The Blinne Blog

Tight Supply of Oil

The following was posted to an e-mail list I belong to. The person is a credible geologist who works for a major oil company. He is not anti-war so this is not a ruse to get out of Iraq. Very scary.

The recent crises in Venezuela, Nigeria and the potential crisis in Iraq has finally illuminated exactly what the excess oil roduction capacity is for the world. Lots of people who disbeleive that the world is about to peak oil production contend that there is lots of excess capacity in OPEC and that as other areas go down, they will go up. All future predictions of oil supply include this OPEC increase as part of their supply forecast.

The strikes in Venezuela have had the effect of removing 1 million bbl/day from the world market which may never come back on stream. There is a threat of losing the Iraqi 2 million. For a while OPEC said that they would up production to cover the loss but it is obvious now that they can't. The Wall Street Journal notes:

"OPEC has been producing increasing volumes of oil in recent weeks, but prices continue to rise. Mr. Drollas said that in the short term, OPEC can increase its output by only 1.3 million barrels a day, or some 700,000 barrels less than Iraq's exports, assuming Saudi Arabia is producing at nine million barrels a day. "OPEC Officials Can't Suppress Rising Oil Prices," Wall Street Journal Fri. Feb. 28, 2003, p. A5

The Saudis say they can raise output to 10.5 million in 90 days. From rumors in the industry, the problem is that this claim is based upon the fact that 20 years ago certain wells, which are now shut in, produced 20,000 per day or something like that. Reservoir pressure is lower today than then and those wells may not be able to perform.

Now, having only a 1.3 million/day excess capacity means the price will now be uncontrolable. Over the long term the demand for oil rises at 2-3% per year. IN 2001 the world used 74 million barrels per day. We will exceed current excess capacity in a couple of years. Now, there will be some attempt to fill the gap and some partial successes. But we are in recession now so the world's economy is not drinking as much oil as it normally would.

Added to that the past fluctuations in demand are more than the current excess capacity. In thousands of barrels per day, here are the figures for world consumption from 1997-2001:

| 1997 |  1998  | 1999   | 2000   | 2001   |
|71848 |  73280 |  71832 |  74482 |  74493 |

One sees yearly swings of 3 million per day. That kind of demand volatility will eventually and suddenly overtake supply with consequent high rise of price.

Tragedy Makes Experts?

The media was in a feeding frenzy on the Elizabeth Smart story last week. The one thing that caught my eye was this quote from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Ed Smart cried, praised Anderson, made a passionate plea for the passage of the national Amber Alert ...

On Good Morning America, Ed Smart used the time to berate the House of Representatives leadership on not passing an nationwide Amber Alert that very day! Now the Amber Alert sounds like a good idea but having your child abducted doesn't make you an expert on law enforcement.

This is not the only context where tragedy causes someone to think they are an expert. For example, James Brady and his getting shot during a failed assassination attempt on President Reagan turned his wife into an "expert" on gun control.

A little closer to home, one of my children died of an umbilical cord accident. As a result, I attend a local support group for parents who have lost children. One of the parents had lost on of her children to SIDS. She was convinced that it was because of vaccination that her child died. She tried to convince my wife and I that the child born after the one we lost should not get vaccinated. We should listen to her because she was now an "expert" on the subject. This information was gleaned from the all-knowing, never-failing, source of information, the Internet! Fortunately, I did not heed her advice noting the following story.

Report: Infant Vaccines Not Linked To SIDS Researcher: Questions Remain About Crib Death

POSTED: 6:15 p.m. EST March 12, 2003

WASHINGTON -- A report found no evidence of a link between sudden infant death syndrome and multiple vaccines given in infancy.

The Institute of Medicine report reinforces previous studies that found no relationship between the vaccines and SIDS. Many parents had become concerned after an Australian researcher in the 1980s argued there was a connection.

"Parents should rest assured that the number and variety of childhood vaccines do not cause SIDS," said report author Dr. Marie McCormick, chairwoman of the department of maternal and child health at Harvard School of Public Health.

McCormick said there still are unanswered questions about crib death. But she said these questions don't require a review of the vaccination schedule.

The number of infant deaths declined between 1990 and 2000, dropping from 9.2 deaths per 1,000 live births to 6.9 per 1,000, the lowest infant mortality rate ever recorded in the United States, according to the report.

Experts advise parents to reduce SIDS risk by following these tips:

* Don't place a baby on his/her stomach to sleep.

* Don't expose a baby to cigarette smoke.

* Don't cover a baby with heavy blankets.

Gods and Generals as Evangelism?

Gods and Generals is a recently released movie based on the Jeff Shaara civil war novel.  As I was buying groceries today I saw Faith in God and Generals: An Anthology of Faith, Hope, and Love in the American Civil War.  I have a question for those who are not evangelical Christians.  Does the fact that Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were fervent Christians  increase or decrease your appreciation for Chistianity?

Since Hollywood has been making fun of serious Chistians for a long, long time, it seems to me that people are grasping at straws to get positive role models.  The fact that the South used Chistianity and the Bible to defend their peculiar institution would not be something I would be proud of.  Rather it is a warning that the spirit of the Age can pervert any well-meaning religious expression.  Thoughts, comments?

Microsoft Announces Collaboration Server

Microsoft debuts their collaboration server. I wonder if it will really take off. There are a number of web sites that allow for collaboration that do not require expensive servers and can work outside of intranets. At my company we use "Placeware and Intercall. These provide collaboration not only across multiple sites but also, more importantly, between companies. All it takes is a phone, a web browser, and an e-mail giving access information. Do people really need this, or is this technical overkill? Add blog technology for web-based communication and I think Microsoft will be out in the cold on this one.

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday made available the long-awaited beta of its Greenwich real-time communication server along with a strategy designed to make Greenwich an emerging standard for embedding instant messaging and presence detection in other applications.

The Prophesy Club

Oh joy, I can join the Left Behind - Interpreting the Signs prophesy club.

Will War in Iraq lauch an unstoppable chain of events that lead to ARMEGEDDON?

FIND OUT WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE LEFT BEHIND PROPHESY CLUB
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Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, best-selling authors of the Left Behind series, along with noted Bible historian and end times analyst Mark Hitchcock have teamed up to lead the Left Behind Prophecy Club.

As news breaks and world-changing events unfold, you will be the first to receive in-depth analysis and interpretation from LaHaye and Hitchcock.

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I think Tim LaHaye forgot he was writing fiction!

Terror Alert Level -- Sesame Street Style

I have added a terror alert level to the Blinne Blog thanks to "Geek and Proud":http://www.geekandproud.net/archives/000143.html

Somehow it seems a lot safer that we are at level Bert. Maybe if OBL had a rubber ducky he might not have so much repressed anger. :-)

Bugs Found in MT-Textile (Greedy PERL expressions)

MT-Textile is a really cool formatting text langauge for MT. Unfortunately, some of the regular expressions used have what are known as _greedy_ regular expressions. These can be fixed as follows:

Change line 200 of textile.pm:

$text =~ s!\^(.+?)\^!$1!gm;

Change line 197 of textile.pm:

$text =~ s!(^|\s|>)$f\b(.+?)\b($punctre*)$f(($punctre{0,2})(\s|$)|<)!$1<$r>$2$3$4!gm;

==
What I have done is replace the greedy expression .+ or .* with the non-greedy expression .+?
==

So now, *this works* and ^1^ this *works*.

For

So now, *this works* and ^1^ this *works*.

Text Messaging and the Lord's Prayer

BBC NEWS is reporting how SMS text messages are changing the English language. Here's the Lord's Prayer short enough to be sent over a cell phone. I think I will stick with the original low-tech version.

The winner, Matthew Campbell of York University, condensed it thus: "dad@hvn, ur spshl. we want wot u want &urth2b like hvn. giv us food & 4giv r sins lyk we 4giv uvaz. don't test us! save us! bcos we kno ur boss, ur tuf & ur cool 4 eva! ok?"

An Advertisement for my ISP

In ***Dave :: Spam, spam, spam, spam ... was the following complaint about spam:

Well, phooey.

This morning, 106 e-mails in my inbox, 1 e-mail automatically detected as spam and sent to the Junk folder.

Of the 106, 86 were actually spam.

Only 20 were expected/solicited/business e-mail.

If Front Range Internet is in your area, I would recommend it. It has a feature known as Mail Armory which totally clobbers your spam before your mail box. Even if you don't have it you can use it to block your domain e-mails. I am using this for blinne.org and it works like a champ. For more details go to either frii.com or mailarmory.com.

Disclaimer: I have no business relationship with FRII other than as a satisfied customer.