Rabid Liberal Rants

I hate mass chain email letters…In fact, I hate them with a passion. My mother-in-law always forwards the ones she receives. Now, I have her on my blocked email address list.

But this one that I received might make sense:

THIS IS NOT THE ‘DON’T BUY’ GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around last April or May! It’s worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer, and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to “hurt” ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you’re probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.19 for regular unleaded in my town.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 – $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace…not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here’s the idea: For the rest of this year, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It’s really simple to do! Now, don’t wimp out on me at this point…keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!! I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) … and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x10 = 3,000)…and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it…THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all! (If you don’t understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people…Well, let’s face it, you just aren’t a mathematician. But I am . so trust me on this one. How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days !!! I’ll bet you didn’t think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Keep it going!!!

File Under: Awesome Gadgets/Flying Contraption 

The Gryphon Glider. I want one!

Ok. This is getting to be ridiculous. We have a war going on. China is killing protestors, clamping down on freedom of speech, while getting ready to host the Olympic games. We have failing economy, gas prices at all time high. We have a food shortage crisis, resulting in riots in parts of the world. Innocent women and children are being killed on both sides of the Middle East conflict. And yet we have a President that has time to appear on Deal Or No Deal. And we have all three presidential candidates appearing on Wrestling’s RAW. WTF?!? This is why I think all three choices suck. I don’t want a president that appears on wrestling shows, pretending to be The Rock or Hulk Hogan. I don’t want a president that appears on late night comedy shows, making themselves look like idiot. I don’t want them appearing on game shows, or pretending to bowl or drinks shots at a bar. I want a president or a presidential candidate that will be presidential. One that evokes respect. One that evokes confidence. One that evokes a sense of leadership. One that is worthy of being called the Commander In Chief. I don’t think our current President is worthy. And I don’t think any of the candidates are worthy.

As I said back in March, riots over food prices have begun. In fact, this month in Haiti, the prime minister was ousted over food-related rioting and death.

A recent NYTimes Editorial describes the current situation. Although the rise in food prices are partly a result of “uncontrollable forces — including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India”, rich nations are making the problem worse by increasing biofuel production:

The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years. This elevated corn prices. Feed prices rose. So did prices of other crops — mainly soybeans — as farmers switched their fields to corn, according to the Agriculture Department.

Rice is a staple for half the world. Rice prices have almost doubled this year, mostly due to countries like India and Vietnam banning the export of certain types of rice. India has tried to control domestic costs by raising the export prices of non-basmati rice. In Thailand, there are reports that about 200,000 tons of rice (worth over $100 million) have gone missing from national warehouses. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour.

In a world where there are millions of people who are wealthy, smart, and creative, we shouldn’t be rioting over food.

As reported in Wired, Apple is suing NYC over it’s GreeNYC logo, saying that it will cause confusion with their Apple logo amongst customers and cause financial harm to the company. Give me a break Apple. First of all, the logos are in no way alike:

Secondly, in a city where practically everyone carries either an iPod, iPhone, uses a Macbook, or some other Apple product, I seriously doubt there would be any confusion or repercussion

Go pick a fight with someone else!

As reported in the NY Daily News, the City Council, for years, stashed away tax payer money to create a “politically motivated” slush fund by allocating the money to groups, that didn’t exist.  The City Council created the phony groups to hide more than $17 million for at least 7 years.

Funds for bogus groups with cutesy names – such as Magic Mountain Fund and Education First – have been stashed in agency budgets since at least 2001. 

The Council’s finances are under investigation by the Dept. of Investigations and Manhattan US Attorney’s office. The Council also hired law firm Sullivan & Cromwell for $95,000 to defend them

This after we learned that some Council members, who were initially opposed to the congestion pricing plan, flip-flopped after getting their own pet projects approved. Of course, Speaker Christine Quinn is claiming she knew nothing of this fraud.

“I was obviously deeply troubled when I found out about this information. I had no knowledge of it,” said Quinn (D-Manhattan). 

Please, now I know where the money for those pet projects came from.

At a meeting with California superdelegates, apparently Bill turned red-faced and began a diatribe when asked what he thought about Gov. Bill Richardson endorsing Obama instead of Clinton. Richardson was Energy Secretary, under President Bill Clinton, and supposedly confided in the President that he would support Hillary. As some of the Clinton donors who wrote to Pelosi had said:

Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee…

Looks like Gov. Bill Richardson did just that.

The congestion pricing plan in NYC is an unfair tax on the poor/middle class living in Brooklyn and Queens. It is also a tax on businesses who do deliveries using trucks and can’t take mass transit. And most of the City Council opposed it, until, as Juan Gonzalez points out in the Daily News, they got their own pet projects ok’ed. So not only will we be taxed due to the congestion pricing plan, additional tax dollars will be used to fund the pet projects of those who filp-flopped and voted FOR the congestion plan. We’re getting screwed twice! The plan passed the City Council 30-20. 18 of the 20 are from Brooklyn/Queens. All of the Bronx and Manhattan members ( 18 ) voted yes.

From Yahoo/AP:

Clinton was expected to propose the elimination of tax breaks for companies that move jobs to other countries and use the savings to provide $7 billion a year in tax incentives to persuade companies to “insource” jobs in the United States

I’m confused. So we take away tax “breaks” to give tax “incentives”?  If it’s cheaper to move jobs overseas, no amount of tax “incentives” is going to persuade companies to “insource” jobs in the US. During an economic downturn, when companies are trying to cut costs, while the cost of doing business in the US remains high, companies will look even harder in trying to outsource jobs to countries where the cost of doing business is far cheaper. Who’s to say other countries won’t give tax breaks? In this global economy, companies can pick up and go where ever they want.

In addition, she’s proposing:

• Creating a $60 billion National Infrastructure Bank
• Increasing federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year
• Devoting an additional $1 billion to intercity passenger rail systems
• Investing in cutting-edge technological solutions to the growing problem of traffic congestion
• Promoting the “greening” of our highways and transit systems

Where is all this money coming from? And all this while, Bernanke is warning of a possible recession. Hey, I’m all for creating new jobs, renegotiating NAFTA, keeping existing jobs here in the US. Just do it without raising my taxes.