What's with these gas prices and what's the solution?

Senator Mc Cain wants us to believe that offshore drilling is the solution. But I learned in my last examination of this issue, that offshore drilling a- won't produce oil for 10 years more years, and b- won't give us enough oil to stay out of Iraq. So we need to find other solutions. This video says it well.



I'm sad about the tactic of spreading lies that Mc Cain and his party are using to bash Senator Obama for a goal to find renewable energy resources. What a sell out move. Those ads against Obama are just a ploy like the above video says. I wonder how much oil companies pay people to make these sort of tactics happen.

Get a Job

Nah nah nah nah nah.... we've all heard the song, and it goes right along with the phrase fathers used to routinely yell at their sons "Cut your damn hair!" which it seems is still affecting people's ability to get a job. You'd think in this day and age people would realize that the haircut doesn't make the man, woman, etc. But apparently that's only true in certain circles as I was reminded today by reading an article called Cut Your Hair on Below the Belt.

I find it interesting to note which businesses have policies which say you can not be discriminated against for a haircut. It would seem something we shouldn't have to protect, and yet we do. Just recently I saw this in the life of a loved one when she was finally able to get her hair cut short the way she'd always wanted because she started working for a company with an anti discrimination policy.

She's allowed to have her hair any way she wants now, tho she worries it could prevent her from getting raises as she notices all the people in long term positions have gender conforming, hetero-normative hair cuts. And she's probably right. No matter how much I love that she styles her hair after one of the UFC fighters, and no matter how supportive her manager is, in the long run even in a corporation with an open and affirming policy she may very well be stopped from advancement due to her hair. It may just be one of those unspoken laws in that particular company. We say how you dress doesn't matter, but if you don't wear a blue suit on Tuesday, no management positions for you.

Enough ranting, read the article that inspired this rant, it's not about employment per se, but it made me think about it.

Hearing back from Rep Mitchell

I wrote to my representative, Congressman Harry Mitchell about my concerns about President Bush's oil drilling policies. Following, is the email he responded with:

Thank you for contacting me about our nation's energy needs. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

As you know, gas prices have risen to record-breaking levels, and now exceed $4.00 a gallon in Arizona.

This not only puts a serious strain on the family budget, it puts a serious strain on the economy, and puts us all at risk for inflation.

Our current situation with gas prices is the result of a failed energy policy which has made our nation more and more dependent on foreign oil. Instead of strengthening our economic and national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, President Bush and the previous Republican-led Congresses repeatedly blocked efforts to increase vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and supported tax breaks for big oil companies instead of emerging alternative fuels.

I am working to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. In December, I voted for H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act, which passed the House by a vote of 314 to 100, the Senate by a vote of 86 to 8 and was signed into law on December 19, 2007.

The law increases the vehicle fuel efficiency standard to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. An increase of this magnitude has the equivalent effect of taking 28 million vehicles off the road. The increase will also provide American families with an estimated $700 to $1,000 per year in savings at the pump - $22 billion in net annual savings in 2020. Decreased gas purchases are estimated to slash U.S. oil consumption by more than 4 million barrels per day by 2030 - more than twice our daily imports from the Persian Gulf.

The law additionally requires the annual production of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, decreasing our dependence on oil and creating hundreds of thousands of new American jobs.

I also strongly believe that we must invest in alternative energy sources, and I am working to make Arizona the "Solar State" so that we can grow energy sources literally right in our own backyard. Expansion of solar production could not only help meet our energy needs, it could be an economic boon to our economy. Recently, I voted for and the House passed legislation that will extend critical solar tax credits for both businesses and homeowners, H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act.

If we want to make gas more affordable, I believe it is imperative that we focus on improving the U.S. economy. The weakening U.S. dollar has made rising oil prices even more difficult for Americans to endure.

In the short run, however, our options are more limited. The most immediate step we can take is to temporarily suspend oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This suspension could reduce gas prices from 5 cents to 24 cents a gallon. Currently, the SPR is 97 percent full and is sufficiently large to meet our national security needs as well as protect against any significant supply disruption. Filling the SPR diverts a supply of 70,000 barrels of oil from the market each day.

On May 13, 2008, I voted for and the House passed the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act, H.R. 6022, with wide bipartisan support by a vote of 385 to 25. The President signed this measure into law on May 19, 2008.

I agree with you that we cannot drill our way to energy independence. However, I believe we must examine supply as well as demand.

The extent to which increased domestic energy production would reduce gas prices depends on how much oil can be recovered, and how fast it can be refined and brought to the market. For me the question is not so much whether we increase domestic drilling, but when, where and how.

Opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, as some have suggested, would not reduce gas prices any time soon. According to the Department of Energy's U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), if oil companies began drilling in the wildlife refuge today, the site would not produce any oil for at least eight to ten years, and would not reach peak production for at least 20 years.

Moreover, drilling in the wildlife refuge does not offer a long-term solution to our energy prices. Even at peak production 20 years from now, drilling in the wildlife refuge would not significantly increase total world oil production or notably affect global oil prices. According to EIA, the maximum impact for consumers would be one to three cents per gallon of gas.

I believe we need to be equally rigorous in our review of proposals to open coastal waters of the United States for drilling. According to the U.S. Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service, of the areas oil and gas is believed to be in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), 82 percent of federal natural gas and 79 percent of federal oil is located in areas that are already open for drilling. The portion of our shores that has remained off limits to drilling includes areas where drilling would interfere with military training and operations.

Also, according to the EIA, oil production would not begin until at least 2017, and significant production would not begin until at least 2030, at which point, according to EIA, the new production would not significantly reduce the price of gas in the United States, since oil prices are based on an international market.

In short, we have our work cut out for us on both the supply and demand side of things. The policies put in place by President Bush and previous Congresses came at a time when emerging economies in countries like China and India were increasing global demand for oil, making it more costly for everyone around the world to purchase oil, including oil produced in the United States. This increased worldwide demand is not going to abate any time soon. The era of inexpensive crude oil, even domestically produced, is over. If we want to make energy more affordable, in the long run, we are ultimately going to have to end our dependence on oil and develop clean, renewable sources of energy.

Do we need to drill offshore for oil?

The Oil companies already have millions of acres available to them, and yet President Bush has just repealed the ban on offshore drilling. Why have they chosen to not drill in the areas they have discovered on shore oil right here in the US, and continued to seek oil in our oceans, and Iraq?

A recent US Geological Survey reports a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered... compared to the agency's estimate back in 1995. Discovered over 50 years ago, the Bakken deposit--once impossible to extract--is now being hailed as the single largest oil find in US history.

That's because, today, thanks to breakthrough drilling techniques like horizontal drilling, the Bakken's oil shales can be extracted relatively cheaply. When that happens, this light, sweet oil will cost Americans just $16 per barrel!

Opening up offshore drilling won't lower current gas prices, it actually will have no affect for 8 years! The President's action is nothing more than a sham attempting to create a placebo effect and placate American citizens. I think it's a bad move.

What we must be doing is investing in truly renewable energy, waking up to our responsibility to the environment and the PEOPLE which they are supposed to serve. Instead this action serves the corporations (oil companies and the like) I wonder where Mc Cain and Obama stand on this policy.

You can write your officials right now and ask them to vote NO to offshore drilling, no opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, no lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Just go to congress.org and put in your zip code, then go to the website of your representative and click contact. Then let them know how you want them to vote.

Senator Obama, I'm disapointed

We voted for you over Senator Clinton because you promised CHANGE not of your ideals, as someone recently suggested, but of the corruption in our government. Now you do this? See a list of his recent back peddling which I've copy and pasted below:

*intervened in a Democratic Congressional primary to support one of the worst Bush-enabling Blue Dogs over a credible, progressive challenger;

* announced his support for Bush's FISA bill, reversing himself completely on this issue;

* sided with the Scalia/Thomas faction in two highly charged Supreme Court decisions;

* repudiated Wesley Clark and embraced the patently false media narrative that Clark had "dishonored McCain's service" (and for the best commentary I've seen, by far, on the Clark matter, see this appropriately indignant piece by Iraq veteran Brandon Friedman);

* condemned MoveOn.org for its newspaper advertisement criticizing Gen. Petraeus;

* defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the "the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties" for "attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself" and -- echoing Jeanne Kirkpatrick's 1984 RNC speech -- "blaming America for all that was wrong with the world";

* unveiled plans "to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy . . . letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions," a move that could "invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination" -- something not even the Bush faith programs allowed.