Extreme Right Wing Congressman Trying to Steer Nats' Sale
[Update 6/30/05 - WaPo's Sally Jenkins from yesterday on crazy Tom Davis' rantings]No link, but from the USAToday June 28th (heretofore known as "
McPaper") reported that House Government Reform committeee chair Tom Davis (R-VA) said to the newspaer Roll Call that essentially if George Soros' bid (as a minority 15% stake in the Ledecky group) is accepted, that they'll pull baseball's antitrust exemption.
"I think baseball understands the stakes... I don't think they want to get involved in the political fights... I don't think it's the Nats that get hurt. I think it's Major League Baseball that gets hurt. They enjoy all sorts of exemptions from anti-trust laws."
Gee, I'm sorry that Soros spent near $20 million to get rid of georgie porgie, but keep your ass out of baseball - you have no right there. Of course, it cannot be overlooked that Northern VA was hoping to land
Les Expos. Coincidence?
Engineering Post - Honda's Green Philosophy: "We Don't Get The Hummer"
I like when I can actually write about engineering in the context that I have created with this blog - in this instance, hard design projects that make a product better - and not just aestetics, either...This is
a solid article which explains strongly how companies CAN be more than just a capitalist money accumulation device to enrich itself and the richie-rich - they can have a philosophy of design and engineering. Frankly, projects like this would be fun because you've got to push the design limits at the time and start by saying "why not?" The quotes below are stolen from DailyKos' "
Bill From Portland Maine". Except for this one which I took directly from the article, which I just love:
Toyota and Nissan have large SUVs to compete with Detroit's big boys. Could Honda ever bring itself to develop a hulking SUV?
We don't get the Hummer, we just don't get it. There would not be a lot of motivation within Honda to develop the Hummer. We would be saying we could make it lighter, we can make it have better fuel economy. But in the end, it's certainly not a Hummer. It's closer to a Pilot. So we're at cross-purposes with a vehicle like a Hummer.
---------------------------------------------
[Newsweek's] Keith Naughton: Honda worried about gas mileage when gas mileage wasn't cool. Why?
Baker: Everyone at Honda views being in a company as being far more than just turning a profit. It's not that we're poor businessmen, but I think everybody at Honda is fired by the dream of creating great products that are the most efficient in their class.
How difficult was it to engineer the MDX to meet Honda's stringent mileage standards?
I'll never forget it. I was a rookie leading this MDX team. We'd done the research and we had an efficient package. But when we pitched our business plan to the board of directors, Mr. [Koichi] Amemiya, who was in charge of North America, his No. 1 comment was: "It should be more green." I made the mistake of saying, "But sir, nobody cares about the green issues." And he just smiled and said "I know."
Does your research now show that people care about gas mileage?
If you are talking about large SUVs, yes, they are giving some lip service to fuel economy. But that is sort of a "here today, gone tomorrow"-type phenomenon. The point is not that customers demand it or don't demand it, because that's absolutely not the viewpoint of Honda. When you are a philosophy-driven company, you don't ask the customer if they agree with your philosophy.
Toyota talks about every car being a hybrid someday. What do you think is going to be on our highways in 10 and 20 years?
We would love to make 100 percent hybrids. Obviously, there are huge challenges, but it would be a perfect embodiment of the Honda philosophy. In the longer term, you want to move to a carbon-free type of mobility. So we are determined to lead in fuel cells.
But developing an affordable electric-fuel-cell car seems ever elusive. Will we ever get there or are we trying to crack the wrong nut?
We've got fuel cells on the road right now. At Honda that's the equivalent of the moon shot. We absolutely pick that as a challenge. Can we guarantee there will be 32 percent of Hondas that will have fuel cells by 2013? No. But there is a huge commitment to fuel cells.
Didn't Watch The Ra-Ra Speech, but...
I thought
this was telling - it seems that the news media is
actually reporting bad things about Bush now, especially now that all the
polling taking place now is tilted so far against the White House and the extreme right-wing congress:
ABC's Terry Moran just reported that the only time Bush got applause was in the middle of his speech when a White House advance team member started clapping all on their own in order to cajole the soldiers into clapping, which they dutifully did. So even the applause was fake.
And here's
Senator Reid's response to the ra-ra speech. So much for the party of hoo-ha.
Ashcroft's "Coverup" Is Over
Remember when he covered up the two seminude statues in the Justice Department? Well, Gonzales just
unfurled them again...first good move he's made at Atty General.
When Republicans Eat Their Own, Vol II
Suprisingly,
Rick Santorum's Senate office is saying that Rove does not presume to speak for him regarding all the crap that Rove is throwing around from a couple of days ago.
Tapped called all the Senate Goopers today about Rove:
Several offices had no comment. Many transferred us into voicemail boxes, and we plan to call them back on Monday if they don't respond. But we got two offices to react. While Kay Bailey Hutchinson's staff told us she agrees with Rove's remarks, Rick Santorum's communications director, Robert Traynham, suggested that the Pennsylvanian had a different reaction. He told me: "Karl Rove speaks for himself. He doesn't speak for the senator. On 9-11, there was no such thing as a Republican or a Democrat, and that's what the senator believes."
First time I can recall thinking a positive thought about Santorum.
The Downing Street Memo - Repost III
[Update 3 - 6/24/05: Greg Palast has joined the chase (he probably is actually the leader, but we only get real newsin the US after it's already happened). Here's his BBC Newsnight video from March 17th. Here's the info that he sent to Rep. Conyers.][Update 2 - 6/21/05: dfa has this great flash animation that serves as a little primer of what's in the memos. And, below, John Conyers delivering the 500k+ sigs to the White House]
[Update 1 - 6/18/05: apparently now the AP is starting to give this legs...cross posted from americablog]I'm joining others to get the word out on this memo which shows pretty clearly what we all figured: Iraq was a planned event from the beginning (
see PNAC). Here are several links that I've found regarding it:
downingstreetmemo.commydd.comsalon.comafterdowningstreet.org
Operation Yellow Elephant
This is in regards to all those righties that support the war in Iraq but do not volunteer for the all-volunteer army in order to support their belief system.
There is nothing from the administration about imploring people to join the army, as there are some estimates that we'll be down an entire division by the end of the year (-40,000 soldiers).
This is the picture that people are putting out there. So I will too...
CNN/Money's Scandal Inc. Webpage
This should really be "
Corporate Jerks Get What They Deserve, Part Zero" but from here you can look up all the wonderful cases against the most powerful (and corrupt) business people that have cropped up in the past 5 years. I had forgotten about Frank Quattrone!
Corporate Jerks Get What They Deserve, Part III
This time, it's the former chairman of Adelphia Communications John Rigas. I'm really sorry that he's 80 and all, but that doesn't mean he should NOT go down for what he did (15 years), which included bank fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. The younger Rigas, Timothy, got 20 years in 2004.
Corporate Jerks Get What They Deserve, Part II
They got ex-Tyco CEO Kozlowski
on all charges except one in a second trial that didn't go for the glitz of the $6,000 shower curtain or the $2,000,000 birthday party...just the facts on how they committed grand larceny and conspiracy. Ex-CFO Mark Schwartz got the same number of guilty verdicts as well.
Corporate Jerks Get What They Deserve, Part I (Repost from 3/15/05)
Several more to go. Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom/MCI is
convicted on all counts. Kenny Lay is coming, as are the other biggies that did their dastardly deeds to public 'trust' in the big American corporations.
Will Ferrell As Neil Diamond on VH1 Spoof
My god
this is hilarious...a bit on the raunchy side as Will Ferrell is apt to do, especially spoofing on the
great Neil, but still you can chuckle, especially with the
hand raised while singing. He does pretty well with the mimicry - he gets the high points.
And, if you want other SNL moments from recent times, here's a
link to a bunch of them.
When Republicans Eat Their Own, Vol I
I think I may have to do reports of this over time, as it appears that more and more GOPers on the Hill and out in the country are seeing that the Bush Administration is just silly and disconnected from reality (hence part of the name of my blog)...today's
evidence comes from
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE):
Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."
From NYT: GOP Sen. Danforth Gets It When It Comes To Religion
This is from a
post on dailykos. And remember,
John Danforth is an ordained minister:
Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.
But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws.
We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators. When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.
When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.
We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.
How My Chase Card Screwed My Vacation
My wife and I are planning a weeklong vacation. We wanted to see some ball games, so we decided to go to see the Orioles (heckuva park) and also catch the Nats for the first time in our lives.
I decided - hey, why dont I use my Chase TravelRewards points to stay at our hotels for free! Save a lot of money!
Well, after turning in 10's of thousands of points, they lost my vouchers in the mail. Gone.
They tell me I have no recourse and that they're just lost and that they're sorry. they dont know the half of it. I'm so pissed I can't see straight.
So, I'm going to write the whole board.
Here they all are. Quite the who's who of industry, eh?
=======================
Here's the letter:
Dear Sir/Madam:
I have been a loyal credit card user since 1998 and I have never had problems with your company or your services. My wife and I decided to recall our honeymoon and visit some of the great haunts that we found and take in some good baseball games.
I decided to use my Chase TravelRewards account to pay for my hotels for the week. I was able to get the hotels that I wanted and also save a lot of money based on my 7 years of accumulating points by using your credit card - and mind you, we have a choice of cards to use in our wallets.
But the travel voichers never arrived. They were lost. And your customer service people can only tell me 'sorry'. They cannot help me in any way.
This situation is simply unacceptable. As a loyal user for 7 years and as someone who decided to use this service for the first time and get burned while doing it, I can tell you that this is last time that you will have to ruin my vacations. I know that you do not care about a single person that only has a small slice of credit compared to a company that has $1.1 trillion in assets, but I do.
I have no recourse but to cancel my credit card as well as move my mortgage out of your company's hands. As soon as I get back from my vacation I will be shopping both these services to other companies.
Please know that you only had to resend the vouchers and this would not have been necessary.
Goodbye,
(me)
Bush Is WAY WAY On the Wrong Track
This article also goes on to state something that the bushies should be very wary of: that over 2/3 (68%) of the independants surveyed said that dubya was on the wrong track. that over 3/4 of democrats thought so is expected. 40% of republicans say that he's on the wrong track, to boot.
FBI Computer Systems Were Out Of Date Years Ago
The FBI decided to
go ahead and spend $17 million on a pilot program that they already knew would fail because there were serious flaws in the custom software that was built.
According the article, they have decided to move forward again, this time with off-the-shelf software.
Smart move.
Vaccine for Ebola And Marburg Viruses?
From dailykos' Science Friday,
this article about high hopes for a vaccine to combat Ebola and other hemmoragic fever viruses. That would be powerful, indeed. A quote from the NYT article:
Scientists trying to develop vaccines against Africa's deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses are reporting an important milestone, a new type of vaccine that prevents the diseases in monkeys. Successfully immunizing monkeys is an essential step toward the goal of producing vaccines for people. Two new vaccines, one for Marburg and one for Ebola, were 100 percent effective in a study of 12 macaques being published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Monkeys given just one shot of vaccine and later injected with a high dose of virus did not even get sick. Normally, all the animals would be expected to die.
The Marburg and Ebola viruses are closely related, and in both people and monkeys they cause hemorrhagic fevers that can be fatal within a week. There is no vaccine or treatment for either disease. Death rates in people can be high, sometimes exceeding 80 or 90 percent.
Angola, where a Marburg epidemic was first detected in March, is still struggling to contain the disease, which has killed 340 of 408 victims. The virus is spread by contact with blood, saliva, vomit or other fluids from sick patients.
The two new vaccines are still experimental, and will not be ready even to be tested in people for at least two years. If human trials are successful, products might be ready for licensing five or six years from now, the researchers said. The vaccines would not be used for routine immunization, but would be given to health workers in high risk areas, virus researchers and people who had been exposed to the disease, like relatives and other close contacts of sick patients. Eventually, it might be possible to combine the vaccines to protect people from both diseases with a single shot.
This Whole Gitmo / Koran Abuse Thing
So,
does it matter that they did not confirm a toilet flushing? I think it only matters that they purposefully did these atrocious things to a book that is THE word of God for over 1/5 of the population of this planet.
Redicuous.
Economy hits another jobs skid
We only made about
78,000 jobs last month, not including farm jobs. One thing that the reporter mentioned I thought was a little rediculous (emphasis mine):
The question is whether the drop in hiring will hurt consumer spending, which has fueled much of the economy's growth in recent years and now accounts for two thirds of economic activity. But other recent evidence concerning the labor market, such as initial unemployment claims and consumer confidence, have signaled more stable job growth.
Consumer spending has been at 2/3 for many years - or at least that's been the rule of thumb for a long as I can remember. Silly to say "it now accounts".
economyincrisis.com - anybody heard of it?
Has anybody seen
this org before? They sound intriguing, but I am a little wary as they sound a bit too protectionist, however I just want to get a soundoff from anybody out there. The bottom of the webpage says it's paid for by "Concerned Citizens", PO Box 3222, Dublin, OH 43017.
Thanks.
W Vastly Increases Federal Budget Deficit In 1st Term
This is from the
Lima, OH news as part of an editorial regarding how any GOoPer is a good one.
But it IS striking to show how far off the classical "Eisenhauer GOP" farm the Neo-Con Death cult has strayed:
Federal spending increased by 33 percent during President Bush's first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton's last day in office to 20.3 percent at the end of Bush's first term.
Spend, spend, spend. That's all the Bushies do. Borrow and spend.
