New Developments III

[Greg]

Book says White House ordered forgery
By MIKE ALLEN

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”

The Telegraph story by Con Coughlin (which, coincidentally, ran the day Hussein was captured in his “spider hole”) was touted in the U.S. media by supporters of the war, and he was interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Over the next few days, the Habbush letter continued to be featured prominently in the United States and across the globe," Suskind writes. "Fox's Bill O'Reilly trumpeted the story Sunday night on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' talking breathlessly about details of the story and exhorting, 'Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam.'"

According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

The White House flatly denied Suskind’s account. Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico: “The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd.”

The White House plans to push back hard. Fratto added: "Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism. He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on pre-war intelligence."

Before “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,” Suskind wrote two New York Times bestsellers critical of the Bush administration – “The Price of Loyalty” (2004), which featured extensive comments by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and “The One Percent Doctrine” (2006).

Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on “creamy White House stationery.” The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq, but does not say how.

The author claims that such an operation, part of “false pretenses” for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense.

Suskind writes that the White House had “ignored the Iraq intelligence chief’s accurate disclosure that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12308.html

[Greg]

Bush critics get an unimpeachable forum
By JIM ABRAMS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Call it the un-impeachment hearing.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday it insisted was not about removing President Bush from office. But critics of Bush's policies couldn't pass up the chance to charge the president with a long list of impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Leading the way was Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the former Democratic presidential candidate who has brought repeated impeachment resolutions on the House floor against Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Kucinich got a rock star welcome of whistles, hoots and clapping as he walked into the hearing room, holding hands with his wife, from hundreds of anti-war, anti-Bush people crammed into the room and lining the hallways outside. T-shirts reading "Arrest Bush" and "Veterans for Impeachment" illustrated the sentiments of many.

"The decision before us is whether to demand accountability for one of the gravest injustices imaginable," Kucinich testified, avoiding use of the "I" word.

The House Democratic leadership, not interested in a bloody impeachment battle in the last year of Bush's presidency, steered Kucinich's resolutions to the Judiciary Committee where they could quietly fade away, but Friday's hearing gave Kucinich and his allies an opportunity to air their views.

"To the regret of many, this is not an impeachment hearing," said committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., pointing out the less incendiary title of the event, "executive power and its constitutional limitations."

Still, Conyers, a vocal opponent of Bush, noted that his panel had pursued many issues that Kucinich and others regard as impeachable offenses: manipulating intelligence about Iraq; misusing authority with regard to torture, detention and rendition; politicizing the Justice Department and retaliating against critics, as in the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Republicans, clearly in the minority at the hearing, expressed suspicion at Democratic motives. Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., called it "impeachment lite," where people were given free rein to impugn Bush but not to impeach him.

"It seems that we are hosting an anger management class," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the committee's senior Republican. "This hearing will not cause us to impeach the president; it will only serve to impeach Congress's credibility."

The committee also reminded lawmakers and those testifying that House rules prohibit "personal abuse, innuendo or ridicule of the president." The House Rules and Manual points out that suggestions of mendacity, or accusations of hypocrisy, demagoguery or deception were out of order.

"The rules of the House prevent me or any witness from utilizing familiar terms," Kucinich said. "But we can put two and two together in our minds."

Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, known for his prosecution of Charles Manson in 1970, acknowledged that "I am forbidden from accusing him of a crime, or even any dishonorable conduct" under House rules. But he could still encourage people to read his book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., was less circumspect in asserting that Bush was "the worst president that our nation has ever suffered."

Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., concluded that "this is the most impeachable administration in the history of America because of the way that it has clearly violated the law."

"I am really astonished at the mood in this room," commented one witness, George Mason University School of Law professor Jeremy Rabkin.

"The tone of these deliberations is slightly demented," Rabkin said. "You should all remind yourselves that the rest of the country is not necessarily in this same bubble in which people think it is reasonable to describe the president as if he were Caligula."

http://ap.google.com/article....252IFO0

[Greg]

Kucinich May Get Hearing On Impeachment Resolution
By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Staff
The House Judiciary Committee may let anti-war Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich present his case for impeaching President Bush before the August recess, the panel’s chairman said Monday.

Chairman John Conyers Jr. , D-Mich., said Judiciary will take a broad look at the behavior of the Bush administration, and Kucinich can lay out his arguments as part of that as-yet unscheduled hearing.

Kucinich, D-Ohio, intends to formally offer a resolution on Tuesday that accuses Bush of lying to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.

Conyers said he wants a public discussion of the issues being raised by Kucinich, but does not plan to take any action on the resolution. “We’re not doing impeachment, but he can talk about it,” the chairman said.

He said such a hearing would continue oversight of the executive branch that has included hearings on the exposure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame and the firing of U.S. attorneys.

The resolution that Kucinich has told the House to expect on Tuesday will be his fourth impeachment measure.

An earlier resolution against Bush (HRes 1258) and two against Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res 333, H Res 799) were referred to Conyers’ committee, which took no action on them.

Bush and Cheney leave office on Jan. 20, 2009.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage....2916681

[OscarGuy]

Yup. Exactly my problem with it. I'm just waiting to hear co-workers talking about it. After all, the people that would hurl these kinds of accusations are too stupid to understand ironic humor anyway. So the entire concept of this art is lost and thus makes it no better than the anti-Koran comic that was circulating Europe.

[Big Magilla]

"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," the New Yorker statement said.

The problem is, of course, that there are those who will not find it absurd, but use it to re-enforce their distorted beliefs and run with it to their friends with "see, I told you so." I can already picture the e-mails that will be coming with copies of the cover attached.

[OscarGuy]

Here's my problem with it: it almost sounds like they're TRYING to make those accusations against them. It only reinforces the stereotypes and insults being hurled at them and actually provides a banner for those who would say such things...bad move, New Yorker.



Magazine's 'satirical' cover stirs controversy 20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign says a satirical New Yorker magazine cover showing the Democratic presidential candidate dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist is "tasteless and offensive."

The illustration on the issue that hits newsstands Monday, titled "The Politics of Fear" and drawn by Barry Blitt, depicts Barack Obama wearing traditional Muslim garb — sandals, robe and turban — and his wife, Michelle — dressed in camouflage, combat boots and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder — standing in the Oval Office.

The couple is doing a fist tap in front of a fireplace in which an American flag is burning. Over the mantle hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden.

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

In a statement Monday, the magazine said the cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are."

"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," the New Yorker statement said.

The statement also pointed to the two articles on Obama contained inside the magazine, calling them "very serious."

Republican John McCain's campaign spokesman, Tucker Bonds, agreed that the cover was "tasteless and offensive."

Already the cover was generating controversy on the Internet.

The Huffington Post, a left-leaning blog, said: "Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism — well, here's your image."

[Greg]

Kucinich's Impeachment Movement Against Bush Gains a Spark of New Life: One Can Hope

Submitted by meg on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 2:55pm.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is stepping back from her oft-repeated pledge not to pursue impeachment of President George W. Bush.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush last month and 3 articles against Vice President Dick Cheney last year. Both resolutions were referred to the Judiciary Committee with no further Congressional action. This time, however, Kucinich said he would introduce new articles if the ones he brought forth last month went nowhere, as was widely expected.

Kucinich introduced a single article of impeachment against Bush this afternoon titled, Deceiving Congress with Fabricated Threats of Iraq WMDs to Fraudulently Obtain Support for an Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq. Kucinich opened his resolution with the following words:

"Yesterday in the House, we had a moment of silence for the troops. Today it is time to speak out on behalf of those troops who will be in Iraq for at least another year, courageously representing our nation while their Commander in Chief sent them on a mission that was based on falsehoods about the threat of WMDs from Iraq."

Pelosi's comments only briefly brought new hope to the impeachment movement. The Speaker said this morning that she expected the Judiciary Committee to hold impeachment hearings, though she hinted that even if the resolution passed through committee, it would have little chance on the House floor. However, after Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) received the new resolution this afternoon, he said he was unsure as to when or what type of hearing would be held on the matter.

Conyers has said previously that he would consider holding impeachment hearings after the presidential election.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/417

[OscarGuy]

And thus it came to pass that the year was altered to read 1984.

Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
2 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Bowing to President Bush's demands, the Senate sent the White House a bill Wednesday overhauling bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

ADVERTISEMENT

The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.

Opponents assailed the eavesdropping program, asserting that it imperiled citizens' rights of privacy from government intrusion. But Bush said the legislation protects those rights as well as Americans' security.

"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying and what they're planing," he said in a brief White House appearance after the Senate vote.

The long fight on Capitol Hill centered on one main question: whether to protect from civil lawsuits any telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on American phone and computer lines without the permission or knowledge of a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed, and all are pending before a single U.S. District court.

Numerous lawmakers had spoken out strongly against the no-warrants eavesdropping on Americans, but the Senate voted its approval after rejecting amendments that would have watered down, delayed or stripped away the immunity provision.

The lawsuits center on allegations that the White House circumvented U.S. law by going around the FISA court, which was created 30 years ago to prevent the government from abusing its surveillance powers for political purposes, as was done in the Vietnam War and Watergate eras. The court is meant to approve all wiretaps placed inside the U.S. for intelligence-gathering purposes. The law has been interpreted to include international e-mail records stored on servers inside the U.S.

"This president broke the law," declared Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

The Bush administration brought the wiretapping back under the FISA court's authority only after The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret program. A handful of members of Congress knew about the program from top secret briefings. Most members are still forbidden to know the details of the classified effort, and some objected that they were being asked to grant immunity to the telecoms without first knowing what they did.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter compared the Senate vote to buying a "pig in a poke."

But Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., one of the bill's most vocal champions, said, "This is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our terror-fighters."

Just under a third of the Senate, including Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, supported an amendment that would have stripped immunity from the bill. They were defeated on a 66-32 vote. Republican rival John McCain did not attend the vote.

Obama ended up voting for the final bill, as did Specter. Feingold voted no.

The bill tries to address concerns about the legality of warrantless wiretapping by requiring inspectors general inside the government to conduct a yearlong investigation into the program.

The measure effectively dismisses about 40 lawsuits that have been bundled together. But at least three other lawsuits against government officials will go forward.

In one of those cases last week, a judge decided that surveillance laws trumped the government's claim that state secrets were imperiled by the lawsuit. However, the judge said the plaintiff could not use classified government documents it had accidentally received to prove it was subjected to illegal eavesdropping. It must instead use unclassified information to show it was wiretapped without court approval. FISA makes provisions for the use of secret evidence once a case is accepted.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California civil rights organization, intends to challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provision.

Beyond immunity, the new surveillance bill also sets new rules for government eavesdropping. Some of them would tighten the reins on current government surveillance activities, but others would loosen them compared with a law passed 30 years ago.

For example, it would require the government to get FISA court approval before it eavesdrops on an American overseas. Currently, the attorney general approves that electronic surveillance on his own.

The bill also would allow the government to obtain broad, yearlong intercept orders from the FISA court that target foreign groups and people, raising the prospect that communications with innocent Americans would be swept in. The court would approve how the government chooses the targets and how the intercepted American communications would be protected.

The original FISA law required the government to get wiretapping warrants for each individual targeted from inside the United States, on the rationale that most communications inside the U.S. would involve Americans whose civil liberties must be protected. But technology has changed. Purely foreign communications increasingly pass through U.S. wires and sit on American computer servers, and the law has required court orders to be obtained to access those as well.

The bill would give the government a week to conduct a wiretap in an emergency before it must apply for a court order. The original law said three days.

The bill restates that the FISA law is the only means by which wiretapping for intelligence purposes can be conducted inside the United States. This is meant to prevent a repeat of warrantless wiretapping by future administrations.

The bill is very much a political compromise, brought about by a deadline: Wiretapping orders authorized last year will begin to expire in August. Without a new bill, the government would go back to old FISA rules, requiring multiple new orders and potential delays to continue those intercepts. That is something most of Congress did not want to see happen, particularly in an election year.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is party to some of the lawsuits that will now be dismissed, said the bill was "a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy."

[OscarGuy]

Google Won't Fight Order To Turn Over Youtube Records
8 July 2008 10:35 AM, PDT

Google has no intention of challenging a judge's order that its YouTube unit turn over to Viacom information about users who viewed videos on the website. However, it said that it would attempt to keep the identity of the users anonymous, since, it said, "IP addresses and user names aren't necessary to determine general viewing practices." Google also assured YouTube users that "IP addresses identify a computer, not the person using it. It's not possible to determine your identity solely based on your IP address." But some YouTube users were unpersuaded. On the TV Week website, one user wrote, "Why aren't the users voicing their concerns to Viacom and Google? We can't just sit here passively and let this happen without having our voices heard. This has less to do with YouTube and more to do with the future of the Internet! If our privacy isn't honored by the courts or Viacom, we must speak out loud and clear."

[Greg]

Here's an intersting idea about replacing crude oil:

Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline

By KENNETH CHANG
Published: February 19, 2008
If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming.

In a proposal by two scientists, vehicle emissions would no longer contribute to global warming.
The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

This process could transform carbon dioxide from an unwanted, climate-changing pollutant into a vast resource for renewable fuels. The closed cycle — equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed — would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer be contributing to global warming.

Although they have not yet built a synthetic fuel factory, or even a small prototype, the scientists say it is all based on existing technology.

“Everything in the concept has been built, is operating or has a close cousin that is operating,” Dr. Martin said.

The Los Alamos proposal does not violate any laws of physics, and other scientists, like George A. Olah, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Southern California, and Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, have independently suggested similar ideas. Dr. Martin said he and Dr. Kubic had worked out their concept in more detail than previous proposals.

There is, however, a major caveat that explains why no one has built a carbon-dioxide-to-gasoline factory: it requires a great deal of energy.

To deal with that problem, the Los Alamos scientists say they have developed a number of innovations, including a new electrochemical process for detaching the carbon dioxide after it has been absorbed into the potassium carbonate solution. The process has been tested in Dr. Kubic’s garage, in a simple apparatus that looks like mutant Tupperware.

Even with those improvements, providing the energy to produce gasoline on a commercial scale — say, 750,000 gallons a day — would require a dedicated power plant, preferably a nuclear one, the scientists say.

According to their analysis, their concept, which would cost about $5 billion to build, could produce gasoline at an operating cost of $1.40 a gallon and would turn economically viable when the price at the pump hits $4.60 a gallon, taking into account construction costs and other expenses in getting the gas to the consumer. With some additional technological advances, the break-even price would drop to $3.40 a gallon, they said.

A nuclear reactor is not required technologically. The same chemical processes could also be powered by solar panels, for instance, but the economics become far less favorable.

Dr. Martin and Dr. Kubic will present their Green Freedom concept on Wednesday at the Alternative Energy Now conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. They plan a simple demonstration within a year and a larger prototype within a couple of years after that.

A commercial nuclear-powered gasoline factory would have to jump some high hurdles before it could be built, and thousands of them would be needed to fully replace petroleum, but this part of the global warming problem has no easy solutions.

In the efforts to reduce humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide, now nearing 30 billion metric tons a year, most of the attention so far has focused on large stationary sources, like power plants where, conceptually at least, one could imagine a shift from fuels that emit carbon dioxide — coal and natural gas — to those that do not — nuclear, solar and wind. Another strategy, known as carbon capture and storage, would continue the use of fossil fuels but trap the carbon dioxide and then pipe it underground where it would not affect the climate.

But to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would require drastic cuts in emissions, and similar solutions do not exist for small, mobile sources of carbon dioxide. Nuclear and solar-powered cars do not seem plausible anytime soon.

Three solutions have been offered: hydrogen-powered fuel cells, electric cars and biofuels. Biofuels like ethanol are gasoline substitutes produced from plants like corn, sugar cane or switch grass, and the underlying idea is the same as Green Freedom. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, balancing out the carbon dioxide emitted when they are burned. But growing crops for fuel takes up wide swaths of land.

Hydrogen-powered cars emit no carbon dioxide, but producing hydrogen, by splitting water or some other chemical reaction, requires copious energy, and if that energy comes from coal-fired power plants, then the problem has not been solved. Hydrogen is also harder to store and move than gasoline and would require an overhaul of the world’s energy infrastructure.

Electric cars also push the carbon dioxide problem to the power plant. And electric cars have typically been limited to a range of tens of miles as opposed to the hundreds of miles that can be driven on a tank of gas.

Gasoline, it turns out, is an almost ideal fuel (except that it produces 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon). It is easily transported, and it generates more energy per volume than most alternatives. If it can be made out of carbon dioxide in the air, the Los Alamos concept may mean there is little reason to switch, after all. The concept can also be adapted for jet fuel; for jetliners, neither hydrogen nor batteries seem plausible alternatives.

“This is the only one that I have seen that addresses all of the concerns that are out there right now,” Dr. Martin said.

Other scientists said the Los Alamos proposal perhaps looked promising but could not evaluate it fully because the details had not been published.

“It’s definitely worth pursuing,” said Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University. “It’s not that new an idea. It has a couple of pieces to it that are interesting."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/19carb.html

[criddic3]

The leader of Iran wasn't suggesting it was a bubble. He was suggesting that the prices are being manipulated and are more heavily influenced by the falling dollar than on any supply issues.

As for drilling. I'm not shutting it out because it's an election year or because I hate president Bush. I am shutting it out because it's stupid and does not solve any short term or long term shortage issues. If we are so devoted to alternative sources of energy, then we need to work on that. There is already a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets super great gas mileage without using gasoline. There are plenty of alternatives already in production. If the oil companies spent all that money they were getting, we'd have short term solutions a hell of a lot faster than setting up brand new drilling operations.

In addition, if we really ARE interested in developing alternative sources of energy (technology does exist), then why are we not just digging into our petroleum reserve and putting it into our own market? Why are they not developing the millions of barrels that they already have the land for, but have not yet developed? Why are these oil companies NOT spending their billions in profits to expand processing facilities and increasing efficiency to increase output without increasing imports? Those are all more valuable and safe options than drilling in places that don't need to be drilled. Use what resources you have before you start exploiting the resources you don't need to.

You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals. If you actually researched and understood and talked to people IN the industry (or people who had worked in the industry previously), which I have done, instead of taking your propaganda from the talking heads who spout your Holy Father's (Bush) beliefs, maybe you'd learn a couple of things. But we couldn't have that. I mean what would your education system be if we learned to think for ourselves? Heaven forbid.

And what do these insiders think we should do, aside from alternative energy sources and/or drilling, and/or stopping speculation, and/or stopping price gouging??

All of these ideas have been floating around from both conservatives and liberals. I think we should look at all options, and I said so before.

My point was that we shouldn't dismiss the idea of drilling on the basis of environmental causes, because the truth is that there are ways to do it without causing great harm to wildlife and/or the environment in general. As for it not being a short-term solution, maybe not, but I disagree with the assertion that it isn't a long-term solution.

My feeling is that we won't have a full market of alternative fuels, etc. in full force any time soon and will need the oil we have here to reduce our dependence on foreign sources while we change the way we fuel transportation and the industry itself. In other words, we will need to slowly break away from that dependence, not jump off the bridge with no net, and to do so with our own sources makes sense.



Edited By criddic3 on 1214201093

[Heksagon]

Well, Ahmadinejad is implying that price changes are only short-term. In the long term, all prices are determined by supply and demand. So, if there really are no changes in supply or demand, then any price changes are only short-term.



Edited By Heksagon on 1213885647

[Johnny Guitar]

You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals.

FWIW, criddic isn't a "conservative." He's a right-winger easily swayed by demagoguery, is all.

[OscarGuy]

The leader of Iran wasn't suggesting it was a bubble. He was suggesting that the prices are being manipulated and are more heavily influenced by the falling dollar than on any supply issues.

As for drilling. I'm not shutting it out because it's an election year or because I hate president Bush. I am shutting it out because it's stupid and does not solve any short term or long term shortage issues. If we are so devoted to alternative sources of energy, then we need to work on that. There is already a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets super great gas mileage without using gasoline. There are plenty of alternatives already in production. If the oil companies spent all that money they were getting, we'd have short term solutions a hell of a lot faster than setting up brand new drilling operations.

In addition, if we really ARE interested in developing alternative sources of energy (technology does exist), then why are we not just digging into our petroleum reserve and putting it into our own market? Why are they not developing the millions of barrels that they already have the land for, but have not yet developed? Why are these oil companies NOT spending their billions in profits to expand processing facilities and increasing efficiency to increase output without increasing imports? Those are all more valuable and safe options than drilling in places that don't need to be drilled. Use what resources you have before you start exploiting the resources you don't need to.

You're only sitting on the idea, not looking at things reasonably, because of your support of the conservative ideals. If you actually researched and understood and talked to people IN the industry (or people who had worked in the industry previously), which I have done, instead of taking your propaganda from the talking heads who spout your Holy Father's (Bush) beliefs, maybe you'd learn a couple of things. But we couldn't have that. I mean what would your education system be if we learned to think for ourselves? Heaven forbid.

[criddic3]

Drilling? Short term solution? You are an idiot. Do you know how long it takes for drilled oil to make it into production? Months, perhaps even years and especially in place that don't already have a drilling operation set up. That would take years and we're not talking just a couple. And most of what we're drilling now goes into the reserve, so it doesn't help the consumer at all. A SHORT term solution is so stop depositing into the reserve to quickly infuse the supply, thus decreasing demand on foreign oil.

And while we're at it, why don't all these oil companies spend the money to increase the production of gas? There hasn't been a new refinery built in the US in over a decade (and it might even be two decades at this point). And it's been several years since existing refineries have been upgraded to increase the amount of gasoline made from one barrel of oil. The technology exists, but we're using decades-old technology for refining oil.

And whether you believe it or not, these record profits from the oil companies could be used to decrease the price of gas. After all, it's the oil companies that determine gas prices.

But if we started right away, it could make a difference sooner than some of the alternative ideas that people have offered. The new technologies available also make it more environmentally safe than many people realize.

I think we should use all of the resources and options available to us. That means alternative energy sources, drilling here, doing something about gas taxes, investigating speculation, etc. Doing one and not the other just wastes time.

It is not idiotic to drill here at home. We should have started doing it years ago. You are idiotic for shutting out any ideas that conservatives, or even just me, might present. Just because it is an election year and you hate President Bush does not mean that these ideas are no good.

--
By the way, all the heaping of praise for Iran's president is silly. many here in America have blamed high prices on speculators, gouging and other reasons. I have heard others say that it is not simply supply and demand, etc.

I do not, however, think it is a "bubble" that will just burst and come down on its own any time soon. I don't see any reason to champion this guy. If he was right, then why is there a need for Saudi production to be increased half a million barrels a day? Why not keep it where it is and let the chips fall where they may? Because he is not right. If nothing is done, the speculators and companies will keep jacking up prices. (Although some have also said that eventually there will be a ceiling for such hikes). The point is that this man is not a guy to get advice from.



Edited By criddic3 on 1213845384