Governmental Gobbledy Gook

TPM's morning banner reads, in part,  "GOP's Pipeline Ploy".

It is referencing the comically eponymous  Keystone Kops game of Russian roulette, played with our environment instead of with someone's  little balls or bullets. 

"Ploy" is a good word to employ when attaching a description to this congress's method of operating.

I have to admit that I understand very little of this whole scheme to make money and, purportedly, make jobs by piping stuff from one country through our country to another country to be sold to still another country. It sounds like a lot of rigamarole and maybe Occam's razor can apply here in that the simplest answer is usually the right one. In this instance: greed.

Maybe you can read Brian Beutler's story - Why the Pipeline Ploy May End up Killing Keystone - http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/the-gops-costly-keystone-conundrum.php - and keep your eyes from crossing. I couldn't. It is a report that appears to recount in exquisite detail the inanities of governmental bureaucracy.

Beyond being an obvious trap set to snare President Obama, it is the nightmarishly convoluted  stuff bureaucrats live for.  I have come to the conclusion that most legislation is written to hornswoggle the electorate into believing only people with "Representative" or "Senator" in front of their names can sort out this crap.

Hell....why not? They've created it.

But I am also of the opinion that Andrew Sullivan is right in determining that the Republicans may be dumber than even they know.Successful and unsuccessful attempts to back President Obama into corners may be the end of their game since their tactics are starting to look like they were designed by Wily Coyote.

I'm no expert on economics, and I have only the slightest concept of the mechanics of actual governing, but I do have a fair amount of common sense. And this sense tells me that building a pipeline to transport tons of filthy, oily, black shale across 1,700 miles of the United States, using as much uninhabited land as possible, is a recipe for disasters of so many descriptions as to defy imagination.

I suspect the terrorists have already started to map possible routes and are noting a variety of vantage points from which they could puncture the damned thing. And, of course, you can't ignore Murphy's Law.

This is a scheme conceived in the backrooms of hell and I hope the Republicans' heavy hands have aborted it. A nice kind of symmetry.

-30-

Frickless Frack Skating on Thin Ice

The much anticipated divine event of having your naked ass hauled up to heaven, as foretold by Harold Camping, seems to have fizzled - twice.

But....let us not forget that the supposed prophecy of an Apocalypse by the Mayan soothsayers is scheduled for 2012. We are almost there.

After listening to Brian Williams' new show last night which featured an implied go-west-poor-man urging to get jobs galore in North Dakota where fracking is one of the newest insults to the planet, I am beginning to attribute some veracity to the belief that we are nearing the end.

Surely everyone knows now what fracking is. Driving some force...air, water, gas - all under pressure - deep into the ground (in this case, two miles down)... to dislodge and liquify all the oil-containing shale going to waste as just part of the earth's composition, structured over eons.

I believe the billionaire oilman, who is  overseeing and perhaps financing the "project," said 60 billion barrels of oil await our eager gas tanks, plastic dishware factories and divers other industries panting to convert this liquid gold  into stuff that poisons our air and our water, but helps to see we are never inconvenienced in any way.

The availability of jobs, even in North Dakota, sounds good - very  good, since they said they were looking, among other things, for 500 truck drivers, a job most men and women can do.

But "very good news" can sometimes mean unintended consequences are part of the package.

North Dakota is a whoop and a holler from Wyoming. It is, in fact, essentially juxtaposed to Yellowstone Park,  home of Old Faithful - the geyser known worldwide for its uncanny predictability and to its attachment to even greater forces that lie unseen beneath the surface. Probably two miles beneath the surface.

Yellowstone Park is a disaster waiting to happen. Don't believe me. Check it out here:

http://survival.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/2011/03/yellowstone-caldera-disaster-waiting-happen

Additionally, I found an ominous-sounding observation from someone posting on thedailykitten.com describing a 1959 earthquake in Yellowstone, felt in North Dakota:

"The one and only earthquake I ever felt was the Yellowstone Earthquake in 1959. And I was north of Dickinson, North Dakota, reading in bed at the time. At first I thought something was underneath the bed so I looked. Nope, no ogre there.

"Then I thought the heifers must have gotten out and were rubbing against the house. Looked out the window, no cows. Earthquake never occurred to me. Was totally mystified until the next morning when we heard the news on the radio. My parents and brother slept through it, and didn't believe me until we heard the news!"

Read it and worry. And remember, all you frackers, it's not safe to piss off Mother Nature.

-30-

Your Pain is My Pain

My AOL desktop  banner has an icon of little greenbacks which, when you click on it, will  tell you where the stockmarket is at any given moment. I've programmed into it the two oil companies whose stock I inherited when my husband died four years ago and I check it frequently.

Exxon at this minute is at $87.98 a share and Chevron is at $109.44. Historically, the stocks split when they stay up near $100 a share. The dividends from these two oil giants make up a good part of my income. I'd like them to split. I'd like them to raise their dividends.

And I loathe them.

Especially Exxon, which is leading the way to fracking this country to rack and ruin.

Since beginning this journal, I have identified myself as a flaming liberal and an outspoken critic of religion. Beyond that, I am a tree hugger and, if I had the energy, I would gladly travel the world throwing red paint on anyone wearing fur, killing whales and seals, or abusing animals.

With this record, you can see my dilemma. I should be a flower child, independent of reality. Instead, I need to be pragmatic and consider that dependent on me are 100 llamas, 20 goats, five cats, two horses and a very big dog.

I know Warren Buffett is deviled every day by little old ladies wanting financial advice, so I am not hopeful of hearing from him.

However, if there is anyone out there a little more accessible, and as successful as he is, I sure would like to know how I can dump these damnable companies and find a  similarly sound and secure investment that does not make me feel I should commit seppuku.