Archive for March, 2008
Well it has been nearly a full year since the Environmental Protection Agency was ordered by the Supreme Court to determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson (a Bush appointee) is apparently following the Bush administrations stance that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and has opposed mandatory limits even in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
Tuesday in front of the Senate Appropriations environment subcommittee Johnson was grilled by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif who repeatedly asked him [Johnson] “Is anyone working on this at the present time, Mr. Johnson?” she asked. “How many members of your staff are currently working on this?” “I don’t know the answer to that,” Johnson replied. She then remarked that it was strange that the EPA chief “can’t give me a number (of people engaged) on something that is a Supreme Court finding.”
Myself I feel it is only par for the course for an administration that is dedicated to raping and pillaging the country as a whole. They have no concern for anything or anyone except their friends in big industry. I don’t know how long it will take to dig our way out of the tremendous hole they have dug for us the country.
Back when my daughter and son were were young I had an accident at work falling and blowing out my shoulder when I landed on it. The insurance company fought it all the way. Denying everything, trying to get out of not only paying me but my doctor bills as well. Finally I had to get a lawyer to sue them into doing the right thing. It sure would have been nice to have found someone doing litigation funding. If we had not of had savings we would have lost everything waiting on a settlement and still not able to work. Law Max can help you survive the time it takes to settle without taking the first offer because you are in dire financial need. Scared of losing your home or being evicted. I sure wish they had been around all those years ago as we could have used them.
??? You remember that last week the Congress once again passed an energy bill giving tax incentives for wind, solar and other renewable fuels. Well right on cue the big oil lackeys in the Senate are howling bloody murder over the loss of tax incentives to the big oil companies. Last year they passed a almost identical bill that was threatened by veto and the Senate caved right in. Of course it doesn’t take much caving in when big oil has donated so much to some Senators. Plus we have their [big oil] best buddy in the White House. It’s not like he really cares about what is good for the country or its citizens. I knew right away how deeply he felt for the citizens in the country when he was so fast in getting to the gulf coast after Katrina. It’s not like he didn’t fly over it after he finished his vacation at the ranch. Probably even had the pilot tip the wingtip over a little in Air Force One so he could see the destruction a little better.
??? Anyhow about the energy bill. It is funded the same way – pay as you go – and that payment is the dropping of 17 billion dollars in tax credits for big oil. New investments in clean, non-fossil-fuel energy sources – need help until they become competitive with older, dirtier energy sources. It’s not like the oil companies need these tax breaks. They are rolling in money, posting the largest corporate earnings ever. The five biggest producers only made 145 billion in profits last year. If those arguments are not enough, we offer the Senate some words from the decider himself [President Bush]. In a 2005 address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Mr. Bush spoke forcefully of the need for an energy strategy that looked to the long term and emphasized conservation and renewable fuels. Of the oil and gas industry, he said pointedly: ?I will tell you with $55 oil we don?t need incentives to the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives. What we need is to put a strategy in place that will help this country over time become less dependent.? Even the most dim witted Senator should be able to see that a country that uses 20% of the worlds oil but only has 3% of its reserves can not drill its way to energy independence.
My question would be – If that was true at $55 a barrel, why is not it even more valid and urgent at $100 a barrel?
In my efforts to help people find health insurance I have found another insurance company that will accept individual family coverage as well as coverage for small business’s. They are Kaiser Permanente Health Insurance a nation wide company. They have different plans to accommodate your needs. If you are an individual they have a plan for you. If you need to cover your family with health insurance they can help you. And if you are a small business they are the perfect place to get coverage for yourself and employees. They not only cover you if you are sick but have plans for maintaining your health before you get sick. Plans to help you lead a well balanced life and and fighting stress or quitting smoking. You can even keep a check on your medical records and tests online. Check them out they may be exactly the right health group for you.
I don’t know how many of you use Internet Explorer or visit sites like MySpace or FaceBook and use their plugins. Myself I do not have anything on those sites and never use Internet Explorer for anything other than checking a web page to make sure it displays properly in IE and Firefox (my choice of browser).
According to the Washington Post‘s Security Fix blog, cyber criminals are populating the Internet with Web sites designed to exploit several recently-discovered security holes in a half-dozen widely used ActiveX plug-ins for IE 6 and 7, most notably the one offered by Facebook and MySpace to help users upload photos. The sites, advertised via links in email and instant message spam, also ‘probe for other vulnerable IE plug-ins, including two recently discovered from Yahoo! and one for QuickTime (this one attacks a vulnerability Apple patched just last month). The sites also throw in an exploit against a six-month-old IE flaw.’
If you use any of those plugins for IE you really need to deactivate the plug-ins with a GUI tool that?SANS Internet Storm Center has released. Actually my advise would be to dump Internet Explorer all together and down load a copy of Firefox. Once you go to it you will never want to use IE again. I have been a user of it since before it ever got its name and love it.
As many of you regular readers know I am an advocate of health care for all.But I doubt the governments will or ability to cover everyone under universal coverage. I have found a great site that can help you if you are self employed like I always was as well as most of my family. We always wanted to be on our own and not depend upon others. But there is the very real problem of insurance. You never know when you or one of your family can be taken sick. If you have no health care they don’t want to see you and treat you. You might be able to get treatment at some free clinic but quality of life saving treatments are not likely to be forth coming. Right now Peoples Health Care is only in Florida and Illinois but have some very competitive rates. Check out health insurance Florida for your own insurance plan. How can you not afford to have insurance?