Category: politics

Strategic Oil Reserves

Ok, Shinnfans. I know you’re tried of pondering my hair, so I thought I’d give you something more interesting to think about: oil. You may all know about this, but the existence of the strategic petroleum reserve is news to me. And shocking news at that. To think that our government keeps almost a billion barrels of oil in gigantic salt-lined natural caves along the gulf coast is really fascinating to me. It conjures images of that movie from the 1980’s with the cave beneath Mount Rushmore where the President and lots of important-looking generals would scurry around and decide whether or not we should launch nukes at the Russians. These strategic reserves are apparently no big secret, judging from the amount of information about them that’s readily available. But I’d never heard of them until this morning (thank you, Google Desktop Bar). It really makes me wonder what else our government does that I haven’t yet caught wind of. Do you know of (or suspect) something interesting that you’d care to share with the rest of us? Do it in the comments below.

Conspiratorially,
Andrew

One


I found this on Andrew Henck’s blog (thanks, dude!) and thought it deserves the furthest, widest distribution possible. www.One.org (new window). Check it out. I have some reservations, but in the end I’d rather join an actual effort to change things than hem and haw about the methods. And it seems like these folks know what they’re talking about and are advocating for some real change. As a Christian, I know it’s my duty to care. As an American, I know it’s my duty to participate.

– Andrew

Equatorial Guinea

I realized that I forgot to tell y’all about Equatorial Guinea. Here goes:

E.G. is a split nation, with part of the nation on an island 25 miles off Cameroon and a discontiguous part south of Cameroon. Malabo, the capital, is on the island. As a former colony of Spain, it’s the only nation in Africa that speaks primarily Spanish. Because of the Spanish language and the island feel, Malabo seems like a fusion of Costa Rica and a Caribbean Island Nation. The island’s a bit run-down, but beautiful nonetheless. It’s the third-largest oil-producing nation in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can see oil rig platforms off the coast and I met a lot of American expatriates working for oil companies there. One of the oil companies invited us to relax at their compound, which came complete with golf course and pool.

Click here (new window) to see what the Wikipedia has to say about Equatorial Guinea.

Some text for anonymous

Thanks, Tricia. That was a really fun soccer game. They actually brought us to the only stadium in Agadir and let us use the locker rooms and everything. We walked in wearing T-shirts and tennis shoes and saw our opponents wearing uniforms and cleats… we knew we were in trouble. I was glad they only beat us 3-0. Maybe they were going easy on us or something.

Cape Verde (pronounced Cap-u Verd) was pretty interesting, as well. The nation’s name means “Cape Green” in Portuguese. This is ironic, because this island nation is pretty brown, dry and dead. It was green once upon a time when it was discovered, but is so no longer. As a result, the nation can’t produce enough food to sustain its population without aid from the U.S. I had the chance to talk with an interesting gentleman who is working for US AID importing food and also promoting good farming practices like drip irrigation. Because of US AID’s work, Cape Verde has made significant progress toward re-Verde-ating the islands and creating a sustainable agricultural food-production system. It’s kind of neat to see these good things the U.S. is doing in other parts of the world. For all I hear about how we’re a bad global neighbor, it’s nice to see unheralded gallantry in such places as Cape Verde.

And no, anonymous, there’s not life after pictures, at least in the forseeable future. That’s what I love to do and who I am these days, and I’ll keep sharing it with those I love. For the rest of you, I’ve created a page at Shinnphoto.com with some recent work. It’s at www.shinnphoto.com/cg/cg.htm. (link no longer working) The images, when you click on them, are 1076×768 pixels, which means they’re perfect for a desktop background when your monitor is set to that resolution.

Enjoy,
Andrew