I'm trying to figure out a cheap way to help my daughter in law move from CA to OK. It's 1500 miles and UHaul wants $1600 for their smallest truck and that doesn't include gas! The stuff she wants to move isn't worth that much...

any ideas?

"you're actually laughable"

read my post about clues on how to spot posts that are personal

since you have me blocked from posting to you privately, I'm posting this publicly

better :)

standard operating procedure in Bush admin

reminder

please post about global warming not about other posters and what you think of them

if you find your posts are addressing another poster such as:

YOU are....

YOUR ability....

that's attacking the poster

instead address the issue such as...

the research on global warming is...

that article is...

that author is...

thanks.

maybe he should have provided more specific information and/or references... speaks to credibility

they were not sent in sufficient numbers, they were not equipped properly, there was no plan for after the initial offensives, they are being held over time again... it was FUBAR from the beginning...

Our military is the best trained best equipped in the world BAR none....

yeap, but too bad they are lead by an incompetant secretary of defense and commander and chief. our troops deserve better.

rumsfeld? cheney?

but seriously I don't care for that quote too much

Funding

The NCPA web site states that it "receives 70% of its funding from foundations, 20% from corporations, and 10% from individuals." Between 1985 and 2001, the Center received $4,031,000 in 75 separate grants from only twelve foundations (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=246).

Castle Rock Foundation
Earhart Foundation
JM Foundation
Koch Family Foundations (David H. Koch Foundation, Charles G. Koch Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Foundation)
John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
Scaife Foundations (Scaife Family, Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund
El Paso Energy Foundation
ExxonMobil Foundation
Eli Lilly and Company Foundation
Lilly Endowment Inc.
Procter & Gamble Fund

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis

However, several independent studies called into question the hockey stick's conclusions. A number of climate experts noted that the Earth experienced...

why doesn't the author site the studies specifically? or name the "climate experts"?

I thought this board was about "Global Warming" and not for making political assertions?

the focus is global warming, however it is inherent that the subject is intertwined with politics.

good example of how it can effect our economy

could be

sounds pretty ludicrous... something some defense attorney dreamed up

Using the markets to change the world? Vail says it will purchase all its power from wind farms. Well not really Vail will purchase options to do so and Renewable Choice will take the option profits and pay them to wind farms around the country. Vail will of course get most of its power from coal. Seems well and good.

Here is the part I thought would interest you.

There are thousands of companies, organizations, cities, universities, and individuals who are already buying renewable energy credits! Here are just a few:
• U.S. Department of Energy
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• The Department of Defense
• U.S. Air Force
• U.S. Navy
• Whole Foods Market
• Johnson and Johnson
• Harvard University
• City of Portland
• Toyota
• FedEx Kinkos
http://www.renewablechoice.com/m/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=66

ergo sum post
#msg-12400695

more foxes in the hen house

that's good news :)

I think our government should be investigating companies like Wal Mart for monopolies and unfair employee practices. When a company like Wal Mart has gone over the line, who else can step in?

if you'd watch the darn movie or read the book, you'd know that a guy that did training for supervisors for many years said that it was common practice and encouraged by management

Wal Mart is real slime

yeap, if they are truly not disabled and able to get work, they should be cut off... I agree with you on that one.

And I found the following tid bits interesting:

Even as more men are dropping out of the work force, more women are entering it.

Many women without jobs are raising children at home, while men who are out of a job tend to be doing neither family work nor paid work.

yeah, they were forced to by the government

Wal-Mart has long battled to bar unions from its stores, in the United States in particular, but the government-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, or ACFTU, has been campaigning aggressively to set up branches in the company's 60 outlets in China.

so where's our government in backing it's workers here?

what about the other issues like changing time cards, etc?

and sadly we are led by a coward, a fool, a thief and a liar... and probably a tyrant too.

UK, Calif. to strike global warming deal
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jul 31, 6:59 AM ET

<< go California! >>

WASHINGTON - Britain and California are preparing to sidestep the Bush administration and fight global warming together by creating a joint market for greenhouse gases.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plan to lay the groundwork for a new trans-Atlantic market in carbon dioxide emissions, The Associated Press has learned. Such a move could help California cut carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases scientists blame for warming the planet. President Bush has rejected the idea of ordering such cuts.

Blair and Schwarzenegger were expected to announce their collaboration Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, according to documents provided by British government officials on condition of anonymity because the announcement was forthcoming.

The aim is to fix a price on carbon pollution, an unwanted byproduct of burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gasoline. The idea is to set overall caps for carbon and reward businesses that find a profitable way to minimize their carbon emissions, thereby encouraging new, greener technologies.

Monday's meeting was being hosted by Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group, and Lord John Browne, chairman of British Petroleum. British and American business leaders planned to use it to also discuss other ways of accelerating use of low-carbon technologies.

The world's only mandatory carbon trading program is in Europe. Created in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that took effect last year, it caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in more than two dozen countries.

Companies can trade rights to pollute directly with each other or through exchanges located around Europe as long as the cap is met. Canada, one of more than 160 nations that signed Kyoto, plans a similar program.

Although the United States is one of the few industrialized nations that haven't signed the treaty, some Eastern states are developing a regional cap-and-trade program. And some U.S. companies have voluntarily agreed to cap their carbon pollution as part of a new Chicago-based market.

A main target of the agreement between Britain and California is the carbon from cars, trucks and other modes of transportation. Transportation accounts for an estimated 41 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions and 28 percent of Britain's.

Schwarzenegger has called on California to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. California was the 12th largest source of greenhouse gases in the world last year, bigger than most nations.

Blair has called on Britain to reduce carbon emissions to 60 percent of its 1990 levels by 2050. Britain also has been looking at imposing individual limits on carbon pollution. People who accumulate unused carbon allowances — for example, by driving less, or switching to less polluting vehicles — could sell them to people who exceed their allowances — for example by driving more.

Bush has resisted Blair's efforts to make carbon reduction a top international priority. After taking office, Bush reversed a 2000 campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, then withdrew U.S. support from the Kyoto treaty requiring industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels.

The United States is responsible for a quarter of the world's global warming pollution. Bush administration officials argue that requiring cuts in greenhouse gases would cost the U.S. economy 5 million jobs. Instead, the administration has poured billions of dollars into research aimed at slowing the growth of most greenhouse gases while advocating a global cut on one of them, methane.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060731/ap_on_re_us/blair_global_warming

LOL

was Christ weak? Ghandi? Martin Luther King? They all dealt with potentially violent and volatile situations by non-violent means

what is weak, what is primitive is trying to solve all your problems with violence... violence just breeds more violence. It takes intelligence, wisdom, compassion and great courage to do otherwise.

I hope so... I don't see how some reconcille their hateful and kill kill kill mentality with christian beliefs.

I think "When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross" says it really well.

exactly!

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: July 30, 2006

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The Rev. Gregory A. Boyd leads a congregation outside St. Paul.
The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

“Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”

Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some by Christian publishing houses. Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical’s Lament.”

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church,” which is based on his sermons.

“There is a lot of discontent brewing,” said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the “emerging church,” which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

“More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.

“Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

Mr. Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church’s board, but his words left some in his congregation stunned. Some said that he was disrespecting President Bush and the military, that he was soft on abortion or telling them not to vote.

“When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker,” said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. “But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can’t be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70’s, it wouldn’t have happened. But the church was asleep.”

Mr. Boyd, 49, who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts, leads a church that occupies a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store.

The church grew from 40 members in 12 years, based in no small part on Mr. Boyd’s draw as an electrifying preacher who stuck closely to Scripture. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he taught theology at Bethel College in St. Paul, where he created a controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Mr. Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post, but he won that battle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?th&emc=th

Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: July 30, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples.

The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred questions about the audit to the State Department in Washington, where a spokesman, Justin Higgins, said Saturday, “We have not yet had a chance to fully review this report, but certainly will consider it carefully, as we do all the findings of the inspector general.”

Bechtel has said that because of the deteriorating security in Basra, the hospital project could not be completed as envisioned. But Mr. Higgins said: “Despite the challenges, we are committed to completing this project so that sick children in Basra can receive the medical help they need. The necessary funding is now in place to ensure that will happen.”

In March 2005, A.I.D. asked the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office at the United States Embassy in Baghdad for permission to downsize some projects to ease widespread financing problems. In its request, it said that it had to “absorb greatly increased construction costs” at the Basra hospital and that it would make a modest shift of priorities and reduce “contractor overhead” on the project.

The embassy office approved the request. But the audit found that the agency interpreted the document as permission to change reporting of costs across its program.

Referring to the embassy office’s approval, the inspector general wrote, “The memorandum was not intended to give U.S.A.I.D. blanket permission to change the reporting of all indirect costs.”

The hospital’s construction budget was $50 million. By April of this year, Bechtel had told the aid agency that because of escalating costs for security and other problems, the project would actually cost $98 million to complete. But in an official report to Congress that month, the agency “was reporting the hospital project cost as $50 million,” the inspector general wrote in his report.

The rest was reclassified as overhead, or “indirect costs.” According to a contracting officer at the agency who was cited in the report, the agency “did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.”

“We find the entire agreement unclear,” the inspector general wrote of the A.I.D. request approved by the embassy. “The document states that hospital project cost increases would be offset by reducing contractor overhead allocated to the project, but project reports for the period show no effort to reduce overhead.”

The report said it suspected that other unreported costs on the hospital could drive the tab even higher. In another case cited in the report, a power station project in Musayyib, the direct construction cost cited by the development agency was $6.6 million, while the overhead cost was $27.6 million.

One result is that the project’s overhead, a figure that normally runs to a maximum of 30 percent, was a stunning 418 percent.

The figures were even adjusted in the opposite direction when that helped the agency balance its books, the inspector general found. On an electricity project at the Baghdad South power station, direct construction costs were reported by the agency as $164.3 million and indirect or overhead costs as $1.4 million.

That is just 0.8 percent overhead in a country where security costs are often staggering. A contracting officer told the inspector general that the agency adjusted the figures “to stay within the authorization for each project.”

The overall effect, the report said, was a “serious misstatement of hospital project costs.” The true cost could rise as high as $169.5 million, even after accounting for at least $30 million pledged for medical equipment by a charitable organization.

The inspector general also found that the agency had not reported known schedule delays to Congress. On March 26, 2006, Bechtel informed the agency that the hospital project was 273 days behind, the inspector general wrote. But in its April report to Congress on the status of all projects, “U.S.A.I.D. reported no problems with the project schedule.”

In a letter responding to the inspector general’s findings, Joseph A. Saloom, the newly appointed director of the reconstruction office at the United States Embassy, said he would take steps to improve the reporting of the costs of reconstruction projects in Iraq. Mr. Saloom took little exception to the main findings.

In the letter, Mr. Saloom said his office had been given new powers by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to request clear financing information on American reconstruction projects. Mr. Saloom wrote that he agreed with the inspector general’s conclusion that this shift would help “preclude surprises such as occurred on the Basra hospital project.”

“The U.S. Mission agrees that accurate monitoring of projects requires allocating indirect costs in a systematic way that reflects accurately the true indirect costs attributable to specific activities and projects, such as a Basra children’s hospital,” Mr. Saloom wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&ore...

Blair to talk about leadership to Murdoch executives
by Phil Hazlewood
Sat Jul 29, 1:38 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair is to talk about leadership to senior figures in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire here this weekend as part of his visit to the US west coast, his office said.

Blair, who held talks on the Middle East crisis with US President George W. Bush at the White House Friday, is on a four-day trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles -- the first to California by a serving British prime minister.

His office has given only sketchy details of the itinerary but told reporters travelling with him that the News Corp. speech at the plush Pebble Beach resort, near San Francisco, Sunday will be on leadership.

Blair recently celebrated 12 years as head of Britain's Labour party, which was 18 years in opposition until he led them to a landslide general election victory in 1997.

The backing of Murdoch's influential tabloid The Sun was seen as crucial.

But the 53-year-old premier has endured increasing opposition to his leadership, especially over Britain's role in the US-led invasion of Iraq and his stance on the conflict in Lebanon.

After the last general election in 2005, he announced his intention not to run for a fourth, straight term of office. Speculation has been rife -- as he did not name a departure date -- about when he will step down.

Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle said a "galaxy of stars" were expected to be among the 250 executives at the News Corp. retreat, including Blair's close friend, ex-US president Bill Clinton and his vice-president Al Gore.

Israel's Shimon Peres, former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives will also be there, plus U2 singer Bono -- with whom Blair worked closely on poverty and debt relief at last year's G8 summit, it added.

The newspaper said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to introduce Blair at Pebble Beach, ahead of their scheduled meeting in Los Angeles Monday on one of Blair's pet subjects, climate change.

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his counterpart in London Ken Livingstone are expected to sign a city-to-city agreement on reducing the greenhouse gases thought to lead to climate change, the Chronicle said.

"The prime minister has been thinking about a trip here for many years. Why? Because it's the seventh largest economy in the world," said Blair's official spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

In particular, they were looking to work more closely with the burgeoning biotechnology sector, he added.

The spokesman stressed that the Middle East crisis would remain the "number one priority" throughout Blair's time in California.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060729/wl_uk_afp/britainuspolitics_060729171315

Tony Blair is in CA... at the invite of Rupert Murdock... and heard on the radio that Murdock had a bit part of Blair becomming prime minister... interesting who the behind the scenes power broker has on his strings

really like that one :)

I like to support local owned business when ever I possibly can... sometimes it costs a bit more, but it's usually well worth it.

the Germans were smart to drive them out

and discrimination against minorities and women...

managers changing time cards when employees work more than 40 hours to erase the overtime

coercing employees to work overtime without pay

and extremely abusive practices for workers in mexico and china... working them extremely long hours in poor conditions for little pay

providing poor or no health benefits

just a couple examples

his constituents who feel the same

I don't think the government should "shut down" WalMarts. But I do think people should boycott them, that the employees should unionize in order to protect themselves from unfair practices and they should be increasingly exposed for their greed and exploitation of workers.