Tea at Trianon: It’s Not Gasoline That Should Worry Us; It’s Diesel

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

From American Thinker:

ZeroHedge has been running with this story for most of 2022. Thus, even as the rest of us were deeply unhappy about rising oil prices and Biden’s unconscionable draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to give Democrats a midterm election advantage, Tyler Durden was looking at diesel. Here’s a list of the articles he wrote on the subject:
Sorry, Diesel Prices Are Likely To Climb Again Soon (Aug 4)
Can The Global Gasoline And Diesel Crisis Be Solved? (June 21)
D-Day Approaches: Crack Spread Soars As Diesel Market Braces For Historic Shock (May 3)
The Diesel Market Is Soaring, And Gasoline Prices Will Catch Up This Summer (May 1)
Global Diesel Shortage To Push Oil Prices Much Higher (March 25)
"Gas Stations Will Run Dry": Catastrophic Scenario For Diesel Emerging (March 23)
Global Diesel Shortage Raises Risk Of Even Greater Oil Price Spike (Mar 12)
China Asks State-Owned Refiners To Halt Gasoline, Diesel Exports (Mar 10)
U.S. Diesel Stocks Set To Fall Critically Low (Feb 18)
Diesel Is The U.S. Economy's Inflation Canary (Feb 8)
Now, according to Durden, the diesel issue has risen to crisis proportions:

For all the drama surrounding Biden's latest Strategic Petroleum Reserve fiasco and his admin's ridiculous idea to "stimulate" US energy producers to pump more oil because, you see, Biden promises to buy oil at some unknown point in the future (he may or may not, but right now he is certainly draining a million barrels of emergency US energy lifeblood just to buy a few midterm votes, assuring energy producers have zero incentive to produce more), the real crisis is not oil or gas, but diesel.
(Read more.)