Why are we still dependant on foreign oil?

With oil futures prepared to exceed $100 per barrel because of political upheaval in Egypt, why is it that the Obama administration and his bureaucrat brown-shirts in the EPA are continuing to stand on the necks of domestic oil producers here in the United States? Sharp rises in cost at the gas pump in an economy already gripped with inflation is a recipe for disaster. Seriously folks, WTF are we doing, still depending on foreign sources of oil? Why are we continuing to line the pockets of nations who are not friendly to us in order to buy THEIR resources? None of this makes any sense. If shit REALLY hits the fan in Egypt and the Suez Canal oil shipments are disrupted, how long will it be before the United States uses military intervention to correct that problem? I thought the leftists in this country (now in control of the federal government) were dead-set against spilling blood for oil.

Like it or not, in order to secure our country's economic future and pay off our MASSIVE debt, we need to have abundant, inexpensive energy to increase our GDP. At present, oil and coal are our most abundant natural resource for producing energy. Alternative energy sources are not able to meet that demand, sufficiently. Since global warming is proving to be nothing but a crock of shit, there are only two other reasons I can think of for developing alternative sources of energy: First, to improve air quality in urban areas, and secondly, because we are still unsure of how much oil and coal we'll have left. Alternative energy technology is making advancements, but not nearly fast enough for it to be cost effective. In the mean time, we NEED to have less restricted access to our own carbon based fuels to produce cheap energy. That would go a long way toward reducing inflation and boosting our economic output.

Moral of the story: Don't Be Out Foxed

Now, you all who know me, know that I'm a proud member of PETA (People who Eat Tasty Animals), but I must admit, there's something both inherently comical and educational about the outcome of this particular story...

Fox shoots man
– Thu Jan 13, 2:50 pm ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.

The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.

"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying...

*snip*

FWIW, this story leads me to draw parallels between the wounded fox and what we need to do en mass, as constitutionally protected citizens of the United States of America, in order to survive the current circumstance which has been thrust upon us, in that, unless we get up and fight back against the aggression demonstrated by those who would enslave us - i.e. politicians attempting to make the case for more restrictive gun legislation following the Tuscon massacre - we might, just as well, expect to be as livestock led to slaughter.

Gun-Control Opportunists
The Wall Street Journal - Opinion Journal
JANUARY 14, 2011, 5:59 P.M. ET
By KIM STRASSEL

One of the tragedies of tragedies is that some politicians just can't resist the urge to use them for political gain. The Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords first inspired liberals to score points against the tea party and is now inspiring a new round of political calls for gun control.

Within days of the Arizona tragedy, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy renewed her call for a ban on high-capacity clips and said she'll reintroduce legislation. She's been joined by fellow New York Rep. Peter King, one of the only outspoken Republicans on gun control, who said he wants a new law that would make it a crime to knowingly carry firearms within 1,000 feet of high-ranking officials (which conveniently includes congressmen.) In the Senate, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg intends to pursue parallel legislation to Ms. McCarthy's on clips that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has piped up, again, in favor of expanding the sort of burdensome restrictions his city places on the Second Amendment to the nation as a whole.

*snip*

While this is NOT BY ANY MEANS a call to arms for violent overthrow of the government, THIS IS a call to self defense and the preservation of our liberties. As human beings and United States citizens, we have a God given right speak out critically against our tyrannical government as it states in the 1st amendment of our U.S. Constitution, to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects as outlined in the 4th Amendment, and excercise the means by which to secure these liberties as provided for us in the 2nd Amendment. With the present rapid decline in freedom across the world and the possibility of our country being controlled by progressives and socialists for the next six years, how much longer do you think we have before we too find ourselves completely enslaved at gunpoint by a totalitarian kleptocracy.

This can't be a good thing, folks...

China, Russia quit dollar
By Su Qiang and Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-24 08:02

St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.

"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.

The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.

The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.

"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said...

*snip*

Now that China and Russia (for all intents and purposes, both still very much communist nations) have unpegged from the dollar, what will happen to our economy here in the USA? A much quicker onset of hyper-inflation! This is what many economists have feared would happen if we strapped our debt to the mercy foreign nations, as the following article adequately explains...

Schaef Brief: China Unpegs Yuan – Good or Bad for America?
Author: A Schaef - June 29th, 2010

...What if China Steps Out of the US Treasury Market? Two possibilities then lie before us: higher interest rates to lure new investors or the Federal Reserve will have to step in as the main buyer. Some say that the former is not even an option right now because of what higher rates will do to our economy, therefore the latter is the only immediate possibility. Eventually, a combination of the two is the most likely scenario. As the Fed becomes the main buyer of US debt (in other words, as we monetize our debt), inflation then kicks into high gear because we are basically just printing money at an incredible rate at that point. To try and curb this inflation, higher interest rates will soon follow. When this happens you should already be well positioned in commodities; mainly precious metals. When the rest of the world finally figures this out, the gold rush we will have will be unlike anything we have ever seen. Let not your heart be troubled. If you make the right moves now you will survive; maybe even thrive...

*snip*

I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I've been keeping an eye this SHTF scenario stuff since 9-11 and this has all the indications of being the real deal. My spidey senses are tingling and the boy scout in me has been causing me to prepare for what I only see now as inevitability. NOW is the time, folks! Buy gold, stock up on canned and dry foods, try to secure additional cooking and heating fuels, and re-surplus your defensive and emergency measures - yes, guns and ammo, first aid supplies, etc. I'm not telling you this because I'm following the marching orders of anyone else; I'm telling you this because I've been researching this stuff on my own for nearly 10 years. Good luck and God willing, we will survive this storm.

Solid modeling about 90% complete...

***rollover pic for skeleton view***

I'm just about 90% finished modeling all the components and the assembly of my screwdriver antenna. The only thing left to model is the bracket which will attached to the right rear frame on my '06 Jeep Grand Cherokee. In the way of a completely modeled assembly, I need to get the miscellaneous hardware (screws, nuts, washers, etc.) from McMaster-Carr. They conveniently have 3d models for downloading of all the hardware I need to purchase from them. I also have to finish mapping the parts with material images to make them look real (stainless steel, Delrin plastic, gray PCV, aluminum, etc.). Once I have all this computer modeling finished, I need to shop around for a machinist willing to do one-offs of all the parts at a reasonable price. I've got a drill press and I can also do most of the cutting and welding, but most of the parts will need to be either water-jetted or CNC machined.

Side Note: Tomorrow is the wife's B-Day, so I will be out most of the day today and tomorrow. Won't she be surprised when she sees what got her. :D

HA! WE SURVIVED SNOWICANE 2010!!!

Thursday morning I woke to a lovely snowfall. By noon it was snowing like mad and we had about 5 inches on the ground. By 4:30pm we had about 10 inches and I decided to venture outdoors to clear the snow in order to make cleanup much easier the following day.





We knew it was getting bad. That afternoon, Orange County declared a state of emergency that was to last until 6:00am the following morning. About 9:00pm that evening we lost power. I tried to hook up a power inverter to the Jeep as a makeshift generator, but the output was insufficient to run the furnace or the well pump. I've been saving for a more powerful generator system, but as of yet, we just haven't saved up enough so the inverter was all we had to work with. It was dark, we had no running water and we were preparing ourselves to wake in the morning to a very cold house.

Friday came and so did news that the state of emergency had been extended until 6:00pm that evening... and the temperature inside the house had dropped to 52 degrees. I went outside, filled gallon freezer bags with snow and stuffed the fridge and freezer to protect the perishables. We ate cold cereal, PB&J sandwiches, cold chicken from the night before and thankfully we had plenty of bottled water. I even BBQ'd some burgers on my propane grille for lunch and got them medium rare before I ran out of propane. Throughout the day as the snow fell, the solar radiation which sifted through the overcast sky actually warmed the house by 8 whole degrees. Unfortunately, we knew that once darkness fell, the temperature inside would fall even more than the night before.

At 4:30pm I decided to go out for the second snow clearing. By that time we had somewheres in the neighborhood of 18-20" of wet and heavy snow. Thanks to my efforts the night before, I only had to clear some 8-10" of snow from around the house.





Then, by 6:30, we finally got word from the power company (NYS Electric and Gas or NYSEG) of an estimated restoration time; midnight the following day! Screw that!!! 30 minutes away, my Mom had power, heat and phone, so we packed up the family and spent the night at Grandma's house. There were a few tree limbs down on the road getting there, but we managed to make it to her house by 8:00pm. Next morning, Saturday the 27th, we woke up in warm beads, had a hot breakfast and took hot showers.







We finally got word from the utility company that power was restored that afternoon, so after an early dinner, we packed up and journeyed back home. The house was still warming up when we got there and thankfully most of the food in the fridge was still OK.




What a nightmare!!! It's amazing how we overlook such simple luxuries in our daily lives! Needless to say, I don't want to get caught with my male appendage swinging in the breeze like that again. I am determined to step up my efforts in preparation for future SHTF scenarios. Generator, backup propane tanks, more dry food storage, more ammo, etc... oh, and get finished building that damned antenna!

The Learning Curve

Shame on me. I've been absent from posting the past few days. My excuse this time is that I've been working again on designing a "screwdriver antenna" for my Icom 706MKIIG mobile ham radio. I don't feel like getting into the technical aspects of what a screwdriver antenna is, but I will say that I think it's the most superior tunable antenna in existence. Anyway, I started designing it a year ago and after half a year, I finally completed an acceptable and detailed 2D layout in CAD. I also procured about 80% of all the materials needed to build the thing. After taking a 5 to 6 month sabbatical, I've decided to get back onto completing it, but this is easier said than done. I need to find a machine shop that will mill me a bunch of one-off parts at a reasonable price. Oh, and I still as-of-yet have to sit for my ham radio technician's ticket (junior operator's license). I'm all studied up for it, but I just haven't gotten around to taking the damned test.

In addition to working on my SHTF-EOTW preparedness hobby, I've also been trying my hand at the newest versions of AutoCAD. I've been using that design platform for close to 20 years now and it is remarkable how far the technology has advanced. Most of the tools integrated into the newer versions today were the result of others like myself who had to write our own LISP and C++ programs years before to help get jobs done more efficiently. Today, it's all about solid modeling, 3D design and presentation. I've been doing 3D work off and on over the past 15 years or so, but never have I been able to design in real time 3D until recently over the past 5 years. One of the major reasons for this is that it has taken so long for affordable hardware to finally catch up to the demands of the software requirements in order to efficiently perform such complex tasks. So now, I'm working on converting my design over to 3D and I am just having too much fun doing it. And for all you perverts out there who can't get your minds out of the gutter, the image above is not that of a sex toy. It happens to be the gear-motor assembly which I have designed for my screwdriver antenna.

Bottom line here is that once again I am forced to ask for your patience while I labor toward the completion of this unfinished project. As it starts coming together, I will post more about my progress. Other postings may be light around here for a while, but as usual, if there is some issue that demands my ranting, you can bet that I'll be right here to express it.

TNX,
The Management

My freinds, THE LINE HAS BEEN CROSSED!!!

I pray to God this is not happening! If what I just read is true, our glorious leader, the Obamanition has signed away our sovereignty to the Global Gestapo. I and others like me have know this to be coming for some time now and here is what will inevitably become the death kneel for the US Constitution and the United States of America.

U.S. placed under international police-state
December 26, 3:49 PM
Columbia Conservative Examiner
Anthony G. Martin

In the dead of night on December 17, 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama placed the United States of America under the authority of the international police organization known as INTERPOL, granting the organization full immunity to operate within the United States.

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.

By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

What, exactly does this mean? It means that INTERPOL now has the full authority to conduct investigations and other law enforcement activities on U.S. soil, with full immunity from U.S. laws such as the Freedom of Information Act and with complete independence from oversight from the FBI.

In short, a global law enforcement entity now has full law-enforcement authority in the U.S. without any check on its power afforded by U.S. law and U.S. law enforcement agencies.

*snip*

HERE IT IS, FOLKS
STRAIGHT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE...

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 17, 2009
Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425

EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL
AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO
ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 16, 2009.

As we prepare to close out the first decade of the second millennium since Christ walked the earth, I pray that all of you who are reading this are prepared for what is now all but inevitable. Peace and strength be with you all... and God help us.