From here
<aurelian groans.> Another day, another Bush Pit thread. Who does he think he’s fooling? Dude, we know that whenever you praise a committee/ organization/ department/ idea as being really important and significant, it means you’re about to slash its funding. Why bother with the rhetorical curlicues? I already know you’re going to do things that go against my beliefs; why bother pretending otherwise?
Ahh Good! Cuz I gotta cravin for some crude.
Wow. A President stated a goal with an end result loftier than might be acheivable during a SOTU speech? What a shocker. Of course, the fact that he went before America and stated we’re addicted to foreign oil and need to change it doesn’t merit any regard.
I have no idea what is going to work. Neither do you. That’s why we aren’t in charge of energy policy. May he meant the 75% would be made up for with domestic drilling. Or maybe an increase in nuclear power would reduce the need for oil-produced electricity and fuel oil. If it’s either of those, you know damn well who is going to fight tooth and nail to block those two choices. The same people that say we need to find sources of energy other than oil.
How about an alternative? Ethanol is out. That’s the biggest part of alternative energy he spoke about. It seems unacceptable to you. And it’s plausable that it can be a huge part of weaning ourselves from oil. What is your great plan? Other than a very shallow OP?
Keep in mind. When a politician, of any stripe states a goal of 75% of anything, a 30% end result is a major accomplishment.
And 30% is pretty good considering the knee-jerks are completely against any idea they agree with if it’s proposed by their opponent.
So what is your proposal other than spending any free time you have looking for things to be upset about? Is there anything you see as positive in the stated policy change?
And that alone isn’t worth being irritated? You’re more cynical than me.
When did I claim I did, doofus? I teach Spanish for a living. It’s rare that I read a book that was written within the last three hundred years. I’m not the president, just a grad student hoping to be a professor soon so I can help students learn a language and more about the world. Why does my complaint about the president mean that I must know more than him about energy usage and consumption?
Huh? I said nothing about ethanol, nor did I opine on any of the “alternative” sources.
Again, why do I need to have an alternative plan? I’m not president, I’m not running for any sort of office, I’m just taking a break from grading, drinking a glass of reisling and checking the internet for news. But hey, if you think that person who decides our nation’s energy policy ought to be a graduate student in Early Modern Spanish Literature, well, it wouldn’t be quite the dumbest thing you’ve ever posited on these boards, duffer. My complaint is simple: if you don’t mean replacing “more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025” than don’t say “more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.”
Right. That’s my goal in life, duffer, finding pointless things to kvetch about, because I don’t have tests to grade, books to read or tests to prepare for. Yup. How ridiculous! To expect words to, you know, mean things and stuff. (Oh, and before you start whining about a Clintonian ‘is’, I was 13 when Clinton was first elected. W is the first president for whom I’ve had any sort of political awareness or agency.)
Who mentioned Clinton? :dubious:
I’m trying to figure out what the meat of the OP is. Other than a one-off line that was quoted, we really don’t get a sense of what you think is wrong with the statement, not any alternative to it. You’ve spent more time trying to get a dig in on me than anything concerning the actual statement.
But go ahead and learn. It sounds like a valid pursuit of knowledge that you can pass on to future generations. The subject matter should produce great thinkers that will actually be able to work on these great problems we face in the near future.
Not like science and math have any more importance than Early Spanish modern literature. It’s a nice subject and all, and worthy of continued study, but someone with a strength in that field better make a better argument than you did in your OP.
If your point was merely that we won’t actually be able to cut foreign oil consumption in 20 years, you have a point. As alluded to in the first line you quoted me on. We could do it, but only if Bush is given carte blanche. Then we could drill off Florida, California and ANWR. That ain’t happening.
The point he was making (WRT cutting oil consumption) was that it is possible, and the fact he even mentioned it means he’s proven his sac isn’t in the Exxon CEO’s top desk drawer.
Even with a mention that the US needs to start to curb oil consumption, he’s somehow the villain. What numbers would you rather him have used? He used a benchmark that nobody expects probable. But whatever numbers he used and proposals to get there would be fought by the opposition. Again, the left applauded the fact that Social Security reform made no progress. Why would oil be any different?
Just admit you’re trying to glom on to anything to bitch about and I can accept the OP for what it is. But to throw a firebomb out the window hoping a bunch of people will come warm themselves under your window is sad.
That would be me, aurelian. See how it’s in the same box as my name? That means that I posted it.
Don’t strain yourself, sweetie. Didja see the underlined word “here”? That was the link. To the article, that contained more than one line. I (apparently inappropriately) assumed that the direct contradiction (between what Bush said, and what was said the next day) would be transparent.
Ever so grateful you approve, sir duffer. <curtsies>
Um, okay. Just like someone who plays basketball well plays basketball better than me. Where’s CNN? What do you do for a living, duffer? And of course you would never start a Pit thread on a topic you hadn’t written your disseration on, would you?
Then why say the part about the Middle East?
If he didn’t know the numbers for sure, he shouldn’t have mentioned them. How is that unreasonable? Bush has mentioned year after year that we need to cut our oil consumption…yet it has increased, year after year. A Challenge to those strong in Google-fu: Has overall oil consumption increased or decreased under W?
What the fuck kind of metaphor is that? You could give Góngora a run for his money with that sort of head-scratcher.
You’re defending bullshit duffer.
The president pulled that 75% number out of his ass.
Geez, speaking as a bleeding heart liberal, I say that we SHOULD start drilling for oil in Alaska. I wish I thought it would do some good, since the oil companies will continue to charge us whatever they think we’ll pay without riots in the streets, but yes. Find a way to harvest the oil there without overly disturbing the refuge and do it.
More than that I think we ought to have nuclear power plants. They get bad press, it’s true, but from what I’ve read (which might have been biased, yes) they aren’t as dangerous as they’re hyped to be. Certainly less dangerous than burning coal or sending thousands of soldiers to die overseas so we can get more oil. One wonders if some of that bad press wasn’t funded by oil companies. 
Unfortunately, I think the clever way to switch the country to nuclear power would be to entirely standardize the plants. Cookiecutter power plants, all using the same parts and engineered the same way. For that to happen, we’d probably need to deprivatize the energy industry, and there’s no WAY that’s going to happen.
I’m sorry to post something like this without a cite - I just don’t know where to look - but I thought I remember reading that ANWAR would still only be able to fill a very small portion of our oil needs…?
I wonder if it would be worth the investment, in that case. This is why I’m behind nuclear power. And power companies spending more of their profit on research. As it is, they make so much money on oil – and will, until there’s not a drop left – that they don’t care. Even if the world had no more oil in ten years, they’d still have so much money they could buy as much energy as they wanted from other sources.
Ah…here’s something…of course, it’s from the New York Times, which is a slave to ultraleft ideology :
On preview: thanks, Ninja.
Right after the President made the statement about an energy subject his energy guru said he didn’t mean it. Seems clear enough to me what the gripe is.
I don’t suppose you remember, or maybe never heard, the Jonathan Winters routine *What the Colonel meant was… * about the drunken Air Force Colonel giving an interview in which nearly everything he said was followed up and corrected by a PR man who was in constant attendance.
Seconded. Problem is, as long as motor vehicles use oil by-products, that gains us next to nothing. We must figure on changing all motor vehicles over to electric or hydrogen powered, and that won’t happen until it is cost efficient.
You’re thinking of the 800 different cites of percentage and number of barrels of oil in ANWR we can get. Of course, these are all percentages people are pulling out of their asses. We really don’t know.
Based on the land area proposed for drilling, even if it’s in the low-end it’s an appreciable amount for the tiny footprint the drilling would leave. If it’s at the higher end, it’s a promising resource. We keep hearing about how it will take 10 years to get oil from the region. Well, if we wait 10 years to drill, it’ll be 20 years to get the spigot turned on. And if we’re to beleive that oil consumption will be the same in 20 years, the sooner we tap our own resources, the better.
What do I do for a living? Working 50 hours a week, paying taxes, and looking forward to retirement.
Duffer, some days you’re on. Most days, however, your performance leaves much to be desired. Are you as obtuse as your participation in this thread would lead casual observers to believe?
The OPs gripe is plainly stated. POTUS lied. He claimed that he would be taking stpes to reduce foreign consumption by 75% by using alternative sources. His spokesperson then said “Nah, we was just funnin’”. Then they cut the budget of the department that would get us closer to the goal of reducing our reliance on foreign oil. Said budget cut led to the layoff of the very people who would have been doing research on this.
Fuck. Stop defending the guy and at least admit to yourself that he’s a sorry sack of shit who will say anything to try to get any sign of life from his poll numbers.
Sam
Taking a flyer here, but ultimately cost efficiency could be helped by the government actually deciding to fund finding alternatives to using more oil and the President putting some muscle behind his premise by perhaps supporting the EPA (among others) in requiring more fuel efficient cars (egads, Martha, we can’t have buy our SUV’s anymore). For the naysayers, yes I know that it is short-term but it is still a better alternative to the present course of doing nothing. Except for making statements that cannot be scientifically supported (and apparently better understood by Grad students studying Spanish than some others;).
And duffer, I too thought the premise of the OP was pretty well stated.
Actually, rereading all the posts, if the point of the OP was to complain about a politician saying something in order to please the masses, then “clarified” it the next day, there isn’t really anything that upsets me about it.
Just so long as the OP calls every politician on that gamesmanship. Because that’s all it really is. A game.
I’ll bow out of my stance taken so far in this thread. It was stated as a Bush slam, when it seems it should be a slam on any politician with a press secretary. I will, however, reserve the right to come charging through here again.
For the record, my previous post was being written as yours was posted. (I never, to my dismay, use preview.)
So yeah, I agree with you with my stance. Hope the above clears it up a bit. I’m less a pragmatic and more an off-the-cuff type guy. It’s caused some seeming ill-will, but most have seen it for what it’s worth.
This is why I know damn well I should never be elected to office. I’m not diplomatic enough. And you know I won’t call him (the man) a sack of shit. It just happens to people that depend on an election to keep their job.
Frankly, I’m sick of politics as we know it to be. But given the choices, I have to try to fight for the side that is closer to my own ideals. Even if I don’t always feel clean doing so.
Every one? That’s going to make writing my disseration pretty tough, duffer. Perhaps you’d be willing to be my patron. Of course, you would never posit an absurdity just for the sake of a couple of (failed) points, would you now?
Way to go on the selective reading, by the way. Does this mean that I’m still allowed to post on the Dope about things other than my disseration topic, or must I always have a fully-researched and viable alternative plan (which, ironically enough, is more than our president seems to have)?
Do what you want. Just learn to recognize when someone concedes a point. Your education is paying off already. :rolleyes: