H
Harpoon
Ok, I just gotta rant a little here so please indulge me and feel free to hurl rotten food in my general direction, or better yet, ignore this thread all together.
I'm getting REALLY sick and tired of Bushie, US "dependence" on oil and the power that large corporations have over the American public.
I'm really sick of it.
Yeah, I drive a car that takes at least two full tanks a week to get by. I spend maybe $60 a week on that gas and it's not getting any better. I can't afford to buy a better car (BUT MAN DO I REALLY WANT TO) and I can't afford to retrofit a diesel to burn corn oil or make some other drastic effort to reduce my oil consumption. I can't walk or ride a bike everywhere, part of my job is travelling, driving from assignment to assignment, sometimes over 50 miles in a 6 hour shift. We have a taxi service in the area, the prices are outrageous. The public transportation here is either from the college campus to the bars and back or from a few designated car pool lots to the county office buildings and back unless you're disabled and need transportation to and from your doctor's or work, but that's a special shuttle service that you have to be qualified for...
GRRRRRRRR......
I didn't see it, but I heard about it on the radio, Prince whatever from Saudi Arabia hand in hand with President Bush, promising to do "something" about rising oil prices....
Doesn't anyone get it? They have us! What the hell do we have to offer to the Saudi's and/or any other OPEC nation so that they'll bring down the price of oil?
NOTHING!
What do we have to force them to do it?
NOTHING!
Where does the Bush family get their money? How did G.W. make his fortune????
OIL!!!
Grrrr.....
And in this country we burn more of it than anyone else on the planet. Most of what we burn is in gasoline for less than fuel efficient cars and trucks and SUVs... GAWD! What the HELL do you need an SUV for? They're friggin' unsafe! Prone to rollovers in even minimal speed crashes (ignore what the auto industry and gov't testing labs tell you, they're LYING.) As a photographer for the newspaper, over the past five or so years, about 70% of all the auto accidents I've shot involved an SUV. Half of those SUVs were on their sides. One was UPSIDE DOWN! You can't tell me they're safe. They use death statistics. SUV crashes don't cause death to the driver as often as say, motorcycles do...
Today, while on my way to shoot a softball game, I passed a gas station that's been closed for about two years. The sign in front still has some of the numbers for the prices that gas sold for back then. $1.80 something.... The three digits to the right were gone, but the price of gas was below 1.90 a gallon... What is it now, $2.30? $2.35???
That's just one issue, I've got a whole hell of a lot more here...
Stem cell research.
Rights to choice in reproductive issues, marraige, gender orientation, individual freedoms and liberties...
Hell, if stem cell research could show a way to regenerate damaged heart valve tissue without the need for surgery, reverse congestive heart failure, hypertension, congenital defects, wouldn't everyone on this forum be in favor of it???
Yet Bushie wants to limit all that, no new stem cell lines. There's less than 36 such lines in the U.S., only a third of those (it might be less, I'm a little fuzzy on my numbers, but then so is some of the reporting) are actually viable, usable for some form of research and of those, not every line can be used for EVERY type of research that's being done on stem cells....
Energy, tied into Bushie's fascination with oil. Anything to drive up the price of oil, real or inflated, anything to put more profits into oil companies, more money into the wallets of those who own such companies...
Corporate greed... Again, OIL. But look at a thousand different industries. Find me a member of a board of directors in some Fortune 500 company (or any multinational corporation for that matter) that is willing to take a pay cut if profits slide. Who's willing to cut their own wages down for the benefit of the company? The folks at Enron didn't do that, they pillaged the company coffers, lied to the stake holders, the corporation they ran, and pocketed every last dime they could before the feds caught on and in their wake, the "little people" gert the shaft. Creditors out a LOT of money, workers without jobs... There's a whole trickle down effect there, lost income, lost wages, lost contracts, downsizing and restructuring to ensure the core company of Enron would survive, yet thousands of people were effected regardless....
Same thing with Adelphia. Their old headquarters was in rural Pennsylvania. The only industry there was timber and that was pretty bleak and past it's time. Everywhere you go in "Adelphia territory" you see run down homes, singlewide trailers and broken down schools. In Coudersport, where Adelphia's world headquarters used to be, you could pick out Adelphia owned properties. They glistened in the sun. Regas bought up entertainment hubs, movie theaters, restaurants, arcades. He gave LIBERALLY to the arts because he wanted the best people working for his company and you have to offer a LOT to draw talented people to the middle of nowhere... The town loved him and what he had done for them, until he was ratted out.
Why? Greed, power, money...
Just frustrating.....
I'll shut up now.
I'm getting REALLY sick and tired of Bushie, US "dependence" on oil and the power that large corporations have over the American public.
I'm really sick of it.
Yeah, I drive a car that takes at least two full tanks a week to get by. I spend maybe $60 a week on that gas and it's not getting any better. I can't afford to buy a better car (BUT MAN DO I REALLY WANT TO) and I can't afford to retrofit a diesel to burn corn oil or make some other drastic effort to reduce my oil consumption. I can't walk or ride a bike everywhere, part of my job is travelling, driving from assignment to assignment, sometimes over 50 miles in a 6 hour shift. We have a taxi service in the area, the prices are outrageous. The public transportation here is either from the college campus to the bars and back or from a few designated car pool lots to the county office buildings and back unless you're disabled and need transportation to and from your doctor's or work, but that's a special shuttle service that you have to be qualified for...
GRRRRRRRR......
I didn't see it, but I heard about it on the radio, Prince whatever from Saudi Arabia hand in hand with President Bush, promising to do "something" about rising oil prices....
Doesn't anyone get it? They have us! What the hell do we have to offer to the Saudi's and/or any other OPEC nation so that they'll bring down the price of oil?
NOTHING!
What do we have to force them to do it?
NOTHING!
Where does the Bush family get their money? How did G.W. make his fortune????
OIL!!!
Grrrr.....
And in this country we burn more of it than anyone else on the planet. Most of what we burn is in gasoline for less than fuel efficient cars and trucks and SUVs... GAWD! What the HELL do you need an SUV for? They're friggin' unsafe! Prone to rollovers in even minimal speed crashes (ignore what the auto industry and gov't testing labs tell you, they're LYING.) As a photographer for the newspaper, over the past five or so years, about 70% of all the auto accidents I've shot involved an SUV. Half of those SUVs were on their sides. One was UPSIDE DOWN! You can't tell me they're safe. They use death statistics. SUV crashes don't cause death to the driver as often as say, motorcycles do...
Today, while on my way to shoot a softball game, I passed a gas station that's been closed for about two years. The sign in front still has some of the numbers for the prices that gas sold for back then. $1.80 something.... The three digits to the right were gone, but the price of gas was below 1.90 a gallon... What is it now, $2.30? $2.35???
That's just one issue, I've got a whole hell of a lot more here...
Stem cell research.
Rights to choice in reproductive issues, marraige, gender orientation, individual freedoms and liberties...
Hell, if stem cell research could show a way to regenerate damaged heart valve tissue without the need for surgery, reverse congestive heart failure, hypertension, congenital defects, wouldn't everyone on this forum be in favor of it???
Yet Bushie wants to limit all that, no new stem cell lines. There's less than 36 such lines in the U.S., only a third of those (it might be less, I'm a little fuzzy on my numbers, but then so is some of the reporting) are actually viable, usable for some form of research and of those, not every line can be used for EVERY type of research that's being done on stem cells....
Energy, tied into Bushie's fascination with oil. Anything to drive up the price of oil, real or inflated, anything to put more profits into oil companies, more money into the wallets of those who own such companies...
Corporate greed... Again, OIL. But look at a thousand different industries. Find me a member of a board of directors in some Fortune 500 company (or any multinational corporation for that matter) that is willing to take a pay cut if profits slide. Who's willing to cut their own wages down for the benefit of the company? The folks at Enron didn't do that, they pillaged the company coffers, lied to the stake holders, the corporation they ran, and pocketed every last dime they could before the feds caught on and in their wake, the "little people" gert the shaft. Creditors out a LOT of money, workers without jobs... There's a whole trickle down effect there, lost income, lost wages, lost contracts, downsizing and restructuring to ensure the core company of Enron would survive, yet thousands of people were effected regardless....
Same thing with Adelphia. Their old headquarters was in rural Pennsylvania. The only industry there was timber and that was pretty bleak and past it's time. Everywhere you go in "Adelphia territory" you see run down homes, singlewide trailers and broken down schools. In Coudersport, where Adelphia's world headquarters used to be, you could pick out Adelphia owned properties. They glistened in the sun. Regas bought up entertainment hubs, movie theaters, restaurants, arcades. He gave LIBERALLY to the arts because he wanted the best people working for his company and you have to offer a LOT to draw talented people to the middle of nowhere... The town loved him and what he had done for them, until he was ratted out.
Why? Greed, power, money...
Just frustrating.....
I'll shut up now.
