economics tidbits #2

"In 2005, there were 9 million American millionaires, a 62% increase since 2002." — Mother Jones Magazine May/June 2006

"Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage has fallen 42% since its peak in 1968." — Mother Jones Magazine May/June 2006

"Two-parent families are spending 16% more time at work, or 500 hours a year, than they did in 1979." — The Nation May 2006

Due to the rise in metal prices (especially zinc), the cost of making a U.S. penny is now 1.4 cents and the cost of making a nickel is now 5.73 cents.

U.S. Elections of 2006

Most U.S. local & state primary elections are June 6th; the national/general election is November 6th.

Any U.S. citizen who does not vote in the 2006 Primary and 2006 General Elections surrenders the right to call him-/herself an American.

It is time to take the country back from the Carlisle Group, Halliburton, Kellogg-Brown-Root 'petroleum industrial complex' that pulls the strings attached to mouthpiece-puppet George Dubya Bush.

The impeachment of Bush & Cheney hinges on the people's will, expressed in the June 2006 Primary Elections – replacing all G.O.P. candidates and fellow-traveling Democrats – and in the November 2006 General Elections.

Your country is calling for action, for a New Revolution, for a stand to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution against the fascists running the Bush Administration.

A new 2006 U.S. National Elections Page has been added on the Working Minds website; it will be updated regularly.

Rove indicted

word is out that on Friday {May 12th} Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald handed warrants to Karl Rove's lawyers specifying indictments of Rove for perjury and obstruction of justice

update May 27: nothing has since happened on this, which seems to be connected to the indictment itself being secret; no 'U.S. vs. Rove' case was filed that day, but there is a 'Sealed vs. Sealed' filing; what is going on? conjecture has it that Fitzgerald's boss ordered the secrecy

update June 13: Rove's lawyer stated that Rove will not be prosecuted, based on a letter from Fitzgerald; Fitzgerald's office declined to confirm or deny the statement.

wholesale price of gas

According to the governor of Montana, he and the governers of Wyoming and North Dakota set up a coalition and met with in-state oil producers to ramp up production of crude oil a couple weeks ago. The producers agreed. Turned out the bottleneck up there is the pipeline to the refineries.

The pipeline people offered the independent American oil producers $32 a barrel! – during a time when crude oil on the world market is over $70 a barrel.

Price-gouging is a fact. And Gov. Schweitzer has asked his Attorney General to investigate: see PDF file of memo.

(based on an interview with Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, heard on the Ed Schultz radio show Thursday 4 May 2006)

price of gas + boycott

the average price of gas/petrol when George Bush was anointed President was $1.46 per gallon; the current price (5 years later) is an average of $2.91 per gallon, an increase of 100% [from the A.A.A. in April 2006]

while many pooh-pooh the idea or effectiveness of a boycott, the chain emails in support of a boycott of Exxon-Mobil are an angry response to the unconscionable windfall profits that Exxon-Mobil and the others of the U.S. oil monopoly have taken out of your pocket

the bottom line about the boycott is that it won't hurt to drive past Exxon-Mobil's retail locations and buy from another brand – the message may get delivered if enough join in; the Valero-Shamrock C-store in my town keeps their pump price several cents lower than the others, so Shamrock is my usual fill up anyway

drugs and execution

most current methods of execution are rough on the recipient, which is not a surprise since the purpose is to kill the person sentenced to death by the legal system; the newer methods of execution by injection are hardly better than electrocution or hanging or the firing squad (drawing and quartering has been out of favor for a while)

here's a better method for execution of criminals: inject them with heroin, which is a natural substance for which the human body has receptors, which is why getting hooked is so difficult to undo

the use of heroin for executions has two benefits over the other methods: first, the experience for the executee will be rather pleasant, actually, and the overdose no less lethal, which removes the complaints about cruelty

secondly, kids and others considering or being pressured to try a little 'pop' of heroin – no big deal, you can quit any time, no real harm done – will be clear that heroin is used to execute criminals because heroin is very, very lethal

June 2nd Bomb Testing

Hidden from public knowledge until a few days ago, the Pentagon is preparing to test a gigantic open-air explosion at the Nevada Test Site, location of most of America's prior nuclear testing. The explosion in Area 16 of Yucca Flat is expected to create a mushroom cloud visible from Las Vegas. The 'bomb' is being constructed of chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel, the same ingredients as the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, placed into a 30-foot deep hole.

The code name for the test is 'Divine Strake'; the name alone is enough to make anyone worried. ('Strake' is the term for a plank on the hull of a ship or boat, as in the lapstrake hulls of Viking sailing ships; modern usage is for certain devices on an aircraft fuselage to increase air-speed.)

The Nevada Test Site is located roughly 65 miles (north & west) from Las Vegas and roughly 35 miles (south & east) from the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility – the tunnels intended to house spent fuel rods from nuclear energy plants along with all manner of other radioactive waste for all of eternity.

DETAILS

The explosion is rated at 700 tons, which is 700 times larger than the biggest conventional (non-nuclear) bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The maximum payload of the workhorse B-52 bomber is only 35 tons, the C-5A cargo plane carries only 145 tons, so there is no way to deliver such a gigantic conventional bomb.

The explosion is expected to stir up kilotons of dust & dirt, likely containing radioactive fallout from all those Cold War nuclear experiments – which is of course denied by the Pentagon.

CONCLUSIONS

This test is using conventional weapons to see how much damage will occur from a small 'tactical' nuclear weapon, as is planned for Dubya's upcoming unprovoked assault on Iran.

You can expect that the attack on Iran will be timed to skew the Congressional elections in November, and the term 'October Surprise' (invented by 'Tricky Dicky' Nixon) is most apt.

SIDE NOTE
When George Dubya Bush was a child, he took pleasure in stuffing firecrackers up the anus of live frogs and then lighting the firecracker. 'Divine Strake' is more of the same pathology.

UPDATE May 10
Members of the Shoshone Tribe and others living east of the Nevada Test Site – 'downwinders' – filed suit in Las Vegas federal court to halt the 'Divine Strake' bomb test; the test has been postponed until June 23rd. The protest group is the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

UPDATE May 27
The National Nuclear Security Administration has buckled, since they cannot provide evidence to back up the Finding of No Significant Impact for the proposed mock atomic test. 'Divine Strake' is indefinitely postponed until a revised Environmental Impact Report can be produced.

UPDATE August 3
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency announced that the 'Divine Strake' non-atomic bomb test is postponed until at least 2007, possibly in a different location.

{For a historical perspective on America's atomic past,
visit the Atomic U.S.A. Page at Spirit of America Bookstore}

TreasonGate Timeline updated

The first version of the Working Minds TreasonGate Cover-Up Timeline was included in Issue #53 [July 2005] of the Working Minds 'WMail' ezine, and also posted online as Essay #53.

As subsequent events reveal more pieces of the cover-up, this new page will be the location of ongoing updates regarding George Dubya's path to impeachment!

The page http://www.working-minds.com/TreasonGate.htm was updated this week.

WMail #58: "The 51% Solution"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The 51% Solution", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay58.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006a.htm#58

the topic of the last issue was "Civil Disobedience", and the May issue will be on the topic "The Distinction Source"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

feature film "Black Billy"

started the Landmark Education seminar on Creativity (for the 4th or 5th time) on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I wrote the outline for a movie; (any day that I write is an excellent day, the days in between are just days in between)

New Mexico has a unique attitude about their outlaws and lawmen – Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County Wars, Elfego Baca, Blackjack Ketchum, the Bowdres – that shows up in the local media etc, an attitude of mostly pride, some nostalgia, and overall 'this is what New Mexicans are like'

I'll call this screenplay "Black Billy" because it is a noir Western tale, with the noir structure and the noir stance of inevitable doom: there is nothing Billy can do to prevent his too-certain fate, and he knows it — think Peckinpah

WMail #57: "Civil Disobedience"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Civil Disobedience", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay57.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006a.htm#57

the topic of the last issue was "State of Emergency", and the April issue will be on the topic "The 51% Solution"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

economic tidbits #1

"The number of people living in extreme poverty [in America] is the highest ever recorded since the census Bureau began tracking such data three decades ago."
— Eyal Press, in The Nation Magazine

"American households experienced negative savings [in 2005] – they spent $42 billion more than they earned – for the first time since 1933, the depths of the Great Depression."
— William Greider in The Nation Magazine (20 Feb 2006 issue)

"The personal savings rate in 2005 [was] minus 0.5%, the first year since the Great Depression that Americans spent more than they made."
— Time Magazine (13 Feb 2006 issue)

"The number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has fallen all the way back to the level it was in 1945."
— Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky [Dem IL]

"By most conventional measures, especially job growth, the Bush years have been the worst of any president in the last fifty years ... Since the recession ended at the end of 2001, corporate profits are up 81 percent, while the wages that corporations pay their employees are up just 18%, a ratio of over four to one ... We're some ten million jobs below where we should be, based on historical averages."
— Doug Henwood, The Left Business Observer [est. 1986]
& The Washington Spectator

Working Minds 'Boycott W-9 Project'

The Forces of Endarkenment are on the brink of provoking Pearl Harbor III sometime in 2006. (September 11 was the curiously convenient Second Pearl Harbor.)

While we may have 'nothing to fear but fear itself', events around the world and within America are cause for great concern, frustration and worry. Detention camps are being built across America by Halliburton, war plans move forward for air attacks on Iran, the Rangel-Hollings Bill lurks offstage, the budget deficit sets records, the National Debt has risen beyond legal levels, and Americans are losing jobs and trying to survive on their equity or meager savings.

Folks who pay attention to non-propaganda news sources are looking for ways to act, to restore Constitutional powers to Congress (such as oversight), and to halt the lies & deceit & unwarranted secrecy, the war crimes and bribery, the greed & torture & death, the widespread abuse of power that is the stock in trade of the Bush Administration.

The new 'Working Minds Boycott W-9 Project' includes steps to take back your power, to assert your freedom as an Individual, to voice your disgust & disdain & disapproval of the way that America is headed – leaping and bounding toward an economic tsunami, toward widespread religious wars, toward ecological disaster, toward the sale of America and Americans to the lowest bidder.

The new website URL is http://www.BoycottW9.org
(which redirects to http://www.working-minds.com/boycottW9.htm )

Visit the site & begin your participation in the boycott ...
then copy & paste this to everyone in your address book

Fight tyranny: Regime change in November 2006 !!

boycott the Oligarchy

this new website includes simple steps for bringing the Bush-Cheney-Rove Imperial Presidency to account for their treasonous disregard for the U.S. Constitution & its guarantees of privacy, representational government & due process

http://www.boycottW9.org
which redirects to http://www.working-minds.com/boycottW9.htm

Regime change in November 2006 !!

Google™ has a philosophy

The Google philosophy:
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well
3. Fast is better than slow
4. Democracy on the web works
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer
6. You can make monëy without doing evil
7. There is always more information out there
8. The need for information crosses all borders
9. You can be serious without a suit
10. Great just isn't good enough
                   {{ from their website }}

Monopolies Я Us (part 2)

BROADCAST MEDIA INDUSTRY
"Five conservative companies own 90% of the media in America." — per talk show host Ed Schultz

---

PERSONAL COMPUTER INDUSTRY
Microsoft has 90% of the personal computer market, though hundreds of other vendors make the products & get the revenue. Poor Apple/Mac is still only 10% of the PC market; their main business is now the fantastically successful iPod.

---

PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
As for the U.S. petroleum monopoly, five companies control 56.3% of the market and the top ten companies own 83.3% (per January 2006 Senate testimony by Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen).

The breakdown for 2004 is as follows:
Conoco-Phillips et al 13%
Valero-Shamrock 12.8%
Exxon-Mobil 11.9%
Shell et al 9.8%
B.P. 8.8%
Chevron-Texaco-Unocal 5.9%
Citgo 5.8%
Marathon 5.5%
Sunoco 5.3%
Koch-Flint Hills 4.5%
... for a total of 83.3%, leaving independent oil companies with only 16.7% !!

another smoking gun

On February 2nd, U.K.'s Channel 4 News released the story of their having a copy of the classified transcript of the 31 January 2003 meeting of President Bush & British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House, where they agreed to provoke Saddam Hussein into military action that would justify an invasion of Iraq.

Portions of the classified transcript are online at http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=1661

Bush said that "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another {U.N.} resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway."

Blair responded that he is "solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam."

Extra credit question: How many times did you hear/see a report on this news item broadcast over the major media in the last week?

WMail #56: "State of Emergency"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "State of Emergency", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay56.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006a.htm#56

the topic of the last issue was "Joining the Circle", and the February issue will be on the topic "The 51% Solution"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

timely quotations

“Nothing is required for the triumph of evil but that good men do nothing.” — quoted by John F. Kennedy, often attributed to Edmund Burke, but actual origin unknown

“Anyone who votes for George Dubya Bush is dumber than he is.”
— G.E. Nordell (2004)

“If Dubya wins, America loses.” — G.E. Nordell (2004)

“Freedom exists in the exercise of it.” — G.E. Nordell

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
— Anaïs Nin [1903-77]

“I actually think [George W.] Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet.” — Ken Livingston, Mayor of the City of London, U.K. (2003)

filibuster Alito

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." — Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]

nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday January 31st before & during King George's 'State of the Union' speech: locations at the World Can't Wait website

World Can't Wait is holding a demonstration on Saturday February 4th in Washington, DC to march in protest to the White House: protest info

other events are listed at the Democratic National Committee website

SIGN THE FILIBUSTER PETITION at John Kerry's website
{signers' names will be entered into the Congressional Record by Sen. Kerry}