"Psssst- - - It's All About the Oil!"

"What the gods can digest

will not sour in the belly of a starving person"

In early 1971 Steppinwolf came out with the song and album "Monster" as in now government is a monster and will not obey. 1971 was the genisis of a lot of the Watergate doings. And in the intervening forty years other than a brief respit in the mid and late 'seventies, government is an unresponsive beast that marches to its own drum. Bill Moyers and a few other lone wolves have done exposees on the build up to the Iraq War we only now are winding down from. Some are saying even now that we will never leave Iraq. Back then in 2002 the drum beat was led by the President to fire up the masses and get them to fear "weapons of mass destruction", which they knew all along was a bogus charge. The media had a tight muzzle placed on it and even liberals watched what they said. Only a few lone wolves such as Ted Kennedy, who lemantably we need a man like him badly now in congress, only Kennedy and a very few others dared even in the hallowed halls of congress voice opposition to the war that everybody knew was coming. Now we know that there was indeed some urgency behind getting the war going and the charge "We go to war with the army we have" reveals more than you think. Saddam Hussein was on the verge of allowing the UN inspectors back into Iraq on a virtually unlimited basis to search wherever they will. But there was also an agreement pending to let Iraq again start selling oil on the open market and competing price wise with places like Saudi Arabia. George W Bush could not allow this to happen. He had to insure that oil prices went up and not down. Someone said that oil was going for $28.00 a barrel the day before the Invasion began. Now it's selling at around seventy and as you know a couple years ago speculators drove the price as high as $140.00. My only consolation was those speculators who paid more than a hundred dollars a barrell for the oil, really took a bath in the market, particularly if they had leveraged short positions. But there is clearly some cozy relation between the past and present governments and oil prices. Otherwise oil would be back at $28.00 or lower, considering the recession of this economy. Think about it.

What people feared, and some tried to deny altogether, has happened. Tar balls from the Louisiana oil slick have been spotted in Key West, Florida. So the oil has matesticized its way into that gulf loop current that carries it southeast, and from there it's a short hop around the Keys to the Gulf Stream. As we said all this oil is sucking out all the oxygen out of the ocean and will be killing off all manner of sea life, and the area around Florida is such a treasure trove of underwater delights. Now people saying that if the oil companies had every concession they want and were allowed unlimited drilling, that the price of oil would come down only thirty cents a gallon, or from three dollars to $2.70. That ain't much. But if we adopted fuel efficiency standards we could really take a bite out of our oil consumption. And as we have said, since oil is not used that much in electric generation, the logical thing to do is use electric cars. Hybreds are increasing in sales, and they will surely increase more. As I said in the last blog, we've had all of the alternate technology for over forty years. It's just a matter of putting it all to use.

I don't know if Thom Hartman has seen the movie "Wall Street" but some time the "free market" can come back to bite you in the ass, if you think you're a big time manipulator. There were things Union Oil employed called "poison pills" to prevent a takeover bid fifteen years ago by T. Boone Pickens. As you know in the movie the Gecko character said "I wrecked your father's company because it was wreckable". But the "Fox" character out foxed the master and being in control of the life blood of Wall Street he had prerogatives few have as a broker to "stick it to the man" big time when Gecko's schemes and plans backfired- - - blew up in his face. So now I'm thinking that perhaps there are things the Greek government could have done, or perhaps other governments could do now to "stick it to these speculators". If you try and be a big time manipulator, you run the ever present risk of being a big time loser, just like those oil speculators who bought oil at the top of the market at one forty. Again I say, think about it.

If ever there was a reason for giving a big thumbs down to Elena Kagan, Tuesday's high court ruling really put the cherry on this banana split. In this ruling there were certain "sex offenders" which doesn't necessarily mean a violent crime. It might be teenagers shooting sex acts of fellow students with their cell phones. It could be someone receiving child pornography.. Maybe it's some seedy troll photographing up women's skirts through an open manhole. Don't suppose that they are all Ted Bundys. But these people served out their prison sentense. But the government decided they were still "dangerous to society" and so someone sued to have they kept in longer. And a lower court voted unanamusly to free these prisoners. You would have thought that would settle it. Even under ancient Jewish law, if a person is found innocent of a crime you can't come back and again try him for the same crime. Double jeopardy. But don't expect the US government to have the fairness of the Jewish Sanhedrin that tried and condemned Jesus. No, no. These men were kept in prison for two more years while the case made its way through the court. And Tuesday the court - -with the support of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, ruled that these mean could be held "till they were too old to get it up" to borrow a famous line from "One flew over the coo-coo's nest". The thing is I have never been labeled as a sexual preditor. But what about mental illness. This was R. P. Mc Murphy's problem. He was due to be released untill that black orderly gave him the sobering bad news. And who's to say they'll stop there. Couldn't perpetrators of various political crimes be ruled "a clear and present threat to society should they be released". I'd like to nip this whole chain of logic in the bud right now. Obama is no champion of the little man. I am reminded that Donald Siegal or whoever that democratic Arkansas governor was who was wrongly convicted is. He was convicted sheerly on a faboricated case for strictly political reasons as part of a vendetta. Why doesn't President Obama consider his case important? I hope that Elena Kagan's case goes down in flames.

Some people say that cultural and religious pluralism is a good thing. I told Dr. Levy that at the present time I am a religious pluralist. But I also said this is because at this time I am a virtual atheist and do not believe any religion is deserving of my undying obediance. And Dr. Levy's expression of "Pluralism" differs from mine to begin with. While I believe that all religions CONTAIN truth- - I also believe that religion contains a lot of lies, including Christianity and even Judaism. I have a definite problem of a culture with literal sacred cows, when masses of people are starving and malnourished. Dr. Levy on the other hand would say All religion is to be equally valued as True. No. People, first of all are different. I will allow for dissinence - - because I think mankind's primary directive in this life is struggle. Men are going to have certain "honist difference" among themselves. But only the "Top Five great traditions" as he calls them, are to be included in this "umbrella", which doesn't include Taoism of Confucionism or any African or American Indian traditions. Dr. Levy like Dennis Prager believes in this myth of a generic "brand X religion" that does marvelous things for you such as give you a longer life and make you healthier and give you a sound marriage and happy, well adjusted children. Dr. Levy makes the classic case of confusing cause and effect. Gene Scott comits the same break in logic when he says "the way to God is through giving". No. If you are a Christian who is extrordenarily blessed, you will be a giving person. If someone had a magic potion that could enable people to leap tall buildings as a single bound- - Gene Scott would come up to me and say "Don't drink the potion but just try to leap the building on your own strength, and if you succeed people will Think you have drunk the potion". Maybe a greater truth is that conservatives are big, fat, rich Piggies and these same big, fat, rich Piggies are also religious. But suppose they're also White, and I happen to be Black. Should I bleach my skin to be white to prove that I'm one of them?? I think not. The thing is I'm not a terribly big fan of excessive religion, and Pluralism carried to the heights Dr. Levy carries it to- - is making a religion out of pluralism. Don't tell anybody but once upon a time God gave one select man audience with him to reveal any and all Truths and answer all of his questions. After he was done and went back, Satan came up to God and said, "You know don't you that your message is going to be garbled. And I'll tell you WHY it will be garbled. Because I am going to approach the man and convince him to make a RELIGION out of the Truths you taught him. And I'll make him institutionalize it with a lot of pomp and tradion and compel the people to be indoctrinated, not to the original Truth but to the Tradition." Who in government espouses pluralism. I'll give you a clue- - how about the Communist governments of old? "Psssst - don't tell anybody but there are Churches all over Russia." Some sincere people would say "It's a government that really hates all religion. They don't mind if you exercise religion as long as it's toothless and impotent." The thing that gives many religions their uncompromising character, is the fact that they don't allow themselves to be defined by others but for each man to look to their own continence. (Selah)