crossroad

Consumers now are paying about $1 billion a day for gasoline, about $300 million more a day for gasoline than they did a year ago

Crude prices have been trading between $75 and $82 a barrel for the past month or so. Prices hit $33.87 a barrel on Dec. 19.
The rapid rise in prices is worse for consumers this time, however. Before prices doubled in early 2000, a barrel of crude cost about $10.

SHOOT: Now any rises in energy bite deeply into what little savings consumers have left to hold onto. These energy costs are likely to worsen even if the economy doesn't expand. Why? Because ultimately aggregate supply is contracting [Sorry.]

clipped from finance.yahoo.com The gap between what drivers are paying for gasoline compared with a year ago is widening and figures to get worse between now and the end of the year. Prices at the pump were $2.629 a gallon on Monday, 80.4 cents more a gallon than a year ago, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Services. That is about $40 more a month for a typical motorist. Gasoline prices bottomed near $1.61 during the last few days of 2008 as the recession took hold, demand for fuel crumbled and the stock markets tumbled. Consumers now are paying about $1 billion a day for gasoline, about $300 million more a day for gasoline than they did a year ago. And in December, for the first time in about 10 years, oil prices are expected to be twice what they were a year ago, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for OPIS. Crude prices have been trading between $75 and $82 a barrel for the past month or so. Prices hit $33.87 a barrel on Dec. 19.

Why

Why do the babies starve
When there's enough food
to feed the world
Why when there're so many of us
Are there people still alone
Why are the missiles called peace keepers
When they're aimed to kill
Why is a woman still not safe
When she's in her home?

Love is hate
War is peace
No is yes
we're all free
But somebody's gonna have to answer
The time is coming soon
Amidst all these questions
and contradictions
There're some who seek the truth
But somebody's gonna have to answer
The time is coming soon
When the blind remove their blinders
And the speechless speak the truth

What Woods needs to do to get out of the woods

SHOOT: Write these down in case you need them one day. Oh wait, you're not a celeb. What's that? You're married? Okay then.

clipped from sports.yahoo.com So here are three suggestions for Woods: 1. Don't delay. Hold your scheduled press conference Tuesday to kick off the Chevron World Challenge, which, since it benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation among other charities, makes it the perfect backdrop. Without going into every private detail, provide a sense of what led to the collision. Give an explanation, take a couple questions, and then move on to previewing the tournament and how it will benefit the work of your foundation. 2. If you have something to own up to, do it completely and you will be forgiven. Just ask Kobe Bryant. 3. If not, disarm the skeptics with your sense of humor. Gary Peterson of the Contra Costa Times had a suggestion: Say you were excited about a Black Friday sale and got carried away. Then give a sincere explanation. Anything that actually addresses the incident will bring Woods one step closer to putting it behind him. Otherwise, he better get used to seeing the TMZ.com van hanging around his subdivision.

Dubai debtstorm obscures their gleaming skyscrapers

Dubai is not yet a gateway to the financial world. But it can open the door to all sorts of trouble in its neighbourhood.

SHOOT: I predict it will, but Dubai is not alone in its financial mischief, hence the systemic threat is deeper and wider and more profound than most imagine. [Sorry].

clipped from www.economist.com More fundamentally, Dubai’s wobble raised the spectre of a sovereign default. Dubai’s government is not technically on the hook for Nakheel’s debts. But the government’s hesitation in saving its national champions nonetheless demonstrates its fiscal limits. These wider fears are easy to exaggerate. Despite its self-aggrandisement, Dubai is not yet important enough to bring down the global financial system. Its troubles moved markets last week partly because so many traders were on holiday. Other investors were looking for cues to sell after the long rally in markets since the spring. By Monday November 30th, the principal stock indices were shaking off the dust and venturing upwards again. But the damage Dubai has done to itself is no passing storm. An emirate that has spent so much money and hired so many flaks to cultivate its image and inspire confidence saw much of that work undone in a single 200-word statement announcing the debt standstill.

Swine Flu deaths now beyond 10 000 mark, with over 1.28 million confirmed infections

SHOOT: Latest news is a spike in deaths in Turkey - 195. The figure was 161 4 days ago. 35% of the dead in Turkey were people below the age of 50. Still no news out of Africa. Either no one is dying or no one cares or the numbers would cancel something known as the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

clipped from en.wikipedia.org

One in three South African children orphaned

SHOOT: Doesn't say much for the potential of this country to emerge as a crime-free nation.

clipped from www.mg.co.za "Estimates show that by 2015, some 5 700 000 or 32% of all children in South Africa would have lost one or both parents due to HIV/Aids," said Gail Eddy, a researcher at the Institute of Race Relations. In 2008 there were 1,5-million Aids orphans according to the country's health department. "What exacerbates the lack of support for these children, is that South Africa has a shortage of social workers who are responsible for identifying vulnerable children and providing them with the necessary support," she said. Nearly 495 000 Aids orphans are in foster care, but the government is encouraging more adoptions so orphans can have permanent families. But only a tiny fraction of the Aids orphans, about 1 900, were adopted by South Africans last year, a drop of nearly 13% from the previous year.

Climate Change - should dissent be tolerated?

SHOOT: I disagree with the Economist. The measures needed to combat climate change are the same measures required to redefine economics and what is sustainable. Any chit chat that questions whether or why we should do this is part of the delusional consumer mindset that belongs to a defunct era.

ECONOMIST: Scientific dissent should be silenced. It can, it is true, do harm. When AIDS first reared its ugly head, no one knew what caused it. Gradually, the virus responsible was isolated, identified and then attacked successfully with drugs designed specifically to inhibit its reproduction. A few scientists, though, refused to accept the evidence, and some politicians used their arguments to justify inaction. Since one of those politicians was Thabo Mbeki, then president of South Africa, hundreds of thousands who might have been saved by an anti-AIDS policy grounded in scientific reality died as a result of his policies.

clipped from www.economist.com This newspaper believes that global warming is a serious threat, and that the world needs to take steps to try to avert it. That is the job of the politicians. But we do not believe that climate change is a certainty. There are no certainties in science. Prevailing theories must be constantly tested against evidence, and refined, and more evidence collected, and the theories tested again. That is the job of the scientists. When they stop questioning orthodoxy, mankind will have given up the search for truth. The sceptics should not be silenced.

Warning finger waved in face of World number one Serena Williams

SHOOT: The linesmen and women need to go onto a course regarding foot faults and such. But wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Imagine muscular Serena shoving a ball down your throat? OUCH! In the picture below it looks like she could easily wrestle everyone else to the ground with one arm tied behind her back.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Trailing 4-6 5-6 15-30, Williams launched into a second serve but the baseline lineswoman called her for a foot-fault, meaning the American had served a double-fault to go match point down. Astounded by the verdict, Williams launched into an expletive-laced rant at the official. She waved her racket in the lineswoman's direction and then shook a ball in her clenched fist as she threatened to "shove it down" her throat. Having already received a warning earlier in the match for smashing a racket, Williams was handed an automatic point penalty for a second violation which abruptly ended the match, giving Clijsters a 6-4 7-5 victory. Organisers fined her $10,500, the biggest given to a female player since records began in 1990, at the end of the tournament for her unsportsmanlike behavior. Williams's $175,000 fine includes the $10,500 penalty she has already received.

'Oasis' is 5 times the size of Titanic

SHOOT: You know what they say. The bigger they are, the more likely they are to sink. And then there's, what Kunstler refers to as 'the much-repeated aphorism [that] has circulated around the Web that civilizations build their most extreme monuments at the very moment of collapse.' There you have it.

clipped from www.economist.com ON NOVEMBER 30th champagne will be broken over the bow of the world's largest cruise ship. At 225,000 gross tonnes, Oasis of the Seas, one of two identical ships recently built for Royal Caribbean cruises, is 70,000 tonnes more and 21 metres longer than the previous record holder, Freedom of the Seas. By contrast, the Titanic, built by White Star Line nearly a century ago and at the time the largest steam ship ever, measured 269 metres and was less than a fifth of the size of today’s behemoths. The new ship cost Royal Caribbean around $1 billion and has 20 restaurants, 17 bars and lounges, a walk through mock-up of New York’s Central Park and two rock-climbing walls. The ships were planned long before the global downturn: it remains to be seen whether passenger demand for cruise ships will remain strong.

Kunstler: civilizations build their most extreme monuments at the very moment of collapse

JK: The markets will begin digesting the Dubai news in earnest today, making for a holiday season of possibly momentous thrills-and-chills. The big debate going into Thanksgiving was whether the dollar would continue its downward trajectory, leading to some kind of currency failure, hyper-inflation, take your pick... or turn briskly around as investors bailed out of risk vehicles for the conventional safe-haven paper parking lot of US Treasuries. This debate between the inflationists and deflationists has defied resolution all year. Personally, I side with the deflationistas these days, though I believe our ultimate destination, in a year or so, is destruction of the dollar.

SHOOT: I was speaking to a banking buddy who told me that if the dollar is destroyed, the world economy is destroyed. I told him there is no difference between the US economy printing money and the Zimbabwean economy printing money. He said the US is too big to fail - China needs them. But what if China turns to gold as a currency? What if currencies no longer exist because they are no longer any indication of real value?

clipped from kunstler.com  The monstrosity they built in their waterless convection-oven of a city-state makes Las Vegas look like a mere strip mall in comparison. Ben Bernanke and his counterparts in central banks 'round the world could drop helicopter loads of paper cash on every rooftop, intersection, parking lot, field, forest, and camel raceway and never make a dent in the fatal web of false obligations we have woven for ourselves. Lately, the much-repeated aphorism has circulated around the Web that civilizations build their most extreme monuments at the very moment of collapse. Imagine living in a country where absolutely nobody in a leadership position is credible.  This is the kind of country we're becoming and it will not keep running that way for long. The cinemas are full of blood-sucking teenagers.  Grown men swarm in the unemployment offices wearing sideways hats and butt-crack trousers. Why not just tattoo a message on your forehead that says: "Moron For Hire"?

Normal Rockwell never referred to himself as an artist, but as an illustrator

SHOOT: Fascinating. Something I'd like to do.

clipped from www.npr.org Who can forget the vulnerable childhood experience of going to the doctor? I remember sitting nervously on that white butcher paper, feeling like a particularly choice deli cut, and staring at a painting of a little boy pulling his pants down for a shot -- a foreboding image of what might be in store. That image, a Norman Rockwell illustration, stuck with me for years. And that's the nature of Rockwell's legacy: his work is everywhere, and has become an indelible part of American culture. So, as someone who looks at photos all day, imagine my shock when I saw a photograph of the exact doctor's office scene in that painting. The Runaway, 1958, is an example of Rockwell's photorealism. (Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust) A new book, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, reveals Rockwell's use of photographs in his illustrative process.

Talking about a revolution

Standard Bank in bomb threat

SHOOT: We'll be seeing more and more of this as disgruntle3d workers take out their anger on companies they feel [rightly or wrongly] has victimised them. At AVUSA earlier this year there was also a bomb threat.

clipped from www.fin24.com Johannesburg - The Johannesburg head office of South Africa's second largest bank was evacuated on Monday afternoon following a bomb threat. Fin24.com has been told that the imposing Sauer Street head office was evacuated midday after an employee, who has been retrenched, allegedly placed a bomb on its premises. Standard Bank spokesperson Erik Larsen confirmed the evacuation in a statement, saying an employee, "who showed visible signs of distress, created security concerns at Standard Bank Centre". Larson said as a precaution all staff members were sent home and the buildings were evacuated. "Police and emergency personnel are still on site," said Larsen. "Business is not disrupted in any way."

Here it is, a book for men on all they know about women

SHOOT: Which is very little.

clipped from designunder.com

Was Woods having an affair?

Even with his first public comments on the 2:25 a.m. Friday accident, Woods left several questions.

— Where he was going at that time of the night?

— How did he lose control of his SUV at such a speed that the air bags didn’t deploy?

— Why were both rear windows of the Cadillac Escalade smashed?

— If it was a careless mistake, why not speak to state troopers trying to wrap the investigation?

SHOOT: If he has nothing to hide why not just make a statement.

clipped from sports.yahoo.com The accident came two days after the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York night club hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters. The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by The Associated Press. Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred confirmed she was representing Uchitel when she was reached by the AP on Sunday. “She is with me in L.A.,” Allred said later in an e-mail to the AP. “We plan to meet and then we’ll decide on the next step, which we do not plan to announce to the press.” Uchitel arrived at Los Angeles International Airport late Sunday morning, where she was met by Allred and escorted out of the baggage claim area and into a black car. Uchitel did not speak to reporters except to ask that she be left alone.

The New Moon Lunacy

The Twilight Series very clearly demonstrates how susceptible we are - and in particular young women - to narcissism. Bella is pursued by a vampire from a wealthy family. In essence, he's a blood sucking parasite, but don't worry he has two ultimately redeeming qualities:
- he's rich
- he's good looking

Oh he's not a blood sucker you say? He's a vegetarian? That's what I mean by lying to ourselves. He's from a vampire family, which is the same as from a family of reformed gangsters, or reformed serial killers. The fact that he's vegetarian doesn't change the fact that he lusts for her blood, that she is like a walking line of heroine to an addict fresh out of rehab. Who is kidding who here?

Now you would think that mother's of daughters would warn about men like this? I mean, a vampire is literally a health hazard. But since Edward is sooooooooo in love with Bella, no harm can possibly come to her? Really? A papercut puts her in mortal danger, if she is not perpetually in mortal danger anyway.

The werewolf mythos is more sensible, although it is based on a hedonism, a pack mentality that shows men struggling to control their instincts. Is that any better than a vampire struggling to control his addiction to human blood? And the reason women adore this story is because in either case, they are the centre of the addiction, I mean attention - whether this attention is depraved, seems not to matter to them. There really is very little difference between Edward's obsessiveness and a stalker. The difference is a stalker is unwelcome and his attention seen to be more than is welcome. You'd think that someone showing such a lack of discipline [Edward says: "I owe my very existence to you"] would present a case of Stalker Jitters. But somehow, coming from a wealthy family is enough to allay such foolish ideas.

The inconsistencies are also laughable. Edward declares he will always love her and never leave her, and then, immediately does this. He says he will always protect her, but by leaving her side he puts her in danger, and by being with her, he does the same [in terms of the werewolf threat]. So you have to suspend reality in order to buy this story - something audiences seem very willing, and able to do.

Another analogy is possibly pornstars who feel that attention - no matter what the brand, the context - is justified. Because the porn industry is a similar blood sucking, parasitic industry. It mocks, it does not make. It preys on the innocent. It creates addictions. It cannibalises healthy drives, turning them into insatiable appetites that need more and more to satisfy them.

In essence then, New Moon demonstrates the extremes to which we now need to go to feel good about ourselves. In order to feel adequate about themselves, they now want wealthy slaves to worship and adore them. And for these slaves, these mythical men, women need offer no more than loyalty and a high school diploma. Dream on.

Some days are like this

SHOOT: Hope yours isn't ;-)

Dubai Debate: Isn't Dubai the place where individuals are sent to debtors prison if they can't meet their obligations?

SHOOT: The fallout in Dubai will probably be felt in other vulnerable economies in the region, principally Pakistan.

clipped from community.nytimes.com The United Arab Emirates central bank has arrived at the party a little late hasn't it? I dont think it will be enough to instill confidence in a venture that is increasingly resembling what it is, a hideously overhyped and ridiculously expensive theme park in the desert. Dubai was borrowing the money to build all that junk? I assumed it was from oil profits. It looks like a kid playing in the sand on a massive scale. Guess this proves that if the credit is there absolutely anyone might use it to do absolutely anything. Now, I remember! Dubai World is the United Arab Emirates Government Investment branch that President Bush & Dick Cheney tried to convince the American people was safe to buy and operate our ports. Imagine that! Boy or Boy, would we have been doomed. US National security anyone? There is some truth in the waggish saying, "if you owe the banks one thousand dollars, you have a problem; but if you owe the banks one billion dollars, the banks have a problem."

Entire countries face bankruptcy

SHOOT: For example - Ireland, Iceland and Greece.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Investors will probably begin to focus on the troubles of individual countries, banks and companies. Analysts say they expect the scrutiny to fall hardest on countries that have already been flagged for their financial weaknesses. That group includes Ireland, Greece, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Pakistan, Romania and Bulgaria. There will be also be “recognition that for the first time in decades, there are sovereign risks among developed Western countries,” said Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist who predicted last year’s financial crisis, referring to Ireland and Greece. Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said that the cost of insuring against defaults by big Irish banks had risen quickly since the Dubai announcement.