Who cares about the temper tantrums being thrown by the pampered media because they didn’t get to meet Tiger Woods? The real story is that while 50,000 people were at the White House asking the president to address climate change by cracking down on the fossil fuel industry, he was spending the weekend with a guy who is the epitome of Big Oil and much much more.

No wonder he was keeping the destination secret before this trip. Intended or not, it was a big F U to the people who had planned for months to travel to Washington to protest the critical cause of climate change. Worse, there has been no response whatsoever to the tens of thousands of protesters who came to his house on Sunday, nor to the many many more who were at coordinating marches in cities across the country and untold numbers of people who were there with them in spirit.

Well maybe there was another reason why the identity of Obama’s host was kept secret in the weeks leading up to the trip.

On Jan. 25, 110 members of the U.S. House of Representatives – 94 Republicans and 16 Democrats – signed a letter urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve expanded exports of liquified natural gas (LNG).

One of the few benefits I’ve found associated with old age is that I remember more things than say, David Gregory, forgets each Sunday morning. For the first twenty years or so of my life, this mountain was covered in snow year-round; for the last ten, during which I have monitored it daily from my living room, the snow is gone sooner, and for longer periods, each year. This picture was taken yesterday, the latest Mt. Hood has been snowless in my whole, misspent life.

In what is a truly pathetic and what can only be seen as a deeply corrupt move by the Obama administration, companies who engage in hydraulic fracturing will only need to disclose what chemicals they use after the well has been drilled.

On Wednesday, Dr. Jeffrey Gleason, currently an avian ecologist for the the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement, was questioned by agents from the the Obama Interior Department Office of Inspector General about aspects of his involvement with Dr. Charles Monnett’s 2006 peer-reviewed scientific paper that linked Polar bear mortality while swimming in the Arctic to climate change. Dr. Monnett has been under investigation since late 2010. Scrutiny of Dr. Gleason’s actions related to the Polar bear findings dates back to his first interview, held on January 26th. His questioning on Wednesday resulted in a request by the investigators for him to undergo a lie detector test regarding a misplaced routing slip:

big oil, financial industry, Forest Service, fracking, George Washington National Forest, intent to defraud, right wing agenda, spreading ignorance

You can always count on Republicans to stick up for the little guy oligarchs.

Gas prices rose dramatically while George W. Bush was in the White House (after they had complained that gas prices were too high under Clinton), dropped significantly during the Bush/Cheney recession, and are now, because of the recovery, returning to the previous trend. It would be good if some reporter would ask these Republicans what they were saying while gas prices went through the roof under President Arbusto and Vice Preisdent Halliburton. But there’s also something absurd about Republicans demanding that the government do something about gas prices. Wouldn’t that be interfering the free market?

Imagine that, for absolutely no logical reason, the government was about to mail you a check for $4 billion, but some people want to stop you from getting that check. How much would you be willing to pay to make sure you got your hands on that $4 billion?

Oil production in the gulf is touted to be great for the U.S., increasing our own domestic production. To the contrary, it is so poorly handled under existing law that it produces maximum risk at minimum return for the U.S. Not just a temporary ban should be exerted on further production in the Gulf of Mexico – a total ban should be issued, until the U.S. public is served instead of threatened by that drilling and that production.