News and Notes - 9 Jan 2010

It's damned cold outside. The thermometer on top the local charter school is still reading in the mid-20's. Here's some reading material for you as you sit around your house clutching your hot beverage of choice trying to stay warm.

College Football Coaches Face the Summer of '69. Fantastic article going through some college football history. About how coaches lost their dictatorial power and the racial struggles at the end of the 60's.

Very long David Simon interview. Worth a read. Can't wait until Treme.

China's Energy Solution: Ignore the Cost. China plans massive buildout of alternative energy, whatever the cost. China is forcing public utilities to buy renewable power at cost + fee basis. While "communist"-sounding, might actually be quite capitalistic by breaking the biggest logjam in financing and construction of new wind, etc. projects. Alternative Energy companies have a hard time securing financing due to the massive fluctuation in energy prices. Almost all alternative energy projects (wind, solar {very useful for peak power}) are economical at least SOME of the time. The trick is when energy prices collapse, they're left trying to pay off a massive initial capital cost. Cost overruns probably won't be that bad because the energy companies still have to front the money.

What's driving up oil prices (now above $80 on all indexes {WTI, Brent, Tapis, etc.})? Well, according to this article, it's the LACK of speculators.

Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell.

The Nightmare Life Without Fuel. Essay from 1977 by Isaac Asimov. I've been getting into a lot of classic science fiction writing recently and Asimov's stuff is really good and holds up well over time. I got more of the Foundation series for Christmas.

Drew Brees: Pro-Bowl Quarterback, New Orleans-lover, Philanthropist, and Washington Post Op-Ed writer.

And here's the best articles for last:

Village will not be moved. Isle De Jean, like many other small Cajun towns south of New Orleans, is slipping into the Gulf, but residents refuse to leave. Great read.

Recession fuels shift to public schools.

"Public schools play such an important role for our democracy as the only institution that serves all children," he says. "If you lose the people who have the power of choice because they have the resources and the information and the time to make a difference, it becomes a system that only serves people who have no other option. And that's a problem."

Profile: Hussain al-Shahristani - Times Online The most important man in the Middle East that you've never heard of. Tortured for 10 years at Abu Gharib, he's now the incorruptable man in charge of Iraq's oil. Reminds me of reading about Zaki Yamani in Saudi Arabia. Related: Oil Drum discussion of potential Iraq oil production capacity. Lots of caveats, but there's potential for a Russia-like situation to develop (poorly managed large fields turned over to IOC's with Superstraws resulting in a "new Saudi Arabia" almost overnight, thanks to lots of hard work. The photo near the end will bring a smirk to your face, too.

And ending with something fun: Looking for a way to stay warm? Try this:

Links of the day - 6/11/09

Lots to peruse:

World:
Netanyahu Clashed With Obama, Congress On Trip. M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum wrote that it was "the first time in memory" that "an Israeli prime minister went up to the Hill only to be bombarded with criticism."

Little Green Footballs - IAEA Reports Weapons-Grade Uranium Found in Egypt. HEU (highly enriched uranium) found in Egypt?

Pakistan expanding Nuclear Weapons Facility. Wired notes the possibility of a nuclear Civil War.

David Kilcullen. Petraus' brain? Be sure to read the end of the article.

Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan... in pink boxers. SecDef praised the soldier for a "special kind of courage."

Obama's Speech already undercutting extremists? Maybe.

Economics:
Faltering Country Clubs Inviting Public Inside OMG! BEER SWILLING PROLETARIAT INVADE BOURGEOIS COUNTRY CLUBS! THE HORROR!

Goldman Sachs names ex-SEC chief Levitt as adviser. The colony of leeches gets bigger.

Italian Police Seize Japanese Nationals trying to Smuggle $134 Billion in Bonds. Either stunningly well counterfeited, or, even scarier, genuine articles.

Politics:

My dear American Neighbors. Northern Neighbor gives an honest take on "the Canadian way."

Cheney Lost to Bush. Interesting chronicle of the inside politics at the White House. Reminds me of the PBS documentary.

Bernard Kerik indicted for lying to Feds. Remember, he was Giuliani's pick to head DHS.

Robert Gates: Bureaucrat Unbound. Cheesy title, but so many people are singing his praises.

Baseball:
Pitchers are sissies. "Bone chips," HA! Published in 1946.

Deadspin - Why Scott Boras Isn't As Evil As You Think He Is. Scott Boras for commissioner of baseball? Couldn't be any worse than Selig...

Palin visits Yankee Stadium. Highly concentrated evil. Now if only Jeter would give her an STD and knock her up with a 1/4 black baby...

Random:
Either the coolest thing ever or incredibly wrong. Still can't decide which.

Hot Stuff in a Squeeze Bottle - NYT. Siracha hot sauce.

Phoonan Devi. Inspiration for Kill Bill? "They gang raped her, so she came back with a gun and some friends, and killed twenty-two men. Unsure of the identity of her rapists, she killed most of the males in the village just to be on the safe side"

Poster advertising Bachelor/ette Parties at a Gun Range. You mind will explode trying to process it all.

Oil drips and discharges - 28 April 2009

Here are two articles from The Oil Drum to peruse: Iraqi Oil: Black Gold or Black Hole? and Iraq's Oil: The Greatest Prize Of All ? These two articles go through the reason we went to war in Iraq: OIL. Specifically, how much is there under the dirt. While there are some good prospects in Kurdistan and the Western Desert, it's highly doubtful oil reserves will go much above about 60 billion barrels (half the stated Iraqi reserves).

The more recent article also touches on the challenges of even maintaining Iraqi production rates. The problems break down into a couple of categories:

• Endemic corruption (many of the technocrats that oversaw production have been killed/replaced with politically connected idiots)
• Political reserves (i.e.- lying to OPEC to up their production quota's)
• Bad management (Under Saddam, some of the northern oil fields were "oil-flooded" because the oil was embargoed, but the natural gas wasn't. That leaves a sticky mess that's extremely hard to recover from)
• Political rivalry and foreign oil company stalemates (Iraqi's have a long held mistrust of international oil companies)
• Political insecurity (including rampant violence that's still way to dangerous for international oil workers)

There's also basic phyisics and geology the Iraqi oil wells are starting to run into: Iraqi oil wells are watering out and production set to plummet. The only PSA currently in operation is a Chinese contract, signed in 1997 under Saddam, but even that one will probably soon be abrogated. Without a massive investment (which flat out ain't happening given the violence level and the always looming threat of nationalization), by 2012, Iraq's production will plummet, possibly below a million barrels a day (currently 2.2 MBD-ish - pre-war was 2.5 MBD).

Iraq will start running out of oil about the same time the last of the troops get on a plane to head back home. Nice timing.

How can we drill for oil in the arctic? Well, look at the Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered drillship. Ah, those crazy Ruskies and their Russian reactors.

Did oil prices cause the economic crisis? I've been seeing this theory pop up over and over. While there are structural issues that go beyond the price of oil (like the regulatory environment), as a proximate cause, it deserves some serious consideration. Think of it like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. War followed, but that was just the spark that lit the fire. The area was packed with kindling before that and was just waiting on a spark, though.

And I'll close with a shiny thing next to some not so shiny things:

Oil Platform over depleted field sprouting a 5 MWe wind turbine off the coast of the Netherlands. We could easily be doing this off the coast of Louisiana.

UPDATE- I wanted to post more this morning, but was trying to get to work on time.

Here's a bit more:


Why Dick Changed His Mind. Cheney used to be fairly well grounded on foreign policy. What changed his mind was his belief that Peak Oil was imminent and the only way for the US to be successful in the 21st century was to control the largest supply of untapped oil (he thought, Iraq).

During the big push for offshore oil drilling over the summer, I heard some absolutely ridiculous claims about possible reserves off the eastern seaboard. I've come across a couple of scientific studies of the VERY limited drilling that occurred off the Jersey coast.

This article talks about uneconomical gas reserves found in the Baltimore Canyon. Also nice to read because of the discussion of Mukluk.

This is a (dated) but detailed study of the geology of the Baltimore Canyon. Baltimore Canyon won't have anywhere near the oil as, say, Mississippi Canyon or Cantarelle or other big GoM formations, but there's some promising territory there. I'd love to see what modern seismic could do. Just the subsea imaging alone has come a long way. That being said, there's no guarantee that oil found will be developed. All support infrastructure (pipelines, compression facilities, supply ports, etc.) would have to be built from scratch.

3 great photos of the drilling rig replacement operation at Shell Mars TLP. The scale on these photos is hard to wrap your head around, even when I've walked around the deck and peered up that the drilling rig. To think it got lifted up like that is amazing.

Bush Visits Iraq for "Victory Lap"

What's that about squares being named after him? [Video] Story here.

Also: Who throws a shoe?

UPDATE- Great GIF: I'm sick of that .gif now

UPDATE 2- Full, unedited video with more context. Bush had just finished claiming "victory" in Iraq before the shoe flew over his head.

UPDATE 3- And for his trouble, the shoe-thrower gets tortured like one of Uday's soccer players.

Obama's Nomination Speech in Minnesota

Finally got around to watching Obama's nomination speech.

I skipped the first quarter or so. Just a bunch of Thank you's. Don't skip too far ahead, though, because the part on Iraq is spot on. Liked the references to the Republican convention in Minnesota. Then it gets a little dull and ends on an exclamation point.

UPDATE- Oh, and I would post McCain's 'green jello' speech for comparison, but somebody keeps taking the videos down from You-Tube.

The Sound of Ben Bernake being dead wrong...

Fed Chief downplays risk of Stagflation. You can just picture the author screaming "BULLSHIT!" to Bernake as he writes this article. At the exact same time that Bernake was speaking, Oil his the highest level ever (adjusted for inflation) and the dollar reached a new low against the Euro. Think the two could be related?

Dare I throw in a third thread responsible for the other two? Iraq. Nobel economist analyzes Iraq. $3 Trillion is his MOST CONSERVATIVE estimate of spending to date. He includes some budgetary vignettes that are priceless. Like how the army requires soldiers to pay for damaged helmets, even if the damage comes from an enemy bullet or bomb.

Bernake is quietly wishing Greenspan was there to help him out. Oh, whoops, Greenspan is fiscally cockblocking Bernake by advising Gulf States to drop their dollar pegs. On a related note, the much ballyhooed Iranian Oil Bourse opens on the same day oil closes above $100 for the first time ever. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) had traded above $100 during the day and had closed once at $100, but never over that figure.

Warren Buffet gives the Fed the benefit of the doubt, but makes some interesting observations about the economy (and investing in general). Well worth a read.

UPDATE- ...And the next day, the Dow falls 315 points.

Odds and Ends - 10 Oct 2007

Even Deadspin tells the Yankees to suck it.

Has the dollar slide been halted by OPEC reinvesting petrodollars? If so, [awkward shuffle] thank you OPEC.

Oil Majors estimate it will take 2-10 years for Iraq to stabalize, if ever. As Bill Maher once said, "Only George W. Bush could fight a war for oil and not get any."

Another media "narrative" on Ron Paul. Ron Paul as the third party cancer that eats away at the Republican vote.

Obelisk, one of our tops sources within Al Qaeda, was outed by some dumbass with a Federal Government IP address... Wonderful. More here.

Operation Macho Kickass

Dick on Iraq

True Dat!

Around the Net

Found a few new local bloggers recently. Actually some of them I found a while ago, but am just getting around to posting.

The Wayward Episcopalian. Volunteer in NOLA.

Emily Metzgar. Campaigner against corruption. Mostly focused more on Louisiana than New Orleans.

City Biz Blog. City Business is one of the most under-read journals in the city. Their blog posts good stuff, but even fewer people read it.

Overheard in NOLA. CLASSIC NEW ORLEANS!!! You'll laugh your ass off. Vignettes that really represent the funkiness of New Orleans.

Xavier Nurse. A conservative New Orleans blogger. Lots of coverage of the Give Them Back controversy, which is another underreported story, IMHO.

I'll get them on the blog roll soon.

Also, here are a couple of nice articles to read:

State Farm attacks Dickie Scruggs. I actually met Dickie Scruggs during my Katrina-semester at Ole Miss. If I were the insurance industry, I'd be scared as hell of him. He's the man who brought big tobacco to its knees.

A collection of essays by former and current soldiers. Not Generals, but the little guys at the bottom. All are incredibly insightful and the collection covers a wide range of opinions on Iraq. The collection is titled "How a Democrat Can Get My Vote."

McCain on The Daily Show

Part I
Part II

The most sensible debate on the Iraq War to date.

As an aside, I have enormous respect for McCain. I read his biography and it's a shame he's going to be collateral damage from Bush. I can't believe he still puts up with Bush after those "half-black love child" calls in South Carolina.