moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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(and my Wish List)

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California Energy Crisis Comes Home To Roost

From: respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/ 2004_04_01_respectfulofotters_archive.html#108151557644466542

Remember when 'everybody knew' that the 2000-2001 California energy crisis was entirely the fault of deregulation and overly strict environmental standards?
Quoting money.cnn.com/services/tickerheadlines/for5/ 200404081547DOWJONESDJONLINE000842_FORTUNE5.htm

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has returned a six-count indictment against a unit of Reliant Resources Inc. (RRI) and four of its officers in connection with a 17-month federal criminal investigation of the manipulation of California's energy markets.

The indictment alleged that in June 2000, Houston-based Reliant Energy Services Inc. intentionally drove up the price of electricity in California by shutting off its power generation to create the appearance of a shortage. As a result, the company allegedly reaped millions of dollars in illegal profits.

In one phone conversation a few days after the company allegedly first shut down power plants, a Reliant trader explained: "It started out on Monday losing $3 million, market just fell out of bed. So, then we decided as a group that we were going to make it go back up, so we turned like about almost every plant off. It worked. Prices went back up. Made back almost $4 million, actually more than that, $5 million."

One hopes that this will be the first of many indictments, but it seems more likely that other companies involved in the market manipulations will get away with paying fines. According to the Contra Costa Times, "prosecutors said the decision to charge the company was based, at least partly, on its refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation." So probably the others will fall in line, release documents, behave contritely, and give up some portion of the enormous profits they won from choking off California's energy supply.

But still, it was nice that Ashcroft and his Justice Department took a few minutes off from their critical antipornography operation to announce the indictments. [Insert your own joke about "the real obscenity" here.]
// posted by Rivka @ 4/9/2004 08:59:44

[permalink] posted by Mez at 7:36 am