This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

I do believe that Donald Trump could start a war in Candyland. Northern Candyland bombing Southern Candyland over something Donald Trump said. Mr. Trump visits Ireland and within the hour creates a diplomatic incident. “Say, I sure would like to see the reunification of Ireland. Come on, shake hands, be friends and make up.” The idiocy and the juvenile misunderstanding of the problem is stunning. All I could think of was, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Mr. Trump should consider solving some of our problems once in a while. Wait, a minute! I fully retract that statement. Stay in Ireland, play Golf and we’ll suffer along without you somehow. Trump’s visit to Ireland was largely symbolic, a symbol of his need to get out of town and have some foreigners kiss his ass for a while. He is running out of countries which will tolerate his visit.

Alleged Senator Rafael (Ted) Cruz appeared on ESPN’s College Football Game Day program. The program is done live and on location at one of the college campuses. The program began peacefully enough until they introduced Mr. Cruz. Then a slow sort of growling rumble began almost like an earthquake with continents gnashing against each other suddenly erupted from the crowd. A deep pitched guttural roar of anger. The boos weren’t for an umpire’s bad call. This was visceral and contemplated anger and rage. I’d never heard booing like that before, with such down-home genuine enthusiasm and ferocity. Then, as the boos partially subsided, a new chant began and took hold in the crowd. “Ted Cruz sucks! Ted Cruz sucks! Ted Cruz sucks!”

How well do you suppose Ken Paxton will do in the Texas Senate race? How do you think Mr. Trump’s mini spectacular went over? If the University of Texas is any indicator, not good. It partially explains Mr. Trump’s panic “Vote Republican and I’ll give you money!” I’ve got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn; I can make you a heck of a deal on it!

Mr. Trump’s three-day war with Iran has now escalated to include Saudi Arabia. The schism between Iran and the Saudis goes back hundreds of years. It is both ethnic and religious. Think Ireland, except with a lot of oil. The Saudis have been fighting the Houthis in Yemen for years. The Saudis operate a giant money machine which always requires more fresh money to continue operating. Somebody at the palace must have been asleep at the switch. Creating a screw-up of Donald Trumpian proportions.

The Saudis operate an oil pipeline which allows them to ship oil out through the Red Sea and avoid all the troubles in the Persian Gulf. You would think that protecting this vital infrastructure would be job number one. With a lightning raid, the Houthis captured the town of Mocha and with it the Saudi oil pipeline. Then the Saudis offered they would shut down the pipeline voluntarily. Good Idea! Seeing as how the Houthis now control one end of it. You probably don’t want to ship any more oil through it for a while.

For the Saudis, this is as catastrophic as the bank closing down. No more oil shipments through the Red Sea. No more pipeline, no more money. The Saudi military can plan a counterattack, but they will be  attacking its own facilities. If they blow the Houthis sky high, they also blow their oil pipeline sky high. General Cankles McBonespurs, Commander -in- Chief of the lost Chicken Hawk brigade, says, “The Iranians are behind this!” No shit? Do you really think so, Detective Columbo? Did the CIA help you to figure that one out, or did you think that up yourself?

For the world, it means the oil drought will come sooner rather than later. There is an oil deficit that is currently being made up from ground storage supplies and when that oil is gone, it’s gone! I was listening to an independent owner-operator trucker explain that when diesel fuel hits seven dollars a gallon. It’s all over for independent truckers. They won’t be making any money, and they won’t work for free. There are fuel surcharges available, of course, but the surcharge is only set once a week. If fuel prices rise fifty cents a gallon between Monday and Friday, it comes out of their end. That’s three to four hundred dollars a week. Slowly, with little notice, many smaller trucking companies have already shut their doors. So much so, it is forecast that in the fourth quarter of the year there will be a trucking shortage. (Merry Christmas) And that was before the Houthis took Mocha.

Mr. Trump’s three-day war just took on a whole new dimension. All of that sweet Saudi crude oil is now off the market for the foreseeable future. “Act in haste and wind up in shit.” No more sailings through the Red Sea. Do you think the misadministration really thought this through before attacking Iran? Pistol Pete of 86-proof land got rid of all the naysayers at the Pentagon. And now, they don’t know what to do.

Many of the ships operating in the Persian Gulf are operating at premium prices. That price just went up again. The only thing we have to fear is Donald Trump himself. The administration has baked itself a pie filled with all sorts of disasters. A farm crisis, an inflation crisis, a trade war and now a fuel shortage. Republicans rightly fear the midterm elections. Now they have a new fear of seven or eight dollars a gallon diesel fuel and six or seven dollars a gallon for gasoline, when available. I suppose Mr. Trump could open up the strategic reserve? Oh, wait, He’s already done that and it’s all gone. What will a strangled economy look like in sixty days?

I suppose they could crank up the artificial intelligence machine as this is obviously a problem beyond human powers to navigate.

“Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.”  – Sun Tzu