Daily Trek -- July 3, 2008

What'd I miss?

Everything you need to know to stay informed each day in 5 minutes or less!  Read your regular news and include this and you will be able to participate in any current events discussion.
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President Bush blasted the Democrats on oil yesterday: "One thing is for certain here in the United States, that we can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country -- something I've been advocating ever since I've been the President."

Was there a "meta-message" in Obama's patriotism speech and what is a meta-message?  American Thinker has both answers, (hint, yes, and the message between the lines are the answers).

Iraqi TV ran a Public Service Announcement blaming Iran for the violence as they move more toward American sphere of influence and away from Iran.

For some reason Fox News appears to be the only reporting on improvements in Iraq.  What is really strange is that those damn 'benchmarks' the Democrats were howling about earlier this year are now 15/18 completed!

Did you hear the one about the Democratic Congressman who put up a picture honoring WWII veterans --- of the Soviet Union?
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Just a short Trek today, it's the exhaustion.
DKK

About Those "Unused" Oil Leases -- A Lie By Any Other Name

To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban – and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong – Democrats also say that most of the current leases are "nonproducing." The idea comes from a "special report" prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Resources Committee, chaired by Mr. Rahall. "If we extrapolate from today's production rates on federal lands and waters," the authors write, the oil companies could "nearly double total U.S. oil production" (their emphasis).

In other words, these whiz kids assume that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. Yet the existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research quips that, using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently nonproducing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day.

Nonetheless, the House still went through with a gesture called the "use it or lose it" bill, which passed on Thursday 223-195. It would be pointless even if it had a chance of becoming law. Oil companies acquire leases in the expectation that some of them contain sufficient oil and gas to cover the total costs. Yet it takes years to move through federal permitting, exploration and development. The U.S. Minerals Management Service notes that only one of three wells results in a discovery of oil that can be recovered economically. In deeper water, it's one of five. All this involves huge risks, capital investment – and time.

If anything, the Democrats ought to be dancing in the streets about "idle" leases. It means fewer rigs. The days of hit-or-miss wildcatting have been relegated to the past by new, more efficient technologies, such as seismic imaging, directional drilling (wells that are "steered" underground) and multilateral drilling (multiple underground offshoots from a single wellbore).

At the same time, finding new reservoirs has become far more complex. Except for a few very large fields discovered decades ago like Prudhoe Bay, most recent discoveries have been smaller, deeper and less concentrated. The U.S. needs a continuous supply of discoveries to replace declining wells.

Yet companies are not allowed to explore where the biggest prospects for oil and gas may exist – especially on the Outer Continental Shelf. Seven of the top 20 U.S. oil fields are now located in analogous deepwater areas (greater than 1,000 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Chevron discovered what is likely to be the largest American oil find since Prudhoe, drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor. The Wilcox formation may have an upper end of 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and should begin producing by 2014 – perhaps ushering in a new ultradeepwater frontier.

Likewise, in April, the U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate for the Bakken Shale, underneath the badlands of North Dakota and Montana. The new assessment – as much as 4.3 billion barrels of oil – is a 25-fold increase over what the Survey believed in 1995. Such breakthroughs confirm that very large reserves exist, if only Congress would let business get at them.

All of which has Democrats sweating bullets. The leadership is desperate to avoid debating a Department of Interior spending bill, because they know Republicans will offer amendments lifting the drilling moratorium that may peel off some Democrats. Last week, Chairman David Obey shut down the Appropriations Committee rather than countenance more domestic energy production. Given Democratic energy illiteracy, this is a fight the GOP can win if it keeps up the pressure.

DKK
WSJ -- Obama's Dry Hole

Markets Work -- US Oil Consumption Drops To 2002 Levels

For most of the post-WWII era US oil consumption went up year after year. One deviation from that came in the early 1980s. An even longer lasting and probably permanent deviation from that trend is developing. Americans have traveled back in a sort of time machine to 2002 levels of oil usage.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration revised downward U.S. April oil demand by 863,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 19.77 million bpd -- 3.9 percent below year-ago levels. The revision, which showed April demand was the lowest for the month since April 2002, came even before gasoline prices surged to new records in June.

But on a per capita basis the reduction in oil usage is even larger since the US population grows about 1% per year. So has US oil usage per capita gone down 10% since 2002? 

DKK
FuturePundit -- US Oil Comsumption Falls Back To 2002 Levels

Obama Approves Of Premptive Attacks -- On His Political Opponents That Is

Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain’s campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears. … It’s curious how anyone could argue that a man with such visceral understanding of the capacity for what America’s enemies will do to our men and women in uniform doesn’t fully appreciate the cost of war. But even more troubling is the unmistakable pattern of these smears, all of them unsubtly alleging that McCain is an unhinged, mentally unstable warmonger who would deploy soldiers capriciously because he hasn’t truly experienced the horrors of ground battle. Indeed, the claims of these four men — and the short period of time in which they were all uttered — are so similar in tone that one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign. Nevertheless, the fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists only in their fevered imaginations. The evidence of dirty Republican tricks has been utterly absent this campaign season. And if anyone has tried to smear Barack Obama in the way that Thomas, Wolfe and other Democratic partisans allege, it was not the Republican National Committee, but rather Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates. In February, the Drudge Report claimed that the Clinton campaign circulated photos of Obama in a traditional East African turban and robe, with the message that the images showed him “dressed.” Asked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, “As far as I know,” it wasn’t the case. After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, she said the results showed that “Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.”

This is a part of the same overall strategy that beat Hillary. DKK Via Hot Air

Columbian Troops Free 15 FARC Terrorist Hostages Including 3 Americans

Ms Betancourt, who was captured in 2002, and the three Americans held since 2003, were rescued along with 11 Colombian soldiers in a dramatic and bloodless operation when a Colombian military team posing as rebels removed them from the jungle by helicopter.

It was an impressive operation, read the whole thing.

It appears FARC  may be on its deathbed as was reported earlier -- despite their support of Hugo Chavez.
DKK
UN Telegraph

American Views On Energy And Environment Predictably Changing

A new poll shows high gasoline prices have dramatically changed Americans’ views on energy and the environment. More people now say expanding oil drilling and building new power plants is a bigger priority than energy conservation.
The poll by the Pew Research Center shows nearly half of those surveyed — or 47 percent — now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants more important, compared with 35 percent in February.
The Pew poll of about 2,000 adults conducted in late June shows the shift toward energy development across the political spectrum including among Democrats, political independents, liberals and young people.

This was titled, "An unexpected result of high gas prices," but I'm not sure why Knoxvilletalks didn't expect it, it is an economic reality with the increase in demand and price.
DKK
Knoxville Talks

Timeless Words

America must get to work producing more energy. The Republican program for solving economic problems is based on growth and productivity.

Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy.

Coal offers great potential. So does nuclear energy produced under rigorous safety standards. It could supply electricity for thousands of industries and millions of jobs and homes. It must not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth which often finds friendly ears in regulatory agencies for its obstructionist campaigns.

Make no mistake. We will not permit the safety of our people or our environment heritage to be jeopardized, but we are going to reaffirm that the economic prosperity of our people is a fundamental part of our environment.

Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control -- all of which led us to this state in the first place.

Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention
by Ronald Reagan July 17, 1980

  
(Emphasis added)
DKK

Utterly Exhausted -- Bounce Back Week

I'm really sorry I haven't posted more -- I experienced post exertional fatigue (exhaustion is a better word) after last week's testing.  I will get back to regular posting as soon as I can.
DKK

Gun Control Myths

DKK

Why Doesn't Obama Pay Women The Same As Men?

Obama claims he wants to eliminate the pay discrepancies between the sexes in America. But if that is the case then why does he pay the women on his Senate staff an average of $6000 less then the men on his staff? Who really works for women's pay rights? Senator John McCain who pays the women on his staff about $2000 more then the men on his staff. Change we can believe in, right? DKK CNS News

This, uh, Is, uh, The, uh, Most, uh, Articulate Man, uh, In Democratic, uh, Politics Today!

(click for larger image)

Prickly City Comic

DKK

Update -- as if to prove this point here is a video of today's Obama press conference via Hot Air. Just listen to this guy when he isn't reading, and he is a great reader isn't he!DKKUpdate -- In case you wondered why Obama agonizes over every word, as Prickly City points out, lets go to the video where he doesn't -- thanks to Rodger at Curmudegonly & Skeptical:DKK

Who Does A Person Support For Lower Gas Prices?

American Solutions has a new page on their site that includes endorsements of their Drill here, Drill now, Save money policy by candidates, politicians, and media sources.

There is no one from Illinois yet but since Manzullo has stated that he supports opening up domestic production this would be a good place to get that on the record.  The petition has nearly 1.5 million signatures to date.  They are shooting for 3 million and they may just make it.

Support for doing something is growing and the Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue.
DKK

Will The Real Barack Please Stand Up

We don’t know how he will act under pressure and in real circumstances demanding definitive action because he has never developed, stuck with and acted upon a fixed set of principles. So voters will have to figure out for themselves which polar opposite vision of Obama is the real one. The fact that both could be in contention is startling and sobering.

DKK
Commentary Magazine -- Krugman is stumped, too.

So Nancy, How's That Energy Plan Going? What, Still Nothing But Roadblocks, Typical.

In May 2007, Nancy Pelosi announced amid great fanfare that the Democrats had made July 4, 2007 Energy Independence Day.  Castigating George Bush for his inaction on energy policy, Pelosi noted that gas prices had reached record levels and that the newly-enacted Democratic majority would take charge of energy policy to take back the leadership from “Big Oil”.  Pay close attention to the chart behind Pelosi at the beginning:

Their stated accomplishment was the ethanol debacle and the elimination of drilling tax credits.   Nothing that, in the real world, would help.

Since then gas has risen 60%.

See the video at Hot Air.
DKK

How To Destroy A State -- UAW Style

The large disparity between the value of the Euro and the U.S. dollar has given European automakers incentive to build plants Stateside. VW has been looking for the location of its next North American plant, and it appears as though we'll have an answer by July 8. Tennessee and Alabama are said to be the two major candidates for the $788 million facility, which could come online as soon as 2011 and produce 300,000 units per year by 2018. Word from Auto Motor Und Sport is that Michigan is completely out of the picture, and considering the state's history with the UAW.

 DKK
Autoblog -- VW decision on U.S. plant in July, sorry Michigan

Suicides 55% Of Gun Deaths Nationwide

The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.
Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DKK
Associated Press -- Surprising fact:Half of gun deaths are suicides

Heh Indeed!

DEMOCRATIC ATTACKS ON MCCAIN'S MILITARY RECORD: "When Obama loses in November, these schmucks can look back at such tactics and pinpoint where it all started going downhill. These same people whine like little b---hes at the slightest criticism of Barack Obama. But they go right into the gutter when attacking John McCain."
UPDATE: With Wesley Clark, "we're a long way from George Marshall."
ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh:
The Saddest Thing About Barack Obama's Available Military Expertise...
...is that though he has Wes Clark in his corner, the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.
Again, heh.

In 2004 the Democrats claimed Kerry's military experience mattered, in 1996 they claimed Dole's military experience didn't matter.  I sure wish they'd make up their minds.
DKK
Instapundit

Lower Gas Prices In Three Easy Steps

Newt Gingrich and his American Solutions own this issue!  (Drill Here! Drill Now! Pay Less!)

1.  Release a substancial amount of the Strategic Petrolium Reserve to the market immediately!  ("You'd have a lot of speculators going broke and you'd have taught some people about betting against the United States.")
   
2. Look for oil where it is!
3. Maximize the development of alternatives.

The US has doubled its energy efficiency in the past 30 years.  We still have room to go, but there is no way we can conserve our way out of the short term nor the long term energy needs of modern life!

Go to American Solutions and sign the petition if you haven't already.
DKK

If Gore Really Meant It

Congratulations!  Since leaving the White House Al Gore has earned well over $100 million dollars as he has continued his crusade against the evils of man's impact on the world.

I am glad he is doing well and embracing capitalism, seriously!  He grabbed an idea and marketed the hell out of it and some people ate it up.  I don't even begrudge him his home energy usage, other then the hypocrisy of the Goracle being the King of Carbon, after all he buys carbon offset credits from his own company, right?

What I don't understand is why he doesn't actually do something that would not only help solve his signature green issue but would actually improve and prepare America as well? Of course helping America could impact his image and his, "citizen of the world" standing, but I think he could spin the issue to his advantage.

As Mr. Gore knows from the recent upgrades to his home, solar energy is very expensive -- to the point of still being too expensive to be practical for the average home:

FindSolar.com, operated by solar industry interests and the DOE, has a handy Solar Estimator that calculates an estimated cost for a home solar PV system and provides a list of contractors in your area. It uses some curious formulas that I don't quite understand to calculate positive ROI, but it provides some interesting insights.  (...)

Conclusion: While good for the environment (assuming "green" manufacturing practices), residential solar PV systems are still too expensive and not yet cost effective. Expect this to change, however, as R&D produces better and cheaper solar panels and manufacturing ramps up.

Middle class America simply can't afford to install these units, even after tax credits, they are just too expensive.

If Mr. Gore were serious about saving us from ourselves, his carbon offset company would stop paying to plant trees, saving the Rain Forest, or preventing third world advances by pressing green only advancements.

Rather, if Mr. Gore, as the former Vice President of The United States, wanted to do his part for every aspect of American life, from energy independence, to economic stability, and even national security he would use those carbon offsets to purchase and install solar panels here in the states.

Wouldn't the overall impact of such a program be far greater then planting a tree?  Of course it wouldn't encourage the sweeping changes the environmentalists want, but is the goal really the changes or the environment?

He could start with schools and then pledge to have a panel installed on each and every home (that wanted one, not mandated!) by a date certain.  I would sign up for that!  Imagine the impact a lower electric bill would have on the poor each and every month!

The impact would not only be felt today but would help to ensure that our nations electric production capacity were prepared for the demand of the electric vehicles of the future, something that really needs to be addressed if electric ends up being the solution.

I like the idea and would start a company myself if I had the money.  Mr. Gore has the money, how about he put it to work helping rather then just blowing hot air.
DKK

Daily Trek -- June 30, 2008 -- Catch Up

What'd I miss? Everything you need to know to stay informed each day in 5 minutes or less! This is a make up edition of the Daily Trek as I was out having medical tests last week. It also gives me an opportunity to get the format of the Trek down as I am going to make this a regular item.
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A McCain presidency would mean electric cars powered by nuclear plants, clean coal.David Brock on Obama,

"He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics." David Brooks

Obama used his own Presidential Seal two weeks ago but scrapped it the following Monday, but was the seal illegal? I don't think so but could be.

Obama's fundraising results have dropped since February and the Reverend Wright issue hit the news, but his spending hasn't. He spent more in May then he brought in.

A compromise has been reached in FISA and Obama decided opposing it wasn't smart, after opposing it.

Mark Shields says Obama couldn't pass a polygraph test.

Why did Obama claim he, "extended health care for wounded troops," when he wasn't there to vote the day that law passed?

President Bush called out the Democrats on Oil production, and rightfully so!

Meanwhile that congress has the lowest approval ratings since they started asking. Compare that to our military and their high ratings!

McCain put out a campaign ad calling Obama Dr. No because he says no to every solution that would get us out of the energy problem. No drilling, no nuclear, no prize for battery -- other then taxes what does Obama want?

If the Democrats don't want to drill because it wouldn't solve an actual problem for 5 years, why are they so dead set on doing everything they can to solve a theoretical problem 100 years from now? How about Medicare and Social Security?

"It's a lethal thing to suddenly raise taxes," he explains. "This would be devastating to the world economy, to the United States, and it would be, I think, political suicide" Robert Mundell, economist. So should the Republicans get a unified message on taxes or would it sound like more of the same in this season of change and non-politics politics?

Obama says Republicans are going to run a racist campaign against him.

It also seems rather humorous that the Presidential candidate who was supposed to be such a "uniter" and transcend race is the one talking about it the most. 

Obama's campaign is making, "homemade," signs for the crowds. You have to admit they know how to work it! If our war propaganda had been half this good Iraq would not be an issue today.
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Lots more later today.
DKK

Update -- Note to bloggers, if you use the draft dashboard don't click on the edit pencil under a post as it loses all formating currently.  I think I have fixed it.
DKK