Zeddy’s Dead…So I’ll Alphalpha Bhang it!

Over and Over

Good morning Attaturk and pups.

$135.00 a barrel? Is that bad? In bushland it is good for the economy right? Boy this is working out so well.

I told my employer 2 weeks ago we should consider a 4 day week because it would save us all (the employees) 20% of our weekly fuel costs. He mentions it every day now but no decision yet. Yesterday the lunch room discussion was how it would help reduce consumption if it were country wide.

Must. Find. Coffee.

Iraq Spending Ignored Rules, Pentagon Says

By JAMES GLANZ
A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the United States military spent some $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash. The audit was released Thursday in tandem with a Congressional hearing on the payments.

In one case, according to documents displayed by Pentagon auditors at the hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a cash payment of $320.8 million in Iraqi money was authorized on the basis of a single signature and the words “Iraqi Salary Payment” on an invoice. In another, $11.1 million of taxpayer money was paid to IAP, an American contractor, on the basis of a voucher with no indication of what was delivered.

My guess is that the prices started their rise at the time of the invasion because
a) having a major war with all that massive fuel wasted in tens of thousands of tanks, humvees, bombing sorties, C5 supply flights bringing cargo and Halliburton (and other multinational war profiteers) into Kuwait and Baghdad…is the equivalent of what’s used in a large European Country.

b) this oil/gas can be sold to the military at inflated prices, driving the price up, and diverting it from the European and American markets.

c) the war took Iraqi oil off the Market. It’s still not at the pre-war production level.

d) Chinese demand is up. As is US demand…there have been no major initiatives at conservation reaching out to minorities and others.

e) Despite making enormous profits over the last decade, petroleum industry executives have failed to invest in new refineries…thus at times there has been an additional decrease in supply. When these executives argue that it’s “simply a matter of supply and demand” they ignore that they set what the Supply will be. They have simply added additional cents into their profit/gallon as prices rose from other factors.

Why should we castigate the corruption of the oil company executives when Bush’s appointee to “clean up the CIA” Porter Goss fired scores of highly respected intelligence agents and analysts while bringing in corrupt people like
Dusty Foggo and His Mistree

When your govenment is lawless then the people could care less and do the same. When there is no checks and balances and all regulations have been dismantled then this is what you get. Sad Sad Sad. I hope the next prez can do something about this. The price tag is going to be dear to us all and then hear the Repugs scream and squeal.
Good Morning Pups

Trouble sleeping. Since I was up, I posted a pic my mom sent me. Check out the tiny baby puppy.

That was late-June 2000. The price of a barrel of oil was about $30 a barrel. It remained at about $30 a barrel well into March 2003 when the Bush made his awesome, “Let’s invade Iraq” declaration.

and the sick part?

my neo con propaganda prone buddies were actually invisioning oil prices reduced once saddam was gone

reduced!

these criminals invaded an oil rich nation and wound up with less oil

and that was their very purpose we have to add, saddam was actually a threat because he was threatening to produce his potential to capacity

these oil baron criminals didn’t want more oil they wanted to control the flow so their would be LESS oil

they deliberately undermined the infrastructure of Iraq, they deliberately allowed oil production reduced

we are in tons of trouble, 130 is nothing, we’re gonna see 200 dollars in a couple of months

but wait!

possibly the administration will actually start produciong Iraqi oil just in time for the election!

of course it would be on the wings of some mccain proposal and they believe that will buy him the election

and it just might

That and a lil “attack” and it’ll be in the bag.

Damn good idea. A four day work week is enough anyway.

One has to wonder what Ashcroft is anointing himself with these days.

There is a great historical tradition being used by the neo-cons. It is called War Profiteering.

Yea, maybe they can give the folks in the 3rd Infantry Division a 4 day week, ya think?

The price of oil will continue to go up as long as bushco can use the price to leverage opening Alaska and many other pristine places to the benefit of his oil companies.

Bring them home NOW

Iraqi oil is only a part of the overall problem. We have peak oil… ever rising demand and falling production of product able to meet the demand. It’s not only fuel, but plastics and pharmaceuticals and ag products. Our economy is addicted to all these as if demand drives all.

We have the disastrous suburbs and exburbs without public transport as the model for the American life, several huge gas guzzlers per household, long distance trips in cars and planes at the drop of a hat, lights burning all day long. We are a wasteful culture. We don’t grow our food locally but import it from around the world. The same for the building products and consumer products. Fuel and huge transport vessels of every type move these products around. And we have an enormous wasteful military with several hundred bases in 130 countries around the world wasteful of precious resource and effectively serving no purposes other than making corporations and their share holders rich. Yea most of military spending end up in the corporate sector and a pittance for soldier’s pay and benefits. We flood the world with weapons which are used in all sorts of regional conflicts, territorial and ethnic disputes. We produce mountains of garbage much of which is dumped in our oceans or in huge landfills or combusted adding to our global environmental crisis.

We have been head in such a wrong direction for the planet and her people… that is aside from the wealthy who are rolling in comfort and luxury of unfathomable proportions while the rest hang on by a thread.

Our economy was/is driven by the smoke and mirrors of debt financing of everything which accrues wealth to the wealthy, lenders and traders of financial “products”.

It’s all crashing down as the house of cards simply can’t support the weight of debt and waste.

While there are examples of sensible and responsible ways to steward an economy those at the helm here are completely not interested because it means that they lose the manna pouring from heaven into their accounts.

We’ll find ourselves in a real class warfare in no time because those without will have no choice but to struggle for theirs or die as impoverished homeless slaves.

There were those who tried to sound the alarm and were laughed at.

We can get out of this… how about more tax cuts for the rich to stimulate the economy? Yea yea yea!

Good morning, pups. Alas, Paul Krugman is off today so Bobo natters on alone about “The Alpha Geeks.” He thinks (and I’m using the word loosely) that the future historians of the nerd ascendancy will likely note that the great empowerment phase began in the 1980s with the rise of Microsoft and the digital economy.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got banana pancakes this morning. I have a VERY curious gray cat on my desk (no, Hoover, you can’t have that) so I had better go and get him some breakfast to engage his attention in more socially acceptable ways. Have a great day — I know I will, because I took the day off.

Biden hits back hard in WSJ op-ed according the WJ which is reading it now.

Attaturk, it’s going to take a long time for me to forgive you for linking the first cold pressed extra virgin olive oil that I love with the Purity Ball. Just sayin’…..

Good Mornin’ all.

(CinnamonApe–was it you that enlightened me with your breakdown of John Edwards’ flip-flopping? I left a note of thanks on that thread, but I was late coming to the party, so I don’t think you saw it.)

RE: Dusty Foggo–

Foggo, the CIA’s executive director from 2004 to 2006, specifically told agency officials he had a “special interest” in seeing the woman hired, and he later berated them when they initially rejected her application. “When the ExDir has a special interest, you had better take notice,” Foggo told the general counsel’s staff, according to an indictment filed late Tuesday by the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria.

Federal prosecutors say Foggo’s alleged intervention on behalf of the woman was but one of a series of successful efforts by him to manipulate the intelligence agency, many of which went undetected for a time by its spies. Foggo managed to win jobs, money and other favors for friends and business partners while concealing the nature of his relationships from the agency, Justice Department officials allege in court documents.

Foggo, hired to the No. 3 position by then-CIA Director Porter Goss, faces charges of fraud, conspiracy and conflict of interest stemming mostly from alleged favors he performed for California businessman Brent R. Wilkes, a childhood friend and prominent GOP fundraiser.

No words for this.

My extra virgin olive oil [the Purity Ball of viscous fluids] is getting really pissed for having kept its chastity while “crude” oil is doing this

nothing like bustin’ a gut first thing in the morning.

My sympathies, Perris. I argued that we were headed into war because Bush was an oil man. I was quickly silenced because I was being *unpatriotic*.

taking the dog out before I take advantage of the banana pancakes – will pass on Bobo, but will look for the Biden editorial, CSPAN said they’d put it up there.

so anyway, here’s what’s on Washington Journal this morning:

7:30 am – Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) Congressional Missile Defense Caucus – Co-Chair. on missile defense.

8:00 am – Brad Blower Co-Lead Counsel in Baltimore Suit Against Mortgage Lender, Wells Fargo.

Cities Suing Mortgage Lenders. Cities all over the country are suing mortgage lenders for lost tax revenue and the burden of safeguarding neighborhoods with vacant, foreclosed properties. Our guest today, who represents the city of Baltimore in its suit against Wells Fargo bank, will discuss this new strategy in battling the effects of a nationwide increase in foreclosures.

8:30 am – John Harwood & Gerald Seib, Co-Authors “Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power”

9:30 am – Capitol Series Hit and Newspaper Articles/Phones

No one could have anticipated….

I remember my neo con propaganda believing friends actually saying;

“why should be divide up the contracts in Iraq to other countries, we invaded not them and we deserve the entire reward”

I could not believe my ears, they were enjoying the fruits of our unprovoked attack long before they were even realized

I also remember my friend saying;

“if there weren’t wmds we’ll make sure we find them anyway”

on that I agreed and I am still at a loss why they never seeded the place with something to justify their depravity

I know that’s what they intended since they knew there would be no weapons but why didn’t the plan to fake nukes come to fruition?

And a scrawl on another piece of paper says only that $8 million had been paid out as “Funds for the Benefit of the Iraqi People.”

Compassionate conservatives at work

A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

and that was the very purpose, they intended to break our banks, they intended to give our assets to the upper class, they want to break our government, the backs of the middle class and they want to usher in a robber baron economy

this is their goal

on that I agreed and I am still at a loss why they never seeded the place with something to justify their depravity

Didn’t they try to get a ship load in through Turkey? I seem to remember a ship being intercepted that had “wmds” on it?

I seem to remember something happened but obviously it wasn’t reported

still, we would have thought they had their plan down pat

My extra virgin olive oil [the Purity Ball of viscous fluids] is getting really pissed for having kept its chastity while “crude” oil is doing this:

That’s why I always stick with slightly slutty olive oil…

You got to laugh at the ‘masters of the universe’ seeing as How Moody’s admitted there was a bug in their computer algorithm: since AAA rated bonds ’should’ really have been downgraded 4 levels (since 2007)!

But in other areas, after several days of searching, I find a statistic of 8.7% met profit for the oil companies. Windfall profits? I suspect not. And, as of a fortnight ago, the analysists reckoned 87% of oil price increase was due to the devaluation of the US $. Thanks, Big Ben!

Mexico’s Cantarell oil field is declining. Just maybe the Saudi’s won’t really raise production because they can’t!

In other areas, Fannie and Freddie are leveraged at 60:1 without the impending ‘take more toxic paper’ scheme. And experts were screaming tha Bearn Stearns at 32:1 could have ‘brought the system down.”

Makes you wonder at how much of it is a shell game, eh?

still, we would have thought they had their plan down pat

Everything else they have done the have done so well!!!!!

A crude awakening, Attaturk. $5/November

NBC is reporting (crawl at the bottom of the screen, no details) that McCain is rejecting Ron Parsley’s endorsement.

No one could have anticipated……

sadly, in this case someone did

Thurdsday Night Preacher Massacre

and I’m with the writer here – if Parsley truly takes umbrage . . .Obama bar the door !

Thanks for the link, cbl. What courage she has.

My son-in-law commutes more than 100 miles each way to work, and his employer suggested he telecommute one day a week, with the possibility of two days. So it saves him 20% on gasoline, but the price has increased more than 35%. I think more and more employers will offer this option just to retain good employees.

Here’s hoping that Parsley gets all hissy and huffy and takes his wackdoodle voters and goes home…

*fingers crossed*