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To: joseffy who wrote (50350)	3/30/2012 1:32:56 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	of 65173

Natural-Gas Vehicles Will Run Best Without Subsidies Bloomberg Editorials: By the Editors Mar 29, 2012 7:00 PM ET bloomberg.com Few areas of American governance have been as incoherent in recent decades as energy policy, which is saying something. But lately, we keep seeing reasons for optimism. Almost miraculously, the U.S. is both reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions and becoming increasingly energy independent. As Bloomberg News recently reported, the share of U.S. energy demand met by domestic sources increased to 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011 -- the highest level in 20 years -- and emissions are expected to decline 12 percent by 2020. A major factor in both trends is increased use of natural gas, a cleaner-burning fossil fuel now being extracted in abundance across the country. Hydraulic fracturing, a new production technology also known as fracking, has helped push prices for the fuel to a decade low, and has created plenty of jobs in the process. Inevitably, a large lobbying effort has attached itself to this booming business, advancing buoyant visions of an America free of Middle East oil, cleansed of carbon pollution and humming with new natural-gas-powered vehicles -- if only Congress would provide a few billion in tax credits to get the industry on its feet. Natural gas has many advantages -- which is exactly why the industry doesn’t need more government help. Proponents of federal aid argue that the costs of switching to natural gas on a large scale are prohibitive for trucking companies and consumers. But as Bloomberg News has reported, trucking companies are already buying more long-haul natural-gas trucks simply because the fuel is so cheap. Annual savings over diesel can add up to $20,000 for a single truck -- so a company can recoup the extra cost of the new technology in about two years. On the consumer side, Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. recently announced that they plan to build pickups that use compressed natural gas, joining Honda Motor Co., which sells a version of the Civic that runs on the fuel. To meet increased demand, companies are building infrastructure on their own: Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which provides natural gas fuel for transportation, plans to build 70 liquefied natural-gas stations by the end of the year. General Electric Co. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. have formed an alliance to help make compressed natural gas available at more filling stations. Honda plans to install fueling stations at some of its dealerships. Fleets of taxis, trucks and buses across the country are using the fuel in growing numbers. In other words, market forces are working. It’s not yet clear what will be the most efficient means to get natural gas to power vehicles -- many options are on the table -- but the private sector is the best place to experiment. Billions of dollars in government subsidies will only further distort the energy sector, threaten to create another industry reliant on Washington’s largesse and drive up prices by artificially boosting demand. Such support could also crowd out promising renewable energy sources. Congress, which can rarely pass up too much of a good thing, for the moment is showing restraint. On March 13, legislation providing tax credits for natural gas -- backed by billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens -- failed to pass the Senate. A House version of the bill also looks unlikely to pass. The issue will surely come up again. When it does, the government’s role in encouraging natural gas should be modest. Scrapping subsidies for oil companies would be a good first step. On the supply side, the government should start minimizing uncertainty about the future of fracking -- which poses real environmental and safety concerns -- by drawing up a clear regulatory plan to protect communities without unduly burdening a promising industry. President Barack Obama’s small-scale National Community Deployment Challenge -- which would help a dozen or so communities become “real-world laboratories” by funding infrastructure for a variety of alternative-fuel vehicles -- is on the right track. The government could conduct similar limited experiments using parts of its own fleet of vehicles. Otherwise, Washington should avoid undue meddling in the natural-gas industry while continuing to support research and development for renewables. The president is right to push an “all of the above” strategy for U.S. energy use. That shouldn’t mean taxpayer handouts for all of the above. Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Today’s highlights: The editors on Europe’s firewall and converting the U.S. truck fleet to natural gas. Jonathan Alter on stand-your-ground laws. Jonathan Weil on vital new accounting rules. Stephen L. Carter on arguing about health care. Brian Calle on Orange County, California, opting out of Obamacare. Michael O’Hanlon on helping Colombian counterterrorism. To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

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From: DuckTapeSunroof	3/30/2012 1:42:56 PM
	of 65173

Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, Not Caves, for Decade By RANDY KREIDER March 30, 2012 abcnews.go.com Osama bin Laden's youngest wife has revealed that the al Qaeda leader spent a vast majority of his time after the 9/11 attacks not hiding in caves but living in Pakistani cities, where he moved several times and fathered a handful of children. According to a police report dated Jan. 17 and obtained by ABC News, bin Laden's youngest wife Amal Ahmad Abdul Fatah claims that except for the eight or nine months just after 9/11 when the family "scattered" and she does not account for bin Laden's whereabouts, the most wanted man in the world skipped from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad for about the last six years of his life. In his time on the run, bin Laden managed to father four children -- at least two of whom were born in government hospitals. Far from the popular image of bin Laden holed up in a cave in the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, Fatah said the family lived in houses. "The inescapable conclusion is that he was helped by high-level officials in Pakistan," said Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism advisor and now a consultant to ABC News. Bin Laden was killed in his compound in Abbottabad in a nighttime raid by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011. Fatah said that she spent very little time in the hospital when she gave birth to bin Laden's children -- just two or three hours -- and, except for when they were in Abbottabad, bin Laden's family moved houses often even if they were staying in the same city. American officials have said they suspected some Pakistani officials must have known bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan. "I don't have any hard evidence, so I can't say it for a fact. There's nothing that proves the case. But as I said, my personal view is that somebody somewhere probably had that knowledge," Panetta told CBS News' "60 Minutes" in January. Sen. Carl Levin, D.-Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Jonathan Karl of ABC News right after bin Laden died that "at high levels, high levels being the intelligence service ... [the Pakistanis] knew it." The new report is part of the Pakistani government's investigation into whether bin Laden's three wives entered Pakistan illegally. Bin Laden was married to four wives in all, but divorced his first wife prior to 9/11. According to the report, Fatah, a Yemeni, got a temporary visa to enter Pakistan for "medical treatment" in 2000 that expired after a few months. For the next decade, the report says, she was considered an illegal immigrant. American officials were able to interview bin Laden's wives shortly after the raid that killed the terror leader, but they described the wives as being uncooperative. Earlier this month, new details emerged about bin Laden's last days in his compound in Abbottabad where he was caught between two feuding wives and in danger of being betrayed from the inside. READ: Bin Laden's Last Days, Caught Between Feuding Wives

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To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (50365)	3/30/2012 2:09:02 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation of 65173

Will Holder open investigation into criminal conduct of New Black Panthers? Holder thinks solicitation of kidnapping may or may not be a crime ... it depends on the color of the skin of those doing the solicitating: Holder Charges Kidnapping Solicitation of White Supremacist, Not New Black Panthers March 30, 2012 - 10:47 am - by J. Christian Adams pjmedia.com Here we go again. Eric Holder’s Justice Department last month oversaw a guilty plea for solicitation of kidnapping, a federal offense. Jayen Patel entered a plea in New Jersey for soliciting a purported white supremacist (actually an FBI agent acting as a white supremacist) to conduct a kidnapping. I wrote earlier this week and appeared on Fox News to say that solicitation of kidnapping is a federal crime. The New Black Panther Party has put a bounty out on George Zimmerman being taken “dead or alive.” From Eric Holder, crickets. The bounty posters, incidentally, changed from the original posters which plainly stated “dead or alive.” This is standard procedure for the New Black Panthers. Even the toned-down poster has been removed from the New Black Panther website. The panthers tone down their language after first stoking up the mob, which is the real mission. Once the public at large learns of their behavior, they get more civilized. [ Wait, what if the New Black Panther's solicit a white supremacist to kidnap George Zimmerman? Would Holder think that was a crime? ] Changing an outrageous public statement after the fact of the Philadelphia voter intimidation was incredibly persuasive to the attorneys in Holder’s Justice Department. Will Eric Holder at last open an investigation into the criminal conduct of the New Black Panthers? Will there be arrests like in the Jayen Patel case? It sure would be a way to put an end to the New Black Panther albatross that hangs around Eric Holder’s neck, and will through November. And it will be a much heavier albatross with the events in Sanford.

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To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (50370)	3/30/2012 5:34:02 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation of 65173

Olberman Fired Again Current TV Dismisses Keith Olbermann By BRIAN STELTERMarch 30, 2012, 4:48 pm http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/current-tv-dismisses-keith-olbermann/ Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated the contract of its lead anchor Keith Olbermann, scarcely one year after he was hired to reboot the fledgling channel in his progressive political image. Mr. Olbermann did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Current indicated that he had failed to honor the terms of his five-year, $50 million contract, giving the channel the right to terminate it. In a letter to viewers, the channel’s founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt said Friday, “We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.” Mr. Olbermann will not be given an opportunity to sign off. Starting Friday night, the former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will take over Mr. Olbermann’s 8 p.m. time slot, according to the letter to viewers. His program will be titled “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer.” This will be Mr. Spitzer’s second shot at an 8 p.m. talk show; in 2010, two years after he resigned the governorship after admitting to his involvement in a prostitution ring, he led a short-lived show on CNN. It was cancelled in mid-2011. “We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Governor Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis,” Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt wrote in the letter to viewers. With those words — “on a daily basis” — the founders of Current hinted at one of the reasons for Mr. Olbermann’s termination. It was the culmination, at least in part, of months of infighting between the famously temperamental Mr. Olbermann and his bosses at Current, including Mr. Hyatt, and David Bohrman, the channel’s president. The fighting spilled out into public view in January after Mr. Olbermann declined Current’s requests to host special hours of election coverage, apparently out of frustration about technical difficulties that had plagued his 8 p.m. program, “Countdown.” In January and February, Mr. Olbermann continued to miss many days of work, as he himself acknowledged on his popular Twitter feed. He attributed some of his absences to throat problems. But Current considered some of those absences to be breaches of his contract, labeling them “unauthorized absences,” according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision to dismiss Mr. Olbermann was unanimous among the senior managers of Current, the person said. Fourteen months ago, Mr. Olbermann abruptly left MSNBC, where he had worked for the prior eight years. There, he nearly single-handedly gave the channel an identity as a liberal counterweight to Fox News. Executives at MSNBC had no public reaction on Friday to Mr. Olbermann’s departure from another channel. credit to FUBHO

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