Oil below US$100 a barrel

So reports the Times.

Environmentalists will be bemoaning this and repeating their comments that it is still the age of "peak oil". Of course what has happened is demand has eased up, supply has changed little, so the price has dropped.

It's called the market.

So while the market respond, as the economics of oil exploration remain high, and demand eases off - you might ask yourself:

1. Why so many still don't understand how markets work?
2. Why environmentalists get so excited with the prospect of oil "running out" or becoming unaffordable? Why are they more excited about that, than by their being substitute fuels found?

Have Clark or Key expressed a view?

On the US Presidential elections?

It appears Gordon Brown has implicitly endorsed Barack Obama, according to the Daily Telegraph.

He has been quoted saying that the Democrats are "generating the ideas to help people through more difficult times". Doesn't bode the greatest if McCain wins now does it?

Remember Ralph Nader?

Once the left's pinup at every US Presidential election.

Aussie blogger Tim Blair reports on how bad it is going for him. The left seems more than happy to embrace the messiah Barack Obama.

Shame really. The Democrats once blamed Nader for why Al Gore lost in 2000. He wont be a reason for them to get angry this year if Obama can't do it for them. Nader is a serious nutcase, but at least he is principled - what I would like to know is by how much does Obama REALLY disagree with him?

Jeremy Paxman - world class interviewer

He is the one reason to watch Newsnight on BBC2 when he is the presenter.

Can I only wish that TVNZ or TV3 could have someone who could interview politicians like he can:

Try this (BBC not allowing embedding of this) of Michael Howard. Go for 2.40 onwards. The evasion is blatant, and Paxman does not relent.

Or Paxman confronting Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness over his denial of involvement in the IRA


Resisting the dumbing down of news here:





Confronting the vile fan of brutal dictators George Galloway:



A collection of him not getting straight answers from politicians and persisting:



And finally a portion from "Have I Got News for you" showing Paxman presenting the weather grudgingly and brilliantly:



Imagine anyone on NZ TV today who would dare be half this adventurous and confrontational.

National to axe Families Commission?

Yes yes, I'm in raptures, one bureaucracy to go. Yes one, at least something to grapple onto that is a positive change of National compared to Labour. Lindsay Mitchell was getting excited too, until...

Key decided to rebalance it.

Peter Dunne, who should hopefully be back to being the sole MP for his party once more after the election (after all voting United Future has twice meant supporting Labour in power), said it only cost $9 million (of other people's money) over four years. He says its work would "still need to be done by other agencies" if it was abolished.

Bullshit.

Peter, YOU damned well pay for it.

Again National disappoints. Is it just Labour's so bad we are all to put up with more Labour policy tweaking than any real steps forward? Why can't the newest most asinine bureaucracies be wound up?

Why is my tag "National party disappoints", growing weekly?