20 June 2008
News and Comments - 06/20/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
OPEC is selling oil for over $135.00 a barrel.
OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel.
Solution: Sell grain for $135.00 a bushel.
Can’t buy it. Tough. Eat your oil.
16 Comments so far...
Cavetrollhead Says:
20 June 2008 at 12:59 am.
Ah but that would prove that “White man greed rules a world in need!” Quote, Barack Obama
Cameron Says:
20 June 2008 at 5:39 am.
SF court protects privacy of work communications
Thu Jun 19, 12:51 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court has made it more difficult for employers to legally snoop on their workers’ e-mails and text messages sent on company accounts.
Under a Wednesday ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can’t read them unless the worker agrees.
Users of text messaging services “have a reasonable expectation of privacy” in their messages stored on the service provider’s network, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in the three-judge panel’s unanimous opinion.
The ruling also lets employers access employee e-mails only if they are kept on an internal server.
The text message part of the ruling will affect more employers. According to analysts, the majority of U.S. companies pay outside parties to transmit their workers’ text messages but most keep their workers’ e-mail on internal servers.
The judges had few legal pathways to follow, Wardlaw acknowledged in the ruling.
“The extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic communications in the Internet Age is an open question,” she wrote.
One nonprofit group that advocates civil liberties called the ruling a “tremendous victory” for online privacy. The court has helped ensure the Fourth Amendment “applies to your communications online just as strongly as it does to packages and letters,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a posting.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/ap_on_bi_ge/electronic_privacy
Cameron Says:
20 June 2008 at 5:45 am.
Hillary Rejects, Denounces Self, Throws Self Under Bus After Gaffe
Andy Borowitz Sat May 31, 3:00 AM ET
Creators Syndicate - Responding to a chorus of outrage touched off by her comments about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) made a bold attempt at damage control today by distancing herself from herself.
Many political observers had assumed Sen. Clinton would respond in some manner to the controversy she had created with her comments, but few expected her to throw herself under the bus. At a rally today in South Dakota, the New York senator said that the comments she made were “totally unacceptable,” adding, “I hereby reject and denounce myself.”
Attempting to reassure her dwindling base of support, she said that her comments “have no place in a political campaign, and the person who made them will have no role in my administration.”
Sen. Clinton also offered an explanation for her comments about the late Sen. Kennedy, telling the crowd, “I am still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of my service in the Bosnian army.”
While early reaction to her latest comments was mixed, Clinton aide Terry McAuliffe called the speech “a home run.” “She came out today and said she was disgusted and appalled by Hillary Clinton,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “That puts her in the mainstream of American opinion.”
Sen. Clinton’s decision to throw herself under the bus also drew praise from her husband, former president Bill Clinton, who joined in rejecting and denouncing her. “When I heard her comments about Bobby Kennedy, I thought, wow, somebody in her campaign said something idiotic and this time it wasn’t me,” he said.
Elsewhere, American Airlines announced that it would charge customers $15 for the first lost bag.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Mac Says:
20 June 2008 at 9:00 am.
Cave, did Barack really say that? What a crock.
Cameron Says:
20 June 2008 at 9:19 am.
Oil prices bounce back after Pentagon says Israeli exercises were demonstration to Iran
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil futures rebounded Friday as Pentagon officials said a large scale Israeli military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean early this month was intended in part as a demonstration of Jerusalem’s ability to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
Prices also rose as investors reconsidered whether Thursday’s sharp declines, which were based on an announced fuel price hike in China, were merited.
While Thursday’s news from China reduced investor concerns about surging global demand for oil and fuel, Friday’s news from Iran injected fresh supply worries into the market. Still, analysts suggested both price moves were overreactions.
“Whenever you get Israel and Iran within the same sentence, you have a price reaction,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill.
But price moves based on the possibility of conflict between the two nations are likely to be short-lived, analysts believe. An actual attack would be a different matter entirely, and could send prices sharply higher.
Meanwhile, several analysts say China’s fuel price hike could actually increase the nation’s crude demand. Many Chinese refiners have resisted producing fuel in recent months, as the retail prices they’re allowed to charge were not high enough to cover the costs of their main raw ingredient, crude oil. Now that they can charge more for fuel, Chinese refiners may actually produce more diesel and gasoline, using more crude oil in the process.
“The increase in prices can be seen … as an attempt to reduce shortages through encouraging domestic supply,” said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish in a research note. “Indeed, it could well be that case that effective demand actually rises, dependent on the current level of shortages.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080620/oil_prices.html
Benjamin Says:
20 June 2008 at 9:43 am.
This isn’t politics but it is so dang cool I had to post it.
Scientists believe Mars lander exposed ice crumbs
LOS ANGELES - Scientists believe NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic, the mission’s principal investigator said.
Crumbs of bright material initially photographed in the trench later vanished, meaning they must have been frozen water that vaporized after being exposed, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement Thursday.
“These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice,” Smith said. “There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can’t do that.”
Benjamin Says:
20 June 2008 at 9:46 am.
Russia’s Lavrov warns against attack on Iran
MOSCOW - Russia’s foreign minister on Friday warned against the use of force on Iran, saying there is no proof it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Sergey Lavrov said Iran should be engaged in dialogue and encouraged to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency.
Lavrov made the statement when asked to comment on an Israeli Cabinet member’s statement earlier this month that Israel could attack Iran if it does not halt its nuclear program.
“I hope the actual actions would be based on international law,” Lavrov said. “And international law clearly protects Iran’s and anyone else’s territorial integrity.”
Israel’s military refused to confirm or deny a report Friday that its warplanes staged a major rehearsal this month for a possible attack on Iran.
Concerned American Says:
20 June 2008 at 11:29 am.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080620124910.j3mjg7b0&show_article=1
OPEC president rules out output hike
OPEC president Chakib Khelil said on Friday it was illogical and irrational to ask the oil cartel to increase output so as to take the pressure off soaring prices, the Algerie Presse Service (APS) news agency reported.
“To ask the oil producers to increase their output is illogical and irrational,” Khelil was quoted by APS as saying ahead of a meeting Sunday in Jeddah of oil producers and consumers to discuss record high prices.
Khelil noted that he was invited to the Saudi Arabian summit in his position as Algerian energy minister and not as OPEC president, and therefore he could not present any OPEC position during the discussions.
“Saudi Arabia decided to hold this meeting between oil producers and consumers, as well as oil companies, in order to determine the causes behind rising oil prices,” he said.
“The principal objective of the Jeddah meeting is to clarify positions regarding the reasons behind this rise.”
The Jeddah meeting comes only days after oil prices jumped to new record highs just short of 140 dollars per barrel, sparking fresh concerns that soaring energy costs will both stoke inflation and depress the global economy.
Khelil said that just because computer or car prices were high, “would one ask their producers to make more?”, insisting again that oil was being driven higher by factors other than supply alone — most notably speculation and a falling dollar.
Peter Says:
20 June 2008 at 12:43 pm.
This guy loves all the speculation that is driving up the market. He doesn’t care about our needs or problems. This should help Bush and McCain look better for calling for domestic drilling and we all need to speak up and keep the momentum going.
Jesse Says:
20 June 2008 at 1:49 pm.
Like I do sometimes, I stole this comment from someone commenting on that article. It was too good to pass up.
Google “oil shale.” The US currently consumes about 20 million barrels of oil/day. We are currently sitting on the equivalent of about 1.5 trillion barrels of convertable oil-shale deposits. And yes, there are new technologies which can make the cost close to $30/barrel and can capture the CO2. You do the math as to how long that can satisfy our demand..
Prior to 1970 the US was providing 100% of its demand for oil domestically. The environmentalist movement effectively killed that when they closed off-shore drilling, which, besides oil-shale, is the most lucrative source of oil (which is why China is planning on drilling 60 miles off of Florida’s coast).
I agree we shouldn’t ONLY drill and should indeed pursue other technologies…but DOING NOTHING except saying “we need to change” provides NO RELIEF and is NOT POSSIBLE for at least a solid decade, even if we were to discover this “new technology” today. The infrastructure of this country is dependent on oil…from trucking to airlines to the average Joe commuting to work.
Again, announcing an aggressive plan for domestic drilling LOWERS PRICES IN THE SHORT TERM, because the speculative risk for oil futures decreases. IN ADDITION, OPEC may feel it is necessary to lower prices to try and compete with any new technologies we may be considering (such as oil-shale).
In the end, if we come up with a great new technology that is cheaper and more efficient, we could actually EXPORT OIL for a change, because other countries that are just coming online will have a demand for it for a very long time.
Matt Says:
20 June 2008 at 2:16 pm.
Stocks drop on financial sector woes; oil prices rebound ahead of Saudi oil meeting
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks tumbled Friday on escalating worries about the financial sector and rebounding oil prices. The major indexes fell more than 1 percent, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 200 points.
An afternoon downgrade of automakers added one more reason to draw out sellers and put the Dow on pace for its lowest close since March. Treasury prices jumped as investors sought the safety of government debt.
And among financials, Merrill Lynch — which slashed earnings estimates for regional banks Friday — was the target of market rumors that it may issue its own profit warning. Merrill Lynch spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim declined to comment. Merrill shares dropped $1.89, or 5 percent, to $35.80.
The rumors added to the market’s anxiety, which ballooned Thursday when Citigroup Inc. warned of significant debt markdowns for the second quarter, Washington Mutual Inc. announced 1,200 job cuts and Moody’s Investors Service decided late in the day to downgrade the two biggest bond insurers.
Troubling news about the financial sector has been piling up all week, driving the stock market back toward the levels it plummeted to in March. Earlier this week, investment banks posted profit declines, Fifth Third Bancorp said it need to raise $2 billion in capital, and two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were charged with lying to investors — causing many investors to flee from stocks.
“There has to be reticence about getting back in,” said Stephen Carl, principal and head of equity trading at The Williams Capital Group. “It’s definitely an ugly end to the week.”
In midafternoon trading, the Dow slumped 205.50, or 1.70 percent, to 11,857.59. The blue chips haven’t closed below 12,000 since March 17, when the market was worried about Bear Stearns Cos. collapsing.
Ghost Says:
20 June 2008 at 6:02 pm.
I decided to look into peak oil when we were talking about it here and I do not believe in it. I think we have all the oil we need in the US until other energy can be developed down the road.
Hank Says:
20 June 2008 at 11:56 pm.
The libs won’t let us use half of our coal reserves either. It is such a farce to have all these natural resources that we can’t use.
Cavetrollhead Says:
21 June 2008 at 2:08 am.
Yes, Mac, it is in the recording I keep posting! Listen carefully. toward the end. I am not sure if he is quoting Reverend Wright or not, but it doesn’t matter. THAT IS WHY I POSTED THIS RECORDING TWICE. AND NOW FOR THE THIRD TIME, EVERYONE LISTEN CAREFULLY.
“WHITE FOLKS GREED RUNS A WORLD IN NEED”
Cavetrollhead Says:
21 June 2008 at 2:12 am.
OK,
Here is the full quote:
“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”
Matt Says:
21 June 2008 at 12:10 pm.
I just listened to it. I wish everybody could hear it. Thanks for posting that Cavetrollhead. He is such a racist.
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