The Rita Squeeze – Moon of Alabama

September 21, 2005

The Rita Squeeze

Refiners: "We are at our limit, can’t use the sour crude, pushing off repairs and closing down production in anticipation of Rita"

OPEC: "Want more Heavy Sour Crude? Here’s 2 mbd. Otherwise we are at our limit."

Nigeria: "We are in a civil war and cannot guarantee production."

Iraq: "We are in an insurgency/civil war and cannot guarantee production."

Iran: "We are going to leave OPEC and cut exports if you keep trying to block our Nuke plants"

Venzuela: "America is going to invade us for our oil"

Non-OPEC: "We are at our production limit"

GM: Hey, everybody! Look at the new SUV’s we’re announcing! Shiny!

Well, at least you can be sure that Bush will be there:

The president won’t be happy until he dons a yellow slicker and actually takes the place of Anderson Cooper, violently blown about by Rita as he talks into a camera lens lashed with water, hanging onto a mailbox as he’s hit by a flying pig in a squall, sucked up by a waterspout in the eye of the storm over the Dry Tortugas.

Bush may even recover in the polls on disaster response – if the people see a "strong" president in a Texan hurricane and forget about a very weak president in the Louisiana hurricane. Well, Karl Rove will see to that.

But the price at the pump is the most immediate factor that counts in the polls. Rove has no way to avoid that slump.

If Rita really hits the dangerous spots, Bush will be made responsible.

The folks who once lived in New Orleans will be screwed anyhow. Those 200 billions that somehow will be cut out of any decent program that is left will now go to Texas and directly into Bush’s friends pockets. And that will be totally independent of Rita’s real strenghts and the real devastations.

Posted by b on September 21, 2005 at 21:05 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Rita a Category 5 and a very Dangerous storm
As of 4 pm, Rita is a category 5 storm with 165-mph winds, located 300 miles west of Key West, Florida. Rita is moving west at 12 mph, and will move out into the central Gulf over the next 24-48 hours. Yet another one for the record books. This is the first time in recorded history that two Cat 5 Hurricanes have developed in the Gulf of Mexico in the same year.

Posted by: jeff ragovin | Sep 21 2005 21:56 utc | 1

Xeni on NPR, CNN: Sonic Weapons in Iraq — and now, US cities
…one such device being used by military police in New Orleans, outside of the Superdome in post-Katrina flooding. This is the LRAD, or long-range acoustic device, made by American Technology Corporation.
Also see: RNC-NYC: reported presence of long-range acoustic device (LRAD) at protests
Paid for, w/your tax dollars of course…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 21 2005 22:05 utc | 2

Well I can’t tell from this distance whether ‘Rita’ is actually going to wreak havoc or be a symbol of the over reaction that out of touch organisations make after they’ve been publically found wanting.
I do know that the price of gas is going to go up around the world and this is a movement that defies logic.
Apparently the problem is with insufficient refining infrastructure to process the crude into petroleum.
This means that when a hurricane goes through an area that has a lot of refineries the price of refined gas in the market those refineries service may rise.
That’s not what happens however. Where I live there is an oil refinery that is jointly owned by the big 4 oil companies and it supplies about 90% of the refined petroleum to our country. No cyclones/ hurricanes/earthquakes or volcanos have effected it yet the price of gas has nearly doubled in 18 months. At the same time the NZ dollar has dramatically increased in value against the US dollar which one would think would mean that the cost of gas should drop here. All deals are negotiated in US dollars.
But no. The price of gas has been going up by a few cents a week just like everywhere else. When one considers that these price rises really only are for new contracts and that the corporations who sell us our oil usually negotiate long term fixed price contracts precisely to protect themselves from these fluctuations one comes to the inescapable conclusion that we’re being scammed big time.
Not just here either; all over the world mug consumers are being clipped by the greed heads. If I put on my conspiracy hat I start thinking that oil companies have recognised the price was going to rise. That nations would be using taxes as a way of controlling energy consumption. Especially in countries that are signatories to Kyoto where nations have to pay compensation if they increase their production of greenhouse gases.
The petrol heads didn’t like the idea of anyone but them making a quid out of the world’s resources so they decided to whack up the price before it got taxed up.
It’s working too. The govt here had decided to put 5 cents a litre on gas to fund infrastructure costs and meet Kyoto obligations. Since the oil companies have beat them to the punch the public is putting real pressure on the govt to cancel the levy.
They’ll succeed eventually and the people will lose big time since the money that was going to pay for the public good and help meet the costs of Kyoto compliance is going into the pockets of the usual suspects.
And of course the state is perceived to be the villain in the piece. Which it is but the oil companies’ act is even worse.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 22 2005 0:09 utc | 3

well, i’ve always heard that everything’s bigger in tejas

…CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE RITA CONTINUING TO DEEPEN…
…NOW THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN ON RECORD…

Posted by: b real | Sep 22 2005 2:19 utc | 4

NOAA Satellite loop
Man this is massive!
“Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.”
The Tempest, 1. 1

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 22 2005 3:46 utc | 5

Interestingly enough, as many know in the Hindu pantheon this is the age of the ‘kali yuga’, the black age Kali is the ever becoming, ever destroying force of Life. She is both unimaginable horror and abundant bliss.
Kali is the Holy Paradox, like wild fire that destroys and births the forests. Like Jared Diamond and René Guénon before him seasons of time are said to be historically cyclical not linear.
Guénon writes in The Crisis of the Modern World and The Reign of Quantity that the modern world has brought about a crisis, conceived by many in terms of apocalypse and the “end times” (the coming dark age of the Kali Yuga in terms of Hindu cyclical cosmology), which can only be resolved by a return of the West to the traditional outlook.
“So long as western people imagine that there only exists a single type of humanity, that there is only one ‘civilization’, at different stages of development, no mutual understanding will be possible. The truth is that there are many civilizations, developing along very different lines, and that, among these, that of the modern West is strangely exceptional, as some of its characteristics show. Today not everyone would agree to the concept of the “bankruptcy of this civilization”, but the symptoms are there and while trends of this kind go on over a long period, they tend to accelerate towards the end of a cycle. p.10
Interestingly enough, Hurricane Rita may be the ‘kali ma’ in symbolism, the etymology of the word ‘Rita’ means “universal order” .
After all the impostor kings have been killed, the residents of the cities and towns will feel the breezes carrying the most sacred fragrance of the sandalwood paste and other decorations of Lord Vasudeva, and their minds will thereby become transcendentally pure.
-The Symptoms
of Kali-yuga
Namaste’

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 22 2005 5:22 utc | 6

Here’s another Rita map that only a govt. chock full of male homosexual closet cases could produce. link
And why is it called Rita. Rules are they go up one letter at a time and alternate genders – this should start w/L & be male, like say Lupin or Lunkhead.

Posted by: jj | Sep 22 2005 6:21 utc | 7

Local links and blogs about Rita

Posted by: b | Sep 22 2005 9:10 utc | 8

Lots of graphics to show the current and projected hurricane path.
Last I heard, this hurricane was 300 miles wide.
Has anyone heard any of the news outlets discuss global warming in relation to these hurricanes–and the projection to expect more?

Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 22 2005 10:31 utc | 9

Live feed Local Houston News w/streaming video link of Hurricane Rita…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 22 2005 11:14 utc | 10

thanks Unkka.
my sister said the construction co. working next to where she’s just moved informed them all that they are removing all items that could become projectiles..i.e. rebar…but I don’t know what they’re doing about the heavy machinary.
with a category 5, with one if not the biggest hurricanes we’ve known about, knowing oil rigs were blown onto the coast during Katrina, I wonder how heavy something would have to be to stay put.
as of now, it appears Rita is heading just south of Galveston, but that still puts my sister in the path as it moves inland.

Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 22 2005 11:23 utc | 11

Uncle $cam, thanks for letting me feel like I’m not going loopy.
Katrina’s etomology means “pure”, Rita’s means “divine order”. The
same as WTC 1, then WTC 2, all the more devastating one-two punch.
It’s beyond just George and Big Oil now, it’s our national survival.
We must cut Defense spending to the bone, before Congress cuts out
health and human services instead. Gas prices are going up all over,
even places with absolutely no connection or supply from the Gulf.
This is terrorism by Big Oil, much, much more deadly economic impact.
Rebuilding Houston and New Orleans together will bankrupt America,
especially since it’s being done with incompetent Fed assistance,
which we know already pencils 95% administrative overhead and only
5% in the ground, this will cost, easily, more than the War in Iraq.

Posted by: Larry Ellison | Sep 22 2005 15:17 utc | 12

The recent maps show this monster heading NNW instead of WWN if my eyes are not blind. New Orleans will surely get at least a significant blow. Bush’s “Operation Show I’m Competent” seems to be set up much better for this than Katrina. Gas today (N. Maine near Caribou)is at its post-Katrina low of $2.79 a gallon (it was up to $3.89 a gallon). I wonder how high it will go this time. I just filled up the Suburban (48 gallon tank). Maybe it will spike and come down quickly. Yes I drive a big pig in bad weather, but with 180 inches of snow here a year(and it starts by late October) its one of the few cars on the road sometimes. I have a little Honda CR-V that gets most of the miles!

Posted by: diogenes | Sep 22 2005 16:36 utc | 13

Hurricane preperations

“Bush is prepositioning himself in the Texas area on Saturday, after traveling first to Birmingham, Ala., on Friday. The excuse is a two-day ‘thank you’ tour of states that have taken in large numbers of Katrina evacuees. But it could easily turn into a Rita disaster tour, if the worst projections come true.
“The critical question remains where he’ll spend Saturday night. Given his druthers, Bush would much prefer to spend the night at his ranch in Crawford. The downside: it reminds the world how he spent so long on vacation before Katrina struck. The upside: he’ll be close to Houston after Rita passes through. One thing seems sure: as Cindy Sheehan and antiwar protestors take to the streets in Washington this weekend, Bush won’t be at the White House.”

Newsweek via Froomkin

Posted by: b | Sep 22 2005 17:07 utc | 14

so when’s chimpy going on a disaster tour of iraq?

Posted by: b real | Sep 22 2005 17:11 utc | 15

good thing it’s tracking more toward the north…

The Nukes in Rita’s Path
South Texas Project 1 and STP 2 are two nuclear power plants located just 90 miles SW of Houston. That’s not very far if an accident occurs and radiation is released during 100+ MPH winds. There is no guarantee the plants can survive the conditions they are about to face.

Posted by: b real | Sep 22 2005 17:41 utc | 16

Keeping track of things:
Monitoring effect of Rita upon oil infrastructure:link
Yes, there’s a Biowar facility on Galveston & a nuke power plant in its projected path. defensetech.org has updates & links covering those – at least insofar as that info. is made public.

Posted by: jj | Sep 22 2005 17:48 utc | 17

My sister said her family is one of only six left in her building. Her family is staying because they have a biz there and the place where it’s located tends to take on water so they want to keep close.
Frankly, I do not understand the rationale because it’s a consulting biz. I wish they had left.

Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 22 2005 20:01 utc | 18

Godspeed to your sis, fauxreal.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 22 2005 21:52 utc | 19

Special needs evacuation info
Please pass this info onto to anyone** you know of, who has special needs in regards to evacuation or shelter assistance in Houston area: BEFORE Rita HITS PLEASE!!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 22 2005 22:18 utc | 20

thanks for the sweet words, unkka.
Houston has such horrible air pollution issues from all the industry there, I cannot imagine that the soup that people might wade through after a major hurricane would be good for a body.
but getting through it is the first thing.

Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 23 2005 11:45 utc | 21

They will soon have run out of the list of names for hurricanes for this year (last will be Wilma, some letters are not used), and have to start on list ‘bis’ which is Alpha, Beta, Gamma…too funny, shows they never expected so many in one year.
Free market. Why build refineries?
a) when it is knows there will be less to refine in the future
b) when a refinery that is not working at 100% or close to is a poor deal
c) when it is known that scarcity will push up prices ..
huh? Or have I got that all wrong?
P.S. We should all remember that Katrina did do quite some damage but the disaster in NO is due to broken floodwalls, for which no clear cause has yet been determined.

Posted by: Noisette | Sep 23 2005 15:05 utc | 22

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