Russia captures no.2 rank among foreign oil suppliers to US.
 

Despite!!!

Russia captures no.2 rank among foreign oil suppliers.

Any sympathy for Germany?

https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ppliers-to-u-s

Not from me.

Have you ever noticed that we have had two major wars with Germany and the hard fighting Russians were on our side both times? They are no longer pinko commies, yet we are still fighting the Cold War. What's up with that?

Oil is a commodity as is wheat. We were helping to feed evil during Cold War One because it's all about the Benjamins. Same as it ever was and will be.

So you're lining up with Carlson and tRump? Russia's no longer pinko commies but they are our adversaries.

The more I dig I am coming to feel that something is not together...what one sees is not what is.

There is a big noise led especially by Ted Cruz against Nordstream 2. The American shale people would like to get a chunk of the European gas market. They would have to do that by supplanting the Russians to some degree. There are several factors operating.

1) fast depletion rate of shale in the US.

2) Unhappiness of investors in the industry.

3) The price of US-supplied gas in Europe would in all likelihood be higher than that of the Russians.

To sell this European bound gas idea geopolitics is skillfully employed and Germany is shamed, and anyone asking reasonable questions is often labeled a Putin stooge.

The likely losers in all of this play are the American and European consumers.
Some Democrats are uneasy about the exporting of gas since it affects the local price but the gas lobby is powerful.

Putin's real fear re the Donbas...it might be less about protecting ethnic Russians and more about the possibility of an explosive growth of fracking in the area if the area is retaken by the Ukrainian government.

Zelensky who won as a peace candidate and the one most likely to make an agreement with the Russians was being pushed to capture the very rich shale area held by the rebels.

Throughout the length of the rebellion, it is believed that the Russians got rid of all independent pro-Russian nationalists.

https://euractiv.com/section/energy/...ry-in-ukraine/

No.

Only if we make them.

You appear to have a good take on it. The name of the oil/gas game is greed. Better for our side to make the money than theirs. Although I end up losing money. What's up with that? Whose on my side? Certainly not our blues and reds. I know Putin isn't. :D

Why would you expect anyone to ever be on your side? Isn't it always at bottom the war of all against all, with certain temporary alliances, and widespread deceptions deployed? In your view?

Do you think a polity organized to genuinely promote the common good is even possible, or is that pure myth?

First hurdle is to reach a consensus of just what the common good is. Good luck with that. :)

Culture is fabric of delusion/illusion woven from the ever shifting bedrock of myth.

"People seem to be hardwired to get things wrong. They confuse opinion with fact, they tend to believe what everyone around them believes, and they are ready to die for the truth or whichever version of it they have clasped to their breast."

"History ... is a point of view, an attempt to impose order on events that are essentially chaotic."

BTW, even my own mother wasn't on my side. Well, at least not always. She never failed to make the same lame point about it being for my own good. ;)

You sound like a member of the Texas State Board of Education.;)

Do you know that someone diverted Uranium from the USA atomic program to Russian in 1943 ?

Wouldn't that have been a tip off that 'spies' would also steal the know how to build an atomic bomb ?

So you're giving them a pass for interfering in our election(s) among other things? I see your words but I hear them in tRump's voice.

I'll take all that as a big negatory on 'the common good.' Anyway, I suspect you slightly prefer greedy, corrupt politicians, since they have not deceived themselves in thinking they are pursuing it.

I was right, you know that no one is on your side. It follows that complaints that anyone in particular is not on your side are redundant.

Am I correct in thinking you scoff at all schemes for social betterment?

Libertarians give me hives.

You basically got everything incorrect. I always enjoy your predilection to claim a moral high ground though.

Define the common good? I sure can't. Can you?

Hearing voices is another side effect. Don't be too concerned though. Red Kool-Aid has the same side effects as Blu.

Thomas Jefferson?

Even a non-answer is an answer, thanks ;)

Ben Gay

Depending on how strict you want to be about it, I can't even define good. But I'm willing to push on regardless.

If I'd been right about everything, as a good machiavellian you'd never admit it.

Having read The Prince, I'm pretty sure your PC's Machiavelli. The Art of War is where it's at. :)

So, you don't even have a clue as to what the common good is. Where are you pushing on to if you don't even know where your going? Sounds like your wandering aimlessly.

As you recently told me, you are totally wrong about everything.

Your right.

Which means your wrong.

Right or wrong?

That astute observation on history was made by the protagonist in The Engines of God, a SF novel by Jack McDevitt. Pretty sure it's not your type of read though.

I was indeed a member of said board for one meeting. Pointing out that teaching Creationism acknowledged God's imperfection got me unceremoniously booted out the back door.

Why?

But right vs, wrong, good vs. bad, are fundamental, the basis and result of all decision-making. Without them the wheels would spin endlessly. And they are subjective and not definable in physical or logical terms. They are as necessary as our ability to locate ourselves in space and time, two more concepts that we cannot fully define or grasp.

Post 23.

An excellent example of aimless intellectual wandering.

Unless you're completely missing the point. Is that conceivably possible, either by happenstance, or on purpose?

Yes. It's SO easy to understand why Rand Paul's neighbor kicked his ass. :D

I'd like to buy that guy a beer.

I'm thinking that you didn't get #23's point which is probably why I didn't get your point. Or is your point that you don't have to have a point to have a point. But what do I know? As you recently pointed out, I'm always wrong.

Much needs to worried about when any country depends , relies on an adversary for continued sustenance. Much like China and loans to keep US a float now fuel and Russia....

What concessions are ahead or behind?

With Russia's little regard for environmental impact troubling times ahead for the planet.

When corporations run up against environmental regulations they go abroad and/or "greenwash" their methods.
Many of the so-called scarce minerals are here in the US. The manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles is going to tax the planet.

https://theguardian.com/commentisfre...lt-flats-chile

Plus the myth of recycling of materials....as long as it is cheaper to just produce new from scratch, then recycle used. Plastic is one of the worse uses of fossil fuel supplies.

Electric cars are a solution that is part of the problem. In order to reduce carbon emissions enough to stop, but not reverse Gobal Warming, would require reducing the world's standard of living by 50 percent which isn't going to happen. For the west, which would experience the greatest decrease, the Great Depression would become the good old days.

I think you are correct that oil is playing a role in the Ukraine that is being 'overlooked' due to bad optics for the US.