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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (543774)	1/14/2010 1:27:16 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575816

Robert Kennedy Jr said Katrina may have hit MS coast to punish Haley Barbour. But was it God or Gaia that sent Katrina? “For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind” As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2. In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman’s strong statement affirming Bush’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House. Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administration’s attention. The document, titled “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2,” was addressed to Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then gearing up, and to several high-ranking officials with strong connections to energy and automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide issue, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, both of whom were on record supporting CO2 caps. Barbour’s memo chided these administration insiders for trying to address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical fringe issue. “A moment of truth is arriving,” Barbour wrote, “in the form of a decision whether this Administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore.” He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as “eco-extremism,” and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.” The memo had impact. “It was terse and highly effective, written for people without much time by a person who controls the purse strings for the Republican Party,” said John Walke, a high-ranking air quality official in the Clinton administration. On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position, announcing he would not back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale provided by Barbour. Echoing Barbour’s memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2 caps, due to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge” about global climate change. Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming. Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children. In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast. [UPDATE: Alas, the reprieve for New Orleans was only temporary. But Haley Barbour still has much to answer for.] huffingtonpost.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (543774)	1/14/2010 1:32:28 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1575816

? why we have given them Biilions in the last 20 years. What did they do with the money ?

To: Road Walker who wrote (543774)	1/14/2010 1:33:48 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575816

This is worst than Katrina. Much. Looking at years to "recover". Maybe the worst place on the planet for this to happen. I was in a 6.8 earthquake. As bad as that was, it was child's play compared to this one. The devastation is shocking. The president of Haiti has no home. The building for every major institution has been destroyed. They say every third blding has been flattened. Rebuilding such devastation would be daunting for a country like the US. How is it possible for the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. What's horrific is the dishonest Hatians who are running a con where they tell people a tsunami is coming and to run for higher ground. The already terrified people drop their belongings and start to run only to have the crooks come in and grab the stuff.

To: Road Walker who wrote (543774)	1/15/2010 4:27:39 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575816

Interesting analysis of the credit card mess. Master Trust Credit card data 1/15/2010 3:58 PM EST Delinquencies: American Express 3.70% (down from 3.90% in November) Bank of America 7.44% (down from 7.69%) Cap One 5.78% (down from 5.87%) Citi 5.62% (down from 5.81%) Discover 5.49% (down from 5.65%) Chase 4.94% (up from 4.90%). Charge-offs: 7.10% (down from 7.60%) Bank of America 13.53% (up from 13.00%) Cap One 10.14% (up from 9.60%). Citi 9.56% (down from 10.29%) Discovery 8.68% (down from 8.98%) Chase 7.11% (down from 8.81%). Overall I think these numbers don't look bad. I think the generally lower delinquencies is very encouraging. I also think American Express continues to be the obvious leader in this space whereas I continue to question Capital One.