Watch for This

Mon   24 Mar 2008   7:23 by Kevin McGehee 30° and fair in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Prognosticate THIS!]

If you want to know what’s in store for the economy, one of the things you should be watching is the relationship of the price of diesel fuel to the price of gasoline. Ordinarily here in Georgia, diesel should be within the range set by the price of regular unleaded, and premium. The lower it is within that range, the more likely gas prices should come down a little over the next few weeks. At least, that’s been a fairly reliable rule for the last several years. Instead, lately I’ve been seeing diesel prices as much as 60 cents higher than premium gasoline. Something’s seriously out of whack. What started as a small, online grassroots effort now appears to have the potential for something bigger. Dan Little, the owner/operator of a livestock hauling company in Carrollton, Mo., estimated Tuesday that at least 1,000 other truckers from across the United States have committed so far to joining him in a strike on April 1. Although none of the truckers interviewed Tuesday at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, Walcott, which is just off Interstate 80 west of Davenport, has heard of the intended strike, some said they would shut down, too. [...] At issue is the rising cost of diesel fuel, which has reached or exceeded $4 per gallon in at least 17 states. But Little does not expect his strike to bring down the per-gallon price of gas, nor does he expect to have any effect on the oil companies. “What I would personally like to see is our federal and state governments, until our economy recovers, suspend federal and state fuel taxes,“ the 49-year-old said. » Truckers �going broke� and threatening to strike Also needed is the suspension—preferably outright repeal—of regulations that micromanage the composition of gasoline for hundreds of cities across the country. These regulations meddle with the economies of scale that stabilize the economic impact of fuel costs across the board, and will almost certainly be found to have contributed to much of the economic trouble this country has been having since the 1990s.

McCain’t Nothin’ to It

Thu   21 Feb 2008   11:09 by Kevin McGehee 47° and light rain in Coweta County, GA 4 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Prognosticate THIS!]

So the New York Times is floating sex-scandal rumors about John McCain. Unless he lied about it under oath or told somebody else to lie about it under oath, I don’t give a damn. McCain’s reaction to the bad press, though, will be more telling, and in the long run more consequential, than the substance (or lack thereof) of the negative reports. And the negative press is going to continue. The election is nine months away.

You Don’t Say

Wed   6 Feb 2008   11:02 by Kevin McGehee 66° and rain in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Prognosticate THIS!]

Nobody’s been saying anything like this—except all the people who are promising not to vote for the guy. And they don’t actually matter. Do they..? Running as a conservative, John McCain rolled up huge victories last night in New York, New Jersey and beyond. But if history is any guide, the McCain we’ve seen of late on the campaign trail is the most conservative McCain we’ll ever see. » Once John Wins, He’ll Make a Left Don’t be silly—he won’t win. He’s too electable.

Just a Hunch

Thu   3 Jan 2008   10:25 by Kevin McGehee 23° and fair in Coweta County, GA 2 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Prognosticate THIS!]

I couldn’t tell you why, but I just have a feeling. Browsing to the Washington Times website, the first thing I see is a pic of Huckabee standing next to his campaign bus, and the feeling I get is, “He won’t be a factor.“ It could be wishful thinking. But it feels more like intuition, which is the subconscious correlation of scattered and seemingly unrelated observations—often so subtle there’s no way to trace it until after it turns out to be valid. A week from now, if Huckabee is coasting to the nomination after having blown away everyone else in Iowa and New Hampshire, this post will still be here, with an extended comment period for all the catcalls. Update: But if I’m right, the headline on my post tomorrow will be: HUCKS TO BE YOU. ‘Nother Update: Let the catcalls commence. Comments are open for 30 days instead of the usual ten.

Coming Soon to Chavezistan: ‘A State of Emergency’

Mon   3 Dec 2007   0:54 by Kevin McGehee 68° and cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [War] [Prognosticate THIS!]

I don’t think Thuggo is going to sit still for this: CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely, the chief of National Electoral Council said Monday. Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, Tibisay Lucena said. » Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote Not only do I expect Chavez to effectively cancel future elections, I expect his apologists in this country—many of whom are the same ones who used to predict George W. Bush would declare martial law and cancel elections here—to defend him for it. Update, Tuesday: Thuggo may have backed down on Sunday, but he isn’t backing off.

Maybe I Should Go into Hurricane Forecasting

Mon   26 Nov 2007   16:59 by Kevin McGehee 66° and cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Nature] [Prognosticate THIS!]

‘'The seasonal hurricane forecasters certainly have a lot of explaining to do,‘’ said Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center. ‘'The last couple of years have humbled the seasonal hurricane forecasters and pointed out that we have a lot more to learn before we can do accurate seasonal forecasts,‘’ he said. The numbers provide abundant support for those statements. Just before the season started on June 1, the nationally prominent Gray-Klotzbach team at Colorado State University predicted that 17 named storms would grow into nine hurricanes, five of which would be particularly intense, with winds above 110 mph. A different team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five intense hurricanes. The actual results for the 2007 season: 14 named storms, five hurricanes, two intense hurricanes. That turned a season predicted to be extremely active into one that was about average in number of storms and well below average in total intensity. » Hurricane predictions miss the mark Here’s what I had to say about the 2007 season last December: 2005 was a record-breaking year for hurricane activity. 2006 was unusually quiet. Our cat Mickie could have predicted that 2007 would probably fall somewhere in between those last two years. » 2007: More Hurricanes than 2006 On somebody’s blog about that time, I pointed out that 2005 had been the first hurricane season ever to exceed the number of names on the standard storm-naming list, so of course that year had to be regarded, until proven otherwise, as an outlier rather than a significant data point. It now appears 2005 will not be proven otherwise. It remains possible that future seasons will show it wasn’t a fluke exactly—but serious observers ought to be willing to hold open the possibility that it was, in fact, nothing more than a fluke.

Campaign Shock: IT’S A HORSE RACE!!!1!!

Wed   14 Nov 2007   9:49 by Kevin McGehee 60° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Prognosticate THIS!]

Jeez. In Iowa, the Democratic contest is knotted up. Among likely caucus-goers, Clinton came out on top with 25 percent support, but she was trailed closely by Edwards at 23 percent, and Obama at 22 percent. With a margin of error of 4 percentage points, there is no clear leader. Trailing behind was Bill Richardson, at 12 percent, with all other candidates in single digits. None of the top three has firmed up their support yet - about half of those backing each candidate said they could change their minds before caucus night. » Poll: Top Democrats Deadlocked In Iowa My prediction: If Her Inevitableness finishes third in Iowa—even if she’s only a point or two out of first—the conventional “wisdom” will be that she’s ready for the fork test. And Obama, even if he’s only a tenth of a point up on Hillary, will be the Flavor of the Month again. Miss Johnnie Edwards, being used goods, will only get respect if he trounces his fellow female candidate in a landslide.

I’ll Make a Prediction

Sat   3 Nov 2007   7:31 by Kevin McGehee 38° and clear in Coweta County, GA 2 comments [Our Times] [Prognosticate THIS!]

I’ll bet the next report about nooses will note that their occurrence dropped off sharply in November. Scores of callers to black radio stations said they heeded a call to refrain from shopping Friday in a National Blackout day to protest a rise in hate crimes, but some African-Americans called the boycott a stunt. “I won’t be doing any shopping today. Justice has to be done,“ said Alan Whitaker, a self-employed Atlanta businessman. The protest was called by Warren Ballentine, whose talk show, “The People’s Attorney,“ is broadcast on radio stations across the country. Citing a rise in reports of nooses being hung in parts of the country to intimidate blacks, Ballentine told listeners, “Until we have federal legislation ... regarding these hate crimes, as African-Americans we need to band together to show our economic power by refusing to spend any money (Friday) from fast-food restaurants to gas.“ Nooses are a symbol of lynching, one means of enforcing a brutal system of racial segregation that prevailed in the U.S. South for decades until the 1960s. » Radio stations report callers heeding Blackout boycott A recent anonymous comment in my local paper‘s daily “Sound Off” feature pointed out that, in his neighborhood, there was a noose in somebody’s front yard—with a white sheet hanging from it, no less. I’ll bet that noose disappeared by last Thursday morning. I’d be interested to see what theories will come forth to explain the sudden drop in noose sightings. Do you have one?

This Would Explain Why There Haven’t Been Any in the @#$!ing ATLANTIC!

Mon   16 Jul 2007   17:07 by Kevin McGehee 86° and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Nature] [Prognosticate THIS!]

Global warming could trigger hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, over the Mediterranean sea, threatening one of the world’s most densely populated coastal regions, according to European scientists. » Reuters:  Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean I’m waiting for the first True Believer in the Church of “Mankind (Especially Bush) Is Destroying Mother Gaia and Must Be Silenced and Done Away With”™ to explain that the wind shear and dry, dusty air that have suppressed tropical storm development so far this season, is all caused by Global Warming™—just like the thicker sea ice in the Arctic and the recent snowfall in east-coastal (as in, away from the mountains) South America. You know they will.

Why Democrats Won’t Nominate Mrs. Bill Clinton

Sun   3 Jun 2007   9:41 by Kevin McGehee 69° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Prognosticate THIS!]

There are two main factors that are working against Mrs. Bill Clinton winning her party’s presidential nomination. The first is that Democrats, having seen the trouble we Republicans are having with George W. Bush, are unlikely to put forward a political dynasty of their own to succeed him. It’s axiomatic that Americans are skeptical of political dynasties. Only three descendants of past presidents have ever become president, the third being the current incumbent. When the Establishment Media went ga-ga over John F. Kennedy and his two political brothers, the electorate might have played along if not for the unwanted veto exercised by two assassins—but we’ll never know whether Jack would have won a second term, nor Bobby a first. The fact surviving brother Ted has turned out to be a lumpy, stinking sack of pickled cow anuses has certainly sealed the clan’s fate as yet another American Dynasty that Might Have Been but Wasn’t—kind of like the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Tafts and the Roosevelts. Indeed Ted has served as an excellent one-man refresher course in why our leaders are elected rather than inherited. Some people, wrongly convinced of Mrs. Bill’s inevitability, have argued (I hope tongue-in-cheek) that a bipolar dynasty pattern is about to emerge, with the Bushes and Clintons taking turns in the White House. This would mark a major turnaround from more than 200 years of American history. In fact, I expect the 2008 fall campaign to be between two nominees whose family backgrounds are devoid of known political achievement. This not only rules out Mrs. Clinton, but also Mitt Romney and Al Gore. As for another Bush in the White House this side of the nation’s quadrucentennial, forget it. The second big reason why Mrs. Clinton will not be the nominee relates in part to the first, except that it draws on a difference between her and George W. Bush, whereas the first comes out of similarity. When then-Gov. George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 he sought, and was able, to persuade his party’s base that he would be an improvement, in their eyes, over his father. In some very small and—as seen in 2007—not very significant ways, he was. Hence Republicans’ present disappointment and growing discontent. Nobody seriously believes Mrs. Clinton would be more acceptable to the Democrats’ base than her husband was. Not even her own constituents in New York are more than halfheartedly supportive of her presidential ambitions at best—and in fact, I believe Democrats’ comfort level with her presidential ambitions peaked right around the time she decided not to get into the 2004 campaign (at which time I said, on this website, that she had “missed her moment”). If I were going to advise the Democrats—which I am, since they are extremely unlikely to take my advice—I would say they should select the only other candidate for their nomination who has executive experience in government, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. He has far less baggage than Mrs. Clinton but more experience than Sen. Obama and more gravitas than Miss John Edwards. Richardson also has no significant family political background that would give his candidacy any whiff of “dynasty,“ and I think he would be better able to hold his own in a debate with, say, Fred Thompson. But since the Democrats don’t have that much sense, I think they’ll probably nominate Miss Edwards—if they want to nominate a woman they should, after all, choose the one who’s better looking and more feminine.

Page 1 of 20 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »