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Gas prices will go up thats the way it is..... unfortunately we will pay for it .... gas prices in iraq just only 5 cents a gallon wow wonder why????
but over here in the good ole us of a well everyone here 16 years old has a vehicle and guess what they drive the well you know what out of the vehicle oh well that didnt happen 20 years ago did it or even 20 years ago think about it we are using more today than we ever used thts the problem and we ae slowly depleting it rapidly ooorrahhhh food for thought roll back prices it wont ever happen plus maybe gas prices are in line with the economy right about now maybe ooorrahh semper-fi :salute:
I respect your opinion and your right to that opinion , O.K? So know that i am not angry at you or yours. It's just that we have a differing opinion and that is what makes this country unique. The right to those opinions.
My Hubby worked for years in Oil out west and some oil and a multitude of Natural Gas Wells in Lower Michigan as well also as some H2s wells. The nasty selling dangerous stuff. O,K? In Otsego County, Mi. and surrounding counties as well as wells extending down through the Tri-cities,(Saginaw,Flint and Bay City.), many wells are pumping but many wells are also shut down, not because they are empty but because the wells are, now get this: OVER PRODUCERS AND PRODUCTION EXCEEDS THAT ALLOWED STANDARD FOR A DESIGNATED TIME LIMIT. These wells are only allowed TO RUN AT DESIGNATED TIMES.
If you fly over Otsego and Montmorency Counties in Michigan, there are so many wells it looks like a checkerboard. Many people don't realize it but Michigan is known for more than Automobiles; er: Ford Mo. Co., Chrysler, Gm, etc. It is know for Steel, Oil, Natural Gas, Corn and the list goes on.
Without going for Alaska Oil, before Alaskan Drilling and before much of the Drilling in the Gulf, there was a surplus of Oil. The companies like Cetco, Sun Oil, and so on acknowledged that by testing and sounding the Earth Stratas, there was enough Oil under the U.S. alone. allowing for earth population surges and natural disasters to take us to the year 2087 before any conservation might be in order. Our reserves alone have the ability to take us unimpeded, yes, even with SUVs to 2059. But you won't hear that. The big companies want to maintain their style of living with their gas guzzlers and condos and political agenda thus it is the fleecing of the american people that keeps them happy.
Not long ago, a scientist came up with a way to make fuel from water. Yes...this isn't a legend, this is truth. It involved water, a farm product and fermentation and the gases it produced. It was so feasible and easy that the big oil companies shut it down immediately. They didn'twant it replacing their rich and famous income. There is a lot more to this story and it is all documented and can be verified. Especially by those who worked the oilfields for years and those who still do. But remember, the oil companies have enough money to payoff those persons who they want tokeep their mouths shut.
Just thought I'd let you know why I like you as an internet friend and do care about our friends but we who have been there know different thus do disagree. But like I said. That is what makes the U.S.A. special. The right to disagree...even with the Government.
Semper Fi!!!!! cj and usmc26th:salute: :salute: :salute: :salute: :salute: :salute: :salute: :salute:
MISS JOAN
09-01-2005, 13:27
VERY WWLL STAYED
AND SO DAM TURE... :salute:
And we think we have it so bad. Head down to Louisiana and Mississippi. Try to find clean drinking water there that is not contaminated with Feces, dead and rotting flesh, dead animals, rotting food, insects and to top it off..Mosquitos. No...not mosquitos one normally finds, innumerable clouds hatching in the standing water that is still covering streets and houses. People still waiting for rescue. People dead in their wheelchairs carrying notes to their kin. People dying because they can't get their medications. Unimaginable sadness.
Yes, it's true that they all should have left when ordered to do so. Tragedies that could have been diverted and avoided. Picture the man in tears, on his knees, begging to be shot or hung because he talked his family into staying and now he is the only survivor. His pregnant wife, three year old daughter and 5 year old son drowned when water swept them off the rooftop of their house.
They didn't all leave. But it isn't up to us to judge them. Humanity numbering into the thousands still alive down there are begging for water, food, a way out of there. Criminals are using this to loot, kill and further maime those who have already been through enough. What is our part of this? That is up to each individual. It is a personal decision. Are any of our friends, relatives down there? We must seek out our own compassion for our fellow man and act accordingly. We must never mind our political agenda (if we have any). We must remember that thousands of people who have children, grandchildren, mothers, fathers, grandparents are crying out in despair and do we just turn a cold heart and tell ourselves...my problem comes first. I need this and I need that. I wonder how we would feel if we were down there and they were in our shoes. Just a thought! cj
MISS JOAN
09-01-2005, 17:09
New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize
By George Friedman
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.
The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.
The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.
There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.
The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.
What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time.
It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.
A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.
It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.
Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.
New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.
Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.
MISS JOAN
09-02-2005, 09:12
[by o'boot]
COULD NOT SLEEP LAST NIGHT
BEEN WATCHING THE NEWS
AND THIS CAME TO LIGHT
I WONDER:
WE ARE NOTHING MORE THEN VITEM'S ALSO SO WHERE IS OUR FED.AID??THINK OUT SIDE THE NORM.
DON'T MEAN TO STEP ON ANY-ONE'S TOE'S HEAR BUT AFTER WATCKINT T.V. TODAY
AND HEARING THE BLACK LEARDER'S IN D.C. STATE THAT IF YOUR BLACK POOR AND ONLY HAVE 1 T.V IT'S O.K. TO STEAL.....BULLSHIT :thumbdown :thumbdown :thumbdown
MISS JOAN
09-03-2005, 09:11
When times are dark and dreary
and no one seems to care
Jesus is our refuge
when we go to Him in prayer.
He's always near to help us
and make our burden light,
He's like a ray of sunshine
even in the darkest night.
--Clara Potner
:salute:
It's always nice when I return home. San Francisco is not where I was born or raised.. but it is where I have lived in and around for the past 45 years.
CJ thank you for such a nice email. I have put it away for my special memories.
I hope that you will be able to use some of those photos on the CD or at least parts of them. Because of your email I can only assume that you did receive the CD.
You are entirely welcome, Chuck, and yes, there are some that I would like to post on here as time goes by and also send to some loved ones who are interested in such things. As to receiving the CD, yes...it made my day!
THANK YOU!
I wanted to let you know.. in case someone came by and could not get in.. I had the forums closed for almost 3 hours this afternoon while I was trying to fix a few glitches we had.. I still don't know if I corrected them or not but I guess we will find out soon.
O.K. Now I get it. I tried but no big thing. Thanx!
MISS JOAN
09-04-2005, 08:05
MR.CHUCK GOT THE CD THANK YOU
AS TO THE SITE I FOUND OUT THAT YOU CAN'T SIGN OUT...
HAVE A GOOD WEEK-END.
SEMPER FI BRO :salute:
MISS JOAN
09-04-2005, 08:07
CJ JEST HOME FOR A BIT THEN BACK OVER TO THE CAMPER.
JEST WANTED TO SAY WE HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEK-END
AND IT LOOK'S LIKE A GO FOR OCT.. LOVE SIS. :salute: :salute:
Labor Day this year has had to step aside for getting our field mowed baled and the hay, out of here. SO..am posting some photos of the fall skies and the loading of the hay. Will do it in 2 posts so downloading is quicker. God Bless!
i want to wis CJ and her husband Lou ,James and Miss Joan a happy safe Labor Day ooorrahhh and Semper-fidelis to all:salute:
MISS JOAN
09-05-2005, 10:30
CJ AND MR.JOHN WE'R HOME NOW
WE HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED YOUR WEEK-END.. :salute: :salute:
Here's a couple photos of the car show I mentioned, Joan & Jim.
MISS JOAN
09-05-2005, 20:16
WOW THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY.. :salute: :banana: :banana:
Everythings coming up PURPLE!:banana: :banana: :banana: :salute: :salute:
MISS JOAN
09-06-2005, 08:42
Wisconsin Plans To House Evacuees At State Fair Park
Locations In South Miklwaukee, Kenosha Also Prepare For Hurricane Victims
POSTED: 4:46 pm CDT September 5, 2005
WEST ALLIS, Wis. -- Wisconsin opened its doors to Hurricane Katrina victims Monday as state and local officials prepared to clothe, shelter and feed hundreds of people displaced from their Gulf Coast homes.
Hundreds of evacuees were on their way from Houston's Astrodome to Wisconsin's State Fair Park in suburban Milwaukee, where more than 900 people can find a place to stay at a youth dormitory for up to three months.
The Tommy G. Thompson Youth Center, built to house fair exhibitors, will serve as a point of first contact for hurricane evacuees who will stay in the area. State, local and charity officials will help them get the food, clothing and medical attention they need.
Another 200 people can find shelter at a community center in South Milwaukee, officials said. And a Salvation Army camp in Kenosha County was preparing for up to 400 evacuees to arrive later Monday.
In all, Gov. Jim Doyle said in an interview that Wisconsin was prepared to temporarily house up to 5,000 evacuees at locations across the state.
"Americans are in trouble. We are first and foremost Americans, and we are going to help out our brothers and sisters in any way we can," Doyle said at a news conference at the State Fair Park. :salute: :salute:
MISS JOAN
09-06-2005, 15:57
WELL ALL SET TO GO..
YOU ALL TAKE CARE.. :banana: :banana:
We sure could use some rain here..(not there to spoil your good time), but we are in a drought situation here. Have to water every day now just to get good from the garden. Rain falls everywhere but here and when it is here, it hardly dampens the ground. Not a good thing.
MISS JOAN
09-07-2005, 08:08
YES IT LOOK LIKE IT MIGHT RAIN HEAR TODAY..
:salute:
Please don't forget to pay your respects to the victims and our
nation this Sunday, September 11th, the 4th anniversary of the Twin
Towers tragedy in New York City. :salute: :salute:
Miss Joan ive been sooo busy at work i have neglected to drop by and see yall i trust that all and everything is doing just fine... how is james doing good i trust .... all is well here and im doing just great semper-fi to all:salute:
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