Ok, lunch time, I have a few minutes to respond.

DJD "... only to be stopped by Florida politics ..."

Wasn't Jeb Bush a part of that? I know Bush I banned off-shore drilling. Man, W is going to take a beating at the next family get together! lol!


"...I don't remember hearing how he was going to cut spending. Anyone else hear what he plans on doing to cut spending?? Maybe I dozed off and didn't hear how...."

May be he is borrowing the Bush plan, spend now, let your kids and grandkids pay for it later ;-) The cutting spending part I've heard Obama talk about before. Figures if we get out of Iraq we'll save those billions and use them for other things. I'm not convinced that he can get us out of Iraq as quick as he wants. However, with the Iragis suggesting a timetable for US withdrawl, who knows. I would like to see us out of Iraq, but we also have to make sure the job there is actually done first.

As for the US exporting oil/gas:

"A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department."

Full story at:

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/07/03/2008-07-03T184028Z_01_N02435397_RTRIDST_0_USA-OIL-EXPORTS-ANALYSIS.html

One of the things that they point out is that in reality, it may be more economical to export gulf oil to South America and import foriegn oil to the NE US.

In any case, I don't see destroying the US environment just to supply others with oil/gas. That does not benifit the US as a whole. While there is all this talk of more drilling, there is no guarentee that the US will see any of that oil. The only way that we could guarentee that oil would be reaching US customers would be through some type of socialist laws. I'm pretty sure neither of us wants that!

Bobby Hendrick "... and I blame 90% of our mess on these that we keep electing year after year. In order for this mess to be righted we need to clean up DC starting from the bottom up. Both Parties. "

RoadToad "... Can we please stop blaming "liberal Dems" or "neocons" for our problems, and start working together on solutions?"

Agree 100%. If the bums are not doing what we elected them to do, fire them!!! Also agree that if we can put a man on the moon, we can come up with a viable alternive energy source(s). Probably have them already, just need a way to implement/distribute it to the country. This is something that we all need to work on, together. In my opinion, this is another problem that we face today. The partisonship in the country is growing. There is no need for that. We are all Americans, and, for the most part, all have very similar opinions on the important things (life, liberty, persute of happiness). Partisonship is a political tool used to show that the other party ***** worse than our party, so keep voting for us. Nah, they all ****, fire them.


MHAll "Andrew my ole buddy ole pal, fishing friend ect. ect., I too agree that alternative fuels are the real answer, however sitting on our hands doing absolutely nothing sure as heck ain't working either. I've always thought a little bit of something beats a whole lot of nothing. So what you are saying is basically do nothing until some Eienstein figures out a way for us to go 500 miles ona space age battery or something. We need something NOW to shake up the greedy oil tycoons and these line their pocket speculators, Just my very humble opinion. Oh yea I'll still fish with ya even though you are liberal, lol."

Here is the problem, at least how I see it. We talk about off-shore drilling, drilling in ANWARE, etc. However, NONE of that will reach us for at least 5-10 years. Thats if we do not export it elsewhere. Rather than shooting for 5-10 years to keep us dependant on oil, why not shoot for that 5-10 years for those alternative fuel sources to be in use? This is certainly not sitting on our hands, its shooting for the long-term solution. The continued drilling just keeps us dependant on the oil rather than search for other solutions rather than for keeping us in the mess we are in. Its only a matter of time before all of the oil is gone. Rather than wait until the last minute to do something, lets get serious about doing something now. I know its not all about supply and demand. After all, the demand is dropping. Oh, and don't worry, I'll still be happy to chase those two hybrids with you anytime :-)

Andrew