Increase in deep-water drilling actually due to region's large oil reserves

Tags: Oil, imported, Big Five, Why Gulf Oil Needed, Greed, Gulf Oil Economy Substantial Part of USA Economy

As I mentioned in my earlier blog, oil is necessary mainly for transportation and we now import close to 66% of all our imported oil from just five countries of the 70% we import. The main reason why we have the problem after about 20 years of avoiding the problem. The major Gulf leak was by Mexico about 30 years ago in relatively shallow water (about 6-700 feet) and using the same techniques now used by BP with no advance in technology, it took Mexico 10 months to cap the well by drilling to relief wells which require ten tries to get it right. Similar problems in Australia in relatively shallow water too about, as I recall, about six months.

Canada requires ocean drillers to put in a relief piping in at the same time as the main drilling pipe. Smart thinking and good regulations takes care of the problem before it happens! Incidentally, Canada did not suffer the American/Europe financial meltdown because they enforced their regulations. The same in India, one of many Asian states that followed that rule.

They are good shape for growth by increasing their middleclass while the USA decreased our middleclass by exporting jobs and lowering pay and benefits, increasing Social Security payments greatly during the Reagan administration. These same guy criticize Americans for not savings without asking the question, how much can they really save. Over 150 million Americans with the use of credit cards can barely get by each week and month.

March 2010 Import Highlights: May 27, 2010

"Monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in March 2010 has been released and it shows that three countries exported more than 1.00 million barrels per day to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 66 percent of United States crude oil imports in March while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 86 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports. The top five sources of US crude oil imports for March were Canada (2.020 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.149 million barrels per day), Mexico (1.086 million barrels per day), Venezuela (0.984 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (0.939 million barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Angola (0.490 million barrels per day), Iraq (0.475 million barrels per day), Brazil (0.299 million barrels per day), Algeria (0.276 million barrels per day), and Russia (0.248 million barrels per day). Total crude oil imports averaged 9.292 million barrels per day in March, which is an increase of 0.612 million barrels per day from February 2010.

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in March, exporting 2.517 million barrels per day to the United States, which is an increase from last month (2.490 thousand barrels per day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Mexico with 1.265 million barrels per day." U.S. Energy Information Administration

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

I recall that we now import 70% of our oil. Canada and Mexico are now are top two exporters of oil to the USA with Saudi Arabia third, and Venezuela and Nigeria fourth and fifth. But Angola, Iraq, Brazil, Algeria, Colombia and Ecuador oil are quite significant. Our foreign policies depend heavily on maintaining a guaranteed supply of oil and is an important part of our National Security considerations. Understanding this is vitaly important to understand why President Obama keeps drilling in the Gulf which contributes about 23% of USA oil production.

Unfortunately protestors on the Right and Left do not understand this and these facts are rarely, if ever, reported by the corporate press/media. WE NEED THIS GULF OIL FOR A LONG TIME!

Jim Kawakami, June 05, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Increase in deep-water drilling actually due to region's large oil reserves

MMS: "remarkable increase" in deep-water drilling due in part to "finding of reservoirs with high production wells." According to the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS): "The deepwater portion of Gulf of Mexico has shown a remarkable increase in oil and gas exploration, development and production. In part this is due to the development of new technologies reducing operational costs and risks, as well as the finding of reservoirs with high production wells. "

MMS report: "Best source of new domestic energy resources lies in the deep water Gulf of Mexico." In a 2004 report -- titled Deep Water: Where the Energy Is -- the MMS stated that "our best source of new domestic energy resources lies in the deep water Gulf of Mexico and other frontier areas." MMS reported that due to "declining production" in "near-shore, shallow waters" in the Gulf of Mexico, "energy companies have focused their attention on oil and gas resources in water depths of 1,000 feet and beyond." MMS estimated that "the deep water regions of the Gulf of Mexico may contain 56 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or enough to meet U.S. demand for 7-1/2 years at current rates."

MMS report: Deepwater drilling is "America's Offshore Energy Future," "significant proved reserves" discovered in recent years. In a 2008 report titled "Deepwater Gulf of Mexico 2008: America's Offshore Energy Future, MMS reported:

The deepwater GOM has contributed major additions to the total reserves in the GOM. Figure 40 shows the proved reserves added each year by water-depth category. Additions from the shallow waters of the GOM declined in recent years but, beginning in 1975, the deepwater area started contributing significant new reserves. Between 1975 and 1983, the majority of these additions were from discoveries in slightly more than 1,000 ft (305 m) of water. It was not until 1985 that major additions came from water depths greater than 1,500 ft (457 m). From 1998 to 2001, significant proved reserves were added in the 5,000- to 7,499-ft (1,524- to 2,286-m) water depth range. The year 2002 saw the first substantial addition from water depths greater than 7,500 ft (2,286 m). …

Are GM Crops Just a Newer Version of Selective Breeding?

Tags: GMO Foods Safe?, Science and Greed, How GMO Foods Make You Sick, Healthy Foods,

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/29/jeffrey-smith-interview-specter-rebuttal.aspx European Union has banned GMO foods.

Monsanto which sells GMO seeds had their top Public Relations guy in a decision making position in the FDA in the Approval Process which Lobbied the FDA that GMO crops same as regular crops with the support of Academic GMO scientists.

Our society and its leaders and scientists have changed substantially since the Greed is Good Reagan era. The corporate Republicans posing as the Moral Majority started its takeover of politics in the 1970s. Nixon is now considered a flaming liberal compared to Republicans now and he got kicked out for much milder crimes against humanity.

This is an especially good article because it is the rare one that explains how Monsanto “makes” their GMO monster corn, soybeans, canola oil now replacing trans fat in Fast Food and Restaurant food. About 77% of processed synthetic GMO foods we buy whether on the shelf or frozen food section contain GMO corn or soybeans. These foods taste so bad that lots of high fructose corn syrup sugar is added liberally making us Fat and Sick. In Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma , he visited many people’s with different cultures who ate their very different diets and found that our modern diet makes us sick in comparison.

By paying attention to my body according to what foods I eat and by reading extensively, I very quickly decided to stop eating foods with trans fat soon after it came out, stopped eating GMO foods, started increasing my vitamin D pills well before the experts recommendation when I read that our body makes lots of vitamin D on exposure to UVB, so it must be use by our all our cells and not just bones, and used sunscreens only when absolutely necessary such as vacations and tennis matches.

Be very skeptical of expert opinion and think!

Jim Kawakami, June 04, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Dr. Mercola http://www.mercola.com

Jeffrey Smith, the premiere GMO expert and author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception, and Genetic Roulette, exposes the flimsy rationale, and the complete lack of evidence that tries to pass as “science” when it comes to defending genetic engineering

If You Believe in Science-Based Evidence, then You Must Follow Wherever it Leads

Even the FDAs own scientists have stated that GMOs can lead to allergies, nutritional problems, the creation of toxins and new diseases and should require long term safety studies.

But they too were simply ignored.

Smith recounts a story about a South African pro-GM advocate who claimed that even the National Academy of Sciences in the US had determined that GMOs are “absolutely risk free.”

“So I called the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and I spoke to the person in charge of the biotech division,” Smith says, “And she laughed and said, “If we didn’t think there was any extra risk, why would we have released two reports on it?”

She completely dismissed his statement and said it sounded like someone from the biotech industry organization in the United States, although it was their counterpart in South Africa.

So what we have, actually, is a system of denial, distortion, and deadly dangers that are being ignored.”

What you must understand is that much of today’s scientific research is no longer performed through public funding, as it were in the pre-Reagan days, but rather by the industry itself.

This phenomenon explains why “science-based evidence” can no longer be taken at face value, but must first be vetted by looking at who paid the bill, and what sort of results might the one holding the purse strings be looking for. In the case of GMOs, the biotech industry surely is NOT looking for problems.

Fortunately for you, others are, and they’re doing their best to warn you.

Just last year the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) reviewed the available research and issued a memorandum recommending that all doctors prescribe non-GMO diets to all patients because they are causally linked in animal feeding studies to:

• Infertility
• Immune system problems
• Gastrointestinal problems
• Organ damage
• Dysfunctional regulation of cholesterol and insulin
• Accelerated aging

They came to this conclusion and issued this recommendation based on scientific evidence, not on individuals who are trying to deny or hide the fact that problems exist.

The AAEM is the same organization that identified the Gulf War syndrome, chemical sensitivity and food allergies, and about a dozen other environmental health threats. They are on the frontlines, and the organization is designed to look for and investigate the sources causing health problems in the United States.

These are the types of organizations you might want to listen to, as opposed to the Specter’s of the world, who offer little or no actual data to back up their opinions.

Specter’s book, for example, provides very little of the scientific evidence he claims you should listen to, and he completely ignores some of the most important studies to date, which, coincidentally, show that his arguments are 100 percent incorrect.

Are GM Crops Just a Newer Version of Selective Breeding?

In order to justify the use of genetically modified foods, many will try to use the argument that we have been essentially genetically modifying our foods for thousands of years, through selective breeding of both plants and animals. In essence, they want you to believe genetic engineering is just an improved version of natural selection.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

“This is really a maddening intentional distortion,” Smith says.

“A Noble laureate said years ago that we should not mistake selective breeding with genetic engineering, because genetic engineering basically creates new organisms overnight that don’t have the benefit of the billions of years of evolution.

Even FDA scientists said in a memo that it is the opinion of the technical experts at the agency that genetic engineering is different, and leads to different risks from traditional breeding.”

Genetic engineering involves taking genes from various species of plants and animals, putting them into gene guns, and blasting millions of genes into a plate of millions of cells, and then cloning the result into a plant.

This can cause hundreds or thousands of mutations up and down the DNA chain. Genes can be switched off, switched on permanently, or change their levels of expression – at random.

“Up to 5 percent of the existing natural genes in the plant can change their levels of expression when a single new gene is introduced. In other words, there is a holistic, not well understood response, plant-wide, throughout the entire genome, where maybe hundreds or thousands of genes change their activity when a newcomer is inserted into the DNA,” Smith explains.

“So this is totally new, totally different.

On top of that, you’re throwing in antibiotic resistant marker genes that are part of the process that might yield antibiotic resistant diseases. This was a major concern by FDA scientists from the British Medical Association.

They’re throwing in viruses, viral promoters, which switch on genes at random. They could switch on genes that already exist in the plant or possibly transfer to our own gut bacteria or maybe our own cells, and switch on genes at random, permanently.

So to me that is an easy argument to overcome simply based on the science itself.”

Further Educational Material…

The angles discussed above are not the only ones Jeffrey Smith delves into in this interview, so for more, please listen to it in its entirety, or read through the transcript.

For example, there’s the assertion that GMOs are necessary for feeding the world and the key to ending hunger. Here too, critics like Michael Specter miss their mark, and Smith explains why.

Lastly, I urge you to take the steps necessary to help eradicate GMOs from the US food supply. It will not happen through government intervention. It can only be accomplished once enough people realize that what they’re eating is a public science experiment gone wild, without any checks or balances whatsoever.

The good news, however, is that you, as an ordinary citizen, have the power to incite change, by steering the market demand toward non-GMO crops and foods. Every time you choose to buy a non-GMO product over a product that contains GM ingredients, you are making a dent in this problem.

So take advantage of local sources of organic foods as often as you can. You can also avoid GM foods by:

• Reducing or Eliminating Processed Foods. Some 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients. Use the Non-GMO Shopping Guide, available for free at www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com.
• Read produce and food labels. When looking at a product label, if any ingredients such as corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu (to name a few) are listed, there's a good chance it has come from GM corn or soy, unless it bears the USDA organic seal.
• Buy organic produce. Buying organic is currently the best way to ensure that your food has not been genetically modified.

To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and other tips for what you can do to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply, please visit www.ResponsibleTechnology.org.

Obama orders firms to change drill plans that mimic BP's

Tags: Real Oil Spill Problems, McClatchy Newspapers, Obama New Drilling Plan, Not Covered Truths

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

Obama has had problems passing the Energy Bill primarily because Republicans and a few Democrats in oil states refuse to vote for the bill. Another approach is being taken to provide more money for alternative energy sources. Not mentioned is that most electricity is generated by coal and natural gas with the rest by hydroelectric, nuclear, and a very small amount (2%) with wind and solar. The really big problem is replacing coal, which generates twice as much carbon dioxide and toxic substances such as mercury in the effluents.

South Africa does liquify coal, but after many decades, no solution has been found to be able to scale-up this process to provide similar amounts of electricity generated by dirty coal.

So far there is no alternative to oil for auto and truck transport, vitally necessary for people getting to work from the suburbs where only roads are provided in most communities. Of course our food is transported an average of 1,500 miles which requires refrigerated trucks. Obama is one of the few Presidents that actually plans for the long future as Carter tried to do and got kicked out by the Powerful and Wealthy.

Jim Kawakami, June 03, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/ McClatchy, formerly Knight-Ridder, is a good source for more accurate news. Only major newspaper failed to report accurately about Bush/Cheney claims about WMDs in Iraq before they went to war. Try it for a week. You will be impressed. There reports includes the all important context.

Jim K.

The Obama administration ordered oil companies to resubmit dozens of exploration plans that were virtually identical to BP's and that also called major spills and environmental damage "unlikely." The action came after McClatchy informed the White House and Interior officials that it had reviewed 31 deepwater exploration and development plans approved for the Gulf under the Obama administration and found that all of them downplayed the threat of spills to marine life and fisheries. » read more http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html

Obama Orders Oil Firms to Change BP Boiler Plate Drill Plans

Posted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

It is worth reading this whole article to know more than you will get from other sources. Jim

… "Interior has very doggedly refused to address this core problem because they realize that's where the rubber meets the road and the real reform begins," said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has studied the issue.

"It's a very cynical ploy. They're staying away from the real environmental review process because that's where the stakes are highest for the oil industry." … http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration late Wednesday moved swiftly to plug a hole in its much touted six-month ban on new deepwater drilling when the Interior Department ordered oil companies to overhaul and resubmit dozens of exploration plans that had already been approved but were virtually identical to BP's and that called major spills and environmental damage "unlikely."

The action came after McClatchy informed the White House and Interior officials that it had reviewed 31 deepwater exploration and development plans approved for the Gulf under the Obama administration and found that all of them downplayed the threat of spills to marine life and fisheries.

The language scarcely varied from company to company, suggesting that the plans were pumped out like boilerplate. Of the 31 plans McClatchy reviewed, 14 were approved since the April 20 explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig,

The administration had failed to include the plans in its moratorium, and experts told McClatchy that the filings could clear the way for drilling new wells when the ban was lifted. Following inquiries by McClatchy to White House and Interior officials, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced late Wednesday that oil companies would need to resubmit the plans with additional safety information before they'd be allowed to drill new wells. …

"Pulling back exploration plans and development plans and requiring them to be updated with new information is consistent with this cautious approach and will ensure that new safety standards and risk considerations are incorporated into those planning documents," BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a brief press release.

In the White House's initial response to McClatchy's inquiries, spokesman Ben LaBolt said only that a presidential commission investigating the BP spill would also "assess exploration and production plans and could provide options for ways to improve their development and review."

Less than half an hour later, the Interior Department issued its press release, which came from the BLM, not the Minerals Management Service.

Even as millions of gallons of crude from BP's well befouled the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have continued to submit exploration plans. The MMS had received more than two dozen in the past month.

"Interior has very doggedly refused to address this core problem because they realize that's where the rubber meets the road and the real reform begins," said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has studied the issue.

"It's a very cynical ploy. They're staying away from the real environmental review process because that's where the stakes are highest for the oil industry."

While the moratorium had blocked new wells and freezes new drilling permits — the last step before drilling begins — it didn't stop companies from taking the earlier step of filing exploration and development plans. These plans include the most thorough environmental studies that companies must conduct during the entire approval process.

Experts say these plans are often filled with incomplete or overly hopeful statements about the likelihood of spills, blowouts and ecological damage.

On May 18, four weeks after the blowout preventer on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sent oil gushing into the Gulf, the MMS approved an exploration plan by Petrobras America for Block 697 of the Mississippi Canyon area, the same area where BP was drilling. The Petrobras site is 7,150 feet underwater — nearly one-and-a-half times deeper than where BP was operating. …

Complete coverage of the oil spill

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html#ixzz0pp0ILI5g

Obama got off a pretty good critique of Reaganism.

Blue Texan Blog: http://firedoglake.com/

Yesterday in Pittsburgh, while discussing the oil spill, Obama got off a pretty good critique of Reaganism.

http://c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/06/02/HP/A/33688/Pres+Obama+Remarks+on+the+Economy.aspx 42 minutes

Obama gave the Economic talk at Carnegie Mellon University, a fairly conservative place. No applause for the following remark.

Jim K.

…a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government. It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.

This is why Reaganism owns the BP oil spill.

Republicans have governed for decades under the assumption that we need to keep government “off the backs” of big business (deregulation), while rewarding them by starving government (tax cuts). Then big business, untethered by regulations, massively screws the country (see Enron, WorldCom, AIG, Goldman Sachs, BP), and the now-diminished government, starved by those tax cuts, isn’t quite able to clean up the mess. Then Republicans say, “See! Government sucks!” It’s quite a racket.

JUNE 02, 2010 01:50 PM

NYT Sourcing: An “Internet Link” “Alleges…”

By Liz Cox Barrett (CJR)

• By Liz Cox Barrett How's this for sourcing (flagged by a tipster) in the New York Times's A1 story today, "Turkish Funds Helped Group Test Blockade of Gaza:"

The Turkish group [Insani Yardim Vakfi] is a charity, members said, but the Israel Project, a private nonprofit advocacy group, sent an Internet link to journalists with references to what it described as the group’s “radical Islamic, anti-Western orientation.” The link alleges that the group supports Hamas, in part through a branch it opened in the Gaza Strip, the charity it sends them, and in meetings and speeches by Bulent Yildirim, its leader, and Hamas officials.

Say what? So many questions. Can an "Internet link" "allege?" Isn't it the author of whatever appears at the link's landing page who is alleging? Who is the author in this case? The Israel Project? Some other group or entity? A random guy on the Internets? Why isn't that made clear here? Is this the "link" that "alleges" (linked to, as it is, from The Israel Project's Web site)? Why make readers guess? Is this just a clumsily-written paragraph or...what?

In other flotilla news, the Economist's Newsbook blog has a round-up of "what Arab and Israeli papers say about the raid." http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/index.php#23829

Calcium Overdose Becoming More Common Leading to High BP and Kidney Failure

Tags: Hypercalcaemia, Overdose Ca, Kidney Failure, High BP, Vitamin D Deficient, All Cells Need,

I suspect that many people take calcium supplements in excess without adequate vitamin D to help guide the calcium to the bones and may thereby result in high blood calcium levels because it has no where to go. Because all the cells of our body needs vitamin D for health, I have concluded that our cells get most of the vitamin D. Those of you who are still reluctant to take at least 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 total including those in the calcium pills, should have your head and emotions examined. Start thinking logically. The data indicating this is now just enormous. http://vitaminDcouncil.org

Jim Kawakami, June 03, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

British Medical Journal Guardian UK June 3, 2010 ... The (excess calcium) syndrome is now the third most common cause of high blood calcium levels, say researchers, accounting for between 8 percent and 38 percent of all hospital admissions due to hypercalcaemia in the US. (High blood calcium levels are also frequently caused by thyroid problems and cancer.) And, today, older women rank among those most often affected by the syndrome, rather than men with ulcers as in the past.

Since the syndrome is now typically tied to calcium supplements rather than milk consumption, researchers say its name should be changed to 'calcium-alkali syndrome'.

Where does the study come from?

The report was written by US researchers with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. It was published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

What does this mean for me?

If you take calcium supplements, it's important that you don't exceed the recommended daily dose, unless told to do so by your doctor. Usually this is around 800 milligrams, although the researchers say 1.2 to 1.5 grams a day is probably safe. If you're at all unsure about how much calcium to take, check with your pharmacist or GP.

And if you're concerned your blood calcium level may be high, see your doctor straight away. Symptoms of hypercalcaemia include:

• Feeling sick and being sick
• Abdominal pain
• Excessive thirst
• Frequent urination
• Constipation
• Weight loss
• Fatigue
• Muscle weakness
• Confusion.

Patel AM, Goldfarb S. Got calcium? Welcome to the calcium-alkali syndrome. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Published online 22 April 2010.

Calcium is important for strong bones, but taking too much with high-dose supplements can lead to serious health problems, such as high blood pressure and even kidney failure. Calcium overdose has become more common in recent years, according to a new report. However, the researchers stress that calcium supplements should be safe when taken at recommended doses.

What do we know already?

Calcium and vitamin D are the most important nutrients for building your bones and keeping them strong. If you don't get enough, you have an increased risk of developing osteoporosis, a condition where your bones are so weak that they break easily.

Milk and other dairy products, green leafy vegetables, and fish with edible bones are excellent sources of calcium, and our bodies produce vitamin D in response to sunlight. But many older people – particularly women past the menopause –don't get enough of these nutrients and need to take supplements. This is partly because their bodies don't absorb calcium as efficiently as they used to.

Studies show that taking supplements with calcium and vitamin D may help prevent osteoporosis and lower the risk of broken bones. So, not surprisingly, many people routinely take these supplements. However, some take much more than the recommended dose, not realising that ingesting too much calcium can lead to a potentially serious condition known as milk-alkali syndrome.

You get this syndrome if you consume substantially more calcium than your body needs, leading to high levels of calcium in your blood (called hypercalcaemia). This can cause serious problems, such as high blood pressure, kidney damage, and even kidney failure.

What does the new article tell us?

In the new report, researchers looked at the history of milk-alkali syndrome and also its recent resurgence.

The syndrome first appeared in the early 1900s after a US doctor named Bertram Welton Sippy introduced a special diet (known as the Sippy diet) for people with peptic ulcers. The diet involved consuming large amounts of milk, cream, eggs, and cereal, as well as antacid powders every half hour. This bland diet helped soothe ulcer flare-ups. But its exceptionally high milk content meant that many people ingested too much calcium – hence the name milk-alkali syndrome.

With the development of effective drugs for ulcers, use of the Sippy diet declined and so did rates of milk-alkali syndrome. But the syndrome became more common again in the 1990s, due in large part to widespread use of over-the-counter calcium and vitamin D supplements. ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/besttreatments/2010/jun/03/calcium-supplements-helpful-in-moderation-harmful-in-excess

Volunteer Teacher Contract in DC Bases Pay on Performance, Not Seniority

Tags: Volunteer Teacher Contract DC, No Tenure First Year, Pay on Performance, Contract Signed, Rhee, Buyout for Retiring, New Evaluation System,

My hope is this new imperfect system will point out that the quality of teachers we get depends importantly on how much pay they get and whether teacher evaluations indeed are able to pick quality teachers in the eyes of both administrators and teachers.

Jim Kawakami, June 03, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Washington Post Bill Turque June 03, 2010 Excerpt: The highlights

A voluntary performance pay program to begin this fall could add $20,000 to $30,000 to D.C. teachers' salaries, based on significant improvement in student test scores and other yet-to-be specified criteria. The system, to be financed for the first three years under a controversial arrangement with private foundations approved by District Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, could raise total compensation for some instructors to $140,000, officials estimate. Although cities such as Denver have had incentive pay programs for several years, none promise the kind of money that Rhee says she is prepared to pay. For teachers who enter the plan, it means no longer having to invest 10 to 15 years in a lockstep pay schedule to command a significant income.

The contract -- in tandem with a new teacher evaluation system that will use growth in test scores as one benchmark -- will also dilute job security for some educators. It allows principals to use job performance, instead of seniority, as the chief determinant when reducing staff because of declining enrollment or program changes.

Under a "mutual consent" clause, displaced teachers who used to be assigned to new schools -- whether principals wanted them or not -- will no longer be guaranteed spots in the system and must find administrators willing to take them. Teachers with good evaluations who are unable to find a job have a year's grace period, at full pay, to continue the search. They can also opt for a $25,000 buyout or early retirement with full benefits if they have 20 or more years of service.

Both sides nevertheless expressed satisfaction with the final version of the accord.

"I am very pleased with the contract," Rhee said. "It strikes a great balance between making teachers understand that we very much value and support the work they do every day and on the administrative side giving us the tools we need to staff the schools effectively." Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker called it "a great day for teachers and students." …

Weingarten and union negotiators scuttled Rhee's original proposal for a two-tier plan that would have forced teachers seeking top pay levels to relinquish tenure for a year, exposing them to dismissal without the right to appeal. Rhee's plan would have required new teachers to select the higher-risk salary track.

But Rhee negotiated away relatively little of what she sought. Tenure -- granted to eligible teachers in the District after two years and assailed by Rhee as the "holy grail" of unions -- was left technically intact. But it was redefined to affirm that it is only a due-process mechanism to protect against unfair dismissal, not a guarantee of a lifetime employment.

The accord and the evaluation system give Rhee a formidable toolbox of personnel and policy rules that supporters say could help dramatically improve teaching and learning. The mutual consent provision, for example, has potentially significant implications should Rhee decide to replace or "reconstitute" some or all of the staffs at schools deemed to be failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law, something she has done in previous years. … http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060202762.html

Are Obama's Foreign Policies a Clone of Policies Decided by the National Security Council in 1950?

Tags: Obama's New National Security Structure, NSC-50, PM Hatoyama Resigns, Overthrow, Propaganda, Obama Attacks?,

**** A friend sent me this article from Steve Clemons who published this article in Japan earlier. Clemons http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/ from the New America Foundation http://asp.newamerica.net/home . He makes comments on Keith Obermann's show from time to time. http://countdown.msnbc.com . NBC chief Zucker is Out!!!!

Normally when a President or Prime Minister goes against the economic powers in a country, he or she is punished severely. This was true for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and looks increasingly like the same fate is in store for Obama. There has been a sea change in the corporate press/media coverage emphasis as it has been from Presidents Carter, Clinton, and now Obama. The NY Times reported that operating emotion on Wall Street is Hate for Obama.

Since propaganda is subtle and hard to detect by limiting your reading habits or viewing habits, historically it has been relatively easy to fool the elites of our country. The father of public relations or propaganda as he called his 1928 book "Propaganda", now in reprint, Edward Bernays from Cambridge gave us the techniques of controlling the public mind in advertising, newspapers, television news, and even the Internet. He died in 1995 while writing another book on how to fool the public. Hitler made good use of his book.

I certainly was fooled for a long time by concentrating my news reports from the New York Times. Go back and read Maureen Dowd in 2,000 who made Gore a laughing stock among many elites. Sure their main editorials are fairly liberal, but their real policy is reflected in how the board decides to emphasize the news or as we saw with Gore and Clinton, distorting or even lying about the facts.

Selecting what they publish or the process of deleting or hiding the facts on the jump page as the Times did in the Gore/Bush recount with the front page headline saying Bush would have won anyway. Gore won any permutations of the recount by small to large margins over Bush. Don't get me talking about our Supreme Court!

Basically the NSC-50 was a plan to acquire natural resources all over the world, especially oil, and not consider the moral implications of our policies. Reagan, Bush, Sr, Bill Clinton, and Bush, Jr, and perhaps Obama are continuing this policy. Obama may be slowly trying to change this policy because we are no longer the economic power necessary to carry on these policies. We need to develop a more cooperative world policy.

Some books you might read on these policies: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah's Men in the overthrow of Democracy in Iran in 1953. The best truthful book on our policies is Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy, 1991, 1992. I read this largely uncirculated book after the Stolen Election in 2000. I read the one circulating copy was in the main library in Los Angeles, none at the many branches. A couple of years later, all the branches had copies of this book.

Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama just resigned as Prime Minister because he like so many novice rulers, does not have the experience to navigate the deeply entrenched bureaucracy in Japan. Obama has had similar problems with some of his top advisors on Israel historically strong advocates openly or not to maintaining the status quo. He has similar problems in the financial regulation realm. Both the House and Senate finance committees are packed with conservatives.

So Hatoyama has been largely ineffective in changing the status quo and Okinawa has been largely an after-thought in the formulation of Japanese policies. Fear of hard-to-control North Korea nuclear capabilities may have played a part.

Speaking before the Brookings Institute, one of the top Centrist Think Tanks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, obviously tired from the Time Zone changes from trying to resolve the North/South Korea torpedo incident, still decided to speak there.

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Our mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations that advance three broad goals:

• Strengthen American democracy;
• Foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans and
• Secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system.

Brookings is proud to be consistently ranked as the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank.

More about Brookings's reputation » http://www.brookings.edu/about.aspx

Clinton made several very interesting comments which seemed to be largely ignored during the question session. One was that Obama/Clinton is formulating a plan to bring the budgeting of a New National Security department to include the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. This is huge. The plan to stop the competition for funds and have the allocation be more evenly distributed to take all important approaches to our National Security.

Secondly she made an off-the-cuff comment which she wisely said was not the official policy, is that our affluent and wealthy individuals only got to their current positions because of the educational and funding made possible by previous generations. We should consider giving back (higher tax rate) to help the current generations. No questions on that topic by the elite audience.

Jim Kawakami, June 02, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Obama Takes Down (The Wrong) Prime Minister (Previously published by Steve Clemons in Japan's Kyodo's News Service)

Japan Prime Minister and Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, whose amazing electoral victory last year unseating the long dominant Liberal Democratic Party, has announced that he is stepping down from his position for failing to deliver on a key campaign promise to the Japanese people about moving the US Marine Futenma Air Station off of Okinawa.

I will be arriving in Tokyo tomorrow (on Thursday) and will be in Naha, Okinawa this next Monday.

Hatoyama could not withstand the pressure from Obama -- who gave Hatoyama the kind of icy treatment that the White House has also been trying to give Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The problem is Hatoyama wilted, and Netanyahu seems to be thriving.

I recently wrote a piece on the odd dynamic between President Obama and two different Prime Ministers -- Netanyahu and Hatoyama -- for the Kyodo News Service. It has already run in Japanese, but I post the entire English language version here:

Jan ken pon. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers Rock. Rock smashes scissors. There is an interesting drama playing out between several world leaders today that reminds of this game.

President Barack Obama seems to be smashing the political fortunes of Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. On the other hand, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rebuffing and constraining Obama. Obama and China's Hu Jintao seem to be stalemated, playing jan ken pon over and over and over again.

"Defining challenges" for leaders and nations are those that represent the highest stakes wins and potential losses. The United States, for example, invested enormous blood and treasure in triggering change in Iraq and the broader Middle East and thus the Middle East today is a self-chosen defining challenge for the country. For Barack Obama, there were other defining challenges that he promised to stand by - including closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, "stopping" climate change, ending the war in Iraq, achieving Israel-Palestine peace and delivering the opportunity of universal health care coverage to American citizens.

Yukio Hatoyama also articulated his own defining challenges - including ending bureaucratic control of government and restoring genuine political leadership, opening up Japan's official records of secret deals done with the U.S., enhancing the quality of life for average Japanese citizens, closing the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa, improving Japan's position and sovereignty within the US-Japan Security Relationship andbuilding stronger relations with China among other challenges.

For Netanyahu, the defining challenge has been to simultaneously protect Israel's security interests and expansion in the Occupied Territories while rallying support to thwart Iran's nuclear pretensions. For Hu Jintao, it has been to incrementally increase China's global economic and geostrategic position while maintaining high economic growth and not destabilizing the country or creating new costly burdens and responsibilities for China.

The interactions between these leaders show how power is deployed and measured, created and destroyed. Netanyahu and Hu Jintao have played their hands best. Obama has been beaten, constrained, but still has global leverage, and Yukio Hatoyama seems to be on the constantly losing end of jan ken pon. ... http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

Update: Just read this superb short piece by Nathan Gardels on Huffington Post on the tremors in the geostrategic order. Gardels succinctly refutes the notion that there "is no space" between the US and Israel on security issues by referencing the recent nuclear non-proliferation treaty resolution. He also illustrates how China is disavowing an unconditional relationship with North Korea. The world is in flux -- fascinating.

Culture Dish:The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo

Tags: Rebecca, Skloot, Modern Genetics, immortal Lack' Cells, Lack's Grave Marker, Treatment,Vaccines, HIV, Polio, Genes, Epidemics, Racisms, Girl, Dragon, Tattoo, The Promise, Obama, Jonathan Alter, One term, Priest, Abuse, Eye Witnesses, memory revision, Prosecutorial Judges,

Although Oregonian, Rebecca Skloot, could have made a lot more money signing a movie contract with the big studios, she signed a contract with HBO to produce the film based on the book. She is one of the few book authors who actually made the lives of victims of the Establishment better by giving 20 percent of her book profits to them and paying for a grave marker.

I like living in Oregon because caring about strangers has not largely disappeared where the public helps those who cannot pay for medical treatments or food all the time. One anonymous donor giver $300,000 to the Food Bank.

We don't seem to even care about our own family anymore. Do we want to live a life where making money and acquiring things is the main objective. I was shocked that I contributed the same dollar amount as Vice President Biden to charity!

We complain a lot about our system, but make no real effort to change it. We are all strangers where friends (Acquaintances) are sacrificed for our greater profit.

Skloot, a superb science writer whose writings on science has appeared in all the top venues such as the New York Times. Her book is more about how we medically mistreat the underclass based on race and income even now and also writes about the huge contribution her still living cancer cells made to science and medical treatments including HIV, polio, and many other diseases.

The main thing impeding progress in curing diseases was the problem of keeping cells alive, even cancer cells long enough to determine how important various factors including diseases has on cell function! Yes, the same factors affect cancer cells as regular cells. If Henrietta Lacks' cells were removed after treatment as some where, they would have died. But cells removed in 1950 are still used all over the world in science research.

The book has relevance to you now because doctors are now taking cell and gene samples from us and doing research that can and has made them lots of money for them. But it is also a wonderful narrative story about making non-fiction becoming more real and interesting than many good fiction novels.

If you like mysteries, I am now reading "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson whose book was made into a film and now showing in Eugene, Oregon. I am now losing lots of sleep and will finish it during the day. Most mysteries on the best sellers are boring because they are too obvious or fit a pattern. This one really gets your thinking juices boiling.

Read slowly and think while reading! We are all too busy to read because we try to do everything and do not put priorities on things that are really important for our pleasure.

Henrietta Lacks's lack of treatment for her cancer in 1950 showed how even one of the top hospitals, John Hopkins, treated or untreated African-Americans and other underclass and still do.

In the great book The Promise by Jonathan Alter, before his election, he made the comment that when we win, I will have to do things that may make me only a one term President!

Although he did not campaign on Healthcare in a serious way, when the Financial Crisis hit, he had to think of not only saving our economy, but how to reduce spending and make healthcare available to all at a reasonable cost by taking out the huge waste in healthcare. Insurance works where risk is reduced if both the healthy and sick all belong to the same system.

That is why life insurance only for the old would lead to bankruptcy. The same is true of Medicaid and Medicare. That is why a value added tax is needed to pay for Medical Care, an idea which Obama will eventually incorporate if he gets a second term. Healthcare Guaranteed by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, short book, covers this process. A bunch of smart guys attended his book review, but based on the questions asked, very few got it!

Because Alter was in Washington and got free access to the Obama administration, his facts come from interviewing key players during or soon after a crisis including many plans they were making for the future. So memory fade and as we know, everytime we recall a memory, the memory changes based on what is happening now.

That is why I am skeptical that many of those suing the Catholic Church did get abused. The Martin School for small children abuse in California was also fabricated too by questioners asking leading questions of the children over and over again. As we all should know, eye witnesses without corroborating evidence get so many things wrong that at least half of the prisoners on death roll in Illinois were innocent. I assume even a larger majority in Texas and Florida have been wrongly convicted of capital crimes. Judges should essentially wipe out eye witness testimony from playing a major role in convictions.

In the San Francisco area where many Caucasians, Blacks, and Asians live, it was surprising that most mis-identified someone of a different group in a study of photographs. Since I lived my early life in a all black community, I can identify different Blacks more easily than I can Whites even in my old age!

Jim Kawakami, December 01, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

MAY 31, 2010

More on Henrietta Lacks's New Grave Marker

Category: HeLa • Publication News and Followups • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks •Women and Science

Anyone interested in Henrietta Lacks and the grave marker finally placed on her long unmarked grave this weekend should click here immediately for a beautiful post by scientist David Kroll, who attended the unveiling ceremony. It's filled with beautiful photos of the day, and a tribute to all Henrietta's cells did for science. His photo below shows Henrietta's new headstone in much sharper detail than the one I posted yesterday with the text of the inscription. Visit his post for many more photos of the ceremony, the graveyard, and Henrietta's family. ... http://scienceblogs.com/culturedish/