posted March 27, 2011 05:37 PM            

No katatonic, I don't believe that for a second...because it's not true.

"we can make fuel from all kinds of resources that don't demand drilling thousands of feet down in the ocean"...katatonic

This isn't true either. Nor can those fuel stocks be made into fuel at anywhere near a competitive cost to oil, natural gas and coal.

We've already seen ethanol from corn skyrocket the price of corn and even wheat as more food crop land was put into corn ethanol production. You think poor people in Africa, Asia and South and Central America aren't paying a heavy price for that boondoggle?

Besides which, it takes almost one hundred gallons of fresh water to make one gallon of ethanol AND, it take more energy to produce one gallon of ethanol than ethanol releases when it's used as a fuel AND making and burning one gallon of ethanol fuel produces and releases MORE CO2 than burning one gallon of gasoline.

posted March 28, 2011 11:33 PM            

You forgot to factor in the water used to grow the corn.

Note, this study was recorded in liters and the lowest number of liters of water used to grow and distill corn into 1 liter of ethanol was 263. The highest number was 784 liters of water to produce 1 liter of ethanol. The variation is due to rainfall averages across the land under study.

"Prior studies have estimated, based on national production averages, that one liter of corn-derived ethanol should require 263 to 784 liters of water to both grow the crop and convert it into fuel. Now, researchers at the University of Minnesota have concluded that the amount of water used in ethanol production varies hugely from state to state, ranging from 5 to 2,138 liters of water per liter of ethanol, depending on regional irrigation needs."
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22428/page1/

posted April 01, 2011 05:38 PM            

It’s unbelievable (literally) the rhetoric coming from President Obama today. This is coming from he who is manipulating the U.S. energy supply. President Obama is once again giving lip service to a “new energy proposal”; but let’s remember the last time he trotted out a “new energy proposal” – nearly a year ago to the day. The main difference is today we have $4 a gallon gas in some places in the country. This is no accident. This administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security. Through a process of what candidate Obama once called “gradual adjustment,” American consumers have seen prices at the pump rise 67 percent since he took office. Meanwhile, the vast undeveloped reserves that could help to keep prices at the pump affordable remain locked up because of President Obama’s deliberate unwillingness to drill here and drill now. We’re subsidizing offshore drilling in Brazil and purchasing energy from them, instead of drilling ourselves and keeping those dollars circulating in our own economy to generate jobs here. The President said today, “There are no quick fixes.” He’s been in office for nearly three years now, and he’s about to launch his $1 billion re-election campaign. When can we expect any “fixes” from him? How high does the price of energy have to go?

So, here’s a little flashback to what I wrote on March 31, 2010, at National Review Online’s The Corner:

Many Americans fear that President Obama’s new energy proposal is once again “all talk and no real action,” this time in an effort to shore up fading support for the Democrats’ job-killing cap-and-trade (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) proposals. Behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations. Instead of “drill, baby, drill,” the more you look into this the more you realize it’s “stall, baby, stall.”

Today the president said he’ll “consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.” As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner, and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action — action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling policy could provide. And let’s not forget that while Interior Department bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China, Russia, and Venezuela are buying leases off the coast of Cuba.

As an Alaskan, I’m especially disheartened by the new ban on drilling in parts of the 49th state and the cancellation of lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. These areas contain rich oil and gas reserves whose development is key to our country’s energy security. As I told Secretary Salazar last April, “Arctic exploration and development is a slow, demanding process. Delays or major restrictions in accessing these resources for environmentally responsible development are not in the national interest or the interests of the State of Alaska.”

Since I wrote the above, we have even more evidence of the President’s anti-drilling agenda. We have the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico as well as the de-facto moratorium in the Arctic. We have his 2012 budget that proposes to eliminate several vital oil and natural gas production tax incentives. We have his anti-drilling regulatory policies that have stymied responsible development. And the list goes on. The President says that we can’t “drill” our way out of the problem. But we can’t drive our cars on solar shingles either. We have to live in the real world where we must continue to develop the conventional resources that we actually use right now to fuel our economy as we continue to look for a renewable source of energy. If we are looking for an affordable, environmentally friendly, and abundant domestic source of energy, why not turn to our own domestic supply of natural gas? Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars, natural gas is an ideal “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available, affordable, and economically viable on their own. It’s a lot more viable than subsidizing boondoggles like these inefficient electric cars that no one wants. I’m all for electric cars if you can develop one I can actually use in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets. But these electric and hybrid cars are not a quick fix because we still need an energy source to power them. That’s why I like natural gas, but we still have to drill for natural gas, and this administration doesn’t like drilling or apparently the jobs that come with responsible oil and natural gas development. They don't have a coherent energy policy. They have piecemeal ideas for subsidizing impractical pet “green” projects.

I have always been in favor of an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy independence, but "all-of-the-above" means conventional resource development too. It means a coherent, practical, and forward-looking energy policy. I wish the President would understand this. The good news is there is nothing wrong with America’s energy policy that another good old-fashion election can’t solve. 2012 is just around the corner.

- Sarah Palin

posted April 05, 2011 10:05 AM            

April 05, 2011
Another one bites the dust
Lona Manning

Curious, isn't it, how many of Sarah Palin's MSM critics have undergone significant career setbacks in the past year. The cool people, the smart people, the ones in the know. One after another, heading for the exits.

The latest is Katie Couric. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TV_CBS_COURIC ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-04-07-36-35

Then there was Kathleen Parker http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/enterta inment_tv_tvblog/2011/02/kathleen-parker-leaves-parker-spitzer-cnn-announces-in-the-arena.html

Rick Sanchez was not a fan of women with large families in public life. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/10/rick_sanchez_calls_jon_stewart.html[/ URL]

Keith Olbermann - ‘nuff said. [URL=http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/keith-olbermann-leaves-msnbc-countdown/story?id=12736961]http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/keith-olbermann-leaves-msnbc-countdown/story?i d=12736961

David Shuster. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-04-06/entertainment/27061011_1_msnbc-david-shu ster-cnn

Make that David "Sarah Palin has no future" Shuster.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/another_one_bites_the_dust_4.html

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the so called book Tina Fey supposedly penned...was panned by Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/03/what-s-tina-hiding.html?om_rid=CTiCsY&om_mid=_BNmMQPB8aAkVvj

You all remember Tina Fey don't you? Tina was the Sarah Palin impersonator who falsely had Palin saying "I can see Russia from my house".

posted April 06, 2011 08:55 AM            

The way I see it, some vicious attack hacks got what they had coming.

posted April 06, 2011 01:35 PM            

O'Bomber must be simply ecstatic over the wide ranging press he's getting.

posted April 07, 2011 12:21 PM            

And, it's not Sarah Palin who never misses an opportunity to appear and party with rock stars and sports figures, now is it????

And, it wasn't Sarah Palin who spoke theatrical lines which could have come straight out of a movie script...This is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet begins to heal".

posted April 08, 2011 10:20 AM            

You're the one who tagged Sarah Palin as a "celebrity" when all the time, it's your little leftist Socialist icon O'Bomber who acts the part.

posted April 09, 2011 09:25 AM            

What a guy! Now there's a real Kommander in Chief!

And, once again, here's Sarah Palin highlighting the fact O'Bomber is a totally incompetent boob who doesn't belong anywhere near the White House.

Commander in Chief’s Appalling Action with Our Troops.
by Sarah Palin on Friday, April 8, 2011 at 10:31am

Yesterday the House passed H.R. 1363, which funds our Department of Defense and our military for the rest of the year at their current levels. It allows for the continuation of current military operations, which is pretty important when you’re fighting three wars. It also funds the government for another week and cuts $12 billion in wasteful spending. So why would the Commander in Chief declare that he will veto this? Why would he play politics at the expense of our troops who are putting everything on the line to protect us? Memo to the President: I doubt the insurgents will stop and wait for a government shutdown to end before resuming actions. You need to fund our troops, sir.

Like me, you might be asking yourself: Why on earth would he threaten to veto funding for the troops? What is his game plan? Basically, he’ll veto military funding because he wants the rest of the government funded too. And by the rest of the government, he means things like Harry Reid’s “Cowboy Poetry.” Essentially, he’s holding military funding hostage to NPR funding. This is a perfect analogy for what is wrong with this entire budget showdown. Our federal government has strayed so far from what is constitutionally mandated that they are blind to the fact that NPR funding is not a constitutional duty. Funding our military at a time of war is!

The House GOP does not want a shut down. They just want legitimate cuts (and I would argue not even enough!). If we can’t agree to cut a billion here and a billion there, we’ll never close this $1.5 trillion deficit.

Let’s look at the numbers. We have a $1.5 trillion deficit this year. We’re paying $200 billion a year on our interest alone. That’s half a billion dollars per day on interest. And our $1.5 trillion deficit means that we’re borrowing $4 billion per day just to keep afloat. So, we pat ourselves on the back if we cut a billion dollars here or a billion there in discretionary spending, as we borrow $4 billion a day and pay half a billion a day in interest. The deficit for the month of February alone was the highest in our history at $223 billion. That’s more than the entire deficit for the year 2007. And there’s no end in sight. We’re not heading towards the iceberg. We’ve already hit it. Now we’re taking on water. We must find a way to get back to harbor to repair our ship of state before it’s too late.

Where is President Obama in all of this? He just doesn’t get it. His 2012 budget was a signal of that. The President’s proposed budget offered higher taxes and higher spending. A budget is supposed to be more than just numbers crunched on a spreadsheet. It’s supposed to be a credible blueprint of a nation’s priorities and direction. The President’s budget was a political document. It was designed not to ruffle any feathers or take any decisive moves to deal with the deficit problem. Instead of cutting spending, he’s moving us in the opposite direction. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the White House was not telling the truth when they claimed that their 2012 budget reduces the deficit. It actually increases it. Instead of dealing with the hard realities we face, he just kicked the can down the road. That’s not leadership. That’s politics.

Real leadership means leading by example. It means showing an “all-in” commitment to tackling complex issues and putting in the time and effort to educate the American public. Right now the American people have not been educated about this major challenge we face. Keep in mind that perception often becomes reality, and the perception President Obama has repeatedly given off is that he can’t be bothered to deal with our debt crisis.

This is profoundly unfair to the American people. Throughout our history, we have proven again and again that we are strong enough and wise enough to do the right thing when we are properly informed. We can judge and make the tough choices when we are not spun by the media or the financial class or the political class. We the People can decide – if our leaders level with us honestly.

It’s about time the President step up to the plate and lead responsibly. Our troops who are putting themselves in harm’s way deserve a Commander in Chief who is not AWOL from the debt debate. The American people deserve a president who will take on the tough challenges and understand that funding “Car Talk” is not as crucial as funding our troops at a time of three wars.

2008 seems like such a long time ago, but 2012 is just around the corner. There is a leadership vacuum in the White House right now, but that’s nothing that another good old-fashioned election can’t fix.

posted May 10, 2011 10:39 AM            

Even the Atlantic’s Joshua Green Concedes “Palin’s Achievement Was to Pull Alaska Out Of A Dire, Corrupt, Enduring Systemic Crisis And Return It To Fiscal Health and Prosperity”
Posted on May 10 2011 - 9:53 AM - Posted by: Ian Lazaran

The only thing that matters in this Atlantic Magazine profile are the following concessions:

As governor, Palin demonstrated many of the qualities we expect in our best leaders. She set aside private concerns for the greater good….She succeeded to a remarkable extent in settling, at least for a time, what had seemed insoluble problems, in the process putting Alaska on a trajectory to financial well-being.

While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin’s tax. Galvin estimates that it has raised $8 billion more than Murkowski’s tax would have. But given the corruption that plagued the PPT, a better benchmark might be the tax it supplanted—the one put on the books after the Exxon Valdez spill. By that measure, Palin’s major achievement has probably meant the difference between a $12 billion surplus and a deficit…

On the big issues…she…left the state in better shape than most people, herself included, seem to realize or want to credit her for.

Palin’s achievement was to pull Alaska out of a dire, corrupt, enduring systemic crisis and return it to fiscal health and prosperity when many people believed that such a thing was impossible.

posted May 15, 2011 10:57 AM            

Some media commentary on Sarah Palin continues to amuse me quite a bit.

There are those who love to talk about how irrelevant she is — usually in the midst of a lengthy blog post or column that obsesses about something Palin recently said or tweeted.

There are those who continue to distort her record, despite the surplus her policies afforded Alaska and a list of accomplishments that includes substantial spending reductions, incentivizing and expanding drilling for oil and natural gas, investing in state savings, and a commitment to transparency, ethics reform, and tackling corruption.

And there are an array of “tell-all” books soon to come out that will attempt to discredit both her character and her record. They will try their hardest to reinforce pre-existing media-fed hype about who Palin is, what kind of a leader she was as governor, and what kind of a leader she could be for America. Some of the authors are ideologically driven. Others are driven by the hope that having the words “Sarah Palin” in their books’ titles will put money in their pockets.

Palin’s plans with respect to a 2012 presidential run remain to be seen, but rest assured that plenty of haters are already working overtime to distort and deceive. Their hope is to tarnish the attributes Palin appears to possess that have resonated with so many Americans — a down-to-earth authenticity, an expertise with respect to energy issues, an unshakeable faith in God and an equally strong commitment to her family, as well as a genuine concern for the struggles of regular, hard-working Americans, to name just a few.

Some Palin-haters will twist and turn the truth in an effort to promote and solidify the caricature of Palin that so many on the left, in the GOP establishment, and in the media elite have worked so hard to perfect. Others will continue to ignore her written and spoken commentary on matters of supreme national and international importance, opting instead to cling to any word or phrase she utters that can somehow be generated into a traffic-grabbing — and image-busting — headline.

And as many of us have come to learn, there’s a separate set of rules for Sarah Palin. If she ignores deceptive attacks against her, her family, or her record, some will say she’s weak or guilty as charged. If she responds to the attacks, they will insist she’s thin-skinned or playing the victim. You know the drill.

But the passion on the part of some to try to tear her down is like nothing I’ve seen in my lifetime. I don’t always catch a glimpse of the woman who scares the daylights out of them. But every now and then I do.

I caught it during my telephone interview with her in November. She was bold, but approachable, completely unapologetic about her principles, and spontaneous in her responses. Despite her success with respect to 2010 candidate endorsements and otherwise, she was decidedly humble and unwilling to take credit for so many of the victories she played an enormous part in. That humility, coupled with a refusal to spew preset talking points, must be awfully unnerving to those who are pre-programmed to say this or that and/or are driven by a “me, myself, and I” mindset.

I also saw a glimpse of the woman who terrifies some when I met her in person at the Long Island Association’s February 2011 Annual Meeting and Luncheon. There’s absolutely nothing about her — from the way she greets you to the tone of her exchanges — that fits into the mold of “conventional politician.” I suppose that must be terribly frustrating to those who struggle so hard to stand out, but don’t … because when it comes down to it, they’re not all that different from the rest.

And, perhaps most significantly, I saw a glimpse of the woman so many fear when I recently revisited her 2007 State of the State Address. If you haven’t watched it, you should. There’s a passion she possesses to cut through the garbage and get things done, as well as an ability to connect with people without even trying. She’s not telling you what she thinks you want to hear. She’s simply telling you what she thinks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OIgl4Dk3kw

A liberal Manhattan acquaintance of mine recently hit the nail on the head: “The thing about Palin that’s so scary is that she actually means what she says. She actually believes it. And she’ll do it. She’ll make it happen.”

posted May 28, 2011 09:34 AM            

Should we be borrowing money from China to turn around and give it to the Muslim Brotherhood?

Given that we are running massive deficits and are drowning in more than $14 trillion in debt, and despite not knowing who will rule Egypt until its election this fall, this strange strategy may be the end result given President Obama’s announcement that he is committing $2 billion to Egypt’s “new government.” It’s part of a $20 billion foreign aid package laid out with the Group of 8 countries in Europe today.

Now, given that Egypt has a history of corruption when it comes to utilizing American aid, it is doubtful that the money will really help needy Egyptian people. Couple that with the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is organized to have a real shot at taking control of Egypt’s government, and one has to ask why we would send money (that we don’t have) into unknown Egyptian hands?

Throwing borrowed money around is not sound economic policy. And throwing borrowed money around the developing world is not sound foreign policy. Foreign assistance should go to American allies that need it and appreciate it, and for humanitarian purposes when it can truly make a difference.

Considering the Obama Administration’s continued strange strategies on the economy and foreign policy has us counting down the days to the next election. November 2012 can’t come soon enough.

posted May 28, 2011 11:38 AM            

"Do YOU want to get up here and see if you can do better?"

------------------

posted May 28, 2011 04:31 PM              

my sentiments exactly, ami, when palin spouts off about what the president should do! & if you think her absorption is amazing, consider what the ACTUAL president has to take in,...and what he discovers that she has yet to understand!