Crude Oil Nears Record on Signs OPEC Will Keep Output Quota
September 11th, 2007According to my Magic 8-Ball, OPEC probably can’t increase output. In the Past Peak world, look for demand destruction to occur through economic collapse or kill off or both.
Have a nice day.
Via: Bloomberg:
Crude oil rose to within 50 cents of a record on speculation rising demand and restricted OPEC production may tighten fourth-quarter supplies.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumps 40 percent of the world’s oil and will set its output target for the rest of the year at a meeting in Vienna today. It will probably maintain its current ceiling because of ample supplies and the prospect of slowing U.S. demand, officials said.
Chip Implants Linked to Malignant Tumors
September 11th, 2007Would you like some NutraSweet/aspartame with that?
Via: Yahoo / AP:
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients’ medical records almost instantly. The FDA found “reasonable assurance” the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005’s top “innovative technologies.”
But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
“The transponders were the cause of the tumors,” said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.
Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.
How Absurd Can it Get? Shell Considering Nuclear Power for Tar Sands Program in Canada
September 11th, 2007I thought, for sure, that this was an Onion article. Nope.
Get ready for, “The worst of all worlds.”
Via: Telegraph:
Shell is considering using nuclear power to operate its controversial tar sands programme in Canada.
Tar sands extraction – mining oil from a mixture of sand or clay, water and very heavy crude oil – uses a huge amount of energy and water. Environmentalists say it results in more than three times as many emissions of carbon dioxide compared to conventional oil production.
Now Canadian firms AECL and Energy Alberta have proposed building a nuclear reactor near the site of Shell’s vast Athabasca tar sands development. The boss of Energy Alberta has said the C$6bn (£2.8bn) reactor has the backing of a large unnamed copany that would take 70 per cent of the reactor’s energy.
A spokeswoman for Shell Canada refused to confirm that the company would take electricity from the reactor but said: “We have had a number of power options presented to us. Yes, it includes nuclear.
“If a nuclear facility proceeds, we would look at it based on a wide range of factors such as economics, sustainability and the energy [required].”
She added that the company was also looking at building biomass, renewable or co-generation plants.
Analysts estimate that Canada’s huge tar sands give it the world’s second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.
However, Walt Patterson, associate fellow at think-tank Chatham House, said: “Extracting oil from tar scares the pants off me. The whole idea is fundamentally perverse in the context of our present environmental situation. To then power it with nuclear, it seems to be the worst of all worlds.”
Was that Nuclear-Armed B-52 Flight Destined for Iran?
September 10th, 2007Via: This Can’t Be Happening:
There’s something definitely screwy about the August 30 incident in which a B-52 bomber flew from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana carrying five fully armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, each equipped with nuclear bombs capable of exploding at anything from 5 kilotons to 150 kilotons.
The government has been quick to say that the flight, which violated a number of long-standing orders regarding shipment of nuclear weapons in US airspace, was a “mistake.â€
But was it a mistake?
Research Credit: Davcam
New Zealand: Antidepressants Given to Babies
September 10th, 2007Via: New Zealand Herald:
Medical authorities are mystified and concerned at figures suggesting antidepressant drugs are being prescribed for children, some less than a year old.
Records of the national drug buying agency Pharmac suggest thousands of prescriptions a year are being written for children under 10.
Antidepressants are powerful psychiatric drugs with potentially severe side-effects.
Research Credit: SW
Thousands of GIs Cope with Brain Damage
September 9th, 2007Via: Yahoo / AP:
The war in Iraq is not over, but one legacy is already here in this city and others across America: an epidemic of brain-damaged soldiers.
Thousands of troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, or TBI. These blast-caused head injuries are so different from the ones doctors are used to seeing from falls and car crashes that treating them is as much faith as it is science.
“I’ve been in the field for 20-plus years dealing with TBI. I have a very experienced staff. And they’re saying to me, ‘We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before,'” said Sandy Schneider, director of Vanderbilt University’s brain injury rehabilitation program.
Doctors also are realizing that symptoms overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that both must be treated. Odd as it may seem, brain injury can protect against PTSD by blurring awareness of what happened.
But as memory improves, emotional problems can emerge: One of the first “graduates” of Vanderbilt’s program committed suicide three weeks later.
FBI Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets
September 9th, 2007Imagine my shock.
Via: New York Times:
The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.
The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their “community of interest†— the network of people that the target was in contact with. The bureau stopped the practice early this year in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said.
The community of interest data sought by the F.B.I. is central to a data-mining technique intelligence officials call link analysis. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American counterterrorism officials have turned more frequently to the technique, using communications patterns and other data to identify suspects who may not have any other known links to extremists.
“Days of Cheap Food Are Over”
September 8th, 2007Via: Guardian:
Supermarket pledges to drive down the price of staple goods and help cash-strapped shoppers looked increasingly vulnerable last night after Britain’s biggest food manufacturer insisted even the largest superstore groups would have to stomach higher prices from suppliers that are struggling with steep rises in ingredient costs.
Research Credit: Becky
Indian Software Firm to Outsource to U.S.
September 8th, 2007Before you listen to this, try to think of all the reasons why Wipro would want to do this. There are several.
Via: NPR:
Morning Edition, September 6, 2007 · Indian software firm Wipro plans to open a big software design center in Atlanta. The Bangalore, India-based firm expects to hire around 500 computer programmers in the next three years. It’s a curious turnabout from the much more familiar story: a U.S. software company creating jobs in India.
More: Slashdot
Cryptogon Reader Contributes $20
September 7th, 2007Thanks MS!
