Cheap Seats Online 2015 Part B
This and That, and That - 11-11-15
By Rich Trzupek
Keystone
President Obama’s refusal to let the Keystone XL Pipeline cross the border has been hailed by enviro-Nazis as a victory for their point-of-view, and condemned by many conservatives as a disastrous mistake.
Both sides are wrong.
Here’s what most of us who operate in the energy sector believe will happen as the result of the President’s decision:
1) The amount of crude oil processed in American refineries, roughly 18 million barrels per day, will not change, just as that number would not have changed had the Keystone XL border crossing been approved. Demand drives that bus, not supply.
2) America will import slightly more crude from non-North American sources that it would have had Keystone XL been approved.
3) The amount of Canadian crude delivered to America from Alberta will continue to increase, through the twin tools of increasing existing pipeline capacity and increased rail deliveries.
4) One of the biggest, if not the biggest, beneficiaries of this decision will be the BNSF railway, owned by billionaire Obama supporter Warren Buffet. The BNSF has been buying up tank cars to ship Canadian crude and will transport more and more of that crude on its right-of-way.
5) Shipping crude by rail is, in general, a safe and economical way to transport it. However, it is generally considered to be a less safe and less economical means of transporting crude than transport via pipeline.
This is, in other words, a good time to be Warren Buffet. Although, to be fair, I don’t know that there is a bad time to be Warren Buffet.
Carly
I don’t know that I’ll vote for Carly Fiorina in the GOP primary, but I am certain of a couple of things: a) Fiorina will face the kind of attacks from the left and its liberal media allies that no liberal candidate, nor any male conservative candidate, would face, and b) Fiorina, and all conservative women, deserve better.
Libs attack conservative women from one of two angles: they’re morons, a la Sarah Palin, or when that argument is too difficult to make, they’re sell-outs, a la Condoleezza Rice. In either case, their gender always constitutes an important part of the attack narrative. According to the left, the conservative woman may be a bimbo, a diva, a bitch, an ogre or a princess, but some gender-specific stereotype – about which they continually contend to be so outraged in other circumstances – inevitably comes into play.
The fem-Nazis (yes, that’s two Nazi metaphors in one column!) on “The View” dumped on Carly for her “demented” smile during the last Republican debate. Fiorina, and many other conservatives, took exception to the snarkiness. In response, View host Whoopi Goldberg implied that Fiorina couldn’t take a joke.
But here’s the thing about taking a joke. One can be expected to take a joke in stride so long as jokes are equally distributed. Had the gals on The View spent some time making fun of Hillary Clinton’s appearance and/or wardrobe choices – and let’s not pretend that there’s plenty of material there – I don’t think Fiorina or the rest of the right would have been as offended. Mockery singularly directed at a particular group ceases to be humor and becomes partisanship for all practical purposes.
Vlad
As of this writing, it’s still unclear whether or not that Russian airliner that crashed in the Sinai was brought down by a bomb planted by ISIS or an ISIS-affiliated terrorist organization. However, it seems more and more likely that was the case.
If it is shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that ISIS was involved, God help those fanatics. Our President’s official policy is to contain and degrade ISIS. An autocrat like Putin, given enough provocation and justification, is more than likely to unleash hell on the terrorist group. That will necessarily push him and his country further toward the Shia side of the Shia-Sunni-Israeli struggle for power that is the Middle East.
Will it be enough to force a decision? We shall see. Will it be sufficient to make this already dangerously unstable region become even more unhinged? No doubt.
E-Mail: Rich@examinerpublications.com
www.threedonia.com
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