Crude Oil From Trees. Really.

by hilzoy

ThinkProgress:

"Rep. Bill Sali (R-ID), who is participating in the GOP’s ongoing “Drill Now” energy stunt, has a unique idea about how to bring down gas prices: extracting oil from trees. In a meeting in his Capitol Hill office, Sali reportedly told a candidate for Idaho’s House of Representatives, Byron Yankey, that there “‘could be up to 40 barrels of oil‘ in a single tree.”"

Apparently, this isn't the first time he's said this:

"Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil," he said. Going after that, he said, "could put Idaho in the oil business for the first time."

If only he hadn't said 'crude oil', I might be sympathetic and think: maybe he was talking about date palms, or olive trees, or tung oil trees, or something. Not that any of those trees grows in Idaho anyways.

This isn't the first time I've written about Rep. Sali. But it does give me an occasion to repost a couple of my favorite Sali moments:

"His confrontational style alienates even fellow Republican legislators. During the 2006 session, he angered Democrats so much during a debate about abortion that they walked out. Afterward, Newcomb said: "That idiot (Sali) is just an absolute idiot. He doesn't have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body. And you can put that in the paper."

Sali triggered the unusual response from a party leader with a dubious statement linking abortion with breast cancer. But that isn't all. When Republican Congressman Mike Simpson was speaker of the Idaho House, he once threatened to throw Sali out of a window in the state Capitol. If this is how friends react to Sali, including one whom he would serve with in Congress, how is he going to build consensus for issues and policies important to the state?"

[UPDATE: the reason "a dubious statement linking abortion with breast cancer" made Newcomb so angry was that Sali insisted on going on and on about that link, even though it had been discredited, to the point where the Idaho House Democratic Leader, who was a breast cancer survivor, left the room in tears. That's in an article I quoted in the post of mine linked above; alas, the link to that article seems to have died. END UPDATE.]

Recently, Sali seems to have had trouble managing to submit his financial statements on time, and given us this fascinating gloss on the first Amendment:

"We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes — and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers."

He later tried to clarify his comments in this op-ed, which really doesn't help to inspire confidence in his knowledge of the Constitution:

"Yet the debate over my comments boils down to this: Should the future of our country rest upon the Judeo-Christian convictions of our Founding Fathers or the religious diversity advocated by the Left? I choose the Founding Fathers. (...)

The Judeo-Christian principles on which our republic was founded can be embraced, defended and practiced by people of any faith. Anyone doing so will find an ally in me. But when principles outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition begin to be promoted within Congress, we should all recognize that the government given to us by the Founding Fathers will be at risk. That should give every American serious pause."

Luckily, he's got a challenger this time. Here's his website. Let's hope he wins: we don't need Representatives who think that you can get crude oil from trees.

Comments

[liberal japonicus]

I dunno, the Japanese were getting avgas from pine roots. Of course, this was 1945, but I think that is the sort of situation that Sali is nostalgic for.

[Sara Anderson]

Sali had a challenger in 06 as well, but got a huge amount of funding from the club for growth that an Idaho Democrat had a tough time competing with.

I saw a debate between Sali and the 06 Democrat challenger, Larry Grant, where Sali made the same reference to crude oil coming from trees. It was goddamn hilarious.

[Hannah]

Apparently Sali isn't aware that Islam springs from the Judeo-Christian tradition, ie the descendants of Abraham. In fact, I'm betting most people in this country are unaware of that fact.

[John Thullen]

Sali is the entire conservative, Reagan, Gingrich revolution boiled down to its essence.

He's Reagan's little slips of paper with odd facticities pulled out of the pockets at opportune times.

He's Gingrich's wooing of the dumbest among us to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

He's Democracy's dregs coughed up by carnival barkers for the electorate.

They don't like taxes.

Stupidity is the servant of that prejudice.

However, they shook a lot of money from the trees (where it grows, don't you know) for 35 years playing the stupid game.

McCain's still going for it.

[CharleyCarp]

I'm not the only one thinking about Euell Gibbons, I bet.

[now_what]

Trees cause most pollution.
Crude oil causes most pollution.
Trees are crude oil.

QED.

[Tony P.]

John Thullen correctly identifies the GOP's target demographic: the Stupid Vote. It is considered unseemly, nowadays, to call people stupid -- although calling them unpatriotic is OK (IYAR). In the halcyon days of usenet, however, one occasionally heard straight talk like this:

"I cannot believe how incredibly stupid Archie-Poo is. I mean
rock-hard stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. Surface
of Venus under 80 atmospheres of red hot carbon dioxide and sulfuric
acid vapor dehydrated for 300 million years rock-hard stupid. Stupid
so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole
different sensorium of stupid. Archie-Poo is trans-stupid stupid.
Meta-stupid. Stupid so collapsed upon itself that it is within its
own Schwarzschild radius. Black hole stupid. Stupid gotten so dense
and massive that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid.
Archie-Poo emits more stupid/second than our entire galaxy otherwise
emits stupid/year. Quasar stupid. Nothing else in the universe can
be this stupid. Archie-Poo is an oozingly putrescent primordial
fragment from the original Big Bang of Stupid, a pure essence of
stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of
physics that define maximally extrapolated hypergeometric
n-dimensional backgroundless stupid as we can imagine it. Archie-Poo
is Planck stupid, a quantum foam of stupid, a vacuum decay of stupid,
a grand unified theory of stupid.

Archie-Poo is the epiphany of stupid. Archie-poo is stooopid."

The venue was sci.physics; the author was 'Uncle Al'; his target styled himself 'Archimedes Plutonium'. Those were the days ...

-- TP

[someotherdude]

I don't think the term "Judeo-Christian" was even in circulation during the era of the Founding Fathers.

That word is a modern creation.

[Fledermaus]

We truely are ruled by idiots.

[sv]

The Judeo-Christian principles on which our republic was founded can be embraced, defended and practiced by people of any faith.

I can attest to that fact. How this doesn't clash with the assertion that merely offering tbe prayers of those other faiths is a problem or threat, instead of a heartening example of Americans from different religions desiring to pray for Congress to have protection and good works, is beyond me. believing so seems rather un-christian; what exactly is the problem with it? what alternative values are being pushed? it's merely symbolic, i mean hindus and muslims (an abrahamic religion) are here in america as loyal citizens, why stigmatize us? whatever, this is too dumb for further comment.

[freddy lopez]

About oil from trees, I refer you to the Joe Kovacs' article yesterday at wnd.com. (This is not the first one.)

U.S. green lights 'anything into oil' Defense Department OKs facilities turning natural produce into energy
August 13, 2008 By Joe Kovacs © 2008 WorldNetDaily
....Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.
"What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility," J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today....
WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he'd isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.
That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars.
Wood pulp is among the many natural materials that can be converted into oil and gasoline, according to Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., of Tifton, Ga.... Bell now confirms his agreement with the Department of Defense, the Defense Energy Support Center and the Army will have seven demonstration facilities built at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort AP Hill in Virginia, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Lewis in Washington, as well as one more installation in San Pedro, Calif....
"Everyone now accepts the fact that we can make oil through bacterial action and now it is just a matter of time and money until we are turning out one million to two million barrels per day," he said....

[freddy lopez]

About oil from trees, I refer you to the Joe Kovacs' article yesterday at wnd.com. (This is not the first one.)

U.S. green lights 'anything into oil' Defense Department OKs facilities turning natural produce into energy
August 13, 2008 By Joe Kovacs © 2008 WorldNetDaily
....Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.
"What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility," J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today....
WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he'd isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.
That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars.
Wood pulp is among the many natural materials that can be converted into oil and gasoline, according to Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., of Tifton, Ga.... Bell now confirms his agreement with the Department of Defense, the Defense Energy Support Center and the Army will have seven demonstration facilities built at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort AP Hill in Virginia, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Lewis in Washington, as well as one more installation in San Pedro, Calif....
"Everyone now accepts the fact that we can make oil through bacterial action and now it is just a matter of time and money until we are turning out one million to two million barrels per day," he said....

[freddy lopez]

About oil from trees, I refer you to the Joe Kovacs' article yesterday at wnd.com. (This is not the first one.)

U.S. green lights 'anything into oil' Defense Department OKs facilities turning natural produce into energy
August 13, 2008 By Joe Kovacs © 2008 WorldNetDaily
....Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.
"What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility," J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today....
WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he'd isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.
That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars.
Wood pulp is among the many natural materials that can be converted into oil and gasoline, according to Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., of Tifton, Ga.... Bell now confirms his agreement with the Department of Defense, the Defense Energy Support Center and the Army will have seven demonstration facilities built at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort AP Hill in Virginia, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Lewis in Washington, as well as one more installation in San Pedro, Calif....
"Everyone now accepts the fact that we can make oil through bacterial action and now it is just a matter of time and money until we are turning out one million to two million barrels per day," he said....

[commodities]

I will agree with this.Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is producing crude oil...