July 2008 – Page 4

A guest message

I’ll add some thoughts of my own afterward, but this came to me from a friend. I’ll reveal who at the end.

“Faith – to trust in, to believe in, have confidence in, loyalty to”.

To read the papers, one would think that America is rapidly going to “hell in a hand-basket”. All we read about is the high numbers of foreclosures, while never seeing reports that 96% of all mortgage payments are being made on time.

The press, along with an uninformed public, cry out to Congress to “fix this mess”. However, in reality, the greatest scandal of the mortgage crisis is that it was an intentional loosening of underwriting standards by our government.

At the core of this “crisis” are loans made with essentially no underwriting standards – no verification of income or assets; no down payments and very little consideration of the applicant’s ability to make payments.

And who is responsible for these ill-conceived policies? It was our own U.S. Congress and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1995 that essentially ordered lending institutions, under threat of repercussions from the Justice Department, to loosen their lending policies and approve more loans.

Ironically, the one mortgage lender that followed “the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted” was none other than Countrywide Mortgage!

For Congress to chastise Countrywide and other lending institutions for the subprime mortgage situation is the ultimate act of chutzpah!

Congress is now blaming those institutions for simply doing what they were told.

The price of oil is sky-high and gasoline is pushing $5.00 per gallon while our elected representatives in Washington are standing in the way of energy independence.

This obstruction of America’s pursuit of energy independence shows a deep disrespect for and a serious loss of faith in the American spirit and American ingenuity and know-how.

America can and will develop safe and economical nuclear power. America can and will develop clean coal technology. America can and will be the leader in alternative forms of energy such as hydrogen fuel-cell technology, nuclear fusion, wind, solar, etc.

America can and will discover and extract our own petroleum reserves in an ecologically responsible way.

Congress – get out of the way and let us do it!

War is hell! The critics say that we must cut and run in Iraq. That all is lost. But there is never mention of the millions of lives saved from Saddam Hussein’s gas, or the open markets in Baghdad, or the new schools, power plants, sewage and water plants, or most importantly, the first democratically elected government in that country in decades.

Just a few short years ago, all of America, most of the members of the US Congress and most of the leaders of the free world were calling for Saddam Hussein’s ouster.

This was a man who claimed to have weapons of mass destruction, repeatedly threatened to use them and had actually unleashed them on his own people. Nearly 90% of Kurdistan villages, over 4,000, were wiped out when he used chemical weapons (mustard gas and nerve agents). In addition, if they were not killed by the chemical onslaught, they were captured and sent to detention centers where most died of starvation or dehydration.

All this was evident to the world while Saddam repeatedly refused UN inspectors into his country.

The men and women of our military understand the mission in Iraq, they see the benefits to the Iraqi people, the United States and the entire free world. They are proud to be a part of the extraordinary liberation of that country.

All of America owes them a serious debt of gratitude and we should all be as supportive and proud of the mission as they.

There are many that look to government to solve our problems. That approach could not be more wrong.

The solutions to many of our problems lie not in Washington (or in Annapolis) but in every household in America. It is time to put earnings back in the hands of the people, time to put trust back in the hands of the people, time to put America back in the hands of the people.

Many of the problems that we are dealing with at home were not caused by a misalignment of the moon or stars, erratic weather patterns or even global warming! They were caused by misguided governmental policies and a basic misunderstanding of human nature.

President Reagan’s comments are as true today as they were in 1984 – “You cannot create a desert, hand a person a cup of water and call that compassion. You cannot pour billions of dollars into make-work jobs while destroying the economy that supports them and call that opportunity. And you cannot build up years of dependence on government and dare call that hope.”

We must remember that, other than National Security, our government’s primary role is to create the environment for individuals to flourish and be able to reach their full potential.

A society of opportunity awaits us. We must only believe in ourselves and give men and women of faith, courage and vision the openings and freedom to build it.

Let the naysayers and pessimists run down America and try to punish success. Let them call you greedy, selfish, and uncaring for not wanting government to take more and more of your money.

The critics of America are wrong on taxes, national defense, free markets, individual freedoms, our place in the world and our traditional way of life.

It is time that we say no to those who keep saying no to America. It is time to say that if you do not have FAITH in America and her people, stand aside and we will get the job done!

The writer in question is the chair of the Maryland Republican Party, Dr. Jim Pelura. At the time I received this, the op-ed hadn’t been printed and insofar as I know, I’m the first to do so (and quite pleased to be the first if I indeed am.)

Editorially, this is pretty much a grand slam. We Republicans do have a set of principles that we’re supposed to follow, but lately those in the upper reaches of the party seem to want to redefine the principles to suit a particular pet program or candidate. What Dr. Pelura has expressed is more along the lines of how the grassroots of the party indeed feel. I’ll admit that I voted for his opponent when Jim ran to be party chair after the 2006 elections, but thus far Jim Pelura has won me over by actually paying attention to those of us who take the time and attempt to sway voters at the local level.

The other part of this that I truly liked was how it goes on the offensive in a tactful way – hell, it’s probably about seven times as tactful as I would put it, but I’m not really known (aside from the bloviations of a critic or two) to be one who minces words. One criticism I make about myself when I reread posts after publication is that I point out the problems or level the charge against an issue or candidate, but don’t always think through what a good alternative would be – Dr. Pelura’s op-ed brings the solution to the problem he describes to its most basic level and for that he deserves commendation.

I suspect that over the next 28 months we on the conservative side in Maryland will have a lot of easy targets to choose from in our criticism; however, the trick will be to come up with sound alternatives and not just simply and reflexively be against everything the Democrats propose (but it’s so easy! After all, this is how the Democrats have campaigned against President Bush the last 7 1/2 years. But I digress.)

What does help us in the challenges we face in Maryland and across the country is having our set of principles to work with. You know, no one has ever really told me what the principles of the Democrat Party are – generally they have some sort of pablum about being for “working families.” Well, there’s a huge number of working families at the moment crying for relief from high taxation and high energy costs – unfortunately, the party that supposedly is catering to them seems only to hear what the special interests have to say.

I think Dr. Pelura was listening to those families when he wrote his op-ed.

A time to be accountable

Welcome to those of you reading this as part of Carnival of Maryland 37. As you can guess, when I’m not playing Carnival host I focus a lot on the state, regional, and national political scene and offer up my opinions on it.

On the whole, 2008 hasn’t been the best of years for the members of the Maryland General Assembly. Consider the following incidents that have affected some of those our state has sent to Annapolis:

In early February, Delegate Robert McKee resigned after his home was searched as part of an FBI investigation into child pornography.
State Senator Nathaniel Exum was targeted in an investigation involving an auto inspection station whose license was pulled when it was alleged cars were being approved without actually being inspected.
The FBI continued to be busy with Maryland politicians when they raided the home and employer of State Senator Ulysses Currie, who’s accused of failing to report income from the Shoppers Food and Pharmacy grocery chain, where he works as a consultant.
State Senator David Brinkley was called on to resign his leadership post after it was revealed a domestic disturbance had occurred at his home.
Finally, it may be possible that Delegate Jolene Ivey tripped over some campaign finance rules when she noted that one of her interns was making fundraising calls.

Certainly members of both parties seem to be having character issues and it’s just as certain many of these issues will be brought up the next time the officeholder seeks election. Unfortunately, with all of these headlines it’s easy to lose sight of those items which they really should be responsible for – their stances on issues affecting all of us in Maryland.

Through the 2006 legislative year, there was a website tracking General Assembly votes called the Maryland Accountability Project. Each year, it was updated with ratings reflecting how a Delegate or Senator voted, with a higher rating indicating a more conservative voting record. Unfortunately, the operator of that website went into a different type of work and the site lapsed.

Today I’m announcing that I’m picking up the baton that the MAP laid down in 2007. Over the last several weeks I’ve been sifting through data and voting records to bring back those things that voters should be made aware of, particularly on issues of taxation, the balance between private property rights and environmentalism, state government spending, and a number of other issues and bills which have grabbed the headlines over the last three General Assembly sessions.

Simultaneously with the appearance of this post, there should be three new pages on the left-hand column of monoblogue, under “Internal Links”. These pages detail the votes I selected for rating, how I would have voted on the bill (which establishes the rating), and links to the files which show the voting pattern and rating for each of the Delegates and Senators who have served during the 2007-2010 term. While its obvious I have my own perspective on these issues, generally I come down on the conservative side of issues with a few twists of libertarianism thrown in. Thus, my ratings should be a pretty solid successor to the MAP system.

Like MAP, I also give out awards for the legislators and the 2007 awards are posted on the Special Session page. I’m planning on the 2008 version to be announced shortly before the General Assembly reconvenes in January.

It’s up to those on the conservative side to remind voters just who the people were that increased their taxes, spent more money on programs of dubious benefit, infringed on their private property rights, and, conversely, who made the effort to stop all this from happening. While we had some Delegates and Senators from the Democratic side who were helpful in the effort, unfortunately there were some RINO’s working the opposite way, as you’ll see. I’m hoping that a few weeks of extra research in compiling the data and writing the pages while maintaining a fairly regular work and posting schedule will pay big dividends in 2010.

In the meantime, it may be worth linking from your blog sites to these pages, allowing a handy reminder to Maryland voters about what their elected officials in Annapolis have been up to.

Just as a note to regular readers: I’m leaving this post up through tomorrow evening.

Renewing the APB for Eastern Shore bloggers

Next Sunday I’ll once again play host to the Carnival of Maryland. This will be edition number 37 and the fourth time I’ve served as home for this vagabond sampling of Maryland’s best blogosphere work. (I’ve previously hosted editions 7, 17, and 27 – see a theme there?)

I know we have a whole host of talented writers on this side of the bridge and sometimes it’s tough to attract the notice of people who read a lot of what’s on the internet. The vast majority of active blogs tend to have a readership that’s fortunate to reach three figures in a week. My totals are a little larger than that but still every little bit of exposure helps.

Nor do you have to write about politics to be featured. In the past I’ve had some outstanding submissions about nature, science, sports, history, and a variety of other subjects which weren’t political. I don’t even have to agree with them, all I ask is that they’re written reasonably well. Personally I’ve contributed to over 30 of these carnivals and no one’s complained yet about what I submitted.

So pick out your best stuff, go to the box that’s currently residing in the lower left-hand column which advertises the Carnival of Maryland, click on it and follow the instructions. Or just use this link. Ideally I’d like about 10 to 15 submissions so I can do a write-up of reasonable length about each one.

I’d also like to point out that tomorrow should will be the debut of the three pages I discussed last week, provided I find no more errors in my information or its compilation. They culminate what has been several weeks of research and work both on and off the internet – hopefully you’ll find them useful in becoming more informed about the political world. I also have another feature which may or may not won’t quite be up yet when this post comes online. (I’m told it will more likely be later in the week.) This addition will be quite apparent once I get approval for placing it on the site.

It’s all an effort to make this website more useful as a tool for research and thought, along with a batch of fun stuff that I toss in every so often to keep it lively.

Little creatures which bug me

It’s a little off the beaten path for this website, but as I write this I’m sitting outside and grilling up some brats for later consumption. Just a bit ago I grilled a couple little steaks for my supper, now I’m grilling for tomorrow. (Living by myself, it just makes sense to grill several things at once when I drag out my charcoal grill.)

The last couple times I’ve done this, I’ve noticed that the fly population in these parts seems to be exploding. I also saw this last night at a gathering I attended with some friends – it just seemed that the flies were more numerous than I’d seen before.

If you’re not familiar with the area from where I write my website, our economy depends in large part of the raising and production of broiler chickens. Chances are you’ve heard of Perdue’s brand of chicken…well, I live within walking distance of their headquarters and not far from there is one of Perdue’s many processing plants. Obviously all that animal waste is quite the draw for flies, although Perdue does try to minimize its effects as much as they can.

Similarly, the other chicken processors in the area seem to be pretty good about taking care of their waste products. In part this is required by the states of Delaware and Maryland, but I think the main reason is just to be good neighbors to those who live and work in my adopted hometown and its surrounding area.

So I can’t see this as a reason why the flies are so numerous, as the chicken plants have been operating for years and serve as a constant in my search for a cause. Nor is it something which is caused by my neighbors since we generally keep tidy yards and for the most part subscribe to various refuse collection services who provide us with the large, 90 gallon trash cans with attached lids.

This leaves two possible factors: one being weather and the other being a possible food source which I haven’t accounted in my figurings. This summer has been relatively normal insofar as I can tell, perhaps a bit rainier than the average. (Seemingly the rain comes according to our baseball schedule because I’ve been to probably 10 Delmarva Shorebirds games this season during which I’ve been rained on to one degree or another, not counting the games that never got underway because of rain or wet grounds.) However, while rainy weather does tend to bring out mosquitoes I haven’t been tormented by them this summer, even when I forget the repellent.

I’m beginning to wonder then if it’s not a problem of society that is increasing the housefly population. This may sound quite odd, so let me explain.

Our society is a throwaway society. It’s not every day that I have to do this, but a couple times a week I have to pick up some sort of trash which came out of a car driving along the road in front of my house. Living on a state highway there’s plenty of traffic and not everyone is conscientious about not littering. Then there’s the much larger highway that runs about 1/4 mile from my house which also attracts the debris of modern society – pop and beer cans, plastic containers, bags from fast food restaurants, and the like. With more and more people consuming food on the run, maybe the cumulative effect is increasing the fly population and decreasing the enjoyment I derive from eating al fresco.

So I’m kind of curious about whether this is a problem that others in far-flung regions of the country are encountering this summer or if it’s just those of us on the Delmarva Peninsula who seem to be constantly shooing off the pesky little critters. In the meantime, I’m going to have to remember when I stop by the store tomorrow to buy a couple no-pest strips.

Happy Independence Day!

Hopefully all of you who read this are in the midst of a happy and safe 4th of July. Right now I’m working on those pages I promised today, but I’m not quite sure I’ll have them ready in time for publication before I leave to celebrate with some friends. It’s a bummer because I thought the Fourth of July was an appropriate date for putting them up but they also have to be right factually and I missed one item on fact-checking.

So I’ll have them up as soon as I can; meanwhile the politicking goes on. From Andy Harris:

Ronald Reagan once said, “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”. As Americans around the country come together to celebrate Independence Day, we are reminded once again of our nation’s unparalleled freedom and opportunity for its citizens. The United States has always shone as a beacon of hope and continues to do so today. Our nation was founded by and continues to thrive on the hard work, dedication and faith of those who saw America as a land of opportunity for all, regardless of status, wealth or nationality.

My parents immigrated to the United States to flee Communism with nothing but the hope of a better life for themselves and their children. By legally becoming American citizens and embracing the values and work ethic of the U.S. they succeeded. Now here I am an anesthesiologist, husband and father of five, US Navy veteran, state senator and my party’s nominee for the United States Congress. God Bless America.

All this needs is the Lee Greenwood soundtrack behind it. Then again, I’m more partial to Metallica’s “Don’t Tread On Me” as a patriotic tune.

Regardless, it’s actually quite inspiring to know that a number of naturalization ceremonies take place on or about the Fourth of July. Apparently many who wish to become citizens like to declare their own independence on the same day we declared ours.

So once again have a great day, don’t hurt yourself doing fireworks (we need no more reasons for the nanny staters to hold our hands and say “leave the fireworks to the professionals”) and I’ll be back doing this tomorrow.

Shorebird of the Week – July 3, 2008

Normally I like to have two pictures of my Shorebird of the Week, but it’s his performance thus far this season which gives the camera-shy Luis Noel the nod for the honors this time around. The lanky Dominican righthander is tied for the team lead with seven wins at this juncture and in 15 starts has managed to allow just 61 hits in 78 1/3 innings. Perhaps his 39 walks are a little troubling, but 11 of those came in his last two outings, both against Hagerstown. It’s one of those stretches a promising young pitcher goes through, and the 20 year old, who signed with the Orioles organization in 2006, certainly qualifies for both adjectives.

Essentially Luis jumped a level this year to play on his first full season team. He did appear in 3 games for Aberdeen last season and was knocked around to the tune of 10 earned runs and 4 home runs in just 7 innings of work there, but most of his time was spent with the lowest Oriole farm club, their entry in the complex-based Gulf Coast League. There he was 6-2, 3.18 in 15 appearances (11 starts.) His solid start for Delmarva appears to have allowed him to stay for the duration; although like some other young pitchers who have come through in recent years he may have his innings limited later this season in order to keep his arm healthy. This generally has happened at about the 100 inning mark, a point Noel should hit around the end of this month.

The challenge for him in the meantime is to work his way out of this minor setback with his control that has bedeviled Luis the last two times out. Seeing different opponents over the next few weeks may be of some help in that department, but on the whole Luis Noel looks like another in a solid crop of promising pitchers the Orioles have managed to acquire in recent seasons.

Sprucing up the site

After looking at this site over the last 2 1/2 years and maintaining the same template for much of that time, I think it’s time to make a few changes. However, at least for the time being I’m going to keep the same template but rearrange some items and perhaps take advantage of some new opportunities which have been laid before me.

When I upgraded the site to WordPress 2.5, I found out that it changed my link list in two ways I don’t care for – they became alphabetized rather than random and the descriptions became items only visible when one’s mouse hovers over them. All the while, the other beef I had with this particular template was that my link categories also appeared alphabetically, which made me have to be creative in order to arrange items as I wished.

What I think I’m going to play with over the next few days and weeks is reordering the site to place my political items in the left-hand column, manually rewriting the code for links if I have to, and keep the non-political links and items to the right column. I’m also going to expand the scope of linkages to include more races (which is why I want to be able to determine the ordering myself) and begin working on additional pages for items I’d like to maintain for readers’ easy reference. (I’m working on three new pages which will debut tomorrow.)

Now maybe there’s some code wizard out there who can tell me how to do this and make my life easier, but failing that possibility I’ve managed to make this venerable template work thus far and I think I can squeeze a little more life out of it. At some point in the next year I’m sure I’ll go to a new look, although I’ll probably keep a similar color scheme. No hot pink here.

The commentary will remain the same, though – even though some may find it boring and/or call me stupid, people still come here to read it and they’re not looking for the proverbial 14-car pileup.

I do feel a little bit snubbed, though. In an otherwise well-written and thoughtful five-part series on the state of Maryland blogs on the Maryland Politics Watch site (as an example, here’s part 5), writer Adam Pagnucco looked at readership on the conservative side in Part 3 and didn’t include me! In truth, I think I had my Site Meter data hidden for part of that period and that’s probably why. I can safely say that my totals for May would fall in between the Howard County blog and Annapolis Politics, numerically a little closer to the former. My peak would have been earlier – thanks to the Rushalanche last October – and I think that number would rival the other two five-digit figures shown (but make my May dropoff look that much more severe.)

Anyway, aside from not chaining the parts together for easier reference, Adam has put together a nice brief overview of Maryland’s blog world worth checking out as a primer.

Attracting notice across the border

While the border in question is just about five miles north of me, thanks to my friend Elbert (who “stumbled” onto the post I’ll refer to) I’ve found out that our First District race is attracting commentary in Delaware as well; specifically at the Delaware Liberal website. However, writer “delawaredem” couches his (or her) argument around the fact that the Club For Growth supported Andy Harris when he toppled longtime incumbent Congressman Wayne Gilchrest back in February, so the wish was for the Club to “train their self destructive lasers on (Delaware at-large Congressman) Mike Castle.” It’s a supposition that anyone the Club For Growth deems worthy of the seat would be too conservative for Delaware voters to elect. Of course, delawaredem forgot to throw in the Eagle Forum, which has become a favorite whipping boy of Harris’s Democrat opponent Frank Kratovil. Both organizations stand firmly on the conservative side of the spectrum; naturally, they’d want more in Congress who are in tune with their views. Certainly delawaredem would prefer someone who has the favor of George Soros, moveon.org, Emily’s List, and like groups.

Being on the periphery of the state, I know only enough about Delaware politics to be dangerous to myself. However, one complaint levied by commentors on the Delaware Liberal post was that Mike Castle, like Wayne Gilchrest here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, hadn’t done a tremendous amount for the Delaware GOP. Given the fact that the field for the 2008 Governor’s race on the Republican side in Delaware originally featured the same players who slugged out the 2004 bid to unseat Governor Ruth Ann Minner, the criticism may be a valid one. Similarly to Maryland, the electoral politics in the First State is dominated by one small geographic area of the state and the rest suffers because of this oppressive tyranny of the majority.

Further restraining the growth of the Delaware GOP are instances where their caucus cannot remain united to accomplish the goals they can attain. The most recent example is failing to override Governor Minner’s veto of eminent domain reform, a move that greatly disappointed the property rights advocacy group Castle Coalition. With property rights being a pet issue for me as well, that little news item piqued my interest and apparently Delaware government retains its free rein to take property as needed for the purely fiscal purpose of increasing the local taxation base.

Returning to my original point, I have to wonder why the Club For Growth instills so much fear in liberal circles. To be sure, those of the progressive stripe have the own club for growth but as I alluded to in the last paragraph, that growth involves the amount of power and influence government at all levels exerts over one’s life. Furthermore, the ideological “purity” that the Club is being tagged for definitely extends across the aisle to the Democrat side – remember, this is the party that dropped its support of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman just six years removed from being their Vice-Presidential nominee because he didn’t follow the liberal orthodoxy on the Long War (e.g. “Bush lied, people died.”) Nor can you get too far on a national level in that party if you’re pro-life or in favor of school choice, for example.

I think what bothers the left most about those candidates who have gained the support of the Club For Growth is that they’re not really Washington insiders. While it remains to be seen how things will bear out with candidates the Club supports if they’re elected, these hopefuls seem like the type who aren’t going inside the Beltway to amass a power base and probably loathe the place and process enough that they wouldn’t want to be there unless they had to be. Quite simply, they’re not angling to be part of the DC culture, and fortunately for State Senator Harris he lives close enough that, while maybe not commuting daily, he would have ample opportunities to get out into the district on a regular basis and stay grounded with real people conducting real lives.

It truly is unfortunate that those who live just a few miles north of me in Delaware apparently won’t have a real conservative choice for Congress as we do here across the Mason-Dixon Line. As in Maryland, the GOP needs to work back to the grassroots level and begin holding the Democrats accountable for the taxes they raise, the private-sector jobs they fail to retain, the schools where academics start to slip because kids are being taught improper environmentalism rather than proper English, and how all of this comes at the expense of those counties who see through the slick packaging liberals try to sell them and vote for limited government.

All this can be done, as evidenced by a governor of some repute you folks in Delaware had a couple decades ago named Pete DuPont. Something tells me that had the organization been around in that era, the Club For Growth may have supported him too.

Crossposted at That’s Elbert With An E.

Grounds for celebration

Perhaps the era of Big Coffee is over. For much of the last two decades Starbucks has become a staple in the lives of many Americans who didn’t mind paying big bucks for their caffeine fix – but yesterday it was announced that they’ll shutter 600 underperforming stores.

Personally, I don’t think I’ve been inside a Starbucks more than twice in my life and I think both times I got hot chocolate or something along that line. I’ve never been a coffee drinker so don’t look for me to shed many tears over the demise of a company that came of age at just about the same time the Seattle grunge movement supplanted 80’s hair band rock. Neither of those two developments were welcomed with open arms by me, although I will admit to liking Nirvana much more than those power ballads that the hair band movement had descended to. Nirvana jumped the shark when they were among the first to do an “unplugged” concert – me, I like plugged and loud.

Anyway, this decision by the coffee company could open up all sorts of opportunities for entrepreneurs who want to secure space in relatively new buildings or leaseholds, as many of the stores being closed had only opened in the last two years. (That brings a little bit of joy to my heart too, as long as the clients can pay up.) However, it also puts the proverbial Starbucks barista (an art history major with a nose ring and snooty attitude) in a position where he or she needs to find a real job.

While I don’t think Starbucks will go the way of green stamps or New Coke anytime soon, it’s another reminder that frills are the first to go in an economy that’s barely showing growth. A gallon of gas is a much more important use of $4 than a large cup of coffee.

Another voice on energy

Last week the man who should have been governor of my native state wrote an op-ed in the New York Sun on a subject occupying the mind of most Americans – expensive energy. (This came to me courtesy of the Club For Growth – I like being on their e-mail list!)

I’m going to pick the piece up about halfway through, when writer Ken Blackwell starts on this point:

The McCain and Bush plans aim to meet our domestic energy needs, and eventually move us away from foreign suppliers. Right now, the world consumes almost 86.4 million barrels of oil per day, and only produces 86.5 million barrels. America consumes about 20 million barrels a day. That tightness of supply and demand accounts for most of the runaway prices. The supply numbers are staggering. There are at least 18 billion barrels of oil under the continental shelf, and possibly as much as 95 billion. Tens of billions more are found in various states nationwide.

But the mother lode is in shale rock. It’s estimated that the Saudis have about 260 billion barrels under their sand. By comparison, with current technology, we can safely recover more than 800 billion barrels of the estimated 7 trillion barrels of oil in the shale rock from the Rocky Mountains. That means that current technology could give us more than three times the entire national resources of oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

Extracting oil from shale rock only recently has become economically feasible. It costs about $70 per barrel to extract and make the oil usable. When oil was $18 a barrel that would have been crazy. But at $138 a barrel, it’s a bargain. And American companies can make money by supplying our nation’s need, and lowering costs for all of us in the process.

Speaking of profits, don’t buy into this tax-the-company mentality. If people want to criticize how much oil executives are paid, that’s one thing. But the profits go to you and me. Almost two-thirds of oil-company stock is owned by mutual funds and pension funds. That means taxing those profits would decrease the return on your 401k or IRA. And most of those pension funds serve union members. So taxing those profits would hurt middle- and working-class Americans. That’s unacceptable.

Not to mention the fact I own a infinitely small piece of Big Oil myself – I don’t even think my dividends could fill up my gas can, let alone my tank. However, the larger point Blackwell makes in this segment of his op-ed is that market economics works. Obviously bringing this production of oil shale on line will impact the price of crude oil itself, almost certainly driving down the price as crude oil-producing nations try to bring it into competition with the price of shale. To them, they would need to get the per-barrel price under $70 to bring back a competitive advantage, while at the same time more efficiencies in the nascent oil shale technology would in turn promise to cheapen its cost.

All along, my point on once again encouraging domestic oil exploration and production has been more along the lines of creating good-paying jobs, with the side benefit of driving down prices to a more manageable level. As I brought up last night about manufacturing, increased transport costs are slowly driving manufacturing jobs back to our shores and the pace might increase if we can more cheaply supply our own energy, instead of importing millions and millions of barrels of foreign oil. In turn, cheaper energy costs free up more money for consumers to spend and improve their lifestyles – soon we’ll have a country where once again people will believe that their offspring will have a better life than they did.

On the other side of the coin are those who wish us to achieve energy “independence” through conservation and regulation, with a heaping dose of subsidies on the side. While a lot of them arrange their lifestyle in such a manner to use less energy, those who have the political power to dictate to the rest of us how we should live don’t tend to emulate that spartan lifestyle. One recent news item that was buried by the partisan media was that Al Gore, despite spending thousands to curtail his energy use, now uses 10% more energy at his Tennessee home.

As well, much to-do was made last year when the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota brought attention to crumbling highway infrastructure, but little attention has been given to our energy infrastructure as it ages and becomes less efficient. It’s predicted that Maryland could be suffering brownouts as early as 2011 if more isn’t done to address the problem; unfortunately oppressive environmental regulations make constructing new power lines or pipelines difficult. Again, the opportunity for creation of good-paying jobs is lost because the balance of power between environmentalism and capitalism is well off center. We need to restore the primacy of man over nature because it is possible for both to benefit if energy is harvested and transmitted in a sound, common-sense manner.

We are Americans, we can accomplish this goal. After all, we set our minds to landing on the moon and made that happen so why not a place a focus on the task of using those resources we’ve been blessed with to accomplish much more than conservation or regulation ever could?

Update on an earlier post

I meant to bring this up earlier during the weekend but other posts took a little more precedence. As I posted on Thursday the group Move America Forward had the internet streamathon dubbed “From the Front Lines”, designed to raise money to use for care packages for our soldiers abroad. I chipped in for one myself, but thousands of others also gave to the tune of $1.055 million. That’s not a bad haul for 8 hours of work and by my figurings of a bulk rate for each package should bring them thisclose to their goal of 100,000 care packages.

However, the drive isn’t over, there’s one more day to donate at the Move America Forward site. Obviously it goes to a good cause.

I also spent a part of my Thursday night working on future monoblogue items with the internet stream in the background. Admittedly it wasn’t the prettiest of television but as I tracked the show there remained a constant 2,000 to 3,000 viewers so the audience may have reached upward of 50,000 who watched at least part of the show – not bad for a first effort on the internet. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the segment where Rush Limbaugh appeared because that should have drawn at least a five-figure viewership. He tends to be an audience magnet, as I’ve found out on a prior occasion.

What this may have blazed a path for are grassroots fundraising efforts from smaller, heretofore unknown groups like MAF. Obviously, this was the first one I was aware of that was on the Ustream website, perhaps there were others. But given the success of MAF’s effort, look for more of the same from this group.

In case you’re wondering just what gets sent to our fighting folks, here’s a description from MAF:

The care packages will include a mix of goodies from home and personal comfort items including: Gatorade, beef jerky, ground coffee, cookies, sunblock, personal electric fans, insect repellant, foot powder, wet wipes, deodorant/antiperspirant, lip balm, music cds, and specially packaged bags of Jelly Belly jelly beans – for U.S. troops to hand out to the children of Iraq & Afghanistan as part of a “Candy Diplomacy” program.

Meanwhile, I hope the troops enjoy the goodies we’re collectively sending to them and those care packages help our fighting men and women get back home safely and victoriously.