About
Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral.
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The Crows Nest
Would Early Primaries Allow More Donations?
Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot believes that candidates will benefit if primaries and caucuses get pushed into 2007. A loophole in campaign finance regulation appears to allow an extra $2,300 per donor for candidates if those elections are held this year. Be sure to check out Jim's analysis, and the surprising candidate that may benefit the most.
When Tom Met Jeralyn
One of the interesting aspects of politics is finding out that opponents are people, too. Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft met Rep. Tom Tancredo backstage at NBC's studios, and found him more likable than she had anticipated. Perhaps it was their mutual interest in Dog, The Bounty Hunter ...
Joe Lieberman A Right-Wing Nut?
That's what CAIR says, according to Joe Kaufman. He has a link to a CAIR official's blog post that calls Lieberman, along with John Bolton, former CIA director James Woolsey, and the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes as "extremists". Affad Shaikh also calls Dick Cheney a "fat bastard of a liar," apparently not meant as a pop-culture reference to the Austin Powers movies. (via Let Freedom Ring)
Broadband Homelessness
The Japanese have made homelessness more efficient, and more Net-friendly, too. Their Internet cafés have become homeless shelters for the struggling manual-labor sector. The problem has grown into such a problem that government intervention will shortly become a political priority.
Found My Law Firm
Power Line links twice to this story regarding an attorney at Faegre & Benson who refused to become a victim and helped capture a very dangerous man. Keith Radtke is a partner in the firm as is Power Line's John Hinderaker. Radtke is listed in satisfactory condition after getting shot in the back, but that didn't keep him from locking up his attacker in a wrestling grip until police could arrive. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of man I'd want as my counsel ....
Don't Click That YouTube E-mail
The latest in spam seems to be redirections from YouTube links in e-mail to IP addresses without domain names. They attempt to entice people by making it seem that they have been inadvertently YouTubed. I'm sure most people can see through this scam, but just in case, you've been warned ....
Rick Moran Escapes The Floods
Rick Moran has kept us up to date on his travails along the Algonquin River. Yesterday, the police showed up to get him evacuated before the river flooded his home -- but today, Rick finds that a minor miracle has taken place, and that his house survives ... at least for now. Keep Rick in your prayers, and keep checking in at Right Wing Nut House for updates.
Rule 1: Drag The Corpse On Over First
If I've learned anything in four years of blogging, don't try to be out in front of the death rumors, especially with the villains of the world. Saddam died a hundred deaths before we caught him alive in his spider hole, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi almost as many before his demise last year. Osama may or may not be alive, but everyone's avoided speculating on his fate for a while now. Maybe Val at Babalu Blog will get luckier with his "Castro Is Dead" story. We all hope so. I'll wait for the announcement ....
Hobbs Choice
Volunteer Voters is holding its annual "Best of Nashville" on-line polls, and one of the categories is for the best political writer. Our friend Bill Hobbs, now posting at Newsbusters, and he'd like his on-line fans to cast their votes. Drop by and put one in for Bill if you get a chance!
Murtha Getting Backlogged On Apologies
Gary Gross of Let Freedom Ring sees another case collapsing on the Haditha charges. He's called for Murtha to apologize earlier, and adds another reason to the tally.
No Such Thing As 'Moderate' Islam?
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan told a television interviewer that he finds the label "moderate Islam" offensive. Shrink Wrapped has a lot more on this, but at least in the same interview Erdogan acknowledged that "radical Islam" exists, and that it's been a catastrophe. Be sure to read the whole post.
MS-NBC Gets Punk'd
Power Line has a great post on a lack of journalistic effort on the part of MS-NBC. In covering the Michael Vick story, they reported on what they thought was Al Sharpton's website proclaiming Vick's innocence. I guess Alex Johnson and two other MS-NBC reporters couldn't bother to read the title bar of the site, which proudly proclaims it as a "parody site".
New Instapundit Podcast On Pharmaceuticals
I just caught this e-mail from Glenn Reynolds about his new podcast with Richard Epstein, the author of Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but the topic is important enough to make sure I carve out time for it tomorrow. Get their first and tell me what I'm missing ....
Fed Trying A 'Stealth Easing'?
The Federal Reserve seems to have conducted a quiet campaign to steady markets that started spinning out of control, according to King Banaian at SCSU Scholars. He thinks that the Fed has conducted a "stealth easing". Be sure to read his explanation and follow his lnks.
A Shameless Bit Of Sel-Promotion
Gateway Pundit and Val at Babalu Blog note a crass PR move by Hugo Chavez. Venezuela has responded to Peru's eathquake disaster with food shipments -- and with Hugo's smiling picture on the cans. He also uses the tuna-can label to undermine President Garcia of Peru, who narrowly defeated Chavez' pal Ollanto Humalla, whom the labels extol for his "solidarity" with Chavez.
Tacky beyond belief.
Comments (2)
Posted by onlineanalyst | August 1, 2007 2:15 PM
To go along with your podcast, Sterling Burnett tells us that Congress gets our energy policy wrong... again:
"Congress seems intent to pass a regressive energy bill — despite the pleas of their constituents for releif at the pump. The truth is that, short of a moratorium on federal gas taxes, there is very little Congress can do to provide short-term releif at the pump but they could help ensure plentifiul supplies of oil and gas — and thus lower prices — in the future, but instead they seem intent to make our situation worse.
"The National Petroleum Council recently released a report http://www.npc.org/7-18_Press_rls-post.pdf painting a fairly bleak picture for the world's energy supply and demand equation. One way Congress could help would be to remove hurdles to domestic oil production on public lands like ANWR and on the OCS and from non-traditional sources like oil shale and coal to oil. Despite what industry proponents argue, these sources don't need subsidies or a price floor to get going (but who doesn't want guaranteed profit if they can get Congress to give it to them), but they do need the government to reduce hurdles to development on public lands — and more importantly, not make the situation worse with new legislative roadblocks or make the investment situation worse by rescinding reasonable standards for the depreciation of new equipment.
"In light of high prices and declining domestic production, in the 2005 energy bill Congress sought to encourage new production by expediting the leasing of new oil and gas wells on public lands and off-shore by giving new funding and fast-track authority to the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service, while reducing the bureaucratic paperwork requirements in order to ensure that proposals for new production were assessed, and contracts written, in a timely fashion – a statutory deadline for approval was built into the law. In addition, in order to encourage companies to build expensive, new platforms in high risk areas in the hurricane prone Gulf of Mexico, where dry wells are not uncommon, the government decided to treat oil and gas companies on the same par as renewable energy firms, allowing them to write off or accelerate the depreciation on capital equipment for new investments in production in the Gulf of Mexico.
"The new Democratic Congress wants to take all that away. In order to increase revenues to the government to fund their green priorities – none of which will bring much energy online and so help consumers – they wish to end the accelerated depreciation, extend the time federal agencies have to consider new leases and increase the paperwork hurdles. Each of these steps will discourage or slow the development of new oil and gas projects and thus slow (or even halt in some cases) the delivery of new oil and gas resources to the marketplace – high prices will remain high or rise as we become even more dependent on foreign energy supplies. In addition, they want to impose higher fees on new production and, not allow energy companies unwilling to renegotiate leases drawn up under the Clinton Administration to bid on new leases.
"When energy prices were low and new domestic production cost more than companies could make, the Clinton administration, in order to encourage continued exploration, wrote off-shore leases that that did not require companies to pay royalties. Now, when prices are high, the government wants to force companies to break their contract, and pay royalties on oil produced in the past. This does nothing to produce new oil, shows government to be an unreliable partner thus giving companies less assurance when dealing with the government that the deals written will be kept, and will likely keep well qualified companies from bidding on new leases. Under this deal, unless qualified companies accede to extortion, they will not be able to get new leases, which means there will be less competition and less production (or higher priced production). Only Congress could think this will help our energy situation. Worst of all, these policies will be most damaging to the poorest of the poor. They amount to a hidden tax on the most vulnerable among us. Families earning more than $50,000 per year spend just 4 percent of their income to cover all energy costs. By comparison, households earning between $10,000 and $25,000 per year spend 13 percent on their income on energy overall, and families earning below $10,000 per year spend as much as 29 percent of their incomes on energy. While the relatively wealthy can afford higher gas prices with little impact on their lifestyles – they will still take vacations, and don’t have to decide between food, medication and fuel – poorer households are beginning to make that trade-off every day. This bill will do nothing to reduce energy prices or produce more energy and it will impose unconscionable new costs on the poorest among us. "
Source: http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2ZkZDE1ODdjMjdlMmQ3OWU2YmY0OTFjMGVmYTlkMmY
Posted by kreiz | August 1, 2007 8:22 PM
I've morphing into a Blog Radio policy wonk. You're doing a fantastic job of interviewing and point-making, Ed. Great interview on energy independence, esp on the Rolling Stone ethanol piece. Your style is reminiscent of Michael Medved- which is high praise.