Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
– Erica Jong
– Erica Jong
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
Oil company tax breaks? NYT
Love the way the NYT says the Republicans are leading the way on this…they certainly did lead the way to record oil company profits, didn’t they? And as soon as the oil and gas folks’ lobbyists grease the politicians’ palms again, this will all be forgotten…
While it was obscene and stupid to pass $2 billion per year tax breaks for oil companies just last August, I really don’t think that money makes much of any difference in their bottom lines.
Exxon Mobil alone announced a 1st quarter profit of $8.4 billion this morning and prices didn’t really start going up 2 cents a day until after the quarter was over. Anyone want to guess how much their profit will be for the 2nd quarter?
I’m going with $12.5 billion, but if they’re smart they will find some more bookkeeping ways of delaying some of their profits to the future so they don’t have to report them in this environment. Of course, they most likely are smart so they have probably already done that and the $8.4 billion is a gross underestimation.
AP/Yahoo
So what the hell is wrong with the US? 1000 flights is an awful lot of flights…
Oops…smintheus has a whole diary on this. Go read it! 🙂
Thanks for the hat tip CabinGirl. And while you’re at it folks, check out my new blog. If you’re not reading Inconvenient News, then you’re not truly being inconvenienced. How many blogs can make that claim, I ask you?
Busy Boys, the spooks…that’s one every 44 hrs. 7/365 for 5 years…not counting the “military transport” component, which cannot be disallowed/discounted.
Tip of the iceberg.
There are one hell of a lot of people involved in some very nefarious work here.
Peace
Iraq vice-president sister killed
Rumsfeld and Rice in Baghdad to give the new Prime Minister some spine. What a joke. The insurgents are killing at will.
So, does this mean that if your relatives get appointed to political office in Iraq, it’s probably a good time to leave the country?
Afraid so.
With the current situation there, even if you don’t have relatives who are officials, it’s probably been a good time to leave the country! How’s that water supply system doing these days? How about sewage? Electricity? Trash pick-up?
The relatives as government officials definitely tips the scales though… 🙂
Belarus opposition leader jailed
Let’s all have the kind of luck this woman has.
With my luck I’d have my heart attack on the highway and the only ones around would be a truck driver hauling 16,000 lbs. of I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter and a carful of blue-haired ladies on their way to Atlantic City.
And the blue-haired ladies would bet on your licence plate number in A.C. and hit the jackpot. 🙂
There’s a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-learn piece of equipment called the “automated external defibrillator” (aka “AED”). Anyone can learn how to use it via a one-day Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED training course.
AEDs are effective enough and inexpensive enough that the American Heart Association has started encouraging the purchase of them for public access in places like sports arenas, shopping malls, office complexes, health clubs, etc.
Shocking, I know.
Link
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health measured levels of an antibacterial hand soap ingredient, triclocarban, as it passed through a wastewater treatment facility. They determined that approximately 75 percent of the ingredient washed down the drain by consumers persists during wastewater treatment and accumulates in municipal sludge, which later is used as fertilizer for crops. Their findings are presented in a study appearing in the online and print editions of the journal Environmental Science & Technology. More studies are underway to determine if triclocarban, which is toxic when ingested, can migrate from sludge into foods, thereby potentially posing a human health risk. [It’s probably not very good for soil bacteria and other life forms there, either! – K.P.]
China plans to build a 20-ton space station after the mission of Shenzhou VII with three astronauts in September 2008, said Song Zhengyu of the China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp. Meanwhile, NASA wants in on the action: NASA head Michael Griffin said Tuesday he had accepted an invitation to visit China for talks on possible Sino-American space cooperation. “The Chinese have offered an opportunity … to discuss cooperation,” Griffin told the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, while not specifying a date.
Scientists in Australia are exploring the rainforest canopy using a 160ft high crane to zoom around the treetops. It has led researchers to discover a vast amount of new information about the ecosystem, including 15,000 new insects identified in the last four years since the crane was set up in Daintree Rainforest National Park in Queensland. Tropical treetops are thought to be the richest ecosystems on land. They may be home to 40% of all plant and animal species.
Here’s another story where our primate roots are showing: Men become more jealous of dominant males when their female partner is near ovulation, researchers at the University of Liverpool have found. Previous studies have found that women’s preferences for male physical appearance vary according to their fertility status. During ovulation women tend to find masculine looking men more attractive and prefer their voices and odor. During this fertile phase women are more likely to have an affair with a masculine-looking man, as their features are linked to high testosterone levels, demonstrating good genetic qualities that can be passed on to offspring.
Strawberry fields forever: The U.S. EPA has withdrawn its plan to approve a highly toxic fumigant for strawberries and other high-value crops after objections that nearby residents and farm workers could be in danger. The new pesticide, methyl iodide, is designed to replace methyl bromide, which is banned under an international treaty because it damages the Earth’s ozone layer.
The search is on for Britain’s small, prickly, shy — and rapidly disappearing — hedgehogs. On the eve of Hedgehog Awareness Week, [I love it!] the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and People’s Trust for Endangered Species are launching HogWatch — a plea for people to report where and when they last saw one of the inquisitive but shy animals. For reasons unknown, the hedgehog population has declined 20% between 2001 and 2005. [Although some of us have our suspicions. – Now is that investigative reporting or what?!?]
No climate change rant today; I’m feeling sunny: Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday urged the world’s biggest industrialised nations to set up a 50-billion-dollar (44-billion-euro) fund to support solar power, warning that oil or nuclear energy were not viable energy sources for the future. Gorbachev — who chairs an environmental thinktank, Green Cross International — called on leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations to invest in renewable energy sources, in a statement marking the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He’d approve of this: Two start-up companies and New Mexico plan a US$1.6 billion solar power farm that would be 30 times the size of the world’s biggest one now, with enough power for 240,000 homes, as well as this: GE is building a solar plant in Portugal – next month they will begin installing the first of what will be 52,000 solar panels, capable of generating 11 megawatts of electricity — enough to light and heat 8,000 homes.
= reservoirs for bacteria: MD Consult
Mmmm-hmmm…
Songbirds May Be Able to Learn Grammar
The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.
Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong “sentence” and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar in their own bird language.
These experiments are in preparation for their most serious challenge: teaching simple grammar to President Bush…
ex-boyfriend had his own version of the Jong quote:
If you’re not sure what to do, flip a coin; if you ask for best 2 out of 3, you already know.
Makes sense…or cents… 😉
It is usually a crusty day when we have to Jong it!
Praise God! A link.
I’m afraid you’re out of luck, folks. If you believe Bush (and why not?), God’s an oil man too.
Perhaps these folks should’ve prayed to keep the oil industry from formulating our energy policy.
You mean to tell me that with children dying horrible deaths because of wars, starvation, disease, violence – these people gather en masse to pray for lower gas prices?
What would Jesus pray for?
Christy at Firedoglake has a post on Judge Walton’s dismissal of Libby’s motion challenging, seeking to pare back Fitz’s authority that would have dismissed the case.
In effect,
Judge Won’t Dismiss Case Against Libby
Add another bottle of champagne to the chiller.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) is currently filibustering the emergency spending bill in the Senate. He is offering an amendment that would eliminate royalty relief for oil companies when the price of oil is above $50 a barrel. He simply wants a vote on his amendment. This vote would eliminate subsidies to the oil companies costing billions of dollars. Obviously the Republicans do not want this amendment to come to a vote as it would hurt big oil. It would put the Senators in a difficult position.
It can be watched live on C-span 2.
Reid and Durbin and others are on it too. And I heard Kyl (Republican!) is supporting it.
Call your senators!
(This is mostly copied and pasted from a reco’d diary at dkos.)
Looks like the filibuster might be winding up. The Republicans won’t allow a vote. Wyden had been filibustering since shortly before 11 am eastern, they are saying.
strike that. Wyden is apparnetly refusing to yield. Fantastic!
Thanks for teh heads up, James 438! My CSPAN2 is showing me Bible-on-DVD commercials. ARRGGHH!
No, wait, it’s not. My cable company took away my CSPAN2 and replaced it with a religious channel. Are they effing kidding me?!
the answer lies in prayer .
</ snark>
Peace
that is all part of their evil plan
Sadly Reid ended the filibuster.
A Dem ENDED A DEMOCRAT’S FILIBUSTER!
Hang your head in shame, so glad I left that party.
Cheers to Senator Wyden for being a real force for the people, Reid should be drummed out of the Senate.
Hey, thanks. I was wondering WTF happened. I finally found my CSPAN2 up in the 90s, and a bunch of the Republicans were talking about the seafood industry, so I was all confused.
But yeah, that sounds pretty much like the reason why I’m still an independent.
you still might call your senators and ask them to support wyden’s amendment.
I’m in AZ. There is rarely any point in calling either McCain or Kyl.
I think early on Kyl was giving Wyden some support. Someone was saying something about that. Haven’t heard much about it since then, though, so the dark side might have dragged him back, reminded him to support the oil companies over everyone else. Bastards.
RAWSTORY has a red Banner up that the Grand Jury meets tomorrow, and that
MSNBC reports Rove believes he is in legal jeopardy essentially it was sheer hell yesterday.