>I used to find Denis Miller bright and insightful with his humor. Over the last year or so he has started to become...um... less insightful and more of an uninformed whiner. He did not understand that the California energy crisis was caused by deregulated power plants gouging the consumers. He thought that environmentalists were preventing the building of new plants.

He is correct about the prevention of the building of power plants in Cal over the past 10 or more years despite exploding population growth. Deregulation had nothing to do with it. Hell, they even blame Texas for their problems. Blaming everything but the truth. Now, they are faced with possibly having to build nuclear power plants which, IMO, is the best solution because it is the cleanest and cheapest form of energy despite the generation of spent fuel rods.

Their problem is also analogous to New York City's shortage of apartments. For years, artificial caps on rent suppressed the building of new units which caused a shortage. When government steps in and establishes price controls, you eventually create a shortage because you have thwarted the free enterprise system of supply and demand.

Generally, government will always screw up what it sticks its hands in.