The democrats allowed a ban on offshore drilling to expire, the Repubican presidential candidates chant is “drill baby drill“, and no one is talking about this. At least half a million gallons of crude oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Nice. Gee, wonder why……. oh that’s right, because it’s so environmentally safe to drill offshore.
Hurricane Ike’s winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.
With the storm approaching, refineries and chemical plants shut down as a precaution, burning off hundreds of thousands of pounds of organic compounds and toxic chemicals. In other cases, power failures sent chemicals such as ammonia directly into the atmosphere. Such accidental releases probably will not result in penalties by regulators because the releases are being blamed on the storm.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry also suspended all rules, including environmental ones, that would inhibit or prevent companies preparing for or responding to Ike.
The AP’s analysis found that, by far, the most common contaminant left in Ike’s wake was crude oil — the lifeblood and main industry of both Texas and Louisiana. In the week of reports analyzed, enough crude oil was spilled nearly to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and more could be released, officials said, as platforms and pipelines were turned back on.
Missing from the following article is the most-often used word I’ve been seeing lately when discussing gas prices on the decline - ‘PLUMMET’.
Gas prices that jump from $2.00 to $3.00 gal. are “edging up”. But when they fall three-microns of an ass hair, they use the word “plummet.” Haven’t you noticed that?
Gas prices extend decline: 5 days and counting
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Gas prices decreased for the fifth day in a row, according to a nationwide survey of credit card swipes at gasoline stations.
The average price of unleaded regular dropped 1.8 cents to $3.739 a gallon, from $3.757 a gallon, according to the survey released by motorist group AAA.
Prices have stayed below the key $4 level for some time now but they are still much higher from a year ago, when gas was selling for less than $3 a gallon. Current prices are about 33% higher from a year earlier at this time.
What’s the next logical step after prices start dropping? Why, you take the gas away, of course!
Waste, greed and idiocy isn’t just for the big dogs in higher up levels of government. You’ll see just as much, if not more, right down the street in your county’s court house.
Charlotte Considering Annexing Part Of Cabarrus County
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte city leaders are thinking of doing something they’ve never done before — annexing part of another county.
They’re close to taking Crosspointe On The Green. Part of the neighborhood is in Mecklenburg County, part is in Cabarrus County.
So, those residents would become a rare breed: Cabarrus County and Charlotte city residents. They have concerns.
Vince DiOrio said, “Well taxes. I don’t mind being part of the city of Charlotte but I don’t want to pay Charlotte taxes.”
Their taxes would go up more than $0.45 for $100 of valuation. That’s about $900 more each year for the average home there.
Students would still go to the same schools.
Charlotte City Council votes a week from Monday. If the annexation passes, it wouldn’t go into effect until next summer.
After several years of development, the Roadster - with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 - officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla’s first store opens. It’s near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city’s toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.
“Because it’s Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store,” Snyder said.
Lobbyist Lott takes advantage of old Senate campaign cash
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trent Lott had nearly $1.3 million in political donations left over when he quit the Senate to become a lobbyist. Now the former majority leader is doling it out to lawmakers who hold sway over his clients.
It’s perfectly legal, and Lott is hardly the first to distribute unused campaign cash to former colleagues. [...]
“The purpose of it really is to benefit Trent Lott’s personal lobbying business at this point. There is no other benefit at all,” said Craig Holman, who lobbies for tighter campaign finance rules for Public Citizen.
Wall Street gains as investors weigh Citi, Google results
NEW YORK - Wall Street topped off a strong week with a big rally Friday, after results from companies like Citigroup Inc. and Google Inc. helped ease investor anxiety about the health of corporate profits. The major stock indexes at times rose more than 2 percent.
Investors have been worried that recent data indicate a slowing economy, which would cut into profit growth at some of the nation’s biggest companies. But, results so far have shown that earnings, for the most part, are meeting or beating expectations, and the major indexes all posted gains of more than 4 percent for the week.
And this…
Citigroup to cut 9,000 jobs after posting loss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (C.N) posted its second straight quarterly loss on Friday, hurt by more than $16 billion of write-downs and costs related to credit losses, and said it will cut another 9,000 jobs.
Though the $5.11 billion first-quarter loss was larger than expected, analysts and investors expressed optimism that the largest U.S. bank and its new chief executive, Vikram Pandit, were taking necessary steps to move past credit problems and drive down costs.
Do you get the feeling that, what matters here is the corporate bottom line, and not much else? That’s the way I’m reading it.
This is bullshit. Out government and everything that touches it sucks! We, as everyday citizens, must follow rules. If we break the rules, we are punished. Why doesn’t our government operate this way? It used to!.. sorta.
If contractors can’t stay on budget or time-table, then fire their asses and replace them… simple as that!
GAO Blasts Weapons Budget
Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon’s biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages.
Auditors said the Defense Department showed few signs of improvement since the GAO began issuing its annual assessments of selected weapons systems six years ago. “It’s not getting any better by any means,” said Michael Sullivan, director of the GAO’s acquisition and sourcing team. “It’s taking longer and costing more.”
Well no wonder Republicans are so bitter and self-destructive!
Science, Bible Agree: Giving Is Better
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bible counsels misers that it’s better to give than to receive. Science agrees. People who made gifts to others or to charities reported they were happier than folks who didn’t share, according to a report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
While previous studies have shown that having more money can increase happiness, the researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard University wondered if the way people spent their money made any difference.
GOP sources confirm that Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Western NY Congressman since 1999 and ex-NRCC chairman, will announce around noon tomorrow in Buffalo that he will not seek re-election this fall. Reynolds spokesman LD Platt did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
Reynolds, who is also a former Assembly minority leader, has been pushing back against retirement rumors for some time now.
But the recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).
Tom Reynolds
Is it just me or do these republican crooks all look the same?
In my last post I spoke of republicans being “whiny-ass, lying hypocrites.” I’d like to append that statement; they are “greedy, whiny-ass lying hypocrites.”
Mark Rey’s critics say talk of “treatment” and “thinning” is code for Rey’s real goal: cutting more trees in service of his former timber industry cronies.
Environmentalists routinely denounce Rey as the “Karl Rove of the forest”: a Machiavellian figure who serves as the brains behind the Bush administration’s aggressive effort to reverse Clinton administration policies that sought to rope off broad swaths of forest land for preservation. One group even declared Rey “Public Lands Enemy No. 1″ after he proposed a failed plan to sell surplus forest land to private interests.
“He’s tried to oversee a radical dismantling of the safeguards that the public really wants for its public lands,” said Doug Heiken, conservation coordinator for Oregon Wild, an environmental group.
It’s good to see that it’s all one big f*cking joke to Rey:
“I’m not sure forests need Karl Rove,” Rey said, laughing.
Josh Kardon, chief of staff to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Rey revels in his notoriety.
“Mark has always enjoyed a good joust and likes reliving those battles while he sips wine and strokes that legendary goatee,” Kardon said.
How does the U.S. stack up against other countries in high’speed internet? Not very well, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The inventory wouldn’t cover other countries, but a cursory look shows the U.S. lagging behind at least some of them. In South Korea, for instance, the average apartment can get an Internet connection that’s 15 times faster than a typical U.S. connection. In Paris, a “triple play” of TV, phone and broadband service costs less than half of what it does in the U.S.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development - a 30-member club of nations - compiles the most often cited international comparison. It puts the U.S. at 15th place for broadband lines per person in 2006, down from No. 4 in 2001.
The article points out that the OECD is often vigorously attacked by anti-regulation think tanks. What the hell is an anti-regulation think tank anyway? How does one become a member of one of these? WHY would anyone want to? Do these people not have anything better to do with their time?
War, disease and poverty abounds. Thank God for the anti-regulation think tank!
Mirth, of LiberallyMirth, has a must-read post up regarding MTR (mountaintop removal) Coal Mining, and the Bush administration’s push to enshrine the practice.
Be prepared to become even more upset with your current government.
The outside of Susan Sabin’s house in Lenexa, Kan., is covered with lemons: lemon’shaped foam cutouts, twinkling lemon Christmas lights, and a lemon-adorned wreath on the front door. If you go to her Web site, you can see for yourself. You’ll also see photographs of splintered beams, bowed floors, and a graphic that declares: “Pulte Homes sold me a lemon!”
Sabin has been called crazy, but she’s not the only dissatisfied customer. The Internet has rapidly become an outlet for frustrated homeowners to chronicle their bad experiences with new homes they have found to be structurally defective. Homeowners can now post complaints, discuss legal options, and warn future buyers on at least a dozen builder-directed “gripe sites,” with names such as www.crapconstruction.com and www.khovsucks.com.
Careless Building During Boom?
As home values decrease and home sales slow in many parts of the country, construction problems seem to have become an even bigger concern for homeowners. “I notice the traffic has definitely picked up,” says Andy Martin, a longtime consumer advocate who runs three sites: www.FightPulte.com, www.FightDiVosta.com and www.FightDelWebb.com. The three sites serve as national clearinghouses for those who think they may be victims of shoddy construction. During the housing boom, builders were working fast to keep up with all the people gobbling up new properties, and Martin believes the quality of building suffered as a result. “The pendulum swung too far in (the builders’) favor,” he says. “The Internet now is rising to level the playing field.”
So where are the contractors that were paid hundreds of millions of dollars to fix this problem? Probably vacationing in the Bahamas! - JS
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday.
[tag]
Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari[/tag] said power generation nationally is only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, he said.
Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that. The water supply in the capital has also been severely curtailed by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.
Karbala province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days, causing water mains to go dry in the provincial capital, the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
“We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having,” said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.
Billions of dollars go to these contractors, such as Blackwater. Yet, our American soldiers receive “squat” for pay and they are losing their houses, losing their jobs at home, and, in some cases, losing their families. This is an atrocity that Blackwater contractor employees are making huge salaries. One contractor pays an employee $80,000.00 a year to pump gasoline! These salaries should be reversed and start paying the soldiers of the U.S. military what they truly deserve. - JS
By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD — Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.
While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 “hostile actions” in the first four months.
The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.
The security industry’s enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction material, including vehicles, weapons and ammunition for the Iraqi army and police. They guard key U.S. military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Monday, October 6th
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte city leaders are thinking of doing something they’ve never done before — annexing part of another county.
