I don't believe we should "drill drill drill". By the time we would see any benefit from that drilling,
If oil companies were given a go on this, we can see production in just a few years. What's more important, we do not need to see production in order for oil prices to drop. Beastie just doesn't understand the market. Why do you think gas prices dropped over the last few months by $0.60 a gallon? Because Bush removed the executive ban on drilling - this required no actual increase of production. If our competitors get any sense that we are taking serious measures to be energy independent, the gas prices drop. What do you think they'll do if they realize we're drilling? They'll panick and reduce prices even more - anything they can to dissuade us from becoming energy independent. They need us to be dependent on them, and if gas is cheap enough, they might dissuade oil companies from investing in more drilling.
China will be the major player in oil bidding, and we may not get a drop of that oil, anyway.
What the hell is beastie even talking about? If we become energy dependent by relying strictly on our own oil supplies, then China isn't in the picture. She might be referring to off shore drilling, but in this case China is going to do their drilling whether we drill or not. They are already out surveying areas off our coast.
By that time, prices will be so outrageous that any benefit will be minimal.
Why would prices be "so outrageous"? Does anyone have an idea what she thinks she's talking about?
I think we should take any money that would be spent on "drill drill drill" and invest in new technologies to replace oil altogether.
Who exactly does beastie think is going to be investing in the drilling to begin with? She seems to think the government is going to be losing money if we drill, but Oil companies will be the ones footing the bill. All we need from the Federal government is to give the companies the green light. McCain is all for investing in newer technnologies, but these are clearly long term projects. We're not even in the developmental stages of some of these technologies. They are just ideas at this point which have to first attract private companies, which requires convincing that it is economically feasible. At this point it isn't. Maybe beastie thinks the government should just take over the transportation industry.
This is a fool's game. We're like crack addicts and our crack is running out. Time to clean up.
As Sarah Palin said while rolling her eyes, tell us something we don't already know. Nothing changes the fact that we need more oil, and we're sitting on it. Nothing changes the fact that the ban on drilling and our failure to take advantage of our own natural resources, have led to our unwanted involvement in the Middle-East, and it has become the key to our national security. The idea is simple. Become energy independent as soon as possible so we can get out of the Persian Gulf and ease international tensions.
Drilling is the quickest way to that end, but democrats don't want it because they are more interested in their own self interests. If drilling works, andends up being the greatest move America has made in three decades, then the republicans would have been proved right all along. And if none of the polar bears end up suffering due to drilling in ANWR, the republicans would have been proved right all along. The democrats have nothing to gain and everything to lose, politically speaking. That is why they are against drilling. It isn't because they give a flying crap about America becoming energy independent. Just look at Ted Kennedy's attitude towards a wind farm miles off the coast where he lives.
And while I agree that some social programs do create a culture of dependency, working close-up with many children from that culture renders me unwilling to simply cut it off. I would rather invest in more preventive measures, such as poverty intervention with newborns and preschoolers
Well, you won't get any help from Obama's plan to educate 5 year olds about sexual intercourse and sexual feelings and masturbation. Did anyone even notice that his preferred curriculum teaches them about sexual intercourse, but doesn't mention whether it should be done before or after marriage? Noooooo, that would be a "religious" suggestion. I cannot even imagine how I would have grown up knowing about sex at such an early age.
The democrat system fosters an irresponsible culture of high birth rates in impoversihed communities. I mean what is the down side to it? Why would anyone not screw around? It feels good. That's what Obama wants to teach the kids. it is natural. And more importantly, there should be no religious restrictions on it such as abstinence before marriage.
Moreover, the more kids you have, the bigger your welfare check. Yea, that system seems to have worked out really well over the years now hasn't it? All it does it create more welfare babies. What is certain is this, Obama will create more and more bureaucracies which will become long-term money-pits for taxpayers. We know his background with "community organizers" and we know kinds of people he owes. The poor will have been responsible for putting him into office. As I already noted elsewhere, most people with no HS education will vote for Obama. The least he can do is repay them with bigger welfare checks. I mean that's what he does with earmarks. That's what he did when his wife's employer tripled her income. He gave them a million dollar pavillion.
If we can intervene with some of these kids before they go to school, and provide the type of preschool (from birth on) support that will result in these children NOT already being five years behind their peers from literate homes, then perhaps we can break the cycle of dependency.
The answer is to provide the necessary education to the parents and get them involved. But you can't expect these poeple to want to do it. That's the real problem. You can't expect government to do their job for them either; this is a primary defect in democrat thinking.
The problems that poor families face are very complex, and their children are continuing the cycle not because their parents don't love them, or are riff-raff, but because their parents don't have the skills to help their children break the cycle on their own.
It is far more complex than that. You can't generalize the reasons for this into one category. What "skills" do parents need to live a good life and be a good example to their children? What "skills" do they need to make sure their children are receiving an education and aren't out gang-banging and becoming products of their environment? You make it sound like this is just something money can buy, so government can provide it to them. Throwing money at these communities has never made a difference. In fact, it is more likely to justify overpaid "community organizers" like Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama.
And they don't have those skills because their parents didn't have those skills.
What "skills"? Education? Parents have to lead a good example, but in many cases, poor families are corrupt in the sense that they have to deal with alcoholism, domestic violence, low education, and in most cases, especially in the black community, children are raised by single mothers. No father figures are present (a religious principle again on family values) Why? Because kids are screwing around at a younger age. Obama wants to make sure that doesn't change by beginning their education at an even earlier age.
Middle class Americans take so much for granted that I don't think we understand the cycle of poverty. Do you know I work with children who come from homes where there is not a single piece of reading material in the house? Why would there be? Their parents can barely read.
Even if they could read, what makes you think they'd be investing in books? Children go to school for their education. Do you suddenly encourage homeschooling? Because I do. The educational system needs reforming for sure, but what we see is pretty much what the religious folk expected once your side removed religion from schools.
While at home, children should not be on the streets, or be watching "Win a Chance at Love with Tila Tequila," where kids are taught that such disgusting behavior is socially acceptable (supported of course, by the anti-religious left). Kids shouldn't be dating at young ages, and shouldn't be on MYspace advertising their bodies as if there was nothing wrong with it.
Parents can control this stuff without the government paying for them to learn "skills." These parents allow modern society to raise their kids for them, and it is little wonder how they turn out. Kids need to be shown just what they have. Maybe they need to take a course on how children in other countires live, and see how they are really doomed from the start. They need to appreciate what opportunities they have in the country, but democrats want to keep them down by enforcing this sense of victimhood, and this nonsensical "Matthew effect."
In education, we refer to this problem as the Matthew effect - those who have get even more, and those who don't have get further and further behind. Educationally speaking, some of these kids have been doomed before they ever walked into kindergarten.
This is precisely the nonsense that Jesse Jackson used to justify his existence as race baiter. Never take responsibility when it is much easier to blame those who made the most of their opportunities. Kids in this country have more opportunity than any other country in the world. People from broken familys become wealthy by working hard and doing what needs to be done. There are success stories like these in every American town. This much is possible in America whereas in countries like Brasil, it really is impossible. There is no egalitarianism in Brasil like there is in America. If you're born poor, then you're poor for life unless someone rich adopts you. That's a fact of life here.
The problem with poor folks today in USA is that they keep this mentality that they are doomed from the start as if they have no other alternative but a life on the streets. They have hopelessness instilled by other demcorats who tell them the rich republicans are at fault. horse crap! My grandfather in Alabama couldn't read either. My Mother was the first in her family to graduate High School. Her parent's ignorance didn't preclude her from succeeding because she stayed on the right path. She didn't have television as a kid, and she stayed at home, close to the family. She was shown the importance of education and she was raised with strong religious principles. She didn't go out and screw around as a teenager and have illegitimate kids like so many other did in her neighborhood. She waited until she got married before having kids. Whenever we go back to Alabama for family reunions, it is sad because we see so many others in our extended family who live in trailers and live off of welfare checks. Instead of getting a job my uncle will sit around and complain because the "damn Mexicans" make it impossible for him to make any real money off of hanging sheet rock.
There is some truth to this I suppose, but the way I see it is this. If the Mexicans can live off of $8/hour hanging sheet rock, then why can't Americans? The reason is because Mexicans are from Mexico, and they understand real poverty, and they understand the tremendous opportunioties they have here, so they make the best of it. They take nothing for granted. Americans lost this feeling a long time ago. They have this crazy idea that they are guaranteed a good living, just because they are born in a rich country.
My uncle could also make efforts to go back and get his GED. But he won't. He'll just sit around and let the government pay for his 6 children he has managed to produce from three women (none of whom were ever his wives).
Reading is not a natural process, it is an ability that is wired into the brain during certain crucial periods of brain development.
Most children will learn how to read eventually, especially withy the internet being an essential socializing tool for most kids. Even the dumbest of gang bangers know how to read, so learning to read doesn't guarantee any real change in poverty. Illiteracy is just a symptom of adverse poverty.
When 5 year old kids go to school without any of that prior exposure...they will be plagued with reading problems, and hence educational problems in general, and the cycle of poverty will continue. This is the core of my problem with simply stopping all social welfare - the price is not one I'm willing to pay. So we have the sucky situation we have.
So now we learn that the reason you won't vote for McCain, isn't because he and Palin want to bomb Iran as you eerroneously implied before, but because you're a true blue big government democrat who actually believes in pouring funds into these hopeless social projects - where the only people who really benefit are the minorities who are generally hired to run these programs.
I think it is interesting that secularists have tried very hard to kill religion and remove God from the schools, and now that the fruits of their labor are showing, they think throwing money at the problem will somehow help.
Every human has social needs. They need to feel love and they need to feel acceptance, a sense of security and identity of who they are. If poorer children don't get these needs from family or a religious organization, they will get it from the streets. This is hardly within the reach of government aid.
