On the 4th of July, Rebecca bounded out of bed and got dressed in her brand new dress. The bounding! The hair fixing! (Honestly, the hair fixing. She brushed it without being told. This is a lovely development.)
Marcus and Rebecca worked on their sharing skills while we fired the grill for burgers and hot dogs.
Kaylee trotted around to see how close she could get to unprotected meat. Alas, no success there. Marcus and I worked on her "come" skills with fresh green bean pieces between flipping burgers. She did get to finish Madeline's hot dog.
The kids had a great time playing outside. We ate just before it started to drizzle off and on.
Madeline lost her green bean to the neighbor's dog. I got her another one.
He read up on the situation. The USGS estimated that Antarctica held perhaps fifty billion barrels of oil; only a couple more decades' worth, at current consumption rates. But at twenty dollars a barrel, that was a trillion dollars. Which was only a year of the U.S. government's budget, and only a year of the world's military budgets; but more than enough to pay off all the debts that had the southern nations lashed to the harshest austerity programs the World Bank and IMF could devise. He could see how the logic of the system might drive them to it.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica (1998)
Oil sets new record near $147 a barrel.
It is always sad when one decides that the best tool for a job is a tad bit out of reach. But it involves lasers! And comes in purple! How can that be a bad thing?
I see a homebuilt laser cutter in my husband's future.
