ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that’s what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.
Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.(Source)
Um. I could just say, I told you so.
Let’s take a step back, though. It appears, people complained about the gas prices. Bush signed off on drilling and the price of oil has dropped pretty much every day since during the past two or three weeks. It is now $3.65 and $3.75 at the stations down the road from me.
Now, Obama sees the writing on the wall and realizes that drilling for oil will actually help our dependence on foreign oil. Go figure. Us plain old Republicans have only been saying this for, well, ever.
We need more oil drilled off our own coasts, more nuclear plants and more wind farms. In fact, my wife happened to help design the wind farms in Schuylkill County along the upper ridge of the Allegheny Mountains.
What President Bush needs to do is devote funds to increase the wind farms, nuclear plants and oil rigs and refineries in America. Doing a combination of these things will bring us back to the point where we don’t need foreign oil.
Although Obama is a flip-flopper for reversing his position, at least he’s giving us Republicans the ammo we need for drilling. Thank you Obama!
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the headlight on the train. It’s actually something I was not expecting to happen at all.
The Democrats are starting to see the light. First some back story. Oil prices have been driven up by several reasons.
First are the speculators. They buy and sell on what they THINK the price of oil will be 25 years from now. This has been pushing the price up.
Second is increased demand from the growing China and India. Increase demand, price goes up. Economics 101.
Third are the laws pushed on us by the environmentalists that restrict our own oil companies from drilling off our own coasts. We have more oil in America and off our coast than Saudi Arabia and many other oil producing companies.
Well, the Republicans have been pushing hard to have that restriction lifted to allow a boost in production. Increase supply, you lower the price. Economics 101.
Finally, the Democrats are starting to realize the error of their ways and are beginning to open their minds to the idea of lifting the restrictions they created to allow drilling.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A top U.S. Democratic senator said in a newspaper interview published Wednesday that he would consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and gas drilling.
“I’m open to drilling and responsible production,” Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin told The Wall Street Journal, adding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could also support the move. (Source)
I’m glad to see the Dems finally seeing what the Republicans have been saying for years.
I’ve agreed with this for the longest time, always laughing at those who had to drink “spring” water, which more often than not is just “filtered” water.
It is obviously a fad created by marketers, in much the same way that music is manufactured and marketed and global warming is marketed.
Just read this clip from the Washington Post today:
Desalinated seawater from Hawaii, meanwhile, is being sold as “concentrated water” — at $33.50 for a two-ounce bottle. Like any concentrated beverage, it is supposed to be diluted before drinking, except that in this case, that means adding water to . . . water.
And from Tennessee, a company named BlingH2O — whose marketing imagery features a mostly nude model improbably balancing a bottle of water between her heel and her hip — is retailing its water at $40 for 750 milliliters, with special-edition bottles going for $480 — more than a million times the price of the liquid that comes from your tap.
The push to turn water into the new wine is a marketing phenomenon: The bottled-water industry is engaged in an intense effort to convince Americans that the stuff in bottles is substantially different from the stuff out of the tap.
But empirical tests have repeatedly shown that they are generally the same. In blind taste tests, many people who swear they can differentiate between bottled-water brands and tap water fail to spot the differences, and studies have shown that both are fine to drink, and both occasionally can have quality problems.
Experts who study bottled water as a cultural phenomenon say differences between the two are largely marketing inventions.(Source)
In fact, if you look at most spring water bottles, you’ll see that it actually says “filtered” not spring. And we have all heard the anagram for the famous bottled water Evian. Naive.
I’ll close with this clip from Penn and Teller’s show, BS:
A story in the LA Times today reports that many who used to oppose drilling off the shores of Florida and California are now rethinking their position. Something to do with high gas prices.
Due to pressure from environmentalists, we have been banned from drilling for oil in our own waters. We don’t want to hurt the fishes, do we?
Never mind that we have approximately 38 billion barrels of undeveloped oil resources (19 billion barrels onshore and 18.92 billion offshore).
Never mind that according to Rasmussen Reports, more than 2 in 3 Americans SUPPORT offshore drilling.
But those few environmentalists keep telling us how those oil rigs will damage the ocean beyond repair.
So here are some pictures, since pictures speak louder than words. The picture above is an “evil” oil rig (Grace) off the coast of California.
Looks menacing. Look at it again. Now look below the water:
Seems like life is flourishing ON the rig. Now that I think of it, don’t we typically sink old oil rigs as artificial coral reefs? Yeah, we do!
Fish and other marine life actually FLOURISH around oil rigs for several reasons. The main reason is that it provides protection from larger, predatory animals like sharks. But there is also an ecosystem that develops, creating more food for life to flourish.
Just remember these pictures from under the oil rig next time someone tells you oil rigs damage our ecosystem. To see more photos, visit: Flickr.
