And the new fuel of the future is................................................................

DIESEL !!!

With all the hype and hoopla that corn based ethanol is getting, I'm surprised that no one is taking a serious look at diesel powered vehicles as a way to reduce our energy usage. If American's want better milage they have to take a serious look at diesel. Another advantage is that the technology is already there for diesel and high milage, high performance diesels are already highly used in Europe. Another advantage is that diesel emits 20% less carbon dioxide than gasoline powered engines.

Does this mean that I don't like hybrids? Not at all. I can see no reason that the current hybrid technology could not be used with high milage diesels. Could you imagine the milage that this car could get with hybrid technology also. Another advantage is that if you can't find any petroleum based diesel at the pump, you can always use vegetable oil.a> A larger scale solution would be to build algae ponds locally and wean ourselves off of petroleum for transportation fuel.

Pelosi, Another Coward

In a classic example in why I think the Democrats are almost as worthless as the Republicans, Nancy Pelosi has said that if the Democrats win a majority in the House, she would not move to impeach Bush according to this article.

This is typical of the Democrats playing not to lose style of politics that has worked so well for them since 1994. With Bush getting approval from a whopping 29% of the people and abuses running rampant, Pelosi takes impeachment off the table. Of course, if the Democrats win a majority and Bush continues to tank, they could very well exhibit that other Democratic trait and flip-flop.

None of this matters to the Republicans. While Rove is facing imminent indictment in the Valerie Plame case, he has already set-up a campaign strategy that will try to scare the Republican base in turning out by saying impeachment will be a Democrat priority. Democratic stupidity will probably lead to Republican control of Congress when the dust settles. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans do generally have a message and a plan. Of course, the bad thing about the Republican's plan is that it generally involves enriching the elite at the expense of everyone else and using war as the only diplomatic tool at their disposal.

Pig Roast!

Unofficial reports are surfacing that Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald has indicted Karl Rove. A report from Truthout.org indicates that Mr. Fitzgerald met with Rove's attorneys for several hours on Friday to inform them that Rove will be facing charges and to get his affairs in order.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media is reporting that Dick Cheney is getting close scrutiny of notes he wrote on the Joseph Wilson's article that lead to the outing of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Newsweek notes "It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for Cheney's own notes to be made public. The notes—apparently obtained as a result of a grand jury subpoena—would appear to make Cheney an even more central witness than had been previously thought in the criminal probe." Could this mean that the Dark Lord himself is in Fitzgerald's crosshairs?

Here is the latest court filing.

Bush Cracks the 20's!

According to the latest Harris poll, Bush's approval rating has fallen to 29%. It looks like even the wingnuts are getting tired of this moron!

Letter From Dinnerjacket:

Earlier this week, our fearless leader received a letter from Iranian leader Ahmadinejad (or Imadinnerjacket or Dinnerjacket since that seems to be his prevailing fashion statement). True to form, Bush hid behind the skirt of Condi Rice and rejected the letter out of hand.

I am no fan of Dinnerjacket. He strikes me as someone who is a few sandwiches short of a picnic (not unlike our leader in that regard) if you catch my drift. However, Bush said that he wants to give diplomacy a real chance to resolve the standoff over Iran's nuclear program. Diplomacy, by its very nature, involves talking to the other side. We are in a standoff with Iran in a situation that could potentially involve nuclear weapons and we have no direct lines of communications with Tehran. We have troops across the border in Iraq and Afghanistan and most likely have special forces and intelligence units operating inside Iran itself. The potential for a lost platoon from either side sparking a shooting war is unreal.

Out of this mess, Dinnerjacket sends Bush this letter. While Dinnerjacket did not directly spell out a solution to the current standoff, he did attempt to communicate to Bush where he was coming from. While this letter forms no basis for a solution, it could have formed the basis for at least some sort of dialogue between the two leaders.

Let's face it, due to Bush's stupid invasion of Iraq and the failure to build up our ground forces to adequately handle their current mission, let alone a new threat, we are left with only naval and air forces to resolve this matter militarily. Of course, about 25 years ago, someone names Saddam started a war with Iran with limited objectives. Eight years later and a million dead on both sides, the war ended in a stalemate with chemical and biological weapons used against the Iranians. This is what made Sy Herch's article in the New Yorker in which a nuclear first strike is being considered seems so real and scary. Even a best case scenario in which an airstrike with conventional weapons is successful and we manage to keep them from making Iraq worse will result in oil going over $120/barrel for a brief time, causing a global recession. There is a very good chance the Iranians could block the Straits of Hormuz for a time, taking all the Persian Gulf oil off the market and causing a spike to $200/barrel (and people wonder why I invested in the Canadian oil sands two years ago and gold about 8 months ago). Of course, Iraq will probably explode and we will not have the troop strength needed to secure Iran and Iraq.

A few posts ago I said that W couldn't carry Dick Nixon's jock strap. When Nixon was in a jam in Viet Nam, he went to Moscow and Beijing. China was the Iran of that era. When war broke out in the Middle East, Nixon sent Kissinger to negotiate territorial concessions and separation of force agreements between the Israelis, Egyptians and Syrians that ultimately lead to the Camp David accords. Where have you gone Richard Nixon? It is a national tragedy that in times like these, our fate is in the hand of such incompetent lightweights such as Bush, Cheney and Rice. All they care about is keeping their Neocon wet dream alive. May God help us all!

A Little Fed Humor

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sings every breath you take .

Three Cheers for Congressman Bartlett:

The Maryland Republican gets it!

If you click on the link, Mr. Bartlett refers to an Army study on global energy resources. This study can be found

Peak Oil- Let the Games Begin

Gasoline here in Visalia is now about $3.20/gal for unleaded regular at the cheapest station in town. While I am surprised that it spiked this time of year when demand for heating, cooling, and driving is at the usual seasonal lows, I knew it would get here sometime and I know that, while there may be a pullback below $3/gallon, the trend is that oil and gasoline will be getting ever more expensive.

Democrats are blaming the "greedy oil companies" for the high prices. Republicans in turn are blaming the evironmentalists. The true culprit is geology. There is a finite amount of oil that can be discovered, drilled and brought to market. If there had been no environmental movement, the amount of oil that could be found in Alaska and off of both coasts that are currently off limits would maybe delay our day of reckoning a few years. While I believe that the major oil companies are run by a bunch of greedy bastards (that milked the recent switchover from MTBE to ethanol to drive up pump prices on the margins), their greed probably only accounts for an extra 20-30 cents per gallon at the pump.

World oil production the past couple years has held at around 85 million barrels/day . Matthew Simmons, who wrote President Bush's energy platform during the 2000 presidential election has been spanning the globe telling the peak oil story . Meanwhile, in Kuwait, the world's second largest oil field is running out of oil .

So why isn't the word getting out? Why are all the major oil executives telling everyone that the high prices are an "aberration"? I feel that their reasons are 1) to avoid for as long as possible a windfall profits or other tax and 2) they are trying to play down the value of oil as a negotiating strategy with foreign governments in submitting lowball offers to tap their oil fields. Meanwhile, all the majors are experiencing declining reserves and have much of their assets in unstable parts of the world. To compound their stupidity, the majors have sold off many of their mature assets in the US and Canada and, in comparison to Syncrude, Suncor, PetroCanada and Canadian Natural Resources, only bit players in the Alberta oilsands. If I were to invest fresh money in energy, the last company I would want to own is Exxon Mobil. There are many better ones out there (go north to Canada young man, I just dropped a few good names).

Wall Street and the financial community have done a particularly horrible job of covering the peak oil story. Not a day goes by on CNBC that they don't trot out some moron like Tim Evans to tell us that there is a "wall of crude" coming and that prices will drop. Funny thing, these idiots told us a couple years ago when oil was $35/barrel that oil will drop to $20/barrel. Now they are hoping and praying for a dip below $60. How these ANALysts keep a job managing money while being dead wrong is a mystery to me.

Finally, where is our political leadership? Matt Simmons worked on Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Surely Bush must have a clue. Dick Cheney was the CEO of one of the world's largest oil service companies. Is there a little bit of light in his dark heart? This is one administration that should have had the knowledge well ahead of everyone else and failed to lead on this issue. Their solution was to invade Iraq. With a little bit of leadership (I know I'm talking about Bush here but bear with me) from an adminstration with such insider knowledge, we could be on the way to developing alternatives while spending a fraction of what we are in Iraq. Congress gets equally low marks. Roscoe Bartlett, a Repubican Congressman from Maryland has been a lone voice in that wilderness. He has been joined by New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall. When will the other 533 Representatives and Senators pull their heads out of their asses? Probably only when it is too late.

This is my first post on energy. I can promise you that it will not be my last.

Political Free Agent:

During the summer of 1974, after the resignation of Richard Nixon but just before my 18th birthday, I registered to vote for the first time. At that time, I was proud to register as a Democrat (the fact that it pissed off my Republican father was an extra benefit). During that time, through the screw-ups of Jimmy Carter, going through the Reagan-Bush I drought, and 8 years of Clinton peace and prosperity, I never gave my choice of political parties a second thought. I was pro-choice, pro-environment, and for the working man.

Over time, I did grow more conservative but so did the country and the Democratic Party. I think it is safe to say that Bill Clinton never once considered imposing wage and price controls like the Republican Richard Nixon did. I was happy to see the budget balanced for once in my lifetime and efforts underway to make welfare not a free lifetime check from the government.

That said, if the two major parties would have remained static these 30 some odd years, there is a very good chance that today I would have identified with the party of Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller, rather than the party of George McGovern, Jerry Brown, and Teddy Kennedy. However, there is no chance in hell I would ever identify with the Republicans current motley coalition of Neocon imperialists, supply side spendthrifts, and the whacked out Jesus freaks that have their own Taliban like agenda. The country is currently going to hell in a handbasket. W couldn't hold Dick Nixon's jock strap!

So what are my Democrats doing about this? They are behaving like spineless wimps, doing their typical weather vane style of politics. I think that they have to have a focus group and extensive polling before they figure out what there stand is on any issue. There are a few who lay it out on the line like Howard Dean, John Mutha, and Russ Feingold but they are few and far between. What they are is a collection of chameleons that the main thing they have going for them currently is that they are not Republicans. Here is a letter I sent to California Senator Diane Feinstein that sums up my feelings:

I have been a lifetime Democrat and have voted for you every time your name has appeared on the ballot here in California. That said, I am absolutely sickened by the lack of support that your Senate colleague, Russ Feingold has received from his fellow Democrats for his censure resolution. This lack of backbone seems to be a characteristic of Democrats that allowed the worst President in US history win re-election and allowed the most corrupt congress expand their majorities in the last election. Right now, I am ashamed to be a Democrat and, if you want my vote this November, you better grow a spine and stand up for what is right. Come on Diane, do the right thing! You will feel better and maybe Democrats will get respect in Republican areas that are needed to win back Congress because they are willing to take a stand for what is right. Continued reliance on focus group style politics, which doomed the Kerry election, will cause the Democrats to fall short again this fall!

Of course, I received a form letter back that wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit. With that said, I have grown tired of defending their stupidity, making excuses for their incompetence and won't even try to spin that they are less corrupt than the Republicans (money follows power, if the Democrats had the power, they would be taking the bribes). Last week, I changed my party affiliation from Democrat to the ever present "declined to state" party. I wish a meaningful 3rd or 4th party would arrive on the scene but anytime that happens, it generally is a group that follows one person and when that person leaves the party falls apart. The classic examples are the Reform Party and Ross Perot and the American Independent Party and George Wallace. I'm not sure if I'm going to go Liberterian or Green this election (probably alternate between the two) but I will not vote for a candidate of either major party this fall.

Illegal Immigrants- My take:

I have watched and been moved by the peaceful protest of over a million aliens and their supporters over the past few weeks. What it did was take me back to my old drunk days where I held down a job in the housekeeping department of a Palm Springs hotel, doing a job generally done by immigrants. I remember working alongside many "illegal" immigrants and I still remain impressed with their work ethic and the fact that they love this country. I can also remember the fear in their eyes when the occasional INS sweep would grab a few of them and deport them. Since Palm Springs was only about 120 miles from the border, most were back within a week.

This was back in the 1980's when the last immigration law was being debated and passed into law. I told my co-workers then as I believe now that we need to have control of our borders. I also believe we should treat fairly those who are working and are obeying the laws. Usually when someone was deported from my workplace, I considered that person a friend and was saddened to see that happen. I was also happy to see them get the legal status offered by the amnesty offered then. While sneaking across the border is illegal, so is exceeding the posted speed limit. I do not consider myself a "criminal" because I knowingly and regularly exceed the speed limit, nor do I consider an otherwise law abiding "illegal" immigrant a criminal.

When I saw that the demographics of the Hispanic community showed that they were moving away from the border states, I knew it was only a matter of time until some redneck would have a hissy fit when they heard Spanish spoken in their grocery store or would happen across a Spanish language radio station when turning the dial from Rush Limbaugh to This Week in NASCAR. It has become the wedge issue of 2008. I do understand the frustration of the American worker, I just feel it is misplaced.

The Republican party bills itself as the friend of small business. While they do pass some legislation that relieves small business of some of their tax burden, they generally go out of their way with tax breaks and incentives to favor "big box" retailers with products manufactured overseas over the small mom and pop manufacturers and retailers. Similarly, the Democrats bill themselves as the friends of labor while negotiating trade agreements making it easier for American companies to outsource their jobs overseas. Those fortunate to keep their jobs face stagnant wages and declining benefits. Small business and labor have both been sold out by the politicians of both parties to do the bidding of their multinational corporate masters.

So what is my solution:

1) Increase the border patrol and enforcement along the border. While we are at it, enhance port security by inspecting every shipping container that comes into our ports. Make it part of the cost of doing business in the USA. If importers whine that this drives up the costs of importing goods to the point that it becomes more competitive to make them here at home, I won't lose any sleep.

2) Treat those that are already here with dignity and respect. Making them felons is just mean spirited. Allow them some legal way to achieve the American dream.

3) Enforce minimum wage laws, workers standards and health and safety laws for all workers. Do not allow those who exploit immigrants gain any sort of competitive advantage over those who play by the rules. This will also level the playing field for American workers willing to do the same work as the immigrants.