A Crisis Of Leadership, Not Energy

Today, I bought gas.

I sought to fill up B.B., my Dodge Ram. But I couldn't. It seems that gas stations limit you to $75 worth of gas. And I was sucking fumes. So no fill up. And this has been going on for a couple of weeks.

Funny how nobody has said anything about it.

When I was there, I paid $3.74 per gallon, relatively cheap. Fortunately for me, Murphy's and Racetrac try to outdo each other on low pricing.

So why am I paying so much?

That's easy. Supply and demand. Even Democrats know this. Thats why Chuck Schumer tried to threaten the Saudis into increasing supply , and Bush has tried begging them into increasing supply. Increase supply and prices will drop.

I'm also curious why we're paying so much when Speaker Pelosi said the Democrats had a plan over two years ago to lower prices. When she said that, we were paying, on average $2.31 per gallon.

You know my love of inconvenient math.

Let's see. The Dems have controlled Congress for almost two years. In that time, gas prices have risen over 50%. Nice "commonsense plan", huh? How's that working out for you?

So OK, we need to increase supply to drop the prices. But why do we have to either threaten other nations or go begging to them?

Why not just increase our domestic supply?

Oh, that's right, it's illegal to do so.

You see, this same Congress that's posturing on gas prices, are the very ones limiting domestic oil production.

By law, we can't drill off the Atlantic coast. But no problem. Uh oh, they've also made it illegal to drill off the Pacific coast. Now I'm worried. We're also not allowed to drill in the huge reserve in ANWAR. Now I'm despairing. Congress just decided that we can't convert shale to oil, AGAIN. And we can't drill in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Hell even the Chinese can drill there, but Congress says it's illegal for Americans

That only leaves my area, the western Gulf.

I know, I know. It's the "Environment". Funny how all those rigs off our coast did just fine through Ivan, Rita, Katrina and other major storms without a major spill.

We don't have a crisis in gas prices, we have a willful design by Democrats in Congress to impede the free market.

Look, folks, I don't care how "green" you claim to be. This nation uses, and needs energy. You need energy for your laptop and your blackberry and your blu-ray, for your washer and dryer, and fuel to get you to work and to transport food to your local store and for private jets to go to Global Warming conferences around the world.

So where do we get it?

Nuclear? Do you really think that the environmental types would let us build Nuke plants? Even though they produce 80% of the electricity for the French?

Increasing our domestic oil? Look at the above. The Democrats WANT us in the pockets of the Royal House of Saud. Does the phrase 18 of 19 mean anything to you? Hell, we haven't even been able to get a new refinery built for over 30 years.

Coal? Clean coal is well proven but, again, the environmental movement denies us.

Alternative? You must be kidding. It's not well proven, not terribly economical, and even pro-environmental lawmakers, like Ted Kennedy, don't want it. The nation might need the energy, but it's not worth spoiling Kennedy's view of yacht races.

OK, we're not going to get any more energy.

So what to do? Conserve?

Dr. Timothy Leary told people in the 60's ( we know how you loved that decade! ) to "tune in, turn on, and drop out"

Now, if you're truly "green", you should turn off, walk on, and grow up.

Don't take offense.

Turn off? What I mean is you should totally eliminate electricity from you life. No laptop. No cellphone. No A/C. No refrigeration. No heat. No TV. No washer. No dryer. No hair dryer. Nothing. Forget compact flourescent. No light at all. And no phone. And no online shopping.

It is possible to do this. I, and many others did this, involuntarily, for a few weeks after Katrina. Try it for a year or two.

Walk on? Sell your car. Don't accept rides. No internal combustion at all. And no horses, they produce methane. If you can't walk there, you just don't go. And no bikes either, there's a lot of energy used in their production, and a lot of greenhouse gases released when the metal is refined.

Grow up? No this isn't a personal assessment. I mean grow your own food. Odds are, you won't be able to get all you need if you can't ride to work, and thereby have cash to spend at a market, even if there is one within walking distance. So you will have to grow your own.

For the vast majority of you who have never done a food garden or farm, I need to tell you that it takes more land than you think, and a LOT more effort. Oh, and no cheating with pesticides, most are derived from crude oil. And only hand tools, no sneaking about with tillers either. And the same rules about horses and other beasts of burden apply.

Of course you'll need more land with just plant production, since eating animals violates animal rights.

So if you want to be energy free, there is a name for it. It's called the 12th century. But that's OK.

That's just when Ahmadinejad and Bin Laden want to go back to, to re-establish thier Caliphate.

Is that what you really want?

If so, don't call me (oops, no phone) when your child freezes (no sneaky cutting the forest for fuel! ) or dies of heat stroke ( hundreds do in every Chicago heat wave ) or dies of cholera ( no diesel to transport vaccines or medicines and no refrigeration to keep them cold ) or dies of starvation like millions do every year where they have almost no energy.


If this doesn't appeal to you, then we need ENERGY.

We need to start drilling offshore and in ANWAR and the Bakken Reserve NOW. We need to start building refineries NOW. We need new Nuclear Plants NOW.

I'd love to see alternative energy. But having the government starving an energy hungry people and nation is not the way to get it.

Government didn't displace firewood as a fuel. Free enterprise did. It was called coal. Not a perfect solution, but better than firewood. Free enterprise brought us petroleum to replace coal and whale oil. Not perfect again, but again, an improvement. Then free enterprise found a way to turn nuclear to peaceful means. Talk about turning swords into plowshares. It is cleaner than coal or oil, but government stepped in.

And they've been stepping all over our energy industry ever since.

One day, hopefully in my lifetime, industry will find a better alternative. Not government, but industry. Not some freegan, but industry. Only they have the tools to do the job.

All they lack is the will. And that's understandable. Why pour billions upon billions into research when you know that government just might take away all your work by nationalizing the new industry?

Government should stop scapegoating productive people and let them get on with, well PRODUCING.

Oh, and those eeeevil oil companies and their huge profits? Just remember that the Feds make almost four times as much per gallon as the oil companies do. So who's gouging here?

the Naked Emperor