French Foreign Minister Juppe addresses Clinton criticism, says that France, US both believe an agreement on parameters must be in place before talks can resume; says he expects "positive developments."THIS IS INSANE.
On June 6, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy succumbed to gunshot wounds inflicted a day earlier by an Arab terrorist, Sirhan Sirhan. His daughter later said that this was because of his support for the Jewish state.Be sure to check those out. Among the things told, here's what RFK had to say about the British and their hostility to Israel:
Lenny Ben-David, former head of AIPAC, writes in his blog that “Years later his daughter told me, ‘My father was killed by a Palestinian terrorist [Sirhan Sirhan] because of his strong support for Israel.’ He was killed on the first anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War."
Ben-David links to another blog that contains excerpts from a series of articles written by RFK for a now-defunct Boston newspaper, after his visit to “Palestine” in March 1948.
The British government, in its attitude towards the Jewish population in Palestine, has given ample credence to the suspicion that they are firmly against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.I'm glad someone from America recognized the British for what they've been, and so far, still are in their approach to Israel, and their congratulation to that horrorist at the border post certainly tells something.
When I was in Cairo shortly after the blowing up of the Jewish Agency [March 11, 1948] I talked to a man who held a high position in the Arab League. He had just returned from Palestine where he had, among other things, interviewed and arranged transportation to Trans-Jordan for the Arab responsible for that Jewish disaster. This Arab told him that after the explosion, upon reaching the British post which separated the Jewish section from a small neutral zone set up in the middle of Jerusalem, he was questioned by the British officers in charge. He quite freely admitted what he had done and was given immediate passage with the remark “Nice going.”
Average ice extent for May 2011 was 12.79 million square kilometers (4.94 million square miles). This is 210,000 square kilometers (81,000 square miles) above the previous record low for the month, set in May 2004
...[Theodore] Roosevelt offered this historical perspective in 1916 on the consequences for Western civilization of succeeding, or failing to repel jihad conquerors:How few history textbooks today present this perspective - even though most history texts laud Theodore Roosevelt for his promotion of conservationism with his setting aside land for nature preserves and national parks.The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization…[including] those of Charles Martel in the 8th century [over Arab jihadists] and those of John Sobieski in the 17th century [over Ottoman Turkish jihadists]. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier [Martel] and the Polish king [Sobieski], the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any ‘social values’ whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence [is]…concerned.”...
Protestors for hire? Demonstrators along the Syria-Israel border were paid thousands of dollars by President Bashar Assad’s regime to take part in Sunday’s riots, Syrian opposition activists charge.If he really bribed them in dollar currency, then it's your tax money at work, unless he paid them with dinars. This is apparently how he can deflect some of the flak he gets from within - by turning people against Israel with the anti-semitism that unfortunately can affect even the opposition - and divert attention from the violence he's subjecting the public to in Syria.
Israeli officials later reinforced the claims, accusing the Syrian regime of encouraging protests along the northern border.
Sunday’s riots were an attempt “to divert attention away from the massacre in Syria,” one official charged. “The Syrians will be held accountable for these events.”
Late Sunday, Syrian officials claimed that 23 people were killed and 350 were wounded after the IDF fired at protestors aiming to rush the border fence earlier in the day. However, the army dismissed the figures, claiming that they were inflated.
Washington-based members of the Reform Party of Syria said intelligence sources close to the Syrian government in Lebanon informed them that the protesters on the Syrian side of the Druze community of Majdal Shams were in fact poverty-stricken farmers paid by the Assad regime.
According to the sources, the farmers migrated over the last few years from drought-stricken northeast Syria to the south. They reached the Israel-Syria border on Sunday in the aims of reenact “Nakba Day” events, the sources said.
The Syrian opposition group claimed that each farmer was promised $1,000 for showing up at the rally and $10,000 to their families if they are killed by IDF fire.
US seeks direct talks with Taliban's Mullah OmarI THINK THIS IS AWFUL - AND REVEALING:
American officials have set a goal of direct negotiations with Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, prompting Washington to approach intermediaries to broker meetings within months.
Portugal's governing Socialist Party has admitted defeat in the general election.
Socialist leader Jose Socrates said he accepted responsibility for the defeat and resigned as head of his party.
The victorious centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) led by Pedro Passos Coelho are expected to form a majority with the conservative CDS.
The new government must implement a demanding austerity programme as a condition for an EU bail-out.
PORTUGAL JOINS BRITAIN, FRANCE, GERMANY, SWEDEN AND HUNGARY.
A defeat for Mr Sócrates after six years in office would mean another election loss for the centre-left in Europe, leaving only Spain, Greece, Austria, Slovenia and Cyprus with socialist-led governments in the EU.PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE FT ARTICLE.
AND SPAIN WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY MOVE RIGHT IN THE NEXT ELECTION!
MR. OBAMA: ARE YOU WATCHING!?!?!?!?
Two teenage Palestinians were indicted in the murder of five members of the Fogel family from the West Bank settlement of Itamar.Let me again add my voice to those who support the death penalty for jihadist monsters like the ones who committed the horrifying murder, no matter their age. In fact, they're both of what's considered adult age when reaching 18. I'd say that's one more reason why the death penalty should be established for them to be subject to, and send them to face God's law.
Amjad Awad, 19, who worked as a laborer in Israel, and Hakim Awad 18, a high school student, were indicted on Sunday in a West Bank Military Court for the murders of Udi Fogel, 36, and Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11; Elad, 4; and Hadas, 3 months.
The men have reportedly confessed to the March 11 murder and reenacted the crime, and military prosecutors say there is forensic evidence linking them to the scene of the crime, including DNA samples and fingerprints, Haaretz reported.
They were also charged with stealing weapons, breaking and entering, and conspiracy to commit a crime, according reports. They are residents of the West Bank town of Hawarta, located near Itamar, and have been connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as have several members of their families.
"I'm proud of what I did," Ynet quoted Amjad Awad as saying just minutes before the hearing. "I don't regret what I did, even if it means I'm sentenced to death."
Israel does not have the death penalty expect for convictions for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and treason in wartime, though some officials have called for the men to be sentenced to death if found guilty.
Two sons -- Roi, 8, and Yishai, 2 -- were sleeping in a side bedroom and were spared. A daughter, Tamar, 12, returned home at midnight from a youth group program to discover the massacre.
As you may have heard by now, San Francisco will be voting this November on whether or not to ban circumcision in the city.Those pictures are so repugnant I can't even look at them for long, if at all. And if proponents of the ban are only citing Jews and not Muslims, then I wonder if they'll even remotely frown whenever an Islamist performs the ritual following whatever judgement is made in November. In fact, I wonder if they even care about females, the real victims of circumcision in the Islamic world, whenever it happens to them. Why do I doubt they care about what Ayaan Hirsi Ali went through?
Defenders of the measure say it’s all about “human rights” and “protecting babies” from unnecessary procedures.
But critics suspected there was something vaguely anti-Semitic about the whole proposal, since among Jews (and Muslims, as well) circumcising male babies is a religious duty, not just a mistaken medical procedure.
I’m still trying to figure out why [Matthew Hess], a gay author who can’t naturally have any children of his own, is pro-abortion but anti-circumcision. With circumcision – the kid lives. If he needs more pleasure with his partner, there are plenty of drugs out there for that. He cannot blame his parents forever.I guess the author really hates life, doesn't he?
If this was truly an honor killing that was ignored by the Tampa Police Department, this is an issue that should be of grave concern to all of us in Tampa Bay and the entire United States. It has already been documented that Shari’ah compliant mortgage financing has been occurring across the country for over ten years, and Shari’ah has been deferred to in a court case in Hillsborough County, Florida.Serious action is needed to ensure sharia cannot be employed in Florida or elsewhere in the United States.
Vatican calls for independent Palestinian state 'soon'WHY SHOULD JEWS HANDOVER ANY PART OF OUR ANCIENT HOMELAND - JUDEA AND SAMARIA - TO THESE VILE SCUMB*GS JUST SO THEY CAN HAVE ANOTHER TERROR STATE LIKE SYRIA AND LEBANON AND GAZA!?!?!?!?
Pope Benedict XVI meets PA President Abbas at Vatican, says its urgent that Palestinian state, Israel "live in security, at peace with neighbors."
The Vatican on Friday called urgently for a just and lasting peace between peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which it said can be brought about through and independent Palestinian state.
Stench fills Christ's birthplace after siegeAND I REMEMBER HOW THESE MUSLIM SCUMBA*S TREATED JOSEPH'S TOMB:BETHLEHEM, West Bank - The overwhelming stench of urine was the first thing to hit visitors who entered the shrine in Bethlehem revered as the birthplace of Jesus.
The standoff between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army at the Church of the Nativity, which came to an end on Friday after nearly 40 days and nights of high drama, had left one of Christianity's holiest places in a shocking mess.
Garbage bags, lemon peels, gas canisters, petrol cans and electric hotplates were scattered throughout the church off Manger Square. A Reuters correspondent saw altars, the sacred focus of Christian worship, covered with food scraps.
"It's not a church any more, it's a place filled with beds and trash," said Sandy Shahin, a local teenager who rushed into the church minutes after the end of the siege on Friday.
"The smell is too bad. The floor is too bad. I'm filled with fear," Shahin, a Roman Catholic, said between sobs.
... Soon after the militants left, priests from the often bickering denominations argued over whether to allow Israeli army bomb disposal experts in to make sure no explosives were left behind. The clergymen decided in favour of a sweep.
"We have found 40 explosive devices and five rifles hidden there and the IDF is dismantling them now," an army spokeswoman said.
Earlier, 13 men on Israel's most-wanted list left the church and were quickly flown on a British aircraft to Cyprus, the first stop in an exile abroad which will take them to third countries under a European Union-brokered deal.
Twenty-six others considered less serious offenders by Israel were expelled from the West Bank and taken to Gaza.
Some 200 people -- Palestinian militants, police, civilians, priests and nuns took refuge in the sanctuary to evade Israeli troops and tanks that swept into Bethlehem on April 2 in a West Bank offensive triggered by suicide bombings.
In the early days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, on the morning of October 7, 2000, Israel withdrew the small contingent of IDF border policemen who had been guarding the site of the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph and its Yeshiva. The holy site was located in Shechem in Samaria, the town the Arabs call "Nablus". Over the preceeding days, the Tomb had been attacked with gunfire, stones, and firebombs. The IDF defenders in the compound withstood the attacks and stopped several attempts by armed Palestinians to break in. An IDF border policemen was wounded, and the heavy rioting prevented his evacuation for treatment in time to save his life.
In order to prevent further loss of life and to lower tensions in the area, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak authorized the temporary evacuation of the site, based on the agreement of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to safeguard the location, in accordance with their obligations under the Oslo Accords to protect holy sites, Jewish and Christian, and ensure access by all. The PA also pledged to prevent any vandalism and to return the Tomb to its original state after the violence settled down.
The PA pledge was brazenly violated about two hours after the Israeli evacuation, when a Palestinian Arab mob entered the Tomb compound and began to systematically destroy everything in sight, including all remnants of the Yeshiva. The furniture and books that were left behind were burned by the mob. The Palestinian police stood by, failing to prevent any of these violent activities, despite their commitment to guard the Tomb. Within hours, Joseph's Tomb was reduced to a smoldering heap of rubble. Within two days, as an Associated Press dispatch reported, "the dome of the tomb was painted green and bulldozers were seen clearing the surrounding area," as the Palestinian Arabs sought to transform the biblical Joseph's resting place into a Moslem holy site.
THAT WAS 2000; THEY DID IT AGAIN THIS YEAR:
THIS POPE IS WRONG. HE IS ADVOCATING A BAD IF NOT EVIL THING.
NO GOOD WILL COME OF IT - NOT FOR ANYONE; NOT FOR THE RC CHURCH.
SIGH.
Americans Are Joining Flotilla to Protest Israeli Blockade... The Americans have named their boat “The Audacity of Hope,” lifting the title of a book by President Obama to make a point, said Leslie Cagan, a political organizer who is the coordinator of the American boat.
When an international flotilla sails for Gaza this month to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, among the boats will be an American ship with 34 passengers, including the writer Alice Walker and an 86-year-old whose parents died in the Holocaust.
Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.
What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?
As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.
Natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, can be used in both electricity generation and as a fuel for automobiles.
The implications for energy security are startling. Natural gas may be only the beginning. Fracking also permits the extraction of previously-unrecoverable “tight oil,” thereby postponing the day when the world runs out of petroleum. There is enough coal to produce energy for centuries.
And governments, universities and corporations in the U.S., Canada, Japan and other countries are studying ways to obtain energy from gas hydrates, which mix methane with ice in high-density formations under the seafloor. The potential energy in gas hydrates may equal that of all other fossils, including other forms of natural gas, combined.
The arrest of Ratko Mladic has given the western media occasion to recall the Bosnian civil war of the early 1990s and the crimes for which Bosnian Serbs have been held responsible. But – since as a rule they did not report on it in the first place – it is unlikely that they will remind their audiences against just whom the Bosnian Serbs were fighting: namely, a Bosnian government headed by a self-avowed Islamist whose forces were armed by Iran and augmented by foreign mujahideen linked to none other than Al-Qaeda.Are these the kind of people whom civilized society would want to associate themselves with? Certainly not me. Let's also recall how Sulejman Talovic, the Bosnian Muslim teenager who went on a shooting rampage in Trolley Square's mall in Utah was a product of the very RoP that the mujahideen worshiped too.
On the arming of the Bosnian government forces by Iran – and the role, in particular, of the late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke in forging the relationship – see my earlier article here.
Al-Qaeda’s involvement in the Bosnian “jihad” is well known to Balkan specialists and has even been acknowledged, however obliquely, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Indeed, when the late Bosnian commander Rasim Delic was tried by the court for crimes committed by the so-called “El Mujahid” unit, Delic’s defense argued that the general was not responsible for the foreign fighters’ atrocities, since their orders came not from him, but rather directly from Al-Qaeda. (See “Al-Qaida’s Bosnian war move”, International Relations and Security Network.)
The court ostensibly rejected this line of defense, insisting that the input of what it daintily termed “foreign authorities” was limited to recruitment of mujahideen and logistical support. Nonetheless, it only convicted Delic on one of the four charges in the indictment and sentenced him to merely three years in prison. Delic had already served nearly half of this time awaiting judgment and he was subsequently released pending appeal. For all intents and purposes, then, the court left the crimes of the El Mujahid unit unpunished.
The atrocities described in the Delic judgment include, for instance, the summary execution and decapitation of a Serb detainee by the name of Gojko Vujicic. After the beheading, the mujahideen displayed Vujicic’s severed head to other detainees. The judgment describes the scene as follows:
Back in the house, a Mujahedin entered the detainees’ room carrying Gojko Vujicic’s head on an s-shaped butcher’s hook. Blood dripped from the head. The Mujahedin threw Vujicic’s head onto Krstan Marinkovic’s lap, then took the severed head from one detainee to another, forcing them to “kiss your brother”. The Mujahedin then hung Vujicic’s head on a hook in the room where it remained for several hours.
Far from hiding their atrocities, the foreign mujahideen in Bosnia made a practice of filming them for purposes of intimidation and propaganda. The point has been noted in both John R. Schindler’s book-length study of Al-Qaeda in Bosnia, Unholy Terror, and in the Norwegian documentary Sarajevo Ricochet, which contains footage of the mujahideen and their victims. A substantial extract from Sarajevo Ricochet with English narration has been made available here by the American journalist J.M. Berger.
UP to 70 convicted terrorists due to be released this year will not be properly monitored, a probation chief warned yesterday.More here:
The "high risk" extremists, some of them bomb makers, could be walking the streets after being freed on licence.
But Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said cuts to services meant adequate checks could not be kept on them.
He added: "They have to be supervised by us and the police at a fairly intensive level.
"My fear is as cuts go deeper we're going to be unable to give them the close attention that we have hitherto. These men require maximum supervision and we're not going to be able to do it."
Among those set for release are Saajit Badat, jailed for 13 years in 2005 for plotting with shoe bomber Richard Reid. Also due to walk free is Moinul Abedin, jailed for 20 years in 2002 for making bomb detonators.
Senator John Kerry, who called the twisters a “once in 100 years” event, said teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were on the way.TRUTH/CNN:
KERRY IS A LYING IDIOTIC TRAITOROUS ASS,Though not as tornado-prone as much of the Midwest or the South, Massachusetts has averaged two to three twisters per year since 1950, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In 1953, a massive tornado that struck Worcester and nearby towns killed 90 people, according to NOAA.
The last tornado to hit the state was in 2008.
The economic recovery is faltering, and Washington is running out of ways to get it back on track.WTF: RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO TRY!?!?
"Police in Spain's Canary Islands Wednesday arrested a Moroccan suspected of 'recruiting children for terrorist purposes', the interior ministry said.
Imad El Mouahhid, 25, also had 'links with members of terrorist organisations currently serving sentences in Morocco,' it said in a statement.
The suspect was detained in the town of San Bartolome de Tirajana on the island of Gran Canaria as part of Operation Quixote which is investigating people 'involved in the recruitment and the proselytizing of jihad.'
The suspect was 'proselytizing and advocating terrorism through the recruitment of children for terrorist purposes and the development and distribution of different materials,' the ministry said."
"Their relationship began in the most romantic of ways — at a sun-drenched holiday resort in a foreign land. But Sarah Ben Miled’s surprising love story is now the stuff of nightmares.More here.
She is hiding out alone in a safe-house, terrified that the man she loved and married two years ago will find her and exact an appalling revenge for the failure of their short and ill-fated marriage.
Sarah’s story is a cautionary tale for anyone with idealised notions of whirlwind love and holiday romance."
The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for St. Elsewhere, a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: "There's not going to be a Reagan asshole on this show!" The part went to Howie Mandel.
"Most nepotism in Hollywood isn't familial, it's ideological," Shapiro writes in the book. "Friends hire friends. And those friends just happen to share their politics."
NOTE: PALTROW WAS A JEW, AND PALTROW'S DAUGHTER - GWYNETH - IS MARRIED TO A GUY IN COLDPLAY AND COLDPLAY SUPPORTS THE PALESTINIANS AND OPPOSES ISRAEL.
PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT THE LEFT IS THE HOME OF ANTISEMITISM - AND EVEN FOR JEWS THEIR LEFTISM TRUMPS THEIR HERITAGE.
THE POSTMODERN LEFT:
ANTISEMITIC, BLACK-LISTING, GAIA-WORSHIPING, JIHAD-APPEASING LEARJET HYPOCRITES.
“It took people less time to lose 10 pounds” on a high-fat diet-and-exercise program, about 45 days on average, than the 70 days it took for those who exercised and followed a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet constructed using guidelines from the American Heart Association, said Kerry J. Stewart, director of clinical and research exercise physiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the report. And at least in the short term, there were no apparent harmful effects.
CAN YOU SAY ANTISEMITISM?Jerusalem is 3000 years old. It was divided for 19 years.
So why exactly is that anomalous 19 years considered the "status quo" again?
Manufacturing — a consistent driver of growth over the past year -- slowed dramatically last month, according to data released Wednesday. Private job creation was exceptionally weak in May, other data showed Wednesday. Adding to that, home prices are falling, consumers are spending less, and companies are laying off more workers, according to other recent reports.WE NEED TO ENACT THE GOP BUDGET PLAN AND WE NEED TO ENACT IT NOW.
Putting it all together, the economy is still expanding, but the pace is sluggish, and it’s clearly losing momentum. Several analysts who had been relatively optimistic about growth this year have cut back their estimates in recent weeks. Wednesday’s financial markets also reflected the grim outlook.June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Companies in the U.S. added fewer workers than forecast in May, a sign that job growth is struggling to gain momentum, data from a private report based on payrolls showed today.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry, a third of the loss officials had initially estimated.Buy Ford.
In a report from the president's National Economic Council, officials said that figure is down from the 60 percent the Treasury Department originally estimated the government would lose following its $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009.
The report's release coincides with the administration's efforts to tout the bailout's role in the revitalization of the U.S. auto industry after last week's announcement that Chrysler is repaying $5.9 billion in U.S. loans and a $1.7 billion loan from the Canadian government. Those payments cover most of the federal bailout money that saved the company after it nearly ran out of cash in and went through a government-led bankruptcy.
For Obama, the auto industry comeback is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise sluggish economic recovery. What's more, the auto industry has a big footprint in key presidential battleground states like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.
General Motors Co., which also went through bankruptcy, received a $49.5 billion U.S. bailout. The federal government has lowered its equity stake in the company from 61 percent to 26.5 percent of GM after selling part of the stake in November. Ford did not seek federal government assistance.
NEW YORK (AP) — The former chairman of one of Egypt’s major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations.The NY Daily News says that a supervisor tried to delay her reporting to police, and has been rightly suspended:
Police say Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested at the Pierre Hotel on Monday morning.
The 74-year-old businessman is accused of sexually abusing the maid and holding her against her will inside his hotel room.
Police say the incident happened Sunday night.
Police spokesman Paul Browne says detectives found the complainant to be credible.
Omar is the former chairman of Egypt’s Bank of Alexandria.
The Pierre hotel suspended a supervisor who stopped a maid from immediately reporting that she was groped by a guest - and its housekeepers will soon be getting panic buttons.We can guess what happened here: political correctness regarding Islam came in. It's very fortunate that justice prevailed, the culprit was jailed and the would-be supervisor hung up to dry. Plus, they're giving their employees emergency signals.
The get-tough moves came a day after Egyptian businessman Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, was charged with pawing the body of the 44-year-old maid in his $900-a-night room.
The maid escaped his clutches and quickly told a supervisor, "who said something to the effect that the best way to report this is to notify the security director," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
It was Sunday and the director was off, so the woman - a mother of four from Ghana who is a devout Pentecostal Christian - was sent home without any action being taken.
"It's an absolute outrage," said Peter Ward, president of the Hotel & Motel Trades Council.
"You don't take a person who has just been assaulted and send them home. You help them.
"This customer continued to roam around the hotel, continued to have access to the bar, continued to have access to room service after he assaulted somebody simply because some manager tried to sweep it under the rug."
Strauss-Kahn is free on $6 million bail and bond and is under house arrest in Tribeca, where he ventured out to see his lawyer Tuesday.They're charging him less than DSK? I may not know enough about this kind of pricing, but it still looks fishy and disgusting that they're charging Omar less to post bail.
Omar, the former head of the Bank of Alexandria, was arraigned Tuesday night on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching. He was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail. He did not enter a plea.
From confused "peak oil" theorists to confused Congressmen, it's all but impossible to hear a discussion of US energy policy without hearing the left's tired refrain: "The United States currently uses 25% of the world oil production but has only 2% of world reserves." The left uses this misinformation to argue against domestic oil drilling, claiming that with only two percent of the world's reserves, we can't possibly have enough oil in the ground to matter.(Read the whole thing!)It's a line which reminds me of Mark Twain's wisdom (which he attributed to Benjamin Disraeli) that "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Twain would be proud of these haters of fossil fuels whose "statistics" fall apart upon examination of a couple of definitions and a few pieces of data.
First, the word "reserves." As the Congressional Research Service notes, there are several different types of reserves, classified based on their official discovery, as well as "concentration, quality, and accessibility." The top of the "resource pyramid" is made of "proved" reserves, namely reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, or other fuel "which geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions."
This is the most limiting definition of reserves, and of course it is the one which the left relies on when saying that we have "only two percent of the world's oil reserves." Specifically, the U.S. has 20.7 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves as of the end 2009. (That's actually up from 2008 numbers which by itself should be a clue how meaningless the left's two-percent argument is.)
The problem with the use of the "proved reserves" statistic is that it ignores the many more billions of barrels of oil which we know exist and are likely to be recoverable on American land and just off our coasts. Since our government prevents exploration, there are massive deposits of oil (and other fuels) which are prevented from being measured adequately to be defined as "proved." But that doesn't make them less real.
A broader measure of fossil fuel deposits is UTRR, undiscovered technically recoverable resources. Marcus Koblitz, energy analyst at the American Petroleum Institute, sent me this "short" definition of the term: "UTRR are estimated by USGS and/or BOEMRE using advanced modeling techniques that apply knowledge of geologic formations and technical access capabilities to currently unexplored formations that are similar to producing formations in order to determine the amount of oil and natural gas in a specific area or basin."
The UTRR numbers are remarkably high for the United States; indeed they demolish the left's anti-drilling pseudo-logic. Or they would if the media's talking heads would stop just accepting the 2% lie-statistic.
In particular, the United States' UTRR for onshore oil is currently about 38 billion barrels, with the offshore technically recoverable resources coming in at a stunning 86 billion barrels. (Of this, just over half is in the Gulf of Mexico, a third in Alaska, and the rest off our Pacific and Atlantic coasts.) Our real but not "proved" resource of oil is thus about 125 billion barrels. Furthermore, the offshore numbers are based on a report that used data from 2003, at which time oil discovery and drilling technology were far behind what they are today, the BP disaster notwithstanding. It is likely that a new survey would conclude with a substantially higher UTRR number.
Even with the outdated offshore figures, the U.S.'s total technically recoverable oil, including current proved reserves and 10 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, is estimated by our government at 163 billion barrels, eight times the number thrown around by the left.
Yes, our total recoverable oil reserves (including proved) are at least eight times our proved reserves alone. It's just that government keeps us from proving them. And if that's not enough, our UTRR for natural gas is five times our proven reserves of that resource.
Using only the proved oil reserve number of 20.8 billion barrels, the U.S. ranks 12th in the world in that category. However, America's UTRR of oil and natural gas combined is likely the largest in the world.
