The idea that the gas tax is paid solely by the consumer is pure hogwash and proof that Hillary knows nothing about the "regular people" she claims to champion. Anyone in the retail business knows how price sensitive customers can be, especially with gas prices. People will drive several miles to pay 5 cents less a gallon, even when the extra mileage and time involved makes no sense.

Retailers often eat the price of sales taxes, rather than lose customers to the competition. Don't think for one second that the sales tax saving will be passed on to the customer. Given the burden of paying an 18 cent per gallon tax, big oil companies will simply jack up the wholesale price of gas to retailers. The pressure will be on retailers, most of whom are locally owned gas stations, to lower prices when consumers start wondering where their 18 cent a gallon savings is.

Is Hillary really so dumb that she doesn't understand that in big business, it is always the little guy who gets screwed?

There is a reason to make a huge deal about this. From an energy policy standpoint, our nation is burning to the ground and Clinton shows up with a squirt gun. It is hard to see what problem the gas tax cut is going to solve. It won't reduce consumption, it won't reduce pollution. It won't encourage a single soul to buy a hybrid, or heaven forfend, a bicycle.

IT DOESN'T SOLVE ANYTHING.

Clinton deserves to be pilloried for this proposal because it is so woefully inadequate. The number of trees that will have to be cut down just to draft the legislation will cancel any overall cost benefit. This is thinking small in absolutely the worst way, at absolutely the worst time.

Here she is talking about backing out of Iraq, backing our stabilizing forces out of the world's largest oil reserve, and she is going to go after our petroleum problem with a squirt gun. What a disconnect! If you think oil prices are volatile now, what until you see what an Iraqi civil war does to them.

If this is the best she can do, she can propose bills like that without leaving the Senate. Leave the big thinking to someone who deserves to be in the White House.

So horse racing could be safer if horses were raced a little older and possibly if the track surface was changed. If breeders can create a colt that is lightning at 3 years old and fades quickly, they can certainly create a colt that peaks at 5 years of age and would be less likely to get injured because it is more mature.

But why won't this happen? Tradition.

The thing is, we tend to look down on other societies who have traditional sports harmful to animals, like bullfighting and cockfighting. Yet we can't change the Kentucky Derby.

If we can't change the Derby because we adore our traditions, we have no business telling other cultures to change theirs, do we?

There was a clue in the first half of game 1. In that game, the Spurs shot lights out from 3 point range. They hit 9 threes in the first half, which I think was a team record (or at least a team playoff record). Even still, at the half the Spurs were up only by 4.

When you post 9 threes in a half and can't get a big lead, something is wrong somewhere else. The Hornets seem to be able to hang with the Spurs, no matter how hot any one player is.

Another clue: The Hornets beat the Spurs by an average or 24 points in the regular season. When the Spurs beat the Hornets, the Spurs won by 10. That suggests that the Hornets have a better shot at beating the Spurs on the road than the Spurs have of beating the Hornets on the road.

Playoff games tend to be tighter than regular season games, but the Hornets have posted 15 point plus wins in two games, indicating that the 24-point home-win advantage for the Hornets will hold up. The 10 point home advantage for the Spurs could hold too, but that is a narrower margin and easier to overcome.

The rare thoughtful discussion of Catholicism in American politics. I frequent Catholic websites, and listen to Catholic radio, but in the end often end up irritated that many Catholics automatically equate Catholicism with right wing politics. I am strongly pro-life, and this puts me at odds with liberals from time to time, but I cannot see why a Catholic should be forced to buy the garbage the Bush administration ladles out about the war.

I also fail to see why a person has to be in favor of tax cuts for the rich, or against strong environmental policy, to be Catholic.

Yes, Obama is pro-abortion. But we have had a pro-life president for 8 years, and in the 80s and 90s we had one for 12 years straight, and abortion is still legal. The GOP has had its chance to do something about abortion. All it does is whine and use abortion as a wedge issue. I'd rather be on the side of the party that is honest and will admit it intends to do nothing about abortion, but will do something about the war, climate change, and poverty, than be on the side of a pack of liars who say they intend to do something about abortion but never really will.

I don't think the GOP can afford to do something about the abortion issue. They get too much mileage out of griping about it.