And, inevitably, some bright boy figures out a way to reduce those production costs.
The discovery of massive oil deposits off the coast of Brazil does not help OPEC one bit. The realization that the USA has three hundred years' worth of oil under it also does not help them.
OPEC wanting to be in charge of the world's oil supply, and therefore the price of oil, comes with a price. It's only natural for a cartel to form in order to maximize profit to all its members, but if the price is kept too high other sources of the resource will be found and exploited.
Absent coercion, of course. And OPEC can't make the US not exploit its own energy sources; at best all they can do is funnel money to candidates who oppose the exploitation of domestic US energy sources.
* * *
Union thugs commit hate crime against black man. Union babies busted up his hot dog cart while calling him "nigger", and "Uncle Tom", and we are told that yelling a racial slur while in the middle of the commission of a crime elevates that crime to a "hate crime".
Where are the police and the FBI?
Ace, same story.
* * *
California's acceleration towards the endgame of all socialist ideals continues with welfare for illegal aliens! California is broke, so why not give money to people who are in the country illegally? We can't let them go back to Mexico! They're reliable Democrat voters!
* * *
Harry Belafonte is insane. He wants Obama to lock up people who disagree with him.
...
Harry Belafonte had better get down on his knees and pray that he doesn't get what he wants. He'd better hope he doesn't, because he might live to regret it if he does.
Because when dictators start locking up people who don't agree with them, they soon after start locking up people like actors and activists and homosexuals and artists...and when the jails get full, they start shooting people. Or gassing them. Or working them to death.<
* * *
I'm going to say it again: the Illinois law bans ALL carry of firearms, not just concealed carry.
Plenty of states have open carry laws, where you can walk around with your firearm of choice on your hip in plain sight all day long. The article says, "Illinois is the only state in America that has an absolute prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm for self-defense," but Illinois has an absolute prohibition on carrying a firearm, period.
Or, rather, it had. Heh.
* * *
But the media is not biased, oh, no! JayG has the best take on the "sitting Democrat Senator had an intern who's a registered sex offender and illegal alien, and this was known in October, but the Department of Homeland Security made the FBI wait until after the election to make an arrest because the Senator was up for re-election" story.
JayG asks us just to imagine what the press would have done with this story had it been a Republican.
You know the answer.
* * *
A thought experiment demonstrates that our government has a spending problem, not a taxation problem:
The data indicate that 17,446,537 tax returns showed an income over $100,000. These returns represented a total income of $3.765 trillion.This ignores corporate taxes, of course, which represents a significant amount of income for the federal government. Even so it does nicely illustrate the problem.
Estimated 2012 spending comes in at $3.796 trillion (refer to page 205 here). This is still $30 billion more than a 100% confiscation of the annual income of all Americans that reported more than $100K of income for 2009.
* * *
The average German owns about $6,000 worth of gold. ...but the economy is just fine, why do you ask?
* * *
Weird Al has really put his foot in it. He's been photographed with a dead hooker.
Al, Al, Al. *sigh*
* * *
And let's continue the comedy with today's home-brewed Garfield Without Garfield!
Looks like Jon has also put his foot in it.