I was blocked by @LadyMenopause at the end of this exchange, so what follows are my views on “whitesplaining” and “mansplaining,” not hers.
Twitter Exchange, @LadyMenopause and @PatrickDurusau, May 28, 2020.
After sleeping on it, I think my posts were guilty of both “whitesplaining” and “mansplaining,” but have no idea what prompted @LadyMenopause’s response.
As far as “mansplaining,” the tweet that prompted by response by @LadyMenopause was not about protest tactics, targeting, the best ways to engage oppressors or anything of the sort. (I really need to start archiving my timeline.) So my initial response, suggesting better targeting for Republican majority areas, was off-topic and hijacking her thread, for a topic of no evidence interest to her.
Another aspect of “mansplaining” was my dismissal of her view of Republican areas as guarded by “rednecks with all their artillery in front of them….” Whatever I or you may think about that view of Republican areas in Minneapolis, it is her view. I continued to err in treating the topic as one about tactics and strategies, which were not her focus.
On “whitesplaining,” I am a child of a violent white culture and assume that resources and tactics can be whistled up with little or no difficulty. My perspective also does not account for members of the Black community, their hopes and desires, to say nothing of their interest (or lack thereof) in wading in their oppressors blood. Unlike some white people, I don’t think I can evaluate or even properly consider the hopes and desires of the Black community. To suggestion action anyway, is a form of “whitesplaining.”
I’m utterly convinced that Black people, women, and others have been, are and likely will be oppressed by the white male capitalist patriarchy. I have had no doubts on that score for decades. I try to not speak the language of the Empire but as you can see, I can and do fail. Apologies to anyone who was offended and should you be called out for either “mansplaining” or “whitesplaining,” perhaps this will be a good starting point to discover your error.
PS: When you see me falling into “mansplaining” or “whitesplaining,” I’d appreciate a comment, here or on Twitter. Thanks!
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Protest in Michigan answers a lingering question from the 20th century, do ignorant white cosplayers do have enough sense to come in out of the rain?
One of the more popular images from protests at the Michagan State House seems to support the “storming” of the building by armed white folks.
Cosplayer in out of the rain.
The “storming” narrative is sweeping social media, driven by people who are soliciting your money, either now or soon. The problem is none, repeat none of the “storming” narratives is true. They are completely and utterly false! NBC captures what happened in a single paragraph:
As the protests moved indoors from the rainy steps of the Capitol, police took the temperatures of those entering the building using forehead thermometers, according to NBC affiliate WOOD of Grand Rapids.
Armed white cosplayers, came in out of the rain in Michigan, after having their temperatures checked by the police. Not my idea of “storming” a state capital. Yours?
PS: Yes, police have reacted with extreme violence against unarmed Black Children (Children’s Crusade, Birmingham, AL May 2-3, 1963) and peaceful Native Americans (Standing Rock, for example, 2016-2017), but not against these armed white people. Your point? Over 500 years, white settlers have practiced and refined racism into the warp and woof of North America. Shaming it for being the society they built, one injustice at a time isn’t a winning strategy.
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Apologies for the long silence! I haven’t been sick so much as disorganized and distracted. Working on both of those and hope to mark May Day 2020 by returning to regular blogging.
One persistent question, charge or comment that I get on Facebook and Twitter to some of my bolder suggestions is: That’s illegal! So far as I know, “legal” depends on who you are, not the act in question.
Take “terrorist” bombing for example. Every US president in my lifetime (let’s just say 60+ years) with one exception, Carter, has engaged in the murder of civilians in foreign countries, by bombing. By extension, so have the troops under their commands engaged in terrorist bombings/attacks.
The same is true for both CIA and other agency operatives who engage in acts most of us would describe as murder, torture, etc. We can conclude from the lack of consequences for their acts, someone thought their actions were legal.
But if I describe how to weaponize data in order to, in theory at least, to interfere with oil or gas pipelines, refineries, airports, some wag will interject: That’s illegal! As though that is meaningful in the face of crimes that will blight the lives of millions, or worse.
True enough, some act might be “illegal” in the eyes of a system rigged to benefit the wealthy and destroy the ecosphere, but isn’t that just a caution to not be apprehended? The “property rights” of oil and gas companies that are destroying this planet have no strings that tug at my heart. Especially when compared to the rights of children to grow up in healthy, sustainable environments.
That’s illegal! most often originates from people who, having secured privileges in the present system, are loathe to see it change. If Martin Luther King were alive today and in jail in Birmingham for protesting environmental crimes, they would be named addressees. (It’s sad that letter is most often reprinted sans the addressees names. We really should know who the moral cowards of previous generations were.)
Do some acts have more consequences than others? Sure, mugging for TV cameras to “draw attention” to an issue has consequences. Using IEDs or the threat of IEDs, punching holes in pipelines not yet in use, making pipelines fail under pressure, all of those increase costs and deter investors. Given the pathological greed of capitalism, do you think drawing attention or increasing construction costs on an exponential scale are more likely to be effective?
I freely concede if you want to preserve your present privileges, by all means, listen to those who want to sustain present exploitation of people and the environment. If you want to take a chance on having a meaningful impact for the better, treat cries of That’s illegal!, as booterism for a foul present.
That said, as always, consider your present status, CIA, FBI, NSA agent, contractor (Whitey Bolger?), US military, etc., and local laws, along with your appetite for risk, when evaluating whether you should or should not use techniques described herein.
PS: I may revisit/update some old classics like Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman that has this great passage:
A special metallic bonding glue available from Eastman-Kodak will form a permanent bond in only 45 seconds. Gluing up locks of all the office buildings in your town is a great way to dramatize the fact that our brothers and sisters are being jailed all the time.
Of course you know this “special metallic bonding glue from Eastman-Kodak” by the more familiar name: Cyanoacrylate, no, sorry, “Super Glue.”
While honoring the source as Abbie Hoffman, be imaginative! Some random places where Super Glue could be appropriately applied: gas caps, lug nuts (esp. if caltrops are likely), suitcases, home/hotel/motel doors, laptops, traffic arms, anywhere with two surfaces in contact. (Be sure to check your status as a US mercenary before undertaking such uses.)
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More than 100 cities of the U. S. have been hit by Negro violence this year. At least 177 persons have been killed, thousands injured. Property damage has approached 1 billion dollars.
I remember the summer the cities burned. I was puzzled at the time, being 13 years old, why the rioters didn’t attack wealthy sections of town, instead of burning their own?
A particular pattern emerged: What usually ignited the powder keg of resentments was police brutality or abuse. Triggering the rioting in Newark was an incident on the hot summer night of July 12 in which police arrested John Smith, an African-American taxi driver, pulling him roughly from his cab during a traffic stop. The cops beat Smith and dragged him into the nearby Fourth Precinct station. Hundreds of residents watched from a large public housing project and an angry crowd quickly gathered outside the police building. A false rumor swirled through the streets that Smith had been killed, adding to the outrage.
The location of riots looks like happenstance, people riot where they are located when a triggering event takes place. In the 1967 riots, those locations were the ghettos where so many Black Americans were imprisoned and remain so to this day.
Data question: What if oppressed people assembled (not marched to) at locations frequented by the owners of government? Say gated communities for instance. If those assemblies were met with police brutality or abuse, would people riot? Any empirical evidence on that question? Asking for a friend.
Johnstone in full voice and possibly at her best! Her automatic condemnation of propaganda and manipulation does cause concern.
What if propaganda and manipulation could end the $5.2 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies? (direct and indirect) What if propaganda and manipulation could lead to a non-development economy? Or propaganda and manipulation moving us towards less sexism and racism? Any objectors?
I’ll go first. No objections. What about you?
Society being full of propaganda and manipulation isn’t a recent thing. The slaver “founding fathers” of the United States rather handily manipulated the public into the U.S. farce known as a “democracy.” It is a very long way from any sane definition of democracy. The senate, electoral college, supreme court, wage/wealth gaps, just to name a few of the departures from “democracy.”
Climate news grows worse with every report, while industry plots to use the same techniques that drive climate change to save us, for a price. Now is not the time to be picky about how we enlist others to save themselves and the planet.
Study Johnstone’s list to avoid being manipulated and to perfect your techniques for a worthy cause.
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A tweet I saw yesterday suggested surveilling U.S. concentration camps using a drone. That’s certainly possible but hobbyist type drones put you within easy visual distance of government forces. There are long range drones, all of which carry hefty price tags. What if you don’t have access to a long range drone? Alternatives?
Low-cost, low-tech answer: Consider the lowly helium balloon. With some experimenting, you can discover a stable buoyancy height for a ballon suitable for carrying a wireless digital camera.
Unlike a short range drone, you can launch a balloon plus digital camera from random and distant locations from an actual concentration camp. Launch locations are chosen based on weaponizing weather data, made available by most governments. In the United States, the National Weather Service provides current wind data and maintains historical weather data.
Once you have a stable buoyancy height for your balloon plus digital camera (password protected), record the harness and camera weight so you can create other balloons to accompany the one or more balloons with cameras at a similar height. Authorities will go nuts trying to chase every balloon down as “evidence” and it creates opportunities for balloon spotters (BSers) to call in reports of balloon sightings and landings.
For surveillance purposes, use maps of wind conditions to select launch points that will result in your balloons passing over the concentration camps of interest. Concentration camps tend to be fixed locations and as you develop more experience with local wind patterns, the more successful you will be on a regular basis.
Perhaps old school but I would insure that every balloon has a physical limit to its travels. If you can’t think of any ways to do that, ask your former eight grade (US educational system) science teacher. That’s good for the environment. Should you find balloons released by others, remember that some devices bite upon discovery. Report discovered balloons to local law enforcement.
Balloons are cheap, annoying to government officials, and provide low-risk ways to document government activities, from rain forests to concentration camps. Weaponizing weather data for surveillance is only one way to use the common balloon. Other suggestions are forthcoming.
PS: Here is one list of U.S. concentration camps. I express no opinion about the accuracy of that list or the legality of surveilling any location mentioned therein. To avoid being U.S. specific, I’m happy to update this portion of the post with pointers to other lists of concentration camps around the world. Go carefully.
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1. Virginia’s top law-enforcer, Attorney General Herring: Don’t negotiate MVP crimes. Stop work!
2. Banks: Divest from pipelines.
3. Voters: Rid Virginia of corporate Democrats.
4. Equitrans (ETRN): At your Pittsburgh stockholder meeting: Recognize that your MVP “engineering marvel” is an investors’ black hole and cut your losses.
5. Federal courts: Respect environmental rights over corporations.
6. FERC: Transform to “FREC” (Federal Renewable Energy Commission).
7. Congress: place fracking under the Clean Water Act.
Munley miracles have a spotty record, to say the least, at stopping pipelines.
Protests and lawsuits have delayed pipelines, in some cases for years. But delay isn’t stopping and new pipelines are underway, in hopes of last minute profits in the face of accelerating climate change.
If Munley miracles don’t stop pipelines, then how? What does data science have to offer pipeline opponents? Can data be weaponized for the people?
If you use public feeds from traffic cams to guide or monitor disruptions, Public Spy (Traffic) Cams, or “leak” that you are using public feeds in that manner, government authorities are likely to interrupt public access to those feeds.
Unlike government actors, you know which locations are important, which disruptions are false flags (including random events that attract attention), and you benefit from public uncertainly caused by any interruption of public services, such as traffic cams.
As an illustration and not a suggestion, if cars caught in gridlock come under attack, say a pattern of attacks over several days, motorists caught in ordinary gridlock become more nervous and authorities view accidents or other causes with hightened suspicion. Whether you are the cause of the gridlock or not.
Authorities suffer from apophenia, that is “seeing apparently meaningful connections between unrelated patterns, data or phenomena.” What is pareidolia? (a sub-class of apophenia) Perhaps more than apophenia, because actively searching for patterns, makes them more likely to discover false ones. With an eye for patterns, you can foster their recognition of false ones. [FYI, false patterns are “subjects” in the topic maps. May include data on their creation.]
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The Bing Maps Routing and Traffic Team is constantly working to make navigation and route planning easier! Hot on the heels of our previous announcement about traffic coloring, the Bing Maps team is proud to announce that we have made it possible for users to access traffic camera images along a planned driving route! You can now see traffic camera icons along a short to moderate-length route. By clicking on a traffic camera icon, you can view the latest image from the traffic camera at that location.
Bing Maps with traffic cameras:
Enable real time routing of “breakdowns” for maximum impact
Monitor highways for enhancement of unplanned blockages
Support live tweeting/messaging/blogging of highway conditions
Access to traffic cams is not news but Bing is making them easy for casual users. The more users, the more noise and the safer you will be accessing traffic cams for your purposes.
Assuming the worst outcome in the 2021 presidential elections, you may want to consult Defeating Police Formations – Parallel Distributed Protesting, a post that I badly need to re-write. The lesson there is one of stopping cars on the Beltway around Washington, D.C., to effectively interrupt any inaguration ceremony. Traffic cams and management of “breakdowns” go hand in hand.
If you want to ineffectively interrupt any inaguration ceremony, mug for the press cameras at subways entrances. Your call.
You get close enough from a “security minded” pipeline map and then drive until you see a long flat area with a pipeline sign. That doesn’t sound very hard to me. You?
Possible protest activity. Using the GPS on your phone, record locations where pipelines cross highways. Collaborate on production of GPS-based pipeline maps. Free to the public (including protesters).
We have the technology. Do we have the will to create our own maps of pipeline locations?
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The UpGuard Cyber Risk Team can now disclose that a publicly accessible cloud-based data repository of resumes and applications for employment submitted for positions with TigerSwan, a North Carolina-based private security firm, were exposed to the public internet, revealing the sensitive personal details of thousands of job applicants, including hundreds claiming “Top Secret” US government security clearances. TigerSwan has recently told UpGuard that the resumes were left unsecured by a recruiting vendor that TigerSwan terminated in February 2017. If that vendor was responsible for storing the resumes on an unsecured cloud repository, the incident again underscores the importance of qualifying the security practices of vendors who are handling sensitive information.
The exposed documents belong almost exclusively to US military veterans, providing a high level of detail about their past duties, including elite or sensitive defense and intelligence roles. They include information typically found on resumes, such as applicants’ home addresses, phone numbers, work history, and email addresses. Many, however, also list more sensitive information, such as security clearances, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers and at least partial Social Security numbers. Most troubling is the presence of resumes from Iraqi and Afghan nationals who cooperated with US forces, contractors, and government agencies in their home countries, and who may be endangered by the disclosure of their personal details.
While the process errors and vendor practices that result in such cloud exposures are all too common in the digital landscape of 2017, the month-long period during which the files remained unsecured after UpGuard’s Cyber Risk Team notified TigerSwan is troubling.
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Amazing story isn’t it? Even more amazing is that UpGuard sat on the data for a month, waiting for TigerSwan to secure it. Not to mention UpGuard not publicly posting the data upon discovery.
In case you don’t recognize “TigerSwan,” let me refresh your memory:
UpGuard finds 9,402 resumes, applicants seeking employment with TigerSwan/Blackwater type employers.
Did they expose these resumes to the public?
Did they expose these resumes to the press?
Did they expose these resumes to prosecutors?
None of the above.
UpGuard spends a month trying to keep the data hidden from the public, the press and potential prosecutors!
Unpaid charity work so far as I know.
Thousands of mercenaries benefit from this charity work by UpGuard. Their kind can continue to violate the rights of protesters, murder civilians, etc., all the while being watched over by UpGuard. For free.
Would you shield torturers and murderers from their past or future victims?
Don’t be UpGuard, choose no.
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Police surveillance of cellphone and Wi-Fi access points is standard procedure at all protests.
The Raspberry Pi PirateBox enables protesters to re-purpose that surveillance to share mis-leading data with police officers, anonymously.
Using prior protests as a model, even re-using audio/video footage, create “fake” reports and imagery for posting to your “My Little Protest News Site.” (Pick a less obvious name.)
With any luck, news media reps will be picking up stories your news site, which will increase the legitimacy of your “fake” reports. Not to mention adding to the general confusion.
Mix in true but too late to be useful news and even some truthful, prior to happening calls for movement so your reports are deemed mostly credible.
Predicting flare gun attacks on reserve formations, only moments before it happens, will go a long way to earning your site credibility with its next prediction of an uptick in action.
The legality of distributing fake reports and use of flare guns at protests varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Always consult with legal counsel about such conduct.
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Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.
Why Anonymity Matters
Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.
What’s your default browser?
If your answer is anything but Tor, you are putting yourself and others at risk.
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Media reports quote some of the statement but omit information such as:
This is our statement, we will be representing ourselves, as standby counsel and immediate contact is federal attorney, Bill Quigley, quigley77@gmail.com, 504-710-3074. Media contact, Amber Mae, 618-334-6035, amber@earthdefensecoalition.com; Melissa Fuller 515-490-5705.
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Unlike many (most?, all?) of your elected representatives, Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, are not seeking personal gain from their actions with regard to DAPL.
Participate and take such part as you deem appropriate.
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Two Iowa activists with a history of arrests for political dissent are claiming responsibility for repeatedly damaging the Dakota Access Pipeline while the four-state, $3.8 billion project was under construction in Iowa.
Jessica Reznicek, 35, and Ruby Montoya, 27, both of Des Moines, held a news conference Monday outside the Iowa Utilities Board’s offices where they provided a detailed description of their deliberate efforts to stop the pipeline’s completion. They were taken into custody by state troopers immediately afterward when they abruptly began using a crowbar and a hammer to damage a sign on state property.
Both women are involved in Iowa’s Catholic Worker social justice movement and they described their pipeline sabotage as a “direct action” campaign that began on Election Day 2016. They said their first incident of destruction involved burning at least five pieces of heavy equipment on the pipeline route in northwest Iowa’s Buena Vista County.
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The two women said they researched how to pierce the steel pipe used for the pipeline and in March they began using oxyacetylene cutting torches to damage exposed, empty pipeline valves. They said they started deliberately vandalizing the pipeline in southeast Iowa’s Mahaska County, delaying completion for weeks.

Jessica Reznicek (Photo: Special to the Register)
Reznicek and Montoya said they subsequently used torches to cause damage up and down the pipeline throughout Iowa and into part of South Dakota, moving from valve to valve until running out of supplies. They said their actions were rarely reported in the media. They also contended the federal government and Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline developer, withheld vital information from the public.
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Two people out of a U.S. population of 326,474,013 delayed the Dakota Access Pipeline for weeks.
BTW, a representative of the “we collect money and talk about the environment,” the Sierra Club, quite naturally denounces effective action against the pipeline.
After all, if anyone actually stopped damage to the environment in any one case, donors would expect effective action in other cases. Leaving the Sierra Club high and dry.
As a reading test, you pick the heroes in Petroski’s report.
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Filed under: #DAPL,Protests — Patrick Durusau @ 5:19 pm
Activists may have occasions to contact oil pipeline operators.
Failing to find a convenient directory of oil pipeline operators, I have created the Oil Pipeline Operator Directory (2015), with basic contact information. 2015 is the latest data.
OPERATOR_ID – Important because it’s the key to tracking an operator
COMPANY_NAME
STREET
CITY
STATE
ZIP
TITLE (PREPARER) Person preparing form 7000-1.1 (Rev. 06-2014).
NAME (PREPARER)
EMAIL (PREPARER)
PHONE (PREPARER)
FAX (PREPARER)
NAME (SIGNER) Person certifying the information on the form.
TITLE (SIGNER)
EMAIL (SIGNER)
PHONE (SIGNER)
I preserved the distinction between the person preparing Form 7000-1.1 and the person signing it for the operator.
I haven’t found a convenient mapping of operators to pipelines. The data exists, I have seen maps drawn using the Operator_ID to identify pipelines. But haven’t run it to ground, yet.
Organizing tactics to oppose pipeline construction along a continuum of success, requires identifying pipelines stopped by prayer. I want to add those to this map.
No disrespect intended for those who pray against pipelines but being a child of a culture that scars and exploits the earth itself, I measure tactics in more immediate results.
It’s true some day Dick Cheney will roast on a spit in Hell, but that’s little comfort to the victims of his preventable crimes against them.
I have mentioned DAPL becoming a $3.8 Billion non-operational pipeline warning to investors. Changing their culture, driving investments into renewable energy, making pipelines an investment to be feared, are some outcomes that can change pipeline culture in the US and elsewhere.
Data science, broadly conceived, can create persuasion campaigns, disfavor entities attempting to finance, build or operate pipelines, identify corrupt public officials, enable interference with unlawful pipelines, etc.
If you know of any pipelines permanently stopped by prayer, ping me patrick@durusau.net with the details.
If you are interested in using data science to advance your cause, same address.
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“Dakota Access estimates and targets that the pipeline will be complete and ready to flow oil anywhere between the week of March 6, 2017, and April 1, 2017,” company attorney William Scherman said in the documents filed in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
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Opponents to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) have two choices, #Resist or #EffectiveResist.
The new moon for February, 2017, was February 26, 2017 (yesterday). (Bookmark that link to discover other new moons in the future.)
Given the reduced visibility on nights with a new moon, you can take up rock sculpting with a thermal lance.
This is a very portable rig, but requires the same eye protection (welding goggles, no substitutes) and protective clothing as other welding activities.
Notice in the next video, which demonstrates professional grade equipment, the heavy protective headgear and clothing. Thermal lances are very dangerous and safety is your first concern.
If you create a bar-b-que pit from large pipe, follow Zippy the Razor‘s advice, “Down the block, Not across the street” to create long cuts the length of your pipe.
Will DAPL be a lesson to investors on the risk of no return from oil pipeline investments? Pending court litigation may play a role in that lesson.
The first inaccuracy/lie of the Sierra ad is that logging isn’t already ongoing in the Tongass.
The Sierra ad and its links also fail to mention (in millions of board feet) harvesting from the Tongass:
Calendar Year
Board Feet
2016
44,076,800
2010
35,804,970
2000
119,480,750
1990
473,983,320
1980
453,687,320
1970
560,975,120
A drop from 560,975,120 board feet to 44,076,800 board feet looks like the Forestry Service is moving in the right direction.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Unlike the Sierra Club that wants to excite alarm without giving you the data to decide for yourself, I have included links with the data I cite and data I don’t. Explore the data on your own.
I say the Sierra Club propaganda is “ineffectual” because it leaves you with no clue as to who is logging in Tongass?
Once again the Forestry Service rides to the rescue with Timber Volume Under Contract (sorry, no separate hyperlink from Forest Management Reports and Accomplishments), but look for it on that page and I picked Current Calendar Year Through: (select Jan).
That returns a spreadsheet that lists (among other things), ranger district, unit ID, contract form, purchaser, etc.
A word about MBF. The acronym MBF stands for thousand, as in Roman numberals, M = 1,000. So to read line 4, which starts with Ranger District “Thorne Bay,” read across to “Current Qty Est (MBF)”, the entry “6.00” represents 6,000 board feet. Thus, line 23, starts with “Juneau,” and “Current Qty Est (MBF)”, reads “3,601.00” represents 3,601,000 board feet. And so on. (I would have never guess that meaning without assistance from the forestry service.)
The Sierra Club leaves you with no clue as to who is harvesting the timber?, who is purchasing the timber from the harvesters?, who is using the timber for what products?, etc. The second and third steps removed the Forestry Service can’t provide but the harvesters gives you a starting point for further research.
A starting point for further research enables actions like boycotts of products made from Tongass timber, choosing products NOT made from Tongass timber and a whole host of other actions.
Oh, but none of those require you to be a member of the Sierra Club. My bad, it’s your dues and not the fate of the Tongass that is at issue.
If the Sierra Club wants to empower consumers, it should provide links to evidence about the Tongass that consumers can use to develop more evidence and effective means of reducing the demand for Tongass timber.
BTW, I’m not an anti-environmentalist. All new factory construction should be underground in negative-pressure enclaves where management is required to breath the same air as all workers. No discharges of any kind that don’t match the outside environment prior to its construction.
That would spur far better pollution control than any EPA regulation.
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Water Protectors have meticulously defended moral and ethical obligations on behalf of the greater good for years now. Today, we all watched and waited for what would be the symbolic #LastStand and collision between Militarized forces and Peaceful Protectors. Things are ending peacefully as many left the camps in anticipation of the forces that hovered but some remain and sing peacefully in the face of riot gear and weapons. They still remain, they continue to sing, they burn sage, they are women, they are men, their hearts are heavy, but they will continue to pray peacefully.
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WE HAVE DEFUNDED $69 Million Dollars from Big Banks: just from the people alone. Seattle Divested over $3 BILLION Dollars from Wells Fargo! University of California Divested $250 Million and Santa Monica is in the process of Divesting as well. There is more that is coming and we are all uniting behind the battle cry #StandingRock #NoDAPL #WaterProtectors there is beauty where there is pain, there is glory in defeat, there can be a better tomorrow when we come together and commit to fight.
Defunding is the right note to strike with banks, but DAPL isn’t the only injury investors have planned for the Earth.
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Using pipelines for the movement of crude oil, NGLs, refined products, and natural gas greatly benefits the United States economy. Direct capital investments for the construction of new pipelines will average approximately $55 billion between 2014 and 2025, with more being spent between 2016 and 2020. This estimate considers a conservative path of oil and gas production during that time period. If access to off limit areas of production, like the Atlantic, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and Alaska, is granted, direct capital investments will increase and average around $65 billion between 2014 and 2025. Regardless of the amount of production, these direct investments will further elicit indirect investments from others in the supply chain, such as steel manufacturing and engineering companies. Wages provided to workers will also be used to purchase consumer goods and contribute even further to the economy. In the end, while the approximate direct investment value may be between $55 and $65 billion, more contributions to the economy are likely providing all the indirect factors that are a part of construction and maintenance of gas and liquid pipelines. (Investing In Pipelines February 23, 2017)
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That didn’t scale down very well but as you can see, if DAPL wasn’t close enough for you to take action, a closer opportunity is at hand.
Why Invest In Pipelines?
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There currently are about 40 major interstate pipelines connecting to about 100 minor interstate pipelines operating in a highly regulated environment. As I wrote above, the barriers to entry are quite high if you’re considering building a pipeline any time soon. Most of the grid is in place, with access to building new lines ever more difficult because of urbanization. Oil and gas pipelines are simply great fixed assets that offer excellent long-term prospects for income-oriented investors seeking stable cash flow, upside appreciation and tax benefits from the way they are structured for the capital markets.
Because they are capital-intensive businesses, pipeline operators choose a structure that allows them to aggressively depreciate the huge amounts of money that go into building out and maintaining their lines. In practice, master limited partnerships (MLPs) pay their investors through quarterly required distributions (QRDs), the amount of which is stated in the contract between the limited partners (the investors) and the general partner (the managers).
Because of the stringent provisions on MLPs and the nature of the QRD, the vast majority of MLPs are energy-related businesses, of which pipeline operators tend to earn very stable income from the transport of oil, gasoline or natural gas. Because MLPs are a partnership, they avoid the corporate income tax on both a state and federal basis. Additionally, the limited partner (investor) also may record a prorated share of the MLP’s depreciation on his or her own tax forms to reduce liability. This is the primary benefit of MLPs and allows MLPs to have relatively cheap funding costs.
The tax-free income component to oil-and-gas-pipeline MLPs is very attractive to me at a time when higher income taxes are a reality fueled by a debt-ridden government. My view is that income investors seeking tax-advantaged income will continue to own MLPs and other tax-free investments if the tax code remains as is or becomes even more burdensome. I don’t see any major overhaul in the tax code with next year’s election because neither party in Congress has the will to cut spending. (The Advantages Of Investing In Oil And Gas Pipelines, February 23, 2017)
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Altering the tax code to impact investment in pipelines is a theoretical possibility, but not an effective one.
Consult a tax lawyer for the exact details but investors in a pipeline partnership make money two ways:
Pass through of depreciation for the pipeline and its maintenance
Pass through of income from operation of the pipeline
Assuming there is nothing to be done to alter #1 (changing the tax code), altering investor behavior depends solely upon #2.
Altering #2 means no oil or gas flowing through the pipeline.
Investor Uncertainty
One of the aspects of pipeline that make them attractive to investors, as mentioned above, is stable income. Whatever the prices of oil or gas, it’s not worth anything unless it can be brought to market, hence the constant demand for pipelines.
As I mentioned in Stopping DAPL – One Breach At A Time, a pipeline cannot deliver oil or gas if it has even one breach in it. A breach renders it just pipe in the ground and that doesn’t produce any income.
Breaches in pipelines do occur but as far as reported, only by accident, so investors see no uncertainly to the revenue they expect from pipelines.
What if that were to change?
What if the final 13% of DAPL becomes irrelevant because the completed 1,172 miles of pipe begins to resemble Swiss cheese?
DAPL False Flags
Because I mentioned thermite recently, someone asked about a video showing its capabilities:
Be forewarned this was created by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist but it is a good illustration of the power of a pound or so of thermite. Properly used, breaching even 1/2″ steel pipe is a matter of seconds.
Getting there:
could take a bit longer.
That plus a #NoDAPL flag:
made me think of a DAPL false flag operation.
Assuming someone is to foolish as to dig up a portion of DAPL and breach it with thermite, then cover it back up with dirt and plant a #noDAPL flag, how would you distinguish that from a freshly dug area, with a #noDAPL flag?
Or any number of freshly dug areas with #noDAPL flags?
Would you not dig on the hopes there wasn’t a breach of the pipe?
Gives the idea of a “false flag operation” more immediate currency. Yes?
PS: Tracking proposed oil pipelines requires monitoring all fifty (50) states. There is no centralized regulation of such pipelines.
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Before reporting on a spreadsheet about the 49 sheriffs and Bull Connor of the North, I have to share this urgent plea that arrived just moments ago:
URGENT.
My friends in Standing Rock just sent this to me & asked me to share it. They are surrounded by militarized police RIGHT NOW. pic.twitter.com/plR0Tfaagc
Reasoning that you may want to concentrate your monitoring of DAPL for breeches in areas of low population density. While you may stand out, there are fewer people to notice you in such places.
If anyone asks you to use explosives to interrupt the DAPL pipeline you should, of course, decline, but if, nevertheless, they persist, give them this advice:
Under no circumstances use explosives (commercial or homemade) so as to endanger law enforcement personnel, members of the public or even yourself. Many law enforcement officers are avid hunter and care as much for the environment as anyone. Don’t make yourself “special” by endangering or harming members of law enforcement or the public.
Always use commercial explosives. Homemade explosives as seen on the Internet are dangerous and a trap for the “independent” minded. Sure, you can waste your time, energy and endanger yourself by attempting to make homemade explosives but why? Yes, there restrictions on the sales of explosives but there are laws against human trafficking as well.
The Trafficking in Persons Report 2016 — Complete Report (PDF) reports that despite being illegal, human trafficking continues. I’ve seen it reported that 200 to 300 children are trafficked through the Atlanta airport, every month. Somehow I doubt the existence super effective enforcement efforts on explosives.
A longer post is coming but remember that investors, even investors in pipelines, are risk adverse. Should it come to pass that even a passing mention of DAPL creates waves of panic over the potential for entirely lost pipeline investments, the investment environment of and interest in pipeline investments will change.
After all, who wants to invest in 1,172 miles of sporadically broken, virgin pipe that has never carried a drop of oil? Yes?
PS: If you don’t know 1960’s civil rights history, the moniker Bull Connor of the North may escape you. Bull Connor used fire hoses and dogs against children marching for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama. He, like the Bull Connor of the North, is a stain on the history of law enforcement in the United States.
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Red Team Journal was founded in 1997 to promote the practice of red teaming, alternative analysis, and wargaming. Since its founding, the site has influenced a generation of red teamers to think systematically and creatively about their assumptions, challenges, adversaries, and competitors.
My encounter with Red Team Journal was quite accidental but welcome since despite years of protests, the Dakota Access Pipeline, spanning four states, is nearing completion.
The bravery and dedication of those who have fought a long and lonely fight against that project are to be admired. But continuing with tactics that allowed near completion of an 1,172 mile long pipeline isn’t a winning strategy.
What tactics for stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline occur to you?
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One of the disadvantages Standing Rock faces is government sycophants who favor the pipeline can focus all their efforts at Standing Rock.
Consider this illustration of spreading their efforts over a wider area, say the 1,172 miles of the pipeline:
One or two breaches might be manageable and repairs would make economic sense. What about five major breaches? Or perhaps 10 major breaches? Each one in different sections and not too overlapping in time.
Interest, as you know, runs on loans 24 x 7 and repairs drive up the break even point for any endeavor.
Hemorrhaging cash at multiple locations isn’t sustainable, even for large foreign banks. Eventually, how long is unknown until figures come in for repairs, etc., the entire pipeline will be unprofitable and abandoned.
In the mean time, those points where cash is being lost by the barrel full (sorry), will capture the attention of investors.
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Local sheriffs, underfunded and short staffed, are charged with guarding DAPL’s 1,172 length, in addition to serving their communities.
Places to patrol include heavy equipment rental companies in Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Sheriff’s won’t have to pay overtime and these maps will help deputies reach their patrol areas every day:
Illinois heavy equipment rental
Iowa heavy equipment rental
North Dakota heavy equipment rental
South Dakota heavy equipment rental
Hunting/Police Safety
Hunters have long used pipelines as lines of sight, which could put deputies patrolling the pipeline in harms way. Sheriffs should advertise the patrol locations of deputies well in advance. Due to their professionalism, you won’t find any breaches being made in the pipeline in areas under active deputy patrols.
Observations
Some people may question the effectiveness of patrolling heavy equipment rental companies and announced deputy patrols of the pipeline. But sheriffs juggle competing demands for resources and the good of their local community everyday.
A community that sees higher restaurant, motel, employment figures as breaches are repaired.
If I were a sheriff, I would also bear in mind the local community votes in elections, not foreign banks.
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“Our hope is that the new administration in Washington will now provide North Dakota law enforcement the necessary resources to bring closure to the protests,” said Kyle Kirchmeier, the sheriff of the local Morton County Police, in a press release.
The last 1.5 mile (2.4 km) stretch of the pipeline is expected to be completed in less than 90 days.
…
Kyle “Bull Connor” Kirchmeier is the sheriff responsible for spraying Standing Rock protesters with water canon in sub-freezing weather. A real piece of work.
For speculation purposes, let’s assume the government does overwhelm the protesters at Standing Rock.
Aside from completion, what does the 1,172 miles of DAPL require to be used?
It must have no known holes.
That is to say that if the pipeline were breached and that breach was known to the operator (as well as members of the press), no oil would flow.
Yes?
What do we know about the DAPL pipeline?
First, since the pipeline can be approached from either side, there is 2,344 miles of land for staging actions against the integrity of the pipeline.
…
Construction of the new pipeline would require a typical construction right-of-way (ROW) width of 125 feet in uplands, 100 feet in non-forested wetlands, 85 feet in forested areas (wetlands and uplands), and up to 150 feet in agricultural areas. Following construction, a 50-foot wide permanent easement would be retained along the pipeline. … (page 12)
…
Which means staging areas for pipeline interference activities can be located less than 30 yards (for US football fans) from the DAPL pipeline on either side.
99.98% of the pipeline is installed on privately owned property in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. The Dakota Access Pipeline does not enter the Standing Rock Sioux reservation at any point.
Which of course means that you can lawfully, with the land owner’s permission, park a backhoe,
or, a bulldozer,
quite close to the location of the DAPL pipeline.
Backhoes, bulldozers and suitable heavy equipment come in a wide variety of makes and models so these images are illustrative only.
…
The Dakota Access Pipeline is an entirely underground pipeline. Only where there are pump stations or valves of testing stations is there any portion of the pipeline above ground. The pipeline is buried nearly 4 feet deep in most areas and in all agricultural lands, two feet deeper than required by law.
…
puts the DAPL pipeline within easy reach of one of these:
Of course, an ordinary shovel works just as well.
Anyone breaching or damaging the pipeline will be guilty of a variety of federal and state crimes and therefore should not do so.
If you discover a breach in the pipeline, however, you should document its location with a GPS phone and send the image to both local law enforcement and news organizations.
You will need maps to make sure you have discovered a breach in DAPL for reporting. I have some maps that will help. More on 17 February 2017.
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In the days since Donald Trump became president on January 20, 2017, millions of protestors have gathered in cities both big and small across the globe. And while presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that, “There’s really no way to quantify crowd numbers“–digital humanists, data scientists, librarians and geographers beg to differ.
Let’s check in on some projects attempting to use GIS to visualize the recent political protests, preserve data and keep activists informed.
Despite Conway’s remarks, a Google Doc started by Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut and Erica Chenoweth of the University of Denver soon began to collect crowd-sourced estimates from the Women’s Marches on January 20, 2017 organized by city, state and country. As they say on the public spreadsheet, “We are not collecting this data as part of a research project. We are doing this in the public interest. We are not affiliated with any other efforts to collect data on the demonstrations.” Over at Vox, graphics reporter Sarah Frostenson turned their data into a static map. Other researchers also weighed in. Doug Duffy, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, made an interactive map of Pressman and Chenoweth’s data here and posted the visualization to his GitHub page. He even cleaned the data for easy download and reuse (with attribution) by others.
…
The post has links to a number of other projects that are mapping data related to resistance and political protests.
If that wasn’t encouraging enough, Sarah’s post appeared in Forbes, which isn’t known for being a hotbed of criminal syndicalism.
😉
Can using GIS to plan resistance and political protests be very far away?
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DigitalGlobe is committed to helping everyone See A Better World™ by providing accurate high-resolution satellite imagery to support disaster recovery in the wake of large-scale natural disasters.
We release open imagery for select sudden onset major crisis events, including pre-event imagery, post-event imagery and a crowdsourced damage assessment.
When crises occur, DigitalGlobe is committed to supporting the humanitarian community by providing critical and actionable information to assist response efforts. Associated imagery and crowdsourcing layers are released into the public domain under a Creative Commons 4.0 license, allowing for rapid use and easy integration with existing humanitarian response technologies.
Kudos to DigitalGlobe but what about government disasters?
Governments have spy satellites, image analysis corps and military trained to use multi-faceted data flow.
What of public releases for areas of conflict, Chechnya, West Bank/Gaza/Israel, etc.? To reduce the advantages of government?
That creates demand by government for the same product, plus DigitalGlobe advantages.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no good.”
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Mr. James E. Staley, Chief Executive Officer, Director, Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Plc and Director of Barclays Plc
Mr. Tushar Morzaria, Group Finance Director and Executive Director
Mr. Jonathan Moulds, Group Chief Operating Officer
Ms. Maria D. C. D. N. C. Ramos C.A.I.B, B.Com (Hons), M.Sc., Chief Executive of Barclays Africa
Mr. Ashok V. Vaswani, Chief Executive Officer of Personal and Corporate Banking
I don’t have enough time left today to extract the people and photos from the Our People section of the Barclays site.
I will fix that tomorrow and that will bump the Barclays list into the dozens.
Just an observation for now, but this is the third entity financing Energy Transfer Equity that has no mention of it on its website.
Is it the case that Energy Transfer Equity is too small to register on their corporate dashboards?
If that is the case, then pestering banks directly maybe fun but pestering their customers, who are even more unaware of their banks commercial lending activities, maybe more effective.
Thoughts?
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