Highest Gas Prices in February Since 1990
February 23rd, 2011Via: ABC News:
Weekly gas prices skyrocketed, according to the Department of Energy, driven by the popular revolts spreading across the Middle East.
The U.S. weekly average price per gallon is $3.19, up 54 cents from a year ago, and slightly higher than last week’s $3.14. This was the highest price posted during the month of February since 1990, when the data became available. The most expensive regions again are New England at $3.23 and California at $3.56.
Oil settled at $93.57 in New York trading, up 8.5 percent since Friday’s close, the biggest one day jump in nearly three years.
Seattle-Area Restaurant Refuses to Serve TSA Agents
February 23rd, 2011Via: Consumerist:
Fed up with what he views as crappy treatment from the TSA, the owner of a restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decided to put all TSA agents on his No-Eat List.
“We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren’t allowed to come into our business,” one employee tells travel journalist Christopher Elliott. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.”
She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, “we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave… Their kind aren’t welcomed in our establishment.”
Research Credit: Pookie
Not Confirmed: Gaddafi Has Ordered Security Services to Start Sabotaging Oil Facilities
February 23rd, 2011Note: The source of this information is a Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer. Batteries not included. Your mileage may vary.
Monitoring…
Via: Time:
There’s been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.
U.S. Government Pays HBGary for Rootkits
February 22nd, 2011Via: Ars Technica:
In 2009, HBGary had partnered with the Advanced Information Systems group of defense contractor General Dynamics to work on a project euphemistically known as “Task B.” The team had a simple mission: slip a piece of stealth software onto a target laptop without the owner’s knowledge.
Research Credit: RJ
TSA Agent Able to Smuggle Handgun Through Enhanced-Imaging Body Scanners Without Fail
February 22nd, 2011Via: NBC:
An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.
The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport’s body scanners every time she tried, the source said.
…
The TSA insider who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined. The source said the agents continue to work the body scanners today.
Army Wants Rapid-Fire Rubber Bullets for Crowd Control
February 22nd, 2011Via: New Scientist:
THE US army is planning to field “rubber bullets” for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon.
The final design for the XM1044 round has not been selected, according to an order placed on the Federal Business Opportunities website last month, but the army’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been working on a ring aerofoil projectile for some years. The round is a hollow plastic cylinder 40 millimetres across, looking something like a short toilet-paper roll. In flight its shape generates lift, giving it a longer range.
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Firing rapidly at long range is likely to be dangerously inaccurate, says Angela Wright of Amnesty International. “Such a weapon system would allow for a burst of non-accurate fire at a crowd, with high risk of hitting bystanders, ricochets and of hitting vulnerable areas of the body,” she says.
Despite being hollow and plastic, if a round were to strike someone in the head, it could severely injure or kill them, she adds.
Research Credit: neverwas
Cables Show China Used Debt Holdings to Press U.S.
February 22nd, 2011Duh.
Via: AFP:
Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China’s willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan’s sovereignty to Washington’s financial policy.
China’s clout — gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt — has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival’s concerns.
Iranian Warships Enter Suez Canal
February 22nd, 2011Monitoring…
Via: Bloomberg:
Iranian warships have begun crossing the Suez Canal for the first time since 1979 as Israel stressed its objection to their planned voyage to Syria.
The two ships entered the canal early today after the approval of Egypt’s Defense Ministry, the state-run Middle East News Agency cited Ahmed El Manakhly, head of traffic at the Suez Canal Authority, as saying. The crossing usually takes 10 to 12 hours, El Manakhly said.
Home Prices Still Falling, ‘Expect Further Declines This Year’
February 22nd, 2011Via: AP:
Home prices in a majority of major U.S. cities tracked by a private trade group have fallen to their lowest levels since the housing bubble burst, and analysts expect further declines this year.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 1 percent in December from November. Prices fell in all but one of the metropolitan markets tracked.
The only city to see a gain was Washington, where hiring by the federal government has helped boost the region’s job market.
Federal, State and Local Debt Hits Post-WWII Levels
February 22nd, 2011Via: Washington Post:
The daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.
But any similarity between 1946 and now ends there. The U.S. debt levels tumbled in the years after World War II, but today they are still climbing and even deep cuts in spending won’t completely change that for several years.
As President Obama and Republicans squabble over whose programs to cut and which taxes to raise, slow growth and a rising tide of interest payments – largely beyond their control – are making the job of fixing the budget much harder than in the past. Statehouses and governors face similar challenges.
After World War II, the federal debt – including debt purchased by the Social Security Trust Fund – hit nearly 122 percent of gross domestic product. State and municipal debt back then was minimal. By the time Dwight Eisenhower was elected president six years later, the federal government’s debt had dipped to about three-fourths of GDP.
The key factor in the rapid drop in government debt, said Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff, was fast economic growth. Spurred by a young labor force, world-leading manufacturers, high personal savings rates, a pent-up demand for consumer goods after years of war and the Depression, and a bout of inflation, the economy grew 57 percent in six years. Thanks to sharp postwar cuts in defense outlays, federal government spending also tumbled for a couple of years.
But today the U.S. economy is in a polar opposite condition. The labor force is aging, U.S. manufacturing often lags behind Asian and European rivals, households are in hock up to their eyeballs, and consumer appetite for goods is tepid. In addition, inflation is tame and government spending locked into entitlement programs and debt service that will be hard or impossible to alter.
“We’re not growing like we were after World War II, so the amount of debt you can bear and the trajectory are much worse,” Rogoff said.
