At 5 AM PST, 8 AM EST, President Bush will officially submit the name of Samuel A. Alito to fill the SCOTUS position vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor — the second time, I hope, being the proverbial charm.

In blogging, it’s all about timing so, silly me, I got up very early to begin checking the internet for leaks and hints, and came up with the above AP story. In doing a bit further research, one particular paragraph warrants reproduction from the story here:

So consistently conservative, Alito has been dubbed “Scalito” or “Scalia-lite” by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But while Scalia is outspoken and is known to badger lawyers, Alito is polite, reserved and even-tempered.

Unnamed “insiders” within the Bush Administration were supposedly saying that Alito, 55, was “Bush’s favorite choice of the judges in the last set of deliberations” but that Bush wanted someone outside the courts first — hence the nomination of Harriet Miers.

Okay: bit of a heavy sigh here; it isn’t Janice Rogers Brown — I was so hoping for that fight. But at the outset, though this person is outside my meagre purvey of judicial knowledge (like I’m a judicial scholar; not), it still appears that the Dems are girding their loins for a fight. And I am so hoping, in reverse, that Bush goes the distance. Alito isn’t JRB or Luttig or McConnell. He’s still in his 50’s, so that’s a plus. And he currently sits on the 3rd US District Court of Appeals and has been so sitting since 1990 following an appoint by GHWB.

At the outset, Alito appears of serious consideration. I want to see where this goes. And boy, do I sense a backyard brawl coming. . .

A buddy of mine back in Brunswick, Georgia said that, immediately following the Hurricane Katrina debacle, his local gas stations were charging $6 a gallon — because they could. I trust this man. And it didn’t make the news, that I’m aware.

The prices later went down. Because they had to.

In a capitalist society, it is in fact literally about supply and demand.

So how about this.

Exxon Mobil Corp. rewrote the corporate record books Thursday (10-27-2005) as the oil company’s third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. Anglo-Dutch competitor Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) wasn’t far behind, posting a profit of $9 billion for the quarter.

The article continued:

Thursday’s outsized earnings are a result of surging oil and natural gas prices that pushed pump prices to record territory after Hurricane Katrina. They come on the heels of similar eye-popping gains reported this week by BP PLC (BP), ConocoPhillips Inc. and Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) Chevron Corp. (CVX) reports its earnings on Friday.

Is this simply reaping the profits of a singular situation, or is this price-gouging on an heretofore-unprecedented basis? There have been arguments made for both sides at this point. In Fornicalia, I have seen the price of 87-octane gas dip to $2.62 a gallon this weekend at my local Arco — your basic cheaper cash-only outlet.

How about this:

Chafee Votes to Keep Gas Prices High; Senate Democrats, sensing what they hope will be an opportunity to blame Republicans for the high price of gasoline, voted in unison Wednesday in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to help defeat a bill that would have streamlined the building of new refineries.

To continue:

Senate Democrats, sensing what they hope will be an opportunity to blame Republicans for the high price of gasoline, voted in unison Wednesday in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to help defeat a bill that would have streamlined the building of new refineries. The eight committee Democrats won over liberal Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.-R.I.), whose vote against Chairman Jim Inhofe’s Gas PRICE Act (S 1772) means Republicans will have to take other steps if they want to push a refinery bill through the Senate this year.

Further:

Environmentalists opposed Inhofe’s bill for its provisions to expand refinery capacity, streamline refinery permitting and simplify so-called boutique fuel requirements. It also would have provided federal assistance for the construction of refineries on closed military bases, which could have been producing gas in about two years, Inhofe said.

Where do we get the bulk of our imported oil? Are you prepared for a surpise? The top four suppliers are:

1. Canada
2. Venezuela
3. Mexico
4. Saudi Arabia

Bet you thought it was the Middle East — wasn’t it?

Ponder this for a time; where should we go next?

Building refineries? Building tanks? Building storage and refining capacity?

Anyone know anything about podcasting? I know about the basics: having the ability to create a link to one’s website which will enable visitors to listen to MP3 (or similar?) sound files — like a broadcast over the internet for a certain period of time.

Can you do this on Blogger? Or is this something too sophisticated for a free service, and you have to find another host?

Any input? Or am I way outta my league?

I’m finding this blogging thing to be a whole buttload of fun.

And despite our differences, we bloggers in truth have a buttload of things in common, primarily this: we started with nothing but an idea or a concept. We checked out the internet. We found Blogger — or another provider. We were smart enough to make Blogger work (except for me) — or the other provider.

We crafted our sites, checked out templates, rejected templates, changed our look, our style, started writing and hoped to be read by someone other than our Aunt Tilly. And, of course, we had to tell her where to go and give her the damn URL. “Look: everything begins with http. What part of that don’t you get?”

Okay, so we got disgusted with Aunt Tilly because of her computer incompetence and then began playing to the skills of the not-so-disassociated. Our friends at work. Our family. The computer guru for the company. Maybe a local newspaper. Or some Big Time Bloggers like Hugh Hewitt — who to this day has no idea I exist though I sent him 78 e-mails and 59 links to my pisshead blog — the bastard.

Do you remember the first time you saw your blog on the internet? On the actual INTERNET? Right there in front of your face? How satisfying was that?

“Hey. Check this out,” you thought. “This is something I MADE.”

How proud were you? I know I was beaucoup proud. Because you know what? Anyone with any semblance of internet or HTML talent already has their sophisticated website on the WWW. That ain’t you or me or otherwise our asses wouldn’t be on Blogger anyway.

So we learned how to make posts. Then we learned how to link the titles in our posts. Then we learned how to make links within the body of our posts — and I’ll tell you what: after that accomplishment I felt almost invincible. What a WORLD that opened up for me! My blog can actually look like some of the other Big Time blogs I frequent!

But wait; there’s more!

Remember making the discovery about photographs? You didn’t just have to go to the internet; oh no! Blogger now gave you the option of downloading items from your very own personal computer! That is so incredibly fabulous! How invincible were you now?

But wait; there’s more:

Can you remember your first comment? I can. Mine was a piece of spam from a realty company. Then I decided to turn on spam ID and that became an issue of the past.

My first real comment was from a now-known blog goddess, Mahndisa. To this day, I still don’t know how my blog got into the so-called internet mainstream.

Have I hooked you so far?

So I posit these questions:

1. What makes you come back to a blog?
2. Is it philosophy only?
3. Is the “appearance” of the blog a factor?
4. Do you want to check out the blog’s “blog-roll” — how important is a site’s blog-roll? When is it too much? 10 links? 20 links?
5. Are photographs or graphics of any concern — or are you into text only?
6. Do the links make any difference to you? Do they establish credibility?
7. What do you prefer? Frequent posts daily? Posts every couple of days?
8. One post a day?

Quite frankly, I prefer an active site. I like posting at least once a day though, due to issues beyond my immediate control, this does not always occur. If I can post once, twice, maybe three times a day (and I have the time!) I will.

It all depends on tidal pull, sunspots and prevailing trade winds.

Gimme your input! What do you think?

So there I was; upstairs huddled in front of my warm, throbbing HP Pavilion zd8000 laptop, really getting into a keen contest of words between Mahndisa of Mahndisa’s Thoughts and the interminable Intellectual Insurgent, and boy was it fun — until I finally realized: the digital world is nice, but I do my best reading when I hold something in my hand.

Are you the same way? I, for whatever moonbat reason, can proofread and concentrate on information most efficiently from a hard copy. Coupled with the inherent long, thin, vertical nature of blogs, I found myself having to go up and down, up and down, trying my best to compare and contrast the various statements they made. I got-a so confoosed. . .

My big desktop confuser is temporarily down pending federal funding for a flatscreen half as decent as the one on this laptop (the zd8000 has the sharpest, clearest, most detailed screen I’ve ever seen — anywhere — on anything — ever).

Despite that, though my laptop (yeah, right, try placing this monstrous bastard on your lap and see if you ever have decent quadriceps muscles again) has a 17″ widescreen, in an ideal world I find I’d like to have about three or four separate monitors so I can put various posts and comments up on each.

Lacking this brain glazingly-expensive (though, for me, ideal) solution, I’ll bring the internet up in 3, 4 or 5 separate windows and toggle between them. And in truth, I never really print out hard copies because it’s simply not practical — there’s so much information I read and reference.

I guess I just process information this way.

How about you?