Out My Back Door

As I sit here in the heated comfort of my little RV, drinking my cup of hot coffee at the computer screen.  I look out  my back window.  There is a man I see out this window.  He lives there in the brush under a Yucca Tree in this vacant lot next to the RV Park.  It’s close to a public transportation bus stop which he uses every day to go somewhere.  Still, almost every night he spends it under the Yucca Tree in this lot.  He’s got a shopping cart which he lovingly packs and unpacks every day with his possessions.  I sit here and think just how fortunate I am as compared to this gentleman.  Then as the old saying goes, “for the grace of God”  comes to my mind.

How many people are living like this I wonder at times.  I heard a commercial on TV saying there was 50,000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles.  The talking head on the TV tells me that more people are slipping into poverty than any other time in the last half century.  Then on the presidential debate, I hear a participant state we need to roll back the war on poverty in this country that was started back in the sixties by a democratic president.

I’m not poor, neither am I rich, I live on the edge and I’m sure there is many more just like me in this country.  I don’t go hungry, nor am I cold at night.  Nonetheless, when I can observe it every where I’ve been across this country so far, I start to question the state of our nation.  I know friends and acquaintances who are struggling every day just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.    Our so called leaders are out of touch, they really should come down from those ivory towers of government and walk the streets of our country.

Maybe I’m too soft, and maybe we should just tell everyone to buck it up, tighten your belt and find a job.  Pull your self up out of poverty, why this country is full of opportunity right?

Thanks to the Gwichin 1 for sending this to me

ANWR:  First Sarah dear, I think you are a little confused, the oil set aside was NPR-A , not ANWR .  NPR- A , Eskimos and trappers reported oil seeps.  The US  government  drilled during WWII  at Umiat;  found oil but not much.   NPR-A  has had several oil lease sales. Marginally successful but less so on the discovery end.

The amount oil and gas in ANWR has been hyped out of reason and changes with political pressure.  The oil  estimates are at given  95% certainty level, the mean and the 5% possibility.  Those that hyped it use the one chance in twenty as if it were a certainty.

ANWR’s  recoverable oil is between zero and 6 billion barrels.  DOE figured it would take something like 30 to 35  production sites to produce that ANWR oil. Please Note,  I said production sites not exploration drilling sites; the two would only be the same if every drill site were successful.  Not much chance of that.

So Sarah, you would be very lucky to make one find of a billion barrels which could justify a pipeline to get the oil out.  The rest would be a lot smaller. Sarah, you will need roads,  oil lines, gaslines, water lines, gas injection , water injection, production and disposal pits, camps and the list goes on.  That kind of infrastructure costs a lot of money for not much return.  The oil business is not a poor man’s game like Senator Lisa Murkowski thinks it is.

Sarah,  if what oil there may be in ANWR  were around Prudhoe Bay then it would most certainly be worth going after, but ANWR is not, ANWR is too far from the North Slope oil production to be seriously considered by the thinking person.

The oil companies may lie, cheat, steal, deceive and buy politicians, the press and whoever else they may need,  but the oil companies are not stupid, with exception of BP.

Now Sarah, because of the above the oil companies quit giving funds to Arctic Gas for lobbing Congress to open ANWR long before Arctic Gas finally collapsed.

Sarah,  if you think you can ride a dead horse,  go for it.   But please move carcass to Lake Lucile for it is beginning to smell.  Maybe you can palm it off on that guy living next to you.  Sarah, you were correct in not baking him a batch of cookies for you will both make more money out of a spat .

All the Bankers are in Washington

All the big bankers are in Washington, bubba looked at me and asked.  Do you think they will take plead the Fifth.   I would love to be a mouse in the corner