Why doesn't cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It's Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers.

Is the supply of gasoline really fixed? For this coming summer, it is. Refineries normally run flat out in the summer, the season of peak driving. Any elasticity in the supply comes earlier in the year, when refiners decide how much to put in inventories. The McCain/Clinton gas tax proposal comes too late for that. So it's Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies.

The Clinton twist is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it's pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.

So now we know that he will respond when pushed into a corner.

Nevertheless, for the good of the country, I am pleased he finally set the record straight.

In the backyard.. tulips and early irises.  The roses are budding, so are the bearded irises.  The side yard... the quaking aspen has it's first leaves and the fig is going wild.  The flowering maple is budding, sheets of candy tuft and alyssum around budding penstemmon.  

On the back patio? Pots with heliotrope paired with lime green foliage, purple pansies, pink carnations.  The big pots are indicating a scented summer... the eucalyptus (silver dollar and needle) get hit with the sun and combine with the blooming jasmine and the lemon tree (small still) and the scented rose trained on a fence behind the large bench is ready to pop. mmmmm.

By the garage? The crimson standard is budding, should be ready by this weekend, the astilbe white and red are coming on strong, and dainthus fills in the spots between the sedums and other succulents.  The purple clematis is covering the alpine style playhouse and heading over the fence to the neighbors yard.  I need to tie the large allium to the copper arbor.

The hummingbirds are just starting to get busy, the white-crowned sparrows have returned to their copper feeder.  I have the nijer seed loaded but haven't seen the goldfinches yet.

The fish are more active in their 50 gallon patio pond with tile surround and cedar topping just large enough to sit on.  It looks like the arbor that the jasmine grows on and provides shade for the pond, needs a new coat of deep purple paint.

Dr Reynolds, an African American minister herself, was and is a big defender of Jeremiah Wright.

Read this piece she wrote:

Here's a snip:

The Jeremiah I know is a sought-after preacher in seminaries across the country. I have traveled with him, introduced him at the National Press Club and use his tapes as teaching tools in my prophetic ministry classes at the Howard University School of Divinity, where he often preaches to adoring audiences.

    I am inspired by Wright's leadership as the founding father of the Samuel D. Proctor conference, which is directed by Dr. Iva Carruthers, a Trinity member. The Conference is the progressive wing of the Black Church and represents some 50 million people through an ecumenical cross section of clergy and inter-faith leaders across the nation.

    When black and poor people were devastated by the double tragedies of Katrina and governmental indifference, the Conference impaneled a commission of citizen activists to investigate. They authored a report, "The Breach," which documented the governmental abuses, and solutions. The Conference is still working with Katrina victims, while so many others have deserted them. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Obama worked with this effort.

reynoldsworldnews

So they found this one women who was involved in the organizing (Reynolds) had voted for Hillary in the primaries. Even though she wrote a lovely piece previously on how she liked both candidates, but as an African American she really appreciated what the Clintons had done for her in the past and wanted to say "Thank you " with her vote.

Thus-- in the upside down world of perfected illogic-- she was trying to bring down Obama.

However the Pres of the National Press Club Sylvia Smith has already issued a public statement saying it was SHE (not Dr Reynolds) who had invited Wright.

YahooNews

So now - Reynolds is painted as a Clinton OPERATIVE.

No she didn't invite him, but it appears she did help to organize the event- an event planner. And that is obviously her attempt to bring down Barack Obama.

Of course it has nothing to do with his decision to forge a 20 yr tight relationship with the guy that might hurt him... Nahhh.

LINK

Let me guess - Mississippi is so lost that candidates argue about who is the most conservative.  Yikes.  And of course, a Dem is going to lose that argument most of the time...

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

"You beleive that our brains are different, changed by culture?  With all the problems such debunked theories have meant for attempting to improve education of all children?
I appreciated the parts of the speech that upheld the central message that different is not deficient.  
If the Rev. Wright had stayed on the inspiring part of his message, no problem.  But I deplore the parts of the message that not only may cause political repercussions for a presidential candidate, and other Dems downticket, but even worse may set back educational improvements -- and the very conversation about race for which the candidate called.

Contrast the content and style of Obama's speech on race with Wright's speech on race.  One was primarily positive, upholding its central message.  One was hypocritical, contradicting its central message.  Which one would do more good?"

I believe that Rev. Wright has a bad case of post traumatic slavery disorder and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  At least he was sincere in all of his backwards thinking.  I also didn't think much of Obama's great race speech.  He had the opportunity to open up an honest conversation about race and failed for political reasons.  As I've said before, I don't appreciate Obama's misleading attempt to lump Wright in with other typical black pastors, and I'm disappointed that more black pundits and pastors didn't call Obama out on it then, but are willing to call Wright out on it now.

Both speeches were bad for race relations, to be honest.  I think Rev. Wright should have kept quiet though.  For the sake of not only Obama's image, but his own.  His style, message, backwards thinking cannot be understood by everyone.

I am a secular humanist and do not believe in psychics, but as a Hillary and Edwards supporter, I fervently hope that this prediction comes true

It was the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, a former editorial board member of USA Today who teaches at the Howard University School of Divinity. An ordained minister, as New York DailThe Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the head table of the National Press Club event Monday which Reynolds helped arrangey News writer Errol Louis points out in today's column, she was introduced at the press club event as the person "who organized" it.

But guess what? She's also an ardent longtime booster of Obama's sole remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.