Recent comments in response to posts on Dangerous Intersection have led me to write this screed. Screed is to be the operative word for this, for it has been born out impatience and anger. The biggest danger we face in the long run is the basic ignorance people bring to…
I received a letter from the IRS this week. Apparently last spring (when my father died, my mother had a few operations, and other distractions abounded in my life) I forgot to fill out my Schedule D. This is the form that shows how much money I lose in the…
Financial news is hot right now, what with the stock market plummeting, or 'correcting itself' as the more bold would proclaim. You may have heard that Freddie Mac has decided they will not purchase certain subprime mortgages. They have a proper position paper, the normal "we're doing this to look after…
"Payday" lending has been big in the news lately. Payday lending is where you go to a licensed loan shark to borrow money at interest rates in the hundreds (450% is not unusual), generally give the shark a post dated check, and 2 weeks later, end up having to renew…
This Huffpo article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. shows the extent to which ExxonMobil is not our wise old friend belatedly coming to our rescue on the issue of global warming:
Last week the release of the IPCC Report by the world’s 2500 top climatologists closed the scientific debate on global warming once and for all with a grave warning about its apocalyptical consequences to human civilization.
After years of denial the oil giant finally acknowledged the role of fossil fuel emissions in global warming, pledged to stop funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the country’s most visible global warming denier, and boasted of its own efforts to deal with the catastrophic impacts of climate change.
But behind the scenes, Exxon was engaged in the same old mischief. The American Enterprise Institute, a corporate front group financed by ExxonMobil and staffed by Bush administration dead enders, sent letters to top scientists and economists in the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere, offering them $10,000 each plus expenses for articles explaining shortcomings in the report.
To read the horrifying conclusions of the IPCC, here is the summary written for policy makers: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis” You would think that President Bush would take this report seriously, but he’s not. Here’s the garbage being generated by the White House as of February 8, 2007
