| From: LindyBill | 8/12/2013 6:37:12 PM | | | | | | Frisking Common Sense
By Jack Dunphy
August 12, 2013 4:17 PM
So, U.S. District Court judge Shira A. Scheindlin has done what has long been expected, which is to rule that the “stop and frisk” tactics practiced by the New York Police Department are an affront to the Constitution and must end. She also called for a federal monitor to oversee reforms in the department.
With apologies to the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, today’s Fox Butterfield Award goes to the New York Times, whose story on the ruling includes this: “These stop-and-frisk episodes, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline . . .”
I do not endorse, nor should any police officer endorse, extra-constitutional means to achieve law-enforcement ends, no matter how noble. But in the Bronx, a week ago Sunday, an NYPD officer shot and killed 14-year-old Shaaliver Douse as he, Douse, was attempting to shoot some rival gang member. Would it not be preferable that the police had stopped and frisked Douse before his crime than shot him after?
And is there anyone who believes that the added layer of federal bureaucracy over the NYPD, with all its inherent inefficiencies, will make the city safer?
Liberals, especially those who would never dare set foot in the Bronx, can rejoice at Judge Scheindlin’s ruling, then watch the bodies begin to pile up.
UPDATE: As I feared, my Fox Butterfield reference is already used in today’s Best of the Web.
— Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. “Jack Dunphy” is the author’s nom de cyber.
|
| | Politics for Pros- moderated | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| To: Bearcatbob who wrote (540280) | 8/12/2013 8:19:25 PM | | From: carranza2 | | | | It'd be a disaster, of course.
I guess my point is that a 'surfer dude' can be a very interesting guy, someone to whom traditional rules don't really apply, and that it could be unfortunate to judge someone Iike that by conventional norms. |
| | Politics for Pros- moderated | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| To: Bearcatbob who wrote (540280) | 8/12/2013 8:19:52 PM | | From: carranza2 | | | | It'd be a disaster, of course.
I guess my point is that a 'surfer dude' can be a very interesting guy, someone to whom traditional rules don't really apply, and that it could be unfortunate to judge someone Iike that by conventional norms. |
| | Politics for Pros- moderated | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last ReadRead Replies (1) |
|
| To: mistermj who wrote (540270) | 8/12/2013 9:35:31 PM | | From: D. Long | | | | Oh my, what a gaffe. They have the painting on its side. Zimmerman was on his back getting his head beat in with Trayvon on top.
Apparently the artist hasn't noticed and it will soon be corrected.
[/sarcasm] |
| | Politics for Pros- moderated | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last ReadRead Replies (1) |
|
| From: LindyBill | 8/12/2013 11:25:40 PM | | | | | | Mexico in Talks to Open Energy Sector to Private Investors
By
JUAN MONTESMEXICO CITY—President Enrique Peña Nieto will seek in the coming months to end a taboo of nearly eight decades by opening the state-run oil-and-gas industry to private investment and competition, a move the government hopes will attract billions of dollars in investment.
Mr. Peña Nieto's government wants to allow private energy firms to share the risks involved in developing increasingly complex energy reserves such as deep-water oil deposits by letting them produce oil and gas through profit-sharing deals and joint ventures with state monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, according to three high-level government and ruling party officials who gave details of the proposed reform for the first time.
The proposal, which would involve amending several articles of Mexico's Constitution, will need two-thirds support from Mexico's Congress. But officials say they are optimistic they can get at least one of the two main opposition parties to back the plan without drastic changes. Formal negotiations will likely start after local elections on July 7, with a bill presented to Congress as early as August, the officials said.
The plan calls for opening up exploration and production in deep water where more than half of Mexico's prospective oil resources are thought to lie, and for oil and gas found in shale-rock formations. Shallow water and onshore oil, where Pemex has expertise and its lowest-cost production, would remain the exclusive domain of the state firm, the people said.
"We want an in-depth reform that gives legal certainty to companies, not another partial step. We want to make it crystal clear in the constitution how they [private firms] can participate," said a high-level Energy Ministry official.
The proposal, not yet released publicly, could fall short of what some oil companies would like to see. For instance, officials said companies may not get paid in oil itself, but rather in cash for oil at market prices. The restriction is aimed at appeasing Mexican nationalists who fret about the symbolism of handing over the country's oil. Officials insist Pemex will remain in state hands and that the state will continue to own the country's hydrocarbon resources.
But the changes, if passed, would be a huge step forward for a country that has among the world's most restrictive energy laws. Experts say only North Korea has a more closed energy market.
"If they finally do it, this would undoubtedly be a game-changing reform," said Carlos Elizondo, a political analyst at Mexico's CIDE college and research institute. "That's the kind of change in the oil sector that every government in Mexico has dreamed of, and hasn't been able to do, for the last 20 years."
Mexico's crude output has stagnated at around 2.5 million barrels a day in recent years, down from a peak of 3.4 million in 2004. Government officials estimate that the increased investment and production would add as much as two percentage points to Mexico's annual economic growth.
For Mexico, the overhaul could be the last chance to bring the billions of dollars required to develop deep-water reserves and to avoid becoming a net importer of oil, which Pemex officials have warned could happen as early as 2020 if nothing is done.
For foreign firms, it could mean access to a major oil producer, with proven reserves of 13.9 billion barrels of crude-oil equivalent, and to possibly the world's fourth-largest shale-gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The changes would bury one of the last symbols of Mexico's 20th century revolutionary nationalism, cemented when President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated the oil industry in 1938. Mexico was the first major energy producer to nationalize, setting a trend which would last decades and sweep the industry.
The move highlights a willingness to break with the past among young, reformist members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which nationalized the oil and ruled Mexico for much of last century. It returned to power in December after 12 years in opposition.
For decades, Pemex has hired private contractors like Schlumberger Ltd. SLB -0.30% and Halliburton Co. HAL -0.02% to carry out work like drilling wells in exchange for a fixed fee. But Mexico has clung to a ban on any kind of concession that would allow major oil companies to claim reserves as theirs and share in the risks or rewards of a big strike—even as producers like Norway, Brazil, China and Russia have all developed some kind of risk-sharing rules.
The plan contemplates awarding 25-year contracts for designated areas and allowing private firms to book oil reserves, which gives them easier access to financing in global markets, the people with knowledge of the plan said.
The government is considering the creation of a national petroleum agency, a kind of sovereign fund which would manage the country's oil revenue. In the case of privately produced oil and gas, the agency would pay the firms' production costs and the profit would be shared between the state and the companies, the people said. How much the government's take would be hasn't been determined, although a top government official said it could be around 70%.
Mr. Peña Nieto will need an aggressive pro-business energy plan if he wants to secure the support of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, a longtime proponent of opening the oil sector to competition.
"We won't accept less than that in the negotiations. And the government knows it," said a top PAN official close to the party's president Gustavo Madero. The PAN's backing is vital to securing the two-thirds majority needed in Congress to change the constitution.
The leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, could balk at undoing the constitutional ban on private oil, although party President Jesús Zambrano says he's open to negotiate. "They have to tell us why they want the reform, how, and for what. Remember that oil in Mexico is a very sensitive issue," Mr. Zambrano said in an interview.
More radical opposition would likely come from charismatic leftist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was runner-up to Mr. Peña Nieto in last year's presidential election and is calling for massive protests against what he sees as plans to privatize Mexico's oil.
Plans to open downstream activities, such as oil refining, to private firms are likely to be less contentious. Natural gas pipelines and distribution networks have been open to the private sector for years, although Pemex runs the country's six refineries and is the only supplier and importer of gasoline. |
| | Politics for Pros- moderated | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| |
