Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 20, 2026, 01:00 PMI'll throw some chum in the water.

Indeed. World renowned energy expert. One of his incredibly long lasting quotes was claiming there wasn't much oil in US shales in 2011. In front of the Forrestal building...where the EIA is housed. In retaliation, Adam Siemenski (EIA Administrator) announced a few months later that US oil production growth had just recorded the highest level of growth in the countries history.

World renowned expert indeed.

I googled up his business address once, Labyrinth geosciences or some such. It was a house, I assume his, and Google labeled it a Mary Kay Cosmetics business. It struck me as a perfectly fitting sign of the importance of his consulting company compared to what was probably the wife's business.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 20, 2026, 01:57 AM

ageoftransformation.org • 2026-02-20

When the boom hits the wall: A commercial reality check on fossil expansion

An integrated analysis of the UN Production Gap Report 2025 through the lens of reserve economics, capital allocation risk, and system dynamics

Fossil fuels are entering a geological and financial "Red Queen" race.  More capital to extract less net energy from ever lower quality rock.  A crash is inevitable.

Do you think the UN knows they are recycling a claim from a discredited peak oil website of yore?

The PHD project

De white whales have their bowels in an uproar.  Preferential treatment, we must have none of it.



Republican preferential treatment is more directly financial.

Trump National Golf Club Bedminster — ≈ $350,000 initiation
Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach — ≈ $200,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Jupiter — ≈ $150,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Charlotte — ≈ $100,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. — ≈ $100,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Westchester — ≈ $90,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck — ≈ $85,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley — ≈ $75,000 initiation
Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia — ≈ $65,000 initiation
Trump Turnberry — ≈ $60,000 initiation
Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen — ≈ $50,000 initiation
Trump International Golf Links Doonbeg — ≈ $45,000 initiation
Trump International Golf Club Dubai — ≈ $35,000 initiation

It looks like Dubai is the hot deal.

The loudest warnings about "replacement" tend to come from inside institutions that have long practiced exclusion by price tag, pedigree, and private invitation. Claims of demographic "replacement" make little sense in a society where elite access remains overwhelmingly structured by wealth, and who you know. Before worrying about who is being "replaced," it is worth examining who continues to control the gates.

The board of peace and profit.  The American kleptocratic oligarchy uses peace to mask atrocity.  It is obvious what is going on, but the fairy tale of our emperor having no clothes is out of fashion.  The truth remains too uncomfortable to see.  As the USS Gerald R. Ford strike group moves into the Persian Gulf, the lead negotiators, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff treat the Middle East like a distressed asset.  Just more beaches crying for casinos.    Kushner's Affinity Partners manages billions in capital for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.  Gulf monarchies that stand to gain billions from a "crippled" Iran.

The threat of mass violence as a poker tell in a game where the only stakes are the enrichment of the few at the cost of 90 million Iranians.  Some of who must die for Kushner and Steve Witkoff's billions.

* Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is now managing nearly $5 billion, with 99% of that capital coming from foreign sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar

What about Mother Russia?  How come the FSoA and China get to divide up the world without the Ruskies getting a piece?  Doesn't Vlad deserve a little respect here?  Is he the Rodney Dangerfield of the New World Order?


RE

I'll throw some chum in the water.

Totally awesome, I just snagged Surly's article offerings for the day.  I add them but I do not add them from a diner post.  I add the articles here with a custom tool.  then I  used the 'Get Article' dropdown to  generate a trackback.  This lets me comment on the article.  It took five clicks.  Any Diner member can add a trackback from an existing Doomscroll article.  Adding new articles requires privileges.  Adding a trackback to an existing article does not.

So about the article. Jessica wonders what can top the endless intensification of daily madness that dominates our news as a new normal.

Well,

I was in a bohemian phase a long time ago, In my 20's and working in a full service gas station for money.  I smoked weed every day.  I was perpetually stoned.  I maintain well when wrecked, I have a high tolerance.  It does wipe me out as it does most other people.  I can function.  My brain has horsepower to spare.

Anyway the inevitable happened and the supply ran dry.  I had to face a day being normal.  Since I had been stoned for a month straight I found the experience novel.  Very novel.  Like getting stoned in reverse.

So.

QuoteNot because the stock market crashed. Not because I watched another video predicting the collapse of our food system. Not because more articles predicted 2-3C of global warming by the 2050s or sooner. Not because meteorologists and climate scientists have said we're heading into an El Nino that will shatter yet more global temperature records, overheat the oceans, roast our cities, and unleash powerful storms across the planet.

When a day without catastrophe comes our way, it will be a very novel day.

Trackbacks are cool, as was Jessica's point after her quandry.  If you read something on the scroll you can make a trackback and comment on it here.