Snow Day

I figured what with all the hype on the news about our "crippling" snow storm, I'd show you what really happened, at least at my house, which is the only place I've been since Thursday. It appears that conditions on our mountain roads were bad enough to curtail travel for a day or so to all vehicles except TV news trucks, complete with the on-camera talking head who drew the short straw. They had to talk it up big time to justify the expense, I guess, but our local merchants loved them in the absence of regular visitors. I'm surprised they didn't end up taking pictures of one another!

Here's 'before' taken last week just before the storm:



Here's yesterday after the storm:



See? No big deal.

And one of my faithful assistant Tami, who made sure nothing edible that came out of the discharge chute of my snowthrower went to waste:

Click pics to embiggen

It was a good storm, but nothing out the ordinary for around here. Cleanup of the driveway was easier than usual just as a matter of blind luck and timing - the town plows had the courtesy to berm me in before I plowed out. There's no feeling like clearing the driveway, getting inside where it's warm, taking off your snow boots, getting your wet clothes in the dryer, and settling back with a nice cup of hot chocolate, going 'ahhhh' a time or two, and just then hearing the 'clankety-clank, scrapety-scrape' that means you have to suit back up and clear a berm before it freezes solid. See my take on berms from last winter.

Folks elsewhere in California and Nevada suffered a lot worse than we did. We had kind of a normal snow storm. They took it in the shorts. We had three or four little power outages, the longest lasting about fifteen minutes, and the shortest just long enough that I had to grit my teeth, cuss, and reset the little-green-number clocks and restart the 'puter.

Folks pay big money to come up here and play in the snow in our winter wonderland. I just step out my front door.

They're Ba-ack!

LATimes

Not a moment too soon to help make sense of things, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be back on duty Monday, ready to mock everything in sight.

The New Hampshire presidential primary scheduled for the next day? A likely topic!

Gee, ya think?

Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said, "Stephen and Jon are still figuring out what they're going to do on Monday night's show."

Probably so. But the nation's ruling class, presidential hopefuls and others ripe for ridicule should be all too aware of what's going to happen. Their two-month respite is coming to an end. Stewart and Colbert are on their case again.

Good. We need these guys. The presidential candidates in particular have been getting a pass for nine weeks and it needs to come to an end.

In entirely unrelated TV news, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations is starting a run of new shows tonight as well on The Travel Channel. As if I don't get enough smart-aleck Noo Yawkahs around this joint...

Why Obama is winning ...

Oliver Willis hits it directly on the head:

... Undboutedly [sic] people are excited about the prospect of a woman president, but I think it's safe to say that the possibility of a black president would present an even more fundamental shift in the basic fabric of what America is ...

Indeed. People of every stripe (and plaids too) have had enough of the 'status quo' and Obama represents the farthest thing from it. People see him as an agent of change because he has the most obvious differences with the run of the mill candidates. It's easier to believe Obama will bring change than Hillary, who's been part of the 'machine' for the last 35 years, regardless of her protestations.

Update:

And just a thought before I head to work. That doesn't mean I think Obama is the best thing for the country right now. We are in a deep hole and there is something to be said about having someone in charge who's been on the pointy end of a crisis. Say what you will about Hillary 'only' being a First Lady, but she was there with Bill when he fixed the 'Reagan Economy'. She was there with him in Kosovo and during the peace talks in Northern Ireland. She's right when she says experience counts. Thing is, I can't say Hil would be the ticket either. It's a tough time because the person we choose must be able to provide the leadership to get us out of this mess, not make it worse. We need an FDR right now and I'm not sure either of them is it.

Off to the shop ...

CA Weather

Just go read if you're interested. I'd rather 'be under' 5 feet of snow, which I damn near am, than 5 feet of water.

An inch of rain is roughly equal to 10 inches of snow. Too much math for me.

Here are some local webcams. Some of 'em might even be working!

CheneyCare

CentreDaily

The California Nurses Association (CNA)/National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) launched a national campaign today in favor of what the group has dubbed "CheneyCare" -- guaranteed, publicly-funded health care for all Americans.

The campaign was inspired by the success of the group's Iowa ads declaring that Vice President Dick Cheney "would be dead" if he did not have publicly-funded health care. A new version of the Iowa ad asking Americans to sign a petition for "CheneyCare" will run today in eight New Hampshire papers before going national in the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today, as well as leading political blogs, on Monday.

"All Americans have the right to the quality of care that our Vice-President, President, and Congress already have," said Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of CNA/NNOC and a vice-president of the AFL-CIO. "All the leading Democratic proposals fall well short of "CheneyCare," keeping insurance companies at the apex of power and allowing them to deny care that can save lives. The Republican proposals are even worse."

Yeah, the "health insurance" companies woulda dropped The Dick like a hot rock long ago and he'd be pushin' daisies. It's almost a good argument in their favor.

But not quite. We're the ones paying for the DC establishment's wonderful benefits. We should get them too. They're supposed to be workin' for us (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! - we need to remind them of this on a daily basis, the uppity bastards). It's like buying the best health insurance in the world for the gardener and living without it yourself in order to pay for it.

Sounds like a Boozy Floozy too!

Normally I wouldn't link you to a wingnut site, but luckily in this instance, since Ed Rollins is such a righteous asshole, BuzzFlash will:

Conservative Blogger Overhears Iowa Diner Comments of Infamous Huckabee Campaign Manager, Ed Rollins, and Blogs it on Conservative Site, And It's a Doozy

It is indeed a doozy. Heh.

Donuts in the Snow*

*Sounds like something you'd do on a motorcycle after telling the assembled throng "Watch This!"

Dave Barry from NH. Do not miss this one!

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- And so the eyeballs of the world turn to New Hampshire, a tiny, flinty, gritty, Dunkin' Donuts-intensive state located mostly inside the Arctic Circle. On Tuesday, the voters here will troop to the polls, where -- as they have done every four years since 1952 -- they will turn around and troop back home, because the polls, like virtually everything else here, are under 23 feet of snow.

But a few people, the truly flinty ones, will manage to actually vote, and they will determine the course of this presidential race -- and, yes, America's future -- for approximately two news cycles. Then the eyeballs of the world will turn to either North or South Carolina (nobody is sure which) and the people of New Hampshire will go back to their traditional flinty New England lifestyle of sitting around eating doughnuts and waiting for the August thaw.

I like Dave Barry, but what strikes me as particularly funny, besides his political acumen later in his piece, is that he lives in Florida and actually thinks there's a lot of snow in New Hampshire!

I've been watching all the talking heads standing out of doors while they broadcast from up there. I got more snow in my shoes and I'm in sunny California!

The DC Disconnect

Eugene Robindon

The word "change" had great resonance in the Iowa campaign. In part, the yearning for change arose because George W. Bush has led the nation down so many dead-end paths. But from the conversations I had with Iowans, it seemed clear to me that change is also shorthand for the disconnect between the Washington state of mind and the widespread expectation, hardly unreasonable, that this city ought to actually get something done every once in a while.

Whether it gets done after a bare-knuckle brawl or a chorus of "Kumbaya" really doesn't matter.

My singing has been ruled in violation of the Geneva Convention, so I must opt for the former. Hint: bare knuckles wrapped around a wrist pin works good. I used to use a roll of quarters but it took too much time to round up all the loose change afterwards.

Who knew ...

George McGovern was still alive? And he's pissed too:

...

After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.

Today I have made a different choice.

...

Indeed. Good reading from the former Presidential candidate.

...

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?

...

Easy, George, just leave it in the hands of the Republicans.

Great thanks to Scout Prime for the link.

Quote of the Day

Our pal Creature:

... Hillary, we get it, 35 years of change. Jeez, let up. You will never be the agent of change ...

But this is the problem I have with Hil. Like Edwards said, she's beholden to the pharmaceuticals and other big business interests. She's 'business as usual'. As far as I'm concerned, Edwards - Obama (in any order) would be the best scenario, though the fact Obama is so close to god creeps me out.

Don'tcha just wish ...

O'Reilly would have grabbed someone (an ex-Marine for instance) who'da just turned and put him on his ass? Woulda loved to see Billo do a Britney Spears impression and have to be taken out on a stretcher. Both of 'em should share a padded room.

OK

The other way around is OK too.

Saturday whorage

Back on schedule, another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

If ya got anything, leave a link in comments.

GFY*, RIAA

A follow-up to my previous post:



*Go Fuck Yourselves. We're tired of you trying to fuck us.

Car runs on compressed air

Raw Story, with video.

BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

This is the second time in two days that Tata Motors has come to my attention. The first is here. There's something goin' on with that outfit, and it may be good...at the very least, when you toodle off in this little jet, you can wave at your friends and say "Tata, Ducks".

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.

I think we can get the price of a fill-up even lower than that if we can harness the waste of good air between the ears of wingnut pundits and politicians, just gotta filter out the poisonous contaminants. Might run the heater as well.

I see no reason this won't work. I've got a toolbox full of air-powered tools that work just fine. There's nothing electrical to burn out, no sparks or volatile fuel to catch fire, no carbon and other by-products of combustion to foul the air or contaminate the motor oil, and the exhaust is just air.

There's no single, all-purpose answer to oil dependence, climate change, and greenhouse gas emissions, but the air-powered car sounds like it could be a good part of the solution.

What really has to happen is awareness and a change of habit, mindset, and lifestyle for all of us. For instance, in my case, to offset the devastating whirring of an air-powered device I think I'll hook up a real-time fast-reaction digital loop of an open pipe 40-inch Triumph to the accelerator (air pedal?)...the neighbors'll love it!

And when folks ask "Whatcha drivin'?", you can say "Blow job. Tata..."

"I reached my personal vomit point ..."

David Sirota with today's 'must read' on the Iowa caucuses and beyond:

Putting aside my nausea, let me just say that no matter who wins, it is absolutely great that economic populism has taken center stage so far in the presidential contest. Thanks to candidates like John Edwards and Mike Huckabee ignoring the Punditburo's attacks and trumpeting the populist line, Wall Street-backed candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had to resort to posing as populists as well - and that's a good thing. The more candidates channeling the public's righteous anger at corporate greed and economic inequality, the better.

We are at a historic moment right now - and I say that not in the way the Monday Night Football-mimicking political media bills every single election as "the most important election in our lifetime." I say it because I believe America is, for the first time in many generations, starting to think in terms of economic class. Put another way, the battle between Democrats and Republicans is being superseded by the battle between The Money Party and The People Party. How this new class awareness manifests itself in one election cycle is far less important than the fact that awareness is rising at all.

This, beyond everything else, is the storyline that will never be written by the Beltway media - because class awareness among the masses is something that threatens the powers that be. The system in Washington is set up to crush class awareness and solidarity among the masses - to break us up along racial, ethnic, geographic and religious lines so that we do not unify in support of an economic agenda based on fairness and equality. This Washington system exists, ironically, to preserve a well-coordinated class war being waged by an economic class very aware of itself - a class war by the wealthy against the rest of us. This may sound like hyperbole, but polls show most Americans know this is the undeniable truth. And no matter whether your personal preference wins or loses tonight in Iowa, We The People have already won, because class awareness and class-based politics is on the rise.

Perhaps the first step in getting the politico-corporate foot off our necks.

Politician, actor, whatever - no good at any of 'em

Tony Peyser

Fred Thompson did better than expected in Iowa but may have a tough time resuming his acting career. It's rumored that he recently auditioned for a TV role and didn't even get a call-back as the guy who gets murdered before the opening "Law and Order" credits.

I hope Thompson doesn't become a waiter in between acting gigs. Folks would lose their appetites. All over the tablecloth.

"...this effete, cowardly warmonger..."

A post by Walter C. Uhler and his letter to The Gray Lady on its stupefying decision to hire the neocon Kristol:

The final straw for me, however, was the December 30, 2007 decision by the Times to hire William Kristol (editor of the Weekly Standard) as a columnist. Although the Times calls Kristol a conservative, he is, in fact, a notorious neoconservative - a member of a political cult that many traditional conservatives disavow. Readers who noticed this Orwellian elision by the Times might also recall that in January 1998, Kristol (and Robert Kagan) wrote an Op Ed titled, "Bombing Iraq isn't Enough," which the Times was reckless enough to publish.

Reckless? Yes, because, as Robert Parry has observed: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006] Simply recall that, under international law, the unprovoked invasion of another sovereign state is considered the most egregious of war crimes.

Having cancelled my subscription, I then sent the following email to the Times' Executive Editor and the VP for Circulation:

"I canceled my subscription to the New York Times -- with prejudice -- a few minutes ago. I've terminated my decades-long subscription because somebody at the Times made the immoral decision to hire William Kristol -- as close to a war criminal as a so-called "journalist" can become. You see, I can have nothing further to do with such a morally tainted newspaper. It's a matter of principle.

You might use this moment to reflect on how the reporting by Judith Miller (AKA stenography for Perle and Chalabi) and your editorial decision to delay reporting on Bush's illegal wiretaps contributed to America's poor moral standing around the world. Now, with the hiring of effete coward and warmonger Kristol, who (possessing any morals at all) can consider the Times to be anything but a whore?

I will use my website to inform my thousands of readers about your immoral decision and I will exhort them to cancel their subscriptions as well.

Sincerely,
Walter C. Uhler

And we will similarly report it to our dozens of valued readers, Walt.

After all, simply consider that, ten years after the end of World War II, the editor of Das Schwarze Korps, Nazi SS leader Gunter d'Alquen, was fined 60,000 Deutsch Marks, "deprived of all civic rights for three years and debarred from drawing an allowance or pension from public funds. He was found guilty of having played an important role in the Third Reich, of war propaganda, inciting against the churches, the Jews and foreign countries, and incitement to murder." [Wikipedia, see also Saul Friedlander, Nazi German and the Jews, Volume I, pp. 311-313]

Think about it: If you do something similarly egregious in Bush's Amerika, you get your own column at the New York Times.

I think the "newspaper of record" is fast on it its way to becoming most useful as "newspaper of puppy training". No harm in that until the pup learns to read.

The flip side, of course, is Paul Krugman and "Pops" Rich, both of whom I admire, and MoDo, for whom 'admire' is not exactly the right word. Heh. I wonder if any of them will comment on Kristol's hire.

Why?oming caucuses

Yahoo!News

Don't forget Wyoming. It's been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday's Iowa caucuses and next week's New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

If the upswing of participants in the Iowa caucus is any indication, Wyoming may need to use a four-door pickup to accomodate them all!

All for a buck ...

Ol' Montag snagged this:

...

Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of politically delicate technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.

But today the administration is facing questions from weapons experts about whether some equipment — newly authorized for export to Chinese companies deemed trustworthy by Washington — could instead end up helping China modernize its military. Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria.

...

Neither the Bush administration nor the Republican Party give a shit about your safety or 'American interests'. The only thing they think about is making money at our expense. It's time to cull the herd on K Street by about three quarters.

Time to do a lotta shit. Hopefully, one of these twits running will, but I think their hands are too far in the till already. I wish I could support one of them but I can only see the Dems as the lesser of two evils. So long as the big money is part of the system, the public's interest is the first to get sold out.

Iowa ...

Thank god it's over. Sorry to see Chris Dodd go, but he's being realistic. Glad to see Joe Biden go. Can't wait to see the Rethugs start dropping off. One good sign:

Hillary came in 3rd, but she still got almost twice as many votes as Huckabee

Let's hope that trend holds up in the general election. Regardless of who the Dem is, I hope they win it going away instead of winning with a 'Bush mandate'.

Huckabee: Typical Union-Busting Repug

Click to embiggen

From Ornery Bastard:

Before former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee appeared yesterday on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, officials from the Writers Guild of America contacted his staff to “clear up any ‘confusion’” by making “it crystal clear that he was indeed crossing a picket line.” The Machinists (IAM) union, which has endorsed Huckabee, also implored him not to cross the picket line, saying “he risks losing the support his jobs and economic policies have won for him among trade unionists.”
My bold.
Article from Think Progress

That does it for me.
Mr. Huckabee has crossed a line that can't be uncrossed.

I would like for everyone that reads this to spread this message;
Mike Huckabee is a Scab.
Scabs do not belong in the Whitehouse.

Why, Nucks, how can you say such a thing about a candidate who has been personally chosen by Gawd?

Did we expect anything else from a Repug? They would much rather outlaw unions. Then they wouldn't have to outsource the good jobs. They could pay third-world wages right here at home and really clean up without all the trouble.

Why the Blogosphere Went for Edwards

A pretty fair summation of Edwards' rise by BooMan:

I'm sitting here listening to a speech Barack Obama made yesterday in Coralville, Iowa. He's saying all the right things. Here's an example (paraphrased): 'If you have been steeped in the common wisdom of Washington DC that says it is a good idea to invade Iraq, you can't be the best person going forward to question and change our foreign policy.' And that is exactly right. That explains so clearly what it means to have been in the fight on the side of the blogosphere versus what it means to have been on the sidelines within the consultancies of the Capitol. But Obama hasn't really embraced us. He's gone his own way. And that explains why, in the end, the blogosphere broke heavily for John Edwards.

No, I don't mean people turned their back on Obama because he didn't pay the proper respect to the blogosphere. That isn't what happened. Obama didn't embrace our way of doing things. Worse, he began to use rhetoric we had spent energy to debunk. He went even further. He tossed aside one of our central insights...an insight won through hard experience: we cannot compromise with the Republican Party...we must smash them (my em).

Perhaps because his wife is such an avid reader of blogs, Edwards' campaign tapped right into our zeitgeist. He came out with our insight front and center. You want Edwards' message? Here it is: 'Fuck David Broder, fuck Joe Klein, fuck Chris Matthews, fuck FOX News, fuck Tim Russert, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Defense. We don't need them. They won't negotiate in good faith. They're stacking the deck against us. And we can beat them by telling the truth and getting organized.' That's Edwards' message, and that is the message we have internalized both through our successes and our failures.

What's funny is that Obama is saying many of the same things, in his own way. The policy differences between Edwards and Obama are minimal. But Obama's tone deaf to the blogosphere. And, as a result, the blogosphere didn't trust him.

In any case, this is the best I can do to express why the blogosphere went for Edwards. None of the candidates were going far enough on policy, but at least Edwards was representing our fighting natures. And that, in the end, was decisive.

Pretty close, I think.

Groaner of the day

Tony Peyser

A Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest has been charged with lying about mob ties to a casino owner. It's a done deal that a mobster's testimony in the trial will at some point include this line: "Forgive me, father, for I have skimmed."

Grooooan...

Points ...

Edwards scored a few:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months.

...

Be nice to hear some of the others say that. I know Richardson has said something similar but it'd be nice if we hear it from Hillary and Obama. Or at least something so unequivocal.

This is what chaps me about those two. I don't like wishy-washy. Have they ever been pinned down on anything? Take a position and stand on it. If facts change, causing you to rethink it, say so and move on. I'd respect them more. Being able to change one's mind in light of new information is a sign of wisdom, not weakness. It's what so pisses me off about the Dems.

The moron we have now never changed his mind about anything and look where that got us.

Quote of the Day

Our pal Lambert:

When I want Republicans involved in making policy...

I’ll vote Republican.

...

Consequences ...

Not only are the people who made bad financial choices being affected by the 'subprime' mess (it's much bigger than that and threatens to get bigger), their pets are paying the price too. From our pal ThePoliticalCat:

...

They stuck by you through thick and thin for as long as you let them. Don't just leave them to die, people. The least you can do is pass them on to people who care.

...

Good links at the page to organizations where you can get (and give) help in placing your pet if you can't afford them any longer. Just because you can't keep them doesn't mean you have to be inhuman to them too. You wouldn't abandon your kids, would ya?

Culling the herd ...

It's the only thing I hope for from Iowa today. Hopefully, some of the candidates will see the light and pack it up. With all these candidates, it's like Dancing with the Stars without the talent.

Quote of the Day

Keith Olbermann, just now:

"We'll take a look at the field of Republican candidates in Iowa next. Don't wear your good shoes."

Heh. No, er, sh..

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

Un-fucking-believable:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

Blow it out yer ass, RIAA. I buy my music. I have never, ever downloaded any music illegally, and I have made maybe three CDs to give to friends who wouldn't have bought those albums anyway. You charge me $13-18 dollars for a product that cost you maybe a buck to produce, and then you try to screw everybody, from me to the artists, and then you whine because you're not wringing every last cent out of everybody involved?

Once your CD, legally purchased, is my property, I can do whatever the hell I want with it. I use my computer as another record player and I put the albums in my media player because it's easier than going to my record rack. If I make a CD to give to a friend once in a while, particularly theme mixes that are unavailable anywhere else, just suck it.

Note to RIAA: Man up and fuck off. I bought your goddam records. If you ain't gettin' as rich as you think you oughta be, that's just tough shit.

I'd love to see a full-field pile-up in the clubhouse turn...

In the midst of a piece about how the way we do elections is going to be the death of democracy is this:

Is it really true that the health of our democracy can be measured by the wide range of candidate choices we've been offered? Take this 1-minute test, and then tell me if you still believe that: http://www.dehp.net/candidate

How closely did any of the candidates come to agreeing with you? Did those who came closest fall into the category of corporate-acceptable "viability"? Why can't you find anything about this situation or any substantive reporting on candidates' positions at all? Because for some politics is a sport, and the fascination lies in the techniques and maneuvers, not in what it might mean for the world. For others, politics is a soap opera, an excuse to obsess over whether in the next episode Obama will take his shirt off or Giuliani's ex-wife's ex-husband will claim to have Hillary's child. Think I'm exaggerating? Not much.

Read the article. Take the test and check the results. They will not surprise you.

And yes, I'm stone dead from the horse race coverage too.

Poor babies ...

...

For oil companies, this hasn’t been the bonanza one would expect. Oil companies buy the oil they refine into gasoline, diesel and heating oil, meaning they suffer if the price of those products doesn’t keep up with the price of oil. And while all three products rose sharply in price this year, those increases lagged oil’s spurt.

...

You'd think they took losses or something.

...

The nation’s three largest oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, had combined profits of $50.3 billion in the first nine months of the year, a decline of 8.5 percent from a year earlier.

...

You know, I'll worry over oil company profits when they lower their prices so people aren't so strapped and only make half the profit. I'm tired of hearing the plight of Big Oil. They spend little on infrastructure (they blame their refining capacity for the seasonal fluctuations in price) and give half-billion dollar retirement bonuses. Spare me. It's time someone put the screws to these assholes.

Thanks to Chris for the link.

Kill me ...

As I sit here watching the news, trying to talk myself into going to work, I notice I'm sick of the primary coverage. The most I glean is that nobody knows anything about how they'll turn out. The thing I am waiting for (though I'll probably never see) is for one of these talking head clowns to acknowledge the fact that all the Rethug candidates are batshit crazy. That or Alzheimer's patients. Am I the only one who has no idea what McCain's talking about?

And something else for you to consider. Athenae brings up a good point by SteveB:

...

When I read that, I wondered, "What are Republicans required to do to prove their seriousness?"

For some reason, it's only Democrats who are required to fuck over their constituents to prove their seriousness. No member of the pundit class demanded, in 2000, that George W. Bush demonstrate his seriousness by taking on the oil industry. And who would dare to suggest that Huckabee needs to prove his seriousness by taking on the Christian right and advocating the teaching of evolution in public schools?

And it's Democrats who always have to "prove" that they're willing - and even eager - to use military force. Because the voters need to be reassured that a Democratic President won't be a total pacifist. No reassurance required that the next Republican President won't get us into another stupid war.

...

But then, the media would have to think war is stupid. All of them have this Hemingway-esque need to go to a war zone, probably seeing it as the fast track to the big time. If it weren't for the media flag-waving and the need for Democrats to 'prove' they have a set, we probably wouldn't be in Iraq right now.

Now I know ...

What bugs me about Obama. Atrios put it into words for me today:

In his own subtle way, running against the party - at least to the extent that its part and parcel with the Village in general - has long been Obama's message. But he's also long been good at blurring just what that meant, wink wink nudge nudge suggesting he was running to its left even as he used rhetoric which suggested he was running as David Broder's love child.

Just sayin' ...

If you're trying to get me to buy something from you or hand over my life savings via email, you might want to send your email in a language I can read. Spanish, Turkish, French, and African nomad dialects, all the same to me, Greek. Cyrillic and Chinese (Japanese, Korean, or any other minor Asian language) pictographs ain't cuttin' it either. Sorry. If yer gonna clog up my inbox, increase your chances of me reading your drivel before I delete it by putting it in English. Better yet, don't send it at all. Thank you.

Smart people ...

The Krauts, like the rest of Europe understand that TV is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator:

MUNICH (Hollywood Reporter) - For the first time in recent memory, Germans spent less time in front of their TVs in 2007 than they did the year before, according to a new survey.

...

Online entertainment consumption in Germany has long lagged that in the U.S. and U.K. But the fact that the major broadcasters also lost ground to smaller channels might signal the beginnings of dissatisfaction with big-time television programming in general.

Just anecdotally, after staying with my family in Germany for a couple weeks, they get more from their computers than the TV set. Chris in Paris relates too:

... Even with TV being included with my internet/phone service (€30/month for everything including unlimited land line calls around the world), we just stopped watching. We know others who have done the same because they too became fed up with the rubbish on offer ...

There's just too much formulaic crap on TV. I lost interest when we got 'realty' for just about every profession under the sun. Thankfully, being early risers precludes us from seeing most of the prime time programming. When you're up at 4 in the morning, you ain't watching shit on after 8 all the way through and I don't love TV enough to spring for TiVo. Thank God for the Beeb.

Thank you ...

We've been nominated for other awards before, but this one I treasure because we were nominated by our fellow bloggers. We didn't win (congrats to those who were also nominated, a good number of them friends, and to the winner Driftglass, who most certainly deserves it), but it's nice to know our compatriots think so highly of us (it'd have been nice if they spelled our name correctly, but who's bitching? They got the URL right).

Thanks again and Happy New Year.

"No Fite - Just Rubs"

My precise wishes for the New Year:


From I Can Has Cheezburger

Peace above all and all the best in 2008.

JG.