Little Brother – a must read
What's Up?
Dealing with Gasoline Prices
 
I strongly urge everyone who receives this newsletter to pick up a copy of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Read it and then give it to someone you know. This is quite possibly the most important work of fiction published since 9-11.
 
I haven't quite finished reading the book myself, but I cannot say enough about it. This novel does an excellent job of explaining what has happened in the United States since 9-11. It is extremely suspenseful read. The only drawback I can find is that some of the techno-geek discussions are a little hard to follow for the non-geek. But that is a minor complaint.
 
Little Brother is the story of some teenaged techno-geeks in San Francisco who are arrested by the Department of Homeland Security following the terrorist bombing of the bay bridge. Following their abusive detention, the geeks set out to take down the DHS.
 
The book does a very good job of making the reader aware of what is being lost in this country since the passage of the Patriot Act and similar legislation. As the novel progresses, the reader grows increasingly concerned for the lead character, Marcus (aka W1n5t0n). How can he possibly escape from DHS?
 
This book should be read by everyone in the US , or at least everyone under the age of 25.
 
Little Brother
by Cory Doctorow
Tor Books
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1985-3
 
Some of you are probably wondering why I have posted no new articles to the Mountain Sentinel website since December of 2007. So here's a little note to let you know I have been very active since that time. For the last several months I have been busy working on a series of short stories, novellas and novels. Most of the stories I have been writing would fit into the horror o r d ark fantasy genres. My fiction is starting to appear in various magazines. I am writing under a pen name so readers of my fiction will not confuse my stories with my nonfiction writing, particularly the energy depletion stuff. As I build a career writing fiction, I will have less and less to say about energy depletion.
 
In time, I will eithe r d iscontinue this website, or change the focus to fiction and music. Speaking of the latter, there is a lot of new tablature available on this site, and will be more in the near future.
 
 
(The following article not only attempts to explain what is going on in the oil market, it helps the reader what it will mean to her when gasoline prices reach $6 per gallon and higher.)
 
 

• The Genie
• The Stupidity of Our Elected Leaders
• Oil Graft
• The Situation in a Nutshell
• Gasoline Prices and You
• What are We to Do?

 
 
What is going on?
 
Oil prices surge to $100 per barrel, $120, $130, with no end in sight. And analysts are now talking about $200 per barrel by the end of summer.
 
Gasoline prices have reached $4 per gallon in the US . And now they are saying we may see $6 per gallon by summer's end. Some analysts are saying gasoline prices will eventually reach $12 to $15 per gallon.
 
What is going on? Is this peak oil with a vengeance?
 
Yes and no.
 
There are three reasons why oil prices are skyrocketing, and peak oil is only indirectly involved.
 
The peak oil gene is out of the bottle, at least so far as investors are concerned. They only have a partial understanding of peak oil, but it is enough for market speculation to drive prices out of sight.
 
Oil production has not peaked. It is constrained and it can no longer keep up with growing world demand, but it has not peaked yet, so far as we can tell.
 
World oil production is approaching peak. It is no longer increasing as it once did. What is perhaps more important, there is no more spare capacity left in the system. At $130 per barrel any spare capacity has already been put into production. That is why Saudi Arabia has politely refused Bush's request that they increase production. They are pumping everything they can.
 
Simply the specter of peak oil is enough to fuel market speculation, making a few people very rich while the rest of us must empty our pockets at the gasoline pumps.
 
On top of this, we have the devaluation of the US dollar. The petrodollar has become the Frankenstein monster, and now it is running amok.
 
What we are seeing is nothing less than the failure of the free market. And without intervention, the failure of the free market will make a shambles of the world economy and lead to massive impoverishment and even starvation.
 
Continued at www.mountainsentinel.com