Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Shale Revolution

1 Comment

Is going to have long-term geopolitical effects:

“So far this century, this is the biggest innovation in energy, in terms of scale and impact,” according to U.S. analyst Daniel Yergin, author of a classic history of the oil industry, “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power”, who emphasised that one-third of all the gas produced in the United States is already extracted from shale gas reserves.

…In Ramírez’s view, “the abundance and new distribution of reserves of shale gas and other non-conventional fossil fuels will affect predictions about the relationship between energy and the economy, and will have major geopolitical effects.

“An initial effect is that the largest and best discoveries are outside the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),” which will see its influence on the global energy market diminish in the long run, the expert said.

At the same time, Ramírez said, Russia will embark on the race to consolidate its position as a major global actor on the basis of its energy resources; Canada will emerge as a world oil power; and the United States, its supply secure, could feel freer from the vagaries of Middle East conflicts.

Can’t happen soon enough.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“A Travesty For Government Accountability”

74 Comments

The Obama administration continues to use the Constitution for toilet paper. If they get away with this, they’ll regret it when someone else comes to power. And the media, of course, lies for them and calls it a “recess appointment.”

[Thursday morning update]

Barack Obama’s tyrannical abuse of power.

[Bumped]

[Late-morning update]

The Constitution is clear on recess appointments. This isn’t one.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The appointment is Constitutionally dubious, and so is the job itself.

[Update early afternoon]

More thoughts from John Yoo:

President Obama is making a far more sweeping claim. Here, as I understand it, the Senate is not officially in adjournment (they have held “pro forma” meetings, where little to no business occurs, to prevent Obama from making exactly such appointments). So there is no question whether the adjournment has become a constitutional “recess.” Rather, Obama is claiming the right to decide whether a session of Congress is in fact a “real” one based, I suppose, on whether he sees any business going on.

This, in my view, is not up to the president, but the Senate. It is up to the Senate to decide when it is in session or not, and whether it feels like conducting any real business or just having senators sitting around on the floor reading the papers. The president cannot decide the legitimacy of the activities of the Senate any more than he could for the other branches, and vice versa.

Is the president going to have the authority to decide if the Supreme Court has deliberated too little on a case? Does Congress have the right to decide whether the president has really thought hard enough about granting a pardon? Under Obama’s approach, he could make a recess appointment anytime he is watching C-SPAN and feels that the senators are not working as hard as he did in the Senate (a fairly low bar).

I think this will come back to bite him. And it’s all about his reelection.

Science And Society, Technology and Society

Your Appendix

13 Comments

…could save your life.

I think that in the future medical professional will be amazed at the ignorance of their predecessors, not just on dietary issues, but on their willingness to remove perhaps vital organs at the first sign of trouble. When I was a kid, many of my cohorts had their tonsils and adenoids removed (as did my step brother) almost routinely. I feel fortunate that I’m still whole. I think that the medical community has figured out that these are more useful items than they used to believe, but if this theory is correct, they will have to rethink approaches to appendicitis as well, perhaps even coming up with an artificial one (or regrowing with stem cells?).

[Via Geek Press]

Economics, Political Commentary, Space

The Space Shuttle Decision

22 Comments

Forty years ago today, President Richard Nixon announced that the nation would build a reusable vehicle, that would be used to fly all of the nation’s payloads into space. It first flew a little less than a decade later, and flew its last flight last summer, after a little over thirty years of operations. We are only starting to recover from the policy disaster.

[Update late morning]

The Space Shuttle, in happier days (flyback booster, no SRBs, no ET).

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Statin Fraud

18 Comments

Exposed.

I’ve always had high cholesterol (around 240 total), but I’ve never bought into the statin thing. And over the past year, since I went mostly paleo in my diet, I’ve gotten it down to 207 (as of October), with HDL of eighty and triglycerides below fifty, so for me at least, diet makes a big difference (not by cutting out cholesterol, but by cutting out the wrong carbs). I’ve also lost almost twenty pounds, though that wans’t a goal (and I gained seven or eight pounds over the holidays, what with the mashed potatoes and bread with holiday meals). The notion that “you are what you eat” and that fat makes you fat and cholesterol gives you high cholesterol is primitive thinking, and yet it remains the medical mainstream view. And while it’s been good for the drug companies, I think that it’s killed millions over the decades, including my father.

Business

Best Buy Is Going Out Of Business

24 Comments

Gradually:

I’m not shilling for Amazon or any other successful online retailer here. My point is much more basic. Amazon neither invented nor appropriated its basic strategies from Best Buy or anyone else. It simply does what consumers want. Best Buy does what would be most convenient for the company for consumers to want but don’t, then crosses its fingers and prays. That’s not a strategy –- or not a winning strategy, in any case, now that retail consumers aren’t stuck with the store closest to home.

I’ve never liked Best Buy. It was a shame that they lost competition when Circuit City went under. My only real brick and mortar alternative now is Fry’s, which has its own problems.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!