At Home In The Wasteland: March 2008 Archives

Russia's latest export: Woolly mammoth tusks

Seriously. Thanks to global warming and the subsequent thaw of Siberian tundra, Russia is increasing its exports of mammoth ivory:

The trade, given a lift recently by global warming, which has melted away the tundra and exposed more frozen remains, is not only legal but actually endorsed by conservationists. They note somewhat grudgingly that while the survival of elephants may be in question, it is already too late for mammoths. Mammoth ivory from Siberia, they say, meets some of the Asian demand for illegal elephant ivory, and its trade should be encouraged.
[...]

While mammoth tusks may not be as valuable as Russia’s deposits of oil and natural gas, they are plentiful. The Siberian permafrost blankets millions of square miles, ranging in depth from a few feet to more than a mile and resembling frozen spinach.

Hidden in one of the upper layers of this mass, corresponding to the Pleistocene Epoch, are the remains of an estimated 150 million mammoths. Some are frozen whole, as if in suspended animation, others in bits and pieces of bone, tusk, tissue and wool.

Woolly mammoths are actually the last of three extinct elephantine species that inhabited Siberia. They appeared about 400,000 years ago and lasted at least until 3,600 years ago — the age of some mammoth remains found on an island off the northern coast of the Russian region of Chukotka in 1993.

The tusks emerge with the spring thaw or after heavy rains, or along the eroding banks of rivers. A boom in gas and oil investment has added another source, as crews dig wells and pipeline ditches. Fresh from the permafrost, mammoth ivory is nearly pristine, though with a characteristic green patina. But if left outside and exposed to the elements, it will disintegrate within three years into worthless splinters.

Houston: It's worth it?

As most of you know, unless something amazing happens, (i.e., an opportunity in London or a winning lottery ticket and subsequent move to Hawaii) I'm planning to relocate to Houston in the near future. I get plenty of flack from my friends and family about this, because they tend to view Houston as a humid cesspool full of Bush fanatics and traders who stole money from our poor grandmothers. And really, I don't blame them. I certainly held those same views before I actually visited the city and discovered that it wasn't such a bad place after all (ok, the humidity does suck, but I'll take that over snow any day). Read this article by Joel Kotkin (a college professor from SoCal, no less) in which he claims that Houston is "emerging as one of the world’s great cities":

In an era when many other cities try to position themselves with trendier distinctions (as “smart growth” exemplars or as magnets for high-income households, for instance), Mayor Bill White, a Democrat, is happy for Houston to be known simply as an “opportunity city,” which is a pretty good description of what the place has been since its inception: a venue where people who work hard can get ahead.
[...]

The area also abounded in natural resources such as timber and rich soil that was ideal for growing cotton. And when oil drillers hit a gusher in Spindletop, about 90 miles from Houston in East Texas, in 1901, Houston suddenly found itself positioned as the nearest city to some of North America’s richest oil and gas reserves.

None of this, however, adequately explains Houston’s ascendancy. Other cities enjoy better locations for shipping, richer agricultural resources, or similar proximity to oil fields. The answer, I have come to understand as I have worked in Houston as a reporter and consultant, echoes something that the late Soichiro Honda once told me: “More important than gold and diamonds are people.” This critical resource, more than anything, accounts for Houston’s headlong drive toward becoming not only the leading city of Texas and the South, but also a player on the global scene: it is emerging as one of the world’s great cities.

It took a certain type of settler, back in the 1830s, to look at a sun-blasted, humidity-drenched, mosquito-infested flatland far from any major river or port and think: “Here is where I’ll make my success.” That tradition of hopefulness and determination can readily be found in the city to this day. As Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg notes, roughly 80 percent of Houstonians, according to his annual local surveys, consistently agree with the proposition that “if they work hard, they can succeed here.”

Efraim Diveroli has no friends

The life of a war profiteer is indeed a lonely one, if Efraim's MySpace profile is any indication:

He assures us, however, that he is a "super nice guy" who enjoys "chilling with my boyz", business travel, and "fine scotch whisky", which you can surely afford when you're making a nice profit from those multi-million dollar defense contracts.

About me: Well of course im a super nice guy!!! , i know what i want out of life but not exactly quite sure how to get it yet. I was born and bred in miami beach and have no immediate plans to leave but i have thought about it. Im a pretty easy going guy and many say i have a good sense of humor. I had problems in high school so i was forced to work most of my teen years and i probably grew up way to fast. I finally got a decent apartment and im content for the moment , however i definately have the desire to be very successful in my business and this does take up alot of my time.

efraim's Interests: for the moment im basically just working and chilling with my boyz when im not, im looking for some hobbies like i keep saying im gonna go to the gym and i started playing football again which is definately my favorite sport. im one of those guys who needs to be entertained and having lots of fun all the time so if your also an undiagnosed case of ADD look me up. i like to eat good food and i dont know how to cook so i eat out alot!!!! ilike to travel whenever posssible sometimes for business , and of course i like going clubbing or going to a movie, oh and ive really taken a liking towards fine scotch whisky recently dont ask me why.... MY FAVORITE MOVIES ARE: HEAT,,BLOW,SCARFACE, FACE OFF, THE ROCK,GOFATHER, SCHINDLERS LIST,AMERICAN BEUTY ETC.....

Someone in the Pentagon gave this 22 year old dude a $300 million contract to supply ammo to Afghan security forces?! Jesus Christ, he spells boys as "boyz" and doesn't know where his goddamn caps lock key is located! That sound you hear is my brain exploding.

(H/T Talking Points Memo)

AEY Inc. WTF?

The NYTimes brings us this great article on yet another mind boggling use of our federal tax dollars. Some genius in the Pentagon awarded a $300 MILLION ammunition supply contract to AEY Inc., a company led by a 22 year old with no defense contracting experience whatsoever. Some of the shoddy ammunition that AEY Inc. provided to Afghan security forces was over 40 years old and originally manufactured in China:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

And that's not their only federal contract!

As Efraim Diveroli arrived in Miami Beach, AEY was transforming itself by aggressively seeking security-related contracts.
It won a $126,000 award for ammunition for the Special Forces; AEY also provided ammunition or equipment in 2004 to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the State Department.

By 2005, when Mr. Diveroli became AEY’s president at age 19, the company was bidding across a spectrum of government agencies and providing paramilitary equipment — weapons, helmets, ballistic vests, bomb suits, batteries and chargers for X-ray machines — for American aid to Pakistan, Bolivia and elsewhere.

It was also providing supplies to the American military in Iraq, where its business included a $5.7 million contract for rifles for Iraqi forces.

Two federal officials involved in contracting in Baghdad said AEY quickly developed a bad reputation. “They weren’t reliable, or if they did come through, they did after many excuses,” said one of them, who asked that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

Dudes, is everyone who works on these government contracts completely high? Is it too much to ask that you actually investigate who you will be handing out $300 million contracts to?!

Tucker!

Check out Tucker's awesome new toy:

Yes, it is a plush pink high heel from the pets section of IKEA. He LOVES it. (And yes, he is wearing a t-shirt as well.)

I have warned my roommates that they might come home one day only to find that I have left for Texas and taken the dog with me.

I fought the law and I won

It's official - I am not going to federal prison! The IRS sent me another letter informing me that my tax snafu has been resolved and I don't owe them $2,000. They even added a nice little "Thank you for your cooperation" at the end of the letter. Yeah, whatever, dudes.

Urban oil fields in SoCal

With oil prices now at $100+ per barrel, companies are revisiting older wells that were shut down when it was economically unfeasible to produce oil from them. Many of these wells are located in southern California:

Independent producers and major conglomerates alike are reinvesting millions in these mature wells, using expensive new technology and drilling techniques to eke every last drop out of fields long past their prime ---- and often in the middle of suburbia.
In this instance, Terra Exploration & Production Co. believes that up to 2 billion barrels of oil remain hidden beneath Signal Hill, once nicknamed "Porcupine Hill" for its crown of oil derricks before developers planted gated communities and strip malls.

"A lot of these wells have been sitting idle for many years," said Mick Conner, who hopes to increase daily production on his half-dozen wells. "If we can take a 10-barrel well and make it a 20-barrel well, it becomes very profitable for us."

In California, some of the least profitable and old wells ---- so-called "stripper" wells ---- are clustered in a dense urban environment, tucked between malls, gas stations and homes. They are the legacy of a turn-of-the-century oil boom that quickly faded with the discovery of oil in Texas and the depletion of the easiest reserves.

But the move to boost production on these aging oil fields has also inspired bitter protests from some homeowners, some of whom live just a few dozen feet from active wells. Many do not own the mineral rights under their land or moved in long after the original well was built.

If I had a lot of free time on my hands, and still lived back in California, I would probably write a book on California's oil history. It's an interesting topic, but I can't imagine it would be much of a bestseller. At least my parents would buy a few copies.

Disgraceful, yet not at all surprising

In today's Washington Post:

During his nearly four years as a translator for U.S. forces in Iraq, Saman Kareem Ahmad was known for his bravery and hard work. "Sam put his life on the line with, and for, Coalition Forces on a daily basis," wrote Marine Capt. Trent A. Gibson.
Gibson's letter was part of a thick file of support -- including commendations from the secretary of the Navy and from then-Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus -- that helped Ahmad migrate to the United States in 2006, among an initial group of 50 Iraqi and Afghan translators admitted under a special visa program.

Last month, however, the U.S. government turned down Ahmad's application for permanent residence, known as a green card. His offense: Ahmad had once been part of the Kurdish Democratic Party, which U.S. immigration officials deemed an "undesignated terrorist organization" for having sought to overthrow former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Ahmad, a Kurd, once served in the KDP's military force, which is part of the new Iraqi army. A U.S. ally, the KDP is now part of the elected government of the Kurdish region and holds seats in the Iraqi parliament. After consulting public Web sites, however, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that KDP forces "conducted full-scale armed attacks and helped incite rebellions against Hussein's regime, most notably during the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Ahmad's association with a group that had attempted to overthrow a government -- even as an ally in U.S.-led wars against Hussein -- rendered him "inadmissible," the agency concluded in a three-page letter dated Feb. 26.

Yes, you read that correctly. A man who put his life on the line for the U.S. military in Iraq was denied a green card because he was once part of a group that sought to OVERTHROW SADDAM HUSSEIN. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Forget the green card, give this dude citizenship.

Peeps Show

Some of these entries in the Washington Post peeps diorama contest are hilarious. I especially loved Thrilla in Manila (photo #5).

I had completely forgotten that the WP was holding this contest. If I had any artistic skill whatsoever, I would have submitted a There Will Be Blood diorama involving peeps. I would probably recreate the well blowout scene, with a popsicle stick oil derrick on fire and bunch of half melted peeps running around.

The quagga mussel invasion is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face

Via the LATimes:

Local water authorities have begun closing some of the state's prime fishing lakes in an effort to keep an infestation of tiny quagga mussels from fouling drinking water supplies for nearly 375,000 residents and threatening fish populations.

And where did these invasive species come from? The Soviet Union, in the 1980s:

Native to Russia and Ukraine, the mussel migrated to the Great Lakes region in the 1980s, probably in the ballast of ocean freighters. They hitchhike on boats and trailers, and quickly form new colonies in bodies of water. They are virtually impossible to eradicate, potentially adding hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance costs to pumps, pipes and other infrastructure across the state, water district officials say.

I am convinced this is not an accident, but rather a long dormant communist plot finally coming to fruition.

First, the mussels...

...and then the ground forces.

Oil Spies!

Well, here we go again. Two brothers, Ilya and Aleksandr Saslavsky, both graduates of Oxford University and dual Russian-U.S. citizens, were arrested by the Russian FSB on charges of spying on behalf of foreign oil companies. In addition, the FSB raided the offices of TNK-BP, a joint venture between BP and three Russian gazillionaires.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the two men, who also have US citizenship, were arrested on March 12 while allegedly attempting to obtain classified information from a Russian “employed with a national hydrocarbon institution”.
An FSB spokesman said: “The brothers were illegally collecting classified commercial information for a number of foreign hydrocarbon companies, which wished to have advantages over their Russian rivals, including those in the [Commonwealth of Independent States] markets.”

The two were charged with industrial espionage on Wednesday. The announcement came just a day after police seized documents during raids on the Moscow headquarters of TNK-BP and BP, which holds a 50 per cent stake in TNK-BP.

The FSB said that the search produced “material evidence of industrial espionage . . . and business cards of representatives of foreign defence departments and the Central Intelligence Agency”.

So the brothers left the business cards of their CIA contacts just lying around the office? Some spies they are!

Oh, and in other news, the Rosprirodnadzor, the Russian equivalent of the EPA, announced that they will be conducting an inspection of TNK-BP's Samotlor field in Siberia:

A spokeswoman for the ministry of natural resources characterized the inspection announced on Friday as routine and noted that it would cover other fields and other companies as well.
Still, in 2006, the same Russian environmental agency threatened Royal Dutch Shell with multibillion-dollar fines in a months-long campaign that led to Shell’s selling a controlling stake of its Sakhalin Island oil and gas development to Gazprom.

After Gazprom bought the stake, the agency dropped its environmental complaints and work continued.

The same inspector in the Shell situation, Oleg L. Mitvol, the agency’s deputy director, was appointed to lead the investigation at TNK-BP’s Samotlor field, according to the statement.

How convenient.

Putin on Nabucco

I think this is my favorite Putin quote to date:

“You can build a pipeline or even two, three, or five. The question is what fuel you put through it and where do you get that fuel. If someone wants to dig into the ground and bury metal there in the form of a pipeline, please do so, we don’t object.” Sarcastically, Putin dismissed the notion of a competition between Nabucco and South Stream: “There can be no competition when one project has the gas and the other does not” (Interfax, February 28; Rossiiskaya gazeta, February 29).

More awesome Putin quotes can be found here. We can only hope that Medvedev will be equally as entertaining (although I'm not counting on it).

Required reading: March 16, 2008 (Energy edition)

Last week, a proposal to enact a severance tax on California oil production (remember Proposition 87?) that would fund public schools failed in the California Assembly. The initiative was spearheaded by outgoing Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), who explained the reasoning behind the initiative as such:

“While California is facing billions in cuts to schools, big oil companies are raking in record profits -- without paying for the oil they take from California. If red states like Texas, Colorado, and Montana tax oil production to fund the services they value, then so should we.”
AB 9xxx would set a 6 percent severance tax on oil extracted in California. The revenue would be used to mitigate teacher layoffs from the Governor's proposed cuts. AB 9xxx also responds to overall petroleum industry profiteering by placing a 2 percent windfall profits tax on oil companies.

The bill would generate $1.2 billion in yearly revenue for the state, making sure California gets its fair share from record oil company profits. Oil production is one of the most profitable industries in the world, and all 21 other oil producing states in America already levy a severance oil tax at rates ranging from 2 percent to 15 percent on oil producers. Most of those states spend more per pupil on education than California.

After reading Nuñez's press release, you'd probably come away with the impression that oil companies are just sucking all of the oil out of our state without paying a dime to the State Treasurer. While, yes, it's true that California does not impose a severance tax on oil extracted from reservoirs located in the state, the oil companies still pay a corporate income tax on profits earned within the state, as well as various regulatory fees, all of which add up to a much higher overall tax rate for California oil companies when compared to those operating in Texas, Colorado, and other states. Still, it's much easier for Nuñez and his cohorts to ignore this fact and instead stage an outlandish press conference outside an elementary school, claiming that oil companies aren't paying their fair share of taxes.

"Oil companies in this state aren't conducting bake sales so they can get by," said Assemblyman Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank). "Our schools are."

Dude, do you have any idea how many cupcakes Chevron would have to sell at a bake sale to pay those daily $300,000 rental fees for an offshore rig? That's just crazy!

In international news, Russia and Ukraine finally ended their standoff over natural gas supplies, eliminating the middlemen RosUkrEnergo and UkrGasEnergo, while granting Gazprom direct access to Ukrainian industrial customers. Starting in 2009, Gazprom will now pay "European prices" for gas from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which the company resells in order to meet its supply commitments to its European customers:

Although it could result in lower revenues for Gazprom, experts say Russia has effectively bought control of Central Asian exports.
"Russia will maintain its control on gas supplies even though its profit will go down," says Sergey Smirnov, energy expert from the Expert Kazakhstan journal. "All other alternative routes that are on paper today become unreal."

Still, it is it is questionable that Gazprom will be able to meet its European commitments while satisfying the growing demand for gas at home:

But even as it notches up victories, the good times may not last. The company, which supplies 25 per cent of Europe's gas needs, has not had to make investments in bringing big fields onstream recently. But as production declines rapidly at its Soviet-era supergiant fields, the company may soon be unable to produce enough gas to meet demand in Europe and at home, experts fear.
Indeed, Gazprom is facing the biggest challenge in its history. Its next big sources of gas are locked on the Yamal Peninsula and off the Arctic coast in the Shtokman gas field. The first is a logistical nightmare because of high winds, bad soil, and icy conditions. The second is an enormous technical challenge: Shtokman is located more than 500km offshore and icebergs abound.

[...]

The estimates on how big the gas production deficit could be by 2015 vary from a few billion cubic metres to 100bcm. Calculating the potential deficit is complex and depends on how quickly demand rises in Europe and at home, how much gas Gazprom takes from independent producers and how quickly it completes export pipeline projects such as South Stream.

If Gazprom were to complete all its export projects including North and South Stream to Europe and a proposed pipeline to China, the deficit could reach 100bcm, says Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister who is now head of the independent Institute of Energy Policy.

Lessons from the Balkans: How to express your displeasure with a Western military alliance

It's missing an "F" but I think you get the message that this particular graffiti artist was trying to convey.

I snapped this particular photo in April 2005, while Crystal and I were on our "three countries in one day" Balkans extravaganza. We had taken a bus from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Trebinje, a small town located in the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Although Trebinje was mostly spared the overwhelming destruction that was inflicted upon other Bosnian cities such as Mostar, the scars of war were still very much apparent when we visited ten years later. It was in Trebinje that Serbian and Montenegrin units of the JNA launched an artillery attack on the beautiful city of Dubrovnik during the Croatian War of Independence. Later, during the Bosnian War, Trebinje's Muslim residents were forced to flee the town during a campaign of ethnic cleansing, while their mosques were burned to the ground by Serb militants. At present, NGOs are still clearing landmines from the area, ethnic tensions occasionally flare up, and Radovan Karadžić, a former poet/psychiatrist/politician turned war criminal, often takes refuge in Trebinje, where, to this day, he remains very popular with the Bosnian Serbs that populate the city. As such, despite the thousands of leaflets distributed by NATO peacekeepers (now EUFOR), don't expect one of the residents to collect on the $5 million bounty the U.S. Government has placed on Karadžić.

Vatican: Pollution is a "sin"

Via the LATimes:

A Vatican keen to show its green side has added pollution to the realm of "new sins" that today's Catholics must confront and avoid.
[...]

Girotti's discussion of "new sins" (though many were not exactly new) was also an attempt to appeal to the modern Catholic and show the relevance of church teachings and guidance in the globalized world.

"The Vatican's intent seemed to be less about adding to the traditional 'deadly' sins [lust, anger, sloth, pride, avarice, gluttony, envy] than reminding the world that sin has a social dimension and that participation in institutions that themselves sin is an important point upon which believers needed to reflect," Father James Martin, acting publisher of the Jesuit magazine America, said in a blog he operates.

"In other words, if you work for a company that pollutes the environment, you have something more important to consider for Lent than whether or not to give up chocolate."

So, let's just say, for instance, that since I work in the energy industry, which many people like to blame for destroying the environment (conveniently forgetting, of course, that their personal demand for energy is what drives the industry), does this now mean I can give up work for Lent? As you know, I am a baptized Catholic, and suffered through eight years of Catholic school (which sadly, probably molded me into the person I am today more than any other life experience) before becoming a "lapsed Catholic", but I would certainly be willing to turn into a "Cafeteria Catholic" for the remaining portion of Lent.

Lessons from the former Soviet Union: How to make an ice cream sundae

Deposit several scoops of ice cream into a tall glass, garnish with an entire orchard's worth of fruit and one ice cream cone. Serve with a dash of disinterested Eastern European customer service.

bizarre ice cream sundae in Yerevan, Armenia

This is the most bizarre sundae I've ever seen in my life, and that's saying something, considering how much ice cream I eat. I love ice cream, and, in particular, that delicious soft serve ice cream that costs less than 25 cents and can be found throughout the former Soviet republics.

Late one evening in Yerevan, after finishing dinner at a decent Chinese restaurant, everyone hopped in their respective SUVs (American diplomats, natch) for a morozhenoe run. We ended up at some outdoor pseudo Middle Eastern cafe that looked as if it had been jacked from a Hollywood movie set and deposited in downtown Yerevan. All that mattered, though, was that they served ice cream and coffee. I opted for a traditional vanilla/chocolate combination, but Andrew decided to be the brave man in the group and order the descriptionless "Sharm-El" sundae. The above photo shows what he ended up with. I'm glad I stuck with my highly unoriginal ice cream order, as a smörgåsbord of fruit only serves to defile the ice cream. Too damn healthy.

In-N-Out goes on an expansion binge

In order to relieve pressure on existing SoCal outlets, which are increasingly crowded at all hours of the day:

Their beef isn't with the burger.
Merchants near some Southern California In-N-Out Burger restaurants say their gripe is with growing traffic jams at drive-through lanes that are keeping customers from getting in and out of their stores.

Long lines of idling cars whose occupants are waiting for made-to-order double-doubles, fries and chocolate shakes sometimes spill into streets and block driveways and alleys, according to owners of adjacent businesses.

The traffic crunch has sent executives of the Irvine-based chain on a crash program to open new outlets to relieve pressure on existing In-N-Outs.

If only they could expand to the (l)east coast and show these (l)east coasters what a real burger tastes like, then I'd be in heaven (well, not quite, but it would make this swamp a bit more bearable).

About

Currently...

Categories

Archives

World Tour

Search

March 29, 2008

Russia's latest export: Woolly mammoth tusks

March 28, 2008

Houston: It's worth it?

March 27, 2008

Efraim Diveroli has no friends

AEY Inc. WTF?

March 24, 2008

Tucker!

I fought the law and I won

March 23, 2008

Urban oil fields in SoCal

Disgraceful, yet not at all surprising

Peeps Show

March 22, 2008

The quagga mussel invasion is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face

March 21, 2008

Oil Spies!

March 19, 2008

Putin on Nabucco

March 16, 2008

Required reading: March 16, 2008 (Energy edition)

March 15, 2008

Lessons from the Balkans: How to express your displeasure with a Western military alliance

Vatican: Pollution is a "sin"

March 13, 2008

Lessons from the former Soviet Union: How to make an ice cream sundae

In-N-Out goes on an expansion binge