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Bill USA
Bill USA's Journal
Bill USA's Journal
February 18, 2015
for those afraid to go onto Discussionist be advised Liberals/Dems are making a very good show of
.. it over there -- giving as good as they get. We could use some support over there. All you gotta do is answer a poll:
Who will get the blame if the Department of Homeland Security is shutdown next week?
http://www.discussionist.com/1015360557
If you would like the proper people to get the credit in this poll, you better get over there and vote.
here's another good post (neither of these posts are mine) with considerable 'debate'. THe Dems/Liberals are definitely holding their own on this one too. Of course, any support anybody would like to add would be appreciated.
Republicans Still Denying Bush Lied About Iraq
February 14, 2015
Updated, 8:20 p.m. | HSBC found itself under fire again on Monday after news reports over the weekend provided more details about long-running accusations that its Swiss private banking arm helped clients hide billions of dollars in assets from international tax authorities before 2007.
In a report released on Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an organization based in Washington, said that secret documents revealed that bank employees had reassured clients that HSBC would not disclose details of their accounts to tax authorities in their home countries and discussed options to avoid paying taxes on those assets. Also contributing to the report were the newspaper Le Monde in France, The Guardian in Britain, the BBC program “Panorama” and CBS News’s “60 Minutes.”
The documents were stolen from HSBC by a former employee in Switzerland in 2007 and were given to the French authorities, who in 2010 shared them with officials in Britain, Spain and the United States, among other nations. Some of those jurisdictions have used the information to seek back taxes and penalties from individuals, and the British bank has paid fines to the United States related to those disclosures.
The journalists’ report, based on account information that dated to 2007, said the Swiss unit’s clients included politicians, actors, rock stars and individuals with ties to arms dealers and traffickers of so-called blood diamonds, which are mined in war zones and sold in violation of international bans.
(more)
New Claims That HSBC Aided Tax Evaders
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/hsbc-shares-decline-amid-swiss-tax-avoidance-claims/?_r=0Updated, 8:20 p.m. | HSBC found itself under fire again on Monday after news reports over the weekend provided more details about long-running accusations that its Swiss private banking arm helped clients hide billions of dollars in assets from international tax authorities before 2007.
In a report released on Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an organization based in Washington, said that secret documents revealed that bank employees had reassured clients that HSBC would not disclose details of their accounts to tax authorities in their home countries and discussed options to avoid paying taxes on those assets. Also contributing to the report were the newspaper Le Monde in France, The Guardian in Britain, the BBC program “Panorama” and CBS News’s “60 Minutes.”
The documents were stolen from HSBC by a former employee in Switzerland in 2007 and were given to the French authorities, who in 2010 shared them with officials in Britain, Spain and the United States, among other nations. Some of those jurisdictions have used the information to seek back taxes and penalties from individuals, and the British bank has paid fines to the United States related to those disclosures.
The journalists’ report, based on account information that dated to 2007, said the Swiss unit’s clients included politicians, actors, rock stars and individuals with ties to arms dealers and traffickers of so-called blood diamonds, which are mined in war zones and sold in violation of international bans.
(more)
February 14, 2015
Each day 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed and another 80,000 acres are degraded.
A few years ago, the world watched as the BP disaster unfolded along the Gulf Coast of the US. Yet while this story dominated one news cycle after another, deep in the Amazon’s Ecuadorean Oriente the world’s largest environmental disaster stemming from oil production was unfolding, and was largely ignored. When Texaco entered the Ecuadorean Oriente in 1967, the area was considered the most biodiverse place on Earth, and home to several indigenous groups. Since then, more than 20 billion gallons of toxic drilling waste and 17 million gallons of oil have been dumped into the regions soil and waterways. Where villages of indigenous peoples once lived, roads wind through the landscape; where farms once yielded a bounty of crops, hundreds of waste pits remain. Oil spills within the Amazon are both the most difficult to contain, due to the network of waterways, and the most challenging to clean-up, due to the remote area, and the rugged and varied landscapes. All of this begs the question: why oil?
Why Oil?
Despite all the risks involved in oil drilling in the Amazon, they are negated with one word: money. The monies at stake for both oil companies and governments are so vast that human rights and environmental destruction are merely regrettable necessities en route to enormous profits. Ironically, the indigenous peoples residing on these oil rich lands rarely reap the benefits. If those lands are destroyed, the governments and oil interests who profit are far removed from the disaster and suffer little impact. The Rainforest Foundation has worked beside many indigenous groups to help them gain official title and rights to their ancestral lands. But sadly we find that where rights thwart the “progress” of oil production, rights are simply ignored altogether, or conveniently reinterpreted. Such is the case with the Shuar of Ecuador. After fighting for years to gain title to 700 square miles of their ancestral lands, the Shuar were stunned to discover that just a year later the Ecuadorian government had sold a 100 square-mile concession on their land for oil development. The governments’ justification was that the Shuar’s title to the land extended only to surface rights and not the subsurface.
Right now indigenous peoples are battling oil interests throughout the Amazon.
In Peru, where nearly three quarters of the Amazon rainforest is covered in oil concessions, the Achuar communities have temporarily taken over oil platforms and succeeded in gaining promises to clean up spills and compensate communities. Quechua communities in the Pastaza of Peru, have begun mapping spills and training community leaders in environmental monitoring to prove the existence of spills and demand change. In Ecuador, indigenous organizations are mobilizing against the expansion of oil exploration on their lands in the Southern Amazon. CONAIE, the national federation of indigenous organizations, is organizing a campaign to halt the expansion of oil concessions. In Belize, the Maya recently won two landmark Supreme Court victories that upheld their rights to their land and resources, and specifically forbid the government to issue new concessions on Mayan lands. Yet the government is now appealing the Court’s decision and trying to issue a large oil concession on these lands to the US-based oil Company US Energy.
Click here for a slideshow about the consequences of oil drilling.
Deforestation: What’s driving it? Oil in the Rainforest
http://www.rainforestfoundation.org/deforestation-what%E2%80%99s-driving-it-oil-rainforestEach day 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed and another 80,000 acres are degraded.
A few years ago, the world watched as the BP disaster unfolded along the Gulf Coast of the US. Yet while this story dominated one news cycle after another, deep in the Amazon’s Ecuadorean Oriente the world’s largest environmental disaster stemming from oil production was unfolding, and was largely ignored. When Texaco entered the Ecuadorean Oriente in 1967, the area was considered the most biodiverse place on Earth, and home to several indigenous groups. Since then, more than 20 billion gallons of toxic drilling waste and 17 million gallons of oil have been dumped into the regions soil and waterways. Where villages of indigenous peoples once lived, roads wind through the landscape; where farms once yielded a bounty of crops, hundreds of waste pits remain. Oil spills within the Amazon are both the most difficult to contain, due to the network of waterways, and the most challenging to clean-up, due to the remote area, and the rugged and varied landscapes. All of this begs the question: why oil?
Why Oil?
Despite all the risks involved in oil drilling in the Amazon, they are negated with one word: money. The monies at stake for both oil companies and governments are so vast that human rights and environmental destruction are merely regrettable necessities en route to enormous profits. Ironically, the indigenous peoples residing on these oil rich lands rarely reap the benefits. If those lands are destroyed, the governments and oil interests who profit are far removed from the disaster and suffer little impact. The Rainforest Foundation has worked beside many indigenous groups to help them gain official title and rights to their ancestral lands. But sadly we find that where rights thwart the “progress” of oil production, rights are simply ignored altogether, or conveniently reinterpreted. Such is the case with the Shuar of Ecuador. After fighting for years to gain title to 700 square miles of their ancestral lands, the Shuar were stunned to discover that just a year later the Ecuadorian government had sold a 100 square-mile concession on their land for oil development. The governments’ justification was that the Shuar’s title to the land extended only to surface rights and not the subsurface.
Right now indigenous peoples are battling oil interests throughout the Amazon.
In Peru, where nearly three quarters of the Amazon rainforest is covered in oil concessions, the Achuar communities have temporarily taken over oil platforms and succeeded in gaining promises to clean up spills and compensate communities. Quechua communities in the Pastaza of Peru, have begun mapping spills and training community leaders in environmental monitoring to prove the existence of spills and demand change. In Ecuador, indigenous organizations are mobilizing against the expansion of oil exploration on their lands in the Southern Amazon. CONAIE, the national federation of indigenous organizations, is organizing a campaign to halt the expansion of oil concessions. In Belize, the Maya recently won two landmark Supreme Court victories that upheld their rights to their land and resources, and specifically forbid the government to issue new concessions on Mayan lands. Yet the government is now appealing the Court’s decision and trying to issue a large oil concession on these lands to the US-based oil Company US Energy.
Click here for a slideshow about the consequences of oil drilling.
February 13, 2015
[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #000000;"]
Some of the world's most promising oil and gas deposits lie deep in tropical rainforests, especially in the Western Amazon. With oil at historically high prices, the incentive to develop oil resources has never been greater.
~~
~~
The development of oil in the Ecuadorean Amazon is a particularly poignant example, but it is no means unusual for oil projects in rainforests. Typically, an oil company cuts access roads through the forest. These roads are followed by transient settlers who colonize and damage the surrounding forest through slash-and-burn agriculture, the introduction of domestic animals, hunting, and the collection of fuelwood. Oil companies sometimes "flare" or burn natural gas that is a by-product of drilling. The flames, which burn in the open air, contribute both to local air pollution and increase the risk of forest fires.
The oil extraction process can be messy and destructive. Spills result from burst pipelines and toxic drilling by-products may be dumped directly into local creeks and rivers. Some of the more toxic chemicals are stored in open waste pits and may pollute the surrounding lands and waterways. Oil spills can wreak havoc on rivers and aquatic ecosystems, while clean-up efforts are complicated by the complexity of tropical river systems, which may include floating meadows, swamp forest, oxbow lakes, flooded forest, and sand bars.
~~
~~
Over-reliance on oil can also impact the government's responsiveness to its citizens. Michael Ross, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles, has argued that oil-rich countries do less to help their poor than do countries without oil and are plagued with lower literacy rates, score lower on measures like the UN's "Human Development Index," and have higher child mortality and malnutrition. How is this possible? An article in The Economist explains, "Unlike agriculture, the oil sector employs few unskilled people. The inherent volatility of commodity prices hurts the poor the most, as they are least able to hedge their risks. And because the resource is concentrated, the resulting wealth passes through only a few hands—and so is more susceptible to misdirection." Since oil revenues are sometimes funneled directly to rulers, governments have little need to raise revenues through taxes and be accountable to their citizens.
(more)
[font size="+1"] There is a new role for biofuels that hasn't been considered before. [/font] As oil companies, looking for additional sources of oil, move into the tropical rainforests - in a big way - the role of protecting the rainforests may become as significant a consideration for the increased use of biofuels as it's role in reducing GHG emissions (although in the end they are one in the same). I think people should start considering what will be the impact and costs of losing large swaths of the rainforest as drilling for oil becomes a larger fact of life in the tropical rainforests.
Ethanol (and methanol if we invested in it) by competing with gasoline reduces the price of petroleum/gasoline. If we added methanol to the mix, we could more rapidly replace gasoline as the fuel for light vehicle transportation *. Increased use of biofuels and the decreased demand for gasoline will drive down the price of gas even more than it already has. A decreased price for petroleum would make drilling in the rainforests a less viable business plan. While the benefits of reducing GHG emissions from increased biofuel use by themselves make expanded use of biofuels imperative, the benefits of saving large swaths of the rainforest have not been calculated and could very well be of enormous import to the effort to fight Global Warming. (note: the effects of significant increases in deforestation are not linear. Significantly larger losses of rainforest would most likely have much larger impacts than have been considered so far). --- I am not aware of any studies considering the impacts on the climate of significant losses of tropical rainforest.
Considering the jeopardy the tropical rainforests are in, this makes rejection of non-empirically based, hysterical fables about ethanol and oil industry disinformation on biofuels an eminent imperative.
* Our ethanol supply from plant sources is probably limited to about 15% of our needs for light transportation fuel, barring any considerable improvements in manufacturing processes. Methanol is currently made from natural gas, but can also be made from agricultural and forestry waste in much larger volume than ethanol. We could increase methanol production much more quickly than other alternative fuel sources and blend it with gasoline and ethanol. Increased substitution of methanol for gasoline could reduce our demand for petroleum by an additional 10% in possibly a decade (with a serious commitment to this course) and another 10% to 20% in another decade - achieving a 30% to 40% reduction in our demand for gasoline. A reduction in demand for gasoline of 20% would have a very significant impact on the price of petroleum. A reduction in demand of 30% would have an even larger impact - greater than a linear relationship (between demand and price) would produce. This is without consideration of adaptation of engine designs which take advantage of alcohol's higher octane which could significantly increase engine performance - increasing the reduction in demand for gasoline.
Big oil moves into the Amazon rainforest - what's the cost of losing large swaths of the rainforest?
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0806.htm[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #000000;"]
Some of the world's most promising oil and gas deposits lie deep in tropical rainforests, especially in the Western Amazon. With oil at historically high prices, the incentive to develop oil resources has never been greater.
~~
~~
The development of oil in the Ecuadorean Amazon is a particularly poignant example, but it is no means unusual for oil projects in rainforests. Typically, an oil company cuts access roads through the forest. These roads are followed by transient settlers who colonize and damage the surrounding forest through slash-and-burn agriculture, the introduction of domestic animals, hunting, and the collection of fuelwood. Oil companies sometimes "flare" or burn natural gas that is a by-product of drilling. The flames, which burn in the open air, contribute both to local air pollution and increase the risk of forest fires.
The oil extraction process can be messy and destructive. Spills result from burst pipelines and toxic drilling by-products may be dumped directly into local creeks and rivers. Some of the more toxic chemicals are stored in open waste pits and may pollute the surrounding lands and waterways. Oil spills can wreak havoc on rivers and aquatic ecosystems, while clean-up efforts are complicated by the complexity of tropical river systems, which may include floating meadows, swamp forest, oxbow lakes, flooded forest, and sand bars.
~~
~~
Over-reliance on oil can also impact the government's responsiveness to its citizens. Michael Ross, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles, has argued that oil-rich countries do less to help their poor than do countries without oil and are plagued with lower literacy rates, score lower on measures like the UN's "Human Development Index," and have higher child mortality and malnutrition. How is this possible? An article in The Economist explains, "Unlike agriculture, the oil sector employs few unskilled people. The inherent volatility of commodity prices hurts the poor the most, as they are least able to hedge their risks. And because the resource is concentrated, the resulting wealth passes through only a few hands—and so is more susceptible to misdirection." Since oil revenues are sometimes funneled directly to rulers, governments have little need to raise revenues through taxes and be accountable to their citizens.
(more)
[font size="+1"] There is a new role for biofuels that hasn't been considered before. [/font] As oil companies, looking for additional sources of oil, move into the tropical rainforests - in a big way - the role of protecting the rainforests may become as significant a consideration for the increased use of biofuels as it's role in reducing GHG emissions (although in the end they are one in the same). I think people should start considering what will be the impact and costs of losing large swaths of the rainforest as drilling for oil becomes a larger fact of life in the tropical rainforests.
Ethanol (and methanol if we invested in it) by competing with gasoline reduces the price of petroleum/gasoline. If we added methanol to the mix, we could more rapidly replace gasoline as the fuel for light vehicle transportation *. Increased use of biofuels and the decreased demand for gasoline will drive down the price of gas even more than it already has. A decreased price for petroleum would make drilling in the rainforests a less viable business plan. While the benefits of reducing GHG emissions from increased biofuel use by themselves make expanded use of biofuels imperative, the benefits of saving large swaths of the rainforest have not been calculated and could very well be of enormous import to the effort to fight Global Warming. (note: the effects of significant increases in deforestation are not linear. Significantly larger losses of rainforest would most likely have much larger impacts than have been considered so far). --- I am not aware of any studies considering the impacts on the climate of significant losses of tropical rainforest.
Considering the jeopardy the tropical rainforests are in, this makes rejection of non-empirically based, hysterical fables about ethanol and oil industry disinformation on biofuels an eminent imperative.
* Our ethanol supply from plant sources is probably limited to about 15% of our needs for light transportation fuel, barring any considerable improvements in manufacturing processes. Methanol is currently made from natural gas, but can also be made from agricultural and forestry waste in much larger volume than ethanol. We could increase methanol production much more quickly than other alternative fuel sources and blend it with gasoline and ethanol. Increased substitution of methanol for gasoline could reduce our demand for petroleum by an additional 10% in possibly a decade (with a serious commitment to this course) and another 10% to 20% in another decade - achieving a 30% to 40% reduction in our demand for gasoline. A reduction in demand for gasoline of 20% would have a very significant impact on the price of petroleum. A reduction in demand of 30% would have an even larger impact - greater than a linear relationship (between demand and price) would produce. This is without consideration of adaptation of engine designs which take advantage of alcohol's higher octane which could significantly increase engine performance - increasing the reduction in demand for gasoline.
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