Energy Expertise!

by hilzoy

Today, the person who "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America" let slip some pearls of wisdom:

"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first."

I'm not sure I fully grasp that, though I am relieved to know that they, whoever they are, don't have to sit around flagging individual molecules all day long. I think, despite her saying that Congress is "not going to allow the export bans", that she is actually recommending such a ban. At any rate, what she says makes a lot more sense on the assumption that either the 'not' or the 'bans' was a slip than it does on the assumption that she thought that lifting nonexistent export bans would keep our oil here at home.

It seems pretty clear to me that Sarah Palin has no idea at all what she's talking about here. But let's pretend this is a serious statement, and consider it seriously. Who do we presently export oil to? Well: in 2007, the two main recipients of our oil were Mexico and Canada, who between them received some 170,716,000 barrels of what the Energy Information Administration calls "petroleum and products." That's nearly a third of our exports. But guess what? When you look at the analogous table of imports, who turns up in first and second place? Canada and Mexico again! They sold us 1,455,280,000 barrels between them in 2007, or about eight and a half times as much as we sold them. If you check crude oil alone, it turns out that all our exports in 2007 went to Canada, which was also our number one supplier, selling us nearly seventy times as much crude oil as we sold the Canadians.

Do you think that they would keep on selling us all that oil if we unilaterally stopped selling oil to them? Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn't. Do you think Sarah Palin knows the answer? I hope so. It would be pretty strange for the nation's foremost expert on energy to come out in favor of an embargo without knowing whether or not it would cost us nearly 1.3 billion barrels of "petroleum and products" a day year (oops), including about 19% of our total crude oil imports. Annoying our neighbors so much that they cut off our oil supplies would, I suppose, be one way of helping us achieve energy independence, but it doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.

Call me cynical, though: I don't think Sarah Palin had any idea what she was talking about, any more than I think John McCain had any idea what he was talking about when he said she "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America". Because if she does, we're in much deeper trouble than I had imagined.

Comments

[EarBucket]

Of course
it's a fungible commodity
and they don't flag
you know
the molecules
where it's going
and where it's not
But in the sense
of the Congress today
they know that there are
very, very hungry
domestic markets
that need that oil first
So, I believe
that what Congress
is going to do
also
is not to allow
the export bans
to such a degree
that it's Americans
who get stuck
holding the bag
without the energy source
that is produced here
pumped here
It's got to flow
into our domestic markets
first

[Terragone]

I am turning into a pathological Hilzoy reader. I wish I had come up with this. Bravo!

[brent]

Yeesh! That statement is really, really disturbing incoherent. That is just depressing. I want to make some kind of a snarky joke but I just can't muster the spirit to find the humor in this nonsense. Ungluablich.

[Gary Farber]

Also, Alaska produces 20% of the USA's energy needs!

If "20%" means 3.5 percent.

[Gary Farber]

But, wait, you're thinking she really meant to say Alaska produces 20% of America's oil and gas!

Except:

After nonpartisan Factcheck.org pointed out Palin's error in her interview with Gibson, the governor revised her statement somewhat, limiting it to oil and gas. But data compiled by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) contradict her claim that she oversees "nearly 20 percent" of oil and gas production in the country. According to authoritative EIA data, Alaska accounted for 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005.

But now you're thinking she meant just oil, right?

Except:

It is not even correct for Palin to claim that her state is responsible for "nearly 20 percent" of U.S. oil production. Oil production has fallen sharply in Alaska during her governorship. The state's share of total U.S. oil production fell from 18 percent in 2005 to 13 percent this year, according to the EIA.

But she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America!

Who knows, soon we might even hear that it's all produced via friction.

[MaryL]

Nice first draft, EarBucket, but I think it needs to be a little tighter:

This is Just to Say

I have flagged
the molecules
that were in
Alaska

and which
you were probably
saving
for Canada

Forgive me
they were fungible
so sweet
and so cold

[Gary Farber]

How crude.

[hairshirthedonist]

Inappropriate use of the word molecules is often indicative of some form of kookiness in my experience. Besides that, I'm more interested in putting homing devices on quarks than flagging molecules. You get a lot more detail that way.

[Gary Farber]

"Besides that, I'm more interested in putting homing devices on quarks than flagging molecules."

Very charming, but a little strange.

[chris]

I believe some areas of the country produce more oil or gas than they can use. This combined with the placement of mountain ranges makes for distinct regional markets. And it is easier to ship it via tanker across the ocean than to move it overland. So in fact the US is both an exporter and an importer... -chris

[Yukoner]

I just cannot stand it anymore!

I've spent the last couple of weeks swinging between the "Hey, American politics is great (but really, really frightening) entertainment" way of thinking and the "Collectively, Americans are f*cking insane to let their politics look like this" way of thinking. Gov. Palin should not be a VP canidate. She shouldn't be a governor, nor even a mayor of even a very small town!

The. American. Political. System. Is. Insane.

(And I'm keenly aware that I am the citizen of a country whose political system produced a political party bent on breaking up the country that ended up with the title "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." Go figure.)

[Yukoner]

I just cannot stand it anymore!

I've spent the last couple of weeks swinging between the "Hey, American politics is great (but really, really frightening) entertainment" way of thinking and the "Collectively, Americans are f*cking insane to let their politics look like this" way of thinking. Gov. Palin should not be a VP canidate. She shouldn't be a governor, nor even a mayor of even a very small town!

The. American. Political. System. Is. Insane.

(And I'm keenly aware that I am the citizen of a country whose political system produced a political party bent on breaking up the country that ended up with the title "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." Go figure.)

[hairshirthedonist]

Very charming, but a little strange.

I get that a lot.

[Bernard Yomtov]

To the extent this statement makes any sense at all it does sound vaguely as if Palin is suggesting we should not allow domestic oil to be exported.

I wonder if she has any idea at all how prices and markets work. Let's suppose her fantasy comes to pass. The US bans oil exports and other producers continue to sell to the US market just as before. Well, they're not going to sell below the world price, are they? So US producers will be able to sell at the world price also, unless she means to impose some utterly unworkable price caps solely on domestically produced oil. The upshot is that US buyers will be buying oil at world prices, just as we do now.

Except. As Chris points out, the reason we both export and import oil has a lot to do with transportation costs. Forcing domestic producers to sell only in the US will drive up these transportation costs and likely reduce domestic production and drive up the price of oil in the US. Is that what she's after, do you think?

[JanieM]

Despite how depressing this all is, I started laughing at the point where I came upon the word "friction" and am still at it.

Thanks, I needed a few chuckles.

[rob!]

cheese and crackers, what an insult McCain dealt Republicans Collins, Hutchinson, Dole, (or even Whitman or Fiorina) suggesting that Palin, of all of them, is the most qualified to be VP.

no wonder they keep her sequestered from the press. she can't sound even barely competent on ANY issue.

[Warren Terra]

I admire hilzoy's sincerity in trying to parse the quote for meaning, but Earbucket's attempt to parse it for poetry was maybe a better use of the material. And the breakfast plums reference from MaryL was just priceless.

[ral]

Re. tagging molecules. Drat! I can't find my copy of the Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven.

However, paraphrasing from memory:

"Warlock, how do you keep your cave so cool?"

"There is a demon at the entrance. Fortunately he is not very intelligent, for his task is simple. He inspects every air molecule, permitting those moving slowly to enter and rejecting those that move rapidly. It was an idea of my clerk. Oh, Maxwell..."

see WikiPedia reference

[hilzoy]

Yep. Even though this has been a delightful thread all around, I think MaryL gets some sort of cosmic bonus thread prize. Earbucket's was great too.

Question: you have read the Nixon tapes as poetry, right? (Can't find them, but they're wonderful. Imagine that Earbucket went to work on Nixon's paranoid ramblings.)

[bayesian]

@Gary 2302

LOL from top to bottom.
But then, in the upside down world of the Palinverse ...

{ducks and runs}

[Tony P.]

We all know Sarah Palin is no energy expert. What I don't get is why the label "petro-governor" has not been plastered on her like lipstick by every Democratic "strategist" on television.

Sarah Palin has this in common with Vladimir Putin: each of them enjoys a popularity based on $100/barrel oil. As former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles explained on Rachel Maddow's show just tonight, when 85% of your state's budget is oil and gas royalties, it's easy to be popular as the price hits triple digits. Neither energy expertise nor governing expertise is required.

And I say again: if every other state insisted on the same deal as Alaska (roughly, a 90% royalty) for their off-shore oil, "drill here, drill now" would be less appealling to the oil companies than their Republican toadies imagine it to be.

--TP

[david kilmer]

"Inappropriate use of the word molecules is often indicative of some form of kookiness in my experience"

I worked for Enron for a while. They were forever talking about molecules and electrons, as if they could charge people for each and every one. They also thought that they could "commoditize" information - so they would often say weird things like "burning packets". Kookiness is right.

[Warren Terra]

I've never encountered the Nixon Tapes as poetry, but I adore the Kronos Quartet recordings of Scott Johnston's adaptations of recorded lectures - IF Stone and J Edgar Hoover, if memory serves.

[Warren Terra]

Tony P, I'm very far indeed from well-informed, let alone an expert, but I thought the 90% Alaska kept was 90% of the royalties that they split with the federal government, while other states get only 50% of the royalties. But I don't know that the royalties charged are any different, so I don't know that the oil companies would care about the 90%. I know Palin managed to get some windfall tax on the oil companies, from which she gave $1200 to every Alaskan, but I don't know the mechanism used - and the irony comes from that McCain has been vocally opposing the Democratic proposal for a windfall tax on the oil companies.

[Martin]

If I understand this correctly, neither Canada nor Mexico are covered by the export restrictions that we had in place until Clinton ended them (back when oil dumped to $10/bbl) due to NAFTA overriding it. So any new export ban wouldn't apply to them. Japan and China are both possible export destinations for Alaska oil/LNG.

I agree that her statement is nearly impossible to make sense of.

"And I say again: if every other state insisted on the same deal as Alaska (roughly, a 90% royalty) for their off-shore oil, "drill here, drill now" would be less appealling to the oil companies than their Republican toadies imagine"

The oil companies don't give a shit about expanded drilling rights. The government just held a lease auction not a month ago and didn't even sell 20% of the leases. They don't want to drill. The last thing the oil companies want is lower prices. If anyone cared about lower prices, the government would mandate that all existing leases be active. That is, if you have a lease, you have to drill it. That'd force prices down - at least a buck or two per barrel, but probably not more.

But I think the Dems offer to trade tax breaks for expanded leases is brilliant. No wonder the oil companies are opposed to it. The GOP is pushing for something they don't want and in exchange the companies will lose money. Way to go, guys.

[Harald K]

"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not."

Sounds like someone has tried to explain it to her, and failed. Perhaps it went something like this? (vintermann = me)

[Hartmut]

Well, at least she is no Banana Republican. Those don't grow that far north.

[Michael B]

It was a poorly handled response on the stump, but it means little.

By contrast, we have Joe Biden, pontificator extraordinaire on things great and not so great. (And Biden actually is quite funny, if unintentionally, as that Jake Tapper report reveals.)

And here's a youTube of a one-on-one with Palin and the Money Honey discussing energy, before she was the V.P. nominee. So the notion "Palin had [no] idea what she was talking about" as opposed to a momentary, on-the-stump gaff needs, shall we say, further support.

Then there's a decades-long background, such as the fact the U.S. was importing roughly 24% of its oil in 1972, about 42% in 1992 and in 2008 it's closing in on 70%. During most of that period we've had a Dem and Left/Dem Congress that has held up domestic development and certainly hasn't provided much leadership for the constituents they represent during that period, concerning the energy issue as a whole.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Gee, Michael, you're right. If only we had a Republican Congress and President in power from, say, 200-2007 when it was really obvious that China was ramping up its demand, we would have seen some real change.

Oh, wait.

But before that, it was the Democrats. Like, when the Republican Congress refused to raise fuel-efficiency standards in the late 1990s, and when Reagan bailed out Chrysler instead of letting it take a hit for making big, dumb vehicles.

Wait, that didn't come out right either.

I'm sure you're right anyway to blame the Democrats for letting us use up so much of our domestic oil reserves. A Republican government could surely have made those dry holes gush crude again while we pi55ed it away on SUVs. Maybe we should put the head of some Texas oil company in power for a change in Texas. Or in the White House. Or heck, both, one right after the other! That'll fix our problems.

Oh, wait.

Well, but it MUST be the Democrats' fault that we're using so much more energy than we did in 1972. That's why we have to import so much more after we used so much up. Those rotten b**tards went and let the economy grow, didn't they! And technology! Scum! Republicans would never allow that.

Ah, THAT one is right. Whew. For a moment there, I thought I might have to disagree with you.

[DecidedFenceSitter]

"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not."

I wonder if they did flag the molecules if they'd flag to the left or the right.

DFS Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any children who get this joke before googling.

[liberal japonicus]

Interesting, that video of Palin. She takes issue with Biden's vote against the pipeline, but at this link, some of the discussion of who was for and against it has this.

Biden, then 30, was the youngest member of the Senate and not a leader in the lengthy debate over the pipeline. But his voting record is striking - at least to an Alaskan interested in history.

Biden was a reliable "no" on TAPS. In July, when the Senate passed the Gravel-Stevens amendment allowing immediate construction of the line and precluding further judicial review, Biden voted no. The amendment passed after Vice President Spiro Agnew broke a 49-49 tie.

In November, Biden voted against final passage of the bill. The vote was 80-5, Biden one of the five....

As a young senator, he would have been extra attentive to his constituents and his leaders - men like Jackson, Mansfield, Humphrey and Church [who voted for the final compromise]. Nevertheless, he had to go out of his way to put himself on the losing end of an 80-5 vote.

Apparently, Biden was a maverick back then. But being a maverick is only something that is good if you are a Republican, it doesn't count if you ar a Dem.

Even if he was wrong (something I will get to below) it is impressive that a junior senator would stick to his guns like that.

Here is one of the articles that comes up in the google search.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Canadian man was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison for plotting to blow up the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline and get rich off the resulting disruptions to the oil supply.

Interesting that in an age of terror, Palin is still advocating for these kind of projects that are easy targets for terrorism. Wouldn't a better energy policy be decentralization? Of course, Palin also supports the Natural Gas Pipeline which seems like another big target.

[cleek]

i believe McCain/Palin is a clever attempt to get people who aren't stupid to feel that their intelligence is useless in today's world.

[cleek]

Of course it's a fungible commodity
-----------------------------------------

they don't flag
youknow
the mol e

cules where
it's going

and where
it's not

Butin
thesenseof
the Con
gresstoday
theyknow
thatthereare

veryvery

hungrydom
esticmarkets
thatneedthat

oil first So, I

believe thatwhat

Congress is going to
do also is not to
allow the export bans to
such a degree that

it's A-
mericans who
get stuck hol
ding the bag
without the en
ergys ource
thatis

produced here
pumped here

It's gotto
flow into

our do mes tic mar ket sfirst

[Slartibartfast]

Just looking at the question of our oil exports to Mexico and Canada, I'd guess that they don't represent crude oil. I don't see the utility of just shipping barrels of crude. I'd guess, instead, that these are mainly petroleum products; probably some form of refined petroleum that both countries find it cheaper to buy from us than to set up their own refineries.

And, checking different tables under hilzoy's link, I find that we shipped 10M barrels of crude to Canada in 2007, and none to Mexico. What we do send them is a variety of things, mostly gasoline and fuel oil. You have to visit all the tables, unless you can find a breakdown by country.

I don't think Palin gets the whole idea of fungibility, unfortunately. Or how supply and demand works.

[gocart mozart]

I give you the neo-con poet d. rumsfeld. He is a better poet than Hitler was a painter.
http://www.stuffedpenguin.com/rumsfeld/lyrics.htm

[Slartibartfast]

Hey. Checkin' out the weather chart, to see if it's safe outside?

[gocart mozart]

A sample:

THE UNKNOWN

"As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.

That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know."

Department of Defense news briefing

Feb. 12, 2002

[Hob]

We have to flag the molecules so we can shoot them from helicopters.

[Slartibartfast]

I have my electron gun all charged up.

[Slartibartfast]

Oh, sorry. That last was a bit of near-obsolete reference.

[charlotte]

Wow, Sarah, and such, is just like so rocking smart. Fungible ... ummmm. And molecules? Freaking awesome stuff.

Let's hand her the reins, why don't we? And bring on Master Shake as her Chief of Staff.

[Mozza]

The problem is not that Canada will refuse to export oil if the US stop exporting. Canada has more oil than it needs and much prefers the American money. No, the oil exchange with Canada is a business decision: timing and distance dictate the price of oil. If you cut off those cross-border transactions, you just end up with more expensive oil in both Canada and the US.

[minordomo]

"And here's a youTube of a one-on-one with Palin and the Money Honey discussing energy, before she was the V.P. nominee. So the notion "Palin had [no] idea what she was talking about" as opposed to a momentary, on-the-stump gaff needs, shall we say, further support."

Actually that YouTube video you posted supports the notion that Palin doesn't exactly "know more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America" just fine: right off the bat she makes the mistaken claim that Alaska produces 20 percent of the domestic supply of oil.

If you were trying to pick out a video that contradicted the notion, did you perhaps just happen to pick the wrong one?

[Billy Charlie Williams]

MaryL -- Nice poem. Want a plum?

Actually, I'd like to see this go the way of Sen. Ted Stevens youtube rap on the internet.
Keep it in Alaska and all that.

[Mike Schilling]

Good American molecules wear flag pins.

[mrmagoo]

MaryL I love you!

Although I would imagine William Carlos William does not.

You've made my morning.

[mrmagoo]

MaryL I love you!

Although I would imagine William Carlos William does not.

You've made my morning.

[Dave]

Does Palin's statement remind anyone of Miss Teen South Carolina?

[Jay C]

Actually, the scariest thing about Sarah Palin's incorrect (and nearly incoherent) gibberish being sagely regarded as "expert" energy policy isn't so much that she doesn't seem to know what she is talking about, but that neither she, the McCain/Palin campaign, nor their potential voter base seem to really give a flying.

Of course her pronouncements don't make a lot of sense: they're political speeches in an election year - they don't HAVE to!.

As long as Gov. Palin's blather can convince any potential McCain/Palin voters to pull the lever for the GOP ticket under the illusion that electing a Republican Administration will quickly institute policies that will drop the price of gasoline at the pump back down to $1.89/gal in a couple of months - it doesn't matter squat HOW mistaken her analyses are. She's telling the public what they want to hear: and they listen because someone else they "trust" has told them that Super Sarah is an "expert"; and that's enough.

[Jim W]

Her expertise obviously stems from her ability to see an oil well from her house.

[norbizness]

Me fail energy policy? Unpossible!

[Miss Alaska Second Runner-Up 1984]

I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa or should help the Iraq and Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us.

[Andy]

I had to look up "fungible." Should I be embarrassed?

[Jen]

Wow. I teach freshman level science (in college,) and that answer looks like what it is: throwing in a bunch of words together in one paragraph in hope that you get some credit. Nope.

[Gary Kephart]

"Very charming, but a little strange."

Very clever.

[Richardson]

O.K.

So maybe the Exxon Valdez's Joseph Hazelwood remains Alaska's foremost oil expert, but Palin is certainly right up there with him.

[cleek]

I had to look up "fungible." Should I be embarrassed?

at least you looked it up.

[JJ]

This is so ridiculous. The only reason we even manage to export that tiny amount to Canada and Mexico, is because in those instances, it costs a supplier less to ship it there. Example: shipping from Texas to Mexico is cheaper than Wisconsin.

[booch221]

I think she was talking in opposition to an oil export ban. It's an article of faith among Alaska politicians because shipping North Slope oil to the US west coast results in less profit for the Alaska treasury. This is because the oil must go by US shippers which results in a higher tariff which the producers get to deduct from the taxes they pay to the state. If Alaskan oil were allowed to be exported to Japan and China it could go on foreign ships (lower costs)and would improve the US balance of trade.

Frankly I don't know what Sarah was babbling about here, but the Alaska Congressional delegation, Stevens, Murkowski, and Young all favor lifting the export ban on Alaska North Slope oil, and I can't imagine Palin doesn't.

[hw]

"Of course, it's a fungible commodity ... It's got to flow into our domestic markets first."

There are two things wrong with her statement, of course. One problem is that it's incoherently delivered, although to be fair, a transcript of Joe Biden's train of thought doesn't exactly sound like Strunk and White either, and extemporaneous remarks often look bad when transcribed.

The far more serious problem with what she says is that she refutes her policy proposal (banning exports) with the very first part of her answer (oil is a fungible commodity). An export ban will have no effect since, as hilzoy notes, the US is a net oil importer, and as Palin herself notes, the oil will just shift around to accomodate the ban---that's what fungible means!

It's a big mistake to snark at stylistic points (molecules! haw haw!), when the focus should be on her own fundamental self-refutation. In other words, her comments would look even worse if the prose were properly edited, since it would reveal the contradiction more plainly.

[Python, Monty]

I think she meant to say Malikis instead of molecules. It makes more sense in that context.

[bupalos]

Mary L, that is quite honestly one of the best things I have ever read on the internet. A kind of ripped-off mock poetry so well placed that it really is poetry. I'm still trying to figure out why I like it so much.

Thanks.

[Phil]

My wife is flying back from California today, and in between flights, she updated her Facebook status with the following:

"XXXX thinks she saw Mexico from pt 1 of her flight...making her an expert on it?"

Golden!

[Angry Sam]

She reminds me of someone... who could it be? Hrmm... ah, yes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[ray]

I understand each of those words individually, but when put together like that they become meaningless.

[Sandwichman]

Valley girl
Shes a valley girl
Valley girl
Shes a valley girl
Okay, fine...
Fer sure, fer sure
Shes a valley girl
In a clothing store
Okay, fine...
Fer sure, fer sure
Shes a

Like, oh my god! (valley girl)
Like - totally (valley girl)

[hairshirthedonist]

"Very charming, but a little strange."

Very clever.

I'm slow on the uptake. I thought it was an odd reply to my comment, not getting the quarkiness. I thought I felt a slight breeze blowing overhead last night.

On another note, fungible. The thing is that the fungibility is what contradicts the rest of the statement. It doesn't matter which oil stays or goes. Palin probably requires exact change when receiving money from people so she doesn't have to give anything back, regardless of her net income from the transaction.

[hairshirthedonist]

Looks like someone already covered the fungibility thing. Oh, well.

[MaryL]

Thanks, all, for the compliments. This isn't the first time I've piggybacked on other people's jokes with the old WCW pastiche trick (well, I did so once last winter on MetaFilter), but the fact that the original poem was all about self-serving justification for misappropriation from a cold place made changing the handful of relevant words surprisingly appropriate.

I'm going to treasure this as the 21st century equivalent of the one and only time I made a hole in one on the mini golf course.

[tristan]

Holding the bag? Of oil? I strongly disagree with Mrs. Palin's suggestion that we start exporting oil in bags. It's messy and fungible in the extreme and although it might be one of those "efficiencies" she's looking for I think that the molecule flags will poke right through the bags and cause more oil spills which would be bad for inland Canada and Mexico and other places where there are no oil spills at the present time. And Ireland too.
Otherwise, she makes good sense to me.

[Horatio]

I think the "molecules" comment is an attempt to define the term fungible. Obviously, when dealing with fungible commodities you don't care which particular molecules of oil, corn, gold, etc., you have, as long as it's the proper quality and quantity. But this strikes me as the kind of irrelevant "color" that a uninformed imbecile would add to a statement in order to seem intelligent. Sort of like talking about the bookbinding process during a book report.

[Alan W]

Poetry is fine, but I think selective use of the ellipsis makes more sense here:

"Of course, it's ... going ... where it's not. But ... hungry ... markets ...need ... Congress. Americans ...get ... pumped here."

I tried to get MSWord to Autosummarize for me, but it kept crashing.

[The Democratic Safeguard]

Response posted at The Democratic Safeguard.

[Bill Johnson]

She is ignorant, and perhaps an idiot. McCain is an angry old man, but perhaps slightly less ignorant. George Bush is a happy late-middle-aged man, and entirely ignorant. Dick Cheney is a smart, well-informed and VERY angry older man.

I will take Fitty Cent or Robin Williams over these clowns. So the choice for Obama is not difficult.

[steve]

"Pink pong kerplow molecule. Beep honk moose. Thanks but no thanks. Hooey bink bonk maverick. You know, Charlie, yo gabba gabba. Porkmark. God bless."

[cleek]

Hoodoo voodoo, four-twenty-seven two
Haystacka hostacka, Drill! Drill! Drill!
High poker, low joker, nine-eleven nine-eleven
Sidewalk, streetcar, dance a goofy dance

Blackbirdy, bluejay, one, two, three, four
Trash sack, jump back, Drill Drill Drill
Biggy hat, little hat, fatty man, skinny man
Grasshopper greensnake, gonna nuke Iran

[ptet]

I wish the media would call politicians on stuff like this... But nope, all we get is Bill O'Reilly demanding that Obama admit he was "wrong" about the Surge...

But anyway.

Now that Palin's ignorace & inexperience has become her main Neocon/Ignorant-voter selling point, maybe it's all moot...

[TA]

Whose oil this is I think I know,
Its home is in the tundra though
We do not mind your stopping here
To flag the molecules in the snow.

[Kile]

Just so everyone knows, under the US Export Administration Regulations there is technically no ban on the export of crude oil from the United States there is an export license requirement for all exports of crude oil to all destinations including Candada. Currently the US exports only miniscule amounts of Crude Oil. There is no license requirement for the refined products though. So gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel get exported everyday.

[Kile]

Just so everyone knows, under the US Export Administration Regulations there is technically no ban on the export of crude oil from the United States there is, however, an export license requirement for all exports of crude oil to all destinations including Candada. Currently the US exports only miniscule amounts of Crude Oil. There is no license requirement for the refined products though. So gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel get exported everyday.

[The Democratic Safeguard]

Missing text on last post.

Response posted at The Democratic Safeguard:

This Palin quote comes off as something you would read on a high school exam from some kid that was grabbing at straws and promptly write an F next to. I guess throwing in some out of context, nonsensical, intelligent-sounding words will work to convince some voters that you know what you are talking about.

[Jim Tarrant]

Oil and coal are not fungible. If they were, that would mean they were interchangeable with each other. (Okay, you can do what the Germans in WWII and the South Africans have done and distill oil out of coal but that's pretty rare and not an authentic definition of fungibility.

All the other comments covered the other babbling nonsense of this speech as well as the sheer lunacy into which the Repug campaign has descended.

And yet they may win if the "Independents" pay no attention...

[bc]

I think she was talking in opposition to an oil export ban. It's an article of faith among Alaska politicians because shipping North Slope oil to the US west coast results in less profit for the Alaska treasury. This is because the oil must go by US shippers which results in a higher tariff which the producers get to deduct from the taxes they pay to the state. If Alaskan oil were allowed to be exported to Japan and China it could go on foreign ships (lower costs)and would improve the US balance of trade.

Hilzoy et al, I'm sorry, but this post and the responses strike me as ignorant, this one excepted. We have researcher extrordinaire Gary who can only spout the 20% quote and not research this issue. (wasn't it 20% of domestic oil production she meant, and she just said "energy"?)

This is off the top of my head, but the former ban was opposed in alaska because the shipping cost of crude to the orient was much less than the west coast. In other words, would have brought more money. The flow at the time was enough to glut the west coast refineries and drive down the price of oil. By the time that ban was ended, the flow was reduced to the point there was no extra supply so it didn't make a difference.

With ANWR, it would likely make a difference. A fair reading of her reponse, gaffe included, is that Palin is saying if ANWR were opened, Congress would make sure the domestic supply was taken care of first, leaving open the likelihood of exporting the extra supply.

But go ahead, keep calling Palin ingorant. It's quite amusing in your ignorance. And this one can't be a hard topic to research . . .

[Peorgie Tirebiter]

Alaska’s history of jurisprudence points to her use of the word molecule as a key to deciphering what would otherwise appear the Gov. caught committing obfuscation by frontier gibberish. I can assure you that the Gov. is laying preemptive legal pipeline for some future defense. As a function of the widely accepted phenomenon of spontaneous & catastrophic rejection of flags by molecules; any black market fungibles that may or may not be discovered in the possession of any government, entity or agent considered hostile to either Focus on the Family or it’s wholly owned subsidiaries (see: alaska- mineral rights-palin -crime family, et al) cannot be irrefutably assigned any specific geological source. Pretty obscure law in the lower forty-eight, but everyday stuff in the land of the frozen trojan. A crude version of the no flag/no swag defense first appeared during Berkowitz v. Palin 1851. Klondike Klaus as Palin was known by locals, won the day arguing that even if he had drunk the Rabbi’s milkshake, he could never prove it. During his now legendary closing argument Klondike’s attorney laid out three coffee tins of oil. As onlookers scratched their heads Palin dramatically poured one tin labeled “my oil” into a large tub, he then added the “your oil” tin to the tub adding “God’s oil” last. With great flair, Big Jim Badger then offered Rabbi Berkowitz a spoon and the empty “your oil” tin challenging to recoup his oil from the tub without taking a drop of God’s oil. The Rabbi objected, citing numerous principles of rational thought, scientific method and horse sense the court would be flaunting if the stunt was allowed. The judge seem to smirk as he over ruled the objections and warned Berkowitz to watch his elitist mouth. Stunned by his own futility in the face of such ignorance, Berkowitz chucked ironically as he rolled his eye to the heavens and muttered, “Christ, somebody just shoot me….”
The judge ruled post-mortem in favor of Palin and attached the Berkowitz estate for costs. An unfortunate rhetorical aside had in affect and by default created the now long standing precedent that the Gov was likely dazzling the media with today.

[cleek]

A fair reading of her reponse, gaffe included, is that Palin is saying if ANWR were opened, Congress would make sure the domestic supply was taken care of first, leaving open the likelihood of exporting the extra supply.

ANWR is estimated to have 10 billion barrels. the US consumes 20 million barrels a day, or 7.3 billion barrels a year.

open a dozen ANWRs. there would be no "extra supply".

[liselene]

Thank you TA, for your delightful reference
to Robert Frost. It made me laugh out
loud, at the end of a week that gave us little to laugh about.

[Gary Farber]

Jim Tarrant: "Oil and coal are not fungible."

Who said they were?

bc: "wasn't it 20% of domestic oil production she meant,"

I gather you didn't actually bother to read what I posted<.

But now you're thinking she meant just oil, right?

Except:

It is not even correct for Palin to claim that her state is responsible for "nearly 20 percent" of U.S. oil production. Oil production has fallen sharply in Alaska during her governorship. The state's share of total U.S. oil production fell from 18 percent in 2005 to 13 percent this year, according to the EIA.

"And this one can't be a hard topic to research . . . "

It helps to read what you're responding to.

[liberal japonicus]

And this one can't be a hard topic to research . . .

Well, I mean we have all of those town meetings she chaired in Wasilla where she took questions from the press on her thoughts on energy, and her tenure in Alaska was marked by her demonstration of the knowledge of the energy market, like this WaPo article that notes

she invited the state Senate's leaders to her office for a preview of the pipeline legislation. To the astonishment of the five senators and their aides, she barely said a word for the hour. As staff members explained her signature plan, the governor was preoccupied with her two BlackBerries.

Show us how the big boys do it. Give us some links.

Honestly, why is it so easy to claim that hilzoy is ignorant and so hard to admit Palin is a cipher?

[tirebiter]

@cleek
I was racking my world weary brain, when this hit me. Am I misguided in seeing an homage to Woody in your post?

[tee-hee]

it's a fungiblecommodityofcourse

"it's a fungiblecommodityofcourse
and they don't flag youknow
the mo le
cules whereits going
and whereit snotbutin
the sense-of-the con
gress today
theyknowthat
t
here are
veryvery hungrydomesticmarkets
thatneedthat
oil first soi
believe that what con
gress is going to do al
so isnot to all
ow the export bans
tosucha degree that
itsamericans who-get-stuck-holding-the-bag without thee
nergysource that is pro
duced herepumpedhere its
got to flow intoourdomesticmarkets first."

She spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.

[cleek]

Am I misguided in seeing an homage to Woody in your post?

right-o. Woody via Wilco.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, at least Palin got poetry back into the ObWi threads.

[NickSwish]

Sounds familiar? Remember Ms. Teen USA?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[Peorgie Tirebiter]

Jim,
You're working way too hard here and it gives you away. Your reading might be fair if Gov. Palin's intended audience was Alaskan politicians, but it wasn't. Whatever she may have been attempting to communicate, the fact is she failed spectacularly. Don't blame her audience. That's just too Bush league.

[bc]

lj:

I did not say Hilzoy was ignorant. I said the post and responses strike me as ignorant. Gary is stuck on his 20% thing (how many times has it been?) (and, yes, Gary, I tuned out your second comment-sorry-because you've harped on this so many times and I think it is soooo meaningless). Nobody is responding to the main point I was trying to make, which is that the oil export ban was a real thing and what she said, even taking the gaffe into account, was a meaningful response. It's only gibberish if you are not aware of the past ban.

Point taken regarding the current demand for oil. The export ban is probably meaningless, although I don't have the numbers.

In the meantime, by all means don't discuss the actual substance of the topic, becuase, well, that would admit that Palin has a brain. Now poetry, that's an entirely different matter . .

And apologies all around for being brusque. I'm on vacation and, ironically, I don't have as much time to keep up on things as my wife doesn't share my political interest. Sort of drive by commenting as it were. Off to catch my plane.

[Gary Farber]

"Gary is stuck on his 20% thing (how many times has it been?) (and, yes, Gary, I tuned out your second comment-sorry-because you've harped on this so many times"

That's fascinating, since I've never mentioned the topic here before. I made one post at my blog with the original factcheck piece. I've never mentioned it anywhere else, either. What on earth are you talking about? Links, please.

[AndyK]

Every time I read "fungible," I start thinking about Richard Gere and a (literal) party animal.

But perhaps I shouldn't air my personal problems here.

[liberal japonicus]

bc
But go ahead, keep calling Palin ingorant. It's quite amusing in your ignorance.
followed by
I did not say Hilzoy was ignorant. I said the post and responses strike me as ignorant.

This is not to start a fight, and I do appreciate the lowering of the temp, but your wording is Palinesque. It is not that Palin has or doesn't have a brain, it is whether she understands these issues and I am not going to assume she does until she proves it. The jury is still out and, just like the Bush doctrine question, she seems like a smart high school student who couldn't bother to actually know the issues and is trying to bs her way to a grade. With grade inflation, she might get a C, but I don't think that is what we want in a VP.

[theo]

minordomo is right. That Palin interview on ANWR by the Money Honey is terrible.

Bartiromo throws Palin one softball question after another, even cuing her ("tell me about the caribou?" "So we need to try all approaches?").

Palin just about hangs in there for five minutes.

I listened to the entire interview, and I really didn't hear anything besides talking points. Did you know the ANWR installations will be the size of LAX? How about the fact that they're thumbnail sized on a map of Alaska? Drill baby drill.

Same bogus 20% number.

Even though CNBC is supposedly some kind of financial network, there were no questions about energy markets or economics, which Palin shows no evidence of understanding.

Bill O'Reilly delivered some of the same talking points more articulately in the Obama interview, without having ever having served as Governor of Alaska (or having lived there). By Republican standards, that makes O'Reilly an energy policy genius.

[cleek]

every time i read "fungible", i think of the Lamisil Fungus Monster... and i want to soak myself in rubbing alcohol.