morning Christy!

Morning Jayt! How’s life in your neighborhood this morning?

Hi Christy, did you mean to say that those oil execs that supported GWB and attended Dick Cheney’s enegry summit now support John McSame? Shocked, I’m just shocked!

So what else is new? The thing that goes uncommented upon is why oil and other industries want to pollute the environment. It’s their environment too. Without understanding the motivation, we, and they, have no hope of behaving differently.

Well at least now we know how much it costs to buy a U.S Senator and make him reverse his previous position. John McCain Integrity for rent at Reasonable Rates.

Peter Lorre!! (okay, I’m done now, honest!!)

Morning Christy!

“My friends, we have to drill off shore. We have to do it. It’s out there and we can do it. And we can do that. The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?”

Of course the “we” who will see positive results are the oil company stockholders.
All the American people will see are are the offloaded costs.

high-profile split

For a non-maverick, this would be called a flip flop, but it being McCain, the MSM which supports McCain can’t call it that.

cbl2 & TCU - epu

Thanks for the feedback downstairs.

Lowering the speed limit to 55 mpg will lower gas prices quick and lowering all speed limits 5 mpg should help too!
What does America want more cheaper gas or faster roads?
Its your choice America offshore drilling is years away from lowering oil prices but if you want oil prices lower now then you have to make some tough choices.

Well, the amusing thing was that they held off on the campaign money payoff until they extracted a public policy flip-flop out of him. Thought that was worth a bit of highlight. Maverick, my ass…

Morning Christy.

One of our churches had a shooting yesterday. Two dead, 5 in the hospital. It has brought back a similar incident that happened in a church I served several years ago.

I’m not afraid of terrorists from overseas—we’ve got enough crazies running around with guns here.

SO sick of it all.

Kind of puts a different perspective on a lot of things.

I had an interesting discussion about the ‘privatization of government’ with an old friend the other day. The whol philosophy taht businesses make better and more cost-effective decisions than the public sector is blown to $#!+ when you remove personal risk from the decision-making process.
Similarly, oil companies want to drill offshore in a regulatory environment where they are not responsible for failure.
Make them 100% accountable for spills resulting from forces beyond their control and they won’t want to do it either.

Morning Christy

ekunin, ever see a pig at the trough

Good Morn Christy and Pups.

If it exists, the reason must surely be that this particular generation must use it up, NOW.

mccaint’s loopier than my cabbage butterflies here.

Thanks much for the heads-up and all the background info, Christy.
They cannot hide from the dreaded Redd. heh.

I commented to my wingnut friends this morning that teh gas price seemed to be dropping all of the sudden, and to a person they said,”Doncha know there is an election in November?”

That made my day. Fool me once,twice, three times , and even a wingnut gets the drift. No Credibility left, even for the political right in an Iowa county that is way red.

News conference on now,

The shooter hated the liberal movement

Thank you for turning us on to the story.

IMHO, everyone desperately needs is a clear picture of:
– How prices got so high.
– Why they are going to stay that way until we wean ourselves from oil.
– What the alternatives are to oil.

This Dkos diary is the best thing I’ve read on the first two points.

On the third point, this this Dkos diary by Jerome a Paris is the best I’ve read on the third. This Scientific American article is the second best. For third, I grudgingly tip my hat to T. Boone Pickens.

Why is BigOil demanding the right to drill everywhere except on the lands they already control? Is this an accounting trick, are their existing lease-holds essentially barren, or is it (most likely) something else that I just don’t yet understand?

I truly don’t get it.

Also, it occurs to me that McLame should *really* be dreading debates - of course, Obama might well choose to refuse to attack. V.P. candidate, then, needs to be a serious attack dog.

P.S. I continue to root for JindalWho? to be the Repub Veep candidate.

My theory is that McCain’s “maverick” rep is a result of his liking to piss people off rather than some strong moral imperitive.

recommended diary at dkos from member of the congregation.

we’re all targets now.

Good Morning Christy!

Sounds like Howard Dean to me!

Barack Obama said he’ll give his vice president substantive work and will choose his running mate based on ability to govern, not to help win a state in November.

Obama listed the qualities he’ll be looking for: “I’m going to want somebody with integrity. I’m going to want somebody with independence – who’s willing to tell me where he thinks, or she thinks, I’m wrong. And I’m going to want somebody who shares a vision of the country: where we need to go — that we’ve got to fundamentally change not only our policies, but how politics work, how business is done in Washington.”

“I think the most important thing, from my perspective, is somebody who can help me govern,” Obama said. “I want somebody who I’m compatible with, who I can work with, who has a shared vision, who certainly complements me, in the sense that they provide a knowledge base or an area of expertise that can be useful. Because we’re going to have a lot of problems and a lot of work to do.”

(snip)

“I’m not interested in a vice president who I just send off to go to funerals,” he continued. “I want somebody who’s going to be able to roll up their sleeves and really do some work.”

I don’t got TV so how does shooting up a church hurt us if anything it brings up the gun control issue before the election in a way that puts the blame on the GOP.

We need someone to take charge of exorcisms in DC and at Repub prayer mtgs.Move over Brownback

Do you mean he is a contrarian

I think it brings up the issue of the mental stability of the radical right

If you want to lower crude oil prices quickly,

Close the Enron loophole
Get rid of the London-Dubai exception
Eliminate non-commercial traders and swaps deals
Increase margins to 50%

It’s not rational.

And we don’t call it terrorism when it happens in this country and a white guy does it. No Muslims, no terrorism. What else is new?

As prices go up and more and more people lose their jobs there’s going to be a lot more crazy things happening all around us. This is more than a wake-up call.

No. He married his way into money.

Difficile est saturum non scibere.

If JindalWho? was to perform an exorcism covering the entire Republican party, there would be a constitutional crisis, because there would be no more opposition from that side, and we’d be left with a one-party system….

None of those things will happen while Republics have any power.

Bringing up the Mental stability of the Right is a winner for us:)

It’s time to bust up these monopolies that exploit the people and the planet. America needs a trust buster that who will talk loudly and carry an even bigger stick.

oh yeah - Dean would be perfect. No second Senate seat sacrificed, and Dean meets all of my attack-dog criteria…

Yep the system is breaking down

We did call it terrorism back when McVeigh bombed the federal building in OK City. And then it became a political football issue instead of a national security one — and the framing of it flipped to scary brown people from overseas instead of the acts itself.

Because scaring people about something that happens elsewhere or from elsewhere makes the NRA happy, and it stokes the nativist fear that aids the GOP to herd the frightened into the voting booth every two years without giving them any pause to stop and really think about what it is they are really voting FOR… SIGH

OT - Breaking:

DOJ says Monica Goodling broke the law by using improper using political considering applicants for non-political DOJ jobs…

IMHO, those measures would get rid of some wild swings but it appears likely that oil prices will never return to what we’ve seen in the past for two reasons:
— The supply is inelastic. We appear to be at or near peak oil production.
— There are lots of Chinese and Indians with lots of dollars with which to bid against us for that inelastic supply.

In addition to supply-v-demand, we have to face the rapidly declining value of the dollar, which has lost roughly 50% of its value relative to the Euro since Bush was elected.

Good Morning Christy and Firedogs,

yes, for a moment let’s forget about the existing 7000 leases, the length of time it would take to produce any results. . . or that those results would be shipped to Indo-Asia

let’s pretend . . .

for a moment that drilling started tomorrow and produced gushers, and since we’re pretending - environmentally safe gushers-

all that would do is cause OPEC to cut back and maintain high prices…right ?

All those things would also save the financial system but a lot of hedge funds, pension funds and banks that made money off of this Ponzi scheme would go broke first.
McCain’s son would not be the only economic elite leaving a job.
Can we start Now?

Add her to the pardon list. Little Boots is going to have some hand cramp from all the signing!

Jim, I read that a group of people tried to do a ‘citizens arrest’ on Roverboy this weekend. Would a Contempt of Congress subpoena do it?

Get the value of the dollar up

Any talk of charging her? What about Time how much is she looking at?

Dean would be something of a concession to the base. We’ve got to learn to hold our feelings hostage to achieve political leverage. It works for the wingnuts. So why can’t it work for us. Damn it; Obama has some fences to mend.

Gad prices down 11 cents last week on average…national oil emergency…dumping a kool million in McSames campaign cofers was onky what you saw. You can bet other fav agreements were made.
THis is so much easier than tuuning on the red yelloow and red terror lights which are not getting needed results of massive fear…now its just loathing.

That is exactly why I supported Edwards so strongly. There is a serious need for some aggressive anti-trust action if we the people want to recapture our republic.

No, but I sort of understand a pig’s greed. That doesn’t explain human greed.

And the Big Oil cotillion’s all got the vapid vapors over T. Boone’s straying from their “truth…” They’re panicking that we really might at long last elect people who will restore regulations over their monopolistic and socialism-for-capitalists, crapola for consumers trough.

Meanwhile, gas in Fargo dropped to $3.58.9…I’m callin’ it The Pickens Effect.

back to catch up on comments and about a gazillion threads, now.

Yep.

Sara at Dave’s place has an eloquent post about yesterday . . . and tomorrows.

IMHO, those measures would get rid of some wild swings but it appears likely that oil prices will never return to what we’ve seen in the past

6 years ago oil sold for $25/barrel.

prices could go down substantially (via hugh’s recommendations) and still be nowhere near $25/barrel.

We shouldn’t be surprised that McSame is for sale to the highest bidder. He’s a shallow man who has always been for sale to the highest bidder. You can see that in his personal life when you consider the fact that the wife who he had three kids with was no longer good enough for him when she became severely injured from and auto accident and a new younger and richer and now prettier woman came along. Make him a better offer and he’s gone, which proves that has no integrity.

Torture was what I considered McBush’s signature issue, but when the Bush administration offered McBush their support in exchange for his support of their position on torture, his position changed in support of their torture. There is nothing about McBush that is not for sale to the highest bidder. He’s a prostitute; the only thing they haggle about is the price.

The wolves are sacrificing a lamb.

I was pretty close to that - lost several friends, others injured, first radio reports said it was foreign.

Do you recall a wave of bpmbings and shootings at Planned Parenthood clinics?

They’re back

OT, but definitely from the “Excuse ME? They said WHAT?” news section:
Vice President Cheney’s invitation to address wounded combat veterans next month has been yanked because the group felt his security demands were Draconian and unreasonable.

His staff insisted the sick vets be sequestered for two hours before Cheney’s arrival and couldn’t leave until he’d finished talking, officials confirmed.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....invit.html

We are past peak, Did you notice that refineries in SW are receiving notice of 15% reduction in deliveries from gulf

I have written on this in my scandals list item 365. When Bush came into office crude oil futures were trading at $32. Even with a 50% devaluation in the dollar, this would make such a contract around $48 now. I should also point out that $32 price was actually significantly higher than it was during most of the 1990s.

While we are entering into the era of peak oil, we are not quite there yet. So even if prices did not quite go back to previous levels they should for the next few years trade at about half of today’s price of $124.

Little Boots is going to have some hand cramp from all the signing!

well, that’s gonna happen when your pardon list is the approximate size of half of the Washington D.C. phone-book.

And you know there is more room under that bus…

What a heart breaking story. Adding these folks to my list (getting longer every day) of prayer concerns.
For me, I don’t see how this happening before an election affects the gun issues. But, there’s a lot I don’t understand. This story does not inspire me to buy a gun between now and next Sunday.
The guy is obviously unhinged. That’s all I can say. Oh, yeah, one more thing. What a coward.

Do you know if the Sara who wrote this is the one who has a blog called Sara Laughs? I have gone to that site for inspiration. She gets it.

Yes RevDeb but local,state and national gov cut funding for the safety net that addresses this…social services for mental jealth and addicts. Food stamps and section 8 help for those families that lost housing. Econ moes always put a strain on low income families and who’s getting the kids.
The services to all areas are cut but social is the first to go.
So we need neighborhood watch programs to get active too. Putting it all on the churches won’t work but they do tremendous work here getting food and overflow housing tro the homeless.

55 would conserve energy but the question has to be will Americans support lower speed limits? Given the fact that the transportation infrastructue is so feeble in the U.S. auto travel next to mandatory. While on the xways at 65 mph Hummers, SUVs, and big pickups are blowing by as if I’m standing still. If Americans are required to drive 55 mph then that whine that Phil Gramm was talking about will be audible. Having spent a lot of time in Europe it’s stunning to see the transporation options they have compared to the U.S. but then most Americans are ignorant of how other people deal with energy and transportation.

ps - Kyle Rovette Sampson figures prominently in DOJ Report pdf

This is something that also goes undiscussed. Robert Klein in an old comedy routine defined supply and demand as “I’ve got the supply so I can demand whatever the f— I want.” The difference (fatal) between Enron and Exxon is that you can’t store electricity. If you could, Enron would probably still be around gouging one and all. Exxon and its sister oil companies store oil and let it out as it suits them. OPEC has some control of the spiggot, but nothing like the big oil companies. The notion there is competition in the oil business is laughable as a gallon of gas at one station is the same as at another to nine tenths of one percent.

Start the pardon paperwork - shes suffered enough

Watched “The Gangs of New York” this weekend and it’s stunning to see that nativist xenophobia is still in play in the land of the “free.”

With pardons these people will be available on Jan. 21,2009 to begin trying to take down Obama’s adminstration. They will be more virile and deadly unless they are held accountable in courts of law in the U.S. or the Hague.

Enron;s commodity trading unit was bought by and went to UBS as did Phil Gramm

Prices in every market fluctuate, and we’re no doubt on the high side of one of those fluctuations now in the petroleum market. But supply-v-demand forces are going to keep forcing the prices upward, even if we can dampen the fluctiations.

The best thing the U.S. can do is to develop alternatives to petroleum. Natural gas is a near-term slam dunk:
– There’s about the same amount of it as petroleum.
– Those reserves are in other (and somewhat friendlier) places.*
– It doesn’t need refining.
– We have the infrastructure in place for storing it and distributing it to businesses and homes.
– Cars can run on it (after $2000 of modification).
– For $2000 people can install home-based fill-up units.

A law that requires all cars manufactured sold in the U.S. to run on both gasoline and natural gas would force the oil producers to bid against the natural gas producers for our business.

* I think I’d rather see our $700 billion per year going to Canada and Russia than to the Middle East.

… but then most Americans are ignorant of how other people deal with energy and transportation.

… and almost all of our other big problems, e.g., health care, drugs, prisons, etc.

I am not, as you can see, a big economist, but I believe Enron’s big scores in the beginning came from manipulating the electric energy market. Phil Gramm is a case in point. What makes him tick? Does he have friends, lovers or just associates. You don’t get that sour without a reason.

That is what T. Bone is banking on but is a decent short term solution. A second benefit is that it runs cleaner both for the environment and the vehicle. A downside is the size of the tanks. I think school districts could really take advantage of this.

His wife was on Enron bd. for ten years

On the bright side..alternative to carbon are now viable. As energy reduction fron Big Carbon lowers by percentage gas prices will ease.

1956…gas station with fill up for 16 cents a gallon gives you a case of glasses.

Lower demand with cheap energy from home/business solar electricity to run electric cars and solar thermal at 7 cents a kilowatt and Big Oil is small oil.

Keep in mind less than 1% of the solar energy hitting the earth is enough to power the whole planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Carbon caps

o/t kinda sorta -

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign — violating rules that it not be a political stop.

Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he’d been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed — never any press

MSNBC

Where is the love?
You said was mine all mine,
till the end of time
Was it just a lie?
Where is the love?. . .

Another minion under the neocan bus. More to follow. Scum.

You don’t get that sour without a reason.

if you haven’t already, get yourself a copy of John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience - better yet Robert Altmeyer’s The Authoritarians {Dean cites his work throughout his book}

both do a very good job quantifying this

Impeachment proceedings

There’s a new post a couple flights up…

Perhaps porcine and human greed are both biologically driven, only in humans it can become sublimated to a pursuit of power and wealth.

Don’t laugh, people, things are not always as complicated as they may seem.

However, what has characterized humans is the ability to envision idealism and the future, and to understand that postponing gratification is good for both the tribe and the individual. Considering this, one can speculate that “the greed of oil executives” arises out of a group of psychologically regressed people, who, despite their so-called exalted positions in life are no more than children in their stages of development and maturity.

Scary, huh?

Remember, pups, we are dealing with a bunch of power drunk frat boys at times.