PETROLEUM, GOLD AND PLATINUM

How does the price of oil compare with gold and platinum?  Here is a time chart showing how many barrels of oil an ounce of gold can purchase:Petroleum today is almost $98/barrel, while gold ended at $1662/ounce, close to platinum at $1672.  Thus, the ratio is 17, just below what you see on the above chart.Gold and platinum were both around $300/ounce in 1998 when the real price of oil was at an all-time low of around $11/barrel.Here...

Read More

BONBONS FROM SCI AM

You are getting an inside scoop from the February 2013 issue of Scientific American:1.  You've all by now heard about the Keystone XL pipeline, an issue that President Barack Obama has continued to duck, primarily because of global warming implications.  With John Kerry to become Secretary of State on Monday, it is appearing more and more that the environmental factor will trump need.  The project brings  Canadian tar sands (processed...

Read More

TUESDAY BONBONS

I've been collecting these interesting bits of trivia and news, many from TIME magazine:1.  Headlines blared that in 2012 military suicides rose to 349, eclipsing battlefield deaths of 295 in Afghanistan.  Terrible, of course, but on the second page of this article in the Star Advertiser, we learn that the civilian suicide rate is, in fact, 43% higher:  military, 17.5 per 100,000 -- civilian, 25 per 100,000.  The highest internationally...

Read More

MONDAY BONBONS

I just saw the most pornographic, shocking, funny and surprising film I've ever experienced.  Did you know that Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Dennis Quaid, Halle Berry, Richard Gere, Emma Stone, Terrance Howard, Liev Schreiber, Uma Thurman, Jason Sudeikis, Gregg Kinnear, Seth MacFarlane, Naomi Watts Kate Winslet, three real NBA stars and others, are all in this same movie?  No, not Les Miserables.  Nothing to do with a tsunami....

Read More

USA'S BIGGEST TV EVENT: THE SUPERBOWL

No, today is the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority must be agonizing, as a wet front is moving into our islands.  The Super Bowl is next Sunday, but I thought I'd give you a heads up in case you need to host a party or purchase $70 worth of snacks predicted to be the average Americans (mind you, this is per person) will spend this year just for this occasion.  This bit of trivia came from Jonnelle Marte of the Wall Street...

Read More

PEARL'S ASHES: #8--Taj Mahal

I've been around the world around ten times.  There was once an airlines called Pan American World Airways.   Pearl and I took our first around the world journey on PanAm01, westward, way back in the '70's.  On 17January2010 I began my global adventure to Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, DC, New York City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  By this day 130...

Read More

BLUE REVOLUTION AND DELTASYNC

Every so often I receive gratifying messages restoring some faith in my efforts to Save Planet Earth and Humanity.  For some reason (which ranges from the fussy cryptographic Google filter to general uncomfortableness of responding to the general public) almost no one comments to these blog postings.  Fortunately, many do send me a personal e-mail.Today, Rutger de Graaf (above), founding partner of DeltaSync communicated, expressing interest...

Read More