Our dimbulb President

From Political Wire

“Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.”
– President Bush quoted yesterday by the Associated Press.

On August 6, 2001, President Bush personally “received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane.” – NBC News, 9/10/02, via the Center for American Progress

Bush jokes about search for WMD

President George Bush sparked a political firestorm yesterday after making what many judged a tasteless and ill-judged joke about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He narrated a slide show, described as the White House election year album, making hay of the administration’s reputation for secrecy and strained relations with European allies. But it was the joke about the war in Iraq that drew attacks.

A slide showed Mr Bush in the Oval office, leaning to look under a piece of furniture. “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere,” he told the audience, drawing applause.

Another slide showed him peering into another part of the office, “Nope, no weapons over there,” he said, laughing. “Maybe under here,” he said, as a third slide was shown.

HA … Ha … ha… Lord, what an ignorant yokel we have for President…

Hey Dubya, try laughing at this -

“Be afraid, be very afraid. Government warnings about our vulnerability to terrorism underline how badly its war on terror is going”

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Say bye-bye to cheap oil

Surplus capacity is history. The jolts will start with $3 gas pump prices.

Despite the recent minuscule drop in gasoline prices, some forecasters believe prices will soon head back up and could crest at $3 a gallon by Labor Day — well past the point, experts say, when even oblivious Americans, and their elected representatives, start to pay attention.

Many motorists and some opportunistic politicians will reflexively point the finger at greedy oil companies and nefarious “foreigners.” But eventually, all of us, from the man in the Oval Office on down, may be forced to concede that the days of cheap oil are over and that the U.S. really does need an entirely new approach to energy.

I have a bit of a nest egg, and when the Dot Com bubble burst a few years back, I spent several weeks researching stocks, and then put most of it into high yield, deeply boring dividend stocks. And there that money has sat for a couple of years now. Most of this little basket of stocks are either companies in the mortgage business or in oil/gas. You’ve probably never heard of any of them. One of them, Nordic-American Tanker (NAT) is now at 24, and even with the big rise in the stock price this year, the yield is 20%. Yes, 20%. When oil prices spike, so do the rates for the three tankers they lease.

Bob, you cry, you sleazy hypocrite. You’re a Green, you drive a Prius, and you have stocks in oil tanker companies? Well, uh, yeah. My crummy couple hundred shares aren’t going to make or break anything, and I parked the money there thinking maybe I’d get a slow boring rise in the stock along with a dividend that, at the time, was about 13%.

But now these once deeply boring oil/gas stocks are soaring in value AND the dividend is increasing. Which should tell us all something unsettling about the state of the oil business today. Demand is rising, especially now with China industrializing so fast, while supply is dropping - in part due to Iraq being offline due to Bush’s invasion, and also because they just aren’t finding new sources of oil. Plus, of course, oil companies are greedy pigs, so prices may well spike higher - then stay there.

PS The tankers NAT owns are double-hulled Suezmax tankers, which, as someone said, makes them the closest to an environmental play you’ll find in oil tankers. So there!

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MC5 members to tour!

The three remaining members of the legendary MC5 are going on tour. Plus a DVD of a reunion concert they did in 2003, along with rare stuff from the MC5 days, will be released shortly.

What can I say? I grew up along with the MC5 during the tumultuous sixties. They got busted, I got busted. They got tear-gassed at demos, I got tear-gassed at demos. I never met them then, but we were definitely fellow travelers.

I bought their first album, Kick Out The Jams, when it was released, and it remains one of the most astounding records ever. Dee-troit rock and roll bands always had a rep for high energy. The Five took that to whole new levels. Plus, they were political, very political. Their van was firebombed, the police tracked them relentlessly, they did a song about the Detroit riots called “Motor City is Burning”, with the classic, incendiary (in more ways than one) line, “Just might strike a match for freedom myself”. They played outside in the park at the ‘68 Democratic Convention where the police rioted (that was the official judgment of the investigating panel, it was a “police riot”), and with John Sinclair, founded the White Panther Party.

Most of all they were a great rock band. And with the Velvet Underground and Stooges, they were precursors to punk rock and influenced many bands, both punk and metal.

From their press release:

The MC5 were indisputably one of the most influential rock bands of all time, though only three years elapsed between their ridiculously controversial debut Kick Out The Jams and their demise in 1972. Over thirty years later, surviving founding members Wayne Kramer (guitar), Dennis Thompson (drums) and Michael Davis (bass) came together in March 2003 for a show at London’s famed 100 Club. Joining them were guests including Motorhead’s Lemmy, The Damned’s Dave Vanian, Ian Astbury and The Hellacopters’ Nicke Royale.

Now, that legendary concert—along with never-before-seen footage including an original master tape transfer of Leni and John Sinclair’s promotional video Kick Out The Jams, interviews, archival footage, home movies and old videos with brand new commentary by the Davis, Kramer and Thompson—is captured on a forthcoming DVD Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5, to hit stores July 6. The DVD even includes U.S. Dept. of Defense footage of the MC5, taken from the government’s investigation of the notorious rock group during 1968’s Democratic National Convention.

In celebration of both their music and their legacy, DKT/MC5 will begin a worldwide tour this June that includes a stop in their hometown of Detroit as well as Japan, Australia, Canada and Europe, in addition to major cities across most of North America. As they did in London last year, they will be joined by a rotating cast of guest musicians, making each show a singular celebration of the work of the MC5.

Their tour website is up, bare bones now, much content coming soon, I’m sure.

The MC5 Gateway has an amazing amount of info.

Wayne Kramer has a record label, Muscletone Records, in LA, and has released a number of excellent CDs the past several years. Dennis Thompson and Michael Davis are also active musicians.

And 31 years later in 2003 when they reunited and played the 100 Club in London.

“They rip the 100 Club to shreds with a force 50 gale of everything you love about rock n’ roll.” —NME

In other words, they still got it.

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