- Mood: feisty
- Music: free ride (in a cop car) - The Clintons
Greetings to the faithful few who peruse this blog for some light entertainment. I haven't ranted in a while because I'm buried at work and gnurling season is almost upon us so I've spent some of my extra time preparing for that. Being a high school coach is a ton of work but I love it. In much of my free time, I spend it in front of a Nintendo 64 being absolutely dusted by my grandson, Ichabod. Ikky, as we endearingly call him, has mastered several of the games for the N64 especially Diddy Kong. The kid is a whiz. I know you Halo experts scoff at such amateurish video games but I have neither the time nor the patience to invest much energy in learning them. Must be a sign of advancing age. JMac stopped by for a visit last week as part of his whirlwind adventure to the FROZEN Rockies and got in some time on the N64. I heard that Ikky gave him a huge run for his money.
While JMac was here I was privilieged to hear five of his absolutely brand-new, out of the box tunes. Some great work their, laddy. That hippy (OK, ex-hippy) old man of yours is really gonna like them when he hears them. Clintons fans, I assure you that the next generation of Clintons Band music will keep your toes tappin' and your hands clappin'.
JMac was in town for the wedding of long-time friend Andrea Nielsen to Shawn Trout. Nice wedding, light hearted as the deacon leading the service was really cool and brought a true sense of joy to the celebration. JMac played a rather stirring rendition of "Come with Me" during the service and I found myself tapping along to the music. Damn fine work there, boy!! Problem was when we left the church around 7:45 it was -14 degrees outside. $$$$$$$$$ that's too cold anytime. We broke two low temp records last weekend to finish off a fine 14 inches of snow around town. The old tipi was definitiely buried by the blizzard as was most of the town. To the newlyweds, I send my best wishes for a happy life and to the musician I send an attaboy for playing so well. Hell, maybe that guy John whatshisname can play and sing, ya know?
What is it about weddings and bitter cold? Dan and Abby's wedding in December was almost as cold as we hung around -15ªF that night too. No more weddings until summer. I forbid it.
OK, so my buddy BNL misses my rants. Hmmmm. Who should get the buzzbomb from the buzzinator? Cheney- too easy. Not only can he not read intelligence intelligently but he can't shoot straight. For those of you outside of the Sagebrush Curtain aka Wyoming, none other than former U.S. Senator Alan "Foot in Mouth" Simpson rushed to Prince Richard's defense saying he'd hunted with Cheney before and he would gladly do it again. Alan please do. Then some of us who do not follow the "true" party line might not have to listen to your garbage.
So, who else? Bush? The original King George the IV? Way too easy. I saw something on someone elses' blog as I was cruising the peak oil/resource sites on the web. I'll try to quote it as closely as I can. " In England they accept the monarchy as part of the culture and support it. In America, we deny the existence of the monarchy and then elect the monarch president." My apologies to whomever quoted that directly. I thought that message had too much truth in it for me.
I guess I'll just comment on the attack today on the Saudi Oil depot/refining complex at Ab'qaiq or some such spelling. That, my friends, is the largest single refining complex on planet Earth. It processes approximately 5 MILLION barrels of oil a day. Figure 42 gallons per barrel and you can see that's a lot of oil and grease. Terrorists, especially Al Qaida, would love to dump the Saudi royal family in the Persian Gulf with cement overshoes and I suspect this attack won't be the first. Remember those crazed dogs tried to bomb the World Trade Center in '93? They didn't give up , did they. If Al Qaida hates the west and the Saudi royal family as much as I think they do, disrupting the flow of processed oil from this facility would bring the world economy to its knees in weeks and totally disgrace the House of Saud. No buzzbomb here, just some facts as I understand them with my own take on it all. The world oil business is producing around 84 million barrels of oil a day with virtually no slack. If one major producer goes down, even for awhile like the Gulf of Mexico producers did last August, the market gets tighter and prices go up. Take several million barrels out in one fell swoop and the world economy would howl in pain and prices would skyrocket. rvive as a nation that means anything to the rest of the world. The oilfield, Ghawar, that feeds the Ab'qaiq petrocomplex, is the single largest in the world. There are no fields anywhere close to producing what that one field produces. That field is old and getting older. The Saudis reassure the world that Ghawar will continue to produce three+million barrels of oil a day for decades to come? Really?? I read an interesting and highly technical book by Matthew Simmons, a long-time oil industry investment banker that questions the reliablilty of Saudi production figures. If you have the time and interest it's entitled " Twilight in the Desert- The coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy" It's quite an interesting read about the world of oil and the mix of politics that have made that black goo so valuable and also so incredibly corrupting to humans.
Bottom line, rely on those guys to tell the truth and you're liable to get your peepee whacked when you least expect it. My bottom line is that the USA will remain involved in the Middle East because of oil, not democracy, not nukular ( how the hell does cracker boy Bush come up with that pronunciation?) weapons or anything else. It's oil and it's been about oil for over fifty years. We are oil junkies. Yes, GWB got that right. Calling for us to cut our dependence on Middle East oil by what was it, 30% or so in the next twenty years? His piddly ass program isn't going to get it done, that's for sure. He is unwilling to invest the needed dollars in true energy reform for this great country because his cronies, the lily white, rich, neocons ( nothing conservative about them really) won't get rich enough. We need a Manhattan Project type mentality to find a variety of solutions to meet the true needs of our people if we are going to survive as a nation that means something to the rest of the world.
I really don't like the bad news I seem to rant about here but the SOB's in charge in Warshington ( how the hell do some people fit an 'r' in Washington anyway?) are not about to tell you the truth. If they'd face the truth about our severe energy problems that will likely become full-blown long-term no way out crises in the coming years ( dudes I'm old but I expect to see the shit hit the fan long before I'm hauled out on a slab) we'd stand a chance of avoiding what could make the 1930s look like fun. We're being fed a load of bullshit about the Middle East and frankly, many of you late twenty somethings are still draft eligible which doesn't make me too happy as I add up the numbers. It's (our foreign policy and our instiable need to drive something anywhere and everywhere) about, and will remain about oil and natural gas. C'mon folks, $15 billion for a new pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to Chicago. That's some incredibly serious money and goes to show you how much money and energy we must invest to keep up the status quo. We gotta find new ways that don't beat the shit out of our home planet. Bush ain't the guy to support those new ways. Kinda like the captain of the Titanic.
Truly I wish you all God's peace. In these absolutely crazy times, seek the truth in Jesus Christ, serve one another and "be excellent to each other".
2 Let's hear it!.
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