Richard Rahn
THE NET NEUTRALITY CON
You probably have seen the ads about the "net neutrality" bills before Congress, concerning who gets to manage and set fees for access to the Internet. The House of Representatives has just done the right thing by defeating the so-called net neutrality proposals, and the issue is now before the Senate. The "net neutrality" advocates are a strange coalition of leftist political groups hostile to property rights, self-appointed consumer groups totally ignorant of good economics, and a few large business users of the Internet (such as Google) who want the telecom companies to provide them a free ride for their demands for a more robust network. To understand the fight, you need to be aware of the economic interests of the various players.
CHENEY COOLING ON CONDI
A year and a half ago, just after GW’s second inauguration, in Cheney and Condi, you first learned of the Bush-Cheney plan to have Condi Rice replace Dick Cheney as Vice-President.
Then, in 44, you learned that Bush’s private nickname for Condi is “44” – meaning that as his dad and he are known in the White House as “41” and “43,” he intends for her to be the 44th President of the United States.
But in Cooling on Condi, we let the other shoe drop and discussed Condi’s inability to control her State Department’s compulsion for appeasement regarding Iran.
Nonetheless, all indications have continued that the Cheney-Condi Switch was still on track, scheduled to be implemented this fall as an ultimate October Surprise to lock in GOP House/Senate victories in November.
Until now. Earlier this month, Condi insultingly and gratuitously dissed Cheney, and threw her lot in completely with the spineless pinstripes infesting Foggy Bottom. And over no small matter, but the most critical foreign policy issue of the moment.
THE BIGGEST JERK IN CONGRESS
There are 435 Congresscritters, and choosing who is the biggest jerk among them is not easy, for there is a multitude of choices. Many would opt for John Murtha (D-PA), but he's just the most senile. That's not a joke - he's age 74 and actually going senile. In a recent interview with Tim Russert, he thought Okinawa was close to Iraq, so our troops could be "redeployed" there. Okinawa is 6,000 miles from Iraq. He's reached that stage of senility called second-childhood, where the patient acts increasingly juvenile - like saying the most outrageous things possible in order to get attention, even if they are treasonous and spits on his own military record. Some, of course, would choose anti-American racist screwballs like Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), or Maxine Waters (D-CA). But they're just bit-player kooks. If you took a vote among the Congress members themselves for the biggest jerk among them, the most likely winner would be James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).
INCONVENIENT GLACIERS
Al Gore says the world's glaciers are melting because humanity has emitted too much CO2. However, a new peer-reviewed study shows that in South America‘s Andes Mountains the glaciers' advances and retreats have not been governed by CO2, but by small variations in the sun's intensity.
The study, led by P.J. Polissar of the University of Massachusetts, found that Andean glaciers expanded only four times during the 600 years of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from 1250 AD to 1850.
Each of those glacier advances occurred during a solar minimum, when the sun's lowered activity apparently dropped the mountain-top temperatures by 2-4 degrees C and increased precipitation by about 20 percent.INCONVIENENT FALSEHOODS
"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film An Inconvenient Truth. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia gives this assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites? No. Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change.THE CONFUSION OF BILL GATES
No doubt he is a genius when it comes to software and innumerable gadgets and such; I am really pleased he got into computers big time. I certainly got a lot from that in my own line of work.
But Bill Gates really needs to shut about some other things he is confused about. Like his claim the other day, when he announced his impending retirement and turn to full time philanthropy, that he "needs to give back to the community."
Why? Did he steal something from people? Did they lend him something he needs to return? What on earth was he talking about?PUTIN’S ANTI-REAGAN DOCTRINE
The most beautiful women in Europe are not in Paris. They are in a country, as Joel Wade and I discovered to our delight, called Moldova. On every street corner in the capital of Chisinau, Joel and I stood transfixed, watching one spectacularly gorgeous woman after another walk by. Back then, in 1989, the place was stilled called the Soviet Republic of Moldavia. The Principality of Moldova had emerged independent out of the Middle Ages, only to be colonized by the Russian Empire in 1812. During the Russian Revolution in 1917, it broke free and joined Romania for safety. Stalin had his troops seize it in 1944, incorporating it within the Soviet Union as Moldavia. It was an exciting time to be there in 1989, as Moldovans saw the USSR disintegrating and their liberty finally around the corner. By mid-1991, they had declared their independence and Moldova was once again free. But there was a little problem.
BLACKS TO THE RESCUE
Here's the hottest question being asked this week by Republicans in Washington: Would you trade the Hispanic vote for the Black vote? It's not being asked too loudly, of course, but that it's being asked at all shows some smart guys in the GOP have figured it out: Bush's desperate attempts to retain and expand the Hispanic vote (40% for him in ‘04) by refusing to protect our border with Mexico and demands for amnesty for Mexican illegals is a loser. Sure, there are muchas Mexicano-Americans who understand that a border fence shutting down the illegal invasion would be the best thing that could happen to Mexico. If folks have to stay there rather than escape, the pressure for real reform could build irresistibly. Nonetheless, when the question is met with scoffs and denial that blacks will ever vote Republican, the smart guys ask: What do readers of Esquire Magazine and Southern Baptist evangelicals have in common?
DEMOCRAT HELL WEEK
The hit on Zarqawi has been described, quoting Churchill, as "the end of the beginning" towards winning the war in Iraq. What it and so much else also portends is the beginning of the end for the Democrat Party's dream of regaining power in Congress this November. Week before last, the Dems were riding high. Bush's poll numbers were so disastrous Time Magazine ran a cover asking "How low can he go?" The liberal rag followed this with a cover story on the "massacre" of Haditha. Nancy Pelosi went on a speaking tour describing what she'll do as House Speaker next January. Harry Reid told his staff to start planning for when he becomes Senate Majority Leader. Yep, the Dems had the Republicans on the ropes, and were gleefully acknowledging their impending victory to the cheering crowd - when without warning and out of nowhere, the Pubbies unleash a series of such punishing blows the Dems find themselves stunned, dazed, and on the canvas.
THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT AMERICA
[Nothing could better illustrate the Left's depression over George Bush's military killing Zarqawi than this morning's headline in the Washington Post: After Zarqawi, No Clear Path For A Weary Iraq. The media's relentless pessimism has infected America in general. It is about time conservatives stop being suckered by liberal pessimism, and start celebrating what's right with America. Peter Wehner, Deputy Assistant to President Bush at the White House, here provides grounds for doing so. ---JW] Americans hear a great deal about the problems they face. We hear hardly anything about the encouraging developments. So here is an empirical assessment of where we are. Social Indicators: We are witnessing a remarkable cultural renewal in America.
JOURNALISTS AS ENEMY PROPAGANDISTS
The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha last November tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core.
On every radio and television show I appeared on last week (and all I observed) in which this topic came up, without exception at least one of the media people immediately attempted to implicate not just the still-presumed-innocent Marines, but the American military's leadership and methods in general.
The "Drive By Media" (Rush Limbaugh's scientifically accurate description) has already started to report this story in a manner that is likely do vast damage that may last for several years to the morale (and possibly recruitment) of our military. It will create a propaganda catastrophe of strategic proportions in our mortal struggle with radical Islam and their terrorist spear point.
And all this is being done by journalists who should be considered enemy propagandists.ADVISING IRAQ
A buddy of mine came over to my place tonight to celebrate the take-out of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He's on his way to Baghdad to be an advisor to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki. "What advice do you think I should give him, Jack?" he asked me over too much Famous Grouse Scotch. Here's what I told him: "Well, the very first thing he should do is hang Saddam. Get the trial over with tomorrow, take Saddam and every one of his cronies on trial out into the bright Baghdad sunshine and publicly hang the bastards on world-wide television. Then burn the bodies and scatter the ashes to the winds so there's no burial site for his followers. That'll be it for the Baathists. "Then...
Chapter Twenty-Six: CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
The Jade Steps Chapter Twenty-Six: Cleansing The Temple Much of the royal household was transferred to the Palace of Axayacatl. Montezuma's chefs set up the royal kitchens, attendants the royal baths, servants the royal wardrobe, so that he was fed, bathed, and clothed as before. Suitable quarters were arranged for his wives and concubines, which he frequently visited. His retinue of courtiers and counselors was with him throughout the day. Petitioners and ambassadors from various parts of the empire came to plea with him or present him with tribute. All seemed normal - with one difference. The only guards, of which there were many, were Spanish. There wasn't a jaguar warrior in sight. Yet to everyone who came to him with concern, to ask about his obvious imprisonment, Montezuma assured them he was happy and under no restraint. He told them not to disturb themselves or the city, and commanded them not to be distressed, for his "visit" with the strangers was the will of Huitzilopochtli.
THE WORLD BOGRAKAB CUP
For at least a quarter-century now, I've been hearing the same mantra from soccer enthusiasts: "Every little kid in America plays soccer. When they grow up, soccer will be more popular than football or baseball." This hasn't happened and never will happen. Kids love to run around and kick a ball. Watching grown-ups do it has all the drama of watching paint dry. A majority of Americans will not pay much attention to the World Cup this month while the rest of the world goes bananas about it because "soccer" should really be named "bograkab" - bunch-of-guys-running-around-kicking-a-ball. Here's a synopsis of most every period of most every professional soccer game ever played: Run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball - never score. Run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball, run around kick a ball - never score. It doesn't get more exciting in sports than this. Except for curling. So - now that I have all soccer fans totally enraged (something that's very easy to do, by the way), let's talk for real about why soccer will never be a competitor to football or baseball or basketball for the hearts of American sports fans.
BACK IN ‘NAM
One of the first things George W. Bush did as his presidency was getting off the ground in 2001was to sign a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam. Since then, trade between the US and Vietnam has grown 400% to $7.8 billion last year. Last week, the US and Vietnam signed an agreement that paves the way for Vietnam to join the WTO, the World Trade Organization. And yesterday, Monday, June 5, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in Hanoi meeting Vietnam's Defense Minister Pham Van Tra and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. Noting that a US Navy ship will soon be visiting a Vietnamese port for the fourth time in four years, a reporter asked Rummy if the US was seeking basing rights in Vietnam. "We have no plans for access to military facilities in Vietnam," was Rummy's reply. When diplomacy requires it, Rumsfeld can lie with the best of them.
REPUBLICANS’ LUCK: DEMOCRATS DUMBER THAN THEY ARE
Just when you think Republicans couldn't be dumber - passing the Senate Shamnesty bill, House Speaker Denny Hastert demanding Congress be above the law and letting Democrat crook William Jefferson off the hook, on and on - the Democrats up the stupidity ante. Starting to panic that Her Royal Sowness, Queen Hillary, just might be presidentially unelectable, they dump the PIAPS and go, hearts-a-flutter, for Mr. Hairshirt, Algore. Too dumb to grasp that Americans on the whole refuse to scared by "end of civilization" global warming doomsaying, the entire left-wing political/media machine is cranked up for Hairshirt Al. To top this, the most powerful outfit driving the Dems into left-wing fever swamps, MoveOn, is promoting its "Big Ideas" with its members holding "house parties" all over the country. The goal is come up with "three big positive ideas" for Dems to campaign on in November. Several thousand MoveOn folks were asked last week to choose among the "top ten." And what might be the top ten best ideas for America the left can come up with? Here they are, appropriately translated:
GAZA IS DARWIN CITY
You've heard of the Darwin Awards, right? They're awarded to idiots who kill themselves doing something astoundingly dumb, thereby contributing to human evolution by removing themselves from the gene pool. Awardees are individuals, but I am nominating an entire inhabited region of the world: Palestinian Gaza. Gaza should, in fact, be re-named Darwin City. Consider this news bulletin from Gulf Daily News of Bahrain, dated May 27, 2006:
GAZA CITY: Four Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza yesterday as Israel fired dozens of artillery shells into the territory. Three men died and five other were wounded in a house when a family member brought in and accidentally set off an unexploded Israeli shell that landed near the area, Palestinian security sources said.
OILY LIES OF THE LEFT
With oil prices reaching record levels, the left is up to its old tricks, blaming the President and calling for lots of expensive big government "solutions". As part of this push, they argue that we're running out of oil. But clearly, this argument is not new -- and it's dead wrong. Truth be told, the world's estimated oil reserves grew from 60 billion barrels in 1920 to 600 billion by 1950, 2,000 billion by 1990, and 3,000 billion by the year 2000. And in the next few years, they'll keep rising. Here's why.
SHRINKING SERBIA
In the summer of 1982, I was invited to participate in a Guinness Festival, along with a number of other Guinness World Record holders, held in Austria's Lake District.
At the welcoming reception, we all went around to each other to introduce ourselves and ask, "What are you in the book for?"
There was a fellow with the most consecutive situps: over 27,000. Another with the most consecutive one-armed pushups: over 600. A lady with the most consecutive hours belly-dancing. A rotund guy with the most consecutive hours treading water.
And yes, it was cool for me to answer: Sky-diving on the North Pole, the world's most northerly parachute jump (April 15, 1981, 90º North Latitude). "A record that cannot be bettered," as one Guinness edition said.
I had brought my rig, as the Guinness folks wanted me to do a demo jump. They got a small plane with a door removed and we flew as high as it could go, almost 18,000 feet. When I exited, I was overwhelmed by the sight below.THERE IS NO SUCH COUNTRY AS IRAN
At a meeting of the Nonaligned Movement in the Malaysian city of Putrajaya this week, Iran's Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki announced to reporters that "there is no such country" as Israel.
Since Israel does indeed exist, Mottaki means that Iran doesn't diplomatically "recognize" Israel's existence, that Iran wants to extinguish the political existence of Israel, that Israel's current existence is accidental, an illusion that will be swept away by the total triumph of Islam in the Middle East.
Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni should now feel free to announce that there is no such country as Iran. Its existence as an intact nation-state is make-believe. Its existence is as ephemeral as the Soviet Union's or Yugoslavia's, and is soon to break apart as did they.
Last week in Iran Unraveling? you learned about the protest demonstrations by Turkish-speaking ethnic Azeris (who make up over 1/3 of Iran's population) over a cartoon in a government newspaper depicting Azeris as cockroaches. The demos grew this week and are getting violent.
IRAN UNRAVELING?
Things have not been going well for Ahmadinejad the Persian Midget and his sour band of terrorist mullahs this week. This is thanks to Porter Goss giving Michael Hayden a lesson in how to run psy-ops at the CIA before his departure tomorrow (Friday, 5/26).
Take the riots in Tabriz and other Azeri-populated cities in northwest Iran. On May 23, a government newspaper in Tehran published a cartoon depicting an Azeri-speaking cockroach. Oops.
That very day, Azeri demonstrators marched on government offices in Tabriz, riots broke out in a number of Azeri towns, the Tabriz main bazaar was shut down with shopkeepers joining the demonstrators, who had to be dispersed with teargas.
The irony of the mullahs having cartoon riots directed at them is just too delicious. I wonder how such a cartoon slipped into a government newspaper? "No comment" from Porter.
HOW DIFFERENT IS AMERICAN EDUCATION FROM COMMUNISM?
When I went to college I had my biggest problem with the discipline of history. It may have started when I was a kid in Hungary and first ran up against official "scholars" who rewrote Hungary's history-renamed the streets in Budapest, rewrote all the textbooks, and reshuffled the holidays, and even completely recast Western intellectual history.
Under Marxism there was room for just one account of the development of philosophy, namely, what Karl Marx and his epigones wrote.
At first I thought that in a relatively free society historians could be trusted a lot more than under Marxism. But I am not so sure about this now.
To begin with, the one major institution of American society that's very similar to what it had been under communism is education.SENATE SHAMNESTY
Right now, the Senate is desperately trying to convince the American people that their immigration bill is something else - anything else - than what it is: a massive amnesty for all 15 million to 20 million illegal aliens without any meaningful enforcement provisions.
The same open-borders crowd that has betrayed the American middle class for years is hoping to fool us again.
This "shamnesty" bill spells out the level of contempt the Senate has for middle-class Americans. This "comprehensive" bill includes:A RATIONAL FRENCHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD
No snide comments how "rational Frenchman" is an oxymoron. There are plenty of them, albeit not enough. I had lunch with one of them here in DC yesterday. He's Pierre Lellouche, who represents Paris (4th district) in the National Assembly (France's Parliament) and is President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
If you had been there with me, you'd have come away wishing he were Bush's National Security Advisor for Europe. Even better, though, is that after Nicolas Sarkozy is elected President of France next April (see Sarko vs. Eurabia, January 2005), M. Lellouche may be France's Defense Minister.
So if you had joined me for lunch, here's how you would have heard him describe France and the world.
A BOUNTY ON COYOTES
If you Google "coyote hunting," you'll get 2,790,000 hits. It's a popular sport among outdoorsmen, and a necessary one. As one hunter puts it:
Coyote populations across the country are exploding and taking an unprecedented toll on wildlife. Zero predator control by state and federal agencies and low fur prices have kept trapping to a minimum, hence predator populations are booming. The opportunity to add some prime coyote pelts to your trophy collection and reduce the predator pressure on the local game and bird populations have never been better.
Coyotes are pests, varmints, hated not only by cattle and sheep ranchers, but by anyone with a regard for all the wildlife they kill. In many states, they can be shot on sight with no permit required in a year-round open season. Ed Boggess, Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources fish and wildlife policy chief explains:
Coyotes are an unprotected species and can be taken at any time of year, in any quantity, by almost any methods.
It's time this perspective is applied to human coyotes - for "coyote" is what smugglers of illegal aliens from Mexico into the US are called.
THE WORST SENATE OF MODERN TIMES
Get a few conservative Congressmen together over a few beers and a favorite conversational topic will be, Who's the worst president in modern memory?
No, it's not George Bush. But a number of them can make out a good case that it's his father.
Worse even than Jimmy Carter? will come the astounded response. Yes, they say. Carter inherited a lousy economy and the Soviets on the imperial march. He was a disaster because the little wimp made a bad situation so much worse.
Bush the Elder, on the other hand, inherited a revitalized America, a surging economy, and a collapsing Soviet Union. He did everything to reverse all three. Then he rescued Red China.
Yet you won't get a debate out of them as to the worst Senate of modern times. No question about it: this one, with fellow Republicans in charge.
THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS
We're going to get deep and serious here, and I'm going to ask you to reflect on a number of previous articles. We're not going to fulminate against George Bush, illegal immigrant-hiring businesses and the whores in the Senate they pay off, Democrats who see every illegal alien as a potential welfare recipient who will vote for them, or even Reconquista Mexicans attempting to recapture the American Southwest.
No, we're going to get to the heart of the matter and figure out the fundamental cause of the problem. The problem that lies at the heart not just of the immigration crisis, but of so much else, from the destruction of American education and culture to the war with Islamic terrorism.
Let's begin with an experience I had in a small country restaurant in France.
BAD NEWS FOR HUGO
There seemed to be a lot of good news for Venezuela's Castro Wannabe, Hugo Chavez, this weekend. He was wined and dined by London's wacko-commie mayor, "Red Ken" Livingstone, and serenaded by his supporters waving Venezuelan flags and dancing to salsa music in London streets.
The commie dog-and-pony show is what the media focused on - and not the bad news reality behind it.
First was the refusal of Prime Minister Tony Blair or any member of the British Cabinet to meet with him. The dutifully-left press reported this backwards, claiming Chavez rejected "hints" of an invitation to 10 Downing Street. The truth is that Blair wouldn't give Chavez the time of day.
Second was the US blacklisting Venezuela regarding arms sales, with Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon publicly accusing Chavez of ties with terrorists. "Cuban intelligence has effectively cloned itself inside Venezuelan intelligence," announced Mr. Shannon, and has developed substantial "links to terrorist organizations in the Middle East."
But that's just for openers. The real bad news for Hugo is the contempt and antipathy that much of Latin America now has for him, including South America's giant, Brazil. And Mexico.
TAXING THE LEFT’S BRAIN CELLS
Do you think your taxes are too high or too low? Though I expect that well over 90 percent of you are thinking "too high," the liberal media and political class keep telling us taxes are too low.
The left-leaning intelligentsia, in their arrogant smugness, claim we just don't know what is good for us. Yet, they are the ones who ignore the empirical evidence and are unable to distinguish between variables and constants.
As a prime example, a May 7 editorial in The Washington Post, advocating higher tax rates on the rich, states: "Economics cannot predict how high taxes can be raised before they reach counterproductive levels."
The editorial then says an increase of "taxes on the top 1 percent by 5 percentage points would raise $85 billion annually or perhaps a bit less if it spurred some extra tax evasion."
The fact The Post's editorial writers did not seem to realize the contradiction in these two statements in the same paragraph is disturbing for several obvious reasons.PUTIN IN A CLOWN SUIT
Amidst all the gloomy news of the week - Goss' firing, Bush's poll numbers falling to almost Nixonian levels as he continues to refuse to protect our borders, on and on - yesterday's (5/11) headline provided welcome comic relief.
Putin Warns Arms Race Not Over Yet screamed the front page of papers like the Washington Times. For folks on the White House National Security Council and in foreign policy think tanks around town, this was funnier than a Seinfeld rerun or Larry the Cable Guy.
Putin had delivered his state-of-the-nation address to the Russian Parliament, or Duma, and was desperate to appeal to Russian egos mortally wounded by America's winning the Cold War. Russians, you see, would rather wallow in nostalgia for the Cold War when they were feared and respected than be free.
The terrible irony is that such nostalgia is so masochistic.
WHAT COUNTRY GETS MORE FOREIGN AID THAN ANY OTHER?
Which country receives the most in total foreign aid from all donors? The official numbers show Iraq at the top with $3 to $18 billion in aid (depending on how you define "aid") and all the other recipient nations of the world at less than $3 billion per year.
However, if you look at which nation benefits most from foreign subsidies, the U.S. would come out on top by a very wide margin.
Yes, I did just say that the U.S. is the world's largest recipient of foreign assistance. Other countries are not sending official government "aid" dollars to help the U.S. but are doing things that have the same effect. For instance, China provides the biggest single subsidy to the U.S.THE WORLD’S BEST (AND MOST POLITICALLY INCORRECT) STEAK
I love the full page ads in the New York Times with a full-size picture of a very large steak knife and the caption: Terrifying Vegetarians Since 1886. Smith & Wollensky's Steak House.
The ad is fun but the truth is, their steaks are not that great (and way overpriced). The best steak in America is the porterhouse at Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. Many international folks think the best restaurant steak in the world is served at La Cabaña in Buenos Aires. But the true best steak in the world cannot be found in any restaurant.
Years ago, I was invited by Reason Magazine to contribute a recipe to The Libertarian Cookbook. There were recipes by Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Tibor Machan, and other libertarian luminaries. I decided to swing for the bleachers.
My recipe was for The World's Best Steak. The world's best steak is made from the nerve of an elephant's tusk.
SAVING DETROIT
If you live in Washington and you're a guest on Fox News, the producers graciously send a car and driver to take you to the studio and back home after the show. One of the Fox drivers is a colorful character everyone calls "Wolf." He grew up in Yugoslavia (in what is now Bosnia), and he told me a very illuminating story.
Wolf had read The Natural Gas Solution (soon after we first met he became a TTP subscriber) and explained how he knew it was accurate. "I drove a Yugo car when I lived in Sarajevo back in the 70s," he said. "Gas was so expensive and it was rationed. So I, like several of my friends, installed a CNG (compressed natural gas) tank in the trunk, hooked a line up to the carburetor, and ran the car on natural gas. We got such great mileage and the car ran so well, that we could drive to Trieste (in Italy) on weekends."
It was by talking to Wolf that made me realize how the Natural Gas Solution can save Detroit.REPLIES ON GAS AND ETHANOL
Jack,An independent Ph.D. energy economist disagrees with your dismissal of LNG (liquefied natural gas). He claims "it's economic to transport LNG at $3-3.50 mBTU [million British Thermal Units]," and that "if the world price is high enough, it will make economic sense for producers to liquefy it and send it to China." In other words, natural gas (NG) is not "de-coupled" from the world market as you say. He asserts that natural gas is "just as fungible as oil."
John M.
Reply:
John,Could this fellow be shilling for Chevron or some other outfit hyping LNG?
PORTER AND CASEY
No, not Bill Casey, Ronald Reagan's DCI. Casey Stengel. After winning 10 pennants in 12 years including 5 straight World Series managing the New York Yankees, Stengel spent 3 dismal years trying to manage the hopeless New York Mets. They were so inept that at one point, Stengel blurted out the immortal line, "Doesn't anyone here know how to play this game?"
Porter Goss asked the same question of the team he was managing, the CIA - and the team owner fired him.
The saga of the sacking of Porter Goss is one of such gargantuan incompetence on the part of the Bush White House that it finally tears any loyalty conservatives have to this presidency.
THERE IS NO RIGHT TO MEDICAL CARE
In the advertisement "A Renewed American Agenda" (USA Today, May 4, 2006) - placed by The Bedell World Citizenship Fund of Spirit Lake, Iowa - the organization urges us to "Recognize that All Americans Have A Right to Medical Care."
I suppose they mean well but in fact they are perpetrating a gross misunderstanding about individual rights.
Medical care is a value doctors, nurses and other medical professionals would, if they were free men and women, provide to those they would choose as recipients, on terms they regard as acceptable.
These provisions are not owed to anyone. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals may not be placed into involuntary servitude to those needing their services. The relationships must be voluntary, no matter how vital those services are to the recipients.
The belief that others may justly be placed into involuntary servitude so as to secure funds to pay medical professionals - who then will service those who need their work - is a gross moral error.
THE NATURAL GAS SOLUTION
This week we're going to refine the argument for natural gas as a comprehensive solution to high energy prices, energy pollution, and energy dependence upon foreign producers outlined last week in What Bush Can Do To Get Cheaper Gas.
To summarize: the solution is for Bush to allow oil & gas companies to extract the vast amounts of NG we have within American boundaries, cut state residents in on the royalties, provide tax credits for folks to run NG in their cars, and before his presidency is over the equivalent cost of driving a car will be less than $1 a gallon.
Now for the refinement - of the argument, not NG, which unlike crude oil requires no refining.
Seen those full page newspaper ads placed by Chevron trying to frighten you with the claim that the US only has three measly percent of the world's natural gas supply? Whatever the Chevron's agenda is, it's not about telling you the truth.
MEDIA LUNA: SOUTH AMERICA’S NEWEST COUNTRY
Well, not quite yet, but soon. The funniest headline of the week was "South American Leaders Support Bolivia Gas Nationalization." Yesterday (5/4), at Puerto Iguazo, Argentina, Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner met with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales and promised to "respect" Morales' nationalization of Bolivia's natural gas.
Only folks who are interested in buying bridges in Brooklyn are going to believe that.
As we discussed over a year ago in Bye Bye Bolivia, Brazil gets 60% of its natural gas from Bolivia. Argentina gets 200,000 cubic yards of Bolivian gas a day. Lula and Kirchner are going to tolerate a threat to this from Morales-Chavez about as much as a capybara will let himself be swallowed by an anaconda.VIRTUAL OSAMA
A number of perceptive folks on Capitol Hill have noticed some very odd things about OBL's latest audio tape. The principal eyebrow-raiser was his call to take the Jihad against the Crusader-Zionists away from Iraq and into Darfur, Sudan.
Normally it takes at least some time for the CIA to claim an OBL audio tape is authentic. This time it was almost immediate: "Yep, it's him, no doubt about it."
Putting the weirdness about Darfur-focus (aren't there a lot more "Crusader-Zionists" in Iraq than in the central Sahara Desert?) and Langley's over-eagerness to authenticate together, and you get the latest Capitol Hill buzz:
The voice on the tape wasn't Osama but an Arabic-speaking CIA impersonator. Agents slipped the faked tape to al-Jazeera which cooperatively broadcast it, then the CIA authenticated its own tape.
WHAT IF ALLAH WAS JEWISH?
People are always telling me, "Hey, Allah, you should write another book. All the books you've written before were very popular; I'm not sure if anyone actually read the whole megillah, but everyone has to have one."
It's not like I'm out to make some gelt, though, and I thought I already wrote everything I need to say. Plus, it's not like I have the time to write; if you could even understand how much I have to do each day, you'd plotz.
Still, I thought it would be a real good chochmeh to write a column to go over a few points since so many people seem to have some facacta ideas these days.