It has been a busy time at my day job and sometimes almost an entire day can pass by before I catch up with the news of the day. Occasionally, a lot of things happen. Today was one of those days. Rush Limbaugh went public with his sex fantasies. The Koch bros are suing a widow over control of the Cato Institute. The War on Women suffered a defeat in the Senate. My Governor in Maryland signed the law approving Marriage Equality. Mitt Romney continued to say and do stupid things. President Obama called for an end to Oil Company Welfare (and found time to talk about sports). And Andrew Breitbart went on a walk and died.
Others on the Front Page have commented on Breitbart’s passing. And I would agree, in general, with the advice that one should not speak ill of the dead. But, that advice is not a reason to avoid the work and impact of a public figure when they pass. And Breitbart was a public figure with a record of doing great harm to our Nation and our politics. His death does not free us from the obligation to call out and condemn that damage. His life’s work was to embrace and push any tactic, distortion, threat or lie that might help him “win” any real or imagined political battle. He embraced a rejection of fairness, integrity and honor in political discourse as virtues to celebrate–as long as they helped him win a news cycle, embarrass a foe or score a cheap political point. The product of his life’s work was public and full of harm. Our world is poorer, sadder and a more damaged place because of the choices Breitbart made and the work that he did. His passing ends the damage he can continue to do, but not the harm that his legacy and his fellow travelers will continue to inflict upon our politics and our Nation. So it goes.
I wish that he had not died. In part because he leaves behind four children, who I’m sure saw his non-public side and will miss him. In part because I was looking forward to the ass whooping he was going to get in the Shirley Sherrod libel trial. And in part because I wish that he had a chance to change his path–that he had a chance to have his own “Road to Damascus” moment. Other paid shock troops of Wingnutopia made that choice and it was one that Beirtbart could have made as well. Such a transformation was never likely, but while he was alive there was a small chance that one day he might turn away from his grifter-for-hire-hit-man path. His death closes that door.
When I heard the news of his death, Hieronymous Bosch came to mind–especially his Triptych of The Garden of Earthly Delights. The outer panels (the shutters that open to reveal the triptych) are of the creation of Earth. When opened there are three panels. The Left Wing, depicts the Garden of Eden and earthly paradise. The Center Panel depicts life on Earth with all of its many pleasures and temptations. The Right Wing (shown above) depicts Hell.
The Right Wing as Hell seemed a fitting image as I thought of Breitbart, his life’s work and his passing. If he is fortunate he is now in a void of emptiness or with the FSM drinking stale beer and engaging in risky sex. OTOH, if Judeo-Christian mythology informs your view of the afterlife, then Breitbart is likely living in Bosch’s Right Wing for all eternity.
I’ll hope he’s with the FSM, at least in that myth he still has a shot at redemption–or if that fails, bad beer.
Cheers
dww44
What does happen to Shirley Sherrod’s libel suit? Does it move forward against his estate? She is due justice and his death diminishes her chances of getting justice. It’s not just about the ass whupping (how we’ve always said it and spelled it where I grew up) Breitbart was hopefully going to receive;it’s also about the public and legal recognition of the wrongs done to her by him and O’Keefe.
Sherrod getting justice was somehow going to make what he did to ACORN less painful to remember, and I really do believe what he and the GOP did to that organization was and is absolutely despicable.
OTOH, interesting discussion tonight at the end of the O’Donnell show and his 2 guests, both African-American, was quite interesting. O’Donnell’s not too long ago encounter with Breitbart in Manchester NH on the eve of the primary there was revealing about the latter’s personality. It seems he really did have a sane side. Wonder, though, what famous famous journalist Breitbart had a conversation with at the “liberal” party Lawrence took him to that night.
Spaghetti Lee
I agree with your assessment. My visceral reaction upon thinking about Breitbart’s death is “he can’t hurt this country anymore”. Yes, it’s sad that he died so young and left his wife and kids without him. Yes, it’s kind of tragic that he was so full of hate in life. I’m not happy that he died. But he was a public figure, a fame-seeker at that, and that’s how I’m going to judge him. And by that standard, he was a horrible person, an inveterate liar, a professional destroyer of reputations, one of the far right’s worst shock troops. The world at large is better off with his brand of hate gone. And at some point, I find it very hard to separate one’s political actions with however nice of a person he may have been in private. When even Wonkette is saying that he was not as bad a person as you’d think, I’m inclined to believe it-they’ve never been the type to hold back on the vitriol in the interests of politeness. But really, what’s that worth, when his public life was so full of rottenness? What did he tell his four kids he did at work the day his lies about Shirley Sherrod went public? Lots of people are nice to their kids and wife-that’s kind of the minimum expectation.
I’d argue he had lots of personal demons, maybe translating to substance abuse problems or serious health issues-I’d be kind of surprised if a reference to heavy drinking doesn’t show up in the autopsy. Too bad he insisted on taking those demons out on innocent people.
David Koch
Lawrence O’Donnell gave him a tongue bath tonight (“he was such a nice guy to have a beer with”).
not kidding. wish I was.
Spaghetti Lee
@dww44:
From what I’ve heard, the lawsuit will continue against his estate, or maybe against his companies. On that note, one thing I will celebrate is if his death takes his wretched “media empire” down with him, leaving his otherwise-unemployable minions to find a job other than spewing propagandistic filth into the internet.
middlewest
Looks like Rush got a false-alarm bomb scare from one of his dopey dittoheads. Poor guy.
Cluttered Mind
@Spaghetti Lee: Unfortunately, there will always be jobs available for wingnuts spewing propagandistic filth into the internet. Wingnut welfare will take care of Breitbart’s lackeys, even if his organization itself crumbles.
David Koch
Dennis,
Your link on Obama talking about sports is incorrect.
please update.
Poopyman
I think you meant to say.
Dennis G.
@David Koch: Try these:
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/18687/b-s-report-barack-obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7znJyJ0dewk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S00BavfxR84&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCqRB9ySrYw&feature=player_embedded
Poopyman
Only after untold more damage. No thanks. There was no indication he was having second thoughts.
Dennis G.
@Poopyman: fixed. thanks
scav
“Road to Damascus” moment. Did Paul did more long-term damage before or after said moment. Discuss.
Dennis G.
@scav: A reasonable point…
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
This.
Nice people don’t dedicate their professional lives to destroying organizations relied on by the poorest and weakest members of society. Good for Andy if he was nice to his dog; he still made it his life’s calling to destroy other people’s lives.
Spaceman Spiff
As for my feelings on Breitbart’s death, I think Voltaire said it best:
“One owes respect to the living to he dead one only owes the truth.”
And the truth is that Breitbart, like Hitch, was insufferable.
binzinerator
He was a dirty mean vindictive unempathetic little bastard who did his damnedest to fuck over millions of people who never wished him any harm.
You are a maudlin weakminded fool if you think his death frees us from any obligation to call out a dirty mean little bastard who would screw the poor, the weak, and the powerless out of what is often their their only birthright, their voice in this representative democracy.
Fuck that rotting shell of a loathsome stinking excuse for a man. If there was any justice in this world, and if every one was as indecent and vile as he, every person he sought to nullify as a human being in this nation would get a turn to shit down his embalmed corpse’s throat.
Spaceman Spiff
As for my feelings on Breitbart’s death, I think Voltaire said it best:
“One owes respect to the living; to the dead one only owes the truth.”
And the truth is that Breitbart, like Hitch, was insufferable.
CT Voter
Thanks, Dennis.
Breitbart–the public persona–succeeded in doing great harm to public discourse, to any discussion of voting rights… And did so willingly. The private persona? Who knows? But it sounds like this: “Passionate! Full of life!” And whatever palaver will be written by people who were delighted to find that someone who chose to break things could be really charming in person.
He was as savvy about today’s media as Madonna was about “entertainment”. She’s a fabulous promoter of Madonna. He was a fabulous promoter of Andrew Breitbart.
Good on him for being a terrific self-promoter. Too bad so many others will suffer as a result of his zeal. He parts ways with Madonna in that regard.
PanurgeATL
But even a “void of emptiness” is something–something that must be located outside the physical body, since the body eventually ceases to exist. If materialism is really right, then there isn’t even nothing. Or is that just a metaphor?
texascowgirl
He will still be trying to do damage after death.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/breitbart-friend-reveals-to-hannity-obama-harvard-tapes-will-be-out-in-a-week-or-two/
Maybe they also found the famed “whitey tape” too?
Blogreeder
President Obama – the great economist. Gas prices too high? Let’s raise their taxes! What a moron.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
after the witney houston thing, i wish the right wing nuts would make a stink about what the left is saying about breitbart.
Martin
@Blogreeder:
You don’t know anything about commodity markets, do you?
The selling price of oil bears precisely zero relationship to the cost of extracting that oil, except at the pricing floor. Clearly that’s not where the market is. So the $123 per barrel that Exxon gets now doesn’t mean that it costs 3x more to extract oil than it did a year ago when oil was selling for $40 per barrel. All it means is that instead of Exxon making $20 a barrel like they were before, they’re not making $100 a barrel.
Exxon earned $9.4B in profits last quarter. You think we should keep subsidizing them? You think you know anything at all about economics?
Mouse Tolliver
@dww44:
If he did in fact have a sane side and his angry lunatic persona is just an act, people like O’Donnell have an obligation to expose it to the public. This is supposed to be the news, not a reality show. They’re not supposed to be playing characters when they go on TV.
However, I’m sure it is a big sham most of the time where everyone has a role to play. Like that one Republican guy who’s on Hardball all the time. You can tell by his smarmy smirk that he doesn’t believe his own talking points a most of the time. Sometimes he reminds me of Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show trying not to laugh at Tim Conway.
samara morgan
fuck that. the people Breitbart screwed over with his fake journalism stings had children too. i hope the little breitbarts grow up to be deeply ashamed of their dad. ditto his wife.
i thought about Bosch also. i hope there is a christian hell for Breitbart where some minor demon is winding his intestines around a red hot pitchfork.
And you know what else? there was something deeply wrong with Breitbart. Any physician that saw the clip of him screaming STOP RAPING at the Occupy protestors had to be thinking of early onset vascular dementia.
If he didnt die of rage poisoning perhaps the Kocks had him whacked before he could destroy his own brand.
asiangrrlMN
I love Bosch, especially his triptychs. If Breitbart was a nice, decent, good guy in his private life, that only makes what he did in public even more loathsome. He did so much damage to people’s lives (Sherrod, ACORN, etc.), with seemingly no regret or remorse. The worst part is that his legacy will live on because people on the right have seen what Breitbart and his ilk have gotten away with and will continue to use his tricks to further their twisted causes.
Carolina Dave
Dennis G,
Great summary of the 1st of March.
Thanks for your perspective.
Also. Troll alert!!
Gas prices are rising! Worst president ever!
samara morgan
@binzinerator: agree.
but the truly sad thing about Breitbart was that all his effort was for nothing.
he was a culture warrior with zero understanding of what culture is.
let us hope that that realization will torment him for all eternity.
KG
I agree entirely with the third paragraph.
As for calling out his bullshit, people were doing that every day he lived. We can take a break until the memorial is over and he’s buried.
KG
@Mouse Tolliver: of course it’s all a big sham. Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. Part of it is simply the fact that they all have to live and work together, and it’s much harder to be a constant asshole to people you live and work with, whose kid is on your kid’s soccer team, who you see at PTA meetings, and at the gym on the treadmill next to you. This really can’t be a surprise to anyone, can it?
dead existentialist
@Martin: Thanks. I was about to take a whack at the mole, but you did a much better job.
How do subsidies equal taxes?
More importantly, how did this doofus find this site?
(Psst, Blogreeder: Newsmax, WND, & Blaze are over there, on your right next to La-la Land.)
freelancer
I’m sad the dude is dead too early. He seemed to fume so hard that he was like Bruce Lee level of pissed-off angry that he was seconds away from an aneurysm.
We’ll always have the night two years ago when we called each other fucktards.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@asiangrrlMN: Agree about Bosch. Another one I like, in a similar way, is Breugel the Elder.
I also got a kick out of reading Michael Connelly’s mysteries featuring “Harry Bosch”, the name really is appropriate.
Another Bob
OK, but today might finally be the right time for Anthony Weiner to text a picture of himself with an erection.
dead existentialist
@Another Bob: Too funny!
ETA: I’m still laughing!
asiangrrlMN
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I think I read one or two of those books back in the day. Damn. I can’t remember much about them.
I quite like this by Bruegel the Elder. Kinda reminds me of Escher, whom I also like.
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I just Googled Bruegel in Images and picked that one. P.S. This is Pieter Bruegel the Elder, not his son the other Elder or his grandson, the Younger. I’m confusing myself!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@asiangrrlMN: I hadn’t seen that Breugel before, it’s really fantastic.
cthulhu
Of course the Villagers, including O’Donnell, can wax poetic about Breitbart – he didn’t do them any damage; he was just part of their dramatic milieu.
But Brietbart did real damage to quite a few people, especially to those who had actual skin in the game.
Blogreeder
@Martin: I see you’re an economic moron too. At least he’s got company.
samara morgan
@cthulhu: but the damage Breitbart did was all for nothing. He never took any culture back.
not a nanoparticle.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@asiangrrlMN: You briefly confused me there. I am referring to the same Breugel as you. Example: The Triumph of Death
Blogreeder
@dead existentialist: Three morons! A hat trick!
MikeJ
@Martin: I beleive the dumbass’s argument is that if the US government doesn’t bribe the oil companies that they will use the forces of the free market to raise their profits by taking money from people that use their product. If there’s anything Republicans hate it’s a free market.
If he dislikes the price of oil I suppose he could switch to an electric car and put solar panels on his roof, but he’ll need to beware of dumping from China.
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
Yes, facts are for morons and stoopid libs who point at charts and futures markets. Me-HATEY-COMPLICATY! How about an argument instead of distraction and obfuscation?
Blogreeder
Economics 101. Question: Where do the oil companies get their revenue? Who pays them? Anyone?
samara morgan
here come the Obama tapes.
extreme editing like the Acorn tapes?
hope the president is lawyered up.
Breitbart’s metier was catalepsis (meaning to be seized), the darling of trial lawyers.
Introduce some shocking lie, and the human brain will still remember it even after it is instructed not to.
asiangrrlMN
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I was being a smart-ass because the Wiki was listing him as the father of this Elder who is the father of that Younger – sorry. It was funny in my head. But, yes. We are talking about the same Pieter Bruegel.
This guy.
Blogreeder
@MikeJ: I think you’re the closest with “by taking money from people that use their products”. Good job! Everyone else has to stay behind and clean erasers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The prophet Nostradumbass: that’s remarkable. When I think of Breugel I tend to think of those scenes of village life in winter. Like Bosch and Durer, those late medieval types really knew how to portray death and Death and Judgement day in ways that drove things home. I don’t like Medieval thinking when Santorum expresses it, but some of those paintings, the sculptures, there’s a stunning dark, horrific beauty to those images
The prophet Nostradumbass
@asiangrrlMN: That’s another good one, I actually had it as my desktop wallpaper at one time.
Blogreeder
Question: How many gallons are there in a barrel?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Mmm…tower of Babel. I want my babel fish naow plz!
Hi hon.
Stranded Northerner
Spotted this item on the Sun-Sentinel’s main page a few minutes ago, thought it might be of interest:
Bomb squad called to Rush Limbaugh’s Palm Beach home
It turned out to be a false-alarm, but I’m betting he’s still feeling a bit nervous right now.
dead existentialist
@Blogreeder: Own goal, asshole. (You’re a gaseous one at that.)
And in related news: Ugh. Our liberal media.
I’m swearing off The Grey Lady. She’s a whore of the first, second, and third order. Jeesuz, I wanna puke.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Stranded Northerner: I’m betting he took a really toxic dump and his housekeeper freaked out.
middlewest
@Blogreeder: Stop making up new names, it’s getting pathetic.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Hey, babe. How you be? Here’s your babelfish. Meaningless words to separate the two links more. I’m listening to Erasure. DON’T JUDGE ME!
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
Who is
John GaltChevron Everyman?Fail.
Who pays Oil Companies?! If this question isn’t rhetorical, I’ll eat my hat.
How does GE turn a profit in the face of such anti-capitalist sentiment?! Ask not for which company the bell tolls, it tolls for Boeing. I am a corporation. Hath not Bechtel eyes? Hath not Lockheed-Martin hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a silly, commie, EPA-loving, groundwater-drinking lib is? If you frack us, does our water not burn?!
You’re nuts.
Blogreeder
Now if the oil companies get their revenue from people who use their products (thanks MikeJ) and their cost has gone up because of new taxes. Where will they get that extra money they now need to pay the new taxes? And who still thinks that the gas prices won’t be raised? Like I said, morons!
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Oh, freelancer. How I’ve missed your evisceration of teh trollz. ::munches popcorn::
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
Are there no
workhousesoil platforms? Will no one think of the poor bondholders?!If they cannot afford gasoline, let them eat JP-8! That will surely fill every American’s private jet.
Blogreeder
@freelancer: What are you talking about?
That’s the only part I understood.
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
I live to serve, milady. ;)
And it’s okay, back in 94, I really liked this one song by Erasure that cracked the top 40. I was an odd 12 year old.
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
Not a lit major, ladies and gents. Not even a semi-poorly read one like myself.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Dang. I forget how young you are. Offa my lawn! That’s a good Erasure song. This is a fun one!
Please! Continue. ::waves hand languorously::
David Koch
I’m browsing through the threads, and everyone had a good laugh over the right wing CT that Obama was behind Breitbart’s death, which is fine, but why weren’t people as incredulous when lefty kooks (from Michael Moore to GOS to Naomi Wolf) were pushing the CT that Obama was behind the eviction of OWS? I mean, that was just as laughable, yet so many self described members of a reality based community were either silent or support.
dead existentialist
@freelancer: Hee hee, that was brilliant. As an O! person, may I say that I am constantly proud of the limited connection to being from the same place?
(And he’s not just nuts, he’s really, really stupid. But I repeat myself.)
@asiangrrlMN: ::Mhm hmm::
Martin
@MikeJ:
What’s most interesting is that they never notice that nobody ever talks about what Exxon charges for oil, or BP, or anyone else. You’d think at some point they’d notice that and wonder “Hmm. How does Exxon sell their oil if they never tell anyone the price that they charge?”
The prophet Nostradumbass
OT: some good news, Limbaugh loses a sponsor. Sleep Train run *lots* of ads in California.
Yutsano
@dead existentialist: I was born in Hawai’i. I win. :)
@asiangrrlMN: NYD no haz that fun of a night last night. I tucked him in tonight though. So all is good.
scav
More fun with Numbers, also c/o the NYT. Poll Finds Divisions Over Requiring Coverage
Dispirited? But Wait!
and
It’s sort of the flip side of Politifact’s “Mostly True” rating. Damn, majorities simply aren’t what they used to be. Must be all that New Math and THE Numbers again. The quotes are cheering and there’s other chewy details / breakdowns in there.
Blogreeder
@Martin:
There is a cost to extract it. They have to make that money back or they won’t extract it. It gets more expensive the harder it is to extract. I don’t think oil is 123 a barrel yet, last I saw it was 110 and the price for gas is already over 4 a gallon. There are 42 gallons to a barrel which comes to (110 / 42) 2.62 a gallon. So why does it cost more? If they have to pay more taxes that will go up.
asiangrrlMN
@dead existentialist: ::holds out popcorn, returns to action::
@Yutsano: Aw, poor Puppeh. Glad you tucked him in right proper!
freelancer
@dead existentialist:
Nice to know that other Omaha people are here. I’ve been gone for six months and I need to go back sometime in the near future.
Blogreeder
@freelancer: So you’re a lit major! A worthless degree. How much math did you have to take? See, I knew you guys were morons!
dead existentialist
@Yutsano: Uh, I meant Omaha. See linky. O!
@freelancer: Sure you do
We’re a fun bunch as you so often prove.
Shit! You have to click on another link to get the sound effects. Sorry, I was being sloppy and didn’t pay attention to the details. Rats.
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
If I am selling apples, and the government actually buys land for me to grow more apple trees, and I plant them and trees grow and thus I have more apples, and AT THE SAME TIME, the price of apples goes UP, than Economics 101 tells me that I’m producing more apples and the revenue I make off of them will be even greater, than the conclusion to be made by anyone is that even if my investment into making more apples increases, my profit will remain at least as high if not larger than what I was previously making.
Q.E.D. It costs money to pull oil from the ground, but if my ability to pull oil from the ground has increased, and at the same time, the market price of my product has increased in value, HOW CAN I LOSE?! You defeat your own argument.
I swear we are arguing with some outsourced expat. A think-tank version of when you call your cellphone provider and you get someone in a thick Indian accent who tells you they care about your problem and wants to fix it, and his name is “Kenneth”.
What’s your frequency, ‘reeder?
David Koch
CBS reported tonight that “Israel is furious with General Dempsey” for saying it’s premature to attack Iran.
I tell ya, the Likudniks are so funny.
Any moment now, their US media assets will start smearing Dempsey as an anti-Semite.
Suffern ACE
@blogreader- check your math. There aren’t 42 gallons of gasoline in a barrel of oil. There are 19.5 and a bunch of other stuff. Now, there is a market for that other stuff, so you need to include prices for those items as well.
Blogreeder
@freelancer: Let’s eviscerate that, shall we?
How does this apply? I know it’s an analogy but the oil companies still have to lease the land, it’s not given to them.
Long winded, but true.
You don’t even know how to use Q.E.D. That’s at the end of a proof and you still had more to say. They way markets work is that the price goes up then the companies try to produce more at that price to make a bigger profit. The more they produce, the harder it is to sell at that higher price. The price will then go down to clear inventory. You don’t add cost to decrease the price. You let them produce more.
dead existentialist
@Suffern ACE: [citation from commie guverment] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=24&t=6
For Blogreeder’s erudition.
Martin
@Blogreeder:
The average global extraction cost for a barrel of oil is $11/bbl as of last year. It might be a little higher now – maybe $15. WTI is $108. Brent is $126 as of today. That they’re so far apart should tells you something pretty important.
The price of oil is only dependent on what people are willing to pay for it until it gets down near the extraction cost. It’s entirely demand-driven. Refiners have to pay the market price, so gas prices are lower-bound dependent on the price of oil. So, take your $2.62, add in $.60 for refining costs and taxes. Now you’re at $3.22. The refiners sell the gas on the wholesale gasoline market, and guess what the wholesale gasoline price is? $3.32/gal. The retailers buy it on that market, transport it, market it, pay for pumps and attendants, add in local taxes, and we get an average retail price of $3.74.
And since we’re now a gasoline exporter, it really doesn’t matter what US consumers are willing to pay if Mexico or Canada or China or whoever we’re exporting to is willing to pay. If they’ll pay $3.50/gal wholesale, they’re going to drive that wholesale price up and we’re going to pay more.
If gas seems too expensive it’s because, in part, non-Americans are willing to pay more for US refined gas. It’s called the free market, and what you’re seeing is US purchasing power eroding because US workers are either underpaid compared their foreign counterparts, or because we’re just a bunch of whiners.
freelancer
@Suffern ACE:
He doesn’t do math. He just spouts arguments from authority and quotes specious nonsense, then calls us “Morons”. Didn’t get a single allusion or metaphor I made mocking his main point, and as soon as I offered that they were from books, he called my education “worthless” and not scientific. Nevermind the fact that I deconstructed his argument from an empirical standpoint, arguing the economics and math for economics sake. Nevermind that it wasn’t my final degree, much less what I’ve made my calling in life. He just scoffs and calls you a moron based on what you reveal to him. He’s like a dipshit, overreaching ad hominem Hannibal Lecter to our Clarice Starling, combating his insanity and blunt-force psychological probing with reason and experience.
He’s a-oooga-for-cocoa-puffs. Don’t sweat it.
Blogreeder
@Suffern ACE: Thanks for the pointer. I was keeping the math simple for these guys. It is late after all.
Blogreeder
@freelancer: My! You are thin skinned. I’ll keep that in mind.
Martin
@Suffern ACE:
Actually, how much gasoline you extract varies considerably. In Europe, they extract very little and tilt the refining formula toward diesel. In the US we tilt it away from gasoline and toward home heating oil in the winter and then tilt it back the other way in the summer. They have a surprising amount of control over it, but 19.5 is about the US average.
Yutsano
@freelancer:
You could have saved a shit ton of words and just said conservatard. Nice definition of the subspecies though.
Martin
@freelancer:
Actually it’s pretty clear that he worships supply-side Jesus and doesn’t have any concept that demand is always what ultimately drives prices. Reagan’s lasting legacy on the illiteracy of the US public.
dead existentialist
@Blogreeder: Fuck me. Subsidies = taxes. Now extraction = refinement.
Rethink your argument. QED.
piratedan
i don’t mind actual arguments against liberal, centrist or progressive positions, but you gotta come with more than a simple declarative statement, no facts, no links and a handful of simple insults, those do not make a discussion, c ya troll… (blogreeder).
all hail cleek’s pie filter
The prophet Nostradumbass
@freelancer: He doesn’t do arithmetic either, which he keeps confusing with mathematics.
MikeJ
@David Koch:
Actually I remember that many of us here thought it was stupid, and said so loudly and repeatedly.
amk
Good riddance. Who cares if this rwnj was a nice guy in his private life. Now if limpaugh would follow him, it would be a perfect pair.
Blogreeder
@Martin: Good coherent explanation, even at this late hour. Much better than that doofus freelancer could ever attempt.
The price goes up because people want to make money. The US is actually exporting something and people still find something to complain about. I don’t see where US purchasing power has anything to do with it. I believe we’re still the biggest single consumer of oil. It’s just that the price has gone up and when there is a glut the price will go down. At 110 or 126 a barrel, it will surely cause increased production no matter how this Administration tries to stop it.
freelancer
Oh My Fuck. I forgot to do a line break. I did have more to say. I wanted to recap my little fruit metaphor and translate very slowly how exactly it equated to oil production.
Oh My Shit, you said “They” when you meant to say “The”! Ipso facto: Moron. But nevermind that. You think the price of the good rises and sets with a direct correlation with the amount of production. This is wrong. This is why there is a futures market and even though production values of oil have been as high as they have been, the cost to all of us at the pump has gone up or what Martin said.
You may throw out Econ 101 as a rejoinder as you have previously, but do you know there are more complicated surveys and studies of the subject out there, like, say Econ 102? Or perhaps, entire scholarly works on the oil market that you could learn from instead of saying “OMG, it’s a product, the value of which is determined by supply and demand!”?
amk
@Martin:
yup. If the amurikans want cheap oil, they can emigrate to the muslin countries.
Blogreeder
@Martin:
President Obama believes in it too. Listen to his State of the Union again. Who does he want to give tax breaks to to create jobs?
It’s called Supply and Demand for a reason. They both drive price. Lots of Demand low supply – high prices. Low Demand – High supply – low prices. Wouldn’t work without supply.
MikeJ
@freelancer: It really is amazing once you get into 300 and 400 level classes they start telling you, “you know that stuff we told you in 101 about how an atom is like a tiny solar system with itsy bitsy billiard balls orbiting? It’s really a clump of force in the middle with a smear of probabilities on the outside.”
If a person’s argument relies entirely on what they heard in a 101 class they really shouldn’t be talking about the subject. Or implementing sorting algorithms.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I find it amusing that this guy thinks he is educating people on this thread.
Martin
Oh, and for those that didn’t understand my reference about WTI vs Brent – Brent is north sea – and is what supplies the east coast. WTI is West Texas. It used to be that those prices were pretty close as the oil is pretty similar (both quite good) but now they’re hugely out of whack. Why? Mainly because we’re overproducing domestically – basically we’re producing too much oil where the Keystone pipeline is proposed. The east coast is dependent on north sea, which is effectively all foreign oil. The midwest and south uses oil from the Gulf and Texas and down from ND and Canada. But we don’t have pipelines to move enough midwest oil to the east coast (or to the west) to offset those differences.
But that big price gap creates a really, really, really attractive arbitrage situation for speculators. They are speculating that as we make pipeline adjustments around the country that the prices will come back into alignment, so they’re taking WTI oil off of the market, storing it, will wait for the price to go up to the Brent price (even if the Brent price drops) and then sell it for the higher value.
Big price gaps in commodity markets are big invitations for price manipulation. What we need is not the Keystone pipeline, but a pipeline that will allow us to offset Brent shipments by sending WTI oil to refineries that now can only get Brent. Nobody is proposing that, though.
Blogreeder
@freelancer: You know, I’m always adding letters somewhere.
This is right. The futures market guesses how much will be produced in the future and sets the price according to that. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong.
freelancer
@MikeJ:
I hate to quote myself, but upthread, I responded to this fool by shorting his argument and describing it thusly:
ME HATEY COMPLICATEY!
Q. E. D. Free Markets rule, Obama sucks, and we’re morons.
Nevermind that if a proton is a billiard ball at the 50 yard line of a football stadium, an electron is a BB orbiting around the cheap seats, maybe.
Martin
@Blogreeder:
No. It NEVER works that way. That’s like saying that your salary goes up because you want to make money. What was the last time you got to set your own salary?
The price goes up because people are willing to pay more. Consumers in aggregate always dictate prices in properly functioning markets, and for the most part oil/gas is properly functioning. And speculators are just another kind of consumer, but one that temporarily removes the product from the market in order to resell it later, hopefully at a higher price.
Well, from the day Obama took office, production has gone up. It’s now up 11% since Bush left office. It dropped 15% over Bush’s term. We’re now a petroleum net exporter for the first time since about WWII.
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
And sometimes, the futures market is a playground for short-term investors to make bank on betting big on the price of the future commodity going UP, and as the world sees the realtime price going up, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has nothing to do with the actual value of the the item related to the futures market for that item. Thus, production remains high, so SUPPLY increases, DEMAND remains the same, yet prices still go UP. You don’t really know what you’re talking about.
It’s complex and can’t fit on a bumpersticker. But “It’s Obama’s fault” does, so you have your orders. The contraception gambit is currently blowing up electorally, the economy is growing, the right sees that gas might go up in the short term so they pounce. Tell me, what happens when that short-sighted bomb is defused? To what ground does the conservative movement move and claim as their own? Local corruption? Cronyism? Moar Culture War? Government money paying for Dentistry?! OMG Government takeover of your teeth! Where do you go? Or is this Obama’s Waterloo (Redux)?
Blogreeder
@Martin:
Yes it does. The price goes up, if no one is willing to pay, the price goes down. They set the price to make money. I can set my own salary if I’m prepared to risk making no salary.
Don’t tell Obama that. He’s trying all he can to stop it. Offshore moratoriums. Keystone XL Pipeline. EPA power plant regulations. I see EPA is now taking aim at fracking. Finally, Obama want’s to raise taxes on the oil companies.
David Koch
Obama crushing Mittens in Wisconsin 53-39. Ouch!
Blogreeder
@freelancer:
Come on! You guys had “Bush’s fault” during his term. In fact, Obama’s still dusting that off from time to time.
The futures market has a good side too. It helps stabilize prices.
gaz
@middlewest: I’m going to add him to my christmas list. I’ll be sending him a bunch of stuff from Mouser and maybe some silly putty ;)
Or better yet, maybe it should be christmas every day at the Limbaugh household.
I just love the guy that much. =)
Yutsano
@Blogreeder:
This has nothing to do with domestic production. Do at least try to get the facts right without descending into talking points.
Wrong. He wants to end tax breaks they now enjoy and under which they are insanely profitable. In other words, they’re making money off of taxpayers. A tax break ending is merely an economic concession used to assist a struggling but necessary industry, not to get oil execs a second yacht.
gaz
@Yutsano: He wants to stop subsidizing big oil is how I prefer to speak about that. (To me it sounds better, and is actually closer to what he said most recently IIRC)
But yeah, Blogreeder totally missed the mark. Thank god he’ll never be in charge of energy policy.
Blogreeder
@Yutsano: Humor me. What tax breaks are the oil companies getting?
gaz
@freelancer: Heh.
Thanks for addressing the fact that Blogreeder made that stupid point about futures, as though that isn’t a problem in and of itself.
gaz
@Blogreeder: How about Massive subsidies.
I already addressed this.
We don’t do 3rd grade reading comprehension here. That’s what redstate is for… it’s that way —>
Blogreeder
Wow! Look at the time. Gentlemen, Ladies, whatever. It’s been an edumacation.
samara morgan
man…..cant sleep.
is it ironic or just sad that Breitbart ruined the lives of various humans in his quest to TAKE BACK TEH CULTCHAH?
in the end………science and biology wrote his epitaph.
gaz
@Blogreeder: Prudent
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@David Koch:
So the Republicans have been telling us that when Mitt the Eskimo™ gets here, all the pigeons gonna run to him. Now, it looks more like when Mitt the Eskimo™ gets here, everybody’s gonna wanna doze.
I’d give a quick opinion on the matter, but guardin’ fumes and makin’ haste just ain’t my cup of meat.
BillinGlendaleCA
On the local news tonight, they interviewed a guy who was in a bar with Breitbart last night until about a hour before AB died. Sounds like he collapsed on the way home.
freelancer
@Blogreeder:
The offshore moratoriums were to make sure the foxes weren’t still regulating the henhouses. To make sure the agencies regulating the oil companies weren’t beholden to them. The Keystone Pipeline has nothing to do with American Production, but Canadian Production of shale oil that is then transported to the gulf refineries and then moved around the world to be sold on the free market. If you want to include “domestic” production to North American production that excludes the USA, then you may have a point.
Given that fracking causes major water table issues to homeowners that are not the ones that signed water rights contracts with companies engaging in fracking, there’s an argument about American’s individual liberty to not have a water source absolutely rendered non-potable without a voice in the matter, and you keep on with “raising taxes” on the the profitable companies that have ever existed outside the fictional conglomerates of the Tyrell Corporation or Weyland -Yutani, when what that really means is a scaling back, NOT AND END TO, but a reduction of the amount of tax breaks that are given out to the most profitable companies in history just to keep doing what they’re doing, and calling it tax increases.
If the US government gave to Apple what they gave to Petroleum interests, then there really would be a chicken in every pot, and an iPad on every nightstand in America. And the comparable “Tax increase” that you’re accusing the administration of being guilty of would consist of going from free iPads and free dedicated internet from everyone, to deciding not to unduly reward the stockholders of Apple by providing them with inflated profits, but having Apple users actually pay for their good fortune by shelling out $5 a month for wi-fi access.
You don’t get it. You’re horrible at debating. And you have a snail’s comprehension of complicated, nuanced, difficult to grasp ideas like a global market that is, y’know, actually global. You’re a simpleton, and I hope you quit your shift tonight and ask for severance from your local think-tank paid supervisor who is just doing what he needs to do to get by. I hope you go home and read. Read as much as you can, as often as you can, because you’re espousing cheap ideas that are easy to say, but also easy to refute in this medium. Go home, and do some thinking. Call your mom, and look up in the sky. You’re worth it. Call that girl you’ve had your eye on, and don’t waste your time trolling your way through a community that isn’t going to remember your efforts a day from now because they were so weak and hacked. Take a day off and spend some time with some kids. You remember being a kid? When all this adult nonsense was ahead of you, and all that mattered was whether you were going to eat ice cream or play ball or ride your bike with your best friends? It was awesome.
All I’m saying is, Dude, save yourself the blood pressure and don’t follow in Breitbart’s footsteps at such a young age. You can walk away now and save yourself a lifetime of adult trolling of the other side of the aisle and I assure you, you will not regret it.
Cheers
PS, if you choose to not take this to heart, we will be here and ready to smack your bullshit down with a smile.
kdaug
@Blogreeder:
Hope you’ve got a good pair of walking shoes.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
The price goes up, the price goes down. You can’t explain that!
Nancy Irving
When I heard about this, I admit my first thought was, I wonder if he said “May God strike me dead” once too often…
PeakVT
@Martin: Finished product exporter.
Jay C
@freelancer:
Thank you for fisking the troll, man: I swear, I have only basic comprehension of economics, and am lousy at math besides, and even I could see the holes in “Blogreeder’s” foolish arguments. Too bad economically illiterate/innumerate crap like his still seems to be an operative theme in most Republican/conservative debates on the issue….
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Everybody sing!
The price goes up, the price goes down
The price goes wandering ’round the town
And just when you think you’re going to die
The price, it wallops you in the eye!
Joe Bauers
“I’ll hope he’s with the FSM”
Dennis, you’re a nicer man than I. I hope he’s in hell, getting a pineapple shoved up his ass.
StringonaStick
As to the “I’m told he was a nice guy to his friends and a perfect father”, I say bullshit, with a capital B. My childhood involves the same kind of screaming, anger-filled ragebag, quite charming with his friends but unpredictably volatile with family. The reality was quite different, and very well hidden, though the occassional co-worker who got a faceful for daring to disagree figured it out quickly enough.
We’re likely to get a Mommy Dearest tell-all someday, if anyone gives a shit by then.