Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Ben Stein on Oil Company Profits
Ben Stein tries to knock the sense in to Senators and others who are bemoaning the profits being made by oil companies:
I don’t get it. Why are we angry at the oil companies? Is it because of high gas and heating oil prices ? But wait: The oil companies don’t set the world price of oil. That’s set in trading rooms in banking houses in New York and London and Hong Kong by young guys who make zillions each year. There is absolutely no evidence that the oil companies are colluding to fix prices at artificially high levels. Those prices are set, again, by traders with Ferraris, not by John D. Rockefeller, who has been dead for many years.
Yes, the price rose a lot after Katrina, but that’s because producing and refining capacity fell off drastically after the storm damage and thus the traders, sensing shortage, drove up the price. The oil companies benefited from this rise in price, but there have been plenty of times when the price has plummeted and the oil companies have taken it on the chin. The oil companies do help set the price at the pump and they set it based on the world price–which, again, they do not set-- to replace the oil they use up. That is a standard way of setting prices and not at all a conspiracy. When the world price of oil falls, pump prices fall too and they have fallen dramatically since Katrina.
The best part of the piece is this:
I have the sneaking suspicion that this hatred of the oil companies is largely for the reason that teenagers hate their parents: because they are so dependent on them, they respond with anger. But Senators are not supposed to be teenagers and neither are newspapers.
Bravo! But I don't expect certain Senators and their MSM pals to grow up any time soon.
"Bueller? Bueller?"
Posted by
Pam on 01/31 at 01:14 PM in
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Monday, January 30, 2006
Howie Not Cutting It
While Howard Dean may be doing the Republicans lots of favors of late, he isn't helping his own party much.
From Drudge:
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean’s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee’s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL CALL reports.
Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee’s $34 million.
Senate and House Minority Leaders Harry Reid (Nev.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), along with the Senate and House campaign committee chairmen Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), have made their concerns -- directly or indirectly -- known to Dean, claims the paper.
Emanuel was particularly upset last week upon seeing the latest DNC numbers.
“A lot of people are scratching their heads as to what’s going on,” said one senior Democratic aide.
Another Democratic source familiar with the party fundraising apparatus said there is “obvious displeasure” among the leaders.
Will they fire him? Let's hope not.
Posted by
Pam on 01/30 at 07:56 PM in
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Misread Headline of the Day
Rush to adopt baby found in bag
Obviously, I thought I shouldn't have missed Rush LIMBAUGH'S show today! He's going to adopt that baby.
But alas, it was a simple rush of people to adopt the baby.
Pardon me.
Posted by
Aaron on 01/30 at 04:30 PM in
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Sunday, January 29, 2006
Unhinged College Professor
There is a liberal college professor whom I believe fits the category of "Unhinged". He is Mark A. Foster, a sociology professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.
Here is what Foster wrote recently on his blog:
Jack Cafferty just read my email on The Situation Room:
Hi, Jack,
I am one of those academic leftists, and it wouldn't be surprising to any of my friends and acquaintances that I strongly agree with Joel Stein. Indeed, I would go further. The troops, in my view, should, along with King Bush and his court, be tried on war crimes charges.
To reach the blog page containing the above statement, click here.
If you don't know what Joel Stein wrote, then click here to read his commentary published in the L.A. Times.
Ben Stein has written a rebuttal to Joel Stein's commentary, which you can read by clicking here.
[Hat Tip: Real Clear Politics]
What follows is an excerpt of Ben's commentary:
The American Army soldier, Marine, Navy sailor, Air Force warrior, and Coast Guardsman fighting in Ramadi or Mosul is fighting men and women who kill children and old people for sport. The men and women of the United States military are fighting the remnants of a regime so evil that it pioneered the use of torture against children -- just for the amusement of Saddam and his family. The men and women whom Joel despises rid the world of a dictator so twisted and murderous that he openly admired Stalin and Hitler and sought to match their level of atrocities. The men and women who wear the uniform fought, bled, and died to rid the world of the most dangerous man on the planet in the most flammable place on the planet. They died to save a slave people from the genocidal control of a mad killer who thought nothing of gassing his own people, of wiping out entire regions, of setting up special rape rooms to allow his henchmen and his sons to rape women at will, who amused himself by pouring gasoline down the throats of totally innocent people and setting them on fire.
Ben Stein knows who the true villains are. It's too bad that Mark Foster doesn't.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Newspaper Reader Clarifies Abortion Issue
Sometimes a letter to a local newspaper is worthy of being read by a national audience. I believe that the following letter to the Tulsa World is one such letter. The letter's author is responding to an editorial published by the Tulsa World.
Here is the letter in its entirety:
In "Roe at 33: New strategies" (Jan. 22), Tulsa World editorial writer Janet Pearson discussed women being "forced to carry a pregnancy to term," as if they were victims of chance. Almost anyone old enough to get pregnant knows how pregnancy occurs and how to prevent it.
While access to abortion may be limited, access to preventive measures is not. Any woman can obtain birth control free or at low cost through insurance or public health organizations. For unmarried women, abstinence has a 100 percent success rate. Adoption services are also available.
Pregnancy does not make a woman a victim. It is the outcome of an activity, which, in most cases, a woman willingly participated in without taking precautions. Why should an expectant mother be entitled to snuff out the life of her unborn child just because its existence is inconvenient, especially when she had the means to prevent the pregnancy in the first place?
Ms. Pearson believes teens should be entitled to abortion without parental consent. Yet teens need parental consent for other procedures. Telling a parent of a pregnancy is difficult, but why should parents be kept in the dark while society coddles their teens by enabling them to take a perceived easy way out?
Ms. Pearson made abortion sound like the only option for many women while ignoring the dangers, which are numerous. Overturning Roe v. Wade, or even doing away with abortion, would not take choice away from women. Women can choose morality and self control over what feels good for a moment, and if that is too difficult, they can choose to use birth control or give their babies up for adoption. There are plenty of choices available to women besides abortion.
Candace Marra, Mounds
Side Notes:
1)Many readers of the Tulsa World are unaware of the fact that the publisher's mother (and wife of the former publisher) used to serve on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma. It would be reasonable to suspect that the newspaper might be biased when it comes to the issue of abortion.
2) The Tulsa World might object to me posting the aforementioned letter in its entirety. However, the letter's author doesn't write for the Tulsa World, and she is the one who possesses all rights to the letter's contents. I suspect that she would welcome her letter being shared with a national audience.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Story Update: Eminent Domain Hoax
In my post Blogosphere Spreads Eminent Domain Hoax, I relay a story about church property being taken through the use of eminent domain. Then I claim that the story is a hoax.
As it turns out, the Oklahoma Constitution supports my claim.
Here is what the constitution says about the taking of private property for private use.
Article II: BILL OF RIGHTS
Section II-23: Private property - Taking or damaging for private use.
No private property shall be taken or damaged for private use,
with or without compensation, unless by consent of the owner,
except for private ways of necessity, or for drains and ditches
across lands of others for agricultural, mining, or sanitary
purposes, in such manner as may be prescribed by law.
According to the story published by National Review Online, the city of Sand Springs, Oklahoma wants to replace three churches and other private property with a new super center. The last time that I checked, super centers are commercial property, not public property.
It would be a violation of the state constitution to use eminent domain to seize private property for commercial use. Thus, if the city of Sand Springs wishes to acquire private property for commercial use, then the city will have to acquire the property without using eminent domain – which is what the city of Sand Springs is trying to do.
The city isn’t using eminent domain because it would be illegal for the city to do so.
Heather Wilhelm, the author of the NRO story, has taken an attempted government purchase of church property, which is a fact, and turned it into an attempted use of eminent domain, which is fiction.
In a related matter, I was correct when I said that eminent domain would be a hot topic during the 2006 session of the Oklahoma Legislature. The Tulsa World reports that two members of the legislature have introduced bills aimed at limiting the use of eminent domain. The bills would define the term “public use” in a way that excludes private development for economic benefits.
UPDATED! Queen Ann Places Foot In Mouth
I just cannot condone her joking about
poisoning Justice Stevens.
Its disgusting and dispicable. I hope she apologizes, but I don't think she will.
UPDATE! There have been more articles written about the incident.
THE MAN (I mean, this guy is the
Jack Bauer of New York City; he's got some serious "onions") pointed out the response of a student at the HBCU (that's Historically Black College or University to our liberal readers).
It seems there is more to
the story than I thought:
Coulter did provoke some booing, though, especially after she stopped two black men during questions, telling them, "I'm not gonna be lectured to," according to the newspaper account. She also was booed when she said that the crack cocaine epidemic "has pretty much gone away."
Blacks "are the most loyal group for Democrats and you ought to be getting a little more out of them by giving them competition through the Republicans," Coulter said.
She hailed the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, suggesting that now there might be a fair vote on abortion.
Afterward, black students stood around "lashing" back at Coulter's "rhetoric," the newspaper said. One sophomore girl said: "We need someone on the Democratic side who is just as outspoken as she is."
The college president, Walter Kimbrough, had told the audience, that inviting Coulter to speak at the black school made sense because like hip hoppers she is "raw, outspoken, uncensored." He also called her the "conservative answer to rapper Lil' Kim -- [both] attractive and sexy, long-haired blondes. ..."
Coulter said it was "the best introduction" she'd ever had.
Posted by
Aaron on 01/27 at 03:31 PM in
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Eggggssselent! [said like Burns on the Simpsons]
I just got an invite to a private tour of the West Wing sometime in February! Yahoo!
Posted by
Aaron on 01/27 at 01:49 PM in
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Damn Southerners
Ronald Brownstein has a
review of several books on the South and national politics over at the American Prospect. I couldn't help chuckling at this part:
Consider the Senate. In the 11 states of the old Confederacy plus Oklahoma and Kentucky -- the generally accepted political definition of the South -- Republicans hold 22 of the 26 Senate seats. In the rest of the country, Democrats control seven more Senate seats than the GOP. But that’s not nearly enough to offset the lopsided Republican advantage in the South.
The same is true in the House. Outside the South, Democrats hold a 152-140 edge in House seats. But the GOP’s 40-seat cushion in the South ensures that Illinois Republican Denny Hastert holds the speaker’s gavel, not San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi. The imbalance is even more pronounced in the race for the White House. In 2000, Al Gore won just over 70 percent of the Electoral College votes at stake outside the South. But George W. Bush narrowly won the White House because he swept all 165 Electoral College votes in the 13 southern states. Four years later, John Kerry won 68 percent of the Electoral College votes outside the South. But Bush won because he again swept the 13 Southern states -- this time worth 168 Electoral College votes after population growth measured in the 2000 Census.
You can almost hear the sighing, the call for the United States to be split into two countries--Jesusland and the United States of Canada, as some liberals put it following the 2004 election. Apparently they have forgotten that we fought a war over that very issue, 140 years ago.
Although many liberals claim that the South went to the Republicans because Nixon pursued the "Southern Strategy" of "coded" appeals to racist rednecks, I suspect more than anything else it was that Southern white men were being pushed away from the Democrats than that they were being courted by Nixon.
The irony, of course, is that because Southern white men have abandoned the Democrats in such massive numbers, the ones who remained behind have become more important to the party. Since 1968, the Democratic ticket has included at least one Southern white male in every election except the two landslides: 1972 and 1984. The only Democrats to be elected to the presidency since then were from Georgia and Arkansas.
By the same logic, black men and black women have become more important to the Republican party. Think about the strong support than Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have enjoyed from polls of conservatives over the past decade. Either or both have been mentioned as potential running mates or presidential candidates more times than you can count.
Be Very Afraid
Someone at National Journal penned my
worst nightmare.
We cannot be lazy this year. We have to love our Republican Majority as much as we love Bush.
Posted by
Aaron on 01/27 at 11:27 AM in
Leftwing Lunacy
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Thursday, January 26, 2006
Senator Lurch Calls for Filibuster of Alito
Does John Kerry still matter?
Sen. John Kerry has decided to support a filibuster to block the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, CNN's Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry reported Thursday.
Kerry, in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, was marshaling support in phone calls during the day, Henry said.
Ah, yes. Davos. That seems to be the place to make
ludicris statements.
Posted by
Aaron on 01/26 at 04:33 PM in
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This is truly heartbreaking
I cannot imagine the grief this mother must be going through right now. Please keep her and her other relatives in your prayers.
News of a crash in which seven children perished so upset their grandfather that he had a massive heart attack and died, the children's adoptive mother said.
"I lost my daddy tonight," Barbara Mann said Wednesday. "My dad died of a massive heart attack tonight over all this. He lost all seven of his grandkids ... I can't deal with this."
Posted by
Aaron on 01/26 at 01:06 PM in
Culture of Life
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DOPPELGANGERS
Posted by
Kitty on 01/26 at 11:47 AM in
Kitty's Corner
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Even MORE Hilarious!
I gotta give it to BulldogPundit over at
ABP for one-upping me on the hilarious video.
You will NOT believe this!
Posted by
Aaron on 01/26 at 11:41 AM in
Sports
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Crazy Hilarious
Do you need a good belly laugh?
You have to check this out.
Posted by
Aaron on 01/26 at 10:46 AM in
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