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The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-143
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
b: If my summing up is correct the report lists Ukrainian losses due to failed mass attacks over the last 24 hours as:
68 tanks, 64 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, 74 Armored Combat Vehicle and 860 950 personnel. Those were enough combat vehicles for two complete brigades!
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Other issues:
Assange:
Aukus:
RIP Daniel Ellsberg:
> During the course of our hour- and-20-minute interview, Ellsberg contended America still runs a “covert empire” around the world, embodied in the U.S. domination of NATO. He believes Washington deliberately provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine by pushing its seat of power eastward toward Russia’s borders; that the mainstream media is “complicit” in allowing the government to keep secrets it has no right to withhold; and that any notion Americans are ever the “good guys” abroad “has always been false.”
…
“I think very few Americans are aware of what our actual influence in the former colonial world has been, and that is to keep it colonial,” Ellsberg says. “King Charles III [of Britain] is no longer an emperor, as I understand it, but for all practical purposes Joe Biden is … Here’s a point I haven’t made to anyone but would like to in my last days here. Very simply, how many Americans would know any one of the following cases, let alone three or four of them?” Ellsberg then rattles off a series of U.S. orchestrated coups, most of them fairly well documented, starting with Iran in 1953, and then in Guatemala, Indonesia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Chile. <
Nukes:
> Vladimir Putin: I reject this. It is certainly theoretically possible to use nuclear weapons this way. For Russia, it is possible if there is a threat to our territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, an existential threat to the Russian state. Nuclear weapons are created to ensure our security, in the broadest sense of the word, and the existence of the Russian state.
First, we see no need to use it; and second, considering this, even as a possibility, factors into lowering the threshold for the use of such weapons. This is my first point.
The second point is that we have more such nuclear weapons than NATO countries. They know about it and never stop trying to persuade us to start nuclear reduction talks. Like hell we will, right? A popular phrase. (Laughter.) Because, putting it in the dry language of economic essays, it is our competitive advantage.<
The 'popular phrase' was 'Fuck you'.
Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …
Mike Sheldon weighs in on the future of USA fracced oil production….
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/single-post/what-s-declining-what-s-not-in-the-permian
“Initial well productivity, when normalized for lateral length, has been declining in core areas of both sub-basins in the Permian Basin since 2017. According to Novi Labs and Goehring and Rozencwajg Resource Investments, left, an eight (8) percent decline in 2022 alone. Add THAT to the 70-90% decline in production the first 32 months of well life. Yikes.
This decline in productivity is occurring in spite of much longer laterals and more proppant loading per perforated foot. It is likely because of overdrilling and pressure depletion. It is NOT reversible short of expensive gas re-injection. The dookey about new frac technology, or re-frac’ing that will double US shale oil production is really stinky. Give us a break after 10 years, will ‘ya? Please stop lying.
These Permian wells don’t start off slow, then pick up steam as they get older; they decline like throwing a rock off a roof.
Estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) per well is also dropping. Every American concerned about its oily future should be very concerned about that.
Total produced water production in the Permian Basin, end of 2022, was estimated to be 15.o MM BWPD, enough salt water to completely fill Lake Travis, north of Austin, Texas (1.2 MM acre feet) every 1 and one half years.
Oil/water ratios (OWR) in both sub-basins of the Permian have been steadily declining since the HZ tight oil play began in 2014.
OWR in the Midland Basin can often now average 5 BW: 1 BO and in the Delaware Basin 10 BW: 1 BO (Permian Basin Oil & Gas Magazine, Produced Water Society, DOE).
As injection volumes and pressures go up, places to put this produced water are also declining, rapidly.
Groundwater supplies in arid West Texas, where frac source water comes from, is also declining. The percentage of produced water recycled for frac source water is pretty much the same as it was six years ago (Produced Water Society).
Honesty and journalistic integrity in reporting about the Permian Basin HZ play is declining. Big time.
Prior to 2020. many Permian HZ players (Pioneer, Devon, EOG, Diamondback, Conoco) based economic guidance, and remaining drilling locations within their acreage blocks on crude + condensate representing 70-75% of their revenue stream. Their investor presentations claimed 70% oil rates for the next 25 years. You can google that.
As gas to oil ratios (GOR) have increased across both sub-basins, associated gas volumes have skyrocketed and crude oil and condensate as a percentage of the well’s revenue stream has declined to 50%, not 70% forever as promised. Bubble point is a bitch. FANGS oil production in its 2022 10K was 53%. Pioneer Resources, below, operating in the guts of the Delaware Basin, reports 50% oil now. Pioneer Natural Resources, the big boy in Saudi America, is just as bad.
The “quality” of oil, if that is what you want to call it, from HZ tight wells in the Permian Basin, particularly the Delaware sub-basin, is declining. It’s very light and getting lighter. This typically is more difficult to refine and a lot of Permian tight oil is being sold at a growing discount to West Texas Intermediate (Houston), Brent and Feteh in Dubai. Sadly for America, once Permian tight oil production declines to US refinery absorption rates (4.8 MM BOPD) and oil exports cease out of necessity, the shit won’t be worth refining. We will have shot ourselves in both feet, and both knees.
Look at the table below for the most current Waha spot prices for Permian Basin associated gas and NGL’s. Inflationary D&C costs are down 4-5% the past year, maybe; OPEX, including produced water handling and disposal is going thru the roof, however. The burden that 40,000 HZ wells in a hot, arid part of Texas puts on the electric grid is enormous; electricity costs per Kwh is to the moon. IRR’s have declined in the Permian Basin to low to mid single digits.
An investor can earn as much, or more, from bank certificates than it can owning working interest in a typical Permian Wolfcamp well. Enthusiasm for investment is definitely declining.
Equity (assets) to debt ratios are declining and traditional enders have R U N N-O F T. Forever. The new scheme in town for raising money is bonds.
Well economics suck in the Permian right now. Higher oil prices won’t fix the problem, not when 50% of ones revenue stream and profit margins are based on associated gas prices and natural gas liquids prices. What the tight oil sector needs is much higher natural gas prices, the take away and LNG export facilities to then get that gas to Europe. If you wish to invest in the long term viability of that, help yourself. Not me. When solution gas driven shale oil containers deplete, so does the associated gas. Besides, if you think this Permian gas can compete with Qatar gas, your not thinking straight.”
The anger against Trump has a reason…. Trump put off the war of Ukie-NATO vs Russia until
the US lost it’s ace in the hole of Tight Oil Production. That has now fallen off the cliff.
This specifically means that NATO does not have the fuel to run it’s war….. NOW!!!
That coupled with loss in manpower… weaps that simply do not work…
MEANS…
Game over!!
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 20 2023 10:13 utc | 161
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 20 2023 16:04 utc | 166
Scorpion | Jun 20 2023 15:12 utc | 163–
Thanks for your interest. I direct you to this review of the book I’m currently studying,
“Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi”. It’s a very complex higher graduate level discussion requiring close reading, which makes it difficult to cite. I found a softcover of the book for under $30, so don’t be shocked by the sticker price for the hard back cited at the top of the review.
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Good catch! I tend to delve into the old esoteric underpinnings. For example, one of the ‘hot button topics’ in the book involves the notion of li-ritual. As in Part One Ch II as a lead-in where we can read:
Their common argument is that Confucian rituals or li, commonly understood as a docility enhancing social mechanism, in effect exercised a critical “constitutional” function by constraining the arbitrary use of power by the ruler. [my emphasis] According to this new interpretation, the Confucian ruler is not above the li. On the contrary, the ruler is systematically controlled by the li … that confers moral and political authority on him and simultaneously enables him to exercise political power legitimately and with sufficient popular support.
This is all fine, but the wordy abstractions in the emboldened part reveal a major problem we have nowadays in assessing systems and thinking from days of yore. Essentially what is going on – to exaggerate and over-simplify – is akin to studying Roman Catholicism without ever experiencing a Sacred Mass, something whose experiential imprint effects every aspect of the tradition both in societal and doctrinal manifestation. Put another way: the tradition cannot truly be understood without experiencing the sacred perception engendered in (a well conducted) Mass.
The roots of the daoist tradition out of which flowered Confucius’s desire to fashion sane societies are esoteric and involve the experience of sacred perception, the origin of which was hinted at in my earlier snippet and is encapsulated by approachable notions of ‘The One and The Many.’ The relative world of form (The Many) – limitless, ever-changing, ever-creating, ever-dying – arises from out of the womb of the unchanging, the never born, never dying, always present, always formless One. When we experience the realm of form with a sense of the timeless present, sometimes called ‘ever-present awareness’ this experience, almost by definition, involves sacred perception. The timeless now is where the One and Many copulate in individual or group consciousness and it is engendering this perception, or state, which is the purpose of all profound ritual in traditional societies.
Unfortunately this sort of experiential aspect is often missed in such discussions and because it is missed the tendency is to ‘descend’ into relative discourse and policy development. Basically: how to handle deviations from the good, what to do with criminals, tyrants, foreign belligerents and so forth, all of course must be dealt with, but the role of uplifting ritual, or li, is often discounted as no longer relevant in that context, as being too airy-fairy, insipidly spiritual.
The fact is, that if/when a society has the ability to engender sacred perception, many ills automatically self-correct as most members aspire to virtuous learning, living, teaching and expression. And a monarch principle is necessary to bring that about in group ritual contexts, be it a local medicine man in a jungle tribe or an Emperor on the Imperial Chinese throne. One principle that probably won’t be discussed in the book – though hope am wrong – is the Court Principle. Forget about European examples, rather consider it as similar to a Church in which a Mass is performed. Yes, it can be done in an open field, beautifully so, but for magnetizing societal wisdom and power, institutional rituals, including architecture, tend to feature prominently.
For a King or Queen to hold the seat of Power in a way that engenders sacred perception, which is always fundamentally kind and virtuous, they need a Court for the benefit of those encountering such Sacred Presence, something into which first they prepare to enter, then they enter, then they experience the sacred majesty, then they absorb whatever message or transmission, then they leave and hopefully bring some of that experience back into their own lives and family. And of course apart from the Highest (Royal) Court in the land are many lesser ones, those of local authorities, feudal or otherwise, including churches, law courts and even, some might argue, sports arenas. But in a society in which all are interconnected – which we know now scientifically to be true – the highest court is where society taps into the profound, brilliant, just, powerful, all-victorious goodness that radiates forever from the Heaven principle out of which all are born and to which all return after the form manifestation ceases – which it always does.
Part of our problem today is that, having split Church and State (for both good and bad reasons) we lack a monarch or Court principle in which to engender shared perceptions of fundamental, bedrock goodness. Without that, it is impossible to create a sane, good, stable society. If studying Confucius will bring this more to the fore in our troubled modern world, so much the better. But again, without some sort of method of engendering sacred perception, much of it will remain rather hard to put into actual practice.
Anyway, that looks like an excellent book. Thank you for pointing it out. I hope to spend much more time with it at some point, though am way behind on my reading lists these days and the hottest heat wave since the 60’s in Central Mexico right now has made it impossible for me to read heavy matters of late. The words just shimmer off the page like desert mirages…
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 20 2023 17:52 utc | 170
Iain McGilchrist has suggested that the West has long exhibited a greater degree of instability – both creative and destructive – and believes it is because we have collectively emphasized left brain reductive modalities and suppressed right brain synthesizing tendencies.
I tried looking through my online copy of his latest, The Matter with Things, but I believe more of this stuff is covered in his previous ‘The Master and his Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.’ I can’t make the time to hunt through that one (they are both VERY long books).
Here’s an excerpt from an article I found after simple search:
A Tale of Two Brains
This idea that our minds are operating on different tracks has been around for a while. For example, the notion of the conscious and the unconscious speaks to a mental division, as do more recent concepts like that outlined in Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.
The brain is physically divided into different regions, such as top to bottom, and front to back, but McGilchrist is primarily concerned with the right/left division (though all are related).
The left hemisphere specializes in narrow focus. It tries to pin things down, looks for detail, and breaks things down into parts and categories. It likes rules and linear sequences, and goes for a sort of quick-and-dirty, just-the-facts approach, according to McGilchrist. The left side excels in the sort of homing-in attention that lets an animal grab a fruit, peck a seed, or chase a rabbit.
Significantly, the left side sees things according to their usefulness and figures out how to manipulate the world to its ends. It’s not too interested in relationships and can’t give us a sense of the whole, but it gives us the power to learn and make things. We need it to be human.
The left hemisphere can also lead us to places that begin to look inhuman. It acts as a kind of processing center, tending to get fixated on data, models, and maps, losing touch with the world around us if its findings don’t go back to the right hemisphere for context. In McGilchrist’s view, it has a kind of optimistic overconfidence about what it sees and constantly works to shut out anything that doesn’t agree with its narrow take on reality. It’s reductive, mechanistic, and self-referential, and it has an enormous capacity for denial. It’s also more tuned into anger and aggression than the right side. The left side doesn’t have a sense of humor.
The right hemisphere, in contrast, deals with a broader kind of attention. Where the left side’s goal is to manipulate things, the right tries to understand them in context, to see the big picture and how the parts fit into the whole. It pays attention to our relation to others, to whether they are friend or foe. The right side is more open, receptive, and aware of signals from surroundings. Its attention is more flexible and it attends to processes rather than fixed things. Its emotional modes are empathy and bonding. While the animal is chasing prey with laser-like focus, it still needs to maintain a larger awareness of what’s happening around it. It has to pay heed to the world in two ways at once.
McGilchrist thinks that because the right side is more interested in what exists “out there,” only it can bring us new information. The left hemisphere deals with what it already knows and therefore prioritizes the expected. This works well in routine situations, but less so when we need to revise our initial assumptions. The right hemisphere is better at shifting the frame.
“Because the left hemisphere is drawn by its expectations,” writes McGilchrist, “the right hemisphere outperforms the left whenever prediction is difficult.”
But don’t tell that to the left side – it thinks its predictions are always right.
This thesis and approach may not be able to explain everything but it is not only novel but deeply insightful when read in its full context – namely his VERY long, though quite readable, books. (They are readable because he used to teach literature at Oxford, I believe, before getting involved in clinical psychiatry and, later, philosophy.)
The left brain is to reality as a map is to terrain. You can use a map to get from one place to another. It works. It is ‘real.’ But a map is not the terrain. The right brain has more to do with experiencing terrain, with wholes not parts, with atmospheres versus ideas and so forth. By emphasizing the left brain and suppressing the right peoples mode of thinking and feeling, as well as terms of reference, tend to narrow to the point that they never really ever see the terrain, only the map.
This sort of view might explain the seeming ‘madness’ of our elites. They are not mad, not clinically speaking, but their self-referential bubble, amplified by the contemporary predilection for the materialist-only perspective, creates an unreal and indeed unhinged version of reality increasingly removed from full (right-brain, intuitive, imaginative and heartfelt) reality.
And it seems to be the case that, generally speaking, the Orient has maintained a far more balanced approach than the Occident. Take a look at one of their classic texts, still used and studied to this day, the Yi Jing: it combines visual symbols based on a binary visual base (broken and unbroken lines in groups of six stacked vertically) that has mathematical functions (like the abacus which it possibly helped invent). Yes, it is used for divination and was originally used in sacrifice rituals and such like, but it is not a super-mystical ‘out there’ text any more than it is purely legalese and conceptually dense. It’s a mix, a blend, and indeed unfathomable as such.
Left brain stuff is never unfathomable. It all adds up perfectly. It just happens to be based on mapping functions of the human mind that turn everything into an abstract version and thus is never actually in touch with actual reality.
Balancing this will probably take centuries, IMO, but at least Iain is pointing out the elephant in the room. Finally.
The article: https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/could-modern-crises-stem-from-problems-in-the-human-brain
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 20 2023 21:27 utc | 180
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