So far this session, Sen. Dick Durbin has stood behind consumers like no other public official in Washington. He has served as the Senate Democrats’ de facto point man on student aid reform, mortgage bankruptcy reform, usury reform, financial product safety, and consumer credit abuse. And around every corner, he’s been met with resistance by banking industry lobbyists. In an interview with WJJG’s Ray Hanania on Monday, the senior senator from Illinois stated outright that the banks ‘own’ Capitol Hill. Listen (full audio here): DURBIN: And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place. The ongoing negotiations about credit card reform legislation nicely illustrate Durbin’s point. According to Hill sources, the U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote on H.R. 627, otherwise known as the Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights Act, as early as Thursday. But it doesn’t seem likely that the federal bill will be implemented quickly enough to help strapped consumers this year. For that, we can thank the banks. […]
A Spanish judge has started a criminal investigation into suspected torture of detainees in the base at Guantanamo and said he would target both US military personnel and those who issued their orders. Judge Baltasar Garzon, who once tried to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, said he based his case on testimony in his court by four former Guantanamo detainees who complained of physical and mental abuse at the base in Cuba. He called Guantanamo a legal ‘limbo’ and as such fell under universal jurisdiction, allowing him to investigate what went on in the base which US President Barack Obama has promised to close. Garzon became internationally famous for his pursuits of Pinochet and Argentine military officers, which set precedents for the principle that certain serious crimes can be prosecuted anywhere in the world. Listing possible perpetrators of criminal acts, Garzon said: ‘members of the US army and military intelligence and all those who put into practice or designed a systematic plan of torture or abuse.’ The judge said he would ask US authorities for copies of documents declassified by the Obama administration detailing practices such as waterboarding – which induces a sensation of […]
Most of us have heard the predictions: the meltdown of Arctic sea ice and mountain-top glaciers; extinction of species ranging from polar bears to coral reefs; catastrophic sea level rise that could eventually force the relocation of millions of coastal residents. Heat waves, malnutrition and famine, and wildfires would also be a greater risk to human communities if carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere are allowed to rise too high. Specifically, these could be the characteristics of a world where carbon dioxide has risen to 1,000 parts per million by 2100, as described this week in a Nature opinion essay by Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. (Currently carbon dioxide is at about 384 parst per million.) Reaching this level of carbon dioxide by the end of the century was presented as a worst-case scenario if nothing is done to curtail emissions in a 2000 special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But ‘it’s not the worst-case scenario,’ Scheider now argues. ‘The worst-case scenario could be worse.’ Until the economic downturn late last year, actual emissions have been higher than those in the IPCC scenario. So without any mitigation, ‘that’s the track we’re on […]
Setting a world record a gasoline fueled midsized sedan, the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid traveled 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas on Tuesday, April 28, 2009. Traveling between 20 and 45 mph depending on traffic to take advantage of the car’s capability to operate in electric-only mode up to 47 mph and foregoing cruise control to maximize fuel economy, a team of seven eco-drivers set out from Mount Vernon, Va. on Saturday at 8:15 a.m. ET with a goal of reaching 1,000 miles on their 17-gallon tank. The team included Nascar driver Carl Edwards, high mileage trailblazer Wayne Gerdes and several Ford Motor Company engineers who took turns at the wheel, twittering their progress along the way. The 1,000 mile target was easily reached at 9:07 a.m. EDT on April 27. Edwards reportedly took them past this milestone with an average fuel economy of 76.3 mpg, according to a post on Twitter. With fuel still in the tank, the team continued driving into the night to see just how far the Fusion Hybrid could go. At 5:43 a.m. EDT, the group announced their results on Twitter, ‘Its all over!!! The Fusion Hybrid did […]
It’s supposed to be the gold standard for conservation. But is Unesco’s World Heritage project harming the very places it seeks to protect? Simon Usborne investigates. In 1991, Dubrovnik, a fairytale fortress of Titians, Renaissance palaces and lemon-scented cloisters, was shelled by Serb and Montenegrin forces. Appalled by the siege of a city described by Lord Byron as the ‘pearl of the Adriatic’, the international community sprung into action. Unesco, the United Nations organisation responsible for education, science and culture, called meetings, co-ordinated fundraising, and mobilised armies of experts. Not long after the dust of war had settled on scores of razed buildings, Croatia began restoration work. In a matter of a few years, Dubrovnik, designated as a World Heritage Site in 1979, rose from the ashes. That’s how the system is meant to work. Since its inception, 37 years ago, Unesco World Heritage has become a global brand whose seal is slapped on the planet’s most precious places. The Taj Mahal is on the list, alongside the Pyramids of Giza and the Grand Canyon. These are the man-made and natural wonders considered to be of such outstanding value to humanity that their importance transcends borders, politics […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
