Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And who can be surprised by this next story?

"Global competition for future energy supplies heats up"

By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Thu Apr 28, 2:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Soaring demand for crude oil in China, India and other developing nations has set off a scramble to secure future energy supplies that could undermine the economic and national security of the United States.

The United States, Europe and Japan increasingly will be forced to compete with developing nations, especially China and India, the world's two fastest growing major economies, which comprise more than a third of the world's population.

"The center of gravity in world oil is shifting," said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and an author of "The Prize," an award-winning history of oil.

"Last year, Asia consumed more oil than North America," Yergin said.

He predicts an oil supply shift, too, as Africa, Russia and former Soviet republics compete with the Middle East to fill the growing demand for oil.

The developing world's growing appetite for oil is one reason gasoline prices have shot up for Americans.

Over time, these emerging economies will also shape not just global oil flows and prices but also world events, said Anne Korin, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, an energy security think tank.

"A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore," she said.

"That has profound geopolitical implications."

China and India already have moved aggressively to strengthen their relations with two oil-rich countries - Sudan and Iran - undermining U.S. sanctions against Sudan's regime and undercutting U.S. efforts to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"We are in a situation right now where the energy consumption of the developing world is having an impact on the foreign policy options of the United States," said Korin.

For now, the United States remains well positioned, at least when it comes to energy supplies.

The proven reserves in the Middle East make it the expected primary global supplier of crude oil.

Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels.

But political instability, increased terrorism and the spread of fundamentalist Islam make it unlikely that today's oil-production map will look the same 20 years from now.

What's clearly changing is demand.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency, a research arm of the world's most developed nations, projected last year that oil demand will grow by 45 million barrels a day to 120 million barrels a day by 2030.

More than $3 trillion will be invested to find and produce that oil, and more than half of that investment will serve the needs of emerging economies.

The scramble to find and develop new oil fields and natural gas wells will occur in places such as eastern Siberia and West Africa, as hungry nations hedge their bets should leading producers such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq falter.

"You need energy to develop an economy, so there's a great strategic value in securing energy assets," said Antoine Halff, an oil expert with the risk-management company Eurasia Group in New York.

One likely winner is Russia, along with some of the now independent states that formerly made up the Soviet Union.

They have proven reserves of 78 billion barrels but the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there may be 171 billion barrels of estimated undiscovered oil in the region.

"Russia is virtually unexplored."

"Their potential is enormous," said Gary Swindell, an independent petroleum engineer in Dallas whose business is estimating reserves.

Africa is another winner.

It's got 87 billion barrels of proven reserves and estimated undiscovered reserves of 125 billion, mainly in West Africa.

Central and South America have roughly the same, but, as in Russia, many are in prohibitively remote areas.

Elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, Canada and Mexico are expected to remain the second and third largest U.S. oil suppliers.

But smaller oil players are courting Washington's competitors.

In Venezuela, the fourth largest U.S. oil supplier, President Hugo Chavez, a self-described protege of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, is trying to rewrite concessions to U.S. oil companies and has invited China and India to participate in oil exploration.

Ecuador and Colombia are negotiating oil deals with China, too.

China, the world's fastest-growing economy, is also making heavy diplomatic and energy investments in Africa.

It needs to: China is projected to consume within 20 years what the U.S. consumes today - 21 million barrels a day.

Although China is the world's second largest oil consumer after the United States, it's only the fifth largest importer because of its own oil reserves.

That's changing, however, because China is rapidly exhausting wells in Manchuria and the South China Sea.

Soon its reliance on foreign oil will rival America's.

China's President Hu Jintao in mid-April cemented a "strategic" partnership with Nigeria during a state visit to Beijing by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Nigeria is West Africa's biggest producer and a major U.S. supplier.

China's already trading development loans for energy development participation in Chad, Gabon and Angola.

In Sudan, China ignored evidence of genocide in the country's long-running civil war to entrench itself.

It also effectively voided unilateral U.S. sanctions imposed because Sudan sheltered Osama bin Laden before he moved on to Afghanistan.

Sudan's widely reported human rights violations also sparked protests in Canada and Sweden that drove oil companies from those countries out of Sudan in 2002 and 2003.

China, which now gets as much as 10 percent of its imported oil from Sudan, has repeatedly blocked U.N. efforts to impose anti-genocide sanctions against its trading partner.

Data from the federal Energy Information Administration help explain China's moves.

The EIA predicts that China will import about two-thirds of the oil it consumes by 2025, up from the current figure of one third.

India, which has almost none of its own oil, is equally hungry.

The EIA expects India to more than double its oil consumption to 5.3 million barrels a day by 2025.

Both China and India are investing billions in Iran despite President Bush's attempt to isolate the Persian Gulf nation because of its nuclear ambitions.

The money is a lifeline for the world's fourth biggest oil producer, which also sits atop the world's second largest natural gas reserves.

Both are off limits to U.S. companies.

Iran - already China's largest oil supplier - earlier this year signed long-term oil and natural gas contracts worth tens of billions of dollars with both China and India.

Iran gave India's state oil company a 20-percent ownership stake in the development of a key Iranian oil field.

In strictly economic terms, it doesn't hurt the United States when developing countries promote oil drilling, extraction and production.

That increases world supply, slakes demand and drives down prices.

But access to ample energy is a prerequisite to world power.

That's a lesson not lost on Russia, the world's second largest exporter of crude oil and holder of the world's largest reserves of natural gas.

The United States, Europe, India and China have each carved out stakes in Russia's energy future, while, for its part, Russia has sought to control strategic pipelines for oil and natural gas flowing from or through former Soviet republics.

President Bush travels to Russia in early May and is expected to lobby President Vladimir Putin for a multi-billion dollar pipeline deal to take natural gas to the Russian seaport of Murmansk.

There, it would be liquefied and transported for sale in the United States.

Putin seems intent on using Russia's energy supplies to boost his influence at home and abroad.

He's meddled in neighboring countries like the Ukraine and Georgia in hopes of securing greater control over how oil flows in and out of the region.

And he has broken apart the country's largest private oil company, OAO Yukos, which had ties to big U.S. oil interests, and is creating a new and massive state oil company from the ruins.

Putin has been friendliest to Western Europe, which now buys from Russia about a quarter of the natural gas it uses to fuel power plants and factories.

Russia's leader favors Western Europe because the dependency it promotes restores some of the international influence that Moscow lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Clifford Gaddy, an expert on the Russian economy at the Brookings Institution.

[Livyjr]

And who can be surprised by this next story?

"Global competition for future energy supplies heats up"

By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Thu Apr 28, 2:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Soaring demand for crude oil in China, India and other developing nations has set off a scramble to secure future energy supplies that could undermine the economic and national security of the United States.

The United States, Europe and Japan increasingly will be forced to compete with developing nations, especially China and India, the world's two fastest growing major economies, which comprise more than a third of the world's population.

The developing world's growing appetite for oil is one reason gasoline prices have shot up for Americans.

Over time, these emerging economies will also shape not just global oil flows and prices but also world events, said Anne Korin, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, an energy security think tank.

"A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore," she said.

"That has profound geopolitical implications."

"We are in a situation right now where the energy consumption of the developing world is having an impact on the foreign policy options of the United States," said Korin.

For now, the United States remains well positioned, at least when it comes to energy supplies.

The proven reserves in the Middle East make it the expected primary global supplier of crude oil.   

Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels.

"Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels."

Hhhmmm!

Well, it looks like we're finally starting to get some "truth in advertising" from the media about why we really invaded Iraq!

Isn't it just like the media to come out with a story after everybody else in the world already knows the truth of the matter!

And speaking of Iraq, where George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have forcefully established a beachhead, what's the latest?

"Sunni Representation Low in Iraqi Gov't"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 30 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - In the end it was the demands of hard politics that kept most minority Sunnis out of Iraq's new government.

And that could spur an escalation in the country's bloody insurgency.

Despite U.S. pressure and their own recognition that it was a priority, Iraqi politicians failed to name a significant number of Sunni Arabs to the Cabinet.

Those who were selected are not major figures in the Sunni community and none received high-profile portfolios.

The promise to reach out to the Sunnis foundered on political realities: rivalries within the Shiite party that dominates the government, that party's fierce enmity with outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and its insistence that those tainted by ties with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party be excluded.

That meant the two major forces in Iraq today — the Shiites and the Kurds — essentially divvied up the major Cabinet posts among themselves.

The result is a Cabinet of 37 positions — with only four named Sunnis holding relatively low-level posts including, ironically, the Tourism Ministry.

There are still ongoing efforts to draw in more Sunnis: They have been promised a post as one of four deputy prime ministers and also promised the Defense Ministry.

But so far, Shiite Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his coalition partners have been unable to agree on any actual names.

That has potentially big implications for the insurgency, which already finds its core among disgruntled Sunnis, including former members of Saddam's Baathist regime and military.

Seeing no role in the country's politics, Sunnis are likely to be more willing to give money and shelter to guerrillas.

That trend will only worsen if the new Shiite leadership moves to purge former Baathists — largely Sunnis — from the military, adding new disgruntled former soldiers to the fight.

It's the scenario everyone on all sides has been warning about since the Jan. 30 election, when Shiites and Kurds turned out in droves to vote — eager at the chance at power after decades of oppressions.

The Sunni Arab minority stayed away, either angry at the new political situation or intimidated by the Sunni-led insurgency.

The result was a 275-seat parliament with only 17 Sunni Arab members.

Only one of the four Sunnis named to the Cabinet has significant tribal ties in Anbar province, the heartland of the insurgency: Saad Naif, the new state minister for provinces affairs, is a grandson of the head of the al-Hardan tribe and a former captain in Saddam's military.

None of the four Sunnis have strong links to Islamic clerics influential in the Sunni community.

One of the posts that went to the Sunnis was the Tourism Ministry — a particularly ineffectual job in a conflict-torn nation where the closest thing to tourism is the influx of Iranian pilgrims to Shiite holy sites.

During the tortured negotiations over a government, Sunni factions had sought at least seven positions — including major ministries like housing, labor or health.

But while the Kurds showed some willingness to give up one or two positions, the Shiite's al-Jaafari had none to spare, faced with the task of placating sharp divisions among the factions of his own United Iraqi Alliance.

The Shiite party also deadlocked in attempts to bring Allawi's Iraqi List into the government.

That list — which has a mix from all the main communities — could have brought in Sunnis.

But the Shiites rejected anyone with significant Baathist ties.

Both sides were adamant in their positions, and eventually Allawi was rejected.

Ironically, former Baathists are exactly the ones who might be able to convince Sunnis that their future lies with the government and not with the gunmen.
____

EDITOR'S NOTE: Lee Keath covers the Middle East from Cairo, Egypt, and reported from Iraq last year.

[Livyjr]

"Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels."

Hhhmmm!

Well, it looks like we're finally starting to get some "truth in advertising" from the media about why we really invaded Iraq!

Isn't it just like the media to come out with a story after everybody else in the world already knows the truth of the matter!

And speaking of Iraq, where George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have forcefully established a beachhead, what's the latest?

"Sunni Representation Low in Iraqi Gov't"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 30 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - In the end it was the demands of hard politics that kept most minority Sunnis out of Iraq's new government.

And that could spur an escalation in the country's bloody insurgency.

April 28, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

"On Abu Ghraib, the Big Shots Walk"

By BOB HERBERT

When soldiers in war are not properly trained and supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable.

This is one reason why the military command structure is so important.

There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were expected to be accountable for the behavior of their subordinates.

That's changed.

Under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, the notion of command accountability has been discarded.

In Mr. Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat.

Punishment is reserved for the people at the bottom.

The people who foul up at the top are promoted.

It was a year ago today that the stories and photos of the shocking abuses at Abu Ghraib prison first came to the public's attention.

It was a scandal that undermined the military's reputation and diminished the standing of the U.S. around the world.

It would soon become clear that the photos of hooded, naked and humiliated detainees were evidence of a much larger problem.

The system for processing, interrogating and detaining prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq was dangerously out of control, and the command structure responsible for it had collapsed.

Detainees were beaten, tortured, sexually abused and, in some instances, killed.

Many detainees should never have been imprisoned at all, as they had committed no offenses.

So what happened?

A handful of grunts were court-martialed, a Marine major was cashiered, and the Army plans to issue a new interrogation manual that bars certain harsh techniques.

There was no wholesale crackdown on criminal behavior.

We learned last week that after a high-level investigation, the Army had cleared four of the five top officers who were responsible for prison policies and operations in Iraq.

The fifth officer, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve, had already been relieved of her command of the military police unit at Abu Ghraib.

(She has complained, and not without reason, that she was a scapegoat for the failures of higher-ranking officers.)

As Eric Schmitt wrote in The Times:

"Barring new evidence, the inquiry by the Army's inspector general effectively closes the Army's book on whether the highest-ranking officers in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal should be held accountable for command failings described in past reviews."

This is the way atrocities are dealt with in Mr. Bush's world of war.

The higher-ups responsible for training, supervising and disciplining the troops - in other words, the big shots who presided over a system that ran shamefully amok -escaped virtually unscathed.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, which seemed mind-boggling at the time, turned out to be symptomatic of the torture, abuse and institutionalized injustice that have permeated the Bush administration's operations in its so-called war against terror.

Euphemisms like rendition, coercive interrogation, sleep adjustment and waterboarding are now widely understood.

Yes, Virginia, it is the policy of the United States to kidnap individuals and send them off to regimes skilled in the art of torture.

Two things are needed.

First, a truly independent commission, along the lines of the bipartisan 9/11 panel, should be set up to thoroughly investigate U.S. interrogation and detention operations, and make recommendations to correct abuses.

Second, the U.S. government should make it clear, beyond any doubt, that torture and any other inhumane treatment of prisoners is wrong, just flat wrong, and will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

"In our contemporary world, torture is like the slave trade or piracy was to people in the 1790's," said Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, which is suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the prisoner abuse issue.

"Torture is a crime against mankind, against humanity."

"It's something that has to be absolutely prohibited."

If the president made it clear that men and women up and down the chain of command would be held responsible for the abuses that occur on their watch, the abuses would plummet.

Instead, the message the administration has sent is that its demands for accountability will be limited to a few hapless, ill-trained grunts.

The big shots who presided over behavior that has shamed America in the eyes of the world can count on this president's embrace.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

[jeffmoskin]

"Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels."

Hhhmmm!

Well, it looks like we're finally starting to get some "truth in advertising" from the media about why we really invaded Iraq!

Hmmmmmm!

or,,, Hrmphh!

hell, I thought Iraq had 200+ Billion barrels of oil.

Did Arthur Anderson do the accounting on this one too?

[Morambar in TX]

You know, Morambar, of course, that the job of American president is really whatever the incumbent makes of it, and Ike certainly was no exception, there, just as George W. Bush is no exception, right now today!

As Commander of all of OUR forces in Europe in WWII, all Eisenhower really had to do was play golf!

His subordinates, including Marshall, existed, as I did a generation later, to know their jobs and to do their jobs, whether there was an Ike or not, and that they did, as I did, as well!

If George W. Bush were to simply start playing golf now, and never go back to Washington, again, nor make public appearances, why, it would be the best thing I think he could do for this nation, like Ike!

And Morambar, to me, the one important thing that I think Ike did for America was to not tolerate discrimination, and therefore to not promote it, but fight it instead!

I was there, Morambar, and if Ike did nothing else, I thought with just that one thing, that stand against discrimination, Ike did what every American president should do, set the tone and tenor of what he, the man, was going to stand for, and hence, the nation, as well!

We could do well in OUR America, in my opinion, anyway, to have that kind of leadership back in OUR White House, in place of this far cry that we have in there today, who certainly is no Ike when it comes to any kind of stand against discrimination!

In fact with regard to discrimination, as I perceive it from my perspective as a disabled person who is on the receiving end of discrimination, and the abject cruelty that usually accompanies it, George W. Bush is a promoter of it, in exact opposite contrast to what I recall of Ike's stand on that same subject!

In fact, if Ike were around today, I have to wonder if he wouldn't up and quit the Republican Party as I did for its real "behind-the-hype" stance on discrimination in OUR America!

In all fairness, General Marshall was Ikes SUPERIOR, and as such, Ike merely executed the carefully constructed battle plans he devised. It's true that the subordinates (Ike included) to know their jobs and do their jobs, but it was Marshalls job to tell them what they were, just as when the war ended. The vast improvement on the Dawes plan embodied in the Marshall plan is probably his greatest legacy; no wonder when he wanted to go to Europe to take personal command FDR told him he was indispensable in DC, thus Ike got the glory for following Marshalls orders. That Ike rose to the position that he did is largely due to his appreciation of the logistical demands of Marshalls strategy and his ability to meet them (with no small help from Omar Bradley.) After Pearl Harbor George Marshall drew up a series of exercises designed to test his officers ability at execution; one of the proudest days of Ikes life was getting one back with a (barely) passing grade.

I agree with you that Ikes stand on segregation was a moment of supreme statesmanship, but sadly the exception rather than the rule. Fact is, his posthumous membership in the Democratic Party would be unsurprising; the only reason he didn't run as Democrat in '48 was because Truman decided to run again. Kinda tells you where the true loyalty was. Of course, noone tried to keep segregation from his attention (that I know of) and it would have been difficult to remain completely ignorant. I never really thought that Ike was either a fiend or incompetent, merely irresponsible and disinterested. There's also a story about Patton arriving at HQ to discuss strategy with Ike and finding Kay Summersby in attendance, which naturally made him somewhat reticent. Ike reportedly said, "We have no secrets from Kay" to which Patton resonded, "Well, I have secrets from her." And since I'm quoting, I might as well give you, as they say, "the rest of the story:"
"[also from March 3, 1955 entry] "She left. Patton tells how Ike wrote to General Marshall when Marshall complained of relations with Summersby. Ike explained that he was a young man, vigorous, etc. Marshall wrote back advising him to 'take a cold bath and have a masseur.'"

"Patton says he knew Ike was going to run for President even when he was in North Africa; said he could tell by the way he talked."

"In Sicily, Patton was court-martialed, though it never leaked out, for the massacre of ninety German prisoners. He was exonerated. What happened was that he had given the American troops a tough dressingdown before going into battle, and while he did not say to take no prisoners, the handful of officers either interpreted his remarks to mean that or else trumped this up as an excuse. At any rate, they shot the Germans in the stockade, and Patton was court-martialed along with the others. [How things have changed.]"

Most significant parts of the Patton diary pertain to the closing days of the war when he was racing across France and could have marched right through Germany. When Eisenhower cut off his gasoline, Patton raided British supplies but couldn't get enough to go much farther. He sat and watched the Germans consolidate their lines, knowing that if he had had the gasoline he could have marched right into Berlin. General Bradley confirms this though his book is not as forthright as Pattons diary."

The noble Patton hath told you Eisenhower was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Patton answer'd it.

[Livyjr]

In all fairness, General Marshall was Ikes SUPERIOR, and as such, Ike merely executed the carefully constructed battle plans he devised. 

Ah, Morambar!

How to respond, without appearing to throw a "wet blanket" over you, to stifle what I will call, and not perjoratively, your "youthful" vigor here to find and know the "truth", as you seek in your own way to dispatch what you view as your own citizenship duties, here in OUR America.

What I have to say is this: BEWARE HEARSAY!

And especially, BEWARE HISTORY BOOKS, and those who write them, and especially BEWARE "TELL-ALL's", since they might not tell anyone much of anything at all, and especially the facts or truth, about anything!

I have an old friend who was with Patton during WWII, who fought first in North Africa, where he and OUR Army were pushed back to what he was sure was Egypt by the quite competent forces of Irwin Rommel, and then Sicily, where he fought not only Germans, but alleged "bandits" as well, who were killed in their caves as they were found, on orders from "higher", and then across Europe and right on into Germany, where he was when the war finally ended.

Being from the time of that war's closing, of course, I grew up with the returning veterans from that war as my "elders", and so, over the years, I have heard much about Patton, who was a "larger-than-life" figure to his soldiers, and Ike as well, who was called by another general, "the best clerk that I have ever had", or words to that effect, if I recall that correctly, and as a result, I have formed my own opinions over the years as to this and that, regardless of what any "book writer" might have to say, and so .....

The problem with all of this, Morambar, is that it is all hearsay!

And hearsay and fifty cents will buy you coffee, maybe!

I was alive, and cognizant of being alive, and cognizant of how I felt being alive, AT SOME OF THESE TIMES IN QUESTION HERE, and so, the very first reliance that I place on anything is from my own memories.

THEN ....

I read books, a lot of them, and I listen to people, and that would be those who were there, as a rule, and then, I digest.

The problem for you, and your generation, Morambar, is that many of these old folks that I had the opportunity to grow up with and absorb information from are now long gone from this earth, and so, all you have access to is memoirs, and that makes a real big difference, to me, anyway, and you must factor that into your "presentations" and expositions in here, and elsewhere, Morambar, and I say this to you to encourage you to become even more discriminating and discerning than you already are in your present young age, because with your intellect, you have much to offer to OUR America, both today, and especially in the future, where intellect will be even more of value than it is right now, and even harder to find, if we continue this decline that has been on-going in OUR America for quite some time now, this "dumbing down" that has left us with alleged pill-heads like RUSH LIMBUAGH as the intellectual pinnacles in "MODRIN AMURKA".

And to me, Morambar, who is a disabled combat veteran, a "volunteer" for military service in OUR America, and not a "conscript", IKE'S loyalty should have been to the United States Constitution, and to NO political party above that!

I, Morambar, see the political parties, the Democrats and Republicans both, but especially the Republicans, as being inimical to true American values, and so, I am a member of neither, nor do I profess loyalty to either, and I do not believe we should have REPUBLICAN presidents, and especially judges, in OUR America, nor should we have Democratic presidents, or judges!

We should have presidents of America who are familiar with its Constitution, and who are true to its Constitution 24/7, regardless of the issue before them at any given time, and to the extent that any faction in America, and this includes both the democrats and republicans, don't like that, why, Morambar, as far as I am concerned, they can go straight to hell, or to Connaught, their choice!

I, Morambar, am an American!

As such, I am for the Constitution!

I am not a christian first, and an American second, nor a "white man" first, and an American second, or a "bigot" first and an American second; I am simply an American.

As a human being here in OUR America, with my liberty intact, I of course can be whatever it is that my path affords me, within the framework of the laws THAT BIND US ALL, and I am entitled to my own private set of beliefs about such things as spirituality, and citizenship, and history!

But that is PRIVATE!

When I come in to here, into what is a public place, then, to me anyway, a different set of "strictures" comes in to play, and so, I try to be circumspect as to what I am stating to the world as alleged "fact", when I myself have no way of verifying the truth or falsity of what I am saying, such as whether Ike was doing the "dirty dog" with anyone named Kay, or not!

It's about personal credibility, Morambar!

It is hard to gain, and easy to lose, for a variety of reasons, most of them, "unfair", but so what, and once gone, credibility might never be regained, and if you have real political "enemies", then that is their goal!

They will play "football", and you will be what they are kicking, and purposefully so!

And that is the way it has been, at least since Jesus was in swaddling clothes, and so ....

Morambar, beware everything, especially the opinions of others, especially historians and bookwriters, and old men like me, too, and why, you'll do fine, is what I think!

And as Mr. A.B. says, don't quit, for all you then are is a quitter, and where does that get any of us, and yourself as well?

[jeffmoskin]

I, Morambar, see the political parties, the Democrats and Republicans both, but especially the Republicans, as being inimical to true American values, and so, I am a member of neither, nor do I profess loyalty to either, and I do not believe we should have REPUBLICAN presidents, and especially judges, in OUR America, nor should we have Democratic presidents, or judges!

We should have presidents of America who are familiar with its Constitution, and who are true to its Constitution 24/7, regardless of the issue before them at any given time, and to the extent that any faction in America, and this includes both the democrats and republicans, don't like that, why, Morambar, as far as I am concerned, they can go straight to hell, or to Connaught, their choice!

Oh that our leaders would read your post, Livyjr. There is room for what used to be called the "Republican" point of view: for the Constitution, for Main Street America, for big business, against progressive taxes.

And the 'Democratic' point of view: for the Constitution, for labor, for progressive taxes, for small farmers, against big business.

Note that BOTH are for the Constitution - which I interpret to mean for the America Way of Governance by the consent of the governed.

But all that has gone the way of rancor and bile on TV, once hailed as the greatest invention of our time, then villified as a "vast wasteland" (those were the GOOD ole days of TV), and now merely a forum for Trash Limbo and the other gasbags of the airwaves.

TV is now a "half-vast wasteland!"

This post has been edited by jeffmoskin: Apr 29 2005, 08:40 AM

[Abu Beacon]

The noble Patton hath told you Eisenhower was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Patton answer'd it.

Your posts are good, Morambar. Keep them coming.

To quote Livyjr ---- " I say this to you to encourage you to become even more discriminating and discerning than you already are in your present young age, because with your intellect, you have much to offer to OUR America, both today, and especially in the future, where intellect will be even more of value than it is right now, and even harder to find, if we continue this decline that has been on-going in OUR America for quite some time now. "

Livyjr passes along good advice to you.

Personally, I try to remember two things when I read an article. Whenever possible, I want to know who wrote it because that is a good clue as to where the author is coming from. Second, does the author have his/her own agenda?

Example: If the author is giving a product a high recommendation, and you knew the writer has stock in that company, you would be not be in a hurry to go out and buy the product, because you would suspect the author has reasons which are not visible in the recommendation. That is a very simple and obvious example, many times it is not so obvious.

Your posts do indicate you are an intelligent person and hopefully you have a certain amount of skepticism concerning what others are writing or talking about.

I wish you well.

A.B.

[Livyjr]

Your posts are good, Morambar.

Keep them coming.

Your posts do indicate you are an intelligent person and hopefully you have a certain amount of skepticism concerning what others are writing or talking about.

I wish you well.

A.B.

Skepticism!

Discernment!

Qualities which are required to pass from the vigor of youth into a comfortable old age, and here, I mean in terms of health and mental acuity, as Mr. A.B. very admirably demonstrates to us younger folks in here with his quiet wisdom that he expresses in here from time to time!

I myself take that admonishment of Mr. A.B.'s to heart, that he deserves to know sources of information, and accurately described, if he is to make an informed decision as an American citizen, and wishing for his feed-back from the perspective of his long life down here on this earth of ours, I do my utmost to make clear for Mr. A.B. what the alleged issue is, and where it might be coming from.

A point is that of all of us, Mr. A.B. has heard the most, i.e. "large amount of", "devastating" news of all of us, including the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, and so, I never try to "shock" him with "facts", especially alleged "facts" from a time in OUR America when he was alive, and I was not!

More, I am always curious as to how Mr. A.B. does see things, and so, I try to leave some room in here for that exchange to happen!

Like a bunch of rocks slowly being rolled by the current down a mountain stream, and as they go, the sharp corners and rough edges just end up being all worn away!

[Livyjr]

Skepticism!

Discernment!

Like a bunch of rocks slowly being rolled by the current down a mountain stream, and as they go, the sharp corners and rough edges just end up being all worn away!

"Western drought shrinking Big Muddy"

By Patrick O'Driscoll and Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY

Fri Apr 29, 6:36 AM ET

The "Big Muddy" is in big trouble.

The Missouri River, the nation's longest, is struggling in the dry clutches of a multiyear drought.

For six years, the river's three giant reservoirs on the northern Plains have dropped slowly and alarmingly, curbing recreation, hydropower generation and commercial navigation downstream.

While the drought's effects are not irreversible, river managers say it will take years for the waterway and its many users to recover.

"We're kind of in uncharted territory here," says Rose Hargrave, Missouri River program manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the river's six dams and the lakes behind them.

"Reservoir levels have never been so low."

"The Plains snow pack is almost non-existent."

"It's not looking good."

From its roaring headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to its slow, wide confluence with the Mississippi River, the Missouri is a 2,540-mile ribbon of frontier history, world-class fishing, billions of dollars of commerce and drinking water for millions.

But years of sparse snowfall at the river's source have so reduced its flow that disruptions ripple all the way to the Mississippi.

When Fort Peck Lake here is full, it sprawls 134 miles across the prairie of northeastern Montana, drawing thousands of anglers in search of trophy walleye and other game fish.

But now the USA's fifth-largest reservoir is a shrinking pool.

Sixty-five years after it was created by a monster earthen dam across the Missouri, the lake level is 36 feet below average and could fall another 15 feet by this time next year.

Downriver in North Dakota, 231-mile-long Lake Oahe, the nation's fourth-largest reservoir, is so low that it literally has left the state.

From Bismarck to the South Dakota border, more than 60 miles have reverted to a narrow river where the lake was once up to 5 miles wide.

Left behind are weedy mud flats and boat ramps stranded a mile or more from water.

The retreat of Fort Peck, Oahe and even bigger Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota is only the most obvious sign of distress.

The water deficit also threatens farming and ranching, tourism, power production, shipping and the water supply for a 10-state basin.

This year, "we may not be able to place a pump in the river," says farmer Neal Turnbull of Brockton, Mont., whose 550 acres of grain crops are in jeopardy without irrigation.

The drought has even clouded the outlook for this year's bicentennial celebration of the Lewis & Clark expedition, the fabled voyage of American discovery that used the Missouri as its highway through the wilderness.

The Corps of Engineers forecasts this year's flow at 16.7 million acre-feet of water, one-third less than normal.

Storage behind the Missouri's six dams is now almost 21 million acre-feet below normal.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, the amount used annually by two to three families.

About 70% of the Missouri's normal flow comes from melting snow in Montana, where state officials say it would take 350% of normal snowfall to mend the damage.

This winter's yield: about 65%.

'Dry sponges for soil'

Gov. Brian Schweitzer says much of Montana's runoff will soak into the ground before reaching the river because "we have dry sponges for soil."

He has asked the Pentagon to rotate some of Montana's 1,500 National Guard troops home from Iraq this summer to help fight the wildfires expected because the state's forests are so dry.

The drought's litany of effects on the Missouri is long and painful:

•Drinking water.

Riverside towns are spending millions to add or refurbish water intakes so they can reach farther and deeper into the shrinking river.

Fort Yates, N.D., on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, went dry for five days last Thanksgiving when its Lake Oahe pumps clogged with sediment.

It paid $3 million for a temporary fix.

Kansas City, Mo., which draws 200 million gallons a day in summer, has installed new pumps twice as deep as its permanent intakes.

•Hydropower.

The river's dams normally generate about 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, worth about $1.7 billion.

In the drought, annual production is off at least one-third.

This year's forecast is for just 5.8 billion kilowatt-hours.

To make up the difference for its customers, the federal Western Area Power Administration has spent $64 million since October for costlier extra power.

It will spend nearly twice that by the end of September.

After two rate increases, a third is in the works.

• Tourism.

Fishing on the reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas generates hundreds of millions of dollars in a region where farming is the only other major industry.

But traffic at parks, campgrounds and marinas is down because dozens of boat ramps are unreachable.

There is still enough water for boating and world-class walleye fishing.

But as the lakes fall, the water warms, threatening the survival of smelt, a small fish on which the game fish feed.

Recovery from a smelt die-off would take years.

"It's just like someone coming in and shutting down Ford or General Motors in Detroit," says Dick Messerly, manager of Fort Stevenson State Park near Garrison, N.D.

In Montana, renowned for its $350 million sport fishing industry, "we see significant impacts," says Ron Aasheim, a state conservation officer.

Fishing restrictions and even bans have been imposed on gold-medal streams such as the Big Hole, Madison and Blackfoot rivers to protect trout weakened by the warmer, low-flowing water.

•Agriculture.

Some farmers have abandoned irrigation because they can't afford to "chase the river" with longer intake pipes.

Lakefront ranchers, who pen livestock with fences that reach into the reservoirs, must extend fences as the water ebbs so cattle won't stray around them.

In Nebraska, farmers on two Missouri tributaries will be paid not to irrigate up to 100,000 acres of crops for the next 10-15 years in an effort to save water.

"I've seen dry years over my lifetime in the Dakotas, but this is by far the worst," says Emmonds County, N.D., farmer Ken Moser, 64, whose grandparents homesteaded on the Missouri in the 1880s.

He says the family gave up "a lot of" riverfront acreage to the Corps of Engineers when Lake Oahe was filled in the 1960s in return for irrigation water.

"Now we're high and dry."

Moser's irrigation intake is now a mile and a quarter from the river channel.

His $2 million sprinkler system has been idle for two years, and 1,100 acres have been turned from corn back to dryland crops that yield far less.

"It won't be enough."

"It's just going to put us way behind," says Moser, who has asked the corps for permission to dig an emergency trench from the Missouri to his parched fields.

•Shipping.

The barge trade, never huge, has shrunk to 8 million tons a year, a tiny fraction of what is shipped on the Mississippi and other waterways.

MEMCO Barge Line, the largest operator, hasn't run a barge up the Missouri in two years.

•Cooling water.

Nuclear and other non-hydroelectric plants that use river water for cooling must lower its temperature before piping it back into the Missouri.

That's because the current is too low to dilute the return flow of warmer water enough to meet limits that protect fish and the ecosystem.

A plant in Kansas is building a $20 million cooling tower.

•Wildfire.

Several states fear catastrophic summer fires in dry forests and plains.

Grass and timber fires in February and March surprised firefighters in Oregon, Idaho, Montana and South Dakota.

"To be concerned about a fire season in March in this neck of the woods is unheard of," says Richard Opper, head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

•Artifacts.

Indian relics, old homesteads and tribal graves, inundated when the reservoirs were filled, are re-emerging and may become targets for looters.

"They find some of these graves and actually sell the skeletons," says Charles Murphy, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

•Endangered wildlife.

Lack of water has canceled an experimental "spring rise" of the river next year to improve habitat and breeding for a rare fish, the pallid sturgeon.

That artificial "flush" by releasing more water from Fort Peck Dam would mimic the Missouri's natural flow.

But Mike Olson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says unless "biblical rainstorms" come, the surge won't happen until 2010 or 2011 at the earliest.

Shortage of snow the culprit

For nearly a decade, the West's drought has crept across more familiar terrain: Dead forests in California and New Mexico, shrinking desert reservoirs in Arizona, Utah and Nevada, vast wildfires in Alaska, and brown lawns everywhere.

Meanwhile, a less-visible deficit has wilted the Missouri's headwaters region.

This winter, Montana golfers were playing on courses normally buried in white until April or May.

Lack of snow scuttled snowmobile and dog sled events.

The worst has arrived almost exactly 200 years after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark reached the river's source on their westward search for a route to the Pacific.

In July 1805, the explorers stopped at what today is Three Forks, Mont., where three tributaries form the river.

In his journal, Lewis took note, with customary misspelling, of how full the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers were:

"All of them run with great valocity and thow out large bodies of water."

Lewis might not recognize the streams this spring and summer.

An index that measures available water supplies lists 39 of Montana's 52 rivers in "very dry" conditions.

The big reservoirs would be in far better shape, says Gov. Schweitzer, if not for political decisions that favor what he calls "barge traffic that doesn't exist" on the lower river in the state of Missouri.

Shipping has long been a sore point.

States upriver, dependent on tourism, complain that federal managers release too much reservoir water for barge traffic.

States in the lower basin, where the Missouri is a channelized ditch adapted to commercial traffic, claim the feds hold back too much in the lakes, threatening river transport of goods.

Farmers fear if barge traffic is cut off, railroads and trucking companies will charge higher rates and cripple agriculture.

By law, the Corps of Engineers must manage the river for eight different uses in commerce, recreation, ecology and flood control.

In a drought, "we have to try to provide service to each of those, but at a reduced level," says Paul Johnston of the agency's Omaha office.

But if reservoir storage slips below 31 million acre-feet - it is now about 35 million and falling - the corps must cease flows for barge traffic.

Unless the forecast changes, the Missouri will hit that "navigation preclude" next year.

The corps already plans to cut short this year's season by two months.

Even if navigation flows cease, the water savings will be small, Johnston says, because the corps still must supply drinking water downstream.

He says the lakes might only rise a foot or two.

The drought also could muffle a tourism boom expected from the Lewis & Clark bicentennial.

"We're very concerned," says Clint Blackwood, executive director for the observance in Montana, where some of the biggest gatherings are planned.

If Montana has a wildfire season like it did in 2000, when nearly a million acres burned statewide, Blackwood knows what could happen.

"The news media will report that Montana is on fire," he says.

"And it takes only a little bit of that and people then (say), 'I'm not going to Montana this year.' "

But the most visible sign of drought remains on the reservoirs.

Lake Sakakawea, named for the Indian woman who guided and translated for Lewis & Clark (her name often is spelled Sacajawea), is down 50 feet from its high-water mark in 1997.

By summer's end, Lake Oahe could be 54 feet below its record level that same year.

To fish, 'take your own water'

Allan Burke, publisher of the Emmons County Record in Linton, N.D., says many locals have sold their boats.

He recounts a grim joke told in town is that "you can go fishing, but you have to take your own water."

This winter was the first in memory without ice fishing on nearby Beaver Bay, an inlet off Lake Oahe just above the South Dakota line.

That's because Beaver Bay is gone, too.

So is most of the tourist trade at Bosch's Bayside, a small resort there.

"People don't come anymore," laments Randy Bosch, 47, who says he had just four overnight campers in his 40-space RV park in all of 2004.

He may have to close for good this year.

Bosch says he doesn't go down anymore to where the bay used to be, except "when the TV crews come" to shoot drought footage.

"I can't," he explains.

"I get too upset."

[Livyjr]

"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings!"

"And folks, this is unacceptable in America!"

"It's just unacceptable."

"And we're going to do something about it!"

- An angry George W. Bush, railing on and on about how poor, and incompetent American marksmanship really is, apparently, in Philadelphia, on May 14, 2001!

"School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon"

2 hours, 13 minutes ago

CLOVIS, N.M. - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.

All over a giant burrito.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," school Principal Diana Russell said.

State police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff's Department arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 a.m.

They searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.

In the meantime, more than 30 parents, alerted by a radio report, descended on the school.

Visibly shaken, they gathered around in a semi-circle, straining their necks, awaiting news.

"There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door," said Heather Black, whose son attends the school.

After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school, Russell said.

Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on.

"The kid was sitting there as I'm describing this (report of a student with a suspicious package) and he's thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, they're talking about my burrito.'"

Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her.

"He said, 'I think I'm the person they saw,'" Russell said.

The burrito was part of Morrissey's extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product.

"We had to make up a product and it could have been anything."

"I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said.

After students heard the description of what police were looking for, he and his friends began to make the connection.

He then took the burrito to the office.

"The police saw it and everyone just started laughing."

"It was a laughter of relief," Morrissey said.

"Oh, and I have a new nickname now."

"It's Burrito Boy."

end quotes

I wonder how many of these people voted for George W. Bush?

[Abu Beacon]

"Western drought shrinking Big Muddy"

By Patrick O'Driscoll and Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY

Fri Apr 29, 6:36 AM ET

[b][color=red]The "Big Muddy" is in big trouble.

The Missouri River, the nation's longest, is struggling in the dry clutches of a multiyear drought.

For six years, the river's three giant reservoirs on the northern Plains have dropped slowly and alarmingly, curbing recreation, hydropower generation and commercial navigation downstream.

Thanks for that post,Livyjr. that is all news to me. It sounds like a terrible situation.

I am not at all familiar with the Missouri River or its dams,, or its tributaries.

I believe a couple of years ago, the Colorado River had the same situation, with the reservoir which was created by the dam which makes up Lake Powell in Northern Arizona, also way down. I do not know if the situation is the same today. Perhaps, if there are any Arizonians on the forum, they could tell us.

In any case that is NOT a good thing, for those on the Missouri River. Hopefully, the snow packs will return and start to replenish the water which is so badly needed.

Many people may be unaware that the Great Lakes are also dependent to a large degree on the amount of snow which falls each winter " up north".
Having fished Lake Erie for about 65 years, I am very aware of the fluctuations in the average depth of the Lake, and what depth is needed for many industries and recreational facilities. Boats of all sizes from 15 foot runabouts to commercial lake freighters are affected. Near shore, rocks are exposed when the lake is down, as it is now. What's even worse, is when rocks which normally might be 5 feet below the surface are just a few inches below the surface and so are out of sight. Naturally, if one does not know the waters, this creates a hazard.

Since I live just a few hundred feet from Lake Erie, I can walk to the shore line and " see " the depth by looking at a pier or a beach and noting where the high water mark might be or how much beach is available.

I really enjoy reading posts such as the one you just entered, Livyjr, which talks about the natural resources here in Our America.

I wish we could see more of these types of posts.

A.B.

[Livyjr]

I wish we could see more of these types of posts.

A.B.

Here I am, Mr. A.B., just coming in to here from my "JUDICIAL" thread, where I was talking about a massed concentration of gunfire just to the east south-east of me today, just this afternoon, centered say, on 2:30 P.M., either and both sides, that could have been heard in a one-mile radius at least, and it went on and on and on!

Hundreds of rounds!

Heavier calibers!

.30 and up!

Assault weapons, and not an M-16, which is a much different sound to a Viet Nam infantryman's ear, anyway.

We are still not sure, but I at least would bet that there was at least one fully automatic weapon being fired there today, or else someone working laboriously to be able to fire a semi-automatic rifle as though it were automatic, which can be done in controlled bursts!

HUNDREDS of dollars were expended in rifle ammunition this afternoon, by someone with the money to spend on that kind of massed volley firing!

SO!

OUR guess is that someone is preparing for an assault in the Town of Poestenkill, in the County of Rensselaer, in the State of New York, real soon, and we believe we know the target of that assault.

And we know our own helplessness to do a thing about any of this, and so ......

That's one reason that I personally don't post more about the environment, which is too bad, because that really is my subject!

I am an environmental engineer trained at a respected eastern polytechnic institute on a Fellowship from the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the express purpose of practicing environmental engineering in the State of New York to protect and safeguard life, health and property in the state in accordance with its laws, and state Constitution!

As an engineer in that field, water was my chief responsibility!

Maintaining the surface and groundwaters of the State of New York in a manner protective of the public health of the peoples of the State of New York!

That, Mr. A.B., was my job, and so, I have been studying this thing of "water" now for quite a long time, and this is where we have gotten to, in my opinion as a trained engineer, through the GROSSEST of gross negligence that you can even imagine!

I am trained to be dispassionate, and as a twice-wounded Viet Nam infantry man, I suppose I am somewhat laconic, but even so, the scale of this negligence is to me utterly mind-boggling!

It is as if we had just spent all of OUR money, and all of OUR resources for no other purpose than to blow this whole planet to smithereens, so that we can be absolutely certain that we stand no chance at all of surviving the after-effects!

By any way of looking at it, IT IS INSANE, of course, for a population of a species to do this, and yet, it has been done, and these stories are what symptoms of that INSANITY look like in real life!

And now, what's to be done?

I personally wouldn't be surprised to see George W. Bush out there in the Rose Garden, having "mother nature" flogged, and otherwise abused and humilated, for giving us bad weather, but I don't think that will accomplish much of anything beyond really cementing a view of George W. Bush in my mind that will last quite a time into the future!

So, Mr. A.B., young folks in the world, and those who are yet to come, are all going to find themselves living in some pretty precarious times, vis-a-vis the environmental and ecological changes that are occurring even now that have the power to make this earth of OURS quite openly hostile to human life, and MOD-RIN Science and all the King's Men and George W. Bush, none of them will be able to do diddly-squat about it, and the irony is, they are as much responsible for it, and especially MOD-RIN "don't look, don't tell" science, because of its policy of keeping silent about environmental degradation in OUR America, because that is where the money is:

"TELL THEM IT IS NOT SO!"

There are no problems with the environment, and anyone who says there are is a dangerous mental patient who must be immediately incarcerated in a "modern state"-licensed CORPORATE mental facility, so that MOD-RIN medicine can treat this person's obvious delusions, thus rendering him fit to be put back out among the sheep, er, people of the State of New York, which is what "Life in OUR America" is like up here today!

Heading back to 1850 in a hurry, we are, when there were no Constitutional Amendments to have to worry about, a white man could do as he pleased and thus, all was well with the world!

Amen!

[Livyjr]

So, Mr. A.B., young folks in the world, and those who are yet to come, are all going to find themselves living in some pretty precarious times, vis-a-vis the environmental and ecological changes that are occurring even now that have the power to make this earth of OURS quite openly hostile to human life, and MOD-RIN Science and all the King's Men and George W. Bush, none of them will be able to do diddly-squat about it, and the irony is, they are as much responsible for it, and especially MOD-RIN "don't look, don't tell" science, because of its policy of keeping silent about environmental degradation in OUR America, because that is where the money is:

"TELL THEM IT IS NOT SO!"

There are no problems with the environment, and anyone who says there are is a dangerous mental patient who must be immediately incarcerated in a "modern state"-licensed CORPORATE mental facility, so that MOD-RIN medicine can treat this person's obvious delusions, thus rendering him fit to be put back out among the sheep, er, people of the State of New York, which is what "Life in OUR America" is like up here today!

Heading back to 1850 in a hurry, we are, when there were no Constitutional Amendments to have to worry about, a white man could do as he pleased and thus, all was well with the world!

Amen!

"Nervous Investors Eye Bond Market"

By MEG RICHARDS, AP Business Writer

Sat Apr 30,12:08 PM ET

NEW YORK - Investors are nervous and the stock market shows it; for every step forward, it seems to take three back.

And despite relatively strong corporate earnings, a decent jobs picture and red-hot housing market, investors still worry about the possibility of a prolonged "soft patch."

Meanwhile, analysts are warily watching the yields on Treasury notes and bonds, wondering what signals to read into their range-bound moves as the Federal Reserve is expected to raise overnight borrowing costs again on Tuesday.

If the policy makers act as expected, they'll hike the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.0 percent.

It will be the eighth such increase since the Fed began tightening credit in June 2004.

During that time, yields on long bonds have remained in a stubborn range, essentially going nowhere even as short-term rates rise.

For example, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 4.25 percent at the start of 2004; it ended the year at 4.22 percent, and now stands at 4.20 percent — though just last month it climbed to 4.6 percent.

"Interest rates today are lower than they were when the Fed began this exercise of raising interest rates."

"It's really dumbfounding," said Margie Patel, senior vice president of Pioneer Investments and manager of four fund portfolios.

"Despite people's fondest hopes and wishes for much higher Treasury rates, they've been very disappointed."

To Patel, what that suggests is that despite upswings in commodity prices, the long-term outlook for inflation is fairly muted.

Investors seem quite comfortable with intermediate Treasury yields in the range where they are, and she doesn't think they'll go substantially higher for a while.

To Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist for PNC Financial Services Group in Philadelphia, the message the bond market has been sending is clear:

Economic growth is slowing, and slowing dramatically.

This has alarmed stock investors, whose sense of panic about the state of the economy has grown as negative data points pile higher.

Bonds rose and stocks dropped this past week on news that the nation's gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent during the January-to-March period, a disappointment because economists had forecast a faster 3.5 percent pace.

High energy prices and cutbacks in consumer and business spending were blamed.

Still, analysts, including Patel and Kleintop, note that GDP growth of about 3.0 is considered average.

Of course, that's not the only thing that has made market watchers bearish lately; a number of signs suggested March was the start of a softer period for economic data.

Retail sales were less than stellar.

Auto sales were sluggish.

Orders for durable goods plunged 2.8 percent, the biggest drop in 2 1/2 years, which suggested a strong pullback in business spending.

Analysts attributed the disappointments to soaring fuel costs, chilly weather and, in the case of retail sales, an early Easter holiday.

And yet there was some good news.

Purchases of new single-family homes shot up 12.2 percent in March, the biggest percentage gain in more than a decade.

The surge surprised analysts, who had forecast a decline in sales.

The labor market is somewhat murkier; employers added just 110,000 new jobs in March, the fewest in eight months.

Analysts say the employment report for April, due next week, may show only modestly higher gains.

But some have speculated that the government's numbers don't accurately reflect the strength of the job market.

"Certainly we've had a rough patch of data," Kleintop said.

"It'll be interesting to see from the Fed's perspective if was it just a one month thing ... if they see the trend as one of more solid growth."

"And if the economic data bounces back, yields could go back up."

Such a bifurcation in economic data can be confusing, even for professional investors.

Kleintop, who thinks the bond market has overreacted, said the wording of next week's Fed statement could help reverse the trend.

"It could be enough to turn the bond market around," he said.

"Hopefully it could be a catalyst for stocks as well, to make investors say, 'Yeah, real growth isn't that bad, the economy isn't slowing that much.'"

"And hopefully companies can continue to hit their earnings targets and investors will have better confidence the companies can deliver."

If, for example, the Fed issues a statement saying the pace of economic growth has remained solid through the recent volatility, that would suggest policy makers see the recent data as a short-term blip.

That could lead bonds to sell off, bringing yields higher.

If they maintain language from their February statement that said "longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained," so much the better.

"There's so much volatility in the market," Kleintop said, noting how closely Wall Street examines statements from the Fed.

"A word can move the markets a lot."

For Patel, one of the most important things is for the Fed to clearly telegraph its intentions.

When the Fed is inscrutable, it is difficult for businesses to make long-term decisions, because they don't know what's happening with the economy.

"The reason interest rates move up off their lows is because there's greater demand to borrow because businesses feel more optimistic about the economy."

"And key to that is a Fed that is predictable, moving incrementally," Patel said.

"Slightly higher rates would not be a negative for the economy or for equities."

"It would be a sign that the economy is improving in its health."

[Livyjr]

And speaking of another necessary "player" here, in this little drama that has been playing itself out in the alleged corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York, or perhaps, another "piece of the puzzle", we have as follows:

"Bruno's son starting own lobbying business - Client list likely to include Cablevision and horse racing giant Magna Entertainment" 
 
By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Friday, April 1, 2005

ALBANY -- Kenneth Bruno, the son of state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, said Thursday he has left New York's top-grossing lobbying firm to start his own company.

The younger Bruno said he expected to have some gold-chip clients.

"It's highly unusual for someone to break out on their own and have that kind of client list, so he must be providing some service his clients really like," Horner said.

"Fine start for Bruno as lobbyist"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, April 25, 2005

There was something for just about everyone in the $106.5 billion state budget -- even the fledgling lobbying firm of Ken Bruno, son of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The horse-trading in the days before the final deal was sealed April 11 included $6 million for the city of Albany that Senate Republicans didn't want but Assembly Democrats did.

There was $5.75 million in discretionary funds for Secretary of State Randy Daniels, at a time he's eyeing a run for governor.

Gov. George Pataki wanted it; Assembly Democrats had to be won over.

And then there was $4.4 million for transportation for Medicaid patients.

Pataki wanted to cut the money to help trim Medicaid costs.

The Legislature had agreed in its March 31 budget.

That same day, Ken Bruno, who started his own lobbying firm, Albany Strategies, about a month ago, got his first contract.

The New York Ambulette Coalition, an association of companies with vans to help people who don't need ambulances get to the hospital, agreed to pay Bruno $60,000 through next March 31.

The $4.4 million came back.

A spokesman for Senate Republicans said the Assembly wanted the money in the budget, and the Senate went along in the final package.

"I worked it fairly hard," said Ken Bruno.

He said he took the ambulette industry's concerns to all sides, arguing Medicaid patients who miss doctor visits would end up costing even more if they turned up sick at an emergency room.

"It ultimately was a three-way agreement," he said.

Clinton challengers line up

It's probably not the best campaign strategy to come out of the starting gate with questionable facts and wild exaggerations.

William Brenner is the second Republican to announce plans to run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Not the first, as he claimed in a March 31 press release declaring "First Candidate Announces Senate Run Against Clinton."

Adam Brecht, a Wall Street public relations executive, had been calling himself a candidate for well over a month before that.

"If he is a candidate and a legitimate candidate, I welcome him to vie for the candidacy," Brenner, 64, of Grahamsville, Sullivan County, said Friday.

Brenner, basking in the afterglow of a cover story in the Village Voice, issued another release Friday calling himself "the top candidate" against Clinton.

The latest poll suggests otherwise.

Brenner wasn't even on the radar in Marist College Institute for Public Opinion's April 4-5 poll.

Brecht polled 29 percent in a matchup against Clinton (she got 61 percent), behind Rudolph Giuliani, Gov. George Pataki and ex-Clinton challenger Rick Lazio, but ahead of Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro and attorney Edward Cox, son-in-law of former President Richard Nixon.

Contributor: Capitol bureau reporter James M. Odato. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Fine start for Bruno as lobbyist" 

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, April 25, 2005

There was something for just about everyone in the $106.5 billion state budget -- even the fledgling lobbying firm of Ken Bruno, son of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

And then there was $4.4 million for transportation for Medicaid patients.

Pataki wanted to cut the money to help trim Medicaid costs.

The Legislature had agreed in its March 31 budget.

That same day, Ken Bruno, who started his own lobbying firm, Albany Strategies, about a month ago, got his first contract.

The New York Ambulette Coalition, an association of companies with vans to help people who don't need ambulances get to the hospital, agreed to pay Bruno $60,000 through next March 31.

The $4.4 million came back.

"Aide denies Bruno's son had pull - Group hired Kenneth Bruno to lobby for restoration of ambulette funding"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

ALBANY -- An aide to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno on Monday denied that officials restored $4.4 million in the state budget just because Bruno's son was lobbying for the money on a client's behalf.

The head of the trade group that hired Kenneth Bruno also said he wasn't brought in because he's related to the Republican leader.

The money was for Medicaid funding for ambulette service, which helps people who don't need ambulances get to doctor appointments.

Gov. George Pataki proposed to cut $4.4 million from the more than $100 million annual funding for ambulette service, and the Legislature agreed in the budget it passed March 31.

The money was restored in a deal between the Legislature and Pataki announced on April 12.

The younger Bruno said he worked hard with "both sides of the aisle" in the GOP-led Senate and the Democrat-controlled Assembly to get the Medicaid funding restored.

"We had members who had been advocating for its inclusion, and once we were in a position where we were negotiating additions to the March 31 budget we were able to get both houses and the governor on board," said John McArdle, a top aide to Bruno.

Stephen Solarsh, executive director of the New York Ambulette Coalition, said the younger Bruno was hired not because of his last name, but because an Albany law firm that does business with the coalition said he was "very tenacious."

Bruno has been a lobbyist for about two years and had just opened own his firm, Albany Strategies.

"There was no sense in my mind that this was going to get done because this was Joe Bruno's son," Solarsh said.

When he sought extra lobbying help, Solarsh said, three names were recommended: Bruno, Patricia Lynch and former U.S. Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato.

Solarsh said Lynch, a former top aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was already working for a private ambulette company while "we had heard D'Amato's fee was not less than $100,000."

The coalition hired Bruno March 31 under a $5,000-a-month contract good for one year, or $60,000.

Even that cost "was a stretch for us," Solarsh said.

end quotes

And that is where OUR medicaid money goes up here, which is right into this man's pockets!

And for what?

[Livyjr]

"Aide denies Bruno's son had pull - Group hired Kenneth Bruno to lobby for restoration of ambulette funding" 
 
By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

ALBANY -- An aide to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno on Monday denied that officials restored $4.4 million in the state budget just because Bruno's son was lobbying for the money on a client's behalf.

The head of the trade group that hired Kenneth Bruno also said he wasn't brought in because he's related to the Republican leader.

The coalition hired Bruno March 31 under a $5,000-a-month contract good for one year, or $60,000.

end quotes

And that is where OUR medicaid money goes up here, which is right into this man's pockets!

And for what?

"High campaign contributions cited - Spending by NYSUT, Service Employees Union renews call for reform by watchdog group"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Saturday, April 30, 2005

ALBANY -- The state's largest teachers' union and a politically powerful health-care workers union led political action committees in 2004 that in total spent more than $13 million in political campaign contributions, government watchdog groups said in a report released Friday.

The spending shows a need to reform how much the amount of interest from politicians that special interests should be allowed to buy, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause of New York, The League of Women Voters, and Citizens Union.

Another $144 million was spent on lobbying lawmakers last year.

The report released Friday shows the political action committee of the New York State United Teachers union gave $1.32 million last year in campaign donations to candidates seeking state or local offices and to state and local political parties.

Second was the PAC of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which spent $775,150.

The union is headed by Dennis Rivera, a powerful Hispanic leader, who helped Gov. George Pataki and legislative leaders strike a multibillion dollar health-care package in the 2002 election year.

The deal was reached in private negotiations hours before lawmakers were told to vote on it.

The spending included money for raises for Rivera's union members and Rivera later endorsed Pataki and other key officials for re-election.

The third highest spending PAC was for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, which spent $711,220, according to the report.

Health-care PACs were also prominent contributors.

Majority party politicians received most of the donations.

"Clearly, when it comes to advocacy in Albany, those with the money speak with a megaphone; and for the public, their voices are expressed through a whisper," said NYPIRG'S Blair Horner.

[Livyjr]

"High campaign contributions cited - Spending by NYSUT, Service Employees Union renews call for reform by watchdog group" 
 
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Saturday, April 30, 2005

ALBANY -- The state's largest teachers' union and a politically powerful health-care workers union led political action committees in 2004 that in total spent more than $13 million in political campaign contributions, government watchdog groups said in a report released Friday.

The spending shows a need to reform how much the amount of interest from politicians that special interests should be allowed to buy, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause of New York, The League of Women Voters, and Citizens Union.

"Clearly, when it comes to advocacy in Albany, those with the money speak with a megaphone; and for the public, their voices are expressed through a whisper," said NYPIRG'S Blair Horner.

"Pataki to join 'Contenders' event - Governor, considering a possible GOP presidential run, to speak in California"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, April 28, 2005

ALBANY -- New York's Republican Gov. George Pataki, eyeing a possible run for president, will go to California this week to participate in a moderate GOP group's "2008 Contender Series," aides said Wednesday.

He will also address about 250 Republican activists Saturday in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles.

"We're constantly trying to bring national figures out to motivate our troops and this is part of that effort," said Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh.

Asked if Pataki was a legitimate contender for the party's presidential nomination, Baugh said:

"Of course, of course."

Details of the trip came a day after Pataki said he has had political operatives poking around Iowa, traditional site of the nation's kickoff presidential caucuses.

"Certainly, there's going to be a new candidate for president in our party in 2008 and I want to be a part of the policy debate involved around that," he said.

On running for the White House, Pataki said: "I'm not ruling it out" and adding, after a pause, "Not at all."

The governor has said he will let New Yorkers know within the next several months whether he will seek a fourth term as governor next year.

Pataki is considered a long shot for the GOP presidential nomination -- he trails well back in national polls -- in part because of his support for abortion and gay rights, and his championing of tough gun-control legislation.

That, he says, should not rule him out.

"There are a great many policies and an overriding philosophy that unite Republicans of all different stripes and differentiate us from many on the more liberal side of the Democratic Party," Pataki said Tuesday.

[Livyjr]

"Spitzer to audit AIG's books - Inquiry to center on alleged improper booking of workers' compensation premiums"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, April 27, 2005

ALBANY -- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Tuesday said he will audit American International Group Inc. over reports that AIG improperly booked workers' compensation premiums, providing an "unlawful benefit" to the company worth tens of millions of dollars.

Spitzer and the state Insurance Department are appointing a consultant to audit the company for conduct that Spitzer said appears to have happened over a decade and is now discontinued.

Spitzer said a 1992 AIG memorandum to top management reported the practice was illegal, a notice that followed similar warnings in previous years.

Spitzer and acting state Insurance Superintendent Howard Mills are looking at whether AIG booked premiums for workers' compensation coverage as premiums for general liability coverage.

The result could be that AIG avoided paying its share into several workers' compensation funds.

AIG has been cooperating with the state officials on the issue, the attorney general's office said.

To date, AIG has provided no evidence it disclosed the practice to regulators or made restitution.

An AIG spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

AIG shares dropped 69 cents to close at $51.07 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

That's at the low end of the $49.91 to $74.98 range of the past year.

The funds at issue are supposed to be used for the operations of the state Workers' Compensation Board and to provide certain other claim benefits for injured workers, Spitzer said.

Connecticut also is looking into overpayments for workers' compensation insurance.

[Livyjr]

 
Elections - AP

"Conservatives Win, Moderates Lose"

Thu Nov 4, 4:58 PM ET

By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer

WASHINGTON - You're not alone, Sen. John Kerry.

Diplomacy, nuance and your adviser Bob Shrum were also Election Day losers.
___

Winner: Fear, a powerful motivator and Bush's main weapon.

With more than 1,100 dead in Iraq and millions unemployed at home, many Americans wanted a new direction.

Bush made them afraid of change, warning of terrorist strikes and Kerry's ability to command.

"March factory orders plunge - Drop in demand for durable goods called sign that energy cost rise hurt economy"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, April 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A deep drop in orders for big-ticket manufactured goods provided fresh evidence Wednesday that the economy slowed last month as energy prices rose.

At least for now, the new "soft patch" is being viewed as temporary and not the start of something more serious like a recession.

But analysts warned that anything unexpected, such as a further surge in energy costs, could spell trouble for an economy already facing rising interest rates.

The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods plunged 2.8 percent in March.

It was the biggest drop in 2 years.

It left no doubt, analysts said, that the economy is going through a significant slowdown as consumers and businesses, jolted by a new surge in energy prices, cut back on purchases.

"The economy clearly paused last month and the pause was much broader and more pronounced than we had expected," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.

"March was an awfully bad month."

In addition to weakness in factory orders, payroll employment showed the smallest gain in eight months and retail sales were disappointing.

The stock market has also taken its lumps as investors have grown worried about the possibility, though remote, of a return to the stagflation of the 1970s, where soaring energy costs drive inflation higher as economic growth stalls.

The weakness so far has caused economists to slash their estimates for overall growth in the first quarter to perhaps as low as 3 percent, down sharply from the 4.4 percent increase in the gross domestic product turned in for all of 2004.