Hippie News & Stuff: Puzzle Merchants/Factoids

As it stands, now, a large amount of the "tarsands" oil the Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry goes to Texas, where the oil is to be fefined, and then loaded on tankers and sent around the world - for bigger oil company profits-- and more greenhouse gas...

Still, notwithstanding these additions to the supply, oil prices are more likely to go up than down, in BOTH the long AND short run, according to the Bloomberg folks.

NONE of the Keystone oil is earmarked for either Canada or the USA use. It will all be sold, on contract, to buyers around the world, India,and China, especially.

Drill, baby, drill is good for the "binness" of oil companies and their investors and speculators; for the actual inhabitants of the U.S. or on the rest of the planet, mmmmmm....not so much.

Still, under presidential prodding and promises, the U.S. is drilling more and more, and deeper and deeper for 'energy security, even though we are using less gas than in past years.

Here's the dirty secret: If "energy self-sufficiency" were TRULY vital to "national security," the whole energy industry--from exploration to retail, gas, coal, and nuke, everything--would be nationalized!

Seriously! I mean, the global CorpoRats no longer profess even pro forma national loyalty. They are truly global; and because they have bought out governments, they can be powers unto themselves. Or they hire private armies of their own. They don't NEED you, anymore, Joe & Mary Cheesecake America! Their loyalty is NOT to the USA. Don't delude yourselves.

So, if our national security depends on our energy "security," WHICH implies that we SHOULD command, within our own borders, sufficient energy resources to secure our national interests against competitors and or enemies, why do WE entrust OUR national security to the tender mercies of corrupt, conniving, fuel merchants?

If the issue really IS "security," how can WE be "SECURE" if WE have to BEG and BARGAIN with international conglomerates for oil to run our ships, planes, and tanks, and the vehicles of out domestic economy? How is that "SECURE?"

Well, you know the answer, hippies. We can chat it up down at the beach...


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Dr. Woody's Factoids:

On an historical note: Tomorrow--Mar. 6--marks the anniversary of the "fall of the Alamo," a day on which Texans and others celebrate the 'heroism' of the 'sturdy frontiersmen and patriots' in holding off the Mexican Santa Ana's army outside San Antonio. Texicans and other "hyper-patriots"--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc--get all misty-eyed about it.

It's a myth, though, that the Alamo was fought for "Freedom?" You know that, right.

It wasn't.

It was fought to defend slavery.

Travis' men died to prevent Mexico--the first official action of which as a sovereign nation was to sign the international treaty prohibiting slavery, in 1820--from outlawing slavery there, to keep slaves in Texas, that is, from STOPPING slavery in Texas.

The only man left alive inside the Alamo on March 7, 1836, who'd been inside on the morning of Mar. 6, 1836, was Travis' slave. He was freed.

So you COULD say (though the Tejanos HATE it) the battle was fought to free one unjustly enslaved individual, and that the REAL humaintarian heroesa of the day were Santa Ana's army...

History's just fascinating, ain't it hippies? Back to Winstone in Hippie Central...