How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point, Rush Limbaugh is having a field day, and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.
But who's really out of touch? The Bush administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day by 2030. We use about 20 million barrels per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage by 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone else did, we could reduce demand several percentage points immediately. In other words: Obama is right.
Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.
The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: We can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wing global-warming denyers who insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or left-wing earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.
We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent light bulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air conditioning. We can use more efficient appliances, build more efficient homes and drive more efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And yes, we can inflate our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.
And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil — more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat — that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and little cost, and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. They're the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUV's, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would discourage them.
This is an article in the Chicago Tribune. See link:http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chicago-tribune/TFBTSLGNBFK5DLH5L/p3#lastPost
There are many comments, some positive and others negative. I had to ad my two pence and this is what I wrote.
It is hard for a grown man to acknowledge that a video made him cry but there are so many reasons for us to cry after knowing that what we face as a nation is about to change. I believe in tears of joy as so many Americans have done over these past months. Not only are Americans crying but there are millions across the world who are shedding tears of joy also.
God Bless America!
God Bless Barack Obama!
Thanks Bruce, you said it right. It is time for change AND the time has come!
Link to video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9_8vwx2w8
Folks,
I made a matching donation today and would like to do it again. Since PA is four (4) days away, I will be happy to match a donation of $25.00 from any new Obama member.
The catch 22 is and this person must be a first doner and I would like IF possible, someone from PA.
As time goes by I'll do the same for NC etc. I am a New Yorker who can't make it to PA to help canvas but can make phone calls and donate the little I can.
Come on folks...get a new doner and I'll match the donation. We New Yorkers are not forgetting the votes that was not counted and since we can't vote until the general...we do what we can now.
Peace!!!
Yes We Can!
The polls indicate there is a six (6) percent difference between Barack and Hillary. I am proposing a donation drive to get Barack back on the bus in PA before the primary in two weeks.
We need to close the gap and if possible win PA. I am willing to match all donations to a maximum of $500.00 TOTAL toward this drive. The requirements are:
(1) Each donation is my on my blog
(2) Should indicate you are donating on my page toward my drive.
I am doing this because I believe we need to place added effort into getting "His" nomination. I am a poor working stiff with a young daughter going off to college this fall. I can hardly pay or better yet; I can't find the required amount to pay for her college BUT I am willing to take a chance because "I BELIEVE" and I am sure you all believe as well.
Credit:By Christopher HitchensPosted Monday, March 31, 2008, at 11:26 AM ET
The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. There are two kinds of deliberate and premeditated deceit, commonly known as suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. (Neither of them is covered by the additionally lying claim of having "misspoken.") The first involves what seems to be most obvious in the present case: the putting forward of a bogus or misleading account of events. But the second, and often the more serious, means that the liar in question has also attempted to bury or to obscure something that actually is true. Let us examine how Sen. Clinton has managed to commit both of these offenses to veracity and decency and how in doing so she has rivaled, if not indeed surpassed, the disbarred and perjured hack who is her husband and tutor.
I remember disembarking at the Sarajevo airport in the summer of 1992 after an agonizing flight on a U.N. relief plane that had had to "corkscrew" its downward approach in order to avoid Serbian flak and ground fire. As I hunched over to scuttle the distance to the terminal, a mortar shell fell as close to me as I ever want any mortar shell to fall. The vicious noise it made is with me still. And so is the shock I felt at seeing a civilized and multicultural European city bombarded round the clock by an ethno-religious militia under the command of fascistic barbarians. I didn't like the Clinton candidacy even then, but I have to report that many Bosnians were enthused by Bill Clinton's pledge, during that ghastly summer, to abandon the hypocritical and sordid neutrality of the George H.W. Bush/James Baker regime and to come to the defense of the victims of ethnic cleansing.
I am recalling these two things for a reason. First, and even though I admit that I did once later misidentify a building in Sarajevo from a set of photographs, I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States.
Yet this is only to underline the YouTube version of events and the farcical or stupid or Howard Wolfson (take your pick) aspects of the story. But here is the historical rather than personal aspect, which is what you should keep your eye on. Note the date of Sen. Clinton's visit to Tuzla. She went there in March 1996. By that time, the critical and tragic phase of the Bosnia war was effectively over, as was the greater part of her husband's first term. What had happened in the interim? In particular, what had happened to the 1992 promise, four years earlier, that genocide in Bosnia would be opposed by a Clinton administration?
Here is my comment:
Yes race matters but not in the thinking of Senator Obama and his view of the America we are all longing for.
His message of change is deeper than any politician have spoken or wanted to speak about.
His change comes from his heart to the heart and mind of most Americans. I truly believe he wants change to be in our heart and soul and to expand to our brothers, sisters and friends.
Politics is a dirty word, played in dirty ways and he has seen the need to change politics and he is trying to bring tranqulity to Americans and the world in general.
I pray that one day in the very near future, there will be One America; One People, One Nation Under God.
Out Of Many, One People! God bless him!
What is she thinking? Now really!!! This is amazing when one puts ones foot into ones mouth too often.
Breaking news; see link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080318/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc_39
First paragraph:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton charged on Monday the Iraq war may end up costing Americans $1 trillion and further strain the economy, as she made her case for a prompt U.S. troop pullout from a war "we cannot win."
According to various news media, both candidates are calling for the high road. Staying on the issues and the good of Americans will strengthen the Democratic Party. I hope in the weeks ahead we'll learn to keep out tongue and focus on the issues.
Link:
