Spill, Baby, Spill

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Obama's "brand" is competent government, that's one reason so much is expected of him, and this particular disaster is probably the worst possible for him because he has limited choices on what he can do. That's why it's essential he give the appearance of being in charge even if there is little he can do.

A lot of this is the media's fault. I've been watching the TV coverage carefully all along and my constant question has been "Where are all the boats out there sopping the oil up?" An Obama representative was on Meet The Press this morning saying there were 1,400 boats out in the Gulf doing all kinds of things to get rid of the oil. Well, then, WHY THE HELL HAVEN'T I SEEN THAT!! Or even heard it. We see the footage of the oil hitting the marshlands over and over and over, but pictures of boats in the Gulf are few and far between.

It's been my suspicion for a while and this adds to it, that the corporate media is doing it's best to deliberately put Obama in a bad light. They ignore news that would make him look good and focus only on news that makes him look bad.

But Obama is helping them. He believes in substance over appearance so he doesn't spend much time boasting over his accomplishments when he should have everyone in the administration announcing them every second of every day. I thought he had learned that but apparently he hasn't.

Make no mistake, I am not a big Obama fan, it's clear he is just another corporatist, but there have been dozens of things that show why it's better to elect Democrats over Republicans, but few people know about it. Taxes are the lowest they have been since the 1950's because Obama has lowered them (I got an extra 20% off my taxes this year), but when the Tea Party people were polled 80% of them thought he had raised them.

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Drill Baby, Drill!

Rudy Giuliani has gotten credit for this new slogan that gets Republicans all fired up but it was actually Michael Steele who coined the phrase at the Republican Convention. And it's really just another Republican scam.

The Democrats in congress are about to pass a bill that allows off-shore drilling and are taking a lot of flack for it, flack that is undeserved. Bush removed the moratorium against off-shore drilling that had been around for decades, which means that after September 30 they can just start drilling anywhere they want. This bill is to reign them in with very specific limitations. They have to drill no closer than 50 miles from shore and they have to get the permission of the state where the shore is. If the state says no that ends it.

Yet Democrats have said that no oil company person has said they want this. It's been said they don't currently have any equipment for off-shore drilling and haven't planned on getting any. Plus they already have millions of acres leased from the Feds for the purpose of oil drilling that they are NOT drilling on right now. Why even bother to go for the much more expensive off-shore drilling when they have all those empty on-shore acres they can drill for the next 20 years before even getting started on off-shore drilling? And their processing plants to turn oil into gas are now working at capacity, so what do they need more oil for and how would it help us?

Because it's a scam. McCain managed to convince a large portion of the public that off-shore drilling is a solution to high gas prices so people want it and the Republicans are milking it for all it's worth. It's pure political pandering with no relationship in reality. Kind of like most Republican philosophies.

Sadly, most of America has been fooled by them again. I'm afraid I have to admit now that Americans really are just plain stupid.

If We Drill in the U.S., We Don't Get the Oil

I'm about to do a rare thing, paste an entire post from someone else here. It's fairly short but the reason I'm doing it is that the guy agrees with me on where the oil goes, that it's not American oil but goes on the world market. Just so everyone knows I don't make this stuff up:

One thing has been driving me crazy about this drilling debate -- everyone seems to assume that if we drill for oil in the US, that we will get the oil. And hence, we won't be dependent on foreign oil anymore. But we won't get anything, Exxon-Mobil will. The oil that comes from that drilling will not be United States property (Republicans aren't suggesting we nationalize the oil companies, are they?). It will be the property of whichever oil company got the rights to that contract. They can then sell it to whoever they like -- and they will. They will sell it on the world market, so the Chinese will have just as much access to the oil that comes out of the coast of Florida as we will. The Democrats have done a decent job of beating back the argument that this will effect prices in the short run, or even in the long run. But no one has addressed the point above. The Republicans make it seem like we won't be dependent on foreign oil -- and that prices will go down in the US -- if we have our own oil. But it won't be ours. And it will be sold on the world market, so its effect on global oil prices will be even smaller. When we ask the question of whether there should be drilling off the coast of Florida or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we should ask the question this way -- would you be comfortable with the Chinese or the Germans or Russians or the Saudis drilling on American land? Because for all intents and purposes, they will be. Large multi-national firms like Exxon-Mobil are not US property. They sell to the world and their allegiance is to corporate profits. So, when they drill, they drill for the whole world, not just us. Some might find that heart-warming, but it certainly has nothing to do with the US having more oil or lower prices.

THE TRUTH ABOUT OFF-SHORE DRILLING

The truth is simple - the oil companies are lying and trying to scam the public, like they've always done. We can go all the way back to the beginning of Bush's presidency when they wanted to drill ANWR in Alaska. Did you know that there is already drilling going on by American oil companies (which are really international companies these days, no longer American) in Alaska? Where does that oil go? Directly to China and Japan because they pay better, none of it is coming down here to America. Nothing drilled in ANWR will come to us either.

Let's be very clear, there is no such thing as "domestic" oil, all oil now goes on the global market and is not kept in our country even if drilled here. So off-shore drilling or ANWR drilling will do little to ease US gas prices, it will only bring down oil prices the equivalent of pennies per gallon. But the oil companies will make some big bucks, which is why they want to do it. They care nothing for the country, only lining their own pockets. And apparently the same goes for John McCain, who is pushing off-shore drilling because the oil companies are donating big bucks to his campaign. After all, look what Bush has done for them, each quarter is a new record in company profits - for any company in the history of the world. Keep in mind those numbers are not what they brought in but PROFIT, what is left over after all expenses.

The story of Katrina causing no oil spills is just a flat out lie, there were millions of gallons spilled into the Gulf during the hurricane, so the idea that off-shore drilling is environmentally safe is a total fantasy.

And if they got the approval to drill tomorrow not a single drop of oil will reach any market for 10 years. Takes a lot of time to build those things, and isn't it odd the that oil companies have leases that allow drilling in thousands of sites in America right now, and have had them for years, yet leaves them untouched.

Get it straight, there is no cure for gas prices and never will be. Prices will keep going up forever. Sure, we will get some dips, it just dropped below $120 per barrel today, but those will be only temporary and short lived. The fact is that demand for oil is continuing to rise around the world, China alone has rising demands that would drive up prices in the long term even if no one else was demanding more oil.

The only way we can be independent from foreign oil is to come up with new energy sources, that is our ONLY course. And if we were doing it right we should have enough of that going on in ten years we wouldn’t need the oil from any of those off-shore sites the oil companies want so badly. Whatever money is spent on building the platforms would be much better spent funding new energy. And let’s not forget conservation. Right now the single most powerful and cost effective way of dealing with energy is for us to use it more efficiently. Simply lowering the speed limit to 55 mph on all highways would do a hell of a lot more than off-shore drilling ever will.

And let’s finish this off with a final number, 1%. What is that for? That is the percentage of their budget the oil companies are spending on research for alternative energy sources. They spend more money on TV ads to tell you how much they are doing than on actual research.