This is unbelievable.  As I said in a post a few days ago, Our “leadership” in the white house and congress is pretty much following the script that Howard Kunstler predicted in his book “The Long Emergency” i.e. Denial that we’ve hit peak oil, that a new age is dawning, and instead of responsible, corrective and bold measures to change our cheap oil society, all they offer are half-measures, and fluff.  Watching our idiotic leaders in Washington reminds me of those poor exasperated mothers, offering to buy candy or some toy for their screaming children at Wall-Mart.

$100 Rebate checks (i.e.: Another tax break we can’t afford) and Drilling in Alaska isn’t going to change the physics of the situation;  we’ve used half of the worlds deposits of oil, and only half remains, except the remaining half is harder to retrieve, and unlike 100 years ago, now, everyone wants a piece of it.

From MSNBC.COM:

$100 gasoline rebates to help deal with prices?

Senate Republicans propose instant relief, tie it to drilling in arctic refuge

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans advocate sending $100 rebate checks to millions of taxpayers, and a Democrat is leading the campaign for a 60-day gasoline tax holiday.

Either way, it seems no one in Congress wants to be without a plan, however symbolic, to attack the election-year spike in gasoline prices.

A vote is possible as early as this week on the Senate GOP approach, which calls for $100 rebate checks for taxpayers to cushion the impact of higher gasoline prices. The measure seems unlikely to prevail, at least initially, since it includes a highly controversial proposal to open a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

(more here)