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The effort to canonize Ronald Reagan never ends. No matter how much history has to be twisted, the “miracles” never stop.

Tonight on All Things Considered, Benjamin Zycher explains how Ronnie saved the world during the last energy crisis without a nasty windfall profits tax.

Ben’s version omits the real actions that left us in better shape than we had been in some time. Jimmy Carter explained the problem and proposed a solution in a 1977 speech.

A series of things begun by Carter [55mph speed limit, Energy Star appliances, tax credits for renewable energy, and energy conservation] pulled us back from the brink and help to reduce the consumption of oil which brought down the price. If Reagan and the Bushies had continued the programs, we wouldn’t be hurting like we are.

A point I would like to make absolutely clear is that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC] is a cartel, and they significantly influence the oil market, i.e. it is not a free market, so free market solutions don’t work.

If the oil companies find new sources of oil, the price of crude oil drops. If the oil companies build new refineries, the profits on refined products drop. Where is the economic reason for oil companies to spend money to reduce their profit margins?

Update: Mustang Bobby corrected me, it was “Tricky Dick” Nixon who imposed the “double nickel” on the US. Nixon was also behind the Department of Energy and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee complains about leaks, but , according to Laura Rozen, just before the launch of “Shock and Awe” he told the press that we had people pinpointing Saddam’s location. [Sources and methods, the biggest no-no.]

Quiddity explains how Roberts is using a Zeno Paradox to avoid actually investigating the Shrubbery’s manipulation of intelligence.

You have to wonder: is Senator Roberts is schizophrenic, or just another steaming pile of elephant dung?

Proving that there is no end to the number of topics that he knows absolutely nothing about, Bill Frist wants the Senate to investigate gasoline price gouging by retailers.

First of all, there is actual competition at the retail level because of the number of retailers, so jacking up prices doesn’t work and doesn’t explain why the prices have spiked all over the nation.

Secondly, retailers are given their mark-up price by wholesalers, which is 10¢ or less per gallon. Retailers made their dime when it was $1.50/gallon, and are still making a dime at $3.00/gallon. Retailers make their money by selling more gallons, not by charging more for each gallon. The standard convenience store and gas station makes the majority of its money from the convenience store. When the price of gas goes up, people aren’t buying Slurpies. The owner makes as much or more on a liter bottle of Coke as 5 gallons of gasoline.

When the large oil companies merged, they shut down refineries. We have fewer refineries now than we had a decade ago, and we are at the limit of refinery capacity.

Last year Exxon spent $5 billion on oil exploration and $6 billion buying back stock to jack up the share price. So you can see where their priorities are. They aren’t interested in bringing down the price of oil; that would reduce their profits. They aren’t interested in building refineries; that would reduce their profits.

As long as it was about money, and government contracts, there was no need for the Beltway Bobbleheads to take it seriously. After all what’s a little influence peddling and bribery among friends?

But now there’s a real problem because the Cunningham investigation has discovered: SEX!

The DC press corps, who never questioned how a Congressman with only a military pension in addition to his Congressional pay, was living on a yacht and driving a Rolls Royce, will finally start poking around.

If people know about Panama City on the Florida Panhandle, it is probably because MTV has been going there for its Spring Break shows for several years. That bacchanal is the result of business greed overcoming the real culture of the place.

Some may have been stationed at Tyndall AFB, current home of the F-22, but to most people, Panama City and Bay County are names they hear when there’s a Gulf hurricane headed north.

If John Ellis Bush has his way with the US Senate race in Florida, as noted by Mustang Bobby, then more people will hear about Bay County.

JEB wants Allan G. Bense, Speaker of the Florida House, to enter the Republican primary against Cruella de Harris. Allan is from Panama City, and as far as most of the state is concerned, it could as well be in the country of Panama as the county of Bay.

I just wrote about Martin Lee Anderson, but every American who is arrested for a felony receives a reference to Bay County justice. When they read you your rights and get to the part about getting an attorney if you can’t afford one, you are benefiting from the Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which began as a Bay County burglary.

From Karen in comments:

The press is no longer required to drink the Koolaid – now they’ll get “Snowcones”.

No one is interested in the Koolaid in Iraq.

Rumsfeld and Rice swoop in to prove that the Shrubbery cares about the situation, and the CNN imbedded reporter writes: Leaders visit; front-line troops say, ‘Yeah, so?’.

The troops are interested in staying alive and leaving, and couldn’t care less about anything else. They don’t care about the political moves in Baghdad, or the travel plans of the people at the top.

These people just can’t figure out that their script is in need of a re-write:

The appearance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a Web video is “an act of desperation,” according to a U.S. military official.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, at his weekly press briefing on Thursday, said the military believes “that is indeed Zarqawi in his final hours.”

“He knows the people of Iraq are on the verge of forming a national unity government and democracy equals failure for Zarqawi. So he’s pulling out all stops.”

Al-Zarqawi showed up Tuesday in a Web site video defending the insurgent fight, exhorting his followers to keep the faith, urging unity among fighters, and mocking the U.S.-led effort in Iraq.

I hope everyone remembers “Darth” Cheney telling us in the Spring of 2005 how the insurgents were in their “final throes”. Even Wolf Blitzer had a hard time believing that after only a month.

CNN is reporting that the Florida legislature is closing the state’s boot camps. Another of JEB’s great ideas bites the dust, as it should.

You can see the reason for this action in this video of the final minutes of Martin Lee Anderson’s life, but I don’t recommend it, because it is brutal.

The Miami Herald had this initial article on the death.

This was a total mess and has brought to light yet more failed policies of another Bush, as well as the “good ol’ boy” culture of parts of Florida. They may have changed their party affiliation from Democratic to Republican, but it’s the same people in charge. [Read more →]

To prove they are fiscal conservatives, and are dealing with the immigration issue, Republicans in the Senate voted to take $1.9 Billon that was supposed to go for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and use it to do something on the southern border. They are not really certain what it will be used for, possibly donuts for the Minutemen.

If you have any interest in Bible research you should give a listen to tonight’s Fresh Air from Whyy:

Religion scholar Bart D. Ehrman, who chairs the Department of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, talks about his new book, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend.

Ehrman looks into the lives of three major followers of Christ, plumbing legend and the writings of the New Testament to illuminate facts and details about these figures.

Ehrman is also the author of Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew which chronicles the period before Christianity as we know it came to be.

I read Misquoting Jesus, which is an excellent account of trying to separate fact from fiction in old records and writings.

I went to elementary school down here, but my middle and high schools were all over the world because I’m a military brat. I was shocked to learn over at the Pensacola Beach Blog that students in Florida schools don’t have to take Civics to graduate. The curriculum is so heavy on English and mathematics to pass testing, that social studies have been pushed to the side.

I don’t understand how a public school system can claim to graduate people who don’t understand how the state and Federal governments work. How can you really be a citizen of a country, if you don’t know its history? Am I the only one who thinks that requiring flags in classrooms, and having a recitation of a pledge to that flag is asinine if those making the pledge know nothing of the country? Shouldn’t a native-born citizen know as much as a naturalized citizen?

This is disturbing on many levels.

So we are going to stop buying oil for the strategic reserve at these inflated prices and we are going to talk about tax credits for buying hybrid vehicles, great.

Now, since oil companies are rolling in huge profits, maybe we should look at all of their tax breaks, and we should drill for oil everywhere those same companies feel that they can make money.

That’s the Shrubbery’s plan, the oil man, the MBA President.

According to NBC’s First Read, oil traders say that the spike in prices is caused by unrest in Nigeria and the possibility of an attack on Iran.

Jimmy Carter explained the problem: reliance on foreign oil from unstable areas. His solution was: reduce our reliance on the oil by conservation and research on alternatives.

If Reagan hadn’t dismantled the policy, we would be in much better shape with much reduced pollution levels. GM wouldn’t be going broke because it was selling vehicles no one could afford to drive. We wouldn’t need to get involved in oil producing countries.

In the near term, backing off on threats against Iran would have the biggest effect on the price of oil.

According to the latest CNN poll: one-third of Americans aren’t as bright as a golden retriever.

Via Altercation –

The New York Times Book Review offered a capsule review of a new book by TV dog trainer Cesar Millan (host of the show Dog Whisperer):

Millan likes to talk about the importance of being a pack leader and projecting what he calls “calm-assertive” energy around your dog. The thing to avoid, he writes, is being “angry-aggressive,” a trait he identifies in Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. This type of person “would not make a good pack leader,” Millan writes, “because the other dogs would perceive him as unstable.” (Our presidents are often unable to control their dogs, Millan said in a recent lecture. He added, “We are the only species that follows unstable pack leaders.”)

Although I must bow before the snark of Billmon on the recent polling:

If this continues, cholera is going to end up with a higher approval rating. It looks to me like the only “five point” plan that could possibly revive Shrub’s political fortunes is the star on the end of Tinkerbell’s little wand.