Saturday, January 29, 2005
The politics of change
Gloria Totten wrote:
I believe that unless we begin to change the paradigm of our political mindset from the notion of warring ideological camps ala Sparta/Athens, to a singular notion of humane governance, no plan like this will have long term viability. Just look at the Conservative Movement itself. They planned, worked, and achieved their goals. But what goals did they achieve and what are the consequences of achieving those goals? They've divided the country and now there will be a swing back to the other ideological extreme. At some point reason and reality must take precedence and the reality is that false dichotomies are inherently self-defeating in the face of the concrete facts of existence.
And please be advised that the only planning that matters now is getting ready for the ending of cheap oil and everything that is based on it in our modern industrial way of life. When that hits it won't matter what "label" you go by. All that will matter is getting enough to eat and staying warm. If we are to call ourselves human beings, then we'd better learn to cooperate with each other regardless of label if any of us are to survive to old age.
It spells trouble in this country if our future is in the hands of one person running for one office. Did we invest too much at the top of the ticket this year while eschewing the hard work of building the base necessary at the local level? Long-term change will only be accomplished by rededicating ourselves to developing a permanent and sophisticated program to recruit candidates.
I believe that unless we begin to change the paradigm of our political mindset from the notion of warring ideological camps ala Sparta/Athens, to a singular notion of humane governance, no plan like this will have long term viability. Just look at the Conservative Movement itself. They planned, worked, and achieved their goals. But what goals did they achieve and what are the consequences of achieving those goals? They've divided the country and now there will be a swing back to the other ideological extreme. At some point reason and reality must take precedence and the reality is that false dichotomies are inherently self-defeating in the face of the concrete facts of existence.
And please be advised that the only planning that matters now is getting ready for the ending of cheap oil and everything that is based on it in our modern industrial way of life. When that hits it won't matter what "label" you go by. All that will matter is getting enough to eat and staying warm. If we are to call ourselves human beings, then we'd better learn to cooperate with each other regardless of label if any of us are to survive to old age.
Citizens Oath of Office
From Progressive Trail:
"I do solemnly pledge that I will faithfully execute the office of citizen of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, help create a truly democratic world by (1) going beyond mainstream corporate news media to seek out information about important political, economic, and social issues; (2) engaging fellow citizens, including those who disagree with me, in serious discussion and debate about those issues; (3) committing as much time, energy, and money as possible to help build grassroots political organizations that can pressure politicians to put the interests of people over profit and power; and (4) connecting these efforts to global political and social movements fighting the U.S. empire abroad, where it does the most intense damage. And I will continue to resist corporate control of the world, resist militarism, resist the roll-back of civil rights, and resist illegitimate authority in all its forms."
"I do solemnly pledge that I will faithfully execute the office of citizen of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, help create a truly democratic world by (1) going beyond mainstream corporate news media to seek out information about important political, economic, and social issues; (2) engaging fellow citizens, including those who disagree with me, in serious discussion and debate about those issues; (3) committing as much time, energy, and money as possible to help build grassroots political organizations that can pressure politicians to put the interests of people over profit and power; and (4) connecting these efforts to global political and social movements fighting the U.S. empire abroad, where it does the most intense damage. And I will continue to resist corporate control of the world, resist militarism, resist the roll-back of civil rights, and resist illegitimate authority in all its forms."
Friday, January 28, 2005
When oil peaks...
From Asia Times
Jan 26, 2005
When oil peaks ...
By Tony Wesolowsky
PRAGUE - Fertilizer, DVDs, rubber, cheap flights, plastics and metals. None of these things have anything in common, right? Think again. An ingredient in all of them, in one form or another, is oil.
Oil is the precious primer of the world economic engine, making it hum. Oil provides 40% of the world's energy needs, and nearly 90% of all transportation. It's also a building block for many products and goods. Cut supplies of this natural resource and life as we know it could change.
But while some experts say the world runs no risk of running out of oil, others disagree. Sounding the alarm is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Its president is Kjell Aleklett, a physics professor at Sweden's Upsalla University.
"[During] the next 30 years we will find more than 150, maybe 200, but probably not, but 150 billion barrels of oil is roughly what you're going to find," Aleklett said. "And during the same period, we will consume 1,000 [billion barrels of oil]. So that means we are now digging deep into the reserves we have at the moment."
Aleklett is among a group of international experts - ex-oil executives and geologists - who believe there is less oil percolating under the ground than the oil industry acknowledges. They say the world has burned up nearly half of all its oil - an estimated 900 billion barrels of crude.
In industry jargon, that halfway point is the "peak", after which reserves no longer rise but drop. No one denies this will happen eventually. After all, oil is a finite resource. But these oil skeptics - so-called "peak" oil analysts - say the "peak" is coming sooner rather than later, maybe even in 2008. They paint a gloomy picture: falling oil supplies plus rising demand will equal shortages - and perhaps a rising risk of war.
Read the rest of the article here.
Jan 26, 2005
When oil peaks ...
By Tony Wesolowsky
PRAGUE - Fertilizer, DVDs, rubber, cheap flights, plastics and metals. None of these things have anything in common, right? Think again. An ingredient in all of them, in one form or another, is oil.
Oil is the precious primer of the world economic engine, making it hum. Oil provides 40% of the world's energy needs, and nearly 90% of all transportation. It's also a building block for many products and goods. Cut supplies of this natural resource and life as we know it could change.
But while some experts say the world runs no risk of running out of oil, others disagree. Sounding the alarm is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Its president is Kjell Aleklett, a physics professor at Sweden's Upsalla University.
"[During] the next 30 years we will find more than 150, maybe 200, but probably not, but 150 billion barrels of oil is roughly what you're going to find," Aleklett said. "And during the same period, we will consume 1,000 [billion barrels of oil]. So that means we are now digging deep into the reserves we have at the moment."
Aleklett is among a group of international experts - ex-oil executives and geologists - who believe there is less oil percolating under the ground than the oil industry acknowledges. They say the world has burned up nearly half of all its oil - an estimated 900 billion barrels of crude.
In industry jargon, that halfway point is the "peak", after which reserves no longer rise but drop. No one denies this will happen eventually. After all, oil is a finite resource. But these oil skeptics - so-called "peak" oil analysts - say the "peak" is coming sooner rather than later, maybe even in 2008. They paint a gloomy picture: falling oil supplies plus rising demand will equal shortages - and perhaps a rising risk of war.
Read the rest of the article here.
Venezuela, Oil, & the U.S.
US prepares invasion of Venezuela: Venezuelan ambassador
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-28 10:15:32
BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States is preparing a future invasion of Venezuela to control the petroleum of the South American country as it did in Iraq, said Venezuela's acting ambassador to Paraguay, Elmer Nino.
Nino, cited Thursday by local Paraguayan daily ABC Color, said the present diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia was created by the United States as part of its future plans for an invasion.
The Venezuelan oil reserves have a strategic value as they will last 350 years at the present exploitation level, the diplomat was quoted as saying.
Venezuela is Latin America's second largest oil producer behind Mexico and the principal oil exporter in the region.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez froze his country's diplomatic and commercial ties with Colombia in early January to protest whathe called Colombia's "kidnapping" of a rebel leader in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, which he considered as a violation of Venezuelan national sovereignty.
The government of Colombia rejected Chavez's demand to make apologies to end the dispute.
With respect to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte's position on the Caracas-Bogota crisis, the ambassador said it has been neutral.
Enditem
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-28 10:15:32
BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States is preparing a future invasion of Venezuela to control the petroleum of the South American country as it did in Iraq, said Venezuela's acting ambassador to Paraguay, Elmer Nino.
Nino, cited Thursday by local Paraguayan daily ABC Color, said the present diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia was created by the United States as part of its future plans for an invasion.
The Venezuelan oil reserves have a strategic value as they will last 350 years at the present exploitation level, the diplomat was quoted as saying.
Venezuela is Latin America's second largest oil producer behind Mexico and the principal oil exporter in the region.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez froze his country's diplomatic and commercial ties with Colombia in early January to protest whathe called Colombia's "kidnapping" of a rebel leader in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, which he considered as a violation of Venezuelan national sovereignty.
The government of Colombia rejected Chavez's demand to make apologies to end the dispute.
With respect to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte's position on the Caracas-Bogota crisis, the ambassador said it has been neutral.
Enditem
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Notice: The paradigm has shifted
This blog has been fairly scattered which follows the scatteredness of my thoughts and feelings as I've tried to sort through all that has happened since last year.
This morning I awoke with a sense of clarity. Hearing birds sing on a sunny spring-like day in January in Minnesota was at first a bit like feeling not ready for prime time. But as I woke up, got some coffee in me, and mulled over the events of yesterday, I came to realize that there is nothing more important for me to focus on than Kunstler's coming clusterfuck and its resulting shitstorm that is going to hit America in the next few years.
In conversing about this with my life-pal this morning I have determined we have about 3 years to get ready for it. Anyone with half a brain needs to start organizing, re-building their community, and re-localizing their economy to deal with what is to come.
The way I see it, this year, 2005, will focus attention on cost hikes and income shrinkage and continuing job market losses. The dollar may actually collapse this year but I'm only guessing based on my woman's intuition on this. The war in Iraq will become wholly untenable in terms of lives lost and lives damaged beyond repair as well as the sheer debt it will incur. For me, the cost of the war is not worth any of the oil we could possibly get out of it.
Then, 2006 will begin another election cycle in earnest. Americans' attention deficit disorder created by the media will divert their immediate concerns to the smoke and mirror realm of politics and the lie that everything is just fine and tomorrow will be better.
After the vote in November and the new year ticks over, 2007 will see economic upheaval and increasing social disorder as a result. What trends we'll see is still foggy for me to discern, but I think there will be just enough inertia to keep pretending that the world will continue as we've always known it safely ensconced in our pod in the matrix.
By 2008 even the presidential election won't be able to prop up the illusion that will be so rudely ripped away. No jobs, no money, skyrocketing fuel and energy prices leading to runaway inflation on everything. Food is going to start being a genuine concern as items stop being on the shelf at the grocery store. And THAT is when the shit will hit the fan.
The way I see it, we have only 3 years to get our act together to get a plan worked out and put in place to deal with the popping of the modern industrial widget-making bubble. We will be forced to return to the agrarian, pre-modern old-fashioned quaintness of the nineteenth century.
If there is one good thing about this to look forward to: obesity will cease to be a public health problem.
This morning I awoke with a sense of clarity. Hearing birds sing on a sunny spring-like day in January in Minnesota was at first a bit like feeling not ready for prime time. But as I woke up, got some coffee in me, and mulled over the events of yesterday, I came to realize that there is nothing more important for me to focus on than Kunstler's coming clusterfuck and its resulting shitstorm that is going to hit America in the next few years.
In conversing about this with my life-pal this morning I have determined we have about 3 years to get ready for it. Anyone with half a brain needs to start organizing, re-building their community, and re-localizing their economy to deal with what is to come.
The way I see it, this year, 2005, will focus attention on cost hikes and income shrinkage and continuing job market losses. The dollar may actually collapse this year but I'm only guessing based on my woman's intuition on this. The war in Iraq will become wholly untenable in terms of lives lost and lives damaged beyond repair as well as the sheer debt it will incur. For me, the cost of the war is not worth any of the oil we could possibly get out of it.
Then, 2006 will begin another election cycle in earnest. Americans' attention deficit disorder created by the media will divert their immediate concerns to the smoke and mirror realm of politics and the lie that everything is just fine and tomorrow will be better.
After the vote in November and the new year ticks over, 2007 will see economic upheaval and increasing social disorder as a result. What trends we'll see is still foggy for me to discern, but I think there will be just enough inertia to keep pretending that the world will continue as we've always known it safely ensconced in our pod in the matrix.
By 2008 even the presidential election won't be able to prop up the illusion that will be so rudely ripped away. No jobs, no money, skyrocketing fuel and energy prices leading to runaway inflation on everything. Food is going to start being a genuine concern as items stop being on the shelf at the grocery store. And THAT is when the shit will hit the fan.
The way I see it, we have only 3 years to get our act together to get a plan worked out and put in place to deal with the popping of the modern industrial widget-making bubble. We will be forced to return to the agrarian, pre-modern old-fashioned quaintness of the nineteenth century.
If there is one good thing about this to look forward to: obesity will cease to be a public health problem.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
City Councils, City Administrators, and City Planners Beware!
Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer
The White House will seek to drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development (news - web sites)'s $8 billion community branch, purging dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday.
Continue article here:
The proposal in the upcoming 2006 budget would make good on President Bush (news - web sites)'s vow to eliminate or consolidate what he sees as duplicative or ineffective programs. Officials said yesterday that economic development programs are scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD.
Advocates for the poor, however, contended that the White House is trying to gut federal programs for the poorest Americans to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities. Administration officials would not say how much the consolidation would save, but it could lead to steep funding cuts. That is because the HUD programs would have to compete for resources in Commerce and Labor budgets that are not likely to expand to accommodate the shuffle.
"I'm always willing to look at consolidation, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions," said Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record) (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs.
The plan was detailed in a December memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget to HUD. The document provides one of the first concrete examples of the types of cuts in the works as the administration comes to grips with a soaring deficit.
"The purpose of the exercise has nothing to do with achieving or not achieving savings," said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the Feb. 7 release of the president's fiscal 2006 budget request.
"What we are trying to accomplish is to meet our obligation to people living in distressed communities, to hold communities accountable for helping those people and to become more efficient in the process," another official said.
SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget | Graphic: The Washington Post
Congressional housing aides say the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program -- the bulk of the community planning budget -- could be cut as much as 50 percent. Cities have become dependent on HUD's development programs, especially the CDBG, which has existed for 30 years,
city officials said. Stanley Jackson, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, said the city has used CDBG grants of $21 million to $22 million a year for clinics, recreation centers, day-care facilities, literacy programs and housing development.
With housing and property values skyrocketing, the need for such programs for low-income families has never been higher, he said.
"If this is a backdoor way of eliminating a program like CDBG, it would have a profoundly negative impact on cities," said Jim Hunt, a vice president of the National League of Cities and a city council member in Clarksburg, W.Va.
Under the plan, the CDBG program -- which provides multipurpose development grants to state and local governments -- would be sent to the Commerce Department (news - web sites). The Urban Empowerment Zones and the Renewal Community programs -- both of which offer tax incentives for development in urban or other troubled areas -- would also go to Commerce,
as would the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, designed to revitalize abandoned industrial sites.
Youthbuild USA, a $62 million program to teach teens home-construction skills, would be sent to the Labor Department (news - web sites). The $24 million rural housing and economic development program would probably be eliminated.
HUD would maintain the Home Investment Partnerships to build or buy affordable housing, homeless assistance programs and housing assistance for AIDS (news - web sites) sufferers. The budget would eliminate $260 million in economic development projects earmarked for this year by lawmakers. HUD could ultimately lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.
White House officials said HUD employees would have to stay on the job to oversee outstanding grants for some time. But with Bush promising an aggressive attack on domestic spending, the 817 HUD community planning and development employees are girding for the worst.
"It's a body blow," said one career employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.
The proposal could face an uphill fight in Congress, said Frank, who called the proposal "just appalling." With budgets tight, vested interests in the Commerce and Labor departments would be expected to favor their programs over the newcomers from HUD. "It wouldn't even be a fair fight," he said.
Moreover, HUD has evolved into an agency designed to support urban interests and low-income citizens, while Commerce and Labor are more receptive to business needs. Indeed, community development programs at HUD are far larger than those at Commerce and Labor, said Saul Ramirez Jr., executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and a former deputy secretary of housing. The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration has a $320 million budget, a fraction of CDBG's allocation.
"If there are any programs in Commerce that encourage direct economic development to some of the most disadvantaged and blighted areas, those programs are dwarfed by these programs," he said. "If [consolidation] is what they want, the reverse should be proposed."
One White House official agreed that HUD programs have more of a community focus, while the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is more interested in economic growth. But, he said, "they're funding a lot of the same things."
HUD's city focus may be why the White House is dismantling the HUD programs, Frank charged. "HUD is the place where mayors and urban interests can put up the strongest fight," he said.
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer
The White House will seek to drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development (news - web sites)'s $8 billion community branch, purging dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday.
Continue article here:
The proposal in the upcoming 2006 budget would make good on President Bush (news - web sites)'s vow to eliminate or consolidate what he sees as duplicative or ineffective programs. Officials said yesterday that economic development programs are scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD.
Advocates for the poor, however, contended that the White House is trying to gut federal programs for the poorest Americans to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities. Administration officials would not say how much the consolidation would save, but it could lead to steep funding cuts. That is because the HUD programs would have to compete for resources in Commerce and Labor budgets that are not likely to expand to accommodate the shuffle.
"I'm always willing to look at consolidation, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions," said Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record) (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs.
The plan was detailed in a December memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget to HUD. The document provides one of the first concrete examples of the types of cuts in the works as the administration comes to grips with a soaring deficit.
"The purpose of the exercise has nothing to do with achieving or not achieving savings," said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the Feb. 7 release of the president's fiscal 2006 budget request.
"What we are trying to accomplish is to meet our obligation to people living in distressed communities, to hold communities accountable for helping those people and to become more efficient in the process," another official said.
| HUD programs to be moved under proposal | Program's annual cost | Destination |
| Community Development Block Grant | $4.7 billion | Commerce |
| Youthbuild USA high school dropout outreach | $62 million | Labor |
| Brownfields Economic Development | $23.8 million | Commerce |
| Rural Housing and Economic Development | $23.8 million | Eliminated |
| Empowerment Zones/Renewal Community | $9.9 million | Commerce |
SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget | Graphic: The Washington Post
Congressional housing aides say the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program -- the bulk of the community planning budget -- could be cut as much as 50 percent. Cities have become dependent on HUD's development programs, especially the CDBG, which has existed for 30 years,
city officials said. Stanley Jackson, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, said the city has used CDBG grants of $21 million to $22 million a year for clinics, recreation centers, day-care facilities, literacy programs and housing development.
With housing and property values skyrocketing, the need for such programs for low-income families has never been higher, he said.
"If this is a backdoor way of eliminating a program like CDBG, it would have a profoundly negative impact on cities," said Jim Hunt, a vice president of the National League of Cities and a city council member in Clarksburg, W.Va.
Under the plan, the CDBG program -- which provides multipurpose development grants to state and local governments -- would be sent to the Commerce Department (news - web sites). The Urban Empowerment Zones and the Renewal Community programs -- both of which offer tax incentives for development in urban or other troubled areas -- would also go to Commerce,
as would the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, designed to revitalize abandoned industrial sites.
Youthbuild USA, a $62 million program to teach teens home-construction skills, would be sent to the Labor Department (news - web sites). The $24 million rural housing and economic development program would probably be eliminated.
HUD would maintain the Home Investment Partnerships to build or buy affordable housing, homeless assistance programs and housing assistance for AIDS (news - web sites) sufferers. The budget would eliminate $260 million in economic development projects earmarked for this year by lawmakers. HUD could ultimately lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.
White House officials said HUD employees would have to stay on the job to oversee outstanding grants for some time. But with Bush promising an aggressive attack on domestic spending, the 817 HUD community planning and development employees are girding for the worst.
"It's a body blow," said one career employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.
The proposal could face an uphill fight in Congress, said Frank, who called the proposal "just appalling." With budgets tight, vested interests in the Commerce and Labor departments would be expected to favor their programs over the newcomers from HUD. "It wouldn't even be a fair fight," he said.
Moreover, HUD has evolved into an agency designed to support urban interests and low-income citizens, while Commerce and Labor are more receptive to business needs. Indeed, community development programs at HUD are far larger than those at Commerce and Labor, said Saul Ramirez Jr., executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and a former deputy secretary of housing. The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration has a $320 million budget, a fraction of CDBG's allocation.
"If there are any programs in Commerce that encourage direct economic development to some of the most disadvantaged and blighted areas, those programs are dwarfed by these programs," he said. "If [consolidation] is what they want, the reverse should be proposed."
One White House official agreed that HUD programs have more of a community focus, while the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is more interested in economic growth. But, he said, "they're funding a lot of the same things."
HUD's city focus may be why the White House is dismantling the HUD programs, Frank charged. "HUD is the place where mayors and urban interests can put up the strongest fight," he said.
Another manufactured "crisis"
Interesting connection between the inaugural and Homeland Security
From Salon.com quoting the Washington Post:
IF the threat of terrorism is real, and IF Bush actually cared about keeping America and its people safe from terrorism, why is it taking Homeland Security funds away from the agencies that really need it? Do they know something the rest of us don't about the "threat" of terrorism? Hm.
"The region has earmarked federal homeland security funds for such priorities as increasing hospital capacity, equipping firefighters with protective gear and building transit system command centers." But now, the Post reports, nearly $12 million will now have to be spent on such essentials as "reviewing stands."
IF the threat of terrorism is real, and IF Bush actually cared about keeping America and its people safe from terrorism, why is it taking Homeland Security funds away from the agencies that really need it? Do they know something the rest of us don't about the "threat" of terrorism? Hm.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Something funny for a change
Jan 7, 3:17 PM (ET)
LAKE STEVENS, Wash. (AP) - Someone in the Census Bureau may be watching a little too much MTV. Bevis Lake, a 5.7-acre body of water in a forested area about 25 miles northeast of Seattle, is now appearing in Bureau records with a different name: Butthead Lake.
Those two names - Bevis and Butthead - are almost identical to the 1990s MTV cartoon show "Beavis and Butt-head," which featured a pair of slacker teenagers who watch music videos and make bad jokes.
Someone at the Census Bureau must have gotten bored and made a joke out of naming the lake, said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources.
"It's got to be," he said.
It's not unusual for small lakes in out-of-the-way places to have different names because of variations in county, state or other official records, but there are no such indications in this case, Brown said.
"That means someone is playing a joke, I think," Brown said.
LAKE STEVENS, Wash. (AP) - Someone in the Census Bureau may be watching a little too much MTV. Bevis Lake, a 5.7-acre body of water in a forested area about 25 miles northeast of Seattle, is now appearing in Bureau records with a different name: Butthead Lake.
Those two names - Bevis and Butthead - are almost identical to the 1990s MTV cartoon show "Beavis and Butt-head," which featured a pair of slacker teenagers who watch music videos and make bad jokes.
Someone at the Census Bureau must have gotten bored and made a joke out of naming the lake, said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources.
"It's got to be," he said.
It's not unusual for small lakes in out-of-the-way places to have different names because of variations in county, state or other official records, but there are no such indications in this case, Brown said.
"That means someone is playing a joke, I think," Brown said.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Oil News 1-5-05
ConocoPhillips dropped out of a nonprofit group lobbying the U.S. government to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration.
ConocoPhillips said in a statement that it left Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based group formed in 1992, and will focus on other projects in the state, which accounts for 30 percent of its oil production. The refuge is sometimes referred to by its acronym, ANWR.
Oil Futures: Crude oil futures prices fell Wednesday after the U.S. government reported larger-than-expected increases in winter fuel supplies, sending heating oil prices tumbling.
Light sweet crude for February delivery dipped 52 cents to settle at $43.39 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where heating oil futures fell 2.82 cents to $1.2184 per gallon. Brent crude was down 53 cents at $40.51 a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange.
Bonds of Halliburton Co. may gain after reaching a $4.7 billion settlement of asbestos-damage claims, allowing two units to emerge from bankruptcy.
ConocoPhillips said in a statement that it left Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based group formed in 1992, and will focus on other projects in the state, which accounts for 30 percent of its oil production. The refuge is sometimes referred to by its acronym, ANWR.
Oil Futures: Crude oil futures prices fell Wednesday after the U.S. government reported larger-than-expected increases in winter fuel supplies, sending heating oil prices tumbling.
Light sweet crude for February delivery dipped 52 cents to settle at $43.39 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where heating oil futures fell 2.82 cents to $1.2184 per gallon. Brent crude was down 53 cents at $40.51 a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange.
Bonds of Halliburton Co. may gain after reaching a $4.7 billion settlement of asbestos-damage claims, allowing two units to emerge from bankruptcy.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
The killing begins....er...continues
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui (news, bio, voting record) of California, a top Democrat in Congress re-elected overwhelmingly in November to a 14th two-year term, has died of a rare blood disorder, his office said on Sunday. He was 63.
Let's not forget Paul Wellstone went down in a plane crash just before the 2002 election, thus clearing the way for Norm (Kofi Annan's a criminal) Coleman.
