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25. april 2006
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Good grief. The silly season has started (arguably a while ago), and in Washington DC democrats and republicans are busy outbidding each other to woo voters worried about increasing gas prices.
President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government's emergency reserve.
And, there is some public anger to be redirected:
President Bush, faced with rising public discontent over high fuel prices, today directed his administration to help investigate possible price gouging and ordered a temporary halt to deposits in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
But the democrats want to be in on this game, too.
Democrats are set to introduce a measure that would create a "federal gas tax holiday" by eliminating the federal tax on gas and diesel for sixty days, RAW STORY has learned.
The measure, proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), would reduce the cost of gas by $0.184 per gallon and the cost of diesel by $0.244 per gallon. The move, aides say, will provide $100 million dollars per day in relief.
Democrats say the money will be made up by cutting six billion dollars in tax breaks to oil firms. Currently, the money from the federal gas tax goes to the Highway Trust fund.
Why not block the highways? It would surely reduce demands for gas.
Sorry, Americans, for not feeling your pain. The price of unleaded in Norway has recently been recorded at above NOK 12 (~$1.9) per liter at some stations. That is, if my math is correct, $7.19 per gallon.
11:26:52 PM 
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China's strong economy is boosting breast sizes, too.
Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.
"It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub.
As a service for readers who may be confused about the meaning of the letters: an explanation of bra sizes:
A = Almost Boobs
B = Barely there
C = Can Do
D = Damn good
E = Enormous
F = Fake
I know it's old, but it's still funny.
At least I resisted the temptation to include big breast pictures.
7:17:12 PM
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A brothel in the German city Cologne (Köln) has advertised its services with a World Cup theme, including flags of participating nations. Muslim symbols appear on the flags of some Muslim countries in the huge banner ad, resulting in the predictable threats of violence.
The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert.
He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags.
First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks turned up outside Pascha on Friday, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.
"The situation was explosive," Mr Lobscheid told the paper.
"Some of the people compared our ad to the Danish Mohammed cartoons," he said, referring to cartoons which sparked violent protests in several Muslim countries in February.
The offending, or may I say offended, flags have now been blacked out in the ads.
Prostitution is legal in Germany.
It falls into a pattern of Muslim extremists being able to gag all offending speech in the west by intimidation and threats. Surely, the consequences of blacking out these flags were not significant, but this is social learning. They learn that threats work. We learn to shut up.
3:14:51 PM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.05.2006; 13:05:24.
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