Those Silly Republicans - It's Gas Prices Stupid!

I just filled up the tank on my Toyota Sequoia today, and since I had let it almost get to empty, that sucker cost me $91.30 to fill up! Can you believe that. An I'm told that In California, the price is around 10% higher, so over there it would have cost me over $100.00 to 'filerup'. Thank God I'm in Florida.

So why doesn't the GOP take advantage of this? What the heck is up with those slow Republicans, can't they do a bit of Grand Standing? Put on a bit of a show and crank up the criticism of Pelosi and her insane policies? Don't they know that Americans are sick and tired of paying through the nose for Gas? Pelosi is talking about how Gas prices are higher since Bush took office, but of course, she doesn't say out 75% of that increase has come since she took over as speaker of the house. Here we are with the greatest issue that they've ever been on the right side of, and you don't see them exploiting it. Where's the Press Conferences, the Advertisements, the hoopla over the fact that the Democrats keep on putting up more and more barriers to Drilling. Where's the Energy plan that Pelosi promised us when the Democrats took over congress 2 years ago. Instead of gas prices going down, they've nearly doubled!

Sure Oil has taken a bit of a beating, but Inventories are down, and the EU might start to raise Interest rates, which will put renewed pressure on the Dollar, forcing it back down to it's pre-rally levels. That in turn will cause Oil prices to start rising again, since we import the vast majority of our oil. The only way to resolve this particular issue is to produce more of our own oil. Look at how strong the Canadian Dollar has become because of Oil. Of course, expanding drilling isn't something that is going to help the price at the pump next week, but the sooner we get started on this, the sooner we'll start to see some relief.
Continued after our sponsor...

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Here's the kicker. As soon as the speculators see that Congress is actually doing something about Oil inventories and this artificial shortage that they've created, most will stop buying new contracts, and you'll see quite a few of hem take their profits and run. Once the Stampede heads for the exits, we could see prices at a third to half their current levels.

So what's going on? Well, I've reported to you how the Democrats in Congress were blocking all the Republicans led attempts at expanding Oil drilling. In addition, Appropriations chief, David Obey actually shut down the Appropriations process to actually come to a vote, mostly because he wanted to shield Democrats from the embarrassment of voting against Oil drilling when most Americans want Drilling to proceed. Obey actually said that he would bring the bill back up, after the Fourth of July Holiday, and include the "Use it or Lose it" legislation (which I'm opposed to) that Democrats feel will increase drilling. Well it hasn't happened. They know that the Republicans now finally have enough votes, since some Democrats are finally starting to feel the heat from voters wanting something done about ultra high gas prices. Instead of doing the right thing for the American People, they've chosen to scuttle all energy related legislation for now, so the the bill won't even come up for a vote.

The worst part about this is that the Chinese will soon be drilling off the coast of Florida, but American Companies can't do the same! This is absolute insanity, we're on the verge of a Half Trillion Dollar Giveaway, because we would rather buy our oil from outsiders than get the stuff ourselves.

Where's the outrage? Where are the press conferences? Where's the drama?

Even if you believe in the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, (man made over natural) shifting where we buy our oil from makes absolutely no difference on the world stage on that issue.

Sure they put out nifty little videos like this one on YouTube, but they need to go a lot further:

• Buy some Air Time.
  
• Have some Republicans Chain themselves to Gas Pumps.
• Jump out of Air Planes with "Pelosi Premium" on the Parachutes.
• Do some outrageous things to get some attention.
• GET THE MESSAGE OUT!
  

The worst part about this is that the only thing Obama is saying about the high gas prices is that he had hoped that Gas prices did as quickly as the did. The fact that gas went up did bother him, the fact that it went up so fast bothered him!

Republicans have the one issue that the vast majority of Americans side with them on, and instead of exploiting it to win back the seats they've lost in congress, they're acting like the skinny little kid in the school yard cowering under the table to keep the big bully from beating him up. Grow a backbone and let's go get 'em.

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Nasa Backtracks on 1998 Warmest Year Claim

I remember during the 1970's there was a consensus among scientists that stress and spicy foods caused Ulcers. Then came along Australian Pathologist Robin Warren and Dr. Barry Marshall, who claimed in a medical conference that they've discovered that it was actually caused by a bacteria, H. Pylori. They were laughed at and ostracize by the Medical Community, the broad consensus at the time was that Bacterium couldn't possibly survive, much less thrive, in the acidic nature of the stomach.
Today, there are even articles like this one, claiming that it's not true, they were never Ostracized, but I know what I remember, and I remember seeing a conference on TV with Dr. Marshall speaking and the Audience erupting in Laughter. I remember my Doctor Laughing about it, when I pointed out the research on this, and him saying, that's just foolishness.

Warren and Marshall first wrote about this in 1981, and it wasn't until 17 years later that their conclusions finally became main stream. In 2005, they won a Nobel in Medicine for their discovery. Today we have Prilosec to help us combat this problem, thanks to their pioneering work.

I tell you about this to show you the lengths that the Scientific Community takes on defending the "Status Quo". Just like any other human organization, no one wants to admit that they are mistaken and no one wants to admit that someone else might be right.

Now we have the great consensus of Global Warming and NASA backtracking on claims that 1998 was the warmest year on record.
First let me tell you what I find disturbing on this. This story has been out since August of 2007,Continued after our sponsor almost a year, and you don't hear a peep from CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the Weather Channel or the granddaddy of News Monopolies, the Associated Press. The second thing that I find disturbing is how the Global Warming Alarmists are always talking about the fact that the studies on Anthropogenic Global Warming have all been peer reviewed for errors and if there was a problem, one of the thousands upon thousands of scientists would find and catch any errors. .. Continued after our Sponsor...

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It took a School Boy to catch the Errors. After he found the errors in NASA's data, they were forced to restate their claims. And what did they have to restate?

1. The hottest year on record is 1934, not 1998

2. The third hottest year on record was 1921, not 2006

3. Three of the five hottest years on record occurred before 1940

4. 6 of the top 10 hottest years occurred in the first half of the last century.
   

So it's any wonder that there are so many skeptics out there? When is The Independent going to backtrack on all the stories they've done. Or ABC news, or CNN, why are they not out there telling this story as fervently as they were telling us about Global Warming? When are charts like these,

going to be revised? These charts have been rendered meaningless without the new data, yet every single Global Warming Alarmist site, still has these, as if they're still relevant!

The biggest problem with the media in general is that they think we're stupid. They think we don't know about the Medieval Warming Period and how it was actually warmer back then then it is today, or so says Harvard, but hey, who the heck are those right wing wackos right?

The big networks think that we don't know about the Little Ice age, and how the earth started warming, naturally, without any interference from us, so that by the end of the 1700's it was pretty much over. But it didn't stop warming there.

The Thames River used to freeze over every few years. It froze in 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, 1768, 1776, 1785, 1788, 1795, and finally, the very last time was in 1814. Obviously, the earth started warming too much for it to freeze over after 1814. We also know that the earth still didn't stop warming then either, because the Hudson in N.Y. continued to Freeze up every year from 1855 all the way through to 1875 obviously, it's too warm today for that to happen, so the Hudson no longer freezes, yet our industrial revolution didn't start in earnest until the 1930's.

The whole point of this story that we have a story of Global Warming that is based on supposed facts that no longer exist. Will the scientific community wait 17 years to act on this new data, just as the Medical community waited because they didn't want to believe in the data at hand? Has Man Made Global Warming become such a "Religion" that no amount of facts can dislodge it from our media outlets? When will we start seeing the new "Revised" charts on all the Networks Blogs and so on?

With our policies on Food, Oil, Energy and a myriad of other decisions being based upon Global Warming, we should be looking at every aspect of this issue very carefully and very closely before we act.

This video seems even more relevant now that NASA has revised it's data.

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We're the Government - and You're Not

Time for another Comedy break here. I was browsing around Digg, and found this post. Absolutely Hilarious, while at the same time a bit sad in how True it is.
What if the U.S. government released an "educational video" to teach today's Americans how to be good citizens?



read more | digg story

Sad Forth of July??

Happy 4th of July to everyone out there, it rained a lot here in South Florida, so I took the time to do several posts today that I've been wanting to put up for a while.

Something I noticed though, is that it actually turned out to be a kind of sad 4th. My wife and I have several friends that we usually visit every 4th of July, because each one is doing some sort of huge party and a massive fireworks display and so we end up carefully planning how we're going to make "the rounds" without ticking anyone off.

Well it turns out this year, that no one and I mean no one had a big party this year. To top it off, usually when we come home at night every year, it's hard to park our car, because our neighbor at the end of the street has all of her friends over, literally lining up the entire block. This year, it was still hard to park the car, but only because the Neighbors Dog was in our driveway. When I took him over to her house, it only then hit me that her house was empty. I asked, "Where's the big party you guys usually have?" She replied, "Well, with Gas, Food and everything else going up and away, we just didn't have the money to do anything this year."

It's pretty sad to see my friends and family this way. Everyone basically canceling trips, canceling parties, not being able to enjoy themselves, because their taxes are going through the roof, their food prices and of course, the biggest problem of all, their Gas prices.

What sickens me the most about this, is the apparent lack of concern that Congress has over this whole issue. When Nancy Pelosi came riding into Congress 2 years ago, she promised to do something about Gas prices that have gone up over 35% in the previous 6 years. Well instead of doing something to make things better, her and the Democrats fought to take lands away from Oil Drilling, and do everything possible to stop all use of Fossil Fuels and Nuclear energy. Instead of fixing the problem, over the past 2 years, we've seen prices just about double, or three times the rate of the previous 6 years. To top it off, because of Ethanol, we now see food prices higher than they've ever been, and if Obama wins, just to add icing to the cake, we can look forward to having our taxes increased. Yay!!

I guess this is one of the reasons why I keep writing about this issue, because only if we stick together, only if we make enough noise together, will we see any kind of results.

Good Night, and I hope you've had a GREAT 4th of July.

Operation Drill Bit Showing Success!!

I'd like to give a BIG thanks to everyone who participated in the Schnitt Show's Operation Drill Bit that we've been promoting here at No Socialism! Apparently, our efforts have not gone in vain and congress is starting to take notice.

Rep Ginny Brown-Waite, gave a speech to Congress in which she talked bout receiving Drill Bits from Constituents as their way of letting Congress know that the time has come for America to Drill and provide for it's own resources.

Again, we need to remember that's this is not just about drilling for oil, it's also about building more Nuclear Power Plants as Europe has done is is continuing to do. It's also about doing more about alternatives that we have the technology to take advantage of now, like Coal to Oil Gasification and Shale to Oil technologies. It's about ending the diversion of our food supply that's driving up our food prices. It's about ending the Stonewalling that's going on with the Democrats blocking every attempt to expand drilling and expand energy here in America.

I think we all need to go another round with these guys to let them know we're still watching them. If possible, "Adopt" a Democrat to send an extra set of Drill Bits to, perhaps I don't know, maybe someone like Congressman David Obey. Let him know that a policy of "No", just won't cut it. Let him know that Bills like "Use it or lose it" are not any kind of solution, but yet another roadblock. If you need his address, it's:

Congressman Dave Obey
First Star Plaza
401 5th Street,
Suite 406A
Wausau, Wisconsin 54403-5468

Please remember to help out by signing Newt's Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less initiative, and participate in Operation Drill Bit, to Flood Washington with Drill Bits. These initiatives will help remind Congress that they are in Washington to represent "We The People" and should follow our directives.

Geologist Say "Use It Or Lose It" Bill Will Increase Prices

After writing my article about how David Obey (D-Wis) was Shielding Democrats From Embarrassment by shutting down the appropriations process so they wouldn't have to vote on provisions to increase drilling here in the U.S. (since most Democrats would vote against more drilling), I was challenged by one of my readers about the facts that the Oil industry already has thousands of leases that they're not using. Other than the obvious, which is, who in their right mind doesn't want to make money, I did a bit of research to find more specifics on this subject.

There's an article written by Nick Snow in the Washington Editor that has an interesting story on this, and on how the American Association of Petroleum Geologist (AAPG) is cautioning congress on the actions they're about to take. Here are some highlights on the letter they wrote:

"As Congress considers measures to deal with high crude oil prices, I urge caution. Policies that increase exploration costs, decrease the available time to properly evaluate leases, and restrict access to federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf do not provide the American people with short-term relief from high prices and undermine the goal of increasing stable long-term supplies," he said in a June 23 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

The letter is significant because AAPG and its leaders rarely take public positions on political issues. It is an apparent response to H.R. 6251, which House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) introduced on June 12. Formally called the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act of 2008, the legislation has become known as the "Use it or lose it" bill because it would require federal oil and gas leaseholders to promptly develop or relinquish their leases. Republicans are concerned that it could reach the House floor this week without hearings or a markup.

H.R. 6251's assumption is flawed, Green suggested in his letter. "The process of leasing, evaluating, drilling and developing an oil or natural gas field typically takes 5-10 years. Some fields come online sooner. Others are delayed by permitting or regulatory delays or constraints in the availability of data acquisition and drilling equipment and crews. Large projects and those in deep water may require a decade or more to ramp up to full production,"

'Intensive assessment'
Geologists begin an intensive assessment once a lease is awarded, he continued. They collect new geological, geophysical, and geochemical data to better understand the lease area's geology. If they see no evidence of a suitable trap, the producer will relinquish the lease. But if they see a trap that looks interesting, the lessee will hire a drilling rig to find out if the geologists are right.

"Drilling is the true test of the geologists' model, and it isn't a decision to be made lightly. Drilling costs for a single well can range from $500,000 for shallow onshore wells to over $25 million for tests in deep water offshore," Green noted.

Access required
"As you can see, oil and natural gas exploration is not simple and it is not easy," Green told the House leaders. "It requires geological ingenuity, advanced technologies, and the time to do the job right. It also requires access to areas where exploration areas can be tested—the greater the number of areas available for exploration, the higher the chance of finding oil and gas traps."

If you want to see the entire article, follow this link. If you really want to learn more about how Oil Drilling works, you should check out Black Gold on TruTV:


You can also help out by signing Newt's Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less initiative, and participate in Operation Drill Bit, to Flood Washington with Drill Bits. These initiatives will help remind Congress that they are in Washington to represent "We The People" and should follow our directives.

Obey (D-Wis) Shields Democrats From Embarrassment

On June 26th. 2008, with Oil prices approaching $140.00 a Barrel, the lead Congressional Appropriations Committee Chairman, Congressman David Obey, D-Wis, shut down the Appropriations process in a move designed to shield Democrats from the embarrassment of voting against expanded Oil & Gas Drilling.

Jerry Lewis, the panels ranking Republican tried to add an energy amendment to the Interior-Environment appropriations bill designed to ease prices at the pump. Apparently, the move infuriated Obey, commenting: "We can spend time on real things, or in a playpen with Jerry Lewis. The latter doesn't interest me" Lewis later responded by saying, “I believe that it would be unconscionable for Congress to leave for the Fourth of July recess without doing anything substantive to address the difficulties facing all of our constituents due to the skyrocketing rise in gas prices”.

Earlier in the week, Obey ridiculed the idea that holding a markup of the Interior bill before recess would lead to lower prices at the pump, but regardless of when it's done, the Democrats seem to have an obsession with saying things like, "Well that's not going to help prices right now" While true that prices won't go down immediately, many of these provisions will help to lower prices in the future, and since most commodities are traded on "Futures Contracts", even things that will help in a year, would have shorter term benefits. The point is, the faster we get these provisions passed, the faster we will start to see some relief.

I've written previously on how Republicans face an uphill battle when it comes to trying to get congress to vote on expanded Oil drilling, Coal Gasification and Shale to Oil development, which most Democrats have been opposed to. You would think with new polls out, showing many more Americans are giving higher priority to more energy exploration, rather than more conservation, this would have changed the Democrats minds, but no they are still blocking all efforts to expand our nations energy supply.

Democrats insist that Oil companies already have leases on Millions of Acres, that they're not currently exploiting, but that doesn't really make any sense. Exxon, the largest energy company in the U.S. for example only pumps 2.5 Million of the 5.6 Million a day (as of 2007) that it refines. That means that Exxon must pay full market price for the 3.1 Million Barrels a day that it refines, but doesn't pump itself, or $434,000,000.00 a day. The most expensive oil out there, on Federal Public Lands, would only cost Mobile a third of that or less, so I seriously doubt that Exxon would be willing to leave over $100 Billion a year on the table. If they could drill it themselves, a 100 Billion Dollar a year incentive is all that they would need. My suspicion is that the Oil that Congress is talking about either doesn't exist, or is not economically recoverable, since these guys usually obtain the leases first, then drill to see if there's anything there afterwards.

The truth is that despite the Publics outrage over Gas prices, Democrats feel that the high prices at the pump will be good for them in November, because they feel that the public will blame this on the Administration, and by proxy on John McCain. They're counting on the fact that most Americans are informed via the Liberal Media, that doesn't report things like why there have been 31 Republican introduces bills from Jan, 2005 through then end of 2007 that have been killed by the Democrats, each one seeking to expand energy development. They also don't report things like how during that same time period, Democrats have introduces 18 pieces of legislation, with most passing that have effectively increased the regulations on the Oil and Gas industry, along with Moratoriums on Shale and Coal Gasification.

Another problem is that many Democrats read Articles like Time's "10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas" and think that most Americans agree with them on keeping fossil fuel prices high. So they're thinking we actually like high gas prices! We want Starbucks closing 600 stores, we want the Airlines eliminating flights, we want truckers losing their jobs. Is it just me, or are the Democrats sorely out of touch?

2008 has been no different with the Democrats in congress blocking all attempts at expanding production, Shale to Oil has been stopped, and so has Coal Gasification, all while Americans are suffering more than ever.

Some of my readers have accused me of writing "Partisan Tripe", giving preference to Republicans over Democrats, but the truth is, that Democrats are Opposed to drilling, they are opposed to Shale to Oil, they are opposed to Coal Gasification. They instead want us to rely on some future, yet undiscovered energy source that we can't yet afford to power our future, and I'm afraid that we're going to end up like California did a few years ago with Rolling Blackouts, and like the 70's with long lines at the gas stations.

I, like most Americans just don't have the $50,000.00 that it would take to convert HALF my home to Solar, I just don't have the $60,000.00 that it would take to get an all electric Sedan to replace my VW W8, or hell, even just the $25,000.00 it would take to trade it in for a Hybrid Camry. I also don't have the $50,000.00 that it would take to replace my Sequoia with a Hybrid Tahoe. So I, like most Americans have to reduce what I'm spending on everything else, costing jobs all across the economy.

If you want lower gas prices and plenty of energy available for you and your children, then I encourage you to contact Congressman David Obey and ask him why is he blocking votes on lifting moratoriums on Oil and Gas explorations, and why he's opposed to Coal to Oil Gasification, and why he's opposed to Shale to Oil development. You can also call him at (715) 842-5606, or send him a nice little fax at (715) 842-4488. If you want to write him a letter, you can contact him at:
Congressman Dave Obey
First Star Plaza
401 5th Street,
Suite 406A
Wausau, Wisconsin 54403-5468

You can also help out by signing Newt's Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less initiative, and participate in Operation Drill Bit, to Flood Washington with Drill Bits. These initiatives will help remind Congress that they are in Washington to represent "We The People" and should follow our directives.