Gore Still An Energy Hog -- 10% Increase, Now Equals 232 Homes!

In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.”A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

DKK

Watts Up With That -- Giant Sucking Sound

McCain Announced Support For Outer Continental Shelf Drilling -- Congress Still Prefers High Gas Prices

John McCain and Barack Obama both made news today. McCain announced his support for lifting the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf drilling.
(...)

UPDATE: When it comes to drilling, we have a ways to go to catch up with the Brazilians. Fausta notes another mammoth Brazilian offshore strike.

Personally, I'd like to see the United States remain the number one economic power in the Western Hemisphere, but this is not foreordained. If Brazil's Congress is smarter than ours, as it certainly is at the moment, we are at a huge disadvantage.

DKK
Power Line -- Two Small Steps Forward

Where's Obama's Bounce?

Obama: Still no bounce

DKK

In Spite Of Obama;s Fabled Judgment™ -- The Surge worked

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s forced to admit that he was wrong about Iraq — and Republican Sen. John McCain was right.

Obama told reporters that he spoke on the phone with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar zebari.

“I emphasized to him how encouraged I was by the reductions in violence in Iraq but also insisted that it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops, making it clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq,” Obama said.

In other words the Surge worked.

Had we listened to Obama, the troops would have been home 3 months ago and there would have been a bloodbath that would make the fall of Saigon look like kindergarten.

There’s your change.

Your chump change.

DKK

Don Surber -- The Surge Worked

Obama, Governor Rod, Rezko, And Iraqi Criminal/Insurgent Supporter

Nibraz Kazimi at the Talisman Gate has this latest awful news for the Obama Campaign.
The Messiah better work a miracle and keep this one out of the mainstream media's hands.
Talsiman Gate reported:

Ayham Alsammarae, Iraq’s slimy ex-Minister of Electricity under the Bremer and Allawi administrations, who had escaped from an Iraqi prison by hiring an American security company to break him out back in December 2006, has resurfaced in the Jordanian capital Amman where he gave a press conference today saying, among other things, that he hoped that the insurgency in Iraq “would continue [against U.S. occupation] and avenges the Iraqi people.”

Alsammarae, an Iraqi-American Chicagoan, added during remarks carried by Radio Sawa (Arabic link) that he had contributed the maximum allowable of $2,300 to Barack Obama’s campaign.

But there’s another Obama link to Alsammarae: while serving as electricity minister Alsammarae had been involved in brokering deals in the Iraqi electricity sector for Antoin Rezko, Obama’s long-term friend and patron. Rezko is the Syrian-American hustler who was convicted of fraud in an Illinois court on the day that Obama secured the Democratic nomination.

There is much more at Talisman Gate.
(...)
BIG--- UPDATE: Alsammarae was seen partying at the Rezko residence with Illinois Democratic Governor Blagojevich and Rezko buddy Nadhmi Auchi, via Illinoize in 2004:

DKK
Gateway Pundit -- Hope?... Obama Ex-con Supporter & Rezko Buddy Wants US Troops Dead ...BIG UPDATE!!

Success -- Troop Reduction -- Media Questions Public

Meanwhile, the AP not only notes significant progress in Iraq, but actually (get this) kinda-sorta wonders why the public hasn't taken note of it.

Signs are emerging that Iraq has reached a turning point. Violence is down, armed extremists are in disarray, government confidence is rising and sectarian communities are gearing up for a battle at the polls rather than slaughter in the streets.

Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States, where the war-weary public is focused on the American presidential contest and skeptical of talk of success after so many years of unfounded optimism by the war's supporters.

That's rich. The MSM has reduced its coverage of the war by ninety-two percent over the past year, conveniently since the US has been winning the war, and AP blames the lack of public attention on the public itself.

DKK
Ace Of Spades HQ -- Bush Announces Over-the-Horizon Redeployment of 34,000 Troops Out Of Iraq

Bush Triumphant In Europe

Real leaders know George Walker Bush is great.

The sniping from the left aside, Bush is one of the best presidents ever.

His tour of Europe shows that.

He stood up to terrorism and made the world safer.

Other world leaders know this. They appreciate the leadership that America again is showing the free world.

See the post by Don Surber for the list of honors and accomplishments, he continues:

History will record that the American Left which rooted for defeat in Iraq was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The world is safer because of George Bush and not just the false sense of security that it pretended it had in the 9/10 world.

That was why he was re-elected by 3 million people — one of the largest victories in American history. His 62 million votes were 15 million more than Bill Clinton ever received.

n the 9/12 world, Bush risked his political career to protect America and the free world.

Europe thanks him.

DKK

Don Surber -- Peer Review

Seek And Ye Shall Find -- Brazil Discovers Another New Oil Field

The Brazilians must have been reading Luke 11:9

Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Knock, knock:

BG, Petrobras Find More Oil in Brazil's Santos Basin BG Group Plc, the U.K.'s third-largest oil and gas company, and Petroleo Brasileiro SA made a second discovery in Brazil's Santos Basin.

The Guara exploration well struck oil in the BM-S-9 concession area, according to the partners, which also include Repsol YPF SA. That's in the same block as the Carioca discovery in September, which Brazil's petroleum regulator said may contain as many as 33 billion barrels of oil.

DKK
Fausta's Blog

Iran Moves To Safeguard $75 Billion From Sanctions

Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Western powers are warning the Islamic Republic of more punitive measures if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is showing no sign of backing down.

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

DKK

Reuters

The Associated Press Bites The Hand That Feeds Them

The stories over the weekend were bad enough - the Associated Press, with a long history of suing over quotations from their articles, went after Drudge Retort for having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions. Drudge Retort is doing nothing different than what Digg, TechMeme, Mixx and dozens of other sites do, and frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be considered a favor.

After heavy criticism over the last few days, the A.P. is in damage control mode, says the NYTimes, and retreating from their earlier position. But from what I read, they’re just pushing their case further.

They do not want people quoting their stories, despite the fact that such activity very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law. They claim that the activity is an infringement.

Many blogs are not linking to AP stories, preferring to link to the original source or another news service such as AFP or Reuters.

This is an interesting test of the business model the AP and other traditional media outlets have set up. I have no idea how they think they can get around fair use, but even more curious is how they think they are going to get around making money via hits.

As Tech central continued:

The A.P. doesn’t get to make it’s own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it’s clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content.

So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.

DKK

Tech Central --Here's Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They're Banned

Weekly Update RRStar Stats June 16, 2008

The content of the RRStar (online Rockford Register Star) blogs have an overwhelmingly liberal slant in both content, links, and quantity.

I established this blog in an attempt to provide Rockford with political balance and to demonstrate the type and quality of content the RRStar could offer to its readers.

Checking the stats of their political blogs it is clear that they need more of a balanced portfolio of political blogs.

Again, here are the political blogs available at the RRStar:

Applesauce is a prolific far left blog that addresses national issues. The content is mainly composed of links to the left wing of the blogosphere along with a short quips, photo, and video content. Occasionally there are longer posts that include opinions on the items linked. Comments are quickly answered, often with another quip.

In Chambers is a blog that covers Illinois state politics. It appears to be right of center but that could be the result of its adversarial nature to the current state administration. There is no real interaction in the comments.

Sweeny Report is a blog written by the Political Editor of the Register Star. Postings are sporadic, concentrating on local, state and national issues and are mainly short thoughts on events with few links.

Why We Vote is a group blog consisting of the thoughts of the members of the Register Star's voters opinion panel. The posts are mostly left of center (including those from the independents to date). The conservative member who was posting, sadly, passed away recently.

The Stats for June 1, 2008 through June 15, 2008:

* Applesauce 29 posts with 27 out links 5 YouTube.
* In Chambers 4 posts with 7 out links 0 YouTube.
* Sweeny Report 3 posts with 0 out links 0 YouTube.
* Why We Vote 0 posts (0 left, 0 right, 0 center) 0 out links 0 YouTube.

Totals since I started counting March 27, 2008 through June 15, 2008:

* Applesauce 290 posts with 373 out links 71 YouTube.
* In Chambers 47 posts with 287 out links 1 YouTube.
* Sweeny Report 64 posts with 20 out links 1 YouTube.
* Why We Vote 32 posts (28 left, 1 right, 4 center) 1 out links 0 YouTube.



If your interested in balance in the RRStar blogs keep coming back and let the RRStar know.
DKK

Misunderstanding And Empowering Speculation -- We CAN Drill Our Way Out

Over the past few weeks I have heard an increasing meme that speculation is what has driven up the price of oil.

While it is true a portion of the price increase has been strictly profit driven, "speculators," the majority of the speculation is warranted by the supply and demand in the markets. The profit driven speculation is only feasible because of the artificial restrictions we have placed on oil supplies.

In the current oil market unreasonable speculation is simply a symptom of the problem. That problem being the lack of a stable supply of crude oil.

Current oil production levels are virtually identical to demand with very little excess capacity available in the event of an interruption. Political instability, weather hazards, refinery breakdowns, terror attacks, kidnapping/attacks on oil platforms and hostage taking, and other interruptions in production increase the risk that oil supply will not be able to meet the demand in the future.

That is where the market comes in. If you are a large consumer of oil you purchase futures contracts, offering to buy oil in the future, at a set price that the seller has to deliver at that price -- no matter what interruptions occur between now and then. In order to make a profit traders have to build in a premium in the cost of oil to offset that ever increasing risk.

Increasing domestic production -- Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less -- would greatly reduce much of the speculation by mitigating many of the uncertainties. From the list above, if you developed domestic supply in various regions of the US (Both coasts, Rocky Mountains, Alaska, Plains) you would mitigate the major effects of weather, political instability, terror attacks, attacks on platforms, and many other interruptions because there would be additional supplies from the remaining stable US regions. Increasing refining capacity would help mitigate the effects of refinery breakdowns.

This fundamental misunderstanding of the oil markets and the refusal of the Democrats to allow increased energy production has empowered the speculators in ways not seen since the markets began trading, resulting in a direct increase in the price of gasoline. The Democrat's tactic of deflecting blame to the oil companies only serves to increase the speculation as additional restrictions and increased taxes on domestic oil producers historically leads to reduced domestic production. (Interestingly as the polls show less people blame the oil companies the debate is shifting to speculators!)

Pelosi, Reid, and crew keep repeating that we can't drill our way out of this, but they are just as wrong and misinformed about this as they were 14 months ago when Reid declared the surge a failure.
DKK

Have You Seen The Price Of Arugula?

It's Not Race, It's Arugula
Obama's real electoral challenge.

DKK
Weekly Standard -- Noemie Emery

Che And Obama -- What A Couple!

So, you have to love the photograph of the liberal Ohio judge who declared the death penalty as administered in that state unconstitutional. Is he a Communist who happens to support Barack Obama in the absence of actual Communists, or an Obama liberal who sees nothing wrong in promoting a Communist murderer? It is difficult to know which. The question is, why do we keep seeing Obama supporters who revere Che Guevara?

DKK
Tigerhawk -- Background Noise

Why Are Conservatives Nicer More Generous?

Don't listen to the liberals - Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows

George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. 'One sometimes gets the impression,' he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, 'that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England'.

Orwell was making an observation. But today a whole body of academic research shows he was correct: your politics influence the manner in which you live your life. And the news is not so good for those on the political Left.

There is plenty of data that shows that Right-wingers are happier, more generous to charities, less likely to commit suicide - and even hug their children more than those on the Left.

(...)

The culprit here is not those on the Left who embrace progressive ideas but the ideas themselves.

As John Maynard Keynes reminds us: 'The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and wrong, are more powerful than commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.' Or, as the American theorist Richard Weaver once declared: 'Ideas have consequences.'

And it seems that today modern progressive ideas can often bring out the worst in people.

Read all the studies and examples.

DKK

The Mail Online

Internet Radio Fight -- Manzullo Pushes Solution

The creator of the nation’s largest Internet radio station, Pandora, visited with Congressman Don Manzullo this week to thank him and discuss the next steps in the fight to save online music from its impending demise.

Tim Westergren, who launched the free Internet radio station in 2005 and now boasts more than 11 million listeners, came to Manzullo’s office earlier this week to discuss the importance of the Internet Radio Equality Act (HR 2060), which Manzullo and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) introduced last year. The bill, which maintains the strong bipartisan support of 149 cosponsors, would vacate a Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision last year to triple royalty rates Internet radio stations must pay and instead put the rates at parity with satellite and cable radio.

(...)

Representative Don Manzullo

I wrote about this here on my LifeTrek blog when the bill was first introduced.

DKK

WaPo -- What The Heck, Dems?

(T)he Iraqi prime minister was saying that his country does not want to become an Iranian satellite but an independent Arab state that would look to the United States to ensure its security.

This would seem to be an obvious U.S. gain in what, according to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as well as President Bush, is the urgent task of countering Iran's attempt to dominate the Middle East. It means that Iraq, a country with the world's second largest oil reserves and a strategic linchpin of the Middle East, just might emerge from the last five years of war and turmoil as an American ally, even if its relations with Iran remain warm.

So it's hard to fathom why Democrats in Congress have joined Ayatollah Khamenei in denouncing the U.S.-Iraqi agreements even before they are written. Critics such as Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) are professing to be outraged that the Bush administration might be forging a relationship with Iraq "that parallels the Korea-Japan history," as Mr. Webb put it. They claim to be shocked by the suggestions of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that U.S. forces might remain in Iraq for decades without controversy if they did not suffer casualties, as has happened in Japan and South Korea. Yet the U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea have been among the most successful in this nation's history. While building a similar bond with Iraq may prove impossible, it's hard to understand why Democrats would oppose it in principle.

DKK

Washington Post -- A Partnership With Iraq

1 to 10 -- Democrats Responsible for Gas Prices

This started out as an attempt to create a light and humorous, Letterman-esque Top 10 list. But the items on the list, and the drain Americans are seeing in their pocketbooks because of Democrats' actions (sometimes inaction) are just too tragic for that.

Read and keep this one, it will come in handy during debates with Democrats in the future.
DKK
American Thinker -- Top 10 reasons to blame Democrats for soaring gasoline prices

There's No There There

Until then, here's an audacious hope. When you listen to Obama's rhetoric you may think: I'd have to be born yesterday to believe this! No taxpayer could buy into the notion that this is

...the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,

or that college is a "privilege for the wealthy few," not when government in the United States spend north of $900 billion a year each on health care and education.

Maybe there's a clue here. Maybe Obama is the candidate for people born yesterday and the people that don't pay taxes. For the rest of us, the meaning of Obama seems to be symbolized in his ubiquitous "O" logo. He seems to add up not to "change," not to "unity," but to a Big Zero.

DKK
American Thinker -- The Big O

Rock River To Crest Tuesday?

River levels rose again Sunday and will continue to do so today before cresting Tuesday, forecasters anticipate.

The advancing water has caused dozens to evacuate their homes, closed roads and washed out weekend fun.

There were 23 people housed at the Red Cross disaster shelter at Harlem High School by about 1 p.m. Sunday, and more were anticipated to arrive.

DKK
RRStar -- River expected to keep rising