Obama In 2012: ‘We Can’t Just Drill Our Way To Lower Gas Prices.’ Add another one to the stupid Obama comments column.
oil
What would it mean to America if there were another Middle Eastern country that could produce oil on the Saudi Arabian scale? We imagine that President Obama would want to fly over immediately and bow to its leader. Until, that is, he found out that country is Isreal.

Oil? The Israelis can get it for you wholesale
The Jerusalem Post reveals light in the desert:
…Dr. Yuval Bartov, chief geologist for Israel Energy Initiatives, … presented data that [Israel’s] oil shale reserves are actually the equivalent of 250 billion barrels (that compares with 260 billion barrels in the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).
…As a consequence of these new estimates, we may emerge as the third largest deposit of oil shale, after the US and China.
.. new technologies, being developed for Israeli shale, seek to separate the oil from the shale rock 300 meters underground …
…The present goal is to produce commercial quantities of shale oil by the end of the decade.
…a unique method for separating oil from shale deep underground, [would change] the entire global oil market. The effect … would be to shift the center of gravity of world oil away from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf to more stable states…
There’s little President Blowhard and his windy city gang can do. The oil market is world-wide. If one country shuns Israeli oil, another will buy it, forcing prices down.
Now that’s change we can really believe in.
– Written by Bonfire of the Absurdities
Source: Jerusalem Post
Some of our Canadian friends are spinning a conspiratorial tale about foreign interest wolves in sheep’s clothing interfering in an important domestic industry. Oil, to be specific.

Only the world's 26th richest man would color coordinate his giant sunglasses and his turtleneck sweater
The Toronto Sun outlines the paranoia:
An OPEC billionaire has publicly said what everyone long suspected… Saudi Arabia doesn’t want the world to develop unconventional sources of oil, like Canada’s oilsands.
Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the world’s 26th richest man, worth more than $19 billion, told CNN he’s worried if oil prices stay around $100 a barrel, the West will look for other sources of oil and Saudi Arabia would lose its dominant position.
Doesn’t mpact us since non-Muslim president Obama discovered plenty of oil in Brazil, not to mention his “green energy” investments that produce quantum-particle-like jobs (they vanish when you look for them.) The Canadians, who sit on vast fields of shale oil deposits, are all wound up, however:
Prince Al-Waleed’s comments were a rare Saudi public criticism of the West. Normally, they leave that sort of thing to their allies — professional environmental lobbyists.
There are about 100 professional anti-oilsands activists in Canada, who do nothing but attack Canada’s oil industry. Typically they pose as grassroots environmentalists. But the facts are different.
Most environmental activists are actually paid professionals. And most work for foreign lobbyists.
Greenpeace, for example, is a $200-million multinational corporation based in Europe. If they don’t raise a million bucks a day in fundraising, they’d have to shut down.
Call us stupid, but we had never considered the fact that Greenpeace’s anti-oil campaign might we funded by oil interests. Duh!
Thankfully, our media has more important stuff on its mind, like reading Sarah Palin’s old emails.
– Written by Bonfire of the Absurdities
Source: Toronto Sun
Please allow us to translate the highly scientific jargon found in our headline: Give us some money and we’ll study the situation.
Good lord almighty, they actually found a few oil spots on some birds returning to Newfoundland from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a crisis.

The Northern Gannet flies south for the winter. Northern scientists undoubtedly want to do the same.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sounds the avian alarm:
A bird researcher has found northern gannets returning to a large nesting colony south of St. John’s are faring well despite concerns that a massive oil spill that began in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago would dramatically cut the area’s population.
Northern gannets from six colonies in Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec migrate to winter in the Gulf annually.
Bill Montevecchi, a Memorial University researcher who has been tracking the birds’ journey to the Gulf of Mexico and back again, said Tuesday hundreds of the gannets were likely killed by oil that spilled after a rig explosion on April 20, 2010.
A year later at the Cape St. Mary’s colony in eastern Newfoundland, Montevecchi said he believed there are signs that some of the thousands of birds that return to the province to lay just one egg each year have been damaged by the spill.
“We think we saw a few birds that had a few spots of oil on them over there.” he said.
We think? Well, that’s good enough for us. Quick, alert the government! Emergency grants must be issued so scientists can begin studying the situation.
This calls for another trip to the Gulf. Probably in the middle of December when it’s minus 30 in Newfoundland and nice and sunny on the Gulf.
Waiter! Another mimosa, please!
H/T: Mike Power
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Back in 2008 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “The price of oil is at the doorstep. Four dollars plus per gallon for oil is attributed to two oil men in the White House.”
Oddly enough, Pelosi is now conspicuously silent about gas prices. No public comments. No press conferences. No interviews.
Here’s a question for you: If Nancy Pelosi blamed high gas prices on “the oil men in the White House” back in 2008, shouldn’t she blame today’s high gas prices on the snake oil men in the White House?
Source: CNS News
If the Justice Department weren’t in on this scam, they’d be investigating the bait and switch tactics the Obama administration uses on the oil industry. First you take billions of dollars from an oil company for an offshore lease, then you come up with an absurd excuse to stop them from drilling.
Fox News explores the latest news in the Obama administration’s never ending quest for energy independence:

Could the EPA have come up with a goofier justification to stop the drilling?
Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.
Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”
You won’t believe what the EPA is worried about. It said Shell didn’t factor emissions from an icebreaker into its calculation of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions and that those emissions could negatively impact the people living in the nearest village.
The nearest village has 245 residents and lies 70 miles from the proposed drilling site.
Meanwhile, we’re lending billions of dollars to Brazil to do deep water drilling and billions more to Colombia to build a state-of-the-art oil refinery. And, of course, we’re borrowing those billions from China.
Upon further consideration, we take it back. This isn’t bait and switch. It’s a giant check kiting scam.
Source: Fox News
The National Press Club held a lovely luncheon the other day and invited Ted Turner and T. Boone Pickens to spread their wisdom among the prostrate press.

In wind power really works, Ted Turner's mouth should be able to generate enough electricity to power several small cities
North American Wind Power’s website described it as a debate, but our understanding of the word “debate” is that a successful one requires opposing sides. In this case, Turner and Pickens appeared to be singing from the same hymnal.
Of course, they both called for immediate action by Congress – Pickens to protect his substantial investment in wind power and Turner to protect his substantially dwindling reputation as a forward thinker.
But let’s concentrate on Turner, because Pickens commits the double cardinal sins of (1) being in the position to profit enormously if Congress were to actually do something about wind power, and (2) being boring.
Here’s how NAWP.com tells Turner’s tale:
Turner, founder and former head of CNN, agreed with Pickens that natural gas is part of the solution to the U.S.’ energy problem, which has been dramatized lately by rising gasoline prices. But Turner sees natural gas as only a “bridge fuel.”
“In 20 years, there will be no fossil fuel,” said Turner, who asserted that cars will run on electricity in 20 years.
Despite the fact that the world has greater proven oil reserves now than at any time in history, Turner says the world’s gas tank will be on empty by 2031. But the Mouth from the South was just getting started.
“We need renewable energy for a world without pollution, so kids won’t get asthma.”
President Obama tried the same argument last week, claiming that coal-fired power plants cause asthma and was rapidly slapped down by health experts who said the cause of asthma really isn’t known.
Hard to believe that one man could pack so much misinformation into two short sentences, but let’s face it, Ted Turner is no ordinary man.
Source: North American Wind Power
What’s wrong with this picture? We can’t drill for offshore oil in the United States, but we can give billions of dollars to Brazil so they can build one. We haven’t built a refinery in the United States since 1976, but we can give Colombia $2.84 billion so they can build one.

We're not sure if this is a photo of the sun setting on the American oil industry or rising over the foreign oil industry
CSN News reports the completely inexplicable details of the pissing away of another few billion of your tax dollars:
The U.S. Export-Import Bank, an independent agency of the federal government, is now planning a $2.84-billion loan for a massive project to expand and upgrade an oil refinery–in Cartagena, Colombia.
The money would go to Reficar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company.
“This is part of a $5.18 billion refinery and upgrade project in Cartagena, Colombia supplying petroleum products to the domestic and export markets,” the Export-Import Bank said in a statement.
The U.S. government-controlled bank says the $2.84-billion in financing it plans to undertake will be the second largest project it has ever done. The largest was $3 billion in financing for a liquid natural gas project in Papua New Guinea.
Yes, we know these are loans and loan guarantees, not outright gifts, and we understand the theory that American companies will benefit from purchases made by the foreign oil interests. But wouldn’t American companies also benefit from purchases made by companies drilling for and refining oil in the United States?
You have to give Obama credit. He may be anti-American, but at least he’s consistent.
Source: CNSnews.com
What the hell is wrong with the American people? The first half of this survey makes complete sense, but the second half makes no sense in light of the first half.

Poll results show that President Obama is under water when it comes to offshore drilling
TheHill.com reports the results that boggle our minds:
Rising energy prices are prompting support among likely voters for expanding U.S. drilling and releasing oil from the country’s emergency stockpiles, a new poll conducted for The Hill shows.
By a 66-25 percent margin, likely voters say President Obama should encourage more oil and gas exploration offshore, and by a 50-35 percent margin they favor releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to moderate gas price increases.
The same survey shows that stepped-up GOP allegations that White House energy policies are raising prices have failed to give Republicans a political edge on the issue.
Slightly more than half the respondents — 52 percent — said neither party should be blamed for high gas prices. Twenty-two percent of those polled blame Republicans, while 19 percent blame Democrats.
So you have a President and a political party who’ve slapped a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf and in Alaska and who have made drilling on most government land damn near impossible while you have another party that supports drilling in all of those locations.
Yet likely voters blame Republicans for high gas prices more than they blame Democrats?
We’re not doing our job well enough.
Source: TheHill.com
In an administration that’s already exceeded its quota of boobs and dunces, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stands out as for his complete ineptitude. His explanation of why the Obama administration opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic not only defies logic, but very nearly defies comprehension.
CNSNews.com has the story of Salazar’s shortsightedness:
CNSNews.com asked Salazar, “Given the rising cost of gasoline why is the administration opposed to drilling in the arctic refuge?”
“We don’t believe that you need to drill everywhere and we don’t believe that the ‘drill, baby, drill’ program is the way that’s going to get us to the energy independence that we need for America or that will power our economy and that’s why the President has been so clear from day one and we in the Department of Interior have been so clear that what we need to do is need to have a robust energy program that includes a number of different sources of energy and while yes, we are pushing forward with oil and gas development both offshore and onshore which was the subject of much of the hearing today, we’re also moving forward with renewable energy,” he told CNSNews.com after testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee about his Department’s FY2012 budget.
Windmills. Solar power. Fairydust. The more unproven, the better. The more workable, the better. The more government subsidies required, the better.
Anything but oil.
Source: CNSnews.com

Anyone who starred in a movie as bad as "Troy" should be very careful about calling for the death penalty
Sean Penn’s out of town filming his latest movie, so Hollywood had a left wing lunacy vacuum that needed to be filled. And Brad Pitt decided he was the guy for the job.
The Daily Mail UK reports the hilarious highlights:
The Hollywood actor said he would consider the death penalty for those to blame for the ruptured well that gushed millions of gallons of oil into the ocean.
He was speaking in a documentary due to be screened in the US tomorrow tonight.
Asked about the people responsible for the crisis, the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ star said: ‘I was never for the death penalty before – I am willing to look at it again.’
Mr Pitt, 46, has spearheaded the ‘Make it Right’ project to build 150 affordable and sustainable homes in one of the areas of New Orleans that was worst hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
His efforts in the region are featured in the new film by director Spike Lee marking the fifth anniversary of the hurricane devastation.
The documentary, called ‘If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise’, was supposed to end on a positive note with the New Orleans American Football team winning the Super Bowl.
Seven people (including Lee and Pitt’s mothers) will pay to see this laughfest.
Source: Daily Mail UK
The Associated Press put it all in perspective:
It's all a matter of perspective.
The Gusher in the Gulf may have pumped out a lot of oil, but it paled in comparison to the amount of bullshit pumped out by the environmentalists.
While BP’s well dumped 172 million gallons into the Gulf over three months, the muddy Mississippi brings in 198 million gallons of water — replete with urban and farm runoff — every minute. The National Research Council estimates that 41 million gallons a year of oil naturally seep into the Gulf from below.
As Rush said, it was equivalent to spilling a beer in the SuperDome.
Source: Associated Press
This one is worthy of a Perry Mason novel. Call it The Case of the Missing Oil.
ABC News questions the missing lubricant’s location:
There's a huge Gulf (of Mexico) between the environmentalists' predictions and reality
For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there’s one problem — they’re having trouble finding it.
At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking, now down to the size of New Hampshire.
Why before long, it will be down to the size of Barack Obama’s ego.
Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen.
“That oil is somewhere. It didn’t just disappear,” said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.
Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he’s found that there’s no oil to catch.
“I think it is underneath the water. It’s in between the bottom and the top of the water,” Cepriano said.
First it was ClimateGate, then Al Gore’s hotel room escapade with an unwilling masseuse, and now they can’t find any oil to back up their claim that this is the worst disaster in the history of mankind.
It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the environmentalists. (No angry emails, please. Note that we said “almost”.)
Source: ABC News
If there’s one man in the world with the ability to stop the Gusher in the Gulf, it’s MacGyver. Give that man a Swiss army knife, a roll of duct tape, a paper clip, a rubber band and a garden hose and he’ll plug that thing faster than President Obama can say, “It’s Bush’s fault.”
News flash! It’s hot down in the Gulf. Because of that heat, but despite the urgency of the clean-up, OSHA regulations say that clean-up workers can work just ten minutes per hour. We assume they get paid for sitting in the shade and drinking Gatorade the other 50 minutes each hour.
Buck Lee of the Santa Rosa Island Authority revealed this tasty little morsel on Hardball.
Even Chris Matthews was so horrified by this idiotic regulation that he ended the interview by giving Lee the White House phone number so he can ask for help.
Keep dialing, Buck. Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour have been calling that number for weeks and getting nothing but busy signals.