Plastics Intel 10/30/09

Calif. city bans PS carryout boxes
RICHMOND, CALIF. (Oct. 30, 12 p.m. ET) -- Richmond has joined the list of northern California communities that have banned polystyrene takeout containers. Altogether, 25 California towns and two counties have banned PS takeout packaging...

Stimulus dollars to help fund BPA research
WASHINGTON (Oct. 30, 12:05 p.m. ET) -- Capitalizing on funding from the economic stimulus bill, federal researchers will double their spending to nearly $30 million over the next two years to research the effects on human health of the controversial chemical bisphenol A...

PP prices fall 10 cents in October
AKRON, OHIO (Oct. 29, 1:40 p.m. ET) -- It’s true that what goes up must come down -- but the North American polypropylene market is taking things to the extreme this year. Just a month after prices shot up an average of 12 cents per pound, they’ve plunged an average of 10 cents per pound since Oct. 1...

Plastics PP market prices

Time for the Furlough Fridays FUG Button Rebellion

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Hawaii’s Children, Left Behind

Saturday, October 31, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31sat2.html

The economic crisis has forced every state to scramble to get its budget in balance. This has meant torturous efforts to preserve essential services and minimize the pain and damage from slashed spending and lost jobs. Every state has sacrificed. But Hawaii has sacrificed its own schoolchildren.

The 50th state, the only one with a single statewide school district, has just cut 17 days from the academic year, under a new labor contract with public school teachers that avoids layoffs in favor of pay cuts and furloughs, all to be taken on instructional days. Barring a court order or other intervention, there will be no classes on most Fridays for the rest of the school year, leaving 170,000 children in the lurch. Parents are furious that a state already lagging in academic achievement would willingly adopt the country’s shortest school year.

The teachers’ union, the school board, the Department of Education and Gov. Linda Lingle all share responsibility for the debacle; they all signed off on the new contract last month. Ms. Lingle issued a statement at the time praising it as being “in the best interest of teachers, our students and the general public.”

Parents don’t think so. Nor does the federal education secretary, Arne Duncan. In an op-ed article in The Honolulu Advertiser, he called it “inconceivable” that furlough Fridays were the best solution to school-budget woes and wondered why the state hadn’t used its federal stimulus money to save classroom days. (The state instead used the $105 million to cut its own contribution to education, which was legal but hardly admirable.)

Hawaii’s political leaders and school officials are now standing in a circle of blame, pointing at one another. The governor, who had ordered the Department of Education to cut its $1.8 billion budget by 14 percent, now says she had not expected the union to take its furlough days from instruction time. She said she regretted the settlement, even though her attorney general defended it in hearings over two federal lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children trying to restore the school days.

As other states struggle to bolster education, to add classes and lengthen the school year, Hawaii is going in the wrong direction. What it needs are not apologies but open classrooms for the students whose futures are being mortgaged — especially the poor and disabled children and those in special education who are particularly vulnerable to lost instructional time. For now, they are learning a terrible lesson in how little their government and teachers think an education is worth.

"Flunk U Governor"

St. Regis Princeville Video Tour

This is kind of interesting:

What can I do to reduce my chances of developing cancer?

From Bob Livingston of Liberty Alert:

Dear Bob,

What can I do to reduce my chances of developing cancer?

A: The main things you can do are: get Omega-3 fats from krill oil, fish oil or cod liver oil; take up to 5,000 IUs of vitamin D3 daily; eat as much fresh raw vegetables daily as you can (research has shown that if one-half of your diet is raw, the probability of no cancer is very high); maintain ideal body weight; boil, poach or steam your foods (never fry or charbroil); and take iodine daily according to your needs.

Also, cancer is a sugar junky and cancers thrive on sugar. Avoid all sugar of all kinds, especially fructose corn syrup. Almost all commercial foods contain sugar. If we are to avoid sugar, we will have to work at it in America.

Best Wishes,
Bob

"Big Crash Coming?" by Dave Cohen

Excellent article on the current state of the economy, oil, and the dollar. Only thing is, the writer assumes the dollar will be worthy of significant appreciation if/when interest rates are raised:

From: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50553

Published Oct 29 2009 by ASPO-USA, Archived Oct 29 2009

Big Crash Coming?

by Dave Cohen

I think policy is currently quite accommodative. I think it can remain quite accommodative for a while to come

—Ben Bernanke

Delay is the deadliest form of denial

—C. Northcote Parkinson

In More Like A Depression Every Day, I described strong deflationary pressures in the American economy despite the Shock & Awe fiscal & monetary stimulus being applied. The flow of free money is supposed to counter deflation by boosting both asset values and government spending. Economist Nouriel Roubini, otherwise known as “Dr. Doom”, notes that this “wall of liquidity” is inflating asset values, not just in the United States, but all over the world.

The BEA’s advance estimate showed real GDP growth of 3.5% in the third quarter (July-September) just passed. So Shock & Awe appears to be “working” if you go by real GDP. Don’t you believe it. I warned you about a “statistical” recovery last week. Get ready for another round of nonsense announcing that the recession is over. In absolute (2005 chained dollars) terms, real GDP is down 9% year-over-year, even after you throw in the “cash-for clunkers” program which gave an artificial boost to personal consumption expenditures.

One important consequence of the Fed keeping interest rates low and its quantitative easing has been a weaker dollar. The world’s reserve currency has depreciated 14.6% relative to a basket of other currencies since March 5, 2009 as measured by the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY). The depreciating dollar, combined with the Fed’s stated intention to keep interest rates low for an extended period to come, has prompted investors to short the dollar—bet that the value of the dollar will continue to fall. Investors short the dollar via what is called the carry trade (and Figure 1).

Critics focus on the fact that low U.S. interest rates enable investors around the globe to borrow dollars for next to nothing and invest them elsewhere at higher rates.

This bet — known as the dollar carry trade — appears to be one of the forces pushing down value of the dollar. Though there are few reliable figures on the size of the carry trade, the dollar’s trend has clearly been down since stock and bond markets revived.

Figure 1 — The Fed has frozen short-term interest rates at 0-0.25% (left) as the dollar declines(right). This allows investors to borrow dollars a little cost and re-invest them in assets that return higher yields.

Roubini believes that continued low interest rates are inflating asset values beyond what the fundamentals dictate all over the world—a new global bubble. He argues that when the Fed finally does raise rates and the dollar strengthens, as it eventually must, there will be another resounding crash in the global economy. Readers here may not be familiar with this kind of material, so I have summarized Roubini’s argument as he presented it in this interview with Index Universe and in a guest appearance on CNBC.

1. There is a “wall of [excess] liquidity” inflating asset values (in equities, real estate, commodities, credit, gold, in emerging markets) all over the world.
2. The Fed has fixed short-term rates at zero (0-0.25%) and is expected to keep them there for the time being. The Fed has also set investor expectations by “controlling and reducing volatility” in the long-term by indicating that they will keep rates low for some time to come.
3. Investors borrow at near-zero percent interest rates and get a capital gain by investing elsewhere in assets that yield a higher rate, so “we’re in the mother of all carry trades.” The carry trade makes the bubble global as investors borrow dollars and invest in foreign assets (for example, in Australian dollars, Brazilian reals, and so on).
4. Because the dollar is falling, investors are effectively shorting the dollar and borrowing at negative real interest rates. The carry trade itself results in a dollar sell-off, which causes further weakening. Investors are going long on global assets based on expectations set by the Fed about future interest rates (#2 above).
5. The dollar can not keep on falling forever, i.e. the Fed must raise interest rates at some point.
6. When the dollar suddenly stops falling and reverses, investors will have to close their dollar shorts, and dump their assets.
   
7. The strengthened dollar will cause a market crash all over the world as assets deflate.

One class of “assets” that is inflating as the dollar depreciates is commodities, including crude oil. (A commodity can viewed as a “hard asset.”) The oil price and the dollar’s value are inversely correlated, which means that the price of crude rises when the dollar falls. Reuters data shows that this correlation between oil prices and the dollar has reached a coefficient of -0.9 in 2009.

The dollar had a bad week from October 19-23, so the oil price jumped to over $80/barrel. Then on Monday October 26, the dollar had a “good” day, which caused the oil price to fall back to $78 and change. As of right now, it is , but the longer-term trend is clear.

It is particularly alarming that even relatively small decreases in the Dollar Index (DXY) can cause rather large upward movements in the oil price. The DXY fell from 76.43 on Friday October 9th to its low of 74.92 on Wednesday the 21st, a 2% percent drop. The oil front month contract was selling around $70/barrel during the week October 5-9, but had increased 15% at its highest point last week (Figure 2).

Figure 2 — NYMEX front month closing prices since October, 2008. Note the recent, unwarranted jump. Source.

Roubini discussed crude oil prices together with asset price inflation in the Index Universe interview. I’ll quote it at some length because Roubini makes all the important points.

Index Universe — You’ve said that you’re worried we’re already sowing the seeds of the next crisis. Where do you see that most directly?

Roubini — Well, in commodities, I look at oil prices. They fell from $145 last summer,

came down to $30 earlier this year and now they’re back close to $80. But if I look at the fundamentals of demand and supply, demand is down to 2005 levels, supply and inventories are at all-time highs. In my view, the movement in oil prices is not fully justified by the fundamentals.

There are improving fundamentals. There is a global recovery. But that justifies oil going from $30 to maybe $50. I think the other $30 is all speculative demand feeding on it—speculators and herding behavior. Last year, when oil was at $145, that killed the global economy. I worry that oil is going to go up above $100 for reasons that have nothing to do with the fundamentals of supply and demand. Oil at $100 would have the same negative effects on the global economy as oil did at $145 last year.

Last year, when oil was at $145, the global economy was still growing. Right now it has collapsed, and is recovering. Oil pushing above $100 would have nasty, negative real trade effects and real disposable-income effects on all importing countries: the U.S, Europe, Japan, China, India; all the countries that were hit by the oil shock last year. So that’s an element that is in my view totally speculative, and dangerous to the global economy.

Index Universe — Is that true elsewhere?

Roubini — I could make a similar argument for other commodity prices. In my view, rising commodity prices are not justified by the fundamentals.

There’s a huge bubble, because we have zero rates in the U.S, zero rates around the world and a huge carry trade. Everyone is borrowing at zero interest rates in dollars and getting a capital gain because the dollar is weakening, so they are borrowing at negative rates. And then they invest in risky assets:commodities, equities, credit. We’re creating a bigger bubble than before [Lehman].

It’s going to go crashing down, in an ugly way. That’s the basics of the argument.

[My note: I'm not sure oil demand is down to 2005 levels, and oil never quite got to $30/barrel, but who can quibble with Roubini?]

I have made many of the same points in several columns, most recently in It’s Not Black Or White. Unwarranted oil price inflation is certainly a threat to a global economic recovery in the next year, but another real danger lies in the renewal of systemic risk in global finance, to which I now turn.

A Sense of Foreboding

Gillian Tett of the Financial Times sounded the alarm on October 22, 2009 in Rally fueled by cheap money brings on sense of foreboding (registration/subscription required).

Earlier this month, I received a sobering e-mail from a senior, recently-retired banker. This particular man, a veteran of the credit world, had just chatted with ex-colleagues who are still in the markets – and [he] was feeling deeply shocked.

“Forget about the events of the past 12 months … the punters are back punting as aggressively as ever,” he wrote. “Highly leveraged short-term trades are back in vogue as players … jostle to load up on everything from Reits [real estate investment trusts] and commercial property, commodities, emerging markets and regular stocks and bonds.

“Oh, I am sure the banks’ public relations people will talk about the subdued atmosphere in banking, but don’t you believe it,” he continued bitterly, noting that when money is virtually free – or, at least, at 0.5 per cent – traders feel stupid if they don’t leverage up.

“Any sense of control is being chucked out of the window. After the dotcom boom and bust it took a good few years for the market to get its collective mojo back [but] this time it has taken just a few months,” he added. He finished with a despairing question: “Was October 2008 just a dress rehearsal for the crash when this latest bubble bursts?”

I daresay this missive reflects some element of hyperbole. But I have quoted it at length because the question is becoming more critical…

I doubt Roubini would think that Tett’s banker friend is exaggerating the problem. I don’t think he is. Was October, 2008 just a dress rehearsal for another crash when this latest bubble bursts?

As the the earnest folks at Baseline Scenario never tire of reminding us, we have a financial system here in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere that has not been reformed at all. In fact, it has been bailed out and thus operates regardless of risk. What has changed is that there is a new, enormous free flow of capital for it to gamble with.

This new carry-trade bubble, like all previous ones, encourages reckless behavior. Banks, hedge funds and other investors appear to be leveraging up again like there’s no tomorrow—which may be the right strategy for some because there may not be a tomorrow, figuratively speaking.

The Titans of Finance understand that the surest way to re-capitalize themselves and make outrageous short-term profits is to make over-leveraged bets on risky assets just as they did during the Housing Bubble. The Masters of the Universe can count on Central Bank policies which have encouraged this very behavior. (Throw in your favorite conspiracy theory about relationship between the Fed, the Treasury, and the Wall Street Banks here.)

And for Finance, let the consequences be damned. Here is Tett again—

Yet, if you talk at length to traders – or senior bankers – it seems that few truly believe that fundamentals alone explain this [renewed appetite for risk]. Instead, the real trigger is the amount of money that central bankers have poured into the system that is frantically seeking a home, because most banks simply do not want to use that cash to make loans. Hence, the fact that the prices of almost all risk assets are rallying – even as non-risky assets such as Treasuries bounce too.

Now, some western policymakers like to argue – or hope – that this striking rally could be beneficial, in a way, even if it is not initially based on fundamentals. After all, the argument goes, if markets rebound sharply, that should boost animal spirits in a way that could eventually seep through to the “real” economy.

Could eventually seep through to the “real” economy? Boosting animal spirits will magically erase household debt and boost the flow of credit to people who don’t want any? How does this work? Pimco’s Bill Gross discusses the relationship between inflated asset values and the “real” economy in Midnight Candles. One obvious way in which inflated assets (in stocks, housing) pump up the economy you and I live in is to create phony wealth effects which make us feel rich—bubbles boost our animal spirits!

Stock and home prices went up – then consumers liquefied and spent the capital gains either by borrowing against them or selling outright. Growth, in other words, was influenced on the upside by leverage, securitization, and the belief that wealth creation was a function of asset appreciation as opposed to the production of goods and services..

[My note: See my ASPO-USA conference presentation and related articles. I have covered this ground a number of times.]

In other words, the cart has been placed before the horse. Inflated assets boost spending and GDP, but in a healthy economy, savings & investment in actual production would drive GDP and thus asset values gradually over time.

Gross concludes that in the U.S. alone, assets are overvalued by 15,000,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars as it is (prior to future inflation brought on by Fed policies).

A long history marred only by negative givebacks during recessions in the early 1990s, 2001–2002, and 2008–2009, produced a persistent increase in asset prices vs. nominal GDP that led to an average overall 50-year appreciation advantage of 1.3% annually. That’s another way of saying you would have been far better off investing in paper than factories or machinery or the requisite components of an educated workforce. We, in effect, were hollowing out our productive future at the expense of worthless paper such as subprimes, dotcoms, or in part, blue chip stocks and investment grade/government bonds.

Putting a compounding computer to this 1.3% annual out-performance for 50 years, produces a double, and leads to the conclusion that the return from all assets was 100% (or $15 trillion – one year’s GDP) higher than what it theoretically should have been. Financial leverage, in other words, drove the prices of stocks, bonds, homes, and shopping malls to extraordinary valuation levels – at least compared to 1956 – and there could be payback ahead as the leveraging turns into delevering and nominal GDP growth regains the winner’s platform.

I will return to Gross’ analysis in my conclusion.

The bottom-line is that investors are once again trading in paper instead of the production of goods & services (in factories, machinery, public transportation, alternative energy, and so on). The separation of the “real” economy from the Wacky World of Finance in nearly complete. Why bother with the “real” economy if you can make guaranteed money running a casino? Gillian Tett understands what’s going on, but hopes she’s wrong—

In the meantime, it is crystal clear that the longer that money remains ultra cheap, the more traders will have an incentive to gamble (particularly if they privately suspect that today’s boom will be short-lived and want to score big over the next year). Somehow all this feels horribly familiar; I just hope that my sense of foreboding turns out to be wrong.

Anyone living in the real world knows today’s “boom” will be short-lived. Maybe it will all fall apart a year from now, maybe a few quarters earlier, maybe a few quarters later. Who knows what the Central Banks will do? Who knows how high the oil price will go?

What Roubini knows for sure is that the eventually the Fed must raise interest rates and withdraw its quantitative easing. How does he know this? Because if the Fed doesn’t ease the throttle back, the U.S. economy and that of the world generally—the dollar is still the world’s reserve currency after all— will look like Argentina’s in 2002. (I can’t do this scenario justice here, so follow the link and do some Google searches.)

Raising interest rates and withdrawing quantitative easing will destroy the “rally” in the S&P 500 if it hasn’t blown up already. These steps will end the life-support keeping the U.S. housing market alive, and stop the carry trade fueling a global asset bubble.

It is quite obvious that traders are hoping to “score big” while interest rates remain low. Many of them will take a bath because few will correctly anticipate the timing of events, and not everyone can get out at the top of the bubble. Even small changes in interest rates can set off a wave of defaults, especially in a currency carry trade, if investors are leveraged at 10 to 1, 20 to 1 or more. This is the first rule of Bubbleology.

Once could see this as a reminder that no one in Finance learned anything in the last 10 years. More cynically, we could say that traders know the risks, but the potential rewards are just too tempting to pass up in a world with little economic future. If slow or no real economic growth over the next decade and beyond is not going to cut it, you might as well go for broke. Many banks and hedge funds will go under, but some firms—fewer than there used to be—remain Too-Big-To-Fail.

So I regard any talk about inflated asset values eventually being a boon to the “real” economy as either a self-serving rationalization, an exercise in self-delusion, or an outright lie. Frankly, I don’t even know why the Powers-That-Be bother to reassure us little people that things will be OK anymore.

Returning to Bill Gross—

This 100% overvaluation [of $15 trillion] from recent price peaks of course is crude, simplistic, and unrealistically pessimistic. It implies that stocks should be at – gasp – Dow 7,000 – and that home prices – gasp – should be cut in half from 2007 levels, and that commercial real estate (Las Vegas hotels, big city office buildings that are 20% empty) should likewise face the delevering guillotine. Some of these price adjustments have already taken place…

This is where it gets tricky, however, because policymakers, (The Fed, the Treasury, the FDIC) recognize the predicament, maybe not with the same model or in the same magnitude, but they recognize that asset prices must be supported in order to generate positive future nominal GDP growth somewhere close to historical norms. The virus has infected far too many parts of the economy’s body, for far too long, to go cold turkey...

Gross then goes on theorize the the Fed will likely require 12-18 months of 4%+ nominal growth in GDP before abandoning the 0% short-term benchmark interest rate!

The longer asset prices inflate beyond fundamental levels based on real supply & demand, and the more leveraged-up investors become in those assets, the worse the crash will be when the carry-trade goes belly up. Allow me to repeat from the summary above—

• The dollar can not keep on falling forever, i.e. the Fed must raise interest rates at some point.
• When the dollar suddenly stops falling and reverses, investors will have to close their shorts, and dump their assets.
  
• The strengthened dollar will cause a market crash all over the world as assets deflate.

When the “carry-trade” bubble collapses, I anticipate a strong round of debt-deflation to take hold in the developed world (OECD) economies — and this next time there will not be a another stimulus fix even if inflation is positive (owing to all the previous stimulus). This latter scenario would mean an extended period of stagflation. Otherwise we will have stag-deflation.

This all goes to show that you can delay, but not prevent, a prolonged severe recession, or if you prefer, Depression. The fundamentals of the “real” economy say there is no real basis for renewed growth. Inflating asset values is politically expedient but merely postpones the inevitable. You must have the recession you need to have—there is no getting around it. As in health care, providing life-support to a doomed patient needlessly raises costs which someone must bear later on. I say pull the plug. Only then can we build a real future.

Brewbaker: No recovery until 2011...varies from UHERO and DBEDT

Excellent article by Janis Magin. This is as optimistic as it gets:

From: http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2009/10/26/daily51.html

Thursday, October 29, 2009
"Brewbaker: No recovery until 2011" by Janis L. Magin
Pacific Business News (Honolulu)

Economist Paul Brewbaker has joined other experts in forecasting that the state won’t see meaningful recovery from the recession for more than a year.

But Brewbaker, a consultant for the Bank of Hawaii, believes there will be higher unemployment and a greater decline in personal income than cited in other economic forecasts.

“Slow recovery seems likely to leave unemployment rates unchanged until 2011,” Brewbaker, the bank’s senior economic adviser, wrote in the forecast posted on the bank's Web site this week. “A jobless recovery like the one in 2002-03 is a likely scenario at least in 2010.”

Brewbaker forecasts that the state’s jobless rate will end in 2009 at 7.9 percent and rise to 8.4 percent next year.

Brewbaker, a former bank economist who now has his own firm, TZ Economics, noted that the job losses during this downturn were larger and happened at a faster pace than previous downturns.

“Job loss during Hawaii’s ‘lost decade,’ the 1990s, pales by comparison to 2008-09 and took many more years to unfold,” he wrote. “This time, 30,000 private jobs in Hawaii have been eliminated in 18 months — a speed and size record.”

Brewbaker expects the number of Hawaii jobs to fall 2.9 percent this year, and another 1.3 percent next year. The figure for 2009 was in line with forecasts by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, which both forecast a 3 percent decline in jobs.

However, Brewbaker’s prediction for 2010 was about a half a percent higher than the other two.

He also expects personal income to decline by 2.5 percent this year, more than twice the 1.1 percent decline predicted by UHERO and six times the 0.4 decline in the DBEDT forecast.

Brewbaker’s forecast for visitor arrivals is slightly more optimistic. He expects the total number of visitors arriving by air to decline 3.1 percent this year before rebounding with a 3.7 increase in 2010, the bulk of those from the U.S. Mainland.

More Plastics Bad News and Dirty Laundry Today

Man, this plastics industry stuff is a cesspool of bad news:

U.S. polypropylene prices fall 10 cents per pound in October
AKRON, OHIO (Oct. 29, 1:40 p.m. ET) -- It’s true that what goes up must come down -- but the North American polypropylene market is taking things to the extreme this year. Just a month after prices shot up an average of 12 cents per pound, they’ve plunged an average of 10 cents per pound since Oct. 1...

U.S. imposes duties on bags from Vietnam, Indonesia and Taiwan
WASHINGTON (Oct. 29, 11:40 p.m. ET) -- The U.S. Commerce Department has imposed antidumping duties ranging from just under 29 percent to just under 96 percent on imports of plastic shopping bags from Vietnam, Indonesia and Taiwan...

Court approves N.Y.'s expanded deposit law
ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 29, 12:10 p.m. ET) -- After several delays and a court challenge, the expansion of the New York bottle deposit program to include water bottles will go into effect Oct. 31, nearly five months after originally scheduled. New York is the third state this year and sixth overall to include water bottles in its deposit program...

Current Plastics Industry Intel

U.S. bottle recycling rate rises
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Oct. 28, 1:20 p.m. ET) -- In absolute pounds, the number of high density polyethylene and PET bottles recycled continued to increase in 2008, and so did the HDPE and PET recycling rates. But the amount of pounds added to the recycling stream in 2008 for reclaimers was less than in 2007, and the primary reason that both recycling rates increased was because both sales of virgin HDPE and PET resins decreased in 2008...

European PET bottle collection rises 11%
(Oct. 28, 5 am EDT) -- PET bottle collection reached 1.26m tonnes across Europe in 2008, up 11% from 2007 levels, according to a new (more) ... Source: European Plastics News

Mexico's Anipac planning pro-plastic ad campaign
MEXICO CITY (Oct. 26, 10:05 p.m. ET) -- In its second major initiative within a week, Mexico’s (more) ... Source: Plastics News

UAE three-year campaign to end use of plastic bags
(Oct. 22, 7 am EDT) -- The UAE's Ministry of Environment and Water is working on a compulsory specification for biodegradable (more) ... Source: PRW

Higher PET recycling rate masks some problems
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Oct. 23, 11:55 a.m. ET) -- The amount of PET bottles recycled increased for the sixth (more) ... Source: Plastics News

Another bump in the road for PS recycling
Recycling foodservice polystyrene products offers some unique challenges. The light weight of the PS foam is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and so is contamination....

Latest Roubini on the Economy

This guy's still got it..."Roubini on the Economy"...Nouriel Roubini, chairman of RGEMonitor.com, shares his outlook on the economy.

KIUC, you ready for this?...Oil speculation taking hold again...Obama's done nothing on this...asleep at the wheel

"$110 Oil Coming?"...Daniel Dicker, an independent oil trader, shares his outlook on oil prices.

From: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10614660/1/oil-price-disconnect-hurts-us-all.html#

"Oil Price Disconnect Hurts Us All"

By Daniel Dicker 10/21/09 - 09:54 AM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Why isn't anyone getting mad about the lunacy of the oil market? Why isn't anyone asking, "What is going on here?" anymore. It must be the highflying stock market and decent earnings reports, convincing us that at least the financial end isn't nigh. Everybody must be too busy trying to make back the money they lost last year to care about the catastrophe in oil that is replaying itself...

From: http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/business_travel/story/biz/7401.html

October 19, 2009

"Debts loom as Hawaii hotels cut rates deeper"

Pacific Business News (Honolulu) - by Chad Blair Pacific Business News

Deep discounting of hotel rooms is helping occupancy during the visitor slump.

But the rate cuts, averaging 16 percent from a year ago, mean some hotels aren’t making enough money to cover their debt.

For a hotel with guests in 300 rooms, that’s potentially $13,800 less per night than a year ago, or $414,000 a month.

Declining revenue has already led some properties to default on mortgages and to be foreclosed upon or to be taken over by the lender. That’s happened to at least seven big hotels, including the Big Island’s Fairmont Orchid Hawaii and the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort, the Maui Prince Resort and the Ritz-Carlton at Kapalua, the Ilikai and the former W hotel in Waikiki, and the Hilton Kauai Beach Resort...>>>Article continued here>>>

Latest Intel on the Plastics Industry

Anipac planning pro-plastic ad campaign
MEXICO CITY (Oct. 26, 10:05 p.m. ET) -- In its second major initiative within a week, Mexico’s national plastics industry trade association said it will launch a multimedia advertising campaign to stress the benefits and advantages of plastic in today’s society.Anipac has contracted independent media-planning and buying agency Contacto en Medios of Mexico City to handle the campaign, and the association is appealing to members to donate $750 each towards its cost....

Another bump in the road for PS recycling
Oct. 26, 5:17 PM ET -- Recycling foodservice polystyrene products offers some unique challenges. The light weight of the PS foam is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and so is contamination. I remember interviewing the some leaders of the now-defunct National Polystyrene Recycling Corp....

Thank you, Kaua‘i

Awesome story and letter:

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/20/opinion/letters_to_the_editor

"Thank you, Kaua‘i"

A couple of weeks ago, I had a serious, one-car accident which came close to claiming my life.

Immediately after the moment of impact, I was conscious, but in a lot of pain and could barely breathe. (Later I found out that I had broken my sternum, in addition to other injuries). In that moment, I hovered in a strange dimension between life and death, and for an instant, I thought that this was the end of my life.

I rolled out of my car and onto the ground; literally, within a couple of minutes a car stopped and several people got out, coming to my aid. I was in shock, and frightened; they sat down around me, held my hands and started praying to Jesus for my well-being (while waiting for the ambulance to arrive). In those few moments, I found myself calming just a little bit, and felt embraced by a Loving Presence.

Minutes later the ambulance arrived and I was taken to Wilcox Memorial Hospital; shortly thereafter I was medivaced to Queen’s Hospital.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank those wonderful people who stopped to pray with me. I found out later that they were from Calvary Chapel. I will forever be indebted to them for their prayers during this powerful time of need.

Additionally, I would like to thank the ambulance emergency medical team which provided such gentle, yet capable and knowledgeable support during my journey to Wilcox, as well to the team that medivaced me to Queen’s Hospital.

I am so impressed with the quality of attention I received during this harrowing experience.

Thank you, Kaua’i, and thank you everyone who assisted me so capably; I send love and infinite blessings to all.

Richard (Diamond) Moll, Kapa‘a

Compost to Create Your Own Carbon Piggy Bank!

From: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19419.cfm

Compost to Create Your Own Carbon Piggy Bank!

• By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq.
  Organic Consumers Association, October 21, 2009
  

According to the Rodale Institute, organic farms that fertilize with compost can sequester carbon at a rate of up to 3,200 kg/ha/yr.

Under the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism, cities in the Global South are composting their organic waste (wood, straw, coffee residues, fresh green material and manure) to create carbon credits. Composting avoids methane emissions and also improves the soil fertility of the degraded soil. Soil & More, the global composting project, gets 1 carbon credit equals to 1 ton of CO2e emissions reductions for every ton of compost produced.

Some US cities have also begun municipal composting. San Francisco has the nation's first mandatory composting law. The city already converts over 400 tons of food scraps and other compostable discards into high-grade organic compost every day. It's snapped up by farms and vineyards across the Bay Area. By requiring all residents and businesses to compost, the city will be able to increase the amount of "black gold" available for sustainable regional agriculture and improve our environment.

But it's not just farmers and cities, you can compost at home! So, if you haven't already, take your food, lawn, garden waste - even poop - and make your very own carbon piggy bank: COMPOST!

Video: How to compost in your backyard!

Video: How to compost in your apartment with worms!

Video: How to compost in the bathroom with a composting toilet!

Should We Grow Our Own Food On Kauai?

From: http://www.inspirationjournal.com/pdf/2009-9.pdf

"Should We Grow Our Own Food On Kauai?"
by Glenn Hontz

Over 90% of the food that we consume here on Kaua`i is
imported. By imported I mean from somewhere not in Hawai`i.
The same is true of most other things that we consume like
gasoline, clothing, household goods, etc. Food is different
though. Without it we get hungry in a few hours. I have heard
from two sources that we have less than a week’s supply of food
on Kaua`i at any given time. So this begs the questions: “What
do we do if the boat stops coming to Kaua`i even for a few
weeks?” and “What if food that is imported doubles or triples in
price because of some reduction of oil supply?” I cannot foretell
whether or not either of these two possibilities is even likely. I
can say that I am encountering an unusually large number of
people on Kaua`i who believe it is important that we have the
ability to grow our own food. In fact the number of people who
think this is important here on Kaua`i is disproportionately large.
People that I know on the mainland don’t consider questions
about food supply security. I have met many people from the
Big Island, O`ahu and Maui who think growing food is important
but most of these persons think about it commercially rather
than from the point of view of survival. Indeed, I meet someone
almost every day on Kaua`i who believes that we “need” to be
able to grow our own food. These people also tend to believe
that the food should be organic, high quality, and grown in a
sustainable way.

So what should we do? We could wait for some big disaster
to happen that interrupts our supply line and then everybody
could get busy and plant a garden. I do not think that is a viable
approach because there are not enough people who know how,
the land is not available or ready, and there are not even enough
seeds here to do it. We are not organized as a society to do this
job. In short I think chaos would reign for a long time. We could,
however, start learning, organizing, planning and then planting
and growing. So here are some things that would have to occur
for us to feed ourselves on Kaua`i:

1. Currently less than 5% of our population are farmers.
There are a lot of gardeners but the existing group of food
producers only produce about 10% of our food. So several
thousand of us would have to change our careers and
become food producers. This is no small feat. This means
that many people who do not know how or even desire to
be farmers must change their lives. The current economic
situation may provide an opportunity for this shift.

2. Most of our arable land is controlled by a few big land
holders. It is not yet readily available to those who might
become farmers.

3. Most of our soil needs to be improved to be productive
in organic agriculture. This means mulch, mulch, mulch.

4. We need to be organized and efficient. Fortunately we have
a good start with the work being done at Kaua`i Community
College. They have started four community gardens where
citizens are welcome to learn and participate. This is a
fantastic hands-on educational opportunity. KCC also
has classes for growing your own food offering help with
everything from where to buy seeds to the intricacies of
organic gardening.

5. We need protein, too. Most of us are not vegetarians so
we need to revitalize aquaculture on Kaua`i. Don Heacock
is doing great work on his aquaculture farm near Lihu`e.
We also need new systems like the aquaponics project
at Island School. This system produces fish to eat and
organic vegetables too. It can be tailored to a back yard or
commercial operation. Chicken and egg production needs
to be revitalized, too.

6. Food distribution here on Kaua`i is geared towards the
existing import-based system. It is hard for a farmer here
to sell a crop to a store like Safeway when Safeway gets all
of its food shipped in by barge. So we have to develop the
marketing and “grow to order” type of system that will work
for usi. For instance there is a group of at least 14 farmers
on the Big Island that is growing large quantities of organic
lettuce and greens with aquaponics. Their goal is to get
the COSTCO contract for organic mixed greens ($9.00 per
box). They have been working on this for more than a year.
We need to establish cooperatives like this, too. It takes a
lot of work and a lot of time to develop a market.

I am sure that this list could be longer but it illustrates the
size of the task for us to become self sufficient as far as food
is concerned. I also strongly believe that the large and growing
number of people here on Kaua`i who believe it is important for
us to be able to grow our own food is a signal that should not
be ignored. It is obvious that our world is changing rapidly. The
media is full of reports about the inability of the world to feed
ourselves in the future. So I believe that we should grow our
own food. We should do it organically and in sustainable ways.
There is no downside to this. If we do it and disaster does not
come to the supply line then at the very least we will have great
organic food to eat and a lot of jobs for a lot of people.

Suggested Reading: Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Suggested Viewing: “The Power of Community: How Cuba
Survived Peak Oil”; Documentary on DVD directed
by Faith Morgan.

For further education contact Glenn Hontz at Kauai Community
College. The next set of classes start on October 16, 2009.
His email is hontz@hawaii.edu. The phone number for
KCC ’s community garden project is 246-4859.

Oil news

Oil soars despite fundamentals; gasoline prices might follow -- latimes.com

Source: www.latimes.com

Until Monday, pump price expert Fred Rozell figured that California gasoline was headed down to $2.85 a gallon or lower. But that was before crude oil futures rose $1.08, or 1.3%, to settle at $79.61...

Opec blames speculators for rising oil price - Times Online

Source: business.timesonline.co.uk

Opec, the oil producers' cartel, suggested speculators were to blame for a recent spike in oil prices to more than $80 a barrel, which was not justified by fundamentals...

Plastics 'Project Recon': San Fran goin' after 'paper' too!

From: http://www.plasticsnews.com/blog/2009/10/now_san_francisco_is_targeting.html

"Now San Francisco is targeting paper bags"

By Don Loepp on October 21, 2009

Remember how San Francisco banned plastic bags? Now Board of Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is after paper bags, too.

Mirkarimi, the author of the city's plastic bag ban, introduced legislation yesterday that would require stores to offer a 10-cent rebate to people who bring their own bags.

"I believe we now need to tackle paper bags," Mirkarimi told the San Francisco Chronicle. "So when the question is asked, paper or plastic, the answer is neither."...

From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/21/MNUT1A8DSG.DTL&tsp=1

"Plastic bags limited - next target is paper"

by John Cote SF Chronicle on October 21, 2009

The question "paper or plastic?" will become irrelevant in San Francisco if Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has his way.

Mirkarimi, who pioneered the city's ban on plastic bags at large grocery stores and pharmacies, introduced legislation Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors that would require those stores to offer a 10-cent rebate as an incentive for people to bring their own bags.

"I believe we now need to tackle paper bags," Mirkarimi said. "So when the question is asked, paper or plastic, the answer is neither."

The plastic-bag ban, initially viewed skeptically, is now seen by many as visionary. That law is meant to decrease litter, reduce waste going to landfills, and curb dependence on petroleum, as the bags are oil-based...

Good article on Gold, the Dollar, and Equities

From: "Running With The Bulls: Gold Bugs And Stock Bulls Find Themselves On The Same Team—Pulling Against The Dollar" October 21, 2009 by Brien Lundin

Gold’s meteoric rise over $1,000 left even the most ardent gold bulls reeling from shock and awe. No matter what their bullish expectations may have been beforehand, few market watchers could honestly say they expected such a powerful run.

They weren’t alone. Investors and analysts were similarly surprised by the power and persistence of the rally in the broad U.S. equity market, and were left grasping for excuses.

The common denominator behind both bull moves: a declining dollar.

Bucking the Trend

Gold and stocks aren’t known as correlated asset classes, to be sure. So their almost perfectly choreographed moves in opposition to the dollar meant that analysts had to explain not only their individual moves, but why they were moving in unison.

Of course, it wasn’t too difficult to connect the stock and gold moves to the weakening dollar. But from there, most supposed experts were left scrambling.

They mentioned a growing dollar carry trade, wherein extremely low interest rates in the U.S. prompt investors to borrow dollars to fund riskier and higher yielding investments elsewhere.

This trade has, indeed, grown. And it will continue to have an impact, as long as the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee’s statements keep noting that “economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”

If dollar interest rates are going to be low for the foreseeable future, why wouldn’t you arbitrage those low rates against higher yields elsewhere?

Another excuse put forth for dollar weakness has been the comparatively stronger economic growth rates in China and the rest of Asia. It seems obvious that Asia is far ahead of the West in the economic recovery, and this relative strength has been attracting capital to the dollar’s detriment.

But the columnists and talking heads on CNBC missed some of the most compelling reasons for the dollar’s swoon:

• The surprisingly broad push for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar. China, Russia, Brazil, France and other nations have joined an international chorus calling for a new global reserve currency regime, one most likely based on a revamped International Monetary Fund (IMF) special drawing right (SDR).

The calls for talks on this issue have come so frequently, and the silence from the Obama administration has been so obvious, that what once seemed little more than bluff and bluster now appears to be the advance signs of an inevitable abdication of the dollar’s reign as the king of currencies.

I’ve covered this frightening development in recent columns so you know that if President Obama allows this to occur I’ll view it as one of the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. And the fact that the current administration doesn’t view it as such is what truly scares me.

• The socialization of the American economy. From bailouts to nationalized health care, from more steeply progressive tax rates to the assumption that government can dictate private sector compensation…and the myriad other assaults on capitalism and individual liberty now coming out of Washington, it’s obvious that the America of tomorrow will no longer resemble the dream of our founding fathers.

This concerns not only freedom-loving Americans, but also anyone anywhere in the world with assets in the U.S. When foundational principles are ignored as a matter of political expediency, when the rule of law offers protection only to favored classes or industries, then capital will flee to regimes that offer greater safety and certainty.

This is, in fact, a big factor behind the diminishing role of the U.S economy, and the decreasing relative value of the American dollar.

• The massive issuance of U.S. dollar debt and currency. I don’t want to belabor the point, but the world has been flooded with liquidity via the creation of unprecedented levels of new debt and currency.

The U.S. hasn’t been the only violator in this regard—only the most egregious.

Some argue that the Federal Reserve, having created much of the new liquidity with the figurative stroke of a pen, can mop it all up just as easily. They ignore the fact that if the Fed was so prescient and powerful it would have never been faced with having to create all that liquidity in the first place.

The Fed is so fearful of deflation, and has become so politicized, that it will almost assuredly overshoot the mark and leave its foot on the monetary gas pedal too long.

The bottom line is that the supply of fiat currency in the world at large has risen precipitously, but to a significantly greater degree in the U.S. While this will translate to higher asset prices generally, it will also translate to a lower relative value of the U.S. dollar.

The writing is on the wall, and investors know it.

A Battle Royale

In the meantime, the bulls and the bears have drawn the battle lines over gold and amassed on both sides what may be the most powerful forces we’ve seen for years.

Consider that the Large Commercial Net Short position in gold has risen to record levels, but on an absolute basis and as a percentage of total open interest. On the other side of the bet the speculative long position has also soared.

As long-time readers know, the large commercials are most often correct in their bets on gold. The reasons for this are two-fold: 1) Because they are so intimately involved in the gold market they understand the underlying forces much better, and 2) because they are typically hedgers who reflexively short gold in a rising price environment, their increasingly larger selling tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in lower gold prices.

So, again, when they pile on historically large short positions, gold usually heads south. However—and this is an important distinction—when they are wrong, they are wrong in a very big way.

As I noted last month, a prime example of this came in late 2005, when the large commercials were forced to cover their bets against gold en masse…with the result being a leap in the gold price from $450 to $700 over the coming months.

So the current situation is crucial. If the large commercials are forced to cover, they could send the price skyrocketing.

If the speculative longs are forced to sell out, gold could crater.

Ironically, some of the pressure has been let off by gold’s recent retreat below $1,000. The Commitment of Traders (COT) report for the week of gold’s highs shows that the larger commercials had added even more to their short positions, establishing a new record of 287,610 contracts net short.

However, this huge cumulative short position also acts as a cushion on any price declines. Undoubtedly, as the gold price fell from the recent heights, commercials began covering some of those short positions, helping to prevent further declines.

The physical gold market has also entered into this battle. Here we see a number of new factors coming into play…

First off, we saw the announcement by Barrick Gold that it had—finally, after a $750/ounce rise in gold from 2001—decided to buy back all of its remaining gold hedges.

Whether you think this announcement is bullish or bearish depends on your position in the market…and whether you’re a “glass-half-full” or “half-empty” sort of person.

In other words, once Barrick bought back all of its hedges (and it was rumored that they had already begun doing so in the preceding weeks), then that potential bullish factor would be removed. That’s the glass-half-empty view.

The glass-half-full view holds that Barrick’s upcoming buying will only add more pressure to an already drum-tight gold market.

Not long after Barrick’s announcement, we heard from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it was ready to begin the sale of 403 tonnes of gold. This didn’t have the bearish effect that similar announcements have had in the past when this issue has been trotted out to dampen gold price rallies.

It didn’t scare the market much this time because the sale would either come under the umbrella of the Central Bank Gold Agreement (where central bank sales had already slowed to a trickle), or the entire amount would be taken up by China or another central bank. The latter event would be net bullish for gold, by implication more than direct effect.

And finally, we’ve seen surprisingly strong physical demand from Asia, particularly India, despite the rising gold price. The reason? Festivals in India and government programs encouraging gold buying in China helped boost demand, and the weakening dollar meant that gold’s price rise was mitigated in local currencies.

So we can expect that any significant decline in gold, especially if it’s not accompanied by dollar strength of the same degree, will be met by increasingly large physical demand from Asia.

A Pressure Cooker About To Blow

So, the battle lines have been drawn, and it seems the gold price is destined to break strongly one way or the other.

Technically, the extensive consolidation pattern traced out by gold argues for a break to the upside. More fundamentally, the towering net short position of the large commercials seems to favor a correction, although the recent decline below $1,000 may have alleviated some of that pressure.

Regardless of the outcome, it seems safe to say that this rally has already demonstrated greater strength and resilience than anyone ever expected. Even if gold corrects, the price has spent enough time well above $1,000—setting new daily close price records in the process—to make this an important and confirming move.

Brien Lundin is president and CEO of the famed New Orleans Investment Conference (now in its 35th year) and editor of GoldNewsletter. Under Mr. Lundin's leadership, Gold Newsletter has become the preeminent newsletter in the metals and mining sector...

'Project Recon': Algae as a bioplastic?

Ohhh, algae as a 'bioplastic,' not just a 'biofuel?'

Continuing the Plastics 'Project Recon':

"Cereplast develops algae-based bioplastics"
By Frank Esposito | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
Posted October 20, 2009

HAWTHORNE, CALIF. (Oct. 20) -- Bioplastics maker Cereplast Inc. plans to launch a line of bioplastic resins based on all-natural algae by the end of 2010.

“Algae-based resins represent an outstanding opportunity for companies across the plastic supply chain,” Cereplast founder, Chairman and CEO Frederic Scheer said in an Oct. 20 news release. “We believe that algae has the potential to become one of the most important green feedstocks for biofuels, as well as bioplastics.”

Hawthorne, Calif.-based Cereplast currently uses corn, tapioca, wheat and potatoes to make its bioplastics. The firm also compounds Ingeo-brand PLA bioplastic made by NatureWorks LLC.

“It’s critical to have access to feedstocks not based on starches,” Scheer said by phone Oct. 20. Non-starch feedstocks “have less impact on the food chain and are less sensitive to price changes.”

Scheer said Oct. 20 that the algae-based resins could be blended with polypropylene or other standard resins and used in injection molded or thermoformed parts. Cereplast also is working to use the new products in extrusion applications, he said.

Scheer declined to identify what companies Cereplast would use to supply the algae needed for its resins. Company officials pointed out that oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. recently partnered with algae producer Synthetic Genomics Inc. of La Jolla, Calif., in a deal that may be worth more than $300 million. Oil firm British Petroleum plc also has invested $10 million in algae supplier Martek Biosciences Corp. of Columbia, Md.

Scheer said Cereplast was “very encouraged” by the ExxonMobil and BP deals.

Cereplast also is in the process of finding a toll compounder that would allow the firm to discontinue production at its Hawthorne plant. Officials said earlier this year that it was no longer cost-effective for Cereplast to produce its own bioplastic resins. Scheer said a toll compounder should be in place by the end of the year, making bioplastics based on Cereplast formulations...

H1N1 Flu Precautionary Methods...NO Need Vaccine

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS, DRM, DNB (Thyroid specialist), having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital, Bombay Hospital, Saifee Hospital, Tata Memorial, etc. Presently, he is heading the Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W).

The following message is given by him:

The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible not coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is.

While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):

1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).

2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or slap).

3. Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3 above, clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Not everybody may be good at using a Neti pot, but blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton swabs dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.

5. Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C. If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6. Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.

Plastics 'Project Recon' Latest News

Locally here I noticed within the past few days Foodland now has a new plastic bags recycling bin near the front entrance door of our local store. Wal-mart and Safeway have already been offering this. On the national and international stage, here is the latest reconnaissance on this:

Target and CVS launch incentives to discourage plastic bags
WASHINGTON (Oct. 19, 10:55 p.m. ET) -- Two major nationwide U.S. retailers -- Target and CVS -- have put into place incentives for shoppers that they expect will significantly reduce the amount of plastic shopping bags handed out at checkout lines. There are 11 plastic bag bans in the U.S., six of which have been enacted this year.

Mexico plastics industry plans PR campaign to battle bag bans
MEXICO CITY (Oct. 19, 10:55 p.m. ET) -- Mexico’s plastic industry has launched a counterattack against its detractors, including legislators who voted in March to ban the use of non-degradable plastic bags in all Mexico City stores. The industry fears that, if the authorities in Mexico are not persuaded otherwise, all the other 31 states in Mexico will follow and ban bags and other type of plastic packaging. To combat the bans, the industry plans to launch a national public relations campaign that emphasizes the role that plastics play in Mexico's economy.

Interesting question today...'how many people in hawaii want a ban on plastic bags'?

Interesting question today that my sitemeter picked up, but I don't think you're going to find an easy answer to that Google search. On Kaua'i 90% of the testimony was in favor of the plastic bag ban. The real question is what kind of support does a plastic bag ban have on Oahu? My guess is that it would be a strong majority. So why isn't it being done? You smart Punahou kids ought to be able to find a way, yeah?

Domain Name		punahou.edu ? (Educational)
IP Address		204.107.82.# (Punahou School)
ISP		Punahou School
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : Hawaii City : Honolulu Lat/Long : 21.3139, -157.8245 (Map) Distance : 134 miles (local visitor)
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Macintosh MacOSX
Browser		Safari 1.3 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_6; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.27.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2.1 Safari/525.27.1
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution : 1280 x 800 Color Depth : 24 bits
Time of Visit		Oct 19 2009 3:41:59 pm
Last Page View		Oct 19 2009 3:41:59 pm
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Referring URL		http://www.google.co...plastic bags&spell=1
Search Engine		google.com
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More nice pictures of the St. Regis Princeville

http://s616.photobucket.com/albums/tt246/scorchestra1/

and her review at:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60626-i828-k3156781-My_St_Regis_Review-Princeville_Kauai_Hawaii.html

Video: Kauai Path (Phase 2) 4.1 miles

Rampant Speculation Taking Hold in the Oil and Gold Markets

With unprecedented federal fiscal deficits and Fed direct monitizing of the debt, the dollar is coming under increasing pressure since last March. As a result, rampant speculation is taking hold again in the oil and gold markets. Oil prices are now back up to what they were a year ago after falling to half their current levels. Forecasters are predicting $100 per barrel oil within a few months. I don't believe the utilities, consumers, or economy are ready for this, but Wall Street sure is having fun with it.

THIS CANNOT be sustained...affecting the dollar, gold, and oil

"US Annual Budget Deficit Hits Record $1.4 Trillion"
Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2009
By: Reuters

The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion in the just-ended fiscal year, the government said on Friday, as the deep recession and a series of bank rescues cut a gaping hole in public finances.

The tally was $162 billion smaller than the White House had forecast in August, but still amounted to nearly 11 percent of real U.S. economic output, the most for any budget shortfall since World War Two.

President Barack Obama has pledged to rein in high budget deficits by addressing long-term challenges like health care and energy costs in a fiscally responsible way. But his critics argue that the health care reform efforts under consideration would add to the budget strain.

In August, the White House had forecast a $1.58 trillion deficit, more than three times as large as the $455 billion deficit racked up in the prior fiscal year.

The figure came in smaller than expected largely because of lower-than-expected spending out of the Troubled Assets Relief Program to rescue banks and other firms, the Obama administration said.

Rescuing the economy and some of the country's biggest banks from the worst recession since the Great Depression took a toll on U.S. finances, and the White House has forecast deficits of more than $1 trillion through fiscal 2011.

"Future deficits are too high, and the president is committed to working with Congress to bring them down to a sustainable level as the economy recovers," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement...

Oh, this guy Wien is pretty good

KIUC premature P.R. for "Just a Concept"

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/16/news/kauai_news/doc4ad82a3b7983e385229947.txt

"KIUC biomass deal ‘just a concept’"
By Coco Zickos - The Garden Island

Published: Friday, October 16, 2009

LIHU‘E — The agreement between the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative and Pacific West Energy to potentially bring a 20-megawatt biomass-to-energy project to Kaua‘i is a “major” advancement and “something we’ve been working on for years,” but “several steps” still remain, KIUC President and CEO Randall Hee said Thursday.

Obtaining 15,000 acres of land would be “optimum,” Pacific West Energy President William Maloney said Thursday, but no land commitments have been secured as of yet for the growth of sugar cane and woody biomass, though it is a “great priority,” he said.

Gay & Robinson, owner of 7,500 agricultural acres, could not be reached for comment Thursday. A representative for Alexander and Baldwin, another large Westside landowner, said there is no agreement for use of the company’s land for a biomass operation.

“Obtaining lands to grow is very critical,” Hee said. “We will need help from all state land agencies and private land owners.”

Some residents have questioned why the transaction was announced prior to a finalized purchase power agreement and approval by KIUC’s board of directors, the Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission and Rural Utilities Service — the “major lender,” according to Hee.

“This is still just a concept. Without the financing and leases, it still remains in question as to whether this whole project will even prove to be viable,” said Brad Parsons of Kauaians for a Bright Energy Future. “The concept may be commendable, but we will be waiting for the press release after the signed PPA and PUC approval.”

KIUC’s Wednesday’s press release said a PPA would be completed within 60 days.

Chief Financial Officer David Bissell declined to comment on the deal’s financial terms Thursday, but said “depending on the fuel,” the “capital cost would be similar” to the proposed Kapaia Unit Two Combustion Turbine project, which has now been placed on the back burner.

“A renewable plant was always our preference,” said Bissell, adding that KIUC will be “keeping the Kapaia project around ... in case biomass does not succeed.”

Expecting a 1.5 to 2 percent increase in energy capacity per year and a “problem around 2012 to 2015,” this new project would help maintain about 30 percent of the island’s annual electrical use and would do so with cleaner, renewable energy, Bissell said.

Rather than “predominantly” rely on fossil fuels, the production of biofuels would increase the island’s self-sufficiency and “decouple us from petroleum pricing,” he said.

“We would be exporting less of our dollars and keeping what we spend for fuel on the islands,” Hee said, adding that it could create jobs for displaced sugar workers even though the “timing is not quite right.”

Maloney predicts some 300 jobs would be produced, but does not expect crop planting to begin until at least April 2010. The first conversion of biomass to energy would not take place for at least another year after that.

“It depends upon permitting and the commitments on land and the PUC approval of the power purchase agreement,” he said. “We hope to begin construction by September 2010 and then begin processing nine to ten months later.”

If the “fast-track plan” comes to fruition, approximately five years down the line, around $40 million a year could remain in the island’s economy “as opposed to being exported as diesel,” Maloney said.

“It would have a huge economic effect to the island,” he said.

Clean energy?

“Biomass power equals green power,” Maloney said.

Sugar cane absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows and releases carbon dioxide as it is burned, “theoretically” canceling each other out, said Bissell, adding that biomass is considered “neutral” as far as green house gas emissions are concerned.

The ultimate goal would be to reuse the carbon dioxide released as feedstock for the construction of algae, which would in turn be converted to a renewable diesel product, Maloney said.

“This is something that needs to happen, but I question the figures and the reality of it,” said Kekaha resident and community activist Bruce Pleas regarding the agreement. “I fully support it, but I would like these entities proposing projects to put out a conceptual design of the plant that would give an idea of the lands they’re going to use to support the facility.”

KIUC has signed multiple renewable energy purchase power agreements over the years, according to KIUC spokeswoman Shelley Paik. A 20-year purchase power agreement with Green Energy Team was signed in March 2007 for a 6.4 mega-watt biomass-to-energy facility. Another purchase power agreement was signed this year with Green Energy Hydro to produce 130 kilowatts, which KIUC has been receiving “in the past couple of months.”

The PacWest deal could be considerably larger than either of those arrangements.

“This is a big project. It’s got positives and it’s got negatives like any big project,” said first-year KIUC Director Ben Sullivan Thursday, adding that he’s eager to deliberate with the rest of the board to arrive at a decision that is “in the best interest of our members.”

“I’m happy to hear that they feel they have taken the next step,” said Sullivan, who earned the most votes in the March election after campaigning on a platform of renewable energy. “There are definitely questions I’m waiting to ask, but I’ll save those for my fellow directors.”

The agreement also earned the praise of the chief executive of KIUC’s largest customer: the county government.

“This project is extremely important to Kaua‘i for the renewable energy it can produce and the agricultural and ‘green’ jobs it can create,” wrote Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in an e-mail Thursday. “I met just two weeks ago with representatives from PacWest and Gay & Robinson to see how the county can support this project. It was a very positive discussion and I’m hopeful that all of the pieces of the puzzle will come together soon so we can truly get this partnership off the ground.”

News of Kaua'i Foreclosures

Article yesterday and a new online database:

From: http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20091015_maui_leads_in_foreclosures.html

"Maui leads in foreclosures"
RealtyTrac ranks Hawaii 15th among states for overall foreclosure activity
By Allison Schaefers Oct 15, 2009

Maui's foreclosure rate surpassed the national level in September and activity on Maui and Kauai overtook the nation during the third quarter, according to data released today from RealtyTrac...

On a quarterly basis, Hawaii's foreclosure rate was one in every 185 households, which compared favorably to a national rate of one per every 136 households, Blomquist said. Nonetheless, foreclosure rates on Maui, which rose to one per every 111 households, and on Kauai, which rose to one in every 85 households, raised alarm, he said...

One of the reasons for the gain could be Hawaii's high percentage of second-home, resort and investment activity, Blomquist said. As many as 46 percent of all Hawaii foreclosures through April, the most recent measure, were at non-owner-occupied properties, he said...

Also from a new RealtyTrac Foreclosure Newsletter‏ out today by Teresa Meek, RA:

"New: Instantly Identify Foreclosures Listed For Sale"

By RealtyTrac Staff

RealtyTrac’s newly expanded MLS feed of over 1 million properties for sale, matched against 1.9 million foreclosure properties, gives members the ultimate advantage for purchasing a foreclosure bargain. Complete Story

View more properties in Kauai County

View more properties in Kauai County

Plastics 'Project Recon': Latest Polystyrene (styrofoam) News

From: http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=16876&channel=130

"Marin County joins communities with PS bans"

By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted October 14, 2009

SAN RAFAEL, CALIF. (Oct. 14) — Marin County will soon become the fourth largest region in California to ban the use of polystyrene takeout containers, creating a string of bans, impacting roughly 2 million people, in the northern California communities and regions that surround San Francisco...

Three towns in Marin County — Mill Valley, Fairfax and Sausalito — had already enacted PS container bans.

Marin County, the county just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, has a population of just under 250,000 — slightly less than Santa Cruz County, which earlier this year enacted a similar ban.

San Francisco, with a population of 800,000, and Oakland, with a population of 400,000, also have PS bans, along with several other cities in the Bay area such as Berkeley, Emeryville, Millbrae, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Palo Alto, and Pittsburg.

Altogether, 24 Calfornia towns and two counties have banned PS takeout packaging. In addition, four California cities and one California county prohibit the use of PS takeout packaging at municipal facilities.

The Marin County ban will go into effect Jan. 1, but not be enforced until July 1, 2010. It bans restaurants, food vendors, grocery stores and delis that sell prepared or takeout food from using PS disposable packaging.

The ban applies to all containers, bowls, plates, trays, cartons, cups, knives, spoons, straws, lids, bags, wrappings and other items designed for one-time use and used to store prepared or takeout foods, including food left over from a partially consumed meal.

In addition, the bill mandates that stores and restaurants use for takeout packaging either durable foodservice items designed for multiple use, or biodegradable disposable food packaging. The bill defines those materials as coated paper and cardboard, bioplastics packaging that meet ASTM standards for biodegradability, or uncoated paper and cardboard...

In addition to health concerns and its inability to decompose in the environment, the bill cited the use of non-renewable resources to manufacture the product, and litter problems.

“Discarded packaging from single servings of food and beverages constitutes a significant and growing portion of the waste stream, and polystyrene foam is notorious as a pollutant that breaks down into smaller, non-biodegradable pieces that pose significant threats to marine and other wildlife from ingestion and entanglement,” the bill states.

In addition, it argued that “plastics in general are difficult to recycle due to the lack of an after-market demand for the materials.”

What more, the measure said that “there is no meaningful reuse of recycling of polystyrene foam products. An additional system, outside of ordinary curbside pick-up, must be set up to collect polystyrene products — which would be both expensive and impractical.”...

KIUC Almost Too Good to be True...Certainly Premature

Regarding Hallelujah, some progress at last by KIUC, see today from:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091015/NEWS01/910150360/Kaua+i+power+deal+forged

Thursday, October 15, 2009
"Kauai power deal forged"
New plant will use sugar cane, wood to produce electricity
By Diana Leone Honolulu Advertiser

"...PacWest and KIUC expect to sign a formal power purchase agreement within 60 days, a news release from KIUC said. When approved by the KIUC and PacWest boards of directors, it will be submitted to the Hawai'i Public Utilities Commission...
The next steps for PacWest include:
• Firming up its financing.
• Leasing 12,000 to 15,000 acres of land to grow either sugar cane or fast-growing wood to produce the electricity...
'We're building momentum but there are still a lot of obstacles and milestones we have to pass.'"

So that press release yesterday was more of the same, probably intended to take off pressure. It's still just talk. They got a long ways to go.

More Pictures of the New St. Regis Princeville Hotel

Some of this lady's pictures are better than mine:

http://blogs.alohaliving.com/princeville-condo-sales/2009/10/14/new-st-regis-princeville-resort-hotel/

Power Trip: The Extreme Frontiers of Oil Drilling

"Exploring the extreme frontiers of oil drilling"
By Amanda Little 8 Oct 2009

The oil field known as “Jack” is located 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana, below 7,200 feet of water and another 30,000 feet of seabed, occupying a geological layer formed in the Cenozoic Era more than 60 million years ago. This layer—the “lower tertiary”—lies deeper under water than any other Gulf of Mexico oil discovery, which is one reason why many in the industry initially dismissed it as too remote to exploit. But in 2006, Chevron defied the odds when its engineers drilled a test well at Jack and discovered that oil could flow from this ancient sediment at profitable rates. Their success opened up a new drilling frontier—a monster oil patch holding between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of crude. It was hailed as the largest discovery in the United States since 1968—a discovery potentially big enough to boost national oil reserves up to 50 percent.

Since then, global oil companies have been pouring billions of dollars into these so-called ultradeep waters of the Gulf in pursuit of the region’s buried treasure. Jack is among a cluster of nearly a dozen new fields there—including “Blind Faith,” “Great White,” and “Cascade”—that companies are now tapping in waters from 4,000 to 8,000 feet deep and in sedimentary rock extending between 1 and 6 miles below the seabed.

Coaxing oil from such great depths poses unprecedented risks for oil drilling—and that’s why I decided to visit the area. I wanted to witness firsthand the world’s most extreme drilling territory, the Mount Everest of oil frontiers, where the industry has to tackle the tallest odds and gravest circumstances to eke out new discoveries.

I set out at dawn on an April morning in a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter. The sky above the New Orleans heliport was a pea-soup green, thick with rain and pitchfork lightning. I was traveling with a Chevron executive and three of his staffers, all of us wearing regulation jumpsuits, hard hats, and steel-toed boots. The chopper lurched and shuddered in the squalls, but my travel companions nodded to the pilot to press on—this was typical weather for the Louisiana coast, and routine flying conditions.

The Gulf yields 25 percent of all U.S. oil production, and is home to more than 3,700 production platforms, most of them located in relatively shallow waters of under 2,000 feet. Many geologists believe that the ultradeep regions of the Gulf—those covered by waters greater than about 4,000 feet—hold more untapped oil reserves than any other parts of the Western world. Today, offshore rigs are capable of operating in 10,000 feet of water and boring through 30,000 feet of seabed (twice the depth they could manage a decade ago). One rig sits atop each field, thrusting its tentacles into up to a dozen wells throughout the bed. The rig pulls up oil and then pumps it back to onshore refineries via underwater pipelines.

From my helicopter window, the offshore rig known as the “Cajun Express” looked like a child’s toy—a multicolored Erector Set floating on a buoy. But once we landed and I stepped out into the salty, sunny Gulf air, the rig gave an entirely different impression, awesomely vast and imposing.

We entered the boxy three-story cement building that houses the dorm rooms and offices. So austere were the surroundings—and so far removed from civilization—that I found myself heartened by the familiar details of a Snickers wrapper crumpled on the floor, a dust bunny underneath a desk, and a family snapshot tacked to an office wall—evidence that people actually do live and work on this floating city.

Rising from the concrete floor and up through the bottoms of my boots was a strange vibration. “The thrusters,” explained Paul Siegele, then director of Chevron’s offshore drilling divisions. Thrusters, he told me, are gigantic engines at each corner of the platform relentlessly pushing and pulling against the ocean currents. Picture yourself standing in shallow waters at a beach and incessantly shifting your weight to stay balanced as the waves surge and the tides ebb and flow. Thrusters do an extreme version of this in order to keep the rig “on station,” meaning within six inches in any direction of the drill’s charted entry point into the seabed below. Anchors can’t be used to moor drilling vessels at these depths—the motion of the ocean would strain even the strongest of moorings, and rigs need to be able to motor to safety in the event of a hurricane.

The thruster solution is ingenious, but it carries an astonishing energy burden: these 9,500-horsepower engines use a combined total of 27 megawatts of power when running at full capacity—enough to power about 21,000 homes. The generators that power the thrusters and keep the lights on, the electric drill turning, and the computers humming in this village at sea require about 40,000 gallons of diesel per day. It’s roughly the amount of fuel that 13,300 Hummers consume in a typical day of driving.

You have to burn fossil fuels to harvest them—that’s a reality in any drilling scenario—but the ratio of energy invested to energy gained gets slimmer as the drilling conditions get more extreme. (By “energy invested” I’m referring to all fossil fuels used to discover, drill, pump, and refine the oil and transport it to market.) During the glory days of U.S. oil production in the 1930s, an investment of 1 barrel of oil would yield a return of about 100 barrels. By 1970, when oil deposits had become scarcer and more difficult to extract and refine, the ratio had shrunk by more than half: 40 barrels of oil gained for every 1 barrel invested. By 2005, as the industry faced ever-greater limits, the ratio had diminished still further: about 14 to 1. Returns will continue to diminish, some experts argue, until we reach a 1:1 ratio—and that would spell the end of the petroleum era.

Three out of four exploration wells in the ultra-deep region of the Gulf come up dry—nerve-wracking odds when the wells cost $100 million apiece, or as much as 20 times what they cost on land. And even if you hit pay dirt, there’s no guarantee of profit: In the past decade, Chevron has abandoned nearly a quarter of the successful wells it has drilled because they wouldn’t flow at profitable rates. Add to that the risks of hurricanes, powerful undersea currents that can cripple well shafts, and even routine equipment failures that can stymie operations on rigs that cost more than $500,000 a day to operate.

Given the vertiginous risks that plague ultra-deep drilling, it’s sobering to think that this frontier holds the oil industry’s best hope for finding new petroleum reserves. “The odds are incredibly low that we’re going to hit some fabulous new discovery on land,” Matthew Simmons, a leading investor and industry analyst, told me. “Everybody’s looking to the deep sea for big new finds.” To an outsider, it’s at once impressive and baffling to watch engineers burrow five miles into the earth for oil. “It has all the audacity and technological complexity of launching a space shuttle,” as Simmons put it.

If Chevron is going to throw a billion dollars into wells in this high-risk, deep-sea region—many of them doomed to failure—wouldn’t it make more sense to invest in the inexhaustible, greener technologies that will likely replace fossil fuels? Not anytime soon, according to Siegele: “Do you fly on planes? Do you drive a car? Do you use FedEx and eat imported food?” he challenged me. “What do you think delivers those products and moves those jets?” Siegele had a point: Even as innovators have been producing breakthroughs in clean cars, green buildings and renewable energy and efficiency, American oil demand on the whole has been holding steady in recent years, not declining. And even if America were to slash its oil consumption, industrial growth in China and India is pushing global petroleum demand ever higher. “So long as people need oil,” Siegele told me, “we’ll find a way to supply it.”

Technological breakthroughs have, decade after decade, revived the perpetually doomed oil industry: petroleum reserves often seemed too remote or too expensive to exploit over the last century, yet engineers invariably managed to come up with better, cheaper drilling methods. “Predicting peak oil,” Siegele told me, “is almost like predicting peak technology”—an exercise that to him seems inherently small-minded, even absurd. As for global warming, he believes technology will triumph here, too: we’ll find a way to scrub carbon from the atmosphere, rendering fossil fuels harmless to the climate.

I found the whole enterprise of deep-sea drilling doggedly ambitious, but also seemingly desperate—like an addict forcing a syringe into the earth’s innermost veins. How did it come to this—to scenarios as remote and arduous as the five-mile undersea wells drilled by the Cajun Express? How did a resource that is now so hard to come by in America become the basis of our economic survival?

This piece was excerpted and adapted from Amanda Little’s book Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells-Our Ride to the Renewable Future

Hallelujah, some progress at last by KIUC

http://www.kiuc.coop/pdf/releases/pr2009-1014-pacwest.pdf

KIUC and Pacific West Energy LLC Agree on Key Terms for Biomass-to-Energy Project -

Lihue, Kauai, HI – 10/14/09 - Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) signed an agreement with Pacific West Energy, LLC (PacWest) for a 20-Megawatt Biomass-to-Energy project to come online by April 2012.

The project to be operated by PacWest, will provide renewable sourced energy for approximately 30 percent of Kaua'i's annual electrical use. The project also provides firm capacity to KIUC and will enable the Co-op to continue to provide reliable power to Kaua'i.

"Upon reaching full commercial operation, this project will allow KIUC to delay the Kapaia Unit Two Combustion Turbine project for the foreseeable future," said KIUC President and CEO Randy Hee...

Another Letter to the Editor on "NEITHER Paper NOR Plastic"

Great letter Robin!

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/13/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/doc4ad422fd34fbc508222963.txt

Plastic bag argument makes zero sense

Pearl Han’s argument against the plastic bag plan (mahalo Lani and Tim!) makes zero sense, namely that the only alternative is the environmentally unfriendly paper bag (“Plastic bag ban makes zero sense,” Letters, Oct. 8).

First of all, the assertion that plastic continues to dominate in retail stores worldwide may be accurate, but the trend is in the opposite direction as entire countries and many Mainland cities have put mechanisms into place to discourage or eliminate the use of plastic bags.

For example, Ireland charges for plastic, which has reduced use by 90 percent. The rest of the U.K. is about to follow suit.

I recently visited my former hometown of Palo Alto, Calif., which had just joined many other U.S. cities in implementing a ban on plastic bags, an event that passed literally without notice. The problem is not insignificant when one considers that the number of plastic bags used worldwide is estimated at close to 1 trillion per year!

But more to the point, the alternative to plastic bags is not paper but reusable fabric bags. I have a collection of these in my car and have used them for years. It seems these items are being handed out at just about every event I attend. Note also that one of our largest retailers, Costco, uses neither bag. Most of us just keep containers in the trunk and fill them from the cart.

So Pearl, maybe the Grassroot Institute should study other policies, such as a ban on Styrofoam food containers and packing materials, or the issue of plastic water bottles. The latter has to be the biggest scam ever instigated — selling an essentially free commodity (usually just filtered industrial water) in plasticizer leaking bottles, most of which end up in the landfill or by the side of the road.

Unlike your fresh Hawaiian tap water, bottled water does not require testing by certified laboratories to establish water quality, a situation that is currently under investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Robin Clark, Kalaheo

"Project Recon" on the Plastics Industry Begins

From: http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=16864&channel=270

"Plastics processors facing obstacles on path to sustainability"

By Rhoda Miel | PLASTICS NEWS

Posted October 13, 2009

EAST LANSING, MICH. — The plastics industry’s attempts to cash in on a green revolution are hitting some hurdles.

The post-consumer recycling stream still is being hurt by a poor infrastructure for collecting and reusing plastics beyond bottles, cutting the ability for businesses to get enough of a supply to make a real business case for recycling, said Elizabeth Bedard, director of the Association of Post Consumer Plastic Recyclers’ rigid plastics recycling program...

The federal agency’s [FTC] rules also differ from a simple scientific lab report, Walker said. The agency requires that any labeling must be understood by the general consumer. So a claim that a plastic bag, for instance, is biodegradable because it breaks down in lab testing would raise questions because the general consumer would throw that “degradable” bag into a landfill, in which nothing degrades quickly.

At the same time, a claim that a product is “recyclable” must show that it can be easily recycled by the consumer in curbside programs — not merely that it’s technically possible to recycle it, he said.

In June, FTC charged retailer Kmart Corp., consumer products firm Tender Corp. and Dyna-E International with making “deceptive and unsubstantiated biodegradability claims.” Kmart and Tender both agreed to stop making the claims...

Recycling efforts, meanwhile, continue to run into problems trying to expand household collection of recycled plastics. Most communities that offer curbside recycling stick to PET and high density polyethylene — which consumers recognize with the recycling numbers of 1 and 2, Bedard said. Meanwhile, polypropylene yogurt cups and margarine tubs remain outside the recycling mainstream, although they are widely used plastics in households.

“Consumers want to recycle more, but they run into a lot of negativity toward plastics because they get confused about what they can recycle,” she said. “What is we need to figure out is how to coordinate more recycling beyond the 1s and 2s.”...

Hawaii Council on Revenues forecast for FY 2010 ALREADY OFF

First, I went to a Hawaii Legislative presentation recently where they gave out a handout that showed that the Council on Revenues forecasts negative growth of -1.5% for FY 2010 which we are in the 4th month of now. It turns out that Hawaii is already at -9.7% for the first 3 months of FY 2010. The Council on Revenues are also forecasting growth of 6.5% FY 2011, 6.0% FY 2012, 6.0% FY 2013, and 6.0% FY 2014. I questioned these numbers to the Legislators, but I think it went in one ear and out the other.

As far as I am concerned the Council on Revenues are just "throwing numbers up on a wall and seeing what will stick, and so far nothing is sticking." This is important because other entities, like little backward utilities and their detached consultants, are relying upon these type forecasts to project comparable unrealistic energy demand growth in 2011 thru 2014, and they are using that to justify further deadend investment in fossil fuel generators.

I propose to you right now, that so-called economists and American academia in general are failing modern day civilization with their bogus theories and lack of understanding of the real world. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Japanese tourists back to normal in August 2009

Statistics of Japanese Tourists Travelling Abroad back to normal for August.

Plastic Bag Ban: Honolulu Paper gets dates, facts, and recommendations WRONG

Re: http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/20091012_Lets_see_how_bans_fare.html

There are a number of mistakes in this editorial (below).

First, the Kauai plastic bag ban does not take effect "next January." The start up date was moved BACK to start up in January 2011.

Second, they say, "The Kauai County Council voted 4-2 last week to require retailers to offer only biodegradable plastic..." This is incorrect. By the new wording in Kaua'i's ordinance, NO plastic content at all will be allowed in "biodegradable" bags on Kaua'i. It is a stricter definition than even the European definition of "biodegradable."

Because their dates are wrong, their recommendation, "The Council should monitor the Maui and Kauai rules next year for evidence to refute the opposition," is wrong too. Based on Kaua'i, they won't get their answer this year nor next year. Anyway, the answers are already known by those who choose to be informed on this issue. The City and County of Honolulu should act now and not wait for evidence more than 14 months from now.

Also, Bag Lady commented with a link to:

Paper vs. Plastic: An environmental comparison...

Bag Lady's link is structured for a predetermined answer.
The correct answer is NEITHER paper NOR plastic.

From: http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/20091012_Lets_see_how_bans_fare.html

EDITORIAL
"Let's see how bans fare"
Oct 12, 2009

While most states and municipalities across the country are fearful to impose fees or bans on plastic bags during the economic abyss, Kauai and Maui counties are bravely poised to impose prohibitions next January. Honolulu's City Council should look upon those ventures as pilot projects for reducing street litter, ocean pollution and carbon emissions.

The Kauai County Council voted 4-2 last week to require retailers to offer only biodegradable plastic, 100 percent recyclable paper or reusable tote bags for carrying products at checkout counters. Retailers are allowed to charge for the bags. The requirement had been planned for next July but was moved up to coincide with the Jan. 11 startup date for Maui County's prohibition of all kinds of plastic bags.

San Francisco became the first big city to ban plastic bags two years ago, but the bans have been limited mainly to a few other liberal cities on the West Coast. State legislation for bans or fees died quickly after the economic downturn began.

Seattle's city council became the first a year ago to approve a 20-cent fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. However, a petition drive financed largely by the plastic bag industry put the issue on a ballot two months ago, and voters rejected the bag fee.

Kauai Councilman Tim Bynum said the Council received more testimony in support of the bill than opposition.

"It's the right thing to do for the environment, for Kauai and for the state of Hawaii," Bynum told the Star-Bulletin's Nina Wu.

The Kauai Chamber of Commerce voiced support for the spirit of the bill but expressed displeasure with what it regards as government intervention. The Retail Merchants of Hawaii opposed it, predicting the cost would be passed on to consumers.

A survey of Maui small businesses showed that 92 percent favor a ban on nonbiodegradable plastic bags. Many indicated they have already begun switching to reusable sacks.

A bill banning plastic bags on the Big Island lacked enough support to overcome a veto a year ago by acting Mayor Dixie Kaetsu. And a bill has been languishing before the Honolulu City Council for more than a year, opposed by the Hannemann administration along with the retail and food industries. The Council should monitor the Maui and Kauai rules next year for evidence to refute the opposition.

Neither Paper Nor Plastic...

Good letter to the editor from a sponsor of the new Kaua'i ordinance:

From: The Garden Island Letters to the Editor for Saturday, October 10, 2009

Paper nor plastic

I want to thank Pearl Hahn of the Grassroot Institute for her letter to the editor of Oct. 8 regarding the recently passed Plastic Bag Reduction Bill 2321 (“Plastic bag ban makes zero sense”) and take this opportunity to share information about the new ordinance.

The bill was introduced and passed to address the significant impacts on the environment of single-use, plastic checkout bags and the use of fossil fuel to manufacture them.

Ms. Hahn is to be commended for recognizing and cautioning the public that the instinctive move for retailers and shoppers is to use paper bags instead of plastic. The issues with paper bags are well-stated in her letter and were all factors considered in crafting the Plastic Bag Reduction Bill.

The further purpose of the legislation is to specifically encourage customers to bring their own reuseable bags when shopping — clearly emphasizing the importance of making the necessary transition away from both plastic and paper bags for the sake of our environment.

With 92 billion plastic bags distributed yearly nationwide, this bill addresses the most important aspect of the three Rs of sustainable practices: Reduce. By reducing our use of plastic bags, and continuing to reuse and recycle those bags we already have, we move toward a more sustainable lifestyle.

By changing our behavior we can demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the delicate balance between what we need today while preserving natural resources and our precious environment for the generations to follow.

Lani T. Kawahara, Member, Kaua‘i County Council

Kaua'i's Precarious Fresh Water Situation

From: IslandBreath.org

Kauai Water Security

POSTED: 10/10/2009 EDITOR: David Ward

SUBHEAD: We must change the infrastructure now to address future water security on Kauai.


image above: The Lua Reservoir in Kokee in the Kaulaula Ahupuaha of Kauai.
From http://www.dailyventure.com/photo.php?name=kauai_helicopter_reservoir

By David Ward on 10 October 2009 -

The Garden Island, known for it's ample rainfall and verdant tropical landscape, is home to one of the wettest spots on earth. Why then, would we possibly ask our community to focus on our water supply when there are so many other critical energy issues to be addressed? Volatile electricity costs, a crippled economy, food security, the list goes on. Simply put; in most Island homes, our water supply is completely oil dependent. Without petroleum to generate electricity, we simply cannot deliver water to a majority of Island residents on Kauai. And although some of our State and County leaders have recognized and begun acting on the real potential for oil supply disruptions and continued price volatility, as well as the general economic liability of severe dependence on tourism, few have asked; What about our water?

Kauai relies almost exclusively on pumped groundwater for its residents. Because of its purity groundwater has been preferred for municipal use. Pumping groundwater is one of the most expensive and energy-intensive ways of delivering water to consumers. This energetic dynamic needs reevaluation. The Department of Water (DOW) must now start to make our water system as resilient as possible and maximize energy efficiency and minimize our carbon foot print.

The existing thirteen (13) unconnected systems pump water from 48 underground wells, uphill to 43 tanks. The pipes leak so much that 25% of the water and energy are lost and un-metered

(www.kauaiwater.org). This system evolved during a time when there was abundant water and before the current concern about the future of fossil fuels and global climate change.

Kauai depends almost entirely on foreign sources of fuel for its energy needs. High global demand for oil is linked with Kauai's electricity pricing, which is more that three time the national average. The island is vulnerable to fluctuations in the world oil market and sends millions of dollar each year out of the local economy. Every barrel of fossil fuel we use now is subtracted from the total available to our descendants; no other resource can provide anything approaching the glut of cheap abundant energy on which our lifestyles of relative privilege depend.

Energy transitions happen and we are in one now and we need to aggressively look to the future. What is going to happen after petroleum. Modest as the energy outputs from alternative sources are, they are all we well have to work with when the fossil fuel is gone. Oil production will likely drop a lot faster than our co-op, KIUC ability to invest in and bring on alternatives. It is an unprecedented discontinuity of historic proportions, as never before has a resources as critical as oil become scarce without sight of a better substitute. To replace the oil we are losing by depletion, investment in renewables would have to be an order of magnitude higher than current spending.

On average throughout the islands, one-third of rainfall runs into streams, one-third evaporates and transpire (after being taken up by plants), and one-third recharges the underground water.

Because of Kauai's comparatively advanced age its original form has been greatly modified by erosion and the island has evolved a more complex geologic structure and stratiography than any of the other Hawaiian islands.

The Hawaiian Islands are formed by shield volcanoes, so called because of a resemblance in profile to round shields of early warriors. Their eruptions were relatively gentle, spreading thousands of thin layers of lava as the land was built up. Each flow averages 12 to 15 feet in thickness and are highly permeable.

As the shields of lava poured out and cooled, cracks would form in the shields. Subsequent flows would sometimes erupt below the shields and these subterranean flows would extrude their way upward through the cracks. Because these later flows were under pressure from the weight of the old lava beds above, they are dense and impervious to water. The result is an intermingling of large deposits of porous basalt, saturated with percolating rainwater, restricted in there lateral flows by hundreds of dikes.

Groundwater can occur at high elevations because of the presence of these dikes. The vertically confined water rises until it leaks through the dikes and reach equilibrium with the rate of recharge from the rain above. These dike-impounded, high elevation ground waters can result in columns of water hundreds feet high on the windward side of the island, where the moisture-laden trade winds bump up against cliffs several thousand feet high and disgorge their moisture as rain.

Cap rock consisting of a bed of dense lava, volcanic ash, or alluvium can and does occur at high elevations on Kauai. Where the dense layers of packed sediment cover the freshwater-saturated basalt, rainwater collects over this cap rock, forming reservoirs of water, or perched groundwater.

Freshwater springs flow through breaks in the impervious rock. Similar breaks connect the aquifers, sometimes so much that withdrawals from one also significantly drains the other. In these cases, although different aquifers are involved, they act as one "hydrologic unit".

I think David Craddick manager and chief engineer of the Department of Water, is right, it is all the same water only the location of the tap is changed.

Down near sea level, highly permeable basalt is a repository for reservoirs of fresh water. Because of this permeability sea water moves laterally through the rock. Fresh water is lighter than saltwater and floats on the saltwater. The fresh water that sits on the saltwater is known as basal groundwater. This freshwater takes the shape of a biconvex lens, with both the top and bottom bulging outward.

Saltwater encroaches on the fresh water aquifer at or near the seashore, and springs of fresh water may discharge at or near the seashore or even offshore.

Where the water table intersects the ground surface, ground water may discharge at springs and along streambeds. This discharge maintains a base flow in the streams even when there is no direct runoff from rain.

If withdrawal from wells is excessive, saltwater may rise and intrude the wells. Saltwater intrusion is a major limitation to well yields in oceanic island aquifers. Well withdrawal has the eventual effect of lowering the water table and reducing stream flow and ocean discharge.

The ahupua'a system of traditional Hawaiian communities (running from the mountain to the sea) contained all the resources necessary for sustainability.

The success of traditional Hawaiian civilization depended significantly on the orderly allocation of the water supply, especially for the cultivation of taro. This staple of the Hawaiian diet requires large volumes of cool running water for efficient production. Perennial streams originating in rugged mountains and springs that inundated wetlands were the primary sources of taro irrigation. The Hawaiians built elaborate hydraulic systems, and the rules governing their use evolved as society progressed.

Ancient Hawaiians developed a number of perennial streams with diversions and ditches to irrigate and grow taro. Later, sugar growers copied the ancient Hawaiians with their own elaborate and extensive plantation irrigation systems. The use of intake structures to divert perennial low flows and high storm flows, and the use of water-development tunnels to intercept the high-level ground water associated with perennial streams, ultimately gave rise in the late 1800s to the construction of large scale irrigation systems by sugar plantations.

Miles of ditches, tunnels, flumes, and siphons were constructed to transport water primarily to irrigate sugarcane grown on distant arable lands. This transport was all done without the use of fossil fuel pumping. The Wailua network carried an average 150 million gallons per day without any pumping. Most of these irrigation systems are no longer in use for sugarcane farming. The book Sugar Water, Hawaii's Plantation Ditches by Carol Wilcox covers this history well.

The natural movement of flowing water contains an amount of kinetic energy that can be converted to electrical energy. this is emission and by-product free, sustainable, predictable, and indigenously sourced energy. New turbine technologies are enabling effective energy recovery from natural flows of streams and rivers. Hydrokinetic (in-stream) power generation offers the opportunity to utilize generating resources without the need to construct dams or other impounds. The capture of the hydrokinetic energy in the old plantation ditches, flumes and tunnels has not been attempted on a utility scale.

Water conservation by consumers eliminates all of the “upstream” energy required to bring the water to the point of end use, as well as all of the “downstream” energy that would otherwise be spent to treat and dispose of this water.

The best way for increasing water efficiency is to reduce the use of drinkable water for non-consumption purposes. There are two ways to do this: collect rainwater and reuse indoor wash water. The rain that falls on the roof should, if used innovatively, be sufficient for the majority of home uses, including gardening. Rainwater harvesting can be supplemented by treatment of gray water (wash water from the bathroom, laundry, and kitchen) e.g., through gravel reed beds for subsequent use in the garden.

Even backwater (from the toilet) can be treated and re-used on site in some circumstances, or a waterless composting toilet can be installed to ensure water goes to more productive uses. Closing the nutrient cycle, from human waste to fertile, food-producing soil is, in the long term, one of the most critical factors in the sustainability of our population.

Our food supply is a vulnerable link between the environment and the economy. While the use of oil dominates the production end of the food system, electricity dominates the consumption end. The oil-intensive modern food system that evolved when oil was cheap will not survive as it is now structured with higher energy prices. We will not be able to continue to import 90% of our food.

Most of us will have to grow at least some of our own food. Among the principal adjustments will be movement down the food chain as we react to rising food prices by buying fewer high-cost imported foods and livestock products. The economic benefits of expanding urban agriculture will become much more obvious.

The Water Department’s policy of not supporting agriculture must be changed. If we are to feed ourselves we must expand our water use with “victory gardens” in every yard, park, school, and diversified agriculture on all prime land. The irrigation systems associated with the now closed plantations are available for conversion into supplying irrigation water for diversified agriculture farming.

The Water Department must take a leadership position in working with DLNR and the Department of Agriculture to insure both our water and our food.

I sincerely believe that we should be using the still affordable fossil energy that we have, to invest in infrastructure that requires very low energy to run (e.g. gravity flow). We need to rapidly reduce our dependence on off-island sources. We need to replace systems that are inherently limited by available imported energy (e.g. groundwater pumping). Aggressive restructuring of the system for resiliency and energy efficiency and purchases of renewable energy systems are powerful steps that can be taken to improve our water security while combating global warming. We could all learn from how the Hawaiians and the early plantations operated. These necessary steps to save finite fossil fuel resources and finite biosphere must be done soon.

Business-as-usual will can only lead to there being no water in the pipes and most people unable to live in their homes. You have a choice, support David Craddick's efforts to restructure the water system to gravity flow or plan on moving.

see also:

Water - The Uncertain Resource - Part One
http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2009/10/07/12268/noted_lecturers_grapple_with_water_the_uncertain_resource

Water - The Uncertain Resource - Part Two
http://www.minnpost.com/craigbowron/2009/10/08/12314/uncertain_resource_do_we_have_a_water_crisis_or_a_crisis_of_water_management

Now I Understand 'Cap and Trade'

There's a lot of good compiled stuff here on the Clean Energy bill. Check out the 'cap and trade' video Agriculture's Role in a Cap and Trade System: An AFT Video Tutorial [MOV] 51.1MB:

From: http://www.farmland.org/programs/environment/workshops/Agriculture-and-Clean-Energy-National-Webinar.asp

Agriculture and Clean Energy National Webinar

for Landowners, Farmers, Policy Makers and Concerned Citizens Agriculture's Opportunity in Clean Energy Legislation Agriculture policy experts preview the Senate’s agriculture package and discuss how agriculture can benefit from proposed clean energy legislation, while providing the most cost-effective solutions to climate change. The discussion includes opportunities for farmers & ranchers, how a cap & trade system works, examples of success stories, comparison and contrast of legislation now in the House and the Senate, in addition to a lively question and answer session. Thursday October 8, 2009 Watch the Webinar (Windows Media Player) Featured Speakers Dennis Nuxoll; Senior Director, Government Relations, American Farmland Trust Dennis' Presentation: Agriculture's Opportunities in Clean Energy Legislation Dr. Mathew Roberts; Agricultural Economist, Ohio State University Dr. Roberts Presentation: Carbon Pricing and Agriculture, A Research Review Anita Zurbrugg; Assistant Director, Center for Agriculture in the Environment, American Farmland Trust Background Reading Role of Agriculture Under Proposed Climate Change Legislation Responses to a House Draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 [PDF] 83.5 kB Myths and Facts Surrounding Climate Change Legislation [PDF] 183 kB Agriculture's Role in a Cap and Trade System: An AFT Video Tutorial [MOV] 51.1MB Economic Effects of ACES on Agriculture Summary of Recent Cost Impact Data for ACES Act 2009 [PDF] 1.68 MB The Value of a Carbon Offset Market for Agriculture [PDF] 231 kB USDA Analysis of the Economic Effects of ACES on Agriculture [PDF] 65kB Agricultural Land and Offsetting Greenhouse Gasses Contributing to the Mitigation of Climate Change Using Rangeland Management [PDF] 102 kB Rangelands and Climate Change: A Synthesis and Challenges [PDF] 42 kB Legislative Background Timeline of Significant Climate Dates View the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 text [PDF] 2.3MB For more information please contact Jennifer Morrill, Director of Media Relations, 202-378-1255 or jmorrill@farmland.org.

STOP the SHOT! Update

STOP the SHOT!

"Liberty is to the collective body what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."

---Thomas Jefferson

NY Vaccine Choice Rally Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7slquv-wus

---

"Stop the Shot"

Litigation Filed Today in DC Court!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1545

Read Press Release Here:

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3617

“Stop the Shot” Complaint for Injunction filed in DC District Court Today!

MEDIA RELEASE

Natural Solutions Foundation
The Voice of Global Health Freedom™
http://www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org/

For Immediate Release:

“STOP THE SHOT” Litigation Filed
Health Freedom Advocates and NY Health Care Workers Seek Protection from DC Federal Court
Legal Effort to Void FDA Swine Flu Vaccine Approval

Washington DC – October 9, 2009: Despite the FDA’s intention to begin delivery this week of the “Swine Flu” 2009-H1N1-A live virus nasal mist vaccine to 90,000 government-approved locations nationwide, six New Yorkers and several NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs) filed for an Emergency Injunction in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the distribution of what they believe are illegal, unnecessary and dangerous vaccines.

The case of Null et al. v FDA et al. [Docket No. 1:09-cv-01924] challenges the legality of the September 15th licensing of four vaccines prior to any safety testing for what the government calls a “novel flu virus with pandemic potential.” The complaint alleges that the government failed to follow its own rules and applicable legislation in rushing the vaccine approvals in the absence of any of the requisite minimum scientifically sound and appropriate testing for both safety and effectiveness as required by law since 1964.

Link to Complaint:http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=3619
Link to Brief: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=3624
Link to Action eAlert: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3635

The New Yorkers are all health care workers who are therefore subject to that State’s new legal mandate (promulgated August 13, 2009) requiring that nearly all of the State’s half million health care workers receive all Federally recommended flu vaccines or lose their jobs. This requirement puts the health care workers in significant jeopardy since these newly approved vaccines have never been tested for either safety or efficacy and may carry major risks.

The lawsuit, announced at a demonstration by the health care workers last week at the State Capitol in Albany on September 29, 2009, is expected to be just one of the suits filed challenging various government “emergency” actions for a flu that has proven (during the just concluded Southern Hemisphere flu season) to be neither pandemic nor virulent despite dire predictions to the contrary and despite a Health Emergency declared by the CDC on April 25, 2009, 11 days after the first alleged death from Swine Flu on April 14, 2009 and a Level 6 Pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization followed on June 11, 2009 (which was only possible since W.H.O. downgraded the definition of a “Level 6 Pandemic”).

The Plaintiffs include health care professionals such as Dr. Gary Null, PhD, a well-known New York nutritionist, Rima E. Laibow, MD, a New York licensed physician who is Medical Director and a Trustee of the Natural Solutions Foundation, Dr. Tedd Koren DC, head of Foundation for Health Choice and four other health care workers covered by the mandate, including a Registered Nurse who has had prior adverse reactions to flu vaccines; a pregnant Nurse’s Aide, a health care student who has been told that she cannot see the patients whom she must see in order to finish her training, and a woman who works in the billing department of a hospital. All have been denied exemptions and told they will lose their positions under the new mandate if they are not vaccinated with all flu vaccines, including the new “Swine Flu” vaccine.

The Complaint alleges that the FDA erred in determining that safety testing was not needed because the 2009-H1N1-A vaccines are a mere “change of strain” not requiring safety testing. The Plaintiffs claim there is no significant scientific agreement that supports the government’s actions. The experts presented by the Plaintiffs include Sarah Schon MD, a Board Certified Immunologist and Paul G. King PhD, a noted analytical chemist with decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Plaintiffs further allege that the Live Attenuated Influenza Virus (LAIV) nasal mist vaccine could trigger the very pandemic the government claims people should fear, calling the decision to allow a LAIV vaccine using a WHO and CDC declared “novel pandemic virus” an “arbitrary and capricious decision without any basis in the scientific record.”

Citing HHS Secretary Sebelius’s September 15th testimony before a Congressional committee when she announced the vaccine licensing, that even the FDA’s own scientists would not “sign-off” on the use of the most toxic vaccine ingredients (known as “oil in water adjuvants”) the Plaintiffs allege the government has a plan to nonetheless approve these substances, never before approved for drug use in the United States, under an “Emergency Use Authorization” (EUA) permitted by the 2005 Project Bioshield Act. On July 13, 2009, according to a press release on the www.HHS.gov web site, the government purchased nearly a half billion dollar’s worth ($485 Million USD) of the deadly adjuvnt squalene, an oil in water adjuvant, blamed by many nongovernmental physicians as a “Gulf War Syndrome” causative agent in more than 25% of the soldiers who were subjected to an experimental anthrax vaccine, Vaccine A, containing squalene. Vaccine A was later authorized under an EUA propmpting a Court ruling that makes its use legal only in voluntary situations. The government’s stockpile is enough squalene to “stretch” the 167 million doses of “Swine Flu” vaccine the government has purchased to cover the entire American population since the purpose of an adjuvant is to increase immune response to the injected material. The FDA web site indicates that the adjuvanted vaccines will be provided under an EUA which will allow the agency to skirt “Good Manufacturing Practices” and any issue of whether squalene is too dangerous to be permitted.

Secretary Sebelius further testified before Congress that a single company will be contracted by the government to deliver the vaccines to 90,000 locations around the country. The FDA site further indicates that the squalene will be mixed with the approved vaccines at those sites before administering the shots, without regard to normal pharmaceutical manufacturing requirements. The Plaintiffs claim that this will result in dangerously adulterated vaccines that may cause much more injury than the infamous 1976 “Swine Flu” vaccine program that killed hundreds and maimed thousands before it was stopped just ten weeks after it began, with nearly fifty million Americans having received that deadly shot or the dangerous squalene-adjuvanted Vaccine A which caused so many cataclysmic illnesses and deaths in Gulf War I military personnel. These shots, too, were both unnecessary and untested.

In their submitted Complaint, Brief and Certifications the Plaintiffs remind the Court that as early as 1905, even before the Federal authorities had the legal power to license vaccines, the Supreme Court stated, in Jacobson v Massachusetts (197 U.S. 11),

“We are not to be understood as holding … that the judiciary would not be competent to interfere and protect the health and life of the individual … ‘All laws,’ this court has said, ’should receive a sensible construction. General terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression or absurd consequence.’ …”

The lead attorney for the Plaintiffs, Leslie Fourton JD, of New York, is working with the respected Washington regulatory law firm of Swankin and Turner and a team of legal experts from around the country, including Larry Becraft JD, Alabama, Alan G. Phillips JD, North Carolina, and Ralph Fucetola JD, New Jersey.

Counsel Fourton stated,

“Without taking into account serious objections raised by many scientists, FDA approved four “Swine Flu” 2009-H1N1-A Vaccines without enough concern about any definitive safety testing and the quality thereof. The Secretary of Health and Human Services testified before Congress, announcing the approvals and a program to widely distribute the Vaccines which were purchased by the federal government. The administrative record appears to be defective in that the record as posted on the Agency web site does not include, for all the approved Vaccines, a drug package insert or label with an accurate list of ingredients. We don’t know what was approved or how dangerous it may be. The Plaintiffs seek immediate relief.”

The nongovernmental organizations who are supporting the New Yorkers threatened by the “Swine Flu” vaccine approvals, by joining in the legal action, are the National Solutions Foundation (www.HealthFreedomUSA.org), whose President is Maj Gen Bert Stubblebine (US Army Ret.), Dr. Tedd Koren’s Foundation for Health Choice (www.FoundationforHealthChoice.com) and the Gary Null organization (www.GaryNull.com).

For further information contact:

Ralph Fucetola JD
Natural Solutions Foundation Counsel and Trustee

This Media Release is being posted at: PRWEB – Tracking Number 3023904

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Activism, Autism, Avian Flu, Citizen's Petition, Genocide, Medical Hazards, Pandemic Threats, Promising Developments, Self Quarantine, Self-Shield, Swine Flu, Vaccination, Weaponized Avian Flu.

Why so much squalene? Read on.

A pair of patents filed in 1998 provide a means of turning the immune system of anyone receiving an injection of squalene at high doses plus a pig glycoprotein (very similar to the many biologically active human glycoproteins we all have) against the reproductive capacity of that person...

Natural Solutions Foundation Seeks Delay in Vaccine Use Until Legally Required Safety Testing Has Been Completed

Although safety testing of all vaccines is inadequate, as shown by the high levels of side effects, adverse events and damage caused by vaccines, especially influenza vaccines [and most especially, live attenuated influenza virus or LAIV vaccines], even that safety testing has been eliminated by the FDA. The government says that the H1N1 virus is so novel that they classify it as a "bioweapon"...

After you read the Complaint and the Brief and some documentation on the dangers of Squalene and similar adjuvants, it's time to talk about what you can - what we believe we all must...

Link to Complaint

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=3619

Link to Brief
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=3624

Read more: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3617

Squalene: Be Very Afraid I

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3582

Squalene: Be Very Afraid II

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=3592

Big Island Council goes on the record questioning H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine

From: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2009/10/07/local_news/local03.txt

"Naeole criticizes swine flu vaccine"
Mercury levels in shots are toxic, councilwoman says
by Jason Armstrong
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer

October 7, 2009

County Council members oppose mandatory vaccinations and want tighter restrictions on alcohol use at a popular Puna beach park.

Meeting as the Human Services and Economic Development Committee, lawmakers voted 7-1 for a resolution asking Hawaii's state and federal officials to allow people to skip flu and other vaccines.

State law provides that "no exception from immunization against the disease shall be recognized" if the Department of Health feels there's a danger of an epidemic, states the nonbinding measure from Puna Councilwoman Emily Naeole.

Her measure states that flu and swine flu vaccines contain 25 times the amount of mercury considered to be "toxic."

The measure, which goes to the full council for adoption during its Oct. 21 meeting in Hilo, asks state and federal lawmakers to amend vaccine laws to allow for medical, religious or philosophical exemptions.

The flu vaccine "is neither adequately tested, proven safe or effective," Naeole wrote in a letter accompanying her resolution.

"The purpose of this resolution is to protect citizens who object to mandatory vaccinations for any reason from the forced vaccination program," she added...


From: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091008/BREAKING01/91008046?source=rss_breaking

"State health officials say Big Island council resolution on flu vaccine off the mark"
By Bret Yager
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
October 8, 2009

HILO — State public health officials are refuting claims made in a Hawaii County Council resolution that casts doubt on the safety of swine flu vaccines.

Saying that state and federal health officials could force the vaccines on the public in a pandemic situation, the resolution endorsed Tuesday by the council's Human Services and Economic Development Committee calls the vaccines unsafe.

The nonbinding resolution also calls on the state and federal government to exempt those who don't want the vaccines from any mandatory vaccination program.

The resolution introduced by Puna Councilwoman Emily Naeole claims the vaccine contains 25 times the level of mercury considered toxic. The vaccine has not been properly tested and proven safe, Naeole said.

Committee members voted 7-1 in favor of the resolution, which still must pass a regular council vote...

While there may be emergency provisions that allow the state to mandate vaccines, that has not been on the table in Hawaii or any other state that she's aware of, state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said. The Health Department has tried to put out a strong message to the contrary, she said...

Here's an interesting "Plastic Bag Ban" that did not show up on Industry's List

From: http://kgmb9.com/main/content/view/14501/108/

See video at above link.

"Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe 'Bags' Plastic Bag"

Written by Sunrise on KGMB9 - sunrise@kgmb9.com

February 27, 2009 09:16 AM

Encouraging conservation, the Marine Corps Exchange is one of several retail outlets aboard Marine Corps Base Hawaii eliminating conventional plastic bags. Since the Jan. 1 switch, businesses are offering paper bags for customers without reusable totes. Other base retailers, including the Marine Mart, have stopped ordering plastic bags and will no longer use them once the current supply runs out. The move away from plastic is part of a directive to be environmentally friendly from Col. Robert Rice, commanding officer, MCBH. "What we’re trying to address is the larger picture of encouraging the use of reusable products," said Maj. David Huddock, director, Environmental Department, MCB Hawaii. "We want to reduce the amount of waste we generate." Huddock said the intention of the plastic bag ban is to reduce litter and the amount of plastic in the base landfill located near the MCBH Rifle Range. The base is subject to fines of up to $25,000 from the Hawaii Department of Health for uncollected loose trash, which could include abandoned plastic bags. Plastic is a growing component of solid waste for cities nationwide. More than 14 million tons of plastic was thrown out nationwide in 2007, according the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site. The Fresno, Calif. city government’s Web site notes plastic can take up to 700 years to decompose in a landfill. The move for all Marine Corps Community Services businesses to reduce plastic bags is an on-going project. Vendors like the Kingpin Snack Bar at K-Bay Lanes have already eliminated plastic bags, while others have scheduled specific dates to stop. The Marine Corps Exchange Annex on base will discontinue offering plastic bags by March 1. The Manana Housing Complex’s Mini-Mart in Pearl City, Hawaii will stop by April 1. There are several options for customers looking for reusable bags, said Sharon Cucurak, marketing technician, MCCS. "At the Exchange there are three types of bags currently available," she said. "There’s a Marine Green Bag, featuring the Marine Corps logo. There are also two bags from a local company on sale. Those bags are made from cotton and [are] compostable." A limited distribution of free reusable bags is planned for the near future with bags going to shoppers at both the Exchange and the commissary (grocery store) on base. The MCB Hawaii recycling program for conventional plastic bags continues, and Huddock said users can drop off their empty bags into any of the blue bins located throughout the base. "We have bins at the Exchange, the commissary, the Annex and the Marine Mart," he said. "Despite the downturn in the economy we’re still collecting and holding onto [them] in hopes to have them recycled into construction materials or any number of [other] things." Marine Corps Base Hawaii, along with the Coast Guard Exchange at the Integrated Support Command (ISC), Honolulu, are the first military bases in Hawaii to ban plastic bags in the Aloha State. To learn more: www.mcbh.usmc.mil/

News from Industry on the most recent of 11 total plastic carryout bag bans in the U.S.

The 'invincible' plastics industry had a surprisingly weak effort here on Kauai. Here is an interesting article from them yesterday:

From: http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=16817

"Kauai joins ban list, but Alaska community rescinds its bag tax"
By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS Posted October 8, 2009

WASHINGTON (Updated Oct. 9, 8:30 a.m. ET) -- Kauai County has become the second county in Hawaii to ban plastic carryout bags at retail establishments...

The Kauai ban, approved Oct. 7, applies to all retailers in the county and mandates that retailers only offer shoppers at checkout lines reusable bags, non-petroleum-based biodegradable plastic bags and 100 percent recyclable paper bags that have a minimum of 40 percent recycled content and which contain no old-growth fiber.

Both the Kauai County ban and the Maui County ban, which was approved last year, are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2011, effectively banning plastic carryout bags on two of the Hawaii’s four largest islands. A proposed ban in Hawaii County was vetoed a year ago.

The Maui County ban prohibits all plastic carryout bags, including those made from bio-based resins. Kauai retailers have the option to charge customers for the biodegradable and paper carryout bags, and the county plans to distribute 25,000 free reusable bags to residents this month...

There are 11 plastic carryout bag bans in the U.S., six of which were enacted this year, including one in Edmonds, Wash., a town of 40,000 located on the Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. The Edmonds ban, approved July 28, will go into effect Aug. 27, 2010.

In addition to Edmonds, two small Alaskan towns, three counties on the Outer Banks in North Carolina and the northern California towns of Palo Alto and San Jose also passed plastic bag bans this year.

The ban in Hooper Bay, Alaska, went into effect in August, the ban in the North Carolina counties of Hyde, Dare and Currituck went into effect Sept. 1 and the Palo Alto ban went into effect Sept. 18

The plastic bag ban in Bethel, Alaska, goes into effect Sept. 1, 2010. The ban in San Jose was approved Sept. 22 pending an environmental impact review by the city, and must be approved again after that environmental review before it can go into Dec. 31, 2010.

The San Jose ban would only permit retailers to distribute at checkout paper bags with at least 40 percent recycled content, and require retailers to charge customers for those paper bags. The ban does not apply to restaurants, non-profits and social service organizations.

Westport, Conn., and the California cities of San Francisco, Fairfax and Malibu also have bans on plastic carryout bags. A ban on plastic bags in Manhattan Beach, Calif., that covered 217 stores and restaurants was overturned in court, but the city plans to conduct an environmental impact report, as required under the California Environmental Quality Act, in an effort to get an okay to implement the ban.

In addition, Ocean City, Md., will have a public debate Oct. 15 on whether to ban plastic carryout bags.

Breaking news results (11 matches, displaying most recent 3)

Kauai joins ban list, but Alaska community rescinds its bag tax - October 8, 2009
... rejected a proposed 20-cent tax on plastic and paper carryout bags. There are 11 plastic carryout bag bans in the U.S., six of which were enacted this year, including one in Edmonds, Wash., a town of ...

San Jose, Calif., votes to ban plastic and paper bags - September 23, 2009
... content. Consumers would have to pay a fee for those bags. There are 10 plastic carryout bag bans in the United States, five of which were enacted this year. * A ban in Edmonds, ...

Bag makers launching sustainable packaging project - September 21, 2009
... (Sept. 21, 8:40 p.m. ET) -- In an effort to boost environmental sustainability, several plastic bag manufacturers are pursuing more proactive self-policing steps toward green packaging. Joseph ...

View All 11 Breaking news matches

Print archive results (124 matches, displaying most recent 10)

NEWCLIPS - September 28, 2009
... paper shopping bags — a move which, if finalized, would become the 11th U.S. plastic carryout bag ban. The San Jose law still requires an environmental review, plus a final approval by the ...

China resin maker takes slow, practical route to bioplastics - September 28, 2009
... system,” he said. Certain government measures, however, are helping Biograde compete. A plastic bag ban that took effect last year in China has helped the company become more cost competitive. The ...

Alaska borough to tax carryout bags - September 21, 2009
... money will be used by the Fairbanks borough for recycling programs. There are 10 plastic carryout bag bans in the U.S., five of which were enacted this year — including one in Edmonds, Wash., a town ...

Seattle voters snub 20-cent tax on bags - August 24, 2009
... Council had passed the fee on carryout bags July 28, 2008, but the Coalition to Stop the Seattle Bag Tax, funded almost entirely by the American Chemistry Council and its Progressive Bag Affiliates ...

Bag fee debate is heating up in Seattle - August 3, 2009
... fee on single-use grocery bags. That compares to $64,000 that has been raised by the Seattle Green Bag campaign, the primary group supporting the referendum to reduce the estimated 360 million bags ...

Image drive feasible,needs broad support - July 13, 2009
... plastics. There's no doubt about it, plastics have an image problem that has fueled issues like bag taxes and bans, which have popped up around the world. Bottled-water bans may be next. Many in the ...

Bags banned in 3 N.C. counties - July 6, 2009
... program that are equal to, or greater than, the retailer's cost of providing the customer a paper bag made from 100 percent recycled ...

Playing offense - June 29, 2009
... of plastics. You can't have a conversation with them, and to a lot of them, if you are not doing bag or bottle-to-bottle recycling, it is not recycling to them.” Given that scenario, he ...

Is plastic's image root of bag bans? - June 15, 2009
... the plastics industry that was feeling pretty good after some recent victories in efforts to stop bag bans. Steiner's comments, and the U.N. report, generated a ton of headlines around the world. ...

Carryout bag fees go nowhere in California State Legislature - June 8, 2009
... would have required manufacturers and distributors to pay .001 cent for each single-use carryout bag they provide to stores, died in committee. A separate producer responsibility bill advocated by ...

View All 124 Print archive matches

Multimedia: Slideshow results (1 match)

China's plastic bag ban - June 19, 2008
... are packed at a Guangzhou market, over another 'No plastic bag banner. China has some daunting pollution problems — a World Bank study, for example, said it ...

Opinion results (10 matches, displaying most recent 3)

Bans not the answer - September 18, 2009
... Loepp’s Viewpoint [“Is plastic’s image root of bag bans?” June 15, Page 6] was well crafted and presented. While it did not directly answer the ...

Image campaign can work, but needs support - July 10, 2009
... plastics.There's no doubt about it, plastics have an image problem that has fueled issues like bag taxes and bans, which have popped up around the world. Bottled-water bans may be next.Many in the ...

Let's ban the pundits, not bags - June 25, 2009
... 26, 2009) -- Your Viewpoint ['Is plastic's image root of bag bans?” June 15, Page 6] was well crafted and presented. While it did not directly answer the ...

View All 10 Opinion matches

The Plastics Blog results (47 matches, displaying most recent 3)

Why did Seattle defeat the bag tax? - August 20, 2009
... it would be fun to share some opinions from a variety of sources: Frankly, Seattle, a plastic bag fee is a no-brainer, and it is proven to work. The cost is low enough to be a nominal dent in your ...

Small towns in Alaska ban plastic bags - July 22, 2009
... is a hotbed of plastic bag bans -- a trend I didn't realize until I read this story from the Anchorage Daily News. The ...

Can Toronto's bag tax stand up in court? - June 16, 2009
... social and environmental well-being' of the municipality. But the story notes that with the bag law, Toronto became 'the first municipality in Canada to pass a law that dictates part of the ...

View All 47 The Plastics Blog matches

Kaua'i Passes Plastic Bag Ban

Good wrap-up article. Some comments on it at the bottom:

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/08/news/kauai_news/doc4acd8fd817624509143733.txt

"Plastic bags to be banned"
By Michael Levine - The Garden Island

October 8, 2009

LIHU‘E — After a two-week delay to huddle with the county attorney and revise the wording to ease enforcement, the Kaua‘i County Council on Wednesday morning passed an ordinance that will outlaw single-use plastic checkout bags from the island’s retail establishments despite objections from some members of the business community.

“I feel very pleased that Kaua‘i has made a statement in support of the environment,” Councilman Tim Bynum, who co-introduced the legislation, said outside Council Chambers following the 4-2 vote and a round of applause from citizens in attendance.

Councilwoman Lani Kawahara, who co-introduced the bill with Bynum and “voted proudly in support,” said the ordinance is an important step forward in solving an “environmental crisis” as it helps provide stewardship of the island’s unique environment, including “the waters that run around and through it.”

The bill, soon to be signed into law by Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., will go into effect on Jan. 11, 2011 — the same day a similar ban will take effect on Maui.

“I am pleased with the approval and thank the County Council for bringing up important questions regarding implementation and enforcement,” Carvalho said in an e-mail from spokeswoman Mary Daubert.

The altered implementation date was one of several changes recommended by Deputy County Attorney Mike Dahilig.

Also included in the approved amendment was a loosened definition for “biodegradable bag” that will allow County Engineer Donald Fujimoto and the county Department of Public Works to work with the Office of the County Attorney to craft administrative rules to define the distinction between eligible and ineligible bags.

Removed from the definition was a a requirement that eligible bags conform to the European Standard EN13432, established by the European Committee for Normalisation. That clause was not in the original proposed legislation but was added by the council’s Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee in August at the urging of Brad Parsons and other concerned community members.

The definition still includes the provision that biodegradable bags will contain “no polymers derived from fossil fuels,” as well as the requirements that they are intended for single use and will decompose at a rate comparable to paper, leaves and food.

The bill was deferred after Council Chair Bill “Kaipo” Asing asked the county attorney to take another look at its enforcement issues.

Bynum said the long-term hope is that all single-use bags will be phased out.

Outside Council Chambers, Dahilig said the definition was changed because science is still “fluid” on types of plastics, and standards for biodegradability differ from Europe to America to Brazil.

Fujimoto said his department plans to incorporate existing standards into their administrative rules — which will be written and adopted through a standard public hearing process. Dahilig said the intention was the county will not need to contract an outside chemist to do testing on different bags to determine their compliance with the law.

“Looking at the wording, we have the utmost confidence that Public Works and the county engineer will be able to enforce this ordinance,” Parsons said outside Council Chambers.

Other changes implemented by the council Wednesday include amendments to sections of the bill dealing with penalties for noncompliance and exemptions for certain businesses.

Offenders will be fined $250 per day for the first notice of violation, $500 per day for the second notice within 365 days of the first, and $1,000 per day for subsequent notices in that same time frame. Previously, those fine amount were to be $100, $200 and $500 per violation within the same year.

While the effective date of the ordinance was pushed back from July 1, 2010, to Jan. 11, 2011, it could actually have a broader impact sooner because a major exemption was eliminated.

Removed from the bill was language that allowed the county engineer to exempt retailers for up to 18 months upon showing “undue hardship,” including situations where there are no acceptable alternatives to plastic bags for reasons unique to that retailer.

Now, only situations where compliance would “deprive a retail establishment of any rights to which it would be entitled” would be granted exemptions. Fundraisers by nonprofit organizations falling under Section 501(c) of the federal Internal Revenue Code or community booster organizations will also be exempt from the ordinance.

Councilman Dickie Chang estimated that support testimony outnumbered opposition by up to 6-to-1. He voted to pass the bill with Bynum, Kawahara and Vice Chair Jay Furfaro.

However, some did speak out against the proposal.

Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce President Randall Francisco wrote in a September e-mail testimony that the chamber “strongly believes that with continued education, research, patience and a commitment to continuing to honor our Hawaiian/Kaua‘i sense of place and community, in the very short term ... Kaua‘i residents/visitors will continue to move in the direction of using/reusing/recycling biodegradable bags and reusable bags ... without a need for further government intervention in the marketplace.”

“Our kuleana is always about having a better and more sustainable Kaua‘i and island lifestyle for everyone, without having government’s ‘hand in every pocketbook,’” Francisco wrote.

The Retail Merchants of Hawai‘i and Hawai‘i Food Industry Association also provided testimony in opposition on the grounds that the environmental concerns are unfounded and that biodegradable and paper bags are considerably more expensive than plastic ones.

Councilman Daryl Kaneshiro said he could not vote in support because he believes the promotion of plastic bag recycling through redemption centers would be better than passing a ban.

“I don’t like government intervention in marketplace, basically,” he said, echoing Francisco’s testimony, adding that the end result is going to cost everybody “in the pocketbook.” He said he would prefer to include a sunset clause to force the council to revisit the issue down the road.

“The problem is not the plastic bags, the problem is people,” agreed Asing, who instead pushed for more education and worried that enforcing the ordinance will prove to be a “huge responsibility” for Public Works.

Kaneshiro and Asing cast the two “no” votes. Derek Kawakami recused himself for the entirety of the bill deliberation due to his role with Big Save supermarkets.

Reader Comments

Kauaibrad wrote on Oct 8, 2009 9:07 AM:

Special thanks to the Mayor for his support of the bill and now ordinance on this. Without the Mayor's support, attempts to derail this bill might have been successful. Implementation of this bill will be dependent upon department heads that report to the Mayor. The eventual success of this ordinance still rests with the Mayor, and we believe he is genuine in his support of this Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance.

Kauaibrad wrote on Oct 8, 2009 2:39 PM:

Was talking with a seasoned traveler today visiting the island and he was glad to see that Kaua'i passed a plastic bag ban. He was comparing Kaua'i to Bali which he recently visited (in prior years, but not the most recent year, Bali was rated the top island destination in the world) and he was dismayed at the plastic bags that litter all over Bali. Bali has a million population and he says the littered plastic bags are in places that he thinks they will never get them all picked up. Bali has since fallen out of the top island destination ranking as has Maui. We still have a chance to do it right on Kaua'i.

Related Posts from http://www.wendmag.com/greenery/2009/10/kauai-bans-plastic-bags/

1. Mexico City Bans Plastic Bags in Stores and Businesses
2. Wales Launching Campaign to Ban Plastic Bags
3. Citizens Ask the Portland City Council to Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags
4. UN Environment Chief Wants Global Ban on Plastic Bags
5. China Reports 66 Percent Drop in Plastic Bag Use

Stop Oil Speculation (SOS) Now! Update

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/business/2009/10/091008_commodities_speculation.shtml

8 October, 2009
"Speculators and the price of commodities"

Eighteen months ago the price of oil and other essential commodities was at record levels. There were riots in many parts of the world over food.

At the time, there was much talk of a raft of factors like political concerns in the Middle East and poor crops because of drought. And there were mutterings about speculation - but no hard evidence.

The BBC's Ed Butler looks back at the events themselves.

So that's some of the case against, the circumstantial evidence. But what about the smoking guns, the blood-stained daggers, those irrefutable prints at the scene of the crime?

Some are now emerging. The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, for example, has studied price movements and concluded that they couldn't all be explained by the fundamentals.

And, perhaps most damning of all, a big-time speculator is now identifying speculation as one of the causes in the movement of the price of oil.

Michael Masters is a mover of money who's based on the low-tax, high-sun island of St Croix in the Caribbean, from where he runs his company, Masters Capital Management.

He thinks he's identified the flows of money, particularly with the buying of oil. With financial markets, it's often not about buying goods for actual delivery but simply as an asset to be resold later.

First broadcast on Business Daily 8 October 2009

Save the Bees: "Vanishing of the Bees" Trailer

From: http://www.organicconsumers.org/ Save the Bees!

A new documentary (trailer below) seeks to unravel the mystery of why billions of honey bees have been disappearing from hives across the United States.

"Vanishing of the Bees" follows a group of U.S. beekeepers hit by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which first struck in 2004 and made U.S. headlines three years later.

Countless bees would suddenly vanish, leaving an empty hive but few bodies. While all of the causes of this disaster are yet to be established, evidence suggests a link to Bayer's insecticide imidacloprid.

Reports on the "Dollar's Demise"...Handwriting on the Wall

From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/33193382

"Secret Meeting To Plan Dollar's Demise?"

By Lee Brodie October 6, 2009

Reports surfaced Tuesday...bounce the dollar as the currency used to trade oil.

The chatter largely stemmed from an article in Britain's "Independent" newspaper that said secret meetings were taking place between Arab states, China, Russia, Japan and France, to end dollar dealings for oil and moving instead to a basket of currencies.

And the newspaper goes on to say the nations intend to implement the change -- in as little as 9 years.

Although the reports were later denied, the news helps explains the sudden surge in gold prices which would be included in the basket along with the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.”

Should you put any stock in this report?

"I’ve heard the story many times," explains strategic investor Dennis Gartman on Fast Money. "But what's different this time is that the story came out in the Independent, which is a pretty well respected newspaper."

Also, there's some new information in this report that makes it seem more credible. Specifically the fact that France and Japan were part of the discussion.

"Of course everybody denied being at the meeting, they have to," says Gartman. "But do I doubt for a moment that those talks have taken place somewhere? That leaders have talked behind curtains about the fact the world needs to diversify away from the dollar?"

"I don't doubt that for a moment," Gartman says...

"3-days from now I think the dollar is probably stronger but long-term I think the dollar is heading lower," says Gartman.

What do you think? We want to know!

Do you think world leaders have met secretly in an attempt to diversify away from the dollar. Yes, without doubt. No, unless they were in a James Bond movie. Vote to see results

Do you think world leaders have met secretly in an attempt to diversify away from the dollar. * 3461 responses Yes, without doubt. 90% No, unless they were in a James Bond movie. 10% Not a Scientific Survey. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/dollar-tumbles-on-report-of-its-demise-1798713.html
"Dollar tumbles on report of its demise"
Gold price at record high as Independent story sends global markets into a frenzy
By Stephen Foley in New York 7 October 2009

The price of gold is surging on world markets amid fears that the old economic order based on the supremacy of the US dollar could be breaking down.

A new spike has sent the cost of the precious metal to a level not seen before. The dollar slid sharply after yesterday's report in The Independent that Gulf Arab states are secretly planning to stop trading oil in dollars, and a senior UN official said that the US should be stripped of its position as the main source of currency reserves for other countries.

The developments come on top of speculation that the Obama administration is operating a policy of benign neglect of the dollar, engineering a devaluation that could help repair some of the economic damage caused by the recession.

Related articles

• Robert Fisk: A financial revolution with profound political implications
• David Prosser: China's push for power is irresistible
• The demise of the dollar

Not since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 has gold been treated as the equivalent of a world currency, but The Independent reported that it could form part of a basket of currencies that would be used for oil trading...

The US government's debt – which stands at $11.86 trillion (£7.45trn) after tax revenues collapsed with the recession and the Treasury spent billions on propping up the banking system – would be easier to repay if the value of the dollar was lower. Economists noted that the US resisted pressure to include a promise to protect the stability of world currencies in last weekend's communiqué from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), sparking growing concern that the Obama administration could be content to see the currency fall. That would make US exports more competitive and could spark a manufacturing jobs revival.

Overseas governments are in a bind because they hold trillions of dollars as reserves to protect them against a financial crisis. They are seeing the value of those reserves decline, but starting to swap them for gold or other currencies could deluge world markets with unwanted dollars and send the value of the greenback even lower. The situation is particularly sensitive for oil-producing nations, who are paid in dollars for their exports and therefore hold high dollar reserves.

Gulf Arabs have begun planning – with China, Russia, Japan and France – to move from dollar dealings for oil to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The revelation was met with public denials yesterday. The Saudi central bank governor, Muhammad al-Jasser, said: "The future is in God's hands. Today, the conditions are good for the arrangement we have." The Japanese Finance Minister, Hirohisa Fujii, said he "doesn't know anything about it".

Dennis Gartman, the US investment guru who writes the daily Gartman Letter, said that no one should be surprised to hear denials. "We are certain that spokespeople for every single nation will be brought to the fore to deny that any such meetings have occurred, that no such decisions have been made, that it is not in anyone's interest to have held such meetings or made such decisions," he told clients as The Independent story broke...

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html
"The demise of the dollar"
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
By Robert Fisk 6 October 2009

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years...

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets...

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

Related articles

• Robert Fisk: A financial revolution with profound political implications
• David Prosser: China's push for power is irresistible

Hawaii Summer 2009 Hotel Occupancy Rates "Worst in 22 years"

Two good articles. The silver lining over the summer was the luxury segment.

"Hawaii hotels post weakest summer ever"
Industry revenue down an estimated $238M from 2008
By Robbie Dingeman Honolulu Advertiser October 5, 2009

Hotels in Hawai'i had their weakest summer on record — an average of 68.1 percent occupancy — according to a report released today.

Revenue per room has also plummeted as hotels lower rates to lure guests, said Joseph Toy, Hospitality Advisors LLC president and chief executive officer.

Occupancy for June, July and August was the lowest since Hospitality Advisors began conducting its survey in 1987, and compares with rates in the mid-80 percent range in the summer just three years ago...

Luxury hotels led all segments in both occupancy and average daily rate at 77.7 percent and $252.35, but were down 3.0 percentage points and 18.1 percent, respectively, from last year. Midprice and economy hotels tied for the lowest occupancy among statewide price classes at 61.3 percent...>>>Rest of article>>>

"Hotels suffer summer slide in rates"

By Allison Schaefers Honolulu Star-Bulletin Oct 05, 2009

Summer was anything but hot for Hawaii's hoteliers, who lost an estimated $238 million as they grappled with the worst busy season in more than two decades, according to a report released today from Hospitality Advisors LLC.

Occupancy declined for the 18th straight month in August with a 3.5 percentage-point drop to 70.9 percent, Hospitality Advisors said. In an attempt to stem the losses, hoteliers continued deep discounting, which resulted in a 15.9 percent decline in the state's average daily room rate...

While Oahu's luxury hotel occupancy, which hit 83.3 percent in August, was one of the few bright spots in Toy's report, Towill said some of the increase could be attributed to rate slashing...>>>Rest of article>>>

HOTEL OCCUPANCY

Occupancy rates at Hawaii hotels in August and the same month last year:

	2009	2008
Statewide	70.9 percent	74.4 percent
By Island
Oahu	78.3 percent	80.4 percent
Kauai	65.8 percent	74.2 percent
Maui	66.2 percent	69.1 percent
Big Island	57.2 percent	63.5 percent

Source: Hospitality Advisors LLC; Star-Bulletin

Boone Pickens on Natural Gas, Urgency, and "There's a Game and we have NO Team"

This is some good stuff, watch it to the end:

KIUC's Rapid Response PR Team?

From the article quoted below, Re: "Director Stewart “Stu” Burley disagreed, saying that after the rate case filing was approved, board members should not voice their personal opinions..."

It is common practice for a person in some capacity with a larger group, company, or organization to state in public that they are speaking for themselves and not in their capacity with the larger organization before they speak. This should be allowed for all individuals, as it is a First Amendment Right, regardless of whether they are on a Board such as the KIUC Board of Directors. Stu Burley's quoted position above is PATENTLY WRONG. Individual KIUC Board members SHOULD be able to voice their personal opinions even if it is counter to Board decisions.

It is especially concerning that the KIUC Board apparently voted to put Stu Burley in charge of the Committee to determine policy on this point. Regardless of whatever misguided policy that committee comes up with, KIUC Board Members are Constitutionally free to speak in public of their own positions on KIUC matters as long as they qualify that they are "speaking for themselves and 'not in their capacity with KIUC.'"

BTW, KIUC already has two full-time paid public relations employees in-house. This new KIUC Committee with more employees than Board members looks more like an effort to beef up quicker counter-response to public comments rather than an effort to endorse wider latitude in Board of Directors verbal interactions with the public/members. A rapid response PR team won't help if the underlying policies, plans, and lack of actions are intellectually 'bankrupt.'

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/06/news/kauai_news/doc4acaf5f779063590603876.txt

"Time to talk: KIUC board reviews communication policy"
By Michael Levine - The Garden Island October 6, 2009

LIHU‘E — Public frustration with the “invariable and inflexible” voice coming out of the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative office and the perceived lack of debate by the Board of Directors on important issues could change the way KIUC communicates with its members.

“From the outside, we see very little critical discourse, healthy disagreement on positions within the board, and diversity of opinion,” said Malama Kaua‘i’s Andrea Brower in prepared testimony at KIUC’s monthly board meeting last week.

“Communicated and integrated diversity of opinion amongst the board, staff, and members at large will allow for more open-minded and flexible decision-making,” Brower said. “This is difficult to achieve if you always have to speak in a single unified voice.”

Brower specifically pointed to dissatisfaction with KIUC’s rate case, which featured a public hearing with the Public Utilities Commission in late August at which some members complained about the direction of their utility company and the reluctance to move toward renewable energies.

Director Carol Bain said dialogue occurs between directors at workshops that do not have minutes or transcripts available to the public, and she eventually suggested that the board consider hiring a communications consultant to help directors talk directly to KIUC members.

Director Ben Sullivan, who seconded Bain’s motion for discussion purposes, said some level of disagreement is healthy, and that failing to share the debate with the public could hurt the board’s credibility.

“We can benefit from loosening it up,” he said, saying that the fear the open communication would undermine the process is unfounded.

Director Stewart “Stu” Burley disagreed, saying that after the rate case filing was approved, board members should not voice their personal opinions, and KIUC President and CEO Randy Hee said that his communications staff report on the board’s final decision and not individual views.

Attorney David Proudfoot said there is a difference between engagement and information, and said there are limits to member participation. Essentially, he said, members participate by voting directors into office, and the board’s decision-making process is “not a town meeting, unfortunately.”

Directors and staff agreed at the meeting that there is no gag order that precludes directors from voicing their opinions to the public.

Board Chair Teofilo “Phil” Tacbian said the majority rules but the minority’s rights are respected, then appointed Burley to a Communications Committee also featuring KIUC staff. Sullivan said he hoped Bain — who has been “vigorous” about communication issues — would get the appointment instead.

After the board took a recess for Proudfoot to arrange for ballots for a vote on the appointment, Hee said the original plan was to have a staff-only committee to respond to rapidly respond to member concerns, and Tacbian withdrew his appointment.

Bain also withdrew her motion for an outside consultant.

The board did not announce at the meeting which members of the staff will serve on the Communications Committee.

Kauai home sales decline, buyers market yet?

From: http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2009/10/05/daily12.html

Monday, October 5, 2009
Kauai home sales decline, condos rebound

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)

Sales of single-family homes on Kauai fell last month as condo sales rebounded and prices fell in both categories.

The median price of a single-family home in September was $499,000, a 5 percent decline from September 2008, when the price was $525,000, according to statistics from Hawaii Information Service. The number of sales, however, fell by 28.5 percent, with just 15 houses sold, compared to 21 sales in September 2008.

There were 14 condo sales last month, a 75 percent increase over the eight units sold in September 2008. The median price of a condo in September was $337,500, a 32 percent drop from $495,000 in September 2008.

Year-to-date sales on the Garden Isle were down by more than 20 percent in both categories.

Sales of single-family homes on Kauai were down 26 percent for the first nine months of the year, while the median price of $470,500 was down 25 percent from $630,000 during the same period in 2008.

The year-to-date median price of a condo was $330,000, down 41 percent from the first nine months of 2008, when it was $560,000. Sales of condos for the January-September period were down 21 percent from the same period in 2008.

Video News Reports from New Zealand TV

Some recent interesting news videos from New Zealand TV:

NZ Carbon Emission Costs + Cook Island story on Climate


Lessons from the Ice


Stash and Save


Other Recent NZ News Videos:

• NZ Petrol Price Increase
• The New Unemployed
• NZ Carbon Emission Costs + Cook Island story on Climate Change
• NZ Property Market
• Airline Death Spiral underway?
• Mobil and Shell looking to exit petrol retail in NZ
• Bar Up
• NZ Petrol Price + Aussie Petrol Supermarket War
• Rebirth of a Car Company
• Broomerang Effect
• NZ Petrol Price Update
• Lessons from the Ice
• What happened to the seasons?
• NZ Home Insulation Scheme
• Car Pool Google Maps Mashup
• Stash and Save
• Economy Shrinks
• Dumb Meters instead of Smart
• Unfair Road Taxes

Video Gen. Zinni: Energy and Environment biggest problems, not Extremists

Blindsided by KIUC’s Rate Hike Request?

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/03/opinion/kauai/doc4ac6f5be468fc742832368.txt

Excellent Op-Ed by Walter Lewis. Read to the last sentence:

"Blindsided by KIUC’s rate case"
By Walter Lewis - Special to The Garden Island October 3, 2009

It is probable that the impetus for the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative petition to the Public Utilities Commission for the 10.5 percent across-the-board rate increase now pending arose when its management saw the results for its operations in December 2008. For many months KIUC had been urging its customers to conserve electric use to keep their billings down.

When in late 2008 the recession impacted Kaua‘i as it had the rest of the nation, electric use dropped sharply by virtue of consumer conservation together with a plunge in Kaua‘i’s tourist activity and KIUC recorded a scary $3.3 million December monthly loss according to its PUC filings.

It is ironic that KIUC was encouraging customer conservation of use and then when they got it, KIUC management discovered that they wanted an rate increase to compensate for the revenue loss caused by the conservation practices.

By the time, however, that KIUC filed its application for increase in rates at the end of June 2009, its position had improved and it was again showing profitability.

The justification that KIUC urged for its proposed rate increases was not, though, based on its operating losses but rather that it wanted to avoid a risk of violating the covenant in the loan agreement it has with the Rural Utilities Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture which required it to maintain a favorable ratio of its earnings to its debt. This TIE (times interest earned) ratio had fallen briefly below the required 1.25 level, but in June 2009, the filing month, compliance had been restored.

Disturbingly, the concern of KIUC about its loan covenant existed largely because it did not want any impediment to impact its intended plans to make further borrowings from RUS related to its contemplated new generation facilities. Such facilities are not within the scope of the docket for its requested rate increase, but based on indications at KIUC community meetings seem to be in furtherance of maintaining fossil fuel generation rather than moving KIUC toward alternative energy.

The PUC held a well-attended Kaua‘i public hearing on the rate increase proposal on Aug. 25. Nearly 100 comments were received at or in the allowed period following the hearing. Except for the testimony by KIUC management and one other person — the spouse of KIUC’s public relations director — the views expressed were all negative to the proposed increase.

Although the PUC has generally discounted such testimony as consumers are almost always against a rate increase, the KIUC supporting testimony and their application data are thin, and approval for the increase being sought may well be limited or disapproved.

A troublesome further issue has arisen. KIUC recently obtained as one of its ancillary studies to the application a cost of service survey made by R. W. Beck, a well-regarded engineering firm. This survey showed that KIUC’s residential class of customers (which comprise about 80 percent of the total number of customers and use about 35 percent of the electricity supplied) only contribute in their rate payments about 76 percent of the cost incurred to supply them.

Kaua‘i Marriott Resort and Beach Club, a large power class customer, has applied to be an intervenor in the rate increase docket. The hearing on the application was held on Sept. 29. At the date of this writing it is not known whether the intervention will be allowed. However, if it is, Marriott and the Department of Navy, another intervenor thanks to its management of the Pacific Missile Range Facility, can be expected to urge that rates for large users should be protected or reduced and the subsidization of the residential class customers be ended or moderated.

It is theoretically alarming to note that if the KIUC increase is granted and the existing subsidization of the residential class is ended, residential rates could rise over 30 percent. It may be comforting that a discussion with the Consumer Advocate’s office indicates that any elimination of the residential class subsidization would likely be gradual. Still the potential remains though that residential rates could be increased by more than the 10.5 percent being sought by KIUC. It is unfortunate that KIUC’s residential customers are being blindsided to this risk.

Another item of current interest is that Western Renewable Energy principals met with KIUC management in late July about a WRE program that would include an up to 22.5 megawatt generating facility using pelletized wood chips as the energy source. It was proposed that this alternative energy would be supplied to KIUC on an essentially fixed price basis over a 20-year initial period without any investment by KIUC being required.

I am informed that KIUC has failed to date to respond to the WRE request for a nondisclosure agreement relating to its confidential data. Regrettably it may well be that this potentially attractive program will be an opportunity lost as WRE has entered into a letter of intent with San Jose and Palo Alto California for a 20 megawatt facility using its technology there. KIUC talks the alternative energy game but its track record to date is modest.

It will likely be several months before the PUC acts on the KIUC rate increase application. It would be beneficial but unlikely if the PUC gave attention to the KIUC ambition to use the requested rate increase revenue and new borrowings from RUS to acquire replacement generation facilities.

For homeowners beset with the current economic problems it is probable that the best result would occur if KIUC simply withdrew its application and spared 80 percent of its membership from an unexpected increase in their rates.

• Walter Lewis is a resident of Princeville and writes a biweekly column for The Garden Island.

Waipa Foundation realizing Vision

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/02/lifestyles/doc4ac5b494e439f864248661.txt

"Family vision realized at Waipa"
By Pam Woolway - The Garden Island October 2, 2009

Keiki in the taro patch at Waipa. Every week at Waipa Foundation over 700 pounds of poi are made and distributed weekly to North Shore families. Waipa Foundation is an educational and cultural center offering programming to over 2000 students annually.

WAIPA, Kauai — Like father like daughter.

The family resemblance is unmistakable. She has his mouth. She has his chin. She has his nose. But it’s not physical attributes that mark this woman as the daughter of David Sproat — it’s her vision — a vision and commitment to the preservation of Kaua‘i resources and a shared passion for Hawaiian culture.

Stacy Sproat-Beck stepped into her father’s shoes at the farm at Waipa in 1994 when he accepted the position of Fire Chief of Kaua‘i. Nothing short of a call to arms, David Sproat’s fight to preserve Waipa Valley began in 1982 when he and a handful of North Shore families began negotiations with Kamehameha Schools for the 1,600 acre watershed.

“Back then they were profit driven,” Sproat said.

The corporation leasing the land at the time intended to build a gated community.

LaFrance Kapaka-Arboleda united the Hawaiian community in a shared vision of sustainibility and cultural preservation. In 1986 these North Shore farmers signed a 35 year lease to incorporate as Farmers of Hanalei after the existing lessees defaulted on their loan.

“The first thing we started to do was make poi,” Sproat recalled. “In the 90s we were making 1000 pounds of poi a week.”

From 1986 until 2000 Farmers of Hanalei received no assistance from Kamehameha School. It took nearly 20 years and some bad press for the school to realize it was time to create assets for community culture and preservation. Once the misguided board of trustees were ousted, Kamehameha Schools had what Sproat called, “a paradigm shift.”

Sproat’s daughter Stacy returned to Kaua‘i in 1991 with a business degree from University of Southern California and the energy to take advantage of a fortuitous turn of events.

“Stacy came to Waipa at a crucial time,” Sproat said.

For seven years she worked the land as a volunteer while farming organic lettuce with her husband and working for a resort.

“Working the land helped me develop observation,” she said. “Those seven years gave me time to learn the land. I had faith that if things were meant to work out they would.”

Waipa Foundation is the off-spring of Farmers of Hanalei. Sproat-Beck worked with Kamehameha Schools to form Waipa Foundation in 1994, but until 2000 Kamehameha Schools still wasn’t providing financial assistance.

“Their goal was to make money for the school,” Sproat-Beck said. “When they asked how they could partner with us (in 2000), I said, ‘Show us the money.’”

Today as executive director of Waipa Foundation Sproat-Beck creates programming and manages the valley with the help of 17 employees. The team develops and restores taro fields; organic and Hawaiian plant gardens; a koa reforestation site; and a coastal fishpond and nursery. All of these learning sites make up what she refers to as Waipa’s cultural center...

Just Released Harvard H1N1 Flu Vaccine Survey

Public release date: 2-Oct-2009

Contact: Todd Datz
tdatz@hsph.harvard.edu
Harvard School of Public Health

Survey finds just 40 percent of adults 'absolutely certain' they will get H1N1 vaccine

Major reasons people saying 'no' or 'maybe' to vaccine include belief they are at low risk of illness and concerns about vaccine safety

Boston, MA—In a new survey, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that just 40% of adults are "absolutely certain" they will get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves, and 51% of parents are "absolutely certain" that they will get the vaccine for their children. The survey examined the reasoning among those who said they would not get the vaccine or might not. This is the latest in a series of surveys of public views concerning the H1N1 flu outbreak undertaken by the Harvard Opinion Research Program at HSPH. The polling was done September 14-20, 2009.

Public Mixed on Getting Vaccine, but Interest May Jump If Outbreak Is Severe

About six in ten adults are not "absolutely certain" they will get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves, including 41% who say they will not get it, 6% who say they don't know if they will get it, and 11% who say they are planning to get it but may change their mind. About four in ten parents (44%) are not "absolutely certain" that they will get the vaccine for their children, including 21% who will not get it, 7% who don't know, and 16% who say they are planning to get it but may change their mind.

If there were people in their community who were sick or dying from H1N1, roughly six in ten adults (59%) who say they do not think they'll get the vaccine would change their mind and get it for themselves. About the same percentage of parents (60%) who say they do not think they'll get the vaccine for their children would change their minds if H1N1 was causing sickness or death in their community.

"These findings suggest that public health officials need to be prepared for a surge in demand for the H1N1 vaccine if the H1N1 flu becomes more severe," said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at HSPH.

Major Reasons for Not Getting Vaccine or Being Unsure

Those who were not "absolutely certain" they will get the H1N1 vaccine cited the following as the top "major" reasons for their thinking: (1) they are concerned about getting side effects from the vaccine (30%); (2) they don't think they are at risk of getting a serious case of the illness (28%); and (3) they think they could get medication to treat H1N1 if they do get sick (26%). The top "major" reasons cited by parents who are not "absolutely sure" they will get the vaccine are that (1) they are concerned about side effects of the vaccine (38%); (2) they are concerned that their children could get other illnesses from the vaccine (33%); and (3) they do not trust public health officials to provide correct information about the safety of the vaccine (31%).

"There's still a lot of uncertainty about what people will ultimately do in terms of getting the vaccine. If public health officials want to encourage a larger number of people to get vaccinated this fall, they will need to address the public's concerns in the coming weeks," said Blendon.

Safety Concerns

At this point in time, only about a third (33%) of the public sees the H1N1 vaccine as very safe "generally for most people to take." By comparison, the figure is 57% for the seasonal flu vaccine. A smaller fraction of the public thinks the H1N1 vaccine is very safe for particular groups to take, including children ages 6 months to 2 years (18%) and pregnant women (13%). The Centers for Disease Control is encouraging these groups, among others, to get the vaccine as early as possible...

Prius Envy

From: http://www.kauaiworld.com/special_edition/?haspdf=1

"Prius improves mileage, power"
by Larry Weitzman
MOTHER LODE NEWS

Toyota will roll out its third generation Prius about the time you read this and while at first glance it looks almost identical to the second generation, it isn’t. To call it all new would be appropriate.

Sure some things are identical, such as wheelbase and height. Length has grown marginally by 0.6 of an inch to 175.6 inches and Prius has widened about an inch through its flanks (now 68.7 inches).

Height, which peaks at 58.7 inches, has moved rearward by about four inches for more rear seat headroom. And every body panel it new as well as an all new power system that not only improves performance but economy as well.

Most apparent on the outside are its new front end, narrower, sleeker headlights which can now be LED, new sculpturing that not only improves its looks, but its aero shape which is now down to a 0.25 co-efficient of drag (from 0.26).

Most noticeable are six new character lines, a horizontal line that adds muscle to sides and vertical creases on each side of the front and rear bumpers that add a sharpness and athleticism. Compare the two side by side and the second generation looks a little long in the tooth while the new body looks full of energy.

New technology abounds in its all new, larger 1.8-liter inline, 16-valve, dual overhead cam Atkinson cycle four, which has improved horsepower and torque now rated at 98 hp at 5,200 rpm and 105 pounds of twist at 4,000 rpm (up 22 hp and 23 pounds of torque). Toyota has made significant changes to the balance of the Synergy Drive system with the MG2 (motor/generator) that powers the car in addition to the gas engine.

It’s smaller, quieter and now uses a gear drive that replaces the previous chain drive. It has a maximum output of 80 hp and 153 pounds of twist. That puts horsepower up by 13, although torque is down by 142 pounds. The reason being that the electric motor now spins 13,500 rpm as opposed to the prior motor’s just 6,400 rpm.

But the electric motor horsepower numbers are somewhat moot as the maximum battery output from the somewhat lighter Nickel Metal Hydride (about 150 pounds) battery pack is 36 hp, which when added to the gasoline engine brings Prius to a combined maximum output of 134 hp, up by about 24 hp overall.

Now here is the good news. Performance is improved and so is fuel economy and by a lot. Although these numbers are preliminary, the new Prius runs 0-60 mph is about 9.4 seconds, an improvement of almost a second. Level passing performance should also be improved by about a second or more.

And it feels better and stronger at all times, actually quite zippy. Throttle response from the new all three driving modes is also much better and more important is the transition from battery (pure electric) to gasoline has almost become imperceptible and the reaction time when switching power systems was much quicker.

In generation two at times you could feel the Prius almost chug (oscillate) between electric motor and the gas engine and this new unit had no such unwanted characteristic.

There was no oscillation when braking from the new four-wheel disc binders (generation two had rear drums). I think they may have something here.

But now for the real news. EPA numbers are up to 50/49 mpg city/highway from 48/45 mpg.

That is very good, but wait until to read this. During a 20-mile test loop in the Laguna Beach area that consisted of about five miles in midday traffic on PCH through the heart of Laguna Beach to Laguna Canyon Road where I turned right and took Laguna Canyon to El Toro Road and again turned right until Aliso Creek Road. At Aliso Creek a right turn was executed to Alicia Parkway to Crown Valley Parkway and the route was finished by a right turn back to PCH.

Speeds and driving were done to get the maximum mileage possible while not impeding traffic. The speed limit of 50 mph was reached several times and I had to stop at many signals. The average mileage for the 20-mile loop was 77.8 mpg. No, that is not a misprint; the average mileage for the 20 mile loop was 77.8 mpg. Other vehicle testers at this intro turned in numbers at low as 58 mpg, but those mileage numbers are better than most motor scooters.

Remember the Prius was driven for maximum mileage while maintaining a reasonable speed in traffic. That requires driving well ahead of the vehicle, anticipating red lights and barking as little as possible to use all the energy stored in the vehicle. Of three driving modes, only EV mode which allows the vehicle to remain pure electric up to 25 mph (under very light throttle pressure) if the batteries have energy and ECO mode were used.

Eco mode remaps the throttle to require more throttle to get the desired performance. The third mode, Power mode changes throttle mapping to be more responsive, but if you floor the throttle in either EV or ECO mode, maximum vehicle performance comes from the engine room. If you’ve got to go in either mode, it goes at equal maximum performance.

Another new feature is the solar sun roof which will power an exhaust fan (not very powerful as at it only can generate 59 watts) to cool the car in hot weather. There is also a remote on the key fob to fire up the electric air conditioner for up to three minutes to cool the car before you get in.

Besides all the latest toys such as standard XM Satellite radio, Bluetooth and voice activated GPS (opt), new is dynamic cruise control and lane keep assist and lane departure waning (opt). You can also get intelligent parking which will parallel park the vehicle.

Although the suspension is nearly the same, with MacPherson struts up front and a torsion beam in the rear, it has been tightened up for a sportier feel along with the improved electric power steering. Handling during the drive was effortless, but it wasn’t pushed to near its limits. Ride quality was smooth and quiet especially during electric operation.

A new interior with a better more informative instrument panel is located above the main dash. The vertical stack houses the information screen for the audio and GPS. All information regarding vehicle performance is now located more in the line of driver sight for better safety.

New seats are bigger and more comfortable, the rear seating has a bit more room and there is five more cubic feet in the interior. Trunk capacity is 21.5 cubic feet and below the rear privacy cover there is over 10 cubic feet. Prius now has under floor storage of about 2 cubic feet and a special place to put the retractable privacy screen so it won’t be lying on the garage floor when not in use.

Pricing has yet to be announced but it should be very close to the prior generation Prius. It may look similar but it is significantly improved in so many ways, including performance, economy and convenience.

Prius Specifications

Price
To be announced, but should start at around $22,000

Engine
One 1.8L DOHC 16 valve in line four 98 hp @ 5,200 rpm 82 lbs.-ft of torque @ 4,000 rpm
One permanent magnet electric motor 80 hp 153 lbs.-ft of torque
Maximum battery output 36 hp
Combined power output 134 hp

Fuel requirement
unleaded regular

Transmission
Continuous Variable with power splitter

Configuration
Transverse mounted, front-wheel drive