US: The Energy Question, Now Predominant

Energy is the Big Question in the USA.

Everyone knows, and I certainly acknowledge, that if it weren't for oil I wouldn't care what the Middle Eastern/Islamist brutalists did to themselves. Slaughter their brothers, pit Sunnis against Shias? Go for it. The region begs reduction to shiny, smooth glass. I mostly couldn't care less. Islam is generally a repressive, ignorant and barbaric religion as practiced by its adherents. As I've said for many years now, "Islam is as Islam does." It would, of course, be the same for Christianity were Christianity even remotely as bloodthirsty and uncivilized as Islam.

But it is Islam that lets the greatest amount of blood and carnage and death around the world. There is a reason that this saying is a constant in the tribalistic world of Islam: “Me against my brother. me and my brother against my cousin. Me, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger.” It is because Islam's adherents are, at their most fundamental, nomadic, tribal, misogynistic, vicious, unsophisticated, cruel, brutish, inhumane, regressive, sadistic, uncultured and ignorant. With some very few exceptions. The cowardly, the withdrawn, the fearful.

That said, there is an unsurprising recent thrust from Demorats for alternate energy from DC, encapsulated in a massively-misleading article headline "Energy panel leader expects push for production of more US oil."

From The Washington Times:

The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Monday that the crisis in oil markets sparked by Egypt’s political unrest should not divert Congress from pursuing long-term strategies to develop more clean and renewable energy resources.

Agreed. The US should seek alternative energy sources to include -- of course -- immediate local drilling and processing sites on US soil and control, as well as drilling within our legal shore limits in the ocean.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, predicted that the latest Middle East crisis will amplify calls on Capitol Hill to expand U.S. oil production as a way to ease dependence on unstable foreign suppliers.

“Congress usually gets very interested in these circumstances,” he said. “I’m sure there will be calls for us to ramp up production … but that would occur over a substantial period of time.”

Your Congress is both blind and stupid. You tap what you have first and immediately, and place a crisis-mode timetable upon it. You don't do this to the nation's peril. Coming peril. Imminent peril. And FORESEEABLE peril. This is nothing that isn't in our collective faces NOW.

Mr. Bingaman said his agenda for the new Congress will instead focus on a four-part plan that includes tax incentives and developing markets for renewable- energy companies in the U.S.

Egypt is about to be in control, under Muslim Brotherhood rule, of the Suez Canal.

But the alternative-fuel industry has faced a series of challenges, including financing, uncertainty over the future of tax incentives and finding customers, including conventional power companies, to purchase its energy. Mr. Bingaman said the country’s inconsistent approach has left U.S. producers at a competitive disadvantage.

“Our on-again, off-again tax credits are no match for [overseas] competitors,” he said. He also said that companies will relocate to places such as China and Europe, which are leading the way in alternative energy.

“The marketplace reality is that [companies] will be located closest to where the demand is,” he said.

Mr. Bingaman acknowledged that Obama administration officials have reached out to the committee to help draft his energy policy. But he said Congress is unlikely to take up Mr. Obama’s call during his State of the Union speech last week to curb subsidies to oil companies.

But it is oil companies that hold the key to reacquisition of American dominance. We need to drill and create more refineries. And, at the same time, create an absolute pogrom of electrical generation station building, as well as coastal de-salinization plants. For the future.

We need to focus not on welfare for non-producers and parasites, but on rebuilding our energy and transportation infrastructure.

If non-producers and parasites get kicked to the curb, then so be it. I've worked 40+ years as a legitimate producer and taxpayer. I want to see my country succeed. I WANT lines to be drawn.

Mr. Bingaman said he is open to including nuclear power in the mix of U.S. energy sources — as long as incentives continue for renewable-energy projects.

I am shocked at this revelation. I am for nuclear power as long as it is safely built, safely managed and competently managed, protected and supported.

But the bottom line is this: common sense. Realize what we can do when we can do it. Yes, of course, make a plan. But do not cut off one's energy nose to spite one's national face.

First, secure our OIL production to attempt as much oil INDEPENDENCE as possible. If we have to rely on OIL and rely on COAL in the process of making a plan, then SO BE IT.

Concurrently, try to support and build our energy future. Make a plan. Many plans.

I subscribe to a national publication entitled "Police Fleet Manager" and other fleet manager websites, as I managed a fleet of 60+ law enforcement vehicles under the aegis of EVOC to include cars, buses and authority motors.

One recent article asked the question: "Electric cars: where to find the power?"

Where, indeed?

If we build nothing but electric cars, where do we get the power?

We are SO far away from our ability to support even the grid we CURRENTLY have.

Much less an immediate future predicated upon Chevy Volts.

Jesus, America. And American politicians.

Wake the fuck up, will you?

BZ