On Monday, NASA announced there is water on Mars. On Tuesday, the EPA announced they have jurisdiction over all waters on or under the surface of Mars. (From now on WOTUS will be WOTUS&M.) On Wednesday, the Sierra Club said they would oppose drilling any wells on Mars because of the slight chance they might strike oil.
Speaking of oil, do you remember this news announcement in 1975? The government agency in charge of oil said that in 40 years (meaning 2015), the U.S. would run out of crude oil. And not only the U.S., but the whole world would have pumped the last barrel of oil from the last well on Earth.
That 1975 prediction was followed by a government rule that prohibited any crude oil from being exported. You can’t blame ‘em; no Congressman wants to let a precious, scarce commodity slip out of the country.
A few Senators from oil country are writing a bill to allow us to export crude oil again. Since President Obama allowed Iran to start exporting again, we are the only country forced to consume all our oil.
Imagine if we had a law that prevented farmers from exporting corn, soybeans, wheat, almonds, oranges or any other agriculture product. Either farmers would have to idle half their farmland, or we would have to eat twice as much. Neither option is a pretty sight: barren land, or bulging waistlines.
Hillary Clinton finally reached a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline. She sided with President Obama, saying that if she is elected president any crude oil from Canada will have to come into this country by railcar, tanker truck or barrels in the back of a pickup. After the announcement she flew to her next campaign speech on a private jet. Probably solar powered.
Well, we had another school shooting. It was at a college where no guns are allowed. Have you noticed, these mass murderers pay no more attention to a sign that says “Gun Free Zone” than deer do to a sign that says “Deer Crossing.”
Over in Syria, Russia jumped into the war. Putin and Obama had a meeting but they could not agree on which enemy to bomb. Obama thinks Putin is helping us bomb ISIL targets. Putin says he is bombing ISIL, but is actually bombing our friends in Syria. Meanwhile our chief diplomat, John Kerry, met with Russia’s chief diplomat. They agreed on deconfliction. Do you know what that means? I don’t either. I doubt these two learned diplomats can define it. The best explanation I could find comes from Will Rogers: “Diplomacy was invented by Webster to use up all the words in his dictionary that didn’t mean anything.” (Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1928)