Like Steve, I'm not the biggest fan of Mr. Pickens, but I appreciate that he at least has a plan to get us started.

Energy is both a security and economic issue. As long as massive amounts of our resources are traveling outside of our borders, we're going in the wrong way financially. Not all of the money goes to our enemies (lots go to Canada, for example) but a lot of it goes to countries that are clearly set to destabilize both us and other free democrocies.

I appreciate that this is not a primarily political site, but since the topic is here, I don't think the democrats can put their hearts and souls into a truly varied effort in this matter. The best solution has to take into account all sources, including known ones like nuclear and oil. All of the people who don't want offshore drilling, all or the people who don't want fossil fuels in general (such as "clean" coal), and all of the anti-nuclear people are in the democratic party. Even if the presidential candidate of that party can be gotten to the point of "I'll consider the options" (at least that's what he says publicly) for these energy sources, his party won't let him get very far. And wind, solar, and biofuels just aren't going to fill the gap for decades. Whatever you think about social issues or economic structures, the democrats are bad news on energy and security. We won't get anywhere on solving other problems if we are unsafe and broke.