The most aggressive posturing and accusations against Iran, yet issued by Washington, signal the rapid closure of the window of opportunity for peace which opened up following the release of the US’ National Intelligence Estimate in December 07 concluding that there was no evidence of a nuclear weaponisation programme in Iran. This revelation which was concordant with the IAEA’s own repeated assessment over 5 years of intrusive inspections, and which had been held from publication by the Vice President Cheney for over a year with the aim of altering its key findings, put a spanner in the frightfully accelerating wheel to another war and a potential inferno in the Middle East and beyond.
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5.30.2008
ACLU sues to open records on DNC security equipment
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado today sued the city and county of Denver seeking disclosure of public records related to the purchase of security-related equipment for the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
The city twice has twice denied requests filed by the ACLU under the Colorado Open Records Act seeking disclosure of the records, the lawsuit filed in Denver District Court states.
Mary Dulacki, the records coordinator for the city's Department of Safety, has denied their release on the grounds that disclosure "was contrary to the public interest" and because "it could potentially disclose tactical security information."
Mark Silverstein, the legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a prepared statement that the city was being overly restrictive.
Tutu: Gaza blockade abomination
Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu has called Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip an "abomination".
He strongly condemned what he called international "silence and complicity" on the blockade, which he compared to the actions of Burma's leaders.
Speaking at the end of a two day mission to the area, the former archbishop said the humanitarian situation there could not be justified.
Officials: Iran and Al Qaeda in secret talks
When senior officials start talking to ABC news, this is called propaganda. - Ed.
Senior U.S. officials tell ABC News that in recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al Qaeda. It's a development that has caught the attention of top officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence community.
According to U.S. officials familiar with highly sensitive intelligence on this issue, the contacts are on the status of high-level al Qaeda operatives, including two of Osama Bin Laden's sons, who have been under house arrest in Iran since 2003. The officials don't believe Iran will allow these operatives to go free, but said they don't know Iran's motivation for initiating the talks.
Chertoff keen on Israeli airport security technology
That would be Chertoff, the Talmudic Jew with dual Israeli-US citizenship. - Ed.
JERUSALEM, May 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behaviour-detection technologies, to better secure America's airports.
"That's a scenario where Israel has a lot of experience," Chertoff said in an interview with Reuters. "I think that it is of interest to us to see if there is any adaptation there."
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JERUSALEM, May 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behaviour-detection technologies, to better secure America's airports.
"That's a scenario where Israel has a lot of experience," Chertoff said in an interview with Reuters. "I think that it is of interest to us to see if there is any adaptation there."
Read full story
George Bush Authorized the Leak of Valerie Plame's Identity
Scottie McC doesn't know it yet. But that's basically what he revealed this morning on the Today Show (h/t Rayne).
During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had--himself--authorized the selective leaking of the NIE.
Marines bringing combat training to Indy
Oh. How exciting. - Ed.
U.S. Marine helicopters will land at the old Eastgate Consumer Mall, Brookside Park and other Indianapolis locations when the city becomes a mock battlefield next week.
About 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis.
Most of the troops will be deployed at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and the Raytheon facility on Holt Road, said Debbi Fletcher of the Indianapolis/Marion County Emergency Management Agency.
“We don’t want anyone thinking that there’s an invasion happening or that we declared martial law or something like that,” Fletcher said.
5.29.2008
They Rule the World: A Shadowy Organization is in Power, and It's Made Up of the Very, Very Rich
This is core lunatic fringe stuff, wrapped in tinfoil. It’s also The Washington Post.
What’s your take on the Them’s coming out party?
As someone who has followed this type of information for about twenty years, I don’t know what to make of the mainstreaming of this… area of inquiry. You might think that all of us foilheads would be smug and chortling our I-told-you-soes into our beer.
Not me.
I’m thinking, “Oh for f*&@’$ sake, now what!?”
How will they do it? (Kill Obama)
How will they do it?:
- They will fly in a sniper from Israel (naturally) in a private jet.
- They will have obtained two identical rifles (to avoid TSD-style controversy about the type of rifle found), keeping the receipt from the second rifle (bought at a gun shop in the area).
- They will send a special invitation to the patsy, a white male from the South with three names, to attend a reception after the public rally.
Stopping the War Machine: Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted
As a former United States Marine Corps sergeant who was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968, I am sending my complete support and admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to stop military recruitment in Berkeley and across the country.
Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s has there been a cause more just than the one you are now engaged in. Who knows better the deep immorality and deception of military recruiters than those of us who, decades ago, entered those same recruiting offices with our fathers, believing in our hearts that we were being told the truth — only to discover later we had been deceived and terribly betrayed? Many of us paid for that deceit with our lives, years of suffering and bodies and minds that were never the same again. If only someone had warned us, if only someone had had the courage to speak out against the madness that we were being led into, if only someone could have protected us from the recruiters whose only wish was to make their quota, send us to boot camp and hide from us the dark secret of the nightmare which awaited us all.
Cluster Bomb Ban Passed over US Objections
Why does our government object to banning cluster bombs? Absolutely shameful. - Ed.
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 (IPS) - After more than a year of contentious negotiations, diplomats from 109 countries meeting in Dublin agreed Wednesday on a treaty that would outlaw the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, which have killed and injured thousands of civilians over the last four decades.
There are 28 countries known to manufacture cluster munitions, and at least 14 have deployed them in conflicts. At least 76 countries have stockpiles of the weapon.
Six of the world's leading users and producers -- Russia, China, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan -- did not attend the conference, and have said they would not sign any ban.
Read full story
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 (IPS) - After more than a year of contentious negotiations, diplomats from 109 countries meeting in Dublin agreed Wednesday on a treaty that would outlaw the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, which have killed and injured thousands of civilians over the last four decades.
There are 28 countries known to manufacture cluster munitions, and at least 14 have deployed them in conflicts. At least 76 countries have stockpiles of the weapon.
Six of the world's leading users and producers -- Russia, China, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan -- did not attend the conference, and have said they would not sign any ban.
Read full story
The total evisceration of DHS Chief Michael Chertoff
Watch Skeletor avoid specifics and restate the questions, over and over again. - Ed.
For those who have almost forgotten what how real investgative journalism operates this is a treat.
Added: May 28, 2008
US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff talks to Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan about his responsibility to protect the US mainland from terrorist attacks. The interview covers some of the controversial measures the US has adopted in its proclaimed international war on terror.
Secretary Chertoff answers some tough questions about the appropriateness of prolonged detentions without charge, moves to deny US residents constitutional rights and the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
See videos
For those who have almost forgotten what how real investgative journalism operates this is a treat.
Added: May 28, 2008
US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff talks to Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan about his responsibility to protect the US mainland from terrorist attacks. The interview covers some of the controversial measures the US has adopted in its proclaimed international war on terror.
Secretary Chertoff answers some tough questions about the appropriateness of prolonged detentions without charge, moves to deny US residents constitutional rights and the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
See videos
Chertoff: Al-Qaeda Targets Democracies
Now if you consider that Al Qaeda was created by the CIA, then you can see that he's sort of telling the truth. He just doesn't want you to connect that dot between Al Qaeda and the US government, because then you might freak out. - Ed.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The U.S. homeland security chief says al-Qaeda militants still pose a threat to democracies.
Michael Chertoff says "al-Qaeda is still very intent on carrying out attacks on anybody they perceive as democratic, free and promoters of values of respect."
He said "all democracies are potentially at risk," during a visit to the Turkish capital on Wednesday.
Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but democratic country, has been vigilant against homegrown Islamic militants since al-Qaeda-linked militants carried out suicide bombings that targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and a British bank in Istanbul in 2003 and killed 58 people.
Good News and Bad News and the Voices in the Wind
I went without sleep for four nights until early Sunday morning. Once a year or so this happens to me and I turn into Goofy. It’s some kind of energy thing that just grows and grows until I crash. Then I sleep for about eighteen hours and the world turns all bright and bushy tailed again so…
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Sweet Victory: Coalition for Immokalee Workers Wins
In March 2005, I started a weekly feature called "Sweet Victories." The idea was to chronicle progressive victories --electoral wins, protests and boycotts, the launching of new ideas, fresh organizations and initiatives, and successful organizing efforts. I hoped that these stories would serve not only as a source of information, but inspiration. The victories might be small, but they were always sweet.
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Senators say report of planned US strikes on Iran untrue
Backpedal!! Faster!! FASTER!!!! - Ed.
An anonymously sourced report that emerged Wednesday claims President Bush plans to launch an attack against Iran before summer's end, but aides to two Senators who were supposedly told of the plan tell RAW STORY that the report is absolutely untrue.
An anonymously sourced report that emerged Wednesday claims President Bush plans to launch an attack against Iran before summer's end, but aides to two Senators who were supposedly told of the plan tell RAW STORY that the report is absolutely untrue.
Asia Times correspondent Muhammad Cohen, reporting from New York, writes that an "informed source" has clued him in to plans from the Bush administration "to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months."
5.28.2008
LATOC Editor's Note
Published in full. Food for thought. Is it all Peak Oil? Is it speculation? I dunno peeps. All I can say for sure is we are living in a psyops world, 24/7, and the truth is mixed in with a lot of lies and disinformation and misunderstanding. The only thing that seems certain is we'll find out who's really in control in the near future. Go here for the original LATOC post. - Ed.
Probably the most frequent question I get is "how much time is left?" My reply for the past four plus years has always been "I don't know, a few days, a few months, a few years, maybe longer, maybe not. I wish I knew." Well, Ken Deffeyes just published an analysis at his blog that gives us some type of rough idea. His conclusions appears to be that oil at $300 a barrel will produce, more or less, a total economic shutdown:
So while it is still impossible to answer the question of "How much time is left", we might be able to use the price of oil and gas as some rough indicators of where we're at. We're hovering around $125/barrel and $4/gallon right now and already seeing significant slowdowns. Shutdowns likely begin around $200/barrel and $8/gallon. At $300/barrel and $12/gallon everything stops.How big is the problem? Multiplying production (barrels per year) times the oil price (dollars per barrel) gives a total cost in dollars per year. It's an enormous number; tens of trillions of dollars per year. To put a scale on it, the three thin curves on the graph show the oil cost in contrast to the total world domestic product; the annual value the goods and services added up for all the world's countries. The three curves show the oil cost at one percent, two and a half percent, and five percent of the total world economic output. At $130 this morning, we are at six and a half percent.Oil production obviously cannot consume 100 percent of the world's income. My intuitive, uninformed guess is that it cannot go above 15 percent. If we see oil at $300 per barrel, we will be looking out over the smoldering ruins of the world's economy. Source
Of course, the pace could slow down just as easily as it could accelerate.
FWIW, I don't think you need to worry about the police state or the KBR camps much past $200/barrel and $8/gallon. At those prices, the economic machinery that simultaneously feeds hundreds of millions and imprisons tens of millions begins to shutdown. At that point, a cessation of food and fuel shipments is, in my opinion, much more likely than are mass round ups and imprisonment. Unlike World War II Germany, we don't have much of a train system in this country and what we do have is pretty decrepit. Furthermore, the lion's share of the energy used to extract the coal to run the trains and the camps comes from oil-derived fuels. Most of that oil is imported from thousands of miles away. (Even the domestically produced stuff is typically imported from hundreds of miles.) The production, import, and refining infrastructure to do all of this is dependent on extremely complex and highly globalized networks of finance and telecommunications that are unlikely to exist in sufficient capacities for very long once oil settles in above $200-$250/barrel.
Today's update is going to be relatively short as Ken's calculations have probably given people more than enough to contemplate. I am going to repost yesterday's Editor's Note as Ken's the implications of Ken's calculations seem to support my suspicion that we're quickly running out of time to use the net to meet-up with others in our area.
Best,
Matt
Barak to demand Olmert step down
More events paving the way for Netanyahu. - Ed.
JERUSALEM - Defence Minister Ehud Barak called a surprise news conference on Wednesday and Israeli Army Radio said he would demand Prime Minister Ehud Olmert step aside after damaging testimony in a corruption case.
The unsourced radio report said Barak would threaten to take immediate action to force an early election if Olmert did not do so.
Mr. Adelson goes to Israel
The main agenda items now are the Olmert investigation and the cease-fire or escalation vis a vis Gaza. But the Presidential conference hosted by Shimon Peres has left behind something of a controversy and bitter taste.
Shimon Peres is obviously a remarkable and unique character, still batting for Israel, managing to pull off a huge event graced by dignitaries from a variety of fields of activity and from around the world. Yet the gap between the uplifting and visionary words of Shimon Peres and the actions he has supported and continues to support remains as gaping a chasm as ever.
CIA Director Michael Hayden is preparing to receive his Oscar. - Ed.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. is making "a big and continual push" to capture or kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but his demise won't end the organization's menace, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday in an Associated Press interview.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. is making "a big and continual push" to capture or kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but his demise won't end the organization's menace, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday in an Associated Press interview.
The CIA is equally interested in those jockeying to replace bin Laden in what he predicted will be a "succession crisis."
Big Brother is Watching You
The Government is planning to introduce a giant database that will hold the details of every phone call we have made, every e-mail we have sent and every webpage we have visited in the past 12 months. This is needed to fight crime and terrorism, the Government claims.
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Are you a coward like me?
From time to time I receive from my friends in the Middle East, horrific photographs of the atrocities perpetrated on the Palestinians by the IDF. (Israel Defence Force)
Apparently these photographs are never ever distributed in the western media; they are in fact, censored.
Additionally, any essays or discussions about the Israel/Palestinian situation also never see the light of day in the Western media.
Why is that?
Read full story
Apparently these photographs are never ever distributed in the western media; they are in fact, censored.
Additionally, any essays or discussions about the Israel/Palestinian situation also never see the light of day in the Western media.
Why is that?
Read full story
Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August'
NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
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Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
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Project Censored Awards to Four Global Research Authors
Four important stories you can read. - Ed.
Project Censored is a media research program based at the University of California at Sonoma.
Project Censored awards go to news stories "that didn't make the news".
"Through a partnership of faculty, students, and the community, Project Censored conducts research on important national news stories that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media.
Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25 most censored nationally important news stories in the yearbook, Censored: Media Democracy in Action, which is released in September. Recent Censored books have been published in Spanish, Italian and Arabic.
Read full story
Project Censored is a media research program based at the University of California at Sonoma.
Project Censored awards go to news stories "that didn't make the news".
"Through a partnership of faculty, students, and the community, Project Censored conducts research on important national news stories that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media.
Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25 most censored nationally important news stories in the yearbook, Censored: Media Democracy in Action, which is released in September. Recent Censored books have been published in Spanish, Italian and Arabic.
Read full story
Speech delivered 5/23/08 at Radford University, VA
My assignment here today, as I understand it, is to enlighten you all on how to quickly end the war in Iraq. And how to prevent the United States from attacking Iran. Or Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia. In short, how to put an end to the American empire.
Also, how to impeach Bush and Cheney.
And, while I'm at it, maybe, how to end poverty once and for all, how to save the environment, and how to legalize marijuana.
Well, good luck to us all.
5.27.2008
Peacetrain
Click through and watch a two minute slide show of Iran. Ask yourself whether these people look any more dangerous than Americans. Iran is a beautiful, civilized country full of people who want nothing more than to live in peace, just like us. In light of the fact that the US has 10,000+ nuclear weapons and Israel has 150+, what level of mind-staggering hypocrisy does it take to justify attacking Iran for pursuing nuclear power plants? And remember, there's no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. No Evidence. - Ed.
Click here to see slide show.
Click here to see slide show.
Olmert's Peace Spin
Yesterday Olmert assured Haaretz that the negotiation with Syria is nothing less than an ‘historic breakthrough’. He is absolutely correct. It’s the first time in Israel’s history that a PM initiates a peace negotiation just to escape a police probe into his own unlawful doings. Apparently, Olmert is seeking a quick escape route that would bring the investigation of his corruption to an immediate halt.
Read full story
Read full story
Jimmy Carter says Israel has 150 nuclear weapons, newspaper claims
What?? WHAT???? Israel has nuclear weapons??? Yes. Behold the hypocrisy of the US and Israel. - Ed.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says Israel has a nuclear arsenal of 150 weapons.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says Israel has a nuclear arsenal of 150 weapons.
Asked at a news conference at Wales's Hay literary festival on Sunday how a future U.S. president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally.
Iran accused of not proving it is not doing something it has been accused of doing
According to the Murdoch owned ‘The Australian’ newspaper, “Iran continues to defy UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment and has yet to disprove allegations that it was pursuing nuclear power for military use.”
First off, one should be quite clear about who is demanding what from whom here. It is the US and Israel and their allies that are making the demands in order to isolate and demonise Iran as part of their propaganda and rhetoric campaign to gain public support for ‘regime change’ in Iran.
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First off, one should be quite clear about who is demanding what from whom here. It is the US and Israel and their allies that are making the demands in order to isolate and demonise Iran as part of their propaganda and rhetoric campaign to gain public support for ‘regime change’ in Iran.
Read full story
US terror attack seen apt to follow '08 vote
People, people, my fine people. How absolutely bizarre is it that intelligence experts can make such predictions, unless, of course, they already have the plans in hand? And if they have the plans sufficiently in hand to make the dire predictions, then shouldn't they simply stop the evil terrorists' plans? Mmm hmm. Unless, of course, they and the terrorists are the same people. Ding! - Ed.
When the next president takes office in January, he or she will likely receive an intelligence brief warning that Islamic terrorists will attempt to exploit the transition in power by planning an attack on America, intelligence experts say.
url to this horseshit:
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/FOREIGN/541243918/1001
When the next president takes office in January, he or she will likely receive an intelligence brief warning that Islamic terrorists will attempt to exploit the transition in power by planning an attack on America, intelligence experts say.
url to this horseshit:
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/FOREIGN/541243918/1001
Wake up, America. We're driving toward disaster.
Kunstler issuing a wake-up call to the sheeple via the WaPo editorial pages. Hmm. That doesn't happen every Sunday. - Ed.
Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy predicament on the college lecture circuit or at environmental conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned.
Read full story
Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy predicament on the college lecture circuit or at environmental conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned.
Read full story
More on the real reason behind high oil prices
Here's another country heard from. This guy says Peak Oil is a big hoax, and he points the finger back at the speculators. He says demand is really down, a point which the CNN story backs up. Personally, I think Peak Oil is real but instead of being managed, the elite use it to manipulate us and cover up their own greedy shakedown. - Ed.
As detailed in an earlier article, a conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today’s $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population.
The hoax of Peak Oil—namely the argument that the oil production has hit the point where more than half all reserves have been used and the world is on the downslope of oil at cheap price and abundant quantity—has enabled this costly fraud to continue since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the help of key banks, oil traders and big oil majors. Washington is trying to shift blame, as always, to Arab OPEC producers. The problem is not a lack of crude oil supply. In fact the world is in over-supply now. Yet the price climbs relentlessly higher. Why? The answer lies in what are clearly deliberate US government policies that permit the unbridled oil price manipulations.
It's not an oil crisis, it's a dollar crisis
Now this gentleman says it's all about the dollar. Of course, he belongs to the financial industry, so even if his focus on the shredded dollar makes sense, it does not follow that speculators and big oil companies are merely innocent scapegoats, aye - practically lambs 'being trotted out' - helpless I tell you. Please. They certainly do use the current situation to fatten their own wallets. Everything is interrelated. The complexity of the situation gives all sorts of cover stories to people who want to make a killing. They just keep pointing the finger somewhere else. Everything seems plausible, and therefore Joe Sixpack stays confused until all his money has been vacuumed up. This guy wants you to invest with him. Fine, at least he makes it clear, but let's not pretend that he is truly unbiased. - Ed.
It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court, in its ruling this week that U.S. currency is unfair to the blind, did not make the next logical step and declare it unfair to everyone who buys gasoline.
In their search for explanations as to why oil has surged past $130 per barrel, Washington, Wall Street, and the financial media are as clueless as cavemen after a freak summer snow storm. Despite the head scratching, the blame game is nevertheless in full force. Speculators and big oil companies are being trotted out as scapegoats, and increased margin requirements and taxes on windfall profits and futures trading have been mentioned as appropriate sanctions. It should be clear that this is pure farce, and that no one understands what is actually happening.
CNN: As gas goes up, driving goes down
Let's see if we can figure this out. Here we have a corporate media story telling us that US gas demand has contracted as people cut back because of high prices at the pump. This seems plausible. - Ed.
At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate.
At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate.
The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.
Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less -- that's 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history." Records have been kept since 1942.
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