That’s how many fewer miles Americans drove in April, 2008, as compared to the same period last year. There are benefits to higher gas prices.
Archives for 2008
Too Awesome For Words
I blogged a few weeks back about a convicted criminal, Larry Sinclair, who’d been begging the media to cover his wild allegations about Barack Obama. Today Sinclair trotted into the National Press Club to air the allegations before what can literally be described as an audience of international press, and can more accurately be described as an amused bunch of people taking in a circus act.
***“Thank you.” Sinclair moved on and Sibley refused to let me ask another question. Why didn’t I wait until the end of the press conference and rush up to the accuser? The second Sinclair stopped taking questions, he fled the room and reporters were denied access to anyone but Sibley. I was a little disappointed until I heard the reason. Larry Sinclair was arrested after the press conference and is being held by the Washington, D.C. metropolitan police. He’s been charged as a fugitive from justice; one of his warrants can be seen here.
Question: Who will be the first to claim that if you speak out against Obamessiah, you get arrested? The Free Republic or No Quarter?
Real Patriots Repeatedly Steal Recipes
It looks like Cindy McCain sucks as bad as her husband when on the attack- it doesn’t come across as clever, or witty, or effective:
ABC News’ Ed O’Keefe Reports: Laura Bush may be ready to give Michelle Obama the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her patriotism but Cindy McCain may not.
“I don’t know why she said what she said,” Mrs. McCain explains in an interview with ABC News’ Kate Snow airing on “Good Morning America” Thursday. “Everyone has their own experience. I don’t know why she said what she said, all I know is that I have always been proud of my country.”
The Senator and Mrs. McCain are beginning to look as tin-eared as the Clinton campaign.
Overheard On CNN
During the top story on Lou Dobbs, a reporter discussing the off-shore drilling stated the following (and I paraphrase):
Bush is pushing the drilling issue because he fears a recession may tarnish his legacy…
Yeah, a failed war, the worst natural disaster response in modern history, a tattered Justice Department, a broken military, a decimated budget and trillions of additional debt, the taint of torture, an exposed CIA spy, a history of domestic spying, the insertion of religious nuts and unqualified hacks throughout every level of his administration, and a ruined reputation abroad and Bush is worried about a recession ruining his legacy?
I need a drink.
We’re Number One!
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. George Bush, September 20, 2001 before a Joint Session of Congress and the American people.
Apparently there was an easy fix to handle people who hate us for our freedoms, and only this administration was clever enough to see it. Major General Anthony Taguba:
The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted—both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
Time to break out the big USA #1 foam finger, because man I feel proud, as we sure showed those guys who hate us for our freedoms. Heckuva job, Bush.
See also the entire McClatchey investigative report.
*** Update ***
By the way- CNN is giving this solid coverage, while at MSNBC the big news is that Tim Russert is still dead. Elsewhere, the Editors alert us to the fact that the lead editorial at the WaPo was Michael Gerson venting about Al Franken’s potty mouth.
Drilling for Stupidity and Hitting a Gusher: The Painful Inanity of Chris Matthews
Yesterday on Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: With gas moving up towards five bucks a gallon, Chrystia, do you think that the voters of the United States, if they had a plebiscite and everybody got to vote, wouldn‘t vote right now to open up the Arctic wilderness, wouldn‘t vote right now for off-shore if it could get them $2 gas (INAUDIBLE) gas? Wouldn‘t they be very pragmatic and say, Enough of the environmentalism, we want the cheaper gas?
Other things a “plebiscite” of Americans would “pragmatically” vote for unanimously:
A cure for cancer
Free ponies
Lottery wins for everyone
Genetically modified healthy pizza
Of course, if we could go to the polls and “make it happen,” we would vote for gasoline to be $2.00 a gallon. But why stop there? Why not $1.00? Or better yet- FREE!
The thing is, though, if we start offshore drilling immediately, and I will throw in drilling in ANWR and anywhere else you want to drill, the price of gas is not going to drop to $2.00 a gallon. It just isn’t- oil is a fungible commodity, is restricted by our refining capacity, and so on (take note of the fact that the production of gas-guzzling SUV’s is tapering off– think there is a connection to oil prices? ). Not to mention the overseas demand in places like China and India and whatnot are going to double over the next ten years. So $2.00 gasoline is just a pipe dream, most certainly will not happen in the long term, and definitely not in the short term.
This is not to say that I am fundamentally opposed to offshore drilling- I have repeatedly stated that any rational energy policy needs to look at every available possibility, to include drilling, increased refining, higher CAFE standards (not the weak increases that just passed that will not take place until 2020), targeted tax cuts aimed at spurring technological advances in green technologies, nuclear power, and so forth, but the notion we can drill our way out of our current problem is absurd. As such, it should surprise approximately NO ONE that this will become a key plank in the 2008 Republican election gambit. Unfortunately for the Republicans, some of the chief supporters of the ban are… Republicans, as the LA Times notes:
President Bush today called on Congress to clear the way for offshore drilling by the states, saying that it could match current production for 10 years and that new methods allow drilling that protects habitats against oil spills.
With Democrats in Congress opposed to drilling, Bush said their opposition is “outdated and counterproductive” and that it “helped drive gas prices to their current level.” Saying that $4-a-gallon gas prices should be “enough incentive” for Democrats to act, Bush asked, “How high do gas prices have to rise before the Democratic Congress will do something about it?”
Bush also called for exploration of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a new push for refineries (he blamed “lawsuits and red tape” for the fact that no new refineries have been built in 30 years) and mining of shale rock for oil.
The president made no mention of his father, President George H.W. Bush, who banned coastal oil exploration in 1990, or his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who long opposed it. Except to say that much of U.S. energy now “comes from abroad, that’s what’s changed in the last few decades,” putting “our economy and our security at risk.”
In short, yes, Chris Matthews, a plebiscite would probably vote for gasoline at $2.00 a gallon, but what would be awesome is if there was some way, some form of giant medium where the sort of information discussed above could get out to the general public. Some system by which allegedly informed individuals could spread this message to large numbers of people, and when politicians claim that offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR will magically return us to $2.00 gasoline, these allegedly informed people could call “bullshit!” and let the public know the pols are full of it. Maybe even a system in which things are “broadcast” into people’s homes on a box-like apparatus with pictures and sound. Maybe they could even use high-speed cables and satellite to beam that information to consumers. That would be awesome, but it would probably require that the people sending the message be smarter than a stump.
I guess we can hope that a magical technology like this is right around the corner. I bet a plebiscite of the American public would support this kind of technology.
*** Update ***
And then you have this:
As President Bush considers repealing a ban on drilling off most of the coast of the United States, a shortage of ships used for such drilling promises to impede any rapid turnaround in oil exploration. Slow growth in oil supplies has been a major factor in the spike in oil and gasoline prices.
In recent years, a global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones, at a time of soaring demand.
As oil trades at more than $135 a barrel — up from $68 a year ago — the world’s drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.
Dodd Should Know Better
This really speaks for itself:
Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut said Tuesday that he was aware that Countrywide Financial Corporation had assigned him to a V.I.P. program in 2003 when he refinanced mortgages on his homes in Connecticut and Washington but that he and his wife “assumed” that “it was more of a courtesy thing.”
Mr. Dodd insisted that they did not get favorable pricing.
As the Senate prepared to take up legislation intended to rescue homeowners at the brink of foreclosure, Mr. Dodd, a Democrat and chairman of the banking committee, defended himself against suggestions that he had received preferential treatment from Countrywide. At a tense news conference, he flatly denied seeking or receiving any discount from the lender.
Dodd goes on to say he got no special treatment, but I am not sure how he parses something being a “courtesy” but not “special treatment.” Email documents from Countrywide show he got half-point off on his loan from the prevailing rate, but I am not sure whether that is due to Dodd’s affluence or his influence. Probably a bit of both.