Biden is a great choice. I wanted him for President. But I'm a Delawarean so maybe I bias...:up:

Slip of the tongue? It seems that Obama can't remember who's running for what:rotfl:
He introduced Biden as the next president, then, of course, corrected himself. So who shall we vote for, someone who can't remember how many houses he owns or someone who can't remember who's running for President? I still think Steve is right, we need a "None of the above" on the ballot:yep:

A) There's only enough oil to sustain us for a little over a decade.

B) The actual drilling process will take several years (about 5) to build facilities and drilling stations to begin harvesting the oil.

C) The marine ecosystem will be greatly affected, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of species of fish and other animals.

In conclusion, the drilling isn't going to solve anything. It will just be a waste of money (billions of dollars) and it will cause more problems than it solves (mass extinction of fish, for instance). Plus, the oil that we do get will be gone in no time.

Either way you swing it, SUB, the Earth is going to run out of oil someday. There will be none left. No natural gas... nothing. When that happens, what are we going to do?

In the long run, it would be better to research alternative fuel sources and spend our money on something that would actually be worthwhile (whereas we could waste that money on a destined-to-fail drilling plan).

Hope that clears it up.

How many times do you need to hear that the US has 300+ years worth of oil for itself without buying it from anyone? It probably has a couple decades alone off our coasts not including anything else!

And where do your tax dollars come in on this drilling stuff? You pay nothing! This is private enterprise. You make it out like the tax payer has to pay it!

Anyway, the short answer is, even the DOE put 120 years worth (12 decades and that is a low estimate even since they may have low balled it by 25% or greater!) sitting in Utah alone! Media propaganda seems to instill lies into peoples minds, and they start to believe it. How do you let them do this to you? When they make an absurd claim, research it on your own!

-S

It would take almost a decade before significant oil production could occur in either the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the Outer Continental Shelf, and even then it would have a tiny impact (if we did drill) on the oil market.

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, would only remove 4 cents off a gallon of gas by the year 2026 (or $23 per year for the average driver, assuming that other conditions affecting gas prices remain the same). And that's at maximum benefit...

With that said, you'd be destroying a huge portion of the ecosytem on both fronts, and do you know the funny thing about mass extinctions? When one species dies, the rest reliant upon that species follow pretty quickly...

Also, it would take years and years for the oil from new offshore wells to go into production. Even at their peak production levels, the additional supply wouldn't reduce energy prices significantly as you think it will...

These numbers are from the U.S. government's own estimates. Congress has even said (in a June 2008 report, to be precise) that, "The argument that more drilling means lower gasoline prices . . . there is simply no correlation between the two."

As for having plenty of oil from offshore drilling, what the hell are you talking about? Do you even know a thing about the supply and demand statistics for the oil?

The American populace uses 20 million barrels of oil A DAY. This accounts for 25% of the world's total consumption. Government estimates show that we only have 2% of the world's oil reserves. As an example of how little difference drilling would make, say that we did open the Arctic Refuge for drilling. It would take an estimated 50 years to drain the whole thing dry.

During that time, the oil fields would likely produce less fuel than what our country now consumes in just 6 months. With so little of the world's oil supply and such high demand, even if we allowed drilling everywhere that the oil companies want to (from the Arctic refuge to the American West to protected offshore areas) there's still no way we could quench our unsatisfiable thirst for oil.

We have to find alternatives for the moment. There are already some available that have the ability to offer us short-term relief (in which case, we have a shoulder to lean on for the moment and then we continue this debate on whether or not to lift the ban on offshore drilling).

And as far as researching it on my own goes, I have, and I just gave you the facts. Of course, if you give me the "Your Source is WRONG" argument, then I could say the same for your case. With that in mind, here are my sources:

http://www.amazon.com/Ship-shaped-Of...9555512&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Deepwater-Petr...9555512&sr=8-2

Drilling for oil is a bandaid- postpones making real decisions, taps the last of our most accessable reserves (because these reserves are more profitable for big oil of course) and offers false hope that somehow it would make a difference at the pump today or even ten years from now when all it really does is to reward big oil for being lazy.

There is plenty of oil to be pumped from the 67 million acres already open for drilling... but the profit margin is less. Big oil should use some of those windfall profits and get busy drilling where they have free reign instead of banking billions and whining for access to more.

The real solution and one that would have averted this "crisis" - would have been to heed the call of a Mr. Al Gore who first sounded the alarm eight years ago by electing him to the office of president. But oh....

Now I have a question... since most Americans agreed with Gore then, and Gore actually won the popular vote... can you please point me to the thread that debates the value of the elctoral college? I apparently need an education.

Signed, equally puzzled. :ping:

I think the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College deserves its own thread.

This thread has already been derailed away from the Obama/Biden issue to the Off Shore Drilling issue.

I'm confused now as this came over the wire...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080822/..._pr/veepstakes

...Three days before Democrats open their convention in Denver, several officials said Rep. Chet Edwards, whose district includes President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, had made the roster of potential running mates. Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana were also in the mix, as were Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sebelius — and any unknown others Obama had managed to keep secret despite intense scrutiny....

Yahoos news is running a little late:damn:

That article is from 5 days ago...

Take a good look at the people attending the Democrats convention in Denver on CNN.

Don't they look sort of middle class to you?

I use to be middle class so I'm not looking down on them. I am now lower than middle class, but I think the contrast between the two conventions will be interesting to see.

Then watch the Republican convention next week and lets see if they are a bit upscale, a little more of what the differences are in the two parties could be identifable.

I always thought the democrates were pro-poor people and that the republicans were pro-wealthy.

Just another thing to think about while trying to determine which party is most easily related to. Ever wonder why the vocal majority of Hollywood is Democratic? There's a bunch of folks we can really relate to, eh?

No they seemed to be a pretty good cross section of America. Just like the Republicans.

Both political parties have a good representation across our population.

I always found it funny that the Repubs are always griping about how out of touch actors are, yet they seem to always elect, or try to elect actors..... :lol:

Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Swan, Thompson....:hmm:

I like the guy, he has sound wiews in foreign policy and he gets extra points for being funny.:lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Y8AFctpjo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XberX_t-WvI