Posts Tagged ‘United States’

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What do Obama, Blair and Al Qaida have in common?

September 6, 2013

They all want a  US strike on Syria – each for his own reasons.

Al Qaida has the most to gain by a weakening – rather than an elimination – of Assad’s regime. That would give them time to consolidate their dominance among the opposition groups while ensuring the eventual demise of Assad.

Tony Blair is desperate to show that all attacks by Western interests which help regime-change in the area are justified in themselves. His duplicity about WMD and Iraq will always dominate his place in History and that rankles. He is still looking for the argument which can support his fantasy that the intervention in Iraq – even without any WMD – was a good thing. He has just been interviewed by the BBC and this is to be aired on Monday. The excerpts released so far clearly reveal how utterly self-centred and self-serving he is.

What exactly Obama hopes to accomplish is quite unclear. It could be for intellectual satisfaction for having – recklessly – made his red-line box for himself. It could be to demonstrate his “moral superiority” and by extension that of the US. He (through Kerry) says 1429 people were killed by sarin gas. The French put the number at 281. The British said it was about 350. How will Obama measure success? By the number of fresh bodies on the ground? Score 1 for every Assad soldier killed! An “eye for an eye” or will he need to multply by ten to ensure that his actions are a deterrent? It is the gassing of children that must be addressed he says.  Is it only the manner of their deaths he wants to react to? How many children have died in US drone attacks so far?

Israel will be very satisfied if Syria remains in internal turbulence for as long as possible. Turkey’s Islamists will be very happy to see Assad go. Will Obama be satisfied for having strengthened Al Qaida and other Islamist groups?

Perhaps Obama with his drones and his “limited and targeted strike on Syria” is just one of the “wannabe soldier(s who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare”.

I think war is deplorable but unfortunately necessary. Human behaviour has not yet evolved to be able to avoid it. But war without any objective and primarily to demonstrate “moral superiority”?

Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College and writes in the Washington Post:

A war the Pentagon doesn’t want

…. After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals who have been intimate witnesses to the unfolding events that will lead the United States into its next war.

They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.

They are repelled by the hypocrisy of a media blitz that warns against the return of Hitlerism but privately acknowledges that the motive for risking American lives is our “responsibility to protect” the world’s innocents. Prospective U.S. action in Syria is not about threats to American security. 

 The U.S. military’s civilian masters privately are proud that they are motivated by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, Sudan and Kosovo and not by any systemic threat to our country.

They are outraged by the fact that what may happen is an act of war and a willingness to risk American lives to make up for a slip of the tongue about “red lines.” These acts would be for retribution and to restore the reputation of a president. Our serving professionals make the point that killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront us. The Iranians have already gotten the message.

Our people lament our loneliness. Our senior soldiers take pride in their past commitments to fight alongside allies and within coalitions that shared our strategic goals. This war, however, will be ours alone.

They are tired of wannabe soldiers who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare. …. 

…. Soon the military will salute respectfully and loose the hell of hundreds of cruise missiles in an effort that will, inevitably, kill a few of those we wish to protect. They will do it with all the professionalism and skill we expect from the world’s most proficient military. I wish Kerry would take a moment to look at the images from this week’s hearings before we go to war again.

Read the whole article.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Syria, US | Comments Off on What do Obama, Blair and Al Qaida have in common?

Déjà vu! For Iraq read Syria

August 28, 2013

Déjà vu!

Some kind of military action by the US and its allies – probably missile and drone attacks – is imminent  against Syria and Assad. To what end is uncertain. To destroy stocks of chemical weapons could be an objective but any action would probably only cause more release of the toxins involved. To destroy or help destroy Assad’s regime is possible but unlikely since the alternative would probably be Al Qaida. To assassinate Assad runs the same risk. To kill some of Assad’s military or his supporters just as a “punitive” strike could be an objective but adding to the killing to stop the killing seems a little dubious. To demonstrate a self-righteous “moral” position to the world with the least damaging consequences possible would seem to the main objective. To prevent any future use of chemical weapons by any country could be an objective thought it is difficult to see how many “bad guys” would need to be killed or how much property would need to be destroyed to create a valid deterrent.

For Iraq read Syria. For Bush, Blair, Chirac  (my failing memory) and Howard read Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Rudd. Even though each of the current four leaders is from the opposing party to that of his predecessor. For WMD read “chemical or nerve gas”. Statements by the politicians show that they are absolutely “certain” that Assad was responsible. Evidence is not forthcoming. As it was not for Iraq. And it does not inspire any confidence that to justify the Iraq invasion, “evidence” was made-up by the intelligence services to satisfy their political masters.

That upto some 300 people have been killed seems very likely though there is some doubt as to the number. The main evidence seems to be video footage. That some form of chemical or nerve agent was used seems probable. And traces of such agents are detectable years after the event, though some politicians (Obama and Kerry for example) would like us to believe that the evidence may be destroyed and therefore  time is of the essence just to preserve the evidence. Though it is likely that someone within the Assad regime was probably responsible it is not at all impossible that one of the many “rebel” groups was responsible. Some of the rebel groups – along with Assad’s supporters – have exhibited their barbaric and cannibalistic tendencies.

But I am afraid that military actions will be carried out – again – without any more serious objective than to demonstrate “moral superiority” and to fulfill domestic agendas.  Even though such actions – in themselves – undermine the very moral superiority that is being touted. Some more people – some quite innocent – will of course be killed. They will just be collateral damage and the the sacrifice in a war of moral superiority. That Tony Blair on-board a luxurious yacht somewhere supports immediate strikes against Syria only adds to my feeling that it would be ill-advised. His thirst for blood is apparently not yet satisfied. Obama needs to show that he can actually be decisive – if only for history. Cameron needs a war – any war – before the next General Election and Spain over Gibraltar does not quite fit the bill.  Argentina over the Falklands is better but too far away and already done. Hollande needs to show that he does really exist – as he did in Mali. Rudd would love to be seen at the “big table” and he could see this as a way for grabbing some of Abbot’s supporters for the election in less than 2 weeks.

The chaos in Iraq and the daily loss of life that is occurring there is a direct consequence of the Iraq invasion (and how much worse would it have been under Saddam?). The adventure in Libya to satisfy the European desire for demonstrating their moral superiority will have consequences for many many years to come. Of course the Middle East today (like the Balkans a few years ago) provides proof positive of the barbarism that lies so close to the surface of many human “societies”. And the interventions by moral “police” has always dragged the police down to the level of the criminal societies they are ostensibly trying to put down. The intervention in Kosovo has succeeded after a fashion. But it is hard to come to to the same conclusion for Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya.

To add Syria to the list seems irresponsible.

The only way to address Syria – in my opinion – is to ostracise the entire country. Shun them. Close the borders. isolate them. No weapons – to anybody. No goods, no services to enter the country. Nobody and nothing enters. Only refugees may leave. Send the country to Coventry. Go back in a few months and when the killing stops – help the survivors pick up the pieces. But don’t intervene to add to the killing in the hope of stopping the killing.

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Nature: “US behavioural researchers exaggerate findings”

August 27, 2013

The field of behaviour within social psychology has not covered itself with glory in recent times. The cases of Diedrik Stapel and Dirk Smeesters and Marc Hauser are all too recent. But I have the perception that the entire field – globally – has been subject to exaggerations and the actions of narcissists. I had not perceived it as being a particular issue just for the US. But I would not be surprised if the “publish or perish” pressure is stronger in the US than in many other countries.

But a  new study publsished in PNAS has ” found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such “US effect” …”

Fanelli, D. & Ioannidis, J. P. A.,US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research,  Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA  (2013), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302997110

Nature reports

US behavioural researchers have been handed a dubious distinction — they are more likely than their colleagues in other parts of the world to exaggerate findings, according to a study published today.

The research highlights the importance of unconscious biases that might affect research integrity, says Brian Martinson, a social scientist at the HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was not involved with the study. “The take-home here is that the ‘bad guy/good guy’ narrative — the idea that we only need to worry about the monsters out there who are making up data — is naive,” Martinson says.



The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by John Ioannidis, a physician at Stanford University in California, and Daniele Fanelli, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. The pair examined 82 meta-analyses in genetics and psychiatry that collectively combined results from 1,174 individual studies. The researchers compared meta-analyses of studies based on non-behavioural parameters, such as physiological measurements, to those based on behavioural parameters, such as progression of dementia or depression.



The researchers then determined how well the strength of an observed result or effect reported in a given study agreed with that of the meta-analysis in which the study was included. They found that, worldwide, behavioural studies were more likely than non-behavioural studies to report ‘extreme effects’ — findings that deviated from the overall effects reported by the meta-analyses.
 And US-based behavioural researchers were more likely than behavioural researchers elsewhere to report extreme effects that deviated in favour of their starting hypotheses.



“We might call this a ‘US effect,’” Fanelli says. “Researchers in the United States tend to report, on average, slightly stronger results than researchers based elsewhere.”

This ‘US effect’ did not occur in non-behavioral research, and studies with both behavioural and non-behavioural components exhibited slightly less of the effect than purely behavioural research. Fanelli and Ioannidis interpret this finding to mean that US researchers are more likely to report strong effects, and that this tendency is more likely to show up in behavioural research, because researchers in these fields have more flexibility to make different methodological choices that produce more diverse results.

The study looked at a larger volume of research than has been examined in previous studies on bias in behavioural research, says Brian Nosek, a psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. ….. 

Abstract

Many biases affect scientific research, causing a waste of resources, posing a threat to human health, and hampering scientific progress. These problems are hypothesized to be worsened by lack of consensus on theories and methods, by selective publication processes, and by career systems too heavily oriented toward productivity, such as those adopted in the United States (US). Here, we extracted 1,174 primary outcomes appearing in 82 meta-analyses published in health-related biological and behavioral research sampled from the Web of Science categories Genetics & Heredity and Psychiatry and measured how individual results deviated from the overall summary effect size within their respective meta-analysis. We found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such “US effect” and were subject mainly to sampling variance and small-study effects, which were stronger for non-US countries. Although this latter finding could be interpreted as a publication bias against non-US authors, the US effect observed in behavioral research is unlikely to be generated by editorial biases. Behavioral studies have lower methodological consensus and higher noise, making US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings.

Related: Retraction Watch

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UK also following US instructions in detaining partner of the journalist linked to Snowden

August 19, 2013

The subservience of European security services to their US counterparts seems complete.

It was not so long ago that we had the story 

…. about France and Portugal and Austria kowtowing to demands made – no doubt – by US “intelligence” while forcing down the Bolivian President’s plane yesterday, suggests that this subservience of their European counterparts still continues. The quality of the US “intelligence” that Snowden was on the plane was clearly very “strain’d”. The “constraining” of intelligence” to suit a political purpose will be with us for a long time and the poodle-like behaviour of the European countries is sometimes embarrassing to observe.

It transpired later that Germany was also complicit in the massive US surveillance. Snowden has since been granted a years asylum in Russia and it is to be expected that US dissatisfaction and irritation is running high. And today we have the story of how the UK security services detained the partner of the journalist associated with Snowden while he was en route from Berlin to Brazil. He was detained, questioned for 9 hours, had his lap-top and memory sticks confiscated – all under powers available from terrorist legislation.  It does seem that the UK – like France and Portugal and Austria – was merely following instructions from across the Atlantic. One wonders what new revelations from Snowden’s material the US NSA is so paranoid about.

Reuters: 

British authorities used anti-terrorism powers on Sunday to detain the partner of a journalist with close links to Edward Snowden, the former U.S. spy agency contractor who has been granted asylum by Russia, as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport.

The 28-year-old David Miranda, a Brazilian citizen and partner of U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald who writes for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, was questioned for nine hours before being released without charge, a report on the Guardian website said.

A British Metropolitan Police Service spokesman said a 28-year-old male had been detained at Heathrow airport under provisions of the 2000 Terrorism Act. That law gives British border officials the right to question someone “to determine if that individual is a person concerned in the commission, preparation or execution of acts of terrorism.”

The invocation of terrorism legislation is more than a little far-fetched but was probably a quick, convenient way for the compliant UK security services to satisfy the US demands. I am just a little surprised that it did not just give rise to a case of “extraordinary rendition” with Miranda being hustled onto a plane bound for the US.

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What’s in an “e”? Berkley vs. Berkeley

August 12, 2013

From Copy, Shake and Paste

Everyone knows that Berkley is an excellent university in the United States. Or was that Berkeley? Whatever, if someone is sporting a degree that looks impressive, it must be from that place. 

Except when it is not.

It has come to light, as the Swiss daily paper Tages-Anzeiger noted on 9 August 2013, that the IT-boss at the University Hospital in Zürich has stepped down because of a missing ‘e’. The University of California, Berkeley, is indeed one of the top universities in the US. But it did not grant a doctoral degree to Jürgen Müller. Müller had been working on his doctorate at the University of Passau in Germany when his financing ran out.

Müller then heard about the University of Berkley, and for only $ 3000 in fees he was soon the proud owner of a sheepskin declaring him to be a “Doctor of Science”, according to the Tages-Anzeiger. 

…… 

…. The Tages-Anzeiger article ends with an interesting note. It seems that in March of 2013 a whistleblower tried to contact Müller’s boss about his purchased degree. Müller, as IT boss, apparently had this person on a blacklist, so that emails from him did not bounce, but were just silently destroyed. 

I suppose the University Hospital in Zürich is glad that he has resigned. The question is, where will he pop up again where people don’t know the difference one letter can make?

The University of Berkley’s rates for purchasing degrees are below. It’s best to buy your Master’s and Doctor’s degrees together and in advance!!

Buying your Berkley degree

Buying your Berkley degree

The University of Berkley is a diploma mill and the subject of many scam reports and warnings such as this one:

University of Berkley Distance Learning Accreditation Report

CAUTION: You should be aware… this college is NOT ACCREDITED by any agency recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation or the US Department of Education to award degrees.
Distance learning accreditation claims include:

  • New Accrediting Partnership for Educators Worldwide (NAPEW)

You should be aware that this agency is NOT RECOGNIZED by the Council on Higher Education or the US Department of Education as a college accreditation institution. What does this mean? For you, as a consumer, this means credentials earned at this college might not meet with wide acceptance at other CHEA-accredited online colleges and might not meet with academic or employment acceptance across the USA. You should be aware that in some states and for some professions it may be illegal to use a degree from an non accredited school for employment purposes.

CAUTION: the following State Warnings apply to this online college

  • Michigan State Warning: CAUTION! The State of Michigan classifies this online college as an UNACCEPTABLE INSTITUTION for credentialing for those seeking jobs in the State’s Department of Civil Service: (Consult Michigan’s NON ACCREDITED COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES – “Degrees from these institutions will not be accepted by the Department of Civil Service as satisfying any educational requirements indicated on job specifications”:  http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf)
  • Texas State Warning: CAUTION! The State of Texas classifies this online college as an ILLEGAL SUPPLIER of educational credentials in the State of Texas (Consult: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Institutions Whose Degrees are Illegal to Use in Texas:  http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/AAR/PrivateInstitutions/NoTX.cfm)

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A democratic police state?

August 9, 2013

Being “democratic” has increasingly become the cloak under which the oppression of minorities can be carried out without much criticism. Though constitutions are supposed to enshrine the values and fundamental principles which protect minorities from excesses of the “majority” –  following the majority view is itself the cornerstone for an ostensible “democracy”. And every constitution has built-in mechanisms – usually more complex than just a simple majority vote – by which it can be amended to suit the wishes of the majority.

Which is what happened in Egypt where a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood put in place a constitution which would have ensured the oppression of non-Muslim minorities. Which is what applies in Russia where the majority feel more comfortable with an authoritarian government. Which is what is happening in Libya after the overthrow of Gadaffi’s regime. Which was happening in Tunisia. Which is happening in Hungary. Which has just happened in Zimbabwe. Which is what threatens in Afghanistan.

But it also happens in well established democracies. Coercive and oppressive measures to be applied to minorities can always be justified in any democracy provided it can be shown to be the “majority” view as expressed by the “democratic institutions” in place. To oppress a minority for “the common good” is always possible and justifiable – even in a supposed democracy.

And so it is also in the US. Actions which are more reminiscent of a police state of the cold-war era can be and are justified because Congress – as a democratic institution – allows it. If it was the objective of the 9/11 terrorists to undermine the democracy of the US, then the US – under the cloak of its “War on Terror” – has itself achieved part of that objective.

Ladar Levison who is the owner of the encrypted email service Lavabit has been forced to cease operation. Presumably because Snowden used the service. He has this to say:

My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on–the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

The New Yorker writes:

As Kevin Poulsen and others have pointed out, our collective experience has prepared us to guess what is going on here: Levison got either a national-security letter “or a full blown search or eavesdropping warrant.” In the weeks since the Guardian and Washington Post first began publishing stories with Snowden’s documents, the picture of the National Security Agency’s domestic-surveillance practices that’s come together is different from the one most everyone held before we’d ever heard Snowden’s name. And it has left the Administration’s explanations of what it does and doesn’t do looking pretty spotty, and at times just false. …..

…. The extreme example that an unnamed official gave Savage is a search for a phone number the N.S.A. believes terrorists are using to call each other. What about a name? Could the N.S.A. read e-mails from members of the public if they simply discuss the case of someone the government has said is a threat? It sounds like it. This is dangerous; we already have Senators constrained from talking about what they know. We can’t all be afraid to ask questions; for a democracy, the most threatening thing would be the absence of such conversations. ….

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Yemen a clear target in US drone sights

August 6, 2013

Perhaps it is all connected to the current global alert and threats of terrorist actions supposedly emanating from Yemen, but there certainly seems to be a major US operation ongoing in Yemen.

File:Yemen division 2012-3-11.svg

Yemen Divisions – wikipedia

UPDATE 2:

Drone strikes kill eight suspected militants in Yemen on Thursday 8th August

UPDATE!

Another 7 were killed in Yemen by US drone attacks on Wednesday, 7th August.

============================================

In the last 10 days since July 27th , there have been at least 4 drone attacks killing 17 people in Yemen.

  • July 27th: 6 killed in Abyan province
  • July 30th: 3 killed in drone attack on a car in Shabwa
  • August 1st: 4 killed in drone attack in Habramawt
  • 5th August: 4 killed on Tuesday when two unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at two vehicles in Wadi Abidah district. 

According to the Washington-based New America Foundation, the US killer drone attacks in Yemen almost tripled in 2012. 

The advantage with drone attacks is that they are impersonal, supposed to be clinically accurate, relatively cheap and put no personnel from the attacking side at risk. The downside is that they pre-empt any due process, are subject to the accuracy of very fallible intelligence gatherers and are inherently inhumane being “untouched by human hands”. And the civilians and children who frequently are killed on the ground get brushed under the carpet of “collateral damage”.

All those who have been killed recently in Yemen are said to have been affiliated with Al Qaeda.

But the dead cannot deny their alleged guilt and we will never know.

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“Plastic” beer losing ground in the US

August 5, 2013

Many of the mass produced US beers are – to my unsophisticated taste – little better than coloured dish water.

It is high time for a Campaign for Real Ale in the US.

From the Washington Post

Alcohol consumption in the US (Gallup)

Fairly stunning data from Gallup on Americans’ declining taste for beer compared to wine and hard liquor.

There are some interesting demographic internals, too. Back in the early nineties 71 percent of the 18-29 cohort preferred beer. Just 41 percent of today’s youth cohort says beer is their favorite, as do only 43 percent of 30 to 49 year olds. In other words, a cohort of beer lovers lost their taste for it as they became middle aged and was replaced by a new youth cohort that doesn’t like beer that much either.

What will be interesting to see is whether today’s young people follow their elders in becoming more beer-averse as they age.

 

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The quality of “intelligence” is not strain’d

July 3, 2013

“Intelligence” in the political sense is knowledge. But when “knowledge” is created or moulded or invented to suit a political purpose it loses its intelligence. Constrained intelligence is bad intelligence.

Following the Bard,

The quality of intelligence is not strain’d,
It may not be shaped or created or invented
to suit a man’s convenience. It is twice cursed:
It curses him who invents and curses the fool who believes.

The shameful subservience of European countries and their political classes to US “intelligence” when going to war in Iraq is now history. Of course Tony Blair was not merely subservient, he also helped to constrain the “intelligence” even further.

Reading this story about France and Portugal and Austria kowtowing to demands made – no doubt – by US “intelligence” while forcing down the Bolivian President’s plane yesterday, suggests that this subservience of their European counterparts still continues. The quality of the US “intelligence” that Snowden was on the plane was clearly very “strain’d”. The “constraining” of intelligence” to suit a political purpose will be with us for a long time and the poodle-like behaviour of the European countries is sometimes embarrassing to observe.

BBC: Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane had to be diverted to Austria amid suspicion that US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the Bolivian foreign minister has said.

Officials in both Austria and Bolivia said Mr Snowden was not on the plane.

France and Portugal reportedly refused to allow the Bolivia-bound flight to cross their airspace. Mr Snowden is reportedly seeking asylum in Bolivia and 20 other countries to avoid extradition to the US. Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told reporters on Tuesday that France and Portugal had closed their airspace over the “huge lie” that Mr Snowden, 30, was on board.

“We don’t know who invented this lie, but we want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,” he said.

Austrian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg said Mr Snowden was not on board the Bolivian leader’s aircraft. The Bolivian defence minister, also on the flight, pilloried the US after the unscheduled landing. “This is a hostile act by the United States state department which has used various European governments,” Ruben Saavedra said.

The Falcon aircraft was reportedly allowed to refuel in Spain before the jet went on to Vienna. President Morales was said to be at the airport in Vienna discussing his return route to Bolivia early on Wednesday.

 

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Posted in Behaviour, Europe, Politics, US | 1 Comment »

Shale Oil leading to real jobs and real investment in the US

July 1, 2013

“Artificial” jobs created by subsidies and government inspired market distortions are never sustainable. As is being evidenced by the boom and bust of solar energy and wind turbines riding the wave of subsidies. But the advent of shale oil (and shale gas) is a game changer in many many ways. Fossil fuels are now no longer all “bad” (though some of this sentiment is leading to another inane “War on Coal”), and the fundamental truth that true sustainability – of necessity – requires being commercially sound and not just subsidised is taking hold again.

The US is at least 3 years ahead of Europe in exploiting shale gas and shale oil – even though the deposits in Europe are quite considerable. But Europe is still stuck in the self-righteous and self-delusional “green” policy regimes which have raised energy prices unnecessarily, helped to sustain economic stagnation and have prevented some 15 million jobs from being created. Without a paradigm shift in energy policies and a whole-hearted pursuit of shale gas and nuclear power, Europe’s return to sustainable growth is difficult to define.

Reuters: 

Thanks to the U.S. shale energy boom, the once-quiet niche of U.S.-flagged oil tankers is in unprecedented flux.

A half-dozen vessels that typically carried gasoline to Florida are now rushing crude oil along the Texas coast. Major investment at the port of Corpus Christi, which now exports more than half of all Eagle Ford shale oil, suggests more to come even as new pipeline projects promise further market shifts.

The shale oil revolution, now in its third year, has already scrambled the inland U.S. crude market, forcing pipelines to reverse direction and fuelling a revival in railway oil trade. ….. 

(more…)

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