5 Days: A little bridge over troubled waters and silver girl can set you free; but not for long...make the right choice

The United Kingdom’s (“UK”) Bribery Act 2010 (the “Act”) will come into force on 1 July 2011. It radically overhauls the UK's outdated and criticised anti-corruption laws and introduces a new, clearer regime for tackling bribery that will apply to all businesses based or operating in the UK. This article summarises the offences under the Act and the potential impact on Middle East companies operating in the UK and UK companies operating in the Middle East.

Summary of the offences
The Act sets out offences of bribing, being bribed and bribing a foreign public official (“FPO”). These offences will only be committed by an individual or commercial organisation if the relevant conduct (i) takes place within the UK or (ii) takes place outside the UK and the individual or company has a "close connection" with the UK (e.g. the individual is a British citizen or resident or the company is incorporated in the UK).
The Act also introduces a new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. The offence has wide reach and may catch companies incorporated outside the UK which have business operations or a subsidiary located in the UK.

Penalties include imprisonment or a fine or both. Businesses also risk being debarred from competing for public contracts in the UK.

6 Days: Solutions at hand are often lost to those who wait.

EIB has a zero tolerance policy to fraud and corruption in the projects it finances, as stated in ElB's Anti-Fraud Policy and confirmed by the Board in April 2008.

Misleading can cost you dearly!!!

The U.S. Supreme Court left intact Jeffrey Skilling’s conviction for leading the Enron Corp. accounting fraud, refusing to grant a second hearing to the imprisoned former chief executive officer.

Today’s rebuff leaves Skilling with nothing to show for his victory at the Supreme Court in 2010, when the justices said prosecutors used an improper legal theory to convict him. A federal appeals court then reaffirmed his 19-count conviction, saying the verdict would have been the same regardless.

Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence in a federal prison in Colorado after he and former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay were found guilty of deceiving investors about the company’s true financial condition. Lay died in 2006.

7 Days: So many problems can disappear with a little fair & reasonable behavior

Let's imagine a little country A that had worked hard for big country B in a joint venture.  The little country was working a villa that was valued at say $14.85 mln and the little country's share was $3.95 mln.  Then a dispute arose for any number of reasons sending the little country off to pursue all sorts of current and future bi-lateral and multi-lateral legal & political avenues to correct how it felt it had been wronged -- all to the embarrassment and cost really of big country B.

All little country A ever wanted was what its fair share, for its hard work had always been $3.95 mln.

The funny thing about this dispute is that it could be solved simply by selling the venture that A & B began.  Little country A would make certain that big country B got its fair share of the proceeds of selling their venture (because honesty, transparency and trust are very important to little country A).

And then little country A would go off with its hard worked for stake of $3.95 mln and all of the bi-lateral and multi-lateral efforts would be withdrawn -- quietly, responsibly and leave big country B looking like the big dog on the block not to be messed with.

Everyone would live happily ever after.

Boehner is apparently on an incentive scheme from Canadian Oil sands companies -- 'cause he doesn't give a dam about Americans or their Health

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner will make a new attempt to force approval of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline as part of legislation for another 90-day extension of federal road, bridge and transit construction funding, Republican aides said on Friday.

By seeking a second short-term funding extension, the plan aims to put the Canada-to-Texas pipeline and expanded drilling rights back at the top of the House agenda without the struggles that the House has endured in trying to pass a longer-term, more expensive transport bill.

people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. more to follow!!!

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as a nonpartisan champion of free markets. But if you spend some time at an ALEC conference you will be hard-pressed to find many Democrats. 

And the council doesn’t really support free markets, either. It supports the companies that fund it. This is an important distinction, because the corporations that donate to ALEC aren’t doing so to protect markets. 

They’re protecting favored tax treatments and pushing regulations that lock in their market positions. As best as we were able to determine in reporting our piece last year, corporations propose bills at the state level and then push them up to ALEC, which has both corporate and legislative members. ALEC pushes the legislative members to the foreground, stamps the bills as “model legislation,” and then the corporations push them back out to other state legislatures. 

So ALEC is not what it says it is. If the American Legislative Exchange Council operated with complete openness, it couldn’t operate at all. ALEC has attracted a wide and wealthy range of supporters precisely because it does its real work in a black box. Membership lists are secret. The origins of the model bills are secret. Deliberations and votes on model bills are secret. The model bills themselves are secret. The council has designed its entire structure to disguise industry-backed legislation as grassroots work from state legislators. If this becomes clear to everyone, there’s no reason for corporations to use it. And that is exactly what has been happening.

Since last year, the National Urban League, Common Cause, and ColorOfChange have been pressuring companies to drop their membership in ALEC. The council’s library of model bills includes legislation that tightens voter identification requirements, making it harder for students, the elderly, and the poor to vote. Since the death of Trayvon Martin last month, minority advocacy groups have made another complaint against ALEC: In 2005, the council turned Florida’s Castle Doctrine bill into model legislation (PDF). The doctrine allows the use of deadly force in a public place if someone “believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm,” and removes the duty to flee a confrontation.

This week, ColorOfChange announced that Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and the personal financial software maker Intuit, among several other brand-name companies, have declined to renew their memberships with ALEC. McDonald’s confirmed for Bloomberg Businessweek that it left ALEC in March, and elaborated only that it was a “business decision.” Intuit confirmed as well, but explained that the decision had come out of its normal budgeting process in 2011. Coca-Cola has yet to respond to a request for comment.

In July 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive activist group, published ALEC’s full catalog of legislation. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s were then no longer just members of a nonpartisan organization that championed free markets; they ran the reputational risk of endorsing everything that ALEC does.

It’s hard to come up with a reason the council keeps its model legislation secret other than to avoid embarrassing incongruities for its corporate members. If the council’s model bills promote free markets, why not proudly display them? If private and public members working together produce better solutions, why not open up their deliberations to the public, or at least reveal their names? The simplest answer is the most likely: Some of what ALEC does looks bad for its members. McDonald’s, in its response to an e-mail about ALEC, wasn’t obfuscating. Dumping the council was, in fact, a “business decision.”

But people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. Embarrassment is impossible without disclosure. ALEC should be free to advocate for whatever it likes, and people should be free to support the candidate who pleases them. In ALEC’s case, it’s been interesting to watch embarrassment do its work once disclosure showed up. It might be a rule for campaign and super PAC contributions as well: You can do whatever you like, as long as you are honest about it through transparent disclosure.

What could Mitt not want us to see?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today requested a six-month extension to file his 2011 federal income taxes, said Andrea Saul, his campaign spokeswoman. Saul said he would file his taxes and release the return before the Nov. 6 general election.

Financial Crisis Relief programs to break even & saved the Automakers!!!

U.S. government programs designed to stem the financial crisis starting in 2008 will break even in the long term.

Republicans in Congress have criticized the bailouts, which started under Bush in 2008 and continued under President Barack Obama starting in 2009. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney supported aid for banks while opposing help for automakers.

51% of the world is female; ok guys do the math ... you have less than a 50/50 shot at having a son!!!

Gender selection

Reshma Bano wails as she holds the body of her 3-month-old daughter Neha Afreen outside a hospital morgue in Bangalore, India, April 11. Afreen was admitted to the hospital on April 8 after being battered by her father for being born a girl. Police said the father confessed to the crime and was in custody, according to media reports.

Mitt Romney the doomsday presidential scenario

Mitt Romney has a different, and frighteningly familiar, view.

He thinks you grow our economy from the top down.

He'd take us back to an economy based on outsourcing, risky financial schemes, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy. He'd return to the policy of allowing Wall Street, Big Oil, and other special interests to write their own rules.

But that's not all. Below are five other things that should give Americans pause.

Forward this email -- and if you're ready for this fight, become the newest member of the Truth Team today and help get the facts out from now till Election Day.

1. Romney's positions are the most radically anti-women of any candidate in a generation: He supports banning all abortions, backed a so-called "personhood" amendment that could make certain forms of birth control illegal, and says he would "get rid of" federal funding for Planned Parenthood that provides preventive services like cancer screenings for millions of women.

2. Romney would repeal Obamacare. Insurance companies would once again be allowed to run up premiums, unjustifiably deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, drop patients when they get sick, discriminate against women by charging them more for coverage than men, and spend more of your premium dollars on CEO profits and bonuses instead of your actual health care.

3. Romney is a risk when it comes to foreign policy and national security. On many of these questions, he has shifted his position for political reasons, even within the same campaign. His only clear commitment is to endless wars: He has no plan to end the war in Afghanistan and would leave our troops there indefinitely. He called the President's decision to bring our troops home from Iraq by last Christmas "tragic."

4. Despite the lessons of recent history, Romney would double down on the disastrous tax policies that handed windfalls to the wealthy, but stacked the deck against the middle class. Under Romney, millionaires and billionaires would get a $250,000 tax cut, while families with kids making less than $40,000 a year would, on average, actually see their taxes go up. To the surprise of no one, Romney also opposes the Buffett Rule. He would allow millionaires to continue to take advantage of loopholes and special deals that often allow them to pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. And he supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

5. Romney would end Medicare as we know it -- replacing it with a voucher scheme that would drive profits for insurance companies by forcing seniors to purchase private insurance, paying whatever costs a voucher wouldn't cover out of their own limited budgets.

Romney and his special-interest allies are going to spend the next seven months trying to deny, downplay, or hide these facts from voters. It's on us to speak the truth.

South China Sea contains oil reserves that may total as much as 213 billion barrels

A Philippine warship is in a standoff in the South China Sea with Chinese vessels after they blocked the arrest of Chinese fishermen in the disputed waters.

Philippine personnel attempting to arrest fishermen aboard eight boats on the Scarborough Shoal were blocked by two Chinese surveillance ships, the foreign affairs department in Manila said in an e-mailed statement today. The Philippines summoned the Chinese envoy in Manila to seek a “diplomatic solution,” it said.

The latest tension follows a push by the Philippines for Southeast Asian nations to take a common position regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China used patrol boats last year to disrupt hydrocarbon survey activities in waters it claims, chasing away a ship working for Forum Energy Plc (FEP) off the Philippines and slicing cables of a survey vessel doing work for Vietnam.

The Chinese fishermen were first spotted in the area on April 8, according to the Philippine statement, which referred to the waters as “an integral part of Philippine territory.” Philippine Foreign Affairs SecretaryAlbert del Rosario asked China’s ambassador in Manila, Ma Keqing, to discuss the issue this morning, the statement said.

The South China Sea contains oil reserves that may total as much as 213 billion barrels, according to Chinese studies cited in 2008 by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. The Philippines said in January it’s ready to host a summit to help resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

The Scarborough Shoal is within the Philippines’ 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, today’s statement said.

There are about 48 million cases of food poisoning in the U.S. each year

Eating a spicy tuna roll shouldn’t make you sick. Nor should eating cantaloupe, cold cuts, peanut butter or onions, all of which were linked to food poisoning that sickened and killed people in the U.S. within the past five years.

Reports last week of a salmonella outbreak, possibly related to sushi, serve as a timely reminder of why the Obama administration must expedite a plan to modernize the country’s food-safety regulations, which haven’t been updated since the Great Depression.

So far, more than 100 people in 19 states have been stricken, all by an unusual strain of the bacteria known as salmonella Barielly. No deaths have been reported. Many of those who fell ill told health officials they had eaten sushi in recent days, though tracing the source of food poisoning is often difficult.

There’s a chance that if sushi were the culprit, the Food Safety and Modernization Act would have prevented it. Passed two years ago with wide bipartisan support, the law is designed to stop food contamination at the source, not simply react to incidences of food-borne illness. The deadline for issuing the rules to implement the law was Jan. 4, pending a review of the regulations by the Office of Management and Budget.

There are about 48 million cases of food poisoning in the U.S. each year and as many as 3,000 deaths. Although the incidence of food poisoning hasn’t increased much, the virulence of individual episodes is on the rise, particularly from fresh produce, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Last year, cantaloupe tainted by Listeria was responsible for 30 deaths, the most lethal case of food poisoning in U.S. history.

Because the country’s food supply is increasingly concentrated among a handful of large producers and distributors, the potential for mass poisonings is growing. Some of the 50,000 food-processing plants in the U.S. go as long as a decade without being inspected.

Food-borne illness costs the U.S. as much as $77 billion a year in medical treatment, lost productivity and reduced sales of products implicated in contamination episodes, according to an analysis by a former FDA economist. The expense of the tainted peanut butter recall and subsequent decline in demand alone cost the industry an estimated $1 billion.

The food industry would prefer that the costs of more vigilant regulation fall to the American taxpayer. But in light of the harm that food poisoning causes to victims, the economy and the industry itself, the Obama administration should press forward with building support for user fees. The food industry should relent and back them. After all, many manufacturers supported the legislation before anyone thought of asking them to pay for making it work.

Occupy Wall Street unifies around the evicted

Mercedes Robinson-Duvallon turned 83 in February, but there was little time for celebration.

On her birthday, as she sat in a wheelchair recovering from surgery, sheriffs' deputies arrived to evict her from the Miami home where she has lived since 1966. A year earlier her property had moved into foreclosure after she defaulted on a refinanced loan.

Robinson-Duvallon says she would be homeless now but for the intervention of about 40 members of Occupy Fort Lauderdale, a Florida branch of the national movement that is protesting income inequality and corporate greed. The group took over her lawn and house and even baked her a birthday cake.

The deputies decided to let her stay.

"I owe the Occupy people," said Robinson-Duvallon, who is now challenging the eviction in court. "This has all been so horrible, I can't tell you how many times I've cried and cried."

What happened in Miami is also occurring in Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, as local Occupy groups pursue an issue they believe has emotional resonance among America's struggling lower and middle classes.

Fighting foreclosures and evictions, activists say, gives the disparate movement a unifying focus and embodies its anti-Wall Street message. It also has offered a way for Occupy - up till now a largely white, middle-class movement - to broaden its reach to minorities.

The 10 most miserable states in the USA...

Of the 10 states with the lowest well-being scores, five are located in the South — a reality since the survey began.

Perhaps the most common shared factor among the states that report the lowest well-being is poor health. Nine of the states on this list are among the 15 states with the lowest life expectancy. Obesity is exceptionally high in seven. Seven also fall within the top 10 states that have the highest rates of smoking. Rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes are also all particularly high.

In addition to the information from Gallup, 24/7 Wall St. used data from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Social Science Research Council, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

These are America’s most miserable states.

11. Nevada
> Well-being index score: 65
> Life expectancy: 77.6 (14th lowest)
> Obesity: 22.4% (2nd lowest)
> Median household income: $51,001 (19th highest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 84.7% (15th lowest)

Nevada had the lowest score in the well-being basic access category, which measures how residents feel about access to basic necessities, such as access to a doctor, having enough money for food and satisfaction with one’s community or area. This may not be surprising when considering that Nevada currently has an unemployment rate of 12.6% — the highest in the country. The state was among the worst hit by the housing crisis, with home prices dropping 60% since their peak in the first quarter of 2006. Again, this is the worst in the country. An additional burden on those living in Nevada is the violent crime rate. In 2010, there were 660.6 incidents of violent crime per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the nation.


10. Tennessee
> Well-being index score: 65
> Life expectancy: 76.2 (8th lowest)
> Obesity: 30.8% (9th highest)
> Median household income: $41,461 (6th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 83.6% (21st lowest)

Since last year, Tennessee residents feel their situation has gotten significantly worse. The state’s already-poor scores in the well-being categories that measure life evaluation, emotional health and physical health have all declined in 2011 compared to 2010. The state’s economy is in very poor shape. Unemployment is above the national average, the poverty rate is the 10th highest in the country and median income is the sixth-lowest in the country. Physical health and healthy behavior, two categories measured by the index, are among the poorest. Tennessee residents have the 14th-highest rate of smoking in the country. The obesity rate is ninth-highest rate in the country with 30.8% of residents considered obese. The state also has the fifth-highest rate of heart disease in the country.

9. Florida
> Well-being index score: 64.9
> Life expectancy: 79.7 (12th highest)
> Obesity: 26.6% (23rd lowest)
> Median household income: $44,409 (15th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 85.5% (17th lowest)

Florida’s state of well-being dropped significantly from last year, moving the state’s rank from 12th worst to ninth worst. The state had among the lowest scores in the well-being category that measures the work environment. Many Floridians do not have any work, as the state has the sixth-highest unemployment rate — currently 9.9%. State residents also are relatively unhealthy in many aspects when compared to other states. Florida has the eighth-highest rates of both heart disease and diabetes. The state also has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the U.S.


8. Missouri
> Well-being index score: 64.8
> Life expectancy: 77.4 (12th lowest)
> Obesity: 30.5% (10th highest)
> Median household income: $44,301 (14th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 86.9% (22nd lowest)

Between 2010 and 2011, Missouri’s well-being score went from 17th worst in the country to eighth worst. Conditions in the state declined in every category Gallup measured. Missouri residents polled rated their emotional health as 14th worst in the country, down from 25th worst last year. The state also declined from 18th worst in life evaluation to third worst in the country. The state has the 11th-highest rate of smokers in the country at 21.1%. Heart disease, cancer and diabetes rates are all among the top 20, and life expectancy in the state is 77.4 years, the 12th lowest in the U.S.

7. Arkansas
> Well-being index score: 64.7
> Life expectancy: 76.1 (6th lowest)
> Obesity: 30.1% (12th highest)
> Median household income: $38,307 (3rd lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 82.9% (7th lowest)

Arkansan median household income is $38,307, the third lowest amount in the country. The share of residents living below the poverty line is 18.45%, the third highest in the country. Residents have a particularly low life expectancy of 76.1 years. The state has the fourth highest rate of smokers at 22.9% of adults, and it has the has the sixth-highest rate of cancer. Arkansas also has among the 10 lowest rates of adults with at least a high school diploma, and it is in the top 10 for violent crime.

6. Alabama
> Well-being index score: 64.6
> Life expectancy: 75.2 (3rd lowest)
> Obesity: 32.2% (3rd highest)
> Median household income: $40,474 (5th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 82.1% (6th lowest)

Alabama is one of the poorest states in the U.S. In 2010, median income was just $40,474, the fifth lowest in the country, and 17.4% of the population lives below the poverty line. And state residents asked in the poll certainly feel it. The state is among the 20 worst for every category measured in Gallup’s well-being index, and is among the 10 worst for physical health, healthy behavior and work environment. This is easily explained when considering that Alabama has the third-highest rate of obesity in the country, with just under a third of the population considered overweight. The state also has the seventh-highest rate of heart disease, the seventh-highest rate of cancer, and the highest rate of heart disease. Alabama also has the third-lowest life expectancy in the U.S., at just 75.2 years.

5. Ohio
> Well-being index score: 64.5
> Life expectancy: 77.5 (13th lowest)
> Obesity: 29.2% (16th highest)
> Median household income: $45,090 (17th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 88.1% (24th highest)

Ohio ranks within the 10 least well-off states in four of the six categories considered by Gallup in its Well-Being Index. This includes life evaluation, emotional health, healthy behavior and work environment. The state ranks quite poorly when it comes to health metrics, as it has among the highest rates of cancer, diabetes and smoking in the country. Its residents’ life expectancy is also relatively low, at 77.5 years. Median household income is fairly low in the state and the poverty rate is somewhat high; yet neither of these metrics are among the country’s worst.


4. Delaware
> Well-being index score: 64.2
> Life expectancy: 78.3 (23rd lowest)
> Obesity: 28.0% (20th highest)
> Median household income: $55,847 (10th highest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 87.7% (24th lowest)

Delaware’s overall life satisfaction rank fell from seventh worst in the country in 2010 to fourth worst in 2011. The biggest reason for this was a major decline in self-reported health. Delaware’s physical health rank fell from 24th worst in the country to tenth worst. The state is among the 25 worst for diabetes, heart disease and obesity, and has the 11th highest rate of cancer. Delaware also has the worst score in the country for Gallup’s work environment ranking, which measures elements such as job satisfaction, the ability to use one’s strengths at work and the way supervisors treat their employees. Delaware also has the third-highest violent crime rate in the country.

3. Mississippi
> Well-being index score: 63.4
> Life expectancy: 74.8 (the lowest)
> Obesity: 34.0% (the highest)
> Median household income: $36,851 (the lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 81.0% (3rd lowest)

Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation by a number of metrics. Its median household income is $36,851, which is the lowest in the country. It also has the highest poverty rate in the country at 21.8%. Mississippi has among the lowest rates of adults with a high school diploma or more. Health is also a major issue in the state. Mississippi has the lowest life expectancy in the country, at 74.8 years — almost four years less than the national average. Mississippi has the highest obesity rate in the nation at 34%. It also has among the five highest rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and tobacco use among states. It is no wonder that Mississippi residents feel so poorly as measured by the third-lowest well-being score.


2. Kentucky
> Well-being index score: 63.3
> Life expectancy: 76.2 (7th lowest)
> Obesity: 31.3% (5th highest)
> Median household income: $40,062 (4th lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 81.9% (5th lowest)

For the second year in a row, Kentucky’s well-being score is the second lowest. Residents consider themselves among the worst-off in the country in life evaluation, healthy behavior and both physical and emotional health. The state is relatively poor, financially speaking, with the fourth-lowest median household income and the fourth-highest rate of poverty. Residents have a low level of education compared to many other states, as only 81.9% of adults have at least a high school diploma — the fifth-lowest rate. The state also has a low life expectancy and among the highest rates of smoking, obesity and heart disease, as well as the highest rate of cancer in the country.

1. West Virginia
> Well-being index score: 62.3
> Life expectancy: 75.2 (2nd lowest)
> Obesity: 32.5% (2nd highest)
> Median household income: $38,218 (2nd lowest)
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 83.2% (8th lowest)

West Virginia residents feel the most miserable in the country. It appears that they have many reasons to feel this way. The state is particularly poor. It has the second-lowest median household income in the country at $38,218, and the sixth-highest rate of poverty. Residents also face a number of health issues. More than one in 10 West Virginians have had a heart attack or suffer from coronary artery disease — the highest rate in the country. The state has the third-highest rates of cancer and diabetes. It also has the highest rate of smokers, with 26.8% of adults indulging in the habit. It has the second-highest rate of obesity. These problems affect life expectancy, which at 75.2 years in West Virginia is the lowest in the country.

No Big Govt; Less Taxes; Stop Subsidies... I mean unless they're agricultural or for the oil industry; squeals TEXAS!!! The lone star state with its hand out.

Farm Subsidies….Gaines County Texas 2^nd largest recipient of Federal Agricultural Funding but votes against Federal Handouts … hmm like farm subsidies…”oh no, we deserve those!”

The political shift hasn’t stopped the flow of payments to the county’s cotton and peanut growers who have relied on aid dating to the 1930s Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Gaines County farmers took $797 million in payments from 1995 to 2010, including price supports, soil-conservation programs and crop- failure compensation, according to a database compiled by Washington-based lobby the Environmental Working Group. That puts it second in the nation behind Fresno County, California, as a recipient of federal funds.

Farmers use the programs mainly to give banks confidence that the loans to finance planned crops will be paid back regardless of weather or commodity prices, says Delmon Ellison, Jr. who farms 4,000 acres of cotton, peanuts and wheat in the area.

Office of Ethics

Tough new limits proposed on the way special interests could court executive branch officials have prompted a fierce counterattack from lobbyists who fear they will end a cherished Washington ritual: hosting federal workers at events like conferences, cocktail parties, galas and movie screenings.

Filmmakers and farmers, gun makers and real estate agents, and people in dozens of other industries say the rules under consideration by the Obama administration would choke off their ability to have a mutually beneficial dialogue with government officials. As a result, they say, public policy would be made in a vacuum, and federal rules would be more unrealistic and unworkable.

The proposal would extend restrictions now on political appointees to more than two million government workers. Federal employees could no longer accept “gifts of free attendance” at the many seminars, receptions and other social gatherings held by registered lobbyists and lobbying organizations as a matter of course in Washington.

In issuing the proposal under instructions from President Obama, the Office of Government Ethics said lobbyists often used such events to curry favor with federal employees.

The ethics office, which is now weighing the response to the proposal it made last September, said lobbyists had used these gatherings not only to discuss business with federal employees, but also to “foster a social bond that may be of greater use in the long run.”

Watchdog groups like the Project on Government Oversight, the Government Accountability Project and Common Cause welcomed the proposal, saying it would help break up the cozy relationships between federal regulators and regulated industries.  

Bill passed into LAW banning Congress from Insider Trading!!!

I wanted to give you some good news about the bill banning insider trading in Congress that you took action on a few months back.

This week, the President signed that bill into law, making members of Congress play by the same rules as everyone else when it comes to investing. Before this week, it was -- amazingly -- not against the law for members of Congress to profit off of the insider information they pick up on Capitol Hill.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans like you stepped up and played a role in passing the STOCK Act, so thanks for standing with the President.
President Obama promised that he would work to change the old ways of Washington, and this is what that change looks like. There's still more that we have to do, obviously, but thanks to your support, we've made a step in the right direction.

US Coal Exports to China & India => you can feel it

Although the government's message about squeezing coal out of U.S. electricity production is loud and clear, coal producers will be able to ship their product abroad.

Even now, Congress is hinting at banning U.S. natural gas exports. They want to keep prices as low as possible for as long as they can — and that means limiting future LNG shipments.

Safe Chemicals Act

Did you know that the EPA is required to test only a few hundred of the 85,000 different chemicals currently on the market? In fact, the federal law governing how we regulate chemicals doesn’t even require chemical companies to prove that the chemicals they make are safe before they end up in products.

This means that on a daily basis we are at risk of being exposed to dangerous, cancer-causing chemicals. These harmful chemicals may be in our workplaces, our classrooms and our homes – in our clothing, furniture, cleaning products, plastics, cosmetics, children’s toys and countless other everyday products.

In response, we’re working with a coalition of organizations and activists from across the country to collect 100,000 signed petitions in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would take meaningful steps to protect our families from harmful chemicals.

The Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s primary chemical safety law, has failed to protect public health, the environment and our communities. While the rates of diseases like asthma, diabetes, childhood cancers, infertility, and learning and behavioral disorders keep going up, the federal system that should protect us from harmful chemicals hasn’t changed in 35 years.

The reason for this inaction? The chemical industry is vigorously fighting to protect its profits.

For decades, the chemical industry has fought efforts to reform our nation’s chemical safety laws. Last year, the industry spent $52 million lobbying Congress to block meaningful reform efforts. And just recently, they spent another $1.5 million on deceptive television ads to mislead and confuse the public about the severity of the problem.

Pension Funds should make money the old fashioned way = save it; invest in risk free assets and not gamble with workers' prosperity

Pensions Find Riskier Funds Fail to Pay Off

Searching for higher returns to bridge looming shortfalls, public workers’ pension funds across the country are increasingly turning to riskier investments in private equity, real estate and hedge funds. 

But while their fees have soared, their returns have not. In fact, a number of retirement systems that have stuck with more traditional investments in stocks and bonds have performed better in recent years, for a fraction of the fees. 

Consider the contrast between the state retirement fund for Pennsylvania and the one for Georgia.

The $26.3 billion Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System has more than 46 percent of its assets in riskier alternatives, including nearly 400 private equity, venture capital and real estate funds. 

The system paid about $1.35 billion in management fees in the last five years and reported a five-year annualized return of 3.6 percent. That is below the 8 percent target needed to meet its financing requirements, and it also lags behind a 4.9 percent median return among public pension systems. 

In Georgia, the $14.4 billion retirement system, which is prohibited by state law from investing in alternative investments, has earned 5.3 percent annually over the same time frame and paid about $54 million total in fees. The two funds represent the extremes, with Pennsylvania in a group of pension systems with some of the highest percentages of investments in alternatives and Georgia in a group of 10 with some of the lowest, according to groupings of funds identified by the London-based research firm Preqin. 

An analysis of the sampling presents an unflattering portrait of the riskier bets: the funds with a third to more than half of their money in private equity, hedge funds and real estate had returns that were more than a percentage point lower than returns of the funds that largely avoided those assets. They also paid nearly four times as much in fees. 

While managers for the retirement systems say that a five-year period is not long enough to judge their success, those fees nevertheless add up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year for some of the country’s largest pension funds. The $51.4 billion Pennsylvania public schools pension system, for instance, which has 46 percent of its assets in riskier investments, pays more than $500 million a year in fees. It has earned 3.9 percent annually since 2007.

Hiring is BACK!

Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction. After four years during which many students graduated to find no job and had only their loans to show for their studies, most college campuses are teeming with companies eager to hire.

A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found 2012 hiring is expected to climb 10.2 percent, above a previous estimate of 9.5 percent.

Companies such as General Electric, Amazon, Apple and Barclays Global are looking for new staff, even if some firms remain below the pre-recession levels of new hiring. In another sign of the recovery, some first-time job seekers are receiving multiple offers.

At University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the career service office has seen up to now a 7.4 percent increase in the number of interviews of students by potential employers from last year and the number of companies seeking to recruit for full-time jobs is up 9.2 percent.

Undergraduate business majors reporting full-time job offers is up about 10 percent.

Career experts at a dozen of U.S. schools said they have seen an increase of 15 to 30 percent in the number of companies attending campus career fairs. At University of Florida, the fall career fair garnered 15 percent more companies in attendance than in 2010.

And 150 companies asked to conduct interviews versus about 100 in recent years, said Ja'Net Glover, associate director of employer relations at the school.

The increase in demand was so significant that it was the first time in years the school had to use both the first and second floors of the school's basketball facility for interviews.

Leading edge Carbon Capture Technology ..... U guessed it => Brought to you by China!!!

See the nice thing about being an Agnostic State like China is your politicians don't waste time and money talking about make believe friends and instead focus on real issues like ... hhmmmmm ... Climate Change!!!

It’s a tantalizing promise that one day “carbon capture” will remove greenhouse gases from the smoke made by coal-fired power plants. After all, these plants, which provide 45 percent of electricity in the U.S., account for more than a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. 

Small-scale experiments have been successful enough that, at this point, engineers have little doubt the technology can work. Yet efforts in the U.S. to advance it are stalled. What was to have been the nation’s first commercial-scale project -- at Mountaineer, a coal-burning electricity plant in New Haven, West Virginia -- has been put on hold.

Meanwhile, in China, carbon capture marches steadfastly ahead, as an article in the May issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine reports. A pilot project by China Huaneng Group Corp. has been able to remove carbon from coal-plant exhaust for about $39 per ton of captured CO2, which is a little more than a third of what it costs in the U.S. 

The work has been so impressive, as John Lippert and Chua Baizhen report, that Duke Energy Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, has signed a research agreement with Huaneng to study its technology. Duke wants to learn how much it would cost to retrofit its largest power plant, in Gibson County, Indiana, to capture carbon.

Lies, Lies and more Lies

The Senate on Thursday could not produce the 60 votes necessary to pass a bill eliminating $2.5 billion a year of oil industry subsidies. This is a minuscule amount for an industry whose top three companies in the United States alone earned more than $80 billion in profits last year.

In the last year, the oil industry spent more than $146 million lobbying Congress. In Thursday’s vote, senators who voted to preserve the tax breaks received more than four times as much as those who voted against.

Voters in Michigan, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado will hear a 30-second spot peddling the oil industry’s misleading arguments against the Obama administration’s energy policies — including the fiction that those policies have led to higher gas prices: “Since Obama became president,” it says in part, “gas prices have nearly doubled. Obama opposed exploring for energy in Alaska. He gave millions of dollars to Solyndra, which then went bankrupt. And he blocked the Keystone pipeline, so we will all pay more at the pump.”

Four sentences, four misrepresentations. Gas prices, tied to the world market, would have gone up no matter who was president. Mr. Obama has not ruled out further leasing in Alaskan waters. Solyndra, a solar panel maker, is the only big failure in a broader program aimed at encouraging nascent energy technologies. The Keystone XL oil pipeline has nothing to do with gas prices now and, even if built, would have only a marginal effect.