And you forgot one big factor, probably the biggest, and certainly the most important in the short term AND long term: Conservation.

Domestic Drilling.
Refining.
Nuclear energy.

Seems your ideas aren’t so original after all.

And lest some brain dead moron state the typical and moronic “Why should we change when China/India use more energy, pollute more, etc” reasoning (if you could attach the word “reasoning” to something so unreasonable), I put forth these very simple analogies: If your neighbour covered his lawn in garbage would you cover your own, or would you make that much more effort to make your yard look better? If your neighbour’s toilet emptied directly onto the street, would you have yours enter there as well? Of course not. Or hopefully not, anyway, though I’ve no doubt there are plenty of troglodytes out there who would be happy with just such an arrangement. My point is this: Just because your neighbour acts the fool is no excuse to act foolish yourself. If China and India are wont to gobble up all the world’s energy, that’s all the more reason to look for alternatives at home.

You may think the driving force behind my ideologies is global warming, but you’d be 100% dead wrong. The driving force behind my ideologies are A) National security and B) No matter how far your right-wing head is driven into the ground, there is only so much oil in there to drill, and the rarer it gets the more expensive it’s going to be to find and produce.

Let’s address (A) first. Right now, every tank of gas you put in your big, stupid SUV subsidizes governments of countries that are a threat to your very way of life. You’re financing terrorists. You’re financing leftists. These people greedily take your money at every fill up while plotting ways to make you dead (and in many ways, carrying out those plots). You’re also financing crazy-ass decadent building projects on the other side of the world. One would think that Americans, especially the right wing nut jobs that can’t seem to see past the end of their collective noses, would be screaming mad about this. Instead they get screaming mad at any suggestion that might lessen it. As always, though, change might mean it affects the status quo, and we all know how conservatives react to change (until it is too late).

Now for (B). Some day that oil will run out. It may happen in our lifetime, it may not. I would prefer to think that my children, or my children’s children, will not die in a war over energy. As much as it would be smart to start doing something about it now, it would be extremely stupid to wait until disaster is at hand. We need to do several things to put this day off as far into the future and to lessen the impact of this day when it comes.

Short term, the ONLY way to do both is to reduce consumption of this very precious and very limited resource. High prices are the only way to do that, as was proven beyond any doubt last summer. Prices WILL be high from here on out, you can bet on it (but sadly enough, too many of you will bet against it). You have a choice. Pay too much and send your money to south America and the middle east, or pay too much and keep your money in your own country to keep your way of life.

Long term, of course, conservation will not work because even at a reduced consumption rate it will still eventually be depleted. Alternatives must be found. There are no magic bullets here, so single answer. The answer lies in many places. Wind and solar are the choice of the lefties, but that is not enough. However, just because it is not enough does not mean it should be ignored completely. We must use what wind and solar energy is available for our use. This is but one side of a many-faceted solution. We must also look at the resources we have. We import billions upon billions of barrels of energy from hostile nations while an abundance of it sits under our feet. Global warming be damned, we NEED to start using the coal, oil and natural gas that is right here. We also need to invest in nuclear energy.

Between conservation, tidal, wind, solar, hydro, nuke, coal, natural gas and domestic oil we could easily eliminate the need to buy any foreign oil at all.

Unfortunately, as long as oil remains cheap, we will never seek alternatives. You only need look at how the sales of hybrids have faltered to see how people only care about energy crises when their wallet is involved. If oil is cheap who’s gonna pay for all of that other technology?

I’ll never understand the ‘punish THEM!’ mentality. The ends never justify the means.

Hating all politics seems cute and wise but all it shows is a lack of conviction for anything. A cop out, a mental midget lacking the ability to understand… who knows. But before you go and put on your next big display of passive aggressive ambivalence, do yourself a favor and stop watching Katie Couric for your current events. Had you been a person of real insight you may have been able to speak intelligently about the true differences between the two presidents and not come off as such a jack @ss.

P.S. I’m not Russian, before you start accusing me of anything.

The new motto for Americans is keep me “Deaf, Dumb and Blind”!!!!!

Your comment to Borat is idiotic.

The American public seems to be a collection of idiots. They cry when gas prices go up (even though it’s their own fault for wasting so much), then they cry when a Repugnantican government doesn’t do anything to help them, then they cry even louder when a Democrat government tries. Seriously, you people need to see gas at eight bucks a gallon. Seems that’s the only thing that makes you pull your heads out of your asses (as proven by the collapse of truck sales when it hit $4/gal last summer).

who did Russia invade without cause? Last time I’ve checked it was US who invaded Iraq w/o any cause. Where are weapons of mass destruction? Innocent US troops dying for nothing!

And, while we are on the price of gas, I distinctly recall that many of you semi-cretins and knuckle-draggers were predicting with absolute certainty that the price of gas would hit $5/gallon by this Summer.

This has the same effect as a Sheik with a toothache. Everyone panics, speculators (aka crooks) see an opportunity and gas and oil prices go up.

The world economy will recover, fuel prices will rise again, economies will crash again, oil goes down, etc.. Where have we seen this before?