A Likeable Democrat

Senator Gravel amuses me. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I like his frankness and honesty. While the other people in the debate were just uttering the usual platitudes and cliches, Gravel smacked the others around. Of course, he is being marginalized because he is not a system player. But we need more politicians like this, who are honest about the problems we have to deal with.

Like I said, I am not in agreement with everything he believes, but at least his arguments aren’t fake. And they are mostly solid arguments.

I want to like this guy as well.  Full of piss and vinegar. The only thing I don’t like is his view on a carbon tax.  Judging by his views of getting rid of the IRS and just using a flat sales tax, he understands how taxes, if implemented incorrectly can pose an undue burden on the poor. A carbon tax is a very heavy burden on the poor.  Gas and electricity already make up a huge proportion of their monthly expenses taxing it even more really puts a further strain on their cost of living. Meanwhile, the wealthy will be able to afford all these new cars and appliances that are ultra efficient that are sure to be coming out.  I wish someone on his staff would think this one through as opposed to just spouting off what some environmentalists thinks.

As I stated in posts a long time ago, this is one of the few issues that I am actually knowledgeable on.  Therefore, I put a huge weight on it in my voting decisions, sadly knocking this guy out of my bid.  I consider it my little enlighten contribution to the democratic process.

Testify!

I wish someone on his staff would think this one through as opposed to just spouting off what some envirmonmentalists thinks.

Other than that, I like him.  Sadly, as I stated in posts a long time ago.  This is one of the few issues that I am actually knowledgable on.  Therefore I put a huge weight on it in my voting decisions.  I consider it my little enlighted contrabution to the democratic process.

Posted by  on  06/05  at  10:29 AM

Oops, did a bad job cutting and pasting my response. Ignore that last paragraph/

Posted by  on  06/05  at  10:31 AM

I agree. The carbon tax is nothing but another way to try to silence the so calld greens when it will only encourage them and punish the poor. Gas should not be so expensive. Oil is still very common. Refineries is the problem. We need to build some refineries. But again, that is where teh so called greens have caused prices to go up. They have blocked that for years.

Posted by  on  06/05  at  10:39 AM

Oil is common, yes. But, also thanks to the “greens”, we have to rely very much on foreign oil, instead of drilling for our own.

We could have lower gas prices if we could only tap what’s in ANWR and offshore.

Posted by Dave Marron  on  06/05  at  11:18 AM

I’m a Floridian. I would LOVE to look out offshore from the Kennedy Space Center where I work, to see platforms, drilling day & night. When I think of what our soldiers have to go thru to secure our future oil supply, those platforms would look BEAUTIFUL to me!!!! After all, the Chinese are gonna be drilling off of Cuba, a mere spit away.

Posted by  on  06/06  at  02:27 AM

FYI: ANWAR had barely enough oil to supply us for 6 months.  They didn’t go through with it becuase the cost of infrastructure and the enviromental dammage (which would have been significant) was far, far greater than the amount of oil they could have easily extracted.  People forget, how big alaska is.  They would have to build thousands of miles (hundreds of millions of dollars) of pipes for just a couple of years worth of oil.  Ehtynol additives were an easier solution and that is the way they went.

i am pretty sure it was the same off the coast of florida.  Its eaier to mix in 10% ethynol into our national fuel mix than spend billions building a platform that only ads 2% to our national fuel mix for only 5 years.

So dont just blame “the greens.” Blame the Bush, clinton, Bush II administrations for being short sighted idiots by not investing in a sustainable national energy plan.  The signs have been there for 20 years and people have been screaming at them since the 70’s.

Posted by  on  06/06  at  04:41 AM

Testify,

They made the same claim about the other Alaskan oil fields we tapped and we’re still getting oil from there over 20 years later. That argument is only good if we got all our oil from there and no where else, which isn’t the case. And in any event, the truth is, there could be even more than that.

The disinformation about oil is as bad as global warming. Hell, worse.

And let’s not forget we have oil off the California coast as well.

We have plenty of oil of our own. My point is greens have blocked refineries and oil platforms, which would would have made us more energy independent until we find a better solution.

Bio-fuels are an inferior solution for now. I am looking forward to new hydrogen powered cars. That’s the way I think it will go.

Posted by James Hudnall  on  06/06  at  08:58 AM

Hydrogen isn’t an energy source, it’s a storage and delivery mechanism. It only works as fuel if you have some way to generate it, which almost certainly means nuclear power (whether solar or with terrestrial nuclear plants).

Further, basic thermodynamics shows that all energy storage schemes are inherently lossy, so the real question is whether using hydrogen and trucks to store and deliver energy is more efficient than using big ol’ wires.

Hydrogen could, of course, be useful to allow you to leave the wires behind (for any long-distance travel, say), but that’s true of other storage techniques, too.

Posted by  on  06/06  at  09:31 AM

Providing it’s true (scroll down a page or two), some one came up with a simple process for extracting hydrogen from water. This would mean we could have cars that are fueled by water. The hydrogen gets burned off to power the car.

Being such a tiny atom, hydrogen is notorious for leaking from any storage unit. But it’s also the most common thing in the universe that we know of at this point and time.

Posted by  on  06/06  at  10:03 AM

“Providing it’s true…”

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  And that one contradicts everything we understand about entropy*, which means it’s an infinite energy machine. 

I’d like it to be true.  I’d also like to fly by pulling up on my socks.  So far, even when I try really hard, no flying.

* 2xH2 + O2 is a substantially higher energy state than 2xH2O.  (We know this because turning 2xH2 + O2 into 2xH2O releases energy.) The extra energy has to come from somewhere (First Law of Thermodynamics), and adding it isn’t free (Second Law of Thermodynamics).  So each cycle you have to add more energy than you take out.  Laws of Thermodynamics:  You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.  (Not an original formulation.)

Posted by  on  06/06  at  12:03 PM

I think, someday, we will figure out how to tap the immense free enery floating all around us and put it to good use. There is an insane amount of energy going on around us, in different forms. From gravity to the magnetic field, to solar energy (which is being tapped, but we’re still primitive in doing it).

Yes, gravity isn’t exactly an energy. It’s a force. But it could be tapped somehow, someday, as a power source.

Posted by  on  06/06  at  12:10 PM
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