Patriots - Ravens Controversy Continues
— Dave In Texas

[UPDATED] with AoSHQII leaders

Amidst the turmoil of late calls that went New England's way, two unsportsmanlikes called on Bart Scott, and an argument between Ravens cornerback Samari Rolle and referee Phil McKinnely (message to Samari: the "he called me boy" complaint usually works better when the ref is a white guy), football fans everywhere are asking the question "how did Dave in Texas know the Patriots wouldn't cover"?

That's for me to know and you to find out.

Ok, these Thursday games are kind of a pain, especially if you want to actually watch them, but we got Washington and Chicago tomorrow night, so here's your pick reminder for the week.

AoSHQI standings, which will be adjusted for inflation later:

1 PHenry 110
2 Slublog 106
3 anotheranon 105
3 Drew Bledsoe for HoF 105
5 Bart 103
5 Mr_Wide_Stance 103
7 Dave in Texas 101

(I don't actually want to watch the Redskins and the Bears, but I'm sure a few of you losers do.)

Oh, somebody asked me last week if you had to make all your picks by the Thursday deadline - doesn't look that way to me, if you click in past edit there are different deadlines shown for the Sunday games depending on start time.

Commenter Steve L. thinks not, that it locks out 5 min before kickoff of the first game. Sorry about that. I wasn't trying to trick anybody. Honest.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 07:02 AM | Comments (20)
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Something Nifty From Japan
— LauraW.

Musical roads.

On one of the so-called melody roads, tucked away in the mountains near Numata city, about 110 miles north of Tokyo, your wheels hum a tune that sounds like "Memories of Summer", a popular regional song.

Not for long, though. The musical interlude lasts for just 12.7 seconds, the time it takes to travel the 175-metre section of road at 50 km an hour. Signs advise drivers to travel at precisely that speed to achieve perfect pitch and rhythm.

Wicked cool. Hope it never comes to the US, though. I can see how that would get old real fast.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:53 AM | Comments (18)
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Christian Bale In Negotiations To Play Adult John Connor In T4
— Ace

Guy's having some frickin' career.

Christian Bale is in negotiations to star in "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," the fourth installment of the hit science fiction series.

McG ("Charlie's Angels," "We Are Marshall") is directing the movie, which will be distributed by Warner Bros.

McG? Okay, I admit that Charlie's Angels was a pleasant surprise and well directed for the type of movie it was, but... The name "McG" doesn't really inspire confidence.

Thanks to Demure Thoughts.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 PM | Comments (33)
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Why "peak oil" is bullshit, and why the price of oil will collapse
— Purple Avenger

A commenter at Tigerhawk put me onto this DOE document that is a Rand Corp report from the 2005 timeframe (its a PDF so you'll need Acrobat reader).

Here's the beef:

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years.

...Shell anticipates that, in contrast to the cost estimates for mining and surface retorting, the petroleum products produced by their thermally conductive in-situ method will be competitive at crude oil prices in the mid-$20s per barrel. The company is still developing the process, however, and cost estimates could easily increase as more information is obtained and more detailed designs become available. [PA note: even if costs turned out to be 3X, its still economically viable at today's prices]

Development Timeline. Currently, no organization with the management,
technical, and financial wherewithal to develop oil shale resources has announced its intent to build commercial-scale production facilities... [PA note: by 2007 Shell had already started ramping this in Canada]

If you take 1/4 of the US demand out of the world market, world oil prices would have to collapse to whatever OUR baseline production costs+profit are -- which would be fixed by petro engineering economics rather than the whim of dictators, Arabs, and various loons. Prices today are arbitrary and build in worry factors about supply. If we know we can produce and sell a barrel for say $50, and then do it, it compels the arbitrary pricers to meet our price or lose business. Worry factors for American/Canadian oil would be near zero - foreign wars, loony dictators, etc would have little effect on production and delivery capability from CONUS and Canadian facilities.

I'm sure this will generate all sorts of screeching from the Oil Drum crowd and the peak oil loons.

The bottom line here is - the US and Canada have within our grasp the power to blow the crap out of the world oil prices, maintain fat profits for our oil companies for hundreds of years to come, and make our economies freaking juggernaughts all at the same time.

Do we have to stones to do it? Gotta tell the enviros to STFU first. Then make a righteous looking effort - which in itself might be enough to collapse world oil prices considerably. Another commenter at Tigerhawk suggested a clever method of long term recovery of development costs -- long term oil price option puts. If you know you're going to hammer the market, might as well pick the pockets of the "chicken little" crowd's in the process right? Hell yea.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:49 PM | Comments (72)
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Major MSM Figure: It's "Dangerous" To Allow Amateurs To Express Their Opinions Via Blogs
— Ace

I kid about the "major MSM figure." It's an idiot sportscaster named Steven A. Smith. Here's what this genius has to say:

On if he considers going back to newspapers, or whether it's a dying industry:

"I don't believe that. All the newspaper industry has to do is connect itself better with the internet and guess what? People will read the newspaper on the internet, not rely so much on the paper copy and get with the internet age more so than it has. The foundation of the newspaper business... should never die. We should do all we can possible to make sure it lives in perpetuity because itÂ’s extremely important with everything. It keeps radio and television on their ps and qs.

"And when you look at the internet business, whatÂ’s dangerous about it is that people who are clearly unqualified get to disseminate their piece to the masses. I respect the journalism industry, and the fact of the matter is ...someone with no training should not be allowed to have any kind of format whatsoever to disseminate to the masses to the level which they can. They are not trained. Not experts. More important are the level of ethics and integrity that comes along with the quote-unqoute profession hasnÂ’t been firmly established and entrenched in the minds of those whoÂ’ve been given that license.

"Therefore, thereÂ’s a total disregard, a level of recklessness that ends up being a domino effect. And the people who suffer are the common viewers out there and, more importantly, those in the industry who havenÂ’t been fortunate to get a radio or television deal and only rely on the written word. And now theyÂ’ve been sabotaged. Not because of me. Or like me. But because of the industry or the world has allowed the average joe to resemble a professional without any credentials whatsoever."

All emphases mine. Note the Freudian slip where he whines about the poor public forced to read the drivel of non-professional non-experts, but then says more importantly those professional experts are being "sabotaged" by the competition from "the average joe."

At least he's honest about his real concern.

Thanks to both DaveR. and spongeworthy.

Posted by: Ace at 06:15 PM | Comments (116)
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Clinton Campaign: Obama is a dishonest poser
— Purple Avenger

High profile leftist David Corn is reporting that the Clinton campaign loathes Obama and refers to him as a dishonest poser.

...When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama. I suppose that may be natural in the final weeks of a competitive campaign when much is at stake. But these people don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser. They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it...

Hot blue on blue action in the Thunderdome baby - two enter, one leaves.

H/T Dan more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:01 PM | Comments (28)
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Stopsky: Mugabe is a thuggish economic incompetent
— Purple Avenger

Fred Stopsky, noted raging hard left moonbat, looks to be breaking from the pack here and taking some fairly potent swipes at Zimbabwe's commie dictator Robert Mugabe.

President Robert Mugabe, who has presided over the destruction of his nationÂ’s economy during the past two decades, waved the flag of colonialism to excuse away his own brutality and incompetence...

Pretty heady stuff. Of course, we knew all this about Mugabe 30 years ago when he was running a commie rebel outfit looking to overthrow the Smith government. In 30 years, the leopard hasn't changed his spots at all.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:35 PM | Comments (23)
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Awesome: Spirit Airways Announces "MILF" Promotion
— Ace

Actually it stands for -- supposedly -- "Many Islands, Low Fares."

They're claiming the attention-catching acronym's similarity to a much better known version of "MILF" is inadvertent and an innocent mistake.

The owners of the popular "Pink Taco" chain immediately said, "Oh right, yes, us too."

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 03:29 PM | Comments (14)
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Absurdly Cute Blogger's Puppy Of The Day
— Ace

More puppy picks at Crosblog.

I think it would be cuter if its eyes were bluer.

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (35)
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Chimp Vs. Human In Memory Game: Chimp Wins
— Ace

Video.

Thanks to Petite Dov.

Posted by: Ace at 02:51 PM | Comments (17)
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