On the Road Again
 

Willie Nelson sells biodiesel.

BioWillie sounds perfect for Mr. Nelson: Farm Aid plus something to irritate the establishment with.

And to think that the Texas Legislature wouldn't name a highway after this man.

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

Undoubtedly he is very well qualified to comment. But figuring out that an explosion of a rocket carrying radioactive material high in the atmosphere might result in spreading the radioactive material over a wide area doesn't really take a rocket scientist, does it? I think that was fringey's point.

My father is a doctor and was a chest specialist for something like 45 years. He is very well qualified to say that smoking a lot is bad for your lungs. But do you really need to hear it from him?

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

Are you kidding? He doesn't want to get near that shit.

And he is particularly well qualified to know that high exposure to radiation is bad for you.

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

Personally I favor drilling in the ANWR, fucking Stevens notwithstanding. But why do you assume that the environmental impact would be comparable to this one, apparently very well managed, project in Indonesia rather than to all the other projects that have gone so horribly (and not just ones managed by third-world oil cos)?

And the ANWR is particularly remote and environmentally sensitive.* It's not like you just fly in on a helicopter with a drill set; you need an infrastructure to support the drilling, the personnel, the transport, the import of huge quantities of fuel (yes, they import fuel into drilling sites -- because drilling, particularly in the Arctic, is high-energy work and they won't refine the crude in the ANWR), etc. The Indonesia project, I suspect, did not confront anywhere near these kinds of difficulties.


*Yes, I know that seems inconsistent with my favoring the drilling. But just because it's sensitive doesn't mean it's more than a bunch of fucking caribou.

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

Cred-u-lous (n): Spanky.

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

It's not like there's none of that stuff in the North Slope already. (and they do in fact refine a bit of the crude their for purposes of fueling the operations--they top off the light ends for kerosene/gasoline, and put the rest in the TAPS.

Sebastian Kennedy's Take on The End of Oil, or Fuck Environmentalists
 

I assume it would be the same if you put the same restrictions on the Chevron that the New Guinian government did. Use the same lease agreement.

The point is it can be done correctly as long as you watch the oil company. You make it in their pecuniary interest to follow the ruls. In others fine them into the ground if they break the rules of the lease.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

George Will

Our Fake Drilling Debate: Collectively Hiding Behind ANWR

In 1986 Gale Norton was 32 and working for the secretary of the interior on matters pertaining to the proposal to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — area 1002 — to drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that then had already been a bone of contention for several years. Today Norton is the secretary of the interior and is working on opening ANWR.

But this interminable argument actually could end soon with Congress authorizing drilling. That would be good for energy policy and excellent for the nation's governance.

Area 1002 is 1.5 million of the refuge's 19 million acres. In 1980 a Democratically controlled Congress, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, set area 1002 aside for possible energy exploration. Since then, although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges, stopping drilling in ANWR has become sacramental for environmentalists who speak about it the way Wordsworth wrote about the Lake Country.

Few opponents of energy development in what they call "pristine" ANWR have visited it. Those who have and who think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight. They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school. They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002. There are no trees.

Opponents worry that the caribou will be disconsolate about, and their reproduction disrupted by, this intrusion by man. The same was said 30 years ago by opponents of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which brings heated oil south from Prudhoe Bay. Since the oil began flowing, the caribou have increased from 5,000 to 31,000. Perhaps the pipeline's heat makes them amorous.

Ice roads and helicopter pads, which will melt each spring, will minimize man's footprint, which will be on a 2,000-acre plot about one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport. Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls "a few drops of oil." Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil — such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields — could supply all the oil needs of Kerry's Massachusetts for 75 years.

Flowing at 1 million barrels a day — equal to 20 percent of today's domestic oil production — ANWR oil would almost equal America's daily imports from Saudi Arabia. And it would equal the supply loss that Hurricane Katrina temporarily caused, and that caused so much histrionic distress among consumers. Lee Raymond, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, says that if the major oil companies decided that 10 billion barrels were an amount too small to justify exploration and development projects, many current and future projects around the world would be abandoned.

But for many opponents of drilling in the refuge, the debate is only secondarily about energy and the environment. Rather, it is a disguised debate about elemental political matters.

For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.

The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism — of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America — is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.

People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern — the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

A quarter of a century of this tactic applied to ANWR is about 24 years too many. If geologists were to decide that there were only three thimbles of oil beneath area 1002, there would still be something to be said for going down to get them, just to prove that this nation cannot be forever paralyzed by people wielding environmentalism as a cover for collectivism.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

What a load of crap. Environmentalists don't like scarcity any more than they like paying through the nose at the gas station to fill up their SUVs. What Will apparently does not understand -- or chooses not to acknowledge -- is that there are many, many people -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- who value wilderness., something you need government to provide.

On the Road Again
 

I was thinking somehow this was going to have something to do with hemp. I'm slightly disappointed, actually.

Heh.
 

Good to know that the Halliburton Obsessives can be funny.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

I don't see how this is responsive to the column. A major part of Will's point is that wilderness won't be lost to the proposed drilling. Assume that is true; is the concern a slippery slope? I'm a huge supporter of the environment and wilderness...but these things can work in tandem with other goals. The pipeline is a decent example, and this seems to be even less intrusive.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Definitionally, wilderness lacks roads. So you can't assume that building roads into ANWR will leave it as wilderness.

(People who really believe in free markets ought to acknowledge the preferences that so many people have for wilderness, and think about how to structure things so that these people get what they want.)

I have seen debunking of the claim that developing ANWR will barely change it. It's out there on the web if you want to look for it. The game is do things like count only the few square inches of ground space taken up by the supports for the pipeline, rather than than the mass of the pipeline.

Perhaps I could live with opening ANWR if it were part of a deal that would do other things to promote conservation and energy independence. On it's own, the issue is a distraction from things that could make a real difference.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Definitionally? A made-up definition (made up by whomever, adopted by whomever, and particularly if done by or for use by government) is virtually meaningless. It's a convenience of reference, not necessarily something that tells you whether you have the same experience from being there (or the caribous' being there) or not.

Personally, I'm not interested in word or math games about it. Does what is proposed fundamentally, materially change things for the negative? Is this the wilderness we should be most concerned with protecting?

"(People who really believe in free markets ought to acknowledge the preferences that so many people have for wilderness, and think about how to structure things so that these people get what they want.)"

There is something about this that strikes me as offensive. Wilderness, nature, etc. are good in themselves, not something that "these people" should "get" if they "want."

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

I'm not playing word games. The thing that distinguishes "wilderness" from other patches of land is that it's not developed.

Yes, if you attach importance to wilderness as I and most people use the term. Many, many people want to protect wilderness.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that although many, many people want to preserve wilderness, a more enlightened view would dictate using the land differently. That starts to sound like collectivism that Will was beefing about.

Well, I agree. My point was that enough people agree with you and me about this that people like Will should respect our preferences.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Wilderness with oil under it will be drilled. Maybe it won't happen now, maybe it won't happen for 100 years, but as other reserves dry up, it will be drilled. All your plan does is delay the day.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Wasn't Spanky saying that if you can put off a debt until tomorrow, you never have to pay it?

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Unless George Will is lying, then if your definition of a wilderness is that it has no roads, then ANWAR is no longer a wilderness.

George Will said: "although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges"

George Will said: "Those who have and who think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight. They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school. They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002. There are no trees.

George Will said: Ice roads and helicopter pads, which will melt each spring, will minimize man's footprint, which will be on a 2,000-acre plot about one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport.

I actually laughed out loud when I read this. Of all the people on this board, in my humble opion, your "cites" are the least reliable. So for you to want us to take your opinion on unammed information on the net is just a little ripe. As we have tried to explain to you before, opinions from blogs do not qualify as evidence.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

I would appreciate, when you take well-deserved shots like this at my younger self, if you would be so kind as to recognize that the more mature Ty no longer cites to unreliable sources.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Thats an overly narrow definition you're using to facilitate an argument that holds little water.

Other than in your absurd "definitional" sense, driving one road and a pipeline through the ANWR doesn't destroy its "wilderness" quality.

But enviros, like pro-lifers, have an all or nothing attitude toward every argument they make, which is why most people don't pay attention to them. We all know there can be environmentally conscious drilling performed in ANWR, but enviros won't let that happen because its a precedent they fear.

Now, in fairness to enviros, there is a case to be made that you can never let the fox into the henhouse, no matter how responsible he pledges to be. Thats a valid argument.

But your argument that we must protect the definition of ANWR is a non-starter.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

I'll take his word. Ty's own shit is usually very well reasoned. He actually sways me a lot with his observations.

It's his cites to shitheaded, biased pseudo-intellectual clueless lefties that lose me... That stuff is all Grade A Fancy Shiite.

... And George Will should be boiled in tar for that awful crap he wrote about Jerry Garcia after Garcia's death. And that crap he wrote about how Corp America should force its workers to start dressing like Brooks Borthers models was also offensive. Who the fuck does that pencil-necked twit think he is? He's a fucking political commentator. He should comment on the goings-on in DC and nothing else.

Can we all agree that a political party that ideologically doesn't believe in social programs for the poor and elderly is never again allowed to design or implement a social program for the poor or the elderly ever again?

The fucking benefit is only 16 days old and it's already falling apart. My over/under was closer to 3 months. Diabetics are having to be admitted to the hospital because they can't get insulin. States are declaring public health emergencies.

And Tom DeLay told representatives that he would bury their sons' political careers if they didn't vote for this stupid, stupid drug benefit program. And CMS lied about how much it would cost. And everyone at CMS who advocated this stupid bill quit the second it was passed, leaving the burden to others.

The president was worried about fucking social security and let this travesty pass?

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Random thoughts -

If there are 10.4 billion barrels, and it flows at a million barrels a day, ANWR oil will run out in about 28 years.

You can't apply Spanky's Chevron in Guinea argument to ANWR, because remediation in the jungle is so much easier than remediation in the frozen tundra.

Of course, the way global warming is going, in 28 years ANWR may resemble Guinea anyway.

I would have thought Spanky would think more kindly of caribou, given how they look like big deer with beards.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

2. Anyone who wears bow ties absolutely and immediately loses any right to tell anyone else how to dress.

Exhibit 2764983355988989333366454547909237852872 why Govt Programs which seek to micromanage what people receive in the marketplace simply don’t/can’t work.

Certain people can’t afford drugs because those drugs are expensive. They are expensive because R&D for drug companies is enormous. It seems to me that the better outlay of federal money is in grants for R&D. Why doesn’t the govt give the billions it uses in this idiot drug plan to the drug companies as R&D grants to develop drugs. Subsidize the industry, with the trade being that the industry will lower costs to reflect the lower cost of R&D.

I know this is probably naive for reasons of which I’m not aware, but it seems much easier, at least conceptually, to control costs from the top down, rather than funding a byzantine impossibly expensive program at the much harder to control consumer level.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

Why is this true? I always hear about how delicate the rainforests are, and when you destroy them it takes a hundred years for the stuff to grow back. The Tundra refreezes every winter and there are no trees that have to grow back.

Since the pipeline increased the amount of Caribou maybe the ANWAR drilling will also.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

I have to agree with that one.

1) Subsidizing corporations is never a good idea. Who gets to choose which drug companies get the subsidies? The one who bribes abrahamoff will. In other words it will have nothing to do with merit.

2) If people can not pay for medical care themselves you need to provide it for them. Same goes for medicine. Especially if it is lifesaving. Only souless sociopaths argue for the dismantling of the safety net.

It's strange, but as much as we argue about the UMC, it seems more and more that we are very much alike in our thinking on many subjects.

1. I don't like subsidies either. But subsidizing a massive, inefficient system which seeks to monitor what millions of people get at the point of purchase is just a foolish waste of money better devoted to a program which would lower the price of drugs, thus removing the need for the inefficient program. My thinking is simple - easier to fund and monitor companies than to develop, implement and oversee millions of people's purchase of drugs. You think the waste and damage due to fraud and lobbying for subsidies would outweight the waste and damage caused by a massive impossible-to-administer program which consumers can never hope to understand?

2. Like federal funding for overpriced drugs isn't a subsidization... We're arguing 6 versus half a dozen here. You like a ground-up model, I prefer going from top down. Either way, the money reaches the same drug company pockets. I think mine is a better model because its administration costs are smaller, and it can be monitoroed much more closely. I'm advocating the same safety net, I'm just throwing it differently.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

The rainforests would be fine if clearing them did not involve ripping out every piece of vegetation and burning what was left. The tundra is more delicate because extreme environments tend to be that way.

The bottom line on ANWAR
 

It seems to me that Spanky is conflating turning rainforests into cropland (as we all know, very very hard on the environment, since it changes the nature of the land from forest into plains) with drilling for oil in jungles (not sure how hard this is on the land, but it seems like you could leave a lot of vegetation in place), and thus potentially overestimating the amount of damage caused by the drilling in New Guinea that was remediated by Chevron.

Not that I want to start the argument, but I think to not provide medical care for those who can't afford it is a violation of the UMC.

I think there are two issues here. I think the drug companies have plenty of a profit motive to come up with drugs that help people. The drug companys will continue to do their research and find cures. In addition, subsidizing drug companys will make the drugs cheaper for both rich and poor people. The rich don't need any help. They can pay full price for the drugs.

The second issues is providing drugs for those who can't afford them. No matter how much you subsidize the drug companys, they will charge money for their drugs and there will be people that can't afford them. The market works well in providing the consumers that have money with what they want. No need to mess with the market there. What the market does not take care of (no matter how efficient it is) is providing poor people with what they need. That is where the government steps in. Yes, setting up a huge wasteful bureacratic system to provide drugs to the needy is a drain on tax dollars, but it is a necessary drain. Yes there will be tons of fraud and waste. But that is the only way to do it. A big wasteful fraudulent bueracracy that provides drugs to poor people is better than having the poor people not get the drugs they need.

This is where Ty and I also get into arguments. Yes providing poor people with drugs is a subsidy, but you are not messing with an efficient market. There is no market to provide drugs to poor people, and that is something the government has to do, so the government steps in. But when it comes to a market (like the drug market) that is running efficiently the government does not need to step in to pick winners and loser, and decide which companys get money. The government should let the market weed out the inefficient producers and reward the efficient producers. Let the free market do what it does best.

Not really, because your system focuses on the companys and mine focuses on the poor people. The poor people are the ones that need help, not the drug companys. And if a drug company is going out of business, let it go out of business. But if someone is going to die if they don't get certain drugs, you give them the drugs.

The problem is that it's not a free market for the rich either. Very few people pay full price for drugs. Generally only medicare recipients (until this year). Most people have insurance coverage to pay for them. If they don't, they can't afford the drugs. The drug companies set really high prices hoping a couple people will pay it, knowing that for the most part they'll discount the price 75-90% for insurance. It's also not free because most of the buyers are price insensitive, for two reasons. First, they're not paying, or they pay a co-pay. Second, if you need drugs, you pay for it. While the second is part of a free market (think gasoline)

assisted suicide
 

fuck drugs. I am very surprised the S. Ct. upheld Oregon's death with dignity act.

assisted suicide
 

Wow. That is extraordinary.

How much medical care and at what quality? Who decides these questions?

assisted suicide
 

Looks like it was a statutory interpretation resolution. So I suspect there will be a bill introduced in the next few weeks to clarify that the authority extends to allow this. Not sure it will pass, but I bet one gets introduced.

assisted suicide
 

I think that the most interesting thing about this case is that it looks like Kennedy is assserting his new position as the swing vote on the Supreme Court. That opening paragraph seems like a sign to the Executive branch that he's the one that they're going to have to convince from here on out, not O'Connor.