Republicans Blame Obama for High Gasoline Prices in a complete #IronyFAIL

Here's a serious ironyfail. The above-capped article comes from the NYT earlier this month (here: www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/politics/high-gas-prices-gi... ) and with a title like "Rising Gas Prices Give G.O.P. Issue to Attack Obama" how could I resist blogging about it? I mean, really, Republicans? Gas prices are too high for you? Perhaps you should just STFU and support alternative energy? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a cutting from the above article and refers to a "closed-door" meeting held by GOPers:

"“This debate is a debate we want to have,” Mr. Boehner told his conference on Wednesday, according to a Republican aide who was present. “It was reported this week that we’ll soon see $4-a-gallon gas prices. Maybe higher. Certainly, this summer will see the highest gas prices in years. Your constituents saw those reports, and they’ll be talking about it.”"

Oh really, John? You want to have this debate? Well, not with me, buddy. Because the basic laws of supply and demand tell us that if you want to lower price you either raise supply or reduce demand. The latter could have been done DECADES ago if only Republicans hadn't been such douchebags when it comes to protecting their pals in the oil biz. But hang on, there's more--here's another cutting from the article:

"“They want higher energy prices. They want to push their radical agenda on the public,” Rick Santorum said at a campaign event last week, accusing Democrats of pushing alternatives to oil. “We need a president who is on the side of affordable energy.”

Newt Gingrich wrote on Twitter on Friday that “gasoline prices are unacceptable. We can do better!” He urged his supporters to sign a petition on his Web site calling for a return to $2.50-a-gallon gas. “Drill here. Drill now. Pay less,” the petition says.

And talking points from the Republican National Committee that go out to conservative commentators every Friday often include rising gas prices among the “Top Line Messaging” for the week. A recent “Pundit Prep” document cited the national debt, unemployment and the price of gas as the three best ways to define the “Obama economy.”"

Gosh, it is a shame car-drivers are forced to pay these high prices for gasoline! Too bad there aren't other ways to fuel your car, like some sort of, oh I don't know, ALTERNATIVE kind of ENERGY that could be used.

I'm so SICK of looking at politicians shrug their way through explaining why things are so messed up, as though they could never have seen these problems coming or done anything at all to avoid them. Whether it was 911, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war or the economy, NO ONE apologizes for any of it and everyone claims they couldn't have seen it coming, despite anyone with eyes, basic math skills and a history book could have predicted all of it.

The fact of the matter is that our leaders in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike, are fucking ROCK STUPID and choose to follow their lust for cash and power around rather than their morals or feelings of responsibility for their fellow American citizen.

Seriously, Republicans, do you realize how unbelievably MORONIC you look complaining about high gas prices??? When Clinton was in office, gas wasn't much more expensive than $1/gal. 911, two Republican wars in the Middle East and a decade+ of inflation and YES, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE HIGHER GAS PRICES, YOU UTTER DOUCHES!

We seriously need to instate a Hypocrisy Police in the US. This shit is getting too crazy for words.

Finally, someone else proposes that one size will not fit all in our future energy supply system

How to Decarbonize the U.S. Power Grid

A new proposal by AMO, the thinktank arm of architect Rem Koolhaas’s firm OMA, has a plan to make the United States carbon-neutral by 2050. The plan calls for a shift to renewable energy that takes advantage of U.S. geographic diversity—solar for some areas, hydro for another—in other words, no one-size-fits-all solution. This proposal has been entered into GE’s Powering the Grid Ecomagination Challenge, which is awarding $200 million to the best ideas for a next-generation power grid.

(via Good)

via poptech.tumblr.com

YAY!  It’s like the proposal was designed by ADULTS!!  Rational ones, even!!

COOL!

Um, but I had to snicker during the part of the video where they refer to how we need a “politically agnostic” energy policy.  Yeah, right, like that will happen! 

No, what we need is a ban on lobbyists.  Return the right of free speech to individuals only. No more Chatty Cathy for corporations! (Especially since they’re so good at pulling the strings coming out of their own backs… )

What also worries me about their proposal is the excessive use of biomass.  Doesn’t the creation of biomass energy require a lot of oil-based energy first?  I need to read more about this. I also would have assumed that along the oceans we’d have wind farms. 

Regardless, I applaud their efforts for putting this proposal together.  We all need to grow up and face the reality that there won’t be a single, “one-size fits all” solution to our energy needs.  Oil doesn’t have one replacement, it has many.

I just hope we can make these changes before it’s too late (2050 for Europe? Yikes!)

I think, for that, we will need an Apollo-like program to reach our goal.

Suck on this, Solar Naysayers: Solar is now Cheaper and more Efficient

Solar is now cheaper than nukes:

Solar Power Is Cheaper Than Nuclear for the First Time
by Cameron Scott, 07/29/10
filed under: Renewable Energy, Solar Power

solar power, solar energy, solar technologies, nuclear power, nuclear energy, energy costs, duke university, renewable energy

Here’s bright spot in the news of the day: energy from new solar installations has, for the first time, become cheaper than energy from new nuclear plants, according to a new Duke University study. Thanks to cost-saving technologies and economies of scale, price can no longer be an excuse to invest in nuclear power rather than solar.

Solar power efficiency may double:

Photon enhanced thermionic emission could double efficiency of solar cells
By Laura June posted Aug 3rd 2010 8:25PM

Engineers at Stanford have developed a process which can harness the light and heat of the sun simultaneously, which could lead to solar cells that are twice as efficient as those currently available. Called photon enhanced thermionic emission — or PETE for short — the process differs from traditional cells which lose efficiency as temperatures rise, and the materials needed to build the cells are cheap and widely available.

Heeeey, I should demand a royalty! That’s my name, too!!

Harharhar.

The point here is that solar is making headway.  In fact, this also supports my theory that if we’d only been supporting solar all this time, we’d be even further along on the path to using solar power regularly, even commonly.

But NOOOOO, whiner solar naysayers have to climb up the butts of traditional power companies and cling desperately to old technology, rather than trying innovate.  Essentially, anyone who discourages development of solar energy is anti-innovation.  Any excuse to NOT try to use the power of sun to provide energy for our lives is absurd.  Any problems we’ll run into we’ll surmount.  Simple as that.

Hey, All You Believers, Maybe This is God Sending Us a Message?

Found via underpaidgenius:

paulmalouf:

Andrew Nikiforuk @ The Tyee ~ The Enbridge Dirty Dozen: Michigan disaster follows 12 other big spills or penalties this decade for giant aiming to pipe tar sands oil to Kitimat

Enbridge Inc, based in Calgary, Alberta, employs 6,000 workers and ranks 18th as one of Canada’s largest companies in revenue. It operates the world’s longest crude oil pipelines, through which it transports 12 per cent U.S. oil imports.

Between 1999 and 2008 Enbridge recorded 610 spills that released 132,000 barrels of hydrocarbons into farms, wetlands and waterways on the continent. According to the Polaris Institute, this volume of crude “amounts to approximately half of the oil that spilled from the oil tanker the Exxon Valdez after it struck a rock in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1988.” (…)

As an atheist, I hate to even play along that there might be a god, but since so very much is at stake, I’ll do it this once:

< believe >

HEY, LOOK AT ALL OF THESE OIL MISHAPS! CLEARLY, IT’S THE ALMIGHTY GOD TELLING US TO GET OFF THE OIL!

All the evidence is there. All you need to do is Accept His Will and get off the oil.  What’s your problem?  YOU’LL GO TO HELL IF YOU DON’T SUPPORT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING!!

JUST LOOK AT THE SIGNS, IGNORE THEM AND YOU ARE A DENIER OF GOD’S WILL!! 

Look, in a moment of weakness, I, an atheist, prayed to God and asked Him: “God, do you want us to get off oil or not?”

THEN ALL OF THESE SPILLS HAPPENED.

CLEARLY, IT IS GOD’S WILL THAT WE GET OFF OIL. DO NO BLASHPHEME ANY LONGER.

OIL=SATAN THAT IS ALL.

< /Believe >

This had better work—I even learned of enough of their language to converse with them and everything!

Power Your House by Flushing!

The above screencap comes from a March 6, 2008 post at Engadget.com (see the whole thing here: http://www.engadget.com/…you-flush/ ) and it reports on this cool new gadget that uses the power gravity and your toilet water to create electricity for your house.

As someone who fully believes the age of cheap oil is over with, this is one way (of many) we can reduce our use of fossil fuels. After all, there won't be just one replacement for oil, but many. Finding new ways to use some of the already-existing alternative energy sources is a great thing and the Benkatine Turbine from Leviathan Energy (official website: http://leviathanenergy.com/ ) does exactly that.

Now, there won't be much pooptricity (as one green blog called it: http://www.inhabitat.com/…ur-toilet/ ) created by this little guy, but every little bit counts in a world where a barrel of oil will run you $110. If enough people start using these the environment would benefit, too.

And just think about how good it'll feel to give a crap for the environment. LITERALLY!
Mobile post sent by thepete using Utterz.  Replies.

Eco Media Player: Hand Crank-Powered

Hey, check it out--it's a hand-crank-powered media player. It runs most of your favorite audio and video formats and pictures too. It has an FM radio, a flash light, a voice recorder and can even charge your cell phone (at the cost of playing your media, I'm guessing). Of course, the screen is a little bit too small for most folks (just 1.8 inches) and the price is way too high for just 2 gigs of storage (even with an SD slot). This thing comes in at £155, which is like $8000 in US cash (ok, so it's more like $320 at current exchange rates).

Ah well, it's a nice start. Hopefully that price can come down a bit for the 2nd generation model. Oh and FYI, it was designed by Trevor Baylis, the same chap who brought us the original wind-up radio which he designed, according to a post at TreeHugger.com, "as a way of getting information on HIV/AIDS to remote African villagers. The success of that project spawned the brand Freeplay, who have dominated the self powered device market for the past decade."

Pretty cool pedigree.

Read more about the Eco Media Player at TreeHugger and/or UberGizmo.