dave donovan dot org

An MSNBC report today gives us something new to worry about with skyrocketing gas prices – thermal expansion.  According to them: 

As the temperature rises, liquid gasoline expands and the amount of energy in each gallon drops. Since gas is priced at a 60-degree standard and gas pumps don’t adjust for any temperature changes, motorists often get less bang for their buck in warmer weather.

Consumer watchdog groups warn that the temperature hike could end up costing consumers between 3 and 9 cents a gallon at the pump.

The effect could cost U.S. drivers more than $1.5 billion in the summertime, including $228 million to drivers in California alone, according to the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, which recently addressed it in hearings. The committee’s chair, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has long been an advocate on the issue and has new clout as a member of the congressional majority.

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 The politicos in the state of Virginia have completely lost their minds.

 According to USA Today:

In an effort to raise money for road projects, [Virginia] will start hitting residents who commit serious traffic offenses with huge civil penalties.

The new civil charges will range from $750 to $3,000 and will be added to existing fines and court costs. The civil penalty for going 20 mph over the speed limit will be $1,050, plus $61 in court costs and a fine that is typically about $200.

Virginia’s new traffic penalties are expected to raise $65 million a year and are part of an effort to improve the state’s roads without raising taxes.

A first-time drunken driver will face a $2,250 civil penalty, plus fines and court costs that typically run about $500 or more. Driving without a license? That’s a mandatory $900 civil penalty, in addition to the ordinary $100 for a fine and court costs.

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Keith Olbermann had this to say about the MCA.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should. 

Tuesday’s signing of the Military Commissions Act has much greater implications than most people can imagine.  It doesn’t just mean we’ve surrendered our last great freedom to our government.   It also means to me that John Titor was right, and that is some very, very bad news.Â
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Should any non-criminal behavior be criminalized?  I think the more important question is, how many more of your freedoms do you want to leave up to a politician to decide for you?  Haven’t we allowed them too much latitude already? Our founding fathers believed that people can and should govern their own behavior, and the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be left to us. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have died attempting to protect our freedoms for us over the last two centuries, and it is an insult to them and to the wisdom of our predecessors that we continue to allow a few thousand tyrants to strip freedom away from 300 million of the rest of us. The more freedoms we empower these tyrants to take away from us, the more they’ll feel justified in taking away other freedoms as well.  Precedents are set and referenced by other politicians and lawyers for future policymaking, followed by phony statistics to convince us that we’re all safer.  I don’t want to be safer, and I don’t want you manipulating my countrymen with the false promise of it either.  Freedom is more important than safety.  If you let politicians take away your freedom in exchange for safety, you’ll simply have less of both.

And of course, politicians won’t have to abide by these laws because we’ve allowed them to be above the laws they’ve created. Just look at the Kennedys and that Foley guy. I have no sympathy for politicians who are ensnared in the foolish laws they’ve created for the rest of us - but they still get away with breaking them anyway.  Why do we allow this to continue?