
And so it goes.
Almost impossible to add anything.Way to go, NDN.President Bush is following through on trying to lift bans on additional potential offshore sites for oil and natural gas.
In an election year, with $4-plus gasoline and a Republican president pushing a Democratic Congress to let each seaboard state decide for itself, politics is involved.
So is the potential for windfall profit — before the first drop of new oil is produced, thus driving up prices of whatever is produced even further.
That is why there is more sizzle than steak — or more slick than solution — to the president’s plan.
Democrats rightfully point out there is a substantial inventory of potential oil and gas exploration sites going unused.
Further, it is important to separate a sustainable long-term energy strategy from today’s panic mode. The United States cannot drill its way out of trouble. Oil is not the future. A combination of energy, including solar and biofuels as keenly advanced by Florida, is more in sync environmentally and economically.
It is vital for Florida to have its beaches and marine life intact long after the panic subsides. That is more important than profiteering and politics today.
"He'll be remembered, in part, for the strong racist streak that articulated his politics and almost all of his political campaigns — they were racialized in the most negative ways," said Kerry Haynie, a political science professor at Duke University, who noted that unlike George Wallace and Strom Thurmond, Helms never repented for such tactics.Helms, however, was an equal opportunity closed-minded intolerant SOB.
In 1993, when then-President Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust. "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."Charming fellow.