Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Free kibbles

Despite oil prices, energy demand will grow 50% in the next 20 years. Call me crazy, but I think Americans should get a piece of that pie and enjoy lower prices too by drilling for oil off the coasts and in ANWR, extracting oil from shale, and building coal power plants. Government would prefer we send our money to overseas countries and make them fabulously wealthy and ourselves destitute. Good for Boehner, saying Democrats are “worshiping at the altar of radical environmentalism” when they block drilling. Democrats respond by pushing bill to force oil companies to drill on existing leases. It's always force with Democrats, never freedom. Instead of forcing, how about Democrats cut the red tape for developing existing leases at the same time the lift the ban on drilling off the coasts, ANWR, and extracting oil shale.

20 people dead in 3 days, 500 so far this year, in Ciudad Jaurez across from El Paso. That's what the war on drugs is doing to Mexico. The death and lives ruined resulting from the war on drugs dwarfs anything legal drugs themselves could do.

Fed leaves interest rates unchanged. In today's environment, that seems like a huge victory for consumers. Fed to finally fight inflation. That's what it's always supposed to be doing. Cato says the Fed put itself in a box, creating our problems of falling house prices, credit uncertainty, high oil prices, and inflation.

Citizens mob welfare office for food stamps. That's because government is crushing us. They are squezing the economy so badly with taxes, mandates, restrictions, and subsidies, more and more people are getting trapped in poverty. This part of our inexorable decline into destitution because of socialist policies. Free Americans would never go hungry except by choice.

Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana's death penalty for child rape. Calling it "cruel and unusual punishment" doesn't make any sense, but I can understand the argument that the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Democrat Senators Dodd and Feingold attempt filibuster of telecom immunity bill. They want to make sure no company ever helps the government provide security in the future. This is not just stupid, it's self-destructive.

Bush to ask Congress to remove North Korea from terrorist list. This is the same North Korea that was building nuclear facilities in Syria. That sounds real smart.

Department of Defense nominates first woman as a 4 star general despite having never served in combat because rules don't allow it.

Climate change will certainly affect US security. That's why we need honest science, analysis and debate on climate change. But Al Gore and his bunch of frauds and the alarmist press won't allow that and are hurting our ability to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Blah, blah, blah Israel, blah rockets, blah Hamas, blah Gaza. I wish I had a nickel for every time this scenario played out. This is exactly what Einstein was talking about when he said repeating the same actions expecting a different result is insane. We need a new policy - the disarmament of Hamas and Hezbollah. That's the first step on the path to Middle East peace, and without it, any so-called peace process is doomed.

You have to love this presentation of this Plame non-affair:
Former presidential aide Karl Rove has been widely suspected of having played a major role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. These suspicions have never been fully dispelled, even when former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged he was the person who gave Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak, who then revealed it in print.
Despite not having any evidence to support the suspicions and having irrefutable evidence that Armitage was the leaker not Rove, the suspicions remain. How funny. I'm suspicious that the giant spaghetti god outed Plame, and those suspicions haven't been fully dispelled either, despite Armitages admission, so we should keep hammering the giant spaghetti god in the press too.

Reason discussed the intersection of morality and self-interest in economics.

Pelosi calls for Fairness Doctrine. Freedom means nothing to these people, so why not?

Gallop has McCain and Obama tied. LATimes/Bloomberg has Obama up 12. Polls are a joke. Every time I see John McCain on TV, he's mumbling under breath like a feeble old man. When he gives a speech, he sings it in a weak voice like a feeble old man. He exudes lack of confidence. Obama speaks with a loud, clear voice, and he exudes confidence. I think if McCain spoke up with a strong voice and showed some passion, he would crush Obama. But you can hardly hear the man except when he's being so phony, he's singing.

Comprehensive immigration reform incumbant loses primary in Utah. So much for the belief that voters don't care about border security first.

After 27 years, MTV to accept political ads. Gosh, I wonder what could have changed their liberal minds. I wonder who will run lots of ads on MTV.

California paper outsources editing to India.

Democrats' green, politically correct convention should be a circus.

Madison Wisconsin considers ban on fast-food drive throughs to combat global warming. Government is using this fraud to grab unprecedented power. That's what it's all about.

Cato points to 2 respected standard tests that show American students' performance has dropped since No Child Left Behind.

Funny FairTax cartoon.

$90 million police station in Britain has a prayer room, I mean a "reflection room" with a compass for finding Mecca. Coming soon to a city near you. Can you imagine if somebody put a cross up in a US police station?

Austin Bay highlights new program by State Dept. to help people in Afghanistan and Iraq get access to government expertise.

Thomas Sowell has a great essay describing the folly of forcing the US to imitate the policies of countries that are worse off than us. In this case, he means Europe, and he uses the minimum wage and pharmaceutical policies as examples.

John Stossel applauds the role of speculators in business, explaining they work as a type of shock absorber for otherwise abrupt changes in the economy. I think speculators play another important role, and we're seeing that role played out right now in the oil markets. The speculators are like the canary in the coal mine, telling us that we are facing serious energy problems in the near future because the demand for oil is growing significantly faster than the supply. They tell us that through prices. We've had people talk about the energy crisis for over 30 years, but nobody did anything about it. But now that speculators are betting the future price of oil will rise, which puts upward pressure on the current price, we finally seeing something start to happen to resolve the problem.Speculators also signaled the problem with the dollar when they dumped it for commodities. Because of that sudden devalution, the Fed was shocked into remembering its actual charter to control inflation.

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