My supplied picture from Wikipedia is of Mitch McConnell the President's point man on everything.  I once ask him to step up the oversight, but the GOP still did nothing but give Bush and his cronies a green light to do almost anything they wanted including riding roughshod over the Constitution. Imagine a Senate that condones cronyism and incompetence!   I used to think that Conservatism had values, but the last eight years of  behavior has taught me it has only one major value, money and power, and all the other values are subservient to it.    Mitch has alluded to as much when he talks about free speech.

            If you listen to the talking points of Big Oil and the GOP, you'd think that the government is preventing adequate oil exploration.  They make it sound like the oil companies are against the wall that the GOP is really looking out for the business interests and the every day commuter.  Actually, the GOP is wanting to turn a sows ear into a silk purse.

            They have done a terrible job across the board for four eight years and four more years of the same is hard to sell.  However, if you can blame the Democrats and their nominee for the GOP stonewalling on alternative energies and global warming, not creating standards and enforcing the repair of the national grid, and failing to support the Kyoto Protocols (which hundreds of US cities have done lowering their emissions and creating jobs contrary to the GOP talking points).

            My US Senator, Mitch McConnell, is the chief of the obstructionists (not bragging, just fact) to achieving sustainability.  He has been brilliant in leading and pleading the President's case, protecting Big Oil and Coal (KY's Ace in the Hole), subverting energy independence and action on global warming.   Coal is devastating as an air and water polluter.  This does not include the mountaintop removal and the devastation that it brings to a community and the environment.

          I have written Sen. McConnell and talked with him in person, but Coal companies have much more money than my rhetoric and vote.  Mitch believes money is free speech.  Go figure!  So we do need to write, cal and protestl, but first we need to look into the mirror.  And ask the Gandhian question.- do I embody the change I want to see in this country?

           These are great times we are living in now.  We get to participate in two great events the dying of fossils fuels as a primary source and the birthing of alternative energy.  And maybe we will choose to adopt a sustainable lifestyle in the process.  What frightens us is the shear dependence we have on these three centralized sources of fossil energy - oil, coal, and gas.  When the northeastern grid went down a few years back (interestingly the same problem can happen again, the GOP did a half assed job) some people were scared in NYC.  So it goes back to us and what we want and are we willing to change to get it.  Voting for change is not the same as living it.  Change is hard and nearly impossible for the obstructionist and very hard for the faint of heart.

           So I am voting for  Mitch's opponent this fall, and I have taken to riding a bicycle to shop, go to work, to visit, and for pleasure.  Also, trying to lowering my carbon footprint over time,  I replaced my lights with compact fluorescents and monitor my electric usage turning off things that don't need to on when I am not in the room or using them.  The most uncomfortable is the dialing back of the AC.   Louisville gets fairly hot and humid in July and August, but so do other parts of the country.

             Oil companies want to drill in the areas that are protected off shore as well as in Alaska, but what they won't say is they have millions of acres of land that they do have permission to drill on in the US including Alaska.  Why is it so important to have what they can't have now!  Because both political parties generally have given Big Oil and Big Coal whatever they wanted.  Now is different for several reasons - 1. global warming will cost us more than any benefits from using fossil fuels,  2. we can not sustain our society on the burning of fossil fuels (do we really want economic competition to be settled by our Armed Forces ... Is that what we have become)  3.  The country that moves to energy independence using renewables has a competitive advantage.   4.  It is immoral to burn & use up the resources our future generations might need (have we become that narcissistic or just that much of an addict to fossil fuels).

               Big Oil has become Big Tobacco of the 1990s.  Remember the lies in Congress Big Tobacco  told, will .... Therrrre back!  There isn't an easy fix that George has failed to lead us.  We have to get ourselves out.  Any oil drilled for now will not hit the market for over ten years.  And it will not be enough to effect the price at the pump, but by pennies or a dime at the most.  This information comes from economists in & out of government and the oil industry as well.   So they have us, so are we going to acquiesce to their demands or develop a life & country we can sustain on our own?