Patterico's Pontifications

12/27/2008

A Test of the Obama Energy Plan

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 9:02 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

During the Democratic primary debates, Barack Obama said an element of his energy plan would be to mobilize Americans to use less energy. He later suggested American consumers were to blame for the nation’s energy woes because they would not reduce their energy use, followed by polls that showed little backlash from American voters.

Thanks to a power outage from a lightening lightning storm during his Hawaiian vacation, last night Obama had the opportunity to implement his plan to use less energy:

“President-elect Barack Obama’s Hawaiian vacation was darkened for 11 hours Friday night and early today when a power outage enveloped the island of Oahu.

Obama, wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha are staying in a $9 million, five-bedroom oceanfront house near downtown Honolulu. Power to the compound went out around 7 p.m. Friday and was restored just before 6 a.m. today, about the time as that of the neighbors, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said.”

The compound had 3 generators but the Obama family reportedly spent the evening in the dark.

Good for them.

Of course, Obama and his family won’t do without much in the next four years. But I hope this moment of nighttime sacrifice in a temperate climate makes Obama think twice about a policy that views sacrifice as the solution to America’s energy problems. If not, then I hope he has a big FEMA budget that will help people who aren’t fortunate enough to live in a temperate climate.

— DRJ

29 Responses to “A Test of the Obama Energy Plan”

  1. There’s nothing funny about a “lightening storm;” just ask Michael Jackson.

    ras (20bd5b)

  2. I understand that the Secret Service and Marines had backup generators there very quickly. I bet that there was power there for security reasons very fast. BO may not have used it himself but it was there. The kids were probably in bed by then so no need for power to take care of them.

    LYNNDH (975d26)

  3. ras,

    Heh. Point taken.

    DRJ (30954e)

  4. Racists

    JD (0232da)

  5. Obama is also going to have his roving Tire Pressure Police Force checking everyone out because as he mentioned during the campaign, we can reach energy independence through properly inflasted tires alone or some such bullshit.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  6. Obama Energy Plan = Excuse for a Tax Increase.

    Perfect Sense (9d1b08)

  7. There’s nothing funny about a “lightening storm;” just ask Michael Jackson.

    Or Lee Trevino:

    After he had been struck by lightning at the 1975 Western Open, Trevino was asked by a reporter what he would do if he were out on the course and it began to storm again. Trevino answered he would take out his 1 iron and point it to the sky, “because not even God can hit the 1 iron.”

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  8. The typical left energy policy requires that math, science, and reality be rejected. Hopefully, this incident reminds Obama of the reality of energy production.

    Oahu’s Electricity Fuel Mix:
    Oil: 77.6 %
    Coal: 18.4 %
    Biomass: 4 %
    (Link: Heco: About Our Fuel Mix)

    Wesson (3ab0b8)

  9. Too bad there aren’t any windmills there. I’m sure the owner of that estate won’t mind if a few of them pop up and fill his view of the ocean.

    Icy Texan (b7d162)

  10. The compound has three generators but Obama was still in the dark? Homes that expensive usually have whole house generators that kick on automatically. Something is not right with this story. One would think the secret service would have checked the property and the generators out before Obama checked in.

    cubanbob (409ac2)

  11. Bob, are you intimating that the POTUS-elect’s camp might be telling a fib on this one?

    Shocka!

    Icy Texan (b7d162)

  12. Juggy has spent his entire life in the dark, so this was nothing new……

    however, if you think WAB sat there in the dark with the kids, you’re smoking better drugs than what big ears used to get in colege.

    redc1c4 (27fd3e)

  13. Getting back to what I think is the central point, if Barack Obama chastises working Americans for simply doing what we need to do to live, can the Balkanization of the United States be far behind?

    Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Obama need to ‘walk amongst the little people’ to see what life is like. A large segment of the population does not live in urban settings. We use energy (gasoline/diesel) to go to and from work. Transporting goods to and from producers to consumers requires diesel fuel. We use coal/natural gas/electricity to heat and power our homes. There are many, many more examples.

    Nor, does the vast majority of Americans get to vacation at a $9 million dollar home close to Diamond Head and Wakiki Beach. Too bad his vacation home lost power, I’m struggling just to keep the driveway clear of snow and trying to find a job!

    SeniorD (50f696)

  14. Daughter story alert:

    A few days ago, my wife is turning off a couple of lights in the hallway and stairwell and says, “Obama says we have to save money”. And my daughter says, “So he can steal it”.

    nk maybe soon to sign in as Ptolemy XV The Great (2f022a)

  15. Your daughter was obviously raised well. Kudos. You must be so proud!

    JD (228b75)

  16. […] A comment from nk on Patterico: Daughter story alert: […]

    Common Sense Political Thought » Blog Archive » NK is a great dad! (73d96f)

  17. “The compound had 3 generators” which evidently didn’t operate since the military was rushing emergency generators to serve the ‘Hussein O’ family. There corrected it for you.

    Truth, he’s no longer a congress critter (resigned) and not yet the POTUS, so all that remains is a drug using street thug from Chicago.

    Scrapiron (dda662)

  18. Good points on Obama energy plans. But Hawaii is a tropical climate. Minnesota is temperate.

    Rebekah K (30489a)

  19. Temperate Zone WX (Twin Cities MN)
    low…19…..high…24

    Tropical Zone WX (Oahu HI)
    low…68….high…79

    And another thing…
    just where does HI get those energy supplies (coal, oil, bio-mass) from?
    Seems to me, granting the bio-mass is locally produced, without ocean trasport, HI would have a lot more star-gazers, and no need for Netflix.

    Another Drew (wwbkaADitcy) (8cf528)

  20. …transport…

    Another Drew (wwbkaADitcy) (8cf528)

  21. The coming Ice Age will test Obama’s devotion to his theories on energy. It is not reassuring that Obama’s science adviser was one of the inquisitors of Bjorn Lomberg.

    I find it very disturbing that part of the Danish Inquisition’s case against Lomborg was written by John Holdren, Obama’s new science advisor. Holdren has recently written that people like Lomborg are “dangerous.” I think it is people like Holdren who are dangerous, because they are willing to use state power to silence their scientific opponents.

    Obama is no friend of real science.

    MIke K (2cf494)

  22. Good point, Mike, Tipler strikes to the core – just how it is that the AGW advocates are conducting a pseudo-science campaign.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  23. Mike K. – I think Holdren was also one of Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb adherents and we all know how well those loony predictions turned out.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  24. In fact he was one of Ehrlich’s acolytes, Daley – but the only good thing about our current economic troubles is that it will constrain Obama’s tendencies to start shoveling more billions of dollars down the alternative energy hole, all in the name of Global Warming. Anyone remember Carter’s notorious Synfuel debacle from the 70’s? What Obama and his minions desire could be much worse that – nothing wrong with attempting to lessen our dependency on current energy supplies, but it will only happen over the course of many decades, not over the next eight years.

    Dmac (eb0dd0)

  25. “The coming Ice Age will test Obama’s devotion to his theories on energy. It is not reassuring that Obama’s science adviser was one of the inquisitors of Bjorn Lomberg.”

    HOLY Crapola!!!!

    Lomberg is the top of the top when it comes to ecology and common sense. (can those two terms be used together)?

    TC (0b9ca4)

  26. Population Bomb…more….
    In fact, in the infamous bet of where commodity prices would go, Erlich consulted with Holdren on which ten commodities that he would select for the bet…
    All ten dropped in price, and Erlich, and Holdren, had to pay up.
    They are both scientific frauds. It couldn’t be any worse if Obama had appointed Algore as his “scientific” advisor.
    It is going to be a long, tough, 4 or 8 years.

    Another Drew (wwbkaADitcy) (d8d174)

  27. Holdren participated in the famous bet on materials prices with economist Julian Simon. It is also interesting that Wikipedia has an editor that famously revises posts on AGW to conform to the “CW.” Even she couldn’t make this bet sound intelligent.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  28. AGW could be refuted by possible severe cooling trend, save all of the AGW statements so we can show just how far off they where.

    I don’t expect another Ice Age, but something like the Dalton Minimum is a possibility. This new cooling trend could last until 2035.

    LarryD (feb78b)


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