America and Oil

April 2006

America Will Find a Replacement for Petroleum Based Fuel.

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Allow me to tell you something about America which will, I think, explain why I’m not worried about the world running out of oil.

I came of age in a “Can Do” America. Mine was an America, which could do anything it set its mind to do. Even the horizon, itself, presented no limits as we proved when we put men on the moon and brought them back home safely.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the US military was at one of its lowest ebbs. America has always reduced it’s military after a war and we have always been blind-sided when attacked and had to build a mighty military machine almost from scratch. Even the Japanese admiral who led the forces making the raid on Pearl said he could own the Pacific for about six months, and then America would come after him. He had gotten his education here, in America and he understood that once that sleeping giant was awakened, somebody would pay. In August of 1945, Japan paid.

Nobody considered that America might lose that war, either against the Japanese or the Germans. America doesn’t lose wars. Our leaders quit on us, as those did in Vietnam (and left our servicemen in shame over a war in which they had won every battle, but their leaders in Washington would not let them win the war).

Every problem this country has faced we have triumphed over. It just never occurred to us we could fail. Rarely did we have a plan “B” because we had so much confidence in ourselves that a plan “B” wasn’t needed!

Americans aren’t quitters although our leaders frequently are. Like the bunch we have in Congress now. But that is for another article.

As a youngster growing up the quickest way to get an old fashioned “whupping” was to say: “I can’t.” Those words were not uttered without punishment meted out to the person who spoke them. “Quitting” and “can’t” were two words not in our lexicon.

I distinctly remember my third grade teacher handing out paddling to any student who said: “I can’t”. That was good old corporal punishment with a wooden paddle, which would make your rear end sore for a couple of days. We referred to it as “The Board of Education!”

So, my generation was reared in an age when there were no horizons for America. There was nothing America could not do.
And I still believe that!

Now… this leads me to the Gasoline Problem. I happen to believe that we are nowhere near using up the last crude in the planet. However, that makes no difference, as many people DO believe it. The problem I have, you see, is that the America I grew up in, would be working night and day to find a fuel to replace the petroleum based fuels we are using today.

It bothers me to see government officials wringing their hands, as though near panic, over this little problem with crude oil. If they REALLY believed what they are telling us, they’d be trying to do something about it… and I don’t mean telling everyone to get a bicycle!

Did you know that during the Second World War, when allied troops cut off Germany’s supply of oil, that she liquefied coal and kept on truckin? Did you know Germany had city buses running on wood as fuel?

As a member of the “Can Do” Generation, you see, I KNOW that some one, somewhere, in America, in some obscure laboratory, most likely on a college campus, will, in fact, develop a fuel to replace the petroleum based fuels we are told we are running out of today. Just in the knick of time the discovery will emerge and America will not miss a beat! I believe this! In my tiny little mind, it is almost un-American NOT to believe it!

Now, do you begin to see why I am so upset with our leaders when they tell me we CAN’T round up 12 million illegals in our country and deport them? Do you? Heck, we rounded up millions of Japanese all over the Pacific Ocean and sent them, and took them, home. We rounded up millions of Germans and Italians and sent them to either meet their Maker, or home, to get re-acquainted with their families.

So, if America is serious about fining a replacement for petroleum based fuels then we ought to get busy. The sooner we get started the sooner we will have the answer and… we WILL HAVE THE ANSWER! I don’t mean “Corn Squeezings” either. My family made, sold, and drank that stuff for years. We knew it would probably burn in an internal combustion engine… at least some of it would. But we didn’t cal it Ethanol. We called it “Moonshine” or “White Lightening”. No, Ethanol is not the answer.

What we need, more that a replacement for petroleum-based fuels, in America is more of the “Can Do” spirit of the Greatest Generation and their spawn. Then you would see mountains moved and problems solved.

I believe in my country and my countrymen. Yeah, I know that is old fashioned. You’ll probably not be surprised to learn that I still get a catch in my throat and a tear in my eye when I recite the Pledge to the Flag. You see… I am convinced that America is God’s gift to this planet. America did not just “happen”. She was created by a people who were risk takers, who were bold, who were brave, and fearless, and in some cases even reckless. These were the “cast-off” people of other societies God sent here to populate this land. They are not easily beaten. Nor are their descendants.

When the time is right… we WILL have the problem solved. I believe that!

Longstreet


Filed under:

conservative+Oil+America

Ten Simple Truths About Oil ... by Alan Caruba

Ten Simple Truths About Oil
By Alan Caruba
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Having written about the energy industry and issues now for a long time, I hope I can be forgiven for being enraged by the comments by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) in response to President Bush’s press conference Tuesday morning. There is simply no way to describe them other than false.

The Democrat Party has long made “Big Oil” their favorite punching bag, confident that the public has no idea what influences the price and supply of oil. Saying anything favorable to Big Oil is immediately deemed evidence that one is in their pay and whatever facts are offered are therefore invalid.

There are, however, some simple truths about Big Oil that cannot and should not be ignored. To do so leaves everyone at the mercy of energy policies that have created the situation in which the United States finds itself today.

Fact #1. The combined ownership of oil reserves by the independent, investor-owned oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Conoco-Phillips, BP, Chevron and others is barely 4% of the total known oil reserves in the world. By itself, ExxonMobil’s share is 1.08%.

Fact #2. Oil is a global commodity sold on mercantile exchanges for whatever price it can command. Speculation in oil prices is the primary reason they have been driven to utterly insane costs per barrel. It has nothing to do with actual supply and demand.

Fact #3. No nation on Earth is or can be “energy independent.” The geopolitics of oil is complex, but as nations such as China and India have seen their economies grow, their need for oil grows with it and thus they compete with long established industrialized nations for existing oil supplies. This competition has an impact on prices.

Fact #4. The OPEC nations, those in the Middle East and including Venezuela, control 77% of the world’s known oil reserves. Like Russia and Mexico, where the oil industry is controlled by the state, it is generally poorly managed. Several Big Oil companies that were induced to undertake exploration and development in Russia and Venezuela actually had their assets nationalized or stolen at prices well below their investment and value.

Fact #5. Energy is the master resource. All nations with any hope of growing their economies require it, mostly in the form of electricity, but also for oil’s role in transportation. The failure to have a national long-range energy policy that is based in reality can severely impact energy prices.

Fact #6. The United States has, for years, pursued an energy policy based on environmental myths such as “biofuels” in which corn is turned into ethanol to reduce the import of oil, but it costs as much to produce ethanol as to refine oil and it provides less mileage per gallon, thus negating any reason for this additive. Likewise, suggesting that wind or solar energy can generate anything more than its current 1% of the nation’s electricity needs ignores their unreliability and the fact they are heavily subsidized, a form of hidden consumer tax.

Fact #7. It costs billions to explore, discover, extract and transport oil. It takes lots of lead-time as well. The United States Congress has, for decades, refused to permit the extraction of vast oil reserves in ANWR despite the fact it would have little or no impact on the Alaskan wildlife reserve. In addition, Congress has declared 85% percent of the nation’s coastal, offshore areas off-limits to any exploration for oil or natural gas.

Fact #8. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the mandate of Congress, requires Big Oil to refine oil into some seventeen different formulations in the name of clean air. With three grades of gasoline, that means that refiners must produce some 45 different blends. The quality of air in America is excellent, but the cost of gasoline at the pump continues to rise as the result of these mandates.

Fact #9. America imports two-thirds of the oil it uses. All of its transportation runs on oil. The population continues to grow. Failure to encourage the construction of a single new refinery since the 1970s puts a further strain on the ability of Big Oil to provide the nation’s oil and diesel fuel needs.

Fact #10. Democrats continue to demand that Big Oil’s profits be confiscated in some fashion and some of the inducements offered to explore for more oil be ended. Because the costs of exploration, extraction, refining, and transporting of oil represents billions, the actual profit margin of a company like ExxonMobil is about 10%, well below what industries such as pharmaceuticals and banking enjoy.

For these and many other reasons, Americans are being impoverished at the gas pump because Congress has dithered and failed in one of its most important responsibilities.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

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conservative+Oil

The Ice Age Cometh!

The Ice Age Cometh!

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Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut. And he is saying we had better be preparing for a coming ice age instead of so-called Global Warming!


Mr Chapman says: “Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.” Mr. Chapman goes on to say: “It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.


There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.


………We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.”


We recommend you read the entire article entitled: “Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh!” at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-5013480,00.html


Mr. Chapman has extended his neck a very long way. And the “Greenies” are going to jump all over him. You see, the truth these days is not welcome. Why, it is not even wanted! Our green friends have constructed a house of lies within which they live and truth threathens their abode. They will have none of it. It does not seem to matter to them that the continued existance of the human race is at stake if they are wrong about the planet warming up and instead it cools down. The difference in what happnes to the human race in an ice age compared to a warm age is truly castastrophic. Just think, the earths bread basket will be under ice! (A mile and a half to two miles of pure, frigid, ice!)


The Nisqually Glacier on Mount Ranier, in Washington state, is growing… and has been since at least 1931! Now understand, this particular glacier is “the best measured glacier in North America”. So what does that tell us? Read the following tidbit from an article entitled: “Is A New Ice Age Underway” by Laurence Hecht, the editor of “21st century Science and Technology Magazine”.


"The details are described in a report by government specialists, which appeared in the September 2000 issue of Washington Geology: The greatest thickening during the period of measurement occurred between 1931 and 1945, when the glacier thickened by about 50% near 2,800 meters of altitude. This and subsequent thickenings during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s produced waves that advanced its terminus. Glacier thinning occurred during intervening periods. Between 1994 and 1997, the glacier thickened by 17 meters at 2,800-m altitude, indicating probable glacier advance during the first decade of the 21st century.” You can read the entire article at:

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/Ice_Age.html



We also recommend you read the latest on global cooling in the Winter 2003-2004 issue of 21st Century in "The Ice Age Is Coming" by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc. (pdf format)


The following is from an article by Gerald Marsh. Marsh is a retired physicist from the Argonne National Laboratory and a former consultant to the Department of Defense on strategic nuclear technology and policy in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton Administration. In the article entitled: “The Coming of a New Ice Age”, Marsh says:


“Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day, the real danger facing humanity is not global warming, but more likely the coming of a new Ice Age. What we live in now is known as an interglacial, a relatively brief period between long ice ages. Unfortunately for us, most interglacial periods last only about ten thousand years, and that is how long it has been since the last Ice Age ended.”



Read the entire article at:

http://www.winningreen.com/site/epage/59549_621.htm


One of the things we have learned about Ice Ages is that when they begin, they do not tarry. They come on FAST! As I write this piece it is May first, 2008. There is a HUGE snowstorm in Denver, Colorado, with traffic snarled to a stop for miles along interstate 70. You’ll pardon me if it caught my rapt attention!


Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Global+Warming+Religion+Pagan+Socialism+hoax

Worker, in Jacksonville, Florida, Battles Employer over Display of Confederate Battle Flag

Worker, in Jacksonville, Florida, Battles Employer over Display of Confederate Battle Flag on Worker’s truck. Barred from Parking in Employee Parking Lot until CBF is removed from Private Vehicle.

Read the story and see the video here:

http://www.news4jax.com/news/16116836/detail.html

Confederate Flag

Will the US Just Seize the Oil It needs?

Will the US Just Seize the Oil It needs?
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Two things: Mexico’s citizens are continuing to invade our country in vast numbers. In fact it is the largest land invasion in the history of the world. They are bleeding the US economy dry at a time we can ill afford it.

See: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90B24TO0&show_article=1

Second, Mexico, one of the three or four largest suppliers of oil to the US, is having insurmountable problems with oil production. The oil is there… they are not able to get it out and get it on the market. That reduces the amount of available crude and helps sustain the current high prices for crude on the world markets. For more on this debacle in Mexico see: “Analysts watch, wince as Mexico's oil supply dwindles. They warn of an irreversible output decline” by David Adams, Times Latin America correspondent. You’ll find it at:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/24/Worldandnation/Analysts_watch__wince.shtml



So what, you ask? So, The US needs to do something… and we need to do something quickly. We need to invade Mexico and seize the oil fields. If the current oil crises gets bad enough that crude is selling at $200.00 a barrel or ten dollars a gallon at the pump, as is now predicted, the US may have little choice but to invade Mexico, and even Venezuela, and seize the oil.

Consider that Mexico nationalized its oil industry in the late 1930s, seizing control of British and U.S. companies as part of a movement to bring large industries under state control.
An Article in the Washington Post titled: “For Many, Control of State-Run Pemex Is About National Pride.” You’ll find the article at:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902566.html?hpid=topnews

The WaPo article goes on to say: “Though Mexico is one of the world's top 10 oil producers, its refineries can't keep pace with domestic demand. The country actually has to import 40 percent of the gas it consumes, amounting to more than 300,000 barrels per day.”

Now, if you are thinking the US would never deliberately seize another nation’s oil, or oil fields, you might want to sit downs and re-think that. This country needs oil to function. And since we are loath to use our own oil, which we have plenty of; we will have no choice but to steal it from some other county, or countries.

Look, the “Oil Wars” haven’t really begun… yet. But they will, and soon.

The reality of our need for oil is this: There is no substitute. There won’t be a substitute for a very long time. We have to have oil to feed the engine that is America. We are going to get it from someone, someplace, somehow.

Of course, the alternative is simple… we use our own plenteous supply of oil. But, since the Leftists in our government are strangulating our access to the oil we actually have, the US will go to war, if necessary to secure a continuous supply. Lots of US dollars and lots of US blood will be spilt in foreign lands as we steal their oil, all because the “Greenies” have control of our government. Does it strike anyone as a little crazy that our government would lay down the lives of it’s young people for oil, rather than cause a caribou to go, oh, say, a mile off it’s course to pass beneath a pipeline? Does that make ANY sense to you?

We are coming, soon, to a point in our nation’s economy, at which we will have to face the brutal truth. Without oil, our economy will crumble, as it has already begun to do. If you are deluding yourself into believing the US is above invading another country and taking their oil, you had better reconsider. The sad truth is, the US will do exactly that before we allow our economy to collapse.

There it is… the simply truth, at least, as I see it. The “Oil Wars” are coming and I expect they will begin in Mexico with the oil companies Mexico stole from US and British companies back in the 1930’s. Of course… we could just use our own oil and leave the other counties alone. But, well, you know… the caribou and the scenery off the coasts, and such, are far more important than the lives of our young people who will have to do the dirty, dangerous, job of breaking and entering another country, and the larceny of their natural resources. What kind of country does that? Look around you my fellow Americans. America has become the kind of country that does that. Don’t believe me? Just wait. Pay close attention to what happens in Mexico.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+OIL+WAR