Molly Ivins: Debate This

[Dudley_DUright]

This column is not about the presidential debate. It's about Other Stuff. Particularly eye-catching are the updates on the price of gasoline, your overtime pay, why the company most likely to hold the mortgage on your house could go broke, why you're getting peanuts from new tax cuts just passed by Congress and how the government is kicking hundreds of thousands of kids off health insurance while promising not to. Cheer all around.

The price of a barrel of oil went over $50 for the first time early this week, and the price of gassing up my vehicle, Truck Bob the Ford, is now $36 a pop. According to oil-ologists, this is on account of the unrest in oil-producing countries and rising global demand destabilizing world energy markets. Don't you love the jargon? The petro experts say this ain't gonna get better.

Also Not Helping -- in fact, headed in completely the wrong direction -- is U.S. energy policy under You Know Who. More than half the oil we use today is imported, much of it from such stable, democratic regimes as Iraq. The Energy Department predicts this will rise to 70 percent in 20 years.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has just put out a new study showing that the five biggest oil companies (ExxonMobil, Total, Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco) reported a $5.5 billion, or 16 percent, increase in profits during the first half of 2004 compared with the same period last year, which was no slouch either. Both ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco posted record second quarter profits in 2004.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17789

[skylarmae]

1. Once again, Ivans cuts thru the TEXAS BULLSHIT

Oh, I just love this little lady. Living in Utah,
she one of the few voices of truth available in the
media here.

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Love her too

She has a ford Pickup too, just like me. She calls hers "Truck Bob the Ford". Maybe I should call mine "Ranger Molly", since she is fearless like a Texas Ranger.