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Meant to lead with Master’s stuff, but Pickerhead was provoked by Pelosi pranks.
The Captain does a good job.
… Pelosi not only arrogated to herself the role of American foreign policy director — which Condoleezza Rice has as Secretary of State — she did the same with Israel’s foreign policy as well.
Not a bad night’s work for an incompetent.
When diplomats meet with enemies, they make sure to get their positions coordinated with their allies and execute strict message discipline. They do not “wing it” — they check with their elected governments when any questions arise about the directions of talks. Only someone with an ego in inverse proportion to her talent would start making stuff up as she goes when dealing with the Syrian-Israeli relationship, one of the most explosive in the world. …
The Corner weighs in.
WaPo editorializes;
… “We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace,” Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.
Never mind that that statement is ludicrous:As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. …
Here’s how you know Nancy’s stupid – Jimmy Carter thinks she’s done the right thing. Neal Boortz has the details.
Power Line posts on something sweet done by W.
Now for the fun stuff. Of all places, The American Spectator thrills us with someone’s first look at Augusta.
… But 30-something years of watching the Masters could not prepare me for my first view of the course, nor could it prepare me to appreciate so much the panorama of the 6th, known as “Juniper.” A par three hole of 180 yards, Juniper features an elevation drop from tee to green of what must be 50 feet. The mounded green slopes dramatically from back to front. Majestic pine trees loom over the vista. The grass everywhere is a shade of new spring green so pure that it feels somehow sacred. And from a golfer’s sheer shot-making perspective, the effective target area on the correct side of the golf green’s mounds looks small enough to make your throat tighten.
Then, when you walk down the hill toward the green, you look back up the hill from whence you came — and the explosion of color is almost indescribable. The entire hillside is covered in azaleas, of multiple hues. Purples battle pinks while whites peek through and orange-ish blossoms intermittently strut their stuff as well. Not even Matisse’s palette could do justice to the scene if he tried.
You’ve been on the course less than 15 minutes, and already you understand why the Masters announcers always sound like they are in a house of worship. The sun beams through the pines and magnolias and dogwoods as if illuminating the finest of ancient stained glass. …
Slate’s got a couple of good items on the Masters. The first is a guide to watching and the second looks at the technology involved in the course and the coverage.
Even among people of less than conservative persuasion, it was becoming close to settled opinion that Roe v. Wade was foolish in that it took controversy that should have found a political decision, out of the hands of the people and their representatives. In many ways it has poisoned the atmosphere in Washington. Now in a fit of stunning stupidity the court has done it again. David Schoenbrod who was quoted yesterday by John Tierney was in WSJ with a piece today.
And Robert Tracinski with a good effort at Real Clear Politics.
… This ominous decision overturns the basic rule of a free society. In a free society, that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted. As philosopher Harry Binswanger once put it, in a free society we live in a sea of liberty, a vast realm of actions that cannot be impeded by government–with only a few small islands marked “off limits,” a strictly delimited set of evil actions like armed robbery and check-forging that are banned by government.
In a dictatorship, by contrast, men are mired in a giant, endless quagmire of government controls, and they have to struggle to establish a few small islands of liberty.
Yet that is the meaning of this ruling: unless your economic activity falls within a little island of liberty carved out by a sympathetic EPA administrator, it is automatically assumed that it must be regulated. That which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden. …
Illustrating the mistake, Volokh Conspiracy spotted Justice Stevens’ scientific error.
How ’bout a grownup look at oil. This is from George Will.
… In the 20 years from 1987 to 2006, Exxon Mobil invested more ($279 billion) than it earned ($266 billion). Five weeks after the company announced its 2006 earnings, it said it will invest $60 billion in oil and gas projects over the next three years. It will, unless a President Clinton and a Democratic-controlled Congress “take” Big Oil’s profits, which are much smaller than Big Government’s revenue from gasoline consumption.
Oil companies make about 13 cents on a gallon of gas. Government makes much more. The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. Mrs. Clinton’s New York collects 42.4 cents a gallon. … Are we running out? … In 1979 President Jimmy Carter, an early practitioner of the Oh, Woe! School of Planetary Analysis (today Al Gore is the dean of that school), said that oil wells were “drying up all over the world.” Not exactly.
In 1971, according to M.A. Adelman, an MIT economist, non-OPEC countries had remaining proven reserves of 200 billion barrels. After the next 33 years of global economic growth, Adelman says, those countries had produced 460 billion barrels and had 209 billion remaining. As for OPEC countries, in 1971 they had 412 billion in proven reserves; by 2004 they had produced 307 billion and had 819 billion remaining. …