Wednesday, February 01, 2006

[POLITICS] I didn't watch the State of the Union (divided) or the rebuttal. Instead I watched old West Wing episodes, in which both sides play politics but actually do want the common good instead of lining their own pockets.

From the Times article, it seemed that the President made a big point of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil principally by burning our own oil reserves much faster than we are doing now.

As opposed to some of the more obvious ways:

applying the CAFE standards for gas consumption to SUV's, which really ought to be a no-brainer

raising the gas tax to a buck, or creating a sliding scale gas tax to keep the cost of a gallon at $3

improving high speed rail along major corridors, to match the government's subsidy of highways

tax breaks for people using mass transit on business, to balance the tax breaks businesses get for using cars.

overcoming the green lobby's knee-jerk aversion to nuclear power (bet you didn't see that one coming, Craig, didja?) and finding an effective long-term solution to nuclear waste. France and Japan seem to have effective nuclear power, why can't we?

It would not be complicated to reduce our oil consumption 10%, but it would require some sacrifices. I guess it shouldn't surprise me -- though I hope it never ceases to disappoint me -- that the government persists in addressing current problems by whatever means shuffles them off to the future. Drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge doesn't create more oil, it just sucks it out of the ground faster. The only long-term way to reduce oil dependency is to, well, reduce our use of oil.

9:42 AM

3 Comments:

in regars to our oil consumption, the president said we should reduce our dependency on foreign oil by 25% in 2025. Is it me or does that seem too easy? My thought would be to set a loftier goal like JFK did back in 1960 when we aimed for the moon in a decade.

Why not 'eliminate' our dependency on foreign oil by 2025?

(and please dear farmers, give up the idea of using corn for ethanol, please?! For every barrel of ethanol produced it costs us a barrel of oil - not a bargain!)

In regards to AIDS it should be our goal to eliminate it in the US, and to help Africa eliminate it as well. The intense poverty caused by disease (not just AIDS)has caused intense political strife which has led to genocide.

If we want to eliminate havens of terrorism and corruption, we need to think of the Sudan, Ruwanda, etc...perhaps this time instead of just sending in the troops we can send in the medical aid, construction engineers, etc...and really help these people heal.

We have turned our back on Africa for far too long, and if we don't either cure AIDS or cure hunger there, it WILL bankrupt the world.

Stepping off the soapbox now, sorry.

By  Cunningham, at 12:12 PM  

Bill, this is part of that "set small and reachable goals" mentality that perpetuates mediocrity and calcification of stagnant brain cells.

Alex, some things just suck:
(1) State of the Union addresses
(2) State of the Union rebuttals
(3) Smurfette was made in Gargamel's Laboratory
(4) It's legal to puke on the sidewalk and leave it there
(5) I'll never be a twenty year old size 3 again.

By  MaryAn Batchellor, at 4:55 PM  

As a self admitted "oil addict" I really don't blame myself.

I blame my pusher.

His pager number is in the 202.

By  Crackpot Press, at 5:28 PM  

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