During a discussion on ABC’s “This Week,” self-overrating blowhard Bill Maher criticized President Obama for being in favour of offshore drilling, and said that America should have attacked the “problem” of reliance on oil in the 70’s:
Maher : “I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years, we certainly could have…”
George Will: “…can you just explain to me in what sense Brazil got off oil?
Maher: “I believe they did. I believe they, in the 70’s, they had a program to use sugar cane ethanol. And I believe that is what fuels their country…”
Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters ruins the fun with facts: Brazil is in fact “the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world, burning 2.372 million barrels a day. That places them ahead of Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain,” and it produces more oil than even Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Libya.
Maher, for his part, is still sporting that dim, unrepentant sneer as he moves on to his next “fact”…
If only the US had a huge sugar cane crop such that it could use the otherwise useless waste to provide a small amount of sugar to make ethanol with to ever so slightly supplement petroleum!
Thanks, Bill Maher!
(I wonder if he knows that the largest sources of US oil imports are Canada and Mexico?
You have to go to the fifth place source to even hit the Middle East.)
Oh, don’t forget all the old growth and rain forests that Brazil has leveled to grow soy beans for biodiesel and sugar cane for fuel ethanol. I’m not blaming Brazil, they are merely meeting a demand induced via taxpayer subsidies to salve the self-loathing consciences of sanctimonious doomer twits like Maher.
Now what if there was oil under that rainforest? At least 95% of the rainforest would be still there with 5% dedicated to oilfield installations. But that would never be acceptible to greenazis.
Who gets into an argument with George Will, ferchrisakes?
Bill Maher is the “legalize pot”, “you’re stupid if you have faith”, “Bush wars bad, Obama wars good” dancing pet monkey for the thinking impaired left and poster boy for their habit of just making up shit that they never get called on.
Additionally he is the venue of choice for every “left leaning” Hollywood type who believes anything they say is interesting and adds to the conversation. You know the ones who actually make him look smart due to their being completely devoid of any semblance of a clue.
Dumb, unrepentant sneers are and always will be a hallmark of the left. Vacuous is as vacuous does.
Syncro
It’s kinda like “fire can’t melt steel”, and “the centre of the earth is several million degrees.”
Those lefties have all the facts at their fingertips.
Does anyone else remember when Maher had a kind of late night TV panel-guest show – I believe it ended just after 9/11 – and was representing himself as some kind of right winger?
Even when I sort of agreed with him, I still thought he was a little creep.
Yet Sweden wants to be off oil within 10 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Sweden_an_Oil-Free_Society
He has to be reading the same book as Old Weird Albert Gore for his facts!
Yet Sweden wants to be off oil within 10 years:
Did you even read that link?
Currently, no official policy in Sweden aims at achieving an oil-free society within any given time-horizon.
Black Mamba:
Bill Maher still has an HBO Show on every weekend called “Real Time with Bill Maher” a panel show. He was canceled but was picked up again by HBO.
Allan:
Every country thinks they can be off oil in 10 Years – ala RePower America. Read the actual article, is says that it got nowhere
I Quote the Wiki – “Following defeat of the incumbent government coalition in the 2006 general election, the proposals were not included in the energy policy or in any law.”
Good try though.
Hi, I’m Bill Maher and I don’t know what the fug I’m talking about.
Facts? I don’ need no stinkin’ facts! Maher learned all he could before his 8th grade education was over. Simpletons like he and Sean Penn and their ilk seem to just spout each others’ nonsense from their cue cards. They are just parrots, let’s not pay too close attention to their drivel.
It is the 45 degree slope on poor old dull Bills forehead that is to blame for his ignorance, then look to the fools who spend any money to see this dunce, like the dunces and fools who lined up and paid money to see AlGores speeches. If it was the fools own money wasted, good, but when governments pissed away taxpayers money on the glowbull warming scam artists and their stupid policies, that is serious people!
“Even when I sort of agreed with him, I still thought he was a little creep.”
Hey Mamba
My wife and I used to regularly watch his old program before he was fired from ABC. Living in Canuckistan, much to our disappointment we couldn’t get his new show on HBO. Many years later (6 or 7) I came across his pod casts and thought “Great” and downloaded the show. It took literally 1 episode to realize that this guy had completely gone cuckoo. Bill is a complete sell-out, as I can not see how someone can completely change their political ideology without some sort of enlightenment gained through tireless study, that Bill obviously hasn’t done.
Today we can barely stomach his drivel and his haughty opinion of those who disagree with him. ET’s description of BO fits Bill to a tee, except for in the “clout” category.
Maher does a perfect impression of a venemous, bitchy,dowager aunt. But it’s 24/7.
Maher brings a whole new level to the meaning of stupid.
Too bad Sarah Palin wasn’t there to correct Bill instead of George Will.
No, I think we can rule out “tireless study”.
Perhaps Bill needs to look up the capital spending by PetroBras (note the PETRO). And didn’t Brazil announce a huge offshore find in the last couple years?
Brazil isn’t dependent on imports of oil, that was the major push not reduction of oil use. If anything following Brazil’s example would mean more drilling.
Brazil has a significant part of its auto fleet running on sugar can based ethanol….thats good for them
1) Allows them to export more of their significant oil reserves and earn foreign currency
2) it is a completely domestic industry
Now this says nothing about land use, government subsidies etc etc
So Bill just mouthed off on a half correct partial fact. If his point is Brazil has been able to eliminate its dependence on foreign oil thats fine. And the US could reduce its use of oil from foreigners, particularly unstable middle eastern and the odd crazy assed Latino country if it drilled offshore, on all shores.
So I guess my question is, whats his point, really?
Bill Maher is a child-hating idiot. That’s all I need to know about him.
And if he thinks Prince Obama is going to reduce the US’ dependence on foreign oil, he has another thing coming.
Sugar production in the US is heavily subsidized. So thinking like the SEIU we can hire people to get subsidies on sugar, subsidies on ethanol and it will be cheaper to pay us to stay at home in the end.
Everyone is having fun not thinking and laughing in lock-step.
I’m no fan Maher.
The part that is not funny, is where during a gas and diesel cut-off, say due to bombed refineries, the majority in Brazil are still very mobile while we in North America are crippled and stupidly vunerable.
What happened to our famous resourcefulness?
Lobby power?
I give Maher credit for standing up to Chris Matthews last week. Matthews nearly beat up another panelist for criticizing Ted Kennedy — the vitriol was astonishing. Maher made it clear that Kennedy was not above criticism.
So Maher may be a sarcastic misinformed leftist, but he’s not a knee-jerk partisan. He thinks for himself.
You know, I’ve got to stop with these glowing complements.
How extensively Maher thinks is the issue.
Pond scum is my take.
Syncro
Other half-baked facts during the interview was about the plight of the oil-soaked birds:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/02/your-energy-needs-are-for-the-birds/
“Bill talked lovingly, once again, about how we need to do away with oil production entirely, much as he did when he criticized President Obama over his sorry position on off shore drilling. (Prompting Stacy McCain to wonder how he speaks with a foot that size in his mouth.) The solution in Bill Maher’s world, of course, is more renewable energy, like wind power! Fortunately, George Will was on the panel to point out the incredible number of birds killed by wind farms each year.
For those keeping score, one windfarm alone in Altamont Pass, California, has been chopping up tens of thousands of birds annually since it went online, including a number of seriously endangered raptor species”
Maher does not seem to put much research into his pronouncements. George Will made Bill look foolish a few times.
“Brazil is the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world burning 2.372 million barrels a day.”
No Stephen, Maher isn’t “half correct” about anything.
Brazil has a lot of flex cars that run on gasoline, alcohol or any combination of the two. This allows them to switch to the cheaper fuel no matter what it is.
There have been times that I have agreed with Maher. But then again, even a broken clock….
Bill Maher is a flaming idiot.
Umm … news flash – there are many conservatives who support legalization of marijuana and who do NOT like Bill Maher.
When I wipe my a@$, I shed a tear and say there goes Bill Maher’s inspiration.
Everybody ,who’s heard Willy, knows that is fact.
Not even a serious wannabe!
He’s not even worthy of the title “tool”, he’s another hollyweed phantom, long past his “best before date”. Something like Iggy!
i dunno which one of the two i’d rather have in my lifeboat when we needed to lighten it….olberman or maher…?..maher or olberman ?
and don’t get me wrong here…i’d welcome truman capote ONTO my lifeboat….rebick of course no….
Maher’s not like Capote, john, and not merely in the sense that Truman was talented. Bill hangs out with the enchantresses at his lookalike Hugh Heffner’s “grotto”, so he’s, you know, all man, and a real class act, too.
Olbermann would provide more ballast.
Maher : “I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years, we certainly could have…”
Never let the facts get in the way of a National Geographic article….
I happened upon This Week on Sunday morning only because the TV was on ABC from watching the local news the night before. I watched for a minute because George Will was discussing the Arizona immigration law, and then the camera went to a wide shot revealing the other panelists, including Al Sharpton and Bill Maher — I laughed out loud and changed the channel. Just another reason I don’t watch the mainstream media anymore — attempting to offer legitimacy to a couple of self-promoting hucksters like Sharpton and Maher.
Brazil does indeed have a huge ethanol/flex fuel project, but they are hardly “off” oil. This is the switchgrass/sugarcane Bush was so excited about in his “oil addiction” SOTU speech.
Brazil just discovered vast new offshore deposits of clean oil. Obama guaranteed billions in loans to develop it. The day before it was announced, Soros shifted his stock there. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I guess Soros and Obama forgot to consult Maher first.