But the silliness of SOPA/PIPA isn’t my point today. The outcry against SOPA/PIPA is good, and hopefully gets the attention of our “representatives.” But where is the outrage about even more important issues? A healthy planet is necessary to sustaining life, but other than some minor stories about the Keystone XL pipeline protests and fracking, climate change and other environmental problems aren’t getting much attention. Much of the coverage these problems get is uncritical repetition of various politician’s claims that the problems don’t exist. Or what about abortion? There are about 2200 abortions per day in the United States, even though the right to life is one of the most fundamental rights.

Protests and letter writing campaigns against bad laws such as SOPA/PIPA are good, but we must also take serious action against other important problems.

Now, for a funny thought….

If I was evil, I’d have created one of the anti-SOPA/PIPA JavaScript overlays. It would be a nice clean one that you can click to get around, and it would have a cookie for each site so you only see it once. But then, half way through the day, I’d insert an ad that must be clicked before viewing the site. Muhaha!

But I’m too ethical to do that, which is why I’ll never make any money.

Suggested reading:

• Google: More about SOPA and PIPA – End Piracy, Not Liberty
• Internet Archive: 12 Hours Dark: Internet Archive vs. Censorship
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: January 18: Internet-Wide Protests Against the Blacklist Legislation
• SOPA Blackout
• Slate: Why Should We Stop Online Piracy?
• John Peebles: Why Does This Have to Be So Hard?

competitiofideism

Literally, faith in competition or rivalry.

The belief that all competition is inherently good and that since some competition is good, more is better.

The irrational belief that competition is the solution to all problems.

ORIGIN this post: from late Latin competitio- ‘rivalry’ + from Latin fides ‘faith’ + -ism

Competitiofideism is a widespread belief among American political philosophies and economic theories. I think that competitiofideism is a useful term for classifying these views.

I am pro-clean air. I am pro-clean water.
—Rand Paul

Libertarians invariably claim they want clean air and water, but then go out of the way to ensure that gratuitous damage to the earth continues. An example of this pattern is Senator Rand Paul’s recent attempt to prevent the EPA from regulating cross-state pollution from power plants. Paul opposes these environmental protections by using a typical libertarian objection:

I think we can have a clean environment and jobs, but not if we let this administration continue to pass job-killing regulations.

Senator Paul creates a false dichotomy between employment and limits on pollution, he then—following the universal libertarian environmental view—fails to propose a solution that is compatible with his libertarianism. This is a problem.

For any view to be part of a serious philosophy, it must be able to deal with reality. Science is clear on the causes and severity of environmental damage, and technology provides many options for practical solutions to many of our current environmental problems. Given the clear harm, any acceptable philosophy must be able to integrate an account of the cause of the problem and be able to suggest a self-consistent solution to the problem. If a philosophy is at odds with reality, it cannot be taken seriously, and should then be discarded.

If libertarianism is a serious political philosophy it must recognize the existence and severity of environmental damage, and it must be able to create a solution to stop the damage that is compatible with libertarian ideals. But libertarianism—at least in common practice—does not provide a path to solve our environmental problems. In fact, it typically ignores the uncontroversial science by denying the harm caused and its clear implications. This failure to agree with reality is what originally led me to conclude that libertarianism is not a valid position.¹

However, not that everyone who claims a political philosophy conforms completely to that philosophy or weighs each part equally. Rand Paul himself is a good example of this sort of inconsistency: he is one of the most prominent libertarians, but is pro-life. Many libertarians would consider the pro-life position to be an unjustified government intrusion on a woman’s liberty. But Senator Paul recognizes the sanctity of life, saying, “It is unconscionable that government would facilitate the taking of innocent life.” This position can be supported from a libertarian worldview by (correctly) saying that the pro-life position is protects the liberty of the unborn child. This is simply an case of attaching different weights to different liberties. However, to fulfil the requirement that a philosophy must be internally consistent, a person making this argument must recognize that the same line of reasoning is behind pollution regulations. That is, one person’s imagined liberty must be restricted in order to ensure the liberty of others.

The particular set of EPA rules that Senator Paul proposed rejecting—placing some limits on a narrow (but large) type of pollution—is a another clear example of a limit an one type of liberty outweighing another. Even if we oversimplify and use a merely economic analysis, these rules will create a healthcare benefit two orders of magnitude larger than their cost. The EPA estimates that these rules will save at least 13 000 people a year from premature death. As seen in previous posts, this sort of lopsided benefit is to be expected. Just as a child’s right to not be killed outweighs a mother’s liberty to change her mind about having a child, the right of millions of people not to be caused significant health damage outweighs the liberty of a few people to slightly increase their profit. Health issues are only one aspect of the many environmental problems, considering other impacts only widens the already 100 to 1 benefit to cost ratio.

A philosophy must be internally consistent, and must be able to explain and solve any problem. So, libertarian politicians want to be taken seriously by thinking people, they must acknowledge the problems and propose realistic solutions. If one’s philosophy causes one to ignore reality or be unable to propose solutions, one is obligated to reexamine it.

Sources:

• McClatchy DC: Senate defeats Rand Paul’s resolution to kill EPA cross-state rules
• EPA: Cross-State Air Pollution Rule
• Rand Paul: Issues: Sanctity of Life

The Bakken Formation is part of the Williston Basin Province. For a good short introduction, see the USGS Fact Sheet: Assessment of Undiscovered Oil Resources in the Devonian-Mississippian Bakken Formation, Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota, 2008. Note that while some of the oil is conventional, the Bakken Formation is largely a continuous source. This means special techniques such as hydraulic fracturing are required to extract this oil. It isn’t the conventional “drill a hole and start pumping” sort of source.

The current best estimate of the Bakken Formation is that it contains 3.65 (between 3.0 and 4.3) billion barrels of “undiscovered, technically recoverable oil.” As exploration continues, the estimate for undiscovered, technically recoverable oil will be replaced with an estimate of proven reserves. Both figures are typically significantly lower than (<1/10) the estimate of in place oil, but as we’ll see, this email constantly confuses these numbers.

Here is the quoted email along with my notes and corrections:

From: Jack …
To: …
Sent: Sun, Sep 25, 2011 1:53 pm
Subject: OIL- You better be sitting down when you read this !!!!!!

How many of you can I talk into calling your state senator/representative and suggest that they curtain the tree huggers and get folks working producing oil. Jack

OIL – You better be sitting down when you read this !!!!!! EVERYTHING HERE CAN BE VERIFIED: SEE THE LINKS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE.

Ah, linking to sources to provide credibility. As we’ll see, this is only prima facie credibility, checking the sources changes the conclusion.

As you may know, Cruz Construction started a division in North Dakota just 6 months ago.

Cruz Construction is an oilfield services company. It appears that this email may have started as a Cruz Construction marketing message, but if not, it is at least free advertising.

They send every Kenworth (9 trucks) we had here in Alaska to North Dakota and several drivers.

They just bought two new Kenworth’s to add to that fleet; one being a Tri Drive tractor and a new 65 ton lowboy to go with it.

They also bought two new cranes (one crawler & one rubber tired) for that division.

Dave Cruz said they have moved more rigs in the last 6 months in ND than Cruz Construction moved in Alaska in the last 6 years.

This is all irrelevant to the message.

Williston is like a gold rush town; they moved one of our 40 man camps down there since there are no rooms available.

Wait, “gold rush town” is a positive term?

Unemployment in ND is the lowest in the nation at 3.4 percent last I checked.

The unemployment for North Dakota is 3.5%, for the entire US it is currently 9.1. This is irrelevant, but true. ND unemployment rate is increasing.

See anything in the national news about how the oil industry is fueling North Dakota’s economy?

No, but this is because news means something changed.

Here’s an astonishing read. Important and verifiable information:

About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.

The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer;

how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together."

The story is irrelevant and unsourced, but the claim about US versus Middle East oil is important to check. The numbers we need are easy to find:

The USA has ~20.68 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

The Middle East has ~753.36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

This means that the Middle East has over 36 times the proven oil reserves as the USA.

The U. S… Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big.

It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana.

The USGS press release is real, but the way it is reported in this email is misleading.

Even if it is true that only these groups knew it was coming, this is irrelevant; are the ones who knew it was coming because they are the ones paying attention. The way this is stated it is meant to sound like the report was way out of date, but this isn’t accurate. Rocks aren’t exactly fast changing, so these studies don’t need to be updated often. The change in the estimate is due to the improved models and more advanced extraction techniques.

Check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable (5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

This paragraph has a number of problems:

We have been drilling Bakken since the 1950s, but drilling has recently increased. The Prudhoe Bay field was actually discovered in 1968, years after parts of Bakken were already producing.

I traced the 503 billion barrel estimate to a draft study by the late Leigh Price, who was a USGS organic geochemist. The study was never completed, but the draft was made available by the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center. The study was clearly in draft state, with the estimates variously reported as 200–400 and 271–503 billion barrels. It is important to note that this is an estimate for the quantity of oil in place. This does not mean the amount recoverable, which is much lower. The current EIA Annual Energy Outlook estimate for unconventional oil fields is that 8% will be recoverable.

This email estimates 10% recoverable, or 50 billion barrels. Notice the factor of 10 error stating that 5 billion barrels (1%) will be recoverable. Using the 50 billion barrels number this puts the oil at $5.4 trillion, using the 5 billion barrels number in the email puts this at $540 billion. Using the current best estimate for a maximum of 4.3 billion barrels extractable, the maximum recoverable value of the Bakken oil is $500 billion.

Even the high estimate for total North American proved oil reserves is lower than than this email’s estimate for the amount extractable from the Bakken Formations.

"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.

They had no idea…” says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’

It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.

The reaction of politicians to this news is irrelevant.

For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.

Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.

However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves,

and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil,

those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!

As I’ve already shown, the 500 billion barrels is a significant overstatement of the recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation.

I don’t know where the $16/barrel cost came from, but it is an extremely optimistic number. The extraction of oil from the Bakken Formation has increased as higher prices support more expensive extraction techniques, so expecting this oil to be extracted at $16/barrel is unrealistic. Additionally, this ignores the fact that oil is sold on a world market.

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.

Using the current rate of petroleum product consumption in the US (with no growth), the Bakken Formation would supply the US for less than one year. That’s a long way from 2041 years. The email is internally inconsistent with numbers, but if I’m generous and say it means 30 years, it is still off in US oil consumption by a minimum of either 4.2 or 42 times. That is, the email claims that USA uses either 24% to 2.4% of the oil we actually do. If we only used 24% of the petroleum that we actually do, we could stop importing oil and our domestic supplies would last twice as long. That’s a reasonable conservation goal, but that’s the opposite of what this email is promoting.

And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should – because it’s from 2006 !!!!!!

U.. S. Oil Discovery – Largest Reserve in the World.

Stansberry Report Online – 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.

It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted.

It looks like this section was modified from an earlier email. Notice that this is yet another internal inconsistency: this estimate is four times the estimate used earlier in the email, which was already over one hundred times the current best estimate of the quantity of recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation. And as seen above, we have been extracting this oil for decades at an increasing pace. 105 million barrels of oil extracted from Bakken between the 1950s and 2007 is a long way from “none”.

With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:

8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

18 times as much oil as Iraq

21 times as much oil as Kuwait

22 times as much oil as Iran

500 times as much oil as Yemen

And it’s all right here in the Western United States !!!!!!

Also notice that once again, the email is comparing proven reserves to in place oil.

So what’s the real comparison? Comparing apples-to-apples: the Middle East has over 36 times the proven reserves that the United States does. Remember, the email is claiming that the USA has not only more oil than these countries combined, but the entire world combined. Here are the actual current estimates:

The email’s comparison of the US and Saudi Arabian reserves is off by a factor of 100: we don’t have 8x the oil of Saudi Arabia, they have 12x the proven reserves we do.

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy. WHY?

This is just false. As we’ve seen, we have been extracting this oil for decades, and the rate has significantly increased in the past few years. Even if we somehow had immediate access to the full supply of this oil Formation, it wouldn’t even let us be independent of foreign oil for one year.

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

Again?

Don’t think ‘OPEC’ will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, it has to.

Now this is odd. The email recognizes that oil is an international competitive market, but wants OPEC to “drop its price” because of an old update to the estimate of the amount of oil found in part of the USA. This is a gross misunderstanding of the oil market. To oversimplify: Oil is a fungible commodity on a world market, so the price is determined by the total world extraction & refining rate and the total world demand. This means that for OPEC to “drop its price”, it would have to increase its extraction rate enough to significantly change the world supply, which it has no reason to do. (The EIA has a good explanation of the world oil market.)

Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

This is also an odd and irrelevant claim. Particularly since oil industry funding of anti-environmentalist organizations is so well documented.

Got your attention yet? Now, while you’re thinking about it, do this:

Pass this along. If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you complain about gas prices. By doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to everyone in your address book.

If nothing else in this email raised your suspicion, the exhortation to forward it should.

By the way, this can be verified. Check it out at the link below !!!!!! http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

As shown above, while this news release does confirm a couple of the points in this email, it also contradicts the other 2/3 of the email. And that’s before you read the FAQ.

Curz Construction: http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services.php

It is interesting that instead of citing another source, the email cites a oilfield service company that is currently expanding its operations in North Dakota.

After researching my response, I found that Snopes had already debunked an earlier version. Independent verifications like this are why I recommend at least checking Snopes before forwarding this sort of email.

It is clear that there is nothing substantial to this email’s claim that we can have cheap gas and petroleum independence by simply extracting more oil from North Dakota. Even if we were somehow able to rapidly increase the oil extraction rate in the Williston basin, it wouldn’t significantly change gas prices. The way to free ourselves from foreign oil is through efficiency and alternative energy sources.

Update: After writing this, I looked at the article on Snopes. It appears that Snopes’ attribution of the origin of this email to a 2006 investment marketing letter is accurate.

The purpose of the Antiquities Act is to allow the President to create National Monuments to protect areas of archeological or scientific interest without requiring Congressional action. This is particularly important when an influential corporation, typically with the support of the Governor and Senators, wants to exploit a natural resource of federal lands. This ‘reclamation’ is usually allowed with the proper permits, but there are many areas that should be left mostly undisturbed. The Antiquities Act provides a way for the President to directly create the needed protection of federal land. While largely passed to protect western areas from artifact hunters, the Antiquities Act is also useful for protecting natural areas. For example, Bill Clinton used the Act to protect an area of Utah from coal mining interests by creating the popular Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

A new round of challenges to the Antiquities Act has begun during the 112^th Congress. Using accountability or the state sovereignty trope as cause, several bills have been introduced, with the latest hearings taking place this week. These bills remove the effectiveness of the Antiquities Act by requiring Congressional Action for each National Monument. Congress already has the power to override presidentially proclaimed National Monuments and to create or alter National Monuments. After the donation of the land for Jackson Hole National Monument by John D Rockefeller, Jr, Congress created an exemption from the Antiquities Act for Wyoming. Congress opposed the creation of Jackson Hole National Monument, but eventually added most of it to Grand Teton National Park. After Jimmy Carter created a number of large National Monuments in Alaska, Congress added restrictions to the application of the Antiquities Act in Alaska. In the past Congress has exercised its power over National Monuments by creating them, changing their boundaries, eliminating them, and even converting them to National Parks. This means that the ‘accountability’ argument isn’t actually over accountability, but is an excuse to eliminate the Antiquities Act without actually removing it from the Federal Code. The state sovereignty argument is also irrelevant: the lands under consideration are already federal land. The state sovereignty argument is simply an attempt to move the lands to state control, where corporations seeking to exploit public resources can more easily obtain permission to do so. I support the general concept of moving government activities to the lowest level of government reasonable, but history shows that in the case of conservation this often means a choice between federal regulation and no regulation. Because of this practical observation, it is important that the Antiquities Act remains undiluted.

The Bills

Here is a summary of bills related to the Antiquities Act that have been introduced in the current Congress. A rejected amendment to another bill is excluded from this list. All of the sponsors are Republicans.

H.R.758

National Monument Designation Transparency and Accountability Act
Devin Nunes (CA) & 24 other Republicans (large overlap with H.R.817)

• The President must notify Congress & Governor and hold hearings
• There must be a study of impacts, including impact on oil and coal extraction
• Without congressional approval the National Monument expires in 2 years

H.R.817

To amend the Antiquities Act of 1906 to place additional requirements on the establishment of national monuments under that Act, and for other purposes.
Wally Herger (CA) & 9 others (large overlap with H.R.758)

• National Monuments are subject to approval by an Act of Congress

H.R.845

Denny Rehberg (MT)

• Add Montana to Wyoming’s exemption

• Require Congressional approval to act on Secretary of the Interior’s Order No. 3310

  • Order No. 3310 states that "…the protection of the wilderness characteristics of public lands is a high priority for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and is an integral component of its multiple use mission." This order requires the value as wilderness to be considered in land use plans.

H.R.2147

Utah Land Sovereignty Act
Rob Bishop (UT) & 1 other

• add Utah to Wyoming’s Antiquities Act exemption

S.144

A bill to prohibit the further extension or establishment of national monuments in Nevada except by express authorization of Congress.
John Ensign (NV, resigned)

• Adds Nevada to Wyoming’s exemption

S.407

National Monument Designation Transparency and Accountability Act of 2011
Mike Crapo (ID, R) & 8 others

• More verbose version of H.R.758

S.927

Agency Overreach Moratorium Act
David Vitter (LA)

• Prohibit resource extraction permits to be withdrawn without an Act of Congress
• Require an Act of Congress to implement a National Monument
• Before any Federal agency makes any changes related to permits for natural resource extraction, the Secretary of Commerce must submit to Congress an analysis of revenue and property rights impacts

S.1182

A bill to prohibit the further extension or establishment of national monuments in Utah except by express authorization of Congress.
Orrin G Hatch (UT) & 1 other

• Same as H.R.2147

References:

• GOP wants to give Congress veto on national monuments: the story that brought this to my attention.
• Antiquities Act of 1906: a history of the Act from the National Park Service, including a list of when various National Monuments were established, and whether they were created by Congress or the President
• Bishop seek to strip president of monument designations power
• Western lawmakers rail against new national monuments on public lands
• Bush Eyes Unprecedented Conservation Program: includes a history section The Highs and Lows of the Antiquities Act
• National Monuments and the Antiquities Act: a 2010 CRS Report for Congress
• The Antiquities Act and National Monuments: A Progressive Conservation Legacy
• NPS Archeology Program: 1906–2006 Monuments List
• § 431, § 431A, § 432, § 433: The Antiquities Act as it now stands

Well, the United States has indefinitely given up on independently flying to space. It’s time to hurry up and start seriously working on a new NASA vehicle to launch humans into space.

For those who say that not using the Shuttle anymore is no big deal because it is so old, look at how old many of the aircraft still flying are. A thirty year operational life isn’t really that long. It is common to upgrade avionics and keep using an airplane for decades. This is what NASA did with the Shuttle. This doesn’t mean we should keep using the Shuttle, just that saying it is thirty years old and so must be eliminated is a bad argument. Now that it is no longer flying, we need a major NASA effort (bigger and better funded than the ones I know of) to create a replacement. I’m sure we can come up with a vehicle that is safer and less expensive to operate. Unfortunately, Congress seems to be saying, “Probes, telescopes, or manned flight. Pick one. Maybe.”

The photo is from NASA’s STS-135 site.

Choosing a gas station to attempt to control the source of your gas is moot:

Can I Tell Which Companies Purchase Imported Crude Oil or Gasoline?
While EIA cannot identify which companies are selling imported gasoline, we do collect data on which companies import crude oil and refined products. However, the fact that a given company imported crude oil or gasoline does not mean that those particular imports will end up being sold to motorists as that company’s brand of gasoline. This is because gasoline from different refineries is often combined for shipment by pipeline, and different companies owning service stations in the same area may be purchasing gasoline at the same bulk terminal.
—US Energy Information Administration, “Oil Imports and Exports – Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy”

Oil is a fungible commodity, so what matters to price is the world demand. (And world oil futures speculation and local distribution costs…)

Since the forwarded message makes such a point about not supporting Saudi Arabia: ~8.7% of oil used in the US is from the Persian Gulf, including ~5.3% from Saudi Arabia. The top sources of oil used in the US are:

The numbers in the email for which companies import oil from the Middle East are also wrong. For example, it lists Valero as importing no Middle Eastern oil, when in fact the Persian Gulf is the source of 24% of their oil. BP is also quoted as 0%, when it is actually 10 or 44% depending on the region. The email also lists Amoco as an importer from the Persian Gulf, when it is a division of BP, which it lists as not an importer from the Persian Gulf. Several others on the list of 0% each only supply fractions of a percent of US oil. Besides, as shown above, the original source of the oil doesn’t matter to price. Even if we could shift where we get our oil, that just shifts who is buying from where, with the total sold remaining constant.

What matters is the total oil used. A quick calculation shows that to decrease the amount of oil used in the US by the amount we import from Saudi Arabia, all you have to do is increase average fuel economy by a bit over one mile per gallon. Most people can improve their mileage by more than that by just learning to drive their current car slightly better. In fact, we may get there before most people learn to drive properly: last year’s update to the CAFE standards finally started us back on track to improve fuel economy by more than this amount.

Remember, the solution is efficiency, not which gas station you buy from!

After I wrote this, I found that a variant of this particular email has been around for years, and that Snopes debunked it six years ago.

Hmm… maybe I should debunk some of The Heritage Foundation’s claims about oil prices too…

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

1. ‘The Tyranny of Defense Inc.’ from The Atlantic about the insight of two of Eisenhower’s speeches.
2. ‘Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You’ from the New York Times is about the latest edited edition of Huckleberry Finn. The original is public domain (as it should be), so an edited edition is legal, but that doesn’t mean it is a good idea.
3. It’s a little old, but you should read this interesting article ‘Covert Operations’ in The New Yorker about the Koch brothers and their political involvement.
4. Last weekend I watched ‘The Hunting Party,’ a 2007 movie about journalists on vacation looking for a war criminal in Bosnia. Tho movie was loosely based on Scott Anderson’s story ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation’ which was published in 2000. As usual, the story is a bit different from the movie, and the story isn’t exactly a usual news piece.