(Around Tokyo & a Poke-Mon jet)Mr. OBAMA, OIL, and PROTESTANTISM
Two crazy things have happened in 2008: Mr. Obama’s victory and the crude oil price surge.
But, a miracle around American Protestantism is yet to emerge.
Besides, Mr. Paulson is yet to visit Japan and make an apology for omissions and errors of U.S. Treasury Department on the Wall Street matters, though he has visited China 80 times or so.
SECTION I: "OIL MADE Mr. OBAMA WIN"
On the Minerals Management Service, The New York Times editorial read in this September:
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The People the Bush administration brought to Washington to run the department had no interest in policing the oil, mining, and agricultural interests they were sworn to regulate and every interest in promoting industry’s (and their own) good fortunes….
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It was confirmed in the Texas Watchdog site:
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By Jennifer Peebles | Friday, September 12th, 2008
Sadly, our favorite bit of tawdriness in the scandal –- the one that involved a federal official snorting crystal meth off a toaster oven –- took place near the Mile High City, as best we can tell from reading the three special reports issued this week by the Interior Department’s inspector general. But the reports say officials with the federal Minerals Management Service were selling influence, cutting insider deals, getting freebies and meals and who-knows-what-else in the Bayou City.
Funny, that’s not what they were supposed to be doing. They were supposed to be collecting money from Big Oil on behalf of the taxpayers….
But aside from toaster ovens and insider deals, the goodies were flowing freely in Houston, according to the three investigative reports:
• Shell and Chevron reps bought meals and food for Smith in Houston.
• A Hess worker took an oil marketing specialist from Smith’s office and some of his co-workers to dinner at Houston’s downtown Flying Saucer restaurant in September 2003, costing $57.55.
• A male Hess employee often went out socially in Houston with a female oil marketing specialist, with him buying meals and drinks for her on four occasions, worth about $100.
• A male Shell rep bought two female oil marketing specialists dinner in Houston on Jan. 9, 2003.
• The same Shell rep bought dinner and drinks in Houston for another female oil marketing specialist and other workers in her office on Oct. 20, 2005.
• A Shell employee offered a free ticket to an Astros game to another male oil marketing specialist in summer 2006. The federal worker told the IG agents he turned down the ticket.
• Among the other social events put on by the oil company reps and attended by these federal workers was a tailgate at a Houston Texans NFL game, featuring free beer provided by Big Oil.
…
Ideally, IGs (are the consciences of their agencies. They’re there to stand up for propriety, following the law, following the rules and keeping an eye on the agency pocketbook. In reality, their effectiveness seems to vary from agency to agency. Some are true do-gooders who tell it like it is, and sometimes are penalized for it; some are longtime agency insiders who don’t seem to see very much wrong about how their agency conducts its business.
As as with all matters in the federal government, there can be politics involved, or at least the specter of politics being involved — in that the party in charge sometimes dismisses the IG’s findings as being politically motivated….
http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2008/09/toaster-oven/
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Yet the crazy oil price curve on a chart must have highly contributed to Mr. Obama’s victory, either.
(Click to enlarge.)The TrendLines Research also claims:
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Our position continues that Crude Prices near the recent record of $134/Barrel were clearly not sustainable in the Global Economy. The concept of Demand Destruction has eluded most analysts and pundits. The main downward forcing on Crude Price will be Recession-related relief in what seemed be ever-rising average exploration-development-lift-overhead expenses. Upward forcing will come in the form of a return to the secular trend debasement of the USDollar as the much needed correction prevails. This will be exacerbated by an overwhelming USA Deficit & National Debt.
With a return to healthy Surplus Capacity, Marginal costs are irrelevant at this time. Albeit conventional fundamentals may indicate an eventual return to this Summer's peak prices in the medium term future, this pressure should in turn be counterbalanced by a return of the Demand Destruction realities that surfaced in 2006 & again in 2008.
http://trendlines.ca/monthlyreport.htm#barrel
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When the immoral conducts and behaviors of oil-concerned federal officials and businesses were exposed and the crude oil prices surged like the Tower of Babel (before hedge funds realized the effect of the Demand Destruction), the silent majority of American voters must have become resolute in their determination to vote for Mr. Obama. To match these scandals around crude oil and keep themselves being sane, ordinary American voters desperately need an African American President in the White House, which has got the last push from every news report on Wall Street.
But, if oil prices get stabilized and parties concerned start to behave well, they may not need an African American President in the White House in and after 2012.
However, it does not exclude a speculation of Ms. Caroline Kennedy being elected as, say, U.S. Vice President in 2012.
SECTION II: A Japanese anti-Christian-Church Guy
It is very rare that Japanese people talk about Christianity.
Even Japanese Christians do not often talk about Christianity.
Besides, any talented and able youths in Japan seldom get interested in career-making in the "Christianity business," the business to make money and get social status by leveraging the religion Christianity.
They are not elite in any meaning in the Japanese society: professionals in the Christianity business, namely priests or clergymen.
This is a big social and cultural difference between Japan and the U.S.
However, ordinary citizens also seldom criticize Christianity and Christians in Japan. On the other hand, Japanese Christians do not seem to like professionals in the Buddhist communities, namely monks and a hierarchy, at all.
Now, I am intrigued to find one anti-Christian-church guy in the Japanese blog spheres:
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Therefore Christians who have no consciousness of being evil themselves and no doubt on their own being good and error-free have stooped to be a troop of hypocrites like Pharisees Jesus Christ despised so much.
Now, Christians have become the largest evil on the earth…
Their accumulated acts of attacking true good and truly good people have resulted in today’s Christian churches: the large-ever tower of ivory of hypocrites.
( http://blog.goo.ne.jp/adlum99v3t/e/feb4503fb9aabe4c077510423b2b42f9 )
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Indeed, if poor Japanese people know how much assets and money Japanese priests, clergymen, and Christian churches have, they will simply understand that they are making religion business.
No one in Japan thinks that there is an honest follower of Jesus Christ in Christian churches in Japan, since people in churches seem to have a middle-class life.
I really think they, namely Japanese priests and clergymen, will be the last in understanding who and what Jesus Christ is in Japan.
That is why I am telling you that you have to read Holy Words EEE Reporter presents everyday at the end of this blog.
(Today, December 17, Jesus said not to accumulate wealth in this world, since it will not change your fate but be used by others eventually.)
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That is all for today.
But remember that Mr. Barack Obama has not been riding on coattails of any significant forces of new types of American Protestants.
A true change in America must be carried out by somebody more associated with Protestantism than leveraged by the anger of voters at immoral conducts and behaviors of oil-concerned federal officials and businesses in addition to a crazy run-up of oil prices in 2008.
(Now, Paris was saved. Terrorists failed in bombing a department store in Paris.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/12/20081216111236365190.html
Your faith has saved Paris, believe or not.
http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/midi/Wtcii17b.mid
Source: http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/midi.html)
Luk 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
Luk 12:17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
Luk 12:18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
Luk 12:19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luk 12:20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?