Gazprom tells Eni Ukraine dispute may hit supplies

Blogger's Note: I can believe that President Bush is too stupid to be focusing on solar energy, but c'mon guys, you ought to realize that the smart thing to do is to stop fighting over oil and develop solar capabilities. IF YOU TAKE AWAY THEIR TRUMP CARD THEY LOSE THEIR POWER OVER YOU!!!
This is not rocket science!

Gazprom tells Eni Ukraine dispute may hit supplies
Sat Dec 31, 6:14 AM ET
Gazprom has told Eni that gas supplies could be at risk because of its ongoing dispute with Ukraine over prices, a spokesman for the Italian oil and gas firm said on Saturday, confirming newspaper reports.
Il Sole 24 Ore and Corriere della Sera newspapers said in Saturday editions that Russian gas giant Gazprom had sent a letter to Eni warning of possible problems with supplies.
"I can confirm that Eni has received such a letter from the managing director of Gazprom," an Eni spokesman said.
Gazprom is in dispute with Ukraine over a surprise hike in prices and on Friday spurned a plea from the ex-Soviet state to freeze charges as a New Year deadline for a deal approaches.
Gazprom has said it will cut off all supplies to Ukraine from 0700 GMT on Sunday unless its neighbor agrees to a four-fold leap in prices.
A quarter of Europe's gas needs come from Russia and nearly all of that is piped across Ukrainian territory.
Russia provides around 29 percent of Eni's total gas supplies which were some 77 billion cubic meters in 2004, according to Eni's 2004 accounts.
The European Union has already called for a meeting of energy officials on January 4 to discuss the potential problem.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has asked for further talks with Russia aiming to sign a contract by January 10.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.

How Appropriate

How Appropriate is it that while Bush was babbling on about how great his war is another station is airing "Born On The Fourth Of July".
I am not against the war. I am against not ending it more forcfully. Too many of our soldiers are dying. Stop these barbarians however you need to then bring the troops home. Stop wasting our money and our soldiers.

Wal-Mart Memo Shows Expansion in U.S.

Blogger's Note: Do not allow this to happen in your town. They ruin communities.
Wal-Mart Memo Shows Expansion in U.S.
Nov 14 3:33 PM US/Eastern
By MARCUS KABEL
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to open or expand 484 stores across the United States next year, over 100 more than previously disclosed, according to an internal document obtained by a leading Wal-Mart opponent and released to The Associated Press on Monday.

Wal-Mart Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based group backed by unions and environmental and other interests, said it will use the detailed list to alert activists in those communities listed in the document to help them rally against projects in their towns. The group said it received the document from Sprawl Busters, a group opposed to unchecked suburban development.



Wal-Mart confirmed that the document belonged to them.

"This report is simply a listing of all stores we expect to open over the next 12 to 14 months, and many are already under construction. Since the unions oppose us wherever we locate our stores, this new stolen document doesn't seem to provide them any advantage," Wal-Mart spokesman Marty Heires said.

Wal-Mart Watch said the list provided key details that would make it easier to organize local resistance because it names the specific towns and gives the size of expansion plans there.

"This internal document reveals where, when, and how Wal-Mart will bully its way across the country to open hundreds of new stores. With this in our hands, our committed supporters are now all the more ready to fight back," Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director Andrew Grossman said in a statement.

Burt Flickinger, managing director of consulting firm Strategic Marketing, said the list's publication could hurt Wal-Mart by giving advanced notice to opposition groups and local and state government officials who might be skeptical of letting Wal-Mart in.

"It presents a challenge to Wal-Mart, especially in key battleground states like California," Flickinger said.

The 11-page list provides details that Wal-Mart has not made public about what type and size of store it plans and by what date, as well as for which communities. The world's largest retailer operates four kinds of stores in the U.S. _ Supercenters, which include a full grocery department, Discount Stores without the grocery component, smaller Neighborhood Markets that are mainly grocery, and Sam's Clubs membership stores.

Wal-Mart in October listed its expansion plans in general terms, without mentioning states or towns. At that time, it said it expected to open 335 to 370 new stores, including 180 expansion projects, either upgrading a Discount Store to a Supercenter or expanding the size of a Sam's Club.

It is the latest internal document obtained by Wal-Mart critics and may add to pressure on the Bentonville, Ark.-based company as it attempts to maintain a rapid growth rate in the face of criticism from organized opponents who claim it treats workers badly and hurts local economies.

Last month, Wal-Mart Watch released another internal Wal-Mart document that detailed the company's plans to seek cost savings by cutting health care and retirement benefits, including proposals to make cashiers collect shopping carts to attract more physically fit employees and discourage unhealthy applicants.

Shares of Wal-Mart rose 27 cents to $49.27 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

___

Clearfield PA Boro Council Are You Listening???

Clearfield Needs The Arts and you are trying to Hurt Them!!!

WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. - Attorneys for Kennywood Park have asked a judge to revoke the borough's right to levy an amusement tax, claiming the park is the only entertainment business in the borough that is forced to pay it.

Kennywood Entertainment Partners wants an Allegheny County judge to not only revoke the tax but force West Mifflin to repay millions it has collected from the park since 1999. The historic park has paid more than $2.7 million to the borough since 2002, according to its lawsuit, but the total proposed refund wasn't immediately available.

Borough officials didn't immediately return calls for comment Friday.

Kennywood's attorneys say the 10 percent tax is unfair because other sports venues, golf courses, nightclubs and other "amusement" establishments aren't forced to pay it.

Mandatory Spanish

This is America. Make them learn English. We sould not have to learn a foreign language in our own country. If you want to speak spanish GO HOME!!!!! If you want to stay in our country LEARN ENGLISH!!! I really hate the fact that our borders are overrun with illegals. I have friends from all over the world. But we don't illegally go to each other's countries and overrun them!!!

Here Is A Link To The Coolest Harry Potter Stuff

Juat had to post this link:

Original Unique Harry Potter Fan Christmas Gifts

To The Woman on WB11 News

This is to the woman on the WB11 News that didn't want subway bag searches because it was an invasion of privacy. Ahem. Hello! Yes, lets stop the bag searches. Then lets announce to all the terrorist wannabees that we have stopped the bag searches. Let's make it easy for them.
WOMAN, you are a complete fool. You said you think that security should be trained to know what a bomb looks like. A bomb in a backpack looks like a backpack. That is why they want to look INSIDE. I cannot believe that there are people that dense.

Michael Chertoff - Three Cheers For You!

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally.

"Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.

"It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," Chertoff told a Senate hearing.

Thousands of "Mexicans who are caught entering the United States illegally are returned immediately to Mexico. But other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers. The problem is especially severe for non-Mexicans apprehended at the southwest border," Chertoff explained.

"Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities," he added.

"Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process."

Chertoff's remarks in favor of returning "every illegal entrant, no exceptions" appeared to conflict directly with the US policy toward illegal Cuban migrants.

Though Cubans picked up at sea are returned to their country, those who reach US soil by air, sea or ground are allowed to stay and work -- a fact Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal emigration attempts.

ARTICLE: PETA workers face 25 felony counts in North Carolina (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

Blogger's note - If you see these people, please spit on them.


PETA workers face 25 felony counts in North Carolina
By DARREN FREEMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 15, 2005 | Last updated 11:24 PM Oct. 14



WINTON, N.C. — The cats and dogs two PETA employees have been charged with euthanizing and dumping in an Ahoskie garbage bin were killed by injections of pentobarbital, a barbiturate commonly used to put down animals, according to new warrants issued and served on Friday.

Additionally, the two employees were charged with three felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses. The charges allege that they euthanized three cats from an Ahoskie veterinarian after promising to find the animals new homes, according to the new warrants.

PETA employees Andrew B. Cook, 24, of Virginia Beach, and Adria J. Hinkle, 27, of Norfolk, were served with warrants on 22 felony charges of animal cruelty and the three felony charges of obtaining property by false pretense in court on Friday.

A grand jury is expected to consider formal indictments Oct. 31, Assistant District Attorney Donnie Taylor said.

The new animal cruelty charges replaced 31 previous animal cruelty charges, which were dismissed.

The new warrants now include more information, such as descriptions of animals investigators found, the causes of death and – in some warrants – photographs of the dead dogs.

The new information was added to clarify the charges, which previously did not have such information as the cause of death, Taylor said.

The two employees are still charged with eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals and one count of trespassing.

Both have been released on $35,000 bail, and PETA is paying their legal fees. PETA suspended Hinkle for 90 days and did not discipline Cook.

Police began investigating this summer after carcasses of cats and dogs in plastic bags were found in a supermarket garbage bin in Ahoskie every Wednesday for four consecutive weeks. At least 80 animals were found.

Officers say that on June 15 they followed a van after it left Bertie County’s animal shelter, then staked out the garbage bins and arrested two PETA employees.

The officers found 18 dead dogs in a bin and 13 other animal carcasses in the van, which was registered to PETA.

PETA had been picking up animals in northeastern North Carolina since 2001, when a caller informed the group of poor conditions in shelters, according to a written apology PETA President Ingrid Newkirk sent to Bertie County officials.

Bertie County and Northampton County officials and one Ahoskie veterinarian said they believed that adoptable animals would find new homes, while sick, injured and wild animals would be euthanized.

Newkirk has since said that dumping the animals into trash bins violates PETA policy.

PETA typically euthanizes animals in Norfolk and cremates the carcasses, Newkirk said in a June 17 press conference.

Newkirk said at the time that the animals found in North Carolina had likely been given a lethal injection of a barbiturate that PETA is licensed to use.

Bertie and Northampton officials cut ties to PETA pending trial.

The counties are now euthanizing animals without help from PETA.


Reach Darren Freeman at (252) 338-0150 or darren.freeman@pilotonline.com.

Blogger's Note - Does the phrase "We are our own worst enemy" ring a bell?


Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreated Ian Sample, science correspondentThursday October 6, 2005The Guardian
Scientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk.
Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people.
The genetic sequence is also being made available to scientists online, a move which some fear adds a further risk of the virus being created in other labs.
The recreation was carried out in an attempt to understand what made the 1918 outbreak so devastating. Reporting in the journal Science, a team lead by Dr Jeffery Taubenberger at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland shows that the recreated virus is extremely effective. When injected into mice, it quickly took hold and they started to lose weight rapidly, shedding 13% of their original weight in just two days. Within six days, all mice injected with the virus had died.
In a comparison experiment, similar mice were injected with a contemporary strain of flu, and although the mice lost weight initially, they recovered. Tests revealed that the Spanish flu virus multiplied so rapidly that after four days, mice contained 39,000 times more flu virus than those injected with the more common strain of flu.
The government and military researchers who reconstructed the virus say their work has already provided invaluable insight into its unique genetic make-up and helps explain its lethality. But other researchers warned yesterday the that virus could escape from the laboratory. "This will raise clear questions among some as to whether they have really created a biological weapon," said Professor Ronald Atlas at the centre for deterrence of biowarfare and bioterrorism at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Publication of the work and the filing of the virus's genetic make-up to an online database followed an emergency meeting last week by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which concluded that the benefits of publishing the work outweighed the risks. Many scientists remained sceptical. "Once the genetic sequence is publicly available, there's a theoretical risk that any molecular biologist with sufficient knowledge could recreate this virus," said Dr John Wood, a virologist at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar.

Here Is An Idea for A Tax Break

Let's encourage congress to pass a bill that grants tax breaks to people and businesses that use Solar Energy. It saves money, it saves the environment. The only reason not to use it is if we want to continue to be dependent on the oil companies and the Saudis. Encourage Solar Energy Use!

Illegal Aliens

Blogger's Babble - Illegal Aliens are illegal for a reason. Let's stop making excuses and make them all become citizens the right way. There are laws for these sorts of things. Let's make the laws effective and let's make them be followed. If you are coming to America, learn English. I wouldn't move to Japan or Mexico and expect to get away without learning the native language.