Campaign gossip is exactly that, but still, this is kind of fun:
Ah, yes.Kerry's job's tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania is mostly a sop to organized labor. On Wednesday, Kerry was telling United Auto Workers that he wasn't going to appoint a "political" attorney general. Instead, he was going to appoint a person from a "legal" background ... like Janet Reno.
There's an interesting report in the Guardian today:
What a handy answer -- don't blame me, blame my wife.Does John Kerry, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, own a gas-guzzling SUV? He does, but says it belongs to the family, not to him.
During a conference call Thursday with reporters to discuss his upcoming jobs tour through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether he owned a Chevrolet Suburban.
``I don't own an SUV,'' said Kerry, who supports increasing existing fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon by 2015 in order to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil supplies.
And it's true. The man doesn't own anything. It's a refreshingly honest admission that reflects the reality of life as a "cabana boy," as friend Orrin Judd puts it.
We congratulate the Senator for his honesty.
Robert Alt continues his invaluable blogging from Iraq.
If, as he suggests, Saddam's links to global terror are better publicized over the coming months, the Dems' whole notion that the war in Iraq is a "distraction" may cause them some indigestion.
My contributions here lately have been scant, I realize.
Lately, I've been focused on purely local matters that may or may not interest the readers here.
And besides, when I can send off a link to Brother Orrin and he does such a fine job with it, I'm more than happy just to point you that way for some of the best sociopolitical commentary on this ol' internet.
Some people might read a report like this one and immediately think that gas prices are out of control:
However, the reality is a bit different:NYMEX gasoline futures hit an all-time high on Monday as pump prices continued to soar on strong demand well ahead of the summer driving season that begins in late May.
NYMEX gasoline for May delivery
hit $1.1790 a gallon, gaining 2.82 cents from its settlement on Thursday. The new high eclipsed the prior record of $1.1775 hit on March 31. The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas was nearly $1.80 a gallon in the two weeks ended April 9, up 2-1/2 cents, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 8,000 gas stations which was released on Sunday.
There you go. Can we please end the hysteria now? There's no cabal of oil companies fixing prices. If there were, they'd be doing a terrible job. Gas prices are high, but they're far from being historically high when considering all the facts.Gasoline prices are relatively normal by historic terms. Sure, people are paying more for gasoline today than ever before. They're also paying more for houses, cars, lettuce, baseball cards and almost everything else than ever before. Historical comparisons of prices over the years mean absolutely nothing unless we adjust for inflation, say the Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren..
If we adjust gasoline prices for inflation and use 2003 dollars, we find:
- During the most celebrated days of cheap fuel and gas guzzling cars -- 1955 -- gasoline actually cost $1.66 a gallon on average across the nation.
- In 1972, the year before OPEC began to flex its muscles, prices were $1.28 a gallon.
- In 1981, the real record was set -- $2.36 cents a gallon; prices are only a nickel higher now than at this time last year.
A better measure of the affordability of gasoline over time is not its inflation-adjusted price alone, but its inflation-adjusted price in comparison with our economic resources (in this case, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) per capita). According to Taylor and Van Doren:
Even though the real price of gasoline was lower in 1972 ($1.28) than today ($1.73), per capita GDP is now $39,919 whereas it was only $20,667 (measured in 2003 dollars) in 1972.
By those measures, then, gasoline prices today are only 37 percent of what they were in 1955, 70 percent of what they were in 1972, and 45 percent of what they were relative to income in 1981, explain Taylor and Van Doren.
Some nations are learning this message the hard way:
My hopes are with these people, but I also hope their respective governments realize that a stable, democratic Iraq is in everyone's best interests. They can't stay on the sidelines forever.When it comes to kidnapping, the nationalities which had least to do with the Iraq war seem to be most at risk in the still-troubled country.
While only one American is known to be a hostage and the one known British captive has been released, Asians from nations which stood on the sidelines of combat make up most of the more than a score of foreigners reported abducted in recent days.
Robert Alt's blogging from Iraq continues to be indispensable.
This post on network misreporting is particularly good.
I haven't commented anywhere on our former President's shameful comments in Texas.
Let's just say that Steve Hayward's new book pretty much sums up the man and leave it at that.
However, as Peter Schramm points out, Tom Daschle and Evan Bayh deserve credit for their statements on Iraq. Kennedy, Byrd, and Carter may be louder, but there are good Dems.
As usual, Robert Alt's blogging from Iraq at Schramm's No Left Turns provides a great look into Iraq, and his commentary seems quite a bit different than that from some of the major media accounts.
This is the part of the story that Byron left out:
The fighting in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi has killed 15 Marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunni and Shiites that now stretched from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.Emphasis mine. He also changed the order of the two paragraphs that follow his [...], at least from the version I saw.Marines waged a six-hour battle around the mosque with the militants holed up inside before a Cobra helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at the base of its minaret, and an F-16 dropped the bomb, said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne.
The fight began when a Marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five Marines, Byrne said. A large U.S. force converged on the mosque.
So, to summarize:
1. Militants fire an RPG on US troops from within a mosque.
2. Marines converge on mosque.
3. Marines and militants engage in a 6-hour battle.
4. Worshippers go to mosque to attend prayers during this battle.
5. Cobra fires missile, F-16 drops bomb.
That makes no sense that innocent people would run from behind US Marines shooting at militants in the mosque and towards the militants who are shooting at the Marines from inside the mosque. After this had been going on six hours. That story doesn't pass the common-sense test.
As far as firing missiles at mosques goes, once a mosque is harboring armed militants who try to kill US Marines, they no longer can make any claims of sanctuary.
As far as this goes:
If terrorists or insurgents are hiding out in mosques, we should contain them, and force them or starve them out.They could also just try to shoot the RPG launchers out of the militants hands. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way.
John Dean thinks the Bush Administration's behavior is worse than Watergate?
Fine. But why stop there?
Orrin Judd suggests a new series of books to expand on the theme.
One of the left's more dogmatic stances is their opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - ANWR. Despite control of the White House and both houses of congress, the GOP has unfortunately cowed on this issue. I recently debated the subject with a good friend who deployed an argument against ANWR drilling that I've frequently heard: It's easy for us to support drilling because it's not in our back yard.
It's a good point. So what do the Alaskans think of it? What do those that live closest to the proposed drilling think?
The residents of Kaktovik, the only people living on the Coastal Plain of ANWR, support oil and gas development in their 'back yard'. Alaska's indigenous people have benefited greatly from North Slope production. In addition to providing a tax base for the local government, oil development has provided jobs, funding for water and sewer systems and schools. Native and village corporations with oil field-related subsidiaries are working on the North Slope, and the local government has a voice in permitting and environmental regulation.
The folks at ANWR.org have even put together an impressive flash production on the subject.
The opposition to this is so deeply rooted in dogmatism that it remains one of the few issues I've yet to find it productive to debate with the opposition. If it were going to unload millions of gallons of oil into the bay as some suggest, why in tarnation would those living around it support it? The only response I've gotten to date on the subject is that they've been duped by the large oil companies that stand to profit.
In a way, that's what the entire debate revolves around on the left side of the aisle: If environmentalist groups and oil companies disagree, as a matter of faith the latter cannot be right.
There's plenty of commentary on the Daily Kos flap all over the great big web.
Personally, I don't know why anyone should be that surprised when loudmouth webloggers show extremely poor taste and poor judgment in editing themselves. Especially those on the political fringes.
I am surprised, however, that the campaign of Martin Frost (a Democrat from right here in Texas), thought it would be a good idea to advertise there. At least he's pulled his ad, for which he deserves some credit.
Then there's Dem Congressional candidate Jane Mitakides in Ohio, who continues to advertise on the Daily Kos.
That leads me to believe that she endorses his disregard for life and poor judgment.
That's her right, of course. It's also my right to do something that we don't generally do much of here, and that is point you good readers to her opponent's website.
Kos is a weblogging fool. Fine. There are plenty of those. But we don't have to send someone who embraces the fool to Congress. I hope Ohio folks have the good sense to return Congressman Michael Turner to the House. I can't seem to find a campaign site for the man, or I would point those who are interested towards an online donation form. I've emailed his office and will post any information they send back.
Besides, that old windbag Ann Richards endorses Mitakides. That's reason enough to return Congressman Turner to office right there.
(04-05-2004 Update) The Mitakides campaign has pulled its ads from the Kos website. That took long enough.
(04-05-2004 Update 2) The Jeff Seeman campaign has decided to step in and advertise on the Kos site. That's stupid politically, but the Left loves to play aggrieved victim, and I'm sure it will play well with fringe Left enthusiasts. Fortunately, those nutcases decide very few elections. I don't think Congressman Regula has much reason to worry.
Fallujah is not Mogadishu. Here's why:
Read the entire post, and then check out Orrin Judd on the political meaning.The deliberate, even cold-blooded approach by the Marines makes this incident the anti-Mogadishu. The tactics employed against the Rangers in the Blackhawk Down incident relied on the belief that Americans could be reflexively trapped into defending unfavorable positions in attempts to recover bodies. The Anti-Coalition Forces probably felt sure that taunting Americans over the media would produce the desired impulsiveness. As the minutes lengthened into hours and the Marines responded with icy professionalism, the enemy may have come the unpleasant realization that this was not the former administration and that other still more unwelcome surprises were in store for them.
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