Theodore's World

And liberal eco-freaks LOVE to show pictures like the one you have as portraying the ANWR area where drilling is contemplAted. It is NOTHING like that. It is a vast waste-land. Flat and relatively featureless.

SOME of ANWR looks like the picture above but it is miles and miles and miles away. Most does not.

Here’s a little bit of a different outlook/twist on why we should drill for oil on our own land.

Put in simple terms.

Much of terrorism is funded by the money that comes from oil from the Middle East oil rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, just one example. In a way we fund those terrorists that want to and are killing us.

What better reason to drill for our own oil in our own land. If I understand things right, in the last year or so we have discovered more oil in the US and its Territories than in all the Middle East. It has been proven in the past that no terrorist organization/group has survived without funding. It may not cut off 100% of their funding but will stop about 90% of it. Of course this is just my opinion

I withhold judgement on the enviromental side here - I dont know anything about the area. I certinly dont trust Bush to be either competent or unbiased, so I will just ignore his view on the matter. I would need to see some impact assessment information from a credible and unbiased organisation before deciding.

Still, its only a temporary solution... how long will the oil last? Fifty years? A hundred? Sooner or later it is going to start to run out - and long before the last drop is taken, the price will increase rapidly as drills have to go deeper. Then there is the climate impact... so with or without alaskan drilling, some attempt to reduce demand is going to be needed.

Such programs do not seem to be happening in the US. There are some token programs to fund electric cars, and the pipe-dream of a hydrogen economy that may or may not work - but what is needed are much simpler things. Federal regulations on energy-efficiency in appliances for example. Tax incandescent lightbulbs, and use part of the money to subsidise energy-efficient lighting. Provide some stronger economic incentives towards more fuel-efficient cars - the price of petrol alone doesn't seem to be enough to overcome the big-car-owner's pride.

But the political will isn't there. Between the power of the oil lobby, the close personal ties of some politicans, a series of other issues distracting attention, a public who views all forms of government economic involvement as dangerously near to communism, and a polarised politics where enviromental concerns are opposed by conservatives purely because they are supported by liberals... its just not going to happen.

Drill Baby Drill..... The fact remains that until someone produces and mass markets a perpetual motion machine, we, and our economy, lifestyle and continued viability as a world power are being held hostage to foriegn oil. Drilling in ANWAR is something we can do NOW that will put downward pressure on oil markets, stimulate economic growth and help take us one step closer to energy independence. I realize the need to explore alternative energy and support those efforts, but cutting off our nose to spite our face is a Democratic platform I just can't subscribe to.

We are America. We have the ability to protect the environment while we recover plentiful oil resources. At the same time we can research and develop energy saving products, we can continue to clean coal burning power sources, we can develop cleaner burning gas engines. And finally, we can find a leader with gonads who can begin to remove the moslems from our sacred and holy Christian and other peaceful religions ground!

Vilmar, you are so right. I have read articles in the past of how because of giving in to eco-freaks there are also all kinds of problems as well as not letting us drill on our land right here in the USA.

Thanks Vilmar.

John I agree with you. Just by getting oil from them we are funding terrorisim. The Dems could care less IMO and use the eco thing which is baloney.

Good idea John, thanks.

Suricou Raven, this is what I do know and that is what I can go by. In the USA we do have places that have oil and we are not being allowed to drill for it. Because of the envio wackos and the agenda of those on either side that want to keep getting most of our oil from foreign oil places.

Foreign oil is funding terrorism. We are fighting that very terrorism of the cult of Islam. Thus we are funding terrorism that we are fighting.

The excuse that it would take 10 years to start getting our own oil has been BS, because they have been saying that for over 20 years. So if we had pushed it through and actually done the drilling we would already be well on our way to using our own oil.

My opinion is we drill on our own land, and in our oceans and the heck with foreign oil once we are on a roll with it.

You mention we will run out of oil. Well maybe so, but when, in 1000 years.
And if we run out of oil it could also be said that the foreign oil would also dry up. So that would be a mute point.

Billy that is a great way to put it....."held hostage to foriegn oil".

Tom, I agree completely!

Having spent a tad bit of time in the patch most of what the whacko's are spouting is pure unadulterated BS. ANWR is a treeless plain for as far as the eye can see, it has it's indigenous animals year round and it's migratory animals, none are threatened by humans. Firearms are strictly prohibited in the oil field, restricting or harassing any animal will get your ass fired in a heartbeat. The fact is the Caribou hang around any structures for security from predators and insects and drop their calves. Polar Bears rarely come to shore and usually only to mate, then it's back on the ice pack for the remainder of the year. Ravens, a few Gulls and an occaisional stranded Caribou spend the winter in the far North with Arctic Foxes and Wolves. This is similar to fish being attracted the the haven of an offshore rig. Inland the terrain is mountainous, but the stringent rules are the same, I've been to sites that were drilled and shipped from in the '20's all that's left are a few concrete pads for the tanks, nothing else, and you need to know where they are or you'll never find them, no oil residue, no tar, only the plugged wells covered with brush and vegetation. The touted 10 years it takes to get the oil is due to enviro-whacko's obstruction and enviro-terrorists attacks on the developers. The drilling occurs on a pad the size of a football field with anywhere from 20 to 40 wells per pad, drilling used to take up to 6 months to set up, drill, perforate, proof and install the subsurface and surface safety valves per well, today that takes less than 1 month with many wells being drilled in 3-4 days. Technology has made setup and move times for the drilling rig minimal and infinitely safer. All drilling mud, cuttings and oil is contained, pumped into tanker trucks then hauled to an injection site where it is re-injected into the deep wells this keeps any impact to the terrain to a minimum.
This is all about halting the independence of the United States and making it into a third world culture subservient to the United Nations and the world court of the Hague.
Think about this: Where was the environmental outrage when world wide shipping was attacked by all sides in WWI and WWII? Most of those ships carried cargoes of oil, chemicals, munitions and personnel, what was the environmental impact, short term, longterm? Where was the outrage when Saddam set ablaze the Kuwaiti oil fields? That's right it wasn't American so it didn't count. Did the UN sanction Saddam for his misdeed or did our home grown nut jobs picket Iraq? How about one of the last new refineries that was built in this country then prohibited from starting production due to environmental concerns? The state of California after 10 or so years of holding a tax loss sold the refinery to China, the 'Enviromental Concerns" vaporized with the sale. Welcome to Pelosi's world.

Jack! Excellent absolutely excellent!

Jack,

Great post !!!! Let me ask you a question. You obviously, as you have said, have experience in the area being whimpered over, and you can effectively articulate the arguemement for drilling, both in that region and in other areas denied us by the en-VIRAL's. Are you, or will you promote your ideas to the powers that be. Do you offer your opinion on the subject to those in the media where it has the best chance of helping cut through the clutter of dis information. The knowledge you have, and your ability to clearly outline solutions, would go a long way to helping solve one of our Nation's greatest ills, an ill that expands it's tentacles into every fiber of our society, up to and including our conflict in the mid east. I would love to see your honest, straightforward ideas become part of the landscape of information. Beyond mineral resources, the best asset this country has is it's people and their ideas. It was great people with great ideas that founded this country to begin with. Please don't allow yourself to keep those ideas in a safe deposit box to enrich the the lives of a few. Aggresively put them out there and don't become discouraged by ignorance. Eventually you, and people like you just may be able to break through the ink ceiling. Again, great post.

They cry about our dependence on foreign oil and how it helps support terrorism. Fine, we'll drill in America. Ooops, no can do. Don't want to chance ruining a wasteland. Wish they'd make up their mind.

Well folks, I have promoted and do promote drilling in the U.S. not only in ANWR but off shore as well, this is to include the use of nuclear power.
It's true I spent 20 winters in the Arctic oil fields and have seen a few accidents and worse but the media plays it up because by law each and every spill must be reported no matter how small, they never utter a word about someone dying to prevent a spill. Your asshole neighbor can spill his motor oil on his driveway even dump it in the gutter and nothing is said, but let an oil company spill anything over one liter and all hell breaks loose. Folks we are setting with our heads up our asses while China is just off the Florida coast drilling for oil in the gulf waters near Cuba, taking our oil reserves in our waters and nobody is doing a thing about it. I reckon that China has developed better skills at this than the nation that first found, developed and refined the resource. Jeb Bush even thinks so.
I've worked in the Nuclear energy side too and see the same parallels, the bottom line is that someone is going to take the resource and that someone isn't going to be as envronmentally cautious as the United States.
Look at the disaster of the Soviet Union's 48" pipeline that was rushed into production and has spilled oil all over the Tundra.
What? The media didn't tell you about that?
Our Alaska pipeline has had a few minor leaks that were stopped and cleaned up, this didn't happen in Russia.
You all heard about Chernoble, but you didn't hear about the earlier disaster that happened to their Sodium Cooled reactor that exploded in Siberia, contaminating an entire city forever with Plutonium and radioactive Sodium Hydroxide, far worse than Chernoble. Why ? It wasn't an American enterprise. The Reds got a pass, same thing goes for their accountability on lost Nuke subs and their nuke weapons stockpile. Now take a look at one of the worst allies we have, France, they use nuclear power, they use oil, they are the ones that harbored the Ayatollah Khomeini, they even flew him from Paris to Tehran when the Shah abdicated, making sure their man was in power. The rest is recent history that Jimmah gave us. I have fought the environmentalists and their shortsightedness for over 30 years, your representative, if you have one, doesn't want to hear from you, it's not the politically correct thing for them to do. I get sick of sending in complaints to the worms only to get the boilerplate response. We can't help you unless you are willing to ride a bicycle to and from work, huddle in your hovel freezing and conserve fossile fuels. Yet these same politicians can and will let our enemies plunder our present and future resources, just to pander to the votes of the leftists that want to bury us. Don't forget that the Kyoto treaty was intended to stifle any and all industrial growth for this nation.
Each of us has to be dilligent in who we select to represent us and to hold them accountable or we'll end up like pre-WWII Japan, a country without resources and no prospect of a job.

Jack, WOW, thank you sooooooooo much!!!!

Awesome!!!!!!

Jack,

You may have heard this before, frankly I'd be shocked if you hadn't.......WRITE A BOOK....Title it "Will the Last One to Leave Please Turn Out the Lights" ( The truth about oil and other fun things). I see you on all the talk shows Jack, book tours, NYT bestseller's list for 18 straight weeks !!!! You can and should do it, you obviously have the communication skills. Many people agree with you and are frustrated because they cannot compose their thoughts in an organized, deliberate manner on this subject. This is a hot subject and as they say, "Strike while the iron is hot". Think about it Jack,.... it would be a noble undertaking that clearly is within the realm of possibility, and it will do a world of good. With the publish on demand technology available today, how can you lose?????

Thanks Billy, you're right, the nation needs to be informed, problem is nobody cares but we few, thats why I blog. It would be like trying to convince a NYC boy that milk comes from Cows not Stores, all the while being harangued by a pack of hyenas like PETA. I can barely speak in the vernacular let alone the Kings English, I can only imagine losing in on public TV and calling Algore something bad.:) Hell he deserves it. But on blog sites you can get the message out, someone might read, investigate and learn the truth, and like they say "even a blind hog finds an occaisional acorn". I'll consider the option, thank you. Nite All!!!

From Cows ?????????