Palin's Appalling Ignorance Keeps Surfacing, This Time On Oil Exports

It matters whom a presidential nominee picks for a running mate. It says quite a bit about their judgment. After all, John McCain is presuming to be the person who will appoint a Cabinet and many federal judges. If he can't pick a good vice presidential running mate ...

Sarah Palin has shown herself to be someone with barely enough of an IQ to do OK with coaching and preparation. (As does McCain.) But when it comes to off-the-cuff knowledge of the issues, she's been losing every round since she was chosen. Today, the subject was oil exports.

Onward.
The Associated Press reported today:

WASHINGTON - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports — especially from her state's North Slope fields.

A questioner at a town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin said he had heard that at least 75 percent of the oil drilled in Alaska was being sold to China and said, if true, he would like to know why.

"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting some of Alaska's oil, in fact, may be going abroad but not that much.

"In fact," she added, "Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially."

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.

And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.

So this is Big Mac's expert on energy issues?

This is a person clearly trying to play far out of her league. But here's a scary thought: George W. Bush, Il Doofus himself, has been "president" for nearly eight years. Now, we're in two wars with no foreseeable end, the economy has been wrecked, and the Constitution has been sullied beyond understanding.

Bigger mistakes have been made -- perhaps.

(Here's a link to the whole AP article.)

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'There Will Be Blood' Comes To Iraq

For years, those of us who have argued that the Iraq war is mainly about oil have been dismissed as wild-eyed neo-Marxists, conspiracy theorists and prematurely senile ex-hippies. Tell that to journalism legend Bill Moyers.

Moyers and Michael Winship present a compelling look at the clear motive behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in "It Was Oil, All Along."

For reader-supported Web news service Truthout, Moyers and Winship wrote:

"Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil."

Go here to read the entire article. I found the analogy to the film There Will Be Blood intriguing. -- MJ

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Cornyn Watch: The Bush Shill Is Now Considered Vulnerable

Politics in Texas has fallen so much under Republican dominance since 1990 -- that was the last year that Democrats like the late ex-Gov. Ann Richards won statewide elections -- that a lot of people in "blue" states wrote us off as hopeless rednecks long ago.

Not so fast. The demographics in this state are changing; and also, perhaps even some of the traditionally conservative Anglo voters are beginning to wonder about the pendejos they've been habitually electing to high office. Like Bush toady Sen. John Cornyn.

As of last month, Cornyn's little-known Democratic challenger was within 4 percentage points of him, according to Rasmussen Reports.

State Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, is a graduate of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, an Afghanistan war veteran as a lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, and much more.

It's great news that Texas Democrats have a real chance this year to knock off one of our GOP mannequins in the Senate. Here's a bit of what Cornyn has been busy with lately, representing the vital interests of Texans as he does:

-- Since the ruling in California last month opening the door for gay marriage in the state, Cornyn has been going that extra mile to make sure the miscreants never come to the Lone Star State with such deviant ideas. He's renewed his call for a nationwide ban against same-sex marriages. Yep, that's really going to make a dent in the price of gasoline, and make bread and eggs so much more affordable for decent folk.

-- Speaking of the price of gasoline, here are Sen. Cornhole's thoughts about energy policy, courtesy of his own "Texas Times" e-mail newsletter:

In my view, the solution is straightforward. We need more energy. Government should get out of the way, let the free market work and allow more domestic energy production. This would reduce gas prices even in the near-term, expand job opportunities in Texas — a world energy leader — and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

But earlier this month, the Senate actually considered a massive climate tax bill that headed in the exact opposite direction. This massive $6.7 trillion Rube Goldberg scheme proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., would undermine our economy and likely lead to $10 per gallon gasoline. It could well eliminate some 330,000 Texas jobs, sending them to places with limited regulation like China and India.

How can this be explained? After blocking American energy production and oil independence, Congress pursues bigger government, added taxes and higher energy costs—with no guarantee of actually improving the world’s climate.

It is vital that we be the best possible stewards of the environment. Fortunately, improved technology has enabled us to take advantage of America’s own abundant natural resources in an environmentally sensitive way. Yet the U.S. remains the only country in the world that refuses to develop many of its natural resources.

America is aggressively moving from fossil fuels to more diverse energy sources, including wind, nuclear, solar and clean coal. We need all of this supply. The government and private industry are both investing to promote and expedite this transition, and using steps such as increasing vehicle fuel-efficiency standards.

In the short term, however, oil, gas and coal will remain our dominant sources of energy. The free market could provide significant additional supplies—but Congress continues to prevent that.

Say, wasn't the "free market" one of the ways we got here in the first place? Big Oil didn't want alternative energy sources, and resisted them for years. Now they're raking in record profits, and attributing it to the supply-and-demand mechanism of the so-called "free market." (Hey, let's send copies of The Wealth of Nations out to the players in the OPEC cartel.)

And the solution from U.S. Big Oil is to drill on environmentally sensitive lands, and next to national monuments, in national parks, and so forth? Isn't this "free market" approach what we've been doing for decades, and to ill effect? And Sen. Cornhole proposes that we trust such people, yet again?

And, what has been the role of the Iraq war, and how would the "free market" address that?

It's not hard to figure out to whom Cornyn is answering -- lots of Petroleum Clubs and the associated donors -- and that will have to end someday. Eventually it could end in enduring disaster, so the sooner it ends, the better. Getting jerks like Cornhole out of the Senate would be a great start -- with a new Texas senator named Noriega.

Crossposted at Manifesto Joe.

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Free-time fun - protesting Exxon

I meant to post this last week after it was on my blog, but I got busy getting ready for a mini-vacation to San Francisco. Besides, you may see me on PBS this fall!

I wasn’t there last year, but two years ago, I joined the protest in front of ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting. The suburban Dallas-based eXXXon meets in downtown Dallas at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

It was different this year, being back here!

Close-up of me:



This year, as opposed to two years ago, Dallas police etc.let us on the same side of the street as the Meyerson.

The big item on the shareholder agenda this year is the proposal to split eXXXon’s CEO and chairman of the board positions, to require them to be held by two different people. Current CEO and Chairman Rex Tillerson strongly opposes the move.

I had a chance to get interviewed about this, and more general comments on Peak Oil and global warming, for PBS’s Frontline. The episode, whether my comments make the cut or not, is supposed to air in October.

Me as part of the protest group:



The “division of powers” proposal, which most other Big Oil companies have already, got 42 percent a year ago, and with the backing of some 200 members of the Rockefeller family, maybe it will get over the top this time.

Assuming Tillerson would keep the CEO spot, a new chairman might do little more than give lip service to both global warming and Peak Oil.

But, lip service is better than no service.


Other protestors:



About 40 people were there at various times when I was there, including members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Southern Christian Leadership President Charles Steele Jr. was among people who spoke.

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Closing in on a hundred dollars a barrel

Wow. We are going to see hundred-dollar per barrel oil. Maybe today, maybe next week, maybe it will take longer. But I would bet a hundred bucks that we will definitely see it by year end. The dollar is simply too weak to manipulate the markets to prevent it. I'm no econ wizard (I don't even balance my own checkbook, I have a banker I went to high school with do that for me) but Bernanke at the Fed is unnerving. Hell, it scares me spitless. The best analogy I can conjure - It's like a counterfeiter has authentic plates & linen paper, and access to a quality press...But I digress, as is my wont...

Light sweet crude traded at $96.24/bbl. on Thursday, the highest price oil has ever realized.

[keep reading]

I've said it before, and I will say it again...we are witnessing a realignment of world economic and political power, it is realigning along an energy axis, and future historians are going to write about the time in which we live as the "Emergence of the Resource Wars."

If we don't get a handle on this stuff, and do so double-time, the future is bleak. If you like the oil wars, you are gonna love the pending water wars.

There is a new reality in town. The countries producing energy are sitting in what is commonly known as "the catbirds seat." But the US? Not so much. The oil-rich countries, like Russia and Iran, are not going to be cowed by Yankee bluster any more. They have oil, and the emerging Asian economies have an insatiable appetite for the sticky black stuff, and the odorless clear stuff - and the ability to pay for it. The desperation of the Bush Administration as the reality about Iran sets in is growing palpable.

The Bush administration is desperate to stop the long-planned India-Pakistan-I ran (IPI) Pipeline, which will deliver Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to the subcontinent. The U.S. would much prefer that India satisfy their energy needs with nuclear energy via a deal with the United States that has been stalled. Never mind that Indo-Persian relations are over 2000 years old, that Persian was the language of literature and government on the subcontinent until the 1800's. (But these jokers have no use for history, sociology nor anthropology.)

The United States seems bent on clinging to obsolete modes of thinking. It simply makes no sense to invest all of our blood and treasure into securing what's left of a sdwindling resource. Which, by the way, is so chemically unique and versatile, that I am nonplussed that it is simply burned for fuel! Of course, I understand why...it's greed. If you make electric cars that don't burn petrol, every soccer mom in America wouldn't be forking over a hundred bucks a week to Big Oil. It's drug-dealer economics - get 'em addicted and they keep coming back, until they are either dead or desperate enough to go through the pain and agony of cold-turkey withdrawal.

If we were serious about taking concrete steps to counter the coming energy crisis, we wouldn't be fighting a war for oil (and Hubbert, by the way, was an optimist) we would be undertaking a Manhattan Project for energy independence.

Some things are too important to be left to private industry, and responsible energy policy is one of them. Private industry is profit driven. Period. If there is no maximized profit motive, there is no reason to pursue a particular path. It is in the interest of big energy that we remain beholden and dependent upon their products. Thats econ 101.

We should have been working on these problems for the last 30 years, but instead the decision was made to fiddle while Rome burned, the problems could be punted to the next generation. And those of us who were agitating for responsible energy policy were dismissed as cranks, spoil-sports, worry-warts, and Nervous Nellies.

Well, we got the last laugh - except there is no humor in this situation. It's time to deal with reality, because reality is not going to have any qualms about dealing with us.

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