Mr. Speaker

Well, oil is up another US$10 a barrel to OVER US$70 (60% higher than one year ago) - That means another Peak-oil update. Wooo!

Yes, yes, oil prices are up, yes, yes, we are going to run out. Pfft. These updates are getting a little on the predictable side. So I thought we’d spice it up with a little conspiracy theory - Nothing like a conspiracy theory to spice up stories of global oil production, that’s for sure. This conspiracy comes via an undisclosed source of mine. We shall call him/her “PeakThroat”. Because that’s what Tom, I mean - him/her - suggested:

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Well, things have been pretty quiet around here… I blame it on the troubles in the world today: bad TV reception with rabbit-ears; little choice in salt brands; the unreasonably slow development of meat-growing machines… It can really get you down.

In times of crisis it’s good to turn to the sage advice of The Nu-Kooka: 2nd Edition - Containing the best Jewish and Continental dishes, cocktails, savouries, confectionery: Revised and re-edited and including the latest American recipes.

All for the low, low price of 5/-. Whatever the heck that is. Five slash-dashes. Five forward-slash-dashes. It cost me $1 though. The recipe we will be following today comes from page 17, under the section titled Miscellaneous:

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Cricket - Its a funny old game. Some might say its a very stupid old game. Some say much worse. It is unfortunate, unfortunately, that a great deal of the detestment (or desterisation, if that is not a word) stems from a lack of understanding of the finer points of this great game. Given time and careful study, cricket can be appreciated and enjoyed like a good bottle of $12 wine.

A thorough study of cricket could be likened to the study of any great art - The basics require a short time to acquire, but only after a lifetime of dedication and learning can one expect to fully comprehend its nature and beauty. Of course, thanks to the internet you can learn a lifetime of stuff in a couple of hours - and that’s what we’re going to be doing here. Let’s begin now.

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I’ve really been slack at preparing for the oil-drought fuelled end-of-the-world. Work and all you know. But what with oil prices getting up over $60 a barrel, I figure its time to have another look around at what’s going down in the peak oil circles. (You know what… I’m upgrading my concern levels over peak oil. I’m making it a proper noun. Peak Oil. That’ll give it some authority for sure.)

One thing I noticed is that Peak Oil is getting heaps more air time (or pixel time, at least). When I’d consult my primary sources on Peak Oil in March, the articles where spaced out every 5 or six days. 20 hours ago… 5 days ago…. 2 weeks ago…. and so on. Nooow however, they are pouring in at a rate of more than one a day! Holy Moly!

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How would you feel if you came in to the office and read that World War III had started? Or that you had been voted “Least sexist person 2005″? Or the government was banning alcohol? You’d feel pretty bad, I bet. But, what if you could make someone else feel like that? Then you’d be smiling, wouldn’t you! With Greasemonkey and Firefox you too can revel in this kind of childish joy!

What we are going to do is “inject” our own stories into proper web sites. So when our annoying co-worker goes to www.times.com the leading story reads “This just in: annoying co-worker is, um, smelly”. With accompanying humourous photoshopped image of co-worker. Great stuff!

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“Think about it: how would you feel if you saw your hard work being passed off as the property of someone else?” I’m sure the folks at Apple have been pissed about that for years. Perhaps they could take the opportunity to enter Microsoft’s short film competition on intellectual property theft: “Thought Thieves”

Yep, if you’ve put a CD you own on your iPod, or taped Home and Away to watch when you get home, you are not just infringing copyright - you are a thought thief.

Thankfully, with Microsoft leading the way on Digital Rights Management, they can be our very own thought police. In fact, thanks to juicy chunks of the Free Trade Agreement we got - you wont have to be afraid of accidentally making a backup of your songs. Windows wont let you. And if a naughty song manages to gets on to your mp3 player, DRM will delete it for you. So you’ve nothing to fear.

And don’t worry about the rights to the short film you make getting into the hands of those evil thought thieves - the thought police handled that in rule 7 on your entry form:

I will formally licence on terms acceptable to Microsoft, all intellectual property rights in my film and agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do so.

They thought of everything. I just hope they got permission to use that title from Orwell’s publisher.