ENERGY: PROBLEM NUMBER ONE

First; let me apologize for neglecting my blog. I've been extremely busy with the radio show. (I'm trying to set up a "My Wicked Garden" site that will have all my broadcasts and easier access.) For now, you can go to Flinttalkradio.com and click on the menu of the stickicam and my shows are in the "movies" category. I've also been turkey hunting and putting a new roof on my house, (myself, not hired out.) So I've been very busy.

Now, on to the real subject matter.

As most of you have noticed, (unless you live in a shack in upper Idaho), gas has gone through the roof. The implications on the U.S. economy are obvious. Increased cost to travel has all of us tightening our belts, buying less and traveling less. The cost of nearly all products is going up as a result of increased transportation costs. Despite the increased price, consumption is down only 1.3% when compared to this time last year. This further demonstrates that America is simply not ready for the reality of what's facing us in the next decade and beyond.

The U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign oil. We consume over 20 million barrels a day and 12 million of that is imported. The cries for us to produce our own oil by opening up such areas as ANWAR in Alaska, has increased and the Big Oil executives are using the crisis as an excuse to ask for more research and exploration dollars. But is U.S. R&D enough to possibly save us? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

If you look carefully at the proven reserves (known oilfields) in the world it become obvious that the U.S. can not support itself no matter how much we increase production. The numbers are simply not there. Companies like Exxon are simply trying to get more access to oil that makes them the most money, closer to home. In Fact, if you do the math, the U.S. and Mexico will both be completely out of oil within 12 years unless some new reserves are discovered. (which is unlikely, as technology has already found what they believe is the majority of oil fields in the U.S.)

Canada has proven to be a good friend to have in all this mess. Their sand tar oilfields can produce desperately needed oil but at a high cost. Their proven reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia. The problem is; it's all crappy oil that is locked in sand and has to be strip-mined and processed to even be useful. This actually increases our carbon-footprint because it takes so much more energy to refine it than . At present production, Canada has enough oil to last over 150 years. But at 3 million barrels a day present production we will need to increase the capacity of their oilfields 400% to make a real dent in our needs. That still leaves us in dire straights within 40 years even if our needs do not increase.

The other solution (favored by the Republicans) is securing oil flow from other, far less stable countries. I don't think I have to tell anyone how expensive and uncertain that can be. Islamic Fundamentalism is spreading and most all of the oil we need lies under regimes that have goals that do not include America prospering. OPEC controls most of that oil and seems to be very content to watch the U.S. squirming under their reduced production. If this continues along with the speculation that has driven the prices through the roof, Americans will soon find themselves suffering inflation that will reduce all of our wealth considerably.

So what's the answer?

I see it as a multi-pronged approach. First; we need to help Canada get as much oil on-line as possible. I would much rather see my hard-earned money going towards a friendly democratic country than one that funds terrorism against us. Second; increase production of alternate fuels. Sugar-based ethanol is a bad answer as it drives up food prices, but Cellulosic Ethanol should be funded immediately and put into the pipeline as soon as possible. We should also be funding R&D on plug-in vehicles, fuel cells, and any other sources that will alleviate our dependency on foreign oil. And third; we need to reduce the amount oil we waste on petro-chemicals. One-fifth of all our oil goes to producing plastics, fertilizers, etc. When it's possible, we should be looking at alternatives that are more environmentally friendly. Hemp has a lot of possibilities in this area.

This problem should be #1 on everybodies' list of concerns. Energy is affecting our foreign policies, our economy, and our future. If we don't address this problem soon, our children will be dealing with it in a way that will require far more drastic measures..like war. Our Congress is slow to respond because so much money is being made on oil and the profiteers are known and funneling money in their direction. If we don't force them to act, the lobbyists will make sure they don't. Oil will always be a major resource, but it doesn't need to have so much power to control our fate. H.C.

A FAIR SOLUTION TO MICHIGAN'S DELEGATE PROBLEM

I've been giving a bit of thought to the problem of seating Michigan's delegates and how to count our popular votes in a way that would be fair to both sides. And I believe I may have a solution.

The biggest obstacle I see is that there is really no way to be sure how the vote would have turned out had our illustrious representatives here in Michigan left it alone and not violated the DNC rules. Any re-vote is hard to accept because the dynamics have been changed by their monkey-business. It's funny how every scenario offered by our Michigan DNC chair, Mark Brewer (who supports Clinton) or backed by our Governor Jennifer Granholm (who supports Clinton) all seem to benefit Clinton. Hmmm, I wonder why that is?

There is simply no way a re-vote could have been fair to Barack. No matter how you dice it, Obama was not on the ballot the first time around and didn't campaign. Given that fact, you have to factor in the people who, because Barack wasn't on the ballot, crossed over to the Republican side to vote for McCain or Ron Paul or Romney or whoever. Not to mention those people who may have changed their minds by the time the second vote came, who might be up to mischief given the changed dynamics, and on and on . Since we had to declare our party to vote in the primary here in Michigan, some of those people would not have been allowed to re-vote in a closed Democrat Primary. Clearly that's a benefit for Clinton. Any attempt to put a number on those people would be a guess at best. Letting the numbers stand as is, is to ignore that Barack wasn't even on the ballot. So what can we do?

My solution would be to take the results of the border states of Michigan; Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio and average their percentages for both Hillary and Barack. Then, we take those percentages and seat the delegates accordingly. All those states have very similar demographics and Midwest State concerns. In fact, if you didn't know better, it would be very hard to tell if I had dropped you off in downtown Milwaukee, Gary, Chicago, Detroit or Cincinnati. We all talk the same, act the same and carry about the same values. After you have figured out the percentages, you then take the total amount of people in Michigan that voted in the primary and divide them to each candidate according to that percentage.

In fact, here are the numbers all according to Realclearpolitics.com a universally accepted source. Ohio went for Clinton 55.2% to 44.8%, Wisconsin went for Obama 58.1% to 40.8%, Illinois went for Obama 64.7% to 31.9%, and Indiana went for Clinton 50.9 % to 49.1%. That means, on average, Clinton scored 44.7% and Obama got 54.2%. Note that even if you threw in Pennsylvania, which Clinton also won, it still ends up favoring Obama 52.4% to 46.7%. Throwing in New York would be vastly unfair as it is Hillary's home state and is farther away than all the other states. No matter how you spin this, it becomes apparent that Barack Obama would have done far better than Hillary Clinton is trying to claim.

What could be fairer? The numbers are based on similar states that weren't gerryrigged, that were all campaigned in fairly by both candidates, without any advantage to any one candidate (remember, even though Illinois is Barack's home state, it was also Hillary's birth state, a fact she used when campaigning there.) It even gives full credit to the people who voted here in Michigan. I'm sure Hillary's people will never accept this idea as it robs her of her well-planned-out attempt to rig an election. But if you look at it with an open mind, you'll see it's the most fair of all the suggestions. H.C.

REPUBLICANS FOR HILLARY

And so the drama continues.

I must admit, as a political commentator, I enjoy the endless stream of material generated by the battle between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama for the Democratic nomination. But, I'm seriously starting to wonder if it's doing us any good at all. The results of the past few primaries don't seem to be giving the people any true clues as to who the best candidate would be. Barack Obama is spending all his time trying desperately to distance himself from his fiery preacher, Reverend Wright, and hardly any time clarifying his positions on the hard issues. At the same time, Hillary Clinton is doing her little clap-dance over her victories that were largely handed to her by line-crossing Republicans. With half the left-wing media supporting her and the right wing media doing all the dirty work for her, are we getting a clear sense of what the fall run-off would really look like?

I don't think so.

That is, unless you seriously believe that the Republican cross-overs will still be there for Hillary come November.

It's deception of mammoth proportions. My prediction is that Hill will win the Republican-controlled state of Indiana this May 6th (in a large part due to the Republican cross-overs) and will lose the North Carolina primary. And nothing will change. The Hillary supporters will continue to point at her surge as evidence of Obama's weakening candidacy. But is it really? In the fall it's highly unlikely that Hillary will enjoy the passive support of Republicans like she does now and will most likely never regain the support of black voters who are growing more and more disenchanted with the workings of a Democrat delegate system that seems to work on a caste system designed to empower the elite within the party.

And right wing talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham could not be happier.

Should they get their wish of a Hillary nomination, they will have a huge cache of material that they aren't even trying to put out there yet. Just this week Hillary made a big foreign policy miscue when she stated that a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran would result in the United States trying to "totally obliterate" Iran. This is just the kind of rhetoric the hard -liners in Iran need to keep up their contention that the U.S. is simply an extension of Israel. For her to state something like that publicly shows that Hillary is simply not the foreign policy genius she claims to be.

And yet all I heard from the right-wing talk show hosts this week was Reverend Wright this and Reverend Wright that.

Let's compare Hillary's statement to the hoopla that was generated when Barack said that he would attack Al Queda strongholds in Pakistan if we had actionable intelligence. Or even Senator McCain's off-hand comment that we may be in Iraq for a hundred years. The press ran off with opinion column after opinion column about how unprepared they both were for the reality of foreign policy. But which one is the worse of the three statements? I actually agree with McCain's assessment and with Barack's, but Hillary's is off the charts. The U.S. should not touch off a nuclear Holocaust without first searching for world support and other solutions.

As the race continues, we all need to be mindful of one reality. This is no indication of what the race will look like once the Dems have chosen their nominee. The Right will go back to attacking and dismantling whoever the nominee is. For Barack, we're already seeing how this will play out. They will continue to try to assert that Obama is a clandestine Muslim who hates white America despite the fact that he is half white himself. They will continue to try to attach Reverend Wright's ideology to Barack through endless loops of his sermons. But what will their attacks on Hillary look like? For now, we have no idea. H.C.