Fuel suppliers demand airlines pay cash in advance

By Carl Mortished and Amanda Andrews – Times Online – May 26, 2008 …

Recession Warning Sign #283 … fuel suppliers cut off credit, demand airlines pay cash in advance … passengers who always had to pay in advance point, laugh “Ha ha” loudly …

Airlines are being forced to pay cash in advance for jet fuel as the major oil companies tighten the screws on an industry that is being crushed by an extraordinary surge in the price of crude oil.

Sources within the airline industry indicate that credit is being denied to most of the leading American carriers and the practice is moving to Europe and Asia.

So uncertain is the cash solvency of the industry that jet fuel suppliers insist on prepayments into special bank accounts.

The need to put up money before delivery of fuel is a huge financial burden that has been shifted from the oil companies to the airlines.

According to John Armbrust, a US jet fuel consultant, the oil industry had $5 billion (£2.5 billion) of jet fuel credit outstanding to airlines before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Now they are demanding that airlines leave cash on deposit.

SouthWest Airlines is one of a few likely to still get credit

Gas prices at the pump – are you ready to spend $6 or more a gallon?

By David Goldman – CNNMoney.com staff writer – May 22, 2008 …

Traders say that even though you’re already paying for the hurricane season, the price could spike to $6 a gallon if catastrophe strikes …

Batten down the hatches … hurricane season starts officially on June 1st … it’s expected to be a rough one, threatening to upend refineries and disrupt pipelines in the southern United States.

And that could send gas prices, already nearly 20% above what they were last year, soaring even higher.

That’s what happened three years ago when the Gulf Coast was battered by two hurricanes – Katrina and Rita – in the span of a few weeks.

Peter Beutel, oil analyst at Cameron Hanover Beutel, said if a Katrina-like hurricane were to hit in July, gas prices could go as high as $5 or even $6.

Like any disruption to supply, when a hurricane takes out drilling platforms and refineries, supply and demand principles lead to a jump in crude oil gasoline prices.

The last huge gas spike caused by a hurricane happened in the late summer of 2005, when Katrina and Rita brought many Americans their first glimpse at $3 a gallon for regular gas.

Amazing – this is what I forecasted months ago, but people thought I was crazy

General Electric – getting out of the appliance business forever

By Yahoo! News – May 14, 2008

FAIRFIELD, Conn. - General Electric Co. plans to auction off its appliances business, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

GE has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to run an auction for the appliance division, according to the newspaper, which quoted unidentified sources.

The sale could yield between $5 billion and $8 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

G.E. entered the appliance business in 1907

Barack Obama – visits “57 AMERICAN States”???

DAMN … when did America acquire 7 additional states in the past few months??? …

DUUUHHH … and the Liberals say Bush is stupid?

I would point out this is sort of like the pot calling the kettle black … but undoubtedly someone would accuse me of being a racist!

The Moron never caught himself … then he said that he had been to all “57 States” but one!

Does that mean there are really 58 states???

But then he said that he hadn’t been to Alaska and Hawaii, which is two more … by my count.

So … how many states does Obama think that the “UNITED STATES” has anyway??? …

Can’t believe how many STUPID-ASS Americans would consider voting for such an ILLINOIS IDIOT!

Dallas High School Seniors graduating – can’t add nor subtract

By CYNTHIA IZAGUIRRE – WFAA-TV – May 10, 2008

Meet your new burger-flippers, the Class of ‘08 … 75% of graduating Dallas, TX seniors can’t read above 8th grade level or handle enough math to deal drugs …

And, just think … these are America’s “Future Leaders” …

It’s May, which means thousands of high school seniors across North Texas can almost taste it – their diploma … this month 7,500 DISD seniors are expected to walk across the stage and make their families proud.

But what if we told you that 75 percent of the seniors headed to Dallas community colleges, can’t read above an 8th grade level, and others can’t add or subtract?

Graduation is a time for feeling proud, but that might quickly change to frustration for thousands of DISD students like Gia Hollis come fall, when reality hits.

The students will tell you themselves what the focus was in high school.

And then there’s math … There are some students in these remedial courses who cannot add, subtract, or do basic multiplication.

And one professor says calculators are a big problem.

No, Professor – I blame the 2-job parents who didn’t teach their kids anything for 18 yrs! .

Postage stamps have gone up again – get the new “Forever stamp”

By CNN Money – May 10, 2008 …

The cost of mailing a letter goes up a penny to 42 cents on Monday, the latest in what are expected to be annual price adjustments by the Postal Service.

A new law regulating the post office makes it easier to raise rates as long as the agency doesn’t exceed the rate of inflation. Rates are to be adjusted each May.

But the post office also has introduced a way for people to save money when the price goes up, the Forever stamp, which remains valid for first-class postage regardless of any increases.

With the rate increase approaching, sales of the Forever stamp reached 64 million-a-day in April, postal officials said. Forever stamps currently sell for 41-cents, but can be used after the rate increase without any additional postage.

However, when the rate goes up, so does the price of Forever stamps.

Unlike the Forever stamps, other 41-cent stamps will require additional postage under the new rates, and postal officials said they printed an additional 1.5 billion 1-cent stamps in anticipation of the demand.

In other words, you won’t have to buy those stupid $0.1 stamps with your current stamps

Canada Police will taser you – even in a hospital bed

Police subdue vicious 82 year-old guy on oxygen lying in a hospital bed by tasering him three times …

An elderly man in Kamloops, B.C., was zapped three times on the torso by a police stun gun while lying on his hospital bed, CBC News has learned.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the Taser marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes becomes delusional when he can’t breathe properly.

He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.

Lasser said there were three RCMP officers in his hospital room and believes they could have easily handled him without the use of a Taser.

They could have gone in there and taken an old man without any trouble at all …

Indiana Nuns are not allowed to vote – they’re retired

By Scott Martelle – Los Angeles Times – May 7, 2008 … included

Nuns in their 80s and 90s turned away from polls for not having IDs … by a fellow nun …

A dozen nuns and an unknown number of students were turned away from polls Tuesday in the first use of Indiana’s stringent voter ID law since it was upheld last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nuns, all residents of a retirement home at Saint Mary’s Convent near Notre Dame University, were denied ballots by a fellow sister and poll worker because the women, in their 80s and 90s, did not have valid Indiana photo ID cards.

Though state officials reported no significant problems, advocates monitoring polling places said there was occasional confusion.

Angela Hiss, 19, of suburban Chicago, said she was allowed to register to vote several weeks ago but was turned away Tuesday from a polling site in South Bend, where she attends Notre Dame.

Hiss said officials at a local motor vehicles office then would not accept her Illinois license as proof of identification for an Indiana license.

Indiana is a WEIRD state …

Military soldiers may not be getting paychecks in a few weeks

By Yahoo!News – May 5, 2008 …

WASHINGTON (AFP) -

The Pentagon warned Tuesday the US Army will not be able to pay its soldiers beyond June 15 unless Congress acts soon on a stalled request from the administration for war funding.

It was the latest salvo in a long-running impasse between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the administration over a 108-billion dollar request to fund US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2008 fiscal year.

The pay crunch would be eased if Congress authorized funds to be moved from other accounts to pay soldiers, but the Pentagon is pressing for approval of the full budget request.

Most of our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan could go without pay …

John McCain’s health care plan makes sense

By Star Parker – Townhall.com – May 5, 2008 … included

McCain’s health care plan differs from that of Obama and Hillary’s because it makes sense …

A gold star to John McCain for his just released plan for reforming American health care.

Analysts will pick apart details and surely will find shortcomings. But directionally, McCain’s approach is on the money. Contrary to the vaporous rhetoric of change offered by the Democrats, he has proposed real structural health care reform.

The plan boldly takes on key problems in how we deliver health care that have contributed to out-of-control cost escalation.

According to a recent University of Minnesota study, health insurance premiums have increased over recent years ten times faster than personal incomes, and by 30 percent from 2001 to 2005.

The employer-based system has been an engine for driving up costs …

The SUV is an irrational vehicle – it’ll never come back

By Jenn Abelson – Boston Globe – May 6, 2008 …

After paying $75 to fill his black Dodge Ram pickup truck for the third time in a week, Douglas Chrystall couldn’t take it anymore.

Feeling pinched at the pump, and guilty as well, Chrystall, a 39-year-old father from Wellesley, is putting ads online to sell the truck, and the family’s other gas-guzzler, a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

He knows it will be tough to unload them because he is one of a growing number of consumers downsizing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

Americans are turning away from the boxy, four-wheel-drive vehicles that have for years dominated the nation’s highways.

Sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks – symbols of Americans’ obsession with horsepower, size, and status – are falling out of favor as consumers rich and poor encounter sticker shock at the pump, paying upward of $80 to fill gas tanks.

And just think – I only spend $30 a week to keep my Buick filled up …

How to get hot flight attendants to come to your house

By Susan Finch, L.A. Times – May 4, 2008 …

With foreclosures on the rise and for-sale signs all over neighborhoods, owners across the country are struggling to find ways to meet their payments and stay in their homes. One possible solution is to open your doors to airline employees looking for what is known in the industry as a “crashpad.”

Despite a relatively low profile, crashpads are not a new idea and are nearly as old as the airlines themselves.

Pilots, flight attendants and other airline employees may live in one city but fly out of another one, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Often this gap between home and base is the result of employees’ shifting schedules or changing to a different airline.

Others find their base city to be too expensive to live in.

Although employees’ benefits allow for free or cheap commutes by air, schedules don’t always offer much flexibility — 6 a.m. flights and sporadic on-call schedules can make lodging in surrounding airport neighborhoods a necessity.

When crew members live in one state but travel to another for work, the airlines are not required to pay for their accommodations.

Flight crews are offered complimentary hotel rooms only when en-route or on a lay-over.

Homeowners – rent a room in your house to airline crews for $350 a month

Michelle Obama – Barack has hit the boiling point

By Tim Shipman – April 30, 2008 …

Barak Obama is nearing his “boiling point” over questions about his character and judgment …

Welcome to the Big Leagues, rookie …

Barack Obama is struggling to contain his anger and frustration over the constant barrage of questions about his character and judgment, his wife has revealed.

Michelle Obama lifted the lid on the irritation felt by the leading Democrat candidate for the White House at the way anti-American outbursts by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have dogged his campaign.

He is said to be itching to turn all his fire on John McCain

GOD Bless America – A “Must Have” Bumper Sticker

Need I say more?

Click the image for the full-size version … AMEN…

Jesse DuPlantis – America needs to listen to him daily

I personally have over 75 of Jesse’s DVD’s, as he’s one of this country’s most truthful and inspirational Evangelists since Billy Sunday and Billy Graham…

This is “Close Encounters of the GOD Kind”…