New Technology has Destroyed the Myth of Peak Oil

Thomas Miller / Townhall Columnist

 

The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently exploring why the Peak Oil Predictions had not come true. Written by Russell Gold, the Journal’s senior energy reporter based in Austin, Texas, who himself released his first book called “The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World”, the article was an excellent walk through the ups and downs of the oil industry going back even to the late 1800’s.

 

For example, did you know that John D. Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil, John Archbold, said, “I will drink every gallon (of oil) produced west of the Mississippi”, and so feared the boom was going to bust that he sold some of his stock at a discount?

As Gold points out, the modern Peak Oil theory was the brainchild of M. King Hubbert, a geologist who worked for Shell Oil. Published in 1956, Hubbert predicted that domestic oil production would peak, somewhere in the early to mid 1970’s, then decline, forming a bell curve. Up from the 50’s to the 70’s, then right back down again.

His theory was looking pretty darned good during the Arab oil embargo, as millions of American’s struggled to fuel their lifestyles after OPEC grabbed America by our collective nuts and showed us who was boss. It was also looking pretty spot-on as recently as 2007/2008 when oil prices shot up to nearly $140 a barrel and some forecasters were predicting $200 or beyond.

Then came fracking. A technology invented by Texas oilman George Mitchell (who also was the conceiver and developer of The Woodlands, north of Houston, soon to be home to Exxon Mobil), which totally changed the world’s energy playing field.

Since it became fully commercially viable around 2008, fracking has unleashed oil and gas that was trapped in these ultra-dense shale formations. Resources that everyone knew was there, but trapped in rock so dense that nobody could figure out how to extract it.

Here’s another prediction. This one by Chris Faulkner of Breitling Energy, and co-host of Powering America Radio: That the US will surpass Saudi Arabia in oil production next year, at 9.5 million barrels. You can hear his prediction on the September 29 show here.

But the naysayers are still as vocal as ever. Some say the shale revolution will putz out soon and is only a temporary blip on the otherwise declining scale of dwindling supply. Remember Mr. Archbold? I think he’d have a pretty tough time swallowing the nearly 4 million barrels of oil a day now flowing from the West of the Mississippi.

I wonder if anyone in his family has any old Standard Oil stock certificates framed & hanging on the wall.

On Its One-Year Anniversary, ObamaCare Gets an ‘F’

Michael Tanner / Townhall Columnist

 

This Wednesday will mark one year since enrollment in ObamaCare began. What began with the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov has ended with the health law’s supporters claiming victory. 

 

It is true that some of the worst predictions have not yet come true. Yet. But in the last year we’ve also seen plenty of bad news for consumers, providers, employers and taxpayers.

A report card:

Earlier this month, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services director Marilyn Tavenner testified that roughly 7.3 million people signed up for insurance through the exchanges. That’s down from early estimates of 8.1 million, because nearly 800,000 of those who initially enrolled have stopped or never paid their premiums. A bigger question is how many enrollees were previously insured and were just changing plans. Overall, the best estimates suggest that roughly 8 million people gained insurance under ObamaCare, but roughly half of those were enrolled in Medicaid (outside of the exchanges), which isn’t really health-care reform so much as adding people to government welfare.

And it still leaves 41 million American adults uninsured. We spent billions to move the needle a tick.

Despite the president’s assurances to the contrary, roughly 6 million Americans were kicked off their insurance because their plans failed to offer a lengthy-enough maternity stay, didn’t provide sufficient drug and alcohol rehabilitation benefits or otherwise fell short of the insurance that federal bureaucrats thought that they should have. This includes more than 100,000 New Yorkers. Nearly all eventually found other insurance, but a new study from the National Center for Public Policy Research found that, on average, ObamaCare plans were worse than the plans they replaced, in terms of both providers covered and cost-sharing. A new wave of cancellations is about to begin as well.

Those New Yorkers who managed to renew their noncompliant plans prior to the effective start date for ObamaCare last year should start receiving cancellation notices any day now. Some people may not even be able to keep the plans that replaced the plans they couldn’t keep the first time. In several states, insurers have dropped plans that they offered on the exchanges or even withdrawn from the market altogether. And if that was not bad enough, Americans with employer-based insurance may find out their insurance has to be changed starting next year.

If judged against President Obama’s promise that health-care reform would save us all at least $2,500 through lower premiums, ObamaCare deserves an F. But premium increases have been less bad than expected, especially in states like New York that already had highly regulated insurance markets. Last year, New Yorkers in the individual market saw a reduction in their premiums, but only because the individual market was already in such terrible shape. In states where the individual market was not already dysfunctional, there were significant premium increases. This year, New Yorkers can expect premium increases averaging roughly 6 percent for individual plans and almost 7 percent for small business.

This summer the Congressional Budget Office announced that it had given up trying to score the cost of ObamaCare, given the frequency with which the administration was making unilateral changes to the law. Overall, some costs are lower because so many states have chosen not to expand Medicaid.

On the other hand, roughly 85 percent of those enrolled through exchanges are receiving subsidies, higher than predicted. Overall, the best estimates suggest the law will cost $2.63 trillion over the next 10 years. That will be paid for by $1.38 trillion in new taxes and at least $1.25 trillion in additional debt.

Recently released surveys from Federal Reserve Banks in New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta confirmed that businesses are cutting employment and shifting workers to part-time positions because of ObamaCare. According to the New York Fed, 21 percent of manufacturers and 17 percent of service companies have reduced the size of their workforce because of the law. In addition, roughly 20 percent of both manufacturers and service companies said that they have shifted workers from full- to part-time jobs. The New York survey also indicated that roughly a third of businesses were raising prices to offset some of the law’s costs.

About the best thing that can be said about ObamaCare’s first year is that it wasn’t quite as bad as some critics predicted. But it isn’t even close to what we were promised — and nowhere near a passing grade.

Anger at president reaches new high as faith in government falls

by Sam Rolley / Personal Liberty Digest

 

New polling data suggest that anger at President Barack Obama and a growing distrust of big government could spell trouble for Democratic lawmakers heading into the 2014 midterm elections.

A new Gallup poll reports that 32 percent of likely voters will head to the polls this fall to send a message of opposition to the president and his Democratic colleagues. Just 20 percent say that they will go to the polls to signal support.

Opposition to the president is at a 16 year high. For comparison, opposition to the commander-in-chief is 13 points higher than during Bill Clinton’s sex scandal and 2 points higher than George Bush’s final year.

Gallup reports: 

A majority of Republican registered voters, 58 percent, say they will be sending a message of opposition to Obama with their vote this fall. In contrast, 38 percent of Democratic voters say they will support the president. Rather than supporting Obama, most Democrats, 53 percent, say they will not be sending a message with their vote.

Democrats are a bit less likely now (38 percent) than in 2010 (45 percent) to say they will be sending a message of support to Obama, while Republican opposition to the president is the same.

Meanwhile, numbers from the Associated Press show that more than half of Americans feel that the government is too incompetent to handle economic and other problems facing the nation.

Just 2 percent of respondents reported that they are “extremely confident” that Washington can fix the economy.

When it comes to protecting Americans from terror threats, people on both sides of the political divide said they are losing faith.

“Democrats tend to express more faith in the government’s ability to protect them than do Republicans,” the AP reported. “Yet even among Democrats, just 27 percent are confident the government can keep them safe from terrorist attacks. Fewer than 1 in 5 say so on each of the other issues, including climate change.”

Non-Muslim Female Fighter Kills Herself to Avoid being Islamic State Hostage

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Ceylan Ozalp, 19, was reportedly surrounded by ISIS fighters near the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane also known as Ain al-Arab. After she run out of ammunition Ozalp said “goodbye” over the radio and spent her last bullet on killing herself.

She knew. She knew what these devout Muslims do to non-Muslim girls.

This woman is a heroine. True courage.

Another freedom loving people Obama abandoned in support of the jihad movement.

“Prosperous are the believers who in their prayers are humble and from idle talk turn away and at almsgiving are active and guard their private parts save from their wives and what their right hands own then being not blameworthy.” (Quran 23:1-6)

Those whom their “right hands own” (Quran 4:3, 4:24,...

Read the whole entry »

    

Islamic State withstands bombing campaign, plots Baghdad invasion

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

The airstrikes haven’t stopped the Islamic State. What a surprise. “Islamic State withstands bombing campaign, plots Baghdad invasion,” by Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, October 5, 2014:

The Islamic State holds just about the same number of towns in Iraq today as it did two months ago, when the U.S. began a bombing campaign to whittle down the terrorist army and support Iraqi ground troops trying to retake territory.

More troubling, analysts say, is that the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL, is ramping up what appear to be operations designed to one day invade Baghdad.

Its objective is to take the international airport and begin conquering the capital, section by section. The Islamic State is continuing its urban attacks with car bombs, some of which have been detonated by foreign suicide bombers.

The Pentagon is not openly confident that the Iraqi Security Forces will hold Baghdad. A spokesman has declined to predict that the sprawling city will stay in government control.

The 2-month-old air campaign can be viewed in two ways. On one hand, the U.S. coalition strikes have slowed and, in some cases, stopped the Islamic State’s advances.

On the other hand, they have done little to achieve the ultimate goal of breaking the terrorists’ grip on Mosul, Tal Afar, Fallujah and more than 10 other towns in northern and western Iraq.

The Islamic State has captured large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and has declared itself a caliphate.

One Iraq War veteran said the bombing has been falling short.

“I judge the bombing, quite frankly, to the strategic aims in Iraq being two objectives,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who supervised the training of Iraqi forces during the 2007 U.S. troop surge. “Restore the sovereign border of Iraq and, two, eliminate ISIS as a threat to the sovereignty of Iraq. And they have certainly not done anything to those aims.”

Others see a positive side. Slowing the Islamic State’s advances “shows that we have been successful with the easier, first stage,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The hard part, as predicted, is taking territory back. Air power can’t, won’t do it.”

In Iraq on Sunday, the Islamic State publicly killed six Iraqi soldiers captured in western Anbar province, where the terrorists continue to advance despite the expanding U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes, residents told The Associated Press.

In Syria, the terrorist army shelled the beleaguered Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, near the border with Turkey, as part of its weekslong offensive against the town and surrounding villages that has forced 160,000 people to flee across the border.

Analysts for the Institute for the Study of War regularly publish a map titled “Control of Terrain in Iraq,” which uses color codes to designate who controls what, and what remains up for grabs.

It is noteworthy how similar the map of Aug. 10, when the air campaign began, is with the one published Friday, two months later. It paints the picture of an entrenched Islamic State that is still threatening government-held territory in Iraq….

In the wake of the savage Oklahoma beheading of a white Christian grandmother by a Muslim, Barack Hussein Obama finally says something

Bare Naked Islam

Using a proxy, Obama flies a White House official all the way out to Oklahoma to offer high praise for the Muslim community.

KFOR  Leaders of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City say it’s been a tough month for Muslims here in Oklahoma after being associated with the beheading at Vaughan foods in Moore.

Leaders of the faith here in the state say vicious messages are being left for Oklahoma Muslims, telling them to get out of Oklahoma and threatening to behead them all because the man behind the beheading is a Muslim.

But the Muslim community received the highest form of praise from the White House for their hard work in helping rebuild the Moore community after a destructive tornado tore through the city in 2013.

 

Today, an official from Washington D.C. flew in to Oklahoma to present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation. He read a message from President Barrack Obama, extending warm greetings from the American people during the Muslim holiday. (Couldn’t he have done it by phone?)

 

“Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice,” President Barack Obama said.

 

The Imam, the leader of the prayer service, stated during his sermon that the Muslim faith has been called a “cancer that needs to be cut off from the American society.” (It is and it does) Now, with the recent praise, Oklahoma Muslims have been reassured that they are apart of the American society. (You might think that,  America doesn’t)

 

 

Op-ed:
Planned Incompetency Imploding America From Within 
By: Diane Sori

OK folks...we need to get something straight and the sooner people realize it the better off we'll all be...Barack HUSSEIN Obama is NOT stupid, clueless, or misinformed about foreign or domestic issues. He is NOT making errors out of incompetency...he is in fact doing exactly what he planned to do...to calculatingly and with malice implode America from within...and doing it at the expense of our military...and doing it without admitting who America's real enemy is.

First case in point...our military. America's military is the greatest fighting force the world has ever known. Without the 'Greatest Generation' rescuing Europe and taking down the Japanese Empire almost 70 years ago, those of us who survived would be speaking German or Japanese today. And while our military has seen many highs and a few lows in the ensuing years NOTHING has affected them more in such a negative way than their very own Commander-in-Chief...Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

And know that when our military is made weak...as Barack HUSSEIN Obama is NOT only trying to do but is doing...the very heart of our nation's first line of defense is forcefully being imploded from within. NEVER in our nation's history has a president so blatantly worked to dismantle our military while at the same time allowing the militaries of America's enemies to grow stronger...nor have we ever had a president deliberately rendering our military impotent to protect those currently fighting the enemy...to protect those risking their lives to keep us safe and free at home.

First, Obama's cutting of our military's numbers to levels NOT seen since the days leading up to both WWI and WWII (cutting the U.S. army to pre-WWII levels and the U.S. Navy to pre-WWI levels) leaves us vulnerable in NOT only the theaters of war but here at home as well. Cutting our defense budget to dangerously low levels (in fact, the Pentagon's 2015 budget was based upon stable or declining military commitments NOT being allowed to take into account funding needed to fight terrorist groups like ISIS, Khorasan, and al-Qaeda) is the actions of a fool at best but more like the deliberate actions of one trying to leave us open and venerable to enemy attacks. And Obama's forcing our troops to fight with their hands tied behind their backs (to win the "hearts and minds" of the enemy instead of killing the enemy before they kill us)...surely brings into question whose side this man is really on.

Questionable...traitorous...actions from a man who has knowingly and oh so happily run down our stocks of much needed weapons on the first night alone of bombing raids against ISIS in Syria by wasting...YES wasting...47 of our Tomahawks missiles on bombing raids on what he knew were empty warehouses and long evacuated training camps. Wasting them in an effort to inflict NO more harm or damage than politically necessary for him to 'save face'...this waste equates to 47% of the planned 2015 Tomahawk purchases...purchases forced to be cut by at least half due to Obama's mandated and dangerous defense cuts...cuts that will completely eliminate Tomahawk missile purchases by 2016. And the enemy on the receiving end of these cuts rejoices in the fact that our troops are forced to face the sad reality that their very own Commander-in-Chief is indeed their biggest enemy while at the same time being America's enemies biggest supporter and friend.

From announcing to the enemy our dates of withdrawal...to loosing the peace after George W. Bush had won the war...to deliberately trading five extremely dangerous Taliban terrorists for one American traitor...Obama's actions speak louder than any of his words spewed, excuses made, or blame he tries to place on others. And lest we forget that Obama has cut our nuclear arsenal from 5,500 to 1,550 warheads without getting any such concessions from either Russia or China...while at the same time willingly allowing Iran...the very country that refers to our beloved America as the 'Great Satan' and wants to wipe Israel of the map...to move forward with its nuclear ambitions.

So our military...both overseas and at home...is indeed being betrayed by the man who most likely prays to allah five times a day.

Second case in point...islam. America is indeed at war with islam...all of islam...for as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says...what he as a practicing muslim says...is that "...Islam cannot be classified as moderate or not...Islam is Islam." And how right he is for moderate islam is NOTHING but a misnomer...a fabrication made up by the media...the very media who has betrayed the public trust in favor of aiding left-wing politicians who are trying to hide the truth that even they in their own hearts know...a truth that there are indeed those out to kill us all and doing so in the name of islam...shouting allahu akbar as heads roll.

And as 'We the People' know the enemy is indeed islam we know where our fighting forces are truly needed...but we also know that Obama's decisions and actions will always align with the wishes of America's enemies. So what does Obama do when American troops are needed to fight ISIS...he declares that U.S. ground troops are NOT an option he will use in fighting ISIS but instead he will send 3,000 American troops to West Africa to 'play doctor' of sorts...to 'play doctor' to a tune of one billion of our taxpayer dollars.

“But there’s no – there’s no intent right now for them (our military) to have direct contact with patients,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby claims.

Hiding behind the facade of bravado and rhetoric, Obama claims...like we can believe anything he says...that our brave warriors will be used solely in a logistical NONE military way. Deliberately choosing to expose our troops to one of the most deadly diseases known to man...deliberately choosing to expose them to Ebola (with the thought of culling America's military herd perhaps)...Obama has made yet another decision that is an affront to those who wear the uniform of our country.

And when you really think about it, by Obama's sending our troops into a known biological 'hot zone' he is engaging in a type of stealth jihad against the homeland, because he is deliberately using our own troops as possible carriers to help infect fellow Americans when they return home.

NOTHING...absolutely NOTHING...can be put past a man who voraciously rids our military's high command of its top generals during a time of war and then replaces them with yes-men of his own choosing...yes-men who will do his bidding of inflicting as little damage to our enemy's wares and who will kill as few of the brethren as possible...as few as possible of those to whom Obama's allegiances lie..allegiances we know lie with islam...the anything but religion of peace.        
                                                                                                  

And with his knowing that our military is America's last hope of restoring our country to the rule of law known as the Constitution...short of an armed insurrection by 'We the People' that is...Obama actively seeks a military loyal to him instead of to the Constitution. Firing nine senior commanding generals (to date) who did NOT agree with his war plans or who did NOT tow the Democratic party line...bringing the number of officers including admirals, generals, and individual ship commanders fired to over 200 since 2009...Obama, according to retired General Paul E. Vallely, is destroying our military in favor of building “his military."

And these are truths the media cannot hide try as they may. And when you add in his current affronts against our military NO words to the contrary could ever negate his actions...actions including his current ineffective bombing raids over Syria that have allowed ISIS and radical islam...ISIS and islam I should say...to remain strong and grow even stronger with each passing day. And all this is unfolding exactly according to his well-calculated plans...while he still tries to shove down our throats the crap that islam is a religion of peace...just saying...just sighing.