Propeller Week In Review: July 18, 2008 — Jul 18th 2008

By James Marcus

OIL CHANGE

Petroleum was very much on the mind of the Propeller community this week. "Bush Says Drill, Drill, Drill--and Oil Drops $9!" topped the hit parade in terms of comments. AntiNeoCon treated the news with disdain: "Maybe oil dropped, but the price of gas rose here to a new record high. So where's the beef?" Immediately there was a debate about how quickly new drilling would impact the price of light, sweet crude. Said tiredofwhiners: "Please understand the price of oil is set by commodity traders, OPEC, and other oil producers. Often it is not realistic or reflective of the real oil supply-demand situation." Meanwhile, toph1973 questioned whether drilling was the right solution to begin with: "We needed to make a plan in the 70s that would get us off oil. Brazil did it--even with a dictatorial military regime, they had the foresight." There was also "How to break free of oil," with 198 votes and 148 comments. Said svensun: "How about achieving real energy independence by getting the World's Number Three Oil Producer to increase production? That country would be... US!" To which MRCOFFEECAKE replied: "There you go. Just disregard the entire article in your hearty support for Exxon, Mobil and Texaco. You are consistent." BB64 did a tap dance all over the article's call for energy independence: "Reduce, cut back, etc.--what a bunch of commie lefty crap from the 70s. Son, we're in a global economy now, we cut back [and] someone will still buy." But pongping wasn't convinced: "It might be commie crap, or it might be time to think about becoming more efficient and finding alternatives. Let your competitors be left holding the bag." And on a related note, there were two stories about solar energy, including "What Solar Energy is and How it Works," with 144 votes and 17 comments.

ROVE GOES AWOL

Love him or hate him (and there seem to be Propeller members on both sides of that equation), Karl Rove is usually capable of raising the collective temperature here. "Karl Rove Fails to Appear at U.S. House Hearing" generated 171 votes and 283 comments, many of them none too flattering. Teech waxed sardonic: "Just who in hell does that punk Congressional committee think they are in summoning the great and powerful Rove? He answers to no government lackeys, [only] to King George." Grrr concurred: "Congress does indeed have the power to compel Rove's testimony or jail him for contempt, executive privilege be damned. It's tough when it's near 50/50 partisan like it is, but neither Bush nor Rove have done representatives any favors lately, so that's where it's at." MajJohn disagreed: "In the due course of carrying out his duties in office, the President is entitled to have his communications kept private, or his office would become subordinate to Congress. Congress has the same privileges in its communications." Replied Goppy (in a strikingly lucid moment): "Now, tell me, MajJohn. When you swore an oath to our nation, was it to protect the Constitution... or to protect the Office of The Man Who Has Undermined that Same Constitution?" And vandee posed a similar query about executive privilege: "Bush invoked executive privilege four times in a single month alone when stonewalling the U.S. attorney investigation. If you believe that has anything to do with national security, send me an IM, I've got a bridge I want to sell you." Did anybody step up as a character witness for Rove? Not exactly, but Luis-Cifer did seem to make common cause with him: "By the way, Karl is laughing at these punks and I'm laughing with him."

ASKING AND TELLING

"'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' may go to Supreme Court" bagged 145 votes and 198 comments. For kboy, a gay-and-straight military remains a dilemma: "The problem still is 70 people living in one room and using one bathroom. The other 69 have a right to privacy and should not be subjected to sexual pressure." Charlson felt otherwise: "What alternate universe do you live on? In all communal situations, there is almost always an adjustment or accommodation that must be reached for the group as a whole to function." There was a similar response from tkyrchncs: "If you can't handle someone who might want to have sex with you and is unlikely in the extreme to do anything about it, how are you going to handle someone who wants to kill you and will try anything to do so?" While respecting the private lives of gays and straights, alakazam still wondered about them sharing the same foxhole: "I don't think anything that would be disruptive to unit cohesion is a good thing. This is going to cause problems, like it or not." But raats6662 fired right back: "They used all these same arguments to keep blacks and women from serving for decades. Guess what? The US Military did not fall into a black hole when blacks or women were added to the service. Nor did the Navy quit functioning properly when women started serving on ships and flying combat planes." A related story, "Mass. Senate votes to let out-of-state gays marry," bagged 100 votes and 174 comments. Several members, including ningyo, protested what they saw as an antidemocratic fiat by the legislature and judiciary: "Why let the voters pretend to vote on anything anymore? You can just take the results to your pet judge and have them thrown out." Replied Tangent001: "I think all this hollering about 'activist judges' or 'legislatures not listening to the will of the people' is a smoke screen. Y'all simply think gay marriage is wrong, and what you really want is a federal ban on gay marriage so even states won't be able to decide for themselves."

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

Several stories about John McCain made it into our Top Twenty, including "McCain faces backlash over top advisor Phil Gramm's comments," with 154 votes and 230 comments. The thread detoured into a debate about Wesley Clark's comments, and there were irate responses on both sides of the aisle. "Wesley Clark told the truth," argued cushi, "and he shouldn't have allowed anyone to pressure him into apologizing for it." Replied aniokly: "Wesley Clark lied through his teeth, and real Americans rebuked him." Radiofreeeuropa argued that Clark's comments had been cherry-picked for smear quotes, and were fair to the Republican candidate: "He prefaced [his comments] by stating that McCain's service was nothing but exemplary, patriotic, and admirable. However, the experience of being shot down and taken prisoner does not really give one any particular reason to assume [that person] would make a good chief executive." Elsewhere, the community sounded off about Sean Hannity and bilingualism. And finally, we're going to inaugurate a new feature: Propeller Livestock Pinup of the Week. Feel free to send in photos of your domesticated animals, although it will be hard to match this classic image of ranchhand's--uh, donkey.

Tags: week-in-review, wir

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