Falling, falling

Poor W-imbecile. Nobody likes him.

Poll: Most Americans Say Bush Not Honest - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Two crucial pillars of President Bush's public support -- perceptions of his honesty and faith in his ability to fight terrorism -- have slipped to their lowest point in the AP-Ipsos poll.

While the CIA leak investigation, the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and high energy costs have all taken their toll, the polling found the Iraq war at the core of Americans' displeasure with the president.

All of those concerns are cutting into traditional Bush strengths. Almost six in 10 now say Bush is not honest, and a similar number say his administration does not have high ethical standards.

It's a shame it took the American people this long to figure out what a den of thieves we have in the White House.

Read the rest of the story. It doesn't get any better. (Or it just keeps getting better and better. Depends on your perspective.)

And so it goes

The Wrath of Pat

I see where God's personal assassin on Earth, Pat Robertson, is at it again.

Pat's called down the wrath of God (and of Pat) on the town of Dover, PA, because they voted out eight school board members who were insistant on forcing 'Intelligent Design' to be taught as part of the school's science curriculum. It's not science, folks. It's just not.

According to CBS News (among others)

(CBS/AP) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" -- the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power -- as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Nice to know that Pat has such a personal relationship with the Almighty that he's privvy to the Lord's various smiting of towns and people who offend Him. It's amazing just who He choses to be His spokesman on Earth. You'd think God could find someone with just a little bit more credibility than Pat Robertson, who's becoming a laughingstock both of the secular and the Christian camps

If you remember, Pat's called for assassination and nuclear action in recent months to carry out God's plan here on Earth.

Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Guess Pat's latest action pretty well puts to rest the fantasy that 'Intelligent Design' is something other than forcing the teaching Christianity back into our schools.

I mean, after all, if God's gonna smite us for NOT teaching it, what else can it be?

Thanks, Pat, for clearing that up. (And if you get any other advance information about impending Almighty smitings, please be sure to keep us informed, Pat, won't you?)

It's this type of garbage that makes me slightly embarrassed to be a Christian.

And so it goes.

What's that smell?

Something smells pretty rotten in local politics.

It appears that the altruistic motives of state Sen. Rick Winkel in retiring at the end of his term are something less than altruistic.

In his political career, I can think of only one or two issues where I've agreed with Winkel. But at the same time, I considered him a fairly straightforward and moderately honest politician. As honest as anyone in Illinois and the Illinois GOP could be. Someone who attempted most of the time to rise above the sleeze.

Guess I was wrong.

It appears that, at the recommendation of Rep. Tim Johnson, Winkel is being pushed for the open post of U.S. Attorney for central Illinois. At least that's what Wednesday's News-Gazette says.

On the surface, that doesn't sound like such a sleazy thing. Until you consider:

In immediately taking the post, Winkel will have to resign his state Senate seat early. A seat that's being hotly contested by both parties. Winkel's early resignation opens the seat up for a pre-election appointment.

Quoting the New-Gazette's onpaper edition:

If Winkel were to become the U.S. Attorney, it is unclear who would complete his term in the Senate, which has more than a year to run. But [Judy] Myers, who announced last week that she hoped to get back into the Senate, would appear to have the inside track. The vacancy would be filled by the two Republican county chairmen, Steve Hartman in Champaign County and state Rep. Bill Black in Vermilion County.

Well, isn't that conveeeeeeenient?

Wee Willie Winkel gets a political plum post for which he's only marginally qualified, Myers becomes an incumbent, giving her shaky campaign a boost and the rest of us lose -- on both counts.

A little sleazy, slimy and underhanded.

Add to that one other little fact included near the bottom of the NG story: Winkel admits that as a civil, not a criminal attorney, he's not really qualified to become a U.S. Attorney.

Winkel acknowledged that he had no experience as a prosecutor. "My background is primarily civil litigation, mostly in the state courts but with some experience in the federal system."

So what, exactly is civil attorney Winkel's qualifications to fill a criminal attorney position? Oh, plenty:

"But I have served on the Judiciary committee in the Legiuslature. And in my (application) letter I wrote that I believe I have an extensive background."

Well, that certainly eases my troubled mind. After all, it's been proven that a civil attorney can easily fill a criminal prosecutor's post. Remember John Piland?

Oops, bad example.

All in all this little scenario is just a little too convenient, a little too planned, a little too orchestrated to be coincidence.

It's just plain sleazy.

But what do we expect from the state GOP? Remember GOP poster child George Ryan? Whatever happened to HIM?

And so it goes.

ADDENDUM: I discovered shortly after posting this that practically every blogger in North America already had weighed in on this issue. Sorry for the redundant redundancy. What can I say, I got the paper late.

ASIG-2

It's only money

And they said it with a straight face, I'll bet. From the AP:

WASHINGTON - The chiefs of five major oil companies defended the industry's huge profits Wednesday at a Senate hearing where lawmakers said they should explain prices and assure people they're not being gouged.

But if that's the case, how do they explain this?

ExxonMobil, the worlds' largest privately owned oil company, earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter. Raymond [Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp.] was joined at the witness table by the chief executives of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BPAmerica and Shell Oil USA.
Together the companies earned more than $25 billion in profits in the July-September quarter as the price of crude oil hit $70 a barrel and gasoline surged to record levels after the disruptions of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Well, if you have lots of lawyers and lots of statistics and lots of doubletalk, (and lots and lots of chutzpah) you can explain away almost anything. Truth is the first victim....

Raymond said the profits are in line with other industries when profits are compared to the industry's enormous revenues.

Of course we know they were telling the truth, right? After all, they were testifying before Congress? Well, not exactly. They really didn't want to be there, and they didn't want to promise to tell the truth. They refused, with the approval of the GOP, to testify under oath. They refused to swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but ...

Democrats had wanted the executives to testify under oath, but Republicans rejected the idea.

"If I were a witness I would demand to be put under oath," said Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.

So, if they refuse to testify under oath, in effect if they refuse to affirm that what they're telling Congress is actually the truth, why bother showing up at all? Simple, they're trying to diffuse a bomb. A windfall profits tax bomb.

A number of Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, have called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies.
-snip-
The executives hoped to dampen any further momentum for calls for taxing windfall oil company profits, something still viewed as a longshot but also no longer out of the question. Such a tax could inhibit investment in refineries or oil exploration and production, the industry argues.

Given the threat, why would the oil executives WANT to testify under oath. Why would they WANT Congress and the American public to know the truth? The truth that they've used natural disasters to gouge the American public at unprecedented levels. Well, they don't want us to know the truth. That's the strategy. Lie, but look sincere. Hope no one notices the elephant in the corner.

The oil industry's record third-quarter profits -- at a time when motorists were reeling from unprecedentedly high gasoline costs and warned of huge heating bills this winter -- have caught the attention of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Some analysts predict the 29 largest oil companies will earn $96 billion this year.

$96 billion? $96 billion? That makes for some hefty executive bonuses, I'd surmise. Provided, of course, that by blowing smoke at Congress (and at us) they get to keep it.

And so it goes

Headed for a fall

It was so beautiful today driving around town and seeing the $1.99.9 price on gasoline. Only wish I hadn't filled up at $2.06.9 a couple days ago.

Despite our good fortune, I have to ask why? Why have our prices fallen nearly a dollar a gallon in less than a month? I thought we were having a shortage. That's the story big oil (and the White House) sold us.

I read a lot of news (online and onpaper) and have yet to see where any hurricane-damaged refineries (if there actually were any) that had been taken off line have gone back ON line. I haven't read of any offshore oil platforms going back on line.

What I have heard is Congress, specifically Congressional Democrats, beginning to put the heat on the oil companies. And beginning to look with a skeptical eye at record profits in the last quarter. Obscene record profits.

Coincidence? I doubt it.

Aside: Please don't give me any of that bullstuffing about supply-and-demand change and the free market at work. Given the market we've had the last year, in relation to gas, oil, diesel and heating oil there is no free market. When one company sneezes, all the others reach for tissue. If you don't understand that you're living with your head so far up your gas pump you are unable to acknowledge reality.

Someone or some entity is starting to look at the record profits made by the price gouging oil companies. And if they're busy defending their obscene gas profits, they just aren't gonna be able to start the winter heating oil gouging in time to make -- even more obscene record profits.

Nevertheless, when it comes to gas price ... let it fall, let it fall, let it fall.

And so it goes.