Ezra Levant shares his, and other Sun News experiences dealing with professional anti-oil protesters.
Lincoln, UNL
The Circus is back in town
Anti oil & gas activists are still playing fast and loose with the facts, and now they’ve brought in more activists from other counties to muddy the waters and escalate the circus atmosphere of BOCC meetings. [Read more…]
Akron vicinity
disconnected reasoning
From an 8/8/2013 letter in the Elbert County Sun:
Note that Mr. Brown does not dispute that operational conflicts with COGCC rules exist in the proposed Elbert County Oil & Gas regulations that he helped write. Apparently he’s accepted the reality of the COGCC warnings from the May 14th study session.
But look at his first construction above – the county should pass the oil and gas regulations, thereby cause an economic grievance to a developer, and then discover through litigation whether the state has subject matter jurisdiction on the question of COGCC regulatory occupation of the field. Doesn’t this sound like the much ridiculed Pelosi construct of having to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it? Do all Democrats think this way?
But let’s move on. Brown next admits an answer to the above conundrum – “let’s assume the state has the legal capacity to file such a lawsuit,” thereby begging a question of what he hoped to achieve in his setup. But let’s not get lost in the weeds as Brown pivots to his next construct – that if the county and Commissioner Rowland consider a given regulatory issue to be a surface matter, while the state considers that same regulatory issue to be an operational matter within its regulatory domain, then the state has “no basis for a lawsuit.” What?
According to Brown, all a county need do is decide that something is within their jurisdiction, and that decision somehow binds the COGCC to go along – unless the COGCC decides not to, and instead puts an operator into a process of asking the BOCC for a waiver.
Let’s see, is that a waiver from the county regulation, or is that a waiver from the COGCC regulation. Mr. Brown doesn’t say, but surely a county that has the power to redefine operational conflicts into surface matters, and thereby remove the basis for a COGCC lawsuit, must also have the power to excuse compliance with COGCC regulations when it sees fit to do so.
Where do counties get such power over the state? In the imagination of Mr. Brown is where. I don’t think Mr. Rowland is the one confused here. But I do worry that Mr. Brown’s “logic” will appear persuasive to people not prepared for such deceptive reasoning.
After weaving his magical brew, Mr. Brown closes with an appeal to Mr. Rowland’s ministerial vanity. Good grief. Is there no panderingly offensive depth to which Brown won’t sink?
B_Imperial
Limon lightning this evening
data on Islam
October 27, 2010 10:00 AM Age: 3 yrs
Towards a Curriculum for the Teaching of Jihadist Ideology aims to provide an introduction to the intellectual infrastructure of the jihadist phenomenon and the process of radicalization, and to furnish materials for a textbook primer to what is still largely an ideological terra incognita for the western reader. It is designed for the use of academics, security professionals, policy-makers and the general reader alike.
The work sets out in its introductory chapters to highlight common errors in the perception of jihadism and of its causes by looking at the problem from the point of view of the jihadist sympathizer. It details the ideological infrastructure of the movement through an examination of the texts – many of which have yet to be made available in English. The study argues that the meticulously composed doctrinal and cultural works form the life-blood and intellectual infrastructure of the Jihad and in quantity and range amount to an entire educational program, one that is constructed to reconfigure a Muslim’s self-image and identity.
It sets out to demonstrate how jihadism is in essence a religiously construed movement in something more than its externalities, and illustrates the emphasis the jihadist thinkers place on the importance of doctrinal propriety, an emphasis that outweighs by far the attention given to matters of strategy and tactics. The study argues that it is the strength of the intellectual underpinning (something which is too often underestimated) that affords the jihadist movement its resilience by providing it with what amounts to a doctrinal ‘safe haven’ that frames and justifies the conflict. Importantly, the work highlights that the resilience of jihadism stems from its claim to doctrinal authenticity and pedigree within the Islamic tradition. The analysis demonstrates how this authenticity derives from the jihad’s incunabulum within the absolutist, reductionist methodology of the Salafist tendency, and traces how the development to activism and Jihadi-Salafism occurred progressively, in step with constant insistence on its authenticity to the tradition. It also underlines the basic doctrinal features of jihadism, and illustrates the interpretation given by the muj?hid?n and their sympathisers to current reality, to the course of history and the salvific nature of the struggle, which they consider themselves to be waging. It is by understanding jihadists’ points of departure on their own terms like this that light can be shed on why they behave the way they do, both in the Muslim heartlands and beyond.
The ‘Curriculum’ section discusses the teaching of jihadism to date in academic institutions and outlines the problems that ensue from current reticence to give the subject the depth of treatment that it merits. As a template for the Curriculum it takes the examples of curricula and recommendations circulated by Jihadis themselves on the Internet, and thus reflects the jihadists’ own prioritization of materials and authors. In so doing, the study demonstrates the true ‘cyberweapon’ role of the web, which is as a publisher and distributor of texts. The examination of the jihadi curricula also confirms the strong doctrinal bias, indicating where for the muj?hid?n the centre of gravity of the jihad actually lies. The sample texts of the Curriculum are collected and categorized according to subject and purpose and commented upon in detail, in order to explain the world view of the jihadists and illustrate how they explain and justify their acts in religious terms using an exclusively logocentric reasoning.
Lastly, the work’s conclusions emphasize the need to avoid making assumptions based on old analytical habits, to study the wealth of open source information available on the ideology – which should be taken seriously and at face value – and to understand that the ‘Jihad’ is primarily a re-education endeavour and therefore very much a war of ideas. It calls for the improvement of both the quality and spectrum of research and analysis, preferably through a multi-disciplinary approach that can accommodate the return of the religious dimension to international affairs.
Ulph_Towards_a_Curriculum_Part1
an August welcome
colorful evening
Dr. Joondeph of Colorado Retina Associates saved my eyesight again today by closing a retinal tear in a brief in-office laser procedure, so I could see images like these tonight.
(click to enlarge)
B_Imperial
science and democracy
New Plains advertised a webcast about fracking from the Union of Concerned Scientists. See below.
Science. Scientific method. Hypothesis, experiment, evidence, contingent proof, repeatability.
Democracy. Majority rule, the common good, enforced equality, regulatory bureaucratic control.
There’s nothing scientific about democracy. Democracy is about controlling people. Science is about understanding nature. Why link the two?
Because you want to enforce specific outcomes under the pretense of scientific authority. And what outcomes do the Union of Concerned Scientists want to enforce? Look at their web site . . .
- Global Warming – The Earth is warming and human activity is the primary cause.
- Clean vehicles – We must act now. Our cars and trucks consume more oil than all other sources combined. America’s reliance on oil threatens our health, economy, and environment—and the costs and risks will only intensify as oil becomes more difficult and expensive to acquire.
- Clean energy – Renewable energy resources like wind and solar power generate electricity with little or no pollution and global warming emissions—and could reliably provide up to 40 percent of U.S. electricity needs within the next 20 years.
The list goes on. No nukes, sustainable this and that, one Pollyanna “solution” after another. I respect that we all have free speech and we can say whatever we want in America, for the most part. But the left is just so fundamentally unserious on so many of these issues.
Imagine what problems could be solved in the world if the half of humanity with their heads up their democratic collectives were actually engaged in real solutions.
Imagine what politically correct effluvia they’ll issue about fracking on Thursday.
The hardest part about being a conservative is the constant challenge of countering seductive fantasies with the “opportunity cost” of real accomplishments that could have been made, had they not been crowded out by bovine scatology.
Take my commissioner, please.
The Elbert County Planning Commission rubber-stamped an oil & gas zoning regulation that would have put the county in conflict with state COGCC regulations, making grounds for litigation in the grey area of Colorado county vs. state authority to legally occupy a regulatory field. Had those regulations passed, it wouldn’t have taken long for an aggrieved party, no doubt with supporting briefs from Jerry Dahl, to come along and tie the county up in an expensive lawsuit with the state.
After listening to interminable hours of environmentalists on the oil and gas edit committee and their audiences haggle through various entrapment schemes to stymie oil and gas development, I believe that litigation was always their unspoken objective. They never intended to facilitate oil and gas development, regardless of how safe, how environmentally benign, how well planned it could be, or, and this one really chaps my butt, how much good faith they professed.
Before Larry Ross became Commissioner Ross, he and his wife were part of that clamor for oil and gas regulation. As the letter below demonstrates, the big picture from the elected office window has done little to objectify his views.
As head of the planning commission, Grant Thayer should have had the fortitude to stand against the liberal majority who proceeded without regard to the expressed COGCC warnings about operational conflicts. In doing the only honorable thing, however, he neglected to mention his own culpability, and instead dumped on the BOCC. Maybe he’ll man up on that issue someday.
If all this wasn’t bad enough, the planning commission can only be expected to issue findings even further removed from objective reality under the leadership of staunch leftists Crisan and Brown, champions of the envious, redistributors of all things appurtenant to land, holders of the door handles to Elbert County, closed tightly behind the last ones to successfully make it out here.
The movie Pleasantville comes to mind — the black and white part.
B_Imperial
RE: Thayer Resignation
Dear Editor [West Elbert County Sun, 7-18-2013],
It is with deep regret that I have accepted the letter of resignation of long time Elbert County Planning Commission Chairman Mr. Grant Thayer.
Mr. Thayer has faithfully served the people of Elbert County for over a decade accomplishing a great deal to provide a land use planning and zoning framework and leadership for our nine member Planning Commission. Grant has my most sincere gratitude.
Grant Thayer is a highly accomplished petroleum geologist. Mr.. Thayer has been the CEO of two oil companies and the COO of another. Grant is also a tremendous steward of the land having placed thousands of his acres into conservation and wildlife trusts and utilizing best practices in ranching and farming.
Mr. Grant Thayer brought all this ability and selfless dedication to the process of developing for Elbert County an oil and gas regulation that is practical and workable for our citizens, the state and the industry.
Mr. Thayer stated in his letter the following: “It appears that the motion by Commissioner Schlagel and its subsequent passing that it is the intent of the BOCC to bypass the Planning Commission in drafting and recommendations of future county regulations.”
Our citizens should be concerned and alarmed when the Board of County Commissioners ignores and bypasses our Planning Commission on zoning issues of any kind.
An effective Planning Commission can protect us from land use decisions being made by a mere two County Commissioners and placing special interests above yours.
Best Regards,
Larry D. Ross, Elbert County Commissioner, District 3
Left wing vs. Right wing
Assuming that the terms “left wing” and “right wing” are pejorative toward the opposite side, about twice as much left wing propaganda exists as right wing propaganda. Also, “Obama” seems to be a leading indicator for left wing propaganda.
B_Imperial
Fighting the Ideological War
From an essay by Stephen Ulph, Islam and Totalitarianism: The Challenge of Comparison, in, Fighting the Ideological War, ed. by Katharine C. Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo, 2012.
A conspiracy requires the existence of a constant enemy. If for Nazi Germany the role was filled by the Jews, in the case of the Islamists it is actually more than merely the Jew, it is the ewige Kafir, the eternal infidel. If the “enemy” defines those with an unclear sense of their own identity in the modern multi-faith pluralist environment, Islamist ideologues make ample use of the device to force the message of an eternal plot of disbelief against Islam. Beyond Jews, Christians and imperialists luring Muslims away from the true faith, the roster of enemies expands to the more sinister, internal conspirators: these are the liberal Muslim thinkers and the secularists. The al Qaeda affiliated al-Neda jihadi website provides us with the list and the commentary on elements that pull Muslims away from the true faith:
The Threat to Islam from Muslims
“Sometimes a hundred times worse than the hatred of the enemies of the nation, the Jews and the Christians” emanating from the leaders of Islamic countries and the clerics who serve them.The Secular Threat
“One of the greatest threats to the hegemony of Islam and the dominance of Shari’a is the American secularism that will be imposed forcefully on the region… The Islamic world will change from dictatorship to democracy, which means subhuman degradation in all walks of life.”The Threat of Those Who Abandoned the Islamic Tradition
Since secularism will be rejected by a large section of Muslims, the Zionist-Crusader coalition is encouraging major spiritual groups such as the Sufis, “who are mostly infidels” and believe in monism, pantheism, and re-incarnation and observe “conscience, inspiration, and other endless falsehoods.” Orders such as the Sufis “oppose Jihad and do not oppose the infidels.”The Threat of the Rational School
A “deadly seedling that maintains that Islam is not opposed to atheism, and that Islam must get close to the infidel and coexist with him.” A school of thought, planted by British imperialism and “established by Muhammad `Abduh and which maintains that logic takes precedence over the text [of the Quran].” This school “may become the first stepping stone to secularizing the region, because it is a mixture of secularism and Islam.”More intensive than Fascism, the plot in this case is nothing less than machinations of Satan against the Truth, and his exploitation of the enemies of Islam within the Islamic world for this purpose.
~
No matter how you slice it, Obama fits multiple infidel threat categories. Turns out it was never reasonable to expect he could become a peacemaker between Islamism and America.
B_Imperial
Regulators ignored COGCC
On May 14th, representatives from COGCC and COGA met with the BOCC, members of the CDS department, and Grant Thayer representing the proposed oil & gas zoning regulations and MOU, in a study session. The entire video is here:
COGCC and COGA raised a number of objections about the proposed zoning regulations as follows:
(Each of the links in this list starts the video at the relevant point. You might want to open them in a separate tab.)
- The MOU is a vehicle for you to negotiate things which you cannot mandate
- Operational conflicts in general
- The MOU is NOT the entire agreement for expedited CDS approval
- The community meeting requirements are redundant of state regulations
- If you want to have a completely duplicative process (with COGCC), you can
- Page 14 dust control measures with produced water. Operational conflict with COGCC rule 910.
- Hazardous material inventory statement undefined and potentially conflicting with COGCC.
- All weather surface on private property undefined. COGCC recommends this be in MOU. Fire Depts. want it regulatory. Not resolved.
- Disposal of produced water section thoroughly regulated by COGCC. Operational conflict.
- There is no presumption against open pit storage at COGCC. Operational conflict.
- COGCC regulates produced water pits used by multiple operators
- Permit time frame for removal of operational equipment conflicts with COGCC interim reclamation.
- Most counties are not using an MOU legal structure. Most rely on COGCC LGD interface.
COGA – “We’re not seeing this is the norm by any case.”
The proposed oil & gas zoning regulations and MOU, both dated May 10, 2013, were subsequently sent to the BOCC for approval without any of the above cited operational conflicts and other problems addressed.
As of this writing on 7-13-2013 they are still on-line at the county website at:
It would appear that Rowland and Schlegel paid attention this day, and Ross did not. Knowing that none of these concerns had been addressed in the draft documents, Rowland and Schlegel subsequently ruled on them in the only reasonable way they could have.
Why did the oil & gas edit committee and the CDS department not respond to the COGCC warnings?
Why did the planning commission accept documents they knew had been made obsolete by COGCC criticisms?
Why did the edit committee, the planning commission, and the CDS department, try to convince the BOCC to put Elbert County on a litigation collision course with the state?
Should there be wholesale changes in personnel in all of these groups?
How can the citizens of Elbert County trust future advice from the people currently operating these groups?
B_Imperial
applause, please.
When the BOCC announced at the June 26th meeting that only the zoning element of the proposed oil & gas regulations was on the table that day, many people in the room started to visibly shake. Speaker after speaker stood up to rebut severing consideration of the zoning from the MOU, the emotional barometer rising with each second on the clock.
No words were left unsaid, no constructs unexplored, no state vs. county vs. industry vs. the environment scenario went undiagnosed, in the attempt to convince the BOCC to reconsider and get that MOU back on the table.
So many bloody bodies piled up on the sword of the MOU that proceedings became a little farcical. At one point a wrestling match for the microphone almost broke out when Paul Crisan staked out turf next to the podium and the BOCC had to order him to stand down. He’s probably still smarting from that rebuke — like an ice bucket of cold water in the face.
After all, he’s one of the insiders! One of the hearty givers who seize the reins of power in the planning commission, or the oil & gas edit committee, or the water advisory board, or who faithfully show up as acolyte enabling audience for one of the law-giver groups. And these folks aren’t shy about heaping praise upon other members of the law-giving communities, which is to say, upon themselves. All of these committees have periodic rituals of mutual adoration that the uninitiated have to sit through.
Mind you, no one denies that the work is difficult, or that it doesn’t have value. But the question of value remains open. To listen to the ones puffing about their public service, the value is quite high. But all that puffing probably gets offset by the self-aggrandizement factor.
Even things like gold that have intrinsic value still trade at an objectively determined market value.
In the objective market for this round of oil & gas zoning regulations, it appears their value came up well short of their expectations. No amount of puffing could save it.
The oil & gas edit committee, the planning commission, the water board, the acolyte enablers, all of them gambled on a payoff that their self-fulfilling prophecy of an MOU would get anointed by a majority of the BOCC and given the force of law. They knew they had Ross in the bag and all they had to do was convince Rowland. Surely that was a done deal.
And what a victory it would have been! So strong was the allure of success that they ignored warning signs about operational conflicts from the Attorney General’s office. They’d considered all that and figured the risk of the County getting sued was worth the exposure. The COGCC, COGA and Jake Matter from the AG’s office all came out to talk some sense into the planners, and planners didn’t even bother to update their zoning and MOU proposals, so sure were they of the righteousness of their path.
And then it all came crashing down on the 26th. All that remained on July 10th was to hammer a few nails in the coffin, the patient already long gone. Who knew that Rowland would decide that the risk of the County getting sued was not something Rowland was going to gamble over on his watch?
Well, the name calling, the raising of procedural doubts, the personal disparagements, all of it is just kicking into gear. You don’t affront this bunch of professional do-gooders without paying serious blood money. They will have their revenge. People will pay dearly for interfering in their all important work of furthering the agenda.
They’ll never admit this failure was their fault. But it was. They overreached. They gambled. They shut out contrary indicators. They refused substantive inputs from industry and the state alike. They argued down reasonable opposing views. They made themselves more important than the truth. They put faith in their own club of mutual admirers over the objective reality that surrounds all of us. They gave into hubris. They were big fish in a small pond.
Someone didn’t get the memo and came along to drain the water.
No worries though. They’ll be back. The lure of power, and their lust for it, remain strong. Oh yes, they’ll definitely be back. And they’ll expect us to applaud.
B_Imperial
Left has myths about Weld
Assessed valuation is a gusher in Weld County
Property values hit $7.1 billion, among richest in state
![]() Weld County’s assessed value soars – Assessed value from 2001 to 2013 (in $billion). *This figure from Weld Assessor Christopher Woodruff is preliminary. Source: Weld County Assessor’s Office |
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Steve Lynn
Assessed property values in Weld County, long known for its affordable, rural lifestyle, have reached $7.1 billion this year, putting it on par with the wealthiest counties in metro Denver.
The increase in value is largely attributable to oil and natural-gas production, which makes up 55 percent of the county’s total assessed value, Weld Assessor Christopher Woodruff said.
“In terms of what’s driving the dollars, it’s oil and gas,” Woodruff said. “The other classes of property are not big enough or don’t change enough to make enough difference into the actual tax dollars that are paid.”
The largest increase came from the Wattenberg field, the area extending from north of Denver well into Weld County, which marks the sweet spot of Weld’s oil and gas drilling boom.
Assessed value for 2013 determines the amount of tax revenue the county’s more than 300 tax districts collect next year. The assessed-value figures are preliminary, but could increase in coming months. The county will certify this year’s values for the first time in August, with a final certification coming in December.
Last year’s assessed value in Weld reached $6.5 billion, netting $454 million in revenue for tax districts, including the county itself, junior colleges, schools, fire and water districts and others. Property tax revenue increased $71 million from the $383 million collected the prior year.
In 2012, oil and gas accounted for 52 percent of assessed value. Noble Energy Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., two of the largest oil and natural-gas companies in the region, paid the county $148 million in 2012 property taxes, nearly one third of all the county’s tax revenue.
This year, agricultural assessed value rose 18 percent, but it only makes up 2 percent of total assessed value, Woodruff said.
In April, Weld was ranked No. 4 in total estimated assessed value at $6.8 billion, behind Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties, according to a study from the state Department of Local Affairs’ Division of Property Taxation. Denver County ranked No. 1 with $11.3 billion in assessed value, well ahead of the others.
Of the top-ranked counties, however, Weld saw the largest percentage increase in assessed value of 4.9 percent.
Based on the new $7.1 billion figure, Weld’s assessed value growth rises to 9.2 percent.
“Some counties, such as Weld County, are growing dramatically,” said JoAnn Groff, the state property tax administrator, who also attributed the increase to oil and gas activity.
By contrast, Larimer County’s 2013 assessed value was estimated at $4.19 billion, up slightly from $4.13 billion in 2012.
The influx of tax revenue has helped keep Weld’s mill levy low. In 2001, Weld’s mill levy was 20.599; by 2006 it was down to 16.804, where it has remained.
Bill Jerke, a farmer and oil and gas consultant as well as a former state representative and Weld County commissioner, said the low tax rates have promoted economic prosperity.
“The overall wealth keeps going up, and as a result, the tax rate goes down,” he said. “It winds up making us more attractive. … You can live in a home or have a business in Weld County and have the property taxes be quite a bit cheaper than they would be across the county line.
“It’s a continuation of the wonders oil and gas have been bringing us.”
Foreclosure filings drop 54 percent in Weld County
Foreclosure filings were down 50.5 percent in Colorado metro counties during May 2013, falling year over year to the lowest level recorded during May in any year since the Colorado Division of Housing began collecting monthly totals in 2007. In Weld County, foreclosure filings dropped 54.7 percent from 139 to 63. Foreclosure auction sales in Colorado’s metropolitan counties were down 25.4 percent in May this year compared to May of last year, falling from 965 to 720, according to a report released Wednesday by the Colorado Division of Housing. Over the same period, foreclosure filings dropped from 2,249 to 1,113.
Unemployment Rate in Weld County, CO
leadership vs. litigiousness
Other polarities here:
- Republican vs. Democrat
- Rule of Law vs. Manipulation of Law
- Conclusive Decisionmaking vs. Adversarial Provocation
- Elected Representation vs. Aparatchik Subversion
The BOCC majority, in this case, prevented bad zoning laws from overtaking Elbert County. Let’s hope they continue to do so.
Rick Brown (4/2/2013) “Frankly at this point I don’t care what the state says.”
overreachers
C.R.S. 30-28-116. Regulations may be amended
From time to time the board of county commissioners may amend . . . any . . . provision . . . of the zoning . . . Any such amendment shall not be made or become effective unless the same has been proposed by or is first submitted for the approval, disapproval, or suggestions of the county planning commission. If disapproved by such commission . . . such amendment, to become effective, shall receive the favorable vote of not less than a majority of the entire membership of the board of county commissioners.
Over the past 2+ years, the Oil & Gas regulation edit committee, and its contributory audiences, were both heavily weighted with Democrats and environmentalists.
Last Spring, the Elbert County Planning Commission took the wholesale work product from this partisan group and passed it without objection.
In June, the BOCC offered to strike a middle ground with these forces by saving the zoning regulation component with minor language changes, and revamping the MOU into a more fair negotiation tool, one not repugnant to industry and COGCC regulations.
Democrat forces would have nothing to do with that compromise and spoke vehemently against it.
Democrat forces never intended to produce a workable process. They intended to create, and did create, a document to legalize a zoning process of interminable discretionary procedural delays — pretty much the same approach they used for the new zoning for Special Districts.
Apparently, the BOCC learned something from the Special District zoning fiasco.
At yesterdays’ oil & gas regulatory denouement, Mr. Blotter threw up a Hail Mary with another call for a moratorium — essentially the legal effect he and compatriots had intended to achieve with the zoning process they’d constructed over the past 2+ years.
The majority of the BOCC correctly realized that another turn on the planning commission merry-go-around, with zero assurances that the unelected planning commissioners would produce any kind of workable outcome, would just end up extending the debacle.
The majority of the BOCC realized that a substantial change in governing law must be arguably better than the status quo, and that on the working documents presented to them, and likely to be presented to them from the same people in the future, they could not make that case. Judging by the weak objections from Commissioner Ross, there indeed was no case to be made. And the majority knew that Elbert County already had plenty of regulatory protection in place under the COGCC’s legal occupation of the field, and Elbert County’s land use zoning under special use review.
The ones who came away from yesterday licking their wounds are the over-reaching planners who have now marginalized themselves — and that includes CDS employees, lawyerly code writers, the rubber-stamping planning commission poobahs, and the acolyte zombie enablers of this circus — into a boring predictable bunch of partisan hacks.
B_Imperial
more Kiowa color
East v West
Indian Paint Mines
hyperbolic times
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Polite debate is no longer the accepted norm in our society. The liberal left is not tolerating divergent opinions, they want them eliminated. Outrageous labels, personal threats, and even violence have escalated during what used to be polite discourse and disagreements of opinion. [Read more…]
…and another
another good evening
Coincidence?
Must Read: Look What Just Happened: Damning Expose Of The Greatest Fraud In History
By: Joan Swirsky
Any one of these ‘coincidences’ when taken singularly appear to not mean much, but when taken as a whole, a computer would blow a main circuit if you asked it to calculate the odds that they have occurred by chance alone. Sit back, get a favorite beverage, and then read and ponder the Obama-related ‘coincidences’ … then super-impose the bigger picture of most recent events i.e. Fast and furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal and the NSA revelations … then pray for our country.
Obama just happened to [Read more…]
good evening
EC planning gets a *fail*
In the context of MOU argument at the BOCC meeting yesterday, planner Paul Crisan made much of his purpose on the Planning Commission and Oil & Gas Zoning Edit Committee to protect property values in Elbert County. The record does not appear to sustain the kind of support he assumes.
The most current census data shows total home property values in nearby counties as follows:
- Arapahoe $55.4 Billion
- Douglas $36.6 Billion
- Elbert $3.8 Billion
- El Paso $55.2 Bllion
On a per resident basis, census data shows average home property value as follows:
- Arapaho $93 Thousand
- Douglas $128 Thousand
- Elbert $132 Thousand
- El Paso $86 Thousand
So, Elbert County property values look pretty good on a per-resident basis, but only at about 10% of the total value of our next highest neighbor.
Elbert County planners have impoverished total home property value in Elbert County. They have restricted supply of valuable property and made us the poor cousins of the neighborhood. If your claim to fame is you’ve stopped everyone else from improving their lot in life by locking down the potential for economic growth, maybe you need to reevaluate your purpose. And this analysis does not include the value of commercial property which would make the numbers look tragically worse.
This is not a record that supports continuing the current planning philosophies governing Elbert County.
B_Imperial
MOU takes center stage
My favorite parts about the BOCC meeting yesterday were the many bias revelations by members of the planning commission, the oil & gas regulation edit committee, and the planning department [not mutually exclusive sets of people].
In contrast, all three members of the BOCC appeared to coalesce around the notion that MOU contract language should not be adversarial as a matter of policy, and that MOU subject matter should be determined between the negotiating parties at the time an MOU is memorialized. Frankly, people I know were encouraged to see the BOCC take an objectively reasonable approach on the MOU.
But hold on, Thayer, Crisan, Dorman, Brown, Corrado, Thomasson, Fenner, and Parkinson, all but two involved with drafting the regulations, had real trouble letting go of the county enacting an official baseline MOU.
All of them seem heavily vested in the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even though they went to great lengths to explain just how negotiable each MOU will be, for them an MOU is not so negotiable that the process to write one can begin without the county’s green policy terms already incorporated into the document.
What the county would forego by adopting a pro-forma MOU without such terms built in, according to this gang of 8, is protection of water and protection of property values. The BOCC didn’t agree with that argument, preferring to see, instead, a non-adversarial MOU format.
Moreover, It looks like COGCC enforcement of MOU terms is an unsettled practice. The gang of 8 are pushing to include MOU language into the well owners’ COGCC regulatory paperwork on the belief that inclusion will bring COGCC support in enforcement of the county’s MOU terms, perhaps over time elevating the effect of MOU terms to a regulatory status, or perhaps bringing help from the state on policing and discovery of MOU compliance.
But none of that is certain. The COGCC told the county in several previous meetings that MOU compliance is the county’s responsibility to enforce in civil court. How much help COGCC would provide to the county on enforcement of MOU terms that exceed COGCC’s statewide regulatory standards, which would basically be all of the MOU terms, appears to be a grey area at this time.
A larger question is what value operators would put on a 6 month zoning approval delay, and what increased costs they might consider accepting in an MOU to avoid spending that value. There is no general answer to this question since no two sets of operational circumstances will be identical — further reason for there not to be an MOU template that includes a set of one-size-fits-all terms.
The MOU is part of an unsavory proposition that Elbert County is planning to present to all potential operators — “To do business here instead of somewhere else where COGCC rules control without exception, you can lose X or you can lose Y. Choose your poison. And here’s the bill for our fees.”
The BOCC is right to insist on removing the adversarial components of the pro-forma MOU. Our zoning will have already told operators they are unwelcome in Elbert County. No need to rub it in with the MOU. It’s much better to use the MOU as an opportunity to mitigate what will have already started out to be a bad deal.
B_Imperial
the buggy ride
Thank you, Elbert County planners, for the buggy ride.
I read the proposed Oil & Gas regulations and the proposed Memorandum of Understanding to accompany the regulations.
To discover why Elbert County needs this new body of local zoning law, I went to the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission website to compare existing state regulations with the Elbert County proposals.
I read the topical cross reference index that correlates subjects to COGCC rules.
I read the table of contents for all COGCC rules.
I skimmed through the 180 pages of COGCC rules and regulations.
I skimmed through the 26 pages of Title 34, Article 60 of the Colorado Revised Statute enabling legislation for the COGCC.
I didn’t find anything in the Elbert County proposals that wasn’t already thoroughly dealt with in a much better written, unambiguous, and effective manner at the state level.
So, I’m left with the conclusion that the Elbert County Oil & Gas regulatory effort isn’t about regulating Oil & Gas at all. That leaves money.
A device to bring money into the county is the only reason left to explain this effort. Someone apparently decided that under existing zoning, Elbert County didn’t have sufficient legal hooks into this budding industry to scrape off some cash for itself.
So that’s why the big government types who control the county commissions and the county planning process have spent so much effort to get this done. Oil & Gas is just the latest funding source to grow their beloved government. And bonus points, the industry comes with a built-in clamoring segment of the public who dependably create the spectacle of a sense of urgency to push regulations through.
And you don’t even have to pay them. They just show up. Every time.
To those Elbert County citizens still capable of independent thought, which unfortunately rules out most of the folks planning to attend the BOCC meeting this Wednesday, I say take the Buggy Ride. Reach a different conclusion than I have if you can.
If Elbert County really needs more money and Oil & Gas is to be its cash cow, it would be much more honest and simple to embrace TABOR, make the tax argument to the people at large, and let the people decide the matter.
This regulatory sideshow will cause a nightmare of unintended consequences. Not only is it an extremely poor cousin to the state’s rules, but it’s a fundamentally undemocratic exercise in fascism without voter consent.
B_Imperial
oil well accounting
Oil wells have costs and, if all goes well, revenues. Ownership of an oil well is divided into two classes – working interest owners and royalty interest owners. Working interests are the people who drill and operate the well. Royalty interests are the mineral owners who grant the working interest owners the limited rights to mine minerals from their property.
All owners share in revenues from proceeds from the well according to a percentage called a division of interest [DOI]. All revenue interest divisions add up to 100% across both working interests and royalty interests.
Working interest owners also have a separate cost division of interest that adds to 100% for cost allocations. The working interest class of ownership pays all the costs incurred by the well from the cost of mineral rights acquisition through well construction, drilling, completion, and ongoing operations.
The working interest portion of the revenue DOI comprises the lions share of the total revenue division because the working interests take all the risks and incur all the costs. Income from well operations must first satisfy well costs — the oil or gas well must break even — before revenue begins to be available for revenue distribution across the entire revenue DOI.
Only when earnings from the well exceed costs does money become available for distribution across the revenue DOI ownership.
Adding costs to the oil well raises the breakeven point for the well, and reduces money available for return to revenue interest owners.
Regulation that unnecessarily increases the cost of well development, acts like a hidden tax levied against all of the well owners. It is a very selective tax, not born by the citizenship at large, and especially not born by the parties who promote it.
Elbert County is about to enter into a regulatory regime that duplicates much of the regulatory realm already covered by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, or COGCC. County regulations will unnecessarily add millions of dollars of cost to oil and gas well development. They will create pressure to add county jobs to administer all of the waivers from county regulations. They will turn potential revenues to DOI owners into well costs. A whole scheme of fees will divert potential revenue money into the county bureaucracy to cover new Elbert County administrative costs.
Worse still, it is not the citizenship at large who clamor for this regulatory regime. Clamoring comes from a minute percentage of environmental activists who not only don’t represent the citizenship at large, but they have no significant percentage in the stakeholding ownership of this industry in Elbert County.
Even worse still, is that they sell a regulatory regime on the myth of improving the health, safety and welfare to Elbert County citizens, when the regulations do nothing beyond what the COGCC already successfully does to guide environmentally sound oil and gas development, and in fact will probably create new devices masking problems in to-be-discovered bureaucratic imponderables.
The only citizens whose health, safety and welfare will be improved work for Elbert County government. This is a make-work jobs program for the Elbert County Community and Development Services Department, and the assorted consultants and counselors they will have to hire to provide industry knowledge.
These oil and gas regulations also create a deep well of Green v. Humanity subject matter to grease planning commission and BOCC meetings for the foreseeable future.
Who are the winners? Bureaucrats, politicians, environmental activists.
Who are the losers? Everyone else.
B_Imperial
the 90-10 fallacy
If 90% of the people want Elbert County to control things like oil & gas and water, how come we only ever hear from 10% of them?
10% seems all you need to get the Planning Commission and the BOCC to write up and pass new laws.
Are members of the Planning Commission and the BOCC so consumed by their own power that it only takes a handful of cheerleaders to make them execute?
in search of founded conclusions
The digital information tools for citizen journalists today enable us to effectively pull the covers off the sordid details of public malfeasance, corruption, the self-dealing and aggrandizement of public officials, and the broken state of traditional media.
Conservatives, by the hour, chronicle details of the broken, politically captive and insular mainstream media. Alarming as this is, why do we assume that the mainstream media was ever objective, non-political, or an effective 4th-estate check on government power?
On the contrary, a better case exists for the proposition that the essential nature of mainstream media is unchanged today from in the past. Organizational cultures simply don’t invert their behavior over time. They tend to persist in the characteristic behaviors of their organization.
Rather than get overwrought about how wrong the mainstream media is, and thereby lose focus on solvable mainstream issues, perhaps we should just admit that the mainstream media is as it always was, and that we’re just coming to see it in a more objective light for the first time.
Alternative media showed that traditional media did not live up to the potential the Founders gave it in the Constitution. Now we can move on and consider what the Founder’s were actually trying to accomplish.
The Federalists contemplated a constitutional objective for the country to have a legally protected free press, and this became the 1st Amendment. As we have seen, allowance for it did not guarantee it would be practiced. A free press, apparently, remains an ideal objective today.
The order of freedoms protected in the 1st Amendment – religion, speech, press, assembly, petition government – is significant. Subsequent rights build on preceeding rights. God gives us our fundamental rights, and from there the Constitution guarantees our rights to speak, to publish our speech, to get together publicly to discuss our speech, and then to take our conclusions to the government.
Nothing within the 1st Am., however, guarantees the quality or content of that protected speech. Nothing protects us against ignoble motives of a speaker. Nothing protects us against speech that promotes the interests of one, a few, or a subset of citizens, at the expense of the majority of citizens. Nothing protects us from organizations, whether it’s the press or other groups, who promulgate self-interested speech at the expense of the majority.
Sound speech is the only means we have in America to offset unsound speech. If we don’t practice it, we have only ourselves to blame for the tyranny that will ensue, and has ensued.
Absence of hyperbole, adherence to generally accepted facts, absence of personal attacks and diminutions, adherence to observable causation, language that narrows into rather than leads away from both the intent and form of the subject, these are some indicators of sound speech.
The supported conclusions that come from fairly represented facts fed through the prism of logically sound reasoning, are for us to discover, not dictate. The Left is as subject to founded conclusions as the rest of us, and that’s the reality the Founders intended for Americans to practice. Ultimately, it’s not a politically determined reality, it’s a reality discovered in the nature of all things.
The Founders were essentialists. The Constitution protects the essence of matters, in this case, the essence of public speech. They gave us a legal framework for us to accurately discover and respond to the true nature of reality. They avoided the hubris of determinism. They knew that freedom would serve us much better in our self-government experiment than a futile mechanism for one group to control another. They’d had enough of that sort of government.
Today, however, the Left never stops working to replace the Constitution in America with political action. The Left think that politics can and should determine reality. This unrealistic, reverse causal direction of theirs — that attempts to dictate the nature of things rather than respond to the nature of things — never seems to give them a moments pause as they control, regulate, modulate, temper, fund, defund, and serve the higher masters of their agenda.
But it’s a free country. If the Left want to blind themselves to the true nature of reality with a blizzard of determinism, they are free to do so. Fortunately, the rest of us are free to avoid those pitfalls.
For too long the Left dominated public speech in America. With a complicit media they’ve built massive bureaucratic and regulatory structures at every level of local, county, state and federal government in America. Across the land thousands of pages of new regulations get added to the books every day by a cadre’ of lawyers, bureaucrats, public servants and assorted do-gooders — a happy class of jovial elites ever ready to congratulate each other on their magnificent regulatory creations.
The Founders gave us a tool to change all that, to unwind this enormous Gordian knot, to take back our lives. All we have to do is use it.
B_Imperial