Better Banter

Oh the lessons we've not learned! A mere four years ago, as you may remember, California suffered rolling blackouts. Electric power supplied to consumers in the state did not meet the demand. Curiously, there was no shortage in neighboring Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona. Why? Many reasons, and all specific to the oddity we know as the Golden State. The two major reasons were 1) a failure to build enough power plants to generate electricity within California, forcing California utilities to import power from neighboring states and 2) price controls that prevented California utilites from recouping higher costs demanded by out-of-state energy providers during a spike in nationwide energy prices. They couldn't generate enough power themselves, and as the public utilies went bankrupt due to balance of payment problems, many utilities outside the state became unwilling to supply more power. But the conventional explanation that seems to be accepted these days is much simpler: "Enro

Genius: The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, thought the party with the most votes should be able to win. (Boy -- talk about out of touch! And this guy wants to be president?) The seven "maverick" Republicans thought a better idea would be to crawl to the minority party and plead for crumbs. If the "maverick" Republicans had a slogan, it would be: "Always surrender from a position of strength." The deal they struck, this masterful Peace of Westphalia, simply put into writing the rule that the minority party controls the Senate -- which will remain the rule until the Democrats aren't the minority party anymore. No wonder Democrats were so testy about bringing democracy to Iraq: They can't bear democracy in America. Liberals' beef with Iraq's new government was that the Sunnis -- the minority sect whose reign of terror controlled Iraq for almost 30 years -- wouldn't be adequately represented. Obviously, this did not bode well for the D