Since Congress is dragging it’s feet on addressing our country’s shortage on oil, I have made a bumper sticker I think we should get out to everyone to get this back on the front burner. I am attaching the simple design with a PDF. I am willing to make and sell these to anyone who wants one. All I ask is a $5 donation to go to help fund conservative, logical thinking congressmen’s campaigns across the nation. For each $5 political contribution, I will donate the profit of $2.50 each to a candidates that are Pro-Anwar drilling.

Thanks…. I enjoy your blog….

Kim

Well, this is certainly a different tone from Jeff’s recent comment. I do have to wonder if Kim has ever read my blog.

Kim’s bumpersticker says “Drill ANWR” and features a giant drill bit. I take that to mean “screw everything” — whether intended or not.

The ANWR obsession is particularly strange. First, ANWR was part of a earlier compromise — you get to destroy this big area, we get to keep this small area. So, now non-conserving Conservatives are proud to be known as unwilling to stand by previous agreements? Or is this just a flip-flop?

Second, if drilling were approved tomorrow, how long before oil from ANWR morphed into gas in your tank? I’ve heard 10 years, but let’s just say that’s exaggerated. Five years? In five years, the price per gallon will be well over $5.

Finally, at least among enviro-whackos, the potential output from ANWR is predicted to be relatively small compared to our bottomless thirst. Doesn’t it seem that in 5 to 10 years we could set our sights on saving more than ANWR would ever pump?

It should be clear to everyone: we will not drill our way out of this hole. mjh

Independent Online Edition > Americas
Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 28 April 2006

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

That’s a full $2.2 billion since this article was published. Well, that’s inflation for you.

The real war loonies will quote figures on deaths. Many of today’s battlefield injuries would have been fatal 40 years ago. How long before the number of seriously wounded surpasses Vietnam? Don’t expect anyone to tell you.

I still seethe that the Radical Right jumped all over Kerry/Edwards for “lying” that the war’s cost was $200 Billion. Lying? It was a gross underestimate. mjh

Anyone will tell you, ‘Republicans are good for business.’ Especially for their own, it seems. I’ve already suggested the main campaign slogan for 2006 should be:

Republicans Mean Business

But I’m starting to appreciate Newt Gingrich’s own suggestion:

Had enough?

mjh

PS: Ask someone in the MSM how this could not be news in the US?

Independent Online Edition > Americas
Donald Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug
By Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen
Published: 12 March 2006

Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease.

More than 60 countries have so far ordered large stocks of the antiviral medication – the only oral medicine believed to be effective against the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease – to try to protect their people. The United Nations estimates that a pandemic could kill 150 million people worldwide.

Daily Times – Site Edition
Donald Rumsfeld makes $5m from bird flu drug

Tamiflu does not cure the disease, but if taken soon after symptoms appear it can reduce its severity. The drug was developed by a Californian biotech company, Gilead Sciences. It is now made and sold by the giant chemical company Roche, which pays it a royalty on every tablet sold, currently about a fifth of its price.

Rumsfeld was on the board of Gilead from 1988 to 2001, and was its chairman from 1997. He then left to join the Bush administration, but retained a huge shareholding.

The firm made a loss in 2003, the year before concern about bird flu started. Then revenues from Tamiflu almost quadrupled, to $44.6m, helping put the company well into the black. Sales almost quadrupled again, to $161.6m last year. During this time the share price trebled.

Rumsfeld sold some of his Gilead shares in 2004 reaping – according to the financial disclosure report he is required to make each year – capital gains of more than $5m. The report showed that he still had up to $25m-worth of shares at the end of 2004, and at least one analyst believes his stake has grown well beyond that figure, as the share price has soared. Further details are not likely to become known, however, until Rumsfeld makes his next disclosure in May.

Rumsfeld Gilead – Google News (at this writing, only 6 news articles — these are the only 2 about this investment — none in the US)

Gilead — Donald H. Rumsfeld Named Chairman of Gilead Sciences
Foster City, CA, January 3, 1997

Scandal, job worries lift GOP insurgents to wins By STEVE EDER and JAMES DREW, BLADE STAFF WRITERS

The rising tide against Ohio’s Republican establishment on Tuesday swept away two of the party’s biggest names and scored a victory for GOP candidates who challenged business as usual in Columbus. …

That opening paragraph sounds so encouraging, speaking of insurgents and change within the Ohio Republican Party. But who is the number one “insurgent”? Ken Blackwell, current Ohio Secretary of State, who delivered Ohio for Bush and is riding a wave of evangelical support. In other words, the challenge is from the Radical Right — hardly a change of any kind. mjh

Republicans predicted that Democrats will focus on the scandal but fall short in providing plans for creating jobs and boosting the economy. [mjh: not one of the many scandals you’re thinking of]

John McClelland, a spokesman for the Ohio GOP, said the Democratic ticket is “woefully inexperienced” in comparison with the Republican nominees, who also include U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine and U.S. Rep. Bob Ney. [mjh: under investigation for involvement with Abramoff, Ney is very “experienced”.]

“[We] have longtime officeholders such as Mike DeWine who won handily, Betty Montgomery who won handily, Bob Ney won handily in his district, but at the same time you have agents of change such as Ken Blackwell, who has an agenda of growing the economy by cutting taxes, fiscal restraint, and government integrity and accountability,” Mr. McClelland said. “Those are issues that resonate across Ohio. Those are issues that Ken Blackwell is going to run on in November and issues we think we are going to win on.”

Actually, those are the issues Blackwell will run in public on. In private, among churchgoers, his campaign is completely different. mjh

Ohio 2004 election thief grabs Gov nod while (surprise! surprise!) voting machines malfunction

Congress may consider mandatory ISP snooping | Tech News on ZDNet By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

It didn’t take long for the idea of forcing Internet providers to retain records of their users’ activities to gain traction in the U.S. Congress.

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, gave a speech saying that data retention by Internet service providers is an “issue that must be addressed.” Child pornography investigations have been “hampered” because data may be routinely deleted, Gonzales warned.

Now, in a demonstration of bipartisan unity, a Democratic member of the Congressional Internet Caucus is preparing to introduce an amendment–perhaps during a U.S. House of Representatives floor vote next week–that would make such data deletion illegal.

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette’s proposal says that any Internet service that “enables users to access content” must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user’s account was closed.

It’s not clear whether that requirement would be limited only to e-mail providers and Internet providers such as DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable modem services. An expansive reading of DeGette’s measure would require every Web site to retain those records. (Details would be left to the Federal Communications Commission.) …

In a move that may have led to broader interest inside the United States, the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers. …

Critics of DeGette’s proposal have said that, while the justification for Internet surveillance might be protecting children, the data would be accessible to any local or state law enforcement official investigating anything from drug possession to tax evasion. In addition, the one-year retention is a minimum; the FCC would receive the authority to require Internet companies to keep records “for not less than one year after a subscriber ceases to subscribe to such services.”

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, said: “This is an unrestricted grant of authority to the FCC to require surveillance.”

“The FCC would be able to tell Internet service providers to monitor our e-mails, monitor our Web surfing, monitor what we post on blogs or chat rooms, and everything else under the sun,” said Harper, a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. “We’re seeing a kind of hysteria …. The result will be privacy that goes away and doesn’t come back when the foolishness is exposed.”

ID Law Stirs Passionate Protest in N.H. By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer

The controversy in New Hampshire surrounds a federal law called the Real ID Act, which was approved last year after it was tacked on to a bill funding the war in Iraq and relief for tsunami victims. Its principal backer, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), said he wanted to close the kinds of loopholes that allowed some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers to obtain official identification.

The bill requires states to check whether driver’s license applicants are in the country legally, and to require documents showing their birth date, Social Security number and home address. The act also requires that states find a way to verify that the documents are valid.

The deadline is May 2008. If states cannot meet the new requirements by then, the bill says, their licenses may not be accepted as identification at airport security screenings, federal buildings and nuclear plants. …

“We care more for our liberties than to meekly hand over to the federal government the potential to enumerate, track, identify and eventually control,” [Rep. Neal M. Kurk (R)] said, before quoting Henry and his state’s defiant motto, “Live Free or Die.”…

Emboldened by that success, groups opposed to Real ID staged a rally in late April in front of the statehouse where, according to a report in the Concord Monitor, some wore “666” on their foreheads — indicating their belief that a national system of rules for driver’s licenses is a step toward the “mark of the beast” prophesied in the Book of Revelation.