I talk to my coworkers during breaks. Lots of interesting people there, so I'm learning stuff and making friends. Yesterday I had a low sugar of 48 and had to eat something or pass out. So I ended up making it into lunch break and talked to a pale blonde woman I'd seen around in a different lab within the building.

Her name is Amanda and her story is one of woe. Like me, she's a temp and the temp agency complies with the LETTER of the law for health coverage, but not the INTENT of the law, which they're grossly violating for employees they're making at least $5/hr on in profit. Amanda is a new Mom, but she's got health problems, namely Gilberts Syndrome (which is bad), various food allergies, hypothyroidism, and she's been diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. Only she's not. Type 2. She's around 27 years old, which is 12 years too young, and probably weighs all of 150 lbs, which is 100 lbs too little. And she says she's hungry all the time, and after I asked she admitted that YES, she DOES get up in the middle of the night to pee and she's really thirsty afterwards.

And here's where the horror starts kicking in. She can't afford to be diabetic. She can't afford to get Medicare to cover her doctor visits, so she only goes annually. I told her about Type 1 and that she has the symptoms and almost certainly needs insulin to live and she tested her sugars last night. Today she told me what result she got: 600. That's 3 times maximum safe sugar for your kidneys and heart and brain and liver and she's almost certainly got neuropathy and ketosis damage, plus the threat of blindness. She almost cried telling me about her health yesterday. She can't change insurance because she'll lose coverage for her daughter, only 1 year old, and can't afford to take better care of herself, much less buy insulin. She's afraid to find out she's type 1. I told her about the antibody test being definitive. She's just avoiding it. She said that when she was pregnant, her water broke at 40 weeks and Medicare refused to induce labor because it was "too expensive", even though it could have killed her baby. She drank lots of water and the baby came through okay. Not a good feeling, when your medical coverage is actively trying to kill you and your unborn child.

When she told me about her 600 sugar, I asked her if she was going to the doctor today to get insulin and she shyly said she couldn't, and would bring it up in a month. A month with no insulin and a month more damage to her organs, maybe fatal. Your kidneys can't take that kind of abuse. I feel like writing up a list of blood and urine tests she needs to figure out just how bad off she is, but then again, she probably has to choose between that and food on the table. What would you do? Dying won't help her daughter grow up, but this job just doesn't pay enough for a single mother, much less one with serious health problems. Sigh.

I'm glad I'm on my wife's insurance. I'm glad I've got adequate medical care available, and the supplies I need to stay alive. When you fall into MediCal or MediCare, your life is in the hands of hostile bureaucrats.

Work keeps me very busy. I have no time or inclination to post about oil anymore. I feel nostalgic just to check Bloomberg for the current price, and maybe talk about it with co-workers, but that's all the effort I can give it. If you're reading my journal in hopes of getting a revelation about oil you're wasting your time.

I didn't know Peter Schilling was bilingual but its not exactly surprising. Here's a recording of a live performance of his song "Coming Home" aka "Major Tom". If you were alive in the 80's, you'll know it.

In a ruling based on a case originally filed in 2002, the Treasury Department is in violation of the law for the blind, so they must change either the size or texture of money so blind people can tell the bills apart. I don't normally think about this issue, but its true. And its impact on the USD$ is actually profound. What do we do with all the old greenbacks? This is a hell of an excuse to replace them, after spending the last 10 years adapting to the "New" greenbacks with the larger portraits and embedding strip.

And now, to mess with your head, Brazilian funk band Pato Fu covers Cities in Dust, a Siouxsie and the Banshees song.



Also, my banana bran muffins are awesome. A little less salt next time, though. And maybe some nuts for texture.

My chili won third place at the competition, though apparently it was (unofficially) First for flavor by the popular vote. Why did it get third? Because our welding club isn't a member of the Rotary Club, and only a rotary club member can win First. Their chili was decent, but not as spicy as mine. On the bright side, the chili I made yesterday is much better than the one I made for the cookoff. It's nice being this good at cooking. I wonder if I could get a job cooking for a firehouse or a forestry camp?

UPDATE: There were 18 entries total, so I was better than 15 of them, officially speaking. I put it on my resume. Apparently the club won $100 and will be putting the money toward Argon and Oxygen gas to finish the semester since the school has underfunded the department again. I still think they're trying to get rid of the program since they've got the Auto Shop next door to fulfill their Vocational School requirement. 

On Thursday I made 14 gallons of chili. That is a lot. I was expecting help from 6 people who promised to be there. Two showed up, and one only because he lived there. I got unexpected help from the neighbor across the street. The club president made himself scarce after offering to help and only cutting onions, badly. I cooked from 1 until nearly 9 PM in someone else's kitchen, making chili for a cookoff I don't really care about attending. I've done my part. The upshot is I took an untested recipe and turned it into delicious chili. And its even low carb. So, here it is.

• Slice onions, many of them into chunks and sautee with olive oil, lots of cumin, and lots of new mexico chili powder, cover with lid, lower heat and allow onions to "sweat", bringing out their flavor. Stir every 5 minutes. Burning on bottom is okay.
  
• Add raw ground beef, many pounds of it, lean if possible, not lean if not. This would also work well with hand ground beef since a coarser texture is not a bad thing. I had ground beef, so I used it. Cover in a packet of dried oregano and several packets of new mexico chili powder. Mush it around so it coats the meat before it cooks. It will taste better. If you happen to have time to prep the meat by soaking it in this first, you're even better off.
  
• Chop up 50 cloves of garlic. No, that's not a typo. 50. Toss onto meat, cover and cook. Use spatula to stir wads of cooking meat around. When you finally get irritated with the fact that the top isn't cooking, pour in 3 cheap beers or one IPA since the malt and bitterness of the hops are seasonings.
  
• Fire roast some jalapeno chilies, around 20 of them, then let sit 20 minutes in a covered pot to loosen the skins. Remove blackened skins wearing gloves, then open chilies and strip out seeds, stem, and veins. Chili flesh will be green and soft, very mild at this point. Chop up and add to chili. I think more of these would be a good idea, as well as regular ancho, pasilla, and bell peppers added to the mix for texture, all rough cut.
• Add a huge #10 can of chopped tomatoes. Then cut up about 8-9 tomatoes in a rough cut and add them as well. The onions and tomatoes are there for texture as well as flavor. After my first attempt I think more tomatoes is a good idea, and I'd swap the salad tomatoes for Romas, as they don't cook down as much. Heirlooms like beefsteaks would be even better. Add salt at this point. Stir and cover, simmer for about 20 minutes, stir and cover.
  
• Take dried chilies and remove stems and shake out seeds. Put pods into blender half filled with hot tap water and soak for 10 minutes. Then liquefy. The puree has a delicious flavor. Add to chili.
• After roughly 1 hour of cooking, taste it. If it needs salt, add some. If it needs to simmer longer, let it simmer. Once it tastes right, take a 2-cup measuring cup or a bowl and add 1/2 cup dried masa and mix in 2 cups of cold water. Let it slurry, then pour into chili and stir immediately. It will take about 20 minutes for the masa to cook and expand completely. This should mellow the flavor a bit, but also remove its watery taste and make it more rich. You should NOT be able to taste the masa if you've done this right. I had to double the masa to get the texture to the right place.
  

Everyone who ate it, 7 different people, said it was good, and some insisted it was an award winner ($500 at this contest) but I think its just passable. That's in my terms. With additions of Posole and some small chunks of chorizo and those peppers it could be amazing. I'm curious to make this myself, for J. Then again, its chili and you have to love someone an awful to sleep next to them after giving them chili.

California is an agricultural state. True, we had a high tech boom, but that's been exported. We also had a housing boom, but it was inflationary and very artificial. We are in a good position to have a genetic engineering boom for food production, for soils and environmental reconditioning of our state, and for shipping in the post-peak. That means trains and sailing ships. We really need to do some serious work to protect the state's population from collapse, however, and this stuff needs to start happening now. I'm tempted to write a few letters and make these ideas more coherent.

1. Generate its own power.
   
2. Have its own currency. Printed, backed by commodities (rice, gold, cotton, almonds, jam), and traded officially with neighbors.
   
3. Build its own electric car fleet. Allow hobbyist construction of any alt-vehicle design for common use on the road.
4. Restore sustainable everything, including transit.
   
5. Dredge its reservoirs so they can generate hydropower longer.
   
6. Restore some intentional flooding to recharge aquifers and improve soil.
   
7. Actively clear understory brush in forests to prevent uncontrolled wildfires.
   
8. Make all parks free.
   
9. Restore central valley towns tax advantages and remove coastal advantages.
   
10. Deal with a lower population density and change in demographics.
    
11. Establish large scale desalination plants, paid for by local coastal users.
    
12. Restore freshwater aquifers.
    
13. Reforest Sierras and north coast.
    
14. Increase massive quantities of agriculture and cannery business for storage and export.
    
15. Restock lakes and rivers with trout and bass, for sport fishing and backup food.
    
16. Encourage habitat creation for farmers with tax writeoff for deer counting and eaten farm product so no true loss to farmer.
    
17. Strip unfair corp agribusiness water rights in San Joaquin Valley.
    
18. Require high tech firms to clean up toxic waste.
    
19. Allow excess solar production by homeowners without a business license or other taxation.
    
20. Regulate power generation and grid maintenance. Install Sodium batteries to store excess.
    
21. Charge for power based on time used as well as amount. Establish tech to allow precedent for use by customer.
    
22. Offer tax breaks for Efficient houses.
    
23. Offer farmers incentives for improving their soil fertility.
    
24. Find a way to divert the Eel river into Sacramento Valley for agriculture.
    
25. Establish an electric train system to replace the highway system with both short haul and express passenger and freight, with multiple lines.
    
26. Dig port facilities and access deep enough for channels to work for container-clipper ships.
    
27. Establish ports and rigging necessary for the whole coast and rivers to allow freight by ship.
    
28. Establish favored trade status with other Pacific Rim countries and neighboring states.
    
29. Boost manufacturing as power grid allows.
    
30. Maintain mosquito abatement.
    
31. Repair and protect levy system until infilling of soil to above-sea-level and soil fertility corrected in Sac. Delta region.

I think that's what's needed for this state to flourish through Peak Oil and after. A lot of work to be done. Moving the population of LA to other places, including the Central Valley farming towns, the North Coast (which needs a LOT of work to terrace and grow food and generate power locally) and incentives to bring people there and do all that hard physical labor and the state MUST be involved with the settlements. The current types of developments just brew rioting, not economically sustainable communities. The harbors up the coast COULD go somewhere positive. It will take hospitals, reliable power, internet access, physical access (via passenger-freight train) for places like Eureka and Crescent City to have a future at all. Same with the former I-5 corridor towns. The train lines will save them, short and long term. The coastal range towns like SLO and SR and Ukiah and Willits are in for a harder time, much like the Sierra Foothill towns. Without some reason for income, they're either clearing brush or providing services to the brush-clearing workers. If they have the water to grow crops like veggies and fruit or make wine, great. Go to it! I wish you well. Setup small canning operations and short-haul it down the mountain via truck or train if available. Same with widgets and gizmos. Can this be done for the whole state? And the guy left holding the bag will end up the most put-out. I wonder if I should bother becoming an activist, or just focus on my primary method, that of novels. Some crappy novels have become very important to policy in this state. It serves me well to remember that.

No, there's no news.

However, I want to explain what I think is going on with Iraq, and what I think will happen after the election.

1. Iraq is fantastically expensive. As a taxpayer I'm footing the bill for it. What am I getting? Higher gasoline prices and higher taxes. As a taxpayer what do I say? Fuck that. Most taxpayers are sick of paying for this damned war, and for China's oil, because this oil in Iraq is going to China, not the USA, not the EU. Why should I assume debt to finance China raising the price of my gasoline?
   
2. When taxpayers scream during an election year, promises get made. But promises are less important that economic reality and the reality is we can't AFFORD to stay in Iraq. We're trillions in debt, as a nation, funding that retarded mess. Its like Vietnam, only more expensive and stupid.
   
3. Regardless of who wins the election, the public are pissed about paying for Iraq, and when OPEC gets its $200/bbl and gasoline is $6.30/gal in November, the taxpayers will demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq and let the chips fall where they may. Think of it as retaliation on a grand scale. We've been hurt after "freeing" Iraq from Saddam and for thanks we're all becoming poor and our economy is going down the tubes. May as well hurt them back. A pullout would cry "havoc" and set loose the dogs of war. We are a vengeful people and when we get angry we're very good at hurting at all scales. The Middle East has tried our patience. We're already screwed. What have we got to lose, when push comes to shove? Really, how much worse would it be to abandon the Middle East and let the whole region collapse? We get no fuel from them either way. When we pull out we're getting screwed either way.
   
4. Like tearing off a bandage, its going to hurt either way. We must adapt to a new lifestyle and the ugly economic reality of post-oil will be a lot of unemployment, shortages of basic goods, and disappointment in large quantities. The strongest and happiest people will be the ones with no expectations and no debts so a lack of money won't be nearly so traumatic. Settle your debts, people. 
5. When the financial crap is foundering wall street and washington DC, the rest of us will need to deal with food supplies, bicycles, temp jobs for cash, under the table/untaxed labor, farmers markets, life after banks (the banks will fail, remember?), and adjusting to local currencies and commodities shifts, and finally... blackouts. Power blackouts are a profound thing.
   
6. Our civilization is based on easy transport and reliable electrical power. We existed before both those things, but it was 100 years ago since they were a question at all. Too many generations have passed since those sorts of limitations on living were an issue. When you stop and think about what your life is like without this computer, without people to talk to thousands of miles away, without instant messaging via your cellphone, without fuel in your car, without bulging shelves at the local supermarket, or air conditioning at the movie theater (I remember before that, btw), and the patter of diesel electricity generators, and the hum of tires rolling past on the street, and the other crap you're used to because it's always been there... its over and you have to adjust or kill yourself because you can't. Adjust or die.
   
7. My specific country was based on the pursuit of happiness. Until now, that's been possible. Until now we've always had enough cheap energy to make all dreams possible, less the flying car or fusion energy. But we believed in dreams and we had a hell of a run. California in particular is the very cutting edge of high technology in the whole world. The internet was built here, the computer chips and modems designed here. The software too, though Redmond WA can take its due credit (of course). Its been dreamlike and surreal and now its over. Now we have to face certain ugly facts in the coming sport shortages for fuel, the empty spaces on the supermarket shelves when deliveries don't get made, the construction and guarding of warehouses that have to make a comeback to allow commerce at all. The empty neighborhoods in ridiculous locations and yards too small to grow veggies. A lot of things have to change, and are GOING to change, no matter how much the neighbors protest. No matter how much they pray to their impotent God. No matter how much they sign petitions and send letters to the editor demanding someone gets punished.
   

In a way I feel sorry for people who are ignoring the reality of the oncoming train. In a way I envy them. Yes, it will be shocking, but they haven't lost any sleep worrying over it either. They've been living mindlessly, like lemmings running for the cliff. They'll lose their houses and park their useless SUVs and lose their jobs and blame someone for it.

I find myself in a 1988 kind of mood. Grim, angry, seething, struggling to stay civil when I see the inane around me. I should probably just go work out and I'll feel better afterwards. Skinny Puppy really does suit the harsh ending of cheap oil, of available oil, of an OPEC that still cared enough to lie about its depletion rates.

Gas and soy rich Bolivian lowlands tell Bolivia's Central Govt "go fsk yourself" in historic autonomy vote May 4th. Morales mum on response to losing the money behind his control of Bolivia.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0506/p07s01-woam.html

They don't really say that, but they did vote for autonomy from Central Govt control, which in Communist Bolivia means just that. The US Green Berets working in Bolivia and Brazil must be cheering right now. Morales without money is just another hapless Mugabe, isn't he? I am pleased.

History of Oil and War from the British Perspective:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8957268309327954402&hl=en

45 minutes, pretty good. Funny but saddening at the same time.

1. Global warming doesn't matter to me. And it shouldn't to you. Its global, ergo you can't fix it.
2. Surviving famines associated with drought and biofuel should be your priority.
   
3. Feeding crazy people is hurting yourself. Don't do it.
   
4. By priority, see that your continent, country, state, county, city, neighborhood, family and self are able to sustain themselves. Food and water, most of all.
   
5. Enjoy the luxuries while they last and you can still afford them.
   
6. Stock your pantry for times when food is absent from the shelves. Basics and seasonings so you can choke it down.
   
7. High unemployment, 30% or more, is expected in the USA due to the oil shocks.
   
8. Yesterday I learned of many interesting gizmos that could really help reduce the pain of the transition. I'm very happy about this. 
9. None of those gizmos fix the basic transportation problem in the USA, that of vast distances.
   
10. If the neighborhood falls, you can't safely stay either.

OPEC has promised to have $200/bbl oil by the end of the year. Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Iran, everybody with Oil is saying this is the future and we'd better learn to deal with it. Most of the traditional suppliers are in decline, like Mexico and Venezuela, and Nigeria is shut in and so far politically unfixable. Additionally, as the USD$ weakens, more and more oil trades are done in the Euro and other currencies instead, which makes the USD$ even weaker. It has NOT collapsed, however. We still grow more grain than anyone else. We feed 2 billion people. So many its hard to imagine. And that gives us real power. Oil doesn't feed people directly. You still need land and water. And expert farmers. Mugabe found that out the hard way. Zimbabwe is a ruin because he's a racist bastard. Nigeria is doing pretty well for farming at least. If only they could figure out how to share the oil wealth in the Delta.

The next president is either McCain or an idiot and hypocrite. Both the Democrats are incompetent liars to have been caught so easily and so soon in the game. If they had any shame they'd both bow-out of the campaign and leave it to someone decent and spotless. On the bright side, if a Democrat wins, the disgust with them by pretty much everyone will drastically reduce presidential power nationally, with the general public saying "Fukk the President. What's the governor say? What's the Mayor say?" And really, those people matter more anyway. We've seen what passes for disaster relief in Katrina. We can't trust or rely on the FedGov. I think it would be hilarious to insist on only keeping enough USD$ to pay your yearly taxes. I really do think regional currencies based on bearer bonds are the future. I don't trust in God, and I sure as hell don't trust in the FedGov or Fed Reserve for my financial needs. Its tempting to empty the last of my 401K just so I won't eat my liver over inflation losses. 18% a year when you're earning 4% is retarded. Even with the 10% penalty for early withdrawal you're still coming out ahead by taking it out now. Isn't that retarded? Besides, with Diabetes I'm not going to live long enough to actually retire anyway. Better off living better now. Trust to physical capital, screw paper securities.

Isn't today Beltaine? Opposite of Samhaine on the Celtic calendar. I think it is. I'll have to check up on how this is supposed to be celebrated when I get home from school tonight. Happy Beltaine, ya'll!

Hypermiling aside, the easiest way to improve your gas mileage OTHER THAN going lighter on the pedal is to remove excess weight from your car. I'm sure you're carrying stuff you don't need in there. When I recently cleaned out J's car, I found 40 lbs of books she hasn't needed in a year, and some rocks and various clumps of paper, partially filled water bottles and lots of garbage. After cleaning it and removing junk her MPG went up +2. Not too shabby. My own efforts have boosted my MPG on highway, though most of my driving is short stuff. I suppose if I let my car warm up a few minutes I'd be wasting the warm-up gas time, but gaining in fuel economy once it starts moving. There's always tradeoffs, after all.

One thing that made me smile was this article because it reminded me of a time when I was driving my car delivering newspapers and I removed my front seat and the lower part of the back seat to hold them all. It was lame having them in the garage, but the car was 50 lbs lighter and when you hit the gas, it took off much faster. You might find yourself impressed with what happens if you pull some dead weight out of your car. Might get a bit more zippy and bit easier on the wallet at the same time.

Naturally, this also leads to thoughts of "what if I converted one of those cars to a ultralight one with replaced parts and a lot fewer fancy amenities? Could I live with it? Would gaining 3-5 mpg be worth it to me? True, you might find a different car is the answer, but when you do the math on the cost difference and the time to pay it off vs the gasoline you can buy for the difference, well its usually embarassing. That's why J is driving a Civic not a Prius. The smartest option is to be a good mechanic in the first place and to lighten up a used car to the point its "not as sold" but not illegal either. You might give up some crash safety but you'll save a lot of gasoline. And it still keeps the rain off.

Eventually I feel certain we'll force the govt to reverse safety requirements so we can hobby up our own cars from motorcycle engines and welded steel tubing. That would cut half the weight and drastically improve fuel economy. Thing is, you really need to be a gearhead to pull this off. And the vehicles need to be 4 wheeled. The best way to get around the traditional requirements is to take a vehicle and gut it, swap the engine, and get it refereed for approval by the DMV. It will need the specific stuff like turn signals and brake lights but those don't have to be super fancy or heavy objects. And if you're content to drive slowly you won't need them anyway. Then again, this could be optimism at work. Deadly, how it creeps up on you.

I have spoken to many of the people at my school and in my welding class and at various social events. People refuse to accept oil is coming to an end. They refuse to change their driving habits or give up their cars for efficient ones. They like the luxury or the "security" feeling of the sports car or SUV or Monster Truck. The moron section of my welding class (the other half are engineers and some are smarter than me) have monster trucks or shit kicker vehicles and they do "hey Bubba, watch this!" stuff more often than not. Welding has really deflated my happiness thanks to the economy downturn. I like it well enough, but I'm a newbie in the welding job market and they aren't hiring us right now. They want 25 year experts, not newbies. Its not like they don't have time to train us to spec for their jobs, its just that the use of web-based bidding has gutted the profitability in welding and you either get contracts or you get screwed. Thus most are closing shop and moving out, as best as I can tell. Its really depressing for a new grad like me (new for welding) and looking at taking extra classes just to keep my skills up and ear to the grapevine for jobs and not find anything. I could take more classes next summer. I really wish there was a bike frame company I could work for. That would suit me and it would be useful in the real world. Pretty soon everybody will be buying a bike and if we made them here, cheap enough, then we'll have something. Then again, I still wish that they offered Machining courses, though three of my classmates do that and all of them are on the verge of losing their jobs. Sad panda.

Anyway, people say they'll pay whatever it costs for fuel until you cite a number they know they can't afford, then they call you crazy. I'm not crazy, its just a number you can't afford. And the saddest part is that $20/gal seems to be that number, though I think people are overestimating their resources and inflation. In the real world, most of the people I've asked will be unemployed before gasoline reaches $10/gal. And that's a very plausible number when $200/bbl oil is the firm expectation from OPEC. Do they know something or do they just have better accountants than I can do on the back of a napkin? Yeah, that's probably it. Oil is down for a second day in a row thanks to the restart of the Ineos refinery in Scotland, or at least the process is ongoing anyway.

If we all started carpooling or bought a fuel efficient car instead of the SUV or rode a motorcycle then we'd cut our use of fuel by around 25-30%, right away. Instead we keep doing what we want out of ignorance and grim idiocy "Because I ain't gonna change, dammit. President said our way of life is non-negotiable.". Trouble is W is dead wrong about that. We don't have a choice about changing. We do have a choice about how much we suffer. The irony is that fuel hunting SUV owners will use up the last of the fuel while you're on your motorcycle dodging them or in the hospital healing from their last non-miss. Americans don't change until its too late. Not before. And unfortunately, things are such that change will come at the worst possible time, namely a regional shortage of fuel brought about by shortages at the refinery when the Chinese and Indians finally outbid us. And that's only a year or two away, as best I can figure. So those new 31 mpg CAFE standards W announced last week? Too effing late. Should have done that a year ago and put the due date at 2009 or 2010. No later than that. And announced 45 mpg and 55mph max speed limits last month due 2012. Instead we get disaster all at once. So stock your pantries with rice and beans, keep any canned food cool (it spoils faster above 70'F) and get a motorcycle license and a helmet. It might not matter if they don't ration fuel, but once they do a motorcycle is going to be the only reliable personal commuting vehicle. Otherwise you gotta carpool or smell the hoi polloi on public transit. In the summertime, with water more expensive to pump and heat, that's going to be nauseating.

I am really digging New Orleans Coffee with Chickory. It has got this deeper bitter taste which is very satisfying, though I admit to adding some cream (1 tsp), some brown sugar (1 T.) some milk (1/4 cup) to get the right flavor balance for a large cup of coffee. Its also a coffee which should be drunk right away, not left to sit. The other thing is its caffienated so you have to drink it before midafternoon or sleeping will be difficult.

So I wonder, if the USA stopped exporting food, or cut it substantially to drive up the price, ignoring the deaths that would follow from famine, sort of like Saudi has been doing with oil, ignoring the economic devastation which has already occurred (did you notice that apt comparison?), I wonder just how much ethanol we could grow? There's several different methods, not just corn (which is subsidized). Corn based ethanol is something like 2.5% of total supply in the USA. Domestic oil production is something like 25%, but might be more like 16%. I know there are some fields domestically which can ramp up, and others which should get reexplored, such as under LA and Long Beach. Modern tech might get a better recovery than the old stuff which had to be abandoned thanks to urbanization and depletion. Apparently, there's still oil coming out locally too, in Livermore. Pumps are working and pipelines feed the crude off somewhere. Say we planted this switchgrass. How much water does it need? Can cows eat it if it gets wild everywhere? Is there a preferred plant for boggy ground, and a different ethanol producer, maybe one that puts nitrogen into the soil, for when you're doing crop rotations and improving soil for food crops later? I mean, soils are chemistry after all. And live biological media too. If you do this the smart way you should find different crops to make ethanol and do the right things for the soil at the same time. If we could get our total oil and ethanol production to 50% of our current needs, I think the population would adapt without losing control of the economy, especially if there's reasonably generous rationing and people ditch the SUVs and take up the little econobox cars.

I don't even care about the carbon neutral footprint. I think that's crap anyway. I care about the energy invested and the energy returned and the consequences to the soil in the process.

If we got to 40% or 50% of our current fuel needs by growing ethanol feedstock pretty much everywhere, and used waste cellulose (like cornstalks and wheat straw) as part of the process, that would help quite a lot. One wonders if a solution will arise along that line.

So the MDC, which claims to have won the election against Mugabe, has declared war on Zanu-PF and claims Zimbabwe is in full scale civil war. The death toll of 10 says otherwise. Still, the actions of the president of South Africa, attempting to force the dockworkers to unload Chinese guns and ammunition to fuel the civil war slowly beginning to burn in Zimbabwe was blocked by the South African High Court. Thank goodness there's some wits in their govt after all, and its not all left up to ordinary dock workers to be the conscience of South Africa.

Meanwhile, 2 million refugees suffer in South Africa and surrounding countries. Zimbabwe continues two years of madness as it tears at itself like a lunatic to coax success from the ashes of failure while it holds the burning match in its teeth. Mugabe caused this. His greed and pandering caused this. Will this escalate? So far the African Union has made an admirable case against itself. It has no honor, no care for the people it claims to serve, and no right to rule. Naturally, this is just the sort of opening the Chinese need to march in and take it by force under UN mandate. I wonder if Mugabe realizes this, or if he's all too aware. Hell, we don't actually know which side those arms were for, or if they were for a side at all. If you have them to spare, shipping arms with no real destination is a great way to destabilize a country like Zimbabwe. I don't kid myself that Tsvangirai is a nice man. I suspect he's an evil bastard, only more energetic than Mugabe. Wouldn't it be ironic if he ended up worse for Zimbabwe's problems: "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." I believe in Murphy, for unlike the god with a capital G, Murphy answers prayers, even if they're the worst sort of answers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7356875.stm

What is it about being a "cleric" that makes you so bloody minded? My inner ironist thinks we need to see some Bishops calling for "open war" against Sadr and Al Qaeda, offering blessings for any sinners willing to take up God's Work in the Middle East. The AQ's and muslims love throwing around the "Crusaders" label. Maybe its time to actually send some.

"Convert or die!" combined with neighborhood leveling events and free fire zones.

Humor aside, the civil war in Iraq continues to expand and I no longer believe ANY claims from the US govt on the situation there. The more I observe, and the more I hear from contacts in the sandbox, the less pleased I am with that place. Some Iraqis are happy to have us there, lots of them aren't so glad, many have lost family members to the war or shortages or random violence and I can't help but observe its starting to resemble the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon there. Or even Moquadishu. Before the invasion, it was said that Saddam was such a rotten powerful beast that he quelled the fighting between the major ethnic groups out of fear, just like Tito did for Yugoslavia. When the USSR fell, and Tito lost power, Yugoslavia did what we remember it doing. Collapsed from a potential 1st world nation into anarchy, madness, and massacre. Iraq has similar problems, with the additional problem of being funded by competing neighbors (or hunted by them, as the Kurds are experiencing with Turkey). Iran backs the Shia and Sadr. The USA and more quietly, the Saudis back the Sunni minority, at risk of massacre by the oppressed Shia. Both Iran and Saudi are warring over the Iraqi oilfields and control of the puppet regime installed by the US govt. Is it democracy there? Perhaps if you think of democracy the same way as you think of it in Panama in 1914. Is it popularly supported govt? I don't think so, not with the need for a green zone, or with police and military unwilling to fight off Sadr. My contacts in the sandbox think that Iraq will end up divided up, whether that's on the map or not. Its terrible, but it seems inevitable. Things are too chaotic since the invasion and they don't get much better or stay that way for long.

We have already lost this war. Its time to pull out. Once we do, things get worse. If we say, we die with them.