Olduvai
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Turkey Set To Block YouTube Momentarily, After Google Refuses To Yank Clips Exposing Prime Minister | Zero Hedge
As was reported earlier, the Turkish premier, embroiled in what increasingly appears a career terminating corruption and embezzlement scandal (it is not exactly clear yet just how involved the CIA is in this particular upcoming government overthrow), blocked Turkey’s access to Twitter last night, hours after vowing to “destroy twitter.” The idiocy of this escalation against dissemination of information in the internet age needs no comment. Well maybe one. This is what we said in our post from this morning: “since Turkey will certainly not stop at just Twitter, here is what is coming next: “Last week, Erdogan said the country could also block Facebook and YouTube.” It now appears that at least half of this threat is about to materialize because moments ago Google just announced that it would not remove a previously uploaded video, one in which Erdogan tells his son to hide money from investigators (one which can be seen here), and which Erdogan demanded be pulled from Google (seemingly unaware that by doing so he simply made sure that everyone saw it). This means that within days, if not hours, Turkey will likely block Google-owned YouTube, if not Google itself.
Google Inc. has declined Turkish government requests to remove YouTube videos alleging government corruption, people familiar with the matter said, the latest sign of resistance to a crackdown against social media led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish authorities have in recent weeks asked Google to block the videos from YouTube’s Turkish website, the people familiar with the matter said. But amid a national scandal over corruption allegations, Google refused to comply because it believes the requests to be legally invalid, the people added.
Google’s refusal to remove videos raises the specter that Turkey could move to block access to YouTube within the country, after blocking the microblogging service Twitter Inc. late Thursday night. Both sites have been central conduits for allegations of corruption against Mr. Erdogan’s government and faced public threats of a blackout by Mr. Erdogan.
Some people within Google had feared a YouTube blackout could be imminent, after the Twitter takedown, the people familiar with the matter said. “We feel an immediate threat,” one of the people said.
Sadly in Erodgan’s berserk regime, this is not only possible but very probable.
Still, one wonders why Google would not relent in this particular case, after recent revelations that the major internet companies have cooperated over the years with the NSA, contrary to their vocal denials in public. Surely, compromising with its principles and ethics would be nothing new to a company which once swore to “do no evil.” Especially since Google realizes quite well by not complying with the government’s demand it is making the overthrow of Erdogan’s regime, violent or otherwise, that much more likely.
Either way, even without Google’s aid it already appeared that Erdogan’s days are numbered when not only the opposition but the figurehead president himself condemned the Twitter blockage.
Opposition politicians decried the move as that of a dictatorship. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who has a largely symbolic role, also came down against the blackout, using Twitter to write that “wholesale shuttering of social media platforms cannot be approved.”
Alas, with the government in full out despotic mode, however one which would work in the 1970s but certainly not in an age of instant information exchange, further escalations of locking out internet provides will certainly accelerate until finally the information and entertainment starved country says enough.
We eagerly look forward to see which particular pro-Western agent is groomed to take Erdogan’s place. After all remember: those Qatari gas pipelines that in a parallel universe, one without Putin, would have already been transporting nat gas under Syria, would enter Europe under Turkey.
Which makes one wonder – just what is the real goal here?
As for Turkey, we urge the population, largely removed from all Machiavellian moves behind the scenes, to catch up on their favorite YouTube clips: they will shortly disappear for good.
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Turkey Set To Block YouTube Momentarily, After Google Refuses To Yank Clips Exposing Prime Minister | Zero Hedge
As was reported earlier, the Turkish premier, embroiled in what increasingly appears a career terminating corruption and embezzlement scandal (it is not exactly clear yet just how involved the CIA is in this particular upcoming government overthrow), blocked Turkey’s access to Twitter last night, hours after vowing to “destroy twitter.” The idiocy of this escalation against dissemination of information in the internet age needs no comment. Well maybe one. This is what we said in our post from this morning: “since Turkey will certainly not stop at just Twitter, here is what is coming next: “Last week, Erdogan said the country could also block Facebook and YouTube.” It now appears that at least half of this threat is about to materialize because moments ago Google just announced that it would not remove a previously uploaded video, one in which Erdogan tells his son to hide money from investigators (one which can be seen here), and which Erdogan demanded be pulled from Google (seemingly unaware that by doing so he simply made sure that everyone saw it). This means that within days, if not hours, Turkey will likely block Google-owned YouTube, if not Google itself.
Google Inc. has declined Turkish government requests to remove YouTube videos alleging government corruption, people familiar with the matter said, the latest sign of resistance to a crackdown against social media led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish authorities have in recent weeks asked Google to block the videos from YouTube’s Turkish website, the people familiar with the matter said. But amid a national scandal over corruption allegations, Google refused to comply because it believes the requests to be legally invalid, the people added.
Google’s refusal to remove videos raises the specter that Turkey could move to block access to YouTube within the country, after blocking the microblogging service Twitter Inc. late Thursday night. Both sites have been central conduits for allegations of corruption against Mr. Erdogan’s government and faced public threats of a blackout by Mr. Erdogan.
Some people within Google had feared a YouTube blackout could be imminent, after the Twitter takedown, the people familiar with the matter said. “We feel an immediate threat,” one of the people said.
Sadly in Erodgan’s berserk regime, this is not only possible but very probable.
Still, one wonders why Google would not relent in this particular case, after recent revelations that the major internet companies have cooperated over the years with the NSA, contrary to their vocal denials in public. Surely, compromising with its principles and ethics would be nothing new to a company which once swore to “do no evil.” Especially since Google realizes quite well by not complying with the government’s demand it is making the overthrow of Erdogan’s regime, violent or otherwise, that much more likely.
Either way, even without Google’s aid it already appeared that Erdogan’s days are numbered when not only the opposition but the figurehead president himself condemned the Twitter blockage.
Opposition politicians decried the move as that of a dictatorship. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who has a largely symbolic role, also came down against the blackout, using Twitter to write that “wholesale shuttering of social media platforms cannot be approved.”
Alas, with the government in full out despotic mode, however one which would work in the 1970s but certainly not in an age of instant information exchange, further escalations of locking out internet provides will certainly accelerate until finally the information and entertainment starved country says enough.
We eagerly look forward to see which particular pro-Western agent is groomed to take Erdogan’s place. After all remember: those Qatari gas pipelines that in a parallel universe, one without Putin, would have already been transporting nat gas under Syria, would enter Europe under Turkey.
Which makes one wonder – just what is the real goal here?
As for Turkey, we urge the population, largely removed from all Machiavellian moves behind the scenes, to catch up on their favorite YouTube clips: they will shortly disappear for good.
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Peak Oil: Sobering Realities – Peak Oil Matters
Peak Oil: Sobering Realities – Peak Oil Matters.
Expenditures for finding and developing oil fields have tripled in the last decade and the return from these expenditures has not been enough to justify the costs. Nearly all of the major oil companies have announced major reductions in their exploration and drilling programs and several are selling off assets as they are caught in a trap between steady oil prices and rapidly rising operating costs.
Tom Whipple, a former CIA analyst and highly-respected editor of the daily Peak Oil News and the weekly Peak Oil Review [published by ASPO – the Association for the Study of Peak Oil] offered that observation, [and the other quotations here], in an informative, straightforward, and necessarily sobering assessment of the current state of fossil fuel production.
His efforts won’t gain him rapid admittance into the Happy Talk Misleading Hall of Fame. What his observations will do (coupled with those of other esteemed analysts and commentators on the subject of peak oil) is to interject a much-needed awareness of facts and reality into public discussions about our future and the energy supplies we’ll all be relying upon.
That awareness cannot come too soon, burdened as most citizens are by a steady parade of foggy assertions bearing a reasonable but incomplete relationship to truth. We need more than passing acquaintance with facts that so clearly affect each and every one of us. Few of us appreciate just how much we rely upon inexpensive, readily-available supplies of energy to live our lives.
Taking this for granted shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It’s pretty much all any of us and our immediate prior generations have ever known. Who among us considers the air we breathe thousands of times each day?
The simple fact, however, is that there is one vital aspect to this great body of fossil fuels which has powered us from the time of our Founding Fathers to this extraordinarily complex and awe-inspiring technologically-advanced 21st Century. These are finite resources.
We’ve drawn the cheap and easy supply in ever-more innovative and ingenious ways for nearly two centuries. Our go-to supplies are now harder to extract, more costly, less efficient. An engineering degree is not required to appreciate that this combination does not bode well for societies blindly pursuing more of everything without a pause to consider an alternate plan or two.
The world’s existing fields are depleting at rate of circa 4 million b/d each year so without constant drilling of new wells in new fields global production will quickly wither and prices will climb still more….
To keep the oil flowing, the world’s oil companies have invested some $4 trillion in the last nine years to drill for oil. About $2.5 trillion of this was spent on simply replacing production from existing oil fields. Even this gigantic expenditure was not enough since conventional oil production fell by 1 million b/d during the period.
Pause for a moment to consider that current state of affairs. For all the hype about the marvels of fracking and the energy boom tight oil production unleashed, the investments and returns aren’t adding up as bottom-line admirers hope. We consumers aren’t delighted with paying the higher prices needed to support the more extravagant energy production costs associated with unconventional energy supplies being relied upon more and more. (Worth mentioning again that the decline rates of fracked wells, and thus the need to drill more and more wells, at higher and higher prices, for less efficient products, are facts all conveniently omitted from the cheers offered by the oil industry’s media shills.)
A reckoning on both scores will come soon. Tom Whipple was succinct in that regard:
[I]nvestments in future production are going down, meaning that in a few years depletion likely will overwhelm new production and output of conventional oil will drop.
His inquiry was as good as any:
What is going to happen in the next few years?
Contemplating an answer or two might be a good investment.
~ My Photo: “Know The Risks” – Newport Beach, CA 02.16.14
* I invite you to enjoy my two new books [here and here], and to view my other work atrichardturcotte.com :
A blog examining the liberal vs. conservative conflicts in our society
Thought-provoking inquiries & observations about how (and why) Life does … and does not, work for everyone. [Inspired by my book of the same name]
A column offering a slightly skewed look at life for those of us on the north side of 50.
Looking Left and Right:
Inspiring Different Ideas,
Envisioning Better Tomorrows
Peak Oil Matters is dedicated to informing others about the significance and impact of Peak Oil—while adding observations about politics, ideology, transportation, and smart growth.
Olduvaiblog: Musings on the coming collapse 