Saudi Oil

(Yes, I will eventually explain this ;-)) I don't usually participate in the Huffington Post bashing that goes on at science blogs. Not because I don't often agree with it, but because my colleagues seem to have it covered when it comes to autism/vaccine links and dubious medical studies. Still, Raymond Learsy's column about Wikileaks did catch my attention, and it seems to have all the best qualities of a bad HuffPo piece. If it's in Wikileaks, it's got to be true. Certainly it was a moment of triumphal satisfaction for the Peak Oil Pranksters. There it was in "cloud" black and white…
I didn't know Matt Simmons personally, and after some of his frankly ridiculous claims about what was happening in the Gulf, I am a little ambivalent about writing about his demise. One is supposed to speak well of the dead, and while I think some of his work on the Gulf (including his early claims that the flow rates from the well were much higher than were reported, which was entirely correct) was good, some of it was inappropriate fearmongering, and that shouldn' be glossed over. At the same time, however, I think Simmons deserves to be remembered for his most stunning accomplishment -…