Hey Greg, Mark, Tim, Noel, Warner and the rest, I hope you guys have a steady supply of Pepto Bismol in the drug cabinet.  You're really gonna need it.

Houston...we have a problem south of the border....

Honduras temporarily grabs Exxon, Chevron terminals

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduras will take temporary control of foreign-owned oil storage terminals as part of a government import program meant to drive down fuel prices, President Manuel Zelaya said late on Saturday.

Zelaya ordered the move after failing to reach a deal with big oil companies Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile , Research) and Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile , Research), as well as local company DIPPSA, to rent the terminals.

"It is not a nationalization, it's a temporary use of the storage tanks through a lease and payment of a reasonable price," he said.

Nowhere to Run....Nowhere To Hide.....

How about Equality Day?

I do not deny the tireless and intrepid work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nor his lofty place in history; to do so would be disingenuous.

However, as others have mused in recent years, why is he the only individual whom the United States currently honors with a national holiday? It surely does not make one racially insensitive to propose that, in lieu of Dr. King Day and in reverence to all the other great individuals of various ethnicities our country has seen (Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Chief Seattle, Hyam Solomon), that we either honor each fairly and separately, or more judiciously, ratify a national Equality Day.

But wait, Equality Day? Maybe it sounds like something a contemporary middle-schooler would come up with, and I can just hear it now: You mean on the other 364 days we're
unequal?

Still, it remains that MLK Day is the only day of the year that our great nation honors a singular American. Remember Washington' s and Lincoln' s birthdays? They were combined into one generic Presidents Day, and at universities, they're now basically just dead white men. Classes go on as though it's an ordinary day.

Nowhere to Run....Nowhere To Hide.....

Liberal kills feminism

It's official: Feminism is dead. And it was a liberal who killed it.

The crime scene was Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., last week.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State and perhaps the most accomplished woman in world politics today, was patiently sitting through another session of anti-war Democrats playing for the cameras.

It was Barbara Boxer's turn, the leftist Senator from California.

Boxer and Rice were talking about Iraq. They disagree on things -- that's fine. There are reasonable arguments for America to defend Iraq, and there are reasonable arguments for America to pull out. But that's not how Boxer approached it.

Boxer was flustered by Rice -- a multilingual PhD, former head of Stanford University, concert pianist and Russian expert. Out of arguments, Boxer degenerated into sneers: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family," she said. "So who pays the price? The American military and their families."

Of all the arguments the Democrats can muster to oppose Rice, of all the facts and figures and logic, the best they can do is point out Rice is a single woman with no kids in the military.

This, from the party that claims to be feminist?

Boxer herself has no family in the armed forces. Does that disqualify her from having an opinion on the subject? Of course not; like Canada, the U.S. military is overseen by civilians. That means most political decision-makers won't be soldiers. Frankly, it's an odd complaint from a peacenik Democrat.

Nowhere to Run....Nowhere To Hide.....

Reid and Reform

WASHINGTON -- A beaming Harry Reid last week basked in the adoration of the Democratic Party's leading Senate reformers and its nine freshman senators. They extravagantly praised the new majority leader as the exemplar of ethical reform. But within 48 hours, Reid was opposing full transparency of earmarks. This week, Republican reformers will target Reid with an amendment to the Senate ethics package.

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the proposal is called the "Reid amendment" because he inadvertently inspired it. Coburn would tighten loose anti-earmark restrictions in the ethics bill by prohibiting senators from requesting earmarks that financially benefit a senator, an immediate family member of a senator or a family member of a senator's staffer.

The proposal follows the revelation that Reid's four sons and his daughter's husband all have been lawyers or lobbyists for special interests. While Reid has declared they are barred from lobbying for their clients in his office, there is little doubt they have taken advantage of their close proximity to a powerful senator.

An example is provided by earmarks that have sent millions of federal dollars to the University of Nevada at Reno. Reid's son-in-law, lawyer Steven Barringer, was a paid lobbyist for the university. In general, Republican reformers see Reid illustrating the nexus between legislators and special interests, in his case mainly real estate, gambling and mining.

Reid is far from the only prominent member of Congress who would be violating Coburn's amendment if it passed. Republican Rep. Bill Young of Florida, a senior member and former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, secured a $1 million earmark for development of military body armor -- a project lobbied for by his daughter-in-law. Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the new House majority whip, has been reported by USA Today as pushing through a $2.5 million airport earmark lobbied for by his first cousin.

Sen. Ted Stevens, senior Republican member of the Senate, has funneled $29 million in earmarks to the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, then headed by his son, State Sen. Ben Stevens. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the new minority leader, won a $1.5 million earmark for an underground financial storage depot in his home state of Kentucky, lobbied for by the wife of the senator's chief of staff.

The "Reid amendment" is only part of a plan by Coburn and his fellow first-term Republican senator, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, to make sure that earmark reform is included in new ethical standards. Democratic efforts, particularly in the Senate, have concentrated on conduct of lobbyists and not members of Congress. Although the House version passed last week is stronger, the final compromise coming out of a Senate-House conference may barely touch the surface of earmarks.

Nowhere to Run....Nowhere To Hide.....

Hey, where's my Shrub Report? Did someone swipe it off my front porch or did that kid throw it in the bushes again?

The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

- Arabian Proverb

This has nothing to do with politics, but am I the only one who can't wait for the new Ghost Rider movie?!

The History Channel exposes racist drugwar history. "The tongs are your friend."
JMR

Any news from her thighness? Wonder what she's hearing from kerry's dummies?

Take a sec, and see what the AP reported and published here, but read the "discussion" link at the end - kida says more

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,122168,00.html?wh=news

There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad