Environment: China Drilling Off The Coast

If we have to listen to this bullshit one more time, we're going to scream.

Hello, people? You know the Republicans lie about everything, right? They lied about the war, they lied about WMD, they lied about 9/11, they lied about the Clintons, they lied about their own compassion, they lied about military casualties. So why do you believe them when they tell you that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba?

Because that is NOT HAPPENING, people. No, no, a thousand times no. Dick Cheney, the father of all lies (in his other incarnation as Satan) started this particular lie. Think about all the times over the past five years this moronic monster has told you that the Iraqi "insurgents are in the last throes" of their insurgency. How many times was it true? Once? Even once?

Nope. Not even once.

Now, it's true that China has signed some deals with Cuba allowing it to explore Cuban LAND for evidence of oil that might, ultimately, be worth drilling for. But for Dick "DICK" Vampiris to use the Yellow Peril Red Menace Energy Scare to rally the troops is the usual substitution of sound bite and immediate return that will make him and his minions rich while you (the whole nation) pay the cost and continue to bleed dry. Dickie and his minions are hoping to scare us into saying, "Yes! Let's drill the whole country for oil!"

Incidentally, Florida's Republican Senator Mel Martinez refuted Dick on the alleged Chinese offshore drilling.

So let's look at the idea that drilling for oil in the U.S. will help the American consumer, shall we?

First off, who profits from higher oil prices? Oh, let's see, Halliburton maybe? Remember Halliburton? Unca Dick's former bosses? Who have been mysteriously winning no-bid contracts by the fistful ever since Unca Dick became President, er Vice?

From citizen x's fine blog, hitherto undiscovered

That's OK, you say. America is a capitalist nation, not socialist. We want our businessmen to make profits. Good, good. So consider this. If we open up our coastlands and shorelines for the oil companies to drill in &mdash where is the guarantee that oil will be sold to the U.S. consumer? After all, these companies must make a profit. Japan and China and India have money. Lots of money. They can afford to pay more for the oil than we can. Now put yourself in the businessman's position. You just drilled up a whole bunch of oil, and that cost you money in equipment, wages, taxes, leases, whatever. Along come the Chinese and say, "Hey, we'll pay you $150 a barrel for some of that sweet light crude."

American consumers are screaming about having to pay $140. You gotta make a profit, right? Are you gonna sell that oil to those goddamned screaming Americans? Or to the nice Chinese who will put cash on the nail? Do you really need to think about that for more than two seconds? Because if you do, please don't quit your job and go into business.

Now, let's pretend there are no Chinese wanting the oil more than Americans. Let's pretend we have all the money we used to have and we're the richest and we can somehow force those businessmen to sell whatever they manage to get out of our coastal waters. How long will it take before the first barrel appears? You're screaming about the price of oil, better get yourself some throat lozenges, because you'll be screaming for at least another FOUR YEARS before the oil companies can even begin to explore, says the Seattle Times.

See, drilling for oil is not like buying stuff from the store. When you want something &mdash throat lozenges, say &mdash you climb into the car and drive to the store, or get on your bicycle and bike to the store, or walk to the store. And you look for the thing you want on the shelf. You whip out your wallet, hand the money and the product to the clerk at the register, and whammo, scalammo, you're done. Right away, you got an ample supply of lozenges to soothe your screaming throat with.

Drilling for oil, that's a bit harder. See, you need specialized equipment. Like these deep-sea drill rigs. And, guess what? Every single goddamned fucking drill rig in the whole wide world is booked solid for the next five years. They can't even START drilling for your oil till they finish all those other booked contracts.


No probs, you say, let's build some more! Well, the U.S. isn't in the business of shipbuilding and shiprepair any more. All those jobs got outsourced (remember Bethlehem Shipbuilding?) to Asia and Europe in the 1970s. It requires specialized technology and equipment and skillsets to build ships. Little Johnny who just finished high school would need a couple years' worth of training before he could even start to work on one of those monsters.

A single deep-sea rig costs approximately half a billion (that's BILLION) dollars to build. They used to cost less, but hey, yaknow, shipbuilders are businessmen too, when they saw that the oil companies were making record profits, they decided they needed to make more too, so they raised their prices. A single day's worth of drill rig operations costs a little over half a million. Those businessmen need to make their money back too, yaknow.

Shipbuilders are working overtime to build more vessels, but even those vessels have already been booked, for up to four years. And they're not even completed yet. So don't let these filthy crooks rip you off yet again, America. We're in the shit here, y'all better grab yourselves a paddle and start paddling like crazy. The shore's a long ways off.

Nope, we're all gonna have to learn to make do with less. Use public transportation more, cut down on driving, move back to the city from the suburbs, buy bicycles. Because even after all those years, even if we start drilling in 2012 when we finally get our mitts on some drill rigs, guess what? The U.S. government estimates that there are 30 billion barrels of oil in the ANWR and off the coast of the U.S. All told. Total.

The U.S. government also shows that Americans use 20 million barrels of oil PER DAY. So after all that waiting and suffering, we're gonna use it up in three years. Assuming, of course, that the oilmen bother to sell it to us at all.

Don't even ask about Brazil. Yeah, they found the oil, but they don't have the equipment to retrieve it either.

And another thing: Thanks to the Bush Misadministration's disastrous mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, refinery capacity dropped precipitously (from 111% to 103%, says the Asia Times). It takes a little over three years to get a refinery built and operational. Since the RubberStamp Republican Congress of Tom Delay and Denny Hastert were busy colluding with lobbyists to bleed the Treasury dry, it wasn't until after the Democrats won the elections of 2006 that Congress passed laws to assist in building refinery capacity. So the first increases in refinery capacity should occur sometime between 2010 and 2011.

With refinery capacity running at 103 or 104% in the meantime, any combination of unfortuitous circumstances &mdash natural disasters, wars, maintenance downtime, blockage of shipping channels &mdash could cause the price of oil to spiral higher.

Not that Dick "Dick" is complaining, since every dollar increase in the price of oil represents a few more pennies in his bank account.

Meanwhile, idiots like Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois continue to lie about the Chinese drilling off the coast of Florida and offer to shoot Obama on sight.

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Best Lines

Heard around teh InnerTubes (thanks, Ted Stevens!):

TiffanyBannedHussein: Has anyone heard if the gas tax holiday was still a go? Neither Hillary nor McCain have spoken about it for weeks.

I am starting to think it was just a gimmick.

New Marcospinelli:

LOL!

If I had a blog, that would go under "Best Lines Heard Around The Nets".

Thank you, TiffanyBannedHussein and New Marcospinelli, and, of course, The Huffington Post.

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Surprise!

A high-ranking official has just contradicted Li'l Boots' most recent lie &mdash that he was sending Snarly McCrashcart over to Saudi Arabia to beg his good friends the Saudis to lower the price of oil. At the time, White House Spokesbimbo Dana "Math is hard!" Perino announced:

The White House said on March 11 that the problems associated with soaring oil prices are "not going to be solved overnight" and that "it would be wrong" of Bush to promise otherwise. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said "there are some things we cannot do." Her comments came as oil prices rose above $109 a barrel for the first time. They were as low as $87 a barrel in January.

Funny that prices can go up overnight, but not down. Why? Are oil prices like penile erections? They go up but won't go down till the consumer is royally screwed?

And it wasn't so long ago that Dim Son was claiming that his "administration" had earned them some capital that they could then spend to keep oil prices down or production up. Our CEO Preznitwit.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Bush said at the time. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

Looks like you don't have any friends, Dimly McDumbwit. Or only fairweather friends.

They're happy to be nice to you before you trash the house and everything in it. Now that it's all broken, they're calling in their loans, and giving you &mdash and us &mdash the finger. What do you care? Daddy's money will take care of you. As for us, as your partner in crime says, "So?"

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Science: Annual Petrol Fill-up?

Fisker Karma

Yes? Sweet?

Sweeeet! And it's a sports car, too.

The Times (UK) is telling us that you can fill this baby's tank once a year and drive it for the rest of the year with no problems. Is this car available in the U.S.? Because, with the price of gas making Chimpy McStupie's buddies spooge with delight, nobody needs this fucking thing more than the beleagured American consumer.

The makers of the Fisker Karma say that unheard-of level of fuel efficiency is entirely possible if you only drive the car up to 50 miles a day, using just the battery, and remember to recharge it at night.

The car can go from 0-60mph in just six seconds and has a top speed of 125mph - although only in "sport" mode, when the juice kicks in to help power the engine.

The four-door plug-in hybrid, launched today at the Geneva Motor Show, features a small petrol engine and a lithium ion battery pack which work in harmony to power the car using technology developed for secret US military reconnaissance vehicles. It also has an optional solar panel roof that helps charge the car and provide cooling for the interior cabin.

[...]

"It is a rear wheel drive, the car is always being pushed by the rear wheels and the electric motor so the gasoline engine never drives the car, which is the big difference to the normal hybrid of today.”

Even as recently as ten years ago &mdash well, if we hadn't had a bunch of greedy Republican obstructionists in Congress &mdash we would have been manufacturing this car and selling it to everyone else.

Now we'll have to pay for it in Euros. Hopefully, the dollar won't devalue to the point where we'll need a goddamn wheelbarrow full for the purchase price.

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World: This Is What Happens When

You spend all your political capital on trivia, before paying your bills


Apparently Our Esteemed Leader was forced to beg OPEC to consider raising production to feed America's oil habit. Apparently, being friends with Prince Bandar ain't worth squat when it comes to getting cheap oil.

All that warmongering Li'l Boots has been doing hasn't seemed to help his cause either. He's been killin' them Iraqis that are sitting on Uncle Dick's oil by the thousands. He's refugeed a few million. Why, the current estimates are that he's wiped out 2.5 per cent of the Iraqi population — for those who have trouble figuring it out, just imagine if you will that 7.5 million Americans got killed in the bombing of the twin towers. That would be most of the population of New York City. Or the combined populations of Los Angeles and Chicago and a few hundred thousand more.

And still the price of oil goes up. Maybe we oughta take up a collection and persuade Li'l Boots to swap out those boots for some good quality kneepads.

Or maybe there's some sleight of hand going on that we need to think about?

After all, WH as spokesweasel Dana "Math is hard!" Perino assures us, she:

disputed an OPEC charge "that our economy is being mismanaged," saying that "The United States economy is fundamentally sound with good structure."

"We are in a little bit of a slowdown right now. We have taken measures to mitigate against that, and we believe that we will see us pull out of this before the end of the year," she said.

Fundamentally sound? Does that mean we're pulling numbers out of our ass?

Because everyone we know has either been laid off, or is worried about being laid off. Houses are sitting on the market with no sales in sight. House prices are tanking. Companies are laying off workers and closing branches. And Ben Bernanke is warning us that small banks may be forced to close. We had no idea those were signs of a sound economy. Last time we saw a sound economy, companies were trying to hire people, banks were offering great interest rates on CDs and savings and investment packages, and people were laughing about being able to retire early.

OPEC ain't buying it, though:

The cartel's president on Wednesday blamed financial speculators and American economic problems, which have helped lower the value of the dollar, for the high oil prices. After the meeting, oil prices settled above $104 a barrel, a record.

Bush, who had said this week it would be a mistake for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries not to raise production, was disappointed by the outcome of Wednesday's meeting, according to the White House.

It is the second time this year that OPEC ignored public calls from the United States to boost supplies. In January, Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia and urged producers to open their taps. But the plea failed to sway OPEC.

Back when the IdiotBoy was trying to get elected, he would assure the voters with bullshit like this:

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Bush said at the time. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

See, once you started that war, buddy, you lost a whole bunch of capital right there. Not that you had a whole lot to begin with, seeing as you never managed to successfully complete a single thing in your life. Gentleman Cs throughout college, admission to a school bought by your Daddy's money, one failed business after another from which Daddy's friends and Daddy's money had to rescue you.

No wonder the OPEC folks aren't giving you the time of day. They don't have to. Just better pray that they don't switch to selling their product in Euros. We're really fucked then.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget to ask Uncle Dick about the record profits that oil companies have been making since 2005.

Meanwhile, in SuccessBoy's other Arenas O'Success:

• Bomb blasts in Baghdad killed 55 people today.
  
  Better get John McCain over there quick, he needs to prove how safe and successful the surge has been before America commits to his 100-year war.
  
  
• Over in Afghanistan, NATO is considering asking the Russians for help. That should lead to some very interesting machinations in the nation of Georgia, which has been playing footsie with NATO, much to Putin's chagrin.
  
  
• Real-estate foreclosures are up by 71 per cent from last year, meaning we have almost as many people losing their homes as we have in prison;
  
  
• Our good neighbour to the north, Canada, has decided to keep its hands cleaner than ours — they're refusing to accept CIA evidence against "trrrrists" obtained through waterboarding. We remember when "waterboarding" was called "Chinese water torture" and we put to death Japanese troops who had used it against our troops.
  
  
• The dollar is at a record low against the Euro, the loony, the Japanese yen, and the handmade stone wheels used as currency in the remote island of PonderModhu.

Nice work, Stupie McChimpy! Time to do the victory dance!



Yes, he did. He really did.

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Environment: A Compressed-Air Car?

How cool is THAT? Tata Motor Company of India is working with a French company to produce a car that runs on compressed air. Tata has been manufacturing and selling compressed-air buses for nearly eight years now, so the compressed-air car should not be much of a challenge for them at all.

Details about the car:

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

Mini-CAT? City Cat? Too damned cute for words.

$7K for a car. I can't remember when they cost that little.

Raw Story has the video clip and the details.

We here at The Political Cat believe that no one can have too much CAT in their lives. OK, we did once top ten of the little fuckers, and that's dangerous territory, but for a Cat this cute, we'd make way. And will that take the country off the foreign oil teat, or what?

Even though the primary source of oil imports into the U.S. is Canada, Saudi Arabia follows close behind, and it would be worth it to wipe the smug grins off the faces of the people who sponsored Osama bin Laden. If we stopped buying their oil, they wouldn't be able to fund the retrogressive Wahabi school of Islam that is responsible for the jihadist madrassahs that are turning out "martyrs" and "fighters" for the troubling wars attempting to destabilize Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.

And besides, it's hella cute, that little Cat car.

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Environment: Alternative Fuel - Human Fat?

Wow. We here know so many people who would think this was a good deal - you know, lose fifty pounds, fuel your monthly commute. At least, if if really did work that way, it would sell like ... like ... hotcakes?

Okay, that was just wild woolgathering on our part. The fat, I mean, fact, of the matter is, someone has designed a boat powered by biodiesel, which includes human fat. The fat was removed by liposuction from some willing volunteers, and 10 litres of human fat is equal to 7 liters of biofuel.

Unfortunately, that only takes you 15 km. But we sense a, um, killer product on the horizon. Self- and other-lipectomy as car fuel. Heavier friends could be persuaded to donate and receive, oh, maybe half the proceeds? We could all be trained in liposuction techniques.

Of course, the downside is, overweight folks would be mugged for their avoirdupois. But the upside is, there would be lots of slimmer people, you could eat whatever you wanted with the excuse of turning it into biofuel for your car, and people would stop obsessing about weight and size. Or not.

Details from The Daily Mail via The Huffington Post.

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Economy: Fuel And Otherwise

Wow! How cool is this? Jonathan Goodwin, professional "car hacker," is messing around with various types of cars in the name of economy - fuel economy. And he's about to double the horsepower on a Hummer and convert it to biodiesel/electricity and get 60 mpg on it! Woof!

He's converting a car for Neil Young, too. His target is to get it to hit 100 mpg. All this, and he's cute, too.

But that aside - all these decades, our tax dollars have subsidised Big Auto while it cranked out low mpg, polluting hunks, simultaneously destroying the once-proud American auto industry, laying off workers, turning whole towns into ghosts of their former selves, fighting tooth and nail against giving workers wage increases while pouring buckets of money in the direction of executives.

In the meantime, industry and government have joined hands to stifle creativity and alternative fuels, increased mileage, lowered pollution - the things that benefit most of us. Now push has come to shove. We need to wean ourselves off the oil dependence teat, if we're going to survive. And Jonathan Goodwin, and people like him, can turn us around in no time flat! Yes!

I wish he lived down the road. I'd have my car to him so fast.

Found the pointer over at Biomes Blog, home of interesting information.

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Economy: You Really Believe It's Not Getting Worse?

India just announced that tourist sites will no longer accept U.S. dollars as payment of admission, according to Auntie Beeb.

From now on, if you want to visit the Taj Mahal, or any other tourist site in India, you can pay in rupees or you can stay out.

Does it hurt yet? Oh, yeah, I forgot to add, Paulson says the economy is OK.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday the continued rise in oil prices was "not a positive" for the economy, but downplayed its impact, noting both employment and the economy were still growing.

"The employment situation is very strong in this country, there's no doubt about it. We're creating new jobs -- 49 straight months," Paulson said on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's weekly radio program on WABC. Earlier Friday, crude oil topped $92 a barrel for the first time ever.

"Would I like to see oil at a lower price? Yes. But we are using energy more efficiently than we were a number of years ago, and this economy has held up very well against that challenge," Paulson said.

He completely neglects to mention that the number of jobs added are way below the number needed, as we pointed out in an earlier post. Ah, go read it for yourself.

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Economy: The Shrinking Dollar And Gisele Bundchen

The Canadian dollar (loonie) is now worth more than the U.S. dollar, Raw Story reports.

The loonie broke through the US$1.10 barrier in overseas trading Wednesday, initially hitting the 110.02 cents US mark. It dropped back down to 109.6 cents US, before taking off again and landing well above US$1.10. This comes on the heels of Tuesday's rise of 1.34 cents US and modern-era record close of 108.52 cents US.

Meanwhile, the British pound has risen to a record against the dollar, according to the Guardian.

The pound climbed to $2.10 for the first time since 1981 this morning, boosted by speculation that China was preparing to shift its foreign reserves out of dollars.

By 10.30am, one pound was worth $2.1053.

[...]

The slowdown in the American economy, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the ongoing credit crunch have all combined to weaken the US economy. Back in January, one pound was worth around $1.96.

The dollar also fell against the euro, to an all-time low of 1.4703.

Seven countries are abandoning the dollar, including our good friend Saudi Arabia. Can't blame them, really. We'd dump them in a New York minute if their currency tailspin was dragging ours down. The falling of the dollar can be attributed in part to China's preparing to dump the U.S. dollar. Apparently, they're tired of carrying our debt. If we won't even work with our own people to prevent foreclosure after strongarming them into dubious loan schemes, does that mean it's OK if China won't work with us to help fix our financial problems?

And finally, to add insult to injury, supermodel Gisele Bundchen joins Warren Buffet and Bill Gross in demanding to be paid in Euros instead of U.S. dollars.

To make matters worse, sixty per cent of consumers believe a recession is in the offing, says Reuters. They base this figure on a poll conducted by America's Research Group.

And why not? GM just announced $39 billion in losses; Time-Warner announced a 53 per cent drop in profits for the third quarter; Bloomberg states that speculation is rife in the markets about U.S. banks being forced to write down more subprime assets; and oil prices just broke the $100 barrier.

Happy holidays, everyone! Pass me the dog food.*

*From Frank Zappa, Green Hotel

PS: Let's impeach the sons-of-whores in the Misadministration before we're reduced to selling apples out of barrows, goddammit.

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World: Saudi Arabia and Iran

Prince Saud al-Faisal pic from Reuters

Veddy interesting. Reuters reports that a consortium of Gulf states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - are proposing to set up a consortium to provide enriched uranium to Iran and other Middle-Eastern nations that request it. In an interview with the Middle Eastern Economic Digest (MEED) Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia stated:

"The U.S. is not involved, but I don't think it (would be) hostile to this, and it would resolve a main area of tension between the West and Iran ... ."

[...]

Prince Saud, speaking on Thursday during a visit to Britain, said Iran was considering the offer, which envisages building a plant in a neutral country.

"We believe it should be in a neutral country -- Switzerland, for instance," said Prince Saud. "Any plant in the Middle East that needs enriched uranium would get its quota. I don't think other Arab states would refuse. In fact ... other Arab countries have expressed a desire to be part of the proposal."

So, is this something that is being dictated by the U.S. in an effort to work around the inflammatory rhetoric? Or is Saudi Arabia, with the aid of all the other Gulf nations, ostensibly pro-U.S. regimes, trying to work around Bush's inflammatory rhetoric? Or have the Gulf nations come to the conclusion that high oil prices can only keep their economies afloat for so long, and they'd better find an alternative to nuclear power and work hand-in-glove with Iran to do it?

Lots of questions, no answers yet.

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Iraq: Things Get Worse

Kurdistan and neighbouring territories

And the only way they're going to get better at this point is for the U.S. to get the troops the hell outa there promptly. Turki began sending troops to the common border in April of 2006. Syria, Iran, the failed state of Iraq, and Turki all have very good reasons to resist the creation of a Kurdish state. Kurdistan has not been an independent political entity since the time of the Ataman Turks (early 1500s), although there apparently was a political agreement between the Ataman rulers and the sheikhs of the Kurds that Kurdistan, in allying itself with the Sunni Ataman empire against the Shia Savafids (modern-day Iran), did not forfeit its political autonomy.

Map of The Ataman Empire

By the end of WWI, the European colonial powers were happy to assist Turki in dismantling the last shreds of Kurdish independence, and most of the Kurdish-speaking peoples found themselves a minority population of five countries. The long process of cultural assimilation of the Kurds then began.

As you can well imagine, a history fraught with so much conflict - religious, political, military, territorial, linguistic - does not lend itself to a simple political solution. Turki is a member of NATO and has been attempting to become a member of the EU (European Union). This move has been greeted with some skepticism on the part of European member nations, which have insisted that Turkey institute certain basic human rights reforms (outlined here) before it can meet the standards required of members.

Turki Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the mid-year elections. Although ostensibly pro-American and pro-market reform, the AKP has been having a difficult time with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). On the one hand, there is plenty of internal pressure from Turks who are accusing the government of not responding to attacks on Turkish soldiers. On the other, there is external pressure from the U.S., which has finally realized just what a flammable cargo it's sitting on in Iraq.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The Woodrow Wilson International Center informs us that fears of a Kurdish separatist campaign have long been a bugbear of Turkish politics. Li'l Boots' ill-considered, unplanned, and rapidly deteriorating invasion and occupation of Iraq is making the Mess O'Potamia even worse, engendering exactly the kind of separatist campaign that Turki has long feared. And, much as it did five hundred years ago, Turki is now talking to Iran about the "PKK problem."

Atul Aneja, writing in the International section of the Hindu, informs us that

Turkey’s Foreign Minister is on a visit to Iran where he discussed the crisis with his Iranian counterpart Manoucher Mottaki. Turkey is actively considering invading northern Iraq to attack the PKK hideouts located in the Kandil mountains there.

The PKK poses a common problem for both Turkey and Iran. The group’s sister organisation, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK), also operates from the similar mountain sanctuaries in the east against Iran. Turkey and Iran fear that the PKK’s aim is to form an independent state by carving out Kurdish enclaves in northern Turkey, Iran and Syria.

Meanwhile, the Times of London informs us that President Massoud Barzani has warned the Turki government that any attack across the common border will be construed as an act of war.

President Barzani gave the warning as a new wave of clashes inside Turkey left up to 20 Kurdish guerrillas dead. He said that Ankara was using its grievances with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as an excuse to challenge the growing prosperity and independence enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds in their largely autonomous region.
President Massoud Barzani of Kurdistan

“If they invade or if there is any incursion, it means war,” Mr Barzani said at his offices on the outskirts of Arbil. “If they attack our people, our interests, our territories then there will be no limit because everything is subject to that incursion.”

Oil is trembling around $90+ a barrel. The Telegraph relays a message from the remaining British soldiers in Basra, in a story titled "Get us out of here." It quotes a senior army officer:

The British Army, said the man sitting in a prefab hut in Britain's last base in the country, were tired of fighting.

Not only that: their very presence in Basra was now the problem.

"We would go down there [Basra], dressed as Robocop, shooting at people if they shot at us, and innocent people were getting hurt," he said. "We don't speak Arabic to explain and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What benefit were we bringing to these people?"

A question the U.S. would do well to lob at our political representatives.

Meanwhile, in more troubling news, the Times reports that "Britons," whatever that means, are joining the Kurds in the fight against the Turks. It could well be that Kurds who are British subjects, or residents of Great Britain, have returned to their homeland to take up arms. On the other hand, it could also be that adventurers of various stripes are showing up and getting involved in the conflict. The article is not entirely clear on the issue, although it does state that the PKK has "3,000 troops." If so, the 250,000 Turki troops might pay dearly for venturing into their hilly homeland, but they can be reasonably sure of wiping out lots and lots of Kurds - innocent and guilty alike.

Meanwhile, AP is reporting that the Turks have killed 15 Kurdish PKK guerillas, while the Telegraph is reporting that Turkish troops are already well inside the common border - with the apparent knowledge and approval of the peshmerga (Kurdish paramilitary units).

I knew the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, and the occupation a worse one. The truly Byzantine politics of this region indicates only more of a mess, not less.


I imagine Cheney's whupping Li'l Boots' ass right now.

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Politics - Hey, Congress, How About Censuring Cafferty?

Nancy? Nancy Pelosi? Are you out there? John Boner? C'mon, let's see you pressure Cafferty into shutting up. After all, look at the incivil things he's saying!

"No money for kids' health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," CNN commentator Jack Cafferty said Monday. "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the president's new request means the cost of Iraq war is now approaching $650 billion. I wonder if the Democrats will give him the money."

And here's someone else you can go after:

"Parents know that children can freeze to death more quickly than they starve to death, and so most decrease food purchases first to pay for heat," wrote Dr. Deborah A. Frank, director of the Grow Clinic for Children, and Joseph P. Kennedy II, chairman and president of Citizens Energy Corp., in the Boston Globe Sunday.

This is what we've come to. We can't afford to rebuild New Orleans, or fix our rotting bridges and highways. We can't afford to give health care to poor or working-class sick children. We can't afford to give poor families enough to heat their homes so their kids stay warm and healthy.

But we can afford to spend billions of dollars bombing and killing other children, and women, and old people, and sick people, and oh, lucky us, we appear to have killed two more insurgents as well. You bunch of bloodsucking beasts in Congress better tell Caligula II that he is not getting his pet war funded this year.

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Human Rights - When Do Working Stiffs Get A Piece Of The Pie?

It makes me furious that working people of every class have not had a raise or seen any fiscal benefits for years, while war profiteers, the ruling classes, and the already wealthy privileged and greedy are raking it in.

It's time for this shit to stop. The cost of health care is skyrocketing, the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing, and now food prices are shooting up, yet salaries have not increased by much and every dollar must stretch that much further. Why do we put up with this?

And worst of all, why do we put up with this?

A new Associated Press calculation shows that compensation for America's top CEOs has skyrocketed into the stratospheric heights of pro athletes and movie stars: Half make more than $8.3 million a year, and some make much, much more.

...

The high cost of chief executive pay has drawn criticism in recent years as salaries rose, stock options paid off like lottery jackpots, and perks like chauffeured cars and private jets spread. Still, there are few signs of any investor backlash.

Yahoo Inc.'s Terry Semel, whose Internet company has lagged behind Google Inc. in profit growth and stock performance, led the pack with total compensation last year of $71.7 million, according to the AP formula used to analyze those filings.

$71 MILLION???? The shareholders are putting up with this? Dood, your company is floundering, and you're getting paid this whopping sum for WHAT?

Half these people make more than $8 million a year. That's more money than 90 per cent of us will see in a lifetime. Despicable!

Stumble It!

Politics - The Citizens Of Dumbfuckistan

are finally coming around. I find it highly encouraging that CNN Money is publishing this sort of advice.

How to get out of your SUV lease

Stiberman said he has seen a 30 percent increase in people looking to sell their SUV leases this year.

"They definitely mention gas prices as a reason for getting out," said LeaseTrader spokesman John Sternal.

The post is titled "Ditch that gas-guzzling SUV." About fecking well time, wouldnya think? Eejits.

Stumble It!