Swamp Stomper Alert: Fairness Doctrine Not Just for Talk Radio

From the Business and Media institute:

There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

If there’s anything that’s at all shocking about this, it’s that this particular red flag has not been raised before. The leftards figure that the government will silence the right and leave them to do their thing.

As VodkaPundit observes…

Not that any sane person needs a scare tactic to despise the “fairness” doctrine. And, let’s be honest, a web-controlling FD would hurt the Netroots far more than the libertarian-right where I make my home.

Snce when, however did sanity per se have anytthing to do with the left?  Silly little minions; they actually trust government not to grow into THEIR territory.

Time to raise the black flag, folks. Actually, as someone who still has some roots in the broadcast industry, I’ll say it past time, rather.

Parting shot: Does anyone doubt that if the Democrats maintain their hold on Congress, and/or if Obama gets to the White House, this thing will not become law before the echo dies?

Lots of comment this morning, centered on the Washington Post Op-Ed of yesterday, which spends it’s time destroying three basic arguments of those against offshore drilling.

However, it propagates a couple barrels of snake oil. The most offensive of the lot being that drilling would not affect prices today, and that it would be years before we’d see any price difference.

I’ve got news for Washington Post, And the New York Times(Particularly Bob Herbert) and for John Kerry Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and all the rest:

If you’re not lying about this, you do not understand how commodity futures work.  Moreover, you ignore the recent evidence. In any event, you’re dead wrong.

Contrary to the baldly political suggestions regarding lower gasoline prices by President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), drilling would make no impact on today’s pain at the pump because it would be years before any oil flowed from the Outer Continental Shelf.

(Chuckle) Remember, dear reader, what I along about the end of last month, now, in describing the bubble bursting… an event I accurately predicted, by the way…:

Bush steps up before the mikes yesterday and says we gotta drill… open up offshore fields… and chides congress about opening up ANWR, and what happens? Price drops $9/bbl almost at once. That’s the biggest drop in the price of oil since 1991.

So, tell me again, oil haters, how our committing to drilling for our own oil, and freeing up domestic production, including ANWR, won’t have an immediate effect on the price of oil… even before such fields come online.

Here we have the mere spectre of a commitment by the US to drilling our own oil, and the price falls like it hasn’t in nearly 20 years.

Simply committing to drilling will cause the markets to react, at once. That  the WaPo denies the evdience it has in front of it on the matter is staggeringly stupid. Or, perhaps staggeringly in the tank for the party who has been doing all it can to prevent us from drilling anywhere at all.

The opposition to drilling in ANWR, as exhibied by the WaPo, seems to me an effort to placate the enviro-nazis, but the basis of that argument is similarly flawed, as we’ve demonstrated here so often. There is, in fact, no reason to avoid drilling there, particularly in the limited fashion we’ve been proposing since before Clinton vetoed it ten years back. And remember, too, that the environmental reasons were not the stated ones for the veto; His complaint was it’d take ten years to get the oil flowing, and therefore wasn’t worth it. I wrote at the time that ten years from then, we’d ahve a different view. I was proven right then.

How will we be viewed ten years from now, I wonder?

• A first place finish at the OTB Caption Contest. Some of those things just wrte themselves.
• I guess the New York Times does admit it’s mistakes. 50 years later.  Which ought to give us a clue about when they’re going to return Duranty’s Pulitzer. The priority, apparently, is getting Hell’s A/C working, first.
• Oil steadied up a bit apparently in response to the Georgia thing. Perhaps some down movement this afternoon based on the truce called.
• Americans aren’t falling for the global warming scam anymore. Hint to McCain: Maybe it’s time to stop placating the ones still knee-jerking over it.
• Speaking of which, global warming didn’t kill the dinosaurs. The Dinosaur media, OTOH….
• Evanston Ill has dropped it’s handgun ban. When the murder rate drops, don’t expect the anti-gunners to admit they’re wrong. But it will drop. Trust me on this; it has everywhere else.
• In watching the discussion over at OTB, I’d say we’re about defining plagiarism down. I have to tell you watcjing educational types arguig such minutiae drives me buggy. Damn it, this is not a debate society on some campus somewhere… this has real world implications. Those are, that someone (Guess who) is trying to leave the impression that McCain is showing here he’s not ready for prime time. Well, that he’s unready for prime time may or may not be true, but if so, this isn’t an indication of it.  If this doesn’t seem ‘presidential’ to you (an ill-defined word at best, in context)  please explain to me how that’s any different from any president you can think of? They get briefed on subjects before making decisions. He’s working off what his support staff is telling him. That’s no different than any other president worth his pork rinds. this was a hastily prepared speech. Totally understandable under the conditions. And it’s not like the speech didn’t make a cogent argument. And by the way… how does one plagiarize facts?  You might complain that they Plagiarized the way those facts were expressed, but even there, there’s only so much variation that can be applied to that expression, or it’s no longer fact. The people pushing this argument are working on a case thinner Obama’s qualifications list.
• Just when we thought there wasn’t any lower John Edwards could go on the ‘sympathetic’ scale, I see Edwards is trying to copy Carlivve’s trick of labeling Rielle Hunter as ‘trailer park trash’, more or less. Interesting since Edwards lives across the street from a trailer park. O’Rielly did a bit on that last night, and couldn’t find anyone in the park who had much good to say about the man. Ya know, there’s something of serrendipity with this whole thing.
• I don’t know as I trust the woman as far as I can toss her, but Pelosi is now making noises like she’s be willing to vote for drilling. I’ll discuss this at length later this week.

Overnight, the situation in Georgia  has changed a bit.  The Financial Times says Georgia is welcoming Russia’s cease fire call.   

The first implication for the US out of this is the most obvious of all. Even if Bush had committed US forces, they’d not have had time to deploy.  Even airstrikes would have taken longer to plan and deploy, than this thing has gone.

Now it’s down to Russia dealing with the consequences, both regional and world-wide… and that’s something that for all their typical pragmatism, I don’t think the Russians prepared for. The Baltic states are PISSED. In the Financial Times linked above,  we see:

The Baltic states, past victims of Kremlin attacks, have called on the European Union to suspend its drive for closer relations with Russia after its invasion of Georgia. “We have to review our policy. Can we consider a partner a country who behaves like this?” President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia said in an interview. He added: “It’s time to stop sticking our head in the sand.

 James Joyer notes the same FT piece and says, correctly:

When one contrasts this strong language with the much milder talk from France and elsewhere, we see, as my Atlantic Council colleague Jim Townsend noted yesterday, that Don Rumsfeld’s much criticized formulation of Old Europe and New Europe was on the mark.

Yeah, there seems some suprised faces around blogdom this moning on that point.  Me… I never expected THAT aspect to go any other way.  I said he had it right at the time, and never wavered from that conclusion.

As for consequences to the US relations with Georgia, I suppose that book’s not been written yet. Certainly, there will be some smoothing of feathers, particularly in terms of the mood of the electorate there. How that plays is up to how their leadership explains the facts to them.  That, in turn depends, I’m sure, on how they serve it up to the voters.

The interesting part there will be how this plays out in the UN. And of course the question of ‘will the G8 become the G7?’

I must say,  There is something unsettling about the stated purpose of Russia’s attack; ‘liberating’  areas of Georgia which were suposedly still loyal to Moscow. It’s strangely remenicent of Germany annexing areas of Europe that it figured had German ties.  Am I suggesting that Russia is still harboring thoughts of world domination?  On it’s face, no. They couldn’t do it when the USSR was still an item, and they’re in less of a position now than they were then.

Then again, they did make a fair amount of trouble for the world, in the day, and with not a whole bunch more military than they have now.  Using this particular excuse to invade Georgia seems a might thin to me; They clearly have a different motive, than their stated one, or perhaps more correctly in addition to their stated goal.  What that may be I don’t know but I can’t help but think the attack on the pipeline yesterday is an indication of what they have in mind.

Finally, there are some indications that the Russians are not all of a mind about this thing. I sometimes think I’d like to be a fly on the wall of some of their meetings the last week or two. The arguments and  table pounding would be nothing short of epic, I thnk.

(Fox News)– Senior Al Qaeda commander Abu Saeed al-Masri has been killed in recent clashes with Pakistani forces in a Pakistani region near the Afghan border, a security official told Reuters on Tuesday.

“He was believed to be among the top leadership of Al Qaeda,” the senior security official told the news agency on condition of anonymity.

Certainly good news, if true. I openly admit my understanding of current-day Pakistan isn’t quite up to the drill.  That said, I must also say, I find myself curious about the nature of the Pakistani government’s reasoning and strategy, here. They do seem to be working the tribal areas a bit more completely than they have before, and with some success, too, if I read the headlines correctly. Is it US pressure, or something else that’s driving this effort, I wonder?

Through the end of July this year, unions have contributed over $40 million to PACs for federal candidates (91% to democrats) and over $34 million to 527s (and guess which party will benefit from that money). But that is just the tip of the iceberg. SEIU (public employees paid out of our tax dollars) alone has pledged $85 million for this election.

There is a reason they are spending the big bucks. They want to take away the workers right to secret ballots. That in turn should make it easier to get more union members whether they really want to join the union or if they are just afraid ‘Vito’ will come visit if they vote the wrong way.

But while the unions are paying out the big bucks, they aren’t taking care of their members.

Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees.

In contrast, a separate fund for the union’s own employees, numbering 1,305, participants was 91% funded. Even better, the pension fund for SEIU officers and employees, which had 6,595 members, was 103% funded.

Such disparity was not always the case. In 1996, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund had close to 110% of the funds it would need to pay all promised pensions to its workers.

Now the unions don’t fund the rank and file pension plans directly. They are funded by the employers as part of the collective bargaining. But the SEIU officers are also funded out of those collective bargaining agreements. All three pensions funds are managed by the same trust. The only difference is how the contributions are constructed.

The republicans have an opportunity in this. They need to recognize that the unions per se are not going to shower funds down on the GOP, so playing nice isn’t going to help them. But the union members can be peeled off from the union management. In 2004, Bush got 38% of the union member votes and 40% of the union member household votes. Much better than the union political contributions. But what if, in addition to hitting the democrats on their’ head in the sand’ response to drilling, the GOP introduced legislation that union officers pensions can only be funded if the rank and file pensions are fully funded. Further, unions can not make any political contributions unless their rank and file pension plans are fully funded. Now the union members have a personal reason to break with the union leadership. And the union leadership has to explain why they are fat and making the democratic war chest fat while the union members get to look forward to an Alpo ragout for dinner during their golden years.

• Look up the word “Idiot” and you’ll seeSt Andrew the Incontinent’spicture next to it. What would you say Andrew if you’d found him out on the course? You’ve have done what you always do; you’d have gotten all self-rightious about the injustice of it all, complaining that Bush is an unfeeling monster.  Let’s face it, Andrew… you’ll pounce on the guy for anything. Simply anything. I mean, we get it, your holiness. You hate Bush, with a hate that can only be matched by a four year old who’s been told that, no, he can’t play with Grandma’s teeth.  We understand. Now, shut UP, already, quit your pouting and go and change your armor. (Shake of the head)
• I note CNN promoting an interview with Nancy Pelosi… in their words, the most powerful woman in Government.  Two thoughts combine to produce a laugh; One, being that CNN is bound to produce yet another softball session, and Two; That the most powerful woman in government should be such a complete ditz… and such poor example of what women are capable of. In her words, ‘we can do better’ than Nancy Pelosi, and it’s time we did..
• Gasoline continues it’s drop… $3.85 now and falling. Michelle points out it’s been moving in that diection for 24 days, now. Can we officially call it a trend, and say I called this one to the very day? Crude oil, by the by, continues falling as well, in spite of the Georgia conflict, though how much faster it’d be falling absent that conflict seems an open question. ( I’ll get to the conflict itself in a minute.)
• Feeding the birds illegal?  Meanwhile, the British Government has decided to pull the plugon Kidney cancer patients. Both of these from Blue Crab Blvd.  And we’re all supposed to be more Europian, huh?  I’m telling you, gang, this stuff is going to backfire, eventually. Personally, I hope to be far away when it does. It will NOT be pretty.
• Clinton Backers are now looking to damage the DNC. Big shock. Me? I say “Go for it”. So much for the image of unity the Democrats have been so busy trying to project.
• Tell me this ‘Clark Rockefeller’ guy isn’t a ringer for Elvis Costello.
  

  Why we never see 'Clark Rockefeller' and Elvis Costello in the same place

• Jen Rubin had an easy time of it, yesterday, writing in part:
  

  Tim Rutten, taking to task his own Los Angeles Times and other MSM outlets, writes:

  When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism. From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it — reporting that turns out to be largely correct — and bloggersand online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion. . . It’s interesting that what finally forced Edwards into telling the truth was a mainstream media organization. ABC News began investigating the Edwards affair in October, but really began to push after the Beverly Hilton allegations. When ABC confronted Edwards with its story (which confirmed “95% to 96%” of the tabloid’s reporting, according to the network), he admitted his deception. With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.

  We also have the obligatory column from Clark Hoyt admitting that the New York Times was wrong, but denying that their reticence to cover the Edward story was the result of liberal bias. Yes, who could imagine such a thing of the paper which ran a front-page, uncorroborated story of the Republican nominee’s alleged relationship with a lobbyist some nine years ago?

  This stuff kinda writes itself. Yet, it’s as powerful a message, as powerful and indictment against the Dinosaur media as I’ve seen this year. And all Jen had to do was quote them for the most part. And they’re still denying a liberal bias. Not that I’ll hold my breath waiting for them to admit it. It gets better, too. Go and read.

• Hey, Liz Edwards: Sorry, Honey… I’m not buying this drivel.
• Sister Toldjah brings a pointed question:
  

  what if he had won the nomination, and here it is two weeks before the Dem National Convention? Would the Democrat party be furious with him for having the affair in the first place – especially while his wife continued to battle cancer, or would their main concern be “How the hell could he have done this to us when we are so close to taking back the WH?”

• Speaking of such matters, Ace brings up an excellent point:
  

  It’s not yet clear that Brian Ross forced Edwards’ hand — it could have been pressure from the Democrats to resolve this before the election

  I’m not convinced of that myself at this stage. I still think Edwards was on the short list for VP because of his union ties in combination with Obama’slack of them, but it’s worthconsidering, since Edwards now amounts to major embarrassment for both the press and the Democrats (I repeat myself) going into the convention. My take at the moment is Obama will need all of his convention bounce to recover from this thing. EvenTalkLeft admits it

  “With each new detail, the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter saga continues to raise more questions than it answers.”

  Gee, guys… what the hell made you notice? They have a point, though.

• The latest chatter I’m hearing is about the reason the Edwards thing got covered up by the press … The claim is it was done to keep Clinton off the top of the ticket.  To accomplish that, It was required to keep Edwards in play a bit longer, says Howard Wolfson. Had this come out when the press first knew about it, Wolfson says, Clinton would have been the nominee.  I’ve been dismissing these half-assed excuses from Clinton supporters out of hand, (Everything is always about Hillary Clinton, after all) but I have to say that this one… well…. It’s the first thing I’ve seen in the whole thing that makes much sense as to why the Democrat leadership and the press would go so long in not admitting what everyone already knew.  We know the press has been Obama-Bagged for some months now, and this meshes rather well with that fact.  Only problem becomes the rumors I’m hearing that the story was still being pushed, long after the fact by Clinton supporters…. we’ve discussed before how many of them there are at the National Enquirer for example.  Apparently, the one thing about inner party rivalries in Democrat politics you can depend on is they’re lying to you… one or the other, and likley BOTH.
• One more point about the Edwards thing; Might the press’s advance understanding of the Edwards thing insofar as they were not telling us… might that explain the New York Times printing a rumor laden and unsubstantiated hit piece on John McCain last February?  Call it pre-emptive projection, the object of which was to muddy the water. Clearly, something got manipulated, there. For what exact reason is an open question.
• Yes, the Georgian conflict continues.  And apparently, expands. Eighth Circle examines the ‘Blame the US’ arguments.  I think we can dismiss these out of hand.  Though I must say I’m concerned about our image, here, going forward. Georgia is calling for Military help on the basis that we helped THEM. What are the consequences to our national image if we fail to help them now?  OTOH, we have Putin claiming the US is already helping them. Clearly a paranoid, the stability of which should concern us.
• I guess this is a guage of how seriously we can take the Senate run of Al Franken, if this is an example of his suport. Odd; He’s been billed for years as a comedian, yet ths is the first thing he’s done in years that even remotely laughable. One person… as in, count your nose… ONE person showed up to an event for him. One. Norm Coleman’s got an easy time of it, I thnk. Telling, indeed, given how liberal that district is, that a firebrand like Franken gets rejected so soundly at his own event.
• Obama has offered Clinton the Keynote speaker’s spot.I hear Bubba was supposed to inro her, but now that’s changed, and her daughter will do that honor. One cannot help but wonder what motivates that change.
• Let’s put this oil business into perspective, by way of a quote from Power Line:
  

  We’ve written about the fact that the United States has by far the largest known oil shale deposits in the world. In fact our Rocky Mountain oil shale is believed to amount to as much as two trillion barrels, far more than the entire world has consumed since oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in the 19th century.
  …
  Unfortunately, the Democrats have been able to place these vast reserves off-limits.

  Says it all, that does.

A site called The Dude Abides:

At 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, 2004, when I was the religion reporter (I am now its religion columnist) at the Chicago Sun-Times, I met then-State Sen. Barack Obama at Café Baci, a small coffee joint at 330 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago, to interview him exclusively about his spirituality. Our conversation took place a few days after he’d clinched the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that he eventually won. We spoke for more than an hour. He came alone. He answered everything I asked without notes or hesitation. The profile of Obama that grew from the interview at Cafe Baci became the first in a series in the Sun-Times called “The God Factor,” that eventually became my first book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People (FSG, March 2006.) Because of the staggering interest in now U.S. Sen. Obama’s faith and spiritual predilections, I thought it might be helpful to share that interivew…

The reason for the title:

GG:
Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:
Yes.

GG:
What is sin?

OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.

Gee, Barack… I kinda figured sin was when you missed the taret God has set you. Not YOUR values, but HIS. Unless of course, you’re setting youself up as God….

Just how screwy is Jerry Wright’s idea of Christianity starts filtering through, here.

BBCT; Blue Crab Blvd

What is the the only aspect of the legendary Camelot?   Well that is was a legend.   The Kennedy adminstration, which in the real world is remembered for the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and American combat forces in the Republic of Vietnam has been proclaimed by the Kennedy apologists as Camelot.   Yeah and it sure smelled a lot.

Trying to one up Kennedy, BO is trying to proclaim his Camelot before the fact and not afterwards ala the Kennedy Clan.   In the attempt to spin a Camelot, BO has foisted this fables of being a post-paristan canidate and even a post-racial canidate.   Imagine a post racial canidate abiding by Jerimiah Wright’s sermons for twenty years.    The thing about BO’s much proclaimed competencies is that like Cameot, they are all imaginary.

Here Chrissy Mathews trying to find any evidence of a post partisan BO and utterly failing, video:

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It is telling when BO’s lack of resume is so meager than even Chrissy can’t spin them.   Hat tip: Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.

President have to function and govern in the real world, a world which BO simply does not occupy. Blake Fleetwood, Puffington Post, demonstrates the problem:

In classic “Wag The Dog” scenario there is a neat little war brewing between American and Russian proxies, and real Russian troops, in the Caucacus Mountains on the Russian border.

It couldn’t come at a better time for the Republicans.

McCain gets to act and talk tough against the Russians, while Obama is on vacation in Hawaii,
issuing “can’t we all get along statements.”

Fleetwood can not put a positive spin  on BO’s response to the Russian invasion of Georgia.   So Fleetwood tries, albeit with a moonbat’s lack of evidence, to spin it as grand conspiracy on the part of John McCain.    Sure.

I think we now have a working definition of the word “arrogance”.  Barack Obama, it seems, is off on vacation. To my memory this has always been at least risky, and in reality, deadly to presidential candidates.  To my mind, however, this is yet another indicator of the sheer arrogance of the man.

Now, in fairness, this may well be a programmed reaction to the ‘over exposure” issues we covered here  a couple weeks back.  Get the man out of the limelight for a while. Seems to me, though, there are far more productive ways of doing that than ofifically declaring a vacation and scooting to Hawaii.

Kinda makes you wonde what Mccain’s camp has planned, doesn’t it?

Awoke this morning to perhaps one of the loudest thunderstorms I’d ever heard in my life.

My first thought was for the computers, but as I listened, I realized I needn’t worry much.  I live perhaps 10 miles south of the shoreline of Lake Ontario, and this storm appeared to me to be up along the shore. 10 miles away and still loud enough to roust Rumpelstiltskin from his slumber? Can you imagine how loud it musta been UNDER that thing? I’m sure I’ll hear from my Mom, later today… she lives up that way.

The usual weather track around here is usually almost due west, so when I checked the radar, it was a little unusual to see this storm moving to the southeast at around 20mph.  There was a huge low positioned over Southern Ontario all day yesterday.  Usually when you see huge dark clouds gathering to the immediate west, you’re in for a storm, in short order.

In this case, the low was so well defined you could see the spinners coming off of it, like a slow motion hurricane. And I mean slow.  Took literally hours to move from Hamilton to Niagara Falls and then more to get to us. I postponed a lot of stuff I wanted to do because it looked like rain all day.. big nasty clouds to my west all day. Got nothing done as a result. Oh, well. I’m rested. Or would be if the storm hadn’t woken me at around 4:30 this morning.

So, now that the center of that low has passed us, the spinners are coming off in the opposite direction. Happens around here all the time just not so well defined, though.  Bigtime nasty. Didn’t rain much here, but lots of strikes, hail and rain just to the north of 104 from here. Woke up the dog and the cats, too.

Once I got awake enough to make sense out of the radar, I noticed that where we were camping a couple weeks ago must be dealing with flash floods… really heavy rain either side of I81 north of Syracuse for at 30 miles in any direction, centered on Sandy Creek.

Gonna be a wild weather day around here. Just as well I’m working.

Russia invaded Georgia. John McCain was prompt to recognize the Russian aggression and to condemn it. Meanwhile BO seems unable to distinguish between being invaded and be the invader. I doubt BO even knows where Georgia is. View the video:

[wp_youtube]8ywmX_Es_XM[/wp_youtube]

Real leaders have to make real decisions, in real time.   Yes BO has now adopted a position that sounds a lot like McCain’s.   I say we can not afford a president with such a slow learning curve.  What say you?

Hat tip: Dan Spencer, Red State.

Addendum:(Bit)  Certainly, another of those 3AM phne call moments, David… but with far more serious implications for the US and the west than we originally thought. There’s been a fair amount of speculation why Russia would pick just now for this move. The Daily Mail may well have the answer to that question:

The war in Georgia escalated dangerously last night after Russian jets reportedly bombed a vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.

After a day of heightening international tensions, Georgian leaders claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, had been attacked. But it is thought the bombs  missed their target.

Now, even assuming they did miss, the threat to that line is a serious one, and goes long in showing once again that domestic driling here in the US is critical for our own economic stability. The headline of the story is: The Pipeline War: Russian bear goes for West’s jugular

Until we drill, we’re still vulnerable, folks.

Obama won’t.

Think about it.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar-winning soul singer Isaac Hayes who, along with Al Green, James Brown and Stevie Wonder, was one of the dominant black artists in the early 1970s, died in Memphis on Sunday, his friend and former manager, Onzie Horne, said. Hayes was 65.

Horne told Reuters that he had spoken to Hayes’ wife, who confirmed that Hayes was found unconscious at his home, and rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Hayes, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, would have turned 66 on August 20.

Guy had a voice that made Barry White sound like a new castratti. Add to that the guy WAS Stax records in it’s heyday, and we have a real loss.

It could fairly be said we’ve been getting a lot of rain around here. A VERY rainy summer.  But that has it’s beauties, too.

A rainbow captured on 08-09-08, Greece NY

A rainbow captured on 08-09-08, Greece NY

A rainbow captured on 08-09-08, Greece NY

I drive a Buick.

Yes, I’m quite aware that the stereotype places me in Senior Citizen range.  But I’m 51.

The Buick I drive is a ’04 Rainier.  Yes, the dreaded and much maligned SUV is my main ride. “Why would you drive an SUV?” a friend recently intoned as we sat around the lunch counter.  “You’re never going to take the thing off road.” The comment showed me just how far out of touch this guy was with the reality of the thing, so I decided to educate the man on the spot.

“First off”, I said wearily, “The thing is an ALL wheel drive, not a FOUR Wheel drive. The difference is that All-Wheel , while it’ll off road pretty well,(And I’ve done it)  isn’t designed for off-road performance, really. Rather, it’s for cornering and for wet weather and winter traction. In short, it’s designed for the roads I drive on around here.” (Talking about Western NY state)

“Cornering? In an SUV?” my friend asked dripping incredulity.  “That’s right”, I said, calmly. ” Cornering. Between the All Wheel Drive and the air ride suspension, it handles better than any stock econobox on the road.”

“OK”, he allowed, let’s say that’s the case. “Then why the SUV at all?” And why a  Buick?

“Simple,” I replied. “I may as well be comfortable. The Buick has that one covered. Secondly, I have a family. My wife and I are both 6 footers, and we have two boys. Do the math. Oh… And a dog. On the face of it, we’re not going to fit us and our stuff into a Prius.  And, I tow a 5000lb camper.  You simply can’t do that with a smaller rig. For example, the largest vehicle Honda makes… the Ridgeline, can’t tow my trailer, and yet it gets the same gas mileage, while developing far less power.”

“What? It’s an SUV… those things swill gas like no tomorrow….(Pause) …what kind of mileage can it get, anyway?”

“Oh, about 22 on the open road, give or take a headwind.”

“Huh? What have you got in that thing, anyway?” my friend asked suspiciously.

04 Rainier like mine, (More or less) courtesy FAMILYCAR.COM

“A straight 6″, I said. ” 4.3 liters, 290 horsepower, 275 ft lbs of torque. Dual Overhead cam, direct injection, and I’ve done a few mods on my own… better intake and exhaust, mostly.  ”

My friend sat quietly for a moment. Finally, “That’s more horsepower than my old Pony car used to have, and I didn’t get gas mileage numbers anywhere near that!”  “True”, I said.  ” Less displacement, too, I’ll bet. But that’s how the technology has improved.”

“Why not one of those four door pickups for towing then?”

“Simple; The gas mileage isn’t as good, and this fits in my driveway better. ” Plus, the rig we got has heated leather inside, all the toys and tricks you’d expect to find on a Buick, And it was cheaper to begin with”

“Hmm.” he said. “Well, yeah, I guess it’s not a Hummer, huh?”

“Let me tell you something.  The H3 has a smaller engine than my rig does, and it gets about the same milage:.”

“Say what?”

“Yep. Kinda makes you think twice about all those SUV stereotypes we’ve been fed, eh?”

I offered him a ride in the thing, an offer he’s not taken me up on yet. But I could see the conversation had opened his eyes to a few things about SUV’s.

Suddenly, a light went on in his eyes. “Yeah, but what kinda mileage do you get when you’re pulling that trailer?”

“About 10 or 12 mpg”

“Yikes! How can you afford that?”

Well, simple. Last year, I took the family to western Ohio for a vacation, our around Cedar Point in Sandusky. You know the place?” He nodded.

“Now,  A campsite… even one with full hookups at the peak of the season, will never cost more than around $40 a night. I generallly go for the ones running $25 or $30 might. So, let’s add the costs up.”

” Now…From my front door to the campsite we hooked up with is 380 miles. Let’s assume we’re getting 10MPG the whole way… that’s way low, on what we usually get, but let’s keep it there for round numbers. Easier to figure. With me so far?” He nodded again.

“OK, that means we’re at 64 gallons of gas for the round trip.  Again, let’s keep the numbers round and say $4 even per gallon.  That comes out, give or take, $250 dollars for fuel. ”

“Ouch!” he said.

“Yes”, I replied… but have you ever tried to fly anywhere with a family of four for $250?”

Silence.

“Now,” I said, “add to that the costs of hotels, and restaurants. Every meal ends up being around $50.”

Bit's rig all set for the road

“What do you do for meals in the trailer?” he asked, starting to show some interest in the logic.

“The trailer has a full galley,” I said. “Full stove, microwave, fridge… even a grill if you’re in the mood for it.  We bring food from home. In other words, we eat what we’d be eating at home anyway.  Far healthier than road food and cheaper, too. We figured it out once and it amounts to $125 to $150 per day and that’s more than enough savings to cover the fuel expense… particularly if you’re staying for a few days…. even at today’s fuel prices.” Add in the cost of a campsite vs the cost of a hotel and it’s a no brainer.

“What about the cost of the trailer? ”

“We paid $10,000 for it. We’ve had it for 6 years, and plan to keep it a few more.  We figure when it comes trade-in time, we’ll get around $5000 for it. We pay about $80 per year on state tags, and I do all my own maintainence. Biggest expense is tires and I’ve not bought those yet. ” So, about $500/year is what we figure so far.

“How long can you use it per year?”

“Usually, April or May to late October. We’ve even camped in November, though that’s rare. It’s got central heat and an air conditioner.”

Silence.

“OK, you’ve convinced me it’s a cheap way to vacation. But you have to drive the tow rig the rest of the year!”

“That’s true” I said, “And you’re right, it costs me more than the average Econo-box. But… see… That’s the beauty of this thing; It runs rings around just about every car out there in the snow, and a lot of the trucks, too, since I don’t have to switch in and out of 4 wheel drive mode.  And it’s a Buick, so it’s got a bit of class about it.”

My friend was called away at that point. But, the conversation illustrated rather clearly to me just how misinformed people can be about SUV’s and their drivers. They do tend to make a rather handy target for politicians who want to be seen as being on the correct side of the ‘global warming’ scam, but when the facts come out, the objections kind of slip away.

Except of course for the eco-crazies. But, as with JIhadists… and I think the comparison particularly apt, here,  since when has anyone ever been able to reason with insanity?

What brings me to write all of this? Well, an article this morning by Terry Box of the Dallas Morning News. In that article, Box goes to some significant lengths to describe why he loves a high performance automobile.

…the truth is, at 57, I still delight in turning the key in my ’07 Mustang Shelby GT and feeling the thunder as its 4.6-liter V-8 engine explodes into life. I relish pointing it toward what little open road is left in this part of Texas and engaging in occasional immature outbursts of, shall we say, joyful exuberance. I revel in its sounds and its power and its mechanical sensations. And I accept its excesses.

No.  I suggest that he doesn’t merely accept those excesses. He revels in them, as do I. I’ve had more than one flat-out performance car in my lifetime. most recently, I had an 86 Firebird.  That was an interesting car.  It had a 231 in.³ V-6 in the, that was so small you could stand quite literally between the engine and the radiator without hitting either.  While it was running.  Even then, the Enviro-nuts not understanding that the thing develped less horsepower than did their Honda,  were trying to make moral judgments based on their misconception that I had a huge 455 V8 under the hood.  You see, it’s all about perception for these people…. as if it was their business in the first place.. the reality of it was that that car was kind of like driving an MG.  You had to stay on the gearbox all the time to keep the engine revved up for you wouldn’t get anywhere at all.  The front end was so light though that the thing handled beautifully under just about every situation except of course for snow. But it fulfilled a lot of my expectations about a sports car, as Box describes it.

I love the sound of a salty engine echoing through big stainless-steel exhausts. I appreciate tight, precise steering and brakes strong enough to slow time. Throw in great handling, blazing straight-line performance and a dash of style, and you have sculpture that springs to life with the twist of a key.

And yet lots of people these days see cars as mere appliances that can be re-jiggered with an electric motor or a fuel cell and sent puttering down the road like some jazzed-up can-opener on wheels. Pardon my French, but that’s a bunch of donkey dust. No appliance sounds like a ’67 427 Corvette or a new Ferrari F430 or a Hemi-powered ’32 Ford hot rod.

…

What worries me most is the rush to blame all environmental — and many societal — ills on cars. Come on, people. Lighten up.

Cars define our lives, transporting us to work, school, grocery stores, banks, malls, furtive trysts, whatever. They’re “pretty much a part of us,” says David Lewis, a professor at the University of Michigan who teaches a course on the global auto industry. “It’s pretty hard to imagine a world without them.”

Which, of course, is precisely why the left is trying so desperately to control them. Let’s be honest here; this has never been about the environment.  It’s about control. And cars and trucks are the perfect target for such people because so central are they  to our society, that if you control them you control our society.  It’s really that simple.

They envelop us in slick metal containers that supposedly say a lot about who we are. My Mustang shouts, “Short skinny guy over 50, seeking validation and maybe a couple of inches of height from a white muscle car with silver skunk stripes.” Baptists and senior citizens, meanwhile, drive Buicks. Republicans prefer two trucks in the driveway: an SUV for Mom to use as a soccer bus and a big $40,000 pickup for Dad’s power trips. Democrats favor anything nerdy in gray or white, and plaster their battered back bumpers with pious political stickers.

Who cares whether any of those stereotypes are true? Cars ‘r us. I know some people in Dallas who opt to live in sun-baked one-bedroom apartments that slump along roaring freeways so that they can spend $800 or $900 a month on a new Corvette or a 3-series BMW or a black C-class Mercedes-Benz.

Yet the constant harangue over our modes of transportation here in the United States, leads under-informed people to belief that somehow my little Rainier is an overindulgence, and extravagance, all of course because it’s a threat to our environment, yada, yada, yada.

Like Terry Box, I find myself increasingly annoyed at having the entirety of the world’s problems laid squarely on what it is I happen to have in my driveway. more annoying still, is the idea that the majority of those placing such blame on my little truck, are themselves driving less fuel-efficient, or more extravagant automobiles.  Or, I else, in masochistic fashion shoehorn themselves into vehicles with less steel in them than any thimble in my wife’s sewing kit.

At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that I drive what I drive because it works for me, not because it’s politically correct.  As a matter of fact if it happens to be politically incorrect so much the better.

I’d like someone to explain to me how it is that Al Gore, who lives in a house that takes more energy in a week than my living quarters do in a year can tell me what is more environmentally feasible, sustainable, or morally, or politically correct.  While I have no tolerance whatever for the enviro-whackjobs, like Gore, I do have a certain level of tolerance for those like my friend who are simply parroting what they are told, but clearly don’t understand it. I have to tell you, in all honesty though, that tolerance is waning.  My accepting these mule fritters because I’m being polite, is coming to an end, and in looking around me I suspect that my tolerance is not the only tolerance that is waning on such matters.  I’m telling you, dear reader, there is about to be a political backlash in this country the likes of which has not been seen since the Reagan revolution.

Frankly, I won’t be sorry to see it happen.

Don Surber has more