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House Dems Turn Out the Lights On the GOP
Politico is reporting that while GOP leaders opposed a motion to adjourn the House, the Democrats have closed up shop and even turned out the lights. While the lights and microphones have since been turned back on, it makes for an amusing mental image and possibly even a few dark YouTube video spoofs. "Only about a half-dozen Republicans were on the floor when this began, but the crowd has grown to about 20 now, according to Patrick O'Connor. 'This is the people's House,' Rep, Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) said. 'This is not Pelosi's politiburo.' Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker's Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers."
This is all very interesting, but why is this on the front page of slashdot? This is hardly news for nerds, has no tech connection, has very little political meat, and no relevance to the site's mission.
Maybe you should keep this on your personal blog and not using this site as your own personal soapbox.
...just what the fuck this has to do with "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"?
What are we now, DIGG!?
True. Politics have been silly, trite, and corrupt for the history of the Republic. Not always, but certainly the day-to-day running of the government has been just as stupid or worse. In some ways, we're less corrupt and more transparent now then ever.
Have a lot further to go before we get out of the negative numbers, though.
Rep. John Culberson of Texas is covering the "blackout" via his Tiwtter account and on Qik. I like the idea of Congressmen speaking without mics like the 1800s but Twittering away in the darkened chamber (even if it isn't really exactly like that).
Explain why the price of oil dropped quite a bit the same day the Bush rescinded the executive ban on drilling then?
What a dumb thing to say, and absolutely opposite of your stated political opinion. Please, state for the record that you wish congress to enact more laws. I really wish I could see your face right now, because I know you are gritting your teeth and frothing at the mouth due to cognitive dissonance.
You really think that passing more laws is going to fix this? REALLY? You think congress should cancel their regularly scheduled vacation so they can pass more laws? I do not for a second believe that you really mean that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The republicans made the mistake of treating the Democrats professionally.
Queen Nancy made it very clear that there is NO voice for the minority party in her house. None. The history of the house be damned, this is her place now.
Simply adjourning - which cuts off formal floor debate inherently - is not comparable to changing bills after they had been passed, holding votes open longer than permissible or the abusive use of holds (in the Senate). Your claims to the contrary are transparently partisan.
Could you provide us with some citations?
Pass themselves a pay cut? Give the taxpayers a federal taxbreak for the summer, make money spent on loaned interest tax-deductible for homes and automobiles, increase tarrifs on imports and give tax incentives on exports. Make gas purchases tax-deductible. Come down on one or more of the blatant trusts sitting in our system.
They have the power to increase the net worth of all paychecks given to all American workers by up to 30%, yet you think they have no power over the economy? Yes, the federal government can afford (and deserves) to lose 8% of its income so the entire United States can increase 30% for one month. We didn't elect them to deal with easy issues or hurt us when we're doing well. We elected them to represent us in a system that can solve difficult issues about economy, security, and policy. Incompetence is not an excuse with their paychecks. If you believe there's nothing they can do, it's time to recall every one of the pathetic, corrupt bastards.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
that we should have started drilling in ANWR in 2002?
If we're applying psychic powers, we should have started drilling there in 1992. Then the oil would be flowing around 2002... at which point BP's pipes start falling apart, requiring them to shut the whole thing down a few years ago to replace the pipes. These new pipes would be in place and ready to flow just in time for them to start pumping again right... about... now!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Tell people you are drilling and yeah, the oil won't enter the stream for 10, 15 years but the speculative properties alone will drop crude by another $20 or $40, easy.
There's no evidence supporting this.
The "price of oil" you read about in the papers is the price of a futures contract with delivery in one month. Your claim is -- that the highly-unlikely possibility of oil supply increasing by 0.2% and thus the price dropping insignificantly (the Bush DoE's word) 18 years from now has in substantive part caused the one-month futures contract price to fall by 20%.
That's simply preposterous.
Especially because oil is a global commodity. There are other producers besides the U.S. Hypothetically, if the U.S. announced today that in precisely 20 years, our nation would increase oil production by 10 Mbbl/day, then all the other oil-producing nations and corporations would take that into account when evaluating how much they should plan to produce. Since a significant increase in production might decrease the global price of oil, it might be the case that oil producers would reduce the amount of oil they plan to produce 20 years from now. It's quite possible that, as a result, total oil production in 20 years would be exactly the same as if the U.S. had made no such announcement.
In reality, whether other entities' production plans respond with an increase, decrease, or no change depends on complex projections of supply, demand, and other circumstances. My point is that it's ludicrous to assume that announcement of a definite increase in U.S. production would lead to an increase in supply and therefore a reduced price, 20 years in the future. And it's doubly ludicrous to think a highly speculative possibility of a 0.2% increase 20 years from now could make today's one-month futures contract nosedive.
But that's the kind of muddled, uneducated thinking that Republicans expect us to swallow.
You know, there are some of us that are glad that oil is getting expensive. Basic economics are forcing people to buy less, and that's a great thing when we're dealing with a non-renewable resource.
Seriously, it looks like 7 dollar gas is just what this country needs to start really changing the way we do this. I say bring it on.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Explain why the price of oil dropped quite a bit the same day the Bush rescinded the executive ban on drilling then?
"I don't know if we fully deserve the credit, but I do think that it was important to send a signal to the market that we are serious about moving forward."
-White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, July 23
The reports I've heard cite decreased demand.
If my cost to make a widget is 90$, and I sell them for 100$ apiece, and I sell 100 of them I have a profit of $1000 and a profit margin of 10$.
If the cost goes up to 180$/widget to make, and I sell them for 200$ and sell 100 of them again I have made $2000 and my profit marge is 20$.
In both cases I am making 10% of your cost in profit. But from the first situation to the second my profits have DOUBLED.
Should I have reduced my profit margin to 5%? What if my business isn't sustainable with a 5% profit margin?
Oh, and if you take a look the oil companies have a pretty thin profit margin, much less than 10%. So quit harping on the "record profits" of the oil companies. It just demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of economics at the most basic level.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
There is no hard and fast definition of 'liberal'. Liberal is whatever you make it to be.
I don't accept that the media is 'liberal', because most of it is owned by large conglomerates, and I guarantee that the board members and executives of those corporations are not 'liberal' by your definition.
Do you suppose the people hiring and firing anchors and reporters do not affect a bias on the reporting?
Face it: what you mean by 'liberal' is "not as conservative as I'd like", or more accurately "a simplistic label others who I identify with will use against those I don't."
If you post it, they will read.
If...
the price of oil = X dollars + (opening a wildlife area to drilling and damage)
...then we are not lowering the price of oil; we're just paying for some of the oil with financial resources and some with environmental resources.
The price of oil has still gone up.
As I understand it, the Bush administration changed the rules regarding oil future trading and now there's like 6x the number of trades or traders there were before the change. You can't seriously think the there's 6x more people wanting to take deliver of oil do you? There hasn't been a refinery built in the US in decades
Go and track the net profit of Oil companies over the last few years. It's almost exactly in line with the price of oil. In fact, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips have dropped their earnings per barrel of oil in the last year.
You're a little behind on your news cycle. They missed the analyst estimate, but not by much.
An interesting statistic caught my eye while looking over their financials:
Now who's #1 in the "record profits" field? Can you say "conflict of interest?"
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So how come there's no shortages if there's a problem with supply?
I don't see any gas pumps complaining of no gas to sell. I don't see gas rationing. I don't see lines for gas out half a block because there's only so few stations selling gas.
I call BS on your supply and demand crap. If the supply was low, it would be a scarce. Since i haven't seen a single person complain they couldn't find gas, i don't believe your tall tale of economics 101. It's a lot easier to believe that something else is driving the price up considering that
a) It's the same gas that was 1.50 5 years ago
b) No shortage = fast and easy to find/get
c) Oil companies have been making record profits, above and beyond anything we have ever seen
Try again with something more believable.
Well, sure I think that they deserve the profits. They invested in the land and drilled the stuff. It's their good fortune that people think black goop is worth a lot at the moment. But I'm not really interested in my own opinion. I already know what it is. I'm more interested in why you think it isn't fair. What can I say, I enjoy fresh perspectives.
But I have no doubt that eventually the American people will demand accountability from these turds, and from anyone who enabled them.
Ha! I wish! Once these people are out of office they'll go about their happy lives bothered by no one. Their family and friends will be richer and more powerful than 8 years ago. Congress and the judicial system will do nothing and the public will demand nothing. Most will say, "Well, he's out of office, so he's not doing me harm any longer." They'll be wrong, but they'll be content.
Other than that, great post.
Developers: We can use your help.
Also, Republicans can thank (Rep. John) Shadegg for turning on the microphones the first time. Apparently, the fiesty Arizona conservative started typing random codes into the chamber's public address system and accidentally typed the correct code, allowing Republicans brief access to the microphone before it was turned off again.
Isn't that unauthorized access to an electronic system? Surely such hacking is subject to prosecution.
Ummm. Wrong. The Bakken formation is _under_ the shale, not IN the shale.
Hence the reason that several oil companies are gearing up for more drilling there as we speak. The difficulty actually has to do with the nature of the horizontal fractures in the formation and the low porosity of the shale.
I know several engineers working on projects to increase the yield for similar projects right here in Tulsa, OK. My great uncle (May he rest in Peace) had several patents for horizontal drilling equipment. If it's there someone will figure out how to get it, economically. Look at the Oil sands projects... Even if we drilled in the manner that we do today it's good for 3.6 billion barrels of oil, in North Dakota. That does not include the portions extending into Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
From Wikipedia
"It is estimated that there are significant reservoirs of oil spread beneath the Bakken's shale. As the oil is beneath the shale rather than in it, these reservoirs are not considered oil shale.
The flurry of drilling activity in the Bakken, coupled with the wide range of estimates of in-place and recoverable oil, led North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan to ask the USGS to conduct a study of the Bakken's potentially recoverable oil. In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation at 9800 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion.[11] Later that month, the state of North Dakota's report [12] estimated that of the 167 billion barrels of oil in-place in the North Dakota portion of the Bakken, 2.1 billion barrels were technically recoverable with current technology.
Back at ya bub.
From the Energy Information Administration:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html
1. "The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."
2. Do oil options or futures go out further than 5 years anyway?
Finally, from the same link:
3. "Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."
If you don't care about the marine environment or the fishing industry, drilling for a couple of buckets or mblpd of oil may make sense. But don't fool yourself into thinking it will have any effect on gas prices.
Of the 40,000 active oil fields in the world, not one of them is refilling itself.
Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3D91530F935A1575AC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
I hate to admit it - but it is so much *nicer* to drive now. Even six months ago, you had to deal with all these SUV-owners that figured they were the biggest thing on the road, what the heck were you going to do, double parked, pulling up *into* the intersection so you couldn't see traffic.
I haven't seen a hummer on my drive to work in a couple weeks now. Trucks yes, but they're doing a job and are generally as decent to you as they can afford to be.
But nary a hummer or oversized SUV to be seen - so damn pleasant!
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
So you're advocating a bunch of make-work jobs in wind and solar using what is basically stolen money, and it's the oil companies who are immoral for actually producing a product people wish to buy?
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
If people had actually studied anything at all about Standard Oil, we *wouldn't* have antitrust regulations. They innovated their mom-and-pop competitors out of business, gained a huge share, and lost it as newer refineries copied their methods. All of this without Uncle Sam jabbing the antitrust gun into anyones back. The railroads I'll concede slightly, but their cartels were made possible by government coercion.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
You are dead right.
Any 1st year business major (or, any kid selling lemonade) knows that the cost of acquisition + cost of sale + profit margin = selling price. Where all of the oil companies (a cartel) have the same costs of acquisition, but not the same costs of sale, then their uniform pricing exposes a nasty little deal called "price fixing" - and, for those of you who don't believe that the oil companies would do such a thing - read the history of T. Roosevelt and the trust busters.
Moreover, in a free market you simply cannot have (1) High Costs of Acquisition, (2) High Sales Prices and (3) Record Profits.
You can have only two of those three or the market is "fixed" not free.
Whose figures are you believing? The OIL industry? The Financial Times just ran a 2 part article on the profits of the industry - and the evidence is overwhelming that they are vastly underreporting their acquisitions and profits.
Why, I bet that that you have found out for yourself that there are no gages on Iraqi oil pipelines...nobody knows how much oil leaves that nation. Well, the oil industry has a good idea, collectively......
While you're at it, consider that the grocery store used to work on a 2-3% markup and do just fine. Today, food is a byproduct - the revenue is generated by the sale of data - mined from your purchases. Yep, those "affinity cards" create a 15% profit margin for the large chains and the mom and pop stores will be gone shortly.
And, casinos. Ah, yes, the money printing business. One that I sued had an operating cost of $0.167 - making their EBDA profit over 80 cents on the dollar. Consider that industry: physical plant, equipment - all depreciable as 3 year property or expensed in 1 year (cards, tickets) and staff costs. Cheap to operate and profitable as hell. Why, they sell their food and drink at a "loss" to entice in the suckers.
Ever wonder why Hold-em became such a hot game? Because, prior to that game, there was so much cheating that nobody could win on skill. Today that is the only game that you can play in a modern casino and have some reasonable chance of winning on skill. They don't let you play Backgammon for money - because the house loses. Today's oil business is a lot like Backgammon - and the problem is that you think that you are playing some other game.
Is there any chance this was broadcast on C-Span and recorded? If so, link please.
If Congress said "drill wherever you want" right now, we would see exactly 0 barrels of that oil this year.
I truly hate this argument. For the past 30 years the environmentalists have been saying "hey, we have enough oil, gas is a dollar a gallon. We don't need to drill." And now that demand has grown and the supply can't keep up their argument is that "drilling today won't lower the price for 5 years." Duh! That's why you were supposed to start drilling 5 YEARS AGO! Short run solutions are not solutions and the fact that oil prices won't decrease for 5 years is no reason to prevent drilling.