Officially an "independent leftist" in Texas as well as nationally

Since the Texas Green Party said vote yes on the hugely antienvironmental, and economic boondoggle, Proposition 4, which sadly passed with more than 70 percent, they've officially lost me for 2026. 

All they did was cite the Texas Water Fund, created by the state in 2023 legislation for water projects, which in turn only cites the Trib (neolibs) and the Texas Water Development Board (state agency). That even further settles that I am an independent leftist. 

The hugely antienvironmental, part 1?

[Charles Perry] is proposing investing in desalinating salty Gulf water, cleaning up the chemical-laden fracking water used to coax oil from the ground in the Permian Basin, and injecting fresh water underground for later use.

Yeah. Beyond that being directly antienvironmental, it also gives oil drillers a semi-free pass on their fracking wastewater.

The hugely antienvironmental part 2?

Meanwhile, he is involved in mysterious dealmaking with other states for their reserves. During debate over his legislation in early April, Perry alluded to talks with “one or two” neighbors—probably Louisiana and Arkansas—to contract for water.

Wilder noted this is a recycled 1960s plan. In fact, Marc Reisner talked about shit like this in "Cadillac Desert." One thing he noted, which also applied in the Southwest to the Central Arizona Project and other such things is that water is heavy, and it takes a lot of energy to push it uphill. Guess Texas Greens haven't heard of that seminal environmental book. 

Sierra and other Gang Greeners, I get. But, has nobody in the Texas Green Party read Cactus Ed Abbey's famous dictum that "Growth for growth's sake is the theology of the cancer cell"?

At that, at least the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, while  proving itself to still be Gang Green neoliberals in the environmental organization world, in an official support with no real analysis, did admit voters were being offered a pig in a poke:

At least 50% of the annual allocations must go toward the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT). The New Water Supply for Texas Fund supports various projects - some of which are highly controversial - that add to the total volume of water available to Texans, such as reservoir construction, seawater desalination, reuse of oil and gas wastewater (“produced water”), a statewide water conveyance system, acquisition of water from out of state, water and wastewater reuse, and aquifer storage and recovery. 

The focus of the SWIFT is solely on water infrastructure projects identified in the State Water Plan. This is an important accountability measure because it means there must be some level of support for the project locally for it to appear in the State Water Plan. However, there is no requirement for how this part of the funding must be split between the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and SWIFT.

But still said vote yes.

Despite a former leader saying "Wait a minute":

“There are a lot of parallels” between the ’68 plan and today’s water-grid concept, said Ken Kramer, the former head of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and a veteran environmental advocate at the Capitol. The staggering cost. The lack of robust debate. The vague talk of out-of-state water purchases. The impracticality of it all.

Ugh. 

That said? Texas Greens couldn't even offer caveats. 

So, I can't offer support. 

And, I have removed both the Texas GP, and GP national, which I should have done last year, from my links list.

==

Update, Nov. 13: I've gotten a response from one member of the state executive committee, who first briefly explained the process for endorsement or nonendorsement on each of the 17 propositions, then noted that they originally supported Prop 4 but then voted no.

Discovered environmentalism?

No, not exactly.

This person said they voted no because they felt they couldn't trust state regulators and GOP cronies. Still no acknowledgement that the proposition itself, regardless of who oversees its implementation, is antienvironmentalist.

Back to the original.

== 

Sadly, I now say, you broke 2 percent last year and so have party-line ballot access guaranteed for five election cycles again. 

Sidebar: Per this piece, Texas Greens also couldn't talk about how Prop 4 might increase the number of endangered species. 

Of course, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, as well as other Marxist parties, and even the Socialist Party USA, are unlikely to have any write-in candidates next year.

That's OK.

Nearly 25 years ago, the Dallas Morning News had a "where are they now" about local civil rights activists from the 1960s. About half had dropped out of electoral politics. 

'The Dark Side of Zelensky's rule'

Via The Dissident, as mainstream a political analysis site as Politico worries about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's increasingly authoritarian turn, specific with that header as noted in my title: "The dark side of Zelensky's rule."

This deserves a long pull quote:

As Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, then head of Ukraine’s state-owned national power company Ukrenergo, was scrambling to keep the lights on. 

Somehow, he succeeded and continued to do so every year, earning the respect of energy executives worldwide by ensuring the country was able to withstand Russian missile and drone strikes on its power grid and avoid catastrophic blackouts — until he was abruptly forced to resign in 2024, that is. 

Kudrytskyi’s dismissal was decried by many in the energy industry and also prompted alarm in Brussels. At the time, Kudrytskyi told POLITICO he was the victim of the relentless centralization of authority that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his powerful head of office Andriy Yermak often pursue. He said he feared “corrupt individuals” would end up taking over the state-owned company. 

According to his supporters, it is that kind of talk — and his refusal to remain silent — that explains why Kudrytskyi ended up in a glass-enclosed cubicle in a downtown Kyiv courtroom last week, where he was arraigned on embezzlement charges. Now, opposition lawmakers and civil society activists are up in arms, labeling this yet another example of Ukraine’s leadership using lawfare to intimidate opponents and silence critics by accusing them of corruption or of collaboration with Russia. Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment. 

Others who have received the same treatment include Zelenskyy’s predecessor in office, Petro Poroshenko, who was sanctioned and arraigned on corruption charges this year — a move that could prevent him from standing in a future election. Sanctions have frequently been threatened or used against opponents, effectively freezing assets and blocking the sanctioned person from conducting any financial transactions, including using credit cards or accessing bank accounts. 

Poroshenko has since accused Zelenskyy of creeping “authoritarianism,” and seeking to “remove any competitor from the political landscape.” 

That may also explain why Kudrytskyi has been arraigned, according to opposition lawmaker Mykola Knyazhitskiy, who believes the use of lawfare to discredit opponents is only going to get worse as the presidential office prepares for a possible election next year in the event there’s a ceasefire. They are using the courts “to clear the field of competitors” to shape a dishonest election, he fears.

There you are, but don't stop with the second link.

The Dissident has rounded up other recent stories with more in this same vein. On the other side of the pond, that includes Financial Times, The Spectator, and the Economist.

It also includes The Dissident's review of "The Joker: The true story of Volodymyr Zelensky's rise to power" by Konstantin Bondarenko, a Ukrainian historian and political scientist. 

Texas Progressives — climate change, SNAP, Palestinians

SocraticGadfly noted that there are no magic silver bullets on climate change and agriculture. (But, contra ignoring or denialism by the likes of Suzanne Bellsnyder, there is the need to do something.)

Off the Kuff rounded up the latest finance reports from the CD18 special election. 

Strangeabbott sloughed off pressure to do something about SNAP.  (The federal judge's ruling was relevant only to states that sued Trump.) 

In Texas Progressives news that the Palestinian-hating, tacitly Zionism-backing Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff won't tell you, ONE pro-Palestinian protestor from Columbia University remains in ICE detention — here in Texas. 

Jeffrey Nall reminds us that true humanism includes some sort of conscientious disobedience at times, and that, (contra Ed Buckner) this includes support for Gaza. 

El Paso Matters talks to several high school students who have been negatively affected by recent legislation.

G. Elliott Morris rebuts some claims about the value of political moderation.

Israeli organized crime operating in the US is a big deal — even officially tied to leaders of Israel's Likud party. 

Olivia Messer reminds us that Texas is a lot more queer than you might think.

Deceleration is tracking an upward trend in San Antonio's carbon emissions.

Miranda Williamson and other students like her will suffer greatly if SNAP benefits are turned off.

Alice Linahan warns that the state's literacy plan is not what it's cracked up to be.

Alison Cook wished you a happy Cabbage Night. 

Neil Aquino wrote about the Metro's erasure of the Pride sidewalk and No Kings in Houston. 

'Forget the Alamo' but remember the battles over its history and legend

Picking up on my short but link-dense piece from last week, Kate Rogers, the recently resigned former CEO of the Alamo Trust, speaks to Forrest Wilder at Texas Monthly.

After why she was forced out, a nickel version of the loss:

[F]or Rogers’ supporters, the forced resignation was unjust and alarming—a vicious demotion of a leader who had succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of forging a rough consensus on the Alamo’s redevelopment, a process long beset by factions at war over issues of identity, representation, and contested history.

Then on her hurt:

“It was a huge loss to me. I loved my job. I loved the work we were doing. I loved the people I was working with.” She said she feels compelled to tell her story because of the public attacks on her “integrity and character” and the “disappointing and hurtful” way she was dismissed. “It makes me very sad because the Alamo deserves better.”

And more from there. 

She interestingly agrees with Lite Gov Danny Goeb on one issue:

Rogers, 56, is particularly eager to push back on the allegation that she had a political agenda. “That’s categorically false, quite the opposite,” she said. “I wholeheartedly agree with Dan Patrick—politics does not have a place at the Alamo. It’s our most treasured historic site, the Shrine of Texas Liberty. And what we tried to do, what I tried to do, was to keep politics at bay on both sides in terms of the extremes.” She said she is a “conservative at heart” steeped in Alamo history from a young age, a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and a descendant of one of the Canary Islands families that settled in San Antonio in 1731. “For me, this history is deeply personal and it does need to be told in a very authentic and factual way." 

Rogers said she got along well with Patrick, who she found knowledgeable, thoughtful, and sincere in his passion for the Alamo—which makes his aggression all the more confounding to her. “Some of what has transpired is probably as puzzling to me as it is to your readers,” she said. I pressed her: Was it really all about a tweet and a dissertation? “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. She couldn’t talk about the details of her separation, but she added that there were “political maneuvers going on behind the scenes.”

Weird. And, maybe, per the "Forget the Alamo" book, she is not totally in the same camp as Chris Tomlinson et al. (They look at the building's history and other things in a way she may not exactly have done.)

That said, does she actually read Dan Patrick correctly? Maybe Danny Boy thought her take on the Alamo was like his until some MAGAt minion discovered her writings. 

That said, Wilder wonders how much of this is Land Commish Dawn Buckingham, noting how Alamo issues screwed over Pee Bush.

To combine the last two paragraphs above, it's hard to believe Patrick couldn't stand up to anybody he wanted to on "political maneuvers." So, mayhaps she did misread the room.

And, calling it the Shrine of Texas Liberty? Again, possibly not in exactly the same camp as Tomlinson et al. 

Give the whole thing a read. 

Update, Nov. 20: Rogers is suing Patrick and Buckingham, per Chris Tomlinson, because they killed her severance pay deal after she talked to Texas Monthly. And, the suit is in federal court, not state. Tomlinson also calls out Buckingham for a steaming shitload of hypocrisy.

 

Reviving uranium mining and its possible consequences

This Inside Climate News piece notes that currently, very little uranium is mined in the US, but how there's a push to both open new mines and reopen old ones, either on the Colorado Plateau where Gallup, New Mexico, is, or the Wyoming Basin, or parts of southeast Texas. And, this includes the Church Rock mine. I grew up in Gallup, and remember when the berm-dam for the tailings pond at the Church Rock mine (owned by a Kerr-McGee subsidiary, by the way!) broke. I've written about that, the economic destructiveness of uranium busts, the environmental damages of uranium ore dust and more.

Today's methodology? Less destructive, in not involving surface-level pit mining, but it instead uses massive amounts of water, scarce in many places where the new mining push is in, and with its own environmental risks. 

Rather than involving pit mines, like my New Mexico youth, it instead uses injection wells broadly similar to the oilfield. Here's a description, per the illustration above.

Unlike pit mines, which scrape away acres of earth, most modern uranium extraction projects drill hundreds of wells, inject them with solvents and suck up the mineral slurry they create.

That shows you why the water concerns are real, and not just in the Southwest, as we'll see.

There's also the problem that mines in the Southwest, while generally on federal land, also generally abut Indian sacred sites.

Some of the fast-tracked New Mexico mines border the lands of the Acoma and Laguna pueblos. In the nearby Navajo Nation, the new activity has sparked concern. 

The Navajo Nation “continues to be affected—not only from abandoned uranium mines and mill sites—but also from other contaminants,” said Perry Charley, chair of the Diné Uranium Remediation Advisory Commission, at a public meeting in August in Shiprock, New Mexico. 

From 1944 to 1986, mining activities left more than 500 abandoned mines and an enormous amount of uranium waste in various regions of Navajo land.

Once again, rich White America has zero sensitivity or care, for the most part, for American Indians. This includes, IMO, environmentalists pushing a revival and expansion of nuclear power with little foresight. 

And, albeit without American Indian cultural sensitivity, the water quality problems of modern water injection well mining are also coming to Texas.

The uranium mining revival has churned up similar concerns in the savannah of South Texas. Encore Energy, based in the Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi, started production at its Rosita site in November 2023 and its Alta Mesa site in June 2024. In August, it acquired 5,900 more acres adjacent to Alta Mesa, where it plans to begin drilling in October. Another Corpus Christi-based company, Uranium Energy Corp., expects to start mining at its South Texas sites in early 2026. 

One rural groundwater conservation district is fighting the renewal of an old, unused mining permit UEC holds for a site in Goliad County. 

“We are extremely concerned that UEC’s uranium mining activities will lead to groundwater contamination,” said a request for a hearing on the mine permits filed by the district with Texas’ environmental regulator late last year. ... 

The Goliad site will use about 130 million gallons per year, according to Art Dohmann, vice president of the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District. But mining is exempt from groundwater permitting requirements under Texas law, he said. 

“This may cause more wells in the area to go dry,” the district wrote in comments to the state. 

In August, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted unanimously to grant the district’s request for a hearing on the permit. UEC did not respond to requests for comment. 

Separate state permits authorize UEC to inject up to 105 million gallons of mining wastewater underground for disposal every year at its Goliad site. UEC has four other projects under development in South Texas.

There you are.

It also notes the US currently has just one diffusion plant for enrichment, just one for processing into fuel and has NO domestic facilities for the fuel needed by more modern plants. Anything we need right now? We get mainly from the Russkies.  

In other words, just snapping our fingers to expand domestic mining will do little in and of itself to expand domestic nuclear fuel supply. 

Jimmy Wales the Zionist comes out from hiding again

I wrote six years ago about how Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was a Jeremy Corbyn slandering Zionist. (Wales owns, or then owned, a residence in greater London as well as one or more in the U.S.)

Well, we aren't getting six more weeks of winter, but after six years, the groundhog has popped up again. 

Now, he has personally intervened at Wikipedia to "freeze" its article on the genocide in Gaza. 

Why? This: 

Calling the page a “particularly egregious” example of an issue with neutrality on Wikipedia, Wales added: “At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested.” He said this was a violation of Wikipedia rules requiring neutrality of voice and attribution for claims.

And, it's pissed off editors. 

Before I get to some of their comments, very few people who aren't Zionist hasbara flak-runners highly dispute this claim. The International Criminal Court, and here in the U.S., Human Rights Watch and its former executive director, Kenneth Roth, have long called it genocide.

Or, per the piece at hand?

Experts including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and a UN Human Rights Council commission led by former president of the Rwanda genocide international tribunal Navi Pillay, have all concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

There you go, "Jimbo." 

But, per that first link? 

Wales, whether because he hates Labour's anti-neoliberal turn under Jeremy Corbyn, or he really does believe that antizionism is antisemitism, promoted  smears running around Corbyn. And even signed a group op-ed in The Guardian about that.

When I called him out on Twitter, he claimed to not be conflating the two, but posted a new piece from Medium that did just that.

I responded with:

Read this: https://t.co/Ee7X737yqf
And this: https://t.co/gzXf8OSK6u
And this: https://t.co/t7w3unLI7j
Maybe you just hate Corbyn and a non-#neoliberal Labour?

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 10, 2019

And he blocked me.

 

Now let's quote those editors. Here's one:

The intervention has been met with anger by other Wikipedia editors, with one accusing Wales of coming “under political pressure and asking us to betray scholarship”.

And others:

Another editor responded: “There's also an ‘ongoing controversy’ over whether mRNA vaccines cause ‘turbo cancer’ and whether [Donald] Trump actually won the 2020 Presidential election. Do you want us to be [bold] and go edit those articles as well” 

Another said: “I have been editing in the [Israel Palestine] area for just over 20 years, and [as far as I know] there has never been as much outside focus on Wikipedia's cover of the area as now. Much of it negative, from pro-Israeli opinionators, X.com, blogs, you name it … 

“Jimbo Wales writes: ‘The neutrality of this article is disputed, and there are very good reasons for that’. Could you please tell us one or two of those ‘good reasons’?”

There you go. 

 

This is not the only case of Wales putting his thumb on the scales of a Wikipedia article in service of Zionism. Here's another from four years ago. 

Because he went to private prep school in the US, the dual-citizenship Wales may be a New Labour version of a Tory toff as much as anything. That still doesn't excuse him. Oh, Jimmy? The Guardian piece I link has about 5x the signatures of yours.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg of sleaziness in the name of Wales and his empire. That link is longform, but WELL worth reading. Wales personally seems to have a decade-plus of sleaziness that means his Corbyn smears are par for his course. No, it does more than that.

 [Tony] Blair is a close friend of Wales, whose wife Kate Garvey previously worked as his diary secretary. Wales is fiercely defensive of his famous friends, and Blair’s own Wikipedia entry barely mentions Blair’s vast financial wealth (37 homes — 10 houses and 27 flats — worth £27 million, plus millions of pounds distributed through a network of companies); his PR work on behalf of dictators and human rights abusers in Kuwait, the UAE, Colombia, Egypt, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan; his utter failure to support Palestinian rights during his time as Middle Eastern peace envoy; and the human consequences — over half a million civilian casualties — of the Iraq invasion he continues to defend.

Well, there you have it. Read on. There's lots of good stuff about him palling around with dictators, stiffing winners of prizes he has created, and more. (You can skip most of the last one-quarter; the author, Helen Buyniski, is pretty much wrong about alt-medicine, most of which is actually pseudomedicine. [She's also, per Google search, a bit of a nutter. She's written for places like Global Research, which is, for the unknowing, full-on nutbar.] The rest, though, is spot on.) I'll add that it used to be at Medium, that piece, but the corporate overlords deleted the account.

Sounds like Jimmy Wales never really moved beyond his Bomis roots. 

RIP Darth Cheney

Yes, plenty of others have written already, but here's my few thoughts.

Torture. That's the bottom line, not just being a neocon nut in general.

In the 2008 presidential transition, people like me prodded Dear Leader to name a war crimes special prosecutor. Rahmbo Emanuel nixed that, and O'Bummer wouldn't override him. 

Weaselshit Anthony Romero (he is, for MANY reasons), executive director of the ACLU, was a weaselshit with "prosecute then pardon." 

Judge Napolitano, who perhaps deserved more credit even back in the day, wanted Cheney — and Bush — indicted, then of course prosecuted, without mentioning pardons. 

A year later, Uncle Fester admitted to being a war criminal, after all. 

Of course, today, many BlueAnon, and lamestream media like CNN, are normalizing Darth Cheney cuz he and daddykins' daughter Liz were/are Never Trumpers. (That said, even after Dems regained control of Congress in 2007, Fancy Nancy Pelosi refused to support Kucinich's impeachment push.) Reality? This same Liz, so high and mighty about the power of Congress after Jan. 6, 2021, a dozen years earlier didn't want to talk about her dad hiding secret CIA assassination plans from Congress. More on the hit squads here. 

Speaking of media, there's also the issue of whether or not Shrub Bush was Uncle Fester's puppet, along with the related idea, per the likes of Tim Weiner, of whether or not Bob Woodward was a sucker for a line of Bush bullshit. Woodward's lies regarding both already started in 2005. This brief may get us closer to Bush-Cheney relationship.

That said, give Vlad the Impaler Putin credit for telling Cheney to STFU long ago. 

Forwarding to the Middle East of then and today? Darth only liked democracy when it was pro-Merikkka. Freely elected Hamas? Can't have that. (They were, Ed Buckner, or pretty much so.)

Domestically, meanwhile, there was his sekrut energy task force. Daughterkins never challenged that, did she? Per the link, never did any Gang Green type enviros that sat in. Non-Gang Green, like Center for Biological Diversity, were never invited.

In a combination of domestic and international, Darth had connections to international bribery. 

Speaking of lies and liars, here's Shrub on Darth's death:

"I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people."

Uhh, sure. Those lies are joined by others from Nuclear Condi Rice and Slick Willie Clinton.

It's a Kenny Boy Paxton newsapalooza

First, the Fifth Circuit, en banc, will hear the Ten Commandments in schools lawsuits in both Texas and Louisiana in January. A three-judge panel, the norm, had already blocked Louisiana's law. For whatever reason, Kenny Boy Paxton jumped the legal gun in a sense and asked for an immediate en banc. As the story notes, this is headed to the Supremes anyway, so it's just Kenny Boy pouting over the Fifth Circuit's panel and hoping he can get the full set of judges to vote his way. In reality, that's not likely; yes, the Fifth tilts strongly conservative in general, but it also tilts strongly pro-civil liberties.

Speaking of, who called Kenny Boy "brazen"? Or at least, a lawsuit of his? None other than Secretary of State Jane Nelson, in her response to him suing the SoS office to try to force closed primaries in the state. 

Meanwhile, in a Halloween trick for him and treat for others, Kenny Boy on Oct. 31 had a New York state district judge metaphorically laugh in his face and dismiss his attempt to get a Tex-ass civil judgment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter for remotely prescribing abortion pills legally enforced. 

Peak Oil may not have been so wrong

Let's let the International Energy Agency weigh in, in a piece on oil and gas field decline.

First this:

Most unconventional sources of oil and gas production generally exhibit much faster decline rates than conventional types. If all investment in tight oil and shale gas production were to stop immediately, production would decline by more than 35% within 12 months and by a further 15% in the year thereafter. Shale plays in the United States are also becoming “gassier,” raising overall decline rates as oil-rich fields mature.

OK. Lots of us have known that for years, and why we haven't believed the bullshit from frackers. Basically, they've robbed Peter to pay Paul, and often at below-market rates.

Then this, specifically about that robbery:

Natural decline rates are becoming steeper. In 2010, natural decline rates would have led to a 3.9 mb/d annual drop in oil production and 180 bcm annual drop in gas production. The sharper natural decline rates observed now compared with 2010 reflects the higher reliance today on unconventional sources, changes in the mix of conventional production (such as more deep offshore fields and NGLs), and a higher supply base.

Got it?

Then this, which is unlikely to happen:

If current levels of production are to be maintained, over 45 mb/d of oil and around 2 000 bcm of natural gas would be needed in 2050 from new conventional fields. Investment in existing conventional oil and gas fields – for example through well workovers, infill drilling, waterflooding – slows production declines from the natural decline rate. There will also be a contribution to the supply balance from oil and gas projects that are still ramping up, from projects that have already been approved for development, and from ongoing investment in unconventional resources. Still, this leaves a large gap that would need to be filled by new conventional oil and gas projects to maintain production at current levels, although the amounts needed could be reduced if oil and gas demand were to come down. 

Around 230 billion barrels of oil and 40 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of gas resources have been discovered that have yet to be approved for development. The largest volumes are in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa. Developing these resources could add around 28 mb/d and 1 300 bcm to the supply balance by 2050. 

Filling the remaining supply gap to maintain today’s production through to 2050 would require annual discoveries of 10 billion barrels of oil and around 1 000 bcm of natural gas. These amounts are just above what has been discovered annually in recent years. Developing these resources would add around 18 mb/d and 650 bcm of new oil and gas production by 2050. 

In recent years, it has taken almost 20 years on average to bring new conventional upstream projects online. This represents the time from the issuing of a new exploration licence to the moment of first production. This includes five years on average to discover the field, eight years to appraise and approve it for development, and six years to construct the necessary infrastructure and begin production. Around two-thirds of conventional oil and gas projects approved in recent years have been expansions of existing fields, and more than 70% of recent conventional approvals are offshore.

OK.