US Senate Approves Keystone XL Pipeline

Well now the other shoe has dropped.  The US Senate today made the three fifths hurtle on votes and voted cloture for the Keystone XL Pipeline bill.  The democrats tried to offer a number of amendments and each and every one was voted down by the republicans.  We said ‘Well we’ll build it but since it’s going over US land, shouldn’t the United States be guaranteed a portion of the oil?  The Republicans said NO.   Well, shouldn’t the pipeline be built with US Steel to bolster more jobs in this country, since the Republicans like to talk about jobs?  Again the answer was NO.  Well shouldn’t Canada pay into some special emergency fund in case the pipeline ruptures?  As far as I know the Canadians have saddled ALL of the liability in case of an oil spill on Americans for clean up expences and damages.   From start to finish the Republicans got everything they wanted.   Just keep in mind the oil price is dropping, and East Coast oil, when it comes on line (first) will drive the price of oil down further.   Lisa Marcauski and Mitch Mc Connell were the spokesmen for the Republicans.  Shuck Schumer and two women spoke for the democrats.  It’s true that on technical grounds the Nebraska supreme court by a negative plurality of one vote (the vote was 3 for the pipeline and 4 against) – another strange example of Al Gore math - - the Nebraska supreme court gave thumbs up.  I’ve heard there were now new permit renewal questions in South Dakota.   But as you know - - this administrations resistence to the Pipeline has been at best minimal.  All of the relevant departments gave this Pipeline a thumbs up as having minimal risk to the environment, something absurd on its face.  They are still cleaning up from a Pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan.   This bill is clearly cronisum at its worse.  It waves every environmental regulation and “fast tracks” all permits.  As Barbra Boxer says, it is favoritism that no United States legislative body has every extended a foreign corporation.  Even if you favor domestic energy development to combat the OPEC cartel, this is not the way to go.  Every year Solar power and electric cars are growing by leaps and bounds.  There is an increasingly unlikely chance that crude oil prices ever again will see the levels seen in 2012 when everybody was so hot to approve this Keystone Pipeline.  As such this pipeline STILL may never be build due to the utter economic infeasibility of the project.  It’s the Koch Brothers and a few Canadian businessmen making a sweet heart deal to get this oil to China, as if the pollution there weren’t bad enough already.  The Republicans are saying ‘How come China doesn’t have to abide by pollution limitations now?”   This would have been a good opportunity to prove the Republicans were interested in being “fair” and putting limitations on ALL countries.   But this Republican congress has never had either fairness or “Common Sense” at the top of their agenda.  And it’s not a foregone conclusion that the President will veto this bill.  President Obama has been far from being “a man of his word” on just about anything.  And if the President vetoes this bill, the Republicans will just haul off and tack the Pipeline on to some other piece of energy legislation, a move I think should be illegal, but it’s just a political reality.

As one looks to the future one sees an era I believe with a multi tiered internet where if you have a lot of money you can get faster service than others who don't have money.  In terms of one man one vote - - nothing will be done on Electoral College reform because is 2000 ever happens again, the Republicans will profit by it again as the democrats are four and zero as far as being on the receiving end of the electoral shaft.  But nothing will be done.  Also by saying that money is "political speech" you have de-humanized human beings and are basically saying that a rich person's oppinion is worth a million times as much as a poor persons.  This is anti democratic and contrary to what Thomas Paine, or Thomas Jefferson or any of our founding fathers envisioned.   One area where I believe we should take action but won't is the nation's rail system.  Rail is a whole lot more energy efficient than are planes and use a whole lot less fuel.  If you over-book a railroad it's a simple matter of adding on more cars.  You don't have trains stacked up circling the city waiting to land.  Trains don't crash is there is upper air storm turbulance.  You can actually see more of America first hand from a train than you'll ever see from an air plane.  Trains are less vulnerable than planes for sure as far as being hijacked because they have to stay on the same track till their destination.  You wouldn't need as much pre boarding hanging around with a railroad.  But still railroads are uniquely villified by the right wing.  Judy says that "trains are the most inefficient mode of transportation possible".   She says busses are better than trains and of course individual cars are the best of all.  Judy and I suspect other right wingers are too, suspicious of "urban corridors" which they fear will happen and middle America will be depopulated.  Of course that's where all of the red state voters are.  In terms of the Tea Party and all- - the Red States are over-represented in the US Senate and also by way of inference, in the electoral college where our next President will be chosen.  I see nothing in our future capable of combating all these reactionary forces arrayed against us.  The right wing is anti democratic, as we've noted.  They are systematically robbing minorities of the Vote every day.  If they could these Billionaires would bypass the democratic process completely.  Someone once called in to a liberal talk show and said "The United States is not Fasciest because we still have democracy, and the leaders can be voted out at any time".  It's just a matter of time I believe, when this no longer will be true.  I think I know these people well enough to know they'll find a way to do it somehow.  Many church pastors say "I can be voted out at any time" and the ones who say this end up becoming the most Despotic ones ad somehow like Vladimir Putin, they put in measures that weaken and weaken the democratic vote, untill they have destroyed it.

You know ‘Matthew Harrison Brady’  said in “Inheret the Wind”,  when Spencer Tracy brought up the Biblical story of the talking ass.  “I believe in a god who can make a human being and who can also make an ass and make both do what he chooses.   This is like the soap opera.  Today was “Day Tripper” day.  I hate day trippers.  These are people who you are sure are going to do one thing and end up doing completely the opposite, usually after you have made some sort of investment in them.   That tipster who told Nicole about Serina being not at all what she seemed - - - sounded completely credible.  If he had gone on talking about “being off his meds” or “getting back to his little blue bird” or all the Marie Curie bit- - - Nicole would have known.  But when he comes to the door to substantiate his charges - - - Nicole has this worst possible nightmare of going to the exact WRONG file on a computer base where this co worker is off in loonie land.  Nicole is left holding the bag, and it may well cost her relation with Daniel.   We got the idea that Chad was going to break up with Jordan- - and they were as good as “a thing of the past” already when Chad and Stephano talked about how there was no future in the relation.  But then despite everything Jordan did to drive him away, Chad protests his undying love and goes on an Obama style “apology tour”.    But some may say to me “Well people are unpredictable and maybe you have trouble dealing with that reality”.   I will consider that point.  But authors can make characters do whatev er they want to, which is fine for a cartoon, but less amusing when the plot is supposed to represent reality.  But take the story of the passion of Christ and how the crowd turned on a dime against Jesus in four days.  It is very unlikely that they would do so but it “Tells a good story” so you have to accept that it happened and not to question anything.   Certain soap opera developments in the plot are clearly determined by things other than sheer logic or “natural progression of events”.  Samantha and EJ Di Mira were on the road to getting back together and then all of a sudden both of the parents as well as Johnny, Alley and Sydney are out of the script- - on the most flimsy of likelihood.   It’s what Annie Wilks calls “Cheating with characters” and we know that certain people - “Just don’t like people who cheat”.  They are “dirty birdies” and dire things begin happening.

Some scientific developments could be used for positive developments, or else horribly negative ones.  They can now read brain waves so well from various parts of certain lobes- - - they can tell what you INTEND to do before you DO it.  Certain things show up in diagrams and certain portions of the brain light up when certain types of activity occur such as - - contemplating motor activity before you move a muscle.  It seems they have already made some use of this in prosthetic devices.  DNA research is good if it means restoring a cell to what God intended.  But humans are not content with that.  Now we may hold a valuable tool in crime fighting mankind has prayed for since the dawn of time.  Hopefully they'll at least give "fair warning" as to what we, the criminal element now face".   So thought crimes could soon become a reality.  It could be argued that "It was so slow back in the old days when we had to wait for arsonists to actually set a fire before we arrested them".   Clearly it could be used in questioning suspects and making certain deals with them, wondering if they would be true to their word.   Would the person, for instance, jump bail?   But a despot could clearly make malignent use of this tool to have protestors thrown in jail before their movement ever got off the ground.