Tag: T. Boone Pickens

Yesterday was the anniversary of some mammoth multi-state dust storms.  Robert Geiger (AP) wrote on 4/15/35:

Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains.

The name “Dust Bowl” stuck, first coined on today’s date 74 years ago.  The rains didn’t return until four years later.  When the dust settled in April 1935, scenes like this were repeated throughout the high plains region.

Crops were ruined.  Farms produced nothing.  Livestock died en masse.  There was no one to sell to.  People abandoned them in droves, with little more than the clothes on their back to show for many years of hard work building their homesteads.

The 1930s Dust Bowl is often referred to as a natural disaster.  But that’s not quite right.  Human activities, en masse, had everything to do with it.

A provision of the UCC, as a point of illustration, not necessarily an expression of the governing law in this case (this is not a contract for goods):

Unless otherwise unambiguously indicated by the language of the offer or the circumstances:

An offer to make a contract invites acceptance in any manner and by any medium reasonable under the circumstances. . . .  a definite and seasonable expression of acceptance may . . . create a binding obligation . . .

It has been reported that T. Boone Pickens made this offer:

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer of $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Presuming Pickens did make such an offer to “anyone,” his response to John Kerry's acceptance of Pickens' offer seems at material variance to Pickens' original offer. You see, Pickens now is demanding:

Pickens wrote Friday in a letter faxed to Kerry, “I am certainly open to your challenge,” but he said he would not pay Kerry unless the senator first provided him with copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978.

Obviously only John Kerry could provide such documents. But Pickens' offer was to “anyone.” I believe that Pickens has now made John Kerry a second offer for $1 million.

It would be interesting if Kerry also accepted Pickens' second offer. One would expect that Pickens will welch on that one too of course. But it would be fun to watch him squirm.