] We have expected many of the senior Bush admniistration
] people to be leaving, but after the election not before.

Some discussion of today's events. Iranian codes, resigning managers, and external lawyers, oh my... Whatever is going on in Intelligence this week its extremely serious, deeply troubling, and very opaque.

] Given the present administrations insistence on extreme
] secrecy, isn't trying to figure out what going on with
] Tenet's resignation very much like practicing Kremlinology?

Instant Analysis: Tenet Resigns (washingtonpost.com)

] CIA Director George J. Tenet has submitted his
] resignation and will leave the agency in mid-July,
] President Bush announced today.

I didn't comment on Jeremy's earlier posting on this question. Tenet is someone who seems to have repeatedly taken "the bullet" of responsibility for decisions that seems outside of his control. I'm uneasy about this news.

CIA Director Tenet Resigns (washingtonpost.com)

"The (NY) Times and Iraq

Published: May 26, 2004

Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past
time we turned the same light on ourselves.

[ Props to intellectual honesty. -k]

Duped or just Bushwhacked?

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.

...

For what it's worth in the debate over the shells.

Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War

] In press conferences, TV ads, and interviews this year,
] President Bush has manifested a series of
] psychopathologies: an abstract notion of reality,
] confidence unhinged from facts and circumstances, and a
] conception of credibility that requires no correspondence
] to the external world. Tonight, as he vowed to stay the
] course in Iraq, Bush demonstrated another mental defect:
] incomprehension of his role in history as a fallible
] human agent. Absent such comprehension, Bush can't fix
] his mistakes in Iraq because he can't see how or even
] that”he screwed up.

Thats pretty much how I feel about the present spin work that Bush is engaged in. The situation in Iraq is fucked up. I want to see changes on the ground. Spin doctoring doesn't influence me.

But the American people's attention span is about 1 week long, so I'm sure this thrust will improve his numbers domestically. It would be really neat if he could change the perceptions in the minds of people actually in Iraq, but that remains to be seen. I told someone a few days ago that I wish that I could fast forward three or four months. The uncertainty right now is unbearable. It will either completely improve in that timeframe, or we'll have completely lost control. Either way, we'll know whats up.

MSNBC - About last night

Hijexx wrote:
]
] Where did you read this? I refer you to this study:

The difference is whether you consider estimated or proved reserves. The people who are arguing that we're about to run out of natural gas are arguing that all the estimates are wrong and that there is no more natural gas out there then we've already located. They also seem to be ignoring several new sources of natural gas because we haven't perfected extraction technologies. Historically increases in proved reserves have matched increases in consumption.

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/natgas.htm

In 2000, natural gas reserves in the United States were estimated to be 1,190 trillion cubic feet, and U.S. gas production was 19.2 trillion cubic feet.

61 years...

http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/resources.asp

The graph below shows the change in proved natural gas reserves in the United States from 1990 to 2000, as recorded by the EIA. As can be seen, the levels of proved reserves in the United States have not changed significantly over the past 10 years. If the additions to proved reserves in a given year are larger than the subtractions from production, then proved reserves will increase, and vice versa. Usually, however, the additions are close enough to the subtractions to maintain a relatively constant level of proved reserves.

This peak oil website juxtaposes the above information with the idea that the total number of wells we drill seems like "a large number."

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/gas/primer/

In June 1999, a disturbing article was published in Oil & Gas Journal. It described how Texas, which produces one-third of the nation's gas, must drill 6,400 new wells each year to keep its production from plummeting. That's 17 wells each day. As recently as 1998, the state only needed to drill 4,000 wells to keep annual production steady. The reason for the change? As drillers target ever-smaller pools, new wells experience steeper depletion rates. Indeed, a typical new well has an astounding first-year decline of 56%, which is another way of saying it begins dying soon after it is born. No one likes talking about depletion; it is the crazy aunt in the attic, the emperor without clothes, the wolf at the door. But the truth is that drillers in Texas are chained to a treadmill, and they must run faster and faster each year to keep up.

I don't really understand this concern. The number of wells drilled is increasing. This reflects increase in demand. It can reflect smaller well size, but the fact that we are tapping smaller wells doesn't directly imply that there are no larger wells to tap. The economics are more complex then that. Some wells are easier to tap then others. Cheaper transportation costs are a huge factor. In the US much of our supply is on federal lands and is illegal to tap. Furthermore, there are new t... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

RE: As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

] At current rates of production, there were 40.6 years of
] consumption covered by proven reserves in 2002, the latest
] data available, according to the Wall Street Journal.
]
] The newspaper, citing the BP Statistical Review, said
] that in 1989, there were 44.7 years left of consumption.
]
] "[A shortage] will probably happen in the next 10 to 20
] years," Professor David Goodstein, a physicist at the
] California Institute of Technology, told CNNfn.

hrm...

As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

] Price of gas at a station in Santa Barbara, Calif.
] Tuesday morning May 11, 2004, was $3.11 for full service,
] 91 octane. It was later changed to $3.13.

Got Gas?

] Like a well-targeted attack-ad in a U.S. election
] campaign, the Abu Ghraib images make a visceral
] connection with an Arab audience, that no amount of
] contextualizing, apologies, reprimands or school-painting
] can reverse. No ad agency could have produced a more
] effective al-Qaeda recruitment tool: Bin Laden's movement
] presents its goal as the redemption of Muslim honor which
] has been "prostituted" before the West by "apostate"
] pro-U.S. regimes. Scenes of graphic humiliation of
] Muslims by American soldiers -- women mocking the
] genitalia of naked men -- will reinforce the appeal
] among the shamed young men of the Arab world of the
] extremists' message that violence against America as the
] path of Muslim redemption.

I never thought I'd find myself blogging an article from time
magazine. Of course, you don't need stratfor to tell you what the impact of this is going to be.

TIME.com: How the Prison Scandal Sabotages the U.S. in Iraq

] An Iraqi judge has issued a murder arrest warrant for a
] radical Shiite Muslim cleric, Muqtada Sadr, for the
] slaying of another Shiite leader shortly after the
] U.S.-led invasion of the country, coalition officials
] said Monday.

Puts an interesting light on events. This warrant was issued months ago...

Iraqi Judge Issues (SIC) Arrest Warrant for Sadr (washingtonpost.com)