At the risk of provoking the Cuban Oil-Derrick Crisis, wouldn't it be fairly easy to take a peep and see if they're drilling?  And certainly we have the intel capacity to know if they're taking out contracts by now?

But I must correct one thing, Mr. Orr: liberal politicans are the werewolves who defile virgins by the light of the full moon.  Conservative politicians are werewolves who prefer to defile their virgins in much darker places when they think no one's looking...

Why does our party not favor drilling off the coasts? It's totally safe, there are billions in proven reserves, it would make a huge difference for working Americans, and it can also serve a card to be traded for more funds for clean / renewable energy sources.

If ever there was a time when sensible people could do the nation a world of good by seizing back the momentum from each party's energy/environmental extremists, this is it. Start drilling. And fund wind, solar, nuclear. Now.

Tep beat me to it -- that's the larger point.  We should be doing everything on energy -- indeed, had the Dems offered off-shore drilling as part of their windfall profits proposal, it might have passed unanimously.

Given Cheney's commitment to repeating the story of Mohammed Atta's non-existent meeting with Iraqi intelligence at Prague airport -- now disproved about 46,905 times -- I'm not surprised he's going to market with this one.

Dick's a dick, and he's proven it so thoroughly that there's absolutely no doubt.  He'll say anything, do anything and hint at anything he can to further his own agenda.  In this case, it's to elevate our fear and anger level, and distract from Bush's failed presidency - in which he has a major role.

Dick Cheney is an expert on urban legends.

Come on, Dick Cheney defile virgins? All the Cialis in the world can't get that non soldier to stand up and salute.  CNOOC and Sinopec are pursuing a great many other contracts in the world. They not too long ago engineered one of the largest natural gas contracts in the world with the Iranians. But that is only because the Chinese have decided to appease the Iranians, you know, talk to them.

The Chinese are a threat, inasmuch as every other country in the world is. The US can't drill our way out of this, tired of people acting like we can. France gets 70% of its electricity from Nuclear, and they have contracts in China to build plants there as well, so Tep is right in that regard.

One other thing, not to stick your noses in it, but I pay $2.50 a gallon where I live, and in the north it is $2.75. Mexico does have refineries but not enough so a lot of their oil is refined in the United States. The Mexican government does not subsidize oil for the people, it makes out like a bandit a $2.50.  In fact, Mexico has been making a killing lately, coupled with the appreciating peso, downturn in the US economy, and general Tepiocity in the US illegal immigration is on the downslide.

Calderon is trying to open up competition here though because Pemex isn't up to the job of getting oil from other parts of the gulf and its main field has passed its prime. If he succeeds, expect to see Mexico suck up a lot of that oil in the future. I essentially work for Pemex, since my university is basically funded by Pemex and our Petrochemical school is a feeder for them, but lord is Pemex...well, as I said I...

Yes, we should explore every area of energy production that's safe and efficient.  But for immediate relief from the gouge, demand the prohibition of purchasing commodity futures on margin. If speculators have to pay upfront 100% of the purchase price, the demand will go down and so will the price of oil.

Washington Times Read more »

Apparently, I had it wrong.  I thought Cheney and his crowd sacrificed virgins and defiled goats.

Soooo ... the Chinese DON'T drink our milkshake?

Hey blackie, can you shed some of your personal experience light on the Mexican drug wars?  It's not something that I've been following closely (just don't have the bandwidth), but reports are trickling in from people I know in El Paso/Juarez that the situation is close to open warfare. I have a friend whose parents live in a fairly nice part of Juarez but are now afraid to leave their house.  

What's it like where you are?

ratty, I might be blowing my cover but by day I am a harmless blogger on TNR but by night I am a notorious narcotrafficante with my own posse of bodyguards, many of them polizia.

Don't believe the hype, and besides if you lived in the projects in Newark, NJ I think you would be afraid to leave your house too so it is relative as far as that goes. Outside of the big cities and border areas Mexico is safe, I have travelled throughout the country. You gotta worry about the same things as the states, don't leave your bags unattended, etc, but in my 3 years here where I live, I can travel anytime day or night without fear, and I do. The only thing I ever worry about is drunk drivers or cows walking in the middle of the road.

Back to the main point (although I can't believe this crowd would criticize someone for defiling goats).

Why do Dems not want to drill in ANWR and off our coasts?  Besides that you're in the tank to the enviros, and it would be those nasty oil companies that might make a buck.  When will you guys grow up?  Jeez.

Are we missing something else here? Oil is sold on the world market. If China were to drill offshore Cuba and hit the motherlode, that would mean more oil on the world market, and theoretically prices would go down. If it's some other kind of arrangement where somehow China dedicates all of the oil found exclusively to the China market, then China's demand is slaked and oil prices go down. (Of course, if China found the next Saudi Arabia, then it really could wreak havoc by flooding the market until oil reached $5 and stayed there long enough to put Exxon Mobil and all the other private companies out of business, and then jacking up the price until the US went bankrupt. I have no idea how likely this is, only that it is slightly less likely than Cheney building a refinery on his Wyoming estate in order to bring down gasoline prices and make Hummers popular again.)

That said, I'm all for drilling anywhere it can be done in an environmentally sound manner. And, to be consistent with my own desire not to have an oil well in my backyard unless I consent to it, coastal states should have some control over what happens to their shorelines. It's my understanding that Republican governors of the Sunshine State, including some dude named "Bush" (purportedly a relative of the current President), have opposed some offshore drilling. This may mean that they'd rather pay $4 for gasoline than have tourism to Destin dry up.

After much (24 secs) mature consideration of your questions, butchie, I think that the answers might approriately be:

1.  Giving Nature a fighting chance.

2.  I am so much older then / I'm younger than that now.

hey butchie, iirc it was Jeb Bush that put the kibosh on drilling off of the Florida coast. And ANWR is our strategic reserves. Let us keep that for a truly rainy day.

As a proud FL resident, let me say that my political leadership is all wet on this issue - both parties, all sides.

But if Congress wants to do it, it can.  And who's in charge of the Congress again?  Refresh my memory.

Energy policy is just one more those clowns haven't done, like UHC, immigration, and "changing the course of the war in Iraq."  But we got to see Roger Clemens at least.