The law is what the people believe it is

The Supreme Court, by the narrowest of margins, showed some common sense in yesterday's ruling that US citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, just like the Second Amendment says they should. Most Americans believe, and always have believed in their right to have a firearm in a useful place, the cash drawer, the glove compartment, the bedside table. Just in case.
Americans are very law abiding. The laws of the United States are complied with because the people believe in the laws. They pay their taxes, register their cars, send their kids to school, and don't do crimes, because they believe it is the right thing to do, not because of law enforcement. This is a wonderful thing, something that many countries would love to have. It works only because the people believe in the laws they obey.
Widespread beliefs cannot be changed by a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision. Had the Court ruled against the right to bear arms, it would simply make a large number of citizens into law breakers. Fortunately five justices were astute enough to realize this. You have to wonder about the intelligence of the other four justices, and wonder how in the name of all that's holy they ever got onto the Supreme Court.
Lesson for the day. Vote a straight republican ticket to put more intelligent justices on the Court.

I am NOT addicted to oil.

I just need enough furnace oil to keep the house up to 60 thru a New Hampshire winter. That was about 700 gallons last winter. And enough gasoline to get to the store and to church on Sunday. My six passenger Detroit sedan gets 27 mpg, and a 20 gallon tank lasts a couple of weeks. Figure 500 gallons a year. Between the furnace and the car, 1200 gallons or 22 barrels a year round numbers. Figure maybe 100 million households at the same rate of consumption and you get to about 6 million barrels per day of oil consumption. Actual US consumption is 3 times that, so something like 12 million barrels per day are going to industry. Airlines, trucks, trains, electric power generation, agriculture, chemical feedstocks, bunker oil for ships, asphalt for the roads, and who knows what else.
Industry can do some cut backs, but I need my modest 22 barrels a year and there is little I can do to cut it downany more. I'm insulated, I have good Andersen thermopane windows, fluorescent lights, a new furnace, and I keep the heat turned down. I don't drive much.
Every time you hear a democrat say the US is addicted to oil, you have just heard a good reason to vote republican.

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

The Supreme Court issued a judgment on the Exxon Valdez case. For those of you born after the Exxon Valdez accident a quick refresher. A humongous oil tanker, owned by guess who, was skippered by a relapsed alcoholic, Joe Hazelwood. With a full load, the tanker pushed off at night, with the skipper sleeping it off in his cabin, and the third officer conning the ship out a narrow channel. He got confused in the dark and hit a rock, ripping a big leak in the hull. Most of the cargo leaked out and made one god awful mess. It killed the fish, fouled the beaches, killed the birds and did a lot of other damage. This happened 19 years ago.
This evening the Supreme Court issued a judgment on this case. In the 19 years of legal delay one fifth of the original plaintiffs have died of old age. You don't ever get justice from the US courts, you die of old age first. Lawyers got 19 years of employment.

Usenet killed by Time Warner

Shed a tear for Usenet. It is one of the oldest parts of the internet, as old as email. The world wide chat room. In the old days computer geeks swapped programming tips and software work arounds on Usenet. Communities of real experts formed groups to discuss every subject under the sun, technology, politics, history, literature, religion, cooking, carpentry, writing, and many more. In the 80's and 90's much good information and humor was available there on. Being an original part of the internet, created in a more reasonable age, Usenet had no security. Anyone could sign on and say what ever he liked. The spammers got their start on Usenet but a hard hitting combination of system administrators pretty much drove the spammers off. CancelMoose was a famous anti spammer capable of making any post disappear with a few keystrokes.
Then the trolls moved in. They posted provocative messages which were outrageously successful at lighting off flame wars. The signal to noise ratio dropped to the point that serious individuals got tired of sorting thru the flames looking for serious content.
Usenet was never pre installed on computers, the user had to be technically savvy enough to configure his web brower to receive Usenet messages. Between the difficulty of getting onto Usenet and the infestation of trolls the serious users disappeared. Yesterday the lid of the coffin slammed shut. TimeWarner stopped carrying Usenet. Rest in Peace.

Obama finds his Karl Rove

Low key, young looking David Plouffe has been Barack Obama’s campaign manager since the beginning of 2007. He refuses interviews and attempts to keep his name and his family’s names out of the press. Barack Obama has heaped praise upon him. Plouffe is credited with the strategy of contesting all the minor state caucuses, which gave him the slight, but unbeatable edge in delegate count that Hillary never overcame. The caucus states are decided by a very small number of active party members. It wasn’t too difficult to recruit enough new voters to swamp the caucuses with Obama supporters. In most cases Obama was able to win all or nearly all the delegates, unlike the hotly contested primary states where Democratic Party rules split the delegates between the two contenders.

Battleground States

I'm looking at a very interesting electoral map of the US. It shows the solid republican states, the solid democratic states and the tossup (battleground) states. The Republicans own a solid strip of middle west states, going from Texas up to North Dakota, plus the old confederacy. The Democrats can count on California, Illinois, New York, New England and Maryland. The electoral votes are evenly split, 150 democrat, 153 GOP, 235 swing votes.
Should be a hotly contested election. New Hampshire, unlike the rest of New England, is a battleground state.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson vs Ed Markey on ABC

George Stephanopolis had republican Hutchinson debating democrat Markey on his Sunday morning pundit show. The guy doing the labels managed to promote Markey to senator (he is truly just a US rep from Massachusetts). Hutchinson came out for doing something real about the fuel price spike, namely drilling for oil and building more nuclear power plants. Markey tried to explain the great fuel price spike was Bush's fault. Didn't bother to explain just what Bush had done to cause the great price spike, but he was very positive that it was all Bush's fault. Then Markey went on to explain the need for government subsidies for "alternate" energy. According to Markey nothing gets down unless subsidized by the taxpayers. Like ethanol, which gets subsidies, tariff protection, and a federal law requiring addition of 10% ethanol to all motor gasoline. The corn farmers love it. Price of corn passed $7 a bushel the other day. It was $3.50 two years ago.
America has been the land of problem fixing since George Washington's day. Got a problem, we will invent a solution. Are we short of fuel? Fine, lets produce more. And lets work on fuel, the kind you can put in your furnace or your car. "Alternate" energy doesn't work in either place. The republicans have it right, more fuel production is the answer to the great fuel price spike.