What's up with T. Boone Pickens?

[willoweyes]

Right off the top, I don't believe the man's for real. I think him and his ridiculous name were designed and computer-generated to epitomize Bubba's ideal of the corn pone down home binessman.

And how come he keeps on showing up on TV, telling American he can solve her problems, like a grinning Wizard of Oz?

And what about the so-called poll that supposedly shows Obama and McCain neck and neck. Do any of you guys believe that?

And what about the New Yorker cover?

Is the whole world going nuts?

Bread and circuses.

[sidecross]

The New Yorker cover was a brilliant piece of propaganda.

By being the first to have a 'Mad Magazine' parody they have totally destroyed the far right to 'Swift Boat' Obama using a similar attack without it being confused with the already 'talked about in the media' cover done by The New Yorker.

The Obama election team may have played a brilliant hand by saying they felt 'outraged' by the cover.

Who knows to what direction what these modern political election people are capable of traveling.

[craazyman]

Very devious reasoning sidecross. I think you are actually right.

I wish I had thought of that (LOL). I was suckered into thinking it was a couple of New Yorker fags that went too far with their little cultural criticism irony game.

What a bonehead I am. I am not subtle.

[drew hempel]

Sidecross you've fallen for the Obama scam? Just follow the money. First of all his third or fourth largest contributor is the nuke industry, and his campaign strategist was a nuke consultant AND he's already done backroom deals promoting nukes.

Secondly he has the same Council of Foreign Relation advisors as the CIA Clintons.

Thirdly he's already threatened Iran.

What's to support -- the dude is the biggest scam-artist on the planet right now.

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fourth-Reich-Societies-Threaten/dp/0061245585

[sidecross]

Sidecross you've fallen for the Obama scam? Just follow the money. First of all his third or fourth largest contributor is the nuke industry, and his campaign strategist was a nuke consultant AND he's already done backroom deals promoting nukes.

Secondly he has the same Council of Foreign Relation advisors as the CIA Clintons.

Thirdly he's already threatened Iran.

What's to support -- the dude is the biggest scam-artist on the planet right now.

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fourth-Reich-Societies-Threaten/dp/0061245585


Any major politician that reaches for the Presidency of the United States is corrupt; my comment was addressed to how they conduct political campaigns.

Even Chris Hedges has said he is voting for Ralph Nader; for myself I have not yet made up my mind.

[willoweyes]

Well, I just heard McCain on the radio, repeating, "I know how to win this war!" like if he said it enough times it might come true.

He also said, "Success breeds Success!" like a mantra. Yeah sounds good, doesn't it.

Who do we vote for, Drew? Who is going to "save" us?

[suebee]

cheney, t boone, kenny boy (gone, but not 'his' money!), exxon et al., in their over the top secret "how much you boys gonna give me to hand you back the iraqi oil fields?" meetings, planning the nightmares of our future. who ARE these fucks who are they? how did they get this way? why dont i understand it?

[craazyman]

you're Bee-ing a little hard on T Bone Suebee,

He wants to put wind farms all over Texas and natural gas fueling stations all over the country for clean energy

Here's his new company:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CLNE

He's been around so long he might have been in some 1970s conspiracies, but he's over the hill for the recent ones. And he sees the "green" in the green. LOL.

Like most capitalists, he'll be happy to make a fortune selling you environmentally clean energy, as long as you'll pay him for it.

[suebee]

Barack Obama (D)
Top Contributors
This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Goldman Sachs $601,480
University of California $488,159
JPMorgan Chase & Co $373,507
Citigroup Inc $371,054
UBS AG $370,850
National Amusements Inc $332,089
Lehman Brothers $330,760
Harvard University $325,424
Google Inc $321,964
Sidley Austin LLP $305,345
Skadden, Arps et al $281,163
Morgan Stanley $274,213
Time Warner $268,227
Jones Day $251,250
Exelon Corp $237,311 - nukes
University of Chicago $230,175
Latham & Watkins $228,026
Microsoft Corp $223,895
Wilmerhale Llp $222,080
General Electric $210,329

Percent of Contributions Coded
Coded $110,524,433 (72%)
Uncoded $44,101,328 (29%)
Total $154,625,761

John McCain (R)
Top Contributors
This table lists the top....

Merrill Lynch $249,960
Citigroup Inc $249,251
Blank Rome LLP $188,176
Goldman Sachs $171,945
Morgan Stanley $167,371
AT&T Inc $160,930
Greenberg Traurig LLP $157,087
JPMorgan Chase & Co $150,200
Credit Suisse Group $123,225
UBS AG $110,915
Lehman Brothers $99,550
Blackstone Group $97,200
Bank of America $96,525
US Government $96,306
Wachovia Corp $96,062
Bear Stearns $94,200
Bank of New York Mellon $89,500
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $81,000
PricewaterhouseCoopers $79,720
Deutsche Bank AG $79,561

Percent of Contributions Coded
Coded $63,617,635 (74%)
Uncoded $22,361,006 (26%)
Total $85,978,641



i want 800 acres with a cave.

[craazyman]

we may be at a point where anyone qualified to be president is unelectable, and anyone electable is not qualified to be president.

Some nation of farmers and craftsmen, minding their own businesses in freedom, as Jefferson had envisioned.

LOL sadly.

[bopes]

I say we replace the election process with a national lottery.

Whatever poor bastard's name randomly comes up, that's the goat what has to be prez for the next four years, like it or lump it.

[drew hempel]

Yeah I just confronted my office advisor for electoral issues. He said some twisted stuff based on the lesser of two evils philosophy and he also said "How can nukes be justified at all?" Well so... why is my office endorsing Obama?

And so....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/13/politics/main4256466.shtml

I told him -- well I work for Mother Nature and shes going to win in the end even if Clean Water Action doesn't do anything.

[willoweyes]

The New York Times

July 24, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Oil Man Cometh
By TIMOTHY EGAN

There he is, the sound of money in a wizened Texas drawl, the tired realist looking a bit like the John Huston character from “Chinatown” as he warns in national television ads that we should just listen here and do as he says.

And what the 80-year-old T. Boone Pickens says, in a $58 million campaign, is that we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices. By implication, anybody who tells you otherwise — including the fellow Texan he helped put in the White House — is a fraud.

This is a political parable for the ages: the guy who was behind one of the knockout punches to John Kerry four years ago is now doing Democrats the biggest favor of the election by calling Republicans on their phony energy campaign.

“Totally misleading” is the way Pickens describes Republican attempts to convince the public that if we just opened up all these forbidden areas to oil drilling then gas prices would fall. He’s not against new drilling, but he is honest enough to say it wouldn’t do anything.

Republicans are furious at their longtime benefactor. Senator John McCain is currently running an ad in which he directly blames Barack Obama for $4-a-gallon gas at the pump — as bogus a claim as anything yet made in 2008.

Then along comes Pickens, Texas oilman and billionaire corporate raider, overwhelming the McCain attack with a saturation message that has the added value of being true, as Henry Kissinger once said about another matter.

Pickens was a geologist before he found a deep pool of money, so when he says “the geology just isn’t there” to reduce oil imports through new drilling in offshore areas, he has some cred.

But, more importantly, Pickens is betting $10 billion in constructing what he says will be the world’s largest wind farm in the gusts of West Texas. If the mighty winds of the American midsection were harnessed, it could free up plentiful natural gas for vehicles — a relatively quick step away from foreign oil.

Would it enrich him further? Yes. But perhaps it’s not about money. In “Chinatown,” the old man played by Huston was asked by Detective Jake Gittes what more he could possibly buy at his age.

“The future, Mr. Gittes. The future.”

But before T. Boone poses for his statue, he has to answer to his past. Pickens was the moneybags, to the tune of $3 million, behind the Swift Boat attacks that made Senator Kerry’s honorable service in Vietnam sound like Rambo tangled up in lies. He even promised to pay $1 million to anyone who could challenge the veracity of the claims.

After a group of veterans presented him with documents identifying 10 lies of the Swifties, Pickens broke his promise. The vets misunderstood the precise details of the $1 million offer, he said last month. Sorry, but thanks for your service, boys!

The old-fashioned term for this is welshing on a bet, which dishonors Wales.

Because so much is at stake in the energy debate, some are quick to embrace Pickens. An endorsement from Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, is prominently displayed on the Pickens Web site.

“To put it plainly,” Pope says, “T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.” I asked Pope why he lent his words to someone who had so much to do with giving us another four years of the oil intransigence of the Bush administration.

“Ten billion dollars gets my attention,” he said.

No doubt, the Pickens plan makes sense. Just last week, Texas state officials gave preliminary approval to the biggest investment in clean energy in American history, backing a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines for wind energy.

Meanwhile, looking bravely to the past, Bush and McCain are trying to convince us that more oil drilling will save us from $5-a-gallon gas. History says otherwise. The number of oil and gas permits on federal land doubled in the last five years, with no effect on price or supply. And Bush’s own Energy Information Administration says increased drilling wouldn’t move the market in the short term.

McCain knows this, despite the brazen lie in his Obama gas ad. He now says drilling offshore would have “a psychological impact.” Just like that “mental recession” his former chief economic adviser Phil Gramm spoke of. These guys need to get off the couch.

It’s sad to see McCain go down this path, an easy sell for a fast-food nation. Straight talk distress.

Winning the argument may depend on who has the bigger megaphone. Advantage Pickens. Which means advantage Obama. Unless, of course, McCain wants to Swift Boat him, and then he knows who to turn to.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Listen sweetheart,if you have a beef with Pickens his office is only a few minutes south of you.

Now most of you who have been on this BOTH for a number of years know that I have led a rather Forest Gump type of life,touched off with a messianic dose of shock treatments and leading ultimately a Carlos Castenada life with aan indian Medicine Man on the San Juan Indian Reservation in northern New Mexico.
Along the way I have been involved in perilous jobs and situations.
Off and on for a few years I worked for a bail bondsman out of the DFWfor whom I mostly delivered suponeas and took depositions.
One was for the real life Howard Hughes and I found him in a warehouse in Houston,surrounded by his "team".
I saw none of that type "action" going on in Mr Pickin's speech.

You see,very much of the cost of producing gasoline involves moving oil from the fields to the refineries.Ultimately the field-wells quit producing so you have to build new pipelines to the new oil wells.It gets more expensive everyday to do that.
Wind power fields,on the other hand,do not run out of wind so you get more years out of your "pipelines"(transmission lines) than you do in the oil business.

[willoweyes]

Listen, Cuddlebear, I have nothing against tilting at windmills--but I do find unsettling T. Boone's criminal past, and his toying with the poor susceptible American Mind.

It makes me wonder if wind power is as honest as he is.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Let's hope not.
I called his corporate office and ask what their trading symbol is on the NYSE and was told it was a private company but if I wanted to invest in their hedge fund I could do it for 5 million minimum.
I think we need to call in our local stock expert,ie the great Lord CM to comment at this point.

I do think though that my previous post was correct about the cost of transmitting "power".Wait till this winter CM.You'll wish you had invested in WMB or WPZ.

ps Willow,I did a little research into T Boone on a web-site called Famous Texans(they assured me they would be looking into your life experiences soon) anyway it's interesting reading and although he is known for takeovers and labeled as a person who puts the working man out of jobs I'm sure he's gotten rid of more slacker CEO's than anything and that's where the bad publicity comes from.

At any level though Willow,windpower looks to be a solid investment to me.

And if it makes any difference to you CM.T.Boone donated over 100 million to the athletic dept of OSU-and I'm not talking about Ohio.

Where are you Willow.As hot as it is I bet your pond would feel real good now.The water in Lake Eufaula is real warm for a couple of feet deep,then it gets pleasurably cool.

SB.Have I told you of my latest problem.The city says my bamboo crop is a nuisance-a place for vermin and the like to hide,and I must cut part of it down or they will and charge me for it.Charge me.That stuff costs about 300 pesos per root clump.

[craazyman]

well, I think wind power is generally a good thing. Better than coal and better than nukes. I'd say if T Boone wants to do this, let him do it.

I would be happy to pay more for power and use less of it if I knew it was from wind. I think things are slowly moving that way across the utility industry (which I have some professional involvement with).

YOu're right about the transmission, Isaiah, although a lot more is needed to access the prime wind areas and it;s always a big fight to see who pays for it. It's really a knotty problem, a real slippery pig, a big Exedrin headache & etc. And then no body wants these big lines coming through their area either.

I wa thinking a lot about Bush and the Generals. REally, I hardly know what to say, although I recall a very on point comment by one of the generals, not sure if active or retired and it was something like this "Do the American people really want generals to start disobeying their commander in chief?" That really made me think about how many things could go wrong in our democracy.

I have a friend who is an international interpreter. She speaks about 5 languages and is very well educated, although a bit of a new age looney. We were talking once about how we've had basically one big war (Civil War) and otherwise peace for 200+ years here (forgetting for the moment the westward push and the natives here). Nevertheless, it is quite a historical anomoly, probably matched only by the Pax Augusta in Rome for a couple hundred years. By then, Rome was already falling apart at the seams.

I argued that the Englightenment and political philosophies of democracy had changed the game and that things would hold, that we're flexible enough and non-tribal enough not to break. She though it would only be a matter of time.

[suebee]

lobato isnt bamboo really hot right now? how much do you have? is it on your land as opposed to city house and could you sell it to some bamboozling company for flooring or fabric? how could bamboo cost anything? its like crab grass. you need a systemic of some sort applied to leaves and soak into the roots (do not over do it) to the areas you want to tame. did i just say use chemicals? omg. probably something youcan use which is not as toxic - i bet there are some systemics (v. important to kill roots of the beautiful bountiful bamboo) which evaporate into nothing. i remember the day in class i learned one tiny pin point drop of tepp, phosdrin or some such other dupont wonder insecticide could kill you in a second if it hit your skin. :eek:

[Isaiah Mpski]

SueBee,you are such a dear.
My bamboo is in my place in town.I own about half a city block and I use the bamboo for a privacy fence.
In all it probably totals 1/4 of an acre.Next spring I will try and get a sizable amount started at the farm.It stays green all winter long and is a wonderful santuary for many many birds.It also affords plenty of shade and also cuts the cold north wind down to nothing in the winter.Mine is about 25 ft tall and 2-3 inches in diameter.
I am going to order some that is 5 inches in diameter and grow to 50 feet tall.
If you're interested you can find it listed in the catologue of The Territorial Seed Company.

If it were up to me I'd let the whole place grow up in it and just trails running through it for passageways.McCain.What a name.
The Thang,from Arizona.
It gives you such a sense of security and when it sways in harmony with the wind it seems to sing it's own song.

The weather here is terribly hot with no rain in sight.
Good for the okra I guess,but hard on us old guys.Thank Gott for the air conditioner.

Does anyone know how to get to "our " pictures in Photobucket?