New York, New York & Blithering Idiocy

I was going to take this post and tell ya'll how wonderful the city of New York is, and that the statue of liberty is pretty big, and that the Incredible Hulk is actually an incredible movie.
But circumstances dictate that I post differently.

The fuel crisis in our country, and really the world is one caused by rapidly rising demand, lack of refining capacity, and only limited growth in oil production.
I don't think it matters a dime where we buy our oil from. It's a global commodity that will be bought, so it doesn't matter where it comes from. So 'buying from Iran' doesn't concern me, nor should it. In reality, we get the majority of our petroleum from North America, be it the US, Canada or Mexico.

But, the solution to this problem is not restricting growth, but rather opening new refineries and expanding drilling to the greatest extent possible. ANWR is there, but it's impact would be minimized by the sheer volume of oil consumed in the US each day, and the limited capacity that can be kicked out of the frozen north.
The real oil is in the Outer Continental Shelf, which is past the 5 mile state water control and up to 200 miles from the coast. Over 75bbl of economically recoverable oil, compared to the 12bbl in ANWR.
So we drill. McCain's nuclear power plant idea is wonderful, but will have limited impact on fuel prices in the next 5 years.

What really has me steamed is the House Democrats response, which is so blatantly in line with Carl Marx, it's astonishing that they sally forth from their leftist lairs and herald it as a solution.
"We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market." - Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee

Because the government runs things far more efficiently then the market.
Because those refineries don't belong to the people, they belong to the government.
Because monolithic mercantile monopolies benefit everyone.
Because building new ones is just not an option.
Because this is 'in the interest of the American people, not major corporations.'

Sorry, but as Calvin Coolidge said, 'The Business of America is Business.' When the government starts taking shots at companies, private enterprises fulfilling a valuable role in the market and peoples lives, we need to be worried. Very worried.
Despite the powerful and lingering reminder of the Soviet Union and the Bolshevik revolution, and the millions of dead Russians lying without gravestones, the communist ideals still march on. I don't think this will actually happen this year, or even this decade, but the idea that an elected official would voice opinions such as these is truly disturbing.

(Reposted to mainatin top spot over The Incredible Hulk review