Lovely. Let’s shut down a bone marrow clinic because there are no minorities i Idaho.

What’s worse than the stupid gas tax holiday? McCain trying to defend it.

Our economy is definitely in recession. How do I now?

Right before the last recession, I noticed that a lot of companies were changing their names for now apparent reason. Phillip Morris became Altria, Anderson Consulting became Accenture, etc. When American companies have nothing better to do with their money and lawyers than change names, we’re about to hit an economic downturn.

I’ve noticed recently a lot of businesses relocating for no apparent reason. When American companies have nothing better do to with their money and lawyers than change locations, we’re about to hit an economic downturn.

It’s so depressing to think of all the people who could be lifted out of poverty if the nations of the world would get their heads out of their asses. I do think it’s promising that more progress was made than ever before. And I suspect that once a Democrat is elected President, the countries of the world will find new reasons to broker a trade deal — just in time for the man with the worst trade record in Congress to scuttle it.

There’s been a spate of recent articles noting the inversion going on in our inner cities. Rich people are moving in; poor people are moving out. Our cities are being rebuilt.

This would have happened a long time ago if we hadn’t engaged in the catastrophe of government urban renewal.

Neal Boortz is going of again on the Global Poverty Act:

We’ll be on the lookout. Barack Obama’s Global Poverty Act is supposed to be on the Senate calendar for a vote sometime soon. This is the fancy wealth redistribution scheme where the United States will provide the UN with .7% of its GDP to “eliminate global poverty.” Yeah, right. More like fund corrupt dictatorships. But if this bill comes up to vote, it will be interesting to see how Obamamania will play out in the Senate considering the actual facts of the bill. But how could anyone vote against the Messiah?

Bullshit. Here is the bill. it says the US should implement the UN’s goal of cutting global poverty in half. It says nothing about how that should be achieved, levies no tax and commits to no payments. It’s typical liberal feel-good legislation that does nothing.

What has happened to the Right Wing?

Adventures in government accounting:

No, the obvious question is actually, “The government thought they were sending Katrinians THIRTY SIX MILLION dollars’ worth of SPORKS? And no one saw this as odd?”

“Hey there, friend. We’re sorry your house blew away and/or flooded, not necessarily in that order; here, have some sporks. No, really, take as many as you want.”

No one found it odd that 42% of Katrina aid had apparently been spent on sporks? This goes beyond failure of oversight. Someone failed to oversee, undersee, or see anything outside the inside of their own ass.

Apparently, whites movies to the city and blacks moving to the suburbs is bad. Who knew?

I knew something stunk in this insipid article by Howell Raines about how the oil industry is causing the oil spike. One of his big claims was that:

But the oil companies themselves choked supply by closing more than half of their 300 U.S. refineries in the past 25 years

Notice what Raines didn’t say. He didn’t say that oil companies has reduced their refining capacity, just the number of refineries. This is typical — a Michael Moore trick to say something truthful while appearing to say something that’s a lie. And indeed, it is a lie.

Sorry to contradict theology with facts, but U. S. refining capacity actually increased by 11% in the last 23 years.

Stats from DOE Energy Information Administration show refining capacity in 2008 as 17,588 TBD (thousand barrels a day of crude distillation capacity) vs. 15,659 TBD in 1985 (earliest year for which data is on-line).

Yes, in the last 25 years, a lot of small, inefficient plants were shut down.

These shutdowns were more than offset by significant expansion of capacity at larger, more efficient refineries, which can process a much wider range of input (not just “light, sweet” credit). In addition, these larger plants have much more complex secondary refining capacity (e.g. catalytic crackers, reformers, desulfurization units) so that they actually squeeze out much more usable products from each barrel of crude, so that net production capacity has probably increased more than the above stats would indicate. Also, the more complex refineries meet higher standards for product quality (e.g. lead-free, “clean” gasoline) and refinery environment and safety.

As I blog, I flatter myself to think I’m getting a little better at this exercise. Realizing when someone uses a fact (there are fewer refineries) to imply a falsehood (refinery capacity is down).