Links and Minifeatures 07 13 Thursday (late)

Citgo to stop selling gas to U.S. stations Might make a significant price difference in the midwest, where it mostly applies.

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Killer kangaroo, demon duck of doom roamed Outback Prehistoric weird animals in Australia!



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Hurray! San Diego bans smoking at beaches, parks

"Nonsmokers are fed up and fighting for their rights to clean air," said Robert Berger, president of Healthier Solutions Inc., a nonsmokers rights group.

No kidding. If smokers were conscientious about their exhaust, it would never have come to this. Unfortunately for the conscientious among them, there are too many who aren't. I am tired of being unable to enjoy or even to patronize public places I pay taxes to support because people will not control their exhaust. I'm perfectly willing for private owners to set the rules in their establishments, providing they tell me the rules when they are trying to entice my custom. Publicly supported spaces are a different matter entirely. I don't have the option of refusing to pay that section of my taxes they represent.



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This information is useful only in the aggregate: Mortgage Rates Drop for 1st Time in 5 Wks. it's always a tradeoff between rate and cost. If you don't include the cost to get that rate, it's like saying gasoline sales are up. Just as there are two components to gasoline revenues, price per gallon and gallons sold, there are two components to mortgage rates - rate and price to get it. You can assume that where people are going to choose is going to be approximately the same relevant frequencies on the rate/cost tradeoff scale, but that is an assumption, and it may or may not be valid. I don't know. I suspect no one does. This is just a measurement of the mean rate that was recorded, and may have no correlation with whether the mean rate/cost tradeoff went up or down, and it's a delayed measure - useless for consumers trying to lock loans today.



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Plame sues Cheney, Rove and Libby for revealing her identity.



Now we have removed the last vestiges of doubt as to what the agenda was. Sure it was stupid to confirm Bob Novak's information, but when you're listed in Who's Who for crying out loud, it gives no further information that this country's enemies would care about to confirm the information. Confirming publicly available sourced information is not a crime, and if it is a tort, it should not be.



I really don't think Wilson and Plame want to go through discovery with Cheney et al. It would be an exercise that not only destroys whatever remaining credibility the Disloyal Duo may have, but a political disaster for the Donkeys, as well.



The Corner )or at least Jon Podhoretz) agrees with me.



Captain's Quarters has a lot more analysis of how silly this is going to make Plame and Wilson look, including the .pdf. Read it if you're in the mood for a laugh.



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NIMBYS run amok Scripps Ranch residents sound off about new airport plan



I have zero sympathy for these folks. They were a major force in the City of San Diego not taking it over back in the nineties, protesting in favor of moving the ownership to the Marines because they thought that was going to be the same as the Navy. When they discovered the Marines needed Harriers and Helicopters (particularly large helicopters), which make a lot more noise than Navy aircraft, they carried on about that as if the world was ending. They delayed and delayed the airport resolution demanding study after study because the solution was all to obvious as well as consistent, that is, Miramar. Now that there are no other accessible commercially viable sites left, there is no other answer but they are still stonewalling. Far as I'm concerned, these people can take a long walk off a short pier.



Grow up.



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Paralysed man moves computer cursor through thought. We are on our way! From there, it's not long until they can move other things. Not that much further until we can replace the neurological reason he may be paralysed. And the thing that may drive it all is the ability of the average person - paralysed or not - to link directly with a computer while their hands, etcetera, are otherwisse occupied.



We're going to need those cars that drive themselves, you know.



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The Supreme Court Taketh Away and Congress Giveth Back: White House agrees to court-martial-style trials of terror suspects



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Arianna Huffington, of all people, is wishing for the equivalent of soccer's red cards in politics. I believe she fancies herself as the referee, when in reality, she'd have been carded off herself years ago.



I vehemently disagree on the subject of some one individual, or small group of individuals, being able to dispense political red cards. For one thing, what would happen when someone said they didn't like the job they were doing? Red Card, of course.



There is a Red Card, of course. It's administered by the electorate to those politicians it deems to have become too obnoxious. It's called losing elections. We don't need any lesser group setting themselves up as arbiters of what constitutes legitimate debate.



Of course, this goes hand in hand with the left wing idea that if those poor ignorant masses would only do as their betters instruct, we'd all be singing Kum-Bi-Yah in no time.



Or at least until the first group of totalitarians armed forces arrived.