Near record high crude oil prices have put the US economy in the ‘danger zone’ and the world’s producers must boost supply to prevent shortages, US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman has said. Oil up as Opec says no output hike Sustained US crude oil prices near the $US80 ($NZ105.79) level could harm the US economy, and both Opec and non-Opec producers should ‘look at what the facts are,’ Bodman told reporters. ‘We’re in a. . . danger zone right now, so that’s why I hope that both Opec and non-Opec nations will look carefully at the facts,’ Bodman told reporters. It was one of the strongest warnings from a Bush administration official to date on the impact of high crude oil and gasoline prices, which are already starting to take their toll on US consumer spending. US crude oil futures on Wednesday hit a record intraday high of $US78.77 a barrel, surpassing the previous peak of $US78.40 set in July 2006. The benchmark US oil contract settled up 33 cents at $US76.86 on Thursday. Bodman said that so far high oil prices have only had a ‘modest’ impact on the US economy. But Bodman […]
It may seem like a quiet country where not much happens besides ice hockey, curling and beer drinking. But our neighbor to the north is proving to be quite the draw for thousands of disgruntled Americans. The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000. In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies. Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005. ‘There has been a definite increase in the past five years the number hasn’t exceeded 10,000 since 1977,’ says Jack Jedwab, the association’s executive director. ‘During the mid-70s, Canada admitted between 22,000 and 26,000 Americans a year, most of whom were draft dodgers from the Vietnam War.’ The current increase appears to be fueled largely by social and political reasons, says […]
WASHINGTON — Legislation to shield reporters from being forced by prosecutors to reveal their sources was approved Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee. Media companies and journalism groups have argued that the measure is needed to keep the public informed about government corruption, but the Bush administration and other opponents say it could harm national security. Under the measure, federal courts would join 32 states and the District of Columbia in protecting reporters from being forced to reveal confidential sources, except in certain cases. The voice vote sent the bill, sponsored by Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., to the House floor. Supporters said whistle-blowers will be less likely to provide information about government and other wrongdoing if reporters are required to give up their sources. The bill ‘helps restore the independence of the press so that it can perform its essential duty of getting information out to the public,’ said Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. Opponents said the bill leaves open too many possibilities in which reporters might be exempted from having to provide information that might help the government hunt down terrorists or for use in libel cases. […]
Psychology researchers at the University of Texas say they found four major factors for why their subjects had sex: ¢ Physical: ‘It seemed like good exercise’ ‘I was curious about sex’ ‘The person was a good dancer’ ¢ Goal-based: ‘I wanted to have a baby’ ‘I wanted to be popular’ ‘I wanted to give someone a sexually transmitted disease’ ¢ Emotional: ‘I wanted to feel connected’ ‘I wanted to say ‘thank you.” ¢ Insecurity-based: ‘I wanted the attention’ ‘My partner kept insisting’ ‘I wanted to keep my partner from straying’ Some said they thought it would be good exercise. Others cited the relief they thought it would provide from boredom. A few admitted they wanted to be more popular, get a promotion or impress friends. And some confessed they did it for revenge. Six decades after Alfred Kinsey’s findings on sexuality shocked America, two University of Texas at Austin psychologists have found some surprising answers to a question most people don’t bother to ask: why people have sex. ‘I was driven to do this study because of all the different reasons I hear women give for having sex, but I never expected […]
Congress has been so low in the polls it doesn’t know which way is up. But scandals in recent years by individual lawmakers (mainly GOP) have forced a new Congress (mainly Democratic) to try to climb out of its pit of pitiful perfidy and reform its backroom M.O. That is, up to a point. The Senate takes up a House-passed bill Thursday that will go far to curb the influence of big money and special-interest lobbies in shaping new laws and spending priorities. Political resistance to these landmark reforms still remains strong in the Senate because of a false sense of privilege and immunity. But rising public disgust – rather than apathy – at such arrogance should help pass this major change in how the people’s business is conducted on Capitol Hill. It also helps that a number of legislators are still under official investigation, with Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens (R) being the latest. (His home was raided by the FBI on Monday.) Among other things, the House bill opens a new window on the practice of lobbyists who ‘bundle’ small donations into large cash for lawmakers’ campaign coffers. That loophole in the campaign-finance laws should be […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
