A MarketPlace of Ideas                        

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 1

 In the style of the acclaimed CIVIL WAR series, THE PRIZE tells the epic history of oil – how it has dominated global politics, shaken the world economy, and transformed our century. Shot on location in Azerbaijan, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Russia, Scotland, Turkey, and the United States, the series features fascinating characters, never-before-seen archival footage, newly filmed segments, and interviews with the people who shaped the oil industry. Yergin appears on camera throughout the series to discuss oil’s impact on politics, economics, and the environment. We see how oil becomes the largest industry in the world–a game of huge risks and monumental rewards. Narrated by Donald Sutherland, THE PRIZE represents cinematic storytelling at its best – a historically significant tale of a quest for mastery that has revolutionized our civilization." PART ONE: Our Plan "Trace the turbulent, rapid rise of the world’s biggest business, how a visionary but ruthless John D. Rockefeller controlled it–and how reporter Ida Tarbell took him on in one of the most famous muckraking exposes ever. A fascinating look at Rockefeller’s controversial legacy, the rise of modern business, and how Tarbell served as the role model for the modern investigative journalist

Part 2

The Prize Episode Two: Empires of Oil "Witness capitalism on a grand scale: how Shell Oil and Royal Dutch merged, then challenged the supremacy of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. A compelling tale of how oil transformed everyday life in the farthest corners of the globe, made Russia a great oil power, and helped the Allies win World War I

 Part 3

The Prize Episode Three: The Black Giant "It’s the Roaring Twenties, and the magic of oil touches everyone, from millions of new car owners to hopeful Texan wildcatters. The American oil industry wrestles with shortage and surplus, as flamboyant entrepreneur Calouste Gulbenkian stakes his claim in Iraq

Part 4

The Prize Episode Four: War and Oil "The untold story of World War II unfolds: how oil dictated strategy to Hitler; how lack of oil slowed Japan’s war machine; how oil ultimately determined victory or defeat. Features rare footage on the critical impact of oil on decisive military events

Part 5

The Prize Episode Five: Crude Diplomacy "Post World War II America awakens to the strategic importance of oil and witnesses a key moment in history when oil production shifts from the US to the Middle East. An extraordinary cast of characters, including Arabian kings, US presidents, British adventurers, Iranian politicians, and American explorers paint a global portrait of how oil shaped the world economy and politics

Part 6

The Prize Episode Six: Power to the Producers "It’s the heyday of cheap oil, the dawn of the Hydrocarbon Society…and the introduction of a prosperous new automobile culture for Americans. Follow the flamboyant characters, plots, and counterplots, as the producing countries and the independent oil companies challenge the "Seven Sisters"–and open a new era in world oil

Part 7

 The Prize Episode Seven: The Tinderbox "Relive two decades of upheaval that shook the world as power shifted, and nations and companies jockeyed for position–amidst embargoes, shortages, and surpluses. A unique view of the rise of the OPEC era, beginning with the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and ending with the burning oil wells of Kuwait

Part 8

The Prize Episode Eight: The New Order of Oil "The Gulf War marked the beginning of a new era for the Hydrocarbon Society. This program explores the relationship between oil and the environmental conscience, and the technological race to balance energy, economic, and ecological needs in the Information Age

The first book I ever read was read to me before falling asleep at night by my mother.  It was Huck Finn by Mark Twain.   You can find some of his works online to read at the following locations:

• Huck Finn  -  original handwritten manuscript is in the Mark Twain room of the Buffalo library
• Tom Sawyer
• Life on the Mississippi  -  Life on the Mississippi is recommended because of the more factual approach in the writing.

Auxiliary Information

• Steamboats Clemens served on
• Libravox  – public domain Huck Finn  audio book
• The 1st typeset printing of Huck Finn had a obscence joke typecast into it.  About 30,000 copies were printed before the joke was found.  If anyone has information on where I can buy one of these please contact me. The University of Virginia’s Barrett collection holds one of the few–perhaps the only–known remaining sales prospectus with the "mutilated cut".
• An 1884 / 1885 edition  – they are asking 15,000.   This one sold for 1800
• Huck Finn illustrations

The defaced illustration

First edition

Robert McNamara has died.  Unfortunately his brand of social engineering is alive and well.   You may know a couple of Roberts "innovations".  They include the F-111.

 And the ever jamming M-16 rifle.

His life demonstrates the abject failure of when the unwashed hands of government apparatiks touch the inner workings of our society. 

Read George Wills Article to understand better how McNamera introduced his own particular version of errors into the system. 

The apogee of McNamara’s professional life, in the first half of the 1960s, coincided, not coincidentally, with the apogee of the belief that behavioralism had finally made possible a science of politics. Behavioralism held — holds; it is a hardy perennial — that the social and natural sciences are not so different, both being devoted to the discovery of law-like regularities that govern the behavior of atoms, hamsters, humans, whatever.

This sort of social meddling has not ceased.  Unfortunately it has found a new home in the left.  Unable to fathom the mathematics of chaos they straddle the bucking bronco wild horse proclaiming over and over it will end differently this time.  This time we can break this wild horse called human reality.  This from the people who claim there is no god on one hand but on the other purport to have god like qualities of to-the-core understanding.  I think that is unlikely.

I guess all we can do is wait for Obama to be tossed off this pitch black mare with the bewitching eyes.  It will come sure as the sun rises.

This is episode 1 of the series on English castles.  Castles were most useful shortly after the 1066 Norman invasion of England.   They were called "mottes and baileys".  Shown in the picture below the motte is not the ditch around the hill but the hill.  Perhaps that is how the word moat got its start.  

Imagine you had 30,000 men and you wanted to conquer an island nation of 4 million people.  What would you do?  A direct warfare would not result in the outcome you want.  You need to supplant the existing ruling class.   To start off with you invade and run the land based equivalent of an aircraft carrier.   You base your cavalry in a motte and bailey and now you can control a radius of about 30 miles around it.   But how does this large earthwork get built ?  It is a significant hand dug affair.   You use local labor.   You see the passive underclasses are unlikely to put up significant resistance against you and they are susceptible to being paid by the invaders.   People while being different are mostly the same and thus once one ruling class replaced by another the governed do not sense much difference between one overlord and another.   If you watch the rest of the videos you will note the progression of the "castle" from a very practical tool of conquest to that of status symbol of the posh snobby elite of England.   The assymtotic behavior of england was to welcome its invaders.  As this occurred the castle became the object of the social climber’s compulsions.

Castle – Host Marc Morris – links to the the rest of the episodes.   Embedded above is episode 1 of the series on English castles
—- Episode 1
—- Episode 2
—- Episode 3
—- Episode 4
—- Episode 5
—- Episode 6

 Having been treated to a taste of the rather posh english attitude here in Brazil by some upper crust students from England I found it immensely interesting to watch the entire series.       The students observed where ones with whom money is no object.    They were stumped by my friend Pedro’s need to watch his money and avoid spending too much.   One fellow insisted on being called "David".  When I lapsed into American behavior and called him "Dave" ….he promptly said "MY NAME IS DAVID".     There was an interesting dynamic I observed.   One of the English students was from the "commoner" class.   When she was alone she was quite charming and confident.   When with the posh students from England she "shut down" for lack of a better word.    Hugo was one of the posh students was friendly but was from the upper crust still and a socialist / leftist.   I do not have the heart to tell him but there is hardly a more morally superior attitude to assume than to be a rich upper crusty person who is a socialist.

Fast Forward to United States – 2009

Barack Obama’s form of motte and bailey takes a different form.   He supports a ruling class by printing up money and feeding it directly to the lords of the manner.   When a commoner makes bad decisions he has no protective structure as a B.O. monetary motte and bailey.  Contrast that with members of the ruling elite.   Surely not everyone is saved by the financial motte and bailey system but many are.   Its not democracy you are experiencing.  Its conquest.

We are accustomed to thinking of Germany as the bad guy as afterall this is the country that brought us Hitler. A tyrant and a lout. 

However turnabout is fairplay and now we have Angela Merkel acting in the name of freedom and the small guy everwhere.  She is holding firm against a third wave of stimulus.   This appears to have the lefties in a tizzy as it stands to make Obama look bad.  Germany by taking its knocks stands to recover sooner than the USA.  In addition the huge wave of inflation that will hit the USA when the economy finally does recover will not hit europe as hard.  I grieve for what Obama and the left are doing to the republic.   It is clear after the boy-king with sagging man boobs our country will never be the same.

I am however proud of the USA in one respect.   We successfully turned Germany into a country with a leader that is confronting Obama’s tyranny of the money printing press.   This printing press is taking us into slavery and corroding the bonds of interpersonal trust that make us a cohesive society.  Obama is the American Robert Mugabe complete with dellusions of grandeur.

Professor of African American studies?  What the heck do you do with a degree in African American studies?  It seems to me the reason why the United States has the economic problems that it does is that too many people are studying the equivalent of African American studies.   Whether it be basket weaving or going to college on a sports scholarship you are not likely to get out of school and be a big producer of money velocity.

Indeed I feel this is a bad omen for Mr Obama’s term as presidency.  Let us compare this with who would speak if I was being inaugurated.  I can think of many people much more interesting than someone who studied how to teach others to become wards of the state.  How about Leon Lederman Nobel laureate for physics ?   Any engineer of any type would be a welcome message to the people.  My message would be get studying because if you do not create gross national product then you are nothing.  Because it is true.

The tide of history is not pushed by the diversionary figures of entertainment or agitprop.  The tides of history are driven by technical people and by great economic figures of industry.  If you are not one of these you are a follower no matter how you try to be otherwise.

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
Marcus Tullius Cicero – 55 BC

Read the story of Cicero.   mmm….2000 years and nothing has changed.  We’re doomed. 

Likely you have heard this old adage about security and liberty.  The security they talk about is economic.  Things are likely to get tougher in the near future.   We are shipping too much money out of the country for oil.   We are too dainty to allow it to be drilled on our coasts and in ANWR.   Thus things will deteriorate more until the pain threshold is found. 

Many people will want to vote for the politician that says it will be ok if we only regulate this or tax that.  These are the unDemocrats who will say anything to get elected.  Say anything to get the power.  I would like to think you as an electorate will have the sense not to listen.  But I’m doubtful about this.  You listened in the past and you likely will in the future.   The problem is this sort of thing never helps economically and in fact damages something much more precious than your temporary economic circumstances and that would be your liberty.  I know this is true.  My favorite home away from home country is Brazil.   As currently constituted Brazil has a fully implemented form of government that the unDemocrats want to have here.  The people know their government and changing it is hopeless.  Nothing will ever change in that area and the Brazilians know it.   With liberty you can improve your economic circumstances.   With economic wellbeing you can not necessarily do diddly squat about your liberty.  I know its tough to be a good soldier.  You have to be brave.  And clearly about 50% of the population lacks any impulse toward liberty. Quite the opposite.  They lick their chops at the thought of another round of incremental carving up of liberty for the sake of financial gain. 

Remember losing a job is temporary.  Living in a land of curtailed liberty is pretty much for your entire lifetime.    So don’t be dour Gus Halls who secretly long for a beer, a recliner and a black and white television.   For an inspired life you have to dream of liberty.

Get Russia to repeat that their invasion is to protect the Russian enclaves.  Then mobilize a massive humanitarian U.N. or USA response.  Locate large U.N. or USA personel in Georgia as quickly as possible.

Then wait for a Russian tank or aircraft to come to near and shoot and destroy it.  Then inform Putin and company that you will not tolerate any threats to humanitarian personel.  If any further aggression occurs warn the Russians to instruct their personel to stap aside from their military hardware as it will be destroyed in 1 hours.  Then use US air power to destroy all tanks in Georgia.

The Russian hardware is not sufficient to stop any of this from happening.  They will not go nuclear as we can match them on this. The sooner the better as you do not want Russia developing feelings of attachment.  We need to strike before they think they own Georgia.