The Dutch certainly did piss on the reigning World Champion Italian squad in Berne at the Euro2008 UEFA championship. The Netherlands, the Clockwork Orange team, ended a 30-year wait for a victory over Italy in emphatic fashion as they began their Group C campaign with a rousing 3-0 win against the world champions in Berne. In the other match in Group C, the so-called Group of Death, Romania played France to a draw sans goals.

However, the Dutch made up for the lack of goals in the Romania v France match by scoring thrice inflicting upon the Azzuri their worst ever defeat in the competiton. Ruud van Nistelrooy side-footed the Oranje ahead in the 26th minute, a lead doubled superbly by his Real Madrid CF colleague Wesley Sneijder soon after. Edwin van der Sar, becoming only the third player to appear in four UEFA European Championships, then kept the advantage intact, leaving Giovanni van Bronckhorst to complete the scoring with a headed third in the 79th minute. The Netherlands can now look forward with confidence to Friday’s meeting with France, while Italy must pick themselves up from a worst-ever EURO defeat when they face Romania. If Italy loses, it is likely three and out for the Italians.

Group D gets underway tomorrow with the defending UEFA champs Greece v Sweden and Spain v Russia.

For more on the matches and the tournment, please visit Euro2008.

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PUMA stands for People United Means Action. The concept was created by Riverdaughter, the lead blogger at The Confluence. PUMA is now a political action committee formed by supporters of Senator Clinton to advance the political agenda that she espoused. The are goals are fourfold:

1. To support the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

2. To lobby and organize for changes in leadership in the DNC.

3. To critique and oppose the misogyny, discrimination, and disinformation in the mainstream media, including mainstream blogs and other outlets of new media.

4. To support the efforts of those political figures who have allied themselves with Hillary Clinton and who have demonstrated commitment to our first three goals.

For more on PUMA PAC and joining the effort, please visit PUMA PAC.

Coverage of the PUMA PAC & Movement in the Media
The National of the United Arab Emirates.
The UK Guardian.
Fort Worth Star Telegram.

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Barack Obama has gone on the offensive trying to link the economic policies of George W. Bush to John McCain. Unfortunately that’s hard to do given Obama’s voting record in the Senate. The lynch pin of the Bush economy is the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy. And Barack Obama voted for it while John McCain and Hillary Clinton did not.

Energy policy is at the heart of our economic well-being. Our lifestyle depends on it. And the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy is an egregious piece of legislation. So in my mind Obama can try to link McCain all he wants but it will fall on deaf ears here because Obama can not run from that vote.

Here is the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy:

Below is a summary of the major components of the energy legislation:

OIL & GAS SUBSIDIES: $6 BILLION
Section 1329
Allows “geological and geophysical” costs associated with oil exploration to be written off faster than present law, costing taxpayers over $1.266 billion from 2007-2015. The provision claims to raise $292 million from 2005-06, and cost taxpayers $1.266 billion from 2007-2015. It originated in the House (there was no such provision in the original Senate bill). Record-high oil prices should provide a sufficient incentive for oil companies like ExxonMobil to drill for more oil without this huge new tax break.

Section 1323
Allows owners of oil refineries to expense 50% of the costs of equipment used to increase the refinery’s capacity by at least 5%, costing taxpayers $842 million from 2006-11 (the estimate claims the provision will actually raise $436 million from 2012-15). This provision was added by the Senate. Record high prices for oil and gasoline, and record profits by refiners like ExxonMobil and Valero should provide all the incentive needed to expand refinery capacity without this huge tax break.

Sections 1325-6
This tax break allows natural gas companies to save $1.035 billion by depreciating their property at a much faster rate. This tax break makes no economic sense, as natural gas prices remain at record high levels, and these high prices—not tax breaks—should be all the incentive the industry needs to invest in gathering and distribution lines.

Section 342
Allows oil companies drilling on public land to pay taxpayers in oil rather than in cash.

Sections 344-345
Waives royalty payments for drilling for some natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Section 346
Waives royalty payments for drilling in offshore Alaska.

Sections 353-4
Waives royalty payments for gas hydrate extraction on the Outer Continental Shelf and public land in Alaska.

Section 383
Allows oil companies drilling in federal land off the coast of a particular state to pay the state 44 cents of every dollar it would have paid to the federal government for the privilege of drilling on federal land.

The royalty-in-kind provisions in this section allow corporations drilling for oil on public land to forgo paying cash royalties to taxpayers. Instead, companies provide an amount of the oil as an in-kind contribution to the federal government. Since federal land supplies one-third of the oil and gas produced in the United States, expansion of this program could have a significant impact on the federal treasury.

This proposal has its origins in Bush’s National Energy Policy, which requested that the Secretary of the Interior “explore opportunities for royalty reductions.”

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, however, criticizes the current royalty-in-kind program, concluding that the government is unable to determine whether taxpayers receive a fair shake from the program. For example, the GAO notes that the pilot program currently “relies upon royalty payors to self-report the amount of oil and gas they produce, the value of this oil and gas, and the cost of transportation and processing that they deduct from royalty payments” (emphasis added). The reporting system caused the GAO to express concern about “the accuracy and reliability of these data.”

Indeed, the industry’s cheerleading for the royalty in-kind program stems from recent court decisions that found U.S. oil companies, equipped with an “honor system” self-reporting system, routinely underreported the volume of oil and natural gas removed from taxpayer land, therefore allowing the companies to cheat the public. By seeking to end cash payments for the privilege of drilling on public land altogether, it appears as though the oil companies are attempting to hedge their losses from the embarrassing court decisions.

In 1998, the Mineral Management Service estimated that similar provisions would cost taxpayers between $140 million and $367 million every year.

There was a vote on April 21 in the House to strike the section providing a suspension of royalty payments for offshore oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico, but it failed, 227 to 203.

Title IX, Subtitle J
This section would provide $1.5 billion in direct payments to oil and natural gas corporations to drill in deepwater wells. This section is a pet project of Texas Republican and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. It would designate a private entity, Sugar Land-based Texas Energy Center, as the “program consortium” to dole out taxpayer money to corporations. The Texas Energy Center has strong ties to Tom DeLay, with six different executives (Herbert W. Appel, Jr., Robert C. Brown, III, Philip E. Lewis, Thomas Moccia, Ronald E. Oligney, and Barry Ashlin Williamson) giving a total of $8,000 to DeLay’s campaign since March 2004. In addition, three of the Center’s executives have given a total of $4,500 to President Bush’s 2004 re-election effort.

The Center’s lobbyist is Barry Ashlin Williamson. In 1988, Williamson went to work for the Reagan administration and became principal advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy in the creation and formulation of a national energy policy. President George H.W. Bush later chose him to be the U.S. Department Interior’s Director of the Minerals Management Service, which managed oil and gas exploration and production on the nation’s 1.4 billion-acre continent shelf. Williamson then served as Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission from January 1993 to November 1995.

The Texas Energy Center will play host to The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, whose members include Halliburton and Marathon Oil.

It continues below the fold: (more…)

And they offend me morally. Obama’s values are not mine. And I don’t believe that the majority of the American people will be fooled by a man who sat in a Church of his own volition for twenty years only to walk away from it in the name of political expediency.

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I wish I could get a dollar for every time I hear that phrase, I’d be a wealthy man. It’s on everybody’s lips. They’ll come around. They is us, those of us who support Hillary Clinton, those of us who subscribe to traditional Democratic values of fair play and decency.

As I reflect on that phrase, now uttered by every pundit out to reassure a nervous Democratic leadership, it is incumbent on us to come around. Obama need do not a thing to secure our votes because they will come around. We are the pro-active ones, we be the one doing the coming around. They don’t need to lift a finger. The Democratic Party and Obama just need to sit and wait because after all it’s a zero sum game they got going. And who in their right mind would vote for John McCain? They’ll come around once they see the difference between John McCain and Obama. They’ll come around once they realize the Supreme Court is at stake. They’ll come around once as gas prices go higher. They’ll come around with every bit of bad news out of Iraq. They’ll come around because they have no other choice.

News flash, this is not about John McCain. This is about Barack Obama and he is unacceptable as a Presidential candidate because of those Democratic traditional values of fair play and decency. It is because Obama doesn’t share those values that we won’t be coming around.

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This presentation entitled the Path to Victory narrated by Rick Davis, the McCain’s Campaign Manager, provides insight into how the McCain campaign is approaching the race.

Their key to victories are Hispanics, disaffected Democrats especially Clinton supporters and doing better than expected in the Northeast in addition to winning Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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It began with an errant dog, and it’s now culminated with the forced betrothal of 15 little girls, some of them as young as 3, as compensation in a case of tribal feuding in a remote part of Pakistan.

The custom is called vani and it is illegal in Pakistan but unlike India where women’s rights have made tremendous strides (not perfect but a vast difference from where they stood at independence), Pakistan remains mired in barbaric practices that offended the human spirit.

In Pakistan traditionally most marriages are arranged by families and the ability for a boy or a girl to openly like and choose their partner seldom occurs. In the process of such marriages being arranged by family members, safeguards in the law are often overlooked and minimum age of marriage and need for mutual consent are not guaranteed, making the marriage a forced one. The ability to bypass the law and lack of prosecution has resulted in practices of selling girls into marriage in exchange of money or in compensation for crimes and settling of disputes – an act known locally as “vani”.

In 1990, Pakistan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, which prohibits child marriages. In addition under the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, a girl must have attained the age of 16 and a boy must have attained the age of 18, and both need to consent before the marriage can take place.

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Via the South Town Star:

Turning a deaf ear to mounting calls for Democratic unity, some of Hillary Clinton’s staunchest supporters in the Southland say they may vote for John McCain or stay home on Election Day rather than back Barack Obama.Patricia Schmidt is not the only Clinton supporter who isn’t ready to let go of her dream of seeing a woman in the White House. Bitterly disappointed by the New York senator’s loss, the 54-year-old Tinley Park resident said she won’t vote for Obama unless he makes his rival the vice-presidential nominee.

“I really strongly feel that he stole her presidential nomination,” said Schmidt, who works for the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. “I’m mad about it.”

Retired executive Vijay Patel, a self-described “hard-core Democrat” for 30 years, said there’s no way he can support the Illinois senator in the wake of controversial statements by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the pastor of the church Obama attended for two decades.

Instead, the Orland Park resident, who was born and raised in Uganda, will vote for McCain.

“I believe that any extreme religions are horrible for society,” said Patel, 65. He called Trinity “very extreme, spewing hatred toward whites.”

Like Patel, Michael Streit, of Oak Forest, was “deeply offended” by Wright’s comments. But he’s still on the fence and said his decision will be “a tough call.”

Phil Bianco, a former Republican state representative who switched parties 20 years ago, and his wife, Patricia were left “disappointed to the point of sorrowful” by Obama’s victory.

He sounded almost dazed as he tried to express what the couple was feeling.

“We thought she had it all,” Bianco said. “It’s all kind of strange. It just doesn’t seem right.”

Indeed. It just doesn’t seem right. It isn’t. And let’s not forget that fact.

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The above report from Qatar’s Al-Jazeera looks at an ethnic Indian family in Malaysia and at their weekly food bill. The British brought many Indians to work on rubber and tea plantations when Malaya was a British Crown Colony. Today, ethnic Indians represent the third largest ethnic group in Malaysia making up about 8%.

An academic paper on Malaysia’s Indian Community by the South Asia Analysis Group

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In an editorial on Sunday, the New York Times called for a reform to the primary system. Here are some of their suggestions and my own thoughts:

The Caucus System

These are often promoted as pure small-town democracy. But participants generally have to commit themselves for hours, a sizable burden on the right to vote, especially for people who care for children or sick relatives. There is no absentee voting, so caucuses disenfranchise voters who have conflicting work schedules; who are out of town, including in the military; or who are too sick to travel to the caucus site.

The ballot is not secret, which intimidates some voters into staying away or not expressing their true choices. Vote totals are not reported. The parties should abandon caucuses and switch entirely to primaries.

Agreed. They should go. They are wholly undemocratic and disenfranchise the working poor, parents with small children, those without transportation, the infirm and citizens serving their country. They are also ripe with abuse and voter intimidation. In this primary season, here is the voter turnout for the caucuses:

Note: The GOP and the Democratic Party hold their respective events in some states on different dates, in those case the turnout is left blank and the rate reflects the Democratic race only. Also there is no data released by Hawaii and Washington.

By contrast, the weakest turnout in the primary states were in Louisiana at 19.3% followed by Connecticut at 19.8%. Seventeen states had a turnout greater than 30%. California and Ohio had over 40% and New Hampshire was the only state to exceed a 50% turnout.

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