There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Reality Bites

Okay, on some of the rewrite, reality decided to mess me up. Seems that modern kevlar vests will stop a sharp-blade puncture. So there goes an easy resolution to a situation. Of course, they guy also is recently missing his leg from the knee down, so he's not going to be doing much, having missed his shot by not taking the safety off. However the other gunboy across the room is the problem. Reality, it spoils so many plot points.

Then there's the stimulus and it's reduced money to the States. My own state is looking at even heavier cuts because the legislature reduced the money to the states. Weee.

And then there's the weather. While Orwell is high ground, we have a few major streams around us. And all of them are in major flood right now. Depending on what comes down tonight, some roads maybe flooded out tomorrow morning. And with our yard we could probably go outside and scoop up some perfectly hydrated clay. The best thing for throwing pots. Or, in other words, the ground is saturated so everything is going to sit on top.

Finally we have the latest "Domestic Gas and Oil Exploration Is Good for Jobs" commercial. You know, the latest in the campaign produced by the only avowed conservative ad agency (yes, there is one, and their whole thing of outing themselves were to go after clients like this) that has the woman in the pants suit telling us how we better let the oil and gas companies own all thes leases and drill everywhere around the country. Those ads that have questionable stats (of sure, drill under everybody's house and you may get to those figures, but I doubt you're going to be able to) and the implied threat of "give us what we want, or we'll trash everything." Yeah, those. So, the new one talks about how drilling in the US (well, giving the gas and oil companies the leases to the land that they might drill on at a later date) is all about the jobs. Really? Okay, Mrs. Gas and Oil Company, just how many drilling rigs and derricks did you manufacture last year to help exploit all those leases you already hold but haven't started even exploring? How many deep-sea drilling-platforms did you bring back from the African Coast? Yeah, thought so. With all due respect, reality bites.

3 comments:

Jim Wright said...

Oh, yeah, tell me about it.

These would be the same oil and gas companies that have used every excuse in the book not to develop the Point Thomspson fields here in Alaska - because that would increase the oil flow from the North Slope and thereby reduce the price per barrel.

Bastards.

Ken McConnell said...

When I was in the Air Force, I heard of a guy who was drunk and goofing off with his buddies. He took out a combat knife and decided to test their Kevlar flack vests. He was able to stick the knife into the vest that his friend was wearing and the knife then went into his friend.

So, unless this was an urban myth, it seams that flak vests do better at protecting against fast moving projectiles than a thrusting knife. Again, I have not researched this and can only recall it enough to know not to stab someone with a flak jacket on, unless you are trying to kill them.

Steve Buchheit said...

Yep, those are the ones, Jim. The ones who want to increase their share prices by the potential of their leases, without, actually, you know, drilling and finding out what's there.

Ken, see, that's what I thought. I was going to go for a plunge cut and part the weave, but a quick google seemed to counter that thought. Guess I'm going to need some more research.