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Old 08-06-2008, 11:41 AM
ajmccarrell ajmccarrell is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strandinthewind View Post
McCain's response to the Paris Hilton video:

“It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy crisis - -including both alternatives and drilling. In reality, Paris Hilton may have a more substantive energy policy than Barack Obama,” spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
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Of course, once again McCain distorts the truth my inaccurately quoting the source.

Hilton said (emphasis supplied) :

“We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars. That way the offshore drilling carries us until the new technologies kick-in which will then create new jobs and energy independence.

Energy crisis solved, I’ll see you at the debates, bitches!”

That is not the same as what McCain is for, which is unlimited drilling http://www.johnmccain.com//Informing...f1468e96f4.htm

Also - McCain's site implies Obama's tire pressure suggestion to save gas is inaccurate. Once again, McCain's innuendo is misleading and false as this article explains (emphasis supplied) :

Monday, Aug. 04, 2008

The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke

By Michael Grunwald

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

In fact, Obama's actual energy plan is much more than a tire gauge. But that's not what's so pernicious about the tire-gauge attacks. Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.

The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.

We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent lightbulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air-conditioning. We can use more-efficient appliances, build more-efficient homes and drive more-efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And, yes, we can inflate our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.

And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil — more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat — that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUVs, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would object to them.

Of course, in recent years, the Republican Party has been affiliated with the oil industry. It was the oilman Dick Cheney who dismissed conservation as a mere sign of "personal virtue," not a basis for energy policy. It was the oilman George W. Bush who resisted efforts to regulate carbon emissions. And most congressional Republicans have been even more reliable water carriers for the industry's interests.

John McCain has been a notable exception. He is not an oilman; he has pushed to regulate carbon emissions; and he opposed Bush's pork-stuffed energy bill, which Obama supported. He also opposed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and until recently opposed new offshore drilling. But now that gas prices have spiked, McCain is running for President on a drill-first platform, and polls suggest that most Americans agree with him. It's sad to see his campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can. We already are.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...829354,00.html

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Again, if it works, why would the R party and its mouthpieces lambaste it as laughable. It would save more fuel than drilling for untapped American oil could possibly provide. This is a page directly out of Rove's "repeat the lie until people believe it" playbook.
Again, Strand, you are quoting a source without reading it. McCain has always supported Cap and Trade, which IS limited drilling by definition. Hilton's plan is much the same as McCain's, which is go for everything all at once. No one said the tire guage plan doesn't work, but it won't save us the 3-4% Obama is saying. That would only be the case if EVERYONE's tires were underinflated. Most people either have newer tires that don't need inflation or they inflate them regularly. Doing that saves as much as 3 or 4 mpg, which is not the same as 3-4%, unless we're still ALL driving cars that get 10 mpg. Basic math here.

Also, reducing urban sprawl is part of why we have the housing mess. More houses means cheaper houses, simple supply and demand here. The average wage is $47,000.00 and the average home prices is $380,000.00, hardly tenable. People were stretching themselves ridiculously thin to buy homes, then when their cheap rates expired, they couldn't afford them. Again, your DNC policy of no expansion will lead to further problems. We forget that major national problems start locally with local regulation. We have urban sprawl regulation here in Washington, which is why only the richest can afford homes near cities. The same house near seattle goes for $600,000.00 or more (I mean a 3 bedroom rambler) that you could buy in Houston for less than 100K. I'm currently buying a house an hour outside seattle and it is still $311,000.00 for a house I could buy in Texas for $125,000.00.

Last edited by ajmccarrell; 08-06-2008 at 11:46 AM..
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