Drill Here. Drill Now. I Don't Care What We Pay.

I just took $60 to the gas station. That used to get me three tanks of gas. Today, it didn't even fill my tank. Does that seem right to you? It doesn't to almost a million Americans who have signed the Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less petition. Everybody is whining about the price of fuel and screaming about an energy crisis, politicians included. As you hopefully know, President Bush has beseeched Congress to not renew the annual ban on offshore drilling, ANWR, and oil shale. Congressional Democrats' response lacked enthusiasm to say the least. Their first reaction is that there are currently 68 million acres currently leased offshore that are undeveloped. That is a strange number since the Mineral Management Service, who issues the leases, says they only have a total of about 43 million acres currently leased. They also mention that these 43 million acres produced about 492 million barrels of oil and almost three trillion cubic feet of natural gas. There are a total of 1.76 billion acres on the Outer Contenintal Shelf. The MMS estimates 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas are waiting for us to pillage. See this map for areas where leases are allowed. Now, I know better than to use facts to argue with liberals. Let me take a more nonsensical approach. Let's say a lease for 1000 acres is granted to a company for drilling oil. Under that area is one large oil deposit. The company builds a drilling platform to extract the oil. This platfor covers about 1 acre. That means that we have 999 undeveloped acres in the leased area. Behold the wonderful world of liberal energy policy. Another common liberal talking point is that we can't drill our way out of this problem. Even with more drilling, they say we would drop the price of gasoline a mere two cents in the next ten years. Before I proceed, ignore the politics and think for yourself for just a second. Ask yourself one simple question: Does that seem right to you? The Outer Continental Shelf has an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil. ANWR has an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil. Total estimates of the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. I'm bad at math, but that sounds like a lot of oil. Get your calculators out and tell me what that sum would be. Is it a lot? Does it sound like two cents worth of gas? The real bottom line of this post is that I don't care if we actually pay more for gas if we drill here and now. It's not the price at the pump that drives me to support domestic oil production. I support it because it's the right thing to do for our country, not because I want to save $50 per month on my fuel expenses. I am willing pay another $50 per month just so the gas I buy was pumped from American sources and refined in American refineries.

Change IN WHICH We Can Believe

Much ado has been made about incendiary comments at Barack Obama's former church. Rev. Wright, his replacement, even guest speakers have been reflecting badly on Obama's campaign. Barack claims that he doesn't agree with the statements that were made although he attended that church for more than twenty years. He also has downplayed his connection with terrorist William Ayers. He met him as a rite of passage into the Chicago political scene. Obama claims to disagree with Ayers although he has a continued friendship with him. Here is where this post gets weird. I am here to defend him. I believe Barack Obama is actually telling the truth. In fact, it is probably the most truthful thing I have ever heard him say. As the argument goes, if Obama didn't believe what his pastor was saying, he should have left. It's hard to disagree with that statement. I know that if I visited that church I would have walked out of that den of sedition before a sermon was finished. That's because I don't believe the things contained in those sermons. Even if I agreed with those statements, I believe it inappropriate to say those things from the pulpit. I might even feel uncomfortable with my pastor giving a sermon about excessive taxation. It is also said that Barack should have distanced himself privately and pubically from Ayers, who is proud of his terrorist past. When they first met, it is plausible that Barack didn't know that Ayers was a terrorist. Many years later, that plausibility has diminshed. Now, I know that if I discovered that someone I just met was a terrorist in the past, I'd not put him in my Five. I'd probably only speak to him with harsh language if at all. These arguments are based upon one simple fallacy: they assume that Barack attended this church and befriended this man based on an agreement of principles. I find this assumption very hard to accept. It's more plausible to me that Barack attended this church for political reasons rather than personal conviction. I am sure you know the type of person that would do this. There's a stereotype attached to each church. You pastors and churchgoers out there know exactly what I'm talking about. There are the snobby churches, the commoner churches, the elderly churches, the youth based churches, conservative churches, liberal churches, etc. I believe that Barack and Michelle went to this church because they wanted the label that comes with the Trinity United Church of Christ not because what is preached there. They thought the label would get them votes. And it worked for the legislature and didn't hurt him in his run for the Senate. Now that he's got to get Whitey to vote for him, the Trinity United label is costing him votes. Now he's oficially left the church for the same reason he went there in the first place: to win an election. Barack has made every decision of his adult life to advance a political career. He even met with a terrorist if it meant getting more votes. That's how he rose to presidential nominee so quickly. He will do anything, say anything, and be anything to get a vote. That explains why he will say that Americans cling to guns and religion because they are bitter in San Fransisco but not in the South or Midwest. That explains how in Oregon he will say that Iran could never pose a serious threat to us and then say that Iran is a grave threat in Montana. It explains how in a speech in Selma, Alabama (Alabama rhymes with Obama, just so you know) he said his parents hooked up to make baby Obama after Bloody Sunday in Selma although it occured long after he was born. It explains how his, uhhhh... uncle liberated Auschwitz although if he did, he would have been serving in the Red Army. As a trained former vacuum cleaner salesman, I recognize this tactic. In order to build rapport, you always have an uncle that was in the same line of work, attended the same church, or was born in the area. The truth of these claims were not important. Obama politics were also highlighted in School for Scoundrels starring Billy Bob Thornton and John Heder. First you get the girl alone (or in a group of like-minded voters). No matter where you are, it is lame (or no matter where you are, the country is lame). No compliments, ever (to any Republican). Be dangerous, it's cool (or be an outsider, it's cool). You have to parrallel their values. Then lie, lie, lie some more. Think of Obama if you ever watch that movie. When you do, you should appreciate Barack's campaign slogan. What does that slogan mean? It's pretty simple. In what does he believe? Change. What change? Whatever change in which you believe. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets your vote.