Elizabeth Gotsdiner, 24
Home Town:
Iowa City, IA

Occupation:
Student
The introduction to politics in this past year has not only changed me, it has inspired and motivated me to do my part in a democratic society. I now know that as a citizen of this great country I ha ... See full Bio

McPalin vs. OBiden
Remember today
Non Partisan President
Hot Topic
Postponed Presidency
Biden barked at me.
Paulson-Palin Bailout
Sir Samuel Wurzelbacher
John Kerry
CONVINCE ME!!!
Hot Topic
September 21st - 9:11 pm

Isn't that the name of a death metal clothing store?  Beginning my political journey, I knew what the real issues were... abortion and gay marriage.  Now that's what mattered to the country.

--

I'm getting frusterated with hot topic issues that don't gage so much importance to me.  Now, I know just because it doesn't gage importance to me doesn't mean its not important to someone else.  But frankly, issues of national security, financial disasters and the possible crumbling of the American Empire are ruffling my feathers more than any others.  I suppose I just realized I couldn't care less if XY marries XY, and who gives a rats?  Environmental issues have always and will always hit home with me, and something I hope everyone realizes is that both candidates have environmental plans that spell out N-U-C-L-E-A-R  E-N-E-R-G-Y.  This is the direction we are headed regardless.  And I'm cool with that, as long as we find safe means to do so.  

BUT... regarding the environment, I have decided my place on oil is here and now.  In this, I do identify with Palin.  Of course I want us to be reliant on alternative feul and energy sources, but I don't see it going down tomorrow.  What justification do we have to deplete land across the world of their natural resources, and then neglect the idea of taking our own, and overwhelming, feul consumption responsibility?  Tons of Americans do not think we should drill here, and well.... I think that's a little... selfish.  Not to mention, the amount of money it is going to cost to start enviornmental production... we're in a war.  OK, I'm all over the place.  But I'm trying to keep this a blog, and not a novel.

Adieu! 

Comments:
 
wally
Drilling
September 26th - 7:26 am
Here's where I get my information. Links are provided to check. I tried to find the article you mentioned but didn't have any luck. There is no Florida Sun Times. There is a South Florida Sun times though but I couldn't find anything there. I'm sure you read it on a blog, be careful with blogs.


Report: No Chinese Offshore Drilling Near Cuba
By Ryan Grim

Jun 12, 2008
Send this story via emailE-Mail Story

View a Printer-friendly version of this storyPrint Story

Read related blogs & articles about this storySphere

Share

Text Size: A A A
Answers.com

(The Politico) The GOP is in the midst of a coordinated effort to slam Democrats for a seemingly outrageous contradiction: While Democrats—with the help of Florida Republicans—block oil drilling off the Florida shore, China is doing just that a mere 60 miles off the coast of Cuba. Vice President Dick Cheney, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) have all raised the specter of Chinese drilling off Cuba’s coast.

In a recent speech, Cheney quoted a column by George Will, who wrote last week that "drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are."

The truth of that claim, however, is seriously in doubt.

Democrats today pointed to a February 29, 2008 Congressional Research Service that found “[w]hile there has been some concern about China’s potential involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its involvement in Cuba’s oil sector has been focused on onshore oil extraction in Pinar del Rio province through its state-run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec).”

Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican, took to the Senate floor Wednesday and called the alleged Cuba drilling “akin to urban legend.”

Shown the quote from the CRS report, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in an e-mail that the “fact is China can drill off the cost of the United States and Americans can’t. At a time when the nationwide average price for a gallon of gas is over $4, that policy just doesn’t make sense.”

The GOP campaign doesn’t argue, however, that China “can” drill off the coast of Cuba—but rather that they are already doing it. Boehner released a statement yesterday headlined: “WHILE CHINA EXPLORES OIL AND GAS 60 MILES FROM AMERICAN SHORES, DEM MAJORITY KEEPS AMERICA’S ENERGY RESOURCES UNDER LOCK-AND-KEY.”

Steel cited to a 2006 New York Times story that mentions lease agreements negotiated between Cuba and China to support the claim, the same story cited by other Republicans pressing the issue.

The Times reported that “[w]ith only modest energy needs and no ability of its own to drill, Cuba has negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources for themselves and for Cuba.”

McClatchy Newspapers and the Miami Herald have called the claim into question, as well, citing energy experts, though not the CRS report.
Continue reading post...


Copyright 2008 POLITICO

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/12/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4177282.shtml

China-Cuba rumors fuel renewed offshore drilling debate

Miami Herald
June 12, 2008
By Lesley Clark and Erika Bolstad

Washington- With gas topping $4 a gallon, some Republicans are pointing to Cuba once again to bolster their case that the U.S. should be drilling along Florida's coastline.

The claim: China has Cuban leases to drill for oil -- miles from the Florida shore.

Even Vice President Dick Cheney got into the mix Wednesday, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that ``oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government.

''Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply,'' he added. ``Yet Congress has said . . . no to drilling off Florida.''

But industry experts and other observers say there is zero evidence that China is drilling in Cuban waters, and doesn't even hold a lease to drill offshore.

''China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period,'' said Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy.

Rising gas prices are prompting renewed efforts to open Florida waters to drilling, and the specter of oil-thirsty China slurping up nearby reserves is helping to fuel the push: In recent days, House Republican leaders have penned newspaper opinion pieces making the claim.

`DEBUNKING THE MYTH'

The renewed efforts prompted Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, who opposes drilling off Florida's coast, to take to the Senate floor Wednesday to -- as his office put it -- ''debunk the myth'' of China drilling in Cuban waters.

''Reports to the contrary are simply false,'' Martinez said, his remarks delivered just before Cheney spoke. ``They are akin to urban legends. China drilling off the coast of Cuba only 60 miles from the Keys, that is not taking place. . . Any talk of using some fabricated Cuba-China connection as an argument to change U.S. policy has no merit.''

House Minority Leader John Boehner's office defended the GOP drilling claims, pointing to a 2006 New York Times story that noted Cuba had ``negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources.''

''The fact is China can drill off the coast of the United States and Americans can't,'' said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. ``At a time when the nationwide average price for a gallon of gas is over $4, that policy just doesn't make sense.''

The latest effort to bring drilling closer to Florida's shores by lifting a decades-old ban on gas and oil exploration along the outer continental shelf was rapidly defeated Wednesday in a House subcommittee meeting along partisan lines. Democrats on the panel said the measure was ''unnecessary'' because most of the known reserves along the coast are already open for drilling. Committee Chairman Rep. Norm Dicks, a Washington state Democrat, noted that the Bush administration, too, opposes lifting the ban.

PUSHING THE MEASURE

But Rep. John Peterson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he plans to keep pushing the measure, which would allow drilling 50 miles beyond the shoreline.

Florida's congressional delegation remains staunchly opposed to offshore drilling, and Martinez noted the delegation had reached a compromise in December 2006 to give up eight million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for the state getting at least a 125-mile buffer zone from drilling.

Piñon, who supports oil and gas exploration, said he met with several congressional offices Wednesday about the China-Cuba connection. He said he told them: ' `If you guys want to use this as a scare tactic to lift the moratorium on drilling off the west coast of Florida, at least be factual, be correct.' They didn't do their homework.''

China's Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Piñon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling. Western diplomats in Havana told McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge there is no Chinese drilling offshore.

Cuba's state oil company, Cupet, has issued exploration contracts to companies from India, Canada, Spain, Malaysia and Norway. But many oil companies from those countries have expressed reservations about how to turn potential crude oil into product. Cuba doesn't have the refinery capacity, and the biggest potential market -- the U.S. -- is off limits because of the trade embargo.

http://democracyinamericas.org/cubacentral/June12-1

Here's a few more links:

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/06/soaring-gas-pri.html#mor

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2008/june/0613_cheney_oil1.shtml
 
Flandamier
September 26th - 2:52 am
Wally - Will you then please tell me why there are oil rigs with Chinese writing on them off the coast of Cuba? This was reported in the Florida Sun Times with no retraction that I know of. Maybe the Chinese are doing it without Cuba's approval. Hmmmm. That has to be it, because no way would Cuba and the Chinese lie to Fact-Check right?
 
wally
Drilling
September 25th - 8:35 pm
Flandamier: "Wally - Fact is that China has a deal with Cuba to drill off the coast of Florida. Fact is that China has bought and re-opened a Russian oil refinery. So altho they may not be drilling this very day, does not mean they don't plan to."

That is incorrect, my previous post was directly from Fact Check, an independent verification source. There is no deal between China and Cuba for drilling offshore.

No matter how much we drill, today, it will not have an affect for years to come. Think about it, oil is a commodity much like Gold. For years exploration for Gold came to a virtual halt. Why? because the price of Gold was too low for companies to make money. If they begin drilling for oil today, it will be based on the price per barrel of today's market which will mean higher costs in the future. The only thing that could mitigate that would be a huge find that would wret control from OPEC since they could cut their production to maintain high prices.

The sooner we concentrate the majority of our efforts on developing a viable alternative to oil the sooner the prices will fall. Can you imagine what would happen to the price of oil if a break through on an alternative renewable source were to come about, a source that could be ready for use say in 5 years?

If immediate production of oil could be done to tide us over I would agree with you but the fact is that all that would happen at this point is expansion of exploration followed by a wait for production.
 
wally
Drilling
September 25th - 2:53 pm
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/drill_baby_drill_the_reality_of_mccain_palin_plan_090408/
Elizabeth
Yos.
September 25th - 11:28 am
WALLY and FLAND... great discussion happening.

WALLY, you make a valid point that I admittedly have overlooked. The time of use. My concern here also is that in seven years will we have a sure fire way to be dependant on alternative fuel/energy? I don't see any sure fire plans in action for solar panels and wind farms. What I do are 50 year promises of change. Not gonna happen tomorrow. So I'm talking meantime... I know that the goal is to find alternative resources, and I don't doubt that is not far away, but we need a quick fix, and I don't think it should be just sucking oil out of the other side of the world.

I would like to emphasize I don't think drilling is a good thing, but I think its our only/best option at this very point in time. I have faith in America, in our science and in our citizens that we will change our dependancy on oil, and hopefully in this next short time we will realize our consumption is that root of our evil and the root of this economic crisis.

I will check out that NAFTA website... I'm doin a big paper on it, so I need to feed my brain about it now!
 
Flandamier
Drilling
September 25th - 3:01 am
Wally - Fact is that China has a deal with Cuba to drill off the coast of Florida. Fact is that China has bought and re-opened a Russian oil refinery. So altho they may not be drilling this very day, does not mean they don't plan to.

You would agree that the price of oil has spiked in part due to speculation..yes? Just as speculation drives a price up, it can bring a price down. During the gas shortages of the 70's, Jimmy Carter went on TV and announced that never again would we ever be dependent on foreign oil. Guess what happened? Let me tell you. The price of oil plummeted. The Saudi's got scared and it impacted the oil industry for years. I remember pre 9/11 that a barrel of oil was around $15 to $20 per barrel.

Let me give you another example - Back on July 11th of this year oil hit a high of $147 per barrel. Shortly after that, President Bush lifted the executive ban on off shore drilling. Since then oil has dropped to under $100. Can you imagine how far it will drop if Congress followed suit?

I am with you that we need to spend money into alternative resources. However, those sources aren't available yet. So in the meantime we need something to tide us over til we CAN get off of oil. This time though, we need to follow through and really promise to get off of not only foreign oil, but oil in general.
 
Wally
China Drilling
September 24th - 8:08 am
Are the Chinese drilling off the coast of Cuba?
Are Chinese or any other nation's oil companies drilling on Cuban oil leases 60 miles off Florida's shores as mentioned in recent articles?

A: No. George Will and Vice President Cheney got that wrong. But Cuba has allowed for exploration by at least six other non-Chinese firms in the region and onshore testing and exploration by China's Sinopec.
While it's true that as many as 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may lie off Cuba's coast, no country, including China, is drilling for a drop of it. But on June 11, in a speech to the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed, citing columnist George Will, that the Chinese were drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_the_chinese_drilling_off_the_coast.html

It's always best to check on anything you hear the press. It's amazing how somethings get repeated enough so that they become defacto truths.
 
Wally
NAFTA
September 24th - 8:01 am
Here's a decent site for NAFTA research. I like that it's nonprofit public interest information site.

http://www.citizen.org/trade/nafta/

There's a lot to read there so it will be quite a while before I can digest it all and comment.
 
Wally
Energy
September 24th - 7:55 am
My problem with the Drill Baby Drill mentality is that according to experts, it will take 10 yrs before we see any oil from offshore drilling and would barely put a dent in the amount of oil we need to import from foreign sources.

Therefore why put more time, money and resources into a project that in fact only promotes our dependence on oil? Why not concentrate on putting the money into alternatives that will truly stop our dependence on OIL. The other benefit is that it will be better for the enviroment.

I liken it to having a 20 year old car that continually needs repairs. No matter how much money you put into it, it's still a 20 yr old car. Even if you could somehow nurse it along by spending money on it for 5 yrs it will then be a 25 yr old car that will still need repairs.

There is a finite amount of Oil in the world. Brazil and a few other countries are far ahead of us because they had the foresight to develop alternatives. The ironic part of Brazil being ahead of us is that the were able to accomplish it even though their economy sucked. Now they are an emerging market due to their use of sugar cane as an alternative to fuel cars.

About 5 yrs ago I learned of a man named Nikola Tesla, Never heard of him through our educational system. He was very big on electromagnetic energy. I wonder why no one seems to have pursued it. Here are a few links: http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4355/Tesla-The-Tesla-Magnetic-Car-Engine
 
Flandamier
September 24th - 2:52 am
Lizz - You hit he nail on the head. Now news you won't hear in the media. We have had 2 major hurricanes hit the gulf coast this year. These hurricanes passed over 400 oil rigs in the gulf. Do you know not ONE drop of oil was lost? The environment is safe because we built good rigs.

Do you know that China right now is drilling at an angle towards Florida off the Cuban coast to syphon off the oil. Do you really think they will give a rats behind about being safe? Call me biased, but I think we can drill a lot more safely then the Chinese or anyone else in the world, especially when it pertains to our own environment.

Tanya - Pelosi, Boxer, Reid, and Barney Franks. All of those I thought made the list automatically without having to actually listing there names. LOL
Elizabeth
Listing...
September 23rd - 1:21 pm
OK, I'm headed to your list next. Tanya... I spell my name with 2 Z. LiZZ. 2. Just emphasizing.

No way about drilling off the coast of Florida! American environmentalists of course don't want to drill our country because we might damage it. But for some reason, its ok that we drill on the other side of the world. The big argument/debate here is "find alternative fuels" and "create alternative energy sources", which in our country is simply for the price of fuel. In both these instances they HAVE NOT BEEN CREATED to mass produce. So we have a "meantime" on our hands.

I take responsibility for my actions. I give credit where credit is due. As Americans, I feel we should be responsible and do the damage to our own. During this time period that should have a twenty year limit, we will have the innovations to then be energy independant on alternative sources. I do believe we should drill, and not because I don't care about the environment, but I do care about values and morals, and I was raised to know right from wrong. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and take your own responsibilities into your own hands.

Main concern... other countries seeking out our Alaskan/ Floridian oil.
Tanya
Liz-The List
September 23rd - 8:14 am
I'm trying to promote my list...are you gonna come to my page and help???
Tanya
Fland
September 23rd - 8:12 am
I was saving this for the environmental issue but I'll repeat later.

I recently read an article that said that our state's tourism board, which is usually in line with the environmentalists for obvious reasons, is now willing to hear discussions about drilling off the coast of Florida. Know why? Because if gas prices continue to go up tourists won't be able to drive or fly here anyway and that will kill our tourism industry.
Dems are changing their minds now because they have to, even Pelosi, whom I'm thinking about putting on my "list", by the way.
 
Flandamier
September 23rd - 2:45 am
Tanya - You are not alone. Look at the beating the Democrats got when they were saying "NO" to offshore drilling. The Environment is an important and "hot topic" issue, but it is put on the back burner when we are paying $4 to $6 per gallon of gasoline. Now you noticed they changed their tune and are saying we can have limited offshore drilling. Heres a better idea... let the states decide. I don't think they will say "NO" to all that extra revenue.

Lizz - Don't worry. Abortion and gay marriage will once again ride to the forefront again once the economic crises is over. The moral standards in this country have changed and will continue to change, and therefore some new "hot topic" will come about. Some for these moral changes are for the better like giving women and blacks equality and civil rights. Some moral changes are for the worst like the acceptance of greed, sex and violance, but most of all.... the taking of God out of our country.

The one thing we will always have is a country. The question isn't
if we will have a country, it's whether or not we will recognize it.
Elizabeth
HEEEYOOO
September 22nd - 9:29 am
Hey Fland! Hi Tan! Look, I've said this a number of times in season one, and hear it is again... if we don't have secure walls to our country, if we can't AFFORD that security, then we don't have a country. It's unforunate, and its the truth. I wish that the biggest issues in my life were abortion and gay marriage. They aren't. I'm worried that soon war will be on our land, and that our national debt is going triple our taxes in my lifetime. I'm worried one day I will wake up, and I won't have a country.
Tanya
I hear ya sister!
September 22nd - 8:58 am
Lizz, I completely agree with all that you said. gay marriage and abortion are nowhere near the top of my list right now. Not with the energy and economy crisis.

Fland, you are sooo right. I know I'm voting with my empty wallet in mind!
 
Flandamier
September 22nd - 2:10 am
Liz - Like a previous poster said "Good to see the wheels turning". You are thinking and are involved. You ask questions and aren't afraid to put yourself out there. I love it!

Ok back to the topic of "Hot Topics". They are and always will be there. Back in the 1800's it was slavery. In the early 1900's it was womens right to vote. In the 1960's it was civil rights. In the 1970's it was (and still is) abortion. One thing I have noticed though, is that when it comes to peoples pocket books, those issues always seem to take a back seat. Yes they still care but I guess not as much if they have to take out a 2nd mortgage on a home or people lose their job.

Having been though a number of elections, one thing is constant. People vote with their wallets.