Oil Production and Obama

Under fire for surging gas prices in an election year, President Obama this week predictably trotted out his three year old energy speech and mocked republicans for their belief that increased domestic oil production would lead to decreased dependence on foreign oil.  


Pause for effect.  


There are so many ways we could go with this, but let's focus on one way.  In his remarks, the president stated:


Now, we absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in America. That’s why under my Administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years.

It was painful to hear his stand-in press secretary try to explain later that President Obama wasn't really trying to take credit for the increased domestic production.  


Which is understandable in light of recent developments, such as:


1. Blocking the Keystone Pipeline.  Desperate to keep this loser issue off the table, congressional democrats have thrown all manner of disruptions and distractions into the effort to get Keystone up again, including, strangely, an effort to make sure that none of the Keystone oil goes outside the country.  Its not really clear why petroleum exports would be a bad thing... other than it involves US oil companies making money... never mind.  


2. My personal favorite... the Gulf of Mexico moratorium and slowdown following the Deepwater Horizon blowout, imposed on the industry across the board regardless of the facts.  I have blogged about this ad nauseum so I'll stop now.  


3. The real reason production is up... Obama and the EPA have been slow to throw up barriers to fracking, which is where all the increases in production are coming from. 


Now let me be clear.  All of this tripe sounds great rolling off the teleprompter, but the same plan rehashed over the course of three years is not a plan, it is a speech.  And time has borne that out.  


If only he were serious.    

Deaf Whales, Dumb People

I am a former military officer now working as a contractor in the oil and gas industry.  


Those of you in the marine mammal conspiracy business can stop reading now, as you have probably already fingered me as part of the conspiracy. That's right, I'm bought and paid for by the military and big oil, who somehow are able to get everybody at every whale stranding and every researcher to lie to the media, and protect the public from the shocking truth, all to kill whales for a tidy profit cause they JUST DON'T CARE. (evil laughter)


Let's start off with a few basic assumptions.  Let's say that naval sonar harms marine life, and seismic exploration does too. This is more theory than hard science, but let's say that it does anyway. Let's say that the merits of the environmentalist case vs. the training needs of the Navy have already been heard by the Supreme Court and it didn't go well for the environmentalists.  Let's say that the evil Navy and big oil all employ marine mammal observers whose function is to shut down the sonar and seismic surveying any time marine mammals are detected.  Because they do.  Finally, let's say that marine mammals who encounter offensive seismic and sonar activity go the other way and leave the area.  This is called a flight response, and it can be found throughout nature, though it never shows up in any stories about underwater noise.   


Now I'm not a marine biologist, or a whale specialist, I'm just a dumb guy who flies helicopters.  So riddle me this.  


I have been on a seismic boat, traveling in a miles-wide circle with many other boats, all performing seismic surveying.  These boats do maybe 5 knots wide open during the survey, in a circle, and the circle is slowly sliding across the water, air guns blazing all the while.  Meanwhile, as I am on the boat, a pilot whale and some dolphins swim right by the bridge, directly for the air guns, which results in the marine mammal observer shutting down the survey.  It is not as if the boats snuck up on the mammals or ran them down, even the pilot whale can make near 20 knots in a pinch.  My question is...


1. Are these whales STUPID?
2. Are these whales DEAF?
3. Has all this seismic activity rendered the whales sense of direction completely useless, as the conspiracy states?  
4. Or maybe, just maybe, does all this seismic activity NOT affect the whales and the dolphins as severely as the environmentalists state?


I really don't know.  But I know that environmentalists will soundly reject item #4, though their superior intellect and scientific backing still can't provide more than anecdotal arguments to support their theories, which all conclude that the military and the oil industry are REAL BAD.  


Environmentalists hate both the military and big oil, and would like to see them both shut down or severely restricted for their sins against mother earth.  


Now there's a shocking truth for you.  

My Apologies

After President Obama's recent apology to Afganistan President Karzai for a koran burning incident in Afghanistan, I felt inspired to add a few apologies of my own.  
To President Hamid Karzai:


First of all, I am sorry that our country ever supported the Mujaheddin, of which you were a part, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  


I am even sorrier that we listened to you and supported you as President when you wanted the Taliban driven from your country in 2001.  


Since you were long in the habit of fleeing your own country when things got bad, I am particularly sorry that US forces assigned as your personal protection detail have saved your life from at least one assassination attempt that we know of.  


I am sorry that this koran burning is such a big deal, as the circumstances surrounding the incident are not widely known, but of course the US military is portrayed once again as the bad guy.  


I am deeply sorry that the burning of a few copies of the koran is a bigger deal to some of your people than murder.  


I am terribly sorry that your country, under your leadership, is so screwed up that your people have time to protest this, and that your leading exports to the world are terrorism and opium.  


I'm sorry to hear that your brother somehow got mixed up in the heroin trade, I'm sure its just a politically motivated smear campaign as he says.  


But most of all, I'm sorry that over 1800 US soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have died in your country trying to clean the place up.  


Sorry, man.  Your bad.  


Check, please...

Your Obamacare minute, part one

From page 312 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act... under the headings of:

PART 3—ENCOURAGING DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PATIENT CARE MODELS

SEC. 3021. ESTABLISHMENT OF CENTER FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

INNOVATION WITHIN CMS.

(a) IN GENERAL.— Title XI of the Social Security Act is amended

by inserting after section 1115 the following new section:

‘CENTER FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID INNOVATION'

Read way, way, way down many pages and you get to a subheading titled:

  (f) FUNDING.—
  (1) IN GENERAL.—There are appropriated, from amounts
in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated—
  (A) $5,000,000 for the design, implementation, and
evaluation of models under subsection (b) for fiscal year
2010;
  (B) $10,000,000,000 for the activities initiated under
this section for the period of fiscal years 2011 through
2019; and
  (C) the amount described in subparagraph (B) for the
activities initiated under this section for each subsequent
10-year fiscal period (beginning with the 10-year fiscal period
beginning with fiscal year 2020).

Amounts appropriated under the preceding sentence shall remain

available until expended.

Better get back to work, you have a program to fund.