Twilight Zone

Sabbath eve, July 16, 2010.

Despite weathermen’s claims of temperatures in the upper 90’s, the heat has been brutal. The weatherman doesn’t take readings in the full sun of a South Texas hay field. Grass is thick; weather favorable for making hay. I’ve learned that I can’t let such opportunities pass. So I don’t. Today we hauled and stacked 900 bales. 880 the day before, and a similar number the day before that. We also sold and loaded 300 bales directly from the field.

Cowboys came out to work cattle on our Belmont farm today while me and the rest of the boys slaved in the hay fields. To my dismay, two calves dropped dead from heat exhaustion.

Cows now stand below our house bawling, in search of their calves, most of which have gone to the nearby livestock auction. Humans, me included, are a cruel lot.

I made the mistake of looking at the Internet when I got in. More Matt Simmons crap about the well not being the real well. On Dylan Ratigan’s show, no less. I read and profited from Twilight in the Desert. But Simmons has lost it. Maybe he doesn’t know shit about an oil well. Maybe he never did. He is a finance man, not a petroleum engineer or a geologist. From statements he has made, I don't think he has even an elementary understanding of how a rig works. Another product of higher learning institutions with no grease on his hands. And he has been talking out of his ass.

Sorry, but I can take only so much bullshit before I must speak my mind. The real catastrophe is bad enough without a bunch of baseless speculation heaped on for good measure.

As for the conspiracy theorists saying this whole thing is staged. Bull shit. BP has lied and obfuscated. Simmons estimation concerning the size of the leak is much closer to reality than the bull shit propoganda they spewed. But what you've been seeing on video footage is a live blowout, in progress, and there are a whole lot of people working day and night to contain this spill. The whole process has been documented, including scenes from the ocean surface as various tools have been fabricated and lowered to the ocean floor. I’ve seen pictures of rooms full of men operating the ROV’s. I have also seen them make one ridiculous mistake after another. You can’t get that many people on board to facilitate a hoax on the scale that would be necessary in this circumstance.

There is no “other hole” spewing 120,000 barrels of oil a day into the gulf while BP has our attention trained on fake videos. The blowout preventer and the well casing was not blown out of the well bore (a piece of production casing might have been blown from the bottom of the well, traveled through the casing and lodged in the blowout preventer, but that is a long way from all the casing being ejected from the well).

I waited and watched for a good long while, just to make sure Matt and his crew weren’t seeing something I wasn’t, but the evidence isn’t there. If there's something I missed, enlighten me. (Spare me the he said she said crap.)

I know this is going to piss some people off but I can’t suffer idiotic bull shit indefinitely.

Back to the goddamned sun and row upon row of hay bales with me.