JUNE 6, 2008

One of the very interesting things I found in the "1215" book I’m reading is about the Church’s interdict of 1208 that lasted until 1214 under Innocent III. The church bells were ordered not to ring in England.
One is reminded of the much later and milder winter of discontent of 1979. In England, no one was buried during those years.
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My idea for a primary election: start with the smallest state by population and go upwards from there until the last state, California, number 1 in population, is the last one to hold a primary. It would be exciting and a great build-up. It would also mean that little candidates could hang in there longer and would not be as crushed by defeats. Who’s going to get excited if Hillary Clinton loses Delaware? By March, we’d start moving into Wisconsin and Minnesota, some of the middling states. It’ll be harder for someone to be completely destroyed when they know that New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, California and New York are still coming.
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Why are oil and energy the only industries where, we have decided, that what the people who run it every day and work in it and manage it and develop it and make profits from it, do, say and think about this are somehow wrong and we know everything that they don’t? What makes this the one industry where we know better than the people who are professionals in it?
We don’t do this for automotive, construction, food production and distribution or the law or medecine.
In 1960, American direct access to oil reserves was 85%. Now it’s 7%. The total demand for oil is 86 million barrels a day now. In about 30 years, it’s going to be 120 million barrels.
The CEO of Coneco-Phillips spoke recently in Alberta and said that right now, we provide 20% of the US’s oil. In about 20 or 30 years it will be about 50-60%. It’s important that we know that people like Jeffrey Simpson, who believes that eventually we won’t be able to sell oil to the US, might be wrong.