DrumBeat: June 27, 2007
Posted by Leanan on June 27, 2007 - 8:48am
Topic: Miscellaneous
US lawmakers warned on anti-OPEC bill
OPEC president Mohammed Al Hamli warned US lawmakers on Wednesday they were taking a "really dangerous step" in seeking legislation to sue the oil group.The US Senate last week approved a plan that would enable the federal government to take legal action against OPEC for price manipulation, but the White House has threatened to veto the measure.
"It's a really dangerous step. We are in the process of fighting that," Hamli said at an oil conference in Turkey.
Thomas Friedman: This baby is just plain ugly, folks
The whole Senate energy effort only reinforced my feelings that we're in a green bubble - a festival of hot air by the news media, corporate America and presidential candidates about green this and green that, but, when it comes to actually doing something hard to bring about a green revolution at scale - and if you don't have scale on this you have nothing - we wimp out.Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.
To be sure, the deaths and lingering effects at Chernobyl are tragic. But the disaster should have forced Americans to redouble their efforts to build the safest nuclear plants on the planet. Instead, we did something uncharacteristic of Americans: We stopped building, stopped inventing, stopped pushing the frontiers of technology.What if we had reacted in the same manner in April 1947, when a port explosion in Texas City, Texas, triggered a massive fire at an oil refinery and killed 500 people? Should we have stopped drilling, pumping, exploring and transporting oil; should we have reverted to windmills; should we have turned back to firewood?
High-priced gas can lead to innovation
As I’ve said before, strangely I’m not all that sad about high fuel prices. Thanks to our wonderful free enterprise system, high prices create a very rich ocean of incentives for inventors.
Energy bill may gouge consumers
Price controls and taxing our way to energy security backfired in the 1970s, draining billions of dollars from domestic oil and natural gas development, and they won't work now.
Tapis, World's Costliest Oil, May Gain Against Brent
Malaysia's Tapis, the most expensive oil benchmark in the world, may appreciate further relative to Brent and West Texas Intermediate crudes because of demand for low-sulfur grades to produce diesel and gasoline in Asia.
Analysis: Turkey's energy future
Turkey is a crucial transit country for the world's oil and natural gas market, and a top Foreign Ministry official says its role will increase as the industry brings more sources to market and demand continues to rise.
Australia is rich in energy resources and leads the world in total coal exports.
After sliding for six weeks, gasoline prices may be about to hit bottom.
BP Makes Significant Investment to Boost UK Gas Supplies
BP released plans for significant investment in its southern North Sea business, which will lead to an increase in recoverable gas reserves and create opportunities for further development offshore.
Making 300% Gains Off Our Energy Crisis
Peak oil is just the beginning of our problems. The increased interest in Canadian oil is causing grave concerns over their natural gas production. And it may already be too late to act.
Energy debate must include all options
In a nutshell, oil depletion (along with climate change) is probably the most serious crisis ever to face industrialised society and yet governments around the world are still incredibly ill-prepared to meet the extraordinary challenge this will pose. Virtually every single item we possess or need is due to oil in one form or another. However, no clear consensus has emerged on what happens next. Will existing hydrocarbon technologies be adapted to new realities or will radical new technologies emerge, like hydrogen fuel cells, to complement renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy?
Geothermal: Out from under a rock
Old Faithful and expensive contraptions in the basement that never really worked - that's what many people think of when they think geothermal energy.But thanks to advances in technology, a better political climate and rising electricity prices, geothermal is quickly losing its status as renewable energy's most unloved sector. In fact, investment in the sector jumped nearly fourfold over the last two years, to about $100 million last year.
China's first hydrogen engine successfully ignited
China's first independently developed high efficiency and low discharge hydrogen engine was successful ignited in Chongqing, by ChangAn Auto Co. Ltd on June 18th. The high efficiency and low discharge hydrogen engine is the only main hydrogen fuel project that was established by the national "863" plan. The successful ignition marks a breakthrough in the progress of China's technology research, and lays a foundation for national hydrogen engine industrialization development.
Iran oil exports at risk in UK ship sanctions plan
A British proposal to target Iran's national shipping lines under a draft U.N. sanctions resolution could temporarily curb Tehran's ability to export oil to world markets, maritime sources said on Tuesday.The confidential draft, obtained by Reuters on Friday, suggests denying rights of passage to Iranian merchant ships in foreign waters. The withdrawal of landing rights for Iranian aircraft is also suggested.
Global efforts to substitute for oil: Learning by doing ourselves in
Contemporary discourse concerning the potentially enormous problem of dealing with peak oil overlooks the “own demand” of substitution. It takes a lot of oil to substitute for oil. A closer look reveals that the structural gyration of historical proportions associated with the process is up to its chin in the stuff.
Ships still held up at Nigerian port after general strike
More than 80 ships, many carrying fuel, were blocked and waiting to dock at Lagos port on Wednesday, port sources said, three days after a paralyzing general strike ended in Nigeria.
The oil market is basically all about psychology
“This is simply because since 2003 the price of a barrel of oil has spiralled, while China continues to experience a rapid rate of industrial growth. These are the ‘subjective’ reasons why the BP report is more likely to cause alarm in New Delhi than complacency.”
Energy Crisis Approaching Bulgaria
An energy crisis currently evident in Greece might spread to Bulgaria, Novinar daily reported.Miners from Maritsa-Iztok mines plan to strike in case their wages remain unchanged. At the same time Sofia residents complain of power cuts.
Bolivia reclaims oil refineries
Bolivia has taken full control of two oil refineries from the Brazilian state-owned energy company, Petrobras, after a compensation deal last month.
Still Apart Over Gas Row, China and Japan Agree to Compile Plan by Fall
Japan and China remained apart Tuesday over main points of contention in the dispute over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea, but they agreed to continue to expedite efforts to compile a plan to jointly develop the disputed gas fields by the fall, a Japanese negotiator said.
Venezuela oil boom raises inflation spectre
Endemic consumption and vibrant economic growth have been triggered by public spending on a massive scale, doubling over the past two years owing to a sixfold rise in the price of oil since President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999.But this effervescent economy – averaging about 12 per cent growth in the past three years – has unleashed one of the highest inflation rates in the world. And as growth slows, which some fear it is doing, inflation could continue to rise.
Germany mulling programme to boost energy efficiency
The German government is considering launching a plan worth billions of euros to boost energy efficiency and cut the use of oil, electricity and gas, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Transit riders avoid high gas prices
"I can't start my car for what it costs to ride a bus," Abbot said. For $1 -- the cost of a senior day pass -- Abbott can ride the bus all day, and for $2 she could head over to Wilsonville to do some shopping rather than drive a car. With gas prices exceeding $3 per gallon and a car that gets a little more than 20 miles per gallon, public transit is definitely more economical.
ABF, BP and DuPont to Build $400M Bioethanol Plant and Biobutanol Demonstration Plant
Associated British Foods (ABF), BP and DuPont will invest around $400 million for the construction of a major bioethanol plant alongside a demonstration plant for biobutanol. Although initial production of the primary plant will be bioethanol, the partners will explore converting it to biobutanol production once the required technology is available.
The Next Generation of Biofuels
New ethanol study examines global trends, opportunities and challenges in this emerging market.
71% Think Global Warming Has Nothing to do With Man’s Actions
Pocket Issue and AOL have issued a press release that shows the results of 4000 people polled with almost 3 out of 4 believing that human actions aren’t causing global warming, with 65% going further to agree with the notion that scientific findings on this issue are “far fetched.” What strikes me as odd is how people all over the radio are claiming this as proof that global warming just isn’t our fault. “If that many people believe it isn’t true, then it must not be true,” goes the logic...
Climate Change Threatens North Africa Food Supply
Increasingly frequent droughts in North Africa will force governments to import more food, placing their economies under severe strain unless global warming is checked, a senior UN climate expert said.
Opec must lift oil supply: energy report
THE price of oil will soar in the coming months, unless the Opec crude cartel ramps up output, the Centre for Global Energy Studies said in a report published on Monday."The world needs more oil if another price surge is to be avoided," the London-based energy research group said in a monthly study.
OPEC Outlook: Demand For OPEC Oil By 2010 Below 2005 Level
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Tuesday said it expected demand for its members' crudes within three years will be almost 1 million barrels a day below 2005 volumes, largely because of growth in natural gas liquids production from non-OPEC producers.
OPEC president: Countries need to enhance oil, natural gas capacity
OPEC President Muhammad bin Dhain al-Hamili said on Tuesday that various countries needed to enhance oil and natural gas capacity, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Shell Won't Re-Enter Nigeria's Western Delta This Year
Royal Dutch Shell PLC is unlikely to go back into Nigeria's troubled Western Delta this year despite the area contributing around 500,000 barrels a day to the company's crude oil production, a Shell executive said Tuesday.
Venezuela: ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips to End Presence in Orinoco Projects
ConocoPhillip's (COP) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are negotiating exit terms from their interests in multi-billion dollar projects in Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt.
Venezuela Exit Would Challenge ConocoPhillips Output Targets
The most immediate effect of ConocoPhillips' decision to exit Venezuela's oil-rich Orinoco river basin and seek redress through arbitration will be to challenge the U.S. oil company's short-term production goals.
The "New York Times" Smears Peak Oil
The Times has joined oil companies in denouncing concerns that peak oil is near. Like all good propaganda, the Times disguises it as news. Last March, it smeared those warning of peak oil with an editorial hidden within a featured news article "Oil Innovations Pump New Life into Old Wells"...
Nuclear power is what U.S. needs
As the last in the line of hopper cars approached, my car count reached 103, not quite as many as usual. Each of those cars holds 100 tons of Wyoming coal. That's 10,000 tons in that train, headed for a big coal-fired electric plant somewhere east.A typical 1,000-megawatt plant needs to burn that whole train load every day. I think of the 1,000 tons of ash and the carbon dioxide that plant emits every day, plus all the pollution produced from mining and transporting the coal.
Free Software as Part of the Anarchist Toolkit
So the question is, should we fail the above challenges and humanity enters a long slide downwards and the decay of industrial society, will this era of rapid global communications, vast amounts of digital storage and spare time to write software - disappear, only to be a short lived and unique phenomena in the history of humankind? In other words will the problems we face overwhelm the infrastructure needed to support all these technologies? (And which is suggested in the original Club of Rome reports. These were published in the 1970s and identified not just resource limits, but the possibility of a pollution crisis too as overwhelming industrial society and causing its downfall.) Of course the answer won't be found here but I think a small part of finding the solution is in fact here in the form of free software.
Imported oil from the Middle East and manufacturing from China are pushing our national account imbalance to more than $800 billion this year. Peak oil will explode our national debt to other nations. The correction of this imbalance will cause the dollar to drop in value, meaning our kids will work longer for less.
UN: Floods, heatwaves send signal about global warming's impact
Recent floods in Asia and Britain, and heatwaves in southern Europe, show the world must be better prepared to cope with the impact of climate change, the United Nation's top disaster prevention official said Wednesday.
Iranians attack gas stations amid rationing
Angry Iranians attacked several gas stations in protest after the government suddenly began long-threatened fuel rationing, while many others rushed to fill their tanks.The Oil Ministry announced the start of rationing Tuesday night only three hours before it was due to begin at midnight. The sudden announcement sparked long lines at stations as Iranians tried to get one last fill-up before the limitations kicked in.
Power cuts hit Cyprus in summer scorcher
Power cuts hit Cyprus in the midst of a scorching heatwave on Wednesday as electricity workers called a strike over authorities' plans to introduce LNG to the market in the next three years.
May oil output slips at Mexico's Cantarell field
- Crude oil output at Mexico's huge but aging Cantarell offshore field declined in May, according to data published on the energy ministry's Web site on Tuesday.Cantarell, closely watched by the oil industry after sharp dips in output, produced an average of 1.579 million barrels per day versus 1.592 million bpd in April.
The figure meant Cantarell accounted for just 51 percent of Mexico's overall crude oil output last month.
Why experts on Mideast are always wrong
The greatest error repeated by experts of all persuasions, by Arabophiles and Arabophobes alike, by Turcologists and by Iranists, is also the simplest to define. It is the very odd belief that these ancient nations are highly malleable.
Microbes dwelling in oil fields and coal beds could inspire new methods of extracting fossil fuels from the depths of the earth. That's the hope of Ari Patrinos, a genomics pioneer who helped run the Human Genome Project and is now the president of Synthetic Genomics, a Maryland-based biotech startup founded by J. Craig Venter. Synthetic Genomics's goal is to use genomics to develop new energy technologies. As part of a new partnership with oil giant BP, Synthetic Genomics will study microbes that naturally feed off hydrocarbons for clues into biological means of extracting and processing oil and coal.
Biodiesel to Become Cheaper Than Light Oil in 4 Years
The price of biodiesel, an alternative energy source to light oil, will become lower than light oil as early as 2011, securing its economic feasibility, according to a recent report by the Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI).
The ethanol madness continues! Last week, the Senate passed an energy bill mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022—a sevenfold increase over current levels. Senators congratulated themselves for their environmental foresight. The president, a biofuels advocate, has enthusiastically endorsed the ethanol surge. But it's almost certainly a fantasy, since no one in Washington seems to have thought for five minutes about where or how that much ethanol could be produced.
A new Round-Up has been posted at TOD:Canada.
(In which "star U.S. oil forecaster" Henry Groppe talks about oil sands and the importance of flow rates vs reserves, the Canadian oilpatch borrows its way into the danger zone, Bear Stearns is way past that zone, and the mother of all banks, the Bank for International Settlements, holds out the prospect of the next Great Depression)
Reading the BIS article was a real red flag for me. We all have a pretty good handle on what is up with the US economy but to read such a blunt assesment by such a powerful institution was the single story that stands above all the rest of the many that I have read in the last few months. Did anyone see mention of the BIS article on CNN?
I don't know about CNN, but BBC World TV News did mention it yesterday.
B(I)S first creates the crises, and then, at the very last moment, warns about them. That makes their warnings something to heed. They don't kid around. They want no-one to know what's being cooked up, but they also want to be on record as saying: "I told you so". Which they did this week.
Of course, in view of our finely tuned smoothly gliding free market system, all this is conspiracy ranting, we're leaving it up to the invisible hand after all to decide if our billion dollars from yesterday will still be there in the morning, and the FED is trying frantically to stop the housing bust, and Alan Greenspan has no higher priority than looking out for your very own personal happiness and satisfaction. Think Santa.
Can you explain how BIS "creates the crises"?
Bring down interest rates from 6.5% to 1% in a few months, raise M3 by 15% per year, and have Sir Alan go public telling people that homwownership is a G-d given right, that they now all can get through new loan arrangements. ARM's provide Americans with liberty!!! Power to the people.....
the right to bear ARM's?
LOL!
HeIsSoFly - Is this the end of the yen carry that you promised me would trigger the end of this fricking credit bubble, huh huh is it is it?
Yen up again as carry trade unwinds
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=aKrojJoLTW60&refer=c...
I never promised anyone any such thing, but if you go to TOD:Canada, the Bear Stearns coverage should shake something awake. We wonder whether the alarm will go off first in Asia, not that it matters much down the line, but I had a talk with a trusted friend today and we agreed it, the trigger that is, might as well be this:
Merrill Lynch taking Bear Stearns to task. These are guys who play golf together, you know, and now they are adversaries?! It wasn't me, teacher, it was the ugly kid in the corner. Private and government, everyone is pointing fingers and talking to lawyers. It wasn't me.....
In the end there's but one problem: people play with other people's money.
By the end of the year we will be swamped in bankruptcies and lawsuits. If Bear Stearns goes, others will follow. There is exactly ZERO reason to believe they won't. And your bank is invested in all of them, and so is your pension fund, and and and.....
Sell your house while you can guys......
Sorry HISF it was Hurin that talked about the Yen carry.
I really appreciate reading you. I perceive your evolution in thinking on these subjects that are discussed here at TOD and believe that most are going through similar changes but are not as able (me) or willing to express them. For that again I thank you.
I value every ones perspective (how else would I know who to hate. I can't just go by what the MSM tells me).
Airdale, if you are present, I hope you can still post on occasion. I look at TOD as just another tool in monitoring WTF is going on in this crazy world. That’s all.
One must use the right tool for the job.
Damn, the dirt keeps slipping through the tines of this stupid rake when I try and hoe a row.
Love ya all, OOPS did I type that out loud?
EDIT - Oh man I just read this and it sounds like I have been tipping the cup too much
Big fat TOD troll found half full bottle of sarconol someone threw out window of car on overpass.
How's this for a strange connection between energy and finance...
MISC Postpones Bond Sale on `Market Volatility'
Hello Leanan,
I am no finance wizard, but it seems that if, in some locations, are peaking in natgas relatively soon: this company should have no problem selling stock shares to raise funds for building more LNG tankers. My feeble two cents.
Leanan,
That is completely nuts. The biggest LNG tanker firm globally not issuing bonds because of US subprime mortgeges?!
No, it is not nuts.
Financial types HATE volatility. The uncertainty and risk here is that one would have to sell bonds below par because of FUD related to the Bear Stearns hedge funds fiasco.
If I wanted to sell bonds I would wait for a strong and stable market environment.
Also, I think bonds to finance investments in LNG are inherently risky, because the stuff blows up so easily. Those tankers are floating bombs. And remember the very last scene in the fine film "Syriana"? Now that was a scary one.
I like the last line for the article.
"That may not last much longer."
River et al,
Seeing that you appreciate Stoneleigh's efforts in compiling the Round-up, I'm thinking you might want to leave a comment (at least one) showing that on the TOD:Canada site. Just to let her know......
She makes Canada distinct from the US , or let's say Leanan's Drumbets, in two ways
1/ obviously, the Canada energy content, which seems to be increasingly important stateside
and
2/ Stoneleigh is on the know about the financial quagmire, which is in a head-to-head race with peak oil for no.1 bringing down this society factor, as in who's first??
I, for one, find that interesting, and an added value. Nothing taken away from Leanan. Moreover, as I pointed out in a another comment today, it's the women that lead us..
Men smart, the women are smarter
(old reggae tune, google it)
"Woman is smarter than 'de man in every way!"
Old Harry Belafonte calypso tune. (Not reggae.)
Thanks for the kind words HISF :)
It is fascinating to read the Canadian Round-Ups -- we get virtually no news of Canada in the USA media, even though Canada is the #1 source of imported hydrocarbon, and our closest neighbor in countless ways. Thanks be to OilDrum for helping bridge the gap.
Yesterday I unwittingly started a rather silly pseudo-philosophical thread -- my fault for not being clear. The point was that the Disney Machine, powered by cheap oil and set in the fabulous Shangri-La of California had converted Yankee pragmatism into magical thinking -- which could be sustained only so long as the oil lasted. The point about David Hume was that people who were forced to abandon belief in deductive reasoning would likely naturally gravitate to magical thinking -- especially if it were so attractively packaged as the Disney package. Most people, in my experience, are extremely uncomfortable with skepticism and either collapse into rigid orthodoxy or New-Age wu wu. Students of Hume (I count myself a reader, not a serious student, and I'm sure I miss a lot of his message) must recognize what their position sometimes creates-- if unintentionally.
Enter Canada -- the new Source. The magical thinking can continue for a while, bolstered by the promise of Endless Tar Sands. It looks, from the Round-Up that the magical infection is spreading to our pragmatic cousins up north -- I sincerely hope their immunity to claptrap is stronger than ours down south.
I am a student of Hume and taught philosophy for about thirty years. Personally, I prefer the empiricism of Locke and Aristotle to that of Hume, but as the fattest philosopher in history, Hume deserves a special place in our affections.
Note that his famous skepticism may be related to his denial of paternity in a case where he fled Scotland to avoid having charges placed against him in the Church. He did lead a most interesting life, and he was prudent enough to leave his most controversial work to be published after his death.
In his own life (as opposed to his philosophy) Hume was not at all an extreme skeptic. When he lost his faith in Christianity it was a crisis, and allegedly he gained sixty pounds in about ten weeks. Quite a character he was . . . .
Thanks, Don Sailorman. I learn so much from this site! A great corrective to the mind-numbing general media.
Pardon my ignorance, but it doesn't seem to me that adding inductive reasoning to deductive reasoning resolves the crisis of the general failure of pure reason. It also seems obvious that most people instinctively avoid rational thought of any variety (using the power of reason only to justify a previously made emotional decision.) And so Hume was mostly giving academic heft to the common understanding. Then, what happens when you can't count on reason and you lose your faith? -- "When Prophesy Fails"?
People don't embrace "Peak Oil" because it is a rational, intellectual position, arrived at through inductive and deductive reasoning, and most people just take the world on faith. For now, the oil just keeps coming, and it is in the interest of the MSM to tell them it always will.
As philosophers have understood ever since Aristotle stated the point: Inductive reasoning can NEVER yield certainty. That is why any claim to knowledge in science (which is based mostly on varieties of inductive logic) is always open to revision.
Hume's skepticism applies only to questions of absolute certainty--not to statements of probability. In many of his writings (especially the historical ones) Hume uses inductive reasoning and feels no need to justify this use.
With deductive reasoning, if all the premises are true, and if the argument is logically valid, then the conclusion is 100% certain.
(using the power of reason only to justify a previously made emotional decision.)
Not to beat a dead horse, but is it possible to have a purely rational decision purely independent of some kind of sentiment? This is another one of Hume’s findings, that reason is a slave of the passions. In order for me to use reason I must make a value judgment first. I’m sure I’m going to get some real disagreement on this one, but twist and turn as you might reason is only a tool for what you first feel is valuable.
Hume lifted a lot of his ideas from the best-seller by Adam Smith, "Theory of Moral Sentiment," which is well worth reading today. It was a "prequel" to "Wealth of Nations," and it makes the latter book much more understandable and readable.
Continuing to beat dead horses-- I'm going to quit after this one! I read TMS a few years ago. It is interesting, and certainly make the Wealth of Nations more clear. But it seems to me that it is grounded in cultural bias -- how could it be otherwise? One's own experience is the only possible guide to understanding human nature. Every understanding is ultimately private.
I use deductive reasoning every day in my business (medicine)-- but the premises are often uncertain, and so the entire edifice is shaky -- even if the logic is sound, which it sometimes isn't. Still, with a good dose of faith, we get by....
Aristotle was the first of the great empiricists. His father was physician to King Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father), and Aristotle was well acquainted with medical reasoning and its limitations. In the olden days, if you were doctor to the king and the king died prematurely or not from obvious battle wounds, then often the physician was killed (to encourage the other doctors, no doubt). IMO, medical reasoning is a good example of a blend of inductive and deductive logic. Consider for example the perplexing connection between mental and physical disorders:
We know that the mind can make you physically ill (psychosomatic disease), but we also know that chemical imbalance in the body can cause disorders such as bipolar or depression, and probably schizophrenia as well. Thus with cause and effect so intertwined (and positive and negative feedbacks both at work) it is no wonder that physicians have to pay so much for malpractice insurance (which is still pretty soft compared with being killed just because your prominent patient gets appendicitis or something).
Don, we have had our differences but I just loved your comments on this thread. We are very lucky to have a philosophy professor on this list.
Thanks again,
Ron Patterson
Don, it is amazing the great minds that period of history produced.
It also seems obvious that most people instinctively avoid rational thought of any variety (using the power of reason only to justify a previously made emotional decision.)
I dissent: ordinary people are very rational in many areas, including (often) their own areas of expertise and their immediate self-interest. I'm not into it, but I hear people analyze baseball games -- very rational arguments.
I am unable to classify all the reasons for departures from reason. But one biggie is denial. If reason leads to a conclusion one finds immensely threatening, then it is denied. Moreover, it is denied very rationally. The person in denial is very sensitive to where logic is leading, and takes evasive action, sometimes extremely skilful action.
Without emotion we cannot reason at all -- because we don't care about anything. It takes caring to put in the effort. But Freud is right on one major point -- there are mental icebergs that we avoid. All of us have these icebergs, just not the same ones.
I have experienced these things with PO to some extent, but much more so with 9-11. If I were energetic and younger, I would write a book just on the psychology of this one event.
Afterthought. I started out in mathematics, long ago. I still return to it when I get depressed or stressed out. Reasoning in this case is a form of escape. Somehow it is easier to carry out chains of reasoning if one does not have an overwhelming stake in the outcome. It's too embarrassing to point out instances of my failures to reason -- and in some cases I am no doubt in denial.
davebygolly - Regarding 9/11. I was happier before I knew and envy those who can still deny. As for escape, astronomy does it for me. The 2003 Hubble ultra deep field is the most significant photo ever taken. One can look at those 10,000 galaxies in a tiny patch of black sky and realize that the failures of H. sapiens don't mean much in the big scheme of things.
Some do, but I would say the vast majority of baseball fans do not. There's considerable friction between the "stat-heads" and the fans who just want to watch the game. And even the stat-heads tend to have their blind spots.
Even when there's money on the line - fantasy baseball - people can be less than rational. Some use astrology and that sort of thing, as well as OPS, VORP, etc.
And of course, baseball fans (and players) are among the most superstitious people in the world. IMO, a natural result of an activity that is highly dependent on luck. See fishermen and gamblers for other examples.
No doubt many people are in denial about something, maybe all of us, but it seems from non scientific observation that Americans are more in denial than Europeans...maybe because of our shorter history and having never been over run by an invading army or our tv culture or our MSM. I think as a nation we are less informed and more niaeve than Europeans. In Europe politics, wars, religion are all fair game for conversation in pubs, while riding trains, or on street corners. In America the refrain is 'never discuss politics or religion.' Isnt that foolish? Since when did an exchange of ideas become taboo? Certainly our founding fathers discussed all these topics and great many more and common people discussed them in toll houses and even in church gatherings. Labor movements, womens sufferage, abolition, all came out of people talking to other people. When did this fear of discussing important topics come into vogue? More important, when will it go away so we can carry on an exchange of ideas again? Maybe the greatest damage that tv has done to America is to limit discourse and channel discussion to the mundane. We are here carrying on discussion on TOD because we want to discuss issues that are important yet if we go anywhere else and attempt to start a conversation about CC, PO, or the economy we will most likely not feel welcome.