But Obama gave no immediate sign of agreeing to a request in a letter from Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) to halt all oil exploration off the U.S. coasts. Nelson also urged Obama to impose an immediate halt to any other test wells and exploratory activity in coastal waters until the federal investigation into the cause of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion is complete. He said he was introducing legislation to temporarily prohibit the Interior Department from exercising its authority to expand drilling and suggested a congressional inquiry could be launched into whether the government made sure there were appropriate contingencies in place to prevent a major oil spill.
“The questions about the practices of the oil industry raised in the wake of this still-unfolding incident require that you postpone indefinitely plans for expanded offshore drilling operations,” Nelson said.
An interesting observation on Obama’s three new nominees (Janet Yellen, Peter Diamond & Sarah Bloom Raskin) to the Federal Reserve Board:
They are all prominent members of the Washington-Wall Street-Academia Economics Complex, whose members shift between government, Wall Street, and academia. All of the nominees are Keynesian economists. They are known as regulators, technocrats, and inflationists.
They will fly through the nomination process. This will mean that Obama will have appointed four of the seven governors of the Board.
Chris Hansen traveled to Detroit, Michigan for a Dateline special that aired tonight on the state of what is probably America’s most desolate city. And in aerial footage—devastation porn at its best—Detroit’s grim plight was revealed. Video inside.
“Today, from the air, parts of Detroit look like a war zone,” Hansen said in a voiceover near the beginning of the special, before he listed some of the most shocking facts about the city’s current state—the population is less than half of what it was decades ago; there are 400 liquor stores there, but only eight supermarkets—all while panning shots of the consequences of its deterioration flashed on the screen.
Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans — four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must re-build the entire urban United States.
Aristotle said: “Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life.” It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today.
The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated.
Worst of all expansion is eroding the precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.
As someone who has lived most of my life in this area, I would be thrilled to see Detroit turn the corner. However, to do so, is going to require a complete move away from the Progressive era thinking that has crippled Detroit and embrace a conservative, free market approach to solving problems facing the city.
Otherwise, by applying the same Liberal Democrat policies Detroit has endured over the last 50 years, Detroit will get the same results.
This story has it all. The mean boss who drives a Volvo, the harsh working condition, the time clock and no hope (or change- sorry couldn’t pass it up).
Of course no one in Washington or Lansing is talking about real economic growth. All they talk about windmills and how socialized medicine is going create jobs.
In recent decades the Irish economy has been transformed from being agrarian and traditional manufacturing based to one increasingly based on the hi-tech and internationally traded services sectors. In 2007, the services sector accounted for 64 per cent of Irish GDP, while industry accounted for 33 per cent and agriculture just 3 per cent.
Beginning in the early 1990’s, unprecedented economic growth saw the level of Irish real GDP double in size over the course of a little more than a decade. There have been many reasons advanced for Ireland’s success over this period, including EU membership and access to the Single Market; Ireland’s low corporation tax rate and a large multinational presence (emphasis added)
It’s like Detroit is going out of it’s way to be hostile to business and it’s residence.
Rather than follow Mayor Bing and his liberal fantasy boondoggle, why not try a more business and resident friendly policy to encourage economic and population growth.
Detroit’s roads, buildings, economy and social fabric has crumbled. The city is beholden to Unions and is rife with cronyism. And, once again, Detroit is going to be known as the Murder City.
The first step to correcting this problem is admitting that Liberal Socialist Democrat ideas do not work and Detroit is a prime example. The city has not had a Republican mayor since Louis Miriani, who’s term ended in 1962. Detroit does not have a single Republican member on it’s city council. I’m not sure, but I think Louis Miriani was the last Republican on the council in 1966.
The high tax, union first, government control model just doesn’t work. Even worse, the people who keep electing Democrats to the city government keep paying the price.
I know the people of Detroit and the region want the city to succeed. I know I do.
But I think it’s time to point out the fact that Liberal Socialist Democrats have run the city in to the ground. Liberal Socialist Democrats have run the State of Michigan in to the ground. And, Liberal Socialist Democrats are now running the United States Of America in to the ground.
This past weekend, the Lingenfelter LS9 powered 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS ran a quarter mile in 10.36 at 139.95 mph at the Camaro5Fest in Georgia making this the quickest and fastest TR6060 manual transmission equipped Chevrolet Camaro so far.
The LPE LS9 Camaro is powered by Lingenfelter’s 855-hp ZR1 LS9 engine with several of the company’s ZR1 supercharger upgrades.
Nollywood is the massive, pulsating film industry in Nigeria, which the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared the world’s second-largest film industry, after India’s Bollywood, based on the number of films produced. Shooting past Hollywood without the world noticing, Nollywood has made it to second place with films about family, love and honor, about AIDS, prostitution and oil, and about ghosts and cannibals.
In other words, films about Africa.
At least 900 films will be produced in Nigeria this year, twice as many as in Hollywood. Nollywood is a $200-million (€148-million) business in a country where 70 percent of the population still lives on less than $1 a day, where residents can consider themselves lucky if the power is on for two hours a day, and where raw sewage runs through open canals along the streets. It is a country known throughout the world for corruption, Internet fraud, prostitution and oil, but certainly not for its film culture.
Iroegbu is determined to change this. He wants to prevent corruption from taking hold of Nollywood and strangling it, as happens with almost all industries in Nigeria. He wants to make Nollywood visible to the rest of the world by promoting quality and creativity.
Iroegbu wants to win an Oscar for his country. That’s the plan.
The center of Nollywood lies in the narrow streets crisscrossing the Alaba market in downtown Lagos. The streets are lined with hundreds of small shops, the ground is muddy and tattered posters for love and action films hang between decaying buildings. The men and women portrayed on the posters are heavily made-up and wear animal skins over their shoulders. The generators hum while the vendors hawk their wares. In the Alaba market, the films that filmmakers like Iroegbu produce every year are burned, packaged and distributed.
Here is what the worst Governor in America thinks about what is required to be a Supreme Court justice:
While Granholm confirmed that she indeed had been a candidate vetted by the Obama White House during its first-round search — which resulted in the nomination and confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor — the governor played it close to the chest on whether she was an official candidate to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who recently announced his retirement.
But Granholm did hint that it would behoove the White House to consider non-traditional candidates for the nation’s highest court.
“I think it’s a very wise move to consider experience that isn’t just from the judiciary,” Granholm said. “People who have applied the laws and seen their impact — for somebody to see and experience what everyday people see and experience, I think that’s important.“
I wonder if she thinks she is a “non-traditional” candidate.
