philly

Happy Earth Day, From W

Better late than never, BushCo has delivered a present to this oil-addicted country of ours, a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline! Yaaaaayyyyyy!

Surely this will bring down those gasoline prices, right? Prices are just about at $3 for regular here in Philadelphia.

From the AP:

Easing the environment rules will allow refiners greater flexibility in providing oil supplies since they will not have to use certain additives such as ethanol to meet clean air standards. The suspension of oil purchases for the federal emergency oil reserve is likely to have only modest impact since relative little extra oil will be involved.
...
The president said Democrats in the past have urged higher taxes on fuel and price caps to control fuel expenses, but he said neither approach works. Instead, he called for increased conservation, an expansion of domestic production and increased use of alternative fuels like ethanol.

Did you just do a double take too? Ethanol good? Ethanol bad? Grrrr. Hulk smash!

But for real, we have some ridiculous problems here. And Bush has his take on them:

Bush said that high gasoline prices are like a hidden tax on consumers and businesses, although he said the nation's economy was strong. He urged Congress to take back some of the billions of dollars in tax incentives it gave energy companies, saying that with record profits, they don't need the breaks. He urged lawmakers to expand tax breaks for the purchase of fuel-efficient hybrid automobiles.

A hidden tax on the community, indeedy. That tax is being collected in the Veep's pockets. The economy is strong like steamd bok choi [hint hint]. Urged Congress to take back tax incentives he and his Veep pushed through?! Expand tax breaks for hybrids? How about taking away tax breaks for Hummers too.

What are your suggestions taking a longer term look at things than this myopic BushCo?

Phil Mickelson - Exxon-Mobil Man

He's more than just a golfer [which, by the way is not a fucking sport]. He's a spokesperson for golf-centric companies like Calloway/Titleist and then there are the non-golf money streams. Rolex. Charles Schwab. Ford. And last night I saw a commercial, starring him, for Exxon-Mobil. Blech. Now that's just nasty.

If you didn't know it already, the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil just received a $400M retirement package "including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes." Now ain't that some shit.

Today, prices for crude oil hit $70 for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Phil Mickelson's silky swing, oiled by Exxon-Mobil. :)

2006 Taxes

They're done.

Since I've started doing some freelance photography here and there, I decided to file an individual return as well as a small business. I applied for a one time business license from the City of Philadelphia as well. And with that, I have to pay the dreaded Business Privilege Tax. If you have no idea what that is, you can head on over to Philadelphia Forward and Brett Mandel and Co. will fill you in on the gruesome details. Frank over at iFlipFlop tells of his gripes with the stupid system.

I came out $58 ahead, but then taking into account the business license fee and accountant fees, err, not so much. But I'd rather have everything in order than have someone suit me for practicing without a license or fuck up my return [since it's no longer a simple non-itemized return] and get audited. So, such is life.

And thank you Marisa for referring me to a great and very helpful [and patient] CPA!

One Gig of Classified US Military Info: $40

Flash drives are wonderful things. I don't have one myself, but use other people's flash drives to transfer files here and there. It's a hell of a lot quicker than just about anything else. Apparently some people in the US Military also find them useful. Unfortunately, an almost full 1GB flash drive was apparently lost and later sold at an Afghani bazaar outside a US air base, the LA Times reports. Shit.

The flash memory drive, which a teenager sold for $40, holds scores of military documents marked "secret," describing intelligence-gathering methods and information — including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence.

The documents appear to be authentic, but the accuracy of the information they contain could not be independently verified.

On its face, the information seems to jeopardize the safety of intelligence sources working secretly for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, which would constitute a serious breach of security.

The names of secret operatives, the names of their families, diagrams, documents on base security, photographs of informants, cell phone numbers, informant pay scales...

Information used to be encrypted. Remember that whole Enigma thing? The article states that most of the documents were "neither locked nor encrypted" holy shit.

I've read articles as recently as last month on how there are still enigma codes being broken; now that's one hell of a complex cipher. Passwords on documents can be broken easily, encryption is another thing. The article states that there were some password protected documents, but most of them weren't fucking encrypted?!

Now, this could be a hoax with fake info on the drives, but if it isn't, Chroist.

US -$66B China +$11B

The United States posted a $65.7 BILLION trade deficit in February. The U.S. hit a record high [or low, depending on how you frame it] in January with a $68.7 BILLION trade deficit. The end of 2005 net trade deficit was $723.6 BILLION.

China posted an $11.19 BILLION trade surplus for March, doubling the surplus from March of 2005.

That's a lot of money to make up. And we're digging deeper into debt to China every day. When they call in those loans, whether in physical cash or political power moves, it's going to be really ugly.

Donate to Pennacchio

Today is the final day to donate to Chuck Pennacchio's Senate campaign for this fiscal quarter. All of the grassroots groups all over the state are wonderful, but it's quite rewarding to be able to have the actual candidate go out and campaign with them, but that takes money. Gas money. Food money. Literature money...

Chuck Pennacchio decided long ago to not accept PAC money so that he would only be accountable to his constituents instead of special and corporate interest groups. The money going to his campaign goes straight Chuck's efforts as the entire staff is volunteer [myslef included]. There are no consultant fees, the campaign is truly about Chuck and not formed through needless focus groups to feel out issues. The money donated by individuals go towards sending Chuck across the state [he's been to ~300 events since the 2004 election], billboards [like the one pictured above], radio spots [coming soon!] and campaign material like buttons, flyers, posters, etc...

$5 is an extra couple gallons of gas for the car to get Chuck to that next town down the road. $25 pays for reams of paper for literature drops while canvassing. $100 helps pay for plane tickets across the state when time is short. Every little bit helps and goes a long way.

Just SIX WEEKS until the May 16th Democratic primary!

More from Factesque.

Photo via Pennacchio blog.

People Papers

I see via Howard's post that there is an effort to buy the Inky and the 'News from McClatchy Co., but this time, by private individuals in a Green Bay Packers style ownership plan. Via Editor and Publisher:

Brian Tierney said he has lined up 20 "super-successful" Philadelphia businesspeople in an investment group ready to partner with others, including the Newspaper Guild, to buy the papers. The Inquirer and the tabloid Daily News were sold Monday by Knight Ridder to The McClatchy Co., which immediately announced they and 10 other papers were for sale.

In a telephone interview, Tierney said the group was committed to long-term ownership. "We're looking at this as partly a good economic investment, and partly as good community involvement," he said. "It would be a sort of Green Bay Packers kind of ownership."

Tierney said the papers had "suffered from corporate ownership, which was a good thing in the 1960s and 1970s...but at the same time, we've seen that corporate ownership has been no panacea (when) you're looking at things just quarter-to-quarter."

Some big movers and shakers in Philadephia want to buy the papers. Interesting.

Would it result in angry owners if the paper writes stories that portray their private interests in a negative [but factually accurate] light? Would they intervene? Would it result in puff pieces on the private interests of the new owners? Maybe for a little bit, to pat them on their backs. But I think that the people wouldn't stand for it through the initial honeymoon period. They'd start chucking D batteries at them if seen on the street.

Ultimately, the papers would be locally owned, locally grown which sounds nice.

Knight Ridder Sold

Reports the NY Times:

Knight Ridder, the second-largest newspaper company in the United States, agreed last night to sell itself for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock to the McClatchy Company, a publisher half its size, according to people involved in the negotiations.

Knight Ridder [KR] owns The Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. For some reason, the NY Times scooped both papers. There's nothing on Philly.com indicating a sale.

Correction
There was this story in the Inky on Sunday, but it was an announcement of a possible pending sale and the NY Times article stated that it was a done deal.

Oh Comcast

Damn you! I'm on the phone with you... again.

It just never ends.

Wal Mart and Medicaid in PA

The Inky's got a story today on how one in six of th 48,000 Wal Mart employees in PA are on Medicaid, the state medical assistance program. Wal Mart is the largest employer in the U.S. let alone PA and their lack of proper health coverage [*I don't have any healthcare coverage right now temping] is costing us PA residents $15M a year.

Wal Mart, an employer of 1.3M nationwide raked in $11.2B in PROFIT in 2005. Do some math. If they were to take that full $11.2B and redistribute it to the full 1.3M [that's including the execs and managers and other white collar employees] it would result in $8,615 in extra money. Take away the execs and other already well-paid employees, and that numer rises a little across the board for those on state assistance. Now the crazy thing is, many of these people are employed "full time" as Wal Mart calls it. Wal Mart's version of "full time" employment is thirty-four hours per week. Extrapolate that against a normal forty-hour work week and over a year's time, you're short 312 hours! That's 7.8 weeks in real full-time employment.

"Wal-Mart is making billions in profits, while pushing people onto medical assistance at a time when 100,000 people in Pennsylvania were in jeopardy of losing benefits," said Jonathan Stein, general counsel at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia. "The situation only makes life difficult for other poor people who could only look to Medicaid."

Swelling state medical assistance rolls and higher health-care costs compelled Gov. Rendell last year to limit some services and increase some fees for many of the 1.8 million Pennsylvanians on medical assistance.

Wal-Mart, the largest employer in the state, has a total of 7,577 of its employees, or 15.8 percent, on medical assistance in Pennsylvania. The company's workforce is more than double the number of workers at the next-largest retailer, Giant Food.

Giant Food has about 19,000 total workers.

Good god I hate Wal Mart.