We could kiss Saudi goodbye: VERY cool news on the fuel front

The boys at Shell R&D have been busy: "a billion barrels a square mile" would make the United States energy independent until the end of time. From Rocky Mountain News via Scripps:

...Since 1981, Shell researchers at the company's division of "unconventional resources" have been spending their own money trying to figure out how to get usable energy out of oil shale. Judging by the presentation the Rocky Mountain News heard this week, they think they've got it.

Shell's method, which it calls "in situ conversion," is simplicity itself in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution. Terry O'Connor, a vice president for external and regulatory affairs at Shell Exploration and Production, explained how it's done (and they have done it, in several test projects):

Drill shafts into the oil-bearing rock. Drop heaters down the shaft. Cook the rock until the hydrocarbons boil off, the lightest and most desirable first. Collect them.

Please note, you don't have to go looking for oil fields when you're brewing your own.

On one small test plot about 20 feet by 35 feet, on land Shell owns, they started heating the rock in early 2004. "Product" - about one-third natural gas, two-thirds light crude - began to appear in September 2004. They turned the heaters off about a month ago, after harvesting about 1,500 barrels of oil.

While we were trying to do the math, O'Connor told us the answers. Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado, covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world.

Wow.

There's plenty more at the story's main link. This may be the first really good news on this kind of front to report in a long, long time.

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Chief Justice Rehnquist has died

I saw him preside over a Supreme Court case in January 1997. I heard from a lot of people who worked there that he was a really nice guy. A real gentleman through and through.

The bad news just keeps coming lately, it seems. A good man is gone.

I hope people are mindful about that.

This sounds horrible, but I'm wondering how long it will be before "the ghouls" come out relishing the now-vacant Supreme Court seat.

EDIT 11:22 PM EST: Well, that didn't take too long...

Hey. LiferjJudge Ginsberg doesn't look so hot either and may have to be carried out of the Supreme Court building feet first. She'll die with her boots (are made for walking) on. Then GW will get a threefer

That is honestly the #1 thing on their minds right now, believe it or not.

EDIT 11:26 PM EST: That was from Free Republic. There's also this one from Liberty Post:

Bush will get a minimum of 4 picks. Ginsburg and that old guy (Stevens?) will be next.

And this one...

A good man. God, I wish it had been that satanic witch BaderGinsburg instead.

EDIT 11:29 PM EST: I'm not even gonna bother linking to anything from Democratic Underground. There is some real nastiness going on there right now. I did take a look in there and... it's disgusting folks, trust me.

I'd be more ashamed of how some on Free Republic and Liberty Post are treating this. There are some people on those boards practically wringing their hands with delight that there's an opportunity for "their kind" of Supreme Court justice to be appointed.

Funny, but I never thought Supreme Court justices should be "conservative" or "liberal". They should have but one mindset: an abiding love for the Constitution and the desire to interpret it as best as God might guide them. It's not an office for political opportunism.

But hey, what do I know: I'm just a guy with a blog.

Rehnquist was on the court that ruled in Roe v. Wade, I just realized. Turns out he was in the minority on that one, even writing the dissenting opinion. That's the kind of justice I would rather see: a believer in judicial restraint.

I seriously doubt that either of the two sides now lining up is very much interested in that, though.

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"Plan? You mean there was a PLAN?!"

City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan pertaining to hurricanes.

I'm wondering how much of this was actually followed-through on.

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So Bush is selling crude oil from the strategic reserve...

...to supposedly help with the fuel shortage.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The problem is not so much supply right now as it is a refining problem. Simply putting more crude out there on the market is not going to have any significant effect on gasoline prices.

I've no idea why he would do such a thing, but there it is, defying all wisdom regarding petroleum economics.

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The New Orleans situation as a model of American government

That's practically what's being argued at Enemy Of The State blog right now. Is what's going on truly "Anarchy in New Orleans??" Here's a sample:

Friends of mine have come up to me with almost gleeful self-righteousness and proclaimed,"SEE! SEE! This is why Anarchy can't work!"

Ironically what is going on in New Orleans (specifically the looting of private property) resembles the behavior of Government and not philosophical Anarchism.

Philosophical Anarchism holds private property as sacred and Government has utter contempt for it. The State's total existence depends on the looting of the citizenry.

What we have on full display in New Orleans is what happens when you put full trust in collective solutions for protection of life, liberty, and property.

You get substantial loss of life, liberty, and property.

There's some good thoughts here, I have to admit.

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KWerky Productions website is down at the moment

Ed asked me to make a note of this a few days ago and it somehow got lost in the jumble of things. The KWerky Productions website (including the Forcery website) is currently down because of a physical relocation of the server. It should be back up and running fairly soon though. This is happening because of a development that is seeing KWerky Productions branch out a bit in terms of what we can and want to do. More on that later. In the meantime just hold your horses and we should be back online soon enough :-)

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This bar never closed (uplifting Katrina story)

The Toronto Star has a story about a bar in New Orleans's French Quarter that rode out Katrina and is still doing business! This place will become bigtime legendary if the city ever comes out of this, like Cafe du Monde (which I understand is still standing and could recover pretty easily). Here's the start of the story:

Doors never closed at this Big Easy bar

ROSIE DIMANNO

The sign behind the bar says "Never Closed."

That ain't no lie, cher.

At Johnny White's Sports Bar, the weathered oak doors were flung wide open yesterday, as they have been throughout the sweaty days and crazy nights since Hurricane Katrina pummelled this magnificent, gallant and eternally buoyant city.

This was, as far as I could find, the only such establishment in the French Quarter — possibly the only establishment in all of New Orleans — still doing business. It's not business as usual, but damn near close to it. An oasis of conviviality in a metropolis that is waterlogged, without power, and officially locked down. Locked down, as in martial law imposed. Locked down, as in short-tempered cops patrolling the city, bellowing out from their cruisers: "Get the hell off the street!"

But at the decidedly downscale Johnny White's, a clutch of regulars remain defiantly perched on their stools at the tiny, knife-scarred bar, joined here by an influx of hurricane refugees who have managed to wash ashore at a saloon that sailed through the storm with all its facilities intact. "The beer's warm," shrugs one bearded, funky-smelling patron. "But have one on me."

Nice to see that some uplifting stories are starting to come out of this mess :-)

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Another good piece by Kyle Williams at WorldNetDaily

Now, if only WorldNetDaily would make it so you don't have to dig through the site to find it. Williams went from being one of the most at-the-forefront writers WND has, to being someone... ahhhh forget it I've ranted about this enough already. Head over here to see what Kyle has to say about some Christians who think Katrina was an enema sent by God.

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Found a better picture of Jabbar Gibson

Somebody commented on the earlier post that Jabbar should drive the bus back to New Orleans and take over as mayor :-) If you're just now hearing about it, Jabbar Gibson is a 20-year old (not 18 as previously reported) from New Orleans who stole a schoolbus, picked up victims of Katrina and drove them all the way to the Houston Astrodome. Theirs was the first busload of evacuees to arrive. This guy is my favorite hero to come out of this so far. Anyway, here's Jabbar in the driver's seat as his bus arrived...HoustonChronicle.com has a full story about Jabbar's taking the initiative.

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So... who was at fault for the destruction of New Orleans?

I've been thinking about that a lot during the past few days, and the conclusion I'm coming to is...

...that it was nobody's fault, but a lot of people were not adequately prepared for this.

If anyone, blame the French, or one lousy Frenchman anyway...

...Because Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Sieur de Bienville - the founder of New Orleans - conned the King of France to making all the cheap swampland that he swiped up near the mouth of the Mississippi be the new capital of French Louisiana. As New Orleans grew Bienville sold his parcels of land at outrageously higher prices than what he acquired it for. So New Orleans was a town born of a corrupt politician... and it looks like his lack of vision is going to be darn near the death of it too.

Feels weird to see that after writing it just less than a year ago.

I've seen a lot of reports blaming the New Orleans disaster on President George W. Bush. That he took away from the budget the funds that would have improved and reinforced the levees. I don't know if it's fair to blame that on him though: even if levee improvements had begun in 2001, it's been calculated that it would take twenty-five years to complete the entire project. I think a lot of things have been botched at the federal level so far as disaster relief goes - things that were far more expedited last year in Florida, f'rinstance - but in regard to the levees, I really can't put total blame on him for this. It was unwise to practically defund the measures, however. But in terms of time to do this, the levees couldn't have been redone even if Bush poured five times the requested budget into doing this.

I'm most tempted to blame the local politicians, namely Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. Nagin especially: he really blew his chance to show leadership qualities on Saturday, two days before the storm hit. He actually conferred with the lawyers to see if he could declare a mandatory evacuation. It had never been done before in New Orleans history. It was unprecedented... but then a situation like Katrina was unprecedented also. This could have been Nagin's moment to take the initiative and earnestly try to get everybody out of town. Who cares about what the lawyers would have thought at this point? I think a lot of New Orleans people honestly thought there was nothing to worry about, that Katrina would change course, because of the city's reluctance to evacuate. A lot of them kept on partying even as the storm lay just off the coast. This is what the history books are going to judge Ray Nagin by, I'm afraid. Blanco showed a similar lack of leadership potential leading up to the storm: she failed to have adequate resources available to handle the situation. Among other things I've heard that the decision to impose "contraflow" on the highways leading out of town actually hampered some rescue/relocation efforts. She also failed to do enough to prompt people to evacuate, it could be judged.

That's how I see things as they relate to the actual hurricane. As far as now goes, it's too early to tell... but I've been disappointed in all three of the above mentioned people. Anderson Cooper was right when he confronted Lousiana Senator Mary Landrieu: the people of New Orleans do not want to hear politicians thanking and congratulating each other while they're starving to death and rats eating dead bodies in the streets. So far that's all the elected officials seem to be doing: posturing for the cameras, and blaming each other. It's way past time for the adults to take over in this situation.

But, ultimately, none of these people are going to be blamed for this. New Orleans was in a horrible geographical situation, and it played Russian roulette with the coming of each new hurricane season. This time it finally happened to get the bullet. It was an act of God, whatever His will was with regards to that once-great city. If any of us here on Earth are at fault, it is only in that we proudly have too much faith in ourselves, instead of remembering that despite all our abilities we are yet at the mercy of forces far beyond our control.

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August activity made for a busy blog

I just looked through all the posts made in the previous month and August 2005 was the most active one yet: 70 posts total. This past month covered hit on just about everything. There were a lot of them toward the end as Katrina bore down and the aftermath, but otherwise it's a nice normal peek into the tortured psyche of me :-)

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PaleoBlog on pro-war hypocrites

Lee Shelton posts a good essay about pro-war hypocrisy on PaleoBlog. Here's a sample:

Over the last four years, the message sent by neoconservatives to the rest of the nation has been clear: Get behind the Bush administration's "war on terror" or be prepared to face the consequences. But when the grieving mother of a fallen U.S. soldier tops the neoconservative most wanted list of treasonous, terrorist-sympathizing, America-haters, you know something's up.

To paraphrase the Bard, "Methinks the neocons doth protest too much." Perhaps their violent outbursts against criticism of the war in Iraq are nothing more than feeble attempts to draw attention away from their blatant hypocrisy.

(p.s.: if anything, yes, I would have to consider myself to be a paleo-conservative. But that's not fashionable these days, is it?)

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Video games becoming too easy?

AfterShock posts on his blog on an interesting phenomenon: are video games becoming a pushover to play? One of the things he cites is Super Mario Brothers 3 on the original Nintendo system, that it had no "save" feature so you had to play through the entire game in one sitting. Anyway I thought it and the article he found was pretty neat reading so check it out.

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Teen steals school bus to get others out of New Orleans

Give this kid a medal now! From Local6.com:

Storm Victims Steal School Buses To Flee New Orleans

POSTED: 12:13 pm EDT September 2, 2005
UPDATED: 12:52 pm EDT September 2, 2005

Several school buses were stolen from Orleans Parish, loaded with storm victims and driven out of New Orleans toward Houston in desperate acts to leave the ravaged city, according to reports.

Three school buses were stopped Thursday night in Port Allen, La., just west of Baton Rouge after they were stolen, according to WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. The evacuees were placed on other buses and transferred to shelters in Texas.

An 18-year-old also decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an abandoned city school bus and drove storm victims to Texas, according to a CNN report.

The teen driver, Jabbar Gibson, 18, said he had never driven a bus before but wanted to save people.

"If it wasn't for him, we'd still be in New Orleans on the Gulf," bus passenger Randy Nathan said. "He got the bus for us."

Authorities allowed the renegade passengers inside the Astrodome but Gibson could find himself in trouble after taking the school bus.

If they prosecute Jabbar for taking the initiative - that elected politicians refused to show - there oughtta be hell to pay. Way to go Jabbar Gibson!

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This might explain where Dick Cheney has been...

Halliburton just landed a contract to repair Navy installations in the Gulf. Whatcha wanna bet Cheney's been working behind the scenes the past few days getting all the paperwork in order for this?

Whatcha wanna bet that this was a non-competitive bid, too?

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Was New Orleans aid held back for a Bush photo op?

I'm getting several reports (including this one and this, Interdictor's blog which has been an invaluable source of firsthand information) that supplies of food and fresh water had been brought to New Orleans already. But the National Guard was under orders not to begin distributing them. They only started going in with the supplies today when President Bush arrived. They could have started rolling into the Superdome and Convention Center areas yesterday if not earlier (or they could have just airdropped them in from helicopter) but they were held back.

So it must be asked: was this conveniently timed to "coincide" with Bush's arrival?

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George W. Bush is officially worse than useless now

I'm "watching" him on teevee right now (which actually means that I've got my back to the screen so I'm only listening to what happens, without the visuals distracting me). No leadership qualities coming out of the President of the United States at all. He's congratulating a lot of other politicians, saying a lot of broken phrases, is stumbling for words. I heard that just before flying out he did a White House appearance and said there's be "millions of tons" of food flown in (does he even know what he's saying?). He's in the Gulf coast area right now, will be taking a flying tour of Alabama and Mississippi and apparently will do another high flyover of New Orleans later today. In other words he's not seeing what's going on firsthand.

A year ago he was much faster in helping out Florida after it got wracked by its hurricanes. Not only that but he actually got on the ground and was shown handing out ice to people after they got hit by Hurricane Ivan.

But I guess when it's not an election year it doesn't matter, right? No way around it: last year's response was political posturing. This year, we're seeing the real George W. Bush. We are seeing a man who has avoided real responsibility all his life, has either handed the task over to "someone else" or botched it completely and found somebody to put the blame on. He's gotten by on family status and political connections. And now there's something that he finally can't spin away or cast blame on: this time the buck really does stop at George W. Bush's desk. And without anyone to bail him out, we are seeing how ineffective and incompetent he is as President... just as he's been ineffective and incompetent all his life.

I know I said I'd lay off so much hurricane commenting earlier but this has to be said for all time, for sake of anybody who might ever find this: George W. Bush is now the worst President that the United States has ever had. Everyone is seeing it now. Even people who don't usually follow politics are seeing how foolish this man really is. Twenty years from now anyone who admits that they supported Bush is going to be spat upon and ridiculed... bank on it.

EDIT: This seems to be as good a time as any to post this graphic that someone sent me yesterday. In true Nero fashion, as New Orleans was drowning our President was strumming a guitar and eating cake...

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