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Bush the Greenie

a_unique_person

Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
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Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301653.html

The Bush administration yesterday launched a campaign to urge Americans to conserve energy in homes and businesses as a way to combat high costs this winter.
Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said at a news conference that consumers could take basic steps to reduce energy consumption and lower costs, including driving 55 miles per hour instead of 65, insulating their houses and keeping their thermostats set at a lower temperature when they are away this winter.

The secretary's comments follow a sharp run-up in energy prices afterhurricanes Katrina and Rita crippled production around the Gulf of Mexico and tightened supplies of gasoline and the widely used home heating fuels: natural gas and heating oil. Bodman's comments expand on recent statements by President Bush, who has urged conservation since the hurricanes.
"The need to use energy more wisely is particularly acute this year because of the higher prices we expect to see," Bodman said yesterday. He added: "We have had a severe disruption in the last few weeks in the energy infrastructure of this country."
The conservation effort marks a turn for an administration that has focused more heavily on measures to boost supplies of energy. Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2001, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it cannot be the basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

OK, so who has the 'sound, comprehensive enegy policy'?
 

How long, I wonder, before Cheney denies ever making that statement in the first place?

And when they show him the videotape, he will claim that they just didn't understand what he meant. If anyone thinks I am being absurd, I remind you that is exactly what happened with Donald Rumsfeld and Iraq's "imminent threat."
 
So Bush gives you what you want and you attack Chenney for having an opinion to the opposite of that in the past? Answer just so we're clear.

I don't mind this policy so long as they keep it at the level of advice and don't elevate it to law.
 
So Bush gives you what you want and you attack Chenney for having an opinion to the opposite of that in the past? Answer just so we're clear.

I don't mind this policy so long as they keep it at the level of advice and don't elevate it to law.

You always get so testy when your heroes are caught contradicting themselves.

If Kerry did this, you would call it a "flip-flop."

Anyway, if they really mean this (unlikely), and are not just paying lip service (very likely), then I do applaud their reconsidering their former idiotic opinion on the issue. Let's see what their actions are...
 
I think there's a typo in the thread heading: it should read Bush the meanie.
 
You always get so testy when your heroes are caught contradicting themselves.

If Kerry did this, you would call it a "flip-flop."
Well if you want to play that game neither quote was from the same person so you lose.
Anyway, if they really mean this (unlikely), and are not just paying lip service (very likely), then I do applaud their reconsidering their former idiotic opinion on the issue. Let's see what their actions are...

And that's why you'll never get what you want from this administration, because every time they do something you support you question it, what's the incentive?
 
Well if you want to play that game neither quote was from the same person so you lose.


And that's why you'll never get what you want from this administration, because every time they do something you support you question it, what's the incentive?

Grammy, they haven't done ANYTHING yet. When (if) they do, I will give them full marks for doing so.
 
Grammy, they haven't done ANYTHING yet. When (if) they do, I will give them full marks for doing so.

They've asked people to cut down on their use, do you want them to force people to do so?
 
They've asked people to cut down on their use, do you want them to force people to do so?

If by that amazingly vague remark you mean (for example) increasing the mileage requirements for new cars, then yes. If you mean forcing people to drive less, then no.

Be more specific next time, please.
 
If by that amazingly vague remark you mean (for example) increasing the mileage requirements for new cars, then yes. If you mean forcing people to drive less, then no.

Be more specific next time, please.

What mileage would you like to see on what cars?
 
There are really two issues here.

a) A comprehensive energy policy that clearly wasn't. This was due to two things. One, it couldn't be done, but they thought they could muddle through for another term, if no big hurricanes hit, the middle east was stable, etc, or Two, they clearly did think it was comprehensive, and they are incompetent by their own standards.
b) Either way, energy conservation needs to be an integral part of an energy policy, just using enery without any consideration for the consequences is plain old ignorance. Bush and Co have had to face up to that fact, even if it is belatedly, and only because they have no other way out.
 
Q Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country. What we need to do is make certain that we're able to get those resources in an efficient way, in a way that also emphasizes protecting the environment and conservation, into the hands of consumers so they can make the choices that they want to make as they live their lives day to day.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/20010507.html

This was said before 9/11, but still...

God forbid that we actually conserve energy and become independent from foreign sources of oil! Keep buying those Hummers, folks! They are blessed vehicles. I wonder if the gasoline that feeds them...the gas we buy from some of the most oppressive regimes on Earth...is blessed as well?
 
"The need to use energy more wisely is particularly acute this year because of the higher prices we expect to see," Bodman said yesterday.
Isn't the higher price supposed to lead to wiser use via The Invisible Hand? Do people really need to be told? If supply is limited, price goes up and reduces demand until supply matches demand. Surely even Samuel W. Bodman knows that. There's no point in this statement at all, except, perhaps, to boost Samuel W. Bodman's name-recognition.

The Invisible Hand did not get blown away by Katrina, it's far too ethereal for that. If the Bush Administration really is undermining laissez faire by such a campaign, they've entirely lost the plot. They've startled the fundies with their choice of Justice, and they're startling the Friedmanites by this. If they lose the support of the Army they're in deep trouble.
 
This was said before 9/11, but still...

God forbid that we actually conserve energy and become independent from foreign sources of oil! Keep buying those Hummers, folks! They are blessed vehicles. I wonder if the gasoline that feeds them...the gas we buy from some of the most oppressive regimes on Earth...is blessed as well?

The American way of life is a blessed one.

Has god gone and run away now?
 
Has god gone and run away now?
Blown away by Katrina; the Invisible Hand is always with us.

I'm wondering - just a tentative hypothesis - whether the god is making a career change. Re-thinking itself. Having conquered the big venues it's going back to its roots playing small clubs in the Eastern Mediterranean. When you've made the US "Your Own Country", where are you gonna go? China's the only challenge left, but is that really a new order of challenge? I don't think so.

If you're going to stay fresh, you have to get back to that intimate audience, right there in your face. People you can recognise, not a sea of nameless fans beyond the foot-lights and the bouncers. I follow the news, and everything points that way from what I see. God has left God's Own Country, to get back to its roots. If I was its agent, that's what I'd advise.
 

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