Now if the Wedding Cake is a reference to a nuclear device somewhere in New York City, do you really want the CIA to not torture these guys from Pakistan to find out where it is? It isn’t quite so hypthetical any more, is it?
Then again, maybe it is just a wedding cake.
Bob Brinker has been on a rant for months now that the solution to all our imported oil problems is to convert to using natural gas for cars, since the U.S. is drowning in domestic natural gas supplies. Let’s look at the numbers
The U.S. currently consumes about 20 million barrels day of oil, the largest portion of which is used in transportation – which includes airplanes, trucks, and trains. In 2008, we used about 132 billion gallons of gasoline.
Gasoline contains about 125,000 BTUs per gallon.
8 gallons of gasoline = 1000 cubic ft (mcf) of natural gas = 1M BTUs
1 mcf delivered to your residence costs about $13 at current rates (about $1.62/gallon if you assume the engines are equally efficient)
The total annual consumption of natural gas for all purposes is about 23 million million cubic feet, or the energy equivalent of 184 billion gallons of gasoline.
Known U.S. reserves of natural gas are around 800,000 billion cubic feet, or the energy equivalent of 5.6 trillion gallons of gasoline, which would last about 41 years if all gasoline consumption was switched to natural gas (and no new gas was found).
Natural gas gives off CO2 – it does nothing about so-called global warming.
Let me know if I dropped some zeroes…. 
The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made a curious statement:
“I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw … I saw this myself in the late ’70s in San Francisco,” Pelosi said, choking up and with tears forming in her eyes. “This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and … I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.”
Overlooking for the moment how the world would perceive the leader of the legislative branch on the verge of tears, what exactly is she referring to – what happened in the late 1970s in San Francisco?
That was way after MLK Jr and the race riots, so that isn’t it… The logical reference is to the murder of San Francisco mayor Masconi and gay supervisor Harvey Milk (Wikipedia article) in 1978.
Dan White – the man who killed the mayor and Milk – was a Democratic supervisor who resigned his position because of rampant corruption in city government, and financial problems due to not being able to keep his job as a fireman and sit on the Supervisor’s board.
I don’t see any real connections between that incident and anything happening today. Maybe Nancy is crying because she is worried about the death threats Glenn Beck is getting every day?
Seems unlikely. There are lots of things she could do to restore civility to the Democratic process like actually meet with Republicans when legislation is being written, not trying to stifle dissent by making more rules of what House members can’t say on the floor, calling off the pit bulls at Huffington Post and maybe asking President Obama to release his long form birth certificate to get that issue behind us.
Wal*mart apparently wants to lead the way in “fixing” health care by working smarter. A year or two ago, they rolled out a plan to sell many common prescriptions for $10 for 90 days worth.
Personal anecdotes are not the basis on which to make policy, but I have the feeling this is showing us the future. Two weeks ago upon discharge from the hospital, I went to CVS with 5 prescriptions on a Sunday with my niece, while we were still making small talk, the clerk announces – you’re all set… my insurance company is paid, I pay my copay and I’m out of there.
My new doctor seems to want to save me money, so last week (after throwing away 4 of the 5 meds), he encourages me to go to wal*mart where I can “save money” by using the $10 special for the 1 remaining med he wants me to take. I get there around 4:15 (the place is closed from like 12:30-2pm for lunch)… hand over my script and am told “I won’t be able to fill this today” given the impression that they ran out and more will be in tomorrow. When I ask what time I should pick it up (after the delivery comes in), then the story changes to “Oh, I have it, but there is no way it will get filled today – can you just come back tomorrow?”
So today, my dentist wants me to take that exotic drug penicillin (I probably have an ear infection affecting my balance). About 4pm, the dentist says they’ll call it into Wal*mart. About an hour later, I go into Wal*mart and am greeted with “OMG, this prescription just arrived. You’ll have to come back in a few hours…. so I go grocery shopping, eat dinner, play with the iPhone and it’s now 6:30ish… sun will be setting soon and I don’t like driving after dark. Get to counter, the woman in front of me is being told that her prescription is not ready and maybe she’ll be able to get it in 20 or 30 minutes… so it’s my turn to say “Hi”, and I get the same story…. there is only one pharmacist and the clerk and they’re buried. I agree to come back tomorrow to pick up my antibiotics, by which time I probably will no longer need them or I’ll have a bigger problem than I do today.
I have the feeling I’ve just seen the future if we get Obamacare.
Being deeply in the middle of this at the moment, and the choices of my future limited by health care coverage, here is my thought and at least one rational proposal.
– unless compelled to, irresponsible people will not voluntarily buy health insurance coverage they probably won’t use
– people who haven’t paid for coverage when they were healthy will demand coverage when they become sick
– insurance doesn’t work if only the people who have claims are part of the insurance pool
– government involvement is the problem, not the solution. Much of why insurance is in trouble is Medicare and Medicaid force health care providers to cost shift onto private pay and insurance carriers. If you end private insurance and make a single payer, there will be nobody to shift the costs to
– connecting health coverage to employment and which state a person lives in has many negative economic consequences
Here is my compromise:
– allow people to participate in Medicare as an insurer, but only after they have accumulated “x” years of private coverage, either through employment or privately purchased insurance. Facilitate availability of health insurance that is portable across state lines.
This way people (even young people) are motivated to keep coverage for health insurance, even if they don’ t see any immediate need for care. Being in the insurance system probably also means they’ll see a doctor more often for primary care, and head off future health problems when they are inexpensive to fix. This doesn’t compel people to do anything they don’t want to do, basically doesn’t undermine private insurance, and should achieve many of the goals that President Obama says he wants.
Off to see the doctor
British Petroleum has another very significant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico, at a depth of 35,000 feet:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/BP-announces-giant-oil-find-apf-2273328778.html?x=0&.v=1
All of these deep oil finds strongly suggest that oil is not based on decayed organic material at all, but a chemical process based on the heat and pressure of the molten core of the Earth creating new oil constantly – throwing the entire notion of “peak oil” and “the last barrel of oil” out the window for those who still have open minds about science.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125166593642570507.html
The operator of the Orange County (California) Register is preparing to join the string of major newspapers who have filed for bankruptcy. When all the newspapers are dead, where will Matt Drudge get his news?
Not to worry, the Obama administration is starting to put together a task force to study how to “fix” the newspaper business. Maybe they’ll create a government run news service to keep us informed on what we need to know.
I’ve just spent 5 days experiencing a revolution in wireless technology – it probably isn’t that “new”, but it was new to me. I’ve written before about how LTE or WiMax is going to change every aspect of our lives very soon in ways we don’t even think about yet.
When I was in the hospital, I was put on a cardiac monitor that monitored every little pitter patter of my heart 24 hours a day. It is a device about the size of an iphone that is in constant contact with the monitoring center via wireless (which in theory could be anywhere in the world). If a lead came loose, within seconds a page would go out to the nurse telling them to go to the room and fix the problem. Had anything “exciting” shown up on the monitor (it didn’t), the response would have been in seconds to start to deal with an issue with a real time display in front of a doctor with the skills to make informed decisions in real time.
Now broaden that picture out to be that someone with a heart issue could wear this device and go pretty much anywhere in an entire city, and be just as much in touch, including the ability of a doctor to remotely intervene (perhaps adjust a pacemaker or zap with an implanted defibrillator to restart a heart).
This technology has great potential to do wonderful things – but it also could be the technology that enslaves us if used by the wrong people with the wrong motivations.
It’s critical that the government recognize that trust is the key for any solution. Trying to beat people into submission without adequate thought and discussion will result in failure and extreme danger to the future. I’m hoping the adults are beginning to take control of the process and we can stop with the “emergency” crap and have some balanced rationale dialog soon.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rep-Frank-eyes-Fed-audit-rb-3402785272.html?x=0
This is certainly one of the signs of the end times – Barney Frank and I agree. Did I turn into a mushy liberal from a bump to my head, or has Representative Frank finally realized how deep the hole is and that he’s the guy holding the football?
According to the story, the more important piece to me is that he wants to quickly “pull back” a lot of the emergency powers that were given to Tim Geithner (originally Henry Paulson) to deal with emergencies – things like waving your hand and declaring American Express to be a “bank” so you can have the entire country pay the costs of AMEX’s bad lending practices.
The other part is Representative Frank seems to be getting on board that the Federal Reserve needs a colonoscopy to see what the hell is going on. Apparently, Ron Paul has critical mass now to force an unprecedented audit of the Federal Reserve and its processes. I’m thinking that the Paulson / Geithner / Goldman-Sachs “connections” have finally been figured out (the stuff I’ve been screaming out loud as they were happening for close to a year) and how the U.S. Treasury has been plundered using the threat of an existential “emergency”.
Well, better late than never. You can’t start fixing a problem until you recognize there is a problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125088307063549883.html
So the Wall Street Journal interviewed Tim Geithner, and asked him if he acted honorably when he advised Henry Paulson to kill Lehman Brothers and save AIG to protect Goldman Sachs (the previous employer of Mr Paulson and Mr Geithner), and Mr Geithener says “Of Course I did”.
No story here, please move long.
In a totally unrelated story, Chicago based Walgreen’s (one of the country’s largest retailers of prescription drugs) has hired a new Treasurer, who currently works for Goldman Sachs.
No story here, why don’t you conspiracy kooks just give this crap up and go back to watching American Idol!!!