Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

Check this out. The AP is reporting that Hugo is in Moscow trying to convince private Russian firms to build a pipeline for his oil. And the oil is, now, his.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called on Russian business leaders yesterday to invest in the construction of a Mercosur-planned 8,000-km natural gas pipeline to Argentina, retrofitting Venezuela’s dilapidated seaports, and developing its gold mining and chemical industries.
‘‘For the Americas, Venezuela is like Russia for Europe and Asia — a source of oil and natural gas.’’ Both Venezuela and Russia have revisited contracts signed in the 1990s with major oil companies, and slapped back-tax claims on private firms.

If the Russians build this stuff, Hugo will take possession of it for himself (”nationalize”), and those “stinking, commie b*st*ards,” to use the cold war parlance I still adore, will get a taste of their own coleslaw.

Okay, they closed the first Copacabana, the one where the stars came out at night. The second one, at a different location, was a disco. But not for Lola.

New York City wants to build more subway, so this Copa has been condemned.”

For Sunday, July 1, 2007

Meet the Press (NBC): Tim Russert talks to Pat Leahy. There’s really no way to spice that one up, to make it seem to hold the promise of even casual interest.

FOX News Sunday (FOX): Host Chris Wallace talks border security with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer interviews the renegade, the new maverick: Dick Lugar.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos talks to Chertoff and Joltin’ Joe Lieberman.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer interviews Chertoff about the London bomb, etc., then he talks with Jim Clyburn and Peter King about the immigration bill which is finally dead but evidently must be further discussed. And he’ll have his usual cast of thousands.
—–

It is July. I wonder which of these guests the various hosts find to be the most compelling interview subject: Chertoff, Leahy, Lugar, or Lieberman.

Get plenty of sleep, have a few pots of coffee on hand, and things will be fine. Representative King has been a tad fiery of late, so we’ll see what happens on the tail end.

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation which required all licensed broadcasters to present all sides of an issue as being of equal merit. It came into existence in 1949 because everyone was frightened of communists. It was justified, though clearly Unconstitutional, because the public airwaves were a limited, governmentally controlled resource. The Fairness Doctrine died in 1987.

This past weekend, Diane Feinstein shot her mouth off about reviving the Fairness Doctrines so lefties could be heard on talk radio, as well. Granted, the “airwaves” are no longer limited, what with cable and the internet, but, as DiFi said Sunday: “I believe in fairness.”

Lefties have every right to produce their little media shows giving their dismal opinions. If they are good, there will be a market for them. As it happens, they are awful and no one pays much attention. Because of this, some Democrats want to pass a law exempting these lefties from the rigors of competition. (If applied fairly, this would force the New York Times, et al., to print right-slanted “news” to balance their lefty tripe. It would be easier if they’d just print the news and leave the ideology to the other outlets not claiming to be objective, but I believe in fairness.)

Okay, enough of the scare. This was never going to happen, and it was silly to even think that this old law could be crafted to fit today’s amazing media circumstances. But just in case, Congressman Mike Pence introduced a measure proscribing the FCC from using public money to implement such a rule. It passed the House this morning. 309-115.

The Fairness Doctrine is the fossil of a drunken dinosaur, and it will remain that way, no matter how pseudo-palaeontologists like DiFi gawk and squawk.

Although the world was pococurante about the ordeal, the Democrats debated last night. You know, their Presidential candidates, who criticized the Supreme Court for interpreting the Constitution to prohibit the use of race as a factor in determining qualifications for college admission.

I didn’t watch. I neither knew nor cared that they were debating, even though lefty Tavis Smiley was the moderator.

The AP doesn’t tell us who won the debate, as would be their wont, but it doesn’t put John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich in the category of “also debated.”

Opponents of the immigration bill have cited polls showing that the American people opposed the measure. The bills supporters cite poll saying that most Americans favor the individual provisions on the bill.

Arlen Specter, a bill supporter, asserted that the guys who hung out at his Philly gym liked the bill, though that wasn’t enough to turn the tide of Senatorial sentiment. From Hot Air, here’s vid of my senior Senator making a pretty strong case for the argument that the real world has passed him by.

The Senate leadership attempted to invoke cloture, and they were trounced, 46 to 53 against. It needed 60 to move on, and it fell 14 votes short. All things being equal, it did not even have the fifty votes which would have been needed for final passage had cloture been invoked.

After the vote, dingy Harry promised that the bill would eventually be back. Yeah, we’ll see. But maybe they’ll take time and craft a rational bill next time, not cobble together a lunatic mess like was just defeated.

I posted this earlier at RedState.com:

House Democrats are having the time of their lives, a regular glee club, defending the spending in their appropriations bills. Check out this transcript:

REP. TOM PRICE (R-GA): “If I may inquire of my good friend from Washington if you have any speakers on this amendment?

REP. NORM DICKS (D-WA): “Yes, we have speakers. [But none are present to whom to yield.] But - uh - the gentlemen - how many speakers do you have?

REP. PRICE: “I’ve got more than my 20 minutes will be able to fill, so …

REP. DICKS: “I’m not going to yield you any time. So, uh … [Laughter] You might start. Go ahead and start.

REP. PRICE: “So, Mr. Chairman, the silence persists. Silence persists on the majority side because they are loathe to defend the spending that is going on here in Washington.

As Representative Price argues: “This is not government money. It’s the American taxpayers’ money.” The Democrats see this as a technicality.

The NRSC offers vid of the above shameless exchange. The Dems won’t defend their excesses: “The Silence Persists.”

Mr. President, veto these bills and send them back to the Democrats!

Or he might be too senile.

The Iranians had taken U.S. hostages under Carter’s nose, and he feebly watched. Gasoline prices in 1980 were, adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of $3.07/gallon today.

Now this:

Police armed with batons and walkie-talkies guarded fuel stations but for some the protection came too late - at least 12 were torched in Tehran after the government suddenly announced that petrol rationing would take effect from midnight Tuesday.

As long queues of cars, some several kilometers (miles) long, snaked from petrol stations in Tehran and across the country Wednesday, the tempers of those stuck in their cars in sizzling heat grew shorter.

“I’ve been waiting in this long queue for the past two-and-a-half hours just to pump some petrol into my car. I am not at all satisfied with the situation,” said motorist Reza Moshayedi at a downtown petrol station.

Other drivers could not understand why petrol rationing had been introduced in oil-rich Iran in the first place.

“I do not know who are these experts whom the government consulted about the quotas,” seethed taxi driver Ahmad Salimi.

Perhaps the experts were with the Carter Center in Atlanta.

I posted this just now at RedState.com:

Last week, I thought I’d learned that Fred Thompson was going to announce his Presidential bid on this day (Tuesday, June 26). Erick quickly learned that this was not the case. No major announcement today.

And there wasn’t. The story had been that Thompson would visit the Old Fall School Building in Nashville and announce that he was in and this was his national HQ. What actually happened: Fred, carrying a baby, was accosted by a few friendly reporters. He recognized one from “the day,” and this fellow asked him of the Old Fall School Building would be his national HQ. Thompson said that it was a good building, they were checking it out, and it would probably be his national HQ should he “decide to go in that direction.”

With a hat tip to A.C. Kleinheider of Volunteer Voters in Tennessee, here’s the vid:

“Da da da dah, da da da da-da da da dah…”

Don’t start looking for bogeymen until the bill gets its real Senate vote. It is a lunatic bill, is the immigration measure, but I personally don’t see it as the most important thing on which the Senate has voted this week, let alone this year or ever. The fence is a joke, the handling of illegals is a joke, the whole thing is a poorly told joke. But it is absolute no threat to the Republic.

In lieu of intelligent commentary in the midst of insanity.

Dick Lugar is a punk rocker.

Lugar is… a punk rocker.
Lugar is… a punk rocker now.

(The Ramones sang about Sheena, but the has-been is now donning his punkish kids’ garb for his last chance to seem serious before he leaves the Senate. Now.)