[High Praise! to Jimmy]
Consider this a Rorschach Test for your belief in free markets.
I look at these pictures and feel an almost spiritual sense of awe and wonder to think that men could build such things, and – despite the obvious and incredible amounts of cash sunk into this sprawling landscape of engineering wonders – still run the operation at a profit.
Hippies will think of oily birds & cry:
The Canadian Oil Sand Mines Refused Us Access, So We Rented This Plane To See What They Were Up To
Have some oxygen nearby. These pictures are breathtaking.
[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]
This pictorial essay STILL blows me away. And Harvey, I have to tell you that your thoughts above exactly match what I was thinking when I first viewed that link.
BTW, I know we make fun of Canada here but…
Go CANADA!!
I did seismic work up near Fort MacMurray. Canada isn’t socialist as you, especially Alberta which is more conservative than alot of US states.
The problem with Canada is that the two most liberal of the ten provinces have a majority of seats in the House of Commons and they use it to push the national agenda to the left.
Correction- meant to say not as socialist as you think.
Mike – Canada is reducing their socialism quotient because they’re smart.
Apparently they learned their lesson after all their salmon fled to Alaska to escape socialist oppression. Poor Canadians nearly starved:
http://www.imao.us/index.php/2012/05/fun-facts-about-the-50-states-alaska/
Very cool article, and I don’t think it deserved the tone of its headline at all. Makes me want to up my professional IT-industry salary considerably by going and driving a dump truck there!
Here’s some tips if you’re seriously considering working in Canada.
1.Go to Alberta or Saskatchewan
2. Wear a Calgary Flames jersey
3. Apply anywhere
4. Receive high paying job
You’re right about getting rid of socialism Harvey, coming from Atlantic Canada I know firsthand having our salmon flee to Alaska was the greatest national tragedy. Somewhere on the shores of Newfoundland, a fisherman’s tear fell making the ocean just little bit saltier :'(
Canada has socialists and socialism. But it also has persevering capitalists and capitalism and a love of freedom. I know because I have clients there and have traveled there a lot in the past 20 years.
Mike, you forgot step 5:
Grow an awesome mustache like Flames legend Lanny MacDonald.
I liked the mountains of sulfur.
I hope they keep them away from the mountains of charcoal and saltpeter.
Well, the pictures could have used some corn and soybean fields, and a few pigs, but they’re pretty nice.
I jest. My hat is off (revealing a large bald spot) to the men who did this.
Fantastic. I can smell the money from here. Undergraduates who real Rachel Carson are weeping just thinking about it.
I have to say that bucketwheel is one evil-looking object — like something on the transports used by the Chitauri ground troops.
I see every day how hard those oil sands companies work to clean up their act. Had one guy late for a meeting because a herd of deer living happily on one of the reclaimed tailings ponds blocked the road. They do scrape off the muskeg, melt the oil out of the sand, put the clean sand back, muskeg back on top, and it’s natural forest again in as little as 10 years.
Problem is they’re up against the Saudis who don’t care about environmental stuff and get oil out of the ground for $4.00 a barrel; costs the Canadians closer to $50. Please don’t talk to me about ‘dirty oil’; the syncrude they’ll shove into Keystone is MUCH cleaner than regular crude oil.
Oh, and that wheel excavator isn’t the biggest in the world; that would be the Krupp Bagger 288, now working coal mines in Germany. One day it accidentally ate a Caterpillar D8 dozer ~~burp~~:
darkroastedblend.com/2006/11/biggest-and-hungriest-machines.html
Kinda reminds me of the strip mines in Fulton County, IL back in the mid ’80s. It as sad to see most of them get shut down (stupid sulfurous soft coal), but still it was neat to see how drastically humans could change the local landscape, and then when we are done how rapidly nature moves back in.
I came across an article today about the utter despair most Greeks are facing as their economic crisis worsens. An excerpt is as follows:
Greek media have since reported similar suicides almost daily, worsening a sense of gloom going into next week’s election, called after Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’s interim government completed its mandate to secure a new rescue deal from foreign creditors by cutting spending further.
Some medical experts say this form of political suicide is a reflection of the growing despair and sense of helplessness many feel. But others warn the media may be amplifying the crisis mood with its coverage and numbers may only be up slightly.
“The crisis has triggered a growing sense of guilt, a loss of self-esteem and humiliation for many Greeks,” Nikos Sideris, a leading psychoanalyst and author in Athens, told Reuters.
“Greek people don’t want to be a burden to anyone and there’s this growing sense of helplessness. Some develop an attitude of self-hatred and that leads to self-destruction. That’s what’s behind the increase in suicide and attempted suicide. We’re seeing a whole new category: political suicides.”
Unfortunately, what we see now in Greece is the human cost that continues to befall their country in the wake of their economic meltdown. Through their endless expansion of government, irreverent spending and disregard to their growing national debt, Greece has become the poster-child for the failure of socialism. Margaret Thatcher said, “…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money.” More commonly it has been paraphrased, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
What we see in Greece is the net result of when government programs and spending reach a critical mass and the whole system implodes. Riots, suicides and general unrest are the beginning of its troubles. As it continues to make austerity moves the suffering and unrest will only worsen. Worse, it may spread like dominoes to other nations of the EU that adopted such socialistic programs.
The problem is: socialism sounds good but in practice is a failure. In the end instead of equalizing the wealth, it will destroy it and the lives of its citizens. It produces an inevitable race to the bottom where everyone suffers. Time and time again both history and current events support this notion.
So where are we now in the United States? 16 trillion dollars in debt to the Chinese, an Obama administration without any sort of plan for the future, mindless national spending, a Buffet tax meant to punish the successful, a congress that can’t pass a budget in 3 years, a government that that has not been as divided since 1861, and an inexperienced president who is leading our country directly into the gutter. Where do you think all his heading?
Shouldn’t we learn from Greece’s follies and rethink our economic policies, reconsider our pork-filled spending or at least balance a national budget? Is that not too much to ask? Are we not headed in the same footsteps as Greece? Will riots and suicides fill our streets? Are we also headed for economic collapse?
Unfortunately, the answer seems obvious. If we don’t make a change and now, the future looks grim.