Arkansas Blog

All we are asking Pelosi, is give drilling a chance.

If the House votes down the drilling bill, then it becomes a dead issue.

However, she (with the permission of the Messiah [Peace Be Upon Him]) won't even allow a vote.

Surely "change we can believe in" doesn't include the Democratic power-elite not letting the people's representatives debate and vote on an issue.

A previous AT blogger noted that the best cure for high oil prices is high oil prices.

When people cannot see that a devalued dollar is the underlying culprit then you can sell
them any non-issue or faux economic talking point.

THERE'S NO SHORTAGE OF OIL.
Has anyone seen a "gas line" which everyone on here 50 or older waited in 33 years ago only to be
eligible to buy a 10 gallon allotment at a record high price?

When you strip a national currency of its value by using it to monetize trillions in NEW DEBT expect
inflation across the board, esp imported necessities.
OPEC wants ........PARITY.......they want their barrels of oil to buy the same thing it did 10 years ago.
Hence MONETIZED deficits flood the market place with new currency making each additional issue of currency worth less.

Meanwhile this nation is making the colossal mistake of shifting/giving it's value creating industries to other nations. Spain learned that lesson over 300 years ago after they pillaged So. American gold from the Meso-Americans. They had so much money they paid other nations to produce many necessities. Eventually it brought them to their knees.

ArkRed- would it make a bit more sense (you know, 'common sense') to maybe drill on lands already under federal leases before crying about wanting to drill on other lands not yet leased? It's a totally false 'issue'.

I assume you know that the drilling rig manufacturers can't produce any more deep sea drilling rigs than they are already producing- their production capacity is maxxed out. Even lifetime oilman T. Boone Pickens has been telling folks like you "we can't drill our way out of this".

Re supply/demand and the cost of gasoline- almost two years ago it was time to replace my old vehicle. I did so with a Toyota Prius hybrid that gets 46+ miles per gallon, twice what my old Honda CRV SUV got. So overnight my gasoline usage dropped by 50% and the amount of money I spend for gas also dropped by 50%. I still drive everywhere I used to. Oh, there is one difference. My hybrid is a lot safer than my old small SUV. Guess you could say I'm now paying the equivalent of $2 a gallon for gas.

This is not rocket science. Anybody can do it. Guess some folks would rather waste a non-renewable resource like oil, no matter how it fouls the air we all have to breath, than get off their butts and actually do something about the price of gas.

The truth is that having the leases doesn't allow the oil companies to remove a single drop of oil from the ground. Environmentalist whackos are still able to block any drilling due to the need to get additional permits. The Sierra club fights drilling on every single lease. Democrats like to give half the story as usual.

We didn't buy Alaska for the benefit of the caribou. We bought it for the benefit of the American people. It's assinine to not drill for oil there. The people of Alaska vehemently support drilling there. The Democratic energy policy is NO ENERGY. So when our energy bills go way up, and we are forced to buy more and more foreign energy from our enemies, you can place the blame squarely on Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. Just as when unemployment goes up in concordance with each increase in the minimum wage, you can blame the Democratic controlled congress.

The Democratic response will be to tuck tail and scream, "We can drill more oil than you can!"

Thank you elwood for keeping it honest.

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Max reports: "We've already seen this week dramatic evidence of a better strategy for bringing down oil prices -- reduce demand and prices will drop."
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What an ignorant statement. That might sound harsh but Max you should be ashamed to make such an ignorant statement. Please share with us this information on oil demand dropping. Details please....?

The price is oil is being driving my the weak dollar and speculators. The price is not a result of supply and demand. THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF OIL.

"The people of Alaska vehemently support drilling there." Severus

Wow! Sevy, I didn't realize you had polled each and every Alaskan on this issue. On a first name basis with all of them, are you? Please cite some reliable polling numbers. By reliable, I mean say done by someone other than Karl Rove.

"Just as when unemployment goes up in concordance with each increase in the minimum wage.." Severus

There you go again, as Ronnie Rayguns used to say. Gosh, Shrub Bush has managed to raise unemployment all on his own. And economic studies show that raising the minimum wage has no effect on employment levels. This is another one of those cases of repeating a lie enough times where folks start believing it.

Bush also took the largest budget surplus in U.S. history and turned it into the largest budget deficit in U.S. history in only a few short years. Guess you could say he is a miracle worker!

Sev - We can blame the GOP control since Gingrich congress... though it sure looks like the Dems will take real control next year for the first time... If only their will be enough control over the Blue DOgs... and on that I am not optimistic, not for next year.

As mentioned above... there are plenty of places available for drilling right now... and yet the industry is not even trying to build more oil rigs.. You are being lied to by your party and their talking points, AGAIN.

And burning more oil is a recipe for environmental disaster on a global scale.. half or more of the reason even the big oil GOP is dropping the ANWAR argument is because the tundra is melting.. impossible access... and I think you will find the people of places like CA, AK, FL... approve of the Sierra club fighting drilling in their waters for a myriad of excellent reasons.

And the D's have no energy plan? LMAO... name just one Al Gore type in the GOP, just one.

Even polls now suggest up to 76 percent of americans want USA to focus on alternatives to oil..

And only people who want to get off our oil dependence have a modicum of credibility on national security issues.. We simply must remove our dependence on Mid East oil... and by we, I mean Europe, Japan, USA, and China and India... but especially US.

More bombing, drilling, polluting.. is only good for the rich... and even then they are killing themselves over the long haul.

The call for more drilling on U.S. lands has been engineered by greedy politicians exploiting the fear and ignorance of American voters.

Every voter under 30 years of age should picket the drillers' publicity rally. Sure, there's oil within the U.S. borders today. In 20 years we can exhaust all the oil that's feasible to extract if we really want to be oil-energy independent of the rest of the world for that period of time.

What happens then, when most of the current AT bloggers will have turned into worm food? You probably won't care, 'cause you got yours ... to hell with everyone else. The next generation will be facing oil prices that will be true nightmares. The depletion of our oil reserves will leave our country at the mercy of the Saudis, South American countries and the old Soviet Union. (Our glorious victory over the Soviet Union will have been short-lived.) The next generation of Americans will have nothing to fall back on, because we chose the easy short-term way out, leaving them to hold the empty barrel.

The solution is not more extraction and burning of oil, but more conservation and increased investment in technologies that will reduce our dependence on oil.

According to Republicans, there is no ill that a tax break or an environmental decimation won't cure.

When the oil companies figure out how to profit from the sun/alternative fuels, they'll allow those industries to thrive. Until then...remember the electric car.

Of course we could elect politicians who cared more about our needs than serving their corporate masters.

Sound Policy,

Thank you for your well-formed response as opposed to the usual tripe.

You make valid points, and I believe those points deserve vigorous debate on the floor of the United States House of Representatives among those the people have sent there to do the nation's business.

However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to allow such a debate, replacing the judgment and will of her 434 colleagues with her own.

I call on His Holiness, Messiah Senator Citizen of the World Barack Hussein Obama al-Hyde Park, to show us the new politics that he speaks of and grant divine inspiration to Speaker Pelosi to allow the humble representatives of the masses the opportunity to debate and vote on this issue.

This is out moment. This is our time - to vote on drilling.

Yes, we can.

MJD, I guess you don't even read the daily rag. Today's issue included an article on gas prices dropping because of a reduction in demand.

Wouldn't it be something if Boone Pickens is able to persuade Congress and the American people that conservation and the switch to the use of free energy (water, wind, solar) is the way to go?

Look, just the fact that there has been a cut in the price of a barrell of crude due to lower demands (caused by the high prices) ought to tell us something.

If we keep on doing things the way we've always done them, we're going to keep on getting what we've always gotten.

If the off-shore drilling is for domestic consumption only, I'm for it.

If that oil is going into the global market and sold to China, I'll oppose it.

On our strategic reserve, it should not be tapped unless there is a major supply disruption, like Iran blocking the Straits of Hormuz. It's wiser to pay slightly the higher prices for now, because we may need to take military action against Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program.

If the off-shore drilling is for domestic consumption only, I'm for it.

If that oil is going into the global market and sold to China, I'll oppose it.

On our strategic reserve, it should not be tapped unless there is a major supply disruption, like Iran blocking the Straits of Hormuz. It's wiser to pay slightly the higher prices for now, because we may need to take military action against Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program.

Now I'm getting this message on posting attempts -

"In an effort to curb malicious comment posting by abusive users, I've enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience."

Apparently, I am an "abusive user" now.

"The truth is that having the leases doesn't allow the oil companies to remove a single drop of oil from the ground. Environmentalist whackos are still able to block any drilling due to the need to get additional permits. The Sierra club fights drilling on every single lease. ..." Posted by: Severus | July 25, 2008 11:23 AM

While I appreciate the respect, your estimation of our Sierra Club resources may be a bit overstated. We're not quite as well-funded and powerful as those we battle. If you're seriously trying to paint oil companies as the weak hapless victims in an enviro vs. petrol battle, good luck with that. Sort of like when I hear some white men (a group to which I belong) characterize white men as victims of discrimination. Kind of hard to be a victim when you're the most powerful group in the land, know what I mean?

I might also point out that another way to say "the need to get additional permits" might be "the government carefully measuring the environmental impact of dangerous activities before allowing them to occur." Having to get permits to drill is, in my estimation, a pretty good idea.

Until Boone pays up on his million dollar bet, he has nothing to say I'm interested in. Besides, isn't he pushing natural gas, rather than oil, as the main answer?

On the other hand...there is no doubt that making us pay more is evidently what it takes to get the country serious about energy conservation. I just wish that, like many European countries, part of our high gas prices was going to building a mass-transit infrastructure rather than to Wall Street/big oil.

"MJD, I guess you don't even read the daily rag. Today's issue included an article on gas prices dropping because of a reduction in demand."

No I didn't. First of all oil prices are not the same as gas prices. Secondly, gas prices rise with oil and fall with oil.

Oil prices have gone up much more than gas prices. Oil demand is NOT down. Oil prices increased every time the Saudis increased production. The doubling of the market price of oil over the past year is not due to actual demand.

If the media doesn't get their head out of their ass and start reporting the actual facts, we are going to continue to have a market driven bubble in the price of oil.

I challenge any of you to substantiate the claim that oil demand has dropped.

Oil, Gold, Crops Drop as Stronger Dollar Cuts Commodity Demand

By Grant Smith
Enlarge Image/Details

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil, precious metals and crops fell as a stronger U.S. dollar limited the appeal of commodities as a hedge against inflation.

Oil dropped for a second day, capping a 15 percent slide from a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11, as the dollar strengthened

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All commodities have increased dramatically due to the weak dollar and increased speculation.

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I don't know if I buy this 'drill, drill, drill. I mean why do we need more oil? What's wrong with foreign oil? It looks the same as domestic oil. Ok, so it would be nice if we weren't so dependant on the nut cases. I mean we could just do with less. It wouldn't be all that hard to cut back on oil to make up for the 70% that we import. Just drive a few less trips. Right? No big deal.

Smartalec-ness aside, strange, it isn't that I'm against all drilling; it's that that is ALL you Republicans want to do. Obviously we're going to have to do more than one thing to rid ourselves of the looming disaster. And, obviously everyone is going to have to give a little. But your big-oil gang makes our tree huggers look like bastions of reasonableness.

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Relax, Razorbacks. Drilling in the Arctic will save a few cents per gallon on gas prices maybe fifteen years down the road.

Meanwhile, aliens will land on earth in the next three years, I'm pretty sure, marking the "end of the world" as we know it, in accordance with the Mayan calendar ending in 2011. And they'll share their energy secrets with us, thus freeing us from, you know, Muslims controlling oil and stuff.

Here is the video of astronaut Dr. Ed Mitchell's interview. Listen to the interviewer stutter, stammer and try to keep himself together.

Mitchell sounds completely calm and sane. And informed.

He's also correct that so much is now being increasingly disclosed by so many high-level military and scientific personnel.

He alludes to what other astronaut "moonwalkers" actually experienced, which is also a significant part of the video I linked to above.

So is this what is meant by the Mayan calendar ending in 2011? Aliens from other worlds will finally land on earth and not be killed in an blockbuster action sequence by our combined military forces?

It would certainly be the "end of the world" as we have known it.

In fact, maybe it's all that can save it.

Hey, if you were running short of water you wouldn't go drillin for it, would you? So all we need to do is just hope for the best. What is the worst thing that can happen to us if we don't drill? Yea, we'll get to spend even more on foreign oil. Oh, well, we've got plenty of money and these middle eastern countries have a lot of poor people.

VERY well said on all point elwood. Can't add anything to that.