(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)
__
Charlie Pierce at Esquire reviews the next politics-as-horserace media distraction:
When John Heilemann, and the utterly inexcusable Mark Halperin, published Game Change, their gossipy account of the campaign four years ago, almost every page fairly dripped with flop sweat. Not from the authors, but from the dozens of professional political types, anonymous and not, who saw in the book a chance to rehabilitate their own reputations from the fools, thieves, and mountebanks for whom they’d worked. (And who, it should never be forgotten, they spent two years trying to foist on the rest of us as national leaders.) There was backstabbing befitting the court of a Borgia pope. There was resumé-polishing and brown-nosing that would have embarrassed the Haskell family down four generations. (The most distasteful was the unpardonable slandering of Elizabeth Edwards, something that the authors won’t live down for a while, either.) Generally, you’d have to wait until the Ides of March to watch a group of people sell out their boss that badly. To barber a phrase from the great Dan Jenkins, the book was further proof, as if we needed any, that, if you put 100 political consultants in a barrel and rolled it down a hill, there’d always be a son of a bitch on top.
__
Now, the people at HBO, and the writer/director behind Recount, that network’s superb retelling of the machinations in Florida in the aftermath of the 2000 election, have adapted one long portion of that book for a movie that debuts this Saturday, in what can fairly be called The Last Temptation of Sarah Palin. The movie is completely faithful to the spirit of the book in that it shows how some generally sensible people worked night and day to put a pretty obvious dimwit one heartbeat away from the nuclear codes and now feel really, really bad about it. It’s basically the story of Steve Schmidt, the political pro who convinced John McCain that his campaign needed a “game-changing” moment, and that picking Palin as a running mate was what he was looking for. The great arc of the movie shows Woody Harrelson’s Schmidt gradually realizing the catastrophe he has unleashed upon the campaign and, possibly, upon the country itself. It’s Frankenstein with BlackBerries. By the end of it, you half-expect to see Schmidt, who now is one of the best things about MSNBC’s political coverage, chasing Palin across the Arctic pack ice with dogs baying in the distance…
Also at Esquire, Tom Junod catches Neal Boortz limbo-ing lower than Limbaugh.
Later tonight: Thursday Recipe Swap, featuring JeffreyW’s PIZZA.
What other non-disgusting topics are on the agenda this evening?
cathyx
I’m completely worn out by all the stupid going on right now. I can’t wait for the pizza thread.
dmsilev
Via TPM, this is hilarious:
PeakVT
Snarksters, help Romney with his bumpersticker mottos. Do it for your country.
Citizen Alan
I really am afraid that I’m on the verge of becoming ageist. I certainly don’t mean to be. But in the last 24 hours, I’ve had to deal with a 69-year-old client who absolutely believes that there is no pending oil shortage because oil constantly replenishes itself. And then today, I was drawn into a Facebook feud with a woman who self-identified as a “65-year-old woman terrified for her country” because she was afraid she would get cancer and then “Odummer” will personally intervene to deny her treatment. Except for a handful of people at the local Democratic Party functions, I can’t think of a single person over the age of 60 with whom I have interacted this year who doesn’t believe ignorant rubbish about Obama and the state of the nation.
bemused
@Citizen Alan:
They are not liberals.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the utterly inexcusable Mark Halperin
Heh. Sometimes less is more. I’ll admit, I’m planning to watch this, though I’m disappointed by this, and totally persuaded by Pierce’s explanation
McCain’s myth, and his career, are kept alive by male baby-boomers’ daddy issues, like Voldemort feeding on fear.
cathyx
@Citizen Alan: They grew up in the era of prejudicial attitudes. And think of their parent’s attitudes raising them that way also. They would hear it all around them and even in the media.
dmsilev
@PeakVT:
BGinCHI
@Citizen Alan: Older conservatives are like old Ho Hos and Twinkies: they were lousy when they were fresh, but even worse past their sell-by date.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev:
bemused
I’d like a t-shirt that says: USA – United Sluts of America
scav
@BGinCHI: we better hope they don’t share all the attributes of Twinkies otherwise they’ll never be any leaving the old age homes. Twinkies are the cockroaches of the pseudofood world.
RedKitten
I’m just saddened and alarmed by the constant anti-woman bullshit handed out by the Republicans. The whole goddamn thing just makes me sad.
Other than that, though, it’s been a pretty positive day. I’m getting enough back from my income taxes to finally get a new computer and get rid of this old one (which sounds like a dying sheep). And, my parents have decided to sell the house and move to the city, so instead of a 4.5 hour drive away, they’ll be a 2-hour drive. Still far away that they won’t be all up in our bidness, but close enough that SamKitten will get to see them a lot more often.
BGinCHI
@scav: I know, analogy fail…..
scav
gogol's wife
@bemused:
Right. I know plenty of people over 60 who edge into Jane Hamsher territory. (Not that that’s good, but people over 60 have a range of political beliefs. The original commenter really is being ageist.)
muddy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Maybe if he likes the reviews from the movie he will try to behave as a statesman for a change. Surprise brokered convention, has anyone proffered him yet?
dmsilev
@BGinCHI:
scav
@BGinCHI: You got the texture and filling right . . .
BGinCHI
@dmsilev:
RossinDetroit
Just sayin’. The Esquire Politics Blog is awesome. Thank FSM that a men’s lifestyle magazine, of all things, has decent writers and reporters on the political beat. Where would we be without them?
realbtl
@Citizen Alan:
In late 60s/early 70s Boulder Colorado I used to have discussions about this with my friends. They seemed to think that everybody our age was living in that world when the reality is that the majority were married, living in the town they grew up in and working some shitty job. Longhairs (as the term went) were a small minority.
scav
PeakVT
@BGinCHI:
Murakami
@Citizen Alan:
If it makes you feel any better, while my 90 yr old grandmum sometimes gets paranoid about Iran because of the crazies in her church, she’s told me many times she thinks Obama is doing the best he can and she’ll gladly vote for him again this year. “FDR was for the common man, Republican were always just for the rich. That’s what Daddy used to say and he was always right. Obama is kinda like FDR. I think Daddy would have liked him.”
She’s also quite white and a Southern white woman at that. Now you can start liking old white people again.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Dems held the line on wingers effort to bypass POTUS for approving Keystone, and a couple of other wingnut pro pollution bills. Reid let the vote happen, but with a 60 vote requirement for passage.
That is pretty good spine for most dems, minus the usual chickenshit pissnpants dems. So long as we get the right outcome, I guess. Still too close for comfort, for something that would have been a major usurping of executive power by congress. And now with so much momentum on the dem side of things.
bemused
@gogol’s wife:
Those two over 60’s were definitely life long republicans. That or early senility.
Yes, sometimes it feels like we are surrounded by off the deep end rightwingers or low info, politically lazy folks who have no idea what is going on. But I still refuse to believe that they are the majority.
Calouste
@muddy:
Why not? McCain can step in the footsteps of great statesmen like Adlai Stevenson, Thomas Dewey and William Bryan.
David Koch
Davis X. Machina
Brendan Nyhan, Eric McGhee, Seth Masket, Steven Greene, and John Seldes, re the 2010 midterms: ”We estimate that support for health care reform cost Democratic incumbents about 6 percent of the vote, relative to Democratic incumbents who opposed health care reform.”
Failing to move left on health care clearly cost the Democrats the House.
Martin
Those 4 words are proof that writing takes time and effort. This is not a stream of consciousness.
And agreed on Steve Schmidt – I really enjoy his candor on MSNBC. Gives me hope that we might find our way out of this swamp.
Amir Khalid
@RossinDetroit:
Their political reporting and commentary does seem better than their fashion writing, which is often pretentious and faddish. I’m often baffled by what the fashion writers find appealing.
Joseph Nobles
Dave Weigal found Derrick Bell’s Space Traders story and discovered the “anti-Semitism” part has been oversold by the Andrew Breitbart Lives crowd, shall we say?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/03/08/the_aliens_and_the_jews.html
wrb
@Murakami:
Sounds like my deceased Okie white grandmother.
A glimpse of Reagan was enough to set her boiling.
All conversation was forbidden during McNeal-Lehrer
BGinCHI
@David Koch:
Polygamy version:
David Koch
scav
wrb
@Citizen Alan:
Well, it seems to.
As was reported on NPR we look like we’ll be a net exporter within 10 years due to newly found natural gas reserves and fracking and other new technology.
For the foreseeable future hydrocarbon prices are going to be kept just low enough to render alternatives unviable.
Peak oil is not in sight.
David Koch
jl
@Citizen Alan:
” I really am afraid that I’m on the verge of becoming ageist. ”
I know a few oldsters in my family who will be willing crawl over broken glass (as Cole put it once) on election day to do as much damage to the GOP as possible. Especially some of the older women.
Plenty of oldsters are alert and aware and informed enough to not fall for the BS.
Soon the reactionaries will be a minority in every demographic except for bigots.
Some of the older teabaggers in the family have finally thought through the interesting possibilities of the GOP’s plans for Medicare and Social Security. And you know what? They suddenly realized that their crumb bum Democratic House Rep probably not any worse than the GOPer that will run against him. Better late than never, and a few months before an election is a good time for an awakening.
I wouldn’t damn any broad demographic, no matter what color, class, region, or age.
bemused
@Martin:
Schmidt is the first Republican contributor on tv that hasn’t gotten my teeth locked in a clench in years. The first time I watched him, I was really confused. He was talking for the conservative side but he spoke in a moderate tone of voice, let others finish their sentences and actually participated in an adult back and forth. My brain couldn’t process the experience.
Narcissus
This Pierce dude can sure write.
RossinDetroit
@Amir Khalid:
The fashion world works on novelty. Far more for women than for men but at the leading edge it’s the same.
Men’s fashion magazines are difficult because most men are motivated by familiarity while women are motivated by what’s new. It’s hard to make Oxford shoes and tweed jackets look like a breakthrough every Fall. Look! Suede!!
I used to subscribe to Esquire and it was a very good magazine. I quit after they published some stuff that disturbed me and pissed me off. But Junod and Pierce are essential.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
These bumper stickers are great.
Schmidt is pretty good. I guess I should be all mature and look forward not back but I can’t quite get past the fact that he not only tried to get the dangerous buffoon McCain elected, but helped the dangerous buffoon make the toxic nitwit a part of our political discourse. THat said, he is light years better in every respect than the very odd Michael Steele (any body see him getting all Norman Batesy about how birth control makes men irresponsible about sex? It was almost a Snatorum level of creepiness), and Frum, whose priggish sanctimony and past history makes unpalatable to me.
PeakVT
RossinDetroit
Anya
I am absolutely appalled at rightwing attacks on late Professor Derrick Bell. They should not get away with attacking an honorable man who fought for justice. By all accounts he was a gentle soul who was committed to justice and a better America. Hanity and people like him are not fit to utter his name, let alone attack him.
I am mostly saddened by what this says about our country. We are in a place where fighting for equality and justice is a bad thing. I think we should take that seriously and fight against such thing.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the solution to that paradox is to accept that he makes a good commentator, but that he shouldn’t be allowed any possibility of getting near the levers of power.
The Moar You Know
OT: Pat Robertson just came out with a public statement calling for an end to the War on Drugs, and for the legalization of marijuana. Not joking. To which all I can say is:
WHAT THE FUCK
BGinCHI
@The Moar You Know: Dude must be stoned as hell.
Redshift
@Anya:
We should, but I don’t believe we are in a place where fighting for equality and justice is a bad thing. The same sort of people who are promoting this have always fought against equality and justice, but that doesn’t say anything about the country as a whole. In fact, the reason they’ve become so strident is that they’re losing those battles.
bemused
@jl:
Sounds like my over 90 dad-in-law who will school people who have forgotten about the Depression and what FDR did for the country. He says if it had been left up to the private sector, the rural areas probably wouldn’t have gotten electricity or telephone service till the 70’s.
scav
@The Moar You Know: O I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s mind was seriously warped when I read that.
ETA: @RossinDetroit: I just figured there was a new recipe for the communion wafer.
RossinDetroit
@The Moar You Know:
Only explanation I can come up with.
ETA: Or maybe he’s just supporting Rush.
The Dangerman
@David Koch:
Too long?
polyorchnid octopunch
@RossinDetroit: I’d just like to make a quick reference to Dispatches, the excellent book about the Vietnam war by Michael Herr, where he was a correspondent for Esquire magazine. It’s not a new thing for them to have excellent journalists working for them.
BGinCHI
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@PeakVT:
Romney 2012: A man for [this space for rent. call 1-888-MONEY$].
Martin
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): What’s most infurating about the Keystone debate, is that the pipeline isn’t needed. It was 5 years ago. But right now the midwest has too much oil. It’s the east coast that has too little. We need a pipeline that will take that Canada to Gulf oil supply and ship it to New Jersey (or the reverse if the situation reverses), to close the gap between the North Atlantic prices and the midwest prices. That’s the real problem at the moment. And the difference between those two prices is a speculators dream. Close that gap and a whole class of speculation will vanish.
BGinCHI
@polyorchnid octopunch: One of my favorite books of all time. Brilliant as hell. And you’re right: Esquire has always employed great writers, though it still manages to be a pretty shitty magazine. It’s like Playboy without the tasteful nudity.
Tonal Crow
Romney 2012: Because I’ve got to lie to win.
handsmile
Reasons to be cheerful:
Both halves of footballing Manchester were defeated in their respective Europa League matches this afternoon. Lord Fergie’s Army was beaten 2-3 at Old Trafford (!) by Athletic Bilbao, while Sheik Mansour’s mercenaries lost 1-0 away at Sporting Lisbon. And in about sixty minutes, I’m going to watch a re-broadcast of Lionel’s Messianic performance against Bayer Leverkusen.
My entry to the Mittens bumper sticker contest:
RosiesDad
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah he is. But he was positively blushing crimson the other morning at the end of MJ when they were reminding him what he nearly wrought on the country. It was a pretty funny moment.
Tonal Crow
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
FTW!
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
BGinCHI
@Martin: I thought gas prices were more sensitive to local (read: urban) taxes and concentration of market (cities), and not so much region. But it’s also due to refineries located in some regions and not others, right?
Help me out.
Oh, and midwest? You mean Plains? Dakotas and square states?
muddy
@wrb: To this day when I hear the opening music for PBS Newshour I feel I should be pouring the tea at the dinner table. With my parents you could ask for a refill at the beginning or between segments. The segments were held holy to shout at the television while eating dinner. I like shouting at the tv as much as the next person, but it upsets my digestion.
Funny, I used to think they were too hard on the Republicans. I lived and learned. I don’t watch PBS anymore, Lehrer turned my stomach right from the 2000 election when he did the one on one interviews with Gore and Bush, and he was just sneering like a mean girl at Gore, and slobbering on Bush. I wanted MacNeil to stride in and smack him. Then when they show the pictures of the dead from the war I used to shout at shoebutton-eyed Jim about how I hoped he thought about that at night.
PeakVT
Chris
Off-topic alert –
What’s all this shit about Uganda and the LRA? Apparently there’s some sort of video talking about what an awful person Joseph Kony is that’s become popular, but isn’t entirely accurate.
So far, though, I’ve seen about a gajillion (actual unit of measurement) comments on the Book Of Faces whining about how popular that video is, and exactly zero comments actually supporting that video. Sounds like yet another case of a counter-meme going viral to combat a non-existent meme…
scav
Pat Robertson 2012:
Liberation Theology is so 60s and Commie
Libertarian Theology is 10s and Conservo!
BDeevDad
@The Moar You Know: In next four weeks Pat Robertson to announce he has Glaucoma or is undergoing chemo.
burnspbesq
Seriously? This week, of all weeks, you have to ask what’s going on?
Basketball, basketball, and more basketball.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
The guy’s become a laughingstock even in his own environment, so he’s just trying to stay relevant, I’m guessing.
Narcissus
burnspbesq
@Chris:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/faced-with-kony-2012-media-storm-invisible-children-hits-back-at-critics/article2362732/
Redshift
Romney 2012: I’ll believe anything for a vote!
Tonal Crow
Romney 2012: Because my $$$ are burning a hole in my pocket.
Rita R.
I really enjoy Steve Schmidt on MSNBC too. He’s always insightful and a welcome contrast to Chris Matthews’ blubbering, and I think he really knows how far his party’s gone off the deep end. You get some good political junkie fodder from him too, like on Tuesday night when he gave a few insider details about the Joe the Plumber phase of McCain’s 2008 campaign. (And am I allowed to say he’s kinda sexy too? Please don’t throw stuff.)
But I have a hard time forgiving him for foisting Sarah Palin on us, and particuarly for her “palling around with terrorists” line, which reportedly came from him and Nicole Wallace. Now, Palin took to that line like a duck to water and delivered it with relish, but it came from them. I remember getting a shiver down my spine the first time she used it and I heard the crowd reaction. IMO, that moment was when the racist-fueled anti-Obamaism started to take off, as the conservative id got the message that they’d been given permission to say publicly things they’d only said among themselves before.
scav
@Chris: OT continued. Not sure what your point is. Video went viral and is now being knocked about because it sure looks like it played fast and loose with facts and seems more like a flash piece of propaganda overlaid on a real issue that we should probably know more about before doing anything stupid. The Guardian seems to have decent info on the topic and I’ve read some blistering takedowns of the video from people that have worked in Uganda.
handsmile
@Chris:
Here is a link to the “Kony 2012” video. It’s been viewed over 30 million times (via YouTube and Vimeo) over the past 48 hours.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-joseph-rao-kony
There are currently a number of articles at the Guardian website on the video and the world-wide response to it, e.g.:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-story
muddy
@Chris: I think the main thing is that the people behind it take in a lot of money most of which does not go to Africa. I think about 1/4 or something actually goes to Africa. Typish.
Anya
@Redshift: In 1988, the scary black man was a convicted murderer and a rapist; in 2012 the scary back man is a law professor and a civil rights attorney. Tell me how is their side losing? It looks like our side is retreating on every issue, and their side is wiping out the gains of the civil rights and women’s right movements.
Raven
@polyorchnid octopunch: He wrote the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket.
Colonel: Marine, what is that button on your body armour?
Joker: A peace symbol sir.
Colonel: Where’d you get it?
Joker: I don’t remember sir.
Colonel: What is that you’ve got written on your helmet?
Joker: “Born to Kill” sir.
Colonel: You write “Born to Kill” on you helmet, and you wear a peace button.
What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
Joker: No, sir.
Colonel: Well what is it supposed to mean?
Joker: I don’t know, sir.
Colonel: You don’t know very much do you?
Joker: No sir.
Colonel: You better get your head and your ass wired together or I will take a giant shit on you.
Joker: Yes sir.
Colonel: Now answer my question, or you’ll be standing tall before The Man.
Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man sir.
Colonel: The what?
Joker: The duality of man, the Jungian thing, sir.
Colonel: Who’s side are you on, son?
Joker: Our side, sir.
Colonel: Don’t you love your country?
Joker: Yes, sir.
Colonel: Well how about getting with the program? Why don’t you jump on the team and c’mon
in for the big win?
Joker: Yes, sir.
Colonel: Son, all I’ve ever asked of my Marines is for them to obey my orders as they
would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every gook,
there is an American trying to get out. It’s a hardball world, son.
We’ve got to try to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
Joker: Aye aye, sir.
Rita R.
@David Koch:
When that story broke I was imagining Romney franctically calling Mormon high command in Salt Lake City saying, “What the heck are you doing? I can’t have my religion posthumously converting famous Jewish Holocaust victims, I’m running for president.”
Nutella
FTFY
Tonal Crow
@Anya: It’s the beginning of their last gasp.
Their fingers were just brushing their Precious when they were torpedoing the economy with the debt-limit showdown. The ship was, alas for them, more heavily-armored than they thought, and has been picking up steam for some months now, and along with it, Obama’s polling.
Also too, they know that their decades of Latino-bashing are catching up with them, but they’re such inveterate racists that they just can’t help themselves.
And the ditto their recent spate of women-bashing.
They’re in real trouble. It’s time for us to hand them bricks, anchors, and as many sets of Acme rocket-skates as they desire.
Meep-meep!
gbear
He finally found the way to see God.
dogwood
@Rita R.:
I have a different take on guys like Schmidt. I actually can forgive him because it appears he has genuine remorse for the role he played in foisting Sarah Palin on the country. However, I wish he would just go away. I don’t think fucking up like that means you get more money and a nice gig on cable tv. People like Schmidt, Spitzer, Vitter, etc. seem to believe they are entitled to remain in the public sphere even when they have shamed themselves. My favorite of these screw ups is the Republican congressman who got caught playing dirty on Craigs List, resigned the next day and went home. I hope his friends and family forgave him, and I hope the rest of his life goes well. I also want to thank him for the fact that I don’t even remember his name.
Citizen_X
@wrb:
Ahem. Those are two different things.
And that report sounds like bullshit. According to the EIA, exploitation of shale reservoirs will only add about 1-2 million barrels per day to US oil production. That’s nowhere. Ear enough to bring us back above our peak of production (about 7 million bbls/day higher, I believe) back in 1970. All our other resevoirs have been depleted too much. Shale production may extend the world’s peak production of oil (at cost), but will not prevent ultimate decline.
muddy
@muddy: I reply to myself to call myself an ass. I just read about more about it and had no need to be flip. Sorry.
Tonal Crow
@Citizen_X: Also too, the atmosphere is not an infinite sink for carbon gases. There are consequences.
Citizen_X
Yeesh. That’s “nowhere near” and “reservoirs.” Can’t edit comments on mobile version WOULD BE NICE TO FIX THAT THANK YOU MR. COLE.
Chris
@scav:
I didn’t really have a point, just wondering what people here thought or knew: most of the comments I’ve read about it have been from wingnut facebook friends whining about how fucking liberals should stop paying so much attention to Ugandans when we’ve got problems here (as if they care) – so, not exactly a reliable source. Thanks to you and Handsmile for the Guardian links.
Citizen_X
@Tonal Crow: Damn straight.
PeakVT
muddy
@Citizen_X: Shale’s a hell of a lot more expensive to get out of the ground and process too.
We should use everyone else’s oil now and save ours for later.
Rita R.
@dogwood:
I get your point, but I guess I’m glad he’s using his powers for good at least. For some reason I find people like Bob Shrum and Mark Penn far more annoying and odious, respectively, to watch.
David Koch
jhtrotter
With regard to Sarah, we often hear of the ‘one heartbeat away from (pick your favorite presidentially caused calamity related to the office being held by one with the intellectual capacity of a chicken mcnugget) scenario’.
But doesn’t Palin performance and McCain health history now suggest we might have been more likely to experience a spur of the moment family consultation and Fox News job offer inspired mid-term resignation and 25th ammendment vice presidential succesion?
Or not, it’s merely a suggestion. With regard to the heartbeat scenario, while the nuclear launch codes might have tempted her, I suspect her first order of presidential business might have been to engage Hellfire armed Predator’s to hunt Alaskan caribou (and Mike Wooten).
scav
@Chris: ahh, I see. I knew zip nothing about the kurfuffle until last night when my sister asked (probably after a similar fb incident) so I did a quick research of some of my usual sources for African stuff. Does seem to be one of the memefests that didn’t get front-paged here because things are so otherwise busy.
Martin
@BGinCHI:
There are different kinds of local issues. Chicago uses a different fuel formulation than even the rest of Illinois, so it’s susceptible to local supply/demand constraints as a result. CA has the same issue – we can’t use gasoline refined in Texas. You have the tax issue on top of that.
But more broadly, there are 3 oil markets in the US. West coast – Alaska to California that gets oil from Alaska to CA, plus some Canada and Mexico/South America. You have the midwest market which is Canada to the Gulf/Texas. That’s the West Texas Intermediate market. You have the east coast market which is the Brent market, getting oil from the north atlantic. We don’t move oil between these markets very well, mainly because it’s hard, and it takes time. When the gulf was shut down, you wanted to move oil from the Brent market to the WTI market, so the pipelines flowed in that direction. When we cut off Irans demand and Europe takes more from the North Atlantic, east coast oil prices climb and you want the pipeline to flow in the other direction. Not quick to reverse the direction of a pipeline. And then the northeast needs home heating oil in the winter, so they need to import some of that, and produce less gasoline as well, and so on.
So it’s really kind of a mess. The northeast refineries in places like New Jersey pretty much exclusively support the northeast, just as the refineries south of LA pretty much exclusively support California. There’s a pile of refineries in Texas/Louisiana but also in Indiana, Illinois, etc. and these try to mainly serve local markets, but they share the same supply pipelines. So all of that midwest oil priced at $106/bbl is what all of those refineries are paying. But the Brent at $125/bbl is what the east coast refineries are paying. By extension, gas prices on the east coast can probably be expected to be roughly $.40 or so per gallon higher than in the midwest.
Now, if you’re a speculator, you’re looking at the ability to buy oil in Oklahoma and sell it in New Jersey for $19 a barrel more, and can you transport it at that price and make money? Or do you think that the price of WTl will climb to match Brent as Iran heats up, as pipelines are adjusted to change the flow, and decide to buy a bunch of WTI, take it off the market, and then sell it back later at the higher price?
But bottom line, oil and gasoline are physical things. They take time and effort to move, and time and effort to get from the ground to your car. The supply side of the market can never move as fast as the demand side can, and that’s a big reasons why you see a lot of local variation. One upside to the speculators is that they help to smooth that out, so the spikes aren’t so bad. The downside is that they add to the overall price. So we pay more on average, but generally less at peak.
wrb
@Citizen_X:
It isn’t from oil shale, primarily, but a combination of what is called “tight oil” (oil in small fissures) and natural gas. It isn’t nearly as expensive to produce as oil from shale. I read I technical paper on it a few weeks ago, but don’t remember where. Here is msm coverage: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/19/9557668-in-role-reversal-us-on-track-to-be-an-oil-exporter
I don’t see this as good news. Peak oil shortages might have forced a shift to renewables in time to prevent a climate change disaster.
It is looking as though technology will be able to keep hydrocarbons cheap enough, shifting from tight oil to natural gas to coal to frozen methane, to undercut renewables for a long time.
chopper
pizza: make simple dough. let it rise on the counter and stick it in the fridge to collapse and hang out for a few days. rip off hunk and stretch dough on peel dusted with flour/cornstarch. add stuff, not too much. some sauce, fresh mozzarella.
put under broiler on 1/2″ thick piece of mild steel or aluminum that’s been preheating about 6″ away from the heating element so it’s hot as the devil’s bozack. count to about a minute and a half. remove, cool, eat, cursing all the ‘thin crust new york’ fancy-shmancy pizza places that have been ripping you off for so many years.
you’re welcome.
chopper
@Citizen_X:
in 1970 we were pumping over 11 million bpd.
shale oil isn’t much. 50 billion barrels at most, and every well peaks within a few months and starts a terminal decline shortly thereafter. best we’ll get is a million bpd from the bakken and that’s going pretty hog wild. that aint bad but it aint a fix.
oil shale is a different beast. maybe if we went insane and i mean like trying to put the canadian tar sands to shame type insane we could get a few million bpd out of that shit in about 10-15 years, and we’d have to strip mine the better part of NE colorado. also the EROEI on that stuff is absolutely horrible.
chopper
Vote Romney or the Dog on the Roof Gets It
dogwood
@Rita R.:
Don’t get me wrong. Guys like Schrum, Penn, Matthews, Scarborough – the list is too long- are horrible, and Schmidt is a better pundit.
opie jeanne
@Citizen Alan: My husband and I say “hi”. He’s 65, I’ll be 62 tomorrow.
I’d be offended but the line about oil replenishing itself is just so damned funny.
Debbie(aussie)
An affirmation of the fact ‘goole is your friend’. I had no idea waht ty-d-bol is/was. HA! Great cartoon.
BGinCHI
@Martin: Hey Martin, if you get back here, thanks for that. Really informative.
opie jeanne
@BGinCHI: If the bit about where the refineries are located were true, California and Texas would not be paying more at the pump than people in the midwest.
opie jeanne
@burnspbesq: Feh. It’s Spring Training and the Angels have Pujols!
danielx
Well, it’s semi-non-disgusting…okay, close enough. Question about cat behavior.
Every female cat that has resided in this household – all spayed – has had the same habit. To wit, when lying next to their human’s leg or hip, it is absolutely necessary to shove their furry asses up against said human’s leg or hip so as to drape a possessive tail over the human. Never the males, always the females. Is this universal, or are we just being particularly honored?
Hungry Joe
Much as I hate to nitpick … okay, that was boilerplate; I don’t really hate to nitpick. But Pierce writes, “To barber a phrase from the great Dan Jenkins, the book was further proof, as if we needed any, that, if you put 100 political consultants in a barrel and rolled it down a hill, there’d always be a son of a bitch on top.” Sorry, but I first read that “barrel/son of a bitch on top” line in the novel “Seven Days in May,” published in 1963, and I bet it was old then.
opie jeanne
@BGinCHI: Yes, it was. He knows more about the details than I do. I just know that my friends who live in the midwest states (squares and plains) and Virginia gripe about paying roughly $.50 less per gallon than Californians pay.
calliope jane
@Citizen Alan: My grandfather, now 90+, was a life-long, die-hard Republican– until 2006. When he changed his registration to “Democrat” because the GOP was absolutely “insane” and, among other things, “ruining education.” He’s now happily going around telling everyone that “even Reagan raised taxes!”
I clicked over to the Charlie Pierce piece — I can’t believe that’s Julianne Moore. That’s really, really creepy.
Almost makes me want to see it — and then I read that the movie thinks that Palin’s debate performance was “triumphant” and tries to rehabilitate McCain’s image. For Brutus was an honorable man — okay, seriously, did the producers forget that McCain agreed to have Palin as a runningmate in the first place? Not honorable, not tragic, just craven power.
/really late to the party :)
Jebediah
@PeakVT:
Cap'n Magic
So Sully is having a sad over L’affaire Limbaugh, and hates that people are threatening advertisers over running ads on his show. Here’s a news flash: Since Citizens United (and those who cater to that crowd) said that ‘money is speech’, Andrew’s bewailing is meaningless now-especially since money is funglible now means speech is fungible. Ain’t life grand?