Tuesday - June 24, 2008

Don’t be such a cruel tease!

Yeah, IF we could control the entire speculation market. World-wide. Except that ... we can’t! Doing so is the kind of job the UN was supposed to be put in place to do. Oh God, help me, I’m falling off my chair laughing at the thought of that one!

Near-record oil prices could quickly fall by half if Congress were to rein in speculators, according to testimony Monday from a hedge fund manager and oil company adviser on Capitol Hill.

Michael Masters, of Masters Capital Management, told a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that - with greater regulation - oil prices could drop to $65 or $70 a barrel within about 30 days.

“That’s half of where prices are today, and gas prices would reflect that,” he said.

Roger Diwan, an adviser to oil companies at Washington, D.C.-based PFC Energy, agreed that regulation could lead to a drop in prices. He said it would take no more than 30 days for speculation in the oil market to decrease and gas prices to fall.

The topic of energy speculation is front and center on Capitol Hill this week. A Senate hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and another House panel examination is set for Thursday.

Last Friday, three Democratic House members including Stupak introduced a bill attempting to better regulate the oil markets.  To underline his case, Stupak said speculators now control 71% of oil on the market. That means only 29% control the physical oil being traded, down from 61% eight years ago. He blamed loosely regulated trading markets with numerous loopholes for the ease that traders have to buy and sell crude.

“We can eliminate a major avenue that traders use to avoid oversight,” Stupak said Friday. “It’s time for Congress to close the Enron loophole and lower our gas and diesel prices by 50%.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)—Close loopholes on foreign oil trading. Limit hedge funds from pouring money into the market. End oil speculation altogether.

Congress is vowing to take actions that it believes will reverse runaway crude and gasoline prices. Oil rose above $136 a barrel on Monday - more than double what it cost a year ago - and gas hovered around $4.07 a gallon.

Lawmakers have introduced nine different bills on speculation - not to mention many more that tackle other causes of escalating fuel and oil prices. Several of the speculation measures have bipartisan support. No fewer than four separate hearings have been scheduled for this week, including a House hearing held Monday exploring foreign trade regulation.

Go and read them all if you’d like. Some make some sense, at least one is totally unworkable. And all of them require all the other trading nations to play along. Like I said, this is a job for the UN. ( which means that nothing will ever happen )

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 01:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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Less Than a Day to show Hansen is an idiot

Yesterday it was “Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future,” from NASA’s Dr. Hansen. Oh noes, Big Oil is slamming the door on us all!!!!111!! Today ...

A contract to build what is being called the nation’s first offshore field of wind turbines was announced Monday between a Delaware utility company and a firm that is to build the generators off the Atlantic coast.  Officials from Delmarva Power and Bluewater Wind announced details of the contract at a news conference Monday in Newark, Delaware.

Bluewater spokesman Jim Lanard said the power company will get about 16 percent of its electricity from a field of 150 wind turbines, anchored in the seafloor about a dozen miles off Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The contract with Delmarva would use less than half the projected generating capacity the energy park is expected to have when completed. The rest would be sold to other customers.

The project’s cost is estimated at $1.6 billion, according to a project official with Bluewater.  The offshore site is expected to be operational within four years, but the timing depends on how quickly regulatory agencies can review and approve the construction project.

Using electricity generated by the wind, “Delmarva Power will be able to light about 50,000 homes a year, every year” for the duration of the 25-year contract, Lanard said, with first power expected by 2012.  He said the project may help stabilize consumer energy costs, since the contract locks in the price Delmarva will pay per kilowatt-hour.

Bluewater previously established an offshore “energy park” operating off Denmark.

Each turbine in the Delaware project is to sit on a pole about 250 feet above the waterline, where the ocean is about 75 feet deep. The poles are to extend 90 feet into the seafloor, and the units are to be constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds.

From the shore, the park will be visible only on clear winter days, and the turbines will be nearly invisible during summer months when Rehoboth Beach fills with vacationers, Lanard said.

Each blade on the three-blade rotor is to be 150 feet long.

I think this is very interesting. First, because Bluewater says the project is good to power 100,000 homes not the 50,000 stated here. Next, because this is the Free Market at work. Delmarva is going to sell off most of the power generated. I ran some numbers, and if Bluewater’s generation claims are accurate, then Delmarva Power can turn a profit even if the project has a 350% cost overrun and needs waaay more maintenance than anticipated. And that’s the real bottom line: if Delaware can make money with wind power, you had better believe New Jersey and all the other coastal states will be planting these things ASAP. And if Delmarva Power can sell off half the power produced at market rate, while selling the rest to their customers at cost , then they can make an extra $42 million a year. Not too bad. The other interesting bit is that the project cost includes dismantling they whole thing at the end of 25 years. Why? Will the pylons be worn out by then?

And since the pylons in this project are a dozen miles out at sea ... out into the tidal currents or the Gulf Stream perhaps? So I’m wondering if they should just go ahead and hook some tidal generators on to the base of each pylon? I spent an hour or so looking into them, and it looks like they can do the job if the water is moving at a whole 4mph. Every volt in the bucket helps, right? Especially since South Korea, Scotland, and a couple of the Scandinavian countries are willing to be the guinea pigs for that one.

Is that what’s really holding things back, Dr. Hansen? Industry’s “Very dangerous. You go first” risk aversion policy? Not eviiil Big Oil after all? Butt head.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 01:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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The Greenies Win One, Thanks To “Little Maverick” FL Governor Crist

At a news conference Tuesday, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. near the imperiled “River of Grass”, Governor Crist is expected to announce a $1.75 billion deal to essentially buy the U.S. Sugar Corporation, including 187,000 acres of farmland that once sat in the northern Everglades. If the deal goes through (and though the announcement will be taking place, the deal isn’t set in stone), it will extinguish a powerful 77-year-old company with 1,700 employees and deep roots in South Florida’s coal-black organic soil. It will also resurrect and reconfigure a moribund 8-year-old Everglades replumbing effort that is supposed to be the most ambitious ecosystem restoration project in the history of the planet.

The purchase would give the state control of nearly half the 400,000 acres of sugar fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area below Lake Okeechobee, although sources said U.S. Sugar would lease back its land for several years. Environmentalists hope that eventually, the area will become storage reservoirs, treatment marshes and perhaps even a flowway reconnecting the lake to the Glades. This could help recreate the original north-to-south movement of the “River of Grass”, and eliminate damaging pulses of excess water into coastal estuaries. That would be good news for panthers and gators, dolphins and herons, ghost orchids and royal palms.

Crist has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Senator John McCain, and they both took a lot of flak in Florida last week when they dropped their opposition to offshore drilling. But Crist has been true to his pledge to be “the Everglades governor,” replacing many of Jeb Bush’s industry-friendly aides with eco-friendly appointees, blocking the Legislature’s efforts to eliminate funding for restoration, and stopping the sugar industry from pumping polluted runoff into the lake. In a recent interview with TIME, he hinted that he was planning some “breathtaking changes” for the Everglades. “Putting your heart and soul into it really makes a difference,” he said.

Sugar has been on of my pet peeves for years. Sugar costs more in the United States than anywhere else in the world. It has tremendous price supports and protective legislation, to the point where actual sugar is hardly used at all in any of the packaged food products we buy. No, we get corn syrup instead. Not even beet sugar. The entire sugar fix thing went in around the time that Hawaii was set to become a state, and it’s a nasty sham that costs us billions every year. I feel we should get our sugar from all the little islands in the Caribbean instead. This would pump lots of money into their tiny economies, bring many of them up out of turd-world status, and utterly cement them to the US economy. Plus, eliminating the sugar price support would mean lower prices for our consumers and a whole lot less of that damn corn syrup with all the possible health complications it has.

Is it a good idea for a state to become an owner of an agribusiness industry? Usually not. In this case? I don’t know. But this instance does show that some Republicans can make a big effort in the environmental arena.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 12:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Environment •  
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Slim Pickings For Somali Pirates?

Pirates took four European tourists hostage after their yacht ran out of fuel off the coast of northern Somalia in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aden, according to a Somaliland official. The pirates then took their hostages—a man, woman, their child and their yacht’s pilot—into hills around the fishing town of Las Qoray, said Ahmed Yusuf Yasin, vice president of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland. Somaliland soldiers and local residents were searching for the pirates in an effort to free the hostages, Yasin said.  Las Qoray is in a territory claimed by both Puntland, a self-declared autonomous state, and Somalia. The two sides clashed over the disputed land earlier this year. Yasin said he believed the hostages were either French or German.

Maybe that international Navy effort is starting to pay off? With all the thousands of commercial ships that pass through this area, with billions of dollars of cargo aboard, the best these pirates can do is snag a small family and their little out of gas boat? Pathetic. They’ll be lucky to get $500 in ransom. What’s next, capturing dolphins and ransoming them back to GreenPeas? And once again, another news story about pirates, and not a single mention of peg-legs, jolly rogers, cutlasses, or barrels of rum. These Somali pirates ... suck.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 12:21 PM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
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Italian soldiers floored by 77-year-old Japanese woman

By Nick Allen
Last Updated: 7:42PM BST 23/06/2008

Italian soldiers are facing the embarrassment of being beaten up daily by a 77-year-old Japanese grandmother.

Martial arts expert Keiko Wakabayshi, nicknamed the “Samurai Granny”, has been hired by the country’s military to train recruits in hand-to-hand combat.

Miss Wakabayshi, who stands exactly 5ft tall, looks tiny compared to her charges who are mostly over 6ft.

But the pensioner is a trained master in an array of martial arts disciplines including jujitsu, jojitso, kenjitso, judo, kendo and karate.

She wipes the floor with soldiers of the Folgore brigade at their barracks in Livorno on a daily basis.

Miss Wakabayshi was born in Japan but now lives in Northern Italy.

She tells her students to look at her and believe that nothing is impossible.

After flooring an opponent she tells them: “Don’t think it’s unbelievable. The physique doesn’t matter.”

Sparring is regarded as the most effective method of teaching martial arts and senior Italian military officers hope the experience of being humiliated by Miss Wakabayshi will toughen up their soldiers.

Miss Wakabayshi trained for many years to achieve her level of expertise and believes she can carry on defeating brawny soldiers for years to come.

The term martial arts is synonymous with the Far East, but actually derives from Mars, the Roman god of war and literally means the “arts of war”.

story and more pix here >> http://tinyurl.com/4pl7xj

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 10:47 AM   
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Sorry, this only works on TV

ALTON, Texas—Authorities say an inmate trying to flee a Texas city jail crashed through the ceiling into a police chief’s empty office. Police say 17-year-old Jesus Albert Suarez Chavez and 22-year-old Roman Orozco Martinez tried to escape through air conditioning ducts of the Alton city jail around 3 a.m. Saturday, but had been spotted by a dispatcher monitoring security video.

One of the inmates fell through the ceiling into the office of Police Chief Baldemar Flores. The second inmate was trying to get into the vent. Flores said he didn’t know which inmate fell through the ceiling, only that the vents were very small.

Chavez and Martinez are charged with burglary of a vehicle, evading arrest, resisting arrest, assault on a public servant and making a terrorist threat. They are now being held in the Hidalgo County Jail.

I bet it wasn’t shiny clean and well lighted inside those vents either. D’oh! Some stuff just doesn’t work in the real world.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 10:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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Israel ‘will attack Iran’ before new US president sworn in.

Oh, wouldddddd’t it be loverly?

Israel ‘will attack Iran’ before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 9:50AM BST 24/06/2008

John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush’s successor is sworn in.

The Arab world would be “pleased” by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there’ll be public denunciations but no action,” he said.

Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.

“It’s clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility,” he said. “I don’t think it’s serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don’t think it’s in the cards.”

Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The “optimal window” for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

“The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

“They’re also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there’s no telling what impact it could have on the election.”

But waiting for either Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, or his Republican opponent John McCain to be installed in the White House could preclude military action happening for the next four years or at least delay it.

“An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy,” said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush’s ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006.

“With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran’s side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development.”

The Iran policy of Mr McCain, whom Mr Bolton supports, was “much more realistic than the Bush administration’s stance”.

Mr Obama has said he will open high-level talks with Iran “without preconditions” while Mr McCain views attacking Iran as a lesser evil than allowing Iran to become a nuclear power.

William Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative, told Fox News on Sunday that an Obama victory could prompt Mr Bush to launch attacks against Iran. “If the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” he said.

Last week, Israeli jets carried out a long-range exercise over the Mediterranean that American intelligence officials concluded was practice for air strikes against Iran. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said this was an act of “psychological warfare” that would be futile.

“They do not have the capacity to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran. They [Israel] have a number of domestic crises and they want to extrapolate it to cover others. Sometimes they come up with these empty slogans.”

He added that Tehran would deliver a “devastating” response to any attack.

On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said military action against Iran would turn the Middle East into a “fireball” and accelerate Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mr Bolton, however, dismissed such sentiments as scaremongering. “The key point would be for the Israelis to break Iran’s control over the nuclear fuel cycle and that could be accomplished for example by destroying the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan or the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

“That doesn’t end the problem but it buys time during which a more permanent solution might be found.... How long? That would be hard to say. Depends on the extent of the destruction.”

http://tinyurl.com/6dfxmk

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 10:30 AM   
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small plane crashed into a warehouse in Kiewit, Belgium.

Just happen to catch this and thought, why not?

Found it in The Telegraph

A small plane which crashed into a warehouse in Kiewit, Belgium. The plane was pulling a glider in high winds when the pilot lost control

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 10:16 AM   
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That Didn’t Take Very Long

Like you really expected anything different? Ha!

JERUSALEM - Police say three Palestinian rockets have hit southern Israel and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office says the cease-fire that took effect last week has been broken.
Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip says they carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli military raid that killed one of their fighters in the West Bank early Tuesday. Israel’s national rescue service says two people were lightly wounded in the rocket barrage. The West Bank is not formally part of the truce. But Islamic Jihad says it “cannot keep its hands tied” when its “brothers” in the West Bank are being targeted.

However, the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas group says it remains committed to the truce.

The salvoes followed Israel’s killing overnight of two Palestinians, including an Islamic Jihad commander, in the West Bank city of Nablus.

It was the first fatal raid since a ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip last Thursday. Similar West Bank operations and Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip led to the break down of previous truce deals.

Islamic Jihad had threatened to launch attacks inside Israel to avenge the death in Nablus of Tarek Juma Abu Ghali, whom the militant group described as one of its most senior commanders in the northern West Bank.

A second Palestinian, affiliated with the Islamist militant group Hamas, was also killed in the raid in Nablus.

“Calm in Gaza does not mean that we will sit in our seats waiting to be slaughtered one by one,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement. “This crime will not pass without punishment and the coming days will be a witness to that.”

Hamas, which claimed responsibility for a shooting attack that wounded three Israeli hikers near a West Bank settlement on Friday, also called on Palestinian groups in the West Bank to retaliate for the killings.

Why do they even bother anymore? What’s the point? These two tribes are dead set on killing each other; one out of hatred and jealousy, the other out of aggressive self defense. Why not just cut the BS and have at it, until only one side is left? Winner take all, and then shut the hell up. This has been going on longer than I’ve been alive. It never stops, it never ends. 

Posted by Drew458     on 06/24/2008 at 10:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Middle-East •  
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   Monday - June 23, 2008

That’s it, we’re doomed.

Game over folks. Gather up your go bags and head for the hills. The world has gone mad. Time to leave.

Milan, Italy — The latest “first” for Barack Obama comes off the Milan runway.

Calling the U.S. presidential hopeful “the man of the moment,” Donatella Versace dedicated her Spring-Summer 2009 collection presented Saturday evening to Obama, creating a style she said was designed for “a relaxed man who doesn’t need to flex muscles to show he has power.”

Chatting with reporters in the cool of the garden of her private palazzo in downtown Milan at an after-show dinner party, the designer also had some fashion tips for the campaign trail. “I would get rid of the tie and jazz up the shirt,” she said.

Personally I think Donatella is just desperately trying to hitch a ride on the first bandwagon that comes along, to “add” some “freshness” to the latest “style” of looking like you just crawled out of bed. Ok, a very expensive bed, but bed nonetheless. This has exactly ZERO to do with Obama. D’uh. I think she’s been eating too many infected tomatoes, and the salmonella is eating her one remaining brain cell.

The relaxed feel of the collections is epitomized by the return of the unlined jacket, which, when coupled with wide loose trousers, creates a casual yet elegant summer suit.

In other words, wear expensive clothes, made like crap, that don’t fit. Gosh, aren’t we cool? Look at us spending thousands to be lazy and self-indulgent.

The second half of the show, dedicated to sportswear, strayed from this tradition. Ruffled surfing shorts and rubberized — or were they patent leather? — Bermudas made one yearn for Armani the tailor.

Earlier Saturday, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana underlined the relaxed feel of these previews with a series of silk bathrobes and boxer shorts — the utmost in the luxury of indolence.

Models walked down the runway of the designers’ theater in downtown Milan wearing pinstriped suits as loose and easy as silk pajamas. Their horn-rimmed eyeglasses and leather sandals told a tale of a contemporary business man who can combine beach and office with ease.

Wow, nothing says MANLY MAN!!! more than rubber Bermuda shorts. Holy crap. And they’re probably in those awful 1961 plaids too.  GAK!!!

Posted by Drew458     on 06/23/2008 at 09:23 PM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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When brains and moonbats collide

The heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be “tried for high crimes against humanity and nature,” according to a leading climate scientist.  Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, sounded the alarm about global warming in testimony before a Senate subcommittee exactly 20 years ago.  He returned to the topic Monday with a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., given to the Worldwatch Institute.

Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future,” Hansen writes in an opinion piece posted on the institute’s Web site. “Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.”

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual,” Hansen continues. “In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Yeah, those “special interests” - you, me, your car, my lawnmower. What an idjit. Hansen ... wasn’t he the guy who was hiding his data or his algorithm ... with that hockey stick global Warming graph? And when others saw his numbers it proved he was Captain Bullshit the whole time? Yeah, I think this is the same guy.

So all us special interests have blocked the transition to the future. Boy, that’s newspeak huh? Stop for a picosecond and think this through ... how can anything block the future, or a transition to it? And I could have sworn billions were being spent to research and improve all that alternative sources. Heck, the gov has been funding the hell out of that R&D for 35 years now. The only reason we don’t each have a windmill stickin out our bum is because they don’t pay off. Sure they work, but between the upfront cost and the endless maintenance and the physical impact, they just don’t pay off yet. Hey, maybe when Woolworth’s is selling super conductor cloth by the yard, and motors and generators have anti-matter magnets in them. Yeah, then wind power will work. Because the real problem is that we need far more power than these things can create. That’s all. If each village only had one lightbulb and a dorm sized fridge, then wind power would be just fine. Solar? I looked into solar power a month or so ago. You know what the latest and greatest innovation is? A magnifying glass over the power cells. Gosh. Like nobody had thought of that in the last 50 years. The issue with solar power is heat. We can focus the sun down to a pinpoint, and generate kilowatts per square inch. For about a zillionth of a second, until the power cells catch on fire and melt. Once again, we’re going to need some of that special cloth from Woolworth’s to make this technology a go. Hydrogen cells? Please. Finally, after all these years, the latest version runs on water and raw aluminum, and only costs about 8 times more than gasoline to power a vehicle to go the same distance.

So what else do you have Hansen? Mmm-bop? Whachu got? Nobody is blocking a damn thing. Everybody is for all sorts of technology, but we’ve yet to find something that works better than taking some bit of stuff and burning it. Except nukes. Nukes work really, really, REALLY good. But you won’t let us have any more, because you and your unwashed brethren saw Jane (traitor) Fonda in a movie once, therefore nukes are bad. Fargin icehole. But the government still listens to this guy.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/23/2008 at 09:00 PM   
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More Good Things From New Zealand

I must live under a rock. Here is a lovely young woman with a lovely young voice. She sells albums by the millions the world over. I’d never heard of her before tonight. I’d guess she has about 100 times the singing talent of every American pop tart slut combined. Ladies and gentlemen, Hayley Westenra , golden Kiwi:

Posted by Drew458     on 06/23/2008 at 07:53 PM   
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As un-PC as it gets

Somebody sent me this video. Bet you know who. I think it’s funny. And a terrible pun.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/23/2008 at 05:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Confessions of a wild squeegee

So I got down to this small business that was in dire need of having clean windows. The shop looked like it was hit by a mud tornado. Almost. It’s part of a shopping center, and the parking lot and sidewalk maintenance crew had come around and powerwashed the sidewalks. Which sprayed all the dirt up on the windows, and glued it there with the dried up remains of their washing solution.

Good thing I did the windows as soon as I did. There are concrete cleaning solutions that are really, really nasty. Nasty enough to etch glass. Nasty enough to destroy the rubber molding that the window glass rides in. So it took one of my custom double cleanings, but the results are typical: glass so clean it’s absolutely invisible. I know, it will only last for a few days before it gets dusty again, but that’s $50 in my pocket for an hour’s work and half an hour’s drive. And it was a smart call, to get that mess off the glass ASAP.

Homeowner power wash detergents aren’t usually that strong, but it is a very good idea to rinse your windows generously after doing a power wash. And then of course get out your own squeegee and make them perfectly clean. Plus, it’s fun.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/23/2008 at 04:48 PM   
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •  
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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