MISSION ACCOMPLISHED BABY!

Just like Maddow said today:

Iraq to Open Oil-Field Bidding
Big Companies to Compete for Exploration, Production Rights


By Jonathan
Stearns and Glen Carey
Bloomberg News
Thursday, April 17, 2008; Page D06

Iraq will open at least six major oil and natural-gas fields for exploration and production in the first bidding for licenses since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq, which pre-qualified international oil companies this week for the bidding, will open the southern fields of Rumaila North, Rumaila South, West Qurna and Zubair for exploration, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in an interview in Brussels yesterday. In the north, international oil companies will be invited to develop the Kirkuk oil field and the Akkaz gas field.

"At least six giant fields will be included, including some gas fields," Shahristani said. "There will be other bid rounds next year, and more companies will be qualified as we go along."

[...]

Iraq pre-qualified 35 of 120 U.S., European and Asian companies that submitted documents between Jan. 9 and Feb. 18 to participate in the licensing round, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said Monday.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, and Europe's two biggest, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, were among the 35, as were ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total. Others included Russia's Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas producer, and Lukoil, the Russian oil producer with the most overseas assets. Mitsubishi and Inpex Holding of Japan and China's Sinochem were also accepted.

Pre-qualified.

4000+ US troops, 90K documented civilian deaths (that's just the documented ones), 30k+ "official" wounded, civil war, instability in the region, torture, destroyed US credibility in the world so that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Philips, and BP could be pre-qualified.

There's a special ring in Hell reserved for them.

MCBUSH

This is a great new ad from Progressive Media USA, the group formed to carry on the mission of the Campaign to Defend America -who created the "McSame" ad that ran in Ohio.



More please.

MCCAIN'S "TROLLOP" IS A PLAGIARIST

Apparently Grandpa's wife (I don't call her "grandma" as she's his second wife and nearly 20 years younger) whom he has been documented affectionately calling a "trollop" and a "c--t" has posted several "McCain family recipes" at his website which she has stolen from the food network.

Oddly, the recipes have now been removed from Gramps' website and replaced with "page cannot be found".

It's Ok though, she can just hang on to his walker as he continues his free ride from the press.

BARACK-Y THE MOVIE

Pretty funny.



Adding: Obama seems to be riding out the latest wave of hypocritical bullsh*t from both the other republican candidates.

This "elitist and out of touch" stuff is amazing. The republicans dust it off every election and it still packs a powerful punch even though it's been debunked over and over. We'll see in a few days if it really does any damage this time. There are several factors working against its effectiveness this time around.

First is simply Obama's own life story. A child of a Black man and a white midwestern woman born in 1960 would not have been raised in the lap of luxury - and Obama wasn't, though he doesn't lay any claims to having been poor. Having risen from middle class to the editor of the Harvard Law Review without any "legacy" help is astounding. Afterward he decided not to take the big-bucks Wall Street route but went to work as a civil rights lawyer and later law professor -neither of which will buy you any private jets. As someone else has remarked, this makes Obama elite not elitist.

Secondly, this attack coming from either of the other candidates is laughable. John McCain 's father and grandfather were admirals, he spent his life in the Navy (the particulars of which are well documented) and went directly into Congress after retiring from the Navy. He's never been "in touch" with mainstream Americans because he's lived his life in a series of bubbles.

Clinton's barely better. Republican for Goldwater, Wellesley undergrad, Yale Law school (though like Obama she was not a "legacy"). As she likes to tout she's had 35 years of experience in Washington (not exactly a lifeline to the "regular folk") and last year she and Bill claimed 109 million dollars on their taxes. And yet she claims Obama is out of touch?

Finally, I think people are catching-wise to this tactic. Despite the psychotic babbling of the talking-head class (quintessentially elitist themselves), I think people are getting tired of being told that they're too stupid to know when they're being pandered to. Ironically, while Hillary slams Obama as out of touch, her incessant calculating, "triangulating" and sticking her finger in the wind before she pounces on the latest manufactured outrage is what will do her in in the end. The same people she tries to turn against the nominee from her own party are growing tired of her patronizing pandering to them, and this is just the latest installment.

Still, with the terminal memory loss of the electorate anything's possible, and this tactic keeps being dredged up because it works. I'm just a little sad that it has to be from a "democrat".