I made it out to last night’s debate between Goldy and Grover Norquist at the South Lake Union Outback Steakhouse. The event was videotaped by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) and will be available sometime next week. I was hoping to live-blog as it was happening, but there was no available wi-fi for me to use. So instead I drank some Toohey’s and enjoyed the spectacle.
My take on the debate was that Goldy had an advantage in that he knows Norquist much better than Norquist knows Goldy (and Washington State politics). Goldy used this edge to provide some local examples of why Norquist’s ideas of taxation being antithetical to freedom don’t quite match up with the history of this region, while Norquist could only respond with some lame strawman arguments and occasional outbursts of yelling that gave his appearance an unhinged quality at times.
I imagine the EFF folks who were in attendance saw things differently, but Norquist looked bored and annoyed while Goldy generally made his points and easily responded to the wild accusations from Norquist that people on the left are parasites.
Probably the most striking point that Goldy made was pointing out that Norquist’s support for having government provide money to families to use towards school choice seemed to fly in the face of his overall opposition of wealth re-distribution. Even following the debate, a group of EFF members continued to argue this point, totally unable to grasp it. One man in his twenties finally tried to make the point that educating kids could conceivably be a matter of national security. Thankfully, none of the EFF people stuck around long enough to ride that train of thought to its logical conclusion and watch their entire ideology unravel in front of them.
Norquist was also there to plug his new book “Leave Us Alone.” The title of his book certainly sounds like a political sentiment I can go along with. I strongly feel that government at all levels in this country has gotten too big and has accrued far too much power for its own good. I worry that we don’t exercise enough oversight over how government spends our money and that we’re starting to believe in false choices between security and freedom that will end up with us having neither. But Norquist sees both demons and virtue where none of either exist. It’s hard to take seriously a man who helped elevate the current Bush Administration into power but is still convinced that the threat of big government is unique to the political left.
Even during the debate, there were a number of issues that Norquist brought up that I agreed with (and even Goldy made it clear that he agrees with Norquist on our sugar policy), but by seeing those on the left as “parasites,” he remains lost in a world that exists only in his own mind. Yes, there are unions backed by the left that don’t act in the best interest of the greater public and screw taxpayers. But there are corporations backed by the right who do it as well. And in recent years, corporations that have acted irresponsibly have screwed taxpayers out of far greater sums of money that every single welfare recipient in the country combined.
Both sides of the political divide in this country are driven by interests that – when left unchecked – can end up with attempts to curtail our freedom or to divert taxpayer money towards foolish or dangerous things. Believing that a desire to use taxpayer money in the first place is inherently foolish is the false notion that leads Norquist (and not to mention Jonah Goldberg in his recent laughable book) to conclusions that fall far outside the realm of common sense. Norquist wants to equate the desire for 51% of the population to enact a levy to the desire for 51% of the population to strip individuals of a particular moral choice or to subjugate a subset of the population. When it comes to regulating an economic system that everyone must share, the system’s rules must be determined by the aggregate of the population’s moral outlook, whether that means more government involvement or less. However, when it comes to individual liberty, that should never be subject to a “tyranny of the majority.”
This distinction is crucial for understanding why those, like Norquist, who view taxation as being akin to prison, seem unconcerned and oblivious to the fact that the people who’ve been promising lower taxes for years have now built up the largest prison system in the world. I’m sure he’s convinced himself that the people being locked up are just parasites and need to be taken out of society. When one believes that only the other side is a threat to our freedom, it just makes it easier for his side to become the greater threat to our freedom. This is Norquist’s legacy, and it’s why he’s gone from being a key political player in this country to getting slapped around by a local blogger in a small room at the Outback Steakhouse.
“Yes, there are unions backed by the left that don’t act in the best interest of the greater public and screw taxpayers.”
Minor quibble, Lee. Which unions? What did they do? Cite how they were ‘backed by the left’ when they did these dastardly things.
Did Goldy get a lot of blank uncomprehending stares when he said things like “public good”?
A guy living off wingnut welfare calling leftists “parasites”. That’s funny. Maybe welcher parasite retard M-T-R can demonstrate to us how Grover is ‘producing wealth’.
ProudAss–
Union members are REQUIRED to pay dues which they give nearly 100% to Dem candidates….and non-Dem members only option is to quit the Union and their job. Not good.
As far as Lee’s comment:
“but by seeing those on the left as “parasites,” he remains lost in a world that exists only in his own mind.”
I doubt Norquist categorically stated ALL those on the left are parasites. I know I don’t think that way.
I do believe that MOST of those on the left are parasites, however!
ProudAss–
IF THE BIRKENSTOCK FITS numbnutz!
If Cynical’s mouth is moving he’s lying. Most states now have laws that allow union members to opt out of dues related to political contributions.
And Norquist and his ilk are FINE with taxes that go to:
1) Curtailing abortion
2) Making war
3) Creation and enforcement of “morality” laws
As usual – just another vapid, empty, hypocrite on the right who’s trying to make a buck off the inbred morons stupid enough to pay money to read his crap.
@4: If non-dems don’t like it, why don’t they go get a non-union job? Isn’t that the ‘free market’ way? You spew out the same old tired anti-union bullshit that’s been out there since the 30’s and 40’s, the kind of crap that brought us the travesty known as Taft-Hartley.
Birkenstocks? A nice little German company that’s been around for a while. They must be doing something right. What do you have against success? I thought fucks like you worshipped capitalist success.
PS: I have never owned their products. I do see a lot of libertarian creeps sporting them trying to look “hip”.
#3
As usual, Dumbass NEO-CON doesn’t have the slightest clue about campaign finance law.
“Union members are REQUIRED to pay dues which they give nearly 100% to Dem candidates”
What color is the sky on your planet?
Lee — we definitely have the largest prison system in the world at the present time. However, we definitely do not have the largest prison system in the history of the world.
There were far more people imprisoned in Germany (and German-held territory) under Hitler, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, and in China under Mao, than we have imprisoned in the United States currently.
GOP gonna introduce legislation tomorrow to open up erl drilling off our coasts. Let the moonbats vote for $5 gas.
Or maybe not. We’ll see.
Ya know what would be great? Lets start drilling off Mahthah’s Vinyahd. In between puking sessions, Ted can look out the window and see a drilling rig. Sweet fucking justice. Or maybe he won’t notice… he’s sorta busy right tnow trying to figure out a story to tell. I hear he’s being fitted for a neckbrace to be buried in.
Start drilling off Florida, and kiss of those republican votes.
I like our unions better than their corporations.
As for Norquist’s idea of giving families school vouchers, where’s he gonna get the money without taxes?
Well, here’s a liberal rabbit’s take on the voucher ideology: You still spend tax money on education, but without the right to elect the school board, and with no accountability for what children are taught or whether they learn. Why would anyone want a system like that?
How many people in this city of 2 million showed up to hear the conservative movement’s Great Man, the Right’s most influential intellectual? 20? 30? Did he break 50?
@8
Richard,
I took out the words “history of the”. Thanks. From an economic perspective, it’s the largest, but probably not in the number of people locked up at one time (and I shouldn’t make that claim unless it fits both categories).
I can understand going for the youth vote, but this is too much:
Then again, you Lefties are all gushing over Darcy’s fantasy “(ir)Responsible Plan,” too.
If Norquist and his ilk truly believe in ridding society of parasites, they will rid the Constitution of its prohibition on debtors prisons, then stuff them full of overleveraged hedge fund managers.
But, of course, that won’t happen. To a Republican, going bankrupt is a crime only if you owe, say, $10,000. But if you leave a busted corporation, broke shareholders, unemployed workers, and billions of dollars in bad debt behind you, you’re not a felon you’re a capitalist.
@1
Minor quibble, Lee. Which unions? What did they do?
For starters, you can look at what the state’s law enforcement union is doing with respect to our medical marijuana law, and how the Governor is helping them get away with it.
@15 That sounds like it came from one of those wingnut mass-circulation e-mails that won’t survive a quick check of the Urban Legends Homepage at Snopes.com. You need to upgrade your reading material.
Roger Rabbit @ 12
The folks in this state certainly wouldn’t like school vouchers. We rejected charter schools in a November 2004 referendum, that only 41.6658% of the state’s voters approved of. The legislature had actually passed a fairly sensible charter school bill, which Governor Locke signed. There were sufficient signatures presented, so that the people had to vote on the charter school bill in a referendum.
Every single county in the state rejected the charter school referendum. Liberal King County voters actually showed somewhat stronger support for charter schools (41.1622%) than most of the conservative eastern Washington counties, where support was generally in the mid to upper 30’s range.
Charter schools under the bill would have been required to contract with the school board and operate under state regulations. Somehow, I think there would be even less support for simply granting school vouchers that would be used at schools that were not supervised by the state or school board.
@18
No, it’s real, just without the context.
“[Danzig] told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.”
Of course, if you’re “The Real Mark”, it’s hard to grasp the deep complexity of Winnie the Pooh.
Goldy–
You & Grover should discuss the results of todays Rasmussen Poll:
“67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Most voters favor the resumption of offshore drilling in the United States and expect it to lower prices at the pump, even as John McCain has announced his support for states that want to explore for oil and gas off their coasts.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey—conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue–finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).”
Ha ha ha! That last sentence has me laughing out loud. Nice.
Lee @ 20
I thought you guys PREFERRED quotes taken out of context…
You know, like the things Darcy/Goldy misrepresent about Reichert or the lies the DNC/MorOn.org spread about McCain…
re 3: If a union member does not want their dues going toward a political party or candidate, they merely have to request that that proportional amount not be taken out of their pay in dues. This amounts to pennies.
What the Evergreen Freedom Foundation wants is for the union to be required to contact each and every member each time union dues are deducted from their pay and get written permission to make political donations with a portion of the funds that goes to that OR THEY CAN NOT COLLECT ANY UNION DUES.
That’s union-busting by using a sophistic representation of free speech to starve unions of funds. It’s a solution to a problem that does not exist.
re 24: Should the government be forced to get my written permission each paycheck to give money to Halliburton, and if they don’t, they can’t collect any taxes.
Same argument. Reductio ad absurdum.
K: Plurality of liberals want drilling now, along with everyone else. Not paying attention again?
Major General Antonio Taguba, USA (Ret .)
http://brokenlives.info/
“Mr. Cynical spews: Hey Rog – Let’s talk at important stuff like investing & making $$. That’s a universal common denominator.”
OK
“First – Did you unload BOOM?? I told you to when it was lingering around 43 a couple weeks ago. Now it’s $35.75.”
No, but I’m not worried. Maybe I should buy more. The world won’t stop building refineries just because BOOM went down in tandem with the market.
“I told you I bought Wells Fargo @ $24.80
It’s at $25.95 but the bigger payoff is the 5% Dividend at the price I bought.”
I prefer to invest in profitable growth companies; but if you’re gonna throw money after a bank stock, that’s the one I’d pick.
“I don’t look for WFC to price explode.”
Who knows, you might get lucky and break even.
“But that dividend ought to keep the price up.
BOOM has no dividend.”
WM’s dividend is only 1 cent more than BOOM’s, but BOOM has gone up a lot and WM has gone down a lot, so dividend isn’t everything. Especially if you have a defined-benefit gummint pension to live on while waiting for your crop to ripen. =:-D
“It will be interesting to see what the State Retirement Fund 6/30/08 Financial Report looks like and if it will be released pre-Election.
My guess is NOOOOOOOOOOOO! They will hang onto it and any negative indicators until after the November Election.”
I’m sure the report will be released on its normal schedule, and my guess is the pension fund will be down one or two percent.
“On the other hand…someday taxpayers may be faced with ponying up the underfunded liability. Scarey thought.”
That’s only fair. The taxpayers got a break when the Legislator cut the state’s contribution during the flush times. Think of it as deferred compensation.
“Elected Officals don’t get any credit for funding known liabilities. They love to play Santa around Election Time.”
That would be your big-spending Republican president and his big-spending Republican Congress …
“In addition, Gregoire must address that $2.4 BILLION anticipated Deficit.”
I wish she would address it by saying it’s crazy to depend on the sales tax, which goes up and down with the economy, and we should replace the sales tax and B & O tax with a state income tax. But she won’t. Instead, she’ll use the Rainy Day Fund that she and the Democratic legislature prudently set aside over the objections of Republicans who wanted to spend it on tax cuts for people who don’t need tax cuts.
“Will be interesting to hear here plans…tax increases, budgetcuts or more fancy accounting schemes. The $$ has to come from somewhere!!”
Oh geez, Cynical, how long have you lived in this state? Haven’t you ever gone through an economic cycle here before? Our state government has been doing this for 100 years. They’ll freeze hiring, cut travel, not give the employees and vendors COLAs, and shift more school funding to local levies. All the standard strategems. Expect teacher strikes this fall.
I was there.
Norquist came across as sleazy and unintelligent (despite his Harvard education).
Goldy was a star. He made cogent points and statements that Norquist ignored or side-stepped.
Norquist seemed bored and was boring. All that are contrary to him are “parasites”. Of course, corporate welfare does not rate a mention in his “freedom” screed. He is a true slime ball mouthpiece for the interest of the billionaire overlords.
The EFF people seemed like a goofy bunch. They were friendly, but hanging by the thread of their “conservative” ideals of “freedom”. If Norquist is their hero, they are cherry picking reality and should be be filed under the “marginal nothings” tab.
Why did Republican Jeb Bush – with his brother’s help – stop drilling off Florida coast? Oh yeah – he was running for re-election.
And what did the inbred republicans do for the six – Goddamn long fucking years they controlled the Congress and the White House when it comes to oil? Oh yeah – absolutely nothing.
American cannot be THAT stupid.
@21
67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices
Considering that the 64% who expect it to lower prices are wrong, why should we care that 67% support it? And by the way, the 3% who support it, but know it won’t lower prices….
They work for the oil company. And they’re laughing at how stupid you are.
One question: Norquist noted that it was the fault of environmentalists that the levies were not in good standing at the time of Katrina storm in NOLA. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Is there any truth to this?
The Associated Press reports that medical examinations of former U.S. detainees have revealed clear evidence of torture.
@32 Levees are a function of how much money the administration in power is willing to spend on them, not how many species are listed as “endangered.”
@32
That was a new one for me too. Here’s a page from an environmentalist publication that aims to debunk the claims:
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2878
Thanks for the reality chex, Roger (@34).
Thanx also to Lee @36.
Make that thanx to Lee @35.
@15:
The Dao of Pooh eludes the brain (or lack thereof) of Mark.
Hey Mark – if thinking is causing you too much pain – try something else. Ooops – I see you already have…
I’ve worn Birkenstocks for thirty years for health reason, so which ever skippy up top can kiss my a…(ok toes)
32 Hardly.
The levies were known to be marginally adequate when they were built but Uncle Fed wasn’t willing to give the Corps. of Engineers any more money.
Sounds like I was right. Norquist acted like another neocon drone and tried to “debate” by pulling nonsense out of his ass.
Goldy, if you shook hands with him at the end, I hope you washed afterwards.
I wonder how much of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the EFF collects from the Waltons and Mellon-Scaifes goes to ‘administrative cost’?
This looks like a good scam. Present yourself as an anti-freedom anti-union group.
Seems that executive compensation has continued to rise even as companies’ stocks decline and unemployment rises.
Then that gots, gets.
@42 I realized something was wrong with Hillary when Scaife decided he likes her.
BlatantlyIncorrect @ 39
The Dao of Pooh… never heard of it.
OTOH, I own and have read both The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet.
Pronunciation aside, it is a book title, idiot. And publicly stating that foreign policy will be based on concepts from a children’s book… What’s next, saying that Ahmadinejad just needs a big hug?
From now on, we’ll just call you the Uncarvable Blockhead.
Artfart: You also forget the money LA state had to return to the government on the levees because they spent it on other activities and not on the NO levees.
Another fact lost on liberals
Notice how the righties don’t want to talk about the six years they had to fix our energy crisis? What can they say? They can’t tell the truth…i.e., that the Bush Regime is full of people with financial interests in the oil business and THAT’s why we’re paying $4 plus for gas.
bybygoober, you forget the threatened filibusters, the blockage of legislation by your side during those years.
Keep up the it’s Bush fault mantra. Only 25% of Americans now agree with you idiot.
Of course you do. You are a moron.
I suspect that “who won the debate” is entirely influenced by the political prospective of the person viewing the debate. Since Seattle and King County are overwhelmingly Neo-socialist, the pro-Goldy faction has been deemed the winner by the usual suspects here.
“Notice how the righties don’t want to talk about the six years they had to fix our energy crisis?”
It’s been about 40 years of this energy crisis shit, BBG. Nobody has done a damn thing, Dem or Rep.
Lee said,
“I strongly feel that government at all levels in this country has gotten too big and has accrued far too much power for its own good.”
Man, I’m in 100% agreement with you on that comment!
@48 “bybygoober, you forget the threatened filibusters, the blockage of legislation by your side during those years.”
Irrelevant. Do the math. America burns 7B+ bbls./yr. ANWR and the outer continental shelf together hold maybe 24 to 28B bbls., so you’re talking about a 4-year U.S. supply max, and less than 1 year of global supply. After you go through that, then what? Plus, it will take decades to extract it, and you won’t see a drop of it for 10 years or more.
No, stupid, there’s not enough oil left on our soil to make a dent. We’ve hit a global production ceiling — global production hasn’t increased since 2005. If demand didn’t crash into supply limits now, it surely would later, so something’s gotta give on the demand side. This ought to be obvious to any fool we can do basic arithmetic.
It follows that the GOP’s approach of drilling to produce more won’t work. The proof that it hasn’t work is visible today at your corner gas station. We need better fuel efficiency and more alternative energy. But the stupid Bush administration turned its back on energy conservation and gave tax credits for gas guzzlers. How smart was that?
Right on cue, puddybud votes for stupidity. Every time. You can count on it. Puddinghead must take Stupid Pills to keep his brain from functioning. Or maybe he doesn’t have a brain. Maybe he’s a plant. A garden weed, or a dandelion.
Again Pelletizer continues to deflect the issue. No one is saying drill ANWR and use that oil exclusively unless, of course, you are Donkey. This is the swill used by Pelletizer and his ilk to poison the argument. Real “smart” people are saying ANWR and other locations will supplement our oil supply.
There are known oil reserves which per the environmentalists still thinking in 1970s terms don’t want us to touch. There are new very clean technologies available for use. Yet the NIMBY crowd will use arcane arguments to make worthless points.
You can accuse me of taking stupid pills all you want. I know you don’t need them because you retread the same arguments over and over when the facts slap you in the face. Stay stupid Pelletizer, it gives us pause to laugh!
@50 “It’s been about 40 years of this energy crisis shit, BBG. Nobody has done a damn thing, Dem or Rep.”
That’s totally false. Democrats have repeatedly tried to pass energy conservation laws and encourage alternative energy, and Republicans have consistently voted for continued dependence on oil.
The Dems were right, the goopers wrong. Why? Because the supply of oil isn’t infinite. Sooner or later, we were going to hit supply limits, a reality that Republicans still refuse to acknowledge.
Well, pardner, those days are here. U.S. production peaked in 1970, and global production has been stuck at 85M bbl/day since 2005. We were caught flatfooted with a nation full of gas guzzlers and no alternatives to foreign oil. This $4 gas was brought to you by Republican idiots, and no one else. You’re the guys who wanted to keep us shackled to a dwindling nonrenewable resource, and you did a good job of it. Wallow in it.
And why hasn’t global production increased since 2005? No one can build an oil refinery due to NIMBY!
Now onto alternative energy issues. I watch the French build nukular power plants tout le temps. Yet the NIMBY crowd stops this too.
Coal gasification plants could be built. The NIMBY crowd stops this.
You all want $5/gallon gas so the poor peeps can’t drive and then you can whip out your crass class arguments about rich people. That’s why 67% of Americans want drilling now and a majority of Donkey want it too!
@53 You can’t even read, can you? Try reading #52 again, and see if you can comprehend it on your second try.
Puddybud,
Do you mean “FACTS” like China is “stealing our oil by sideways drilling off of Cuba???
Baaa haaa haaa haaa.
Yeah, ‘dem is PuddyFACTS.
C’mon, you’re smarter than this. We simply cannot drill our way out of this problem. Period.
It will take between 7-10 years to develop oil fields in ANWR and other sensitive areas.
Given that fact, where do you think the price of oil will be in 2018? Given the track record of the past 30 months?
The amount of oil we’ll extract won’t offset the cost of oil or gas here. China and India will be consuming much more oil in 10 years.
America has tried the conservative model of governing. It failed. Doing more of the same failed policies only hurts America.
Why do you support policies that hurt America?
Are you bitter about something?
@55 “And why hasn’t global production increased since 2005? No one can build an oil refinery due to NIMBY!”
Oh Jesus Christ, you’re beyond help.
Puddybud wrote @ 55:
“And why hasn’t global production increased since 2005? No one can build an oil refinery due to NIMBY!”
WHHAAATTTT DID YOU SAY????????????
Did you really say this, as a PuddyFACT??
Come ON!
Like we can tell the Saudis they can’t build more refineries. Remember, the arguement here is getting more crude oil to lower the price of oil, not more gasoline refineries in America to produce more gas.
Besides, if you believe that refineries haven’t added on to their exisiting facilites to increase capacity you’re only kidding yourself.
Give it up already, you’re voting for Obama, you you’ve abandoned your conservative principles, come all the way over to the correct side.
There’s enough room in our tent, even for a big black man like you.
Good morning, Bud.
Pelletizer: It is well known China is slant drilling in the Gulf. Your pea-brain rabbit mind can’t figger it out while others can.
Regarding the 7-10 years, no one on the left wanted to do anything. Now we have $4.50 gas and you still don’t wanna do anything.
Who brought up the increased us of China and India Pelletizer. As Puddy remembers when he delivered those PuddyFacts to refute a Pelletizer pellet when you cried about gas being $3.00 I placed three graphs on HA regarding use from 1990-2000 and 2000-2007. You of course forgot them. Go back to law and the Sound Transit issues bud.
GBS: You build refineries where you want to have the final product flow, not at the source.
You don’t ship gasoline in floating tankers. You need to used compressed nitrogen to keep oxygen from the gas and not have the gas vaporize in the tanks.
Pelletizer, this is my u-grad degree. I already placed PuddyFact after PuddyFact on this board how refineries work, how gas and other products are made from crude and how asphalt is created. But in your mind you have an ASS Fault.
Gotta go time to produce!
I won’t even attempt to argue with puddinghead, because he’s terminally stupid, not to mention hopelessly ignorant.
For the rest of you, until our friend puddy invents a breeder reactor — something the world’s brightest scientists and engineers have been unable to do; after decades of research, it’s still uncertain whether even the basic science works — we’re stuck with fission reactors, for which the fuel supply is even more limited than the oil supply. The most promising technology here is using the nuclear waste from bomb production as fuel for generating plants — that should tell you something.
Gasoline from coal costs the equivalent of $80/bbl., so you aren’t going to see cheap gas from that. Ever. Is it competitive with $139/bbl. oil? Sure, if you ignore the environmental mess. But you won’t ever get cheap gasoline from it.
U.S. refinery capacity has been expanding since about 1992. Notwithstanding environmental laws and NIMBYism, the constraint on domestic refining capacity has been economics. The oil industry disinvested in the 1980s because of low oil prices, and any infrastructure buildout, oil production increase, or alternative fuel strategy that made oil cheap again would cause the industry to disinvest again. What’s actually going on is the U.S. refining industry is consolidating. The industry is closing small, old, inefficient refineries that were scattered all over the map and expanding the large refineries concentrated in the Gulf Coast oil belt. There has been a net increase in total domestic refining capacity throughout this process, and new refineries are being built in the Middle East and elsewhere, so don’t claim that $4 gas was caused by shrinking refinery capacity because that’s false. $4 gas was caused by global crude oil production hitting a wall while demand continued to climb.
It’s too bad puddinghead’s idea of “alternative energy” is limited to nuclear and coal gasification, because both of these technologies are highly polluting, and both depend on nonrenewable resources. Why not jump over those dinosaur technologies and put our R & D resources into clean renewable energy?
Idiot.
It is well known China is slant drilling in the Gulf.
*cough* right wing bullshit *cough*
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....7282.shtml
@60 “It is well known China is slant drilling in the Gulf.”
Uh-huh. And by this means they’re going to suck all the oil out of the Gulf of Mexico, right up to the beaches in Florida, with drill strings 90 miles long. That’s a good one, puddy! You are funny sometimes.
Now let’s get back to the real world. The U.S. consumes over 7 billion barrels of oil a year. The largest U.S. oil find in the Gulf to date is Thunderhorse, which contains about 1 billion barrels. All the other deepwater finds in the Gulf are a few hundred million barrels. We go through 21 million bpd, so you have to find one of those about every 10 days or so to get our wheels turning. It’s impossible, puddy. There isn’t that much oil in the Gulf.
Now let’s talk about China and India. Why are these countries buying up $139/bbl. oil? Because they have the money, that’s why. And where did these poor countries get the money? From us, of course. How? By shipping American jobs to those countries, and importing their goods into our country. And borrowing over a trillion dollars from China to throw down a rathole in Iraq. Whose idea was all of this, puddy? Not the Democrats’. Not the labor unions. Not America’s workers. This nonsense was Made In GOP.
@63 I’m sorry you’re a Worker, puddy. That sucks. Low pay, high taxes, commuting hassles, office politics, all of that. Not me. I’m an Owner, a Capitalist. I’m gonna sit right here on my fat rabbit ass doing no work and producing nothing, and getting favorable tax treatment for doing nothing but watching the stock ticker all day, this inane tax policy having been brought to us by the GOP.
Puddylicker has two sides to every story. His side which is wrong and his hoped for side which is even more wrong.
Stop swallowing cum long enough to clear your head Lil Bitch and try to follow along.
You had SIX years. You’re trying to blame Dems for everything going on now and they don’t even have the White House. You don’t get it both ways – unless you count the times you sucked a cock while getting it in the ass at the same time.
The GOP rarely if ever mentioned the problems with energy in this country during the terrible six years that they rushed as fast as they could to destroy our economy. They’ll be called on it.
And stop making up poll numbers you traitor. Nobody believes you.
@65 They’re gonna need a mightly long straw to drill all the way to Louisiana.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
I probably shouldn’t laugh because this is likely the excuse McCain will use to bomb China AND Cuba if he gets in.
McCain intends to dedicate his presidency (if he has one) to making Curtis LeMay look like a pacifist.
Gee, DJIA is taking another dive this morning, down 135 + points at the time of this posting. If it doesn’t recover and instead loses a bit more ground, it may break below the 12,000 floor which it has been bounding along for the past few months. My guess is it will recover somewhat before the closing bell, but in the meantime this means that under the Bush Administration’s republican fiscal policies, the DJIA has grown an average of only 1.81% per year, considerably less than the rate of inflation.
Of course, that’s why we voted Bush into office in 2000, because of his “business experience”, right?
@63 Piddlydick says he has to go be productive now – let me translate – the prison work release van has just pulled up and Puddy has to go clean toilets as part of his work release for trying to have sex with his dog.
Let’s face it: Super Grover is NOT a conservative. The party of the Bush Crime Family, under the guidance of morons like Super Grover, no longer represents conservative views, but a de facto nihilst anarchism. Oddly enough, really no different than the Eugene Anarchist goobers we all know and love, albeit the deities they worship are power and profit, rather than the goobers’ twisted eco-nihilism
Puddybud @ 61 wrote:
“GBS: You build refineries where you want to have the final product flow, not at the source.
You don’t ship gasoline in floating tankers. You need to used compressed nitrogen to keep oxygen from the gas and not have the gas vaporize in the tanks.”
Puddy, you know sometimes you have such strong arguments, I really enjoy battling ideas with you. But, dude, this is one where you so wrong that it hurts America. No question about it. You gotta stop listening to the current
crapcrop of Republicans feeding you information. They are lying about EVERYTHING to keep their desperate grip on some sort of power.Gasoline is refined and shipped via floating tankers all over the world.
I’m linking a site that gives Brokerage and Consulting services to Energy and OCEAN TRANSPORTATION industries. It’s not a “liburl” site, or a government site, but a functioning Capitalist site.
Get a grip, man. Republicans have been wrong on every major issue:
Iraq War
War on Terror
Economy
Spending
Infrastructure
Civil liberties
Health care
Katrina
There isn’t one policy that has been a success for the Bush administration. Even the Supreme Court is kicking their ass. To be shot down 4 times in 5 years during war is unprecedented for an American Commander-in-Chief.
Here’s the link, enjoy how capitalism move refined gasoline around the world.
http://www.poten.com/?URL=show.....=tMentions
Lick your wounds and come back and discuss your conversion to Liberalism.
Any site that calls bullshit on right wing propaganda is “librul” to a wingnut.
Roger,
I stand by what I said. You can’t conserve oil by raising mileage standards because the mileage standard is an average of all vehicles produced. That means, to sell vehicles people want to buy, the auto producers are forced to produce and sell cheap cars that get good mileage to offset the gas-hogs. The auto makers have to sell these pieces of shit at a loss just to get ’em off the lots. The big gas-hogs are still on the road, and that’s where the margin is for the auto makers.
What will really, really help is for us to come us with a substitute for oil to run cars, planes, etc. so we can tell OPEC to go fuck itself. Nobody, Dem or Rep, has done one god-dam thing in the past 40 years to move us closer to that goal.
GBS: Sorry pal. Gasoline is not shipped by tankers. LPG is. LNG is.
http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_(ship)
http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker
Pelletizer, you can’t translate jack shit. You don’t know what I do and how I do it. Suffice it to say I haven’t gotten rid of my SUV!
clueless idiot: The report you cite is from Feb 2008? You mean the Bill Burkett network couldn’t find anything later on slant drilling?
You didn’t use Kos? Slipping? Or, as I suspect you gagged today on the warm white man-made kool-aid
re 21: How will drilling in Anwar help the US? All that oil is sold on the world market.
Uhhh, Puddybud — NO!
I give you a site regarding energy and ocean transportation consultants who make a living a shipping REFINED gasoline around the world and you site Wikipedia????
Did you even read the link I provided.
Sheeeeez, is this like Dick Cheney saying China is stealing our oil out of the Gulf of Mexico and you believe him – again!!!
What is it about the lies they tell you that you always believe?
Why do you believe them any more? How many times can you be lied to and still trust them?
How many American soldiers have died because of Bush’s “shading of the truth” about going to war in Iraq that you have consistently supported?
Refined gasoline ships via tanksers. Yes it does. Read the link I provided.