The CBS Evening News does a Reality Check On Offshore Drilling

(CBS) With gasoline hovering around $4.00 a gallon, a new poll shows two out of three Americans now agree with President Bush – that Congress should permit drilling on the outer continental shelf, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

“Experts believe that currently restricted areas … could eventually produce up to 18 billion barrels of oil,” Mr. Bush said in a recent speech.

Even in Santa Barbara, Calif., where a huge oil spill from an ocean rig blowout in 1969 turned most Californians against offshore drilling, some people are having second thoughts.

“Well, if it doesn’t hurt the environment too bad and it lowers gas prices, I’m all for it,” said driver Sean Scott.

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With Republican Senators throwing away his money like it is diseased, and the NRO Editors telling him to leave, using an allusion to Simon & Garfunkel for a headline, it is probably time for Ted Stevens to head back to “The Last Frontier” and enjoy some “Midnight Sun”, before the “United States versus Theodore Stevens” gets underway.

McClatchy reports that Israel’s Olmert to resign over corruption investigation

JERUSALEM — Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Wednesday that he’ll resign as prime minister in September, setting the stage for a successor to take over as early as the following month.

Olmert made it clear that he was reluctantly stepping aside because a deepening political corruption investigation was making it increasingly difficult for him to serve effectively.

Maybe if he hadn’t been accepting suitcases of unmarked, small bills he wouldn’t have these problems. I understand that checks are acceptable, but, alas, traceable ways of transferring large sums of money. Accepting credit cards is probably not a good idea.

Republicans politicians are donating the money they have received from Ted Stevens to charities to avoid the “taint” as McClatchy reports

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Wednesday became the latest GOP senator facing re-election to donate to charity money his campaign had received from indicted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
…

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., have agreed to give their Stevens-based donations to charity and GOP senators running for re-election in Maine and Minnesota are likewise being urged by their Democratic rivals to return Stevens-based money.

The US campaign financing laws are a joke. An individual is limited to $2,300 in bribes, but they can form a “Political Action Committee” and spew money like an artesian well.

So there’s really no need for “green” energy.

The Miami Herald reports that the Florida Public Service Commission isn’t buying: State shuts down FPL energy program

State regulators Tuesday terminated a Florida Power & Light voluntary green energy program because three-fourths of the money customers were donating went to marketing and administrative costs.

By a unanimous vote, the Public Service Commission ended FPL’s Sunshine Energy Program in which 39,000 customers have voluntarily added $9.75 to their monthly electric bill so that FPL could purchase renewable energy.

FPL in turn contracted with a Texas company, Green Mountain Energy, to carry out the program. PSC staff have been trying for months to find out where the money went, but all it could learn was that 24 percent was going to purchase renewable energy.

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Keith Kisser of Invisible Library has finished his move to Oregon and now has his book available through Amazon.

If you are ready for a Gothic fairy tale go to The Machine Of The World.

As the world succumbs to a slow death, choking on mushrooms and poison, a young servant girl is caught in the last attempts by human hands to thwart fate and the destiny of all living things.

Should you believe that you are “too old” for fairy tales, you might try reading them with an adult perspective.  They are not the fun, happy stories you think you remember, nor is Keith’s.