They say that if you do not study history, you are doomed to repeat it, and thus begins the Obama presidency.

I have watched the past few days as the executive officers for the largest three auto manufacturers in the United States, grovel before Congress like starving dogs behind a butcher’s shop. The problem in this case is that the scraps they are begging for are billions of taxpayer dollars and the butcher is the Federal government who has shown that the only things they can effectively butcher is the economy of this nation and the apparent will of her people.

So, faced with the biggest three automotive industries teetering on the edge of collapse, their executives admitting they have made huge mistakes and the American people screaming for our government to stop bailing out these irresponsible industries, what does the government decide to do? Do they decide to let the industries declare bankruptcy which would give them a chance to restructure, renegotiate contacts and debts and possibly emerge a much better organized and capable industry much as many airlines were forced to do just a few short years ago? Do they decide to rescind the ridiculous Federal restrictions that have been forces on the industry, lift the Ethanol mandate and rescind the CAFE standard increase that is costing these industries billions in R&D and re-tooling? No. Once again they decide the best way to deal with the problem is to throw our money at it.

Not only that but our Congress had the nerve to demand to have a say in how these companies operate as if they have the slightest clue about the automobile industry. In a moment of heightened hypocrisy and supreme arrogance, Senator Chris Dodd made an astounding comment on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’. Dodd commented that General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner had to go and that most of the executive staff of GM should be walked out the door.

Really? Well what if we held you to those standards Senator? What if the American people decided that because you have squandered our Social Security, bankrupted Medicare and Medicaid, fostered the collapse of the housing market, wasted trillions on bail outs that the American people were against to cover that mistake and put this country in debt to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars that our grandchildren’s children will never pay off, that you too Senator should be shown the door.

Now, we can safely assume that to cover all of these billions of dollars that the government is handing out they are going to cut non-essential spending and tighten the Federal budget to compensate, correct? I mean surely they realize that there is a limited supply of money and they cannot just keep spending and throwing it a failing industries, right?

Wrong. Meet President Elect Barrack Obama who just announced a economic stimulus package that will cost the Federal government, and thereby you, over a trillion dollars. In a move reminiscent of the failed policies of FDR’s New Deal, Obama announces a massive influx of Federal funding into infrastructure, investments in green technology, building schools, improving medical information systems and improving broadband access to the internet. Since when did ANY of these besides the building of interstate highways become the business of the Federal government? For God’s sake, did he actually just release a plan to expand the broadband access to the internet with taxpayer money? Seriously? That sounds almost impeachable.

Seemingly ignoring the fact that the actions FDR took in his great societal New Deal actually worsened the economy, stagnated growth and prolonged the Great Depression by nearly a decade, Obama proposed an equally irresponsible plan that only will serve to make an admittedly bad situation into a disastrous one. People have already been foolishly comparing our current economic slowdown to the Great Depression when unemployment stayed in the 30% range and almost half of all Americans lost their homes. Well get ready folks. Let the Federal government continue to frak around with our economy and you will get what you ask for.

We now have a glance at how the President Elect will handle the growing economic crisis and the vision is not good.

You want a stimulus package that makes sense? Here you go in one paragraph.

First, let the automotive industry enter bankruptcy and begin restructuring their companies so that they can become more competitive in the market. Relax the Federal regulations and ridiculous CAFE standards that restrict the growth and competitiveness of this industry. You can offset this and help save the environment at the same time by offering them some tax incentives to begin re-tooling some of their vehicles to operate on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), a much cleaner, more efficient and abundant fuel source. However, most of our natural gas currently is wastefully used on power generation and there is no infrastructure to deliver it reliably as a automotive fuel to the market. The electrical generation capacity of natural gas turbine power plants will need to be replaced. The government could immediately commission for the construction of at least twenty twin reactor nuclear power plants across this nation. This would stimulate the construction industry that has suffered so much from the housing market crash and create local jobs in many communities. This would also put us on a path that would allow us to discontinue wasting natural gas of electrical generation and allow CNG to become a viable transportation fuel. Of course an infrastructure would have to be build for CNG processing and delivery to the pump. This could also stimulate economic growth and foster the creation of jobs just as the natural gas boom has done in many areas of this country already. Finally, you could give tax incentives for the purchase of CNG vehicles and tax credits to companies who employ this clean technologies in their fleet vehicles. Over the next ten to twenty years this would create a dual transportation fuel system in this nation and begin a slow migration to reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

There problem solved. This plan stimulates economic growth, addresses multiple energy concerns, creates jobs and even has frakking ‘green’ written all over it.

We all woke this morning to a far different presidential campaign than we did just a day before. Last night at the Republican National Convention we were treated to the speeches of Mike Huckabee and a powerful representation by Rudi Giuliani, but it paled in comparison to the main show.

I am not often very impressed with politicians. Speeches are written by others and can be delivered with effect by a skilled orator, so they are not the final measurement that a candidate should be judged by. However, there are those that can take such a speech and craft it into a masterpiece that reaches out and connects with their audience in such a way to spurn a true emotional connection. We have seen this ability in the messianic visage of the Democrat’s presidential candidate. Even when the speech lacks a single substantive message, Barack Obama has the ability to spin the words into a moving oratory. He has now met his match in Sarah Palin.

With much anticipation and great expectations, Sarah Palin took the stage. She started simply by accepting the nomination and singing the praises of John McCain. Next she introduced her family and gave a little insight into the challenges that they have faced. She promised those families who had loved ones with disabilities that they would find an advocate in the White House in her. She then showed her love for and pride in her husband and thanked her parents for their role in making her who she is.

Then the gloves came off. She injected plenty of charisma and humor into the speech, but struck solid, stinging blows to the opposing ticket. The crowd erupted when she mentioned being a hockey mom. At the end of the applause, she commented. “You know what the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick.” The women in the place went nuts with the comment. She went on to describe her career as a small town mayor, playing up the importance of small town America and the quality of her people.

Next came the first strike: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.” Ouch. The follow up? “I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.” The crowd went nuts with that last statement, standing to their feet and cheering her on as she continued, “We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”

After the convention settled down a bit she took aim at the media, “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.”

“But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country,” she defiantly stated, to thunderous applause and cheers.

Next she moved on to talk about eliminating wasteful spending and using the veto power to protect the American people by eliminating pork barrel projects. She highlighted how she had done away with executive extravagances in Alaska that she felt the people should not have to pay for. “That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.”

Moving on to energy, she highlighted the need for independence from foreign sources and gave pointed examples of why. She commented that while drilling will not solve all our problems it is no excuse for doing nothing. Then came the section that most liberal commentators in the media must have missed. All last night, continuing into today, many in the media have claimed that Palin’s speech held no substance and did not address any issues on job creation or energy at all. To that I offer, in her own words, “Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines … build more nuclear plants … create jobs with clean coal … and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.”

“We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers.”

Shifting back to the attack on Obama, like a prize fighter, she hit again and again in quick succession:

“We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers.
And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.

But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state Senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word “victory” except when he’s talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight … he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay … he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights? Government is too big … he wants to grow it.

Congress spends too much … he promises more.

Taxes are too high … he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific.

The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes … raise payroll taxes … raise investment income taxes … raise the death tax … raise business taxes … and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars. My sister Heather and her husband have just built a service station that’s now opened for business — like millions of others who run small businesses.

How are they going to be any better off if taxes go up? Or maybe you’re trying to keep your job at a plant in Michigan or Ohio … or create jobs with clean coal from Pennsylvania or West Virginia … or keep a small farm in the family right here in Minnesota.

How are you going to be better off if our opponent adds a massive tax burden to the American economy? Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election.”

She followed with sharp contrasts between McCain and Obama, “In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. “

“And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”
Finally, she took one more parting shot at the Democrat establishment and it was dead on accurate: “Harry Reid, the majority leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee.”

“He said, quote, ‘I can’t stand John McCain.’ Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we’ve
chosen the right man. Clearly what the majority leader was driving at is that he can’t stand up to John McCain. That is only one more reason to take the maverick of the Senate and put him in the White House. “

She ended her speech by highlighting his journey from a 6 x 4 POW cell in Hanio to the presidency and calling on a story told by a fellow POW demonstrating McCain’s courage and dedication. While the crowd were cheering Tom Moe, McCain’s fellow POW, she gracefully blew the man a kiss from the podium proving herself to be a true class act.

If this woman played professional baseball, the commission would be investigating her today for steroid use, as she stepped up to the plate, her first time out, took a hard pitch and nailed a homerun clearly out of the park. Not just out of the park, but cleanly and clearly from Alaska straight to Washington, D.C.

I am tremendously impressed with this woman. She showed class, fearlessness, determination and confidence. She possessed charm and humor. She even seemed to have a defiance about her without approaching arrogance. This is the future of our movement, our party and our nation.

Not to mention, that for a 44 year old mother of five and soon to be grandmother, the woman is smokin’ hot.

I have not had the chance to comment on McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate this past week. Let me first state that I think it was the perfect choice for him to make and balances his more liberal tendencies with the strong conservative values that his base was longing for.

A brief surface examination of Palin will show a woman committed to conservative values with a history of fighting corruption in government, even when it’s found within her own party. She served as a mayor of a small town in Alaska before being appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission where she discovered corruption among the officials serving on the commission. She resigned in protest and filed complaints against fellow Republicans, exposing their corruption and resulting in the resignation of both men and a record fine being paid by one of them. Palin then turned on the Governor who refused to address the corruption and defeated him in the next election by a significant margin. Her record on reduced government spending speaks for itself. During her short stay at the reigns as the Alaskan executive she has cut more than 300 government programs, reduced taxes and viciously routed out corruption in Alaska’s government.

Palin holds true to the concept of limited government, even rejecting federal money for construction projects that her state was perfectly capable of accomplishing on its own. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and an avid sportsman, including hunting and fishing. She believes in the right of the American people to use the vast resources under our feet and not continue to be beholden to foreign interests to depend on our energy sources. While she supports conservation and alternative energy, she is not ignorant enough to believe that we should not drill our own energy.

Palin is a strong pro-life candidate, demonstrating it directly in her life through the choice to give birth to a known Downs Syndrome baby and now with the revelation that her 17 year old daughter is five months pregnant. She has shown that she would choose life and has instilled those values in her family even under the most dire of personal consequences. While many have made a big deal out of the teenage pregnancy in her family this past weekend, I frankly do not know what business it is of anyone that her teenage daughter made some poor choices. Can any of you with children say that they have never made a bad decision? What is important is how they deal with the choices that they make. Do the show responsibility and accept the consequences of their actions or do they make excuses and take the cowards way out? In the case of Bristol Palin, she chose correctly. She is having the child and will marry the father apparently with the love and support of both families. If anything, I think this strengthens Palin as a candidate. It shows that she is a normal American parent dealing with issues that any parent in America might face. It also shows that she sticks to her convictions even when it is personally or politically a difficult choice for her to do so.

I think it is appalling the way the left has begun attacking Palin right out of the gate. They have challenged her lack of experience and questioned whether or not we want someone with limited executive experience and no foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. For that argument I think they would do well to look in the mirror. I would rather have someone with limited experience in the number two seat, than have someone with even less experience heading the ticket. Those in glass houses…

They have also attacked her by questioning if we really want to have a beauty queen running our country, as if an attractive woman could not possess the intelligence or capability to hold the office. What hypocrites the left continually shows itself to be. I thought this was the party that championed equality and women’s rights, or does that just could for liberal women? The disgrace that they have shown in attacking her choice to accept the nomination while having a Downs Syndrome infant would not be acceptable if she was a man and it should not be acceptable now.

Obama has been the only one on the main stage for the Democrats that has shown even a modicum of dignity in these matters, stating that the issue of her daughter’s pregnancy was irrelevant to the campaign and was not an issue at all. For that rare show of tolerance and class I will give him credit.

However, speculation and accusation are running rampant on the left and the mainstream media is going nuts over every minor issue regarding Palin. They have spent more time investigating her past in the last few days than they seem to have done investigating Obama’s questionable past in the last 19 months.

I smell fear in the air and rightly so. Palin is known as a fierce opponent. Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign once commented that “The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” most of whom she apparently found to be corrupt politicians.

The left should be scared and so should some on the right. This is exactly the type of politician Washington needs, someone who will not hesitate to clean house where corruption is found.

Be afraid, you elected officials who have abandoned your charge. Be very afraid.

I am not even sure if I can write about the Democratic Nation Convention this year, but I will endeavor to do so. I have listened to multiple interviews of attendees and I am continually shocked and dismayed at the simple lack of knowledge and understanding possessed by so many in the Democrat Party.

One example was when our local conservative talker, Mark Davis from WBAP News/Talk 820 interviewed Gene Karpinski, President of the League of Conservation Voters. The ignorance and hypocrisy of this man was astonishing. Davis began the interview by stating that he was all for conservation at the same time as we expanded drilling and began using our own resources. Karpinski retorted back that increased exploration and extraction was a ‘hoax’ and that it would do nothing to decrease the price of fuel. He tooled on about how our only hope was alternative energies and increased conservation proving what an idiot he was.

Even a middle school economics student should be able to understand the law of supply and demand. If you have a product that is in high demand and short supply, the price will rise. If you increase the supply of the same product and demand stays constant, especially if it decreases through conservation measures, the price will fall.

Since crude oil is traded as a futures commodity, an announcement that future supplies of oil will be made available will have an immediate effect on our market system. Even the announcement by President Bush that he was ending the Executive restrictions on exploration and extraction caused an immediate down trend in the price of crude. Speculation over public opinion supporting future drilling and continued speculation about decreased domestic demand has continued this trend. If you watch the markets you will realize that their reactions are not purely based on actual events, but on speculations of how those events will impact their particular commodity. When Ahmadinejad started rattling sabers in Iran or when Chavez nationalized his petroleum industry, the market immediately reacted sent the price of crude higher even though there was absolutely no change in the actual supply or demand of the commodity. This process works in reverse as well. Any even that promises to increase the supply of oil to the market, reports of drastically reduced consumption or surpluses, send the speculative price of crude down. If my ten year old son can understand this concept, how is it that most Democrats cannot? Or is it it something more sinister? Is it that they simply refuse to do so because it does not support their agenda?

Karpinski continued to state that the federal government should force auto makers to start producing more hybrid vehicles, absolutely ignoring the horrible amount of environmental damage caused by the very production of these vehicles. He also stated that the government should have been involved as early as ten years ago. He insisted that the government should have been forcing American car manufactures to produce hybrid cars years ago, despite the fact that there was absolutely no market for them back then. His argument was that if the government had forced them to start make the vehicles ten years ago, then there would be millions on the roads by now saving millions of gallons of gas.

This is not necessarily the case. If the government had stepped in ten years ago, in 1998 and forced American manufacturers to begin producing extremely expensive hybrid vehicles that they had only a very marginal market for, what would have happened is that American auto manufactures would be bankrupt and out of business. Another very simple economic law is that if you produce a product that there is a demand for, you can sell that product and make a profit. This means you stay in business and grow. If you produce a product, especially a costly one, that there is no demand for, you will not be able to sell that product and will lose money. This means you board up the doors and go home or you decide to manufacture a product for which there is a demand. Right now, there is a huge demand for hybrid or extremely fuel efficient gasoline vehicles. Ten years ago there was not. There are actually waiting lists from most manufacturers for these vehicles and they are selling as soon as they hit the lot if you do not have to wait. Suddenly, every manufacture out there is coming out with a hybrid or efficient gasoline model in their existing lines or creating entire new lines based on these technologies.

It is simple. When there is demand for a product, companies will produce it. If there is no demand for a product, they will not. The federal government has absolutely no business whatsoever telling any company what products it can produce and what it cannot so long as the business is of a legal nature.

I have checked out the website for this League of Conservation Voters. Let me quote you some of the sickening swill they are selling.

Today, at the opening of the Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party adopted a new platform. League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski issued the following statement:

“The Democratic Party Platform wisely embraces the energy plan put forward by Senator Obama, the strongest, most comprehensive plan ever put forward by a Presidential nominee. Obama’s plan recognizes the enormous potential of renewable energy to end our addiction to oil, strengthen our national security, fight global warming, and create millions of jobs across America. On this platform, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will build the clean energy future that America deserves.”

What?! The strongest, most comprehensive plan ever put forward by a Presidental nomineee. My God, Paris Hilton had a stronger, more comprehensive plan than Obama did! I am not sure I can stomach much more of this adult bovine excrement.

I wonder if Gene Karpinski knows how damaging to the environment hybrid vehicles are to manufacture.

I wonder if he knows how much water and fossil fuel are used and how much carbon dioxide is released in the manufacturing of once single gallon of ethanol.

I wonder if he even cares as long as he can promote his self-proclaimed messiah and his agrenda.

What has happened with Barack Obama lately? The man seems to be coming apart at the seams and his campaign is losing steam much faster that even many Democrats are comfortable with.

Just a few days ago he made announced his brilliant plan to bring us out of this energy crisis by claiming that if we just inflated our tires and tuned up our cars, we could gain more oil in savings than we could hope to gain by extracting our own natural resources. While I think that proper tire inflation and a well tuned vehicle is a smart idea and will provide a better fuel economy for your vehicle, pretending that it could anyway near compensate for the amount of oil we could extract from domestic resources is insane. Not to mention that if you over inflate your tires you actually reduce the stopping efficiency of the tires, risking more accidents or more serious injuries due to the reduced stopping power.

If that moronic statement was not bad enough, he went on to start one of his own campaign rallies and forgot to say The Pledge of Allegiance. This was apparently too much for even the lovesick Democrats at the rally as they began to heckle him for forgetting. Instead of profusely apologizing for forgetting the Pledge, he acted as if it was a bother to him, telling the audience that he would do the Pledge if they wanted him to then claiming that he thought he had already said it. When he did manage to pledge his allegiance to the very nation that he hopes to lead, it completely lacked any emotion or conviction at all. He repeated the words in an absolutely dead-pan tone which seems to reflect perfectly on his passion for the ideals of this great nation.

Now, he reacts like a spoiled child to the attacks that John McCain has made on his ridiculous tire inflation energy policy and the ingenious ad campaign labeling him as nothing more than a celebrity such as Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton answered the John McCain ad with a surprisingly poignant response that actually seemed to contain an fully formed and coherent thought. Other than her self absorbed notions of her importance and ‘hotness’ which I completely disagree with, she actually made an adult suggestion that we use a hybrid energy plan comprised of McCain’s desire to drill off shore and Obama’s desire to invest in alternative energies. The Hilton Energy Plan? We should drill off-shore with tight environmental restrictions, use tax incentives to encourage automobile manufactures to create more fuel efficient vehicles and continue to support investment in new forms of energy. John McCain responded to the statement made by Ms. Hilton by saying, “It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy crisis – including both alternatives and drilling. Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.”

What was Obama’s response? Well, it sounded like a child running home to mamma and complaining about everyone making fun of him.

“You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, ‘well, what can I do? what can individuals do?’” Obama recalled.

“So I told them something simple,” Obama said. “I said, ‘You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels and that if everybody in America inflated their tires to the proper level, we would actually probably save more oil than all the oil we’d get from John McCain drilling right below his feet there, or wherever he was going to drill.’”

…”So now the Republicans are going around – this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’

“Now two points: one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.

“You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”

Uhm, no. Not every expert says that Barack and certainly not every expert says that your little automotive care tips could ever produce anywhere near the amounts we could get form increased domestic exploration and extraction. So what does he do when someone with a modicum of intelligence (or even someone without one such as Hilton) challenges his idiotic ideas? He complains that they are making fun of him. What the hell is this ass hat going to do when an opposing world leader decides to publicly ridicule him? Will he run home and cry to Speaker Pelosi? This is definitely not a man worthy of leading this nation.

Wow. A lot of things have been going on since my last update. I finally got one of our websites up today that had been inaccessible since the 3rd of July and completely down since last Friday. At first our users could simply not log into the site, but the site was still accessible. Something we did Friday killed the ASP.Net on my IIS and took the site down entirely. I spent the entire day Friday and yesterday, plus a good deal of time over this weekend, reinstalling and reconfiguring ASP.Net and my IIS services on our hosting server. Today I will be going home and breaking out the Crown Royal Select Reserve because I finally got everything up this morning.

As for the grander issues of politics, allow me to express my sadness at the loss of a great media figure and probably my most favorite Press Secretary in recent memory. This past weekend, as most of you probably know, Tony Snow passed away. I can still recall the memorable barbs thrown at Helen Thomas and the sharp wit displayed from the behind the podium and anchor desk as well as from the radio microphone. Snow was an iconic media figure and much as it was with the passing of Russert a few weeks ago, the world is diminished by his passing.

Yesterday, President Bush lifted the executive ban on off shore drilling and urged Congress to do the same. Today he addressed the nation about the struggling economy and continued to press for Congress to follow his lead in lifting additional drilling restrictions. It is about time that America started to harvest its own natural resources and stopped funneling billions of dollars out of our economy. As Bush stated yesterday, our economy is slowing, but still growing each quarter. We are not in a recession despite high energy cost and a struggling housing market, but we must begin a process of reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy. You want to stimulate growth and create jobs in this country? Open up the oil and natural gas fields for extraction. It has done North Texas a world of good with natural gas exploration and extraction alone.

President Bush also cautioned against direct government intervention and bail out of the struggling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financial institutions, but did urge congress to pass a bill strengthening those institutions and make federal funds available for lending to these institutions in much the same way as they did Bear Stearns earlier this year. This is one area I agree with the President on whole heartedly. While I strongly believe that the government should not intervene in the mortgage and lending industry and should let the market regulate itself, I do not see a problem with the federal government making loans available to large financial institutions to help stabilize them, much as they have done for decades with the banking industry. However, any legislation that directly affects the lending process, such as a moratorium on foreclosures, mandatory lending practices that forced us into this situation in the first place or government control of private financial institutions in the form of direct bail outs is absolutely unacceptable.

I know our economy is not in as good of shape as it has been for the past few years, but seriously people, it is not that bad. When video games can sell half a billion dollars in their opening weekend and movies still open well over $100 million every week, our economy is not as bad as we make out. I happened to agree with Senator Lindsay Graham, when he said that this ‘recession’ is largely in our heads and it is because we are a nation full of whiners. Good call Senator.

Since the buzz is all about oil the last few days, I think it important to support the movement that calls for us explore and extract our own natural resources. Most of you who know me know I am all for the research, development and deployment of alternative sources of energy, especially nuclear, solar and hydrogen. What I am not for is the lunacy that has caused us to be in the position that we are today with our fuel supplies.

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less – Go sign the petition and tell Congress to let us drill!

America has some of the largest energy deposits in the know world. Largely these deposits lie untapped in areas of our nation that are prohibited from exploration and extraction. You will hear many reasons hailing from the left as to why we should not explore and extract these resources but most of them are blatantly false. Most people are simply ignorant of the oil and gas industry and the processes that go into the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels. They act as if it is pure profit with little or no risk to the oil companies. They seem to think that these companies are greedy behemoths that would swallow up all available land leaving death and destruction in their wake as a result of their lustful quest for profit. They assume that they can just go out and stick pipes in the ground and out comes money pouring from the spout.

These assumptions could not be farther from the truth. Oil companies assume huge amounts of risk, both financially and in human lives, to explore and extract resources. This is magnified by the environmental conditions that they drill under, such as what they would face in the tundra of ANWR or on off-shore platforms.

The roughnecks that man the rigs, from the rookie worms to the seasoned drillers, constantly place their lives at enormous risk. They drive thirty foot long sections of pipe into the ground using massive machines that weigh many tons. The holes are kept clean by pumping mud and water into them with massive high pressure pumps and the pipes are hoisted high over their heads by massive traveling blocks that weigh thousands of pounds while they stand underneath them trusting the cables that hold them will not fail. Sometimes they do. Many a roughneck has lost life or limb when a block crashes to the deck, a chain snaps when connecting a pipe or a pressure valve blows throwing jagged pieces of razor sharp steel bounding all over the rig.

The financial risk is enormous as well. The massive rigs themselves cost tens of millions of dollars. The companies must lease the land that the rig will be on and all the mineral rights for all lands that the drill will extract from, which can often go for thousands of dollars an acre or much more, depending on the location and who owns it. Next they must transport these massive structures to the drill site and hire crew to man them twenty-four hours a day. Next come the drill bits and pipe, lots of pipe. For most holes it takes near 200 pieces of 30 foot length pipe to reach a supply of oil and in reaching this depth a crew can go through as many as ten drill bits costing nearly $100,000 a piece. The process is a long Texas two-step all the way down. They drill 30 feet, pull the pipe up, attach a new length of pipe and drill another 30 feet. They repeat this over and over until a bit fails. Then they must pull the entire length of pipe up disconnecting each section as they go in a process called tripping pipe. The pressurized mud in the pipe must go somewhere when it is pulled from the ground and that ends up being all over the roughnecks as they rush to change the bit. This process take time even when the hole is new, but imagine how long it takes and how dangerous it gets when a drill bit breaks at 5,000 ft.

Each day a rig is in operation costs the extraction company as much as $100,000 and when rigs break or accidents happen, every hour that passes is pure lost money at the rate of sometimes more than $5,000 / hr.

With all the technological advancements made since 1859 when the first oil well was drilled in the United States, drilling has become faster, safer and more environmentally friendly, but it is still a deadly game and an enormous financial gamble. Dry holes cost companies millions and losses of crew due to injuries or death cannot be easily replaced. Finding experienced roughnecks and drillers is paramount to the success of a rig, but luck still plays a big part. Will they hit solid rock on their way down? Will the rig break or have a catastrophic failure? Will a roughneck get killed from a falling block or while throwing the chain? When they have drilled almost two miles beneath the surface of the Earth, will they find oil or will they find only more rock?

Each hole drilled may cost a company several million dollars and possibly cause serious injury or death to one or more of the brave men manning its crew. You frequently hear liberal say that they would not fight for oil or that they would pay $20/gal for gas if it meant that not one more American would lose his life in the name of oil. What they do not realize is the depth of their own ignorance. Iraq is by no means a war fought for oil, but the life of a roughneck is. The war for oil has been waged on our own soil for well over a hundred years and has cost the lives of tens of thousands of young men, far more than the war in Iraq has. As far as jobs go, it is one of the top twenty most dangerous to have, averaging 32 deaths per 100,000 workers each year. That if far down from the fatality rates of just twenty years ago and says nothing of the injuries.

So, the next time you hear some moron yell, “No blood for oil!” suggest that they tell that to the roughnecks who risk their lives every day in this country so that they might live their self centered little lives with all the modern comforts they enjoy.

Or, go tell them to ‘frac’ off.

I have been listening to the debates about repealing the restrictions for drilling our own oil over the last few days and I am surprised by the average incompetence of the people who run this country. I don’t know why I am surprised anymore, but sometimes I still am.

When President Bush delivered his address yesterday, practically demanding Congress lift the drilling restrictions and allow the oil companies in this country to take advantage of our own natural resources, I expected to hear the normal moans and gnashing of teeth from the left side of the aisle. What I did not expect was for flagrant call for Communism to come from a democratically elected official within out own government.

Joining the call for socialism from Maxine Waters, D(S/C) – CA, a few week ago when Congress was grilling the oil executives about the current oil prices, Maurice Hinchey, D (S/C) – NY, threw his hat into the lot yesterday and declared himself a dyed red in the wool Communist when he called for the nationalization of the country’s oil refineries so that the government could control the flow of oil.

“This liberal will be all about socializ… er… uh… er… [pause]… uh… about… basically… taking over, and the government running all of your companies.” – Maxine Waters, D(S/C) – CA, during Congressional hearings with big oil companies.

“We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.” – Maurice Hinchey, D (S/C) – NY, in response to Bush calling for the end to the drilling moratorium.

Sure, Comrade, let’s just give government control of every frakking aspect of our lives, oil, healthcare, what light bulbs we can use, what cars we can drive and how hot or cold our freaking homes can be. Why don’t we all just move to the communes now and wait for our government cheese.

Jesus Christ! How did we come to this that our own elected officials sound like Chavez, Marx and Lenin and they seem to be proud of it? Even though he was not dragged out into the street and horsewhipped like he should have been, I would have at least expected more public outrage that anyone in our government could even suggest such a thing.

Let’s examine all the other things that the government runs so well:

Well there is our wonderful Social Security program that we have been paying into for generations now.

Oh, it’s gone? Did anyone see what happened to it? Oh, they spent it, but I thought that was our money for when we retire… Oh, well.

There is MedicAid and MedicCare as well, those are great for people who need medical help.

Bankrupt? What do you mean they are almost bankrupt? Why? How?

You can’t knock FEMA. That is a wonderful agency designed to help people when they need it the most.

It did what? Well how the hell did Wal-Mart do a better job of getting supplies where they were most needed during a hurricane than a government agency specifically designed to do so? Shees!

Well, out Veteran’s Affairs is great right? We take good care of the men and women who server our nation so selflessly.

Oh, really? Well that is shameful. Almost criminal. If there is anyone group of people who should get the absolute best treatment this nation can offer it is those who have served.

Well, they can sure collect taxes well, even though they require almost sixty-eight thousand pages of instructions on how to steal our money. Nice.

Why in God’s name would we turn one single minute aspect over to a government who has shown a complete ineptitude at managing any social programs whatsoever? Is the American public so dense as to not to see these seizures of power for what they are?

These are the threats of tyrants and communists. They are small steps toward surrendering our freedoms and they are coming more and more freely from the left. We must put a stop to this tyranny before we awake one morning in the universe of Liberality for All and find ourselves powerless to resist and mourning the days of the American Dream.

Well, there are fifty-one moronic Senators who voted today. Fortunately, fifty one is not enough for cloture. The Senate needs sixty votes to secure cloture and prevent a filibuster of a bill from stalling the bill on the floor. The bill to apply a windfall profit tax against the oil companies failed to reach the magic number and will die on the Senate floor.

These idiots decided that we were apparently not paying enough at the pump and that the Federal government was not making enough money on the high gas prices, so they proposed taxing the oil companies on the oil companies MORE than they already do. Ahh, yes. That must be some of the basic socioeconomics that we have hear so much about from the left, because on the planet that I come from, trying to strong arm more money out of an already inflated situation sounds like price gouging to me and logically would only make the price of fuel go higher.

For any of you who foolishly think that the government can tax any large corporation in any industry as an effective means of punishment for having exceedingly good profits you are dead wrong and you need to take some basic classes in economics. You cannot tax a company; you can only ultimately tax the consumer. If you expect the oil companies to simply absorb punitive taxes and not pass the cost on to the consumer that you are insanely naïve. It may not happen immediately, but in one way shape of form it will occur just as it did when they tried the very same thing in the 1970’s.

When Carter implemented price controls and windfall taxes, it did not lower the cost of fuel. What it did was cause the gas companies to severely curtail their domestic output and focus on their foreign holdings that were free from the punitive measures of dimwitted jackasses who would not understand an economic incentive if it reached up and slapped them. This in turn drove prices higher domestically and lead to fuel shortages. Our domestic production fell sharply while our reliance on imports, not subject to the taxes rose, setting up the very situation that we are in today.

It should be the Federal government being punished for the energy crisis that is looming in days ahead. For thirty years we have strangled our domestic production capacity and moved more and more to reliance on foreign sources. We have prevented extraction and exploration and have not continued to develop the infrastructure needed to maintain a competitive edge in the energy market. We have failed to develop alternative energy technologies that we have had since the 1950’s and have failed to implement those we have effectively.

Compressed natural gas is a clean burning, widely available and efficient fuel source that we could be using in transportation. However, almost a full two-thirds of our annually recovered natural gas goes to industrial and commercial electrical generation. This is an absolutely wasteful process, when you consider that nuclear energy could completely replace natural gas consumption for power leaving it available as a much cleaner transportation fuel. Nuclear power could also severely reduce our reliance on coal fired plants, some of the dirtiest power generating plants in operation. We have operated thousands of naval vessels on nuclear power since the 1960s and have never had a major nuclear incident at sea. We can build clean, safe, extremely efficient nuclear power plants and reduce our consumption of hydrocarbons significantly, but our Federal government has allowed special interest groups to block the construction of nuclear facilities since the 1970’s.

Instead of punishing companies for being profitable while providing a commodity that is in high demand, we should be punishing the government for preventing companies from developing and deploying technologies that would provide us with energy. We have no comprehensive energy plan in this nation. We cannot drill or explore like we need to. We cannot build new facilities to increase our refining efficiency, until just last week (a new modern oil refinery is finally beginning construction in South Dakota). We cannot build wind farms because people bitch about property value and migratory birds. We are being forced to use more and more Ethanol, an inefficient and costly fuel source that releases as much is not more carbon than petroleum, because of ignorant legislation that our Congress passed.

How does your government propose to solve these problems? Well, they are going to tax the hell out of us. During hearings conducted over the past few weeks they have even threatened to take control of the petroleum industry. Can you say socialism folks? That’s right, lets nationalize the problem so it becomes more inefficient and corrupt and tax the hell out of everyone in the process while we pass stupid legislation that prevents us from addressing the real problems and causes starvation and soaring food prices. Brilliant!