SerotoninsGone
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User ID: 1195
SerotoninsGone
4d ago
For reasons that never occurred to me to question until this moment, we refer ships carrying oil as "tankers" and ships carrying gas (lng) as "carriers". Oil has gotten the spotlight in the war but I think LNG has been equally as important. The US exports quite a bit of LNG but it's all on the east coast. Africa exports on its west coast. If you want LNG and you're east of Africa, without the strait Australia is about your only option.
But yeah, to your point, not aircraft carriers.
SerotoninsGone
4d ago
Another view is that given the conditions, this isn't really the Iran war, it's the Lebanon war and the Iran war is a sideshow and a distraction. The casualties are higher in Lebanon, there are troops on the ground in Lebanon, Israel is considering expanding its territory into Lebanon, occupation will inevitably result in settlements which will not be removed, etc. Perhaps the purpose of the Iran war never had anything to do with Iran herself, which is why the goals against Iran never seemed achievable, but were instead more local to protecting the Israeli homefront against Hezbollah. The USA distracts Iran and forces it to accept Hezbollah's defeat.
This seems one of the worst covered parts of a war that is generally poorly covered. Lebanon is currently in constitutional crisis. The government ordered the disarming of Hezbollah and the lebanese army refused to carry out the order. As a result Israel is invading to stop the rockets. It's not complicated, and I'm surprised that Hezbollah wasn't weak enough + the lebanese tired of being dragged into war with Israel to put Hezbollah down but here we are.
Israel is attempting to create agreements with the Sunni/Christians against the Shia but it's unclear if that will work. My guess is they kill a bunch of civilians, nonsense like plans to take territory (any evidence of this?) crops up and lots of horrible images and Lebanon rallies around the flag plus international pressure causes Israel to leave with nothing gained. Their best and perhaps only chance was to convince the lebanese military to take out Hezbollah on their own, and they were either too weak or too cowardly to do it. Supposedly the French are still attempting to negotiate a deal like this but I give it poor odds. Polymarket odds of Hezbollah disarming peaked at 59% at the beginning of the war and are now down to 30%.
SerotoninsGone
4d ago
Iran has not really closed the straits. Despite what’s been reported some vessels have never stopped making the crossing. Risks are higher and costs have adjusted but Iran has failed to actually project its will.
If I understand what you're implying that's not true. In the early days of the war several carriers risked it, and a few were hit for their trouble. Since Iran claimed to have closed the strait, only ships given permission by Iran have made the trip (since at least the last week). Iran has been fairly generous with its "permission" so that has resulted in some decent traffic -- but at least at the moment Iran has been projecting their will on the strait.
SerotoninsGone
3mo ago
I think the Venn diagram of successful non-jews in the media with pro-Israel stances is pretty small. I can't think of many.
Another point in Weiss's favor is that she courts controversy -- and this being media, that's usually a good thing. Hell, when was the last time anyone talked about CBS this much? I'm not seeing a lot of downsides (yet) to Ellison's choice.
SerotoninsGone
2yr ago
Lurches might not be the right word but it's definitely something more than drifts or moves towards. I've lived in Texas for more than 20 years, and this past year is the first time that state politics has really impacted my life in a meaningful way. Abbot's fight for vouchers has had the side effect of starving urban school districts, who are unable to raise funding because the state takes the majority of their property tax revenue through the "robin hood" program (and no longer even uses it for education -- now it just goes into the state general fund. It's purely kleptocratic now in a way that I don't believe it always was). My school district is getting rid of librarians and counselors as they can no longer afford them, cutting gifted and talented programs (very much done to piss off the rich -- it's not saving much money but it generates lots of ire), and generally laying off teachers and increasing class sizes. It feels like a game of chicken between the governor and the school district, and right now Abbot is winning (at least from my standpoint as angry parent).
The irony is that school vouchers are not popular in rural districts, where public school tend to be the largest employer. I'm curious how this plays out but I'd really like them to get on with it already, declare a victor in this round of fights and go back to governing.
Also on the lurch -- the republican platforms first plank is completely abolishing property taxes (this was discussed a few months back). There are a number of similarly ludicrous ideas on there -- again -- if it's not a lurch it's definitely something out of the ordinary.
SerotoninsGone
2yr ago
I fail to see how this type of immigrant is a resource drain at almost any scale. He's hungry and eager to work, has a skill, is willing to learn english (which I'll take as signaling the desire to assimilate). The job market is tight. Where's the downside? Yes at some point we don't need more workers but we're several million workers short of that at the moment.
Perhaps in a more perfect world we'd have an elaborate visa system like Canada to only let in the immigrants like this. But in some respects the journey he made was the elaborate filter, and seems to be doing a somewhat decent job. I trust the government to do almost nothing properly, so maybe a difficult journey works just as well in practice as letting the government pick immigrants.
SerotoninsGone
2yr ago
Time to production varies based on the type of project. In the Permian you can go from a drawing on a napkin and some capital to physical production in less than a year. In the gulf of mexico, it's more like 4-5 years (and the capital costs are insane).
To be clear, this is a change from the way things were prior to say 2010. Time from spud to completion in Permian is down to ~6 months. Used to be more than a year.
SerotoninsGone
2yr ago
Been there. I tried it and went back to tech. This is why people start their own companies. Though in fairness I can't commiserate on the DEI stuff. I'm in the oilpatch -- we're 30 years behind, desperately trying to hire women. We haven't begun to wrap our brains around hiring anything past that (though in fairness we're the most diverse, from a skincolor perspective, workforce on earth. Probably ideologically too -- lots of smart people from weird countries).
SerotoninsGone
2yr ago
More of this -- I really appreciate revisiting previous analysis with what (at the very least appears to be) openness. Well done. I too wanted to attribute it all to a vibe shift but clearly these events are dominated by politics as usual (see Jacinda Ardern's resignation).
They've done the buffer zone thing at least twice before and never made a settlement. I don't think this time will be different -- no settlement but also no victory or much gained.
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