Open Choke

Presidents

Just finished reading Kessler's book on the Secret Service and their takes on different Presidents. Here is my nutshell Cliff's Notes.

1.  Kennedy- Nice guy, serial womanizer.

2.  Johnson-  Unstable, mean guy.  Huge "Johnson"; not afraid to expose it.  Serial womanizer (wtf?).

3.  Nixon- Weird.  Pat Nixon, falling down drunkard.

4. Ford- Nice guy.  Smart.  Most unlike his public persona.

5. Carter-  Reptile.  Mean, small-minded, hypocrite.  Tried to do the "for the people" thing on camera, then turned when camera was off.  Amy Carter was the worst brat in the White House.  Miss Lillian, Jimmah's mama, was nice, and would sneak treats to the Secret Service agents and say "don't tell Jimmah I did this!".

6.  Reagan-  One of the nicest guys in the White House.  Treated S.S. well.  Nancy, not so much.  She didn't like him hanging with the Proles.  Thought he was too naive and trusting in the goodness of human nature and saw her job to protect him from that weakness.

7.  H.W. Bush (I)-  A true gentlemen, and, with his wife Barb, one of the most thoughtful Presidents.  Used to have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the White House and fly home the day after so his S.S. contingent could spend Christmas with their families.  If Barb felt someone had crossed them, though, then you were in the cold zone.

8.  Clinton-  A child.  Loved people, irresponsible with time and people (ie the haircut incident at LA airport where he shut down LAX for a couple of hours while he had Christoph cut his hair.  Later blamed staff, but was fully briefed long before on Airforce I protocols.  Hillary-  Angry and sarcastic. Amazingly tough on staff.  One way in front of cameras, a banshee when the lens was off of her.  Gore-a privileged Brat.  Tipper, though, was liked and warm.

9.  W. Bush (II)- His dad's son.  Well liked and considerate.  Looked a fool in front of the camera, but was funny and articulate away from it.  Laura was probably the most liked human being in the White House in modern times.  Karl Rove and Andy Card come across well as well.

10.  Obama-  Both he and his wife are kind and considerate to the agents.  He is professional in a way Clinton never was.  Michelle insists on staff and S.S. address her as "Michelle".  Kids are nice.  Biden is considered a very likable moron. Likes to be liked, is considered untrustworthy for leaking the existence of a heretofore secret bunker under the V.P.'s residence to the front table at the Gridiron Club banquet, a breach that would have resulted in criminal prosecution of a lesser mortal.

Lastly, the Service is woefully underfunded and undertrained today.  Like everyone, needs more money.

There you go.

Climate Soupline

Africa wants $67 billion per year for Global Warming...

 http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLO544093

And in the world of Science, rather than Political Distortions and Extortion In the Name of Global Warming, Danish researchers (prominent physicist Henrik Svensmark) have determined that cosmic rays cause clouds, rather than the old hypothesis of dust and pollen as seeds.  Apparently, cosmic rays strip electrons off water molecules, making them charged ions that then clump.  Not only have they demostrated the effect in the laboratory, they found strong correlation between a drop in cloud cover and solar storms, when solar superhot particles protect the earth from cosmic rays.  

Why is this important?  Because cloud formation is not really modeled in global warming projections, yet we know that cloud cover is a cooling/heating driver an order of magnitude more than CO2 forcing.  It also explains why the correlation coefficient between solar activity and surface temperatures are so much more robust than the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and surface temperatures.

Uh Oh Redux

A few weeks ago, I wrote on Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson's attempt to "go after ExxonMobil" in regard to a lawsuit filed by Emerald Oil and the O'Connor family out of Victoria against ExxonMobil, who they accused of sabotaging their wellbores when they plugged them out in protest against a 50% royalty the O'Connors were apparently awarded.

http://openchoke.blogs.com/open_choke/2009/07/uh-oh.html

After many years, the Texas Supreme Court threw out the lower court's verdicts against ExxonMobil on the basis of Statute of Limitations.  Commish Patterson asked the Railroad Commission to investigate if ExxonMobil falsified their plugging forms.  The hearing was held this week.  It was hysterical, really.

Patterson gave his spiel.  ExxonMobil rep stood up and claimed that Patterson was using his office to harass a fine corporate citizen and involve the State of Texas in a private matter.  It was a beautiful example of ExxonMobil telling yet another public official to lick its balls.

Then, some dyspeptic member of the O'Connor clan stood up and said, several times, that he was a member of the "lucky sperm club".  He may have set a public meeting record for "lucky sperm club" drops.  During his rambling, although entertaining discourse, we learned he had declared bankruptcy, was an Aggie, had started a business that really depends on getting some judicial money, equated his royalty "profits" to ExxonMobil's working interest profits, and hilariously,  put "his reputation, as bad is was, against ExxonMobil's any day". Really priceless stuff, actually.  The link to view is below.  I think it is Part 1 of the August 18th meeting.

http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/meetings/conferences/index.php

In any case, it get's better!  Apparently, the fellow is or was a drug addict, and rumor has it that ExxonMobil actually brought him to the meeting!  Hardball, indeed!  Honestly, ExxonMobil does hire the smartest, most ruthless government affairs folks available.  

Oh well.  My concern is that one day, big, bad, powerful ExxonMobil will pull the whole power of the Federal Government down onto our industry on environmental and regulatory grounds as a whole through their heavy handed antagonistic approach to everything.   

Let's face it, who paid the PR price for Valdez?  Independent oil and gas did.  WE are the folks that pay the price for the deemed sins of "Big Oil".  WE are condemned for the actions of our insanely rich, powerful, drunk, unstable. 900 lb brother who carries and UZI and is a black belt in martial arts.  

The family farmer has ArcherDanielMidland provide protective cover and positive PR and governmental representation for them because ADM chooses to create a benevolent image for farming, and wisely uses the family farmer to convey their factory operations.  

Wouldn't it be nice if ExxonMobil did something good for US just once in a while?  It wouldn't cost them an incremental cent.   Oh well.  Let us eat cake.

Rock, Roll, and Drill...

Who better than Norwegians, the progenitors of Death Metal, to show how how weirdly hip it is to be in the Norwegian patch...

Imagine...

What if President Bush asked his supporters to forward emails they received critical of his policies to the Whitehouse.  Would there be an uproar?  Would it be front page news?  An example of the chilling effect of a fascistic White House?

What if it were countenanced as forwarding of emails that "misrepresented" President Bush's position.  Like "Lying", maybe.  Would it give you the willies knowing that a Bush White House wanted the personal information of people that opposed them?

If you reply affirmative to the above, would you feel differently about President Obama asking the same thing?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/08/gop-senator-white-house-encroaching-on-first-amendment.html

This is the creepiest thing I have seen in my life as an American in America.  Wow.

I had two friends at the Lloyd Doggett deal in South Austin this weekend.  Both are democrats, both have historically voted for Doggett, although one is not a personal fan.  Both told me that he talked for 45 minutes without being booed, and it was only after he refused to answer or dodged specific questions a number of times that the crowd became unruly.  This account is 180 degrees from the account Doggett gave on Larry King that the crowd was a "Republican/Libertarian harrassment" crowd that was there only to shout him down.  

Is this spin?  Doggett said it only hardened his resolve to vote for the health care package.  What if this is really the will of his constituents?  If it is, then this story is being cynically spun by Rahm Emmanuel and the White House.  What do you feel about that?  Think of any historical predecessors?

Do The Haynesville Hop!

Everyone, I mean Everyone, in the oilpatch wants to know the answer to the gazillion dollar question... What is the EUR of an average Haynesville well?  I stopped by the offices of Drillinginfo last week and spoke with Ramona Hovey about this question.  She showed me a place on the DI site that has the answer!  Apparently, Heather Curry nee Doolan (of PhDWIN fame) and Allen Gilmer do an EUR run and a NPV run every couple of months ago and post it in their Play Pipeline.  Been there for months and I had no idea!  According to Ramona, some 30 wells are "analyzable" right now.  

Here is a map for analyzable wells color coded by operator and bubbled by EUR (click on it for full size)...

and here is a map bubbled by EUR and color coded by PV10 at $3 gas

The verdict?  So far, Average Haynesville Well is 5.2 BCFG EUR and Median Haynescille Well is 3.2 BCFG EUR.  If you are a Drillinginfo member, go to their Haynesville Play Pipeline for a lot more info.  They update the economics every couple of months and update the Play Pipeline every day.

At $3 gas at the wellhead, only 10% of the wells drilled so far are economic, and the play overall is a statistical loser.  You'll have to look for yourself how it looks at $5 and $7.

Dr. Gates and Racism in America...

The issue surrounding Dr. Gates and his "Black man in America" comment is really interesting.  I have read several editorials about it, written from both black and white, conservative and liberal perspectives.  The one thing that is clear to me is that my African American brethren, regardless of educational accomplishment, seem to have a very distorted view of how someone like me, a middle-aged white guy, sees America... Apparently, they all have some Rock Candy Mountain image of a huge white guy kumbya celebration that excludes non white guys.  It's the exclusion from this mythical Woodstock of the White that theyseem so resentful of.

First, my first reaction when seeing a cop, black or white, is not "Oh golly!  Great!  Here come my friends to help me!"  My first reaction is to shut the fuck up.  You learn early on that there is no upside to lipping off to cops.  They have guns and authority over you, and they don't feel like your brother.  With the advent of traffic laws, every citizen is a criminal or potential criminal, and those cops can make your day very bad, regardless if whether it is not a crime to lip off to a police officer.  Any teenager knows this.

The idea that the world is a fraternal organization of white guys in power is somewhat true... but it is only some white guys.  If your folks weren't involved, you are SOL.  Who you know is more important than what you know.  It took me a long time to recognize this, to my detriment.  

I work in a world that is the epitome of White Male.  It is an embattled constituency, and the fraternal links are bound by mutual interest, and that isn't defined by white or male.  It is around the right to drill for American oil and gas.  There are several very successful Hispanic and African Americans and Women and Gays in this fraternity, and I don't see them excluded.  I see them embraced for sharing the same values we all have.   My generation sees life as being way too short to deal with things that are meaningless in the way we practice our profession.  Was it always this way?  Probably not.  Certainly my parents generation were less open than this one, but the difference is profound, as I am sure it will be between this generation and the next.

What we really need to work on is defining when enough "special treatment" of the historically downtrodden is enough.  We have fought a disgusting bias with an equally disgusting institutional bias, in the hopes we could equalize opportunities. How, exactly, do we determine when that has occured sufficiently to allow us to live equally as Americans, if that concept still exists as a broad ideal?