Coyote Blog

We all know that the media is perfectly capable of ignoring even the most basic precepts of economics, but I thought Chris Plummer's article was especially heroic in doing so.  Even more so, it is absolutely stunning in its arrogance.  In his article, he writes on all the great ways that $8 a gallon gasoline will help make the world a better place.  I will stay away from the global warming related issues -- I have a whole other blog dedicated to that -- but here are a couple of the most egregious parts:

They may contain computer chips, but the power source
for today's cars is little different than that which drove the first
Model T 100 years ago. That we're still harnessed to this antiquated
technology is testament to Big Oil's influence in Washington and
success in squelching advances in fuel efficiency and alternative
energy.

   
       

Given our achievement
in getting a giant mainframe's computing power into a handheld device
in just a few decades, we should be able to do likewise with these
dirty, little rolling power plants that served us well but are overdue
for the scrap heap of history.

OK, this first one is a science problem and not an engineering problem.  Here is the problem:  Gasoline contains more potential energy by weight and volume than any power storage source we have been able to invent (OK, its actually second, nuclear fuel is first, but I presume Plummer is not going there).  That is the problem with electric cars, for example.  Electric traction motors are demonstrably better sources of motive power than internal combustion engines.  Even Diesel railroad engines are actually driven by electric traction motors.  The problem is energy storage.  Batteries store much less energy per pound and per cubit foot than gasoline.  Ditto natural gas and hydrogen (except at very high pressures).

This claim that only the political power of oil companies keeps no-brainer alternative technologies at bay is absurd, though it is one that never dies in the lunatic fringes.  Mr. Plummer is more than welcome to make himself a billion dollars by selling one of these mystery technologies he fails to disclose.  I will be first in line to buy.

Necessity being the mother of invention, $8 gas would trigger all
manner of investment sure to lead to groundbreaking advances. Job
creation wouldn't be limited to research labs; it would rapidly spill
over into lucrative manufacturing jobs that could help restore
America's industrial base and make us a world leader in a critical
realm.

This is the broken window fallacy on steroids.  I am a HUGE optimist about the limitless capabilities of the human mind, probably more so than Mr. Plummer (by the way, if he is such an optimist, he should read some Julian Simon).  But the best that humanity can probably do any time soon is offset a goodly percentage of the damage from $8 gas.  There is no net win here.  If there were, he should also be advocating $10 bread, $2,000,000 starter home prices, and $200 a month internet service.  Just think about all the innovation that would be required to react to these!

On a similar note, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad recently gained a platform on the world stage because of
their nations' sudden oil wealth. Without it, they would face the
difficult task of building fair and just economies and societies on
some other basis.

Yes sir.  Chavez would be much worse off if he was getting $8 for his gas rather than $3.  What is this guy thinking?  Well, he says this:

In the near term, breaking our dependence on Middle Eastern oil may
well require the acceptance of drilling in the Alaskan wilderness

OK, but that can be done at $3 gas,and should have been allowed at $2 gas.  This oil could have been developed in an environmentally friendly way years ago.  Only Congressional stupidity stands in the way  (probably with the past support of Mr. Plummer).

The recent housing boom sparked further development of
antiseptic, strip-mall communities in distant outlying areas. Making
100-mile-plus roundtrip commutes costlier will spur construction of
more space-efficient housing closer to city centers, including cluster
developments to accommodate the millions of baby boomers who will no
longer need their big empty-nest suburban homes.

   
       

Sure, there's plenty of
land left to develop across our fruited plains, but building more
housing around city and town centers will enhance the sense of
community lacking in cookie-cutter developments slapped up in the
hinterlands.

I am finding Andrew Coyne's live blog of the Canadian hate speech "trial" to be endlessly fascinating.  Imagine taking the the most self-important but dysfunctional local school board you can find, give them a knowledge of court procedure and the rules of evidence mainly through watching People's Court reruns, and put them in charge of enforcing speech and censorship, and you will about have duplicated this proceeding.

Interestingly, the current evidence being entered in the proceeding seems to be blog comments made on non-Canadian blogs.  Every so often, we have to go through an educational process with the MSM to help them understand that commenters on blogs do not necessarily represent the opinion of the blogger.  It may be OK to use blog comments as evidence that the community at the Free Republic or the Democratic Underground are loony, but not to say that blogger X or Y is a racist because racist comments have been posted on his blog.

It appears that the government of Canada needs a similar education, but I can see this being hard to do.  Remember, each of the hearing "judges" are essentially people who make their living as government censors.  Their job is wiping out speech with which they do not agree.  It is therefore quite likely difficult for them to comprehend that many bloggers (like myself) have no desire to edit or control the content of our commenters.

The Arizona Republic has taken to embedding the code for their on-site advertising in the middle of sentences, sometimes in between two letters of a word.  This means that sometimes when I copy snippets from their web site, I end up with popups and spam on the blog, particularly since this stuff does not show up on the post preview, only when it goes to the site.  Sorry.

It is difficult to imagine that we would have the extensive, absurd subsidies of corn ethanol that we have today if it were not for the fact that Iowa is the first stop on the presidential campaign trail.  Every four years, here-to-fore fiscally sober and rational candidates stand up on Iowa TV and pledge to support ethanol subsidies.

But today it appears the primaries are finally over (it appears that Ms. Clinton will bow out tonight) and so attention now focuses on the general election.  And though I am not really an expert, I would presume the election will again turn on a few states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and, of course, Florida.

It appears that Florida Democrats have a plan to parlay their swing state status into pork, in the same way that Iowa has done for years.  The only difference is the issue is not ethanol, it's subsidizing beach-front homes:

As hurricane season begins, Democrats in Congress want to nationalize a
chunk of the insurance business that covers major storm-damage claims.

The proposal -- backed by giant insurers Allstate Corp. and State Farm
Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as well as Florida lawmakers --
focuses on "reinsurance," the policies bought by insurers themselves to
protect against catastrophic losses. The proposal envisions a
taxpayer-financed reinsurance program covering all 50 states, which
would essentially backstop the giant insurers in case of disaster.

The program could save homeowners roughly $500 apiece in annual
premiums in Florida, according to an advocacy group backed by Allstate
and State Farm, the largest writers of property insurance in the U.S.

But environmentalists and other critics -- including the American
Insurance Association, a major trade group -- say lower premiums would
more likely spur irresponsible coastal development, already a big
factor in insurance costs. The program could also shift costs to
taxpayers in states with fewer natural-disaster risks....

The legislation passed the House with bipartisan support, 258-155, late
last year, despite a presidential veto threat. Although a Senate vote
is unlikely this year, proponents are trying to make it a litmus-test
issue in the presidential race. The two Democratic contenders, Sen.
Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, in their
recent visits to Florida -- a key swing state -- have both voiced
support for the plan.

Big winners would be coastal states, particularly Florida, where more
than half of the nation's hurricane risk is centered. Currently,
property-insurance rates in Florida are among the highest in the
nation. Florida also has a struggling state reinsurance fund that would
be helped by a federal program....

Florida's status as a presidential swing state has helped the plan win
support from Sens. Clinton and Obama. Sen, Clinton is one of the bill's
co-authors, along with Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida.

Florida Democrats' effort to make a federal disaster fund a big issue
in this year's presidential race was one reason the state moved up its
primary election to January from March, defying party rules. (That move
is partly what's behind the current, heated battle between the
Democratic candidates over how to count Florida's delegates in the
nominating race.)

A popular anti-immigrant tactic in Arizona is to try to ban day laborers from public places.  Though it's not how I would choose to sell my labor, many people choose to advertise and sell their labor from street corners and in public spaces.  And many of these folks, contrary to common perceptions, are legal residents of this country.

Here is a bit of good news:

A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary order blocking the town
of Cave Creek from enforcing a law aimed at stopping day laborers from
gathering on streets to look for work.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver found that the
ordinance is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech, and that
the possibility of irreparable harm exists.

"Plaintiffs, as day laborers, face not only the loss of First
Amendment freedoms, but also the loss of employment opportunities
necessary to support themselves and their families," Silver wrote in
the ruling.

Andrew Coyne is live-blogging the Mark Steyn inquisition.  Check it out.

A few snippets:

10:16 AM
They're going to call, among others, Dr. Andrew Rippon,
professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Victoria, to show
that Steyn has misunderstood the relationship between the Koran and
Islamic society. Well, that's as may be. Would be a good subject for
debate. But why exactly does that require the state to adjudicate it?...

10:57 AM
Just coming back from a break. Lots of media interest, it seems: CBC, CTV (I'm told), the National Post, local media, and a guy from the New York Times,
who's doing a piece comparing how the two countries' legal systems deal
with speech cases. Needless to say, he can't believe what he's
witnessing"¦

11:04 AM
Under Section 7.1, he continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor
is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith
or responsible journalism.

Or in other words, there is no defence.

Andrew Coyne is live-blogging the Mark Steyn inquisition.  Check it out.

A few snippets:

10:16 AM
They're going to call, among others, Dr. Andrew Rippon,
professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Victoria, to show
that Steyn has misunderstood the relationship between the Koran and
Islamic society. Well, that's as may be. Would be a good subject for
debate. But why exactly does that require the state to adjudicate it?...

10:57 AM
Just coming back from a break. Lots of media interest, it seems: CBC, CTV (I'm told), the National Post, local media, and a guy from the New York Times,
who's doing a piece comparing how the two countries' legal systems deal
with speech cases. Needless to say, he can't believe what he's
witnessing"¦

11:04 AM
Under Section 7.1, he continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor
is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith
or responsible journalism.

Or in other words, there is no defence.

I love Arizona and the Phoenix area.  However, I thought the NY Times listing of Scottsdale as one of the #9 place to visit this summer to be a bit odd.  Next up will be the suggestion to visit Buffalo in February.  Yes, there are a lot of screaming deals at luxury hotels with great spas, so if want two days of spa treatments and proximity to lots of good restaurants, go for it.  But expect to find something like Paris in August (but with better attitudes).  You may be here but we'll all be gone, if we can afford it.  Typical summer temperatures every day are 108-112F, with occasional excursions higher into territory that is stupid-hot.  Yeah, its dry heat, and that is exactly what we tell our turkey every Thanksgiving.  And yeah, the wind blows a bit -- feels just like a hair dryer. 

The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) web site has an absolutely horrible kid's game called "Planet Slayer."  In this game, kids answer lifestyle questions and the program tells them when they should die because they have used up their "fair share" of the world's resources.  The less politically correct kids are, or the wealthier they are, the sooner they are told they should die.  Accepting the default, average choices in the games tells kids they should die when they are 9 years old.

Yeah, I know you think I am exaggerating.  Because this is likely to get pulled down soon, I will show you a series of screenshots from it.  Whether it gets pulled down or not, a major media company (with all of its famed multiple levels of editorial control) thought this was a good game for kids.  I actually delayed publishing this, because I wanted to make sure this was not some kind of hack or joke site.  But you can get there right from the ABC home page by clicking "science" in the top menu and clicking on the planet slayer game icon at the bottom of the science page.  I still wonder whether it's a put on - it's that bad.

Here is the landing page (click on any page to increase the size):

Yep, that little sign does indeed say "find out when you should die."  Here the game is explained:

Here is the first question:

With each question, if you choose any answer that might not indicate that you are a subsistence farmer in Africa living on a $1 a day, your pig gets fatter.  I really encourage you to check out the whole thing.  It is one politically correct litmus test after another.  My pig got slightly fatter, until I got to this one:

Answering that you spend any more than $10,000 AUS (about a 1:1 conversion with US dollars), your pig will get really fat.  The wealthier you are, the more evil you are in a direct relationship.  It is a point I have made for a while:  global warming alarmists consider their preferred solution to environmental issues to be universal poverty. 

There is me, really evil, because I earn a good living.  And, as we can see with this question, since I spend my money on ordinary stuff that I actually want, rather than where the authors would like me to spend it, I really suck.  When you hit the final button, you pig is actually exploded in a bloody mess  (yes, the red is blood).  As it turns out, I should have been strangled at birth:

Hat tip to Watts Up With That.  Really, in some ways this is an awesome game.   Never have I seen such a pure combination of Marxist-style zero-sum economics with science-challenged warming alarmism.

I don't think I need to bother refuting any of this.  If you are new to the site, you can find a basic refutation of zero-sum economics here and a series of resources on global warming, from a book to free Youtube videos, here.

The Arizona Republic the other day had this headline which certainly caught me attention:

Report: 35% of Arizona jobs  'bad'

I can sympathize.  I have had jobs that were boring and unrewarding.  My last couple of Fortune 50 corporate jobs, while nominally cool on paper, were hugely frustrating.  But it seems this particular "report" had different criteria for "bad" jobs:

The new report calls 35 percent of jobs "bad" because they pay less
than $17 an hour, or $34,000 a year, and offer no insurance or
retirement plans. In a typical state, only 30 percent of the jobs are
considered "bad."

Here is the heart of these studies:  A bunch of middle class people sit around and try to decide what jobs they would be willing to accept and which ones they would not.  Any job that they would not accept is a "bad" job, despite the fact that $12 or $14 an hour might be very good pay for someone with no skills, despite the fact that it makes no consideration of a person's circumstances (e.g. single, married, 2nd job, teenager, etc), and despite the fact that $34,000 would probably put a person in the top 20th  percentile of global wages.  I made a similar point vis a vis jobs in the third world.

Just so I can't be accused of cherry-picking, I will use my own company as an example.  We have a about 80 employees in Arizona, about 70 of which are paid less than $10 an hour and none of whom have a retirement plan or insurance.  All of my jobs in Arizona are included in their count of "bad jobs."  And you know what?  We have a waiting list of over 200 names of people who would take another of these jobs tomorrow if I had one to offer.  That's because my employees are not middle-class academics.   Most are older people who already have a health plan, who don't need a retirement plan (because they have already retired) and who just want a fun job in a nice location where they can live in their RV. 

This has to be one of the most utterly pointless studies of all time.  Sure, $14 an hour would probably suck as a 45-year-old college grad with 2 kids.  But it would be a windfall to a 16-year-old new immigrant with few skills and no English.  The only thing that would be more pointless would be to try to compare states - which they also do:

About 22 percent of Arizona jobs are considered "good" because they pay
at least $17 and offer benefits. That is less than the typical state,
which has 25 percent "good" jobs. The rest of the jobs are in between
because they offer some benefits.

Since cost of living is totally comparable between Phoenix and Manhattan, then using a fixed wage rate to compare states makes complete sense.  By the way, by the study's definition, my job, which is usually awesome, is not "good" because I have no health plan.  In fact, in this study, a $40,000 job with a health plan is ranked as good while a $400,000 job with no health plan is not good.  Yeah, that makes sense.

The other day, I was sorting through my bookshelves trying to find something for my son to read.  He just blew through the four books of the Hyperion series and was looking for fresh meat.  As I was browsing, I picked up Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, which I have not read in several years.  Despite reading the book twice before, I was immediately engulfed by the first chapter.  I know I am a geek, but I honestly think that the first chapter of Snow Crash may be the best opening of any book I have ever read.

I seldom watch TV, but later that day I had just finished watching the A&E remake of Andromeda Strain, which was a favorite of mine when I was a boy.  I happened across the Redford-Dunaway movie "Three Days of the Condor."  This is one of my favorite spy movies, and not just because I am a sucker for Faye Dunaway (I always thought the young Faye Dunaway would have been a great Dagny Taggert in Atlas Shrugged.)  One of the reasons I like the movie is its pacing.  I enjoy a full-speed ahead never-take-a-breath action movie as much as the next person, but do they all have to be that way.  This was a thriller with an almost languid pace. 

It is nothing new for politicians and the powerful to despise commerce and "traders."  In Medieval society, and continuing in Europe right up into the 19th century, the ruling elite scorned careers that involved actual productive effort.  If you were actually producing something, rather than indolently feeding yourself off the work of the masses, you were not a "gentleman."

It appears that this attitude is coming back in vogue, most notably from the presidential candidates of both parties.  From David Boaz in the WSJ:

Sen. Obama told the students that "our individual
salvation depends on collective salvation." He disparaged students who
want to "take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after
the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our
money culture says you should buy."

The people Mr. Obama is sneering at are the ones who
built America "“ the traders and entrepreneurs and manufacturers who
gave us railroads and airplanes, housing and appliances, steam engines,
electricity, telephones, computers and Starbucks. Ignored here is the
work most Americans do, the work that gives us food, clothing, shelter
and increasing comfort. It's an attitude you would expect from a
Democrat.

Or this year's Republican nominee. John McCain also
denounces "self-indulgence" and insists that Americans serve "a
national purpose that is greater than our individual interests." During
a Republican debate at the Reagan Library on May 3, 2007, Sen. McCain
derided Mitt Romney's leadership ability, saying, "I led . . . out of
patriotism, not for profit." Challenged on his statement, Mr. McCain
elaborated that Mr. Romney "managed companies, and he bought, and he
sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That's the nature of that
business." He could have been channeling Barack Obama.

Mr. Boaz mentions the hypocrisy of Obama having a million dollar house and being famous for his beautiful suits, and then telling graduates not to aspire for the same things.  But a bigger hypocrisy, or perhaps contradiction, is the fact that the candidates must know that the world won't function if everyone were to take their advice.  While bashing the productive, each relies on the productive to fund his plans.  While urging everyone to be parasites, they must know that some must ignore their advice to become the productive hosts on which the parasites feed.

But hypocrisy is not the biggest issue. The real issue
is that Messrs. Obama and McCain are telling us Americans that our
normal lives are not good enough, that pursuing our own happiness is
"self-indulgence," that building a business is "chasing after our money
culture," that working to provide a better life for our families is a
"narrow concern."

They're wrong. Every human life counts. Your life
counts. You have a right to live it as you choose, to follow your
bliss. You have a right to seek satisfaction in accomplishment. And if
you chase after the almighty dollar, you just might find that you are
led, as if by an invisible hand, to do things that improve the lives of
others.

It is an indicator of the power of the state that most CEO's of public companies feel the need to pay lip service to every politically correct trend that comes along and to engage in outright sycophancy every time they meet with politicians.  The reason, unfortunately, is that morons like Maxine Waters have been granted nearly unlimited powers over commerce.  Some CEOs unfortunately go even further, going beyond just humoring politicians to play the game themselves, engaging in outright rent-seeking for themselves and their shareholders.

So it is in this context that it is nice to see the CEO of Exxon-Mobil continuing in that company's traditions of not rolling over to populist political pressure:

Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp.,
the world's largest oil-and-gas company, came out swinging Wednesday
against the environmental movement, arguing the science of climate
change is far from settled and that his company views it as its
"corporate social responsibility" to continue to supply the world with
fossil fuels....

Avoiding the political correctness that many oil executives are now
showing on global warming, Mr. Tillerson called for a continuation of
the debate, rather than acceptance that it is occurring, with the
potential consequence that governments will implement policies that put
world economies at risk.

"My view is that this is so extraordinarily important to people the
world over, that to not have a debate on it is irresponsible," he said.
"To suggest that we know everything we need to know about these issues
is irresponsible.

"And I will take all the criticism that comes with it. Anybody that
tells you that they got this figured out is not being truthful. There
are too many complexities around climate science for anybody to fully
understand all of the causes and effects and consequences of what you
may chose to do to attempt to affect that. We have to let scientists to
continue their investigative work, unencumbered by political
influences. This is too important to be cute with it."

Mr. Tillerson said Exxon Mobil, despite its reputation as a staunch
climate change denier, is in fact close to the issue as the only oil
company that is a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change.

Exxon Mobil came under repeated attack during the rowdy meeting for
not showing leadership to combat global warming, with some arguing it
is putting shareholders' capital at risk by not moving into greener
energy.

Among the many critics who stood up in the city's Morton H. Meyerson
Symphony Centre, where the meeting was held, was Neva Rockefeller
Goodwin, the great-granddaughtger of John D. Rockefeller, who founded
Exxon's predecessor 125 years ago.

But her proposal to have Exxon Mobil prepare a report on the impact
of climate change on emerging countries and to embrace greener energy
was backed by only 10.4% of shareholders.

The Exxon shareholder meeting is a zoo.  LIttle serious work gets done.  There are about a zillion people who buy one share of stock so they can show up and flog whatever political hobby horse they have.  I do wish I had been there, though, so that in response to Ms. Goodwin's proposal I could have in turn asked for a report on how alarmist-proposed 80% reductions in fossil fuel consumption would have impacted poverty and progress in developing countries. 

A while back I had observed that Wal-Mart had passed Exxon as the left's #1 Satan.  It is good to see Exxon back on top. 

Via Kevin Drum's Site:

Ben Smith puts the fact that 10% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim in context:

"Large minorities of Americans consistently say they
hold wildly out-of-the-mainstream views, often specifically discredited
beliefs. In some cases, those views should make them pretty profoundly
alienated from one party or the other.

For instance:

22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.

30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

23 percent believe they've been in the presence of a ghost.

18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth."

An email inquiry I received today:

I am a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel in Florida. I need a comment for a story on prostitution.

I actually think there is an organization with 'coyote' in the name that is more active on this topic, so I presume that was the source of confusion.  Not really sure how my wife would react to this inquiry.  However, since we are on the topic, I have written a couple of rants supporting the legalization of prostitution.  In short, I think there is a good case to be made that most of the abuses of prostitution result from its illegality (and therefore lack of ability of its participants to call on the legal system for help).  While one may find prostitution distasteful, the government should protect our bodies and our wallets from assault rather than worrying whether we are tarnishing our souls. 

Wow, this is unexpected:

The FHWA's "Traffic Volume Trends" report, produced monthly since 1942, shows
that estimated vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on all U.S. public roads for March
2008 fell 4.3 percent as compared with March 2007 travel. This is the first time
estimated March travel on public roads fell since 1979. At 11 billion miles less
in March 2008 than in the previous March, this is the sharpest yearly drop for
any month in FHWA history.

Someone really should research this phenomenon.  It is almost if gasoline prices, which we all know exist solely for the benefit of oil company profits and to support oil company CEO pay, have this heretofore unsuspected utility to modify demand for scarce resources. 

Not to be deterred by this spurious data point, the US Congress is moving ahead with this:

The current high price of gas has led to a lot of crazy proposals from
gas tax holidays to creating a tax deduction based upon energy
consumption. But Rep. Paul Kanjorski's (D-PA) may top them all in terms
of its stupidity. From the Times Leader, Kanjorski's plan would do the
following:

    "¢ H.R. 5800 would tax industries' windfall profits.

"¢ The bill would set up a Reasonable Profits Board to determine when
these companies' profits are in excess, and then tax them on those
windfall profits.

    "¢ As oil and gas companies' windfall profits increase, so would the tax rate for those companies.

"¢ Kanjorski said his legislation will encourage oil companies to lower
prices to prevent them from receiving higher tax rates.

From recent legislation:

"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House
of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil,
natural gas, or any other petroleum product"¦ or to otherwise take any
action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas, or any petroleum
product when such action, combination, or collective action has a
direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market,
supply, price, or distribution of oil, natural gas, or other petroleum
product in the United States."

Well, OPEC nations may or may not be in violation of this law.  My guess is that if incompetence and general third-world type fraud is actionable, then they are guilty.  It may be tougher to prove outright conspiracy.

BUT, there is one nation that has, right there on the public record, clear government legislation that substantially limits development of some of the largest potential new oil reserves in the US.  That country is the United States, and by passage of this law, the entire Congress has made itself outlaws.

I thought it was kind of funny, as I was paging through my referrer logs, to see this search find me:

+"calling in sick" +blog

The search game from Google.fr

Today, GoDaddy signed a new long-term sponsorship deal with Danica Patrick, Indy car driver most famous for, uh, having ovaries.  The article says that this new deal was signed well ahead of the expiration of the old deal later this year.

I am struck by the fact that this deal was inked just days before the Indy 500, the winning of which would greatly increase Patrick's value.  I wonder if this is based on some kind of insider knowledge by GoDaddy of Patrick's chances of winning this weekend.

Yesterday we saw the people who have done the most to keep oil prices high (e.g. Congress) trying to blame shift their policy failures onto oil company executives.  Hilariously, Maxine Waters thinks she would do a better job for consumers if she were in charge of the US oil companies. 

Beyond the realities of supply and demand, which I guess we all despair of teaching Congress, there were these remarks by Shell's John Hofmeister (via Powerline):

While all oil-importing nations buy oil at global prices, some, notably
India and China, subsidize the cost of oil products to their nation's
consumers, feeding the demand for more oil despite record prices. They
do this to speed economic growth and to ensure a competitive advantage
relative to other nations.

Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas
resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies
such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit
of the American people.

Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.

According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all
on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with
restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an
outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer
continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental
shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on
on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and
Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the
resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern
Gulf of Mexico.

The Argonne National Laboratory did a report in 2004 that identified
40 specific federal policy areas that halt, limit, delay or restrict
natural gas projects. I urge you to review it. It is a long list. If I
may, I offer it today if you would like to include it in the record.

When many of these policies were implemented, oil was selling in the
single digits, not the triple digits we see now. The cumulative effect
of these policies has been to discourage U.S. investment and send U.S.
companies outside the United States to produce new supplies.

As a result, U.S. production has declined so much that nearly 60 percent of daily consumption comes from foreign sources.

The problem of access can be solved in this country by the same
government that has prohibited it. Congress could have chosen to lift
some or all of the current restrictions on exportation and production
of oil and gas. Congress could provide national policy to reverse the
persistent decline of domestically secure natural resource development.

This is a point I have made for a while:

Exxon Mobil is the largest U.S. oil and gas company, but we account for
only 2 percent of global energy production, only 3 percent of global
oil production, only 6 percent of global refining capacity, and only 1
percent of global petroleum reserves. With respect to petroleum
reserves, we rank 14th.
Government-owned national oil companies dominate the top spots. For an
American company to succeed in this competitive landscape and go head
to head with huge government-backed national oil companies, it needs
financial strength and scale to execute massive complex energy projects
requiring enormous long-term investments.

Lots more good stuff, check it out.

A little astronomy pr0n for you today, a video clip of plasma rain on the surface of the sun, via Anthony Watts.

The economy, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party are all acting more and more like they did in the 1970s.  Keep your head down, and expect more of this kind of garbage.

A few minutes ago, on some cable show, I saw a viewer comment that said something like "I am tired of big oil taking in billions and billions of dollars and giving nothing back.  It is time for the era of big oil to end."

Wow -- I would sure suggest he trying going to a different gas station.  Every time I give the oil companies some money, they give me back a tank of gasoline.  This gasoline has great value to me, and is something I could never produce for myself (OK, actually, I bet I could, but you know what I mean).  In fact, the only organization that takes my money and gives me nothing back in return in the government.

I saw the new Indiana Jones movie with my kids this morning.  It was OK.  The chase / fight scenes were great, and the effects were terrific.  But the plot was so-so  (George Lucas has a writing credit, so I could just refer you back to the Padme** dialog in the last 2 Star Wars movie).  There is sometimes a fine line between good fantasy and silliness, and the movie crosses back and forth several times.  Also, you just can't beat Nazis for over-the-top bad guys.  The Boris-and-Natasha style Soviets just don't serve as well.  Overall, worth seeing if you liked the others, and certainly better than Temple of Doom.  But I wouldn't stand in line to see it.

** Interesting fact that maybe I am the last person in the world to know:  Do you know who the actress was that played the fake Queen / Padme double in Star Wars Episode 1?  I always thought it was Natalie Portman, but that is actually not correct.  It was an uncredited role, and the actress was always in elaborate makeup.  Who was it?  It was Keira Knightly, of Pirates and Beckham fame.

I actually found out about this early last year:

Mom-and-pop service stations are running into a problem as
gasoline marches toward $4 a gallon: Thousands of old-fashioned pumps
can't register more than $3.99 on their spinning mechanical dials.

We operate a marina in the back-end of nowhere in Colorado where, since we can only accept less-than-full-truckload gas shipments, we were paying wholesale prices over $3.50 last summer.  We attempted to go to $4.09 on the retail pump, and wham, we ran up against this retail equivalent of the Y2k bug.