Tar Sands Pipeline Rejected!

[ericadawn16]

I know I wasn't supposed to post anything but PIPA & SOPA today but this is important, too.

Obama has rejected the permit for the Tar Sands Pipeline!

You remember that one; the pipeline that would create thousands of TEMPORARY jobs and guarantees an oil spill over sensitive environmental lands in order to ship oil that takes 5-30% more energy to make than normal oil.

Yay, Obama!

Now, let's do more with alternative fuels and energies, like biomass waste. We're fifty years behind because of the oil and car companies.

Comments

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

YAY Obama!

[jackdavfan692.livejournal.com]

I was just going to post an entry on my own LJ about this, but you beat me to it :P. Oh well, you know what they say about the early bird :].

Anyway, YES, good for you, President Obama, and THANK YOU 8)! I'll admit he's disappointed me a few times during his term thus far, but this has restored my faith in him, if you will, in a BIG way =)! I was planning to vote for him anyway before he did this, because God help us if one of the nutcases/radical right-wingers currently in the running for the Republican nomination ends up in the White House (except maybe Ron Paul) =[! But now that he's given the finger to the oil companies, I want to give him another term for more reasons than just because he's better than what any of those guys will probably give us (again, except for possibly Ron Paul) , should one of them become president C:.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Jobs are jobs -- remember how the President was lauded for 'creating' jobs with the census?

I'd rather we get some more oil from a friendly, neighboring country than from over-seas.

And I don't know that a pipeline guarantees an oil spill at all.

But whatever. Let's just keep doing nothing, since it's working so well right now. :/

[chamilet]

It's my understanding that he rejected it because the Republicans pressured him into accepting it RIGHT NOW before all the research had been done. It still may go through, but they have to reapply.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Democrats pushed it through too.

What Obama is doing is NOT making a decision during an election year, because he doesn't want to commit to anything that will piss his base off.

It's political pandering and bargaining in order to get re-elected. His job is not to get re-elected. His job is to do his best to fix things, and I'm not getting that sense of urgency from him about creating jobs.

His other bills have already failed to accomplish much of anything; how about working on something that would actually generate jobs?

[chamilet]

Well, I, for one am willing to sacrifice a few jobs now if it means none of the numnuts running for the Republican nomination actually become President!!

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

I am so, so glad that you are making the sacrifice of having more jobs in this country. It's good to know there are so many selfless people in this country.

Remind me again. What exactly are you sacrificing?

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Right.

Now, a lot of people like Ron Paul and I can understand when it comes to his views on defense and fiscal conservatism BUT...

I think there are some things you should know about him.

"You know I just, I don't think of people in little groups like that. I don't think of people as ‘gay' here and ‘black people' there, or ‘women' over here...Everybody is an individual person and everybody has the same rights as anyone else. The government has no business in your private life, you know, so if one person is allowed to do something so should everyone else. The whole gay marriage issue is a private affair and the federal government has no say."

Which sounds great, right? Except it means that he wouldn't support a national law to give homosexuals the right to marry so each state would decide and we'd still have the mess we have now.

"Staying true to his brand of extreme libertarianism, Paul said he objected to the Civil Rights Act because of its infringement on private property rights. He said that while he would favor repealing Jim Crow laws, the United States “would be better off” without government intruding on and policing personal lives. When Chris Matthews pressed the issue, asking if it should be legal for shop owners to not allow blacks, Paul responded, “That’s ancient history. That’s over and done with.” "

He thinks businesses should have the right to discriminate how they please. Now, I agree that businesses should have the right to demand certain things like wearing shoes and shirts. I don't want them to be able to kick people out because they're female, gay, black, what have you.

"“I am strongly pro-life. I think one of the most disastrous rulings of this century was Roe versus Wade. I do believe in the slippery slope theory. I believe that if people are careless and casual about life at the beginning of life, we will be careless and casual about life at the end. Abortion leads to euthanasia. I believe that.”
At the same time, Ron Paul believes that the ninth and tenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution do not grant the federal government any authority to legalize or ban abortion. Instead, it is up to the individual states to prohibit abortion."

This is what we had prior to Roe vs Wade and led to thousands of women dying from unsafe procedures.

" After a lunch speech today, Ron Paul slammed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and said that no national response to Hurricane Irene is necessary.

“We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960,” Paul said. “I live on the gulf coast, we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.

“There’s no magic about FEMA. They’re a great contribution to deficit financing and quite frankly they don’t have a penny in the bank. We should be coordinated but coordinated voluntarily with the states,” Paul told NBC News. “A state can decide. We don’t need somebody in Washington.”"

I know California gets their share of hurricanes but I live in Florida. We went through 4 hurricanes in the span of 4-6 weeks in 2004. Now, yes, we understand that we have to focus on our own shit first and the state government has always been really good at coordinating with locals governments about that. However, our state CANNOT afford the cost of all the aftermath of cleaning, fixing and rebuilding as well as mobile units, temporary housing and providing food and essentials. To think any one state or community in the aftermath of a disaster can simply provide for itself is to assume a toddler can be left alone for hours and hours with no harm done to it.

"Under a Paul presidency the departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Interior would cease to exist."

AKA the poor are FUCKED!

So, I don't know how you feel but I can't drink the kool-aid. He's better than the others but he's still wrong for the US. If you want links, I can provide them.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe not an actual "spill" but it will leak. That's inevitable because every pipe develops a leak especially when you're dealing with pipes that are very large and covering great distances.

Think how often your own home develops leaks.

I can't find the study itself but there are several places online that quote a study: US Federal Office of Pipeline Safety data — 1968-1997. It said the average pipeline suffers one leak per year per 400 miles and I think this sounds right. It could be different in other areas but we're always hearing about gas leaks or oil leaks.