Iran steps toward pre-emptive strike....

The United Nation’s atomic watchdog said it failed to win access to Iran’s suspected nuclear-related military base, as an Iranian general warned his country may launch a pre-emptive strike to protect its facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran refused permission to visit the military site at Parchin during two days of talks that ended yesterday. The meetings were aimed at defusing tensions over a possible military component to the Islamic republic’s atomic program. Israel and the U.S. have said all options are on the table in ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire atomic weapons.

PACs, Super PACs do not represent the PEOPLE they represent the 1%; a vote for Republicans is a vote for Dictatorship USA

The evolving nature of campaign funding was particularly evident in January with Mitt Romney's campaign and its ally, the aggressive Super PAC known as Restore Our Future.

Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.

The campaigns of Gingrich and Rick Santorum stayed in the game by raising $5.6 million and $4.5 million, respectively. But in Gingrich's case, the PAC supporting him -- called Winning Our Future -- was at least as influential as his campaign.

The pro-Gingrich PAC attracted $10 million in donations from the family of Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and funded attack ads on Romney that helped Gingrich, a former U.S. House of Representatives speaker, win South Carolina's primary.

The Cancer of Mubarak plagues the Egyptian Body Politic and Legislature

The Egyptian prosecution’s summary of the case against at least 16 Americans and others from five democracy and human rights groups focuses largely on the testimony of their accusers, with evidence primarily limited to proof that their organizations used American and other foreign funds for payrolls and rent.

The prosecution’s dossier also shows leaps of logic in a case that has imperiled a decades-old alliance with Washington and threatened Egypt with the loss of $1.5 billion in aid. The case, for example, cites documents seized in December from one group, the International Republican Institute, that included Wikipedia maps of Egypt showing the country divided into four parts. While Egypt is typically described as comprising four regions — upper and lower Egypt, greater Cairo and the Suez Canal and Sinai region — the prosecution suggested that the maps showed a plan to dismember the country. 

The summary, compiled by the Office of the Investigating Judge of Egypt’s Ministry of Justice, sets the stage for the group trial, scheduled to begin on Sunday. A copy was given to The New York Times by a person close to the investigation on the condition of anonymity because of legal restrictions. 

The primary force behind the prosecution is a holdover from the Mubarak era, Fayza Abul Naga, who has continued to press the case against the democracy groups, despite opposition from military rulers worried about losing American aid, most of which goes to the armed forces. She is foremost among the 13 accusing witnesses, most of them also formerly officials under Hosni Mubarak, the president who was toppled a year ago. Some are underlings of Ms. Abul Naga, who as minister of planning and international cooperation is in charge of dealing with foreign aid. 

Ms. Abul Naga’s central accusation is that the groups were unregistered under Egyptian law, and that the American groups were receiving some $150 million in aid diverted from the larger American aid package to Egypt. They are the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute — which have ties to Congressional party leaders — Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists. The fifth group, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, is German, and receives money from that government. 

More than 40 defendants have been indicted on charges of illegal activity by foreign agents, and face penalties of up to five years in jail. Three of the six accused Americans who are still in Egypt have taken refuge in the American Embassy, including Sam LaHood of the Republican Institute. He is the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. 

Democratization has been a goal of the Obama administration in Egypt, and the case against the Americans has infuriated many in Congress and the administration. 

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, the chairman of the board of the International Republican Institute, arrived Monday in Cairo, where he met with the military leader Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and other officials and came away with assurances of a speedy resolution to the case. “We’re not making threats,” Mr. McCain said. “There’s plenty of time to make threats.” 

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was part of the McCain delegation, was sharply critical of the case. “As an American, I’m offended that people would say things about these organizations,” Mr. Graham said, calling the charges “ridiculous.” 

“The person who brought this forward I think has an agenda that’s not helpful,” he said. 

Senator Graham also praised the moderation of the Muslim Brotherhood officials the delegation had met and said they were sympathetic to the plight of those facing prosecution under laws enacted during the Mubarak government.

Are Canadian Natural Gas E&P companies having an Enron moment?

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for Canada and the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail.
Company data for more than 10,000 wells in three major shale gas formations raise further questions about the industry’s prospects. There is undoubtedly a vast amount of gas in the formations. The question remains how affordably it can be extracted.

The data show that while there are some very active wells, they are often surrounded by vast zones of less-productive wells that in some cases cost more to drill and operate than the gas they produce is worth. Also, the amount of gas produced by many of the successful wells is falling much faster than initially predicted by energy companies, making it more difficult for them to turn a profit over the long run.

There are implications for the environment, too. The technology used to get gas flowing out of the ground — called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — can require over a million gallons of water per well, and some of that water must be disposed of because it becomes contaminated by the process. If shale gas wells fade faster than expected, energy companies will have to drill more wells or hydrofrack them more often, resulting in more toxic waste.

 “And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment,” a retired geologist from a major oil and gas company about other companies invested in shale gas. “They want to bend light to hide the truth.”

Iran: The wild card for Global Recovery

In case the European Debt crisis after the political crisis that ran/runs through Europe and the Middle East was not exhausting enough to say how about a little good olde economic recovery for the world ==> a bull market.

Then comes along Iran, not to say other nations like North Korea, & Pakistan are not troubling but one more nuclear kid on the block is more than we need now or in the future. 

Yes, we want Iran open.  We want and need Iranian oil.  And guess what the dictator you kicked out -- the shah -- has turned out to be less a prick than the idiots you have been left with....which all could be an Iranian issue but for ... oil and nukes....and little spoken of but more easily produced and deployed biological and chemical agents.  How about a deployment in a tube or subway?  Maybe a mega mall or how about on board a transatlantic flight.

We need need a regime change in Iran for Iranians and too get the really stupid possibilities off the World table.

Reports that Iran is cooperating with al-Qaeda on plans for a “spectacular” attack on the West have to be taken seriously, particularly in light of the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats last week and the revelation last year that al-Qaeda had begun using Iran as a transit point to its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iran could be helping al-Qaeda in very specific ways to plan the kind of high-profile attack that would allow it to once again assert itself as a serious threat to security in the world.

Mitsubishi buys into Encana's Canadian Cutbank Rridge Partnership @ $2.07 mmbtu for 2P Reserves

Encana Corporation (TSX, NYSE: ECA) has entered into an agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation that will see the Japanese global integrated business enterprise invest approximately C$2.9 billion for a 40 percent interest in the Cutbank Ridge Partnership. The Partnership holds about 409,000 net acres of Encana's undeveloped Montneyformation natural gas lands in the company's Cutbank Ridge resource play in northeast British Columbia. Through the Cutbank Ridge Partnership, Encana and Mitsubishi plan to create long-term shareholder value by jointly developing production capacity to deliver abundant natural gas to markets for decades ahead.

US Supreme Court rules in favor of Bribery & Corruption ...Equal Justice Under Law ... unless your rich then we'll write the laws that favor you

The Montana Supreme Court, voting 5-2, said Citizens United didn’t apply to the state in part because of bribery and other types of corruption that infused politics there before the law was enacted in 1912.

At the time the law was enacted, “the state of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests,” the Montana court majority said.

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, a Democrat, defended the law, saying it “has safeguarded the republican form of government in Montana for a century from the scourge of political corruption.”

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a century-old Montana ban on corporate campaign spending, signaling the justices may reinforce a 2010 ruling that allowed companies to donate unlimited amounts to influence elections. 

The high court yesterday put the Montana law on hold until it announces whether it will review the measure, which is being challenged by two nonprofit corporations and a family-owned business.

The case would test the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision, which divided the court 5-4 along ideological lines, allowed corporate spending as long as companies don’t directly coordinate with candidates.