Nightly Ramble: Bombing Denver, 1 in 100,Trust, And Running the Dead

• Billy notes a comment at Wonkette, complaining about smoke stacks:
  

  “We should start bombing North Carolina.”

  … and notes:

  That’s exactly what all the false equivocations of the thing add up to.

  Exactly so. And I think I can demonstrate this clearly: We should Bomb Denver’s convention center on August 25th.  We’d eliminate the largest part of the nations problems with one stroke. Oh… you don’t like me saying that?  Hey, it’s valid, somehow, when the left does it… Get the point?

• Oh, and about other kinds of false equivocations, let’s discuss a point that Boortz brought up on Friday…Says he:
  

  Currently in America, one out of every 100 adults is in jail or prison.  This cost the taxpayers more than $49 billion last year.

  Of course the objection goes a little deeper. Richard Nikoley whines:

  We’ve more people in jail than China, which has over four times our population (more than a billion more people than us). In terms of percentage in jail, China isn’t even on the map, while we exceed but keep such illustrious company as Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Cuba.

  I tell him in comments:

  comon, Richard… you’re over-reaching.

  First you don’t really trust the numbers, provided by China, do you?

  Even assuming what China is giving us is the right number…. (Did I mention I doubt it?_)…how much of the difference is due to the fact that most countries, China included, tend to dole out the death penaty more often. and for ostensibly lighter offenses? How many have died in prison due to conditions, and so on?

  Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

  He responds, lamely:

  The shamefulness of the magnitude of the American prison system, laws for all sorts of things that don’t harm anyone, prosecutorial abuse, and ego “justice” don’t rely on China’s behavior, or the behavior of any other nation for that matter.They’re provided merely for perspective and everyone is perfectly free to place whatever stock in them they like.

  And I respond:

  Well, the comparison figures are bogus at the off.

  Then we get into the justification behind that prison population. You are making the implicit assumption that if someone is in jail, it’s unjustified. That unjustified imprisonments happen occasionally goes without much question… but your implication is that it’s a significant percentage… and that holds up about as well as your comparison to China’s figures.

  I’ll cap that by suggesting that after decades of not taking crime seriously, you’d expect a higher population. Have arguments if you will about one law or another, but don’t try to work around such laws by complaining about supposedly over-aggressive enforcement.

  And by the way, gang… is this the same Criminal justice system we’re supposed to be asking to deal with terrorists?  Seems to me something isn’t meshing, there. Oh… something further; Had anyone noticed that the poppy crop is what’s funding the Taliban? Tell me again, how drugs “don’t hurt anyone”. And in the end, the knee-jery reaction to limitations on so-called ‘recreational drugs’ is what is at the root of most radical libertine objections to law enforcement.

• I see things must not being going well for Crazy Uncle Hugo. He’s now threatening Columbia My suspicion is this is the usual level of BS from Chavez, and naught else. He doesn’t have the wherewithall to be much more than a pain in the butt.
• Another Honorable Mention at OTB’s Caption contest. I suppose I have a slight advantage… I used to do morning radio. I was a professional wise-ass. Now, I’m only semi-pro. (Chuckle) But hey, look, if I can do this, you can too.
• AlQaeda is claiming Adam Gahahn is alive. Not quite sure how seriously to take this, given they’re still claiming that BinLaden is alive, too.
• Should I be shocked that 70% of the country doesn’t trust the dinosaur media?
• Funny how after running for president touting how important Military service is as a qualification for the office of POTUS, General Wesley Clark suddenly doesn’t think much of it, when a Republican does it. And were we not all waving the flag when John Kerry changed his middle name to “Served in Vietnam’?  Funny how the Democrats can contort themselves at need, isn’t it? Here again we see clearly how many votes McCain is going to get from people crossing over from the Democrat party. And, yes, I noticed David’s post on Gloria Steinem‘s remarks on McCain’s military service. Odd, how these two stories come up at the same time, huh? Or, maybe, not so odd, at that. More like a planned attack.. Wizbang notes it, now, too. I was rather waiting for someone else to leap into that one.  Maybe it means nothing as to the original source of these attacks that these two are both Clinton supporters, huh?
• And lest you think I’m waving the flag for McCain, I will say that I am with Whizbang on this one:
  

  My support for John McCain is quite tepid, and based on a few elements: first, he’s at least marginally better than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Second, if he’s elected, he’ll be out of the Senate, where he’s caused me a great deal of aggravation with his “Gang Of Fourteen” shenanigans and loathsome McCain-Feingold law. Third, there’s a hell of a good chance that he’ll be out of national politics by 2012 at the latest.But gosh darn it, right now his mere status as the Republicans’ presumptive nominee is causing such grand contortions by the Democrats as they try to reverse all their pro-Kerry arguments now that the boot is on the other foot that I like him purely for the entertainment value.

  I don’t know if I’d go quite so far as all this being for entertainment value. My mind is coming from a damage containment perspective… limit the damage to the country and we stand a chance of living through these next few years. I don’t see McCain helping matters much, but of the bunch he’s the least damaging. That said, I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that as to the election in November, the RNC should ask Nancy permission to dig up Ronnie and run him. Reagan, even when dead, is better qualified than any of the people currently running… and yes, that probably includes McCain.

Hang down your head Rush Limbaugh.   Hang down your head in shame.   Saturday Night Live has done in a mere two weeks, what you have failed to so in twenty years of broadcsat excellence.   The main stream media has been shamed into doiong their job, Dana Milbank, Washington Post:

The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.

Any stump speech Barack Obama gives that drifts past a vague promise of change is simply incoherent.  For example, Obama has said that supports the Second Amendment.   Yet Obama would ban all guns shops  in all cities.   Obama professes to to be a Christian.   Yet somehow finds support for both sodomy and abortion in his private version of the Bible   Sure Barack.

.

Piracy by another name, BBC:

Japan’s whaling fleet in the waters off Antarctica has been attacked again by protesters, Tokyo officials have said.

Activists from the Sea Shepherd group threw containers filled with a mild form of acid made from rotten butter at a Japanese ship.

Terrorism by another name:

WOODINVILLE, Wash. (AP) – Three seven-figure dream homes went up in flames early Monday in a Seattle suburb, apparently set by eco-terrorists who left a sign mocking the builders’ claims that the 4,000-plus-square-foot houses were environmentally friendly.

The sign – a sheet marked with spray paint – bore the initials ELF, for Earth Liberation Front, a loose collection of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s

Master Sergeant. Woodrow Wilson Keeble: 

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush apologized Monday that the country waited decades to honor Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble for his military valor in Korea, giving him the Medal of Honor more than 25 years after he died.

Keeble is the first Sioux Indian to receive the nation’s highest military award. But it came almost six decades after he saved the lives of fellow soldiers. Keeble died in 1982.

“On behalf of our grateful nation, I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late,” Bush said at the White House medal ceremony. “Woody will never hold this medal in his hands or wear it on his uniform. He will never hear a president thank him for his heroism. He will never stand here to see the pride of his friends and loved ones, as I see in their eyes now.”

Better late than never.

Marion Cotillard:  Moron, AFP:

French actress Marion Cotillard, who picked up an Oscar for best actress in Hollywood last week, has admitted to having doubts about the official version of the September 11 attacks in the US.
“I think we’re lied to about a lot of things,” she said during a television programme first broadcast last year which has resurfaced on the Internet.

The actress, who picked up the award for playing Edith Piaf in the French film “La Vie En Rose,” cited the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 as one example, adding: “I tend to believe in the conspiracy theory.”

Knut no long kute, Daily Mail(UK):

A year ago, he was a cute and cuddly ball of white fur who captured the hearts of millions worldwide.

But Knut the polar bear has grown up fast – as this startled young visitor to Berlin Zoo discovered.

Knut now weighs 22 stone and has six-inch claws and a fearsome set of fangs to match.

And he seemed to be particularly keen to test them on the three-year-old boy lying on the ground next to his enclosure.

Noted today, in my “inbox”: Two stories.

• Michelle Obama complaining that using the middle name of her husband is a ‘fear bomb’.  
• And at the same time, from this source, we see calls for limits on “religious insults’ against Muslims.

The tie in, of course is they’re both complaining about the same thing,and trying to limit the effects of people’s perceptions.

Their problem of course is this: The truth can often be very insulting. Certainly, the reaction to the truth can limit some people’s power over you.
You can understand why freedom of speech, isn’t really a value, both in the case of the Islamic name of  “he who must not be middle named”, and islam in general. Remember, though; this is YOUR freedom we’re talking about, here.

One thing I’ve noticed about this primary season; they’re not talking very much about “Global Warming” yet. Yeah, I blasted McCain for playing that game a few weeks back, but on the whole, this has not been major topic territory this silly season. Al Gore’s been making note of it, too. He’s apparently annoyed about it.

But you know, perhaps the reason he’s not the center of attention with his pet project anymore is the American people’s overwhelming sense that he and his issue are a huge fraud?

Today’s the day.

Hillary Clinton either wins it all, or fails one of the several tests today, and is forced within a week or two to leave the race. THe latter happening, I cannot say I will complain about, though if she wins that means seven weeks of turmoil in the Democrat party, which can’t be all bad.
Which way this goes seems an open question. I note Dale Franks, this morning,  noting that the bloom is off the rose for Obama and the press corps, and by my read, that means many Democrats since the Democrats dominate the supposed mainstream media.  I won’t be live blogging this one, having other commitments, but I’ll likley have a comment or two as today progresses.

Addenudum:  (David L)

I say the pressure is on Barack Obama to knock out Mrs. Clinton, and I say he can not do it.   There is blood in the water, Obama’s blood, and Mrs. Clinton can smell it.   Obama has lead a sheltered policical life, the Ivy League and Chicago.  He is no where ready for the national arena, and it shows.

(Bit Notes, this post is from fellow Swamp Stomper Bluto, who askas us to pass this one along. All Swamp Stompers: please echo))

The Jawa Report and The Dread Pundit Bluto declare war on the jihad forum that recently brought you “Does this bomb vest make me look fat?” and “Beheading Suspected Supporters of the Afghan Government is fun“. The forum is run by Taliban supporters in Pakistan, but its membership is a mixed group of Salafi e-jihadis and infidel fellow travelers who support anyone willing to kill an American.

We call upon all able bodied patriots to complain to the American service providers that allow this forum to operate. Service providers should be e-mailed, called, or faxed until they agree to stop facilitating the enemies of the United States of America.

The forum features at least two videos which clearly violate the webhost’s Terms of Service (TOS) and arguably U.S. and International Law. A gruesome “exclusive” Lee-Media Taliban beheading video, images from which are too graphic to post here but which can be referenced at: Lee-Media: Taliban Behead Three “Spies”.  A second graphic video which begins with a Taliban terrorist being outfitted with a suicide vest; not shown on the short clip posted is the Taliban homicide bomber blowing up a vehicle.

In addition, the site routinely encourages the murder of civilians and the killing of U.S., NATO, Coalition, & Russian troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Chechnya. It also distributes al Qaeda propaganda.

The full details of the forum are at Internet Haganah. Highlights:

Description: Dedicated to the distribution or re-distribution of high-quality jihadi recruiting videos, with a particular focus on subtitling videos to make them accessible to audiences of expatriate Muslims living in Western countries (for example from Urdu to English, or Arabic to Turkish). This network is notable for the considerable effort they have made from the very beginning to hide their existence. They obviously have not succeeded, but we give them an “A” for effort….

Membership: By invitation only, so there are no “innocent” members and no deniability for the administrators. Core members are known to scour other, better known sites for talent which they then recruit to the LEE Network.

More details here.

Another specialty of the group is uploading Taliban murder videos which are sold in Pakistan’s tribal areas but not officially released on the internet. They have become the de facto distribution network for Taliban propaganda not officially produced by the group’s central Shura Council.

Frames from the video can be found here and might be sent to webhosts as evidence of what happens behind Lee-Media’s closed forum doors.  This suicide vest video can also be used.  Service providers can also be directed to the Internet Haganah’s detailed analysis of Lee-Media here.

Please, we need your help on this one. Spread the word and encourage every one you know to complain to the service providers listed below. In any letter or conversation you have with these service providers please let them know that Lee-Media violates the TOS (terms of service), encourages acts of violence against U.S. troops, and encourages terrorism.

Several service providers for Lee Media, many of which are in Burlington, MA, and seem to be companies owned or operated by Endurance International Group.

leemedia.net = 65.254.250.106

Host/Registrar: Endurance International Group (Shared webhosting)
Burlington, MA
Contact: [email protected]
(866) 642-4678

Domain Admin: Powweb.com
Burlington, MA
Contact: [email protected]; [email protected]
(877) 476-9932

DNS/Registrar: Tucows, Inc.
Ontario, CA
Contact: [email protected]
[email protected]
Form contact.

• Actually Billy, it likely WAS about that. … Allow an illustration: You know,there are a lot of people who figure that the right… IE: the power, to keep and bear arms is one that is directly connected to increased numbers of murders… ignoring of course the facts which run exactly in the opposite direction. They’ve never figured out that the power to do something is not directly connected to the worst case scenario for the abuse of that power.  So it is with the power of government, as a whole. Because a power gets abused doesn’t make it power that should NEVER be used.  That the power of government is being abused in this case doesn’t make the original concept of government run emergency services a bad one.What you’re describing is a situation where the betterment of the community and the individuals in it, was the idea. However, that idea got perverted.  We agree it’s an abuse of power. But why? Why would such a thing be required to cover the costs? Can it be that the social programs local governments are finding themselves forced to spend money on are sapping them dry? That, too is an abuse of power, and in this case, it’s the root cause of what you describe.

• KJL gets it. Liberalism IS totalitarian in nature. Think not? Try opposing them seriously, and see what you get. One of these days, I’m going to start posting the contents of my own mailbox to prove the point.
• At some point, the Rock Star status of Obama is going to backfire. It’s gotten crazy, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to live up to the expectations. Hope it does before he manages to get himself elected, in which case it’ll blow up in all our faces.
• I note my comments about Obama and Ayers the other day, made the Chicago Sun Times by way of BlogBurst. Yeah, I know, that and a buck-fifty will buy me a coffee. Still, kind of a thrill. I wonder if they’re getting any hate mail from my comments?
• Oh.. while at the Sun Times site, check out Lynn Sweet’s thoughts on Obama’s vulnerabilities. Come to think on it, I noted Surber over the weekend, comparing seriously, JFK and Obama… a comparison the Obama campaign has themselves invoked… and Surber points up that the comparison is wanting, even with JFK’s flaws. The bottom line, here is that neither Obama or Clinton is worthy of the White House, and niether one is going to be able to overcome their past under the scrutiny the general election will impose.
• I was sorry to see James Joyner in trouble yesterday. Only took one screwup like that to get me swearing off dending on the host’s backups.
• Want to know what’s wrong with our educational system? Ask Drew Carey.
• Since both Obama and Clinton hail from Chicago, it strikes me as interesting that we have evdience that Chicago is the highest taxed city in the nation. Omen, or practical application of the kind of politics these two espouse?
• It strikes me that Nancy Pelosi setting up an office on congressional ethics is an interesting concept, if she plans as a first task to really investigate her activities in cutting deals for companies she holds stock in, like Dole, for example. Smells fishy to me.

Gender feminists, see photo, keep trying to promote the ficton that having a set of boobs somehow makes women better leaders.    To promote this assine notion the former Playboy Bunny also known as Gloria Steinem has disparaged the courage of a real American hero, who by the way is running for president, John McCain.  Niall Stanage, New York Observer:

AUSTIN, Texas-Feminist icon Gloria Steinem took to the stump on Hillary Clinton’s behalf here last night and quickly proved that she has lost none of her taste for provocation.

From the stage, the 73-year-old seemed to denigrate the importance of John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In an interview with the Observer afterward, she suggested that Barack Obama benefits-and Clinton suffers-because Americans view racism more seriously than sexism.

Steinem also told the crowd that one reason to back Clinton was because “she actually enjoys conflict.”

Mrs. Clinton’s campagn has disavowed Steinem’s comment.  Disavowal will not do.   We call apon Mrs. Clinton to give Steinem the full Sister Souljah treatment and repudiate Steinem.   Mrs. Clinton’s husband was man enough to do it.   Can Mrs. Clinton muster the courage to the same?  I doubt it.

Leadership is about leading, and having your minions disavow Steinem is not leading.   It is whimping out.

Other blogging:  Don Surber, DRJ, Patterico’s Pontifications; Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

Addendum:   Via Michelle Malkin, Steinem did not get much support from the View.   Only Joy Behar was supportive of Steinem.

You know it’s a slow news week when the MSM starts dragging out the old standby about how the Hell’s Angles were planning on killing Mick Jagger after Altamont. Maybe it’s easier than actually covering pols misdeeds. I’ve been hearing that story since the middle 70’s, guys. Comon. This is news?

This buisness is just getting comical:

WESTERVILLE, Ohio -FOX- Clinton campaign officials have accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of making a ‘flub’ during an Ohio speech in which he described the Iraq war vote cast by a leading senator who endorsed him.

Obama criticized Clinton expressly for failing to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons capabilities, a report available at the time of her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war.

He said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow Democrat from neighboring West Virginia, had read the intelligence estimate as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and after a brief pause said the then-chairman had voted against the war resolution.

However, Rockefeller was not the chair at the time and voted in favor of the war authorization. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was the intelligence committee chair in 2002 and voted against the resolution. Obama did not mention Graham’s name in the passage.

“She didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimates. Jay Rockefeller read it. But she didn’t read it. (And after a 13-second pause) I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate and the chairman of the national…umm…Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this, this is why I’m voting against the war, that you should probably read it. I don’t know how much experience you need for that.”

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement to FOX News, “Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he’s not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he’s also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in.”

Well, look, gang… the real truth is, that neither one is qualified for the position.  This is something they prove each and every time they open their mouths. Hillary’s “Daisy” ad aside, the person who answered the phone in the wee hours wasn’t Hillary, it was Bill, and that was bad enough, thank you very much.  That Clinton doesn’t have any real experience to put on the table, is quite true, and yet Clinton is right that Obama doesn’t have any experience to put on the table, either.

These two beating each other up can do nothing but win the election for McCain.

Obama is MoveOn approved, and that’s why he’s winning. But it’s as I’ve been saying since 2000; The more the Democrats kowtow to MoveOn, and company, the more out of the mainstream and unelectable they are. This fight proves that point rather nicely.

jdm at Protein Wisdom is coming to the conclusion I mentioned some weeks ago about McCain; THe one thing that can push him (And myself) to vote for McCain, is his Democrat party opponents.

Humorless (but confusing sarcasm for funny), snarky, dogmatic, hair-splitting , “loud”, incapable of understanding irony (especially when it occurs to themselves): religious leftists.

…and it occurs to me, I vote against these people.

I can see it now: at some point, during the next eight months, these people will cause me to decide to vote for McCain. I won’t hold my nose. I won’t need to get drunk. I may even pull the lever happily, just to piss off these religious leftists.

And if I recall correctly, this was pretty much the driving force in 2000 against the Democrat party then, too: The people who inhabit it. And well, yes, I suppose that would include the Cigar store Indian, wouldn’t it?  If there’s one thing, though, that startles me here, it’s the level of vacuousness required to make McCain look good by comparison.

If weather is a subset of climate, and warm weather is evidence fo global warming, therefore cold weather would be evidence a lack of global warmiung, or even global cooling.   Not so says Andrew C. Bevon, New York Times. 

The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature

It is no wonder that some scientists, opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment.  

Rick Moran, Right Wing Nut House, examines the asymetrical logic of the antropogenic global warming panic mongers:

I’m no scientist. Neither is Nobel Prize winning global warming alarmist and hypocrite Al Gore. Nor are the legions of global warming deniers who are pointing to a stretch of cold weather as “proof” that global warming is a myth.

We are, most of us, not qualified in any way, shape, or form to make any kind of technical or scientific judgment on most of the evidence relating to climate change unless we happen to hold an advanced technical degree and are able to examine that evidence in its totality and not pick and choose headlines that bolster one’s political position on the issue.

Rick is not a scientist.  I am not.  And neither is Al Gore.

Let’s take a moment to look at the Democrat response to the President’s weekly radio address… where Energy is the issue.

Good morning. This is Congressman Joe Donnelly of Indiana’s Second Congressional District. Today it is my pleasure to talk to you about a few of Congress’ recent accomplishments on an issue that I believe will help define the future of our nation: energy independence and energy security.

Like many Americans across the nation, the people of northern Indiana have felt the negative effects of an energy policy that favored big oil companies at the expense of working families and businesses.

In the last six months, oil prices have increased by $25 a barrel to a record high of $102 this past week. In fact, in the past two weeks, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas increased 17 cents to $3.15 per gallon. For working families trying to make ends meet and for businesses working to strengthen our economy, this is a recipe for stress and struggle.

Ummm.. Wait. Hold on, Joe.

Profits?

First off, since when did profit become a dirty word? In any event your perception is unsurprisingly skewed. You apparently figure that all that increase is pure profit. Can anyone in Congress not know that oil company profits the real ones… you know, after taxes and exploration and development costs are removed, not the gross profits you cite…as a percentage have been going down for some years?  Oil company profits in fact are lower than most other types of enterprise… once you factor in taxes, and exploration costs and other overhead. Government is in fact the biggest percentage of expense for oil these days. Your tacking on more taxes and regulations isn’t helping. It’s hurting ‘working families’, Joe.

Indeed, let’s do some theoretical work, here and take all that profit away, and see what happens… just in theory, and for the sake of argument. Now to do this correctly, we have to assume for the moment that your proposals do not involve taking these supposed excess profits in taxes, but that the percentage normal bound for profit, just disappears.  The price difference would be around 3%…  a percentage which wouldn’t even scratch the surface of the costs incurred by lack of supply. But Congress will, of course, and invariably so, call these supposedly excessive profits ‘windfalls’ and tax them out of existence, and gee, Joe… those taxes get passed on to the ‘working family’ at the pump, don’t they? So in the end, your ideas will do nothing but add costs at the pump, not lessen them. And Joe; Is it really fair to say gas costs 3.15 a gallon and the opil companies are responsible for that cost, when we’re being taxed, directly, at the rate of 50c a gallon? That’s not the oil companies, Joe, that’s government. In any event; Doesn’t sound like your concern is for working families, Joe.

But let’s look further, at the reasons for the price hikes;

Product shortages.

What is the cause of these shortages? First of all, it’s a lack of domestic production, both in terms of domestic drilling for crude, and in terms of lack of refining capacity, because of the idiodic way the Democrats in Congress micromanage the oil companies, under the cover of ‘environmentalism’.

Take first, crude production. ANWR is a prime example of Congress limiting our ability to deal with our own energy needs. Our ocean floors off Florida, similarly, and indeed anywhere else we’ve managed to locate crude oil within our own borders, is where Congress has jumped in, and told us we can’t drill. If working families struggling with the high cost of fuel were really on the list of things Democrats wanted to deal with, if you really understand that the only way to lower costs is to increase available product, why are we not drilling for our own oil? You have the power to help, yet you’ve blocked our ability to provide for our own energy needs at every turn.

Here’s a peek at what we could be getting oil from, if Congress would stop bowing and scraping to the enviro-whackos and start listening to American Working Families.

(Graphic is courtesy of sibelle.info, which is a great source of info for this discussion.)

The issue of refining capacity is of a kind with the drilling.

Here again, government micro-management has prevented us from being able to deal effectively with energy issues in the United States. As an example; does it really make sense to have so large a percentage of our refining capacity along the gulf coast, where the next Katrina can wipe it out? Yet, attempts to establish other refining plants in recent years are so tangled in red tape, that the refiners… you know, those evil oil companies… have given up trying to deal with it…. To the point where we’ve not built a new refiery in this country since 1976. Once again, Congressional Democrats, if working families dealing with increased energy costs were the priority, could have eliminated the enviro-whacko red tape, and the excessive taxation that keeps us from providing for our own energy. But you didn’t.

Oh, and Joe; I hate to burst your bubble…. It’s called “Alternative Energy” for a reason; It’s not dependable enough to be the main source of energy. Your tilt toward E85 sounds good until you consider the added costs for food. THe price of corn is going through the ceiling, thanks to what little we’ve done so far… and as Democrats and RINOs in Congress ramp this stuff up, it’s only going to get worse. Once again, the working family pays the price for your misguided nonsense.

Look, I know you come from a farm district, so you’re bucking for votes from Democrats in your own area.That’s why you’re real high on E85 ad Bio-Diesel. But let’s get real; We’re never going to be able to provide enough bio-matter to fuel ourselves… and our cars… both at once. Certainly, as a result of the attempt, the costs for each will be going up. There’s very little in the way of alternative food, Joe, and yet you would have us paying dramatically more for it, so you can keep your farmer friends in the second congressional district of Indiana, happy?

Sorry, Joe, doesn’t sound like Democrats have the welfare of the working family in mind with any of this.

But do go ahead, and prove me wrong. Let’s see you vote to reduce the red tape and taxes on oil companies, struggling to get product to us at a cost we can afford, but getting blocked by government every step of the way.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. Vote to drill in ANWR and anywhere else there is crude to be had within our own borders.Start not only calling for increased crude production, but actually having the courage to vote to arrange it. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Go ahead, prove me wrong, and vote to eliminate restrictions and red tape which prevent us from building added refining capacity. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Go ahead and prove me wrong and vote against trying to use a limited and irreplaceable food supply for fuel, which only raises food costs AND fuel costs, and has been proven to increase pollution. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Somehow, Joe, I don’t think your concern for the American working family extends quite so far.

Starting to look that way, says the LasVegas Review-Journal:

The Las Vegas hotel suite where vials of ricin were found Thursday also contained guns and literature about anarchy with information on the deadly toxin, police said Friday.

Nevertheless, Las Vegas police continued to downplay the significance of the ricin discovery, saying they had ruled out terrorism as a motive.

“I want to assure everybody that the Las Vegas Valley is safe,” Las Vegas police Capt. Joseph Lombardo said. “We don’t currently have any terrorist threat at this time or possibility of contamination (due) to ricin.”

The Metropolitan Police Department reported one person has been injured by the biological agent. That man has been in critical condition at Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center for more than two weeks.

Well, the obvious question would be what else the stuff would be used for.

Guy’s name, who found the ricin has been id’d is Thomas Tholen, according to the article. He’s apparently claiming he’s a relative of the guy in the coma, by way of exposure to this stuff.

Michelle says the guy’s name in hospital is Roger Von Bergendorff.

Not sure which was this one’s going, but it strikes me as interesting that I can’t seem to locate much of anything on either name. What’s going on, here?