Andy’s whereIstand Blog

I know I keep bringing this up, but now we got the President’s home state freaking out with their boycotts. I thought Texas of all the United States would be in a constant state of the opposite of boycott at all times - consumers forever, big is better, etc, but here we got people putting their foot down, not on the gas pedal:

Texans don’t like to be messed with, especially in this rugged South Texas county not far from some of the state’s major independence battlefields.

So, it was only a matter of time before Bee County Judge Jimmy Martinez said someone had to stand up to tackle a national epidemic striking at the heart — and pockets — of local residents: Rising gas prices.

This week, Bee County became the first in the state, possibly the country, to pass a resolution asking motorists to boycott fuel pumps beginning Monday.

County elected officials said they would ask others in the state to follow suit.

"Hey, the American people are tired," Martinez said. "What we did is we simply took action instead of complaining.

"We’re offering our residents a beacon of hope."

Texaco will be fine though right?

This has been Andy D.

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Dems are calling out some oil-grubbing jerks:

As the debate over what to do about high gas prices continued on Capitol Hill, Democrats on Wednesday called for a new energy bill and federal legislation to punish price gougers.

"There’s no reason why we can’t put forth a real energy policy that addresses the needs of this nation," said Rep. Bart Stupak, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, "from gouging to market manipulation to biofuels. We can do it."

Jim Clyburn, a representative from South Carolina, welcomed President Bush’s call for investigations into possible price gouging but put the blame for high prices on the White House.

"All he has to do is take a short trip to the nearest mirror, and he will see what the problem with the prices at the pump," Clyburn said.

I have no idea what oil has to do with the creepshow George W. Bush would see in the mirror, but whatever cliche works.

This has been Andy D.

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President Bush has decided to deposit less into the national oil reserve this year now that prices at the pump are obviously on the rise:

Calling the oil issue a matter of national security, President Bush outlined a plan Tuesday to cut gasoline costs and temporarily stopped deposits to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Bush is delaying this summer’s deposits to the reserve — an emergency stockpile of government-owned crude oil — as he faces political pressure from campaigning members of Congress and anger from consumers about high gas prices.

"So by deferring deposits until the fall, we’ll leave a little more oil on the market," Bush said during a speech in Washington at the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for the ethanol industry. "Every little bit helps." (Watch Bush tout his plan to cut gasoline prices — 3:29)

"Our addiction to oil is a matter of national security concern," Bush said.

However, oil experts said the impact of withholding deposits, while positive, will have a negligible impact on gas prices.

"It’s less than 30,000 barrels a day in a country that consumes 21 million. That’s not even rearranging a single deck chair on the Titanic," said Peter Beutel, president of the energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover. "But psychologically, it has some effect."

Ah yes, the national psychology - Rove’s bread-n-butter. Being honest, the GOP really only offers America two things, three if you count religious rhetoric, and that is economic priority and security. Well, they are failing at both with Bush Corp at the helm. 9-11 happened on Bush’s watch, and the ensuing War in Iraq has placed our soldiers in harm’s way. And gas prices have been high forever now, deficit spending is astronomical (coming from a surplus).

No wonder Bush’s approval rating is at an all-time low.

Perhaps the American People aren’t that retarded. We’ll see come mid-term election time.

This has been Andy D.

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Well the gentry at the New York Times have been doing their best to find the silver lining of Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this week they reported that the crime level of the over-burdened city of Houston has risen since receiving the bulk of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, and now they claim that not is all bad for the evacuees - because it took the storm to move some New Orleans residents to move to places of better opportunity - from the article "Katrina Tide Carries Many to Hopeful Shores:"

Hurricane Katrina struck with biblical force, destroying the Marcells’ new home, and chasing them to the outskirts of Atlanta, where they became part of the largest American diaspora since Dust Bowl days. But despite the loss of nearly everything they owned, the Marcells say they have moved up again.

The median household income in their new neighborhood is nearly twice that in the Lower Ninth Ward, and more than four times that in the projects where they had lived. Though they had recently worked their way out of poverty in New Orleans, the Marcells say this mostly black suburb offers much safer streets, better schools and a stronger economy.

The Marcells’ journey illustrates one surprising benefit from an otherwise terrible storm: the exodus took low-income families to areas richer in opportunity.

The New York Times analyzed relocation patterns in 17 counties in and around Atlanta and Houston, two leading destinations for Katrina evacuees. Like the Marcells, the average evacuee has landed in a neighborhood with nearly twice the income as the one left behind, less than half as much poverty, and significantly higher levels of education, employment and home ownership.

Still, it is unclear whether a better environment will bring success, for the Marcells or for others like them.

The Marcells say Atlanta has plenty of jobs, but seven months after the storm they are still jobless. They praise the school their 10-year-old attends but put much of their energy into his nascent rap career, as his reading scores lag. By the time George Jefferson was "Moving on Up," he had seven dry-cleaning stores and a "de-luxe apartment in the sky" — not, as the Marcells do, unemployment checks and subsidized housing.

This seriously sounds like people trying to make the best of shit, people who had decided NOT to leave a sinking ship when they had the chance despite the crime and danger of flooding because they cared about their community, and tried to better it.

This article sounds more like Bush Corp spin than news.

This has been Andy D.

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• Are socioeconomic factors improperly influencing the response to Hurricane Katrina?

So if the rising cost of fossil fuels isn’t horrible enough, then why not take a hint from The Terminator himself, who in a moment of not towing the party line, has begun sounding more like Al Gore than Ronald Reagan:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., celebrated Earth Day by issuing a global warming warning, extolling the virtues of fuel-efficient vehicles and blasting "outrageous" oil prices at the pumps in an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"The science is in," the actor-turned-politician claimed. "The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming."

As to the government’s role in combating global warming, Schwarzenegger continued, "I think that the federal government is doing things. But I think that they are not aggressive enough. And I think that the whole world is not aggressive enough."

Schwarzenegger encouraged buying fuel-efficient vehicles and pointed to California’s policies as an example for the nation, saying, "We want to inspire people that desire cars that are fuel efficient and also drive less, do more carpooling and so on. Because remember, the oil price is all based on supply and demand."

Regarding the issue of rising gas prices at the pump, Schwarzenegger said, "I think that’s absolutely outrageous. And believe me, I am all for profit. I love when businesses are booming. But there is a certain point when you have a product that everyone needs and that everyone is relying on because of the situation that you have created. … We’ve got to protect the people."

Okay so maybe Al Gore wouldn’t be saying the world isn’t aggressive enough, nor would he vulgarize the sitch by telling us that oil price is based on supply and demand instead of tariffs and foreign wars, and politics as well.

This has been Andy D.

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• Is global warming a problem primarily caused by humans?
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Yeah, if global warming and environmental destabilization weren’t enough reason for  the American people to demand alternative sources of energy, then pure economics might do the trick:

US President George W. Bush has warned rising oil prices will mean a "tough summer" for US consumers as the high cost of gasoline (petrol) showed signs of becoming a big political issue.

But even as more Americans expressed discontent over the price of filling up their gas tanks, Bush suggested there was little his government could do in the short term about the problem.

"We’re going to have a tough summer because people are beginning to drive now during tight supply," Bush said as he toured a California facility developing hydrogen-powered vehicles.

"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here."

Bush spoke after a week of unremitting rises in prices in global crude oil markets and at gasoline (petrol) pumps across the country. Crude topped a record 75 dollars per barrel in New York trading Friday, five dollars up from a week earlier.

I love how Bush really does think that he is the first to get every concept - like the American People don’t know that the War in Iraq is heavily vested in oil availability. We’re setting up an petrol Republic instead of a Banana Republic, but the effects are the same. I’m quite sure the American people realize that what happens abroad and what happens at home are intimately connected, we just don’t like to think about it - about how horrible things are done to other people in our name, for our sake by people we elect. In fact I’m sure if the American people really did take the time to wrap their heads around what happens elsewhere in the world and how that effects us here, and how what we do effects others, Bush Corp and all his Oil-grubbing fat-cat cronies would absolutely hate it, because they would lose their voting base.

This has been Andy D.

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So while Shell gives US consumers watery gasoline…

Darnell Greene had a bone to pick today with this Delta gas station attendant in Paterson, all due to yesterday’s ten-dollar fill-up.

The problem? Watered down gasoline, part of a bad shipment. A big shipment - totaling tens-of-thousands of gallons of fuel supplied by the Shell Oil Company and distributed out a Newark refinery.

Darnell told us as soon as he "pulled out of the lot, the car started sputtering, and backfiring."

Darnell had a feeling the gas might be the culprit. His suspicions were confirmed when his mechanic siphoned the gas out of his gas tank. The gas was a big difference from what regular gas is supposed to look like.

A Shell spokesman says the problem originated at the refinery and should be resolved by Wednesday evening.

The company says it will pay for any damage the bad gas may have caused.

 (Yeah I’m sure it was a mistake) The Dems, in a moment of consumer advocacy rage against gas price gouging:

With Americans across the country struggling with an unusual and unexplained spike in gas prices and with experts predicting a 25 percent increase in prices over last summer, 15 Senate Democrats today sent the following letter to President Bush, urging him to take action to support federal anti-price gouging legislation and renewing their call for a bipartisan energy summit to solve the dangerous problem of America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Check out the text of the letter.

This has been Andy D

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Our Administration will be the last out of denial - the old codgers across the pond are way ahead of us:

In a grim warning on climate change, the British government’s chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results.

Sir David King said that, even by the most optimistic forecasts, carbon dioxide levels are set to rise to double what they were at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

"If you ask me where do we feel the temperature is likely to end up if move to a level of carbon dioxide of 500 parts per million — which is roughly twice the pre-industrial (revolution) level and the level at which we would be optimistically hoping we could settle — the temperature rise could well be in excess of three degrees centigrade," he said.

"Yet we are saying 500 parts per million in the atmosphere is probably the best we can achieve through global agreement."

You like how we can’t join the Kyoto Agreement? Hell we can’t even follow the Geneva Convention in our treatment of Gitmo detainees. For playing host to the most multinational corporations, we do the crappiest job policing them, holding them accountable for messing up our home.

This has been Andy D.

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• Is global warming a problem that humans must take actions to address?

Well after doing this we have to get our levee act together, spend the twenty years that it took The Netherlands to save their own asses with amazing levees if we have to, just get to it:

Federal officials issued unexpectedly lenient guidelines on Wednesday for rebuilding the flood-damaged homes of New Orleans, potentially allowing tens of thousands of homeowners to return to their neighborhoods at costs far less than they had feared.

Under the guidelines issued here by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, huge swaths of homes might still have to be rebuilt at least three feet off the ground, or risk getting no federal reconstruction money or insurance.

But the announcement, anxiously anticipated as a critical step in rebuilding this still-ravaged city, was nonetheless greeted with some relief by local officials and residents. They had feared that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic flooding, the government would demand that some houses be raised as much as 10 feet, at enormous expense.

The lesser requirement assumes that the area’s damaged levee system will be solidly reconstructed. To that end, federal officials also announced Wednesday that most of the system’s 36 miles or so of flood walls — which sit atop levees in places where massive earthen structures are not practical — would be replaced. The cost for that and other levee improvements is $2.5 billion, which the Bush administration said Wednesday that it would actively seek from Congress.

I think it may cost a little more than $2.5 Billion - we need wholly knew ones with flood gates and all that. Super hi-tech buoyancy magic.

This has been Andy D.

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• Are socioeconomic factors improperly influencing the response to Hurricane Katrina?

I echo Bill Maher when he said on a recent edition of his show - that "we are not allowed to use the phrase ‘our greatest threat’ unless we are referring to global warming," and I don’t know if the hermetic Gore has much to do with the public sphere anymore, but I hope he gets a comeback:

Al Gore brought corporate executives and environmentally minded investors roaring to their feet Thursday with multimedia images of an overheating planet and a call for Americans to reclaim their "moral authority" by tackling global warming.
"This is really not a political issue, it is disguised as a political issue," Gore said. "It is a moral issue, it is an ethical issue — If we allow this to happen, we will destroy the habitability of the planet. We can’t do that, and I am confident we won’t do that."

As a U.S. senator, Gore gave global warming talks 15 years ago in Washington that relied almost entirely on scientists’ best guesses and computer models.

Now bolstered by real climate changes, he has gone Hollywood, with movies of collapsing ice shelves, then-and-now shots of vanishing glaciers and lakes, telegenic photos of dwindling wildlife species — plus floods, tornadoes and, of course, hurricanes.

"We have been blind to the fact that the human species is now having a crushing impact on the ecological system of the planet," Gore said.

After Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, federal hurricane scientists used the Greek alphabet in naming tropical storms.

"This is the first foretaste of a cup that will be offered to us again and again and again until we regain our moral authority," Gore told members of Ceres, an organization of companies, investors and environmentalists pressing for greener behavior by corporations.

Okay so he’s spinning it into a moral panic, that’s fine with me - it is an ethical issue as it involves corporations misrepresenting their method to the consuming public.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Is global warming a problem that humans must take actions to address?