The Oil Drum

32 comments on Peak Oil Media 8-10-07

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mr f on August 11, 2007 - 5:03pm

Even establishment rags like Foreign Affairs are trashing the ethanol madmen--just a couple months ago there was a scathing critique of biofuels that Kudlow probably read while out in the Hamptons.

People don't appreciate the range and spectrum of varying "sides" one can take on anything. For the most part, yeah, I usually think "woah, there's that Kudlow again--what a jackass." (Usually while standing in line at Bank of America.) However, this time I found myself nodding my head in agreement... Well, that is last time--since, alas, I didn't watch it again. And to be perfectly honest, I never really have watched Kudlow more than an hour cumulatively in my lifetime (thus far)... Perhaps I just got a bad hours worth, and in fact he's a really great guy.

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oilmanbob on August 11, 2007 - 9:19pm

mr f,

your first impressions are often the best, especially when I agree with them! (sarcanol alert!) I do think that you're denigrating a useful farm animal, though.

Kudlow is a jingoist and a partisan first. The Democratic Energy Bill that Bush has threatened to veto relies on subsidies for ethanol as a major part of the bill, so he's trying to soften up the "conservatives", who consider themselves on the side of "family farmers", or drugstore cowboys as we call them in Texas.

I think we've pretty much come to a concensus here that ethanol subsidies are shockingly bad policy because of a very small energy gain.Its just turning natural gas and diesel into a lower quality fuel at a huge cost.

Just because the "conservatives" at MSNBC have come to the same conclusion doesn't mean its not bad policy. This is a pretty good illustration of how we can let partisanship get in the way of good energy policy. Every partisan in both parties is focused on the Iowa caucus right now, and the Midwest is pro ethanol. The car companies want it so they can keep selling SUV's, and big agribusiness and the farmers want it because they smell money ,they smell money ! The Neocons oppose it because they haven't been paid and its a Democratic plot. If the Democrats are able to pass a good policy while the Bushites couldn't in seven years, it makes them look negligent.

So this is my thought. We have to keep good energy policy independent of partisanship. Energy independence is a necessity for the military and economic security. Our parties have to rise above jingoism. Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett and Randy Udall have a bipartisan peak oil caucus, and thats the only position that will work to sell a permanent major change. Its a real chance to unify our country and work towards a new paridigm. Let's take it! Bob Ebersole

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mr f on August 11, 2007 - 11:35pm

That's a good synopsis of the media-ethanol-political-worm-hole (or MEPWH--sort of sounds as if someone just slap you upside the head, does it not?)

I couldn't have said it better myself. I particularly agree with the fact that more bipartisan effort is direly needed--unfortunately it will probably not come to pass because cultist ideologues, BAU and realpolitik trump it (not to mention, the root of all evil, money.) Anyway, we'll "respond" after the "attack", that's how it usually works...

How and in what form the attack comes in, and how we irrationally respond--who knows. Detecting the possibilities doesn't take a lot of creativity. It is easy enough to just get started with mere conservative spectacles of one obsessed with the threatening antics and gory violence of Jihadists and the crazy bastards that make our nutzo Christians look like the Easter Bunny. The GWOT is not just PR, although it is often convenient to use it as such in this banal world of meaningless news cycles. Then there are nation-states, financial markets, corporations, groups of individuals, individuals and lots of weapons and methodologies and power structures spread amongst them. Overseeing them you've supposedly got the seemingly incompetent governments of the world (my working axiom here is that governments are incompetent, I hope I'm allowed this...) Or it can just as easily simply be an issue of PO, and decline rates--geological or ELM politically induced declines. Even weather could wreak havoc in the Gulf of Mexico again (lets hope not!) I'm just saying, this foot dragging has been going on a long, long, long time. And it has a basic explanation which is that telling people the truth is not what they want to hear. People who believe otherwise are naive. People? They want fantasies, dreams, they want immortality, they want money, love, sex, joy, happiness, comfort, and they want wishful thinking, bigoted scapegoating, ideological cornering, endless debate with no result, accusatory smearing, he said she said talking head frivolity--discord, violence even. Yes, clearly, violence. When everything else stops working, the last resort is always... Have you read the news lately? These things, of course, are not universal in human nature--but they are strong, and if spurred they can take ugly forms. Our culture seems to spur them on in a barrage of unrelenting focus, between the shopping, video gaming, watching the war news and other TV extravaganza, driving to and fro, listening to Talk, working, praying to baby jesus, towing the Slashdot line, and checking the portfolio--hell, there is barely enough time to sleep.

I hope you're right about this "new paradigm", I hope we go through peak oil and our future as civilly as possible, that both parties can stop chanting their mantras and try addressing the issues. There is only one problem--and that is I don't see that happening. I hate to say it, but these potential executive branch Democrats really seem ass-backwards lousy, every last one of them (plus Pillsbury Doughboy Bill Richardson--no one bring him up to deny me my pigeon-holing these god awful Democrats, he may be the worst opportunist of them all). I'd much rather take the most moderate Republican and have the GOP really take the fall here than allow these excuses for candidates take the hit for "the Left", when they don't even represent "us". I don't think people should pussyfoot around when it comes to politics... I see a lot of it these days, but I guess it's always been like this... Alas, I just got here, so I'm still a little bit pissed because this all seems new to me, politically speaking that is... But I'm a quick learn and have come to peace with the fact American politics is desperately dysfunctional, and that one will only gather a nebulous understanding of how such idiocy functions.

Best hopes for a surge of bipartisanship and real progress, and a decline in zealotry and ignorance...

Tall hopes, but cheers.

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john macklin on August 12, 2007 - 5:09pm

Always a pleasure to read your longer posts, Mr F. They're William Faulkner meets Frank Rich by way of Oliver Stone. This is a compliment. They border on revelation and straddle the fine line of thought, emotion and expression, but I think I'll just highlight the last hope

Best hopes for a surge of bipartisanship and real progress, and a decline in zealotry and ignorance...

Cheers to you.

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mr f on August 14, 2007 - 3:11pm

Well, I've never read Faulkner (I should), and I don't pay for Times Select, so I've not been able to read Frank Rich (although I've flipped through his book at the store). I'm guilty of watching some bromidic Stone movies in my day, but who isn't? For that matter, I'm guilty of my own bromides--that's probably where you detect the tenuous connection... Alas, who isn't?

I appreciate the complement nonetheless, and I do try to walk a fine line, for what it's worth...

Bottles up! (Water bottles, that is, for now.)

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john macklin on August 16, 2007 - 3:19am

So had I done a little homework sooner (but why) I would have realized why you don't pay for Times Select , already TMI, and the Faulkner reference was a Thomas Mann 'continuous motion of thought' thing they used to try to teach me before I dropped out as an 'English Major' and reemerged a rocket scientist. Couldn't get the Mann thing coherent at the time and forever remembering reading As I lay Dying as a boy your flow struck that chord, but of course that's already again TMI.

Let's say your flow is a.. tad higher than I run across here (not that I'm saying you're not a bullshitter) but again TMI LOL EIEIO.

With intimate connection to New York County and familiarity of some but certainly not all the gin joints in the safer parts (watch out for the irish), perhaps in that NY moment kind of way I’ll pass on a return from the bathroom to my seat at the bar near my wife and her friends and in a glimpse register a screen of orange and elephant but with triple time coincidence snap towards the sound of glass on glass from behind the counter and… that's it. Otherwise, see ya on the radio.

And yes, I'm well aware of the wisdom of dropping the English major thing. Best to do what you're good at.

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