Preoccupied with the T-P’s non-capitalization of a geological noun, I neglected a more flagrant mistake in the same article: Pam Radtke Russell reported the results of Chevron’s Jack 2 well test as “a development that could double the nation’s oil reserves” when “[the drilled trend] is thought to hold 3 billion to 15 billion barrels of oil [and] the nation’s current reserves are about 30 billion.”

WHOOPS! 15 billion equals 50% of 30 billion and not 200%.  Forget geology education, we have some basic ‘rithmetic skills to work on. Good thing our City Accountant caught and questioned this new math:

How can 3 billion to 15 billion barrels double 30 billion barrels?  I readily admit that I know nothing about Big Erl and how it operates. But am I missing something in the math here?

Donning my ScienceGirl cape, I rushed to Da Po Boy’s rescue with a more reliable article which states clearly that the Jack 2 test may boost U.S. petroleum reserves by 50%.

30 + 15 = 45, not 60.

Please offer prayers to Pascal that Dubious Dave doesn’t run with this. Quel damage!

September 5, 2006 – Chevron Announces Jack 2 in the Gulf of Mexico’s Walker Ridge Block 758. “The Jack well was completed, tested in 7,000 feet of water … [and broke] Chevron’s 2004 Tahiti well test record as the deepest successful well test [28,175 feet] in the Gulf of Mexico.” The Times-Picayune / nola.com needs on-staff geologists; it’s Tertiary, not tertiary. Never mind, capitalized or not, it’s like saying ball instead of specifying whether it’s a basketball, football, wiffle ball, etc. [Geology] education is practically non-existent in this nation anyway. *mutter mutter sigh sigh*

In Swimming To Work, Michael Homan writes of “travelling” in New Orleans a few days after the levees broke.

A year ago today I swam from my flooded house to Xavier University. It’s not something I would recommend. I saw several dead bodies and the scenes still sort of haunt me. I wrote a note about my name, address, and contact info for my parents in Nebraska, and put it in a plastic bag and duct taped it around a string that I wore around my neck. Looking back on it I wish I had brought my camera … Sometimes people would shine a flashlight on me from their house, just to see if I was a troublemaker or whatever. It was pretty scary. Today I’m in Omaha, visiting my mother.

Michael’s recollection reminds me of my father’s final days as a prisoner in a makeshift camp after the Iraqis invaded Kuwait in 1990. Twitching in pain as stomach ulcers flared, Dad wrote out a will on his undershirt, and wore that shirt as much as possible until he made it out to safety more than a month after he was first incarcerated.

Love is such a strange thing. Even when faced with great personal peril, the brain’s instinct is to communicate to those closest to you. That your fate is known to a loved one, that personal matters are taken care of, that closure is achieved.

If my name is upon my chest,
Tell my mama I’ve done my best

This makes me think of our boys and girls in Iraq, too.

I’m incredibly thankful that my father and Michael are still with us today. Life cuts both ways.

On our way back to the car from The Clash In Cleveland, Mark asked me, “So, what do you think of this new flirtation with fascism?”

“Not much, given that I know what the word means,” I replied. “Doesn’t that imbue stateless terrorists with an awful lot of political and psychological power?”  D chimed in, “It’s just another fancy term for the illiterates.”

Every time the current administration releases new advertising for its policy, my brain breaks into a favorite line from Word Disassociation: Agnostic oppressive wall. Platypus parasol. In other words, it’s meaningless, and those who want terms, flags, and symbols with which to strengthen their biases and opinions will latch on. It’s just another day in soundbite land.

The very same evening, W pointed me to this article in Harper’s: The Bush Administration and Godwin’s Law

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a story headlined The new G.O.P. buzzword: Fascism. … The story quoted G.O.P. pollster Ed Goeas as saying, I think it’s an appropriate definition of the war that we’re in. I think it’s effective in that it definitively defines the enemy in a way that we can’t because they’re not in uniforms. Forgive me if I don’t get it just right, but what I think Goeas is saying is: We have no real idea what fascism is; hell, we’re too lazy even to look it up on Wikipedia. But we’ve used up the word “evil“ and we need new red meat. Let’s roll!

… On the Internet, there is a dictum known as Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies, coined in 1990 by a man named Mike Godwin. This law holds that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.  Anyone who has spent time on political discussion boards can see that it’s true; in any charged debate (abortion, Iraq, Israel, foreign policy), it’s only a matter of time before someone compares his opponent to Hitler … It’s commonly understood that once Godwin’s Law is invoked, a conversation is dead”and that any person who invokes Nazis almost definitely has failed to make his point.

I was going to suggest that the hubbub over (fade in Wolf Blitzer drumroll) The War In Iraq (fade out Wolf Blitzer drumroll) reminds me of a long session of Is To – Is Not, but Godwin’s Law works better, simply because it uses observations and probability … and sounds way cooler.

Alan left a typical one-sentence comment on a recent Schroeder post: “We seem to be getting more attention from national media as of late.”

a) It is the first anniversary of Katrina and the media want themselves viewed as compassionate fencesitters moderates.

b) Moreover, we’re entering the Midterms and everyone’s cramming. The Dems are going to use the breakdown of Homeland Security during Katrina as an argument against the Republicans. Before some of you say “Hell yeah!” remember that neither party has done a thing to help this area. This isn’t a political skirmish, it’s a battle for our city’s life. So, as the spotlight creeps over onto us, the need to maintain quality of coverage is as important as the quantity of coverage, if not more. We don’t want to turn into some played-out nostalgia act. Let’s continue to concentrate on content over form, issues over egos (individual or collective), that sort of thing – you get the picture.

In wholly unrelated news, this article (from /.) shows us how easy it is to break into a Diebold voting machine. There is something to be said about two middle-aged women from Black Box Voting (I mean, seriously) who “bought $12 worth of tools and in four minutes penetrated the memory card seals, removed, replaced the memory card, and sealed it all up again without leaving a trace.”