I could provide a long list of everyday frustrations. One of the most common involves sullen salespeople whose demeanor reflects how much they hate their job and who could not count change if their life depended upon it. Even with the cash register read out telling them the amount of change they have trouble doing it right. Each time one of these people sticks out their hand full of money and dumps the change with a "here’s your change" I…
We never got off the cruise ship in Mazatlan. It was hot and the ship was tied up at a commercial dock some distance from the City so we decided to stay on board for the day. Our office staff took tours and enjoyed the day while we had Margarita’s, read and relaxed. In Puerta Vallarta we sat on our balcony where we had a view of all the small ships that take people out for a cruise around the…
Arianna Huffington’s blog has the disturbing follow up to the scandal of Congress and big oil’s love affair. See my report of 2/19/07 for the original report of the huge gift the lame duck Republican congress gave big oil by not charging for their government leases. The Democrats promised to fix this outrageous $10 Billion dollar windfall the Republican Congress had provided. A bill was passed in the house which which would require the oil industry to pay royalties from…
It’s Easter Sunday on the Golden Princess cruise ship. We are docked at Mazatlan, Mexico. This is a commercial fishing port located on a peninsula at the bottom of the Sierra Madre mountains. I was impressed to read that this city exports some 40 million pounds of shrimp every year. We are tied up in the commercial dock area after cruise from Puerto Vallarta. We got off the ship there and took a taxi to old town where we did…
We checked out of our hotel and were driven to the pier to be tendered to the Golden Princess at anchor in the harbor. Our luggage, too many bags, was loaded and we went to the ship. This passenger ship is 950 feet long (three football fields) and carries 2,600 passengers. Since this is Easter vacation, most of the passengers appear to be children of all ages who are everywhere. Our state room is in the aft section of the…
The National Law Journal reports that immigration judges are continuing to demonstrate inappropriate and unjudicial conduct as I´ve previously reported about. See post for 3/2/07 Two Circuits, the 7th & 8th criticized two more immigration judges for their conduct. In the 7th circuit, Judge Craig Zerbe rejected an immigrants claim of religious persecution and death threats. In doing so, this judge used phrases like "essentially zealots" and other inappropriate comments. He accused them of contributing to their own problems by…
The Associated Press reports another corporate CEO gross overpayment, a subject I´ve complained about so many times in the past. In a filing with the federal government, Ford disclosed it paid its CEO Alan Mulally a staggering $39.1 million dollars during the first four months of his term as CEO. So, what did Mr. Mulally do to earn this windfall? Ford, as the second biggest automaker, lost $12.7 Billion, yes,"billion" in 2006 so it couldn´t be his job performance in…
We are staying in Zihuatanejo at a wonderful hill side hotel overlooking the bay as I indicated in my first report. Today we took a taxi to Ixtapa located about a fifteen minute taxi ride away. This was our first visit to this town about ten miles away, but it´s not really a town at all. It was created by the federal government in the 1970`s as resort center and it is a ¨state of the art disco" tourist type…
Wednesday April 4, 2007 My wife Lita and I have flown from Seattle to Zihuatanejo, Mexico to stay at the Casa Que Canta for a few days before boarding a cruise ship to meet our entire office and their families for our annual office retreat. We´ve not been here before. It resembles a sleepy Mexican fishing village on a beautiful bay, but it has some 80,000 inhabitants. The bay has numerous boats of all sizes bobbing up and down on…
The U.S. Supreme Court case of Massachusetts vs EPA has been described as one of the most important environmental cases to ever come before the United States Supreme Court dealing with global warming. The case involves the thirty six year old federal Clean Air Act. The act provides for regulation of "any air pollutants" from vehicles "that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health of welfare" and defines "welfare" as including effects on climate and weather. A group of…
