Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Obi-Jon]

Just saw a Ukrainian broadcast with captured orcs. Seems Putin is going into Stalin mode. Advance or be shot for retreating. Can human wave assaults be far behind? Seems the conscripts would rather surrender than be a Hero of the Motherland.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I reported earlier today that Ukrainian jets had attacked Kherson airfield inflicting damage to Russian aircraft and hanger facilities. We now know that 7 Russian helos were destroyed. Interestingly, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that they had located and destroyed a large supply of munitions for the Ukranian army at Kherson. As was seen on the overhead imagery, what was the obvious large fire and smoke clouds coming from? A Russian re-supply point discovered and hit by Ukrainian jets or a Ukrainian supply point "located and destroyed" by the Russians? Take a guess.

And this news:

Ukrainian Forces claimed to have killed the commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army’s 150th Motor Rifle Division near Mariupol on March 15. If confirmed, General Miyaev would be the fourth Russian general officer killed in Ukraine; his death would be a major blow to the 150th Motor Rifle Division, Russia’s principal maneuver unit in Donbas.

There have been reports that the Russian Navy has 14 ships positioned east of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast and thought to be capable of launching an amphibious assault on Odessa, However, they lack the land bridge of communication they need between the Donbas region and Odessa - a bridge that Russian forces have been unable to gain entering the 3rd week of combat operations - so that adequate ground support for an amphibious assault is obtained (see above of General Miyaev's death). Such an operation, without adequate ground and air support, confronted by Ukrainian resistance, could turn out to be a major catastrophe for the Russians. Fearful of that, it does not look like it will happen over the next week if at all. The 150th Motor Rifle Division that just lost their Commanding General is the unit responsible for securing the land bridge. How's their fighting spirit.

While we continue to see the depressingly horrible videos of the suffering the Russians are inflicting by the commission of obvious war crimes targeting civilians in Mariupol and elsewhere, things are not going well at all for Russian forces who are getting hammered by the Ukrainian forces and have resorted to terror tactics by artillery and cruise missile fire. Since the focus of reporting from the MSM is all about women, children and the elderly being killed and savagely injured, you'd expect to be depressed about Ukrainian's holding out. Military Analytics from the Critical Threats Project present a much appreciated picture of the Russian failures in the battle space that are directly contributing to their inability to reach military objectives.

[Jeff Buchanan]

As I posted yesterday, things aren't going well for the Russian forces in Ukraine. Putin's remarks yesterday about "treasonous traitors" who are being manipulated by the west suggest an increasingly frustrated and potentially feeling caged Russian president who controls a sophisticated nuclear arsenal of intercontinental and tactical nuclear weapons. Let's talk about that.

I've written before that conventional warfare, the kind going on inside Ukraine, is guided by doctrine that is different from nuclear warfare. The later is understood by all sides to involve different doctrine that involves "trip wires" or events perceived by any side that threaten the state or it's leadership. Up until the start of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Russian trip wires were fairly clear, e.g., NATO forces attack Russia and threaten the state's existence or it's leadership, Russia could respond with nuclear weapons. Russian defense officials, within the last 5 years, have written extensively about using a signle strike with a tactical nuclear weapon, possibly a demonstration of it's use fired into an uninhabited area, as a preemptive method to demonstrate resolve and to preempt a NATO incursion into Russia. As long as the military situation in Europe remained stable, the west understood the trip wire and if it were breached, what Russia would probably do. A classic nuclear deterrent in it's own right.

Things have changed with Putin's invasion of Ukraine and so have trip wires which are, right now, not clearly understood. The risk of miscalculation of intent and escalation are as high as, probably higher, than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. Would the creation of a NATO managed no-fly zone over Ukraine, which to be effective would entail engaging Russian air defenses in Ukraine and possibly air bases in Russia itself, be perceived as a threat to the Russian state and/or its leadership? Undoubtedly it would. Would the imposition of sanctions that are likely perceived by Putin as a means to destroy Russia's economy and cause the collapse of the Russian state as a threat to the Russian state and/or its leadership? I think we are already there.

Some observers believe we are already at war with NATO's proxy forces inside Ukraine engaged with Russian forces. Putin undoubtedly sees the build-up of NATO forces on it's eastern flank and the flow of weapons from the west through NATO countries and into Ukraine as a threat to, at the very least his military operations in Ukraine, and more than likely a threat to his survival and the viability of the Russian state should he face a humiliating defeat there. He's a realist. He can see things are moving in that direction. Will he respond with a single nuclear strike in Ukraine's battle space as his defense ministers have recently described as a preemptive one? I think the chances are good and that is why, while I may wish for Putin's face to be rubbed in it, that's not a smart thing to do.

The goal of NATO and the west right now, should be the prevention of a single strike tactical nuclear weapon being deployed by Russia and the likely tit for tat escalation that would entail. Is Putin holding a nuclear gun to NATO's head? IMO, most assuredly he is. Some experts on nuclear warfare doctrine I'm reading think Putin is not suicidal and the old standby doctrine of mutually assured destruction plays with him as a force on force possibility he understands. OTH, some think Putin is dangerously irrational. Unfortunately, how he acts within the next month or so to his impending failure in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions that are cutting off Russia and threatening the collapse of the state is a coin flip.

This is the article that you may be able to get to through a paywall that prompted this post:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/w...smid=url-share

[iam416]

Charles Cooke on Kamala's almost impossible-to-believe vapidity: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/...tm_term=second

As if to put to rest forever all of those ticklish inquiries about Providence, the grave and trying moment in which we now find ourselves has brought with it a hero capable of rivaling any other. Her name is Vice President Kamala Harris, and she is to the nugatory platitude what Michelangelo was to the marble block: All challengers flee before her, all pretenders quit their thrones at the mere mention of her name. Listen carefully and one can hear the desperation as the most accomplished rattlebrains in America issue condign sighs of dismay. How talented is Harris? Talented enough to make the inanities uttered by her rival Pete Buttigieg sound substantive, concise, and apprehensible. Talented enough to make Dan Quayle seem like Pericles. Talented enough to make Marjorie Taylor Greene remind one of top-form Jane Austen. Never, in the field of human rhetoric, has an experiment in political growth been such a spectacular and unmitigated bust.

To the uninitiated, Harris’s exquisite bromides may seem all to run together, like The Ring Cycle or Ulysses. And yet, as the Eskimo is able to distinguish between 400 types of snow, so the experienced Harris-watcher will learn to differentiate between the many innovative ways in which she is able to convey that she has no damned idea what she’s talking about. The key, counterintuitively, is to look not at what Harris says — that is fruitless — but at what her tone and vocabulary say about the vibe for which she’s aiming. When discussing energy, Harris has in mind a vague, albeit wholly unanchored, futurism. Thus we get sentences such as, “That’s why we’re here today — because we have the ability to see what can be, unburdened by what has been, and then to make the possible actually happen.” On foreign policy, Harris wishes to project a sobriety that is half-Churchill-in-the-House-of-Commons and half-Brutus-delivering-his-funeral-oration, but, because she has not done the reading and rarely knows where she is, she ends up sounding like a punch-drunk Napoleon at the opening of a suburban toy store. “I am here,” Harris said last week, an ersatz frown rippling awkwardly across her face, “standing here on the northern flank, on the eastern flank, talking about what we have in terms of the eastern flank and our NATO allies, and what is at stake at this very moment — what is at stake this very moment are some of the guiding principles . . .” On medicine, she, well, who knows, frankly? “This virus,” she has said. “It has no eyes.”

Glad we cleared that up.

With the possible exception of the amusement that is signaled by her cackling, Harris’s most frequently expressed emotion is surprise. “I mean, listen, guys,” she demanded in Munich a few weeks ago, barely stifling a duuuuuuude. “We’re talking about the potential for war in Europe!” Subsequently asked by a radio host to elaborate “in layman’s terms, for people who don’t understand what’s going on,” Harris took her exposition all the way down to the studs. “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe,” she floated, before proceeding as if by “layman’s terms,” her interlocutor had meant that she should assume he didn’t know what a country was. “It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for.”

She really is astounding. I mean, I knew that. I knew that the Ds rejected her HARD after, well, being a presumptive favorite. But, good lord, I didn't realize how amazingly, well, stupid she would sound -- at almost every turn. Her consistency is really, really impressive.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Arnold put together a really good 9 minute video intended to get distributed where Russians may (hopefully) see it. Worth the time to watch it.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Keep in mind...Giggles didn't get a single delegate in the primaries in 2020. Not. A. Single. One. She was chosen by Chairman Poopypants for two reasons. Her skin tone and her vagina.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Even Mayor Pete got 21 delegates. And Amy Klobuchar (who the fuck is that?) got 7 delegates. Giggles got ZERO.

She was rejected by her own fucking party.

Identity politics. Gotta love it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well since you feel that way get down on your heathen knees, you lout, and pray for the continued good health of Honest Joe Biden, Chairman of the People.

[Tom W]

Sucks being us.. thanks to the self-loathing dems who think that we deserve these assclowns.

[froot loops]

You had your boy Trump for 4 years and you might get Komrade Donald again.

[Tom W]

And just like that on cue- it all comes back to Trump.

It's all about Trump.
But they're NOT obsessed.

[Da Geezer]

WSJ had an interesting article on the 15th dealing with why rig counts and production of O+G have not reacted very much to the great increase in prices. Here is an excerpt:



On the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, crude oil prices jumped above $100 a barrel, and the average cost of U.S. gasoline has surpassed $4 a gallon. Yet domestic oil production has barely budged over the past two years and remains stuck below 12 million barrels a day, 10% to 15% below the pre-pandemic high.

OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH

The total U.S. oil rig count has bounced back, but only to roughly 75% of the recent peak in March 2020. Major U.S. shale producers, particularly ones in the Permian Basin of Texas, have a break-even oil price close to $30 a barrel, so why isn’t American supply responding to price signals from the global market?

First and foremost, U.S. shale got a wake-up call about its business model in 2020. That’s when the combination of an OPEC+ oil-market-share battle and pandemic lockdowns briefly turned crude oil prices negative and decimated the energy sector, driving more than 100 North American oil and gas companies into bankruptcy by year end.

After largely giving lip service to shareholder activists following the 2014 shale crash, almost every U.S. energy company has also embraced the need for capital spending restraint and generating free cash flow rather than simply expanding production. Flat or up slightly (5% or less) is the new production growth paradigm, and living within cash flow is paramount. This fiscal discipline held through 2021 even as crude oil prices doubled and continues to hold despite a roughly $30-a-barrel price jump since the beginning of 2022.

---

Last year energy rebounded from the annus horribilis of 2020 and became the best-performing sector in the U.S. equity and debt markets. Energy-company management teams don’t want to rock this boat, especially given regulatory clouds looming over the industry.

Feeding into the U.S. industry’s self-imposed choke valve on aggregate oil volumes is the outlook for restricted drilling growth and market access in coming years, which is where the Biden administration’s anti-fossil-fuel policies come into play.

U.S. oil and gas producers need to extend their drilling inventories and permit runways further into the future because the Biden White House is canceling or slow-walking leases on federal lands while clawing back acreage for national monuments. The administration also is taking advantage of environmental and endangered-species statutes to curtail drilling on private land. New energy infrastructure projects—including interstate pipelines and liquefied natural gas export facilities—are subject to a global climate test, a charge for the social cost of carbon and environmental-justice standards. All this will have a chilling effect on new projects and further reinforce industry consolidation.

The main risk to the industry over the next decade is not the potential for oil and gas demand to go down because of the global energy transition away from fossil fuels. It is the high likelihood of more energy supply-chain bottlenecks created by government officials. A supply-constrained scenario would be bullish for oil prices, giving producers even more incentive to keep hydrocarbon reserves in the ground now to produce them at higher realized prices down the road. As seen by the four legally paralyzed years of the Trump administration, even if Republicans regain the White House in 2024, not much would change with regard to the inexorable march toward 2030, the year of the climate rapture set by the United Nations.

____

The market is saying that the climate change religion will cause future oil to be more valuable than present oil, so that makes the O+G companies keep it in the ground. But the reason I posted this is that the commentary adds another factor that I have not seen; being the oil crash of March 2020. The price of oil went negative (and Trump filled the strategic reserve) it had a powerful market effect on the companies' view of future production. The market feels like there could be shocks to O+G similar to the one in 2020, and that oil in the ground is going to be worth MORE in the future. This is opposite of the "withering away" of O+G production envisioned by the Greenies.

[Obi-Jon]

Tom, it's simply a response to Biden Derangement Syndrome. You're complaining about having assclowns when we previously suffered with treasonous grifters. Yes it is uncomfortable now, but was far worse before. Perhaps we will put the USA back on track with no candidates in 2024 named Biden, Harris, AOC, Trump, DeSantis, or Pompeo.

[froot loops]

And just like that on cue- it all comes back to Trump.

It's all about Trump.
But they're NOT obsessed.

Well yeah, he is the alternative. The impeachment was all about Ukraine. Remember he is the undisputed front runner and he has the nomination if he wants it

You will pull the lever for him in 2024 and you probably rue the fact that he and Guilani couldn't manufacturer enough Hunter Biden dirt to disqualify Biden for another Trump term. If that would have happened Vladimir would have been free to take over Ukraine.

[Hannibal]

There has been minimal to no investment in oil and gas for about five years. Everyone in the business knows that its days are numbered. It's not surprising that the domestic industry is ill-equipped to handle a shock to the supply. Any investment is likely to be stranded, and our oil and gas companies got hit massively in the pocketbook as a result of the disastrous lockdowns and Covid panic. Obama's CAFE standards and state LCFS programs have ensured that our energy industry dies a slow death while consumers wrestle with increasing fuel prices.