They Really Can't Be This Dense, Can They?

As the Keystone XL pipeline issue comes up again with a new Congress, I remain frustrated that opponents of building the pipeline from Canada think the oil provided is insignificant (when oil prices have slumped with a small over-supply now), that without the pipeline it will stay in the ground (it will go by rail or ship elsewhere--even to our Gulf refineries), and--most of all--that the pipeline construction will not really boost employment because it will only provide 200 "permanent" jobs.

In what world outside of civil service life protections does that view make any sense at all? What jobs are permanent when any business that fully intends to go on forever can have a slump or go out of business?

And when you consider this is a construction project that will build something that is eventually completed, how is that concept even remotely relevant? The thing is built. Then those who built it go elsewhere to build something else. Their paychecks didn't count?

That's how the construction industry works! Arggghhhhhh!!!!

Of course that view would explain many government construction projects that never seem to end. Boston's Big Dig and California's new high-speed rail project come to mind.

I guess the "stimulus" spending authorized early in the Obama administration was pointless because those "shovel-ready" projects didn't provide "permanent" jobs?

Idiots. Effing idiots. And they claim to be the "reality-based community."

I'd have more respect if I figured that they knew better and were just counting on the purported stupidity of the American people to slip something by us again.