Daniel Vice (senior attorney of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) accused Obama and Romney of cowardice on the issue. "If they don't speak out soon, very soon, then that will be shameful," he said. "Mitt Romney, when he was governor signed an assault weapons ban into law. President Obama has said in the past that he supports strong guns laws but he has done nothing to improve our gun laws and actually has gone backward. We do see far too much cowardice on the part of our political leaders but Americans are angry and they are demanding change."
"If they don't speak out soon, very soon, then that will be shameful," he said. "Mitt Romney, when he was governor signed an assault weapons ban into law. President Obama has said in the past that he supports strong guns laws but he has done nothing to improve our gun laws and actually has gone backward. We do see far too much cowardice on the part of our political leaders but Americans are angry and they are demanding change."
We now see a wave of popular rage against the freshly revealed manipulation by banks of LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate benchmark for interest rates which is the cornerstone of the money market. This manipulation in the financial world is being augmented by a groundswell of protest against manipulation taking place in the real world. Here, the allegation is that the Brent/BFOE (Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk) crude oil benchmark price, against which global crude oil prices are set, is the subject of routine manipulation by market participants, particularly investment banks and traders of physical oil. In both cases, the popular outcry is based upon misconceptions as to what has actually been going on. The good news in the oil market at least is that the manipulation which is being revealed is nowhere near as serious in its effects on the general public as is believed. The bad news is that the true manipulation, as yet still concealed, is far more serious than anyone has yet conceived.
This manipulation in the financial world is being augmented by a groundswell of protest against manipulation taking place in the real world. Here, the allegation is that the Brent/BFOE (Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk) crude oil benchmark price, against which global crude oil prices are set, is the subject of routine manipulation by market participants, particularly investment banks and traders of physical oil.
In both cases, the popular outcry is based upon misconceptions as to what has actually been going on. The good news in the oil market at least is that the manipulation which is being revealed is nowhere near as serious in its effects on the general public as is believed. The bad news is that the true manipulation, as yet still concealed, is far more serious than anyone has yet conceived.
Drought Puts Food at Risk, U.S. Warns
A chunk of ice 46 square miles in area has parted from the Petermann glacier, which feeds into Nares straight along the northwest coast of Greenland. It split off July 16 according to researchers at the University of Delaware and Canadian Ice Service. This is the second major calving event for the Petermann glacier in the last three years. In August 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan (an area of roughly 97 square miles) separated from the glacier.
This is the second major calving event for the Petermann glacier in the last three years. In August 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan (an area of roughly 97 square miles) separated from the glacier.
“The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of globally changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere,” (University of Delaware's Andreas Muenchow) said.
But my sense is that his latest testimony, in which he declared that the Fed has the power to take action, that the economy is in really bad shape, but declined to, you know, actually take action, has left even his usual defenders more or less speechless.
The usually excellent poverty journalist Jason DeParle really disappoints in his latest feature for the New York Times in which he blames unwed mothers for inequality and quotes Charles "Bell Curve" Murray with a straight face.
Mitt Gets Worse
The last years of Mozart’s life and the prodigious and important works he created during them have been heavily romanticized in the musical literature. Now, one of this generation’s leading musicologists wants to set the picture straight. In his new book, Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune, Harvard professor Christoph Wolff carefully reconstructs Mozart’s patronage relationships, explores his engagement with Bach and other masters of the polyphonic tradition, and reassesses Mozart’s impassioned turn toward sacred music. I put six questions to Wolff about the book
I did mention that she's brilliant, right?
Still reeling from the content of the Freeh report, Emmert did not dismiss the notion of issuing the so-called "death penalty" against Penn State, asserting that the unprecedented nature of the Sandusky scandal could warrant extreme punishment. "This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with," Emmert said. "This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem. There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal. "Well it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. It was that but much more. And we'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case, because it's really an unprecedented problem."
"This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with," Emmert said. "This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem. There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal.
"Well it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. It was that but much more. And we'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case, because it's really an unprecedented problem."
On June 26, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against various states and industry groups who had asked the Court to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) greenhouse gas regulations. The 26 petitions specifically asked the Court to do one of two things – either overturn the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases posed a risk to public health and welfare (aka the “Endangerment Finding”), or block enforcement of any regulations based on that Endangerment Finding. A three judge panel led by a Reagan appointee unanimously dismissed the arguments made in the 26 petitions for lack of merit or lack of legal standing.