Chuck Norris and His Oil

Chuck Norris is a world famous movie and TV star. Before saying “so what?” I would like to refer his article on OIL appeared on WorldNetDaily.com (a conservative website) “Congress, get off your gas, and drill!” on June 09, 2008.

“What is Chuck Norris got to do with Oil?” you will say. Right! Then read below the passages from his article.

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“Americans are being forced to use their hard-earned money that once put food in their stomachs to now put petroleum into their tanks, but to drive the exact same distances they drove a decade ago for four-to-five times the price.

Might I remind the federal government what one of their original and primary charges is: to protect the American public from the tyranny of foreign powers…

...... Here are a few key vistas on the oil and energy landscape at the moment:

· Though we have more oil in the shale of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming than combined in the Middle East (800 billion barrels), liberals and environmentalists have made it illegal to touch it.
· It's illegal to drill in northern Alaska (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), or off the coasts of Florida or California.
· Oil fields in Colorado are being shut down.
· We won't develop shale oil fields in the Western states
· It's illegal to explore in the Atlantic.
· It's illegal to explore in the Pacific
· It's illegal to explore in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico
· We're not receiving any more leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, while China, Venezuela and Cuba are.
· We haven't built an oil refinery in 25 years and reduced in half those we have
· There's enough natural gas beneath America (406 trillion cube feet) to heat every home in America for the next 150 years, but we can't tap it all.
· We have the largest supply of coal in the world, but it's Germany who is planning to build 27 coal-fired electrical plants by 2020.
· American airlines are in danger of going out of business.
· American truckers are being stranded on the sides of the road.
· American commuters are going bankrupt trying to travel back and forth to work, and are being forced to work locally for lower wages.

…. We might save the planet for our grandchildren, and lose America at the same time, unless we turn around this energy crisis now.

Instead of whining and blaming, Congress needs to take some practical steps now to stop the insanity at the pumps, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, open up some temporary energy production avenues for economic relief (like shale development) and focus more of their taxpayer work time into establishing further alternative ways of producing energy for everything (from coal, electrical, natural gas, hydrogen, solar, nuclear, wind, etc.) Being the wealthiest nation on Earth, there is simply no reason or justification for us to be dependent on fuels that we can't produce in our country.

If you're sick and tired of giving away $2 of every gallon of gas to foreign dictators, making other oil-producing countries, cartels and tycoons rich beyond their imagination, and watching the federal government flail for energy solutions and bow to international powers –all of whom are sucking the very life out of the American people, economy and threatening national security …… It's time to drill here and drill now!

Speaking of unstable countries, did I mention that the Iraq oil minister just reported that oil production is at pre-war levels (2.5 million barrels a day), yielding earnings for Iraq of $28.5 billion in just the first five months of this year? What that means is, we'll likely soon be dependent and in debt to yet another Middle Eastern oil-producing country that we've helped stabilize and become wealthy while ours is going straight down the tubes.”

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Forget for a while all the mistakes and twisted information Norris gives in the list of his “key vistas.”

I already feel nauseous!

A few days later, upcoming US President John McCain (to me it is clear that he will be elected as President) called for lifting a federal moratorium on offshore drilling for oil and gas. He stressed that the US must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. And Chuck Norris, as a devoted Republican, uses his name and fame to support Republicans. Does he want to be governor of Texas? Maybe….

Anyway, I just want to make a few remarks on that pathetic article supposedly authored by Chuck Norris.

Can you imagine $4 a gallon gas price in the United States of Wonderland? Apparently, not. Americans are great whiners as far as gasoline prices are concerned. Why $4 per gallon gasoline prices would hurt the citizens of one of the richest country in the world? The US per capita GDP was over $45,000. With that average per capita income Americans pay only half of what Europeans pay at gas stations. In Turkey, for instance, average per capita income is less than one-third of the US but a gallon of gasoline costs $10!

What Norris, McCain and all American politicians want is simple: impoverished people in the rest of the world should make more sacrifices so that Americans consume more. Hey, wait a minute, Americans consume already one-quarter of world’s daily oil production. Isn’t that enough? Well, American way of life nonnegotiable, no? After all, it is their birthright to burn more and cheap gasoline. Have they ever heard of a word called conserve? It means “To use carefully or sparingly, avoiding waste, to economize.” Does Chuck Norris mention about that word? No!

Mr. Norris, please keep in mind that in 2007, net oil export revenues of all OPEC members (with a total population of 570 million) combined was $673 billion. They sold their non-renewable energy resources for that money. In comparison, the US Department of Defense spent over $600 billion (including extra payments for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, DOE nuclear weapon activities, FBI etc) in the same year. Every barrel OPEC countries export will sooner or later came back to them as a weapon.

Mr. Norris and the guys like you are not the owners of the world. Hitler would have summarized your article as “USA Uber Alles!” (above all things).

So dear Mr. Norris, in reply to your article “Congress, get off your gas, and drill! » I would say “Norris, get your hands off oil geopolitics, and conserve!”