Author Archive for Gene Shinai

New study amplifies warning on climate change

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 15, 2008 in Environmental Disaster, Government, Newz, The Environment and sci-tech. 1 Comment

From AFP Via Rawstory:

A wide-scale study published Wednesday has strengthened warnings, spelt out last year by UN scientists, that climate change is already on the march.

The paper, published in Nature, goes beyond the scope taken by a landmark report issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2007.

In that document, the IPCC said man-made global warming was “likely” — within a probability of 66-90 percent — to have had a “discernible” effect on many physical and biological systems.

The new study, published in the British journal Nature, is written by many of the people who wrote the so-called Working Group I report, the first of a trio of major assessments released last year by the IPCC.

Its approach widens the net of data for making a fresh analysis.

It concludes “significant changes” are already occurring among natural systems on all continents, with the exception of Antarctica, and in most oceans.

“Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions,” said lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research.

“The warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scale.”

The analysis is based on a trawl of hundreds of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, on data stretching back to 1970s.

These investigations covered phenomena as varied as the earlier leafing of trees and plants; the movement of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere in response to warmer weather; the shrinkage of glaciers and melting of permafrost; and changes of bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia.

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Alaska first state to hit $4 a gallon gasoline: AAA

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 15, 2008 in Gas Prices, Newz, Resources and State/Local Government. 0 Comments

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Alaska hit a milestone on Wednesday that could be a sign of things to come around the United States this summer — it became the first state where the average price for regular gasoline reached $4 per gallon.

 

“It wasn’t totally unexpected,” said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for the travel and auto group AAA which issues a daily gasoline price report.

“Oil prices recently brushed against $127 per barrel so certainly, $4 gasoline could be in the cards for other states as well this summer,” said Sundstrom.

At $4 per gallon, filling up a 15-gallon tank will cost $60.

Alaskans using self-service regular gasoline paid $4.006 per gallon, said the AAA Wednesday report.The U.S. average for regular gasoline hit a record $3.758 per gallon, the same report showed.

A year ago, the U.S. average price was $3.3354 a gallon and in Alaska, the average price was $2.946 a gallon.

Gasoline price analysts will have a better handle on how many states are likely to reach $4 a gallon this summer once the Memorial Day weekend passes, said Sundstrom. That holiday weekend is May 23-26.

“Memorial Day weekend is a little to the gasoline industry what Christmas is to retailers,” said Sundstrom. “It’s one of the highest demand weekends for fuel and is a barometer for what can be expected in summer driving season demand.”

 

 

The AAA will issue its summer travel forecast on Thursday. 

 

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Happy Mother’s Day: Woman pregnant with 18th child

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 12, 2008 in Children, Education, Health, Housing, Human Interest/Society, Military, Newz and Religion. 1 Comment

From AP Via YahooNews:

 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - It’s a happy Mother’s Day for an Arkansas woman — she’s pregnant with her 18th child. Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year’s Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

 

“We’ve had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us,” she said, laughing.

 

The Duggars’ oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

 

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

 

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.

 

The new show looks at life inside the Duggar home, where chores — or “jurisdictions” — are assigned to each child. One episode of the new show involves a “jurisdiction swap,” where the boys do chores traditionally assigned to the girls, and vice versa, Duggar said.

 

“The girls swapped jurisdictions, changing tires, working in the garages, mowing the grass,” she said. “The boys got to cook supper from start to finish, clean the bathrooms,” among other chores.

 

Duggar said she’s six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they’ll keep having children as long as God wills it.

 

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Exxon’s Founding Family Calls for Change

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 12, 2008 in Business/Finance, Energy, Human Interest/Society, Newz, Resources, The Environment and sci-tech. 0 Comments

From Celsias:

 If necessity is the mother of invention, it can also be the catalyst of change. Public Radio International reports that the Rockefeller family is taking on the CEO of Exxon Mobil, the company founded as Standard Oil by their great, great grandfather John D. Rockefeller in 1870. And this rare public engagement of the family in the inner workings of Exxon is not about current profitability, for which Exxon can boast record highs, but about lack of transition to renewable sources of energy. In fact, according to the Times Online, the press release from the Rockefellers came the day before Exxon Mobil was expected to unveil a $12 billion quarterly profit, the biggest in U.S. corporate history.

 

 The Rockefeller family is calling for a reduction in the power of the current CEO, Rex Tillerson, and the addition of an outside chairman. Their primary concern is one of economics; Exxon needs to start looking at alternative sources of energy because it is going to run out of oil. Currently Exxon is selling oil faster than they are replacing it. Volatility and nationalism in the Middle East and other oil producing countries will only increase the difficulty in doing so. The Rockefellers point to Exxon’s lack of research and development vis a vis its competitors in areas like wind and solar technology as a key source of frustration. The family, which holds a significant minority stake in the company, is not alone among shareholders in their frustration with Exxon’s position on renewables and the climate crisis in general. Robert Monks, one of Exxon’s shareholders, is quoted in the American Public Media story saying, “Exxon is enabled to go in public discourse and say the science is unsettled. Well the science is unsettled, because Exxon paid to have it unsettled.” (See here, here and here.)

 

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Top Vet In Congress Calls For Repeal Of Ban On Gays In Military

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 12, 2008 in Human Rights, Military, Newz, Policies and Procedures, The Congress and Veterans. 0 Comments

From 365Gay:

 (Washington) Rep. Sestak (D-PA) is the latest in a growing number of former military brass calling for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel from serving openly in the military. 

Sestak (pictured), who had served as a three-star Admiral and who spent thirty-one years in the Navy, is the highest ranking military veteran in Congress.”It is easy for me to see why ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ should be repealed,” Sestak told the Equality Forum. 

“Once you have served in war and faced danger with a gay service member, how can you come home and say gay people should not enjoy equal rights? It is simple. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ must be repealed.”

Sestak joins 16 other veterans in Congress who are co-sponsors of legislation to lift the ban on openly gay service. 

“Veterans like Admiral Sestak, who have dedicated their lives to serving this country, are leading the movement in Congress to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. 

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Judge: Woman’s rape case against Halliburton can go to trial

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 11, 2008 in Halliburton, Law and Justice, Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From RawStory:

 A woman who said she was raped by co-workers while employed by a contractor in Iraq can take her claims to trial, a federal judge ruled Friday.

 

 Jamie Leigh Jones filed a federal lawsuit last year, saying she was attacked while working for a Halliburton Co. subsidiary at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005. Her lawsuit claims that after she endured harassment from some of the men where she lived in coed barracks, she was drugged and raped by Halliburton and KBR firefighters.

 

Jones, a former Conroe resident, said a KBR representative imprisoned her in a shipping container for a day so she wouldn’t report the assault.

 

Attorneys for Halliburton, KBR and other subsidiaries that have been sued have disputed Jones’ allegations. KBR split from Halliburton last year.

 

Washington-based attorney Stephanie Morris said her client is pleased that she will have the opportunity to bring attention to the case.

 

“We are extremely excited we can now go forward and present the case in the public arena and make the public aware of what been going on overseas in Iraq. Halliburton has ratified gross sexual conduct by their failure to act,” Morris said.

 

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Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 11, 2008 in Economy, Energy, Gas Prices, Human Interest/Society and State/Local Government. 0 Comments

From The New York Times:

 

DENVER — With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.

 

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

 

“In almost every transit system I talk to, we’re seeing very high rates of growth the last few months,” said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.

 

“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”

 

Some cities with long-established public transit systems, like New York and Boston, have seen increases in ridership of 5 percent or more so far this year. But the biggest surges — of 10 to 15 percent or more over last year — are occurring in many metropolitan areas in the South and West where the driving culture is strongest and bus and rail lines are more limited.

 

Here in Denver, for example, ridership was up 8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with last year, despite a fare increase in January and a slowing economy, which usually means fewer commuters. Several routes on the system have reached capacity, particularly at rush hour, for the first time.

 

“We are at a tipping point,” said Clarence W. Marsella, chief executive of the Denver Regional Transportation District, referring to gasoline prices. 

 

 

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Monopsony: the basics, plus policy implications

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 7, 2008 in Economy, Labor, Newz and Women's Right. 0 Comments

Courtesy The G Spot- Politics, Economics, Feminism:

Be honest — are you skipping all these monopsony posts? Are your eyes glazing over at the mere sight of this odd and hard-to-pronounce word? Well, I hope not.

But in case you are — and in case the reason for this is that you don’t have a clear understanding of what it is in the first place, and why it might be important — I’ll try to remedy that by providing a (hopefully) coherent and straightforward explanation of the concept. Then maybe if you have a better grasp of what monopsony is, you can go back and read the other posts, and they might be a little more interesting to you. I’ll also go on to highlight some of the policy implications of monopsony, and why I think it’s important not only in an abstract theoretical sense, but in a concrete political sense as well.

The literal meaning of monopsony is “one buyer” (just as the literal meaning of monopoly is “one seller”). In the context of labor markets, monopsony means one buyer of labor, that is, one employer. But that’s confusing, because these days when economists use the term in the context of labor markets they usually don’t mean one employer.

Here’s what they do mean: in the standard labor market model, known as the perfect competition model, the market as a whole — that is, the supply of labor (all workers seeking a job) and the demand for labor (all jobs being offered by all firms) — determines the wage. The market-clearing wage occurs at that point where labor supply equals labor demand.

Moreover, in the perfect competition model, no single firm has the power to determine the wage; it simply accepts the wage that the market as a whole has determined, and that is what it offers to its workers. In this model, workers are extremely wage-sensitive, so much so that if any single firm cuts wages by even one cent, all the workers at that firm will immediately quit and find employment elsewhere.

In the monopsony model, however, the theory is that the employer has what is known as “market power,” and therefore is not a “wage-taker” (i.e., doesn’t have to offer the market wage). In this model, it is assumed that it’s the employer, not the market, which sets the wage. Therefore, in the monopsony case, the employer will offer below-market wages. And moreover, it’s assumed that the source of the firm’s market power are forces that bind an employee to an employer, so that if wages were cut, at least some of the employees would stay. 

 

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Newer Scouting Group Serves ‘Wise Ones’, Mother Earth

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 6, 2008 in Human Interest/Society, Newz, Religion and The Environment. 2 Comments

Editorial Comment: Hey folks I realize that the following article isn’t exactly Breaking news, or that many of the Readers of this blog are not pagan. But its nice to see an organization that promotes progressive family values.  I would ask you the reader, to read the complete article before passing judgement. Enjoy, Shinai.                            From RedOrbit:

 FRESNO, Calif. _ In two years, the Boys Scouts of America celebrates 100 years of service. Meanwhile, a lesser-known organization, SpiralScouts_an alternative to mainstream scouting programs_is only 9 years old. 

According to its Web site, www.spiralscouts.org, the organization “allows individual groups to determine the exact manner in which they will pursue their own goals.” Groups are coed, and leaders aren’t subject to discrimination based on sexual orientation, religion or gender.A new SpiralScouts chapter is being organized by Clovis, Calif., resident Beckie Tetrault. She is mother to Danielle, 6, and Jack, 2. Her oldest son, Michael, 16, is a former Boy Scout.

“Boy Scouts is very Christian-centered,” Tetrault, a Wiccan, says. (Wicca is a neo-pagan religion.) “Their views aren’t consistent with my family’s beliefs.”

Tetrault, 36, does agree with the Boy Scouts’ appreciation of nature. After researching other programs, Tetrault came across the Michigan-based SpiralScouts program on the Internet. She has been working on establishing a group in the Fresno, Calif., area for the past two years.

“The closest chapter is Antioch (Calif.),” she says. “There was nothing in the San Joaquin Valley. I talked to a few friends who were interested in belonging to this group.”

 Friend Beckie Stanley-Harris of Fresno has a blended family of four children ages 15, 9, 5 and 3.”I’m a Wiccan, and my boyfriend is a Christian,” Stanley-Harris, 31, says. “I want to give my children the opportunity to meet kids from other religions and cultures.”

Stanley-Harris, who was raised a Christian, was a Girl Scout when she was 8 and 9.”I remember summer camp being the highlight of my year,” she says. “It was fun to be up in the mountains, away from the noise of the city. I liked waking up on cold mornings, the campfires, the s’mores and the singing. There’s a camaraderie that comes with that.”

The first SpiralScouts meeting took place last week. Meetings, led by a male and a female, are being held twice a month at Fresno’s Discovery Center. Members pay a $15 annual fee; meetings cost $2 each to cover materials and supplies. Activities include field trips, arts and crafts and outdoor activities.

The group has three levels _ Fireflies, SpiralScouts and Pathfinders _ open to boys and girls ages 3-18. The Firefly promise reads: “I promise to serve the wise ones, to honor and protect Mother Earth, to be helpful and understanding to all people and always keep love in my heart.”

SpiralScouts won’t be selling cookies. Instead, they will raise money by recycling.

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World oil price hits new high

Published by
Gene Shinai
May 6, 2008 in Energy, Jobs, Newz and The Markets. 0 Comments

From AFP Via Rawstory:

World oil reached a new record price near 121 dollars a barrel as concerns over the United States economy eased, analysts said Tuesday.

New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, reached an all-time high of 120.93 dollars a barrel during Asian hours before dropping back in late afternoon trade when it was three cents lower at 119.94 dollars a barrel.

The contract crashed through the symbolic 120-dollar ceiling for the first time on Monday and closed at a record 119.97 dollars on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent North Sea crude for June delivery was 24 cents higher at 118.23 dollars a barrel, after settling at a record 117.99 dollars on Monday in London. The contract had earlier hit an intra-day high of 118.58 dollars.

Oil futures prices on both sides of the Atlantic have nearly doubled in a year and have continued to soar since the benchmark New York contract broke through 100 dollars at the start of 2008.

Latest US economic data have given oil prices a fresh boost, said Victor Shum, senior principal at Purvin and Gertz energy consultancy in Singapore.

On Monday, the Institute of Supply Management said its index for the vast US service sector rose to 52 percent in April, above the level of 50 that means expansion, and better than expected by private analysts.

That report followed official data on Friday which showed that the US economy shed 20,000 jobs in April, far fewer than the 75,000 expected by the market.

 

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