SOTU-ed Out

Did anyone else mind seeing consumers admonished as being "addicted to oil" in the wake of Exxon's recently posted record-breaking profits?

And while I'm all for exploring alternative energy sources, I'm also aware that the need to fund alternative energy exploration has in the past been offered as a rationale as to why prices at the pump can't be lower in the face of said profits.

No, I didn't mind at all. It's true. The U.S., particularly the Northeast, uses a lion's share of world's energy sources and fuel, as compared to the rest of the world.

I am not sure if *addicted* is the right word but we are certainly heavy consumers of it.

I agree with you that we need to explore other sources and yes, I would love to tell the Middle East to pound sand when it comes to buying oil from them.

The Bush Family IS oil. Crikey, does he think we're imbeciles?

Perhaps domestic production might be stepped up?

Agreed. And not using the car for every little errand, too.

Can someone please hit the italics so this thread can be as doubly annoying as the last thread that devolved immediately into "you suck, no YOU suck."

Or can anyone explain why ANYONE, the Democrat or the Republican could be so disrespectful to, well everyone and everything as to wear a tee-shirt to the State of Union?

As to energy, I think addicted is the right word. Some thoughts;

Tax credits for insulating homes and/or replacing older heating/cooling systems with more efficient models.

Enforce the speed limit.

Tax advantages for hybrid cars.

Wind power, safe nuclear (located away from populous areas), Geo-thermal power.

Sources we haven't thought.

Ethanol?

Developing a long term and short term strategy.

Develop efficient mass transit systems and encourage development in and around cities rather than far flung suburbs. This would include making it 'cool' to live in cities, rather than McMansions, read that as marketing.

"Develop efficient mass transit systems and encourage development in and around cities rather than far flung suburbs. This would include making it 'cool' to live in cities, rather than McMansions, read that as marketing."

YES! YES! YES!!! NJ has the suckiest public transportation system. Why can't we have a rail system like San Fran (BART) or Atlanta (MARTA)...no relation!

Market pressure of $3 per gallon will get you there quicker and more effectively than billions in government spending.

Obviously we can't have a good public transit system since the acronym isn't someone's name, unlike Bart, Marta, or Marc. There is no personalization to NJT.

"Market pressure of $3 per gallon will get you there quicker and more effectively than billions in government spending."

Where? To efficient mass transit?

Kevin, I don't know. Can you explain why people, Democrat and Republican, were ejected and/or arrested for wearing a t-shirt?

I'm not usually in agreement with Bush, but I'll tell you, this human/animal hybrid thing gives me the willies. I don't want no werepersons in my backyard. No sir. Thank god he's finally decided to recognize science.

1954-era cheap science fiction movie science, but science nonetheless.

Mazie,

Protest of any kind is prohibited in the house chamber at all times when in session. It's one of the rules, for obvious reasons.

Also there are, one would hope, certain rules of common respect and decorum which should be observed in the House, or even internet "communities" for that matter.

Why, even respect for the private act of mourning demands appropriate behavior.

In, fact it's a good idea to always remember where we are and what we might be expressing in all of our actions.

God, you are such a sanctimonious ass. She was wearing a t shirt and took off her coat. She caused no disruption.

I see that the human-animal hybrid thing is not just random bush bizarreness. It's another sop to the fundies to stop therapeutic cloning. I guess I was wrong about the new bush respect for science.

"God, you are such a sanctimonious ass"...you sure are, mazie.

p.s. the long string of Democratic lawmakers who spoke on behalf of Sheehan today was noteworthy.

I stuck up for Mazie last night. Someone said she wasn't fit to sleep with the pigs. I said she was.

As for the human-animal, "Island of Dr. Moreau-type" thingie, Mazie, shall we all offer up some cheek swabs?

"Develop efficient mass transit systems and encourage development in and around cities rather than far flung suburbs."

Yes, and instead of, or at least in addition to, funding a big highway spending bill, fund something along the lines of the idea outlined above.

Yeah, used a lotta commas there.

I fell asleep watching Law and Order

I fell asleep watching Law and Order

Why is everyone so obsessed with Cindy Sheehan? Y'all must watch too much TV news or something.

meals ready to eat?

Haha! Ironically, it almost is (if you insert an apostrophe).

No, in light of recent accusations, I have decided to wear my Moral Relativist Elitism with as much pride as our Trolls wear their coarse hair on their oversized feet.

Anyone so inclined is welcome to join me. We got a big tent here & it's not under a bridge!

Wow, didn't take long -- just read a news article where Bush was described as saying that consumers shouldn't expect oil price breaks, and defended Exxon's huge profits, saying "There is a marketplace in American society...There's also a responsibility for energy companies to continue to invest and improve the ways that the American people can get energy..."

Apparently oil companies were saying that in the '70's, too, so where are our alternative energy sources? There's an interesting book titled "Seven Sisters: the great oil companies and the world they shaped" which came out in the late '70's and most recently came out in a '91 edition. Not light reading, but worth a look.

What is the human-animal thing? I did not watch the speech.

And sorry, I just don;t think one should go into the House Chamber in a tee shirt, even if you;re a tourist and the house is not in session, certainly not during the a speech by the president. have we lost all sense of decorum and respect for the office, if not the man?

Or the men and women of the Court, the House, the Senate and the Cabinet. By way of example, the SOTU is, I believe, the one occasion where the Justices wear their robes outside of court proceedings.

crank(MRE),
glad to see you've found a home...now I gotta find a liberal to get this thorn out of my hairy hoof.

Human animal thing: chimeras, a combination of human and animal tissue. It sounds creepy, but it's not necessarily such a big deal. But you better get used to it. It's the wave of the future (and a good thing too). Even if we don't do it, the Koreans will.

I agree that mass transit would be a good thing. All we have to do is have $3 oil and -- presto! -- those trains and subways will just spring into existence, virtue of the free market, with no government involvement at all.

Yah.

Is there anyone here who actually believes that Exxon deserves to have multi-billion dollar profits? Not revenue, mind you, but profits? We go to war for oil, yet look the other way when our own American companies are ripping the cash out of our wallets so they can live phat?? (no, that's not a typo)

Chimeras, walleroo, in mythology are a combination of lions, goats and serpents (or dragons). The latter two critters clearly indicate a link to modern leftists.

I assume you were referring to the other, zoological definition of chimeras. Something to do with combining cells from 2 or more populations of them, yes?

But not creepy? You've never read "The Island Of Dr. Moreau" or seen any of the movie versions? Imagine a venomous leftie poster crossed with a tin can-eating nanny goat and a rattlesnake. Scary stuff indeed.

They are decidedly not the wave of the future. They're not known in Korean folklore, either.

Trent, it is too easy just to blame Exxon for making money. According to the American Petroleum Institute, figures for the third quarter of 2005 (the last available at this writing) show that average oil industry profits were 8.2 cents per dollar, vs. a figure of 6.8 for all American industry. Over the last 5 years, however, profits have averaged out to 5.7 cents per dollar vs. 5.5 for American industry overall. That hardly sounds like gouging, whatever we see and feel at the pump.

Additionally, the oil and gas industry incurs huge research, development and exploration costs simply not seen in any other industry. Ths spending amounted to $85.7 billion in 2005, vs. $80.5 in 2004. Further, over the past 5 years the oil and gas industry's profit margins (net income divided by sales) have in fact trailed the all industry average in almost every quarter.

We don't even get most of our crude from the Mideast. In December, for example, the percentage of imported crude was 64.3%. The leader in imports was Canada with 14.8%, followed by Mexico at 10.5, Saudi Arabia at 10%. Venezuela (our pal Hugh Chavez) at 9.4% and Nigeria at 9.0. OPEC countries in toto contributed 26.5% of our oil needs in December, Persian Gulf nations 11.3%.

There have also, despite rising demand, been no new oil refineries built in the US over the last 29 years. And there are no refineries at all which turn US-produced oil only into gasoline (although a few small operations use mainly US crude).

All of which indicates that, while it's easy to rant here at "Big Oil" (we've all done it), the truth is more involved.

Go to api.org sometime yourself, it's both a rewarding and depressing way to spend an hour.

woke up this morning saw myself a shadow ...going back to bed.

Manalo Says:

Manolo says, undoubtedly, the world it would be the much more super fantastic place if the Manolo actually did have the police powers.

The first law to be strenuously enforced? One must dress appropriately for the occasion.

Under no conceivable circumstance should one wear the slogan-bearing t-shirt to the Statement of the Union Speech. And, if you are silly enough to do this, you deserve to be led out in shame to the Capitol Rotunda where the gay-but-fashion-challenged Fab Five they will publicly make you over into the ridiculous metrosexual. This they should do this even if you are the woman.

Trust the Manolo, wearing the political t-shirt to the formal ceremonial event, it does nothing for your cause. Indeed, the trivality of such attire, it perhaps even undermines the seriousness of your position.

P.S. By the way, the Manolo he has already addressed the issue of what is the appropriate feetwear to wear to the ceremonial events.

Oops, nevermind...seems Mr. Bush misspoke again...

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.
But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.
The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/13767738.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation

Wait a minute - Bush wants to fund research into renewable sources? Great!

Oops, he misspoke again...

Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles

http://nytimes.com/2006/02/02/politics/02energy.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=884f904a8b1146b8&hp&ex=1138942800&partner=homepage

(Last paragraph of the article)

"The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1."

Once again, the SOTU address was just another pack of lies.

Marrta - really dear, you should be more careful what you say and do on the internet. Sometimes these impulsive actions can come back to haunt you in a "flash".

(conservatives are better at comic irony)

(and, perhaps, comic ironing)

So far, the Sheehan obsessives are silent on the facts that Beverly Young, though also escorted from the Chamber, was not arrested, that charges against Sheehan have been dropped, & that Capitol police have apologized to both. Sloganized T-shirts, while they may be tacky, apparently aren't illegal after all.

Story here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0602020180feb02,1,3433085.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Can we enact a law against tackiness then?

Mazie dear, please try to be nicer to my fellow trolls. There's a good girl. Such restraint, it happens to say in the Koran, will come back to you tenfold. (Somewhere, if not here.) And can the veiled references to aging issues, that was exceptionally base even by your usual loose standards.

Pay note, too, of where our oil really comes from, as in a post of mine above. Under no circumstances, in other words, should you dump this week on Canada for its Conservative election results. Feel free to lobby for renewable energy, and for new oil refineries until we have some renewable "stuff," but in the meantime treat Canadians and Saudis alike with respect. You do so want peace, right?

"Can we enact a law against tackiness then?"

If only.

Who would be the arbiters though? One person's tacky is another person's high fashion.

crank, what's to say?

(well, other than IMPEACHMENT!)

Here's something also interesting. Yesterday the House approved $40 billion in spending cuts. 94% of republicans vote yes and 0% of democrats voted yes.

From the Democrat's website:

"Fiscal responsibility. The Democratic Party believes in balanced budgets and paying down our national debt, while Republicans continue to put huge burdens on future generations by borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign nations."

Is it all talk?

Ture. I just get tired of seeing people go out to dinner in clothes I wouldn't wear to the gym.

crank, could we just at least agree that people shouldn't sport vulgarities or actual profanity on either their garb or their actual bodies? This is a constant gripe of mine, and it is only honed every time I stroll the Seaside Heights boardwalk in summer.

Sunday on Bedford street in the village I saw this t-shirt:

I'm not an alcoholic
I'm a drunk
alcoholics go to meetings

Iceman, as Raymond Chandler once wrote, in tribute to your ramblings: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean...."

true dat...cathar.

Interview with Congresswoman Wolsey who gave the ticket to Sheehan.

audio.

The mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Same old liberal Dem bingo...nothing new there/

crank - what is the (MRE) for?

May I assume, ROC, that your typing of Congresswoman "Wolsey" above was a sort of historical slip?

it was a typo "Woolsey" is the proper spelling.

I did look up "Wolsey". I'd love to take credit for the "slip" but, sadly, I am not that literate. (though I'd like to be.)

I thought that he said it was

meals ready to eat

but I have no idea what he meant.

MRE's, badd_patti, are "meals ready to eat." Chow in the field. The modern version of C and K-rations. Campers can buy them places like Modell's too, some I've talked to even say they;re pretty tasty.

No, "meals ready to eat" was just my not-so-serious guess. Refer further back in this thread for his explanation.

I've heard that some soldiers have called them "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians".

Found it, thank you skipwith.

Howard Dean is right, right-wingers don't work. Don't you guys have jobs or something? Posting all day long, dragging down GDP.

That's right, LM. We're all wealthy trust fund babies who don't have to work. We spend our waking hours lunching at waspy enclaves on gthe Upper East Side and fretting over what to wear to the next charity ball.

Excuse me, have to run, a Bloody Mary awaits me and then off to the Maidstone for some tennis...ta-ta!

yeah, yeah, yeah. get a job.

"Bentley, draw the water for my afternoon bath and put the massage therapist on call. Check my reservation for the afternoon tea and schedule my exfoliation for 5:00. Damn, I broke a nail"

(scene: cathar sits in ROC's opulent drawing room; both puff heavily on tobacco pipes.)

ROC: What do you think of the tax cuts in Bush's speech, old man?

cathar: Jolly good, though I so wish he'd stop pussyfooting around, take a page our of Sonny Barger's book and just eliminate the inheritance tax.

ROC: Quite right, old man. Quite right.

(enter latebloomer with a tray of brandy and snifters)

ROC: Thank you, Late. You may go. Please make sure the horse has been fed.

Latebloomer: Yes, guv. Oh, excuse me, guv'nor, I was wondering if maybe I could have a few hours off to go to a BlueWaveNJ meeting? I promise I won't be gone more than an hour. And I'll feed the horses and shine your shoes when I get back.

ROC: Oh, all right.

Latebloomer: THank you guv, thank you.

(exit Latebloomer)

cathar: Why do you allow that sort of thing, ROC? Seems to me those meetings only get the rabble all riled up.

ROC: Yes, you may be right. But you'd be amazed. An evening of frothing-at-the-mouth conformity makes them so much more docile the next day...

Trust trash; they're just everywhere these days. And the game of choice at Maidstone is Croquet (primarily because it is a sociable game that one can play while dead, and hardly anyone will notice.) Not quite as bad as Lawn Bowling, but damn close.

LOL, Conan! I actually like croquet. It's a family traditon with BF's sons on Father's Day. Takes FOREVER, though.

You crack me up walleroo.

cathar, think there is a camera someplace in here?

*very* funny walleroo.

Classic, walleroo.

J'agree!

I, walleroo, am laughing too hard now to shred your spleen and feed it to the slugs. (I can't speak for Sonny Barger.)

Maybe later, but not now. Well done.

I hope her lateness will be just half as indulgent.

Brilliant, walleroo.

Cathar, while I don't get tremendously upset at profanity on T-shirts & tats - I think the wearers only make themselves look ridiculous - I do find it tiresome & juvenile, so I think we can sort of agree on that.

Actually, the worst I've ever seen was a group of high schoolers just back from somewhere sunny (Caribbean or Mexico, I dunno) where they sell absolutely obscene T-shirts (think large talking genitalia), waiting to go through JFK customs, hanging on to one last moment of freedom from parental scrutiny. I wanted to see what would happen when they were met - would there be a quick change of shirts, would they get their ears boxed, or would dad just chuckle and nod approvingly - but didn't.

Remembering that scene, I am agreeing with you a bit more heartily now.

Walleroo, what happened to Scene 2, when I lead the peppered ponytails in an ambush of the unsuspecting aristocrats, and parade their heads around for all to see?

So far not one post on topic, I think that 71 is a new record.

On topic, did anyone see that the Montclair Times called for the Abolition of County Government? Either it didn't get much press, or I missed it.

Make that 72...(or 73 if you count this one)

That scene was cut, your lateness, because there was nudity in it. Not yours, but the peppery ponytails', and the R just wasn't worth losing a teen audience in a foolish attempt to lure in adult liberals with hair not quite long enough to cover the great vastation that began at their navels and crept downward.

"there was nudity in it. Not yours"

There is no rating for THAT.

All will be revealed in time, Latebloomer. But I should warn you that I'm thinking, in Scene 3, of installing you as Ponytail Emperor, where one night you're caught performing obscene acts with a cigar and an intern named Marshall, and then lying about it. I can't decide whether you get impeached or beheaded.

The role of jester, of course, I reserve for myself.

Oh Marshall, remember Marshall?

Where is he now? I imagine him working as a $65,000 per year intern with Smith-Barney commodity traders where (at lunch time) he makes lusty jokes about the women in the office and rails against Capitalism

(you guys have to stop! I am laughing loud enough to attract the evil eye of Mrs. ROC, who approves - not, of this Barista business)

aah, RoC, the family that posts together stays together.

I meant to add a grin

Why would I need a cigar if I have an intern named Marshall?

And I wouldn't lie about it-- "Hell yes, I had sex with that man. And it was GOOOD!!""

Oh, I donno, okay maybe you... oh, never mind. I'm going to get myself in trouble. Do what you want with the damn cigar. Let Marshall smoke it, though I doubt the lad could handle a real Cuban.

I wonder how history might have been different if Bill had been so refreshingly forthcoming.

I once had a friend--an acquaintance, really--in college who was a math major, very smart guy, but who liked to lead protests against defense contractors who recruited on campus. ("Lockheed and the Shah, Partners in Death"--remember the Shah?) Anyway, we all graduated, and last I heard he worked at a bank. I suppose he was trying to undermine it.

Cahar,

I know what "meals ready to eat are" I don't know why he called himself (MRE).

I still don't know why he called himself that.

Did you read my post or are you just being a troll.

Moral Relativist Elitist.

You scrolled by my earlier explanation, it's up there somewhere (Feb 1, 9:03:00 pm).

Latebloomer,
I'm still in stitches from laughing and I applaud good naturedd sense of humor.

badd_patti,
from a previous crank post:

"No, in light of recent accusations, I have decided to wear my Moral Relativist Elitism with as much pride as our Trolls wear their coarse hair on their oversized feet."

The answer's farther back up this thread, badd_patti. A ways.

I'm always a troll, it's just that I'm never only a troll. But I'm also never Mazie Gordon.

Some people, it seems, have a sense of humor about themselves. I include, by way of some apology, latebloomer in this equation. May it give all our grumbling selves some credit before St. Peter come the Rapture.

And I continue to await rumblings from Mazie. I honestly shall never watch a Civil War-era movie again in my life without thinking of ROC's wicked song parody.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Yes, you all have good laugh-o-meters. You should all be commended. I can forgive just about anything in somebody who can laugh at him/herself. I never much liked Ronald Reagan as a president (though I like him more now in retrospect compared to Dubya, but that's another story), but he was so darn disarmingly good natured, it was impossible to dislike him as a person. Who knows how history would have been different if only Gengis Kahn, or Attila the Hun, or Hitler, or Stalin, or Ted Kennedy had been able to make a self-deferential joke here and there.

Unfortunately, walleroo, Hitler did indeed tell "Jewish jokes." To the most appreciative of audiences. Not well, perhaps, but way too effectively.

You also might have appreciated Attila telling his Hunnish pals what an ass that Pope had turned out to be, and how he'd decided not to sack Rome just as a way of shutting up the old mitred wop.

PS: Speaking of bad "Jewish jokes," Genghis Kahn? And in the same sentence in which you utilized Godwin's Law?

I would never utilize Godwin's Law, but I might utilize his little sister Sally's.