Politics in the Zeros » 2005 » September

Archive for September, 2005

Out of control

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 22:17 - Category: Unfiled ;

A U.S. Senate committee has adopted an amendment to the VAWA legislation that would add the DNA of anyone detained by the cops to a federal DNA database called “CODIS.

Note that it doesn’t require that you’re convicted of a crime or even
formally arrested on suspicion of committing one. Mere detention –
might a routine traffic stop eventually qualify? — will be sufficient
for CODISification. (Current law only authorizes blood or saliva swabs
and entry into CODIS for people convicted of a crime.)

Why do they want the DNA?

More on rig damage and structural integrity

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 10:52 - Category: Unfiled ;

From TheOilDrum

In order to beach one of these rigs, ALL THREE of their 150’ legs must be broken off by the storm. So to fix these rigs, they would require 3 new legs, a new derrick, a new block and draworks, repair of everything broken…

Photo also from TheOilDrum (photoshopped for clarity.) I’m speechless, how do you repair/junk something like that? It’ll probably be there for months, if not years. And will the insurance companies be able to handle the claims?

And, via comments on TheOilDrum, check these Rigzone before and after photos of the Chevron Typhoon Tension Leg Platform. Yikes. Makes the damage in the below picture look minor. As I recall, the Typhoon was sunk when another rig broke loose, slammed into it, and severed a major support. The insurance companies will be arguing about liability and suing each other for years over the Katrina/Rita claims.

Meanwhile, 99% of oil and 80% of natural gas production in the Gulf is shut in (offline.)

Judge rules Iraq prison abuse photos must be released

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 08:53 - Category: Unfiled ;

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the release of dozens more pictures of abuse from the infamous Baghdad prison.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had
argued in court papers that releasing the photographs would aid
al-Qaida recruitment, weaken the Afghan and Iraqi governments and
incite riots against American troops.

This is like a rapist saying he might be embarrassed by public
disclosure of his actions. And I believe this set of photos does depict
sexual abuse, or something quite noxious indeed, else why has the
Pentagon gone to such extraordinary lengths to block their release?

Torture photos from prisons, preachers calling for assassination of
heads of state, talk show hosts wanting to abort Black babies.
What a demented society we live in, made all the worse by the
almost complete silence from DC and Congress by either party on any
of this.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”

Even the White House was repulsed

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 08:42 - Category: Unfiled ;

William Bennett: Black abortions would lower crime

“But
I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could,
if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in
this country, and your crime rate would go down,” said Bennett, author
of “The Book of Virtues.”

Such “virtue” would certainly fit in well at an Aryan Nations meeting,
or more aptly, at a Klan lynching. What a stomach-turning racist he is,
made all the more loathsome by his unctuous morality that he attempts
to ram down everyone’s throat.

For fans’ sake, He haunts L.A. again

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 08:09 - Category: Unfiled ;

From Steve Lopez in the LA Times

Drop everything, folks. Call in sick, cancel the kids’ soccer games, load them into the Bronco and head for Northridge.

O.J. Simpson is back in town.

The former USC and pro football superstar is scheduled to take a
well-deserved break from his exhaustive search for the killer of his
ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman to sign autographs ($90)
and pose for pictures ($20) at a Halloween-themed comic book and
collectible convention.

Hard to believe?

Come on. It’s L.A.

Katrina pipeline damage more than first thought

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;

Hurricane Katrina did more damage
to underwater oil and natural gas pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico than
previously thought, according to the U.S. agency that oversees offshore
energy production.

All Gulf oil output shut down

M-M-S says its survey indicated that 100 percent of oil production in the Gulf is shut down as well as more than 80 percent of natural gas production.

The Gulf supplies 29 percent of the nation’s oil and 21 percent of the gas.

What’s coming.

“Keeping
crude oil below $70 is all very well, but in political terms it is a
useless achievement if you cannot also keep gasoline below $100,” said
Barclays Capital. “There is an energy crisis, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better.”

DeLay charges may be overshadowed by Abramoff probe

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;

A PoliZeros Prediction: Abramoff will become the central figure in all of this.

Abramoff had tentacles everywhere; Tyco, Tom DeLay, indian
reservations. He and his partner have been indicted for cooking the
books in a casino buy, and associates were just arrested for murdering
the person they bought the casino from. More indictments could be
coming. When fixers like Abramoff fall, they take a lot of people down
with them. Tom Delay, this Bloomberg article points out, could have far more to fear from the Abramoff probe than from his current indictment.

The larger legal
challenge for DeLay may center on a task force led by the U.S. Justice
Department that is investigating Jack Abramoff, the indicted lobbyist
who boasted of his relationship with DeLay.

Even as DeLay faces the charge in Texas state court in connection with
corporate donations that allegedly were used to help fund the
Republican takeover of the state legislature in 2002, “he is inevitably
also going to be under investigation by federal prosecutors” in the
Abramoff matter, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington watchdog group that has
criticized DeLay.

DeLay, 58, who stepped down temporarily as House majority leader after
being indicted, once called Abramoff “one of my closest and dearest
friends.” He has traveled to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, an Abramoff client, on trips organized by Abramoff’s law firm
and has blocked efforts to apply U.S. minimum wage and labor laws to
the Marianas.

He also sided with another Abramoff client, Tyco International Inc., in
opposing efforts to stop federal contracts from going to the
Bermuda-based company and other firms that have incorporated overseas
to cut their tax bills while maintaining their business in the U.S.

Abramoff was indicted in August by a federal grand jury in Florida in
connection with the purchase of a casino cruise line, SunCruz Casino
Ltd., in 2000. Separately, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee has
started an investigation of him and partner Michael Scanlon — a former
DeLay aide — for their lobbying activities on behalf of
casino-operating Indian tribes.

2 charged with mob-style killing of businessman

Two of three men
charged with the mob-style killing of a businessman a few months after
he sold a fleet of casino boats to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff
were ordered held without bond Wednesday.

You can bet a whole lot of bottom dwellers, corrupt politicians and
judges, thuggish CEOs, and lizard lawyers are seriously nervous that an
Abramoff investigation could make them collateral damage and prison
bound. Thus, some will tell all to avoid just that. Watching the rats
turn on each other will be grisly entertainment indeed.

Comments Off

The California Seasons

Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2005 00:02 - Category: Unfiled ;

As variously seen by Sue and Bob.

Fire season comes to southern California

Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2005 11:46 - Category: Unfiled ;

The monster rains of last winter meant huge amounts of new brush grew in the mountains. Yesterday the Santa Ana winds blew. They come from the east, from the deserts, and are gusty and bone dry, plus it was 96. There were several fires. It’s difficult to tell from this photo of the northwestern San Fernando Valley, but there appear to be at least three separate fires burning, judging from the plumes of smoke (or maybe they are the hotspots in one big fire.)

It’s the brush in the mountains that does it. It is tinder dry and it’s not unusual for it to be 4-6 feet tall and impenetrable to walk through. Couple that with steep mountainsides, few roads, and you can understand how hard these fires can be to put out. Until they reach populated areas that is, then there are roads - and then it gets much more dangerous.

PS Today the Santa Anas aren’t blowing as much but it’ll be 103. (By Sunday it’s supposed to be a mere 80, we shall see.)

Updates: The fire has burned over 17,000 acres, thus the photo is of one fire. 5% contained as of 3:30 PT.

6:00 pm. The winds have shifted, blowing the smoke directly into the San Fernando Valley. The sky in the west is filled with smoke, ashes are falling, the smell of smoke is everywhere. And we’re probably 8 miles due east of the fire. This is a big fire.

Arctic ice meltdown continues rapid pace

Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2005 10:20 - Category: Unfiled ;

Arctic sea ice has melted back farther
this year than in 25 years of satellite monitoring, marking the fourth
consecutive summer with “a stunning reduction” in the polar pack north
of Alaska, Asia and Europe, according to scientists at the National
Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA.

Combined with record or near record
declines since 2002, the ice appears to be slipping into a long-term
meltdown that may be slowly accelerating as the summer sun pumps more
and more heat into the green-dark surface of the sea.

Even Big Money realizes the seriousness of the problem. But not BushCo, they’re still in (criminal) denial.

Firms including
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are telling U.S.
clients for the first time that climate change poses financial risks.
With damage estimates for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as high as $200
billion, an increasing number of investors are joining public pension
funds in urging action on global warming, which some scientists say may
be making storms more powerful.

Joke of the Day

Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2005 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;

What did Bush say when asked his opinion of Roe vs. Wade?

“Well, I don’t care how they get out of New Orleans.”

Harbingers

Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2005 00:05 - Category: Unfiled ;

Reserve Bank of Australia warns of ‘meltdown’

The Reserve Bank of
Australia warned yesterday that the current calm in financial markets
could be the prelude to a storm that could wreak havoc in the world
economy.

The RBA believes the boom in markets for shares, bonds and housing in many countries is unsustainable.

When central banks start getting twitchy, well…

China starts to float its currency

NYT. China began to
appreciate its currency. The BIG question: will China dump its $750
billion in US treasuries? I suspect they will (at minimum, they will
diversify it into the basket of currencies that define the new float).
If they don’t, they are flushing the value of these bonds down the
toilet and they will unable to maintain the new float.

China (and Japan) own huge amounts of US treasuries. If they sell them,
it will drive the price down. Thus, the US will need to raise the
interest rate on the treasuries to attract new buyers. Among other
things, this means higher interest rates overall, precisely what the
real estate market doesn’t want.

Gasoline, crude oil surge on signs U.S. supplies will plunge

Gasoline and crude
oil surged on speculation that inventories will decline after Hurricane
Rita shut refineries and offshore platforms. Natural gas soared 9.9
percent to a record on concern another storm will strike.

Contrast this with the reporting the day after Rita when mainstream
media tripped over themselves saying how peachy it was because we
dodged the bullet.

Peak for California housing said to be near

Slowing price increases in California may cause a recession by 2007, UCLA economists say.

And finally

SUV demand plummets

John Mathews of
Universal Toyota in San Antonio has witnessed the day that auto
industry executives in Detroit said would never come.

“We are seeing people who are driving $40,000 Suburbans trading them in on $15,000 Corollas,”

‘Bout time!

Arrogance and stupidity is such a bad mix

Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2005 00:02 - Category: Unfiled ;

Brown bristles at blame: “I know what I’m doing”

The former FEMA director says fault lies with his bosses, the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor, the media and victims.

Golly, he was only head of FEMA, how could he be responsible for
anything? Lordy, what a whiny, petulant loser, banging his rattle on
the high chair, insisting he is blameless.

PS FEMA’s Brown was warned early of shortages

Clueless Kos

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 11:31 - Category: Unfiled ;

From DailyKos, who appears to not even comprehend there is a thriving antiwar movement.

Ultimately I was
agnostic over the march this past weekend because I can appreciate that
people want to gather to fight for the cause, I appreciate that they
want to feel like they’re doing something.

Golly, how thoughtful of you. Or was that condescending? Watching
DailyKos steadily morph into a pliant fund raising tool for the
Democratic Party has been instructive indeed. Sometimes there’s still
genuine outrage, but never ever is there actual criticism of the
system, or of a Democratic Party that moves in lockstep with the
Republicans on the war.

My
question, then, becomes whether the money and effort people expended
getting to DC to march might’ve been better spent in other forms of
activism — letters to the editor, contributions to anti-war
candidates, politicians, and organizations, calls and letters to their
elected officials, creating anti-war media (e.g. Flash animations,
documentaries), and so on.

How lame. Well, that always has been the role of the Democratic Party anyway; to defuse,
subvert, and co-opt genuine protest. As if an antiwar letter to a
Congressmember will get any real response. Sue did that for years on a number of issues including the war and
never got anything back but a form letter that was usually off topic.
And I’m not aware there are any anti-war politicians in the first place.

As for “creating anti-war media”, well, there’s hundreds if not
thousands of such media out there now. But you would have to actually be
active in opposing the war to know that. Like I said, clueless.

I’ve been critical of peace protests in the past, and I’ve definitely got nothing good to say about ANSWER.

How unsurprising. ANSWER is
anti-imperialist, a view that calls into question the bedrock
foundations of both parties - and of Democratic Party feeder
organizations like DailyKos and MoveOn, who (deliberately or otherwise) function to defuse and
channel genuine activism into the Democratic Party where it will be
neutralized.

This isn’t a Republican vs. Democrat thing. Both parties
currently support the imperialist wars of BushCo almost without exception.
It’s imperialism that is the root cause of these wars, not the policies
of one party.

Do that funky perp walk, white boy

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 09:59 - Category: Unfiled ;

DeLay indicted in campaign finance probe

Lynndie’s slap on the wrist

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 09:43 - Category: Unfiled ;

Iraqis furious at ‘lenient’ Abu Ghraib abuse sentence

Her sentence is almost as noxious as Brownie blaming Louisiana for his
mismanagement of FEMA. Both demonstrate sleazy evasion of
responsibility and contempt for public opinion.

The 13 ‘most corrupt’ in Congress

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 09:35 - Category: Unfiled ;

Harbinger

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 09:15 - Category: Unfiled ;

Gas prices blamed for late credit card payments

The percentage of
credit card payments that were past due shot up to a record high in the
second quarter as surging gasoline prices strained budgets and made it
difficult for some people to pay their bills.

And these are the second quarter numbers, from April-June. That percentage is unquestionably much higher now.

Quote of the Day.

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 09:07 - Category: Unfiled ;

From Lefti on the News.

“There
is some schedule showing what you (need) to do to get Iraqis standing
up and defending themselves which is now suddenly beginning to happen,
so there are some signs of progress. The only way we’re going to be
successful there and ultimately, success is going to have to be
somewhat redefined is to create sufficient stability to get the
troops home.”

- George Bush? No, John Kerry, doing his best George Bush imitation

Third party, anyone? Or is remaining delusional about the prospects for ~~reforming~~ totally reconstructing the Democratic Party still your thing?

Indeed, the apparent great hope of the Dems, Hillary Clinton, is
unwaveringly supportive of the war. For liberal/progressive sites like
DailyKos to think she, or any other mainstream Democratic candidate,
will somehow morph into a peacenik if president and end the war is -
well - delusional.

BushCo heard us on Sept. 24, they got the message loud and clear. The
people want the war to end. Antiwar sentiment is now majority
sentiment. That our elected leaders in both parties continue to ignore
this simply shows how the rulers must have their war at all costs
because it suits their interests and lines their pockets.

But the people stopped the Vietnam War, and we’ll stop this one too.

Rita causes record damage to oil rigs

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;

Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm
in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US
and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show.

High oil prices and the desperate
search for new oil supplies needed to meet rampant demand from the US
and China have made rigs difficult to find and expensive to hire. Rigs
cost $90m-$550m to construct, depending on how sophisticated the
structure and how deep the water in which it will drill. A rig ordered
today is unlikely to be ready before 2008 or 2009, analysts said.

But after these two hurricanes, there are sharply fewer rigs available.
Plus much of the Gulf workforce will be working on clean-up and repair,
not on producing oil. Well, those workers who can be located and who
still have homes to return to, that is - after they get the electricity
turned on, the roads repaired, and the water drinkable.

So why are gas prices dropping a bit after Rita?

It might be because Big Money is seriously short oil futures and
options. They need time to unload these shorts. Thus they need the
price to stay down for a bit.

Here’s how it works. In futures and options you can sell something you
don’t own in expectation of a price drop. This is called going short.
Then, after the price drop, you buy it back cheaper and pocket the
profit. However, if the price rises, you could be screwed. If Big Money
is seriously short oil, then they will want to keep prices down until
they they buy back, or close, their shorts.

None of that had
anything to do with damage assessments from two major hurricanes which
haven’t really even begun yet. As one astute observer noted, “A couple
of months ago if there was one small refinery fire, crude oil futures
went up $2 a barrel. We have two major hurricanes taking all refineries
offline and oil prices fall. What’s up with that?”

Market manipulation is up. That’s what’s up. And I suspect the move is
now on around the world to suck as much last minute “sucker” cash into
play as possible before pulling the plug this winter.

AKA predatory capitalism.

Underestimating the threat of global warming

Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2005 00:04 - Category: Unfiled ;

A record loss of sea ice
in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern
hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the
climate may never recover.

Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase
of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice which
has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

How Cuba survived a huge oil shock

Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2005 12:04 - Category: Unfiled ;

From a conference on Peak Oil (scroll down for the Cuba part)

Their point is, Cuba survived a sudden and massive lack of oil when the
USSR collapsed, and survived well. Peak Oil proponents believe the
supply of oil is lessening. Thus, where Cuba was, is where the US may be,
and sooner rather than later.

As conference participants point out, Peak Oil people are a hugely
mixed lot politically. Everything from neocons to socialists, but they
all agree, oil is starting to run out, and that we’d best start
planning on what to do.

The author of the post is skeptical about Cuba yet realizes their
recovery from a hugely decreased oil supply makes an instructive lesson
for all.

Next
came a video by Faith Morgan on the results of two trips to Cuba to
explore the experience following that country’s 50% oil shock after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Many people think this is an interesting
laboratory for peak oil - what happens to a somewhat developed
industrial-agricultural economy following major oil supply loss.

The story in the video, which is fairly compelling, is that the Cubans
suffered massive hardship, but came through it. They made a top down
decision to completely switch from a Soviet-style collectivized
industrial agriculture to small-scale organic production (in many cases
giving farmers long-term individualized land tenure for the first
time), and made widespread use of urban gardens. They imported millions
of bikes from China, and used extensive bus runs to get people around.
During the “special period”, they lost 30lb on average! But very few
people died and the regime survived. Their diet has improved enormously
as they eat much more fresh produce now.

One of the points that was
particularly interesting in the video is that it seems the Cubans had
written contingency plans for major oil supply loss, in case of a US
blockade of the island. One of the speakers asserted that this was
critical to their success - they only had time to carry out one plan,
and if they’d been making it up as they went, they probably wouldn’t
have made it.

Which is precisely why Cuba survived Ivan, a Cat 5 hurricane, with no
deaths while the US had hundreds of deaths from Katrina. Cuba had a
workable civil defense plan and everyone already knew what to do, the
US didn’t. Nor does the US have a plan for when oil starts getting
scarce.

And Gerry Adams joins the Clinton sideshow

Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2005 09:34 - Category: Unfiled ;

In light of the latest writings from Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, it appears the IRA had another dilemma.
It was either decommission those weapons now, or become the armed wing
of the Hillary ‘08 campaign. Adams, who was briefly the IRA chief of
staff in the 1970s, is now a bearded visage for the global Clinton
brand, an instant signifier of ex-President Bill’s status as an
international statesman and totem of racial, ethnic and religious
reconciliation. Ten days ago Adams was a guest, speaking on “religion
and conflict”, at the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global
Initiative in New York. (Funny, republicans always used to insist the Northern struggle was not about religion but about imperialism.)

So the hurricane destroyed your house and job?

Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2005 09:33 - Category: Unfiled ;

The new bankruptcy laws
that go into effect in October mean banks will be able to hound you
endlessly for the money. No more walking away from a mortgage you can
no longer pay.

“Six
to nine months from now, FEMA will be gone, the church groups will be
gone and creditors will once more be demanding their money,” said
Bradford W. Botes, a bankruptcy lawyer whose firm represented victims
of Hurricane Ivan, which struck Florida a year ago.

Truth or satire?

Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2005 09:30 - Category: Unfiled ;

Laura Bush
will appear on reality TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” for
hurricane victims with lots of feel-good smiley faces and group hugs.

I bet you really aren’t sure if this is a spoof or actual fact, right?

Politics in the Zeros
My other sites
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Categories
Calendar

September 2005

M T W T F S S

« Aug Oct »

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30
Meta

Blogging since 2002

Subscribe