Petroleum: Americans Want It, As Long As It Isn't Messy AND Costs Less Than A Gallon Of Milk

There is a lot of ruckus being raised across America concerning the construction of the Keystone Pipeline.  Many political leaders and American people support it and want it finished YESTERDAY.  Others, both leaders and citizens, want President Obama to stop the construction of this pipeline.  Among the former group are former Presidents Clinton and Bush (II).  Among the latter, former President Carter, as well as several other Nobel Prize recipients, as well as millions of concerned Americans who warn against the dire consequences of the spills and other accidents associated with this high-pressure pipeline, not to mention the ecological damage, and the infringement on private property this project would entail.  It looks like President Obama, a Nobel recipient himself (although for what accomplishment exactly, we were not told, nor had he accomplished anything that I can list here, at the time of his award), will be the "tie-breaker" in this impasse.

But back to our (America's) need for and desire for CHEAP petroleum with NO MESS involved.  Since we do not want pipelines built, that only leaves trains for shipping the huge quantities of oil from collection points across the nation.  This fact, coupled with the several oil "Booms" happening in several states right now, means that more petroleum WILL BE shipped by train.  There is no other mode of transportation that would be practical for this much crude oil.  We have all seen or heard the news reports of the major train derailments that have occurred across the nation, with perhaps the most spectacular being the train wreck in Alabama this November past, where several rail cars exploded.  The entire load on that particular train was over 2.7 million gallons of crude oil.

No reasonable person wants this kind of thing to happen, especially right in his own back yard, or in the center of a town or city.  For instance, the main railway for West Texas comes right through the center of Midland, Texas and skirts the city of Odessa, Texas.  In the one case, a derailed and exploding train would endanger several thousand people working downtown.  In the other, the derailment and explosion would occur in very close proximity to several plants producing various chemicals and oil products.  The same is true for Big Spring, Sweetwater, and Abilene, not to mention all the small towns that are bisected by the railroad as it stretches across Texas from the coast to the western border.  In the right circumstances, a crude oil explosion after a train derailment could cause a blast of similar magnitude as the terrible explosion last year in West, Texas.  No we don't want this sort of thing to happen, but we do want our oil...CHEAP.

Shipping oil by rail is not nearly so cheap as transporting oil thousands of miles through pipelines.  And we want cheap oil.  Right now, here in the lovely Midland desert, fuel prices are hovering at $3.42 per gallon.  I am one of those people who want to pay hardly anything for a gallon of gas.  When I first started pumping gas as a teen, fuel was much less than a dollar a gallon.  But with the oil embargo of the late seventies, oil hit record prices.  I remember being somewhat afraid that people would refuse to pay for fuel when it hit ONE DOLLAR per gallon.  My friends, I have to tell you I knew NOTHING then!  Gas crept up to one dollar, then OVER one dollar, and just kept going.  But guess what...people just kept coming to Mr. Hix's gas station and bought gas, the same as usual.  Oh, but with a lot of griping, too.  Flash to today, and fuel is well over three dollars per gallon, and probably will never hit under three again.  We can always HOPE!

I would like to point out something about the price of a gallon of gasoline, just one of the hundreds of products made from crude oil.  Did you know that a gallon of milk costs MORE than a gallon of gas!  That is right.  It is difficult to find milk for less than $3.50 per gallon at the moment.  I bet the dairymen are wishing THEY were making three dollars per gallon for their wholesale milk!  What about beer?  The average price for a twelve pack of twelve ounce cans of beer is around twelve dollars, meaning that a gallon of beer costs well over TEN dollars.  Yet, you don't hear many people yelling at the poor Stripe's cashier about the price of beer.  Even a twelve pack of Dr Pepper costs nearly five dollars.  There is just something about the high price of gasoline that makes us yell!  But really, I have often wondered how a gallon of gasoline could possibly cost only three dollars and some change. 

If you think about all the expense involved in producing a single gallon of gasoline, it is truly a wonder that we can buy one gallon for less than ten dollars!  For instance, untold hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent before a single barrel of crude is even brought to the surface.  Then crude must be transported, costing more thousands of dollars.  Then crude must be refined, costing millions of dollars.  And since not all crude oil is refined into gasoline, a gallon of gasoline is that much scarcer, therefore that much more expensive.  Luckily, since gasoline is refined by the millions of gallons, we as users are able to pay only a fraction of what it actually costs to produce one gallon of fuel.  Not only that, but for years we here in the United States have paid much less than people in Europe and Asia have had to pay for their fuel.  I know there are several reasons we pay less here in America for fuel than many other places, but the primary reason is that the United States has such an extensive pipeline network.  Like it or not, the pipeline is still cheaper than all the trains needed to replace it, or, in our current situation, to supplement it.  And, like it or not, our fuel will only remain relatively cheap IF we are willing to allow pipelines to be built.

Americans (including ME) have not shown an inclination to significantly reduce their use of gasoline by any of the conventional alternatives that are available.  For instance, I own a Chevrolet Tahoe that I drive almost daily to work and back.  If I do not use the Tahoe, I drive a Jeep Wrangler.  Neither vehicle is very fuel efficient, in terms of getting over 25 miles per gallon.  Yet I have not chosen to part with either vehicle, even though I could sell both vehicles and use the cash to purchase a fuel efficient vehicle.  I am not alone in this attitude, either.  Vehicle sales statistics indicate that the most popular "car" of the past decade was a certain pickup truck.  Another thing I have not done is moved closer to my job.  At the time I bought my current residence, there were several homes and apartments available that were within walking distance of my place of work.  And millions of people live suburbs or rural areas, sometimes two or three hours away from their jobs.  Why do they choose to do this?  Because fuel is still cheap, making the expense of commuting justifiable.

I honestly do not support the building of yet another pipeline, but neither can I think of a viable alternative, at least one that the American people would be willing to adopt.  It is worth noting that the Keystone Pipeline will not transport crude oil in the conventional fashion, but will instead use a slurry of crude mixed with sand.  This will enable to transportation of oil at a much higher pressure, which means a much faster speed.  The down side of this is that ruptures and explosions will be inevitable.  Then there is the forcible purchase (eminent domain) of right of way, meaning the loss of thousands of acres of agricultural land as well as homeland for some people, since there can be no planting or excavation over the pipeline.  The ecology will inevitably suffer from transportation accidents and incidents.  Unfortunately, the alternative is the use of the railway to move this same crude oil.  I believe the shipment of crude by rail is even more dangerous, and it is certainly more expensive.  But we want our cheap oil, and we do not want the mess that goes with it.  And it better never cost more than a gallon of milk!



 

Big Brother's Drone? No, Google's, AND Facebook's

The big news is that more drones will be flying over you next year.  The bigger news is that Google, not Big Brother, will be flying these drones.  More accurately, Google will own the drones, but we are not really sure who will be flying them.  Why does Google need unmanned, remote-controlled drones?  The same reason Big Brother does: To take pictures of me and you, your property, your city, your state, and so on.  Yes, Google will be in the drone business, adding their drones to the crowded skies and the unknown safety hazards these drones pose to commercial air safety (i.e. yours and mine!).

I suppose Google will save millions of dollars over the years by using drones instead of automobile-based technicians to map the world.  No doubt drone-generated maps will be much more accurate because there will be no guess work about closed roads, inaccessible property, or remote geographical features.  There is one more NEW thing that drones will allow Google to do: Take pictures of you and me in "real time."  Here is where the Google drone program begins to rub me a little...wrong.  You see, Google has been known to cooperate with "the authorities" in the past, revealing personal information when requested.  I have no strong belief that Google will not do the same with its drones.  After all, "the authorities" could make life difficult for Google.

Let me say here that, assuming safety issues were ironed out, I believe Google's use of drones to map the world is in itself a legitimate and harmless idea.  My problem with this coming trend is that Google leadership has already made it know that they will be using the drones to photograph (and record?) people in real time.  One thing Google suggests drones will be useful for is assisting in locating people during disasters.  Another use for drones would be as "atmospheric satellites" to spread the Internet to regions of the world where it is not practical to build land-based Internet facilities.  Again, harmless uses for new technology.

But there is still the gnawing feeling in my gut that Google drones are just another "brick in the wall" as Pink Floyd said many years ago.  If Google builds a network of flying drones, it is not a stretch of the imagination to envision the benign government of ours one day ordering Google to allow federal agencies to use the Google fleet.  Or, in another vein of thought, it is not a huge stretch to see Google offering for sale sensitive information inadvertently gained by drones as they video the earth below.  Perhaps, to forestall government intervention, Google might even voluntarily hand over to the government such information.

Google is not the only "social media" eager to acquire drones.  Facebook is in the process of buying a drone company in Great Britain.  Facebook has some of the same goals in mind as Google.  For instance, Facebook is racing with Google to bring the Internet to remote locations, thus garnering a share of the market that would have gone to Google.  Again, what Facebook is proposing is a legitimate use of drones, but like Google, it is a short step for Facebook to go from legitimate use to clandestine use of drones.

I am all for the use of drones in certain limited and appropriate situations, but it is clear that by 2015 the skies will be filled with drones of all shapes and sizes, and belonging to government agencies and private enterprises.  Air traffic controllers have a difficult time with the crowded skies today.  I am not convinced that they can safely watch all the airplanes AND all the drones ALL THE TIME.  The drone operators themselves will have a great responsibility in keeping their drones on flight plan and away from airplanes operating in close proximity to the drones.  But, between the increased hazards in the skies, and the increased use of drones to track you and me, I am not sure that I like "private drones" flying around anymore than those operated by Big Brother.  To you that may have decided to sit on your property and wait for drones to fly by so you can shoot them down, just remember, you may be damaging Google's property instead of Big Brother's.

Mandatory School For Texas Four-Year Olds, or, Ms. Davis For Governor

It troubles me that the Democratic candidate for Texas governor is campaigning for "universal pre-K" for all Texas children.  Her definition of "universal pre-K" is forcing all four-year-olds to attend school in full, day-long sessions.  Ms. Davis, the candidate in question, made this announcement at the convention of the Texas State Teacher's Association, and apparently to a standing ovation!

Ms. Davis further explains that even though this program would cost at least $750 million per year, failure to do so would cause many school students to fail later on during their school career.  So, apparently if we are not sending toddlers and young children to "pre-K" this somehow dooms them to failure to graduate from high school?  Of course Ms. Davis does not mention from where these hundreds of millions of dollars will magically appear each year.  The answer is that the current tax system in Texas CANNOT support such a program; however, this little detail is not that much of a concern to Ms. Davis.  She only last week had a personal audience with President Obama, who is not a role model for staying in budget.

There is something, though, that concerns me more than the cost of a "universal pre-K program," and that is the idea of "the State" forcing parents to turn over their young children to the school system before these children have even had a childhood.  I realize many parents may have to send their children to daycare while they work, but even if this is the case, the children have a day split between fun-style learning and ... playing.  If parents want their very young children to have educational toys and play educational games all day, or if they want their children to simply enjoy a couple of years as care-free children, that is the parents' choice.  Children are not property of the state, either legally or de facto.  Ms. Davis and others like her will probably not be satisfied until there is a "teacher" assigned to the birthing team at all Texas hospitals.

Ms. Davis does not want the education these young children receive to be just a "daycare-type" education, my friends; she has very candidly admitted that her brand of education for your four-year-old will include a TAKS-like end-of-the-year test.  She did not say whether kids who did poorly on the test would be held in pre-K (for four-year-olds) another year.  So, one thing you must consider when voting for the next governor of Texas is, do you want mandatory schooling for young children.  If you are one who votes for Democrats no matter what, you must understand that you are voting for Ms. Davis's proposition if you support her for governor. 

I do not believe children so young should be in a graded school system, nor should they be in a day-long school program, period.  We truly live in a busy society these days, and most households these days are two-income households.  But our children did not force us into busy work lives or two-job marriages.  Neither should they be robbed of their childhoods by early school programs.  Certainly "the State" should not become our children's parents.  If you want your children, and all the children of Texas, to be allowed their childhood, please consider either voting for someone else, or demanding that Ms. Davis drop this plank from her campaign platform.



 

Taylor and Hall Plead Guilty - No Jail Time For Destroying Rock Formation

In the middle of March, just past, two former Boy Scout leaders, Glenn Taylor and David Hall both pled guilty to felony criminal mischief charges, thus avoiding jail time.  I thought the deal was a little lax, since the men are only on probation for one year.  But they will be making restitution, only so far no one has decided what that restitution will be.  You see, Taylor and Hall destroyed a natural rock formation in Utah's Goblin Valley State Park while they were leading a troop of boy scouts on a nature hike.  This formation, a balanced boulder, was believed to be over 170 million years old.  So how much money could these men pay that would make up for the damage they caused?  As I said before, the formation was priceless, and any amount these men could reasonably be forced to pay would not replace the treasure that was lost.

Both men were immediately booted out of Boy Scouts for violating the Scouts' "no traces" policy.  The men not only violated one of the most fundamental rules of scouting, but did so while "leading" some young scouts.  I hope that the scouts learned the lesson of not destroying the environment rather than the lesson of how "fun" it can be to have the power to knock down a balanced rock.  But then one of these great scout leaders, Mr. Hall tried to justify this action, amid WORLDWIDE outrage, by creating the lame excuse that they were trying to save lives.  Really???  His own words:

Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die, and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way, so it’s all about saving lives here in Goblin Valley.

It's all about saving lives here in Goblin Valley, is it, Mr. Hall?  Lame...lame.  Like I said above, I am not sure that one year of probation is severe enough, and no amount of money these men could afford to pay would restore the formation.  We humans tend to say anything we can when we are the focus of outrage and of possible criminal prosecution, but Mr. Hall's feeble claim that Mr. Taylor was acting only to save a life was as ludicrous as Mr. Taylor's action in destroying the formation was outrageous.  Again, I hope the Boy Scouts who witnessed this most outrageous act learned to follow their scouting credos rather than follow the example set by these two men.

Whether the penalty was severe enough or not aside, I appreciate very much that the State of Utah went forward with the prosecution.  I hope very strongly that the relatively light sentence will still serve as a deterrent for future would-be "nature vandals."  Wouldn't it be nice if vandals just broke their own stuff rather than ruining things that belong to others, especially a natural treasure like that balanced rock, that belonged to all the people?

Our Heroes At Ft. Hood - Forced Into Combat, Unarmed!

Once again a multiple-shooting has shattered the lives of our heroes and their families at Ft. Hood, and once again, the shooter was one of their own.  I join with thousands of people across the nation in sympathy for our soldiers and their families.  Although I keep repeating to myself the question, how can this happen again?, the answer is the same as always: We are human, and humans are capable of both compassion and senseless violence.  Beyond that, however, I have no answer.  But I do have a question: Why, after the tragedy of the first shooting at Ft. Hood in 2009, then the most recent shootings at the naval base outside Washington D.C., are increased security measures NOT in place?  President Obama assures us that "we will get to the bottom of this!"  OK, but why did we not "get to the bottom of this" after the 2009 tragedy?  Weren't you the Commander In Chief THEN, as well, Mr. Obama?  Have you let five years elapse without "getting to the bottom" of the Ft. Hood shooting?  Have none of your "czars" come up with any ideas?  What about the top brass of the armed forces?  Have they not gotten to the "bottom" of things, either, five years later?

I do not know everything, as I proven time and again, but I can spot an absurdity when I see one.  It is positively absurd that no one at the largest armed forces facility in the world (save a handful of military police) are armed.  Like I said, I do not know everything, but...I think I would have learned from the 2009 tragedy that more people on post (after all there are literally THOUSANDS of trained soldiers at Fort Hood) need to be armed.  Yes I know there are military police, but like civilian police, they are not always at the right place when they are needed.  Fort Hood is a facility that spreads out for hundreds of square miles in central Texas.  The base consists of hundreds of buildings, physical plants, training fields, and other facilities.  The military police cannot possibly watch the entire base all the time.  I wonder why, in light of the 2009 tragedy, that Army leadership or the great Commander In Chief HIMSELF did not develop a plan to arm selected personnel at each separate facility or location?  I know they have enough weapons there to accomplish this!  Personnel are armed when they "pull" guard duty in hostile environments abroad; why not do the same thing at bases on American soil? After all, Major Nidal Hasan demonstrated in 2009 that Ft. Hood could be a hostile environment.

Ironically (or stupidly), the Army responded to the Hasan shooting by FURTHER RESTRICTING weapons on Fort Hood property.  Government issued weapons are under lock and key, and soldiers are not permitted to have personal weapons on base or to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms while on base.  As usual, this restriction assures that conscientious and law-abiding service men and women are unarmed at the time they most need their weapons: when confronted by nuts and terrorists, and the police are five minutes or more away!  Again, how absurd, when they are sitting on the largest weapons cache in the United States!  But we cannot trust soldiers to have guns other than in combat, you say?  Well, we cannot sit back and watch while people bent on killing are able to come onto military bases bearing firearms while our trained soldiers are left defenseless.  I say that we (our government and military leaders) DID force our soldiers into combat situations UNARMED, in both Fort Hood shootings and the Navy Yard shootings as well, by allowing only the police to have weapons.

So, in the wake of the latest military base multiple-shooting, I praise our heroes, both the dead and the survivors, and I join in the national wave of sympathy for their families and friends, and their colleagues.  And I call on our leaders to arm some of the soldiers at each facility.  I am not calling for ALL soldiers to be armed, but certainly a number could be armed on a day by day basis.  When a soldier is serving as the armed guard, he should have no other duties, whether his regular duties or police-type duties; his or her sole function should be to guard the safety of the personnel as they are at work.  I think this is a workable plan.  Unfortunately I do not believe this will be the last shooting on a military base.  Why not learn from this experience, finally, and let our soldiers protect themselves?  Let's stop forcing them to go into combat unarmed.



 

Winning The Lottery, or Hi, Old Friend!!!

A few days ago many of us learned that a friend and former schoolmate (oh, did I add REALLY DEAR FRIEND!!! wink wink) had the good fortune to win big in the lottery.  I am happy for my dear (REALLY DEAR, DEAR, wink wink) friend and her husband for their good fortune.  All kidding aside, it was wonderful news and no doubt welcome news for D and K.  (No other ID will be used in this blog for the purposes of safety.)  But I have to ask, how many of you ran out and bought a bunch of lottery tickets, either scratch-off games or the lotto-type games?  Come on, get those hands UP!

Well, I bought a couple of lottery tickets myself this week, so far though, not breaking even.  But I wanted to check on the lottery, or rather the ODDS of winning big.  As for the scratch off games, the chances of winning big are slim and vary game by game, but in all these games scratching of a dollar winner is fairly easy to do.  It turns out that the odds of winning the original Texas Lotto game are about 1:25,000,000.  Even the odds of matching only FIVE of six numbers are about 1:18,000.  I confess to playing Texas Lotto almost every week, never mind that I have donated MUCH MORE to the State of Texas than I have won.  Since 1992, I have won less that $150.  It is safe to say that I have spent at least $1,000 in my efforts to capture the big one.  Well, I can always hope!  And, as they (the Lottery Commission) are fond of saying, "you can't win if you don't play!"  What can I say?  Though I have never won, "hope springs ETERNAL!!"

It is a given that winning the lottery, no matter which game you may choose, is almost against all odds.  The odds of getting struck by lightning in the United States in any one year is 1:700,000.  That is pretty comforting for me, because I like to watch the wild thunderstorms of West Texas.  But wait, here is one more number, one that puts a damper on the weather-watching.  While the chance of getting struck by lightning in any one year is astronomical, the chance of getting struck by lightning ONCE in your lifetime is only 1:3,000.  So, be careful going to buy a lottery ticket during a thunderstorm!  One in three thousand...if you think about that, in a town of, say, twenty-four thousand people there could be at least eight people who have been struck by lightning (assuming of course that none of these strikes were fatal).

Having not been struck by lightning yet, I continue to play the lottery.  One of the games I like to play now is the Powerball game.  The jackpot for this game WITHOUT hitting on the powerball is $100,000 and the odds of winning are about 1:5,100,000.  But, if the one playing the game also picks the winning "power ball," the jackpot can be in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.  You want to hear the odds of hitting on all five numbers AND the powerball?  Those odds are listed at 1:175,223,510.  In other words, you are more likely to get struck by lightning while a shark bites you as you are water skiing around the Great Barrier Reef than you are to win Powerball.  Yet, the odds are that each time Powerball is played, somewhere in the United States (or Canada) at least one person WILL win the big one!  And as they say, "you can't win if you don't play."  I will continue to play, and more than likely, I will simply support the State of Texas.  But it will be fun trying to beat the odds, just like my (DEAR, DEAR, DEAR wink wink) friend did last week.  Congratulations to my friend, and happy gambling to the rest of us!

Last Watch: Officer Marc Kelley, Trinity University Police (San Antonio) - March 12, 2014

Officer Marc Kelley is the first Texas Peace Officer to die in the line of duty this year.  Officer Kelley was responding to a fire alarm on the Trinity University Campus.  As he walked through the building where the fire alarm was located, Officer Kelley began having severe difficulties breathing.  His radio was equipped with an officer emergency alarm, which the officer was able to activate before losing consciousness.  Other police officers and fire fighters and arrived and rendered CPR; however, Officer Kelley never regained consciousness.

Officer Marc Kelley was only forty-one years old, young to have suffered a heart attack.  Unfortunately many police officers over the years have suffered heart attacks while performing their duties, sometimes not knowing they had heart problems prior to the fatal heart attack.  Officers in their twenties have suffered heart attacks while in police academies, in similar circumstances as when young athletes have collapsed during sports practice or just after.  Officers who die due to illness while performing their duties should be, and hopefully are, honored in the same degree as officers killed by criminals or in police pursuits.  These officers, though they died in less dramatic circumstances, still made the ultimate sacrifice, and still have a place of honor in that Thin Blue Line over yonder, that is ever growing, as these officers join their fallen but now risen colleagues on a Brighter Shore.

I am proud to honor Officer Kelley in this small blog, and thank him for his sacrifice.  I offer my sympathy to his mother, brother, and niece, as well as to his fellow officers who have lost a partner and friend.  Rest in peace, Officer Kelley.