For you history and film buffs, Judy Garland was born in 1922, today! For some reason the history channel didn't see fit to include that in today's "day in History wigit. But they did think Portugal day was noteworthy.


Welcome to $4.00 or more a gallon gas, and where in some locations, people spend 13% or more of their income on gas.

But across Mississippi and the rural South, little public transit is available, and people have no choice but to drive to work. Since jobs are scarce, commutes are frequently 20 miles, or 32 kilometers, or more. Many of the vehicles on the roads here are old, rundown trucks, some that get 10 or fewer miles to the gallon, or 23.5 liters per 100 kilometers. The survey showed that of the 13 counties where people spent 13 percent or more of their family income on gasoline, five were located in Mississippi, four were in Alabama, three were in Kentucky, and one was in West Virginia. While people here in Holmes County spent an average of 15.6 percent of their income on gasoline, people in Nassau County, New York, spent barely more than 2 percent, according to the survey.

Economists say that despite widespread concern about gasoline prices, the nationwide impact of the oil crisis has so far been gentler than during the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s, when shortages caused long lines at the pump, set off inflation and drove the economy into recession.

Yea, there is no lines because the prices going up has NOTHING to do with supply and demand. Demand overall is down, production is up. No, this is good old fashioned stealing and gouging, and should be handled accordingly.

Oh, got another shining example of what happens when proper oversight isn't conducted (which is common in republican controlled situations). This comes from the Washington Post...

In 2004, as regulators warned that subprime lenders were saddling borrowers with mortgages they could not afford, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development helped fuel more of that risky lending.

Eager to put more low-income and minority families into their own homes, the agency required that two government-chartered mortgage finance firms purchase far more "affordable" loans made to these borrowers. HUD stuck with an outdated policy that allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to count billions of dollars they invested in subprime loans as a public good that would foster affordable housing.

Housing experts and some congressional leaders now view those decisions as mistakes that contributed to an escalation of subprime lending that is roiling the U.S. economy.

The agency neglected to examine whether borrowers could make the payments on the loans that Freddie and Fannie classified as affordable. From 2004 to 2006, the two purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans, creating a market for more such lending. Subprime loans are targeted toward borrowers with poor credit, and they generally carry higher interest rates than conventional loans.

Today, 3 million to 4 million families are expected to lose their homes to foreclosure because they cannot afford their high-interest subprime loans. Lower-income and minority home buyers -- those who were supposed to benefit from HUD's actions -- are falling into default at a rate at least three times that of other borrowers.

And as I have already mentioned, McCain's chief economic adviser helped pen the legislation that caused both the Enron Fiasco and the banking deregulation which has contributed to this current crisis. So if you like the thoughts of no changes to the housing problem, No movement on social/civil rights, no changes on Iraq and Afghanistan, and the thoughts of $8 dollar a gallon gas, (they are actually predicting $5 before summer is up), then McSame is your guy...

If you haven't looked at Gitmo recently, you might not know torture is in the news again.Too bad policy has caused all notes to be destroyed. Yea, you heard me right.

Oh, and here's something to watch on CSPAN soon. McClellan is to testify to the House Judiciary committee. His book already implies the leaking of a covert CIA operative originated from the white house, and that it was political payback for Joseph Wilson Debunking the Bush Administration's lie (officially confirmed by the recent Senate Intelligence Report) about Iraq and WMDs.