CAIRO — By force of this year’s Arab revolts and revolutions, activists marching under the banner of Islam are on the verge of a reckoning decades in the making: the prospect of achieving decisive power across the region has unleashed an unprecedented debate over the character of the emerging political orders they are helping to build.
Few question the coming electoral success of religious activists, but as they emerge from the shadows of a long, sometimes bloody struggle with authoritarian and ostensibly secular governments, they are confronting newly urgent questions about how to apply Islamic precepts to more open societies with very concrete needs.
In Turkey and Tunisia, culturally conservative parties founded on Islamic principles are rejecting the name “Islamist” to stake out what they see as a more democratic and tolerant vision.
In Egypt, a similar impulse has begun to fracture the Muslim Brotherhood as a growing number of politicians and parties argue for a model inspired by Turkey, where a party with roots in political Islam has thrived in a once-adamantly secular system. Some contend that the absolute monarchy of puritanical Saudi Arabia in fact violates Islamic law.
A backlash has ensued, as well, as traditionalists have flirted with timeworn Islamist ideas like imposing interest-free banking and obligatory religious taxes and censoring irreligious discourse.
The debates are deep enough that many in the region believe that the most important struggles may no longer occur between Islamists and secularists, but rather among the Islamists themselves, pitting the more puritanical against the more liberal.
Social Justice: Current Affairs, Business, Politics, and all the reasons in the world to Thrive on Creative Discontent!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Treason = Death; no questions asked!
The killing of the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki will instill a "sense of doom" in al-Qaida's surviving leaders, a senior American military official told The New York Times.
The official, who was not named by the paper, said al-Awlaki's death was "critically important" and would send an important message to everyone in the terrorist network.
He spoke as New York's police commissioner Ray Kelly said the city's force was on high alert in case al-Awlaki's followers tried to stage a retaliatory attack.
"We know al-Awlaki had followers in the United States including New York City, and for that reason we remain alert to the possibility that someone might want to avenge his death," Kelly said in a statement.
"He was a powerful recruiter of terrorists in the United States," he said.
The Times reported that the airstrike that killed al-Awlaki and fellow U.S. citizen Samir Khan, 25, was the culmination of a two-year manhunt.
The official, who was not named by the paper, said al-Awlaki's death was "critically important" and would send an important message to everyone in the terrorist network.
He spoke as New York's police commissioner Ray Kelly said the city's force was on high alert in case al-Awlaki's followers tried to stage a retaliatory attack.
"We know al-Awlaki had followers in the United States including New York City, and for that reason we remain alert to the possibility that someone might want to avenge his death," Kelly said in a statement.
"He was a powerful recruiter of terrorists in the United States," he said.
The Times reported that the airstrike that killed al-Awlaki and fellow U.S. citizen Samir Khan, 25, was the culmination of a two-year manhunt.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Bigger than QE2 = The Twister
Prices on 30-year Treasury bonds have soared on the announcement of Operation Twist, at times driving yields below 3% for the first time since January 2009. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction to price, has fallen 0.21 percentage point since the day before the program was announced Sept. 21. Ten-year notes also have surged. Yields on both Treasury securities have moved off their recent lows.
Here is how the program works: The Fed will buy $400 billion of longer-term Treasurys—those maturing in six to 30 years—and in turn will sell $400 billion of Treasurys that mature in three months to three years.
Essentially, the Fed is sucking up bonds that have the most risk tied to interest-rate fluctuations. By doing that, the Fed shrinks the supply of those investments available to private investors, which raises the price.
But investors still need bonds with similar interest-rate risk, known as duration, in part because many of them have set duration targets within their investment portfolios.
Barclays Capital and other bond observers measure the impact of the Fed's buying through a concept known as 10-year equivalents, or the amount of 10-year notes an investor would have to buy to get the same amount of interest-rate risk.
In those terms, Operation Twist looks similar to, or a little bigger than, QE2.
Here is how the program works: The Fed will buy $400 billion of longer-term Treasurys—those maturing in six to 30 years—and in turn will sell $400 billion of Treasurys that mature in three months to three years.
Essentially, the Fed is sucking up bonds that have the most risk tied to interest-rate fluctuations. By doing that, the Fed shrinks the supply of those investments available to private investors, which raises the price.
But investors still need bonds with similar interest-rate risk, known as duration, in part because many of them have set duration targets within their investment portfolios.
Barclays Capital and other bond observers measure the impact of the Fed's buying through a concept known as 10-year equivalents, or the amount of 10-year notes an investor would have to buy to get the same amount of interest-rate risk.
In those terms, Operation Twist looks similar to, or a little bigger than, QE2.
Choice...tax $1 Trillion Dollars a little or not at all.....go for a little!
As a coalition led by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG), and Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) presses for a tax holiday on more than $1 trillion in offshore profits, it is turning to a well-positioned lobbyist: Jeffrey Forbes, once chief of staff to Max Baucus, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.
Data compiled by Bloomberg News show that Forbes is part of an army of more than 160 lobbyists, including at least 60 who once worked for a sitting member of the House or Senate, pushing for the repatriation holiday. Their job is to persuade Congress to establish a tax break estimated to cost the U.S. government $78.7 billion over the next decade.
Independent studies have found that the last time this tax break was tried, in 2004, the bargain rate for bringing home offshore profits did little to spur hiring or domestic investment. Most of the money was used to buy back stock. (Simple solution: tie the tax break to a certain level of hiring for the benefiting company.)
In all, three former staffers of Baucus, the Finance Committee’s chairman since 2007, are lobbying on the repatriation holiday. Besides Forbes, there’s Nick Giordano of Washington Council Ernst & Young, a longtime Cisco lobbyist. Microsoft has retained Timothy E. Punke, a former adviser to Baucus on trade issues who is active in Democratic politics.
The WIN America campaign’s manager is Karen Olick, former chief of staff to Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. One of the spokesmen for the group is Doug Thornell, who most recently was a staffer for Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who is a member of the House leadership. Like Anita Dunn, Thornell and Olick aren’t registered lobbyists.
“Our economy needs all the help it can get, and leaving this money in foreign banks when we could bring it home now makes no sense,” Thornell said.
Data compiled by Bloomberg News show that Forbes is part of an army of more than 160 lobbyists, including at least 60 who once worked for a sitting member of the House or Senate, pushing for the repatriation holiday. Their job is to persuade Congress to establish a tax break estimated to cost the U.S. government $78.7 billion over the next decade.
Independent studies have found that the last time this tax break was tried, in 2004, the bargain rate for bringing home offshore profits did little to spur hiring or domestic investment. Most of the money was used to buy back stock. (Simple solution: tie the tax break to a certain level of hiring for the benefiting company.)
In all, three former staffers of Baucus, the Finance Committee’s chairman since 2007, are lobbying on the repatriation holiday. Besides Forbes, there’s Nick Giordano of Washington Council Ernst & Young, a longtime Cisco lobbyist. Microsoft has retained Timothy E. Punke, a former adviser to Baucus on trade issues who is active in Democratic politics.
The WIN America campaign’s manager is Karen Olick, former chief of staff to Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. One of the spokesmen for the group is Doug Thornell, who most recently was a staffer for Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who is a member of the House leadership. Like Anita Dunn, Thornell and Olick aren’t registered lobbyists.
“Our economy needs all the help it can get, and leaving this money in foreign banks when we could bring it home now makes no sense,” Thornell said.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Economic Bill of Rights = Long overdue!!!
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
U.S. Weighs Asset Sales, will the Congress offer to sell their blood next?
WASHINGTON — Like Americans trying to raise quick cash by unloading their unwanted goods, the federal government is considering a novel way to reduce the deficit: holding the equivalent of a garage sale. It involves selling an island, courthouses, maybe an airstrip, generally idle or underused vehicles, roads, buildings, land — even the airwaves used to broadcast television.
Among the listings: Plum Island, N.Y., off the North Fork of Long Island, which the government has already begun marketing as 840 acres of “sandy shoreline, beautiful views and a harbor.” As former home to the federal Animal Disease Center, it may need a bit of “biohazard remediation,” making it a real fixer-upper.
Many conservatives — including Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the budget experts at the Cato Institute — support the broad idea of shrinking the government by selling parts of it. Democrats like the idea of virtually painless revenue-raising. Whether Congress can pass any bill in the current atmosphere, however, is far from certain.
“This is something that we can have bipartisan agreement on,” said Representative Jeff Denham of California who, as one of the most conservative House Republicans, almost never agrees with the president.
Fire sales of unused government property will not come close to closing the deficit, of course, and there are plenty of bureaucratic obstacles in the way even if Congress approves.
The White House figures it could raise up to $22 billion over the next decade, though there are plenty who doubt the government could raise anywhere near that amount. More than 80 percent of that figure might come from the auction of public airwaves now dedicated to broadcast television which the Obama administration believes can be better used for wireless broadband.
Among the listings: Plum Island, N.Y., off the North Fork of Long Island, which the government has already begun marketing as 840 acres of “sandy shoreline, beautiful views and a harbor.” As former home to the federal Animal Disease Center, it may need a bit of “biohazard remediation,” making it a real fixer-upper.
Many conservatives — including Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the budget experts at the Cato Institute — support the broad idea of shrinking the government by selling parts of it. Democrats like the idea of virtually painless revenue-raising. Whether Congress can pass any bill in the current atmosphere, however, is far from certain.
“This is something that we can have bipartisan agreement on,” said Representative Jeff Denham of California who, as one of the most conservative House Republicans, almost never agrees with the president.
Fire sales of unused government property will not come close to closing the deficit, of course, and there are plenty of bureaucratic obstacles in the way even if Congress approves.
The White House figures it could raise up to $22 billion over the next decade, though there are plenty who doubt the government could raise anywhere near that amount. More than 80 percent of that figure might come from the auction of public airwaves now dedicated to broadcast television which the Obama administration believes can be better used for wireless broadband.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
9% unemployment....yet companies are making record profits...sounds like squeeze the peasant time!
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. is facing a crisis with a jobless rate at or above 9 percent since April 2009, and that fiscal discipline would help spur the economic recovery.
“This unemployment situation we have, the jobs situation, is really a national crisis,” Bernanke said in response to questions after a speech yesterday in Cleveland. “We’ve had close to 10 percent unemployment now for a number of years and, of the people who are unemployed, about 45 percent have been unemployed for six months or more. This is unheard of.”
The chairman is contending with the most opposition on the Federal Open Market Committee in almost 19 years, with three policy makers opposing the central bank’s decision last week to push down longer-term interest rates. Fed regional bank presidents Thomas Hoenig of Kansas City and Richard Fisher of Dallas spoke out against the plan this week, while Eric Rosengren of Boston backed it and Dennis Lockhart of Atlanta said the move will probably have a “modest” effect.
The speech was Bernanke’s first since the Fed announced on Sept. 21 that it would replace $400 billion of short-term debt in its portfolio with longer-term Treasuries in an effort to further reduce borrowing costs and strengthen the flagging economy. U.S. growth has stalled even as the Fed purchased $2.3 trillion in assets in two rounds of quantitative easing and held interest rates near zero since December 2008.
“Monetary policy is not a panacea,” Bernanke said. “There are certainly some areas where other policy makers could contribute,” and “strong housing policies to help the housing markets recover would certainly be useful.”
“This unemployment situation we have, the jobs situation, is really a national crisis,” Bernanke said in response to questions after a speech yesterday in Cleveland. “We’ve had close to 10 percent unemployment now for a number of years and, of the people who are unemployed, about 45 percent have been unemployed for six months or more. This is unheard of.”
The chairman is contending with the most opposition on the Federal Open Market Committee in almost 19 years, with three policy makers opposing the central bank’s decision last week to push down longer-term interest rates. Fed regional bank presidents Thomas Hoenig of Kansas City and Richard Fisher of Dallas spoke out against the plan this week, while Eric Rosengren of Boston backed it and Dennis Lockhart of Atlanta said the move will probably have a “modest” effect.
The speech was Bernanke’s first since the Fed announced on Sept. 21 that it would replace $400 billion of short-term debt in its portfolio with longer-term Treasuries in an effort to further reduce borrowing costs and strengthen the flagging economy. U.S. growth has stalled even as the Fed purchased $2.3 trillion in assets in two rounds of quantitative easing and held interest rates near zero since December 2008.
“Monetary policy is not a panacea,” Bernanke said. “There are certainly some areas where other policy makers could contribute,” and “strong housing policies to help the housing markets recover would certainly be useful.”
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
UAE Think at your own peril; and in any case don't blog about it...
ABU DHABI: A hearing was held yesterday for six activists in the United Arab Emirates charged with incitement and insulting the Gulf country’s leadership, drawing criticism by a rights groups’ representative over the lack of transparency.
The world’s No. 3 oil exporter has been virtually untouched by the unrest that has swept through the Arab world and toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but has been swift to silence any open political dissent.
“We were denied access today,” said Jennie Pasquarella, who flew in from the United States to observe the trial on behalf of four groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
“We’re concerned about the fairness of the trial. None of the hearings have been open in public, they’ve all been secret, in fact no reason has been given for making them secret.” Police arrested the political activists and intellectuals in April, and the attorney general later said the men were suspected of inciting “acts that threaten state security and public order”, and “insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.”
They pleaded not guilty in July at the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, whose verdicts are final. Another hearing was scheduled for Sunday when the court will hear testimony from a final witness, a judge told lawyers outside the courtroom.
Among the defendants is Ahmed Mansoor, an outspoken rights activist who joined several dissidents this year to start an online petition demanding the country’s Federal National Council, an advisory body, greater powers.
Another defendant, Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France’s Sorbonne University, published an article criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populaces through generous government spending programmes.
"Six men have been referred to the Federal Supreme Court over charges including perpetrating acts that pose threats to state security, undermining the public order, opposing the government system, and insulting the president, the vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the UAE Attorney, General Salim Saeed Kubaish, said yesterday."
“We were denied access today,” said Jennie Pasquarella, who flew in from the United States to observe the trial on behalf of four groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
“We’re concerned about the fairness of the trial. None of the hearings have been open in public, they’ve all been secret, in fact no reason has been given for making them secret.” Police arrested the political activists and intellectuals in April, and the attorney general later said the men were suspected of inciting “acts that threaten state security and public order”, and “insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.”
They pleaded not guilty in July at the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, whose verdicts are final. Another hearing was scheduled for Sunday when the court will hear testimony from a final witness, a judge told lawyers outside the courtroom.
Among the defendants is Ahmed Mansoor, an outspoken rights activist who joined several dissidents this year to start an online petition demanding the country’s Federal National Council, an advisory body, greater powers.
Another defendant, Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France’s Sorbonne University, published an article criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populaces through generous government spending programmes.
30% Of (USA) Americans Rapidly Approach Poverty; meanwhile Brazil lifts 13% of its population out of poverty with a mandate of eliminating it by 2015!!!
A shocking report from Brookings exposes just how massive America's poverty problem is. America's poor have been rocked by the dual economic downturns since 2000. The result is that poverty grew at twice the rate of U.S. population growth from 2000 – 2008 during the Bush administration, and now encompasses 50 million Americans.
Now let’s turn to an emerging market…Brazil.
On a cool July evening, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosts a cocktail party for 50 leaders of her governing coalition, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue. Speaking from the foot of a red-carpeted staircase in the living room of Alvorada Palace, where she lives with her mother and aunt, Rousseff tells the gathered politicians that these are the best times for Brazil, according to four people who attended.
“The world is going through economic and financial turbulence,” says Rousseff, who’s dressed in a black pantsuit. “But we’re living through a great moment.”
In a toast, Dilma, as she’s known to almost all Brazilians, juxtaposes the task of managing the country’s new economic prosperity with U.S. President Barack Obama’s struggle with the Republicans to get the U.S. government budget under control.
“And up there, they only have two parties,” she jokes.
Brazil has 27.
Rousseff, 63, inherited just about everything a president could want from her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva: an economy growing at a 7.5 percent annual pace and unemployment, at 5.3 percent, that was the lowest since at least 2001. Brazil’s Bovespa stock market index rose six-fold during Lula’s eight-year tenure, as iron ore, soybean and sugar exports boomed, driven in large part by demand from China.
Lula pulled 24.5 million people out of poverty in his years in office, according to data compiled by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, and Rousseff says that in the next four years, she will eliminate extreme poverty in Brazil.
Now let’s turn to an emerging market…Brazil.
On a cool July evening, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosts a cocktail party for 50 leaders of her governing coalition, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue. Speaking from the foot of a red-carpeted staircase in the living room of Alvorada Palace, where she lives with her mother and aunt, Rousseff tells the gathered politicians that these are the best times for Brazil, according to four people who attended.
“The world is going through economic and financial turbulence,” says Rousseff, who’s dressed in a black pantsuit. “But we’re living through a great moment.”
In a toast, Dilma, as she’s known to almost all Brazilians, juxtaposes the task of managing the country’s new economic prosperity with U.S. President Barack Obama’s struggle with the Republicans to get the U.S. government budget under control.
“And up there, they only have two parties,” she jokes.
Brazil has 27.
Rousseff, 63, inherited just about everything a president could want from her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva: an economy growing at a 7.5 percent annual pace and unemployment, at 5.3 percent, that was the lowest since at least 2001. Brazil’s Bovespa stock market index rose six-fold during Lula’s eight-year tenure, as iron ore, soybean and sugar exports boomed, driven in large part by demand from China.
Lula pulled 24.5 million people out of poverty in his years in office, according to data compiled by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, and Rousseff says that in the next four years, she will eliminate extreme poverty in Brazil.
EPA doing its job again....NOT!!!
NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies.
They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.
With few government regulations that limit the flaring, more burning is also taking place in the Eagle Ford shale field in Texas, and some environmentalists and industry executives say that it could happen in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio, too, as drilling expands in new fields there unlocked by techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
“North Dakota is not as bad as Kazakhstan, but this is not what you would expect a civilized, efficient society to do: to flare off a perfectly good product just because it’s expensive to bring to market,” said Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.
The widespread flaring is a step backward for a domestic energy industry. Most oil and gas fields in the United States have well-developed facilities to gather and process gas.
But the recent rise of shale drilling has changed the economic calculus. Natural gas prices have plunged since 2008 as vast shale fields laden with gas are tapped through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Meanwhile, those same techniques have opened up other shale fields rich with oil.
Regulations on flaring are loose in North Dakota, as they are in most states, and there are no current federal regulations on flaring at oil and gas wells. That is largely because flaring has not been a significant concern since the 1970s, when the federal government insisted that oil companies re-inject gas into Alaska’s North Slope rather than flare it.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has recently proposed new air emissions standards for fracked wells, and it has also begun to ask oil companies to compile data on greenhouse gas emissions from drilling and other operations.
Environmentalists are also beginning to express alarm. “It’s time for the regulators to take a hard look at the impacts of flaring and make sure that available solutions to the flaring problem are required before there is any further widespread expansion of the practice,” said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Some of the companies working in North Dakota, including Whiting, are investing $3 billion over the next three years in pipelines and several large processing plants to deliver gas to Midwest markets rather than burn it.
Wayde Schafer, the Sierra Club’s North Dakota conservation organizer, said that the industry needed to slow down development if it could not protect the air. “You can do it fast or you can do it right,” he said.
They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.
With few government regulations that limit the flaring, more burning is also taking place in the Eagle Ford shale field in Texas, and some environmentalists and industry executives say that it could happen in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio, too, as drilling expands in new fields there unlocked by techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
“North Dakota is not as bad as Kazakhstan, but this is not what you would expect a civilized, efficient society to do: to flare off a perfectly good product just because it’s expensive to bring to market,” said Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.
The widespread flaring is a step backward for a domestic energy industry. Most oil and gas fields in the United States have well-developed facilities to gather and process gas.
But the recent rise of shale drilling has changed the economic calculus. Natural gas prices have plunged since 2008 as vast shale fields laden with gas are tapped through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Meanwhile, those same techniques have opened up other shale fields rich with oil.
Regulations on flaring are loose in North Dakota, as they are in most states, and there are no current federal regulations on flaring at oil and gas wells. That is largely because flaring has not been a significant concern since the 1970s, when the federal government insisted that oil companies re-inject gas into Alaska’s North Slope rather than flare it.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has recently proposed new air emissions standards for fracked wells, and it has also begun to ask oil companies to compile data on greenhouse gas emissions from drilling and other operations.
Environmentalists are also beginning to express alarm. “It’s time for the regulators to take a hard look at the impacts of flaring and make sure that available solutions to the flaring problem are required before there is any further widespread expansion of the practice,” said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Some of the companies working in North Dakota, including Whiting, are investing $3 billion over the next three years in pipelines and several large processing plants to deliver gas to Midwest markets rather than burn it.
Wayde Schafer, the Sierra Club’s North Dakota conservation organizer, said that the industry needed to slow down development if it could not protect the air. “You can do it fast or you can do it right,” he said.
Monday, September 26, 2011
UAE Sign an on-line petition and death by bunga bunga!!!! (Get Real!!!)
Five pro-democracy activists on trial in the United Arab Emirates returned to court yesterday, two days after the oil-rich Gulf nation held elections for an advisory council that wields no power.
The activists, including a blogger and an academic, were detained in April after they signed an online petition demanding constitutional changes and free elections.
They were charged in July with insulting the country's rulers and using an online
forum to conspire against the state.
Among the five, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, are blogger Ahmed Mansour and economics professor Nasser bin Ghaith, who lectured at the Abu Dhabi branch of Paris's Sorbonne university.
The five activists briefly attended yesterday's closed-door proceedings in Abu Dhabi's Federal Supreme Court.
Four of the defendants, including Mansour and bin Ghaith, walked out of the courtroom after the judges refused to consider their demand to open the hearing to the public and release them from custody on bail.
Political activity is severely restricted in the UAE, an alliance of seven semi-autonomous states, each ruled by a hereditary sheikh. There are no official opposition groups and political parties are banned.
The activists, including a blogger and an academic, were detained in April after they signed an online petition demanding constitutional changes and free elections.
They were charged in July with insulting the country's rulers and using an online
forum to conspire against the state.
Among the five, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, are blogger Ahmed Mansour and economics professor Nasser bin Ghaith, who lectured at the Abu Dhabi branch of Paris's Sorbonne university.
The five activists briefly attended yesterday's closed-door proceedings in Abu Dhabi's Federal Supreme Court.
Four of the defendants, including Mansour and bin Ghaith, walked out of the courtroom after the judges refused to consider their demand to open the hearing to the public and release them from custody on bail.
Political activity is severely restricted in the UAE, an alliance of seven semi-autonomous states, each ruled by a hereditary sheikh. There are no official opposition groups and political parties are banned.
See what one "Oh Shit!" costs in terms of a nuclear mishap.
Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets.
Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government order after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more.
“Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation,” said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. “I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?”
What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 20 kilometer (12 mile) no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.
The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 trillion ($223 billion), hindering the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.
Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government order after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more.
“Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation,” said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. “I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?”
What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 20 kilometer (12 mile) no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.
The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 trillion ($223 billion), hindering the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.
Bernanke's Uber-Bonds
Betting on Ben S. Bernanke has been the most profitable trade for government bond investors in 16 years, defying lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad who said the Federal Reserve chairman’s policies would lead to runaway inflation and the dollar’s debasement.
Treasuries due in 10 or more years have returned 28 percent in 2011, exceeding the 24.4 percent gain in all of 2008 during worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. Not since 1995, when the securities soared 30.7 percent, have investors done so well owning longer-dated U.S. government debt.
The rally continued last week, driving yields to record lows, as the Fed said it would exchange $400 billion of short- term Treasuries for those maturing in more than six years. The move, dubbed Operation Twist by traders, is designed to lower borrowing costs and keep the economy growing. Previous Fed efforts unlocked credit markets and helped ward off deflation.
Bonds are producing “monster” gains, said Mitchell Stapley, the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based chief fixed-income officer for Fifth Third Asset Management, which oversees $22 billion, in a Sept. 19 telephone interview. “I’m dealing with a Federal Reserve with an unlimited balance sheet that is desperately looking for something to do to revive the economy.”
Treasuries due in 10 or more years have returned 28 percent in 2011, exceeding the 24.4 percent gain in all of 2008 during worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. Not since 1995, when the securities soared 30.7 percent, have investors done so well owning longer-dated U.S. government debt.
The rally continued last week, driving yields to record lows, as the Fed said it would exchange $400 billion of short- term Treasuries for those maturing in more than six years. The move, dubbed Operation Twist by traders, is designed to lower borrowing costs and keep the economy growing. Previous Fed efforts unlocked credit markets and helped ward off deflation.
Bonds are producing “monster” gains, said Mitchell Stapley, the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based chief fixed-income officer for Fifth Third Asset Management, which oversees $22 billion, in a Sept. 19 telephone interview. “I’m dealing with a Federal Reserve with an unlimited balance sheet that is desperately looking for something to do to revive the economy.”
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Russia doesn't need Putin part II; it doesn't need a dictator
Vladimir Putin says he stands for stability, but his critics say his return to the Kremlin next March could ultimately bequeath an era of stagnation and even turmoil in Russia.
The prime minister, who announced on Saturday he would seek a new term as president, prides himself on bringing order after the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But prominent critics, from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, say his return could undermine stability unless he can shake the country out of inertia and torpor.
Even Putin's protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, said there was a danger of stasis in Russia in a speech to the ruling party on Saturday, just minutes before he suffered the humiliation of proposing Putin take back the presidency from him next year.
"Formalism and bureaucratization are very dangerous: they lead to stagnation and the degradation of the political system," Medvedev told a congress of Putin's United Russia party.
The prime minister, who announced on Saturday he would seek a new term as president, prides himself on bringing order after the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But prominent critics, from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, say his return could undermine stability unless he can shake the country out of inertia and torpor.
Even Putin's protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, said there was a danger of stasis in Russia in a speech to the ruling party on Saturday, just minutes before he suffered the humiliation of proposing Putin take back the presidency from him next year.
"Formalism and bureaucratization are very dangerous: they lead to stagnation and the degradation of the political system," Medvedev told a congress of Putin's United Russia party.
Saudi Arabia: Women given the right to vote but not just yet....how about 2015.
Saudi Arabia's king announced on Sunday women would be given the right to vote and stand in elections, a bold shift in the ultra-conservative absolute monarchy as pressure for social and democratic reform sweeps the Middle East.
It was by far the biggest change in Saudi Arabia's tightly-controlled society yet ordered by the 88-year-old Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who took power six years ago with a reformer's reputation but has ruled as a cautious conservative.
In practice, the measure will do little to change how the country is run: Saudi Arabia's rulers allow elections only for half of the seats on municipal councils which have few powers. Only men will vote at the next elections which will take place next week; women will be allowed to vote in 2015.
The king did not address broader issues of women's rights in a country where women are not allowed to drive and require a male relative's permission to work or leave the country.
But the announcement was hailed by liberals and activists who said it raised hopes that other demands for greater democratic and social rights might one day be met.
It was by far the biggest change in Saudi Arabia's tightly-controlled society yet ordered by the 88-year-old Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who took power six years ago with a reformer's reputation but has ruled as a cautious conservative.
In practice, the measure will do little to change how the country is run: Saudi Arabia's rulers allow elections only for half of the seats on municipal councils which have few powers. Only men will vote at the next elections which will take place next week; women will be allowed to vote in 2015.
The king did not address broader issues of women's rights in a country where women are not allowed to drive and require a male relative's permission to work or leave the country.
But the announcement was hailed by liberals and activists who said it raised hopes that other demands for greater democratic and social rights might one day be met.
Strap in to your 1,000 hp Electric Vehicle!!! From Detroit...noooo...Croatia!
With most, if not all, major car manufacturers already selling or developing electric cars, one was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show which bucks the trend. This is the brainchild, not of a multi-national but Munich's Technical University - designed to cost the same or less than a comparable petrol model, while performing and looking good too, says the research group's Michael Graf.
MICHAEL GRAF, MUNICH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY SAYING: "This should be an affordable vehicle that is designed especially for the urban area." Designed, built and tested at the university. It weighs in at 500 kg, achieved through a special lightweight frame made of a combination of aluminium and plastics. The car will cost less than 10,000 Euros and the academics are also working on innovative options for financing the switch to electric cars that could see buyers leasing batteries.
At the other end of the budget spectrum comes Concept One. An electric car from Croatia, capable of nought to 100kph - 62mph in under 3 seconds - due to a revolutionary propulsion system, says designer Mate Rimac.
RIMAC, CONCEPT ONE DESIGNER, SAYING: "The special thing about our car is our propulsion system. So, the drive chain is divided into four units. Each unit contains one motor controller and reduction gear box. Every of these units is completely independent of the other, so we can control each wheel separately and the that allows whole new possibilities for driving the (unclear word) in corners we can allow each wheel to slip a little bit and that can deliver very fast times in tracks and also on the every day use it is very safe and everyone can drive a 1000 horsepower car." The independent drive units allow the wheels to slip a little as the car takes corners at speed - which Rimac says increases safety. A lightweight carbon body and battery give it a range of up to 600km or 375 miles. The company plans to make just 88 of the cars at a price yet to be announced.
MICHAEL GRAF, MUNICH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY SAYING: "This should be an affordable vehicle that is designed especially for the urban area." Designed, built and tested at the university. It weighs in at 500 kg, achieved through a special lightweight frame made of a combination of aluminium and plastics. The car will cost less than 10,000 Euros and the academics are also working on innovative options for financing the switch to electric cars that could see buyers leasing batteries.
At the other end of the budget spectrum comes Concept One. An electric car from Croatia, capable of nought to 100kph - 62mph in under 3 seconds - due to a revolutionary propulsion system, says designer Mate Rimac.
RIMAC, CONCEPT ONE DESIGNER, SAYING: "The special thing about our car is our propulsion system. So, the drive chain is divided into four units. Each unit contains one motor controller and reduction gear box. Every of these units is completely independent of the other, so we can control each wheel separately and the that allows whole new possibilities for driving the (unclear word) in corners we can allow each wheel to slip a little bit and that can deliver very fast times in tracks and also on the every day use it is very safe and everyone can drive a 1000 horsepower car." The independent drive units allow the wheels to slip a little as the car takes corners at speed - which Rimac says increases safety. A lightweight carbon body and battery give it a range of up to 600km or 375 miles. The company plans to make just 88 of the cars at a price yet to be announced.
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