ROOTSFITZZZZ

Nuts, I lost my bet for the 19th of May as Indictment Day, too.

[sigh]

Totally Fitzgasmic!!!!!!

Fitz

I don’t really care *when* Rove goes down, just that he does so. Although it must be before November.

BTW, amazing picture. Deity.

It’s quiet out there…..toooo quiet.

C’mon, Fitz - throw us a bone…if you can’t throw us a turdblossom.

Fitz, Kobetz, Rootz, Fuck Bushtz, and goodnightz alltz! Thanks Jane, I’ll catch up on all the goodlookin links on the flip.

Oh and goodnight Fitz, you sexiest man alive.

I think Fitz is very patient but also very overworked. He’s got the hiring scandal trial, all his other Chicago work, plus Libby and deciding about Rove.

It is enough for me that every time Team Scooter asks for something we find out more about this case. Remember when the wingnuts were saying that there was no smear attempt and the WH wasn’t involved? Every day reveals a little bit more about what really happened. Now we have Cheney directing the discrediting effort against Wilson and Plame. Wonder what we will find out tomorrow?

Kobe!!!

OT Just a quick observation about huge undiscovered oil reserves in Iraq from last thread:

“When it comes to assessing Iraq’s undiscovered reserves, the differences between the DOE and the USGS becomes even starker. According to the USGS%u2014which is hardly a Chicken Little when it comes to reserve predictions%u2014there is a 95 percent probability that Iraq has at least 14 bbl, a 50 percent probability that it has at least 45 bbl, but only a 5 percent probability that it has 84 bbl of undiscovered reserves. This means that the probability that Iraq has 200 bbl or 300 bbl, as so many of the reports have suggested, is, according to USGS calculations, close to nil.”

The discrepancy between USGS and DOE is that USGS has independent means of evaluation and DOE doesn’t.

http://www.brookings.edu/views.....030512.htm

When there is a difference in facts as opposed to opinions it would be nice to cite appropriate links.

OT: What the hell is up with Elisabeth Bumiller at the NY Times. Is she trying to take over Judy’s spot as official Bush Administration stenographer?

Forgot Link to Bumiller’s article …
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05.....lingo.html

Sadly, Bumiller has long been a strong contender in the stenography event.

Kobe says thanks to everyone for their support. He’s in the process of forgiving me and getting over his abandonment issues. I’m going to have to work extra hard to stay on the good side of the girls, though, they are feeling a bit left out.

I haven’t broached the subject of Vegas yet, I am going to have to bribe my way out of that one with packs of Mello Mutts.

Only a few more moments here, got to kill the computer and install another. Can’t get rid of this stupid virus.

Anyway, the drip-drip-drip of this case is great. Every week we’ve got another small chapter, another little show of White House corruption, another series of speculative ideas through the press…and that leads to a touch more understanding throughout America and a bit more stark fear in the GOP—they’re getting royally Fitzed and they can’t stop it (Goddess that must piss ‘em off!)

Great subtle negative marketing and best of all, we don’t have to pay a dime for it.

I have faith that Fitz is doing exactly what he needs to in order to obtain not only indictments but convictions. I just have to keep reminding myself that the wheels of justice turn slowly.

There’s a good reason Rove is a powerful player in Washington, slime that he is… he will stop at nothing to win. If an indictment comes before the mid term elections, it will go a long way, not only to emphasize the moral and ethical bankruptcy in the Republican party, but it will prevent Rove from smearing the Dem candidates. That’s no small feat, and IMHO it can make the difference between a Repub majority and a Dem majority in the House.

If an indictment comes before the mid term elections, it will go a long way, not only to emphasize the moral and ethical bankruptcy in the Republican party, but it will prevent Rove from smearing the Dem candidates. That’s no small feat, and IMHO it can make the difference between a Repub majority and a Dem majority in the House.

And this is why I want Rove far more than I want Cheney or even Bush.

The thing with Cheney and Bush is, they’re gone by 2009 no matter what. Losing Rove makes it harder for the Republicans to replace them with a fresh pair of corrupt incompetent assholes.

Have you seen the NSA kids’ page? I don’t find it creepy at all. Really.

I just want the kids (and cartoon animals)who are spying on me to know that.

Waiting for Fitz to decide on Rove, is like waiting for a guy you have the hots for, to call. Painfully exciting!
Thank you for all the hard work you do, keeping us informed and up to date.

Shorter Hugh at 12 –

Those vast undiscovered Iraqi oil fields are hiding out with Saddam’s WMD’s — maybe Commander Codpiece will find them in Laura’s bed . . .

Hugh 12

Official oil reserves are all smoke and mirrors on all sides. If you look in the 1980s for instance, the oil reserves of every Middle Eastern country except Abu Dhabi (exhausted) doubled overnight - due entirely to the OPEC quota system which changed how much each member could export according to reserves.

I work in the financial industry and get to read reports by forms like Petroconsultants of Geneve, who produce a report on the world oil situation every year that cost a million dollars a copy. I know what I’m talking about. :)

We’re only actually talking about conventional oilreserves here. Iraq has the lowest per-barrel extraction costs of any country too, 50c a barrel, as the stuff is just sitting under the sand. When Baghdadis dug air raid shelters in 2003 for shock and awe, half a dozen people did a Jethro Clampett.

If we’re talking about unconventional oil reserves, which cost $20 a barrel to produce, Venezuela has more oil than the Middle East countries put together. It’s all smoke and mirrors - conventional, unconventional, declared and undeclared, depending on quota systems and secret deals between cartels etc.

USGS uses Petroconsultants. If it’s all smoke and mirrors why source your arguments on such flimsy evidence?

Jane - just bring the pups! we could use some mascots for Ykos!

USGS puts the USGS point of view. They don’t use commercial data.

harry –

Are the vast Venezuelan reserves hard to extract (a light sweet (b heavy sour (c tar sands or (d some combination of the SA equivalent?

Fitzy-cuffs! The emptywheel posts are wonderful. I read them all today. All I do is lurk these past few weeks. So much to catch up on! Jane, how is Kobe? I had to keep going back in the threads to see what happened.

The OIL belongs to them, not us. Remember that old law about yer propppperty?

dana — Kobe is doing fine tonight. High on pain pills and dreaming of pumpkin loaf.

ah Hugh … it seems that Mr. Harry is an expert par excellance and we mere mortals (and the mere mortals at USGS as well) should learn from the master.

Then again, it’s so comfortable to be an american imperialistrealist, unlike all those poor serfs so let’s make sure the facts support our lifestyle.

Thanks to Kobe– as usual, animals prove the theory of unconditional love, over and over.

ck 27.

It’s almost all tar sands, but have a bunch of minerals extra to “regular” tar sands like in Alberta. Hugo Chavez actually offered the US a partnership recently where we could peg the oil price at $50 a barrel in return for massive investment in Venezuela/recognition of Hugo etc. instead of the current friction. George turned him down. There are huge quantites of hydrocarbons out there in general though.

Venezuela also has a very promising offshore region that may contain more than Saudi, but Hugo just raised the royalties from 1% to 50% so it’s killed investment there.

Having yet another week pass without Fitzmas was a little frustrating, but if every week that passes could have Kenny-Boy convicted, wow! That was so sweet, and I think we should savor it. Seeing the jurors —patriotic Americans doing their duty for their country — explain their reasoning was wonderful: “I have to know everything about my job, and it just seems like a corporate executive should know everything about his job too.”

That kind of interview does make me anticipate the Libby juror interviews just a bit, though….

Angie @ 29 –

Supply and Demand, baby — supply and demand . . .

Market value of any commodity is determined by the relative availability (or scarcity) of said commodity, relative to demand.

Meaning — if Darth Cheney’s Energy Task Force light sweet crude maps of Iraq had come true (along with the flowers and chocolates) gasoline would be $.99 per gallon — and the Rove plans for the 100 year Bush Reich would be cemented into place.

Funny how reality came along and bit them in the ass . . .

harry

You are not advancing your argument. It is a tautology that USGS reflects a USGS viewpoint. It is unclear to me what agenda they would have in skewing or falsifying their data. If you have evidence of such, please share. As for commercial data, it doesn’t have an agenda? Is it more reliable, given that so much of it is based on the figures given out by individual governments who very definitely have agendas?

Eli - Yep- Not that I wouldn’t dance a happy dance at news of a Cheney indictment(!) but I think putting Rove out of commission will have more of an impact on mid-terms. The repubs are already trying to distance themselves from Bush/Cheney. They’re not as successful at it as Bush was, distancing himself from KennyBoy. I wonder how many in the MSM actually brought that long family connection up today? My guess, not many.

CK - do you think that Cheney’s plans were for $.99 per gallon or simply control and enough chaos to raise prices and profits?

Seems like it’s working rather well for them … and they can simply pop another pal into the prez slot … hey, even a bunch of dems seem happy to play their game and managing the idiot prince is probably turning out to be more work than they like.

Venezuela also has a very promising offshore region that may contain more than Saudi, but Hugo just raised the royalties from 1% to 50% so it’s killed investment there.

Hugo is a smart man — the off-shore play is put on short term hold, but the reserves aren’t going anywhere — Venezuela will be a player far into the future, when the ‘Murkan people will be living in huts to support their beat up fossil fuel SUV’s.

Hopefully the latter will not come true — but BushCo is sure pushing us in that direction . . .

I too lost my bet of May 19 being indictment day, but will try to wait patiently for good news on that front. I think Pat will measure twice & cut once.

Jane- Thanks for the Fitz Fix & glad to hear that your pooch is mending nicely.

Hugh 36. You proved my argument in your post. Like you say, governments all have agendas, which is why the USGS reflects what the USG wants it to.

Commercial data is valued on past success. Petroconsultants, for instance, have proved the most accurate of all the hundreds of oil statistics-producing firms over the past few decades, so their data is the most valuable.

Iraq has huge unexplored areas. What do you think the current Iraqi government is arguing about? It’s all about regional control of new versus existing oilfields. And Iraq is the only country of the five Middle Eastern countries that contain 50% of the world’s remaining conventional reserves that can increase production. The rest are all at full production, except Saudi which has a potential extra 1 million a day production, but it’s heavy oil that needs to be mixed with Iraq’s low-sulphur to be able to be refined into gasoline. Iraq has a 5 million a day barrel potential increase.

Hugh 12
In regards to World Oil Reserves: read “Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage” by Kenneth S. Deffeyes. I can’t say that it’s a “page turner” b/c it is quite technical but it does supply a lot of information on oil supplies in the future. The main point of the book is that there will inevitably be a peak, followed by a plateau and a decline. The other main point of the book is the probability of discovering more fields akin to the large fields discovered in the past are quite low. The book explains it in quite a bit of detail. Plus the author is a professor at Princeton.
The Iraqi’s hitting oil like Jed Clampet (sp.) while they were digging air shelters? C’mon. If that were the case there would be more production coming out of Iraq than there is presently. The war would actually pay for itself like DumbRum said it would.
As for Rove, the longer he remains un-indicted, the more he can work on Congressional campaigns. The more work he does on the campaign trail the higher the probability that D’s will lose in Nov. He’s a master of smear and, as we all have seen over his career, there is no tactic or unethical border he will not cross to win. Cross your fingers that the indictment is sooner than later.

OT (sorry_

Hugh -

I don’t suppose anyone’s marked the spot of the German ‘English’ thing you did couple days back?

Quick search yielded zip…

Thanks

suin @ 38 –

It wasn’t really $.99 gas — more like $1.39 to $1.59.

But the overall incompetence of the BushCo-Cheney-Den-of-Thieves convinces me that they saw all of that easy-to-steal light sweet crude, Saddam’s tyranny, and presto chango — flowers and chocolates and enormous petro profits and GOP hegemony for a thousand years!!!

Of course, it was all bullshit — but these fuckers have never been detered by reality . . .

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s oil. Right? Don’t these sanctimonious so-called Christians GET it? Dumb question, I know, they don’t get a bunch of the foundational rules…lie…steal…and oh, yeah, kill. Bah!

G’night y’all. Time to sing to the little girl.

ck 39.

Energy is now a seller’s market. Hugo knows that US private companies will pull out, but Indian and Chinese national companies will happily pay 50% royalties. And they buy him protection from the US. We should really make a deal with him though. Until we can develop new fuels, we’re going to be better off with Venezuela than with a region we just invaded and they all hate us.

shorter harry @ 46 –

Hugo Chavez, smart — George W Bush, dumb . . .

marksb– perfect! sing a little song for me, too!

RE: Peak Oil and Hubbert, this is a worthwhile read, not contradicting Hubbert per se, but providing some interesting context.

http://www.guerrillanews.com/a.....t_Is_Wrong

Dr. Bob 42.

Iraq can’t produce any more because insurgents keep blowing up the oil infrastructure every day. That’s why the US, who need desperately to reduce energy prices to kill the current cost-push inflation which is damaging the economy will make a deal with Iran.

As for running out of oil, that’s nonsense. There are trillions of barrels of hydrocarbons in the form of tar sands and oil shale and offshore just in the Americas, enough for decades. We need to develop alternate energies so that we won’t burn all of them into the atmosphere, but the energy companies want to keep the status quo and make as much out of this as they can.

I guess I could of summed up, hit the damn submit button too soon. According to the article, the ‘definition’ of reserves is industry specific and not based purely on questions of volume.

CK - I’d argue that Dick and friends have been working on this deal for a very long time and their plans do not aim at low cost oil but rather at total oil control … next thing we know, they’ll be marching troops up to Calgary under a guise of stopping all those eh-saying illegal immigrants.

siun: eh-saying, heh heh.

I love Hugo Chavez. Hugo and people like him are forcing American policymakers to relise that the old-fashioned imperial methods of controlling oil ( something us and the Brits did for over a century ) don’t work anymore, and we’re going to have to find alternative options. Hugo and the Iraqi insurgents make my day. They’re like Kryptonite to old-school imperialists like Cheney.

Hey Teddy! good to see you!

harry –

Does Venezuela have a pipeline to a Pacific Oil Terminal? If the Chinese and Indians move in, will that be part of the program?

George W Bush — blowing up frogs as a kid, blowing up companies as a trustafarian adolescent, going down hill ever since . . .

Welcome to BushWorld. Where a jumpy Republican Congressman can bring the Capitol to a standstill because he was a nervous Nellie unable to discern the normal sounds of every day life from the paranoid mind blinks of a man who has been steeped in terror as a population control policy.

Heckuva job.

Also, the quote below about how paranoid American Muslims have become since 9/11.

(Snip)

“It’s like a police state here,” said Omar Maged, 34, an assistant teacher at a public high school. “We do not feel that we are living in the most free country in the world.”

Mission Acomplished.

-GSD

harry

I can’t have proved your argument because you seem to lack one. Again USGS uses Pertoconsultants. Unlike commercial outfits, the USGS is unlikely to have an agenda either economic or political.

Iraq can’t increase its production because of its political instability. So much of its potential will remain potential. Relatively speaking because it isn’t pumping that much it is depleting its reserves at a slower pace than other countries. That’s politics not geology. Believe what you want to believe but I don’t think this conversation is any longer productive. Blame that on the USGS too if you want.

The repubs are already trying to distance themselves from Bush/Cheney.

If the Dems have any guts and brains at all, they won’t let them. Ad campaigns reminding voters of all the times the Republican incumbent voted for a disastrous Bush policy or nominee, accompanied by every smiling Bush-with-the-Republican-congresscritter picture they can dig up.

(NOTE: This gameplan will also work against Lieberman in the primary)

siun –

It’s my opinion that part of the reason for the Iraq invasion was to keep the Iraqi oil OFF the market.

This keeps everybody happy — that is, everybody who COUNTS to the crime family.

It’s good for their pals, the Saudis.

And of course it’s good for the oil companies, to keep those prices way up high.

Dear George W. Bush,

I can’t quit you.

Love,

-Jomental Lieberman

Hugh @ 58 –

Iraq may or may not have significant undiscovered reserves —

But the Darth Cheney task force sure thought they did, and the 9/11 attacks gave them the opportunity to take out Saddam.

Funny how all that’s worked out — was it good for you?

Blank Kludge

I don’t know where it is either but I do sometimes make copies when I’m having fun so here are parts I and II:

In Defense of English Part I

Re the Hillary Spiel, perhaps it is merely my own Weltschmerz that I can have no Schadenfreude at the latest Sturm und Drang surrounding the ongoing Götterdämmerung at the Times. The demise of the Corporate Media will not be the result of an existential Angst or a change in the Zeitgeist, as many believe. It is their whole Gestalt, a failure in their Weltanschauung, gone is the gemütlich Gemeinschaft of the Sunday crossword puzzle, replaced by the sterile Liebestod of the impersonal Geschellschaft. Let’s face it. They are kaput. They just don’t know it yet.

By the way and somewhat OT but did I say what a big supporter I am of English as a national language?

OT in my ongoing defense of English as the national language Part II:

First off, I don’t want you to think I’m some mujik talking mat, a khren spouting govno. That said, I believe for clarity’s sake blogs should only use English for they have an important role as the new samizdat. They are the means by which we can combat the boyars of beltway borsch and the apparatchiks of the Bush agitprop, i.e. the Judy Millers and Tim Russerts, the Roves and the Mehlmans. After all, these are not an intelligentsia with ideas but, like their bosses, a nomenklatura with connections. It is precisely these connections which blogs are so effective at uncovering just like a matryoshka until the truth comes out. They are our spetsnaz fighting against the corporate media and the comfortable kulaks of the right. I am sick of the ideological, nonsensical pogroms mounted by these babushkas of babble. We are not lishenets yet. Guantanamo is a katorga but our country can still be saved from the fullblown gulag though Cheney like some evil Ded Moroz makes his lists and watches.

Enjoy

ck 56.

Hugo is already sending China supertankers full of oil at a discount to what he could charge the US ( to cover the extra cost of shipping all the way to China ) just to annoy Bush. Venezuela already have joint oil/trade agreements with both China and India, and are looking to expand them.

Hugh 58

Nonsense aside, the sands of Iraq hold oil… lots of it. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Iraq holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil - the world’s second largest proven reserves. Iraq also contains 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and is a focal point for regional and international security issues.”

http://usgovinfo.about.com/lib.....aqioil.htm

Not ‘fine by me’ waiting. It’s driving many of us a little bonkers. I know Fitz’s agenda is pure and related to his charge, and mine is selfish and political. But I just would like one more chessman off the board. There’s another game to be won, the neutralization of GWB.

So I guess it’s ‘fine’ that Fitz is so careful, but not so ‘fine’ that Rove is still in the game…

It’s more important to me *that* he goes down, as opposed to *when* he goes down. There is a bit of a balancing act: Too late, and he’s already set the Republicans up in good position for November; too early, and short-attention-span America forgets all about it by Election Day.

(I know, it shouldn’t be possible to forget, but I think people rely on the media to tell them what to remember…)

OT –

What is this Kabuki theater in tomorrow’s NYT — about Gonzales and McNulty supposedly threatening to quit if Georgie were to “back down” and give the Wm Jefferson evidence back?

And did anybody else’s tin foil cap get a tingle during today’s sifting of the Rayburn building by law enforcement which included the FBI? Do I have this tin foil wrapped too tightly, perchance?

I hate the fact that reading the news these days feels just like “reading tea leaves.” Reminds me too much of the bad old days of “Kremlinology.”

Hugh on English –

English is the lingua franca of Planet Earth — except that English/Spanish bi-lingualism is necessary for survival in the lower half of the economic spectrum in today’s USA . . .

Just as Chinese/Japanese bi-lingualism is necessary in the computer building business sectors of China . . .

I hate the fact that reading the news these days feels just like “reading tea leaves.” Reminds me too much of the bad old days of “Kremlinology.”

Funny you should say that. One of the things that I hope for is that someday soon the corporate media will be exposed for all to see as the Republican shills they are, and people will learn to approach them the same way Russian citizens approached Pravda. I.e., knowing full well that it’s state propaganda, and trying to read between the lines (or get hold of some samizdat) to glean some truth.

Rove is going to walk. They would have gone for it by now. They aren’t going to wait for Libby. They are co-conspirators. They need to indict them both together if they are going to indict them both. I wouldn’t be surprised if Libby finds a way to squirm out of it, too.

Hugh 64 and Blank Kludge:

From my “Sent” e-mail–

This may seem like déjà vu for some of you since I have already written twice vis-à-vis the importance of English as our national language. But one of my bêtes noires is the laissez faire attitude and dégagé manner of our current President who makes one gaffe and faux pas after another in what is supposed to be his native tongue. Not everyone, I know, can write or speak with élan or panache but at least Bush should be able to find the mot juste from time to time (’suicider’ being only the most recent atrocity). To be frank, it offends my amour propre to see this daily sabotage of English camouflaged as Texan bonhomie and good old boy naïveté. Nor do you have to be a member of a soi-disant élite to feel this way but just a true blue linguistic patriot like me. The raison d’être of English as a national language movement, as I see it, is to use the force majeure of the federal government in the promotion of the proper use of English. This legislation would drag Bush from his semi literate cul-de-sac and require him to speak English for the first time in his life, comme il faut and sans détours. Gone would be the days of our acceptance of his manque of rhetorical savoir faire and toleration of his many linguistic défauts. The débâcle that is his language skills would have at last received its coup de grâce or, at the least, be rendered hors de combat. I say without a soupçon of malice and with a complete sang froid that that is a day I would dearly like to see.

Hope you don’t mind my borrowing it.

harry @ 65 –

But is there a pipeline in the works?

Super tankers have to go around SA — wouldn’t a pipeline cut the cost, as well as improve the Columbian economy?

Hugh –

Thanks for the repeat! I had missed the original posting. Did you compose that clever piece?

[Forgive the insufferable pedantry, but there should be an “e” ending on the word “gemuetlich.” Adjective endings are the real killers for native English speakers. And yes, I’m too lazy to use the ASCII code umlaut forms — I just do what Germans do when they deal with English language typewriters, add an “e” to the respective vowel to form the umlaut substitute.]

OT: from NYT
Gonzales Said He Would Quit in Raid Dispute

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05.....mp;emc=rss

What bugs me, kind of an incongruency in this, is that threatening to resign over ‘being forced to hand over evidence’, seems out of character for Abu Gonzales, who seems without scruple on other matters that present ethical challenge, torture, spying and generally being a weasel for the Bush admin.

So why the backbone now ?

One interesting thing arising from this, Abu sitting down with Frist to look at a ‘renegotiation of the rules’ of how police powers are exercised within Congress.

…”Mr. Gonzales traveled to Capitol Hill and met with Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, as Republican leaders explored a formal procedure to cover any future searches.“….

I understand that being perturbed by incongruence is entirely within the realm of possibility while reading the NYT, being the official paper of propaganda record such disconcerted readings are not uncommon.

I dunno something about this story bugs me, for an administration that has been consistently attempted to be opaque in its deliberations and schemes, this is much too ‘out in the open’, its either misdirection or the edge of something that got badly out of control.

I could be reading too much into it however, just wondering if anyone has a more informed read. I did read the thread a couple of posts back applauding the stink that has been raised over this furor, and can see the sense of it, trifling with the authority of congress is a jurisdictional problem fraught with danger. Especially in the current polical spectrum, which is partly why this article bothers me so much.

The Gonzales threat seems kinda silly to me. It’s like he threatened to resign if Bush upheld the Constitution or something.

ck 72.

Hugo has plenty pipelines planned including a 5000 mile pipeline to Argentina. The various nationalist issues of Latin American politics and particularly finances mean that all or none of the various mooted deals could go through though. Hugo makes friends and falls out with his neighbours on a regular basis.

Eli –

I’m thinking the fact of the wild popularity of Stephen Colbert’s WHCA Dinner speech suggests that many people are already “there.” For lots of folks, “someday soon” has already arrived. Any poll on the public’s trust of mass media shows the great lack thereof.

Yeah, that in a nutshell is what seems out of character, why the attack of principles now, after all the other ‘unconstitutional stuff’ ?

Was it a genuine threat, or is the coverage of the ‘threat’, merely ‘cover’ ?

ditto on the ‘reading tea leaves’ feeling while reading the news today

Mrs K8 & Sophist –

Thanks for bringing that to the late-nite party —

This may be a tin foil-ish conspiracy, or more evidence that these fuckers are stumble-bum incompetent . . .

Time will tell, and I’m content to wait it out . . .

Slow Ride Joe

I’m thinking the fact of the wild popularity of Stephen Colbert’s WHCA Dinner speech suggests that many people are already “there.” For lots of folks, “someday soon” has already arrived. Any poll on the public’s trust of mass media shows the great lack thereof.

I hope so, but I don’t think it’s gone far enough. I blogged a fascinating recent study by Zogby on trustworthiness where Bush had a favorable trustworthiness rating of 24%, the media 11%, and Congress… 3%(!).

But here’s the scary thing: When they asked for trustworthiness ratings for individual media types, Broadcast and print media got favorable trustworthiness ratings of 25%, but *cable* news had a favorable rating of 65%.

(I won’t mention the fact that all the individual media numbers are higher than the 11% overall number…)

Sophist –

In my #68 I called the Gonzo “backbone” Kabuki theater. That’s my take. A big piece of this is making a certain set of Republicans look “independent” of the WH. [As in: “See? They’re not ALL bad!”]

Although I must admit that the part of the article you bolded is also of great interest. Thanks for that, as I had missed it in a fast read.

On dKos, someone posted a comment suggesting some other shoe is about to drop in respect of Gonzales, and this is an attempt to make him look full of [gag, puke] “integrity.” Of course, that made me think immediately of things like “Special Prosecutor” and “indictment” and “obstruction of justice” for Gonzo in his role as White House Counsel when the whole Plame thing went down.

Which would be just fine by me!

ck

I think you think I’m defending something, and I’m not. What is English? As I have tried to show in my comments, a lot of English isn’t English so how can you (not you specifically) define it, let alone nationalize it? And which English are we talking about? There is a whole field of linguistics which is devoted to world Englishes. Which will we include and which shall we exclude and on wha basis? Even within our borders there are questions. Will we validate Midwestern and throw out Southern or will we do it state by state?

I said this somewhere else but the First Amendment does not specify what language our free speech should be in. Any attempt to do so for me can have no other reason than racism. Either the proposed law will have no effect and so why do it? Or it is aimed at having an effect and that effect is racist and an abridgement of our First Amendment rights. It’s that simple but as I said earlier I am given to given to explain ignotum per ignotius.

Mrs K8

Thanks, you’re right, code switching and all that. I’ll change it in my copy.

Eli –

Oh dear. I hadn’t seen that particular poll. Hmmm. Thanks for that link…I think! ;-)

“explored a formal procedure to cover any future searches.”

Like repealing every document separating the powers of branches of government, all the way back to the Magna Fucking Carta, you bet!

For lots of folks, “someday soon” has already arrived. Any poll on the public’s trust of mass media shows the great lack thereof.

How could you possibly ask anyone to trust the informational organ that brought them Tweety and Noron blinking back tears over that ridiculous press conference last night? It’s like Christy says. It becomes more surreal as you watch it.

I think there were lawyers at the DOJ who were ready to resign over this but the inclusion of Abu’s name with theirs was more likely the result of bad editing than principle.

Hopping tangents here…back on peak oil topics. This chunk of that article on Hubbert resonated.

So who’s selling us Peak Oil today? The operator of the supertanker Condoleezza has been running an extravagant advertising blitzkrieg to tell us: We’ve peaked! “The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered!” That’s just the billboard. Their double-page spread in Harper’s is even more hysterical: “The fact is, the world has been finding less oil than it’s been using for twenty years now.”

Unfortunately, that “fact” isn’t a fact at all-reserves rise year after year-and those facts don’t change because Chevron paid my magazine to print it. (If Chevron is truly concerned that more oil is burnt than discovered, it might consider looking for some. The industry has cut exploration budgets from a third of production spending to an eighth. But that’s a churlish comment. Chevron is not in the business of finding oil, but finding profits.)

Ads sell. What is Chevron trying to sell us when it sells us the “peak” idea that we now use more oil than we discover? The ad says, “We need your help.” I am, I admit, flattered that a big, giant oil company would ask my assistance. What could a petroleum goliath earning $14.1 billion in a year want from me? Apparently, more money.

The new oil Chevron is finding “requires a greater investment to refine.” In other words, don’t bitch about high prices-we need your cash to mix your next fix of crude.

The “we’re running out of oil” line still has its uses. In 2005, taking advantage of oil-shortage hysteria, the Republican Congress passed an “energy” bill that was a Petroleum Club wet dream. For example, the feds can now order cities to accept liquid natural gas ports, a boon to Big Oil’s Explosions-R-Us LNG divisions. Drilling under the caribou in Alaska is likely to follow. And, in 2006, George Bush is attempting to raise nuclear power from its crypt. In his State of the Union message, our nuke-salesman-in-chief admonished Americans for our “addiction” to oil-which was a bit like the pusher-man sermonizing against the dangers of the needle. Unfortunately, some environmentalists have echoed the “peak oil” theorem in the false hope that oil companies’ raising prices will lead to conservation. Fat chance. Despite $50-a-barrel oil, we don’t see windmills on the Empire State Building. We will reduce oil dependency only when we have a government less dependent on oil money.

If I’m being too spammy and tangental let me know, I’ll revert to lurking…

Hubbert was right regarding conventional oil that doesn’t require extensive processing (hydrocracking, desulfurization, etc). The “easy oil” provided an enormous amount of energy for the effort invested in its extraction. When exploration geologists were dispatched to totally new territory, the first thing they did was to cover the ground looking for seeps, fouled water wells, etc. Exploration and recovery techniques keep getting better and better, but there are limits. And these limits are being pushed now. As Americans we are the most profligate energy users in history. Partly it was foisted on us by big erle and detroit, but it was an easy enough job to sell the automobile to a restive, geographically scattered population with the run of the better part of a continent. If economists think some sizable portion of the populations of China and India are going to become auto-based, then this planet is fucked. Hard and fast. We should be replacing cars with bicycles to become more like the Chinese, not vice versa. Heavy oil, tar sands, etc have enormous resource costs, and net energy yield is lower. If you want to make gasoline out of tar sands, you are going to cook it out of the ground, and then you are going to have to add hydrogen. The net useful energy per mass of emitted carbon for all these is much lower than light crude, condensates and natural gas. Palast and economists are wrong in one fundamental aspect of energy vs other commodities. Yes, the price of gold going up means you can mine leaner ore, but a tiny oil pool under 6,000 feet of water and 15,000 feet of strata will never be economic because it is a net energy loss to extract it. The limit is thermodynamic, not economic.

Iraqi production coming back on line only puts this off a few years. Mostly important to somebody gaming the system as the commodity market shifts price regimes. Sound like anybody we know?

My bet is that McNulty told Abu he would resign if W returned the papers to Jefferson, then Abu told W the fan would be loaded with manure if McNulty (he who delegated Fitz his superpowers, no?) resigned. Then, of course, “Mr. Bush devised” the solution of having the Solicitor General seal the papers for 45 days. Just like Dubai Ports World, has anybody been tracking that 45 days? Didn’t think so.

hugh 63 - brillant. as was your latin version, Part IV

nuero 71 - merci! it has a certain je ne sais quoi to it.

Hugo has already promised next winter’s cheap oil for MA’

Another aspect of non traditional oil like oil sands is the increased ecological damage in diversion and fouling of water resources. There is also the question of increased atmospheric carbon loading in extraction, processing, and ultimately use.

punaise 92

Help me, I don’t speak French!

Hugh -

thanks. alot. saved the night…

As for J.Lieb…he is evil … anyone done an anagram for “Senetor Joe Leiberman’

Still puzzling why for this war..Oil? really?

Teddy –

Your theory makes some sense, but the guy who delegated superpowers to Fitz was Comey, and he’s gone now, working in the private sector.

McNulty doesn’t have as much of a rep for integrity as Comey did. He was in charge of the AIPAC investigation and prosecution, and I found that to be pretty disappointing for something that was said to involve “the whole ball of wax” of administration skulduggery.

Still puzzling why for this war..Oil? really?

Some combo of oil, machismo, imperial ambitions, and electoral calculation.

I can tell you WMDs, 9/11, and democracy promotion had nothing at all to do with it.

The limit on conventional oil reserves is based on the size of sedimentary basins with source rocks and suitable thermal histories. As far as resource estimating goes, I say pick any number you want, but those EIA/DOE guys typically shoot the moon. They predict sizeable natural gas yields from deep plays in the Northern Rockies that are too hot. The geothermal gradient has pushed these deep units out of the oil envelope, and the only thing you can get out of these wells is hot brine, carbon dioxide, and some helium.

We should be working our asses off to develop solar, wind and beginning the slow, painful process of rearranging our land use patterns.

If there’s one term I could expunge from the language, it would be cul de sac.

Eli

“I can tell you WMDs, 9/11, and democracy promotion had nothing at all to do with it.”

Yes, but all actors need props.

So why the backbone now ?

I’ve thought from the beginning of this “dispute” that the purpose of it (Bush personally ordering the documents “held” for 45 days, whaaa?) is to keep the Jefferson case in the public eye. And the pretend “independence” of congressional Republicans, pointed out by others here, is a bonus. From all accounts, they’ve got enough evidence to get an indictment, and a real non-Starr type of prosecutor could probably get a guilty plea or a conviction in short order.

Then, since unlike Duke Cunningham, the case is just isolated personal corruption and there aren’t links to any other high-ranking figures, it would disappear. And then we’d be back to all-GOP in the corruption news, right up to the election. Their only hope on the issue at this point is “they’re all scum, don’t bother to vote,” so I think this whole thing is aimed at that end. (The extremely public nature of it in this secrecy-obsessed administration stinks to high heaven.)

Yes, but all actors need props.

Not mimes, but they’re French.

Republicans are all about props. “Oh, save the poor fetuses!” - and once they’re born, fuck ‘em. “Oh, you must support our troops!” - and once they become veterans, fuck ‘em.

Repeat as necessary.

I get the idea, that the ‘easy to access oil’ is territory either staked or tapped out. I don’t dispute the geological details.

But…

What struck me is that the ‘price’ that makes extraction ‘viable’, that ‘dollars per barrel thing’, is a sliding scale. So the interesting thing becomes the question of how to control the ’sliding scale’, and who controls it.

The corrollary point of interest being that if oil companies are ’selling peak oil’, and getting wink-and-nod-deals from gov’t as a result, then funding the peak oil narrative plays into their search for profits.

The question of the science and geological economics seems to be just more smokescreen.

neuro 95
“je ne sais quoi”, literally - “I don’t know what” is not uncommonly used in English to denote a mystique or some indescribable but positive characteristic

neurophius

je ne sais quoi is literally “I don’t know what” and means “something” as in a certain something.

knuckledragger

cul “butt” OTOH is pretty descriptive of so much of this Administration.

Thanks punaise and Hugh and good night.

One has to compare ranges of resource estimates to consumption. Again, our use is enormous. Of course the pigz will use the facts to line their own pockets on this, just like they do with every other issue. And for conventional oil, there is actually less “expensive oil” than there was “cheap oil” when we started. Windfall taxes and reinvestment during the price regime change for the commodity are the basis for rational policy, but why should we expect THAT especially on this issue?

on oil sands … the oil sands companies are rushing r&d work on less environmentally damaging technologies … some of it promising and they are taking that seriously.

(I do some work with one of the companies and we’ve spent a bunch of time on this issue)