As the oil spill (gusher) reaches towards higher and higher estimates of it’s size (today’s ‘new’ estimate: 35,000-60,000 barrels per day) the American president reaches for more rhetoric, in hopes that will work. A bunch of passing the buck, a very small amount of promising things that obviously should have been done yesterday, some religious mumbo jumbo, and nothing else.
Yesterday, he said this:
“in the end, I am confident that we’re going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before.”
Says he.
How?
By hiding the problem with dispersants? And hoping the resultant cancers and liver disease don’t get noticed until he’s out of office?
That is a “ridiculous statement, and worrying,” said Susan Shaw, the director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute. “Obviously he has no idea of the consequences, or doesn’t want to.”
(speaking of Obama’s statement) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Today, he offers this:
So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party – as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development – and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.
Uh, right. “ideas from either party”
Either party.
These parties have no ideas.
You have no ideas, Mr Obama, yet you promise to “look at” ideas from the two parties.
The fact is, this is Obama’s third chance to do something positive for alternative energy: the stimulus, the bailouts, and now his BP spill. And each time he’s failed to deliver anything; less than Jimmy Carter delivered in 1975 in fact.
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JIMMY CARTER’S OVAL OFFICE ENERGY SPEECH 1979
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The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.
Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.
Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I’m announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow.
Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun. I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990…. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well-spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.
Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.
Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.
Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford. I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I’m proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.
Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation’s strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.
… your comment, and formatting seems ok now.
set eyes on the gulf.
I guess he figures he can schmooze them.
bothered me the most
Does this refer back to the Bush/Cheney, et al. dream of a Gulf coastal paradise (Disney style?), thus, “relocating the poor?”
a critique of Obama’s address tonight FAST CHECK, here.
Obama loves these mindless little metaphors. I expect them all the time now, and he doesn’t disappoint. But they seem to get more pathetic by the day. I swear he’s acting more and more like Chauncy Gardener in Peter Seller’s movie Being There. I mean you can’t even take him semi serious anymore. Is there anything there at all?
And the fucking bumbling boobs on the idiot box keep talking about how America always rises to the occasion, as if they have been pathologically disconnected from reality for decades.
Do I have to if I already know the answers.
Should I have watched my first episode of American Idol instead.
Yes you have the right to live like the Amish, Good Luck with that one.
What a dithering dipshit he has become. Something has to come to light soon. Something has to break through the ether of these fucktards if there is to be any hope. If you are a fisherman on the gulf you have nothing to lose by banning together and creating a shitstorm for this administration. You will never see a dime from the oil fucks as well as this pandering dumbass of a president.
She is masterful, and everything Obama was not. Specific answers to to even the idiocy of Chuck Todd and the rest of the morons in the room. This is a huge part of the problem – Todd et all couldn’t replace a washer in the faucet, mow the lawn or anything else. They are utter fools and the technical discussion of bops, anything, is beyond them, never mind the ecological implications which I’m sure they consider of interest only to radicals who worry about things like the food supply, water to drink, and air to breathe. Like mamz, all they know is the latest poll results coming across the wire, and the rest of us are asked to accept that as reflecting some reality.
throw my yard sign out.
it just sits in my garage taunting me.
i figure looking at it is part of my punishment for being taken in.
i thought he would at least listen to the intelligent people in the room which meant that i thought he would invite them into the room.
but more to the point, he looked shell shocked last night.
shell shocked.
asking us to pray. . .absent any real action. . .he must be burbling down there with those ROVs. . .malia keeps asking him if he shut the oil off!!!
contributed over 4 years. What I’m very curious about are future contracts to be entered into by the U.S. and BP and how they’re structured. Very Curious.
I also wonder how the details will be worked out over the next few weeks. I can’t believe that they agreed on anything but a very general outline in 4 hours at the White House. Very Curious.
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worth reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
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This 20B is nothing.