Battle Over Oil Hardly Over

Protect the environment by continuing with the moratorium. Remember, we can't have an economy if we don't have a livable planet.

Remember, we can't have a livable planet with more and more population growth and poverty.

Historically in hard economic times, the environment takes lower priority. Gas prices contribute to poor economic times. Other less prosperous countries could give a rat's ass about the environment when they can't even feed their families. Starving us of energy only contributes to further environmental rape of the planet.

Illegal imigration imports more poverty and more population growth, a culture that values a high reproduction rate, and a population that has no education or concern about the environment, but rather, a concern about their own personal economic survival (apparenty being more wise than us).

Alternative energy, though it should be pursued with our full effort, simply will not replace oil without destroying the economy and security of the USA first. Conservation is quickly outpaced by increased demand due to population growth.

Dont forget the geo-poitical climate and the dangers of dependence on foreign oil, you anti-war types.

Let's stop being selfish and stupid before this whole Titanic sinks! What good is a livable planet when we have no country or economy? Without an economy, the concern fr the environment will quickly be replaced by a concern for our very survival. DRILL! The sooner the better.

I wish the "Independent" would live up to its name and start an open discussion about the costs and drawbacks of mass immigration, without the PC platitudes of the mainstream media. As many comments indicate, population growth, immigration, and replacement of assimilation with multiculturalism are our most critical problems and are at the root of poverty, gang violence and environmental degradation.

The discussion is right here, revisionist, and I thank the Indy for allowing it, even if their articles and editorials are admittedly left leaning. I must defend them in this case. If they allow me to comment, they must at least be somewhat objective and I applaud them for it. Thanks for your comment.

So you know what your type of rhetoric causes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080906/ap_o...

It about making long term environmental decisions..you want to make horribly irresponsible ones and we wont let you! EVER!

With oil prices and oil company profits breaking records, the big five oil companies "earned" $123 billion in profits last year—nearly $230,000 in profits per minute. How can you even think they have your interest or the interest of the citiznes of the USA in mind.

If your major concern is cost per gallon and you can't figure out theres a whole of that $4.00 a gallon finding its way into Big Oils Pockets youre just so intent on getting McCain elected you are not observing reality.

Drilling in the channel gets virtually nothing to offset price and usage right now. 10 years before you get anything out of the Artic and it only lowers cost $.50 a barrel. And you want to let the scum bags led by Cheney and Bush and now McCain coupled with his former hamlet mayor Palin, in to rape our channel once again.

As I said before..the first spot a drill bit should be placed is directly between the back pockets on the slacks of Big Oils executives and republican leaders. No moratorium there at all...Drill deep and drill now!

OmG You are sicker than I thought whats_left. What a stretch to say that beating was "caused" by facts about the effects of uncontrolled illegal immigration , which you refer to as "rhetoric". You don't even know if it was a "hate crime". Maybe the guy just pissed them off!

Is everything a hate crime when the victim is a race other than white? The article gives no facts about motives. Why is it not a hate crime when a white is beaten by a hispanic? I can't even believe there is a law against "ethnic intimidation" which I am sure applies only to ethnicities other than white. For every illegal immigrant beaten by a white person I can give you 1000 gang crimes perpetrated by hispanics against whites starting with our own back yard:

http://www.independent.com/news/2008/sep...

So what "rhetoric" led to that little incident? Of course we are not allowed to know if the perpetrators were legal or illegal, but was this a "hate crime" by your logic, and if not, why not? Would an illegal immigrant beating a white person be ok in your book but the reverse a horrible hate crime caused by hatred of illegal immigration? Why do you hate your own race and your country so much, assuming you are white and American?

Back to oil though, why is making a profit a crime? You don't have to buy the product, how does it hurt you if someone makes money? Is it envy? Just wait until "Big Green" gets here - you will be green with envy. If you got a cut would you be complaining? Should the Arabs, Chavez, and all of the other oil drillin' countries be the only ones who profit off of our oil dependent country? Supply and demand - more oil - less profit - less oil, more profit. Let them drill.

I want the council to reaffirm the oil drilling ban even if it is politically difficult. Regardless of the "peak oil" predictions or the opposite, those who proclaim that we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels to pump and mine, oil is risky to our environment, even as risky as nuclear. I would appreciate the reaffirmation against offshore oil drilling from the council and I hope this country gets in front of the next economic boon called "renewable resources."

You spew racism throughout this statement as well as earlier statement where you "watched Taco Trucks", maybe you were talking about people from Sweden.

These are your words and the hate lies throughout:

Illegal imigration imports more poverty and more population growth, a culture that values a high reproduction rate, and a population that has no education or concern about the environment, but rather, a concern about their own personal economic survival (apparenty being more wise than us).

By the way it was a hate crime...he was here legally ( but why should that matter,,,he was murdered..is murdering illegals ok?) And if he pissed them off is that ok? If I piss you off should I be concerned?

Back to Oil - Instead of putting blame where it lies..at the oil gougers feet. you choose to blame immigation. Your arguement is not new it comes directly from the right wing blogs. Instead of trying to find alternatives you want to contune to go in a route that believes the lies from the right wing leaders and continues to attack our lands with no concern for whats left for future generations.

If wanting to be inclusive, thinking that all people deserve the right to work hard and support their family, wanting to keep the environment healthy and thinking we can actually change this screwed up right wing thrashed planet is sick...then YEP..I'm very very sick and very very proud of it. I will fight your kind every single step of the way,,,,you are part of the problem sir...we are the solution!

Excuse me, but I actually DID watch a taco truck whose Spanish-only speaking driver and workers poured their used cooking grease down a drain (I attempted to communicate with them in vain that what they were doing was bad for the environment). Why are you trying to make this FACT into a racial slur as liberals are want to do? It was not a racial slur, it was a factual observation but I notice facts are not important to you, and you like to make up your own or stretch them to fit your agenda.

The article you cite calls the victim "Mexican immigrant". It does not specify if illegal or not. We all know that most media outlets do not dare even question immigration status, for fear of "offending".

Just because the victim is Mexican should not make it a "hate crime", unless "hate crime" applies to any crime against someone that is not your own race, which is stupid, because hate is the motivator of any crime of this nature - why would a white beating a white NOT be a "hate crime"? Why is it always one way, and a racist Mexican or Black would never be accused of a hate crime when it is perpetrated against a white? It all falls into the category of special treatment for minorities, When whites become a minority, do you think there will be any special treatment?

You read between the lines of anything that is said and stretch it and add to it. Where did I say that murdering illegals is ok? I am not defending these actions and I certainly am not causing them! There is nothing in what I said that you quote that applies to race and is not factual.

Everything I said applies to nationality, not race. You are the one twisting this into a race issue, watering down the meaning of racism, spewing rhetoric, race baiting and spreading hate. It is pointless arguing with you, you are simply an intellectually devoid, mentally disordered, knee jerk radical lefty self-loathing guilt-ridden white man, who ignores facts, yearns to be admired and accepted by those who are different from you, and in the process unwittingly stirs up racial tensions.

I think the biggest problem in this area (and worldwide) is the hugely increased human population. In this southern California area, most of the population increase is from immigration, whether legal or not.

We've got to work with it or work to change the laws and enforcement of same.

As for the pouring cooking oil down a street drain, I believe it and have dealt with similar issues with workers at Carls Jr., but it has to do with ignorance rather than race or nationality. Where we need to spend the money is on schooling --- check out the shocking disparity of test scores of Franklin, Harding, Caesar Chavez, ... and other schools that are predominantly (85-95%) Hispanic compared with others. (links available in the 9/04 Kuznia article in Noozhawk about SB High and No Child Left Behind.)

So you can read and know!

http://youngphillypolitics.com/immigrant...

Now for Oil - Once again I know you need to read and read to get it clear!
Of the 90 million offshore acres the industry has leases to, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico, it is estimated that upwards of 70 million are not producing oil, according to both Democrats and oil-industry sources.
"Big Oil is more interested in pumping up prices and pumping up their own profits rather than pumping more oil," said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass), who has co-sponsored a bill to charge oil companies a fee for land they hold that's not producing oil. "We should not even begin discussing handing over more public land to the oil companies until they first use [the land] they already hold."

The executives trot out their standard solution for every energy problem: allow more drilling in wild, natural places. They reiterate their desire for drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and areas off our coasts. Of course, drilling in the Arctic would do nothing to reduce oil or gas prices since it would take at least 10 years to begin drilling in the Arctic, according to government and oil industry experts. And the Department of Energy acknowledged that even at peak production the Arctic would only provide enough oil to reduce prices a negligible 50 cents per barrel.

Rather than open up the fragile Atlantic and Pacific Coasts to drilling, oil companies should begin production from the thousands of undeveloped leases in the western Gulf of Mexico (guess why they won't drill in the gulf of Mexico - Because they know an accident washes Oil up on the shores of Texas beaches).
Additional domestic oil production can do little to satisfy energy demand since the United States has less than 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves yet consumes nearly one out of every four barrels of oil.

Its a horrible idea to drill off the coast of SB..It DOES NOTHING to help US independence..there is simply not enough oil there to make a difference!

I suppose it the Mexicans fault theres not enough oil in the channel and Artic drilling won't make even a $.50 a barrel impact 10 yrs from now. Blame them because thats the way you deal with Right Wing miscues and lies....Blame the lower down trodden classes...perfect Republican that you are!

you are different from me AShaw and I could not care less if I were ever accepted by the likes of you.
And like Mr Locke..when someone stands up to your spew you simply whine, cry, call him names and run away and hide in the murky shadows of Hannity and Coutler and Limbaugh.
Other Right Wing wack jobs who want to ensure only Whitey is allowed to grace the streets of the USA.
They too feel no compelling reason not to tear into the Earth because its about making a buck today and not worrying about what the earth is like after they are gone.

Once again Mr. Shaw,,Cry me a river..but make sure some one who is concerned about the environment is helping you take care of it.

What the A stand for anyway..Adolph?

Not a very good debate. I'm for the 'all of the above' energy solutions and 'as much as we can afford' research on new methods of energy production...

all for new energy solutions...just against channel drilling that does nothing to ease shortage and puts environment at substansial risk.

And I blame all of us for driving SUV by ourselves...stock market future traders who toyed with oil options pushing gas up artificially and Big Oil who swiped up $50BILLION in profits last qtr.

Not immigation alone as A Shaw would have us think!

‘Buy America Energy’ should be our focus for the future.
The world oil shortage is political, not geological.
In the U.S., the government prohibits drilling offshore, effectively blockading American companies from supplying oil to Americans so that foreigners can make obscene profits from our energy stupidity.
Low cost power is vital to an industrial economy, and we have ignored this vital infrastructure issue for 20 years or more. The entire economy and our communities are facing collapse because of the irrational ongoing attack on American Energy.

Our Modern Economy Still Needs Oil and Gas Today.
You all have to wake up and smell the energy roses that oil and gas represent today.
If the much maligned oil companies went on strike, within a month half the population would be dead;

LIFE WITHOUT HYDROCARBONS
Our entire modern society is build on fossil fuels. Without hydrocarbons fuel the United States would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country. Except that we would have 10 times as many people and no way to distribute food to most of them.

Without hydrocarbons fuel you would soon be walking. You couldn’t be driving cars, and it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, as they would be walking too.

Without hydrocarbons fuel people in hospitals would be dying faster, because they depend on electrical power and natural gas for warming to stay alive. But then stoppages would soon include water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving.

FUTURE CLEANER ENERGY NEED OIL AND GAS TODAY
We need to support the continued development of alternative and renewable sources of energy and to increase conservation. In the meantime, lifting the County, State and congressional embargo on oil and natural gas exploration in outer continental shelf waters, ANWR and Colorado oil shale is an absolute imperative if we are to rescue any sort of functioning economy. The high price of energy is bankrupting your household and your country right now.
50% of house sales in Santa Barbara County are foreclosures. The export of most of America’s money to OPEC and Russia is absolutely going to destroy this economy and this country in the next five years and you are solely and collectively responsible.
Your elected officials and the environmental movement have let you down, destroyed your life and sold out your Country….. and they don’t even know it! They certainly won’t admit it either.

Santa Barbara’s beaches are heavily polluted with natural oil and tar seeps, which make the air unfit to breathe and the water unfit to swim in.
Its not pristine beaches “environmentalists” and County officials are protecting, its only OPEC’s and big oil’s profits. These people are traitors to their enviro-supporters and traitors to America.

With oil prices and oil company profits breaking records, the big five oil companies "earned" $123 billion in profits last year—nearly $230,000 in profits per minute. How can you even think they have your interest or the interest of the citizens of the USA in mind.

Yeah PSterling..its us environmentalist who are raking in these absolutely obsene profits

What if these wonderfully giving and caring oil companies actually put some of these profits into developing new ways to generate energy...hmmm what a concept...take some of your stealings..put it into exploration and development of new and renewable resources...Wow what a great idea..but no...that doesn't happen ..just same ol BS..let us drill let us drill...we need to make more and more and more....the time is now to develop other options..its amazing how far Oil per barrel dropped once people got tired of being ripped off..and started using less..that same brand of conservation could be increased and continued...build mass transit with some of those Billions of Oil profits..there are so many other ways to ease our usage of energy that do not require more drilling.

I just love when libs come unhinged and run out of rationality and say you...you're ...you're... just like Bush! ...and Hanity! ....and Rush! and Ann Coulter ..and Cheney! and your daddy works fowa Hawwibutun ...I'm weally mad now you big bully ! whaaaaa! you big meanie name caller I'm going to tell my mommie whaaa lol sorry web admin I couldn't resist :)

Oh and youa wike Adolph Hitwer too!

By the way, I think this all started with you calling me a racist so don't get too upset if I call you names back - don't dish it out if you can't take it whats_left

wow you did come back..I'M impressed..hmm ..figured you didnt have any friends to talk to so not a big surprise.
If the name fits and yours does..wear it proud Adolph..
Your in great company..Palin, McCain, Cheney, Bush,,all fine scum of the earth..and your heroes...

and one last time..drilling for Oil in channel does nothing to reduce our dependence on imported oil...thats the point you keep missing...there is not enough there to make any difference...drilling in the artic could start tomorrow..like you want it to..but its 10 years till there is anything coming from those efforts..and it saves an incredible $.50 a barrel.
If you take the money and time you would need to invest to get that $.50 a barrel savings...don't you think even you might come up with a better alternative...and your not even one of the smart people...so c'mon whitey..have some faith in alternative energy and man kinds ability to invent and conserve...its there to be discovered, developed, harnessed and used and it will save this earth for those little racist kids you are raising. Remember..they are ones who will carry on your fine legacy of openess and caring!

yeh, .50 cents a barrel we got it the first ten times you said it - , you're really losing it dude..starting to sound desparate to get your point across, now stop being a hater and using racial slurs lol

Obviously..your not getting it because you still want to do what shouldnt be done.

Aww and Dude slipping from the mouth of such an intelligent whitey.

If you understand it doesnt do any good to pursue the reckless avenue the Oil companies have outlined, why would you pursue it.

It comes down to brains...and the lack of them..same things that lead to your type of prejudice..simple lack of education and fear of change...your perfect for the republican party..paranoid, undereducated and angry. geeze they should have picked you to be VP..you have the same qualifications.

$.50 a barrel...10 yrs in the future...so really why drill? I mean really..why?
It can't make sense to even you.

The only reason is to be contrarian..that truly can the only possible answer.

The thought that you will go with the right wing wack jobs no matter how idiotic the proposition.
Thats fine..because you only have a few months left till you and your kind are swept back under the rock from whence you came....

Calling someone what they have shown themselves to be is not a racial slur...as you said..its an observation of fact...

The good news is we will have the oil companies in court for so long they will never get a chance to rape the coast again..by the time they can drill we will be well on our way to new sources of energy and the land will be protected from the true haters like yourself.

Peace Mr.Shaw a liberal is concerned about you and wants your world to be a better place long term...its ok, I know we need to reach across and help you move past your paranoia and hatred along with your world is coming to an end stories.
Have a great day Adolph...your welcome to come to the side thats going to win and lead the world into the future anytime you want.

Per revisionist's criticizm of The Independent: (The 3rd post in this long stream of posts) I agree with you about the impact about our open border/multiculturalis per gang violence and poverty, but am not sure about environmental degradation. In other words, I don't have enough data on the environment so until I do, I won't comment.

Clearly people such as ourselves differ in our view on the open border from the more left-leaning people who run The Independent. That having been said, I have to take my hat off to the editors of The Independent for publishing letters that are clearly in contrast to the paper's political leanings. Also, these same editors have been very tolerant about not censoring/removing comments from these blogs.

I'll second that Bill - hats off to the Indy.

whats_left - *yawn* I'll back off, not only because you're getting boring, repetitive and predictable, but also so you don't burst a blood vessel. All that racism and hatred against whites and immature name calling and temper tantrum-ing has to be stressful. The hospitals are already overcrowded from illegal immigration and I think you're going to need immediate attention. I'm concerned about you too brother. Peace!

P.S. Let's not forget that as long as we continue the open-border policy of being a refugee camp for a country whose government isn't helping their people, life for the people down there won't get any better.