Senator Goofball Proposes Privatizing the Weather

Senator Rick Santorum (Goofball-PA) has introduced a bill that would forbid the National Weather Service from reporting the weather. It's not even a cost-cutting measure, since the NWS and NOAA would be left intact. It's purely meant to prevent the free use of data the governement collects, and has collected for two hundred years.

What? What's the point, you ask? Well, Senator Goofball wants to privatize the weather. It seems that Accuweather -- which just coincidentally contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum via its executives -- feels that the government is unfairly competing with it. Nevermind that any private company that wants the data from the government can get it and repackage it -- competition, apparently, is not a good thing in the free marketplace in Santorum's world.

If the bill passes, you won't be able to get NOAA weather over the internet. You won't be able to call NOAA for a forecast. You won't have your weather radio. You'll have to pay to get a weather forecast.

Yes, the corruption has gotten this absurd. The Republicans now want to privatize the weather.

What Did You Do During the War, Papa?

Obviously any German, born in 1927, is going to have some sort of World War II story. When that German has just been selected Pope, you'd think one of the many All-Pope, All the Time news channels would've at least investigated this. I mean, the most evil thing that has ever happened in the history of humanity ought to be a real focal point for any annointed Prince of Peace. But a kid who spent every school year of his life under Nazi rule, whose father was a policeman then, who was a Hitler Youth, who operated an anti-aircraft battery, who dug anti-tank ditches, who was drafted into the German Army in 1945, claims to have deserted, and who was captured by American troops -- now, you'd think that the worst crimes in history would really have been THE galvanizing event in his life. And that the story of a young boy growing up with the Nazis and serving in their armies while yearning to become a priest, that story would be of some passing interest to the media. Or why Benedict XVI hasn't made this a real focal point of his life in the church, especially given the shady history of the Catholic hierarchy during the fascist years and holocaust. Or perhaps some coveragew of why somebody who has preached the supremacy of Catholicism over all other religions has made some Jews a bit nervous.

Apparently not.

Anyone smell a Ratzinger?

Half-Erect for the Pope

Last Laugh

So our President has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff for the Bishop of Rome, who passed away last week. Welcome to 21st-century America, where we dip the symbol of our national sovereignty to a Polish national living in Rome heading up a church to which a minority of Americans attend, who was head of a sovereign state that would fit inside the pond in Central Park. What a great message to send to people in the Arab world who might be under the misimpression from Bush's "crusader" comments that we think it's a holy war we're fighting. I don't hear much from those who allegedly would defend our flag (say, via a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning) when it's under attack by being dipped to honor a religious figure.

Despite the fact that the Pope begged Bush not to kill innocent and retarded death row inmates in Texas or go to war in Iraq, Bush picks and chooses which parts of the 'culture of life' the Pope espoused to pay attention to. So when the Pope talked about abstinence, Bush echoes that, as if any sane person would take advice about sex from an 84-year old unmarried virgin. But when the Pope calls for intervention to prevent genocide in Africa, Bush guffaws about what a sad thing it is but does nothing. When the Pope issues a statement in support of maintaining Terri Schiavo's life support, Bush makes sure to mention it. But when the Pope begs for more aid and sustenance to the poor of the world, Bush says nothing.

So enjoy the posthumous honor, John-Paul, Bush is laughing at you up there on your catafalque, paying half-attention to your message and using you entirely for cheap political gain.

The Moth Drawn to the Publicity Light Bulb

What is up with that, Jesse Jackson?

First he shows up at the Michael Jackson trial, where MJ is spreading the word he's the victim of a vast conspiracy and likened himself to Nelson Mandela. I'm all with Rev. Jackson (no relation) holding that persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but if the legacy of the former aide of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to be the protection of the civil rights of an incredibly wealthy celebrity, one wonders if there aren't perhaps bigger causes out there.

Oh, wait, maybe there are...today, Rev. Jackson inserted himself into the whole Terry Schiavo mess, showing up at a news conference with the Schindler family and suggesting that basically Terry Schiavo was being victimized by her husband. To no apparent purpose, he's now linked himself within one week to conspiracy theories concerning the alleged persecution of African-Americans and the alleged judicial murder of the disabled.

The Schiavo case is clearly about one thing to the right wing: it's a pre-positioning of the various extremist candidates for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination. Jeb Bush, who needlessly intervened multiple times in the process despite the lack of constitutional authority to do so, has nevertheless been painted as a weak and weak-willed malingerer by the extremists touting the Schindler family's position on Schiavo -- an attempt to head off the Bush family from putting forward its most apparently-competent member for the next round of dynastic rule. Bill Frist makes a video diagnosis of Schiavo that would get him drummed out of the medical profession were the AMA not so craven and politically beholden to the Reds because of the "tort reform" issue. Resident Bush rushes back in the middle of the night to sign a bill he could've legally signed anywhere in the world, in a big show, while 1000 other pressing issues go without notice or Presidential intervention. Even crazy old Presidential Candidate Alan Keyes is on the scene, showing up in unlikely places like The Randi Rhodes show to argue bizarre interpretations of the constitution (that the judiciary has no power to rule on the constitutionality of laws of the executive and legislative branches, for instance) in a tortured argument that the Schiavo case is a breach of judicial power. These guys are all just lining up their ducks, so much the better to shoot one another in '08.

So what are we to make of Rev. Jackson's appearance in this case? He's come a long way from standing with Michael Moore at the front of an anti-RNC protest in September.

I'm waiting to see what Riley has to say in Boondocks about this one.

Why Liberals Should Take Economics

This has been circulating on the net for quite a while, and I got it back this week from two different sources:

You might want to make a copy of this and keep it in your car.  Looks like we're subsidizing a bunch of murdering misfits by buying Mideast oil/gas. 

WHERE TO BUY YOUR GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON--

Why didn't George W. think of this?  (Think??)

Gas rationing in the 80's  worked even though we grumbled about it.

It might even be good for us!

The Saudis are boycotting American goods.

We should return the favor.

An interesting thought: boycott their GAS.

Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.

I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.  Thse are the latter:

Shell............................. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco......... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil............... 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco............................62,231,000 barrels

If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION!

But of course $30 a barrel was 2 months ago, Now it's $50+ a barrel

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Citgo......................0 barrels
Sunoco...................0 barrels
Conoco...................0 barrels
Sinclair.....................0 barrels
BP/Phillips..............0 barrels
Hess.......................0 barrels
ARC0.                    0 barrels

All this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers.

It's really simple to do.

Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I'm sending this note to about thirty people.

If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers!

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it ..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people.

How long would all that take?

If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next eight days!

So . . . DO IT !

Here's the reply I sent to my well-meaning correspondents (which is also similarly reasoned on the Snopes Urban Legends site):

Hate to rain on the parade, but there are two flaws with the boycott campaign, which has been circulating the Internet for several years now, one factual, the other logical. (Plus the idea of picking and choosing "good" and "bad" oil companies flies in the face of common sense.)

(1) The statements about source buying are untrue. Most producers buy from a fluid mix of suppliers.When you buy a tank of gas, you have no idea where it came from and rarely does the retailer. In general, levels of imports vary by location in the US of the outlet relative to the supply; for instance, we get more Alaskan crude here in California because of the fact we're closer to Alaska than Saudi Arabia.

(2) Oil is a commodity, and laws of supply and demand hold true. So since our demand levels require a certain amount of imports, any hypothetical boycott would have zero effect on the supplier countries, even if, say, Exxon were bankrupted by such a move. The overall demand means somebody else would buy from the Saudis. And in turn, the Saudis are going to be happy to sell to, say, the Chinese, whose demand may outstrip urs within ten years, so that won't solve the problem of oligarchic power in the mideast.

While well-meaning, I'm sure, a better approach to individual action is the old fashioned technique of conservation. Drive less, or not at all, trade in the SUV for a hybrid, and use alternate fuels (although as long as our government subsidizes oil consumption, that will unfortunately just make gas cheaper for the gas guzzlers, but I think it's the right thing to do in general.)

Dependence on foreign oil has only one solution, and that's lowering our overall consumption of oil; that in turn has only one real solution, which is an organized long-term government energy plan which subsidizes alternative fuels until they can reach economies of scale, and eliminates hidden subsidies for oil (there are many, starting with the tax system and working around to highway policy). It's not the sort of thing that the market place will accomplish on its own under the present stacked deck, and unregulated markets tend to have cataclysmic adjustments, anyway; the last thing we want is for alternative fuels to be forced by necessity when the economy is suddenly crushed by a permanent energy crisis.

It's the story of the ant and the cricket once again...