Whenever Barack Obama makes a key decision, it always seems to benefit special supporters. 80% of the money Obama threw away on “green energy” programs went to his big donors. It’s become painfully evident that crony capitalism has its fingerprints all over other Barack Obama decisions.

Last year Barack Obama softened up Warren Buffett by awarding Buffett the Medal of Freedom, which Obama felt was appropriate for Buffett having accumulated more than $40 billion in personal wealth. In return, Buffett has become a cheerleader for Obama, voicing his support of Obama’s Buffett rule.

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.

The devil, as they say, is always in the details:

Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.

Recently Barack Obama said no to the Keystone Pipeline. An article from Bloomberg (which curiously went down the memory hole already) scrapes the ice off the windshield so we can see why:

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

The State Department denied TransCanada a permit on Jan. 18, saying there was not enough time to study the proposal by Feb. 21, a deadline Congress imposed on President Barack Obama. Calgary-based TransCanada has said it intends to re-apply with a route that avoids an environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska, something the Obama administration encouraged.

The rail option, though costlier, would lessen the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity, compared to the pipeline, according to the State Department analysis. Greenhouse gas emmissions, however, would be worse.

If completed, Keystone XL would deliver 700,000 barrels a day of crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, crossing 1,661 miles (2,673-kilometers) over Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Obama gives Buffett award. Buffett voices support for Obama. Obama makes decision to help put money in Buffett’s pocket.

Tidy.

Obama has what is realistically a complete moratorium on domestic oil exploration and production while at the same time helping to fund Brazil’s Petrobas search for oil. In addition, Obama granted Petrobas permission to operate a deep water vessel in the Gulf of Mexico:

Petrobras has received final approval to operate the Gulf of Mexico’s first floating production, storage and offloading vessel, clearing the way for the Brazilian oil giant to start pumping oil from two deep-water fields, federal regulators said Thursday.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement took the “final regulatory step” in green-lighting the project, with the approval of a production safety system permit and a supplemental deep-water operating plan, the bureau said in a statement.

The floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, has a daily production capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil and 16 million cubic feet of natural gas. The ocean energy bureau said with the latest approvals, production at the Cascade and Chinook deep-water fields is expected to begin soon.

The fields are in more than 8,000 feet of water about 165 miles off Louisiana, in an area called Walker Ridge.

The reason?

Soros.

In August of 2010 George Soros sold off his stake in Petrobas.

Billionaire George Soros’s fund management firm sold all of its Petroleo Brasileiro SA stock, dumping its biggest company holding ahead of a planned $25 billion offering by Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer.

Soros Fund Management LLC, which oversees $25 billion, sold 9.1 million American depositary receipts representing Petrobras common stock and 5.88 million ADRs corresponding to preferred shares in the second quarter, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

But then he bought back into Petrobas:

Billionaire investment manager George Soros built on his position in Brazilian oil and gas company Petrobras in the first quarter of 2011 for his Soros Fund Management firm, according to the guru watchers over at Guru Focus.com on May 17. He now owns 1.1 million shares of Brazil’s state owned oil company.

Soros sold out of Petrobras in mid-2010 only to return to the market in the fourth quarter of 2010 with the purchase of roughly 588,000 shares. The stock has been a money loser for Soros since getting back into the market, according to his average share price calculated by Guru Focus. Petrobras closed May 17 at $34.27 per share, so Soros’s big purchases in one of Brazil’s top two most actively traded stocks was unaffected by his large purchase orders.

May I draw your attention to the timing. Soros began “building” on his position from the fall of 2010 into the “first quarter” of 2011.

The decision to allow operation of the deep water vessel is announced in the middle of March 2011, and it coincidentally just happens to follow Soros’ Petrobas holdings expansion. Now Brazil has signed an agreement with China for China to purchase Petrobas’ oil.

The administration had already been found in contempt for its determined effort to keep US interests at bay in the Gulf while aiding Soros’ Petrobas.

Curious.

It’s the mother of all boners. Barack Obama gambled the future of the US oil supply on Brazil.

He lost. China kicked his butt.

In March Barack Obama put on his best groveling suit (you know, the same one he wore when genuflecting to the Saudi King) and went off to Brazil looking for foreign oil. The schtick was thick:

Obama started by saying that being in Brazil was a great joy, and thanking his hosts on behalf of his wife Michelle and family for the warm welcome they received.

The US president said it was a pity that he had to come only days after the Carnival but: “my only regret is that we missed the party by coming a few weeks after Carnival. Maybe that’s the best — since I’m not sure I would have had the same level of productivity from my staff”.

While emphasizing US weaknesses, he promised the US would be Brazil’s best customer:

Obama also spoke about energy. “The oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States”, he said, adding that the US want to help Brazil with the technology needed to extract it and, when Brazil is ready to begin selling the commodity, “we want to be one of your best customers”.

That is not to be. Brazil blew off Obama for China instead:

BUENOS AIRES — Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The country’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, expects to pump 4.9 million barrels a day from the country’s oil fields by 2020, with 40 percent of that coming from the seabed. One and a half million barrels will be bound for export markets.

The United States wants it, but China is getting it.

Less than a month after President Obama visited Brazil in March to make a pitch for oil, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was off to Beijing to sign oil contracts with two huge state-owned Chinese companies.

The deals are part of a growing oil relationship between the two countries that, thanks to a series of billion-dollar agreements, is giving China greater influence over Brazil’s oil frontier.

Apparently deciding that the US needed neither the oil nor the jobs, Barack Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline.

President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa.

Once more, China will be the beneficiary.

Obama is strangling domestic oil exploration with bans and moratoriums pretty much everywhere in the US and at the same time is pouring billions of US tax dollars down the toilet on failed “green energy” projects for his top donors. Then in liquidation Obama made sure his donors got their money before us taxpayers.

No energy, no jobs, no oil. Barack Obama does seem determined to lead the United States into becoming a third world nation while making certain China prospers.

Change is….absolutely necessary.

Bis interimituc qui suis armis perit… Syrus

He is doubly destroyed who perishes by his own arms.

The GOP candidates are struggling for position like horses in a long race; except they must contend not only with each other, but with Obama’s State Directed Media as well. For the MSM is intent on ruining the reputation of all but their personal picks with innuendo, fraud, false accusations, and lies. If there is an element of truth within the onslaught of smears, the public, except for the witless believers and those who suck blindly of the Socialist teat of Marxist pablum, have become immune to the assault of the media.

We must remember, the successful GOP candidate has a tremendous advantage; he can run against Obama’s dismal failures. Obama’s State Run Media can attack you personally, but they can’t erase the utter failure and incompetence of Obama.

Yet, the intrepid runners of the GOP refuse to offer, us the Anti-Obamites, the bones we hunger for so desperately: those same bones that would guarantee victory for the runner who would be so bold to make the commitment to drain the cesspool of corruption that is Washngton. We the Anti-Obamites, and certainly not all Republicans, are waiting to join the crusade for a runner who has the temerity to stand against the entrenched corruption of the beltway. You may trust that we will vote for any skim milk candidate who promises to not be Obama. Oh yes, we will trudge to the polls in a half hearted effort and vote for anyone who has a half-assed chance to beat Obama, but if you want to clinch the nomination and win the general election in a landslide with an unprecedented mandate from the American people, just promise to end the Crony Capitalism that Obama has made into an institution of Washington; promise to push for tort reform, promise to repeal Obama Care, promise to promote welfare reform and prosecute welfare criminals, promise to defund Democratic radio like NPR and PBS, promise to end the Insider Trading by members of our congress and Senate, promise to end the pork especially the pork funding Obama’s reelection and the Democratic Party, promise to shut down the national Labor Relations Board, promise to open up drilling in the US and have an energy program that works for the US and not against us, promise to shut down the EPA and end the nonsense that is little more than a ploy to gain control over our citizenry, promise to quit strangling the country over the Socialist Hoax of Global Warming, promise to shut down the borders and enforce our immigration laws, promise to end entitlements for those who are here illegally and illegally milking our strained system, swear to defend this country against its enemies, promise to encourage job growth and not to inhibit job growth with regulations, and promise to fight wars to win, rather than using them for political advantage.

The formula for success is easy; it may seem like a lot, but the candidates have been only too happy to dance around the issues and be everyone’s favorite whore or a typical politician, but we aren’t looking for a favorite whore or a cheap phony like Obama; we are looking for an honest statesman who is committed to ending the corruption in our capital.

Obama’s media pimps lead the GOP candidates like sheep to the abattoir; while you make fools of yourselves by pleading to protect the incomes of the wealthiest of Americans in his theater of the absurd, over half of whom are Obama Marxists, he keeps you from confronting the real issues, and you indirectly give credibility to the Occupiers by standing against them to defend their Marxist benefactors who fund them and Obama; thus he keeps you from attacking his failures and those same issues listed above, and many more we are concerned with. Obama and his State Directed Media will be more than happy to control the nomination process and the election: the question is, are you willing to let him control the process.

‎”I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.” (Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 – 1519).

Using the murky reasoning of Obama Logic, best described as an enigma, An Islamist Spring has been imposed upon the world with the aid and encouragement of Obama. In his latest attempt to impose freedom and mayhem on the people of Libya, Obama has used the American military to insure that the people of Libya could depose their despot and pave the way for a wave of terror and bloodshed, while they determine their own Islamic Fundamentalist destiny.

While Socialist revolutionaries praise the vision of Obama, there are others who are willing to realistically appraise what the Narcissist in Chief and his personal direction of the American military has accomplished with this latest foreign policy disaster.

Libya has some of the richest sweet crude reserves in the world. The crude is called sweet crude because it costs far less to refine than other crude oil. In the world of oil, on which the true economy of the world is based, an economy in which Obama wants America to be only a consumer of wealth and not a producer of wealth, this sweet crude is among the most valuable. Thus it will be a great generator of wealth for whatever Islamic Fundamentalist Strongman that forces his way into power.

It is the nature of Obama Logic that nothing he does is ever explained or needs to be explained: whether it is because he is incapable of explaining his actions or he refuses to explain because of wishing to maintain a self-imposed image of omnipotency or perhaps, he knows if the country knew his true intentions, he would need to deal with his own American uprising, we will never know.

If Islamic Fundamentalists kept their insanity and thirst for blood and mayhem within their own borders, the free world would be content to watch them commit atrocities and sodomize each other, under the name of Allah; unfortunately, the nature of the Islamic Fundamentalist requires them to export their madness and sexual perversities beyond their own borders to the free world. Consequently, Obama has decided, he needs to help these Islamic Fundamentalists spread their gospel throughout the world by indirectly providing them with the wealth of one of the most oil rich countries in the world. Now, they will be truly free to define their own brand of Islamic Fundamentalism throughout the world.

Thus when the blood stops flowing in Libya, they will be free to finance Jihad and liberate the free world of this demonic possession of personal and religious freedoms. This may well be the most enduring aspect of the Obama legacy. We will have Obama to thank for the new mindless wave of terror that will be unleashed upon the free world with the almost limitless funds to be provided to the new masters of terror, by Libya’s sweet crude and the helpful hand of Obama guiding the US military.

To show our gratitude towards Obama and his bizarre willingness to provide nearly limitless funding to Islamic nut sacks devoted to terror, this new wave of terror should be known as the Obama’s Terror and when the American military once again has to storm the shores of Tripoli to stop the mindless and bloody insanity, we should toast their sacrifice and praise the unfathomable lunacy of Obama Logic.

Despite environmentalist protests, President Obama is about ready to approve the “jobs creating” Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada Corporation, the project owner, estimates that 20,000 jobs can be created from the pipeline itself over the two-year project development period. There are other jobs associated with development of the resource in Canada that have economic impacts on U.S. employment. So, with that in mind, let’s look at the Keystone XL pipeline, and at Canadian oil sands.

The Keystone XL Pipeline Project

The State Department is responsible for issuing permits for cross-border pipelines. Oil sands opponents, however, are pressuring the State Department to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, and are encouraging residents along its intended route to oppose the project based on unrelated issues, such as eminent domain and potential impact to aquifers. The Keystone XL pipeline will ensure a supply of Canadian crude to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. Only refineries in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions rely upon Canadian crude. This link provides a map of the Keystone XL pipeline and its proposed expansion.

Measures restricting the use of oil sands products would not limit oil sands production, but cause output to be diverted to more distant markets. For example, China, with a growing appetite for oil, is ready to spend the dollars for a piece of Canada’s oil sands. Alberta, Canada, has more oil than Russia or Iran. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more. Canada’s only major oil export market is the U.S., but with oil sands and pipeline delivery to the U.S. under environmental objections, and with Asian demand growing, Canada wants to diversify its market, and China is eager to oblige. Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in a $5.5 billion plan drawn up by the Alberta-based Enbridge company to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast province of British Columbia. Besides having a stake in the $5.5 billion in the Northern Gateway pipeline plan, Sinopec paid $4.6 billion for a nine percent stake in Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil sands project. And in 2009 PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas company, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Athabasca (also in Canada) Oil Sands Corp.

In a further, political wrinkle, the Koch brothers are poised to reap big profits if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved. The Koch brothers have been accused of “waging a war against Obama.” They have financed the Tea Party movement, climate change skepticism and right-wing think tanks, such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis. BTW, Rich Mitchell at CDN sarcasticlly had this to say about Obama and the Koch brothers: “Oh Mr. Collinson (which would be such a great name if your first name was Collin), you can’t blame Libya on Obama, clearly the Koch brothers, Bush, or George Washington are to blame.” And from a CDN press release we learn, “Chief among those who are pushing conservatives in Congress to drop their support for the NAT GAS Act are the Koch brothers. Charles Koch has been loudly vocalizing his opposition to the misguided suggestion that the natural-gas industry should receive enormous new subsidies.”

Canadian Oil Sand, its Extraction, and its Refining

Oil sand is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, water and bitumen (a mixture of hydrocarbons, often together with their nonmetallic derivatives that occur naturally), which is a heavy and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used by refineries to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel. This link provides a picture of oil sand, as well as further information.

From the government of Alberta, Canada, we learn:

• There are 170.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the oil sands deposits of Northern Alberta. There are 315 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil in the oil sands.
• Roughly 500 km of the 140,000 km oil sands deposit in Northern Alberta is currently undergoing surface mining activity. Oil sands within 75 meters of the surface are mined using electric and hydraulic shovels. “In situ” (in the natural or original position or place) recovery is used for bitumen deposits buried too deeply for mining to be practical. Most in situ bitumen and heavy oil production comes from deposits buried more than 350-600 meters below the surface. Steam, solvents or thermal energy make the bitumen flow to the point that it can be pumped by a well to the surface. Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) are effective in situ recovery methods.
• About two tons of oil sands must be dug up, moved and processed to produce one barrel of synthetic crude oil (SCO).
• The process of reclaiming the land differs depending on what types of activity took place on the land. For mined sands, sand and sediment from tailings ponds (sand, clay, etc.) must be returned to the pit in order to even out contours in the land that resulted from the removal of oil sand deposits. Overburden (soil and organic material) that was stored at the beginning of the operation is placed over the sand and sediment layer. Special care is taken to ensure that overburden is not contaminated during the storage period so that it can be replaced as soon as the mining operation concludes. For in suti operations which do not disturb the environment, reclamation activities are often faster and easier. Once reclamation is complete, projects undergo a strict regulatory and environmental review that can take a significant amount of time in order to ensure that the land has been returned to its original state. When the site satisfies the regulatory bodies, a Certificate of Reclamation is issued by Alberta Environment.

Canada’s oil sands is called dirty oil because of the huge volumes of natural gas required to extract and refine it About 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas is burned for every barrel of bitumen produced from an in situ project. After that, another 400 cubic feet is put through a steam methane reforming process to produce hydrogen, which is required to upgrade the bitumen into a kind of synthetic crude that shares the same characteristics of conventional light oil. For every single unit of energy that goes in, most of it in the form of natural gas, you get only five units of energy out. Conventional oil, by comparison, gives an energy return of more than 10 to 1. For this reason, the carbon footprint of oil sand-based petroleum products is much larger compared to conventional oil, and it is called dirty oil.

BTW, for your reading pleasure, Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has written an excellent three piece post on Canadian oil sands.  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

Does National Security and Lifestyle Trump Environmental Concerns?

From Robert Kilpatrick at CDN, we learn: “So even if we all drove electric cars, the demand for “to make the hundreds of thousands of products that come from oil” would still be great. Does this administration even have a clue that literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs are dependent on oil? I don’t think so. Remember, most liberals have this low common-sense I.Q. issue. I don’t even believe our present President understands the consequences of eliminating oil from the American scene!”

Today, over 60% of the oil we consume is imported. Oil, coal and natural gas account for more than 85% of the energy consumed in the U.S. today. Oil accounts for nearly 40% of all energy utilized today. The U.S. currently imports about 23% from Canada, this country’s largest source. Mexico (11.4%), Saudi Arabia (11%), and Venezuela (10.1%) are our next three sources of imported oil – none of these sources are friendly and/or reliable. So the Keystone XL pipeline IS a big deal, from both a strategic national security perspective as well as from a lifestyle perspective. Now that you are armed with (my view of the) facts, you can make up your own mind!

But that’s just my opinion.

Crossposted at RWNO, my personal web site.

The Honesty of Yesterday

The outfitter told me I’d be taking out an older hunter, to be careful not to over do the hunting and to keep a close watch over him in case he needed to come in early. Whenever there was an unusual hunter, I was chosen to be his or her guide. I didn’t mind, it was a compliment actually; however, rather than thinking of myself as special, I figured I was more likely to remember and follow instructions than the other guides.

There were a bunch of young hunters in their thirties and forties, they were dressed in the latest from the big outdoor shops and they were excited about going on the hunt. They already had several days worth of whiskers, to have “the look” out in the mountains. Personally, the whiskers drive me nuts, but if whiskers made their hunt more enjoyable, then grow some damn whiskers.

I saw an older guy with white hair standing all alone. He wasn’t talking about killing Grizzlies and Elk, like the other hunters, he was just waiting silently for me, standing next to his gear. He was thin enough that he might need to run around in the shower to get wet, but he had that hardened look of a man who could take his share and give you back more than you wanted. “Are you Carl?” He shook his head yes. “I’m Skook, I’ll get us some horses, do you need a special kind of horse?”

He looked me directly in the eye, with a cold blue eyed stare and said, “Young with a bit of life and not too wide in the back. Should be a sure footed mare that can move fast and smooth with rythym, without being scared of every little thing.”

Whoa now, that was a different request; I started to ask him if he was referring to a woman or a horse, but you can’t count on everyone appreciating my sense of humor. Most men who know horses ride geldings, horses are much simpler without the huevos. There are a few mare men born every so often and they are a bit different from your average road apple; I knew all about this type of guy, both me and Barb Wire Johnny are Mare men. You see mares are the natural whole animal. Some are aggressive and mean, most are super aware of their surroundings and refuse to trifle with lesser human beings who lack the measure of horsemanship they require. Carl seemed to have the knowledge and skill of a mare man and I was going to give him what he asked for, if it didn’t work out, I’d put him on a different horse, but I figured he could handle the filly I had picked out. He’d be plowing a furrow with his nose if he was overstating his abilities.

There was a four year old paint filly in the corral; I’d ridden her, she handled like an expensive sports car (not that I had ever driven one), but she had way too much gas for most riders.

She was worried and confused with the guides catching other horses and shooing her away when she came near. I threw a loop around her neck. She stopped and turned to look at the man (me) who had just caught her. I was in no hurry, I looked her in the eye for a few seconds and then looked at the ground for another 30 seconds. She became curious and stretched her nose out towards me to get a sniff from thirty feet away. She took a couple of tentative steps toward me. Without looking at her, I walked toward her and stopped about six feet away. She really had her curiosity aroused by now. I looked at the guys, as they asked me what the Hell I was doing. I replied with a grin and said my hunter wanted a horse with a bit of spirit, they looked at me like I was nuts. Nothing new about that, in their world anyone who communicated with a horse like me and Barbwire Johnny was a few points off center in the head. That’s okay, horses for them were a struggle, for me and Johnnie it was often effortless or made to look that way.

I put a leather halter on the filly with the standard six foot lead shank. I stood directly in from of her about a foot away and looked her in the eye. I stepped into her and she stepped back; we were well on our way. I kept the lead rope draped over my finger like a slack rein and began to exaggerate the movement of my body to get her to respond. Two steps forward two steps back, she was moving with me and responding well. Her eyes were now trained on me and watching my every move. I walked toward her near (Left) side ribs just behind the shoulder she turned on the forehand and stepped over behind with the left hind foot crossing over in front of the right hind foot. Oh my, she moved like a ballerina naturally. I swapped sides and had her doing the same thing from the offside. Turning on the hind quarters is much easier and in twenty minutes she was loosened up and ready to be ridden. I led her through the corral with the lead shank draped over my index finger to show off to the guys. They stopped and watched me in silence. I halted in the middle of the corral and her pirouette on the hind quarters by following the lead of my finger with the slack lead shank.

We walked out of the corral and I asked Carl if he wanted me to saddle her, “Hell no, I’m not that old yet”, he replied. He put the saddle on without a pad to make sure it would fit well and then pulled it off and put a horse hair pad over a sheep skin. The technology for the best saddle pad ever made was thousands of years old I’d guess. You make it by saving the manes and tails of dead horses and weaving them into an un-symetrical pattern while they are wet. It takes the hair from five or six horses , but it is durable. has a great cushion, and provides ventilation to the back. They last for years. Carl handled the hair pad and the sheepskin without a second glance and I knew he was a horseman from the old traditions. I can just imagine the old Celtic horse tribes traveling Westward across Europe before the age of Julius Cesar used the same saddle pads.

I trusted him even more after watching him saddle her. I asked him if he used a hackamore, he turned to and said, “I’ll ride her with a postage stamp and bailing twine if I have to.” I assumed that was an affirmative. I told him to ride around a few minutes while I loaded the pack horses and another saddle horse for me. He was already reining the horse and turning her gently both ways.

I had a feeling this was going to be a good hunt.

He and the mare liked each other and he seemed to be more interested in the mare than hunting. We rode into the remote camp about 2 pm and Carl helped me picket the horses and set up the wall tent. We had a bite to eat, beans, bacon, and potatoes with some ice cold tea. A nice Canadian meal. We would get in an hour’s hunt at one of the moose licks before dark.

Carl told me that this was probably his last hunt and he mainly wanted a nice young bull for the freezer. He didn’t want a baloney bull with a huge rack, a two year old or three year old would be just right. He had paid for a full supply of game tags, so we were bound to get something.

We sat in a tree stand I had built out of plywood about twenty feet up, between two poplar trees on a hill overlooking one of my favorite moose licks and our dark hairy friends started coming in, a few minutes later. A few of them were in the rut and they were ready to do a little fighting and bragging. Normally, I’d call like a young bull challenging everyone to a fight. The older bulls would often become enraged at this type of upstart trying to steal cows. The younger bulls were using the short higher pitched grunts and pushing against each other in a non-dangerous way to test their steel.

Eventually, an older bull stampeded into the lick. He was in a rage and was ready to commit mayhem. He charged a three year old so hard, the young moose was swept off his feet and piled up in the mud. The other young moose decided the sport was getting too rough and they scattered noiselessly into the trees. The show was pretty much over, it was too dark to see and the old bull had scared off all the young bulls.

Back at camp, Carl told me that tonight’s hunt or show was more fun than he could have hoped for. You see, not every hunter needs to kill an animal to have a good hunt; some just want a good experience with the wildlife and with nature.

Carl told me of working on ranches in Texas and Oklahoma before the First World War and of volunteering for the war.

After serving in the trenches, he no longer wanted the outdoor life of a cowboy. He bought a truck and began to deliver supplies to the oil rigs. Eventually, he had a fleet of trucks and served a huge piece of the oil patch and made millions. Now his grandchildren were jockeying for position to inherit his wealth and he wasn’t quite ready to give it up.

He told me he can feel the rage of the older bulls when the younger ones challenge them rather than paying respect. The young ones didn’t look so big and mighty when they were piled up in the mud, bruised and bleeding, and looking for a quick exit.

He didn’t talk about the war and the trenches, but I recognized the way he looked you in the eye when he spoke and that inability to show fear or indecision; as if he were to say, what do I have to be afraid of, I have already been in Hell. These intense guys who fear nothing intimidate a lot of people with their forthright and direct way of communicating, not that they are trying to scare people, it is just their way. I grew up around these men, so there direct way is natural for me; as a matter of fact, I prefer this look you in the eye honesty to the shifty never tell the truth darting looks of the average politician.

I began to realize what a treasure Carl represented. He had been one of the last of the cowboys who rode from job to job and stuck to an unwritten code of honesty and integrity.

War changes people. I have known several outdoorsmen who finished up their military careers saying they would never again go camping or hunting. Carl was one of those guys. He chose a good business and was successful and now he enjoyed living the life he left, as a vacation. One of the reasons he was successful was his direct and honest approach. Carl was used to winning, you could see that. Compromising a situation or giving up wasn’t a part of his vocabulary.

A couple of days later, Carl shot a nice two year bull, it was a nice shot from about eighty yards. He said if it was alright with me, he would just watch my handiwork as I field dressed the moose and loaded it on three pack horses. I laughed and said of course. A two year old isn’t that big and I can get it loaded fairly quick; besides, it was my job.

He said he had never packed horses and it was a pleasure to watch a man handle the ropes and lace on the quarters of moose on the pack horses.

We made it back to the base camp and he told me it was his last hunt and that the moose would last him the rest of his life. He thanked me, wished me well, and walked out of my life. Now this is a fairly uneventful hunting story except for the honesty that Carl portrayed. The direct and honest approach is almost never expected from our politicians; actually, we tend to like the ones who can lie the most convincingly. Carl and those like him are long gone- sadly it is for the best, for they would be terribly disappointed with the lack of honesty and integrity we tolerate from our politicians and from those in public life.

In a more modern world, we have President Obama telling us that increased drilling would have a marginal effect on the price of oil, but now that he is facing reelection, he releases a portion of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to decrease the price of oil. This is a case of getting caught up in your own lies and compromising our Strategic Petroleum Reserves for his personal political advantage.

Yet these are the same high prices that he promised during his campaign, the difference is that he intended for the price increases to be tax increases and not real price increases, thus the high fuel prices have no advantage for him.

A similar situation is his decision to bring troops home in a war that is far from over, but at a time that will be strategic for his reelection.

In his campaign to promote job growth, our NLRB is trying to shut down a billion dollar assembly line for Boeing in South Carolina and European builders are getting the contracts as a result of unknown implications of a government agency representing unions trying to shut down a private manufacturing facility built in a Right to Work State. Leaving the average American asking why we have a government agency protecting unions and why are we forcing Boeing to take its factory offshore so that union jobs will be “protected”.

Why do we have Democrats who preach of the need for more taxes and of how we are not paying enough to beat back these massive deficits. Yet we must contend with an administration of tax cheats. Multimillionaire John Kerry goes to great lengths to avoid paying taxes on his elitist yacht so atypical of the Socialist jargon that he and other millionaires ride to glory, but wait, the Marxists in Washington don’t plan to be like everyone else they are Elites and they are supposed to lead a life of luxury that is above the law. These politicians that talk out of both sides of their mouth are legion within the Obama Administration Timothy Geithner, Charles Rangel, Tom Daschle, Hilda Solis all have their personal tax issues, while they tell us we are supposed to pay more and feel good about their willingness to spend our tax money in programs that will assure their political longevity.

While we have Marxists demanding more benefits to an ever growing army of those who feel they are entitled to the wealth of others, we have unscrupulous leaders who use these people to gain power and wealth. They promise to redistribute wealth, but not their wealth, heavens no, it is the wealth of others they pan to redistribute. In the tradition of every corrupt Marxist leader the world has ever known, they destroy wealth and prosperity by taking away from producers to give to the lazy and corrupt. Each month, the economy feels the lash of incompetence and corruption until the system begins to wither and die; until, there is no more wealth to steal and no more incentive to recreate wealth. This is the legacy of the Marxist and we see it about to reach the flash point in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland; unfortunately, with Obama at the helm of our ship of state we are only a short distance behind these failing Socialist states with leaders who are not leaders in any real sense of the word: they just know how to promise the world to those who don’t produce, but eventually they run out of money and the riots begin.

Personally, I much prefer the honesty of Carl when he gets up close and looks at you straight in the eye, as if every sentence is to be carved in stone. That is the kind of man we need in Washington and the kind of man I like to take hunting.

A few days ago Politico ran a Chuck Schumer dog and pony story as Senate democrats summoned oil company executives to Congress so they could use them as punching bags.

Chuck Schumer: Democrats to aim at gas prices

Senate Democrats this summer will roll out their recipe for dealing with high gasoline prices, emphasizing conservation and alternative energy to wean the nation off oil.

The plan will come up sometime after the Memorial Day recess, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday.

“In June and July, we will be introducing legislation that will promote conservation, that will promote alternative energy and that will do many things to reduce the price,” said Schumer, the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat. “That is a long-term issue.”

Then he said

“But the only way that we’re going to get the price down at the pump — you know it and I know it — is by having a long-term plan to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and on the Big Five oil companies,” he said.

He apparently missed the memo from Obama in which Obama promised to substitute foreign oil from the Mideast with foreign oil from Brazil. The he and his colleagues proved that there is nothing so stupid as a democrat politician:

Schumer and four other Senate Democrats spoke Wednesday at an ExxonMobil gas station on Capitol Hill to make the argument that Exxon and the four other biggest oil companies should give up billions of dollars in annual tax incentives. The lawmakers stood in front of a sign promoting prices well over $4 a gallon.

Thus once again perpetuating the lie that oil companies have any control over oil prices. Democrats are either total idiots or complete liars. Take your pick. Then, just to shove their contempt for the American intellect right up your nose, they blathered:

Democrats acknowledge that that bill would not lower gas prices, but they have rejected critics’ arguments that repealing the incentives would hurt production and raise prices. The Democrats point to the companies’ healthy first quarter profits as evidence that they don’t need the help.

Then other democrats added their voices:

CHAIRMAN BAUCUS: Our Bill ‘Is Not Going To Change The Price At The Gasoline Pump’

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): “You know, this is not going to change the price at the gasoline pump. That’s not the issue. I don’t see that as an issue at all. The issue I see is who shares.” (U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Hearing, 5/12/11)

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA): “It will not reduce gasoline prices by one penny.” “I would just like to add my strong voice to urging my colleagues to read this bill, to look at it and understand the inherent unfairness in it, the lack of significant deficit reduction, and the fact that it will not, although it is being touted as, it will not reduce gasoline prices by one penny.” (Sen. Landrieu, Floor Remarks, 5/11/11)

SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-AK): “It won’t decrease prices at the pump.” “There is a lot of talk right now about ending tax incentives for oil and gas industry, but the high profits right now of these companies are easy targets. But one thing Alaskans know, just because you have an easy target doesn’t mean it is the right thing to shoot. It won’t decrease prices at the pump for our families and small businesses. It will discourage companies, especially the independents, from domestic investment and job creation.” (Sen. Begich, Floor Remarks, 5/11/11)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “This was never intended to talk about lowering prices.” (CNN’s “The Situation Room,” 5/11/11)

SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): “Nobody has made the claim that this bill is about reducing gas prices.” (“McCaskill: Savings From Cutting Oil Tax Breaks Should Be For Deficit Reduction,” The Hill’s E2 Wire Blog, 5/10/11)

So let’s recap: democrats are introducing a legislation to reduce the price of oil except that it will do nothing to reduce the price of oil. Specifically, when Schumer said the legislation would “do many things to reduce the price” what he meant was “This was never intended to talk about lowering prices.”

OK, I think I have it now. Democrats are going to deal with high gas prices by doing nothing about high gas prices.

As for those high gas prices, they are exactly what the Obama administration said they wanted. I just don’t know how anyone can respect a democrat.

So the Republican led House passes three bills to expedite and expand drilling for oil:

In a 243-179 vote Thursday, the House passed a measure that would open up areas off the West and East coasts, Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling. The Obama administration pulled back on leasing in some of those spots after the Gulf oil spill last year to further evaluate the environmental consequences. It never considered drilling in the Pacific.

Obama doesn’t like it one bit:

The White House had announced its opposition to all three bills, which are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, saying the measures would undercut safety reviews and open environmentally sensitive areas to new drilling.

But wait a second…is Obama starting to see the light or is he just blowing smoke up everyone’s a**es?

Facing continued public unhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska’s coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska.

Obama said Saturday that the measures “make good sense” and will help reduce U.S. consumption of imported oil in the long term. But he acknowledged anew that they won’t help to immediately bring down gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon in many parts of the country.

Given the fact that all he is doing is extending already existing leases for oil drilling, he’s blowing smoke. None of his “new” idea’s on drilling will add much in the way of capacity, which means speculators will continue to force the rise of oil prices. The problem is not about existing oil production, but expanding our oil production.

His media can now spin this, after this announcement, to make it appear Obama is doing something rather than nothing. Especially after his Senate votes down bills that would actually increase capacity.

Now that’s leadership

Sigh….

Protests in Syria have claimed 120 lives over the last two days.

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces fired on funeral processions that drew tens of thousands Saturday, one day after the bloodiest crackdown so far in the uprising against President Bashar Assad. The shootings pushed the two-day death toll to more than 120 and two lawmakers and a religious leader resigned in disgust over the killings.

Syrian forces fired on funerals as well.

At least 10 people died Saturday after Syrian security forces opened fire on mourners at funeral processions in the Damascus suburb of Douma and the southern town of Izraa, according to witness accounts, adding to a rapidly growing death toll.

Obama has condemned these actions in a sternly worded email:

“The United States has repeatedly encouraged President Assad and the Syrian government to implement meaningful reforms, but they refuse to respect the rights of the Syrian people or be responsive to their aspirations,” Obama said. “President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies.”

Curiously, Obama avoids the use of the word “slaughter.” Or maybe not so curiously. Use of the word slaughter would mean that Obama would have take action to prevent “slaughter” which was the pretense for getting the US mired in Libya. But Libya has something that Syria does not.

Oil.

Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa and the ninth largest oil reserves in the world.

Libya was always about oil, no matter what Obama said otherwise. It’s useful to remember that at the onset of the Libyan conflict we were going to diplomatically support the no-fly zone and not be actively involved.

Obama told Congressional leaders that “he had not authorized troops on the ground or airplanes,” a staffer to one of the Congress members briefed Friday said on condition of anonymity. “He stressed the U.S. is diplomatically supporting the no-fly zone, not the enforcement itself.”

No oil, no Obama.

Six dollar a gallon coming up?

With the greenback coming under increased pressure from Federal Reserve policies and investor appetite for more risk, there seems little direction but up for commodity prices, in particular energy and metals.

Weakness in the US currency feeds upward pressure on commodities, which are priced in dollars and thus come at a discount on the foreign markets.

One result has been a surge higher in gasoline prices to nearly $4 a gallon before the summer driving season even starts, a trend that economists say will be aggravated as demand increases and the summer storm season threatens to disrupt oil supplies.

“All we have to have is a couple badly placed hurricanes which could constrain some of the refinery output capacity in some key locations,” says Richard Hastings, strategist at Global Hunter Securities in Charlotte, N.C. “If you get weakness in the dollar concurrent with the strong driving season concurrent with the impact of one or two hurricanes in the wrong place, prices could go up in a quasi-exponential manner.”

Using a model that combines “subtle rates of change” with movements in the dollar index and commodity prices, Hastings figures the low dollar is responsible for about one-third, or $1.31, of the total gas-at-the-pump cost. Regular unleaded Wednesday was $3.84 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA.

While there’s far from unanimity about the dollar’s future course, the proportionate contribution that currency weakness makes to oil prices is clear.

…Hastings sees gasoline having “no problem” getting to $6.50 a gallon over the summer after increased demand and storm disruptions come into play.

And what is Obama doing about it? Why, he’s forcing oil companies to give up on drilling:

Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.

And making the oil companies out to be the big bad guys:

if you’ve got to drive 50 miles for your job, and you can’t afford the new hybrid, so you got that old beater giving you eight miles a gallon — (laughter) — and your budget is already strained, I mean, that’s tough. But let me tell you something, we’re already making a difference.

We have increased oil production (what?), but more importantly we’ve also said to ourselves how are we going to find the kinds of alternative energy sources, the new energy sources that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil but also clean up the planet in the process. That’s something we need to invest in. (Applause.)

Because of you we used to only have 2 percent of the world’s advanced battery manufacturing in this country, a whole new industry. These are the batteries that go into these new electric cars. In five years, we’re going to have 40 percent of that market. That’s because of you, because you were able to get us in a position to make those decisions. (Applause.)

Because of you we’ve increased fuel-efficiency standards on cars that will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. (Applause.) But we’ve got to do more. And to help pay for it, I don’t know about you but I think it’s time we eliminated the $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies that we’re giving to oil companies. (Applause.)

Now, they are making — keep in mind that the top five oil companies over the last five years, their lowest profits were $75 billion; their highest profits were $125 billion. That’s money coming directly from your pocket into theirs.

But you know what…people don’t care. They don’t care who the President believes are the bad guys, they want the price of gas to go down: (about the 30 second mark)

“Maybe President Obama will step down and let someone else takeover”

I wish lady, I wish.

Instead of allowing oil companies to get our OWN damn oil, he vilifies them and offers up idea’s like this:

Wood chips and algea?

Holy bejesus man….work to get those things made, but let us get our own damn oil NOW! Not next week, next year, or 5 years from now. Right now and watch the prices go down.

No one is saying don’t go looking for alternative sources of energy but we have a HUGE supply of oil and natural gas under our feet so let us use it dammit.

But why should he, especially when the MSM gives him a pass on this whole thing.