Road blogging
I'm blogging to you today from my parents' home in Iowa City, IA where I will be dog-sitting for the balance of the week. It will not be long-term employment, but expenses are covered.---
I was googling Frank Sinatra's first wife, Nancy-- that sounds dirty-- to check on her age and health status when I came across this interesting collection of celebrity wills.
If you're a Sinatra fan like me, but want to cut to the chase, here's E! Online's summary of the document, and some added context, from 1998.
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A key spending bill will reach the House floor as early as Friday. The measure would reduce Medicaid spending by $11.9 billion, cut child support programs by $4.9 billion, and make $844 million in cuts to projected food stamp spending. It also includes the much-discussed provision that would open up oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has said she expects all 202 House Democratics to vote against these targeted GOP budget cuts. So do I.
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Big Oil's corporate chiefs were called before a Congressional committee today to explain the industry's record 3rd Quarter profits and the fact that, as Sen. Barbara Boxer points out, executives are reaping multi-million dollar bonuses on top of multi-million dollar salaries as "working people struggle"' to pay for gasoline and home heating. What did the executives have to say for themselves and their companies?
Who cares? The Republicans saw to it that they didn't have to take an oath. Apparently, what's good even for Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Curt Schilling is not good for the leaders of the nation's energy cartel. Shouldn't these executives want to be placed under oath?
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HBO has announced it will go three months without original programming between the December 4th season finale of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and the new season debuts in March of "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood." Scheduling concerns involving the Winter Olympics and the Sunday night awards show season are listed as the key reasons. The return of "Entourage" and the debut of two new series are scheduled for June, "The Wire" returns in September, and Season 6, Part 2 of "The Sopranos" airs beginning in January 2007. Here's a picture of the smokin' babes of "Deadwood" and a link to some of the show's press clippings to hold you over until winter.
posted by CM @ 2:56 PM
4 Comments:
The oil executives said they made their profit because people still wanted oil when there was less available to sell than normal. It is the simple law of supply and demand, and not the money-hungry oil companies trying to gauge the oil-hungry consumers.
Absolutely nothing will come from these congressional hearings because even the Dems know that a windfall tax or a price ceiling would be incredibly stupid. It would remove all incentive for oil companies to invest in expanding production or finding additional resources.
Yes, I would love it if I could get gas for closer to $1 rather than $2, but I don't think the oil companies are screwing me.
Not related to the posting, but still important. This was posted on the front page of Yahoo, in the news section. If the media would show just a few more of these stories, I think the outlook for victory and freedom in Iraq might not be so bleak in the American eyes.
http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs1444
When you have a multinational company like Exxon reporting a 75 percent profit increase over the same quarter a year ago, and executives, many absentee, looting multi-million dollar bonuses, it's no longer simply supply and demand. There IS such a thing as gouging, isn't there?
By legal definition, gouging is different from other kinds of price increases because of customer choice or lack thereof- what economists call "monopoly power." Naturally, this applies to the oil industry and rightly so, considering that now just 3 or 4 of these corporations are allowed to claim and extract OUR natural and publicly-held resources and sell them back to us, inflated price or otherwise.
By your logic, what's the incentive for oil companies to invest in expanding production at all when a lack of product, which is inevitable, simply allows them to charge more? Even greater, what's the incentive to protect the environment surrounding said production? These same companies were already responsible for polluting the Gulf and the Delta for generations, and now they stand to collect a healthy chunk of the over $100 billion of taxpayer money flowing to the reconstruction of New Orleans.
It's a horrible system for us, the taxpayers, the true owners of U.S. natural resource, and that's why it's past time to organize true consumer-owned and -operated Energy Cooperatives, like we have out here in farm country. Refineries, pipelines, and gas stations can all be wholly owned and managed by people living in local communities. Aren't real conservatives always looking for more local power?
It would mean more accountability towards clean air and water, less corruption and waste in government, and more self-determination for the average person living in his or her community.
I think the outlook for victory and freedom in Iraq might not be so bleak if more of these stories actually existed. You can't say these stories aren't being reported when here it is in front of you. Maybe the "spin" from the media would be more favorable to the President if he hadn't already declared victory in the conflict.
The problem is that the American people have learned to see through the hollowness of these types of stories-- Lyndie England, Pat Tillman, anyone? Bottom line- the President has failed to make the case that the rebuilding of Iraq, or even the establishment of a democracy, would make our country safer.
It's such a fraud that this war was about liberating people when the administration continues to allow genocide in Sudan and mass starvation in North Korea.
Saddam Hussain's removal from power is, no doubt, better for some oppressed ethnic minorities in Iraq, but was it a preferred scenario to having Hussain remain in power under strict U.N. control and a continued, successful series of weapons inspections. All of the crimes against humanity for which Hussain has been charged took place in the 1980s when he was being funded by the Pentagon. The reason no WMDs were found is because the weapons inspections were working.
The Bush Administration failed in Iraq because it proceeded unalaterally, and because it had no plan to win the peace. Even free elections now will likely only yield a desire by Iraqis to be governed by the mullahs of Iran. Our petulance, arrogance, and greed cost us the hearts and minds of the moderates in this region.
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