The $390 Billion Cost of Cheaper Oil Prices

We've noticed that retail gasoline stations no longer feature what baseball calls "crooked numbers" in their posted prices. Regular is now below two dollars per gallon in New Jersey, where we live. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Image: dailyfreep.com

Well, it does and it doesn't. The negative side is occurring in the new oil-patch state of North Dakota, where, as a Fox News story notes, state revenues are coming up over five billion dollars short of projections. While that's Monopoly money in Silicon Valley and Manhattan, that's real money in the Great Plains.

Today's Bloomberg Business includes a story about the economic impact of falling oil prices in the larger economy. The tally? $390 billion. Some officials interviewed for the article believed local oil-patch banks, which happily loaned money to drilling firms, might "feel pain." The pinch might also be noticed among those pension funds, mutual funds, and other investment vehicles which put their clients' money where the oil firms' mouths were. That net includes just about everyone, period.

Meanwhile, GOP Congressional backers of the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to ship Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast ports and facilities, are pushing toward legislative approval of this environmental disaster in the making. One would think that cheap oil would knock out the key argument in the pipeline's favor. However, that line of reasoning would be rational, an approach the GOP does not appear to embrace. Just to keep things fair and balanced, President Obama recently said he would set in motion permission for oil drilling off the US Atlantic coast. His stance frankly made as little sense as the Republican Party's urgency to push Keystone through a legislative keyhole.

Whatever happened to Sarah Palin's battle-cry "Drill, Baby, Drill"? Who would have ever imagined a Palin-inspired idea would become something both political parties' poo-bahs would advocate?

Chinese Maker of White House-Crash Drone to Block Flights Over DC

Drone that crashed at White House
(Image: nypost.com)

The drone (technically a "quad copter") that crashed at the White House recently has created some interesting ripples in legal and security circles.

For starters, a Chinese firm called DJI manufactured the offending drone. According to gizmodo.com, the company "will take steps" to prevent its drones from flying over the District of Columbia. Apparently, DJI drone flight paths can be controlled via a firmware modification.

Meanwhile, the drone's pilot worked for an American intelligence agency. The public version of the story was that he visited an apartment in the vicinity of the White House, had a few drinks, and then decided to launch the drone on its ill-fated flight. Uh-huh.

Fortunately, the president and the missus were shaking hands in India. However, the Obamas' two daughters were in DC at the time of the incident. For those inclined toward semiotic, Mafia-like messages from the dark side, the drone episode could be characterized as an unpleasant communication to the White House. A number of odd incidents have occurred during 44's presidency, such as a sudden change in 2011 presidential helicopter flight in Maryland, Air Force One having "mechanical issues," and the entry of an armed individual into the first floor of the White House. The drone story, considering its link to the nation's intelligence community, plausibly fits into this scenario. Let's hope there's nothing more to the incident than coincidence.

Google Fiber Expands to Southern Cities

When we last considered Google Fiber, the uber-fast network raised eyebrows with its initial foray into Kansas City. It was generally assumed KC was the petri dish for a much larger experiment from Mountain View's scientists, engineers, and marketing teams. With the recent announcement that the Fiber product will expand into mid-sized Southern cities, Google moves into its next expansion phase for its telecom initiative. Theverge.com, and other sources, reported the news today.

The four cities -- Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham -- make sense for Fiber. They contain a mix of data-hungry enterprises, young tech-friendly populations, cooperative local and state governments, and economically-defined communities. They also are somewhat under the media radar, with the possible exception of Nashville's music crowd. That arrangement suits Google's experimental purpose, which is to roll out and learn about Fiber far from Silicon Valley's tech sharks or New York's insatiable gossip machine.

In a world where speed rules, Google Fiber's capability becomes very alluring for households, institutions, and businesses. And what Google is offering is completely fair and within the Net Neutrality guidelines that Comcast and other cable providers are openly fighting. Whether one thinks it's wise for the world's largest search provider to rule the pipeline into physical structures is another story.

Sean Penn to Receive Honorary Cesar

Sean Penn
(Image: cnn.com)

According to the Parisian newspaper Liberation, the quintessentially American actor Sean Penn will receive a major award from the French film establishment next month. An honorary Cesar, the Gallic version of an Oscar, will be presented to Penn for his lifetime acting and directing accomplishments.

Penn has a long-standing connection to the French movie biz. He earned a Cesar in 1997 for his work on She's So Lovely. He received a second Cesar in 2009 for his performance in Milk. Penn has also participated on the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Bob Hope's "Volcano Home" Sale Not Finding Buyers

Image: zillow.com

In the early 1970s, Bob Hope and his wife Dolores commissioned architect John Lautner to create their dream house. The resulting Palm Springs structure led to recriminations between the artist and the patrons. The house remained. According to a story in today's sfgate.com, the Hopes' notion of Xanadu has been tabbed as the "Volcano Home" and the "UFO House," largely due to its resemblance to those ominous archetypes.

The house that Hope built also has a "for sale" sign on it. The original 2013 asking price was over fifty million Yankee dollars. It appears to be a tough sell, and the current list price is $25 million.

I can't wait to learn how a house inspector would proceed to prepare his or her report on the property.

Upgraded Version of Alfred Hitchcock Holocaust Documentary to be Broadcast

Image: austinchronicle.com

In 1945, Alfred Hitchcock helped create a documentary that depicted the macabre reality of the Nazi extermination machine. The director used footage Allied soldiers shot in Bergen-Belsen and other concentration camps. According to an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian, the movie did not see the light of day for decades, apparently due to "political reasons." A truncated version was shown in Berlin about thirty years ago. In 1985, the US television network PBS broadcast the film, but one The Guardian article claimed was "poor quality."

The UK's Imperial War Museum completed a restoration project that has brought the Hitchcock documentary to its complete form and visual integrity. The film will be shown this year on British television.

Meanwhile, Time noted that HBO will broadcast a Holocaust documentary called Night Will Fall, which will include the story of the footage that Hitchcock used, and show some of it. Of course, the opportunity to view "unseen" Hitchcock work should not be missed. The larger reason to view the film became evident recently, courtesy of the massacre of Charlie Hebdou staffers and related, hate-inspired murders in a Paris kosher supermarket.

HBO will show Night Will Fall on January 26th, with a repeat presentation on HBO2 the following day. Viewers are advised that some footage will be graphic and disturbing.

Pennsylvania Attorney General, Critic of Sandusky Probe, To Be Indicted for Perjury

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane
(Image: philly.com)

Kathleen Kane, the first Democrat elected to Pennsylvania's attorney general office, faces a perjury rap. It's an interesting cautionary tale into power politics and the muscle certain institutions wield to defend what they consider their turf.

A few years ago, Ms. Kane took on some of the Keystone State's most formidable and entrenched forces. According to a New York Times article on her current legal troubles, she "criticized her Republican predecessors in the state's attorney general office of stalling during their investigation of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University (PSU) assistant football coach, who was eventually convicted of sexually abusing children." The investigation took "about three years before charges were filed," the Times noted.

The Sandusky-Joe Paterno scandal did more than simply rock Pennsylvania's political apparatus. Penn State, as an institution, has tremendous influence. Its research programs and other university initiatives generate hundreds of millions in revenue. What became evident during the investigation of Sandusky was the PSU administration's moral bankruptcy. Only when the US Department of Education hinted that Penn State's federal millions would be in jeopardy did the Penn State Board of Trustees and shameless top U execs surrender to decency.

Joe Paterno

Kane's crime in the eyes of many connected to Penn State was her hostility toward the Joe Paterno cult. The late football coach's backers, who remain a potent juggernaut in Pennsylvania, continue to attempt to rehabilitate Paterno's reputation to its once saintly status. They have succeeded in part, thanks to the NCAA's recent, shameful retreat regarding PSU football program's punishment for the Sandusky affair. (The litigation against the NCAA ruling was spearheaded by Pennsylvania's Republican Senate majority leader and the Republican state treasurer.) However, the NCAA knows Penn State is a big bucks football program, with an extensive alum network and political clout.

The current Pennsylvania AG, according to the Times,  also smoked out state employees who thought it appropriate to send unwanted, sexually explicit e-mails to others in state government. A state Supreme Court justice was among those who left their jobs in disgrace.

Whether Kane is innocent or guilty of perjury is almost a sideshow. How the Empire -- the Paterno cult and Keystone State poo-bahs -- strikes back is the more intriguing story.

Peter Thiel's Hush-Hush Palantir Technologies to Raise More Capital

Peter Thiel

Silicon Valley-based and venture capital darling Palantir Technologies provides an interesting case study of today's military-tech complex. The firm, founded by PayPal and Facebook zillionaire Peter Thiel, "sells software for data mining and data visualization," according to reporter Heather Somerville's recent story posted in siliconvalley.com. That bland definition gains color and form when one learns more about the enterprise's hush-hush client list. A story appearing earlier this year on techcrunch.com cited internal Palantir documents from 2013 noting the company's contractual relationships with the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, portions of the Armed Services, and the Los Angeles Police Department.

In this context, Thiel is marching in step with Amazon's notoriously secretive Jeff Bezos. As you may recall, Amazon controversially won a CIA data management contract, as well as a similar deal with NASA. Big Data's coziness and opaque contracts with the military and especially the intelligence communities should give one pause. As the Snowden revelations made clear, it's a very short step from dodgy data collection to unacknowledged data sharing.

Meanwhile, federal contracts, such as those obtained by Palantir and Amazon, are money magnets. That's why Palantir was able to land a half-billion dollars from VC investors in 2014. The siliconvalley.com story notes that Thiel's data gold mine is looking for more money, and is very likely to get it. Palantir's ability to easily obtain venture capital suggests the company may generate a financial windfall. The bet is that the firm's lucrative connections with the "military" side of the military-tech complex will become entrenched and, ironically, insulated from partisan politics.

X-Rays Read Rare, Roman-Era Vesuvius Scroll

Herculaneum scroll
(Image: bbc.co.uk)

The BBC reported that a European-led scientific team used a 3-D X-ray tool to read a fragile scroll found near the southern Italian archaeological site of Herculaneum. The original document was nearly burned to a crisp during the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum in 79 A.D. Today, the scrolls simply fall apart at the slightest touch, which is why the X-ray technique offers some hope of reading the scripts on them.

The significance of the project cannot be underestimated. The reliability and completeness of ancient texts remain a moving target. To obtain material from antiquity that's as authentic and true as possible profoundly adds to our understanding of the ideas that shaped generations, and continues to do so.