ecugringo

So she was shot and sent him a text while hes right there? How many blead out while they stood around that could have had a chance?

That video is hard to watch. Now that I have a soon to be 6 yr old, I cant imagine having to live through something like this or the fear or it happening. We chose to homeschool our kids for many reasons. This being one of them. It can happen anywhere. We lived in CO and there was constant issues with guns in wealthy suburban areas. Lots of drug issues in schools with kids and parents. The police reaction is similar in Uvalde is similar to a shooting in Arvada a lil over a year ago. Arvada is a wealthy burb of Denver with a historicish downtown. Some wackjob parks his truck walks up to a cop and offs him right there. A hunting store across the street had 3 cops in it and 1 civi with a CCW. COps hid, Civi takes out the shooter. Then, more cops show up and take out the civi. I cant think of a better time to argue pro 2A then now. If my kid was in that school I know what me and my wife woudl have done.

It's a massive expense. Depends on the volume you want to process a day as well. If you are set up for sweet and want to undertake sour, its a decision that the C level with very high level long term plans consider. Its not just a flip of a switch. Sour you need a coker plant which is a mini refinery inside the refinery itself. A coker is what makes your diesel, gasoline, Jet. If you dont have a coker you can make those products from a reformer. If you have a coker you also are heavily dependent on hydrogen as well. Refining is similar to distallation. Making Vodka is 1 thing, being able to make whiskey from corn mash and tequilla from agave is something else altogether. For perspective on costs: P66 Bell Chase in New Orleans flooded last year in a hurricane. They shut it down for repairs. The startup est was over $1bl. Its now just a storage facility.

Its still traded as a global commodity since they are part of OPEC but since the whole dictatorship deal ppl try to shy away. They do have the most known reserves of anyone. Most refineries can and will process sour. The East and West coast shy away but keep in mind embridge is a Canadian company that has dozens of lines crossing the MN area to directly feed the mid west. Line 5 runs under Lake Michigan and a lot of ppl cry about it. The Crude from the Bakken in ND is mostly shipped by Rail to the coasts because thats safer for some reason.

Yeah not true. If a refinery has a coker plant they can process sour crude. Sour crude is a fraction of hte price as Sweet crude therefore yields a much higher crack spread. I know every refinery that purchases sour. The Keystone PL supplies Cushing OK (Worlds largest storage center) with millions of Sour from the tar sands in Canada. Keystone is not to be confused with the yet to be built Keystone XL. What is your experience in O&G btw?

Yeah I am a business traveler. Usually every other week going somewhere for a few days. Conferences are coming back but its still mostly full of vendors and not our customers. We are finding they are still pretty slim and major operators are not rushing back to these events. I think most are realizing a huge part of customer/vendor interaction can be done via phone/email. This was going to always be the case but covid accelerated it. I dont think business travel will ever be what it was pre covid. Now with pleasure travel....my flight to Houston was $300-$400 bucks inside 2 weeks. Its now over $800 with fewer options. I suspect families will rethink travel plans as well.

I read something a while back on NYC and Roe v Wade. The hypothesis was that RvW stemmed violence in NYC by having fewer unwanted kids growing unto early adulthood which also tied in with when Guiliani took over as Mayor. The argument was his policies didnt really turn NYC into a better place. It was fewer criminals being born. IDK what hte truth is. But the argument that abortion = less crime is a pretty sad statistic.

Yeah I believe some of these institutions have been found of Fraud? But agree, that is what I was referring to.

LOL I have a Poli Sci degree from a state school. From my perspective, I dont think a degree matters that much. I work in Oil and Gas and I see a pretty wide range of backgrounds that are pretty successful. I will say maybe from being an Officer and my degree gives me an advantage in critical thinking and writing skills. I work in sales and business development and I see a lot of people with maybe a MBA from a state school and its never been that impressive. I will also say getting an engineering degree might start you off at a decent level but it stagnates pretty fast. I think going into debt for an advanced degree really only pays off if it is from a high end business school that can get you connected. Getting a MBA from whatever State U IDK. In my role you can make pretty good $$$. We have a lot of former enlisted people in our company as either a service tech or sales. All make 6 figures. One of our sales guy pulls over $200k with a GED but he was in the Navy so we knew he was trainable. We have had guys with a STEM degree from Texas A&M and honestly i couldn't stand them. There is some truth to the millennial stereotype but I also think the media really pushes it as a talking point. But I also think there is some truth to the corporate bitching. Companies are making record profits but are they giving out many raises? You always read about a CEO making millions only to fail miserably only to get picked up at another company. Meanwhile the boots on the ground are making it all happen with what they have. So yeah I sympathize with that bitching a bit. I also have seen a # of CEO's lifestyle and Im not interested in that. Student Loans: What I think is really ed up is hte Univ of PHX and other for profit schools that really went after the lower income and undereducated. They promised a bright future with a BS degree. Univ of PHX business plan was to grow at a rate of an Ohio State Univ every year. This is where the Govt should step in and investigate. I am in favor of those schools being banished and loans forgiven. I think these for profit schools make up the majority of delinquent loans? There are plenty of options to be successful. I think today there are far more creative ways and there probably is more wealth to be generated that in the past. Look at United Airlines. They are starting their own from hte street to RJ school. Skip college, be an RJ at 18 or 19. By 40 you're making bank in the right seat. Just a quick example off the top of my head. What I disagree with the boomers is the idea of being a slave to a company. Again in my experience the only way i see people getting promted or raises is jumping to different companies. Or the idea of being a good soldier and not taking sick days and being hyper dedicated. When you watch your peers of a company be there for 20+ years and being kicked to the curb at the first hint of decline, all of a sudden you're only out for yourself. Pensions are no longer a thing, benefits aren't what the use to be. The table has flipped and the employee can make more demands. I think hte corporate structure is flipping as it should. Finally: tangent into global warming. I was curious why the left didn't push harder to keep remote workers as much as possible. Less cars not eh road, less congestion, etc....less need for office space=more green space. Should help global warming?????

Agree 100%. My Brother in law is early 30's super techy and educated. He would not make a great sales guy or maybe even manager but he works in cyber security and does pretty well. He has no interest in owning a large home with a fence, 2 kids and dog. Him and his wife have a small city home, small cars and work from home. They also want to be able to say it, pack up and move somewhere else and do hte same job. Hell I did that myself. IMHO the corporate office culture has died and those managers that can't adapt and overcome will fail. PPL realized there is value in getting an hour+ of your life back from your daily commute.

Did not know that.

Why is Zelensky meeting with Ben Stiller? Why is Ben Stiller in Ukraine? Seems odd the head of state that's currently at war has time to meet with a holly wood actor?

I think this just shows that an advanced country like Germany is still primarily dependent on Gas for their energy needs. Even Nukes didn't supply 100% power. The Nordstream Gas Line was to go directly to Germany to fill their energy needs. Yeah they have Solar Panels everywhere and some wind farms but the reality is they still are dependent on Gas and were nowhere close to replacing it.

According to Peter Zeihan they are all next. Side note: read an article last night can't find the link now but it discussed how the Intel Agencies missed on Russian Military capabilities. Thinking about it and going back to Al Queda, WMD's in Iraq, Taliban/Afgan pull out and now Russia.....Is there anything else they can miss so big on?

Officially the #1 Tom Cruse movie now. Only trails Avatar in Revenue at this point in its run. Saw it with my Dad, he took me when I was 5 for hte original. Loved it! Really great film to see in theaters. Made the wife watch the original and man was it corny! Still fun to watch but didn't realize the amount of cheese. When I was young the original Charlie was the ultimate prize. Re-watching it.....Nah, she doesn't hold up as well as I thought. Also thought you could have a Beach Home on a govt contractors salary growing up too. Jennifer Conneley>Charlie. There still hotter chics out there.

All that money Germany invested in Green energy appears to be wasted. Going back to coal! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/20/ukraine-war-germany-turns-to-coal-as-russia-throttles-gas-supplies.html

I read something years ago stating durign the cold war, specifically when we had the DEW line we had more weather monitoring stations in the Arctic than we do now. This helped shape the climate is cooling message. I also remember in the early 90's when the rain forest were being wipe out they would be gone within 20-30years? That message eventually faded away. There were even movies about it. But with most of the global population increasing in 3rd world areas like Africa and south Asia.....they need cheap energy and land to feed themselves....but yeah go buy a Tesla and save the planet. I think 1 car battery needs like a swimming pool of water to create. Oh and the Dow is down 900 pts today.

lol i bought Exxon in May or June 2020 at around $34. Was at $104 last week.

We now have the President telling companies what an acceptable profit margin is. Biden tells oil companies in letter 'well above normal' refinery profit margins are 'not acceptable' (cnbc.com)

The other interesting point is the Crack Spread. This is the ratio of what companies purchase crude at vs selling a finished product. The higher the spread the greater the profit. Right now with Oil at $120/bbl and Fuel at $5sh.....It's actually not good margins for producers. Now when the storage tanks were full at $40-$60/bbl and Fuel started increasing, they made stupid money. Not saying they aren't now but its not what you would think. When Crude gets too low they tighten the valve and layoffs happen. Since Putin has state run oil companies as well as many OPEC players....They really aren't interested in reducing the price of crude. 2 of hte top 10 companies in the S&P now are Marathon and Valero. Not Salesforce or Facebook/META bs. My bet is their strategy is to maximize profits and shareholder revenue today and hold cash. If there is a red wave this fall I think they will invest in infrastructure and you might see more crude hit the market. But if Dems hold ground, these companies will further retreat and not invest in future aquisitions.

there is so much revenue to be create from O&G that can better our country as far as infrastructure, education and other programs that could really help those in need, I dont know why we want to race away from that sector. The US is in a position to be the global energy export leader. When you factor all the jobs involved in Exploration and production (Drilling), Midstream (Transportation) and Downstream (Refining and delivery), ppl only think of hte big players like Exxon and Chevron but there are thousands of other businesses all involved in the process. Maintenance, Integrity, Installation, there are hundreds of thousands employed. Planting a bunch of wind farms wont create the jobs claimed. I also challenge proponents of wind to drive through WY on any given day and notice all the turbines that are idle due to wind loads. Turbines need wind but too much and they break. IMO our energy policy should be to be an Energy leader while supporting R&D to develop new technologies that can be more efficient.

There are a number of issues with Green energy. I would not look at Europe as a beacon of light. They subsidize their green energy but they are currently at the mercy of Putin with Gas. IMO the Ukraine conflict has very much to do with Oil and Gas. The Caspian area has a massive play where Exxon among others have invested billions. The pipelines run through Ukraine and you cant really bypass Ukraine from the field to get to market. If you can own Ukraine you keep the taxes and tarriffs to yourself. If you recall the drama on the pipeline in the Bakken in North Dakota where the Indians were mad about it polluting the Missouri and their Rez, celebrities came out in the cold to protest. Well the Indians wanted hefty fees to pass through the rez so the oil company just bypassed it so they cried fowl to get it back. You talk about thousands of green jobs being created, do you care for the tens of thousands that will be lost? This industry pays well and provides opportunities to those that if they want to grind, they can make more than they dreamed. The tax revenues alone to all local to feds are in hte hundreds of billions. The only real green jobs i see are punks selling solar door to door so their company can get a tax rebate. Just look at Houston. one of hte fastest growing metros. You think they can all just work in wind? If you are a fan of Green energy you really need to understand how the grid will be affected if you make a fast switch. Nukes have been phased out, coal is being phased out. The flat out truth is we are consuming more energy than ever. Play the global warming card and the Earth getting hotter, thats just more AC running. Wind is a real joke. My company has an Advanced Engineering division. We have done studies on wind turbines and the load they experience isnt sustainable. They will fail long before create the energy they promised. ALso they are made of toxic materials and cant be reused or destroyed. So landfill it is. Ive had solar on my home in hte past and it really doesnt make sense financially. The ROI is typically not within reach considering when you are in range of payout, the panels wont be producing as new. Im not against Green Energy, I am just a realists. Most Teslas are powered by coal or natural gas. The US has oceans of Natural Gas. If they want to expand the grid they can easily replace coal with Nukes and Natural Gas. IMO solar and wind will never get us there. It will need to be some tech of a fusion reactor if we go down the road with as many EVs as promised. Lastly IMHO is that the Dems know this but they will make promises on the Green push that they will never see in their lives but are happy to buy the votes. They laugh as the family struggling to get buy to pay $100 to fill up their car on the way to hte beach. I lived in CO and Gov Polis and Hickenlooper both promised to move the state away from O&G. However, they have no way to support the state if they did. They know this but still make it a priority.

Groceries seem like they are much higher. As far as Fuel and Oil prices are concerned there are many factors. I work in the industry and no matter what, everyone thinks the Prez is 100% responsible for Gas prices. Well they are not.....Mostly. Back in 14' Oil took a huge dump. A lot of investment in exploration was put on hold. It only started to recover right before Covid. Then it took a massive dump. For US operators, Oil needs to be above $50/$60bbl to make $$$. The higher the bigger drive to install new wells and increase production. Keep in mind Oil is a global commodity and the more you have, the supply/demand isnt as tight and the price will drop. During Covid, Russia and OPEC flooded the market with cheap oil. Maybe this was to hurt the US? Tough to tell. Since the Covid recovery, demand is up but production went way down. The DEMS are hurting this by pushing hte Green new Deal. Oil companies are getting massive tax breaks to shutter refineries or convert to bio diesel. About 10 refineries are offline since Covid. It would cost billions to get them back running. If you're exxon, p66 etc...are you going to spend billions to get a refinery back up and invest in new leases when Ford says 60% of the fleet will be EV in a few years? No....they will sit on the cash they are swimming in. Also, a lot of hte leases available dont have easy access to the crude and are expensive to extract from. Something else to keep in mind. So in summery: Demand is close to pre covid, There are fewer refineries to make fuel, there is less production going on in the US, Russian Crude has been removed from the global market. Im still waiting on the DOE's plan to have a grid that can handle all the EV's and other push to electric. RIght now, TX cant handle a week of cold, the west cant handle heat.

Well I didnt ask, he volunteered the opinion. I just listen since I want a quality job done.