Exxon Posts First-Quarter Profit of $8.4 Billion

NPR is reporting that Exxon posted a 1st quarter profit of 8.4 BILLION (yes, with a B) today. 8.4 Billion. with a B.

Now, I don't like paying $3/gal more than anyone else for gasoline, but I understand the economics of the situation. Gasoline supplies are tight, and if the price of gas doesn't rise then we end up with gas shortages as people continue to drive their SUV's and Hummers with not a care in the world. As it is, gas reserves are dangerously tight--another disaster like Katrina and we'll be remembering fondly the days when you could get a gallon of gas for about the cost of a Double Whopper with cheese. But honestly, that's not what pisses me off.

What pisses me off is that the oil industry get some of the biggest governement tax breaks in the entire budget. Ostensibly for "exploration", it is these subsidies that finance $400 million compensation packages for executives like Exxon's CEO. Its these subsidies that allow oil companies to post ridiculously high profits like this. And when the few politicians that AREN'T firmly in the oil industry's pockets talk about reducing or, god forbid, eliminating the tax subsidies, they make veiled threats about passing the burden onto consumers.

Its exactly that kind of attitude that gets an industry regulated. The oil industry is a boil on the ass of humanity. So here's my proposal: get rid of the subsidies altogether. No company that can post profits--PROFITS!!! not just REVENUE, but PROFITS!!!!--like that in a 3 month period needs government help. That's more than the entire economy of some nations. The additional money in the government budget should be earmarked to push alternative energy technologies--research into fuel cells, ethanol development, tax breaks for ethanol stations, doubling or even tripling the individual tax credit for hybrid vehicles, wind & hydro technology, and especially research into converting military assets to green energy derivatives. Its ridiculous that so much of our national security infrastructure relies on a region of the world with whom we seem to be constantly at odds. Eliminating this tax subsidy would go a long way to financing the tax breaks for the wealthy the Bushes seem so intent on providing.

Additionally, I think any vehicle over a certain weight should require a special class of license to drive, and state laws for this requirement should be tied to highway funding the way it was when the Reagans, in their infinite wisdom, decided should be the case for alcohol. I'm not sure how much exactly, because I'm not a car person and I don't know what trucks weigh, but basically anything bigger than something like a silverado (and maybe not even that big) ought to require some kind of additional certification on one's ability to drive. You shouldn't be able to own or operate something like a hummer at the age of 18, period. While this isn't tied directly to fuel efficiency it would certainly reduce the number of these vehicles on the road.

Lastly provide incentives both for the development of products like biodiesel mods and plug-in hybrids that can be charged off the power-grid, and for greener grid technology like wind energy. For individuals with a daily commute of less than about 20 miles, this would give them the ability to get as much as 180 mpg, reduce demand for gasoline (which would allow gas to be cheaper again, assuming the oil industry would reduce prices to match, which we all know they wouldn't--again making the case for antitrust action and tight regulation as a public utility) and allow consumers to use green credits to charge the cars. Merely by switching to the power grid we reduce our dependence on foreign oil supplies by increasing our use of domestic supplies of energy like coal and nuclear power.

This all seems elementary to almost everyone I talk to, Republicans and Democrats alike. Its blatantly obvious that the motivation for Congress to keep the status quo is solely related to the deep pockets of the oil industry. Am I the only one who remembers the rhetoric in the 2000 campaign claiming that one of Bush's "pluses" was that his cabinet had a lot of energy experience and would bring that to the table, keeping the costs of energy low? Glad that one worked out so well...

You have to love the ideas they come up with during an election year

The Republicans want to give a $100 gas rebate check out to taxpayers to "soften the blow"  of high gas prices this year.

Let me get this straight: you have, for the last five years, been giving out tax cuts to the wealthiest americans while watching the size of the middle class shrink and those under the laughably-low federal poverty lines grow, you have supported a miserable failure in the Iraq war and your President, and extended tax subsidies to oil companies who are in the middle of a record-shattering profit streak...

... and you want to give me a free goddamn tank of gas to make me feel better about it???!!!

And Republicans accuse the liberals of being out of touch...

hyperbole at its finest...

AOL-speak is destroying language's beauty

Don't be asinine.  AOL-speak, though crude and annoying, has nothing to do with the ability of young persons to communicate (or rather, their inability.)  If you want to know why they can't communicate, try looking at their english and literature classes.  What "AOLSpeak" amounts to is the typed equivalent of a linguistic phenomenon known as code-switching, and anyone who's ever conversed with their peers in a manner differently than you'd speak in a board meeting is guilty of it.  The disconnect occurs because students aren't recognizing the status of email recipients--they perceive that all receivers are part of the same cohort, in other words.  They're making the assumption that because someone uses email they're part of a particular peer group conversant in this language of abbreviations.  This, in my mind, is a failure of the educational system, not a breakdown in the english language itself.

When someone emails you, texts you, or IM's you using crap english, call them on it.  If you're an english teacher and you accept written assignments of any kind with abbreviations like "ur", you ought to be run out of school on a rail.  But for pete's sake, don't make a mountain out of a molehill. 

The Delay thing is just warming up...

I noticed this article on Newsweek's online site this morning, and I have to agree with Clift: this one is going to go somewhere.

Short version: (read towards the end of the article--the first part just covers the non-event that is the White House "shakeup")  A New Hampshire operative for the RNC, James Tobin, was convicted in December for telephone harassment in connection with a conspiracy to have an Idaho telemarketing firm make thousands of phone calls jamming up the lines to several Democratic headquarters.  One of the three $5000 checks that financed the jamming operation came from Tom Delay's PAC, the other two from Indian tribes connected to Jack Abramoff.

Its was pretty clear when Delay announced his abandoned bid for reelection that there was more to come, despite his protestations to the primary.  Reading between the lines, I think there's a strong likelihood of these events being connected out in the open in the coming months.  With any luck, Delay is only the first of many in this Administration who will be having "come to Jesus"  moments in the coming year.

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watch how you treat your waiter...

Good article on judging a person's character by the way they treat subordinates...

Still in Dallas post-funeral... Hopefully home soon and will start posting more again.

brilliant rebuttal to the anti-immigrant argument

I don't have time for the commentary, just posting the link.

Second-rate superstitions

Tom Delay at the "War on Christians" conference last week:

Last Tuesday Mr. DeLay spoke at "The War on Christians" conference during which he agreed with the central theme - that there is, indeed, a "war on Christians" in America today. He went on to say that America treats Christianity like a "second-rate superstition."

(original link)

Christianity is indeed a superstition, as are all religions. That isn't the problem--the perceived negative connotations associated with the word "superstition" are the believer's problem, not my own. I don't think merely the fact that religions are superstitious is necessarily a reason to view those beliefs as illegitimate. However, regarding Christianity as practiced by people like Tom Delay and this guy, "second-rate" is being a bit generous, I think.

I'll say this much for the ID'ers: at least they've got the good sense not to hold up such absurdities as their idea of "evidence."

Another bait and switch

Back in '99, I was only halfheartedly interested in the pending 2000 Presidential election. The candidate succeeding Bill Clinton was kind of a douchebag, and on the right there were a number of front-runners who were mostly bland players. I honestly didn't care who won--it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. The one candidate I did like a lot was Sen. John McCain--seemingly the last of the old-school Republicans, whose campaign was derailed almost entirely through the machinations of someone I now know as one of the most despicable Americans I can think of, Karl Rove. I was still somewhat intrigued by the end of the election debacle by the prospect of having someone who campaigned as a moderate Republican as President. One might even say I was hopeful that the change from a Democrat to Republican administration would be overall beneficial--much as a gene pool needs an infusion of new blood every so often--even though I knew there would be things I disagreed with, and I was (rightly, as it turns out) concerned about the prospect of both the Presidency and Congress being controlled by a single party.

Of course, mere months later my hopes were dashed. From September 11th, 2001 onward, this administration has proven itself to be one of the most avaricious and despicable displays of greed and incompetence in the history of the US. Even Jimmy Carter, though presiding over a highly troubled administration, has redeemed himself in the years since, proving to be a formidible statesman, peacemaker, and altruist--an accomplisment that George W. Bush will match only on the coldest day in hell.

Until recently I had high hopes that McCain would make a comeback and take the White House back for the American people, forging a government based on balance and unity rather than corporatism and theocracy. Though it troubled me greatly, I brushed aside his unflinching support for Bush in the 2004 election cycle as a necessary evil if he wanted to remain relevant in the coming years. But after this, I can do so no longer. He has dropped all pretenses of remaining a moderate Republican in the next presidential election and begun pandering to the far right in earnest, even lowering himself so far as to speak at Liberty University, the last bastion of the "oppressed Christian." Frankly, I no more trust McCain now than I would trust Dick Cheney to turn Halliburton into the worlds largest non-profit dedicated to eliminating world hunger.

Whoever pushed him to this political strategy ought to be hung by their toenails. You're not going to outdo people like Bill Frist in pandering to the theocon vote, Senator. All you're doing now is alienating the 80% of the country that doesn't believe that white Christian males have a divine mandate to take over the world.

Delay drops out of race--so much for redistricting

This one's spreading like wildfire: Tom Delay is dropping out of the Texas 22nd race. Citing polling numbers far below his usual safe zone, Delay is claiming he's doing this for the good of the party--that the race has become a referendum on Tom Delay rather than on the Republican platform. While that statement may be true in and of itself, Delay is the embodiment of the Republican platform, and of all the problems of the Republican party. A referendum on Delay is a referendum on the GOP.

My personal belief: this has less to do with Republican values than it does with the investigation into his shenanigans with the redistricting battle here a few years ago. At least two of his former aides are involved in the Abramoff scandal, and while he doesn't appear to be involved in that particular debacle, the investigation into his PAC illegally funnelling corporate money into Texas House races is still going strong, and I'm betting somebody in the Austin prosecutors office knows something Delay wishes they didn't. Maybe I'm just mudslinging here, but frankly, I can't think of anyone in Texas more deserving of it, except perhaps Tom Craddick or Rick Perry..

I find no small degree of irony (and pleasure) in noting that his polling numbers are also directly linked to Delay and his cronies divving up his district to run Nick Lampson out of his former district.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this show sometimes...

... But their penchant for tongue-in-cheek humor is magnificent.

What kind of nation, indeed.

Pen put up a link to an article by Peggy Noonan the other day I wanted to comment on. Specifically, this part:

Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.

Who is at fault? Those of us who let the myth die, or let it change, or refused to let it be told. The politically correct nitwit teaching the seventh-grade history class who decides the impressionable young minds before him need to be informed, as their first serious history lesson, that the Founders were hypocrites, the Bill of Rights nothing new and imperfect in any case, that the Indians were victims of genocide, that Lincoln was a clinically depressed homosexual who compensated for the storms within by creating storms without . . .

You can turn any history into mud. You can turn great men and women into mud too, if you want to.

And it's not just the nitwits, wherever they are, in the schools, the academy, the media, though they're all harmful enough. It's also the people who mean to be honestly and legitimately critical, to provide a new look at the old text. They're not noticing that the old text--the legend, the myth--isn't being taught anymore. Only the commentary is. But if all the commentary is doubting and critical, how will our kids know what to love and revere? How will they know how to balance criticism if they've never heard the positive side of the argument?

We've got a word for that when you teach something that isn't actually true in order to instill some belief in an impressionable mind. Indoctrination. And if our history, and more importantly, our present actions, are such that a young mind must be indoctrinated in order to hold fast to those ideals, then we have lost what it means to be an American.

I'll echo another portion of her article:

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this?

My answer: Not us. The Civil War wasn't fought over slavery--it was fought over the right of the states to secede, the ultimate in States' Rights. Instead of looking at this part of history though, let's look at some more present-day events, keeping in mind the question, "What kind of nation does this?"

• Torture
• Spying on its own citizens
• Indefinite detention of its own citizens without trial
• Falsification of intelligence to support an invasion of a country that presented no immediate threat to the security of this nation
• Allowing the chief executive to disregard existing law and constitutional principles at will
• Singling out minorities for discrimination, going so far as to attempt to amend the constitution of the US to allow it
• do i really need to go on?

So answer me this, Ms. Noonan: exactly what kind of nation does this?