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Deep State MAGA & MIGA: War in 2nd Term

Authored by Serban V.C. Enache via Hereticus Economicus:
MIGA is a propaganda effort that’s growing in size, at least online, given the escalating situation between the B-Team and Iran. MIGA stands for Make Iran Great Again, and it’s led by an exiled Iranian living in the US – Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, leader of the opposition group called “Restart.” The group describes itself as Iranian nationalists. Nationalists? More like shills in the employ of a belligerent empire that’s waging economic war against the Fatherland.
In this MIGA tweet addressed to the US president, an acolyte of Restart is shown on video, albeit with a blurred face. He claims that before Trump there was darkness on the world stage, but with Trump’s ascension to politics, he brought hope and awakening to humanity. Indeed, ass-kissing levels are off the charts with these guys… Anyway, the Restart goon wants a “4th of July” for Iran, and also wants to forever “dismiss Russia, England, and Radical Islamists.”
Wikipedia states the following:
Seyed Mohammad Hosseini was born in Iran and joined the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service in 1994 as a TV program host. During his years at the IRIB, Hosseini was active as a producer, director, and hosted a number of game shows until 2010 when he left IRIB. In 2011 Hosseini immigrated to the United States as a political refugee and became a vocal advocate against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the US he has started an opposition group called “Restart” which is currently active against the Islamic Republic. Since the start of his opposition group, Hosseini has attempted to attract young Iranians to his group with the ultimate aim of regime change. Hosseini encourages his followers to attack the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij bases and government buildings throughout the country as part of his plan to cause the collapse of the government.
After the State Department’s announcement to send US troops to Saudi Arabia, anti-war Trump supporters grilled the president in the comments sections of various pro-Trump publications, calling him a sellout and oath breaker. But as with any group, there are pro-war MAGA people and they’ve doubled down on mental gymnastics to try and apologize for Trump’s decision and make the case for further escalation with Iran. A ‘brain fart theory’ I’ve seen among these MAGA chicken-hawks is that the attacks on Saudi oil installations is an “attack against us all,” because the US economy is fueled by oil; and if the price of crude goes up it may crash the US into a recession and lead to Trump’s deselection. Alright, then. This is utter nonsense. The US is a net exporter of oil, in fact, it’s one of the world’s biggest exporters of crude and the number one exporter of refined petroleum. Higher oil prices on the international market would cause an economic boom in the US, not a crash. Competitors would eat away into Saudi Arabia’s market share as well, given its chunk of incapacitated output to honor orders. Another idiotic theory is that the attacks on Saudi oil installations were a false flag designed to beef up Aramco’s valuation via the hike in oil prices. This too is nonsense. The attacks depreciate Aramco’s value, they don’t increase it. Who wants to pay a premium for shares in a country that’s extremely vulnerable to attacks on key industry and infrastructure?
During a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan at the UN General Assembly, Trump failed to convey his view about Pakistan being a “hub of terrorism,” and instead pointed to Iran as the “number one state of terror in the world.” Trump also said that before he took office, Iran was a very big threat, but since he got into office, Iran is doing very badly. Interesting how this weakened state Trump’s projecting, or at least, trying to project, doesn’t square with his previous statement, that Iran continues to be the number one terrorist state in the world. Also, if the Iranians are so weak, how the hell did they manage to cripple half of Saudi Arabia’s effective oil capacity overnight and at a minor cost effort? After all, Washington and Riyadh said Iran “did it.” Worse still, Saudi Arabia has the 3rd largest military budget, and purchases war gear from the West, including from the USA , the “best in the world” as Trump says. All of these mixed signals do not aid the White House, in fact, it makes the president, and inherently the US state machine as totally schizophrenic. Such a dishonorable statement, a repeat of it, given the context and the place, shows us clearly that Trump doesn’t want to meet with Rouhani and doesn’t want a diplomatic solution with Iran, unless the Iranians come crawling on their knees, offering unconditional surrender.
Given the Anon-esque MIGA propaganda campaign, plus the efforts of fake anti-globalist commentators on MAGA platforms or circles, plus Trump’s clear double-dealing, cynicism, broken promises, and overall opportunistic presidency… the chances of Iran being attacked and invaded by the US and its allies, mercenaries, and terrorist cells are dangerously high. I’ve little doubt that Trump won’t do what Bush Jr and Obama did in their 2nd terms in office. When the war operations begin [in the 2nd Trump Administration], the Deep State and the mainstream media [Big Tech too] will start concocting the new lesser evil candidate, while Trump will join the hall of infamous deception alongside Obama and others.
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The Money World Is Losing Faith In The Illusion Of Control
by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
The rot moves from the margins to the center, but the disease moves from the center to the margins. That is what has happened in the realm of money in recent weeks due to the sustained mispricing of the cost of credit by central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve. Along the way, that outfit has managed to misprice just about everything else — stocks, houses, exotic securities, food commodities, precious metals, fine art. Oil is mispriced as well, on the low side, since oil production only gets more expensive and complex these days while it depends more on mispriced borrowed money. That situation will be corrected by scarcity, as oil companies discover that real capital is unavailable. And then the oil will become scarce. The “capital” circulating around the globe now is a squishy, gelatinous substance called “liquidity.” All it does is gum up markets. But eventually things do get unstuck.
Meanwhile, the rot of epic mispricing expresses itself in collapsing currencies and the economies they are supposed to represent: India, Turkey, Argentina, Hungary so far. Italy, Spain, and Greece would be in that club if they had currencies of their own. For now, they just do without driving their cars and burn furniture to stay warm this winter. Automobile use in Italy is back to 1970s levels of annual miles-driven. That’s quite a drop.
Before too long, the people will be out in the streets engaging with the riot police, as in Ukraine. This is long overdue, of course, and probably cannot be explained rationally since extreme changes in public sentiment are subject to murmurations, the same unseen forces that direct flocks of birds and schools of fish that all at once suddenly turn in a new direction without any detectable communication.
Who can otherwise explain the amazing placidity of the sore beset American public, beyond the standard trope about bread, circuses, and superbowls? Last night they were insulted with TV commercials hawking Maserati cars. Behold, you miserable nation of overfed SNAP card swipers, the fruits of wealth and celebrity! Savor your unworthiness while you await the imminent spectacles of the Sochi Olympics and Oscar Night! Things at the margins may yet interrupt the trance at the center. My guess is that true wickedness brews unseen in the hidden, unregulated markets of currency and interest rate swaps.
The big banks are so deep in this derivative ca-ca that eyeballs are turning brown in the upper level executive suites. Notable bankers are even jumping out of windows, hanging themselves in back rooms, and blowing their brains out in roadside ditches. Is it not strange that there are no reports on the contents of their suicide notes, if they troubled to leave one? (And is it not unlikely that they would all exit the scene without a word of explanation?) One of these, William Broeksmit, a risk manager for Deutsche Bank, was reportedly engaged in “unwinding positions” for that that outfit, which holds over $70 trillion in swap paper. For scale, compare that number with Germany’s gross domestic product of about $3.4 trillion and you could get a glimmer of the mischief in motion out there. Did poor Mr. Broeksmit despair of his task?
Physicist Stephen Hawking declared last week that black holes are not exactly what people thought they were. Stuff does leak back out of them. This will soon be proven in the unwinding derivatives trades when most of the putative wealth associated with swaps and such disappears across the event horizon of bad faith, and little dribbles of their prior existence leak back out in bankruptcy proceedings and political upheaval.
The event horizon of bad faith is the exact point where the credulous folk of this modern age, from high to low, discover that their central banks only pretend to be regulating agencies, that they ride a juggernaut of which nobody is really in control. The illusion of control has been the governing myth since the Lehman moment in 2008. We needed desperately to believe that the authorities had our backs. They don’t even have their own fronts.
Is the money world at that threshold right now? One thing seems clear: nobody is able to turn back the plummeting currencies. They go where they will and their failures must be infectious as the greater engine of world trade seizes up. Who will write the letters of credit that make international commerce possible? Who will trust whom? When do people seriously start to starve and reach for the pitchforks? When does the action move from Kiev to London, New York, Frankfurt, and Paris?
Gulf Island Fabrication to Construct Jacket for Gulf of Mexico Project
Gulf Island Fabrication, Inc. , announced today that, through its subsidiary Gulf Marine Fabricators, it has received a Letter of Intent in anticipation of a contract for the fabrication of a 1200’ jacket from Walter Oil & Gas Corporation for its Coelacanth Project located at Ewing Bank 834 in the Gulf of Mexico.
Revenue backlog and man-hours associated with this project will be included in the Company’s consolidated backlog and will be reported when the Company announces its earnings results for the year ended December 31, 2012.
Gulf Island Fabrication, Inc., based in Houma, Louisiana, is a fabricator of offshore drilling and production platforms, hull and/or deck sections of floating production platforms and other specialized structures used in the development and production of offshore oil and gas reserves.
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VIDEO: HLV Fairplayer Installs Suction Anchors and Bottom Chains
In the following video, Jumbo Maritime Heavylift shows transport and installation of suction anchors and bottom chains from the vessel HLV Fairplayer.
The Fairplayer is fitted with a Class 2 Dynamic Positioning system.
VIDEO: HLV Fairplayer Installs Suction Anchors and Bottom Chains| Offshore Energy Today.
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South Korea: Next-Generation Drillship Design Developed
With the heightened expectations of stakeholders in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon incident, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has listened to its drilling operator clients and designed a new generation of drillship. The new 80k class, heavy duty, wide beam drillship design, HD12000, can drill up to depths of 12,000 feet.
It has greater versatility, strength and more available deck space than its predecessors and has been developed drawing on previous experience of drillships. The HD12000 has an increased beam, which allows for larger and more variable load capacity (up to 24,000 metric tonnes) and reserve buoyancy for heavy duty – with compartment arrangement improvements – as well as being able to accommodate a cylinder rig concept that could be used for bigger derrick load requirements.
The JDP put the wide beam drillship design through design review, ship motion analysis, fatigue and FE analysis. Throughout, and on a global basis, Lloyd’s Register experts in hull structures, marine, mechanical, electrical and drilling systems worked in co-operation with HHI’s lead engineers to review and give feedback on the design development.
At the closing meeting at HHI’s Ulsan shipyard, Gyung-Jin Ha, Executive Vice President, Hyundai Heavy Industries, commented: “HHI and Lloyd’s Register have strong advantages in their own specialised fields, and it is therefore desirable to share experiences with each other and have cooperation between the two companies. HHI will never stop innovating to meet new market demands.”
Lloyd’s Register Drilling Integrity Services specialists in Moduspec were able to provide 25 years of valuable ‘people, systems and equipment’ insight and perspective regarding the drilling systems arrangements, when considering the operational integrity of the proposed design. At 223 metres long, 40 metres wide and 18.5 metres deep, the HD12000 drillship can probe a depth of 40,000 feet below the rotary table and is designed to accommodate the increasing complexity, pressures and sizes of drilling equipment and their handling needs. In addition, the arrangement of mud pumps and riser hold storage inside the hull envelope provides for a large free deck area for tube storage and other equipment, as well as greater flexibility and versatility of operations.
It has fully dynamic, positioning-compliant, station-keeping capabilities, with sufficient power to allow it to maintain position in emergency situations. Efficient The HD12000’s innovative hull form design is based on HHI’s longstanding and accumulated technology on merchant vessels. It enables a high transit speed of 11.5 knots (reduced form resistance with integrated thruster pod to hull) with a reported 40% less fuel consumption, enhanced sea-keeping performance (reduced roll angle by 20%), reduced interaction and thruster efficiency improvement and enhanced DP capability (reportedly 20% less fuel consumption).
A patented thruster canister design allows for in-site inspection and maintenance of the thruster without the need for docking, with reduced non-productive time.
Alan Williams, Lloyd’s Register’s Korea Marine Operations Manager, said: “Lloyd’s Register has been able to clearly demonstrate to a significant customer for drillship construction how it can support them, drawing upon the pool of expertise from across the organisation for that segment. Korea represents the technological coalface for drillship construction, gaining momentum for innovation, and we will continue to play our part. Lloyd’s Register is positioned to fully support the drilling operators and building yards through integrated marine and drilling system specialist teams, working closely with these clients to develop and offer solutions.”
The latest revision of LR’s rules for Mobile Offshore Units utilises the specialist drilling integrity capabilities of Moduspec and WEST, and will incorporate new classification notations for mobile offshore drilling units. These will be released in February.
Shipbuilding Tribune – South Korea: Next-Generation Drillship Design Developed.
- South Korea: STX O&S Wins Mega Project Award (worldmaritimenews.com)
- Pacific Drilling: A Growing, Well-Capitalized Offshore Drilling Company (seekingalpha.com)
Gulf of Mexico: Shell Increases Stake in Habanero Offshore Field
Callon Petroleum Company (CPE) has entered into an agreement to sell its 11.25% working interest in the Habanero field (Garden Banks Block 341) to Shell Offshore Inc., the operator of the field, for a contemplated base purchase price of USD $42 million.
The effective date of this transaction will be October 1, 2012, and it is expected to close on or before December 28, 2012, subject to the exercise of preferential rights and customary closing conditions. The Company plans to use the cash proceeds from this asset divestiture, net of purchase price adjustments, to repay borrowings under its revolving credit facility.
Callon`s net interest in the Habanero field produced approximately 336 barrels of oil per day and 506 million cubic feet of natural gas per day during the month of October 2012, or approximately 8.7% of Callon`s total production for this time period. As of December 31, 2011, Callon`s net proved reserves related to the Habanero field were 1.373 million barrels of oil equivalent, with approximately 84% classified as proved undeveloped, as presented in Callon`s most recent Form 10-K.
Fred Callon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased to announce another significant step in the transformation of our asset base. Pro forma for this transaction, over 50% of our total production for the month of October 2012 would have been sourced from onshore properties. In addition, the proceeds from this divestiture provide us with additional financial flexibility to execute on our growth initiatives in the Permian Basin.”
Callon Petroleum Company is engaged in the acquisition, development, exploration and operation of oil and gas properties in Texas, Louisiana and the offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell Increases Stake in Habanero Offshore Field (USA)| Offshore Energy Today.
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