Obama: I was for high gas prices before I was against them

Funny how the prices of automobiles keep going up every year, yet people buy them. I stopped by a Ford dealership last August and saw a fancy pickup truck, definitely not a work vehicle, with the fancy paint, all the electronics, big tires, etc. I checked out the price tag. Would you believe $62,000. Who in their right mind would spend that kind of money for a set of wheels? And prices of housing keeps going up (until recently) and everybody expects to make a killing when they sell them. But Americans expect gasoline to remain at 32 cents per gallon FOREVER. What is wrong with this picture?

Willi

With regard to petroleum acquisition and usage, we do have an energy policy in this country. It's just not a good one. Most of the Democrats and some Republicans (in league with leftist environmentalists) have followed Bill Clinton's lead since he vetoed a bill in 95' that would have allowed for domestic oil exploration and refinery production.

Many would like to blame this on the current administration but the dirty truth is that high fuel costs in general and high gas prices in particular are due to a world economy changing making the U.S. not he only customer on the block. It's called supply and demand and countries like India and China are using more petroleum to fuel industry and a middle class. The fact that we do very little to develop our own resources exacerbates the problem.

It's been interesting to observe Obama and his elitist ilk who won't sacrifice but expect the unwashed masses to cut back and bear the fiscal discomfort to make them feel good and noble about themselves when we really need them to take control and act like adult leaders.

The mask slips once again.........

As VDH noted in his article on the moral imperative of drilling, this problem really effects poorer Americans more than the leftist elite. The very ones who constantly espouse their concern for the plight of everyday rank and file folks can barely contain their glee; they view this as a necessary means of driving their own environmental and economic agenda!

And, does anyone doubt what comrade Obama means when he talks about "helping" people make an adjustment" or "putting more money in their pockets"?!?!

It's simply another issue for the messiah to demagogue!

What we need is for the left to stop opposing drilling for the vast resources we have in this country-directly at our disposal. Also, for all the whining about the profits of "big oil", why don't the Democrat's agree to set aside all of the taxes collected from these companies and use them exclusively to fund a modern day "Manhattan project" developing alternative fuels.

Chairman Obama laments our "lack of investment in science"; this would be a practical way for him to walk the walk instead of just talk-for a change. Also, for all his palavering about "post partisanship" and "Washington gridlock". I don't see him rushing to join the Republicans in congress and fast tracking legislation to drill for the oil we need on the lands that ALL Americans own!

Typical hooey and crypto-speak from the Obamateur!

We all must address this problem, rationally, logically, and rapidly.

Drill here, drill now, and refine the products here as well.

Create new, high paying, working class jobs; take the strain off of our regular folks; and provide us with the breathing space to develop viable alternatives.

Down with the totalitarian ecological Marxists.

Do all you can to defeat Obama in the fall!

Today, I submitted a suggestion to my senator on how to push for domestic fuel harvesting. All we have to do is compose a list of the top ten sites and present it to Congress. We say, "Look. We need to harvest three of these spots. You do your impact studies and pick which three we get to use." That way, they will either balk and say NO WAY and go on record showing that they are FOR $4/gal or higher, or they concede and we get to harvest domestic fuel while we pursue a replacement. I live in Utah and we have oil shale here and in Colorado that I understand could fuel a good part of the country for 50 years...and that's just one spot.
Would the leftist environmentalists dare go on record in support of insane gas prices?

I wish the divide between liberals/conservatives, democrats/republicans and left-wing vs. right-wing would end.

Matthew:

Of course you do. Then, everyone will agree with YOU.

The "divide" as you so childishly call it is human liberty. It is the difference between individual American citizens who don't see the world quite the way that you do.

You would take that away -ooooh all this noise; enough already. Everyone now - group hug!

Sickening.

You want people to be free to express their own opinions - just as long as they agree with yours.

"But Rick! I didn't say that!"

No. But that is the only rational conclusion to your silly post partisan world. The deadening hand of conformist thinking - conforming to your thinking, of course - would be the end of individual liberty in the US.

Buck up, suck it up, and fight for what you believe. And let the rest of us do the same.

When Al Gore was still V.P.,he stated that the USA needed $5.00 gal gas. Why don't people talk about that? Is it because people are afraid to say anything about St.Algore, patron saint of the global warming FRAUD?

"I wish the divide between liberals/conservatives, democrats/republicans and left-wing vs. right-wing would end."

If that happened we'd be living under a Statist totalitarian tyranny and nobody wants that.

Partisanship is good for liberty; it keeps all of us humble under our rights endowed by our Creator.

Democrats are upset at the high prices only because the money is going somewhere other than the federal pot. In the past they have pushed for higher taxes in order to raise the price and bring more money into the federal coffers. Now that money is going to private industry or to Islamists. Democrats are fit to be tied.
They lavish praise on the Clinton years, when oil was less than $20 per barrel, forgetting the hand-wringing they engaged in when Americans took to the road. A Democrat is never as happy as he is when he is complaining about something.

This issue has been brewing for some time now and our government, run by people so far removed from reality that they took no serious action on the issue, could not see the forest for the trees or simply didn't care.

It is written nowhere that we can't develop alternative energy sources while developing and fine tuning our production of current energy sources. Our leaders spout platitudes about our need to develop new technologies and that the solution is not to go backwards by using the old ones but the reality is that at this point in the history of the United States and of the world, oil is the fuel that powers the planet.

As long as we had cheap foreign oil, there was a lot of talk but no push to develop newer alternative energy. Now, it's reached critical mass and, as usual, the powers that be react by pointing fingers and talking about a solution rather than taking an active roll to allow the market to work.

We need a real energy policy. And we need people in government who are serious. In the meantime, the world laughs at us and senses our weakness.

I believe in punching Rick Moran in the face.

Does anyone really believe the technology being used today will remain static and this same technology will be in use 30, 50 or 100 years from now? Will the combustion engine still be in use? Possibly, but it will be vastly improved just as today's engines are far superior to those of 50 years ago. In all likelyhood, efficient and affordable hydrogen or electric cars and trucks will be in use. Who knows, perhaps some completely new form of power will be discovered and put to use. I seriously doubt that our grandparents and greatgrandparents could have invisioned the technology we have today. One thing is for certain, we need oil to bring us along on this journey and there is no legitimate reason to prevent increasing production of domestic oil. Without affordable power, the economy will be stifled and research and development will not occur.

There is a great deal of Bush Derangement Syndrome in th0se comments that we don't have an energy policy.

Has anyone noticed that the NRC approval process for nuclear power plant design and licensing has been vastly improved during the Bush Administration and utilities are applying for licenses for new plants? http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/adjudicatory/hearing-license-applications.html#6

Or how about the Clean Coal technologies that have been put through the prototype stage only to fall victim to the Global Warming Hysteria? http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/txu_and_global_warming.html

Or the cellulosic ethanol plants starting to reach the prototype stage http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/your_energy_future_under_the_d.html#comment-158699

"One path being pursued to get more energy independence for liquid fuels used in transportation is cellulosic ethanol. If you listened to the President's State of the Union speech, you will remember that he emphasized this option.

Unlike the current ethanol program that uses food grade corn (i.e. the corn niblets), this uses the cellulosic (woody) parts of various plants.

Here is a link http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/105/2/464.pdf to a report on the advances in cellulosic ethanol which demonstrates 540% more renewable energy output than nonrenewable energy consumed from the processing of switchgrass.

Here is another link http://coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential.asp to a process that is at the pilot plant stage designed to produce cellulosic ethanol at about $1.00 per gallon. The E85 vehicles to use it are available at your dealer today".

Nuclear, coal & cellolosic ethanol are all exactly the technologies that could provide energy independence plus cost-effective, plentiful supplies of energy.

Now if we only had a sensible oil drilling plan!

Concerning Rick Moran's response to Matthew;

Right On.

To people like Matthew who long for "unity";

Hiding behind the banner of "unity" due to your inability to effectively defend what you believe is wussy. Under such circumstances, it is your fundamental beliefs that should change, not a change of tactic to 1) avoid fact, 2) employ lame marxist sloganeering instead of logic, and 3) play the race card inappropriately, among other cowardly acts.

Long live freedom of speech; a freedom that either makes you a man, or makes you a wuss.

I just made up that last part. Further analysis might convince me it is flawed, but so far, it seems on target.

Our Congresscritters™ are increasingly alienated from the lives of those they are supposed to represent, especially on the issues surrounding affordable energy.

Firstly, the average wealth of our elected officials alone places the vast majority of them on a different plane than the rest of us. Forbes reported in 2006 that the average net worth of Senators was $8.9M. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that in the same year, 44% of the House of Representatives had net worth of more than a million and that the median net worth of Reps (the point that represents the middle of the range of net worths) was $675k. How does that stack up against your net worth? The fact is that for the most part they don't face the fiscal pressures that impinge on the average American, and don't understand at any deep level that increasing one's fuel bill by 50% or 75% puts many Americans into a critical circumstance. What are you going to do? Quit your job to take one closer to home, possibly forfeiting or severely damaging your retirement options? Sell your house to move closer to work at a time when your equity picture might be quite poor? Take on a new car loan for $20k for a new fuel-efficient car when you are likely upside down in your current car note?

Secondly, the presence of six paid lobbyists for every Congresscritter™ in Washington, D.C. means that they hear a lot more from businesses, industry groups, unions, and single-issue pressure groups than they can possibly hear from you, the citizen. Even if you're conscientious about writing or calling your Congresscritter™, your voice gets drowned out by those lobbyists who are in Washington and talking with their wallets open to fund meals, drinks, parties, trips and such.

Thirdly, many of our Congresscritters™ act as though the country consists only of people who live in urban areas where public transportation is more likely to exist, and is fiscally viable. The truth is that at least 40% of the people in this country live in less populated areas that are not amenable to public transit either because of the distances involved or the low population density or both. We are not Europe and never will be. Several of our States are larger than the larger countries in Europe with populations to match. People who live more rurally, may have to drive 50 - 70 miles to get to a job. Unless that job allows them to make a very good wage, fuel price increases will drown these people financially.

Fourthly, our Congresscritters™ have largely adopted an attitude that they can engineer social change just by letting prices spiral out of control. They will likely be rewarded by a revolution, either at the ballot box or...wait, that line of thought leads me to an unpopular and unsavoury option that I don't wish to state. The American people know that there is oil available in multiple locations around the country. Hell, the Chinese know it and are drilling a scant 200 miles from our shores. Ignoring our own energy resources and hoping that letting gas get to $9 or $10/g will punish Americans into making them drive less completely ignores the reality of our unique situation.

Look at the solutions proposed and/or enacted by our Congresscritters™: punish the oil companies, thusly incentivising them to withdraw investment from the American market; force the auto companies into producing "high-efficiency" cars a solution that requires you to replace your car in order it to have any impact and which will likely finish off an already-weakened American auto industry; force us to buy mercury-laden compact fluorescent lamps which will be the next major ecological nightmare and which will cost us billions to clean up that mercury once it gets into the environment; refuse to authorise any new coal, nuclear or other generating plants and allow supply and demand to raise the cost of energy unchecked thus destroying businesses and families alike, etc.

I could go on, but you get the picture. I challenge everyone who reads this comment to tell six friends who are not now politically inclined about what is happening; tell them and get them p*ssed off and then tell them that they need to tell six friends. We cannot rely on the media to spread the word - they're on the side of those who are seeking a Marxist oligarchy in the US.

@Geoff Gale

People who live rurally are choosing to live rurally because they don't want to live close to city people.

If we wanted to we could have gone to electric cars years ago. As the oil runs out, that is what we'll have to do (or use solar powered cars).

I'd considered once whether we couldn't design a more close-knit, physically-close-together country, whereby most people live in cities, and travel long distances between the cities by high-speed rail, however people don't want to live together. There is a bigger concentration of liberals in the city areas and more old-fashioned people outside, and pushing the two together would require some kind of dictatorship or kingdom, and doing so anyway would be gross because liberals have cooties. Only wussies like Jesus and Moses want there to be unity. We're supposed to be a divided country. That's why we're called the United States. That's why we have civil war reinactments.

However, did you know that the President, president Bush, that he has signed agreements for a continent-wide country, the North American union?

Personally I want there to be a one world order, but I want it to be peaceful and just and not despotic. I don't think America is despotic or a police state, and I think Alex Jones is a loon, and I'm voting for Barack Obama because he's black, and because I wanted to play the race card in order to satisfy you.

Maybe in 2012 I will vote for a white candidate since Barack Obama is half-white. It's good to be fair and balanced. That is what America is all about.

I mean @james.

Mathew Dickinson: The issue isn't between liberal/conservative, democrat/republican, or left wing/right/wing. It is about good versus evil, and it is the evil far left liberals that are running the dem party. You can use the dems overall backing of Al Franken for congress against Norm Coleman of Minnesota as evidence of that. "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left". Ecclesiastes 10:2
J Rich

Dickinson: When you get to heaven , if you get to heaven there will be a one world order and not before. However you have to believe in Jesus to get there.
J Rich

@ Matthew Dickinson

So, I'm not sure whether your reply was intended for me or not, but I do have a couple of comments:

"People who live rurally are choosing to live rurally because they don't want to live close to city people."

I think that realistically any of us gets in trouble when we make such sweeping generalisations about the motivation that drives any individual's decisions and behaviour. I'm 60 and during my life I've lived rurally and I've lived in cities and in between in small cities, suburbs and towns. It is my impression that people live where they live, regardless of whether it's urban or rural, for a variety of reasons. Personally, my most rural living situation (Hancock, ME) and my most urban living situation (Los Angeles, CA) were taken to accommodate jobs that I had. I'm confident that I'm not alone in that.

"If we wanted to we could have gone to electric cars years ago. As the oil runs out, that is what we'll have to do (or use solar powered cars)."

With solar, there are all of the traditional limitations about which you already know. Living in coastal Maine, I went through at least one month-long stretch during the winter in which the short days were predominantly lived under heavy cloud cover, so that solar tech that you're paying top dollar for is giving you little benefit. The other big problem is solar cell efficiency. Although there are promising developments all the time, we still haven't had that sentinel breakthrough that makes solar a clear economic winner.

The bigger limitation of all electric based transportation is the reliance on storage batteries. Again, there's an efficiency problem with our current tech. Here too, there is steady improvement, yet that sentinel breakthrough always seems five or ten years in the future. Also, as we make increasing use of exotic materials in our batteries, we expose all of us to greater risk of environmental contamination as storage cells are decommissioned either through intention (sale) or through misadventure (accidents, theft, etc)

One final knock on the electric tech is that in it's current incarnation, it lacks the flexibility our modern lives demand. The car batteries take too long to charge to fit into the way most people live their lives. You can fill your gas tank in five minutes and be on your way. You can't say that about your electric.

Think about it - you're at home on a Tuesday night at 8P on a December night and your kid slips while running through the living room and puts his arm through the picture window, inflicting massive cuts on his hand and arm. Problem is that your shiny electric was flat out of juice when you rolled in the driveway just an hour ago and isn't charged enough to get the little rugrat to the ER. All of a sudden, with your progeny standing in a steadily expanding puddle of blood, that electric tech doesn't look so great.

Here's another scenario - you work in a city and commute in your electric buggy to work. Your company has you park in a covered garage. Solar won't charge there, but the company provides charging stations. Sadly though, because of seasonal variations in the size of the workforce and an unpredictable number of visitors, it always seems that there more a few more cars than there are charging stations. You got to work on time ready to roll up your sleeves and help the boss meet a deadline that day. You plug in your trusty bucket of volts and spend the day working your fanny off. You come out of the cubicle farm at 8P after finishing that urgent project for the boss only to find out that the jackass who pulled in next to you unplugged your car because you got the last charging line and he's that guy who just doesn't care that much about other people. Well, hope you like sleeping in your cubicle.

As far as your comment about the oil running out, I suspect the only ones really worrying about running out of oil are the Middle Easterners who have no other visible resources on which to base their economies. If you were paying attention, just last week a large oil deposit (200 million bbl)was discovered in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. There are enough proven reserves of oil shale in Colorado alone to meet last year's US consumption for over 50 years. There's ANWR; there's the Gulf of Mexico; there's the Caribbean where the Chinese have partnered with the Cubans to drill; there's the West Coast; there's the East Coast - what they all have in common is proven reserves of gas and oil. As the price of oil has skyrocketed, the economics of drilling such reserves has become increasingly more favourable.

I totally agree that we should be working toward a better energy source than oil. But for however long that takes, we will have to rely on something, or go back to horses and burning wood. The argument that the world is imminently running out of oil is just a red herring that serves to derail otherwise productive discussions. How about an initiative to take 1% of oil company profits and put it toward research on a replacement instead of some ominous "windfall profits" tax that gets used for social programs?

None of these are technical problems that are completely insurmountable, but there remain nagging questions about the time frame in which they will be solved. In the meantime, it's axiomatic that we lack the fiscal resources to put public transportation everywhere we need to get people around to where they need to go. Where I live now we just had a rail line completed after some 15 years of development. $480 million in direct measurable costs and estimates of another $150 million in "ancillary" costs. There's an $11 million annual operating cost in 2008 dollars and the line is only 22 miles long. It runs parallel to a freeway and I have seen reports that established that the freeway could have been expanded with one lane in each direction for about $150 million and would have carried six times the passenger miles per hour. Lastly, the placement of the stations was heavily influenced by the political pressures exerted by local officials and in one instance a labour union that represents a group of a about a hundred workers at one location. Bowing to the pressure from this union, the developers of the line put a station at their location to service them, at the expense of putting in one which would have served a larger number of 'public-at-large' riders. I cite that because unless there's a complete upheaval of the social order in this country in the next ten years, these kinds of problems and pressures will rear their heads in other public transit projects and dilute the utility of them.

Geoff:

Take a look what PHEV is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid

@ Anonymous:

I like the evil/good distinction. I think it is not wrong to create heaven on earth.

@ geoff gale:

You seem to know so much more than me. I don't even know how we can begin to solve these problems. I've been hearing about electric cars all my life (I was born in 1982). They always show segments on TV where a reporter tries one out, is shown to be pleasantly surprised, and it looks futuristic and geeky (like a Prius or the cars in Minority Report) and then they talk about major auto companies being interested in testing some in the next few years. Then a few years pass and they run the same kind of program. It almost seems like a conspiracy of sorts.

"Also, as we make increasing use of exotic materials in our batteries, we expose all of us to greater risk of environmental contamination as storage cells are decommissioned either through intention (sale) or through misadventure (accidents, theft, etc)"

I don't know that I care too much about that.

"Think about it - you're at home on a Tuesday night at 8P on a December night and your kid slips while running through the living room and puts his arm through the picture window,..."

We could try returning to doctors visiting patients at home. They used to do that. Firemen of course still operate this way and 911 operates this way and the Geek Squad at Best Buy operates this way. The main character in "Eyes Wide Shut," played by Tom Cruise, he did house calls apparently.

Yes, I've heard that the oil is not really running out any time soon. I never know who to believe. I've heard we have some vast reserves in America, but I don't understand why we don't use them, except that we're saving them. Whatever the case it will eventually run out and we need to either restructure society so that we can live and work by walking, bicycling and trains, or we need to develop more efficent batteries.

I've actually known people who believe the solution is simply to kill most of the world's population. Or they hope that it will happen through some kind of natural catastrophe so that no one will have to do the dirty work of carrying it out. I hope this stays a minority POV that isn't listened to, even if we do need to reduce our populations in some sectors of the world.

email:
stalepie@hotmail.com

Matthew says: "I've actually known people who believe the solution is simply to kill most of the world's population. Or they hope that it will happen through some kind of natural catastrophe so that no one will have to do the dirty work of carrying it out. I hope this stays a minority POV that isn't listened to, even if we do need to reduce our populations in some sectors of the world."

That is your solution, actually. Like most of your intellectual ilk, though, you advocate every step that implies the requirement and imperative to do this--to eliminate most people from existence--but simply block from your own consciousness and statement that this is what is implied.

Naturally, the sectors of the world in which population may need to be reduced wouldn't include your sector, though. It would never come down to the need to reduce the population of Matthew Dickinson. Others, yes. You, no.

Oh, it'd definitely include my sector. I live in Gwinnett County. :P

Anyway, I wouldn't be discussing the oil crisis and batteries if I didn't want us to solve our problems without violence and so forth. I don't want there to be a breakdown of society.

I don't think America should be controlling the world. I don't think the United Nations should be controlling the world. I think nations should solve their own problems. I don't think America should try to solve Israel's problems.

This place isn't worth talking at.

Electric cars are viewed as a replacement for gas powered autos. The problem is that they do have to be charged. Where will all of the electricity come from?
It seems that there is opposition to coal, nuclear. Charging all of these batteries will not be possible without new power plants and new lines.

@ AL

I know about PHEV, and PHEV is all well and good. But on the relevancy scale in this particular discussion, PHEV rates a zero out of ten, with ten being the most relevant. The other poster had raised the dual proposition of the oil running out and reliance on straight electric cars, not PHEV.

One quick observation, if I may. I notice that you placed a cite and link in your comment, and I applaud your effort to document and support your POV. However, relying on Wikipaedia as a sole source of information is a fools chase.

An online encyclopaedia that allows persons who hold vested interests in any particular subject covered in the body of knowledge to edit the entries is very simply asking for bias to dominate our information sources. One thing that I find sorely lacking in our educational processes today is teaching students how to evaluate the quality and verity of the information they find. Yes, Virginia, some information is better than other information.

Neither preparatory school curricula nor college professors expend much effort teaching students the difference between good and not-so-good information. Of course, Wikipaedia does have value, and there is accurate, bias-neutral information posted there. But there is also information posted there that is nothing short of marketing drivel posted there by over-zealous corporate types, university academics and single-issue advocacy weasels with an ax to grind. While the theory of Wikipaedia is that entries which are slanted will be "corrected" by the masses, in practice, that doesn't often happen, and if it does, it is often just changed back and forth between two or more competing POV's.

When I teach, while I allow students to cite Wikipaedia, I also require that they develop at least two other scholarly sources to corroborate the information they've plucked from Wikipaedia. I spend much of my time while reviewing papers checking the cites and evaluating the quality thereof. The point of a good education is not only to impart information to learners, but to teach them to assess and think critically about matters. This is where Western education is falling back to the level of the indoctrination methods used around the world by less accomplished societies.

One of the reasons we as Western societies are having so much trouble being overrun by blind political and religious fanaticism is that somehow, in our desire to be open and accepting, we've granted equal footing to all information sources, much as we've granted moral equivalence to some outstandingly bad ideas. We are failing to make those critical judgments about the reasons some one or some group are saying what they're saying, what their vested interests are, and just accept it on par with everything else. This is why, in the space of a generation's time, we've gone from the pinnacle of factual news reporting to biased attempts at social engineering masquerading as legitimate news.

More than anything else, our failure to teach more people to think and reason has the power to cause mankind to stumble back into the darkness of ignorance with all of it's attendant ills.

Wanted: People for a March on Washington about GAS

I am not sure how to start a march on Washington, so I will start with a post. Who else is mad about the prices of gas in this country?! We need to let the Democrats in DC know that we want action now! Specifically, congress needs to open off shore and Alaskan drilling and stop the "political games." Email me if you feel the same and want to get this March started. I say a nice 3rd of JULY March would be a good timeframe.

Send me your thoughts and ideas on how to get this thing going? DON'T BOTHER TO EMAIL IF YOUR AGAINST THE IDEA!!

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&friendID=108499984

**There is thousands of square miles off the U.S. coast with oil deposits. They hold an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. At current levels of consumption, that would satisfy the nation's oil needs for about 16 years and its natural gas needs for about 25 years.** BOB BARR FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008!!