Bloomberg has a fascinating article on how Kurdish oil is causing controversy and strained relations between Baghdad and Turkey. Maliki’s government is losing more than territory. They’re losing oil refineries, border crossings, and millions in revenue.
Relatedly, the administration is beginning to view the conflicts in Iraq and Syria as a single challenge. It’s about time.
Did you see the Joint Statement of the Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General on their FISA reforms?
Herman Cain thinks we have to become ambassadors of intelligence or else the stupid people win.
If you are interested in a debate about transvestites and Cards Against Humanity, go here.
Don’t miss Joe Conason on Benghazi!
Let’s have some more John Prine.
What’s on your mind?
In answer to what is on my mind. I am wondering how many more of the GOP are going to be investigated for corruption charges?
If those GOP Governors that are now under investigation will be prosecuted?
The head of the National Republican Governors says no to all your questions. Of course what else would Chris Christie be expected to say. He’s doubling down with Scott Walker because that one could bleed out to MI and Ohio. Perhaps PA (not that more rot is needed to defeat Corbett). Whereas, the NJ scandals may only bleed into NY.
Trannies are icky.
They should just go away and leave us normal people in peace.
some really interesting stuff there BooMan, thanks.
one of the mailing lists I’m on consists primarily of college students; i’m one of the oldest alumni on the list. I’ve gotten used to pop culture references that I don’t understand, but a recent discussion of cards against humanity took that to a whole new level. So I find the nat’l review article quite interesting. I agree with the writer: that game is offensive, it’s designed to be damn offensive, and if you’re the kind of person who likes to declare “that’s too offensive!”, you should be playing checkers instead.
Agreed. Have they even looked at the rest of the deck? I’ve played the game many times (it gets boring after a while and imo requires alcohol to make it re-playable), and this “offensive” card is hardly the worst of the worst. There are plenty of Holocaust, genocide, Nazi, and KKK cards to go around.
Or a game that doesn’t get boring/stale after playing it a few times. Like poker, bridge, chess, …
There is a single, simple solution to the problems in Kurdistan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc. Politically it is totally impossible, but if it could happen it would work wonders, and solve a bunch of other problems at the same time.
The solution: stop importing any and all fossil fuels. Let the kinda-sorta “free market” adjust the price to deal with the under supply. Let the price hikes create the incentives to use existing technology to become energy independent.
When the money for the oil (and other fossil fuels) stops flowing all kinds of change will happen in those areas – some of it won’t be pleasant, but then things are generally very unpleasant there right now anyway. Meanwhile, with no reason to have the US military semi-occupy most of the Cheney-labeled “arc of instability” (See: PNAC) they’ll withdraw and remove one of the reasons for the fighting.
Of course, to do this you have to wrest control of the US government from the fossil fuel industry – and that task would be harder than it was to defeat Germany and Japan in WW2.
The problem is that oil is fungible. $150-200/barrel would bite us hard in the US, but it would be devastating to poor developing countries, particularly the poorest people in those countries.
It would be cheaper for the other countries because the US would stop buying foreign oil, thus leaving a supply glut for everyone else.
Not sure that this is actually a good thing, but probably outweighed by the other benefits.
Also must consider that the US consumes 18.5 M bbl/day. We’re #2 in production at 11.1 M bbl/day. Running a deficit of 7.4 M bbl/day because we’re total oil energy hogs.
China’s deficit is 5.9 M bbl/day.
Japan’s deficit is 4.6 M bbl/day.
KSA’s surplus 8.9 M bbl/day
Russia’s surplus 7.2 M bbl/day.
I thought I heard earlier in the year that we are a net exporter of oil, not a net importer.
Ah! I see in your link “Data through 2012”.
You’re probably thinking of projections for natural gas (LNG). Still a net importer as of 2013. Probably not a realistic projection as LNG is more costly than pipelines even assuming US sources aren’t wildly overestimated.
US oil consumption is down and production is up since 2005. The latter more directly than the former a function of oil in the world market is at $100/barrel and not $35/barrel when we thought gas guzzling SUVs were so cool. Two inter-related barriers to being a net oil exporter. a) It’s illegal to export US produced oil b) US resources are far too limited. If we managed to reduce our per capita consumption to that similar to China’s, and the world price remained strong, the law against exporting would become politically interesting.
“a) It’s illegal to export US produced oil “
There must be an exemption for Alaskan oil since that all goes to Asia. Also, there are export facilities in Louisiana that the Koch’s want to use to export the Canadian Keystone oil. Surely those facilities were not built on spec.
Three days ago WSJ Why the U.S. Needs to Lift the Ban on Oil Exports. Alaska crude oil production has been in decline since 1987.
wrt Keystone — the crude is Canadian. Therefore, it can be shipped to the Gulf, processed, and exported.
WAPO – Syria-Iraq one conflict:
What lessons learned are they? Surely not “don’t fucking send money and arms to radical Islamic fighters.” Blew that one in Libya and Syria.
From your Bloomberg link …
From my earlier post about Kurdish independence move:
First oil delivery from Kurdish independent pipeline set for Israel
Report in Jewish Press – Kurdish oil tanker docks in Israel. Israel has been a fervent supporter of an independent Kurdistan and the Mossad has shared intelligence with the Kurds during the last decades.
○ Regurgitated Video Fallacy by NYT Kirkpatrick