Last week in Part 1 of this series, The Dynamics of Crude, we discussed refineries and products.  Now we move to Logistics of Crude Oil and Refinery Products.

Although Ayn Rand's 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" portrayed rail as important, especially for Wyatt's Refinery, rail was on its way out by the end of WWII.  Today's major transportation methods are via pipeline and water (barge & ship).  The reason is quite simple: loading and receiving infrastructure.

Here is a great description of both crude oil and refined product pipelines from 2001:  How Pipelines Make the Oil Market Work.

I have read lots of supposedly learned pundits wailing away how Warren Buffett and BNSF Railroad are going transport all that Canadian crude oil when Obama announced that he was blocking the Keystone XL's construction.  This is impossibly dumb -so dumb that Jack Wheeler is convinced it isn't dumb at all, that it's a crony capitalist payoff to Buffett for his supporting Zero.  Buffett bought BNSF for $34 billion in 2009, counting on graft from Zero to provide his ROI.

After celebrating her 60th year on the throne in style this past week, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II can now look forward to breaking some more records.

She is already, at 86, Britain's oldest monarch (were she to die now, her son would immediately be the 12th oldest). On Sept. 10, 2015, she would pass Queen Victoria to become the longest-reigning monarch in British history. To beat Louis XIV (who succeeded to the throne at the age of 4) for the longest reign in European history, she would have to live to 98.

Elizabeth II is still going strong, but the maximum human lifespan isn't rising at anything like the rate of average life expectancy, which is rushing upward globally at the rate of about three months a year, mainly because of progress against premature mortality.

Indeed, we may already have hit some kind of limit for maximum lifespan-perhaps because natural selection, with its strict focus on reproductive success, has no particular need to preserve genes that would keep us going to 150.

From the founding of the American republic, members of the political class have been caught lying about sex and, no doubt, sex scandals will continue, men (and women) being who they are.

There often are demands that those involved resign - and sometimes they do because they are shamed or pushed. Most often, the real damage caused by lies about sex extend no further than to those directly involved, to their families and, at times, to their co-workers and colleagues.

Far more damaging are the financial, policy and legislative whoppers told by members of the administration and Congress that adversely affect almost every American.

Corporate executives and directors are often forced to resign after making untrue statements about the businesses they oversee and are sometimes subject to both civil and criminal penalties, including jail. Many public officials who engage in far more damaging untruths are rarely forced to resign, let alone face civil and criminal penalties. Is it not time the double standard ended?

My friends at the Wall Street Journal told me that Letters Editor Ned Crabb just couldn’t handle my response to the January 25 WSJ editorial “Quixotic Journey,” celebrating the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. “Let’s say it went a little bit over his head, Jack,” was how they put it.

So here it is for your enjoyment.

Dear Ned,

The 400th anniversary of the publication of Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” is nothing to celebrate. It would be celebrating a curse.

This is Part I of a series on the changing dynamics of the single most important energy source for our economy, and will be for the foreseeable future - crude oil. 

First, we all must know and agree that not all crude oil is the same.  Each source of crude oil has a different chemical and physical make up, and how it is refined into all its various products (just for gasoline and diesel would make all but the most remote refineries a black hole for investors).

Further, types of crude oil being utilized in refineries have changed over the years. The days of the simple refinery consisting of a crude unit to heat and fractionate crude into say gasoline, diesel, kerosene (jet fuel) and fuel oil is long gone. 

There's no resisting starting this week's HFR with the funniest headline of the year:  Man Beats Woman With Frozen Armadillo.  Only in Texas.

I also have to tell you about Steven Pinker's book that just came out:  The Better Angels of Our Nature:  Why Violence Has Declined.  Both Joel Wade and I are fans of Pinker, professor of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science at Harvard.  (See Joel's The Blank Slate, April 2006.)

Pinker takes a gargantuan amount of evidence  to amass an irrefutable case that we today are living in the most peaceful era of human history - by far.  Really far.  But is it the freest?  That's another question.  Euroweenies are way less violent than they used to be, but are also way less free, having relinquished their freedom to Leviathan.  This, of course, is Zero's plan for us.

Nonetheless, Pinker provides cause for optimism.  The trajectory of declining violence is one of centuries now.  We are on the cusp of staying on it while expanding our freedom, which we have the opportunity to do little more than 12 months from today.  All we have to do is carpe diem.

Speaking of Euroweenies...