June 2008 – Page 3

Another ex-candidate stays involved

Now you really didn’t think after raising millions over the Internet that Ron Paul was going to go back to being a semi-obscure Congressman from Texas did you? For Heaven’s sake, the guy didn’t even officially drop out until last week. But this is what Ron Paul’s former Presidential campaign appears to be turning its attention to:

Over the past 17 months you and I delivered a message of freedom, the likes of which American politics has not seen in decades. With the primary season now over, the presidential campaign has come to an end. But the Revolution has only begun.

Today I am happy to announce the official launch of the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty. Please visit our new website and join us.

Over the next few months I will be developing a program, assembling a team, and announcing new and exciting projects. We will have a permanent presence on the American political landscape. That I promise you.

Right now, I need your patience and support. I want the Campaign for Liberty to be a grassroots campaign; so your energy, your creativity, your feedback, and your participation are essential.

Together, we will educate our fellow Americans in freedom, sound money, non-interventionism, and free markets. We will write commentaries and broadcast videos on the news of the day. And I’ll work with friends whom I respect to design materials for homeschoolers.

Politically, we will expand the great work of our precinct leader program. We will make our presence felt at every level of government. We will keep an eye on Congress, and lobby against legislation that threatens us. And we will identify and support candidates who champion our great ideas.

“In the final analysis,” I wrote in my new book The Revolution: A Manifesto, “the last line of defense in support of freedom and the Constitution consists of the people themselves. If the people want to be free, if they want to lift themselves out from underneath a state apparatus that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on needless wars, destroys the value of their dollar, and spews forth endless propaganda about how indispensable it is and how lost we would all be without it, there is no force that can stop them.”

Our time has come to act on these words.

May future generations look back on our work and say that these were men and women who, in a moment of great crisis, stood up to their politicians, the opinion-makers, and the establishment, and saved their country.

For liberty,

Ron Paul

At the website, he delivers much the same message but with one key addition:

Now what about the Republican Convention in St. Paul? Our delegates will attend, of course, and I expect our contingent to have a visible presence there. Without disruption, we will do whatever we can to influence the party and its platform, and return the GOP to its limited-government roots. This is very important.

Since certain people have already lumped me into the Ron Paul camp anyway, I decided to add my name to the e-mail list. Despite the fact I strongly disagree with the non-interventionist portion of Ron Paul’s platform insofar as fighting the Long War is concerned (and thus wouldn’t support him for President), any company I can have in the quest for limiting the scope and reach of our federal government/nanny state is quite welcome.

Dr. Paul also notes the number of young people who have been energized by his campaign, which isn’t too shabby for a guy who will turn 73 in August. While I believe that many of those young people were attracted to his non-interventionist (read: against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) stance and the idea of limited government was secondary, it’s still a beginning and may draw them closer to being part of reinventing the Republican Party as a party which only considers Washington, D.C. a convenient place for Congress to meet, not the giver of largesse to those whom they favor.

I also particularly liked the CFL’s additional emphasis on homeschooled children, because I happen to think that there’s nothing wrong with homeschooling a child if you have the means and wherewithal to do so. Obviously there’s a sacrifice made monetarily because we all pay for public schools whether we use them or not but these folks who take the time to teach their own kids seem to put out many of the most learned children in our country.

Overall, there’s a lot of good that can be done with this group, and I look forward to much of what they have to say.

News you can use, but can you believe it?

Just so you know, I’m speaking for myself here. No one puts words in my mouth.

During the week, a website purporting to be a local news source placed online this post about a scandal involving a now-former employee of a local business. Let me begin by noting that I am an employee of the company in question and have been for the past 3 1/2 years. The man accused of shifting money out of the HOA account into the company’s account was also my campaign treasurer in 2006. However, that account was a non-continuing account (at the time, this practice was allowed by election law) so it was closed shortly after I was elected to my current office. In 2010 I’ll simply ask someone else to be my campaign treasurer.

If you read the comments to the Tony Tank post, many are under the belief that the company who employs me is practically at death’s door. Did we have to let go employees? Yes, there were two good men who we had to lay off, and everyone involved has had to make sacrifices. However, we are continuing on and new projects keep coming in the door for our reduced staff to do. One could even argue that we’re now lean enough to be ready to pounce when the inevitable upturn in business comes. I’ve been in the architectural field for over 21 years and, like most other construction-related businesses, my chosen field is quite cyclical. But people have to build and improve at some point. We still have three registered architects (myself included), a registered engineer, and a LEED-Accredited Professional (again, that’s me) on staff along with others who do their jobs pretty efficiently. If the doors closed Monday, I’d be as shocked as the dozens of clients we serve.

This brings me to a discussion of the Hobbs Road development, another favorite target of the commentors. It’s true that there’s not been dirt moved at the site, but I can attest to the fact that permits are still being sought to do so – otherwise, I’ve been drawing roadway and infrastructure plans and details over the last several months for naught. Perhaps one should question instead the wisdom of those who developed the still-vacant office park near the intersection of Old Ocean City Road and Beaglin Park Drive or the spec building that is an unoccupied shell without even a floor in the Sweetbay subdivision. Again, it can be argued that the timing will be right for the infrastructure at Hobbs Road to be completed just about the time building begins to boom again. Unlike the other office parks, the Hobbs Road development will feature other uses including hotels and restaurants to take advantage of its location. Imagine the synergy between any possible restaurant/nightclubs and Perdue Stadium during summer evenings like tonight promises to be.

One of those comments to his post was to “ask Michael Swartz” since I work for the company involved. No one asked me but that was my response anyway. Now I’m going to turn my attention on how this “news” was gathered.

The root of the post was a comment, apparently from a previous one. The lead author of this “opinionated only” blog is one who’s been known to do what I term “fishing expeditions” (not to be confused with phishing for identity theft). Knowing there’s a topic out there where he may not have all of the information he wants or needs to run with his story – or with his vendetta – this blogger will put up an innocuous post and rely on whatever (anonymous) comments he gets to fill in the blanks and advance the story line. Of course, if the comments are found to be untrue he can always make the excuse, “well, it was a commentor on the post – it wasn’t me writing that.” Or he may have missed it going through all of the comments we’re told he has to run through.

Regardless, in running with this particular story he’s besmirched the reputation of a company that has served the public for over 15 years at a time where it’s already reeling because of one bad apple in the business. Further, he’s allowed solely speculative information that could do harm to this company’s core business and that of one of its prime clients to be aired. There are still legal matters to be settled in this affair but apparently the original victims have been made whole. I also happen to serve with the attorney in question on our county’s Republican Central Committee and whether you agree with his means or not he’s doing the task his client assigned him to do.

I know that in the press much of the news is made through the mining of anonymous sources, and that’s not really the issue here. But when news leaves the realm of what is and moves into the areas of rumor and innuendo, those actions put all of us who take the time to express our thoughts on the internet with websites like mine into the same category. Some readers may recall about two years ago the local bloggers here in Salisbury were called a “cancer” by one local politician and I’m still a little angry about that brush tarring all of us, deserved or not.

When I take the time and put on the reporter’s hat, my goal is to relate what really happened at the event I’m covering. At some point we’re going to find out all that actually occurred in the Tony Tank affair and hopefully those guilty will be the ones who pay the largest price. In the meantime, it may be best to cast a skeptical eye toward news that’s simply made rather than reported.

Crossposted on the Pro-Maryland Gazette.

The new buzzword: smear

A couple days back I characterized the campaign of Barack Obama as one that could be described as a number of buzzwords slickly produced and selected after extensive focus-group testing. So it is with the term “smear” apparently.

Doing some good marketing himself, fellow blogger Bob McCarty clued me into the new Obama campaign site dedicated to spreading the “truth” about him, and how he managed to turn the tables a little bit. (It’s there, you just have to scroll down a little bit.) This “fight the smears” site was also extensively discussed on Rush’s show today.

With Obama’s campaign moving several legitimate points of discussion into the category of “off limits”, I’m not too certain what his campaign is going to accomplish by creating such a site except for portraying himself as a victim of those racist Republican bloggers who spread lies about his religious background and took Rev. Jeremiah Wright out of context, at least until Barack himself threw the good pastor under the bus. Victim my ass.

However, it does bring up a point that, at least as far as focus-grouped and tested buzzwords are concerned, the meaning of a smear is pretty well known and understood to be one of spreading untrue rumor and innuendo to give the opponent of a particular political candidate an advantage. Perhaps the best known smear attempt was during the 2004 Presidential campaign, where forged documents were hyped as proof President Bush avoided military service. Of course, the attempt backfired once bloggers noted that particular fonts were not in use yet when the note was supposedly written in the early 1970’s. In that case, it was bloggers who revealed the truth; but in other cases bloggers obfuscate matters with rumor and innuendo to gain advantage for themselves or their group. Many times it’s a partisan effort but other times what may pass as news is later found to be simply an effort to gain advantage for other reasons like competitive advantage or as a way to get back at others. It’s one reason why blogs are slow to gain traction as news sources unless they’re affiliated with a legitimate print or media outfit.

This is actually leading me into tomorrow’s post, and in the entertainment business it’s called a tease. But I have some thoughts on recent events that can shed some light on a particular item of interest and possibly a motivation behind that which was said.

Backs to the wall

A quick update on YOUR Delmarva Shorebirds and their playoff hopes…

The Shorebirds blanked Lakewood 6-0 tonight behind strong pitching by Zach Britton (6-4) and newcomer Robert Neigebauer, along with home runs from Joe Nowicki (10) and newly coined Shorebird of the Week Wally Crancer (3). However, both teams they’re chasing also won as Lake County edged Hagerstown 3-2 while Greensboro got past West Virginia 3-1. We did formally eliminate Lakewood by beating them tonight.

Now the situation is more dire for the Shorebirds. To win the division outright, they need to finish the sweep over Lakewood while Lake County goes 0-3 and Greensboro loses at least one game to West Virginia. This scenario would allow Delmarva to sneak past both teams and finish the half 40-29 while Lake County and Greensboro both finish 40-30 for the half (the difference is a May rainout in Lexington that the Shorebirds weren’t able to make up.) If Lake County wins tomorrow night over Hagerstown, there will be a celebration in Classic Park so hopefully our cross-state rivals can dampen the mood there. Otherwise, we’ll have to hope for a strong second half and a chance to knock the Captains out of the playoffs come September.

Don’t forget to read on and check out why I picked Wally as my Shorebird of the Week. He certainly came through tonight.

Shorebird of the Week – June 12, 2008

Being a catcher on the Shorebirds sometimes means sacrificing personal stats to help out the team. Generally the team doesn’t have a full-time starting catcher, instead splitting duties among two or even three guys.

One of those in the catching platoon this season is this week’s Shorebird of the Week, Wally Crancer. A 12th round pick in the 2007 draft by the Orioles, this Californian by way of Georgia Tech is hitting really well in his limited duty as he sports a .336 average in 110 at-bats this season. This includes 14 extra-base hits out of his 37 total and 18 runs batted in. Most importantly, the only split he has where he’s under the .300 mark is batting .296 in away games; otherwise he’s quite consistent at the plate and hits both righthanders and lefties at a better than .330 clip. Crancer is also useful as a spare outfielder, making a handful of starts in left field for the Shorebirds this season.

Obviously a couple knocks on him are the limited playing time and the fact he’s a little older than the league peer group (he turns 24 in July). However, the improvement from his rather pedestrian numbers at Aberdeen last season (.241/5/31 in 67 games with the IronBirds) shows that Crancer may have made the adjustments needed during the off-season to become a more successful hitter. Certainly Wally is making a statement that he needs to get more time both behind the plate and in the left-handed batters’ box with his performance and may get his chance as the Shorebirds look to contend again in the second half.

Are WE up to the challenge?

You know, that Obama camp really is pretty confident that our nation truly wants to lurch toward socialism. Here’s another e-mail I received from campaign staffer Jon Carson:

This has been a 50-state campaign from the very beginning. A year ago this week, our grassroots supporters organized a nationwide canvass in more than 1,000 cities to introduce people to Barack Obama.

Since then, we’ve had an unprecedented primary season that built a grassroots infrastructure in all 50 states — not just for Barack, but for all of the Democratic candidates.

Now it’s time to bring all of that energy together for our common cause of change.

All across the country, Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans are tired of the politics of the past and are looking for new solutions to the challenges we’re facing.

That’s why we’re launching a nationwide day of action on Saturday, June 28th called “Unite for Change” — and asking you to host a Unite for Change meeting in your neighborhood.

In all 50 states, supporters like you — seasoned veterans and first-time volunteers alike — will host house meetings to reach out and bring together folks who supported all of the Democratic candidates (and those who are just tuning into the process now).

The goal is to come together and use the common values we share to build a united volunteer organization in your neighborhood that will register new voters and build support locally.

It would be SO tempting to crash one of these meetings but I’m probably a little too well-known locally to do it; that is, assuming that there would be one in Salisbury. (I know, who are we kidding? I’ve seen a few Obama signs and stickers about town so there’s probably a local meeting.)

Carson has me pegged correctly in one respect – I am tired of the politics of the past. But that time period is only about the past 20 years. I seem to recall our nation had a pretty good leader in the 1980’s and Senator Obama, you are nowhere near the leader he was.

Unfortunately, politics in this day and age doesn’t lend itself to leadership. Everything (and I mean everything) is driven by the almighty poll, which creates opinion rather than reflecting it. Something tells me that the buzzwords Barack Obama uses, like “hope”, “change”, and the idea of “ending politics as usual” played well with the focus groups so they became the campaign message. Honestly, does America really know what Barack Obama plans to do if he’s sworn in next January? Does he?

I’m basically resigned at this point to negative change from Washington because neither Barack Obama nor John McCain seems to want to lead our country away from dependence on government to cure all ills, and I’m all but ruling out any help from Congress as a whole for the next couple years as well (locally we may have a Congressman who does wish to work toward the goal, but it may be at least 2010 before he gets much help.)

If you do want to attend one of these Unite for Change meetings, you may get some icy stares if you ask whether Barack Obama has any ideas on how to shrink government or allow more free-market economics to take root in this country – and someone might take a swing at you for suggesting that maybe the best way to solve our energy woes would be to allow domestic oil production to increase. But I believe that is just some of the change we as a nation should truly seek, not attempting to redo the Great Society on a bigger and more obnoxious basis.

Maybe we on the conservative side need to get together that day and do some work of our own. It’s time to lay the groundwork for another American Revolution, one that restores our nation more in line with what our Founders intended it to be – a place where truly free men (and women) live.

P1k

Today, June 11, 2008, I’ve finally reached that milestone of 1,000 posts and you’re reading the 1,000th. By my count, it’s taken me 924 days to reach this point so my average isn’t too bad at all.

I’ll start out by thanking all of you who have taken the time to read my website, whether just for one post or for all of them. While I do get a little crispy at times, I also have nights like Monday night where the creative juices flow and I fire off two posts along with a article submission for Friday’s Patriot Post web newsletter. Before I started blogging, I’d previously written a few letters to the editor of my local paper and did the newsletter for both my Young Republican club and voters in my precinct as a Central Committee member, but the Patriot Post is actually where I started writing for a much wider audience as one of a few dozen anonymous contributors nationwide, starting when I still lived in Ohio. I’m not quite as well-known through this outlet, but I’m going to keep working on it and not give up on that dream.

Naturally the website has evolved through a lot of phases, and it’s obvious simply by looking at the categories and the number of posts within them. It’s been a long time since I wrote on issues pertaining to my former home, but when I started they was a relatively frequent topic. The same goes for Wal-Mart, as we were in the thick of the Fair Share debate when monoblogue was in its infancy, now I only use the category for my semi-annual “market basket” posts. Conversely, I’ve most recently added Radical Green and Delaware Politics as categories because I was beginning to write on those subjects more frequently. In fact, I have some exciting Delaware-related news shortly.

As the website has evolved, so have I – both personally and as a writer. Actually, having a website isn’t a bad way to get to know folks, and I’ve found that I have acquired a number of fans both near and far. I’m very proud to have been asked to join the Maryland Bloggers Alliance (I was the seventh member back in the summer of 2006), and contribute to three other sites – Red Maryland, Pro-Maryland Gazette, and as of yesterday evening Elbert Collins (That’s Elbert with an E) has asked me to be a contributor at his site. It’ll give me an opportunity to become more exposed in Delaware, a state with some exciting elections on the horizon this year. So I’ll crosspost items on Delaware and other selected posts relating to national issues onto his site beginning this week. In addition, on July 13th I’ll once again host the Carnival of Maryland as edition number 37 will come your way from monoblogue. It’ll be my fourth go-round and I’ve been consistent with sevens as host of editions 7, 17, 27, and now 37. Makes for nice spacing.

The bread and butter of monoblogue has been and will continue to be the realm of politics. While a few may challenge my relevency in that field, it’s worthy to note that the BlogNetNews influence ratings have existed now for one year and in Maryland only two websites have been in the top 20 each and every week – Brian Griffiths’ self-titled site and monoblogue. That’s 52 weeks of making a difference in some small way, and this week marked my seventh straight top-three finish.

Of course, I don’t want to rest on my laurels here. I have more readers than I dreamed of when I first started this enterprise (after all, 200 readers a week was astounding to me back then) but once you get a taste of success you want more, more, more! Without question I’ll be covering a lot of the local aspects of the 2008 election because arguably we’ll have the most-watched Congressional race in the country here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I have my horse in the race while other local bloggers differ.

There are two other projects I’m working on that will indisputably be of political importance on both a state and national level. My goal was to have both ready by July 4th but the logical side of my brain prevailed and I’ll be working to finish one project by that deadline while the other should be ready to begin by August. Since both will be ongoing portions of monoblogue, there’s no real need to hurry…I’m really enjoying putting them together because the research is interesting to me.

If the Good Lord is willing and I can keep up the posting pace I’ve been on the last couple months, my 2000th post should be sometime around May of 2010. That will be a pretty exciting time here in Maryland as the state races begin cranking up. A lot of monoblogue’s growth came from my coverage of the 2006 races and 2010 promises to be even better since I’ll know more of the players. Between now and then, we’ll have a new President and Congress sworn in and normally Presidents are at their most ambitious when they’re on their public honeymoon in the first months after assuming office. This website will be standing for what it’s always stood for – more freedom and limited government, and I won’t be shy about firing both barrels at whoever stands in the way of these goals.

While I’m quite proud of how far I’ve come with the first 1,000 posts, I maintain the attitude that the readers ain’t seen nothin’ yet and I’m going to strive for continued evolution from a small local website to a nationally-known resource for political commentary, along with maintaining a healthy dose of that non-political stuff which keeps me interested in writing all of those words I commit to pixels.

I’ve grown readership tenfold in the first thousand posts and maintaining that pace is a challenge I look forward to each time I write.

Perspective and theory

Earlier today, I wrote about the historically high gas prices and how each party inside the Beltway is blaming the other. This is the second part of what might be called a rant, but it’s not totally of my doing.

Yesterday I found another interesting perspective courtesy of a blogger associated with the trade magazine Engineering News-Record. His suggestion? Quit whining.

But while Tom Armistead has the correct title, he comes about his solution from the wrong perspective:

(A)n honest look at the car, oil, electric and other energy-intensive markets over the last 35 years will unveil another culprit: you, me and all the other consumers who have taken advantage of the unjustifiably cheap energy we’ve enjoyed and come to expect as our birthright.

I’d truly like to know what price he thinks is justified for energy. Somewhere in the back swamps of my mind I recall reading that, in its infancy, nuclear power was supposed to become available so cheaply that there would be no need to meter it. Obviously that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Instead of answering, Tom points the finger at the usual suspects:

Look out the window at rush hour on your way home tonight and note all the SUVs and even Hummers inching along the highway. Without high prices squeezing us, we don’t moderate our energy demands. We have met the enemy and he is us.

It’s that evil capitalism and wanting to enjoy those things you’ve coveted and purchased via a free market! Damn, I hate it when actually living a semi-affluent lifestyle in a thriving economy creates a demand for energy.

And once again, Arnistead proves that hindsight can always be considered 20/20:

Taking the long view, we might have acknowledged that any fuel that formed deep in the earth over millions of years eventually will be exhausted if we keep extracting it at the current rate. After admitting that and agreeing that it means we need to reduce our consumption and invest in research and development of technologies for renewable energy and renewable fuels, we might have formulated policies that would require us to pay a premium for using gasoline instead of renewable fuels. Europeans have paid far higher prices than we do for years. The policies also might have encouraged the R&D over an extended period, allowing us to spread out the cost. That we did not is a failure of leadership by our government supported by a craven short-sightedness of our people. We could have demanded action; we did not.

(snip)

I read in the paper today that opponents of the Climate Security Act now being debated in Congress are not questioning the science behind theories of climate change, but are basing their opposition mainly on the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. My question is, what is the cost of NOT reducing CO2 emissions? I believe an honest look at the answer will show it’s time to start paying our way. (Emphasis in original.)

Actually, I DO question the science behind the theory of climate change, a point I’ll expand upon shortly. For the moment, I have to question whether Tom knows much of anything about a free market. Obviously the cheapest method of getting the most energy for transportation needs is through oil refined into gasoline, with another drilling by-product, natural gas, priced by the market in such a way that it’s commonly used for both heating homes and producing electricity.

Unfortunately for Tom’s theory, the cost of renewable energy remains prohibitive enough that much of its use depends on government subsidy to skew the market in its favor. Arnistead would have us believe that placing a punishing premium on using oil would force alternatives to be used, but all that would accomplish is fattening the coffers of those who levied the fees. Think of cap and trade.

And then there’s the question of reliability. One example can be found in neighboring Delaware, where Bluewater Wind has been in a protracted battle with Delmarva Power over a proposed offshore wind farm. While Bluewater claims that they would be able to maintain a set price of 12.535 cents per kilowatt hour for 25 years, Delmarva Power contends that an onshore wind farm would be able to create the same kilowatt hour for just 8.55 cents. Apparently neither of these factor in the backup sources (e.g. fossil fuels) which would be required when the winds don’t blow, and both of these bids beg the question: if wind blows for free, why should we pay anything? Just like sunshine is free, it’s obvious that alternative energy must be expensive because either it’s unreliable or the required infrastucture to convert one energy source to a more useful one isn’t cost-effective without a government subsidy, or both.

I think I have a better idea, and I’m going to couch it in much the same terms as Al Gore hyped global warming in An Inconvenient Truth – basically saying that we can’t conclusively prove it exists but we need to do something about it and quickly!

My theory is that we should just go right ahead and try to exhaust all of those resources which Arnstead frets are finite as quickly as possible, because if we do nothing our economic doom is nigh. We may not even last 20 years if nothing is done.

And I have plenty of evidence that this theory is valid. Look at what the cost of gasoline is doing to the economy. Can we sustain our living standard on $4 a gallon gasoline?

For those who say that the potential for environmental disaster awaits if we drill and transport more oil, let me ask you when the last large oil spill was? Prince William Sound isn’t the barren wasteland for wildlife many feared, and even the most pessimistic prediction is for full recovery in 30 years. Meanwhile, the mistakes made became lessons on how to transport oil more safely, and what doesn’t make news are the millions of barrels of oil which arrive safely at their destination.

While some tout the green-collar jobs that await once the movement toward alternative energy kicks in, we have a number of companies with a lot of capital to invest right now, particularly with the price for their product at a peak. Even a 50% drop in the price of oil from current levels would place the black gold at about $69 a barrel, certainly worth the risk in exploring domestically and bringing a much better stimulus to the economy than a government check which is simply like a payday loan against next year’s tax liability. Oh, and it might put some engineers to work as well.

Thus, instead of going hell-bent down a road to address a theory with little evidence but a lot of opportunity for an ever-expanding federal and international government to get its claws deeper into the American taxpayer’s wallets, why not work with my theory – one that looks to the private sector to create jobs and insure a more stable energy supply that’s tried and true.

Then we won’t be looking at the SUV as an evil, but a choice made in the best interest of its owner.

This post is also my debut crosspost on That’s Elbert With An E.

Gas prices stink! Who’s to blame?

Well, if you’re the Republicans naturally you blame the Democrats. And that’s what House Minority Leader John Boehner did on Sunday, chiding a “Do-Nothing Democratic Congress” for allowing gas prices to hit a record national average of $4 per gallon. In fact, on the day that Democrats took over Congress after a twelve-year hiatus, average gas prices nationwide stood at $2.33 – still high but who wouldn’t take that price for doing their summer driving?

Meanwhile, Republicans have their own common-sense plan, according to a Friday story by Susan Jones of CNS News:

Republicans say they are committed to boosting supplies of all forms of energy “right here at home” to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of oil. They insist oil drilling in the U.S. can be done without damage to the environment.

Republicans also are promoting “advanced” nuclear power and next-generation coal as well as renewable energy from wind and hydroelectric power.

They want to roll back burdensome regulations that limit the construction of new oil refineries.

For their part, Democrats point to their “accomplishments” during this 110th Congress. The Klaus Marre story in The Hill quotes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

“In just the last few months, Congress successfully pressed the Bush Administration into investigating oil market price manipulation, passed a Farm Bill that boosts home-grown, advanced biofuels production, halted deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase oil supply in the market, and passed legislation that invests in clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies, including tax incentives for plug-in hybrid cars, energy efficient homes and appliances. By July 4th, we will work to develop other innovative energy independence legislation that addresses high energy costs and continues to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and we will look into speculation in the energy futures market.”

Innovative, huh Nancy? So far your “innovation” has almost doubled the price of a gallon of gasoline and caused misery in many Third World countries where the price of corn has skyrocketed because of mandates your party placed on the use of ethanol. (That one can be blamed on Al Gore, he cast the tie-breaking vote that established the ethanol regulations when he was Vice-President. He may take credit for inventing the Internet, but in reality he invented the ethanol-fueled food riot.)

As one may expect, this story hasn’t received a whole lot of traction in the partisan media. The two sources I cited are pretty much the only outlets who have given Boehner the time of day on the issue. We know, it’s all Bush’s fault.

This is actually part one of two, with the other half coming this evening. In that post I’ll add another perspective on our energy woes and posit a theory of my own – Al Gore figures prominently there.

One pearl in a rotten oyster

That’s the way I’d describe this plan from Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida.

For some reason, Democrats seem to have problems with the electoral process and just can’t get over the 2000 election. Not only was Florida the epicenter of electoral issues back then, Nelson’s own party created more controversy this year when they arbitrarily jumped their Presidential primary election ahead of the timeline desired by the national party, a decision costing them 1/2 of their delegate votes when the Democratic National Convention convenes in Denver at the end of August.

It’s another example of a left-leaning politician jumping aboard the National Popular Vote bandwagon, as Maryland did in 2007. While the Electoral College does date from the 18th century, as Nelson points out, the good Senator fails to note the the Founders intended this to be a republic and not a true democracy. Many other portions of the Constitution which date back to the same era are still good enough for Senator Nelson, particularly that pesky First Amendment which allows his viewpoint to be freely published.

On the other hand, maintaining the Electoral College benefits our nation for two key reasons. First of all, it gives smaller states like Delaware, Wyoming, or Alaska a say in the Presidential process. Otherwise, all of their state’s votes could be swallowed up in a tide of votes from one municipal area like Philadelphia, Denver, or Seattle. This also limits the damage any sort of electoral irregularities could accomplish to the one state where it occurred. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Barack Obama outpolls John McCain by 250,000 votes nationwide and all of that margin could be comprised of illegal votes in Chicago. With Nelson’s plan in place, Obama wins via fraudulent voting but in our system as it stands it only affects the electoral votes Illinois carries, which is a small portion of the 270 required nationwide. (Legend has it the 1960 election where John F. Kennedy was elected over Richard Nixon was decided in a similar manner.)

I will credit Senator Nelson for borrowing an idea I’ve proposed in the past, that of six rotating regional primaries scheduled between March and June. (I’d actually like them a little later, but that’s a minor quibble.) The idea is to compress the Presidential process into the same calendar year as the election, and this idea’s time has come. It also has the advantage of again bringing some of the smaller states into play depending on how the divisions are formed. And while Nelson’s proposal doesn’t account for this, I’d also like to see a push for closed primaries similar to the practice here in Maryland. While it would eliminate the “Operation Chaos” aspect of the primary, perhaps it would also give the Republicans a candidate more in tune with the party’s beliefs?

Remaining portions of Nelson’s proposal deal with early voting, “shall-issue” absentee ballots, and a verifiable paper trail. My question is why early voting is even necessary when one can get an absentee ballot upon request? There’s a reason I call it “early and often voting” because the potential is rife for fraud when elections are held over a number of days. Absentee ballots accomplish the same purpose as early voting with the added assurance that the voter is properly registered. I’m also a little leery of a paper trail unless it’s handled in such a manner that the voting receipt cannot be duplicated. I can just see a group claiming to have hundreds of paper ballots that weren’t counted and demanding they be included in a recount. It would bog down the electoral process even moreso than it is now.

Worst of all, this would be another usurpation of states’ rights by an all-encompassing federal government. Much as I dislike all the controversy that can occur with highly charged and contested national elections, each state can and should have the right to decide how its elections are conducted. There’s nothing that is stopping states from doing most of what Nelson proposes (for better or worse) aside from the abolition of the Electoral College, and that’s the way our nation is supposed to work.

Weekend of local rock volume 16

You knew that you couldn’t stop this, but could only hope to contain it. Luckily I’ll contain it for you.

This is what I came to do, plus my little bit for the cause.

We were outside on the 'beach' to get things started. No water in sight though.

I took well over 100 pictures at this event, some just for my own personal collection and some for later publication. But since this was a benefit show, I decided to do some of the more newsworthy items here and save the music review for a future post over on the monoblogue Myspace page. This way I keep a manageable amount of photos and text here in this post, and if you dig the local music portion of it anywhere as much as I do you’ll look forward to reading my thoughts on the show over on Myspace.

For those of you out of the monoblogue loop, the event was set up to benefit B.J. Mohr, who was seriously injured in an accident. Spearheading the effort was BJ’s brother Bill, who plays in a local group called Another Vicious Cycle. Here’s Bill helping out on drums for the first musician up, C.J. Hearn.

Bill Mohr was the guy responsible for getting all the bands and the venue for the event yesterday.

Working through the musical grapevine, Bill convinced eight other bands to give up some of their time on a prime working day for bands to help out the cause. While most of these groups hail from points local, two of them traveled down from the Baltimore area to appear as well. The next nine pictures will be of each group, just read the caption for the name.

C.J. Hearn (in orange, on the left) was featured as the opening act, along with his partner acoustic guitarist whose name I don't know.

The second group in line was a band I wasn't familiar with called Bear Spits Fire. They're out of Seaford, Delaware.

If you read monoblogue regularly and don't know who this group is...well, pay closer attention. This was the first half of a day-night doubleheader for Semiblind, who then played in Rehoboth Beach last night.

Se7enth Seal was one of two groups who came down from Baltimore to participate. As I like to say, they brought crunch without the crap.

The other Baltimore-area entry was Skitzo Calypso, a group who's familiar with crossing over the Bay Bridge. They come to the area several times a year.

Too Far Gone was another heavy group, mixing in a couple originals with hard rock covers of Pantera, Godsmack, and others.

This is Bill Mohr's home band, Another Vicious Cycle. They sounded pretty good despite the claim they hadn't played together much since earlier this spring.

Local groove rockers Chowderfoot closed out the show, with double the beat provided by double the percussion.

I would be remiss in not pointing out that between sets we were entertained by DJ Bczar, who also does the turntables for Another Vicious Cycle.

DJ Bczar had some serious stacks of wax with him, and spun a good number of them during the afternoon and evening.

While the bands kept me and a lot of others entertained, of more importance was the amount of money raised to help defray the expenses incurred by the Mohr family since BJ’s accident. The event itself attracted around 125 people, while the concurrent 50/50 raffle raised about $250 more. However, this doesn’t take into account other donations like what was placed in this pocket:

The fine staff at Hooters also chipped in a few bucks. Certainly they were there in spirit.

It was also a pleasure to meet several of the Mohr family members who put a lot of effort into this themselves, including the “average girl” by whose blog I first became aware of this. Hopefully I provided a wee bit of help in getting people there, but the one suggestion I would make if they need to do another fundraiser is to do it during the non-summer months. It seemed like there were just too many other competing events in OC, Rehoboth Beach, Salisbury, and elsewhere.

Once again though, yesterday was another example of good bands doing good works. It’s another reason they deserve your support and a few of your entertainment dollars.

An example of accepting a premise

To continue on a theme I started on yesterday, Newt Gingrich also weighed in on the Lieberman-Warner debacle that was stopped in the Senate yesterday by some Republicans who actually had cajones. Like me, Newt decried the idea of a huge federal government boondoggle to address the problem of global warming. But his e-mail took a worrisome turn at the end which bothered me to some extent:

One of the most intriguing and promising areas of scientific innovation today are methodologies to address concerns about global warming by something called geoengineering.

We need to know more about it, but the idea behind geoengineering is to release fine particles in or above the stratosphere that would then block a small fraction of the sunlight and thus reduce atmospheric temperature.

In other words, this is one method that holds the promise of addressing any threat from global warming at a fraction of the cost. Instead of imposing an estimated $1 trillion cost on the economy by Boxer-Warner-Lieberman, geoengineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming concerns for just a few billion dollars a year. Instead of penalizing ordinary Americans, we would have an option to address global warming by rewarding scientific innovation.

My colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute are taking a closer look at geoengineering, and we should too.

With gas prices already at record highs, the last thing America needs is government regulation that will make gas prices higher, make Americans poorer, and make special interests even richer.

We need innovation, not regulation. We need motivating incentives, not punishing pain.

I think Newt sat too long with Nancy Pelosi when he did that commercial with her. “Just” a few billion dollars a year?

Again, let’s look at the evidence that our planet is warming. Oh wait, our temperatures peaked in the 1930’s according to historical data and the most recent subpeak was in 1998. For all we truly know, we could spend a few billion a year making the cooling effects of the Maunder Minimum worse.

Maybe we need to stick with the tried-and-true. In happier news, this video heralds the delivery of 350,000 signatures to various members of Congress telling them to “drill here, drill now, and pay less”, a number that is now over 400,000 and includes my signature:

Here’s the premise we should make those on the left accept: that exploring for and refining domestic oil sources will create good-paying jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans. We don’t need a government stimulus plan, we need the government to get out of the way so we don’t trip over the bureaucracy in our efforts to boost the American economy.