Barack Hussein Obama Inauguration Part 2: Campaign Speech for 2012

Okay, here's the really thick part of my Inauguration posts; I'm going to give a blow-by-blow of my reactions to Obama's speech. The best thing about the speech was that it was somewhat short, but even so I'm not going to react to everything, just what I consider notable. I'm sure everyone heard it, but the whole transcript can be found here, and here is a video of the speech:

I did listen to Rush Limbaugh's comments, and while I agree with a lot of what Limbaugh said I'm not convinced this speech was as lacking in content as he thought. I do think his overall assessment is correct, however, and in an attempt to live up to the impossible hype Obama - who wrote his speech himself instead of following his successful strategy of skillfully delivering empty speeches written by David Axelrod - filled his speech with so many lines meant to be memorable that it's too much and is not memorable at all. The audience sure gave very little sign of being inspired, it was one of the quietest crowds I've seen at an event like this (and don't tell me it was rapture!). They really didn't seem to know how to react to most of what was said. It certainly wasn't the speech they expected. CNN expected that Obama's words on Tuesday would be chiseled in marble; we'll see.

Now for my reaction to the important bits:

"My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition."

I have no doubt Obama's sincerity here. I also have no doubt that Bush left the White House nicer than he found it; not hard when it was trashed when he got there. I bet you won't find any "O"s missing from computer keyboards or inappropriate images left in photocopiers, none of the things you expect when hippies leave a place. Skipping ahead a bit:

"That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."

It's nice to hear someone on the Left admit this once in awhile! Does this mean you will continue Bush's successful and just military campaign against those who threaten our freedom and security, violently oppress their own people, seek weapons of mass destruction and threaten to use them against us and our ally Israel? We will judge you by your actions, Mr. President.

"Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet."

I'm sure he's referring to the greed and irresponsibility of businessmen; the government will not call on itself to accept any responsibility in this. Every day does not bring further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. Anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, and a scheme to transfer wealth by playing on people's fears; the evidence we see daily points to natural climatic cycles, especially as we see arctic ice accumulating to levels not seen since 1979. Our energy use does not strengthen our adversaries, but Congressional opposition to expanding our sources of domestic energy certainly weaken our economy.

"These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land—a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."

Could it be, Obama, that you are in part personally to blame for this? You don't help at all when you say that America is "not what it could be" or however you said it (neglecting to point to a time when things were better; slavery? segregation?), or when your wife cites your nomination as a reason to finally be proud to be an American again. Maybe you should call down those in the black community who belittle your achievement by saying we haven't arrived at the end of the civil rights struggle. Even before your inauguration you have done harm where you have had the most excellent opportunity to communicate these ideas. Skipping ahead:

"We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

Except, of course, those whose wealth comes from Big Oil, or Wal-Mart, or anyone else who has built their fortunes at the expense of the poor, or the environment.

"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted—for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

Yes! There is nothing here I disagree with at all. Please follow through on these inspiring words with policies that will not punish achievement. Lower taxes, make government step aside and let the natural market forces that made this country successful in the first place run their course and keep us prosperous. There was never a guarantee of equality in results, that was always conditional to ability and effort as you say here. Equality is in rights; all men are created equal, but what they choose to do with their freedom determines their success later in life. Our early settlers learned first-hand the consequences of heavy-handed government, and wrote limitations of government into the Constitution. Bush continued and accelerated the rapid expansion of the role of government; now it is time for Change, time for the government to step aside for once and let us prosper. Let's skip ahead just a bit:

"[...] everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act—not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do."

Oh. Well, so much for those hopes. Government is going to grow, government is going to provide, government is going to stand in the way. With the public perception of a horrible economy (an illusion by the way, perpetuated and in many ways created by the media, but a very useful illusion for Obama and his socialist friends), people will be increasingly eager to embrace any policy Obama or Pelosi or any of the others suggest that expands the power of government and increases its role in our lives until we find ourselves so completely dependent on the government that there's no way out. Government never shrinks voluntarily, never willingly relinquishes power. It's this bold, swift action that I am the most afraid of. I expect more harm to come to the economy by any action taken by Big Government than anything else. Building roads is all well and good, and definitely a necessary role of government, but transferring wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven't is not. Providing for every aspect of everyone's lives is not the role of government.

There's more in this paragraph that troubles me. "Restore science to its rightful place"? What is that supposed to mean? I have a couple theories. It's possible he means climate science, silencing the critics whose money comes from Big Oil so the religion of global warming can reassert its prominence. However, putting this statement in a sentence about health care makes me think it's about stem cell research. He means that now that those pesky Republicans are thoroughly out of power, we can kill babies again. Well, Obama, science, when not clouded by politics, shows that embryonic stem cells don't do much of anything, while other sources of cells that don't kill babies have been applied in many areas of health research with promising results. Global warming and stem cell research haven't been about science in a long time, but politics; so you're right, science should be restored to it's rightful place, but you and I disagree on where that place is.

Harvest the sun, wind and soil to power our cars and factories? I'd say you're just telling the people who voted for you what they want to hear, but I think you actually believe this. Solar power is impractical on a large scale, and requires huge plants to collect energy - plants that disrupt migration patterns, and have huge "footprints." Wind power isn't efficient, either; also, it kills birds, disrupts migration patterns, and no one seems to want one near where they live. By soil I assume you mean ethanol, which still emits greenhouse gases, requires about four gallons of water to produce one gallon of fuel, and wastes huge quantities of food. If we're just going to burn our food anyway, I'd feel much more comfortable sending it to Africa, or feeding the hungry here. A quick aside, one of the things I like best about Oklahoma (where I'm living this semester for an internship) is that they have the right attitude toward ethanol, they treat it like the vile contaminant it is:

And when you talk about transforming our schools, I guess it would be too much to hope for that you would require a rigid standard of success and responsibility before throwing money at them, abolish this ridiculous idea of tenure, and discourage liberal teachers from pushing their ideology on their students as if it were fact instead of opinion. No, in this case, by Change, you mean take the system further down the path it's already on.

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them—that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works—whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account—to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day—because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Yes, the ground has shifted. The Republican party has shifted left, the Democrat party has shifted even farther left, and conservatives like myself feel that we have nowhere to go. Elections have consequences, and now we have Obama. Things have definitely shifted, but that makes the question of whether government is too big or too small more relevant than ever. In very few things does government actually work. As Thomas Paine said, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." It is harder and harder to tolerate government.

What else does he say here? Let's read between the lines. In this paragraph Obama is promising to raise minimum wage and expand government health care programs and retirement money (thus increasing the tax burden). If a program actually ends it will only be to be replaced by something bigger, farther reaching, and more limiting of our freedom. There will be no holding government to account for how it spends its money, there never is. Mr. Obama, if you want to restore my trust in government, make it smaller! Don't steal so much of my paycheck! Stop telling me I have to burn food instead of gasoline to make my car go, and don't tell me what I should and shouldn't drive!

"Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control—and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart—not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."

Translation: unless the government is in absolute control of major corporations, controlling the flow of money, we will have a problem. We can't allow an individual to be too successful, because surely his wealth came at the expense of someone else. Obama is promising to transfer wealth from those who earned it to those who did not. Government cannot achieve equal results by raising up those at the bottom, only by pulling down those at the top and spreading poverty equally. If you doubted so far that Obama is promising higher taxes, and for the government to be an ever increasing obstacle to success and personal achievement, this paragraph practically says so straight out.

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

If we do not protect our safety, how do we protect our ideals? What does Al-Qaeda care of our ideals? Oh, you mean wiretapping of suspected terrorists and other successful methods of bringing down terrorists, the very methods that have kept America free of terrorist attacks for seven years and brought freedom to a nation that has been under an oppressive dictatorship far too long. This was a swipe at Bush. You said it right when you mentioned the "justness of our cause." Our cause has been just this whole time, despite what you and your friends on the left say about holding Bush responsible for "war crimes." As for missiles and tanks, no matter how many participate in an alliance, that alliance has no power without missiles and tanks. The Allied Forces of World War II could not have brought down Hitler and Hirohito with mere justness of cause, it took troops, ships, tanks, planes, and two huge bombs.

"We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort—even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Fortunately we have won the war in Iraq, and a pull-out of troops is feasible now. You want to know why they weren't excited to see us when we started this campaign? Because we promised to free them before, and didn't finish the job; because no matter how strong Bush was on this, there was always the possibility that a change in President could undo all the progress we'd made. I would be suspicious, too, if I was Iraqi! As for apologizing for our way of life, please tell your liberal friends in Congress, and also your Hollywood supporters to stop doing this very thing. If the track record on your side of the debate was other than what it is, I would be very inspired by this paragraph of your speech.

I'm going to skip ahead quite a bit, to keep this from getting to lengthy:

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends—hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship."

Amen! I agree completely!

"This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

Please tell this to those who think the civil rights struggle is hotter than ever.

The last bit of the speech continues like that with a decent reminder of our history and why we're so great, nothing wrong with it at all, although it seemed to me near the end that he gained some personal momentum and started to sound like a preacher at the pulpit. Not very memorable, though, not something I'd think "wow, I'm going to chisel this into marble!" But we've heard the promises from his own mouth, he is going to expand the role and power of government, and transfer wealth to discourage success. And there wasn't a whole lot of cheering from the crowd, not as much as the extra-high expectations warranted. There were no miracles wrought from the podium, no ministering of angels, none of the stuff the media seemed to be expecting to happen.

Barack Hussein Obama Inauguration Part 1: Historic Disappointment

I've been mostly avoiding the press coverage of the pre-inauguration celebrations, but I caught bits, and I did watch the main event. This is what happens when you build expectations so high, you can't possibly meet them. Even without the expectations of miraculous deeds, peace on Earth achieved overnight, Obama's speech was really lame. It was a bad idea to write it himself, apparently. I'll get to that in a bit, let me start a bit back.

Rush Limbaugh has been jokingly referring to Obama as The Messiah, the Most Merciful Lord Barack Obama, as if his presidency is the Second Coming. Some comments from speeches by Obama and those around him suggested such an attitude, and watching the celebrations leading up to this admittedly historical event, that really is how many of those who voted for Obama regard him. Seriously, just watch Bono and other idiots as they perform at the parties! Plus, while Bush is pressured to be frugal, an inauguration party costing $170 million, more than twice what Bush's cost, is only appropriate to celebrate the Second Coming. Never mind the carbon footprint!

I caught a conversation in the lobby of the hotel this morning between some people, and the average Obama supporter seriously has no understanding of what is going on. To paraphrase the culminating point of one of the people discussing the event, "We've just been headed down the wrong road, it's time for a Change. We took it and took it with Bush, now we've got Change." No discussion of policies, just Change.

It is an unfortunate circumstance that ever since we amended the Constitution to specify January 20th as Inauguration Day, it falls on the day after Martin Luther King's birthday. Listening to the race discussion (always brought up by the Democrats, the only party that still sees black and white instead of Americans!) made me realize something important that sets apart Democrats and Republicans. Republicans (and by Republicans, I mean the conservatives that Republicans are supposed to be, Reagan conservatives) are concerned with results, and if the job is done and no more need of government then great; Democrats, however, always need a struggle. We have a government populated by hippies, people who lived through the civil rights days, and these people have spent so much time fighting the civil rights battle that if the battle is over they have nothing left to give their lives purpose. They can't acknowledge that the hurdles really have been overcome because their lives have been defined by the struggle, and in some cases if minorities don't feel oppressed they have no power over anyone's lives. That's why, even though we have now for the first time elected a black man president, those on the left are divided into two camps: those who think this is the culminating moment of American history, and those who say that this is the start of a new phase of the civil rights battle.

CNN has an article, "Civil rights vets: Fight not over because Obama reaches top". They cite Charlie Steel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (who said a couple months ago that an Obama victory would not be a civil rights achievement since Obama is only half black and has no "slave blood" in him), who commented that "President-elect Barack Obama is just a piece of the puzzle. This tells us that we are at a station, but it's not our destination [...] We've got to get back on the train". He further stated that those who espouse King's dream may grow lackadaisical because an African-American has taken the reins of the free world. But it is imperative, he said, that they 'march now more than ever before'". Why? I thought the whole idea was to leave race behind? In an attempt to be colorblind, from now on I refuse to acknowledge Barack Obama as America's first black President. His is the 44th American President.

Sunday morning on MSNBC, Azusa Christian Community reverend Eugene Rivers was asked if with "Obama becoming the nation's 44th president [...] that racism is over, discrimination is over, that black men can get a taxi now, as Barack Obama once said. Here's his answer:

"I couldn't get one last night. I couldn't get one -- I was -- I was trying to get something for my wife last night, and it was so funny, I'm sitting there in that little -- that little -- little real yuppie area, and so I wanted to pick up some food, and I'm standing there, and these two very -- you know, four little young white girls come by, you know, and I'm standing there like for a half hour just freezing, like three o'clock in the morning, right? And that cab just rolled right by me, right? The little white girls were like ten feet ahead, and that cab driver took the four white girls to Arlington, Virginia [...] The post-racial rhetoric was simply a politically obligatory applause line, Valerie Jarrett, Barack Obama, John Rogers, Henry Louis Gates, Venus and Serena -- honey, you know we in a new world when Venus and Serena Williams can conquer Wimbledon, honey, but Richard Williams -- you know, so we are not in a post-racial; we are in a much improved place. But to say we're post-racial is simply a -- a -- a heartwarming fiction."

I don't suppose that the cab driver, who was very likely a minority himself, picked up four girls instead of one man, or simply figured four passengers rather than one meant more fare? No, it has to be about race.

Meanwhile Republicans are called on to be supportive, acknowledge the voice of the American people, give Change a chance and stand behind our new president 100%. Where was this call for unity and cooperation in 200? In 2004? What about Republican minorities, do Democrats stand behind them 100%? No, what we find there is that even deeper than the surficial racial argument is that ideology matters, that it's about the struggle and not the results. Success cannot be acknowledged. If a Democrat black man succeeds it's only a stop, not the destination; if a Republican black man succeeds, he's not really black, he sold out his race. They refuse to acknowledge Condeleeza Rice as a civil rights victory because she's conservative, despite being not only the most powerful black person in the world, but the most powerful woman. Clarence Thomas doesn't count. Colin Powell they're fine with, since he endorsed Obama.

Of course, Obama can't be the first black President, because that was Clinton, or so says Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison:

"Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

Here's a video* that makes me want to vomit, especially the end where the celebrities get together and pledge to be a "servant to Barack Obama" and the United states:

Where was the support for President Bush? We're asked to set aside our ideological differences and support the decision of the people, but never did we hear anyone say of Bush "I disagree with his policies, but the people spoke and he's my President so I will support him until there's another one, because he needs to know he's not alone in the White House and he represents me, too." How about this. I stand behind Barack Obama 100%, and hope nothing but the best for him, since I don't wish ill on anyone. However, I hope that President Obama utterly fails, and none of his policies are enacted. Unless he suddenly starts proposing tax cuts and shrinking the role of the Federal Government, I hope he fails.

Enough of that, I'm tired of talking about it.

Obama's inauguration was an interesting event. I'm not going to rant about it all at once (I wasn't going to at all, but I was too amused and also offended and now I need to vent), so I'll break it up. A few more comments now, then I'll give hopefully brief comments on the speech, that hilarious "poem," and that offensive "prayer."

I'll wrap this up with the Presidential Oath. Obama is apparently the first president in history to be sworn in by a Chief Justice whose appointment he voted against as a Senator. How often do Republicans filibuster or vote against Democrat nominees? It only ever seems to go one way. But Obama messed up the oath! I think Justice Roberts also stumbled; but seriously, at such a "historic" event, shouldn't Obama have spent some time memorizing and practicing the Oath? Shouldn't they have put this up on a teleprompter? That's the only time Obama is ever really as eloquent as they say, when he's practiced and not on the spot.

Watch the video of the Oath:

The first fumble is easy to explain. Remember how sensitive Obama is about his middle name, Hussein? He avoided using it throughout the campaign, got upset whenever people did as if they were comparing him to another Hussein. Even McCain got mad at any of his staff if they ever called him by his middle name, because heaven forbid we offend the opposition, especially by using their actual name! There was actual serious media coverage, a big deal was made over whether Obama would use his middle name in the Oath or not, and he opted to use his whole name. You can tell how much this was at the top of Obama's mind as he took the Oath; he was so eager to get through that part that he rushed it and spoke over Justice Roberts as he spoke his name. The second part was the real screw-up, since apparently Obama completely forgot what to say and Roberts fumbled over the order of the words. What a way for The Messiah, Mr. More-Eloquent-Than-Bush to start off his Presidency!

One more thing. Apparently (I didn't see this) one of Obama's daughters, in front of cameras, looked up at Obama and said "You're the first black President, you'd better be a good one!" They raised expectations impossibly high to get him elected, now they have to lower them so he can exceed them. "It's going to get worse before it gets better."

*The videos aren't YouTube, so if you're using Google Reader you'll have to actually go to my blog site to see them.

Shahenshah!

The internet is basically the best thing ever. I only very recently discovered just how great YouTube really is. To quote Michael Scott from The Office, "When I discovered YouTube, I didn't work for five days. I did nothing. I watched Cookie Monster sing Chocolate Rain about a thousand times." Well, I don't understand what's so funny about Chocolate Rain; the lyrics are stupid, and Tay Zonday's Tom Jones-like voice is totally wasted on that crap. But just a little while ago I was searching to see if there were any videos for an Icelandic group I recently discovered called Andhéri. I didn't find any, but apparently the word "andheri" is in the title to the theme song for a hilariously bad Bollywood film from 1988 called Shahenshah, which is Persian for "King of Kings." And this is how I discovered the Indian Chuck Norris.

I hope those of you who read this blog regularly (possibly half a dozen now!) find this as hilarious as I do. I watched several YouTube clips from this movie, and laughed so hard I have to share. I have no interest in actually watching this movie, though, because it's nearly three hours long, and I don't think there are subtitles. Shahenshah is about a crime-fighting superhero who according to Wikipedia is supposed to be kind of like Batman. He wears all black, but on his right arm is the shiniest chain-mail I've ever seen, and with that arm he can basically punch through anything. In his left hand he carries a noose. It's not just any noose, it's the noose his father hanged himself with because he couldn't bear the shame of being framed for a robbery. Guess what Shahenshah's motivation is? Revenge, of course!

As a kid, Vijay (Shahenshah's real name) is taken in by a cop, and grows up to be a cowardly inspector who is also corrupt, working for the criminal organization that framed his father. That's what everyone thinks, anyway. He's really a super-cool awesome butt-kicking machine who uses his cover to get closer to the guys that framed his dad, so he can kill 'em! That's all you need to know (and more), now enjoy a few bits of awesomeness from the Indian Chuck Norris!

Here is when Inspector Vijay decides to arrest the main bad guy. Just hit stop when he gets in jail, the arrest is the funny part.

Even better, here is where the villain's chick reveals she's an undercover agent! I think this clip goes before the other one, but it's funnier and I'm keeping the best for last. Other than the most incredible death acting ever, I love that Vijay says in English "situation is completely under control," and "he's alive?" Oops, I spoiled the surprise twist, which I can't help but compare to the end of Back to the Future. This clip stays funny, but you might as well stop after the villain reveals the secret to his miraculous recovery.

After arresting the main villain, Vijay drops the idiot routine, goes and gets his hair done, waits a few days for his beard to grow in, and puts on his Shahenshah outfit so he can go bust up the rest of the villains. This clip has his super-scary entrance, then a minute of monologuing in Hindi, then some super-awesome fighting to make Walker, Texas Ranger proud. Check out Shahenshah's signature move every time he busts another bad guy!

And the best ever, after getting his revenge, Shahenshah goes around doing good to an awesome theme song. Sure, he can beat down bad guys, but besides that look what a nice guy he is! Plus, what a catchy tune!

By now your brain probably needs to heal, so to counter that I should put something of quality in this post. I didn't find any Andhéri music on YouTube, but I found another Icelandic artist, Ólafur Arnalds, who is also very good. So let Síðrokkarinn by Ólafur Arnalds chase away the horror of Shahenshah (this is actually good, I promise!):

I hope that makes up for the rest of this post.

Shahenshah!

Better Late than Never

It's way past time to blog about my trip to New Orleans, considering I got there almost a month ago! If I don't write about it now I never will. I've been too lazy to blog lately, especially since I've suddenly got all this free time that I've been using to catch up in my leisure reading. I'll keep this fairly brief, with plenty of pictures.

The reason I went to New Orleans was to attend a week-long "camp" hosted by Shell Oil, where they teach classes on drilling for and producing oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell's main offices are in New Orleans, which is why the camp is there. The classes were aimed mostly at engineers; in fact, of the half-dozen schools that sent students (there were about 40 people there total) there were only five geologists, and all came from BYU-Idaho. Aside from me, Dr. Little was there (the only professor, and embarrassingly enough he of course randomly ended up in my group), along with Tyson, Annelise, Clint and Dan Lancaster. We were split up into four groups, which took turns spending a day learning about, drilling, production, supsea operations and safety. Of the four classes, drilling was the most interesting and surprisingly enough safety was the most fun. Here's why safety was so much fun:

What is that, you ask? It's a helicopter crash simulator. We got in, put on our seatbelts, and got dunked under the water and had to escape alive. There were only two in our group that didn't survive the course. (Just kidding, you can see the scuba guys watching from under the water, there was no real danger but it was a lot of fun). They dunked us three times, and the last time they flipped us upside-down, as you can see in the pictures. Unfortunately, our group got to do this the first day, which meant we got the most fun part out of the way too soon. The rest of the safety class was lecture, but the guy teaching did a good job making it interesting. For one thing, I am no longer skeptical about the warnings about entering your car while filling it with gas:

This happens to girls more than guys, because we're less likely to wear staticky sweaters. The girl in the video is lucky her stupid decision to pull the thing out of her car didn't soak her in burning gasoline!

The drilling class was cool because we got to use a simulator for a drilling rig. Sadly I don't have pictures of the simulator, but it was pretty cool. I'm working at one (not on one, though) now, and I know what's going on because of the simulator, which is useful. Basically, the rig lifts up a pipe connected to a motor, with a drill bit at the end, and drills into the ground, like shoving a huge straw into the ground. The pipes on the rig I'm working at are 30ft long. Once the pipe is all the way down, they hold it in place, lift a new pipe and fit it on top of the other one, and continue drilling. It's fun to watch. There's an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe works on a drilling rig, but unfortunately it's not on YouTube.

The subsea and production classes were interesting as well, just not quite as interesting. There were some lectures on the big picture of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico as well. The thing that always amazes me is the expense involved, and the risk. The drilling rigs in the Gulf cost anywhere from $750,000 to $1,500,000 every day to operate, and there's no guarantee a hole they drill will produce enough oil to pay off. There is no other industry I can think of with such high expenses, huge risk, and little thanks from the public that depends on their product. There are no Big Oil "obscene profits." Despite what Bill O'Reilly thinks, the Big Oil executives don't conference call every day to decide today's price of a gallon of gasoline. Oil companies have a very small profit margin compared to retail, which typically marks up items as much as 100-200% in some cases. Plus, except for Wal-Mart, retail isn't named the world's biggest villain as often as oil. Just be glad our government doesn't own the oil industry yet, that would be a disaster. But enough politics, more pictures!

This is a set of drill pipe with the drill inside, set down and cut open. That on the bottom is designed to guide the pipe down the hole, then they drill right through it (it's made of clay).

This is one of the machines they set on the ocean floor once a well is drilled. It's basically a whole mess of valves and pipes, and controls the flow of oil from a subsea well.

Close-up of the subsea production unit, the gray metal is called a "sacrificial anode." Since salt water is corrosive, and this machinery is expensive, they place several of these on everything they put underwater. It's made of an alloy that is more reactive than the metal of the machinery, and so attracts the corrosive ions in the water. The result is that the sacrificial anodes corrode first, saving the machinery.

This is a huge plug! Those two plugs on the ground are designed to fit in that huge outlet on the yellow machinery. The various connections allow gas, fluids, electricity and communication to flow to and from the bottom of the ocean to the control center above the surface. Also, they're heavy.

If sand gets into the pipe, it means trouble. They have sound sensors to tell when this happens, but if it gets out of hand this is what happens.

More sand damage, this time not painted over.

They had working production equipment on-site, but filled with water instead of oil. We got to trouble-shoot problems; this is a member of my group opening a big valve.

Another member of my group starting a big pump.

A cut-away of a tank that separates water, oil and gas and sends them to different pipes.

Since most of the people there were engineers, many of them were curious about the geology side of the oil business. None of the people in charge of the event knew much about it, so they set aside time for Annelise, Tyson and I to teach short courses (on the spur of the moment!) about basic geology and seismic interpretation, which was really fun. The highlight of this for me was while I was making a presentation about sequence stratigraphy and how it applies to interpreting seismic profiles (the squiggly lines the engineers give us that we look at and say "drill here"). An engineer asked me if geologists ever disagree in their interpretations, and I replied with the standard joke about if you have three geologists in a room you have five opinions. This didn't sit well with a couple of the engineers, who didn't feel comfortable dividing five opinions by three people, and the guy that asked the question asked why it wasn't six opinions. It really bothered him to not have an evenly divisible number of opinions, to the point that he even changed his facebook status to "wonders why three geologists would have five opinions." It still cracks me up that this was the most difficult point of the lecture. Also, I got a $25 gas card for presenting this, which was extra cool.

After four days of these classes we went as a big group to One Shell Square in New Orleans, Shell's main office there. It was an interesting tour, with a good question and answer session with workers there that left me thinking I wouldn't mind working at Shell as a geologist at all. The big deal for me was the 3D seismic room. This is what I want to do as a career. The room was like a mini-IMAX theater, with lots of computing power, and 3D goggles. I took a picture of the screen, but it's a double-image if you're not wearing the goggles, which you aren't:

The green and white are salt domes under the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico, and the red and yellow lines are wells. The gray in the background is the seismic profile. They make noise at the surface and listen for echoes, like sonar, and come up with that picture. The guy demonstrating could slide back and forth with his mouse and show hundreds of these parallel to each other, which is how they get the 3D picture. And to elaborate on the risk I mentioned earlier, they can't see through the salt because it messes with the sound waves, but they are currently spending $100,000,000 to drill a well around and under this particular salt dome. The engineers are only 90% certain they can even get the well where they want it, and with all the other factors accounted for there's only a 50% chance they'll even get any oil out of this hole. $100,000,000 for a 50% chance of finding oil. You don't do that unless there's major profit opportunity involved. The goggles were super-cool, too:

Sarah and Kristen wearing the goggles (sorry, I don't have a shot of me stylin' like this).

There was also some opportunity to be a tourist. Unfortunately there was too much cloud cover to get a good photo of the Mississippi Delta, but I got a few cool shots from the air approaching New Orleans:

Between layers of cloud.

Looks like someone had an accident.

The main highway runs over a swamp.

Sunset at the airport.

After our tour of Shell's offices, our new friend Sarah, who lived nearby, offered to drive Tyson, Clint and me to down town New Orleans for some sightseeing before our flight home. First we went for some food, and were entertained by some very good music. The lead Trombone player here sang, too, and sounded almost like Louis Armstrong:

We got to stand on the levy while the engineer that drove us there got to be amused by four geologists getting all excited about the river.

The water level here is higher than ground level in downtown New Orleans.

Of course we went to Bourbon Street, which was, I will say, an interesting cultural experience. It really wouldn't be a big tragedy if this place got washed away, it's really not a good place at all. Interesting to see, though.

Voodoo is a big theme at the bars and stores on Bourbon Street.

They had interesting things for sale in the stores. I'm going to make the thumbnails for these pictures very small, so you can't blame me if you're offended by anything.

I wanted to buy a bag of this coffee as a souvenir, but if I did I'd probably end up drinking it:

Some Mardi Gras t-shirts you can't wear on BYU-Idaho campus:

We went into a gem store, because we're geologists, and they had some phallic jade carvings:

Of course there were people on the street trying to get people to come into various buildings "for free," but of course once inside they'll want you to spend lots of money on drinks and women. I didn't take a picture of the other sign on this place, this one was interesting enough. Needless to say, we didn't go in:

Then we went for more food, then on the plane home. It was a very fun trip, and the very best thing about it was all we had to pay was airfare, and food while sightseeing. Everything else, the lodging, the classes, the food, was all paid for by Shell. They didn't even have a guarantee that any of us will ever work for them. This was a major investment in future engineers and geologists with no guaranteed payoff that Shell does every year, because engineers and geologists make lots of money for oil companies, and therefore get paid a lot. This was one of the most fun vacations I've ever had; the only downside was that Kate couldn't come. At least she was able to enjoy the pictures I brought home....

Change of Pace

In my last post I said I'd been a lazy blogger; I should have waited until this post to say that! It's been a long time since I've let this much time pass between posts, and it's not for a lack of things to write about. I think while school was in session it was easier to write, because taking a few minutes aside from homework to think about something else and post it here was a good way to reboot my brain. Now, aside from the week I spent in New Orleans (I'll post a trip report, I promise!), I've spent the time cleaning the apartment, reading books I didn't have time for during the semester, and playing Civilization IV and WarCraft III, which I really didn't have time for with all my homework. So instead of thinking "I need a break, I'll post a rant about Twilight or global warming, then I can look at this homework with a fresh perspective," I'm thinking "I should post pictures from my New Orleans trip to my blog, but I'm in the middle of conquering China!" Therefore no posts for a week.

Christmas was cool, but really didn't feel like Christmas this year. Kate and I didn't even do our usual tradition of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, which we do every year. Also, there was no money, so other than a splurge for ourselves the only gift we bought anyone was the latest Enya CD for my mom, who is a big fan. We plan to make up for it with extra good birthday presents, though, since the financial outlook for the future is potentially good, especially if the price of oil goes back up (and if Obama doesn't screw us over by attacking the oil industry too aggressively). Since it wouldn't be available long, even though we really couldn't afford it Kate and I bought ourselves the special edition of Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the profits for which went to a charity:

Cool, huh?

New Year's Eve was fun. It's a tradition in my family to get together and play Axis & Allies all night. It's kind of like Risk, Chess and Monopoly all rolled into one; you play as either the Allied or Axis powers of World War II, and try to conquer the world. My dad always wins. I'm pretty sure he has weighted dice....

The fun and games are over for now, though (hence the change of pace). Now I need to pack my things. Early tomorrow morning I am leaving to drive 1300 miles to Edmund, Oklahoma, to start an internship with GeoSearch Logging. They will train me there, then send me where oil wells are being drilled, probably in the Pennsylvania/New York area. Basically, as they drill the hole, I will get to look at the chunks of rock coming up and say "yep, that's a sandstone. That's a limestone. That's a different limestone. Oh, there's natural gas in that one!" and they pay me $150/day to do this. It should be fun, though Kate's not happy that I'll be gone for four or five months. I start January 6th, and will work at least through April if not May, and come back for Field Camp in June, which is the last geology class I need for my major. It's all G.E. and GIS classes after that, with one or two more extra geology classes thrown in for fun.

Okay, now on to packing!