the glut and the glory

got the kicks for this gawdamned keystone xl pipe now.  cursed.  diggin' round, trying to answer the question of "why?" why the pipeline, and why now?  didn't take long to find out.

there is a glut of oil in the united states.  midwest refineries cannot handle all the tar sands oil pouring in now from two pipelines.  that's right, a glut of oil in the american heartland.  a glut so bad, the oil sands corporations and the canucks are taking a ten per cent haircut, losing twelve to eighteen bucks a barrel. not happy, that bunch. not happy about that at all. the american refineries are the bottleneck, and the xl is supposed to widen distribution and get more oil refined, or shipped to wider world markets.  meanwhile, as more oil pours into the united states than it can handle, forcing a price cut on suppliers, americans are still enjoying rocketing gas prices, based on the price of oil that is not the oil sitting right there in their backyard. then, the idiot man-boy obama says that maybe that dirty tar sands oil ain't so good after all.  the "stakeholders" are like, fucking what? you assholes wanted all this goddamn oil, and now you don't? of course, they do. this is what obama does. he makes big bold-ish statements, and then slinks away, hoping no one will notice.  which is stupid, because everyone notices.

so, that's the low down on the xl pipe; things are bunged up, obama's there, gumming up the works and stalling the inevitable, as usual.  guess that's supposed to make his administration look pensive 'r sum shit. it's at this point, however,  that the mind also begins to question the efficiencies of those lauded privateers, those titans of superfluid free market industry.  bottleneck. couldn't see that comin'.  nope.  seems that free market doesn't look too far ahead. buildin' a bunch oil pipes and punching that go goo into the yooessofehh. oops. forgot about that whole refining capacity thing. more pipes will fix that! this is eerily familiar territory: what? war not working? clearly then, more of it!

lest one imagine that this is part of some long term scheme to deliberately drive down oil prices on the canadians, well, let's just say, doubtful. highly doubtful.  so doubtful, in fact, that the canadians have decided that they can't trust the yanks to get their shit together anytime soon and want to build a pipeline to supply china via the west coast.  much shorter, but way worse terrain (or beautiful in non oil pipeline contexts). first nations, definitely gonna howl.  hell, those radical environmental puppets (see below) are howling already.  for all the howling about what the oil industry wants to do, it sports a rather remarkable record for getting just what it wants anyway.

anyway ... what the hell  ... oh yeah, china, pipeline.  yeah, canucks are shopping the oil sands around.  can't be trusting those damn yankees.  plan to screw us or just the usual bungling, whatever, fuck them.  china wants the oil, of course, but detests all the hassle introduced by those blasted natives and their protests about the pipeline.  'cause ya know what they do in china.  they just pick up your ass and move it.  china feels very embarrassed by the quibbling. at best, all theses plans will only be delayed, because alberta now is being sold as the saudi arabia neighbour the united states have always deserved: friendly, next door, not muslim, practically empty and ripe for the taking, blinded by oil wealth, though a bit too conscious of their native population. hell, don't even have to invade, just shovel the shit at us. for their part, the canadians just want an out from a less than trustworthy neighbour. from a long way off, this whole scene is a ghastly hilarity; the americans are buying up canada's oil and water, and the canadians are happily shoveling everything to them. the unique insight for the oil blind canadians is that they've realized they should continue to drain their land and befoul their wilderness and keep shoveling those precious goods to somebody else, too.

naturally enough, this little dither round that regionalized energy sector space would most assuredly fall upon the oil patch baptized pages of the calgary herald. it's like fox news in print, at least when it comes to discussions about the tar sands.  albertans are rather touchy about it, i've been surprised to learn. surprising how ungreen one gets when the billions are pouring in. foxtrotting in tone and stance, one holding to a global hoaxer conspiracy of "climate change" as absolute fucking fact, some boiling albertan roundhouses all the nay sayers of the pipeline, such as those nefarious and "well-funded environmental radicals" and "big money environmental groups."  indeed. i was not aware that there was "big money" in environmentalism.  if we could only figure out who the hell all these "big money" environmental groups are, that would be start. soros. he's in there. somewhere. that's what bill o'reilly would tell canadians. and gawdonlynoes what evil lurks in those dark green hearts, known to be "using Canadian aboriginal groups as puppets." what nerve. using aboriginal groups to protect their own native lands.  dastardly!  did you know that obama adheres to "draconian action on climate change," and yet, and thank goodness, "President Obama did not mention climate change either in his State of the Union speech or at yesterday's press conference"? stealth draconian.

in the alternative energy world of the herald and other boiling albertans, "climate science is collapsing," which seems to indicate that this particular boiling albertan is rather behind the curve, surely a "climate gate" ruminant, convinced that the appearance of the word "trick" in an email between scientists is proof, proof! of a global climate caliphate of egghead puppeteers intent on defunding industrial society.

by the end of the steam letting, the boiling albertan heaves a sigh of relief for middle east turmoil, happy in the knowledge that the kindly canadians won't ever put up a fuss about gouging and befouling their own lands in order to keep the american behemoth sputtering on two cylinders, driving and shopping. that's oil patch gold. that's oil patch glory.