Thursday, October 25th, 2012
LARAY POLK, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: This is an excellent statement of the scientific evidence concerning the Keystone XL Pipeline. On the basis of facts, not political ideology, as I have been saying since this project was announced, this is a really bad idea. The potential for catastrophe is enormous. And the conversative claims about the number of jobs it will create are just lies. You just have to start calling this stuff what it is. Lies.
Why are scientists in alarm mode over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile long conduit that would transport a chemical-laden synthetic oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas? Scientists across specialized fields have joined forces to make public statements, penned a formal letter to President Obama, and have even committed acts of civil disobedience in front of the White House during the national Tar Sands Action [3].
What do they know that we don’t?
I sought out these questions, traveling to the furthest southern extent of Cape Cod to the township of Woods Hole; a place of world renown for its oceanic studies and a hub of scientific exploration since the late 1800s. I had come to meet with one of the signatories of the Obama letter [4], ecologist George M. Woodwell, at the Woods Hole Research Center.
While awaiting his arrival, I walked around the facility and its grounds. WHRC, also a campus, is ensconced in eight acres of oxygen-rich forest where burnt and downed tree trunks are left alone to decompose. The carpet of detritus underfoot was so dense and varied its components were indecipherable to the naked eye. The outdoor laboratory is a sliver […]
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Thursday, October 25th, 2012
, - USA TODAY/The Associated Press
Stephan: Here is some good news. I have been watching it for a number of months and the new home segment of the real estate trend is heading upwards, as this report affirms.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Sales of new homes jumped last month to the highest level in more than two years, further evidence of a sustained housing recovery that could help lift the lackluster economy.
September sales rate highest since April 2010
389,000 rate is up from 368,000 in August
Sales are up 27% from a year ago
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new home sales rose 5.7% in September to a seasonally adjusted 389,000 annual rate. That’s up from 368,000 in August and the highest level since April 2010, when a federal homebuyer tax credit inflated sales.
Sales have risen 27.1% in the past year. That’s the strongest yearly gain since February, although sales are still well below healthy levels.
The figures do suggest that the housing recovery is strengthening. The increase follows other reports that show home prices are rising more consistently, builders are starting to build more homes and sales of previously occupied homes have increased in the past year. Faster construction could help boost economic growth and hiring. And it could also encourage more people to put their homes on the market.
For now, rising sales are keeping inventories low. […]
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Thursday, October 25th, 2012
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This man is likely to be the next Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Think about that as you read this story. He will get the job, from which he was previously removed for religious bigotry, because ordinary Alabamians will vote for him. Think about that. He represents the zeigeist of Alabama. Try to comprehend that.
This is part of the great schism trend, that is dividing the country.
Click through to see the actual video.
The man who is likely to be Alabama’s next chief justice is warning that God will continue to punish America until same sex marriage and abortion are outlawed.
Speaking to around 100 anti-abortion supporters at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally on Saturday, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore said that ‘Satan is out to destroy everything that God has created.
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Thursday, October 25th, 2012
Stephan: This currency development is the latest manifestation of the second great geopolitical transition we are living through. The first is the rise of the Virtual Corporate States; the other is the shift from a world dominated by Caucasian mid-Atlantic values, and dollar currency to a largely nonwhite multipolar world, with the Yuan as the or a reference currency.
HONG KONG — In Tokyo last week the bigwigs of international finance paid close attention to a speech by Ben Bernanke, chairman of America’s Federal Reserve. His speech urged them, in effect, to pay less attention. Many policymakers in emerging markets complain that Fed easing destabilises their economies, contributing to higher inflation and asset prices. Mr Bernanke pointed out that emerging economies can insulate themselves from his decisions by simply decoupling their currencies from the dollar. It is their habit of shadowing America’s currency, however loosely, that obliges emerging economies to ease monetary policy whenever he does.
Policymakers may heed Mr Bernanke’s words-freeing them to ignore his decisions-sooner than he thinks. In a (more thinly attended) speech on the same day, a deputy governor of China’s central bank pointed out that China no longer hoovers up dollar reserves with its past abandon. And according to a new study by Arvind Subramanian and Martin Kessler of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, the dollar’s influence is waning in the emerging world. Currencies that used to shadow the greenback are no longer following it so closely. Some are floating more freely. But in other cases they are steadily falling […]
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Thursday, October 25th, 2012
MICHAEL MCAULIFF, - The Huffington Post
Stephan: The election squeezes the truth out of people, whether they want to share it or not. The truth is in the Theocratic Right the rights of a zygote trumps those of a female old enough to be fertile. It denies her right to control her own body. That's the fact and, although it may be inconvenient to the Republicans to acknowledge it, it should be borne in mind by every woman voting. Do you believe you should control your body? You should take this question very seriously.
Click through to see the actual video.
WASHINGTON — Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock declared Tuesday night he opposes aborting pregnancies conceived in rape because ‘it is something that God intended to happen.’
Debating Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) in their final Senate race showdown, a questioner asked them and Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning to explain their views on abortion.
All three said they were anti-abortion. But Mourdock went the further, putting himself in territory near Missouri GOP Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin, the anti-abortion congressman who infamously asserted that women don’t get pregnant from ‘legitimate rape.’
‘The only exception I have to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother,’ said Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed state treasurer. ‘I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.’
Mourdock unseated veteran Republican Sen. Richard Lugar in the May primary, and has battled Donnelly for the longtime senator’s supporters since. Abortion has been a touchy issue for the candidates, with Mourdock accusing Donnelly of lacking strength on the issue because Donnelly backed the health […]
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