Keystone XL

KILGORE, TX
January 29, 2012

The U.S. imports both crude oil and other petroleum products from many countries, but this article focuses only on crude oil imports. The numbers used were average barrels imported per day from Jan 2011 through Sep 2011, because these are the last available statistics, and 2010’s numbers are so similar that they don’t affect the averages significantly. See the numbers here: http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Based on these numbers, the crude imports from the top 15 countries supplying the U.S. account for over 95% of all imports. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman are the only four middle-east countries to make the Top-15 list. Canada alone supplies 16% more crude oil per day than the four middle-east countries combined. Canada and Mexico together account for almost 40% of our crude imports.

After extraction and preparing for export, Canadian oil is very clean, meaning the vast majority of all solids, salts, water, sulfur, coke, and other materials have been removed. This makes it very desirable for refining into finished products, because some of the processing needed to convert the crude into finished products is already done. Cleaner, simpler, smaller refineries can handle the Canadian crude, turning it quickly into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products needed here in the states.

Crude oil from Venezuela and most areas in the middle-east is very heavy, and has less BTU potential than light, sweet oil from places such as North Sea, West Texas, and Canada. The process to refine this heavy oil requires more energy input, and creates more waste product than lighter crudes.

Earlier this month, President Obama sided with the environmentalist when he decided against building a major pipeline that would bring massive quantities of this quality Canadian crude to our major high-volume refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Whatever his reasoning, it can’t be because the proposed path crosses pristine, sensitive areas previously untouched by the industry.

If a person looks at the current U.S. petroleum product pipeline system, they will see major long-haul pipelines already crossing the very same areas as the path for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/united_states_pipelines_map.jpg

The map at the link above shows only the major long-haul main lines. There are thousands of smaller feeder and spur lines also in the same areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_us_ng_pipelines.gif

So, why haven’t we broken ground on the Keystone XL? Because our own government has turned the project into a game of political ping-pong.

Democrats always have both labor and environmentalists on their side, but they’ve sided with the greenies on this one, even though the unions have a solid 4-1 majority over environment. Logic dictates that a politician who sides with both should always pick labor when the two sides disagree. It’s strictly a numbers game.

Republicans have spent way too much time the last three years telling us how the man currently in the White House is the cause for our pain and suffering, even though the problem was already all over us before the election. The Republicans screwed up the economy with bad banking regulations, and are now trying to insure we stay angry about the Democrats not fixing a problem they created.

I suppose it’s too much to expect for the politicians on both sides to take a break from flinging crap at each other to get something done that actually needs doing. There is a real opportunity in front of us to reduce our dependency on crude oil from the middle-east and South America, but only if we can get it from the oil sands of northern Alberta to our high-volume refineries on the Gulf Coast. It’s time for our politicians to quit worrying about what’s in it for them, and do something that will benefit us all.

NCAA Division I Football - The Time Has Come

Jan 15, 2012

Tim Cowlishaw with the Dallas Morning News is not only one of my favorite sports writers, he’s also my favorite on ESPN’s show “Around The Horn.” So how awesome was it when I picked up this morning’s Sunday sports section of the paper and saw Tim’s column on page 1, top dead center. The topic was the same as a good friend’s recent blog that dealt with the poor TV ratings of all the NCAA football bowl games, and the beginnings of the dreaded "playoff" discussion.

Just like my friend Chip, Cowlishaw was happy enough that the NCAA and conference commissioners were at least “discussing possible changes to the postseason model.” Tim said the immediate probable changes would be “baby steps”, which really means the NCAA and commissioners are looking at every conceivable angle of this to make sure they squeeze the absolute last drop of blood out of this and any future deals on playoffs.

I love being the “Ron Paul” on this deal, meaning my message and plan for a Division I playoff haven’t changed since before the old bowl coalition days, before the first day the plan for the BCS was ever announced. The plan insures that we never again end up with one (or more) deserving teams on the outside looking in.

In a nutshell, here it is...

At the end of the regular football season, including any conference championships, use all three major polls – AP, USA Today, BCS – to establish the consensus top 8 Division I football teams in the country regardless of conference. Let the players take final exams and spend some time with family, prohibiting practice and other team-related activities until after December 15^th.

Use the seven bowl games below to go from eight teams to a champion in three rounds of play. Scheduling the three rounds can be set up so that the final game is played between Jan 2-5 every year. The seven games would rotate through the three levels of the playoffs so that each bowl game would spend four years at round 1, two years at round 2, and one year as the championship game.

Sugar Bowl, Superdome, New Orleans, LA
Cotton Bowl, Cowboy Stadium, Arlington, TX
Chick-fil-A Bowl, Georgia Dome, Atlanta, GA
Orange Bowl, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
Meineke Bowl, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX
Fiesta Bowl, U. of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, AZ
Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA

If these seven games don’t suit your sensibilities, build something like it around the big 4 (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange). Just remember to keep all the games in warm weather climates.

Of course, under this system there will be years when people will clamor about who should be 8 versus 9. An argument of who is 8 versus 9 interests me much less than an undefeated number 3 being left out of the mix.

To those who say bowls generate money for schools, that money won’t be there if TV advertisers start pulling ads due to poor ratings. And revenue sharing between all the schools in represented conferences is a must.

To summarize: four are too few, sixteen are too many. Let the discussion begin.

P.S. – To Roger Goodell and the NFL owners...we DO NOT want an 18-game NFL season with a Super Bowl in March. It gets in the way of the last few weeks of the regular NCAA basketball season, which is the second best part. If the NFL also wants a television ratings problem, just get in the way of March Madness.

Just Two Parties?

Thank you Judge Napolitano, the only voice of reason on Fox News

I continue to be amazed by friends, relatives, and people in general regarding the frenzy known as our presidential election. It’s as if people actually believe a new president will make there lives better. For people who claim to love freedom, that sure is a lot of power to give one person over your personal autonomy.

Voting in this country is participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes, because the establishment neither wants or has the consent of the governed.

The two-party system is a mechanism used to limit public opinion. Big issues are more than just two sided, but the two parties want to box us into a corner; one of their corners.

There is no such thing as public opinion, because every thinking person has opinions that are uniquely his or her own. Public opinion is just a manufactured narrative that makes it easier to convince people that if their views are different, then there’s something wrong with that, or something wrong with them.

The whole purpose of the Democratic and Republican parties is not to expand voters’ choices, but to limit them, because those widely perceived differences between the two parties is just an illusion. The heart of government policy remains the same no matter who is in the White House, or what the people want.

Those hugely vaunted differences between Democrat and Republican are just minor disagreements about things that are toward the bottom of most people’s priority list. Both parties just want power, and are willing to have young people fight meaningless wars in order to enhance that power. Both parties continue to fight the war on drugs, just to give bureaucrats and cops bigger budgets and more jobs.

Government policy doesn’t change when government leaders do, because no matter who wins an election, government stays the same. Government is really a revolving door for political hacks bent on exploiting the people once they’re in charge. Both parties support welfare, war, debt, bailouts, and big government.

When a politician asks the question, “Are you better off now than four years ago?”, the most important part of the answer is why. What is the real reason you are better or worse than four years ago? I doubt seriously the government had much, if anything, to do with it.

The rhetoric political candidates display on the campaign trail is dumped after electoral victory. You have to make promises to get elected; you don’t have to keep them.

Barack Obama campaigned as an anti-war, pro civil liberties candidate, but has waged senseless wars while also assaulting our rights that the constitution is supposed to protect. Nothing has changed at Guantanamo Bay, and the trials initiated by George W. Bush were re-started. Obama courted both labor and environmentalists to get elected, but how does he reconcile the two when it comes to big-ticket items like the Keystone XL pipeline project?

George W. Bush campaigned on a platform of non-intervention and small government, and then waged a foreign policy of muscular military intervention, and a domestic policy of vast government borrowing and growth, signing the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law one month before the 2008 presidential election.

Bill Clinton declared that the era of big government was over, but actually just convinced Republicans like Newt Gingrich that they could get what they want out of big government too. Of course, the Republicans went along with it.

George H.W. Bush was swept into office on the good-feeling coat tails of Ronald Reagan. His 80%-plus approval ratings came crashing down when he compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, reneging on his promise not to raise taxes, dropping his approval rating to 40%, and costing him a second term.

Ronald Reagan spent six years running for president, promising to shrink the government, but then the national debt grew from $907 billion to $3.25 trillion dollars during his eight years in office. Notwithstanding his ideas, cheerfulness, and libertarian rhetoric, there really was no “Reagan Revolution" at all.

And now all this is happening again as the empty political rhetoric is being shuffled around and repackaged. But instead of one year out of every four, the campaign for the next one starts the day after inauguration.

Rick Santorum is being embraced by voters who want small government, even though Senator Santorum voted for the Patriotic Act, an expansion of Medicare, and raising the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars.

Mitt Romney is being embraced by voters who want anyone but Barack Obama, but other than skin color, they don’t realize that Mitt Romney might as well be Barack Obama on everything from warfare to welfare.

Ron Paul is being ignored by the media, not because, as they claim, he’s unappealing or unelectable, but because he doesn’t fit into the pre-manufactured public opinion mold used by the establishment to pigeon-hole the electorate, and create the so-called narrative that drives the media coverage of elections.

The biggest difference between most candidates is not substance but style. These stylistic differences are packaged as substantive ones to reinforce the illusion of a difference between Democrats and Republicans. If Mitt Romney wins and continues the same policies Barack Obama promoted, which are merely extensions from George W. Bush, we are left with more of the same.

What if a government that manipulates us, and lacks the true and knowing consent of the governed could be dismissed?

What if it were possible to have a real game changer?

What if we need someone like Ron Paul to preserve and protect our freedoms from the government?

What if we could make elections matter again?