Why The Declaration of Independence?

When I was in school, seemingly the only reason for the
Declaration of Independence was to proclaim our
independence from the King for the fact that the King
forced us to house his troops. House and feed.
That was so many years ago that the above is my main
memory of studying the Declaration of Independence. The
rest of that document was never covered.

Now, something has driven me to inquire of the oft quoted
phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the
people," a thread that runs through much of our history.
A little research on the web has found this phrase absent
from those documents in which I thought it resided.
Instead, the phrase comes from the Emmancipation
Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Prior to finding
the phrase in the Emmancipation Proclamation, the
Declaration of Independence had already been read and its
contents suddenly became a little more relevant.

The Declaration of Independence, surprising to me, gives
a detailed account of the abuses of the King against his
subjects, specifically, 'his subjects' that had come to
the new world for a better life. Also surprising, as I
read the list, was how many of the abuses had a ring of
immediacy, were current with the present administration
that we had hired to run our country.
Following is a list of 18 grievances the colonists had
against the King and as it appears in the Declaration.
They thought these grievances sufficient to dissolve
their association with their Mother-country and become
an independent body. You be the judge of whether you see
anything familiar.

-He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome
and necessary for the public good.
-He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when
so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to
them.
-He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the
Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable
to tyrants only.
-He has called together legislative bodies at places
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository
of their public Records, for the sole purpose of
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
-He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights
of the people.
-He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative
powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the
People at large for their exercise; the State remaining
in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion
from without, and convulsions within.
-He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others
to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
-He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by
refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary
powers.
-He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
-He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and
eat out their substance.
-He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.
-He has affected to render the Military independent of
and superior to the Civil power.
-He has combined with others to subject us to a
jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
Acts of pretended Legislation:
..For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
..For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment
for any Murders which they should commit on the
Inhabitants of these States:
..For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
..For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
..For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of
Trial by Jury:
..For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for
pretended offences
..For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a
neighbouring Province, establishing therein
an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule
into these Colonies:
..For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most
valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms
of our Governments:
..For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us
in all cases whatsoever.
-He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out
of his Protection and waging war against us.
-He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
-He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign
Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
-He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on
the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to
become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
or to fall themselves by their Hands.
-He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and
has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our
frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known
rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of
all ages, sexes and conditions.

I would call your attention to items number 2, 3, 4, 8,
9, 10, 12, 16, 17 and 13 in particular. Perhaps given
sufficient time, the entire 18 articles may come to pass,
again.

FOR SALE! House of Representatives...Senate

YAHOO! News, April 26, 2006 (abbreviated)

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 24, 3:24 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Lobbying legislation is heading to a House
vote this week without provisions requiring lobbyists
to keep track of their contacts with lawmakers and
report fundraising activities. Democrats and activist
groups say the bill is now too weak to change the money
culture in Washington.

Paul Miller, president of the American League of
Lobbyists, welcomed the change, saying the proposed
rule on reporting contacts was unworkable.

But Wertheimer said the House GOP-backed bill would free
lobbyists from reporting on the fundraising they do on
behalf of lawmakers or on the lavish parties they host
for members at presidential conventions and elsewhere.

The bill is H.R. 4975.

Voters, what do you say? Are you concerned only about your
piece of the pie or is there enough pie to feed everyone?

Gas...Because every little bit helps!

"The president also announced that the government would
not take 10 million barrels of oil out of the market for
the U.S. emergency reserve as had been planned."

10,000,000 barrels. WOW! That's equivalent to 196,000,000
gallons of gasoline. We only consume approximately
59,797,760 gallons of gas per day. That's a little more
than 3 days worth of citizens buying gas.

BOLD move, Gee Dubya! Go get'em, boy.

You can tell, he's fed up with this and he's not gonna
take it anymore!

Judas. Holy Cow, Batman!

What is this deal about Judas?
Some are damming him, some are enthralled with him,
some have no idea who this Judas person was or did.
The only thing I can't figure out is who instigated
and why was this Biblical plot conceived as a means
of identification? And for what real purpose?

According to the Biblical record, Jesus did not hide
in the shadows or work his "magic" by night like a
vampire. According to the Biblical record, he spoke
to multitudes, in daylight, in public places. Some
Roman soldiers even attended his 'seminars.' His
identity was never a point of contention with anyone.
He was recognized on sight by many Biblical characters.

So why was Judas needed to walk up to Jesus and kiss
him as a means of identification? At night? In a
garden? [By the butler, in the library.]

This is really a "B-" movie plot. A plot within a plot
within a plot that doesn't explain anything and leads
down a deadend alley.

There exists another series of scrolls that seems to
be experiencing the same fate as other 'finds' that
help explain who we are and what we've experienced as
a race, but are disregarded by upperclass 'gods'
because the information the other scrolls contain
don't fit in with either their own or established
ideas.

These scrolls tell of Jesus making the statement, from
a distance, that the man being nailed to the cross was
in fact not Jesus at all, but a pretend Messiah. Perhaps
it was this pretender-to-the-title that Judas did in
fact kiss in order to save the real Jesus from
unnecessary public scorn and degredation. Someone had
to be fingered, tapped, pointed out. The mob didn't
really care what he looked like, they just wanted blood,
a spectacle, a show, to be entertained and releived of
the high blood pressure they had worked up for
themselves. After all, the Coliseum, too far to just
bop in for a matinee, wasn't the only place that
could provide good entertainment.
Judas was the man for the job.
That, as a plot, certainly makes more sense than the
most recent "finalized" version.

I think the Jews knew exactly who Jesus was, a teacher
of things they, and obviously the rest of mankind,
may have let slide a little. I think that the 'kiss
and tell' plot was conceived as a co-authored plan
between the Jewish leaders and the diciples as a way
to actually keep 'the teacher' from being put to death.
I think the so-called Christian leaders of later years
changed a word here and and a word there in order to
portray the Jews as a lesser people while at the same
time hedging their bets because Jesus was born a Jew!

___________________________________________

It never ceases to amaze me how we as a people of
such diverse backgrounds can close our minds to ideas
that we ...well, just don't like. I wonder if we
refuse to accept new ideas because to do so would
disrupt our entire belief system and we are too afraid
of not having anything to instantly fill the void. We
don't have time to think this through, again, because
Susie has to get to ballet class and Reggie has to
be picked up after baseball practice and the Simpsons
will be on TV in one hour.

I guess it really doesn't matter because the majority
of our beliefs were put into our heads by our parents,
preachers/priests/ministers, school teachers and
professors. Very few of them are actually our own
and we don't understand what they have to do with
our paychecks anyway.

Let us teach you our basic values

Gasoline shortage, or a House of Cards?

Well, you know what they say...curiosity killed the cat,
and I love cats. One cat in particular taught me a lot
about life, and death.

Anyway, it was my curiosity that has lead to a big hole
in the oilzone layer. Someone doesn't know basic
mathematics. You know, one-plus-one-equals-two? (It
still does that, doesn't it? Possibly not. Some days it
seems to equal 6, other days it seems to equal someone
in China sneezing or someone in Nigeria or Venezuela
taking a taxi instead of the bicycle to work.
Whatever is convenient and keeps the pot stirred.)

Searching through various government websites, several
agricultural websites and a few petroleum websites,
I have learned that the average cost of one barrel of
crude oil in 2004 was $36.00.

Ok, moving right along...

I also learned that in almost every report by any
agency, there is significant jumping around between
barrels and gallons, also between thousand of barrels
and millions of barrels and between days, weeks and
months.
"Significant," meaning, as in sentence number 1 talks
about barrels, but sentence number 2 refers to gallons.
Sentence number 3 refers to crude oil and sentence
number 4 refers to Oxengynated oil. That is all very
interesting in understanding that the reporter knows
his vocabulary. It is very frustrating in trying to
follow the flow of information as concerns only
one aspect of this convoluted mess. But then, perhaps,
ones' action follows ones' intent. On occasion, you
might even encounter one sentence refering to two
different measurements but equating them as if they
were the same. For a simple example you might see,
"We are continually coming up short because even
though we receive 14.5 million barrels a day, the
consumption in this country is 59.7 million gallons
each day!" What this dismisses is the fact that 59.7
million gallons is extracted from only 3.1 million
barrels of crude oil, not 14.5 million BARRELS. Big
difference.
Regarless, upon reading about the above cost of one
barrel of crude in 2004, my mind immediately jumped to,
not so much the 'costs' involved in oil, but to the
question "how many gallons of gas can you get out of
just one barrel of crude oil?' It seemed to me that
it would be easier to 'follow' one barrel and its'
contents than it would to try to follow millions of
barrels of 41 varieties of processed oil dispersed
across a 78,000 mile network of pipelines and highways
with spigots at every 35-mile marker (just following
the lead of other reports.).

Therefore, this 'report' will concentrate on figures
provided mainly by the government on barrels of crude
oil converted to gallons per barrel and will be based
on a monthly time frame. It is really simple. Convert
all figures to the same time frame, concentrate on
only one measurement, and concentrate on only one type
of product.

Most websites concerning petroleum are coated in many
layers of price structures, taxes, imports, exports,
production, interruptions, costs, etc. Other websites
appear to be heading directly for the answer you seek
and then veers off into various methods of processing
crude oil, their by-products, and wind up with more
coatings of smoke and a few more mirrors.

From one pictorial chart of a barrel of crude oil, you
can figure out that from one barrel of crude oil can be
extracted more petroleum products than exists in that
one barrel! As stated by the site, a barrel of crude
oil contains 42 gallons. From that 42 gallon barrel,
44.6 gallons of various petroleum products can be
processed, distilled, oxengynated, tossed, blended and
pureed! I guess that is just another example of the
the sum of the parts being greater than the whole, and
if 42 gallons represents 100%, it really doesn't mean
anything. In this case, you can say that 42 equals 100%
or you can say 44.6 equals 100%, it just depends on
what you don't want known. I don't know, math has a
way of proving whatever you want it to. [Has anyone
thought about buying stock in those companies that
manufacture barrels?]

Anyway, as you wend your way through these figures,
just tuck into the back of your mind the fact that we
are not accounting for 2.6% of the products that can
be extracted from one 42 barrel of crude oil. So, from
a 42 gallon barrel of crude oil can be processed 19.6
gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel fuel and
heating oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 1.7 gallons of
heavy fuel oil, 1.7 gallons of LPG and 7.6 gallons of
'other' products. Add 'em up, they come to 44.6 gallons,
no matter what anything costs anyone.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/gas04/gasoline.htm

Of course, that was in 2004 and we generally think
that most companies are constantly trying to figure
out how to get more product for less effort, or cost.
Hopefully, the leaps and bounds in technology has kept
up with all of that gasoline zipping through the
pipelines. Possibly not.

But back to basics. The important point here is that
from one 42 gallon barrel of crude oil you can get 19.6
gallons of gasoline. Again, for every barrel of crude
oil that is taken off of a freighter, rail car OR truck
and processed, you get almost 20 gallons of gasoline,
at or ready for the pump at your local convenience store.
That's not too difficult to understand, is it?

Now, more current figures, 2006, state that U.S.
refineries are bringing in to process 14,508,000 (mil)
barrels of crude oil per day, or 441,285,000 (mil) barrels
per month. [14508 times 365 days in a year divided by
12 months times 1000.] This figure is based on averaging
the available weekly figures for the period of 03/03/06
to 04/07/06. Approximately 441,285,000 (mil) barrels
of crude are received at the refineries each month to
be processed.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_wiup_dcu_nus_w.htm

So, if 441,285,000 (mil) barrels are being received each
month to be processed and each of those barrels of crude
oil produces 19.6 gallons of gasoline, then 8,649,186,000
(bil) gallons of gasoline is being received each month
by the refineries. Thats 441,285,000 (mil) mulitplied by
the 19.6 gallons that each of those 441,285,000 barrels
contains. I realize that this is "old" math so it may
not be correct by today's standards.

And, the same website that provides the figures of the
amounts received (441,285,000 mil. barrels per month)
also say that only 8,173,000 (mil) barrels are being
produced, daily. That is equal to 248,595,416 (mil)
barrels per month. So, 441,285,000 (mil) barrels, from
which can be extracted 8,649,186,000 (bil) gallons of
gasoline, is being received but the refineries capacity
is only 8,173,000 (mil) barrels daily.
Keeping this on a monthly basis, 8,173,000 barrels (mil)
daily is equal to 2,983,145,000 (bil) a year.
2,983,145,000 (bil) barrels per year is equal to
248,595,416 (mil) barrels per month. From 248,595,416 (mil)
barrels per month is extracted (X 19.6)
4,872,470,153 (bil) gallons per month.

Recap: 441,285,000 (mil) barrels are received per month,
248,595,416 (mil) barrels are processed per month.
That's a backlog of 192,689,584 (mil) barrels per month
that doesn't get processed. Right? So, more than one
half of the barrels being unloaded are being processed.
441,285,000 (mil) barrels of crude received, 248,595,416
(mil) barrels processed.
Does this mean that the oil isn't being processed
because the refineries are spending all of their time
constructing storage buildings or docks for incoming
freighters for the 192,689,584 (mil) barrels per month
that keeps accumulating? Who knows.

According to another websites' figures, a government
website, the citizens of the United States uses or
consumes approximately 10 million barrels of gasoline
per day. But that was in 2004, I guess.
Today's consumption (2006) is more like 59,797,760
(mil) gallons per day, or 1,818,848,533 (bil) gallons
per month going into automobiles, lawn mowers or
power saws, etc., as processed oil. At least, that is
what the figures at the Energy Information Administration
website say that consumers purchased or the oil
companies sold. And they ought to know. The figure of
1,818,848,533 (bil) gallons per month is according to
'sales' of Finished Motor Gasoline.

Well, there you have it. Refineries produce 4,875,470,153
(bil) gallons of gasoline per month and we use
1,818,848,533 (bil) gallons of gasoline per month.
This creates an excess of 3,056,621,620 (bil) gallons
per month of gasoline being produced but not going into
automobiles, lawnmowers, power saws, etc.
Where is the shortage? More importantly and to the point,
where are the 3,056,621,620 (bil) gallons per month going?



Stay tuned for PART II

The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas

YAHOO News Headline, 04/07/06

"White House Sidesteps Questions on Leak"

It all sort of falls into place, doesn't it.
One of my previous blogs talked about one of
my favorite songs from the musical movie
"Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." The song
was sung by Durning (as Govenor of Texas)
and, was titled, and if not it should have
been, "Whoooo, I Love To Do The Sidestep."

It certainly plays well to the movie title,
doesn't it?