In 2007.

Beyond Petroleum, baby. This is about a BP venture called "Energy Biosciences Institute."

Amazing what happens when a company starts diverting precious resources of money, attention, and IQ to projects beyond its core competency in order to placate fantasists who think we shouldn't be using oil.

Birgeneau: In the previous segment I talked to Beth Burnside and Dan Kammen about the new Energy Biosciences Institute, and IÂ’m really interested to hear your opinion of the impact that this is likely to have both on and off the campus. What are we looking forward to?

Steve Chu: This is a great opportunity. ThereÂ’s been a lot of excitement thatÂ’s been growing over the last several years and now partnering with BP we will have the resources to actually carry out some of the things that we want to do in order to help save the world.

Birgeneau: And so how are we going to save the world?

Chu: We’re going to save the world, in part, by doing something about the energy problem. This impacts national security, this impacts economic prosperity, and most important for me, this impacts stewardship of the environment. And in this creating alternative to transportation fuels — alternatives for gasoline — this will go a long way to helping this problem.

BP seems to be buying political goodwill by ponying up a lot of money to trendy political causes. That's not their fault, exactly; idiocy so compels them.

But it seems to me this might have three bad effects (beyond mere waste and bribery):

1. They get a lot of latitude in their actual petroleum operations, because, hey, they're beyond petroleum and stuff.

2. There is a diversion of precious intellectual capital and capital-capital away from the dirty, unsexy, and un-saving-the-world business of drilling for oil.

3. It creates a moral hazard within the company whereby they don't have to sweat such stuff as safety in their drilling because they have these other small-potatoes operations out "saving the world" and stuff. (Last one suggested by a commenter.)

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I wish Beyond Petroleum had actually ceased petroleum operations when it decided it was too good for petroleum.

By the Way: This sort of corruption is always going on, whereby politicians strongly suggest to corporations that they start diverting money away from their actual operations into ultra vires (beyond the corporate charter's stated goals) flights of fancy. It's akin to bribery, except instead of paying off a politician with cold hard cash they pay him off in political capital.

A Stephen Chu or President Present is thus enabled to avoid making realistic choices based on real life information -- decisions he doesn't want to make, like accepting petroleum is the economic lifeblood of the world and will be for another 40 years, at least -- because it gives them some bullshit-bullshit cover. They can say they're permitting BP to do drilling because, oh, look, the Energy Biosciences Institute.

I guess this is part of the reason I'm not as bothered by the $20 billion shakedown as many are -- I see this happening all the time. Not to the tune of $20 billion dollars, of course, but every day a corporation is plainly indulging in politician-mollification through crap like this.

Buying "goodwill," the lawyers call it, justifying the use of corporate money for ends not really specified as the goals of the corporation. Paying off the government mob, in other words, same as you'd pay some mobsters a tax to get your trash hauled away.

The Department of Pretendustry: Suggests garrett.

We should create a full cabinet-level department for pretendustry, because plainly we're a world leader in pretendustry. Certainly we're losing all desire to compete in dirty, filthy industry.

But we remain the most pretendustrious nation in the world. Our gross pretendustrial output is rising every year.

The Limits of the Pretendustrial Revolution:

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (261)
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Of course.

Jackson Diehl argues that President Procrastination has long permitted public sniping over policy, including by Vice President Bite Me.

Biden, for his part, gave an interview to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter in which he said that in July of next year “you are going to see a whole lot of [U.S. troops] moving out.” Yet as Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates tartly pointed out over the weekend, “that absolutely has not been decided.” Instead, Biden was pushing his personal version of the strategy Obama approved, which calls for the beginning of withdrawals next year, with the size and pace to be determined by conditions at that time.

The real trouble is that Obama never resolved the dispute within his administration over Afghanistan strategy. With the backing of Gates and the Pentagon’s top generals, McChrystal sought to apply to Afghanistan the counterinsurgency approach that succeeded over the last three years in Iraq, an option requiring the deployment of tens of thousands more troops. Biden opposed sending most of the reinforcements and argued for a “counterterrorism plus” strategy centered on preventing al-Qaeda from establishing another refuge.

In the end, Obama adopted what is beginning to look like a bad compromise.

It's my usual gut belief that between Option 1 and Option 2, Option 1.5 -- the split the difference non-decision -- is usually the worst of all three.

Posted by: Ace at 11:53 AM | Comments (304)
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So-so. Leno's quip at 1:05 is probably the best attack.

Crist: Obama's TEH ROXXOR!!! Charlie Crist is just lovin' Obama's actions in the Gulf. "Very pleased," he says.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (109)
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Nominally, being touted as a "revenue generating" measure, this is wrong on so many levels it hurts my brain to even think about it.

a) If its power supply is self contained, then how is it recharged? Even the best Lithium Polymer batteries couldn't run a backlit plate sized LCD screen for more than a few days. If you go digital ink to improve battery life, then color is limited.

b) If you force people to power/recharge it with their car batteries, then there could be legit claims that its a theft of services unless the car owner is compensated accordingly.

c) Obviously the units would be very expensive compared to stamped out/painted plates.

d) Obviously the units would be dramatically more susceptible to damage than stamped plates.

e) When a plate with some digital screen is damaged, what is its failsafe mode that allows people to still read the plate number normally?

f) Who is responsible for repair of the thousands of damaged units?

I see this as evidence that CA has completely slipped any tenuous grasp on reality that it might have ever had. Ferchrisakes, electric forks make more sense than this.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 10:00 AM | Comments (131)
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Interesting -- this is just a stub but I suppose the theory is that Obama simply doesn't have the constitutional power to order such a thing absent an act of Congress. (Or, actually, the order is granted in order to explore this question, but the grant of a stay is usually premised on a probability of success on the merits.) Wrong; see below.

More: Conscious but incoherent posts this:

Feldman says in his ruling that the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning for the moratorium. He says it seems to assume that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger.

Article now posted; precisely as conscious but incoherent said.

Thomas Sowell, meanwhile, argues that we're on a slippery slope to tyranny, and he plays the Hitler card, too.

How the Blow Out Preventer Failed: This is why I'm pissed off and pro-additional-regulation here.

This NYTimes graphic shows what the BOP was supposed to do. Several critical systems had no back-up at all; if they failed, the entire BOP failed.

Further, this device -- a ram shear arm which basically crushes the pipe closed -- was not backed up by another. Just the one.

Why?

Think about it. If you're drilling at that depth, it is costing you a huge sum of money. What is the marginal cost of adding another ram shear arm further down the pipe, or, for that matter, two more?

Why?

To save on the costs of an additional device which, what could it cost, $50,000 tops? $100,000? Sure, it costs money to maneuver it into place, too, but can't you take care of three of them if you're taking care of one?

In the huge pile of costs to drill one of these, you can't spare that kind of additional money for safety?

Thanks to rdbrewer for that.

Oil Companies Argue Obama's Moratorium Is Unsustainable and Wrongheaded: And it just seems to be a case of President Present Procrastination trying to "do something" or be perceived as doing such.

"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Newman told reporters on the sidelines of the conference in the British capital. "Obviously we are concerned."

Chevron executive Jay Pryor said the U.S. government's move will "constrain supplies for world energy."

"It would also be a step back for energy security," Pryor, global vice president for business development at the U.S. company, told delegates at the World National Oil Companies Congress.

The moratorium was challenged in court by an oil services company, Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, Louisiana, which claims the government arbitrarily imposed the moratorium without any proof that the operations posed a threat. A federal judge in New Orleans, Judge Martin Feldman, on Tuesday lifted the moratorium.

Hornbeck, which ferries people and supplies to offshore rigs, says the moratorium could cost Louisiana thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in lost wages.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (315)
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Isn't this terrific?

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, on Monday evening warned that Republicans may boycott the start of Elena Kagan's Supreme Court hearings if senators do not get to review scores of documents from the solicitor general's past.

"I don't feel like we're prepared yet," Sessions told POLITICO. "It's becoming more clear that this is not an easy thing to get ready this quick."

Sessions said there appeared to be 1,600 withheld documents, which cover KaganÂ’s time as a senior White House aide under President Bill Clinton but were not released because of confidentiality concerns. And he called for the Obama administration to at least provide key senators and staff with a chance to privately review the confidential documents so they could weigh in on the validity of the decision to withhold the documents.

Asked if Republicans would boycott the hearings if they did not get to review the documents, Sessions said: “If we feel like we can’t go forward with the hearings … because we don’t have sufficient documents, then yes, we may feel compelled to do whatever it takes to try to insist that the process be done right.”

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (106)
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At First Things.

The main reason to object to a state has been our desire to make nice-nice with Turkey, previously seen as a bastion of secularism and Western orientation in the Muslim world. Granting the Kurds a state could radicalize Turkey (given that there are a lot of Kurds in Turkey, especially along the Iraq border) and they'd begin... well, doing the not-so-nice things people tend to do when their political destiny is within reach.

Since Turkey has decided to go Islamist, that's not such a big consideration any longer.

It could, however, hurt our position in Iraq. The Sunnis rely upon alliance with the Kurds to manage their way in Shi'a dominated Iraq, and with the Kurds removed from the occasion, the Sunnis might feel like an even more threatened minority and... well, start doing the not-so-nice things that they had previously been doing.

Posted by: Ace at 07:53 AM | Comments (138)
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Well this is gonna be awkward.

McChrystal has been instructed to fly from Kabul to Washington today to attend ObamaÂ’s regular monthly security team meeting tomorrow at the White House.

An administration official says McChrystal was asked to attend in person rather than by secure video teleconference, “where he will have to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes about his colleagues in the piece.”

Both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have spoken with McChrystal. Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen, said “the chairman spoke to General McChrystal last night and expressed his deep disappointment with the article and with the comments expressed therein.”

Gen. McChrystal and his minions said some things "on background" with a Rolling Stone reporter, who then obliged their unspoken request and ran with it. Before the piece was even published, the general was apologizing and Obama is reportedly pretty steamed about it.

McChrystal apparently said that he was disappointed in Obama's lack of preparedness for a meeting and betrayed by Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who he accuses of undoing the work the military has been fighting and dying for.

McChrystal's aides also said some things that are funny, but not properly uttered to Rolling Stone reporters. First, that NSA James Jones is a clown, something we've certainly remarked on here at the HQ. Also, calling the Vice President "BiteMe" instead of "Biden." Alright, that one's less ha-ha funny and more petty.

Anyway, the general has been rubbing Obama the wrong way for about a year now. Obama may be calling him home to fire him.

Oh, and Politico got hold of the Rolling Stone article (PDF).

The More Insubordinate Parts... [ace] ...are gathered up at Hot Air.

McChrystal's big problem here is that he doesn't have anything approaching like Petraeus' record of results. If you have big results you can have a big mouth. (Not that Petraeus has a big mouth; he could have a bigger mouth if he wanted to, though.)

If you can fire Douglas MacArthur, you can fire Stanley MaChrystal.

MaChrystal's insubordination aside, and his discomfort with civilian leadership aside, there is no doubt that what he said is 100% true.

Obama ran on a lie. Well, many lies, but one lie here is critical: He claimed that he was eager to depart Iraq only so he could go kick some ass in a war he claimed to consider vital, Afghanistan. But he showed up for the meeting with MacChrystal (25 minutes!) unprepared, disengaged, and distracted as ever by his own purported awesomeness.

McChrystal's Real Offense... is forcing overly restrictive rules of engagement on our soldiers that wind up killing them.

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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:14 AM | Comments (62)
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Stocks had an early morning boost from China's decision to remove the Yuan-USD peg, but the rally faded in late trading and the Dow closed down 8 points at 10,442.41 while the S&P 500 closed down slightly at 1113.20.

"I am the Great Wizard Econolak!", the pale Financial Mage cried, drawing forth his mighty Tome of Double-Entry and reading from it the Dread Spell of Insolvency. The menacing group of Hedgies and Lurking Speculators trembled in fear. Distantly came the sound of many horses at the gallop, mixed with distant curses and screams of rage. "Bond Vigilantes!", gasped Econolak's apprentice Fiskal Probitus.

More after the jump.

more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:03 AM | Comments (88)
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