Official "Extremely Unctuous Antics" Thread

[S00113]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

It certainly looks like you meant a military war in at least some of your statements.

The military takes part in the war, but most of it is fought by non-military means.

Consider your wording in post #181:
"... later the war" -- if you meant to depict a nonmilitary "war", why would you describe it as occurring later than the sanctions? Again, you refer to a war that occurs after the sanctions.

The U.S. sanctions against Iran started in 1979, and has increased in strenght during the last few years. Sanctions against Iraq began in 1990. The U.S. war against freedom, human rights and the Iraqi people, aka the "crusade" or "war on terror" began in 2001. The military attack against the Iraqi people was launched in 2003.

You never give us any statement that would define all your uses of "war" as being nonmilitary.

This is correct. A part of it is military, some is just hot air as well.

"The war" still seems there most reasonably to refer to a military war, the U.S. invasion. If you want to argue that it doesn't, then tell us what reference date is implied by "still below 1,5 million barrels/day" -- "still below" since when? Isn't that referring to still (since the U.S. invasion)?

Some of it, yes, but why are you so hung up in the military part? It isn't very significant.

Now, back to your post #184:

What looting could you possibly be referring to, if not the looting that occurred right after the U.S. military invasion? There was no reported wave of looting immediately after any imposition of sanctions, was there?

The looting began shortly after the U.S. took control over Bagdad and neglected to protect public property and keep law and order, as they were required to by the Geneva conventions. Some reports say U.S. forces encouraged looting (BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3003393.stm), which is exactly what I write is an important cause of the high oil price. Those crimes were part of the war against human rights and the Iraqi people, but not a military war in the sense that it followed international conventions on war and warfare. It was an extremely dirty attack of a souverign nation, and will hold back Iraqi oil production for a long time.

I think what's happened is that in your first post, you used "war" to refer to the U.S. military invasion, but also used "war" elsewhere in your posting to refer to nonmilitary events. Then after I objected to your references to the U.S. military invasion, you temporarily forgot your dual usage when you protested that only the nonmilitary usage was meant.

Note that when I protested I specifically wrote war against oil supply (or freedom), to point to specific parts of the "war".

I recommend that you admit that you were referring to the U.S. military invasion in some sentences of your earlier post, and go on from there. Either admit that my post #182 was on-target, or give us a real refutation without trying to avoid taking responsibility for your words.

I was refering to it as a part of the war, but I think the crimes commited during the occupation after the military attack were much more important than the military attack.

Btw, the annual energy review from EIA gives some insights in the numbers. Check for yourself how Saudi Arabia replaced Iraqi oil production, but wasn't able to sustain it for as long as neccessary, how Iraqi oil production never recovered, and how iranian production has decreased due to sanctions, and is decreasing due to more sanctions. Correlate it with price information in the same report. PDF here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/aer.pdf

[cheesehead]

Okay -- I still find your terminology confusing, but your explanation makes a little more sense to me now.

[ewmayer]

Oil falls on China crude import drop

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Monday as a drop in crude imports by No. 2 consumer China outweighed concerns over supply disruptions stemming from the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

China's crude imports unexpectedly fell 7 percent in July to a seven-month low in the steepest monthly drop since January 2005, as refiners balked at soaring crude costs amid lagging domestic fuel prices.

The drop in Chinese imports added to wider concerns about demand. Consumption in the United States and other developed economies has fallen due to high fuel prices.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I have heard that China is no longer stockpiling diesel (as they have enough for their Olypmic possible demand [for generators]). Which I had heard was happening. I thought that it had been mentioned in this thread.

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Oil falls on China crude import drop

Echo.....

[ewmayer]

Minyanville | GM Reduces Carbon Footprint by .0000001mm

Call it the 1 mile-per-gallon solution - and try not to laugh.

General Motors (GM) plans to release new versions of its full-sized pickup trucks and SUVs later this fall. Both space-age editions get an extra mile per gallon in both city and highway driving.

The new models are designated XFE (for “extra fuel economy”).

That’ll scare the bejabbers out of Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC), eh?

On the new XFE models of Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Sierra trucks and GMC Yukon SUV models, GM extended the front lower air dam, lowered the suspension and revised the chassis to cut aerodynamic drag. GM also cut vehicle weight by using more aluminum parts, including an aluminum spare. The engine is a 5.3-liter V-8 with aluminum cylinder block and heads that can run on ethanol, surely one of the great boondoggles of our time.

All this creates a net savings of 1 mpg - a great selling point to the math challenged. The whole thing reads like a parody: Imagine a fast food chain pitching a cheeseburger, fries and chocolate shake package that makes you fat, but more gracefully than the competition. Call it health food!

Ford plans new luxury crossover vehicle

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is expected to announce Friday that it will build a new seven-passenger luxury crossover, the Wall Street Journal said, citing two people familiar with the automaker's plans.

The three-row Lincoln MKT crossover, which is due to go into production next year, will share the same architecture as the new Ford Flex, but will feature a much sleeker design compared with the boxy Flex, the Journal said.

The Acura MDX, the Audi Q7 and the Mercedes R class would be among the competitors for the new luxury crossover, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

MKT is not designed to be a large production run and the company expects annual sales in the range of the mid-20,000 vehicles, the paper said.

The new luxury crossover will mostly likely be manufactured at Ford's Oakville, Ontario plant, the Journal said. People familiar with the plans could not confirm the production schedule there, it added.

Recognizing consumer demand for fuel economy, the MKT will come only with a V-6 engine, and not the more powerful V-8. Eventually, Ford's new, more powerful Eco-Boost engine is also expected to be an option, the Journal said.

Ford did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Earlier this year, Ford abandoned a longstanding goal of returning to profitability in 2009 and accelerated plans to restructure its North American operations to produce more cars and cut back on slower-selling trucks and SUVs as fuel prices climbed.

So in a perverse way, trying to foist yet another gas-guzzling SUV [but this one is "luxurious yet understated, and more greenish than our current lineup of gas guzzlers"] really does fit in with Ford`s "strategy", in the sense that it helps Ford achieve its abandonment of its longstanding goal of returning to profitability in 2009. Way to go, Ford! It`s clear that both you and General Morons deserve a big fat government bailout check.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Minyanville | GM Reduces Carbon Footprint by .0000001mm

Originally Posted by http://www.minyanville.com/articles/ethanol-gm-F-tm-hmc-driving/index/a/18462

an additional 1 mpg from the XFE models (the new models get 15 mpg in the city and 21 on the highway),

Hey, give GM credit -- it's a 5-7% improvement from a few minor changes. In NASCAR, that percentage of performance improvement would raise a team from worst to first and provoke a tear-down inspection by officials.

What's sad is that 1 mpg is such a large percentage, or that it wasn't in the original design.

---

BTW, from a distance it looks like all traces of "Hummerism" are gone from the former Hummer first-in-the-universe dealership near my place that's being converted to a Chevy dealership.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

BTW, from a distance it looks like all traces of "Hummerism" are gone from the former Hummer first-in-the-universe dealership near my place that's being converted to a Chevy dealership.

So the faux-news headline would be "Glum and Glummer: Bummer of a Summer for Hummer"? [Just when you thought things around here couldn't get any dumber...]

[ewmayer]

Fortune | A former pro-oil Republican warns of Peak Oil Shock

[Matt] Simmons isn't the obvious candidate to be the bearer of bad news about oil. He's spent his career working in the business, has lived in Houston for decades, and is such an industry insider that he helped edit the Bush campaign's comprehensive energy plan in the 2000 election - the document that was ultimately more or less rubber-stamped by Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous secret Energy Task Force. Over the past 35 years, his boutique investment bank, Simmons & Co., has helped finance and shape much of the country's existing oil-services business. With profits gushing, you might expect him to be celebrating.

Not to mention that the 65-year-old banker doesn't have the personality of a prophet of doom. He has a puckish wit, a relentlessly cheerful and enthusiastic demeanor, and the appearance of a rosy-cheeked cherub in a navy blazer. He routinely refers - in earnest - to his daily experiences as "tremendous fun." His closest business associates have a hard time recalling him ever showing anger. But when it comes to oil and gas, his message is downright scary.
An unlikely maverick

Simmons was transformed overnight from an influential industry expert to an A-list pundit by the publication in 2005 of his book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," a fairly technical read which argues that Saudi Arabia's oil supplies are much more limited than everyone thinks.

Since then he has moved to the forefront of the peak-oil movement - a once fringe but now growing contingent of oil industry veterans, independent consultants, investors, and academics who believe that world oil production is at or near an inflection point, after which it will fall inexorably and fail to meet projected future demands. According to Simmons, we have already passed that peak. And while we're not going to run out of it anytime soon, the era of easy oil is over, and the world is about to enter a period of convulsive change. (Hint: Learn to garden, and buy some comfortable walking shoes.)

The soaring price of crude - it has risen from below $20 a barrel in 2002 to as high as $147 earlier this year - has helped thrust Simmons further into the spotlight. He was one of the main voices, for instance, in the recent oil-shock documentary "Crude Awakening," and his book has now sold more than 100,000 copies. His willingness to make bold predictions about how high crude may go has made him an A-list guest for cable TV news programs and a go-to source for newspaper reporters covering oil and gas. In 2005, when oil was $58 a barrel, he predicted it would be at or above $100 within a few years. Now he sees it climbing to $200, $300, or higher. "There really is no roof on oil prices at this point," he says.

Time to update those Valero gas prices I was posting throughout the summer:

Wed, 06 Aug: 4.179
Fri, 08 Aug: 4.139
Wed, 13 Aug: 4.129
Thu, 14 Aug: 4.119
Fri, 15 Aug: 4.099
Tue, 19 Aug: 3.999
Mon, 25 Aug: 3.989
Tue, 26 Aug: 3.969
Fri, 29 Aug: 3.939
Mon, 08 Sep: 3.899
Thu, 11 Sep: 3.879
Fri, 12 Sep: 3.859
Fri, 19 Sep: 3.839
Mon, 22 Sep: 3.799

Gas now down 70 cents per gallon from its July peak, but oil is again climbing due to the expected dollar-devaluing effects of the massive banking-industry bailout bill being rushed through congress. [The dollar had actually been rallying smartly in the past month, not due to good news about the U.S. economy, but rather due to bad news about the global economy].

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Fortune | A former pro-oil Republican warns of Peak Oil Shock

One of the educable Republicans in this regard!

[ewmayer]

Indie oil hunter strikes a 'screamer': In Oklahoma, a smalltime oil entrepreneur makes the play of his life.

I had joined these characters on the Stillwater Project oil rig because, against the back-drop of a global energy crisis, I was hoping to witness the moment when a rock hound named Mark Herndon found out whether he could actually strike oil by drilling horizontally beneath a small Oklahoma city.

Everyone is here because of Herndon. There's the full hierarchy of the oil patch - from the lowliest worm hand to the studly directional drillers with their black books and their azimuths, rocking out to Neil Young in their air-conditioned trailers, to Bob Graves, 48, the drilling superintendent, whose job is to keep the rig running at all times, to Jess Porter, 56, president of EEC Inc., who found the 17 investors from Oklahoma and as far away as Indiana.

They're all here because Herndon, an independent oil geologist, had a thought - a fleeting moment of inspiration - while driving down the road in the middle of the night two decades ago. The "unconventional stratagraphic play" Herndon dreamed up was about oil hidden in a tight, ten-foot zone of sandstone a mile deep that nobody had ever bothered to drill for, perhaps because it lay beneath a city. But what if somebody drilled, horizontally, beneath the Wal-Mart and the Applebee's and the Starbucks, beneath the campus of Oklahoma State University, winding up directly under Boone Pickens Stadium? What if the fancy new tools of directional drilling could bore a mile into the earth, make a 90-degree gradual bend, and hit a target the size of a beach ball?

Whoever pulled that off might find a million barrels of oil.

Or, they might not.

My Comment:
A young oil prospector from Berkeley
Made love to his sweetheart berserkly.
When starting a well, just for luck
He would break off and fuck
Her horizontally, diagonally, and verkeley.

[masser]

Regular unleaded gas cost $2.99/gal here in Northern New Mexico yesterday. I almost swerved off the road when I saw it - two weeks ago it was $3.59/gal.

I remember 5 years ago when I thought $1.75/gal on Long Island, NY was a lot to pay for gasoline.