Oh, c'mon, OCF.  Will there be costs (dollar spend) to explore, extract and to refine and to get to market?  Will the firms which explore, extract, refine, transport to market also want a profit?  Yes and yes--so it won't cost $2 per gallon.  Plus the pollution/aggravation cost will be Republican:  privatization of profits but socialization of allied detrimental costs (pollution, traffic, supporting infrastructure, etc).

Gonna spend all that money to explore, produce, extract, refine, transport to market?  Here's a better solution.  Buy a Prius.  50 miles per gallon.  Or spend the explore, produce, extract, refine, transport money on developing renewable, less pollutiing alternatives (solar or wind or cars that get 80 mpg and ways to make industrial machinery more efficient, etc etc).  I'm not even getting into ethanol and the way--early primaries--that the politicians of all sides caved in to the Iowa corn farmers.

This is just common sense and basic economics.  That the party of anger (well, the tea side of it) doesn't see this is sad.

Oil is not the future...unless you're an oil company or allied with them.

The jobs are in leading the world (isn't that the American way?) in new industries, not riding dinosaurs.

Monroe,

Nat gas is a great transition fuel until the time that solar and other technologies are ready for prime time.  There have been great strides made in recent years in the efficiency of solar panels.  If that level of improvement continues for the next decade, we may really have a great alternative in solar panels that can produce enough electricity to charge that electric car on a regular and reliable basis for an affordable price.  For that we'll also need the economies of mass production. Right now, though -- due to the new discoveries -- we are the Saudi Arabia of nat gas.  This fuel is much less polluting than oil/gasoline.  The government has been slow to get on the nat gas bandwagon; however, as is often the case, it's not going to make much of a difference because the private sector is seeing the profits to be obtained and are starting to act on their own.  A company named Clean Energy is teaming up right now with Chesapeake Energy (a producer of nat gas) to put up a number of nat gas fueling stations for overland trucks.  This is a major investment.  The trucks to be fitted with nat gas engines (replacing diesel) will be a great step forward not only for energy independence but also to reduce total polution.  Personally, I hope that nat gas as a transition fuel will buy us enough time that we will successfully develop fusion reactors in the interim.  This would provide an abundant source of energy with no possibility of radiation danger for the general population as a fusion reactor, unlike the current fission reactors, can be walked through within a half hour of shut down because the half-lives of the radioactive particles are measures in nano-seconds rather than centuries.  Progress will come in spite of the "progressives."

Monroe,  I'm more of a social conservative than a fiscal conservative.  I would not be opposed to some limited tax hikes, but I do think that a majority of our budgetary efforts at this point should be on the side of cutting our bloated federal government.  As you can tell I'm not a Tea Party type, though I do think that they offer a useful counterbalance to some our more extreme left wing folks.  I fashion myself as a Lincoln Republican.  In order to fully understand what that means you need to study not only the political positions of the Radical Republicans of the Civil War era, but also the economic and cultural stands of the precursor Whig Party.  Lincoln never really abandoned his Whig roots and Whig principles.  The portrayal of Lincoln in popular culture as a modern day liberal is not at all accurate.  Boy, I digress.  To answer your question, yes I would be willing to hear your plan.  Fire away, old buddy!  

BTW, Go OHIO! 

Well, Monroe, as I said, I'm #3 on BL's list -- but it looks like I might be gaining ground on you.  As you can see, BL is on one of his witch hunts again.  It's interesting how he plays the stereotypes.  For the record, I can't stand Gov. Perry and have already told many people that if he gets the GOP nomination I"m voting independent, Libertarian, or some other third party.  He's the worst person in the whole field of announced candidates, IMHO.  I wouldn't trust him farther than i could throw him, which isn't very far since I'm not a strong guy.  

Nah. You can talk about all the politics you want now, because you're in Siberia.

The curious thing to me is that, when the subject turns to religion, athiests will never acknowledge that athiesm is in itself a religious view. "There is a God" and "there is no God" are both equally unprovable. Similarly the question of abortion, and the related question of the appropriateness of creating and farming embryos for stem cells is a moral question that is not necessarily a religious one, as it isn't directly addressed in the religious books of any religion that i am aware of.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we aren't talking about the actual results of the stem cell research, just the fact that certain people do not want Government funds to be used to actually investigate the worthiness of the science.

Yes, you are wrong.  We are talking about the actual results of research using embryonic stem cells both in this country and more widely in other parts of the world.  Lots of time people hear the word "stem cell research" and they don't distinguish between three basic types of stem cells -- embryonic, adult and placental.  As L.C. has pointed out, only in the embryonic area do we run into controversy, for the reasons that he mentions.  There's not one shred of controversy about using either of the other two sources of stem cells for research.  For the record, I've heard politicians on both sides of the political spectrum in the most demagogic fashion blur this distinction to fire up their base.  Left wing politician: "Those Republican bastards want to ban all stem cell research.  This research is on the verge of finding a cure for cancer and a treatment for paralysis."  Right wing politician: "Obama and his henchmen want to kill unborn babies in order to extract stems cells for research."  

Actually I'm not wrong and you just proved me right. The question is about whether Government funds should be used for stem cell research. You just chose to take it a step further and distinguish between embryonic, adult, and placental.

DC is correct in pointing out BL's error.  The only thing that I might add is that "W" also approved for government funded research, and this was quite controversial among his most conservative base, the use of embryonic stem cells from a few specific pre-existing lines.  This meant that no new embryos were destroyed, but these were still stem cells that originally came from destroyed embryos.  I, personally, think that W drew the line at an appropriate place in making this decision. 

No, the issue is when life begins, and thus, whether it is right to harvest embryos or not. The battle in today's socio-political climate is taking place over the issue of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but if the socio-political situation shifts with time, the battleground may change. The issue will remain the same.