Department of Energy: Taxpayers Dollars at Work

To make this the greenest Super Bowl, the New Orleans Host Committee has partnered with fans and the community to offset energy use across the major Super Bowl venues. The exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome features more than 26,000 LED lights on 96 full-color graphic display panels, designed to wash the building in a spectrum of animated colors, patterns and images. The system draws only 10 kilowatts of electricity -- equivalent to the amount of energy used by a small home -- and the lights are expected to last for many years before needing replacement.
Off the football field, New Orleans is embracing energy efficiency with help from the Energy Department
http://energy.gov/articles/super-bowl-city-leads-energy-efficient-forefront

Snapshot of inside Super Dome just as second half began:

 

The Bernanke Put





 

Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis.

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Christine Haigh of the WDM said: "While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fuelling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No 1 culprit."

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British consumers have not been spared the impact of rising food costs – prices have, on average, risen by nearly 40 per cent in the past seven years.
Rob Nash, Oxfam's private sector adviser, said: "Oxfam is very concerned about food speculation, especially in the light of increasingly extreme weather conditions which can reduce supply suddenly and severely deplete stocks. The last thing we need is for that volatility to be exacerbated by speculation and exploited for short-term profit."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/goldman-bankers-get-rich-betting-on-food-prices-as-millions-starve-8459207.html

Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.

Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food-crisis-8100011.html

A measure of net-longs for 11 U.S. farm goods jumped 13 percent to 401,134 contracts, the biggest increase since July 10, CFTC data show. The S&P GSCI Agriculture Index of eight products climbed 1.2 percent last week. Corn positions climbed 8.5 percent to 164,434 contracts, and those for soybeans 7.4 percent to 105,017 contracts, the highest in five weeks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-03/bulls-rewarded-with-best-january-rally-since-2006-commodities.html
 

Joe Biden

"“I would like to see us moving towards the day when no single ally provides more than 50% of certain critical capabilities. This will require European allies to do more."
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...[b]ut Biden’s warning is unlikely to change policy in Europe anytime soon.
http://www.euronews.com/2013/02/02/joe-biden-balms-us-european-relations/

Pemex

Pemex estimated that in the first six months of 2012, the volume of oil removed illegally from its national pipeline system through clandestine taps reached 1,841,478 barrels, marking an 18 percent increase from the 1,557,569 barrels stolen during the same period last year.
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Several U.S.-based companies operating near the border have been accused of helping Mexican criminals refine stolen oil
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/mexico-s-state-run-oil-company-pipeline-network-practically-taken-over-organized-crime

According to Milenio, a Pemex official who had received death threats was killed, likely due to "revenge" (28 June 2009).
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/50754bcd2.html

But what has also percolated just below the surface is an alarming intersection between the drug violence and Mexico’s energy sector. For Mexico and Pemex, the increased intensity of the drug war and its damage is but the latest in a string of challenges, and a twist that has seemingly linked two previously unconnected drags on the nation.
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Unofficial figures place thefts from the Pemex network at roughly $2 billion annually. And security experts point to this as an important source of revenue for drug cartels—especially as the Mexican government continues to crack down on them. Thefts from the Pemex network are not new, but the increase and the strain it is placing on the already-taxed company is important. And the illegal tapping has grown significantly in the areas where the drug war is the most pervasive.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/03/perilous-intersection-of-mexicos-drug.html

Modern Monetary Theory

Greece

Kombo Kolombia

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - Police pulled 17 bodies from a well in northern Mexico and 14 of them have been identified as members of a musical band kidnapped by gunmen last week, an official said Tuesday
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130130/DA447SH03.html

Aaron Tobey

At an airport to catch a flight, Mr. Tobey declined to walk through an x-ray machine and chose a pat down search instead where he removed his shirt to display part of the fourteenth amendment, the one about unreasonable search and seizure, to the constitution written on his chest. For this he was handcuffed and detained for 90 minutes by the TSA at the Richmond, Va., international airport.

While under interrogation Mr. Tobey was asked if he was a terrorist, affiliated with any terrorist organizations and what is his "goal"? Be afraid America, be very afraid.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/4th-amendment-chest-trial/

Dr. Cornel West

Did the good doctor refer to Obama as:
A. The black mascot of Wall St.
B. A Rockefellar republican in black face
C. The head of America's killing machine and proud of it
D. All of the above

"We Live in a World Where the Architects of the Financial Crisis Regularly Dine at the White House."

[m]ost shameful failings of the Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis:
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What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality
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Worst of all, Obama justice officials both shielded and feted these Wall Street oligarchs (who, just by the way, overwhelmingly supported Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) as they simultaneously prosecuted and imprisoned powerless Americans for far more trivial transgressions
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The same Lanny Breuer was recently seen announcing that the banking giant HSBC would face no criminal prosecution for its money laundering of funds for designated terrorist groups and drug networks on the ground that the bank was too big to risk prosecuting
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Underlying all of that is what the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin, admitted in 2009: the banks "frankly own the place
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/23-6

Fiasco at Obama Inaguration Event

Lupe Fiasco from June, 2011:“To me,” Lupe began, “the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s causing the other forms of terrorism. You know the root cause of terrorists is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.”
http://music-mix.ew.com/2011/06/08/lupe-fiasco-president-obama-terrorist/

Lupe's take on Obama from July 2012:
[w]ho is a great speaker, but kills little children - our President." He continued, "I'm talking about ordering a drone attack. Ordering drone attacks that go and kill mothers, innocent bystanders, children. Militants too, but the collateral damage. You're responsible for that, too."
http://www.complex.com/music/2012/07/lupe-fiasco-criticizes-president-obama-says-he-kills-little-children

Lupe today at the inaguration event:
"Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist/ Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit."

Senkaku

BEIJING--China has responded sharply to comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the disputed Senkaku Islands.
Clinton expressed opposition to "any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration" over the territory during Japan-U.S. talks at foreign ministerial level in Washington on Jan. 18.
In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Jan. 20 that Clinton's warning against a move by China failed to acknowledge the rights and wrongs of the situation.
"The United States should be careful with its words," Qin said, and expressed "strong discontent" and "firm opposition" to the statement.
Qin said the U.S. side also bears its historical responsibility in the matter, apparently hinting that the United States did not clearly address the territorial issue when it returned Okinawa to Japan in 1972.
He also said current tensions between China and Japan over the islands stemmed from Tokyo escalating its provocation.
The Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea are administered by Japan, but claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201301210075

In a related story, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked what her husband's thoughts are on this sensitive matter. Madame's Secretary's reply below:
 

Mali

"So this whole thing bears the imprint of US Africom [US Africa Command] and an attempt to militarize the whole region and its resources. Mali is a strategic lynchpin in that. It borders Algeria which is one of the top goals of these various NATO interventions from France, the US and other sides. Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso. All of this area is just swimming in untapped resources, whether it be gold, manganese, copper."
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/socom-manufactured-french-invasion-of-mali-training-the-man-behind-the-coup/

Mega

[s]econds before a helicopter roared overhead and faux police agents rappelled down the side of his mansion. Dotcom eventually ordered everyone to "stop this madness!" before breaking out into a dance alongside miniskirt-clad "guards" as music boomed.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/indicted-megaupload-founder-launches-new-site-0

You Feel Lucky Punk

Japan says it may fire warning shots and take other measures to keep foreign aircraft from violating its airspace...
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[w]hich is to say if Japan fires the first shot, then China wouldn't stint on responding and not allow them to fire the second shot."
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201301200020

Bomb Explodes in Athens Mall

There was an explosion a little before 11 a.m. at The Mall commercial center in the upscale Athens neighborhood of Marousi
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Police said they believe new groups are forming in the wake of crushing austerity measures and those who are angry with government policies
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/01/20/bomb-explodes-in-athens-mall/#!lightbox/0/

In recent days, small explosive devices were planted outside the homes of journalists and of the government spokesman's brother, while others targeted bank ATM machines.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2013/Jan-20/202997-explosive-device-at-shopping-mall-near-athens-injures-two.ashx#axzz2IYVigQg8

The jobs news from Greece continues to be relentlessly bad.
The latest official figures for the third quarter of the year show the jobless rate rose to 24.8 percent of the workforce. It was the highest quarterly unemployment rate since this data series started in 1998
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For young people the total was 56.6 percent and nearly two thirds of all unemployed have been looking for work for more than a year.
http://www.euronews.com/2012/12/13/greek-unemployment-climbs/

Dong Chong Xia Cao

Dong Chong Xia Cao





 

BOJ may pledge open-ended asset buying: sources

(Reuters) - The Bank of Japan will consider making an open-ended commitment next week to buy government bonds and other assets until 2 percent inflation is in sight and the economy is on a more solid footing, according to sources familiar with its thinking.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/18/us-japan-economy-nishimura-boj-idUSBRE90H02720130118

How about an open-ended commitment to safely cleanup and dispose of their radioactive cessium?

More than a year and a half since the nuclear crisis, much of Japan’s post-Fukushima cleanup remains primitive, slapdash and bereft of the cleanup methods lauded by government scientists as effective in removing harmful radioactive cesium from the environment.
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The politically connected companies have little radiological cleanup expertise and critics say they have cut corners to employ primitive — even potentially hazardous — techniques".
http://fatboysez.blogspot.com/2013/01/heck-of-job-brownie.html

A fish containing over 2,500 times Japan's legal limit for radiation in seafood has been caught in the vicinity of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the facility's operator reported.

­A ‘murasoi’ fish, similar to a rockfish, was caught at a port inside the plant, according to AFP. Plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) indicated that the amount of cesium measured 254,000 becquerels per kilogram – 2,540 times Japan's legal limit for radiation in seafood.
http://rt.com/news/japan-fish-radiation-fukushima-321/

Herr Schäuble Sprechen

Großbritannien hat höheren Staatsschulden, als der Eurozone Durchschnitt und ich nicht einmal die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika erwähnen möchten,“ Schaeuble sagte.
{Britain has a higher state debt than the eurozone average and I don't even want to mention the United States of America," Schaeuble said.}
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9809154/Britain-has-more-debt-than-the-eurozone-says-Germanys-Wolfgang-Schaeuble.html

Grease

Electricity bills for most Greek consumers will go up 9 percent retroactively to Jan. 1, while a 100 percent property tax surcharge is still being tacked on to utility bills under the threat of power being disconnected, although state agencies that owe 170 million euros ($227 million) haven’t paid and have not lost their electricity.
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/01/13/electric-bills-up-9-government-agencies-wont-pay/