File this under - We already knew THAT!

Breaking News!


The latest celebrity news is really quite shocking. It reveals that apparently Lance was THE ONLY gay member of 'N Sync. Who knew?

Raping and Bleeding US dry

How the Oil companies are Raping us and Bleeding us dry
The profit margin has definitely increased since the early 1990s:

"The evidence is in the numbers. The domestic gasoline price spread  –-  the price of a gallon of gas, minus the cost of crude oil and taxes –-  has increased by 30 percent from the mid-1990s to 2004. That spread measures the share of a gallon of gas charged by refiners and marketers. In the mid-to late-1990s, the domestic spread averaged 39 cents per gallon. But during the post-merger period from 2000-2004, the average domestic spread has been 51 cents. (See  Fueling Profits, a report by Mark N. Cooper for the Consumer Federation.) This translates to an increase in U.S. gasoline prices of $55 billion, the amount by which U.S. consumers have been price-gouged. It is no coincidence that oil corporation profits are at record highs."
Neiman Watchdog

According to one report Exxon Mobil sold 621,960,000 gallons of gasoline in 2005. They profited $36.1B in 2005.

So if Exxon Mobil reduced the price of gasoline by 50c/gallon (remember they control almost 30% of the price [from the DOE] since they also control a majority of the oil refining capacity companies too), it would decrease their overall profits by just $300M dollars. They would still have made over $35.7B in 2005.

PS. At a national average of $3.07 (We're not far off that now) in Sept 2005, Gas refineries were making $1/gallon PROFIT. That's included in the 22% control of refining capacity and also in the bottom line of the Big oil companies like Exxon Mobil.
I won't go as far as Beeville, Texas mayor who demanded that ExxonMobil drop prices to $1.30 and boycott them until that happens. Because I don't think it will ever happen. Gas companies will just not allow prices to ever dip below $2 again. What will happen from my wallet's POV is that I will never buy another gallon of blood gasoline from ExxonMobil EVER again.

Space Shuttle Experimental after 30 Years???

“The good news is that the shuttle is still a relatively safe experimental space vehicle with a 1-in-60 to 1-in-100 chance of a category one failure—loss of vehicle, loss of crew. The bad news is that after $2 billion in expenditures for the reflight effort—and now many years after the Columbia failure—critical objectives set by the CAIB have not been accomplished,”
— Joseph Pelton, a research professor with the Institute for Applied Space Research at George Washington University.

Here’s my question: Why is the space shuttle program considered experimental after 30 years of operations and missions. Shouldn’t it be considered a refined project? And the if plan is to do more than 16 missions over the next 4 years to complete the International Space Station, shouldn’t that be taken into consideration? It sure seems that with all the dissent going on between parties INSIDE NASA that some external observer needs to step in and mitigate the potential losses. I’m not convinced enough in the program to put my life on the line for a 1-60 or even 1-100 chance of failure (read: DEATH!).

Barry - the Baseball Killer

Awesome. What I've been thinking about for a few weeks now has finally been quantified with facts and figures. Barry Bonds only has 600some valid homeruns.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/060512&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Barry Bonds is killing Baseball. (Notice that I used a capital B in Baseball, meaning that he is not "killing the ball" like hitting it, but ruining Baseball the sport.) His chemically-induced record breaking is not just breaking time-honored and tested records. It is actually hurting the reputation (not so important) and the integrity (REALLY IMPORTANT) of Baseball. Say what you want about all the $$ that the players make, at least most of them actually perform for their money and don't cheat the system. Barry Bonds needs to be taken out of the game, one way or another. And NOW.

eQuality

Why is it that many effeminate men have broken through the glass floor of the title "stewardess" but there are very very few female pilots in the commercial airline industry?
American Airlines says 4.5% of all their pilots are women.

May 1 Boycot: AKA Finding Illegals

Attention President Bush and Congress. Wondering how to find all the 12 million supposed illegal imigrants in this country? Think it will be hard to find them let alone deport them all? Look on May 1. Every illegal immigrant will be playing hookey from work. Get with the employers to tell you who missed and start there.
http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_102231326.html

Earthlink SUCKS!!!

Let me just rant with 2 words:
EARTHLINK SUCKS!
If you've ever tried to do tech support, you know that the brick wall that is Earthlink mail servers lets NOTHING through, even valid tech support responses to people's emails. They need to really get some decent programmers in there to set up a more automatic approval on any outgoing mail So that people get back responses to the very emails they sent out. Very basic and logical. I guess the dorks at earthlink don't understand logic.