For readers who find reading white text on a black background difficult, especially if it is in a sans serif font, the text under the photograph of a long, long line of railroad tank cars reads as follows:
“Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad (BNSF) owns all of the rail lines in the US that connect to western Canada, and they haul 80%+ of the crude from Canada to the Midwest and Texas or charge other Short Line railroads a fee to use their tracks. BNSF charges $30 per barrel to haul the oil while the Keystone Pipeline would cost $10 per barrel by the State Department’s own estimates. BNSF is owned by Berkshire Hathaway whose chairman is Warren Buffet. In the last 2 election cycles, Buffet gave extensively to democrat causes and candidates. He also bundled and hosted numerous fundraisers for Obama. If anyone believes the Keystone Pipeline isn’t being blocked by Obama on Buffet’s behalf, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Buffet could stand to lose $2 billion+ a year if the pipeline is constructed. He makes the same amount every year that the pipeline is delayed.”
I have no idea whether the figures 80%+, $30 per barrel, $10 per barrel, and $2 billion+ in the above paragraph are true, but I do know this:
Warren’s last name is Buffett. Not Buffet. Buffett.
An error like that just makes the whole thing suspect in my eyes.
But it certainly provides ample food for thought.
Photo: “Hot Buffet line aboard Celebrity Equinox” by Joe Ross of Lansing, Michigan, 12-09-2011. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The good of the one definitely seems to take precedence over the good of the many today. I'm trying to imagine what I would do with a million or a billion dollars...and then over & over again. No thanks. Seems like no one really needs that much money, doncha know.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting in line at that buffet now and then sitting down with my food & coffee, but I don't talk politics at the table (house rule). Will you & Ellie sit with me for a bit?
ReplyDeleteSpelling.
"An error like that just makes the whole thing suspect in my eyes."
Now that's funny.
I agree. But even a misplaced, erroneously placed, or omitted apostrophe is enough to make me dismiss a whole well-reasoned, annotated, referenced and peer-reviewed argument. But then I've got a teeny bit of a thing about apostrophes.
ReplyDeleteIt is more than a bit rich to suggest that President Obama (Regal Master and Wise Ruler of the Known Universe) was swayed by Buffett's financial concerns when everybody knows that Republican presidents have always been the glove puppets of big business.
ReplyDeleteQueen Pam of Doylesville (a hilltop homesteader if there ever was one), Ellie and I would love to sit with you for a bit, but the drive over is a bit long. I noticed an oblique reference to Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame. Apparently the Prime Directive required him to pass and in this case the needs of the one definitely outweighed the needs of the many.
ReplyDeleteThreeOldKeys (to what?), I always try to be subtle.
Kate down there in Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, I constantly have to tamp down my grammarian arrogance to hear what people are trying to say. An apostrophe is such a teeny thing to have a teeny thing about, after all. But I hear you loud and clear.
The Very Wrong Reverend Pudding, in the case of Mr. Warren Buffett, he happens to be a major donor to Democrat campaigns and to President Obama's in particular. He has become known here for having said his secretary pays more income tax than he does (without bothering to mention that he takes no "income" at all but has to struggle along on his capital gains, meager as I'm sure they are, which also happen to be taxed, just not as "income"). The $2 billion a year windfall from delay of the Keystone Pipeline is probably just a drop in the bucket to Mr. Buffet, er, Buffett.