Pass me the high-priced call girls.

As they dined on grass-fed New York strip steaks and white truffle mashed potatos underneath a outdoor tent, Biden criticized Republicans for being out of touch.

“These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” Biden said according to the pool report, “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.”

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (151)
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

I just scanned a few of their articles on gas prices, looking for a tip mentioned by @jimgeraghty.

Here's what I found:

"The Fact Checker" examines a "GOP claim that won't die," namely that Obama wanted gas prices to rise.

The only evidence for this claim is Obama himself saying he wanted gas prices to rise:

Harwood: So, could these high prices help us?

Obama: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly U.S. automakers, then I think, ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.

Emphasis added.

"The Fact Checker" gives this GOP twisting of the truth three out of four Pinnochios.

Headline: Voters Blame President for Gas Prices, Experts Say Not So Fast.

Once again, the only evidence to support the idea that we should blame Obama for high gas prices comes from Barack Obama himself:

And during the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama said in a campaign speech that “here in Ohio, you’re paying nearly $3.70 a gallon for gas — 21 / 2 times what it cost when President Bush took office.”

Graph: The Washington Post attempts a "perception versus reality" comparison to prove that gas prices are not at historic highs. They might appear to be at historic highs, but what about when we adjust for inflation?

Oh, that's completely different.

The reality is that, even when adjusting for inflation, gas prices are in fact higher than during the 70s/early 80s gas crisis.

But they want you to come away thinking the "perception" that gas prices are at an all-time high is erroneous.

Playing Dumb: The Washington Post's fact-checker "forgets" this quote:

Now, he's talking about electricity prices there, but the theory applies equally to gas prices.

The problem with "alternative energy" is that it is so blisteringly expensive.

The solution? Drive up conventional energy prices so that the very-high costs of "alternative energy" becomes... if not attractive, at least not as wince-inducing.

Same theory applies to both. The Washington Post wants to pretend it doesn't know this. It's agitated for years along the lines that Obama suggests -- let's make it so painful to buy gas or conventionally-produced electricity that "green" alternatives become somewhat more viable -- but now that the shit has hit the fan, they run from what they'd planned all along.

Below, the Washington Post explains why Obama ran out of gas. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (195)
Post contains 508 words, total size 4 kb.

Will Obama retract his statement that "under my plan, electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket?"

One of the Administration's few successes, as they define successes, is getting gas up to so high a price as to make electric vehicles competitive.

Um, okay, so electric vehicles are still not competitive, unless you're Johnny Blaze and are willing to pay extra for an environmentally-friendly flaming car.

But still, this is a success, as far as their laying out a goal and then achieving it.

But now Chu says, unconvincingly, he didn't mean to say that, or something.

Chu seemed to equivocate, pause, and stumble over his words when responding to LeeÂ’s question about high gas prices. Other comments Chu made at another hearing late last month put him in hot water on gas prices. Politico reported on Feb. 28 that Chu told a House committee he was not working to lower gasoline prices but to wean the United States off oil. That story has since been corrected to clarify that DOE is working to both lower gas prices and wean the country off oil. But that was only after the story was picked up by Republicans and used against the administration.

So the Secretary of Energy is really against producing usable energy. Orwell just called and asked "Did I call it or did I call it?"

Meanwhile, within walking distance to the White House, is this sign of the times.

And also meanwhile, Obama says of course the American people will "blame" him for rising gas prices, but he's magnanimous enough to understand their crude, stupid brains and the odd connections they make between policy and consequence.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (118)
Post contains 298 words, total size 2 kb.

Mickey Kaus returns to one of his favorite subjects -- the NYT cocooning its liberal audience by giving them comforting, but false, information about public sentiment.

If the Times says women were “split,” you know that must mean they were actually narrowly against the NYT‘s preferred position. Sure enough, when asked, “Should health insurance plans for all employees have to cover the full cost of birth control for female employees or should employers be able to opt out for moral or religious reasons?” women favored opting out by a 46-44 margin. The margin increased to a decisive 53-38 for “religiously affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university.”

That’s among women. Unbeknownst to those who read only the Times‘ main story, the poll asked the same question to men. They were not split. Men favored opting out by a 20 point margin (57 vs. 37), except when a “religiously affiliated employer” was involved, in which case the margin increased to 25 points. Combining men and women, a substantial majority (51-40) favors allowing an opt-out–increasing to 57-36 where religiously-affiliated institutions are involved.

These are not close results. It’s hard to read this poll and not conclude that, contrary to some accounts, Obama wasn’t such a genius to pick a fight over mandated contraception coverage–because he appears to be losing the public debate on the question. That’s a conclusion the Times story effectively hides from readers.

If the NYT can opt-out of reality, why can't employers opt-out of his liberty-assaulting schemes?

Emphasis added. Kaus speculates that this might be part of the reason for Obama's hitting a new low in that CBS poll.

President Obama's approval rating has hit the lowest level ever in CBS News polling, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times survey. The drop may be partially attributable to rising gas prices.

Just 41 percent of Americans approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, according to the poll, conducted from March 7 to 11. Another 47 percent disapprove of his performance, up from 41 percent last month.

Mr. Obama's approval rating was 50 percent last month.

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (148)
Post contains 373 words, total size 3 kb.

Not sure if it's Robert Downey, Jr., or someone else who knows things, or, importantly, someone who doesn't know much of anything but likes posting online as if he does.

Worth a read, though. Even if it is left-leaning Jezebel. The allegations are so actionable -- libelous if false, prosecutable if true -- I'll just leave them behind and the link.

Posted by: Ace at 09:08 AM | Comments (147)
Post contains 89 words, total size 1 kb.

The survey itself only applies to online behavior, but experience tells that the findings can be extended to offline behavior as well.

Liberals are the most likely to have taken each of these steps to block, unfriend, or hide [someone due to an unwelcomed political opinion]. In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates.

People, as a rule, don't make up their own codes of conduct. (Asterisk here for genuine individualists, but most people aren't that.)

The code which has been transmitted to liberals is not, in fact, an appreciation of free speech, but only an appreciation of speech which promotes their particular leftwing agenda, with scorn and hatred heaped on those who disagree. The perverse form of "tolerance" that is actually transmitted is "tolerance only for the similar."

Which isn't tolerance.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (220)
Post contains 172 words, total size 1 kb.

At first I thought it was an aerial view of one of our presidential candidate comment threads, but upon closer inspection ... more...

Posted by: andy at 07:24 AM | Comments (192)
Post contains 58 words, total size 1 kb.

Okay this is a little old – from August of last year – but it’s still well worth reading and still relevant.

These are remarks made by Stephen M. Carmel, Senior VP of Maersk Line, Limited at the Commander Second Fleet Intelligence Symposium where he explains why piracy (especially Somalian piracy) isn't quite as bad as itÂ’s made out and why the shipping industries worry far more about what Congress is up to than pirate attacks.

He goes into detail on the economics of shipping (shorter distance is not always cheaper) and provides some insight on how shipping companies view piracy and why they haven’t done all the ‘obvious’ things that people call for.

So what is the true cost of piracy?

From personal experience hiring highly trained (in fact all ex- US SOF folks) as security on our ships I can back of the envelope it for you. ...A team sufficient to protect the ship costs about $5000 per day all inclusive, for a total of $70,000. On a 2 Million BBL VLCC that means security to get it to the US costs about 3.5 cents per bbl. While it varies a little by grade of crude, a rule of thumb is that each BBL of crude will produce about 20 gallons of gas. That means piracy adds a little less than 2 tenths of a cent to the cost of a gallon of gas, or a nickel or so to a 25 gallon fill up. This as opposed to the approximately 43 cents per gallon or $10.75 in taxes you pay on a 25 gallon fill up.

On why they havenÂ’t armed all their ships and just killed the piratesÂ…

Lastly I would note there is no internationally agree framework for dealing with liability issues, where if we shoot a pirate off a US flag ship there is nothing to prevent that aggrieved pirate from suing us in a Pakistani court and having our ship arrested next time it shows up in Karachi. Unlike you folks, our ships do not enjoy sovereign immunity and port state authorities are free to board, search, and arrest our ships and crew at their discretion and/or whim. There has been some legislation passed in the US providing such liability protection, which of course is very helpful for piracy off the coast of New Jersey, but does nothing to help us where it actually matters. At this point the single most helpful thing regarding piracy (aside of course from solving Somalia) the worlds governments can do would be to push through IMO a rule set that standardizes training and certification of shooters, a standard weapon set, and international protocols for entry and clearance of armed merchant ships in ports and a standard framework for liability cover.

Read the rest to find out what he's really afraid of. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:35 AM | Comments (196)
Post contains 790 words, total size 5 kb.

Happy Tuesday. Your starter news items:

Lockdown London

Missed over the weekend at NRO: how Obama is choking U.S. oil production and raising the price of gasoline.

"These guys donÂ’t have a sense of the average folks out there . . . They donÂ’t know what it means to be middle class." -- VP Biden at a minimum $10,000 per couple dinner.

Despite all of the AP's and the NYT's negative press on it, yet another poll finds a majority of New York voters supports the NYPD's Muslim surveillance program. “People think the cops do a good job.”

The LAX bomb plotter (you may remember him as the "Millennium Bomber") was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment by a liberal judge with an axe to grind about the War on Terrorism. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit overturned the sentence as too lenient. He will almost certainly be resentenced to something in the guidelines range of 65 years to life.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (149)
Post contains 180 words, total size 2 kb.

The Chart Liberals Hate

It's the chart that makes liberals cry.

They say it is unfair.

They say it proves nothing.

They say it is racist, sexist and taken out of context.

But mostly, they cry because they made the chart up and the chart is being used against them. Conservatives are making them eat the chart of "Unemployment Rate With and Without the Recovery Plan," which Barack Obama used to sell the $787 billion stimulus - the largest gamble ever made in the history of the world.

This was their chart.

Well I'm guessing a lot of people who voted for Obama now are wishing they could have foregone the entire Obama Recovery Plan - which has failed even by Obama's own standard - and just had a normal recession minus the $787 billion in new debt.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:13 PM | Comments (686)
Post contains 1033 words, total size 12 kb.