressed through public or social media.
The bill also includes a clause that would close businesses and printing presses that print posters that support terror or terrorists.

– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/11/palestinian-netanyahus-crackdown#sthash.1CapkMue.dpuf

Posted by: sleepy | Dec 2 2014 2:08 utc | 71

Putin has abandoned part of the European gas pipeline to Turkey per the nyt

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West.
It was a rare diplomatic defeat for Mr. Putin, who said Russia would redirect the pipeline to Turkey. He painted the failure to build the pipeline as a loss for Europe and blamed Brussels for its intransigence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/world/europe/russian-gas-pipeline-turkey-south-stream.html

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Dec 2 2014 3:35 utc | 73

Hugh Mann
*There’s a saying that goes: The more you stir shit, the more it is going to stink*
rest of the world dont call uncle sham the *shit stirrer* for nuthin u know !
for yrs divide n conquer has been used extensively to destabilise foreign countries , witness ukraine, tibet, xinjiang, venezuela, exyugo, libya, syria, hk…just to name a few.
conversly, when deployed at the homeland, it’d stengthen the police state and usher in martial law eventually.
****************
jon rapoport for prez 1
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/11/staging-ferguson-covert-op-and-al.html

Posted by: denk | Dec 2 2014 4:27 utc | 75

57
Ok, first, ‘bitumen’ is ‘tar’, another word for TAR. The reason the TAR SANDS have to be steamed or open-pit mined, then solvent stripped, is it’s TAR and not ‘oil’. Get real. Even when it’s dissolved in Asian condensate, it’s still Diluted Bitumen; ‘dilbit’, not ‘oil’.
Second, there is no “upgraded synthetic crude oil (‘SCO’) from the Canadian oilsands”, the Canadians have twice defeated multi-billion dollar Upgrader refineries because they clearly understand the HUGE difference between refining sweet crude and refining ‘bitumen’.
Third, ‘dilbit’ is STEAM STRIPPED TAR combined with FOREIGN IMPORT LIGHT ENDS, a mixture of naptha, benzene and gas field condensates, whatever’s the cheapest solvent of the TAR. The light ends are by their nature TERATOGENIC. Benzene is lethally toxic. Three of the four men on my refinery crew, who went into the oily-water sewer system without adequate filters, developed cancers and died WITHIN THE YEAR.
So ‘dilbit’ is LOW ENERGY, HIGH EXTRACTION COST, TERATOGENICAL DISSOLVED tar sludge, being transported entirely across the USA, from north to south, to Texas refineries capable after retrofit of refining ‘bitumen’ oils, such as those from Venezuala. The refining process for ‘dilbit’ however, will have an additional cost. The ‘dil’ part of the ‘bit’, because it varies and can’t be adjusted for in the refining process, will not be recovered to the same extent as sweet crude light ends. Also, there is a global glut of condensate and low AP solvents. Nobody is going to want the ‘dil’, so it will either be flared off, or leak into the air as a massive 100,000 square mile smog belt across the Gulf Area.
The oily-waste water from ‘dilbit’ can’t be treated by the same API650 separators used for crude, which skims the oily floatables off, then either ‘air farms’ the aromatics out of the wastewater by dumping it on the ground, or dumps the effluent ‘legally’ into the ocean.
Finally, ‘dilbit’ contains by its nature a large percentage of unusable sludge, which is refined into ‘coke’, pure carbon granules stripped of aromatics, used for iron refineries, or if pure enough, used for aluminum and copper smelting anodes. There is always a shortage of high-grade coke, but a surplus of low-grade, especially with the Global Slow Down. So the coke is left simmering in the tropical sun, mountains of it, EVERESTS of it, with rain-water leaching through it, untreated, running off into streams, and then the Gulf.
At the end of the day, Canada and the Kochs are violating NAFTA by incorporating Asian diluents into the ‘dilbit’ stream, then pumping it at higher temperate and higher pressure in a pipeline measurably THINNER than the Alaska Pipeline to Houston, where it’s refined in a way that leaves MASSIVE air, water and solid waste pollution for TAXPAYERS TO CLEAN UP.
And it’s all going to China! The KXL Pipeline Proposal to US State says exactly that. The ‘syncrude’ processed from the diluted bitumen TAR SANDS is all meant for the China market, the China market where it’s burned INEFFICIENTLY and WITHOUT POLLUTION CONTROLS.
Your entire screed is the Big Lie, the Corporates United, here, Drink This Fracking Water Big Lie used by Corporate since oil and gas was first developed to avoid paying THEIR SHARE of the waste and despoilation costs, so their profits can go to the UberMenschen.
Take a hike. Go peddle your schmaltz to the rubes in the cheap seats.
Having rebutted all that, the world is now more than ever since 1986 in thrall to the House of Saud, (when it fell from $27 to below $10, the equivalent of $108 to $40 today), because global demand is so much higher, and the ‘knockoff’ effect on emerging economies is so severe, not now, not a lower oil prices, but when prices REBOUND after the juniors are bankrupted and gone. All the recent plays were invested with the assumption of $100+ a barrel oil on. At $70, they’re not only ‘uneconomical’, they’re inverted in flat spin.
Kinda like the -18$T American National Debt, once the Fed raises interest rates again. There is no ‘invisible hand of the market’, only the ‘iron claw within the velvet glove’. And now the gloves are coming off….

Posted by: ChipNikh | Dec 2 2014 9:04 utc | 77

@66
Photosynthetic hydrogen will ‘never’ become a viable alternative if we rely on the TNCs and their governments.They will continue to keep it unknown and research to develop it unfunded. There are 3 parallel lines of development needed : hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, and fuel cell development. The link I offered above was written by one of the Department of Energy people studying photosynthetic hydrogen at the DOE lab in Colorado. I think that that lab has been shutdown … and what money was formerly appropriated diverted to ‘hybrid vehicles’. Public funding to benefit private corporations.
The people that allocate such funds are up to their eyeballs in the status quo … and that’s why people are fracking our aquifers, devastating the Canadian north, and topping mountains in Appalachia. They are too goddammed lazy to use the vast funds they expend on those life-killing projects on life-preserving projects, and in fact see preserving life on planet earth as dangerous to their own status quo. They are junkies, incapable of curtailing the addiction that will kill not only themselves but all of us, too.
How long would it take to develop? How long did it take to develop the atomic bomb? I know that’s cheating, there’s always money and urgency for funding death and devastation, but building the atomic bomb required breaking a lot more new ground than will photosynthetic hydrogen.
What’s required is a ‘coalition of the willing’ … in ‘the South’, where the sun is. The work required to get it going will never be done by the overdeveloped economies. They are too heavily invested in doomsday and are full speed ahead. Using algae/cyanobacteria is a natural in the South, it’s subsistence farming.
Where I live, well in the country side outside the city I live in, people ride motor scooters, farm rice with walk-behind tractors, and use electricity at home for lifting water from wells and lighting, primarily, and the internet. Those are the kinds of applications that photosynthetic hydrogen production could serve very well, and do so in a distributed way – subsistence energy farming to complement subsistence food farming. That’s not at all to say it could not scale up, but it’s a way to start.
That, and alternative financial arrangements, are what the BRICS need to embrace. Waiting for the ‘smart money’ to invest is death sentence. The ‘smart money’ is as dumb as a rock, and desperate to stay that way. The overdeveloped economies will never do anything they aren’t doing – and literally making a killing at already. The oligarchs will not allow it.
It’s in the South, where there are still real living breathing communities of human beings where a decent living is to be made. Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Kerala, Vietnam, South Africa, China … these states have the incentive and are in position to benefit immediately from jointly pooling resources and dividing labor among themselves to go back to the future for energy production. The cyanobacteria and algae have been around for 3.5 billion years, they have a track record, they are our original benefactors in that they changed the atmosphere of our earth and enabled us oxygen breathers to ‘advance’ to where we are today. We ought to regress a little. And make an altar to our best friends in our backyard, and harvest the hydrogen they are willing and able to produce for us … as long as the sun shines and the rivers flow.

Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 2 2014 9:42 utc | 79

Poland trying to get down with the manifest destiny…absolutely farcical, hypocritical and rediculous considering what the Nazi’s inflicted on them during WWII.

Posted by: really | Dec 2 2014 10:20 utc | 81

Who is going to send supplies into space if the Russians pull out? Virgin?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Dec 2 2014 10:34 utc | 83

US urges Ukraine ceasefire for crash probe
http://www.centralasianews.net/index.php/sid/228122237
I…I…I can’t.

Posted by: really | Dec 2 2014 10:56 utc | 85

Now would be a good time for Putin to explain to the world that the Apollo Moon Landings were a hoax (as is the manned Int’l Space Station).

Posted by: Fast Freddy | Dec 2 2014 15:15 utc | 87

farflungstar@41 “The Troika of Twats: Hebrew Klansmen State of Israel, The USSA and their child molesting Saudi apes.”
Congratulations – you’ve done it again. Very funny, and very true. Although I would suggest changing the title to “Troika of Terror”, or even “Twoika of Twhatz”.

Posted by: lulu | Dec 2 2014 17:24 utc | 89

@60 Posted by: john francis lee | Dec 1, 2014 6:35:02 PM
John, you quote a policy guy pushing global governance as a scientific source? Believe what you want, but his assertion that “almost all of the input energy in tar sands production comes from fossil fuels, the process generates significantly more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production” is laughable. How do you think Saudi oil is created, or any other oil for that matter? By blowing on it with hot air?
Or biofuels. According to a Cornell Univ/Univ of CA-Berkeley study:

In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:
• corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced
• switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced
• wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced
• soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced
• sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

Further, the study found that “Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input.”
As Peter Burn, former senior advisor in the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Directorate in Environment Canada, and as an advisor to Environment Minister Jim Prentice, wrote:

About 80 per cent of the emissions attributable to a barrel of oil occur during the downstream combustion of refined fuel in a vehicle – not during the upstream production of crude oil. These downstream emissions occur in equal amounts whether the fuel was made from light or heavy oil, or the crude oil was produced by conventional or unconventional methods.

Posted by: MRW | Dec 2 2014 22:09 utc | 91

@90 MRW.. thanks.. i don’t have the time right now to read such a thing, but even if i did, i would be hard pressed to make it thru. i respect your viewpoint which is worth a lot more then mine and appreciate your taking the time to articulate it here for me and others.. i did look at the table on page 150 (page 176 of page 440 using pdf page numbers), but i can’t say i understand exactly what i am reading. it would probably be more beneficial if i were to at least read chapter 8.. it is interesting what you say here and i have to respect your viewpoint. thanks again for sharing.

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2014 2:14 utc | 93

@MRW #91
Tar sands almost certainly ARE more polluting in the sense of emitting more CO2 than regular drilled oil.
Consider a barrel of oil in an underground reservoir vs. a barrel of oil mixed in with 5 barrels of sand. The Tar Sands process effectively heats the mixture of sand and oil to precipitate out the hydrocarbons, but it requires a lot of additional effort to move the tar sands into the precipitation process, and the process itself requires considerable energy.
You can see this data here:
http://www.strategywest.com/downloads/StratWest_OilSands.pdf

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 3 2014 7:11 utc | 95

@95 Posted by: c | Dec 3, 2014 2:11:10 AM
If the Oil Sands are more polluting than “regular drilled oil,” then why are the CO2 emissions for the whole of Canada (larger country than the US) less per capita than Saudi Arabia? How could the whole of Canada’s CO2 emissions (1.48% of the world’s total in 2010) be effectively the same as Saudi Arabia’s (1.36% of the world’s total in 2010)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
“but it requires a lot of additional effort to move the tar sands into the precipitation process”
They use trucks to haul the sand, c1ue. (BTW, thanks for the pdf, much appreciated.) That’s the “additional effort.” Then steam to get the oil out of the sand. Then they put the steamed sludge back into a tailing pond to reclaim it back to where it was, which takes 15 years. Or they do it ‘in situ’, way below the ground, and nothing has to go into a tailing pond.
Our American companies then use upgraders (plants) we have up there to prepare it for transport.
I went up and saw the operations because all of this concentration on the Oil Sands doesn’t pass my sniff test. Alberta oil has been supplying over 20% of US oil needs for 40 years, so why complain now? What’s going on? Why aren’t we bitching about the pipelines that crisscross Europe where the piped oil is FAR more fluid and corrosive? Or bitching about the oil tankers on the Atlantic? Why not the heavily polluting Nigerian oil refineries?
“Consider a barrel of oil in an underground reservoir vs. a barrel of oil mixed in with 5 barrels of sand.” Remember the BP spill and how it landed on Florida beaches? Make that ‘completely soaked the beaches’ and you’ll have an idea what Mother Nature’s oil spill looks like in Alberta’s boreal forest. The process they used to clean up the BP oil spill on Florida beaches is THE EXACT SAME PROCESS they use with the sand in Alberta. Exactly.

Posted by: MRW | Dec 3 2014 19:40 utc | 97

@94 and @95,
james and c1ue,
If you want to see the Canadian Air Quality Health Index (Environment Canada) for any spot in Canada, or compare two places, you can get a widget here.
https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/information/canadianairqualityhealthindexfromenvironmentcanada.html
I run comparisons between Fort McMurray and Montreal on my desktop. (So download the widget twice.)

Posted by: MRW | Dec 3 2014 19:58 utc | 99