Gherkins of Info.....

NYT

December 30, 2006
U.S. Official Overseeing Oil Program Faces Inquiry
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 — The Justice Department is investigating whether the director of a multibillion-dollar oil-trading program at the Interior Department has been paid as a consultant for oil companies hoping for contracts.

The director of the program and three subordinates, all based in Denver, have been transferred to different jobs and have been ordered to cease all contacts with the oil industry until the investigation is completed some time next spring, according to officials involved.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been announced publicly, said investigators were worried that senior government officials had been steering huge oil-trading contracts to favored companies.

South Bend Tribune

December 30. 2006 6:59AM

County pares staff by 19 jobs
Thin budget, hard decisions behind housekeeper layoffs.


JOSEPH DITS
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- On the Thursday before Christmas, 19 workers who clean offices for the county learned they're losing their part-time jobs as of Jan. 1.
It will leave the county with 11 people to do housekeeping.

Wilma Mathes is among those who've lost their jobs.
"Everyone is bothered by it," she says of her co-workers. "This is the only job for some of them."
She says she's found another job. But it pays $1 less than her $7.07 hourly wage with the county, and it doesn't offer the health insurance she had through the county, Mathes says.

This, county officials say, is one of the prices of a budget that needed to be balanced. So, too, is the fact that some office workers will have to sweep up after themselves.

"We cannot sustain our spending level anymore," says county Auditor Michael Eby. "We're being asked to do more and more with less and less."

He says the St. Joseph County Council adopted the 2007 budget -- and a reduced housekeeping budget -- in September.

Among the many reasons for the thin budget, officials have cited the rising costs of fuel, utilities and housing juveniles in state correctional facilities.

This is a total shame!! The county is paying these people $7 an hour, and they can't afford it?!? The real money buster here (hidden in the article) is the health insurance. Over and over we're told that health insurance costs are unduly burdening small businesses, but what about the burden on government groups like this? I'm sure the health insurance costs for these people was a large percentage of whatever measly income they brought home. Now who will pay for their health care costs?
You guessed it, still us, but at a higher amount. Catch-22 kids.

You knew it was gonna happen....

December deadliest month for U.S. in Iraq in 2 yrs
30 Dec 2006 15:15:12 GMT

BAGHDAD, Dec 30 (Reuters) - December became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in two years after the U.S. military reported six more combat deaths, leaving the tally just two short of the emotive 3,000 mark.

Three U.S. marines died on Thursday from wounds suffered in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province. One soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad and another soldier was killed in Anbar on Friday, the military said on Saturday.

Another statement announced the death of a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb in southwest Baghdad on Friday.

The latest deaths take the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the invasion of March 2003 to 2,998, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number who died in December is now 109, three more than the previous high this year in October, and the highest since November 2004 when 137 U.S. servicemen and women died.