T. Boone Pickens has a plan to get off foreign oil

[screembloodymurder]

http://www.pickensplan.com/

Hope is not enough, we need a plan. Obama needs to talk with the T-man. He's a fire fighter.

[rox63]

1. Pickens is the Right-Wing tool that financed the Swift Boat Liars

I'd sooner talk to slime mold than talk to Pickens.

[hobbit709]

2. T Boone Pickens is only in it for the money he can make

He could care less about the environment, dependence on foreign oil or anything like that. His record speaks for itself.

[screembloodymurder]

4. He's proposing using wind for electrical power and natural gas for cars.

I don't care who makes money. It's clean, it gets us off foreign oil, and it's a plan. I hear a lot of whining in here, but not many solutions. We can't live on hope alone.

[blm]

8. He helped block earlier plans (made by others) being implemented by a Pres. Kerry until THEY gained

some control of the industries involved.

Yeah - let's reward him now for making sure those who held these plans earlier wouldn't get the big contracts from a Kerry administration. Hell, Pickens helped Bush get into office in 2000 and worked against Gore.

This nation would have been using alternative energy for years now if not for Pickens and his fellow energy cronies.

[CTyankee]

3. Well, he's right about wind farms. Bill Clinton was talking about the technology

needed for wind farms in a speech at the US Conference of Mayors last month. Clinton was talking in glowing terms about the potential for energy in the US with wind. Evidently, Denmark is already doing it and producing lots of energy.

Pickens has started his own wind farm in Texas. He says it is cheap and we have the world's biggest supply of it.

Obama needs to get on this in a big way. I hope the unveiling of his energy plan is coming soon!

[screembloodymurder]

6. I agree. We need leadership and a plan.

Why let the oil companies determine our future by default. Until we announce our own plan, they have the podium.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. T Boone Pickens suggests something that dirty fucking hippie enviromentalists

have been drawing up detailed plans for since the 1970's, and every dumbshit newscaster and message board fuckwit jumps to attention.

Fuck T. Boone Pickens.

[screembloodymurder]

7. I'd give the devil the benefit of a hearing

if it meant we could get together on a plan. Don't shoot the plan just cause you don't like the messenger.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. The problem is that it takes the devil to convince you a plan exists

There are plans. Tons of them. Good ones. But some people won't look at them because they're not created by dipshit oil barons. Thanks for contributing to that.

[islandmkl]

9. regardless of anyone's 'opinion' of T. Boone Pickens...

what is the flaw in his proposal?....

that he might make money?

that he was against Gore and Kerry?

that he has made more money from oil than almost anyone you can name?

...maybe he is trying to accomplish something in his lifetime beyond mass accumulation of wealth...

he seems to be putting money where his mouth is...something that has been VERY RARE in the alternative energy sector...

spare me the angst...we are facing mounting energy crises for the foreseeable future...and we are going to dismiss a project like this because we are opposed to the person proposing it?

yeah, us old hippies have been clamoring for alternative energy sources for decades...i, for one, am not about to let my general disdain for a mega-capitalist like Pickens get in the way of some potential REAL PROGRESS in this area...

[Javaman]

11. I, however, am going to allow my general disdain for mega-capitalists

get in the way.

guys of his ilk usually don't change their stripes and until they find a way to screw the poor and make money at it. Until he shows a real honest effort, I so won't give him the benefit of the doubt.

given his history of financing the swift boat idiots, I trust him not

[warren pease]

10. It's much easier than that:...

Just annex Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait, a few of the former SSRs, grant them instant statehood and... Presto! No more foreign oil. Just fine domestic crude.

And because the gouging oil companies just want to kiss and make up, everybody gets a conciliatory $500 voucher good for leaf blowers, chainsaws, lawn mowers, pressure washers and all those other gas-powered decibel machines that American male suburban dorks use as sexual attractants while saving up their money for penile enlargement surgery.

Best of all, any form of bitching about global climate change is now a capital crime. All this thanks to near-unanimous congressional approval for the new "America Says Fuck You, World" legislation introduced, sponsored and fast-tracked by the democratic "leadership" in both houses.


USA! USA! USA!


And for the ironically challenged: :sarcasm:


wp

[screembloodymurder]

12. Sarcasm noted.

People like you are part of the problem.

[warren pease]

16. That would be because...

... I don't sit around hanging my head and gnashing my teeth over the absolute certainty that the consumer will get screwed, always and forever, no matter what kind of faux solution to foreign fossil fuels addiction T. Boone or anybody else comes up with?

That the outcome is preordained by the very nature of this zero-sum bullshit perversion of capitalism that's been shoved down our throats?

Or the fact that T. Boone is a profit-driven predator by nature and will always make sure that his needs are taken care of first? Not that he's a two-dimensional cardboard cutout like, say, McPain. He's a complex guy. But don't misinterpret his priorities.

This is a guy who helped invent the entire pathological leveraged buyout, junk bond, corporate raider and "greenmail" culture that codified and perfected many of the strategies and tactics Wall St. has used to transfer money upward from the lower 98 percent into the pockets of the ruling class.

He first gained notoriety for buying and breaking up companies, assigning customers to his other holdings, selling off everything that wasn't welded directly to the frame, and then firing everybody who wasn't either hooked into the power structure or adept at playing the corporate suck-up game.

It's logical to argue that the source of funding is irrelevant as long as defined objectives are met. But motivation does matter, imo. I'd rather trust a guy who funds massive sustainable energy projects because fossil fuel consumption is killing live on earth.

Somebody who's seriously afraid his kids and grandkids will inherit a toxic, sweltering, ugly world where natural disasters and endless war are the only sure things, rather than the beautiful planet he remembers back when he was a kid.

He'll have a personal interest in sustainable energy technologies. He'll demand the highest quality in design, materials and construction methods. And he'll spend what it takes to maintain the mechanical, chemical and electronic systems at peak operating efficiency for the projected life span of the equipment.

In contrast, a profiteer without an emotional investment in the project is going to get things done as quickly and cheaply as possible, then sell off his financial interest as soon as possible for some obscene capital gain.

Ownership transfers to some gluttonous conglomerate with no interest whatsoever in promoting sustainability or preventing planetary collapse. It's only interested in improving its profit margins and will serve that objective by jacking up kilowatt hour rates beyond normal pain points, staging phony power outages to justify even more rate increases and eliminating the expense of required maintenance. Then the greedy bastards will watch contentedly as the whole thing grinds to a halt. That's because, with metal prices hitting the roof at commodities exchanges worldwide, they stand to make another fortune by off the scrap metal.

So if T. Boone has a plan or system that removes the rationale behind these constant wars of imperialist resource-grabbing throughout the Middle East, wonderful. If it also helps stave off global ecocide cause by rapid and severe climate change, so much the better.

However, if all it does is put a few billion more into T. Boone's offshore accounts, he'll take it and tough shit for everybody else and their high-minded agenda. Altruism isn't part of his makeup. Vegetarianism isn't part of the makeup of a great white shark, either. You can't blame either of them just for being what they are.

So I'm part of the problem, eh? You better get straight on what the problem actually is first, and it doesn't have anything to do with windmills and active vs. passive solar and declining global albido and battery technologies and power delivery infrastructures. It has everything to do with a national culture encourages greedy predators to dictate the rules of the game.

I don't think systemic problems are ever fixed by the very people who created them. And I don't think you can ever trust sharks -- of any species -- to renounce their natures and devote the rest of their lives to social justice and respect for all living creatures.


wp

[HughBeaumont]

13. Wow, all of a sudden T Boone Chickens cares about the en-VY-rnment?

Sorry, but he worked like hell, via lies and media money funnelling, to re-install the same oily shitbags that made this environmental and energy disaster what it is today. I trust T Boone and his motives about as far as I can throw them.

[blm]

14. he made his big money off Bush's terms and bought time to gain control of alternative energy

technology for his NEXT business venture.

I have no doubt that he is promoting himself as the savior of the environment to come out in the fall endorsing McCain as his 'clear' choice.....no matter what he claims now.