Thursday, 22 March 2012

Sometimes a person knows


     The visit by the President, at substantial taxpayer expense, to Cushing, Oklahoma to "cut the ribbon" on a pipeline to the Orange-Port Arthur, Texas refinery and petro-chemical complex is an exercise in mendaciousness that is almost equal to the entire W.J.Clinton and H.R.Clinton Administration's  eight years of raging lies and deviancy.
     Suffice it to say that Barak Hussein Obama has done nothing to enhance the production of clean coal, natural gas, or oil ever in his life, since the day of his birth to this point, and such will be the case probably well beyond these days.    Suffice it to say, as well, that he has done nothing to facilitate the safe transport of said materials at any time during his remarkably mendacious life.   He probably never will.
Obama Pinocchio
O'bama surpasses William Jefferson Blythe's whopper.  Blythe's
was, "I've never worked so hard in my life trying to find a way to come up
with a middle class tax cut like I promised during the elections, but
there is just no way.   Things are worse than we thought, and it's
George Bush's fault.   He did not inform us, and I have no other
choice except to propose a tax increase on the middle class."
Barak Hussein O'bama says yesterday he has no way to affect the
 market price ofoil.   To-day he says that he is moving to fast-pace
 this pipeline so that he can affect the price of oil.
   These are the utterings of a psychotic,
 mendacious madman.
         Mr. President, my family and I have been royalty holders in Texas for three generations.   I have worked, in a dilettante way on a couple of occasions on drilling rigs.   El Gringo Viejo has worked peripherally near and on edge of the oil and gas business for the better part of a half-century.    I listened to your talk in Cushing, Oklahoma to-day.   I accuse you,   I charge you, of being the worst of what a liar is.   You contradicted the very things you said a day ago, a week ago, a month ago, a quarter ago, a year ago, before you were elected to the office you hold now, when you were a worthless senator representing mendaciously a State of this Union that suffers mendacious fools such as yourself in office.   You are a chronic, pathological liar.
     Further, you have had nothing to do with the Cushing - Port Arthur line.   It is the work of big business, smaller companies, investors large and small, thousands of highly skilled pipeliners who work with huge machines and tiny devices to perform "miracles of tons under pressure going a long way away".    You do not understand the science, the engineering, the financing, the risks, the training, skills, education, and experience involved in this matter.   Furthermore it is an issue of State to State, private to private.   It works precisely because you had nothing to do with it.   Had you had anything to do with the Cushing line, the project would, like the Canadian leg, be sitting idle now.
      That is because you hate America.   You hate private economic activity.  You want a homogeneous society of people beholden to the central government for clothes, food, shelter, and medical service.   You want a society with those people living in projects, while you and your fellow-marxist wife can live on the other side of the divide between the 'proles' and the control people.   That is because you see yourself as one of the control people because you are smarter and better than the rest.     And you will make American pay for her sins.   And you will make white people pay.   And you will make conservative black and latino pay for being "sell-outs".
      Ninety percent of the people who heard you talking this morning knew you were lying.   Oddly, about twenty percent of those agreed with you even though they knew you were lying.   They were thinking..."The rubes will buy this bilge.   They are so stupid that they can't see that he is lying.   We'll fool 'em again, like we did with the "hope and change" thing.   Man these common Jed Clampett crackers are stupid.  Isn't is neat-o?" 

     Please go somewhere you like better, like Cuba, while Fidel is still alive.   Or, like Venezuela, while Hugo can still babble incoherently about his Vision of Utopia.   You, Fidel, Hugo....a dustbin....a sunset.

At Sunset Evening Sky
We thank all OROGs for their patience and understanding and time.
El Gringo Viejo 

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

El Gringo Viejo was having a bad dream.

The Controversial Painting 'One Nation Under Socialism' (Photo Credit: John McNaughton / http://McNaughtonArt.com)

What Might Actually Be Happening


Amanecer en Monte Alban.
A particulary stunning view of the impressive Zapotec -  Mixtec
Arqueological Site of Monte Alban
El Gringo Viejo has led many, many groups here.   Most were larger
while some were small, exlusive parties.   Always pleasant here.
Even the diner in the administrative building is excellent.
   Restrooms are always clean.   A real joy to visit

     Concerning the Easter-tide Vacational of the Obama daughter, something occurs to what little is left of the "little grey cells" about what might actually be happening with this trip.   First of all, it is very, very unlikely that there is any security threat.   What goes on in the City of Oaxaca almost continuously are the dreary "Final Struggle March!   Thursday, Main Plaza, Unify, Occupy!!"    "March Against Roman Catholic Inquisitional Fascist Oppression!" "Unify in Solidarity with the Free Democracy of Cuba against Yanqui Imperialism".
      This goes on continously.  The know-it-all university students certainly do know that it is a lot easier to gather in the main plaza and rail against the "Machine"  for  an afternoon with a bunch of air-head, self-involved 20 year old girls who have an emotional maturity of a 10 year old.    For many of the "students" it also beats bathing.   It's also a chance to trade lice and fleas and bed-bugs with the European backpackers and exhange 4 minute handshakes of solidarity- with- Che people.
     But, there is another and much greater City of Oaxaca.   It is the kind of place where the  vendors have immaculate little stands in the 60 square block "walking downtown" of august buildings built with malacite lode. Even the streets are paved in many cases, especially downtown, with malacite/limestone slabs. The garbage cans (actually used by the people) have insects entering and leaving...one would reasonably think them to be flies... that turn out to be our friends, the bees. And the rule is to leave them alone. The people and the bees get along fine, each appreciating the clean environment. The quality of the goodies served by the stand-owners is excellent, along with the numerous tiny family owned restaurants, and the scores of first-class and deluxe dining spots. It is a cornucopia of culinary wonders.
The Valley of Oaxaca, center of Seven
MesoAmerican Cultures
      The City is ancient in colonial terms, dating back to the earliest days of Spanish colonisation.     It was long populated before the Time of Christ by the Zapotec and the Mixtec peoples, who had contact with the Toltec and Maya nations at the very earliest known times of the human occupation of this part of MesoAmerica. It has hundreds of archeological and historical sites that include Monte Alban and Mitla, plus scores and scores and scores of lesser known place of equal or even higher importance and interest.
     There is a relatively large and constant Gringo and foreign population.   Of the 500,000 people in the city,  there are probably 2,000 Americans who live in or within 10 miles of the center of the city.   There are probably 3,000 Europeans who live there as well.    There is a massive tourism presence.  People arrive there from all over the world.
     If one were ever to go the area, it is very, very highly advised to program NO LESS than 6 or 7 nights.    It is a place where one could easily spend the entirety of a three-week vacation in the City and its surroundings within 50 miles.   There would still not be enough time.   Americans especially are treated with neutral to very positive concern.   Prices range from moderate to really bargain level.   It is very modern and totally ancient.   The weather is likened to perpetual late Spring, being situated mid-way between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator.  The elevation is right at 5,000 fasl.    Even the shopping is tempting at times.

     So, what is the purpose of this trip beyond a pleasant sojourn in a pleasant and interesting place?   Like Guanajuato, there are numerous Indian, Spanish language, culture, culinary, crafts, and general studies schools.    Unlike Guanajuato's environment, however, there are a few of the  private academies in Oaxaca that are blatantly communist in their orientation and instructional perspective.   And yes, even the cooking and crafts places have a few in their number that are totally marxist.   Most of the really hard-Red places are dedicated more to language, culture, and history from a marxist perspective...but a person can fit in comfortably in two or three of the little academies to learn cooking styles under the watchful gaze of a Che or Fidel poster.   Right-wing Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende would tear down the posters.

     So, El Gringo Viejo thinks that this trip has been put together by someone with the Ayres family connection.  The Obama daughter was seen and photographed in Oaxaca City wearing a white T-shirt with a "peace symbol" on the front, a common way the "young, with-it commie-teens" express solidarity with fellow know-it-all adolescents who will solve all the problems tomorrow morning by taking all the money from all the rich people and giving the money to all the poor people and passing a law against bad things and war and everything and the Palestinians, and the children, and the women, and the homosexuals, and the animals, and the Indians.  (Whew!  I never thought of that!  It's so inspiring!)
 
El Gringo Viejo has had many groups
large and small eating on the 2nd floor
of the building on the left.   This is
a typical scene at the "Zocalo"
or Main Plaza
She is learning how to be the commie her parents are.   In Oaxaca City there are private academies that specialise in culture, Indian studies, Spanish, culinary arts, handcrafts, etc.   Some, wierdly, combined these studies with marxist precepts. (?)
The students in these "marxist convent schools" spend two weeks to two months studying how to make mole or speak Zapotec  while under the watchful eyes of Che and Fidel, who beam down from their posters, gathering dust on the wall.

 That is what is going on.   She is going into a "third world" environment to be shown and
to "experience" poverty and exploitation and to listen to a couple of 2 hours "seminars on fairness and social justice" rendered by kindly old "Auntie Commies".    It is almost like convent school, but aetheist driven.    They might go over to the Basilica de Santo Domingo to study the excess of investment of gold, silver, and artistic finery... "being wasted in a church that celebrates a god that does not exist when there are so many impoverished children who don't even have a cup of milk to assuage their hunger, who can barely exist."  (Yes, I've heard it all many times)
    
The interior of the Church of Santo Domingo
on edge of downtown Oaxaca.   When John Paul II
visited a few years ago, he declared, "Oh! My God!"
when he entered.



Thanks for your time and attention.
El Gringo Viejo

Monday, 19 March 2012

Please Think About the Actuarials...Not Press Reports

     It is still disappointing for me to watch FOX News spill half-truths to outright misstatements onto the screen about Mexico.   This week-end, Harris Faulkner, whose father is a highly decorated Army Officer, had to read about how stupid people are going over to Mexico to buy cheap gasoline.    People were doing that in spite of the fact that everybody is always killing everybody and chopping their heads off all the time.
     Then, an authoritative white boy comes along and responds to Harris's lead in with something to the effect that even if you survive the trip over to buy the gasoline, the gasoline is no good and it will void any warranty that might be in force with your automobile.    On talk radio overnight, Teamster-type truck drivers called in with the same pre-fab story about how some stations in Mexico that are owned by the cartels lower prices on their gasoline standards so as to lure innocent Americans over, at which time the people are beheaded and their vehicles are stolen.  For one, Cartel people do not own PEMEX Stations.   For Two, PEMEX Stations do not have price standards.  The price of gasoline and diesel is fixed, nationwide.  There are no other gasoline dispensers save for PEMEX, and it is a government chartred monopoly.
     So it's hopeless.   But just to set it straight, the Mexican gasoline is not, as the white boy said, all the same grade.   There are three different mixtures based on climate, elevation, and urban density.   Three.   The "enlightened" USA has 39 at the present time, all established by edict by imbeciles in the EPA who believe in simultaneous global warming and global cooling, and who scoffed at the notion that acid rain in Canada might have been caused by effusions from the forests in Appalachia.   (It was, no matter how hard they laughed at Ronald Reagan for making the observation)

     As far as the "boutique" mixtures, there are 39 in force now in the USA, but another 50 or 60 have already been approved, and we can rest assured that the new O'bamaham administration to come will have refineries making gasoline by the pint before it is all over.    And blaming it on the oil companies.   And most Americans are woefully and willingly ignorant about the nature of the oil and natural gas business, and will probably buy the bilge.
     The white boy said that the government owned PEMEX company forces the stations to all charge the same, so the station operators fill their underground tanks with water, and there is no control or recourse.   They all do it, and that's why the vehicles do not run.    The fact is that PEMEX auditors do more frequent test-tubing and meter-register exams than any place in Texas or the United States that I know of....perhaps California might have ,more snoops, because the State of California is trying to take $1.50 on the sale of every gallon and really needs the money.   They need to feed the miracle babies and children and do the day-to-day funding of pensions and programs that are financially insane.   PEMEX is a Government-owned operation that is run like a private business finally....and especially in the last ten to twelve years has been doing a really good job in complying with their compact.   Some say it is prelude to ultimate privatisation....good, and the sooner the better. Also, the Mexican gasoline is quite good, and it has been many years since I could get an engine knock even out of the lower of the two octane grades.   The old 1992 Dynasty has fairly high compression and 400,000 miles on the same engine, so El Gringo Viejo uses an ABABAB approach, filling with the 87 octane Green Pump this time and the 93 octane Red Pump the next time.   The Red Pump fuel is either EXXON Supreme or the PEMEX equivalent made with the same formulation.    The full filter has been checked occasionally and has never had junk or anything.   So scratch up another one for the blowhard no-nothings.
     The most recent time anyone had a problem with being beheaded at a PEMEX station anywhere in Mexico is when Occupy-types threw molotov cocktails at a pump in Chilpancingo, Guerrero during one of the perpetual communist manipulated "student" protests about global warming and profits and being required to take examiniations and make an 80 so as to pass on to the next level.  An heroic station manager died of his burns incurred during his efforts to put out the fire before the station blew.    Also, every now and then the convenience stores are held up at the PEMEX Stations and, of course, that is very bad.   We should be grateful that it never happens in Texas.

     Folks, before you roll your eyes again....who are you going to believe....?   Someone who lives it and has studied it and done business in it and who comes from ancestors who have been in the middle of it from Flintstonian times....or reporters?    I have never been in attendence at any event, then seen the press report of that event, and been able to say that the report was reliably accurate.   Once again, the issues we have now are not cured, but they continue to improve.   And people really do go and come across the the Rio Grande and do so without extraneous issue 99.9999999% of the time.
El Gringo Viejo

Sunday, 18 March 2012

The Saddest Moments in Life. Can We Talk?

Heartbreaking news for the heartland.   Rosie's program on Oprah's network managed to capture a 00.000 share and a -24.2 rating, meaning that people were actually turning their chairs and Lazy-Boys around, even while the television was on...so as to say that they were actively not-watching the Rosie Show.   With that, it seems that Rosie is going to join Katie Couric in the "Who?" Hall of Fame sometime very soon.   No time or date will be announced by Arsenio Hall, because, who cares?
Rosie's program space will be replaced by Michelle O'bama doing aerobics on special vacation flights to Aruba and the Taj Majal next week, and then to Machu Pichu and the Summer Show in Paris on her shopping trip for "Clothes to Shop Target By". 
My mother told me to say nothing about a person that is negative. So, El Gringo Viejo
will refrain from saying that the above picture could puke a buzzard off'n a gut wagon.
As for the one on the left, congratulations on setting up a perfectly useless network with perfectly useless programming aimed at people who are significantly intellectually
challenged. At least they apparently are not watching, in droves.
The one on the right, besides never having seen a picture of a Bessemer Converter melting
iron and steel with fire is also uglier than an old abandoned Bessemer Converter, and nowhere near as smart. And yes, kerosene and an updraft can make quite a billows
and a fire that can produce heat values in excess of 2,800 F....and with the nature of
the upsurging feed of air such as at the Twin Towers....perhaps even to the boiling
temperature for iron of 5,200 F. There was a fire in McAllen, one time, that
burned down the biggest hotel in town. It was hit by lightning on its twin copper
cupolas. The fire immolated the building, including concrete blocks and hard-fired
bricks. There was nothing left. Sorry, Rosie O'pottamus.

Not having known that there were 190,000 people stupid enough to watch Rosie's program, or Ophra's network and  operate a channel changer with one hand, I remain, very pleased with your presence on this dark and stormy night in Texas.
El Gringo Viejo