And you thought that all ended back in 2002 when that firestorm of protest greeted Cheney's little private meetings with oil and automobile executives that environemtalists were barred from entering, huh. Nope. According to the Detroit Press, Vice President Cheney met with the chief executives of Chrysler and Ford last month. There was no public discussion of the content of the meetings of course- Cheney has got to be the most secretive public servant who has ever graced the federal halls- he acts like he works for the CIA when he is actually an elected official.
Anyway, here is MY guess on what was discussed. I figure that Chrysler and Ford begged Cheney to do whatever he could to help them fight the idea of improved mileage standards for their cars. Recently the State of California has tried to set up a very tight and demanding program (the California Climate Initiative) to improve car efficiency- an accelerated timetable comared to the one recently set up by the U.S. congress. What I figure is that Cheney said, no problem I will have a little chat with our EPA guy. The EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, announced just afterwards that he had decided to refuse to allow the California plan to be instituted.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper took a dim view of this decision. It asserts that an EPA staffer stated that "California met every criteria ... on the merits. The same criteria we have used for the last 40 years on all the other waivers." But failed to convince Johnson.
The Bush Administration would like you to believe that the process of interfering with agency rulings in order to cut a softer deal for industry is not happening any more. But there is reason to doubt that.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 10
There is a solution, to change the nature of our money. But since this idea has never before been considered there is only one source of information on such a solution. I have published a novel, "Invisible Hand" here on Gather which provides a detailed description of such a system with its huge advantages over all previous systems.
For example with the new money there is no inflation, no poverty, no unemployment, no organized crime, no taxes, almost no government (it isn't needed so it goes away), no regulation of business (it isn't needed either), no labor troubles, no war, no illegal immigrant problem, no social security problem, no health insurance problem and so on and on.
I know it sounds impossible but that's only because we have not been able to "think outside the box" on the nature of our money. The novel explains how it is that money brings about these evil happenings and exactly how an improved money could operate. Unless you really enjoy complaining about your problems and don't really want to solve them please read the book.
It's also available at:
http://www.unc.edu/~mason/hand.html
if you would rather read it without the Gather ads.
(You can check out the comments on the various chapters on gather to see what others think of the ideas.)
The lawsuit will probably take a couple years, so Bush has managed to keep Exxon happy during his own administration.
As to your wheezing, I've heard that Cheney has been listed as one of the leading causes of Asthma. You might want to have that looked at. I'm sure there some kind of drug out there to help control your asthma, and I just bet Dick owns stock in it. The man's somewhat of an evil genius, you know.
I kind of visualize him as doing the Doctor Evil Shtick as soon as the cameras turn off. Like "throw me a frickin' bone here people!" Sorry I got carried away there. I know the Austin Powers movies are not real deep but they do have their funny moments.
The sad part about all this is that if Detroit is deluded into thinking that it can continue to manufacture polluting vehicles, it will miss not only the boat regarding cleaner cars, but also regarding the new generation of electric vehicles. Right now, the US still has many crucial technologies, such as nanotechnology, but without large-scale production of cars and solar panels to benefit from this technology, it won't be long before Asia will price the US companies out of the market, once mass manufacturing starts there. The US has a window of opportunity to stimulate its own manufacturing base and the sooner the new reality is accepted, the better.
"It dwarfs Bill Clinton's affair"
But doesn't even come close to President Clinton perjuring him self before the courts.
I don't know. To be completely fair, maybe we would be talking about Bush's sex life given the right circumstances. Really, I doubt there's all that much to talk about. On the other hand, he has to be doing something right to keep a reasonably intelligent woman interested. I feel worse for Laura than I ever did for Hilary. Hil seemed to have options. Frankly, the fact that Bill even lived through it is a testament to Secret Service protection. I wouldn't cross that woman!
Dan, I always come back to the same scale - Perjury to save face about a bl** Job- WMD's, oil interests, Bad handling of the war. hmmm. My scale tips only one way. I'm fully aware that Bill and Hillary aren't squeaky clean at all. I'm just saying if you weigh things with the criteria of harm done to our country's interests. It's not even a contest. W tips that scale every time.
President Clinton was being sued for sexual harrassment, the fact that he was having sexual relations with an intern would have established a pattern that the plaintiff could have used to promote their case.
"My scale tips only one way."
Another way of saying you don't have the ability to be objective?