Gasoline Economics: Low Supplies = High Costs

It's simple economics:

When Supply drops, Demand (and thus price) rises.

Guess who controls the supply? Exxon? Texaco? Chevron? Consider this chart Chevron presented to Congress recently.



(Nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia control 94% of the oil that's being pumped.) Of course, the US has plenty of oil--it's just off limits thanks to out-of-control state and federal regulations.

For a larger view, click this link to the Powerline blog.

Pro-Gay Writer is Anti- "Gay Marriage"

Why does the state endorse marriage--because two people feel strongly about each other, or because we wish to promote solid homes for having and raising children? It is the latter, according to this liberal writer. Marriage is not about coupling. It's about promoting a healthy atmosphere for healthy children. The strength of Rosie's and Ellen's and Mr. Sulu's feelings are not the point.

Contrary to what homosexual activists assume, the state doesn’t endorse marriage because people have feelings for one another. The state endorses marriage primarily because of what marriage does for children and in turn society. Society gets no benefit by redefining marriage to include homosexual relationships, only harm as the connection to illegitimacy shows. But the very future of children and a civilized society depends on stable marriages between men and women. That’s why, regardless of what you think about homosexuality, the two types of relationships should never be legally equated.

See the complete article here.

More from Michael Ramirez, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

See more at Investors Business Daily.

Midnight at the Casino: Something Wicked This Way Comes.

This is the best article I have ever read about casinos. Incidentally, the only casino I have been to is one of the ones featured in the story. (This would make a great documentary.)

Newest Propaganda Machine? WIKIPEDIA

from POLITICO.COM

Wiki-Whacked by Political Bias

May 14, 2008 - by Matt Sanchez

With the presidential elections looming, Americans will query the Internet to make a decision on the candidates. Now more than ever, accurate information is key. For almost any query, the chances are that the search engine will turn up a Wikipedia article — and that’s where the problems begin.

In 2001, Bernard Goldberg wrote his groundbreaking book Bias to confirm what we already knew: the media colored the news according to a liberal ideology. Today, Wikipedia, the “world’s largest encyclopedia,” has the potential of becoming the liberal left’s largest [1] propaganda machine.

Volunteer editors scour the Internet for “reliable sources” (RS in Wiki-speak) and the typical Wikipedia article is better sourced than most subscription-based encyclopedias, according to several studies. But it’s the choice of how to source an article that really shades the news. Drawing from a mostly liberal media, a controversial figure like Senator Obama’s “spiritual guide,” the [2] Reverend Jeremiah Wright, becomes almost a scholarly man presaging the woes of our time.

Most editors take their work very seriously, and are meticulous in following the Wikipedia rule book. But many editors pursue childish agendas with a perverted glee. Control, influence, and prestige — which escape many Wikipedia editors in the mundane brick and mortar world — are what some Wiki-addicts can establish in the virtual realm, except here they mostly remain anonymous and irresponsible.

Editors Gone Wild

“Every year a couple of editors go crazy and deface the Wikipedia main page,” says Lise Broer, a Wikipedian with over two years of experience in the Wikipedia project.

“Wikipedia has redundant systems for eliminating much of the vandalism, but the more subtle stuff can get through,” said Lise in a phone interview. “That’s where I come in.” Broer has adopted the screen name Durova, the first female Russian officer.

An historic female military figure is a fitting name because Lise Broer has involved herself with the toughest and most contentious articles on Wikipedia. Ms. Broer/Durova worked to ban an editor who claimed to be the descendant of Joan of Arc and was intent on inscribing his shoddily sourced lineage on the saint’s Wikipedia page. “Wiki-drama” is as subtle as using “sock puppets” to pretend you’re more than one editor, to outright stalking. Through hours of incessant emails, text messages, and chats, Broer has dealt with these headaches with great professionalism — and she does it all for free.

Liberal Bias?

Conservative figures are subject to both outright vandalism and the subtle hostility of activist editors with an enormous ideological agenda and no scruples. If several editors collaborate to block or stonewall an article, they can stall well-sourced information or just entirely skew the presentation. For some reason conservatives are an especially appealing target.

“Is he best known as a (political) ‘commentator’ or as a ‘TV presenter’ or a ‘lying sack of sh*t?’” asks one irate editor of the Wikipedia Bill O’Reilly article.

Conservative radio personality and activist Melanie Morgan has had her Wikipedia article defaced for several years by editors who have lobbied to have false information included in her Wikipedia article, including changing her name.

[3] Michelle Malkin’s article is typically peppered with racial epithets.

Ann Coulter’s article is on a permanent lockdown status, where only the most trustworthy editors preside over the smallest of changes that have to reach some type of peer consensus. I can’t even reproduce much of the comments and criticisms on the Coulter article.

My article, [4] Matt Sanchez, is one of the most hotly contested articles on Wikipedia and has been shielded from editing for the better part of a year.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs and articles on the Internet, so what makes Wikipedia any different from much of the dubious information one can find on the World Wide Web?

“Take the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and Fox News. Put them together and the traffic going to [5] Wikipedia is easily 10 times that amount and growing,” Durova said. If you do a search, any search, there’s bound to be a Wikipedia article among the top three results. The culture wars have found a new battlefield; it’s named Wikipedia.org.

[6] Matt Sanchez is an international journalist and war correspondent. After a year of cooperating with Wiki-editors he is currently [7] banned from contributing to an article based on him at Wikipedia, due to protests of bias.


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Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wiki-whacked-by-political-bias/

Why Do Voters Always Swoon for the New Guy?

You know the old story--a new girl moves to town and every boy in school wants her number, each one hopes he'll be the one carrying her books home, tutoring her in chemistry, being the perfect host and winning the damsel's heart. But then reality sets in: someone gets the brush-off, she chooses a few girls to confide in and suddenly she has her friends, her clique, her place and role, and most of the boys know she'll forget their initial kindnesses soon enough. Still, the infatuation was fun while it lasted.

But maybe choosing the leader of the free world ought to be different. Maybe we should consider wisdom, experience, a voting record, a lifetime of service. Maybe some things matter more than a charming face and voice you're not bored with.

Yet Americans keep leaping for the new guy, for young blood, for "change." They were infatuated with Carter and Clinton. Those one-night stands turned out really well. (Remember that song, "Oh, the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time"?)

After Democrat Carter we had Democrats Bill and Hillary, whose own rise from nowhere was greeted with the same numbskull adoration that the media are now ready to bestow on Obama.

Consider another great article.

Wikipedia isn't.

The people at Wikipedia want you to believe the online reference book is some sort of collaborative, democratic townhall, where users pass the wiki, (the conch, the talking stick, the candle, choose your own metaphor), and everyone gets to say their piece. The idea is that there will be a lot more voices, and the cream will rise to the top.

But this is the internet. What cream?

Not only is Wikipedia open to all sorts of ridiculous bias, lies, and propaganda. Not only is it one of the most consistently unreliable sources of information because so little is known of the contributors. But apparently the whole wiki idea is a sham.

Wikipedia employs monitors who watch over the entries and wield content-related editorial control. Every decent reference book has quality control editors. But Wikipedia is not a decent reference book. It has never pretended to be. It is some sort of on-line, "living document," where anything goes. Except things of which the thought police disapprove. (And remember--the website would like you to think there are no thought police. It's collaborative--allegedly.)

I have seen Wikipedia close its entries on Israel because those who wish to abolish Israel (and wipe the people off the face of the earth) had been filling the entry with propaganda. Sounds like a good decision, right? But what about every entry for every Jew who ever lived? How can Wikipedia keep out all the propaganda?

And what if you disagree with Wikipedia? Are the secret, trolling editors going to be fair on the facts surrounding gun control, or the Clarence Thomas hearings, or the Kennedy assassinations, or Greenpeace, or abortion proponent Margaret Sanger's ties to eugenics and her desire to rid the world of lesser races?

Here is an excellent article on Wikipedia's biased editing of all things related to global warming.

As I say so often, the article is better than what I have been rambling about. Trust me! You need to read the author's account of his struggle to correct facts about which he had first-hand knowledge.

Don't waste your time on Wikipedia. The handy categories, the nice layout, the tendency to have more information all in one place--it will lull you into credulity. I know it does me. My grandmother used to believe that people wouldn't put something in a book if it weren't true. "But it's in print!"

Don't think the same about Wikipedia. A source is either credible or it isn't. And Wikipedia isn't. Anyone can change a letter here and there and state as fact preposterous lies and distortions. Consider Wikipedia--at best--like the inadmissible evidence in a criminal investigation. It cannot be used to prove anything. But it "might" point you in the right direction.