Who Pulls the Strings In US Politics

I need to clean up the coding for the table below, but you can see which side of the fence was favoured by the top 100 US political donours for the period between 1989 and 2010. Notice how many groups at the very top are either labour unions or plaintiff's attorney groups -- and how much they favour their boys.

The US is heading for a showdown between the corrupt DP:Union:Attorneys coalition, and an apolitical grassroots movement that says "a pox on both houses." The anger is deeply rooted, and the villains are beginning to lose their protective big media smokescreen.

Heavy Hitters

Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010

View party split for:

All cycles2010 cycle

Rank	Organization	Total '89-'09	Dem %	Repub %	Tilt
1	AT&T Inc	$44,214,960	44%	55%
2	American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees	$41,941,811	98%	1%
3	National Assn of Realtors	$35,595,518	48%	51%
4	Goldman Sachs	$31,437,825	64%	35%
5	American Assn for Justice	$31,424,029	90%	9%
6	Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers	$31,407,507	97%	2%
7	National Education Assn	$30,097,067	92%	6%
8	Laborers Union	$28,978,400	92%	7%
9	Service Employees International Union	$27,933,232	95%	3%
10	Carpenters & Joiners Union	$27,767,683	89%	10%
11	Teamsters Union	$27,728,124	92%	6%
12	Citigroup Inc	$27,101,058	50%	49%
13	Communications Workers of America	$27,025,396	99%	0%
14	American Federation of Teachers	$26,282,491	98%	0%
15	American Medical Assn	$26,282,446	39%	60%
16	United Auto Workers	$25,774,502	98%	0%
17	Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union	$25,105,777	98%	0%
18	National Auto Dealers Assn	$24,344,808	32%	67%
19	United Parcel Service	$24,183,691	36%	63%
20	United Food & Commercial Workers Union	$24,123,333	98%	1%
21	American Bankers Assn	$22,414,966	41%	58%
22	National Assn of Home Builders	$21,864,655	36%	63%
23	EMILY's List	$21,239,168	99%	0%
24	National Beer Wholesalers Assn	$21,038,345	32%	67%
25	Time Warner	$20,041,510	71%	27%
26	Microsoft Corp	$19,980,556	53%	46%
27	JPMorgan Chase & Co	$19,886,970	51%	48%
28	National Assn of Letter Carriers	$19,404,534	88%	11%
29	Verizon Communications	$18,609,602	40%	58%
30	Morgan Stanley	$18,535,079	46%	53%
31	Lockheed Martin	$18,365,247	42%	56%
32	AFL-CIO	$18,168,572	95%	4%
33	FedEx Corp	$17,985,166	40%	59%
34	General Electric	$17,938,619	51%	48%
35	National Rifle Assn	$17,303,096	17%	82%
36	Credit Union National Assn	$17,264,864	48%	51%
37	Bank of America	$17,061,688	47%	52%
38	Ernst & Young	$17,057,236	44%	55%
39	Sheet Metal Workers Union	$17,027,913	97%	2%
40	Pfizer Inc	$16,536,082	30%	69%
41	American Dental Assn	$16,497,704	46%	53%
42	American Hospital Assn	$16,489,780	53%	46%
43	Operating Engineers Union	$16,344,300	85%	14%
44	Plumbers & Pipefitters Union	$16,329,611	94%	5%
45	Blue Cross/Blue Shield	$16,246,818	40%	59%
46	International Assn of Fire Fighters	$15,959,643	82%	17%
47	Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu	$15,949,770	35%	64%
48	Air Line Pilots Assn	$15,698,527	84%	15%
49	PricewaterhouseCoopers	$15,464,093	36%	62%
50	Natl Assn/Insurance & Financial Advisors	$15,071,355	42%	56%
51	AFLAC Inc	$14,855,519	44%	55%
52	Merrill Lynch	$14,334,930	37%	61%
53	Union Pacific Corp	$14,288,198	24%	75%
54	Boeing Co	$14,049,732	47%	52%
55	United Transportation Union	$13,636,195	88%	10%
56	United Steelworkers	$13,608,751	99%	0%
57	Reynolds American	$13,358,527	24%	75%
58	Ironworkers Union	$13,201,675	92%	7%
59	BellSouth Corp	$12,993,782	45%	54%
60	American Institute of CPAs	$12,900,912	42%	57%
61	Credit Suisse Group	$12,420,840	44%	54%
62	American Postal Workers Union	$12,004,473	95%	4%
63	National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn	$11,990,071	52%	47%
64	General Dynamics	$11,729,034	46%	52%
65	American Financial Group	$11,444,325	18%	81%
66	GlaxoSmithKline	$11,111,494	29%	70%
67	Walt Disney Co	$10,968,148	67%	32%
68	Chevron	$10,957,104	24%	75%
69	Altria Group	$10,933,451	39%	60%
70	Exxon Mobil	$10,663,973	14%	85%
71	Natl Active & Retired Fed Employees Assn	$10,496,000	77%	22%
72	MBNA Corp	$10,059,006	17%	82%
73	Human Rights Campaign	$9,954,629	90%	9%
74	UST Inc	$9,938,811	21%	78%
75	Freddie Mac	$9,871,740	43%	56%
76	AIG	$9,772,662	50%	49%
77	National Restaurant Assn	$9,738,145	16%	83%
78	Southern Co	$9,716,044	31%	68%
79	Prudential Financial	$9,502,999	48%	51%
80	MetLife Inc	$9,502,692	55%	44%
81	American Academy of Ophthalmology	$9,383,538	52%	47%
82	National Cmte to Preserve Social Security & Medicare	$9,237,499	80%	19%
83	Eli Lilly & Co	$9,139,434	29%	70%
84	CSX Corp	$9,088,029	31%	68%
85	Associated General Contractors	$8,884,941	14%	85%
86	American Maritime Officers	$8,855,221	46%	53%
87	Amway/Alticor Inc	$8,823,801	0%	99%
88	National Cmte for an Effective Congress	$8,707,940	99%	0%
89	General Motors	$8,540,295	37%	62%
90	Archer Daniels Midland	$8,304,114	43%	56%
91	Seafarers International Union	$8,277,644	84%	14%
92	American Airlines	$8,153,035	47%	52%
93	MCI Inc	$8,093,472	46%	53%
94	American Council of Life Insurers	$7,665,504	37%	62%
95	Marine Engineers Beneficial Assn	$7,435,127	74%	25%
96	Bristol-Myers Squibb	$7,273,862	21%	77%
97	Enron Corp	$6,581,657	28%	71%
98	Andersen	$6,253,477	37%	62%
99	BP	$6,129,204	28%	70%
100	Vivendi	$4,508,740	66%	32%

Based on data released by the FEC on January 10, 2010.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

www.opensecrets.org

Bridges of Black Plastic Manicotti

The [Neal] bridge is newer than most, as suggested by the still-black asphalt and the fresh galvanized gleam of the guardrails. But it’s what is underneath that really makes the bridge stand out.

Rather than steel or concrete beams, the structure consists of 23 graceful arches of carbon- and glass-fiber fabric. These are 12-inch-diameter tubes that have been inflated, bent to the proper shape and stiffened with a plastic resin, then installed side by side and stuffed with concrete, like giant manicotti. Covered with composite decking and compacted soil, the arches support a standard gravel-and-asphalt roadway.

The bridge is the first of what its designers, about 50 miles up the road at the University of Maine in Orono, hope will be many of its type, combining composite materials with more conventional ones like concrete. With an estimated 160,000 of the nation’s 600,000 road bridges in need of repair or replacement, if it or other hybrid designs catch on, they could mark a breakthrough in the use of fiber-reinforced plastics, known as F.R.P., on highways. __NYT_via_ImpactLab

These new plastic-fiber bridges are lighter for the same strength -- thus allowing for heavier live loads (traffic). How well they will age in different climates is a question that will have to be answered with more testing, and time.

Another Century of Crude Oil?

The following is excerpted from the October 2009 Scientific American article by Leonardo Maugeri, "Another Century of Oil?"

On fourteen dry, flat square miles of California’s Central Valley, more than 8,000 horsehead pumps—as old-fashioned oilmen call them—slowly rise and fall as they suck oil from underground. Glittering pipelines crossing the whole area suggest that the place is not merely a relic of the past. But even to an expert’s eyes, Kern River Oil Field betrays no hint of the technological miracles that have enabled it to survive decades of dire predictions.

When Kern River Oil Field was discovered in 1899, analysts thought that only 10 percent of its unusually viscous crude could be recovered. In 1942, after more than four decades of modest production, the field was estimated to still hold 54 million barrels of recoverable oil, a fraction of the 278 million barrels already recovered. “In the next 44 years, it produced not 54 [million barrels] but 736 million barrels, and it had another 970 million barrels remaining,” energy guru Morris Adelman noted in 1995. But even this estimate proved wrong. In November 2007 U.S. oil giant Chevron, by then the field’s operator, announced that cumulative production had reached two billion barrels. Today Kern River still puts out nearly 80,000 barrels per day, and the state of California estimates its remaining reserves to be about 627 million barrels.

Chevron began to markedly increase production in the 1960s by injecting steam into the ground, a novel technology at the time. Later, a new breed of exploration and drilling tools—along with steady steam injection—turned the field into a kind of oil cornucopia.

Kern River is not an isolated case. According to common wisdom, a field’s production should follow a bell-shaped trajectory known as the Hubbert curve (after the late Shell Oil geologist M. King Hubbert) and peak when half of the known oil has been extracted. Instead most of the world’s oil fields have revived over time. In a way, technology is the real cornucopia.

Many analysts now prophesy that global oil production will peak in the next few years and then decline, following the Hubbert curve. But I believe that those projections will prove wrong, just as similar “peak oil” predictions [see “The End of Cheap Oil,” by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère; Scientific American, March 1998] have been mistaken in the past. New exploration methods have revealed more of the earth’s secrets. And leaps in extraction technology have led to tapping oil in once inaccessible areas and in places where drilling used to be uneconomic. Advanced exploration and extraction methods can keep oil production growing for decades to come and could allow oil supplies to last at least another century.

Although oil and other fossil fuels pose risks for the climate and the environment, for now alternative energy sources cannot compete with their versatility, cost, and ease of transport and storage. As research into alternatives goes on, we will need to be sure that we use the oil we have responsibly.

All That You Can’t Leave Behind
At a time when the world increasingly fears an approaching peak and subsequent decline in oil production, it may be surprising to learn that most of the planet’s known resources are left unexploited in the ground and that even more still wait to be discovered.

On the face of it, oil should last only a few more decades. In 2008, just before the economic meltdown slashed consumption, the world burned about 30 billion barrels of oil a year. Assuming that in the near future consumption resumed at 2008 levels and then stayed constant, our planet’s proven reserves of oil—currently estimated at between 1.1 trillion and 1.3 trillion barrels—would have about 40 years to go.

But proven reserves are only estimates and not fixed numbers. They are defined as the amount of known oil that can be recovered economically with current technology, so the definition changes as technology develops and as the price of crude varies. In particular, if supply tightens or demand increases, resale prices go up, and oil that was once too expensive to extract becomes part of the proven reserves. That is why most oil fields have produced much more than the initial estimates of their reserves assumed and even more than the initial estimates of their total content. Today only 35 percent of the oil in the average oil field is recovered, meaning that about two thirds of the oil in known fields remains underground. That resource is rarely mentioned in the debate on the future of oil.

Even a mature oil country such as the U.S., whose oil production has been declining since the 1970s (if not as fast as the Hubbert curve predicted), still holds huge volumes of unexploited oil under its surface. Although the country’s proven oil reserves are now only 29 billion barrels, the National Petroleum Council (NPC) estimates that 1,124 billion barrels are still left underground, of which 374 billion barrels would be recoverable with current technology.

On a global scale, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the earth’s remaining conventional oil (petroleum) deposits to be around seven trillion to eight trillion barrels. But with today’s technology, know-how and prices, only part of that oil can be recovered economically and is thus classified as a proven reserve.

And there is more.

Only one third of the sedimentary basins of our planet—the geologic formations that may contain oil—has been thoroughly explored with modern technologies. Moreover, the USGS data do not include unconventional oils, such as ultraheavy oils, tar sands, oil shales and bituminous schist, which together are at least as abundant as conventional oil.

Thus, a country or a company may increase its reserves of black gold even without tapping new areas and frontiers, if it is capable of recovering more oil from known fields. Still, doing so is not always easy.

A Rocky Start
Contrary to common belief, oil is not held in great underground lakes or caves. If you could “see” an oil reservoir, you would notice only a rocky structure seeming to have no room for oil. But beyond the reach of the human eye, a world of often invisible pores and microfractures entraps minuscule droplets of oil, together with water and natural gas.

Nature created these formations over millions of years. It started when huge deposits of vegetation and dead microorganisms piled up at the bottom of ancient seas, decomposed and became buried under successive layers of rock. High temperatures and pressures then slowly transformed the organic sediments into today’s oil and gas. These fossil fuels soak the porous underground rock almost like water soaks pumice.

When such a reservoir is drilled, it behaves a bit like an uncorked bottle of champagne. The oil is freed from its ancient rocky prison, and the reservoir’s internal pressure pushes it to the surface (along with stones, mud and other debris). The process goes on until the pressure peters out, usually after several years. This initial, or primary, stage of recovery can usually yield between 10 and 15 percent of the oil in place. From then on, recovery must be assisted.

About one third of the oil left in a reservoir after the initial “champagne” release is called immobile oil—drops trapped by strong capillary forces within isolated pores in the rock. No technique exists yet to extract this part of the oil. The remaining two thirds, though mobile, will not necessarily flow into the wells on its own. In fact, usually about half of the mobile oil stays stuck inside the reservoir because of geologic barriers or low permeability, which happens when the pores are too narrow. The situation is even worse when the oil is not a light liquid but a heavy, viscous, molasseslike substance.

To help some of the remaining oil seep through the pores in the rock and come out of the wells, operators usually inject natural gas and water into the reservoir, in what is called secondary recovery. Injecting gas restores the lost pressure and forces oil that is sufficiently fluid to seep through the rock’s pores. Meanwhile, because oil is lighter than water, injection of water raises the oil toward the well, just like pouring water in a glass filled with olive oil would send the oil upward.

In the past decade or so, the distinction between primary and secondary recovery has blurred as companies have begun to apply advanced technology from the outset. One of the most important developments so far has been the horizontal well, an L-shaped structure able to deliver dramatically more oil than the traditional vertical drilling that has been used since the inception of the oil industry. The L shape enables horizontal wells to change direction and penetrate sections of a reservoir that would otherwise be unreachable. The method, first adopted commercially in the 1980s, is particularly suitable in reservoirs where oil and natural gas occupy thin, horizontal layers.

Continue reading here.

Peak oil has never been an intelligent religion, but it is growing less and less bright every day.   If peak oilers knew one tenth as much about what is going to happen with oil supplies and prices as they pretend, they would be stinking rich from crafty investing.  

Between the Peak Oil Religion and the Climate Catastrophe Religion, a huge proportion of the world's nutcases can be grouped.  Add the Fundamentalist Muslim Religion and you have largely covered the world's majour delusions and problem children.  Throw in the Obama Zombies and that just about does it.   While still delusionary, the rest of the religions are not a significant threat to the future of abundance and sustainability.

Back by Popular Demand: Obama, Saviour of the Universe Film Festival and Bacchanalia

Okay, well perhaps the last video is just a bit over the top. It reminds me of something the Obama juggernaut (ACORN, moveon.org, Rev. Wright, etc) might have cooked up, if the Obama steamroller had been running against Obama. Sauce for the goose and the gander, you might say. It certainly had me laughing uncontrollably most of the way through.

Worlds of Secession

Image SourceIt is likely that as the Obama Depression goes worldwide, more parts of the world will wish to secede from their parent national government. If so, this map could grow substantially more divided in a very short time.

Bulletproof Super-Cat Has Its Own Amphibious Plane!

The Aeroyacht 110has been dubbed “the world’s most innovative super catamaran” by its designers and, while that’s a pretty big claim, it’s certainly an audacious concept. Capable of speeds of over 32 knots but able to cruise effortlessly at 20, boasting a superbly-appointed 32ft wide salon with 360º sea views and with its own fold-up amphibious plane as a tender, the Aeroyacht 110 looks to be the ne plus ultra of luxury sailing.

Designed from scratch by Gregor Tarjan, founder of Aeroyacht International, together with naval architect Pete Melvin, of the world-renowned Morrelli & Melvin multihull architects, the Aeroyacht 110 was designed from the outside-in. Tarjan started with the concept for a “pure sailing machine” and, once its streamlined shape was established, only then worked out how many people it could and should accommodate.Source
The amphibious tender ICON A5 adds a completely new dimension of freedom to the maritime ensemble. All that is lacking is a small submarine. Perhaps the Aeroyacht people can correct that oversight by the time the super cat hits the market.

Tuition-Free "University of the People" Now Open

Brainchild of Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef -- who has donated $1 million of his own money to the effort -- the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID) sponsored University of the People opened for business the first of May, 2009 with programs of instruction in business and computers. The institution is "online only" and opened with 200 students from some 52 countries -- but it needs 15,000 students and $6 million to continue operating.

Admission opened just over two weeks ago and without any promotion some 200 students from 52 countries have already registered, with a high school diploma and a sufficient level of English as entry requirements.

Students will be placed in classes of 20, after which they can log on to a weekly lecture, discuss its themes with their peers and take a test all online. There are voluntary professors, post-graduate students and students in other classes who can also offer advice and consultation.

The only charge to students is a $15 to $50 admission fee, depending on their country of origin, and a processing fee for every test ranging from $10 to $100. For the University to sustain its operation, it needs 15,000 students and $6 million, of which Mr. Reshef has donated $1 million of his own money. _UN

It sounds as if the infrastructure is still being assembled, and the May 2009 opening is actually something of a trial period shakeout cruise. More about Shai Reshef:

Mr. Reshef hopes to build enrollment to 10,000 over five years, the level at which he said the enterprise should be self-sustaining. Startup costs would be about $5 million, Mr. Reshef said, of which he plans to provide $1 million.

For all the uncertainties, Mr. Reshef is probably as well positioned as anyone for such an enterprise.

Starting in 1989, he served as chairman of the Kidum Group, an Israeli test preparation company, which he sold in 2005 to Kaplan, one of the world’s largest education companies. While chairman of Kidum, he built an online university affiliated with the University of Liverpool, enrolling students from more than 100 countries; that business was sold to Laureate, another large for-profit education company, in 2004.

Mr. Reshef is now chairman of Cramster.com, an online study community offering homework help to college students.

“Cramster has thousands of students helping other students,” said Mr. Reshef, who lives in Pasadena, Calif., where both Cramster and the new university are based. “These become strong social communities. With these new social networks, where young people now like to spend their lives, we can bring college degrees to students all over the world, third-world students who would be unable to study otherwise. I haven’t found even one person who says it’s a bad idea.” _NYT

As long as the university is run far, far away from the UN and its kleptocratic bureaucracy, it may well succeed. No doubt some palms are being greased at GAID to allow the use of the UN's name in marketing the concept. But if the behind-the-scenes hands-on managers of the UOP can run things without interference from the Palace of Thieves on Turtle Bay, they may actually create something good that benefits a lot of people.

Where Is Switzerland on this List?

Impact LabThe top ten most peaceful nations:

• 1 New Zealand,
• 2 Denmark,
• 3 Norway,
• 4 Iceland,
• 5 Austria,
• 6 Sweden,
• 7 Japan,
• 8 Canada,
• 9= Finland,
• 10= Slovenia.

The Global Peace Index, a report prepared for the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks 144 countries in a league table of peacefulness.

The index defines peace as “the absence of violence”.

Twenty-three criteria on which the league table is compiled include political stability, risk of terrorism, murder rate, likelihood of violent demonstrations, respect for human rights, internal conflicts, arms imports and involvement in foreign wars. _ImpactLab

The ten least peaceful countries:

• 1 Iraq,
• 2 Afghanistan,
• 3 Somalia,
• 4 Israel,
• 5 Sudan,
• 6 Democratic Republic of the Congo,
• 7 Chad,
• 8 Pakistan,
• 9 Russia,
• 10 Zimbabwe

Like any such list, it was compiled more for political reasons than to be informative. You have to take it with a tonne of salt. But there is plenty to think about. These are calculations generally done by the subconscious mind, on local, regional, and global levels. Every time we consider a travel route or a vacation plan.

People do not emigrate from Switzerland or the Cayman Islands to Egypt or Gaza.

Pick Any Lock, Fleece Any Flock

You would like to believe in a world that is safe from terrorists, thieves, spies, and busybodies. But that would not be the truth. There is no lock that cannot be hacked. The security procedures of governments, corporations, and homes is more of a convenient fiction than a reality.

Tobias thinks of himself as a humble public servant. When he attacks the Kryptonite bike lock or the Club (or those in-room safes at Holiday Inn or Caesars Palace), he's not a bad guy—he's just Ralph Nader with a slim jim, protecting consumers by exposing locks, safes, and security systems that aren't actually locked, safe, or secure. At least, not from people like him.

The problem, if you're a safe company or a lock maker, is that Tobias makes it all public through hacker confabs, posts on his Security.org site, and tech blogs like Engadget. He views this glasnost as a public service. Others see a hacker how-to that makes The Anarchist Cookbook read like Betty Crocker. And where Tobias sees a splendid expression of First Amendment rights, locksmiths and security companies see a criminal finishing school. Tobias isn't just exposing problems, they say. He is the problem.

But forget bike locks and hotel room safes: These days, Tobias is attacking the lock famous for protecting places like military installations and the homes of American presidents and British royals...

...Kids study Tobias' online video, crack the lock off Dad's Glock, and put holes in things that shouldn't have them. Enterprising junkies embark on habit-feeding crime waves. Hotel rooms, no longer secure, become magnets for burglary and rape. High school truants walk the halls shimming combination locks off rows of lockers. Crime gangs use Tobias' case study to copycat the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, while tech terrorists simply co-opt the master list of Marc Weber Tobias problems to outwit America's Keystone Kop-homeland security and generally blow stuff up. The world is unzipped. And our innocence—not to mention a good deal of our cash, jewelry, and portable electronics—is lost.

Tobias shrugged off such concerns, along with the hate mail. Scaring citizens to attention is part of his educational program. "Do you really think ignorance will keep you safe?" he asks. "Is it even an option?" ...

..."It's not about me. It's about what these locks protect," Tobias says. "Medeco locks are the best in the world—that's why they're used by the Pentagon, the embassies. These agencies believe that the locks can't be picked in under 15 minutes, that they can't be bumped, that you can't trace keys onto plastic. It's the definition of high security—and it's wrong! We proved it."

"Look," he says, taking it down a few notches. "If we can do it, so can the bad guys. Medeco needs to acknowledge it and let the locksmiths know it—and the DOD, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and all their clients." _Wired

And so we are left with a world without security. Nothing is safe, not really. But if that is true, are we not better off knowing the facts and learning to take the necessary precautions? Is it not past time for us to outgrow our psychological neoteny, and to move through our rites of passage into adulthood?

That is when the fun really starts.