the far corner

Remember the three American hikers that accidentally wandered into Iran and were subsequently arrested on trumped-up espionage charges?  Well, we’re approaching the one-year anniversary of their incarceration.  Visit the site, sign the petition, write a letter, or buy some gear to support them.  This is one of those political issues where there is no gray area.  No red, no blue.  Let’s just get those people the hell out of there.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/05/al-franken-gets-serious.html

Paul Krugman always has something poignant to contribute to our national conversion.  Case in point.

It’s in our nature as a people to know what we’re talking about and be able to tell others what we know.  We like to brandish our knowledge the way our ancestor Caveman Bob paraded a freshly killed boar before his friends and neighbors.

We are also, as a rule, lazy.  Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t our fault, exactly.  Do you think Caveman Bob travelled one foot farther than necessary to snuff his quarry?  Doubtful.

So what are our options?  Politicians, especially during campaign season, are especially available.  They are omnipresent on TV and the internets, not to mention print.  And they are so darn smart.  Really, Senator McCain?  Drilling offshore and in ANWR will bring gas prices back down?  Immediately?  You’re my guy.  Oh, hang on.  Senator Obama?  McCain’s full of shit?  Oil exploration will have no effect for 10-20 years?  I knew it.  You’re my guy.  I think.

You can also listen to the pundits – pick one. Right-leaning?  Drill!  Left?  Save the Arctic Wolf!

What about the dot orgs?  Surely they answer to no one.  But try to find one that doesn’t drip with parsimony and it’s own fundamentalist agenda.  Seriously.  Try to find one.  Then send it to me.

As Winston Churchill said, “When we don’t travel very far for our knowledge, we gets us some shitty knowledge.”  He didn’t really say that, but he should have.  Bob the Caveman could probably walk 10 feet out of his cave and kill a rodent for a meager supper.  But if he wanted to sustain himself, he would have to travel farther afield.  And so we must.

A few months ago, I tore through a book called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything.  It got me thinking.  Would an economist be able to help us understand this?  Check out this bit of light reading to help bring your blood pressure down.  Steven Levitt, Freakonomics co-author, also has some interesting thoughts on gas prices (grain of salt, please).

(Sidenote: Don’t let the above paragraph convince you for a second that I don’t believe there’s a problem.  In fact, I read a great article in the Star Trib a couple weeks ago that I heartily agree with, and to which my best friend Jake was kind enough to provide a link.)

The most recent culprit implicated in rising oil prices has been the Speculator.  A speculator is just an investor who essentially bets on whether oil prices will rise or fall.  In our case, these investors have been betting that the price will go higher.  But they never buy a drop of real oil.  The idea is that prices go up when speculators bet on high prices because oil producers are more likely to hoard their supplies in anticipation of higher future prices.  However, there isn’t evidence that this is happening.  Paul Krugman, in a NY Times opinion piece, compares the rise in oil price to that of iron ore:

… iron ore isn’t traded on a global exchange; its price is set in direct deals between producers and consumers.  So there’s no easy way to speculate on ore prices.  Yet the price of iron ore, like that of oil, has surged over the past year… the price that Chinese steel makers pay to Australian mines has jumped 96 percent.

The free market has a lot to do with the price of oil.  I agree that oil producing nations control the flow of oil, and price is a function of supply and demand.  That being said, it’s hard to argue against the idea that conservation is needed in order to guarantee our continued high standard of living.  Do we really believe that the U.S. could control itself if gas dropped back to $2 a gallon?  Within a week we would all be road-tripping to the opposite end of the country in our brand new Hummers, amnesia of our recent pain promptly and reliably kicking in.

So, what’s the point?  The point is, both our Still-President and LifeAfterTheOilCrash are probably oversimplifying things.  Fundamentalist ideas are low-hanging fruit; easy answers for a time-starved populous.  A Star Trib editorial today summarizes the debate neatly.  The last paragraph is a cool clear glass of common sense.

Rice University expert Kenneth Medlock has it right when he states that the nation needs a “portfolio” of solutions as it shifts to renewables. Nuclear energy and what may be the most potent tool of all — conservation by consumers — should all be part of a countrywide conversation on energy as the presidential election draws near. Offshore drilling isn’t a panacea, but its potential role in the nation’s transitional energy portfolio deserves thoughtful deliberation.

Discuss.

The Bster is out of town for a couple of days and my inner lion, as is its custom, has come out of its cage.  This consists typically of scandalously eating nothing but fish (which is not my lovely wife’s bag) and watching horror movies.  Last night’s feature was Oscar-would-be Saw IV.  I laughed.  I cried.  You get the drift.

As a backdrop to the conduct of these underground vices, I have kept our nation’s political goings-on in my periphery.  I normally wouldn’t deign to comment on these much ados, but I’m seeing a cornucopia of disparate issues that, together, bear the dropping of my opinion, at least in this personal venue.

I am a 24-hour news junky, principally getting my fix from CNN.  That particular network is the least annoying to me.  That being said… Jesus Christ.  We have real issues to be concerned with, but the various 24-hour news networks, for ratings-related purposes, distill these issues into populist-palatable chunks of news meat scraps to be tossed, with all earnestness of course, into the hungry mob below.  I am a member of the mob, but I fancy that I stand among it arms crossed and head shaking, scrutinizing the dripping chunks for the truly meaningful bits.  My questions below are aimed rhetorically at these news sources.

Can we get off gas prices for a few moments?  We have had quite a run building our disposable McSociety on the shoulders of cheap oil, knowing all the while that oil is a commodity outside of our locus of control.  As an addict needs his fix, we need our oil.  Our politicians (see McCain’s and Clinton’s boneheaded Gas Tax Holiday) seem to believe that we believe that the people’s chief concern with respect to oil prices’ continuous upward trajectory is how much it will cost us to drive the kids to Six Flags this summer, or how our 2-hour commutes to our jobs are becoming mutually exclusive to how often we can eat at Ruby Tuesday.  How about we address the real problem?  Why do you think that all the goods we buy are inexpensive (and yes, they are inexpensive)?  How does Wal-Mart offer $12 jeans and 50 lb bags of rice for $3?  The answer: hugely cheap transportation costs.  What happens when those costs double?  Triple?  We’re seeing the answer.  Let’s do our best to figure a way forward with a combination of energy diversification and more local consumption.  But can we please stop decrying the cost of a gallon of fuel?  Any drop in oil prices will only result in more consumption of it, which will only delay our realization that we need to make some changes in our lives.  Let’s skip the denial, and go right to acceptance. 

Can we also stop investing so much time and resources in the Democratic nomination process?  Clinton and Obama are both great candidates, who are almost certain to be leaps and bounds superior to our current Dunderhead-in-Chief.  Both of these candidates spend millions upon millions in their effort to clinch the nomination.  This is not their fault, but rather the nomination process that requires it.  Let’s shorten the primary/caucus season and require that sitting government officials running for office perform their actual job duties at least 75% of the time.  Are the three senators currently running really able to govern effectively given the monetary, time, and mental requirements of the current system?  Are they doing as much good for their states as they given if they were not running?  I assert that they cannot.  If I spent the majority of my time at work trying to get a promotion, I would get fired for ignoring my job duties.  Should we not expect the same from the potential leaders of our country?

We also need to stop talking about the recession for 5 minutes.  By continuing to tell Americans that they are downtrodden, they need help, their jobs are in danger, etc, we are exacerbating the problem.  I’m not saying that we bury our heads in the sand, but why do these news sources need to convince me that I and my neighbors are in bad shape?  This is only so easy to link back to gas prices.  The rhetoric goes like this: “America is in recession, but this $600 will make you happy, right?  Except that unemployment is way up, so you’ll probably be laid off.  Oil prices hit another record high.  People are starving in Africa.  Every school kid brings a 9mm to class, probably because test scores are way too low and drop-out rates are way too high.  If you bought your home with an ARM, you are so fucked.  Are you shitting yourself yet?”  Let’s all just take a collective deep breath, and keep doing our best.  Oh wait, that’s what we would be doing in the absence of the propaganda anyway.

Ah.  I feel better.

Signs of hope that our federal government isn’t blind to the benefits of mass transit?  We’re not exactly Europe yet, but it’s a good start, anyway.

http://wcco.com/politics/northstar.rail.line.2.608083.html

Garrison Keillor always seems to find the best way to capture those thoughts that are just beyond my grasp.  For example, on our president:

He is the not-too-bright brother-in-law who is employed doing something, you’re not sure what, and meanwhile he’s totaled your car four times.

Hits the nail right on the head, don’t it?

Like most of the country, I find myself once again shaking my head at Mr. Bush.  The president continued his lip service to development of renewable fuels, much as he did in 2006.  Our “new” Iraq strategy is more of the same.  Twenty-one thousand more if we’re talking real numbers.  WCCO had some good thoughts on Mr. Bush’s SOTU speech.  I gotta say that my two favorite numbers are “08″.