More energy heresy

jdongweck writes in to say:

Your post about the BP oil find in the Gulf is the perfect chance for me to recommend this book. It concerns the vast amounts of energy available in the world, and how we will go about harnessing it. It also discusses how drilling 100 feet 100 years ago cost about the same per barrel as it does now to drill 35,000 feet. One of the first things early coal mines did upon mining coal was to use that coal to mine 'even more coal' Or something to that effect.

THE BOTTOMLESS WELL
The Twilight Of Fuel, The Virtue Of Waste, And Why We Will Never Run Out Of Energy

By Peter Huber and Mark P. Mills

The long pole in the tent of SysAdmin ops

SCOPE: "Not-So-Special Forces," by Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 28 September 2009.

Same old, same old: the key constraint is fixed rotary, aka helicopters.

We love our jets, but we need our copters--in far greater numbers and with much more maintenance and support.

Empower Iranian youth

ARTICLE: Tech-savvy Iranian youth take aim at Ahmadinejad, By Joshua Schneyer, Reuters, Sep 24, 2009

I approve of this approach. It should be facilitated.

(Thanks: Michael S. Smith II)

Simply brilliant

If true, the promise by Iran to run some uranium through Russia for enrichment appropriate for medical use is simply brilliant: a symbolically powerful "give" on a meaningless subject.

Sacrifice another pawn, Tehran, I double-dare you!

Fevered or feverish?

Blogged for about six hours straight, iPod blasting off the speaker wedge I stick it into in my office.

Sean can provide the total, but it was MASSIVE.

The beast known as the hungry blog retreats into its cave, sated for now and the foreseeable baseload.

I must yoga!

(Ed: 80 posts bringing the total in the queue to 149. Going to take me a long time to dig out ;-)

Ailing (but how exactly?)

Not sure I have swine. Weird damn night, like those kids had preceding.

But I am still struggling with sinusitis and flew twice yesterday, so who knows?

Will blog til I drop today, just in case.

10 Reasons Why Sanctions on Iran Won't Work

SIPA via Newscom

Team Ahmadinejad may walk out of Thursday's diplomatic showdown in Geneva with a slap on the wrist, but Tehran will almost certainly keep the upper hand. A few important reminders for Obama and Co. on the impotent politics of ganging up on a nuclear rebel right now.

Continue reading this week's World War Room column at Esquire.com

Already a must read at Real Clear Politics

Cordesman's CSIS report on Israel's attack plans digested for the WSJ

WEEKEND JOURNAL: "The Iran Attack Plan," by Anthony H. Cordesman, Wall Street Journal, 26-27 September 2009.

I read and blogged the original report. This WSJ piece is a nicely digested version.

Cordesman hasn't changed his thinking at all: hard to pull off, and unlikely to achieve anything more than a delay that can be largely erased if Iran redoubles its efforts as a result.

There are no surprises in Iran's pursuit of nukes, just revelations

WORLD NEWS: "U.S. Knew About Site For Years," by Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal, 26-27 September 2009.

There are very few secrets left in this world, but never any shortage of revelations!

Major spy services have been interested in the Qom site for years, and as we know, anything the West knows, the East ends up knowing too.

So if we knew, they knew, the Israelis knew, and--by extension--the rest of the Big Five knew, for whom was this a revelation?

Why, the approving or disapproving public, of course.

There is a lot of PR going on with this whole dynamic, and it impresses me as little as the diplomacy. It's like the entire world needs to wrap its head around the reality that Iran's getting nukes and there's next to nothing that can be done about it, except for delaying it--possibly--for a bit with air strikes.

So we're moving through the anger and denial and heading toward the real bargaining and acceptance. Helen Kubler-Ross would be proud.

Asian student market

ARTICLE: Asian Universities Court Students Nearby, By LIZ GOOCH, New York Times, September 22, 2009

Inevitable and healthy.

We've passed oil's peak, but...

ARTICLE: Oil Industry Sets a Brisk Pace of New Discoveries, By JAD MOUAWAD, New York Times, September 23, 2009

Unbelievable. Price + technology = new finds!

The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy.

These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths and break tougher rocks.

"That's the wonderful thing about price signals in a free market -- it puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk," said James T. Hackett, chairman and chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum.

More than 200 discoveries have been reported so far this year in dozens of countries, including northern Iraq's Kurdish region, Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, Norway, Ghana and Russia. They have been made by international giants, like Exxon Mobil, but also by industry minnows, like Tullow Oil.

Weird how that works.

Eye on Sudan

ARTICLE: Sudan opposition parties forge alliance, By Scott Baldauf, The Christian Science Monitor, September 9, 2009

This is one to watch: southern Sudan allying with a moderate northern party that seems willing to accept the possibility of secession in 2011, when the vote is taken.

xplaining the alliance to a reporter from Voice of America, Mr. Mahdi said the Umma Party was prepared to accept the possibility of South Sudan's secession from Khartoum, and sees this agreement as a chance to maintain peaceful relations throughout.

"We think its time to begin to discuss the possibilities of separation and an independent South, so that we are prepared for the eventuality," said Mahdi. A pragmatic and moderate former prime minister of Sudan, Mahdi was overthrown by Bashir at a time of intense negotiations with the rebellious leadership of southern Sudan in 1989.

Until there's a viable third global reserve currency...

ARTICLE: Top Chinese economist: 'There's no alternative to the dollar', by Justin Fox, The Curious Capitalist, September 9, 2009

The Chinese are not stupid. While a third balancing global reserve currency is needed (the euro is not enough), they have no pretense about the yuan magically stepping up to that role any time soon.

This will take time, and in the meantime, there's no point disparaging the dollar when you hold about $2T of them.

(Thanks: Critt Jarvis)

The outlook for private security in Iraq

ARTICLE: With U.S. Forces in Iraq Beginning to Leave, Need for Private Guards Grows, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, September 8, 2009

Proof positive that the private security business doesn't exactly drive off a funding cliff when the U.S. draws down in Iraq.

China's little entry into Afghan security

POST: China Tip Toes Into Afghanistan, Strategy Page, September 7, 2009

Another small sign of China's growing realization that its strategic interests in Afghanistan require something beyond just foreign direct investment.

(Thanks: Terry Collier)

Atlanta airport statue

"Who Will Raise the Child?"
Africa confronts HIV

Gladman Zinyeka
Zimbabwe

Foreshadowing ...

Same-day service

Last week I went into DC and lectured at an Army Command and General Staff College extension course held in Fort Belvoir (a repeat engagement). I ended up staying over to help host an OSD meeting at Enterra.

This week, despite the invasion of swine flu (first, our youngest got it Monday, mostly recovering by Wednesday, and then our second youngest got it Wednesday) in the family abode, I sneak out today and fly down early to Atlanta on Delta, where I'm picked up by an investment exec and taken to a downtown business club. I'm set up with a small conference room where I steam the suit and shirt and get dressed, tweaking the brief a bit on one slide (I do a non-military-oriented version), and then I sit through a lunch, chatting with one table of execs.

Go on at 1230 in front of about 125 audience and was supposed to run 45, but run more like 75, losing nobody even though I was told many might get up and leave at 1300 in order to get back to trading. I go a solid 30 with Q&A with the group, and then the host calls the event to a close. I thereupon go another 20 with a select few.

Back into conference room where I swap out, then driven to airport, and I'm back home around 7pm--a nice 12-hour day.

Listening to my 2600-song iPod shuffle on the flight back, I realize I am becoming addicted to Radiohead.

I also read a bunch of the second volume of Peter Guralnick's epic volume of Elvis, which I picked up at Graceland last summer. I read the fab backstory on the 68 special. I am definitely rewatching the DVD tonight (also got that at Graceland).

China matures in philanthropy

ARTICLE: In China, Philanthropy as a New Measuring Stick, By JULIE MAKINEN, New York Times, September 23, 2009

An interesting example of the maturation of the Chinese people thanks to marketization. Instead of expecting the government to do all and be all, people increasingly take it upon themselves to act.

Me likey.

Putin changing his tune on foreign oil companies

ARTICLE: Foreign Firms Invited to Russian Gas Fields, By ANDREW E. KRAMER, New York Times, September 24, 2009

Hmmmmm:

MOSCOW -- Just a few years after compelling foreign oil companies to renegotiate their contracts in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has invited executives from some of the largest such companies to discuss new work on Siberian natural gas fields.
Executives from Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and other companies met with Mr. Putin in Salekhard, a city in the Yamal-Nenets district that is rich in large deposits of untapped natural gas.

Pic shows Putin doing PPT to a group of foreign investors.

Something to watch.

Flat 4th generation

ARTICLE: Party's Agenda in China Seems to Fall Flat, By MICHAEL WINES, New York Times, September 20, 2009

The gist:

BEIJING -- China's Communist Party elite had billed its four-day strategy session as an attack on "acute problems" that threatened the party's political standing, like official corruption, China's yawning gap between the rich and poor, and the lack of democracy within the party's own ranks.

But besides an anticorruption directive that would force officials and their families to disclose their property holdings and investments, initial reports from the meeting last week suggested that the Central Committee's members either were reluctant to make major changes, or disagreed over how those changes might be made.

The homebody 4th generation of leadership in its last yawn.