The truth of the matter is, it would take close to 10 YEARS before any new offshore oil wells would be able to produce any oil for the market, and at an incredibly marginal, minimal impact as this chart shows.
[ From: Treehugger ]
[ Chart and further info: Architecture2030 ]

Wouldn’t immediate investment in wind and solar power and promoting advancements in energy efficiency be more worthwhile than more drilling? Enough with the band-aids already. More drilling just means more money in the pockets off the oil companies that have had the republicans in their pockets since the Model-T.

Here is the summary:

“Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed–job training, help with housing and so forth–from the local government… Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school.”

Joe Klein continues:

“To describe this service–the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other–as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.”

I couldn’t agree more. Pretty disgusting how the whole convention laughed it up when Obama’s community organizing was mocked.

More entertaining republican double-speak, thanks to Jon Stewart:

The gist of the article is: A.) Bear Stearns should’ve been forced to eat it because it was their own greed that got them caught up in the Ponzi scheme, subprime mess in the first place. B.) JP Morgan is getting a sweetheart deal from the Fed. And, C.) Yesterday’s 3/4 point rate cute is all about saving Wall Street’s millionaire, investment banking, hypocritical ass. Shouldn’t Wall St and Bear be forced to suffer the consequences of their own irresponsibility (much like any individual would)?! Isn’t that the basic tenet of capitalistic, business philosophy?! Besides, I’m constantly getting the short-end of the stick financially because all of these c-suite, investment banker guys get rich squeezing the little man (me). Screw them! Seems simple enough.

To be honest, I only have a decent layman’s understanding of why the economy is hitting the fan (Click here if you need further explanation). I know it isn’t that simple. The Fed couldn’t just let Bear declare bankruptcy. A.) There are plenty of “little people” at Bear, and declaring bankruptcy would’ve immediately locked their doors Monday morning, with no severance pay to boot. B.) It would’ve had a massive ripple effect on all investment banks, the mortgage industry, Corporate America, etc. And, C.) Letting investment banks collapse is what led to the Great Depression.

But, it still stinks. As a graphic/web designer (who was smart or lucky enough not to get himself caught up in some crazy ARM mortgage) I know there are more informative, educated and lucid sources of information concerning the Bear Stears bailout than me. Among them: The Big Picture, Paul Krugman, Dealbook, Calculated Risk, Marginal Revolution, etc. But, how can JP Morgan swoop up Bear for less than the price of the building they occupy in mid-town Manhattan? It just doesn’t make sense. I just can’t help but feel that the Fed is basically using tax payer money to prop up a failed bank, give another bank that doesn’t need any favors a huge freebie, and save a bunch of executives who will eventually disproportionately profit from the bailout.

I don’t know if it’s having a baby or what, but lately I can’t shake this fear of looming environmental crisis. The trigger was a book called “The World Without Us,” by Alan Weisman. It’s a beautifully written, lyrical book about the potential transformations of our planet if We, the people, were to just disappear.

The first chapter immediately hooked me: The fate of hyper-urbanized New York City and all of its subways and concrete and glass buildings. I love imagining the city as it was discovered by the Dutch, as much as I love discovering those little pockets of urban decay that hint at what they city was 100 years ago. Places like the Gowanus Canal and the Brooklyn Waterfront. But, to imagine us completely gone is another thing all together. As I was reading the book in the subway, it was nerve-wracking to read that without pumps our brittle subway system would flood completely within days, done in by long-buried natural springs eager to reclaim their rightful place on the topography. Think the potholes are bad now? Streets built above subways would quickly erode and collapse. Shockingly, a city that seems impervious to nature would crumble as grasses and trees slowly but surely find places to root and germinate.

It’s exciting to imagine nature’s reclamation of New York’s concrete expanse. But, realizing how much of our footprint would otherwise remain is truly frightening. Everyone has seen An Inconvenient Truth. We know about climate change. But, have you ever really thought about the impact of plastics? Well, their toxic little particles are literally everywhere—even in your exfoliating soap—and they just don’t disappear. Little plastic pieces will be floating around in the oceans for millions of years, affecting any species that don’t adapt to the toxins. Ever really thought about what we do with nuclear wastes? Well, it’s frightening, but I encourage everyone to read up.

My bleak environmental perspective took another turn for the worse when I received the latest National Geographic in the mail. Apparently, lots of the electronics and computers that we get rid of (even the things that we put the effort into recycling or discarding of safely) end up in the third-world where the poor scavenge through them for scrap materials like copper and lead, unwittingly exposing themselves to extremely dangerous toxins. It’s terrible to know that the industrialized world is exporting it’s environmental burden. It also left me wondering if there is really anything we can do on an individual level, aside from the impossibility of being a non-consumer.

The latest upsetting news is: Biofuels just aren’t as green as advertised. The thrust here is that the production of ethanol and corn bears a greater environmental cost (on degraded farm land, water, etc.) than the benefits of clean gas that it’s supposed to provide. As a skeptic, it just seems that the environmental cause is being hijacked by people with profitable interests. In this case, the farm industry.

Aside from being as environmentally-aware as possible, I don’t know what can be done. I don’t have to use plastic bags (or at the very least I can reuse them). I can use mass transit. I can turn off the lights. I can recycle. But without some sort of environmental catastrophe to spark a massive change in attitude, I’m pessimistic that corporations, governments and individuals will sacrifice convenience, comfort, and previously-vested financial interests for sustainability. For my son’s sake, I hope I’m wrong.

Updated: (Feb 21) More news on ethanol demand having negative effects on food prices and the environment (from Bloomberg).

[ Biofuels Threatening German Gummy Bear Habitat ]