The Deepwater spill from space. NASA photograph.

Where The Hell Does All That Oil Come From Anyway?


[This is a piece which has been slightly edited to removed some awkward phrasing. It originally appeared in Vyzygoth's ezine ITGN Summer 2010.]

by John Bonanno

“The last century has been one of those periods of extraordinary change, the most amazing in human history. If, then, you ask me to put into one sentence the cause of that recent rapid and enormous change, I should reply, it is found in the discovery and utilization of the means by which heat energy can be made to do man's work for him.”
 – Robert A. Millikan, speech, “Science and the World Tomorrow” delivered at the opening of the New York World’s Fair, April 12, 1939

“Competition is a sin.”
– John D. Rockefeller

The Mystery of Oil

Petroleum can be refined into an easily portable, deliverable, and potent fuel. It arguably is the defining ingredient of our civilization, such as we can boast of civilization. Yet, the origin of oil is mysterious. Although we are constantly inculcated with the term “fossil fuels” there is no unanimous agreement that petroleum (literally “rock oil”) was formed from dead animal and plant life, primarily in sediments at the bottom of the ocean. Some scientists believe that oil was produced from the common elements carbon and hydrogen under heat and pressure within the planet at the time of the formation of Earth; some believe petroleum existed in the solar system in the primordial stuff that would be used to form the planets before the Earth was made. (The atmospheres of the gas giant planets contain large amounts of the basic hydrocarbon, methane.) The idea that oil was formed without stacked dead plants transforming for eons in sediments is known as the abiotic or abiogenic theory of the origin of petroleum. Abiogenic theory has been around for hundreds of years in various guises. In 1877 Dmitri Mendeleev, who designed the first practical periodic table of the elements, was an early proponent of an abiotic origin of oil. Today the Russians, primarily, continue to seek oil without the assumption of fossil origin and are drilling deep wells and finding oil far below the levels that fossil fuel theory proposes that oil is formed or can be found. The Deepwater Horizon well is just such a deep hole drilled by a huge multinational corporation. It has gushed at high pressures vast quantities of petroleum that, I believe, fossil theory has difficulty explaining. Some argue that the absence of oil plumes in areas of the Earth associated with access to the deep interior of the planet argues against abiotic oil. But it can be retorted that those usually volcanic areas long ago spewed out and burned any associated oil and that remaining deep Earth oil is safely trapped by relatively stable sections of the crust of the Earth. We must also remember that the most easily accessible oil deposits are found in areas of major tectonic activity and fault zones. Abiotic theory does not necessarily propose ubiquitous oil evenly spread within the interior of the planet or close to the surface.


Accepted Doctrine

Let us look a little closer at the theory that oil was formed from the remains of dead organic materials. The Encylopedia Brittanica, owned by Rockefeller interests, and edited by persons at the University of Chicago, [a creature of John D. Rockefeller] may have a vested interest in promulgating the fossil fuel idea. In the 1961 edition this, and only this, is said about the origin of oil in the article “Petroleum”:

“Most scientists believe oil was formed from the bodies of tiny plants that lived in the sea hundreds of millions of years ago when the sea covered large areas of what are now land masses. These animals and plants lived and died by the billions then sank to the bottom and mixed with mud and sand in layers called marine sediment.”
“Later these sedimentary layers were covered by more mud and sand, which finally turned into rock. As ages passed, the sea withdrew, the earth’s crust heaved and buckled and the heat and pressure caused by the overlaying rocks, together with decomposition of the organic life, is thought to have formed oil from the animals and plants in the deep buried layers. Because of their mutual derivation from organic material, petroleum, natural gas, and coal are known as fossil fuels.”

The Brittanica gives us a longish 12 1/4 pages of text on “Petroleum” with only the quarter page quoted above explaining the origins of the stuff. We note two hedges in the argument (I have put this pure speculation in bold type), which is not exactly a ringing or detailed explanation of the biological origins of oil. This passage leads to an important question: Where did the carbon that life uses to form its structure come from? Other theories of life postulate that a soup of organic chemicals in water spontaneously gathered together to make life. Where did those chemicals come from? Where did the vast amounts of carbon needed to make those vast deposits of dead creatures that made all the oil originate? One wonders how many “tiny plants” and animals had to die and for how long they collected and then one wonders how long it took to compress these “tiny plants” into petroleum under the assumptions of fossil fuel theory for the Deepwater well to ejaculate such huge amounts of oil under such high pressure for so many months. Then we must consider how all those dead “tiny plants” got to a depth of 30,000 feet under the earth’s crust.


A Theoretical Comparison

The first modern oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. It yielded 35 barrels a day after striking oil at 69.5 feet in bedrock. Oil struck at such shallow levels is assumed to have migrated from much deeper levels under the rules of both fossil fuel theory and abiogenic theory alike, although abiogenic theory proposes much deeper levels of formation or primordial collection than fossil theory. Proponents of fossil theory lean heavily on the presence of fossil content in oil for proof. But abiogenic theory counters with the fact that this migration of oil would have contaminated it after bringing it into contact with both fossils and bacteria, including bacteria that feed on petroleum.
Some cynics note that it would be in the interest of 19th Century oil men, like John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil monopoly to popularize the notion that oil came from dead plants and animals and therefore was a commodity as scarce and difficult to find as a hen’s tooth. If the world believed that oil deposits were as plentiful as they have proved to be, then the world would have been reluctant to pay through the nose for oil, or to fight wars for it. Today, Big Oil and OPEC nations can be expected to find it in their interests to maintain this belief.


Peak Oil

Geologist Marion Hubbert first predicted that the world would reach “Peak Oil”, that is, a maximum production point from which a steady decline would occur, by the early 1970’s. Yet world oil production has risen, with slight fluctuations in a few years (likely caused by geo-political issues or recession) since the 1960’s to this day. The Deepwater well operated by BP and Transocean was said to have gushed about 60,000 (estimates range from 35,000 to 100,000) barrels of oil a day for about 85 days from a depth of 35,055 feet, more than six miles down.

“The well, located in Keathley Canyon block 102, approximately 250 miles (400 kilometres) south east of Houston, is in 4,132 feet (1,259 metres) of water. The Tiber well was drilled to a total depth of approximately 35,055 feet (10,685 metres) making it one of the deepest wells ever drilled by the oil and gas industry. The well found oil in multiple Lower Tertiary reservoirs. Appraisal will be required to determine the size and commerciality of the discovery.” –BP press release, September, 2009

Transocean bragged in their own press releases at the time of their prowess in extremely deep water drilling and ultra deep drilling in other wells in the Gulf of Mexican and off Qatar. Deep drilling is an expensive process but, as we have seen from the estimated gush rate of BP’s Deepwater well, it is “well” worth it, if done right. I ask again. How did all those dead “tiny plants” get down that far?
The total amount of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico can therefore be conservatively estimated at about 5,000,000 barrels by this one well. Yes, shallow, known oil reserves may have reached a “peak” yet oil appears to be quite plentiful at astounding depths, far below the known depths of stacked fossil and plant residues. This may be the mysterious source that sometimes refills drained oil fields at easily workable depths.
Before I continue, I must admit I will be disappointed if the abiogenic oil theory is correct. I would prefer that circumstances force us to kick the petroleum habit. I am neither a fan of our centralized, globalized petroleum based civilization, nor of the catastrophic environmental and social effects resulting from the collection and massive use of oil. I also believe that many environmentalists are very reluctant to face the possibility that abundant abiogenic oil lies deep below and romantically hope for and expect a near future when the world runs out of petroleum. By the way, Hubbert was known for the idea that thin plates in thrust faults could not move on the surface of the Earth without fracturing unless the plates floated on high pressure fluids. It seems to be reasonable that continental plates may also move across the Earth floating on the same basic lubricating fluid we pour into that old Buick 6.

The Elements of Oil

Let me emphasize that I am no scientist; I am by nature an artist and my undergraduate degree is in Anthropology, a vague and vast topic, notably resistant to experimentation. But humor me as I continue this little Gedankenversuch (thought experiment). Let us look at the most common elements in the universe, or, at least our solar system, in very approximate percentages by mass.

Hydrogen 70.57%, Helium 27.52%, Oxygen 5.9%, Carbon 3%

Now let us examine the percentages of the elements in petroleum by weight.

 Carbon 84-87%, Hydrogen 11-14%, Sulfer .1-.8%, Nitrogen .1-1.8%, Oxygen .1-1.8%

In our solar system, carbon, the prime ingredient of petroleum, is the fourth most common element. I suspect much of the hydrogen and most of the helium (inert in most situations) in the solar system is locked up in the Sun. That makes carbon very common indeed, as is hydrogen, the prime ingredients of petroleum. It is reasonable to state that petroleum must be a very common substance if these two basic common elements are placed together under the right conditions in our solar system. What evidence exists to indicate that petroleum exists in the solar system, far from known deposits of dead “tiny plants”?

Carbonaceous Meteorites

There is a rare class of meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites which include carbon in their composition up to six percent of their mass. Investigations of these interesting meteorites indicate that they have remained at very low temperatures for 3 to 4.5 billion years. They are the pristine primordial stuff of which the solar system and the Earth was formed. Their history proves beyond much doubt that they have remained free of carbon based life; yet much of the carbon on these meteorites are in the form of hydrocarbons, including specific hydrocarbons cited by fossil fuel theorists as evidence of the fossil origin of petroleum.

Biomarkers

Traditional petroleum geologists have claimed a plethora of chemicals as biomarkers in petroleum. These include porphyrins, isoprenoids, pristane, cholestane, terpines, and clarins. All have been found in abiotic meteorite samples. Many of these chemicals are also byproducts of the Fischer-Tropsch process famously used by the Germans during World War II to synthesize gasoline from carbon monoxide and hydrogen (no plants required). This process involves a rapid cooling that is impossible in sediments where dead plants supposedly formed petroleum, but may be possible in space. Porphyrins are especially cited by fossil fuel theorists as a biomarker, yet the porphyrins found in living creatures are linked to chains containing magnesium (in chlorophyll) or iron (in heme). Petroleum porphyrins always are linked to vanadium or nickel, which are not found in biotic species.
The optical activity of petroleum in polarized light has been cited as a proof of biotic origin, yet this same optical activity has been observed in fluids obtained from carbonaceous meteorites. Optical activity in petroleum specific to organic life can be explained as contamination. Fossilized spores and pollen found in petroleum are often cited as biomarkers, and they are biomarkers of the sediments passed by and leached into the petroleum on its way from deep interior sources reflecting many ages.

Final Thoughts

This essay is intended to stimulate thought and to open minds. I was taught in school that oil came from dead plants and animals and that was it. There was no alternative. I remember some kind of a picture of dead dinosaurs falling into tar pits as an example of how oil was made. Well, those tar pits were already there before the dinosaurs. As I studied this issue I came to wonder more and more if the carbon of life didn’t come from pools of petrochemicals breaking down on the surface of the earth to make soils or breaking down under the oceans to form the carbon in solution used by early plants. I saw the fossil fuel theory turned on its head. Dead plants and animals did not form petroleum. Rotted and oxidized deposits of petroleum may have provided the raw materials for plants and animals.

Bibliography

Those who seek a much more technical discussion of these issues can peruse most of the original source documents used in writing this article. The following can be found searching on http://www.scribd.com/ an invaluable resource for finding documents of all kinds.

Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview
Geoffrey P. Glasby
The Non-Organic Theory of the Genesis of Petroleum
Samar Abbas
The evolution of multicomponent systems at high pressures: VI. The thermodynamic stability of the hydrogen–carbon system: The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum
J. F. Kenney, Vladimir A. Kutcherov, Nikolai A. Bendeliani, and Vladimir A. Alekseev
Abiogenic Or Biogenic Petroleum
S.S. Penner
Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum.
J. F. KENNEY
Joint Institute of The Physics of the Earth - Russian Academy of Sciences Gas Resources Corporation, 11811 North Freeway, Houston, TX 77060, U.S.A.
Ac. Ye. F. SHNYUKOV
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Vladimirskaya Street 56, 252.601 Kiev, UKRAINE
V. A. KRAYUSHKIN
Institute of Geological Sciences
O. Gonchara Street 55-B, 01054 Kiev, UKRAINE
I. K. KARPOV
Institute of Geochemistry - Russian Academy of Sciences
Favorskii Street 1a, 664.033 Irkutsk, RUSSIA
V. G. KUTCHEROV
Russian State University of Oil and Gas
Leninskii Prospect 65, 117.917 Moscow, RUSSIA
I. N. PLOTNIKOVA
National Petroleum Company of Tatarstan (TatNeft S.A.)
Butlerov Street 45-54, 423.020 Kazan, Tatarstan, RUSSIA
Petroleum Formation and Occurrence, B.P. Tissot, D.H. Welte
Thomas Gold, Professional Papers

Links 

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Abiotic_Oil
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/

Popular Books about Abiotic Oil and the Oil Industry

Do the reading; decide for yourself.  I do not necessarily agree with all the information in the following books, especially Corsi's, but the discerning reader can put together the puzzle from disparate elements.

The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels by Thomas Gold 
The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil From the American People by Jerome Corsi
Oil and Finance: The Epic Corruption Continues 2010-2012 by Raymond J. Learsy

Fukushima Update!

It still is bad and is getting worse. 
Radiation traced to the disaster has been found in California kelp. In fact there is 250 times the amount of radioactive iodine in the kelp than there was before the accident.
Japanese power companies are chomping at the bit to re-start their idle reactors.
USA Today reports that Japan's nuclear safety standards will now have "new guidelines" that probably are designed more to placate an angry anti-nuke populace than to actually ensure safety. There is only one nuke online at this time in Japan and it is scheduled to be shut down soon. Economy and Trade Minister Yukio Edano called the guidelines "easy to understand."
I am sure all will rest easy that the new manual is called "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Nuclear Safety."
Nuclear energy previously provided about a third of Japan's power. Japan's managers are warning that there could be blackouts this summer if nuclear plants are kept offline.
Last week four tons of radioactive water leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi  complex.
Oh, and in case you missed it, TEPCO sought a 12 BILLION dollar bailout from the Japanese people.
I thought (in this beautiful world capitalist system we all enjoy) bad, criminal,  unsuccessful, dangerous, and unreliable companies were supposed to go belly up, not get saved by the very same people they have harmed.

Well, it was discovered a little over a week ago that the water level was way too low and the radiation was way too high at the Fukushima plant complex.  Watch the video posted by AP on March 28.

World Bank Update

President Obama has selected his nominee to be front man for the World Bank. On the one hand, Jim Yong Kim has no banking experience. That might be good. On the other hand he is President of Dartmouth College and he would never have gotten that job if he were in any way the kind of fellow who would rock the boat. That might be bad. On the third hand he is an anthropologist. That might be good. On the fourth hand his lack of banking experience means that he will have no idea what the World Bank is up to even if he really wanted to know. That would be bad. It is difficult to reform a thing that is totally unfamiliar.
But the Wall Street Journal is less than thrilled. That could be good.
I am sure Kims all over the world are wishing him the best. 

 They Make Prescription Drugs Look Like Candy!

STATINS! THEY SUCK.

Cognitive Malfunction
"Statins Prompt Safety Alerts"
"Cholesterol-reducing medications, which include some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, have been linked by federal health officials to rare cases of memory loss, diabetes and muscle pain."
"Statins such as Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor and Vytorin are already known to produce cognitive problems like forgetfulness and confusion in patients, but the Food and Drug Administration added new safety alerts to prescribing information on Feb. 28, according to the New York Times." -Newsreview.com

Diabetes!
Forbes informs us: "Eric Topol, a well-known cardiologist and professor of genomics at Scripps Research Institute, has broken ranks with many other heart doctors tonight with a New York Times Op-Ed in which he says many patients might want to reconsider their use of statins such as Lipitor, Crestor, and Zocor in light of the risk that these drugs might cause diabetes."
New York Times Link Here

My Translation of the Above: These cholesterol lowering drugs are really fucking people up. We can't hide it any longer.......

Imagine a drug that is supposed to prevent heart attacks but its number one side effect is myopathy (muscle damage). Hey! The heart is a muscle.
Statins make you senile. They shrink your muscle mass, thereby making you weak and that includes your heart.
They increase the risk of diabetes.

My doctor suggested statins to me many years ago because he said my cholesterol was a "little high". But I pointed out to him it was mostly "good" cholesterol, my BP was great, I was feeling fine and I didn't like the side effect list of statins. I basically told him to shove it (in nice words) and asked him how much the statin drug industry comped him. He dropped the subject indicating to me that he didn't feel very strongly that I really needed those wonderful statin drugs.

I don't blame my doctor that much. He was just programmed to do what he is told. We know what happens to MDs who wander off the reservation.

God's Medicine

Uncle Stanley's Magical Act

Nyctimene mutationem in statu

from Ovid, Book II, Nyctimene Transformed Into an Owl, the Crow's story

But what is this to me if Nyctimene,
Changed to an owl for her dark sins, has taken
My place of honor at Minerva's court?
You heard what things were said of her at Lesbos--
That Nyctimene shared her father's bed?
And though she is all owl she still remembers
Her guilt, her lust, and in her darkness flies
From sight of men and from the light of day,
Exiled by all who rule the brilliant sky."

Horace Gregory tr.

Nyctimene is a genus of bats found mostly in the Philippines and Indonesia.
Ovid's Nyctimene is the daughter of Epopeus, King of Lesbos.
The Crow, Cornix, bewails that her place at the side of Minerva has been replaced by such a one.

This following quote by Bourbon Democrat (very conservative) President Grover Cleveland is often truncated by right wingers:

"Communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government;

Right here is where they stop. The thought from Grover's 1888 message to Congress continues.


but the Communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is no less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wild disorder the citadel of misrule."

Halloween 2011 Murders from here and there. 

"Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue." - Seneca

I have limited myself to selected murders that occurred on Halloween itself. If I include mayhem that happened at Halloween parties from the past week I would have to write a book.

Taylor Van Diest

Eighteen year old Taylor Van Diest of Pleasant Valley Secondary in British Columbia was found murdered near a railroad track according to The Province. "She loved horror movies. Halloween was her favourite holiday," said her cousin Erica.

Dawson

In Manteca, California a 26 year old man, Dawson McGehee, was arrested for allegedly murdering his Mommy Monday night. After the murder he was quoted by a neighbor, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."

Violence documented by nola.com

One of my favorite places, The City of New Orleans celebrated the holiday in style. At least 16 people were shot and two were killed during the festivities on Halloween in this colorful town. The highlight was a gunfight on tourist-packed Bourbon street. Spectators were both horrified (the seven wounded) and entertained (the rest). Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the violence was "unnatural" but I would disagree. Angola State Prison up the road hosts over 5000 convicted murderers, of which a good portion hail from the Crescent City. The traditional and mandatory hand-wringing resumes. But I say, "Laissez les bontemps rouler!" because New Orleans is back to normal after Katrina. 

Curtis and Kasey

In Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, Curtis Wayne Edwards, 43, and Kasey O'Neal Tanner, 23 decided to 

"trick"  Joshua Luke Green, 23, at a Halloween costume party at the local VFW post. They stabbed him and he died on the way to the hospital. Both Curtis and Kasey have felony convictions on their curriculum vitae.

Ardavaz and Dorothy Delir with a photograph of their son. 

Down Under in Sydney, Australia, Eden Delir, 17 was bashed to death by two lads, 16, at a Halloween party after they were asked to leave by the deceased. The murder weapons were a bottle and a metal pole. 

I am bending the rules because there was no murder in this case but a little extra Halloween violence and attempted murder might be of interest. According to the Wilke's Journal Patriot, John Wayne Martin, 59, was spending a quiet Halloween evening in his mobile home in the Austin community of Wilke's county North Carolina when he answered a knock on the door. Two masked men cried "Trick or Treat!" then knocked him down, knocked him out, ransacked his trailer and poured accelerant everywhere.When John woke up his home was on fire and he was too. Martin is in the burn unit of Baptist Hospital. The unknown assailants got to both trick and be treated. 

"He who bears the brand of Cain shall rule the Earth." - George Bernard Shaw

Isle Of Shoals Steamship Company's Thomas Laighton
John Bonanno photo 2003

Augustus Saint-Gaudens,
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, The Garden of Pan
John Bonanno Photo 2003

Is this Pan? Or, has St. Gaudens has given us a dour and flinty New Englander dressed up to model Pan?
I believe with all my heart it is the latter, for no Greek God Pan could appear so unhappily serious playing the reeds of transformed Syrinx. Is he piping a march to war or a seductive song?


"He lived in Arcadia, where he guarded flocks, herds, and beehives, took part in the revels of the mountain-nymphs, and helped hunters to find their quarry. He was, on the whole, easy-going and lazy, loving nothing better than his afternoon sleep, and revenged himself on those who disturbed him with a sudden loud shout from a grove, or grotto, which made the hair bristle on their heads. Yet the Arcadians paid him so little respect that, if ever they returned empty-handed after a long day’s hunting, they dared scourge him with squills."


"The Olympian gods, while despising Pan for his simplicity and love of riot, exploited his powers. Apollo wheedled die art of prophecy from him, and Hermes copied a pipe which he had let fall, claimed it as his own invention, and sold it to Apollo."



"Pan, whose name is usually derived from paein, ‘to pasture’, stands for the ‘devil’, or ‘upright man’, of the Arcadian fertility cult, which closely resembled the witch cult of North-western Europe. This man, dressed in a goat-skin, was the chosen lover of the Maenads during their drunken orgies on the high mountains, and sooner or later paid for his privilege with death."

Robert Graves The Greek Myths

Books I Have Enjoyed
A Walk Down Memory Lane


Finding a few spare moments yesterday I decided to pour through some boxes of books down in the basement. It is always enjoyable to visit old friends. These were some of them.

Art by Gino D'Achille

 ERB's Mars and Venus books are especially enjoyable reads for boys (and girls too, my ex-wife was very fond of them) who would just love to get away from our humdrum world; but grown up kids love them too. I didn't care for the Tarzan books as much but I must admit I didn't read so many of them.  Disney is making a new John Carter movie. I can't wait. A John Carter movie (Princess of Mars starring Antonio Sabato Jr. and Tracy Lords, available on Netflix streaming now) was released a couple of years ago and it was execrable, but I liked it anyway.

Art by Frank Frazetta

 Conan the Barbarian was my favorite fictional character for years. He was the wish fulfillment of the skinny introverted kid that I was. The Conan original movie was OK with a few brilliant moments, but Arnold was the barbarian's perfect embodiment. I haven't seen the new movie yet. Conan The Conqueror is the only novel length Conan story written by Howard. I recommend all of Howard's work but the Conan stories are the best. Amazon has a fine Kindle Collection, The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 99 Collected Stories for $1.99, and well worth the price.

Was Carlos Castaneda writing ethnology or fiction or an admixture of both? It doesn't matter. They are wonderful books full of truth.

Art by John Schoenherr

Frank Herbert was a spook. Therefore there is much to be learned from his work. Dune is a classic. If you just saw the movie you may think the book is a mess. It is not. The film is a beautiful pastiche of scenes from the book. Read the book and the movie will become comprehensible. The two television miniseries are very good.

 Anderson's book is what a critic might call a fun romp. Arthurian knights take over an alien space ship and wreak havoc in the galaxy. I read this book fifty years ago at least. I should re-read because I hardly remember it except for the fact that it was a gas.

Art by Ed Emshwiller

Dick Dick Dick. You can't get enough. My first was The Man In The High Castle in '62 when I was 12. I collected PKD until he expired and stopped writing. It's all good. Talk about subversion of reality.

This is probably Silverberg's best. Another evocative book worthy of a re-read.

 I loved Ray Bradbury when I was very young. His short stories could be very poetic in an obvious way. I never was much of a fan of Fahrenheit 451. Orwell did dystopia much better. Mr. Bradbury has become conservative in his old age and I wonder why. But the answer is probably the same old story: success and prosperity.

Art by Richard Powers

Judith Merril's annual collections were mandatory reading for me. This is the second annual. She was criticized for stretching the definition of what was science fiction and sometimes I thought better stories could have been selected than some of the out of genre pieces by non science fiction writers that she published. But that is a quibble. 

Two Cancer Studies Find Bacterial Clue in Colon --The New York Times

Go to the  link in the headline to read the story. Whether this bug causes cancer or not, it is sobering to contemplate the means by which Fusobacterium, which is normally a denizen of the mouth, finds its way into the colon.

A Child Frolics in a Cancerous Colon. Found at the Kelly Laferty blog. 

Ferdinand Lundberg, April 30, 1905 - March 1, 1995

The Rich Are Different

I've been rereading parts of Ferdinand Lundberg's fantastic look at the real rulers of America, The Rich And The Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today, published by Lyle Stuart in 1968. You can read my short review of this book at the Amazon link above. The book is out of print but reasonably priced used copies are available there.

Mr. Lundberg's insights on America were acute and prescient. The culture of the wealthy he describes in TRATSR has gotten more extreme. The rich are richer. They have more power. They are more bold and less cautious. But they are still primarily the same old families that have been there from the beginning. And that is the point of the book. A small number of families retain wealth and power using their wealth and power to undermine our democratic republic. Mr. Lundberg graduated from Columbia University and was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal during the stock market crash of 1929 heralding the Great Depression. His books include Imperial Hearst (1936), America's Sixty Families (1940), and The Rockefeller Syndrome (1968). Lyle Stuart also published Cracks In The Constitution in 1982 which makes the argument that our founding document is a fraud. The first sentence "We the people.." is the first lie in it since it was actually written by wealthy propertied gentlemen who never intended that the people in general would have much to do with their great enterprise.

Tonight at 8PM on Adam Gorightly's Untamed Dimensions Vyzigoth, Gordon Comstock and myself will discuss this great book.

Some Lundberg quotes from (just the beginning of) the book:

Most Americans—citizens of the wealthiest, most powerful and most ideal-swathed country in the world—by a very wide margin own nothing more than their household goods, a few glittering gadgets such as automobiles and television sets (usually purchased on the installment plan, many at second hand) and the clothes on their backs.


Their agents deafen a baffled world with a never ceasing chant about the occult merits of private-property ownership (good for everything that ails man and thoroughly familiar to the rest of the world, not invented in the United States), and the vaulting puissance of the American owners. It would be difficult in the 1960’s for a large majority of Americans to show fewer significant possessions if the country had long labored under a grasping dictatorship. How has this process been contrived of stripping threadbare most of the populace, which once at least owned small patches of virgin land? To this fascinating if off-color question we shall give some attention later. Statements such as the foregoing on the rare occasions when they are ventured (although strictly true and by no means new)1 are bound to be challenged by the alert propaganda watchdogs of the established order. These propagandists, when hard pressed, offer an incantation about a mythical high American standard of living which on inspection turns out to be no more than a standard of gross consumption. The statements must, therefore—particularly in this age of burgeoning one-sided affluence-be monumentally and precisely documented and re-documented. Not that this will deter the watchdogs, who have limitless resources of casuistry and dialectic to fall back upon as well as an endless supply of white paper from denuded forests.

Compared with the political power and influence of the American military today, Hohenzollern Germany (at one time designated by horrified American publicists as the acme of cold militarism in modern times) was only a one-cylinder, comic-opera affair. The Pentagon of today—its agents busy in Congress and the Executive Branch, with the politicians obviously standing in awe of the be-medaled generals, with the defense-industry corporations loaded with retired officers—could flatten an entity like Hohenzollern or Hitler Germany with a few well placed blows.

The United States is a great deal more like Brazil and Argentina, for example, than it is like France or England (two countries upon which most Americans are inclined to look with patronizing reservation). Even in such a distinctive United States feature as the separation of church and state there is now a strong movement, led by politicians with their eyes on the least instructed voters, for a direct supportive involvement of the state in the affairs of the church, an involvement that would presumably gain these politicians the support of the church. In this feature, then, there is a movement to make the United States even more like Latin America and less like Europe, where church and state are tending to become more and more separate in most jurisdictions. It might almost be said that there is a growing tendency to model the United States, apart from its industrial features, upon the “banana republics,” thus making it the Banana Republic par excellence

Down through history poverty has always referred to lack of property. The man who had no property was defined as poor; the more property a man owned the less poor he was. Most people in the United States own little more property than do Russian peasants, and by that standard they are poor.


For my part, I would say that anyone who does not own a fairly substantial amount of income-producing property or does not receive an earned income sufficiently large to make substantial regular savings or does not hold a well-paid securely tenured job is poor. He may be healthy, handsome and a delight to his friends—but he is poor.

But this panorama of contemporary private wealth and power throws some doubt on the doctrines of earlier apologists for the big fortunes. It was once widely preached from pulpits as well as editorial pages that great wealth was either the reward for social service (such as graciously building a vast industry to cater to an undeserving public) or it represented the inevitable, natural and wholly acceptable outcome of an evolutionary struggle in which the fittest survived and the unfit landed in the gutter. On the basis of this doctrine the present top wealthholders are the offspring of public benefactors and the fittest of a past generation. Fortunately, they are not themselves facing the same tests of fitness.


What has developed, then, under the operation of inheritance laws handed down from days when property ownership was far more modest to a day when vast properties have been created mainly by technology, is a huge, solid fortress of interlaced wealth against which even clever new wealthseekers, try as they will, cannot make a tiny dent. About the only way one can get in (and that way isn’t always rewarding) is by marriage. If a potential new Henry Ford produces an invention and sets out with friends to market it he generally finds (as did Professor Edwin H. Armstrong, inventor of wide-swing radio frequency modulation, the regenerative circuit for vacuum tubes, ultra short-wave super-regeneration and the superheterodyne circuit) that it is boldly infringed by established companies. After he spends the better part of a lifetime in court straining to protect his rights he may win (usually he does not); but if he wins he collects only a percentage royalty. What the infringers can show they have earned through their promotional efforts they may keep, with the blessings of the courts, who are sticklers for equity: All effort must be rewarded. And then the overwrought inventor, as Professor Armstrong did in 1954, can commit suicide. Henry Ford came up when there were only small competing companies in the field. When established companies are  in the field, inventors must sell out, or suffer a fate similar to Professor Armstrong’s.



The wealthy, like everyone else, dislike to pay taxes and, unlike most other people, they know how to minimize them through the exercise of political influence. This is one of the nice differences between being wealthy and being poor. The Constitution of the United States bars the bestowal of titles of nobility. But in many ways it would clear up much that is now obscure if titles were allowed. Not only would they show, automatically, to whom deference was due as a right but they would publicly distinguish those who held continuing hereditary power from people who are merely temporarily voted in or appointed for limited terms.



In order to participate in politics in the Soviet Union one must be a member of the Communist Party. This is a formal condition. Similarly, in order to participate meanirtgfully in politics in the United States one must be a property owner. This is not a formal requirement; formally anyone may participate. But, informally, participation beyond voting for alternate preselected candidates is so difficult for the nonpropertied as to be, in effect, impossible. The nonpropertied person in the United States who wishes to attain and hold a position of leverage in politics must quickly become a property owner. And this is one reason why unendowed budding American politicians, not being property owners, must find or create opportunities (legal or illegal) for themselves to acquire property. Without it they are naked to the first wind of partisan adversity and gratuitous public spitefulness.




A Few More Pertinent Quotes:

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. 
Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
 James 5, 1-5



Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife,
May I enjoy a calm through life ;
See faction, safe in low degree.
As men at land see storms at sea.
And laugh at miserable elves.
Not kind, so much as to themselves,
Curs'd With such souls of base alloy. 

As can possess, but not enjoy;
Debarred the pleasure to impart
By av'rice, sphincter of the heart;
- Matthew Green 1696-1737 English poet, from "The Spleen"

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread. 
Francis Bacon from the essay Of Seditions and Troubles

The money complex is the demonic, and the demonic is God's ape; the money complex is therefore the heir to and substitute for the religious complex, an attempt to find God in things. 
-Norman O. Brown, September 25, 1913– October 2, 2002,
US philosopher, from Life Against Death, ch. 15

Avarice, ambition, lust, etc., are nothing but species of madness, although not enumerated among diseases.
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

My Water Garden, the first year...

Why Cable News Is Bad


They Do Not Cover Real News 
Unless You Call Murder Trials, Celebrity Bad Behavior, and Political Fantasy as "News"


The cable news networks have found out it is a lot cheaper to hire talking heads who blather about politics than real newsmen in the field who report on real events.

Let us not even mention the expense of hiring investigative news teams which may or may not pay off with a good story which will only piss off their sources, purchasers of advertising time, and owners in the politico-business community anyway. There is no upside to that.

But here is upside. There is a lot more bang for the buck, so to speak,  for television news executives to hire long legged babe newsreaders to prance around the office looking good. 

The simultaneous strength and the weakness of democracy is that it is designed so that ascendant temporarily popular interests, including those which are dangerous to society, may take over the government. These more aggressive and rapacious movements are hungrier for control than the benign ones, and therefore are more often successful.

Mitt Romney speaks from the Des Moines Register's "Soapbox" at the Iowa State Fair August 11, 2011 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) from the LA Times

LET'S HEAR IT FOR LIMITED LIABILITY!

‎"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings my friend."  

So said Mitt Romney, quoted by the Huffington Post at the Iowa State Fair yesterday, denigrating and insulting good people everywhere when he was asked why he is attacking "entitlements" rather than looking to fairly tax and eliminate loopholes for corporations. At the same time he conjured the concept of "The People" as expounded in the Declaration of Independence, intentionally confounding this noble concept with his rich friends and cronies who actually are invested in the big corporations.

Be wary of the man who addresses you as "my friend."

What kind of "people" are corporations?

Big corporations act like people who are thousands of times more powerful than any real human being, and are totally immoral because their only interest, by law, is to make a profit by any means necessary.

A corporation is an atheist, dreamless, sleepless predator. 

It acts like a human possessed by a ferocious selfish demon.

Corporations enable small men to indulge their basest instincts with invulnerability. 

What  nice "people" are corporations!

They are conspiracies, exclusive socialist creations of the plutocrats, to mass and aggrandize their ill-gotten mostly inherited wealth.
These fictions chartered by government and protected by law have all the rights and few of the responsibilities of a human being.
They facilitate cooperation among the fortunate wealthy against the lesser human beings who toil for a living.
In a true capitalist system the rich and powerful would have to compete with each other. 
The corporations allow natural enemies to easily join forces against the people. 

They cannot die because they do not truly live. 

They cannot be jailed for their crimes.

The owners of the corporations are protected from responsibility for the wicked deeds committed by these entities which act on behalf of the power of their riches.

Supreme Court "justices" in the possession of the wealthy declared these insane entities "people" with all the rights and none of the responsibilies of real "people" during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant.

American freedom has been disappearing ever since.

Thus the wealthy corrupt the power of government to aggrandize themselves while successfully convincing the people that the government, their only means of peaceful remedy against the depradations of the rich, is the source of their suffering, rather than a tool for its respite. 

The Archon, Devil Radiation, Assaults an Innocent

"I am he who received revelation from the Pleroma of Imperishability…
he who stripped himself and went about naked…."
From The (Second) Apocalypse of James



Fukushima!


It hasn't gone away.


It's still bad and getting worse.


TEPCO announced today that their Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility was experiencing record high  radiation levels. 
Reading of 10 sieverts an hour have been recorded in a ventilation duct at plants 1 and 2. Such a level of radiation is lethal after only an hour's exposure. 
This is double June's previous high readings at the site since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami triggered meltdowns at the inadequately designed and fortified reactor complex.
This is bad news for the workers trying to batten down the site.

Peter Burns, former chief executive officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, says given the scale of the Fukushima emergency, the high reading is to be expected.

"The levels reported of 10 sieverts per hour are very high levels and it's going to be very difficult to manage workers going into those areas and doing operations," he said.

"To put the 10 sieverts into context, that 10 sieverts is actually a lethal dose of radiation. So you can't afford to be exposed for more than a few minutes at those levels.

"It means you're directly exposed to fuel rods in the reactors or the spent fuel ponds very closely and while it's possible to get to those levels it means there is very little shielding going on there."

from an ABC News (Australia) report

But, as has been reported in this space, the workers at Fukushima Daiichi already expect to die. 

Abraxas begetteth truth and lying,
good and evil, light and darkness,
in the same word and in the same act.
Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.
It is love and love’s murder.
It is the saint and his betrayer.
It is the brightest light of day
and the darkest night of madness.

–The Seven Sermons to The Dead—

Yesterday the Japanese government expanded the prohibition of the shipment of cattle from another area in the vicinity of the radiation. Iwate prefecture may now not ship cattle along with Fukushima prefecture and Miyagi prefecture. Tochigi prefecture, closer to Tokyo, may soon be added to the list.
More and more food of all kinds, vegetables, seafood and meat. Has been found on grocers shelves with unacceptable radiation levels.
More and more we know and understand that the "clean and safe" nuclear industry  lied to the world and is harming all of us. But I should not have put the verb "lie" in the past tense.
Evil never gives up.

Straight from the Pleroma, Susan Hayward as Sophia

John Boehner, Acting Unconstitutionally?

The antics of the budget shadow show in Washington are fully displaying the fact that our "leaders" are morons or worse.
The so-called tea party types love to cite the Constitution as their only motivator.
They claim this document has been ignored and trashed by the establishment politicians over many years.
In many ways they are right.
In many ways the Constitution is not the wonderful God-given document we might wish to think it is.
But the majority of Congress is now obviously wiping its collective ass with the Constitution when they stand  with the intent to repudiate the debt. They are purposely ignoring their duties or they do not understand the Constitution.
The Constitution clearly states that only Congress has the power to "pay the debt" in Article 1, Section 8.
That implies that no one else in government has that power including the President.
Obviously the Founders would be amazed and confused that Congress would refuse to pay the bills, essentially abrogating their responsibilities under the Constitution. The Constitution never implies that the debt should not be paid. On the contrary, the founding document does not allow Congress to repudiate debt.
The 14th Amendment  reinforces this responsibility of the Congress, as the sole authorized agent of the government, to pay the debt.
From Section 4. "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppression of insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
In questioning this debt the Congress is acting in an unconstitutional manner.
The Founders did not anticipate that Congress could act so irresponsibly and the Constitution does not address the possibility that Congress would come under the control of irrational rebels, corporate tools, and delusionary madmen.
Some say the President has the right to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, but I disagree.
Only Congress has the power to pay the bills. The fact that they are not doing that reveals that they hate this document they love to cite selectively and wave around to justify their idiocy.
Congress is now being manipulated by the spiritual heirs and in some cases, actual descendants, of those who made rebellion and insurrection against the United States. They are liars when they claim they are following the Constitution. They are, in fact, rebelling against it.
They are especially motivated by their hatred of a President who they, in their heart of hearts, would like to see on the plantation picking cotton.
At the very least, the President must make the Constitutional argument to the Supreme Court that Congress is abrogating their responsibility. This, he is unlikely to do. The President just wants to make love to Republicans, foolishly thinking they will tolerate him in return.
What would happen if the Supreme Court sided with the fools in Congress is another matter.
Or, what would happen if Congress refused to follow an order by the Court to pay the bills is even another matter.
At that point, the President, under his oath to protect the Constitution, might think about arresting members of Congress as rebels and insurrectionists who had failed to carry out their official duties.
That would be fun.

Tea bagger demanding selective fealty to the Constitution.

Addendum:

I have nothing against cutting government spending, by the way. 

But when my bills get too high, I cut back current and future spending. 

I don't decide to just stop paying and repudiate my debt.
That would be wrong, especially if I had the power to create money out of nothing, which the Congress has.

The argument in which Congress must needs  engage will be a difficult and distasteful enterprise for all. 

General laws to "balance the budget" are an obvious evasion of responsibility.
Repudiating the debt is unconstitutional.
They are stage tricks designed to destroy popular social programs that otherwise would be invulnerable to direct attack.
What specific spending must be cut by the Congress?
Answering that question is the essential task of those elected to that body.
They must debate these issues publicly, not spring on the public the wicked spawn of secret talks held in camera.

If they need to choose between war and social security, they need to have an adult and public debate on that. 

If they need to choose between raising taxes on the very rich and shutting down Veteran's Hospitals, they must do it for all to see and hear.
It they need to choose between protecting the environment and giving tax breaks to oil corporations, they need to have a public debate on that too.
If they need to inflate the dollar so that old debt is cheaper, they need to discuss that. 

Math is hard. 

Thoth Tarot, Adjustment

A Solution to the "Debt Crisis"
Or Gettin' rid of "Money for Nothin'"


It's only play money wished into existence by the Federal Reserve.
They don't even print it most of it up anymore. 
It's just binary code on a chip.
It is imaginary money which is implicitly attached  to the promise of labor.
I am in agreement with whose who wish to  Abolish the Fed. 
The people through their government must create the money supply themselves (without the "assistance" of intermediary banker leeches) and retain a certain percentage for their government's operating expenses. 
Hence, no overt taxes will be required to run the federal government..
All money created must be represented by a real physical thing, whether gold, silver, another valuable commodity, or only a promise on a real paper note. 
The magical creation of money as code in a computer must be ended. 
Fractional banking, the creation of invisible imaginary money by a private bank, is the devil's own spawn and must be seen as the criminal act it is. 
The fact that most money is never printed is the only thing holding back massive inflation.
Big time inflation will benefit a lot of people. 
Imagine paying back your debt at 5 cents on the dollar.
That is the banks' and the Fed's worst nightmare.
It would be our equivalent to the Biblical Jubilee.
It would set the people free. 
The bankers have grown rich using black magic long enough. 


Historical note of the day:


On this date in 1932 the United States Army attacked 20,000 veterans of World War I camped in Washington demanding from Congress their promised bonus payments.




Maxim of the Day


Interest is the vilest taxation.