Day: August 6, 2008

2008 Anal-Ocity

Holy Moley! Two in one day–damn life is so good!

First one was reported on MSNBC.

The State Of Washington authorities said that a dismembered body part found on a beach was a human foot inside a shoe.

Now please, how difficult was that–first eliminate the species that do not wear shoes and you have a winner!

The second is the best.

In Sturgis ND at a Biker Rally, John McCain while speaking to the crowd offered up his wife Cindy as a contestant in the Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Contest.

Now does McCain have any idea what he is offering up his wife to do? Maybe he should know the rules before offering his wife. Either McCain is a FREAK or he is just plain ignorant.

Democrats Scramble To Find A Policy On Oil

With 70% of the American people now supporting a policy of drilling offshore, the Dems have got to find a way to include it in their schtick.

With the politics of energy shifting as rapidly as gasoline prices, Democrats, led by Barack Obama, are retreating from long-held positions and scrambling to offer distressed voters more immediate relief from spiraling costs.

The change has been most striking on the campaign trail, where Obama said in a speech yesterday that he would abandon his past position and support tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to quickly cut prices at the gasoline pump.

His presidential campaign later released a statement warning that the “doubling of oil prices in the past year is a crisis for millions of Americans.”

Obama’s reversal on tapping the national stockpile of crude oil comes just days after he said, for the first time, that he would agree to some offshore drilling as part of a broader energy-policy compromise with Republicans, including John McCain, who has supported additional drilling.

Those shifts by Obama are indicative of the pressure politicians of both parties – but especially Democrats – are under to develop specific, short-term energy proposals in the face of rising costs. Against that backdrop, politicians risk looking insensitive if they put forth only solutions that could take years to hit the pump.

That jockeying reflects a shift in public opinion that has upended policy debates as gas prices have soared and the economy has soured. In California, where opposition to offshore drilling is widespread, a poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed 51 percent of respondents favoring more drilling – up 10 percentage points since July 2007, and the first time since the question was first posed in 2003 that more Californians favor offshore drilling than oppose it.

But the reality, there is no way that the US would become oil independent with either of these plans.

Unions Prepare For Air Line Merger

As Delta Air Lines works toward its proposed merger with Northwest Airlines, labor unions at the highly unionized Northwest are ramping up efforts to organize employees at the largely nonunion Delta.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents about 12,000 employees at Northwest, has opened an office in Atlanta across the street from Delta’s headquarters for its ongoing campaign to organize Delta employees.

And at the Association of Flight Attendants, committees of flight attendants from Delta and Northwest are working on a campaign to try again to organize the attendants at Delta after the merger is complete.

The flight attendants union lost an election to unionize Delta’s flight attendants in May. It plans to file for another election after Northwest and Delta combine. Flight attendants from both airlines would vote in a combined election on whether to be unionized. Northwest has about 7,000 flight attendants; Delta has about 14,000.

Only one major group at Delta is represented by a union —- its 7,000 pilots. About 200 dispatchers also are unionized. Northwest employees are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, the Association of Flight Attendants, the International Association of Machinists, the Transport Workers Union, the Aircraft Technical Support Association, the Northwest Airlines Meteorologist Association and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, among others.

The machinists union wants to organize ramp workers, customer service employees, reservations employees, maintenance workers and others at Delta —- about 25,000 to 30,000 total, said Stephen Gordon, president of District 143 of the union.

Meanwhile, the National Mediation Board is seeking to revise its rules that govern union representation in an airline merger. It has proposed to add language saying the board would “exercise its discretion” and extend the representation of a union from employees of one carrier to both carriers only when there is “more than a substantial majority, as determined by the board.”

Yet More “Surge” Good News

Headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand anti-Western cleric, the Mahdi Army has long controlled large swathes of the capital Baghdad.

Its decision to disarm, expected to be announced this week at Friday prayers, will help to further stabilise Iraq.

The document promises to adhere to the principles of the Mumahidoon – those who pave the way for the coming of the Mahdi, a messianic figure in Imami Shia Islam after whom Mr Sadr’s militia is named.

Analysts have speculated that the switch has come about because the Mahdi army has lost much of its popularity in recent months after failing to impose central discipline on its fighters, some of whom have turned to crime.

Yes, this will be seen and used as part of the surge is working campaign.

The Ever Present “I”–Info Ink Commentary

Back during the dark days of the primaries, which by now, seems like a lifetime ago, I made some pretty scathing analysis of Ms. Clinton. I said that her campaign was all about her. The she said “I” can make the difference, “I” in pain with the people, “I”….”I”….. And in the same breath I was harping on the Obama plan that “we” would make the difference, that “we” would bring the change to Washington. His inclusion of the people, the “we”, was what made him so darn appealing during those primary shots?

I called Clinton arrogant. And at the time, she seems to me to be just that. But now the ever present “I” has reared its ugly, arrogant head. But this time it is the Obama campaign and most notably Obama myself. He has gone from the “we” days to the “I” campaign. He is showing the arrogance that he has been accused of by the media since South Carolina primary.

Obama has said that he is the person we all have been waiting for….well, maybe…but let the surrogates make that claim, not the candidate. His speeches now are starting to show a sort of arrogance creeping into his mindset. Even to the point that he is thinking he has the election in the bag.

Polls show Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat, most of the time. Obama never breaking the 50% barrier and McCain never breaking the 45% barrier. People ask why Obama has not made a better connection with the people. It has also been said that he has not made himself know to the country as a reason for the low confidence rating. All that may be correct, but personally, I think it is more that McCain has run an absolutely horrible campaign so far, as a reason that he cannot get above 45%.

Both the candidates have problems. McCain needs a new strategy in his campaign. He is not the maverick he once was and he needs to get back to that perception. And Obama is showing his arrogant side and he needs to learn to connect with the average working stiff.

Today In Labor History

06 August

Cigarmakers’ International Union of America merges with Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union – 1974

American Railway Supervisors Association merges with Brotherhood of Railway, Airline & Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express & Station Employees – 1980

Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of the US & Canada merges with Brotherhood of Railway, Airline & Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express & Station Employees – 1986

Where Does The Money Go?

As reported in the WSJ:

Iraq is generating revenue of about $80 billion a year, mainly from its vast reserves of crude oil, but spending only about 1% of the total on maintaining critical infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and sanitation, the U.S. government auditor said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has appropriated around $48 billion in the past several years to help reconstruction efforts, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

The GAO, which is the investigative arm of Congress, estimates that for 2008, Iraq could generate between $73.5 billion and $86.2 billion in total revenue, of which oil exports will account for between $66.5 billion to $79.2 billion. That is based on Iraqi oil ranging from $96.88 to $125.29 a barrel and oil export volumes ranging from 1.89 million to 2.01 million barrels a day.

That figure is up significantly from the oil-export sales from 2005-2007 that accounted for about $90.2 billion for both years. In that period, Iraq spent 90% of its $67 billion in expenditures on operating costs such as salaries, pensions and services. Most of the remainder was spent on investment expenditures, such as structures, machinery and vehicles.

Just 1% of the Iraqi government expenditures went to maintenance of roads, bridges, vehicles, buildings, water, sanitation and electricity installations, oil pipelines and weapons.

An interesting story, but still I want to know where does the money go?

Civilian Response Corps–Part 2

First of all, this sounds like something that VISTA should be involved with. I mean why start something new that is already in operation? Between VISTA and Peace Corps I think the CRC is pretty much already been done. But no—let us start yet another program to suck money away from much needed domestic programs. Sorry, I digress.

In this part we will explore the nature of charity and the call for volunteers.

Americans live in increasingly troubled times. Hunger, foreclosures and poverty are all around. Begging on city streets, a phenomenon that became much less common in the 1990s, is again becoming ubiquitous in urban centers. Not since the Great Depression has the gap between the rich and the poor been so visible and extreme.

Social and political stability requires that the political establishment at least feign concern with these social problems, however. The mass media, schools and other institutions have campaigned for increased charitable giving and volunteer efforts to help the growing number of “disadvantaged.”

There is of course a vast difference between the sincere desire, especially of working people and youth, to seek to help those suffering from poverty or homelessness, and the cynical political calculations of those who have benefited from the huge transfer of wealth from the working population to the corporate and financial elite. The elder George Bush became a symbol of these hypocrites when, after having served as the two-term vice president under Ronald Reagan’s decimation of social programs, he discovered “compassionate conservatism” and delivered his 1988 Republican Convention speech as the presidential candidate, calling for a “thousand points of light” to deal with the devastation for which he and the plutocrats he represented were responsible.

Americans are constantly asked to “volunteer” either their time or their money to help those less fortunate than themselves. Americans have always given as much as they can to help their society and to some extent the world.

Charity has always played the role of a safety valve in modern class society, a way to cover up the most festering sores of class oppression and an attempt to staunch revolt. While it is not possible to provide an exhaustive history here, a few highlights demonstrate its long and reactionary history, especially since the rise of modern capitalism.

Part 3 will be tomorrow.

Off To The Race(s) Again

Do you remember all the race clap-trap during the primaries?  Well, it ain’t over yet.

Barack Obama stands accused of introducing race into this election.

Why, before Obama quipped that the McCain campaign had nothing to offer but fear of “the other” – and then implied that he was the other because he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills” – I bet no one had given race a thought. Certainly not Billy Shaheen, the former co-chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign, who suggested that Republicans would ask whether Obama had ever sold drugs.

But McCain and the Group cannot play that their hands are clean.

A newspaper has asked John McCain’s campaign why a black reporter assigned to cover a rally was singled out by security and told to leave a backstage area.

Stephen Price, a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, was among four Florida capital press corps reporters behind the scenes at a Panama City rally Friday when a Secret Service agent approached and asked if he were with the national media traveling with McCain. Price said no, and the agent told him he had to leave. Price said he then pointed out that there were other state reporters in the same area, but was still told to leave. The other reporters were white.

Now is not this all a bit silly?