Tea Party Patriots of W Oakland's Blog – August 2011 Archive (4)

A year ago, three oil rigs fled the Gulf of Mexico for better opportunities abroad.  Now, it's 10.  Make no mistake, the toll is rising on a business environment marked by the Obama administration's uncertainty, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

The massive planning, capital, project management and luck required to produce energy are uncertain enough, but the climate of government caprice makes it even worse.  The 2010 BP oil spill proved Obama's…

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently forecast that natural gas production from five American shale reserves would double in five years and triple in 20.  These U.S. sources of gas can transform America's energy outlook, provided lawmakers don't interfere with the process, says Lawrence J. McQuillan, director of business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute.

• Shale formations created from sea basins millions of years ago have trapped…

That less health care can lead to better health and, conversely, that more health care can harm health, runs counter to most patients' conviction that screenings and treatments are inherently beneficial.  That belief is fueled by the flood of new technologies and drugs that have reached the market in the past two or three decades, promising to prevent disease and extend life.  Most of us wouldn't think twice if our doctor offered a test that has the power to expose a lurking tumor, or a…

That the government share of health care is rising is no news. The truth hidden from view, however, is that government's share of health spending already exceeded 50 percent in 2009, says Christopher J. Conover, a research scholar at Duke University's Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.…