Then, of course, some do-gooder attempted to save the world from w32.blaster and wrote a program, w32.welchia, designed to remove w32.blaster from infected computers and install a patch to close port 135. Unfortunately, this, too, became a virus that has currently shut down the Toronto airport and is hindering efforts to bring the Ontario power grid back up to full strength. This illustrates exactly what's wrong with do-gooders, i.e., someone who thinks they know better than you what's in your best interest. And for that matter, it illustrates exactly what's wrong with Democrats, liberals, the welfare state and other forms of social psychosis. In fact it just gave me the witty thought that a Democrat is nothing more than a virus in our constitutional polity. And just like the progenitor of w32.welchia, a liberal thinks he's doing humanity a favor.

Let this be a lesson to you, don't do anyone a favor--even if they ask for it.

I was immune to the power outage, too. Living where I do, the power is generally out here once a month or more anyway. So, like Windows Me there's just no point to shutting off our power. In fact, we joke in my neighborhood that we can't see why anyone is complaining about Irak. With Penelec, this may be the only place in the country where moving to California is actually a step up.

What I found amusing (well, I find lots of things amusing) was hearing government officials reassure the Northeast and Ontario that there was plenty of power around. It was only "distribution" that was the problem.

Then, due to a busted pipeline, Arizona ran out of gasoline.

What I found amusing was hearing state officials in Arizona reassuring residents of Phoenix that there was plenty of gasoline around. It was just "distribution" that was the problem.

Of course, that's also what a Marxist says about wealth. There's plenty of it around, it's just "re-distribution" that's the problem.

Ain't that rich? When there's something you need, distribution is always the problem. When there's something you don't need, like w32.blaster, or Democrat candidates for president, distribution is never a problem--they just force themselves on you. Maybe there's an inverse distribution principle at work here. Perhaps we could say that usefulness is inversely proportional to the ability to be distributed. The less useful something is, the more of it you get.

Disasters seem to bring out the best in Americans. They also reveal our extreme lack of economics education. Comments on the gasoline shortage in the the Southwest, and the rising price of gasoline here at home, remind me of things you use to hear said about solving world hunger: "Well, if we all give up just one meal a week, there'll be enough food to feed everyone!" Remember that ol' mantra? Of course you do--if you're old enough. Every flower child of the 70's was barfing it and it sounded just oh-so nice.

But, you see, just like gasoline, there already is enough food to feed everyone and distribution is the problem. What you learn from a decent economics course that isn't perverted with Marxism is that demand is always the key factor in any distribution problem. When markets aren't allowed to operately freely, demand is always perverted--artificially heightened in one area, or artifically lowered in another. That's exactly what happens with the regulation of the power companies. Demand is kept artifically low, through price controls, so the impetus for new distribution lines and power plants is neglected.

Add to that Soccer-Mom America's irrational fear of nuclear energy, our inability to drill for oil off our own shores and in ANWAR, and the distribution problem becomes functionally equivalent to a lack of supply, no matter what the bureaucrats say.

Of course, if everyone in America gave up one meal a week, the laws of economics would take over and food production would drop correspondingly. There would be correspondingly less food. In Arizona, however, flower child mentally is alive and well. Instead of telling people to give up one meal a week, officials are telling them not to "top off" their tanks, which is the gasoline equivalent thereof. But given the artificially created heightened demand, topping off your tank is the economically rational thing to do. Just like giving up a meal a week isn't going to increase the food supply, its just as irrational to think that not topping off your tank will increase the gasoline supply. If it did have any effect, it would cause less gasoline to flow to Arizona due to decreased demand. And, besides, with enough people around with empty tanks to begin with, a surfeit of gasoline will be well nigh invisible. But liberals, nay, Soccer-Mom Americans in general, love the mythology of the economics of sharing. Because it just "feels" so good!!

Oh, why is the demand for gasoline "artificially" high in Arizona? Am I just being my usual curmudgeonally self? Well...only partly. How is it believable, to begin with, that Arizona has only one petroleum pipeline coming into one of the largest land areas in the country? Government regulation--that's how. Just as with power, the regulations that govern the transportation of petroleum and gasoline are an unfathomable behemouth. If the market in gasoline were free, distribution wouldn't be a problem. With rapidly rising prices, Wisconsin dairy farmers would be dumping out tankers of milk (whose price is always kept artificially high around the nation anyway), filling them with gasoline, and trucking it to Arizona to take advantage of higher profits. Inside of a week, residents of Phoenix would be drowning in gasoline. But, it ain't happenning.

The scenario I just sketched, and a thousand others like it that you could think of (like filling the back of my Subaru with bottles of gasoline so I could make some dough in Phoenix) are, almost all, illegal.

Here in Pennsy, gasoline is hitting the $1.60 a gallon mark. An article in a local paper yesterday reported what a canvassing of local residents--sure to include any number of economic experts-- had to say about it. A resident of the thriving metropolis of Boswell reportedly said that a gallon of gasoline should only be a buck twenty-five. How she arrived at that figure was never explained, although given the state of economics education in general, she probably just "felt" it with ESP.

Unbeknownst to most of the public, the gasoline tax levied by the state of Pennsylvania is 45.3 cents per gallon. The Federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, courtesy of former boy President, Bill Clinton. Together, that means in Pennsylvania you're paying bureaucrats 63.7 cents every time you buy a gallon of gas. In a truly free market of gasoline in Pennsylvania, the price would be at least as low as 96.3 cents a gallon. Hmmmm....perhaps I was wrong. The lady from Boswell wasn't that far off the mark after all!

In other news, it seems that some children in Houston left school at 3 p.m. and never arrived home until 10:30 that night. Now, that's what I call a "distribution" problem!

By the way, just what do you call a resident of Phoenix? It isn't a 'Phoenician' is it?