Law of Unintended Concequences Strikes Again

Who is the largest supplier of oil to the United States? Canada, right...well maybe not for long. Are Canada's oil reserves drying up? No. Has the US found a better supplier of it's oil? No. Have Canadian oil companies offended their customers to the south? Not really...that is unless you count the US Congress...

Investor's Business Daily reports that Canada has taken some objection to some provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, passed by the holier-than-thou Democrats in Congress last year. Two provisions in the law make oil from our friends in Ft. Mac off limits for export to the US:

• Tar sands are considered "alternative fuel"
• Oil sold to the US Government from "alternative fuels" must emit fewer greenhouse gasses than conventional crude.

Anyone ever look at the process for extracting oil from tar sands? Put simply, they pump it full of steam and the heat and water serve to separate the oil from the sand. Producing that steam takes, you guessed it, energy...mostly from burning natural gas, and guess what burning natural gas does? It emits the dreaded "greenhouse gasses". Alternatively, they could produce steam from nuclear power (see http://commonsenseaintsocommon.blogspot.com/2006/06/albertas-nuclear-option.html), but that's years, if not decades away.

Congrats Speaker Pelossi...you now get to buy the oil for your strategic petroleum reserve from such good friends as Hugo Chavez, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

On a day when everyone seems to claim that they're Irish...you might want to check to see if you actually are!

Ireland has some very liberal rules for citizenship through descent. The basic rules are:

• If one of your parents was born in Ireland, you are an Irish Citizen
• If one of your grandparents was born in Ireland, you are eligible to become an Irish citizen through the "Register of Foreign Births"
• If your great-grandparent was born in Ireland, and your parent registered as above before your birth, you are eligible via the same mechanism.

As you can see, you can go back a ways on this. Myself, my grandfather was born in County Donegal on the isle back in the early 20th century. By providing the Embassy with documentation, including my grandfather's birth certificate (like Canada it's bilingual, just the other language is Gaelic), his marriage certificate, my mother's birth and marriage certificates (showing my grandfather as a parent), and my birth certificate (again the one with descent info), I was able to receive a certificate of foreign birth. Finally, with that document, I was able to apply for an Irish passport...

Now I can go through that "EU Citizens Only" line at airports in Europe, and if I ever choose to, I can live and work in most of the EU without any significant immigration hassles! And because I took the time to fill out the paperwork before my daughter was born, I've passed these same rights on to her as well!

Reference: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/moving-country/irish-citizenship/irish_citizenship_through_birth_or_descent