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Headlines are blaring about the threat of $5-a-gallon gas, but what those stories don’t tell you is that big oil couldn’t be happier. Rising gas prices let big oil pull off an amazing sleight of hand — the industry distracts the public with calls for more domestic oil drilling as it digs into Americans’ wallets.
The industry’s Congressional allies call for an “all of the above’ energy approach, and the new “drill here, drill now” mantra, don’t have anything to do with lowering gas prices. They are a way for the oil companies to channel frustration about gasoline prices, and to keep us trapped in an “oil-centric” approach to

As Japan’s nuclear disaster stretched into its second week, traces of radiation from the stricken power plants showed up in several U.S. states, and as far away as Iceland.
With the reactors and uranium fuel rods still proving difficult to bring under control, the disaster could be the “death knell” for nuclear power, some analysts said. Countries around the world — from China to Germany — are taking a closer look at their nuclear plants and plans, while the U.S. intends to complete an initial review of its reactors within three

Last week, the New York Times concluded a story about the day on Wall Street with an interesting – and telling – dichotomy about the cause of skyrocketing gas prices:
Even as American oil supplies remained secure and ample – even as domestic oil production is at its highest level since 2003 – the price of crude in the commodities market is spiking ever upward. The price of gasoline has gone up more than 40 cents over the past three weeks nationally, and it continues to trend higher. Tom Kloza, head of the Oil Price Information Service, said that not only could gas prices continue to rise, but if unrest continues in the Middle East, the cost per gallon could spike to $5 or more.
While that fear is real, it relies on false causation. The two leading exporters of oil to the United States aren’t even in the Middle East; they are Canada and

Americans at the pump are worried. They should be. As civil war looms in Libya, oil prices are up 19% in just three weeks, topping $105 a barrel. And even through there has been some easing today, that spells bad news not only for the American consumer, but also for our fragile economy and for our politicians trying to wrangle with the American Debt

Ugh! If you’re planning a getaway for the July 4 weekend, there’s a chance you may have to shell out another $1 to $1.25 a gallon at the gas pump.
That essentially is one of the ugly travel scenarios that emerges from a current analysis of future oil prices from Roubini Global Economics, headed by Nouriel Roubini, one of the country’s more prominent economic bears.
First, let’s look at the background of this unhappy prospect, which emanates from the volatile Middle East.
Thanks to promises of billions in “benefits” to an aroused populace and a strong police hand, Saudi Arabia’s widely anticipated “day of rage” — a day of threatened mass protests — never came to pass last Friday as the monarchy of the world’s largest oil exporter managed to quell student calls for widespread demonstrations throughout the country in a push for Democratic reform.
But there’s no escape for the roughly 200 million U.S. drivers, who are experiencing their own days of rage at the gas pump.
The agonizing figures tell the story. The average price at the gas pump is now $3.53 a gallon, according to the website GasBuddy.com, up from $3.43 the past week, $3.12 a month ago and $2.78 a year earlier
Saudi Arabia may have evaded Friday’s day of rage, but not so oil traders, says Hong Kong trader Selwyn Ortz. The reason, he explains: a lot of them were long oil, had touted the idea that Friday would be a big day for crude in wake of the expected Saudi protests, an event, some thought, that could mark the start of a rise that would drive oil to $200 a barrel.
Alas, oil was a mediocre performer that day, falling slightly to a shade above $100 a

If you think chaos in Libya is the only force driving up gasoline and heating oil prices these days, think again. Over the past few decades, institutional investors like hedge funds and investment banks have flooded oil markets with hundreds of billions of dollars. That massive influx of money has gradually but steadily destabilized markets and inflated prices for petroleum products far beyond their real values (as determined by supply and demand). As the story unfolded, oil trader Dan Dicker had a front row seat: the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), where he worked as an oil trader for 25

My name is Johann Hari, and I am an addict. If you restrict the supply of my drug — as has happened over the past month — I become panicky and angry. If you cut it off entirely, my life will fall apart. I want my fix, I want it cheap, and I want it

I hate to call attention to George Will’s latest column in Newsweek – a psycho-political portrait that seeks to explain why liberals love high-speed rail. But it is actually a pretty instructive read. While Will starts out trying to shine a light on the workings of the progressive mind, he winds up shining a light into his own – and into the minds of the nation’s current crop of rail haters.
To sum up Will’s argument, let’s quote the man himself: “[T]he real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.”
Got that? Will tells us that backers of rail are “blinded by ideology” in supporting a technology that “was the future two centuries ago.” Their motivation? Nothing less than the “modification of (other people’s) behavior.”
The column raises a few important questions: First, is support for rail really limited to liberals? Second, if it’s not, why are people like Will so knee-jerkily (read, ideologically) opposed to pretty much any investment in passenger rail? And third, if the goal of transportation reformers is not world domination and mind control, what exactly is it?
Is rail a liberal/conservative issue?
Rejecting passenger rail on ideological grounds is like rejecting the fork or the screwdriver as technologies that are “too liberal.” Passenger rail is a tool – one that works very well for some purposes in some situations, and less well for

Since 1986, the Slow Food Movement has successfully been providing alternatives to Fast Food. Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food motto, good, clean, and fair and accompanying ethic offered an alternative model to a world that was, at the time, mindlessly consuming enormous quantities of corn syrup and supporting agribusiness. The Slow Food Movement asked us to slow down, literally and figuratively, and be more deliberate about how we buy, prepare, eat and share our food.
Slow might have started with food, but businesses as disparate as energy to travel are moving away from the uber efficient, mechanized principles of production and consumption toward an ethic of deliberate and conscientious

With a $4.7 trillion bailout under their belts and no harm done to their billion-dollar bonuses, don’t expect Wall Street bankers to be chastened by the 2008 financial crisis. Below we list eight things to watch out for in 2011 that threaten to rock the financial system and undermine any recovery.
1) The Demise of Bank of America Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the troubled Bank of America (BofA). BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages it peddled to investors. The firm is also at the heart of robo-signing scandal, having wrongfully kicked many American families to the curb. If Assange has emails showing that Countrywide or BofA knew they were recklessly abandoning underwriting standards and/or peddling toxic dreck to investors, the damage to the firm could be irreparable.
2) Robo-signers Wreaking Havoc With lawsuits abounding, new types of fraud in the foreclosure process are being uncovered daily, including accounting fraud, fake attorneys, destroyed promissory notes and false notarizations. The crisis not only calls into question the legality of untold foreclosures, it also calls into question the value of trillions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities held by banks, pension funds, federal, state and local governments. The only government report on the topic by the feisty Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP acknowledges that “it is possible that ‘robo-signing’ may have concealed deeper problems in the mortgage market that could potentially threaten financial stability.”
3) MERS Madness
In addition to outright fraud, numerous state Supreme Courts have questioned the legal standing of the Mortgage Electronic Registration or “MERS” system. MERS is listed as the mortgagee for 60% of U.S. mortgages. It is an electronic clearinghouse created by industry to bypass the property registration system developed in precolonial days to ensure that the King could not easily rob the subjects of their land. Wall Street turned to MERS to speed securitizations (and now foreclosures), but its legal standing is now in doubt and its shoddy processing of documents has major ramifications for the securitization process as well. Look for a rotten “MERS fix” in the new Congress. Let’s hope it gives consumer advocates some leverage to demand justice for Americans being robbed by the new Kings on Wall Street.
4) Flash Crash Calamity The “flash crash” of May 2010 rattled the markets and caused a stunning 700 point drop in the Dow within minutes. Regulators think they know what occurred, but they are moving too slowly to put the brakes on hair-trigger trading. Seventy percent of Wall Street trades take place in milliseconds, so it is no surprise that mini-flash crashes are becoming a constant. With traders now gearing up to trade on raw news feeds and Twitter, we can anticipate even more volatility. A small financial transaction tax targeting high-volume, high-speed trades is long overdue. It would throw sand in the roulette wheel and raise much needed revenue for the federal government.
5) Bigger Behemoth Banks The Federal Reserve is planning to “stress test” the big banks again. The same 19 banks that underwent the first stress tests in 2009 will be tested again, but this time the Fed says it won’t release the results. Why not? Banks with toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on their books and concomitant legal exposure to “put back” law suits are being kept afloat by accounting tricks, TARP and Fed loans. Honest stress tests of still weak financial institutions may well result in sales and buyouts that will further consolidate the already concentrated banking industry and create larger and more unwieldy “too big to fail” behemoths — backed by the guarantee of the American taxpayer.
6) Foreclosure Tsunami Housing foreclosures may top nine million in 2011 and [[Goldman Sachs]] predicts the number will reach 12 million in the next few years. The result will be another significant drop in home prices in 2011 and even more families underwater. Civilized nations see the forcible migration of a city the size of New York as an economic and humanitarian catastrophe, but not the United States. The Obama administration and Congress have callously refused to take meaningful action to aid families facing foreclosure even in the face of widespread predatory lending and rampant foreclosure fraud. The only hope now for millions of American families is aggressive action by the 50 state Attorneys General who are actively investigating foreclosure fraud. Whether they have the guts to wrestle a settlement out of the big banks that slows the foreclosure machine and offers families meaningful options has yet to be seen.
7) Bankrupt Cities and States Meredith Whitney, a research analyst who correctly predicted the credit crunch, is now warning that over 100 American cities could go bust next year. She anticipates billions worth of municipal bond defaults and warns: “next to housing this is the single most important issue in the U.S. and certainly the biggest threat to the U.S. economy.” States are also in dire straits. The economic shock of mass unemployment on top of years of population decline, deindustrialization and the like have left cities unable to meet their obligations to taxpayers and retirees. With the austerity nuts in charge of the House, it may take a bankruptcy of a major player to prod an appropriate federal response to this looming disaster.
8) Gas Prices above $4.00 The price of energy and other commodities shifted into high gear in late August when the Federal Reserve Chairman decided to stimulate the economy with quantitative easing. Speculators quickly began bidding up the value of asset classes like crude oil, metals and food commodities. In December, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission failed to apply position limits to these commodities, delaying rules that would crack down on speculators and aid consumers who are already seeing big price hikes at the pump. Without swift action, skyrocketing gas prices will further tank an already stalled economy.
As we hope for the best in 2011, let’s prepare for the worst. The big banks are sure to deliver.
*****
Track the issues and take action at BanksterUSA.org.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Here’s hoping that the new year brings you all the joy that you deserve,
And tires that grip the road ahead to let you handle every curve.
Here’s hoping that your job is safe, your health robust, your mortgage paid,
Here’s hoping that you never have to hear the words, “Mistakes were made.”
Here’s hoping that your warranties last longer than your products do,
Here’s hoping the patrol car in your rear-view isn’t after you.
Here’s hoping for a lasting peace, a common bond, a noble goal,
Here’s hoping that BP learns how to stick a plug inside a hole.
Here’s hoping for a ray of sunshine breaking through your darkest dark.
(Here’s hoping for a whole lot less from Sarah P., the Queen of Snark.)
Here’s hoping that your Powerball selections won’t be always cursed,
Here’s hoping politicians ditch the stunts and put the country first.
Here’s hoping that a tank of gas costs something less than 50 bucks,
And crazy people in the street won’t tell you how the planet sucks.
Here’s hoping that the kids remember half of what you’d like them to.
(Here’s hoping that the things they don’t forget are even partly true.)
Here’s hoping for the coldest beer, the finest wine, the smoothest Scotch,
Here’s hoping that the Shouting Heads of Cable turn it down a notch.
Here’s hoping that you see the ones you love through warm and gentle eyes,
And when you see you’re in the wrong, you’ll manage to apologize.
Here’s hoping that the days to come are better than the days behind,
That someone makes you smile (or giggle!) even if you’re not inclined.
Here’s hoping, just to sum it up, that you enjoy the best of times,
A new year bright with promise — and a basket of your favorite rhymes.
***
Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.

Follow Rick Horowitz on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Rick_Horowitz

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Thanksgiving means several things.
Lots of birds die.
Gas prices rise because everyone is driving.
Summer is gone and it’s not coming back.
The local news predicts terrible weather so you will tune in to their station (I think they cross their fingers for the year’s first horrific storm).
Football is on and the Detroit Lions are still bad.
Football is on and stuffing is still bad. Don’t email me and say it’s great, because if it was, people would make it more than once a year.
Families get together and talk (although they should stay away from the following topics: politics, race, religion, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Dancing With the Stars, American Idol’s new judges, TSA and especially gas prices).
If your family has at least one educator (most have more… and some have a lot more) you shouldn’t speak of the things they aren’t thankful for: NCLB, testing, lack of funds, more paperwork, high-maintenance parents, not enough technology, under-performing schools, meetings, government’s unrealistic expectations and school food.
What all of you should talk about is kids.
We should all be thankful for them.
The next generation (and every one after that) has the opportunity to be our best generation (if adults don’t mess them up).
If you haven’t noticed the kids today aren’t terrible malcontents; they are smart.
Really smart.
Way smarter than we were at the same age (and very likely smarter than we are now).
They have the ability to do more (probably with less) than we ever did.
They will change things, which will make us old people nervous, but it will be for the better.
The world is in good hands and whether you are in education or not, you should be thankful for them.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
If you are a turkey, thank a vegetarian.

Follow Michael N. Smith on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/@principalspage

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In America today, the truth is upside down on clean energy. I believe this is the primary reason we lost climate legislation in the Senate. Perception is reality, and reality is upside down.
Upside down. We have allowed ourselves to be successfully tarred as the people who will hurt the economy by the fossil fuel forces who will guarantee the economic decline of America.
As long as we are defined as the people who are going to raise everyone’s energy bills, we will not succeed politically. And that’s what we are now in the energy debate in Washington.
Upside down. As clean energy transformation is the best — it may be the only — path to strong economic and job growth, including rebuilding our industrial base and economic competitiveness. As the British economist Nicholas Stern has said of clean energy, “these investments will play the role of the railways, electricity, the motor car and information technology in earlier periods of economic history.”
Clean energy transformation, if properly financed and combined with energy-saving technologies, will lead to lower energy bills for Americans than our current path, as McKinsey and others have repeatedly demonstrated. Lower net bills, cheaper transportation and price stability.
Upside down. Because sticking to fossil fuel business as usual will cause the economic decline of America. It will lead to much higher gasoline and food prices as world demand increases, losing the next industrial wave to China and Korea, the transfer of our wealth to the Middle East, trillions more for resource wars, and the enormous costs of climate adaptation and climate disruption. Sea walls, droughts, floods, snowpack loss, loss of agriculture and drinking water — not exactly economic benefits.
Upside down. You know it. I know it. But we don’t talk this way. We are on the economic defensive, and it’s our own fault. We can’t win if we’re the people who will hurt the economy.
It’s time that we became the pro-growth forces, and painted the tiny group of companies standing in the way, and their political apologists, as ANTI-GROWTH. Because that’s what they are. Anti-growth for everyone but themselves.
The Wall Street Journal — anti-growth. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell — anti-growth. Exxon, Peabody, the Koch brothers, Midwestern utilities, BP, Chevron, Rupert Murdoch, Sarah Palin — all in the way of a better economic future for America. All leading us to further industrial decline, decaying infrastructure, job loss, and higher food and gas prices.
We have the facts to show it. When are we going to tell our story? When are we going to stop relying mostly on quietly presenting facts to officials in person or speaking largely to the converted. When are we going to seize the economic initiative in the public and Washington discourse?
Recently, I had lunch with a top editor of one of America’s leading news organizations. I mentioned that it has been true for many years now that rooftop solar electricity is cost-effective in most of the country for new homes when financed by the home mortgage. The editor accused me of distortion, because “everybody knows solar is too expensive.” But I’m right — it’s been true for many years, even at higher interest rates than now. Why doesn’t this editor know? You can’t blame the editor. It’s our fault.
Of course we also have to put the climate and Congressional skeptics on the defensive, explain and defend the science, and challenge the media to stop featuring industry propagandists and skeptical bloggers as equal to published, peer-reviewed climate scientists. Of course we need Californians and residents of Phoenix and Las Vegas to understand their irrigation and drinking water days are numbered. Washingtonians to visualize the inevitable flooding of the nation’s monuments and many weeks of over 95 degree temperatures. Chicagoans to expect heat wave deaths in the thousands like France. Farmers to understand what’s coming.
But if we don’t show that our path leads to prosperity, and theirs to economic decline, we won’t win politically, we won’t get the R&D and investments funds the industry needs, we won’t end fossil fuel subsidies, restore the jobs of Americans and we will still be trying to get a price on carbon five years from now or even longer.
So let’s get started. It’s time to turn things rightside up for our country.
Adapted from my remarks at the Sierra Club Climate Solutions Summit, November 18, 2010, San Francisco.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A little over 4 months ago, we lost our car to an accident. We could have replaced it, by taking the total loss check from our insurer and signing ourselves right up into another car loan. But we had just finished paying off our now demolished 2002 Honda Civic after some 7 years, including several years leasing it.
My husband and I figured we could use a break from the auto insurance payments and any car payments at all, not to mention the feeling of throwing our money away on fuel.
Despite our family’s advice to the contrary, we talked it over and went with it. We know plenty of families personally who don’t own a car and we knew it was possible for us. What were the obstacles? I made a list. They just didn’t convince us:
What if one of us needed to go to the hospital?We live across the alley from a hospital.
What if my husband needed it for work? He doesn’t travel for work and his commute is a 20 minute bus ride either direction.
What if we needed it to run errands? We’d been planning to upgrade my bike and get one for my husband. He wound up riding my old men’s bike and I bought a new one for a good deal. There are plenty of grocery stores convenient to the train.
I haven’t always had a car anyway. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 23 years old, I just didn’t need it growing up in Chicago. Besides, my parents weren’t in any position to buy me one and they didn’t have an extra one for me to borrow. I finally got my first car when my sister and her husband gave me their old ’87 Nissan Sentra right around that time. The 5 speed manual one with the vinyl bucket seats, roll down windows and tiny push-out triangle windows in back.
So, how’s it been since going car-free? How have our kids, 10 and 5, adjusted to being a car-free family? Pretty good, I’d say. First of all, there’s no bickering from the backseat to deal with. They get plenty of exercise walking to and from the bus stop and especially the train station, which is a good 4 blocks from our house at least. My husband and I bike and walk more and have both dropped a few pounds because of it.
We have the option of going downtown or other highly congested neighborhoods without the hassle of dropping loads of cash on parking or worrying how long we can stay in our parking space. More importantly, we’re lessening the amount of pollution we are creating. In the long term, our kids are learning a lot about street safety, the people in their neighborhood and the city and being exposed to different experiences that will help shape who they become and what they think when they become adults.
Now, this all sounds so convenient and simple, doesn’t it? No fights about it, no whining, no late night snack runs, no buses off schedule, no tired legs. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that of course we’ve experienced all of these. But, I’ll take them any day over gridlock, being on the receiving end of road rage, or an accident caused by a driver more interested in social networking than the steering wheel in front of his or her face.
So, for now, we’ll stay car-free, thank you very much, and face the new challenge of winter in Chicago without a car… with kids. I’ll let you know how that goes in a few months.

Follow Christine Escobar on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/greenparentchgo

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com