Posts Made By: Mel Maki

Originally Posted by James Lacey

The EIA numbers don't lie.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=a

2019 - 12,289
2020 - 11,283
2021 - 11,567
2022 - Still preliminary, but all projections are up.

Besides, gas prices are affected by far more than just millions of barrels produced per day. It's far more complicated than that, and if less oil meant higher prices at the pump, why was gas so cheap in 2020 when production was the lowest in years? Think bigger, guys.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Just responding to Mel's "thinking" on the matter.
That said, if we're talking about the topic of the thread, we're talking about saber rattling. If we're talking about what the Russian people hear in Russia, we're talking continuous propaganda centering on how Putin is justified in assaulting Ukraine because: 1. NATO wants to bomb mother Russia and 2. Ukraine is inhabited by a bunch of nazis.
Certain people have a message to send about that and certain people don't...

Originally Posted by James Brown

A Trump sieve, or as Jim M notes, a HRC sieve is apparently the American way. 

My wife and I were in the car for a couple hours yesterday and wanted to listen to news about the war.  We were driving through Chaffee and Park Counties in CO, which are beautiful, but empty.  That means Sirius XM or a couple of rinky-dink local rock and country stations.  We have 4 news choices on our Sirius "favorites":  CNN Headline News, Fox Headline News, NPR, and the BBC World Service News.

For the short period we listened to CNN, it was all about Trump and the January 6 commission.  Ho Hum.  On Fox, it was all about Biden, and inflation, someone was talking about the shortcomings of the SOU speech still.  Yawn.  The juxtaposition with BBC World Service News was amazing. 

On the BBC there was sober and in-depth coverage of the war, with several experts discussing the developments on a minute by minute timescale.  They seemed pretty careful to separate what was fact from what was preliminary but unconfirmed intelligence.  Then they had a lengthy interview with a top reporter (maybe a founder) at Ekho Moskvy (the Echo of Moscow).   Ekho Moskvy was the leading independent radio station in Russia since 1990 and had literally been shut down by the Kremlin hours before.   The correspondent had no hesitation describing the lies broadcast from the Kremlin's propaganda machine.  she was frustrated with the Russian people since far too many of them buy into the party line.  (Think about that in the US context).  The only optimism this poor woman could muster was that she believes it impossible to totally shut off the flow of truth in Russia in 2022 because of the internet and social media.  Ekho Moskvy still has a you-tube channel. 

This was gripping radio.  The correspondent was expecting to be arrested imminently!  You could see in your mind's eye the KGB kicking in her office door.  The contrast between the soft partisan crap broadcast by CNN and Fox in the same format at the same time couldn't be more stark.  

Jim 

p.s.  I see that the US print media is reporting the seizure of all dissenting broadcasters in Russia.  https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-03-03/russias-top-radio-station-shut-amid-crackdown-on-dissent  There is no doubt that Putin has fully returned to his roots.  The only issues now are whether he stops with Ukraine, and whether the Russian people will ultimately stand for it, or if indeed the majority fully supports the return of the Soviet Union.