funnyordie.com has been receving some actually funny content lately, and latest up is Paris Hilton purportedly responding to some attack by McCain, and thus beginning her campaign for the presidency. I hate this woman to death and hate what she's done to American teens everywhere (dogs in handbags and oversized glasses to name a few), but this video is pretty damn funny.
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This is really funny, McCain gets pwned by the dumbest celebrity on earth. Maybe text time he'll think twice about his retarded attack ads.
One thing I don't like about this though is that it perpetuates the whole drilling propaganda bullshit. Drilling is not a solution to the energy crisis, it will barely boost oil production and it will take a long ass time to do it. It's not like turning a faucet on. Down the road a decade it will boost domestic production by something like 1% of daily demand. Despite McCain and the Republicans mocking the whole idea of having a properly maintained car the cost/benefit on properly inflated tires is about three times that of raping our coasts for oil profits.

Do you know how much taxpayer land the oil companies have drilling rights on that they haven't even touched yet? I don't remember the number but it's huge. What we're talking about here is opening up off-shore coastal drilling to them so that in roughly ten years we can see a roughly 1% boost in domestic oil production. Assuming they go whole hog on developing the fields, which they may very well not since they are sitting on so much land already that they could invest in if they want. So we sacrifice our coasts to the oil companies and we get barely anything, but  gas prices won't be lowered (or if they are it will be insignificant and not for years) and we run the risk of serious environmental destruction (not to mention the negative effects on tourism that come with having an ugly ass derrick ruining the lovely view of the ocean). That's the reason the prohibition went into place originally, pumping oil out of the ocean gets messy and when you're doing it right off the coast the risks are pretty damn obvious. Go ask anyone who lived in Santa Barbara in the '70s how they feel about coastal drilling. If you actually look at what Obama has said he isn't saying don't drill, he's said you can't drill your way out of the crisis. Which is unfortunately true, certainly it would be nice to boost domestic production, but the easiest solution is to increase efficiency so that we can go further with what we've got. If you gave everyone a $200 tax credit for tuning up their car you would have a significantly greater effect without any sort of risk AND you would simultaneously boost the economy way more effectively than handing over our coastal waters so the oil companies can boost their record profits even further.

The oil companies in the states face high environmental controls, so yes, they would.

Electric cars you morons. ELECTRIC CAAAAAAAAAAARS!

I like Dick's optimism, but sadly no politician can solve the energy crisis.  The problem with looking and fixing  issues individually is that we typically screw up something else in the process.  Take Bio-fuels, wow that will fix everything.  Wait why is the gulf turning green? Why did food prices jump and why do we have all of these starving people?  OK, lets go electric. Wait why are there so many strip mines now?  What are all of those old leaky batteries doing laying around?  etc..

It's going to take an unselfish ordinary person like you and I to "solve" the energy crisis.  Someone to create an alternative energy generation  method or to exponentially increase the efficiency of an energy source and be willing to share it.  Because the only other way I can think of is to balance the use of different types of energy in the most efficient manner.  This has the almost certain to fail due to the lost profits some energy sectors of the economy would face.  Yeah, I know you are thinking oil companies but include farm co-ops and anyone else who has a large stake in energy generation.  This is where the politicians fall on their face and start unraveling a good plan.

People need to stop looking at politicians to solve their problems.  Gore,   the guy flies around in a private jet and uses more energy at his home than twenty-some normal houses.  Obama? LOL, he is already talking about drilling offshore.  The guy is a phony but he gives a good speech.

Seems like there are a lot of smart guys on this forum.  I bet one of you could come up with a workable solution.

Was it over when the Nazi's bombed Pearl Harbor?!

Dude, we sent a man to the fucking moon. In the 1960's.  Solving the energy crisis is really not that hard, we live in the most powerful nation in the history of the human species. Increase efficiency to buy us the time and lessen the impact on the economy, invest in the various promising technologies we know of, do the R&D on the more far out stuff. We'll have the energy crisis solved in our life time. Unless you are as old as John McCain...

I took your advice sorta and read a fairly comprehensive review of the documentary.  I often wondered what happened with that car, I know someone who had(he might still have it)one and for a commuter car it seemed to work out.  It was no slug either.  The company I work for even put up a charger for him in the parking lot. 

If any of you out there are wondering about electric motor  vs combustion engine performance, remember that if I have a 300 hp electric servo motor and I hit the start button with the knob turned to 300 hp, it hits 300 hp almost instantly(Add a special driver and I can also peg the torque curve thru most the speed range).  Also,  with the right driver and "Y" Delta wiring, I can take a 150 hp motor and "cook" it and make it act like a 300 hp motor for a little bit.

But it reinforces what I was saying about politicians and companies that stand to lose profits from ideas like this.  The solution will need to be unselfish, that's going to be hard to do.   Good reading.