As Charlie Brown once noted, "There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice."
There will be no Zambonis at the 2010 Winter Olympics because they're not "green" enough. Hit the link for details.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/02/2009 12:51 ||
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#1
I think this has to do more with "Buy Canadain" than anyhting else. Zambomi also makes electric powered rink resurfacers.
#2
I remember the old gasoline resurfacers. We'd get woozy skating around in those fumes. The propane was a big improvement. But electric does sound like the way to go if a rink can afford the initial outlay
Fun fact: Clarkson University, an engineering school with a great college hockey tradition, awarded an honorary degree to old Frank Zamboni before he passed away. He deserved it.
#3
Mmmm, clean, pollution-free electricity. Produced by rubbing balloons on wool blankets, no doubt. In the olden days, they rubbed them on cats, but that get the PETA people charged up nowadays.
#1
No argument, my grandson (Highly intelligent) has NO concept of (Say) visualizing, I had to show him how to wind a coil of wire to make a magnet, stack plates and create a transformer, THEN he got it.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/02/2009 16:26 Comments ||
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#6
This is purely annecdotal, but my experience is that current college age students have far less skill and endurance in following a line of reasoning through multiple steps, far less comfort with rigorous abstractions common in, say, mathematics and far more superficial multitasking than I did/do.
But it is not universal - the young Chinese students taking classes next to me do just fine. And that may well be tied in part to a culture that is stressing discipline in extended study, classical music and other practices that build those skills.
#8
Using tech that was developed a while ago, mostly by older generations.
We've been eating our intellectual seed corn for over 20 years now and some of those bins are looking pretty damned empty now. And we are not turning out the skills we need, especially in advanced areas.
Certain areas of high tech are my expertise. I *know* what skills our domestic kids have - and how they compare with those of some other countries. I'm not alone in being more than concerned about it, either.
#10
Its not technology causing the decline. Its the crap culture and by extension, crap schools. The some of both cannot exceed 100 percent. IOW, as liberalism rises in a society, critical thinking decreases. Its axiomatic.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/02/2009 20:16 Comments ||
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#11
Case in point. Sum.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/02/2009 20:17 Comments ||
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#12
Both the legal and financial rewards system steer bright people away from technical fields. Why study grueling subjects when you can party and make millions in law or wall street.
There are more lawyers than scientists and engineers combined. What do these million+ lawyers add to the nation's productivity or wealth? Why shoot for $100-150K/year when you can make $million+/year at an investment bank?
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 20:51 Comments ||
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#13
There are more lawyers than scientists and engineers combined.
Let me qualify that with R&D scientists and engineers combined. I was looking at electrical engineering employment per the IEEE and noticed that from 2000-2005 a quarter of the electrical engineers left the field. That's even with the flood of foreigners educated at US universities and then seeking employment in the US.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 21:27 Comments ||
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Final entry...
DAY 57:
Most people up by 0400hrs. Then at 0534hrs: THE LAST PIRATE LEFT THE SHIP. At 0536 we are on stand-by, and at 0642, we're away on passage to freedom. The company have not yet decided on a destination for the ship. US helicopter came by and gave us a wave. I waved back. FREE TODAY! BBC reported a pirate source said five pirates died when their boat capsized. Very good news to us all.
GIDEON Gono, widely regarded as the world's most disastrous central banker, knocked another 12 zeros off the Zimbabwean dollar yesterday in an attempt to bring the national currency back from the realms of the fantastical.
In a stroke, the governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank slashed the street value of the Zim dollar from dollars 250trillion to one US dollar to 250, because the computers, calculators and people could no longer cope with all the zeros.
To counter an inflation rate that economists now estimate to be 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (five sextillion) per cent, Mr Gono has now struck 25 zeros from the plunging national currency since August 2006. One US dollar would now buy Zdollars 2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (2.5 octillion) had he not done so.
Mr Gono's announcement came just weeks after the introduction of a Zdollars 100 trillion note, the latest and biggest of 35 denominations he has brought in since January last year but only enough yesterday to buy half a loaf.
"The zeros are too many for our machines to handle," said Obert Sibanda, the chairman of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce. Mr Gono is now ordering Zimbabwe's red-hot printing presses to produce seven entirely new bank notes ranging from Zdollars 1 to Zdollars 500.
Economists poured scorn on Mr Gono's announcement, pointing out that four months after he knocked ten noughts off last year they had all returned. One western diplomat suggested the Governor's reputation would be buried at "Zeros Acre" - a play on Heroes' Acre, the name of the national monument to Zimbabwe's independence leaders.
Tony Hawkins, a University of Zimbabwe economist who taught Mr Gono 20 years ago, observed that the governor was not the student of whom he was most proud. "He was a good student but forgot whatever economics he learnt when he became a political player."
Mr Gono is not a man plagued by self-doubt, however. In an interview published in Newsweek magazine yesterday he said he printed money simply so that the Zimbabwean people could survive but the rest of the world was now following his example because of the credit crunch.
"I had to print money," he said. "I found myself doing extraordinary things that aren't in the textbooks. Then the IMF asked the US to please print money. The whole world is now practising what they have been saying I should not. I decided that God had been on my side and had come to vindicate me."
Mr Gono, 49, recently published an autobiography - sold only in US dollars in violation of his own currency regulations - in which he claimed that President Bush had offered him the post of senior vice-president at the World Bank last July.
Economists said that knocking off 12 more zeros would make not the slightest difference because hyper-inflation would render the new denominations equally worthless within weeks. The demise of the Zim dollar will also be hastened by the fact that last week the Government sanctioned the use of the US dollar, the British pound, the South African rand, the euro and the Botswana pula as legal tender. In effect, Zimbabwe now has two parallel economies, one using foreign exchange and the other using the increasingly irrelevant national currency.
This is exacerbating the problems facing Mr Mugabe's faltering regime because his security forces and the civil service are paid in Zim dollars. Soldiers have rioted on the streets of Harare, and most of the public sector - teachers, doctors, nurses, municipal workers - is on strike, demanding to be paid in foreign currency.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, is trying to make Mr Gono's removal a condition for his party joining a unity government next week.
Mr Gono's record is also coming under fire from within his own Zanu (PF) party. But asked by Newsweek if he considered his governorship a success, Mr Gono replied: "I am modestly credited with the survival strategy of my country.
No other (central bank) governor has had to deal with the kind of inflation levels that I deal with. (The people at) my bank (are) at the cutting edge of the country." He added: "What keeps me bright and looking forward to every day is that it can't be any worse."
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/02/2009 21:15 Comments ||
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#6
2.5 octillion? Anybody remember their high school chemistry? 2.5x10E27 is more than 4000 moles. It is roughly the number of molecules in 75 kg of water...which would be similar to the number of molecules in a full grown man. Wow. I'm worth a ZimBuck per molecule. Better not sneeze. The mass I'd loose could have bought a car last week.
The BNP-led opposition yesterday decided to abstain from parliament proceedings until the speaker decides on their demand for three more seats in the front row of the House.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2009 00:00 ||
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A PROTESTER overnight threw a shoe at Chinese premier Wen Jiabao as he was giving a speech at Britain's Cambridge University, just missing him. "This is a scandal" he shouted before security staff bundled him out of a concert hall at the university, where Mr Wen was speaking on the last day of a five-nation tour of Europe.
The protester, a young Western-looking man in a T-shirt, said: "This dictator here, how can you listen to the lies he's telling? You are not challenging him."
"How can the university prostitute itself with this dictator?", he said.
Echoing the incident in December when an Iraqi journalist hurled two shoes at US president George W. Bush in Baghdad, he threw the well-worn trainer from near the back of the auditorium. It landed about a metre from the Chinese premier, but did not hit him.
Security officials went on to the stage and kicked it off and a Chinese official took it away under his jacket.
The protester also blew a whistle. As he was bundled out, he said: "Stand up and protest".
Audience members retorted: "Shame on you, shame on you."
Mr Wen said after the interruption: "This despicable behaviour cannot stand in the way of friendship between China and the UK."
He received a round of applause from the audience, who were apparently mostly Chinese students.
The premier appeared unruffled by the incident and resumed his speech before taking questions.
Pro-Tibet protesters questioning China's human rights record have demonstrated throughout Mr Wen's three-day visit to Britain.
Mr Wen was to return home later today at the end of a trip that has also taken him to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and to Germany, the EU headquarters in Brussels and Spain.
COUPLES who have more than two children are being "irresponsible" by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government's green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.
Hasn't anyone told him that Malthus was wrong?
A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning.
Better living through eugenics ...
"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," Porritt said. "I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don't really hear anyone say the "p" word."
The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Porritt is a patron, says each baby born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2Å“ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square.
So? Humans have been burning carbon since we evolved from apes.
The British population, now 61m, will pass 70m by 2028, the Office for National Statistics says.
Assuming no one migrates to other countries, and assuming immigration from Pakiwakiland slows down ...
The fertility rate for women born outside Britain is estimated to be 2.5, compared with 1.7 for those born here. The global population of 6.7 billion is expected to rise to 9.2 billion by 2050.
Porritt, who has two children, intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to make population a focus of campaigning.
"Many organisations think it is not part of their business. My mission with the Friends of the Earth and the Greenpeaces of this world is to say: 'You are betraying the interests of your members by refusing to address population issues and you are doing it for the wrong reasons because you think it is too controversial," he said.
Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.
Because we can't sit still when it means killing people ...
He said: "We still have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe ...
Isn't that a little, um, 'conservative' of you?
... and we still have relatively high levels of pregnancies going to birth, often among women who are not convinced they want to become mothers.
So let's make sure we convince them otherwise.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2009 09:43 ||
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This POS is one who should have NO children. Let his idiocy die with him. We have four children - three are adopted. I'm not one bit disgruntled by having "more than the politically correct" number of children. Screw all the "population control" idiots.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/02/2009 13:48 Comments ||
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#3
Does that mean we can finally shoot my little brother?
#4
Two children is only replacement level, in effect it's a slow reduction in total population.
Obviously his goal, proving him insane beyond all doubt.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/02/2009 20:37 Comments ||
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#5
Well, he is leading by example. Now the real question is: how is he going to sell this one to the muzzies? You can do what he wants with his social circle, but you will be overrun by a rookery.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/02/2009 22:39 Comments ||
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Increasing quantities of China-made military equipment have been finding their way to Africa, traded for oil, mineral resources and even fishing rights. Zambia has used its copper resources to pay China in a number of military deals, for instance, and Kenya has been negotiating with China to trade fishing rights for arms.
Details at the link. The arms in question range from rifles to fighter aircraft.
#2
One company of Chinese auto-propulsion 155-mm howitzers consists of six artillery vehicles, one 704-1 positioning radar and one 720-D meteorological radar. One battalion is composed of 18 155-mm howitzers, one command vehicle and one surveillance vehicle.
Not much good without instructors/advisors. Oh, those were included as well?
#3
Besoeker---they like the hardware. They like the shiny stuff.They don't like the studying part.
Kinda like spending for sewage collection and treatment in Abu Dabai.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/02/2009 22:43 Comments ||
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#4
WORLD MIL FORUM > US MEDIAS: DESPITE GLOBAL RECESSION AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES [increasing unemployment], CHINA'S STRATEGIC INVESTMENT IN AFRICA AND AMERICAS CONTINUES UNBATED.
Also, SAME > RUSSIA STAKES MORE CLAIMS ON ARCTIC OCEAN REGIONS [Arctic EEZ = Expansion of Offshore/Sea Claims]. RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT TO BEGIN BY YEAR 2020. RUSSIA'S MILITARY TO AMPLIFY ARCTIC PRESENCE IN DEFENSE AND PROTECTION OF RUSSIAN NATIONAL, ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY???
An estimated 26 million desperately poor rural Chinese are jobless after pinning their hopes on factory jobs that dried up due to the global economic slowdown, an official said Monday, noting that widespread unemployment could threaten the country's social stability.
The figures were announced one day after Beijing warned of "possibly the toughest year" since the turn of the century, calling for development of agriculture and rural areas to offset the economic fallout. Though many Chinese cities have seen double-digit growth in recent years, the countryside has lagged far behind, forcing peasants to seek urban factory jobs churning out goods that are sold around the world.
But a recent government survey showed that slightly more than 15 percent of China's estimated 130 million migrant workers have returned to their hometowns and are now unemployed, said Chen Xiwen, director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, a central government advisory body. Another 5 or 6 million new migrants enter the work force each year, he added.
"So, if we put those figures together, we have roughly 25 to 26 million rural migrant workers who are now coming under pressures for employment," he said. "So from that perspective, ensuring job creation and maintenance is ensuring the stability of the countryside."
In comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent in December, meaning about 11.1 million Americans are without jobs, or less than half the number of unemployed migrants in China.
Chen's 26 million figure is separate from China's official jobless tally, which only counts registered urban workers, and was estimated last November to total 8.3 million. The official government rate is widely believed to underrepresent the true number of unemployed because it leaves out large swaths of the private or informal economy.
Neither count includes the millions of Chinese college graduates trying to enter the work force.
Chinese authorities have stressed that their priority in 2009 will be ensuring development in the countryside, where many have come to rely on remittances from migrants working in factories and on urban construction sites, amid fears of social unrest.
Many factory workers have already taken to the streets in recent weeks, demanding pay and protesting layoffs.
Chen outlined a raft of existing policies geared toward helping migrants including encouraging companies to retain workers, investing in public projects to absorb rural workers and helping returning migrants set up businesses in their hometowns. "Maintaining the stability of the countryside is a focal point of upholding overall social stability," Chen said.
China's economic growth — once red-hot — plunged to 6.8 percent in the three months through December, compared with a year earlier. Analysts have cut forecasts of 2009 economic growth to as low as 5 percent.
Premier Wen Jiabao said in comments published Monday that Beijing was considering new steps to boost economic growth. The Financial Times report did not give details of the potential plan, which would follow a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) package unveiled in November with heavy spending on public works projects. Unlike "Dear Leader's" $900 billion spending spree that allocates less than 5% to public works.
Meanwhile, China's communist rulers have told the military to strictly obey the Communist Party, reflecting insecurity among authorities as a result of the global downturn. Similar calls have been made in the past, underscoring the important role China's massive military plays in supporting one-party rule and maintaining social stability.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 11:28 ||
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#5
LH: we kind of prefer actual tax cuts, as opposed to one-time welfare grants wearing novelty glasses and a fake mustache. Not that Bush didn't repeatedly pull the same crap stunt...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/02/2009 13:31 Comments ||
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#6
I'd put them to work putting out coal mine fires.
#9
True public works like real infrastructure development in the interior versas dig a hole - fill in a hole would let off a lot of social steam and would improve China as a whole. As for 26 million not being that many people in China, who many did Mao start out with in the 1930s?
#10
I read many years ago that the main purpose of wars was to eliminate the excess male population.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/02/2009 20:16 Comments ||
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#11
How ya gonna keep em, down on the farm
After they've seen Beijing?
*rimshot*
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/02/2009 22:45 Comments ||
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#12
"How ya gonna keep em, down on the farm
After they've seen Beijing?"
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen the farm, AP?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/02/2009 22:54 Comments ||
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#13
WORLD MIL FORUM > BRITISH SCHOLARS PREDICT COLLAPSE OF "CHINESE STATE/ECONOMIC MODEL" DUE TO HEAVY ECONOMIC FOREIGN-DEPENDENCY; + CHINA LENDS THE USA AN AVERAGE OF APPROXIMATELY US$40,BILYUHN EVERY DAY???
* SAME > THE NEW OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WILL DIG THE GRAVES OF AMERICA AND US-WORLD CAPITALISM; + AMERICA OR AMERIKA: WHAT KIND OF USA WILL SURVIVE AND EMERGE FROM THE GLOBAL RECESSION?
POTUS OBAMA + ADMIN [Bam-Man's POTUS Policies] will lead the way and "MAKE OR BREAK" the USA into the OWG World-conquering USSA, or the weak Global SSR USRoA!?
Bankruptcies, unemployment and social unrest are spreading more widely in China than officially reported, according to independent research that paints an ominous picture for the world economy. The global economic crisis has scythed through exports and set off dozens of protests that are never mentioned by the state media.
While troubling for the Chinese government, this should strengthen the argument of Premier Wen Jiabao, who will say on a visit to London this week that his country faces enormous problems and cannot let its currency rise in response to American demands. The new US Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, has alarmed Beijing and raised fears of a trade war by stating that China manipulates the yuan to promote exports.
However, a growing number of economists say the unrest proves that it is not the exchange rate but years of sweatshop wages and income inequality in China that have distorted global competition and stifled domestic demand. The influential Far Eastern Economic Review headlined its latest issue “The coming crack-up of the China Model”.
#1
ION CHINA, WORLD MIL FORUM > THE PHILIPPINES VIOLATES CHINA'S SOVEREIGNTY: PHILIPPINE SENATE PASSES LEGISLATIVE BILL SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT IN SPRATLEY AND SCARBOROUGH REEF ISLANDS CLAIMED BY CHINA [Chin = Nansha + Huangyan Islands].
WMF Posters > demanded that, besides CHINA USING MIL FORCE TO DEFEND CHINA'S RIGHTS TO SAID ISLANDS AGZ PHILIPPINE ENCROACHMENT, that the PHILIPPINES PER SE SHOULD BECOME A FUTURE NEW PROVINCE OF MAINLAND CHINA.
* SAME > INDIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: CHINA'S [covert = subtle]"STAR WARS" WEAPONIZATION OF SPACE POSES A REALIST/DIRECT AND NEW STRATEGIC THREAT TO INDIA, besides offensive posture of Chin PLA forces in Tibet, Chin PLAN/PLAAF new milbases in HAINAN Island, Ballistic Missles = ICBMS IRBMS, etc.; + JAPANESE MEDIA: CHINA's PROPOSED "SHENZHOU
#8" SPACECRAFT [Year 2010 launch] HAS A COVERT "SPACE BOMBER" MILITARY ROLE!?
#2
PAKISTANI DEFNSE FORUMS > CHINA "HELPS" OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES: INDIA ANGERED, at CHIN PCORRECT "STRATEGIC ISOLATION/CONTAINMENT" OF INDIA VIA IRRAWADDY CORRIDOR [China's YUNAN Province down to CHIN-DEV/PROTECTED NEW MYANMAR/BURMESE PORTS IN BAY OF BENGAL], + CHIN EXPANSION OF ITS NEW EAST-WEST RAILROAD CORRIDOR THRU TIBET TO near IRAN-PAK [bypasses NORTHERN INDIA].
SAME > INDIA'S BJP: CHINA POSES NEW STRATEGIC CHALLENGES [Pan-Asia/Global Military, Economic, Geopolitical] TO INDIA; + INDIA WARY OF OBAMA'S SOUTH ASIA FOCUS [ex-POTUS DUBYA routinely prioritized INDIA + INDIA's INTERESTS VEE MUSLIMS, CHINA - OBAMA?].
* WORLD MIL FORUM > CHINA UPSET AT NEW PAKISTANI GOVT'S PRO-US/WESTERN "NEUTRAL" POLICY [China doesn't want to share Pakistan wid US = US-NATO].
PORTLAND, Maine -- With an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas, the nation's maritime academies are offering more training to merchant seamen in how to fend off attacks from pirates armed not with cutlasses and flintlocks but automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
Colleges are teaching students to fishtail their vessels at high speed, drive off intruders with high-pressure water hoses and illuminate their decks with floodlights. Anti-piracy training is not new. Nor are the techniques. But the lessons have taken on new urgency -- and more courses are planned -- because of the record number of attacks worldwide in 2008 by outlaws who seize ships and hold them for ransom.
At the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, Calif., professor Donna Nincic teaches two courses on piracy. Students learn where the piracy hotspots are and how they have shifted over the years. "If I've done anything, I've shown them that this isn't a joke, it's not about parrots and eye patches and Blackbeard and all that," Nincic said. "It's very real and it's a problem without an easy solution."
Continued on Page 49
#1
What's the point, it was posted here that the "Law of the Sea" will not allow arms aboard ships, you teaching Karate? Kung-fu? Neither are bulletproof.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/02/2009 16:20 Comments ||
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Ships don't have firehoses anymore. Or we worried about the ghost of Bull Connor
Oh, boy. Looks like another sprocket...
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Moammar Gadhafi of Libya was elected today as leader of the African Union, a position long sought by the eccentric dictator pushing his oil-rich nation into the international mainstream after years of isolation.
Some African leaders offered tepid praise for the choice of Gadhafi, who grabbed power in a 1969 coup. Rights groups called him a poor model for Africa at a time when democratic gains are being reversed in countries such as Mauritania and Guinea.
Once ostracized by the West for sponsoring terrorism, Gadhafi has been trying to increase Libya’s presence on the global stage and its regional influence — mediating African conflicts, sponsoring efforts to spread Islam on the continent and pushing for the creation of a single African government. And...what a showman!
He attended the session dressed in a gold-embroidered green robe and flanked by seven extravagantly dressed men who said they are the "traditional kings of Africa." Gadhafi told about 20 of his fellow heads of state that that he would work to unite the continent into "the United States of Africa." Gadhafi arrived at the summit Sunday with the seven men, one carrying a 4-foot gold staff, and caused a stir when security officials did not admit them because each delegation gets only four floor passes. All seven "kings" were seated behind Gadhafi when he accepted the chairmanship. I think I saw this in Vegas when Seigfried and Roy were still around...
Sounds like a tribute band on the state fair circuit."
Nope, Halliburton - state fairs have much higher standards.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/02/2009 19:20 Comments ||
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#4
Have you ever looked closely at some of the ribbons these third-world despots wear? Quite a few of the ribbons,and some of the medals, look like US decorations. Kahdaffy looks like he's wearing the Berlin Airlift ribbon and the Purple Heart ribbon, plus the Army Commendation Medal ribbon.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/02/2009 19:50 Comments ||
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#5
Have you ever looked closely at some of the ribbons these third-world despots wear?
Hey! A ribbon is a ribbon. Besides, some of them are so pretty.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 21:05 Comments ||
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#7
That top medal on his green sash looks like a gear off of an old Norden bombsight. Or it could have been lifted off a chart recorder for a river flow gauge.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/02/2009 22:50 Comments ||
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#8
we lifted sanctions off this mrorn with the ribbons though
Even as the economy collapsed last year and many financial workers found themselves unemployed, the dozen U.S. banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages requested visas for tens of thousands of foreign workers to fill high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.
The major banks, which have received $150 billion in bailout funds, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.
The numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP's analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in the 2007 budget year to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.
The AP reviewed visa applications the banks filed with the Labor Department under the H-1B visa program, which allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized-skill and advanced-degree positions. Such visas are most often associated with high-tech workers.
It is unclear how many foreign workers the banks actually hired; the government does not release those details. The actual number is likely a fraction of the 21,800 foreign workers the banks sought to hire because the government only grants 85,000 such visas each year among all U.S. employers.
During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown.
Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers. Companies are required to pay foreign workers a prevailing wage based on the job's description. But they can use the lower end of government wage scales even for highly skilled workers; hire younger foreigners with lower salary demands; and hire foreigners with higher levels of education or advanced degrees for jobs for which similarly educated American workers would be considered overqualified.
"The system provides you perfectly legal mechanisms to underpay the workers," said John Miano of Summit, N.J., a lawyer who has analyzed the wage data and started the Programmers Guild, an advocacy group that opposes the H-1B system.
David Huber of Chicago is a computer networking engineer who has testified to Congress about losing out on a 2002 job with the former Bank One Corp. He learned later the bank applied to hire dozens of foreign visa holders for work he said he was qualified to do. "American citizenship is being undermined working in our own country," Huber said in an AP interview.
Beyond seeking approval for visas from the government, banks that accepted federal bailout money also enlisted uncounted foreign workers, often in technology jobs, through intermediary companies known as "body shops." Such businesses are the top recipients of the H-1B visas.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 11:20 ||
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#1
Now they need the stats on the visa holders, not just their sponsors. This is a legal means of sleeper agents entering the country, and quite a few I have seen are from countries of concern, working in areas ripe for espionage.
Consumer spending fell for a record sixth straight month in December as recession-battered households, worried about surging layoffs, boosted their savings rates to the highest level since May.
Economists expect consumer spending, which accounts for the largest portion of total economic activity, to remain weak this year, prolonging an already painful recession.
The Commerce Department reported Monday that personal consumption spending dropped by 1 percent in December. That was slightly worse than the 0.9 percent decline economists expected.
Incomes, reflecting a wave of layoffs, fell for a third straight month, but the 0.2 percent drop was slightly better than expected.
Still, Americans worried about the possibility of more job cuts boosted their savings rate to 3.6 percent of their after-tax incomes in December. That was the highest level since tax rebate checks temporarily pushed the rate up to 4.8 percent in May.
For the year, consumer spending rose by just 3.6 percent, the smallest annual increase since 1961. Incomes rose by 3.7 percent, the weakest gain since a 3.2 percent advance in 2003.
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 11:17 ||
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As many as seven massive natural gas export terminals are expected to start up overseas this year, expanding worldwide capacity by 20 percent and flooding markets with new supplies of the key power plant and heating fuel. Dozens of new tankers capable of carrying natural gas in a liquefied form are slated to hit the seas.
Just as these new supplies come on line, worldwide demand is expected to drop as the global recession deepens.
Operators of these new facilities are unlikely to cut back production, however, so shipments of liquefied natural gas will most likely head to the deepest markets with the greatest amount of natural gas storage capacity -- the United States.
'Counterintuitive'
"It's completely counterintuitive," said Murray Douglas, a global LNG analyst with Wood Mackenzie in Houston, who is predicting U.S. LNG imports will grow 30 percent to 456 billion cubic feet this year and to more than 1.1 trillion cubic feet by 2013. "We don't believe Asia and Europe will be in a position to absorb this new production, and the U.S. is the only market that can take it, that has a large amount of storage."
The wave of imports might even be strong enough to challenge growing domestic natural gas production from various shale formations, including the Barnett Shale near Fort Worth and Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas. "This can put pressure on U.S. gas prices and could delay the full development of some of the new shale projects," Douglas said.
Other analysts, including Houston-based Waterborne Energy and Raleigh, N.C.-based Pan Eurasia Enterprises, agree that an American gas import surge may be coming.
Even the Department of Energy updated its LNG import predictions for 2009 recently to include the possibility of such a surge.
Big energy chunk
Natural gas accounts for 23 percent of total energy consumed in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, much of it used to fuel power plants.
Twelve percent of the gas comes from foreign suppliers, most of it through pipelines from Canada, and about 3 percent comes from overseas aboard LNG tankers.
Changing to liquid
Natural gas turns into liquid at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. In that condensed form, it can be transported in specially designed oceangoing tankers. When the tankers reach a gasification terminal, the liquid is heated back into gas for transport by pipeline.
2007 was a record year for LNG imports into the U.S., with some 770 billion cubic feet arriving through five terminals.
Three terminals came on line in 2008, including Houston-based Cheniere Energy's terminal on the Louisiana side of the Sabine Pass south of Port Arthur and Freeport LNG's terminal on Quintana Island south of Houston. The third, owned by The Woodlands-based Excelerate Energy, is near Boston.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
But I suspect that somehow I won't be paying less for natural gas...
#2
seven massive natural gas export terminals are expected to start up overseas this year
And nobody in the US wants a new import terminal in their backyard.
#5
We bring it in and can charge the other companies for storage.
Works for me.
Either way, I still don't think my gas bill will go down. Fortunately, it is pretty cheap to heat the house with and is still cheaper than electricity.
#6
Spot, i'm with you on that , they will come up with some excuse like having too pay for these new refineries or whatever. I just don't see how ppl in more morthern states than me (GA) afford heating with natural gas since a couple of years ago my bill came in at about $400 a month
That is some expensive gas! In the dead of winter with temps hitting 0, my monthly gas bill comes to $150 and I keep the temp at 71F at all times. And that is a 3 bedroom, 1 loft 2000sf house. It drops to about $25 in the middle of summer when we have the AC on and don't use much heat.
#10
our bill for Jan was about $320, about $80 for transmission and distribution by the local company; the rest for the gas and interstate transmission.
This is in Maryland (4 bedrooms, two occupied & heated levels, about 1200 sq ft for each level). Last year's bill for the same period was about $200 but it was a 30 period instead of a 34 day period this year. Also, last year the temp ave was 43F and this year 36F (according to the utility). We keep the thermostat at about 64F downstairs which results in an upstair temp of about 69F.
#11
windows where closed, house about 1500 sq ft., and i even had the gas company out checking for leaks. When they came i also dropped my pants and bent over as a down payment on the next month
#14
rw, how well insulated is your house? And do you have window covers that you keep closed at night and during the day when you're not home?
Two factors that help us manage our heating bills - which are less than yours despite the fact that we have a much larger house in the northeast where we're currently surrounded by snow and ice. We do, however, heat with heating oil rather than natural gas.
#15
Northeast Philadelphia area, 55-year-old, 1600-sq.-ft-heated rancher at 70 degrees. Uses 3.5 gal of fuel oil per day in the worst of the winter. At $2.50/gal that's $270 per month. You do need better insulation.
#16
My inlaws in NY have a poorly insulated old house. When the temperature drops below zero and the winds get above 15 mph the oil burner consumes almost a gallon per hour, running wide open, and can't keep the house at 60 degrees. Fortunately such conditions only occure when Al Gore is in town. Insulation matters!
Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday at bottle-throwing demonstrators in Geneva who protested the annual World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss Alps. I don't even consider this "news" anymore. It happens like clockwork whenever there's a meeting of big cheeses anywhere.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Do you think we should use a picture of Davros for Davos stories?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/02/2009 7:48 Comments ||
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Riot police fired tear gas machine guns and water cannons canister Saturday at bottle-throwing demonstrators in Geneva who protested the annual World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss Alps. There, fixed for you
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
COUPLES who have more than two children are being "irresponsible" by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government's green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.
Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday at bottle-throwing demonstrators in Geneva who protested the annual World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss Alps.
