Better Banter

I apologize to Robert Downey, Jr. for my comments last July. I saw the movie Iron Man recently, and the reviews are dead-on...Mr. Downey was phenomenal and the movie overall is a must see. I also take back what I said about seeing Lindsay Lohan on screen again after her conduct unbecoming during 2006 and 2007 (and which may have spilled over into 2008 but I've stopped keeping track.) What I did not see coming was this . Only in America.

A popular method of comparing political ideologies today is by placement on a horizontal straight-line continuum, where Left of the exact center of the line is classified as "liberal" and Right of center is "conservative." For most, such an overly simplistic approach is enough when debating two presidential candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Newt Gingrich. But I do find some interest in more complicated methods which add more depth to a given position or belief by adding a vertical axis. However, before you go researching the definitions of the horizontal and vertical axes in "the free encyclopedia" Wikipedia, consider my experience in just the last half hour. I was directed to Wikipedia's entry on "Right-wing politics" from another website and noted Fascism and Nazism were listed as right-wing ideologies. I navigated to the links for each and found an extreme and near-violent divide in the wiki-contributorsphere over their definitions.

Mark D. Lay was recently sentenced for his role in "managing" investments for Ohio's Bureau of Workers' Compensation. The losses for which Lay has been found accountable make the highly publicized Tom Noe "Coingate" case seem like a misplaced $20 (not to mention how much additional it cost Ohioans in a civil lawsuit filed against Lay by former AG Marc Dann.) I add this sad political chapter to the book on how government can't seem to do much of anything right, especially with democrats in charge (see current Congressional Approval Rating .) And I continue to be baffled by the continued demands, primarily from the Left, for things like nationalized health care and, more recently, a federal takeover of the oil industry. How has it become so difficult to identify the quacking, waddling, beak-sporting waterfowl in its broadest and simplest terms?

Somebody in Congress please read this . No, wait, you are all too busy so let me cut to the chase - there is a 95% probability of recovering 5.7 BILLION barrels of oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is estimated to equate to somewhere between 250 and 400 million barrels of oil per year (for about 65 years), beginning 7 to 12 years from the time approval was granted to explore the area. These estimates, from 1998 and based upon 1998 technology, suggest that in 5 years from opening the area, we'd have 200,000 to 400,000 barrels of oil PER DAY at our disposal. In 10 years, we'd have 400,000 to 600,000 barrels of oil. Per day. We'd reach maximum production in 20-30 years (600,000 to 1.9 million barrels of oil per day.) Did I mention the area where this 5.7 BILLION barrels of oil is located, called 1002 Area, is also just 8% of the total acreage of ANWR? That means if every square foot were completely and utterly destroyed, the caribou would still have ove