President Bush Lifts Off-Shore Drilling Ban, Blames Democrats for Energy Crisis 
Today President Bush lifted the executive ban on off-shore drilling first enacted by his father is 1990, and had the audacity to blame Democrats for the high price of gas. No, I’m not kidding.
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Bush’s cynicism on this issue is simply breath-taking. He’s trying to exploit the anger Americans are feeling over the crushing price of fuel by blaming Democrats and challenging them to allow a vote on a bill that would have ZERO immediate impact on fuel costs, but would be very difficult (politically speaking) to oppose. Just like the Republicans do with every possible issue, they feed off voter resentment and play cynical politics with a very serious and complicated problem.
The fact that opening up off-shore drilling sites won’t yield more resources for at least a decade doesn’t matter. What matters is that Republicans can use the issue as a political bludgeon to bash Democrats with, all the while just prolonging our addiction to foreign oil. Shameful.
Nicole adds: And for all the talk that drilling would provide a psychological boost and drop prices, it’s noteworthy that oil is slightly up today at more than $145/barrel. You’d think such a presidential announcement would provide a nice drop — even if short-lived — if there was a psychological element to this. Nope.
Senator Obama:
If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks. But most experts, even within the Bush Administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for thirty years.
Check below the fold for more responses and a thorough debunking on this farce George Bush and John McCain call an energy policy.
Carol Pope, Executive Director of the SierraClub:
“This is the most cynical of political ploys. Even the Bush administration admits that offshore drilling will do absolutely nothing to lower gas prices, today, tomorrow, or even a decade from now. This is nothing more than an attempt to exploit the suffering of hardworking Americans in order to pad Big Oil’s bottom line. […] America simply cannot afford another president from the Grand Oil Party.
Speaker Pelosi:
Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil.
Progressive Accountability put together this fact sheet:
McCain’s Voting Record And Policies Favor Big Oil
McCain’s Tax Plan Gives Top Five Oil Companies $3.8 Billion A Year In Tax Breaks. According to a study conducted by the Center for American Progress, “The McCain plan would deliver approximately $170 billion a year in tax cuts to corporations, including some corporations that are very large and profitable. Just one of the proposals-cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent-would cut taxes for five largest U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year.†[Center for American Progress, 3/27/08]
McCain Voted Against Reducing Dependence On Foreign Oil. In 2005, McCain voted against legislation calling on the President to submit a plan to reduce foreign petroleum imports by 40 percent. [Senate Roll Call Vote #140, 6/16/05]
In 2005, McCain Voted Against a Windfall Profit Tax on Oil Companies At Least Twice. McCain voted against a measure that would have provided an income tax rebate to Americans by taxing enormous oil company profits temporarily on an sale of crude above $40 a barrel. [S 2020, Vote #331, 11/17/05; S 2020, Vote # 341, 11/17/05; Houston Chronicle, 11/17/05; Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/18/05; Environment and Energy Daily¸ 11/18/05]
McCain Voted Against Taxing Oil Companies To Provide $100 Rebate To Consumers. In 2005, McCain voted against an amendment to impose a temporary tax on oil company profits from the sale of crude oil. The funds would be used to provide every taxpayer with a $100 non-refundable tax credit for 2005 for each person in their household. The amendment failed 33-65. [S 2020, Vote #341, 11/17/05]
McCain Voted Against Temporarily Taxing Oil Companies to Finance Tax Rebate For Consumers. In 2005, McCain voted against an amendment to would impose a temporary 50 percent tax on oil company profits from the sale of crude oil. Funds collected from the tax would be used to provide a consumer tax credit for petroleum products. The amendment failed 35-64. [S 2020, Vote #331, 11/17/05]
McCain Called To End Off Shore Drilling Ban; Boon For Big Oil
McCain Now: McCain Called For Lifting The Off Shore Drilling Moratorium. During a press availability in Arlington Virginia, John McCain called for a lifting of the federal moratorium on offshore drilling. McCain said, “I think that’s a subject of negotiation and discussion. But right now, as you know there’s a moratorium. And those moratorium, in my view, moratoria, have to be lifted. And they have to be lifted so that states can make those decisions. I’m not dictating to the states that they drill or they engage in oil exploration. I am saying that the moratoria should be lifted so they have the opportunity to do so. And by the way, I would also like to see perhaps additional incentives if the states, in the form of tangible financial rewards if the states decide to lift those moratoria.†[McCain Press Avail 6/16/07]
- Houston Chronicle: McCain Announced Drilling Stance To “Make Amends With Texas Energy Producers.†The Houston Chronicle Reported, “Republican presidential candidate John McCain, seeking to make amends with Texas energy producers who did not support him during the 2008 GOP primary season, said Monday he wants to end a federal moratorium on offshore drilling and create “additional incentives†for states to approve new exploration ventures.†[Houston Chronicle, 6/17/08]
McCain Said Coasts “Should Be Open To Exploration and Exploitation.†John McCain said, “So I do believe that there are places in the world, as I said, that we should not drill. But I certainly think there are areas off our coasts that should be open to exploration and exploitation. And I hope that we can take the first step, by lifting the moratoria in order to do so.†[McCain Press Avail 6/16/07]
McCain Then: He Opposed Off-Shore Drilling At Least Three Times, and Twice Supported Florida Efforts To Prevent Drilling Off Their Coasts.
- McCain Voted Against Off-Shore Drilling. In 2005, McCain voted for an amendment that would strike language instructing the Interior Department to conduct a comprehensive inventory of Outer Continental Shelf oil and natural gas resources. The amendment failed 44-52. [H.R. 6, Vote #143, 6/21/2005]
- McCain Voted Against Off-Shore Drilling. In 2003, McCain voted against a provision requiring a survey and inventory of possible off-shore oil and natural gas deposits by the Secretary of the Interior. He voted for an amendment striking the provision. The amendment failed 45-53. [S. 14, Vote #221, 6/12/2003]
- McCain Voted for One-Year Moratorium on Oil and Gas Exploration in North Aleutian Basin. In 1989, McCain voted for a bill making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1990, and for other purposes. The bill contained a total of $956.4 million for the Bureau of Land Management of which $442.1 million is for management of lands and resources; $535.5 million for the Fish and Wildlife Service. The bill also imposed a one-year moratorium on oil and gas exploration and development in the North Aleutian Basin and ensured that the Department of the Interior will continue its assessment of damage from the Exxon Valdex oil spill through September 30, 1990. The bill also contained $1.5 billion for the Department of Energy, which includes $422.1 million for the fossil energy research program; $192.1 million for the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves; $413.3 million for energy conservation. The bill passed 91-6. [H.R. 2788, Vote #241, 10/7/1989]
Bush Also Called For Oil Drilling In the Outer Continental Shelf. President Bush said, “This morning, I asked Democratic Congressional leaders to move forward with four steps to expand American oil and gasoline production. First, we should expand American oil production by increasing access to the outer continental shelf or OSC. Experts believe that the OCS could produce about 18 billion barrels of oil. That would be enough to match the current oil production America for almost 10 years. The problem is that congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980’s. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills. With these advances, and a dramatic increase in oil prices, Congressional restrictions on exploration have become outdated and counterproductive. Republicans in congress have proposed several promising bills that would lift the legislative ban on oil exploration in the OCS. I call on the House and Senate to pass good legislation as soon possible.†[President Bush statement, 6/18/08]
wreck - podictionary 789 
This episode sponsored by GotoMeeting. Try it free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/podcast
As I typed this word wreck into the search field of my online dictionaries I was thinking, this has the feel of an Old English word. So I was a little surprised when the Oxford English Dictionary fetched up AF meaning “Anglo French.”
I was actually so surprised that I quickly checked the date of the first citation.
1077, and attributed to no less than William the Conqueror himself, or at least one of his legal scribes.
Actually that citation is in square brackets in the OED because it is a Latin citation so can’t be counted as an English usage; that’s what the square brackets mean. But nonetheless it must be French.
Yet as I look further, hmm. I better go back to the beginning.
According to John Ayto’s book Word Origins there was an Indo-European word wreg that meant “drive.” He says it may lie at the base of our word urge.
In any case this word root also percolated up through Germanic language origins early enough that when the Normans arrived in Normandy they brought it with them.
The Normans were called Normans because they were “north men” and had previously been Vikings.
After 300 years or so living in Normandy in what was to become France they lost most of their Germanic language and picked up the local jargon.
Well most of it. Not quite all of it. If they’d picked up all of it William would have been Gilliam.
They kept their Germanic accents and a few of their Germanic words. Wreck was one of those.
But it wasn’t because as Vikings they liked to wreck things. Instead wreck came to mean something destroyed because of its “drive” meaning.
This specifically applied to ships. If a ship is driven onto the rocks by a storm it gets destroyed. So it was the word that meant “driving” that got transferred onto the wreckage that had been driven.
That first Latin citation was a legal citation. The king was requiring that valuables found driven ashore belonged to him.
So although the word came to England on largely French tongues, it had in fact been of Germanic ancestry before that.
And this is borne out by an older word wreak. To wreak havoc or to wreak vengeance means to drive those destructive influences. This sister word showed up in Old English before the year 725.
Wreck seems to have been such a well used word that it even got passed back into Mediaeval Latin. The Romans had never used it, but as we see from William the Conqueror’s law, during the Middle Ages Latin scribes found it convenient to drop into their writings, as if the Romans had used it.
With all this deep history behind it I found one more thing to be surprised about with this word. After all those centuries the first citation we have for the past tense wrecked wasn’t until 1729.
The first user was Dr. John Woodward and he was talking about coral growing on wrecked ships.
John Woodward was one of those overly enthusiastic souls who can drive you crazy. He was admitted into the Royal Society and proceeded to pummel them with research papers and theories.
He was one of the first to grapple with the scientific method but he wasn’t all that good at it and often jumped to conclusions before all his data was in.
He was a real contributor to contemporary thinking but he inspired a degree of teasing in others.
One of his hobby horses was that old fossils could tell us much about the world that used to be. Ha ha, thought his contemporaries and one guy wrote a play spoofing him as Dr. Fossil.
An actor was hired to play Dr. Fossil and his first assignment was to get into character. He invented some phony illness and made an appointment with Dr. Woodward. As the actor explained his ills he carefully observed Woodward’s mannerisms so he could play them properly onstage. But when the examination was over it seemed he’d overplayed his sickness because Woodward refused payment, saying if he was that sick he’d better keep his cash—he was going to need it.
The upshot was that the actor felt Woodward was such an honorable guy that he refused to make fun of him onstage and wreck his reputation.
qq-2008-06-07_03-The First Mom A
fossil fish from nearly 400 million years ago has preserved embryos within it.
Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 143 - Bionic Gardening Gloves
Ninja and Special K's Future Back Yard
The lesbian gardening show. Ninja and Special K head out to Ontario's Sheridan Nurseries for a rainy adventure into the expensive world of luxury gardening equipment and shubbery shopping.
Canna Lilly
Tags: gardening · shubbery · spring · miniature evergreens
The Friday Fillip End of the month and time to clean out the Fillip Folder on my machine — which means it’s a six-pack today, apropos for (what should be) the long weekend, perhaps.
1. FontStruct
I worked at a university for a great many years, and I eventually discovered that most of the faculty had no eyes. For them the visual world was purely a source of information, primarily in the form of text. All else was ornamentation, something that others might add on at the end — if there was time or an obscure need. The best illustration of this, for profs and, indeed, for many lawyers and librarians, who are also info-grabbers, is the complete lack of attention to type faces. Now, there’s a sense in which this is exactly what the type designer wants: the best fonts should slip below consciousness and simply offer up text as pretty as you please. But that marvelous disappearing act doesn’t mean we should be unaware of the wonders of design that go into the making of good type faces. FontStruct is the right tool to give you that appreciation. You sign up and then are invited to make your own type face online. The tools are well explained and there are lots of examples by others that you can learn from. And the beauty is that you’ll see that beauty in this information delivery system is… difficult.
2. Sustainable Energy, Without The Hot Air
Professor David J.C. MacKay, a natural philosopher in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, is writing a “popular book” on the problem of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, and he’s made a draft copy available online. What distinguishes this book from others on the topic is MacKay’s insistence on using numbers rather than adjectives to delineate the problem, leading to conclusions such as: “To provide one quarter of [the U.K.] current energy consumption by growing energy crops, for example, would require 75% of Britain to be covered with biomass plantations.” He’s posted an executive synopsis of the book in PDF for those who don’t want to expend the energy it would take to read the whole thing.
3. Ultimate Flash Face
You’ve seen these “draw a face” kits online, typically offering you a limited selection of cartoon features with which to remake yourself. Well this, as the name suggests, is a more serious and a much more flexible application. 
From the big catalogue of bits you can pluck eyebrows, tweak noses and purse lips until you’ve got the likeness you’d like — for yourself or that elusive other. My attempt at me — click on the thumbnail to the right to see the larger version — is only vaguely like me, and it’s intriguing to try to figure out exactly what’s wrong — with my drawing, I mean.
4. World Community Grid
Lend a byte to make the world a better place. Here’s the place to go to donate time on your computer to any of a raft of worthwhile research projects. You install their software and then, when you’re online but idle — your computer, I mean — the researchers nip in and take advantage of your surplus computing power. You can donate your cpu’s to fighting AIDS, for example, or help develop more nutritious rice and half a dozen other worthy projects.
5. Kokanee Canary Canoe
Here’s a Friday project: learn the words to “The Kokanee Canary Canoe,” a very Canadian ditty by Ross Douglas, and get out that uke to serenade your sweetie on Canada Day as you glide along in peace and contentment. For a bit of a head start, here’s the first verse:
Hey don’t you brood if your mood is a sourin
Come to the Bowron it’s waitng for you
There neath the moon you will soon stop your glowerin
I’ll take you out in my Kokanee Canary Canoe
Oh, and so you know what tune to use, here’s an MP3 clip from the song.
6. Irn-Bru Ads
Finally, lest even number 5 is too earnest, let me close with something radically unearnest. Irn-Bru is that Scottish pop that outsells even Coke in the land of the kilt. And though it doesn’t really seem necessary, they advertise the thing — with movie spots that take the piss out of many many things, so to speak. Bottoms up.
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