Peak Oil News : Prices Continue to Surge

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


The peak oil crisis: The silly season Is upon us
by Tom Whipple

During the past week, the surge in oil prices continued with crude, gasoline and diesel prices all hitting new highs.

U.S. gasoline consumption may be down by a few tenths of a percent (which seems logical) or then again, it may be up a bit in recent weeks depending on which numbers you are reading. Our Presidential candidates, or at least their handlers, are beginning to grasp that we have a problem here and are beginning to make proposals.

We have clearly entered the silly season, for all three major candidates now have endorsed the notion that the U.S. should stop buying oil for its strategic reserve in order to force prices back down. This might sound sensible until you learn that the U.S. is only squirreling away eight ten-thousandths of the world’s production each day. The Republican candidate for President is now calling for a “holiday” that would suspend the 18.4 cent a gallon federal gas tax. This proposal of course will never pass, but if it should, the hoped-for jump in gasoline sales will quickly move gas prices higher. At a time when prices are rising about 5 cents a week, cutting taxes is unlikely to boost Hummer sales.

Up on Capitol Hill a lot of folks are worried, but as yet few have mustered the courage to propose realistic solutions. Some are beating on the oil companies and are calling for the umpteenth investigation of gas prices. Others want to yank the $18 billion annual tax break the oil industry gets and move the money to researching renewables. The rest just want to increase drilling for oil somewhere – usually in the Atlantic or Alaska — without mentioning that at best it would take decades to produce the oil should some be found. No one wants to mention that our energy crisis now seems months, or perhaps less, away.

It is hard to really blame the politicians. As long as most of us cling to the hope that high gas prices will go away or that a painless silver bullet that will solve our energy problem is just around the corner, few candidates for public office are ready to propose what are thought to be “painful solutions” to our problems. They still shoot messengers.

The great irony in all this is that the problem is simple to understand. World crude oil production has been essentially flat for the last three years while 1.3 billion Chinese, 1.1 billion Indians, and another quarter billion or so living in oil exporting countries continue to increase their oil consumption at a prodigious pace. Incidentally, the Chinese just announced that their diesel imports during the first quarter of 2008 were up seven fold over 2007.

Currently, the real issue is how long it will take the American people to understand the seriousness of a problem that will require decades of pain, discomfort and inconvenience to mitigate. When gasoline and diesel prices go up a few more dollars a gallon, or when permanent shortages develop, everybody will get the message and media will start to talk coherently. Until then, understanding will be incremental and painfully slow

Read all of it here. / Energy Bulletin

Thanks to Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

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Erosion of Pay Check Drives Economic Downturn

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Kim Baker works at a roof tile factory with declining business. “We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” he said, with his daughter Bailey and wife, Debbie, right. Photo by J. Kevin Fitzsimons / NYT

Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn
By Peter S. Goodman / April 18, 2008

Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.

Kim Baker works at a roof tile factory with declining business. “We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” he said, with his daughter Bailey and wife, Debbie, right.

Recessionary Signs “We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” said Kim Baker, whose take-home pay at the plant has recently dropped to $450 a week, from more than $600. “You’ve got to watch everything. If we go to town now, it’s for a reason.”

Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a failure to secure a full-time position.

The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.

While official unemployment has risen only modestly, to 5.1 percent, the reduction of wages and working hours for those still employed has become a primary cause of distress, pushing many more Americans into a downward spiral, economists say.

Moreover, this slippage is a critical indicator that the nation may well be on the verge of a recession, if not already in one.

Last month, the hours worked by those on American payrolls dropped, compared with six months earlier, according to an index maintained by the Labor Department. The last time the index moved into negative territory was February 2001, when the economy was on the doorstep of recession. A similar slide emerged in August 1990, one month into what proved an even more severe downturn.

From March 2007 to March of this year, the average workweek reported in the private sector slipped slightly to 33.8 hours, from 33.9 hours, while overtime for manufacturing workers fell by a larger margin.

At the end of last month, more than 4.9 million people were working part time either because they could not find full-time jobs or because their companies had cut hours in the face of slack business, according to a Labor Department survey. That represented an increase of 400,000 since November.

And on Wednesday, the government reported that average earnings slipped in March after accounting for the rising costs of food and fuel — the sixth consecutive month that pay failed to keep pace with inflation.

Read all of it here. / New York Times / The Rag Blog

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ABC, Barack Obama and the Red Herring

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


Daley to Clinton: Don’t Tar Obama with Ayers
by Mike Dorning and Rick Pearson / April 17, 2008

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose father was famously not so sympathetic to anti-war protesters, is coming to the defense of Barack Obama for his friendship with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers.

Daley accused Hillary Clinton and other critics of Obama’s association with Ayers of “re-fighting 40 year old battles.” And the mayor noted that he, too “know(s) Bill Ayers” and has “worked with” Ayers on city education reforms.

The mayor released the following statement:

“There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Senator Obama’s opponents are playing guilt-by-association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers.

“I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally-recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago
community.

“I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles.”

But the Clinton campaign was not about to drop Ayers connection to Obama. Ayers hosted a neighborhood coffee for Obama’s initial 1996 Illinois state Senate run and gave Obama a $200 donation for his state Senate re-election campaign in 2001.

In a conference call with reporters today, Clinton spokesmen Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer sought to maintain that Obama’s political relationship with Ayers was more important than the decision by Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, to commute the sentences of two of Ayers’ former Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans on terrorist related weapons charges.

Asked if Hillary Clinton had expressed any disagreement with her husband’s actions in commuting the sentences of Rosenberg and Evans, Wolfson said only that he would ask the candidate.

Source. / The Swamp / Chicago Tribune

Dr. William Ayers

The Weather Underground: False Debate
By Joseph A. Palermo

It’s a symptom of the malaise of our times when ABC News during a Democratic presidential debate forces us to discuss a candidate’s relations, when he was 8 years old, to a Chicago legal activist who belonged to a 1969 spin-off group of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which dabbled in “revolutionary” bombings of unoccupied (hopefully) buildings in the early 1970s.

If Hillary Clinton thinks it’s a big deal that Barack Obama has crossed paths with Bill Ayres, (Yes, the guy who is with Bernardine Dorhn). I met Ms. Dorhn and Mr. Ayres when I was a visiting professor at Colgate College in Hamilton, New York, when Nigel Young, then the Director of the Peace Studies Program at Colgate invited his former UC Berkeley classmates to speak about their work providing legal services to the poor in Chicago. It’s no big deal.

Guilt By Association. For George Stephanapolous to bring up Ayres and not talk about the social context of the early 1970s that also brought us the Black Panther Party and other groups is to misconstrue the point of the question.

What’s the point of the question?

And for Hillary Clinton to run with the Ayres/Weather Underground connection betrays her “kitchen sink” philosophy. But, as Barack Obama astutely pointed out, President Bill Clinton pardoned two members of the Weather Underground in any case. And the fact is that the Clintons are of the Weatherman generation and Obama is not. It’s the last gasp of Hillary Clinton’s desperation.

It’s also interesting that a more important and radical organization of the early 1970s, the Black Panther Party, featured Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush as its titular head at the time when the legendary Fred Hampton was the inspirational leader. The irony here is that a former leader of the Black Panther Party, Congressman Bobby Rush, badly defeated Barack Obama in the 2000 Democratic congressional primary. “Taking on Bobby Rush among black voters is like running into a buzz saw,” said Ron Lester, a pollster who worked for Obama during the campaign. “This guy was incredibly popular. Not only that, his support ran deep — to the extent that a lot of people who liked Barack still wouldn’t support him because they were committed to Bobby. He had built up this reserve of goodwill over 25 years in that community.” Obama learned an enormous amount from losing big to Bobby Rush.

Why bring up Bill Ayres and the Weather Underground when Obama was 8 years old, living in Indonesia at the time, and in his first attempt at federal office lost to a former Black Panther? If times have progressed to the point where Bobby Rush is a respected member or Congress, why can’t Bill Ayres and his good legal work he has done for the Chicago community be left alone?

(My thanks, once again, to my friend and colleague Dr. Stan Oden for help on this one.)

Source. / Huffington Post / The Rag Blog

Fact Check on Clinton Attacks on Obama and Ayers
April 17, 2008

REALITY: OBAMA WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD WHEN THE WEATHERMEN WERE ACTIVE

Obama Turned Eight In September 1969, The Days Of Rage Occurred In October 1969. Barack Obama was born on September 4, 1961. He turned eight on September 4, 1969. The Days of Rage, in which William Ayers participated, occurred in October 1969. [Obama Birth Certificate, UPI, 10/21/81]

William Ayers Participated In The “Days Of Rage” In 1969. The AP reported, “In the autumn of 1969, the Weatherman, led by Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, converged on Chicago and planned a series of demonstrations to dramatize their beliefs. The riots, which came to be known as the “Days of Rage,” caused thousands of dollars in damage in the downtown and Near North Side areas and resulted in injuries to several policemen. Rudd and Ms. Dohrn were named in federal riot indictments with ten others — William Ayers, Kathy Boudin, John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, Michael Spiegel, Howard Machtinger, Terry Robins, Lawrence Weiss, Linda Sue Evans and Judy Clark. Another prominent activist, Cathy Wilkerson, was arrested on state charges of mob action and resisting a police officer. Some surrendered years ago. Two — Ms. Dohrn and Ayers, son of the former chairman of Commonweath Edison Co. — surfaced Wednesday. Charges against Ayers had been dropped in 1978 but Ms. Dohrn still faces charges of aggravated battery and jumping bail.” [AP, 12/3/80]

REALITY: AYERS CONNECTION IS “PHONY,” TENUOUS,” “A STRETCH”

Chicago Sun Times: Obama’s Connection To Ayers Is A “Phony Flap”. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote in an editorial, “But Ayers, it is also true to say, has since followed in the footsteps of the great Chicago social worker Jane Addams, crusading for education and juvenile justice reform. His 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court, has been praised for exposing how Cook County’s juvenile justice system all but eliminates a child’s chance for redemption. Is Barack Obama consorting with a radical? Hardly. Ayers is nothing more than an aging lefty with a foolish past who is doing good. And while, yes, Obama is friendly with Ayers, it appears to be only in the way of two community activists whose circles overlap. Obama’s middle name is Hussein. That doesn’t make him an Islamic terrorist. He stopped wearing a flag pin. That doesn’t make him unpatriotic. And he’s friendly with UIC Professor William Ayers. That doesn’t make him a bomb thrower. Time to move on to Phony Flap 6,537,204.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 3/3/08]

Washington Post: Obama-Ayers Link “Is A Tenuous One.” The Washington Post reported in a fact check, “But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one. As Newsday pointed out, Clinton has her own, also tenuous, Weatherman connection. Her husband commuted the sentences of a couple of convicted Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, shortly before leaving office in January 2001. Which is worse: pardoning a convicted terrorist or accepting a campaign contribution from a former Weatherman who was never convicted?” [Washington Post, 2/18/08]

Woods Fund President Harrington: “This Whole Connection Is A Stretch.” The Washington Post reported in a fact check, “Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board. The president of the Woods Fund, Deborah Harrington, said he had been selected for the board because of his solid academic credentials and ‘passion for social justice.’ ‘This whole connection is a stretch,’ Harrington told me. ‘Barack was very well known in Chicago, and a highly respected legislator. It would be difficult to find people round here who never volunteered or contributed money to one of his campaigns.'” [Washington Post, 2/18/08]

Noam Scheiber Of TNR: “I Don’t See Evidence Of Any Relationship” Between Obama And Ayers. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic wrote, “Ben says Ayers and Obama were, at best, casual friends. Even that seems to overstate things, though. I don’t see evidence of any relationship. The only concrete connection we know of is the meeting, which was attended by a number of local liberals; their contemporaneous membership on the board of a local organization; and a $200-donation by Ayers to one of Obama’s state senate campaigns. (Obama also once praised something Ayers had written about the juvenile justice system.) I’m not saying they couldn’t have been casual friends; just that there isn’t much evidence for that at this point.” [The New Republic, 2/22/08]

Birdsell: Obama Links To Ayers Were “Pretty Slender Ties.” The New York Sun reported, “‘Those are pretty slender ties to a controversial figure,’ the dean of Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs, David Birdsell, said of Mr. Obama’s links to Mr. Ayers.” [New York Sun, 2/19/08]

RHETORIC: He was then asked about his association with William Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group from the 1960s and ’70s. Ayers was quoted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as saying he did not regret setting bombs and that “we didn’t do enough.” [Washington Post, 4/17/08]

REALITY: AYERS COMMENTS WERE PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 11; THE INTERVIEW OCCURRED PRIOR TO PUBLICATION

On September 11, 2001, A Story About William Ayers’ Memoir Was Published In The New York Times; The Interview Occurred Prior To Publication. “‘I don’t regret setting bombs,’ Bill Ayers said. ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’ Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970’s as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago.” [New York Times, 9/11/01]

AYERS IS A TENURED PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO AND WAS A “RESPECTED ADVISOR” TO MAYOR DALEY ON SCHOOL REFORM

Ayers Is A Professor Of Education At UIC. According to his website at UIC, “William Ayers is a school reform activist, Distinguished Professor of Education, and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he teaches courses in interpretive research, urban school change, and youth and the modern predicament. He is the founder of the Center for Youth and Society and founder and co-director of the Small Schools Workshop. A graduate of the Bank Street College of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University, he has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education. His interests focus on the political and cultural contexts of schooling as well as the meaning and ethical purposes of teachers, students, and families.” [Ayers UIC Site, Ayers Personal Site, Accessed 5/31/07]

Ayers Advised Chicago Mayor Richard Daley On School Reform Issues. Bill “Ayers is now mainstream — an educator with distinguished professor status. He has written three books about education and has advised Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on the subject of school reform.” [AP, 10/14/01]

Terkel: Ayers Is A “Sensitive And Gifted” Writer And Teacher. Studs Terkel wrote, “William Ayers is as sensitive and gifted a chronicler as he is a teacher.” [Beacon]

AYERS AND DOHRN BECAME RESPECTABLE FIXTURES OF THE MAINSTREAM IN CHICAGO

Bill Ayers And Bernadine Dohrn “Became Respectable Fixtures In Mainstream Liberal Chicago Years Ago.” Alexander Cockburn wrote in and op-ed for the Las Vegas Review Journal, “Late last week, the Clinton campaign was leaking stories about support for Obama from the former Weather Underground couple Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, both of whom became respectable fixtures in mainstream liberal Chicago years ago.” [Las Vegas Review Journal, 3/2/08]

CHARGES AGAINST AYERS WERE DROPPED AND HE SERVED NO TIME

1979: Charges Against Ayers Were Dropped Because “The Government’s Case Was Based On Illegal Wiretaps.” The New York Times reported, “William Ayers was a fugitive, too, for nine of those years, but the Federal charges against him, Miss Dohrn and other members of the revolutionary organization were dropped in 1979, when it was ruled that the Government’s case was based on illegal wiretaps.” [New York Times, 12/5/80]

Ayers “Served No Time.” “William Ayers: Surrendered and pleaded guilty in 1980 to possession of explosives and served no time. Teaches early childhood development at the University of Illinois.” [Boston Globe, 9/19/93]

Source. / BarackObama.org / The Rag Blog
Also see Frameshop: Framing Obama as Violent – Et Tu? ABC.

Also on The Rag Blog: ABC takes hits for slanted, tabloid debate.

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According to Form

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Thanks to Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog

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Real Power Can Be Manifest Through Our Spending

Posted on April 18, 2008 by RagBlog

The Most Powerful People in America
By Joel S. Hirschhorn / April 16, 2008

They are not the rich and superrich, nor the politically powerful running the two-party plutocracy, nor the greedy heads of banking and finance companies, and certainly not the media moguls and bloviating pundits.

The most powerful people are US, American consumers that account for over 70 percent of the economy. It is exactly now, when the economy is in the toilet, that consumers hold the maximum power. So why are we the people still deluding ourselves that the path to a better future rests on electing a new president?

We are suckers, conditioned by decades of clever marketing and advertising to believe the lies of politicians, and worst of all to believe that elections and our votes provide us with power. Wrong. Our real power can only be manifest through our spending dollars.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have been severely damaged by economic oppression by government policies that have produced historic economic inequality. Yet, despite revolting conditions, Americans seem unwilling to revolt by using their remaining economic power. They have let themselves become economic slaves.

What is amazing and depressing is that there are no national leaders from the worlds of politics, religion, education, media or public interest that are attempting to harness consumer power at this critical time. No one is capturing the public’s attention by making it crystal clear that consumers could obtain any political or economic reform in the public interest by joining together to withhold their discretionary spending.

Where are the anti-Iraq war leaders? Why are they not shouting about forcing an immediate commitment to ending the Iraq war by using the power of a massive consumer boycott that clearly could destroy the whole economy? Tell President Bush that consumers will greatly curb their spending for a month to give him time to implement a plan for withdrawal from Iraq. Make it clear that the coming federal rebates will not be used for spending. Make it clear that Bush inaction will result in continuation of the boycott.

Where is Ralph Nader, the ultimate consumer advocate? Why is he not proclaiming the brilliance of a consumer boycott as the winning tactic to force effective government assistance to the millions of Americans screwed by the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and about the lose their homes?

Where is Barack Obama, who supposedly wants to produce change? Rather than putting all his energy into satisfying his egoistic hunt for the presidency, why is he not talking about harnessing consumer power right now to get political reforms, like .ending trade agreements that are destroying the middle class? Why does he not send a clear message to his million-plus contributors to join a national consumer boycott to obtain immediate concessions from the Bush administration?

Where are the professors who have published books making the case for a second constitutional convention as the way to restore American democracy? Not one has the courage to say that the way to get Congress to obey Article V of the Constitution and convene that the first Article V convention is by American consumers threatening to plunge a dagger into the heart of American business.

Now is the time for all the millions of Americans that make up the 81 percent who see the nation on the wrong track to take action, to think like patriotic revolutionaries and take the power that now only exists with their spending. Sounds simple. All this strategy needs is leadership. Rather than spending so much time and energy on the media-hyped presidential campaign, we the people should demand that someone step forward to inform and mobilize consumers to become powerful citizens by using their spending as the ultimate populist political weapon.

Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through delusionaldemocracy.com. He is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention at http://www.foavc.org/.

Source / Information Clearing House / The Rag Blog

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Proof of Murder, Rape, and Torture in US Custody

Posted on April 18, 2008 by RagBlog

Documents Describe Murder And Torture Of Prisoners In U.S. Custody: Newly Released Government Documents Show Special Forces Used Illegal Interrogation Techniques In Afghanistan

April 17, 2008

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The documents from the military’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), obtained as a result of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include the first on-the-ground reports of torture in Gardez, Afghanistan to be publicly released.

“These documents make it clear that the military was using unlawful interrogation techniques in Afghanistan,” said Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU. “Rather than putting a stop to these systemic abuses, senior officials appear to have turned a blind eye to them.”

Special Operations officers in Gardez admitted to using what are known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) techniques, which for decades American service members experienced as training to prepare for the brutal treatment they might face if captured.

Today’s documents reveal charges that Special Forces beat, burned, and doused eight prisoners with cold water before sending them into freezing weather conditions. One of the eight prisoners, Jamal Naseer, died in U.S. custody in March 2003. In late 2004, the military opened a criminal investigation into charges of torture at Gardez. Despite numerous witness statements describing the evidence of torture, the military’s investigation concluded that the charges of torture were unsupported. It also concluded that Naseer’s death was the result of a “stomach ailment,” even though no autopsy had been conducted in his case. Documents uncovered today also refer to sodomy committed by prison guards; the victims’ identities are redacted.

“These documents raise serious questions about the adequacy of the military’s investigations into prisoner abuse,” added Singh.

The ACLU also obtained today a file today related to the death of Muhammad Al Kanan, a prisoner held at Camp Bucca in Iraq. The file reveals that British doctors refused to issue a death certificate for fear of being sued for malpractice: www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_ROI_Bucca.pdf

In October 2003, the ACLU – along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace – filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit.

Attorneys in the FOIA case are Lawrence S. Lustberg and Melanca D. Clark of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, P.C.; Jameel Jaffer, Singh and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the New York Civil Liberties Union; and Shayana Kadidal and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In addition, many of the FOIA documents are also located and summarized in a recently published book by Jaffer and Singh, Administration of Torture. More information is available online at: www.aclu.org/administrationoftorture

The documents received in the ACLU’s FOIA litigation are online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia

All of today’s documents are available at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/34922res20080416.html

Source / Information Clearing House / The Rag Blog

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An Act of Arrogance, Not Patriotism

Posted on April 18, 2008 by RagBlog


Justice O’Connor, I Think I Love You
By Lynn Grossman / April 16, 2008

Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Steven Breyer were at Hunter College the other evening talking about “The Supreme Court and the Presidency.” The event was held in the Danny Kaye Theater (“The jurist who is purest has the ruling on the schooling, but the judge who holds the grudge has a tort that is fraught?”) which sits about 600 people. The place was packed.

[snip]

Supreme Court justices, current or retired, are not known to talk about cases in public. They rarely, if ever, criticize the current administration. So many of us in the audience were surprised when, unprompted, Justice O’Connor turned the discussion to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Guantanamo detainees, a ruling that found the military commissions the Bush administration put in place at Guantanamo Bay violated both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

Justice O’Connor explained that, while the Supreme Court can rule on cases, it has no power to enforce its own ruling. For that, the court relies entirely on the Executive Branch. And even though the Court had ruled Guantanamo was illegal, the Executive Branch — Bush’s White House — had still not enforced the court’s findings. Detainees were still imprisoned; the machinery for hearings had not even been put in place.

Justice O’Connor was clearly not happy about this. To hear remarks like hers from a conservative justice, the very justice who had, in effect, handed the Presidency to George Bush with her vote on Bush v Gore in 2000, was nothing short of stunning.

Justice Breyer amplified her comments, raising the 1832 case of Worcester v Georgia where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled the Cherokee Indians were entitled to federal protection from state governments which were trying to kick them off their land. President Jackson refused to honor the court’s findings, saying, “John Marshall made his decision. Now let him enforce it,” and sent American troops to remove the Cherokees from Georgia, leading to the infamous Trail of Tears.

Breyer offered a second example, this time of an Executive Branch willing to enforce a Supreme Court ruling in spite of personal or political beliefs, President Eisenhower’s desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus would not accept the Supreme Court’s ruling on Brown v Board of Education and called out the state’s National Guard to block entry to the school. Eisenhower personally favored segregation, but felt honor-bound as President to respect the Court, no matter his personal beliefs. He not only federalized Faubus’ National Guard, putting them under his control, he also deployed the 101st Airborne Division, heroes of the recent Normandy Invasion, to lead the students into the school, a symbolic gesture well understood by post-WWII Americans.

A President putting the law of the land above his own agenda — now there’s an old-fashioned notion.

Presidents are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not just the parts of it they like. Bush calls himself a patriot, but dragging your feet so you don’t have to enforce a Supreme Court ruling is an act of arrogance, not patriotism.

When Supreme Court Justices are so disheartened and frustrated by a President’s refusal to enforce the law they are compelled to speak out publicly, it’s a dismal indication of the dispiriting political climate in which we live.

Read all of it here. / Huffington Post

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ABC Takes Hits for Slanted, Tabloid Debate

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

ABC News moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos seemed to be playing a game of gotcha at last night’s candidates’ debate. Photo by Matt Rourke / AP.

Clinton-Obama Debate: ABC Decides Top Issues Facing Americans Are Gaffes, Flag Pins and ’60s Radicals
By Greg Mitchell / April 16, 2008 (10:15 pm)

NEW YORK — In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent “bitter” gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former ’60s radical — a question that came out of rightwing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopolous. This approach led to a claim that Clinton’s husband pardoned two other ’60s radicals. And so on.

More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and other key issues. Gibson only got excited when he complained about anyone daring to raise taxes on his capital gains.

Yet neither candidate had the courage to ask the moderators to turn to those far more important issues. But some in the crowd did — booing Gibson near the end.

Yet David Brooks’ review at The New York Times concluded: “I thought the questions were excellent.” He gave ABC an “A.”

But Tom Shales of The Washington Post had an opposite view: “Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.”
*
Greg Mitchell is author of the new book, “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq.” It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.

Source. / Editor and Publisher / The Rag Blog

In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC
By Tom Shales / April 17, 2008

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates’ debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news — in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.

Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other’s running mate, “to both of you,” which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, “Don’t all speak at once.”

For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal — especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.

The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network’s Sunday morning hour, “This Week” (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly “World News”), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was “40 years ago, when I was 8 years old,” Obama said with exasperation.

Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to “take one statement and beat it to death,” he said.

No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. “Charlie, I’ve discussed this,” he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.

This is precisely what has happened with widely reported comments that Obama made about working-class people “clinging” to religion and guns during these times of cynicism about their federal government.

“It’s not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won’t be the last,” said Obama, with refreshing candor. But candor is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks’ trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on “the issues.”

Some news may have come out of the debate (ABC News will pretend it did a great job on today’s edition of its soppy, soap-operatic “Good Morning America”). Asked point-blank if she thought Obama could defeat presumptive Republican contender John McCain in the general election, Clinton said, “Yes, yes, yes,” in apparent contrast to previous remarks in which she reportedly told other Democrats that Obama could never win. And in turn, Obama said that Clinton could “absolutely” win against McCain.

To this observer, ABC’s coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly’s National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren’t any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.

At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates — or was he really patting himself on the back? — for “what I think has been a fascinating debate.” He’s entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.

Source. / Washington Post / The Rag Blog

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The Boss Throws His Bandanna in the Ring : Endorses Obama

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Bruce in Dallas, April 13, 2008.

Senator Obama is head and shoulders above the rest.
By Bruce Springsteen / April 16, 2008

LIke most of you, I’ve been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams From My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.

After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President.

Source. / BruceSpringsteen.net / The Rag Blog

The Boss throws his red bandanna into the ring.
By Rachel Sklar / April 16, 2008

Legendary all-American rocker Bruce Springsteen has thrown his red bandanna into the political ring, today endorsing Barack Obama for President on his website. Wrote Bruce:

Like most of you, I’ve been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”

The endorsement seems to have been prompted by Obama’s recent comments about Pennsylvanians being “bitter” and “clinging” to guns and various prejudices, first reported by the Huffington Post — and seems to take a swipe at Hillary Clinton in his endorsement:

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.

So: Anyone who thinks that Barack Obama doesn’t respect his small-town fellow Americans can take it up with the guy who wrote “Born In The U.S.A.” (and “Thunder Road,” and “The River,” and “Backstreets” and “Badlands” and pretty much a zillion classic songs about working-class life in small-town America).

What’s interesting about this endorsement from a new media perspective: It went up on the Boss’ website. That’s where it broke, and from what I can tell we were the third site to pick it up (kudos to you, CBS News and Marc Ambinder). It’s going to go huge, obviously, and it’s gonna happen before noon (cable news producers are digging up the stock footage now). That’s a phenomenon unique to this election cycle, and yet another example of how lightning-fast the news cycle is. It’s also a really interesting new wrench to throw into the “bitter” story, which has basically been running unchanged for the past six days — and this completely turns it on its head, making Obama the victim and Clinton the villain for trying to “distract us from discussing the real issues.” Look for Springsteen on “Meet The Press” on Sunday. (Oh, my God, Tim would love that. For sure he has an old Boss concert hat to pull out.)

Springsteen, who memorably supported John Kerry in 2004 (i.e. in concert, and every Bruce concert is memorable), seems pretty intent on making his point:

After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President.

In other words, honey he’s got the heart he’s got the soul he needs control right now. I smell a collaboration with will.i.am in the offing.

p.s. Or, how’s this for another Bruce quote for Generation O: “I believe in the love that you gave me, I believe in the faith that can save me.” Also from Badlands. Listen here.

p.p.s. Stop the presses! The ultimate Generation O quote, also from Badlands:

Talk about a dream
Try to make it real
You wake up in the night
With a fear so real
Spend your life waiting
For a moment that just don’t come
Well, don’t waste your time waiting!

Or, in other words, “Yes We Can.”

Source. Huffington Post / The Rag Blog

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Bitter? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics
by Robert Reich / April 15, 2008

I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 61 years ago. My father sold $1.98 cotton blouses to blue-collar women and women whose husbands worked in factories. Years later, I was secretary of labor of the United States, and I tried the best I could — which wasn’t nearly good enough — to help reverse one of the most troublesome trends America has faced: The stagnation of middle-class wages and the expansion of poverty. Male hourly wages began to drop in the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. The average man in his 30s is earning less than his father did thirty years ago. Yet America is far richer. Where did the money go? To the top.

Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then — by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes — to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame “liberal elites,” to blame anyone and anything.

Rather than counter all this, the American media have wallowed in it. Some, like Fox News and talk radio, have given the haters and blamers their very own megaphones. The rest have merely “reported on” it. Instead of focusing on how to get Americans good jobs again; instead of admitting too many of our schools are failing and our kids are falling behind their contemporaries in Europe, Japan, and even China; instead of showing why we need a more progressive tax system to finance better schools and access to health care, and green technologies that might create new manufacturing jobs, our national discussion has been mired in the old politics.

Listen to (this past Sunday’s)“Meet the Press” if you want an example. Tim Russert, one of the smartest guys on television, interviewed four political consultants — Carville and Matalin, Bob Schrum, and Michael Murphy. Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack.

Does Russert really believe he’s doing the nation a service for this parade of spin doctors talking about potential spins and the spin-offs from the words Obama used to state what everyone knows is true? Or is Russert merely in the business of selling TV airtime for a network that doesn’t give a hoot about its supposed commitment to the public interest but wants to up its ratings by pandering to the nation’s ongoing desire for gladiator entertainment instead of real talk about real problems?

We’re heading into the worst economic crisis in a half century or more. Many of the Americans who have been getting nowhere for decades are in even deeper trouble. Large numbers of people in Pennsylvania and across the nation are losing their homes and losing their jobs, and the situation is likely to grow worse. Consumers are at the end of their ropes, fuel and food costs are skyrocketing, they can’t go deeper into debt, they can’t pay their bills. They aren’t buying, which means every business from the auto industry to housing to even giant GE is hurting. Which means they’ll begin laying off more people, and as they do, we will experience an even more dangerous downward spiral.

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment — all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written ten books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Reason. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine.

Source. / CommonDreams / The Rag Blog

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Michael Klare : Oil Rules!

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

TomDispatch interview with author, Mike Klare

It’s strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages — or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words “oil” and “war” in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, oil rules our world and energy lies behind so many of the headlines that might seem to be about other matters entirely.

Take the food riots now spreading across the planet because the prices of staples are soaring, while stocks of basics are falling. In the last year, wheat (think flour) has risen by 130%, rice by 74%, soya by 87%, and corn by 31%, while there are now only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks left globally. Governments across the planetary map are shuddering. This is a fast growing horror story and, though the cry in the streets of Cairo and Port au Prince might be for bread, this, too, turns out to be a tale largely ruled by energy: Too many acres turned over to corn (and sugar cane) for the creation of biofuels; a historic drought in Australia and other climate-change-induced extremes of weather — a result of the burning of fossil fuels — that have affected crop yields; and many new middle-class consumers, in China and elsewhere, coming on line, with a growing desire for meat, the production of which is heavily petroleum based.

From resource wars to oil wars (the subjects of his last two books), Michael Klare, Tomdispatch’s energy expert, has long been ahead of the curve when it came to ways in which our planet was being reshaped at the most basic level. Today, he offers Tomdispatch readers a peek into some of the key themes in his staggering new book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. If you want to grasp the true shape of our shaky world, of where exactly we’ve been and where we might be going, this is a book not to be missed. It offers the profile-in-formation of a shape-shifting planet, a planet in transition and on a road to nowhere pretty.

Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch

The End of the World as You Know It
…and the Rise of the New Energy World Order
By Michael T. Klare

Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live — trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.

Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all — along with its “First World” allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former “Third World” countries — China and India in particular — have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption — a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE).

An increase of this sort would not be a matter of deep anxiety if the world’s primary energy suppliers were capable of producing the needed additional fuels. Instead, we face a frightening reality: a marked slowdown in the expansion of global energy supplies just as demand rises precipitously. These supplies are not exactly disappearing — though that will occur sooner or later — but they are not growing fast enough to satisfy soaring global demand.

The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as: rising powers/shrinking planet.

This new world order will be characterized by fierce international competition for dwindling stocks of oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium, as well as by a tidal shift in power and wealth from energy-deficit states like China, Japan, and the United States to energy-surplus states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. In the process, the lives of everyone will be affected in one way or another — with poor and middle-class consumers in the energy-deficit states experiencing the harshest effects. That’s most of us and our children, in case you hadn’t quite taken it in.

Here, in a nutshell, are five key forces in this new world order which will change our planet:

1. Intense competition between older and newer economic powers for available supplies of energy: Until very recently, the mature industrial powers of Europe, Asia, and North America consumed the lion’s share of energy and left the dregs for the developing world. As recently as 1990, the members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of the world’s richest nations, consumed approximately 57% of world energy; the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact bloc, 14% percent; and only 29% was left to the developing world. But that ratio is changing: With strong economic growth in the developing countries, a greater proportion of the world’s energy is being consumed by them. By 2010, the developing world’s share of energy use is expected to reach 40% and, if current trends persist, 47% by 2030.

China plays a critical role in all this. The Chinese alone are projected to consume 17% of world energy by 2015, and 20% by 2025 — by which time, if trend lines continue, it will have overtaken the United States as the world’s leading energy consumer. India, which, in 2004, accounted for 3.4% of world energy use, is projected to reach 4.4% percent by 2025, while consumption in other rapidly industrializing nations like Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Turkey is expected to grow as well.

These rising economic dynamos will have to compete with the mature economic powers for access to remaining untapped reserves of exportable energy — in many cases, bought up long ago by the private energy firms of the mature powers like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Total of France, and Royal Dutch Shell. Of necessity, the new contenders have developed a potent strategy for competing with the Western “majors”: they’ve created state-owned companies of their own and fashioned strategic alliances with the national oil companies that now control oil and gas reserves in many of the major energy-producing nations.

China’s Sinopec, for example, has established a strategic alliance with Saudi Aramco, the nationalized giant once owned by Chevron and Exxon Mobil, to explore for natural gas in Saudi Arabia and market Saudi crude oil in China. Likewise, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will collaborate with Gazprom, the massive state-controlled Russian natural gas monopoly, to build pipelines and deliver Russian gas to China. Several of these state-owned firms, including CNPC and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, are now set to collaborate with Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. in developing the extra-heavy crude of the Orinoco belt once controlled by Chevron. In this new stage of energy competition, the advantages long enjoyed by Western energy majors has been eroded by vigorous, state-backed upstarts from the developing world.

2. The insufficiency of primary energy supplies: The capacity of the global energy industry to satisfy demand is shrinking. By all accounts, the global supply of oil will expand for perhaps another half-decade before reaching a peak and beginning to decline, while supplies of natural gas, coal, and uranium will probably grow for another decade or two before peaking and commencing their own inevitable declines. In the meantime, global supplies of these existing fuels will prove incapable of reaching the elevated levels demanded.

Take oil. The U.S. Department of Energy claims that world oil demand, expected to reach 117.6 million barrels per day in 2030, will be matched by a supply that — miracle of miracles — will hit exactly 117.7 million barrels (including petroleum liquids derived from allied substances like natural gas and Canadian tar sands) at the same time. Most energy professionals, however, consider this estimate highly unrealistic. “One hundred million barrels is now in my view an optimistic case,” the CEO of Total, Christophe de Margerie, typically told a London oil conference in October 2007. “It is not my view; it is the industry view, or the view of those who like to speak clearly, honestly, and [are] not just trying to please people.”

Similarly, the authors of the Medium-Term Oil Market Report, published in July 2007 by the International Energy Agency, an affiliate of the OECD, concluded that world oil output might hit 96 million barrels per day by 2012, but was unlikely to go much beyond that as a dearth of new discoveries made future growth impossible.

Daily business-page headlines point to a vortex of clashing trends: worldwide demand will continue to grow as hundred of millions of newly-affluent Chinese and Indian consumers line up to purchase their first automobile (some selling for as little as $2,500); key older “elephant” oil fields like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and Canterell in Mexico are already in decline or expected to be so soon; and the rate of new oil-field discoveries plunges year after year. So expect global energy shortages and high prices to be a constant source of hardship.

3. The painfully slow development of energy alternatives: It has long been evident to policymakers that new sources of energy are desperately needed to compensate for the eventual disappearance of existing fuels as well as to slow the buildup of climate-changing “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere. In fact, wind and solar power have gained significant footholds in some parts of the world. A number of other innovative energy solutions have already been developed and even tested out in university and corporate laboratories. But these alternatives, which now contribute only a tiny percentage of the world’s net fuel supply, are simply not being developed fast enough to avert the multifaceted global energy catastrophe that lies ahead.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, renewable fuels, including wind, solar, and hydropower (along with “traditional” fuels like firewood and dung), supplied but 7.4% of global energy in 2004; biofuels added another 0.3%. Meanwhile, fossil fuels — oil, coal, and natural gas — supplied 86% percent of world energy, nuclear power another 6%. Based on current rates of development and investment, the DoE offers the following dismal projection: In 2030, fossil fuels will still account for exactly the same share of world energy as in 2004. The expected increase in renewables and biofuels is so slight — a mere 8.1% — as to be virtually meaningless.

In global warming terms, the implications are nothing short of catastrophic: Rising reliance on coal (especially in China, India, and the United States) means that global emissions of carbon dioxide are projected to rise by 59% over the next quarter-century, from 26.9 billion metric tons to 42.9 billion tons. The meaning of this is simple. If these figures hold, there is no hope of averting the worst effects of climate change.

Read all of it here. /TomDispatch
Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

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Troopers Came Armed for Bear

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Inside the very private polygamous ranch, “Monica,” a member of the FLDS Yearning For Zion community, near Eldorado,Texas, talks about how Texas officials will not allow her to see her children who were taken from the ranch last week with over 400 other children. (AP Photo/Keith Johnson, Deseret News)

Images show police with body armor, automatic weapons for raid on Texas polygamist retreat
By Jennifer Dobner / April 16, 2008

SAN ANGELO,TX — Police wore body armor, toted automatic weapons and were backed by an armored personnel carrier for a raid on a West Texas polygamist retreat, photos and video released Tuesday show.

Four still photos and a slice of video were released to The Associated Press by Rod Parker, spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which owns the raided Yearning for Zion Ranch near San Angelo in Eldorado.

Sect members took the photos and video during the first few days of a seven-day raid that involved police agencies from six counties, the Texas Rangers, the state highway patrol and wildlife officers. Authorities were looking for a teenage girl who had reported being abused by her 50-year-old husband.

A sect member whose wife shot the video said sect members got the impression that state officials “were doing something more than they said they were going to do.” The man declined to give his name for fear that speaking out would cause problems for his children, who are in state custody.

Tela Mange, a state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said officers are trained to protect themselves.

“Whenever we serve a search warrant, no matter where or when, we are always as prepared as possible so we can ensure the operational safety of the officers serving the warrant, as well as the safety of those who are on the property in question,” Mange said.

The armored car was precautionary and designed to remove someone from the property, not to force entry onto the ranch, she said.

Parker said rumors have circulated since the 1950s that the FLDS would respond with violence to threats on their way of life. “It’s never been substantiated at all. Nobody who knows these people could possibly believe that,” he said.

“It’s not in their nature,” he said.

This photo taken Thursday, April 3, 2008 by an unidentified member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and released Tuesday, April 15, 2008 by church attorney Rod Parker, the spokesperson for members of the FLDS, shows an armored personnel carrier on property neighboring the Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas. Photos of a state raid on a West Texas polygamist sect show law enforcement officers, looking for a teenage girl and evidence of sexual abuse, came prepared for an armed confrontation. (AP Photo/Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)

Parker said that if there was any suggeston that the FLDS would respond to police with violence, there would have been a cache of firearms found during the raid. “Instead they responded by singing and praying,” he said.

While there were hunting rifles at the ranch, search warrants filed in district court in Tom Green County don’t show that police seized any weapons.

Eldorado is about 200 miles southeast of Waco, where federal authorities tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh for stockpiling guns and explosives in 1993. Four federal agents and six members of Koresh’s sect died in the shootout that ensued. After a 51-day standoff, Koresh and nearly 80 followers died in an inferno that the government says was set by the Davidians but that survivors say started when authorities fired tear gas rounds into their compound.

Law enforcement surrounded the FLDS ranch April 3, carrying a warrant seeking a 16-year-old girl who claimed she was trapped inside the church retreat and had been beaten and raped by her husband. The search also revealed that a soaring white limestone temple at the ranch held a bed where officials believe underage girls were required to consummate their spiritual marriages to much older men.

More than 400 children – all of whom lived in the large, dormitory-style log homes – were seized in the raid on suspicion they were being sexually and physically abused. They are being held in the San Angelo Coliseum and are awaiting a massive court hearing Thursday that will begin to determine their fate.

FLDS members carefully documented the raid in notes, video and still pictures of police and child protection workers talking with families, but much of that material was seized when police executed one of two search warrants on the ranch, Parker said.

Read all of it here. / Associated Press / The Rag Blog

Separated From Children, Sect Mothers Share Tears
By Kirk Johnson / April 16, 2008

Mothers separated from their children after the police raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas have spoken out for the first time, denouncing the authorities in tear-filled accounts.

The interviews, with reporters invited to the compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Tex., about three hours northwest of San Antonio, made a powerful public relations salvo on Tuesday, two days before a court hearing in San Angelo, Tex.

The hearing may decide the custody of more than 400 children whom the state took into custody in the raid.

“I’m not going to just sit and wait,” said Monica, who like all the interviewees gave just a first name.

“I have to do something every day to let them know that I want my children back,” she said in a video on The Deseret News Web site in Salt Lake City.

Kathleen said she and the others were setting the record straight, that children in her community are not abused.

“The world has been so prejudiced against us,” Kathleen said in an interview with CNN posted on YouTube.com. “They have a false image.”

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which has temporary custody of the children, responded on its Web site. Mothers from the fundamentalist sect, the statement said, “have been unable to protect these children from abuse.”

On Monday, the agency moved many of the children to the San Angelo Coliseum, separating older children from their mothers, most of whom returned to the compound, about 45 miles away.

“It was absolutely necessary,” the agency said. “Investigators will never learn the full truth as long as adults who encourage a code of silence are standing over these children’s shoulders.”

Read all of it here. New York Times / The Rag Blog

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