That is, the ones who are grilling oil executives.  Bruce McQuain at QandO notes questions suggested by the Institute for Energy Research.  The first 3:

1. Do you understand the fundamental economic principal of supply and demand for commodities pricing in the oil market?

2. Oil is a global commodity, bought and sold on the world market. Given that the nine largest private oil companies hold less than 5% of the entire world’s proven oil reserves, isn’t it more likely that the law of supply and demand is “manipulating” current prices than the five corporations represented at your witness table?

3. As a U.S. Senator, you have control over oil production on U.S. federal government lands. Taxpayers own these lands and the energy that lies beneath them, but 97% of the federal OCS and 94% of onshore government lands are not being used. Are you willing to help increase the world’s supply of oil – and thus reduce the price of oil and gasoline – by allowing more U.S. energy to be produced from these lands?

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: energy, oil, Senate, economics, commodities

Erik Erickson, a contributor to Redstate.com, also has a personal blog in which he talks about local politics (he lives in Macon, GA). Yesterday, he talked about a good local government program the finds summer jobs for high school students. It does its job well, he says, but it’s having a new problem.

Erik is on the Macon City Council’s Community Resources and Development Committee, and the lady who represents the program briefed the committee on it.

During the course of the lady’s presentation she lamented the increase in the minimum wage — this from a government bureaucrat who’d already blamed Bush for cutting other social program funding.

Because of the minimum wage increase, it is now more expensive to employ each student. Because it is more expensive per student, less students can be employed. The less students that can be employed through the program, the more students there will be on the street during the summer without jobs.

And that could very probably increase the rates of petty crime during the summer.

Way to go Democrats!

He titles the post “The minimum wage and unintended consequences“, but those consequences are certainly not unforeseen, as any honest economist would have to admit to it. Democrats, when arguing for an increase, however, never seem to mention that a minimum wage increase does not, cannot, happen in a vacuum. There are consequences to tampering with the free market, but the loss of jobs is minimized or ignored by a party that claims common cause with the poor.

Technorati Tags: minimum wage, free market, Democrats, living wage, unintended consequences

The California State Supreme Court decided yesterday that the millennia-old understanding of what marriage is, isn’t.

California’s Supreme Court quashed a ban on gay marriage in a historic ruling here Thursday, effectively leaving same-sex couples in America’s most populous state free to tie the knot.

In an opinion that analysts say could have nationwide implications for the issue, the seven-member panel voted 4-3 in favor of plaintiffs who argued that restricting marriage to men and women was discriminatory.

“Limiting the designation of marriage to a union ‘between a man and a woman’ is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute,” California Chief Justice Ron George said in the written opinion.

When the debate on a state constitutional amendment defining marriage was in full swing here in Georgia, those against the measure argued that we already had a law in Georgia making same-sex marriage illegal. They said that, therefore, we didn’t need to change the constitution. But the Left in this country has decided to use the judiciary to do an end-run around when they generally can’t get past the people or their representatives, and then they complain when they’re met on that battlefield.

The California situation is a bit more convoluted. The article gives us that history.

Thursday’s ruling came after a long-running legal battle that erupted in 2000 when California voters approved a law declaring that only marriages between men and women could be legally recognized.

In February 2004, the city of San Francisco defied state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, arguing that existing laws were illegal because they violated equal rights legislation.

A court later halted the issuance of licenses and declared that same-sex marriages that took place during this period were void.

However, San Francisco and civil rights activists waged a legal case arguing that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples was unconstitutional and that the law should be struck down.

In 2005 the San Francisco Superior Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that there was no justification for refusing to allow marriages.

But the decision was overturned in 2006 by the California Court of Appeal, which ruled in a 2-1 decision that the state’s desire to “carry out the expressed wishes of a majority” was sufficient to preserve the existing law.

California lawmakers have also voted in favor of gay marriage but the bill was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said that the matter is for the state’s court system to decide on.

So in summary; the people said they didn’t want same-sex marriage, their alleged “representatives” decided they did want it, the governor stopped it, tossed it to the judiciary, and the judiciary ruled successively for it, against it, and now for it again.

And they’re calling this potentially historic.

Legal analysts say Thursday’s court ruling could have wide-ranging implications for other US states, noting the California Supreme Court’s history of landmark rulings.

Sorry, but this highly politicized process doesn’t sound like any sort of resounding history. Leon Wolf at Redstate picked out the money quote from the decision, and finds that the court didn’t really rule on constitutional grounds at all!

And, in fact, it ain’t over yet. Over a million signatures have already been collected to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. If this gets on the ballot, given the voting history, it’s sure to pass. Expect histrionics from opponents.

And remember what this issue did in 2004 for George W. Bush. It brought voters out in droves to vote on this issue, and while there were in the booth, most pulled the lever for Bush. Could this put California in play for McCain?

Technorati Tags: California, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, California State Supreme Court, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Georgia, constitutional amendment, George W. Bush, John McCain

(And I’m not sure whether it should be routed through the Self-Delusion Agency or Committee on Unwarranted Optimism…)

Bob Barr has just announced his candidacy for President on the LIbertarian ticket.

“My name is Bob Barr and I’m a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America,” he told a small room of reporters, pre-empting them by raising the obvious question himself: “You might say Bob Barr, why are you running for president?”

[…]

“Look, I’m in it to win it,” said Barr. “I’m not getting in this race to make a point. … I’m not getting into this race to be a spoiler — I’ve got better things to do.”

Well, apparently not.

This is the counterbalance to Ralph Nader that, I’m sure, Democrats have been waiting for.  But Barr, while he has name recognition going for him, is dropping another name that may make some folks wary of voting for him.

remains a candidate for president even though Sen. John McCain has surpassed the minimum number of delegates to win the nomination.

"Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness," Barr said on the website. "Unfortunately, working through the Republican party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have … a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom, in this election cycle."

Of course, that name could also tap into a constituency that has been trying to "revolt" against the presumptive nominee, to little or no avail.  My hunch (and that’s all it is) is that Barr could indeed become a real spoiler for McCain if he can successfully get the Paul supporters on his side.  For now, they’re rather busy, so the extent of this support will probably only be known after the Republican convention. 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution article notes that the Libertarian candidate in 2004 got a little over 3% of the vote with no name recognition.  (Anyone know who Michael Badnarik is?)  Barr could easily do better.

It still works.

News flash: Skyrocketing gas prices are driving historic shifts in the habits of car buyers, pushing them away from thirsty pickups and full-size SUVs and into four-cylinder compacts.

What a surprise.

Might all the smart people behind tougher federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules be watching? If they are, do they understand what we are witnessing? Namely, this: It’s not arbitrary mileage goals, mostly unhinged from engineering reality and focused on a handful of companies, that are dramatically changing the behavior of the driving public. It’s the price of fuel, stupid.

Cars outsold trucks in April for the first time in a generation, according to industry figures compiled by Autodata Corp., and four-cylinder powered cars outsold those with six cylinders under the hood. The shift, clearly a blow to truck-dependent Detroit automakers scrambling to dig out of their deep hole, is confirmation that market forces are a swifter disciplinarian than the collective wisdom of Congress, career bureaucrats and the environmental lobby.

Daniel Howes continues to discuss how the market, better than any government program, quick fix or temper tantrum, has made fuel economy a big issue with consumers. 

Technorati Tags: Daniel Howes, free market, CAFE standard, economics

While I don’t like paying $50 to fill my gas tank, every time I do I remind myself that this surge in oil prices is helping along the search for an alternative energy source.  When oil prices are low, there is little incentive to do R&D, especially if the cost of the new source comes in much higher.  But as the price of oil climbs, the incentive to innovate becomes stronger, and leads us closer to a solution.

But there are some that, while they proclaim they want the latter, also complain about the former.  Unfortunately, all 3 of the major candidates for President are among that crowd.

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don’t want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they’ve declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Higher prices are doing what they’re supposed to do; encouraging conservation.  This is a good thing.  I know it’s hard to understand when you’re watching the numbers fly up on the pump, but in the bigger scheme of things, it can be an aid to discovering the next big, clean energy source.  I have in the past covered those who are antagonistic to clean, renewable energy (oh please, read those links; just dripping with irony), but these politicians — these allegedly smart people who supposedly see the big picture — should be the ones educating the public on this issue, not pandering and just rounding up the usual suspects.

Prices convey information.  They affect demand.  Artificially manipulating them doesn’t do any long-term good.

Technorati Tags: energy, oil, gas prices

Obama could no sooner disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than he could disown the black community.  Well, at least up until the past few days.  He still hasn’t disowned him per se, but he certainly has tried to distance himself from his 20-year pastor.

But the discussion has been that what one heard from Wright’s pulpit was part and parcel of church in that selfsame black community.  But the LA Times has been asking black clergymen in LA and finds that, no, Wright’s rants aren’t necessarily mainstream.

In a series of nationally televised appearances over the last few days, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has defended his controversial remarks as "prophetic theology," and said criticism of him amounted to an attack on the black church.
But most black church leaders and members reached Tuesday disagreed.

"This didn’t have anything to do with the black church — it was basically an attack on the individual message he proclaimed, which hurt some individuals," said the Rev. K.W. Tulloss of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Boyle Heights. "My own members were offended by Rev. Wright’s words. His views have cast a wedge between people, and that’s the exact opposite of the unity Jesus represented."

[…]

Bishop John Bryant of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who has known Wright for 30 years, said he would have used less provocative language.

"How one speaks is as important as the right to do so," Bryant said. "If it is done in an inflammatory way, the substance of the message gets lost in the rhetorical style."

Kerman Maddox, a member of First AME church in Los Angeles, said that he had listened to hundreds of sermons in black churches nationwide as part of his political and community work, and that Wright’s messages did "not represent mainstream black thought on Sunday morning."

He said he had never heard pastors curse America or proclaim, as Wright had, that the U.S. government caused AIDS among blacks. He said the common pulpit themes had long been unity, personal responsibility, loving your neighbor and improving your neighborhoods.

But the biggest concern Tuesday among local black religious leaders — and across a wide swath of black Los Angeles — was not about Wright’s words per se but about their impact on Obama’s historic campaign.

It’s been a while since all this came out; why didn’t anyone in the media think to ask these questions earlier? 

But the main question to me is this; what does this say about Obama himself?  He’s not running on experience — he’ll lose to McCain if he is — so one of main things to consider is his judgement.  If he’s shocked to find out that his own pastor is so far out of the mainstream after spending 20 years with him, that does not reflect well on that judgement.

The purpose of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been eroded and molded to fit 21st century liberal sensibilities; that is to say, to take it as much out of the public square as possible.  When Thomas Jefferson responded to the Danbury Baptists, he was responding to a specific question — government interfering with or establishing a religion — and he gave a specific answer.

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Basically, the government will not try to take away man’s natural right of conscience.  It’s the coercion factor that was at issue.  An established religion would require allegiance to the state church for all public servants. 

But no matter how much you want to mangle this straightforward concept, did it really mean to abolish this?

East Brunswick High School football coach Marcus Borden, who said he is fighting for his peers nationwide, is expected to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a review of Tuesday’s federal appeals court ruling that prohibits him from participating in team prayer.

The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia unanimously reversed a July 2006 lower-court ruling that permitted Borden, through his lawsuit against the East Brunswick Board of Education, to silently bow his head or "take a knee" with players as a sign of secular respect for student-led team prayer.

The plaintiffs, represented by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, say respect is indeed the issue.

"The ruling underscores that school district employees, including football coaches, have to obey the establishment clause and have to respect the religious rights of students," said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the school board in its appeal of U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh’s ruling.

Respecting the fact that they were praying, then, is somehow a disrespect of their religious rights?  And what of the rights of the coach?  Does he have to check them at the locker room door?  Note that we’re not talking about him bringing a Bible or leading the prayers; he’s just in the room when the students pray and takes the same position as they do. 

The judges opinions in this case are just as tortured as the logic used to misread the First Amendment. 

Read the rest of this entry

Should a painter be allowed to decide what he or she paints?  Should a musician be allowed to decide what music to play or write?  Should a photographer be allowed to decide what pictures to take? 

In New Mexico, the answer to that last question is a resounding, "No."

The New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled on Wednesday that an evangelical Christian photographer discriminated against a lesbian couple by refusing a job to photograph the couple’s same-sex commitment ceremony. Religious rights attorneys plan to appeal.

The commission ordered Elaine and Jon Huenins, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, N.M., to pay the lesbian couple $6,600 in attorney fees.

"It is just a stunning disregard for the First Amendment," said Jordan Lorence, a senior legal counsel for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the photographer couple in court.

Canada’s Human Right Commission has been, at the same time, busy accusing Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and others of thought crimes (covered by the Shire Network News podcast here and here with many more details at FreeMarkSteyn.com), with the idea of "free speech" being considered foreign.

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote "human rights," the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the [Marc] Lemire case, [Dean] Steacy [HRC investigator] was asked "What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?" — to which he replied "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value." (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

If a photographer doesn’t want to take pictures at a same-sex commitment ceremony, but will get fined if she doesn’t, how soon before the First Amendment become a value-less concept within our own borders?

And this is not just a general free speech issue.  From the original article:

"[Vanessa] (Willock) had requested via e-mail for Elane Photography to conduct photography for her commitment ceremony, and the owner of Elane Photography responded that she would not perform that photography session because it was a same-sex commitment ceremony," [Carrie] Moritomo [public information officer for the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions] told Cybercast News Service .

No punitive monetary damages were awarded because Willock did not seek damages, Moritomo added.

Lorence said the Huenins, who are fervent evangelicals, politely declined the request because they did not want to use their art to disparage traditional heterosexual marriage. That should have been the end of the matter, he said.

"The Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling people to promote a message they disagree with and thereby violate their conscience," Lorence said. "Christians should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs.""

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School professor, constitutional scholar and contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy blog (where he’s blogged about this issue separately from the new story) is quoted, noting parallels to hypothetically requiring a freelance writer being forced to write for a pro-Scientology web site words that he does not believe in.  He also points out a bit of inconsistency.

"The law says that only when there is a ‘compelling government interest’ and applying the law is essential, only then can the government compel someone to violate their religious beliefs," Volokh said.

The fact that New Mexico does not recognize same-sex marriage makes it hard to argue that government has a compelling interest in protecting same-sex commitment, he added.

Human Rights Commissions are becoming less and less aptly named, and are instead becoming mere tools in the hands of liberal interest groups to silence dissent.  Where the legislative avenue doesn’t work, these commissions and activist judges are the Left’s next front to get their way in social law when the people are clearly against them.

Technorati Tags: New Mexico Human Rights Commission, free speech, Christianity, religion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, Elaine Huenins, Jon Huenins, "Vanessa Willock, Alliance Defense Fund, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Eugene Volokh

Shire Network News #123 has been released. The feature interview is part 2 of a talk with British Member of Parliament for Wells, David Heathcote-Amery about the precarious state of democracy in Europe. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

I did not have a commentary this week.