What Is It with Massachusettes Governors and Armored Vehicles? There are actually some reasons to vote for Mitt Romney in this year’s GOP Primaries. I don’t personally find them compelling, and have endorsed one of Gov. Romney’s opponents. I admire the man’s ability to manage large projects and he does know how an executive office works. Voting for Mitt Romney may not be my personal predilection, but it isn’t quite as pointless as wearing a rally cap or tossing maidens down a well for good luck. People have also offered sales pitches on Romney’s behalf that are about as believable as SpongeBob Squarepants discovering the Higgs Boson. One of the sadder aspects of Mitt Romney’s mild ride this year has been watching people I have deemed intellectually powerful perform about as well at ratiocination as my little boy’s favorite cartoon character would at advancing particle physics. When Jonah Goldberg of National Review Magazine wrote The Case For Romney about a week ago, I remembered what outstanding work he had done in the past, and therefore delayed this post until it could age a bit and marinate. I felt I owed him a better expression of my angst than “WTF?” Goldberg states the hypothesis that Mitt Romney would make a great president for Conservatives because he would owe us. He states the following: …there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you…..If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments. Oh my! Is that really so? When he was Governor of Massachusetts, how did he repay all the Republicans he owed up there? Romneycare? Was it the complete and utter destruction of the state’s GOP infrastructure and popularity in his wake? Martha Coakley has done far more to help Republicans win high office in Massachusetts than Mitt Romney. Jonah Goldberg tries to explain why Mitt Romney doesn’t quite gel with Middle Class and Working Class Conservative voters. He makes Romney sound like the slightly nerdy white guy sitting around studying mathematics problems in Southside Richmond, VA. Romney doesn’t dislike these people as much as he doesn’t grok their folkways quite, and can’t make himself look authentic. I think this dramatically understates Mitt Romney’s problems with Conservative voters. To Governor Romney, Southern and Mid-Western Social Conservatives are like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the great Western Little Big Man was to the Cheyenne Indians who rescued him from death. Mitt Romney doesn’t even subconsciously believe he comes from the same species. The word Cheyenne, when translated literally, means “human being.” Those who were not Cheyenne were considered something else. Mitt Romney, I’ve come to sincerely believe, considers those not from his own rather isolated Cheyenne Village to be something else. It explains how he could even accidently articulate the fact that he doesn’t worry about the very poor. He’s willing to be nice to people like myself, but it’s not like he’ll any more use for me after Election Day than he would for a prophylactic after an act of sexual intercourse. I couldn’t make Mitt Romney understand who I am and where I come from even if he was really bored one afternoon and decide to amuse himself by actually giving a rat’s anus. There simply isn’t any way on God’s Green Earth that Mitt Romney would ever afford me the status of someone he would actually owe something to. If I ever were presumptuous enough to suggest such a thing it would serve as a profound affront to his self-image and dignity. Like Ann Coulter in the wake of her “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE” debacle and the Massachusetts GOP, anyone foolish enough to believe Mitt Romney owed them something in return for a vote would quickly discover the finite limits of Lord Willard’s sense of noblesse oblige. Some reasons actually exist to support to support Mitt Romney for President. One or two of them might even be worthwhile. However, any sense that he feels a bond of honor to movement Conservatism is simply delusional. I look back at all the great, wise and hilarious things Jonah Goldberg has written for National Review Magazine. This body of superb political commentary gives me reason to hope this endorsement he penned of Mitt Romney was just the lower tail of his Bell Curve. Jonah, for the sake of your honor as a man of intellect; climb down from the Mitt Romney Tank.
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Vote For Romney Because He’ll Owe Us?….Seriously?
For those of you who still don’t believe that Israel’s isolation by the Obama administration substantially increases the chance of war, or that Iran would risk nuclear retaliation by Israel for the chance to eliminate “the Zionist entity,” one need look no further than the conservative Iranian web site alif.ir, where an author makes the case for attacking Israel: In the name of Allah Iran must attack Israel by ۲۰۱۴ The necessity of Israel annihilation in Imam Khomeini’s view “Today, the first Qibla of the Muslims has been occupied by Israel, a cancerous tumor for the Middle East. Today, Israel is causing division using all evil means. Every Muslim is obliged to equip themselves against Israel . For about ۲۰ years, I have been warning about the danger of international Zionist, and right now its danger for all the liberation revolutions in the world and the recent Islamic revolution of Iran is not less than the past .I have already warned that the Israeli usurping government, with the aims which it is seeking for, is a great danger for Islam and all Muslim nations, and it is likely that if Muslims leave Israel alone, the opportunity could be lost and it may not be possible to stop them; and since the potential danger is facing the foundations of Islam, it is necessary for the Islamic governments in particular and other Muslims in general to remove this corrupting material by any means . All our troubles are due to Israel! And Israel results from America too. Some points regarding the upcoming approach Point ۱: This article discusses tow THE JURISPRUDENTIAL JUSTIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY OF AN IRANIAN MILITARY ATTACK ON ISRAEL, and the necessity of attacking Israel and its military aspects Point ۲: In this approach, only the first step of the first curtain for Iran military invasion to Israel will be discussed and the complete explanation of ۲ curtains and ۸ steps will be published in the proper time Point ۳: This approach is just the personal opinion of the author and there is no guarantee whether the government of Islamic republic of Iran will accept and apply it or not If you’re only going to read one more thing today, I encourage you to read the complete article from alif.ir, “captured” on Feb 7, 2012, and which contains not only radical Iranian and Muslim reasoning to attack Israel, but also strategic descriptions of population centers, key infrastructure, and military issues, click here . The link to the original alif.ir page is here . If this doesn’t convince you of the error of Barack Obama’s view that a diplomatic solution is possible, much less likely, then you’re probably more interested in defending Obama than anything else. One might argue that the mullahs are using aggressive rhetoric to improve their negotiating position at some future multilateral forum. But as a Jew I’ve long realized that when people say they want to kill not just you, but everyone like you, the prudent course of action is to believe them. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the Iranian regime’s intent is not precisely in line with the chilling article on a conservative Iranian web site. Unfortunately, our president has neither the wisdom nor the courage to do anything but talk, in a continuation of his feckless “apologize for America” approach to foreign policy.
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Murderous Iranian Thinking
TAMPA — It was the winner’s locker room last night. A few hundred friends of Mitt Romney were packed into one of the smaller rooms at the Tampa Convention Center for the purpose of hearing a short victory speech by the winner — by a large margin — of the Florida primary. The room was hot, thanks to all the television lights, and the people there merely props for the TV speech. But they didn’t seem to mind. And they didn’t have to stay long. The election was called for Romney just minutes after the polls closed, by the margin the pollsters had predicted. Romney’s talk began early and was brief. It wasn’t easy to mix and mingle in the noisy, tight quarters. But I did manage to talk to a few of the faithful before the speaking got going. As the campaign in Florida was little more than a series of personal charges and counter-charges, I wondered what these people wanted Romney to do if he’s elected president. Tampa attorney Todd Marks said he wants Romney to “get the economy working again.” He says he believes Romney can do it because “he’s been a success at every level — in his personal life, in business, with the Olympics.” Retired Navy lieutenant commander Ginger Price of Tampa wants “less regulation and better funding for the military.” May Swartzbaugh, visiting from Maine, is also concerned about current cuts in the military. She has a son who is an Army ranger and she’s looking for a leader, which she believes Romney is. Chris Wilford of Tampa sees increased production and prosperity following reduced regulation, and says he believes Romney understands this. Jim Celeste of Kissimmee likes Romney’s “proven record in the private sector.” (The savvy Celeste also says he starts his day at Spectator.org). Ward McKelvey of Tampa just wants Romney to “Stamp out Obamaism.” He said he believes “Romney is capable of this — this is why I voted for him.” The answers went on like this, and when Romney took the stage to make his remarks, these folks and others weren’t disappointed. His remarks, unlike his TV ad in the state, were not about what a scofflaw Newt Gingrich is. In fact he never mentioned Newt beyond congratulating all of his opponents on well run and vigorous campaigns. Instead he talked about beating Barack Obama, and what he would do if he did. Romney tried to deflect the complaint of some Republicans that the primary so far has been a circular firing squad, with Republicans candidates providing ammunition for the Democrats. “A competitive primary does not diminish us — it prepares us — and we’re going to win,” Romney said to cheers. “We’ll be a united party in Tampa in August.” He reminded his local friends and the TV audience about how Obama said if he couldn’t get the economy and Americans back to work in three years he would be a one-term president. “We’re here to collect,” Romney said. Romney said he would turn the economy around by reducing the size of government, including delivering a balanced budget. “I will not just slow the growth of government, but reverse it,” he said. He contrasted his idea of a free and market-based economy with Obama, whose “idea of a free economy is to send your money to his friends.” Romney also got good marks for saying he would reverse the reduction of the U.S. military. He said he would build “a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it.” OK, this is all very general stuff. In his remarks on the economy he didn’t go much beyond saying he would rejuvenate the economy based on conservative principles because he knows how to do it. But it was, after all, a 20-minute victory speech. And he used part of that time for some snappy red-meat one-liners for those who believe our current president has changed America in ways they do not like. He promised to “restore the values that made America the hope of the world.” He called the last three years “a detour, not our destination.” He contrasted his American approach with Obama’s European approach. The now devalued word “hope” got a further workout with this zinger: “Hope is a new job and a paycheck — not a word on a faded bumper sticker.” There’s not too much to take to the bank here. But I said up front that it was the winners’ locker room. And the winners clearly enjoyed themselves, which is not unheard of after a 15-point win. At least the remarks gave the outlines of a conservative approach to bringing American out of its current doldrums. And it was a pleasure not to hear even further chapter and verse on Newt Gingrich’s shortcomings as a politician and a human being.
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From the Winner’s Locker Room
This is an abbreviated version of a post at my personal blog . There you will find more detailed text, additional figures and references. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that crude oil production in the U.S. (ex-Alaska) would peak in rate around 1970, to be followed by a long, irreversible decline. Hubbert nailed the timing of the peak, and in doing so, cemented his status as a technological visionary among neo-Malthusians and opponents of the “fossil fuels”. But Hubbert’s paper also contained a similar forecast for gas. In 1956 , Hubbert’s estimate of the amount of natural gas that would ultimately be consumed in the U.S. was 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) . In the 1978 update, Hubbert increased his estimate to 1,103 TCF , but considered that value to be on the high side. Lower 48 Gas Production, 1900-2010 By the end of 2010, we had produced and marketed 1,131 TCF from the Lower 48, more gas than Hubbert thought would ever be possible. We find ourselves in the midst of a natural gas boom, with gas production now exceeding the peaks of 1973: rates are over three times higher than the 7 TCF per year Hubbert foresaw for 2010. The Lower 48 resource base is some 3,100 TCF, three to four times Hubbert’s earlier estimates. Peak Oilers rarely mention Peak Gas. Hubbert expected his method to work for all resources; why did it fail with respect to gas? The answers to that question shed light on the shortcomings of Peak Oil Theory, and reveal the reasons why it should not be used as a policy-making tool. Shortcoming #1: Hubbert’s technique depends entirely upon the estimate of the ultimate resource base . Any extrapolation of historical trends contains only the information embedded in the history. There is no way to anticipate “game-changing” developments outside the confines of the history upon which it is based. A forecast of a limited future thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is used to set policy. Shortcoming #2: “Hubbert’s Peak” is the ultimate ceteris paribus analysis. Problem is, all other things are never equal, particularly in the realm of economics. Hubbert’s equations worked well in his experience, so well that he accepted them as immutable laws. Hubbert showed little concern for how changing policies or economics might affect his resource estimates (see Shortcoming #1 ). Shortcoming #3: We are all limited by our imaginations. Hubbert could not imagine economic production of hydrocarbons from water depths over 600 feet; we now have production in nearly 10,000 feet of water. Shale rocks were never considered to have economic potential. Moore’s Law has enabled accomplishments in drilling and exploration beyond Hubbert’s wildest dreams. Product Price Until the mid-1970s, natural gas was dirt cheap, so cheap that drillers rarely targeted it intentionally. Most of the gas that was found and produced was incidental to oil operations, which explains why Hubbert deemed the gas resource to be a ratio of his crude oil estimate. The following graph shows the history of natural gas prices (which was historically priced per mcf, or 1,000 standard cubic feet). The average wellhead price (i.e., the price received by the producer in the field) from 1925 until 1970 was less than 10¢ per mcf (about 66¢ in 2005 dollars). The energy content of one barrel of oil is roughly the same as 6 mcf of gas, so that the cost of buying one barrel’s worth of energy in natural gas form was only 60¢ (or less than $4.00 in 2005 dollars). Nominal and Real U.S. Wellhead Gas Prices, 1925-2010 Public Policy Since 1938, the Natural Gas Act had enforced low gas prices and near monopoly status for the big interstate gas pipelines. It was not unusual for a producer to be locked into a long term gas sales contract at 3¢ per mcf, with no recourse and no alternatives. In an effort to build domestic gas supplies, President Carter signed the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) in 1978. It maintained existing price controls while granting preference to newly-found supplies. Its recognition of a dozen or more “vintages” of gas led to a price structure that became increasingly byzantine over time. President Reagan began phasing out price controls on oil and gas in 1983. Tax reform ended limited partnerships’ tax shelters for drilling dry holes. The industry floundered as prices tanked and investors vanished. From 1981 until 1985, the count of active drilling rigs declined from 4,500 to under 700. Under severe economic pressure, the energy industry consolidated and contracted, then set about figuring out how to regain profitability. Technology Coincidentally, by about 1985, the impact of desktop computing began to be felt in the industry. Directly or indirectly, the PC era would contribute to a number of important technical advances in exploration and well operations, including 3-D seismic, horizontal drilling and logging-while-drilling. Using these and other new technologies, operators began finding ways to produce natural gas from rocks that had been never before been considered to be commercial sources of hydrocarbons. Explorers drilled fewer dry holes, and more efficiently developed smaller accumulations than in earlier days. Real Wellhead Price and Lower 48 Gas Production, 1925-2010 Conclusion Hubbert may have been correct about the ultimate volume of gas that would have been produced under pre-1970 prices and marketing structures. That price was unrealistically low compared to the energy content of gas. Today’s gas prices are about six times the pre-1970 average (2005 dollars), but gas is still a relative bargain. (Six thousand cubic feet of gas costs about $24, but can do as much work as one $100 barrel of oil.) So, if all this is true, why does Hubbert’s curve seem to work so well for crude oil? One key fact distinguishes natural gas and oil. Oil can be readily imported from anywhere in the world. Gas is primarily a North American commodity. Imports (other than Canadian pipeline imports) can impact the market only when domestic prices are high – and even then we have to compete with Japan and other regular customer on the world market. At the current low price of gas (relative to oil), the United States may become a gas exporter . The transportability of oil caused the oil-oriented major integrated companies to focus their exploration efforts overseas when drilling and production costs rose in the U.S. Finding large deposits of oil overseas was easier, cheaper and more efficient than it was in the States. The U.S. natural gas market became the domain of domestic independents. Policy decisions have taken much of the domestic oil resource base off the table, namely in the Alaskan North Slope, much of the Mountain West and the 85% of the Outer Continental Shelf which is closed to exploration. We cannot know how big this potential resource base is until we drill it. Many would prefer not to know, whether for political or environmental reasons, so we can expect the fight to continue. Cross-posted at stevemaley.com . Follow @VladimirRS !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);
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What’s Wrong with Peak Oil Theory? Consider ‘Peak Gas’.
I see quite a few have taken exception with the word “redemption” . I don’t know if these complaints are lodged just to be outraged about the religiosity of the word, despite the appropriateness of its use, or if you truly think I was being literal in only the spiritual sense. If it is the latter, I can assure you that I am using the word redemption specifically because it has more than one meaning. Most common, especially from a Christian like myself, redemption is all about the spiritual, and I don’t mind if you don’t buy that part. Redemption also means to reclaim something of value. Most of us are looking for that second kind of redemption politically, in our economics, in our personal finances, and some are also looking for it after having had divorces. I won’t go through and defend the things Newt has done, and I probably won’t defend the things he does in the future, but I don’t begrudge any man who becomes the champion of his own fate and chooses to go on a journey of redemption. It’s what America is made of. Fundamentally. Whether you are talking about the pilgrims who journeyed across the Atlantic, the patriots who took up arms to secure the ideals of the Enlightenment for their posterity, the freed slave, or the immigrant who saw, and continues to see, America as the last best hope; all of them were/are taking part in a journey to reclaim something of value – Freedom. Their pursuit of freedom and the opportunities that come with it, are – at their core – journeys of redemption, and something that most Americans instinctively understand and respect. Aaron B. Gardner
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A Bit More on Newt and Redemption
