A Few Random Thoughts Post DNC Convention

Having just watched the spectacle of the Obama coronation in Denver, I have a few questions for the Senator from Illinois about his prescripted "solutions."

How pray tell will the Federal government affect the number and salaries of teachers. The last time I checked secondary education was the responsibility of the states and local communities. My property taxes pay for local schools and the feds have nothing to say about curriculum, new schools, teacher hiring or teacher salaries. His claim that he will increase the number of teachers is a high sounding but empty promise.

Another laugher was his "promise" to eliminate the US dependence on mid-east oil in ten years. Note he was very specific here to use the term mid-east as opposed to foreign oil. As I have noted in earlier blogs the US today is not heavily dependent on mid-east oil. The US imports only about 15% of its total petroleum products from the mid-east (specifically Saudi Arabia and Kuwait). Our imports are mostly from Canada, Venezuela, Nigeria and Mexico.

In other words Obama's objective is easily achievable with only a modest increase in US production (Drill, Drill, Drill) and a shift to more imports from friendly countries with growing reserves like Canada (Alberta oil sands anyone?) and Brazil. The real challenge, and one that he knows he cannot achieve, is to eliminate our dependence on "foreign" oil in the near term. The real irony is achieving his stated objective will be much easier with McCain in the White House and not Obama.

This is just another empty political promise that takes advantage of the ignorance of the American public on the whole energy security issue. I might note that others play the mid-east oil card directly and indirectly to promote their own agendas. Among these scaremongers is T Boone Pickens by talking about the transfer of wealth to unnamed foreign governments. The unstated but implied destination of all this money is the middle east which is not completely true.

On a related note, have you seen the frequent TV ads from a Gore-backed green energy group called We Can Solve It? Once again these folks are disingenuously pushing the notion that high gasoline prices are the result of the way we produce electricity.

Now the fundamental objective of We Can Solve It is to move the country to non-carbon producing sources of electricity. This is fine as far as it goes but one would think if they were really serious, nuclear power would be number one their list of alternatives, but it doesn't even appear on their radar screen. The problem once again is that except for emergency power back-up generators, the US does not produce electricity from petroleum or petroleum distillates. In other words we could convert the entire US energy infrastructure to wind, solar and hydro and this would not affect the US demand for oil used in transportation or the price of a gallon of gasoline one whit. You'd never know that from their ad campaign.

Finally can you believe the incredibly empty boast that BHO made about his willingness to take on JSM anytime about who is ready to be Commander-in-Chief. As I recall, JSM repeatedly challenged the Obama campaign to agree to a series of town hall meeting beginning in June. Not surprisingly Obama demurred. I guess he really isn't ready to debate his fitness to lead after all. In fact I would wager that were it not for the fact that it is now expected that the Presidential candidates will debate prior to the election BHO would run from any face-to-face debate with McCain as fast as possible.

Bottom line is that after listening to all the bloviating at the convention culminating with the master bloviator himself, I have concluded that BHO is the biggest empty suit I have ever seen in politics. Nice suit though.

Just a few thoughts on the DNC as I note the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate. Great choice! Start your engines this will be a fun race to Nov 4.

P.S. - Can you believe that the first shot across the bow from the Obama campaign about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience?! What chutzpah! A convincing case could be easily made that her executive experience as a mayor and a governor (and by the way Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard) makes her eminently more qualified to be President than Obama himself. Unbelievable.