Of gas and gasbags

It's been a newsy couple weeks, hasn't it?

The other day I was going through, of all things, a stack of old floppy disks from my desk drawer. As I combed through them, saving the files I wanted to archive, I came across this cartoon:


This cartoon was hilarious in 1999. On Wednesday morning, however, it wasn't very funny. I had just heard a clip of Mitt Romney calling for a doubling of capacity at the Guantanamo prison, to wild applause from the Republican debate audience.

As one blogger put it, "The audience for the debate was clearly pre-screened and pre-selected to include only mainly geriatric 75-year-old-plus Fox News viewers who are scared of their own shadow. How else can the bizarre applause for warmongering and torture, which polls show are both clearly opposed by the majority of American people, be explained?"

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Speaking of the Republican debates, have you followed the story about how no one followed the story about Ron Paul running away with the first debate?

Major polls—ABC News, MSNBC, CSPAN—showed Paul absolutely trouncing the field, yet most of the coverage focused on the top-tier troika of McCain, Giuliani, and Romney. (Am I the only who thinks of Charlton Heston in "Dark City" every time he sees Romney?) In fact, it took a flood of complaints for Yahoo to finally add Paul to the list of candidates on its 2008 presidential coverage page—after his strong showing in the debate.

It's the classic fringe-candidate chicken-and-egg scenario. Media outlets say Candidate X has little chance of winning, thus doesn't deserve coverage. As a result, few people learn about the Candidate X and the media bias becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's plain enough, but I still like the energetic way one hysterical blogger put it: "This whole fiasco underscores the reality that the President of the United States is not elected by the popular will of the people, but instead is selected from a highly restricted gaggle of pre-approved establishment lackeys." Establishment lackeys like . . . Charlton Heston, maybe? Just sayin'.

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And speaking of establishment lackeys, I wish Nancy Pelosi would just shut up. Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled about our currently divided government with its excess of checks (if not balances). But I'm weary of the inane half-truths that proceed from the mouth of our dimwitted Speaker of the House. This week she was on about the injustice of high gas prices again, saying that prices "set a record" at $3.07 a gallon.

Once more, folks: In real, inflation-adjusted dollars a gallon of gas costs less than it did 25 years ago. That's why even as nominal prices are going up gasoline consumption in the U.S. increased 2.14% in the last year.

Pelosi also vowed, again, to achieve "energy independence." But, as Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute points out, there is no call for national self-sufficiency regarding other essential goods, like food, cars, or medicine. (Did you know the U.S. imports one-fourth of the timber it needs for building homes and making paper?) It's precisely because the market for oil is so global and so liquid that prices are as stable as they are.

Energy conservation? All for it. I'm also for not manipulating facts to make your case, especially when you don't need to.

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At first I thought the forever stamp was a scam. Then I thought maybe I should buy a couple grand worth. Now I'm convinced it's a scam again. Why? Because it turns out that historically increases in the price of postage lags the increase in inflation. In fact, the President recently signed a bill that ensures postal rate increases stay below an inflation-based ceiling.

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What's that? Whatever happened to the hoops chatter? I've got plenty of that, too. Like how about Paul Shirley's brilliant ideas for how to fix the NBA? Or this bit of hoops trivia: Who is the only pro player to rank among the top 25 in scoring and the top 10 in rebounds, blocked shots, games and minutes played and not be in the hall of fame? Hint: He's also pro basketball's all-time most successful field goal shooter.

While you think about that, let me know if you will or will not be playing hoops at St. John's tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual.