Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 22:34 - Category: Unfiled ;
We’ve been exploring our new home. San Francisco is filled with a multitude of different neighborhoods, all with their own personalities. This is definitely a city for walking, and we’ve been doing lots of it.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 18:36 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Colin MacEnroe of the Hartford Courant - he’s always fun to read.
The contents of the book seem more like someone from Middle-Earth or Narnia who suddenly notices that he has been living in a fictional realm. It’s as if, say, a talking playing card from Wonderland suddenly scrambled back up the rabbit hole and announced to the rest of us: “Do you know how crazy it is down there?” Well, yes. We have always known. All we have ever seen, really, has been the craziness.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 14:30 - Category: Unfiled Tags: Dr. John, Hurricane Katrina;
“Say Whut?” demands accountability for the botched Katrina response, and bites hard: “Say it’s a job well done/Then you giggled like a bitch/Hopped back on the Air Force One.”
In “Dream Warrior,” Dr. John imagines himself as an avenging samurai “sleeping with my sword” and proffers a conspiracy theory: “Lemme explain/About the second battle of New Orleans/Not about the loss, not even the devastation/About it was done with intention.” Beneath this beats a bamboula rhythm, bedrock of local resistance music for centuries.
Sounds like a must-have, socially relevant music performed by a national treasure, backed by all-stars.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 10:14 - Category: Unfiled Tags: oil prices;
An investigation of oil trading by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission will likely target evidence that traders intended to manipulate markets rather than just schemed to make money, former officials of the agency said.
Who woke the CFTC up from their nap? Congress apparently, and the unsettling thought to them that another agency, the FTC, might start investigating and thus invade their turf. Gasp, can’t have that. Let’s make righteous noises that indicate we are On The Job instead.
If options trader Philip Davis can clearly explain how futures traders manipulate the oil markets (and he’s been doing so for months), why has the CFTC just now wiped the sleep from their eyes and decided maybe there’s a problem here?
The Oil Shortage, and Other Fairy Tales
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 06:41 - Category: Unfiled ;
Dave Riley says the problem is where to put all those carbon atoms where they’ll do the least harm.
We are no longer just talking about whether you can run the air conditioner 24 hours per day or how you plan to heat your bath water but how are you going to afford to live given that food and petrol and water and accommodation are all going up in price.
Given that oil is a commodity whose price is in effect becoming more reflective of its cost there is really no other option than to move to a public transport solution or get energy for transportation from somewhere else — such as turning nutritional calories into biofuel or harvesting natural gas for running internal combustion engines rather than heating. It’s a take from Peter to pay Paul situation.
Makes it all rather claustrophobic doesn’t it? as the world economy closes in on you.
Electric vehicles that are recharged by renewable energy would certainly be one solution, but only a partial one. EVs can’t do everything. Hauling equipment and supplies will still require diesel engines, as does farming. But if less petroleum-based fuels are consumed by all, then that leaves more available for the vehicles that really need it, presumably at a lower price since demand will have dropped. But that is long-term solution, while the squeeze is happening now.
Truckers, especially independents, are definitely feeling the economy closing in.
In real terms, at least 50 percent of truck-generated income is going right back into the fuel tanks. Factor in maintenance, and that bill can approach 75 percent. Thousands of operators have been forced to look for shortcuts, put off critical maintenance procedures, or park their rigs altogether because they cannot earn a living.
Here in California, diesel is now over $5 a gallon. The soaring cost of diesel means higher prices coming for virtually everything. Too few carbon atoms. Too many places that need them.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2008 00:15 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Hillary Clinton, Obama;
Top party officials want her to bow out soon, and campaign insiders are losing faith in her strategy.
Obama nows leads Clinton among Democrats in California by 13% - and he lost the state by 9 points in Feb.
Speaker Pelosi directly warned Clinton supporters to avoid “”scorched-earth strategy” and said she will directly intervene soon if needed to bring the nomination fight to an end. Translation: Hillary will concede peacefully very soon or she will be forced to so.
Meanwhile, the once-rational Bill Clinton is ranting conspiracy theories about how poor little Hillary has been denied a presidency that was rightfully hers - hers I tell you, he spews - we planned and plotted this for years, and now MoveOn.org viciously and thuggishly raised money for another candidate, money that should have been ours as should the presidency. But no, the media, craven little weasels that they are, did not respect our sense of overweening entitlement and, get this, endorsed that Obama guy AND the party leaders did nothing to stop it. (bangs rattle on high chair and has a temper tantrum.)
You probably think I’m exaggerating, right? I’m not. Bill Clinton is definitely foaming at the mouth.) Really folks, It’s time to kill two birds with one stone and put both the Bush and the Clinton political dynasties out to pasture and keep them there permanently.
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