Here, Here, President Obama

David Tyree. The name lives forever in New York Giant history for the catch he made during Super Bowl Forty-Two against New England. On third and five deep into the fourth quarter, Eli Manning called “76 Union Y Sail” and threw the ball to Tyree, who was breaking his route to help Manning. He literally leaped into glory by grabbing the ball and pinning it to his helmet as he was being tackled. The rest was history with the Giants scoring a touchdown and winning the game. Tyree enjoyed a moment of elation everyone dreams of having.

In like manner, President Obama made the tough call to get Osama bin Laden when he had the chance. No matter what else Obama does he has sealed his place in history for making this gutsy call; a call President Clinton wouldn’t make in 1998 which would have crippled if not stopped the 9-11 plot. It is very true that I have no love lost for many of Obama’s policies, but when I hear Republican Ron Paul say he didn’t agree with the call, I was glad Obama was President. It matters not that Obama has been the beneficiary of many policies and operations left in place by Pres. Bush; he had to make the call to authorize professionals who got it done.

Monday morning quarterbacks are questioning how things went down and the overall effect. Our justifiable anger at Pakistan’s harboring of Bin Laden is likely the reason the Chinese have our disabled helicopter today. Too much information has leaked out about the mission and could even endanger lives, but can you imagine the adrenalin that was flowing when the operation succeeded? Success was far from certain but well worth the risk.

President Bush was right in calling these people evil and Obama made good on Bush’s promise to get those responsible. I also applaud Obama’s choice to go after the number two man shortly after. They must know that there is no safe haven.

David Tyree is now retired after an otherwise below average career. My hope is that Obama will likewise be retired at the next election for his lack of performance but I urge him to spike the football and take a victory lap; the world is a better place without Osama bin Laden in it.

Big Oil

So let me get this straight…Congressmen are lecturing Big Oil on how much they earn without asking how they spend it. Big Oil should have asked the Congressmen how much they spend without earning it! That would make more sense. One thing I have learned is that just because these clowns get elected does not mean that they should be considered authorities on anything. Big Oil makes a lot but boy do they spend a lot on reinvestment. The price of oil is so multi-faceted that to blame one segment is just wrong.

 

Let's see who is to blame. Big Oil sure likes the price of oil but remember that Exxon controls only 3% of the world’s oil. That is still a lot but consider the big players like OPEC. Yes Exxon made hundreds of billions but their net profit is only 9% or 10 billion. Suddenly things look very much like GE who made 14 billion in profits but paid nothing in income taxes. Big Oil benefits from high prices but does not set them.

 

The consumer does not control prices because even when we cut back our use, the price remains high. It is amazing to see just how many different things rely on oil to make their products. Demand and supply are defied here because oil is a unique beast. So many different things make up the price. Sherlock Holmes said by finding where something is not, you can find where it is…

 

One factor is world instability. If our access to oil is threatened by world events, the price of oil goes up even when we don’t import much oil from the hot spot: see Libya. World events are such a big factor because we import so much oil. We are sitting on the world’s largest reserves of oil but CHOOSE not to go after them. This makes the price go up because our inability and unwillingness to get our oil play heavily here.

 

Another factor is the many blends that are needed to keep up with various state’s requirements which often are affected by their locale. Summer blends are different than winter blends as they do better for starting in the heat but don’t do well in the winter. Then there are those states who just have higher requirements. Oil companies let inventories go down in very early springs so that they can start fresh with the summer blend.

           

The pressures of inflating the money supply is also driving up the price. Oil is indexed to the dollar and when dollars are cheaper (and they are now) it takes more to buy the same amount. Yes, the Obama Administration’s attempt to keep up with the debt is driving up the price of oil.

Bottom line is that it is easy to blame Big Oil  but it is also very simplistic to do so as well. Still, knowing this does nothing to ease the pain at the pump but it would help those in charge to stop making fools of themselves on a national stage.

Of Birther's Bush and England

I am so relieved! To think that the President of the United States would not be a legal citizen was indeed as beyond belief in reality as it was in thought. Of course, I was just as relieved when I found out Christine O’Donnell was forced to admit she was not a high school Connecticut witch. I did not do much research on the birther’s claims as I felt the matter lacked serious merit. The fact that this “important” matter is now behind us may allow us to concentrate on making the President come clean on how bad the deficit is and how much Obama Care will actually cost.

Liberals hammered the birther movement as an illegitimate ploy to make the president look bad. They called the whole idea of believing Obama was not a U.S. citizen beneath the dignity of a response. To whatever extent they are accurate, they must also remember a time in the not too distant past when a similar incident was called freedom of the press at work. In September of 2004, shortly before the Bush-Kerry vote, CBS broke a story that Pres. Bush had deliberately not fulfilled his Texas Air Guard duties. Despite a questionable source, lazy fact checking and a lack of corroboration, CBS ran with the story supported by bogus documents and liberals rejoiced.

An investigation into the matter revealed that the paper trail was weak and questionable at best as to its authenticity and despite insurmountable evidence to the contrary, Dan Rather stuck by the story’s false accusations and it eventually cost him his job as evening anchor. To this day Dan Rather refuses to acknowledge that the documents are a fake. Bush’s reputation was run through the ringer and it was clear, as with the anti-war movement which is non-existent today, that it was done with malicious intent to swing the election for Kerry. In the zeal to publish the matter, truth was sacrificed on the altar known as the ends justify the means.

For liberals to try unduly influencing an election is just as abhorrent as the revulsion they feel when the president’s citizenship is questioned. Yet there was no outcry when Pres. Bush was vindicated; he was not innocent; he was just not proven guilty. To make matters worse, Bush cooperated fully but to no end.

Just recently we were able to relax a little and enjoy a royal wedding worthy of the attention it garnered. Two billion people watched the union of the likely next King and Queen of England. The history and the pageantry were all there but with no controversy. So voices from both political aisles cast the whole thing as silly and ridiculous. They went so far as to say, “Who cares?” I found it rather disheartening to know that we cannot even come together to witness history in the making without some blog or tweet having to engage in nay saying. I for one enjoyed the whole matter and to their credit the happy couple remained above it all.

I can only hope that in the future we take greater care on all issues and try not to prejudge a situation before all the facts are known. There should be innocence until guilt is proven.