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When there is money at stake, people tend to be more calculative and careful in critical decision making, this human psyche is collectively harnessed to predict future political outcomes by Washington Stock Exchange. The way it works is quite simple, anyone can sign up for free and receive W$1,000,000 Washington dollars (not real of course) to start trading in stocks linked to uncertain political outcomes. You buy and sell stocks based on your opinion about likelihood of the underlying event. The resulting price corresponds to the probability that it will happen, according to the collective wisdom of the market. According to the site, by harvesting the collective intelligence of all the traders, …

Originally posted at D.C. Watch

Here’s an interesting psycho analysis of humans and our reaction (or lack of) to Global Warming. The author is Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. The interesting part is the title, “If only gay sex caused global warming.” (with due apologies to our gay readers…)

 

Get the L.A. Times Op-ed here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted at D.C. Watch 

Don’t let the headline fool you, the rule applies only for small-engine machines like lawn mover! Not to say that it would not help, but EPA’s spin on it (as quoted by Margo Oge, director of EPA’s office of transportation and air quality) is “We believe harmonizing with California will be cost-effective, good for the environment, good for the industry, good for all the stakeholders.” She continued, “We are concerned that as other sources are being controlled, this source is going to continue to be a bigger source for air pollution, so we are pretty interested in finishing our work and putting forth cost-effective standards for the country,”

“as other sources are being controlled?� Oge, here is a short-list of sources you probably overlooked before you decided to go after lawn movers-

Coal fired power plants
Cars and SUVs
Container ships
Incinerators
Oil refineries

EPA, like our current administration, seems more interested in going after the small fishes while the large culprits go about doing as they please. Divergence tactics? Incompetent? Ignorance? Maybe, I don’t know, but definitely blog worthy.

Source: Associated Press by Erica Werner

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration does not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunal.

For more on this breaking news, visit NPR.org 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Originally posted at D.C. Watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supreme Court agreed will hear arguments from attorneys for the Sierra Club and the White House as to whether or not the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming. The decision means the court will address whether the administration’s decision to rely on voluntary measures to combat climate change are legal under federal clean air laws.

David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club said “This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants.” In response, John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute (API) said, “Fundamentally, we don’t think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and so we don’t think these attempts are a good idea.”

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, excess carbon dioxide is. It’s like drinking, when consumed in limited amount it helps your heart; when binged, it’ll hits your liver, kidney and your head. Obviously API will have issues if CO2 were labeled a pollutant, after all, their bottom line relies on sale of automobiles which fuel consumption of petroleum products.

My doubt however is not how clever the two groups lawyers are, but rather how the Supreme Court, who’s members are political appointees, would rule against the very people who put them in place (read Bush). I remember in 2001, when the Republicans were taken to the Supreme Court, they won an election with less popular votes than the Democrats. Need I say more?

And has been $5.15 for the over 10 years now. If one were to work 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, they would earn $10,712.

According to the US Census Bureau, an household with more that one individual (say two for the heck of it), and if one of them were earnings minimum wage and supporting the other, they are below poverty right away. How good is minimum wage if in spite of working hard for 40 hours per week every week of the year and still are not able to sustain?

Proponents of wage increase (read democrats) believe that raising the minimum wage would help the poor, while detractors (read republicans) of this legislation believe that raising the wage would in fact result in many being laid-off, making it worse for the poor. If both parties are (partly) correct with respect to their assessments, Americas poor stands to suffer the unintentional consequence of capitalism, while some benefit, others lose.

Today marked the day when US military causality in Iraq reached a landmark 2500. Sadly, people at the Capitol Hill were signing off on something all together irrelevant. This morning, President Bush signed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act into law. While no way am I undermining the lives of miner, but such emphasis and attention from deaths of 33 miners this year seem awfully overrated when so many Americans are dying in Iraq. Miners are obviously more valuable than Marines, think about it, Marines fight wars, insurgents, enemies, and die doing it, end of story, while Miners bring to surface coal, which is as precious as OIL. Fighting for oil may be good, but obviously not as good as mining for coal.

A new investigation reveled that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spent 16 percent of federal aid to hurricane Katrina victims for items like- sex change, vacation, seasons ticket for the New Orleans Saints, Champagne, and Girls Gone Wild videos!!! Government Accountability Office believes that the fraudulent payments were in the range of $600 million to $1.4 billons.

First they screw up, then they steal from the aid, how considerate.

For more, visit NPR

According to the Pentagon, an Iraqi life cost less than $2500, as opposed to an Americans life, which varies from a few hundred thousand to many millions depending on your profession.
For cheaper group rates visit US military.com. Updated on 06/08/2006: For more on condolence payments visit Boston.com

Why? Since, Hamas has not attacked Israel one might ask is such actions warranted. Because Israel has no way of tracking down Islamic Jihad, so the next best thing is to disrupt the democratically elected political faction of Hamas to pressurize them to tighten cross border securities and prevent suicide bombing. Israel accuses Ibrahim Hamad of masterminding a string of suicide bombings, including attacks on cafes and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

In a totally unrelated story, Israel PM Ehud Olmert who is visiting Washington D.C. today emphasized that he has his nations intelligence reporting that suggests that Iran is on the verge of enriching enough nuclear …