White House: Bush to lift offshore drilling ban
Is it too late for a double-impeachment? Surely Nancy can run the government until January...or at least do a better job than the current occupant. WTF?!? Yeah, gas is $4.04 down the street. I'm sure it's even higher elsewhere. More off-shore drilling does NOTHING to current gas price. Long-term conversion of our energy infrastructure to sustainable & environmentally friendly resources is our best shot. We need more fuel-efficient vehicles NOW. The little-three could have planned ahead and gotten here first. Imagine if Ford or Crysler had invested in Prius-like concepts 10 years ago in preparation for this day? What happened to this country's innovation? It didn't all go into the computer industry, did it?
For over a decade my wife (who claims to know nothing about geo-politics) has been saying that we are headed for a paradym shift in the way that Americans (& the world) live. Our extravagant, gas-guzzling, credit-fueled days are numbered. If she saw this 10 years ago, before the gas crisis, the housing crisis & Bush's War, how did the people in Washington miss it? We could have delt with this with vision & direction. Instead we're running around like Chicken Little and making things worse.
Sigh!
I need a hug & a solar array!
6 comments:
We as a nation react, we don't respond. Which doesn't leave much room for analysis or forethought. *sigh*
We all know this is not about energy but about politics. Especially election year politics. No one who actually thinks about these things believes this will have an impact on anything. But most Americans don't think, they emote. And emotionally, gas prices are high, therefore we need to do something right now.
The fact is, that nothing we can do right now fixes the problem. But politicians who want to be elected (re-elected, see their party be re-elected) can't say that. After 7 years of "there's no problem, we'll just spend our way out of a budget deficit" they can't suggest we're all going to have to tighted our belts (or more accurrately our budgets) and pay the piper (so to speak).
And the things they can do "right now" with long term impact aren't big or showy... so we have to do something big and showy which doesn't actually help... so we (or rather they) can say they did something.
I'm probably too cynical for my own good.
No "fix" to current gas prices is feasible. But there are smart things that can be done that would be politically astute.
- More incentives & tax-credits for buying hybrid & fuel-efficient vehicles.
- Incentives to businesses that promote telecommuting & carpooling.
- National investment in our aging public-transportation network.
- Work w/ home owners & utility companies to promote energy-efficiency at home.
Politicians could "sell" measures like this as the long-term solution to gas prices. They would work.
You forgot to gripe about the B.S. feel-good "gas tax holiday"!
But I've got your paradigm shift right here: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/is-america-turning-into-europe-right-before-our-eyes/
I had been trying to mentally block out the gas tax holiday. Thanks for reminding me. Uggghhh!
Make matters worse...all the refineries in the country are running at capacity. So, even if we drill more oil from the magical oil fields, there is no place to refine it into gasoline.
You'd think that a 'former' oilman, like our President, would know that. You'd be wrong.
But he doesn't care. He's just doing the sock monkey thing for his corporate masters (and VP). Wait until tomorrow when he vetos the medicare bill that passed Congress by HUGE (and veto-proof) margins. Then you'll see how the next seven months is going to play out.
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