The Pennsylvania Newspaper Assn.'s announcement today it had named the Erie Times-News "Newspaper of the Year" was hailed by itself and its feckless sycophants in the local blogosphere with unbecoming exultation. As a reality check, here's a copy of the blog I wrote when the PNA's foundation announced the annual 2009 press awards last April.
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In today’s edition, the Erie Times News announced that “thirteen Erie Times-News writers, photographers and page designers earned 18 top awards” in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Assn’s 2009 Keystone Press Awards statewide competition (By my count, it’s 17, but whose counting?).
In that context, Managing Editor Pat Howard boasted: "These awards reach into all corners of our newsroom to highlight excellence both in print and online. It's well-deserved recognition for the journalists being honored, and a reflection of the talent and commitment our entire staff brings to bear every day in serving our audiences in ways no other news organization in the region can.”
That seems curiously at odds with my longstanding contention that the Times-News’s press credentials are, with a few exceptions, by and large mediocre at best, its news and editorial coverage of issues, people and events important to its Erie readers usually inept, shallow, biased, unprofessional, irrelevant, mis and uninformed.
Unless I'm wrong, how could the Times-News seemingly have scored so lavishly in this year’s press awards competition?
Let’s put that into perspective. The article said that “The Times-News competes in Division II, for newspapers in the 50,000-to-99,999 circulation.” What the article didn’t do is put that distinction in context, which is needed to grasp its implications.
For purposes of the Keystone Awards, the commonwealth’s newspapers are divided into eight divisions. Division I includes Pennsylvania’s most prominent newspapers with the largest circulations. There are only seven of them: the largest, the Philadelphia Inquirer which also publishes the Philadelphia Daily News; the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Allentown Morning Call, the Pittsburgh Tribune, the Harrisburg Patriot-News and - although it’s technically a statewide cooperative news service, not a newspaper - the Associated Press.
Division Two consists of six newspapers: the Erie Times-News, the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the Scranton Times-Tribune, the Reading Eagle, the Bucks County Courier-Times, and the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/Sunday News. In each division .there are about 40 award categories, with awards being given for first and second place winner, and in a few cases honorable mention. That means there are about 120 different award opportunities available to Division II newspapers, of which the Times-News received awards in 17.
However, less than half the categories deal with the principal news and editorial writing functions, which are the hallmark of any newspaper, and about half of those encompass sports writing, a lesser function in terms of the broad public interest.
In the most important news writing category, investigative reporting, the Times-News did not score, beat out by the York Daily Record/Sunday News and the Scranton Times-Tribune.
In another key function, editorial writing, the Times-News took a second place. In commentary/columns, the Times-News was outwritten by the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal and the York Sunday News. In the spot news category, the Times-News was bested by the York Daily Record and the Reading Eagle. In the ongoing news category, it tanked, losing out to the Bucks County and Scranton newspapers.
The Times-News took a first in the Special Projects category and second place in the “niche” category, whatever that is. It also took a second place in news series writing, firsts in feature and /feature beat writing, a first for a business/consumer story, a first in sports beat reporting, a second in feature photo, first in sports photo and second in online journalistic innovation (the internet). It lost out in News Beat reporting to the Reading and Lancaster papers. Photographer Jack Hanrahan distinguished himself with a top Specialty award in the visual category in competion with all of Pennsylvania’s newspapers, including the Big Seven.
Though the Times-News appears to have won its proportionate share of press awards, the most telling factor is that none of them was in the top most vital news and editorial reporting and writing categories
Another interesting point to note is that all of the Times-News’s A-list reporters, writers and columnists were skunked in the competition, like Howard, Ed Mead, Kevin Cuneo, Kevin Flowers, John Guerriero and Ed Palattella.
Also noteworthy is that most of the top news and editorial writing awards went to newspapers in the more densely populated eastern part of the state, where, unlike the Times-News, they face intense competition from other newspapers, including big metropolitan sheets.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Erie news media, bloggers, ignore Phil English's mad dash through the "revolving doors"
“Although the influence powerhouses that line Washington's K Street* are just a few miles from the U.S. Capitol building, the most direct path between the two doesn't necessarily involve public transportation. Instead, it's through a door—a revolving door that shuffles former federal employees into jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists just as the door pulls former hired guns into government careers. While members of the executive branch, Congress and senior congressional staffers spin in and out of the private and public sectors, so too does privilege, power, access and, of course, money.” *(K Street is the legendary lane in the nation’s capital where lobbying organizations are concentrated. From Open Secrets: The Center for Responsive Politics – Revolving Doors.
A comprehensive report several years ago done for the national public interest organization, Public Citizen, states unequivocally that “Lobbying is the top career choice for departing members of Congress. It also states that “Departing Republican members lead Democrats in the rush to K Street.”
Former Congressman Phil English of Erie, a Republican who represented Pennsylvania’s House District Three for 14 years until he was defeated last year by U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, an Erie Democrat, fits the revolving door mold perfectly, joining the prominent lobbying and law firm Arent Fox in Washington D.C. following his loss last November to Ms. Dahlkemper.
Only a few months out of office, barely breaking stride, Mr. English dashed through the revolving doors separating his congressional role - where he dealt extensively with issues and institutions in the private commercial and government sectors - from the private sector, where he will now deal with Congress on their behalf.
Mr. English began writing a column recently for former Erie Times-News Reporter Peter Panepento’s blog, Global/Outside Erie. Although he alludes to his new position with Arent Fox LLP in his inaugural column, he never once mentions the words “lobby” or “lobbying,” even though Arent Fox is one of the most prestigious lobbying firms in the nation.
It’s not located on K Street, but it boasts a prominent venue on Connecticut Ave, NW, not too far from the White House and the U.S. Capitol Building with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Besides lobbying Congress and government agencies on behalf of powerful clients, Arent Fox is a busy litigator in virtually every field of commerce, keeping its more than 300 lawyers busy representing clients in litigation.
In his first column for Outside/Global Erie, Mr. English identifies himself as Arent Fox’s Senior Government Relations Advisor, a supervisory position. Some of the more prominent lobbyists whom Mr. English joins in his new job are or have been Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and U.S. Senator; John Culver, former U.S. Senator for Iowa, both of whom currently work with him at the firm's Washington, D.C. office; and Fred Thompson, former U.S. Senator for Tennessee, Actor and 2008 presidential candidate who once lobbied for the company.
Under the “cooling off period” prescribed by federal law, Mr. English may not directly lobby his former colleagues in the House of Representative until a year after he was voted out of office last year. But as Arent Fox’s Senior Government Relations Advisor, he may and does legally supervise and advise the firm’s lobbyists who do, a difference without much of a distinction. Whether he will retain that title and function after the cooling off period or proceed actively to lobby his former congressional colleagues is perhaps a question he can answer in an ensuing column.
In his first column several weeks ago, Mr. English characterized his day job with Arent Fox somewhat euphemistically, thusly: “My new professional home is Arent Fox LLP, a highly regarded Washington area law firm. As their Senior Government Relations Advisor, my practice involves developing strategies and solving problems in many of the areas I was active in as Congressman – healthcare, trade, taxes, and energy among others. The firm has given me a wonderful opportunity to continue my work as part of a world-class bipartisan team.”
The key phrase within that statement which gives one pause is “in many of the areas I was active in as Congressman.” While a member of Congress, Mr. English was endowed with secret status in dealing with sensitive classified government information. Though prohibited from using that insider information other than in his official capacity as congressman, there’s nothing to prevent him from surreptitiously utilizing it as an Arent Fox operative. Indeed, though he and they would probably deny it, that’s one of the main reasons why the firm hired him. Inside information and privileged access. It’s the fatal flaw in the government’s revolving door architecture.
Though Mr. English has every legal right to engage the revolving door syndrome –hundreds of congressmen before him have – and Arent Fox to hire him, it’s his ethical mores which are in serious question here. Mr. English says the job with Arent Fox has given him a “wonderful opportunity to continue my work (my emphasis) as part of a world-class bipartisan team.”
Is that a Freudian slip? Was he subliminally or consciously working for Arent Fox as a congressman?
More significantly, why wouldn’t Mr. English offer his post-congressional services to a recognized and respected non-profit public interest organization and use the skills, access and insider information he acquired at public expense while in Congress to advance a broad public agenda consistent with his work in Congress? After all, the taxpayers continue to pay him through the generous, indeed exhorbitant pension and retirement benefits package which Congress, with Mr. English’s collaboration, have bestowed upon themselves.
It's noteworthy that neither the mainstream Erie news media nor the local blogoshphere have noted, much less challenged Mr. English’s mad dash through the revolving door, nor his self-serving characterization as anything but the lobbyist/opportunist he really is. Did the sponsor of the blog to which Mr. English contributes, a former newspaper reporter, check his journalist credentials at the door when he launched his blog?
A comprehensive report several years ago done for the national public interest organization, Public Citizen, states unequivocally that “Lobbying is the top career choice for departing members of Congress. It also states that “Departing Republican members lead Democrats in the rush to K Street.”
Former Congressman Phil English of Erie, a Republican who represented Pennsylvania’s House District Three for 14 years until he was defeated last year by U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, an Erie Democrat, fits the revolving door mold perfectly, joining the prominent lobbying and law firm Arent Fox in Washington D.C. following his loss last November to Ms. Dahlkemper.
Only a few months out of office, barely breaking stride, Mr. English dashed through the revolving doors separating his congressional role - where he dealt extensively with issues and institutions in the private commercial and government sectors - from the private sector, where he will now deal with Congress on their behalf.
Mr. English began writing a column recently for former Erie Times-News Reporter Peter Panepento’s blog, Global/Outside Erie. Although he alludes to his new position with Arent Fox LLP in his inaugural column, he never once mentions the words “lobby” or “lobbying,” even though Arent Fox is one of the most prestigious lobbying firms in the nation.
It’s not located on K Street, but it boasts a prominent venue on Connecticut Ave, NW, not too far from the White House and the U.S. Capitol Building with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Besides lobbying Congress and government agencies on behalf of powerful clients, Arent Fox is a busy litigator in virtually every field of commerce, keeping its more than 300 lawyers busy representing clients in litigation.
In his first column for Outside/Global Erie, Mr. English identifies himself as Arent Fox’s Senior Government Relations Advisor, a supervisory position. Some of the more prominent lobbyists whom Mr. English joins in his new job are or have been Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and U.S. Senator; John Culver, former U.S. Senator for Iowa, both of whom currently work with him at the firm's Washington, D.C. office; and Fred Thompson, former U.S. Senator for Tennessee, Actor and 2008 presidential candidate who once lobbied for the company.
Under the “cooling off period” prescribed by federal law, Mr. English may not directly lobby his former colleagues in the House of Representative until a year after he was voted out of office last year. But as Arent Fox’s Senior Government Relations Advisor, he may and does legally supervise and advise the firm’s lobbyists who do, a difference without much of a distinction. Whether he will retain that title and function after the cooling off period or proceed actively to lobby his former congressional colleagues is perhaps a question he can answer in an ensuing column.
In his first column several weeks ago, Mr. English characterized his day job with Arent Fox somewhat euphemistically, thusly: “My new professional home is Arent Fox LLP, a highly regarded Washington area law firm. As their Senior Government Relations Advisor, my practice involves developing strategies and solving problems in many of the areas I was active in as Congressman – healthcare, trade, taxes, and energy among others. The firm has given me a wonderful opportunity to continue my work as part of a world-class bipartisan team.”
The key phrase within that statement which gives one pause is “in many of the areas I was active in as Congressman.” While a member of Congress, Mr. English was endowed with secret status in dealing with sensitive classified government information. Though prohibited from using that insider information other than in his official capacity as congressman, there’s nothing to prevent him from surreptitiously utilizing it as an Arent Fox operative. Indeed, though he and they would probably deny it, that’s one of the main reasons why the firm hired him. Inside information and privileged access. It’s the fatal flaw in the government’s revolving door architecture.
Though Mr. English has every legal right to engage the revolving door syndrome –hundreds of congressmen before him have – and Arent Fox to hire him, it’s his ethical mores which are in serious question here. Mr. English says the job with Arent Fox has given him a “wonderful opportunity to continue my work (my emphasis) as part of a world-class bipartisan team.”
Is that a Freudian slip? Was he subliminally or consciously working for Arent Fox as a congressman?
More significantly, why wouldn’t Mr. English offer his post-congressional services to a recognized and respected non-profit public interest organization and use the skills, access and insider information he acquired at public expense while in Congress to advance a broad public agenda consistent with his work in Congress? After all, the taxpayers continue to pay him through the generous, indeed exhorbitant pension and retirement benefits package which Congress, with Mr. English’s collaboration, have bestowed upon themselves.
It's noteworthy that neither the mainstream Erie news media nor the local blogoshphere have noted, much less challenged Mr. English’s mad dash through the revolving door, nor his self-serving characterization as anything but the lobbyist/opportunist he really is. Did the sponsor of the blog to which Mr. English contributes, a former newspaper reporter, check his journalist credentials at the door when he launched his blog?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Energy contradictions at the Erie Times-News
In its blind zeal to promote development at any cost in Erie, the Times-News breathlessly editorialized on behalf of Lake Erie Biofuels Tuesday which has been producing biofuels at the old Hammermill plant site for a year or so now.
Applauding the plant's planned production expansion from 40 million to 70 million gallons annually with the help of a $1.6 million state loan, the editorial ignored the internally inconsistent claim that the company's newly announced expansion will help the nation to achieve "energy independence" despite the fact that virtually all its heavily taxpayer-subsidized product(amounting to about $1 a gallon) will continue to be exported outside the U.S.
The Times-News hailed the fact that the company has changed its name to "Hero X," appropos to nothing in evidence except that "The name change is part of a branding campaign to reach a worldwide market," while boasting that its use, among other raw materials, of vegetable oils would promote environmentally benign goals. This further ignores the hard lessons of the recent ethanol craze which resulted in a 35 percent increase in the national average consumer cost of foods like bread, cereals, poultry, beef and other foodstuffs dependent primarily upon ethanol feedstocks such as corn and grains.
On one hand, the editorial quoted a company official as saying:"We believe in biodiesel and its role for our country in increasing our energy independence (my emphasis)and improving our environment." But on the other hand it quotes the same official as saying "the plant is strategically located to export(my emphasis)its products using rail, highways and Lake Erie."
Oblivious to the inherent contradiction, the Times-News editorial exulted: "It's exciting to realize that Erie can help lead the way as Americans make good on our decades-old pledge to achieve energy independence."
To date, Erie Biofuels has exported most if not all of its product across the oceans, where there are more lucrative markets. There's no reason to believe that will change anytime soon,if ever. How does that promote national energy independence? Exporting domestic biolfuels and U.S. energy independence are mutually exclusive conceits.
Applauding the plant's planned production expansion from 40 million to 70 million gallons annually with the help of a $1.6 million state loan, the editorial ignored the internally inconsistent claim that the company's newly announced expansion will help the nation to achieve "energy independence" despite the fact that virtually all its heavily taxpayer-subsidized product(amounting to about $1 a gallon) will continue to be exported outside the U.S.
The Times-News hailed the fact that the company has changed its name to "Hero X," appropos to nothing in evidence except that "The name change is part of a branding campaign to reach a worldwide market," while boasting that its use, among other raw materials, of vegetable oils would promote environmentally benign goals. This further ignores the hard lessons of the recent ethanol craze which resulted in a 35 percent increase in the national average consumer cost of foods like bread, cereals, poultry, beef and other foodstuffs dependent primarily upon ethanol feedstocks such as corn and grains.
On one hand, the editorial quoted a company official as saying:"We believe in biodiesel and its role for our country in increasing our energy independence (my emphasis)and improving our environment." But on the other hand it quotes the same official as saying "the plant is strategically located to export(my emphasis)its products using rail, highways and Lake Erie."
Oblivious to the inherent contradiction, the Times-News editorial exulted: "It's exciting to realize that Erie can help lead the way as Americans make good on our decades-old pledge to achieve energy independence."
To date, Erie Biofuels has exported most if not all of its product across the oceans, where there are more lucrative markets. There's no reason to believe that will change anytime soon,if ever. How does that promote national energy independence? Exporting domestic biolfuels and U.S. energy independence are mutually exclusive conceits.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Bar Assn. correctly disses Domitrovich
I rarely agree with lawyers, but the Erie County Bar Assn.'s
poll released yesterday evaluating county judges up for ten-year retention in the Nov. 3 election, got it exactly right when a pluralty recommended against the retention of Judge Stephanie Domitrovich. In my opinion Domitrovich is utterly unqualified to serve as dogcatcher in Erie County, much less as judge.
Unaccountably, the Erie Times-News article reporting on the bar association poll failed to flesh out the story, simply giving the rating scores of the three candidates up for retention, also including Judges Kelly and Dunlavey, who were rightly recommended. Covering a mere seven or eight column inches as published online, the sketchy story was co-reported by Lisa Thompson and Ed Pallatella, writer overkill if there ever was for such a meager epistle.
Domitrovich's service as a county judge since 1989, if one can call it that, followed by her ten-year retention by county voters in 1999, is testament to their collective ignorance when it comes to judging judges. Let's hope their collective IQ has been elevated sufficiently in time for the November election to heed the county bar association's enlightened recommendation against Domitrovich's retention, of which she is wholly unworthy.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have never been a party in litigation in Domitrovich's court. I was an observer in an orphan's court proceedings in 2007 involving a friend of mine - let's call him "Andy" - seeking to escape the legal clutches of an abusive son who controlled the substantial inheritance his slightly impaired father had received upon the death of his mother several years earlier, a son who forced him unjustly to reside in a substandard assisted living facility against his informed wishes.
In ruling against the father, Domitrovich trampled all over his due
process rights, among other things denying him the legal right to be present at the first hearing on his case in her court which was conducted without his knowledge and ended with his virtual incarceration, rendering any reversal against herself of Domitrovich's initial ruling a very steep, and as it turned out, impossible climb.
Why? Because the abusive son, striving to gain unquestioned control of his father's inheritance, was represented by an attorney who was a member of a law firm with a familiar name and high-powered political connections in Erie which need not be elaborated, David Ridge. Domitrovich, who received campaign money from at least one member of that firm, baldly acquiesced to the Thrasimicusian precept of realpoliticks that "might makes right." It was power politics in the guise of justice at its ugliest.
So disorganized were Domitrovich and her courtroom staff, that she did not see the father's brief seeking to unseat his son as his "guardian" until minutes before a second dispositive hearing was underway.
But just to make certain the impoverished father, denied his rightful inheritance by his abusive son, didn't prevail, Domitrovich appointed to represent him an incompetent sycophant whose represention more reflected the son's cupidity rather than the father's best interests. In addition, she exercised on the stand impermissible and undue influence on the father, craftily leading him in directions opposite to his wishes.
The father lost his case, his inheritance, his personal freedom and, denied the expert care his inheritance would have afforded him, in less than a year, his life. He died, the doctors said, of cancer. But in my untutored opinion, "Andy" succumbed to a broken heart. Soon thereafter his abusive son claimed a significant portion of his father's inheritance which might have been used, as intended by his mother, to enhance and extend his life.
This is not the first time Domitrovich has been found lacking by an official judicial evaluation panel. Following her retention as county judge in 1999, she presented herself as a candidate in 2001 for election to the State Superior Court. In that year's state judicary elections, she was the only candidate whom the Pennsylvania Judicial Evaluation Commission gave a "not recommended" rating.
In reaching that decision the Commission said it had "received numerous
and consistent reports concerning the Candidate’s shortcomings as a judge that were found credible and were neither acknowledged nor sufficiently refuted by the Candidate.
"Specifically, the Commission found that the Candidate lacks proper judicial temperament and decorum, often exhibiting a lack of proper respect for lawyers and litigants in her courtroom. There was a significant concern that she frequently adopts one side of an argument presented to her, failing to give proper weight and consideration to the opposite position.
"Reports also suggested," the Commission said, "that the Candidate can and does lose her temper in the courtroom. Most significantly, the Commission observed that the Candidate was a poor listener, a critical weakness in a prospective appellate court judge. Accordingly, the Commission concluded that the Candidate lacks the skills necessary to serve adequately as a Judge of the Superior Court."
These were the exact failings wich led to a gross instance of miscarried justice in the case I cite above.
One wonders how a judge with those articulated disqualifications is equipped to serve on any court, much less the state Superior Court. Do Erie Countians deserve a judge who, according to her peers, "lacks proper judicial temperament and decorum," or one who "lacks the skills necessary to serve adequately" on the appellate court level? I don't think so.
Her judicial disqualifications aside, Domitrovich's clownish antics in the courtroom are legend. She once recessed a hearing in mid-progress, inconveniencing all parties, some of whom had travelled miles to reach the courthouse, because she had a hair appointment.
Don't be deceived by Domitrovich's glitzy but shallow self-contrived resume, voluminusly padded with inconsequeantial but high-sounding attributes. Vote "NO" in November against the retention of Domitrovich!
poll released yesterday evaluating county judges up for ten-year retention in the Nov. 3 election, got it exactly right when a pluralty recommended against the retention of Judge Stephanie Domitrovich. In my opinion Domitrovich is utterly unqualified to serve as dogcatcher in Erie County, much less as judge.
Unaccountably, the Erie Times-News article reporting on the bar association poll failed to flesh out the story, simply giving the rating scores of the three candidates up for retention, also including Judges Kelly and Dunlavey, who were rightly recommended. Covering a mere seven or eight column inches as published online, the sketchy story was co-reported by Lisa Thompson and Ed Pallatella, writer overkill if there ever was for such a meager epistle.
Domitrovich's service as a county judge since 1989, if one can call it that, followed by her ten-year retention by county voters in 1999, is testament to their collective ignorance when it comes to judging judges. Let's hope their collective IQ has been elevated sufficiently in time for the November election to heed the county bar association's enlightened recommendation against Domitrovich's retention, of which she is wholly unworthy.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have never been a party in litigation in Domitrovich's court. I was an observer in an orphan's court proceedings in 2007 involving a friend of mine - let's call him "Andy" - seeking to escape the legal clutches of an abusive son who controlled the substantial inheritance his slightly impaired father had received upon the death of his mother several years earlier, a son who forced him unjustly to reside in a substandard assisted living facility against his informed wishes.
In ruling against the father, Domitrovich trampled all over his due
process rights, among other things denying him the legal right to be present at the first hearing on his case in her court which was conducted without his knowledge and ended with his virtual incarceration, rendering any reversal against herself of Domitrovich's initial ruling a very steep, and as it turned out, impossible climb.
Why? Because the abusive son, striving to gain unquestioned control of his father's inheritance, was represented by an attorney who was a member of a law firm with a familiar name and high-powered political connections in Erie which need not be elaborated, David Ridge. Domitrovich, who received campaign money from at least one member of that firm, baldly acquiesced to the Thrasimicusian precept of realpoliticks that "might makes right." It was power politics in the guise of justice at its ugliest.
So disorganized were Domitrovich and her courtroom staff, that she did not see the father's brief seeking to unseat his son as his "guardian" until minutes before a second dispositive hearing was underway.
But just to make certain the impoverished father, denied his rightful inheritance by his abusive son, didn't prevail, Domitrovich appointed to represent him an incompetent sycophant whose represention more reflected the son's cupidity rather than the father's best interests. In addition, she exercised on the stand impermissible and undue influence on the father, craftily leading him in directions opposite to his wishes.
The father lost his case, his inheritance, his personal freedom and, denied the expert care his inheritance would have afforded him, in less than a year, his life. He died, the doctors said, of cancer. But in my untutored opinion, "Andy" succumbed to a broken heart. Soon thereafter his abusive son claimed a significant portion of his father's inheritance which might have been used, as intended by his mother, to enhance and extend his life.
This is not the first time Domitrovich has been found lacking by an official judicial evaluation panel. Following her retention as county judge in 1999, she presented herself as a candidate in 2001 for election to the State Superior Court. In that year's state judicary elections, she was the only candidate whom the Pennsylvania Judicial Evaluation Commission gave a "not recommended" rating.
In reaching that decision the Commission said it had "received numerous
and consistent reports concerning the Candidate’s shortcomings as a judge that were found credible and were neither acknowledged nor sufficiently refuted by the Candidate.
"Specifically, the Commission found that the Candidate lacks proper judicial temperament and decorum, often exhibiting a lack of proper respect for lawyers and litigants in her courtroom. There was a significant concern that she frequently adopts one side of an argument presented to her, failing to give proper weight and consideration to the opposite position.
"Reports also suggested," the Commission said, "that the Candidate can and does lose her temper in the courtroom. Most significantly, the Commission observed that the Candidate was a poor listener, a critical weakness in a prospective appellate court judge. Accordingly, the Commission concluded that the Candidate lacks the skills necessary to serve adequately as a Judge of the Superior Court."
These were the exact failings wich led to a gross instance of miscarried justice in the case I cite above.
One wonders how a judge with those articulated disqualifications is equipped to serve on any court, much less the state Superior Court. Do Erie Countians deserve a judge who, according to her peers, "lacks proper judicial temperament and decorum," or one who "lacks the skills necessary to serve adequately" on the appellate court level? I don't think so.
Her judicial disqualifications aside, Domitrovich's clownish antics in the courtroom are legend. She once recessed a hearing in mid-progress, inconveniencing all parties, some of whom had travelled miles to reach the courthouse, because she had a hair appointment.
Don't be deceived by Domitrovich's glitzy but shallow self-contrived resume, voluminusly padded with inconsequeantial but high-sounding attributes. Vote "NO" in November against the retention of Domitrovich!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
What happened to the Erie Times-News's online readers' comment forum?
ADDENDUM: This morning, after this blog was posted, I received a response to my query addressed to Managing Editor Pat Howard as to when the Erie Times-News plans to resume online readers' comments. It came from Jeffrey Hileman/Managing Editor/New Media. He replied: "Mr. LaRocca – Pat Howard asked me to respond to your questions. GoErie.com plans to reintroduce reader comments as part of its redesign, though we do not yet have a start date." ____________________________________________________
Until last Spring, the Erie Times-News followed the relatively new practice adopted by most newspapers here and abroad in recent years of enabling readers of their online editions to comment freely on articles, in writing, by appending a comment box at the bottom of each article.
Then, without warning, The Times-News dropped the highly popular feature, a move which was explained by Managing Editor Pat Howard as a temporary one while the Times-News’s website – know as GoErie.com – was being reprogrammed or redesigned.
Howard promised readers the feature would be resumed soon thereafter. As all regular readers of GoErie.com know, to date it has not been resumed. And since neither Howard nor any Times-News person has revealed in the prolonged interim why it has been discontinued, or whether it will ever be resumed, readers remain gagged and in the dark.
I e-mailed Howard yesterday to ask him why the Times-News has discontinued online readers’ comments, whether it plans to resume them and, if so, when? Not surprisingly, I’ve not received a response from Howard. If I do, I’ll post it later on this blog. (See ADDENDUM above.)
The Times-News is not the only newspaper to discontinue online readers’ comments, but there have been only a handful nationwide.
While not within the rationale provided by Howard at the time the Times-News discontinued readers’ comments, most of the other newspapers which have done so have cited widespread abuse of the feature, primarily by anonymous bloggers who persistently engaged in ad hominem attacks which, if identifiable as to source, could be actionable, obscene language, irrelevant posts and other uncivil practices.
This is a common complaint lodged by virtually every newspaper which allows online readers’ comments. It is mitigated to some extent by some newspapers which attempt to monitor the abusive posts and delete them.
But because they receive hundreds to thousands of readers’ posts each day, depending upon the size of the newspaper, it’s virtually impossible for small newspapers with limited intellectual staff like the Times-News to monitor the comments effectively.
Big metro or national newspapers like the New York Times, USA Today, the LA Times, the Washington Post and others affluent enough to afford them have created staff positions whose exclusive province is to monitor and manage online readers’ comments, because they recognize that in this new era of the worldwide web they must follow the crowd if they are to survive in the fast-changing cyber environment.
In some but not all smaller newspapers, the vast majority of comments which are abusive make it into print. While the newspapers provide standing guidelines demanding civility for readers’ comments, they are almost universally ignored, and the newspapers are in most cases helpless to enforce them.
This leaves them with only two options: Either maintain the status quo and continue to suffer the abusive behavior – an unpleasant option at best - or discontinue the highly popular online readers’ comments altogether, and alienate their spiraling online readership. The latter is the path the Times-News has apparently chosen.
There is, however another option which would almost certainly eliminate most if not all of the abuses pertinent to online readers’ comments: disallow anonymity or psuedonymity, an option which I personally support. (See, for example, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd’s recent column on anonymous blogging, “Stung by the Perfect Sting,” Aug. 26, perhaps the only time I’ve ever agreed with her hyperbolic rants).
That aside, there’s an unspoken dynamic at play within this context which I believe is primarily responsible for the Times-News’s discontinuance of online readers’ comments, as opposed to the rationales asserted above.
An inordinate number of the anonymous ad hominem attacks and abuses were directed at the newspaper staff, its erratic news coverage, editorial stances and its ownership, the longstanding Times Publishing Co., a newspaper monopoly which over the years has swallowed up all the competition, both daily and weekly, except for the Corry Journal, throughout its northwestern PA circulation area, as well as parts of surrounding counties in New York and Ohio.
Much of the commentary, mostly anonymous, was highly critical in unflattering, indeed embarrassing terms of the Times-News’s news and editorial policies and practices and personnel, which are, with good reason, widely seen as biased, shallow, inaccurate, self-serving, unprofessional and arrogant (I concur). Moreover, its Letters to the Editor section is routinely mismanaged.
I believe the thin-skinned operatives at the Times-News chose to discontinue the feature rather than suffer sustained embarrassment at the hands of merciless bloggers, most of them anonymous.
While I do not post or blog anonymously, but always identify myself by name, I was a frequent online critic of articles published in the Times-News, as well as its overall news and editorial practices. While I am often blunt in my criticism, I pride myself on my civility. I do not presume, however, that the Times-News discontinued online readers’ comments because of my feeble and captious criticism.
The last comment I posted before online readers’ comments were discontinued occurred on April 12 of this year. In response to Howard’s regular Sunday column boasting of the Times-News’s showing at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Assn’s. awards program, I posted a detailed factual analysis showing that The Times-News’s performance was greatly exaggerated by Howard.
For one thing, the Times-News is not in the same competitive category as the Commonwealth’s major newspapers in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia. And several of the newspapers in towns smaller than Erie made a much better showing. (See my April 12, 2009 archive blog at http//.www.eriecounternewsmediablogspot.com.)
It should be noted that NO privately/corporately-owned newspaper is obliged to provide a forum for online readers and commenters. However, it ill-behooves any newspaper which persistently and piously preaches on behalf of First Amendment freedoms of press and speech, as the Times-News does, to be seen as a censor of populist expressions of opinion from the vast unwashed which the internet now makes readily and universally possible.
The Times-News is already criticized widely for crass rewriting and editing of Letters to the Editor which is tantamount to, if not actual censorship.
Until last Spring, the Erie Times-News followed the relatively new practice adopted by most newspapers here and abroad in recent years of enabling readers of their online editions to comment freely on articles, in writing, by appending a comment box at the bottom of each article.
Then, without warning, The Times-News dropped the highly popular feature, a move which was explained by Managing Editor Pat Howard as a temporary one while the Times-News’s website – know as GoErie.com – was being reprogrammed or redesigned.
Howard promised readers the feature would be resumed soon thereafter. As all regular readers of GoErie.com know, to date it has not been resumed. And since neither Howard nor any Times-News person has revealed in the prolonged interim why it has been discontinued, or whether it will ever be resumed, readers remain gagged and in the dark.
I e-mailed Howard yesterday to ask him why the Times-News has discontinued online readers’ comments, whether it plans to resume them and, if so, when? Not surprisingly, I’ve not received a response from Howard. If I do, I’ll post it later on this blog. (See ADDENDUM above.)
The Times-News is not the only newspaper to discontinue online readers’ comments, but there have been only a handful nationwide.
While not within the rationale provided by Howard at the time the Times-News discontinued readers’ comments, most of the other newspapers which have done so have cited widespread abuse of the feature, primarily by anonymous bloggers who persistently engaged in ad hominem attacks which, if identifiable as to source, could be actionable, obscene language, irrelevant posts and other uncivil practices.
This is a common complaint lodged by virtually every newspaper which allows online readers’ comments. It is mitigated to some extent by some newspapers which attempt to monitor the abusive posts and delete them.
But because they receive hundreds to thousands of readers’ posts each day, depending upon the size of the newspaper, it’s virtually impossible for small newspapers with limited intellectual staff like the Times-News to monitor the comments effectively.
Big metro or national newspapers like the New York Times, USA Today, the LA Times, the Washington Post and others affluent enough to afford them have created staff positions whose exclusive province is to monitor and manage online readers’ comments, because they recognize that in this new era of the worldwide web they must follow the crowd if they are to survive in the fast-changing cyber environment.
In some but not all smaller newspapers, the vast majority of comments which are abusive make it into print. While the newspapers provide standing guidelines demanding civility for readers’ comments, they are almost universally ignored, and the newspapers are in most cases helpless to enforce them.
This leaves them with only two options: Either maintain the status quo and continue to suffer the abusive behavior – an unpleasant option at best - or discontinue the highly popular online readers’ comments altogether, and alienate their spiraling online readership. The latter is the path the Times-News has apparently chosen.
There is, however another option which would almost certainly eliminate most if not all of the abuses pertinent to online readers’ comments: disallow anonymity or psuedonymity, an option which I personally support. (See, for example, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd’s recent column on anonymous blogging, “Stung by the Perfect Sting,” Aug. 26, perhaps the only time I’ve ever agreed with her hyperbolic rants).
That aside, there’s an unspoken dynamic at play within this context which I believe is primarily responsible for the Times-News’s discontinuance of online readers’ comments, as opposed to the rationales asserted above.
An inordinate number of the anonymous ad hominem attacks and abuses were directed at the newspaper staff, its erratic news coverage, editorial stances and its ownership, the longstanding Times Publishing Co., a newspaper monopoly which over the years has swallowed up all the competition, both daily and weekly, except for the Corry Journal, throughout its northwestern PA circulation area, as well as parts of surrounding counties in New York and Ohio.
Much of the commentary, mostly anonymous, was highly critical in unflattering, indeed embarrassing terms of the Times-News’s news and editorial policies and practices and personnel, which are, with good reason, widely seen as biased, shallow, inaccurate, self-serving, unprofessional and arrogant (I concur). Moreover, its Letters to the Editor section is routinely mismanaged.
I believe the thin-skinned operatives at the Times-News chose to discontinue the feature rather than suffer sustained embarrassment at the hands of merciless bloggers, most of them anonymous.
While I do not post or blog anonymously, but always identify myself by name, I was a frequent online critic of articles published in the Times-News, as well as its overall news and editorial practices. While I am often blunt in my criticism, I pride myself on my civility. I do not presume, however, that the Times-News discontinued online readers’ comments because of my feeble and captious criticism.
The last comment I posted before online readers’ comments were discontinued occurred on April 12 of this year. In response to Howard’s regular Sunday column boasting of the Times-News’s showing at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Assn’s. awards program, I posted a detailed factual analysis showing that The Times-News’s performance was greatly exaggerated by Howard.
For one thing, the Times-News is not in the same competitive category as the Commonwealth’s major newspapers in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia. And several of the newspapers in towns smaller than Erie made a much better showing. (See my April 12, 2009 archive blog at http//.www.eriecounternewsmediablogspot.com.)
It should be noted that NO privately/corporately-owned newspaper is obliged to provide a forum for online readers and commenters. However, it ill-behooves any newspaper which persistently and piously preaches on behalf of First Amendment freedoms of press and speech, as the Times-News does, to be seen as a censor of populist expressions of opinion from the vast unwashed which the internet now makes readily and universally possible.
The Times-News is already criticized widely for crass rewriting and editing of Letters to the Editor which is tantamount to, if not actual censorship.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Erie Times-News Review of Tom Ridge's book: a new low for mediocrity
The Erie Times News's much bally-hooed treatment of Tom Ridge's new book in today's edition penned by Reporter John Guerriero sets a new standard for mediocrity.
It consists primarily of an interview of Ridge, the first and former secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in the last Bush administration, Pennsylvania governor and Northwest PA congressman.
One wonders whether the reporter bothered to read the book, of which the Times-News boasted it had received an advance review copy, proclaiming it would present "the first print interview" based on the book, due for release Tuesday. An enterprising newspaper would have presented a package consisting of a full-blown critical review and a sidebar interview. But no one has ever accused the Times-News of being enterprising.
There is no independent critical analysis of the book or Ridge's comments on it, nor any quotes or comments from other political figures or prominent commentators in a position to present informed commentary either critical or supportive of the content of Ridge's memoirs.
There is only Ridge's self-serving self-analysis, a simulacrum of a playwright who writes a critique of his own play. Nothing in the "review" complements the book's bland title, "The Test of Our Times."
If there's anything "new" or original in the book, the reporter failed to ferret it out, possibly because he quickly scanned the index and selective passages, rather than reading it in toto, the Cliff Notes approach.
The Times-News had a rare opportunity for a national "scoop," but blew it on a pandering epistle predictably massaging the inflated Ridge ego.
Headlined "Ridge book offers Beltway insight," the article consists mostly of hindsight.
Much is made of the already exhausted "buzz" over whether Bush administration officials, including the president, pressured Ridge to raise the color code alarm just prior to the 2004 general election in order to boost his reelection prospects over the Democrat nominee John Kerry. Ridge denies there was any pressure, according to the article, although the issue was debated among administration officials, with the consensus, which included Ridge, prevailing against heightening the color code.
Lost in this contrived and politically inspired imbroglio raised by Democrats and liberal media to embarrass the Bush administration is the reality that terroristic threats are always more likely within the context of a national election, and proposals to raise the alarm appropos terrorism are fully justified. Check out the recent elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terroristic suicide bombings have plagued their electorates.
The reporter writes: "Despite his disagreement with the GOP over the Chambliss campaign commercial and some of his conflicts in the Bush administration, Ridge said he plans to stay involved with the Republican Party. 'I think I can still offer some advice and support and counsel and be a force within the party. Time will tell,' he said."
But Ridge, a faux Republican a la Arlen Specter is more likely to be viewed, at least within the GOP's conservative wing, as a prospective turncoat, the spy within, given his deprecating comments thereof. His "involvement" may be suspect and unwelcome. So far, he's been more of a "force" for the opposing party than for the one to which he putatively belongs.
It consists primarily of an interview of Ridge, the first and former secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in the last Bush administration, Pennsylvania governor and Northwest PA congressman.
One wonders whether the reporter bothered to read the book, of which the Times-News boasted it had received an advance review copy, proclaiming it would present "the first print interview" based on the book, due for release Tuesday. An enterprising newspaper would have presented a package consisting of a full-blown critical review and a sidebar interview. But no one has ever accused the Times-News of being enterprising.
There is no independent critical analysis of the book or Ridge's comments on it, nor any quotes or comments from other political figures or prominent commentators in a position to present informed commentary either critical or supportive of the content of Ridge's memoirs.
There is only Ridge's self-serving self-analysis, a simulacrum of a playwright who writes a critique of his own play. Nothing in the "review" complements the book's bland title, "The Test of Our Times."
If there's anything "new" or original in the book, the reporter failed to ferret it out, possibly because he quickly scanned the index and selective passages, rather than reading it in toto, the Cliff Notes approach.
The Times-News had a rare opportunity for a national "scoop," but blew it on a pandering epistle predictably massaging the inflated Ridge ego.
Headlined "Ridge book offers Beltway insight," the article consists mostly of hindsight.
Much is made of the already exhausted "buzz" over whether Bush administration officials, including the president, pressured Ridge to raise the color code alarm just prior to the 2004 general election in order to boost his reelection prospects over the Democrat nominee John Kerry. Ridge denies there was any pressure, according to the article, although the issue was debated among administration officials, with the consensus, which included Ridge, prevailing against heightening the color code.
Lost in this contrived and politically inspired imbroglio raised by Democrats and liberal media to embarrass the Bush administration is the reality that terroristic threats are always more likely within the context of a national election, and proposals to raise the alarm appropos terrorism are fully justified. Check out the recent elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terroristic suicide bombings have plagued their electorates.
The reporter writes: "Despite his disagreement with the GOP over the Chambliss campaign commercial and some of his conflicts in the Bush administration, Ridge said he plans to stay involved with the Republican Party. 'I think I can still offer some advice and support and counsel and be a force within the party. Time will tell,' he said."
But Ridge, a faux Republican a la Arlen Specter is more likely to be viewed, at least within the GOP's conservative wing, as a prospective turncoat, the spy within, given his deprecating comments thereof. His "involvement" may be suspect and unwelcome. So far, he's been more of a "force" for the opposing party than for the one to which he putatively belongs.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Hubbert's "Peak Oil" theory debunked
Not too long ago I wrote in this blog a brief essay pooh-poohing the prevalent theory that both U.S. and global oil production had already or soon would "peak," as consumption outran remaining and diminishing petroleum reserves. One commenter took me to task for presuming to criticise Author Hubbert's "peak oil" theory. Here's what I wrote back in 2008:
For several years now, the conventional wisdom has subscribed to a theory called "peak oil," which stands for the proposition that at some point the availability of petroleum reserves reached a peak in the United States and began irreversibly dwindling.
The theory was first advanced by a book entitled Hubbert's Peak, whose central premise holds that U.S. domestic petroleum supplies peaked in 1970. But it's deeply flawed by a major factual error.
The author failed to take into account the fact that how much producible oil remains within domestic oil provinces depends entirely upon the going market price for oil. For example, at $100 per barrel, much more oil is producible than at $50. Pick your figures.
On Alaska's North Slope, both onshore and offshore, more than 14 billion barrels of oil have been produced since its inception in 1977, flowing at rates ranging between about 1 million and 2 million barrels per day. Nearby is a deposit of what is known as 'heavy oil,' not unlike the Athabasca tar sands in northwestern Canada, which exploratory drilling has shown contains an estimated 20 billion barrels of oil.
However, because of reservoir dynamics, these reserves are not economically producible at today's market prices for oil, but will eventually be producible at some higher figure depending upon demand.
There are scores of unexplored areas throughout the U.S. both onshore and offshore in state oceanic waters up to the three-mile limit and between three and 12 miles in federal waters overlying the outer continental shelf. Billions of barrels of oil may underlie the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), as well as the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska.
Neither Mr. Hubbert, nor anyone, can know when or where more oil may be found until all these prospective areas are identified. In short, Mr. Hubbert has presumed to identify and quantify a natural resource, which is unidentifiable and unquantifiable without further exploration activities.
Thus, his central premise is nonsensical. Mr. Hubbert's research is formidable, but his mind set has led him to the wrong conclusions. This same rationale applies to his similarly erroneous thesis regarding global 'peak oil.'
Here's an analysis from today's New York Times which vindicates my view.
New York Times Op-Ed Contributor
‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
August 27. 2009
By Michael Lynch
(Michael Lynch, the former director for Asian energy and security at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an energy consultant.)
REMEMBER “peak oil”? It’s the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe. Well, just when we thought that the collapse in oil prices since last summer had put an end to such talk, along comes Fatih Birol, the top economist at the International Energy Agency, to insist that we’ll reach the peak moment in 10 years, a decade sooner than most previous predictions (although a few ardent pessimists believe the moment of no return has already come and gone).
Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak oil theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material. But because the news media and prominent figures like James Schlesinger, a former secretary of energy, and the oilman T. Boone Pickens have taken peak oil seriously, the public is understandably alarmed.
A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum. And this has been demonstrated over and over again: the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil first claimed in 1989 that the peak had already been reached, and Mr. Schlesinger argued a decade earlier that production was unlikely to ever go much higher.
Mr. Birol isn’t the only one still worrying. One leading proponent of peak oil, the writer Paul Roberts, recently expressed shock to discover that the liquid coming out of the Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest known deposit, is around 35 percent water and rising. But this is hardly a concern — the buildup is caused by the Saudis pumping seawater into the field to keep pressure up and make extraction easier. The global average for water in oil field yields is estimated to be as high as 75 percent.
Another critic, a prominent consultant and investor named Matthew Simmons, has raised concerns over oil engineers using “fuzzy logic” to estimate reservoir holdings. But fuzzy logic is a programming method that has been used since I was in graduate school in situations where the factors are hazy and variable — everything from physical science to international relations — and its track record in oil geology has been quite good.
But those are just the latest arguments — for the most part the peak-oil crowd rests its case on three major claims: that the world is discovering only one barrel for every three or four produced; that political instability in oil-producing countries puts us at an unprecedented risk of having the spigots turned off; and that we have already used half of the two trillion barrels of oil that the earth contained.
Let’s take the rate-of-discovery argument first: it is a statement that reflects ignorance of industry terminology. When a new field is found, it is given a size estimate that indicates how much is thought to be recoverable at that point in time. But as years pass, the estimate is almost always revised upward, either because more pockets of oil are found in the field or because new technology makes it possible to extract oil that was previously unreachable. Yet because petroleum geologists don’t report that additional recoverable oil as “newly discovered,” the peak oil advocates tend to ignore it. In truth, the combination of new discoveries and revisions to size estimates of older fields has been keeping pace with production for many years.
A related argument — that the “easy oil” is gone and that extraction can only become more difficult and cost-ineffective — should be recognized as vague and irrelevant. Drillers in Persia a century ago certainly didn’t consider their work easy, and the mechanized, computerized industry of today is a far sight from 19th-century mule-drawn rigs. Hundreds of fields that produce “easy oil” today were once thought technologically unreachable.
The latest acorn in the discovery debate is a recent increase in the overall estimated rate at which production is declining in large oil fields. This is assumed to be the result of the “superstraw” technologies that have become dominant over the past decade, which can drain fields faster than ever. True, because quicker extraction causes the fluid pressure in the field to drop rapidly, the wells become less and less productive over time. But this declining return on individual wells doesn’t necessarily mean that whole fields are being cleaned out. As the Saudis have proved in recent years at Ghawar, additional investment — to find new deposits and drill new wells — can keep a field’s overall production from falling.
When their shaky claims on geology are exposed, the peak-oil advocates tend to argue that today’s geopolitical instability needs to be taken into consideration. But political risk is hardly new: a leading Communist labor organizer in the Baku oil industry in the early 1900s would later be known to the world as Josef Stalin.
When the large supply disruptions of 1973 and 1979 led to skyrocketing prices, nearly all oil experts said the underlying cause was resource scarcity and that prices would go ever higher in the future. The oil companies diversified their investments — Mobil even started buying up department stores! — and President Jimmy Carter pushed for the development of synthetic fuels like shale oil, arguing that markets were too myopic to realize the imminent need for substitutes. All sorts of policy wonks, energy consultants and Nobel-prize-winning economists jumped on the bandwagon to explain that prices would only go up — even though they had never done so historically. Prices instead proceeded to slide for two decades, rather as the tide ignored King Canute.
Just as, in the 1970s, it was the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution, today it is the invasion of Iraq and instability in Venezuela and Nigeria. But the solution, as ever, is for the industry to shift investment into new regions, and that’s what it is doing. Yet peak-oil advocates take advantage of the inevitable delay in bringing this new production on line to claim that global production is on an irreversible decline.
In the end, perhaps the most misleading claim of the peak-oil advocates is that the earth was endowed with only 2 trillion barrels of “recoverable” oil. Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way. And this doesn’t even include such potential sources as tar sands, which in time we may be able to efficiently tap.
Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota. But that may not keep the Chicken Littles from convincing policymakers in Washington and elsewhere that oil, being finite, must increase in price. (That’s the logic that led the Carter administration to create the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a $3 billion boondoggle that never produced a gallon of useable fuel.)
This is not to say that we shouldn’t keep looking for other cost-effective, low-pollution energy sources — why not broaden our options? But we can’t let the false threat of disappearing oil lead the government to throw money away on harebrained renewable energy schemes or impose unnecessary and expensive conservation measures on a public already struggling through tough economic times.
For several years now, the conventional wisdom has subscribed to a theory called "peak oil," which stands for the proposition that at some point the availability of petroleum reserves reached a peak in the United States and began irreversibly dwindling.
The theory was first advanced by a book entitled Hubbert's Peak, whose central premise holds that U.S. domestic petroleum supplies peaked in 1970. But it's deeply flawed by a major factual error.
The author failed to take into account the fact that how much producible oil remains within domestic oil provinces depends entirely upon the going market price for oil. For example, at $100 per barrel, much more oil is producible than at $50. Pick your figures.
On Alaska's North Slope, both onshore and offshore, more than 14 billion barrels of oil have been produced since its inception in 1977, flowing at rates ranging between about 1 million and 2 million barrels per day. Nearby is a deposit of what is known as 'heavy oil,' not unlike the Athabasca tar sands in northwestern Canada, which exploratory drilling has shown contains an estimated 20 billion barrels of oil.
However, because of reservoir dynamics, these reserves are not economically producible at today's market prices for oil, but will eventually be producible at some higher figure depending upon demand.
There are scores of unexplored areas throughout the U.S. both onshore and offshore in state oceanic waters up to the three-mile limit and between three and 12 miles in federal waters overlying the outer continental shelf. Billions of barrels of oil may underlie the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), as well as the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska.
Neither Mr. Hubbert, nor anyone, can know when or where more oil may be found until all these prospective areas are identified. In short, Mr. Hubbert has presumed to identify and quantify a natural resource, which is unidentifiable and unquantifiable without further exploration activities.
Thus, his central premise is nonsensical. Mr. Hubbert's research is formidable, but his mind set has led him to the wrong conclusions. This same rationale applies to his similarly erroneous thesis regarding global 'peak oil.'
Here's an analysis from today's New York Times which vindicates my view.
New York Times Op-Ed Contributor
‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
August 27. 2009
By Michael Lynch
(Michael Lynch, the former director for Asian energy and security at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an energy consultant.)
REMEMBER “peak oil”? It’s the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe. Well, just when we thought that the collapse in oil prices since last summer had put an end to such talk, along comes Fatih Birol, the top economist at the International Energy Agency, to insist that we’ll reach the peak moment in 10 years, a decade sooner than most previous predictions (although a few ardent pessimists believe the moment of no return has already come and gone).
Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak oil theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material. But because the news media and prominent figures like James Schlesinger, a former secretary of energy, and the oilman T. Boone Pickens have taken peak oil seriously, the public is understandably alarmed.
A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum. And this has been demonstrated over and over again: the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil first claimed in 1989 that the peak had already been reached, and Mr. Schlesinger argued a decade earlier that production was unlikely to ever go much higher.
Mr. Birol isn’t the only one still worrying. One leading proponent of peak oil, the writer Paul Roberts, recently expressed shock to discover that the liquid coming out of the Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest known deposit, is around 35 percent water and rising. But this is hardly a concern — the buildup is caused by the Saudis pumping seawater into the field to keep pressure up and make extraction easier. The global average for water in oil field yields is estimated to be as high as 75 percent.
Another critic, a prominent consultant and investor named Matthew Simmons, has raised concerns over oil engineers using “fuzzy logic” to estimate reservoir holdings. But fuzzy logic is a programming method that has been used since I was in graduate school in situations where the factors are hazy and variable — everything from physical science to international relations — and its track record in oil geology has been quite good.
But those are just the latest arguments — for the most part the peak-oil crowd rests its case on three major claims: that the world is discovering only one barrel for every three or four produced; that political instability in oil-producing countries puts us at an unprecedented risk of having the spigots turned off; and that we have already used half of the two trillion barrels of oil that the earth contained.
Let’s take the rate-of-discovery argument first: it is a statement that reflects ignorance of industry terminology. When a new field is found, it is given a size estimate that indicates how much is thought to be recoverable at that point in time. But as years pass, the estimate is almost always revised upward, either because more pockets of oil are found in the field or because new technology makes it possible to extract oil that was previously unreachable. Yet because petroleum geologists don’t report that additional recoverable oil as “newly discovered,” the peak oil advocates tend to ignore it. In truth, the combination of new discoveries and revisions to size estimates of older fields has been keeping pace with production for many years.
A related argument — that the “easy oil” is gone and that extraction can only become more difficult and cost-ineffective — should be recognized as vague and irrelevant. Drillers in Persia a century ago certainly didn’t consider their work easy, and the mechanized, computerized industry of today is a far sight from 19th-century mule-drawn rigs. Hundreds of fields that produce “easy oil” today were once thought technologically unreachable.
The latest acorn in the discovery debate is a recent increase in the overall estimated rate at which production is declining in large oil fields. This is assumed to be the result of the “superstraw” technologies that have become dominant over the past decade, which can drain fields faster than ever. True, because quicker extraction causes the fluid pressure in the field to drop rapidly, the wells become less and less productive over time. But this declining return on individual wells doesn’t necessarily mean that whole fields are being cleaned out. As the Saudis have proved in recent years at Ghawar, additional investment — to find new deposits and drill new wells — can keep a field’s overall production from falling.
When their shaky claims on geology are exposed, the peak-oil advocates tend to argue that today’s geopolitical instability needs to be taken into consideration. But political risk is hardly new: a leading Communist labor organizer in the Baku oil industry in the early 1900s would later be known to the world as Josef Stalin.
When the large supply disruptions of 1973 and 1979 led to skyrocketing prices, nearly all oil experts said the underlying cause was resource scarcity and that prices would go ever higher in the future. The oil companies diversified their investments — Mobil even started buying up department stores! — and President Jimmy Carter pushed for the development of synthetic fuels like shale oil, arguing that markets were too myopic to realize the imminent need for substitutes. All sorts of policy wonks, energy consultants and Nobel-prize-winning economists jumped on the bandwagon to explain that prices would only go up — even though they had never done so historically. Prices instead proceeded to slide for two decades, rather as the tide ignored King Canute.
Just as, in the 1970s, it was the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution, today it is the invasion of Iraq and instability in Venezuela and Nigeria. But the solution, as ever, is for the industry to shift investment into new regions, and that’s what it is doing. Yet peak-oil advocates take advantage of the inevitable delay in bringing this new production on line to claim that global production is on an irreversible decline.
In the end, perhaps the most misleading claim of the peak-oil advocates is that the earth was endowed with only 2 trillion barrels of “recoverable” oil. Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way. And this doesn’t even include such potential sources as tar sands, which in time we may be able to efficiently tap.
Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota. But that may not keep the Chicken Littles from convincing policymakers in Washington and elsewhere that oil, being finite, must increase in price. (That’s the logic that led the Carter administration to create the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a $3 billion boondoggle that never produced a gallon of useable fuel.)
This is not to say that we shouldn’t keep looking for other cost-effective, low-pollution energy sources — why not broaden our options? But we can’t let the false threat of disappearing oil lead the government to throw money away on harebrained renewable energy schemes or impose unnecessary and expensive conservation measures on a public already struggling through tough economic times.
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