carapace – Not your father's america

Religion in a Post-Modern Era

By timjamz

Catholic priest sexual abuse. Polygamist church relieved of 440 children. Reverend Wright’s attacks on whites. Reverend Hagee’s attacks on Jews. Reverend Parsley’s attacks on Islam. Islamic attacks on anything “other than. …

http://onehigherpower.com/archives/200

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A Christian View of Armed Warfare

by William E. Paul

The following excerpts are from the newly reprinted 116-page book, A Christian View of Armed Warfare, by William E. Paul. The first selection is chapter 3, “A Christian and Evildoers,” from part I, “New Testament Teaching on Christians Participating in War.” The second selection is chapter 8, “But Killing in War Is Done As an Agent of the Government and Not As a Personal Act,” from part II, “Common Objections to Christians Not Participating in War.” The book is available from Vance Publications.

A Christian and Evildoers

One of the most frequent arguments used in an attempt to justify a Christian waging war is that “Evildoers must be stopped in their aggressive efforts to overrun the world.” Nearly every generation has had its Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin. Certainly the atrocities perpetrated upon mankind by dictators who have aspired to world rule are to be deplored. Evil-doing of all kinds must be hated by Bible-believing Christians who desire to have the mind of Christ. It is said of Jesus, “Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity” (Hebrews 1:9).

But in the process of hating evil Christians are not permitted to despise the evildoer also. This attitude is supremely exemplified in the act of God commending His “own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While man was busily engaged in the pursuit of evil, God was pursuing a course designed to effect man’s eternal good. God loves sinners “even when we were dead through our trespasses” (Ephesians 2:4–5) and yet God says of evil, “all these are the things I hate” (Zechariah 8:17). Although God hates all evil, He loves the evildoer and has done only good to him, “for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil” (Luke 6:35).

The New Testament explicitly commands a Christian to “see that none render unto any one evil for evil; but always follow after that which is good, one toward another, and toward all” (I Thessalonians 5:15). This forbids a child of God from committing an evil act even against the person who has mistreated him. This principle has been stated in the well-known proverb “two wrongs never make a right.”

When the apostate Jews of Jesus’ day attempted to justify returning evil for evil by misapplying the Mosaic civil code requiring “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” Jesus plainly told them, “resist not him that is evil” (Matthew 5:38–39).

War demands retaliation against evildoers. It calls for both offensive attack and defensive counterattack against an enemy bent on destruction. War requires putting a stop to his evildoing. The prime means employed in war to accomplish this is for individuals to kill individuals. And this very action is forbidden to a Christian who is commanded by his Lord – not to return evil to the one inflicting evil upon him.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/paul-w1.html

William E. Paul , a World War II veteran, is a retired minister and Bible college teacher who lives in Colorado.

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MCCAIN ALLY HAGEE SEES HITLER AS FULFILLING GOD’S WILL

By Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report

The media continues to give McCain’s radical pastor a pass.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/86157/

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Revs. Hagee, Parsley Are The Republican Party

Chris Edelson

May 24th, 2008

This week, John McCain tried to apply damage control to his own growing pastor problem.  Unlike Barack Obama, McCain has two controversial pastors to explain–Rev. John Hagee, who is quickly becoming infamous for his sermon asserting that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will, and Rev. Parsley, who claimed the U.S. government is complicit in facilitating genocide and says the U/S. was founded to destroy the “false religion” of Islam.

McCain is trying to pretend that he denounced these radicals as soon as he found out how extreme they are, but the reality is that Parsley and Hagee’s outrageous views have been public knowledge for months, if not years.  But McCain has an even bigger problem–he cannot distance himself from radical religious extremism so easily because religious extremists like Hagee and Parsley have a comfortable home in the very heart of the Republican party and McCain’s campaign.

As Michelle Goldberg has documented, Christian nationalists are an important part of the Republican party.  Goldberg defines “Christian nationalism” as “a political ideology that posits a Christian right to rule”.  Christian nationalists believe, contrary to the clear evidence, that the founders of the U.S. were devout Christians bent on creating a non-secular nation.  Christian nationalists seek to restore this mythical Christian nation that never was.  Since, in this view, Christians would ultimately have “dominion” over others in the United States, including in civil structures and “every other aspect of life and godliness,” such extremists are also known as Christian dominionists.

Christian nationalism or dominionism sounds like a fringe position, something only a few extremists would support.  Well, it is an extreme world view, but it has found a home within John McCain’s Republican party and McCain’s presidential campaign.

Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a prominent McCain supporter and one-time presidential candidate himself, is a Christian dominionist.  McCain turns to Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who Goldberg discusses in her book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism,  for advice on sexual health matters.  Coburn has called for the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions.  Mike Huckabee, who says he would like to be McCain’s running mate, declares that the Constitution should be amended in order to align with “God’s standards”–in other words, he has called for a theocracy.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/66yquj    (www.theseminal.com)

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A new book from Revealer creator Jeff Sharlet

15 February 2008

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

 ”Just when we thought the Christian right was crumbling, Jeff Sharlet delivers a rude shock: One of its most powerful and cult-like core groups, the Family, has been thriving. Sharlet’s book is one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you’ll ever read — just don’t read it alone at night!” –Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch

Coming soon from HarperCollins, the new book by Jeff Sharlet — the untold story of the elite Christian fundamentalism that has shaped the faith of the nation and the politics of empire from the first Great Awakening to the present day. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power dramatically challenges conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not “What do fundamentalists want?” but “What have they already done?”

Jeff Sharlet, editor of The Revealer, is a contributing editor for Harper’s andRolling Stone, coauthor with Peter Manseau of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, one of Publishers Weekly’s 10 best religion titles of 2004, and an associate research scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media.

“Of all the important studies of the American right, The Family is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying. This story of a secretive and unmerciful church of “key men” goes way beyond Jesus Christ, CEO—it’s Jesus Christ, lobbyist; Jesus Christ, strikebreaker; and maybe even Jesus Christ, fuhrer.”

–Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?

“I was once an insider’s insider within fundamentalism. Unequivocally: Sharlet knows what he’s talking about. He writes: ‘Our refusal to recognize the theocratic strand running throughout American history is as self-deceiving as fundamentalism’s insistence that the United States was created a Christian nation.’ Those who want to be un-deceived (and wildly entertained) must read this disturbing tour de force.”

–Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

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SEX ED IN THE BIBLE BELT

By Margaret McKeehan, Open Magazine

I signed a paper promising no sex until marriage. The prize for my upstanding moral rectitude? A free chicken sandwich.

http://www.alternet.org/sex/85847/

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16% OF BIOLOGY TEACHERS ARE YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS

By PZ Myers, Pharyngula

For a significant portion of American biology teachers, evolution takes a back seat to the Bible.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/86033/

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Louisiana Bill Sneaks Religion Into Science Classes, Says Americans United

May 22, 2008

Measure Would Harm Children’s Education, Undercut Constitution And Lead To Lawsuit, Says AU’s Lynn

A bill approved yesterday by a Louisiana legislative panel brings religion into science classrooms and undercuts fundamental constitutional principles, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The House Education Committee unanimously approved Senate Bill 733, a measure that allows public school teachers to use supplementary materials when teaching about evolution.

The Louisiana Science Education Act has the backing of Religious Right groups such as the Louisiana Family Forum and the Discovery Institute and is clearly intended, critics say, to bring religious concepts into the science classroom. The bill is ardently opposed by teachers’ groups, scientists and advocates of church-state separation.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This bill isn’t about improving education in Louisiana; it’s about sneaking religion into the science classroom.

“If this passes, Louisiana legislators will be harming children’s education, undercutting the Constitution and holding the state up to national ridicule, “ Lynn continued “People will be asking whether Flintstones cartoons are going to be introduced as documentaries in Louisiana science classes.”

The Louisiana bill is one of several so-called “academic freedom” measures introduced in legislatures around the country this year at the behest of Religious Right forces. Bills were also introduced in Florida, Alabama, Missouri and other states.

Said Lynn, “The federal courts have repeatedly struck down every scheme designed to inject religious doctrines into public school science classes. These so-called ‘academic freedom’ bills are just the latest maneuver to try to get around those rulings.

“If this bill passes, and religious materials are brought into Louisiana public schools as a result, we will go to court to seek justice for the state’s children,” Lynn concluded.

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State  www.au.org

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Texas minister charged in Internet sex sting … and more 

The Associated Press -

BRYAN, Texas (AP) — A minister from a Dallas-area Baptist megachurch was caught in an Internet sex sting and charged with online solicitation of a minor, …

http://tinyurl.com/5k296e   (ap.google.com)

Court of Appeal Revives Sex Abuse Suit Against Fresno Diocese

Metropolitan News-Enterprise – Los Angeles,CA,USA

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

A lawsuit charging that officials of the Fresno Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church were on notice that a parish priest was …

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/sant052208.htm

Vermont Diocese to Appeal $8.7 Million Sex Abuse Verdict

Insurance Journal – San Diego,CA,USA

Vermont’s top Roman Catholic clergyman has written to parishioners around the state, apologizing to the victim in a priest sex abuse case but saying the …

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2008/05/22/90267.htm

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I saw a billboard sign that said: NEED HELP, CALL JESUS 1-800-005-3787 

Out of curiosity, I did.

 

 

A Mexican showed up with a lawnmower

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Benefits of Being an Atheist

A very religious man lived right next door to an atheist.

The religious man prayed every single day and night, spending much time at church, while the atheist never even thought of such acts.

However, the atheist had a good life: an excellent, well-paying job, a beautiful wife, lovely healthy, children, whereas the religious man’s job was stressful and his wages were low, his wife was getting crankier every day and his kids were obnoxious and unloving.

So one day, while deep into his regular prayer, he looked towards heaven and asked, “Oh God, I honor you every day, I ask your advice for every problem and confess to you my every sin. Yet my neighbor, who doesn’t even believe in you and certainly never prays, seems blessed with every happiness, while I go poor and suffer many an indignity. Why is this?”

A great voice bellowed out from above, “BECAUSE HE DOESN’T BOTHER ME ALL THE TIME!”

http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=349&article=7

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three thousand words

Tony Auth: separate but equal

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ta/2008/ta080518.gif

Paul Noth/Ben Snyder: “I always figured Hell would be less ironic.”

http://tinyurl.com/3gsxnz (www.cartoonbank.com)

ReverendFun. com:  WHEN CAIN FIRST FOUND OUT THAT HIS BROTHER EVEN HAD A KEEPER

http://www.reverendfun.com/2008/05/20080523_pda.gif

ICE, ICE, Baby, conclusion  – “Too cold, too cold” 

Friday, May 23, 2008

Ed Wallace
Special to the Star-Telegram

“What’s been happening since 2004 is very high prices without record-low [oil] stocks. The relationship between U.S. [oil] inventory levels and prices has been shredded and become irrelevant.”

— Jan Stuart, Global Oil Economist, UBS Securities

“What you have on the financial side is a bunch of money being thrown at the energy futures market. It’s just pulling in more and more cash. That’s the side of the market where we have runaway demand, not on the physical side.”

— Tim Evans, Senior Oil Analyst, IFR Energy Services [From testimony: U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report, "The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices," June 27, 2006]

The Love of Money

Record high prices without record low oil inventories, analysts saying that so much money flows into oil commodities that it gives the impression of shortages, when in fact no shortage exists. That mirrors the situation in the commodities market for food, as Bloomberg pointed out in its April 28 article, “Wall Street Grain Hoarding Brings Farmers, Consumers Near Ruin”: “Commodity investors control more U.S. crops than ever before, competing with governments and consumers for dwindling food supplies.” That’s right; food, oil and gasoline have become an “asset class.” No longer are you fighting a neighbor at the supermarket over the last box of Cheerios®; now you’re fighting the futures traders, who are actually determining what you will pay for that cereal.

We started as a society that worships hard labor and the basic business ethic of building value into the goods you create. How’d we get from there to worshiping Wall Street’s billion-dollar boys — who create nothing, build nothing, own nothing and deliver no goods, and yet can throw so much money into products made by others that they determine what we consumers will pay for those goods?

It wasn’t always this way.

In the past, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission acted as the cop on the beat, ensuring that buyers in the market were not distorting or manipulating prices beyond what supply and demand normally dictate. Certainly, if a hard frost hit Florida and cost growers an orange crop, then bidding up the price of the remaining oranges was both a wise investment and allowed under the trading rules. Right now investors know that if they borrow and invest huge amounts in commodities futures, they can create a shortage on paper – which drives prices up just like an actual shortage of any given product would. What kept traders from cornering the market that way in the past were the government’s anti-manipulation rules.

Lay, DeLay, Gramm, Gramm & Clinton

The late, infamous Enron head, Ken Lay, realized in the eighties that he could make more money bidding up energy in the futures market than by actually creating and selling energy. But, under then-current rules, how much you could make swapping paper was limited. Fortuitously, Lay had excellent Texas political connections; and in November of 1992, the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission moved to exempt energy-derivative contracts and related swaps from any government oversight.

A vote was hurriedly put together before the Clinton White House would take over, and so Lay could finally start “dark” – unregulated – futures trading. The head of the CFTC was Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm; five weeks after she left, she became a board member of Enron in Houston.

Fast-forward to late 2000 and H.R. 5660, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, sponsored by Republican Congressman Thomas Ewing of Illinois. That bill went nowhere, even though Tom Delay’s wife Christine was then working for a Washington lobbying firm, Alexander Strategies – which Enron had paid $200,000 to push through legislation for permanent energy deregulation in these “dark” markets.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/659081.html

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Society. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF. E-mail: wheels570@sbcglobal.net

Everybody was warned; that’s probably why this deregulation bill was stealthily inserted into that appropriations bill without a floor debate.

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Oil Prices

JOAN CLAYBROOK, TYSON SLOCUM, tslocum@citizen.org, http://www.citizen.org

Claybrook is president of Public Citizen. Slocum is director of ublic Citizen’s Energy Program. Claybrook said today: “You are paying ky-high prices at the gas pump because the barons of ‘big oil’ have ushwacked the American people. With the help of major league lobbyists nd the high-ranking politicians receptive to them, oil companies are arning enormous profits through a combination of anti-competitive ractices — including market manipulation — made even easier by the ave of recent oil company mergers and the government’s outrageously eak regulatory oversight.

“Every time you buy gas, you know you are being price-gouged, but did you know that, for every gallon of gas you buy, you are being charged an extra 70 cents — at least — that is related purely to market speculation and not a function of supply-and-demand? The oil barons not only get away with this, they use their considerable influence to prevent the passage of meaningful fuel economy legislation, further squeezing consumers by ensuring automakers will continue to build gas-guzzling cars.”

From:  Institute for Public Accuracy

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They’re wrong about oil, by George

From The Times

May 22, 2008

Rip up your textbooks, the doubling of oil prices has little to do with China’s appetite

Anatole Kaletsky

Just as the credit crunch seemed to be passing, at least in the US, another and much more ominous financial crisis has broken out. The escalation of oil prices, which this week reached a previously unthinkable $130 a barrel (with predictions of $150 and $200 soon to come), threatens to do far more damage to the world economy than the credit crunch.

Instead of just causing a brief recession, the oil and commodity boom threatens a prolonged period of global “stagflation”, the lethal combination of high inflation and economic stagnation last seen in the world economy in the 1970s and early 1980s. This would be a disaster far more momentous than the repossession of a few million homes or collapse of a couple of banks.

Commodity inflation is far more lethal than a credit crunch for two reasons. It prevents central banks in advanced economies from cutting interest rates to keep their economies growing. Even worse, it encourages the governments of developing countries to turn their backs on global markets, resorting instead to price controls, trade restrictions and currency manipulations to protect their citizens from the rising costs of energy and food. For both these reasons, the boom in oil and commodity prices, if it lasts much longer, could reverse the globalisation process that has delivered 20 years of almost uninterrupted growth to America and Europe and rescued billions of people from extreme poverty in China, India, Brazil and many other countries.

That is the bad news. The good news is that the world is not as impotent as is often suggested in the face of this danger, since soaring commodity prices are not the ineluctable outcome of some fateful conjuncture of global economic forces, but rather the product of a typical financial boom-bust cycle, which could be deflated – especially with some help from sensible political action – as quickly as it built up.

The present commodity and oil boom shows all the classic symptoms of a financial bubble, such as Japan in the 1980s, technology stocks in the 1990s and, most recently, housing and mortgages in the US. But surely, you will say, this commodity boom is different? Surely it is driven by profound and lasting changes in global supply and demand: China’s insatiable appetite for food and energy, geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East, the peaking of global oil reserves, droughts caused by global warming and so on. All these fundamental points are perfectly valid, but they tell us nothing about whether the oil price will soon jump to $200, stay at $130 or fall back to $60 next month.

To see that these “fundamentals” are all irrelevant, we have merely to ask which of them has changed in the past nine months. The answer is none. The oil markets didn’t suddenly discover China’s oil demand nine months ago so this cannot explain the doubling of prices since last August. In fact, China’s “insatiable” demand growth has decelerated. In 2004 it was consuming an extra 0.9 million barrels a day; in 2007 it was consuming just an extra 0.3 mbd. In the same period global demand growth has slowed from 3.6 mbd to 0.7 mbd. As a result, the increase in global demand growth is now well below last year’s increase of 0.8 mbd in non-Opec production, according to Mike Rothman, of ISI, a leading New York consulting group.

Why, then, are commodity prices still rising? The first point to note is that many no longer are. Rice, wheat and pork are 20 to 30 per cent cheaper than they were two months ago, when financial pundits identified Asian and African food riots as the first symptoms of a commodity “super-cycle” that would drive prices much higher. And the price of industrial commodities such as lead, zinc and nickel, supposedly in short supply a year ago, has now dropped by 40 to 60 per cent. In fact, most major commodity indices would already be in a downtrend were it not for the dominance of oil.

But oil is the commodity that really matters and surely the latest jump in prices proves that demand really does exceed supply? Not at all. In the late stages of financial bubbles, it is quite normal for prices to become completely detached from economic fundamentals. House prices in Florida and Spain kept rising even after property developers built far more homes than they could possibly sell. The same thing happened in credit markets: mortgage securities kept rising even while banks created “special purpose vehicles” to acquire vast “inventories” of bonds for which there were no genuine buyers – and dozens of similar examples can be cited from the bubbles in internet stocks and Japan. Similarly, the International Gold Council reported this week that gold demand for commercial uses and investment fell 17 per cent in January, just as the gold price surged through $1,000 for the first time.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/3m4g65   (www.timesonline.co.uk)

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Blame Wall Street for $135 Oil on Wrong-Way Betting (Update3) 

By Alexander Kwiatkowski and Grant Smith

May 22 (Bloomberg) — Oil’s rally to a record above $135 a barrel came as traders bought crude to cover wrong-way bets that prices would decline, according to data from the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The number of outstanding futures contracts, known as open interest, fell 8.1 percent in a week to 1.36 million at the same time that prices rose 2.6 percent, the data show. Falling open interest and rising prices are signs that traders are buying to exit so-called short positions that would profit if oil fell, and lose money as they rose.

“In a market like today, which is trending higher while open interest is falling, it’s a sign that money is moving out of the market,” said Stephen Schork, president of Schork Group Inc. in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Open interest in Nymex crude futures peaked this year at 1.5 million on March 13.

Crude for July delivery touched a record $135.09 a barrel on the Nymex today. Oil futures later dropped on signs that a 15 percent run-up in prices this month isn’t justified by stockpiles and demand. Oil fell $2.36 to settle at $130.81 a barrel. Prices have more than doubled over the past year.

Open interest has been sliding for months, after the number of outstanding crude futures reached a record 1.58 million on July 16, 2007.

‘Shrinking Market’

“It is not a growing market, it is a shrinking market in terms of open interest,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland. “It is also facilitating the move upward.”

Wall Street banks, hedge funds and other investors have been boosting spending on commodities such as oil for several years. Global investment in commodities rose by more than a fifth in the first quarter to $400 billion, Citigroup Inc. said April 7.

In the last year, non-commercial market participants have raised bets on rising prices, known as long positions, by 37 percent to 263,378 contracts, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said May 16.

The rush to buy back contracts may be linked to the record number of short positions that had been built up in recent weeks by small-sized speculators, which the CFTC refers to as “non- reportable” traders because their holdings are small. Those investors held 123,194 futures contracts betting oil futures would fall in the week ended May 6, an all-time high, and 47 percent more than the number of bets they’d placed on rising prices.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/4cn79y   (www.bloomberg.com)

To contact the reporters on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net; Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net .

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Oil price mocks fuel realities

By F William Engdahl

As business and consumers consider the implications for them of crude oil selling at US$130-plus per barrel, they should bear in mind that, at a conservative calculation, at least 60% of that price comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York Nymex futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or over-the-counter trading to avoid scrutiny (see Speculators knock OPEC off oil-price perch, Asia Times Online, May 6, 2008).  www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE07Dj04.html US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex by paying only 6% of the value of the contract. At the present price of around $130 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to one helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in subprime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population.

The hoax of “peak oil” – namely the argument that oil production has hit the point where more than half all reserves have been used and the world is on the downslope of oil at cheap price and abundant quantity – has enabled this costly fraud to continue since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, with the help of key banks, oil traders and big oil majors.

Washington is trying to shift blame, as always, to Arab oil producers and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The problem is not a lack of crude oil supply. In fact, the world is in over-supply now. Yet the price climbs relentlessly higher. Why? The answer lies in what are clearly deliberate US government policies that permit the unbridled oil price manipulations.

World oil demand flat, prices boom

The chief market strategist for one of the world’s leading oil industry banks, David Kelly, of JP Morgan Funds, recently admitted something telling to the Washington Post: “One of the things I think is very important to realize is that the growth in the world oil consumption is not that strong.”

One of the stories used to support the oil futures speculators is the allegation that China’s demand for imported oil is exploding out of control, driving shortages in the supply-demand equilibrium. Yet the facts do not support the China demand thesis.

The US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) concluded in its most recent monthly Short Term Energy Outlook report that US oil demand is expected to decline by 190,000 barrels per day (b/d) this year. That is mainly owing to the deepening economic recession.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE24Dj02.html

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Big Oil defends profits before irate senators –Five oil companies earned $36 billion during the first three months of 2008.

21 May 2008

On a day oil prices leaped to unheard-of highs, senators lined up Big Oil’s biggest executives and pummeled them with complaints that they’re pretending to be “hapless victims” while raking in record profits.

At:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080521/D90Q9U601.html

From: CLG News

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International Monetary Fund. — Recent inflationary trends in world commodities markets

Noureddine Krichene

[Washington] : International Monetary Fund, May 2008.

(IMF working paper ; WP/08/130)

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp08130.pdf

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Savage plays Dead Kennedys song again after asserting he “is now being persecuted for refusing to take the party line” on Sen. Kennedy’s illness

On the May 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage stated of Sen. Ted Kennedy, “His poor health does not excuse him from what he has done to our nation, and so, now, the Soros-run media sets on Michael Savage for daring to disclose the truth about Ted Kennedy’s legacy.” Savage added: “Just as in a Soviet show trial, Michael Savage is now being persecuted for refusing to take the party line that the great lion of the left must be praised — all praise, all praise.” On May 20, Savage aired the Dead Kennedys song “California Über Alles” while discussing Kennedy’s recent diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor. Savage again aired the song during his May 21 broadcast.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805220011?lid=317020&rid=8518993

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Immigration Convictions Surge in February 2008

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Greeting from TRAC.

Federal convictions in February 2008 resulting from immigration matters jumped to the highest point in recent history, according to timely data from the Justice Department. The total of 6,583 such convictions is nearly double what it was in the previous month, up an unprecedented 96 percent.

The highly unusual spurt in the convictions of individuals charged with various immigration crimes appears to be the result of “Operation Streamline.” Under this recently intensified administration policy, according to news reports and interviews with federal public defenders, the government has charged a rapidly growing number of undocumented aliens with various federal criminal charges in selected districts along the Mexican border. “Operation Streamline” began as a pilot project in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas.

For reports on the latest enforcement trends, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/

In addition to providing counts of the immigration prosecutions and convictions that occurred in February, similarly timely information is available for many other categories of enforcement such as terrorism, white collar crime, official corruption, drugs, etc. Free reports are also available for major agencies such as the DEA, FBI, IRS and DHS.

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY  13244-2100
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
http://trac.syr.edu

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And now for the important news ….

By Argus Hamilton

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Larry Craig co-sponsored an amendment letting illegal aliens work on U.S. farms. They have their reasons. She wants to lower food prices and he wants to meet guys who are away from their families and might be lonely.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Paul Fell: farm bill

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/FellP/2008/FellP20080522_low.jpg

Jim Borgman: we would like to send money, but …

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Ann Telnaes: don’t worry. I’m working on getting you a cheaper rope

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmate/2008/tmate080522.gif

Candidates, Money and Lobbyists

CRAIG HOLMAN, cholman@citizen.org

Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen, which has launched a web page http://www.WhiteHouseForSale.org that keeps track of money to candidates.

He said today: “Even after John McCain ushered in the landmark McCain-Feingold law banning soft money, and Barack Obama brought us the sweeping lobbying and ethics reform law restricting influence-peddling by lobbyists, the White House is still for sale — and McCain and Obama are helping the auctioneers.

“Hillary Clinton started this year’s money race by opting out of the public financing system in the primary election and embracing the role of lobbyists as key campaign fundraisers. Obama refused to let lobbyists play such a critical role in his campaign, but he has managed to pull in record-breaking amounts of money from both small and large donors, amassing some $230 million to date. His fundraising prowess may well make him the first presidential candidate in history to opt out of the public funding system in the general election as well. McCain recruited some 70 lobbyists to be his major fundraisers and scores more to be his policy advisors. Even McCain’s new ‘ethics policy’ allows these lobbyists to continue serving his campaign in a voluntary capacity.

“Meanwhile, both McCain and Obama have announced new ‘joint fundraising committees’ in which they will help the national parties reap even more of the largesse to spend on their behalf, collecting
$70,000 or more per donor at each fundraising event.

“The nation’s biggest ‘reformers’ are going to oversee the nation’s largest auction of the White House — probably to the tune of $1 billion by November.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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Charlie Black Worked for the “Good” Dictators

Source: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), May 19, 2008
Charlie Black, the chief campaign adviser for Republican Party Presidential aspirant John McCain, has dismissed calls that he should resign due to his many years of lobbying work for BKSH & Associates, calling the calls “complete inside-the-beltway nonsense.” MoveOn recently launched an advertisement demanding McCain fire Black. “John McCain’s chief adviser, lobbyist Charlie Black, worked for some of the world’s worst dictators — mass murderers, terrorists, and tyrants. Call McCain and tell him to fire Charlie Black,” the group’s website states. Black defended working for dictators — including Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire — insisting that he never worked for foreign clients “without first talking to the State Department and the White House and clearing with them that the work would be in the interest of U.S. foreign policy.”

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HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS PASSING SECRET LAWS

By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet

The government is undermining our rights by making laws in secret. Surprise, surprise.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/85807/

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JCX-37-08 (May 12, 2008) A Reconsideration Of Tax Expenditure Analysis:

“Tax expenditure analysis no longer provides policymakers with credible insights into the equity, efficiency, and ease of administration issues raised by a new proposal or by present law, because the premise of the analysis (the validity of the “normal” tax base) is not universally accepted. Driven off track by seemingly endless debates about what should and should not be included in the “normal” tax base, tax expenditure analysis today does not advance either of the two goals that inspired its original proponents: clarifying the aggregate size and application of government expenditures, and improving the Internal Revenue Code. The JCT Staff therefore has begun a project to rethink how best to articulate the principles of tax expenditure analysis, in order to improve the doctrine’s utility to policymakers, reemphasize its neutrality, and address the concerns raised by many commentators.

http://www.house.gov/jct/x-37-08.pdf

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New Report: Oil Companies’ Record Profits Going to Execs and Stock Buybacks, Leaving Energy Alternatives Behind

“As oil prices reached a new all-time high today of $130 a barrel for light sweet crude, and executives from the top 5 oil companies come to Congress for a second time this year, a new report details decisions by the big five oil companies to use record-breaking corporate profits to boost executive compensation and prop up their stock price with rich stock buy-backs instead of investing in renewable technologies to end America’s addition to oil…The report, produced by the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, found that even as American consumers suffer declines in real income and purchasing power, executive pay and shareholder dividends in the oil industry have far outpaced investment in new oil discoveries or alternative energy. The committee looked at executive pay and stock purchases at ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, which combined made $123 billion last year.”
Big Oil: Where Have All the Profits Gone? Staff Report. May 21, 2008

http://globalwarming.house.gov/tools/2q08materials/files/0045.pdf

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WALL STREET’S RACKET HAS GONE TOO FAR, AND WE’RE GOING TO PAY THE HEAVY PRICE

By James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com

There’s a great wish for American finance to return to business-as-usual happy days of high profits, but there’s just too much debt to swallow.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/86087/

                          ==========

Limbaugh on Dem primary: If “feminazis” had remembered to oppose “affirmative action for black guys … they wouldn’t face the situation they face today”

On the May 21 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh asserted that “one of the objectives of the feminazis over the last 20, 25 years has been to dominate the public education system so as to remove the competitive nature of boys. You know, there’s a crisis of young man-boy education in the schools. And they did this on purpose, to eliminate male competition in the work force. This is part of feminazi grand plan.” Limbaugh then said, “They forgot affirmative action for black guys. And because of that, every bit of their plan has gone up in smoke now, because they — if — they had to come out in favor of affirmative action for black guys, and that’s — see, this is one of the things that really irritates the women. And there are women all over this country fit to be tied — trust me on this. … [L]iberals eventually are going to be devoured by their own policies. And it has happened here. Because [Sen.] Barack Obama is an affirmative action candidate.” He concluded, “So, it’s just — they just forgot that one thing: affirmative action for black guys. And if they had remembered to oppose that, then they wouldn’t face the situation they face today.”

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805210009?lid=313615&rid=8461094

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George W Bush Authorized 911 Attacks, Says Government Insider

20 May 2008

Stanley Hilton was a senior advisor to Sen. Bob Dole (R) and has personally known Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for decades. The following is from his latest visit to Alex Jones’ radio show. “This (9/11) was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder.” –Stanley Hilton – Alex Jones interview of Stanley Hilton, attorney for 911 taxpayers’ lawsuit.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/3oww6n   (www.daily.pk)

From: CLG News

AZ Senator Karen Johnson Op Ed On 911 

Karen S. Johnson
East Valley Tribune
The Arizona Republic
May 4, 2008

A recent letter to the editor asked for evidence of my claims regarding the tragedy of 9/11. Below I present some points that are presently known. I won’t be able to convince anyone who doesn’t want to be convinced, but for those who are willing to deal with factual evidence, consider the following:

• 37 different people reported explosions in the basement of the World Trade Center Towers before the first plane hit, and seismic equipment recorded both the explosions and the impacts. In addition, people were injured by the explosions in the basement, providing well-documented evidence. Yet this evidence is ignored.

•The media and government have promoted the “pancake theory” as the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers — that is, fire weakened the steel support beams, causing the upper floors to collapse. Then the weight of the collapsing floors above caused the floors below to collapse. This theory is not consistent with scientific principles or the facts. Frank Legge, who has a doctorate in chemistry, and Tony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer, reported in December in the Journal of 9/11 Studies: “It appears therefore that the official concept of a free-fall collapse of the upper portion through the initiation story, due to heat effects from fire, is a fantasy. If the temperature did become high enough for collapse to occur” — and everyone agrees that it did not — “it could not have happened in the observed manner. In particular it could not have been sudden and thus could not have produced the velocity, and hence the momentum and kinetic energy, upon which the official story depends for the second stage of collapse.”

• The theory that the buildings collapsed due to controlled-demolition explosives, however, is consistent with scientific principles and the facts. The “demolition” theory, in fact, is the only one which scientists have been able to corroborate. That is, “… all observations are in accord with the use of explosives in a time sequence.” (Legge and Szamboti, December, Journal of 9/11 Studies.)

• Peer-reviewed reports indicate that the masses of dust particles created by the disaster contained tiny pieces of metal that had been exposed to both extreme temperatures (higher than could have been produced by a burning office or burning airplane fuel) and extreme pressure (such as an explosion) that would fragment material into minute particles. Official reports ignore this.

• In December, physicist Steven Jones announced the discovery of thermite chips in World Trade Center dust samples. The chemical composition of these chips are an exact match to known thermite samples used in controlled demolitions — further corroboration that explosive devices were involved.

• Steel support beams recovered from the site of the World Trade Center exhibit cut edges that are characteristic of thermite used to slice steel support beams in building demolitions but are not characteristic of steel beams that have been burned in a fire.

When the 9/11 Commission Report was finally released, it was woefully inadequate. It never even addressed the collapse of Building 7, for example. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has stated that there are inaccuracies in the report and unanswered questions. Even the two chairmen of the 9/11 Commission — Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton — have accused the CIA of “obstructing” the commission, and one commissioner, U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, resigned, stating that the commission was “compromised.”

…

Complete article at:

The Arizona Republic   May 4, 2008

Regarding “Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid” (Editorial, April 24):

May. 3, 2008

After three government investigations and more than six years, we still don’t have answers on 9/11.

Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn’t hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any “further research.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. “We’ve had trouble getting a handle on Building 7,” said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab.

Yet a number of private-sector engineers, architects, and demolition experts have not had that problem. They think Building 7 came down by controlled demolition. The building collapsed suddenly, straight down, at nearly free-fall speed. People heard the explosions, and saw the squibs and the characteristic billowing clouds of pulverized concrete so unique to demolitions. There is no reason to think that Building 7 came down for any other reason than explosive demolition.

And speaking of pulverized concrete, fire does not pulverize concrete. Even the collapse of one floor upon another wouldn’t pulverize concrete the way the Twin Towers disintegrated.

Think back to that day: Those towers didn’t just fall down. If they had, we would have had huge chunks of concrete breaking apart and falling into a massive pile of rubble. The buildings likely would have toppled erratically sideways and left a much larger pile of debris.

But that’s not what we witnessed. The towers didn’t collapse – they disintegrated.

We watched them explode into dust, not knowing exactly what we were seeing. Very little intact concrete was found in the rubble. The sheer energy required to pulverize that much concrete into dust can only come from an explosive process.

Reputable scientists, engineers, architects and firemen with no political angle dispute the 9/11 Commission report and say that the evidence indicates the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down due to controlled-demolition explosions. Tests corroborate the presence of thermite, an explosive used in building demolitions, at the site of the Twin Towers and Building 7.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.truthnews.us/?p=2186

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And now for the important news ….

By Argus Hamilton

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia endorsed Senator Barack Obama Monday. The ninety-year-old senator has apologized for his long-ago membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Right after the endorsement the Ku Klux Klan apologized for ever letting him in. 

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Phil Hands: … what florida voters worry about

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Jimmy Margulies: 5 a.m. time to feed the chickens …

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Matt Bors: ignorance is bliss, huh?

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Shortage fears push oil futures near $140

21 May 2008

Fears of a shortage within five years propelled long-term oil futures prices to almost $140 a barrel, further stoking inflationary pressures in the global economy. The spot price of Nymex West Texas Intermediate hit a record $130.30 a barrel on Wednesday. On Tuesday investors had rushed to buy oil futures contracts as far forward as December 2016, pushing their prices as high as $139.50 a barrel, up more than $9.50 on the day.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/6yftpc  (www.ft.com)

From: CLG News

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Big Push for Big Oil

Source: Washington Post, May 9, 2008

Faced with a national outcry over the high price of gasoline and soaring profits for energy companies, the American Petroleum Institute has launched a multimillion-dollar PR and advertising campaign to convince the public that “rising energy prices are not the producers’ fault and that government efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would only make pricing problems worse,” reports Jeffrey H. Birnbaum. Consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America are complaining that the industry “is using its outlandish profits to make even more money, and that its advertisements use statistics selectively.”

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Opening Statement by Chairman Howard L. Berman at hearing, “The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Impacts on U.S. Foreign Policy and Economic Interests”

Verbatim, as delivered

May 21, 2008

Opening Statement by Chairman Howard L. Berman at hearing, “The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds:  Impacts on U.S. Foreign Policy and Economic Interests”

Today we’re taking a closer look at an issue that has received a lot of notice in global finance circles.  It’s also started to receive greater attention – and some apprehension – by those who are focused on U.S. foreign policy.

Sovereign Wealth Funds have been around for decades, but China’s recent entry into this field, together with investments in large Wall Street firms by the funds of Middle Eastern countries, have raised questions about the power that these massive funds may have over U.S. national security interests.

Part of the anxiety comes from the notion that the choices guiding Sovereign Wealth Funds – operated by governments that are sometimes unfriendly, sometimes untrustworthy – may well be based on strategic or political considerations, rather than purely economic ones.  Since many of these funds lack transparency, legitimate concerns have surfaced about the motivations behind the investment decisions being made.  If Russia’s fund decided to invest in energy assets in the United States – would they be able to use it to their political advantage as they have done in Europe?  How would we react if China’s fund wanted to invest in a U.S. telecommunications company with access to critical national security technology?

The good news is that we have a process by which to guard against investments into the United States that have national security implications.  Last year, this Congress revised the procedures by which the U.S. government conducts its investigations into all entities, including Sovereign Wealth Funds, wishing to make sensitive investments here.  And by sensitive, I mean those investments that could potentially give these funds, and by extension their governments, controlling stakes in firms that are critical to U.S. national security. Such investigations are done through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known sometimes as CFIUS. 

So while I absolutely advocate greater transparency, accountability, and consistency in the administration of these funds, we also have to be very judicious about any new regulation in this area.

There is also much to be said about the positive effects that an influx of foreign direct investment can have on foreign policy.  I subscribe to the adage that when goods and capital are able to cross borders, it is more likely that tanks and missiles don’t.  I also think the United States should retain its principles of free and open markets, and be very wary of what might happen if we start to close our borders to market-driven investment.

That’s why I advocate a balanced approach to Sovereign Wealth Funds.  I support the work of the International Monetary Fund to create a set of “best practices” for such funds, and I look forward to its report on the matter later this year.  Multilateral guidance from the IMF could help those who run Sovereign Wealth Funds create more transparency and clarify their investment objectives, which ultimately could provide greater comfort for those who might question their motives.

I’m very pleased that we have a distinguished panel of witnesses to help this committee understand the foreign policy and national security implications of the rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds.  We’ll introduce the panel in just a moment, but first I’d like to turn to my good friend from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, for any remarks he wishes to make.

www.HCFA.house.gov

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MORE AMERICANS FEAR LOSING THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE THAN BEING IN A TERRORIST ATTACK

By Ezra Klein, The American Prospect

Will a new administration and Congress get universal health care right this time?

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/85947/

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Going Dutch: Netherlands’ Health Reforms Might Be Worth Studying

Two years ago, the Netherlands launched a sweeping national health care initiative to provide universal health care coverage for its population. Not a single-payer system, the Dutch approach combines mandatory universal health insurance with competition among private health insurers.

According to the authors of “Universal Mandatory Health Insurance in the Netherlands: A Model for the United States?”, published today by Health Affairs, the Dutch system is a model that may be of particular interest to policymakers in the U.S. as they search for ways to address stubbornly high uninsured rates and a shortage of affordable coverage. “Knowledge of the Dutch health system may contribute to the broadening of U.S. policy debates,” say the authors of the Commonwealth Fund-supported article, Wynand P. M. M. van de Ven, Ph.D., and Frederik Schut, Ph.D., of Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

The new Dutch law requires all people who legally live or work in the Netherlands to buy health insurance from one of a number of competing private insurance companies, which are required to accept each applicant. The government has set up a Web site where consumers can compare all insurers and all hospitals on various performance indicators and other criteria.

To finance the reform, individuals make annual income-based contributions through the tax system (for which employers are required to provide compensation). These contributions in turn are transferred to a “risk equalization” fund that compensates insurers for taking on high-risk enrollees. In addition, all adults pay premiums to their insurer, which sets its own community-rated premium.

“The Dutch system contains many features worthy of closer study by policymakers in the U.S.,” says Fund president Karen Davis. “It succeeds in providing quality insurance coverage, at affordable cost, to nearly all its citizens–while continuing to have private insurers play a leading role.”
 

http://tinyurl.com/3kxmtu   (www.commonwealthfund.org)

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FAA urged to open domestic skies to unmanned aerial vehicles

By Dan Friedman, CongressDaily

The U.S. Forest Service’s law enforcement branch recently bought two four-foot long unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol federal land in California in search of marijuana growers with links to Mexican drug cartels, agency officials say. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wants to use a three-pound aerial drone to watch criminal suspects. Police departments in Florida and North Carolina have similar plans for small drones. Although the term unmanned aerial vehicle often refers to the U.S. military’s Predator drone, with its 49-foot wingspan and complement of Hellfire missiles, technological advances have led to small, low-flying UAVs more closely resembling model airplanes. Federal agencies and local police department are increasingly considering such drones as affordable tools for various law enforcement tasks.

Even as interest soars, though, Federal Aviation Administration safety concerns and its refusal to rush through new rules for drones in domestic airspace is largely blocking civilian use, frustrating industry groups and some in Congress. The House-passed FAA reauthorization bill mandates that the agency is allowed to skip a long rule-making process and decide within six months if some UAVs can fly safely in U.S. civilian airspace. In a report released Friday, the Government Accountability Office urged Congress to create a UAV office inside FAA to coordinate federal UAV planning. But even if such steps occur, widespread domestic use of drones must wait at least a decade for new regulations, experts said.

Driven by ramped-up Pentagon use in Iraq and Afghanistan, the private sector has developed a range of relatively cheap UAV products, said Tom Curtain of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. While big bucks went to drones like the Air Force’s high-altitude Global Hawk, the Army bought small, tactical UAVs that soldiers can carry then use to check what is beyond a building or hill. Many local law enforcement agencies want such “over-the-horizon” capability to monitor fires or criminals. “Local first responders are really [eager] to use this stuff,” Curtain said. Federal agencies, too, see uses. The Forest Service in 2005 paid about $10,000 for a drone to watch forest fires. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last year flew an unmanned craft into a hurricane to gather data.

Full story:

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=40042&dcn=e_hsw

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I-35W Bridge Collapse Report

The Investigative report to Joint Committee to Investigate the I-35W Bridge Collapse, by the Gray, Plant, Mooty law firm, was released this morning at a hearing of the Joint Committee to Investigate the Bridge Collapse.

The main report, with its voluminous appendices, is available online on the Gray, Plant, Mooty site:
http://www.gpmlaw.com/

It is also on the Joint Committee site:
http://www.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/jbc/gpm.htm

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A successful prophet of the markets

By John Authers

May 19 2008

This was a book that George Soros badly wanted to write. It is probably not what many of its readers expect to read. But it shows that in his deeper thinking about the way markets operate, Soros was several decades ahead of his time.

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets includes Soros’ verdict on the credit crisis. He thinks, as has been widely reported, that it is the most severe since the 1930s, and that it marks the end of a 25-year “era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency”.

He also offers some solutions, which centre on new regulation for markets, and how to avoid forced sales for US homeowners. A highly entertaining diary recounts his investment moves in the first three months of this year, culminating with the confusion surrounding the fire sale of Bear Stearns.

His insights are clear and concisely expressed. They are worth reading for anyone interested in the topic. But what is most interesting, and obviously engages Soros at an emotional level, is the idiosyncratic philosophy he has developed to explain the metaphysics of how markets work. Even before the emergence of the efficient markets hypothesis, which has dominated academic thinking on markets for at least three decades, Soros had devised his own theory to prove markets were not efficient. He acted on this philosophy as an investor with spectacularly successful results.

That philosophy derived from his undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper. The “relationship between thinking and reality”, Soros calls “reflexivity.” It fills the book’s centre in chapters which he admits many will find “heavy going”. In markets, Soros says, participants’ thinking plays a dual function: they try to understand the situation (the “cognitive function”), and to change it (the “manipulative function”). The two functions can interfere with each other; when they doso the market displays “reflexivity”.

So an investor’s misperception of reality can help to change that reality, begetting further misperceptions. When market actors’ decisions affect outcomes, patterns emerge. If a lot of people are bullish about internet stockstheir price goes up. Soros used the theory to predict, and profit from, a series of “initially self-reinforcing but eventually self-defeating boom-bust processes, or bubbles”. Each bubble “consists of a trend and a misconception that interact in a reflexive manner”.

A key implication of this is that markets do not tend towards “equilibrium”, as predicted by modern portfolio theory. And they will not move in the “random walk” promulgated by efficient markets theory, which holds that prices always incorporate all known information and so move randomly in response to new information.

This is important, as the architecture of modern capital markets depends on these theories.And it begins to look as though the credit crisis was the tipping point at which academics and practitioners decided a new paradigm was needed to replace the efficient markets hypothesis. Alternative theories borrow from experimental psychology, advanced mathematics and evolutionary biology and have been built in response to experience in the markets.

The theory of “adaptive markets” – that markets follow trends until they become overblown and then start building up other trends – seems to be gaining ground as an alternative paradigm. Soros’ title is a bid for his own theory of reflexivity to become the new paradigm. What is fascinating is how much modern thinking is in line with the theory he developed decades ago.

How does it help explain the credit crisis? Soros believes that a “super bubble” has been formed as the result of a “long-term reflexive process” over the last 25 years. Its hallmarks include credit expansion (boosted by the belief that inflation has been vanquished), and a prevailing misconception, which Soros unsurprisingly blames on Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, that markets should be given free rein.

There have been numerous financial crises in this period. According to Soros, these “served as successful tests which reinforced the prevailing trend and the prevailing misconception”. Thus the current crisis grows in severity because it marks “the turning point when both the trend and the misconception have become unsustainable”.

Many will dislike Soros’ politics. Others will find the book self-indulgent. He calls himself a “failed philosopher” and badly wants his theory to reach a broader public. It is hard to imagine it would have been published were he not so famous and successful. But his restless intellectual curiosity commands respect. So does his ability to foresee the debate in theoretical finance. He may have been a failed philosopher, but he was a successful prophet.

The writer is the FT’s investment editor

www.georgesoros.com .

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

The Lundberg Survey said gas prices could be four dollars a gallon by Memorial Day. Don’t worry, we may get it all back in gold by the end of the summer. The U.S. Olympic track and field coach just entered American gasoline prices in the high jump.
 

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

                          ==========

three thousand words

Tom Tomorrow: The Strategist

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Jack Ohman: what a touching gesture …

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Andrew Wahl: paid for by citizens against really stupid campaign issues

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/WahlA/2008/WahlA20080521A_low.jpg

ICE, ICE, Baby

Mon, May 19, 2008

One piece of legislation is why the price of everything is going through the roof

Ed Wallace
Special to the Star-Telegram

“There’s a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.” — National Gas Week, September 5, 2005 as reprinted in the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report, “The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices,” June 27, 2006

Fiddling While We Burn

There it is in plain sight for everyone to see, exactly what I’ve been reporting for the past few years: Many individuals who are investing in oil and natural gas futures are going out in the media and trying to convince the American public that either we are out of oil or there is a serious supply shortage of crude against worldwide demand. The question is: Does it surprise you to discover that the US Senate investigated the rigging of the oil market by speculators in the summer of 2006 – and concluded that there was no supply and demand problem with oil? Did you know that their conclusion was that speculators were responsible for a 70 percent overcharge in the price of oil in the months leading up to the summer of 2006?

This from page 1 of the Executive Summary of that Senate investigation, there is this one troubling line: “Today, U.S. oil inventories are at an eight-year high, and OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) oil inventories are at a 20-year high.”

That’s odd because, in 2006, just like today, the media reporting covered the serious international shortage of oil and justified oil’s high price. Even more troubling is that the House of Representatives held a hearing this past December, ominously titled “Energy Speculation and Price Manipulation.” How did it pass under the radar that both the Senate and the House studied the issue of price manipulation in our energy markets and both concluded that it was unregulated, massive trading in one futures market that was really driving up the price of oil and natural gas? And given that conclusion, why has Congress done nothing about it?

Investors Make the News, Literally

A week ago Goldman Sachs issued a new investor note, suggesting that somewhere between six months to two years, the price of oil could go into a “super spike” and prices jump as high as $200 per barrel. It became the major story of the night. Ignored in the reporting frenzy was that many legitimate and well-respected oil analysts dismissed Goldman Sachs’ prediction as groundless.

Get ready for the next shock to your system. In the past month we have added 11.9 million barrels of oil into our stock reserves, giving us 32.3 million more barrels of oil than we had on hand January 1. On May 5, we found out that for the second time in as many years, Iran was storing its excess crude oil on tankers in the Persian Gulf, because it had run out of storage space in the desert and was awaiting buyers for its heavy crude. That same day Saudi Arabia cut the discount price for its Arabian Heavy crude to $7.45, hoping to entice more buyers for immediate delivery. We didn’t hear that news, either.

While researching my third article for BusinessWeek online about the world’s oil situation in 2008, I asked for the most current report from Oil Movements. Because the oil industry is not transparent, Oil Movements tracks every tanker at sea, from both OPEC and non-OPEC oil countries, along with their cargoes’ final destinations. Anne O’Shea responded immediately to my request with their report dated May 8, 2008. Just so you will know, oil shipments are up from a year ago in almost every class, including Middle East oil in transit and Non-OPEC in Transit. The only class of oil shipment that has declined is covered on page 3 of that report. That chart is labeled, “4-Week Changes in Westbound Oil at Sea.”

That’s right, shipments of oil headed west have shown serious declines during the month of April, down 800,000 barrels per day in the week before the publication of the report. Now, let me give you the first line from under the Westbound Oil shipments chart: “In the west, a big share of any [oil] stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight.”

Could this be true? Oil Movements, the unimpeachable source for finding the real world situation on oil transits, is saying that oil is being hidden offshore, not declared in inventories? Yes, that is exactly what they are saying.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/3nxz6m (www.star-telegram.com)

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Society. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF. E-mail: wheels570@sbcglobal.net

Under discussion that day was the manipulation of the energy markets and prices, but Professor Greenberger added these comments: “Three, four months from now, you’re going to have a hearing on the subprime meltdown, and you’re going to find that the very same legislation [deregulating energy] deregulated something called collateralized debt obligations, CDOs.

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U.S. gasoline prices hit record $3.79/gallon: survey

18 May 2008

The average retail price of a gallon of regular grade gasoline in the U.S. rose to a new record high as the cost of a barrel of crude oil price continued its ascent, an industry analyst said on Sunday.

At:

From: CLG News

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Pa. Plant to Close … and more

By News Editor

The Fairmont Products dairy plant in Belleville, Pa. will be closing it’s doors in October, causing 80 people to lose their jobs. The plant is owned by Dean Foods Co. and produces mostly cottage cheese and ice cream. …

<http://www.wdexpo.org/2008/04/20/pa-plant-to-close/

Ball Corp. closing Washington plant, cutting 111 jobs

Bizjournals.com – Charlotte,NC,USA

Ball Corp. said it will close its aluminum beverage can-making plant in Kent, Wash., in the third quarter, putting 111 people out of work. …

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/04/21/daily43.html

Western Massachusetts plant to close down; over one hundred to …

April 25, 2008 11:45 am SOUTH DEERFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A major manufacturer is closing its doors in Franklin County.

http://www.wwlp.com/global/story.asp?s=8227001

North Haven plant closing doors and costing hundreds their jobs

WTNH – New Haven,CT,USA

North Haven (WTNH) _ A plant is closing its doors costing hundreds of workers their jobs. News Channel 8 obtained a copy of the notice that went out to …

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=8253472&nav=menu29_2

Dallas Woodcraft closing plant, laying off 109 employees

Bizjournals.com – Charlotte,NC,USA

Dallas Woodcraft Co., a fine wall furnishings plant owned by Carrollton-based Home Interiors & Gifts Inc., will lay off 109 employees when it closes its …

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/04/28/daily32.html

West Tenn. plastics plant closing

WRCB-TV – Chattanooga,TN,USA

(AP) – A company that makes plastic interior trim for the automotive industry is closing a plant in West Tennessee. Plastech Corp. plant manager James …

http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8278869

Hoffmaster Closing Appleton Plant

WBAY – Green Bay,WI,USA

The plant closing will take place in phases through April, 2009. Hoffmaster was meeting with employees Thursday. The company said it’s encouraging them to …

<http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=8332362

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Bush Plays the Hitler Card

by Patrick J. Buchanan

05/19/2008
 

“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” wrote Alexander Pope.

Daily, our 43rd president testifies to Pope’s point.

Addressing the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s birth, Bush said those who say we should negotiate with Iran or Hamas are like the fools who said we should negotiate with Adolf Hitler.
 

“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement. …”

Again, Bush has made a hash of history.

Appeasement is the name given to what Neville Chamberlain did at Munich in September 1938. Rather than fight Germany in another great war — to keep 3.5 million Germans under a Czech rule they despised — he agreed to their peaceful transfer to German rule. With these Germans went the lands their ancestors had lived upon for centuries, German Bohemia, or the Sudetenland.

Chamberlain’s negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war — at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.

German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.

But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.

From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

In that same speech to the Knesset, Bush dismissed the idea we could ever successfully negotiate with Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them that they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.”

But did not Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with the Evil Empire, as he rebuilt America’s military might, bear fruit in a reversal of Moscow’s imperial policy and an end to the Cold War?

Richard Nixon went to China and toasted the greatest mass murderer of them all, Mao Zedong, when Maoists were conducting a nationwide purge: the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Yet, Nixon ended a quarter century of implacable U.S.-Chinese hostility. Was Nixon’s trip to China useless?

Three years after Nikita Khrushchev drowned the Hungarian revolution in blood, Ike had him up to Camp David. John Kennedy ended the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, by negotiating with that same Butcher of Budapest.

Were Ike, JFK and Nixon all deluded fools? For the dictators they negotiated with — Khrushchev and Mao — were far greater mass murderers and enemies of America than is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Bush’s father negotiated with Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, the Butcher of Hama, and made him an American ally in the Gulf War.

Was President Bush’s father a deluded fool?

…

Complete article at:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26606

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of “The Death of the West,” “The Great Betrayal,” “A Republic, Not an Empire” and “Where the Right Went Wrong.”

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Resigned Lobbyist “Tip of Iceberg” in McCain Campaign

CLIFF SCHECTER, via Beau Friedlander, simnyc@rcn.com,

http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com

Schecter is the author of the new book “The Real McCain.” He said today: “Lobbyist Tom Loeffler’s exit from the McCain campaign is only the tip of the iceberg in a candidacy swimming with conflicts of interest. McCain has now asked all of his staffers to fill out a form listing any conflicts. It will be a long list. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, and top media adviser, Charlie Black — not to mention dozens of other McCain staff — are up to their ears in lobbying fees received from a plethora of interests over the past two decades, ranging from SBC Communications to the Somali government. In his 2002 book, ‘Worth Fighting For,’ Sen. McCain wrote: ‘I have carefully avoided situations that might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office.’ The problem: the team of current and former lobbyists making the policy decisions for McCain’s campaign.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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DCI Group’s Work for Burma’s Dictators Embarrasses John McCain

Source: Newsweek, May 19, 2008 (cover date)

Doug Goodyear, the CEO of the Washington D.C. PR and lobbyshop, DCI Group, was selected to manage the forthcoming Republican National Convention (RNC), in St. Paul, Minnesota, because of his “management experience and expertise,” a spokeswoman for John McCain said. Michael Isikoff reported in Newsweek that in 2002 DCI was paid $348,000 to represent Burma’s military junta. “It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta’s image, drafting releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing ‘falsehoods’ by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses,” Isikoff reported. Goodyear defended the company’s work: “It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago,” he said. Shortly after the story broke, the RNC issued a media release quoting Goodyear stating he had resigned “so as not to become a distraction in this campaign.” DCI’s other clients have included Exxon, Google and AT&T.

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Ignoring flip-flops, NY Times cited McCain’s “history” on immigration, relationship with “religious conservatives” as appealing to Oregonians’ “libertarian streak” 

After citing “Senator John McCain’s maverick image,” The New York Times’ William Yardley wrote that “Republicans in Oregon are less likely to go to church and more likely to have a libertarian streak than those in some other states. Ordinarily, that might benefit Mr. McCain, who has struggled to win support from religious conservatives and has a history of breaking with his party on matters like immigration and campaign finance reform.” But in citing McCain’s purported “history of breaking with his party on matters like immigration,” Yardley did not report that McCain has reversed his position on immigration — to the point of saying that he no longer supports his own bill on comprehensive immigration reform.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805190004?lid=307606&rid=8366397

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$175 Billion Toward $3 Trillion War

TRAVIS SHARP, tsharp@armscontrolcenter.org,

http://www.theiraqinsider.blogspot.com

Sharp is the military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He writes the “Iraq Insider” blog and is closely following the supplemental spending process. He said today: “If the pending $175 billion super supplemental is signed into law, the U.S. government will have approved $650 billion for Iraq since 2003. The current veterans’ education package under consideration will cost $52 billion over the next decade, only 8 percent of the total cost of the
Iraq war to date.”

Background: From Foreign Policy in Focus: “The Iraq Supplemental: A Three Ring Circus”

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5211

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

Albert Einstein’s letter to a philosopher was auctioned Friday for four hundred thousand dollars. He’s the most famous scientist ever. His theory of relativity demonstrated that once you become successful, your relatives come out of the woodwork.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

David Horsey: america 2018

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20080520/cartoon20080519.jpg

csmonitor: Difference between regular and hidef TV

http://www.csmonitor.com/news/images/classics/cartoon11.jpg

Kevin Kallaugher: any movement?

http://img.slate.com/media/72/080519_ed.gif

NEW PULSE POSTED

http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v261_08.htm

That’s the url to the May 19, 2008, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. Here is some of what you’ll find in this issue:

* Pacific Northwest: Software ID’s proteins

* SLAC: Brains in the beamline

* Sandia: Water shortages predicted

* Oak Ridge: Hardy microbes

Feature: Argonne’s cancer-spotting biochip

Researcher profile: Savannah River’s Joe Cordaro

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Business Outlook Survey – FRB Philadelphia

Manufacturers See Continued Weakness

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia today released May’s Business Outlook Survey. The manufacturing firms participating in the survey said business activity showed continued weakness this month. In the special questions, the firms were asked if they had experienced difficulty filling job openings because candidates were unqualified.

Summary: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/media/newsreleases/2008/051508.cfm

May Business Outlook Survey: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/files/bos/bos0508.html

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UK Times: Shops secretly track customers via mobile phone Times Online:

“Customers in shopping centres are having their every move tracked by a new type of surveillance that listens in on the whisperings of their mobile phones. The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.”

http://tinyurl.com/466pjc  (technology.timesonline.co.uk)

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INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM: A NEW WAY OF UNDERSTANDING HOW THE U.S. IS CONTROLLED

By Chalmers Johnson, Truthdig

A new book offers a controversial but ultimately convincing diagnosis of how the U.S. has succumbed to an unacknowledged totalitarian temptation.

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/85728/

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Carlyle Buying Booz Allen Hamilton’s Intel Outsourcing

AP is reporting: “Privately held consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton … plans to sell a majority stake in its U.S. government business to private equity firm Carlyle Group for $2.54 billion, and spin off its commercial business into a separate company.”

TIM SHORROCK, [currently in Washington, D.C.] timshorrock@gmail.com,
http://timshorrock.com

Shorrock is author of the new book “Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.”

Earlier this month, he wrote the piece “Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton,” available at:
 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14963

Shorrock said today: “From my various sources and leaked documents, I estimate that the intelligence budget is about $50 billion and a full 70 percent of that goes to private contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, the Carlyle Group and CACI. Making functions like the gathering of intelligence into profit centers is a remarkably dangerous thing to do.”

This morning Shorrock appeared on Democracy Now:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/spies_for_hire_the_secret_world

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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Wash. Post ignored own prior reporting that Sec. Gates agrees U.S. should “sit down and talk” with Iran

The Washington Post reported that President Bush “compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis’ appeasers” and noted that “Democratic leaders demanded that [Sen. John] McCain repudiate Bush’s comments.” The article reported that “McCain joined in on Bush’s side” and quoted McCain as saying: “What does Senator Obama want to talk about with Ahmadinejad?” But the article did not note that, as the Post previously reported, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like Obama, has said that the United States needs to be willing to “sit down and talk” with Iran.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805160002?lid=304776&rid=8305742

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Congressman Paul’s Texas Straight Talk – The Economy: Another Casualty of War

The Economy: Another Casualty of War

“This week, as the American economy continued to suffer the effects of big government, the House attempted to pass two multibillion dollar “emergency” spending bills, one for continued spending on the war in Iraq , and one increasing spending on domestic and international welfare programs. The plan was to pass these two bills and then send them to the president as one package. Even though the House failed to pass the war spending bill, opponents of the war should not be fooled into believing this vote signals a long term change in policy. At the end of the day, those favoring continued military occupation of Iraq will receive every penny they are requesting and more as long as they agree to dramatically increase domestic and international welfare spending as well.”

Click here for the full article:  http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2008/tst051808.htm

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

The National Parks Service said Thursday the sea wall protecting the Jefferson Memorial from the Tidal Basin is sinking. It’s not really sinking. It’s just that food and gasoline prices are so high that everything else appears lower by comparison.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Tom Toles: radioactive hazard detector

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20080516/ltt080516.gif

Mike Keefe: Farm Bill 2008

http://www.intoon.com/toons/2008/KeefeM20080517.jpg

Mike Luckovich: especially my putter

http://www.comics.com/editoons/luckovich/archive/images/luckovich2008051209588.gif