Between the Front & Back: Grundle’s Book Club

[HoustonHusky]

Should say I’ve always found Yergin exceptional in his historical summation/characterization on things that have happened...can’t always say the same about when he applies it going forward (true of most everyone...I guess I criticize him more because he says it with such authority and it’s given such weight because of who he is). That was always my biggest issue with Commanding Heights.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

Should say I’ve always found Yergin exceptional in his historical summation/characterization on things that have happened...can’t always say the same about when he applies it going forward (true of most everyone...I guess I criticize him more because he says it with such authority and it’s given such weight because of who he is). That was always my biggest issue with Commanding Heights.

Yeah, I found the last section of the book the weakest like when he talks about the development of electric vehicles and self-driving cars. Neither of those technologies are “ready for prime time” but that is the direction everything is heading. I think he’s right to be skeptical in how fast it will mature though.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

3. Iran[/b]

Seriously, fuck those guys. I've read a ton of books in the last several years that have some touch point in the Middle East, mostly from a "war on terror" perspective. Iran comes up a lot in those, natch. However, this book for me really crystalized that amount of malarkey the Iranian government drops across the region. Directly or through proxies, Iran seems to responsible for at least 81% of the troubles in the region. Weº know they hate usº, this is understood, but let's not loose sight of how much Iran seems to hate every other ME government.

Aside 1: Who knew that Houthi isn't an ethnic minority group, but an Islamist rebel group named after their former leader who was vaporized by the Saudis? I did not. Just from snips and headlines covering SA's actions against them, I had the impression that Houthis vs. Saudis was something akin to Shiite vs. Sunni. Nope, Iranian backed guerrillas.

Aside 2: What a clusterfuck de-Baathification was in Iraq. Terrible decision.

My blood also boiled when he went over some of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. I’m glad that in their strives to diversify their economy past oil with the Saudi Vision 2030 it’s forced their hand to start to make some long overdue changes to their society, especially for women, but it’s still a shit show.

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

Should say I’ve always found Yergin exceptional in his historical summation/characterization on things that have happened...can’t always say the same about when he applies it going forward (true of most everyone...I guess I criticize him more because he says it with such authority and it’s given such weight because of who he is). That was always my biggest issue with Commanding Heights.

I knew nothing at all about Yergin until I read his book The Quest, which I also enjoyed.

Should say I’ve always found Yergin exceptional in his historical summation/characterization on things that have happened...can’t always say the same about when he applies it going forward (true of most everyone...I guess I criticize him more because he says it with such authority and it’s given such weight because of who he is). That was always my biggest issue with Commanding Heights.

Yeah, I found the last section of the book the weakest like when he talks about the development of electric vehicles and self-driving cars. Neither of those technologies are “ready for prime time” but that is the direction everything is heading. I think he’s right to be skeptical in how fast it will mature though.

Good poont. I read[/s] listened to the first 3/4 of the book twice, but the future stuff just the once so that wasn't as fresh. Agree that was weaker than the retrospective analysis, probably by necessity.

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

3. Iran[/b]

Seriously, fuck those guys. I've read a ton of books in the last several years that have some touch point in the Middle East, mostly from a "war on terror" perspective. Iran comes up a lot in those, natch. However, this book for me really crystalized that amount of malarkey the Iranian government drops across the region. Directly or through proxies, Iran seems to responsible for at least 81% of the troubles in the region. Weº know they hate usº, this is understood, but let's not loose sight of how much Iran seems to hate every other ME government.

Aside 1: Who knew that Houthi isn't an ethnic minority group, but an Islamist rebel group named after their former leader who was vaporized by the Saudis? I did not. Just from snips and headlines covering SA's actions against them, I had the impression that Houthis vs. Saudis was something akin to Shiite vs. Sunni. Nope, Iranian backed guerrillas.

Aside 2: What a clusterfuck de-Baathification was in Iraq. Terrible decision.

My blood also boiled when he went over some of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. I’m glad that in their strives to diversify their economy past oil with the Saudi Vision 2030 it’s forced their hand to start to make some long overdue changes to their society, especially for women, but it’s still a shit show.

In a couple of the ME books I've read, there's greater detail about the Grand Mosque siege in 1978(?). Crazy shit.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

3. Iran[/b]

Seriously, fuck those guys. I've read a ton of books in the last several years that have some touch point in the Middle East, mostly from a "war on terror" perspective. Iran comes up a lot in those, natch. However, this book for me really crystalized that amount of malarkey the Iranian government drops across the region. Directly or through proxies, Iran seems to responsible for at least 81% of the troubles in the region. Weº know they hate usº, this is understood, but let's not loose sight of how much Iran seems to hate every other ME government.

Aside 1: Who knew that Houthi isn't an ethnic minority group, but an Islamist rebel group named after their former leader who was vaporized by the Saudis? I did not. Just from snips and headlines covering SA's actions against them, I had the impression that Houthis vs. Saudis was something akin to Shiite vs. Sunni. Nope, Iranian backed guerrillas.

Aside 2: What a clusterfuck de-Baathification was in Iraq. Terrible decision.

My blood also boiled when he went over some of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. I’m glad that in their strives to diversify their economy past oil with the Saudi Vision 2030 it’s forced their hand to start to make some long overdue changes to their society, especially for women, but it’s still a shit show.

In a couple of the ME books I've read, there's greater detail about the Grand Mosque siege in 1978(?). Crazy shit.

The survey of the ME history class I took at UW was great. I don’t remember about the Grand Mosque Siege. I’ll need to re-read up on it.

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

3. Iran[/b]

Seriously, fuck those guys. I've read a ton of books in the last several years that have some touch point in the Middle East, mostly from a "war on terror" perspective. Iran comes up a lot in those, natch. However, this book for me really crystalized that amount of malarkey the Iranian government drops across the region. Directly or through proxies, Iran seems to responsible for at least 81% of the troubles in the region. Weº know they hate usº, this is understood, but let's not loose sight of how much Iran seems to hate every other ME government.

Aside 1: Who knew that Houthi isn't an ethnic minority group, but an Islamist rebel group named after their former leader who was vaporized by the Saudis? I did not. Just from snips and headlines covering SA's actions against them, I had the impression that Houthis vs. Saudis was something akin to Shiite vs. Sunni. Nope, Iranian backed guerrillas.

Aside 2: What a clusterfuck de-Baathification was in Iraq. Terrible decision.

My blood also boiled when he went over some of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. I’m glad that in their strives to diversify their economy past oil with the Saudi Vision 2030 it’s forced their hand to start to make some long overdue changes to their society, especially for women, but it’s still a shit show.

In a couple of the ME books I've read, there's greater detail about the Grand Mosque siege in 1978(?). Crazy shit.

The survey of the ME history class I took at UW was great. I don’t remember about the Grand Mosque Siege. I’ll need to re-read up on it.

Commandos, tear gas, flood tunnels, something for everyone.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

3. Iran[/b]

Seriously, fuck those guys. I've read a ton of books in the last several years that have some touch point in the Middle East, mostly from a "war on terror" perspective. Iran comes up a lot in those, natch. However, this book for me really crystalized that amount of malarkey the Iranian government drops across the region. Directly or through proxies, Iran seems to responsible for at least 81% of the troubles in the region. Weº know they hate usº, this is understood, but let's not loose sight of how much Iran seems to hate every other ME government.

Aside 1: Who knew that Houthi isn't an ethnic minority group, but an Islamist rebel group named after their former leader who was vaporized by the Saudis? I did not. Just from snips and headlines covering SA's actions against them, I had the impression that Houthis vs. Saudis was something akin to Shiite vs. Sunni. Nope, Iranian backed guerrillas.

Aside 2: What a clusterfuck de-Baathification was in Iraq. Terrible decision.

My blood also boiled when he went over some of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. I’m glad that in their strives to diversify their economy past oil with the Saudi Vision 2030 it’s forced their hand to start to make some long overdue changes to their society, especially for women, but it’s still a shit show.

In a couple of the ME books I've read, there's greater detail about the Grand Mosque siege in 1978(?). Crazy shit.

The survey of the ME history class I took at UW was great. I don’t remember about the Grand Mosque Siege. I’ll need to re-read up on it.

Commandos, tear gas, flood tunnels, something for everyone.

A comedy tonight!

 

[HoustonHusky]

OK, back to the book...

Before I launch into what I thought of it and respond to other’s observations, here’s a book review by WaPo that picks apart some of the author’s points:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddeb3e-f2b3-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html

Hadn’t read the book but from what I read of the article/review I’d argue otherwise...should be noted that the author of this review isn't a WP staff writer or book reviewer...he’s an environmental activist (and a bit nuts IMHO) from a quick Google search of him.

 

[DerekJohnson]

Looks like I've run through my bullet poonts. Sad.

In sum, I thought this was a fantastic book. I love big-picture stuff reinforced with individual examples, and this author is outstanding at that in my opinion. A year ago, this was a subject I knew almost nothing about other than skimming the occasional WSJ article. Then on a whim I read Energy by Rhodes (yes, I know everyone is sick of me raving about that book). That book gave me the foundational understanding of the importance—and historical rarity—of plentiful energy for human prosperity. Stacked up on that, The New Map gave me a better understanding of how that is accomplished from the 30K foot view.

If there's further discussion to have with anyone, I look forward to it. Otherwise, thus ends Book Clerb.[/b]

Thanks for reading ;-}

You had an outstanding run. I'm proud of you.

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

OK, back to the book...

Before I launch into what I thought of it and respond to other’s observations, here’s a book review by WaPo that picks apart some of the author’s points:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddeb3e-f2b3-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html

Hadn’t read the book but from what I read of the article/review I’d argue otherwise...should be noted that the author of this review isn't a WP staff writer or book reviewer...he’s an environmental activist (and a bit nuts IMHO) from a quick Google search of him.

Bury the lede?
Bill McKibben, the author most recently of “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?,” is the founder of the global climate campaign 350.org and the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College[/b].

@Crawfish @CollegeDoog @westgateaz @AggieAndee @LPresley

@PurpleBaze

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

OK, back to the book...

Before I launch into what I thought of it and respond to other’s observations, here’s a book review by WaPo that picks apart some of the author’s points:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddeb3e-f2b3-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html

Hadn’t read the book but from what I read of the article/review I’d argue otherwise...should be noted that the author of this review isn't a WP staff writer or book reviewer...he’s an environmental activist (and a bit nuts IMHO) from a quick Google search of him.

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I included it as I always like reading counter arguments.

A much better/fairer review is here in the Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-map-review-tapping-the-untappable-11601333350

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

OK, back to the book...

Before I launch into what I thought of it and respond to other’s observations, here’s a book review by WaPo that picks apart some of the author’s points:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddeb3e-f2b3-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html

Hadn’t read the book but from what I read of the article/review I’d argue otherwise...should be noted that the author of this review isn't a WP staff writer or book reviewer...he’s an environmental activist (and a bit nuts IMHO) from a quick Google search of him.

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I included it as I always like reading counter arguments.

A much better/fairer review is here in the Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-map-review-tapping-the-untappable-11601333350

@CFetters_Nacho_Lover will take great umbrage at the shots at #NachosGreta.

 

[GrundleStiltzkin]

Haven’t read so I should probably stay out...but I won’t. I can say nothing has been a bigger destroyer of capital ($$$) than shale. Not great for oil companies, but it’s been an absolute boon for the US as a whole...yeah capitalism. It balanced out the capital flow for the US, created jobs galore, and given us a shiteton of natural gas which has kept our power/electricity prices low (compared globally) which has been one of the key drivers for manufacturing (don’t discount energy cost in that renaissance...many people ignore it)[/b]. Economics on shale plays are completely different than as an example deep water drilling...both in upfront CapEx and cycle time to revenues. Doubt you will see much of the high, high upfront CapEx deep water/Alaska/etc drilling until something structurally changes.

Environmentalist are right about shipping oil on rail cars...fuck them (and Warren Buffet and Russia and others) for using these moron environmentalists to fight all the pipelines. That said, some of that pipeline craziness really screws over Canada and Northern US oil plays (Wyoming and North Dakota) and benefits plays down here so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Bad for US...good for Texas. Yeah us.

The book absolutely makes the poont about cheap power and manufacturing. Toward that, he includes an anecdote of a Chinese chemicals company opening a new plant in Louisiana specifically for cheap power and easily access to petrochemical precursors.

 

[HoustonHusky]

Haven’t read so I should probably stay out...but I won’t. I can say nothing has been a bigger destroyer of capital ($$$) than shale. Not great for oil companies, but it’s been an absolute boon for the US as a whole...yeah capitalism. It balanced out the capital flow for the US, created jobs galore, and given us a shiteton of natural gas which has kept our power/electricity prices low (compared globally) which has been one of the key drivers for manufacturing (don’t discount energy cost in that renaissance...many people ignore it)[/b]. Economics on shale plays are completely different than as an example deep water drilling...both in upfront CapEx and cycle time to revenues. Doubt you will see much of the high, high upfront CapEx deep water/Alaska/etc drilling until something structurally changes.

Environmentalist are right about shipping oil on rail cars...fuck them (and Warren Buffet and Russia and others) for using these moron environmentalists to fight all the pipelines. That said, some of that pipeline craziness really screws over Canada and Northern US oil plays (Wyoming and North Dakota) and benefits plays down here so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Bad for US...good for Texas. Yeah us.

The book absolutely makes the poont about cheap power and manufacturing. Toward that, he includes an anecdote of a Chinese chemicals company opening a new plant in Louisiana specifically for cheap power and easily access to petrochemical precursors.

Again, I need to preface this with the fact I haven’t read the book. That said, I’d argue it’s much more fundamental that what I’m assuming is the methanol plant in Louisiana. Take steel as an example...crazy energy-intense process to make it. Having dirt-cheap energy prices here in the US helped reinvigorate the industry here (it wasn’t just Trump tariffs) which cascaded downstream to other manufacturing that used it.

Energy is a fundamental building block to the manufacturing industry...it’s why Germany subsidies it for companies. You want to kill an economy drive up energy prices...hope we aren’t dumb enough here to rediscover this known concept.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

One of the things I appreciated about this book was it explained how cutting over to green/clean fuel is such a challenge, especially in the developing world. The author mentioned how even if the US were to magically switch over every vehicle over to electric, there is 1) still airplanes, which for the foreseeable future don’t have alternative means of fueling and 2) in a places like India and Africa, without some sort of huge outside investment, they don’t have the capital to cut over to EV without stunting their economic growth.

This is the thing that’s always frustrated me when talking about environmental topics with many people is they don’t think of details like this, generally.

And I don’t think the US will have any widespread adoption of EVs anytime soon. The incentive (and the technology/infrastructure) just isn’t there yet. Look at how all the money/R&D seems to get put into automated driving cars and apps like Uber.

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

Oh, and just wanted to provide some feedback to @GrundleStiltzkin and @DerekJohnson, I’d definitely do the book club again! It might help to have a weekly “game thread” in the Record Shoppe that just goes over a few chapters at a time though instead of the whole book at once.

Thank you for organizing! I enjoyed this.

 

[BennyBeaver]

And I don’t think the US will have any widespread adoption of EVs anytime soon.

What do you mean by “anytime soon?”

 

[Doog_de_Jour]

And I don’t think the US will have any widespread adoption of EVs anytime soon.

What do you mean by “anytime soon?”

I was thinking of the aggressive timelines many presidential candidates were talking about during the primaries. Bernie Sanders, and this is mentioned in the book, wanted complete decarbonization of both the energy and transportation sectors by 2030.

 

[huskyhooligan]

Decent book. It's no Harry Potter, but not bad. I listened to it mostly in the car and for that reason probably missed more than I'd admit, but I thought it tied a lot together. OBK even got a 5G shoutout in the book. Agreed with that smoke show @Doog_de_Jour that as much as folks would like to see a quick transition, it's not likely feasible. Now I can move onto half blood prince.