Folks, I’m neither a Democrat, nor a Republican. But my mom asked me to give her an unbiased, factual rundown on the political platforms - so what my mother wants, my mother gets! Here you go Mom…

I’m making the presumption that the two candidates who are going to actually be running for President are Barack Obama, and John McCain. So, below I’ve taken the liberty of narrowing down all the data to these two guys. What you need to do is line up as many of your political ideal matches and then you can rationally choose who you are voting for.
Read the rest of this entry »

Folks, I’m going to go ahead and call it, even though no one else seems to be willing to do so. We’re officially in a recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as:

A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.

Let’s take a look at some of the leading indicators, shall we?
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t normally pass along things that circulate the Inter-Tubes via e-mail, but this is pretty interesting information - if it is all true. I have no idea where it originated, but a family member sent it to me. I’d be curious if anyone could actually vet this info and prove / disprove it’s validity.

I don’t know what you guys are paying for gasoline…. but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every gallon.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a little skit which was apparently first featured on the Taproot Blog. I have no idea who produced it or why, but it’s quite a funny parody of a politician explaining an oil spill.

I’m guessing it is from an Australian comedy TV show, so if one of you knows a little more detail about where this came from it would be great.
Read the rest of this entry »

I was so amazed at what I’m about to share here that I struggled for some time to come up with the right title. Other titles I considered:

• Florida Man Saves the World
• Man Cures Cancer and Solves Energy Crisis With One Invention
• Accidental Discovery Eliminates Need for Oil
• Saltwater Combustion - The Incredible Energy Solution

In the end, no title seems worthy of this discovery. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it changed the world.
Read the rest of this entry »

There is a film called Oil, Smoke & Mirrors which documents what the producers claim to be an impending peak in global oil production. It has been viewed 750,000 times on Google Video alone.

A number of experts, economists, the UK’s former Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, and Germany’s former Science and Technology Minister, Andreas Von Buelow, share their opinions regarding what sounds like an impending oil crash; and then the producers tie this theory into one of complete global conspiracy to control the last remnants of oil capacity.

To me, the film is woven together in such as way that the topic seems to change from the concept of the world’s increasing oil usage and decreasing supply to more of a Roswell type malicious governmental cover-up.
Read the rest of this entry »

In 1980 Texaco was doing exploratory drilling for oil in Lake Peigneur, a shallow man-made lake near New Iberia, LA. Although many of the facts from that day are lost, what we do know is that someone miscalculated and drilled right through the lake and into a salt mine below.

It’s generally accepted that the drill punctured the roof of the third level of the mine. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake, similar to removing the drain plug from a bathtub. The lake then drained into the hole, expanding the size of that hole as the soil and salt were washed into the mine by the rushing water, filling the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years.
Read the rest of this entry »

The October 23 issue of Business Week magazine had an interesting report about the impact of falling gas prices on the economy:
Read the rest of this entry »