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Deace's Daily Diary: July 4th, 2008
Friday 07-04-2008 5:37pm CT
The latest from Que Est Veritas:
Happy Fourth of July everybody! Let's celebrate some of our rights and our freedoms, shall we?
You know, the ones that are God-given. Inalienable. Non-negotiable.
Enter sounds of crickets chirping.
So you are increasingly unfamiliar with those concepts, are you? Well, so is a significant portion of the United States Supreme Court, many of Iowa's legislators and the media.
Take lighting up a cigarette in Iowa for example. Never mind the absurdity that legislating against such an act and the "choice" that goes with it was deemed more vital by the Iowa Legislature last session than doing the same for the choices of abortion or gay marriage.
Never mind the ridiculous assumptions that must be made about those who choose to attend bars or taverns: That they are unable to adequately decide for themselves whether or how to avoid smokers, or that they should be under the illusion that heading out for a drink is somehow defined by the same degree of holiness as going to church.
No, just consider the fact that the government is redefining life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a way that will soon make the Founding Fathers no more relevant than characters from a fictional universe.
See also the U.S. Supreme Court's recent split rulings on guns and capital punishment to be assured of that.
As far as the founders are concerned regarding their original intent for what kind of society they wanted to preserve for us, somehow we are now to believe (based on the four or five justices telling billions of Americans what is good for them) that the same guys who created the greatest government in the history of mankind were so depraved on any of a long list of issues that today's ever-shifting standards of morals and decency are unquestionably better.
Garbage.
So I say smoke them if you've got them, buy a gun while you still have the chance and, hey, if you really can't figure out what the appropriate form of justice is for a child rapist, look to the first chapter of Isaiah: Where would you yet be struck?
P.S. To Bobby Franklin, the subject of one Steve's previous blogs: Mr. Frankling, you are creating an artificial dichotomy that is very unhelpful. We can be disobedient to God in many respects yet simultaneously clear on the matter that Islam is a greater threat today than it has been at other times in its history. In fact, giving Islam a pass in the fashion that you are, even if you are doing so only indirectly, ultimately denies that the Lord is the way, the truth and the life. Getting clear on the many actual dangers of Islam can only add clarity to our faith walk, not confusion.
Deace's Daily Diary: July 3rd, 2008
Thursday 07-03-2008 8:31am CT
Yesterday we debuted the new campaign 2008 segment Is He Right, which focused on recent comments made by Obama about drilling domestically for oil and its impact (or lack thereof) on lowering gas prices. The segment prompted a great discussion from the audience, including some intriguing emails. Below is perhaps the most interesting one I received, which is why I'm posting it on this week's blog:
Steve,
I was listening today while driving and couldn't call, but I wanted to make a point about something that was brought up. One of the Rudy G comments was that he would open drilling in ANWR and on the continental shelves. You stated that by increasing domestic drilling we will relieve market pressures bring down prices.
I understand the supply and demand logic, but unfortunately that is not what is at play here. The cause of current prices is somewhat market driven and certainly quite political. If domestic drilling were to relieve prices, the Bakken fields in North Dakota and Saskatchewan would have done that. Consider that the Bakken is producing oil, and on the high side there may be 400 Billion barrels of oil there. ANWR, on the other hand, has at the high side 12 billion barrels, and then you have to ship it somewhere. And if we started development today, production would start around 2018, and be in full swing by 2028.
And the continental shelves are estimated to hold slightly more, but still less than the North Slope, which still has around 20 Billion recoverable barrels. Then take into account the shale reserves in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and there may be several trillion barrels there, though the recoverability is somewhat questionable. And Canada's new tar sands finds outside of the ones in Saskatchewan propel just the sands ahead of the middle east in recoverable oil (using USGS numbers, not DOE/SEC numbers).
So tell me how there is a supply vs. demand imbalance that is the cause of current oil prices. I'm not buying it. And I don't buy that speculators are driving up prices, either. Over-speculation causes bubbles (farm land, tech stocks, investment properties, farm land again, etc), and bubbles burst. So if it's speculation, we have nothing to worry about long term, except that then the tar sands, the Bakken fields, ANWR, oil shale, and most of the other non-conventional oil producing sources would be too expensive to develop and operate, and we would be right back where we are.
Unfortunately, we invaded Iraq, stirred up tensions in the middle east, and ticked off a few "elected" dictators. The dollar is no longer the preferred currency to trade oil, so when oil costs $140/barrel compared with $30 a few years ago, that doesn't mean that the price of oil went up by 4.5 times for other countries. That means that the dollar has a lot less purchasing power and and when trying to buy something that is going up in cost (oil), that cost is heavily inflated for the dollar. I'll try to find historical stats for oil prices and dollar values against the Euro and do the math historically.
I have written to you before about the decline of the U.S. oil bourse, and this is yet another example of that failure and the rise of the Iranian bourse.
Respectfully,
Kurt Kruse
Deace's Daily Diary: July 2nd, 2008
Wednesday 07-02-2008 9:08am CT
Today we're going to open up the phone lines and let you sound off about the continuing high cost of oil/gas/everything. And we're going to do so by letting you respond directly to the below clip of recent comments from the man most likely to be the next President of the United States. Wath it for yourself and then call us today to tell us if you agree or disagree:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fkbEuCQss
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"Without a Vision; The People Perish", the new book by Steve Deace, is now available.
© 2008