|
With spot oil prices rising to over $125 a barrel and gas prices at or approaching $4 a gallon, you may wonder how this is happening. The big media and Democrats are blaming the big oil companies, but they are essentially purchasers of foreign oil at this point with the worldwide phenomena of nationalized and state owned oil companies.
So, what is really going on? With the growth of the middle class in Russia, China, and India, there is growth in energy consumption.
One other major factor that you probably have not read is the massive depreciation of the dollar. Understand that oil is paid for in dollars, so if you are an oil exporter the dollar has depreciated (lost) by almost 45% since 2002. Translated into today's prices, oil in a stable currency would be at $79.75 a barrel and your gasoline would be $1.95 per gallon. The "weak" dollar is not the fault of the oil companies, but part of an intentional dollar-weakening plan by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government and a big part of the massive energy price increases, a.k.a. inflation.
Three Stumbles Spell GOP Trouble
The GOP has now lost three Congressional seats in its districts this year: Hastert's seat in Illinois, Baker's seat in Louisiana and Wicker's seat in Mississippi.
These three losses point out the depths the GOP brand has fallen. The efforts by the NRCC to paint the Democratic candidates as Pelosi-Obama liberals did not work and the Democrats were smart in the candidates they picked.
With 29 Republican retirements and with Fossella of New York on his way out, days away from 30, the generic ballot strongly against the GOP and the national campaign committee money solidly Democratic, the odds of gains for the GOP minority in the House is low.
The public, with 81% saying the U.S. is on the wrong track and President Bush in his 40th month of historic sub-par ratings (he is now in first place, having bested Truman.) With a GOP leadership in Congress that stands for (?), we are possibly on the precipice of a 1994 type victory where the Democrats majority in Congress will approach historical levels.
We are in need of a new conservative revival, but attuned to the 21st century. It's time for a 2008 conservative summit to decide where we need to be going and our vision for the future.
New Energy Producing Ideas: Why Not Now?
We have been talking about energy independence for decades with little progress shown, but there are good energy ideas out there:
Israel and Europe are doing some good work in the area of using state of the art technology to solve two problems: (1) environmental concerns involving solid waste and; (2) low-emissions electrical production, which we will need to power the coming generation of electric cars.
Here is a brief overview: Available technology allows state of the art waste to energy facilities to generate 700 kilowatt hours of electric power for every ton of solid municipal waste (MSW) burned. As an example, burning 70% of the residential garbage in New York would produce power for 236,000 homes and eliminate 4 million tons of solid waste buried per year. The technology is so advanced that the WTE plants have eliminated 99% of the toxins and dioxin emissions!
Other ideas whose time has come, clean coal, as we are the Saudi Arabia of coal, wind power (where it makes sense), geothermal, and advanced solar technology where homeowners can affordably provide a high percent of their power needs.
All we are waiting for is leadership and we can reduce dependency on unreliable foreign suppliers of energy.
Israel Is 60 While The Rest Of The Middle East Slides Toward Islamic Fascists Control
From the wonderful story of Israel at 60 and all that they have accomplished out of the ashes of the holocaust, we switch to the latest from the Islamic Middle East.
In Lebanon, hopes for moderate control of the multi-religion society: Druze, Christian and Islamic is being slowly eliminated with a takeover by militant Islamic radicals Hezbollah, who is Iran/Syria's proxy. Their show of strength has humiliated the Lebanese pro-western government.
This by the way, repeated what occurred in Gaza when Hamas' humiliated Fatah recently.
Of course, Iraq has made some progress, but we still have the problem of Iran supplying radicals who are attacking U.S. troops and law abiding Iraqis with weapons of injury and death.
These same forces of radicalism are seeking to destabilize Jordan, Egypt, and other Mideast nations. All in all, a real mess.
The Connection - Red, White & Blue, featuring TCR Editor Gary Polland and liberal commentator David Jones. Now weekly on Fridays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. on PBS Houston Channel 8. Coming May 23rd: Author Kevin Phillips in an eye opening interview.
About Your Editor
Gary Polland is a long-time conservative and Republican spokesman, fund-raiser, and leader who recently completed three terms as the Harris County Republican Chairman. During his three terms, Gary was described as the most successful county Chairman in America by Human Events - The National Conservative Weekly. He is in his tenth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last six years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. Gary is a practicing attorney and strategic consultant. He can be reached at (713) 621-6335.
|
