There was a lovely troll diary  recently about Barack Obama suggesting that children be taught Spanish. The diarist took this as an affront to America.

My response:

I am sorry you feel that way and that you believe American children should not be equipped to compete in the world that the Bush Administration has presented our children. You are asking our children to become the British children of the 1920s - ill-equipped to talk to the emerging global competitors in their language, left on the sidelines of global business.

Simple title - simple explanation. The problem with the "let's drill everything, everywhere" is that we are, as always, saying "screw our grandkids, we want it now."

Let's look at the arguments for and against:

1. Drilling everything, everywhere creates greater infrastructure needs - look, if you take one bucket at a time out of the well, you only need one bucket. if you take five buckets at a time from a limited resource, you end up over investing in buckets and you have less time to build another well.

2. If we are wrong and there is a lot more oil in the world, cool - oil prices really tank. If we are right and there is less oil, you just extended the amount of time the US has domestic reserves.

3. The cost of oil has gone up because of devaluation of the dollar - based mainly on the US deficit. Tax breaks to incentivize new drilling help this problem - how?

Was door knocking again this weekend - I joking refer to the campaign as my aerobics program - when I had a door knock that just made my hair stand on end.

This guy was an Independent and he was fairly conservative but looks at both parties (face it, that is the swing vote in Colorado).

We discussed Anna's campaign, the local politics and then the presidential race. The money quote came after he said, "I'm not making a decision on Obama until after he announces his VP".

I asked why?

With apologies to Sammy - the 55 mile an hour speed limit is a non-starter. If this becomes a Democratic centerpiece (which I doubt) the Dems will lose a significant portion of the Mountain West.

Colorado Springs to Denver is 65 miles - 75 to 55 is adding a half hour to the drive. Also, the libertarian strain out here is "why the hell should the government tell me what to do?".

I have no problem allowing states to set their own speed limits. But when you are talking the expanses of these states with minimal or no mass transit, this is a non-starter.

You want a better idea - reduce the federal housing density standards for mass transit funding.

Ok, I just got my letter from Doug Lamborn - Colorado CD-5 - explaining why he is so great:

According to the Congressional Quarterly, I have voted against her Democrat agenda more than any other Congressman in the United States, 99.3% of the time (his emphasis)

2. Democrats have nothing about the 85% of our nation's oil and gas reserves which are off limits for exploration

3.Club for growth has endorsed me and ranked me as only one of three out of 436 to rate 100%.

Got to love this but the best is:

A diary earlier today on DKos had John McCain stating:

that the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."

The better part was:

"We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called ... habeas corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases," he said at a town hall meeting in New Jersey.

Ok, now let's dissect John McCain

This is out from Reuter's today:

London (Reuters) - World oil production fell by 0.2 per cent in 2007, the first decline since 2002, and proven oil reserves were flat, BP Plc said in an annual review released Wednesday.

Production fell by 130,000 bbls per day last year to 81.53 million bbls a day and reserves were essentially flat at 1.24 trillion bbls, London-based BP said in its 2008 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Ok, so reserves flat and production flat - so why ANWR?

Look below the fold:

This is partially an excerpt from a Anna Lord SquareState diary with an added "bonus" story.

The Anna Lord for House District 21 campaign began our 2008 walking campaign this weekend.

In 2006 Anna's walk plan was to knock on the doors of Dems, unaffiliated voters and  households with a Republican woman under 50.  She wore a pedometer when she walked in 2006 and logged 115 miles before she lost it in October.

The great thing about walking is the characters you meet. Here are two of the stories below the fold:

bluegrass50 posted an outsourcing diary. This got me thinking - is the government GDP calculation a complete fraud and have we been in recession much longer and deeper than anyone has been speaking to?

Let me walk you through the thought:

From Wikipedia on GDP:

GDP is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within the country in a given period of time (usually a calendar year). It is also considered the sum of value added at every stage of production (the intermediate stages) of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time, and it is given a money value.

The most common approach to measuring and understanding GDP is the expenditure method:

   GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports  
    − imports), or,
   GDP = C + I + G + (X-M)

Ok, equations are nice, so what?

The question is whether outsourcing is captured in GDP. Let me posit two scenarios below the fold:

Ok, time to start again the diary that damn near killed me in '06 - trying to keep track of all the candidates that are Kossacks, married to Kossacks or supported by  Kossaks. For those that remember, we ended up going to the county party candidate level (and school board level). I will try to compile at the end of the week (daily is a huge grind). In '06, I ended up formatting by state, the (in order) US Senate, US House (by district - so please note it), Statewide (Gov, SOS, etc.),State Senate, State House then local level races.

Please add the link to candidate web site if you have it - I will embed them into the master list.

In case of primary, I will show any and all candidates - you can give props or disparage in the comments but this is a list and I don't know most of these people.

That said, here go

I trade commodities - just finished up a one year engagement helping a firm trade their international feedstock and offtake contract in biodiesel. I was a guest speaker at a major natural gas industry function in 2005 - the title of my talk "Is Volatility Really Due to Hedge Funds" (the answer was yes).

So, when I hear people saying that hedge funds are the cause of energy prices going up in "the face of the supply/demand balance", I gnash my teeth. Why? Because hedge funds define the supply/demand balance.

Ok, you say: "But I see the oil storage numbers going up, I see demand dropping - that means there is more supply than demand." The answer is you are correct but only in part.

I used to trade but I also originated for the firm - that means I went out and sold structured transactions to other companies. The discussion I had with them has relevance to this discussion.

More below:

This is a cross post of a candidate diary at SquareState diary

By Anna Lord

The Anna Lord for House District 21 campaign began our 2008 walking campaign this weekend.

In 2006 my walk plan was to knock on the doors of Dems, unaffiliated voters and  households with a Republican woman under 50.  I wore a pedometer when I walked in 2006 and logged 115 miles before I lost it in October.

This time around, we want to knock on every Republican door.  However, we can't just add all those new doors to our list without either taking off a bunch of voters or adding significant number to our walk volunteers (or both) so here's my plan to be able to accomplish this.

Ok, people say - a State House level seat, so what? Well, the story is a little different here.

HD-21 sits in the heart - the belly - of neo-con country. It is the west side of El Paso County - the county that is home to New Life Church, Focus on the Family, Dobson and Haggard. HD-21 is not on their side of town, it is on the side of town with the high money houses, the old money fiscal conservative but social moderate Rs. Why focus on a race here?

Because, for the last six election cycles, Colorado statewide race winner and the state electoral college votes can be correlated almost 100% to one item - whether a D gets more than 38% of El Paso county votes.

2008:

Gov. Bill Ritter - 39.73 % - win
SoS Ken Gordon - 36.02% - loss (38% would have given him a win)
Treas. Cari Kennedy - 37.98% - win (ok, almost 38%)
AG Fern O'Brien - 25.7% - loss

The outlier is that Ken Salazar won the US Senate with 36% of El Paso County (he did get better rural voting in traditional R areas) but his AG races did correlate.

More below:

Ok, time to start again the diary that damn near killed me in '06 - trying to keep track of all the candidates that are Kossacks, married to Kossacks or supported by  Kossaks. For those that remember, we ended up going to the county party candidate level (and school board level). I will try to compile at the end of the week (daily is a huge grind). In '06, I ended up formatting by state, the (in order) US Senate, US House (by district - so please note it), Statewide (Gov, SOS, etc.),State Senate, State House then local level races.

Please add the link to candidate web site if you have it - I will embed them into the master list.

In case of primary, I will show any and all candidates - you can give props or disparage in the comments but this is a list and I don't know most of these people.

That said, here go

Gov. Corzine, a Hillary Super - is on CNBC right now. Said three things:

1. Hillary needs a "BIG" win in PA or she is out;

2. "If a candidate can not win the popular vote, they should not get the superdelegate vote."

3. There should be MI, and FL redos paid for by the Democratic party - said FL set their primary prior to the DNC set its calendar - think this is wrong but I won't quibble.

3. Super delegates should decide this soon after the last primary.

This man is an unapologetic Hillary supporter and he damn near just put a stake in the campaign.

Sorry I have to run to a set of meetings for the next three hours. So this is short but had to note this.

Update: Came back after my shower and heading out. Corzine said the candidate must win at least the popular vote but that the pledged delegate totals should be heavily considered.

As I have diaried here, I am in the commodity market. I just had a fairly disturbing conversation with a company in the food business that I talk to. I had an offer from another company for a lot of product that this food company would normally buy. This contract was offered at almost 10% below the current market price for a year starting in June.

The interesting part is the customer had no interest in doing anything. This company said that they had taken a corporate position that they would neither buy or sell anything except on an "as needed" or "as ordered" basis. They felt the risk of dramatic price movement - in either direction - made forward purchasing or buying too risky. Why is this so important?

Now that shoes are dropping all over the market place, let's look at Phase 2 of any disaster - seeing if those  responsible will ride off into the sunset in their limos or in orange jumpsuits? The place to look first is that favorite response to Enron that was supposed to ensure that everyone's balance sheets weren't toyed with - Sarbanes-Oxley.

More formally known as Public Law 107-204 (107th Congress) Sarbanes-Oxley had a stated objective:

To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws

I would say that was something the shareholders of Bear Stearns might want to discuss with the Board and the DA right about now, yes? So, looks like the problem - a balance sheet full of stuff that everyone admits:

is impossible to accurately value

might fall under the act.

So let's explore SarbOx below the fold:

Very short diary:

From the Over The Counter market:

Lehman Brothers bid $12 below Friday's closing price - closed $39.25 - off 30%

Goldmand Sachs bid $13 below Friday's closing price - closed $156 - off 8%

Lehman is looking like it fails this week. Wonder how much the Fed will need to pony up to prop them up?