"But boys are just better at math"

Scene from real life:

annathepiper just absolutely boggles at [a friend]'s kid's kindergarten teacher.
annathepiper says "The one who told her that they'd do a lot of science and math things this year because they 'only have two girls in the class'! :P"

The original source is behind a friendslock post of the friend whose kid's teacher told her that. I've read the original quote, so this is first-hand data. They specifically said in the original that they'd be teaching more math and science because the class was mostly boys and only two girls.

This is one of the endless series of examples about how "boys are better at math and science and girls shouldn't study it" is still taught, today, from the earliest years of school. Please remember to STFU if you think this kind of thing is over or that it's "because girls aren't as good at math or science." It's going on every fucking day.

Convention miles: 5.0
Wednesday's miles: 11.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 429.2. Took a break just up from a lovely little stream. Purified some water, as am getting thirsty.
Miles to Rivendell: 29.1

more data than thought

Crude stocks are down either 6.4mbl or 14.3mbl for the week ending July 2nd, depending upon whose tally you prefer. I tend to composite them since they use slightly different methodologies and have slightly different windows, putting us at about 10.35mbl down. That translates roughly into slightly more per week at total shutter, but we'll call it even for the week. That's quite a bit worse than I'd penciled out, but that's because I didn't factor in effects from the port going offline. My interests have been more in core supply, and less in the incidentals of transport.

What's more important for the moment is that a bit over [EDIT: Misread data, corrected] 40% of supply is back online. Some reports indicate that 90% could possibly be managed by the end of the month, though most are talking about it taking longer than that. The release of 60mbl between the IEA and National Strategic Reserve means that we could coast on the 100% offline for six weeks without a significant impact upon total non-emergency stockpile; at 50%, reachable soon, that's 12 weeks. This is vitally important, because otherwise, we'd still be on that 75-day clock.

And that doesn't even count the direct shipments of refined product we're getting. And 100% should be back up by the end of the year - as long as we don't get another storm in the Gulf this season. The assumption that we probably won't is why oil is continuing to trend down; that, and the seasonally-lower consumption needs for gasoline.

So fundamentally, from an oil standpoint and from an oil standpoint only, Katrina, by itself, is mostly a no-op. (Insert geeky joke about LOOP and NOOP here; I'm too sleepy to do it.) Round One is still over (and by "over," I mean "fully in effect;" it hasn't gone away, we're just through that part of the curve); Round Two hasn't started yet.

However, this event does expose how vulnerable we are to shocks like this in a post-Round-One world. Temporary disruptions of any scale produce huge price spikes over much or most of the country, and also creates severe economic drag requiring major effort to mitigate. Economic growth is now limited by oil supply in ways it was not in the past. By example, disasters like this are normally economic plusses in the long run, as booms in construction and durable goods overpower the economic hit. That will not be the case this time; the net effect will be negative, if you include the price drag of oil. The economic impact from this is significant.

The problem is that we're going to get more things like these, more often. I'd started a rant about the overall situation before I went to the NASFiC; I've still got it, and on a quick glance, it still seems to be valid. I'll finish and post it in the next day or so.

In other news, remember how I haven't been talking about natural gas? I'm still not. I don't understand it enough yet. But that doesn't mean I'm not watching it. You should be, too. Prices are roughly 3x above two years ago, and what I do know about supply and extraction is telling me that the picture for natural gas is not a lot better than the picture for oil. And apparently even NPR has noticed, thanks again to the transient spike which is Katrina - everybody east of the continental divide might want to watch out for massive additional natural gas price spikes this winter. We haven't so far been getting emergency supply relief shipments of that, and we're heading into maximum-draw season.

It could get very expensive out there.

But for now, have another flower picture:


Fireworks in White (think about it)

( Alternate take )