It's Monday only Tuesday Again

It's the Tuesday Monday thing today. Trying to get excited about the week ahead after a three dayer. Interesting weekend...we have a new toy on Mars to play with and a great American director is gone Sidney Pollack. We also lost Dick Martin of Laugh-in fame.

I am off to Augusta again today after a stop by the hospital to get some blood taken for my regular checkup. Gotta make sure my blood sugar is behaving and that the old cholesterol is in check.

Everybody have a great day and we'll have more to say this evening I imagine.

Remembered

It's another Memorial Day and we have even more of our sons and daughters to remember today than we did last year. While I rave and rant about our grossly mistaken adventure in Iraq it should never be mistaken for any denigration of the sacrifices made by our children and brothers in uniform.

While the honor and purity of our noble nation has been sullied in the past 7 years it does not diminish the sacrifice and dedication of our veterans past and present. We that are benefiting from your sacrifice are truly thankful and are dedicated to insure that it was not in vain.

For those folks who are currently in uniform and in the field, stay safe and know that we are thinking of you daily. We honor you sacrifices today, and we know that with all our efforts it will be better for all of us in the days to come.

Shrubtown Anyone?

I, as well as many others, thought we had seen the end of Hoovervilles. A prosperous nation, McMansions as far as you can see, BMW's and Audi's for everyone and a giant SUV in every drive. From this report on CNN we see that the American dream is crumbling at our feet.

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.

As usual California is leading the way but I won't be too surprised to see the same in Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago or Philadelphia in the very near future. Of course, Hooverville is no longer appropriate but there is alway Bushville or Shrubtown. Your suggestion for a new name for this symbol of the disaster Shrub and the GOP have made of the once brilliant American dream is welcome in the comments.

Haloscan Fried

Haloscan comments is acting really batty. It shows comments and then it doesn't display any. It shows no comments and yet when you click on comments there are comments. Not predictable. Who knows when it comes back. I have tried to leave comments on several blogs that use Haloscan and cannot. I guess we just have to be patient.

Perspective on 120,000 Dead Children

I am as bad as everyone else in complaining about the price of gas and the price of food here in the U.S. but I really, really need to keep my perspective. This story on CNN about the drought and food crisis in Ethioipa should help us all keep a better and more realistic outlook when it comes to our challenges with the increased cost of living. When I dwell upon the reality we are seeing in Ethiopia and balance it against the the daily spending in Iraq I get so angry I want to tear up and cry. The World Food Programme is asking for a lousy $10 million dollars for emergency food supplies. The WPF supplies UNICEF with its emergency food.

Without this emergency food UNICEF estimates about 120,000 Ethiopian children under the age of five will die within the month and another 6 million are at risk of the same fate in the near term.

Here is the math that should guarantee Bush, Cheney and their whole evil clan a secure place in hell forever...

The World Food Programme needs a lousy $10,000,000(10 million bucks) for emergency food aid to offset the rising cost of food. Now to put that measly 10 mil into perspective let's check out the spending in Iraq...

Estimates are that we are spending $5,000 a second or $300,000 per minute or $18,000,000 per hour and yeah that comes out to $432,000,000 a day or $12,960,000,000 a month (that's 12.96 billion dollars).

Do you think it might be possible to lay off making the lives of millions of Iraqi miserable for about 33 and a half freaking minutes and send the money ($10,050,000) to the World Food Programme? Is that really too much to ask? I won't tell you how happy they would be if you could see your way clear to taking a day off. BTW it might help the morale of our boys and girls over there as well...double benefits...what are you waiting for?

It's Getting Very Expensive

Just to put the price of gas into perspective here is a bit from Tom Kloza. Tom is Chief Oil Analyst at OPIS (Oil Price Information Service) and has his own blog. This particular quote is from a guest post at CNBC

Today’s back-of-the-envelope estimated bill, calculated against a national average price of $3.787 gal, is $1.486-billion. When we get to $3.82 gal nationally, we’ll cross $1.5-billion. That level is a virtual certainty based on recent wholesale price advances. It may even occur this weekend.

How does this compare to previous years?

The per diem charges Memorial Day last year saw motorists pay about $1.285-billion. In 2006, the cost was $1.122-billion; and in 2005, it was $832-million. If one goes back to 2002, the daily cost of gasoline was about $534-million. Before prices top out, we could be making $1-billion more per day in gasoline payments than we made six years ago.

Now that's inflation!

Interior Design Fact

As most of you know I am traveling and in Augusta this week. I'm staying in a Hampton Inn which at some point in its life was some other type of hotel. It is one of the old fashioned "motels" with all the rooms facing out instead of in on a corridor. Classic motel room with the tiny bathroom etc. One thing I noticed this morning is that on the outside of the bathroom door is a full length mirror. If you leave the door open and are perched on the throne, so to speak, the view in the full length mirror is none to thrilling to say the least...at least if you are an overweight nearly sixty year old man. So anyway this is a note to anyone thinking about mounting a full length mirror on a bathroom door. Think about what you might see when the mirror is in all positions especially if it can face the toilet. You'll thank me.

Stranger and Stranger

I won't comment on this this quote other than to say you really can get flabbergasted at Georgia GOP politics.

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Monday Traveling Again

Off to Augusta, Ga this morning to the client's corporate headquarters for meetings with the half dozen of so project managers they have on my one man project. Mostly a waste of time but they are paying the bills. I will also get a chance to confront the IT folks (contractor) that is making everything so difficult. Should be fun.
I'll see all you folks from the hotel this evening. Play nice.

All My Ants Live in Texas

I'm waiting for confirmation from Steve Bates of YDD and based in Houston, before I panic.

DALLAS — In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" _ crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

Talk about a mixed blessing... these things reportedly attack and destroy the Texas state insect...the fire ant. There is also the question of how tasty they are run through a hot wok with a little garlic, and Tobasco.

Interior Puts Polar Bears on the Endangered Species List

The good news is that the Interior Dept. put the polar bear on the Endangered Species List. The bad news is that there are some rarely used exceptions that allow oil and gas exploration to pretty much ignore the law. What's new for Shrub's bunch? What more can you expect from Dirk Kempthorne the Secretary of the Interior who is on the record as not supporting the Endangered Species Act.

Don't be deluded by the fact that the Bush administration finally reacted to the plight of the polar bear...they didn't have a choice.

Few natural resource decisions have been as closely watched or been the subject of such vehement disagreement within the Bush administration as this one, according to officials in the Interior Department and others familiar with the process. After the department missed a series of deadlines, a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the decision had to be made by Thursday.

In other words, after being forced by the law to do something they took the politically expedient route but under the table they made sure their owners,the oil and gas industry, could safely ignore the law.

The provision of the act that the department is using to lighten the regulatory burden that the listing imposes on the oil and gas industry — known as a 4(d) rule — was designed to permit flexibility in the management of threatened species, as long as the chances of conservation of the species would be enhanced, or at least not diminished.

Like virtually everything else the Shrub has touched this is covered in bloody oil money.

Edwards Joins the Obama Camp

According to several sources John Edwards will endorse Barack Obama tonight in Michigan. This endorsement really couldn't come at a better time for Obama and will surely take some of the sting out of the trouncing he received at Hillary's hand in West Virginia. If all of Edward's 18 pledged delegates swing to Obama that would leave him only 45 short of a clinch. As many of you know Edwards was my candidate and I think I am happy with this. Obama has embraced Edward's anti-poverty programs and I am sure John Edwards has thought long and hard on this. Interestingly this endorsement actually goes against his wife's opinion that HRC's health plan is better than Obama's.
The plot thickens folks. I don't think this will make a difference in Hillary's decision to continue the campaign but I was wrong once before...I think it was in '72.

No More GWOT

Over at YDD, Steve Bates alerts us to the absurdity and tragedy of what George Bush and his cronies are doing to Mohammed al-Qahtani, a suspected 9/11 operative, and dozens and dozens of other so-called "suspects".

Charges Against 9/11 Suspect Dropped
His Statements Were the Result of Abusive Interrogation, Officials Say
By Josh White and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 14, 2008; Page A04

U.S. authorities have long considered Mohammed al-Qahtani one of the most dangerous alleged terrorists in U.S. custody, a man who could have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot if he had not been denied entry into the country.

But yesterday, amid concerns about using information obtained during abusive military interrogations, a top Pentagon official removed Qahtani from the military commission case meant to bring justice to those behind the vast Sept. 11 conspiracy.

Susan J. Crawford, the appointed official who decides which cases will be heard in the largely untested commission process, dismissed the charges against Qahtani while affirming those against five other alleged terrorists to stand trial at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Prosecutors reserve the right to charge Qahtani again, and the military says it can hold him without trial for the duration of the counterterrorism wars. But his defense lawyers and officials familiar with the case say it is unlikely that Qahtani will face new charges because he was subjected to aggressive Defense Department interrogation techniques -- such as intimidation by dogs, hooding, nudity, long-term isolation and stress positions.

This is an edited version of my comment:

How embarrassing as an American! I was thinking that maybe one of the first things our new Democratic President should do is officially declare the Global War on Terror lost and over. The reality is that the terrorists have done pretty much what they wanted. They have set us on a path of destruction by our own hand, caused us to sacrifice our fundamental and founding principles and turned us into a nation sniveling cowards afraid of the evil brown person under the bed. We don't even want to talk about what they have given Shrub and company an excuse to do to our treasury and to our young men and women in the military.

I haven't quite settled on a name but something on the order of a Global Search for Understanding, Peace and Tolerance might work but feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

Without the excuse of a GWOT the thugs at GITMO and the other illegal torture prisons we are maintaining around the world will have no reason to hold all the mostly innocent people. The GWOT has gone on long enough and we have lost. Need to regroup and bring some new ideas to the game.

Washington Said Gas Prices Fell Last Month

Do you think it is possible to believe any number that comes out of Washington especially in Shrub World? It takes some real cajones to put out a report like this.

According to the Bush Labor Department.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Inflation pressures eased a bit in April despite the biggest jump in food prices in 18 years.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that consumer prices edged up 0.2 percent last month, compared to a 0.3 percent rise in March.

The lower inflation reflected a flat reading for energy, which helped offset a 0.9 percent jump in food costs as prices climbed for many basic items, from bread and milk to coffee and fresh fruits.

The unchanged reading for energy reflected a big 4.8 percent jump in natural gas prices, offset by a 2 percent decline in gasoline costs.

The reported drop in gasoline prices reflected the government's accounting process, which discounts expected seasonal price changes.

Since gasoline prices normally rise significantly in April, the 5.6 percent rise in prices for the month turned into a 2 percent drop after the government adjusted for normal seasonal changes. That was little comfort for motorists now paying record prices at the pump, which are nearing $4 per gallon.

Bad for GOP

No surprise for Hillary and West Virginia...still doesn't change the math. The biggest news of the night was in the first congressional district in Mississippi. A Democrat beat a Republican in a district and that has always gone to the GOP. This does not bode well for the GOP in November. Note also that the NRCC spent 1.3 million here to no avail.

93% of Precincts Reporting

Travis W. Childers (D): 53% (54029)
Greg Davis (R): 47% (47361)