Unemployment Rate Down…

In spite of Government Stupidity


They APPARENTLY had some good news down in Florida this week:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida's unemployment rate dropped a fraction to 3.3 percent in December, a 30-year low.

State labor officials said Friday that's down three-tenths of one percent from November.
Officials said the December jobless rate is lowest among the nation's ten most populous states.

Florida leads those states in creating new jobs, as well. The state added more than 248,000 jobs last year.

Those increases occurred as Florida increased its minimum wage last May to a dollar more than the federal minimum wage.

Some critics had predicted the increase would cut jobs.

Actually, assuming that that the 3.3% number is correct, the employment rate is quite amazing, because at first glance it would appear that extra people are actually moving to the state of Florida because of the recent higher minimum wage. At least that’s what the media and the government wants you believe.

I guess that it could be true, but it’s not a given.

I don’t think it's true myself.

You see, as anyone that has taken a class in economics knows, an unemployment rate of about 5% is actually considered “full employment” by economists. Of course the newspaper reporters either don’t know this fact or pathologically fail to mention it when they lament the national average unemployment rate being at 5.5% right now.

Any way, the so called “economic experts” are said to use the 5% number because they know that at any given time there are people that are not in the labor force, but not because of evil “Republican greed” or “Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.” Rather, they are voluntarily out of the labor force—people like pregnant women, people that are sick/injured, persons moving between jobs of their own will, or those that otherwise just don’t want to work at the moment.

I wrote about unemployment and the issue of "Living Wages" in 2004 when I first started blogging, and I want to bring up a couple of the same things again here in light of Florida’s high employment rate and the recent override of the Maryland Governor’s veto of a law requiring Wal-Mart to pay higher health insurance benefits.

Mainly, what I have to say on this subject is this:

THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T LEGISLATE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY.

That’s right, no matter what you FEEL in your juicy little heart, and no matter what your lard assed local and national politicians tell you while standing on the campaign stump, 99 percent of the economic success of this country has been accomplished IN SPITE of the government....not BECAUSE of the government.

What the government actually does best most of the time is impede economic prosperity, and when the owners of private industry finally manage to get ahead, the government is quite happy to step in and not only try to take credit for the success, but it also takes its big fat slice of the profit—RIGHT OFF OF THE TOP.

The government’s impediment to business development takes many forms. For instance, just to start a business requires things like a buying a business license, paying intangible taxes on office and manufacturing equipment, paying incorporation fees, etc.

By demanding that a new business owner come up with the funds before or shortly after going into business, the government is in effect demanding their share of the owner’s profit, UP FRONT, before the owner has actually even earned one thin dime.

Next, when the business OWNER gets things rolling for himself and actually needs some employees, the government again comes riding to the rescue and tells the owner how much his employees are worth, classically in the form of a minimum wage.

Now the State Government of Maryland, under the auspices of the AFL-CIO is telling business owners in the state (at least one business owner—the shareholders of Wal-Mart) how much their employees’ health insurance should cost.

I know that Wal-Mart is really relieved to have that burden lifted off of their shoulders…

NOT!

It’s a good thing that I’m not in Sam Walton’s shoes today (oops, I guess in that case that I’d be dead…but any how…) because based on Maryland’s new law there would be at least 10,000 new unemployed people in the state after I closed my stores and told them to kiss my sweet hairy derrière.

Is some invisible villain holding a gun to the Wal-Mart employees’ heads forcing them to work at the Wal-Mart stores?

No.

Can anyone tell me how the hell it makes sense for the government to be telling Wal-Mart what its health insurance package should look like?

The key to this issue is the union’s involvement.

Various unions have been trying to organize Wal-Mart employees since old Sam hired his first dozen employees, but they’ve been unsuccessful to date. For some funny reason the majority of the Wal-Mart EMPLOYEES have yet to make their own decision to support unionization.

Since the unions can’t make the employees vote for them, they’ve decided to get their allies—the Democratic party—to legislate their agenda for them.

Everyone is going to end up losing in the long run, unless they are very lucky. Besides that, since companies don't really pay taxes and benefit costs, all the Maryland state legislature is actually doing is raising consumer prices in the state of Maryland. It's yet another case of income redistrubution, no matter how they try to define it to the voters.

Ridiculously high cost benefit packages including wages, insurance, and retirement are currently breaking the financial spines of airlines like Delta, US Air, and United. They have already caused the demise of Eastern and Pan Am, not to mention dozens of smaller airlines that have fallen by the wayside under their employees’ contribution to the cost of their operations.

Likewise, there are rumblings at auto makers General Motors and Ford about similar issues of retirement benefit and health insurance costs causing the possibility of their own bankruptcy filings later this year.

And what is the common denominator in the potential insolvency of these giant companies?

UNIONS, and union employee compensation demands.

Going back to my original point now…Florida’s low unemployment rate is certainly good news for their population, BUT…

allowing the minimum wage advocates and the government bureaucrats to take credit for the numbers is a complete farce.

Florida has accomplished their economic boom, IN SPITE of government meddling, and I GUAR-AN-DAMN-TEE YOU that, as soon as the economy takes a downturn, the higher minimum wages will be a huge liability to Florida employers.

It will end up costing people their jobs, and owners their businesses.

Of course the government and the wage advocates will blame everyone but themselves in that event--and of course, whoever is sitting in the US President's office at that time.

Someone will then suggest that they raise taxes to pay increased unemployment benefits...yeah, THAT will solve things...

I guess that the old adage “make hay while the sun shines” might be the best policy there in the “Sunshine State” today.

The Democratic Ticket In 2008?

Just A Thought...

























(I Photoshopped this composite image all by my wittle self.)

Osama Reemerges

"Looking In The Wrong Country?"

There was another mysterious message from Bin Laden released today.

I was looking around the internet this morning wondering IF he was still alive and why we hadn't found him if he was.

"Silly Americans...They'll never find me hiding here"

Now I understand...

(Image stolen borrowed from here.)

Thirty-Seven Days

One PC Down, One PC To Go


Hallelujah, the initial siege is over with.

I’m embarrassed to say that, after over a month of praying, chanting, meditating, fasting, begging, pleading, and even tap dancing, I once again have a two computer network rather than a one computer network.

You understand what I’m saying here, don’t you?

Not to be a snob, but a home wireless network with only one computer hanging off of it is what we used to call just a…

PERSONAL COMPUTER.

That’s right, for the past month we were operating a single notebook computer in a docking station using the wireless router. I didn’t see us as having a true “network” just because we weren’t running around with a CAT5 cable hanging out of our ear or our rear end (of the computer.)

In my mind you can only have a real computer “network” when you’re running at least two PC’s connected together with string or bailing wire or coax or SOMETHING…thereby sharing common resources like printers and internet connections.

My poor Dell Latitude and I had been relegated during business hours to living alone in the living room, deaf, and mute to the outside world. I think that I know now how Tom Hanks felt about his soccer ball “Wilson” while playing the role of Chuck Noland in the movie Cast Away.


Fortunately, that situation is all over with because, as I said before, yesterday morning we were once again a networked family.


It was embarrassingly easy.



After over a month of fooling around with DHCP, IP addresses, subnet masks, burning incense, and cloning MAC addresses, it came down to a fairly simple step…because all I had to do was completely UNINSTALL the LinkSys wireless network card in said notebook PC and reinstall the supporting software from scratch.

Now you might say “Gosh, Virgil…aren’t you supposed to be some kind of self-proclaimed Rocket Scientist?”

“Why did it take you so long?”

YES, darn it, I AM a SELF-PROCLAIMED ROCKET SCIENTIST, but because I use the “File Pile” form of information storage, and because the installation CD Rom containing the necessary software to accomplish the task was lost in a pile of manila file folders somewhere in our home office, and since my old Dell doesn’t have a CAT5 adapter, I was unable to reinstall the software, UNTIL...

I found the delinquent CD yesterday morning.

Hurrrrraaaayyy!!!!!

I was like a kid on Christmas morning.

I leapt from my office, ran wildly to my besieged machine resting on the end table in the living room, fired it up, tossed in the CD Rom, and within 15 minutes I was in ecstasy.

I HAD INTERNET AGAIN.

Wireless internet.

Then my celebration was abruptly ended because I had to leave the condo to go to the theater to do some construction on the set as I had promised. I spent yesterday longing for some interaction with my beloved Wilson Dell.

As a result of this minor triumph, now I can get back to the original task that I started on December 13th last year, adding a third computer to the wireless network—a desktop belonging to my 85 year old neighbor, Mr. Harland “Bucky” Strader (Dartmouth Class of ‘42.) Bucky is still paying AOL $23 per month for the privilege of going on line once a week to check a few stock prices and to read some E-mail from his family.

For some strange reason, probably coincidental, my trouble started in the middle of authorizing his machine to access our wireless network and I was afraid to continue his installation until I figured out what was causing our problems.

I am SO happy to be back on line with at least two machines. Now it’s on to new adventures…

Have you ever tried to teach a guy that was born before Henry Ford started building the Model A how to use a PC and a mouse?

In Bucky’s own words: “fun and games…”

I’m Feeling A Bit Lazy This Morning

Miscellaneous Stuff…


Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are basically two kinds of blogs out here—“linkers”, and “writers.”

The “linkers” spend most of their time providing lists of URL links to commercial web sites, other blogs, and the internet news sites. Their only personal contribution to the web’s dialogue, besides spending the time to find the linked material, is to provide some sort of occasional brief commentary.

University of Tennessee legal professor Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit blog site obviously comes to mind when you think of a famous linker.

Then there is Michael Drudge’s Drudge Report which became famous back in the late 1990’s for breaking the story about the Philanderer-In Chief President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski. That news scoop aside, Matt is still obviously a “linker” rather than an actual blog writer, in spite of his fame and high level insider connections to breaking news. I guess that you could say that he is also a pseudo news reporter.

My fellow blogger Steve down at Hog On Ice continuously raves about how you can get 75% of Drudge’s stuff off of Orlando’s Local6 news website.

I agree.

You’ve seen many zany and weird news stories from Local6 mentioned here on this blog in the past. I like to take a link to a 100 word story from their site and produce a 2000 word dissertation on human nature or the other underlying issues found therein.

Then there are the actual blog “writers.”

People like the three lawyers that write at Powerline, Captain Ed’s Captains Quarters, and Blog divas Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter lead the pack here in my mind.

I like to consider myself in this same category, although I admit that I’m not successful all of the time. Sometimes it can be hard work, and it takes a good deal of time to produce some of the screeds that I’ve written over the past year and one-half.

I'd also like to think that I’m getting better all of the time—practice making perfect and all that.

For instance, yesterday’s diatribe (Calling A Spade A Spade) on the hysteria surrounding politically correct speech took about three hours to write and edit. I know that it was a bit long, but I was inspired with something important to say at the time and it just ended up taking a few extra written words to get it all down on paper (or actually, the electronic ether of the internet.)

My girlfriend Patricia usually takes a peek at my writing each morning before she starts work in order to determine my mood for the day and see what is on my mind. She said that she could only read about half of yesterday’s posting because it was so long. I know that the quality of my words doesn’t always balance out the quantity of my writing, but as the old saying goes…”a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do…”

I don’t have to do this (write a blog) but I do it anyway, and I realize that you can feel free to hit the “back” button on your browser at any time. I'll expend the effort and take that risk regardless.

In the interest of testing my ability as a "linker" rather than a "writer," I feel like taking a break this evening from poking and prodding the mainstream media and their darling liberals. Instead of producing further serious writing or ranting this morning, I think that I'll enjoy the luxury of just pointing out some of MY links that are in the favorites section on our computers.

A lot of casual internet surfers rely only on the big sites like Google News, Yahoo News, The NY Times, and The LA Times for their information sources.

If you pay close attention to the reporting, all of the news contained on these consumer oriented sites is basically the same. It’s just shuffled around into a different order—but it’s still all Reuters and Associated Press based crappola packaged for the informal news reader that can only spend a few minutes each day trying to absorb what is going on in the world.

If that is all YOU do yourself, along with reading your local newspaper, as I’ve said before, you are seriously misinformed.

That said, here is a list of some other websites that we find indispensable in our household:

If you travel by airliner, check out the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Command Center Site to see any potential arrival and departure delays that might affect your day moving between the airports around the country.

Coincidentally, my US Senator, Saxby Chambliss and I finally got the FAA to list our local airport on this site last year. I kept bitching for about nine months directly to the FAA with no response, then Senator Chambliss’ office jumped in at my request and three months later there was a little green dot on the Southeastern US Sector Map showing the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.

Hurray for me…who says that you can’t fight city hall—OR the FAA?

Next comes the subject of Weather.

Remember that I’ve mentioned that I’m a real weather nerd?

I use The Weather Channel like a TV “screensaver” when the weather is bad and hurricanes are blowing around during the summer and fall months. I used to use their web site, Weather.com, regularly, but in recent years I’ve discovered the NOAA Website and also find the Weather underground much more useful.

For a little broader weather picture, try out the Space Weather site that will tell you what is going on with the sun, moon, planets, and meteor showers each month. If you live in the northern latitudes where you can actually see the Auroras in the winter, they can tell you when it is worth your time to bundle up and run outside to look.

Want to know the Jetstream position or the rise and set times for the Sun and Moon?

Take a look, they are both good sites. I use the US Naval Observatory site all of the time in my photography work to predict when to be standing outside looking east or west with my camera in my hand.

Worrying about when that next volcanic explosion is going to take place in your back yard or on the tropical island you’re going to visit this summer? Check out Australian Scientist John Seach’s site called Volcano Live.com. The interesting thing that I have learned from this site is that there are a couple of volcanoes erupting every minute of every hour of every single day of the year somewhere in the world.

Where is the lamestream media on this little factoid. Let Mount St. Helens issue a belch or fart and you’ve got headlines in 60 point type on every American newspaper for a week.

Oops, there I go again—breaking my promise to myself to give the so-called professional “newspeople” a break tonight. I guest that I’m starting to get tired and cranky.

I think that I'll be signing off now…

Have yourself a good morning.

Bush Gets Serious With Iran

In Honor of Today's Theme...

In all fareness--I found a crappy version (oops sorry, a much SIMPLER version) of this image HERE on the web and I made substantial modifications of my own.

I think that mine's much better...what do you think?

(I love Adobe Photoshop)

Popeye Turns 77

I Found This All By Myself...I'm Getting Good With Trivia...

I was screwing around after writing that last posting about being “Confused”, and in the process I started looking for a better image of the character “Bluto” featured in the old King Features cartoon “Popeye.”

What I found out in the process is that my old friend and childhood idol, “Popeye the Sailor Man” celebrates his 77th birthday today.

Talk about a coincidence...

Here’s a little history:

He's short, balding, ornery and downright ugly by anyone's standards. But countless numbers of fans have grown up admiring and identifying with this unpretentious hero since his introduction to the public in 1929. Celebrating his 75th Anniversary in 2004, "Popeye" remains one of the most widely recognized and best-loved personalities ever.

Popeye is an underdog with a long fuse and a keen sense of fair play. Everyone identifies with him when he finally says, "Tha's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more!" And it seems only fitting that our most unlikely hero would fall for the least likely of sex symbols: Olive Oyl. Flat as a board, with a pickle-shaped nose and fickle heart to match, Popeye's "goil" puts him through his paces. Her only real competition is spinach.

Popeye made his first public appearance Jan. 17, 1929, in Elzie Segar's then 10-year-old comic strip, "Thimble Theatre," which originally revolved around Olive Oyl's family. Although he was introduced as a minor walk-on character, Popeye quickly "muskled" his way into the limelight and eclipsed the older characters to become the star of "Thimble Theatre."

With Popeye came a host of new, off-beat funny folks such as Swee'Pea, the "infink" Popeye adopted; J. Wellington Wimpy, the world's most hamburger-obsessed moocher; and Bluto, the hairy "heavy" with the glass jaw.

As a little munchkin in the 1960’s, Popeye was one of my favorite cartoons, before I graduated to “The Three Stooges” and the antics of Wyle E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny.

Remember when TV was dominated on Saturday morning with cartoons rather than stupid infomercials, "talking head" political shows, and the other crap that we're bombarded with today ?

Thank God for the Discover Channel, Food Network, The History Channel, and FOX News...else I'd lose my mind daily.

I really have a problem with most of the wierd, politicly correct shit that they are broadcasting to kids today. Alternative lifestyles are fine--but class, race, and gender stereotypes are out.

Tinky winky and Sponge Bob can take their purple/pink costumes and "square pants" and just wander on down to Cuba or somewhere where they can use them. Actually, Castro would probably have the whole gang of writers and producers in jail if he could get his crusty hands on them.

Anyway, I'm farrrrrr off topic here...

Like I started out to do--I'd like to offer a hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY to POPEYE.

Hopefully Olive Oyl baked a nice cake...

I’m Confused…

Couldn’t They Just Drive A Car Over To Disney?


There I was, sitting here minding my own business, catching up with the news and some of my favorite blogs, when I came across this news story:

Cape Canaveral, Fl.--An unmanned NASA spacecraft the size of a piano is set to lift off Tuesday on a nine-year journey to Pluto…

What?

They're going to the time and expense of
sending a rocket loaded up with one of these








out flying around outer space to look for this little fellow (the Disney Dog Pluto):

Maybe they mean this guy..."Bluto" from the Popeye cartoon series:

Or even this guy, John Belushi's character Bluto
from the movie "Animal House":






Oops...wait a darned minute here...I get it, they're talking about this place (the Planet PLUTO):

Oh, never mind...it doesn't really matter.

I guess that I’m just a little tired this evening...

Monday Morning

Somebody, Please, Do Something Stupid So That I can Write About It...

My brain is surprisingly quiet this morning.

It's a rare event when I don't have something to say. People that know me personally understand that as a fact.

I'm so addicted to this blogging thing that I almost go into withdrawal if I don't write at least a couple thousand words every day. Most of the time it just comes spontaniously blasting off of my fingertips onto the keyboard, but other days nothing piques my interest enought to do a good rant.

As a minimum I need to cruise around the Web to see what my fellow bloggers are up to.

For instance, I've had some hilarious conversations via comments for the past week over at Miami blogger Steve's place at Hog On Ice. Steve's been doing a little workbench construction at his house, and all of us "experts" have been attempting to help him address the details.

Steve gets about a zillion hits a day, and when he mentioned me with a link last week my traffic here when up about 500%. (Thanks to Steve and Steve's readers that bothered to stop by.)

Meanwhile, in the political world, I really didn't have the energy to say much about the Alito confirmation hearings, other than verbally poking Ted Kennedy with a pointy stick and making fun of him a little. Just putting a picture of old Teddy's face here on the blog spoke, as the old saying goes, at least a thousand words.

I guess the only thing else worth mentioning on the world stage is my frustration with the "peacenicks" here, abroad, and at the UN that continue to want to negotiate with people that are either inately EVIL, insane, or some combination of both.

I'm too old and weak to join the military again so that I can personally help do something about our national security, so I just try to live somewhere other than in the big citys and almost all of my immediate family happens to have the same situations.

They (the bad guys--Korea, Iran, Syria, et.al.) aren't going away just because we choose to ignore them or have tea parties with them and the UN, and I'm sure that like on 9/11, these terrorists aren't going to waste their energy and opportunity killing a couple of people living out in the sticks (I hope.) I'm going to continue to be a hermit and stay away from things like Manhattin and college football stadiums and the Olympics and hope that I can keep my own ass as a small a target as possible.

Speaking of my own girth, I'm recovering nicely from my brush with death last August, and a nice bonus of a good mortal illness has been a much needed loss of weight. I've never had problems with my weight until the past couple of years since I had to stop water skiing and started sitting around on my ever widening posterior all of the time. I'm happy to be back within 10 pounds or so of my old fighting weight.

I'll keep looking around the news this morning and see if I can find something to bitch about...I'm almost certain something will pop up if I look hard enough.

Meanwhile, y'all have a lovely day...

"Bush Urges UN Action Against Iran”

Yeah, and why doesn't Bush put in a call to his local PTA while we're at it?

My head has reached what I call “orbital rotational velocity” and as a result I’m combining TWO serious issues into one single Blog rant this morning.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee (or tea or a beer or your own other beverage of choice,) sit down, and let me tell you what is bothering me.

I copied the title of this posting from the headline attached to this Washington Times article:

President Bush yesterday urged that Iran be hauled before the U.N. Security Council for pursuing nuclear weapons, a move that Tehran said would end its cooperation with U.N. inspectors.

"It's logical that a country which has rejected diplomatic entreaties be sent to the United Nations Security Council," Mr. Bush said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Just in case you have been too busy raising your kids or working your ass off at your job or otherwise just haven’t been paying attention, let me point out some aggravating little details here that can put this story into perspective.

First of all, Iran needs nuclear energy like I need my own personal aircraft carrier.

Iran with a Nuclear Reactor makes as much sense as allowing me to buy NY City's Holland Tunnel so I can turn it into my own personal condominium.

Hey....I can certainly use the extra space.

Why do I say this?

Because, from what I’ve read and seen, it’s virtually impossible to dig a 2 foot deep hole into the ground in Iran to put in a fence post or plant a shrub without having oil come pouring out of the ground while you are digging.

People in Iran could eat Peanut Butter and Crude oil sandwiches and do their own free oil changes every day of every week of every year on their car engines in their home driveways (if they didn’t all drive camels) and not put a dent in Iran's oil supply.

So what is the bottom line here?

Oil in Iran is cheep, and it is EVERYWHERE.

Yet this stupid asshole...

Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the new terrorist leader President of Iran, has the audacity to continue to claim that his country only wants nuclear technology in order to make electricity for their few citizens that have wires attached to their huts and aren’t forced to spend three quarters of the day on their knees on a prayer mat hoping that Allah will put them out of their misery.

Even if Iran managed to build a reactor, these bigoted bastards would still prevent their women from using electric light to clean their kitchens and see after dark in their huts or tents while hand weaving their hijabs (head scarfs.)

Let's get this straight people:

IRAN DOES NOT NEED NUCLEAR ENERGY TO CONDUCT NORMAL DAILY BUSINESS.

Heck, I bet that gasoline in Iran today costs...what?...a whole fifty cents a gallon?

If you honestly believe that Iran wants to continue their nuclear program for any reason other than obtaining materials for an atomic bomb, then you are a total IDIOT.

Taking...

A...

Big...

Breath...

NEXT........

Look at this map, please...



Canada 0.170
Saudi Arabia 0.145
Mexico 0.130
Venezuela 0.110
Nigeria 0.070
Iraq 0.040
UK 0.036
Angola 0.030
Algeria 0.030
Russia 0.020
Kuwait 0.017
Columbia 0.015
Ecuador 0.010
Gabon 0.010
Total Imports 0.853



What do you see?

Let me help you out a little...

First, we import 85.3% of our oil here in the United States.

That's a problem...BUT

Look at how much crude oil actually comes from (gasp) Saudi Arabia.

See that number?

Only 14.5 percent.

And from Iraq?

FOUR percent?

OH MY GOSH....STOP THE PRESSES.

Didn't the media and all of our lovely concerned liberals say that we invaded Iraq because we wanted their oil, and didn't the media and these same concerned anti-war, Honda Prius driving liberals say that our energy problems all come about because of our dependence on Saudi oil?

No?

Yes?

Look at that map again, and notice that we import 17% of our oil from Canada (somewhere near Alaska's ANWAR reserves) and 13% from Mexico.

THIRTY PERCENT OF OUR OIL COMES FROM OUR NORTH AMERICAN NEIGHBORS...THIS NUMBER RISES UP TO FIFTY PERCENT IF YOU COUNT OUR DOMESTIC PRODUCTION.

(My Update 1/17/06) While Re-reading my own writing... it occurs to me that if the United States of By God America wanted to invade a country...or two.. in the interest of oil, why screw around with a bunch of swarthy, godless islamist jihadists 6000 miles away. Why doesn't President Bush just avoid the aircraft carrier and C-17 transport route, call all of our troops home, and take over Mexico and Canada?

Think about it for a minute. In addition to gaining lots of oil, we'd gain access to all of the construction workers, fruit pickers, and landscapers we could possibly use over the next hundred years, thereby also solving the illegal immigration crisis and the border situation. We'd also get access to some killer Hockey players, but on the down side we'd all have to start saying "eh" and figure out what the hell a "tuque" is.

It seems to me that IF we could double our own domestic oil production by doing a little drilling off the shores of California and Florida (Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas already allow it) and bore a few productive holes in the tundra of Alaska's ANWAR, we could easily tell the bastards running OPEC to kiss it...

And I'd also tell the Israeli's that they have our permission to put Iran back on an oil based electrial program

....BOMBS AWAY