tagged w/ politics as usual
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Just ask yourself this, is what that is being said here truthful or not.
17 May 2012
The United Auto Workers has declared that its “number one priority” this year is the reelection of Barack Obama. In its campaign, the UAW is portraying President Obama—who oversaw an historic attack on auto workers’ jobs and living standards—as a champion of the working class.
According to the UAW, President Obama “saved” the auto industry and one million jobs during the bailout of GM and Chrysler in 2009. On the other hand, Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, opposed emergency federal loans and favored throwing the Detroit automakers and their workers into the bankruptcy courts.
According to the UAW, this demonstrates that the distinction between the two candidates could not be clearer. “Mitt Romney’s values of profits-over-people are wrong for workers and all Americans,” declared UAW President Bob King recently. In contrast, the president “stood with workers” and worked with the UAW to return the companies to profitability.
The return of the auto industry, King said in a recent statement, is a “great national success story” and “an example of how business, labor and the government can work together to find solutions to some of the nation’s most difficult problems.”
The UAW has also posted on its web site the video released by the Obama campaign on Romney’s role in the takeover and shutdown of a Kansas City, Missouri steel company that went bankrupt in 2001. As CEO of private equity firm Bain Capital in 2001, the UAW writes on its site, Romney gutted the jobs, wages and pensions of workers at GST Steel. “In Romney’s economic philosophy, CEOs and wealthy investors prosper by any means necessary, even went it meant companies failed and workers were left behind.”
The claim that Obama is a man of the people is an utter fraud. The same day the White House released the anti-Romney video, Obama collected more than $2 million at a fund-raising event in New York City where Wall Street asset-strippers no less ruthless than the Republican candidate paid out $35,800 a head for an evening with the president.
Obama’s servitude to the financial elite was also highlighted in his remarks defending JPMorgan Chase, after the Wall Street bank acknowledged a $2 billion loss from speculative trades in derivatives by its London office. “JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there is,” Obama gushed. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we’ve got.”
President Obama’s intervention in the auto industry was not aimed at “saving” jobs but of boosting the profits of these same financial sharks. The president exploited the meltdown of the auto industry—produced by the banking crisis—to impose long sought after attacks on auto workers, once the highest paid industrial workers in America. For years, Wall Street had complained about low returns caused by high wages and “Cadillac” benefits, along with outmoded job and workplace protections.
The Obama administration handed over the restructuring of the auto industry to Wall Street, appointing as “car czar” Steven Rattner, formerly of Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley and the CEO of the asset stripping firm Quadrangle.
After rejecting the cost-cutting plans of GM and Chrysler as too little, too late, Obama’s Auto Task Force began a “managed bankruptcy” of the two companies—shutting down dozens of plants deemed unprofitable and eliminating 35,000 jobs. The president worked with the UAW to slash the wages of new hires in half, ban strikes for six years and impose other devastating concessions on current and retired workers.
Any differences between Obama and Romney are purely tactical. Rather than using the bankruptcy courts to tear up union agreements and impose wage and benefit cuts unilaterally—a course Romney says he would have taken—Obama preferred to use the willing services of the UAW to suppress opposition to the dictates of Wall Street.
In exchange for destroying the hard won gains of generations of auto workers, the UAW was handed control of the multi-billion dollar VEBA retiree health care trust fund, including billions of dollars worth of corporate stocks in GM, Chrysler and Ford. The Obama administration realized that this would give the UAW executives a direct financial incentive to further slash the wages, benefits and health care plans of their members.
This is precisely what happened in the last round of contracts in 2011, when the UAW agreed to the lowest increase in labor costs in history. Wages have been cut so low in America, the UAW has boasted, that GM and other companies are relocating production from Mexico and China to the US, a strategy the Obama administration approvingly calls “in-sourcing.”
The UAW’s support for Obama has nothing to do with defending the interests of the working class. For workers it does not matter which big business politician takes over the White House. For the UAW apparatus, however, having Obama there to continue using it as a cheap labor contractor is critical for the income and business opportunities of King & Co.
The struggle to defend the jobs and living standards of auto workers necessitates an entirely new strategy. The prerequisite for any fight is a break with the UAW and the building of new organizations, controlled by rank-and-file workers, that are completely independent of the UAW and the Democratic Party. The aim of such organizations must be the unconditional defense of the jobs and living conditions of all workers, not the profits of the corporations and the banks. Workers cannot accept the “choice” of either having no job or starvation wages.
The experiences of workers in the US and internationally show the dead-end of so-called labor organizations based on the defense of capitalism and economic nationalism. From Greece and Spain, to Japan and the United States, workers are being impoverished to enrich the owners of the transnational banks and corporations.
Far from the economy improving, there are new signs of a global economic depression. The capitalist system has failed. The alternative to capitalism is the struggle for socialism, including the nationalization of the auto industry and the banks under the democratic control of the working class. Only in this way can the massive productive forces of society be organized on a rational basis to meet human need not private profit.
As the presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, I call on all auto workers to support our campaign and to build the revolutionary leadership necessary to guide the coming struggles of the working class.Just ask yourself this, is what that is being said here truthful or not.
17 May... more
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“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It has derailed the effort to define Warren in a voter-friendly way.”
Sabato also said that Warren’s claim that she didn’t list herself as a minority to gain an employment advantage is not believable.
“This is what happens when candidates don’t tell the truth,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious she was using (the minority listing) for career advancement.”
One well-known Massachusetts Democratic strategist faulted Warren and her campaign for failing to put out a consistent message.
The strategist also said many local Democrats are alarmed at the campaign’s failure to contain the damage after the Herald first reported about Warren’s minority status at Harvard in the 1990s, based on claims her great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee.
After first saying she didn’t know anything about reports that Harvard Law had listed her as a minority, Warren’s campaign then said she was “proud” of her Native American heritage, citing records showing she was 1⁄32nd Cherokee."“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato,... more
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"Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will revive efforts to quickly advance the stalled Keystone XL crude oil pipeline and insist that approval for the project be part of a long-term deal to fund highways and other infrastructure.
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama put a hold on TransCanada's $7 billion project, which would ship oil from Canada and northern U.S. states to Texas, because he said it needed further environmental review.
Republicans have attacked the decision by the Democratic president in the run-up to the November presidential elections, saying the United States needs the jobs and the oil as the economy continues to struggle and gasoline prices surge.""Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will revive efforts to quickly... more
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"There was a better way, the one another Democratic president used to forge bipartisan cooperation and historic achievement, and its proponents gathered in Manhattan recently to discuss it. Aides to Lyndon B. Johnson, daughter Luci Baines Johnson Turpin, biographer Robert Caro and former Sens. George McGovern and Walter Mondale uniformly described the 36th president as a man who relished nothing so much as rolling up his sleeves and working with Congress to get things done.
Johnson did it to win passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, fair-housing laws and Medicare. Indeed, in most of the Great Society measures, Republicans voted “yea” in higher percentages than Democrats. Despite Dem majorities in both houses, the measures mostly would have failed without GOP votes.
For example, 94 percent of Senate Republicans voted for the Voting Rights Act, while 73 percent of Dems did. On the Civil Rights Act, 82 percent of Senate Republicans joined 69 percent of Dems for passage.""There was a better way, the one another Democratic president used to forge... more
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"President Barack Obama blamed Fox News for his political woes in a private meeting with labor leaders in 2010, saying he was “losing white males” who tune into the cable outlet and “hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7,” according to journalist David Corn’s new book, “Showdown.”
In “Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party” — which hits bookstores on Tuesday — the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones chronicles the White House from the 2010 midterm elections to the start of the 2012 campaign. The book focuses on key moments of Obama’s presidency, such as Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Arab Spring, the debt ceiling crisis, and the president’s dealings with Congress.
Corn writes that after the midterm elections, Obama told labor leaders in December 2010 that he held Fox partly responsible for him “losing white males.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74181.html#ixzz1paYQD3hh"President Barack Obama blamed Fox News for his political woes in a private... more
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BLAME THE POLITICIANS NOT THE SYSTEM
THE NEW FEDERALIST PAPERS
Misinformation, lack of historical perspective and blind parroting of slogans has polarized political debate in this country and reduced the debate to the lowest common denominator. Add in the media, a pinch of romanticism (V for Vendetta and the Guy Fawkes mask) and we have our current political situation.
I must admit that there is one major flaw with the system, but it is not a systemic flaw, it is a failure on the part of the citizens. I reached this conclusion after going to many pages on Facebook, debating in occupy city pages, on the tea party blog and with many supporters of Ron Paul and Herman Cain, and even some people who thought they were anarchists or panarchists.
Almost all the people I typed against on the pages failed to understand the Constitution and the system it created. In order to have this make sense, let me give you my interpretation of what the Constitution means for citizens. To understand this, we must first look to the Founding Fathers and how this Republic was formed.
The major misunderstanding most citizens have is that the United States is a democracy. The United States is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. The citizens do not vote on every issue to be decided by the government. The citizens have a responsibility to elect representatives who will make decisions for them in the halls of Congress.
Many people feel that “we elected them” so they must do what we want. NO, each representative may cast his vote “according to his conscience”.
Representatives are not the puppets of their constituents, and may vote as they please. They are our employees, but they are “independent contractors” employees. If they displease us, we “fire” them by voting them out.
Now to our rights as citizens. All citizens of the United States have constitutional rights. While debating, I encountered many profane people who chose to debate by using curses and saying I have a constitutional right to do so. Constitutional rights are not absolute and they are not free.
Our rights were passed down to us, initially earned by the valor and blood of the men who fought in the Revolution. Since then our rights have been paid for by the blood and sacrifice of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces. Rights are not free, and they carry obligations with them.
The right to free speech carries the obligation to listen to the opinions of others and engage in civil discourse. A free press has a duty to exercise their freedom responsibly and not misstate, lie, engage in innuendo or libel and slander. If media personalities are engaged in entertainment (Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) they must make it clear that they are entertainers and not represent themselves as newscasters. For those who purvey their opinions, they must clearly state that their broadcasts are opinion and not give the impression that they are broadcasting news, hiding that they are spreading rumor and innuendo, with no verifiable facts to support the statements. Under any moral code, use of arguments such as that implies that the speaker has deliberately ignored the truth and is using lack of verifiable information to draw unwarranted conclusions. Is that what a free press should do?
Separation of Church and State and freedom of religious choice requires us to respect the faith of others. This means that Christians, Jews, followers of Islam, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists and Atheists should all tolerate the others faiths.
The right to bear arms carries the obligation to use those weapons responsibly and respect the rights of others. I am shocked every year on July 4th and New Years Eve when I hear the discharge of firearms in the city. Every year I read about some citizen who was hit by a bullet indiscriminately fired into the air.
The right to assemble peaceably requires us to keep the peace when we assemble and obliges the authorities to allow us to assemble and not put artificial and unreasonable barriers in our way. The right to petition for redress of grievances means more than going to the park and sleeping there and waving signs. The right to assemble and petition does not protect assemblies on private property. Private property owners may exclude any one they choose from their property and no one’s rights were violated. The Founding Fathers and their progeny knew that a petition for redress was written on paper, signed by citizens and presented to their Representatives for debate in the halls of Congress.
Somewhere along the way we forgot that. I have filed several petitions for redress on the White House page in their We the People feature. President Obama is a constitutional scholar, he understands our primary law and he has provided citizens with a means to petition the government.
When I posted copies of my petitions on several occupy sites I was rebuffed. When I begged people to sign the petitions I was told the system is bankrupt and it does no good, the same response I got when people were asked if they had voted.
Many of us have not been exercising our rights responsibly. We have failed in our obligations to listen and engage in civil discourse. Much of the press has failed us in disseminating the truth. We have failed to respect the religions of others. We allow too much access to dangerous weapons and many are used irresponsibly or illegally. Our law enforcement officers (at least in NY) are actively violating the gun laws. A majority of us have failed to vote and now our government is in shambles.
The authorities have attempted to suppress our right to assemble, and have resembled the British in India when they opposed Mahatmas Gandhi, most recently at UC Davis. We have failed to petition our government for redress in writing and we are shouting into the wind and waving signs. We must set our grievances down on paper or over the internet on the White House site and append our signatures. Our representatives will be unable to ignore them without appearing totally unresponsive. With nothing on paper, unscrupulous politicians may say that they are “following the will of their constituents” and there is nothing solid to contradict them. As a result of our failures, our government is in shambles and controlled by representative more concerned with their own re-election than the interests of the American people.
We are all angry and blaming the government and different segments of the population (tea party, occupy, commies, hippies, unemployed, etc), when it is ourselves who have let this happen through our apathy and indifference. If we had voted responsibly and acted sooner, our problems would not have multiplied to where they are now. If we had petitioned the Government sooner with millions of signatures attached, the independent contractor Representatives would have known that they could not ignore the will of the people. This is what our Founding Fathers intended and this was their formula for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
Now we all sound like politicians engaged in a rancorous debate. We are the politicians. It is not too late to correct our failures. We must all work together, and once again, our country will be a shining example of liberty for the rest of the world.
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND ITS CONSTITUTION THE MOST PERFECT SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT DESIGNED TO DATE.
MICHAEL A. BLUM, a concerned citizen.BLAME THE POLITICIANS NOT THE SYSTEM
THE NEW FEDERALIST PAPERS
Misinformation,... more
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OTTAWA (The Borowitz Report) – Canada warned today that if Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is elected President of the United States in 2012, it would take the “regrettably necessary step” of constructing a 20-foot fence along its entire border with the U.S.
“This is a step that we don’t take lightly,” said Canadian Border Security Minister Ian McLarrity. “However, we must protect ourselves from the prospect of millions of Americans pouring over the border.”
Mr. McLarrity said that Canadian border officials were alarmed by the volume of panicky comments regarding Americans’ migratory plans in the event of a Perry win posted on websites ranging from National Public Radio to Huffington Post.
“We are taking this threat very seriously,” he said. “We will electrify the fence if necessary.”
Perhaps taking the lead from Canada, Mexican officials said today that in the event of a Perry victory it would install tollbooths in its secret underground tunnels, which would require travelers to provide documentary evidence that they are members of a drug cartel in order to gain entry to Mexico.
At a campaign stop in Florida today, Gov. Perry addressed the prospect of an electrified fence being erected on the United States’ northern border.
“My position on electrocution is a matter of public record,” he said. “I’m for it.”
Borowitzreport.comOTTAWA (The Borowitz Report) – Canada warned today that if Gov. Rick Perry... more
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With pressure mounting at home on an American withdrawal from the Libya war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed fears of a quagmire and said the mission should not be abandoned now.
Clinton, who is set to testify before Congress Thursday, said the Libyan opposition has made "very clear progress" in its political organization as well as in its fight against Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
"But the bottom line is, whose side are you on?" she said, speaking to reporters during a trip to Jamaica Wednesday. "Are you on Gadhafi's side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them?"
More here:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/06/oh-no-she-didnt-clinton-on-libya-whose.htmlWith pressure mounting at home on an American withdrawal from the Libya war, Secretary... more
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Despite running his presidential campaign on banning former lobbyists — and their special interests influence — from the marble halls of his administration, President Barack Obama has hired about 80 percent of his mega-donors (those who bundled $500,000 or more for him during the campaign) to "key administration posts."
The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News combed through campaign finance records and pulled several other surprising statistics about just who is landing in the White House.
For example, Donald Gips, a telecom executive who bundled more than $500,000 for the future president, was put in charge of hiring at the White House, and then made ambassador to South Africa in mid-2009. Meanwhile, the telecom company Gips left but still held stock in received millions of dollars in stimulus-funded government contracts for broadband projects in six states.
Indeed, 24 of Obama's ambassador nominees were bundlers, and half of them raised more than $500,000.
While these hiring statistics could be surprising to constituents, for politically-focused academics and insiders, hiring people with big wallets — and the influence attached to them — is commonplace.
“Any president who says he’s going to change this is either hopelessly naïve or polishing the reality to promise something other than can be delivered,” Paul Light, a New York University professor and expert on presidential transitions said. “At best it’s naïve and a little bit of a shell game.”
Public Citizen, a group that advocates for transparency in government, worked with iWatch to provide data for their reporting. A comparison of Obama's administration to its predecessor — that of President George W. Bush — showed that while Obama has hired nearly 200 bundlers in the two years he's been in office, Bush hired approximately that same number in the entire eight years of his presidency.
Michael Caplin, a consultant in Virginia who raised about $200,000 for Obama, now serves on the Commission on Presidential Scholars, and sees nothing wrong with that fact.
“Clearly if someone raised a million dollars for your campaign, you tend to get a phone call returned,” Caplin said. “If that person is truly excellent, but also raised money for your campaign, should that disallow you to serve? … I didn’t feel like they were putting coin collectors in charge of Homeland Security. I haven’t seen one appointment yet where I thought, ‘Man this is embarrassing.’”
The White House agreed.
"In filling these posts, the administration looks for the most qualified candidates who represent Americans from all walks of life,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “Being a donor does not get you a job in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/15/obama-keeps-his-campaign-mega-donors-close-in-white-house-jobs/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=68203b2440-6_15_116_15_2011&utm_medium=emailDespite running his presidential campaign on banning former lobbyists — and... more
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Check out the treasury departments website on the national debt. It shows that in the 8 days prior to the budget deal getting done $15B more was spent than what ends up being cut by the end of the fiscal year.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=npCheck out the treasury departments website on the national debt. It shows that in the... more
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YPNation contributor Will Schirano talks about the state of politics today, the need to end the status quo and the lessons that continue to go unlearned by both parties:
"...But if you were marching in that protest on Sunday afternoon, chances are you wouldn't have been tuned into just how much this country wanted to part ways with President George W. Bush and his defenders.
You see, this group of individuals doesn't see the Bush years for what they were to everyone else. In their mind the Bush administration was doing the "right thing" -- the always popular defense of scoundrels. During the time when Bush was President of the United States, these individuals would defend just about anything the administration did, whether it was dumping buckets of money on farmers, creating a whole new Medicare entitlement, wiretapping Americans, or simply ignoring Afghanistan to the point where the Taliban has once again become a threat.
And they are still defending those disastrous years, because they can only view them through the lens of the current administration. In other words, because certain things are worse than they were during the Bush years, that somehow makes those years successful. As a psychology major, I can understand that kind of thinking--it's similar to what Russians went through following the collapse of the Soviet Union when they told the Western press they yearned for the days of Stalin."
http://www.ypnation.net/state-politics-brave-new-worldYPNation contributor Will Schirano talks about the state of politics today, the need... more
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Japan, well known for its advanced state in technology, is going towards space project to generate electricity for people on earth. Going outside the earth is a great step that is yet to be realized sooner than we might expect.
According to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), it has been announced that as much as 1 GW of solar energy will be produced from space by 2030. The futuristic project is expected to work at full capacity in 20 years from now.
However, according to plans of JAXA , it is predicted that by year 2020, 10 MW of energy capacity will be harnessed from the sun from photovoltaic structures. This will represent an initial phase followed by gradual increase during the decade to reach a potential of 1 GW by 2030.
The total cost of the JAXA project will be $21 billion. This sum is financed by the partners involved in the project. Major strategic alliances from the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer include NEC Corporation, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Sharp Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Solar panels will be arrayed on many square kilometers in space and will float around the orbit of the earth. PV dishes set outside the earth atmosphere will capture rays from the sun, which are as much as five times stronger than beams on the earth surface. The energy generated will be sent to the earth via beams of microwaves or laser. JAXA says that these beams will be gathered at restricted areas of dam reservoirs or seas by parabolic antennae.
The cost of electricity generated is estimated to be at a rate of $0.09 per kilowatt-hour or JPY8.
http://www.renewablepowernews.com/archives/664Japan, well known for its advanced state in technology, is going towards space project... more
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THIS WAS 2004..... MORE CUTBACKS NOW for "HIGH PAYING TECH JOBS" WHERE ARE WE NOW ? WHERE WILL WE BE.....
We need to do this, and we need to do it now. Unfortunately, this is where the various environmentalists show their true stripes - they will be against this, even though it is enormously cleaner than fossil fuels. One thing mentioned a few times... mining on this scale will not affect the gravitation of the moon - even bringing back a few tens of thousands of tons would be a tiny insignificant fraction of the moon's mass.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/1283056.html?page=1&c=yTHIS WAS 2004..... MORE CUTBACKS NOW for "HIGH PAYING TECH JOBS" WHERE ARE... more
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The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean coal" dollars from the economic stimulus package, with the largest sums going to oil firms.
Only $21.6 million of the $1.4 billion for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies was made available in phase one. The money was awarded to 12 companies that will test ways to catch and compress CO2 from polluting plants, transport it by pipeline and pump it underground.
The biggest winners were C6 Resources, a Shell Oil affiliate; ConocoPhillips; and Shell Chemicals, another division of Shell Oil. Each nabbed $3 million to demonstrate their technologies for seven months.
In the announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recycled the 'clean coal' boilerplate of past releases: "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now," although there was no estimate of how many jobs will be generated.
He also repeated this claim:
"The investments will help position the United States to lead the world in carbon dioxide capture technologies."
America still has a long way to go, though. A few subsidy-funded R&D tests are now being carried out, but none is considered economically feasible on a large scale, or even that clean.
A massive, 1,300-MW West Virginia coal plant just became the nation's first facility to pipe a small portion of its global-warming emissions back in the Earth. For an investment of more than $100 million, about 1.5 percent of the plant's CO2 will be sequestered.
Despite his critics, Chu has stood firm on CCS, becoming one of its staunchest proponents. In a September op-ed in Science Magazine he explained why:
"... the United States, Russia, China, and India account for two-thirds of the [world's coal] reserves. Coal accounts for roughly 25% of the world energy supply and 40% of the carbon emissions. It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon, and for this reason, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants must be aggressively pursued."
Some form of CO2 reduction technology is necessary. And while CCS has become the solution of choice for politicians, its actual implementation worldwide is all close to absent – and it's certain to be devilishly complex if and when it begins.
Research shows that returning a fraction of global emissions back into the Earth would require pumping as much compressed gas underground as all the oil being taken out. The infrastructure needed for that exceeds what is possible to build in a generation – or maybe ever.The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean... more
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The Obama administration seems to have exaggerated the benefits of its bank bailouts.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said the government has made a modest profit on its investments in banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Fortune magazine explains.The Obama administration seems to have exaggerated the benefits of its bank bailouts.... more
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Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, has led the outsourcing charge in the past.
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President Barack Obama's climate envoy dismissed recommendations that the United States and other developed countries reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases 40 percent by 2020.
"The 40 percent below 1990 (levels) is something which in our judgment is not necessary, and not feasible given where we're starting from, so it's not in the cards," Todd Stern said Tuesday at a conference on global warming.
Stern spoke at the end of the two-day meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a gathering of 19 nations and the European Union that together produce 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. The group, called together by Obama, is trying to build a replacement climate change treaty for the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
A panel of U.N. scientists has recommended that industrial countries cut carbon emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels, harsher storms and droughts and climate disruptions. Some poorer and island countries are pushing for reductions of as much as 45 percent.
After rejecting that idea, Stern pointed to progress on legislation before the U.S. Congress that would require lesser reductions. He said the Waxman-Markey bill is expected to move to the floor of the U.S. House this week for debate, which he said is "quite good news."
The bill calls for a 17 percent cut in U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 2020 from 2005 levels, and an 83 percent reduction by mid-century. Carbon dioxide, produced by burning coal and other fossil fuels, is the leading manmade greenhouse gas that scientists have linked to global warming.
"That's a very important piece of the overall picture for the United States," Stern said. "The proposal that is reflected in the Waxman-Markey bill is an enormously ambitious proposal for the United States."
Such measures may not be enough to bring agreement on a climate change accord, which the United Nations hopes will be agreed on at a conference in Copenhagen next December.
Stern said that "there are still significant differences between the parties" on emissions levels at the talks that were held just south of Mexico City.
"There's not final agreement on anything yet, but I think we've made some progress," he said. "I do think we'll have a successful agreement in Copenhagen."
But the final document from the Mexico talks indicated only that "many leaders' representatives expressed support for agreeing to a long-term goal by 2050," indicating there wasn't even complete agreement on the idea of emission caps by that late date.President Barack Obama's climate envoy dismissed recommendations that the United... more
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Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was defeated in his bid for re-election on Tuesday.
Mr. Stevens, a Republican and a 40-year incumbent, was trailing his Democratic challenger, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, by 3,724 votes out of more than 315,000 cast after state election officials on Tuesday counted more than 35,000 absentee and other outstanding ballots.
Only an estimated 2,500 ballots remain to be counted next week, according to Gail Fenumiai, the state elections director.
“I am humbled and honored to serve Alaska in the United States Senate,” Mr. Begich said. “It’s been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I appreciate the support and commitment of the thousands of Alaskans who have brought us to this day.”
End of ExcerptSenator Ted Stevens of Alaska was defeated in his bid for re-election on Tuesday.... more
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