J. D. Pendry

J. D. Pendry

We are approaching the birthday of our nation. We are a nation that is still in its reckless adolescence in the grand scheme of world history. How far have we strayed from the original intent of our founding documents? You decide and while you are at it talk to someone who may not be too familiar with them. A youngster, a Congressman, a Supreme Court Justice… Have a great Independence Day.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Constitution of the United States

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II: A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Amendment III: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII: In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

J. D. Pendry

Two years ago I wrote an article titled On Your Hands. I wrote it on the same day that I received in my email internet photographs of the mutilated bodies of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Private First Class Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon. I reached the point where I could no longer tolerate the insane babble coming from the mouths of certain politicians who clearly and daily place their politics ahead of the well-being of the men and women the majority of them voted to send to war. Now, the article appears to be making its umpteenth lap around the internet (wish I had a nickel for each time it has been re-posted somewhere) only this time one of the unauthorized editors of it decided it would be better if I was identified as a USMC Sergeant Major.

I have been soundly chastised by some for questioning Congressman John Murtha’s Marine credentials in the commentary. It seems I stepped over a line. I am told that since I have never been a Marine, I have no right to question what type of Marine Murtha was, is or is not. I understand pride in ones service so I apologized, but recalling the few Marines I encountered during my years of service, ABSCAM Jack did not measure up. Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) did not seem to be his motto, unless we are speaking of faithfulness to self and to his political cronies. I even apologized to the Marines for elevating him to the lofty rank of butt pimple. I do however have the right to question his honor or lack thereof.

“Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Congressman John Murtha, USMC Retired

Those words are what the Congressman had to say about his fellow Marines concerning Haditha. This incident was a fabrication from the outset based on a story planted by a propagandist and bought hook-line and sinker by the likes of the New York Times. Hyperventilating, they had found their Iraq Mi Lai and the Congressman was going to ride that horse right along with the rest of his anti-war colleagues. There is a little hitch however. Of the 8 Marines whose lives Murtha and the press helped to destroy, charges were dismissed outright against 5 of them, 1 was acquitted of all charges at trial, charges were recently dismissed against the most senior officer due to undue command influence and only one remaining awaits trial. Of course, the alleged atrocity was in every newspaper and Murtha’s face was in front of all the friendly talk show cameras expressing his outrage. Now that the case has practically crumbled to pieces and as the Marines slandered by Murtha and the press are declared innocent one after another there is not a single word. Dead silence. It should anger every American that honorable men and women routinely receive such treatment from the press and politicians.

It really added insult to injury for me with the latest Supreme Court, or is it now the Politburo, atrocity committed against the United States of America. When we capture bin Laden now, according to the decision, we will have to bring him here and give him the rights afforded any United States citizen under the Constitution. When a collection of people with lifetime appointments have suicidal ideations for our country, then the treatment that our Service men and women receive from politicians and the press should not be too shocking. It does not matter who is in the Whitehouse because the Supreme Politburo of the United States has usurped his or her constitutional authority as Commander in Chief. Every enemy prisoner of war taken on any battlefield now has rights under the Constitution of the United States.

“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.” - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

KSM as he is called in the US press. Isn’t it nice how we give them neat little identifiers like UBL? I can remember when initials were used to affectionately identify former US presidents, JFK, FDR, LBJ, dubya… well maybe not always affectionately. KSM who we have raised from the level of brutal murderer to “mastermind” now has the rights that you have. Unlike our Marines, he now has the presumption of innocence. Let that sink in some. While you are doing that, see if you can find any instance where Jack Murtha talked about him killing innocent civilians in cold blood, or that Dick Durbin ever called him a Nazi, or…

Copyright © J D Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves. – C. S. Lewis

Happy Birthday to the United States Army, Established June 14, 1775.

We transfer about 400 billion dollars in national wealth each year to nations not so friendly toward us to buy oil. Not very many politicians complain about that. However, daily they are heard to complain about the money spent fighting the ideology born in those nations that manifested itself in the murder of 3000 innocent people in a single act.

A couple of weeks past, following this post, I was sent an email telling me that I was peeing into the wind to suggest that we might be energy independent because the United States does not have enough of its own oil to be independent of OPEC. That is partially true. We do not have it in the pipelines now, nor is it sitting in the refineries that we failed to build since 1976, but we have it.

The offshore areas of the United States are estimated to contain significant quantities … of oil and gas resources in undiscovered fields on the OCS (2006, mean estimates) total 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas. Offshore Minerals Management, U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)

China, India, Cuba and Canada currently drill within 50 miles of our coastline. It is oil that the United States Congress will not allow American companies to get. If you are an oil company and you are not allowed to explore for oil at home, you will go elsewhere to get it. Just keep in mind that it was Western know how and Western companies that developed the OPEC oil industry that has made many terrorist supporters fabulously wealthy.

DOI estimates that “in-place resources” range from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranges from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end… Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR)

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota.

Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 trillion (Smith, 1980; Dyni, 2003) to 1.8 trillion barrels (Culburtson and Pitman, 1973; Federal Energy Administration, 1974). … consider that current U.S. demand for petroleum products is 20 million barrels per day. If U.S. oil shale resources could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 5 million barrels per day, the recoverable resource would last over 400 years!…Advances in thermally conductive in-situ conversion may cause shale-derived oil to be competitive with crude oil at prices below $30 per barrel. –Rand Report on the Green River Formation

And that does not include the world’s largest coal reserve and its potential for liquid fuel production.

We have plenty of energy resources in our country. Resources that could sustain us while we fully develop more technologically advanced energy sources. The problem is our energy companies that would develop our resources are not allowed. They are not allowed because of the Faustian relationship between members of Congress and their big environmentalist donors. The money in your pockets is less important to little men than the money that is in theirs.

We are offered these solutions. We can sue OPEC. That one doesn’t do it for you? Isn’t that the new American way? We can investigate market speculators. Market speculation is what keeps free markets growing and moving. Speculators are betting their wealth on future prices for commodities. The future for oil as it stands now is that demand will steadily increase while supply remains relatively constant. The price will continue to go up. If you are a company like an airline that uses massive amounts of fuel, you are happy to buy it at $130 dollars a barrel today betting that it is likely to be much higher in the future. We can place a windfall profits tax on oil companies. On the world oil market, U. S. companies are tiny and competing with a largely nationalized world industry. They cannot affect the market price, but they can transfer the cost of higher taxes to you and me – and they will. We can harp on the salaries that CEOs make, but to what end. Most Americans with retirement plans are invested into some sort of stock fund. There are probably a lot of energy company stocks in those funds. I want the best CEO, producing the highest profits and paying me the highest dividends for the stock I own in the company. So does everyone else and CEOs who can manage that consistently are worth the price paid for their services. Envy of another’s wealth will not reduce the cost of gasoline at the pump.

Unless you count the ethanol debacle and compact fluorescent light bulbs, those are the solutions that I hear coming from Congress and our contenders for the Presidency. Not a single one of those solutions will produce one drop of energy or reduce the price at the pump by one cent. If you study the OPEC oil embargos of 1973 and 1979, you will learn something quite interesting. When we went after the oil in Alaska and companies began investing in shale, the price of a barrel of oil fell.

There is only one way to reduce the cost to Americans and that is to increase supply. If the United States Congress announced today that all restricted areas are open to exploration and that we have a Manhattan style project to secure our energy freedom the price of oil would drop. It would drop before the first drill rig ever went active. The question is whether that is important to the little men who think they are big themselves.

Copyright 2008 J D Pendry All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

During the Democratic Convention of 1968, I was a month shy of 16 years old. I watched on television as Mayor Daley’s police force warred with the hippies and Yippies who were rioting in the streets. A generation brainwashed to believe that a nation wanting freedom was not worth defending from communist oppression had no problem rioting in the streets of our cities while their privileged mentors stayed above the fray and egged them on.

With my parents and one sister, I lived in a North side tenement. It was a red brick three story building with no air conditioning that was a cookie cutter image of all of the others that lined Magnolia Avenue. Like the rest of the neighborhood’s residents, both parents labored daily in Chicago’s factories and were immigrants from below the Mason-Dixon Line - practically foreigners in our own country.

I was introduced to the anti-everything hippie drug culture for the couple of years that I attended Nicholas Senn High School. I got an education there okay but probably not the one that was intended. One teacher felt obligated to tell me, in front of a giggling class, that Chicago would be better off if all of us illiterate hillbillies would go back to our coal mines. I silently agreed that I did not know if Chicago would, but that I would certainly be better off elsewhere. He could not have gotten away with disparaging any other group like that. That is sort of how things went when you ventured out of the tenements and forgot to leave your accent at home.

Three years later, I abandoned the flower child fantasia culture and its pot-fogged brains. I left behind a group of people who were already indoctrinated to believe that whatever America did was wrong and the most awful thing that could befall anyone was to end up in the military. Through the years, some things have not changed much. I abandoned that culture when I walked into a United States Army Recruiting station a few days in front of my 19th birthday.

I spent the next 28 years in an apolitical culture. If I had a political thought, I suppressed it except for the act of casting a solitary absentee ballot vote, which I have learned since was probably not counted for some technical reason or another. While I and others were trying to do our jobs and support families on wages that often qualified us for food stamps, the flower children were doing other things. They were growing up to be college professors, political activists, media pundits with large audiences and members of Congress. It is interesting how those long days that turn into months and years shared with a family that does without many of life’s niceties while you do the job you love for the country you love tempers your perspective on life and makes you intolerant of imbeciles who take it all for granted.

In September of 2001, two years following my retirement from the Army I became more interested, for obvious reasons, in our country’s political environment. It was not long before my observations angered me some. Maybe it was always as it is now with the difference being that I was only now paying attention to it. I did not like what the pothead generation had done to my country while I was away. I saw so-called political leaders who made a sport of belittling Soldiers out of one side of their mouths while insisting that not enough is done to look out for them from the other side. Their views, of course, were always dependent on the audience and the direction of the political breeze. I felt like that hillbilly kid back in Chicago, except this time I was out here among’em and had no place to where I could escape.

I have convinced myself that my one vote probably does not mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but I will cast it on Election Day. Nothing worthwhile seems to come out of Washington regardless of who is in charge. Our political parties focus on the destruction of political opponents and kowtowing to whichever group stands to fatten their bank accounts the most. Half of Congress is always focused on making the President look bad and the other half is always looking to even a score when it is their turn. Bolstered by an irresponsible media, they combine to form a sad, pathetic lot. Then you turn on the television and find a little “political strategist” talking head in a box on the right side and another in a box on the left shouting at each other like adolescents, neither of them offering solutions to anything. It is enough to activate ones gag reflex. We cannot agree to fight our sworn enemies. We cannot agree to free ourselves from our energy oppressors…

I think I will just end this here because I am not too sure that I like where the logic takes me. Maybe I will start an old hippie commune. Everyone can have their own room in the bunker. Bring your own food and ammo.

Copyright © J D Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. – Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.

We have cicadas this year. Growing up here in Wild Wonderful, we called them jar flies. No, I don’t know why. There is a constant eerie drone from this large winged insect. You grow used to the noise after awhile, because like Congress, you know it is just a lot of noise and nothing much will ever come of it. Unlike Congress, however, they will eventually dry up and shut up, their offspring will burrow back into the ground, and they will leave us alone for another 17 years.

Have you been getting angry when you pull up to the gas pumps? I have. My commute is an 80 mile round trip each day. It is growing quite expensive. I know people reading this who have much longer commutes than mine. They live where they can best afford to live and work where they cannot afford to live. If you are familiar with metropolitan Washington, DC, you understand. You endure a long commute each day so that your family has the best standard of living that your salary can provide.

It is a little different out here in rural America where people routinely live long distances away from their work. Car pools and public transportation are generally not available or feasible. I drive a pick-up truck. I could drive one of those tiny more fuel efficient vehicles but I will not. One fall morning a couple of years ago while driving down a country road on the way to work, two deer darted in front of me. I missed the first one and clobbered the larger second one causing $3000 in damages to my full-sized truck. Had I been driving a small, sloped front, close to the ground vehicle, the deer would have come on through the windshield. The outcome would have likely been much different. Then, there was the January morning that I hit an iced over bridge. I slammed head on into a concrete wall and that pushed the bumper through my left front tire. As a result, the truck flipped on its side, slid across the highway and slammed into the embankment. Somehow, it up righted itself. I could not get out of the driver’s side, because the running board was bent up over the door. Eventually I crawled out of the passenger side. The truck was a total wreck and I walked away with only two fractured ribs – and a fractured ego. I will not be spending my time on the road in a tiny vehicle to save gasoline or dollars or at the behest of someone who is chauffeured.

I do not get the impression that anyone in Congress, or anyone who wants to be our President, is interested in what their inaction or the restrictions they impose inflict on the Average-American that has to go to a job every day. Or to the grocery store, or doctor’s office, or mow the lawn, or get on an airplane to visit an ailing parent or sibling or pay the higher prices for virtually every product under the sun that is delivered to us in a carbon fuel burning vehicle.

Congress has offered us compact fluorescent light bulbs and ethanol, while assuring us that wind turbines and solar solutions to our energy needs are right around the corner. It reminds me of the time I drove from Illinois to El Paso, Texas. Leaving the Dallas area, the first sign I saw said El Paso, 700 miles. Those new solutions are around the corner okay, but exactly how far around the corner are they? About the same number of years that it will take to change out every vehicle that is on the roads today.

I heard a Presidential contender the other day lamenting that the United States makes up only 3 percent of the world’s population while consuming 25 percent of its energy. I do not know what he was trying to imply with that comment or which mushy headed American he hoped to impress, but he did manage to show us that his concept of the world and where we sit in it is rather lacking. We probably do consume more total energy considering that every home and business in the country has a 24 hour electricity supply, but that is not the issue. The issue is the supply of oil to meet the demand for oil. It is a demand that may eventually decrease for America, but not soon enough and not for the world as a whole in our lifetimes.

From 1994 to 2005, the number of vehicles per thousand people in the United States was relatively stable. During that same time, the number of vehicles per thousand in China tripled and it is never going to go backwards. Consider that the estimated population in China is 1,330,044,605 and in the United States it is 303,824,646. That is just one fact, however, it should illustrate even for a politician that no matter what transpires over the next 20 years or more, the world demand for oil will continue to increase even if the United States demand for it decreases. Even if we require less, it will still be too expensive for those of us who will need to use it for the foreseeable future, unless our politicians take the right actions.

There is only one way to reduce the price of fuel for Americans. That is to develop our own resources and to do it very fast. We have enough of our own oil and natural gas to be independent of the dictators who are controlling our lives and buying our country while we work to develop all of those exotic forms of energy we hear about. It will not be any good to us if we leave it in the ground where it is while our economy that is dependent on it tanks. There is some high stakes gambling going on in Washington right now. It is the gamble that one political party or the other will be the one to convince Americans that it can save them from “big oil”. Unfortunately, for us, all of the hands being played now are losers. We need the hand that will save us from big politics. The political failures here violate every government obligation stated in the Preamble to our Constitution, not the least of which is securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity [future].

I have been out in the bunker working on a new drilling technique. On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, it should be operational. When activated, if it works properly, it will suck all of the gas out of Congress.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

Copyright © J D Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved