Power Failures

U.S. energy policy is seriously behind the rest of the industrial world. What President Bush should do to catch up.

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  • Posted By: Ecocentric05 @ 07/31/2008 1:02:38 AM

    The earths' environmental issues are the most important topic the world is facing today, and as a vast non-renewable resource consumer, the U.S. government must be more pro-active (economically assisting or less regulatory) to promote citizens to create and implement new energy sources both public and private. I have faith that the day will come when the majority of americans will start seeing past their selfish financial endeavors and focus pro-actively on solving a major global problem while accepting the related economic windfall that impolitely attaches itself to responsible philanthropic change. Start writing letters and hope our representatives are truly representative.

  • Posted By: light speed @ 07/18/2008 9:28:41 AM

    I have no faith in anything Bush can or should do, I do feel the congress could help lower some of the cost of gas at the pump by getting control of the oil speculators. NO, this will not solve our problems but one part of the problem is greed. We all know, greed is what makes the world go around in the oil industry.

  • Posted By: Gessho @ 07/11/2008 12:33:29 PM

    I'll take George Bush over that dolt Gordon Brown any day.

  • Posted By: OBWan @ 07/09/2008 9:53:52 PM

    Gee! You want Pres. Bush to get serious about energy during the last 6% of his presidency. I am stunned!

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:37:04 PM

    Well, Hope Hill, that's it for tonight. I've tried to cheer you up and sincerely hope that it worked. Nobody deserves to be depressed over an election. Good luck in your recovery. Don't go manic on me now. Just hold steady.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:35:19 PM

    It would serve Obama right if he would just pick Hillary as his vice president, and just as he is taking the oath of office, she just gooses him. That would make him slap the bible that the judge is holding and affirm all of those accusations that he belongs to a religion with some other book. What a start. She could get even with him all at once and nobody would ever know the difference. I want to see that "I told you so" smile on her face when he slaps that bible out of the judge's hand.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:30:18 PM

    Hillary would have made the strongest president because she had a former president to back her up in a pinch. Neither Mrs. Obama nor Mrs. Mc Cain can back up with that kind of experience. An heiress and a pregnant mother with two children to care for just won't cut it as a backup. Besides, there's no telling what Mc Cain might call Mrs. Mc Cain the next time he forgets her name. That last name he called her just won't do. Can't expect any backup when you curse your helper. Just hope for the best Hope Hill.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:24:25 PM

    Hillary would have known what to do with the phone. Seen it in her ad.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:23:51 PM

    He's got that old man's sort of stare that looks like he's always trying to remember something that just slipped his mind. How about waking up at 3 AM to a telephone ring and asking "what the hell is that red phone doing by my bed, you cheap c*nt".

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:19:59 PM

    We might do well to elect Mc Cain as National Nursing Home Director. He has the proper stature and his teeth are beginning to whistle with the letter "s". Top qualifier. His vice president could be Cheney. He shot one of his hunting buddies in the face with bird shot which definitely qualifies him for a nursing home. Lock up his shotgun.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:15:07 PM

    Bush has made the office look so bad, it probably ought to be abolished anyway. We could create a new office to take its place called, "Presider Decider of The United States of America". We have actually had something similar to that in the past eight years, "Presider Divider of The United States of America". It'll be a much better place, either way, whatever we call it. Sooner the better.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:10:31 PM

    Since Hope Hill thought of it first, she should be our leader. I vote for Hope Hill as leader of our first voters' revolt in American History, where everybody in the whole country agrees not to vote in November. Our slogan will not be "yes we can", nor "help is on the way", nor "damn the torpedoes". It will be "hell no, we don't care".

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 10:07:30 PM

    What do presidents do, anyway. I saw a picture of Bush in today's news shoveling dirt. Why is a president shoveling dirt? Hope Hill is the only one making sense here tonight. She doesn't care who wins and I think that she is correct. Let's do a voters' revolt. Everybody in the country should agree not to vote in the presidential election. Neither candidate gets a vote. Can't get into office without being elected. That will teach them. Zero votes. Office abolished by acclamation.

  • Posted By: Hope Hill @ 07/08/2008 12:34:42 PM

    WITHOUT HILLARY I JUST DON'T CARE WHO WINS.

    Hope Hill

    • Posted By: tc125231 @ 07/08/2008 8:45:10 PM

      Inexcusable. Do you not have children? Nieces or nephews? A scrap of human decency?

      We are 8 years late on making hard choices. There is a circle of hell saved for those who couldn't be bothered.

    • Posted By: nate31 @ 07/08/2008 2:16:45 PM

      That is outstanding the time for a choice that shapes America is now. Hillary didn't make it and that is a shame for alot of people. Pick a side though. Hillary hardly represents all that is great in politics. Pick an issue and make a stand. Please don't cry that your candidate didn't get selected and use it as an excuse the next 4-8 years.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/08/2008 7:49:51 PM

    Well, Hope Hill, I think that you might be depressed, saying that you don't care, having been disappointed because Hillary didn't win. I know how you feel. There was a super bowl back there years ago when I felt the same way, just depressed as heck because my team didn't win. Just a referee call or two and we could have been the champs. My team, that is. Then a year went by and I finally came out of it. I hope that you will be able to overcome this feeling of hopelessness that goes with disappointment. I wonder how happy you would be if she had won? Would it be extremely extra happy, or just pleased as punch.
    I watched all of the primary debates and couldn't get too excited about anybody. Maybe I was already depressed and just couldn't get excited at all.
    Well, I hope that things will level off for you. Maybe there will be a good mayoral race of governor's race that comes along to get that old zest back. Hope yours wins. Good luck.
    I really would like to get excited about something again. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

  • Posted By: gary goldbladt @ 07/08/2008 7:14:41 PM

    "... Bush should do..." what Bush does best: Nothing. It's time to give the reins to a new leader. Whatever plans him and his Confederate Mafia come up with will only send the country down the wrong path.

  • Posted By: oldgrouch @ 07/07/2008 5:48:28 PM

    What drivel. Despite all the puffijng and storming there is zero - repeat - ZERO evidence that carbon dioxide is changing the climate. How do you explain that the hottest year in the last century was in the 30's, not recently? Can you show me satellite data that proves the albedo of the earth has changed, and that carbon dioxide increase is the cause? No you can't, because that data does not exist. CO2 is not the principal "greenhouse gas" anyway, it's water vapor. CLOUDS!!! The amount of cloud cover has a far greater effect on temperature and weather than if the air contains 38 thousandths of a percent of CO2 instead of 32 thousandths of one percent. How do you ninnies explain that 15,000 years ago there were no Great Lakes, just a sheet of ice a mile thick sitting on Detroit? How do you explain that 1000 years ago people were farming in Greenland and wild grapes were growing in Newfoundland? Read Beowulf sometime. The king's hall in Denmark, a fairly chilly place even with global warming in winter, had no fireplace, just a fire pit to warm it.

    Al Gore has a financial interest in companies that market carbon credits. In the normal world this would scream "conflict of interest", but not for Saint Al. Don't take my word for it, look it up for yourself. I note that I haven't seen any articles in Newsweek about this.

    • Posted By: nate31 @ 07/08/2008 2:13:11 PM

      The truth is probably none of us know conclusively whether global warming is man made, or a natural cycle. What I think most of us can agree on is that the levels of polution can and should be regulated for everyone, Republican, Democrat and even Al Gore. Let's stop arguing about specifics and start uniting behind a solution.

  • Posted By: woodduck @ 07/07/2008 9:14:08 PM

    Nuclear is the cheapest , most efficient way to generate power . We have been using it on ships for years, let's not talk about where to put the '' waste'' until we've generated it.. How have countries like Iceland dealt with the problm ? What is the BEST EXAMPLE scenerio. Don't give me the -- Drill but don't make a hole -- refine without smoke routine -- The American public is certainly spoiled-- it's step up to the pump time.

    • Posted By: nate31 @ 07/08/2008 2:09:29 PM

      Don't talk about where to put the waste? Are you serious, that sounds like invading with out a plan for occupation. Oh that's right we tried that. By the way how is that working out for us? Only nuclear waste is forever!

  • Posted By: danram @ 07/07/2008 9:25:58 PM

    Here's a sensible three-tiered approach to solving the energy crisis:

    Near-term: Reduce gasoline taxes and temporarily remove the EPA restrictions that require different gasoline blends for different areas of the country, thus freeing up valuable US refinery capacity. Also, re-establish position limits for traders of crude oil futures contracts and increase the margun requirement from 5% to 50%. Beginning in 2009, require all US auto manufacturers to make their new vehicles able to run on "flex fuels"

    Intermediate-term: Immediately begin aggressively developing untapped US oil & gas resources. By doing so, perhaps gas will still be $5 a gallon five years from now rather than $10-$15 a gallon. By drilling today, we can buy ourselves some time to make the permanent jump to alternative energy technologies..

    Longer-term: Provide tax incentives both for developers of alternative energy technologies as well as for venture funds who invest in them. Likewise, provide tax incentives for today's energy companies (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc.) to make the needed capital investments in their existing chains of service stations in order to be able to accommodate things like hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles, condensed natural gas powered vehicles. Finally, provide tax incentives for public utilities to aggressively commit capital to building up a solar power infrastructure.

    The technologies needed, for the most part, already exist. But in some cases, like the need for better battery technology, government should provide incentives for achievement (like the $300m that McCain has proposed) rather than simply throwing money at the problem by creating bloated new bureaucracies as Obama wants to do.

    • Posted By: nate31 @ 07/08/2008 2:07:43 PM

      That is an outstanding solution. We can further polute the environment in the short term with the lift on restrictions, we can drive up the cost of food by requiring the use of "flex fuel", and we can damage the environment for the long term by drilling for oil that most experts feel won't help at all. Then we can give the oil companies more money that they can not use to come up with solutions. Awesome maybe you can be our next president!

  • Posted By: Chaotician @ 07/08/2008 10:32:38 AM

    It is sadly laughable for the "G8" to set goals for 2050; long after all of them are long gone! Any goal beyond the next election cycle is useless, a sop and a stalling tactic, and no doubt criminal! I suppose that it could be argued that nothing better can occur until and unless George is a historical debacle rather than a train-wreck in action! However, it would be far, far better to do the George thing; isolate George, America, the corporate henchmen and destroy the pretense that anything ias actually happening.

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