Musings of a Friend and Musings on a Friend's Musings

Without too much brevity… Why not license a few more refineries and nuke plants?  How about pricing based on cost of production and refining instead of what the market can’t bear as in $10 a gallon however we can get it?  Actually, that really doesn’t matter because fossil fuels and oil companies are not the problem and destruction of America is the objective.

I have a 2005 diesel Mercedes with 265K miles and gets over 40 miles per gal with no fanfare.  If we (uh, err, Germans and Mexicans) can do that who needs alternative energy?  By the way, diesel requires less refining but costs more than any other liquid fuel. I guess that is because there is more demand for diesel and thereby crashing primarily commercial transportation system we can expedite the destruction. 

Personally, propane seems to be a really good alternative to liquid fuels however it is regulated by the railroad commission so ordinary users cannot easily acquire it for everyday consumption.  There is some reason for regulation of compressed natural gas as it boils at 32 degrees and is dangerous to transfer.  There is the “logic” for regulation by the RRC, compressed gas containers are considered boilers as in the old steam powered trains.  I am getting somewhat off track but not so much as this is an example of another government agency inhibiting the energy sector.

Good Blog!


   The above material is a comment derived from the pen of my best life-friend, a chum from junior high and high school and later life.   We caused a lot of turbulence for people, sometimes even intentionally.   He is a combat veteran, college graduate, advanced technician, among many other things.   He also frequently dishes up salient points that the Old Gringo either brays to0 loud to be heard, or did not think of on his own.
     We can gloat that we have a much older battle-wagon (1992) that we use for our transportation in Mexico.   Draws little attention.   Very serviceable.   But, the point is well taken.   In Mexico there are a million vehicles that are powered by propane.    There are very, very few safety issues resulting from this massive use.   The LPG and propane/butane alternative applications are there for the using, but even with that, more drilling is required.

     The conversion to diesel would also be a good idea.   It is cleaner and quieter and  very efficient.   Tinkering with some way to solve the volatility problem with natural gas should be considered a priority.

     Bang, bang, bang, and some rube in North Texas fires off three or four quick ideas that could all be developed....perhaps are being brought to applicable levels even now....all in private sector research and development....and some dumboe in South Texas sees the ideas, knows both intellectually and instinctively that the ideas are viable.....that adaptation processes, costs, and time-frames are all very "do-able".
     No need for Department of Energy nothin'.    No need for Solendra "alternative energy investments" by Father Obamaham.   No electric cars that are essentially coal burners and toys for high-income liberals.     It is just so obvious that the problem is the government, and the solution lies out here among the great unwashed.
     Bush did a lot of dumbo things and a number of good things.   Among the good things was his release of lands in lucrative off-shore areas and other prime spots during the last run-up on fuel costs.   While that in and of itself did not reduce the cost of fuel at the pump, it did break the back of the oil  commodity and fuel speculators.   The price of crude began to drop as speculators and traders began to abandon their "long positions"  for in oil futures.    Before a year had transpired, oil dropped from 150/barrel to 77/barrel (more or less, depending on origins/destinations of product).
     Any good conspiratorialist would almost be forced to believe that Obama and Soros conspired to send a research submarine down below to sabotage the deep water rig in the northern Gulf of Mexico.    Obama and all those around him favour European-level fuel costs. Each step taken since the Blow-out underscores the marxist axiom of ".....never let a good crisis go to waste...".   Even after being ordered by several and various levels of federal judges, Obama and his government continue to obstruct  previously legal and permitted activity in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

     We managed to convert from coal-oil lamps to gas lamps and  then electric lamps without Obama-like government "investment in the future".      We managed to move from wooden-spoked, iron-rimmed wagon wheels to rim-t0-wheel rubber tyres without "government leadership and investment".      There was no need to resuscitate the coal-oil lamp industry, and Conestoga went its way.   Folks can still find the lamps and wagon wheels, but the demand is not what it used to be.

     My chum's ramblings are stunningly simple, stunningly enlightened and would solve about 99.9% of the "energy problem"  that has no "silver bullet".   So, sorry Father Obamaham, as you see, there are three or four silver bullets that can and will make the North American Continent a self-contained and sufficient multiple-energy source market.    That market will be profitable for the producers, a permanent and massive fountain of high-skill blue-collar employment, and a source of power for production of wealth for all levels of American society.

FREE KEYSTONE NOW.
El Gringo Viejo

Algae, O'Reilly, & O'bama

Kudos to Dr. Krauthammer for having put O'Reilly in his place concerning the oil and gas issue.  On Thursday last's Factor, Bill O'Reilly put the world straight with his blowhard logic about how to "put the oil companies straight".    He was demanding that Father O'bamaham bring the evil oil company heads into the oval office and demand that they reduce the price of gasoline.   He ordered Father O'bamahan order an end to the practise of sending American refined gasoline to foreign countries.   He reminded Father O'bamaham that the sub-surface resources in the United States belonged to the "American People"  (This land is your land, this land is my land....) and that the oil companies had no right to make any profit off of the recovery and processing of such resources without the President's permission.

Algae, anyone?

 Here is an algae farm where we can put a tidal
generator basin and 20,000 of those beautiful wind
turbines, and maybe a couple of million Solendra
panels.   Any 500 billion dollars will do, if the rich would
just pay their fair share.

     Braying jackasses always have the answer about to  whom fault is to be assigned.  In O'Reilly's case, the fault for anything that is out of whack or not to his liking, is whoever he blames.    Pardon the "racism" but O'Reilly, as has been said on this blog on various occasions, is the drunk Irishman at the end of the bar whose idea of winning an argument is to out-shout the insignificant mates to whom he has deigned permission to have their lowly elbows on the bar and their insignificant boots on the brass rail beneath.   Krauthammer told O'Reilly in very certain terms that things about subsurface resource recovery are, most definitly handled by contract and not by order from a monarch or dictator.   He also pointed out that Obama has gone out of his way to hamstring production of energy material during his entire presidency.

Algae?    Algae?    And Obama thinks that this is even a new concept.   Arrogant sophist.

      O'Reilly knows nothing about Mexico, but since he has been there a few times, and because he has an opinion about it, he knows everything about Mexico.    Likewise, he knows nothing about oil or gas production and less about refining, transporting, futures trading, or the engineering matters involved with the industry, so therefore he considers himself to be a complete authority on the issue.

     Try to have O'Reilly deal with a simple, direct restatement of factual information, before going on the air, such as the following entry:

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".......For instance, take a look at what Jason Furman, one of the president’s advisers, said on a conference call with reporters just last week:

“Big oil companies actually pay lower tax rates on their profits than do most other corporations,” he said. “Get rid of those tax breaks so the big oil companies are being treated just the same as every other corporation when it comes to taxes.”

       This simply isn’t true, and I challenge reporters who hear these statements to take a look at the facts before they print such sweeping assertions.

• A Compustat North American Database analysis shows that the 2009 income tax rate for U.S. oil and gas companies was about 48 percent, which was 20 points higher than the rest of the Standard and Poor Industrials.
• According to the government’s own Energy Information Administration, from 2004 to 2008, 27 American oil and gas companies – which actually make up under half the total oil and gas production in the U.S. – paid almost $150 billion in U.S. income taxes.
• Additionally, those companies paid other non-income taxes of more than $300 billion, for a total U.S. tax contribution to federal, state, and local governments of more than $450 billion.
• Keep in mind, too, that Sec. 199 – the manufacturing and production tax provision that Furman would likely call a “tax break” for “big oil” – actually benefits other industries more than it does oil and gas companies.
• What’s almost more disturbing, however, is the context in which Mr. Furman made this remark. The Administration needs money to fund a proposed $50 billion stimulus package. To pay for it, the Administration is singling out the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for tax hikes, and making statements that lead people to conclude that oil and gas companies aren’t paying their fair share.
       The numbers above are proof that we pay more than our fair share."
  
  (excerpted from Pespectives, which is an EXXON-Mobil publication and blog concerning serious issues affecting the oil and natural gas industry.    The author is cited below.   The statistics he has included in the above excerpt have been verified by the Gringo Viejo.

About the author

Ken Cohen is vice president of public and government affairs for Exxon Mobil Corporation. He has worldwide responsibility for the company’s public policy, government relations, communications, media relations and corporate citizenship activities.

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     Pro-communists, National Socialists, and other ''populists" who would rather trust in a weasel like Gietner or Soros or Obama or Hugo Chavez than in something like established, real and true facts talk like Bill O'Reilly.   The oil companies are accused, for instance, on a nightly basis of receiving "subsidies"....O'Reilly himself says the oil companies receive "subsidies".   When socialists and demagogs use that term against any opponent, they are almost always referring to a preferential exclusion from taxation.   Thinking along those lines, Save the Whales and the Salvation Army are receiving a "subsidy" from the IRS. The entire housing industry receives a subsidy because people write-off their interest payments on mortgages.

      However, when Father O'bamaham is cancelling out the preferred and other shares of stock and the bonds held by literally millions of small, medium, and large investors in what is now Government/UAW Motors and FIAT/UAW Motors  and shovelling scores of billions of United States Treasury assets into a black hole known as the Solendra - VOLT that is a good thing known as "investment".   (with someone else's money)

O'Reilly says that he cannot understand why Father O'bamaham does not understand this or that policy is injurious to America....why he does not understand that Keystone Pipeline is good for America....why he does not explain that America's number one oil supplier is ...America?    Why he  does not understand that the number two and three suppliers are Canada and Mexico almost always?    If we were to have three gasoline blends, and reasonable production access and rules for production and processing of oil, natural gas, and coal then the companies would make about as much money and the people would pay half of what they are paying now.    And, 98% of the supplies would be drawn from the North American Continent.

    And the Gringo Viejo repeats, as always.    Social Security is better than the Texas Retirement System because Social Security can makes slaves of old, mean, selfish geezers who hate the children who are not paying in enough.   Social Security is, was, and always will be a system designed to destroy America.   The Texas Retirement System is for people who take care of themselves and who kinda like babies and younger people and do not want them to pay for all the geezers.

     Likewise, Father Obamaham wants to drive up the cost of fuel to 10 dollars per gallon or more if possible.    He wants to destroy American Industry and the independent classes.   He wants to destroy America.   One destroys a nation by making the people dependent upon the government for food, housing, medical services, and transporation.   He wants to destroy America.

Chant after me...Free Money! Free Money!  Make the Rich pay!  Free Money!   There you go, I think we're getting the swing of it.

El Gringo Viejo

General Report

    Matters ranged from dull and boring to somewhat interesting during the most recent visit to our little mud hut and property on the Corona River.   We have had some relatively heavy, slightly out of season rains.    Amounts in and around our area ranged from 4 to 8 inches during a period from the last week in January through the second week of February.   Temperatures set no records, but very chilly overnights and warm afternoons provoked the expected "welcome to Spring" flowering of the Yucca, along with the flowering of the elegant, ochre-coloured blossoms of the Huizache trees.   The citrus also was provoked into bloom, especially due to the out-of-season rains.

    The fragrance of several thousand acres of Valencia oranges, along with Persian limes, and various types of red grapefruit can be a bit much....a little too sweet....something like Aunt Beatrice's Nuclear Gardenia Perfume.   But, it is generally a positive thing.   A bit of wind helps, and at least the dogs all stink, and that balances things out a bit.

     The rains have been generally and liberally delivered upon the southernmost part of Texas and throughout Mexico, with a very few exceptions.   The "long-range forecast"  for all such areas was for continued drought and abnormally hot.   Didn't happen.

     We had another "visit in force" from the Mexican Army, with essentially an entire battalion of infantry and their helicopters and their armoured fire-power machines and heavily armed soldiers pretty much  walking every street, trail, and path of our ejido and every ejido adjacent or near ours.    We were honoured by a visit from a company commander and his xo and another junior officer,  shortly after a platoon had come through and checked our area.    The three officers spent a bit of time in and on the Quinta, even sharing a bit of a meal.   It is difficult for a normal person with normal world view and life experience to appreciate the positive response the folks in the ejido (and elsewhere) have when these powerful, battle-tested units make their "visits in force".   The locals come out in droves, and sometimes a person can be seen passing a written note to a sergeant.....perhaps with a license plate number, an address of a suspicious house or person's location, or some other nugget of reconnaissance.   The biggest complaint is that the troops do not stay.

This is a Pencil Cactus that we planted a little
less than a year ago.   We took a foot-long stem
from the Gringo Viejo's Godmother's home,
shortly after her passing

     We have reminded the Mexican folks who makes such comments, that "....company and fish begin to stink after three days....".    It is also is pointed out that there are many square kilometres, many cockroaches, and very few soldiers and marines.    These things don't need to be said, but....they need to be said.    This time the troops stayed a couple of nights camped in open areas here and there in the line of Ejidos that form our extended rural community.

     Something of note is that El Gringo Viejo left Texas a couple of days after the urgent travel warning was re-issued by the American State Department, saying that all travel must be avoided throughout Mexico, especially the fourteen States of concern.....That advisory was modified with a kind of a map later which had the States coloured in a pukey green.    That advisory was modified later with the coloured area changed to colour the States that had been left white, and the remainder turned to green.   Then, finally the American Department of State said that the travel warning had not been necessary and that it had been released mistakenly by three former Mexican State governors.

The dog Bebe, now about three-fourths grown

     The above paragraph seems silly.   It would be, perhaps.   The problem is, it is true.   Your tax dollars at work.   Stick with the Gringo Viejo.   He will tell you for instance, that if you would like to go to the normally....almost always...enjoyable destination of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, you should save your time and money for at least the next several weeks.    Communist-led, "student" uprisings, fueled by union thugs demonstrating over some apparently major points of oppression by the 1% against the 99%.    Chilpancingo, Guerrero has quieted some, but can become interesting fairly quickly.    The area between Acapulco and Zihuatenejo seems to have attracted an infestation of people of low degree from various countries in Central America as well as certain criminal elements of local origin. 

Comments coming up about oil, gasoline, and money.
El Gringo Viejo 

Back in Texas

We returned around mid-day to-day.   Bushed, creaky, and cranky.   But no bridge lines.   Will write some observations about the stay down at the Quinta.   Tonight or tomorrow.

El Gringo Viejo   

So That You All Will Know....This Is Serious

As most of the OROGs know,

     The Gringo Viejo said that Josephina Vazquez Mota would win the PAN primary.  She did.  Now she goes up against a formidable opponent who is an intellectual lightweight, but backed by the old mossbacks of the old Official Government Party, the PRI.   She will also face the lunatic  AMLO (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) who will give us everything for free and punish the people who have too much.     The Old Government Party candidate is all but a dumboe, but he is a pretty boy who has married a soap opera, telenovela queen, and has sufficient private resources to support seven illegitimate children. He also has three mansions, in different places, and has spent most of his time in the United States in spite of having had to be bothered with the duties of being Governor of the State of Mexico, which lies adjacent to and to the west and north of the Federal District.    This time it is Pena Nieto/PRI with a significant lead, and Vazquez Mota of the PAN in the middle again, but with poor AMLO/PRD way behind and fading.   El Gringo Viejo has conjectured that the party faithful are going to vote the way the party faithful vote.   The wild card is the female vote among the lower-middle class.   My bet is that they will gradually move towards the conservative party standard bearer, because she is what that large body of industrious, busy-body type, educated and usually competent in two or three skills...look to for an example for their children.  Vazquez Mota is what they would like Mexico to look like...not Cuba or Venezuela (AMLO) or like a soap opera full of bored, indolent, rich people who are famous for being famous....who play the roles of people who play roles in telenovelas.   The women are famous also for being waited on hand and foot, shopping, and make-up, and of course, shopping.   Some are also famous for wearing out mirrors and cellular telephones....and for being waited on hand and foot  (Pena Nieto).

    It is happily reported that the predicted falling of Pena Nieto and the predicted steady rise by Vazquez Mota, has begun.

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FXWire Pro Headline | February 9 2012 3:58 EST

Gap between Mexican presidency rivals narrows slightly - opinion poll by Consulta Mitofsky

News

• Mexico's ruling National Action Party's Josefina Vazquez Mota narrows gap with his rival Enrique Pena Nieto from opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party - Opinion poll by Consulta Mitofsky
• But still opposition's Nieto holds a commanding lead with support of 40.4 pct
• However, the gap has narrowed to 16.4 percentage points, with backing for Vazquez Mota now standing at 24 percent, up 1.5 percentage points from a Jan. 24 poll
• AMLopez Obrador, of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico, has 17.2 pct, far different from his slightly more than 50 pct at this time during his last run for the presidency six years ago.   His percentage, like Pena Nieto's, shrank fractionally after the completion of the nomination of Vazquez Mota for her to lead the conservative National Action Party.

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More later.   Thanks for your time and patience.

El Gringo Viejo

Private Message to Santorum

As a favour to your campaign, El Gringo Viejo is going to tell you how to win nomination  as the Republican Party's postulant for the Presidency of the United States.

     (1)       Do not say anything ill of the other candidates.   When attacked only say, I have the greatest respect for my fellow candidates for the nomination.  When pressed, only say something about how you admire each of your opponents.   Point out one of their strong points.

     (2)     Attack Barak Hussein Obama's tragic, hypocritical, marxist record.   Point out that he had two years as a State Senator, two years as a United States Senator, nearly four years as a president, and he accomplished nothing short of the collapse of the currency, the collapse of the notion of self-sufficiency, and perhaps the collapse of the economy.    All community organisers are failed, hateful personalities who wish to destroy and not build. Their mission is to create dependency and not self-sufficiency.

     (3)    Please point out that he told Gov. Jindhl that the oil-workers and others displaced in the Gulf blowout could get by on food-stamps, and how he crippled the deep water operations in the Gulf of Mexico.   Point out how he insulted the Canadians by renigging on a done-deal to transport Canadian oil into the United States.    Point out how, by moving to remedy these two insane actions of self-injurious measures,  the United States could produce 50,000 excellent, full time positions, directly and indirectly, for small contractors, diners, air-freight, motor-freight, saloons, medium and high skilled blue collar people, and cadres of bookkeepers, accountants, supervisors and other white-collar positions.

      Point out that you will, without fail, have on your desk and signed the repeal of the O'bamaham Socialised Medicine Initiative....(do not call it 'Health Care'), Dodd-Frank, all czars, All Fast and Furious type actions,  and ...

     (4)     .....that you will submit a budget for consideration by the House of Representatives calling for a 25% cutback in every budget of the following departments of the central government:   Agriculture, Health and Human Debris Services, Energy, Education, Labour, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, State, and numerous independent agencies.   These budget "adjustments" will be a prelude to the ultimate closing down of some or all the above entities.

    (5)    Request the passage of legislation reforming the Social Security System into a numbered, private account for all persons under the age of 45.    The contributions made will be 4%  of the employee's wage, taken from his established wage/salary and creditted to his personal account, to be administered by the Texas Teachers' Retirement System or the Texas State Workers Retirement System, since they know how to husband other peoples' retirement funds, and the United States Central Government has demonstrated profoundly that it has nary the least notion.     People 45 through 60 could choose to opt in or stay with the old system.   All Geezers presently receive pensions under the old rules would be stuck in the Ponzi Relief Act of 1933 program.

 Hope (l) and Change (r) with some
friends in the background

      Say these things.   Say them vigorously, and you will win the nomination and the election in November.    If you don't you will be known as "What's his name", the one that ran against Obama like the other what's his name in 2008. 

       If O'bamaham wins, this Shining City on the Mountainside, will become just another favela on some Brazilian hillside, sliding into the muck after a brief rain storm, with thousands of 666 zombie food stamp AFDC entitled people walking around trying to find a piece of food with not-to-much filth or fungus on it.   All the rich people will have been eaten.
     Rich?   Rich was anyone who provided for himself and/or his family.   They are almost all gone now.   Some lucky ones made it to Costa Rica.  There are a few in some small pockets in Mexico and Canada.   In Taiwan and Japan there are radio signals still, likewise in some parts of the British Isles and parts of the Old Commonwealth......not many...but a few, at least.

We are rapidly arriving at the point where the producers will not be able to satisfy the demands of the consumers.  Pray for America.

El Gringo Viejo