[Southack]

"There isn't the slightest doubt that, being unable to win a vote on the extension of the OCS drilling ban, right in front of the election, Bela and Dingy will concoct -- whip up out of thin air if need be -- a means of ''passing'' the renewal of the ban without a vote."

It would just be vetoed.

Rats lose again.

*traditionally, the ban on offshore drilling is included in the DeptofInterior's annual budget. If the Rats make a war over this point such that Bush vetoes that budget, then it just means that a useless bureaucracy gets defunded...but while defunded, the ban on oil drilling offshore will still expire at the end of September.

Please keep in mind that Bush *already* got his Iraq War funding through the end of 2009...so the Rats have no leverage here. Bush has trumped them, and they've badly misplayed their own hand of cards.

[SAJ]

C'mon, Southack, you're FAR sharper than that!

What is this result supposed to be, ''tie favours the runner''??

Tell me exactly WHICH oil company is going to commit ONE dollar of capital to drilling the OCS from 1 October through 3 November, even if the bisexual Marx brothers Nancy and Harry cannot manage to ''pass'' some sort of fraudulent continuation of the OCS drilling ban?

Answer: not a single one. The issue will be stalled until AT MINIMUM the election, and, given the Rats' propensity for lawsuits after a close Presidential race, probably for a minimum of 6 weeks after that, and conceivably for years and years longer.

The older I get, the more I should be highly approbative of an actual occurrence of the ending of Clancy's novel, Debt of Honor.