Boy, it is hot here! Geneva is in the middle of a heat wave, with the temperature in the mid-80′s – very hot for normally-cool Switzerland. People are working up a sweat all over town – except at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters. In fact, as you approach the WTO building you begin to notice the temperature dropping. And when you enter the building the environment is so frosty that if you could somehow funnel it out to the rest of the city, you could cool all Geneva (and maybe Liechtenstein, too)!

Trade ministers from about 60 countries have gathered here to try to break the five-year gridlock in the Doha Round of trade negotiations, but nothing has really changed. The Europeans say they can’t offer significantly more access for U.S. and other foreign farm products, and the advanced developing countries like Brazil, China, and India are saying they want the United States to virtually eliminate its industrial tariffs while they make little if any cut in theirs.

Everybody is telling the United States it is all our fault because we won’t do more in cutting U.S. agricultural subsidies, but the U.S. says, “Whoa, we already made a big subsidies-cutting offer – you guys have to respond to our first offer before we make a second offer.”

Is there hope? Maybe. European trade commissioner Mandelson today said perhaps the Europeans could do some more in terms of agricultural market access – but the French Agricultural Minister (who must have rented out a whole train from Paris, given the number of French agricultural officials here), immediately said “non.” He said he is holding all the cards, and nothing more is going to be offered.

So maybe the Doha Round is toast – French toast?

As we noted below, the House voted pretty convincingly last night, 232 – 187, to finally allow us to tap our own resources in the Outer Continental Shelf. it is about 20 years overdue, but no matter. It’s done. Thanks to Resources Committee Chairman Pombo (R-CA) for his tremendous leadership and to Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) for his raw tenacity in getting this thing over the goal line. We still have the Senate to go, of course — no mean feat. But this is a moment to celebrate. There’ll be time enough for work.

With the House finishing their business, most of the Members will now be home for recess, living and walking among you. When they get a chance to talk about energy — or about manufacturing — to a person, they will curse the high energy prices and promise to do something about it. And if the topic turns to manufacturing, they will tell you they support it, yessirree.

Well, the truth is, we just had a little love test right her in the Congress. Here’s the roll call vote again. Please take a look and find your Member of Congress. If you have any trouble, drop us an e-mail, we’ll help you out. Then, once you find them, click on this link to get their contact information. Please give them a quick call to say “Thanks” if they voted to help lower our energy prices. However, if they voted against this bill, please let them know you noticed and that you will remember this vote at election time. And, if you’re a manufacturer, tell them you plan on letting your employees know as well.

It’s rare that you get a chance to see who’s on your side and who isn’t when it comes to keeping energy prices low and keeping manufacturing competitive. This is one of those rare times We hope you’ll take this opportunity to weigh in.

Watching CNN this week — blessedly with the sound off — we saw images of the brush fires in Sedona, Arizona. Under the video was a graphic at the bottom that said, “Warming at Work?” Mind you, this is during a week of torrential rains in Washington, causing media folks and lefties (but we repeat ourselves) to wonder aloud if it was global warming come to roost.

And so that set us to thinkin’ about just how many things might be attributable to global warming. Thanks to our co-worker, Carter Wood — and the Internet — we found a site that actually keeps track of such things. So check out this site — it’s a pretty impressive list if we do say so ourselves. Not sure all ten plagues are on there, but hey — we figure it’s just a matter of time. Maybe we should just e-mail them and make sure they include frogs, locusts, boils, the whole nine — or ten — yards.

It really is the new catch-all excuse. Next time you’re late for work, just tell the boss it’s global warming. Somewhere there will be a scientist to back you up. From there, consensus is just around the corner.

Six Apart is the company that owns Movable Type, the software we use to run our humble little blog. They are ever making the rounds, looking at blogs who use their product and doing case studies. And so it was a little while ago, they called and interviewed the blogger-in-chief and the blogger’s apprentice about ShopFloor.org. Here’s a link to their resulting case study, which makes us sound way better and way smarter than we are. Sorry, ladies, no photos of the bloggers. It’s been said we have faces for radio anyway.

And thanks, Six Apart, for the plug..

Thanks to our blog pal Mike Krempasky for this little gem, a little tiff between animator and the animation they created. Just goes to show that the animators can give life, but they also can take it away. Want to save changes….?

Click here to see this week’s Friday Follies, “Animator vs. Animation.”

Regular blog readers, both of you, may have noticed that we added a new feature on the side of our site yesterday…its a “submit news” feature.

Basically, if you have information that we should know about, send us a note via the form on the left and we’ll look into it.

Sometimes we’re so wrapped up in the DC poltiical world that we rely on folks like you to send us information…so feel free to use the form to let us know what you’re hearing.

Happy Friday.

Congratulations to al you manufacturers who mobilized for today’s huge vote on the DOER Act, to finally allow us to tap our own resources. It passed the House a short while ago by a bi-partisan vote of 232-187. Here’s a link to the Roll Call vote. We’ll opining more on this tomorrow. This is an historic vote, an historic day. As we near Independence Day, we took one giant step toward energy independence.

Thanks to you all. On to the Senate.

[UPDATE by Blogger's Apprentice]: Here’s a link to our formal statement on the matter.

Rep. Hensarling just showed up.

On spending:

I’d like to echo Rep. Doolittle’s message. Relative to the challenges of a great nation, we have made some progress on the budget. Relative to the history of Congress and what is achievable for a small majority, I think we’ve achieved a lot. The battleship is finally turning in the right direction. For 2 years running, we have had an “actual, honest-to-God cut” in non-defense discretionary spending. That’s not a huge slice of the pie, but it’s still an historical accomplishment. This is a very important achievement for House conservatives. However Medicare is growing at 9% a year, Medicaid 7.8%, Soc Sec, 5.5%.

Some interesting thoughts on energy from the perspective of the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra:

I’ll be voting for the DOER Act. This is first and foremost a national security issue. We get our il from Venezuela, Nigeria Saudi Arabia. Canada and Mexico are reliable, but from there, the neighborhood gets pretty ugly. This is not only an economic issue but also a national security issue. I hope we do more drilling, hope we do nuclear and renewable — and conservation. This will make us more secure and more energy independent. I applaud what the auto industry did, announcing that they are going to get to 2 million the number of vehicles that can use renewable fuels. This is hopefully the kind of step that will enable them to take a leadership position, take the lead on an issue of importance to the American people.

I’ve been to Nigeria, Saudi Arabia. I don’t want the economic future of the US to be in the hands of these countries. I want the future for energy to be in the US. We’ve been saying this since the oil embargoes of the 70′s. This time I think we’re going to be compelled to act.

There’s more investment in alternative energy as well. This is all good. That money needs to cycle through our economy, not leave our economy.

House Whip Roy Blunt just dropped by, also to talk about Medicare:

People who project numbers here in Washington are almost always wrong. There were three premises here that were totally inaccurate:

– Competition wouldn’t make a difference on price and the $37/month average insurance rate would be higher. The average rate is no $23/month. Competition is huge. These plans aren’t getting worse, they’re getting better. $14/month x 12 months x 40 million seniors = your savings.

– Giving seniors access to drugs would not have any impact on the long-term health of seniors. Data here is common sense.

– New Medicare initiatives on preventative care would have no impact. “Welcome to Medicare” physical — bring people into the system with a new view of what health care is ail about, treat them before they reach a crisis. Lots of additional screenings, etc. All help aid the long-term health of the individual.

The “facts” were wrong. Seniors are finding out that this works for them. The marketplace is turning out to be a better provider for senior care than a government “straitjacket.” Very popular in my district. Everybody tried to make this more complicated than it was.