Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Green New Deal, From Green Old Heels
$750 billion "green" investment could revive economy: U.N.
Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:24am EDT
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Investments of $750 billion could create a "Green New Deal" to revive the world economy and protect the environment, perhaps aided by a tax on oil, the head of the U.N. environment agency said on Thursday.
Achim Steiner said spending should focus on five environmental sectors including improved energy efficiency for buildings and solar or wind power to create jobs, curb poverty and fight climate change.
"The opportunity must not be lost," Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), told Reuters of a UNEP study that will be put to world leaders meeting in London on April 2 to work out how to spur the ailing economy.
The UNEP report said investments of one percent of global gross domestic product, or about $750 billion, could bankroll a "Global Green New Deal" inspired by the "New Deal" of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that helped end the depression of the 1930s.
Investments should be split between more energy efficient buildings, renewable energies, better transport, improved agriculture and measures to safeguard nature -- such as fresh water, forests or coral reefs, it said.
Thursday's study adds details of spending after UNEP called for a Green New Deal late last year.
Steiner also said that the world urgently needed funds to jump start a U.N. deal to fight global warming, due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
He floated the possibility of taxing oil in rich nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to help a new pact become the cornerstone of a greener economy.
"If, for argument's sake, you were to put a five-year levy in OECD countries of $5 a barrel, you would generate $100 billion per annum. It translates into roughly 3 cents per liter," he said.
UNNOTICED
"It would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer," he said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40.
A barrel of oil contains 158 liters and OECD consumption is about 20 billion barrels a year, he said. "This is just one example, there may be many others," of funding, he said.
"I am concerned about the prospect of a meaningful deal in Copenhagen if there is not a significant financial package on the table," he said. Cash would encourage poor nations to step up actions to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
"The argument that we cannot afford this does not, on any serious analysis, hold much water -- especially given the cost to the global economy of failure to act on climate change," he said.
Carbon markets, which could also be a source of funds to help fight climate change, were unlikely to contribute enough cash in early years of a new climate deal, he said.
Steiner said there were promising signs that economic stimulus packages by many nations, ranging from the United States to China, were being tailored to help a shift toward greener growth and away from dependence on fossil fuels.
The U.N. Climate Panel says that greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are a prime cause of warming that will cause more heatwaves, droughts, rising sea levels and more powerful storms.
Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:24am EDT
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Investments of $750 billion could create a "Green New Deal" to revive the world economy and protect the environment, perhaps aided by a tax on oil, the head of the U.N. environment agency said on Thursday.
Achim Steiner said spending should focus on five environmental sectors including improved energy efficiency for buildings and solar or wind power to create jobs, curb poverty and fight climate change.
"The opportunity must not be lost," Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), told Reuters of a UNEP study that will be put to world leaders meeting in London on April 2 to work out how to spur the ailing economy.
The UNEP report said investments of one percent of global gross domestic product, or about $750 billion, could bankroll a "Global Green New Deal" inspired by the "New Deal" of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that helped end the depression of the 1930s.
Investments should be split between more energy efficient buildings, renewable energies, better transport, improved agriculture and measures to safeguard nature -- such as fresh water, forests or coral reefs, it said.
Thursday's study adds details of spending after UNEP called for a Green New Deal late last year.
Steiner also said that the world urgently needed funds to jump start a U.N. deal to fight global warming, due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
He floated the possibility of taxing oil in rich nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to help a new pact become the cornerstone of a greener economy.
"If, for argument's sake, you were to put a five-year levy in OECD countries of $5 a barrel, you would generate $100 billion per annum. It translates into roughly 3 cents per liter," he said.
UNNOTICED
"It would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer," he said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40.
A barrel of oil contains 158 liters and OECD consumption is about 20 billion barrels a year, he said. "This is just one example, there may be many others," of funding, he said.
"I am concerned about the prospect of a meaningful deal in Copenhagen if there is not a significant financial package on the table," he said. Cash would encourage poor nations to step up actions to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
"The argument that we cannot afford this does not, on any serious analysis, hold much water -- especially given the cost to the global economy of failure to act on climate change," he said.
Carbon markets, which could also be a source of funds to help fight climate change, were unlikely to contribute enough cash in early years of a new climate deal, he said.
Steiner said there were promising signs that economic stimulus packages by many nations, ranging from the United States to China, were being tailored to help a shift toward greener growth and away from dependence on fossil fuels.
The U.N. Climate Panel says that greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are a prime cause of warming that will cause more heatwaves, droughts, rising sea levels and more powerful storms.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Baxter Trying to Kill Us?
Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus
Helen Branswell
The Canadian Press
March 5, 2009
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.
“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.
On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.
“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.
People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.
That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.
There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.
“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.
“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”
Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”
He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.
Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.
“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.
“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”
Helen Branswell
The Canadian Press
March 5, 2009
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.
“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.
On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.
“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.
People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.
That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.
There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.
“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.
“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”
Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”
He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.
Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.
“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.
“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Economic Depression Was a INSIDE JOB
Events are happening quickly in these early months of 2009 and,
quite frankly, most of the news is not good. The economic crisis
appears to be getting worse by the day. The federal government
announced in early February that some 598,000 jobs disappeared in
January, the biggest drop in employment since the severe recession
of 1974. When those 600,000 are added to the lost jobs in the last
few months of 2008, the total comes to over 3.5 million. Right now
the national unemployment rate stands at over 7 percent, but many
experts are saying the figure will soon be in the double digits.
One economist at California State University said this: "We're
talking years -- not months -- before we see a decent recovery in
the jobs market. It is going to get worse before it gets better."
With Barack Hussein Obama presiding over our nation's economy,
that's probably the understatement of the year. He ran for
president by painting himself as a "moderate" and a "centrist" who
was going to bring Americans together. But now that he's in office,
he's revealing himself to be what conservatives said he was all
along - a radical socialist who thinks the government should
control the economy. Socialism won't rebuild the economy; it will
destroy it. The only way he's going to bring Americans together is
in the unemployment lines.
To be fair, we have to admit that Obama didn't create this mess; he
inherited it. But he's going to make it far worse than it already
is, while using the crisis as an excuse to pad the bank accounts of
his supporters and radical leftist groups. He tried to bully GOP
politicians into voting for the trillion dollar Pelosi-Reid
stimulus package by using scare tactics. According to President
Obama, it's absolutely critical that this bill goes through: "This
recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million
more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation
will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be
able to reverse," is how he put it in an op-ed piece for the
Washington Post.
In actuality, passing the so called stimulus bill is just about the
worst thing the government could do right now. We're in this
economic crisis because of rampant, out of control debt. President
Bush and the last Congress already threw nearly a trillion dollars
at it, and now Obama says we need to pour another trillion down the
rat hole. The government shouldn't be spending more money; it
should be making massive budget cuts. Niall Ferguson, a Harvard
economist, calls our current crisis the Great Repression. He echoed
Ron Paul the other day when he wrote about Obama's plan to borrow
our way out of bankruptcy: "The delusion that a crisis of excess
debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the
Great Repression."
Obama isn't just calling for us to spend a trillion more dollars
that we don't have. He and the liberal Democrats in Congress have
also packed the stimulus bill with billions of dollars worth of
goodies for government agencies and far left wing groups. That's
the dirty little secret the mainstream media isn't telling us about
the Pelosi-Reid bill. Some of the provisions include $600 million
for brand new "environmentally friendly" cars for government
workers, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $400
million for NASA to do "climate change research" to generate even
more global warming hysteria, and a total of $54 billion for
government agencies that Congress's own accounting office has
already declared to be ineffective or poorly run.
If that's not bad enough, according to the National Taxpayer's
Union, the bill also includes over $4 billion for the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN.
This is Obama's way of thanking this radical socialist group of
"community organizers" for getting out the vote for him in the
November election. His campaign gave them nearly a million dollars
for voter registration efforts, and it sure paid off. They
certainly registered a lot of new voters for the Democrats, but
many of them were people registering over and over, or completely
phony registrations. ACORN is facing voter fraud investigations in
15 states for thousands of instances of voter fraud. In Nevada,
ACORN workers even turned in voter registration paperwork in the
name of every single member of the Dallas Cowboys! Their proposed
reward for all this massive voter fraud is $4 billion from their
champion in the White House.
Yes, now that Obama is sitting in the Oval Office, the mask is
finally coming off. He's no moderate, let alone a centrist. He's
not just the most radical left wing president in the history of the
United States. He's a committed, hard core socialist, but this
shouldn't be a surprise to any of us. After all, this is the same
man who attended Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ for
nearly twenty years. For almost two decades he sat faithfully in
the pews as Jeremiah Wright called for God to damn America, said
the government created AIDS to wipe out black people, and referred
to the greatest nation on earth as "the United States of KKK-A."
Out of the hundreds of black churches on the South Side of Chicago,
Obama chose to join Trinity. In his book he said it was because of
his admiration for Jeremiah Wright, a man who, when he wasn't
lashing out against white America, or naming his fellow hate monger
Louis Farrakhan Man of the Year, was praising the Sandinistas for
their Communist overthrow of Nicaragua's elected government back in
the 1980's. Obama not only attended Trinity for all those years, he
also named one of his books after an anti-American sermon by
Wright, and spent much of his other book talking about what a
powerful influence Wright had had on him.
No, we should not be surprised to finally be seeing the real Obama
after two years of propaganda, hype, and media spin. Anyone who
attended Jeremiah Wright's church for twenty years and wrote of his
deep admiration for him obviously shared Wright's hatred of
America, and his radical socialist agenda. Obama didn't go to a
church like that and contribute tens of thousands of dollars
because he liked the choir. He did it because he believes what
Wright believes. Now that he's President of the United States, he's
going to go all out to enact his and Wright's anti-American
socialist agenda. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just kidding
himself.
Every presidential election is important, but Obama's victory was a
decisive turning point in this nation's history. America has come
to a fork in the road, and the country has to make a choice. Do we
allow Obama to remake America into his left wing, socialist vision,
or do we fight with everything we've got, at every opportunity we
have, to preserve our traditional American freedoms and way of
life? Make no mistake - it's the hard working, decent people who
will pay the price if Obama gets his way. Not only will we be
paying for massive new federal programs, it will also be red states
like Texas that liberals haven't bankrupted that will be paying for
the bailouts of the bankrupt blue states like California.
It seems that the interests of Texas and the country at large are
rapidly diverging. For all their flaws, our state leaders have
more-or-less governed as fiscal conservatives while the federal
government continues to run the printing press. Texas has a real
economy based on energy, technology and manufacturing; our people
work hard for honest money. The federal government continues to
bailout the paper-pushers on Wall Street and the banks that produce
nothing but steal the wealth of everybody else. One has to wonder
if the events of our present time mirror those of the 1830's, when
another Presidential tyrant with a funny name, Santa Anna, learned
the hard way what happens when you raise taxes, ruin the currency
and oppress the people of this state.
It's a difficult position for any patriot to be in when he's faced
with loving his country, but despising the corruptness of his
government. But that's where we're at today, and it's only going to
get worse under Obama. How are we supposed to support a regime that
has declared war on everything we believe in? How can we sit in
silence while the America we once knew and loved is trampled
underfoot? What kind of country will our children and grandchildren
grow up in if Obama has his way? The prospect is unthinkable. We
simply can't let that happen. We are in for the fight of our lives
in the next few years. With hard work and by sticking together, we
can win this fight. God help us if we lose it.
Sources:
Sources:
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/research-stimulus-bill-full-of-pork-and-payoffs
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/trying-to-cure-debt-with-more-debt.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D965I5CG4&show_article=1
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/09/what-does-obama-know-about-acorn-fraud/
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/05/01/jeremiah-wright-and-james-cone/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-600K-jobs-lost-in-Jan-apf-14284404.html
quite frankly, most of the news is not good. The economic crisis
appears to be getting worse by the day. The federal government
announced in early February that some 598,000 jobs disappeared in
January, the biggest drop in employment since the severe recession
of 1974. When those 600,000 are added to the lost jobs in the last
few months of 2008, the total comes to over 3.5 million. Right now
the national unemployment rate stands at over 7 percent, but many
experts are saying the figure will soon be in the double digits.
One economist at California State University said this: "We're
talking years -- not months -- before we see a decent recovery in
the jobs market. It is going to get worse before it gets better."
With Barack Hussein Obama presiding over our nation's economy,
that's probably the understatement of the year. He ran for
president by painting himself as a "moderate" and a "centrist" who
was going to bring Americans together. But now that he's in office,
he's revealing himself to be what conservatives said he was all
along - a radical socialist who thinks the government should
control the economy. Socialism won't rebuild the economy; it will
destroy it. The only way he's going to bring Americans together is
in the unemployment lines.
To be fair, we have to admit that Obama didn't create this mess; he
inherited it. But he's going to make it far worse than it already
is, while using the crisis as an excuse to pad the bank accounts of
his supporters and radical leftist groups. He tried to bully GOP
politicians into voting for the trillion dollar Pelosi-Reid
stimulus package by using scare tactics. According to President
Obama, it's absolutely critical that this bill goes through: "This
recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million
more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation
will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be
able to reverse," is how he put it in an op-ed piece for the
Washington Post.
In actuality, passing the so called stimulus bill is just about the
worst thing the government could do right now. We're in this
economic crisis because of rampant, out of control debt. President
Bush and the last Congress already threw nearly a trillion dollars
at it, and now Obama says we need to pour another trillion down the
rat hole. The government shouldn't be spending more money; it
should be making massive budget cuts. Niall Ferguson, a Harvard
economist, calls our current crisis the Great Repression. He echoed
Ron Paul the other day when he wrote about Obama's plan to borrow
our way out of bankruptcy: "The delusion that a crisis of excess
debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the
Great Repression."
Obama isn't just calling for us to spend a trillion more dollars
that we don't have. He and the liberal Democrats in Congress have
also packed the stimulus bill with billions of dollars worth of
goodies for government agencies and far left wing groups. That's
the dirty little secret the mainstream media isn't telling us about
the Pelosi-Reid bill. Some of the provisions include $600 million
for brand new "environmentally friendly" cars for government
workers, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $400
million for NASA to do "climate change research" to generate even
more global warming hysteria, and a total of $54 billion for
government agencies that Congress's own accounting office has
already declared to be ineffective or poorly run.
If that's not bad enough, according to the National Taxpayer's
Union, the bill also includes over $4 billion for the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN.
This is Obama's way of thanking this radical socialist group of
"community organizers" for getting out the vote for him in the
November election. His campaign gave them nearly a million dollars
for voter registration efforts, and it sure paid off. They
certainly registered a lot of new voters for the Democrats, but
many of them were people registering over and over, or completely
phony registrations. ACORN is facing voter fraud investigations in
15 states for thousands of instances of voter fraud. In Nevada,
ACORN workers even turned in voter registration paperwork in the
name of every single member of the Dallas Cowboys! Their proposed
reward for all this massive voter fraud is $4 billion from their
champion in the White House.
Yes, now that Obama is sitting in the Oval Office, the mask is
finally coming off. He's no moderate, let alone a centrist. He's
not just the most radical left wing president in the history of the
United States. He's a committed, hard core socialist, but this
shouldn't be a surprise to any of us. After all, this is the same
man who attended Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ for
nearly twenty years. For almost two decades he sat faithfully in
the pews as Jeremiah Wright called for God to damn America, said
the government created AIDS to wipe out black people, and referred
to the greatest nation on earth as "the United States of KKK-A."
Out of the hundreds of black churches on the South Side of Chicago,
Obama chose to join Trinity. In his book he said it was because of
his admiration for Jeremiah Wright, a man who, when he wasn't
lashing out against white America, or naming his fellow hate monger
Louis Farrakhan Man of the Year, was praising the Sandinistas for
their Communist overthrow of Nicaragua's elected government back in
the 1980's. Obama not only attended Trinity for all those years, he
also named one of his books after an anti-American sermon by
Wright, and spent much of his other book talking about what a
powerful influence Wright had had on him.
No, we should not be surprised to finally be seeing the real Obama
after two years of propaganda, hype, and media spin. Anyone who
attended Jeremiah Wright's church for twenty years and wrote of his
deep admiration for him obviously shared Wright's hatred of
America, and his radical socialist agenda. Obama didn't go to a
church like that and contribute tens of thousands of dollars
because he liked the choir. He did it because he believes what
Wright believes. Now that he's President of the United States, he's
going to go all out to enact his and Wright's anti-American
socialist agenda. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just kidding
himself.
Every presidential election is important, but Obama's victory was a
decisive turning point in this nation's history. America has come
to a fork in the road, and the country has to make a choice. Do we
allow Obama to remake America into his left wing, socialist vision,
or do we fight with everything we've got, at every opportunity we
have, to preserve our traditional American freedoms and way of
life? Make no mistake - it's the hard working, decent people who
will pay the price if Obama gets his way. Not only will we be
paying for massive new federal programs, it will also be red states
like Texas that liberals haven't bankrupted that will be paying for
the bailouts of the bankrupt blue states like California.
It seems that the interests of Texas and the country at large are
rapidly diverging. For all their flaws, our state leaders have
more-or-less governed as fiscal conservatives while the federal
government continues to run the printing press. Texas has a real
economy based on energy, technology and manufacturing; our people
work hard for honest money. The federal government continues to
bailout the paper-pushers on Wall Street and the banks that produce
nothing but steal the wealth of everybody else. One has to wonder
if the events of our present time mirror those of the 1830's, when
another Presidential tyrant with a funny name, Santa Anna, learned
the hard way what happens when you raise taxes, ruin the currency
and oppress the people of this state.
It's a difficult position for any patriot to be in when he's faced
with loving his country, but despising the corruptness of his
government. But that's where we're at today, and it's only going to
get worse under Obama. How are we supposed to support a regime that
has declared war on everything we believe in? How can we sit in
silence while the America we once knew and loved is trampled
underfoot? What kind of country will our children and grandchildren
grow up in if Obama has his way? The prospect is unthinkable. We
simply can't let that happen. We are in for the fight of our lives
in the next few years. With hard work and by sticking together, we
can win this fight. God help us if we lose it.
Sources:
Sources:
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/research-stimulus-bill-full-of-pork-and-payoffs
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/trying-to-cure-debt-with-more-debt.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D965I5CG4&show_article=1
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/09/what-does-obama-know-about-acorn-fraud/
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/05/01/jeremiah-wright-and-james-cone/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-600K-jobs-lost-in-Jan-apf-14284404.html
Monday, January 26, 2009
We Are a Bad Joke, It's Not Funny
Drill Like Brazil
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, January 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.
With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive.
As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and move toward energy independence by investing in its energy infrastructure and the liquid gold that lies just off its pristine beaches.
Brazil's state-owned energy giant, Petrobras, announced on Friday that it plans to spend $174.4 billion on developing its huge recent offshore oil finds through 2013. A $28.6 billion spending plan for this year will be financed in part on loans from Brazil's state development bank.
"This is not a rescue," Petrobras CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. "This is very different than what is happening in other countries. This is not a bailout."
No indeed. It's an investment that fosters energy independence, keeps Brazil's energy dollars at home and creates jobs.
"The volumes of investments will have an important macroeconomic impact in Brazil," said Gabrielli.
Such investments could have a similar beneficial impact on the American economy, and the irony is that the oil companies are willing to use their own money here if we let them. Yet, even more restrictions on U.S. domestic production are planned.
Thanks in part to a relentless pursuit of domestic energy resources to complement its ethanol production (an "all of the above" energy plan like that proposed by Republicans during the campaign), the Brazilian economy grew 5.8% in 2008 and is projected to expand 2.9% even in a tough 2009, according to the median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
If Brazil had copied our current energy policy, it wouldn't have discovered in November 2007 the Tupi field or in April 2008 the Carioca field in the deep-water Santos Basin off Brazil's southeastern coast.
Tupi is estimated to contain 5 billion to 8 billon barrels of crude, and Carioca may hold up to 33 billion — the third-largest oil field ever discovered and big enough to supply every refinery in the U.S. for six years.
These discoveries and others around the world show that oil has not peaked, and new technologies continue to expand reserves beyond the level of consumption. Other countries recognize the economic importance of domestic energy resources. We are in fact the only industrial country to put our reserves off-limits.
A study by ICF International, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, finds that by 2030 the domestic energy resources that Congress has placed off-limits in ANWR, in Rocky Mountain shale and in the Outer Continental Shelf could increase U.S. crude-oil production by 36%, generate more than $1.7 trillion in government revenue and create 160,000 jobs.
Now, that's what we and the Brazilians call a stimulus package.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, January 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.
With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive.
As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and move toward energy independence by investing in its energy infrastructure and the liquid gold that lies just off its pristine beaches.
Brazil's state-owned energy giant, Petrobras, announced on Friday that it plans to spend $174.4 billion on developing its huge recent offshore oil finds through 2013. A $28.6 billion spending plan for this year will be financed in part on loans from Brazil's state development bank.
"This is not a rescue," Petrobras CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. "This is very different than what is happening in other countries. This is not a bailout."
No indeed. It's an investment that fosters energy independence, keeps Brazil's energy dollars at home and creates jobs.
"The volumes of investments will have an important macroeconomic impact in Brazil," said Gabrielli.
Such investments could have a similar beneficial impact on the American economy, and the irony is that the oil companies are willing to use their own money here if we let them. Yet, even more restrictions on U.S. domestic production are planned.
Thanks in part to a relentless pursuit of domestic energy resources to complement its ethanol production (an "all of the above" energy plan like that proposed by Republicans during the campaign), the Brazilian economy grew 5.8% in 2008 and is projected to expand 2.9% even in a tough 2009, according to the median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
If Brazil had copied our current energy policy, it wouldn't have discovered in November 2007 the Tupi field or in April 2008 the Carioca field in the deep-water Santos Basin off Brazil's southeastern coast.
Tupi is estimated to contain 5 billion to 8 billon barrels of crude, and Carioca may hold up to 33 billion — the third-largest oil field ever discovered and big enough to supply every refinery in the U.S. for six years.
These discoveries and others around the world show that oil has not peaked, and new technologies continue to expand reserves beyond the level of consumption. Other countries recognize the economic importance of domestic energy resources. We are in fact the only industrial country to put our reserves off-limits.
A study by ICF International, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, finds that by 2030 the domestic energy resources that Congress has placed off-limits in ANWR, in Rocky Mountain shale and in the Outer Continental Shelf could increase U.S. crude-oil production by 36%, generate more than $1.7 trillion in government revenue and create 160,000 jobs.
Now, that's what we and the Brazilians call a stimulus package.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Russia Cuts Off Gas to Ukraine
Russia cuts off gas deliveries to Ukraine
By Andrew E. Kramer
Friday, January 2, 2009
MOSCOW: In the face of mounting economic troubles, Russia cut off deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine on Thursday after Ukraine rejected the Kremlin's demands for a sharp increase in gas prices.
A similar reduction in supplies to Ukraine in 2006 caused a drop in pressure throughout Europe's integrated natural gas pipeline system and led to shortages in countries as far away as Italy and France.
But with a recessionary drop in demand, ample supplies and assurances from both countries that gas would flow westward without interruption, there were few signs of the near hysteria in Europe that accompanied the 2006 cutoff.
The authorities in Poland and Italy issued soothing statements on Thursday, noting the existence of high reserves and the distant likelihood of an immediate effect on gas supplies.
Even Ukraine, which says it has enough gas in reserve to last through the winter, took Russia's action in stride, underscoring how the political potency of the Kremlin's energy card has plunged along with the price of oil and gas. Its normally fractious political leadership rallied together in the face of the supply cutoff, united in their demand that the Kremlin pay more for the right to transship gas through Ukraine.
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, likened its actions to a utility cutting off service to a deadbeat customer. "The message is very simple," Ilya Kochevrin, the executive director of Gazprom's export arm, Gazexport, said in a telephone interview. "If you receive a product, you have to pay for it. If you don't pay, you don't receive it."
But energy experts said that the Kremlin's decision to employ the gambit again in a pricing dispute with Ukraine was an indication as well of Russia's deepening economic woes.
Plagued by the sharp fall in oil prices, Russia has been scrambling to make up the revenue shortfall as prices have slipped below $40 a barrel. Gazprom, too, is heavily in debt and sinking along with the energy market.
"They do need the money," Chris Weafer, the chief equity analyst at UralSib bank in Moscow, said in a telephone interview, speaking of Gazprom. "That is the bottom line."
Under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who takes a strong interest in energy matters, Moscow has tried a number of tactics in recent months to raise energy prices. It is cooperating more closely with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose members recently agreed to cut daily production by 4.2 million barrels. It is also trying to organize a parallel group for gas exporting nations.
Talks over price and transit fees unraveled late Wednesday with Gazprom demanding about $50 more per 1,000 cubic meters of gas than Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, said the country — which itself has severe financial problems — was willing to pay. Later Thursday, Gazprom's chief executive raised the asking price to $418 per 1,000 cubic meters from $250, saying that Ukraine had missed its chance to accept the lower rate. Currently, European nations pay around $500 per 1,000 cubic meters.
At $418 per 1,000 cubic meters, Gazprom would earn about $14 billion more a year than it received from Ukraine last year. While a considerable sum, the revenue would provide only a respite from Russia's broader financial problems.
The Russian authorities have yet to release a detailed plan of how they would fill the hole in the budget presented by tumbling prices. Taxes on oil and gas finance about 60 percent of the government's annual budget. Russia's finance minister, Aleksei Kudrin, has said the country will run a deficit next year if crude oil prices remain below $70; they are now about half that.
Once large foreign currency reserves are increasingly committed to defending the ruble and are running out; the central bank has spent $162 billion since midsummer and still was forced to devalue the ruble three times last week. Russia's gold and currency reserves stand at $438 billion.
The shutoff at the peak of the heating season carried more than financial overtones; it is the most confrontational move by Russia toward a neighboring country since the August war in Georgia.
In comments broadcast Wednesday evening on Russian state television, Putin said any interference with Russia's gas exports to Europe would carry "serious consequences for the transit country itself." He did not elaborate, but Ukrainian officials did not need to be reminded that Russia issued a series of threats and provocations against Georgia, leading in part to the war last summer.
Underlying the gas dispute are long-running tensions between Russia and Ukraine, a former Soviet republic of 46 million. In 2004, after the street protests known as the Orange Revolution led to the installation of a pro-Western government in Ukraine, talks over gas supply and its transit became strained. This time, however, the political coloring is less clear.
Grigoriy Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an arm of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview that in addition to raising much-needed revenue, Russia was seeking to undermine President Yushchenko by stalling on the gas deal.
Russia is trying to exploit fissures in Ukraine's mercurial internal politics, offering to negotiate with Ukraine's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who has recently leaned closer to Moscow. Tymoshenko, for example, was slow to criticize the Russian military intervention in Georgia in August.
Also, the role of an opaque gas trading company that is the exclusive intermediary for gas shipments to Ukraine from Russia and Central Asia carries political ramifications for Ukraine. The Swiss-based trader RosUkrEnergo is jointly owned by Gazprom and by a Ukrainian businessman, Dmitry Firtash, who has close ties to the country's president.
Energy analysts, however, said Gazprom's motives seemed clear.
"The financial crisis puts raising cash as everybody's priority," Simon Blakey, European gas researcher with Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in telephone interview from London.
"On the Russian side, they are eager to raise cash," he said. "And on the Ukrainian side, they have difficulty finding it."
By Andrew E. Kramer
Friday, January 2, 2009
MOSCOW: In the face of mounting economic troubles, Russia cut off deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine on Thursday after Ukraine rejected the Kremlin's demands for a sharp increase in gas prices.
A similar reduction in supplies to Ukraine in 2006 caused a drop in pressure throughout Europe's integrated natural gas pipeline system and led to shortages in countries as far away as Italy and France.
But with a recessionary drop in demand, ample supplies and assurances from both countries that gas would flow westward without interruption, there were few signs of the near hysteria in Europe that accompanied the 2006 cutoff.
The authorities in Poland and Italy issued soothing statements on Thursday, noting the existence of high reserves and the distant likelihood of an immediate effect on gas supplies.
Even Ukraine, which says it has enough gas in reserve to last through the winter, took Russia's action in stride, underscoring how the political potency of the Kremlin's energy card has plunged along with the price of oil and gas. Its normally fractious political leadership rallied together in the face of the supply cutoff, united in their demand that the Kremlin pay more for the right to transship gas through Ukraine.
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, likened its actions to a utility cutting off service to a deadbeat customer. "The message is very simple," Ilya Kochevrin, the executive director of Gazprom's export arm, Gazexport, said in a telephone interview. "If you receive a product, you have to pay for it. If you don't pay, you don't receive it."
But energy experts said that the Kremlin's decision to employ the gambit again in a pricing dispute with Ukraine was an indication as well of Russia's deepening economic woes.
Plagued by the sharp fall in oil prices, Russia has been scrambling to make up the revenue shortfall as prices have slipped below $40 a barrel. Gazprom, too, is heavily in debt and sinking along with the energy market.
"They do need the money," Chris Weafer, the chief equity analyst at UralSib bank in Moscow, said in a telephone interview, speaking of Gazprom. "That is the bottom line."
Under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who takes a strong interest in energy matters, Moscow has tried a number of tactics in recent months to raise energy prices. It is cooperating more closely with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose members recently agreed to cut daily production by 4.2 million barrels. It is also trying to organize a parallel group for gas exporting nations.
Talks over price and transit fees unraveled late Wednesday with Gazprom demanding about $50 more per 1,000 cubic meters of gas than Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, said the country — which itself has severe financial problems — was willing to pay. Later Thursday, Gazprom's chief executive raised the asking price to $418 per 1,000 cubic meters from $250, saying that Ukraine had missed its chance to accept the lower rate. Currently, European nations pay around $500 per 1,000 cubic meters.
At $418 per 1,000 cubic meters, Gazprom would earn about $14 billion more a year than it received from Ukraine last year. While a considerable sum, the revenue would provide only a respite from Russia's broader financial problems.
The Russian authorities have yet to release a detailed plan of how they would fill the hole in the budget presented by tumbling prices. Taxes on oil and gas finance about 60 percent of the government's annual budget. Russia's finance minister, Aleksei Kudrin, has said the country will run a deficit next year if crude oil prices remain below $70; they are now about half that.
Once large foreign currency reserves are increasingly committed to defending the ruble and are running out; the central bank has spent $162 billion since midsummer and still was forced to devalue the ruble three times last week. Russia's gold and currency reserves stand at $438 billion.
The shutoff at the peak of the heating season carried more than financial overtones; it is the most confrontational move by Russia toward a neighboring country since the August war in Georgia.
In comments broadcast Wednesday evening on Russian state television, Putin said any interference with Russia's gas exports to Europe would carry "serious consequences for the transit country itself." He did not elaborate, but Ukrainian officials did not need to be reminded that Russia issued a series of threats and provocations against Georgia, leading in part to the war last summer.
Underlying the gas dispute are long-running tensions between Russia and Ukraine, a former Soviet republic of 46 million. In 2004, after the street protests known as the Orange Revolution led to the installation of a pro-Western government in Ukraine, talks over gas supply and its transit became strained. This time, however, the political coloring is less clear.
Grigoriy Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an arm of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview that in addition to raising much-needed revenue, Russia was seeking to undermine President Yushchenko by stalling on the gas deal.
Russia is trying to exploit fissures in Ukraine's mercurial internal politics, offering to negotiate with Ukraine's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who has recently leaned closer to Moscow. Tymoshenko, for example, was slow to criticize the Russian military intervention in Georgia in August.
Also, the role of an opaque gas trading company that is the exclusive intermediary for gas shipments to Ukraine from Russia and Central Asia carries political ramifications for Ukraine. The Swiss-based trader RosUkrEnergo is jointly owned by Gazprom and by a Ukrainian businessman, Dmitry Firtash, who has close ties to the country's president.
Energy analysts, however, said Gazprom's motives seemed clear.
"The financial crisis puts raising cash as everybody's priority," Simon Blakey, European gas researcher with Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in telephone interview from London.
"On the Russian side, they are eager to raise cash," he said. "And on the Ukrainian side, they have difficulty finding it."
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
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