November 04, 2005

• In other news, Oil Execs to Be Asked to Justify Profits
• If the citizenry of the United States doesn't get off its fat butt soon and start paying attention to the way the current administration and its allies are raping this country, the people, the environment and the future, there won't be anything left to save. It gets a bit discouraging.... yet so many people just go on, day by day, pretending this isn't all going to come back and bite us in the ass. WAKE UP PEOPLE!
• "We can and should produce more crude oil here at home in environmentally responsible ways" Well the minute some oil-jockey flips the butt of his Malboro red out the window of the 4x4 taking him to put up a rig (or whatever), that's kind of not what will be going on. I hope all the creatures take advantage of their winter camouflage to creep up and sabotage the whole deal. Grrr.
• So why is it okay to drill for oil everywhere that is already being drilled? Why does no one have a concern for what the drilling does to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or anywhere else. This strikes me as a Not In My Backyard situation. I liken it to the people who always protest about the location of a landfill. It is an outrage if it affects them directly. If it does not, then they don't care where it goes.
• This doesn't affect me one little bit. However, if somewhere has been designated a wildlife refuge, I would have thought setting up an oil drilling operation there might upset the wildlife a little bit. I could be wrong.
• Well, from the likes of Specter, Inhofe, Santorum & Associates I expected nothing better, but the two Democrats who went for the "yea" were Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who took in $43,000 from the oil industry, and Ben Nelson (D-Ne.), who raked in nearly a cool http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/memberprofile.asp?CID=N00005329&Cycle=2006">million in PAC money last year.
• And if I get some PAC money right soon I'll hire someone to preview my posts.
• I'll do it for a cool Half a mill
• arse
• Of course oil drilling upsets the wildlife. It upsets the life anywhere that it is done.
• Good point bernockle. I personally would have preferred no drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (because delicious fishies live there). The Wikipedia article regarding the creation of ANWR seems to indicate the popular opinion is for oil money, fwiw. A quick review of the "Fast Facts" at the ANWR site (I love me some Internets) reveals among other things, Perhaps the most unique feature of the refuge is that large-scale ecological and evolutionary processes continue here, free of human control or manipulation. A prominent reason for establishment of the Arctic Refuge was the fact that this single protected area encompasses an unbroken continuum of arctic and subarctic ecosystems. So perhaps that's a good reason to leave it undisturbed, as opposed to the deserts of Saudi Arabia which are already pretty disturbed. So to speak.
• It upsets the life anywhere that it is done. To the point - what life is there in the (specifically saudi arabian) desert? I'm aware that the sands of the Sahara eventually make their way to Texas and "global village" and so on, I'm just making the point that perhaps ANWR is not a good place to drill compared with others.
• as good a place. *blames kit*
• *sticks MORE pins in petebest voodo doll*
• Oil execs racking up immoral and ungodly profits = politicians on the take racking up IAUP + the hell with the environment and the rest of us Meh! What else is new? *America gets into her SUV to drive to corner store HA HA!laughing at Kitfisto and RPM's lack of linky-fu
• Pete: Oil execs going before Congress to justify profits? Why do I think this is an exercise in futility?
• Congress: You boys need more profit!
• Shit.
• Oh, and lest I forget: Where am I? And what am I doing in this handbasket?
• I think Shrubby is going to give them a medal or something.
• National Geographics ANWR site
• The Fish and Wildlife Service reports: “Maternal polar bears with newborn cubs can be prematurely displaced from their winter dens by oil exploration.” Don't make me bring in the Pandas. 'cause I'll do it.
• Many of the people living there are subsistance in that they get their food from hunting and gathering. I doubt their pantry is going to hold up under this sort of activity. The land itself is very fragile. When the top frost leaves the ground, everything turns to mush, Also, a lot of the fauna grows incredibly slowly. A truck driving across the surface in spring sort of creates its own mini environmental distaster.
• It gets a bit discouraging.... yet so many people just go on, day by day, pretending this isn't all going to come back and bite us in the ass. WAKE UP PEOPLE! posted by HuronBob at 03:29PM UTC on November 04, 2005 Please remember that many of us have voted, volunteered and added our voices to the dissenting ones over this and many other issues. Unfortunately, our current administration will not listen, nor do they care one whit that more than half the population does not approve of most of what they do. I admire greatly the person who can give up their entire lives in order to fight the corrupt white house, however for most of us that's just not a possibility. It takes more than just a sense of outrage to effectively fight that fight: money, time, connections, and so on. Many of us just don't have those things.
• No, we don't have connections. Something suggests to me that this approval for exploration will be handled carefully.
• ANWR radio segment Day to Day, November 8, 2005 · Debate over oil exploration in the delicate and remote habitat has been going on for 20 years -- Alex Chadwick discussed the upcoming vote with Elizabeth Arnold, who's just returned from a visit to a native community inside the refuge that's also split on whether or not to allow drilling.
• Tucked inside a huge budget bill headed for an upcoming House vote is a provision that could spur the federal government to sell off millions of acres of public land to mining interests, marking a major shift in the nation's mining policy. The measure, which would generate an estimated $158 million in revenue . . . Wow! $158 million! Why that's almost 7% of what we've spent on our holiday in Iraq! What's 20 million acres of public land where mining interests are concerned?? God bless you PvvN3d congresspersons! *snif* *wave*
• We should have a pool to see how the votes shake out. Party lines? 3-R Nay? 3-R Nay, 2-D Yea?
• The U.S. Senate today blocked oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rejecting a must-pass defense spending bill onto which supporters had added the drilling measure. Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the defense legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was a stinging defeat for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a pathetic douchebag sleazewad, who for years has fought to open the refuge to drilling. ok, ok, I added the pathetic douchebag part And Nowwwwwwwww . . The votes! 2 Republican senators voted against 4 Democrats farted in favor. I missed the point spread :(
• ...Republican leadership stripped $2 billion from the military bill that would have helped low-income families pay their heating bills this winter. Republicans said the heating oil money was stripped from the bill because the Senate also struck a provision to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In other words, "Poor people are going to freeze because you wouldn't let us fuck up the Arctic reserve". Grrrrrrrrrrrr.........
• Cold blooded, eh? Ha ha ha . . ah . . heh . . .ehh. . . wow. "It is impossible to find a true criminal class in America, with the one exception of Congress." --Mark Twain