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UFO's ,Global Warming and Gouls

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:13:56 PM

Using Fires To Sell Global Warming

 

Climate Change: We don't know which is weirder — Dennis Kucinich's belief in UFOs or the House holding hearings on Harry Reid's claim that global warming caused California's wildfires. The "scientific link" doesn't exist.

We thought we had heard the ultimate absurdity when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid politicized a tragedy the other day by claiming, "One of the reasons we had the fires in California is global warming."


Then came the announcement that the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming was holding a hearing today (Thursday) "examining the scientific link between a changing climate and the frequency and intensity of wildfires."

The committee, chaired by warming zealot Ed Markey, D-Mass., was formed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it says, "to increase the visibility and priority given to America's oil dependence and global warming challenges."


More accurately, it was formed to rake the Bush administration over the coals, so to speak, for its reluctance to embrace Kyoto.


The media has done its part to fan the flames of controversy.


On Oct. 20, CBS' "60 Minutes" began with a segment called "The Age of Mega-Fires," a piece clearly intended to fuel the blame-global-warming argument.

CNN's Anderson Cooper plugged the series "Planet in Peril" by saying, "Fire, drought, global warming, climate change, deforestation, it is all connected."


He forgot arson, the cause of at least two of the major California fires. That's man-made warming.


As Steven Milloy, adjunct scholar at the Competitive Industry and founder of junkscience.com, points out, the history of California wildfires proves no link to warming-induced drought.

First, he notes, during the period of 1900-2005, during which global temperatures rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit, precipitation has actually increased in areas above 30 degrees north latitude, which includes California, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.


During that interval there have been moderate-to-severe drought conditions in Southern California during 34 of those years, or about one-third of the time. An analysis of those years, using data provided by the National Climatic Data Center, provides a very interesting pattern of drought.


Seven occurred from 1900 to 1940, the period when most of last century's warming occurred.

But 11 of those drought years occurred from 1941 to 1975, when temperatures were dropping so fast that major news magazines like Newsweek were actually warning of a new ice age.

From 1976 to 1990, when global temperatures rose back to their 1940 levels, there were 8 drought years.


Since then, there have been another seven years of moderate-to-severe drought. If there's a pattern there of warming-induced climate change, we fail to see it.

The Santa Ana winds that fanned the flames didn't come out of the exhaust pipe of anyone's SUV.


We would suggest that the extent of the tragedy has been enhanced by the anti-logging and anti-thinning agenda of the greenies — an agenda that encourages overgrowth and prohibits sensible forest management, including the removal of dead trees as well as underbrush that is said to be the habitat of endangered species who ironically become crispy critters.

The same naturally warm and dry conditions in which these fires occur are the same conditions that bring people to Southern California to build their homes in fire-prone areas in the first place.


If, as some point out, the fires in California these days seem "so much worse than in the past" it's for that very reason: The Golden State's population has soared in the past decade or so by nearly 10 million. Hundreds of thousands of new homes have been built in the state's brush-filled mountains, canyons and arroyos.


But when Democrats suggest it is our inattention to allegedly man-induced global warming that is the culprit, they're only generating more hot air that we don't need.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 4:20 PM PT

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Oil $94, And We Can't Drill Here?

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 10:50:11 PM




$94

It's time to think about warming your homes and running our factories.Quit trying to play God .Don't be foolish enough to think you can change the Earth and the Solar System by driving some underpowered car or paying Al Gore's company to plant a tree.

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Drivin Nails in the Coffins of Credibility

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 10:28:40 PM



Jimmy Carter

"Very little common sense was is uncommon virtue and could not find any valor to speak of "

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Dying to Get into ALGORE Heaven

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 9:12:27 PM
GREEN FUNERALS: Putting aside embalming and tombs
Some believe that services at home and simple caskets gradually
will change how society deals with death.

 

 

Klara Tammany's mother didn't want a typical American funeral.
No embalming, no metal casket, not even a funeral home.

When she died after a long illness a couple of years ago, family
members and friends washed and dressed her body and put it in
a homemade wooden casket, which was laid across two
sawhorses in the dining room of her condo in Brunswick.

Then, for two days, friends and family visited, brought cut
flowers, wrote messages on the casket's lid and said goodbye.

"We had this wake, and it was wonderful," Tammany said.

The home funeral is part of an emerging trend that some believe
will change the way Americans deal with death. Send-offs like
the one Tammany planned with her mother are called "green"
funerals because they avoid preservative chemicals and steel and
concrete tombs, all designed to keep a body from decomposing
naturally.

After the wake, Tammany's mother was cremated and her ashes
buried near the family's camp in Monmouth.

Another alternative that is just emerging in Maine is natural
burial in a green cemetery: wooded graveyards that ban
chemicals and caskets that won't easily decompose.

Two such cemeteries are now preparing to do natural burials in
Maine, in Limington and in Orrington. There are only about six
operating green cemeteries in the United States, but many more
are planned, according to those tracking the trend.

"I think it's a tidal wave that's coming," Tammany said. "The
cultural way of dying and taking care of the dead is changing."

Next weekend, green funerals will be the subject of the annual
meeting of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, a nonprofit
group that provides information about alternatives to modern
funerals.

Mark Harris, author of "Grave Matters: A Journey Through the
Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial," will be the
keynote speaker.

"I think it's going to change the funeral practices in our time.
The demographics are just too strong," Harris said during an
interview last week, referring to the baby boomers.

"This is the generation that brought us the first Earth Day ... that
brought organic food into the grocery store," he said. "I think
they'll bring the same environmental consciousness to bear to
the end-of-life issues as they approach them."

The idea of earth-friendly funerals is catching on as part of that
broader green movement. But there are other factors, too,
including distaste for the embalming process and modern
commercial funerals that can cost $10,000.

A green burial can cost $1,000 to $2,000, although there is no
market standard. Tammany's mother's funeral and cremation
cost about $350.

Some also have the desire to return to a simpler, personal way of
laying loved ones to rest.

"It's a lot more than just about the environment. It's a return to
tradition. It speaks to the idea of dust to dust," Harris said. "This
is the way we used to bury people, in the first hundred years of
our country's history."



FUNERAL DIRECTORS' OPINIONS

Around the country, Harris said, some funeral directors are
opening up to the trend. Many advocates expect funeral homes
and cemeteries to offer more "green" alternatives, such as
preservative-free burials.

But there also is resistance.

Peter Neal, a funeral director based in Guilford and spokesman
for the Maine Funeral Directors Association, said the trend
sounds good on the surface, but presents problems when you
dig into the details.

"The green concept is a wonderful concept. There are many
areas of our lives that we can" reduce environmental impacts,
Neal said. "But this one's a little bit more of a problem."

In Maine, for example, the ground can freeze in winter and make
it harder to dig graves. Funeral homes typically store bodies for
spring burials, something made easier with formaldehyde and
the embalming process.

And embalming, developed during the Civil War, also protects
against the spread of bacteria and disease, he said. "It's my
great hope it stays in the hands of professionals," he said.

Neal doesn't see a large movement toward green funerals and
burials. He oversees five funeral homes and has had one family
request a green burial. He turned that one down.

"It's a very small group that's talking about it. It's not for
everybody, just the logistics of it," he said, noting that the
earth-to-earth idea might not have wide appeal.

"You may or may not want your loved one's body to go back to
the earth as soon as possible. (Preservation) was very important
to the Egyptians, and it has some importance to people today,"
Neal said.

Green advocates agree that the trend is not for everyone, but
they shrug off the criticism from the funeral industry.

Burying in winter is less of a problem in a forested cemetery
than in an open field, they say. A green cemetery near Ithaca,
N.Y., has buried 21 people since opening last year, and did not
have a problem with frozen ground last winter, according to the
owner. The cemetery also has equipment to heat the ground, if
necessary.

Tammany said her mother's two-day wake proved to her that
there is little need for embalming, a process she called
disrespectful to the body.

Although a body might need to be kept cool with ice or dry ice
in the summer, Tammany said, her mother died in October, and
she kept a door cracked to keep the body from decomposing.

Embalming is not required by the state and is not necessary for
health reasons, said Dora Anne Mills, director of Maine's Center
for Disease Control. Chem-free burials are done in most of the
world and are not a health risk under normal circumstances, she
said.



GREEN BURIALS

Green burials are routinely done in this country as well, in the
Jewish community.

"Our people are always buried in wooden caskets. There's no
metal (and no embalming), so everything decomposes in its
natural state," said Darrell Cooper, administrator of Chevra
Kadisha, the Jewish funeral home in Portland.

"We've been practicing this for thousands of years, and now it's
coming into vogue."

Jews do not cremate bodies, although cremation is frequently
part of the green funeral trend.

The cremation option has gown rapidly in the United States, and
nearly 60 percent of Mainers now leave the world by the ashes-
to-ashes route.

Cremation is considered a greener alternative to modern burials,
especially with limited options in family or green cemeteries. But
it also has environmental impacts, including pollution from
crematories.

Maine crematories release about 20 pounds of mercury into the
air each year, for example. The mercury, a neurotoxin that can
get into the food chain, comes from amalgam dental fillings that
most people have.

For Klara Tammany and her mother, a home funeral with
cremation was the best alternative to a funeral home and the
embalming process.

Now that the alternatives are growing, Tammany likes the idea
of a green burial when her turn comes along.

"I came from the earth," she said. "Put me back in the earth and
I'll make something grow." 

By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer October 28, 2007
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SinFuel...Fueling the Next Famine

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 8:23:27 PM
Cartoons By Michael Ramirez
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Global Warming is Still a Hoax

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 2:03:51 PM
2007 Yearly Tropical Cyclone Activity to Date

Ryan N. Maue
Cross Post at Climate Audit (h/t) Steve McIntyre
Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). However, the year is not over...

2007 lowest September activity on record since 1977

2006 and 2007 lowest October activity on record since 1976 and 1977

For the period of June 1 - TODAY, only 1977 has experienced LESS tropical cyclone activity than 2007.
There are currently two worldwide tropical cyclones: Tropical Storm Noel and Unnamed Arabian Sea TS...

On average to date (1970-2006), the Eastern Pacific season is 97% completed, Western Pacific 82%, North Atlantic 93% and overall Northern Hemisphere 87%.

Figure 1. can be permanently found at 2007 Tropical Activity Update (Climatology 1970-2006)

Historic Northern Hemisphere Inactivity During Summer and Early Fall

Figure 2. illustrates the number of tropical cyclone days since 1970 for the Northern Hemsiphere. It represents all storms of > 34 knots intensity during the calendar year (Jan-Dec). On average, an additional 40 tropical cyclone days are expected for the period of October 27 - December 31 (sigma of 16 days). The current departure from the long-term mean is 140 TC days. Approximately 70 tropical cyclone days occurred during the latter parts of 1984, 1992, and 1997.


Figure 2. Historical tropical cyclone days for the calendar year for the Northern Hemisphere including the Eastern Pacific, Northern Western Pacific, Northern Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and North Atlantic Ocean Basins. A storm must have at least 34 knot maximum sustained winds to be included. The red line marks the mean/median of a climatology constructed from 1970-2006 data. Data during the 1970s should be considered with caution. *** LARGER VERSION


Figure 3. Historical hurricane days for the calendar year for Northern Hemisphere (as in Fig 2) -- must be > 64 knots wind observations. For the remainder of the year, on average, 16 additional hurricane days have occurred. The most active years were 1984, 1990, 1992, and 1997 with > 30 additional H-days for Oct 27-Dec 31. The least active years typically see less than 10 H-days including 1999 and 2000 (8 H-days) and 1973 (0 H-days).

Accumulated Cyclone Energy Plots

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE JUNE 1 - NOV 30 ACE
NORTH ATLANTIC *** WEST PACIFIC *** EAST PACIFIC ***

Hurricane Ioke of 2006 accounted for 15% of overall Northern Hemisphere TC ACE
Currently, the North Atlantic Basin accounts for 20% of the overall Northern Hemisphere Activity

TC Climatology Trivia

Previous years with exceptionally weak ACE activity (to date: October 29, 00Z)
Link: Tab delimited file of % departure from 1970-2006 Mean to date.
Format of Tab file: EPAC, WPAC, NH, NATL

Sorted Historical Departures [% from 1970-2006 mean to date]:
***EPAC ***WPAC ***NH ***NATL
1983 saw a couple powerful typhoons in the Western Pacific in November. 1977 similarly had several late season typhoons. In the Eastern Pacific, 1983 was very active in October and November with 3 Major Hurricanes. Raymond had a particularly long track. The Atlantic season saw no October activity in 1983.

Link: ACE June 1 - November 30, 1970-2006 for each basin

Power Dissipation Index (Emanuel 2005)
PDI is simply the cubic version of ACE with considerably more weight to more intense storms.

2007 PDI Departure from Climatology (thru October 29, 00Z) **** Current PDI (climo PDI)

Northern Hemisphere = -26% **** 29739 (40288)
North Atlantic = -10% **** 6555 (7282) Effects of the Category 5's
Eastern Pacific = -64% **** 3875 (10704) Historic inactivity
Western Pacific = -21% **** 17200 (21783) To date, very anomalous

PDI Distribution Climatology (scaled)

Distribution (1944-2007) of PDI per storm: 1% [1.72] ** 3% [2.32] ** 5% [3.0] ** 10% [4.1] ** 25% [8.8] ** 50% [28.3]
75% [103] ** 90% [216] ** 95% [326] ** 98.5% [504] ** 99% [552] ** Max Ivan [859]

Text File of climatological PDI for each day (values are PDI)
Text File of the % to date of PDI [EPAC, WPAC, NORTHHEMI, NATL]

Other Notable World Tropical Cyclones and PDI
Hurricane / SuperTyphoon Ioke 2006 (927)
SuperTyphoon Chaba (WPAC) 2004 (752)
Hurricane Linda (EPAC) 1997 (363) Category 5, strongest on Record
SuperTyphoon Tip (WPAC) 1979 (695) Category 5, lowest ever recorded MSLP of 870 mb

Pre-1944 Notable Hurricanes and PDI
New England Hurricane 1938 (421)
Hurricane 13 of 1936: Landfall North Carolina (297)
Hurricanes 11, 12, 13, 18 of 1933: (198, 213, 236, 234)
Freeport Hurricane of 1932 (55) very rapid pre-landfall development
Cuba Hurricane of 1932 (429)
Bahamas Hurricane of 1932 (447) Category 5
Lake Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928 (537) Category 5
Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 (429) Category 4.9
Hurricane 4 of 1926 (680) Long Cape Verde 22 days duration
Hurricane 2 of 1922 (432) Bermuda
Florida Keys Hurricane of 1919 (447)
Galveston Hurricane of 1915 (325)
Hurricane 3 of 1915 (433) no landfall

2007 North Atlantic Season storm PDI
Andrea 2.3 (Subtropical)
Barry 3.4
Chantal 2.5
Dean 386
Erin 1.3 (weak weak weak)
Felix 215
Gabrielle 4.0
Humberto 8.2
Ingrid 2.8
Jerry 2.4
Karen 17.2
Lorenzo 6.7
Melissa 1.9
ACE (Bell et al. 2000) Climatology

Text File of climatological ACE for each day (values are ACE)
Text File of the % to date of ACE [EPAC, WPAC, NORTHHEMI, NATL]
Climatological North Atlantic ACE during calendar year

Northern Hemisphere Plot
Eastern Pacific Plot
Western Pacific Plot

Climatology based upon ACE (Bell et al. 2000) from 1970-2006 for each basin. ACE is not a perfect metric and does not account for storm size. Northern Hemisphere includes Northern Indian Ocean after 1976, which accounts for less than 3% of the yearly total. Data quality is a tremendous issue. The NHC declared extratropical observations were not included, which can account for up to 20% a year in additional ACE. The JTWC only started keeping track of EX phases in 2004, so there are literally 1,000 observations since the 1950s that are likely extratropical in the database (as phished out from the JMA database).
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Words of the Profit, Notes to Damn Us

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 29, 2007 9:08:29 AM

Notes to Damn Us

 

This prophetic verse was found, written on the back of an ancient copy of Time Magazine and believed to be written as a warning to the softheaded members of the human race of things to come.

 

And from the Cult of Gorey

Came an Incredible Story

Of Melting Ice

And shortages of Rice

From Hot Gases rising

As he grew heavy in sizing

All are an important sign

Al the Antichrist, is doing just fine

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$92.$93.$94.$95, They Should Worry About Keeping Warm, Not Global Warming

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Friday, October 26, 2007 8:38:46 PM

Fearing Fuel

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, October 26, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Energy: With oil reaching an all-time high of $92 a barrel, it's long past time for more investment in domestic production. Yet the Democratic Congress is keen on reducing investment with new taxes on oil companies.

Democrats Seek Control, Not Wealth for the Rest of Us

The House of Representatives approved a bill that rescinds tax incentives for oil and gas companies, increasing taxes on the industry by $15 billion.

The Senate Finance Committee one-upped that measure with a package that sticks it to energy companies to the tune of $31 billion in more taxes.

Senate Republicans have prevented that measure from being attached to the Senate's energy bill, and some Republicans have been blocking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from bringing the measure to a House-Senate conference to iron out differences.

In sum, Republicans are trying to stop Democrats from further reducing America's production of its own fuel, placing us even more at the mercy of Middle East Arab states and oil-rich thugs like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

They're also trying to stop Democrats from doing something that would raise gasoline prices at the pump to an even higher level than they are now.

The 8% rise in the price of oil seen in the latter half of last week — up $7 to reach a record $92 — came in the wake of new U.S. sanctions on Iran and a rebel attack on an oil vessel off the coast of Nigeria.

Why should the supply and cost of the U.S. economy's most valuable commodity be dependent on geopolitics in some of the most unstable regions of the world? Boosting our domestic supply is the key to lessening that dangerous dependence.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., and others in the Senate GOP leadership would prefer a House-Senate conference to take place so that Democrats don't succeed in bulldozing Republicans on an energy bill.

But just like Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and the others opposing a conference, Lott was all fighting words.

"I don't know what they've worked out or who they've worked it out with, but if it's anything close to what we had in the Senate bill, it will not happen," Lott promised, as quoted in Congress Daily. "We will filibuster it and/or the president will veto it, and we will sustain the veto."

Lott called the Senate Democrats' plans "a total waste of time," adding: "If they think they can just ram us, they can't."

It's encouraging to see Republicans fight for something worth fighting for. It isn't "Big Oil" they're defending here; it's the U.S. economy and national security.

Consider the certain effects of the Democrats' plans:

• Going after the five biggest oil and gas companies in America would directly reduce the record levels of investment they've been making in finding, extracting, refining and delivering new domestic sources of oil — for instance, Chevron plans to spend $500 million to boost gasoline output by 10%, or 600,000 gallons a day, at its huge Mississippi refinery by 2010. Mobil Oil recently estimated that it had spent $279 billion on capital spending and exploration since 1985 — an amount exceeding its profit of $267 billion. Guess what will get cut if profits shrink?

• If implemented, the Democrats' plans would actually let the many foreign oil companies with U.S. production pay a lower tax rate on U.S. income than American companies.

• Both the Senate and House plans would change the nearly decade-old lease contracts for Outer Continental Shelf energy production by imposing taxes and fees after the energy industry has invested billions in the projects.

The oil and gas sector is one of the most capital-intensive parts of the U.S. economy. Companies use profits to invest staggering amounts in new technologies to extract oil from places where it was impossible just a few years ago — without harming the environment.

When will Democrats stop fearing the domestically produced fuel that will save consumers money and make our country safer?

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Hillary, the Ugly Eloi

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Friday, October 26, 2007 8:26:07 PM

Human race will 'split into two different species'

 

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000.

Scroll down for more...

humans

The report claims that after they reach their peak around the year 3000 humans will begin to regress

Enlarge the image

These humans will be between 6ft and 7ft tall and they will live up to 120 years.

"Physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates," says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic surgery and other body modifying techniques will effectively homogenise our appearance.

Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, according to Curry in a report commissioned for men's satellite TV channel Bravo.

Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts, according to Curry.

Racial differences will be a thing of the past as interbreeding produces a single coffee-coloured skin tone.

The future for our descendants isn't all long life, perfect bodies and chiselled features, however.

While humans will reach their peak in 1000 years' time, 10,000 years later our reliance on technology will have begun to dramatically change our appearance.

Medicine will weaken our immune system and we will begin to appear more child-like.

Dr Curry said: "The report suggests that the future of man will be a story of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Scroll down for more...

H G Wells' Science Fiction novel The Time Machine (which was later adapted into two films - this picture is from the 2002 version) the human race has evolved into two species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi...

...and the frightening, animalistic Morlock (as seen in the 1960 film version of the classic book)

"While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat for humanity over the next millennium, there is the possibility of a monumental genetic hangover over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other.

"After that, things could get ugly, with the possible emergence of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots'."

Dr Curry's theory may strike a chord with readers who have read H G Wells' classic novel The Time Machine, in particular his descriptions of the Eloi and the Morlock races.

In the 1895 book, the human race has evolved into two distinct species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi and the frightening, animalistic Morlock who are destined to work underground to keep the Eloi happy. 

By NIALL FIRTH - Last updated at 16:18pm on 26th October 2007

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Modern Art.. Modern Media

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Friday, October 26, 2007 4:33:04 PM
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"Remember, Only You Can Prevent Forest Liars"

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Thursday, October 25, 2007 8:36:20 PM
Cartoons By Michael Ramirez
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Death, Taxes, Rangel, Death Again

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Thursday, October 25, 2007 8:23:19 PM

Charlie The Job Killer

 

Taxes: Charles Rangel, chief of the House Ways and Means Committee, wants to pass the largest income-tax hike ever, to punish the rich. That the middle class and poor would lose millions of jobs goes unmentioned.

Charlie's Floating a Trial Balloon for Hill

'We are not raising taxes" the Democrat from Harlem insisted as he unveiled a plan seeking $1 trillion in new federal revenues in a decade. It includes:

• A 4% income tax surcharge on adjusted gross income over $200,000 for married couples, rising to 4.6% on incomes above $500,000 — which will hit as the Bush tax cuts expire.

• An increase in the capital gains tax rate to 19.6% from 15% for households pulling in over $200,000.

• A more-than-doubling of the tax on private equity firms' carried interest, from the capital gains rate of 15% up to 37.9% — heavily penalizing one of the most effective ways for businesses to restructure themselves and generate jobs.

• $9.4 billion more in Social Security and Medicare taxes for those who file via partnership.

• $4.3 billion in new taxes by requiring the reporting of stock purchase prices to the Internal Revenue Service.

• $20.7 billion in new taxes on mergers and acquisitions via amortization rules changes.

The crafty veteran Harlem lawmaker says it's all worth it to shield the middle class from the ever-expanding Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) — plus, he's throwing in a cut in the corporate tax. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated she supports the plan.

It would be tempting to accuse Rangel of waging a "Class War" on the rich, but the class who would really get hurt here is the working class, those who are employed by the people Rangel would hurt.

As House Ways and Means ranking Republican Jim McCrery of Louisiana noted, Rangel's plan would be a $3.5 trillion tax increase over 10 years, pushing the top income tax rate to 44%, sixth-highest among industrialized nations and far above the global average of 35.7%.

McCrery says the surtax on AGI will erode the mortgage interest deduction, along with tax breaks on charitable giving, state and local taxes, plus impose a heavy marriage penalty. Most of the 90 million Americans Rangel claims to be benefiting will, according to McCrery, be getting "a purely imaginary 'tax cut.' "

What a time to soak the rich.

Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, ranking Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, reported this month that the top one percent of tax filers now pay more than 39% of all federal income taxes, while the richest 5% pay 60%, and the wealthiest half of taxpayers pay 97%, according to the IRS, all new records.

Revenues are breaking records, too — up by $785 billion since the Bush tax cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The deficit is down to $161 billion, 1.2% of GDP and half the average of the past half-century — thanks to tax cuts producing more than 8 million jobs in the past four years.

Rangel's plan is a nonstarter with George W. Bush in the White House. But in 2009, with a Democrat ensconced in the Oval Office, a nightmare like this could become law.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, October 25, 2007 4:20 PM PT

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Oil $90 +++

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Thursday, October 18, 2007 11:32:48 PM

Oil futures surpass $90 a barrel


By JOHN WILEN, AP Business WriterThu Oct 18, 7:00 PM ET

Oil prices surpassed $90 a barrel for the first time Thursday as the falling dollar drew new foreign investors and speculators to dollar-denominated energy futures.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery hit $90.02 in electronic trading Thursday evening before returning to around $89.60. Earlier, prices had risen $2.07 to settle at a record $89.47 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


While oil prices have risen sharply in dollar terms in recent days, the steadily weakening dollar means oil futures are seen as a bargain overseas. Data released in recent weeks shows speculative buying of oil futures is on the rise. Buying by foreign investors sends prices up, which draws more speculators into the market.


"It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Brad Samples, commodities analyst at Summit Energy Services Inc. in Louisville, Ky.


Many analysts feel that the underlying fundamentals of supply and demand do not support oil prices of $90 a barrel. On Wednesday, the Energy Department reported that oil and gasoline supplies rose more than expected last week, countering suggestions that supplies are tight.

"Fundamental reasons, we're kind of running out of them," said James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Fla. "The main driving factor today is ... the dollar making an all-time low against the euro," he said.


However, crude supplies at the closely watched Nymex delivery point of Cushing, Okla., fell last week. And several reports in recent days have predicted oil supplies will tighten in the fourth quarter.


Thursday was the fifth day in a row crude prices have set new records. Despite the gains, the price of oil is still below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.


November gasoline rose 3.85 cents to settle at $2.1851 a gallon, while Nymex heating oil futures rose 3.04 cents to settle at $2.3493 a gallon.


November natural gas futures fell 8.4 cents to settle at $7.374 per 1,000 cubic feet as investors shrugged off an Energy Department report that inventories rose by 39 billion cubic feet last week, less than analysts had expected. Supplies are high by historical standards.


In London, December Brent crude rose $1.47 to settle at $84.60 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

At the pump, gas prices are finally beginning to follow oil futures higher. The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 1.9 cents overnight to $2.795, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Many analysts think prices will move even higher in coming days if oil prices don't retreat.


Some analysts think oil prices are nearing a seasonal peak and will soon begin to fall.

"It's hard to pick a top in a raging bull market, but it's possible that we are close," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Group in Chicago in a research note.

And if prices start to fall, they could fall quickly as speculators sell to lock in profits.

"We don't think industry fundamentals support oil prices near $60 (a barrel), let alone $90, but with excessive speculation and lack of government scrutiny, prices could go even higher, before they crash, eventually, in our view," said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., in a research note.


 

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IBD , "It could happen"

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Thursday, October 18, 2007 11:26:08 PM

Nuclear Threat From Al-Qaida Much Too Real

By DAVID IGNATIUS | Posted Thursday, October 18, 2007 4:30 PM PT











Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is paid to think about the unthinkable. As the Energy Department's director of intelligence, he's responsible for gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack America with a nuclear weapon.

With his shock of white hair and piercing eyes, Mowatt-Larssen looks like a man who has seen a ghost. And when you listen to a version of the briefing he has been giving recently to President Bush and other top officials, you begin to understand why. He is convinced that al-Qaida is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist signature — a mushroom cloud.


We've all had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime. Indeed, we have become so frightened of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, that we have begun doing the terrorists' job for them by undermining the legal framework of our democracy. And truly, I wish I could dismiss Mowatt-Larssen's analysis as the work of an overwrought former CIA officer with too many years in the trenches.


But it's worth listening to his warnings — not because they induce more numbing paralysis, but because they might stir sensible people to take actions that could detect and stop an attack. That's why his boss, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, is encouraging him to speak out. They don't want to anguish later that they didn't sound the alarm in time.

Mowatt-Larssen has been gathering this evidence since a few weeks after 9/11, when then-CIA director George Tenet asked him to create a new WMD branch in the agency's counterterrorism center. He helped Tenet prepare a chapter on al-Qaida's nuclear efforts that appears in his memoir, "At the Center of the Storm." Now that the uproar over Tenet's mistaken "slam dunk" assessment of the Iraqi threat has died down, it's worth rereading this account. It provides a chilling, public record of al-Qaida's nuclear ambitions.

Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly a decade before 9/11, al-Qaida was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As early as 1993, Osama bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001. When the al-Qaida leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical weapons, he responded:


"Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

Even as al-Qaida was preparing to fly its airplane bombs into buildings, the group also was trying to acquire nuclear and biological capability. In August 2001, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met around a campfire with Pakistani scientists from a group called Umma Tameer-E-Nau to discuss how al-Qaida could build a nuclear device. Al-Qaida also had an aggressive anthrax program that was discovered in December 2001 after bin Laden was driven from his safe haven in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida proclaimed a religious rationale to justify the WMD attacks it was planning.

In June 2002, a Kuwaiti-born cleric named Suleiman Abu Ghaith posted a statement on the Internet that "al-Qaida has the right to kill four million Americans" in retaliation for U.S. attacks against Muslims.


And in May 2003, at the same time Saudi operatives of al-Qaida were trying to buy three Russian nuclear bombs, a cleric named Nasir al-Fahd issued a fatwa titled, "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." Interrogations of al-Qaida operatives confirmed that the planning was serious.


Al-Qaida didn't yet have the materials for a WMD attack, but it wanted them.

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.


After 2004, the WMD trail went cold, according to Mowatt-Larssen. Many intelligence analysts have concluded that al-Qaida today doesn't have nuclear capability. Mowatt-Larssen argues that a more honest answer is: We don't know.


So what to do about this spectral danger? The first requirement, says Mowatt-Larssen, is to try to visualize it. What would it take for al-Qaida to build a bomb? How would it assemble the pieces? How would the U.S. and its allies deploy their intelligence assets so that they could detect a plot before it happened? How would we reinvent intelligence itself to avert this ultimate catastrophe?


A terrorist nuclear attack, as Tenet wrote in his book, would change history. If we can see how this story might end, perhaps we can deflect the arrow before it hits its target.

© 2007 Washington Post Writers Group

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Domestic Terrorist on HBO

Posted by theoilpatchplug on Monday, October 15, 2007 10:40:38 PM

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