By Michael A. Fletcher Monday, September 24, 2007; Page A17
The oil deal signed between Hunt Oil and the government in Iraq’s Kurdish region earlier this month has raised eyebrows, in no small part because it appears to undercut President Bush’s hope that Iraq could draft national legislation to share revenue from the country’s vast oil reserves. Making the deal more curious is that it was crafted by one of the administration’s staunchest supporters, Ray Hunt.
Hunt, chief executive of the Dallas-based company, has been a major fundraiser and contributor to Bush’s presidential campaigns. He also serves on the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, putting him close to the latest information developed by the nation’s intelligence agencies. [mjh: Why the hell is an oil man and Bush buddy on the FIAB, except for his own profit?]
If Hunt is signing regional oil deals in Iraq, critics ask, what does
he know about the prospects for a long-stalled national oil law that
others don’t?
War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says
By Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff Writer
CHICAGO, Sept. 21 — The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.
The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.
JOLIET, Ill., Sept. 21 — Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), facing questions about his ethics, announced Friday that he will not seek an eighth term.
“I need to give my family the time needed to be a full-time dad and full-time husband,” Weller said during a Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “I’m 50 years old; I’ve given half of my life to public service.” …
Weller is among 13 congressmen who were recently served subpoenas to testify for the defense in a case against a contractor accused of bribing imprisoned former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.).
Seven other House Republicans have announced that they will step down at the end of this Congress’s term.
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A19
ANTIGUA, Guatemala, Sept. 18 — President Bush and Vicente Fox
once portrayed themselves as diplomatic allies and close friends, but
the former Mexican president takes some jabs at Bush in a new
autobiography, calling him “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my
life” and a “windshield cowboy” afraid to ride a powerful horse.
Philomont Residents Protest Plan for Structure Like Silo
By Bill Brubaker Washington Post Staff Writer
The structure [a 106-foot cellular tower] would not look like a cell tower, however. It would look like a silo. [Sprint Nextel has three silo towers in Fauquier County, three in Rappahannock County and one in Prince William County. The towers are 80 to 108 feet tall.]
In a push to expand their networks and appease some jurisdictions,
cellphone companies are disguising towers as trees, flagpoles and — in
rural communities — silos. …
“It’ll be a monster,” Purcellville resident Richard Corrigan said
before the hearing. “I mean, most silos in Loudoun County are in the
40- to 50-foot range. This one is more like the huge silos you see in
the Midwest where they store a huge amount of grain.” …
“It’s visually obscene,” said Ken Rothschild, who lives near the proposed site.
ELECTORAL JUSTICE — CONSERVATIVE FILIBUSTER BLOCKS DC VOTING RIGHTS BILL: Yesterday, a majority of senators
voted to give Washington, DC residents a full member of Congress for
the first time in its 206-year-history. Yet the 52-42 vote was not
enough to overcome Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) filibuster. The bill, which was passed by the House on April 19, would also have granted a fourth representative to Utah. “It’s time to end the injustice,
the national embarrassment that citizens of this great capital city
don’t have voting representation in Congress,” said Sen. Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT), a co-sponsor of the bill, before yesterday’s vote.
The Senate’s actions marked the first time the full chamber “had
considered the D.C. voting rights issue since 1978, when it passed a
constitutional amendment that would have given the city voting
representatives in the House and Senate. The amendment died seven years
later after getting approval from only 16 of the 38 states required for
ratification.” Ilir Zherka of DC vote,
an organization that supports DC residents’ right to representation,
stated, “For the first time in 30 years, we secured the vote of a strong majority of Senators in favor of DC voting rights.
We are outraged that a minority of Senators, led by Senators Mitch
McConnell and Trent Lott, prevented the majority from voting on our
bill.”
I’ve written before about the scrub jays that eat the peanuts we put out for them. They eat some and they hide some. A couple of nights ago, Merri pulled up a weed along the sidewalk and discovered a stashed peanut.
This morning, we were both looking out the kitchen window when a jay grabbed a peanut and flew straight towards us. I thought he was saying thanks or showing off, but he carefully tucked the nut under some broad leaves in the windowbox. Then he picked up a nearby scrap and laid it over his hidden treasure. Blew my mind, that brilliant bird-brain. mjh