Category Archives: Rants and Raves

We are a funny lot, you know?

I am not just pointing my finger at others, but I will include myself in this argument as well.  Because at one time, in the past, I also felt that there was too much oil exploitation in the US, that we were destroying the land with our rigs and drills.  But that was many years ago, when I was still swayed by the teachings of others and did not have the desire to make decisions for myself based on my own research.

That being said, there is a problem that affects many of us.  As an example, when the state says that they are going to build a new rehab center for people released from prison, everyone says, “Great job, they just need another chance!”

Then the state says that they are putting it in your neighborhood, and that changes everything.  Suddenly it is not such a good idea and you are getting in line to petition against it.  You are all for it, as long as it is someplace else.

The county says that they are going to allow a house in your neighborhood to be a home for functionally mentally or physically challenged people.  Many people will say things like, “That is a great idea, and I support it 100%… as long as they move it somewhere else, just not in my neighborhood.”

I dare you to tell me I am wrong.  Even if you might not be the one to actually SAY IT, you might still be thinking it.  It is called “NIMBY”… or Not In My Back Yard.

Now… lets take the our attitude about the oil companies.  More often than not it’s the LIBERAL and the Enviro-Nazi attitude towards them.

We talk all the time about the fact that we are paying out the nose for gas and that all that money is going overseas to the “Arabs”.  We see on TV and read online about how these folks are building some of the biggest hotels and building on the planet.  How the owners of these oil fields are buying gold and silver plated cars. But then when someone asks WHY and HOW they can do this, people stammer and stutter.

YOU AND I are the reasons.  WE are feeding their addiction.

When someone looks at a piece of land in the US and mentions that there are literally BILLIONS of cubic feet of natural gas or barrels of crude just waiting to be pumped out of the ground, we have to fight through years and years of red tape with bureaucrats, special interest groups, ECO-Nazis, and similar groups until they just don’t do it.

Even the existing oilfields that we have are so closely watched that when something DOES happen, like say a tractor runs over a particular mouse, agencies move in in a heartbeat to stop everything to do some asinine environmental impact study on how they can save the rat and/or relocate it.

Now… I will take a moment to say that I am not against protecting wildlife, but there has to be a balance.  I know there can be a balance between man and nature and we can both win.

Many years ago, I can remember when the common thought was that we, America, was selling out to the Japanese.  I remember hearing stories about how they were buying everything and we were going to lose our identity as Americans.  But the question then as it is now was, who is doing the selling?

I do see us selling out to the OPEC nations.  I see people like my brother-in-law and my nephew-in-law working for companies that are struggling to make it because we are so anal about how we drill on the precious little pieces of land we are allowed to drill on, while at the same time we are sending billions of dollars overseas to companies that do not seem to be as badly affected by groups like we are here in the States.

This is a perfect example of NIMBY, and we are letting it happen.  We are content to let our potential oil reserves sit, untapped, because we might cause some damage to the environment, yet we are happy to send the money overseas when we could be stimulating our OWN economy by paying people in the US to drill for oil.

I know what some of you are saying right now.  You are saying: “Hey Samurai… look at what just happened in the Gulf… isn’t that a good example of why we should not be drilling and what effect it has on the environment?”

You would be partially right.  I will never say that there are no risks to drilling.  Accidents happen, spills will occur, people will get hurt.  Tell me one job in the world that you could not say the same thing about.  It is an industry with risks; each mistake makes us think a little more carefully about the next move we make.  We learn from our mistakes because that is what they are there for.

We are constantly talking about alternative energy, and I am all for that. I support it 100%, but you cannot just flip a switch and change everything that we do overnight.  You need to make changes slowly so that they do not cripple the economy.  You need to ease up on nuclear restrictions and put wind farms where they will do the most good, not where they will look the prettiest.

Oil exploration and production is safe… it can be a high risk profession, people get hurt, sometimes killed, accidents and spills do happen.  We need to understand that and get over it.  Move on.  Think of the economy this country could have if we started allowing safe and careful oil drilling in places like ANWR or some of the potential reservoirs like Williston Basin.  Granted, it would take several years to develop these, but if we concentrate on things like this and take the Enviro-Nazis out of the loop, then we would be creating thousands of new jobs… possibly tens of thousands of new jobs, thus injecting money back into OUR economy and helping to rebuild OUR infrastructure.

We were strong once before, people… we can be strong again.  We just have to stop listen to the special interest groups and the people who think they know better than we do.  It can happen.

I was watching a program on the History Channel the other day that talked about how, during World War II, we were able to construct the Alcan in eight months, versus the projected two years that the Army Corp of Engineers had originally planned for.  So I started thinking; Could we accomplish this kind of feat today?

Let’s take, for the most recent example, the World Trade Center.  The official groundbreaking for Tower 1 was August of 1966 and both towers were completed in 1971.  So it took five years to build two of the tallest buildings in the world.

Going further back, let’s look at what happened during World War II.  Specifically, the construction of the Liberty Ship fleet between the years of 1941 and 1945.  During that time there were 2751 Liberty Ships planned and 2710 built, floated and sent into action.  That works out to be almost a whopping 46 ships a month from all the shipyards.  This is assuming that they started building these on Jan 1st, 1941 and stopped Dec 31 1945.

Not so much looking at the economy today, but at the nature of our nation and the way our current business, legal and production models work, could we accomplish this kind of engineering or manufacturing feat today?

Personally, I do not think we could.  I think that business’ and industries have become so mired down in rules, laws, union vices and EPA restrictions, that were there suddenly a need for a large quantity of ships, planes, tanks, etc…  we would just not be able to accomplish it.

A lot has changed over the years, and in spite of what some may say, it is not all good.  Sure, we have better medicines, better electronics, better hospitals (in spite of what the Obama administration might be telling us.) all in all, many things have gotten better.  Including the legal system.

As I see it, the problem these days is that we have burdened ourselves so far down with laws, rules and guidelines that many of the things we once could have done, are no longer possible because their are so many restrictions.  While some of these restrictions and laws are needed to insure the safety and well-being of those involved… but there are some that I think just hinder instead of help.

Back to the original question, though.  Could we do it again?

It took a little over a year to build the Empire State building and the Chrysler building took about a year and a half…

… Five years to build the Hoover Dam…

… just over four years for the Golden Gate Bridge…

… Lastly…  The world trade center took about four years per tower to build.

On that last item, consider how long it took to build the towers and now, today, how long it has been since the towers were destroyed?  Now why has it taken so long to build a replacement or suitable memorial?

Could we build these amazing things today?  Again, looking at how inundated most companies are from the beaurocrats, unions, lawyers and laws, could we build another World Trade Center building in four years?  Another Empire State building in a year?  Anything like that?

We are too busy arguing over who wants what, fighting over how many hours this employee should work, why THAT employee should not get the same benefits, etc…

It boils down to one thought that I have on these things…  Shut up and get it done.  If it needs to get built, build it… if it need to be fixed, fix it.  Just don’t sit around and talk about it.