WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The average price U.S. consumers pay to fill their cars with gasoline climbed to the second highest level ever, and is less than a penny from the all-time record, the government said Monday.

The national pump price for regular unleaded gasoline increased 5.7 cents over the last week to an average $2.056 a gallon, up 33 cents from a year ago, according to a survey of service stations by the Energy Information Administration.

The current record gasoline price is $2.064 a gallon set last May. The EIA has forecast the pump price will rise above $2.15 a gallon later this spring. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline cost the most in March 1981 at $3.08 a gallon, according to the agency.

Rising gasoline prices are pinching the pocketbooks of U.S. consumers, who have less to spend on other goods and services.

“When gasoline prices go up to this degree, family finances suffer — and not just at the gas pump, but at the grocery store and the department store, too,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Monday.

“As businesses pay more to transport their goods, consumers pay more for those goods at every turn,” said Wyden, who has been pounding the Bush administration to push OPEC to lower oil prices when the cartel meets this week in Iran.

High crude oil costs are helping to push up pump prices. The price for oil Monday at the New York Mercantile Exchange settled up 52 cents at $54.95 a barrel.

The West Coast had the most expensive regular unleaded gasoline, with the price up 5.4 cents to $2.228 a gallon. Los Angeles topped the EIA’s survey of cities, with the price of gasoline up 4.9 cents to $2.329 a gallon.

The Gulf Coast states had the cheapest fuel, with the price up 6.8 cents to $1.968 per gallon. Among major U.S. cities, Houston had the lowest pump price, with fuel up 7.1 cents to $1.91 a gallon.

The weekly report also showed gasoline prices were up 7.4 cents to $2.132 in Seattle, up 8.4 cents to $2.124 in Miami, up 4.3 cents to $2.121 in Chicago, up 2.5 cents to $2.095 in Cleveland, up 7.1 cents to $2.054 in Denver and up 4.7 cents to $1.973 in New York City.

Truckers are suffering too as the price for diesel fuel increased 2.6 cents to $2.194 a gallon this week, up 58 cents from a year ago and the third highest diesel price on record.

Truckers on the West Coast paid the most for diesel fuel at $2.44 a gallon, down almost a penny from the prior week. The Gulf Coast states had the cheapest diesel at $2.13 a gallon, up 3 cents.

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welp, here’s to summer vacations.

It’s the first time in 5 years that I have a spring break of sorts. Sure I have to work, but I was doing both working and going to school. So spring break is a nice break in the day to day work, school, sleep, work, school, sleep, functions.

At one point over the past weekend I picked up a copy of The Grid. The 6 part mini series paints a picture of how certain parts of our government works or should work against terrorist plots, but moreover it paints a picture of how truly brain washed and fundamentalist some of these people are. Specifically some of them who claim to be religious actually are not, they kill in the name of god but do not even attend.

THE GRID involves a terrorist cell operating on a global level and a team of American and British counter-terrorists who are tasked with stopping it. It focuses on the emotional cost of war on victims, as well as the emotional cost on those fighting terrorism. The story opens with a deadly sarin attack in London. NSC counter-terrorism director Maren Jackson (Margulies) enlists FBI agent Max Canary (McDermott) and CIA Middle Eastern analyst Raza Michaels (Marek) to aid in the investigation. Acton Sandman (Skerritt), CIA deputy director of counter-terrorism, oversees the clandestine operation on foreign soil. Also on the task force is Emily Tuthill (Redgrave), director of operations for Britain’s MI6; and Derek Jennings (Hill), MI5 senior director of counter-terrorism. Dating Jackson is Hudson “Hud” Benoit (Remar), CEO of HBI Energy Consultants, Worldwide, while Canary is engaged to Jane McCann (Devicq), who lost her husband in the attack on the World Trade Center. Jay Aldrich (Forster) is a former head of the State Department and Jackson’s mentor. Muhammad (David) is the mastermind of a new terrorist organization; Kaz Moore (Moricz) is a Chechen American Muslim extremist working with Muhammad; and Dr. Raghib Mutar (Carson) is a devout Muslim doctor in Cairo who is torn between his spiritual interpretation of the Muslim faith and Muhammad’s more violent secular view.

This was made for TNT and is now available at blockbuster to rent and after the first hour you’ll be sure to be sucked into the world of anti-terrorism. What I found really interesting was the use of brainwashing tactics and how they terrorists brainwashed these boys not even 15 years old into becoming suicide bombers. All of this was under the guise of a boys school or dumas.

Hate breeds hate my friends.

I think this says it all, folks.

Out.

March 10, 2005 — ACTION hero Bruce Willis (above) got some action of a different kind after the screening of his new blood-and-guts flick, “Hostage.” At an after-after-party at the Peninsula Hotel early yesterday, Willis, who turns 50 this month, and teen queen Lindsay Lohan, 18, enjoyed a mutual gropefest. “At one point, Bruce had Lindsay’s pants down far enough to reveal a tattoo that said ‘La Bella Vista’ (The Beautiful View) on her right cheek,” says our spywitness. Eventually, Willis and a few friends, including Lohan, took the party upstairs to his suite.

(CNN) — Washington state’s Mount St. Helens volcano belched a column of smoke and ash nearly six miles high Tuesday evening, leaving a plume visible for more than 50 miles, authorities reported.

Glowing lava was visible inside the mountain’s crater after the disturbance, which occurred at about 5:20 p.m. (8:20 p.m. ET). There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, said Alan Steele, an official with Washington’s Emergency Management Division.

Pilots reported the column reached an altitude of about 30,000 feet, the National Weather Service said, but no flights were reported canceled or delayed.

The Weather Service posted ash-fall warnings for the Cascade Mountain foothills of southern Washington after the plume appeared.

“The area that the plume is supposed to go through is pretty much forest land,” said Sgt. Tony Barnes of the Clark County, Washington, sheriff’s department.

Most of the ash was expected to fall in uninhabited areas of neighboring Skamania County.

“We’re concerned that it, of course, has erupted, but it’s not to the point where we’ve mobilized resources up into that area,” Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox said.

The volcano, located about 45 miles northeast of Vancouver, Washington, has been rumbling and spewing steam since late September.

Geologists say that activity points to an explosive eruption, though none believe it will reach the intensity of the 1980 eruption that killed 57 people and knocked more than 1,000 feet off the top of the mountain.

That eruption created the mountain’s current crater. A new lava dome has been forming inside that crater for the past several months, and the U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday that the growth will be accompanied by low-level tremors, emissions of steam and volcanic gases and some production of ash.

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It’s been 25 years now, I was just a little kid when it first went off and I don’t really remeber the details.

18-year-old University of Arizona student, Parvin Dhaliwal was sentenced to a three month deferred jail sentence, 3 years probation, 200 hours community service, and a $5,400 fine for illegally downloading music and movies from the internet valued at $50 million dollars when he was 17.

The FBI found more than $50 million in music and movies on Dhaliwal’s computer. The illegally copied property included movies that, at the time of the theft, were available only in theaters. They included “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Matrix Revolutions,” “The Cat In The Hat,” and “Mona Lisa Smile.”

A federal task force that monitors the Internet caught on to the student and got a warrant, Garza said, adding that Dhaliwal was copying and selling the pirated material.

Here’s the link to the story.

My thoughts? Fair enough. She ran the school into controversy on both the athletic and academic sides, so it’s only fair she no longer serve as its head. Too bad the school now will have to suffer the aftermath while she gets away nearly untouched, though. Maybe an enforced retirement will do.

Out.

It’s pretty much assumed or known that I am a Republican in political affiliation. However, people like Sen. Ted Stevens from Alaska and Rep. Joe Barton from Texas make me take a really REEEEEALLLY long look at filing as Independent from here on.

See, Ted Stevens has brought a bill up in Congress that would extend the FCC’s ability to investigate and deal with indecency complaints to cable, satellite and satellite radio. This includes both basic cable and expanded cable- i.e. HBO and such. This also would include XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Barton has come out and said that he would support such a measure in Congress if the constitutional questions can be answered.

Oh, and to answer the obvious question- FCC chairman Michael Powell has come out and said publicly that he does NOT support such a measure. (Must be a Sopranos fan…) President Bush has said that the best way to keep children from watching is the common sense approach- change the channel or turn the tv off. (Bush, however, has encouraged the increase in fines for indecency findings. No real beef there, but being fair.)

So, let me get this straight- these two politically opportunistic politicians want to censor not only what I listen to on the radio or watch on regular tv, but also what I watch on cable too? Because people in general are apparently unable to turn the channel to something else, while those of us who pay for the services we want to watch now have to kowtow to the wants of a small number of politically influential groups?

Are you shittin’ me?

Nuh-uh. That’s it. That’s the line, right there. That is the line that regular folks are not willing to let be crossed, and the instant that this tries to gain momentum is the instant that the major media players will start to flex their muscles influencewise. Not only that, but at this point the American people need to start kicking in and writing to their representatives and senators and saying “The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther!”

Oh, and one other thing. As far as Ted Stevens and Joe Barton are concerned? These two weaselly, underhanded, ambulance-chasing, bandwagon-gripping, lowlife, dickhead, shit-for-brains, dumbass motherfucking sonsabitches can kiss my cable-subscribing ASS.

Complain against that, bitch.

And, I thank you.

Out.

LONDON (Reuters) - In its 183-year history, the august Oxford Union debating society has heard the wisdom of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Mother Teresa.

But until now, its members have yet to hear from anyone with quite the same resume as Ron Jeremy, star of 1,700 adult films, including “Bang Along With Ron”.

“As far as I know it is the first porn star to address the Oxford Union. I’m 99 percent sure of that,” Peter Cardwell, spokesman for one of the English-speaking world’s most respected debating societies, told Reuters.

Jeremy, who claims to have slept with more than 4,000 women, will address the union on Wednesday, joining many British prime ministers, three U.S. presidents and political figures from the Dalai Lama to Malcolm X in its archival guest list.

“Ron is the biggest and apparently the best in the business, so I’m sure he’ll have some fascinating stories to tell,” said Oxford Union librarian Vladimir Bermant, who organised the event.

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I wonder if they think that Ron’s bringing the hoes too. The English crack me up sometimes……