Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... rilling_17

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.

The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said. The House has not included a similar provision in its budget, so the issue is still subject to negotiations later this year to resolve the difference.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.

paladisiac beat you to it.

http://www.obner.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4961

are these guys even looking at what the vote for or are their hands all rigged up with strings?

man, today's news sucks.

Here's another one: Paul Wolfowitz is to be nominated as head of the world bank.

This makes me very angry. Letter-writing time. Fuck me with a sideways fork.

Assholes.

The big lie this time around is that we can drill for oil up there on the tundra with minimal impact on the ecology. Bullshit. What it comes down to is that we really don't care to protect our natural resources, or else we would be working hard to reduce our dependency on petroleum. This is fucked-up.

oh i saw that. i'm pretty sure the only good thing i saw on c..com today was about that little girl that rides a mule to school. The rest sucks...ermm, donkey.

you go boy.

I like to combat ineptitude with futility. It builds my self-esteem.

You just know, though, that if a band named No Blood for Oil and with a UK pedigree came along, that Dalen would be on that shit like a fly. And, he'd sell his SUV too, and start walking everywhere, to show his solidarity with the cause....

Shit, Dalen, you lame.

SUV? fuck that. Jetta baby, Jetta.

the best part of all of this is that it will solve our oil problems, making usindependent from the Mid East and Terrorists. YAY! I Kicked a Home Run! YAY!

This reminds me of the time when Clinton deployed 'very special' forces to Iraq, back in '97 or '98.

Since we're talking politics, does anyone have a transcript of the recent debate between Howard Dean and Richard Perle? I can't find it anywhere.

There was an article in the onion a while back about how the nation's liberals are suffering from outrage fatigue. Sometimes, they really just hit the nail on the head.

I'll try to find and post the article once I get home; it's pretty funny.

I watched it on C-Span ( assuming there was only 1, & we're talking about the same event ) - you might wanna check their site.

Does anyone have a site to see how my senators voted?

Yep. Pretty much me since last November, even though I'm an independant moderate.

Now, I fear that our Coral Reefs, the only reefs contiguous in the US, will be next. I'm sad for Alaska, but fearful for the door it opens on other refuge(s).

kind of re-writes the definition of refuge, don't you think?

nail meets head, sez this concerned scientist.

if we wait long enough there won't be any coral reefs left anyway - so it's cool.

Hooray for evil!!!

Today is a good day.

Yep...if you think this is just a "one-off" deal you've got your head buried so deep you might strike oil yourself.