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POPSOuyangwulong's New Travel Plans Hi y'all! I still love you guys, even if I haven't been clipping as much as I'd like to of late. While the Commies may be keeping me away from the Pakistani border, as originally planned, I've just come upon the lovely opportunity to travel to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. That means I'll be putting my feet up in a houseboat on Lake Dal, fishing in high mountain valleys, and all this without having to give up my hobby of hanging out with Islamic terrorists. I guess sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too! If anyone here is in Srinigar next month, let me know and I'll buy you a cup of tea!
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POPSFather of India's Green Revolution Prepares for Evergreen Revolution
“In every crisis is an opportunity” Swaminathan is once again agitating for revolution -- this time a perpetual one. In the early ‘60s, India grew 12 million tons of wheat every year. Starvation was rampant and the country imported much of its food. Swaminathan, an agricultural geneticist, developed new strains of high-yield wheat for his country and the programs that led to an India that exports food. Today, India grows some 70 million tons of wheat and has become the world's second-largest wheat producer. He says that today India has reached a plateau in production and productivity because a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure. His M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture & Rural Development follows a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation to a job-led economic growth strategy in rural areas through harnessing science and technology for environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development.
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POPSWeak Dollar and Traders Behind Gas Prices, Not Supply and Demand This refutes a lot of talk about OPEC and such causing high oil and gas prices. It also explains higher prices on consumer goods, not just driven by fuel prices alone. The dollar is becoming as valued as the paper its printed on, which (this articles does not go into) is because of national indebtedness for heavy war spending, as Ron Paul pointed out during his campaigning. Traders and speculators in the investment community are increasingly buying oil futures for their portfolios and war fears (i.e. war on terrorism, middle east war-mongering) increase price on the trade floor, period.
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POPSNot a bubble but still painful For better or worse? The WSJ's poll of economists says that the boom in oil and food prices isn't an investing bubble but a fundamental shift in supply and demand.
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POPSOil prices continue to surge upwards. Past $123 a barrel and already $4/gallon at the pump for Cali and Hawaii, the rise in fuel prices have no signs of relenting. Ditch the SUV and get one of those hybrids.
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POPS Analyst Warns of $200/Barrel Oil* *One barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons (or $4.76 per gallon) In the Cato-at-Liberty blog post "Is There an Oil Price Bubble?" Cato senior fellow Jerry Taylor writes: "The most recent Fed actions to combat the deteriorating state of the macroeconomy added even more fuel to the oil price fire. With market actors increasingly convinced that the Fed is willing to entertain inflation in the course of injecting liquidity into the market, investors are looking for investments to hedge against inflation. And what do you know? Returns on commodities have historically been better during inflationary periods than during non-inflationary periods. Ben Bernanke thus sent another strong infusion of cash into commodity futures -- again, largely into oil and gas futures.
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POPSSenate Democrats Offer Energy Plan Amid Price Surge Now, why would they want to "...consolidate previous failed attempts"? :~( No real solutions here; just bandaids, blaming, and blustering. How long will it be before Congress gets the message that WE are serious about these energy problems? Just like everything else, our legislative branch of government talks forever and all the while accomplishing nothing until it's a Crisis? Then they look to their typical scapegoats instead of looking towards themselves.
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POPSOil Prices Per Barrel To Rise Above $200 I've been hearing the the rise in the price of oil per barrel is not letting up. Talks about a spike this summer (which is when it usually starts to rise) has people looking for ways to reduce driving.
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POPS15,000 Dead, 30,000 Missing After Catastrophic Myanmar Cyclone "The combination of the cyclone and the referendum within a few days of each other makes an angry population angrier and vulnerable and makes the political situation more volatile" than it has been since last year's massive pro-democracy demonstrations, said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University. At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.
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POPSCartoon Hero Will Save the Day
“In the past three months, average consumer spending on energy came to $663 billion, or 6.5 percent of total consumer spending. A year ago, it represented 5.8 percent.” In simple terms: “If gasoline breaks through $4 a gallon by Memorial Day, that would mean spending on gasoline would have risen by $100 billion since the beginning of the year, or roughly the size of the tax rebate checks going out.” According to Monday’s Providence Journal, “The United States, with the lowest fuel efficient vehicles and longest average commutes in the world, is the only major industrialized country to witness a surge in oil consumption since the severe oil shortages of the 1970s and the 1980s.” While European nations have taxed fuel to pay for other more efficient forms of transportation, the U.S. has taken an Underdog approach to the problem; swooping in with borrowed cash to pay the ransom oil companies demand on our transportation and heating needs. Next week President Underdog will begin mai
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POPSHow We'll Know When We've Won: Frederick W. Kagan Certainly, the American people have a right to insist that our government operate with a clear vision of success and that it develop a clear plan for evaluating whether we are moving in the right direction, even if no tidy numerical metrics can meaningfully size up so complex a human endeavor. As shown here, supporters of the current strategy do indeed have a clear definition of success, and those working to implement it are already evaluating American progress against that definition every day. It is on the basis of their evaluation that we say the surge is working. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.,pubID.27890/pub_detail.asp
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POPSWere You Duped by All the Preznit's Liars? Morford Explains Another great column by Mark Morford....Personally I haven't been duped by this bunch since the beginning--or ever! I wonder why so many people fall for the lies? Are they that seductive? Not to me. But then I'm not a gung-ho "Patriot", wrapped in the flag, 'USA--right or wrong , forever!' kind of person...are you? If you are, even a little bit, then you've been duped, fooled and misled.
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POPSWorld's New Crisis: Soaring Food Prices
"Frankly speaking, that G8 meeting is in June and we cannot wait," Mr Zoellick said, after meeting the IMF and the World Bank's Development Committee. "We estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty." The World Bank has warned that food prices will remain elevated this year and will probably stay above 2004 levels until 2015. "We estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years," Mr Zoellick said. He said that almost half of $500 million that the World Food Program recently requested in additional pledges for food aid had been committed, but the May 1 deadline for raising the money would not be met. The parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, said yesterday Australia was one of the largest donors through the World Food Program, giving $61.7 million last year.
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POPSSupport Victory In Iraq: Sign Our Petition Please show solidarity behind General Petraeus and our heroic military. Make our voices of hope and support louder and stronger than those of the radical anti-war groups. We must illustrate that the efforts of the military in this successful surge have not gone unnoticed. We must proclaim that it would be undeniably disastrous for our national security to retreat and inhumane to leave the Iraqi people in the hands of the brutal and violent Islamic jihadists.
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