And your solution to $4.00 + / gallon gasoline (today) is exactly....what?
Posted by Bagley at June 19, 2008 04:41 PMI'm still waiting for someone to blame "the Gays" for the Mid West floods.
Posted by The Realist at June 19, 2008 04:46 PMThe levee systems in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri are failing. Missouri just had another one break a few minutes ago, and is flooding out land and 700 homes. That's the third one in 24 hours. A spokesman for the Corp of Engineers is saying the infrastructure of this Country is shot.
Flood plains continue to be built up to retrieve land for building homes and businesses. Where do you think water is going to go if the natural flood plains are damned/built up?
Posted by Judith#1 at June 19, 2008 07:13 PMWatch the insurance industry reaction. See if they pull a Katrina.
Posted by gtash at June 19, 2008 08:11 PMSo Turkana, what are the geothermal vents doing under the Arctic sea? Which side of the ice is melting away...the Pacific or the Atlantic? Next which currents are affecting the Arctic this year?
Having two 500 year floods between the years 1993 and 2008 should tell you that that term was misapplied in 93. And land use was a large part of the story today...nothing to soak up the water...it just runs off the land. Didn't we break a lot of snow fall records this winter? Where's that water to go...then combine the rain. I know this will sound like a lot of scatter shot, there can be several/many reasons for our weather.
Posted by peter at June 19, 2008 08:26 PM
Wasn't Steve posting earlier this week about how our businesses were being shut out of Iraq? Seem to remember something like that...so now you want to revert back to that tired old line..."It's all about the oil" when just a few days ago it wasn't.
Posted by peter at June 19, 2008 08:28 PMHey, I have an idea.
Bush and Congress should immediately close the "Enron loophole" and we'll see if trading by oil futures speculators has been behind this sharp rise in gasoline prices, from just over $1.00 a gallon in 2001 to over $4.00 a gallon today. If not, then gas prices will either stay about where they are now or continue rising, with a possible slight dip in prices occurring next month after Saudi Arabia increases their daily oil output by 500,000 barrels...just in time for the November elections. (Who says the Saudis didn't listen to Bush). But if, after closing the "Enron loophole," gasoline prices start dropping and dropping, then we'll know that the unregulated energy trading scheme dreamt up by in 2000 by Sen. Phil Gramm and his wife, and the late Kenneth Lay of Enron, was actually responsible for this gasoline price increase over the Bush/Cheney years that is harming our economy and harming so many U.S. citizens and their families.
Face it, American citizens are being blackmailed by BushCo, the Republicans and the oil companies, with our gas tanks being held hostage to $4.00 a gallon gasoline prices.
Opening up ANWR or off-shore sites to drilling will have no impact on gasoline prices right now, while closing the "Enron loophole" would, but since BushCo loves Americans paying such high gasoline prices as part of their blackmail scheme, they block attempts to close the "Enron loophole" while incessantly repeating their talking point about giving the oil companies everything they want.
But wait, mass transit ridership is up since gasoline prices have increased so much. Giving us: the latest right-wing smear campaign against Democrats, that Democrats "must" be responsible for these high gasoline prices because they want everyone to ride buses or trains or bicycles, and stop driving cars. Then Republicans toss out their false rationale that if only Democrats would stop blocking drilling in ANWR and at off-shore sites, then production levels would increase and prices would go down, conveniently forgetting to mention that downward pressure on prices at the pump due to increased domestic production would take about a decade, not right now.
So, BushCo is blackmailing us, but where have we seen BushCo use blackmail/hostage-taking before?
BushCo wants permanent military bases in Iraq, so they threaten to hold hostage billions of dollars in Iraqi assets in the U.S. in an attempt to blackmail the Iraqi government into turning sovereignty and control of their country over to BushCo...along with Iraq's oil fields.
During the deadly days following Hurricane Katrina's landfall, and after New Orleans' levees broke and the city was flooded, BushCo (and Karl Rove) held hostage federal emergency disaster relief and supplies from the dying in New Orleans, and at the Superdome, in an attempt to blackmail Louisiana's Democratic Gov. Blanco into handing over her state's sovereignty (and national guard units) to BushCo. Moreover, not only did BushCo hold federal aid hostage, but they also (from what I can tell) tried to block any disaster aid or assistance (even civilian) from reaching New Orleans citizens.
Anyway, BushCo is using organized crime, Mafia-like tactics to try to bully anyone and everyone into obeying their warped and twisted right-wing, anti-American, criminal agenda. And children died in New Orleans. And children died over in Iraq. And no doubt some children will die in poorer American families, those hard-pressed to keep up with ballooning energy costs, as they find it harder to meet some medical emergency or put food on their table for their children to eat so they don't go to bed hungry.
Oh, and at the same time, Republicans continue their incessant harping that all social programs are a waste of taxpayer money, so should be axed, programs that help so many poor, and hungry, and infirm, and so many other American citizens who've not been "left behind" in today's economy.
Evil is as evil does, and I have a hard time believing that any, or many, Republicans of today are really Christian. Too much corruption. Too much greed. Too much lying. Too much blackmailing to get their way. Gee, I don't know about you, but I don't think that this sounds like Jesus Christ at all.
Posted by The Oracle at June 19, 2008 11:24 PMmore delusional inane crap from ..bagel boy and PPP...proof that only idiots smd psychotics support the criminal party...
Posted by headxray at June 20, 2008 09:00 AMAl Gore increased his carbon footprint by 10% the past year. Sweet. He now uses enough energy in a year to power 232 homes for a month. LOL.
It's okay. Japanese IPCC scientist says "Global warming worst scientific scandal in history."
Perhaps that's why Al Gore talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
Posted by Muck at June 20, 2008 10:42 AM