ViceZilla’s Views

There’s nothing really too funny about this video, other than a Fox News reporter runs into a little bit of trouble using a simple B&E tool.

Be warned though, these tools used to break into your house are available to anybody who wants them. And the only people who want them use them for no good! To counteract the criminals who use these tools to gain entry into your house, I recommend a nice, quiet Doberman!

All seriousness aside though, this poor schmuck shows that even a criminal needs a little bit of skill.

Tags: Musings by vicezilla
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Ask Vice President Dick Cheney what a “No Wake Zone” is, and he’ll probably tell you it’s between the hours of 10 AM and 3 PM when he’s having his daily nap. But when he’s not napping he is studying scientific data on how not to protect whales. And as we all know very well, Cheney works from facts, more facts and nothing but the facts.

So it should come as no surprise that Cheney is preventing the implementation of rules to protect the endangered right whale. In a letter from Henry Waxman to the White House today, he urged the administration to quit delaying the rules which would restrict the speed of ships near American ports, thus lessening the likelyhood of collisions between the vessels and the whales. According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), faster moving ships are more likely to hit the whales, causing injury or death.

But according to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, that is not true, which has resulted in the delay of approving NOAA’s recommendations. Cheney’s office states:

Another internal document shows that the officials working for the Vice President also raised spurious objections to the science. According to this document, the Vice President’s staff “contends that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of ‘large ships’ will actually make a difference.” NOAA rejected these objections, writing that both a statistical analysis of ship strike records and the peer-reviewed literature justified the final rule. In its response to the objections from the Vice President’s staff, NOAA reported that there is “no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales.”

Bottom line is, who would be better to listen to regarding the benefits to right whales of lowering the speed of ships near US ports, NOAA, or the Vice President? I’m thinking NOAA knows a hell of a lot more about the situation than Cheney does.

Why Won't Cheney Help Prevent This?

Tags: Bush Administration, But Seriously Though... by vicezilla
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President Bush wants to cross one last thing off his “To Do List” before he retires from the Oval Office. His list of conquests is a long one, but one thing still remains, and that is to keep his promise of opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration and drilling.

During a duck and dodge session today in the Rose Garden, Bush accused Congress of blocking his proposals to deal with rising gas prices. Lacking any ideas from himself on how to tackle the problem, he said he was “open to any ideas.” Its funny that he would ask for ideas, because I highly doubt he would listen to them anyway, because he already has an idea. An idea that he, and his oil buddies thought of long long ago, and that is to punch holes all over the ANWR looking for gushers.

“If there was a magic wand to wave, I’d be waving it, of course. But there is no magic wand to wave right now. It took us a while to get to this fix.”

So in other words, Bush’s magic wand lies somewhere in the ANWR, and he wants to put a ‘fellowship of the wand’ together to go look for it! The Fellowship of course will be headed by himself, along with the energy companies that took part in Gollum’s Cheney’s secretive task force.

Bush declared that there is inadequate oil output which is not keeping up with the demand for oil is the cause of rising prices at the pumps, and that opening the ANWR to exploration would solve the problem lickity split!

“We should have been exploring for oil and gas in ANWR. But, no, we made the decision and our Congress kept preventing us from opening up new areas to explore in environmentally friendly ways and now we’re becoming, as a result, more and more dependent on foreign sources of oil.”

First of all, we have been dependent on foreign sources of oil for a long time now, and until we as a people reduce our need/usage of oil, we will always be dependent on foreign sources of oil.

Here’s what the Energy Information Administration has to say about drilling in the ANWR. They estimated that if Congress had cleared Bush’s ANWR drilling plan the oil would have been available to refiners in 2011, but only at a small volume of 40,000 barrels a day — a drop in the bucket compared with the 20.6 million barrels the U.S. consumes daily. Even then they say, that by 2020 at peak production the fields in the ANWR could have potentially added 780,000 barrels a day to U.S. crude oil output.

Bottom line is, as long as we keep consuming 20.6 million barrels of oil a day, we will continue to pay through the nose for it. Even if ANWR is opened up for exploitation by the ‘Fellowship’ it’s piddly contribution to the bucket will have minimal impact on the price of oil.

Even experts agree that Bush is wrong in his claims that the reason for the skyrocketing fuel cost you and I must pay is inadequate production. David Weiss, an energy expert at the Center for American Progress sums it up nicely:

“A cheap dollar, high demand from China and India, and speculators driving the price up. Drilling and sullying the Arctic would not address any of these causes of high oil prices.”

So Bush’s claims that ‘environmentally friendly’ (if there is such a thing) oil exploration and drilling in the ANWR will be a long term solution to the county’s energy problems, is just flat out false. Drilling in the ANWR will however make good on his promise to the big oil companies, which in turn will make the “Fellowship’s” profit margins look real good for many years to come.

The only long term solution to our energy problems, are looking for ways to become less dependent on oil, regardless if it comes form our backyard or the Saudi’s.

Tags: Bush Administration by vicezilla
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Politics and Religion, a caustic mix if there ever was one. The two thought processes are better left separated in their own little worlds, and never the twain should meet. There has been much hype about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church and his relationship with his parishioners, namely one Barrack Obama. And thanks to the media storm that has surrounded their particular relationship, it seems that everybody now has an opinion on the situation.

Unfortunately these opinions were made over every possible twist the media could find to put on their headlines. It was shameless and it was ruthless, especially the You Tube videos of Wright’s sermons that were cut and spliced and taken out of context of what his message was. They were taken way out of context, but sometimes ‘context’ doesn’t sell newspapers nowadays does it?

I’m not defending Jeremiah Wright by any stretch of the imagination, because he did say some things that I don’t particularly agree with. But that’s my right, as well as his. This used to be a country where freedom of speech was encouraged, and vigorously defended. The only problem with Wright’s sermons as of late was that one of the church’s parishioners decided to run for President of the United States of America. Then all hell broke loose!

The only mistake Obama committed while the media was having a feeding frenzy at his and Wright’s expense was not realizing that he should have nipped the problem in the butt long before it became an issue. What Barrack did today, he should have done long ago, not only for political career, but also for his relationship with wright and his church. But now, after all is said and done and the dust is settling, the damage has been done.

I find it ironic that the media got their panties all bunched up over things that Rev. Wright said, and turned it on Obama as if they were his words and thoughts, but yet gave John McCain and Rev. Hagee a free pass over his views that God destroyed New Orleans because of it’s sinful ways.

If anybody should be have to answer for their actions in this debacle, it is the media people who perpetrated this monster in the first place! But now that Obama has done what he has needed to do, and that is sever the cord between himself and Rev. Wright, its time to move on and proceed with the business of politics. Because that’s what this election is all about, politics and not religion.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Candidates by vicezilla
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Umm, is it just me or does Hillary’s request for $2.3 billion for pet projects sound like a lot of money? I’m just asking because the way some of these politicians are throwing money around, our money I might add, one would think the economy is as rosy as it has been for the past 100 years! $2.3 billion!?!

Her request is almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year, which was $837 million by Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

According to documents provided by her office:

The money is needed for homeland security, emergency response and health projects throughout New York

Yeah, but $2.3 billion? What else is she planning on doing with it, building a museum or something?

Maybe Hillary thinks that seeing as John McCain and Barrack Obama have both shunned earmarks and are not seeking any pork barrel funding for next year, she’s helping herself to their ‘would be’ share!

$2.3 billion, unreal!

Tags: 2008 Presidential Candidates, Economy by vicezilla
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