Illuminator

Then this is where political activism can step in. i.e. bitching!!!

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

Widem

they can bitch all they want b/c its not true. the cars are available, no one buys them, b/c get this they are more expensive b/c guess what? cleaner energy does not = cheaper energy.

as of now we want both and we quite havent figured it out yet.

Karsgaar

I just love how the current Dem talking point is "We can't drill our way out of this" and how Obama says even if we approved drilling in ANWR and off shore we wouldn't see an effect on gas prices for another 5-10 years. How does that make sense? How will increasing our domestic oil production not help oil prices since right now we're fully at the mercy of OPEC (whose chairman said that increasing oil production was "illogical")? How does increasing our supply not help the price of oil? He's probably right about the 5-10 years thing, but guess what, if congress hadn't caved to the environmentalist whackos ten years ago about ANWR we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now!! These people try and make out like we're going to try and turn northern Alaska into a giant field of oil rigs- reality is that ANWR is roughly the size of North Dakota and the proposed drilling area is about the size of Kennedy Airport.

Yes, in a perfect world we would immediately come up with alternative fuel sources and we'd all be happy and clean and blah blah blah. Guess what, it ain't a perfect world. They aren't going to replace the gasoline engine overnight and until they do we're at the mercy of a bunch of billionaire Arab Sheiks that don't give a shit how much gas costs to the American consumer. We need to stop relying on OPEC like yesterday.

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Oopo

I've yet to see anyone come up with a real negative to offshore drilling other than "the evil oil companies will get richer."

Illuminator

The risk of even a single Valdez-like oil spill against the U.S. mainland. Has it happened before? Hell if I know. Would terrorists have an easier time sabotaging an oil rig than a tanker? Hell if I know.

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

Oopo

I don't think there's been a major US spill from an offshore rig since the 1960's and the oil industry has gotten a lot better at what they do since then. I don't see terrorists being a problem.

Our economy's slowing down and pumping oil is like creating wealth out of thin air. The decision of whether to drill or not is pretty simple to me.

Deson

So has McCain and the conservationist wing of the Republican party(Think Sierra Club) so it's not just a "progressive" issue.

The problem always comes back to cost. Illuminator already pointed out that no matter what happens the people end up paying for it anyway. No current existing fuel technology is as effective or efficient as our current use of oil. In light of that, attempting to increase supply is not a bad idea until these technologies exist and become cost effective in terms of both use and environmental impact. When I say environmental impact I'm not just focusing on climate change like so many do but on the additonal effects to land use/management( huge side effect of ethanol), popultions and food supply/costs( again ethanol) and development. Is the drilling desirable? No. Is it something that could ease pain as we develop alternatives? Yes. No solution is either painless or rapidly deployed. Our options are do nothing and hope for something that does not yet exist and will take time even afterward to deploy or, to go with some form of solution we already know while developing those technologies.

Drilling will not stop research into alternative energy. What it can do is provide insurance and some relief to an economy, really a national culture, built on relatively cheap transportation costs. Promising future solutions does not help the mother paying $5 for a gallon of milk today or the father suddenly spending $50 in gas a week for work. Oil, while having its drawbacks, provides tangible, predictable results.

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aduros

That's not entirely true. What stopped Bush from supporting offshore drilling until now? I wonder if he had a brother that governed Florida...

I think we should go ahead with the off-shore drilling and stop wasting time with useless finger pointing. China plans on drilling just miles away from our shores if we don't. If people are so concerned about the environment, who do you think is going to do a safer job at accessing that oil?

China and India put a huge spike on demand, and supply hasn't increased proportionately. That's a major reason for the big jump in prices. We need to go ahead and increase our own supply domestically, while at the same time providing incentives for researching alternative fuels.

Clean Coal is a technology that I think will impact us in a very positive way. The US is regarded as the Saudi Arabia of coal, and to let such a vast amount of natural resources sit untapped is crazy. People also need to get over their fears of nuclear energy. We haven't began construction of a reactor in 31 years, meanwhile France's energy source as of 2006 is 80% nuclear.

We're falling way behind, and while part of it I believe has to do with "big oil", another big factor is that we're too complacent and resistant to change.

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Ethar

I've been listening to AM radio more often lately and I'm excited to hear the pundits, regardless of their political affiliation, pretty much laying into both sides.

Michael Savage is kind of dumb though. He gets alot of historical facts wrong.

Ethar

Just to clarify, I heard him talking the other night about the U.N. being as powerless as the League of Nations before WWI and comparing someone to Sampson who pulled down the colosseum on the Romans.

In any case, the way he argues just screams "I'm only here to entertain uneducated people."