Friday, May 8, 2009

A Milestone is Reached

This little blog continues to amaze me.   Today, the hit-counter registered 3,000 site visits, from 44 countries.   Those numbers just astound me.   

This of course does not place SLB near the top 10, not even near the top 1 million in website popularity worldwide, but then that never was and never will be my goal.   However, an internet traffic-monitoring site shows that SLB is in the top 5 percent of all websites worldwide.  

The hit-counter is a recent installation, from February 2009, so this blog ran without a counter for about a year.  Thus, SLB averages around 1,000 hits per month.  I am honored that so many people in so many countries take an interest in what I write here.   And, thank you to those who take the time to leave a comment.  I cannot always check the comments daily, with my schedule being what it is, but I do read them eventually and moderate them.   Most comments meet my approval for content, and I post them.   

I want to give a special thank you to one person, Mr. Anthony Watts, who runs the blog WattsUpWithThat.com.  Mr. Watts has linked to my SLB on two occasions, each time greatly driving up the traffic here.  Once was on the Earth Hour posting, and the other was on my comments on writing to the EPA regarding their proposed finding to make CO2 a pollutant.  The Earth Hour posting on WUWT was also picked up by Mr. Rush Limbaugh both on his radio program, and in writing on his website.  

Having been in the law practice now for a couple of years, a few things are more clear to me, and  some have become obvious.  In no particular order, then, the world of law is much larger than I had suspected while a law student.  The depth of each area is also much greater.   There is room for a lawyer such as myself, who spent half a career as an engineer.  With no disrespect to my fellow attorneys, most attorneys simply studied other fields and do not have that intuitive grasp of technical fields such as chemistry, engineering, physics, and industrial aspects such as construction, maintenance, and plant operations.  That is where I make the bulk of my legal  contributions, such as they are, because my pre-lawyer experience was directly in those areas.     It is a gratifying thing to meet with my clients, both existing and new, who appreciate right away that here is an attorney that speaks their language, that of industry and engineering. 

It is also gratifying to see the refining industry in the U.S. keep their operations running without major explosions and loss of life.  There have been a few tragedies, to be sure, and those who are injured, and the survivors of those who lost their lives, have my deepest sympathies.  Yet, it is interesting to me that no major blasts have occurred since I gave my speeches to audiences of chemical engineers, one in Los Angeles, and one in Houston.    After some discussion of Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, I appealed to those engineers to use their educations, their knowledge, and their experience to make the refineries and chemical plants safer, as they are the only ones who can do it.   Kudos, y'all.  Please, keep it up!  

More recently, the legal world of Climate Change has opened up for me.  This is a very interesting, challenging, and exciting field.  The breadth and scope of Climate Change Law is enormous, from transportation fuels specifications to renewable energy generation to process plant modifications to environmental emissions reductions.   Those who read my posts on SLB will know that my reading of the underlying science shows that there is no man-made global warming.   Even if the world is warming over the past few decades, there is no sense in trying to reduce the warming by cutting greenhouse gases, as that is doomed to failure due to control theory.   Control theory is one of those immutable sciences, and no amount of legislation or hand-waving or bad data will change that.  

Again, I am greatly pleased and deeply honored that so many of you show an interest in SLB.    Thank you. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 


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