Sounding an Alarm on Oil: In Search of a Presidential Energy Policy...

If each human family were dependent only on its own resources; if the children of improvident parents starved to death; if thus, over breeding brought its own "punishment" to the germ line -- then there would be no public interest in controlling the breeding of families. But our society is deeply committed to the welfare state, and hence is confronted with another aspect of the tragedy of the commons.

In a welfare state, how shall we deal with the family, the religion, the race, or the class (or indeed any distinguishable and cohesive group) that adopts over breeding as a policy to secure its own aggrandizement? To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.
~ Killing Times: The Killing Times are Here: Population Policy || Depopulation or Perish || Tragedy of the Commons ~

Michael Ruppert (FTW) Sounding an Alarm on Oil

Wall Street Journal

By Anthony Kaufman
04 November 2009

Michael Ruppert, at home with his friend, Rags, by Clara Tomkins. Star of Collapse, Author of A Presidential Energy Policy, et al

Independent journalist Michael Ruppert predicted the global recession. Now he's foreseeing an imminent energy crisis

Michael Ruppert proudly claims that he predicted the global economic slump more than four years ago in his self-published "From the Wilderness," a monthly news publication and Web site. A narcotics investigator for the Los Angeles police department in the 1970s, Mr. Ruppert left the department and spent years trying to expose links between the CIA and drug smuggling; after 9/11, he wrote the 2004 bestseller "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil," published by New Society Publishers and a favorite among conspiracy theorists.

Mr. Ruppert, 58 years old, has since moved on to what he believes are more pressing matters: oil and energy. ("I walked away from 9/11 five years ago," he says. "I have nothing to do with the 9/11 truth movement.") He has a new self-published book, "A Presidential Energy Policy: Twenty-five Points Addressing the Siamese Twins of Energy and Money," and a critically acclaimed new movie, "Collapse," in which he is the sole star and commentator.

Michael Ruppert, Collapse

Directed by documentarian Chris Smith ("American Movie"), the film consists mostly of Mr. Ruppert speaking about the dangers of peak oil and the looming catastrophe that declining oil reserves could bring. The film opens Nov. 6 in New York and on the new video-on-demand channel FilmBuff.

"The power of 'Collapse' is that Ruppert ... never sounds like a crackpot," Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman wrote after the movie's Toronto International Film Festival premiere in September. "You may want to dispute him, but more than that you'll want to hear him, because what he says—right or wrong, prophecy or paranoia—takes up residence in your mind."

But as with "Fog of War," the Oscar-winning documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Mr. Ruppert comes across in the film as both authoritative and dubious, leaving the audience open to make its own judgment of the man and his ideas. The Wall Street Journal sat down with Mr. Ruppert to discuss oil, Wall Street and the "imminent collapse of human industrialized civilization."

The Wall Street Journal: What is the central message of your movie?

Mr. Ruppert: It is not possible to continue infinite consumption and infinite population growth on a finite planet.

WSJ: So what do you believe needs to be done first?

Mr. Ruppert: Two things are critically important: A real worldwide transparent effort to determine how much oil is really left. Screw state secrets. I don't care what the Saudis, Russians, BP or Chavez want to hide. We have to clean up those books just exactly as the same way that we need to clean up the books on Wall Street. Secondly, we need to establish a second strategic petroleum reserve of refined product for state, county and municipal use because I really foresee a serious oil shock coming as soon as this ersatz recovery starts to push up the global GDP and demand for electricity. We have to make sure we have basic services.

WSJ: In no uncertain terms, you discount all alternative fuel options in the film, calling clean coal a contradiction and ethanol a "joke." How can you be so sure?

Mr. Ruppert: With 800 million internal combustion-powered vehicles on the planet and the fact that oil powers 90% of transportation, there is nothing that replaces what oil does. And transportation, of course, is what makes everything work, from shipping products to shipping people. And you cannot plug any alternative technologies into a 2008 GMC SUV or a 747 airplane. One of the things that I've also stressed is how much energy goes into making products: There's seven gallons of oil in every tire, and all plastics, paints and resins are made from oil.

WSJ: Do you think there's a greater chance of things turning around under the Obama administration?

Mr. Ruppert: No, it's not a matter of political party. It's a matter of energy. And money is useless without energy and money has no respect for power or ideology. We have to reconnect with the requirements that we're living on a planet that's falling apart. And we have to maintain some relationship that's separate from the illusory power of money. Clearly, the power in this country is not in Washington, it's in New York, with the Fed and with Wall Street.

WSJ: How do you see Wall Street playing a role?

Mr. Ruppert: Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. The current economic paradigm calls for infinite growth, from fractional reserve banking to compact interest. So Wall Street needs to somehow help us find an economy that works without requiring more and more consumption.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at The End of The Age of Oil, by Michael Ruppert

WSJ: You've been called "a purveyor of amazing tales" as well as a crusading investigative journalist. What's your response?

Mr. Ruppert: I have two responses: One is that I don't matter. You can focus on me or not, or you can focus on the likely imminent collapse of human industrialized civilization, and I think that's the more important story. On the other hand, I have been severely mistreated. I have been tied up with legal attacks for five to six years and there's only so many I can take on at a time. So I can take away time from reporting and spend time protecting my reputation. And I just made the tactical decision that getting the message out was more important.

WSJ: There's a great irony revealed in the film where we learn about your own economic collapse. Are you still behind in your rent?

Mr. Ruppert: Yes. But people are stepping up to help. We raised $17,000-$18,000 for the legal defense fund for this absolutely crazy ruling in Oregon. [Orgeon's Bureau of Labor and Industries has ordered Mr. Ruppert to pay damages for an incident of workplace sexual harassment.] So I have a lot of support out there. I'll just do whatever I have to do.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Mike Ruppert Documentaries: Denial Stops Here ** Truth & Lies of 9/11 ** Collapse

From the Wilderness: Archives :: Blog

Amazon Purchase: Presidential Energy Policy :: Crossing the Rubicon :: Denial Stops Here :: Truth & Lies of 911

Review of A Presidential Energy Policy, by Michael Ruppert, by Carolyn Baker

Energy Bulletin

Energy Bulletin
May 3, 2009

A Presidential Energy Policy by Michael Ruppert

American culture and consumption has become Public Enemy Number One in the global growth paradigm. People are realizing that the American Dream is murder....Unless a fundamental change is made-and quickly-the only available option is collapse and implosion; the bursting of the human population bubble; or, as people in the Peak Oil movement call it-the Dieoff. The sole purpose of this book (and my life) is to prevent that, or as much of that death and misery, as is humanly possible.
~ Michael C. Ruppert~

This is probably the most important book review I've ever written because A Presidential Energy Policy is unquestionably the most crucial book for anyone aware of the collapse of civilization, which is well underway, to read and understand. It is second only to Mike's first masterpiece, Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at The End of The Age of Oil (2004).

I could have said, "Ruppert's first masterpiece", but Mike is my friend, yet that does not in any way deter my objectivity when assessing the inestimable value of what this book offers the world.

I do have a small quibble with one concept near the book's end on which I will comment later, but first, we need to acknowledge what Mike establishes in the first pages: "...oil price spikes in June and July of 2008 broke the backs of over-extended consumers who could no longer meet their (sub-prime) mortgage payments and that this-and this alone-triggered the great economic crash which began in September and October. Energy and money are inextricably connected in very profound ways...." Furthermore he notes, "The current economic implosion will and can only result in the greatest-and longest lasting-economic depression in human history-a new Dark Age, especially if some fundamental sea changes are not made immediately."


LEADERSHIP

Is gross mismanagement of the nation's energy policy an impeachable offense? 18July2006 :: PeakOilRSA :: BriefingPaper

In the first chapter, the connection between money and energy is solidly established, but more importantly, the need for leadership and the reality that the plan to deal with the problem has been kept secret from us largely, as Mike documented in Crossing The Rubicon, by the National Energy Policy Development Group of 2001, chaired by Dick Cheney. Presumably, one of the first steps in providing leadership to address the inevitable catastrophic consequences of Peak Oil would be to uncover the truth about oil supply and what contingency plans were formulated by Cheney's group.

Mike asserts that his status as a non-partisan expert on energy depletion with lifelong experience with government, frees him from having to "play nice" with political groups and parties. Consequently, the contents of this book and his expertise offer the leadership desperately needed to authentically address the crisis. Fundamental to doing so, he says, is the need to abandon arguments about offshore drilling and face head-on the reality that the current economic crisis "is a global economic meltdown. No nation gets out unscathed. Nothing can grow forever."

Not willing to ever consider himself a candidate for any elected office, Mike states unequivocally that A Presidential Energy Policy has been written for Barack Obama and will be successful even if it does nothing more than open the door to genuine dialog on energy and money; "one cannot be discussed without the other."

Nor does this book adhere to the agenda of any political party. As with nearly all of Mike's writing over the years, some parts are resoundingly liberal and resemble FDR's New Deal, and some parts echo a conservative Republican or Libertarian approach simply because Mike's overarching concern has always been to "implement policies that will keep the nation functioning and that will protect the American people and the world as a whole." Having said this, he asserts that no president can protect corporations and banks with taxpayer money and at the same time allow the nation and its working and middle class citizens to fail. Unfortunately, that is currently what Barack Obama, despite political rhetoric to the contrary, appears to be doing.


POPULATION

Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production. Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

Concluding Chapter One is the familiar hockey stick diagram depicting population growth which of course correlates exactly with the dawn of the age of oil. While the reader may be tempted to overlook this important diagram, Mike returns to the population issue later in the book, and no reader should take the correlation lightly. The fact remains that human population has grown to its present level precisely because of cheap and abundant petroleum, and when that form of energy is no longer available to our species, the consequences in terms of how many of our numbers endure is obvious-a reality reiterated many times in A Presidential Energy Policy. It is therefore crucial that human beings begin to openly and honestly discuss the issue of population and commit to reducing it through means that are as humane as possible lest through our resistance to doing so, nature takes the matter into its hands and reduces population in ways that are horrific and unimaginable.

In this book Mike is thinking like a president and asks the reader to do the same. He also asks us to abandon all of the hype about alternative energies, green technology, and magic bullet solutions to the realities of Peak Oil and boldly confront the fact that "It is not possible to use enormous amounts of resources to address a resource shortage." While Obama and subsequent presidents will be faced with unprecedented energy crises, Mike reminds us that this is not just an American crisis and that the ramifications of burgeoning population growth alongside a decline in cheap fossil fuel energy spells nothing but doom for the human race unless it begins immediately to intelligently and humanely navigate what Mike calls two sides of a giant claw tightening its grip around all of us.

Therefore, the energy policy of the United States cannot be created in a vacuum. All countries, not just our own, depend on petroleum from other countries, and any president must thoughtfully ponder this fact and detach from wishful thinking about so-called energy breakthroughs, especially since the United States represents 5% of the world's population but uses 25% of its energy. He or she must also understand that oil depletion is happening far too rapidly to naively believe that switching to some attractive alternative is even possible.


SIAMESE TWINS, CHICKENS, AND EGGS

Truth & Lies of 9/11, by Michael Ruppert

In this book Mike is thinking like a president and asks the reader to do the same. He also asks us to abandon all of the hype about alternative energies, green technology, and magic bullet solutions to the realities of Peak Oil and boldly confront the fact that "It is not possible to use enormous amounts of resources to address a resource shortage."

In the "End of Suburbia", Richard Heinberg states unambiguously that Peak Oil will bring about a recession that never ends. In A Presidential Energy Policy, Mike Ruppert points out that:

All the new money being printed out of thin air is going to service a $700 trillion derivatives bubble to keep banks and lending institutions afloat. All that money is doing is enabling the financials to try and make their minimum monthly payments on a credit bubble they created.

In numerous places, including "The End of Suburbia", Mike has reminded us that the books on oil have been as cooked as the books on Enron, but it is now time for every country to know with certainty how much oil it has left. A key player in the ongoing mystery of how much oil remains on earth has been Saudi Arabia, and there is abundant evidence that that nation's oil supply has peaked, thanks to the brilliant research of Matt Simons, chairman of the world's largest energy investment bank and author of Twilight In The Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and The World Economy.

But not only must a president know how much oil his/her country has, that chief executive must carefully assess the limitations and disrepair of America's energy grid. While much of the nation's infrastructure has been and is being privatized, this does not mean that grid efficiency can be achieved within the next few decades, especially when skyrocketing energy prices will exclude many citizens from being able to afford the delivery of that energy at all. For as Mike notes, "A spike, even back to $3 a gallon will cause more hardship in 2009 than $4 gasoline did in 2008." Additionally, when assessing infrastructure, a president must include the costs of asphalt (highly petroleum intensive) and the loss of land which is very likely going to be needed for growing food. When infrastructure isn't rebuilt because of "lack of money or materiel, civilization starts to break down."


GEOPOLITICS, FOOD, CLIMATE CHANGE

Lest the reader infer that A Presidential Energy Policy deals only with domestic energy issues, Mike has included a chapter on Iraq and on Saudi Arabia, a separate chapter on foreign policy, and numerous articles by Mike regarding energy and geopolitics written in recent years are archived at the From The Wilderness website. In fact, he may know more about pipelines throughout the world and the geopolitical implications of them than anyone.

I must also mention that for me, no discussion of the collapse of industrial civilization, energy depletion, or economic meltdown can be complete without a discussion of climate change. In this book, Mike integrates the relevance of climate change in both his consideration of Peak Oil and the current economic depression. In this way, he offers a holistic assessment of what I have been calling for years the Toxic Triangle of collapse and what others have been labeling the "Triple Crisis": energy, economics, and the environment.

Eating Fossil Fuels, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

And on the topic of environment, Mike says that "if there is anything that must be understood with regard to energy it is its relationship to food." Additionally, "If there is any issue which will reveal whether an American president is serving corporations or the people, it is food." Included in his chapter on food, are articles on the use of ethanol as an energy source, as well as one of the most important articles ever published by From The Wilderness, "Eating Fossil Fuels", by Dale Allen Pfeiffer. Connecting the disastrous use of ethanol with population dieoff, Pfeiffer presents us with three choices regarding population, that is: Facing and acting on our dilemma and consciously, voluntarily limiting population growth; allowing the government to regulate population growth; or allowing nature to perform unspeakable acts of suffering and death.

Having adamantly warned us for years not to be seduced by promises of alternative energies which they are incapable of delivering, Mike reiterates his cautionary assessment of them. As he has stated many times,"...there is no alternative energy or combination of alternative energies, that will permit current consumption and lifestyle to continue-let alone provide for the compound growth we are wedded to in the current economic paradigm." The supreme reality of Peak Oil is that we will be downsized, whether we intend to be or not. To deny this fact is tantamount to assuming that Disneyworld can be run on a handful of flashlight batteries.

But Mike doesn't present these facts without also clarifying specific criteria for choosing energy options. Carefully contemplating them is beyond sobering; in fact, it is chilling, especially when one considers the touting of so-called solutions like shale and the electric car-both large consumers of water, which like every other resource on earth has also dramatically peaked. Should anyone doubt this, I suggest the films "Thirst" and "Flow" which unequivocally document the decline of water worldwide. The last thing our species and the earth community needs is another form of energy usage that further depletes any of myriad disappearing resources on this planet.


LOCALIZATION

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, by Community Solution

If the rest of A Presidential Energy Policy were not so incredibly juicy, Mike's laundry list of so-called energy alternatives alone, and his analysis of them would be worth the read. But he doesn't leave us there because he takes us into what I believe is the absolute crux of the book, namely, localization as "the alternative to the alternatives." As I write that, I'm reminded of some local farmer friends of mine who are off the grid raising three children and who do all their farming with draft animals. They're fond of pointing out that what we have become accustomed to calling "alternative energy", namely solar and wind, is the only tangible energy there is and that all other forms are, in fact, alternative. They do not, however, proclaim solar and wind to be the magic bullets that many others do. What they do proclaim and live, is the localization of all resource options.

In the Localization chapter, Mike advises the president to understand that:

...your first awareness is that the federal government cannot and will not take on the role of solving problems in cities and townships. That would be inefficient and inappropriate on every conceivable level. Only the people in each locality know and can decide what they need most. Each location has different needs. Your second awareness is that if localities fail at the bottom, the nation will fail at the top.

The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt were amongst the first people to recognise the importance of the Soldiers of the Soil. In fact Cleopatra declared the earthworm sacred, and anyone trying to take them out of the country was subjected to the death penalty. Tests carried out in the Nile valley by the US Department of Agriculture in 1949 proved that the great fertility of the soil there was due largely to the work of earthworms.~ SQ Worm Sosiety

Moreover, says Mike, all local responses to a tightening of oil supply will be dictated by the degree of self-sufficiency to which each community has liberated itself from dependence on anything from outside. Dear reader, please take the time to read that sentence again. The implications of this are jaw-dropping-and-absolutely necessary for us to wrap our minds around and implement, now. One implication is that globalization is dead. How well I remember Mike's statement in "End of Suburbia" that Peak Oil would absolutely reverse globalization. So hello human race, here we are with those giant parking lot gluts of cars all over the Los Angeles area, not to mention the Port of Long Beach, that no one will buy. For the same reason, when I enter a J.C. Penny's store, the walls and doors are covered with "70% Off" signs. Globalization, R.I.P.

As Mike points out, many individuals and families have relocated to areas where they can make themselves less dependent on fossil fuels and the goods and services of civilization. What is also true is that while we have organizations like Community Solutions and the Transition Town movement with which I am deeply involved in my community, those endeavors are still largely educational and have not been fully implemented. One stellar exception to this is Willits, California which has had a head start on localization for some time.

However, Mike adds a caveat with which I could not agree more, namely, that "There is no hope for any of us outside of a community." Here, it is important to broaden our definition of community because it does not necessarily mean a living community but rather, a group of folks in our local venues who are collapse-aware, who are working to gain self-sufficiency, and to do what is necessary to support each other in the face of collapse.

Hence, at this point I must raise the only quibble I have with A Presidential Energy Policy. In this must-read articulation of everything a president, and a nation's citizens must understand about energy, Mike has left us with what I consider a scenario that is less than feasible:

Whether as a result of the collapse of industrial civilization, the total insolvency of the United States government, the economic crash that is just beginning, or climate change (or all of the above), the effects on the United States government are going to be profound. Services are going to be cut. Bureaucracies are going to remain that may not be needed any longer, while some that may be desperately needed will not exist. At some point it will become necessary to put everything on the table and reorganize the government entirely. The imperative first-place-to-begin is the Executive Branch, which should be created anew from a blank sheet of paper.

In a subsequent paragraph, Mike states we may need to design and build a new Executive Branch of government that reflects the new paradigm being born and that for this, we will need new Jeffersons and Madisons-new founding fathers and mothers. While I do not rule out the possibility of this eventuality, I certainly do not believe it is probable. The very sea change that Mike has been brilliantly describing throughout the book dictates that we are now and will be in the days ahead, traversing territory that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history. For example, if we holistically consider the Triple Crisis, Toxic Triangle, or whatever we choose to call it-energy depletion, economic meltdown, and global climate change, then we must consider that any or all of those could radically alter not only the existence of a federal government but the very geography of the continent itself.

Last year I relocated from the Southwestern United States to Vermont. My reasons for doing so are legion, and I discussed some of them in my June, 2008 article "Location, Location, Re-location." Famous for its intense winters and high unemployment even in good times, Vermont is not for the faint of heart, and I do not recommend it unless one has job security and the ability to navigate a treacherous winter.

That said, one attraction to this sparsely populated state with its abundance of water and arable land is that it has always been a bastion of independent thinking and has today one of the strongest movements for secession in the nation. No, I'm not referring to some Rick Perry quip like "Texas might secede", but rather I'm referring to a group of thoughtful individuals who have been observing and preparing for collapse for several years. I happen to serve on the editorial board of their outstanding newspaper, Vermont Commons, the only statewide independent newspaper in Vermont.

Truth & Justice!; or Secession? for the Cape Republic of Good Hope

While I am not personally a rabid secessionist, I have come to believe that preparation for the radical alteration of geography as a result of the Triple Crisis is essential for everyone who wishes to be self-sufficient. In this state, as in I would imagine all others, there are pockets which might be completely cut off from other areas as a result of natural disasters or collapsed bridges or other infrastructure which cannot be repaired-eventualities to which Mike referred in his wonderful book. I believe that not only is such fragmentation likely, but that those disconnections might become so severe that a federal government would become completely irrelevant to and out of reach for the citizens in those areas who might be cut off from the rest of the state and nation by circumstances which we cannot now fully imagine. In other words, "secession" may not the only means by which a community becomes radically self-sufficient. In my opinion, therefore, it behooves us, if we are truly committed to localization, to focus our energies accordingly, rather than on the remapping of the Executive Branch of the federal government. It is also entirely possible that no either/or will occur and that both scenarios will deserve our attention.

Revisiting The Limits to Growth, by Mathew Simmons

What Mike has emphasized repeatedly throughout the book is an urgent transformation of our thinking-a mentality that has left miles of unsold new cars sitting in lots all over Los Angeles-cars with seven gallons of oil in each tire. Only a profound soul sickness could create and maintain a civilization that is destroying everything in its path with little thought to the suicidal trajectory into which it has become locked.

I ask you to read A Presidential Energy Policy as soon as possible and share it with your friends and family. Share it with your elected officials and your neighbors and begin now to educate your community in preparation for the inevitable consequences of the Triple Crisis. Unquestionably, we are entering a new Dark Age, but the information Mike has offered, if heeded, could punctuate the darkness with a thousand points of light.

Richard Heinberg comments that "This book, recently reviewed at length by Carolyn Baker, describes the essence of our global energy predicament for a mass audience. Ruppert ties together the issues of oil depletion, resource geopolitics, population, climate, world currency/banking systems, and global food supplies, showing how perilous our current path is, and what we need to do to change direction. Short, readable, and clear, this is an ideal book to give to friends, relatives, or political representatives who don’t yet “get it.”"

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., manages Truth to Power at http://www.carolynbaker.net/ and is the author of the just-published Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. She is an adjunct professor of history and psychology and is the author of U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You, (2006), endorsed by Mike Ruppert. Carolyn is also a former writer for and Managing Editor of From The Wilderness.

Source: Energy Bulletin

Mike Ruppert Documentaries: Denial Stops Here ** Truth & Lies of 9/11 ** Collapse

From the Wilderness: Archives :: Blog

Amazon Purchase: Presidential Energy Policy :: Crossing the Rubicon :: Denial Stops Here :: Truth & Lies of 911

Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential 'global collapse'

“Today, people are beginning to understand that the government's account is overdrawn, that a piece of paper is not the equivalent of a gold coin, or an automobile, or a loaf of bread—and that if you attempt to falsify monetary values, you do not achieve abundance, you merely debase the currency and go bankrupt.” —Ayn Rand, ‘Moral Inflation’

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.
~ American capitalism whimpers || 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years || Objectivism: Bridging Liberal Conservative Environment Divide ~

Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential 'global collapse'

Telegraph UK

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 6:12PM GMT 18 Nov 2009

Explosion of debt: Japan's public debt could reach as much as 270pc of GDP in the next two years. A bullet train is pictured speeding past Mount Fuji in Fuji city, west of Tokyo Photo: Reuters

Société Générale has advised clients to be ready for a possible "global economic collapse" over the next two years, mapping a strategy of defensive investments to avoid wealth destruction.

In a report entitled "Worst-case debt scenario", the bank's asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems.

Overall debt is still far too high in almost all rich economies as a share of GDP (350pc in the US), whether public or private. It must be reduced by the hard slog of "deleveraging", for years.

"As yet, nobody can say with any certainty whether we have in fact escaped the prospect of a global economic collapse," said the 68-page report, headed by asset chief Daniel Fermon. It is an exploration of the dangers, not a forecast.

Under the French bank's "Bear Case" scenario (the gloomiest of three possible outcomes), the dollar would slide further and global equities would retest the March lows. Property prices would tumble again. Oil would fall back to $50 in 2010.

Governments have already shot their fiscal bolts. Even without fresh spending, public debt would explode within two years to 105pc of GDP in the UK, 125pc in the US and the eurozone, and 270pc in Japan. Worldwide state debt would reach $45 trillion, up two-and-a-half times in a decade.

(UK figures look low because debt started from a low base. Mr Ferman said the UK would converge with Europe at 130pc of GDP by 2015 under the bear case).

The underlying debt burden is greater than it was after the Second World War, when nominal levels looked similar. Ageing populations will make it harder to erode debt through growth. "High public debt looks entirely unsustainable in the long run. We have almost reached a point of no return for government debt," it said.

What is the Mandrake Mechanism?: It's the most important financial lesson of your life!! ... It is the method by which the Federal Reserve creates money out of nothing; the concept of usury as the payment of interest on pretended loans; the true cause of the hidden tax called inflation; the way in which the Fed creates boom-bust cycles. The Creature from Jekyll Island: The Federal Reserve Bank, by Edward Griffin

Inflating debt away might be seen by some governments as a lesser of evils.

If so, gold would go "up, and up, and up" as the only safe haven from fiat paper money. Private debt is also crippling. Even if the US savings rate stabilises at 7pc, and all of it is used to pay down debt, it will still take nine years for households to reduce debt/income ratios to the safe levels of the 1980s.

The bank said the current crisis displays "compelling similarities" with Japan during its Lost Decade (or two), with a big difference: Japan was able to stay afloat by exporting into a robust global economy and by letting the yen fall. It is not possible for half the world to pursue this strategy at the same time.

SocGen advises bears to sell the dollar and to "short" cyclical equities such as technology, auto, and travel to avoid being caught in the "inherent deflationary spiral". Emerging markets would not be spared. Paradoxically, they are more leveraged to the US growth than Wall Street itself. Farm commodities would hold up well, led by sugar.

Mr Fermon said junk bonds would lose 31pc of their value in 2010 alone. However, sovereign bonds would "generate turbo-charged returns" mimicking the secular slide in yields seen in Japan as the slump ground on. At one point Japan's 10-year yield dropped to 0.40pc. The Fed would hold down yields by purchasing more bonds. The European Central Bank would do less, for political reasons.

SocGen's case for buying sovereign bonds is controversial. A number of funds doubt whether the Japan scenario will be repeated, not least because Tokyo itself may be on the cusp of a debt compound crisis.

Mr Fermon said his report had electrified clients on both sides of the Atlantic. "Everybody wants to know what the impact will be. A lot of hedge funds and bankers are worried," he said.

Source: Telegraph UK

[Update 16-11-07] Notice of (i) Correction of Error/s & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl.Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151)

Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production.

To advocate for human rights, peace, and social justice while ignoring their necessary ecological basis --— a stable human population – at, or slightly less than – the eco-systems long term carrying capacity --- is intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy.

The longer we put off choosing the nicer methods of achieving demographic stability, the more likely the nasty ones become, whether imposed by nature or by some fascistic regime. Urine Good Company might represent a mild version of what could actually be in store if we let the marketplace, corporations, and secretive, militaristic governments come up with eugenic solutions to our population dilemma.
~ Population, Resources, and Human Idealism, Energy Bulletin | Population Growth: Most Powerful Force on Earth, Money&Markets ~

Cape Bar & Intn'l Bar Assoc: Pro Bono Comm's: RE: Freedom of Speech Political and Cultural Rights, or Secession?; Constitutional, & Intn'l Law Issues

Notice of (i) Correction of Error/s & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl.Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151)

Update 09 Nov '09: Corrections are as follows:

Letter: Notice of (i) Correction of Errors & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl. Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151)
Enclosure: Annexure AA: Transparency Disclosure: Email Correspondence: Lara Johnstone to & from: SA Sucks: Doodler & Lone Wolf. Dates: Friday Oct 30, to Nov 5, 2009

• Letter to SA Students Congress, Mandela Rhodes Foundation, ANC Youth League; RE: Reitz 4 & Black Culture...
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:49K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  » » Sent: Sat 11/7/2009 11:18 PM
  » » Honey Attorneys: Read: Mon 11/9/2009 4:16 PM
  
  
• Letter to Irish Embassy, Jefferson Family & Independent Newspapers; RE: Boycott 2010 World Cup
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:49K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  » » Sent: Sat 11/7/2009 10:00 PM
  » » Owen Swaine Solicitors: Read: Sun 11/8/2009 6:31 PM
  
  
• Letter to Austrian Embassy, Burgstaller & Symcox Families; RE: Boycott 2010 World Cup
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:49K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  » » Sent: Sat 11/7/2009 9:36 PM
  » » Austrian Embassy, Pta: Read: Mon 11/9/2009 8:48 AM
  
  
• Boycott 2010 World Cup!: Truth & Justice; or Secession?
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:49K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  
  
• PC Canada vs. IRB & Huntley: How many SA Black on White Crimes are Racially Motivated?
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:49K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  » » Sent: Tue 11/10/2009 12:34 AM
  » » SA HC in Canada: Read on 11/9/2009 8:32 AM
  » » Min. Citizenship & Immig, Canada: Read: Mon 11/9/2009 2:31 PM
  » » High. Comm. of Canada, Pta: Read: Sat 11/7/2009 11:14 PM
  
  
• Cape Bar & Intn'l Bar Assoc: Pro Bono Comm's: RE: Freedom of Speech Political and Cultural Rights, or Secession?; Constitutional, & Intn'l Law Issues
  » 09-11-07 Correction: PDF:55K » Encl.AA PDF:2603K
  » » Sent: Mon 11/9/2009 2:26 PM
  » » Cape Bar Assoc.: Read: Mon 11/9/2009 2:31 PM
  » » Intn'l Bar Assoc.: Read: Mon 11/9/2009 2:27 PM
  

  Your message
  To: OTP InformationDesk; JAGCMC@navy.mil;
  Cc: www.miragestorum.co.nr
  Subject: RE: [Update] ICC Prosecutor: Info & Evidence Unit (CC: Dep. Judge Adv. Gen., US Navy JAG Office)
  Sent: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:27:54 +0100
  was read on Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:29:45 +0100

My apologies for the inconvenience and the error.

Update: 10 November '09:

ILuvSA Retractions & Corrections: Vanilla Ice: Black Swans, Misrepresentations and the Truth

Update: 16 November '09: Ontmaskering Forensic Investigation Results:

Brief Forensic Investigation Conclusion: Four of the 13 alleged 'South African crime scene photographs' posted by Uhuru Guru/Lone Wolf, to Doodler's SA Sucks post, Your Life is In Danger (#6151), are unequivocally and undoubtedly not South African crime scene photographs, from South African police files. Furthermore, at least two (quite possibly three) of the alleged 'crime scene' photographs, are used online by individuals whose pornography manic-addictions, include crime scene corpses. As a result of the distastefullness of the evidence proving the Fraud: The forensic evidence is only available in full on the password protected pages of the ontmaskering blog, for evidentiary purposes, in proving the allegations only.

Dear Sirs & Ladies,

Apologies for the inconvenience; but I do not intentionally distribute incorrect information. If or when I am informed with evidence that I have made an error, then my religious cultural principles of Radical Hon(our)sty , require that I take personal responsibility for my error, and correct it. This is such a case.

In aforementioned letter to you, I included a copy of the original article, from SA Sucks (www.zasucks.com): Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151) (PDF[7]), as an enclosure/link. At the time of sharing the information with you, I fully believed, according to my efforts to confirm the information, that the information in said article was authentic and honest information shared from its authors, Doodler and Lone Wolf, of SA Sucks.


Brief Chronology of Events:

The aforementioned article including its gruesome and horrific crime scene photographs, was posted to the aforementioned SA Sucks website, by ‘Doobler’ (Article and 1 photo) and ‘Lone Wolf’ (Photo Gallery of 13 photos), on October 27th.

On Oct 30th, I contacted Lone Wolf by email, to make further enquiries regarding the crime scene photos, so as to ascertain their authenticity, and other evidence he stated he had, for submission to the International Criminal Court: Office of the Prosecutor: Information and Evidence Unit. I had submitted other – unrelated to SASucks -- South African White Refugee, and related material to the ICC; and thought the crime scene photos significant important additional evidence. His response convinced me he was genuinely concerned, and I concluded he was telling the truth about the photos: Should the ICC investigate, he would provide the ICC with the information as to his sources; and the matter could be professionally and impartially investigated.

On 04 November 2009, I was informed the ‘owner’ of the SASucks blog, ‘Uhuru Guru’ was arrested, by a Capt. van der Linde (Linden Police Station, Jhb), without any charges being filed. He was subsequently held overnight in police cells, and subsequently released the following day, when the State Prosecutor refused to lay charges, on the old crimen injuria matter, from 1993.

The initial news of the arrest shocked the blogging community, many -– like myself -- who mobilized to spread the word, about his arrest, far and wide. The arrests occurring so soon after SA Sucks crime scene photograph ‘expose’, I very strongly suspected the possibility that the arrests were directly linked, and the arrests appeared to be attempts to intimidate SA Sucks, to cease exposing ‘South African crime’ evidence which the S. A. government and police were hiding and covering up.

On 06 Nov, I was informed of a post at Litnet, (And so the Boston Stranglers victims end up on SASucks), which alleged the aforementioned South African crime scene photographs to be frauds. Unfortunately, a Google search for Boston Strangler crime scene photographs, yields the exact picture[10**] found on aforementioned original SASucks site; although the Boston Crime Scene site comments allege other crime scene realities. Irrespective of which crime scene the photo was originally from, it clearly is not as inferred and represented in the original SA Sucks article; casting serious doubt on the other photos, in the same article, as originally stated. [** See 16 Nov '09 Update.]

In compiling a transcript of the email correspondence between myself and Lone Wolf et al, on this matter, for transparency disclosure purposes; a further very strange ‘Red Flag’ occurred:

There is one email missing from my Microsoft Email Account Sent box, and I am pretty sure I sent it to Lone Wolf and [Name Withheld], sometime around Nov 3, or 4. The only other time any email has ever disappeared from my computer, that I am aware of, was an email written in May 2001, to President G.W. Bush; CC: FBI, CIA et al; requesting the suspension of Timothy McVeigh’s execution, for McVeigh and the victims of the OKC bombing to get closure, via Radical Honesty Truth and Forgiveness.

This missing email was a copy of the Molotov Cocktail, March ‘07 article: Paramilitary Training Camps in South Africa [http://whatisyourrrintelligence.blogspot.com/2009/11/paramilitary-training-camps-in-south.html], with the Cryptome PDF attachment of the alleged 2001 NIA Briefing of Pres. Thabo Mbeki, regarding alleged Hamas Paramilitary Training Camps in South Africa. I did not delete the email; and if intentionally removed by any individual, then I consider it a plausibility the removal of the email, from my computer, is yet another Plausible Deniable Crypto Message from the NSA, whom I granted permission to monitor all my written, telephonic et al communications on 28 October 2001[11].

Cryptome PDF Original at: http://cryptome.org/za-hamas.htm
Copy: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4TzWFmSUmx9ODAwZTBiMGItMTQyOC00M2ZmLWJjMmItYmE2MmJmZTM2MjBj&hl=en

Note: The Military Intelligence Agencies who were contacted (CC’d to my ICC complaint) about these Population Policy Common Sense: ‘White Refugee’ and ‘Assymetrical Resource Warfare’ matters, are listed among others, at www.miragestorum.co.nr

I accordingly include as an attachment hereto, the full Transparency Disclosure transcript of all email correspondence between myself and Lone Wolf, et al, in this matter.


Conclusion, Retraction and Apology

The arguments[12] and evidence I have submitted previously and elsewhere for the claims I have made, in regard to crime and racially motivated acts of crime in South Africa, based upon the evidence stated therein, remain. I still think the South African government are not being remotely transparent and have, and continue to, violate the Social Contract; as I have repeatedly accused them of since 2002, in various legal complaints[13] (et al). However, I do not support making accusations against anyone, based upon known false information.

I accordingly am honour bound to inform you that I herewith retract the aforementioned article provided to you. I furthermore unequivocally apologize, should the photographs have distressed you, they certainly disturbed me greatly.

Please herewith accept my unreserved apologies and retraction of aforementioned article, from the contents of my communication to you.

Respectfully Submitted,


Lara Johnstone, Pro Se Applicant
Per: 16 Taaibos Avenue, George, 6529
P O Box 5049, George East, 6539
Tel: (044) 870 7239

Encl. Annexure AA: Transparency Disclosure: Email Correspondence: Lara Johnstone to & from: SA Sucks: Doodler & Lone Wolf. Dates: Friday Oct 30, to Nov 5, 2009

Source: PDF:55K: Encl: PDF:2603K

Cape Bar & Intn'l Bar Assoc: Pro Bono Comm's: RE: Freedom of Speech Political and Cultural Rights, or Secession?; Constitutional, & Intn'l Law Issues

“Karl Marx had it wrong. Class has, been a major factor in history; but class itself is a derivative concept that is based on the ultimate causative power in history: sex. Control -- or the claim of control -- over the means of reproduction has been even more fundamental to history than has control of the means of production.”
~ Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes and the Course of History ~

“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases which we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions who are it’s victims” -- Martin Luther King
~ Africa, Don't Blame the Whites | The Problem with Africa | Africa's Leaders Need a Paradigm Shift in Their Thinking ~

Letter to Cape Bar & Intn'l Bar Assoc: Pro Bono Committees

Subject: HC-WC In Forma Pauperis (Crimen Injuria) Review Application; RE: Freedom of Speech Political and Cultural Rights, or Secession?; Constitutional, Foreign and International Law Issues

* 09-11-07 Correction Update *
Letter: Notice of (i) Correction of Errors & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl. Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151) (PDF:49K)
Enclosure: Annexure AA: Transparency Disclosure: Email Correspondence: Lara Johnstone to & from: SA Sucks: Doodler & Lone Wolf. Dates: Friday Oct 30, to Nov 5, 2009 (2603K)

Honourable Sirs/Madam,

[1] I am writing to request your Pro Bono Committee’s support, as follows:

[a] [Cape/Intn’l] To peruse the brief overview of legal arguments of fact and law; upon which I wish to found my Application for Leave, and Judicial Review;

[b] [Cape] Assist Mr. Stage, Registrar of the High Court, should he wish to contact you, in suggesting a suitably practicing Attorney or Attorney’s firm, in Capetown (or as relevant), whom the High Court, can accordingly refer my In Forma Pauperis application to, in terms of the provisions of Sub-Rule 1(a) of Rule 40 of the Rules of the High Court;

[c] [Cape/Intn’l] Please forward this correspondence to any Attorney, Attorney’s firm, or as appropriate, whom your Pro Bono committee consider may be interested or suitably qualified to provide me with Pro Bono Legal Assistance, in the capacity of either: (i) representation of counsel, or (ii) assistance of counsel; or (iii) a legal expert in the particular relevant fields of issue.

[2] Brief Summary of Grounds for Leave and Review:

[a] Absence of Jurisdiction: Crimen Injuria is Unconstitutional; State’s Irretrievable Breach of Truth and Reconciliation Social Contract Principles, and Denial of International Political, Civil & Cultural Rights provides legal grounds for Secession.

• The law of Crimen Injuria is unconstitutional, in that, it violates the fundamental principle which is the foundation of a ‘democracy’; namely the principle of freedom of speech. In a constitutional republic, there is no such right as the ‘right not to be offended/insulted’.[23]
  
  
• Denial of International Constitutional Right to a Jury Trial: The denial to South African citizens of access to a Jury Trial, to be judged by a jury of their peers, is unconstitutional, and a violation of the principles of International Political, Civil and Cultural Rights. Furthermore, a democracy is dangerous because it is a one-vote system as opposed to a Republic, which is a three-vote system. Three votes to check tyranny, not just one. Citizens have not been informed of their other two jury votes.
  
  
• Due Process Irregularity: Denial of Freedom of Religion, Belief, Opinion and Expression, Language, and Linguistic Culture, Admissible and Competent Evidence: » Secession and Self Determination:
  
  
  • Law of Crimen Injuria conflicts with Applicants Radical Hon(our)sty Religion, since the law of Crimen Injuria requires the Applicant to lie, pretend and be a two-faced hypocrite; whenever it may be possible, that someone either with a sensitive ego, or a vengeance minded axe to grind, may choose to pretend to feel offended or insulted, by Applicants honest opinion, shared non-violently, in person to their face (not behind their back): verbally, or in writing[24]; by filing crimen injuria charges, and abusing taxpayers money on criminal prosecutions to massage their ego’s.
    
    
  • Furthermore, if the constitutionality of Crimen Injuria is upheld, at the expense of Applicants Radical Hon(our)sty Cultural Religion, as founded upon (i) Radical Honesty Social Contract[25] and (ii) The Laws of Sustainability[26]; and those on behalf of whom she conducted her original civil disobedience act[27]; then such denial amounts to the final and irretrievable breach and nullification of the Truth and Reconciliation Social Contract[28]; providing for the Applicants international legal standing, for grounds for Secession and Self Determination, in accordance with the principles enunciated in Security Council Resolution of 1244, the “recognition of a human community within a sovereign state enjoying a right to self-determination.” (Radical Hon(our)sty Social Contract Offer: Revolution of “Being Black/ Being White” Consciousness; OR Minutemen Secession?[29])

[b] Gross Irregularities in the Proceedings & The Admission of the State’s Inadmissible or Incompetent Evidence, and the Rejection of Pro Se Defendant’s Admissible and Competent Evidence

• Courts Rejection of Applicants Pro Se Admissible and Competent Application: Notice of Intention: Correct the Record: Withdrawal of Formal Admissions (PDF[30]; Proof of Service PDF[31])
  
  
• Courts Rejection of Applicants Pro Se Admissible and Competent Application: Notice of Intention: Application for Leave, and Judicial Review (PDF[32], Proof of Service PDF[33]), filed subsequent to conviction, with supporting Affidavits, by two expert witnesses, supporting the Founding Affidavit (PDF[34]):
  
  
  • Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D, evidencing the legal, psychological, and socio-political ‘citizens privilege’, Nuremberg Principles skills and competencies of Individual Responsibility, required for acts of civil disobedience to perceived illegitimate authority; and their application to the common law ‘reasonableness test’ (PDF[35])
    
    
  • Affidavit of Leonard George Horowitz evidencing the Origin of AIDS sourcing from Hepatitus B Vaccine experiments conducted by Agents and Agencies of the Federal Government of the United States of America and the Merck Pharmaceutical Company (PDF[36])
  
  
  
• Courts Rejection of Applicants Pro Se Admissible and Competent Application Prior to Conviction: Legal Argument: Political Necessity, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF37]; Proof of Service PDF)
  
  
• Courts Indifferent and Repeated Rejection of all Applicants Pro Se Applications, with the requirement that the content thereof is unworthy of serious impartial consideration, unless the legal format and application process procedures of its submittal meets the exact same legal standards as those required of qualified legal representatives, demonstrates the courts choice to act as a Critical Legal Literacy Interpreter Parasite instead of a Legal Social Engineer[39]; not to mention a confirmation of the facts, to which the court and State repeatedly demonstrated their indifference; as –- for example -- stated Applicants Application for Leave, and Judicial Review, dated 22 September 2009 [Pt 10] (PDF[40], Proof of Service PDF[41])
  

  South African Law Commission Issue Paper Six, alleged the Criminal Justice System to have a severe Legitimacy and Inefficiency Crisis, in that:
  

  • Communities are intimidated by the legal system, and ignorant of how it works.
    
  • Legal representation is inadequate and discriminatory.
    
  • Legal aid has not been able to serve its intended purpose.
    
  • The justice system's inaccessibility means it is perceived as illegitimate, ineffective, unfriendly, resulting in alternative dispute resolution whether legal or illegal.
    
  • Unnecessary complexities brought into access to justice and the mystifying language used.

  
  
• Due Process Irregularity: Denial of Nuremberg Principles Skills and Competencies in interpretation and application of common law ‘reasonableness test’ [Application and Interpretation of the Bill of Rights, in terms of the Common Law, International Law and Foreign Law; & spirit, purport and object of Bill of Rights]
  
  
  • Courts Incorrect Interpretation of the Unreasonableness Test, and application thereof to Crimen Injuria: The correct test the court should have applied, was not the ‘man on the Clapham omnibus test’, but the test of the ordinary skilled political activist exercising or professing to have the special skills, in non-violently, by means of civil disobedience Nuremberg and ‘citizens privilege’ principles, confronting – perceived to be -- illegal political authority[42].(Affidavit: Brad Blanton PDF[43])
  
  
• Due Process Irregularity: Denial of Access to Information and Just Administrative Action Principles, and Admissible and Competent Evidence.
  
  
  • Plaintiff’s Use of Crimen Injuria Charges were not honourable: Plaintiffs Intentions: Political Persecution of Applicant; by means of Perjury, and Fraud.
    

  • State’s Prosecution of Crimen Injuria Charges were not honourable: Irregular and Illegal Actions of Complicity to Plaintiff’s Perjury, Fraud and Political Persecution of Applicant.
  
  
• Courts Refusal to allow Applicant the opportunity to invoke the Political Necessity Defence [Civil Disobedience and the Necessity Defence, John Alan Cohen, Pierce Law Review (PDF[44])]; renders Applicants Formal Admissions -- made, as required by, the Political Necessity Defence – null and void
  
  
  • Court made irregular use of Applicants Null and Void Formal Admissions, as factual evidence to its findings of Guilt of the Applicant.
    

  • Courts Refusal to accept Applicants Formal Admission Facts, as sufficient proof of such facts; renders (i) Applicants Formal Admissions as null and void; (ii) shows that 84% of the politicians who received the ‘crimen injuria’ text messages, considered them to be lawful, because they did not file any charges of crimen injuria; accordingly the crimen injuria text messages do not pass the crimen injuria ‘reasonableness test’, when only one out of six text message recipients, allegedly considered them to be an ‘insult to their dignity’; the exact same recipient who committed perjury in her affidavit and on the witness stand. (SAPS: Complaint of Perjury, Fraud & Persecution against Hon. Patricia de Lille PDF[45])
    

  • Courts Refusal to Honour Applicants Notice to Correct the Record: Withdrawal of Formal Admissions, in accordance with Criminal Procedure Act § 105A Plea and Sentence Agreement principles.

[3]Crimen Injuria, Freedom of Speech (Secrecy/Transparency), Human Rights, SA Constitution, International Human Rights, Secession, Justification Defenses & Jury Nullification Legal Experts.

Furthermore, I have also CC’d the following, Legal Experts on these issues, who may, or may not, be willing to consider providing a bit of Pro Bono assistance, in regards to their particular areas of expertise, if so requested:

• Prof. Jonathan Burchell[46], Professor of Law, UCT. Professor Burchell is not only a legal expert on Criminal Law and Procedure; but also on Crimen Injuria; as the co-author of Personality Rights and Freedom of Expression: The Modern Actio Injuriarum (1998) Juta & Co. Ltd;
  

  Crimen Injuria Legal Authorities, among others:
  

  • In Primary Legal Code Word: Crimen Injuria, and Decoding Crimen Injuria & Racially Offensive Language: Legal Case Law et al, under Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities, and Application of Facts to Propositions of Law, as found in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[47]; Proof of Service PDF[48])
  
  
• Prof. Richard Calland[49], Assoc. Prof of Law: Constitutional, Human Rights & Administrative Law, specialising in the law and practice of the right to access to information and whistleblowing protection; in administrative justice, public ethics and constitutional design. He is a member of the Transparency Task team of the Institute for Public Dialogue at Columbia University, which is led by Professor Joseph Stiglitz.
  

  Transparency Quotes and Argument, among others:
  

  • S v Hoho (493/05) [2008] ZASCA 98; [2009] 1 All SA 103 (SCA) ; 2009 (1) SACR 276 (SCA) (17 September 2008), as per: Decoding Crimen Injuria & Racially Offensive Language: Legal Case Law et al, under Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities, and Application of Facts to Propositions of Law found in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[50]; Proof of Service[51])
    
  • Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone (PDF[52]; Proof of Service[53])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Dr. Len G. Horowitz (PDF[54]: Proof of Service[55])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D (PDF[56]: Proof of Service[57])
    
  • Complaint to SAHRC (WC-2009-0455BS): Crimes Against Peace, Crimes Against Humanity & Crime of Apartheid (PDF[58]; Service[59])
  
  
• Prof. Thomas Bennet[60], Prof. Customary & Public International Law, UCT, expert on customary law and human rights; teaches principles governing foreign judgements in South African private international law; principles of public international law; and international law on disputes.
  

  Customary Law: Radical Hon(our)sty Cultural Religion, among others:
  

  • Justification Defence: Political Necessity: (I) Freedom of Speech: Radical Hon(our)sty Cultural Religious Practice; (II) Disobedience to Legalisation of Evil/Nullification of TRC-RSA Social Contract, as found in Brief Statement of Defendant: Justification Defence: Political Necessity: (PDF[61]; Court Proceedings, 08 July 2009; et al: Proof of Service[62])
    
  • Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities, and Application of Facts to Propositions of Law found in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[63]; Proof of Service[64])
    
  • Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone (PDF[65]; Proof of Service[66])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D (PDF[67]: Proof of Service[68])
    
  • Complaint to SAHRC (WC-2009-0455BS): Crimes Against Peace, Crimes Against Humanity & Crime of Apartheid (PDF[69]; Service[70])
  
  
• Prof. Pierre de Vos[71] is the Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance and teaches in the area of Constitutional Law, at UCT. He is also the chairperson of the Board of the Aids Legal Network.
  

  Human Rights & International Law Quotes (Too many to refer to all)
  

  • Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone (PDF[72]; Proof of Service[73])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Dr. Len G. Horowitz (PDF[74]: Proof of Service[75])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D (PDF[76]: Proof of Service[77])
    
  • Complaint to SAHRC (WC-2009-0455BS): Crimes Against Peace, Crimes Against Humanity & Crime of Apartheid (PDF[78]; Service[79])
  
  
• Prof. Wouter de Vos[80], teaches law of evidence and criminal procedure. He is a member of the Council of the International Association of Procedural Law and a member of the International Civil Litigation Committee of the International Law Association.
  
  
• Professor Francis A. Boyle[81], Professor of Law: International Law & Human Rights, at Univ. of Chicago. He is the author of Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law (Rowman & Littlefield Inc. 2007) which has been used successfully in anti-war protest trials. In the September 2000 issue of the prestigious The International History Review, Professor Boyle's Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations (1898-1922) was proclaimed as “a major contribution to this reinterrogation of the past” and “required reading for historians, political scientists, international relations specialists, and policy-makers.”
  

  Human Rights & International Law Quotes (Too many to refer to all)
  

  • Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone (PDF[82]; Proof of Service[83])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Dr. Len G. Horowitz (PDF[84]: Proof of Service[85])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D PDF[86]: Proof of Service[87])
    
  • Complaint to SAHRC (WC-2009-0455BS): Crimes Against Peace, Crimes Against Humanity & Crime of Apartheid (PDF[88]; Service[89])
  
  
• Prof. Christian Tomuschat[90], Emeritus Professor of Public International Law and European Law at Humboldt University in Berlin; former member of the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN’s International Law Commission. He is the author of Secession and Self-Determination, in Marcelo G. Kohen, Secession: International Law Perspectives, Cambridge 2006; wherein he comments on among others, how Security Council Resolution of 1244, “displaying recognition of a human community within a sovereign state enjoying a right to self-determination” (p34).
  

  Secession Quotes, among others:
  

  • “Radical Hon(our)sty Social Contract Offer[91]: Revolution of “Being Black/ Being White” Consciousness; OR Minutemen Secession?”, at Pt.60, stated as the Heading for the Conclusion, in Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone, in Support of Application for Leave, and Judicial Review (PDF[92]; Proof of Service[93])
  
  
• Prof David Skover[94], Frederic C. Tausend Professor of Law, at University of Seattle Law School; the author of among others, The Tactics of Legal Reasoning, and The death of Discourse, and The Trials of Lenny Bruce. In 2003, Skover and his coauthor, Ron Collins, successfully petitioned Governor Pataki of New York State to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce. In 2004, they received the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for The Trials of Lenny Bruce and their pardon effort.
  

  Prof. Kover quoted:
  

  • Law: Critical Literacy Interpretation of Legal Code Words: under Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[95]; Proof of Service[96])
  
  

  Lenny Bruce Quotes:
  

  • Consequences of Suppression of ‘Nigger’, in ‘Kaffir’: Prevailing Norms of Society: Community Values and Thinking[97]; and in
    
  • WHO: Mutual Help Destiny Control Colleagues: A Guide for Peaceful Revolution in South Africa in An Essay on Proudly South African Parasite Hypocrisy: Fraudulent 'Rehabilitation' Boomerang: Correctional Services Prison Policies As A Major Intentional Source of New South Africa's 'Kaffirs' AKA 'Criminals' (PDF[98]; Proof of Service, 2004[99]) (Proof of Service: 13 Aug 09[100]), (Proof of Service, 23 Sept 09[101]: Annex AA01c]
  
  
• Prof. James Joseph Duane[102], Assoc. Professor at Regents Law School, Virginia Beach, VA: Author of among others: Jurors Handbook: A Citizens Guide to Jury Duty, which includes: Jury Nullification: The Top Secret Constitutional Right[103].
  

  Jury Nullification Quotes:
  

  • Decoding: Legal Justification: Jury Nullification; under Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities, and Application of Facts to Propositions of Law, as found in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[104; Proof of Service[105])
    
  • Jurors Handbook, submitted as Evidentiary document to Application for Leave, and Judicial Review, dated 22 September 2009 (PDF[106], Proof of Service PDF[107])
  
  
• Dr. Robert Schopp[108] is Professor of Law and Psychology at Univ. of Nebraska, and the author of Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law: Justification Defenses and Just Convictions[109]. This major study advances an interpretation of criminal justification defenses (including necessity and nullification) that views them as an integral component of the structure of criminal law. It integrates philosophical analysis with a consideration of contemporary applications, & shows how these defenses are key components of criminal law, in the relationship between legal & moral justification.
  

  Justification Defence: Political Necessity, references, among others:
  

  • Justification Defence: Political Necessity: (I) Freedom of Speech: Radical Hon(our)sty Cultural Religious Practice; (II) Disobedience to Legalisation of Evil/Nullification of TRC-RSA Social Contract, as found in Brief Statement of Defendant: Justification Defence: Political Necessity: (PDF[110]; Court Proceedings, 08 July 2009; et al: Proof of Service[111])
    
  • Propositions of Law with Reference to Authorities, and Application of Facts to Propositions of Law found in State v. Johnstone: Legal Argument, dated 11 August 2009 (PDF[112]; Proof of Service[113])
    
  • Founding Affidavit of Lara Johnstone (PDF[114]; Proof of Service[115])
    
  • Supporting Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D (PDF[116]: Proof of Service[117])
    
  • Complaint to SAHRC (WC-2009-0455BS): Crimes Against Peace, Crimes Against Humanity & Crime of Apartheid (PDF[118]; Service[119])
  
  
  
• Attorney Lowell (Larry) Becraft, Jr.[120], is a constitutional attorney based in Huntsville, Alabama, who specializes in criminal defense cases, primarily defending federal income tax protestors. Attorney Becraft is the attorney for Dr. Leonard Horowitz, whose Affidavit as an expert witness is filed in this matter, as a Written Statement of Consent in terms of § 213 of the Criminal Procedure Act: Affidavit of Leonard George Horowitz evidencing the Origin of AIDS sourcing from Hepatitus B Vaccine experiments conducted by Agents and Agencies of the Federal Government of the United States of America and the Merck Pharmaceutical Company. (PDF[121]: Proof of Service[122]; Proof of Service to SAHRC[123])
  
  
• Attorney Katya Komisaruk[124] Just Law Collective[125], Oakland, CA. Attorney Komisaruk is an ‘anarchist lawyer’, who specialises in defending and advising protestors engaged in civil disobedience tactics. She perhaps best known for her successful defense of hundreds of demonstrators arrested during the 1999 World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle. She is a Harvard educated lawyer, who can speak with authority on the repercussions of civil disobedience, from personal experience of two years she spent in prison for vandalizing nuclear weapons navigational equipment at Vandenburg Air Force Base in 1987.
  
  
• Jon Roland[126], Founder & President of the Constitution Society. He is the 2002 and 2006 Nominee of the Texas Libertarian Party for Texas Attorney General; and currently exploring a ‘Ron Paul Libertarian like’ candidacy for the U.S. Senate in Texas. He has done a great deal of work in the field of constitutional history. Speaker at We The People Congress conference in Alexandria VA, 2007: Common Constitutional Errors. Accepted by a court in Williamson County, Texas in 2005, as an expert witness on constitutional and legal history. Seeks to revive the constitutional militia system envisioned by the Founders, involving the organizing and training of the entire population to defend their communities against threats, including threats from terrorism, foreign invasion, insurrection, crime, and disasters, and to secure national borders against unlawful entry. Discussed in Jonathan Karl, The Right to Bear Arms: The Rise of America's New Militias, HarperCollins, New York (1995).

Dated at George, Southern Cape, South Africa, on this day, the 28th of October, 2009

Lara Johnstone, Pro Se Applicant
Per: 16 Taaibos Avenue, George, 6529
P O Box 5049, George East, 6539
Tel: (044) 870 7239

Encl: Two SABlogger Reports: (I) Truth is the Real Casualty of the Reitz video, ZAmizdat; (II) Your Life is in Danger, Why South Africa Sucks

* 09-11-07 Correction Update *
Letter: Notice of (i) Correction of Errors & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl. Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151) (PDF:49K)
Enclosure: Annexure AA: Transparency Disclosure: Email Correspondence: Lara Johnstone to & from: SA Sucks: Doodler & Lone Wolf. Dates: Friday Oct 30, to Nov 5, 2009 (2603K)

SAmizdat [http://antonbarnard.praag.co.za/?p=678]

The Politically Incorrect Facts: 2009: 10.27 ; by Anton Barnard

The truth is the real casualty of the Reitz video

Afrikaans is my home language but I am deliberately writing this in English, because of my extreme levels of irritation with the distortions, half-truths and outright lies being perpetrated by especially the liberal media and the left wing about the Reitz students, who made the so-called racist video involving cleaners at the University of the Free State. Most of the perpetrators of these malicious lies do, of course, understand Afrikaans, but for reasons of sycophancy or anti-Afrikaner hatred, pretend they don’t.

The facts of this incident make a complete and utter mockery of the hysterical screaming of the liberals and left wingers. It is trivially easy, using the demonstrable facts, to completely demolish the pack of lies on which the entire Reitz House “case” against the 4 students has been built. Not that liberals and left-wingers have even the slightest interest in the facts or the truth, however, especially not when it suits their nefarious purposes to deliberately ignore or distort the facts.

1. The video is not racist. It was, on the contrary, made as a satirical response to anti-white racism, the ethnic cleansing of Afrikaans, Afrikaners and whites known as (racist) transformation, in terms of which the university wanted to force university students against their will to share their residences with those of other population groups. There is also a deliberate campaign to expunge Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at the university, and replace it with English. Whatever happened to the students’ constitutionally guaranteed concept of freedom of association, one might ask? Why are they forced to integrate, against their will? Where is the students’ constitutional right to be taught in their mother tongue? Where is the liberal media’s outrage about the injustice the Afrikaans-speaking students are being subjected to?
   
   
2. As a white former university residence member, albeit at another university, I was subjected to the exact same ritual that the cleaners were jokingly subjected to. We were forced to eat mouldy bread, for example, and had molasses poured over us as an initiation ritual. The difference is in the video it was a joke, but in my case it was for real. Think what you may about initiations (which is an entirely separate issue that has much more to do with bullying than with racism) but there was no question of any racism in the Reitz video, except for the anti-white racism it was protesting against. Once again, the makers of the video in question intended their video to be satirical, and to jokingly pretend to show cleaners subjected to the same ritual that I and many other lily-white students had been subjected to over the years.
   
   
3. The sycophantic left-wing media, for example Talk Radio 702, insist on continuously repeating an outright lie, i.e. that the students “urinated” (sic) on the cleaners’ food. Nothing of the kind happened. How many times must it be repeated before these liberal dullards will succeed in comprehending the simple truth: it was an orange cordial known as Oros. What is so difficult to grasp, people? I am again thinking of especially Talk Radio 702, that deliberately, knowingly and repeatedly spreads this lie in its news bulletins.
   
   
4. In spite of the bilge spewed by those intellectual giants and experts in carpentry of the ANCYL, the so-called victims very clearly did not think that their dignity had been trodden on at the time. Had that adult prodigy Julius Malema and his equally gifted Cosatu comrades taken the trouble to view the entire video, it would have been abundantly clear that the so-called victims participated voluntarily and indeed laughingly in the video. The so-called victims even drank a beer and jokingly played rugby with their “tormentors”, and clearly had a good time in the filming of the video. Once again: nobody was hurt in any way, shape or form. Nobody’s dignity was compromised. There was no racism. Those are the facts; except the facts don’t suit the liberals or the left, do they?
   
   
5. Months after filming the video, the cleaners clearly thought nothing more of it. They most assuredly never even considered laying any charges, or even complaining to the authorities. How could they, given that they were filmed while drinking on duty? It was only when the demagogues of the left stumbled on the video, that the insane screams of racism started, and the cleaners were brainwashed by others into agreeing that their rights had been trampled upon. This only goes to show up the extremely patronizing attitude that especially liberals have towards blacks. It is in fact not the students who displayed a racist attitude, but the liberals and left-wingers who decided on the cleaners’ behalf that they had not acted correctly by playing along and not pressing charges. How patronizing can one get? The cleaners are adults and as such surely could decide for themselves they had no problem with the video. Others, however, took it upon themselves to force the cleaners to “admit” that they’d been harmed. How much respect do those who imposed their views on the cleaners have for the judgement of the cleaners themselves? Are those that laid the charge not in effect saying the the cleaners, being black, are incapable of making a correct decision and require the assistance of external parties to realize when they’ve been slighted?
   
   
6. When it was finally decided to charge the students in question, nobody was quite sure with what to charge them. Is bad taste, which is the worst that the makers of the video can be accused of, a criminal offense? The best that the prosecutions authority could come up with, was the largely irrelevant charge of crimen injuria. It is unclear how exactly this can be proved in any reasonable court of law – once again, the so-called victims were willing and laughing participants, who didn’t even consider pressing charges.
   
   
7. Another egregious lie that keeps being repeated by the Nazis on the left (no doubt taking their lead from Adolf Hitler who famously said that a lie that is repeated often enough is eventually mistaken for the truth) is that the Reitz students showed no remorse. According to their lawyer, the truth is that they have attempted on several occasions to do so, but were not allowed to do so. Once again, one has to ask why not. The answer, of course, remains the same: in the Nazi-like propaganda war being waged on whites, the truth and facts don’t suit the left.
   
   
8. While the left and liberals are screaming hysterically about a non-event, the shocking hate speech and naked anti-white bigotry of black students at universities, including the Free State university, continue unchecked. A few weeks ago, black students at Tuks embarked on a criminal orgy of violence and uttered death threats against white students who were trying to prevent the former from trashing the campus (as the more radical black students have been wont to do on multiple occasions.) On the very same campus where the Reitz video was shot, black students recently threatened to “rape the white bitches.” Yet, there is a strange silence about this ourageous black-on-white racial hate from all quarters, including the liberal mainstream media. Why is this? Why not also splash this across your front pages for months on end, rend your clothes and scream your outrage to the heavens, as you did with the Reitz video? Perhaps the liberal media also subscribes to the bullshit that blacks are not capable of racism.

I must admit that, even in spite of the demonstrable facts that I have provided above, I hold out very little hope that the truth, as opposed to anti-white and anti-Afrikaner propaganda, will win the day. The loony left and liberals clearly have no interest in the truth or the facts, and the Reitz House video is too convenient a stick with which to beat whites and especially Afrikaners. Given the political pressure, should the Reitz house case ever come before a court, they have no chance whatsoever of a fair trial. Should this trial be adjudicated by a racist black judge such as the Afro-fascist, liar and piss artist, “judge” Nkola Motata, especially, these students won’t stand a chance.

All the while, black radicals are free to spout their hatred of whites with barely a whisper being raised in the liberal media. Somebody must really explain to me one day why white students are not allowed to make a satirical video in which fun was had by all, but it’s followed by an immense and immediate outcry by especially the media. On the other hand, the liberal media clearly views the malicious destruction of university property, death threats and threats of rape against white students uttered by black students as not only not newsworthy, but quite possibly acceptable behaviour on the part of blacks.

* 09-11-07 Correction Update *
Letter: Notice of (i) Correction of Errors & (ii) Retraction of Enclosure; re: Encl. Your Life is In Danger (www.zasucks.com/?p=6151) (PDF:49K)
Enclosure: Annexure AA: Transparency Disclosure: Email Correspondence: Lara Johnstone to & from: SA Sucks: Doodler & Lone Wolf. Dates: Friday Oct 30, to Nov 5, 2009 (2603K)

Source & Related In Forma Pauperis Correspondence:

09-10-28: In Forma Pauperis Req. to Intn'l Bar Assoc & Cape Bar: Pro Bono Committees (PDF)
09-10-28: In Forma Pauperis Req. to High Court, W.Cape Registrar (PDF)
09-10-13: High Court, W.C. In Forma Pauperis Referral to Braam Swart & Partners (PDF)

George Monbiot: Credibility depleting faster than oil

“... World population growth is widely recognized within the Government as a current danger of the highest magnitude calling for urgent measures...... it is of the utmost urgency that governments now recognize the facts and implications of population growth, determine the ultimate population sizes that make sense for their countries and start vigorous programs at once to achieve their desired goals.”

“... population factors are indeed critical in, and often determinants of, violent conflict in developing areas. Segmental (religious, social, racial) differences, migration, rapid population growth, differential levels of knowledge and skills, rural/urban differences, population pressure and the spatial location of population in relation to resources -- in this rough order of importance -- all appear to be important contributions to conflict and violence... Clearly, conflicts which are regarded in primarily political terms often have demographic roots. Recognition of these relationships appears crucial to any understanding or prevention of such hostilities.”

“...there is general agreement that up to the point when cost per acceptor rises rapidly, family planning expenditures are generally considered the best investment a country can make in its own future.”
~ National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth ~

George Monbiot: Credibility depleting faster than oil

Mail & Guardian, UK

Nov 17 2009 08:04

Declining respect for the instruments of collective government as they are used increasingly by the elites to preserve or increase their share of a declining resource base.Do you observe any of these symptoms in your "real world"? If you do, you should suspect that your society is in advanced stages of overshoot. 18July 2006 :: PeakOil_RSA Briefing Paper

I don't know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into free fall: the credibility of the body that's meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world's oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets. Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA's forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible. The agency's assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Alan Greenspan's blandishments about the health of the financial markets.

Is gross mismanagement of the nation's energy policy an impeachable offense? 18 July 06 :: PeakOilRSA :: Briefing Paper

If the whistleblowers are right, we should be stockpiling ammunition. If we are taken by surprise, if we have failed to replace oil before the supply peaks then crashes, the global economy is stuffed. But nothing the whistle-blowers said has scared me as much as the conversation I had last week with a Pembrokeshire farmer.

Wyn Evans, who runs a mixed farm of 170 acres, has been trying to reduce his dependency on fossil fuels since 1977. He has installed an anaerobic digester, a wind turbine, solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump. He has sought wherever possible to replace diesel with his own electricity. Instead of using his tractor to spread slurry, he pumps it from the digester on to nearby fields. He's replaced his tractor-driven irrigation system with an electric one, and set up a new system for drying hay indoors, which means he has to turn it in the field only once. Whatever else he does is likely to produce smaller savings. But these innovations have reduced his use of diesel by only about 25%.

Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production. Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

According to farm scientists at Cornell University, cultivating one hectare of maize in the United States requires 40 litres of petrol and 75 litres of diesel. The amazing productivity of modern farm labour has been purchased at the cost of a dependency on oil. Unless farmers can change the way it's grown, a permanent oil shock would price food out of the mouths of many of the world's people. Any responsible government would be asking urgent questions about how long we have got.

Instead, most of them delegate this job to the International Energy Agency. I've been bellyaching about the British government's refusal to make contingency plans for the possibility that oil might peak by 2020 for the past two years, and I'm beginning to feel like a madman with a sandwich board. Perhaps I am, but how lucky do you feel? The new World Energy Outlook published by the IEA last week expects the global demand for oil to rise from 85-million barrels a day in 2008 to 105-million in 2030. Oil production will rise to 103-million barrels, it says, and biofuels will make up the shortfall. If we want the oil, it will materialise.

Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production. Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

The agency does caution that conventional oil is likely to "approach a plateau" towards the end of this period, but there's no hint of the graver warning that the IEA's chief economist issued when I interviewed him last year: "We still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau ... I think time is not on our side here." Almost every year the agency has been forced to downgrade its forecast for the daily supply of oil in 2030: from 123-million barrels in 2004, to 120-million in 2005, 116-million in 2007, 106-million in 2008 and 103-million this year. But according to one of the whistleblowers, "even today's number is much higher than can be justified, and the International Energy Agency knows this".

The Uppsala report, published in the journal Energy Policy, anticipates that maximum global production of all kinds of oil in 2030 will be 76-million barrels per day. Analysing the IEA's figures, it finds that to meet its forecasts for supply, the world's new and undiscovered oilfields would have to be developed at a rate "never before seen in history". As many of them are in politically or physically difficult places, and as capital is short, this looks impossible. Assessing existing fields, the likely rate of discovery and the use of new techniques for extraction, the researchers find that "the peak of world oil production is probably occurring now".

Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production. Crude Awakening: Oil Crash

Are they right? Who knows? Last month the UK Energy Research Centre published a massive review of all the available evidence on global oil supplies. It found that the date of peak oil will be determined not by the total size of the global resource but by the rate at which it can be exploited. New discoveries would have to be implausibly large to make a significant difference: even if a field the size of all the oil reserves ever struck in the US were miraculously discovered, it would delay the date of peaking by only four years. As global discoveries peaked in the 1960s, a find like this doesn't seem very likely.

Regional oil supplies have peaked when about one third of the total resource has been extracted: this is because the rate of production falls as the remaining oil becomes harder to shift when the fields are depleted. So the assumption in the IEA's new report, that oil production will hold steady when the global resource has fallen "to around one half by 2030" looks unsafe. The UK Energy Research Centre's review finds that, just to keep oil supply at present levels, "more than two thirds of current crude oil production capacity may need to be replaced by 2030 ... At best, this is likely to prove extremely challenging." There is, it says "a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production before 2020". Unconventional oil won't save us: even a crash programme to develop the Canadian tar sands could deliver only five million barrels a day by 2030.

The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt were amongst the first people to recognise the importance of the Soldiers of the Soil. In fact Cleopatra declared the earthworm sacred, and anyone trying to take them out of the country was subjected to the death penalty. Tests carried out in the Nile valley by the US Department of Agriculture in 1949 proved that the great fertility of the soil there was due largely to the work of earthworms. ~ SQ Worm Sosiety

As a report commissioned by the US Department of Energy shows, an emergency programme to replace current energy supplies or equipment to anticipate peak oil would need about 20 years to take effect. It seems unlikely that we have it. The world economy is probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could save farming. There are two possible options: either the mass replacement of farm machinery or the development of new farming systems that don't need much labour or energy.

There are no obvious barriers to the mass production of electric tractors and combine harvesters: the weight of the batteries and an electric vehicle's low-end torque are both advantages for tractors. A switch to forest gardening and other forms of permaculture is trickier, especially for producing grain; but such is the scale of the creeping emergency that we can't afford to rule anything out.

The challenge of feeding seven or eight billion people while oil supplies are falling is stupefying. It'll be even greater if governments keep pretending that it isn't going to happen. - guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009

Source: Mail & Guardian, UK