I‘ve been watching and listening as Democrats start cranking up ways to trash John McCain (while moaning about the evil "Swift-Boating" that they’re sure will come their nominee’s way). None of it has been particularly imaginative — equating him with Bush is a favorite, although it certainly stretches credulity.
For the most part, they miss the one thing that bothers me most — and no, it’s not his age. It’s his having bought into the Bush tax cuts, after having opposed them so strenuously in 2000, and for good reasons (he did favor cuts at the time — just not nearly as deep). Sure, once the cuts are part of the tax structure for several years, I can see how someone might accept them as a fait accompli, but I don’t. (Call me wacky, but whether we’re talking the war or entitlements or anything else, I think we should pay what our government actually costs.) Also, I would hesitate to go back to the old rates when we’re in an economic slowdown — but McCain’s change of position occurred before that.
This is not a deal-killer for me, any more than Barack Obama’s preacher is. It’s just something that goes on the ledger in the negative column.
So it’s kind of galling to see this on the latest McCain fund-raising e-mail:
My Friends,
Today, April 15th, marks the deadline when all Americans must file their income taxes. While many of us are aggravated and displeased when we see exactly how much of our hard-earned money goes to the federal government – if one of my Democratic opponents is elected in November, you can be certain your tax rate will increase across the board.
When we elect our next president in November, we will make a clear statement about the direction we want to take our economy and our tax system. As I have said before, this election will present Americans with a clear choice between my vision for our country and that of my Democratic opponents.
I believe today, as I have always believed, in small government, fiscal discipline and low taxes. I believe that tax cuts work best when accompanied by lower spending. And I make the promise to you that if elected president, I plan to make the present tax cuts permanent, lower corporate rates from 35% to 25% and end the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will affect millions of middle class families….
Then, of course, we get to the point of the message:
But I cannot succeed in my efforts without your immediate financial support…
In other words, Quick! Send me your money before those crazy Democrats spend it on universal health care or something…
Such moments are not the senator’s best.
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The so-called “Bush tax cuts” were actually only a partial rollback of the Clinton tax increases on wage workers, which increased their income taxes by 50% between 1993 and 2000, bringing on 3 downturns and a recession in 2000.
The small minority which actually pays taxes is at the breaking point. The economy is at the saturation point. Any of the new taxes proposed by Obama or Hillary would be enough to send us into another recession.
Our corporate taxes are the highest in the world.
Our actual personal income taxes are among the highest in the industrialized world, making us uncompetitive.
McCain cannot win unless he says he will cut taxes. He has to say SOMETHING that appeals to the red state base besides “More war!”.
So the question really becomes is he saying something he doesn’t believe (which would tarnish his “straight talk” persona) or is he truly committed to cutting taxes and spending (which would harm his ability to get crossover votes).
Not that it matters but I find that I’m almost resigned to voting for McCain now over Obama or Clinton. The economy is going to be THE issue for the next President and I am very concerned about having anyone who might be pre-disposed to increasing the size of government. The healthcare initiatives alone could destroy the economy.
McCains’ reversal on Bushs’ tax cuts and the economic stimulus package (which amounts to nothing more or less than a tax rebate), are both proof that republicans and democrats alike in Washington know very well the truth about taxes.
That truth is this: Government does not produce, it consumes. The good of the country and the economy and individuals is always served when people are allowed to keep as much of their money as is possible. The health and vitality of the country are always invigorated when the government extracts as little as is necessary to perform its’ constitutional duties.
McCain knows this, hence his reversal on tax cuts. Pelosi and Reid know it, hence their quick work to pass the stimulus.
You don’t know it Brad, but then you can’t find a reason not to vote for BHO either, so one can’t expect too awfully much I suppose. David
Doug, if you’re concerned about someone who is going to be predisposed to increase the size of government (I am too by the way), you oughtn’t let McCains’ convenient reversal on Bushs’ tax cuts fool you.
He has drunk the koolaid and fully embraces the global warming hoax. The measures he intends (by his own words) to support as president to respond to this fake non-emergency pseudo-crisis are going to amount to the largest expansion of government and consequent loss of freedom since the great society under Johnson.
David
Reasons not to vote for McCain:
He’s a war-monger promising a 100 year occupation of Iraq that will continue to cost American lives and treasure while failing to make us safer. And let’s not even get started on how this quagmire is bringing about the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis. The only surge that’s going on over the past few months is the surge in violence, death and taxpayers money down the drain.
McCain, by his own admission, knows little about economic policy. He will certainly continue with the failed Bush economic policies that have given us an unprecedented destruction of American jobs (worst job growth record since Hoover) especially in the manufacturing sector.
McCain will spend more and raise less money for the U.S. treasury. This is a certainty given his promise to continue with the quagmire and other wasteful military projects. How anyone can still be duped into believing the Democratic party is the party of big spending is beyond the ability of any thinking person to understand.
McCain (or McBush since he has become a clone of the current president) offers nothing in the way of reform for our disasterous, expensive health-care system. This will result in a continued decline in life expectancy for American citizens relative to the rest of the industrial world. Soon we will be looking with envy at the life expectancy of Cuban citizens.
Crime will increase under McCain as the economy deteriorates further. Given Bush’s abandonment of the police initiative of the Clinton administration we are at greater risk to domestic violence.
It is hard to avoid the amazing similarities between the failed Bush policies and the promises of McCain. War, poor health, rising inflation, declining job prospects are all part of the sad legacy of the Bush administration. Sadly this will likely continue under McBush.
This is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is really a stunning indictment of just how much of a disaster George W. Bush has been to our economy. It shows the number of jobs during the first month of GWB vs WJC compared to the figures in March of their last year in office. Given that it is likely that job growth will be slow or even negative during Bush’s last 7 months this comparison will only get worse. All figures are in thousands:
Labor Force in Jan, 1993 – 117,027
Labor Force in Mar, 2000 – 136,054
Job growth first 86 months Clinton – 19,027
% increase first 86 months Clinton – 16.3%
Labor Force in Jan, 2001 – 136,181
Labor Force in Mar, 2008 – 145,108
Job growth first 86 months Bush II – 8,184
% increase first 86 months Bush II – 6.0%
Astounding isn’t it? The job growth rate under George W. Bush is much less than half of what it was during the glorious Clinton era. This election really should be a no-brainer. The economy is now the number 1 issue in America. The top GOP candidate promises to continue with the same failed policies of Bush. The two Dems promise change and a return to policies that create jobs and control inflation. There simply is no choice.
Oh wait. Clinton just insulted someone’s cat and Obama’s ex-boy scout leader said John Wayne wasn’t really a cowboy. I guess I’ll have to vote for McCain.
Before someone else corrects this. The Bush Job figures should be:
Labor Force in Jan, 2001 – 136,181
Labor Force in Mar, 2008 – 145,108
Job growth first 86 months Bush II – 8,927
% increase first 86 months Bush II – 6.6%
The main point is still valid.
“… the global warming hoax.”
HOAX? Whaaa??? The last time I checked, it wasn’t 1938 and the world wasn’t tuned into Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. Live in denial if you must, but the fact that the climate is getting hotter and hotter is just as real as the mercury in your tuna fish. Do the research – the documentation is massive. Too massive, in fact, for any “hoax”, no matter how carefully orchestrated.
Sorry to go so off-topic, but that one was just a jaw-dropper.
David,
McCain and Obama have both drunk the koolaid. We may as well write in Koolaid Man in November.
It is a hoax. And it is designed and intended to extend and expand governmental power, increase the taxes collected by the government and to destroy civil liberties.
This is a jaw-dropper to you? Where have you been…Mars? There is a huge contingent of scientists, meteorologists and just plain thinking people that call global warming exactly what it is: A sheer hoax. Carbon is not a pollutant, and carbon offsets are Al Gores’ method to enrich himself in the absence of any other talents. Carbon offsets have been endorsed and adopted by government because there is money to be extracted from them. The earth may be warming slightly now, but it has been much warmer in the past when there was no human activity to have caused it. We aren’t causing it now, and we certainly cannot stop it. Last year was the coolest year since 1998, and suspiciously, global warming wingnuts have quietly begun morphing into “climate change” activists.
It is a tremendous hoax. Don’t buy it. You aren’t causing it. You cannot stop it. David
I should have said don’t buy it, you aren’t causing it, you cannot stop it and it isn’t a problem anyway.
There is no evidence that a slightly warmer climate will mean a disaster for mankind. I believe it will probably mean longer and warmer growing seasons and increased crop production. Whatever higher temperatures might have done to growing seasons in times past, they ultimately resulted in the flourishing race of human beings we now have. That is sort of inarguable isn’t it?
We will be fine. Live your life. Pay no attention to theridiculous alarmist calls for draconian reductions in quality of life in the name of “fighting” this hoax. David
David,
You are absolutely right. Global warming IS a HOAX. Check out Glenn Beck’s piece on Ted Turner’s prediction that global warming will lead to cannibalism. It is quite entertaining. Which is exactly what Al Gore and his WHOLE FAMILY has been up to all these years. Entertaining.
It is absolutely a hoax HLBE, and Claudia needs to learn it, love it and live it.
People like her express outrage and horror at the amount of freedom that has been surrendered under all of the national security initiatives and laws that have been put in place during the last seven years, and yet utter not a peep at the huge costs to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that have resulted from the hysterical embrace of global warming in the same time frame.
It is astounding. I am astounded. Are you astounded? I am.
Astounded.
David
Given your recent posts Brad, I was sure the problem with John McCain was going to be that he is not Peter Beattie.
Why listen to actual scientists when we can listen to David, preach brother! (And tell us again why evolution is a myth while you’re at it.)
FACT: The world is getting warmer.
FACT: A lot of that warmth seems to be due to historical cycles that have nothing to do with humanity.
FACT: A lot of human activities should raise the earth’s temperature according to basic scientific principles.
OPEN QUESTION: How much of the warming is caused by man, and if the answer is a significant amount can we counteract it.
I _defy_ you to find any meaningfully sized group of scientists who disagree with the three things I list as fact. I also _defy_ you to find any meaningfully sized group of scientists who are 100% certain that man isn’t adding to the warming.
If you want to say “We can’t be sure, and I’d rather risk &#*! up the planet so that I can keep driving a hummer and living in a 5,000 sf house” I can at least respect your honesty. If you want to say that there is absolutely no reason to think that humans might be having an effect then you’re an idiot.
On a more productive note, is there any hope of getting a law passed barring the federal government from bailing out property owners who will lose land/land-use due to rising sea levels? (If you don’t believe they’ll go up enough to matter then you shouldn’t care either way — and if you do believe they will you shouldn’t be rewarded for building in a dumb place).
Wow. Again, WOW. John McCain has totally lost his mind. What is he thinking with this proposal to eliminate federal taxes on gasoline. This is wrong on so many levels. First and formost is the obvious, critical need to move toward a future characterized by an ever shrinking supply of oil. If taxes are eliminated that will simply push oil prices higher since demand must be reduced to come in line with dwindling supplies.
Given the nature of the current economic crises perhaps a gas tax increase is imprudent, but why propose something as stupid as a gas tax cut? It is simply beyond the pale.
What is John McCain thinking? He just proposed the elimination of federal gasoline taxes for the next several months. We simply must find a way to reduce our consumption of oil. By eliminating the tax we merely necessitate that gasoline prices will rise that much further and faster so that demand is brought in line with the dwindling supplies. If taxes need cutting to stimulate the economy do something, anything else besides this. Of all the pandering, self-serving, counter-productive ideas ever proposed this one is at the top of the stupid list.
Anyone else see the blatant hypocracy in McCain seeing how he is openly breaking a law that is named after himself? When it was cool, McCain helped passed the McCain-Feingold Act for campaign election finance “reform”. Today, it is McCain who is breaking the very same law in total “screw-you” defiance. As we’ve seen over the last 8 years, that’s not a positive attribute for a President to have (whether it be criminality or attitude).
As y’all can see, we have all flavors of koolaid on this particular aisle.
But wait — you say John McCain ISN’T Peter Beattie? Dang!… you just can’t trust anybody in politics any more…
just saying, I’m just sayin. My points have been made. Global warming is a hoax. I cite as many scientists as you have, and my anecdotes are better than yours. Where’d you get your “facts?” Back of a cereal box? You chose to believe the ridiculous and fat Al Gore? I would suggest that makes YOU the idiot. Again, I’m just sayin. David
Actual scientists say “global warming” has no scientific basis, and they have said it at every convention of climatologists, meterologists, and physical oceanographers.
The ONLY group of scientists to ever say that there was a global warming trend was last year’s hand-picked UN convention which excluded the majority who think it is junk.
* NASA just announced a 10-year study of satellite thermal images shows the Earth has been cooling since 1998.
* A long-term study of deep sea temperatures shows no change, and the oceans store most of the thermal energy outside the molten core of the Earth.
* The founder of the Weather Channel called Al Gore’s book “bogus junk”.
Since the unemployment rate barely changed under Clinton from his predecessor, GWH Bush, the only way he could claim to have “created jobs” is
* the 15,000,000 illegal aliens he let into America
* the number of Americans who had to take a second job after their manufacturing jobs were sent to Red China.
2014 NEW MILFORD, Conn. — One positive side effect of global warming is that children no longer fall victim to frostbite during the winter.Because of the increased temperature,the Children’s Health Study Center reports that they suffer from a milder form called ‘frostnibble.’
2015 MANHATTAN, N.Y. — Among the many changes to the Earth’s climate caused by global warming,cities experience powerful winds that blow nonstop in the same direction.Workers turn these air currents to their advantage by stepping into their paths and riding them to work.
Many praise the development,which makes their commute ‘a breeze.’
2016 DES MOINES, Iowa — Environmentalists discover that certain kinds of vegetables actually lower the surrounding temperature within a five-square-foot area. To combat global warming,they suggest that farmers begin planting iceberg lettuce all over the world.
David: I got my “facts” from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html ) and the seeming consensus of the scientific community ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 ). And your battalion of climatologists?
While your at it, I’m also interested to see where Bud’s figures led him astray too.
Lee: Bud quotes the numbers from direct from the department of labor… they looked like positive numbers to me. (If the population goes up, it takes more jobs created to keep the unemployment rate the same.)
As far as the 10 year NASA report… what does it look like after taking El Nino into account? ( helpful link: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/dept/0108_globaltemp.htm )
And John Coleman of the weather channel? He seems to be quite successful as a talking head and businessman since getting his degree in 1957… but I’m not sure that qualifies him as a climatologist.
Global Warming Skeptics Prepare for International Conference
AP March 8, 2008
Hundreds of the world’s leading “skeptics” of the theory of man-made global warming will meet in New York City March 2-4, 2008 to present their case and discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change.
The conference is being organized by The Heartland Institute and a growing list of cosponsors, including Cascade Policy Institute, the International Climate Science Coalition, and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
“The purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for the hundreds of scientists, economists, and policy experts who dissent from the so-called ‘consensus’ on global warming,” said Heartland President Joseph Bast.
“Hundreds of scientists, many of them with distinguished careers and many appearances in the peer-reviewed literature, believe the Modern Warming is natural and moderate,” Bast noted. “They are being censored by the press and demonized by environmental advocacy groups.
“This is their chance to speak out,” said Bast. “If 400 or 500 ‘skeptics’ from around the world assemble in New York City, it will be difficult for policymakers and journalists to ignore us.”
Plans for the conference include five keynote presentations and 25 panels of scientists discussing a wide variety of global warming-related issues. Approximately 100 experts will give formal presentations at the conference, with several hundred others expected to attend and share information in a more informal manner.
———————-
Hundreds of Climate Experts Challenge the Notions of Global Warming
In a new book he co-authored with Dennis Avery entitled “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years,” Dr. Fred Singer writes, “It is sheer fantasy to suggest that a huge number of scientists with expertise in global climate change endorse an alarming interpretation of the recent climate data.”
Singer points out that hundreds of climate scientists have argued against what passes for a consensus view on the subject.
Singer is an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, professor emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project.
His book includes a list of surveys and statements from climate scientists who have argued against man-made global warming theories.
For instance, a 1997 survey of U.S. state climatologists found that 90 percent agreed with the statement that “scientific evidence indicates variations in global temperature are likely to be naturally occurring and cyclical over very long periods of time.”
The hypothesis promoted by Gore and others is also strongly challenged in a study released through the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) just last year, Singer said Tuesday.
Lee, thank you for the references.
The “Hundreds of scientists, many of them with distinguished careers and many appearances in the peer-reviewed literature, believe the Modern Warming is natural and moderate,” doesn’t go against anything I said above, does it?
Its getting warmer, the question is how much. If a lot, then the next question is can/should we do anything about it.
The Hidden Side of the Clinton Economy
The official unemployment figures for 1996 are 7,000,000 workers.
But….
“In 1996 just over four million workers who were employed part-time said that they wanted to work full-time but could not find full-time jobs. Nearly 10 million worked full-time year-round but for less than $7.00 an hour. These two groups of workers, all of them counted as employed, amount to twice the seven million workers who held no job and were classified as unemployed. Together they total 21 million workers, not seven million. ”
The Hidden Side of the Clinton Economy
The Atlantic Monthly; October 1998
Volume 282, No. 4; pages 18 – 21.
Lee: Bud’s figures were brought up as a comparison with the recent Bush led economy. Any chance you have the number of under-employed workers in the current administration? Some numbers showing the breakdown by salary band would be nice as well. (The anecdotes anyway are that the “low and middle class” aren’t keeping up with inflation currently… and I haven’t seen any numbers to make me think the current administration is doing better in terms of underemployment.)
The major difference between Bush and Clinton on the economy is that Clinton’s huge tax increases on the middle-income workers left the economy stagnant by 1996, a stock market crash in 1998, and in a recession by 2000.
The small Bush rollback of some of those taxes pulled the US out of the recession, with strong growth, enough to generate several times in revenue than the amount of the tax cuts, which is the best indicator of successful policy.
The problem with Bush and the GOP is that they wasted money like Democrats on domestic boondoggles – No Child Left Behind, Prescription Drug Benefit, etc, blew the extra revenue, and then borrowed more. The Democrats wanted to run deficits twice as large, which tells us how crazy they are.
It looks like checking U-6 seasonally adjusted at http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm gives the figures for underemployment. There was a nice downward trend from January 1998 to the end of 2000… then it graduatlly started going up. It’s better than 2003, but still above 1998-2000.
I’m not sure what evidence you have that Democrats want even bigger defecits. The last Dem left us with budget surpluses… the current one hasn’t come close, even if we don’t count the Iraq war. (I wonder what all the returning troops would do to the under-employment rate?)
Of course, isn’t the secret to successful spending control gridlock? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything to contradict that the federal government seems to work best when one party has the senate and the other has the house and presidency.
I wonder how much the economy would benefit if all of the people who spent so much time responding to blogs would use it to exercise and volunteer…
You’re a hopeless cult member dude.
I’m just sayin. Believe whatever you want. I intend to live my life free of guilt and worry about something I’m not causing and cannot affect one way or the other. I do not intend to join the herd you’re a member of. You are free to live in fear and buy whatever lies you like. David
How do I know the Democrats want higher deficits than the GOP?
* Clinton and the Democrats proposed higher deficits and were finally defeated by Newt Gingrich. Clinton ran up $1.6 TRILLION in new debt from 8 years of deficits. He tried to run up another $1.2 TRILLION in debt but was thwarted by the GOP.
* Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have proposed deficits each year 2001-2008 at least $200 Billion higher than the budgets finally passed, which were still higher than the ones proposed by the White House or the GOP House.
* Obama proposes $1.5 TRILLION in new spending, most of it covered by tax increases, like his 5% to 10% surtax in incomes to force us to buy medical insurance.
* Hillary proposes over $1.2 TRILLION in new spending, with less than half of it covered by taxes.
Of course, if Obama or Hillary pass just part of their tax increases, there will be such a recession that revenue will decrease, and deficits will be the largest in history.
Fewer than 10% of scientists in the fields of climate and weather believe that there is a long-term trend of global warming. The evidence does not even indicate a short-term warming trend. Of that 10% who believe in some warming trend (and it is a belief), very few of them believe that industrial activities are the primary cause.
Only the ignorant lay environmentalists believe in what is not even a scientific theory of “global warming”.
Chances are, most rational people believe at least one of two things, that 1) Our use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming and/or 2) Our use of fossil fuels is contributing negatively to our national security. If you believe one of these two (I believe both, for what it’s worth), then you should be able to see that they have a common remedy, which is reducing our use of fossil fuels. It would be awesome if we could stop arguing about Al Gore being fat and instead get on to doing something about the problems facing us.
Lee: Please give a reference for “fewer than 10%” of climate scientists believe that there is a long-term trend of global warming. I have never heard such a figure before and would be interested to know its source. (Unless it happens to be hidden in the “long term”.) Both references I posted earlier (NOAA and the survey article) seemed to disagree with your claim.
So, what you’re saying is that Obama isn’t for irresponsible spending (like Bush is on the war), he wants the government to pay for things 🙂
Why shouldn’t people be required to buy health insurance??? Since hospitals are required by law to treat the severe cases, everyone else ends up paying for it anyway.
The vast majority of government spending is debt service, immediate social security/medicare outlays, and the military – which of those do you want cut dramatically to balance the budget and keep taxes low? If you choose either of the first two (defaulting on government bonds, or letting the elderly starve or die), explain how it won’t have a negative effect on the economy?
Finally, am I misremembering that something like half of the nations debt is due to the two Bushs? Am I incorrect that the Clinton budget deficits were much smaller than any of those of the current president?
McCain’s latest political stunt is to call for a moratorium on the federal gas tax for the summer. Aside from being a phony populist gimmick, it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of basic economics. Dropping the price will lead to increased demand which will — ta dah! – lead to the oil companies raising prices to match the prior levels. If you want to cut prices you have to either increase supply or decrease demand. You can’t play with the price. It never works. A better solution would be to reduce or eliminate oil reserves.
What we are seeing is a candidate who will do anything and say anything to win. Every step closer to the Presidency is a step further away from the supposed man of integrity he claims to be. It’s only going to get worse…
Here’s an interesting little tidbit about Cindy McCain:
Prescription drug addiction and theft
In 1989, Cindy McCain became addicted to opioid painkillers such as Percocet and Vicodin,[25] which she initially took to alleviate pain following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs[26][27] and to ease emotional stress during the Keating Five scandal,[25] which involved her as a bookkeeper who had difficulty finding receipts.[15] The addiction progressed to where she resorted to stealing drugs from her own AVMT.[26] During 1992, Tom Gosinski, the director of government and international affairs for AVMT, discovered her drug theft.[28] Subsequently in 1992, her parents staged an intervention to force her to get help;[15] she told her husband about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility, began outpatient sessions, and ended her three years of active addiction.[25] A hysterectomy in 1993 resolved her back pain.[25][27]
-Wiki
This is surely as important as the whole Rev. Wright nonsense.
It’s simple arithmetic: Since more than 90% of scientists see no evidence long-term global warming, it is obvious that fewer than 10% do believe in such a phenomena, despite the evidence.
McCain’s proposed tax moratorium least recognizes that taxes are a very large component of retail gasoline prices, and that Americans are overtaxed. The real solution is to rollback all the Clinton taxes and reform the tax code.
* Rollback Clinton’s 50% income tax increase on W-2 workers, back from 42% to 28% top bracket.
* Bring corporate taxes in line with Europe, at 14%.
* Eliminate double taxation of dividends. Either make them a deductible cost to corporations, which they are, or make them tax-free to stockholders.
* Privatize Social Security before it goes bankupt in 2014.
Why shouldn’t people be forced to buy expensive health insurance?
Because they would actually be buying it for other people. 5% or 10% of income for many families would be $15,000 more than they pay now, just to subsidize the deadbeats.
The solution to freeloaders at the hospital is to repeal the laws which force them to treat any deadbeat or illegal alien who shows up. Charity and maybe small local welfare programs can take care of the small number who truly need help.
And there’s this from the Huffington Post:
It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain’s recipe theft for John McCain’s campaign website to scrub away the offending pages (screen-captured below). That’s 12 hours more than it took Cindy to come up with the recipes… (In the meantime, you can still see the listing of recipes as it originally appeared on the campaign website through the Google cache.)
-Huffington
Apparently Mrs. McCain doesn’t just steal drugs, she steals recipes as well. Oh, and lets not forget that Mr. McCain was stolen from the first Mrs. McCain. If one’s character can be judged by the company one keeps then Cindy McCain casts quite a shadow over the character credentials of one Senator John McCain.
I am more worried that Clinton staffers resigned over his use of illegal drugs while Governor of Arkansas and President of the US, including the White House Physician and several military advisors.
Paul Krugman is much smarter and more articulate than I am. Here’s a very well written article that explains what I’ve trying to say about the oil situation:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/oil-numbers/
Oil production has been stalled (Krugman’s word, correctly) intentionally by obstructionists, using political tactics.
The oil is there, it is easy to obtain, and without any significant risk to the environment. Socialists want to starve capitalist economies of energy from all sources: petroleum, coal, and nuclear.
The oil is there, it is easy to obtain, and without any significant risk to the environment.
-Lee
If it is so easy to obtain then why, after 100 years of drilling, hasn’t it been obtained? Of course the real problem with oil production in the 21st century, especially in the U.S., is that the easily obtainable oil has already been used up. The giant oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma are long past their prime. The somewhat more difficult to obtain oil in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico has likewise passed it’s prime. The only remaining oil is in very difficult to reach areas such as the deep waters of the Gulf, the frigid environs of Northern Alaska or in the very deep water in the Atlantic. Why does everyone insist that oil is so easy to bring to market? The evidence suggests otherwise.
No new drilling has been permitted in Alaska since the early 1980s. Democrats are fighting to stop drilling on 2 square miles of ANWR now.
Tens of thousands of wells sit capped in TX, OK, CA, because federal law does not permit them to be reopened to pump residual oil. New wells would have to be drilled, which is an unnecessary and ridiculous cost.
No new drilling has been allowed off California since 1969.
There have been no new refineries approved since 1968.
Florida, Georgia and SC have stopped refineries and drilling off their coasts. Mexico drills in the Gulf. Now Red China plans to drill off Florida.
There has not been a major oil spill from US offshore rig since 1968. There have only been 2 supertanker spills in US waters since 1968.
Paul Krugman’s shallow thinking debunked in detail:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson211.html
Tens of thousands of wells sit capped in TX, OK, CA, because federal law does not permit them to be reopened to pump residual oil.
-Lee
Show me the law. Even if true these so-called stripper wells are likely to produce only a trivial amount of oil.
But you can believe what you want to believe. Fact is, regardless of who becomes president, what policies are enacted, what wars we fight, what environmental restrictions we pass or repeal, where we drill or anything else gasoline prices will continue to go up. It’s a geological certainly.
A lot of oil is already being extracted from old wells, by using explosive charges to fracture the shale so the oil can flow up and pool into a new drilling site. There are hundreds of companies doing this. You can invest in them and make money, instead of waiting for the government to buy you a hydrogen car.
You also cannot deny that the huge supplies of oil and gas in ANWR and off our costs are only off-limits due to Democrats and other socialists.
A lot of oil is already being extracted from old wells, by using explosive charges to fracture the shale so the oil can flow up and pool into a new drilling site.
-Lee
That statement supports my point. We are already investing hundreds of billions of dollars on recovery techniques. We’re straining our technical expertise to the max to identify and extract oil from various locations in the U.S. and in the Gulf. Removing environmental restrictions will make little difference on the NET oil we produce simply because whatever is available will require enormous amounts of energy to bring to market. It’s a concept called EROEI, Energy Return On Energy Invested. So given the absolute certainty that gross energy production in the U.S. will continue to decline net energy will decline even faster. This is a trap that we cannot extract ourselves out of by fantasizing about vast quantities of oil lying under the Atlantic Ocean or under the frozen tundra of Alaska. The only hope is to conserve and move toward a post fossil fuel future.
Ok Lee, now I’ll let you get back to your Peter Pan fantasy world. I’m sure Tinkerbell has some other fantasies she’s like to share.
So what’s stopping us from drilling in ANWR and off the coasts of Florida, SC, GA and NC – business risk, or political blockage by Democrats?
John McCain never had a chance. We should have had a family drug intervention california on him!