Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

What then explains Biden's reluctance to instead enable an increase in American production to accomplish exactly the same thing? In either case the same increase in total production would result, so there cannot possibly be any difference in potential effects on total consumption or GHG emissions.

However if the increase in production was done by him in this country (where, unfortunately for us, he does exercise some power), we would directly control its extent and duration, retaining the ability to throttle it up and down as the situation with Respect to Russia requires, while, at the same time contributing significantly to taming the fast growing inflation that threatens our own economy, and swapping costly imports from Russia for exports to our NATO allies to immediately limit Putin's power and ability to wage war on Europe.

Let us introduce two axioms:

“First: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.”

Of course, not every civilization is militaristic. Some might be benevolent. Is it safe to assume the benevolence of others or advertise yourself as such?

“If you think I’m benevolent, that’s not a reason to feel safe, because according to the first axiom, a benevolent civilization can’t predict that any other civilization is benevolent. You don’t know whether I think you’re benevolent or malicious. Next, even if you know that I think you’re benevolent, and I also know that you think I’m benevolent, I don’t know what you think about what I think about what you’re thinking about me. It’s convoluted, isn’t it? This is just the third level, but the logic goes on indefinitely.”

Thus:

“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.”

Liu Cixin laid down The Dark Forest hypothesis in his “The Three Body Problem” trilogy back in 2008. The reasoning goes as described above, but it is not limited to galactic civilization alone. It played out with human history hundreds of times over. Whenever an invading civilization encountered an unknown one, it was always “better” or at least safer to assume hostility than benevolence. Just how many naive tribes fell under the swords and muskets of white conquistadors?

But the world was still young back then. Compared to the number of people, the land and the resources were infinite.

They are not anymore.

We are probably past peak oil. Minerals are harder and harder to mine; all low-hanging fruits are already eaten. Yet we are more numerous and hungrier than ever. An average US-American consumes hundreds of times more energy and resources than even the nobility of the 18th century did. We want to live like kings now, but the world is exhausted.

We have reached the point at which we realize that the resources are not only limited but close to the limit as well.

As Jessica Wildfire brilliantly put it in one of her latest stories:

The truth is, I don’t know how we’re going to end the war in Ukraine. I am convinced that it’s the start of a darker epoch, an age where we fight each other for what’s left of a dying planet.

This is The Dark Forest Era. Everyone against everyone else. The fewer resources left, the more this scenario gets probable.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Although it seems inevitable, it still isn’t the only point of equilibrium we can reach. As Dan Ariely explains [from 3:15 forward]:

Why’s It So Hard to Get People to Change Their Behavior?

There are two equilibriums, and we’ve described the second one in which everyone doubts and attacks everyone else. But the initial state is actually the state of mutual trust and cooperation. That, too, is a stable condition, albeit much more fragile. All it takes is one defiant individual (or a civilization), which erodes the trust of the rest, and the whole situation quickly deteriorates into the Dark Forest.

The first to defy is the one who profits. Everyone else doesn’t want to be a sucker anymore.

It seems like Putin (intuitively or consciously) came to the same conclusion.

What’s sad about this is that the “cooperation equilibrium” actually benefits everybody involved. Collectively and individually they prosper, but they need to stick together and believe in each other. Game theory shows that over and over.

So which one is going to be?

If you think about it; even queens and billionaires don’t need a room any hotter than you do, they can’t eat more food, and can’t dress more than one set of clothes at once. Everyone’s basic needs are roughly the same. The difference is not in needs but in wants.

Once you have your needs met, it is just a matter of taste and personal preferences how many wants can you afford to satisfy before hurting everyone else. This is the bar that we must set for each other.

The research suggests that we could all live sustainably on this planet if we reduced our consumption down to the 1960s western middle-class level. Although we still consume a lot more than the 1960s people, reducing our lifestyle wouldn’t be as drastic as it seems. We’d still have electricity in our sockets, warm water in pipes, plenty of food on the supermarket shelves… Most of us would be fine. I’m living this level of consumption ever since the pandemic started (perhaps I’m even lower), and after the initial shock it is quite OK.

The problem is that the people who hold the levers in the control room of society want more. Much more. Behind them march hoards of spoiled brats who pose as influencers online. They have the means to lure the masses into fantasies of a lavish lifestyle that is always just a few clicks away. They won’t let go either.

“Our world is getting uglier and meaner and more mean-spirited by the moment because those who have are so anxious about the fact that they might be asked to share it.” — Terrence McKenna

The only way out of this predicament is to build a critical mass of like-minded people who don’t give a **** about influencers or territorial politics and just don’t buy into all of this.

That’s all we have to do. Their power is with us. When we stop believing in them we take away their currency and render them impotent.

“If we continue as we have then we’re doomed and the judgement of some higher power will be “They didn’t even struggle. They went to their boxcars with their suitcases and they didn’t even struggle!”

This is too nightmarish to contemplate, we’re talking about the fate of the whole planet! Why are people so polite, why are they so patient? Why are they so forgiving of gangsterism and betrayal? It’s very difficult to understand. I believe it’s because the dominator culture is increasingly more and more sophisticated in its perfection of subliminal mechanisms of control. And I don’t mean anything grandiose or paranoid, I just mean that through press releases and sound bites and the enforced idiocy of television the drama of the dying world has been turned into a soap opera for most people.

And they don’t understand that it’s their story and that they will eat it in the final act, if somewhere between here and the final act they don’t stand up on their hind legs and howl. And it’s not done through organising, it’s not done through vanguard parties, it’s not done through cadres of intellectual elites. It’s done through just walking away from all that, claiming your identity. Claiming your vision, your being, your intuition, and then acting from that without regret. Cleanly, without regret.” — Terrence McKenna

Yes, sacrifices will be needed, but it is either that or The Dark Forest.

Which one shall we pick?

Now we find ourselves importing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Petroleum from Putin's Russia, every day and, with sadly comical irony, looking to "friendly" Venezuela to replace it.

Biden pledged to do "everything I can to minimize Putin's price hike here at home" and said that lifting environmental regulations would not boost domestic energy production.

Instead, he said that oil and gas companies have leased millions of acres of U.S. land and received permits to drill, but have decided not to use them for production.

"They can be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year," he said.

President Joe Biden’s ban on Russian oil imports puts new pressure on U.S. drillers to help fill a supply shortfall that has sent crude prices to the highest levels since 2008. Among them: EOG Resources Inc. and Devon Energy Corp., two shale giants that are sitting on thousands of federal drilling permits, many of which could be used to produce more oil from the prolific Permian basin.

EOG and Devon hold more permits than any other company, according to a Bloomberg analysis of federal onshore permitting data, but neither plans to grow production beyond 5% even as U.S. oil futures top $120 a barrel and global markets face historic disruptions. That dissonance is at the center of tension between the U.S. shale industry — which argues it needs long-term government support before it can sustainably raise production — and the Biden administration — which says oil companies should use up the more-than 9,000 drilling permits they already have before asking for further concessions.

The war of words between the two intensified as the U.S. moved to ban Russian oil imports in response to the nation’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. producers “have 9,000 permits to drill now — they can be drilling right now, yesterday last week, last year,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “They have 9,000 to drill onshore that are already approved. So let me be clear, let me be clear: they are not using them for production now.” The comments came a day after the American Petroleum Institute, the biggest U.S. oil lobby group, accused the administration of “misusing facts” when it comes to federal leasing data.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease, and there has to be a lot of development that occurs between the leasing and then ultimately permitting for that acreage to be productive,” said Mike Sommers, chief executive of the API.

A review of federal drilling permits shows that half of unused onshore permits are for acreage in New Mexico’s Lea and Eddy counties, part of the Permian Basin that’s responsible for most of U.S. oil output. EOG held the most permits there, followed by Devon and Occidental Petroleum Corp.

“EOG is one of the most active producers in the Permian Basin this year, running an average of 17 rigs in 2022,” the company said in a statement. “Our standard practice is to maintain a healthy inventory of the permits necessary to provide flexibility for current and future development plans,” said the company. Devon and Occidental declined to comment.

The American Exploration and Production Council, a trade group representing EOG, Devon and others, pushed back on the notion that holding permits constitutes an obligation to drill. “This claim shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how exploration and production works,” said Anne Bradbury, chief executive officer of the association.

While the U.S. is key to replacing Russian oil, it won’t happen immediately or without more support from the Biden administration, Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub told Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston Tuesday. U.S. oil drillers simply can’t significantly expand production in the near term because of personnel shortages and supply-chain snarls.

Oil companies may believe it prudent to hold onto drilling permits now in case Biden — who campaigned on pledges to combat climate change, accelerate the transition into renewables and limit new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters — clamps down on drilling later. The administration initially halted oil and gas lease sales — a move later reversed by a Louisiana-based federal district court — and the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management has yet to auction onshore oil leases under Biden. It is still issuing permits on existing leases, with nearly 4,000 authorized onshore last year, in line with recent, pre-2020 levels. And more of those leases actually have wells in production, according to Bureau of Land Management data cited by the industry.

There are barriers to ramping up output in Lea and Eddy counties. Oil produced on that side of the Permian tends to generate higher quantities of associated natural gas and water, which are more costly to dispose of in New Mexico, where air and water regulations are stricter than in Texas.

Publicly-traded oil and gas companies are also trying to limit production growth and return more cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks after a decade of overspending burned investors. Oil CEOs have in recent weeks made clear that they want a nod from Biden before accelerating production, in part to give them cover with shareholders.

“The energy industry doesn't have a permitting problem,” said Aaron Weiss, a deputy director at the Center for Western Priorities, which is conducting its own analysis of federal drilling permits. “It has a financing problem.”

This morning, President Joe Biden announced an executive order that will ban the import of Russian oil, liquified natural gas, and coal to the United States, as part of a plan to cut Russia off from the world economy.

Biden did this under pressure from Congress, which was preparing its own bill for this outcome. The administration hesitated to take this step independently from other allies and partners. In 2021, the U.S. imported only 3% of its oil from Russia, and that number has been dropping in 2022, while Europe is not in a position to cut off Russian oil, although the European Union did offer a plan to cut Russian gas imports by two thirds this year, and Britain declared it would stop importing Russian oil in 2023.

According to a new Reuters poll, 63% of Americans approve of cutting off Russian oil despite expected price hikes. Still, rising gasoline prices are a big problem, and the optics of cutting off any oil supplies right now will hurt the administration.

The government has little to do with the cost of gasoline. Since our oil companies are privately owned, the cost of oil goes up and down according to supply and demand. That, in turn, can depend on disruptions to crude oil supplies, refinery operations, or pipeline problems, or even on what people think will be future demands. Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, the economic recession meant there was little demand for oil, and prices were very low. That meant producers reduced production, and they have not yet fully ramped it up again.

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the booming U.S. economy meant increased demand for oil and thus increased prices. U.S. companies increased their production, but perhaps not enough to address the imbalance between supply and demand that would address soaring gasoline prices. And in that gap, oil companies made huge profits.

On February 20, 2022, Tom Wilson of Financial Times reported that the seven top oil companies, including BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, would return a near-record $38 to $41 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks, after distributing $50 billion in dividends. The Wall Street Journal in January noted, “While that is good for investors in the company, there are mounting concerns that there isn’t enough investment in new fossil-fuel supply to meet growing demand.”

Low supplies are driving prices up, but Republicans are trying to turn those high gas prices into a culture war, blaming Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline for the nation’s high gas prices. Representative Jake LaTurner (R-KS), for example, has launched a paid ad on Facebook and Twitter saying that the Keystone XL pipeline “would have produced 830,000 barrels of oil per day, more than enough to offset what we import from Russia.” Others blame Biden’s cancellation of new oil permits in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for high prices.

In fact, both of these points are misleading.

The Keystone Pipeline, which runs from oil sand fields in Alberta, Canada, into the United States and to Cushing, Oklahoma, exists and is fully operational. The XL Pipeline consists of two new additions to the original pipeline, together adding up to 1700 new miles. One addition was designed to connect Cushing to oil refineries in Texas, on the Gulf Coast. That section was built and went into operation in January 2017.

The second extension is the one that caused such a fuss. It was to carry crude oil from Alberta to Kansas, traveling through Montana and North Dakota, where it would pick up U.S. crude oil to deliver it to the Gulf Coast of Texas. (This would have had the effect of raising oil prices in the middle of the country.) This leg crossed an international border, and thus the Canadian company building it needed approval from the State Department. The proposed pipeline would threaten water supplies in the Northwest if it leaked, for it would run over a huge aquifer, and the people who lived downstream from the proposed route, including Lakotas and members of other Indigenous tribes, protested the pipeline’s construction.

The Trump administration approved this construction, and the opposition of environmentalists, Indigenous Americans, and Democrats to the pipeline enabled Republicans to turn it into a cultural symbol, suggesting that the opposition of these groups was hobbling the economy. In fact, the company behind the project was Canadian and wanted the extension to shorten transportation routes for its oil. The winners on the American side were the refinery owners; the jobs the project would create were primarily in the construction of the project.

As soon as he took office, Biden halted the construction. But Blaming today’s high prices on the cancellation of this spur of the Keystone Pipeline is a resort to that culture war. Even if Biden had not overturned Trump’s approval of the project, it would not be completed yet, and even if it were completed, there is no guarantee that it would have delivered more oil to the U.S., rather than to the ports for export elsewhere. The U.S. exports about half of its oil production to other countries, both because the crude we produce is hard for us to refine and because of the demand for it overseas. The Keystone pipeline was designed for export.

The argument that Biden’s cancellation of new oil drilling leases on public property has driven prices up is similarly misleading. On November 17, 2020, after he lost the election, former president Trump abruptly allowed oil and gas companies to pick out land for drilling rights on about 1.6 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Biden froze those permits as soon as he took office. Only about 10% of drilling takes place on public land, and there are currently about 9000 permits already issued that have not been developed.

But oil drilling on public land returns huge sums of money to the states in whose boundaries the drilling occurs; at the hearing for the confirmation of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said that his state collects more than a billion dollars a year in royalties and taxes from the oil, gas, and coal produced on federal lands in the state, and warned that the Biden administration’s opposition to oil permits is “taking a sledgehammer to Western states’ economies.”

Oil prices are skyrocketing because of the dislocation of the pandemic, the Russian invasion, and the disinclination of countries to buy from Russia, even though oil sales have not yet been sanctioned.

To combat those prices, the Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to increase production; the Saudis declined. On Saturday, U.S. officials met Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, who has run a brutal regime, is accused of human rights violations, and is aligned with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Venezuelan oil has been under U.S. sanctions since 2019, and with Russian assets frozen, Maduro needs financial support, while the U.S. and its allies need oil. After Saturday’s talks, the Venezuela government released two of six U.S. citizens from custody, apparently as a gesture of goodwill as talks go forward.

For all the fighting over oil, Biden pointed out today that we have an interest in stopping Putin’s aggression, and that the best way to reduce the price of oil is to shift to renewable energy. “[T]ransforming our economy to run on [electric vehicles], powered by clean energy, will mean that in the future, no one has to worry about gas prices.”

In an interview with The View on Tuesday, Grisham discussed the former US president’s relationship with the Russian president, saying: “I think [Trump] feared [Putin]. I think he was afraid of him. I think that the man intimidated him. Because Putin is a scary man, just frankly, I think he was afraid of him.”

She went on to add: “I also think he admired him greatly. I think he wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him. So I think it was a lot of that. In my experience with him, he loved the dictators, he loved the people who could kill anyone, including the press.”

The Mesa County clerk, Tina Peters, is charged with counts related to tampering with voting equipment. A Republican running for secretary of state, she has promoted false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.


Tina Peters, a county clerk running as a Republican for secretary of state of Colorado, was indicted Tuesday evening on 10 criminal counts related to allegations that she tampered with election equipment after the 2020 election.

The indictment, which the district attorney of Mesa County, Colo., announced on Wednesday, is connected to Ms. Peters’s work as a top county election administrator, a role in which she promoted former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen.

A grand jury indicted Ms. Peters on both felony and misdemeanor charges, including of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state. Neither Ms. Peters’s campaign nor her lawyer immediately responded to requests for comment.

The grand jury also indicted Belinda Knisley, Ms. Peters’s deputy, on six counts. A lawyer for Ms. Knisley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Peters’s case was a prominent example of how Republican-led reviews of the 2020 vote count have prompted election-security threats involving the integrity of voting machines, software and other equipment that make up the nation’s election infrastructure. And in running for secretary of state, Ms. Peters has been an example of the brazenly partisan candidates who claim that Mr. Trump won the election and who are transforming races around the country for the once-little-known office.

In May 2021, the authorities say, Ms. Peters entered a secure area of a warehouse where voting machines were stored, and copied hard drives and election-management software from the machines. She is also accused of recording a voting machine maintenance procedure.

Then, in August, a conservative website published passwords for Mesa County election machines. The indictment connects Ms. Peters’s and Ms. Knisley’s actions to the leak of the passwords.

Ms. Peters is running for secretary of state against the incumbent, Jena Griswold, who is a Democrat.