Crude Awakening

As I said a couple of posts ago, if you look desperately enough, you can find some positive in just about anything. Korean dramas. I find no redeeming qualities in ANY soap operas or dramatic shows of this sort. None. You get stupider every time you watch them. Korean dramas, much like many things about Korea, are just a more extreme example. You get EXTREMELY stupider every time you watch them. But if not for the people in Korea and a mind meltingly large number of OTHER countries killing brain cells with these things, we wouldn't have THE KIMCHI SLAP!

I LOVE the kimchi slap! What a fantastic idea! And this week's kimchi slap goes out to my long time friend, Tony Braga. We went to school together so I've known Tony a good 35 years probably! I saw him just a few years ago in Calgary. We met up for beers a couple times. The years have been kind to him. He's looking good for a guy our age. And I notice he likes to wear some smooth threads. That's why this kimchi slap is gonna hurt a little extra. Do you know how hard it is to get kimchi out in the wash?

The kimchi slap was well earned, however, by sending me an invitation to like the "Energy East" pipeline page on Facebook.

Energy East. Let's start with the very politically misleading name. We're meant to assume that this "East" means eastern Canada, which is the end of the pipeline, sort of, and it would be very helpful to the originators of this environmental disaster in a euphemism if we'd all just assume the energy derived from the oil product in the proposed pipeline from western Canada to eastern Canada, will be enjoyed by eastern Canadians. Or ANY of the jobs or benefits. But that's not the case.

I really don't need to say much more than Stephen Harper was a huge proponent of Energy East for you to be absolutely sure that it will benefit his home country: China. THAT'S what the "East" means.

Tony is an Albertan. We went for beers when I was living in Calgary. Ironically Albertans believe oil has helped their province and that the pipeline will help them too. I need to warn you that that link could harsh a lot of mellows so click at your own risk. 37 years of oil spills in Alberta. The stats are unbelievable! An average of two crude oil spills a day! That makes 28,666 crude oil spills in total, plus another 31,453 spills of just about any other substance you can think of putting in a pipeline – from salt water to liquid petroleum. And we're not talking a guy spilling some Quaker State while changing the oil in his car, or in Alberta, his truck. We're talking HUGE. One being the Nexxen China largest land oil spill in history. But they apologized, so...

It's projected to originate at the oils sands in northern Alberta and go to Eastern Canada to refineries and shipping points, (to China), in New Brunswick and Quebec. The pipeline will use a lot of existing pipe that is now part of Trans Canada Pipelines natural gas transport. And we all know Trans Canada Pipelines has a stellar safety record and those old, used, pipes have NO chance of rupturing, leaking or, like exploding. RIGHT???

The plan is to increase production at the oil sands in Alberta by 40%, which, and this is in no amount of doubt, will vastly increase carbon emissions. This is why Harper was among the people faking like he didn't believe in things like that and kept Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol and carbon taxes and such. So, it will damage the air. The air that we ALL breathe.

And, at the risk of sounding like our ex-ruler, let's be clear, (shudder), this is NOT your normal crude oil. It will be bitumen, something that needs to be treated and heated to become a hazardous chemical coctail far beyond the hazard of just plain crude oil. "Dilbit" or diluted bitumen, costs an estimated 10 times to clean up as regular crude oil, and both are virtually impossible to completely clean up, let's be clear. Just ask the people who live near the Kalamazoo River.

Listen. Tony, and everyone else. The Energy East pipeline WILL have spills. And the cost of cleaning them up and the damage to our beautiful country doesn't even compare to profits to Canadians. And there will be FEW Canadians who profit, you can be sure of that. Our oil industry is set up to be that way. Extracting corporations, from other countries, get almost all the profit. That's crown land, folks. That's OUR oil! It belongs to the people of Canada, not China.

What I told Tony is what I've posted a few times before. Refineries at the source. It should be illegal to transport unrefined bitumen. PERIOD! It's too fucking dangerous. We don't need long, purposely drawn out environmental studies to show that. We have eyes.

Secondly, the Chinese will build those refineries. And they will employ Canadians. Not their nephews who they send over on fake student visas either. REAL Canadians who need jobs!

Thirdly, we will implement a taxation system like Norway's instead of basically GIVING the oil away. The taxes collected, (for the first time), will go to Canada Pension. There will be 1.1 million litres a day! Well, if you talk to politicians who DON'T want the pipeline, it's 1.1 mil. If you talk to reps from Alberta who WANT it, they'll say, "About a mil." These are PRECISELY the jackwads who should have nothing to do with this decision because they're all obviously salesmen talking dollars and cents when we need them to be thinking about facts and common sense.

I say we shouldn't even THINK about this project until we are guaranteed refineries at the oilsand site and HUGE taxes on the extracting companies that will be contributed to EVERY Canadian's pension. It hasn't scared people away from Norway's oil. Why would it scare the oil thirsty Chinese away from Canada? And, so what if it does? Right now there's such an oil glut in the world that the risk is even LESS worth it! The barrels the oil is sold in are worth more than the oil right now! The oil ain't going anywhere. Nothing wrong with saving it for our country's future. When it's worth more and we, (hopefully), have some government that is more responsible and actually cares about the Canadian people. Or when the Canadian people can actually decide stuff for ourselves that affects us so intensely.

I dunno, maybe I shouldn't kimchi slap Tony. Maybe I should take a dead, baby seal covered in bitumen and slap him with it. Hell, I think we should line up all the politicians who are playing money games with this crucial, life and death issue, and give THEM a black baby seal slap.

It couldn't hurt.