Paris Hilton’s energy policy actually kinda makes sense to me…
I can just see the film: Paris Hilton in “Legally Blond 3: Blond Ambition”
See more funny videos at Funny or Die
Paris Hilton’s energy policy actually kinda makes sense to me…
I can just see the film: Paris Hilton in “Legally Blond 3: Blond Ambition”
• 
Okay, so how do I email you privately to discuss that Madrox thing we talked about at Comic-Con?
Just wondering.
Thanks PAD, I think I just caught an STD from watching that video.
1My wife and I were listening to the radio while driving to work this morning when they air the audio of the commercial on a local morning show. When Paris started saying “her” energy policy we were expecting a joke but my wife and I looked at each other with surprise in our faces and she said:”that actually makes sense”. It felt like the twilight zone.
I can just see the film: Paris Hilton in “Legally Blond 3: Blond Ambition”
You KNOW what happens when you make casting suggestions. Does the phrase “With great power, comes great responsibility” mean nothing to you?
It’s what BOTH of them are saying, except each emphasizes one aspect more than the other (at least, from what I can tell from McCain…).
Okay, this is a joke. Everyone knows it. I get that.
But I still feel the need to point out a problem in “her” plan, meaning the plan they wrote for her.
The part about investing in new tech is fine. Obama is calling for that and McCain is too, though he’s fuzzier on the details and doesn’t seem to be proposing as much.
However, the part about limited drilling “carrying us until the new technologies kick in” is bad. The proposed off shore drilling can’t “carry us” because it won’t generate anything for the next 10 years. Even once it does start producing oil, it will only produce 200,000 barrels a day. Our country uses 20,000,000 barrels a day. So that’s a 1% increase in supply. Is anyone here really getting excited about a plan to lower gas prices by 4 cents?
But wait, it gets worse. Oil prices are set in the global market. That’s why China and India putting millions of new cars on the road is a big part of why oil prices have gone up. Since the world uses 86,000,000 barrels of oil a day, a 200,000 increase is less that a 0.25% increase in supply.
A less than 0.25% increase won’t do squat to “carry us until the new technologies kick in.”
Well the drilling could only be a part of it. There are also the tar sands, oil shales, more nuclear power plants, outlawing cars with a mpg under a certain level, 4 day work week where possible, etc etc.
And yeah, it will be years to get the effects of all that. Which is why we should have done it years ago. But what’s done is done, let’s try to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake.
here’s the thing–I don’t like offshore drilling or drilling in tundras or any of a number of risky moves. Which is why we should probably do them now before the situation degenerates to the point where panic sets in and we RAPE the environment. And it’ll happen, mark my words. gas goes up a few bucks and suddenly the majority is in favor of stuff they would have been overwhelmingly against when times were good. Let it get to 6 or 7 dollars and even the Senators who are card carrying members of The Sierra Club will fall over themselves to be first to drill in the evergaldes if that’s what it takes.
So let’s try to keep things merely bad for a few years (as opposed to disasterous) and hope hope hope that the new technologies come online in time. Oh, btw–having worked in research I can assure you that there are no guarantees that the new technolgies will pan out. No matter how much money we throw at it. Me, I believe technology WILL solve the problem but I have no idea which one. We have to explore a lot of options and choose the right one. (personally I’m biased toward biotech solutions–using algae to convert CO2 to oil or something, even though personal experience tells me that living solutions tend to be enormous pains in the ášš. And often lead to zombies.).
I wasn’t supporting him anyway, but now I am seriously peeved at McCain.
Why, you ask? Aside from his creepy-stalker taste in campaign ads, now I’m starting to like Paris Hilton. She came across as surprisingly intelligent without taking herself seriously, AND made me giggle a couple of times.
Obama had better nuke his ášš come November.
Jason,
I find it amazing that someone without actually doing a bit of drilling can come up with the numbers you quote.
there are many, many places we can drill for oil that Im betting can produce much more oil than this mystery 200,000.
I have read where we could be using this oil in as little as 3-5 years. but heres the kicker.. we will never know unless we drill.
whomever came up with Hiltons energy plan has, I think, a perfect plan.
I havent heard anybody say we cannot continue with any other options just add drilling to the mix.
This 200,000 barrels would be our oil not China’s or India’s, it would help lessen our dependency on foreign oil.
What do you think the price of gas will be in 10 years?
I have it set aside for you, Len. E-mail where you want me to send it at padguy@aol.com.
PAD
And that 9.4 earthquake we just felt was society moving another inch toward Armageddon……
I like the suggestion one of Instapundit’s readers suggested: inflate our tires with CO2. That’s the kind of can-do spirit that will get us through the bad times!
Posted by Bill Mulligan
I like the suggestion one of Instapundit’s readers suggested: inflate our tires with CO2. That’s the kind of can-do spirit that will get us through the bad times!
Im not suggesting that we not inflate our tires with CO2, just that we add drilling with it.
Now THAT sounds like something Paris would really suggest if left on her own for ideas.
Pat,
I wasn’t talking about drilling in general. I wasn’t talking about getting oil from multiple sources and various areas. I was talking about the off shore oil proposal that John McCain has been talking about regularly for a month now. The one the Miss Hilton mentioned in her bit. The off shore oil proposal that some republicans are making speaches about in the House of Representatives right now, despite the fact that the House is on vacation. The 200,000 number that I mentioned isn’t “mysterious” at all, it’s the amount that is expected to be produced once that particular operation hits full capacity. It’s not a controversial number.
Also, it doesn’t matter whether it is “our” oil or China’s or India’s oil. The price of oil is set on a global market. We pay the same price for oil as China, India, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and every other country. If we drilled more, we would still pay the same price as every other country. We are not capable of lowering the price of oil for ourselves and leaving Greenland paying a higher price. It’s a global market and the price is set by global forces.
You’re right that I’ve never drilled any oil. But I did research the issue before I formed my opinion about the subject.
I forgot to answer your question, Pat.
In 10 years the Chinese will have put an estimated 30,000,000 new cars on the road. India is also putting massive numbers of cars on the road. So even though it’s tough to predict, I wouldn’t be surprised if gas costs at least double what it costs now.
So allo me to do the math. The current price is $4.00, times 2 is $8.00, minus the 1 cent we save by taking McCain’s plan of lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling, and that makes the price of gas $7.99 a gallon.
Jason said:
You’re right that I’ve never drilled any oil. But I did research the issue before I formed my opinion about the subject.
Im sorry Jason, I went back and reread my posting and realized I wasnt real clear on that comment.
I wasnt referring to you not drilling. I was referring to the source for your info.
If we were able to find enough oil that we could become completely self-sufficient we would be paying a lot less for gas. Why do you think they pay on average .50-.65 a gallon in Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia citizens pay that for gas because their government subsidizes gas prices, not because they get their oil for less. That’s the same thing Venezuela and a few other oil rich countries do.
If America was to do that, we’d have to have the government pay $3.50 per gallon of our gas. We can do that, but it’ll cost a hëll of a lot.
As for finding enough oil to be self sufficient, that’s not likely. We have 3% of the world’s oil, but we use 25%. In the 70s we produced 75% of the oil we used and the rest was still enough to cause us problems. Today we import almost 70% of our oil. There’s no way we’re getting off of foreign oil, or even anywhere close to it, with the drilling that’s being proposed.
Oh, and we’re exporting oil. We’re actually exporting more oil to other countries now than we have ever done in our history. So we’re already capable of keeping more oil for ourselves and now depending as much on foreign oil, but the oil companies don’t want to. Just like they don’t want to drill on the leases they already have.
BTW, the source of my info is the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“now depending on foreign oil” was supposed to be “not depending on foreign oil.”
Because the Saudi royal family wants to keep pacified a populace that treats decapitation as a spectator sport, by passing off the cost of gas to us.
Just to put this conversation back on track…
McCain apparently really liked Hilton’s ad. Supposedly he found it very funny. Also, his people released a statement saying her “all of the above” plan was what McCain was proposing and was a very good idea.
Pressed for a reply, the Obama camp said, and I’m not kidding, “Whatever.”
Why is the public accepting the limited range of options being presented to them to help cure our energy “crisis”?
Some of the alternatives they have presented:
Nuclear Power – Con: Environmental Disasters
Off Shore Drilling – Con: Environmental Disasters
Oil Sands Projects – Con: Environmental Disasters
Ethanol Gasoline – Con: Famine
New Fuel Efficient Cars – Con: Lies about the need to subsidize, huge investment from the public having to buy new vehicles. Environmental costs behind creating new vehicles.
Why should the public accept any of these alternatives? They are all ridiculous, the public has a lot of power and we should be demanding something smaller and simpler with a lower cost for the environment and population.
Suggestions
-Use Less, Consume Less or more Responsibly
-A fuel adaptor that can be used on our existing cars (I know there are HHO adaptors on the market, not sure of their impact, but the idea exists, how hard would it be to refine?)
-Tesla invented an alternative free resource for energy using the earth’s frequencies, perhaps reverse engenering that or asking the patents to be released by the gov or westinghouse.
I know there are more alternatives out there, ones that don’t suck and don’t demand we compromise our ethics to follow them.
Absolutely hilarious. The usual dread I feel at seeing Paris Hilton is down at least 20%. This is redemptive stuff, Hilton. Thanks.
It’s funny, yeah, but I think I died a little inside.
It’s like someone walked over my grave. We mock it now, but in 50 years? Will blonde bimbo’s be running for office on a platform of “hotness” ?
I guess we are no longer concerned that the continued use of fossil fuels will lead to Global Climate Change.
Gas is 4 bucks, so let’s do whatever we have to to bring the price down. Even if it screws up our kids’ future.
And BTW Ms. Hilton’s “plan” is much closer to Obama’s if you read his policy on his website.
Edhopper brings up a great point; it seems like only yesterday that we were being told that we had to use less gas and some progressives even supported taxing the price at the pump until that goal was reached. Well, guess what? It worked! The price went up and usage has gone down, shocking everyone without a basic knowledge of economics. Yet now we are being told that this is a calamity that must be fixed!
So…was the whole point just to raise taxes and the justification for same just BS?
djackio–I really wish I could believe that Tesla held the solution but I suspect strongly that many of his supposed secret discoveries are just romantic urban legends. I’m always suspicious when people talk about how we can do (fill in the blank) but the (fill in another blank) industry is keeping it under wraps, especially when the amount of money the second fill in the blanks could make would make them rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Love to be proven wrong though, just because I love Tesla.
The irony of our times is that pretty much everyone with the power – legislative or financial – to ‘solve the energy crisis’ has enormous vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
The crux of the problem at the moment is not lack of technology, it is lack of willpower.
Never mind. At least we’ll always have Paris…
Cheers!
Yet now we are being told that this is a calamity that must be fixed!
Not everyone’s saying that. I still think that gas in this country is severely underpriced. (And yes, that’s easy for me to say, being able to afford it at present. I do think there have to be ways to make sure it isn’t an impossible burden.)
TWL
It’s funny that some have mentioned Tesla here. My Father has always gone on & on about what an unappreciated genius Tesla was and how his goal was to provide Electricity for free, but JP Morgan cut the financing when he realized proving free electricity would not make one rich. The whole energy issue is a real conundrum for me. There are so many sides to this issue and everyone from the politicians, to the auto makers, to the electric companies, to the Oil compamies, to the environmentalists have their own little area of self interest that they will not compromise on. With no one willing to compromise I don’t see how any real solutions can come about in this winner takes all atmosphere. Just my 2 cents.
djackio:
Nuclear Power – Con: Environmental Disasters
Luigi Novi: More like perception of environmental disasters.
djackio: Off Shore Drilling – Con: Environmental Disasters
Luigi Novi: Is that a reality with the off shore drilling in general now? (Just asking.)
Well, Rush made a big deal on this in yesterdays program. He then played the Paris energy policy, and the official statement of the Barack policy, and said, basically, ‘It’s the same policy, but Paris sounds SMARTER!’ He got a good laugh out of it!
And, since McCain thought it was funny too, but Barack was ambivalent at best, I guess what they say is try – conservatives have a sense of humor! 😉
Not everyone’s saying that. I still think that gas in this country is severely underpriced.
yeah but can you imagine any politician saying that? or enacting a policy with that as its goal?
If the oil producing nations were smart they would do whatever it took to get the price back down to $3.50 or so, strangle the public outcry in its crib before people demand genuine long term answers. And every 2 years or so redo this whole scenario, each time ending up with the final “good” price being higher. The last thing they need is us pouring money into reseach that could potentially make oil considerably less needed.
One thing about Tesla or any other secret tech–if someone really did invent, let’s call it the Billizer, which sucks energy from the vibrational magnetic resonace of the Earth or some other suitably impressive sounding albeit misspelled source–WHY would they keep it quiet? because the oil companies would pay them off? It couldn’t be 1/10000 of what they’d get from selling the Billizer to everyone on the planet! It’s like people who think doctors can cure cancer but keep it secret so they can make money off of cancer. Yeah………….if I get cancer my doctor gets a small cut of the money spent on the various treatments. If she had a cure I would give her EVERYTHING I HAD for it. I must have the dumbest doctor on earth! Almost as dumb as the company sitting on the goldmine that is the billizer or the generals who have Tesla’s death ray but refuse to use it.
How about using algae biomass to produce ethanol-based fuel? The algae could be raised in tanks in buildings, thus avoiding the need to turn food-producing farmland into fuel-producing farmland…
Of course, the basic problem with all of the proposed petroleum solutions is that they are long-term solutions to an immediate problem. What to do in the meantime is the real puzzler.
The algae could be raised in tanks in buildings, thus avoiding the need to turn food-producing farmland into fuel-producing farmland…
The only problem I see with this is what’s to keep that from happening?
Instead of using the farmland as farmland, they’ll just build the tanks in buildings on the farmland, and to a degree we’re back to square one. 😛
yeah but can you imagine any politician saying that? or enacting a policy with that as its goal?
Not in my lifetime, no.
TWL
How about using algae biomass to produce ethanol-based fuel? The algae could be raised in tanks in buildings, thus avoiding the need to turn food-producing farmland into fuel-producing farmland…
I’d wondered for a while why nobody was trying to turn CO2 emissions into oxygen by bubbling it through tanks of algae. Turns out they WERE working on it and with the added benefit of harvesting the algae for oil, fertilizer, animal feed and delicious nutritious Solylent Green.
The great advantage of working with a microorganism–their incredible growth rate–is, alas, the big problem as well. get just one single undesirable algae cell in the batch and they can spoil everything. The oil producing species are not as hardy or prolific as the invasive species and it’s unlikely you could keep them out.
Unless…when I worked in biotech we used bacteria to grow desirable DNA fragments. Same problem of course, it’s difficult to keep contaminants out. So what we did was use a bacteria that was bioengineered to be immune to some particular antibiotic and use that in the growth medium. That would (usually) kill the invaders.
So, we make an algae variant that produces oil like crazy and is immune to Roundup or algae-b-gone or whatever it is you use against other algae.
Just make sure you also put in some vulnerability to check its growth in the even of an escape. Last thing we need is this stuff going all Day of the Triffids on us.
Hey, why not use Kudzu to make ethanol??? It isn’t hard to grow. Hëll, I could be a kudzu farmer and I know NOTHING about farming. The stuff is taking over huge swatches of the south, we should figure out some way to get rid of it, and this way we get something in return as well. As opposed to my OTHER great idea which is to tell kids that smoking Kudzu will get you high. If that rumor ever took hold it would be on the endangered species list within the week.
One thing about Tesla or any other secret tech…WHY would they keep it quiet? because the oil companies would pay them off? It couldn’t be 1/10000 of what they’d get…
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Well, it’s a carrot-and-stick situation. On the one hand, they’re paid a bazillion dollars from the oil companies to keep their mouths shut about any such technology. On the other hand, if they do talk, they know that they and everyone they love will die a horrible “accidental” death.
–no, I don’t seriously believe that. I just read too many comic books.
Of course, the basic problem with all of the proposed petroleum solutions is that they are long-term solutions to an immediate problem. What to do in the meantime is the real puzzler.
That Pickens guy has some interesting ideas, such as using natural gas instead of gasoline to fuel cars. It requires very little modification to run existing cars on NG or LPG, it’s somewhat less polluting (or so he says, I have no idea if it’s true), and supposedly we have enough domestically produced natural gas to last for a couple of centuries (again, his claim).
It’s not a long-term solution–natural gas and propane are still fossil fuels–but it does seem to be a fairly-easily implemented short-term answer.
Hi Luigi Novi
So more specifically…
Nuclear Power – Radioactive waste stored in underground bunkers. Waste that will be dangerously radioactive for millions of years. Sadly I feel as confident in their underground bunkers as I do in our bridges (50-60 yrs later).
Off Shore Drilling – Pollution created from drilling (including drilling fluid), oil spills etc. (stolen from wiki)
Hi Luigi Novi
So more specifically…
Nuclear Power – Radioactive waste stored in underground bunkers. Waste that will be dangerously radioactive for millions of years. Sadly I feel as confident in their underground bunkers as I do in our bridges (50-60 yrs later).
Off Shore Drilling – Pollution created from drilling (including drilling fluid), oil spills etc. (stolen from wiki)
Hi Luigi Novi
So more specifically…
Nuclear Power – Radioactive waste stored in underground bunkers. Waste that will be dangerously radioactive for millions of years. Sadly I feel as confident in their underground bunkers as I do in our bridges (50-60 yrs later).
Off Shore Drilling – Pollution created from drilling (including drilling fluid), oil spills etc. (stolen from wiki)
Verry scaarry!!!!
The main problem I sede with drilling holding us over til the new tech kicks in is that it will just delay the new tech.
Desperate times and all that.
As for any McCain/Bush drill til she’s dry fans, I’ve said it before, I’ll repeat:
We cannot drill our way out of this any more than one can screw out of a pregnancy.
Manny- but that assumes that the needed technology is there for the taking, had we the will to find it. What if–and I don’t think this is the case but I have to admit it’s a possibility–we are just not yet at the point where we will be able to solve the problem no matter how much money we throw at it?
We are constrained by reality. All the time, money and effort people have put into inventing perpetual motion machines has been wasted, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. The billions we have poured into a vaccine for AIDS have (thus far) been stymied by the nature of the virus. Etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather see money spent on scientific reseach than, say, the army’s new acid foam sprayer (OK, bad example, as an acid foam sprayer would be very very cool) but I hope people are realistic about it.
I sure hope someone puts the cue cards Paris used for that spot up on eBay (What…you don’t honestly think she *memorized* that whole thing, do you??).
Anyway, this shows that Paris STILL can’t act her way out of a paper bag. A *wet* paper bag. With somebody holding it open. And shining a flashlight. And waving. And shouting: “This way, Paris, over here!”.
Kennedy didn’t stop the absence of technology stop him from challenging the US from putting a man on the moon. The actual resolve to provide a solution actually counts for a lot, and hesitating and stonewalling only seems to be serve the need for control. Which those in control right now maintain by sheltering the status quo.
(What…you don’t honestly think she *memorized* that whole thing, do you??).
Please stop for a second and look past Hilton herself and her message and the purpose of this ‘ad’. Because I think you’ve missed the point. 🙂
That should read “and look to her message”.
djackio: “Nuclear Power – Radioactive waste stored in underground bunkers. Waste that will be dangerously radioactive for millions of years. Sadly I feel as confident in their underground bunkers as I do in our bridges (50-60 yrs later).”
That’s somewhat the issue I have whenever someone touts nuclear energy a “clean, safe” energy source. right now we have somewhere between 70 and 80 storage sites for nuclear waste (many on the sites of power plants in concrete pools) and we’re looking to create more. What’s the problem? Two problems actually.
1- The more nuclear power facilities we create, the more waste we create. Despite all of the fancy, out there and borderline sci-fi answers people keep coming up with for what we could do with the waste; we pretty much just bury it in these storage sites. We don’t have any really great answers for dealing with that stuff yet and I honestly think we should figure out a better solution than that before we start increasing the amount of waste we have to deal with.
And what’s wrong with our storage sites?
2- Some of it’s just the garbage thinking that goes into planning them. Look at the Yucca Mountain site. Beyond our government screwing over a Native American tribe again, there’s a really good reason to question that choice of “safe” locations for dumping nuclear waste. That reason is called a freaking fault line. Depending on which news source you want to believe, the fault line is either directly under the site or just generally under the site.
A seismic fault line is under the site they want to stick the nuclear waste in. And this information has been floating around since at least around 2002. And we’re still thinking of putting the nuclear waste there. Can we maybe come up with a better solution to the nuclear waste problem than metaphorically hiding it under our collective beds before we start working at creating even more of it than we do now?
Ok, sorry, but the scientists (well, engineers) will speak once again to the great unwashed about the dangers (Or lack thereof) of nuclear waste.
If you have some nuclear waste, it is of two types – spent fuel rods (very hot!) and other ‘contaminated’ materials. The fuel rods should be recycled, and all that nice hot stuff put back into reactors to use as fuel. France does this, works great, lasts a long time. Here in the US, folks saw a few too many fifties B movies, and think this stuff is instantly deadly, and will mutate their children into BEMs, and so, block any attempt to use this great resource. For similiar reasons, they do the same for nuclear power plants in general…
Now, the other stuff isn’t really that ‘hot’, it is at best mildly radioactive. Now, it would be perfectly safe to just about bury it anywhere, because it really ain’t very radioactive (if it was, see the above about USING it…) but instead, they tried to calm folks fears and built Yucca Mountain. Middle of nowhere, fairly geologically sound, only to be used for low level waste safer than most basements, etc. Instead, they got every yahoo that could misspell Chernoble yelling and screaming that they were killing their children. I’m sorry that these folks can’t process numbers, but there ain’t no problem around here other than polyticks… 😉
Of course, if one believes the claims that fossil fuels are destroying the earth it is well worth the risk of a few giant mutated lobsters to switch to nuclear power which, despite the aforementioned giant lobsters, puts out a lot less greenhouse gasses.
People want a free lunch. They don’t want wind turbines blocking their view of the beach, they don’t want heavy metals used in solar batteries, they don’t want rivers blocked up by dams, they don’t want greenhouse gasses released by fossil fuels, they don’t want forests denuded to burn wood, if someone figured out a way to use geothermal outside of Iceland and Yellowstone I’m sure someone would sue them on the off chance they were creating a volcano risk.
Since people are not going to kill themselves or their way of life to satisfy those who can never be satisfied, I’d advise settling for the best solution instead of insisting on some non-existant perfect. What that will be remains to be seenbut rest assured, someone will be against it.
We oughta shoot the nuclear waste to the moon.