Sunday, December 26, 2004
Exit Polls(!) gave the Ukrainian race to opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko; possibly 15,000 killed by the South Asian tsunami. And:
Electoral Cheating (cont.) Olbermann:
Representative John Conyers of Michigan is awaiting a staff report before deciding whether or not to formally challenge Ohio’s electoral votes a week from tomorrow. Ted Kalo, the Minority General Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, advises us by email that Conyers “is waiting until all the facts are in,” but notes that Representative Maxine Walters of Los Angeles has already spoken publicly about her willingness to be the house signatory on the challenge. Whether or not there’s a senator willing to do the same is still an open question. http://www.bloggermann.com/
http://www.donotconcede.com is a nonprofit that has produced a documentary video (click the link) that it claims to prove the disenfranchisement of Blacks in Franklin County, Ohio. At minimum it further documents the long lines / too few machines in Democrat-leaning districts.
Social Security Resource: Economic Policy Institute- All you need to know…
Social Security has been providing benefits to millions of workers for 65 years.Social Security—sometimes referred to by its full name, Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI)—is a social insurance system established in 1935 to provide benefits to workers and their family members upon retirement, disability, or death. It is an earned benefit insurance program, which means that only those who work and pay taxes are eligible for Social Security benefits.
At the end of December 2003, Social Security provided monthly benefits to 47 million beneficiaries (or one in every 6 Americans). Social Security paid a total of $471 billion to retired workers, disabled workers, and to the surviving family members of deceased workers in 2001 (SSA 2004 Trustees Report). In 2002, Social Security beneficiaries included about 3 million children under the age of 18. http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguide_socialsecurityfacts
Advocacy Loss: Spitzer Reorients
After nearly three years of high-profile prosecutions of investment banks, mutual funds and insurance companies, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York said yesterday that he is ready to cede those investigations to federal regulators.
Mr. Spitzer said he believed the era of state attorneys general crusading against misdeeds on Wall Street was ending. He said he was concerned that 50 different investigations would balkanize regulations, and added that once-lax federal agencies had become more aggressive about rooting out fraud and wrongdoing.
The shift, first reported in The Financial Times, represents a remarkable turnabout for Mr. Spitzer, who has built a reputation as a giant-killer with his investigations of Merrill Lynch, one of the country's largest brokerage firms; Marsh & McLennan, the world's largest insurance broker; and Richard A. Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
His decision comes just two weeks after he declared his candidacy for governor of New York in 2006, a campaign in which he will need to raise large sums to be competitive. Traditionally, many of those donations in a governor's race come from Wall Street, but Mr. Spitzer said his move away from big-business investigations was not related to his campaign. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/25/nyregion/25spitzer.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening (or isn’t happening in) Iraq: Minimal reconstruction
Of the estimated 18.3 billion dollars allocated for reconstruction projects in Iraq, through October, roughly one billion dollars had been spent with officials citing security concerns as the main obstacle.
Kolbe also said there has been "little planning" in the way funds are spent as the White House requested earlier this year that more of the money be diverted from infrastructure to the training of Iraqi security forces. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041224/pl_afp/iraqusmilitarybudget&cid=1521&ncid=1473
Ongoing Lies: Rumsfeld and General (Richard) Meyers:
“I think the country does understand that we lost 3,000 people on September 11th and the fact that those people were operating in this part of the world ... You've seen the evil up close and personal, you know the danger that this poses." -Rumsfeld
"This attack [in Mosul], of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9/11, the same type of insurgents who attacked in Beirut, the same insurgents who -- type of insurgents who attacked the Cole, Khobar Towers, and the list goes on."- Gen. Meyers
Environmental Isolation: Even the Saudis are more ‘environmental’
George Bush's two closest allies in his attempt to sabotage international action to combat global warning last week dramatically distanced themselves from him.
Saudi Arabia announced that it had approved the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on climate change which President Bush has been trying to kill. And Australia, while still rejecting it, parted company from the United States by saying that it was prepared to negotiate its successor.
The moves follow a tense international negotiating session in Buenos Aires where, as The Independent on Sunday reported last week, the US brought the talks to the brink of collapse by obstructing even anodyne proposals. This breached an assurance given by President Bush in 2001, when he pulled out of the protocol, that America would not try to stop other countries reaching agreement. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=596062
Asians’ Diet
The opening of a Western fast-food outlet is now an everyday occurrence. McDonald's owns and operates more than 600 stores across 105 Chinese cities, with plans to add more than 100 annually in coming years, according to the company. Kentucky Fried Chicken has more 1,200 shops in China. It opened 270 new outlets this year and plans to launch at least 200 more in 2005, said a spokesman for Yum Brands Inc., which owns the KFC brand.
Where foreign brands in China have often met with more frustration than profit, fast food amounts to a lucrative exception. Major brands have enjoyed striking and visible success, carving into what now stands as a $48 billion-a-year Chinese fast-food industry, according to Bloomberg News. With urban incomes up 40 percent from 1999 through 2003 and city-dwellers increasingly inclined to eat on the run, sales at McDonalds are growing faster here than in the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25868-2004Dec25.html
Oil: Chavez and China: The Chinese apparently haven’t heard of the Monroe Doctrine: They have made a deal with Venezuela on oil and gas following reaching economic cooperation agreements with Brazil.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has offered China wide-ranging access to the country's oil reserves.
The offer, made as part of a trade deal between the two countries, will allow China to operate oil fields in Venezuela and invest in new refineries.
Venezuela has also offered to supply 120,000 barrels of fuel oil a month to China.
Venezuela - the world's fifth largest oil exporter - sells about 60% of its output to the United States.
Mr Chavez's administration, which has a strained relationship with the US, is trying to diversify sales to reduce its dependence on its largest export market. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4123465.stm
Cuba and Oil Every little bit helps the embargoed Cubans
President Fidel Castro said a crude oil deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to 100 million barrels, good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs. "This is the first discovery since 1999," Castro said Friday in a speech to a closed session of the National Assembly. His comments were aired on state television Saturday. Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an exploratory drilling. He said production at the site could begin during 2006. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-cuba-oil,0,1498670,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
-R
Electoral Cheating (cont.) Olbermann:
Representative John Conyers of Michigan is awaiting a staff report before deciding whether or not to formally challenge Ohio’s electoral votes a week from tomorrow. Ted Kalo, the Minority General Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, advises us by email that Conyers “is waiting until all the facts are in,” but notes that Representative Maxine Walters of Los Angeles has already spoken publicly about her willingness to be the house signatory on the challenge. Whether or not there’s a senator willing to do the same is still an open question. http://www.bloggermann.com/
http://www.donotconcede.com is a nonprofit that has produced a documentary video (click the link) that it claims to prove the disenfranchisement of Blacks in Franklin County, Ohio. At minimum it further documents the long lines / too few machines in Democrat-leaning districts.
Social Security Resource: Economic Policy Institute- All you need to know…
Social Security has been providing benefits to millions of workers for 65 years.Social Security—sometimes referred to by its full name, Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI)—is a social insurance system established in 1935 to provide benefits to workers and their family members upon retirement, disability, or death. It is an earned benefit insurance program, which means that only those who work and pay taxes are eligible for Social Security benefits.
At the end of December 2003, Social Security provided monthly benefits to 47 million beneficiaries (or one in every 6 Americans). Social Security paid a total of $471 billion to retired workers, disabled workers, and to the surviving family members of deceased workers in 2001 (SSA 2004 Trustees Report). In 2002, Social Security beneficiaries included about 3 million children under the age of 18. http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguide_socialsecurityfacts
Advocacy Loss: Spitzer Reorients
After nearly three years of high-profile prosecutions of investment banks, mutual funds and insurance companies, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York said yesterday that he is ready to cede those investigations to federal regulators.
Mr. Spitzer said he believed the era of state attorneys general crusading against misdeeds on Wall Street was ending. He said he was concerned that 50 different investigations would balkanize regulations, and added that once-lax federal agencies had become more aggressive about rooting out fraud and wrongdoing.
The shift, first reported in The Financial Times, represents a remarkable turnabout for Mr. Spitzer, who has built a reputation as a giant-killer with his investigations of Merrill Lynch, one of the country's largest brokerage firms; Marsh & McLennan, the world's largest insurance broker; and Richard A. Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
His decision comes just two weeks after he declared his candidacy for governor of New York in 2006, a campaign in which he will need to raise large sums to be competitive. Traditionally, many of those donations in a governor's race come from Wall Street, but Mr. Spitzer said his move away from big-business investigations was not related to his campaign. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/25/nyregion/25spitzer.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening (or isn’t happening in) Iraq: Minimal reconstruction
Of the estimated 18.3 billion dollars allocated for reconstruction projects in Iraq, through October, roughly one billion dollars had been spent with officials citing security concerns as the main obstacle.
Kolbe also said there has been "little planning" in the way funds are spent as the White House requested earlier this year that more of the money be diverted from infrastructure to the training of Iraqi security forces. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041224/pl_afp/iraqusmilitarybudget&cid=1521&ncid=1473
Ongoing Lies: Rumsfeld and General (Richard) Meyers:
“I think the country does understand that we lost 3,000 people on September 11th and the fact that those people were operating in this part of the world ... You've seen the evil up close and personal, you know the danger that this poses." -Rumsfeld
"This attack [in Mosul], of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9/11, the same type of insurgents who attacked in Beirut, the same insurgents who -- type of insurgents who attacked the Cole, Khobar Towers, and the list goes on."- Gen. Meyers
Environmental Isolation: Even the Saudis are more ‘environmental’
George Bush's two closest allies in his attempt to sabotage international action to combat global warning last week dramatically distanced themselves from him.
Saudi Arabia announced that it had approved the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on climate change which President Bush has been trying to kill. And Australia, while still rejecting it, parted company from the United States by saying that it was prepared to negotiate its successor.
The moves follow a tense international negotiating session in Buenos Aires where, as The Independent on Sunday reported last week, the US brought the talks to the brink of collapse by obstructing even anodyne proposals. This breached an assurance given by President Bush in 2001, when he pulled out of the protocol, that America would not try to stop other countries reaching agreement. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=596062
Asians’ Diet
The opening of a Western fast-food outlet is now an everyday occurrence. McDonald's owns and operates more than 600 stores across 105 Chinese cities, with plans to add more than 100 annually in coming years, according to the company. Kentucky Fried Chicken has more 1,200 shops in China. It opened 270 new outlets this year and plans to launch at least 200 more in 2005, said a spokesman for Yum Brands Inc., which owns the KFC brand.
Where foreign brands in China have often met with more frustration than profit, fast food amounts to a lucrative exception. Major brands have enjoyed striking and visible success, carving into what now stands as a $48 billion-a-year Chinese fast-food industry, according to Bloomberg News. With urban incomes up 40 percent from 1999 through 2003 and city-dwellers increasingly inclined to eat on the run, sales at McDonalds are growing faster here than in the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25868-2004Dec25.html
Oil: Chavez and China: The Chinese apparently haven’t heard of the Monroe Doctrine: They have made a deal with Venezuela on oil and gas following reaching economic cooperation agreements with Brazil.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has offered China wide-ranging access to the country's oil reserves.
The offer, made as part of a trade deal between the two countries, will allow China to operate oil fields in Venezuela and invest in new refineries.
Venezuela has also offered to supply 120,000 barrels of fuel oil a month to China.
Venezuela - the world's fifth largest oil exporter - sells about 60% of its output to the United States.
Mr Chavez's administration, which has a strained relationship with the US, is trying to diversify sales to reduce its dependence on its largest export market. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4123465.stm
Cuba and Oil Every little bit helps the embargoed Cubans
President Fidel Castro said a crude oil deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to 100 million barrels, good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs. "This is the first discovery since 1999," Castro said Friday in a speech to a closed session of the National Assembly. His comments were aired on state television Saturday. Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an exploratory drilling. He said production at the site could begin during 2006. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-cuba-oil,0,1498670,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
-R
