Unexpected? When will they learn?

Politics
Unexpected again?

Unexpectedly!

As megablogger Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, has noted with amusement, THE WORD "UNEXPECTEDLY" OR VARIANTS THEREON KEEP CROPPING UP IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA STORIES ABOUT THE ECONOMY.

"New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed," reported CNBC.com May 25.
"Personal consumption fell," Business Insider reported the same day, "when it was expected to rise." …
….Which raises some questions. As Instapundit reader Gordon Stewart, quoted by Reynolds on May 17, put it, "HOW MANY TIMES IN A ROW CAN SOMETHING HAPPEN UNEXPECTEDLY BEFORE THE EXPERTS START TO, YOU KNOW, EXPECT IT? At some point, shouldn't they be required to state the foundation for their expectations?"

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/05/pro-obama-media-always-shocked-bad-economic-news#ixzz1NlQU9dKJ

I guess the media have never read Einstein’s definition of insanity, that is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Unexpectedly?

Is Obama above the law?

The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution.

ENACTED IN 1973 OVER PRESIDENT NIXON’S VETO, THE WPR MAY OR MAY NOT BE WISE. IT IS, HOWEVER, UNQUESTIONABLY A LAW, AND BARACK OBAMA CERTAINLY IS VIOLATING IT.  It stipulates that a president must terminate military action 60 days after initiating it (or 90, if the president “certifies” in writing an “unavoidable military necessity” respecting the safety of U.S. forces), unless Congress approves it. Congress has been supine and silent about this war, which began more than 70 days ago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-obama-above-the-law/
2011/05/26/AGL5zyCH_story.html

What is ironic is that Bush followed the War Powers Act in Iraq and the left went crazy claiming he lied to get congress to go along. Over the years as more people were disenchanted with Iraq, more congress people tended to remember they were lied to. But here we have a president who is simply ignoring the law.

Education

Restoring America’s educational exceptionalism

…The progressive theories which shattered America’s academic dominance rejected the millennia-old wisdom that knowledge stimulates understanding, which reciprocally enables the absorption of further knowledge and stimulates further understanding. THE PARADIGM OF PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IS NOT THE ETHICAL TRANSMISSION OF ACCUMULATED KNOWLEDGE FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT, BUT AN ABSTRACT AND SUBJECTIVE EXERCISE IN REVOLUTIONIZING HOW STUDENTS LEARN AND THINK IN A POLITICALLY CORRECT ENVIRONMENT UNPOLLUTED BY INSTITUTIONAL TRIVIA AND SOCIO-HISTORIC DEBRIS….

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/27/restoring-american-educational-exceptionalism/#ixzz1Nlt9Vmvq

If our schools are failing shouldn’t we look at what we are trying to teach?

Energy

Don’t believe the talk about Peak Oil

….The oil rush is already transforming this impoverished area of Texas near the Mexican border, doubling real estate values in the last year and filling restaurants and hotels….

…Based on the industry’s plans, SHALE AND OTHER “TIGHT ROCK” FIELDS THAT NOW PRODUCE ABOUT HALF A MILLION BARRELS OF OIL A DAY WILL PRODUCE UP TO THREE MILLION BARRELS DAILY BY 2020, according to IHS CERA, an energy research firm. Oil companies are investing an estimated $25 billion this year to drill 5,000 new oil wells in tight rock fields, according to Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy, a consulting firm.
“This is very big and it’s coming on very fast,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of IHS CERA. “THIS IS LIKE ADDING ANOTHER VENEZUELA OR KUWAIT BY 2020, EXCEPT THESE TIGHT OIL FIELDS ARE IN THE UNITED STATES.”

In the most developed shale field, the Bakken field in North Dakota, production has leaped to 400,000 barrels a day today from a trickle four years ago. Experts say it could produce as much as a million barrels a day by the end of the decade.

THE EAGLE FORD, WHERE THE FIRST WELL WAS DRILLED ONLY THREE YEARS AGO, IS ALREADY PRODUCING MORE THAN 100,000 BARRELS A DAY and could reach 420,000 by 2015, almost as much as Ecuador, according to Bentek Energy, a consultancy….

…WHAT MAKES THE NEW FIELDS MORE REMARKABLE IS THAT THEY WERE THOUGHT TO BE VIRTUALLY VALUELESS ONLY FIVE YEARS AGO. “Everyone said the oil molecules are too large to flow in commercial quantities through these low-quality rocks,” said Mark G. Papa, chief executive of EOG Resources….

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Expect the left to rail against fracking and other new techniques to get at oil. It seems they won’t be happy until the new SUV’s are donkeys.