Don't say I didn't warn you

The Secretary General of OPEC says oil might hit $200 barrel. He didn't say when.

Folks they have been waiting for this. Small companies to Russia are being hit hard by the drop in prices that only certain,large companies and OPEC will come out healthy. They want this to happen. Lower investment in future projects only helps those in a position to ride this out. And yes I know this is not new news, most investor publications are discussing this scenario.

What no one is talking about is the end result for various people and countries not oil rich.

WE NEED TO GET OFF OIL. Not only is oil projects being curtailed, there is also a feeling we don't need alternative energy with lower gas prices. We still need to diversify. The collapse of competition in the oil industry only consolidates wealth and power even more. Do not be surprised that in a decade unless the middle class of us and Europe don't elect better leadership we see half the world in totalitarian states and the other half economic oligarchs fueled by oil and multi national bank money.

This doesn't have to happen, however, we need to become involved. Sitting around and thinking people like me are a bit paranoid is dangerous. We, the people, have a responsibility to elect leaders that do what is right for the whole of our country, not the few. The oil market is one way we can lose what we have.

There was a reason the large banks bounced out of the recession they way they did.

We need to make sure people understand the diversification of wealth is good if done through markets, not through the govt., but the govt needs to make sure the markets etc are open to all.

bit of a b!$(h

I was standing in a national bank’s line at lunch today for almost thirty minutes. How is it in the 21st century you are standing in a bank line for half a lunch hour? Too much time to think and think of things to complain about.

And it was bothering me that this bank is one of the banks that spends fortunes on lobbyists to influence our Congress to give them the ability to make wild high risk trades so they can take a chance on making money ( or blowing up our economy up again), but they cannot pay for the clerks to take care of their bread and butter customers. As long as we keep electing the same ole vermin to Congress all the time, we will continue to be second class citizens. The names may change every now and then, but the business at hand of letting the lobbyists write the laws is still the business at hand of more for me, less for you.

Or as Ray Davies said: “ …it’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world….” Of course if you really know the song you know how out of context is this quote, but it works for these few words. I still enjoy jamming to the Kinks.

And some people will say (rightfully so) change banks. And we did awhile back. Most of our money ( or what is left of it) is in a small independent credit union. I just get a good deal on some perks I keep planning on using by having my paycheck direct deposited into this bank. Most of the time the majority of our money is somewhere else. We just use this bank for (in)convenience and use of a national ATM system that doesn’t charge us fees for withdrawals. The problem with small credit unions is that it is hard to access cash far from home. Now if we could ever get back on our feet again enough to travel it might be worthwhile to have this ATM advantage.

And others will say if you complain about the rich, you must be a liberal or jealous. I disagree. The whole point of what our fore Fathers did was to create a system where the rich/tyrants were to be put to the wayside and the people were allowed to be the drivers of the future of our country. Unfortunately the rich figured things out first and have co opted our country. I have always said, if you earn the money and do what is right overall, then you have earned your accolades. It does not give you right to coerce or manipulate the system to maintain an advantage that will not allow others to succeed. Our fore Fathers worked to create an opportunity for us to grow. Unfortunately we are the ones dropping the ball.

Which brings me to another quote I recently read: “All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.” Edward Gibbon. in trying to be positive this seems in backwards fashion to me, but with recent events in human history we seem to be retrograding faster than advancing.

Anyway if banks don’t want me complaining about them, hire somebody so I can go on about my life and eat lunch. Seriously in the 12-1 hour there was only one clerk. This is just horrid customer service. So please find yourself a local institution to put the majority of your money and just use the large banks for the one or two actual services that might benefit you. ( and you might want to have more than one ATM for the family, but with us it helps to maintain the budget)

On the sports front the Mavs are playing weak of late, really a pisser for the fans.

And my prediction for the “big game” is it will be very anti climatic. I will honestly be surprised if this is a good game. The score may be close or not, it is the quality of the overall game I think that is going to drop off a cliff. Hope I am wrong, but don’t think so going in. A few big plays may happen, but don’t expect a game for the ages.

And really: New England v. Seattle. First of all I do not like New England, not because they may cheat or not, not because they are very successful (actually I admire their success), but because Tom and Bill just need to be punched in the face and not the football type of punched in the face, but the bar fight punch. It is so hard to watch them walk around with their smirk faces all the time. Fine, be successful, but my God realize how blessed and lucky you are to be in the situation you are in to be successful. Show some respect to all the people who play and love the game. And nothing against Seattle, but I just cannot get excited about them at all.

Okay enough whining and bemoaning, have a great day tomorrow.

Doing what is right and other thoughts

First of all I had complained about the store Papaya that had done my daughter wrong in a previous post. In my opinion they could have made a very simple exchange and everything would have been right, but they stuck by a policy that was flawed to begin with and let my daughter down.

Well if you are going to complain I guess you have to step up and say something when a store does something right. I don’t usually make a big deal of a store doing what they should do, but it did actually cost them money (not much) to get something right for my wife. So in the spirit of saying something positive instead of complaining, my hat is off to Best Buy for turning an inconvenient problem into a positive for the product we bought from them. The better half is happy.

I do not know what the NFL is going to do. This has not been a good year overall starting with the domestic violence issues, then bad calls in playoff games and now one team is accused of cheating. Frankly any of this won’t affect how many people watch the “big” game this weekend. The same amount of die hard party fans will watch. A few may or may not watch depending on how much interest they have in the teams. And those who don’t watch aren’t going to watch unless it makes the news for other reasons than football.
The issue is can the NFL find a way to improve the product they are putting on the field in the long term. Bad publicity and bad officiating won’t immediately change football fans perception of the game, but somewhere down the line a bad product will turn people off. And the product is starting to show some wear around the edges. The Patriots have been one of the better teams over the last decade plus so to hear they think they have to cheat to win (even minor cheating that probably had no outcome on the game) says there is something wrong with how the game is being played. Sports is based on the general fan believing they are watching a competitive game. If that perception or belief is affected then that fan will lose interest. Sooner or later a person will find something that gives them the entertainment they want. If the NFL doesn’t clear up the quality of the game soon, what was once unthinkable that football is more important than God and country may pass. I don’t see this happening this week and probably won’t happen in the near future, but when games are decided by factors outside of the actual game on a regular basis people will begin to lose interest.


And are we digressing as a society? What is up with the growing popularity of UFC? To me this is nothing more than the TV version of the Roman Coliseum and the gladiators fighting. Two thousand years later and we still put too much emphasis on extreme violence for our entertainment. No wonder we cannot solve the problems facing our world. We should be way past this insanity. Of course the powers that be prefer we watch this stupidity instead of the stupidity that they put over on us. Yeah, that education thing just gets in the way doesn’t it?!

Funny, as I type this post I am watching the Late Show with David Letterman and they are talking about lying etc.. How can we have a comedic rational conversation about lying, yet I can change the channel on the same machine and watch people commit mayhem on each other under the same idea of entertainment? Baffles the hell out of me.
Yep, critical thinking is just sooooo important in our public and even private education system.

Okay time to stop preaching.

I hope that Mother Nature doesn’t overwhelm the Northeast tonight and tomorrow. I was reading news stories last night about the upcoming storm and many of the comments on them were just be prepared, this has happened before, we can ride this out etc.. and in most cases probably true. Just remember even just a half mile can make the difference between getting a foot or two of snow vs having Mother Nature drop a ton of crap into your life. Be safe, but also be vigilant.

Finally a quick comment on the election in Greece. I mentioned something like this happening before in a previous post. The uber rich keep telling us we should have capitalism and the government should leave them alone. Overall the government should stay out of the economy, however, there is some influence that needs to be addressed in distressed times. What I said before though is that the infamous 1 % will do more to drive the world to socialism by their policies than what would come about if we had a true free market economy which they say they support. This election result should come as no surprise. If you keep taking away sooner or later people will want to take back. You offer people opportunities and most will take advantage of them and do something with it. Which do we want to choose?

And at some point I am going to try and put a more serious post together discussing the difference between the welfare state and socialism. There is some misconceptions by some Republicans that the welfare state leads to socialism. And this is not inherently true.

It is late, have a great tomorrow

a little bit of family

Okay we are driving along on one of our nice days we get here in North Texas throughout winter and the better half turns to me and says we should join a bike club. Yes, we are grandparents, my wife has never driven a bike in her life and I haven’t since I was a teenager and the largest bike I ever drove was a 125cc dirt bike. Now she says to me, she wouldn’t drive, just ride with me. And she knows very well how much of a klutz I am. Sometimes I worry about that woman.

My youngest is an xx year old teen age daughter who proudly told me she is a teenage girl and being full of drama is what is expected of her. Why sould I expect anything different? Sometimes I worry about that child.

There is an estrogen/testosterone imbalance in our family and always have been. We have one son and he was third in line. Some days are just more interesting than I can take. One of my heroes though is my brother’s Father in law. He had 7 daughters, no sons. Lived a long fruit full life, don’t know how, but he did. My other hero is my Father in law, 3 wives, umpteen children, and we would still have to go find him in the bars in Mexico up until the month he passed in his eighties.

Question for you: is being anal and being OCD the same thing?

Gas prices went up sharply around here this week. Is the party over? And there are so many contradicting stories about the direction of oil prices, but the main difference is when, not if oil prices will rise again and how much. The longest I have read is 3 years, the other is $5 a gallon gas is right around the corner. This volatility and insanity is one of the reasons I say over and over, time to get off fossil fuels. And I have been saying this since the 70’s. Thank goodness the price of electric cars are finally starting to fall down from sky high levels.

It is chilly right now, but a few days of really nice weather is around the corner again. Have to admit, gotta love North Texas, however, it is nice to see snow falling every now and then. Not this year so far.

Stay warm

"lets talk about ducks"

One of the original lines of the original version of Greater Tuna. I do not know how the two actors/writers have managed to keep this going, yet they have and have done well.

If you haven’t seen the play, but have seen the Big Bang Theory, you can get a glimpse of the origins if you pay attention to the occasional reference to Sheldon’s childhood in East Texas. Strange and true, but if Sheldon’s character was in the play it would work to an extent just because East Texas is that unique and the play is that good.


The way we try to solve problems in this country is ridden with the solution being set up to fail. We tend to try and find out who is the bad guy, blame the bad guy, and punish the bad guy. And then once we have done this we think we have solved the problem.

An example of this is what MADD has accomplished.
First of all, I agree that people shouldn’t drink and drive. There is a cost and unfortunately sometimes that cost is someone’s life. And I don’t have anything against MADD, my Mom was a member for many years of her life, it is just making people criminals for something our society shoves down our throats (literally) has not solved the problem. People still drink and drive.
I usually don’t like bringing up a complaint or issue without trying to offer a solution, but I don’t have one for this scenario. I just think it is time we completely reviewed what we are doing. Too many people have a criminal record for something that our society encourages day in and day out. It is not just the commercials on TV, but it is so much of our daily lives. And for many years, especially in sprawling metro areas there wasn’t much of a public transportation system to offer an alternative to driving. Dallas Fort Worth for example barely had any public transportation till the last ten years at best. Sure we had a bus system, but that was around only during business hours and never ran at night. People were stuck paying for a cab that could be seriously cost prohibitive in an area where 20-30 mile trips to a party are not uncommon. So instead of common sense being used (remember we are drinking) people gamble on not being caught instead of paying excessive price to get home. And yes yes there is a bigger cost if you get caught. The issue is, we spend billions to encourage people to break the law and offer no alternative.
And I am not against MADD, but this is an example of how we, as a society, address problems. We blame somebody and we feel like we have accomplished something, yet with a deeper look we have only made the problem worse. Sometimes there are no bad guys, but bad decisions. We need to find a better answer to this problem and a better answer to how we solve problems overall.

And if you are wondering, did I get popped recently, no, there is an aspect of my job where I see how bad this problem has become because I see many people with a criminal record for one DUI or DWI. And I do mean many people unfortunately. And again people still drink and drive.

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Praise the Lord and fill up the tank. Yep the cost of gasoline is going down and all our problems are solved.
Folks, please put on your thinking and memory caps. This is probably one of the worst things (okay we all need a break with our budgets) that could have happened. We still need to move off of oil for so many reasons it is not funny. Yes it is wonderful to pay less, but this is creating a false sense of security in our country. And it still hasn’t changed the fact gasoline is poison to the human body. And we breathe it, we breathe it’s residue, it leaks into our drinking water etc… but it is inherently one of the worst creations by man that has such a daily negative affect on our health and we still think we need to continue with gasoline as our primary source of mobility. The lowering of the price only postpones what is or should be inevitable and that is finding new ways to power our lives.
And it still poses huge geopolitical risks for us as a nation. Yes we have our fracking etc…that is supposed to save us from the rest of the world. Sorry long term that isn’t going to work and the current price play by the Saudis etc is fool’s gold. The Saudis can ride out the market and put everyone else out of business and don’t be naïve about or surprised by this statement. I think most people wouldn’t be, but if you read all the comments on the stories about lower gas prices you have to wonder.
We have to find the leadership and where with all to continue to develop alternative sources of energy and make them part of our daily lives. And I have said this before, it will take us about two generations to significantly reduce our use of gasoline so the change from one industry to another can be done in a positive way to not affect employment and business overall.


It has been awhile since I have made myself make time for writing, both on my blog and on my stories so I had some catching up to do. Unfortunately my Cowboys are no longer playing. After the Detroit game I really wanted to write about the NFL needs to find a way to get things right. The dispute about the catch only exasperated the fans even more. Instant reply was supposed to help the NFL get it right, yet…….. How does the NFL make the fans feel comfortable about what may happen this weekend or for the “big game”?
And speaking of getting it right, please do not shop at a store called Papaya. In my younger days I worked for many years in retail and retail management, so I have a pretty good idea of doing what is right for a customer. I understand companies have policies, but at some point the policy can be in the wrong. My youngest daughter has a part time job and used some of her money to go shopping for herself and being a teen age girl she was excited about shopping with her own money. I won’t go into the details, but this company really did her wrong. So with so many companies out there I am asking you to shop elsewhere and if they keep up their business practices I may be doing you a favor anyway.
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I agree with Pope Francis that it is disrespectful to defame other people’s religions/cultures etc…, however, violence is not any kind of answer for anything. Terrorism is a direct product of certain religious leaders (and certain rulers of countries) keeping their people ignorant and poor to prop up their power. Respect is something we should offer as a society, but we have a right to be critical of others, shoot even Jesus was critical of the religious leaders of his time. Okay granted he had a bit more going for him than a satirical publication, yet people have a right to criticize etc… in some ways this helps all of us become better people. No one though has a right to take another person’s life. And this is especially true if you purport to believe in God. And in a satirical tone, DAESH is doing more to bring about the Crusades than any Pope ever did.
And speaking of respect….. I did not vote for Obama, nor support most of his policies etc.., but it sure looks bad when members of Congress resort to kindergarten name calling when trying to change his policies. Either come up with a better policy or keep your mouth shut. It is really sad when people who are supposed to represent the best of our nation are behaving like spoiled brats.
The word respect does carry great importance Monday. I hope you have a wonderful and reflective holiday on Monday.


Well the Mavs need to beat a quality Western conference team soon and hopefully they get the job done against Memphis on Monday.

Have a great rest of your weekend.

Dirty laundry

When the flag was picked up against the Cowboys for pass interference, the better half and I were eating leftover (from New Years day) black eye peas as part of our dinner. Just saying

That is about the only explanation I have for that one, except for that it hit him in the back and there was contact both ways, but no one from Detroit wants to hear that. and I don't blame 'em

Go Cowboys