this will shut down most of the west coast.
it is the announcement that $100+ crude has arrived.
watch and see how many others announce similar functional problems.
this is the henry kissinger, richard nixon scheme of the first disruption of crude oil suppies in 1973. it was intended to take the electorates' eye off of watergate.
this disruption will derive from a similar idea. reptillian/demtillian - congressional - corruption will become overlooked if there is a shut-down in the amerikan economy because of a shortage of hydrocarbons.
few wanted to talk about that then. my guess is that few will be talking about it now.
i wonder if this crisis will be shutting down primary elections?
hmmmmmmmm.
Posted by albertchampion at August 6, 2006 10:03 PMSounds like a good excuse for the oil companies to raise gas prices!
Posted by at August 6, 2006 11:21 PMtake notice that it occurred two days before the Connecticut election
Posted by at August 6, 2006 11:23 PMOT
If Lyndon Johnson were alive today, he would tell us Democrats how to beat the crap out of the Republicans. There is a story about Johnson from his halcyon political days in Texas that is pertinent today. The rough and tumble politician was running for re-election to the Senate in 1952 and while on one of his trademark barnstorming campaign swings through the state he met an old Democratic political colleague—a small town sheriff who was also running for re-election. The sheriff told Johnson that he was facing an unexpectedly strong challenger in his re-election bid. Not thinking twice, Johnson told the sheriff to put out the word that his opponent "fucked pigs." The sheriff responded coolly to the idea, saying that it just wasn't true. Johnson replied, "So what! Make the son of a bitch deny it!" The Democrats of today should take a lesson from LBJ. This election cannot be played by Marquess of Queensberry rules. The Bush thugs have to be hoisted on their own petards.
Let's not kid ourselves. The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt or General Eisenhower but the party of Joe McCarthy, David Duke, Tom DeLay, and a dangerous heavily German-accented demagogue named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their standard bearer is a Caligula-like and learning disabled brutish oaf named George W. Bush. The Republicans have their own behind-the scenes Svengali- and Rasputin-like figures in the forms of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.
In fact, the Republican Party is no longer even a political party. It is a dangerous, anti-constitutional movement that seeks the overthrow of our constitutional form of government by using smear tactics, racism, security force violence, and intimidation against the loyal opposition of this country.
Like Bush rallies across the land, the Republican convention brooked no dissension among its attendees. The world has not seen such displays of right-wing fanaticism since Adolf Hitler's Nuremberg Rally in Germany in 1938. Embracing neoconservative doctrines developed by crypto-Nazi ideologists like the late Professor Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago, the Republicans are the true heirs to National Socialist ideology and are the true traitors to this country. The Republican movement must be stopped at the polls on November 2 at all costs. The future of the United States of America assuredly depends on it.
http://www.hermes-press.com/madsen_gloves.htm
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 02:53 AMSay hello to $4.00 a gallon regular?
Isn't it peculiar the doubling and tripling of consumer gas prices is happening on Bush's watch?
Posted by Christopher at August 7, 2006 05:13 AMYou libs are stupid and miss the point. First off I agree with most of the article. The oil companies are making record profits and they should be spending more to a) explore, b) increase supply, c) maintenace of their current facilities.
But it is not all big oil's fault. The world demand for oil has increased 2 fold because of China and India and the general increase in population. The US has been stupid (libs) and prevent the exploration for additional supply (Alaska). We use more gas but don't increase refining capacity. And don't give me that conservation bullshit. Conservation can only decrease the rate of growth, not the direction.
The answer is to increase the supply and that means pumping oil in places that we haven't before. Off the coasts and in Alaska. Or maybe you know a way to decrease the demand from china and india?
Posted by Libs Are Dumb at August 7, 2006 06:45 AMThe US has been stupid (libs) . .
And who's arguably been in the policy driving seat since 1994 and then who shoved their way into the executive in 2000?
Oy. Anyone with basic knowledge of some facts can put this guy down - which means your facts will mean nothing to him and he'll continue to argue with you with the made-up falsehoods that keep him from pulling a gun on a 7-11 in a horrific murder-suicide spree.
Step away from the troll and ignore him.
Posted by idiosynchronic at August 7, 2006 07:28 AMLibs are Dumb:
The Saudis and the oil companies have said repeatedly over the last six months that they have enough supply to meet demand. Yet the prices keep going up. Try some new GOP talking points and then come back.
Posted by Steve Soto at August 7, 2006 07:30 AM"But it is not all big oil's fault. The world demand for oil has increased 2 fold because of China and India and the general increase in population."
Hey Dumb, so if I understand you correctly, over night China and India's demand for oil increased 2 fold, as has the general population WOW! That explains the $3.00 heading to $4.00 per gallon for oil.
By-the-way, a short family trip to Ohio in a RV cost us $400.00 in fuel. Granted it was an RV, but for a three day trip where the RV didn't move once we got there for three days until we returned home, that is a lot of moola.
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 07:35 AM"...it appears that BP isn’t spending any of that money on maintenance or line replacements."
Actually, it is the case that BP is shutting the line down for maintenance.
Posted by Bagley at August 7, 2006 07:37 AMThere was a spill several months ago caused by corrosion and it probably has taken this long to survey the rest of the pipeline.
Which is better to shut the thing down and make all the repairs at once, or to keep patching it as bit by bit?
It is not clear if maintenance was neglected or not, so without some actual evidence this sort of claim doesn't serve any useful purpose.
The cost of extracting oil from the best fields (say in Saudi Arabia) hasn't changed, but demand has. The result is a bidding war for the limited supplies. This results in a price rise. And since the selling price has gone up and the production costs haven't profits rise. Oil companies don't set prices, the market does.
We are also at a point where the major oil producing states can't increase supplies. There is a natural level at which oil can be pumped. Trying to exceed this can damage the oil fields. Peak oil has been reached in many places (in the US it was decades ago), but the world has yet to adapt.
We don't see much in the way of personal behavioral changes by the US population, for example. The rate of sales of SUV's may have dropped slightly, but most other energy uses are still rising. As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us".
When are people going to realize that everyone has to adapt?
Idio, so right you are. The troll aren't interested in facts. Facts only confuse them. We have been down this road so many times with them, and they still keep coming back with the same talking points. Booooring.
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 07:41 AMChristopher, I paid $3.19 yesterday. Your right, by the time Bush leaves office it will reach $4.00, if not before. The goal, I am sure, is $5.00.
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 07:47 AM"Actually, it is the case that BP is shutting the line down for maintenance."
Baggy, perfect example of not telling the whole story or putting a spin on the truth. Why can't you people just tell the truth?
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 07:51 AMBecause truth has a liberal bias, Judith. And I believe the entire phrase is:
If they're so right, why won't they tell the truth?
Posted by iamcoyote at August 7, 2006 07:57 AMSo, Judith, BP is not shutting it down for maintenance?
Why, then, is BP shutting down the pipeline -- do tell, please.
Posted by Bagley at August 7, 2006 08:01 AMNote that Ney's replacement, Joy Padgett, is yet another low-road taking Republican
Posted by Joseph at August 7, 2006 08:15 AMJudith, don't bother with the teabagger, he's just latching onto whatever irrelevant thing he can, just to keep his trolling going. The thing to remember is that these folks don't want truth, they want discord and disruption. They will never see reason, because they don't think they need to, since they are totally in thrall to the powers that be. If Bush does a 180 and says the sky is green, the teabaggers will not only say the sky is green, they'll deny they ever believed the sky is blue. They are blindly loyal to a moron, because somehow, they think Bush's power reflects on them. To them, it's more of a sports team kinda loyalty. If the team wins, teabaggers believe they, too, have won. Even as democracy crumbles around them. That's why they have no problem with the gutting of the constitution.
Posted by iamcoyote at August 7, 2006 08:23 AMI thought the Democrats wanted higher gas prices, because it'd force conservation? You should be celebrating higher gas prices. The higher the better right?
Posted by at August 7, 2006 08:31 AMI'd be curious to see which Dems said that anon. Got some links to prominent dems making that case?
Posted by iamcoyote at August 7, 2006 08:41 AMBagley, they are talking about having to do a line replacement; this isn't "maintenance". An ongoing PM program would have stopped this from happening.
Posted by Steve Soto at August 7, 2006 08:45 AMIf we use 20 million barrels of oil a day and we lose 400,000, that's only 2% of supply. I know that oil supplies are tight, but it doesn't seem like a supposidly short term loss of 2% of supply should make a big impact on prices.
Posted by herbal tee at August 7, 2006 08:50 AMSteve,
I am well aquainted with Preventative Maintenance programs. PM programs do not negate the need for (eventual) overhaul and replacement of major subsytems, they simply increase the amount of time between major overhauls / replacements.
As to the pipeline, eventually the pipes -- sections of the pipes -- need replacement.
Posted by Bagley at August 7, 2006 08:56 AMnote: as usual, I know it is silly to respond to the little people, but starting my morning with a rant is fun.
Don't ya love it when conservatives leaving nothing off limits. They even try to turn "conservation" into a pejorative (not to mention the projection from "Libs are Dumb").
a) explore
No, that's what taxpayers give them $5B for. After all a company making record profits certainly does need huge subsidies right?,
b) increase supply
Supply plays an insignificant role in current prices.
The US has been stupid (libs) and prevent the exploration for additional supply (Alaska).
I'd be happy to have an extended chat about ANWR with you. Why is it that you buy, uncritically, every lousy word of propaganda that you are being fed about ANWR? Probable 10 years to start producing, to extract, at best, one year supply (U.S. at current consumption rates). Delay the inevitible at the cost of the enviornment, warming and benefitting whom? Big Oil. The shift from petroleum must start yesterday, not when we are forced to.
Demonize conservation, pull out the alternative fuels boogey man. The U.S. could reduce its consumption by 20 to 30% almost overnight if there was the political will to do so. Unfortunately, energy policy is directed by your Big Oil Buddies, not the people.
Just a note to "Libs are Dumb": 3 years ago I reduced my direct petroleum consumption by 98% and and pay less for fuel than you do.
Posted by Simp at August 7, 2006 08:58 AMThr Gulf of Mexico is Chinese.
Posted by dobles at August 7, 2006 09:03 AM"BP, which is already facing a criminal investigation over a large spill in March at the same Prudhoe Bay oil field, said it did not know how long the field would be offline. "I don't even know how long it's going to take to shut it down," said Tom Williams, BP's senior tax and royalty counsel."
Oh, let me guess.
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2006 09:20 AMThe only reason BP even bothered to look at their pipeline at this point is because they screwed up with a huge oil spill from the same pipeline a few weeks ago. BP was required by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to inspect and report on the condition of the pipeline. This shut down is preventing another oil spill, but BP wouldn't have done the inspection without the government intervention. So, they'll get record prices by cutting off the supply and the taxpayers will probably still end up footing the bill for the environmental clean up.
Posted by ann at August 7, 2006 09:22 AMRobert D Feinman, 10 years ago I would have believed BP might have a legitimate environmental concern and leave it there. But today, in our post-Enron era and knowing that Valero reported 2x profits per barrel last quarter, show me we're all not "Grandma Millie". Please.
BTW, had a laff from a conservative r here at work - asked him after mentioning the Valero number, how we could double our profits if our raw materials cast increased 3x like Valero's, basically all he could do was flap his lips with nothing coming out. He'll still vote straight-ticket r this Nov, however. Sucker.
"they think Bush's power reflects on them. To them, it's more of a sports team kinda loyalty. If the team wins, teabaggers believe they, too, have won."
...... say hon', can ya' grab me a beer i think they're about to start shell'n lebanon again ....
just the kind of folk i'd like to have a beer with. ya' think brushmaster will have cindy up for a cold-one ? we should all go to down to the ranch. hell, kick back, have a beer clear a little brush, watch the world spin out of control .
this place looks like a banana republic, our president vacationing in an armed camp with americans under there guns.
now let me think, judith is about the same distance west as i am east of ohio, that's a third of the way to texas ..... hum, around 2000 bucks round trip. i might as well mail bp the money, it'll could help with the defense from the federal inditement from the last oil spill.
I thought the Alaska oil is sold to the Chinese...? Something about it's not "sweet" enough (too much sulpher) to be refined for American markets...?
Posted by OldCoastie at August 7, 2006 09:54 AMHey Judith what was GPA and where did you study?
What degree did you earn? Just wandering so I can compare.
I thought the Alaska oil is sold to the Chinese...?
Actually, the Japanese buy all most all of it. I don't think any of it makes it's way to the mainland...uhh, fatherland...uh, homeland...that's it! If there is any new production at ANWR it will go to Japan. I say drill ANWR so Japan can have the oil. They will say "Arigato gozaimashita".
It is time to nationalize oil production.
Posted by phidipides at August 7, 2006 10:55 AMPM programs do not negate the need for (eventual) overhaul and replacement of major subsytems, they simply increase the amount of time between major overhauls / replacements.
Not at any utility I've worked at. There should always be a critical spare on hand so that "the amount of time between major overhauls/replacements" is not increased.
I'm with Phid, It is time to nationalize oil production.
Posted by Seven of Six at August 7, 2006 10:59 AMAP reports that the Energy Department is prepared to provide oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Since a lot of that oil was purchased when oil was $25-$35/barrel or less, I wonder who will be pocketing the profits when they sell that oil to the refiners at today's prices. Certainly not the taxpayer or consumer.
Posted by at August 7, 2006 11:15 AMHeh, funny how the troll chooses Judith for a dick measuring contest, huh? I suppose the only way for him to have a chance of winning is to go up against a female. Sad li'l ol' thing.
SoS, I third the motion. Nationalize oil production, and healthcare.
Posted by iamcoyote at August 7, 2006 11:18 AMEvery day its clearer to me that liberalism is a pungent mixture of schadenfreude and cargo cult.
If you hadnt been busy the last couple years desperately hoping for America to fail you'd have bought oil stocks like I did.
All this whining is moot. If our country gets to the point that folks cant afford to drive to work or heat their homes, we will turn to out leaders and ask why they havent either drilled for it here or taken it from others who have it. Lets get on with it.
Oh, Im also investing in folks working on fuel cells and hyper-efficient IC engines as well.
Posted by MarcusAgrippa at August 7, 2006 12:02 PMThey not only don't maintain it, when the oil is gone and it starts to leak the american taxpayers will have to pay the cleanup costs.
Posted by ckerst at August 7, 2006 12:21 PMI thought the Democrats wanted higher gas prices, because it'd force conservation? You should be celebrating higher gas prices. The higher the better right?
I'm all for it. Problem is that the petroleum is heavily subsidized by our tax dollars. The high prices now are artificial based on spec. These high prices are simply benefitting big oil.
Regulation needs to be imposed on the oil markets (which are explotive atm), then impose a progressive tax hike on fuel.. something like cost of living + 20% each year.
Additional taxes go to fund alternative fuel production, research global warming mitigation and mass transit.
Posted by at August 7, 2006 01:17 PMprofits from death and suffering boy oh boy your a fine american
Posted by mark miller at August 7, 2006 01:34 PMMarcusAgrippa,
Of course only someone as shallow as you would:
I understand how lucky I am to be in the position that I am. You, otoh, appear to think that anyone not as "successful" as you is an idiot.
Only a putz comes to an energy discussion and brags about how much money he is making.
Posted by Simp at August 7, 2006 01:43 PMSo, Alaska is in an election cycle. The Governor, who has made backroom deals with the oil companies, is extremely unpopular. The primaries are coming up and he may not even get out of his primary. One of his republican opponents in the primary is very critical of the Gov's selling out the state to BP and Phillips.
The oil companies have already started an advertising blitz about how they bring us our future, and how paying taxes will destroy our economy and the poor oil corps.
If the oil doesn't come out of the pipeline the state can't tax it. So essentially the state is being held hostage. Oops, no money now. Better make that deal the gov wanted.
We thank the rest of the country for help stopping ANWR development, but that is small potatoes compared to the rest of the North Slope that is now being held hostage.
Posted by bkj at August 7, 2006 04:16 PMbkj, thanks very much for that perspective and info from Alaska. The pipeline "shutdown" is a very interesting development based on your post.
Please continue to post, because we don't get much insight from what is going on up there politically.
For example, given that Alaska is clearly going to suffer much more seriously and much more quickly from the effects of global warming, why does it keep sending two senators who essentially deny the existence of the warming to DC?
Posted by euzoius at August 7, 2006 05:01 PMBP didn't just "suddenly find corrosion" -
The oil company blamed for the North Slope's largest oil spill said Tuesday its inspectors were aware of corrosion in a pipeline months before it burst, but believed the threat to be "manageable."
This is typical corporate corruption, SOP, that goes unpunished and unstoppable until there is a revolution in this country that:
1) Reforms elections so that they can't be stolen (open source code, paper receipts for ballots),
2) Publicly finances elections,
3) Reinstates the equal time doctrine on our air waves,
4) Removes personhood status from corporations,
5) Reregulates all industries.
That's where we start.
Unless you're willing to hit the pavement and the streets, organize your community to get out the vote, and protest with your body when Republicans steal elections (and keep doing it all until everything has been achieved), it's all just ineffective, gum-flapping.
Republicans and centrist Democrats have gotten away with it all because they know that we have no staying power. They wait us out and wear us down.
When Nixon resigned, we went back to our communities and got on with our lives. Conservatives didn't. They brooded, they plotted, they spread out all over the country, got jobs in state and federal government and networked.
If you don't think all of this was organized and planned, you haven't been paying attention. While the rest of us were getting on with our lives, going to school, working and paying taxes, getting married and raising families, conservatives were positioning themselves in places of power.
I was only mildly concerned about Jerry Falwell's Liberty University (set up in 1971 to create America's lawyers, teachers, professionals of fundamentalist evangelical Christian persuasion) and Pat Robertson's 700 Club broadcasting empire accessible in every city throughout the country by the mid-1970s. Their collaboration with Republican politicians by the end of the 1970s should have sent alarm bells clanging throughout the nation and the Democratic party. Even after the 1990s, when their alliance with the moguls (corporation, defense industry mergings with media and multi-national corporations) became known, most democrats didn't (and still don't) know that Bill Clinton wasn't a liberal, and that the Democratic Party was taken over by the right-leaning DLC.
When Democratic leaders should have been defending liberalism, they didn't and allowed the word to be reviled. And we, the democratic voters, let Democratic politicians run from an honorable and noble identity. I didn't, but there were damned few of "me" around.
Now the nation is where liberals predicted it would be when Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush/Bill Casey pulled off the 1980 "October Surprise" (truly an act of treason) and went down the path of conservatism. Every day, another outrageous act by Bush and the Republican congress is reported, and we all look around and shrug.
So what are we doing?
Posted by Maeven at August 7, 2006 05:46 PMAlaska is a vast state, with a huge amount of natural resources, and very little development.
This means that a lot of people move here solely for the opportunity to 'develop' roads to extract minerals. So a large portion of the state's population lives in Anchorage, a town built on oil.
They live here solely for the 'opportunity' to make money by extracting our natural resources.
It is sort of a colonialism feel.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who don't want to see these things happen, but in the current political atmosphere, it just isn't quite enough to get us over the hump.
bkj, I can imagine for some that it is a hell of a walk to polling station!
Posted by Seven of Six at August 7, 2006 06:41 PMIt can be.
Posted by bkj at August 7, 2006 07:39 PM"So essentially the state is being held hostage..."
Yeah, like the saying goes "when you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
I think it is total hypocrisy for a liberal to say that conservatives are trying to take over the courtrooms, government, or any state or federal organization or process. We could go over FACTUAL evidence of media collusion with respect to continual anti-American sentiment. A lot of this reporting would have been treason even a generation ago. We could go over the slow take-over since the 60's our previously fine institutions of higher learning that have been transformed into bastians of socialism and fascism. We could also discuss the differences between Republicans and Democrats. There are very few but some are extremely important. Every 2, 4, or 6 years, new people come up for election and few get replaced. We go from Democrat controlled Congress where nothing gets done to a Republican controlled Congress where little gets done. We have a Senate that is small version of the UN- a large debate society with no "teeth" nor the will to change anything. That is with the exception the social status of the participants. We have a President who is continually hounded and blamed for everything under the sun. It's absolutely ridiculous! Such hypocrisy! When Dem's are in, it's called unfair, when a Rep. is in, it's called Freedom of Speech. Such hypocrisy!
We live in a capitalistic society. We should take care of our people but businesses have the right to make money, fairly. If oil demand is going up and they are charging $3 a gallon, then change your demand. The only way to get away from the dependence is to start first with you. Change driving habits, cars, move the thermostat; whatever needs to be done, do it. Don't gripe about the issue and then do what you've always done. Go ahead, elect someone new in the WhiteHouse or Congress or the Senate this year or next and see if it changes. It may like the economy does from time to time; but it's not the solution.
America was and still is a great country. We have an opportunity every day, week, and year to make a difference. Pray for your leaders; for your enemies; for your adversaries. Don't compromise the moral values that this nation was founded on. Contrary to the ACLU, it's all still in the Constitution.
The troubling problem we face is that everyone wants to point the finger and everyone else for problems or issues and hope the gov.'t takes care of it. That my friend, is France. Move there then. Follow Alec Baldwin.
Posted by USA1 at August 10, 2006 02:00 PM