EARTH TO NASA

Why on earth doesn’t NASA repair the shuttles while they are on the ground? Better yet, why not build a new one and save all the money they spend on repairs?

How many times has something happened to the shuttle on lift-off? The Endeavour was built in 1991 and has had 20 flights. It is getting old. Most people don’t keep their cars that long and they certainly don’t travel that many miles.

The orbiters are subjected to many different forces on lift-off and tremendous heat on re-entry.

Now the recently launched Endeavour has a deep gouge in its belly which to my mind threatens a safe re-entry for the astronauts on board. NASA says the exposed area is relatively small and poses no real danger.

From what I have read, it penetrated through the protective thermal tiles and is down to a thin layer of coated felt over the shuttle’s aluminum frame. I find it hard to believe that a thin piece of coated felt and an aluminum frame is going to shield the astronauts from the more than 2,000 degree heat of re-entry

NASA says there are four options, none of which has been tested in space. The spacewalking astronauts can apply a black paint to the gouge, screw on a protective plate, squirt in goo or forgedaboudit .

"This is not a catastrophic-loss-of-orbiter case at all. This is a case where you want to do the prudent thing for the vehicle," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

Well folks, I just heard on the news that NASA has decided on the forgedaboudit method of repair.

I would hate to be an astronaut and have my life riding on what these scientists on the ground decide.

Did they forget that there are real, live people inside The Endeavour?

The California Curmudgeon

CALIFORNIA’S BUDGET

In 13 out of the last 20 years, California’s Legislature has missed the June 30 deadline for the annual budget. Does the deadline come as a surprise to them every year? Why do they wait until the last moment to start working on it?

Back in the days when I belonged to a union we had five-year contracts and even though the negotiators had five years to begin work on the next contract, they would wait until the final week to even start talking to each other. We would end up working without a contract for as long as it took for both sides to agree and have the contract ratified by the members.

However, we did keep working, so this didn’t really have any adverse effect on our paychecks.

But when the state does this, it has huge ramifications. There are millions of children, elderly, poor and disabled Californians who are affected because Medi-Cal funds are frozen, child care providers, adult daycare centers, medical transport services and hundreds of hospitals are not receiving any state support.

Before 1978 the California Legislature was out of control with new taxation running rampant. To help put an end to this, the people came up with the infamous proposition 13 which added the two-thirds majority rule for the passage of any tax increase.

Perhaps it isn’t fair that California (along with Rhode Island and Arkansas) are the only states that need a two-thirds majority to pass the budget. Some say this makes the one-third the real majority.

However, the Legislature always does eventually come to an agreement, even in those 13 out of 20 years, so why not start a little earlier with a more alert eye to the deadline and the people who will be negatively impacted by its non-passage?

And just to make certain that the legislature keeps focused on the best interest of the public, I would suggest that they forfeit one day’s pay (and per diem) for each day the budget is late. That way they can actually feel some of the pain the people most affected by the lack of an on-time budget feel.

The California Curmudgeon

ROVE RAGE

I just can’t seem to get on the bandwagon in the marching parade and rejoice about Karl Rove resigning because somewhere in the back of my mind is a little alarm that is telling me that he is not out of the picture yet and this is just another sneaky move on the part of the administration.

He has been the mastermind of the ugliness, misdeeds and lawbreaking of this administration since he signed on and you can bet that just because he resigned from the administration, that he hasn’t given up his place in the Bush Crime Family.

If I knew more about football, I might think that this could be an end run around Congress and the American people.

Then again, I might be wrong and he just found out that “Turd Blossom” is a flower that grows in cow shit.

The California Curmudgeon

THE FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE

In an example of what happens when a body investigates itself, the Army announced that it was disciplining a number of officers for critical errors in the shooting death of Pat Tillman.

The military laid most of the blame on Philip Kensinger, a retired three-star general who led Army special operations after September 11, 2001. He was censured for “a failure of leadership” and accused of lying to investigators. A disciplinary letter recommending his demotion was added to his files.

But the official reprimands issued to three other high-ranking Army officers by Army Commanding General William Wallace are only mildly critical of their mistakes and sometimes darn near praiseworthy of them.

One letter said that retired Brigadier General Gary Jones used “due vigor, diligence and professionalism” in his handling of the case.

A half-ass apology was included in the other two letters, the first to Brigadier General Gina Farrisee “I know that all of this is much clearer with the benefit of hindsight. I suspect that, upon reflection, you wished you had done more to act on the medical examiners concerns”.

And the second to Brigadier General James Nixon “I am mindful that you never intended to deprive the Tillman family of the truth and only intended to delay notification until you had the facts”.

General Wallace also added to each letter “You should not consider this as an adverse action. This document will not be filed in any system of records maintained by the Army”.

I imagine you noticed that none of this has anything to do with the actual shooting of Tillman, but only the cover-up. The Army knew within hours that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, but this information was kept from the public and his family for five weeks.

And there you have the governments system of taking care of their own.

The California Curmudgeon

NOW IT’S OFFICIAL

Chevron Corporation wants a cut of Iraq’s oil fields.

Chevron, the San Ramon oil giant and Total SA of France have agreed to split up the oil on Majnoon fields in Iraq. The only problem is that Iraq doesn’t want to let them do that.

The take-over and development of these oil reserves by Chevron can’t happen until Iraq passes a law governing foreign investment in its oil industry. And even though Chevron has been bribing them since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 with technical assistance, nothing can be done without this new law being passed.

Despite intense pressure from Washington the Iraqi leaders have resisted being led down the golden path before they agree on a framework for sharing the country's vast oil wealth.

The oil fields of Majnoon are estimated to be either the second or third largest in the world. A lot of the country has not yet been thoroughly explored so there might be lots more oil and natural gas hidden there.

Before we invaded Iraq, Majnoon was putting out and average of 2.5 million barrels per day. This past June, the most recent month with available data, 1.98 million barrels a day was produced.

"Majnoon would be a real prize," said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. "People do not find that many million-barrel-a-day fields."

"This is an extremely sensitive issue for the Iraqi people, and it unites the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange. “They don't want the oil controlled by foreign companies".

The Iraqi public is very suspicious of any foreign involvement in their oil industry. Many view the war as an attempt by the United States and its allies to gain control of the country's oil. Sixty-three percent of Iraqis surveyed in a recent poll want to retain control of their oil fields.

Global Exchange, one of the groups that commissioned the poll, said that the Iraqi invasion was little more than an oil grab.

The California Curmudgeon

WARTIME AND VACATION TIME

There has been much talk recently about the Iraqi government taking a month off for vacation in time of war, but there is hardly ever any mention of our Congress taking the entire month of August off during the same time of war.

If I read this right, both the Iraqi government and the US Congress will be on vacation at the same time.

I think neither government should be taking any time off while there is so much for them to do. But my biggest gripe is that I can’t see how it is so wrong for one side and not the other.

The California Curmudgeon

JUST WHAT I NEED, ANOTHER GEORGE

Since he was first elected to the House, I have voted for our California representative, George Miller. I have agreed with him on most things and have shown it with my backing and support.

But recently he has made what I believe is a huge mistake. In answer to questions at two town meetings, he said he was not in favor of starting impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. The reason for this he said was because there was not enough time left in this administration to do it and that he didn’t want to take time out of his schedule to go down a road leading nowhere.

Suppose we took this same attitude on other things:

• We shouldn’t wash the car today because they are predicting rain for tonight.
• No sense in looking for those trapped miners because they will probably be dead before we find them.
• Don’t use CPR on anyone because only 15% of hospitalized patients on general medical or surgical floors on whom CPR is attempted survive.

Congress George should take another look around and listen to what the people want, and right now most of them want impeachment. Even if it can’t be done within the time frame, I want Bush and Cheney to leave office with a big cloud of guilt hanging over them.

And about that time frame, I don’t remember it taking that long to put Bill Clinton on that slippery slide to impeachment.

The California Curmudgeon

IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY

All elections are about money I guess, but this 2008 election seems particularly so. It doesn’t seem to matter how the candidate stands on any issue as much as how much money is in their war chest.

Hillary has this much money and Obama has this much and Edwards is in third place so it looks like Hillary will be the nominee for the Democrats.

The 2008 candidates have already collected over $277 million. They collected more in the first six months of this year than candidates in the last presidential election gathered during all of 2003.

To increase their lead, the candidates are now searching for new sources of money. The White House hopefuls have shifted their attention from the merely wealthy to the well-connected. They shower attention on those who have networking skills to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in increments of $2,300, the legal limit.

They are also pitching more to the average working-man. Fund-raising events are now catering to people with $15 to $50 to donate.

I know the candidates can and will tell you anything you want to hear just to get your donation, but I really miss the old days when you thought the election was about issues and the candidates were not afraid to tell you how they felt about each one of them.

Maybe that’s one reason they are called “The Good Old Days”.

The California Curmudgeon

THE DUMMYCRATS STRIKE AGAIN

What in the hell were the democrats thinking when they voted in the new surveillance bill? They not only allowed Bush to trample all over the Constitution and rape the fourth amendment, they helped him do it by giving him more than he asked for.

Can you imagine 16 democratic senators and 41 democratic House members voting in favor of a bill that will give Bush even more freedom to trash our rights. By a vote of 60 to 28 the Senate passed a measure that enhanced his powers of warrantless wiretapping.

This new bill is not supposed to cover calls made within the US, but we only have Bush’s word that he will act with restraint and we all know how good his word is.

Also our lying attorney general, Alberto Gonzales is in charge of the oversight of this project. He gets to pick and chose who gets tapped. The wire taps are permitted to be reviewed only after the fact and the FISA court is restricted to a generic review of the warrants and has no power to inquire into individual cases.

Why would these democrats vote in favor of this bill? It could be one of several reasons or a bunch of them lumped together, but fear played a big part in the vote. The congressmen couldn’t allow themselves to be seen as soft of terror and they couldn’t risk voting it down and then being blamed for everything that might happen while they were on vacation.

They could have gone along for fear of dividing the county and they could just be plain-ass afraid to stand up to Bush.

Whatever the reason, the vote is in and we a stuck with this law for six months and you know how easily it can be made permanent. It is a bad law. It is a rights-fighting law and it is a law passed out of fear and the Cheney-Bush campaign of fear is relentless.

The California Curmudgeon

THREE HOLES MAKES IT MURDER

Murder is not friendly fire.

I have been slow in my comments about Pat Tillman and his killing because it is so hard for me to believe that even this corrupt government could do this to a brave American who put the country’s need before his own; a man who was willing to give up a multi-million dollar career to serve in Iraq where he thought he was needed more.

When he enlisted, the government saw this as a great propaganda opportunity and Rumsfeld sent him a personal letter of congratulations.

Tillman became the poster boy of the war and everyone was happy, but It wasn’t long before he saw the war for what it was: an opportunity for the war profiteers to steal the lives of soldiers in exchange for high profits. And he let his feelings be known. Apparently the government couldn’t have their poster boy going around saying bad things about the war, so enters “friendly fire”.

Although, at first the story was that he had been killed by enemy combatants it was quickly changed to one where he was killed by “friendly fire”. That might have remained the story except his parents were not happy with the answers they were getting and started digging deeper and they discovered that after the medical examiners found three closely grouped bullet holes in Tillman’s forehead that had been made by an M-16 fired no more than 10 yards away, they had requested an investigation.

Their request was denied and It wasn't until reporters filed a Freedom of Information Act that the following information became public.

Military records show that dozens of officers knew of the truth of the Tillman's death within days, yet senior officers and Pentagon officials still maintain they didn't know for weeks.

"I have not been involved in any cover-up whatsoever, and I don't believe there's an individual at this table - who I know well and observed at close quarters and in very difficult situations - who had any role in a cover-up on this matter," former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a House committee.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., grilled Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the delay in the notification of Tillman’s “friendly fire” death.

"You knew this for a month before ... why did you not come forward and tell the family and tell the public the truth?" Maloney said. "You sat on your hands and you didn't say anything about it. And I find that hard to understand."

The former top Pentagon general said it was the Army's responsibility to inform the family, and he assumed it would.

"I don't think there's any regulation that would require me to do anything," Myers said. "This is the responsibility of the United States Army, not the office of the chairman, so I regret that the Army did not do their duty here and follow their own policy."

After the facts were known and after a number of clues suggesting the entire command structure, from the White House on down, had concealed a murder from the public, no investigation was imitated.

They continued to pay tribute to Tillman as if he had died in combat even after learning the truth neither Rumsfeld nor the President felt the need to correct the record publicly.

Much, much more could be said of this, but the main thing is that starting at the bottom and going straight to the top, the government covered up a murder of a young American hero who thought he was doing the right thing.

Those three closely placed bullet holes does indeed make it murder.

The California Curmudgeon

THE CALIFORNIA AUTO INSURANCE BOONDOGGLE

Step right up folks, have I got a deal for you. How would you like to have car insurance coverage that paid for any damage to your car at absolutely no cost to you? And what if it didn’t matter whether or not it was your fault? And what if you didn’t pay a single dime for all this? Does this sound like something that would be of interest to you?

This is the deal given to California’s State Legislature.

True, these are company cars, but the member gets to choose their car and they get to take it home at night. It does not have to be used exclusively for business and is free to use by any member of the family.

Who pays for all this, you might ask. Well, who else? It's the taxpayers who foot the bill. According to a Media News review of public documents, taxpayers have forked over more than $300,000.00 in the past five years for repairs to the legislators’ cars.

Another little perk here is that by not having to pay insurance premiums, the lawmakers likely saved thousands of their own personal dollars. So you, as a loyal taxpayer, are not only paying for the car and the repairs, you are also helping them put many precious dollars into their bank account.

"It is outrageous that taxpayers should be forced to pay for the damage to a vehicle given to a politician but driven and damaged by a family member who isn't even an elected officer," said Jon Coupal, president of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Assemblyman Hector de la Torre, D-South Gate, chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee countered with: "The vehicle is a state asset, and so our responsibility is to make sure that that asset is in top condition … It’s just simpler and cleaner for the state to fix the car."

So once again it’s a taxpayer burden and you have to come up with your own dollars to pay for their damages.

Do you ever feel that sometimes you are playing on the wrong side of the net?

The California Curmudgeon

SOMETIMES NOTHING CHANGES

Five days ago Mike Thomson of BBC Radio 4 broke an important news story, but there was nothing in our American news about it. I imagine that the reason was because of who was involved in it.

In 1933, George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush, J.P. Morgan and a bunch of businessmen from some of the best known American families, like Heinz, Birds Eye, Maxwell House, Colgate, Ford and General Motors planned what would have been the biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy. They were planning a coup to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and implement a fascist dictatorship. They believed that America should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

They formed a group called American Liberty League and approached Marine Corps Major-General Smedley Butler who was the most revered American 33-year military hero and the only man to have twice been awarded the Marine’s prestigious Medal of Honor and asked him to command a strong army of 500,000 veterans that would help stage a coup to either force Franklin Delano Roosevelt to resign or assassinate him.

Butler played along with the league hoping to determine who was involved. He later blew the whistle and identified the ringleaders in testimony given to the House Committee of un-American Activities. The Committee, however, refused to even question any of the individuals named by Butler and his testimony was omitted from the record. After that, both the government and the press attacked him and he more or less lost his highly respected reputation which is probably why you never hear of him now.

New documents, many of which were declassified just last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, Prescott Bush worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been said that this money helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty. His business dealings, continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act

In his documentary film Martial Law, Alex Jones interviews John Buchanan, who was instrumental in uncovering the documents tying Prescott Bush to the financing of the Third Reich. The subject is also covered in Alex's upcoming film, End Game.

Prescott Bush did not succeed but many would argue that two generations down the line the mission has all but been accomplished.

The California Curmudgeon

THE LAST DAYS OF DEMOCRACY

Yesterday the Bush administration disclosed a bold new assertion of executive privilege. He said that by his invoking executive privilege the Justice Department will not be able to pursue any contempt charges against any who work closely with him.

This is scary because it places huge obstacles in the path of the Democrats who are trying to get the information about the firing of the federal judges by prying it loose by proceeding with contempt proceedings.

Under federal law, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has to present a statutory contempt citation before the grand jury for its action. But the administration argued that Congress doesn’t have the power to force the U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases where the president has used his executive privilege to protect official testimony or documents.

"A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case," said a senior White House official, who said his remarks are the wishes of the White House. The official also said that in circumstances like these, it would be “a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys”.

"What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all," said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues. "That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers”.

The administration's statement is a dramatic attempt to get the upper hand in his constitutional battle with Congress The Bush administration has not yet informed Congress on this new stance and has been trying to figure out when and how they should let the public know what they are up to in this battle.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said "The White House must stop stonewalling and start being accountable to Congress and the American people. No one, including the president, is above the law." Sounds good, but we have all heard that before. The big problem is that no one seems willing to stand up and demand this accountability from the administration.

This stance that the White House has taken will in essence allow the executive branch to define the scope and limits of its own powers."

Whatever happened to “equal, but separate branches of government”?

The California Curmudgeon

OPERATION POLYPS

Saturday July 21, 2007 Bush had a 31 minute colonoscopy by an elite team of doctors under the supervision of his personal physician Dr Richard Tubbs. The procedure was done in the state-of-the-art National Naval Medical Center at Camp David in Bethesda Maryland. They removed five polyps from Bush’s large intestine.

He had several other colonoscopies while governor of Texas, and this was his second as president. Dr David Weinberg, director of gastroenterology at Fox Chase Cancer in Philadelphia said the surest way to prevent cancer is to follow Bush’s example and have a colonoscopy as often as the doctor deems necessary. But to do this, most people need insurance.

Fourty-seven million Americans lack medical coverage and more than 52,000 Americans are expected to die this year from colorectal cancer and more than 153,000 will be diagnosed with the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. A large percentage of these people will have been either uninsured or insufficiently insured.

The good thing about this is that I’m sure Bush didn’t have to worry about this because all this first-class treatment: the hospital, the doctors, the nurses and all others were government-funded. That’s the way it should be for everyone. But I guess that government-funded health care is only good for Bush because he has threatened to veto any such legislation that reaches his desk.

"Such a health care bill would lead the nation down the path to government-run health care for every American,” Bush said.

I think the real reason is that 15.2 percent of the U.S. economy comes from health care spending and Bush has to tread lightly and avoid stepping on any health-care corporation’s toes.

In 2004, Canada, Australia and France all spent around $3,100 per person, England spent $2,508 and every citizen was covered. By comparison, the U.S. spent an average of $6,100 per citizen and life expectancy in the United States lower than any of these countries and infant mortality was higher. We rank number 37 among the industrialized nations of the world in the quality and cost of health care.

Tests on Bush’s polyps showed no sign of cancer, so Bush can rest easily for the next several years thanks to all that taxpayer-funded health care he enjoyed.

Now let’s talk about universal health care for the rest of us.

The California Curmudgeon

FRAUD PAYS OFF FOR PENTAGON CONTRACTORS

Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases. The big problem here is that these bases had been shut down and were no longer in need of these services.

KBR dropped their proposed $110 million spending on these closed bases and in return received a contract extension for$3.7 billion. It’s good to have an in with the government.

According to KBR’s spokeswoman heather Browne, The errors occurred because KBR developed the proposal under a tight schedule.

I can’t imagine the IRS accepting that reasoning for your tax records. They would probably grab you, shake you until they got their money and would then throw your ass in jail.

KBR seems to be the biggest offender in this fraudulent money game (and I’m sure you all know KBR was a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton until the companies split late last year and that Dick Cheney still works for them). Well, it seems that KBR collects about half of the money that the government spends on contracts in Iraq. This gives them $20.1 billion to stuff in their pockets.

This money is mostly spent on a multiyear contract to provide logistical support of our troops. KBR also has contracts to help rebuild Iraq’s oil industry. I’ll bet they can’t wait to get their hands on that piece of the pie.

Nearly $2.2 billion worth of KBR invoices and cost proposals have been challenged by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) which ended up paying only $804 million. Which to my mind, means that KBR was trying to defraud the government out of nearly $1.4 billion dollars.

KBR also tried to overcharge by $30 Billion for shipping containers outfitted as housing for U.S. troops. KBR charged double for some handling costs and sought payment for "unjustified delays".

“The Pentagon needs to crack down on KBR and other contractors,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, head of the Democratic Policy Committee. "It requires a change in mind-set at the Pentagon, for them to slam their fist down on the table and say, 'We're not going to put up with this anymore.' ".

The government always tries to minimize the number of dollars they spend, so instead of writing it out as $422, 000,000,000 they write it as $422 billion, but do you really know how much a billion is?

A billion is a thousand million.

To place it in a better perspective, a billion seconds ago, it was the year1959.

Humans first learned to write 252 billion seconds ago.

A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

Remember folks, these billions with which KBR is lining their pockets comes right out of your taxes while you struggle to put food on the table.

The California Curmudgeon

THE ARCHDIOCESE PREYS ON CATHOLICS

I suppose you have all heard about the big payoff the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has to pay to the victims of molestation by priests. It is reported to be between $600 and $660 million.

This is not the first, but it is the largest payout yet in the ongoing sex scandal. Last year the archdiocese said it would pay $60 million dollars to settle other lawsuits. Orange County, Kentucky and Boston pitched in their share bringing the grand total for sexual abuse payments to $2.1 billion since 1950.

“The settlement will not have an impact on the archdiocese's core ministry,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony. “but the church will have to sell buildings, use some of its invested funds and borrow money. The archdiocese will not sell parish properties or schools.”

I looked this up and found that Cardinal Mahoney was talking about selling its 12-story administrative building, and would have to consider selling about 50 other non-essential properties to raise the needed funds.

The church also has to release the confidential personnel files on the priests to the lawyers of the victims. These records will be searched for criminal activity of individual priests or anyone else. If they find anything I guess those guilty will be tried in criminal court. That’s gotta hurt.

All of this talk of multi-million dollar payoffs makes me wonder where the church got all that money. When the parishioners plop their dollar or two into the bucket I’m sure they think it is going to go to helping the poor and needy and certainly not for a partial payment on a non-essential property for the church.

As could be expected the plaintiffs' attorneys will take away up to 40 percent of the settlement money—or $264 million.

A February 2004 report commissioned by the Church said more than 4,000 Roman Catholic priests in the US had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years.

I wonder if a lot of the built-up sexual energy of the priests couldn’t be stopped or at least slowed by allowing them to marry.

The California Curmudgeon

BUSH SHOWS HIS CONTEMPT FOR THE COURT

As we all know, Bush and his crime family believe that they are above the law and so far they have been right. But this latest gambit of ordering people who no longer work for the government to ignore subpoenas is a great big slap in the face of Congress. I Congress going to back down again or are they going to find their balls and force the issue.

Former counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director Sara Taylor were both served with subpoenas in the case of the firing of nine federal prosecutors. Miers has been ordered to defy the subpoenas and refuse to testify about the firings. Both women could and should face contempt of Congress citations if they ignore the subpoenas. For some strange reason the White House seems to think Miers is immune under executive privilege. Harriet Miers chose to not show up for her court date.

Meanwhile, Sara Taylor had answered the subpoena and after first refusing to testify she later jumped the fence into the Bush camp and told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she knew of no involvement or wrongdoing by the administration.

White House counsel Fred Fielding said "Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president,"

Committee Chairman John Conyers talked the talk by saying that he would consider pursuing criminal contempt citations against anyone who defied his committee's subpoenas.

We now must wonder if he will walk the walk.

The California Curmudgeon

THE SECRET CAROUSELS

Have you ever gotten off a flight and gone to collect your luggage at the airport carousel only to find that there are there are a number of different carousels and you don’t know which one will deliver your bags back to you?

Communication is the main thing in the running of an airport. Everyone is in communication with everyone else. Ground Control is in charge of planes on the ground and Tower is in control of planes in the air and they keep in touch with each other by radio. They all know what the other person is going to do and when they are going to do it so I have to ask why don’t they know what carousel is going to be used for your luggage?

It seems to me that it would not be hard for the baggage handler to have Ground Control radio the crew of your plane and tell them what carousel would be used for your bags. But instead of having an organized plan, they use random chaos.

As you may have gathered, my wife and I have just returned from another flight. After walking slowly down to the baggage claim area we began searching for the carousel that might shoot our bags out of that little square hole at the top of each one. We the people of flight 742 gathered around first one and then another as they each slowed to a stop.

We all stood around for at least ten minutes with all three carousels shut down. Ten minutes without an announcement. Ten minutes of waiting and wondering if we were ever going to get our bags so we could go home. Ten minutes of getting more and more angry.

Finally the lights blinked, a motor started and number three carousel began to move. After that it wasn’t long until we had our luggage and were on our way to wait for the shuttle.

To paraphrase the late Flip Wilson “If you can find Oakland in the dark, why can’t you find my luggage carousel?”

The California Curmudgeon

THROW THE BUMS OUT

Here’s a different outlook: let’s throw out the entire Congress and randomly pick out 535 ordinary citizens to replace them as Senators and Congressmen. The whole bunch is crooked and stink to high heaven. Everyone makes deals with everyone else and with each deal the congressmen win and the public loses.

I hear you saying “But they have the experience”. That is the whole trouble, they all have too much experience. They know how to get around legal obstacles; they know how to write a law that benefits certain people, but not the general public; they scratch each other’s back and exchange votes. That is why there is no integrity in Congress today. That is why they are destroying this country and that is why they should all be run out of office.

Then we should replace the president and the vice-president with two more randomly chosen people. Because of the increased responsibility they should be given a simple test to ensure that they have leadership qualities, but mostly to make sure they are empathetic and caring of all Americans.

If all of this could be accomplished we would have much better representative government than we do now.

The California Curmudgeon

WHEN THEY STAND UP, WE'LL STAND DOWN

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words -- I couldn't have said this better with two thousand words.

With apologies to Tom Toles of the Washington Post who drew this cartoon.

The California Curmudgeon

THE SECRET ARMY OF BUSHCO

I knew about this before, but I didn’t know how extensive it was until I read an article about it in the local paper this morning.

We now have more U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq than we have American combat troops. Bush’s secret army is larger than our regular army.

Newly released figures show that 180,000 civilians are now in Iraq working under U.S. contracts and even with the recent troop surge there are only 160,000 soldiers. These numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis -- all employed in Iraq and paid for with U.S. tax dollars (this is part of those billions of dollars going to Iraq that are unaccountable for by the U.S. government).

And there are signs that even those numbers may not give the full picture. Many private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, are not counted in that 180,000.

Bush is relying heavily on private corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq and the contractors who are receiving the lion’s share of these lucrative contracts are the usual suspects with KBR, the once subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., providing logistics support to the troops with gas price-gouging, contaminated food and water and hiring Third World laborers to do the grunt work for $5 a day while charging the U.S. more than $50 a day. KBR is by far the largest employer of Americans, with nearly 14,000 U.S. workers in Iraq.

In a February analysis of $10,000,000,000 in waste found Halliburton (KBR) responsible for $2.700,000,000.

The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Titan, Custer Battles, Wackenhut and Erinys. They guard sensitive sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials. Other large employers of Americans in Iraq include L3 Communications, for translators to the troops, and ITT Corp., an engineering and technology firm.

The jobs for contractors have morphed into where they are now interrogating prisoners, training the Iraqi army, guarding the Green Zone, the Baghdad airport, protecting military convoys, analyzing intelligence and providing paramilitary security forces. These corporations are reaping billions of our tax dollars doing military work that the Bush administration has outsourced. And these people are not soldiers, they’re hired hands.

Military officials say that contractors cut costs while allowing troops to focus on fighting wars rather than on other tasks. Have you ever heard of the government doing something cheaper than a private company. The government pays out huge amounts of money to these contractors while the soldier’s minimal pay fights for its life.

Although private companies have played a role in conflicts since the American revolution, the United States has relied more on contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the nation's history, according to military experts.

"We don't have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That's dangerous for our country," said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon "is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's obscene."

I’m sure BushCo thinks the soldiers are being unpatriotic because they seem resentful about the salaries contractors in Iraq are being paid.

The California Curmudgeon

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

I found this on the internet. I have no idea who wrote it, but I wanted to make sure both of my readers saw it. It is titled A MODERN PARABLE.

A Japanese auto company, Toyota and an American auto company, Ford decided to have a canoe race on Lake Erie. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for such a crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior executives was formed to look into the matter and recommend appropriate action. After months of investigation their conclusion was the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had eight people steering and one person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, the American management hired a distinguished consulting firm and paid it a large amount of money for a second opinion. The consultants, of course, advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the American team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, three area steering superintendents, one assistant superintendent steering manager and one person rowing.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the rower a greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners, free pens and a certificate of completion for the rower. There was much spirited discussion regarding new paddles, a redesigned canoe and extra vacation days and bonuses for practices sessions.

The next year the Japanese won by twice as much.

Humiliated, American management laid off the rower (a reduction in workforce) for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses, and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Epilog:

Ford has spent the last thirty years moving its factories out of the U.S., claiming it can't make money paying American wages.

Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the U.S .

The last quarter's results: Toyota made 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

I think the Ford folks ought to have another investigative meeting or two.

The California Curmudgeon

JULY IS LOSING ITS INDEPENDENCE

Has anyone else noticed now calm and benign today’s Fourth of July celebrations are from those of years past? It seems rather ironic to me that we are celebrating our hard-won freedom from England and King George III by being as quiet as possible on this day.

In a year not so distant, the government stepped in and declared that fireworks were too dangerous for the average person to handle safely and decreed that only a qualified pyrotechnician should be able to understand the concept of setting fire to the end of a fuse.

I agree that some people would probably have a bit of trouble grasping this match-to-fuse idea, but the average person should be able do this with their eyes closed, which is not really the smart way of playing with fireworks.

We used to set off all kinds of dangerous fireworks right there on our driveway. The cracking explosions of firecrackers echoed the blasting of the war guns and the “Rocket’s Red Glare” copied by a giant display of our own aerial fireworks. The smell of burnt powder filled the air and the kids stood wide-eyed watching the marvel of up-close explosions.

It was a great feeling, one that I hadn’t fully appreciate until it was taken away.

Back in the time (this was an accepted form of speech, back in the time), the government didn’t care if you had brains enough to pour piss out of a boot, if you had a gun, it wanted you in the War of Independence. The war was also very dangerous, but a lot of people managed to live through it and came out the other end with this newly-found freedom in their hands.

Even though these pyrotechnic displays are beautiful and awe-inspiring, they are not the same as popping off a few explosions of your own in front of your house. The kids running around the yard writing their names in the air with sparklers, ignoring the pleas of the adults to be careful.

Even with all the government’s protection, I somehow feel less independent now than ever before.

The California Curmudgeon

BUSH HANDS SCOOTER A “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” CARD

Apparently Bush didn’t think the American justice system worked for his good pal so he stepped and used his powers of clemency to spare I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - from two-and-a-half years in prison.

Cheney supported a full pardon, but Bush didn’t want to rub people’s noses in the stinking mess just yet so instead he commuted Libby’s sentence.

The main differences between a pardon and commutation is that with a pardon he goes free and with a commutation he goes free, but he remains guilty of the felonies of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements in the federal investigation of the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. He will also pay a $250,000 fine which his friends say they are going to pay.

It was shortly after the federal court rejected Libby’s appeal to stay out of jail pending an appeal of his conviction for committing perjury and other offenses that King George rode in on his white horse and rescued poor Scooter.

The decider said he had “respect for "the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive."

Some say Bush was bowing to political pressure from his conservative base. That may be, but I think protecting his own ass from revelations by an embittered former aide was somewhere in the mix.

"Until now, it appeared that the President merely turned a blind eye to a high ranking Administration official leaking classified information. The President's action today makes it clear that he condones such activity,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee "This decision is inconsistent with the rule of law and sends a horrible signal to the American people.”

If you remember, "Scooter" was one of Bush’s closest advisers in the decision to go to war on Iraq and he was convicted of lying to prosecutors investigating the leaking in 2003 of CIA official Valerie Plame's identity.

I don’t know what the punishment is now, but outing a CIA agent during a war used to be punishable by death.

And about the definitions of a pardon and a commutation -- Personally, if it kept me out of jail, I wouldn’t care what they called it.

The California Curmudgeon

BUSH AND CHENEY ABOVE THE LAW?

Will Congress have guts enough to stand up against the most unpopular president ever?

Subpoenas were sent to Bush demanding documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor with regard to the firings of federal prosecutors.

Democrats say the firings of the prosecutors were an example of improper political influence. The White House say U.S. Attorneys are political appointees who can be hired and fired at the president’s pleasure.

Thursday was the deadline for turning over the documents and Bush with his usual in-your-face attitude, cited executive privilege and refused to comply with the subpoenas saying he would not turn over any documents containing communications between the White House and Harriet Miers or Sara Taylor. He also said the neither of the two women would testify next month as directed in the subpoenas.

Congress and Bush are now headed toward a constitutional showdown. This should be a very telling confrontation, It could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers, but I am afraid Congress will be the first to blink as they always have in the past.

The two chairmen of the investigating committees vowed to push forward with their demands.

In his letter, White House counsel Fred Fielding explained Bush's position on executive privilege this way: “Blah,blah, executive privilege, blah”

"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Democratic Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy.

His House counterpart, Judiciary Democratic Chairman John Conyers said Bush's assertion of executive privilege was "unprecedented in its breadth and scope" and displayed "an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."

Cheney was also subpoenaed along with Bush for documents pertaining to the warrant-less eavesdropping. They have also ignored its demands.

The White House declared it “Outrageous”.

I hope things will start popping, but I really doubt it.

The California Curmudgeon

FREE SPEECH IS NOT FOR EVERYONE

On June 25, 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two 5-4 decisions on free speech with each contradicting the other. One expanded it while the other restricted it. And the same five justices were in the majority both times.

Tuesday the high court reversed a 2003 ruling and reduced some of the advertising restrictions of the McCain-Feingold campaign financing law.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that the restrictions on the TV advertisements that air weeks before an election amounts to censorship unless they urge a vote either for or against a particular candidate.

This was a good decision. After all, the primary purpose of the First Amendment is to protect political speech. It is the other ruling that troubles me.

The second ruling restricted the free speech rights of a high school student. The court said school principals could punish students who hold up signs that favor the use of illegal drugs.

It seems that the student, Joseph Frederick held up a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. The principal, Deborah Morse suspended him even though he was not on school property. He then sued her for violating his First Amendment rights.

He won in a federal appeals court, but lost in the Supreme Court. Some of the justices said they would have voted differently had the banner carried a political or social message.

Well, isn’t that special. The high court is splitting hairs. With these rulings it has become more difficult to know where the line is drawn. Where free speech starts and where it ends.

Now we have to attack the rest of those damn amendments.

The California Curmudgeon

THE MELTING POT OF INDIA

The melting pot of India is not the same as the melting pot of America. India’s has to do with the melting of India’s coins. Indian coins are being smuggled into neighboring Bangladesh by the millions where they are melted down and turned into razor blades. Officials say that it is creating a huge shortage of coins in many parts of India.

A one rupee coin can be melted down and turned into five to seven razor blades. This makes each melted rupee coin worth 35 rupees.

To deal with the coin shortage, some tea gardens in the north-eastern state of Assam have resorted to issuing cardboard coin-markers to their workers. These markers are the same size as the real coins and they have the denomination marked on them. They can be used for buying and selling within the gardens.

Even though this practice is illegal, the managers of the gardens say they have to use the markers because there are hardly any Indian coins left in circulation in the area.

The paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) has been deployed on the India-Bangladesh border to check the smuggling.

"We are aware of our coins going across the border in some quantities and we will do our best to stop it," senior BSF official SK Datta told the BBC.

The mints have even tried to help by scaling down the metal content of the coins, but that has not stopped the shortages. And the Reserve Bank of India, India’s central bank has distributed nearly six million rupees to help overcome the shortage, but they are just gobbled up by the smugglers with a tip of the hat to the bank.

Beggars who are lucky enough to garner some of the coins are quite pleased because they can sell them to shopkeepers for a bit of a profit.

I just read where copper in the U.S. is selling for a little over $3 a pound. I wonder how many pennies it takes to make a pound.

The California Curmudgeon

CHENEY, THE FLIM-FLAM MAN

So now our glorious vice president wants to have things both ways. He wants to still enjoy executive privilege, but he doesn’t want to be bound by the secrecy rules of the executive branch so he has ruled that he is really part of the legislative branch because he has to vote with them in the event of a tie.

First off, if the vice president isn’t part of the executive branch why does he run on the same ticket as the president? You can’t vote for one without the other.

I wonder if Cheney has really thought this out. If he is not part of the executive branch then he should no longer be entitled to executive privilege and investigators can look anywhere they want. His meeting with all the heads of energy will no longer be protected. His visitor logs will now be available to the investigators.

In addition his office should no longer be funded by the executive branch and he should no longer be offered the protection of the Secret Service. Senators don’t get such protection.

And how about Air Force Two? He shouldn’t be able to use that because it belongs to the executive branch. Also no more driver to pick him up and take him to the White House either.

But suppose everyone is flim-flammed and accepts that he is part of the legislative branch? Then he cannot withhold information from legislators under the separation of powers doctrine. And if, as he says, he is fundamentally a member of the Senate, they can now bring him up on Senatorial ethics charges. He can be subpoenaed, and if he refuses to appear, he can be arrested. I’ll bet he didn’t think about that.

There will probably be no uproar about this. Believe it or not, most folks not only don't know what's going on, deep down they don't really care. The scandals have become so frequent in the Bush administration that people have become jaded to anything that seems to smell coming from Washington D.C.

I think this factor is what Cheney is counting on. This complacency of the American people. The vast majority is focused on supporting their families and having a little fun out of life. So go ahead people, sit back, remember how it used to be, and then remember how you did nothing.

Insanity is a curious thing to watch, especially when it seems to be running rampant in our government. What’s more interesting though is that Cheney believes, and expects us to believe that this new ruling of his means he is exempt from the following the rules of either branch, when actually he should be subject to both.

Just because I am a citizen of California doesn’t mean that I don’t have to obey the laws of the nation.

In your gut, you know he's nuts!

The California Curmudgeon

DINING AT THE TROUGH

A new study by Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW), a non-partisan activist group, recently found that 96 members of Congress (55 Republicans and 41 Democrats) used their positions to financially benefit family members or entities owned by family members in the past six years by diverting $5.1 million in campaign funds.

Former Democratic Speaker of the House Tom Foley hired his wife to be his chief of staff and put his mistress on both the public and campaign payroll at the same time. Other members put their wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends on the public dole.

At least 71 (all Republicans. Yeah!) paid their children, who ranged from school-age to college-age, to do whatever kids are supposed to do to collect their allowance, only these 71 Republicans didn’t have to use their own money.

It is illegal for members of Congress to hire family members as employees on their official staff, but for some unknown reason it is not illegal to hire them with campaign funding. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would not like for the money I donated to help my candidate to get elected to go into some relative’s pocket such as:

• Ron Paul arranged for $163,890 to be given to his daughter.
• Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Democrat from California, who diverted $285,481 in campaign funds to her husband's firm, Collins & Day.
• Dan Burton skimming $143,900 in payments to his daughter.

The practice of putting relatives on your payroll is an old one in Washington. The practice is so widespread that lawmakers dismiss it with a nod and a wink and laugh at legislative attempts to ban payments to family members from campaign funds.

Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Mike Castle, R-Del., introduced a bill this month that would prohibit congressional candidates from paying their spouses with campaign funds and require campaigns to disclose family relationships with close relatives on the payroll. I’m sure they know that their bill has no chance because Congress hardly ever approves legislation that curtails their ability to abuse the system.

I’ll bet these are some of our representatives that vote against any form of welfare for poor people.

The California Cermedgeon

OUR IMPERIOUS GOVERNMENT

A while back I know I told you about the Taj Mahal-type American Embassy we are building in Baghdad and since then I have wondered why hasn’t anyone of importance written more about it. Not because of what I wrote, but because of what I read.

It’s a multi-billion dollar, self-contained city that is as big as Vatican City. This along with 15 self-contained military pods that our government is building will be able to support as many as 30 to 50 thousand U.S. troops for a long time, probably 20 or so years. “Think of it as Viet Nam,” said Bush

This stealth Embassy will cost the U.S. taxpayer a billion dollars a year with its main objective to preserve U.S. economic interests in Iraq’s oil.

Does this sound like we are ever going to leave Iraq?

In the last election the Americans told the government that we wanted our troops out of Iraq, but no one in the chain of command seemed to be listening and it doesn’t seem that any plans have been made for us to leave.

If the Bush Bunch can manage to establish a permanent presence in Iraq, to protect our oil interests, Congress is going to find it near impossible to force a withdrawal of our fighting troops as the Pentagon has no plans for totally withdrawing.Ever!

Last year Congress voted to add an amendment to a bill that would declare that America could not create permanent bases in Iraq. To the surprise of not too many, this declaration did not end up in the final bill.

Does this sound like we are ever going to leave Iraq?

The California Curmudgeon

WHO TOLD YOU THAT?

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WELL SHUT MY MOUTH

Recently the Pentagon sent a memo that placed restrictions on who can testify before Congress. It wants to prevent officers under the rank of colonel, enlisted men and career bureaucrats from appearing in front of oversight committees or having their remarks transcribed.

Actual given testimony would be restricted to high-ranking officers and civilians appointed by the president. If field-level officers or enlisted personnel could be deemed appropriate by the Department of Defense, they could participate in briefings for members of Congress, but the proceedings could not be recorded.

Any officers who were allowed to testify had to be accompanied by an official from the administration, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his top-level aides.

To me this smells a lot like the Bush administration trying to get all their ducks in a row to protect its corrupt ass.

Some Democrats see the move as another attempt by Bush to limit information and bog down investigations of the Iraq war.

Several lawmakers have said that if these guidelines prevent their efforts to get information from the military, they would issue congressional subpoenas which can compel anyone to appear and testify.

These guidelines were tested several days after the Pentagon’s memo when during the testimony of three Army officers Defense Department lawyers tried to stop the recording of their testimony.

Democratic Rep. Martin Meehan of Massachusetts and Republican W. Todd Akin of Missouri both insisted a transcript would be kept.

The lawyers stormed out and repeated letters to the Pentagon for an explanation of these guidelines have gone unanswered.

The secret government of Bush loses one to the people.

The California Curmudgeon

TANKS A LOT AND SEMPER FI

In February of 2005 the marines in Iraq made a “priority 1 Urgent” request for 1.269 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPS) with “V” shaped undersides that deflects blasts from roadside bombs.

Roadside bombs cause 70% of American casualties in Iraq and these MRAPS can reduce those casualties by two-thirds.

Instead of the MRAPS asked for, the marines sent them armored Humvees. The humvees have less protection than the MRAPS and were definitely not what was requested or needed.

The Marines finally got around to sending the MRAPS to Iraq in May of 2006. Even then they sent only 185 of them.

This has become a top priority with Defense Secretary Robert Gates who wants to know what happened and started an investigation into the matter.

The new request is for 7,774 (how do they come up with these weird numbers?) MRAPS and Congress is spending $8.4 billion to fill this order.

Although these MRAPS are protected from blasts from beneath the vehicle, it is not protected on the side against explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) which have been used against U.S. forces since 2005.

MRAPS are not new. They have been used by other countries for years. Why not this country?

Senator Joe Biden Democrat from Delaware asked at a May news conference “How many people have perished in the meantime?”

The California Curmudgeon

THE CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA

In case you hadn’t noticed, the U.S. government is for sale. It’s for sale to the highest bidder and for that price you get the entire Congress, with the president thrown in free.

The corporations have taken over our country. Politically connected corporations are now seizing day-to-day operations of the government for their own profit. This has come from the outsourcing of public functions to private contractors. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and the Bush administration is only too happy to oblige.

Government contracting has boomed under the Bush regime. The use of outside sources has increased 86% since good ol’ boy George has been in office. This contractor giveaway now totals nearly $400 billion a year. That’s billion, folks, with a “B”.

That $400 billion is what we are paying extra to contractors hired to do the work that the government is supposed to do. I wonder how much extra it would cost us if Bush managed to privatize our Social Security System.

The privatization of our government has been on the right wing Heritage Foundation’s things-to-do list since before Bush was selected as president.

On January 10, 2001 the foundation put out their domestic agenda called “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel”. It was a virtual roadmap showing how the Bush Crime Family could seize control of every government agency and use it for its own good. In appointing personnel to top positions, they stressed loyalty over expertise.

When first explained, privatization sounds good. After all, we all know that a business is run much more efficiently than is our government, but the bad thing is that businesses thinks only of their bottom line and not the good of the country.

The corporate community supplies support for our troops in Iraq. Cheney’s old firm Halliburton is the largest to do so. Its military contracts have increased by 600% under the hand of Bush and Company.

Even then Halliburton wasn’t happy. They resorted to gas-price gouging, delivering contaminated food and water and a lot of over-billing. Out of $10 billion in waste and over charges, Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of that.

Halliburton was given lucrative no-bid contracts from FEMA for the rescue and rehabilitation of New Orleans. The money flowed like wine, but none of the billions seemed to get to the trouble spot of New Orleans.

Is it any surprise that Halliburton’s profits have increased 368% since Bush came to the office?

Lockheed-Martin is no slouch either. This defense contractor is receiving more federal funds than the Department of Justice.

These huge profits are the reason the government has no accountability or public scrutiny as part of this privatization drive of theirs. It is all about serving the interest of the corporations.

Actually when I look back, I think I was wrong – America is not for sale.

It has already been sold.

The California Curmudgeon

THE ALL MIGHTY FRED THOMPSON

Oooooooh, watch out Republicans, Fred Thompson is coming to get you. Aren’t you scared?

I guess you are supposed to be if you are a presidential wannabee.

Who is this mighty Fred Thompson anyway? He is a lawyer, he used to be a Senator then he was a character actor on TV and now he is going to run for president. I’d say there was a lot to be scared of there.

There are some Republicans who are not afraid, but they do wonder if Freddy baby is passionate enough. The Republicans are so afraid of losing the White House like they did the House and Senate that they will only vote for someone who they think desperately wants it.”

I’m not sure Fred Thompson really wants to spend another eight years in Washington D.C.
He once said, referring to his time in the U.S. Senate "I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

I wonder if he would accept the presidency on the condition that the first year was just an audition.

And as one parting cheap shot, I’ll say that Fred Thompson has on multiple occasions pronounced "nuclear" correctly.

The California Curmudgeon

PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME

I have tried and tried to avoid writing about Paris Hilton, but I just can’t do it.

Paris is a celebrity by birth and contributes nothing to society (society balls don’t count). She has had the way smoothed for her all of her life. All the bumps in her path were ironed out, all the valleys filled in and she just went merrily along the path of her monied life.

All of a sudden in September 2006 a big obstacle popped up in her path – she was arrested for drunk driving. It was later knocked down to a charge of reckless driving and she pleads “no contest”. As is customary in cases such as this, Hilton's license was suspended by the California DMV.

Sometime after her license suspension Paris apparently thought that she had waited long enough for a rich girl, and decided to drive without her license. She was caught three times behind the wheel before someone, on February 27, charged her with violating her probation and sentenced her to jail for forty-five days. She took the verdict like a child and cried.

I can’t imagine what she did for Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca (actually, yes I can), but he changed the punishment to House Arrest with no restrictions other than she had to stay within a 3,000 to 4,000 foot area for the rest of her sentence.

If it weren’t for her need of attention she might still be out and throwing parties at her lavish 2,700 square foot house with booze and friends and whatever, but she just had to issue a written statement thanking the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for their fairness and professionalism.

Anyway, she was again taken before the court and told that she must serve her sentence in jail. “Mom, it’s not right,” she pleaded tearfully to her mother.

It was painful to watch. A young woman, begging her mother, the person who should have taught her right from wrong, to help her.

A lot of adults who are Paris’ age and younger were taught by their parents that they were faultless. Everything they did was praised as if they had really done something that deserved such accolades.

Is all this the result of her upbringing? What makes Paris think that the rules don’t apply to her?

Perhaps her time in jail will be the ultimate blessing in disguise, since this is probably the first instance in which she's actually faced an unpleasant consequence for any of her actions.
It is also probably the first time in her life that someone made her do something she didn’t want to do.

THIS JUST IN:
Paris has found God and says she is now a different person. "I'm not the same person I was," she said in a collect call she made to her mother, who just happened to be talking to Barbara Walters on the other line.

"I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance.

"My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail. God has released me."

It usually takes years for a prisoner to get religion. Hilton's conversion appears to have taken place with remarkable speed.

I wonder what Paris’ party pals will think about this.

The California Curmudgeon

BIG OIL IS PUMPING US DRY

Why does gasoline cost so much?

All the so-called experts are only too happy to explain that it is merely supply and demand. But it is not that easy, my friend.

Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of correlation between the price of crude oil and the cost of gas at the pump? Typically gas prices move roughly together with crude oil prices, but for the last year or so gasoline prices have soared at a far faster rate than the cost of crude oil.

By some measures, the cost of gasoline is rising nearly five times as fast as crude oil. In 2007, gasoline prices, as measured by the AAA, are up about 31 percent while West Texas crude oil is up only 6.4 percent.

Some people are accusing Big Oil of price gouging, but, Joe Sparano, president of the Western States Petroleum Association said "The gas price is up not because of excessive profit margins, not because of gouging, it is not because oil companies are anti-competitive, It is a market that is doing what a market does when there is a shortage of supply."

Judy Dugan, research director with Oil Watchdog, a consumer group, disagrees. "This is shocking," she said. "Given that the cost of refining is pretty stable, the only thing that comes out of that disconnect between crude and gasoline is enormous profits for the oil companies."

To lessen the gasoline supply somewhat Big Oil has “unplanned down time” and “unexpected problems” in bringing the downed refineries back on line. Consumer groups say that Big Oil is manipulating this down time.

The domestic refining industry has come together, allowing operators to not build additional refineries and run existing ones at full throttle thus causing accidents and outages the nation has experienced over the last year or so.

"They have no interest in building spare capacity because that would undermine their pricing power," said Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America. “The refining industry hasn't even tried to build new refineries and has instead closed 50 since the 1990s rather than make investments to make them comply with pollution laws.

Even as big oil companies such as Exxon Mobil are continuing to report record profits each quarter, gasoline prices have still continued to rise, mostly with little real justification.

Not too long ago, the nation was in an uproar, screaming and hollering over rising gas prices, and the fire was further fueled when Exxon Mobil posted its earnings. They had gained the largest profits ever in its history. But the outrage about the rising gas prices was soon abated, people have now gotten used to being screwed by the oil companies and besides, we all have to drive.

The California Curmudgeon

BIG OIL GREASES THE WHEELS OF GOVERNMENT

This past Friday the 3,500th American soldier was killed in Iraq. Thirty-five hundred of our young men and women have had their lives yanked from them in a senseless and unnecessary war.

Why are we there? How long are we going to stay? These are just two questions to which I would like the answers.

As near as I can figure there are many reasons why we are there: OIL, weapons of mass destruction, to dispose of Saddamn, OIL, free the Iraqi people, revenge for the 9/11 attacks, to bring democracy to the Middle East, OIL, to get a presence in the Middle East and OIL.

Did I mention OIL? Iraq has the second largest oil field in the world and our neo-cons want it. And our Big Oil wants it. Oh dear, what to do.

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between our neo-cons and Big Oil. Insiders said this planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

In March of 2003 - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered, but they were wrong. There were two plans, two conflicting plans.

On one side we had the neo-cons at the Pentagon and on the other side we had Big Oil and the US State Department “pragmatists”.

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained from the US State Department was in part drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants and Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion.

How long will we stay? I have no idea, but given the facts that the U.S. feels a need to have a commanding presence in the Middle East, and also needs to monitor the oil production and is almost finished building the largest Embassy in the world in Iraq, I don’t think we are planning on leaving anywhere in the foreseeable future.

While greedy men in over-stuffed suits fight over the profits of the Iraqi oil, our young men and women on the streets of Iraq are fighting to live another day.

Years ago a bumper sticker asked “How did our oil get under their sand?” I would still like to know the answer to that.

The California Curmudgeon