Crap Throwing Monkey

There's a hell of a lot of assumption in that paragraph alone. "Oil company profiteering". "Enron energy market manipulation". "Refinery manipulation". I haven't seen any evidence of the first two - beyond the obvious "oil companies are making money" - and scant proof of the third. The Enron comparison, in particular, is egregious: Enron manipulated energy markets because 1) they were the market, they practically invented their market niche, and 2) they blew smoke up everybody's asses with their "We can't tell you how we do business because it's a trade secret" bull sh--. Enron operated in a market they designed by rules they made that they wouldn't disclose with anyone. I don't see the oil companies doing that; quite the contrary, they've been pretty open about their market, their operations, and disclosing their problems (namely: the different state regulations requiring formulations not using MBTE have forced a wholesale switch to an ethanol blend...and ethanol can't be manufactured or shipped fast enough to refineries. In fact, the industry has stated in the past few days that gas prices would drop rapidly if they were allowed to go back to the MBTE blend.) Of course, it's a lot easier for the public to B word about people getting rich of the public's own stupidity and laziness than it is for the public to understand the issue...so I'm sure public pressure for government interference to drive the price down of a commodity that's had it's price driven up by public pressure for government interference is just the answer. What's insane about the pricing? Hell, can anyone here quote the breakdown of where every cent paid for a gallon of gas actually goes to? How much of the $3.09 I just paid to put a gallon of gas in my car actually shows up as profit for Exxon? There's also another assumption at work here: that oil companies profit off gas prices. Oil companies do a hell of a lot more than distribute gas at street corners. They operate fields, ship and trade oil, refine, ship and trade refined products. They're some of the largest shipping and commodities trading companies on the planet, and the financial mechanics of swapping a tanker-full of Borneo crude for a tanker-full of Saudi crude in itself is a huge cash machine itself. Try to imagine the profit from filling a tanker with Indonesian oil, shipping it to the Persian Gulf, emptying it and filling it with Persian Gulf oil, and shipping that to Indonesia. That's two million barrels each way...and a VLCC will charge somewhere between $2-$4/bbl shipping...conservatively, that's eight million dollars a round trip, minus operating costs of $30k/day. So on one trip a year, a supertanker pays for itself, and the rest is profit. And that's just profit off shipping, never mind the rest of the business. Oil companies don't need to gouge the American consumer. With oil at $70/bbl, they can get rich the same way bond traders do with American debt: they pick at the crumbs world commerce leaves behind. Take an eighth a percent off every transaction, and that adds up to real money real quickly. ...but I digress. My original question was: why is $3/gal gas insane pricing? Because it's more than in the 1950's? Because it's economically unsound, and negatively impacts growth? Because it "hurts"? Last I checked, it's not the '50's, the economy's growing at a healthy - even strong - clip, and $3/gallon gas apparently doesn't hurt. In fact, by most any measure I've yet seen, gas prices don't start to "hurt" in the "1970's gas line" sense until significantly past $4/gallon. So where, precisely, is the insanity? That, at least, we agree on. Though again, I think the real spur to innovation hits at $4/gallon and above. Or, more likely, things like the utilities deregulation that's going to double electricity prices in MD in the next three years. The impact of $3/gallon gas on the economy is nothing compared to what escalating utility prices would do. I don't think I have to point out that I'm just not seeing the "domestic crisis" angle of "My gas is too expensive, oil companies are bad, bad people." I will point out, however, that President Howdy Doody being unable to take strong action to address a domestic crisis is simply dead-nuts par-for-the-course normal.

Hell, Pat Robertson and CBN are still going strong after as many decades. Both simply prove that there's always a market for catering to fringe lunatics.

So will the "implied consent" of her not declining until after the sexual act had happened. I don't know how Aussie law reads on the subject...but in the US, it would be a seriously ugly case all around.

In other words, as a newsman, he's a...well, a newsman.

Good job! Now email the Aussie officials and tell them you've cracked the case, and there's no need for a trial...

"Hunt For Red October" is the closest example I can think of. And maybe the most recent "Pride and Prejudice"...but I haven't yet read the book (it's in the "to read" stack), so I'm making that judgement based on others' speculation.

Suddenly, the Peerless Price signing doesn't look all that bad...

Like who?

Even an older Harrison Ford. The Langdon character is not very active...like I said, bookish, and with a bit of Hamlet indecisiveness thrown in. Ford can pull that off in his sleep. More inspired, I think. Freeman could manage everything about that character except skin color. Washington could play everything about Bond except skin color...and accent. And Denzel Washington with a British accent would be so jarring it would distract from the rest of the movie (kind of like Halle Berry as a Bond girl...does anyone remember what the last Bond movie was actually about, outside of "Well...it had Halle Berry in it...")

The problem isn't the technology, or even American driving habits. It's American legal habits. Toyota knows that the moment some dumbass American misuses the auto-park system, they'll get sued. That they're finally selling the feature over here just means their lawyers finally figured out the legal protections necessary to sell it.

Clooney? The Langdon character is supposed to be a bookish-type professor; while I think Clooney's a very good actor in his own right, I have a hard time seeing him in that role. I'd sooner consider Johnny Depp or Harrison Ford "perfect" for the role than I would Clooney. Hell, I have an easier time picturing Morgan Freeman in that role than Clooney.

A lot of the Da Vinci Code was expositionary; I could see the actual action fitting in a 2-hour film. The problem then being: some of the most interesting parts of the book were the expositionary ones (e.g. the description of Da Vinci's The Last Supper). I don't know how good a movie it'll be without that...or even with it, as there's a lot of ways to do that wrong on film. And having re-read the book this past weekend...yeah, I can see Hanks as Langdon. He probably wouldn't have been my first choice, though...

Ed must be so relieved.

1) It's actually every day. 2) Most people spell it "week".

Not these directions...

But the adults, on the other hand, are doing a bang-up job discussing the issue maturely...

Truly a weird and stupid little game. I scored 5990. And it wasn't worth the effort, really.

He's shared with me some of my other brilliant observations he has waiting in the wings. Gems like "I'm hungry", and "My shoelace is untied".

After having read that, I can't begin to tell you how much I feel I'm missing by not having V-Coach...

80% of the posters right now are scratching their heads and asking themselves "Henny Youngman? Was he on last season's American Idol?"

I don't know. The British deal to fund Delorean's Northern Ireland plant was pretty horrible. And then there's the whole "Manhattan for beads" deal...

That jet stream map is a lot clearer than the ones I found last night. Still, I'm not going to admit I'm wrong because...well, because I'm me.

Provided you believe any of them. Personally...Tags says anything, and my gut reaction is "Yeah...pull the other one."

Like I said...I would have had a perfect score...save that I didn't think the PT Barnum question was Machiavellian enough. I ought to get extra credit just for that.

Sure, close enough...if you speak potato head. And I see no reason why I should have to learn fluent potato head just for your convenience.