The Discerning Texan

Via Glenn Reynolds and Porter County Politics, a post that puts it ALL in perspective, visually. The pictures don't lie:

Start at the top and work your way down:
Luke Puckett from Indiana's 2nd Congressional District has been very vocal that it's high time we start drilling for oil in the United States, including ANWR. Porter County Politics is proud to endorse Luke's efforts and his candidacy for Congress. Luke Puckett on drilling for oil - energy independence.

While reading one of my favorite sites, The Foundry, I came across this post tonite. I have copied in full, and I think I'm cool doing so because it appears the author there did the same from an email forward.First, do you know what ANWR is?

ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Now, a comparison:

And some perspective:

Note where the proposed development area is (in the ‘ANWR Coastal Plain’):

This is what the Democrats, liberals and ‘greens’ show you when they talk about ANWR. And they are right, these are photographs of ANWR:

Isn’t ANWR beautiful? Why should we drill here (and destroy) this beautiful place?

Well, that’s not exactly the truth.

Do you remember the map?

The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain.

Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?

What’s going on here?

The answer is simple.

That is NOT where they are wanting to drill!

This is what the proposed exploration area ACTUALLY looks like in the winter:

And this is what it ACTUALLY looks like in the summer:

Here are a couple screen shots from Google Earth:

As you can see, the area where they are talking about drilling is a barren wasteland.

Oh, and they say that they are concerned about the effect on the local wildlife.

Here is a photo (shot during the summer) of the ‘depleted wildlife’ situation created by drilling around Prudhoe Bay. Don’t you think that the Caribou really hate that drilling?

Here’s that same spot during the winter:

Hey, this bear seems to really hate the pipeline near Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production.

Now, why do you think that the Democrats are LYING about ANWR?

Remember when Al Gore said that the government should work to ARTIFICIALLY raise gas prices to $5 a gallon?

Well, Al Gore and his fellow Democrats have almost reached their goal!

Now that you know that the Democrats have been lying, what are you going to do about it?

P.S.: Drilling does not “destroy.” It creates jobs, resources and strengthens our economy — all while protecting our environment. Everyone benefits, even caribou.

The truth is that ANWR is the dirty little secret they have never wanted you to know about. Because if you had known, and furthermore if you fully understood the implications: if you knew of the enormous benefit that extracting this Oil would have to American prosperity, National Security, the standard of living of even the poorest among us, and (last but not least) reducing the influence, power, and wealth of petro-anarchists like Putin, Chavez, and Ahmadinejad; and then if you also fully groked the lenghts to which the Democrats and the Leftists have been going since the 1970's to keep that from happening---you might never vote for another Democrat again. And you would not be alone.

Moving agressively to explore and leverage our enormous oil reserves would go a long way towards ensuring the global economic dominance of the United States for decades to come. Which of course means our citizens will have a drastically reduced need for taxpayer subsidized handouts or for government bureaucrats telling us how to live our lives while stealing our liberty. Our economy would boom--American jobs generating wealth to raise the standard of living of all Americans, creating millions of jobs, etc. And--as importantly--ensuring that pensions, 401K's, IRA's and other retirement plans prosper--whigh will in turn bring greater prosperity to an aging population. Which of course means that our reliance on a soulless, Stasi-like, bureaucratic nightmare nanny state would dwindle dramatically. It is breathtaking, what an unleashed free market can accomplish without Government interference. Ask anyone who watched Hong Kong achieve the highest standard of living in the world...that little rock in the middle of the Pacific. Ask any East Germans who used to live on the wrong side of the Wall that the Socialists erected. Ask them if they would have preferred to be in West Berlin, which was booming, like an island of prosperity in a sea of destitution.

But the Democrats don't want you to think about that either; to dwell on such matters would risk exposing the purveyors of big government and their sponsors in the former Soviet-bloc--i.e. the tree-hugging "save the planet" fear-mongerers--for the frauds they are. This would not be helpful towards their goal of nationalizing everything from Oil to Health Care to Banking.

No... the Democrats don't want you to know the truth because once you "get it" you will have no need for them anymore--and you will understand (some for the first time) that you never did. Not only will you not need them--you will see right through them.

The first thing you have to understand is: the Democrats do not WANT the price of gas to go down--they never have. They do not want Americans to be less dependent on oil from our enemies: they want us to be MORE dependent. Because that will give them the excuse they have been looking for to seize the power from the Oil companies they are so quick to blame for the Democrats' own intransigence in preventing America from realizing her true energy potential.

This is not a joke, and it is not hyperbole. This is the God's honest truth.