and Mel Martinez (R-Fl) says there is no oil off of cuba's coasts anyway. Seeing as how cuba is only about 50 miles away from florida, wouldn't they be geoligically similiar? I'm asking because if there's no oil off of cuba, how can we be sure there is oil off of florida? I find it hard to believe (but maybe it's entirely possible) that there would be oil off the coast of florida, but no oil off the coast of cuba, a mere 50 miles away.

Hey, peeps - missed me? I've been ready to jump off the edge of the Rio Grande Gorge. I've been offline since Saturday. First my computer's OS died and I got the spinning apple of death. So I drove to Albuquerque on Monday - 300 miles round trip - bought a brand new laptop and when I got back to Taos, Qwest was down in my part of town. I have fought and fought to get some attention and finally I got the problem straightened out this morning.

What have I missed?

Ok, I want to see a moveon ad or we ad or somebody do an ad on the offshore drilling myth. You can open up with a picture of the oil men in the whitehouse and their Energy Information Administration says:

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher—2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html

Either the EIA is lying or they are lying. Bottom line offshore drilling is good for the oilmen and bad for america. Time to turn the page.

FWIW, I was just visiting CO and the Denver airways were saturated with negative Mark Udall (Dem nom. for Sen-CO) ads along with a few of McSame's.

One ad from the Club for Growth also featured the China drilling off Cuba falsehood. I looked around - even on the CFG website, but could not find a link.

I did find that CFG is spending $400K on anti-Udall ad's in CO. From The Hill blog:

August 6, 2008
Club For Growth to Attack Udall in Colo. Senate Race Over Spending
by Michael Sandler

There were also anti-Udall ad's from some Builder and Contractors group, but I can not recall the exact name.

Folks. It does not matter if it's a bogus myth. It does not even matter if, by some miracle, the truth comes out over what seems to be state run media these days. Even if you detail the facts and refer to government docs that show that the Cuba/China thing is a myth. Once it's out the fearful idiots which have propelled these guys to power will continue to believe it.

Once the truth comes out, the GOP will simply move to yet another fabricated lie to make their case. And then again until election day. They have mastered the art of using collective misinformation to dictate the electorate's perspective of the world.

I simply do not know if there is any way to counter and beat it. I thought that the Democrats had done so in 2006, but they have been so cowardly and inept that the lost their chance to get the public to listen. Had they done what we elected them to do -- get us out of Iraq and bring this administration to justice -- maybe they could command attention and have an audience. Instead, they let the minority GOP determine the course of the message, and continue this folly to this day.