Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

"The overall picture in the US Oil Situation is continued production discipline as crude inventories continue in decline. US Gasoline Inventories are lower on during refinery shutdowns for maintenance with available domestic supplies being supplemented by lower exports. US Consumption in recent weeks appears to be reaching higher levels. The volatility in data makes this too early to call."

"Since March 2021, the Total US Crude Inv has fallen 143mil BBL or ~13%. ~70 mil BBL of this decline is in the SPR while the rest comes from the industry working inventory which with this report hit a new low vs. trend-line from 2003."

[iam416]

The Chairman's suspension of leases is another virtue-signaling example. He didn't alter existing production, but he stopped some opportunities for increasing future production. It's not anything that's going to meaninginfully alter existing supply BUT it's a clear sign that The Chairman and the Ds very much want to alter/reduce supply. So, when they get blamed for something that they actually want to happen, I mean, again, it's Politics 101.

[Mike]

Shut up you morons. I have it on good authority that energy policy has no affect on gas prices.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The green virtue signaling is obviously true.

And yes, Biden froze new leases. Then lost in court and resumed leasing federal lands some time last summer. Over the course of 2021 the administration issued a huge number of new drilling permits. There was a big backlog of applications because the Trump admin basically stopped issuing permits for a while when the oil price crashed in the spring of 2020.

OTOH a judge recently nullified a huge Gulf of Mexico lease auction that Biden held in Nov.

Federal judge blocks big Gulf of Mexico oil lease sale over climate change concerns - CBS News

I don't even care about the political blame game or how this plays out with the teeming masses. Obviously the President gets blamed for higher prices at the pump and always will. I'm simply saying that pronouncements that oil/gas production in this country has been dramatically slashed since Jan 2021 are false. My personal feeling is that the administration is attempting to keep the extreme environmental people on their side and hope they don't notice that the on the radical changes they want aren't actually happening.

[iam416]

My personal feeling is that the administration is attempting to keep the extreme environmental people on their side and hope they don't notice that the on the radical changes they want aren't actually happening.

So this is the political rock and hard place The Chairman is in. Right. He wants to virtue signal the fuck out of his Green bona fides, but he also knows that cheap energy is a pretty big deal. I mean, set aside the politics -- from a purely D/Prog point of view, higher gas prices are extremely regressive and even moreseo when more affluent folks can actually WFH whilst not so affluent folks still have to drive their ass to work. So, there's the potential for a huge Green v Cheap Energy tension.

Now, The Chairman doesn't have to create that tension. He can, more or less, say that our solution is better, cleaner CHEAP energy. It doesn't have to be policies or virute-signaling that, in theory, makes cheap energy more expensive. But, that's the path he's chosen. And the policits of that are remarkably straight-forward.

[iam416]

And, I'll note that I get, e.g., the "kids in cages" politics. Yeah, Obama and The Chairman did and are doing the same essential thing. But the political optics of DJT wanting shut down the border at all costs plays into this sense that, yeah, this isn't really a last resort option due to border issues but rather something he actually wants to do. I don't particularly agree with the that, but I'm not fool enough to wonder how on earth DJT gets blamed for certain immigration outcomes and Obama/Chairman would not.

[lineygoblue]

Is CVGT really Jen Psaki?

Well, believe it or not, I have it on good authority that Jen is actually better looking.

Yes, I know. Hard to believe, but its probably true.

I picture CGVT as someone who looks like the offspring of Winston Churchill and Phyllis Diller.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Sooooo....something like this?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'll make some short statements on things I'm picking up on from extensive reading about the war in Ukraine:

• Putin is not going to give up until he gets what he wants is a common thread in everything I'm reading.
• There will be self imposed limits to the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure because Putin is going to want to turn electricity, water and gas back on.
• Best case: Putin gets guarantees that Ukraine will not associate itself with the EU or NATO. He gets recognition that Crimea is part of Russia and so are the Donbas and Luhansk regions.
• Analysts believe that Putin will secure objectives east of the Dniepier River in Ukraine. In effect, he will then control regions that abut the current Russian boarder and Ukrainian territory that abuts the Black Sea. He will hold Odessa the only ice free port where Russian war ships can then have access to the Mediterranean.
• Once he does this, if Ukrainian resistance holds in the western parts of Ukraine including Kiev, he'll negotiate the rest away. This is a good map to orient yourself to this. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/map-explainer-ukraine/
• Putin cannot occupy and pacify Ukraine and some believe that was never an objective. It would take him 800,000 troops to do that.
• Putin's attempts to blackout outside news sources and social media platforms inside Russia is going to produce significant push-back from Russians. It will be large enough that his security forces won't be able to deal with it. What he does in that situation is not predictable.
• Worst case: Putin refuses to negotiate in any meaningful way. Pressures mount outside and inside Russia and he feels trapped. He detonates a tactical nuclear weapon overhead Kiev forcing peach talks on his terms.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Irish man arrested after deliberately knocking down the gates of the Russian Embassy with his truck

Man arrested as truck driven into Russian embassy gates (rte.ie)

[Mike]

Buy him a beer and give him a ticket for loitering.

[Mike]

This is a fun little nugget of info I learned today:

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-m...on-of-ukraine/

Trent Telenko, a retired technical analyst at the U.S. Defense Contracts Management Agency, offered another fascinating assessment of the logistics and terrain challenges Russian forces are facing over at the ChicagoBoyz blog:

The head and first dozen or so kilometers of the southernmost column north of Kiev have been stuck there for EIGHT DAYS. The Russians have since rammed more and more vehicles into this monster traffic jam (idiotically “following the plan” Soviet-style) so the whole thing is now 65-70 kilometers long (almost 40 miles).

And, because the trucks can’t go off-road due to the Rasputitsa mud and tire problems, they’re stuck on the roads and the roads’ shoulders three vehicles wide for the whole @40 miles. That means fuel and resupply trucks can’t move on or off road to deliver anything to anybody.

So all the columns’ heads are now out of fuel and battery power. They can’t move north, south or sideways, and everything behind them is stuck because of the mud, and rapidly running out of fuel and vehicle battery charge too (assuming they haven’t already). Nor can any of those columns defend themselves because they’re too densely packed. They’re just targets waiting for the Ukrainians to destroy them.

Only the Ukrainians had something better to do. They opened the floodgates of reservoirs around those columns to flood them and turn the surrounding areas into impassable quagmires for months – probably until July or August. (See photo below) Probably several thousand Russian vehicles in those columns will be irrecoverable losses. Hundreds of Russian soldiers might have drowned.

This was not just a debacle, but an EPIC one. About one-fifth of the Russian force in Ukraine is now flooded or trapped and are definitely out of the war for good.

Putin's military is horseshit. It's been said that Russia is a gas station with an army. It's quickly being revealed that it's an army without gas. At this point I even wonder that if/when Putin orders someone to turn the keys, will a missile even shoot out of the tube? I wouldn't give that asshole a single goddamn concession. The more this drags on, the more it is apparent he's a paper tiger and quite possibly insane. His forces can easily be routed back to Mother Russia... if only the West had some balls.

[iam416]

This very, very clearly underscores the dangers posed by a nutjob with nukes. It's why Obama, and now The Chairman, are so massively dipshitted in their dealings with Iran. The Chairman is going to grab his ankles in no time to play his role as the Ayatollah's Cock Holster. And it will be a disaster.

[iam416]

Also, Geraghty's column (which included the Russians stuck in mud portion) also notes that it's gonna be pretty tough to kill Putin. So, maybe that's not particularly realistic.

Geraghty also noted that Russia, in addition to oil, is fairly important for global food production. It's not necessarily our problem b/c, well, we produce a fuckton of food (and we have a fuckton of cheap energy if we really want it). But, isolating Russia will cut down on the global food supply which will undoubtedly harm the weaker piglets eating last.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's briefly noted in the Geraghty column but he said something I mentioned last week. Every day this drags on Putin has to be aware that China could be "reevaluating" their future relationship.