This Is Not My Monkey Wrench. . .

I am a huge fan of cars, trucks, vehicles in general, and particularly gas-guzzling, muscled-up, "speed kills" cars like this fantabulous heap of ugly junk complete with 700 cubic inches of fully-blown insanity under the hood.

What? Oh yeah, what hood?

Or any other deathtrap ride, like Nils' brother's 1955 Chevrolet sporting an all-aluminum LS-7 427 powerplant. Can you say torque?

Or, for the discerning autophile, here is something a bit more sublime, a beautifully restored and slightly modified 1951 Chevrolet Pickup. Lots of chrome and a deep and rich cherry red paint job to die for. I'd sleep on a pile of asbestos shingles for a week to have a chance to launch Sonny's pickup down the quarter mile just once.

Cars and trucks come in all shapes, sizes, configurations, models, marks and arrangements. Some are utilitarian like this example of west Texas ingenuity. I mean, who in their right mind wouldn't want to mount a shooting platform on top of a truck for some wild west automatic weapon action? Or this darling little jungle Toyota, which makes up for lost beauty with a length of rope and good tires. Or even my own little jungle truck, nothing special, no a/c, no radio, holes in the seats, but the engine, transmission, headlights, wipers and windows all worked. Just fabulous!

I touched on all of this because these are prime examples of the free minds and free markets at work and the simple freedoms we often take for granted in this country. As Congress, Obama and his administration prove over and over again, they are completely inept at managing even the most minor of bureaucracies, such as the Cash For Clunkers program, which I personally refer to as the Let's Destroy Some Perfectly Good Automobiles For No Good Reason program. This program is so poorly managed that nearly half of 425 auto dealers in New York have withdrawn from the red tape and fouled mechanics of this "stimulus" plan. Another great idea from the left-wing of our political system.

And they want to run healthcare too! No problem! And by the way, while no one was looking, President Buckethead decides to cash a check for $2 billion of our tax revenues to fund off-shore drilling in Alaska Brazil. Well, gee-wilikers Wally, ain't that just great??

Let's talk about oil for a minute. Sure, it's hard to get it, drilling impacts the environment and the carbon emitted from the internal combustion engine is probably doing harm to our planet. But, until someone comes up with a more tolerable, available, and cleaner, mass-produced, energy source we are stuck with oil. Oil is and always will be a necessary part of our industry, our transportation needs and our lifestyle.

Sure, burning gasoline is bad for the atmosphere and our health; a walk around a large metropolis proves that instantly, but are you willing to live without, say for instance, transparent tape? 3-in-one oil? Panty hose? Lifejackets? Fishing rods? Guitar strings? Just a few of the things created by the base product, crude oil. There is no useful alternative as of yet.

We won't be getting our petroleum products from windmills or lithium batteries or composted egg shells. Nay, this stuff comes from the great, green earth and why the Obama administration is spending our money for oil exploration in another country (one that doesn't particularly like us by the way) is frustrating and works against his big idea of "creating or saving" x-million jobs plus "energy independence" in the USA.

See folks, it is a sickness, a malignant narcissism of the left in this country that drives this insane and continued beatdown of the US and genuflection to others that hate our status as the only living, breathing, true democracy on the planet. Since the liberals have taken over, micromanaging everything in our daily lives, we must do our part to quell our hard left turn, whether by screaming or yelling in their faces or by the better preferred, calm, cool and collected factual conversation. It is our duty and our privilege and frankly, we are smarter than them.

If we are not able to temper these mindless champions of dopey, utopian ideas with common sense and open-market freedoms, next thing you know we'll all be riding around on Big Wheels® made of regurgitated woods chips from organic beaver cooperatives and tires made from hemp-reinforced, freeze-dried, tofu.

There are hordes of intelligent people in the United States and industry should be allowed to invent, to burn bright with marketable and useful technologies augmented by tax cuts and tax incentives for discovery of the next new energy source. Mandated lead zeppelins born from the loud echo chamber of hyperbole, extremism and incomprehensible lunacy in Washington are no solution.

We all wish to be good stewards of the environment, as long as it doesn't infringe on our God-given gift of freewill. But when government begins mandating "change" by ramming it down our tender gullets is when the keystone of this country, business and industry, will suffer. And thus, so shall we.

I leave you with this simple photograph and as always a photo is worth a thousand words.


I have three: Need equals invention.

Russia May Join OPEC

This would be a development of very dangerous proportions. Meanwhile, Obama ponders the establishment of a musiciancorps and refuses to push for offshore drilling. Do you feel safe?

President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia may join the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and reduce production to support the oil price.

“We have to defend ourselves,” Medvedev said in the Ural Mountains city of Kurgan today. “This is our revenue base, both from oil and from gas,” he said. “I believe that we mustn’t rule out any options.”

Defensive measures may include “cutting the volume of oil production and participating in existing organizations of suppliers, and in new organizations, if we can reach such an agreement,” Medvedev said in comments broadcast on state television.

A cut in global production of 2.5 million barrels a day would support oil prices in a range of $60 to $80 a barrel, said Fedun, who has advocated Russian cooperation with OPEC.

More on this development from the Tehran Times.

OBAMA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

I guess. At least that's what this video implies. Initially, Obama said we shouldn't tap the strategic oil reserves unless there is a "genuine emergency". Now he says we should sell 70 million barrels of the oil. What happened Obama? What's the emergency? Oh, I get it. You're dropping in the polls like a rock. That's the emergency.

DRILL NOW: FORMER GLOBAL WARMING NUTJOB SEES THE LIGHT

Drilling Now.. Reduces Oil Seeps .. Creates Jobs .. Fuels Our Economy.. & Helps Prevent Terrorism

Do you know… Natural Gas and Oil Seepage is the Greatest Source of Petroleum Pollution in the Ocean and Atmosphere

As pointed out by the National Research Council (NRC) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, "natural oil seeps contribute the highest amount of oil to the marine environment, accounting for 63% per cent of the annual load to the world's oceans. Although they are entirely natural, these seeps significantly alter the nature of nearby marine environments. “

DEMOCRATS BLOCK DRILLING AT SCENIC RIVER

Democrats blocked drilling in Massachusetts claiming the nearby river was scenic. It's a tire dump. Why do the Democrats want to see America destroyed?



h/t Gateway Pundit

RUSSIA USING OIL AS A WEAPON

You wanna know why we're in Iraq? Because the Russians (and the Chinese) are in Iran. And this is what they do with oil.

Three days after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the United States to host a tracking radar for an antiballistic missile system that Russia vehemently opposes, the authorities in Prague said the flow of Russian oil to their country was beginning to dwindle.

In a statement on Friday, Czech officials declined to link the reduced supply to the deal signed Tuesday in Prague. Still, though the flow of oil can vary for technical reasons, it was clear that the Czechs suspected a connection and intended to ask the Russians to explain the decline.

Russia maintains that the missiles meant to shoot down other missiles pose a threat to its own nuclear deterrence. The Bush administration says they are intended instead to counter a threat from Iran, which launched nine missiles on Wednesday.

In one of his first foreign policy tests since becoming Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev said this week that Russia intended to retaliate. “We are extremely upset by this situation,” Mr. Medvedev said at a news conference in Japan, where he was attending a Group of 8 summit meeting.

“We will not be hysterical about this, but we will think of retaliatory steps,” he said.

Shipments to Czech oil refineries through the Druzhba pipeline, which ties Siberian fields to the Czech Republic, are declining, the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade said. It did not say by how much.

HARRY REID HAS LOST HIS DAMN MIND

"Oil makes us sick"...???

3 OUT OF 4 VOTERS SUPPORT OFFSHORE DRILLING

The news isn't that 3 out of 4 support offshore drilling. It's that 1 out of 4 doesn't. Obama types. No doubt.

Three in four likely voters – 74 percent – support offshore drilling for oil in U.S. coastal waters and more than half (59 percent) also favor drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

A majority of likely voters across the political spectrum support offshore oil drilling, with vast majorities of Republicans (90 percent) and independents (75 percent) in favor of drilling for oil off U.S. coastal waters more than half of Democrats (58 percent) also said they favor offshore drilling. Republicans (80 percent) and political independents (57 percent) are much more likely to favor drilling for oil in ANWR than Democrats (40 percent).

WESTERN OIL COMPANIES BACK IN IRAQ

After 36 years. Exxon Mobil, Total, Shell, Chevron and BP get no bid contracts to drill Iraq's largest oil fields. Friggin' hells yes! Now, I'm not of the opinion that this is why we went there. But since we did do what we did, it's only right we get in there first.

Click title for article.

DAKOTA OIL FIELDS MAKE FARMERS DRILLERS

These oil reserves are reported be larger than those in Saudi Arabia:

John Bartelson may look like an average wheat farmer. He isn't. He's one of North Dakota's new oil barons. Every month, he gets a check for tens of thousands of dollars from a company in Houston called EOG Resources, which drilled two oil wells on his land last year. He says the day his first royalty check arrived was one to remember.

"I smiled to beat hell, and I went to town and had a beer," Bartelson, 65, says. His new wealth springs from the Bakken formation, a sprawling deposit of high-quality crude beneath the durum-wheat fields of North Dakota, Montana and southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Bakken may give the U.S. — the world's biggest importer of oil — a new domestic energy source.

Unlike the tar from Canada's oil sands, Bakken crude needs little refining. Swirl some of it in a Mason jar and it leaves a thin, honey-colored film along the sides. It's light — almost like gasoline — and sweet, meaning it's low in sulfur. Best of all, the Bakken could be huge. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the Bakken might hold 413 billion barrels. If so, it would dwarf Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, the world's biggest field, which has produced about 55 billion barrels.

Of course, any drilling would come to a halt if the democrats learned there were some endangered species of mouse in the area.
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MUST SEE TV: LEADING DEMOCRAT WANTS TO NATIONALIZE OIL

This idiot couldn't even find the right word to express what she wants to do with America's oil and gas supply. And we're supposed to trust her to do a better job? You had it right the first time Maxine. "Socializing".

See video here.

"Dis liberal gonna be all about dis...Dis liberal gonna be all about dat"

AMERICA'S GRAND PLAN TO SOLVE THE OIL CRISIS: SUE OPEC

I wish I was joking. But I'm not.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

If you're dumb enough to think this legislation will fix anything, please do not come to this blog anymore.

Meanwhile, while the retards running this country draft lawsuits...

While Washington dithers over exploiting oil and gas reserves off the coast of Florida, China has seized the opportunity to gobble up these deposits, which run throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf coast.

The Chinese have forged a deal with Cuban leader Fidel Castro to explore and tap into massive oil reserves almost within sight of Key West, Florida. At the same time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is making deals to sell his country’s oil to China, oil that is currently coming to the United States.

There are new reports out circulating that Chinese firms are planning to slant drill off the Cuban coast near the Florida Straits, tapping into U.S. oil reserves that are estimated at 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels.

I should point out that the above snippet was from two years ago. China is two years into the process of slant drilling America's oil reserves. I reckon we'll sue them too.