Links are at the end, including the one to Rasputina, consisting of two vocalists playing one cello each, and a keyboard player. Pretty pretty pretty cool.
“This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation”
That’s ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance celebrating the Biden administration’s Monday approval of the Orwellian-monikered Willow Project, which will generate nearly 10 million metric tons of global-warming excrescences during the course of its anticipated 30-plus year life span, along with other environmental damage.1
White House officials were denying as recently as yesterday that Biden had made a decision on approving the project, even after a New York Times story on Sunday provided a detailed description of the deal, courtesy a coterie of unnamed administration officials. The Times story was updated today to elide yesterday’s denial and report the formal approval.2
(Yr. editor’s streak of bad prognostications remains intact after yesterday’s prediction that the announcement would be postponed until next week.)
The project will be some while coming on line even without the inevitable legal challenges; possibly some future, less carefree president—Biden most likely won’t live long enough to see any of the damage done by the project once it’s operating—will try to kill it.
Supporters of the project note that the state’s trio of federal legislators and several Alaska Native communities favor the project, citing jobs and a possible windfall for the state’s oil dividend fund, which delivers annual payments to Alaska residents based upon fees paid by oil producers in the state. Other Alaska Natives are adamantly opposed to the project because of the global warming impact, already taking a way-of-life-threatening toll, and the potential for local environmental disaster.
Biden, among others, has argued that the U.S. of necessity will continue exploiting fossil fuels for, in practical terms, ever. Environmentalists argue that doing so is impractical if one has goals other than accelerating global warming.
Experts disagree! Who can say!
"This top line request serves as a useful starting point"
That there is Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who chairs the Armed Menace committee in the Senate, explaining that Joe Biden’s $900 billion war budget proposal will undoubtedly be negotiated upward toward a trillion, not counting the various hidden budget items.3
Innovations in the proposed budget include multi-year munitions contracts to ensure that weapons makers enjoy a continuing revenue stream rather than the stop-start requisitions of previous years, and that military leaders aren’t caught napping when it comes time to start or escalate new or existing proxy wars.
Separately, Biden was in San Diego today making the formal announcement that we’re building some nuclear-powered submarines for Australia to ensure that any potential conflict with China isn’t limited to the U.S., which will further benefit war industry companies if not necessarily the planet and most residents.4
Among the issues plaguing weapons makers and ancillary companies subsequent to the Ukraine war has been the sanctions-imposed loss of sales to the Russian government. While sales to the U.S. and other NATO governments acting as proxy for Ukraine have in part made up the shortfall, the increase in the war department budget and the long-term munitions contracts will do a lot to reassure shareholders and war hawks alike, to whatever extent those are functionally distinct.
All in all, this has been a pretty goddamn stupid day on the war-and-oil fronts.
Yr. editor has a migraine independent of all this other shit. Talk to you tomorrow.
Music man
Still on the girl/adult women band kick. Both these groups are worth a listen for anybody with the sense that they might share the editor’s fairly eclectic musical tastes.
Rasputina, “How We Quit the Forest;”5 Bleached, "Welcome the Worms."6
That, Comrades, is all there is
My apologies for today’s foreshortened edition, which was meant both to hit the streets earlier and to include more stuff. Anyway, please share the newsletter around if you like what I do, and consider subscribing if you’ve not—it’s free unless you want to pay.
Be well, take care.
I've always loved Rasputina. Have you listened to their song "Rats?" "Rats" concerns an actual historical event, whereby "capybara," being swimming mammals and much more delicious, apparently, than fish, were declared by the pope to be fish for dietary/ritual purposes. I have given up religion, though I have not yet given up fish. (I've never eaten a capybara.) At any rate, it's a great song!
Hey, Hilary, thanks for stopping by. So far as I know I've not listened to them before today. I did recently read a thing about the capybara incident, which lowered my already low opinion of popes as a class. Serendipitous.