Vacation's Over, Back to Ranting

Well, August is about over and like that workaholic in Texas, it's time to get back to work. Mrs. Ranter took our two kids on a two week tour of all the amusement parks between Chicago and Maine. I flew to NYC and met them at the midpoint of the vacation. Like the election of a Republican presidential shill for Big Oil, our family road trips are a perfect indicator of when gasoline prices will rise. This trip covered 3,700 miles and last summer I took the kids on a trip out west that covered 5,000 miles, also at the time when gas prices hit their peaks. Of course, the corporate controlled media continue to trot out the ridiculous assertions they are fed by their corporate masters on why prices are rising so fast...China's using too much oil, it's too difficult to increase refining capacity, supplies are at near maximum...funny the oil companies always manage to find more supplies when prices rise. The fact that Republicans have allowed the oil industry to merge to the point where there is no more competition and price/production fixing is very simple to accomplish is never cited as a reason for the increase in oil prices. The talking heads of TV will actually read something put in front of them that says that a disruption of a day or two in oil prodcution in the Gulf of Mexico is a valid reason for oil hitting $70 a barrel.
But it's nice to see that the Republican economic plan is working just as planned. Yesterday, it was announced that the poverty rate in this country has risen for the fourth consecutive year. The last year the rate went down was Bill Clinton's last year in office. So, it's clear that those tax cuts that helped the super rich become obscenely rich have had the usual trickle down effect as they did under Reagan. Don't worry though, those poor people can move ahead by joining the Army...there's plenty of jobs available in Iraq, with future jobs in Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.

Bush Passes Gas (Bill)

Isn't it incredibly ironic (and hypocritical) that on the same day that a barrel of oil hits an all-time high, that Bush would sign his beloved energy bill. A putrid piece of legislation that even its supporters (read: bag men for Big Oil) acknowledge will do nothing to lower the price of gas for consumers, Bush had the unmitigated gall to sign this give away of the Federal Treasury to oil companies at a solar energy test facility in Albuquerque. This is the equivalent of going to Florida to sign a bill that guarantees that all votes be counted fairly. Lest anyone think that the cost of gas is going to moderate anytime soon, listen to what Bush was given to read by Cheney and his Big Oil buddies, "Most of the serious problems such as high gasoline costs or the rising dependence on foriegn oil, have developed over decades. It's going to take YEARS of focused effort to alleviate thise problems." Don't say he didn't warn you.

Ayatollahs Stock Up On Sunscreen

If I were a political or military leader of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and any country with large oil reserves, I would be treading lightly right now, after hearing that the Bush administration is negotiating with Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen to accept transfer of their nationals who are currently imprisoned at Guantanomo Bay. If these negotiations go as expected, 70% of the prisoners currently at Gitmo will be gone. Hmmm...wonder what's up...who's going to be filling up all those vacant cells? Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs (yup, we need an a Defense Dept official whose only job is to handle detainee affairs) claimed that this was a normal process, ``We, the US, don't want to be the world's jailer. We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden onto our coalition partners.'' It would have been nice if they took the same approach in coalition building for jailing prisoners as they did in actually invading a country. Of course, then it would be difficult to see that all the spoils of war go to Halliburton.

What Energy Bill?

As a confirmed "numbers person", it has always been my opinion that if you want to see the motivation of many people (especially Republicans) look at the dollars involved. I've felt this way even before Mark Felt told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money" to discover the facts behind the last, totally corrupt, presidential administration. While everyone has been agitated this past week about CAFTA passing, no one paid much attention to the new energy bill. While there is the legitimate issues of whether it will cost jobs in the US, CAFTA will have little, if any, effect on most Americans given the small amount of trade ($15 billion) that we do with Central American countries. The energy bill is a much diffferent case. What little discussion we heard from TV's talking heads was about how daylight savings time will be extended to Halloween. No one talks about how this bill is the bastard child of the secret meetings Cheney held with energy executives right after Bush was first appointed by the Supreme Court. These meetings were so secret that the administration fought for years through the courts to even keep secret who was at the meeting! It took Republicans almost five years to get this bill passed, during a period in which they had control of Congress and the nation clearly expressed a desire to have a strong energy policy. How bad can this bill be if it took this long? How big a theft from the US treasury can be involved here? Follow the money...

So what do the numbers show? How about $14.5 billion in tax breaks for energy companies. Well, that doesn't seem so bad. After all, with a current population of over 296 million, that works out to $48.85 each for every man, woman, and child in this country. That seems like a small price to pay for a strong, balanced energy policy. And you know, it WOULD be a good deal. Unfortunately, this money will do almost nothing to strengthen US energy policy...but it WILL do wonders for the profits of oil companies. I wonder if any of them were present in Cheney's hideout for the secret meetings? Guess we'll never know for sure! But wait, let's be fair my Republicans friends (yeah, I have some!) will say. These tax breaks have to go to the oil companies. Otherwise, they won't explore for new oil or expand refinery capability so they can sell us more $3 a gallon gas. Well, that certainly understandable a position to take (if you get major PAC money from oil companies). After all, in the second quarter, Exxon Mobil had net profits (that's NET, after all expnses are paid, this is what goes back into their big pockets) of only $7.64 billion (yup, BILLION). Since this net profit only amounted to $84,888,889 per DAY that quarter, one can see why they would be hesitant to invest any of that money in order to drill a little deeper (or in the National Wildlife Refuge) for more oil to make even more money. And why should they spend any of their money, when with a few well-spent piddling millions, you can buy enough politicians to get the federal taxpayers to pay you billions. Many wondered in 1999, why a group of seemingly smart oil and gas people would lead the charge to raise millions of dollars to run the neer-do-well son of a failed president as their candidate. Oh, how that investment has paid off for them!

The Science of Religion vs. The Religion of Science

Now that Bush has aimed his massive intellect at the issue of whether our planet evolved as science has proven through rigorous research covering millions of years of hard evidence or as told to him by his Sunday School teacher, we need to take a hard look at how we will teach children to reconcile these two "theories." Bush, speaking in one of those rare situations where he is not reading a speech that almost always produces the most hilarious results, told a group of reporters Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. No doubt Republicans will now propose federal legislation to rewrite all science textbooks to reflect the idea that intelligent design (read: creationism) is just as valid a theory as evolution, especially in states where this obvious sop to the religious right might gain them a few more uninformed voters. Where the money will come from to pay for all these new science textbooks has not yet been determined as previous Republican legislative efforts have funneled most federal education dollars into more student testing. However, the vice president has decided that the contract for these new books has already been awarded to Halliburton’s newly created textbook division. It only remains for Halliburton to fill in the dollar amounts to the contract.

In order to keep the separation of church and state balanced, the new legislation should also include a provision that all Bibles be recalled and reprinted with a chapter added right after Genesis. This chapter will be written by secular scientists and will point out in summary fashion their “theory” of how science has proven that the creation story in the Bible has no basis of fact but was a nice, simple story that was written thousand of years ago for people without the strong intellects of today’s leaders. For space reasons, the chapter will be printed in 4 point type, with wide margins and will be limited to 5,000 pages, if possible.

The scientific and religious communities are keenly awaiting developments on what new areas of debate will be opened by the intellectual curiosity (or is it curiosity of intellect?) of the current inhabitant of the White House. Based on comments overheard from the Oval Office during a strong thunderstorm recently, the National Weather Association has recently completed a research paper on the process by which lightning strikes create thunder and how it is unlikely that they are due to “angels bowling.”

Back Door Bolton vs. Ryno

Isn't it interesting that Bush sneaks Bolton into the UN through the service entrance one day after Ryne Sandberg is enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Could the contrast between two people be bigger? In Cooperstown, you have a man who humbly does everything right over his career and never caused anyone to seriously criticize his actions. In New York, we will have a man who even his supporters acknowledge doesn't have the basic skill of the job - diplomacy. Ryno talks of his deep respect for the game and how he always felt the game was bigger than him or any other single player. Bolton talks of blowing up the UN building and no doubt will carry out the neo-cons warped view that a world body that strives for world peace is a hindrance to their goal of the US as the world's bully and generator of maximum benefits to their friends (Halliburton recently announced that its war profit division, KBR, had a profit increase of 284%) . Sandberg was voted into the Hall in only his third year of eligibility. Bolton had to be snuck in under a recess appointment as he couldn't make Senate approval, even with the Republicans controlling 55 seats. It used to be that a President wouldn't even consider trying to get Senate approval for someone so obviously unqualified. No one considered trying to squeak through an appointment with 51 votes. Presidents looked for candidates who could command universal respect because their qualifications were outstanding, and the confirmation process was almost always perfunctory and candidates were approved by unanimous voice votes. Now, we have an administration that appoints stealth candidates with small paper trails as Supreme Court Judges with a hope of squeezing them through the Senate, and where an appointee fails to meet that incredibly low standard, they use the recess appointment to circumvent the will of the American people and to insult the representatives of the rest of the world.