Letter to Obama re: offshore oil drilling

Dear Mr. President,

I was disheartened to hear your speech on March 31st when you announced that you would lift the moratorium on drilling for oil off our coast. In your speech you even made the point against it by explaining how little oil we actually have compared to how much we use.

You said it was time to "move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right, between business leaders and environmentalists..."

I hope the current tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico illustrates clearly that rather than 'tired debates' we are talking life and death here, not just of the workers killed but the very biological system which allows us all to live and our economy to thrive.

I worked hard for your election, in a large part to prevent the "drill baby drill" camp from taking control of our government. I do not agree with much of your politics but I thought energy and environmental issues was one place I did agree with you. I have been disappointed in this area, for rather than trying to move on from the old debates I had hoped you would take the side of the environmentalists. I had hoped you would be bold, audacious, and a transformative leader, at least when it comes to energy and the environment.

An example of such leadership can be found in a young man named Timothy DenHerder who as a freshman at Macalester College spearheaded a program called the Clean Energy Revolving Fund (CERF). I believe a massive government program modeled after this program would be the kind of intelligent action you should take as President. Best of all the program pays for itself and would easily allow us to conserve more than the energy we could get from new off shore oil drilling.

The CERF is quite simple. College students got together and installed inexpensive energy and water saving devices in a home. The money that was saved from the reduction in energy and water use was put into a fund that was used to do further energy saving actions in other homes. This fund grew as did their actions to the point where they replaced all the light bulbs in their University.

I know you have done some things like this but nothing on the scale required. Imagine leading the nation to rally around the idea of energy efficiency (it saves everyone money - easy motivator). Reduce the electricity we use, invest in electric cars, break our dependence on foreign oil and our temptation to drill off our coasts, make the US a leader in green technology and CO2 reduction, create good jobs. Of course you know Van Jones so these ideas are not new to you.

The offshore wind farm in Cape Cod is another example of an action your government has taken that is in the right direction.

Doing what is needed and what is right does not always mean comprimising and finding middle ground. Sometimes you need to take a side and be willing to push hard against those who disagree. In fact the middle road often means watering down good ideas to the point they will not be successful. A little oil drilling can still lead to oil spills. Please say no to new oil drilling and yes to energy conservation and clean energy.

Still trying to be a supporter of yours,
Danny Boyer

The simple case against the Arizona Immigration law

The law just passed in Arizona says police are required to ask people for proof they are here legally if there is a reason to doubt that they are here legally, and if it is discovered they are illegal then they must be turned over to the Feds.

So on its surface it is easy for one to think, what's the big deal? Illegal Immigrants have broken the law by coming here without the proper paperwork. If the cops catch you doing something illegal they bust you for it. If I snuck into another country and was there illegally and a police busted me I would have noone to blame but myself.

Of course the discussion of why people are coming here to work is an entire discussion for another time, this discussion leads some to reject the term "illegal" Immigant. Regardless of how you feel about these issues, the new Law in Arizona is a horrible one and the argument against it is simple.


Now the job of the police is to serve and protect. They are trying to prevent murders, rapes, theft, drug dealing and other such crimes as well as catch criminals who do these crimes.

Imagine a girl is raped. Her father knows who did it. Her father is an undocumented worker. That father should be able to call the police and report the crime. But with this law the police would be required to investigate the father if they suspected he was undocumented.

Or imagine an American citizen is the victim of a crime and the only witness is an undocumented immigrant. Is that witness going to step forth?

You can imagine tons of scenarios like this. Because of this law entire communities will be afraid of the police and far less likely to report crimes.

It is a bad law. Even Meg Whitman (a dubious candidate for California Gov.) is against it.

obstructionist party

You have to watch this video!!!

The Republicans know that their best chance of getting re-elected by an ignorant American public is to do everything in their power to prevent the government under the leadership of the Democrats from functioning.

The Republicans are currently blocking 101 executive branch nominees. These are people Obama has chosen to run various agencies. Most have been blocked for months, leaving departments leaderless. (This time in Bush's presidency I believe the Dems had a block on 4 nominees).

The Republicans have even admitted they are qualified people with whom they have no objections - they are being blocked purely for political purposes!

It is infuriating!!!!

Here in this video the Democrats try to get permission to get a vote on each of the stalled nominations and at first no Republicans even showed up, but finally the minority whip came and objected to 97 of the 101 nominees. This video is a must watch, it is funny and sad at the same time!

Obama on energy - bad policy, bad politics

Obama gets a "D" (for Dumb) from me on his energy policy.

In his state of the union he talked about a clean energy future and mentioned - nuclear, coal, oil, and bio fuels and left out solar and wind from his speech. Interestingly he included the ones that are the most easily controlled by corporations.

But that was just a speech. Since then he announced new federal loan guarantees to encourage the building of the first new nuclear power plants in decades. This is stupid in my mind - dangerous, expensive, and wasteful. If we poured an equal amount of money into making solar and wind viable.

But then what really got me was his recent announcement that he is lifting the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. He made the argument against himself when he made the announcement. We use 25% of the world's oil yet we own only 2%. Our domestic supply is a drop in the bucket and I would argue against burning it up now. Petroleum has other uses - try and find something not made from the stuff - besides burning it for energy. That is one reason I believe it is bad policy.

But I know that someday we will drill our oil that is offshore so that is not what surprised me most about Obama's announcement. Besides bad policy it is horrible politics.

"Drill Baby Drill" is the rally cry of conservatives. By now it must be obvious that the conservatives want nothing more than for Obama to fail at everything he does. This, they see is their path back into power.

They criticize everything he does and regularly make up lies about his agenda. Remember the "death panels" or more recently the claims the health care bill was a government takeover. Even when Obama has done or said the exact same thing as previous Republican presidents such as Reagan and Bush Sr. the conservatives have attacked him for these very statements. (example his recent nuclear policy statement - Palin said no president would ever say that, however Reagan and Bush both did).

When Obama announced lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling he was lambasted by Conservatives as not going far enough, too little too late, etc. Obama needs to learn he will not win praise from the right.

So if you are going to allow drilling why not save it as a bargaining chip towards a climate and energy bill! Offer up a bill that will reduce carbon emissions, invest in renewable energy and then to get republican support tell them, after hard negotiation, that they will throw in offshore oil drilling. This also provides cover for conservatives who vote for an energy bill for they can say they negotiated to get the bill to include offshore oil drilling.

So far the Dems and this administration have proved poor at the politics of negotiation with conservatives. They don't seem to understand that they need to start the process asking for more than they think they can get so once things are negotiated they end up getting something closer to what they want.

you get my drift, I'm off like mosquito repellent