OT: 2008 Elections/Politics thread, Part 2

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:36 pm

matthewk wrote:I wish I could get real news and not have to always have work so hard so determine the truth.

www.csmonitor.com
www.news.bbc.co.uk

English is the mother tongue of both, too.

Take care,
PK

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:57 am

pk500 wrote:
matthewk wrote:I wish I could get real news and not have to always have work so hard so determine the truth.
www.csmonitor.com
www.news.bbc.co.uk

English is the mother tongue of both, too.

Take care,
PK

The BBC link isn't working

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:23 pm

Fix-a-mundo:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Google is your friend, too.

Take care,
PK

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:35 pm

What's a google? Is it related to a wiki?

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:48 am

McCain's a flopper!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08194/896622-176.stm

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 4:54 pm

Leebo33 wrote:McCain's a flopper!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08194/896622-176.stm

Eh, give the old man a break. He's geriatric...

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:34 pm

RobVarak wrote:Jack,

I'm no fan of Limbaugh and listen only rarely, but to be fair he has absolutely crushed President Bush on a number of issues.

Rob,

Have you picked up Nixonland? I'm about one quarter the way through it and it's a terrific book. I've just been getting through the parts on the rioting in the cities leading up to the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Best wishes,

Doug

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:35 pm

dougb wrote:
RobVarak wrote:Jack,

I'm no fan of Limbaugh and listen only rarely, but to be fair he has absolutely crushed President Bush on a number of issues.
Rob,

Have you picked up Nixonland? I'm about one quarter the way through it and it's a terrific book. I've just been getting through the parts on the rioting in the cities leading up to the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Best wishes,

Doug

That's a great book Doug. I really enjoyed it. Shocking stuff.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:46 pm

Bush has lifted the ban on offshore drilling, so now it's up to Congress....

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/14/ ... index.html

In his speech, Bush is saying that "the American public need relief from high gas prices", but how is this supposed to help? We won't see one drop of oil for 5-10 years from these sites and it will only provide a few years worth of oil. Is all the cost involved really worth risking our environment and delaying the inevitable (finding alternative fuel sources)? Why aren't we looking into the record profits that the oil companies and making, while the rest of us go broke? I really don't see this as "the answer" that Bush is making it out to be. Experts are saying that we won't see any substantial price drops from beginning offshore drilling.

I also was amused how Bush never used the word "drilling". He calls it "exploration"

It's also ironic that his Dad signed the bill in 1990 banning offshore drilling. Only in America would we think that the best way to solve a problem is to do more of the same thing that caused it in the first place.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:53 pm

For a historically unpopular president he is good at getting everything he wants.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:57 pm

Well, what we need is for the damned speculators to speculate lower, or stop speculating at all. It's speculation that has driven oil prices through the roof. Making a move like that SHOULD drive speculation down, which would...well, you get the idea.

Now, if the single-digit-popularity-rating congress will do the same, maybe we can get somewhere...

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:00 pm

dougb wrote:
RobVarak wrote:Jack,

I'm no fan of Limbaugh and listen only rarely, but to be fair he has absolutely crushed President Bush on a number of issues.
Rob,

Have you picked up Nixonland? I'm about one quarter the way through it and it's a terrific book. I've just been getting through the parts on the rioting in the cities leading up to the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Best wishes,

Doug

Thanks for the heads up about this book. I will surely check it out.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:06 pm

Slumberland wrote:For a historically unpopular president he is good at getting everything he wants.

Just shows how helpless the general public are after we put someone in the White House. I am also amazed and pissed off at how little the Democratic majority has been able to accomplish. Find me one politician in Washington that cares about any of "us".

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:51 pm

JackB1 wrote:In his speech, Bush is saying that "the American public need relief from high gas prices", but how is this supposed to help? We won't see one drop of oil for 5-10 years from these sites and it will only provide a few years worth of oil.

Just the announcement should bring the price of oil down a bit. If they actually begin to dril, then prices will fall a little further, or at least stabilize.

The 5-10 years before we see any oil from this is a lie from what I hear. The oil companies have said it's moe like 2-3 years.

If you consider 100 years to be a few. I have to find the link, but I've heard that we have access to more domestic oil than is in Saudi Arabia.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:59 pm

JackB1 wrote:Is all the cost involved really worth risking our environment and delaying the inevitable (finding alternative fuel sources)? Why aren't we looking into the record profits that the oil companies and making, while the rest of us go broke? I really don't see this as "the answer" that Bush is making it out to be. Experts are saying that we won't see any substantial price drops from beginning offshore drilling.

I also was amused how Bush never used the word "drilling". He calls it "exploration" It's also ironic that his Dad signed the bill in 1990 banning offshore drilling. Only in America would we think that the best way to solve a problem is to do more of the same thing that caused it in the first place.

How is this risking the environment? If you're that worried about the environment you should be living in a cave (but you can't burn wood) with a deer hide for clothing.

Why does drilling have to delay finding alternatives fuels? The oil companies will do what they do, and that is drill for oil. They are not the ones who should be responsible for making wind, nuclear, or battery power any more useful to us. Why can't we do both until we have found a realistic replacement for oil?

The record profits thing has been discussed recently, aqnd I'm not going to go there again.

It's exploration because they don't know exatly where to drill yet. Once they find out where they need to be it goes from exploration to drilling.

The problem is high fuel costs. Drilling for oil didn't cause our current problem, NOT drilling for it did. How is that doing more of the same to solve the problem?

I think you are twisting "climate change" in with this whole thing without actually mentioning it.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:03 pm

JackB1 wrote:Just shows how helpless the general public are after we put someone in the White House.

In this case I don't feel helpless. He's finally doing something I WANT to be done.

Our government as a whole has been a complete failure over the past few years. There are so many issues that need to be resolved, but nothing gets done other than bringing baseball and football in for hearings.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:18 pm

matthewk wrote:
Just the announcement should bring the price of oil down a bit. If they actually begin to dril, then prices will fall a little further, or at least stabilize.

The 5-10 years before we see any oil from this is a lie from what I hear. The oil companies have said it's moe like 2-3 years.

If you consider 100 years to be a few. I have to find the link, but I've heard that we have access to more domestic oil than is in Saudi Arabia.

maybe the announcement will cause a temporary minor decrease, but nothing that will have any significance. Even if we see some oil from these drilling sites in 3 years, what do we do until then? How about some more immediate relief?

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:25 pm

matthewk wrote:
JackB1 wrote:
How is this risking the environment? If you're that worried about the environment you should be living in a cave (but you can't burn wood) with a deer hide for clothing.

Why does drilling have to delay finding alternatives fuels? The oil companies will do what they do, and that is drill for oil. They are not the ones who should be responsible for making wind, nuclear, or battery power any more useful to us. Why can't we do both until we have found a realistic replacement for oil?

The record profits thing has been discussed recently, aqnd I'm not going to go there again.

It's exploration because they don't know exatly where to drill yet. Once they find out where they need to be it goes from exploration to drilling.

The problem is high fuel costs. Drilling for oil didn't cause our current problem, NOT drilling for it did. How is that doing more of the same to solve the problem? I think you are twisting "climate change" in with this whole thing without actually mentioning it.

Oil spills cause MAJOR environmental damage and were the reason this activity was banned in the first place. Drilling itself doesn't affect searching for alternate fuels, but it shifts the focus from where it should be. It's just a short term "band-aid" and not a long term solution. And nobody seems to know the real reason behind our high fuels costs. Demand hasn't increased in the past 6 months, but price certainly has.
Offshore drilling will not solve any of our current high price problems...not that I would expect an "oil President" to look too hard for those anyway.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:34 pm

I just don't see the big problem with oil drilling/exploration. Yes, I agree that it will do very little (if anything) to help prices this summer, but it can make a dent in the speculation game that is driving up prices right now.

Even if we are committed to alternative energy sources they're not gonna pop up overnight. IMO it would be irresponsible not to do something to address the issue, as even if the current oil bubble bursts global demand is just going to keep rising and we could be stuck with obscene gas prices for a very long time.

In the past the offshore ban was more symbolic than anything because oil prices weren't high enough to make exploration profitable. In the absence of more concrete information about the cons of allowing drilling lifting the ban seems an obvious solution to me. The general line against drilling seems to be 'drilling and oil companies=bad, conservation and natural beauty=good', without deigning to be any more specific or even recognize that the other side may have a point. Besides, even if the federal bans are lifted the states can still do what they think is in their best interest.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:39 pm

The drilling thing is a red herring. So is the "we don't have enough refineries because of the environmentalist" bullsh1t.

Turns out there are a bunch of existing oil leases they haven't bothered to try to develop and that we export a lot of refined products already -- which is really nice, take the environmental hit (if you've ever driven past a refinery you know what I mean) here and then ship it to places like Singapore so they don't have to put up refineries themselves.

The feds defer to the states on offshore drilling, even though it is federal jurisdiction once you get past a certain number of miles from the coastline.

Of course, when the inevitable accidental spills occur, the states bear the brunt of it, in terms of tourism, which they depend on.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:46 pm

wco81 wrote:Turns out there are a bunch of existing oil leases they haven't bothered to try to develop

That's because there is no oil there. They took out the leases in the hopes they'd find oil, but didn't, or at least not enough to make it worth the effort.

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:01 pm

matthewk wrote:
Why does drilling have to delay finding alternatives fuels? The oil companies will do what they do, and that is drill for oil. They are not the ones who should be responsible for making wind, nuclear, or battery power any more useful to us. Why can't we do both until we have found a realistic replacement for oil?

Great point Matt,it shouldn't. I am all for alternatives,but that ain't going to happen overnight.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:16 pm

Alternative Fuel/Engery has been talked about since Ford and Carter. I don't think it's ever going to happen since the oil companies are making so much money w/ the status quo.

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:24 pm

JackB1 wrote:
matthewk wrote:
Just the announcement should bring the price of oil down a bit. If they actually begin to dril, then prices will fall a little further, or at least stabilize.

The 5-10 years before we see any oil from this is a lie from what I hear. The oil companies have said it's moe like 2-3 years.

If you consider 100 years to be a few. I have to find the link, but I've heard that we have access to more domestic oil than is in Saudi Arabia.
maybe the announcement will cause a temporary minor decrease, but nothing that will have any significance. Even if we see some oil from these drilling sites in 3 years, what do we do until then? How about some more immediate relief?

The booming economies in China and India are sucking massive amounts of oil, which causes the price to rise. Federal gasoline taxes cause the price to rise. The way to lower that price is to increase supply and cut the taxes.

The Democrats won’t do it. And there can be no other reason for it than to keep the gas prices high so the voters punish the Republicans for it in November. They are punishing the American people for their own political gain.

The Democrats are absolute sitting ducks on this issue. They won’t allow us to drill our own huge reserves that are located in places where no one has ever been and no one will never go. In June they tried, and failed, to raise taxes on oil company profits, which would have increased the price of gas.

Obama even opposes suspending the federal gasoline tax for the summer, despite having voted three times for a gas tax holiday when he was in the Illinois legislature.

Obama also says that high gas prices aren’t really the problem, it is just that they went up too fast. HUH??

Nancy Pelosi said this 2 years ago.

With skyrocketing gas prices, it is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress and its failure to stand up to Republican big oil and gas company cronies. Americans this week are paying $2.91 a gallon on average for regular gasoline – 33 cents higher than last month, and double the price than when President Bush first came to office.

“With record gas prices, record CEO pay packages, and record oil company profits, Speaker Hastert and the Majority Congress continue to give the American people empty rhetoric rather than join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

In April of this year, she sent a letter to President Bush.Pelosi urged President Bush to stop suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She also has called on Bush and congressional Republicans to work with Democrats to pass legislation to crack down on gasoline price gouging, hold OPEC accountable for price fixing and end tax breaks for oil companies and invest the savings in renewable energy.

No drilling. No gas tax reduction. No exploration. Her solution: Investigation and Litigation.

And now, two years after winning control of Congress, gas is $4.00 per gallon, and the Democrat Congress has done nothing. From the steady decline in the value of our dollar, to trade deficits and oil dependency, our sovereignty is being sold out from underneath us.

Congress has forgot that one of their original and primary charges is to protect the American public from the tyranny of foreign powers,which is exactly what is happening through others' financial rule over us. It is sucking the life out of our economy. And Congress is virtually standing by and watching it happen.They have a 8 percent approval rating. IMO that's still too high.

Bill Clinton once said, "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse emissions because we've got to save the planet for our grandchildren." That is the type of mentality that got us in this trouble. I'm all for doing our best to preserve our planet, but not at the price of losing our nation in the process. Bill's words just might come true, but not as he or Al Gore might expect. We might save the planet for our grandchildren, and lose America at the same time, unless we turn around this energy crisis now.

Instead of whining and blaming, Congress needs to take some practical steps now to stop the insanity at the pumps, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, open up some temporary energy production avenues for economic relief (like shale development) and focus more of their taxpayer work time into establishing further alternative ways of producing energy for everything (from coal, electrical, natural gas, hydrogen, solar, nuclear, wind, etc.) Being the wealthiest nation on Earth, there is simply no reason or justification for us to be dependent on fuels that we can't produce in our country.

You know what's a b*tch? The Iraq oil minister reported recently that oil production is at pre-war levels (2.5 million barrels a day), yielding earnings for Iraq of $28.5 billion in just the first five months of this year. What that means is, we'll likely soon be dependent and in debt to yet another Middle Eastern oil-producing country that we've helped stabilize and become wealthy while ours is going straight down the tubes.

Congratulations Congress – you're completely failing us.

TheHiddenTrack · Post by **TheHiddenTrack** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:48 pm

Some facts:

- It will require the investment of billions of dollars

- It may take 7 years to develop (optimistic projection from oil industry)

- And once they start the reserves will last 5-7 years

- Even without restrictions to the drilling it could take up to 10 years to build an offshore oil rig.

- Everyone knows with the high demand of oil that we aren't going to solve the problem with the drilling, the best we could is make a dent.

All of these factors don't even take in account the environmental issues that come up when you drill. But nobody wants to be bothered by that when they are feeling it in the pocketbook. To say the least this is short sighted thinking but I understand why it's coming up, gas prices are on the mind.