[Psudo]

Lumpy wrote:

Does John McCain's reminding Americans to wear suntan lotion when they go outside worry you just as much?

Did he make it a national energy policy issue?

Lumpy wrote:

unless it comes from the same logic that produced Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal articles wondering if Obama is too skinny in a nation of people too fat to become President

I have to admit, that's ridiculously stupid logic. I'm not overly fond of Obama, but his weight certainly isn't a factor.

Lumpy wrote:

You mean that it can't be racist because it accuses Obama of being popular because he were black, and if that were the case such an ad would not work?

No, McCain accuses Obama of being exaggeratedly popular. You've proven that the ad cannot be suggesting that his popularity is the result of his race.

Let's pretend for a moment that Obama has been getting a free pass because he's black. From that one can conclude that similar treatment of black folks is offsetting the effects of racism. Offsetting the effects of racism is the justification for affirmative action. If society is already giving them that boost, I suggested ironically, why do they need affirmative action?

But you argued that the success of a female political candidate did not coincide with an end to sexism, so the success of a minority candidate does not signify the end of prejudice against that minority group. Thus, Obama's success is not because of social bias in favor of blacks but despite a social bias against blacks. So your logic states that Obama's success is not the result of his race.

I agree. You're right.

McCain's ad poked fun at Obama's "messiah complex" and easy success. If these are not the result of his race, as you've convinced me, then McCain is not poking fun of Obama's race even indirectly. Thus, the poking fun is not racially motivated.

I don't claim nothing is racially motivated, and you offer statistics demonstrating that some things are. My claim only applies to the McCain ad.

Lumpy wrote:

Also, I'm sorry I thought you were talking about votes and candidacy instead of wages

Don't be sorry. My calling it a symbolic parallel was not a criticism, explicit or implied. The facts you offered fit the bill. I made the affirmative action statement expecting it to be quickly discredited. It was the bait in my little logical trap.

Well, I guess you can be sorry you fell for it. But you don't need to apologize to me about that.

[Kjorteo]

Psudo wrote:

Lumpy wrote:

Does John McCain's reminding Americans to wear suntan lotion when they go outside worry you just as much?

Did he make it a national energy policy issue?

No, but neither did Obama make tire inflation a national energy policy issue. All he was saying was that McCain's offshore drilling idea was ridiculous because you could actually save significantly more oil than offshore drilling would add just by keeping tires inflated. McCain is the one who used Beam Me Up Scotty-style mutation to declare that tire inflation was Obama's platform. "Ha ha, I have an energy plan and all that guy over there can come up with is a lame PSA." No, all he was saying is that your energy plan is stupid because it wouldn't even save as much as his lame PSA would. As it turns out, Obama also has an actual energy plan on top of that.

[Psudo]

Obama did make conservation without new drilling his national energy policy, which is something I find to be ridiculous. Today we have X people using Z barrels of oil. Tomorrow, we'll have X+Y people. What makes him believe we'll be using fewer than Z barrels of oil? No amount of conservation can increase supply, just as no amount of supply can lower demand.

If you've got a building on fire, why send one fire engine when you've got two available? We should conserve and drill at once.

Conservation is an individual action that government is incompetent to enforce. Drilling, however, cannot occur without government intervention, since it's government's laws that are preventing it from being possible. Thus, it's far more important to me that my candidate be pro-drilling than for them to be pro-conservation. And if they're anti-drilling, that's point against them cancels out the pro-conservation point for them. I reckon 1:0 in McCain's favor (2:0 if you count his concession that people should keep their cars tuned and maintained).

Admittedly, oil shale matters more than offshore drilling, which in turn matters more than ANWR. But I'm a both-barrels kind of guy: if X alleviates the problem you're facing, get all the X you can get.

And, technically, Obama's claim was also arguable at best and flat wrong at worst.
The debate goes:
Obama: "Tune-ups and tire inflation will save more than offshore oil will produce."
(estimated at 2.8 billion gallons of gas, or 140 million barrels at 19.5 gallons/barrel)
Critics: "But there are at least 18.2 billion barrels of oil out there! 18.2 billion > 140 million" (same source)
Supporters: "But extraction rate! We can only get it out at 200,000 barrels a day (73 million a year). 73 < 140" (same source)
Critics: "Getting technical, eh? Well, 18.2 billion is the number they came up with as the financially viable amount of oil, when oil was $50/barrel [source]. Now it's $120/barrel, so the bar for financially viable is a lot lower. No study has come out yet for that amount, but it's got to be more. If it's a linear scale (which it probably isn't, but what other means do we have to estimate?), then 120/50*18.2 = 43.7 billion barrels, at 120/50*73 = 175.2 million barrels a year. 175 > 140"
Supporters: "You're doing estimates yourself? You're just an idiot oil addict who can't let go of the energy status quo, aren't you?"
Critics: "Well, you're just an idiot green-bean idealist who can't break out of your Candyland dreams of a solar powered future long enough to see the massive gap between the modern energy consumption and alternative energy potential that can only be bridged by fossil fuels."

Me: You're both idiots. Conservation saves X barrels, and drilling produces Y. No matter what these numbers specifically are, X + Y will always be greater than either one alone. Grab some nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and whatever other energy you want while you're at it. Government should deregulate and stand out of the way while domestic market prices determine what we use. If that means gas prices soar, greenies rejoice! Soaring gas prices will get people to switch to green energy faster than any other force in the universe. Look how people jumped on the hybrid bandwagon these past years.

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The environment is my pet issue, but neither candidate has excited me about it as much as this conversation.

[Lumpy]

Quote:

What makes him believe we'll be using fewer than Z barrels of oil?

I think that if higher gas prices spur development in fuel efficiency research, then the greater fuel efficiency could cause prices to be less on average over a time period than they would have had the gas been used before it was able to be used much more efficiently. Current research makes me optimistic that that effect will greatly outperform the +Y effect, and if they didn't conserve, prices would be as high as they would have been otherwise plus the effect of Y population demanding more fuel.

Meanwhile, the oil offshore can act like a second emergency oil reserve, because there are no assured definite signs that gas will go back down, and it'll be like eating at the same rate you've been eating at the beginning of a famine. I think that balances the needs of the environment with the economy well enough. It's the same logic that led me to decide that opposition to nuclear power is misguided, because if some scientists believe that a turning point where a runaway greenhouse effect makes planetary salvation impossible, then surely environmentalists shouldn't mind taking a risk to avoid that at the risk of localized environmental damage that would be minor in comparison.

Also, I remembered that Gordon Brown over in the United Kingdom had been doing a "not flash, just Gordon" campaign against Opposition Leader David Cameron and suggesting he was an empty celebrity, so I guess it really is just another "Johnny thinks he's so smart because he's got 32 teeth" maneuver and not what I suggested.

[Psudo]

Lumpy wrote:

I think that if higher gas prices spur development in fuel efficiency research

If higher gas prices spur research, then vote Obama. He won't add to supply, and he can't enforce conservation, causing gas prices (and, thus, research) to soar.

There's something unethical about intentionally raising the national cost of living in order to spur research, though. Food prices are already on the rise.

-----
We've gotten quite off topic. McCain's claim of Obama's messianic tendencies: racism or not? Obama talks a lot of change and the great things he wants to bring to the country. Fine. But where is the criticism of him on the substance of his stances? It's not about him failing to be as deformed as the rest of us (as Lumpy suggests), but the belief that the views behind his fine rhetoric are shallow and insubstantial.

Is that belief, that he has no substance, reasonably based? There's a reasonable basis for opposition to (or even mockery of) Obama's conserve-prices-down theory of economics. That can be reasonably taken as an estimation of the substance behind his views, and can reasonably be found insubstantial. He, at best, is asking us to set gas prices back 5.5 years (see below). At worst, he's intending for gas prices to soar as a motivator for research into alternative fuels. If he was elected to two terms, he himself would be starting from square one again in his second term, hoping that 5 years of hopefully-not-accelerated research has given him something substantial (which it might, and which it might not). Even if he's successful in all his aims, he still fails to fix the problem for the duration of his Presidency barring dumb luck.

It's not racism to call him on it.

--------------
Back to the sourced math I know and love!

An estimation of the "+Y effect" is in order. (Great name, by the way! I love it.)

US population, 1998: 270,298,524
US population, 2008: 304,868,573
The difference: 3,457,005 per year (average)

US oil consumption, 2004: 20.73 million bbl/day
US oil consumption, 2005: 20.8 million bbl/day

So, given everything we're doing already, the 3.5 million new Americans each year increase oil consumption by 70,000 million barrels of oil per day each year. 70,000 a day is about 25.5 million per year. Approximately, roughly, give or take.

So proper perfect auto care, if our numbers are correct, sets demand back about 5.5 years. The offshore oil range of estimates, 73 - 175, ranges from just under 3 years to just under 7. All of these "solutions", even combined, won't matter in 15 years.

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Before, I estimated that the change in oil prices would increase the "technically available" (economically viable) amount of oil offshore by about the same as gas prices increased: $50 to $120 is about 2.4 times. A specific oil shale deposit increased about 25 times across a similar oil price increase, a whole order of magnitude greater than what I guessed. The increase in technically available oil off the coasts might, then, be an order of magnitude greater than the 175 million/day guess I proposed.

[Zipperfish]

If Obama's views truly are "shallow and insubstantial" then that might explain the media buzz around him. A shallow and insubstantial candidate fits perfectly with a shallow and insubstantial media.

As for criticism of Obama--that was evident on the American cable news networks yesterday and they were all in a tizzy about a book that is quite critical of Obama (Obama Nation). Unfortunately, the criticsms of Obama in the book are just as shallow and insubstantial as Obama's grandiloquent rhetoric.

Sorry to butt in!

[Lumpy]

There's also the idea that saying that conservation doesn't matter because demand growth will offset that ignores the fact that the conservationists would have made the demand even higher anyway. It doesn't sound that immoral to me if federal funding is invested in energy research programs (some similar to DARPA Grand Challenge, X-Prize, and the competition in which Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic). The 5.5 year delay gives scientific advancement a chance to catch up.

If Obama's proposals are shallow and unfounded, though, why not just say why rather than try to set up a negative correlation between popularity and intelligence? I need to Photoshop Bush into wearing a motor board, graduation gown, and glasses while pointing at a blackboard with all sorts of crazy integral and exponent signs all over.

[Psudo]

What Zipperfish said. Seriously, go read Zipperfish's post again. He's right on.

Quote:

It doesn't sound that immoral to me if federal funding is invested in energy research programs (some similar to DARPA Grand Challenge, X-Prize, and the competition in which Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic).

Fine, invest in energy research. But not at the expense of oil prices. Oil is a near-necessity anyway, and they affect the costs of any shipped necessity (FOOD!). It brings up the cost of living, which hurts everyone's pocketbooks, which is especially bad for the poor. Intentionally hurting the poor is generally considered immoral.

Quote:

The 5.5 year delay gives scientific advancement a chance to catch up.

I feel the need to clarify that number bit. The assumptions necessary to calculate that number require that every American properly fills up their car tires today, spontaneously and voluntarily, and keeps them filled forever more.

1) That won't happen. Ever. People don't act in mass unison like that.
2) That has nothing to do with whether Obama gets elected or not.
3) Is he planning on a law? Then the nanny-state aspect comes into play; how is it government business if I check my tire pressure daily? Will there be AutoCare Police? How much will that set back taxpayers? etc
4) Obama brought it up saying it was worth more oil than McCain's offshore oil drilling idea. It's probably not.
5) Even if it is, there's no way he could know that. He's either guessing or trusting bad numbers. Neither is a Presidential virtue.
6) Obama brought it up to discredit McCain's offshore drilling idea, which a vote for McCain might potentially affect and which might actually lower oil prices.
7) Given all these things, what does Obama plan to do about oil prices if elected? I know of nothing, but maybe I just haven't heard.
8) Given all these things, in what way was Obama's comparison a useful argument in the debate over American energy policy? I say it wasn't, and thus it was shallow and unfounded.

Quote:

If Obama's proposals are shallow and unfounded, though, why not just say why rather than try to set up a negative correlation between popularity and intelligence?

I don't think McCain "tried to set up a negative correlation between popularity and intelligence". I think he tried to set up an inverse correlation between one's media popularity and public critical analysis of one's positions. The media accepts it unquestioningly, leaving flaws in the reasoning unresolved. McCain points out an excellent example of the phenomenon.

A few years ago, McCain benefited from the same yes-man media treatment. If you want to criticize McCain, mention his hypocrisy in that area.

[Psudo]

Interesting note: The Communist Party USA is extolling the virtues of Barack Obama.

Not that support in one direction indicates support in the other. Ronald Reagan's words about the John Birch Society come to mind: "They're accepting my philosophy, I'm not accepting theirs."

All else being equal, though, I'd prefer the support of anti-Communists to the support of Communists. Also, I don't know that Obama has made a similar disavowal of Communism. Maybe the press remembers how weak and invalid the argument was, or maybe this is an example of Obama getting a free pass from the press.

[CanadianJeff]

"Fine, invest in energy research. But not at the expense of oil prices. Oil is a near-necessity anyway, and they affect the costs of any shipped necessity (FOOD!). It brings up the cost of living, which hurts everyone's pocketbooks, which is especially bad for the poor. Intentionally hurting the poor is generally considered immoral."

Freaking damn right. But do keep in mind that increasing dependency on a limited resource does mean that prices are going to keep going up if a new solution isn't found. Don't miss investing in energy research at the expense of oil profits. I agree with the point that we have enough oil to last us a looooong time still but we should still be doing what we can within reason to end dependency on a limited resource.