BULLETIN!  TELL YOUR FRIENDS – AT 10:59 A.M. ET:  Can it be?  Am I reading correctly?  Is the Obama administration about to do something...intelligent?  From The Politico:

Next week, the Interior Department is likely to approve the first Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permit that was held up in the wake of the BP oil spill.

An announcement can’t come soon enough for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Obama administration, who have been criticized by Gulf state lawmakers for a “de facto” drilling ban long after the BP leak was plugged. Political upheaval in the Middle East has also driven oil prices upwards, creating more pressure on the administration to act.

COMMENT:  Yeah, it's that inconvenient Mideast stuff.  Mustn't let people ask questions.

It's disgraceful, just disgraceful.  We should be opening up vast areas for safe, efficient drilling, and doing it as a national emergency.  We have plenty of oil in the U.S., but environmental extremists, who never liked cars with engines, have a grip on the Obama White House.  They're waiting around for cars fueled by hydrogen, or bubble gum.  Those bubble-gum cars get 20 miles a chew.

We all want clean energy, clean air, clean ears for children.  But we're still an oil-based economy.  Until we can make an effective, efficient transition to new fuels that actually work, we will need oil, lots of it.  It is gross negligence on the part of this left-wing administration to deny the nation's needs.

February 26, 2011