September 21, 2008 at 8:45 pm Filed under News Items
While we consider big Oil and the price of gas (petrol)…
Oh by the way, did you know that big oil companies DON’T control the majority of the oil, about 70 - 90% is owned by, guess what. GOVERNMENTS, depending how you count it.
Now it all starts to make sense:
Yet Big Oil is pretty small next to the industry’s true giants: the national oil companies (NOCs) owned or controlled by the governments of oil-rich countries, which manage over 90% of the world’s oil, depending on how you count. Of the 20 biggest oil firms, in terms of reserves of oil and gas, 16 are NOCs. Saudi Aramco, the biggest, has more than ten times the reserves that Exxon does. Those with misgivings about oil—that its price is too high, that reserves are running out, that it damages the environment, that it is more a curse than an asset for countries that produce it—must look to NOCs for reassurance.
Maybe that’s why our government can’t reach an agreement on drilling here and now, they haven’t figured out how to CASH IN like the oil rich nations.
Even so, this has just come in to my inbox from Human Events:
More political games designed to dupe the American people! Increased prices at the pump! More dependence on oil from Iran, Venezuela and other foreign countries that HATE America!
That basically sums up Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her liberal cohorts’ plan to address our nation’s energy crisis.
Indeed, leave it to the Pelosi Politburo to pass a bill, literally in the dark of night, that EFFECTIVELY PROHIBITS domestic drilling and then try to sell the legislation to the
American people as a measure that opens up domestic drilling!
In case you missed it, here’s the play by play on Pelosi’s energy “hoax”:
On Monday evening at 9:45 PM, Pelosi dropped a 245-page bill on Congress (H.R. 6899, the so-called “Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act.”).
Then, using arcane procedural maneuvers, she effectively stifled substantive debate, by-passed the committee process, prohibited amendments and forced a vote within 24 hours!
And on Tuesday evening, the House of Representatives passed this “sham bill” on a mostly partisan vote of 239-189!
And Pelosi’s bill is NOTHING BUT SMOKE AND MIRRORS. It will ACTUALLY PROHIBIT DOMESTIC DRILLING, RAISE YOUR TAXES, and has a ‘mother-load’ of Congressional pork!
Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner, had this to say: “It would permanently lock up 80 percent of our nation’s offshore energy resources — holding hostage billions of barrels of American oil.”
Congressman Jeb Hensarling called it “a hoax bill that would permanently prevent exploration of nearly 90 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf for American energy and block energy production in arctic Alaska and the Inter-Mountain West.”
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt said; “I’m offended…. And the American people should be offended that we’re not doing the job for them that really matters.”
Right now, this “Pelosi sham bill” is on the fast-track to the Senate and the only thing that may stand in its way — and the passage of REAL energy legislation that will actually open up domestic drilling — is YOU and millions of other concerned Americans!
If we don’t take action right now, the mantra of “drill here and drill now” may be replaced by a policy of “drill nowhere, drill never and raise taxes on the American people.”
September 6, 2008 at 3:55 pm Filed under General
is a woman.
After being mayor and governor she certainly doesn’t have the thin executive resumé that is NoBamba & McSame . She actually RAN a city and a state where they haven’t.
Now, I don’t ordinarily sing the praises of politicians, and I won’t start here and now, as people are people. We’re all imperfect and all will disappoint - being human and all. {I am not sure Obama knows that}. There are however, a few things to note and to like about Sarah Palin. I’d like to list a few:
When she was in high school, she helped the team win the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds of the game, despite having an ankle stress fracture. She earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play, and was the leader of the team prayer before games. To some of us, that means something.
She finished second in the Miss Alaska beauty pagent, she won a college scholarship, and it’s interesting to note, the "Miss Congeniality" award.
Here is something you don’t see everyday either…after she became mayor of Wasilla, she reduced the mayoral salary.
She seems to call a spade a spade, even if the misdeed is within her own party. Governor Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she chaired the Commission from 2003 to 2004, and also served as Ethics Supervisor. Palin resigned in January 2004 in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members. Good for her.
In response to high oil and gas prices, and the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers’ rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send each Alaskan $1,200 from the windfall surplus resulting from high oil prices.
Shortly after becoming governor of Alaska, Palin canceled a contract for the construction of an 11-mile (18 km) gravel road outside Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days of the previous administration. She also followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account, against the wishes of the Legislature) by the Murkowski administration for $2.7 million in 2005. In August 2007 the jet was listed on eBay. What’s not to like about that one? Hilarious.
In a few short days we’ve learned she is qualified and that she seems "real". What I figure though is she will really have to hang her toughest in the weeks to folllow. The opposition have some barracudas of their own and they won’t stop at anything to tear her apart.
It has been a historical decision for her as V.P. nominee, newsworthy you’d think. But to start the media bias off, Oprah (now known as Noprah), for not allowing Sarah Palin on her show . Personally, I don’t mind if Oprah, even having a journalist background, [but her show is not a news show], doesn’t ask Palin on. What I mind is, the knowledge if the whole thing was reversed…a media backing a republican and not giving a democrat woman coverage, there would be hell to pay. You just know it.
So much for women supporting women, and this is just the begining. The democrats and their feminists won’t like her. She is married, she is a mom of five, she has family values. They so hate all that. Never mind that unlike Hillary Clinton, who got into position thanks to the coat tails of her husband Bill, Sarah worked her way up without that benefit. Will they credit her for that or slam her values? I already know the answer.
What excites me is that largely thanks to Palin, people I know are now excited about the McCain ticket. To my surprise, in spite of the DNC running 4 nights, and the RNC only running 3, they still got the most watched Convention -ever.
This week’s ratings, with an average of 34.5 million viewers watching the GOP convention over three days, proved people are becoming more interested in what the Republicans have to say. The Democrats had an average audience of 30.2 million over four days, Nielsen said.
I guess this comes as a surprise to me. After listening to my daughter’s radio stations where they blatanly PUSH the Obama agenda, going to Ocean City and see ONLY Obama tee-shirts, or after visiting the mall and seeing Obama’s image alongside Martin Luthur King, I thought most would be brainwashed by now.
Perhaps the dems are in ‘overkill’ mode and if the people want to know anything at all, they WILL tune in to see what the ‘other side’ has to say.
July 15, 2008 at 8:39 pm Filed under General
“You should be happy your gas is $4.00 a gallon, some of Europe pays twice that.”
It is often said and yet there is an error in this logic. Much of Europe has an amazing connection of transport that makes cars unnecessary. Many can roam about comfortably and never own a car. In many cases, a car is pure luxury. This is not so where I live, and without the convenience of a metro or a bus route, I don’t have options other countries have.
Yesterday, President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. This doesn’t solve our problem however, as it is now put in the hands of our lazy, do nothing, democractic Congress. (Let’s not forget their leader Pelosi’s promise that the democrats had a plan to bring down the skyrocketing price of gas). To quote something my 14 year old daughter would say, “What a loser.” Don’t you love how blunt youth can be?
Bush says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start. Bush also says offshore drilling would take pressure off prices over time.
Well, what do you know, no sooner had Bush made the Rose Garden speech, crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.
Read more here
June 13, 2008 at 3:45 pm Filed under News Items
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) makes the claim “Since George Bush got into office…[gas prices saw a ] 250% increase.”
The truth of the matter is the day Democrats took control of Congress, January 4, 2007, gas prices averaged $2.33 per gallon, according to AAA. Today, the national average is $4.04 – a whopping $1.71 increase per gallon in less than a year and a half.
Who is Barbara Boxer? She’s the brainchild of the Boxer Climate Tax Bill which was a deceptive piece of legislation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged would raise the price of gasoline at the pump BY ANOTHER $1.40 a gallon!
Ok, so while you and me suffer at the high cost of gasoline, these democrats in congress can only think of ways to make it worse? They are so out of touch with the American people.
Did you know that gasoline costs 45 cents a gallon in Saudi Arabia, 35 cents in Iran, and less than a quarter in Venezuela?
Why does gasoline cost so little in these countries and so much in the United States of America?
Answer: Because Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela harvest enough oil to take care of their own people… and AMERICA DOESN’T!
Meanwhile Chinese firms are planning to slant drill off the Cuban coast near the Florida Straits, tapping into U.S. oil reserves that are estimated at 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels! Needless to say, the enviro-nazis in America will not let us drill off the coast of Florida but the Chinese can!
Fortunately, for us for now, the Democrats failed to secure a majority on this bill.
May 21, 2008 at 12:28 pm Filed under General
As the House passes bill to sue OPEC, (Is this the best those liberal democrats can do?), Oil hits $132 a barrel, and Obama tells us to do with less, Newt Gingrich emailed me with another thought:
Drill Here
Drill Now
Pay Less
He continues:
Last week, liberals in Congress voted for the equivalent of a $150 billion tax increase. They voted to make your next trip to the gas station more expensive; to make your next airplane ticket more expensive; to make heating your home more expensive — even to make feeding your family more expensive.
How did they do it? By voting to block environmentally sound production of U.S. energy in favor of continuing to be held hostage to oil from foreign dictatorships.
Who’s to blame for our high gas prices? The oil companies? The Saudis? OPEC? The answer, unfortunately, is closer to home: The “No-We-Can’t” Left in Congress.
Last Thursday, with oil at $124 a barrel, liberals on the Senate Appropriations committee voted to block environmentally sound development of oil shale in Colorado.
According to the Investors Business Daily there are an estimated 1 trillion barrels of oil trapped in shale in the U.S. and Canada. Retrieving just a tenth of it would quadruple our current oil reserves.
But the “No-We-Can’t” Left in Congress — as they’re prone to do — said no, and Americans will pay the price. Colorado Senator Wayne Allard (R) put it best when he said: “If we are really serious about reducing pain at the pump, this is a vote that would make a difference in people’s lives.”
While liberals were voting to prevent domestic production from oil shale, the Saudis, following President Bush’s visit, agreed to boost their oil output by 300,000 barrels a day. It won’t fix the problem, but at least it won’t make it worse, which is exactly what liberals in Congress did last week.
As Americans, we all need to ask ourselves the following: Which is it — the Congress or Saudi Arabia — that has a greater obligation to ease our energy prices? And which is the greater obstacle to energy independence and security?
One economist calculated that the price of oil rising from $80 a barrel to $100 a barrel had the same effect on Americans’ pocket books as a $150 billion tax increase — and the price of oil has risen an additional $27 since then!
So how is it that the liberals in Congress, faced with an opportunity like the one last week to lessen this burden on Americans, could reject it without a second thought?
Once again, the answer seems to boil down to three little words: “No we can’t.”
Campaigning in Oregon last week, Senator Barack Obama seemed to forget his campaign theme of “Yes We Can,” telling his fellow Americans that more pain — not more production — is the answer. He responded to a question about America’s role in reducing global energy consumption like this:
“We can’t tell [other countries], don’t grow. We can’t — drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country’s going to say OK.”
Telling the next generation of Americans that they can’t have the lifestyle that their parents enjoy is defeatist and wrong. It is a rejection of the energy, optimism and innovation that has made this nation great.
It’s also all too similar to President Carter in February of 1977 when he called the energy shortage “permanent” and called on Americans to turn their thermostat down to “65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night.”
Of course, the energy shortage was anything but permanent. Just like today, it was an artificial creation of stupid government policies. Ronald Reagan’s first official act as President was to deregulate the oil industry. Oil prices dropped soon after.
Americans overwhelmingly support more domestic production of energy to help ease gas prices.
We — not the Saudis or the oil companies — control our energy future. We just need the political will to do so.
High energy prices aren’t theoretical, they have real consequences for real people. The answer, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, isn’t easy, but it’s simple — so simple it could fit on a bumper sticker:
Drill Here
Drill Now
Pay Less
More info HERE
May 16, 2008 at 7:43 pm Filed under General
This picture shows President Bush with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, asking for higher oil output, and the King refused. He is allowed to say no. It’s their oil, and they can pump it if they want to. I have no problem with that.
This is just another in a list of mistakes Bush makes in my opinion. Bush should be on the television talking to the American people about this problem. If Bush wants to talk to someone, he should tell the American people, now paying about $4.00 a gallon, that the United States has 86 billion gallons of its own oil (according to FoxNews today), and cannot access it, thanks to regulations by environmentalists.
It’s embarrassing really, to see him beg to foreign Kings, when the debate on how to deal with this problem should begin right here at home. The last refinery built in America was in 1976. Just how "serious" are we about our energy "crisis"?
Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, said there would be plenty of oil available to the United States if the oil companies were allowed to get it: “Eighty-five percent of offshore oil is off-limits.”
Responding to objections to offshore drilling by environmentalists and their allies in Congress, Robertson noted that some of the strongest pro-environment nations in Europe — he mentions Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom — lease offshore locations for oil exploration. The technology has become so good, he said, that during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, “one thousand offshore wells were destroyed (in the Gulf of Mexico), but not one leaked.” Australia, he said, has allowed offshore drilling for 40 years without any environmental damage.
According to the Department of Energy, U.S. oil production has fallen approximately 40 percent since 1985, while the consumption of oil has grown by more than 30 percent.
According to government estimates, there is enough oil in areas accessible to America — 112 billion barrels — to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Bush should be on national television daily, explaining to those interested, that we don’t have to be dependent on other nations who have religious police arresting women for sitting at Starbucks with male colleagues . (see Human rights in Saudi Arabia ). Is this a country we want to keep sending a fortune to when we can do it ourselves?
And say, if the environmentalists are right, that ecology will suffer in the areas we could drill in, why not then appeal to the American people…award a fortune to the person, people, or company, who can invent another form of energy? We shouldn’t be beholden to a nation who can’t treat their own people right, that makes them untrustworthy at best. Untrustworthy means at any moment, our "friends and allies" could stop the oil to the U.S. any time they wanted to.
April 29, 2008 at 1:07 pm Filed under News Items
I was behind a lady in a line of cars at BJ’s the other day, we were at the gas pump. I looked at her as she was filling her car, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she looked close to crying. Watching the numbers roll around and accumulate was obviously adding to her stress level. I didn’t even have to TRY to imagine what had her so upset. I wondered what she couldn’t buy, so she could fuel her car with gas.
I tell this story as I read the headlines:
BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s two biggest oil producers, posted forecast-busting first-quarter earnings on Tuesday thanks to record crude oil prices that are expected to bolster profits across the industry.
Revenue at BP jumped 44 percent to $89.2 billion (57.1 billion euros), while sales at Shell soared 55 percent to $114 billion (72.95 billion euros).
In a recent survey, gas prices top the typical american’s lists of concerns:
About 44 percent of survey participants said paying for gasoline was a “serious problem” for them. Across all income levels, the cost of gas was the most frequently cited economic concern. The price of gas nationally averaged $3.60 a gallon on Monday, according to the Energy Department.
More than a quarter of households earning more than $75,000 a year described paying for gasoline as a serious problem. For those with incomes of less than $30,000, about 63 percent felt that way.
In a distant second and third place among participants’ economic concerns were: getting a good-paying job or raise, 29 percent; and paying for health care and health insurance, 28 percent.
Following in fourth place was difficulty paying rent or mortgage, 19 percent.
Now if I were a total optimist, I would be tempted to think that perhaps a solution to this mess was around the corner, and these oil companies was able to see the writing on the wall, and want to get their money now while they can.
However, I am a realist. I see it for what it is…greed.
With that thought, there is some projections that oil could hit $200 a barrel, pushing gas to $10.00 a gallon.
With the exception of Maryland winters, a bike is looking better all the time.
April 26, 2008 at 12:13 pm Filed under News Items
If you read the news headlines at all, between the economy, housing crisis, and food issues, it’s all starting to sound like the Black horse of the Apocalypse.
But it’s this headline that I thought was a no-brainer even when this started:
When they started to grow corn for the sole purpose of fuel, and even though I am no rocket scientist, I saw that as trouble. Forgetting for a moment that not all environmentalists are even sure that growing corn for fuel doesn’t consume MORE energy in the long run, it just seemed unwise.
It’s one thing to use the wastes from corn for fuel, it’s quite another for it being the only purpose.
An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.
“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.
Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.”
“We were criticized for being alarmist at the time,” Mr. Runge said. “I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative.”
“It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol,” Mr. Senauer, also an applied economics professor at Minnesota, said.
Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming. “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said.
A Harvard professor of environmental studies who has advised Mr. Gore, Michael McElroy, warned in a November-December 2006 article in Harvard Magazine that “the production of ethanol from either corn or sugar cane presents a new dilemma: whether the feedstock should be devoted to food or fuel. With increasing use of corn and sugar cane for fuel, a rise in related food prices would seem inevitable.” The article, “The Ethanol Illusion” went so far as to praise Senator McCain for summing up the corn-ethanol energy initiative launched in the United States in 2003 as “highway robbery perpetrated on the American public by Congress.”
In Britain, some hunger-relief and environmental groups have turned sharply against biofuels. “Setting mandatory targets for biofuels before we are aware of their full impact is madness,” Philip Bloomer of Oxfam told the BBC.
The article goes on to discuss how in American stores like Walmart, Cosco, and other food warehouses, they are rationing rice. Still some other countries are having riots about the price and availability for rice.
Converting food to Biofuels is a “crime against humanity” so says UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler.
Ken puts it well:
Extreme environmentalism and global warming hysteria is now having real impact on global food supplies. The cost of food continue to rise in part because of the demand by environmentalists that we use crops and land to produce fuel instead of using our own oil resources. The price of corn and wheat has skyrocketed which have caused the price of livestock, milk, and eggs to rise as well. In the United States we subsidize farmers to grow corn for ethanol. Many farmers have stopped growing other crops to get on the ethanol gravy train which has caused shortages of wheat. It is now more profitable to use corn for fuel than it is to feed people.
More deaths, more poverty, less freedom and liberty are going to be the real effects of global warming, and not because of any rise in temperature but the rise of big government policies, wealth redistribution schemes like carbon offsets, and extreme regulations on every aspect of human behavior. There has never been a time in this country’s history that our freedom were at risk and the scary thing is that so many people are willing to give our hard fought liberties away over the biggest fraud in the history of mankind, that of global warming which is a crime against humanity indeed.
April 23, 2008 at 12:47 pm Filed under News Items
Apparently, “Nanny” Pelosi made a promise to reduce gas prices:
In a press release dated April 24, 2006, Pelosi said, “Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”
I think it’s time that someone pointed out that the price of gasoline has spiked $1.18 since Democrats took over in January and stands at $3.51.
Indeed someone has. House Republicans.
House Republican leaders on Tuesday challenged Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to release a plan to lower gas prices that they say Democrats touted when they were in the minority.
“Two years ago this week, you stated that House Democrats had a ‘commonsense plan’ to ‘lower gas prices,’ ” the letter said. “In light of the skyrocketing gasoline prices affecting working families and every sector of our struggling economy, we are writing today to respectfully request that you reveal this ‘commonsense plan’ so we can begin work on responsible solutions to help ease this strain.”
Pelosi’s office did not respond immediately for comment, what a surprise.
McCain has called for a suspension of the gas tax to help consumers get through the summer months.
Ah, the differences between before elected, and after.
February 6, 2008 at 10:22 pm Filed under News Items
Having oil just seems to allow the world to look away and defend radicals to blow us up, each other up, and treat women (retarded and not retarded) like subhumans, that’s what I have concluded. Even though there is a promise of a 50 cent drop in price per gallon come this spring, no one should look away at such headlines.
In Today’s Times Online:
A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia’s religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.
Yara, who does not want her last name published for fear of retribution, was bruised and crying when she was freed from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom’s “Mutaween” police….
….But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.
“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.
“He said ‘You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell’. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.”
On Breitbart
“Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying. The two were found guilty of adultery — a capital crime in Islamic Iran — after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away. The article goes on to say that even though they were convicted, there really isn’t any actual proof of adultery, only having men in their home.”
The article is complete with images, perhaps the most sad, men sitting on a wall with their young sons, ready to see the women punished.
On MyWay
Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally retarded women detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, police and Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital this spring.
What, harems in heaven doesn’t appeal to the average red-blooded man anymore? Volunteers are at an all time low? They have to send the simple in to do their dirty work?
credit 2007 toyota hybridin accreditation united statesof university accreditation phoenixaccept card credit ecommercework degree experience accreditedsecond card credit approval 30of 5.9 credit lineaccreditation care child in Map
August 10, 2006 at 10:01 am Filed under News Items
While we in the U.S. weigh responsibly the environmental outcomes, and while doing so keeps us dependant on foreign oil, China has sealed a deal with Cuba to seize the opportunity to drill and tap into our oil reserves.
At the same time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is making deals to sell his country’s oil to China, oil that is currently coming to the United States.
Meanwhile, a new left-wing populist regime in Bolivia has nationalized the natural gas industry, threatening to cut off supplies to the United States.
The irony is that Chinese drilling could be even more of an environmental hazard since China is not as concerned about or equipped to deal with any potential ecological disaster as a result of a spill, said Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho).
More stories: (If you don’t mind China drilling in our backyard, and you don’t drive a car, don’t bother reading the following)
China Starts Drilling
Cuba oil probe spurs calls for U.S. drilling
Cuba, China Drilling for Oil 50 Miles from Florida Shores
China, Cuba reported in Gulf oil partnership
Cuba irks U.S. with plans for oil drilling
U.S. Concerned By Cuban Oil Drilling Off Coast
Democrats Fail to Prevent Senate Oil Drilling Bill from Passing
Cuba seeks oil near Keys
May 5, 2006 at 11:42 am Filed under General
Being a stats nut, when I learned that my host at PowWeb had free stats, I opted to run them and see what they were like. Now active for a full month in April, I decided to see which was the top keyphrase search for the whole of XerraireArt.com. It should come as no surprise I suppose; Diesel Secret Energy. With the headlines talking of little else but bad news regarding the price of oil, and our hurting wallets at the gas pump, I am not surprised that there is a newfound interest in alternative gasoline ideas.
No doubt the search engines are leading these people to my past blog on this idea of Diesel secret energy - in fact, it comes up #1 on the google search engine. Where this blog isn’t totally a forum, people are making comments asking questions and some providing answers, there are boards ou there with people talking back and forth and finding out what works and what doesn’t work for them.
I wish I had more answers for people finding the blog.
I seem to only have more questions. Like, how come I feel these high prices really hurting me, my way of living, and limiting my travels, and the financial programs are saying how GOOD this is for the economy. I hear their reasons, yet its hard to comprehend, and it hurts to tell the children, “We can’t go to that function, we can’t afford to get there.”
Some other top search keyphrases for XerraireArt.com?
gilmore girl quotes (really shows the popularity of this program)
terragen 2
top songs of 2005
bowling nicknames
maryland flag
Lost season 2
Bill Cosby, Noah
Iron and Wine such great heights
blog countdowns
christian siners with hypothyroidism
Go figure those. 
September 28, 2005 at 12:51 pm Filed under News Items
…in the morning…or anytime of the day!
I will be the first to admit, I know little about oil, gas, refineries and such, but as we fill up our cars of late at the gas station, it just lends ourselves to get a little educated. Why on earth did two hurricanes increase the prices sky high? Is it true that someone is profiting, and much, from these disasters?
Indeed, after watching the news this morning, Marc Ginsberg sort of made it clear that the refineries are guzzling the profits to the tune of a 50% increase, up 30% from before the crisis. After gasoline leaves refineries, the profit margin becomes narrower, even when prices are high. Many motorists direct their anger at gas station owners when the higher market prices for oil and gasoline show up at the pump. But the bulk of the increases at the pump typically is not making station owners rich, analysts said.
So, if you want to get upset, look to the refineries.
Another point was made though, A new oil refinery has not been built in the United States since 1976. During that time, our gasoline use has increased over 25 percent. The nation’s 149 existing refineries have been running at maximum capacity trying to meet record demand and, as a result, not only do we import oil, we actually have to import 10 percent of our daily gasoline from refineries overseas.
Just a few new refineries would alleviate the problem and help keep our gas prices lower and steadier.
But getting an oil refinery built is next to impossible, hence the 30-year construction drought. There will always be environmental activists who fight any new proposed refinery, regardless of where it might be located and how environmentally safe it is. And our environmental rules give them the upper hand.
Those existing refineries must love those environmental groups. They can guzzle the green thanks to the greens.
As for me, I have no answer. I can conserve. I sure drive a small enough car (which isn’t always practical in a snow covered Maryland). I drive less than ever.
These refineries…I think its worth a study, don’t you? Should we build more? Should government regulate their profits? What can be done?
Related Links
Washington Post Article
Slate MSN
Reason Foundation
September 27, 2005 at 8:35 pm Filed under News Items
“When China awakes, it will shake the world.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
One day last year, my children and I were deep in study of world geography. Before we would start on a new country, we would review some quick facts about each. (Population, capital city, military facts, main exports, etc.)
Perhaps I was very naive when we hit the nation of China, and I saw the size of its military. Their population is well known, but I had no idea of their military size.
I went back and forth from the US to China’s military stats and was very surprised!
| China population: 1,273,111,290
Armed Forces:
Army: 1,830,000
Reserves: 1,000,000
Navy: 230,000
Air Force: 420,000 |
US population: 278,058,881Armed Forces:
Army: 495,000
Navy: 388,760
Air Force: 390,000
Marines: 174,000 |
That was my first awareness of this county as something to take notice of - a nation rising to superpower status. Frankly, I never did like the word ’superpower’. My first trip to Europe and several after, people always spoke to me and my homeland as a ’superpower’ and I kind of felt defensive about it. I didn’t like it. Everyone thinks of a superpower as a big bully or something. So after reading the news of late, I am thinking perhaps China wants the title. I kind of wouldn’t mind personally, I get tired in my travels to be looked at like a freak from a superpower nation.
But is China indeed going to that trend? Here are my findings so far:
China’s Economy
Chances are good your child’s favorite stuffed toy, those sneakers on your feet and the microwave that reheated dinner were all manufactured in China. Chinese-made products fill American stores to the tune of $82 billion a year.
American businesses are cashing in, too, from McDonald’s to agricultural pesticides — all trying to tap the world’s biggest market of more than 1.2 billion consumers, or one out of every five people on earth.
Today no one can compete on price with Chinese manufactured goods and China is looking to dominate the industrial power of the Far East in the way Japan currently does, all it needs now is a focus on quality and that is starting.
Western investors are urged not to “miss the boat to China”. It is forecast that China’s economy will become the largest in the world by 2040; it already accounts for 12 per cent of the world’s energy consumption. No one talks about “communist China” any longer: even the Communist Party of China prefers to describe itself as the “ruling party”. For those who have been watching the country since the years when Mao was alive, it is hard to exaggerate the extent to which China has changed.
China and Other Countries
Russian President Putin is taking a lead role in putting together the most powerful coalition of regional and superpowers in the world. The coalition consists of India, China, Russia and Brazil. This will challenge the superpower supremacy of America as well as the European Union. The Chinese are concerned about American and European influence over the world. So is India, Brazil and Russia. Russians need Brazil badly.
At the same time, added Bates Gill, holder of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the center: “China clearly has become more multilateral than the U.S. — in peacekeeping, in the U.N., in the last few years in its increased relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors … It has been waging joint military exercises with foreign militaries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Australia and the United Kingdom
China is indeed rising as a superpower, albeit a dangerously unbalanced one economically and socially. Nevertheless, in its “rise” (the word everyone uses nowadays), it is rapidly (and ironically, given its secluded and fearful past) taking over the multilateral, peacekeeping, good-neighbor role that America always played in the world. It is changing America’s relations everywhere, whether in Africa, the Middle East, Iran, Central Asia or Latin America, where, for instance, it is wooing Venezuela for oil and the Dominican Republic for access to American markets.
Is China Hoarding Oil?
According to a recent Japanese government energy study it is predicted that by the end of this year China will overtake Japan as the world’s biggest consumer of crude oil after the United States. Much of that oil will be driving China’s increasing manufacturing operations and export drive to every country in the world
Evidence is mounting that China is buying more oil than it consumes, raising fears that oil hoarding may be supporting the current high price of crude. The signs of aggressive Chinese stockpiling emerge from research by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, which suggests that China is importing crude and refined products at twice the rate of growth in actual demand.
Projections of the rate of growth in consumption in the People’s Republic suggest that China’s power generators, road hauliers, petrochemical plants and factories will burn an extra 500,000 barrels a day of crude oil this year. But Merrill Lynch’s analysis of implied demand, based on import data in the first and second quarter of this year, suggests that demand will increase this year by one million barrels a day.
Michael Rothman, Merrill Lynch’s senior energy analyst in New York, reckons that the second figure is not real consumption and does not reflect actual burning of crude in Chinese cars and power plants.
I think in the final analysis its a good idea to to keep our eyes on China, and one hopes around the world they are, too. Go figure, China is the first country in history to become a superpower while being poor, not a democracy, and with basically a non-market economy. Amazing.
References & Links of Interest:
The Encyclopedia of World Geography
News Max
CNN
FAS.Org
NIC
International Relations.com
IndiaDaily
Silicon.com
Yahoo News
August 26, 2005 at 6:44 am Filed under News Items
There are a number of headlines across the country regarding people up in arms with the price of gasoline, some taking it to the point of filling their tanks and then driving off without paying.
Where I agree that the dependency on foreign oil is and always has been crazy, making ourselves vulnerable to these oil rich nations, I always felt I had little knowledge on my own as to what to do about it. What puzzles me though is that even though *I* have little knowledge of cars and how to fuel them, there has to be a few out there with ideas for alternatives. Where the heck are they?
Recently, while speaking with Miranda, I was curious how she and Enric were coping with the prices of gas up there in Wisconsin (which are higher than here in Maryland).
She went on to tell me how there was a certain someone up there fueling his car with the left over french fry oil. Well that got my attention, and I started to do some investigating on the net.
Some of my finds of alternatives out there:
Diesel Secret
Bio Diesel Boards
Make your own biodiesel
Wikipedia on Biodiesel
Biodiesel NOW
Biodiesel Blog
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