Mitt Romney in Poland "Kiss my ass and shove it"

Man this guy's the comedic gift that keeps on giving. Is he getting lessons from Herman Cain or something? Blunders are Us has nothing on this campaign. A man that just can't resist insulting any crowd he appears before. His staff is following Herr leader.

The score card:

UK - Not ready for the olympics yet? Looking out of the rear of 10 Downing street? I think the term used by the Brits is a "Barclays" Look it up in a rhyming slang dictionary.

Palestine - Failing because they have no culture? And we're back to bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran. Saw where that got McCain. But for Raw Money and the rest of the rightards they seem to have forgotten what it's like to have your home taken away from you and relocated then surrounded by a tall wall.

Poland -And now we have the latest gaffe. It wouldn't surprise me if Mittens told them Hitler only invaded their country to help out.

Maybe he should just issue a prepress release with a blanket apology before his next stop. But as was mentioned in prior posts that's not how this clown rolls. It's insult first then try and walk it back or spin it as best you can. Only his spin doctors are running out of revolutions. With a staff like his who needs enemies? And don't be trying to take a photo or get an interview. The black curtains are drawn tight on the clown bus. Wouldn't want the jokes spilling out before they are fully developed. But then I forget he's a natural at this. Must have taken years to develop such disconnects. But that's what happens when the focus was on a bunch of numbers on a balance sheet and not actual people.

So ends the Griswald... er Romney European vacation campaign stops.

Oil oil everywhere...ah let's just leave it in the ground

This is what the fight is about. Does wonders for the landscape eh?

The reason for more study about the Keystone pipeline. Enbridge spill A spill of 1000 barrels of oil (that's 42,000 gallons for those who don't know) in Wisconsin Friday caused anger among local residents. The bulk of the oil was said to be cleaned up by late Saturday but no mention about all the contaminated soil that will have to be dealt with which could take months. This was after another spill two years ago that did great damage to the Kalamazoo river. The company promised to make changes in their procedures to prevent future spills. Sound familiar?

I can think of six good reasons why the extensions of Keystone pipeline should not be built. But a little background so you can get the whole picture. Trans Canada the company responsible for the pipeline had bough out Conoco Philips' stake in the project a few years back. But even before that the unions responsible for constructing it were against it stating that it would not benefit employment and would risk canadian oil security. After all the oil was being pumped out of the country and into the U.S. The Canadian government disagreed and signed the necessary permits to continue anyway. Part of the line was built stretching from Alberta to Nebraska then to Illinois while another was built south to our reserves at Oklahoma. What remains is a connection from Oklahoma to Houston, Texas. From there it would be loaded onto tankers and sold on the open market most likely China. So what's coming here right now is being refined here and more than likely used here. There is another phase that would tie Alberta directly to Oklahoma in one straight shot but that is the 4th and final phase if this gets built at all.

So why all the fuss? First there was the cost overruns. What was to cost $2.5 billion soon turned into over $5 billion. And this doesn't include the law suits for the overruns.
Second is the reputations oil companies have with spill response. Not so good after the Deepwater Horizon spill. And even though the companies have said they have cleaned up their act there is still not much change in the way they operate. It's still a matter of using what amounts to paper towels to do the job. Oil absorbent pads have not changed in 40 years.
Thirdly you have the type of oil coming through the line. It's tar sands oil the most corrosive of all petroleum products and much thicker than light sweet crude. Cleaning it up would take a bit more work and is actually more toxic.
Forth, no one could calculate accurately the amount of damage to either the environment or to human health when a spill happens and we know it will.
Fifth, exactly how many jobs would be created? I've heard estimates between 6 and 12 thousand employed after which maintenance crews are very limited in numbers, a few hundred at most. It would take less than 18 months to complete if that. Well paying but temporary jobs.
Lastly the only ones who would benefit from such a pipeline would be the oil companies because they would be the ones profiting with fees to Canada for it's use. States lose because have waved the property taxes on the line. And America as a whole doesn't benefit because the oil is sold on the open market. And stop to think who gets stuck with the whole bill when there's a spill?

But this won't stop the Harper government and the Canadian oil companies from forging ahead. Harper is after all nothing more than a Canadian republican and is following their playbook. They are set to build yet another line from Alberta to British Columbia so that they can ship oil directly to China. They've even loosened environmental regulations to speed things up. This is much to the dismay of the locals, First Nations tribes, and the BC government who get little benefit in the deal and all the clean up responsibilities.

Rob McKenna gets another award

In his current TV ads candidate for Washington state governor states that he'll:

Expand learning with more focus on higher education

Have the state cover 50% of higher education costs

Make the state business friendly by lowering taxes

And create jobs

Hey dumbass! How are you going to expect to hire more teachers, pay half of the tuition costs and expand employment when you're cutting taxes? What are you going to do pull the money out of your ass? Or maybe you have a money tree in your back yard and we can all come and pick the greenbacks. Also thinks he can pay down the state debt with this plan. Hey Sparky it didn't work for Bush what makes you think people will buy that crap again?

So for you Goober this award is for you.



Fits right in doesn't he.

Clown Circus world tour

I'm sure you've heard all the gaffes from the republican candidate even before he set foot on UK soil. So much of this is looking familiar much like the end of Hilary Clinton's run but too her credit she had enough sense to change up her remarks to the crowd she was speaking to. So as time passes and the election season draws near it makes one wonder exactly how the clown handlers will manage. All the ads in the world aren't going to cover up an image that's in your face once Mitt opens his mouth. I can now see why even his own party finds such distain for the man. Who hasn't he insulted? And now on a global scale. Makes you wonder what he'll say should he set foot on the African continent. Note to the clown wranglers: You might want to check out the CIA fact book and do a little coaching before Mittens opens his mouth and puts his foot in it again.

If the gaffes even before the Olympic games weren't bad enough there was a 25,000 pound per plate fundraiser for Mitt. So now we're whoring on the world market are we? Oh but I forgot this is a global economy and anything can be had if the price is right. I guess now he'll pop down to a few African countries and make off with oil money from a few dictators. Easy pickings for a guy that broke up companies for a living. Wonder if there's any Nigerian princes in Mitts' family tree.

So the next stop is Israel. Let's see what insults he can come up with there. If you're thinking something about free air and nose lengths then you're ahead of me. But I'm sure he'll throw in something to offend Arabs there as well. That's how he rolls.

It appears that blogger Major Conflict has found a list of the perfect gaffes for Mitt - Possible top 10s for Raw Money

Dead beaver Friday

That's one dead beaver

Just noticed a bunch of people have passed this week. Gone to the great reward. Croaked. Kicked the bucket. Bought the farm. So thought I give a run down on who's passed over just the last three months. All those actors and entertainers from a by gone era of the 50s are dropping like flies. Here's a list:

Donald "Duck" Dunn music - played in the Blues Brothers movies
Junior Seau - sports football
Vidal Sassoon - fashion
Carroll Shelby - sports auto racing
Donna Summer - music singer
Robin Gibb - music singer the Bee Gees
Doc Watson - music
Richard Dawson - entertainer Family Feud and Hogans Heros
Ray Bradbury - Literature science fiction
Frank Cady - entertainment parts on Ozzie and Harriet and Petticoat junction
Rodney King - caused the LA riots when cops beat him
Leroy Neiman - art painted abstract paintings of sport scenes
Nor Ephron writer wrote Sleepless in Seattle
Doris Singleton actress parts in I Love Lucy My Three Sons and Dick Van Dyke
Don Grady- played Robbie on My Three Sons
Andy Griffith - played Andy Griffith Show, Matlock and many other parts
Celeste Holm - played Oklahoma on broadway All about Eve and High Society
John Lord - keyboardist for Deep Purple (smoke on the water)
Sally Ride - astronaut
Shermin Hemsley - played George Jefferson on the Jeffersons
Chad Everett - played Joe Gannon on the 70s show Medical Center


And as usual the dead banks later.
UPDATE: We have one dead bank this week in GA.
The parking lot index was at 12 this morning. Not a good sign.

News you can't use and could probably care less about

News
Another one of those whiz bang thoughts occurred to me today. One of memory. From the earliest learning to the present we have evolved into something devoid of memory. In that ever hectic quest for technology our thirst for all the bells and whistles has interfered with our ability to remember. How so? We read and read and yet forget most of what we've read because it lands up forgotten in the electronic black hole of the past. Correct me if I'm wrong. You read an article about this or that and quickly go on to the next and then the one after that. At some point the process becomes more important then the product. Don't forget to bookmark that you might forget it. We rely too much on our notes and files neatly tucked away in history tabs to actually remember much. Is it any wonder people howl with laughter at Jay Leno's Jaywalking segment. People with supposed degrees of higher learning not knowing who the Vice President of the United States is at present. No problem, we can Google it. So it does make one wonder if the likes of this generation could survive should the electronic age collapse and people actually had to rely on memory and thought. Too much is done for us automatically. And no cheating, even libraries are shifting to the cybersphere. Did you get that? No? Okay then on to the next latest and greatest non informative event.
Sports

Seen here is the Saudi Women's track team getting ready for the Olympics.
It should be noted that the high hurtles and pole vault could be quit interesting this year.

In baseball news it looks like the Mariners have pulled yet another boner by trading their best outfielder Ichiro. Note to owners: Yeah I really want to watch a bunch of minor leaguers play ball at premium prices. And don't give me the crap about team building. You've been saying that for the last ten years. You get one or two decent players, keep them for a couple of years then trade them for wash ups or rookies. Hey you think maybe you could pull Roger Clemmens or Nolan Ryan out of retirement or maybe Jamie Moyer back. You could pick them up cheap. Or maybe bring back steroids. Like unlimited hydros we could have an entire league of Goliath's.

Weather

Greenland is melting

Scientist studying the country don't know if this was caused by global warming or a fluke event. They are certain that the ice at the edges is far thinner than years past and is caused by climate change. This current event happened over a period of just four days!
This is a similar high pressure area that's been hanging over the midwest for the past several weeks causing triple digit temperatures. Go ahead fire up the barbe and keep stoking the coal for the generator plants, mother nature doesn't care right?

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees

A little something that changed my perspective in on the job safety. Amazing as this may sound I've gone over 20 years in a profession that has a fairly high rate of injury with little to no major incidence of bodily harm. I was even at one time on the safety committee with the focus of helping others go home with all their limbs intact. But looking back I see now that the primary focus of most companies is with minor injuries and the avoidance of lost time claims. Even the smallest injury on the job costs a company between $1000 and $2000 just for the filing process with Labor and Industries.

But as I said things changed with the Deepwater Horizon explosion and Gulf oil spill. As I said the greatest know factors of an on the job accident are slips, trips, falls, and objects falling on you. Of these I have been witness to plenty. But I never once considered process safety until the investigations of the Chemical Safety Board.

From their latest findings:
Houston, Texas, July 24, 2012 – In preliminary findings to be released today at a public hearing in Houston, U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) investigators examining the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf report that companies like Transocean and BP, trade associations, and U.S. regulators largely judged the safety of offshore facilities by focusing on personal injury and fatality data (such as dropped objects and slips, trips, and falls), that overshadowed the use of leading indicators more focused on managing the potential for catastrophic accidents.

Looking back I can think of several instances where things could have gone terribly wrong and it was only luck that things didn't. A little ignorance is bliss or so they say. But all of this did change my perspective and made me ask a few more questions about the processes occurring around me even if they had nothing to do with our own mission. We are always on the look out for the "what ifs". I believe they call that risk assessment. But now we needed to have a few more to add to the list. The basics have been repeated so many times that they are ingrained in every long time workers' head. Slips trips falls electrical hazards chemical hazards and heat stroke or stress can be found on just about any safety meeting sheet. But it takes a sharp eyed supervisor and alert workers to spot the many other dangers and that's where the importance of good communications comes into play.
Will companies learn anything from all of this? I seriously doubt it. Not as long as bean counters rule. The bottom line always supersedes any safety issues. That is until enough people die and it cuts into the profit margins. I've seen it too many times. The lower management bosses who cheat and are hailed as heros until they get caught by a regulatory agency. Then it's as if upper management never heard of them. With the accidents at BP had they been a smaller company they'd no longer be in business. Most companies get three strikes and then the fines are so high it usually ends their operations. Not so with a larger corporation making millions or billions because the fines are set for such things at $1000 $10,000 and $100,000 which would be pocket change for them. And for any deaths there's liability insurance. Any hit there would be as a premium increase. Most regulatory agencies with limited staff only have enough time to look at paperwork. If it's all in order then it's move on to the next inspection. That's the reality of the situation. Even then much is overlooked or worse ignored. We've seen what's happened with oil spills and again with the financial sector. Self regulation doesn't and won't work.

Hope I haven't bored you to death. That could be an occupational hazard if you're reading this at work. Just what are the health effects of boredom? Never mind it just came to me. Just flip on the ad for cable TV as in "don't sell you hair to a wig shop".