Of Oil and Tire Guages

I have seen and heard people poking fun at the "Obama Energy Plan" the last few days. This has taken the form of Paris Hilton videos and tire gauges and generalized ridicule. This is, of course, all the result of his comments the other day in Springfield MO that we could save as much oil as we would get via off shore drill just by keeping our tires properly inflated. Political pundits jumped on this quote like ducks on bread and wasted no time proclaiming themselves underwhelmed and the statement ludicrous.
I admit to finding the idea a bit silly at first glance, but I make it a point to get facts straight. To this end I went looking for some numbers and did some math.

According to The Dept. of Energy by 2030 off shore drilling would have
increased domestic oil production by 3% to 5.6M barrels/day
5,600,000 barrels/day *.03 = 168,000barrels/day

A quick search of the Interwebs indicates that a barrel of oil makes about 20 gallons of gas

20g/barrel * 168,000barrels = 3.36M gallons/day
or
1.226billion gallons/year

According to this article from AAA it is estimated that "3.6 billion gallons of gas is wasted by U.S. drivers each year simply because they're driving on under-inflated tires."
3.6 billion gallons > 1.226 billion gallons.
It is also important to note that the DOE production numbers include drilling off the coast of California (accounting for about 50%) which has already indicated that there will be no new drilling there in the near future.
(*note - I will gladly alter this document if my math is incorrect)

I managed to find all of this info and do my calculations in a matter of 20 minutes or so, and I didn't even have to look very hard. I can only conclude that the people that are busily spouting off instead of investigating are not interested in honest answers.
I also find completely dishonest the characterization that properly inflated tires is the whole of Mr Obama's energy plan. Once again, anyone interested in finding out more facts about the subject could easily find the actual Obama Energy Plan in about 10 seconds thanks too Google.

For the record, this is not an endorsement of Barack Obama nor his energy plans. It is simply an attempt to look at issues objectively which is something severely lacking in modern politics.
And old politics.
And ancient politics.
Politics in general.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
http://news.aaa-calif.com/pr/aaa/tireinflation0408.aspx?ncid=6061

Horrible, horrible freedom

I have been left to my own devices while the family is off in Colorado. After nearly a year and a half of parenting I have no idea what to do with my time now that it is my own again. It is a strange thing. Today I went to my old haunt, Belmont Shore to have a beer and I felt terribly awkward walking about by myself. Normally I would be accompanied by either my wife, or my daughter or both but today I had but me. I felt the whole time that I should be doing something as opposed to nothing. Strange indeed...