Actually it’s more than a matter of oil, but rather our energy resources in general. Without those we can’t make the wheel or turn it in the first place. Nothing in, nothing out. Some would argue that peak oil and the other energy issues we face as a nation can be resolved in short order depending on who we choose to vote for in an election. With the choices we’re facing this time around I’m not sure if we even have the option to make the right moves fast enough. Flip Flop has taken on a whole new meaning with this trip around the old centrifuge.
Anyhow, it’s the state of the matter that counts, not the matter of the state IMO. But then again, I’m not a politician so it probably doesn’t matter in the first place. I may be a little biased by the fact that I work in the petroleum industry, but trust me folks, we’re doing everything we can do to keep the wheels turning and well oiled.

Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008–July 31 Update

“Back in January, I made a financial forecast for 2008. In this post, I will update my analysis, looking both at what has happened thus far in 2008, and refining what is likely ahead.

Most forecasts are made with an overriding assumption of infinite growth, but the analysis made in January and updated now maintains an underlying assumption of resource limitations, such as will likely accompany the advent of peak oil. Under resource limitations, debtors are likely to find it difficult to pay back loans, as resources become more and more scarce. As a result, default rates are likely to continue to rise.

One of the issues I consider important in my forecast is systemic risk. This relates to the interconnectedness of the system, and predicts that if one part fails, other parts are also likely to fail. Many other articles mention this issue, but rarely address its full ramifications.”

Read the rest at The Oil Drum

Rurik hit the nail on the head with this one in more ways than one.

Oil And Energy - What Should Be Done

“So I’ve established that our oil, food and financial sectors are currently spiraling out of control. What to do about it? I believe that all three problems are interlocked, and though all need to be fixed, a serious positive development on any one of the three will have beneficial effects on the others. If the value of the dollar strengthens, that will automatically have a beneficial impact on how much oil we can buy for a dollar. Decreases in the price of grain and/or oil will strengthen the dollar. There is no reason we need to attack these problems sequentially; they can be addressed simultaneously.”

Read the rest HERE

I’ll be out back stacking firewood and greasing the wheels if I still have the time……….

My good friend Russ Vaughn at Old War Dogs posted this and I thought I’d pass it along. I share his sentiments about Nancy Pelosi. She really bugs me.

Madame Savior of the Planet
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

I’ll suffer no challenge from any Republican fool,
For I’m Madam Speaker with divine right to rule.
It was by liberal colleagues that I was appointed;
But it was by God, Himself, that I was anointed.
So scoff all you want at my frozen-faced smile,
And eyes that your headlights pick up for a mile;
With scalpel and botox I’ve made myself fair,
But the hormones do create some coarse facial hair.

But hormones allow me to rule every day;
I’ve grown a pair bigger than “Hammer” DeLay.
Don’t screw with me Boehner you Republican putz,
Or I’ll pull a “Jesse” and whack off your nuts.
As the first woman who has this much power,
I’ve learned how delicious it is to devour
Congressional wimps with their phony respect,
While all of their bills I’ve purely shipwrecked.

Take the business of drilling for American oil;
These fools want to pollute our American soil.
I’ll tell you right now what their foolish goals are,
To coat California beaches with tar;
But they’re dead in the water with un-green behavior;
For I’m Madame Speaker, the world’s surest savior.
My resolve is as strong as if chiseled in granite;
I am Nancy Pelosi, and I’m saving this planet.

The Blink Off: Dick Cheney vs Nancy Pelosi.

Heh, ain’t no bugs on me other than the occasional tick or chigger. That’s an easy situation to deal with. Nancy P. on the other hand really bugs me. If these people are the ones that are going to save the planet then we’re in deep doodoo.

High Finance and Bolshevik Principles

One only has to wait for the FDIC to detonate beneath a floundering Republic. If anyone thought U.S. Treasury bonds are a riskless investment, think again. Am I suggesting the U.S. government will default on its obligations? In my opinion, no other outcome is imaginable. If you doubt this conclusion, try to imagine federal, state and local government paying off $10 trillion. It’s not going to happen, as the readiest method of default open to government is the debasement of the national currency. This means an end to American international power – financial and military. It means an end to the old international order, which has existed since 1945.
It means global revolution. Wave hello to socialism. [snip]

Read the rest…..

H/T to 1stCav for sending me the link. Due to improvements in barrel design, and the metallurgy used in the re-design, the M60 has once again proven itself to be one of the best weapons out there. They’ve always been reliable, but this is really something to see.

They clipped 850 rounds together and ran them all down the tube in one burst. Yikes! You can bet that was one hot SB. What do you mean soldier that you can see the rounds in the barrel? Only if it gets hot enough Sir………………………

Click on the pic to go to fugly.com and watch the video.

I had two of them issued to me at one point, but the M-79 in the picture left me a little blue. I had to destroy it.
Link here for the picture at:

Fractured Fairy Tales

We were wasting ammo (rotating stock) in the old rock quarry on a nice sunny afternoon and I was using the 40mm grenades (HE) to take a tree down. I squeezed off a round and it went poof, but nothing came out the other end. The round seized in the barrel. So much for old ordnance.

I disposed of the barrel and errant round with a bit of C-4 after salvaging the trigger housing and sights. That was just after a 2nd Lt. suggested we sand bag it and try to shove the round back out of the barrel to salvage the weapon. He was one of those people that would be missing a lot of fingers if they had anything to do with it in the first place. Sheesh……….

Dangerous demagoguery

Barack Obama says that he wants to “heal” the country while at the same time promoting the idea that all sorts of people are victims for whom he will fight. [snip]
More….

Now that’s somebody I could vote for. I mean Dr. Sowell of course…………..

WARNING! Contains explicit language.

Take it with a grain of salt if you must, but we’ll all get the after taste of this bitter sweet deal in the long run. Math and economics are not my forte so to speak, but I can tell you that this probably won’t work out in the long run.

The Thin Red White & Blue Line
10 Metaphors for a Broken Economy

James Macfarlane
23 Jun, 2008

One of our original Old War Dogs just passed away. This post is to pay tribute where it is due for a good man and one of the last of the “Greatest Generation”. I have the up-most respect for men of his caliber and will miss him more than he shall ever know. That’s the hard part.

1st LT Werntz, John D.
72nd TC Squadron, 434th Group
9th USAAF, EAME Theater
1943-1945

Old War Dogs: Russ Vaughn on the passing of “The Greatest Generation”.

We’ll miss you my friend……………

H/T to Mary Lamb for the link!

Rep. Poe can see the light at least.

Click on the image for the YouTube video.

Dick Durbin acting like a hapless fool in the background is the best part of the video.

Are these just words?

H/T to Flopping Aces for the link.

I really don’t have much spare time on my hands these days, so excuse the sporadic posting. The dog seems to have ate my homework again. Trust me, you don’t want to know the details.

Lets just say carbon credits are hard to collect and leave it at that for now.

Oh by the way, it’s the state of the matter that counts, not the matter of the state.

See ya on the flip flop.

Wayne White and Pat Buchanan on the possibility of war with Iran.

Anybody taking odds on this happening?

Can we fix it is probably a better question.

Dumb Or Ill-informed

What assumptions do congressmen make about the American people? Do they assume that we’re dumb or ill-informed about the energy problems we are experiencing? Every time there has been a huge spike in gasoline prices, Congress hauls oil company executives before their committees to accuse them of greed, obscene profits and price-fixing. One federal investigation after another of supposed oil company misconduct turns up nothing to substantiate congressional allegations. Unfortunately, the congressional hearings make front page news and lead the evening television news, but the results of federal investigations that follow are only casually mentioned deep in the body of newspapers and get little or no time on the evening television news. If news media people had an ounce of integrity, they would highlight the federal investigation findings that undermine congressional charges of oil company misconduct and they would question the congressmen who made those charges.

Americans might prefer heroes-and-villains explanations to problems to reality-based explanations. A politically satisfying explanation for today’s $4 a gallon price, when it was less than $2 a gallon a couple of years ago, is because oil company executives have all of a sudden become greedy in their pursuit of “obscene” profits. As such, congressmen, as our heroes, should call these greedy men on the carpet and take sanctions against them in the forms of windfall profits tax, price controls and other measures to take away their ill-gotten gains — never mind the effects of the 1980 windfall profits tax. According to the Congressional Research Service, the 1980 windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent.

Controlling the price of anything is very difficult and it can only be accomplished through the force of government, mostly by restricting supply. The U.S. Congress is a major player in oil supply restriction, and OPEC nations must be laughing all the way to the bank. Congress has banned energy exploration in 85 percent of our coastal waters. Ironically, China, in conjunction with Cuba, is drilling for oil nearer to our coastline than U.S. oil companies are permitted.

According to “We don’t have to take $4 gas prices — we can drill,” written by Sterling Burnett in the Houston Chronicle (5/21/08), “It is estimated that beneath America’s coast lies enough oil to fuel 60 million cars in the United States for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. … If allowed access to American oil reserves in Alaska and off our coastline, American oil companies could increase our country’s reserves an estimated fivefold, taking the United States from 11th place to fourth among the countries with proven oil reserves.”

You say, “What about the environmental impact?” Contrary to the hysterical claims made by environmental extremists, caribou and other wildlife have expanded and flourished in and around Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, unaffected by the oil and gas development. What’s more, Burnett points out that the “two leading environmental groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, have allowed oil and gas production on several of their most important and unique nature preserves.”

Environmentalists come to their senses when non-drilling philosophy costs them something. It’s two-faced hypocrisy. At times I’ve suggested that the best way to get oil exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve is to give the land to environmentalists. You can bet they wouldn’t sit on billions of dollars of oil and gas.

The true villain in our having to cough up $60, $70 or $80 to fill our gas tanks is the U.S. Congress caught in the grip of environmental extremists. But if reality is too difficult to swallow, we can continue to blame and support the congressional attack on oil executives, turn food into oil and think of other crackpot “solutions.”

From Gateway Pundit

Here’s another fine example:

Keep the change buddy, you ain’t no Walter E. Williams……………..

With a tip of the hat to Scarlett over at Ironic Surrealism for the following quote:

” It is not fear that grips me… only a heightened sense of things.”

Life is a commodity just as is everything we use to sustain it is. It’s a zero sum game at best, and it’s the physics of the matter that you can’t ignore. The end result is always the same: Nothing in, nothing out, and an empty suit helps no one.
Barrack Obama may be for “change”, but that’s just ignoring the problems we’re already facing as a nation. You can’t burn socialism to fuel your economy regardless of what Al Gore and the anthropogenic global warming crowd try to tell you. Hot air still needs heat to get that way, and no amount of CO2 spewing from their mouths will change that equation. They just add to the problem with more of the same. Change should be what people get for their effort in life, and not what the government takes away from you and gives to someone else. Oil will still be greasing the wheels that didn’t come off in the long run, whether we like it or not.

The economic engine will be throttled if the false prophet (read profit) AGW crowd continue to dictate policy for a world looking for real time energy solutions. That’s just doing the same stupid shit and expecting different results. Carbon caps are about the same thing as wearing a tin foil hat and barking at the moon or voting for John Kerry or Obama. You’ll get the same results every time. We’re talking energy in the long run either way you look at it folks.

DrumBeat: June 6, 2008

Expider out/ stacking my carbon credits for a brave new world…….

Ya right, that’ll work…………..

Hat’s off to 1stCav for this one.
Follow these simple instructions:

How to raise fuel prices Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Link HERE!
Create shortages in the oil markets by ensuring domestic oil supplies can never be used.
This will force us to get oil from the least stable spots in the world, thus forcing not only higher prices, but forcing us to fund people intent on destroying us.
Regulate domestic suppliers out of business with NIMBY, and enviro-whackjob policy, and regulations and of course, the great leveler, taxes.
Make sure that no new refineries are built over a period 30 years, to meet the need.
Mandate that everyone buys only governmentally mandated formulations of gasoline, thus creating shortages of the ingredients.
Make sure that each area of the country has it’s own mandated formulation, which will strain the already over-strained existing refining infrastructure, thus raising prices.
Create even further price increases by ensuring that each area of the country moves to seasonal blends, which will create even more havoc on the refiners, thus raising prices even further.
Mandate that all these regional blends contain MBTE, which is a creation of one of your biggest contributors. Make sure it’s added in the name of saving the environment. don’t tell anyone how this raises the price of fuel.
Mandate that all these regional blends do not contain contain MBTE, which is a creation of one of your biggest contributors. Make sure it’s removed in the name of saving the environment, but also, require that the removal of MBTE does not affect tailpipe emissions… regardless of the cost. Don’t tell anyone how this raises the price of fuel.
When product shortages cause increased prices at the pump, blame the refiners, and increase their taxes as punishment, which can only have the effect of raising pump prices still further.
When pump prices go up again, raise taxes again, as indicated, even to the point of taxing 60% of their total profits… and nearly 70% of the puump price is the result of taxes and mandated nonsense…. while continuing to blame oil companies for the prices.
Make lots of noise… most notably from the aforementioned enviro-whackjobs and pols about how we need to get off oil, which has the effect of minimizing investment in new sources of oil, creating even further shortages.
-0-
Note that in each case, the problem is government, which thinks itself at each turn, the solution.

And they wonder why I drink while I still can.

With a tip of the hat to Debbie at Right Truth for the link.

America in Ashes?

The latest audio message from al-Qaeda, reportedly from Osama bin Laden himself, is only the most recent confirmation that the jihadist threat to the West remains real and deadly serious. But the fact that it could take the form of nuclear terrorism should be most worrying to citizens and policy makers alike.

Where a nuclear attack once may have been beyond the capacities of stateless terrorists, that is no longer the case. One need only consider Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of 9/11 and chief operating officer of al-Qaeda, who revealed under intensive interrogation — including the much-maligned tactic of waterboarding — that a nuclear attack against the United States was a top priority for al-Qaeda.

According to the New York Daily News and its sources, the captive KSM told his interrogators that Osama bin Laden was planning a “nuclear hell storm” in America. Normally such a lurid claim would be disbelieved by our “inside-the-box” intelligence officers, but KSM’s recovered laptop had corroborating details.

More>

Quite a few people believe that if there is a decline in oil production, we can make up much of the difference by increasing our use of electricity–more nuclear, wind, solar voltaic, geothermal or even coal. The problem with this model is that it assumes that our electric grid will be working well enough for this to happen. It seems to me that there is substantial doubt that this will be the case.

From what I have learned in researching this topic, I expect that in the years ahead, we in the United States will have more and more problems with our electric grid. This is likely to result in electrical outages of greater and greater durations.

The primary reason for the likely problems is the fact that in the last few decades, the electric power industry has moved from being a regulated monopoly to an industry following more of a free market, competitive model. With this financing model, electricity is transported over long distances, as electricity is bought and sold by different providers. Furthermore, some of the electricity that is bought and sold is variable in supply, like wind and solar voltaic. A substantial upgrade to the electrical grid is needed to support all of these activities, but our existing financing models make it very difficult to fund such an upgrade.

If frequent electrical outages become common, these problems are likely to spill over into the oil and natural gas sectors. One reason this may happen is because electricity is used to move oil and natural gas through the pipelines. In addition, gas stations use electricity when pumping gasoline, and homeowners often have natural gas water heaters and furnaces with electric ignition. These too are likely to be disrupted by electrical power outages.

MORE>

Hat/Tip to Charles at LGF for the link:

Now that’s an attitude…………….