Carbon JFK Oil Revenge

This past November 2024, on the 61st anniversary of the assassination of JFK, I finally put the last pieces into the JFK ASSASSINATION PUZZLE I've been working on all these years. See EXEC ACTION JFK KILLERS REVEALED & SUPERMAN OSWALD FASTER THAN MAGIC BULLET

In the hundreds of articles in the JFK section of the website, I've deep-dived into everything that happened in Dealey Plaza that day they killed JFK on November 22, 1963. I've seen hundreds of photos and films and books about every inch of it, but I've never been to Dealey Plaza to pay homage to JFK there.

But the other night I got the next best thing to physically being in Dealey Plaza myself by watching -- during the Stanley Cup playoffs in Dallas -- the news camera flying toward the city skyline as it zoomed in for the hockey rink.

My team -- the Edmonton Oilers -- were playing the Dallas Stars on their home ice and it was sudden death for Dallas because the series was 3-1 for Oilers.

I was wanting the Oilers to win against Dallas for more than just that it would be ecstasy for Oilers fans to the ultimate level, but also for personal reasons. I wanted the Oilers to wreak revenge on Dallas for killing JFK. My sentiments are expressed exactly in a poem composed by Roger Craig, a detective on duty that day in Dallas -- sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

Our president John Kennedy went down to Dallas town
Where the hired assassins waited and there they shot him down,
Because he dreamed of peace and plenty and he talked it 'round
His dream goes marching on.

From the book depository and of course that grassy knoll
And the Dal Tex building's shooter fulfilled his deadly role
The noon day sun was witness as they took their awful toll
His dream goes marching on.

The industrial and military complex can't survive
Without their little horror wars they artfully contrive.
If they push us to the big one then we won't come out alive
His dream goes marching on.

Our President is lying up there cold beneath his flame
He is calling out for vengeance and to do so in his name.
To keep the peace forever and erase our nation's shame
His dream goes marching on.

I have deep roots in Alberta since my paternal grandparents emigrated from England in the early 1900s to homestead and help colonize that vast unoccupied land. And my maternal grandfather was a born and bred Albertan going back generations. Both my parents were born in Alberta where they met after WW-II -- and I have a son living there now. He's a contractor working in the oil industry building oilsands and pipeline infrastructure all over the province from his home in Edmonton. He's a die-hard Oilers fan.

I have no personal animosity to the people of Dallas (or their hockey players) because they are totally innocent of any knowledge of what happened to JFK in their midst. When JFK got up early that morning in Fort Worth hundreds of people had gathered outside his hotel, in the rain, hoping to get a glimpse of him -- and he didn't disappoint -- making a speech then reaching into the crowd to shake hands. Later, in Dallas, all along the streets from the airport to Dealey Plaza the people showed their love. The last words spoken to JFK were, "Mr President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you", to which JFK replied, "No, you certainly can't".

My comparing the hockey game to JFK's assassination was just me having fun using that event as a symbolic chance to exact revenge.

By the time the Oilers were playing Dallas in the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, they'd already beaten the Los Angeles Kings and the Los Vegas Golden Knights in a drama-filled, action-packed ups and downs and all arounds roller coaster ride -- and they'd survived. I'd been watching all the games and listening to "hockey talk" and loving every minute of it. During each game me and my son -- who is usually up north working on building a new SAGD oilsands mine -- would text back and forth on how the game was going.

During the first 3 games of the Oilers playing Dallas I hadn't really thought about JFK or it being the place of his assassination. But during the 4th game, when Dallas came to Edmonton desperate to win, I became obsessed with the idea of doing to Dallas, through the Oilers, what Dallas had done to JFK. Below is my son and I texting:

Tuesday May 27, Game 4 in Edmonton (start time 5pm where I am in BC)

2:19 from S -- take out them texans tonight
2:20 from J -- for sure for sure...revenge jfk by killing dallas
5:37 from J -- oil scooorrrrreeeeed on pp
5:39 from S -- happy face with sun glasses
5:40 from J -- magic bullet
5:52 from S -- haha
7:43 from J -- oil hit em from the grassy knoll
7:47 from J -- fatal bullet blew their brains out
7:49 from S -- alberta oil better than texas oil
7:50 from J -- alberta's refined their oil

Thursday, May 29, Game 5 in Dallas (start 5pm my time)

5:02 from J -- oil in big D again

5:28 from J -- can't believe it...grabbed phone last minute to snap pic of dallas skyline never dreaming that what I caught was dealey plaza and back of texas school book depository building...it's jfk godcidently sending me a sign

6:20 from J -- this time caught overview of stemmons freeway over triple underpass after passing grassy knoll and picket fence
6:49 from S -- would be cool to see dallas one day

The Oilers clinched the third-round series in that blowout win in Dallas -- 4 games to 1 -- so I was grateful for that last chance to capture the skyline on camera.

Looking at my photo of Dealey Plaza, enlarged and up close, I see it encapsulates all the key places -- but probably unrecognizable to people who haven't studied the JFK assassination. For that reason I've compiled images from various sources to put it into perspective.

from the 1991 movie JFK

(Stemmons Freeway sign showing umbrella man; Zapruder on pedestal of pergola aiming movie camera)

Crowd running toward Elm Street to see JFK motorcade

(two signal-men for the snipers;
black-suit man standing beside Stemmons sign with raised umbrella & white-shirt man raises his arm
as JFK's car approaches)

(JFK waving at crowd as car approaches Stemmons sign;
as car passes sign JFK's grabbing his throat after being hit by a bullet coming at him;
see top of black umbrella & white-shirt man standing next to Stemmons sign;
white-shirt man raises arm where fatal bullet hits JFK in right temple)

(witnesses from across Stemmons Freeway & from top of triple overpass & from rail yard signal Tower
saw puff of smoke and sniper aim rifle from behind picket fence)

(after JFK's car disappears under Triple Underpass people laying on ground look toward picket fence;
white-shirt & umbrella man sit on curb under Stemmons sign calmly staring forward;
white-shirt man holding walkie-talkie; standing white-shirt man looking toward picket fence)

Now getting back to the assassination in Dallas (of the Stars, by the Oilers) I liked how my son looked at the hockey game as a battle between Alberta and Texas as to whose oil is better -- theirs or ours -- and ours won! I agree with him that Alberta oil is better than Texas oil and it's because of how bountiful ours is (as much in the ground as the amount of water that flows down the Nile river in 200 years) and how clean and natural is the process to extract it. Alberta's oilsands (and Alaska's gas fields) are a gift from God -- "a national treasure" -- to be shared with North America for energy independence.

Why Canadian oil is so important to the United States
Complementary production in Canada and the USA boosts energy security
Canadian Energy Centre, January 30, 2025

The United States is now the world's largest oil producer, but its reliance on oil imports from Canada has never been higher. Through a vast handshake of pipelines and refineries, Canadian oil and USA oil complement each other, strengthening North American energy security. Here's why.

Twenty years ago, the North American energy market looked a lot different than it does today. In the early 2000s, USA oil production had been declining for more than 20 years. By 2005, it dropped to its lowest level since 1949, according to the USA Energy Information Administration (EIA). America's imports of oil from foreign nations were on the rise. But then, the first of two powerhouse North American oil plays started ramping up. In Canada's oil sands, a drilling technology called SAGD -- steam-assisted gravity drainage -- unlocked enormous resources that could not be economically produced by the established surface mining processes. And the first new mines in nearly 25 years started coming online. In about 2010, the second massive play -- USA light, tight oil -- emerged on the scene, thanks to hydraulic fracturing technology. Oil sands production jumped from about one million barrels per day in 2005 to 2.5 million barrels per day in 2015, reaching an average 3.5 million barrels per day last year, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

Meanwhile, USA oil production skyrocketed from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2005 to 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015 and 13.3 million barrels per day in 2024, according to the EIA. Together the United States and Canada now produce more oil than anywhere else on earth, according to S&P Global. As a result, overall USA foreign oil imports declined by 35 per cent between 2005 and 2023. But imports from Canada have steadily gone up. In 2005, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria together supplied 52 per cent of USA oil imports. Canada was at just 16 per cent. In 2024, Canada supplied 62 per cent of American oil imports, with Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela together supplying just 14 per cent, according to the EIA.

Canadian and USA oil production are complementary because they are different from each other in composition. Canada's oil exports to the USA are primarily "heavy" oil from the oil sands, while USA production is primarily "light" oil from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico. One way to think of it is that heavy oil is thick and does not flow easily, while light oil is thin and flows freely -- like orange juice compared to fudge. The components that make the oil like this require different refinery equipment to generate products including gasoline, jet fuel and base petrochemicals. Of the oil the USA imported from Canada from January to October last year, 75 per cent was heavy, six per cent was light, and the remaining 19 per cent was "medium", which basically has qualities in between the two.

Many refineries in the United States are specifically designed to process heavy oil, primarily in the USA Midwest and USA Gulf Coast. Overall, there are about 130 operable oil refineries in the United States, according to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers... In recent years, new pipeline access and crude-by-rail have allowed more Canadian oil to reach refineries on the USA Gulf Coast, rising from about 140,000 barrels per day in 2010 to about 450,000 barrels per day in 2024... Twenty-five years from now, the USA will need to import virtually exactly the same amount of oil as it does today (7.0 million barrels per day in 2050 compared to 6.98 million barrels per day in 2023), according to the EIA.

Just as there is oil -- and then there's ESSENTIAL oil -- there's environmentally friendly and unfriendly ways of taking what we need from Mother Earth. Here's how Canada's essential oil is extracted:

In steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operations, pairs of stacked horizontal wells are drilled into the reservoir about 400 metres beneath the surface. The top well injects steam to heat the bitumen, which separates from the sand and collects with the produced water in the lower well, approximately five metres below. The bitumen is then pumped to the surface, where it is separated from the water. The water is treated and recycled into the system.

In Alberta, 80 per cent (132 billion barrels) of the oil sands are buried too deep below the surface for open pit mining and can only be extracted by in situ (in place) methods such as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage. SAGD involves drilling a pair of 1-km long horizontal wells, one about 5-meters above the other, from a central well pad. In a plant nearby, salty (not fresh) water is recycled, cleaned and heated to become steam. The steam then travels through pipelines to the well pair, where it is injected into the upper well. The steam heats the bitumen to a temperature at which it can flow by gravity into the producing (bottom) well. The steam injection and oil production happen continuously and simultaneously. The resulting oil and condensed steam emulsion is then piped from the producing well to the plant, where it is separated and treated. The produced water is recycled for generating new steam.

There are currently 31 active (producing or under construction) and 15 approved (approvals in place but construction not yet started) SAGD projects in Alberta. Currently SAGD produces approximately 970,000 barrels per day of bitumen, which is 38 per cent of Alberta's total bitumen production. The surface disturbance associated with SAGD operations is significantly less than that of conventional oil and gas. Alberta Government regulations stipulate that all projects must recycle 90% of the water used in SAGD extraction. Only non-potable water can be used to generate steam for SAGD. On average, approximately 2.6 barrels of steam are required to produce one barrel of bitumen (termed the Steam to Oil Ratio). New iterations of SAGD-type technology are currently being developed and tested. These require no water/steam use, instead using solvents and/or electricity to produce a high quality bitumen and ultra-low greenhouse gas emissions.

As much as I love the oilsands and their non-polluting Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage method, I hate the Fracking method of extracting oil and gas and believe, because of its damage to the environment and human and animal health, fracking should be banned from the face and body of Mother Earth.

Fracking involves blasting fluid deep below the earth's surface to crack sedimentary rock formations -- this includes shale, sandstone, limestone, and carbonite -- to unlock natural gas and crude oil reserves. The process begins with the drilling of a long vertical or angled well that can extend a mile or more into the earth. As the well nears the rock formation where the natural gas or oil lies, drilling then gradually turns horizontal and extends as far as thousands of feet. Steel pipes called casings are inserted into the well, and the space between the rock and the casing is fully or partially filled with cement. Small holes are made in the casing with a perforating gun, or the well is constructed with pre-perforated pipe. Fracking fluid is then pumped in at a pressure high enough to create new fractures or open existing ones in the surrounding rock. This allows the oil or gas to flow to the surface for gathering, processing, and transportation, along with contaminated wastewater that is stored in pits and tanks or disposed of in underground wells.

...A team of Harvard researchers has found that the increase in unconventional oil and natural gas production may come at a terrible price for Americans living near fracking wells. In a first-of-its-kind study, the researchers examined data from more than 15 million Medicare recipients who lived near oil and gas fracking sites between 2001 and 2015 to understand how proximity to unconventional natural gas wells affected mortality. The researchers were particularly interested in the effects of airborne pollutants released during the fracking process, which include volatile organic compounds and radioactive particles. Using historical weather data, the researchers divided their elderly cohort into groups living upwind or downwind from active fracking sites to see whether greater exposure to airborne pollutants in the downwind cohort corresponded with lower life expectancy... Although the researchers couldn't determine the cause of death or exact number of deaths from exposure to fracking, they estimate that it results in several thousand premature deaths every year...

Natural gas wells frequently come into contact with underground uranium-238, which is a precursor to a radioactive isotope called radium-226. When radium-226 is brought to the surface during drilling or pumping of a fracked well, it decays into radon-222, a gas that can spread its radioactivity by attaching to airborne particles. In a forthcoming study, the researchers found elevated levels of radon near fracking sites... Wastewater from these fracking facilities is disposed of in fields or municipal landfills and isn't considered a radioactive waste... There are no EPA monitoring stations around most fracking wells because they're far from population centers in rural areas.... Understanding the primary sources of radioactivity during the fracking process and the composition of the resulting airborne pollutants is key to crafting effective regulation to limit their harmful effects.

Given that the USA natural gas industry is expected to continue to grow through 2050, and more than 17 million people -- that's one out of every 20 Americans -- live within one kilometer of a fracking well, the research has taken on a special urgency... But the amount of funding that goes for this research is nothing -- it's peanuts. Hopefully the research we're doing now helps us have a more regulated industry similar to coal plants so we can protect populations near those areas. Oil and gas production is a tremendous economic and industrial sector, but it needs to be regulated and have specific emissions standards...

...Before the end of this year the oil sands sector will hit approximately $1 trillion of cumulative spending over the last 25 years, according to a joint report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and Pathways Alliance. That is, not profits or dividends, but investment in operations, building new facilities, and government payments including taxes and royalties. "The oilsands are Canada's winning lottery ticket", wrote MLI's Heather Exner-Pirot and Pathways' Bryan Remillard. They noted that oil sands producers have paid more than $186 billion in royalties and taxes to Canadian governments, representing more than the last five years of Canadian defense spending. "Far from just an Alberta success story, the oilsands are a quintessentially Canadian sector. More than 2,300 companies outside of Alberta have had direct business with the oilsands, including over 1,300 in Ontario and almost 600 in Quebec. That juggernaut could keep Canada's economy prosperous for many more decades, providing the feedstock for chemicals and carbon-based materials whenever global fuel consumption starts to decline. That is, unless companies are forced to cut production, which credible analysis has found will happen with Ottawa's emissions cap -- well over one million barrels per day by 2030, which Exner-Pirot and Remillard said would have to come almost entirely from Canada's exports to the United States. If companies are forced to cut their production, they won't be able to afford to aggressively cut emissions. Nor will they be able to make other investments to maximize and sustain the value of this resource".

I love how the Oilers logo symbolizes oil, and the players, rising to the top from deep depth.

I'm proud of our oilsands and our Oilers making us proud to be Canadian. Now I wish the powers-that-be, who own the Oilers, would spread some joy to the salt-of-the-Earth fans by LOWERING the price of tickets instead of raising them so high they're out of reach. But the odds of that happening are slim to none. Oh well, at least we can watch "Let's Go Oilers" on TV during Hockey Night in Canada.

PS - Below are updates on the zeitgeist -- the spirit of the times -- pertaining to the OILers:

The Oilers' good-luck anthem was on full blast after thrilling OT win in Game 4 of Stanley Cup final, June 13, 2025
...Perhaps "Pink Pony Club," Chappell Roan's smash hit that has turned into the Edmonton Oilers rallying cry, was loudest at the Oilers WAGs watch party as the ladies went crazy when Leon Draisaitl scored the game-winning overtime goal, his 4th in this year's NHL playoffs and 2nd of the Stanley Cup Finals, to cap a stunning comeback, 5-4, against the Florida Panthers to even the series at 2 games each...

"Pink Pony [strip] Club" is a song by the American singer and songwriter Chappell Roan, Wikipedia
...She is known for her camp and drag queen-influenced aesthetic. Roan was inspired to write "Pink Pony Club" after visiting the Abbey, a gay bar in West Hollywood, California, in 2018. Roan, who had recently moved from her hometown of Springfield, Missouri, stated that visiting the bar was "the first time I could truly be myself and not be judged".... Along with the song's official release, an accompanying music video was released on the same day. The video features cameos from drag queens... The video takes place in "a Midwest dive bar", with Roan and drag queens performing on the bar's stage to a few leather-clad bikers, eventually turning the bikers into "leather daddies"... Roan's success has led her to be called a "queer pop icon", "a superstar in the making", and a "visionary performer". Roan has been credited with leading a "lesbian pop renaissance" on the music charts and within the cultural zeitgeist. Roan's music brought the concept of compulsory heterosexuality into the forefront of mainstream pop music. She has been praised for her "unapologetic authenticity" and "expression of her queerness and femininity" in her music and live performances, inspiring young women to embrace their own sexuality. She has also been applauded for her image "rejecting the male gaze" within the pop landscape... Roan currently lives in Los Angeles, California. She is a lesbian and demi-sexual....

The Edmonton Oilers adopt "Pink Pony [strip] Club" as their victory song, won't reveal why