Frack, Baby, Frack

The NY Times tells us about the next oil boom:

Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

CATARINA, Tex. — Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses.

Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.

The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.

There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rocks to release the oil inside.

The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.

The risk to groundwater from fracking may be hypothetical rather than realized - Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, made news with her disputed claim that she is "not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water".

FWIW, the risk from nuclear reactors is real yet unrealized, in this country at least.

Comments

[The Madder the Crowd.]

Each case individual, but not difficult to engineer safety and not difficult to assign blame for a problem. Now, about climate.
===========

[See movie 'Gasland']

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants but allowed any existing operations to continue discharging water into rivers.

At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, according to state records. That is enough to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.

Researchers are still trying to figure out whether Pennsylvania's river discharges, at their current levels, are dangerous to humans or wildlife. Several studies are under way, some under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency.

State officials, energy companies and the operators of treatment plants insist that with the right safeguards in place, the practice poses little or no risk to the environment or to the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on those rivers for drinking water.

But an Associated Press review found that Pennsylvania's efforts to minimize, control and track wastewater discharges from the Marcellus Shale have sometimes failed.

[daleyrocks]

FWIW, the risk of a meteorite striking me dead is real, but as far as I am aware, yet unrealized. Ecotards FOAD.

[Quoth The Raven]

ironmentalists and growing concern from scientists, Pennsylvania on Tuesday asked the state's booming natural gas industry to halt disposing of millions of gallons of contaminated drilling wastewater through treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams.

The plants are ill-equipped to remove pollutants from the wastewater – which is intensely salty and tainted with chemicals. The state Department of Environmental Protection said recent water tests suggest the discharges could harm drinking water supplies and, eventually, human health.

The DEP set a May 19 deadline for drillers to stop bringing the waste to the treatment plants. It did not say how the wastewater should be disposed of in the future.

The announcement was a major change in the state's regulation of gas drilling that has swept Pennsylvania since 2008, when energy companies began swarming the state for the vast riches of the Marcellus Shale formation, the nation's largest known natural gas reservoir. It came the same day that an industry group said it now believes drilling wastewater is partly at fault for rising levels of bromide being found in Pittsburgh-area rivers.

Freeing natural gas from the dense shale rock demands the use of millions of gallons of chemical-laden water in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. As the practice has rapidly grown in Pennsylvania, especially in the southwestern corner, the state has scrambled to adapt its regulations.

In other major natural gas states, drilling wastewater is injected deep underground into disposal wells. But in Pennsylvania, some drilling wastewater is trucked from well sites to sewer authorities and industrial treatment plants, mainly in western Pennsylvania, and discharged into rivers that provide drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people.

Pennsylvania has allowed hundreds of millions of gallons of the partially treated wastewater, largely through at least 15 plants, to be discharged into rivers from which communities draw drinking water. New tests show elevated levels of bromide in western Pennsylvania rivers, the agency said.

"Now is the time to take action to end this practice," acting Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer said in a statement Tuesday.

Bromide is a salt that reacts with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water systems and creates trihalomethanes, which have been linked to cancer when given in high doses to laboratory animals.

[creeper]

Fracking shale may give us more oil but it will not give us cheaper fuel. The cost to get it out of the rock is just too great.

[DrJ]

Bromide is a salt that reacts with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water systems and creates trihalomethanes

Sheer blather. Don't get your science from the AP.

[daleyrocks]

FWIW, Oxygen has been linked to cancer when given in high doses to laboratory animals.

[bgates]

this forsaken South Texas village

Forsaken by what, exactly?

The cost to get it out of the rock is just too great.

We can hope that the ostensibly high price will spur innovators to develop improvements which will allow them to profit while decreasing the price, as has happened in every other human endeavor since the dawn of history.

[narciso]

I thought that byline seemed familiar, considering the first beat, he got entirely
wrong, well what are the odds:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/clifford-krauss-propagandist-par-excellence/

[henry]

If tracking is too expensive, drill for the cheap oil in shallow water. Life is easy without government interference.

[henry]

Ugh - fracking (not tracking).

[Quoth The Raven]

"This thread was about Hillary's interview. New readers, your comment must be on topic or take it to an open thread. And read the comment rules before commenting."

Jeralyn;
Your fascism shows through every hole in your cloth coat.

by Al Asad on Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 12:05:38 PM EST

[Threadkiller]

"My mind was thinking 'fracking'; what did you hear my mouth say?"

[PD]

Didn't take long for the anti-frackers to show up, did it?

At least they didn't start talking about Peak Oil.

[daleyrocks]

The most difficult part of analyzing that Gasland "documentary" is determining the parts that are true as opposed to the large segments that are provably false, much like Michael Moore's "documentaries."

[Danube of Thought]

Notice how Barack seems to be preventing him from lunging at her.

[Bruce]

Lots of wells in the US have too much radium in them. I don't think the EPA cares ... but then again the ecoloons don't care about tainted water, they just want an excuse to kill off fossil fuels. Even clean ones like shale gas.

"In 1998 Anne Arundel County conducted a pilot study of well water quality. Fifty private wells spread across the County were sampled. Fifteen of the twenty-two wells sampled in northern Anne Arundel County had levels of naturally occurring radium that exceeded the level established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water."

http://www.mde.state.md.us/programs/Water/Water_Supply/Pages/programs/waterprograms/water_supply/radium.aspx

[Extraneus]

"Dude, you don't want to hit that."

[Threadkiller]

You know how I like my re-runs:

”Easy Turbo! When I said you could take a ride in ‘The Beast’, that is not what I meant!”

[BB Key]

No ! No ! that is not the maid .

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Hmmm. This showed up at memeorandum, and we quickly -- second and fourth comments? -- got two long cut-and-pastes. I really do wonder if someone isn't being paid for this.

[matt]

look, there are much more important things going on in the world right now, such as Man U vs Barca....Go Reds!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

By the way, the NYT paywall is clearly not gonna work. I hit my 20 article limit yesterday. 10 seconds googling, and I'm reading the same article from the Gainesville Sun.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vnjagvet]

The quality of the trolling seems to be going down, Charlie.

[Danube of Thought]

I likethe one from Cleo that begins with the word "ironmentalists."

[MayBee]

ha ha ha ha ha!

[pagar]

Could this lizard excuse be used to shut down the Texas boom.

http://www.redstate.com/greghalvorson/2011/04/27/listing-of-lizard-may-shut-down-texas-oil/

It must really burn the Obama Admin up to have Texas generating jobs.

[MJW]

Isn't Ironmentalist that new superhero? He's indestructible (except to rust) -- and he can read minds.

[daddy]

Speaking of Congressman Weiner's penis...

[~FR]

..."not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water".

Doesn't this mean that current State regulation and the industry's standard operating procedures are capable of protecting groundwater as is without leftists becoming hysterical?

The cost to get it out of the rock is just too great.

Bullsh*t. The energy companies do not invest big money in sources that lose money- UNLESS the economics are being distorted by leftist government interference- windmills, solar, etc.

[cathyf]

"In 1998 Anne Arundel County conducted a pilot study of well water quality. Fifty private wells spread across the County were sampled. Fifteen of the twenty-two wells sampled in northern Anne Arundel County had levels of naturally occurring radium that exceeded the level established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water."

The levels are ridiculous. Radium occurs in water in places in the world at levels as high as 300 pico-curies/liter, and no one has ever been able to detect any health consequences at those levels. If the EPA had set the levels at 30 pico-curies/liter, every water system in the US would have been in compliance. Instead they set it at 5 pico-curies/liter, and, 100s of millions of dollars later...

Also, when your water only has 7-9 pico-curies/liter, it's really HARD to get it down to 5. The backwash water is really salty, and the drinking water ends up a bit salty, too. And, yeah, our backwash water ends up in the creek, and in the Mississippi eventually.

[Extraneus]

Guess that's it for this thread.

[MJW]

The energy companies do not invest big money in sources that lose money...

Also, as Adam Smith showed long ago, if the quantity supplied increases, the price will decrease. Perhaps the oil companies will stop producing oil from shale if the production costs are too high, but as long as they do, it will reduce the price.

[MarkO]

Does anyone here have the ability to grab TM's NYT before he reads it? I would prefer to use something else as the key to discussion. The NYT is so '60's.

[Rick Ballard]

"The NYT is so '60's."

Wouldn't 1938 be closer to the mark? The NYT fits right in between Goebbels promoting the big lie and Stalin awarding Lysenko his Hero of the Soviet Union medal for his scientific contributions. I believe Lysenko to have been a much better scientistic liar than the current crop of credentialed morons peddling the neo-Luddite line.

[Melinda Romanoff]

MarkO-

I think the lighter fluid and matches approach to newspaper delivery would be more appropriate here.

I'll have to check my Emily Post....

[Danube of Thought]

"Wouldn't 1938 be closer to the mark? "

Walter Duranty would be so proud.

[Frau Frankfurter]

"FWIW, the risk from nuclear reactors is real yet unrealized, in this country at least."
Thank you, TM, for reminding your readers of the energy source that dare not be named.

=====
Our ever elegant daddy did not want to write "Weiner's Wiener." (Vine-ers Vee-ner)

[daddy]

Not too OT

Just heading out the door with the dogs but concerning Oil Exploration:

Can anyone make sense of this story just up on the ADN?

Jack-up rig headed to Cook Inlet despite legal red tape.

Seems an Oil Rig is coming North on a foreign ship that has been refused permission by Napolitano to bring the rig North, but the owners of the rig are saying screw Napolitano, we are taking it North anyway. Can anyone figure out what this is all about?

Later.

[Red Beanz]

”Easy Turbo! When I said you could take a ride in ‘The Beast’, that is not what I meant!”

He's the white Sir Mix-A-Lot.

[~FR]

Can anyone make sense of this story just up on the ADN?

Just read it- my takeaway was that Napolitano (who shouldn't even be in the signal chain for approval) is being as big a PIA as possible to make it clear that the company REALLY needs to make special donations to the Obama '12 campaign.

Gangster-Government-As-Usual, IOW.

[Barbara]

OT -

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, here's a beautiful video (LUN) to thank our military for their service.

[Jack is Back!]

Nothing like a fracking good time to drive the green anti-energy/progress to a site they wouldn't visit if it had nude pictures of Lady Gaga. But their tin-foil hat science is so wacko and nonsense it makes Ron Paul look like a far leff liberal.

[Ignatz]

Jeebus,
Two days in the woods marking trees and I come back to what I thought not possible; even stupider trolls.

[Jack is Back!]

Iggy,

You got lumber tres? They don't mark for pulp, right?

As a young pup in college ( this is before weight machines) my football coach suggested I build up my strenght and endurance by working logging during the summer. So I got this job setting tongs for Rolly Sanden out of Lincoln, Montana (unabomber country). First day we get up at 5 and the cook asks me how many sandwiches? I say 2 and he just shakes his head. After two hours of setting tongs we break for some coffee and eats. I devour the 4 sandwiches cookie pcked for.me and decided then and there I would cookie decide based on his experience what to take for lunch.

If you really want to lose weight go logging for a week.

[Ignatz]

-Iggy,

You got lumber tres? They don't mark for pulp, right?--

We don't got no pencil neck geek pulp trees in California, JiB. :)
Was marking white fir and sugar pines for cutting, which we started today. Biggest ones were close to four feet in diameter. Mostly in the 24-36 inch dbh class.
Still snow banks all over and it's practically June. Never seen so much global warming so late at 5000 feet.

My dogs are barkin'.

[Ignatz]

I think DoT linked this in another thread, but it bears repeating and I will have a very difficult time marking a ballot for
ethanol-subsidy-loving, mini-Obamacare-creating-and-defending, weather- vane-in-a-tornado-mimicking Mitt Romnney.
He would be a disaster, I'm afraid.

[Janet]

More idiocy from Bill Nye the Science Guy.

[Danube of Thought]

Right you sre, Iggy. This guy is squishy, and adheres to no known principle. Plus he's got the stendh of "loser" just wafting from him in great, nauseating billows.

At this point I can think of no Republican who can win, which among many other things means Obamacare forever.

[Extraneus]

The "science guy" received a BS in mechanical engineering from Cornell. Previously he attended Sidwell Friends in DC. He worked at Boeing had some expertise in hydraulics, as well as starring in training films.

Ahem.

[Rick Ballard]

A bit more on the Eagle Ford play. If one had reservations concerning the purity of the motive driving the neo-Luddites one might entertain thoughts of a speculative nature concerning the ease with which an entity such as BP or XOM or Shell might be suborned in contrast to the difficulty in suborning the owners of fifty much smaller entities. One might even reflect upon the impact the additional supply generated by a horde of wildcatters with very good strike records might have on the behemoths which methodically adjust production so as to maintain a rather delicate supply/demand balance to maximize their ROI.

Those small firms need pay close attention to that CFTC action - the lesson there is that small operators who haven't fronted the right amount of protection money to the pols are running greater risks than they had imagined. The well connected market hogs such as GS and BP can rig their way to riches but woe to the little piggy trying to get its snout in the trough.

[Janet]

Here is a bit of Nye speaking at Cornell in 2006 -
"... And it's a sobering thought to realize that anyone who's ever lived -- every corporate pig, every do-gooder environmentalist, every somewhere-in-betweener -- has lived in this world. And it's not very big."

and then this VERY SCIENTIFIC statement in Feb. 2010 -

"[Asked to distinguish between climate and weather]: Well, one‘s a small-scale phenomenon, happens day to day. The other‘s a big phenomenon. We all know this. We all feel it in our—in our hearts."

[Uncle BigBad]

Hordes of Sierra-Club-sponsored wildlife biologists will be heading to Catarina, Texas in search of something, anything, a lizard, snake, isopod, even a dessert plant, sufficiently scarce enough to be called endangered, in order to stop this madness called "energy development."

[hit and run]

Hi!

[hit and run]

Bye!

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Caution, Ignatz: don't believe everything you read at Hot Air.

[Jack is Back!]

Hit,

You in OBX?

[narciso]

The founder of this enterprise, has been at this for quite a while:

http://www.escopeta.biz/dd_eo.pdf

[hit and run]

JiB:
You in OBX?

No. White Lake. Waiting for RalphL.

[Danube of Thought]

Iggy, where in CA are you, and are those trees on your land?

[hit and run]

Dot:
Iggy, where in CA are you, and are those trees on your land?

Iggy is in NorCal as far as I know.

I'm trying to hook up with him (and DrJ and all other norcalers) in late Jul/early Aug.

You. Should. Come.

It would be a party.

[Janet]

Can anyone figure out what this is all about?

Maybe more Americans are getting into the law breaking craze! Who is gonna stop them?...illegals come & are given sanctuary, Dems don't pay taxes, Black Panthers intimidate voters, prostitute using Governors are working for CNN,...
It's great! The gov't tells you to do another environmental study...hell no! Just start drilling!!!

[narciso]

Yes 'Going Rogue' seems the only proper response, Janet, to these hindrances, btw, does any one edit at Fox anymore, much less make actual corrections:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/28/rolling-thunder-focus-troops-despite-palins-appearance/

[PD]

Since we're talking trees, I'll mention that I had pine nuts for supper.

We went up to Ellison Bay tonight to an italian place, Pasta Vino. We went there a couple of years ago when it was in Sister Bay (the Country Walk shops) and had only six tables. My sweetie loved it, so we went to the new location tonight where it now boasts an expansive 15, count 'em, 15 tables. Even so, it was still an hour wait, and we're just coming off the off-season here. I guess the word has gotten around.

Still a very good place, although I'm not sure what a cuisine recommendation is worth coming from me (my idea of eye-talian is to put a mozzarella slice on my burger). I got the Chicken Frangelico - chicken and pasta with cream sauce, mushrooms, Door County cherries (like I had in my cherry pancakes for breakfast, yum), and pine nuts. I passed on the hazelnut liquer, though, not being a big fan of hazelnut flavoring. (I guess that makes me a double philistine because I declined the very thing that makes the recipe "frangelico.") The chef (who has obviously sampled his own wares) comes out periodically and checks with the customers to make sure they're satisfied. I'm glad he didn't hit me over the head for my unsophisticated ways.

[Jack is Back!]

She is every ones heads. Including Fox.

[narciso]

This is going real well,

http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/arab-spring-al-qaeda-declares-provincial-yemeni-city-as-capital-of-its-islamic-emirate/

[Neo]

"Our best scientists in this country have reached a consensus and it is unequivocal that the science is clear that man-made emissions or air pollution and global warming gases,” she said.

McKinley interrupted saying, "Isn't global warming an issue that the scientists are still debating and you know it! I know it!"

Jackson vehemently disagreed. "No I do not agree with that! I absolutely do not agree with that!"

Lisa Jackson's intelligence glistened like nose hair after a sneeze.

[daddy]

"The energy companies do not invest big money in sources that lose money..."

Here's some more painful evidence of that in an Alaska that's rapidly becoming jobless:

KENAI -- Plans are under way to transport the closed Agrium fertilizer plant in Nikiski to Nigeria in August for $28 million...

"CEO Philip Adkins says liquefied natural gas will be supplied at a much lower cost in Nigeria."

"111 modules and 70 containers from the plant will be moved to Ossiomo, Nigeria. Two ships will deliver them to Koko, Nigeria, where the company will arrange land transport to Ossiomo. The $28 million covers the water transportation."

There may be more to this story than what is in the ADN (Anchorage Daily News), but on the face of it it would appear that businessmen who have to pay attention to costs as the bottom line, feel it is cheaper to dismantle a fertilizer plant and ship it halfway around the world, than to leave it in Alaska where we have energy resources out the wazoo, but have a hell of a time getting permission to develop them.

[JM Hanes]

Ignatz:

Jeebus is right.

“I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.”

The guy must have a political death wish. The new waffle-free Romney has already decided to defend Romneycare, instead of recanting, and then try to win back Tea Party Republicans by making a 10th Amendment case against Obamacare. There's no way he was going to make that sale, even before he topped it up with ethanol, and we'll see just how long that putative states rights position lasts, when it comes to the federal role in education.

Don't think he wasn't willing to stand up to Iowa voters, though, just because he caved on subsidies. Nope:

He made plain that he wasn’t going to hang his pitch here on pledging fealty to the traditional process the way he did four years ago.

According to Politico:

That’s fairly stern talk for an electorate that is used to, and all but demands, personal care and attention. These are voters, after all, who cherish what they see as their birthright role in the presidential process.

Not such stern stuff -- or plain speaking either -- when he just got through telling them:

“I’ll be here debating, I’ll be here being interviewed, I’ll be here speaking and you’ll get to know me even better than you did last time,” he said, praising the “critical role” the state plays in the nominating contest.

I am so damn sick of those self-appointed Iowa gate keepers and the blatant extortion racket they are running. I'm sick of the GOP letting them get away with it, and I'm sick of candidates who are willing to sacrifice conservative principles on that altar. Give Romney the John Kerry Tin Ear Award for doing so right when even Democratic voters may be none too pleased with the Danegeld either.

[narciso]

That's odd, daddy, one would think the congressional delegation, produces enough of that stuff, a 'coals to Newcastle', problem

[narciso]

One half suspects these are the same authors behind that NY Times piece before that foolish
speech, JM. Those 'words they are using, don't mean what they think they do.'

[Janet]

More on Weinergate.

*I seems wrong to even type that!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Still snow banks all over and it's practically June. Never seen so much global warming so late at 5000 feet.

Aspen is reopening the slopes this weekend; better base today than they had on New Year's.

[Janet]

21 yr old co-ed

vs

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Bye!

I'm guessing that's a hit and run comment.

[daddy]

Thanks Janet for that Bill Nye Science guy link.

It was very valuable for my daughters to see him saying "you don’t have tornadoes in Norway", and then seeing the videos of 2 Norway Tornado's. They have been force fed his Global Warming Science stuff since grade-school, so I was very glad to show them that and to watch them realizing he's not the omniscient last word in settled science they'd been led to believe.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Alinsky’s Sarah Palin’s Bus Tour Before It Even Begins

I am despising Andrea more and more.

[narciso]

Of course that's not even half the story:

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/pathetic-the-state-of-todays-elite-journalism/

[Janet]

The last line at Sara's linked Andrea Mitchell article -

"Like I’ve said before, these are bad people not dumb people."

After church, I'm gonna go to Memorial Bridge tomorrow to watch Rolling Thunder go by.

[Dave (in MA)]

What about Frick?

[narciso]

From the previously linked piece:

Here is our equivalent to this story: one of Hot Air’s readers knows Ted Shpak, your main source of this particular Palin smear. This commenter indicated that Ted Shpak — is a good buddy of Chris Dodd and he came to Richard Blumenthal’s defense when he was exposed. Look at the pictures of Blumenthal when he was at the VFW hall Shpak is standing there with the other veterans.

[Janet]

from narciso's link -
"This commenter indicated that Ted Shpak — is a good buddy of Chris Dodd and he came to Richard Blumenthal’s defense when he was exposed. Look at the pictures of Blumenthal when he was at the VFW hall Shpak is standing there with the other veterans."

Shpak is who Andrea Mitchell interviewed to start the "Sarah wasn't invited" meme.

[Danube of Thought]

Via Insty, Michael Barone picks up on the unexpected phenomenon:

"Unexpectedly! As megablogger Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, has noted with amusement, the word 'unexpectedly' or variants thereon keep cropping up in mainstream media stories about the economy. 'New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed,' reported CNBC.com May 25. 'Personal consumption fell,' Business Insider reported the same day, 'when it was expected to rise.' 'Durable goods declined 3.6 percent last month,' Reuters reported May 25, 'worse than economists' expectations.' 'Previously owned home sales unexpectedly fall,' headlined Bloomberg News May 19."

It all depends on who's doing the expecting.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Isn't this special? ::YUCK!::

Arab Spring… Al-Qaeda Takes Over Government Offices and Declares Yemeni City Capital of Its Islamic Emirate

[daddy]

Uncle Big Bad,

"Hordes of Sierra-Club-sponsored wildlife biologists will be heading to Catarina, Texas in search of something, anything, a lizard...to be called endangered, in order to stop this madness called "energy development."

Ask and ye shall receive:

The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.

[daddy]

Narciso and Sara,

About your link above and the new Capital in Yemen of Al Quada's Islamic Emirate.

I had a vague memory of Muhammed's family being descendants of a tribe from Yemen, so a little googling of "were muhameds' ancestors from yemen", led to a number of sources, modern and ancient, describing him as being a member of a Yemeni tribe and the family as being from Hadrumet, Yemen etc.

I know I do not know but would be interesting to find out if there is a sort of popular Yemeni folklore that has Yemeni's believing that Muhammed was one of theirs, and that possibly the vicinity of wherever his ancient ancestors came from vaguely coincides with wherever this newly overtaken city is. Such myths can be effectively powerful, so yes this is a troubling development and I hope popular myth does not exist to make it an even more troubling sort of "Islamic Manifest Destiny" development.

[narciso]

I remember a biography of Mohammed, by Caratini, that referenced that same point.

http://religionresearchinstitute.org/Mohammad/ishmael.htm

[BR]

Osama bin Laden's family was from Yemen:

"The family traces its origins to a Hadhrami named Awad bin Laden, a Kendah tribesman from the village of Al Rubat, in the Wadi Doan in the Tarim Valley, Hadramout governorate, Yemen. He died in 1919. His son was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (died 1967). Mohammed bin Laden was a native of the Shafi`i (Sunni) Hadhramaut coast in southern Yemen and emigrated to Saudi Arabia prior to World War I." [Wiki]

[daddy]

Back on the topic of Oil, this 3 minute 30 second video from Heritage Foundation, posted at The Alaskan Dispatch, shows a bit of our Federal Government in Inaction:

Why won't the media tell you about Obama's war on U.S. oil production?

[BR]

Al-Rubat coordinates 45.683333,13.966667,0 .....
Zinjibar coordinates, 45.380278 ...

-- is what I find so far. Maps seem to be scarce on the net for Yemen. I'll check my atlas.

Both places (OBL's family origin and the new AQ city are in the mid south area of Yemen, east of Aden.

Daddy, maybe you have a better link on the net to see if they're actually close to each other.

[daddy]

If this is racism and xenophobia, count me in!

[BR]

More exact:

Al-Rubat
Latitude of 14° 11' 60 N
Longitude 46° 22' 60 E

Zinjibar, Abyan, Yemen
Latitude: 13° 7' 42 N
Longitude: 45° 22' 49 E

Go Seals!

[Soylent Red]

and Declares Yemeni City Capital of Its Islamic Emirate

We should load up the B-52s and level it, Dresden-style. Just on principle.

Oh wait...we only do that sort of thing these days to protect European oil supplies for humanitarian purposes.

[BR]

Maybe Daddy can deliver a special Fedex package there :)

[BR]

Raise the pirate flag when you do the flyover, Daddy. The Flying Pigs :)

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You know, I'd bet money that declaring Yemen the capital of the Caliphate is not going to be well received in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and the various little emirates etc.

[BR]

I heard when Saudi military did joint exercises in the desert with our guys, the food would get flown in specially from France in gourmet styrofoam packages and dropped from the air. Developing...

[BR]

Oh my, that was fast! Zinjibar under attack.

[BR]

Oh my God, the tv ad just said - think outside the box.
After action report :) :)

[daddy]

BR,

I'll check some stuff about that in an old book out in the garage once the Yanks/Mariner's end this 11th Inning Tie Ball game 4 - 4, and I finally get off the couch.

But meanwhile, this might make Captain Hate and others a tad Happy. Tonight the Maryland Men's LaCrosse Team upset favored Duke in the National Semi-final. The hero for Maryland was the younger brother of one of The Duke LaCrosse boys tangentially slimed in the Gang of 88 Duke Rape Fiasco.

That had to have been cool for Senior Grant Catalino to score 3 goals and stick it to the Blue Devil's as vengeance for brother Mike.
Durham in Wonderland has the wrap up.