A Fustercluck Supreme!!

I’m bored up to my eyebrows with Doc Falsies and his ilk, and the squabbles going on in Congress. Cut their salaries in half, tell them they have to get polio shots or something – oh! and how about inferring that the Plague (which one?) is going to be next?? Hey, if puglosi really retires, will the House of Reps stop acting like a bunch of little kids?

As we move along, mostly ignoring the governmental mandates and creating our own, we should be aware of the ridiculous fustercluck going on that is keeping goods off store shelves right now. It is not people hoarding stuff that is emptying store shelves. There is no cargo to replace stuff on its way.

According to this NR article,  https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/line-of-ships-waiting-at-la-long-beach-at-all-time-high/

Per the article:  FreightWaves also notes that the total amount of cargo waiting offshore is 815,958 TEU (20-foot equivalent units). That’s more than the combined amount of imports for Los Angeles and Long Beach for the entire month of November, the story says.

As of Friday, the story says there were also nine ships waiting at Oakland, four waiting at Seattle/Tacoma, five waiting at Houston, two waiting at Savannah, six waiting at Charleston, four waiting at Virginia, and eleven waiting at New York/New Jersey. That’s a total of 146 container ships waiting for berths at major U.S. ports.

On December 22, President Biden tried to take a victory lap on supply chains. With this many ships waiting offshore, he should not have done so. It’s troubling that the number of ships is reaching a record-high at this time of year. – article

Yeah, he can brag all he wants to but his perception of reality is badly out of whack. Here’s the reason for that.

There’s a reason for concerns about this overload at docking points: one container ship had been doing zigzag patterns way offshore in rough Pacific waters, while waiting for an opportunity to come into port. Caught in heavy seas many leagues offshore, a considerable portion of its container cargo went overboard to the Pacific floor and is down there with Davy Jones, providing amusement to the fish in the vicinity.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/burned-out-cargo-ship-makes-it-to-port-105-of-its-shipping-containers-don-t

From the article: Before the ship lost its containers, satellite tracking data reveals it had been zigzagging slowly in a holding pattern for about 20 hours on the open Pacific. Heavy seas from a major storm tilted the 850-foot vessel 35 degrees and sent containers tumbling from their tall stacks.

Though port congestion left the Zim Kingston waiting for a berth at the Port of Vancouver, the captain could have sailed it into the sheltered waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, as KUOW reported in October. Other ships awaiting safe spots to dock or anchor at the time were riding out the storm by doing slow loops on a 25-mile “race track” there.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the disaster. The agency says the inquiry could take up to 450 days to complete.

The fire was apparently caused by hazardous, spontaneously combustible cargo in at least two containers—including 57 tons of a mining chemical called potassium amyl xanthate. It emits a flammable gas on contact with water or water vapor. – article

Well, at least we know what it was carrying, right? Fried fish, anyone?

Remember the fustercluck over the Keystone Pipeline? It was all set to be completed and Biteme shut it down. I think that was the first thing he did in the Oval Office, or maybe the second thing, but he did it and thought it was so cool. Nearly broke his arm patting himself on the back over it. The fact that the Tribes, who had invested a gobsmacking wad of cash into that venture were screwed three ways to Sunday didn’t matter! He shut it down!!! Yahoo!!!

As a result, crude is now being shipped by tanker rail cars. Yesterday, early in the AM, I sat at a rail crossing while a 2-diesel engine train roared past me, hauling nothing but oil tanker cars. Since there is a tank farm about 120 miles south of me, I’m guessing that it came from there.

I counted 178 cars, plus the diesel engine at the tail, and since each tanker car can hold up to 31,000 gallons of liquid, I’ll let you do the math on that.

The pipeline that was shut down so hastily was designed to have a continuous flow, just as the Alaska pipeline has done for decades. But a continuous flow of raw petroleum and building the means of getting it to the refinery mean nothing to a buzz-brained floppy toy in the Oval Office, doesn’t it?

If you want to talk about efficiency, a pipeline does the job better than rail cars and is a substantially safer means of transport than a freight train. I don’t think I have to bring up the heinous accidents when a freight line hauling oil and gas cars through a town didn’t slow down enough and some cars started bouncing, derailed and exploded. I think the pipeline is safer,

Anyway, Happy Friday, and have a nice weekend!!

 

Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", 2020 Election, Biden, China, Darwin Awards, Economy