Unusually for a spring season, gasoline prices
have been steadily climbing in the US since the beginning of 2011, and have surpassed $4/gallon in many US states, largely due to
political instability in many oil-producing African and Middle-Eastern nations.
"Not so fast," says the Department of Energy. Although the price of crude oil has climbed steadily throughout the year, the price of gasoline has climbed much faster -- a disparity known as the
crack spread, which
has remained at its highest level in 32 months, even in light of a sharp decline in the price of crude oil at the beginning of the month. The DoE speculates that although crude oil is cheap and plentiful enough, the
2011 Misssissippi River Floods are currently more to blame for $4 gas than the uprisings in the Middle East.
posted by schmod
on May 19, 2011 -
125 comments
"We only went into Iraq because of oil, you know." "We only appease Saudi Arabia because of oil, you know." To hear people talk sometimes, you'd think they never used oil. - David Mitchell on
hypocrisy and politics, and how we blame our leaders for making decisions based on what we want, not on what we say.
posted by Artw
on Oct 19, 2009 -
74 comments
In 2009,
a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will
have to learn to say "No we can't",
Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield,
economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye,
governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees,
we will judge our commitment to sustainability,
scientists should research the causes of religion,
we will all be potential online paparazzi,
English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless),
Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops,
Iran will continue its nuclear quest while
diplomacy lies in shambles,
the sea floor is the new frontier,
we should rethink aging,
(non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project --
but cheap travel will continue to buoy it --
though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and
a Nordic defence bond will blossom.
The Economist: The World in 2009.
[more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Nov 27, 2008 -
31 comments
"Fog of War" cited by United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. He was
speaking to journalists to clarify reports concerning his
unauthorised contacts with foreign government officials, among them Asif Ali Zardari; a then contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.
Earlier this year he was being touted as a possible successor to Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan as seen in
these two
articles.
So
who is Zalmay Khalilzad?
Neo con and
oil businessman.
[more inside]
posted by adamvasco
on Sep 10, 2008 -
8 comments
Last Chance. "It took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man (and natural disasters) 75 years to destroy it. Experts agree we have 10 years to act before the problem is too big to solve."
[Via First Draft.]
posted by homunculus
on Mar 5, 2007 -
19 comments
the new urban jungle . . . is a growing movement led by cities like
San Francisco,
New York, and
Leiden to restore active and vibrant natural systems in urban areas. Far from the eden-like depictions of nature of yesteryear, i.e.
the garden of earthly delights (nonetheless, still attracting some dynamic
new christian converts), the movement has morphed into today's backyard and grassroots environmental movement which is more and more a picture of hybridity, compromise, mixed-use, and ultimately, taking nature out of the walled islands of zoos, aquaria, national parks and other thick-walled institutions and offering a different kind of everyday
"unmediated" community experience with the new
urban wilderness.
VIDEO LINK
posted by huckhound
on Jul 6, 2006 -
1 comment
The Paradigm is the Enemy: A sobering but cogent account of the state of Peak Oil, what it's already led to (reported and ignored), and what is in store for us in the near future. The worst part is the political impossibility of addressing the problem constructively: that would require acknowledging the problem.
posted by LeisureGuy
on Apr 29, 2006 -
99 comments
Why am I and
a few others the only ones interested in this angle of the war story. I have been doing
research about our
disappearing VP and have
found lots
more than I can link
here. No implied conspiracy theory, just more of those things that make you say Hmmmm.
See if you can connect the dots!
posted by bas67
on Oct 15, 2001 -
27 comments
Grand Old Petroleum. GOP. Get it? The DNC really cracks me up sometimes. This is, however, an interesting development in politics. Is every issue going to have its own clever webpage in the future? The mind boggles.
posted by CRS
on May 17, 2001 -
17 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
Iraq improves its oil reserves This piece belongs with the other post I recently posted on oil and world political and military strategies. I guess that since filling my gas tank this evening I have narrowed my focus a bit, for which, apologies.
posted by Postroad
on Mar 21, 2001 -
0 comments
Nader Responds to Accusations of Hypocrisy “I will fight for the U’wa and investor accountability by backing a shareholder resolution at the next Annual General Meeting of Fidelity Investments–one of the largest shareholders in Occidental Petroleum and I urge social and environmental screens as a filter for all holdings."
posted by snakey
on Nov 3, 2000 -
13 comments
Gore's Connection to Occidental Petroleum goes much deeper than an investment in a mutual fund. From the article: "...the Clinton Administration has been quietly helping the company--a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win support in Colombia for its drilling plans."
posted by snakey
on Oct 28, 2000 -
34 comments
