IN BUSINESS TO DELIVER, IT’S IN THE GENES!

(United States Department of State, TransCanada, Frazer Chronicle)

 

The Keystone XL crude oil pipeline stretches from Hardisty, Alberta, passes through three states, will be 875 miles in length, will somehow negotiate 56 bodies of water, and will be done…..never! Mineral producing companies never ever have enough products, no matter which type you’re talking about, whether it be natural gas, crude oil, iron, copper, silver, zinc, gold or uranium, these producers have a ravenous appetite that can never be satisfied.

 

We here in Wisconsin…..through our fearless leaders, and some short sighted local politicians, have granted a mining company special initiatives to come to the northern part of the state to dredge millions of ton of earth out of the ground, crush it down into a fine powder, and then roll the powder into what is called taconite pellets that is saleable as iron ore. Did you know it takes 4, 5, 6, and sometimes 7 ton of waste rock to produce just 1 ton of pellets…..betcha didn’t know that, did ya.

 

Exactly where is all the excess rock and dirt going to go…..piled up in what is called waste rock piles, and piles, and piles, and piles. If the Gogebic Taconite project takes 20, 30, or 40 years of production, can you imagine how many ton of waste rock there will be…..by using a simple equation, 5 ton of rock to produce 1 ton of salable ore, with a production life of say 30 years, and Gogebic Taconite produces 7 ton of pellets a year x say 40 years, that’s 280 million ton of iron ore, and 1.4 trillion ton of waste rock that has been displaced and produced. Ain’t no way Gogebic Taconite is gonna ever put that waste back in the hole that they dug.

 

But I digress; we were talking about crude oil and natural gas, and an 875 mile pipeline that would pump the sandy crude from Alberta Canada down to the Port Arthur, Texas area. Sounds, on the surface of the subject, a little bit dangerous…..at least to me, and for the little that I know about the process. But I do know that a sandy liquid being pumped through a 36” pipe at varying speeds would seem…..to me, a guy who knows little about the process, to be a bit precarious…..and at the least abrasive…..to the pipeline.

 

I borrowed TransCanada’s slogan, In Business To Deliver, it’s In Their Genes was my slogan, but it’s true, all extraction companies, whether it’s oil, natural gas, diamonds, iron ore, coal, or the precious metals has to displace the earth in order to get at whatever product they seek. In so doing, they are altering the ground, usually under the surface, unless it’s an open pit type of mining.

 

With liquid products retrieving the product is just the first step, petroleum products need to be broken down and to do this cracking, the product needs to be shipped over vast mileages of land, usually in the straightest line from the source to the cracking plants.

 

The gooey mess is transported through these 36” pipelines to these separating places where it is turned into all sorts of wonderful 21^st century products that enhance our lives, move us from our point A’s to point B’s in our automobiles on pretty much a daily basis…..ain’t technology grand.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE MENTALITY

People need to understand a basic truth about every mineral company throughout the world…..they all have one major issue, or agenda, deliver profits to shareholders…..it’s been that way since the beginning of shareholderisum. It can be compared to the amount of waste rock that is produced to make one ton of iron ore.

 

 

An oil rig might cost a million dollars, and a pipeline from the oil well to the cracking plant might cost $100 a lineal foot. A shareholder expects a return on his investment, a handsome investment, so corners need to be cut, will be cut to insure that bottom line mentality. Oil spills are nothing more than piles of waste rock, and they are dealt with in the same manner as a rock pile, ignored, and moved away from.

 

The land that a 3’ oil pipeline runs through will be scared for generations, and in many cases will not be suitable to farm, make a road through, or build a house or business on. The land is nothing more than a casualty of war, a victim of collateral damage.

 

The press is pushing for the project, politicians are pushing for the project, TransCanada is pushing for the project, and President Obama will cave into the mounting pressure and become a proponent of the project.

 

IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR 12 DECADES

That’s right; earth exploration companies have been greasing the political skids, buying up favorable decisions, and installing their own representatives whenever possible. There are old mining sites that dot the landscape throughout the country, from the east coast, through the mid-lands all the way to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and west.

 

In the beginning these exploration and extraction companies established their own towns complete with a Mayor, sheriff, fire department, newspapers, churches and a company store. They were…..and are a power unto themselves, and they never ever forget a pocket of ore, or an underground deposit of crude.

 

They may not get approval this year, but they’ll be back in five, ten, twenty or fifty years and promote the same project, just in a different package. They are relentless, never forget, and will beg, borrow, or steal their way to their project…..no matter the cost, or the degradation to the land, that’s how valuable these mineral are to these people.

 

When legislators ease mineral extraction regulations in the name of progress, and the creation of jobs, prosperity, and a better way of life, you maybe should take a summer trip to one of the long forgotten mining towns…..any mining town, and see the end result of the extraction of Mother Nature’s treasures. Or take a side trip to an old oil rig site and check out the discharge pond…..it ain’t a pretty site.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

FROM SEQUESTER TO CHAINED CPI…..WHAT!

FROM SEQUESTER TO CHAINED CPI…..WHAT!

(Washington Post, Aljazeera, Tom T, Frazer Chronicle)

 

First there was ‘sequester’, an almost innocent term, where people are placed away from everybody during the course of a jury trial. Now there’s a CPI, I don’t have a clue what that stands for, but I’m sure that a chained CPI is worse than a regular CPI, it has to be…..there’s more letters.

 

Us bloggers spend half our time reading about some of the stupid crap that our elected officials come up with on a daily basis. For me, if I don’t at least skim the headlines of at least 5 news outlets a day, I feel that I am unprepared to write and publish a blog. And that’s only the half of it, after I choose a subject, I feel compelled to get another view or two…..oh well, it’s for the glory and money.

 

When President Obama tried to reach a comprehensive bargain with Republicans to pay down the federal deficit in 2011, he floated the idea of changing the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits from the traditional consumer price index to something called a Chained Consumer Price Index, or CPI.

 

I say “something called” because what Obama said was double speak, jargon…..or the good old SPIN, you see it doesn’t matter which politician uses language to explain himself, if it’s bull----, it still smells the same whether a Democrat is shoveling it or a Republican.

 

I don’t know about you, but I listened to what Obama said during the run-up to the 2008 elections, and I’ll be the first to admit it, I got snowed by Barack Obama. When he was intimating what he would try and do if elected president, I was hopeful, very hopeful.

 

And even after 4 years with Obama at the helm of the nation, and all the misgivings that I had about his performance, I still voted for the son-of-a-gun in 2012, and prayed that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would only enter the White House and the President’s office as invited visitors.

 

Instead what we have gotten is some of the same Bush rhetoric, inclusion of some of the Bush doctrine, and even some of the reckless abandonment, militarily that Bush did. There is soon to be a battle throughout the halls of our government over the debt issue and a budget that somehow helps to ease deficit spending.

 

To me…..sequester was never meant to take away, at least my money, benefits, or social programs, I want the cuts elsewhere, like Defense. As I mentioned, “sequester was a term used on Perry Mason, or Law and Order,” I never dreamed it would involve me, or my money or benefits.

 

Now we have a chained CPI deal, again a method to take away, hey that would actually be a term that I could live with, take away, everybody know what that intimates, something you have that will soon be taken away.  Doesn’t matter how important it is…..whatever that thing that they are going to take away is, you just know it’s going to be gone.

 

A Chained CPI is an arcane detail, that’s right, a chained CPI needs special information before you can understand the term, and how it affects you. The thing, chained CPI is appealing to budget experts, some Republicans as well as Democrats, because it only slightly tweaks the inflation formula, while building significant savings over time, as much as $100 billion.

 

If you are retired, and say 78 years old, and your initial benefits were $1,435 a month, or $17,220 a year beginning in 2000, under the cost-of-living adjustment formula and 2012 inflation, that benefit would be up to $1,986 a month in 2013, or $23,832 a year. But if payouts were adjusted using the chaining CPI, the sum would be around $1,880 a month, or $22,560 a year…..a cut of more than 5% as the years go by.

 

ATTACK ON THE MIDDLE CLASS…..AGAIN

President Obama prefers it, Nancy Pelosi is willing to consider it, AARP, organized labor and progressive Democrats in and out of elected office are entirely opposed to it. It’s going to be the new favorite bit of jargon used by experts and politicians, it separates them from us.

 

The upper echelons couldn’t care less about chained CPI, in fact I’ll be you’d be hard pressed to get a knowledgeable answer from a collection of them at their (echel) coffee shops. Retirement benefits and the safety nets that the rest of us need in times of austerity, injury or illness are not coveted by the hoy-paloy; they already have their finances in place.

 

What this chained CPI is, is an austerity political ploy, pure and simple, whenever there is a threat of a 5% cut in middle America’s retirement income, a whole bunch of crap is being shoveled our way, and…..it stinks.

 

So like the man said, “buckle up and pucker up baby,” here comes another shot of good old American ingenuity this time dished out by our democratic president. Is there a difference?

 

HERE IS A SAMPLING OF DOUBLE SPEAK AND POLITICAL JARGON

a. How do you know when a politician is lying…..his lips are moving.

b. Why do politicians lie, because if they told the truth, nobody would vote for them.

c. Teachable moment, where a politician makes a mistake without admitting guilt.

d. Public servant…..fooled ya into voting for me.

e. Working class- people who work for a living are being exploited by the rich and need the government

    to step in a make it a little fairer.

f. Bailout, process of helping really big companies until the can make enough money to pay us back

g. Reform- government will further take charge of programs so that they can figure out the best way to cut

    them

 

Well that’s the lesson for today kiddies…..I can add but one thing,

 

Have a nice day!

AND I THOUGHT WAYNE LAPIERRE WAS AN ACTOR!

(Chris Moody, the Ticket, Aaron Spuler, Huffpost, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Wow, do I feel stupid, I’ve made all sorts of assumptions in my life…..mostly about women, but Wayne LaPierre…..serious, come on you’ve got to be kidding, nobody that looks, sounds and says the crap that this guy does can’t be anything else but an actor, and he’s probably got a flaming case of halitosis to boot.

 

Look, we’ve got a huge problem with guns, and gun control in our country, we can all agree on that one point…..right. I know, I know, “guns don’t kill, people with guns kill people,” what a whole bunch of dribble, each and every one of us knows somebody that, given the right situation, and the right provocation, will lock, load and indiscriminately shoot the crap out of whoever is around them. Hell, I myself have known several of these very scary people.

 

If not for the grace of God, these people would have shot up somebody or some place and either been shot to death at the worst, or behind bars at the least. My dad had a 22 and a 12 gauge shotgun during my time growing up at home. Never once did he tell me that a gun was to be respected, or feared, all he said was that “a gun could kill, or injure, so be careful.”

 

That did it for me, before I entered the military; I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times I shot a gun. In the military, (Army) I became a medical technician, and although we had to shoot a rifle, our primary job was to medically support the troops, work in hospitals or clinics.

 

I’ve know guys that were snipers, could knock the sweat off an eyebrow at a thousand yards…..or whatever, suffice it to say they were better shots then I was. The military in the early 1960’s was kind of in a flux, there was a change happening from the old ways, soldiers charging up a hill, to a more mechanized approach…..anyways, I was glad to get out of there.

 

Firearms are first and foremost for killing, whether a rabbit or Bambi, rifles are for killing things, and guess what, I’ve never been a fan of animal hunting. For me it was you shoot it, clean it…..then I’ll cook it. Really the same with fishing, you catch it, clean it, and I’ll cook it.

 

I’ve went in the woods a couple of times with guys that were hunting, in fact one guy had a cabin. We sat around till the wee hours of the night drinking, and everybody piled out at the butt crack of dawn to hit the woods with loaded weapons. Not me, I stayed back at the cabin, got another 40 winks, and had breakfast ready when they stumbled back…..with no kills to their credit.

 

WHAT’S THE HUB-BUB-BUD

Wayne LePierre, a soon to be 65 year old armed with a BA in education from Siena College and an MA in government from Boston College is the preeminent activist for the prevention of gun control in the United States. Now it must be stated up front that good “ole” Wayne boy isn’t just your ordinary lightening rod for guy lobbyists, no-sir-eee, Wayne get’s paid…..really well, like $970,300 well…..annually.

 

So in a sense, Wayne Boy is royalty in the National Rifle Association, he speaks, and his legions either squat, or listen-up. Speaking of legions, the actual membership of the National Rifle Association, (NRA) has a listed membership of 4.5 million members. The headquarters is Fairfax, Virginia, was founded in 1871, has an operating budget of $231 million, and the president is listed as a Mr. David Keene.

 

Keene has been around the NRA for decades, was the chairman of the American Conservative Union, became the national chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), ran for political office in 1969, but lost in his only attempt at public office.

 

David Keene has always been a strong supporter of American’s civil liberties, on both sides of the aisle, although he is most well known for his efforts on behalf of gun rights. Keene has a somewhat checkered background, if you take into account that he was a political assistant to Vice President Spiro Agnew during the Nixon years.

 

Keene’s personal life isn’t a template of how you might want to operate, three marriages, a son, David Michael who is spending time in prison for attempted murder in a 2002 road-rage incident. Also David Keene’s ex-wife pleaded guilty in 2011 to embezzling $120,000 and $400,000 from 2006 to 2009 during her time as a bookkeeper of the ACU group.

 

I do guess it helps being a high mucky-muck of the NRA if you have skeletons rattling around in your closet. It lets people know that you can be a serious S.O.B. if a situation calls for one. Kind of like being locked and loaded at all times.   

 

With a membership of only 4.5 million, one might wonder exactly how they shoulder so much seeming power on the political scene. Well, I’m glad I asked that question, because if one examines the number of munitions and weapons company’s right here in the United States, one will answer that question without much searching.

 

My wife has a saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and it explains the National Rifle Association to a “T”. It seems as if self defense and being patriotic are almost joined at the hip…..at least in the NRA’s eyes. Assault weapons, weapons with multi-bullet magazines, armor penetrating munitions and the like don’t really have a place in the 21^st. century….right?

 

People are still allowed to purchase hunting rifles, people can still own pistols, whether they are for sport or protection, what’s the problem with banning those weapons that I listed in the last paragraph, can somebody please explain that.

 

Should there be a background check for every person that wants to purchase a firearm, absolutely, should only authorized dealers, with a government license be able to sell guns, you bet your bottom buck. Should the government regulate who can have a gun…..of course, it simply makes sense.

 

THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT

I bet you already guessed, weapons makers, ammunitions providers, and those legal and illegal sellers that’s who. The weapons-munitions industry, with military contracts is a multi-billion dollar industry. And the biggest seller of weapons in the world…..bing-bing-bing, what do we have for the winner “Johnny,” it’s the United States of America. Could it have been any different?

 

Of the 320 weapons makers of the world, (there are more but I got tired of searching), a 3^rd reside right here in the United States. I wonder how much these whore-whumping war moguls spend every year on lobbying congress every year, it’s gotta be as much as some small 3^rd world countries overall operating budgets.

 

I leave you today with one thought.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

YOU DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO CABLE T.V.!

(Paul Davenport, Associated Press, Phoenix New Times, Frazer Chronicle)

 

This is a story of probable misconduct by a member of the Phoenix, Arizona law enforcement community, resulting in the incarceration of a 25 year old Debra Jean Milke, a convicted co-conspirator in the brutal shooting death of her 4 year old son, Christopher. The motive, $5,000 in insurance money that Death Row Debby Milke had on her son.

 

Is this a classic case of injustice, of law enforcement going terribly wrong, of an investigating officer disregarding common police procedure in order to get a conviction? All of these questions and the terrible, terrible toll that the verdict has taken on Debra Jean Milke need to come out…..into the light of day.

 

Debra Jean (Sadeik) Milke was born March 10, 1964 in Berlin, West Germany to a military family who moved to the United States where Debra Jean attended high school and college. She married Mark Milke in 1984 at the age of 20. Christopher Conan Milke was born in 1985.

 

The young Christopher would not know many happy times with his father and mother as Debra Jean divorced Mark Milke in 1988. In August of 1989, probably do to the cash restraints of being an unwed mother, Debby Milke moved into an apartment with Jim Styers, a man she knew through her sister.

 

On December 2, 1989, Jim Styers took 4 year old Christopher to the Metrocenter mall in Phoenix. That afternoon Styers called Debby who was doing laundry at their apartment, and told her that her son was missing. Styers alerted mall security, while Milke dialed 911. A missing person investigation was launched, and the next day Roger Scott, a longtime friend of Styers was arrested, and after 14 hours of intensive interrogation he admitted he knew where the boy was, and that he was dead.

 

Styers, who initially helped in the search for the boy was arrested and interviewed by police after being implicated by Scott. Debra Milke went to the Pinal County hospital where she waited in a dispensary room. Phoenix police were told via radio not to speak to Debra, However when detective Armando Saldate arrived by helicopter, he had Milke taken to the Pinal County police station where Saldate initially interrogated the Milke women.

 

Throughout the interview Saldate had either witnesses or a tape recorder to transcribe the narrative that went on in the room. Also Milke never signed a copy of her confession that Detective Saldate said she had made to him.

 

Milke was charged with conspiring to commit first degree murder, child abuse and first degree murder. In October 1990, Milke was convicted of all charges and sentenced to death. Styers and Scott were charged with first degree murder in separate trials, convicted and also sentenced to death.

 

SHORT, SWEET AND SIMPLE!

Its how police work is supposed to happen, catch the bad guys, get a confession, there’s a trial, there’s a conviction, and a verdict…..everybody is congratulated, and there’s high fives all around. More bad guys, and in this case, girl, off the street and where they belong, waiting what they deserve.

 

 

 

It’s a classic First 48 case on the Discovery Channel, in case you haven’t watched the show, there is a case, usually murder, where the first 48 hours are supposed to be the most important part of the investigation and the hour is devoted to what the cops on the case do with their investigative savvy. Most cases are solved, but there a few who stump the detectives.

 

What always strikes me as strange is how these police offers approach a case, for them it seems that everything is black or white, no middle ground. They bring witnesses in, depose them and either eliminate them, or say that they are persons of interest.

 

Tidbits like they look guilty, or they act guilty are used when discussing potential perpetrators of a crime, and by far the best observation, their story doesn’t make a sense. You know what; if I was hauled into a cop shop I’d be nervous as hell, might look guilty, act guilty or tell a fragmented story.

 

Injustice happens every day in our society, usually to middle class people like me, and it’s committed by law enforcement that doesn’t do its job. When a person is brought into a police station, it’s not for cookies and milk and a round of 500 Rummy. Its serious business and cops always and forever want to be in charge of a situation…..so there is a factor of intimidation unlike any other a law-abiding citizen is used to.

 

UNRECORDED CONFESSION AND OBSERVATIONS

Saldate upon arrival at the Pinal County sheriff’s office was directed to an interview room where Milke and her aunt were sitting. Saldate told the aunt to leave the room and talk to another police official while he, Saldate interviewed Debby.

 

According to Saldate, Milke wanted to know who Saldate was, and what he wanted, the detective responded that he was investigating the son’s disappearance. After several minutes, Saldate explained that Ms. Milke’s son had been found dead, shot to death in the desert.

 

At this point Milke began to scream and cry uncontrollably…..without the presence of tears, and at this point, according to Saldate,  instructed the Milke Women that he would not tolerate her crying and that in fact she was under arrest for her son’s death.

 

During the course of the interview Saldate continued not to tolerate crying without tears, and learned, according to Saldate, that the Milke women had said that her son would probably “be better off dead.” She continued that she felt that Christopher would “grow up just like his father,” a drug user and alcohol abuser.

 

During this time she also lamented that she and her ex-husband’s sex life was difficult at best because she felt that the act was a dirty thing to do. She in addition talked about the kinky stuff her husband liked and that he was heavily into pornographic material.

 

There was much more in the interview…..according to detective Saldate, but he neither recorded it, had a witness, nor any notes to show either the prosecutor or Milke’s defense. It had taken Detective Saldate just 3 hours and 5 minutes to wrap up the shooting death of Christopher Milke, masterminded by his 25 year old mother and her two murdering henchmen.

 

I’ll be waiting for this case to hit the First 48 on the Discovery Channel, of course there just a few disgusting loose ends that lagged loose and blowing in the wind for more than 24 years, as Death-Row Debby awaited her lethal injection that would send her to her final resting place, that hottest of all resort spots.

SOME DAMMING EVIDENCE OR LACK THEREOF

Ignored at Debby’s trial was why Saldate’s word should have been taken over Milke’s, and the fact that neither Styers or Scott would testify against Milke at her trial, did they think that one or both might get lucky with the 25 year old by not testifying?

 

Of course there’s the Miranda card, you know, that thing about not incriminating yourself, and wanting an attorney, it’s a simple matter…..right, it’s the part that tells you about the fact that anything that you say may be used in a court of law…..that card was never signed by Debra Jean Milke.

 

The prosecution never placed Debra Jean Milke at the scene of the crime, she was never accused by either of her co-defendants, and there was absolutely no credible evidence that she actually admitted to police that she was part of the horrible murder.

 

Yet she was convicted, sentenced to death, and became known as Death-Row-Debby, and has spent more than half her life behind bars. That however all changed when on March 14, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Milke’s imprisonment was unconstitutional as her conviction had been secured in violation of the Fifth Amendment…..the abuse of government authority, in this case, detective Saldate and his questionable history of misconduct. By not giving the defense all of this information it tended to cast doubt on Milke’s case.

 

This kind of injustice goes on every day in the United States…..how many times have you heard a prosecutor admit that he was wrong…..how many times do you hear a police officer, or a detective admit that there had been a wrong decision made in a high profile trial?

 

For Debra Jean Milke, her verdict being overturned came some 20 years too late, for all intents and purposes her life is over, she didn’t see her son grow up, never got a chance to try marriage again, and probably wasn’t present at her parents funerals.

 

She missed 27 Thanksgiving’s, 27 Christmas’s, 27 New Year’s eves, and 27 birthdays, will her release be a  victory of right over wrong…..absolutely not, because nobody will be brought to task for the injustice. The biggest crime committed probably was Debra Jean Milke’s belief in the jurisprudence process we have here in the United States.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

WHAT DO UMBRELLAS, BASKETBALLS, GOLF BAGS, AND DEODORANT HAVE IN COMMON!

(Google News, Lee Jackson Think Stock, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Surprise, surprise, surprise, umbrellas keep us dry, basketballs can be dribbled and shot, golf bags hold several different types of sticks that whack a little white ball around, which also comes from this substance, as well as deodorant, which helps to make us smell good, and although they aren’t related…..they in fact are…..related, the all come as waste products from petroleum. Yep, there are actually 6000 products that can trace their existence directly from petroleum, black gold…..Texas tea, betcha didn’t know that one!

 

One 42-gallon barrel of crude oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline, and the rest, more than half of every barrel is a building block of all sorts of products that we daily use without as much as a thought of where they came from. Shaving cream, toothpaste, dishes, telephones, bandages, and even footballs are part of the 6000 products of petroleum. Come on, vitamin capsules from petroleum, there has to be a typo.

 

One would never have guessed it…..right, well, not exactly, if a person stops and thinks about how our system works, it stands to reason that manufacturers are going to squeeze every drop of production that they can get for their dollars. Geez-- even pillows can be traced to petroleum.

 

Petroleum products seemingly are going to be with us for the foreseeable future, so I suppose we’d better start figuring out the best way to produce the stuff…..right? I’m not sure laying a production pipeline through the middle of the United States is the best way to approach the project, at least until the people responsible for laying the pipeline are researched. No way, Aspirin tablets too.

 

I figured maybe the best way to check out the top venders of such a project might be the people that stood to make the most money from their efforts. It’s kinda like the man said, “follow the money,” and in this case it stood to be true. I’ve unearthed some interesting facts, figures, and recent histories. It figures, hand lotion also comes from petroleum, no wonder my hands are dryer then a bone.

 

There is a feeling by some experts that the Keystone XL will begin operation as quickly as later this year, despite environmental objections. We here in Wisconsin saw firsthand the power of environmental objects to an environmentally sensitive project, in this case an open pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin. The result of the protest…..the mining company got every concession to the rules that they wanted. This can’t be right…..perfumes also from petroleum…..bummer.

 

According to Think-Stock’s Lee Jackson, Canadian Natural Resources, Conoco Phillips, Deere & Company, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Netherlands based refiner and chemical company Lyondell Basell Industries, Quanta Services, Valero Energy, Quantis Services, and of course TransCanada Corporation who is spearheading the Keystone XL, all stand to make millions upon millions of dollars. Don’t you dare say it…..lipstick from petroleum too.

 

The buzz on the hill is that President Obama is being pressured from all sides to, and in fact Paul Ryan’s budget is tied in with an approval of the project. As the pressure mounts for the president to create more jobs and boost a stagnate economy, it seems only a formality before the Obama camp comes on board, and approves a rather controversial project. The hell you say, percolators also come from Texas tea, I’d have never guessed.

 

 

 

 

THESE COMPANIES ARE BIG, AND GETTING BIGGER

I’m sure some of you haven’t even heard of some of these companies, I know I haven’t, but most a big, getting bigger, and according to Lee Jackson and Think Stock don’t even need the additional windfall that will come from the Keystone XL project.

 

Valero Energy Corporation based out of San Antonio is a relatively newcomer to the oil and gas business, founded in 1980, the company serves North America and the Caribbean, employs more than 22,000 with revenues totaling $125.987 billion dollars.

 

ExxonMobil, reorganized in the fall of 1999, is located in Irving, Texas, serves worldwide, employs more than 82,000 with revenue listed at $486,429 billion. ExxonMobil has a total of 12 subsidiaries, making it difficult to track the environmental record of the company.

 

Deere & Company, producer of heavy equipment is the oldest corporation that is involved with the Keystone project. John Deere employs more than 55,000 worldwide with revenue totaling $26.005 billion. The possibility of John Deere Corporation running into environmental pollution problems stems from their 14 U.S. factories and their 20 foreign manufacturing sites around the world.

 

ConocoPhillips has its worldwide headquarters at Houston Energy Corridor in Houston, Texas, and is under the watchful eye of Ryan Lance, the Chairman  & CEO. Under his direction the company produces petroleum based products throughout the world with revenues reaching more than a quarter trillion.

 

ConocoPhillips was reorganized and created through a merger of Conoco Incorporated and Phillips Petroleum Company in August 2002. Today the company provides employment to more than 29,000 people, and deals exclusively with oil and gas and numbers its customers worldwide.

 

TransCanada Corporation, located in Calgary, Alberta Canada, employs more than 4,200, is in the natural gas and power generation business. TransCanada lists 7 wholly owned pipelines that total more than 100,000 miles and is affiliated with subsidiary pipelines that total 6,000 miles here in the U.S.

 

The company also lists 17 conversion facilities, with 4 located here in the United States, that produce energy from natural gas or oil. The company is currently involved in 56 separate eminent domain lawsuits against landowners in Texas and South Dakota who have refused to give permission to the company to build the Keystone pipeline on their land.

 

Canadian Natural Resources employs more than 5,000 at its Calgary headquarters, with gross income of $16,173 billion. C.N.R. also operates offices in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, as well as international offices in Gabon, Cote d’Lovire, and Aberdeen, Scotland.

 

Quantis Services is an industry leader in providing specialized services including infrastructure, design, maintenance, and repair for every type of infrastructure. Quantis has offices in 40 states, field operations across the country and Canada. Quantis has a total of 17,800 employees as is located in Boston, Massachusetts.  

 

Finally LyondellBasell Industries, a chemical polymers company which is headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, boosting revenues of more than $51 billion dollars, with total overall employees of more than 14,000 produces its products in no less than 28 sites in the United States and 25 additional sites around the world.

 

MY POINT IS SIMPLE, IT’S LIKE CHILDS PLAY

Organizations like the eight that I’ve just listed have a combined workforce of more than 230,000 and a gross income of more than a trillion dollars annually. These figures reflect an industry with a gross income of more than some emerging 3^rd. world countries.

 

The 230,000 workforce figure can be likened to twice the size of Green Bay, all working around petroleum producing facilities with little regard to the environment that they occupy. How could they, in today’s atmosphere of deadlines and bottom line results.

 

Accidents, oil spills, pipeline ruptures, and the abrasive sand oil that flows through many pipelines in not only the United States, but Canada as well all are a constant threat to the environment where pipelines are located.

 

Between January 2010 and February 2011 there were nine major pipeline explosions that resulted in 18 deaths, 13 injuries and 85 destroyed homes in the United States. I had no idea, and I’ll bet you didn’t either. Here’s the list:

January 5, 2010, Jackson, Mississippi

January 6, 2010, Barksdale Air Force Base, 1 death.

June 7, 2010, Jackson County, Texas, 1 death, 8 injured

June 29, 2010, Pocasset, Oklahoma, 3 injured

September 9, 2010, San Bruno, California, 8 deaths, 38 homes destroyed

February 8, 2011, Houston, Texas, 1 death

February 9, 2011, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 5 deaths, 47 homes damaged

February 10, 2011, Hanoverton, Ohio

 

Over 5,000,000 barrels of oil have been spilled across the country over the past 20 years, and of course that doesn’t include derrick platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, or oil tanker wrecks along our coastlines. Of course we need petroleum products to enhance and maintain our lifestyle.

 

In fact I’m a proponent of petroleum products as well as coal, natural gas and even atomic reactor power; it just needs to be done with a weathered eye towards safety not only for people, but our precious environment that we depend on for so many products.

 

I am in total amazement at the products that are directly linked to the production of fossil fuel…..like 85% through the burning of oil and natural gas. Here is a short list of some of the products:

C.D. Players

Skis

Putty

Dentures

Refrigerators

Vaporizers

Ice Cube Trays

Parachutes

Soap

Shoe Polish

Toilet Seats

I can’t imagine being without most of these products, well maybe skies and parachutes I could do without.

HAVE A NICE DAY

A CONUNDRUM…..OR THE THOUSAND POUND GORILLA IN MY BATHROOM!

(U.S. House of Representative-Committee on the Budget, the Atlantic, Frazer Chronicle)

 

The path to prosperity: a blueprint for American renewal…..TRUST US, we know the way to a higher standard of living while not having to pay for it. What a load of crap, how can any one committee, one party, or a one person have the answers to such loaded problems?

 

I’m sure that those people on the budget committee earnestly believe the decisions that they have made regarding their Blueprint for American Renewal, could it be any other way? This flies in the face of President Obama and the counter-part to Paul Ryan and his legion of Republicans in the house…..Harry Reid, and his assembled Democrats in the Senate.

 

I can tell you exactly what is going to happen, the action will go from automatic cuts to dueling budget plans, divisive bickering, mudslinging and the almost classic he said-she said stupidity that has divided Capitol Hill for way to long. Of course lost in this political shuffle will be the very people that are supposed to benefit from government and the tax dollars that we pay into our coffers.

 

That’s right, it’s like a professional sports team, exactly like a professional sports team, no fans, no money for salaries, hence no sports team…..and high priced athletes. With government, on any level, if the citizens quite paying their taxes…..there would be no government, no services, and ultimately…..no United States of America.

 

As a nation, we are, in effect living from paycheck to paycheck, the exact way a credit councilor will tell you not to live. I can remember some politician back in the late 1970’s talking about governmental debt in American and how by pushing the problem down the road was only delaying the inevitable…..a reckoning with creditors.

 

Since that time we have went through five different presidents, four with two terms in office, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. There have been three Republicans and two Democrats regimes during the last 33 years, 20 years of Republican control, and by the end of the Obama term in office, 16 years of Democratic control.

 

Those who point a finger at one party or the other as the root of the problem are fools, and in total denial, these are the people that are actually dangerous, they think they have a solution for the problems that plague our nation. These people are in fact part of the problem, and not the solution, they need to be locked away during the entirety of the election cycles…..which would translate to almost all the time in today’s world of endless election cycles.

 

I’ve blogged about Paul “I would be King” Ryan on several occasions, and my opinion hasn’t changed, unless you count a worsening opinion. He is an idiot that the voters of southern Wisconsin are saddled with. I blame southern Wisconsin for Paul Ryan, without their vote…..the Jack-Ass would never have attained public office where he has found a platform for his almost constant dribble.

 

His new budget is a 99 page generalization about how he and the Republican Party can save us from…..ourselves. It’s almost the “thank you sir…..may I have another,” syndrome. I think some of you people are a sheep herder’s best friend, you love to be led, it makes you feel safe, no decisions…..no problems, probably is tacked over your front door.

 

 

 

HARD CHOICES ARE HERE MY FRIENDS

If you are making $300 a week and spending $301, you will go in the hole by a buck every week, and by the end of the year, you will have deficit spent a total of $52. Multiply that by 40 years and, well, you see where I’m going, no actually I’m going to carry this figure on out, $2080.

 

Let’s say you constantly overspent for the entirety of your working life by the same figure every year, and you amassed this $2080 deficit. After 40 years of effort, you have developed a bad back, high blood pressure and diabetes and are told you can’t work anymore…..what happens to the debt, who pays it off?

 

It’s where the United States finds itself today, older, tired with high blood pressure and diabetes, and at the threshold of not being able to work. As a nation we have a huge debt, it’s like a gazillion space bucks, with all sorts of whammies. I am not an economist, but I can tell you one thing, with regards to our nation, and the possibility of failure…..it ain’t gonna happen, we are the original too big to fail world problem.

 

To many nations around the world stand to lose way too much to allow the United States to fail, and, after all, that is a big part of debt payments, interest. But for the country to be beholden to any other country but our own is unacceptable, and extremely stupid not on our politicians parts, but ours, the citizens of the country.

 

We have gotten exactly what we paid for, or actually didn’t pay for; all we had to do was pay attention, but didn’t. That’s right, as the electric, we are the engine that pushes the country, we provide the funds for government activity, and we fuel all of the funding that is called entitlements.

 

Paul Ryan didn’t write the Republican budget, he’s simple the figure-head, the face of the budget, the budget was a collaboration of all sorts of people who, I can guarantee, have absolutely no touch with reality, can’t remember how it is to not provide for your family, or continually come up short with the rent money.

 

These framers of the Republican response to Obama’s budget possibly never worried about where their next cigarette, or bottle of beer was coming from, or how’d it get paid for. Am I getting through to you…..politicians, no matter the party, are out of touch.

 

Ryan and his pals that have made up the budget committee are in tune with only one agenda, to save the rich, spare the old, and forget the poor. This according to Derek Thompson of the Atlantic, who also writes that the Ryan budget is “nothing new,” and he’s been saying the same thing for years now.

 

I am no fan of comparing numbers from differing budgets presented by different political persuasions, it’s been going on forever, and in the end does no good, and once again the taxpayer is left holding the bag, I’m tired of being left with nothing but a bag full of…..crap.

 

As a people we need to assess our priorities and re-think what is important, what will work for the most people, and how we are going to pay for the services that come out of this process. The general public needs to become involved, we’ve let the suits on Capitol Hill do this for decades, and it hasn’t worked, when in hell are we going to wake up?

 

 

Paul Ryan is a fine looking young man, the President used to be a fine looking young man, now he just looks spent. Why anybody would waste their time at drafting budgets, or creating committees to devise and deliver ideas to govern the country, I’ll never understand.

 

It ain’t rocket science, if you make a buck; you had better spend only .90 cents and put the rest in a sock, a bank, or some sort of investment where it will grow. Politicians are voted into office by their constituents, these constituents have wants and desires that may not be the best thing for the country overall. It’s a big reason why we all need to be better informed.

 

Time actually is a-wasting, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wake up tomorrow with a Japanese flag flying from a flagpole on Capitol Hill!

 

HAVE A GOOD DAY!