Cleveland Sports Forum

As fate would have it a viewer actually wrote in this morning and asked Fox News the very subject we were discussing. Why gas prices are so high given that oil export is at a record high.

Charles Payne, a business guy from the Fox Business network corrected the viewer and said it is refined fuel that is at a record high, and said oddly enough it actually is a supply and demand thing.

He said there is a huge demand for American refined jet fuel, diesel fuel, and liquid natural gas right now across the world. And even though the demand is not as high here at home there is still a huge demand for our refined products elsewhere.

He also said taxes are an issue. That fossil fuels are the new sin and they are being taxed at federal and state levels.

He said prices will be raising too.

So it's a simple question. If we were allowed to drill for more oil off-shore and in Alaska and companies could afford to open new refineries without the new burdensome regulations, do you think gas prices here at home would be cheaper?

I already know the answer but draw your own conclusions. Or as they say, Fox News guy "reported, you decide."

By the way, he also said liquid natural gas could be absolutely huge for this country in the near future, if environmentalists don't mess it up. Said after the keystone pipeline that fracking is the next issue they are going to go after.

From what I understand, the Keystone Pipeline will do nothing for US oil consumption. It will take the tar field oil (which the US cannot use) in Alberta and pipe it to Houston where it will loaded on ships and sent to China.

All it does for the US is create temporary construction jobs. The other jobs will be maintenance jobs cleaning up the spills....and there will be spills.

U.S. Government scientists just announced that the earths average temperature cooled to the second lowest temperature of the 21st century.

Seagull:

You're buying the environmentalists bill of goods.

We already have thousands of miles of pipelines operating in America. Including in the Ogallala aquifer, the rich farming area that runs from South Dakota to Texas which people are trying to tell you is a virgin area and needs protection.

Here is a picture of the pipelines in the U.S. ...
The Ogallala aquifer ...
Here is a picture of all the pipelines in Europe. ...

http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/europ ... es_map.jpg

When was the last time you heard of a disasterous spill?

Those rare instances there is a spill it is cleaned up completely and quickly. That's why I don't understand the debate about ANWR or the Keystone Pipeline. It is far safer to drill and ship on land. The pictures from Valdez and the gulf should make us far more interested in this method.

http://blog.heartland.org/2012/01/the-m ... ally-safe/

In an attempt to justify his awful decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama is relying on the public swallowing a couple of myths: 1) the perception that the Ogallala aquifer that Keystone XL would cross is virgin territory which has never seen the likes of a pipeline before, and 2) that the administration doesn’t have enough information to make a decision. If one scratches beneath the surface just a little bit, neither idea holds up to a little scrutiny.

The Ogallala is the massive aquifer that runs from South Dakota to Texas. It’s particularly important to agricultural production in Nebraska and Kansas, so it’s entirely reasonable for people to be concerned about contamination. However, the fact is that we’ve been building and operating thousands of miles of pipelines throughout the Ogallala for decades. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, so you can see the proof for yourself. Here’s a map showing the Ogallala (the shaded area) and the myriad of pipelines that cross it today.

What this map clearly illustrates is how disingenuous the Obama administration and the environmental fringe have been when expressing their “concerns” about Keystone XL.

We’ve been building pipelines over this and all sorts of other environmentally sensitive areas for a long, long time. We know how to do that safely and responsibility. On those rare occasions when spills or leaks happen, we have the regulatory and technical tools in place to ensure that they are cleaned up quickly and completely. The administration’s hand-wringing over the Ogallala is nothing but a distraction in other words. Just as environmental group’s predictions of disaster surrounding the Alaska pipeline never came true, Obama’s concerns over the Ogallala are merely an excuse to justify opposition to a project that is so clearly in the national interest.

The President’s claim that the State Department needs even more information before it can make a sound decision is equally ridiculous. State didn’t start reviewing the project last month when Congress set a sixty day deadline on making a decision. The review process has been going on for over three years now. The State Department has studied thousands of pages of detailed reports, data, maps and studies, and his issued thousands of pages of its own reports, including a massive eight volume environmental impact statement.

The President wants the public to believe that Congress imposed an arbitrary, impossibly short deadline on it. In fact, what Congress did was force the administration to end the years of dithering and an actual decision for a change. The President had more than enough information to make the right decision, but – sadly and all too predictably – he choose to appease the environmental fringe once more.

Himalayan glaciers have lost no ice in the past 10 years, new study reveals

Published February 09, 2012 FoxNews.com

The U.N. got it wrong on Himalaya’s glaciers -- and the proof is finally here.

The authors of the U.N.’s climate policy guide were red-faced two years ago when it was revealed that they had inaccurately forecast that the Himalayan glaciers would melt completely in 25 years, vanishing by the year 2035.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, ultimately issued a statement offering regret for what turned out to be a poorly vetted statement.

A new report published Thursday, Feb. 9, in the science journal Nature offers the first comprehensive study of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, and one of its conclusions has shocked scientists. Using GRACE, a pair of orbiting satellites racing around the planet at an altitude of 300 miles, it comes to the eye-popping conclusion that the Himalayas have barely melted at all in the past 10 years.

"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise," said University of Colorado at Boulder physics John Wahr, who led the study.

Some previous estimates of ice loss in the high Asia mountains had predicted up to 50 billion tons of melting ice annually, said Wahr, who is also a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Instead, results from GRACE pin the estimated ice loss from those peaks -- including ranges like the Himalayas and the nearby Pamir and Tien Shan -- at only about 4 billion tons of ice annually.

Bristol University glaciologist Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, told the Guardian that such a level of melting was practically insignificant.

"The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero," he told the Guardian.

Bamber was quick to caution that the new study doesn’t alter his view that the climate is changing, and rapidly.

“This new study doesn't change our view of the risks and threats from climate change,” he said in an online chat at the Guardian. “What it does do is improve our knowledge of the recent behavior of one part of the climate system.”

Indeed, Wahr’s study clearly notes that lower-altitude glaciers and ice caps are melting, to the tune of about 150 billion tons of ice annually, which the study predicts could lead to an overall rise in sea levels. He concluded that the higher altitude and therefore colder Himalayan peaks may be temporarily impervious to factors causing melting.

"One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, many of the high glaciers would still be too cold to lose mass even in the presence of atmospheric warming," Wahr said.

According to GRACE data published in the study, total sea level rise from all land-based ice on Earth including Greenland and Antarctica was roughly 1.5 millimeters per year annually or about one-half inch total, from 2003 to 2010, Wahr said.

"The total amount of ice lost to Earth's oceans from 2003 to 2010 would cover the entire United States in about 1 and one-half feet of water," Wahr said.

Being unemployed for too long reportedly is driving people mad and costing taxpayers billions of dollars in mental illness and other disability claims.

The New York Post reported Sunday that as unemployment checks run out, many jobless are trying to gain government benefits by declaring themselves unhealthy.

More than 10.5 million people -- about 5.3 percent of the population aged 25 and 64 -- received disability checks in January from the federal government, the Post wrote, a 18 percent jump from before the recession.

Among those claiming disability, 43 percent are asking for benefits because of mental illness, the Post wrote. A growing number of those people are older, former white-collar workers.

Disability claims come from the Social Security Trust Fund, which is set to go broke in 2018. Congress last week agreed to dip into the revenue stream to give a 2-percentage point tax break to working Americans.

The Post noted that the more people file for disability claims, the better for the unemployment picture since those people are removed from the jobless rolls.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1470015046001/

Going back a couple weeks to my point that Obama should be doing more in terms of leadership to lower gas prices ... O'Reilly actually had a great idea to this point tonight. The above video shows it. Bear with the video for a minute. I think he starts off talking about last nights dumb debate.

Hillbilly wrote:http://video.foxnews.com/v/1470015046001/

Going back a couple weeks to my point that Obama should be doing more in terms of leadership to lower gas prices ... O'Reilly actually had a great idea to this point tonight. The above video shows it. Bear with the video for a minute. I think he starts off talking about last nights dumb debate.

That was worth a watch. I just dragged the video button over for the first minute or so to get to O'Reilly's thoughts on how the President truly can affect gas prices.

By the way, "The Factor" is returning for his four year old campaign at Santa Anita on Saturday. Once more, he'll be in a small field with a horse named "Sway Away" that I have met the connections of.

I was in the Winner's Circle photo for Sway Away as be broke his maiden in his first race here in town. Both horses are lightly raced for four year olds, and it really does not seem to be a good wagering race.

Trainer Bob Baffert has been on fire in stakes races of late, so I do give a nod to The Factor. He won't be the favorite, as I believe a horse named Amazombie will. I love the fact that I have been with Sway Away up close and personal, but my wagering gut says toss double digits on The Factor to win, and hope for a $6 payout on a $2 wager.

Amazombie is currently 8/5 ... The Factor is 7/5

Just so happens there is a poker tournament tomorrow at my cities local establishment that has simulcast racing. A buddy of mine is dealing. I was thinking about going to play and slapping a few bucks down on The Factor in the 7th. May even have to play a trifecta for poops & giggles and give your horse some action.

It comes from Seattle Slew's line?

Baffert's horse, Frenemy, is running in the final race.

I dunno, I got tickets for my lady & I to attend the annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner here tomorrow evening so not sure if I want to grind it out all day on a poker table or not, but I very well may go bet on a few ponies tomorrow afternoon.

Hillbilly wrote: I dunno, I got tickets for my lady & I to attend the annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner here tomorrow evening so not sure if I want to grind it out all day on a poker table or not, but I very well may go bet on a few ponies tomorrow afternoon.

True Story: I attended the 1990 Lincoln Day Dinner in Ashland County. Crappy February weather -- if I recall, ice storms and such closed down a lot of I71. The keynote address was delivered by Bob Taft, who was running for Sec'y of State. He was extremely late because of the weather, and as a result he was not able to be delivered to his accommodations for the evening until after the dinner.

At the time, I was the President of the AU College Republicans. Since the dinner was on AU's campus, and one of the county party apparatchiks was our defacto adviser -- well, I was an insider that evening. So I, along with another student and some AU folks, got to go with him to the Presidential Suite at AU, where he was spending the night. Someone got into the fridge, and pulled out 4 or 5 Budweisers, and passed them out to each of us, including Candidate Taft. My fellow CR student and I finished our beers, and left for the evening.

Over the years, I got to meet or attend events with lots of different figures. I've had dinner at the same table with Mike Dewine, I've twice met Pete Dupont, attended dinners with President Bush (GHW variety), Secretary Cheney, Secretary Alexander (who I actually got to say "It's a pleasure to meet you Mister Secretary", whilst shaking hands with him), and the afore-mentioned Quayle. But it was this beer with Bob Taft that I will likely remember forever.

I was only 19 when that happened, and the drinking age in Ohio was 21.

Shannen Rossmiller is the keynote speaker for tomorrows event. "The Unexpected Patriot". If you haven't heard her story check it out. Pretty interesting.

Just so happens there is a poker tournament tomorrow at my cities local establishment that has simulcast racing. A buddy of mine is dealing. I was thinking about going to play and slapping a few bucks down on The Factor in the 7th. May even have to play a trifecta for poops & giggles and give your horse some action.


I've met Sway Away. I know Sway Away. He is no The Factor, or Amazombie.

His purchasers named him "Sway Away" because he has a little slump in his conformation.


To clarify, this is not a race to go after a big score. Tri's even with Sway Away will play jack unless The Factor and the other fave decide to go dashing off in the back stretch and leave the field.

I'm betting straight and simple and looking for a score to pay for a nice dinner only, when I see the real time odds.

At the time, I was the President of the AU College Republicans. Since the dinner was on AU's campus, and one of the county party apparatchiks was our defacto adviser -- well, I was an insider that evening. So I, along with another student and some AU folks, got to go with him to the Presidential Suite at AU, where he was spending the night. Someone got into the fridge, and pulled out 4 or 5 Budweisers, and passed them out to each of us, including Candidate Taft.


Beginning of a joke, two former Ohio College Republican Presidents walk into a bar in San Francisco with a bunch of old hippies....


Ending of joke, both emerged after enjoying the great live music, tipping well, and having a helluva good time.

I dunno, I got tickets for my lady & I to attend the annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner here tomorrow

In about 1975, I attended a Lincoln Day Dinner in Summit County of Ohio.

The name "Brown" has always been a great name to have for Ohio state elected office, or any Ohio office.

One of the local political elite of the day was a guy who I will not entirely name by the true last name of "Brown."

Howard Baker (google him, if needed) was the keynote speaker, and let's just say I had dated/had coffee with/whatever his daughter. Not that that has any relevance to this Lincoln dinner story story, but she was pretty cute back in 1976.

The elite Brown of Summit County who was retiring and around 80 years of age stood up for an unscripted and unscrutinized presentation of Howard Baker. He decided to go with a litany of the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

The one I most remember is, "Young Republican guys date Democrat Girls. They plan to marry Republican Girls.....but they want to have a little fun first."

No one fainted, but more than a few caught their breath at the high dollar (for Akron) event.

Me, I laughed my ass off.

He was a cool guy I had met before.

Darkstar, maybe those Buds were 3.2's.

VT'er wrote:Darkstar, maybe those Buds were 3.2's.

I've always thought that Ohio's 3.2 beer for ages 18-21 was such a sensible law. For most, getting that beer was fine enough and there was no great desire to do all the crazy hard drinking kids do when they have to sneak for alcohol under age 21 now.


Late edit, I went looking out of curiosity and I think the 3.2 option was gone by 1990.

http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/3588702


As for 3.2 beer, it's also only a memory. "Low beer" vanished in the 1980s when Ohio raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21.