I live a hop, skip and a jump from Charlotte, NC, and we have seen gas lines for the past week for the first time since the seventies.

It seems the refineries that supply our area are still not at full capacity after the hurricane in Texas a couple of weeks ago.

Fortunately, yesterday my husband was able to find a gas station with only one person ahead of him and was able to fill up all three vehicles. His truck for emergencies and the two vans for day to day business and taking the grandchildren to or from school. Otherwise they stay parked.

In case you think we are gas guzzlers, we have not filled up in about a month on any of the vehicles. We try to do everything in one trip with one vehicle, but I hate to ride in that truck! It’s always such a mess.

Earlier in the year, Sarah Palin speaks on topic of energy independence:

Is this part of the reason some in the Washington establishment may be a little fearful of the Governor?

Would she push Congress with the facts at her side to come up with a better argument than they have offered (in rejection) to tap the natural resources we have available in our own country?

And yes, I know, she said she would stay in Alaska rather than come to Washington but I consider that no different than Joe Biden’s “I’m not the guy” a mere few days prior to being selected. Guess you could say it’s the nature of the beast of politics.

I discovered this video in following the links available in this post at RedState. Lot’s more there.

*Update: More from Sarah Palin on Domestic Energy Recovery. The VP debate should be very interesting:

It’s been a tough couple of days for the Speaker of the House.

Cindy Sheehan has secured the signatures which will qualify her to compete against the Speaker in her upcoming re-election bid.

Now that could be quite interesting to watch. Not that I expect Ms. Sheehan to to a serious threat to Ms. Pelosi, but for the fireworks which might ensue.

George Stephanopoulos on Sunday grilled Ms. Pelosi on her decision to shut down debate and not allow a vote on off shore drilling.

I’ve read the transcript in its entirety at least twice and with all of the incomplete sentences offered by the Speaker, I could not make heads nor tails of her position. Please, if you do, let me know in the comments.

And, GOP members of the House plan to continue their debate on the House floor today:

ABC News’ Viviana Hurtado Reports: House Republicans tell ABC News that at least 30 members of Congress, emboldened by Barack Obama’s “shift” on off shore drilling, are flying back to DC from their Districts today and tomorrow to attend a special debate on energy policy. This “session” is scheduled for Monday, August 4th beginning at 10 am ET. As expected, no Democrats will participate.

One House Republican says, “I’m a 25 year veteran of the U.S. Congress, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

GOP members say they would not be holding this debate tomorrow, if the Democratic nominee had not modified his position on off shore drilling.

They believe that with Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain, appearing to be in “agreement” about off shore drilling, then Speaker Nancy Pelosi should recall the Congress from recess, and put an energy bill on the floor in August.

We continue to hear that it will be 10 years before we see the benefit of drilling in Anwar and off shore. While there is a great deal of truth to that statement, it escapes me how the Speaker in her interview with Mr. Stephanopoulos blamed President Bush for a failed energy policy.

In 2002 the House and the President had a plan which would have taken at least a first step towards our energy independence.

If Congress had at least passed that legislation, we could then have moved forward towards developing other forms of energy which would begin to free our binds of substantial dependence on foreign oil.

Doing nothing is no longer an option for members of Congress if we hold their feet to the fire. Majority or minority makes no difference. Party affiliation should go out the window and as citizens we should work to make certain that those elected to represent us are earning their paycheck.

There are some very honest, intelligent, upstanding individuals elected to public office at all levels. They take an Oath of Office and do their level best to live up to that charge. But for those who do not, we must hold not only them but also ourselves accountable.

No,we have no say as to a Representative or Senator elected from a state other than our own, but we always have the availability of using email, phone or a letter to make our views known. When our citizens rise up as they have over the recent price at the pump, Washington takes notice.

After the past few days, I would bet Ms. Pelosi would agree.

Some might call this a political stunt, but I wish it was exactly what we would see more of on a constant basis:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House and turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi’s refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m., and they are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on and the microphones were turned on shortly afterward.

I would love to see President Bush call Congress back for an emergency session and keep them in Washington until they can provide him with an acceptable energy bill.

In the meantime I applaud those Republicans who, despite all obstacles put before them by the Speaker, stayed on and continued to hammer away at an issue so vital to the citizens of this country.

Lot’s more here, including video.

I’m going to point you to three links on the same blog with charts to show why we haven’t begun to explore our own resources in getting oil so we wouldn’t have the prices at the pump and for heating we have now. Also remember that the price of oil affects the price of food. Think about this when you vote this year.

The first link is here.

The second comes from the same site and is here.

The third link also comes from the same site and is here with a timeline of the price of oil per barrel then and now.

Now, in case you missed the editorial I am going to point you to this Washington Post editorial.

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There’s a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won’t be hearing it in the House of Representatives — certainly, you won’t find lawmakers voting on it — anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? “What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy,” she said yesterday when asked that very question. “What we’re saying is, ‘Exhaust other remedies, Mr. President.’ . . . It is the economic life of America’s families, and to suggest that drilling offshore is going to make a difference to them paycheck to paycheck now is a frivolous contention. The president has even admitted that. So what we’re saying is, ‘What can we do that is constructive?’ ”

If there is an explanation buried in there about why that makes offshore drilling off-limits for a vote, we missed it. Ms. Pelosi is correct that drilling is no panacea for the nation’s energy woes. The short-term effect of lifting the moratorium, if there were any, would be minimal. That doesn’t mean the country shouldn’t consider expanded drilling as one of many alternatives. There are legitimate concerns about the environmental impact of such drilling — environmental concerns that, we would note, exist in other regions whose oil Americans are perfectly happy to consume. But have technological improvements made such drilling less risky? Why not have that debate?

Read the rest.

Pelosi, and to a little lesser extent, Reid are both leading their respective houses like dictators. No debate on anything they oppose and fear might be passed. Is this the purpose of Congress, or am I mistaken in believing they are there to represent their constituents, most of whom are suffering the effects of high oil and gas prices?

Think about this when you vote. It’s not just the presidency that’s important this year; the Congress is also important and if we allow the Democrats control or even greater control look for a depression instead of a recession.

Instead of humoring Kucinich with his mock impeachment hearing yesterday, why isn’t Congress working on the real problems of the country?

It would be easy to put a bumper sticker on my car stating “Don’t blame me. I voted Republican.” But that gets us nowhere unless we vote for the party not afraid to drill. With Hurricane Katrina not one drop of oil was spilled in the offshore platforms. This shows the knowledge is there and being used to make oil drilling more environmentally clean.

Call your congressman/woman and Senators and ask why we can’t drill for our own oil now so we can reap the benefits in a few years. Benefits we could have been reaping even now if not for stubborn Congresses and presidents.

By not allowing either house of congress to vote on whether or not to drill shale or drill in forbidden parts of the US, including offshore in Florida, the Gulf and California, not to mention ANWR being sacred ground, the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to have an issue to bring before the electorate that is a big pocketbook issue.

Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a vote in the House, and Harry Reid is playing games and getting rude as he gets frustrated over bringing a real energy bill to the floor and not limiting the amendments to what he wants them to be.

About the only thing the Democrats in the House are willing to do is release some of the nation’s strategic oil reserves, which would amount to only about a three days’ supply.

Thursday’s bill would have released about 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, roughly a three-day supply. The reserve is designed to keep oil in stock in the event of an emergency.

The 268-157 vote in favor of releasing the oil was not enough to overcome a rule requiring a two-thirds supermajority to win the measure. With 425 House members voting, Democrats would would have needed 284 votes to pass the package.

But the loss isn’t without benefit to Democrats.

Democrats have been bringing energy-related bills to the floor with the two-thirds requirement in an effort to stave off GOP efforts on drilling offshore in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The two-thirds requirement prevents Republicans from offering amendments or other procedural tactics to get ANWR on the table. Many Democrats concede there’s probably enough support in the House to pass an ANWR drilling measure if it came up under normal, simple majority rules.

Democrats lashed out at Republicans in a news conference later in the afternoon.

“When they (Republicans) had a chance to vote on everything, they voted no. … Over half their caucus voted no” on the petroleum reserve bill, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., told reporters, adding: “They’re against ‘all of the above.’ ”

Leading up to the vote, House Minority Leader John Boehner called the Democrats’ plan “a joke.”

“This bill’s a joke. Come on. We’re going to take 20 million barrels of light crude and we’re going to exchange it for $20 billion of heavy crude? This is not an energy bill. This is not going to produce any more American-made energy. It’s not going to bring down the prices. It’s just another excuse to avoid having a real vote on the House floor,” the Ohio Republican said.

Democrats said the release from the oil reserve could provide relief at the pump within two weeks, though they would not say how much it would help $4-per-gallon gas. Earlier releases, such as a 34 million barrel drawdown in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, caused prices to fall.

As debate began, the White House threatened a veto. “Rather than drawing down a strategic reserve intended to protect our nation’s energy security from a severe supply disruption, Congress should pass legislation to increase domestic oil supply,” the White House said in a statement.

Emphasis mine.

We’ve heard all the arguments for years. It would take too long to be online to help. Well, if they had allowed us to drill in these areas ten years ago we’d be ten years closer to having it be a reality. We would probably already be enjoying the fruits of drilling on our own land and not depending on other countries for the majority of our oil.

My husband, who used to work in the nuclear power business, says it takes about ten years to get a nuclear plant built and up and running. How many nuclear plants are in the works now due to Congress’ refusal to allow it?

We could be refining our own oil if more refineries were allowed, but we seem to be at a halt there too.

I’m all for protecting the environment, but when it comes to heating a family’s house, is a spotted owl more important than a family of people?

When it comes to feeding your family, is a spotted owl or saving caribou that can live elsewhere worth increasing the price of food because the truckers have to pay more for fuel to get the food to the market?

Are these endangered animals worth the price of not being able to afford to go to work so you can feed your family and pay your bills?

I doubt God intended for man to go without because a few nutcases want to save a salamander or whatever.

All of the new technology makes it possible for us to drill and build in ecology-friendly environments. Why is Congress so stupid?

If John McCain and every Republican running for office doesn’t pound this home to the voters they deserve to lose. This is a winning issue. It is the issue of this campaign. It hits every American squarely in the wallet.

The Democrats have given the issue to the Republicans and it’s time for them to make hay while the sun shines.

And yes, we’ve had past Congresses with Republican leadership that haven’t been able to get over this hurdle either, but now is way past time for bickering and the time for action.

Who is at fault for us not drilling for oil in our own land? Mostly it’s the Democrats in Congress and not just Obama.

In fact, I think McCain is against drilling in ANWR, but maybe he’ll see the light on that one too.

Here’s McCain’s latest ad on the prices of gas:

A very appropriate song

for those who make a lot of noise, but take little action: HT:RCP

Gas is still at $4 a gallon, but the good news is there’s an emerging consensus on a measure that would help: Drill for more oil here at home. President Bush dropped the executive ban on offshore oil and natural gas exploration last week, and House GOP leader John Boehner plans to lead a congressional delegation to Colorado and Alaska to highlight America’s abundant energy resources this week. Polls show more than two-thirds of the public support increased domestic energy exploration and production. Guess who stands in the way.

Congress has its own ban on offshore energy exploration, and the Democrats who run Congress have shown no sign that they are willing to follow Bush’s example. They have preferred to make excuses–about why the price of oil is rising, who is to blame for its rise, and why increasing domestic supply won’t do anything to ameliorate the problem.

It isn’t working. Democrats are losing the fight over gas prices, and they know it, too.

Related and a must see at Instapundit.

Where can you find deeply discounted home heating oil?

On the internet of course:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. homeowners scared of paying through the roof for heating oil this winter are cruising online classified sites for deals on unwanted fuel — and finding them.

“I have an old pickup truck and I stock it with 50-gallon drums, and I have an oil transfer pump,” said Bob Difiore, a mechanic who lives on Long Island, outside New York City.

“I pull into people’s driveways and lower a hose through a window or other access points and I start pumping it into the drums.”

The deals are possible because many homeowners in the Northeast are switching from heating oil to cheaper natural gas or other alternative fuels, leaving them with tanks full of unused oil. And those still using heating oil are eager to snap it up at a discount as the oil market skyrockets.

“I just went on Craigslist one day and I saw someone selling heating oil. So I put an ad in there saying I was buying,” said Howard Urvine, a real estate agent in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Living in the Northeast in the winter can be a challenge when it comes to monthly utility bills. Those who must have oil delivered to heat their homes took quite a hit already last year.

If this oil is safe an usable then more power to those who do the research and are able to save some of their hard earned money.

With a nine percent approval rating at last look, will Congress have the audacity to not agree with the President?

It’s a call to arms people. President Bush is lifting the decades old executive ban on offshore drilling, but it must have congressional support.

I’d like to believe this time will be different and will applaud the House and Senate members should they concur on this important issue but there is a part of me which says I won’t hold my breath.

~J~ has another important post on available domestic energy product here. If you mail or call your representative, be sure to touch on both issues.

This seems to confirm the information in the post Sue referenced, although the President said it would be enough to last for a century. He did mention shale oil. ~J~

Update 2: Here is what the Speaker of the House of Representatives, you know, the Congress with a 9% approval rating has to say about the President’s remarks:

WASHINGTON, July 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on President Bush’s announcement lifting the executive ban on drilling in protected coastal areas:

“Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil.

“The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence. It just gives millions more acres to the same companies that are sitting on nearly 68 million acres of public lands and coastal areas.

“If the President wants to bring down prices in the next two weeks, not the next two decades, he should free our oil by releasing a small portion of the more than 700 million barrels of oil we have put in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“It’s time to tell the oil industry: ‘You already have millions of acres to drill. Use it or lose it.’”

SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House

That tells you where the Democrats stand on getting oil to their constituents. You’d better think twice when you pull that lever in November because voting for a Democrat for Congress or President will get you higher gas prices than now and no domestic drilling and refining. ~J~

In the past the price of crude oil imported from the Middle East has been low enough that it didn’t justify the cost of trying to extract oil from shale.

Now that the prices are so high per barrel it appears we are sitting on more affordable oil reserves in this country that could last us another 400-500 years.

Here’s an email I received and I checked the links.

Subject: Ever heard of the Bakken Formation

Just poking around the Internet recently, I simply ‘Googled’ the search ‘Untapped U.S. Oil Reserves,’ and the result (like the current price of a gallon of gas - BLEW ME AWAY! Go ahead, take a minute and see for yourself! Never mind, I’ll share some of the highlights I found.

1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it. I did, and again, BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April
(’08) that only scientists and oilmen/women knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since ‘95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana … check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependent ce on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable…
at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

‘When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.’ says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

‘This sizeable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,’ reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’ And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead en d. Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves… and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2.And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it’s from TWO YEARS AGO, people!

U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official
estimates:

-8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
-18-times as much oil as Iraq
-21-times as much oil as Kuwait
-22-times as much oil as Iran
-500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it’s all right here in the Western United States.

HOW can this BE!? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!? Because we’ve not D E M A N D E D Legislation to come out of Washington allowing its extraction, that’s why!

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

—-
Don’t think ‘Big Oil’ will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less - and if they DON’T, others will. It will come down - it has to.
—-
Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so! Now, while you’re thinking about it …. and hopefully P.O’d, do this:

Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or good old-fashioned letter to our elected officials in Washington and their respective leaders. We’ll start with them, and here’s how you can send them your e-mail/fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation/an Energy PLAN that calls for tapping into these (OUR OWN!) Reserves, as well as allowing for the offshore drilling for OUR oil, in OUR offshore waters and Inter-continental shelf … not to mention Alaska. Technology ain’t what it used to be people (ever had arthroscopic surgery?). They can surgically extract OUR oil, and get us on the way to at least some measure of Energy independence.

Take another few minutes and browse here. Then go here.

There’s enough oil here to last 400-500 Years.

If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices … because by doing NOTHING, you’ve forfeited your right to complain. Then let’s declare Open Season on some of America’s E.P.A. idiots.

There is little doubt that there are many suffering in this country these days. Lay-offs, cut backs and business closures have affected families from coast to coast.

Foreclosures are mounting. In many cases this is not due to those unscrupulous mortgage lenders nor those who signed loan papers on a home they could, at the time of purchase, well afford. There are families who simply find themselves hostage to an economic downturn.

Let’s face it, if you have a number of years invested in one company and lose your employment, where do you go to make a salary commensurate with your prior earnings?

Look into the cost of day care for those with young children. Many times it is foolish for both parents to work outside the home to do nothing more than cover the cost of a quality child care facility.

Prices at the pump are draining what little extra money many families were fortunate enough to squirrel away each month. Drive on over to the local market and find your food cost has risen another ten to twenty dollars over the prior week.

Those on fixed incomes [especially living on nothing more than Social Security], find their yearly cost of living increase is a pittance at best which barely covers the increase attached to their medicare payments.

Sure there are social, religious, and independent organizations who are equipped to help those in need. Many are simply to proud to seek help.

Children are moving back in with parents, parents with their children, due to economic constraints.
Not ideal perhaps, but in some cases necessary for survival.

Each point made above is no doubt relative to the lives of many who live in our America. The post could continue to infinity as every situation is unique.

Unless you are one of the fortunate few (and I certainly am not one) who have a great deal of personal wealth there is no question, times right now are somewhat tough.

But……..

Imagine living in a country where we did not have the right to point out its shortcomings.

Visualize life ruled by vicious dictators or those who would choose to starve their population for their own personal gain.

No free speech, freedom of religion, independent elections by the people, or the right to a fair and just court system would be far worse than the circumstances outlined above.

Could we survive as a nation if the right to protest those decisions with which we disagree were stripped away?

Yes, we are living under an economic storm cloud right now. No, it is not easy, and certainly we have every right to make our concerns and hardships known.

We can pray for wisdom in those who have the power to institute change and do whatever we can individually to help our fellow man. In the end, no matter the challenges we face individually or as a country, we at least have the potential to rebound and come back stronger.

Faith, family and friends have seen this nation through tougher times than this. While it is little consolation as wallets are pinched to the maximum, remembering you are not alone in whatever your situation can sometimes be of comfort.

Many people are certain El Presidenté Jorgé Arbusto George McChimpy Shrub Bush/Hitler, aka President George W. Bush has great mystical powers.

Just ask them and they’ll tell you with straight faces he’s the world’s biggest criminal, worse than Hitler, Stalin or Saddam Hussein.

Not only is this seemingly friendly, family man with a beautiful and gracious wife and two beautiful daughters the worst man to ever live, but he’s also stupid, as proven by his degrees at Yale and Harvard.

Many will tell you of his great powers to bring about hurricanes that destroy only the poor parts of a city that is below sea level, or his powers to cause tornadoes in the Mid-West, and all the time twisting his moustache and rubbing his hands together in terrible glee.

He even forced people to buy houses they couldn’t afford and thinks the government shouldn’t bail them out for being stupid.

Well, last night while speaking on the telephone to Guss about a family matter, Guss all of a sudden said, “Holy cow!” I asked him what he was talking about and he told me all about this ABC News report, titled Globalization; In Reverse.

He gave me a brief description and I immediately went to the nearest computer to look up the story on the ABC News site.

This wizard has done it again! He has deliberately raised the prices of oil as we all know and now the chickens have come home to roost.

Let me explain:

As the cost of shipping continues to soar along with fuel prices, homegrown manufacturing jobs are making a comeback after decades of decline.

While it once cost $3,000 to ship a container from a city like Shanghai to New York, it now costs $8,000, prompting some businesses to look closer to home for manufacturing needs. [...]

[...]Furniture designer Carol Gregg used to have her signature Chinese chests assembled in China, but such a luxury no longer seems viable, considering that some of her pieces now cost five times more to ship.

So now Gregg is having the chests made in North Carolina, simply because its cheaper.

Some large companies like Crown Battery are cutting expenses by moving jobs from Mexico to Ohio. And hair care company Farouk Systems plans to shift all of its production from China to Houston this summer — bringing with it 1,000 jobs.

The rise in transportation costs are fueling what some economists are calling “reverse globalization.” For instance, DESA, a company that makes heaters to keep football players warm, is moving all its production back to Kentucky after years of having them made in China.

“Cheap labor in China doesn’t help you when you gotta pay so much to bring the goods over,” says economist Jeff Rubin. [...]

[...]“In December, we had three employees here. We were just getting set up. Now it’s 14,” says Casey Hearn, who owns a furniture manufacturing business in North Carolina.

Other sectors of U.S. manufacturing may see a boost in jobs as well. Rubin says the U.S. steel industry is poised to reap benefits.

“It’s not just about labor costs anymore,” says Rubin. “Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour.”

Just when everyone had been convinced by his bumbling style he makes it look like wizardry. Don’t you see his grand, evil plan?

He deliberately personally ran up the cost of energy so offshore manufacturing jobs would be cheaper to produce here than in other countries.

This news being reported on one of the alphabet networks must have the Democrats pulling their hair out.

And his timing is just right. Remember in 2004 Madeline Albright speculated in the Green Room of a Sunday show that Bush probably had bin Laden captured and would show him before the election?

Nah, he didn’t need that to get re-selected er elected. He was saving that for the October surprise in this year’s election.

This just proves the theory by some people that he is the anti-Christ himself. Yessir. He causes natural disasters all the way back to the bubonic plague, kills people with impunity and deserves to be impeached this very moment because the energy prices are so high. This according to Lou Dobbs in one of his fits last week.

Seriously, I’ve tried to make this post tongue-in-cheek and have had fun at President Bush’s expense. He is a man I personally admire even with his warts and all.

I do want to say that the jobs coming back home are a wonderful thing to happen for the American workers. I also recognize they are not enough jobs to give all those who want to work a job, but maybe it’s a start, and a darned good one at that.

We can’t let this be a big story though because then Obama will have absolutely nothing to campaign on except his experience and his vision for America’s future. There’s no there, there.

In a speech in Springfield, MO, yesterday John McCain called for the nation to get back into the nuclear power business and find a way to make coal cleaner.

Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds “to make clean coal a reality,” measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

In a second straight day of campaigning devoted to the energy issue, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting also said the only time Democratic rival Barack Obama voted for a tax cut was for a “break for the oil companies.”

McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation’s annual electricity needs.

“Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years,” he said. “And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone.”

Even so, he said he would set the country on a course to build 45 new ones by 2030, with a longer-term goal of adding another 55 in the future.

“We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field,” he conceded.

My husband worked for a nuclear power plant for over 20 years, and we know how safe it is. We have at least three nuclear power plants almost in our backyard and I live in no fear of them.

If we can get the politicians to agree to allow more nuclear energy we can take care of our electricity needs. The same thing for coal if we can find a way to make it cleaner, but you know what? When I was a girl everyone burned coal and somehow we all lived through it.

If we can get the federal politicians and the state officials involved we can drill for oil 50 miles off our own coasts and in ANWR. In fact, those in the ANWR region would love to have us drill there. It may be “pristine”, but who gets to see it? The caribou will survive as the area being talked about is about the size of South Carolina and ANWR is much larger than that.

We have taken going green to the extreme, while those who espouse its values are using more and more energy than before. I read just yesterday that, despite trying to “green up” his house, Al Gore is using 10% more energy than he used last year. And he’s the world face of conservation. If memory serves me he is using as much energy in one month at his house as 20 houses would use in a month.

For just him and Tipper? They must have one heck of a Christmas display in December!

It may seem like it, but I’m not picking on Al Gore. As far as I’m concerned he’s yesterday’s news, but for a man to accept a Nobel Peace prize, grammy and Academy Award