Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Chevron to Drill 5 Miles Deep in Gulf of Mexico for World's Largest Oil Reserves

Here's a great story on an effort by Chevron to exploit what some consider the largest untapped oil reserves in the world, deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The technology is advanced and incredibly expensive, but soon Chevron will have accomplished the deepest drilling in open water.

Obviously, this is important from a national security perspective. If the oil field, dubbed "Jack," is indeed as large as believed (between 3 and 15 billion barrels), then it will significantly reduce the US's reliance on foreign oil. For those who want the US to reduce its involvement in the Middle East, this should be welcome news.

It also points out the importance of oil company profits--without them, oil companies would be unable to make these kinds of investments. Political (and most often crudely populist) efforts to curtail their profits only limits America's energy options.

Eventually, of course, technology will be developed and/or exploited (e.g., nuclear power) that will finally render fossil fuels as unecessary. Until then, it's encouraging that these sorts of efforts are underway, and we can only hope that more such efforts will be made.

Ahmadinejad Says Iran is "Invincible"

Iranian President Imajihadi (or whatever his name is) seems pretty confident that the US won't act against him. In fact, he says, Iran is "invincible," at least insofar as the US is engaged in Iran and Afghanistan. At least, one hopes that's what he means.

Of course, Iran is the farthest thing from invincible, and if we need to act against them, we'd muster up the troops and material to do so. We could just bomb their nuclear facilities back to the stone age, if we wanted. And so, once again, Imajihadi shows himself to be rather mistaken in his premises.

Putin Russian Gay Icon

This is just too funny to pass up. Apparently, after posing shirtless while on a fishing expedition, Putin has become a Russian gay icon.

There's really nothing else to say.

Chinese Parents-to-Be Break Law By Learning Sex of Fetus

I knew that China's population control and gender discrimination were issues, but I didn't realize they went this far. According to Wired Science, quoting the Observer, wealthier Chinese couples are getting ultrasounds to find out the sex of their baby, despite two laws on the books that ban doctors from revealing the gender during pregnancy.

That's a triple-whammy. First, the Chinese government has laws on finding out the birth of one's own child. And second, they have such laws because so many parents would abort females if they knew the sex. And all this is happening because of China's one child policy.

You gotta hand it to collectivism. It does create some of the most complex societal perversions.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 3108 Diggs, returns the site back to its pre-pubescent roots with a link to a story containing 15 tips on how to, well, please a woman.

Cox and Forkum on Iran's New Smart Bomb

Cox and Forkum do their typical job of illustrating the silliness of things. Iran has announced the development of a new "smart bomb," and promises to go into mass production. There's some doubt, of course, as to the veracity of the claim, and the fact that Iran flies old US F4 and F5 fighters makes the threat a little, well, funny.

Check it out for a chuckle.