Archived articles for
the week of
November 24 - November 28, 2008

• Cold snap fails to cool protagonists of global warming
Europe is shivering through an extreme cold snap. One of the coldest winters in the U.S. in more than 100 years is toppling meteorological records by the dozen, and the Arctic ice is expanding. Even Australia has been experiencing unseasonable snow.

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• Environment: Obama signals change on climate change
President-elect of the U.S., Barack Obama, has signalled that he plans a decisive break in environmental policy with George Bush, who within months of taking office in 2001, walked out on the Kyoto Protocol.

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• German CO2 Emissions Fall Below Kyoto Requirements
Germany has cut its greenhouse gas emissions to below levels required under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the government in Berlin announced on Friday.

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• 'The Greening of Business'
Rarely does one stone kill three birds. However, as Thomas Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded notes, alternative energy will create green jobs, combat global warming, and secure America's energy independence. Thus, President-Elect Barack Obama's administration is quickly restructuring America's energy system toward a solar future.

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• Wind Farms Could Change Weather
A new study suggests that massive wind farms could steer storms and alter the weather if extensive fields of turbines were built, according to a news report.

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• Bring back the woolly mammoth?
A new research report suggests that scientists may be able to recreate an extinct woolly mammoth from its long-frozen DNA. The most gung-ho scientists think it could be done in a decade or two for as little as $10 million. The deeper question is, should we try?

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• Experts lie to show global warming
One of several hot topics in the last few years is global warming. Are temperatures rising? Who's causing it? What's causing it? Is it even real? There is a lot of speculation about global warming and I can't say I agree with one side or the other. Sometimes it seems logical, and other times it seems absolutely ridiculous.

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• U.N. panel's findings on climate change
Following are findings of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a 2007 report. The scientific findings are meant as a guide for government delegates who will meet in Poznan, Poland, from December 1-12:

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• California adding to defenses against global warming
California is building a second line of defense against global warming, one that will prepare the state for a harsher environment while the other continues to cut climate-changing emissions.

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• The True Costs of EPA Global Warming Regulation
Legislation designed to address global warming failed in Congress this year, largely due to concerns about its high costs and adverse impact on an already weakening economy. The congressional debate will likely resume in 2009, as legislators try again to bal­ance the environmental and economic considerations on this complex issue. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, has initiated steps toward bypassing the legislative process and regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

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• Weather Channel Cuts Earn Mixed Reviews
Word that NBC had fired a handful of on camera meteorologists at The Weather Channel and canceled the network's only climate change news program struck a nerve with many Capital Weather Gang readers, who commented in droves during the weekend in response to our breaking news story that was posted on Friday afternoon. Out of nearly 260 comments that were filed as of Sunday night, not a single one supported the decision to fire popular longtime weathercaster Dave Schwartz, whose colorful weather presentations had made him stand out from the crowd of talent on that station.

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• Building For The Environment
More and more businesses are going green but not just when it comes to recycling paper and buying fuel-efficient vehicles. Some companies are building green.

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• Eminent domain cloud darkens Bay Ridge neighborhood
A plan to build a public school in Bay Ridge has drawn the ire of several Fourth Ave. property owners whose land could be seized under eminent domain, officials said.

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• Eminent domain angers downtown bike shop owner
  Papa Wheelies owner says he stands to lose 30% of sales
A local business owner's six-figure compensation demand for an easement that would allow a critical infrastructure project to move forward has prompted the City Council to begin the eminent domain process.

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• New Jersey shore owners caught between sand, hard place
Some waterfront property owners in Cape May County are saying thanks but no thanks to a plan that would eventually replenish area beaches.

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• School district files for eminent domain
An eminent domain action filed Tuesday by the Marysville Joint Unified School District, which seeks 70 acres of land near Yuba College as the new site for Alicia Intermediate School, means a serious court fight, the landowner says. "I'm securing the best eminent domain attorney in Northern California," said Stephen Hull, who owns land along Hammonton-Smartville Road.

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• High school district sued by landowners for alleged elder abuse
A Brentwood-area man is suing Liberty Union High School District, claiming his elderly sister has suffered financial and emotional abuse because the district is trying to take their family's property without proper compensation to build another high school.

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• $1.34B U.S. Sugar buyout pact reached
The South Florida Water Management District will pay $1.34 billion to U.S. Sugar Corp. for the purchase of land for Everglades restoration. The state is planning to buy 180,000 acres from U.S. Sugar. The deal includes a leaseback of land for $50 an acre until 2016. The boards of directors at the water district and the sugar giant are expected to sign the agreement by Dec. 16.

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• Kuna Residents Worry About Eminent Domain
The issue of eminent domain is popping up again in Ada County. Just a couple years ago eminent domain was used to procure a good deal of property along Ustick Road, which upset a lot of residents.

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• Developer sues district over eminent domain
A developer is suing the Lockeford Community Services District for not using eminent domain to buy a pricey, 63-acre lot next to his land to absorb his proposed subdivision's future wastewater.

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• Land-use task forces wants more local planning
A state task force on land use is proposing more local control on deciding which rural lands are suited for farming and forestry as they prepare for the last meeting before recommendations are due.

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• Property rights guru fathered unlikely wilderness bill
Supporters of Senator Mike Crapo's Owyhee Initiative Bill are going to have to wait at least another few months before the brainchild of Fred Grant finally comes to fruition. Grant, an adviser to Owyhee County, had worked alongside the late Representative Helen Chenoweth fighting federal control over public land ranchers. He worked with her husband, the late Wayne Hage, in pushing federal courts to recognize private property rights on public lands like water, fences, and other improvements.

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• CEO meets landowners about MATL project
Jerry McRae didn't mince words when talking about a high-voltage transmission line that will cross his land near here. "You're going to have a hell of a time building a power line in this community," McRae said.

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• Forest Service delays Wolf Creek development
The Rio Grande National Forest on Thursday halted its environmental impact statement on access for the proposed Village at Wolf Creek, calling for developers either to amend or submit a new application.

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• Gas prices: Lowest since 2005
Gas prices fell to their lowest level since 2005, coming within 4 cents of $1.80 a gallon, according to a daily survey of gas station credit card swipes by motorist group AAA.

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• Will Obama be pragmatic in energy policy?
President-elect Barack Obama is proving to be remarkably pragmatic and centrist as he tackles the global economic crisis. Big tests are yet to come on energy, however.

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• OPEC's divisions manifest as oil prices plummet
For the third time in as many months, OPEC's ability to stem plummeting crude prices amid a global economic meltdown will be tested during a meeting Saturday.

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• Vatican unveils ambitious solar energy plans
And then there was light - and it was powered by the sun. The Vatican on Wednesday activated a new solar energy system and announced an ambitious plan that could one day make it an alternative energy exporter.

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• Green energy the key to the future? Local companies already involved
Is the answer to Southwestern Ontario’s manufacturing woes blowing in the wind? With wind turbines popping up across the province, it has been suggested that the manufacture of turbines could be an alternative to lost automotive sector jobs.

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• Electric plant proposed on Promontory Point
The Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation wants to turn municipal garbage into electricity on Promontory Point in the Great Salt Lake. The tribe's business arm, the Northwestern Shoshone Economic Development Corp., is acquiring a 2,000-acre landfill site, and plans a gasification plant that would produce electricity for sale to California cities. The process heats up but doesn't burn garbage.

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• No more sticker shock for nuclear
The staggering cost of building nuclear power plants put the industry in recession long before the current financial woes showed up. Billion-dollar plants scared off investors who worried about getting a return on their money.

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• Oil prices slide after surge
Oil prices slid on Tuesday as traders banked profits following sharp gains won a day earlier, analysts said. Crude futures had closed up almost five dollars on Monday after a government bailout of ailing American bank Citigroup weighed on the U.S. currency, making oil cheaper for holders of foreign money, pushing up demand.

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• Bankrupt U.S. ethanol producer VeraSun gets unsolicited buyout offer
America's second largest ethanol producer, which is under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, said it has received an unsolicited buyout offer. The announcement from VeraSun Energy Corp. late Monday arrived hours after Jeff Broin, chief executive of privately held Poet LLC, told The Associated Press that his company was in talks with a number of ethanol producers.

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• U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Energy roadmap for new administration
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy has offered its recommendations to President-elect Barack Obama’s administration and U.S. Congressional delegates for forming a national energy policy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents more than three million businesses and organizations across the country. Its Institute for 21st Century Energy was created for the sole purpose of unifying energy stakeholders and policymakers behind an energy policy “to ensure that America's supply of fuel and power is adequate, stable, and affordable, while protecting national security, and improving the environment.”

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• Segway inventor touts island as an energy model
Energy independence is still only a hypothetical goal for the U.S., but the owner of a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut says he has already achieved that feat and is offering his work as a model.

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• Biofuel makers try not to use food crops
  Corn prices have tripled since '05
In future years, we may look back at the Great Mexican Tortilla Crisis of 2006 as the time when ethanol lost its vroom. Right or wrong, that was when blame firmly settled on biofuels for the surge in food prices. The diversion of American corn from flour to fuel put the flat corn bread out of reach for Mexico's poorest.

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• U.S. border fence has many loopholes, some them deadly
The United States has stepped up efforts over the last two years to contain the inflow of illegal immigrants across its southern border from Mexico and Central America.

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• Timetable set for withdrawal from Iraq
Iraq's parliament approved Thursday a security pact with the United States that lets American troops stay in the country for three more years - setting a clear timetable for a U.S. exit for the first time since the 2003 invasion.

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• Beware of the 'Fairness Doctrine'
There are ominous signs that certain forces on the left are gearing up for a new attempt to impose a "fairness doctrine" on American television and radio commentary.

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• Obama to name board of economic advisers
President-elect Barack Obama is naming a board of economic experts outside government to advise him on ways to create jobs and bring stability to the ailing financial system.

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• Ailing FDA May Need a Major Overhaul, Officials and Groups Say
The Obama administration will inherit a Food and Drug Administration widely seen as struggling to protect Americans from unsafe medication, contaminated food, and a flood of questionable imports from China and other countries.

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• Iraqi parliament delays vote on U.S. pact
Intense dealmaking among Iraq's political factions on Wednesday delayed by one day a parliamentary vote on a security pact that would allow American forces to stay in the country through 2011 under tight Iraqi supervision.

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• Consumer confidence improves moderately
Consumer confidence improved moderately in November from a record low in October, with the "present situation index" slipping slightly but the expectations index improving, according to a business research company index released on Tuesday.

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• Fed Commits $800 Billion More to Unfreeze Lending
The Federal Reserve took two new steps to unfreeze credit for homebuyers, consumers, and small businesses, committing up to $800 billion.

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• Obama to offer more details on economic plan
President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday is expected to talk about what kinds of "cuts and sacrifices" are needed in Washington to rebuild the economy, a process that he says "will not be easy."

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• Obama set to name economic team
Barack Obama, the U.S. president-elect, is set to announce his White House economic team, which faces the task of kickstarting the struggling U.S. economy. Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank chief, is set to be named as the next treasury secretary at a press conference in Chicago on Monday.

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• U.S. home resales fall 3.1% in October
Sales of existing homes in the United States fell more than expected last month, as economic fears made buyers leery even though prices plunged to the lowest level in more than four years.

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• Citigroup Gets U.S. Rescue From Toxic Losses, Capital Infusion
Citigroup Inc. received a U.S. government rescue package that shields the bank from losses on toxic assets and injects $20 billion of capital, bolstering the stock after its 60 percent plunge last week.

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• The world slump: fearing a depression
A worldwide recession now appears inevitable. Economic news from the European Union and former Soviet bloc nations does little to inspire confidence. Poland, Latvia, and Hungary have been hard hit.

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• Mumbai Terror Attack Esclates Tensions Between India, Pakistan
A diplomatic row between India and Pakistan has erupted over alleged Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks. The chill in relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors comes as commandos in Mumbai launched their final assaults on three sites. The coordinated attacks by unknown militants have left at least 140 people dead and wounded more than 300. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in New Delhi has the story.

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• Venezuela and Russia Sign Accords
The ceremony capping the first visit of a Russian president to Venezuela, like the rest of the president’s visit, was heavy on pomp and symbolism: President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia met Thursday aboard a Russian warship moored at this port city before the countries engage in joint military exercises. Hundreds of Russian sailors in white uniforms stood at attention as the two men boarded the ship.

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• President-Elect Obama's $2 Billion U.N. Time Bomb
As President-elect Barack Obama assembles his economic team to cope with the worsening financial markets, another problem may loom just beyond the horizon. The new White House may find itself footing the bill for the multi-billion dollar renovation of U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, and an expansion of the U.N.'s security force.

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• Israel lets in Gaza food but not enough says U.N.
Israel reopened its border crossings with Gaza to basic supplies on Wednesday but U.N. officials complained that the repeated closures of recent weeks were forcing the territory's population to live from hand to mouth.

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• Greenland Votes for Greater Independence From Denmark
Greenland, a home-governing Danish territory, decided in a referendum to increase independence from its former colonial master as it attempts to create an economy based on natural resources.

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• Violence against women remains widespread and largely unpunished – U.N. officials
Violence against women is the least punished crime in the world, United Nations officials said today, urging governments to end the widespread impunity and to take measures to ensure that the laws and policies that aim to protect women and girls are enforced.

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• Colombia and Canada sign free-trade pact
The governments of Colombia and Canada signed a free-trade agreement that guarantees workers' rights and environmental protection in both countries. That was announced Friday in Lima by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who presided over the signing of the accord at a ceremony parallel to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit being hosted by this capital.

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• Where is Sri Lanka's war heading?
Sri Lanka's military on Tuesday said it was probing the edges of the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, Kilinochchi.

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• Top U.N. official deplores latest bombings in Iraqi capital
The top United Nations envoy to Iraq has strongly condemned the series of bombings that struck Baghdad today, killing and injuring innocent civilians on their way to work.

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• Chavez passes Venezuela election test
Candidates from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's party won a majority of the seats Sunday in local elections that were seen as a test of Chavez's influence.

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• Israel allows limited aid into Gaza
Israel has briefly opened three border crossings with Hamas-controlled Gaza, allowing some essential food and fuel into the territory for the second time in three weeks.

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• The religion of peace strikes again
  By Alan Caruba
The attacks in Mumbai, India are the latest in the 1,400 year history of Islam and yet people continue to express surprise that the alleged religion of peace could harbor so many cold-blooded killers of innocent people.

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• Doublespeak and American Socialism
  By Cliff Kincaid
“Mortgage Rates Fall as U.S. Expands Rescue” was the page-one headline in the November 26 Wall Street Journal. The story concerned a promise from federal officials to “pump” another $800 billion into the economy, bringing the grand total of the cost of various bailouts to something over $8 trillion. The term “rescue” is laughable but is used for the obvious purpose of confusing people about the calamity that has befallen our nation. If we’re not bankrupt now, we will be someday because we are being “rescued” by the federal government. This is the ultimate in what William Lutz, in his 1997 book of the same name, called “doublespeak.”

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• Intelligent Design and Evolution
  By Selwyn Duke
While the debate over evolution in schools has been developing for many years in a primordial soup of passion, generally speaking, it hasn't reached a very high level of complexity. The opponents of Intelligent Design Theory (ID) tend to dismiss its advocates as serpent-handling dogmatists who make a sport of spitting on Galileo's grave, while some at the opposite end of the spectrum may portray anyone entertaining evolution in any context as the serpent in Eden.

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• The PETA Thanksgiving Kill-Joys
  By Alan Caruba
The folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, otherwise known as PETA, are back again trying to take the joy out of Thanksgiving and by that I mean trying to convince people that eating turkey is not only bad for you, but a gross violation of turkey rights.

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• A Cornucopia of Gratitude
  By Frank Salvato
As we enter the holiday season we will begin to hear a lot about kindness and appreciation. Sure, there will be the mental midgets who need to take issue with holiday displays and transmitted sentiments (we should really pity their stunted intellect as they celebrate their generic event) but for the most part we will begin to hear quite a bit about giving thanks, peace on earth, goodwill, brotherhood, sharing, and sacrifice. This is the season of hope and while certain political opportunists incessantly try to franchise that word, for all their efforts, they are included in this joyous season as well.

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• Obama's Plan for Energy and the Environment
  By Alex Newman
"We must act quickly and we must act boldly to transform our entire economy — from our cars and our fuels to our factories and our buildings," writes Barack Obama on his campaign website in the introduction to his energy section, as part of his Blueprint for Change. He also outlines some of his proposals for the environment and the energy situation, which include everything from increasing taxes on oil companies so that he can redistribute the money to new energy industries to implementing an economy-wide "cap-and-trade" system for carbon emissions.

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• One more reason the Brady Law must go
  By Larry Pratt
One of the emblems of Hurricane Katrina was the horrific invasion of Patricia Konie's home by members of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). They entered Miss Konie's home - against her expressed wishes. The Oakland TV station video of this can be seen here.

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• Science disproves global warming
  By Dick Little
We have not heard much about global warming lately. Politicians and social engineers are no longer urging us to prepare for the worst. Self-proclaimed climate scientist, Al Gore has been silent. What's happening here?

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• Fed Bails Out Rich Arabs in Citigroup Deal
  By Cliff Kincaid
For several days there was a fierce national debate over whether American car companies in Detroit deserved $25 billion of taxpayer money and whether American jobs should be saved. The automakers and a union representative were ridiculed, didn’t get the money, and were told to come up with a “plan” to save the companies. After backing the $700-billion Wall Street bailout, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News said Detroit didn’t deserve any federal money because the car companies had been mismanaged. This was a point made by many in the media.

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• Exposing the fallacy of collectivism
  By Henry Lamb
John Edwards was right: There are two Americas. The division is not between the rich and poor, nor between red states and blue states, nor between Democrats and Republicans. The division that really matters is the division between the people who believe government should regulate the behavior of people, and those who believe that people should regulate the behavior of government.

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• Race in the third millennium
  By Selwyn Duke
Although the show was propaganda produced by leftist Norman Lear, no one could accuse “All in the Family” of not being funny. Its protagonist, blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker, is one of those legendary television characters, and one of his uproarious lines is apropos here. It was uttered during a scene in which his daughter, Gloria, passionately asked him, “Daddy, did you know that 65 percent of the people murdered in the last ten years were killed by handguns?” The curmudgeonly patriarch’s reply was classic: “Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed outta’ windas’?”

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• Lessons Learned from the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign
  By Fred Gielow
Looking back on the campaign, I think several lessons are to be learned. Seven come to mind. For the first time, we have a measure of the relative importance of different groups. We know that liberals favor women, and they raced to support Hillary when she announced her candidacy.

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Archived articles for
the week of
November 17 - November 21, 2008

• Bush angers environmentalists with last-minute rule changes
As the hour grows late, President Bush, like many chief executives before him, seems to hear the call of the wild. Honoring a tradition that dates at least to the Reagan administration, Bush is pushing through a bundle of controversial last-minute changes in federal rules - many of them involving the environment, national parks, and public lands in the West.

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• Obama may ease stand on environment, Whitman says
The nation can expect environmental regulations to start tightening soon after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman predicted Thursday in Pittsburgh.

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• U.N. Releases Climate Proposal Ahead Of Schedule
On Thursday, the United Nations released a report to help leaders during an upcoming climate summit move closer to a new agreement on global warming. The report included proposals from countries and other organizations as to what a new treaty should feature.

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• Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.

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• Senate Announces Leadership, Lieberman Removed From Environment Committee
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has released the names of the new Senate Democratic Party leadership for the 111th Congress. "I am honored to be re-elected as the Senate majority leader," Reid said in a press statement. "This year has been particularly challenging for all Americans, and with a narrow majority, passing timely legislation has, at times, been difficult, but I look forward to again leading my colleagues into the next session with a promise of unity and bipartisanship to deliver the results that we as a country need."

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• Tiny Primates Found Alive Again in Indonesian Rainforest
Mouse-sized primates called pygmy tarsiers, not seen alive in 85 years, have come out of hiding from a mountaintop in a cloud forest in Indonesia. Weighing just 2 ounces (57 grams), they resemble mini-gremlin creatures, as they have big eyes and are covered in dense coats of fur to keep warm in a damp, chilly habitat.

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• Obama repeats vow to move rapidly on climate issues
President-elect Barack Obama has indicated that he intends to move rapidly on one of the most ambitious items on his agenda - tackling climate change.

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• EPA Moves to Ease Air Rules for Parks
The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.

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• Green groups ramp up attacks on oil sands
Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta's oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

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• Lawsuit may force another look at fish harvests
Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, environmental groups, and the Northwest tribes suing over the latest salmon plan seem to have forgotten the law of unintended consequences. Their opposition to NOAA Fisheries' 2008 Columbia River Hydro System Biological Opinion (Hydro BiOp), likely will force the federal agency to also re-evaluate its harvest limits for fish listed under the Endangered Species Act.

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• G&F reassigns wolf management team
Wyoming’s wolf management team no longer exists, save one specialist who will continue to investigate livestock losses to wolves. The Cowboy State’s four-man wolf management team was hired by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department just a few months ago, after wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from the federal endangered species list.

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• World Carbon Emissions Continue to Increase
  Obama Won't Visit U.N. Climate Conference Before Taking Office
Carbon emissions from industrialized nations rose through the first six years of the 21st century, reversing a slackening in the 1990s caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to new figures from the United Nations. There was a slight plateau in 2006 that experts cautioned is unlikely to continue as a trend.

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• Global cooling prediction of guest speaker
  An Ottawa researcher says human activity is not causing a warming of the Earth
A professor from Carleton University may get the cold shoulder from environmentalists when he speaks in London tomorrow. Tim Patterson, a paleoclimatologist from the department of Earth sciences, will give an opposing view to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Patterson is speaking at a Canadian Club of London luncheon.

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• Methane plant good for people, environment
The gas released by bacteria consuming the mounds of waste at the Southeast Berrien County Landfill goes up in flames. Officials of the Buchanan facility for nearly a decade have wanted to capture the methane rather than burn it. Only recently have advances in technology and increased energy values made the project feasible.

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• New Ice Age predicted - But averted by global warming?
Deep ice sheets would cover much of the Northern Hemisphere thousands of years from now - if it weren't for us pesky humans, a new study says. Emissions of greenhouse gases - such as the carbon dioxide, or CO2, that comes from power plants and cars - are heating the atmosphere to such an extent that the next ice age, predicted to be the deepest in millions of years, may be postponed indefinitely.

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• Invasives rule would allow DNR to enter private property
  Legislative council seeks constitutional justification
A proposed rule being promulgated by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources would allow DNR wardens to enter private homes and properties to conduct searches for invasive species.

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• Guilford eminent domain battle
A Guilford business is going one on one with the state in a land battle. A&W Sanitation doesn't want the state to seize its property, and turn it into a parking lot. So the owner reached out to News Channel 8 for help.

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• Easements move forward for two properties
Two Santa Ynez Valley properties with storied histories have entered into agreements with the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County for future preservation. The Land Trust, a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit with a number of Santa Ynez Valley residents on its board of trustees and advisory council, aims to help conserve open spaces by placing them in easements that protect them from development and in some cases offer tax breaks.

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• Yamhill County judge upholds landowners on development rights
Ruling in Oregon's biggest cluster of Measure 37 "vested rights" land-use cases, a Yamhill County judge has decided that five property owners have the right to complete subdivisions on farmland.

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• Boulder neighbors settle dispute in unused land case
A Boulder couple who seized a third of their neighbors' vacant lot under an obscure "squatters rights" legal doctrine have been awarded a smaller plot to settle the dispute. Last year, a judge granted Richard McLean and Edith Stevens a large chunk of their neighbors' land under Colorado's so-called adverse possession law, which allows trespassers to take over land if they use it unchallenged for at least 18 years.

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• Institute for Justice representative to meet with Justice Department
The U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will host a fact finding meeting on November 20 at 7 p.m. at the New Providence Outreach Center, 207 Oak Street, in Clarksville. This is a precursor to a larger public forum on downtown redevelopment issues.

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• Wilderness bills will have new allies, new foes next year
Now that two Idaho wilderness bills are officially dead for the year, the Republicans behind the proposals are planning how to get ideas crafted during the Bush era to pass through a Democratic Congress and White House.

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• Borough files to take land under eminent domain
Paperwork has been filed for Jenkintown Borough to take control of two parcels of land under the eminent domain law. Borough officials hope constructing a 68-space parking lot will revitalize a slumping business district; one of the two landowners will likely file preliminary objections.

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• In Long Branch, eminent domain battle continues
Like too many other people across New Jersey, I am fighting to keep my home. No, it isn't because of the mortgage mess. It is something far more intentional on the part of the government.

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• 'Off-grid' couple fight power line
  They don't use electricity but were forced to sell land to AEP
Charles and Melanie Ogle have lived happily off the power grid for 17 years in their solar-powered log home perched on a ridge in the Hocking Hills. They don't want or need electric lines, but it seems that a power line is about to be strung outside their house anyway.

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• Railroad Wants Public To Fund Painting
  Council Member Wants CSX To Fix Rusting Bridge
If you own a house that's run-down and not up to code, the city will make you fix it. But the same standard apparently does not apply to a huge corporate railroad. Metro Council wants CSX to paint an aging railroad bridge downtown, but the company wants taxpayers to pay for it.

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• Eminent domain for drain
The city will resort to using eminent domain temporarily to place equipment near a drainage channel slated for improvements. The action follows failed attempts to gain consent from two homeowners.

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• Border fence land suits continue despite construction delays
Government efforts to seize private land for stretches of border fencing will continue even though construction has been put on hold in parts of the Rio Grande Valley

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• State offers tool to fight blight
While housing advocates praised blight legislation passed in Harrisburg last week, it is unclear to what extent the new tool could be used in Scranton. The law allows judges to appoint conservators who can facilitate the rehab of decaying properties, but it is limited to buildings vacant for a year and where the owner is absent.

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• Condemning a landmark? Restaurant's owners discuss uncertain future
Judy Patti and her sons Aaron and Chris greet customers at Patti's Restaurant with a down-home familiarity that comes with more than 70 years in business. For the most part, her customers return the favor. But lately, Mrs. Patti said, they've been upset about the possible fate of the landmark eatery.

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• Gas Prices Spiral Down to Near $2
  Soft Economy Saps Driving Demand, Upends Debate Over Alternate-Energy Policy
Crude-oil prices sank below $50 a barrel, and the average cost of a gallon of gasoline at the pump hovered just above $2, a free fall in prices that is reverberating through the economy. The sudden reversal - the fastest and sharpest since 1980, when the government began tracking monthly gasoline prices - is bringing relief to some and complicating business for others.

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• Start-Up Plans Electric-Car Network
Better Place, a start-up company developing technology to support electric cars, Thursday announced plans for a $1 billion network to charge electric cars in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of a broad push into the U.S.

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• Nebraska winter to test plug-in hybrid car
A plug-in hybrid car, considered one way to help reduce global warming emissions and dependence on foreign oil, is being tested in Nebraska and will get a chance to prove itself against harsh Midwestern winters.

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• Oil Falls Below $50, Lowest Price Since January 2007
Oil plunged below $50 a barrel on Thursday, deepening losses over the previous four sessions as battered financial markets reflected ever lower confidence in the world economy and evidence mounted of falling fuel demand.

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• Automakers detail electric car plans at L.A. show
Many of the world's biggest automakers on Wednesday detailed ambitious electric-car plans that promise zero emissions but will demand patience from consumers and subsidies from governments to succeed.

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• Biofuels run into trouble
Despite a promising start, the U.S. experiment with renewable fuels is facing a serious challenge next year. Falling gasoline consumption, lower pump prices, and contradictions within the federal government program are intensifying existing pressures on ethanol distillers and farmers already struggling to cope with over-capacity and collapsing margins.

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• Oil-Shale Rules Lower Drillers' Royalty Payments
The U.S. Department of Interior on Monday gave energy companies a big break in the royalties they will be required to pay for oil-shale production on federal land. Environmental groups accused the department of trying to "handcuff" the incoming Obama administration and "subsidize" global warming.

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• Research and Markets: This Report on U.S. Nuclear Energy is Now Available
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "U.S. Nuclear Energy Outlook" report to their offering. Nuclear power plays a major role in the U.S. energy industry as the country, after coal and natural gas, produces its maximum amount of electricity from nuclear power plants. Oil and hydropower are the next biggest sources of energy.

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• Kentucky Governor Objects to Proposed Changes in Mining Rules
Governor Steve Beshear formally objected to a proposed move by the Bush Administration to weaken restrictions that prohibit dumping mountaintop mining waste near rivers and streams.

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• More Ethanol Plant Bankruptcies Predicted
Look for more ethanol plant bankruptcies soon. Mark Lakers, president of Ag and Food Associates, an Omaha, Nebraska, middle market merger and acquisitions investment bank, expects as many as 40 Chapter 11 filings by the end of January.

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• Oil shale rules completed
Commercial oil shale production in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming took another step forward Monday when the federal government published rules on how such operations would be run and how much the government would get in royalty payments from actual oil production.

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• Project to turn poop to power
A new pipeline project is in the works for Kern County but it won't be transporting fossil fuels. Bakersfield-based BioEnergy Solutions plans to start construction early next year on a distribution network that will collect methane gas from a cluster of Shafter dairies to be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric for power generation.

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• World energy outlook - 2008
The world’s craving for energy will grow 45 percent by 2030 with coal accounting for more than a third of the overall rise, according to the latest edition of the annual World Energy Outlook published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). But current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, and socially - they can and must be altered, said Nobuo Tanaka Executive Director of the IEA.

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• OPEC ready to act to help prop up prices
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Monday it was ready to intervene to help prop up prices as a looming global recession undermines worldwide demand for oil. "In the current extremely volatile situation, closer monitoring and more frequent intervention are required," OPEC said in its November monthly report published Monday.

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• The Energy Debates: Wind Farms
Wind farms harness the wind's energy to generate electricity. Wind energy actually comes mainly from the sun. When solar energy heats up the atmosphere, hot air rises while cooler air swirls down to replace it. This movement results in wind.

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• Bush signs law extending unemployment insurance
President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House said. It gives seven more weeks of unemployment payments to workers who have exhausted their current jobless benefits. For those in states with the highest unemployment rates, an additional 20 weeks will be allowed.

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• Aid For Carmakers Stalls; Now What?
  Detroit Told To Create Roadmap For Modernizing Industry In Return For Bailout Consideration
On Capitol Hill, hope for a "sooner then expected" financial bailout of U.S. automakers faded quickly. "Until we can see a plan where the auto industry is held accountable, we cannot show them the money," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA

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• U.S. asking for $300 billion from four Gulf countries
The United States has asked four oil-rich Gulf states for close to 300 billion dollars to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait’s daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday. Quoting “highly informed” sources, the daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars, and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait.

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• U.S. weekly jobless claims surge to 16-year high
The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits surged last week to their highest level in 16 years, Labor Department data showed on Thursday, as a harsh economic environment forces employers to cut back on hiring.

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• Obama taps Axelrod for senior White House adviser role
  Longtime Chicago political operative elevated to role similar to Karl Rove's in Bush era
For more than two decades, David Axelrod has run one of Chicago's most prolific political consulting firms, crafting campaign messages for some of the top Democrats in the city and nation.

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• Iraqi PM says U.S. pact will restore sovereignty
A pact allowing U.S. troops to stay in Iraq three more years is Iraq's best option for restoring sovereignty, and its critics are making unrealistic demands, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday.

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• Border Patrol says fence slows attacks on agents
The Border Patrol has finished installing razor-sharp barbed wire atop a 5-mile stretch of fence on the Mexican border, an addition critics call heavy-handed and an eyesore.

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• U.S. says food, drug inspection access in China improving
U.S. officials opened the first overseas Food and Drug Administration office in Beijing on Wednesday as they gear up for a long battle to ensure the quality of food, drug, and feed imports from China.

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• Officials Defend Bailout; Auto Industry Wants A Share
Capitol Hill hosted a contentious day of bailout battling on Tuesday, as in the morning the House Financial Services Committee grilled Bush Administration officials on the Treasury Department Troubled Asset Relief Program, and in the afternoon, auto industry leaders appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to plead for a piece of the bailout pie.

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• New House Democrats wary on taxes, bailout
  But big Democratic advantage in the House gives Speaker Pelosi leeway
A mandate for change for President-elect Barack Obama? Sweeping enactment next year of the long-delayed Democratic agenda? A tax hike on those earning more than $250,000 a year, as Obama indicated during the campaign?

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• Iran sends mixed signals on U.S.-Iraq pact
Reaction in Iran to the approval by Baghdad of a controversial military pact with Washington has been mixed, with praise from the judiciary, a blast from conservative papers and silence from government.

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• Nebraska senators told safe-haven law exposes problem
Nebraska's lawmakers are trying to limit the state's open-ended safe haven law with an age cap on children who can be dropped off at hospitals without fear of prosecution.

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• Barack Obama’s Health-Care Reform May Help Many People
The universal health-care systems, proposed by president elect Barack Obama, may be the last hope for many people living without medical insurance and in poverty. People who have very low incomes cannot afford the hundreds of dollars needed for health insurance, and so they live without any, hoping not to get sick.

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• Factory production rises in October
Industrial production grew in October, after September produced the worst dropoff in factory output in 62 years, according to a report released Monday by the Federal Reserve.

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• Tight strings sought on auto bailout
As Congress started debating today whether to grant Detroit's automakers $25 billion in loans, the car companies and the United Auto Workers are coming under intense pressure to make concessions in exchange for the bailout.

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• Asia-Pacific Leaders Worry Ties With U.S. Are Fraying
The heads of 21 Pacific Rim countries will gather in Peru this weekend for their annual summit, with many growing increasingly worried that U.S.-Asian economic ties are about to unravel.

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• U.N. council approves increase in Congo peacekeepers
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to send some 3,000 extra peacekeepers to Democratic Republic of Congo to help protect civilians and end weeks of conflict in the turbulent east.

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• Chavez May Lose Ground in State Elections, Then Grab More Power
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's allies may lose elections this weekend in a third of the country's states and dozens of cities four years after winning near-total control of the regional governments.

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• Iran Has Enough Low-Level Uranium for Work on Bomb
Iran has produced the minimum amount of low-enriched uranium needed to make a bomb if it was processed to weapons grade, a scenario that would first require the expulsion of U.N. inspectors, arms-control experts said.

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• Asia-Pacific ready to push ahead WTO talks
Twenty-one Asia-Pacific economies making up half of global trade are prepared to agree by next month on a formula to tear down tariff walls stalling global liberalization talks, a draft communique said Thursday.

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• Carbon neutral airline gets on board UN scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions
The world’s first carbon neutral airline, which offsets its harmful gas emissions by investing in ecological projects, has joined a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative, promoting low-carbon economies and societies, the agency announced today.

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• Israel spurns U.N. plea to ease Gaza blockade
Israel stood fast Wednesday by its decision to clamp shut cargo crossings at the Gaza Strip, brushing off pleas to ease the blockade from United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.

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• Plea to halt DR Congo atrocities
Community groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo have made an impassioned plea for European troops to be sent to halt atrocities there. They say they have witnessed scenes never seen in their history, and that U.N. peacekeepers are powerless.

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• China, Cuba Sign Trade Agreements
Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao signed several trade and investment agreements with Communist Cuba during his historic visit to the island nation, which aims to further boost ties between the two allies.

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• Canada Reports Its 15th Case of Mad Cow Disease
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed on Monday a new case of mad cow disease in a seven-year-old dairy cow born well after Ottawa banned feed practices thought to spread the disease. It is the country’s 15th case. The animal was discovered on a farm in the Pacific province of British Columbia.

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• Croatia's Serbia ‘Genocide’ Case To Proceed
The International Court of Justice has ruled that it can hear a Croatian lawsuit filed against Serbia for genocide during the war in the early 1990s. The verdict of the 17-member trial chamber at the United Nations’ highest court was delivered by Court President Rosalyn Higgins at a public session on Tuesday. The trial chamber officials voted 10 to seven in favour of Croatia.

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• Israeli Tanks Move Into Gaza Strip
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli tanks have moved into the Gaza Strip, further threatening a fragile cease-fire Israel signed with Hamas militants in June. The witnesses say the tanks leveled lands Tuesday along the southern Gaza border east of the city of Rafah.

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• G-20 calls for overhaul of financial rules, action on growth
Leaders from the biggest developed and emerging nations agreed to further steps to shore up a global economy sliding into recession, and laid out regulatory proposals to prevent a recurrence of the financial crisis.

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• New fighting in Congo despite rebel pledges
Government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo have engaged in heavy fighting with rebels despite their leader's pledge to back a cease-fire, the United Nations and witnesses said Monday. The clashes forced government troops to abandon the eastern Congolese town of Rwindi on Sunday, according to U.N. spokesman Madnodje Moumoubai.

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• U.N.-backed scheme gives poor farmers insurance against extreme weather
A new United Nations-supported scheme seeks to provide financial support to poor rural farmers facing the impact of climate change and natural disasters.

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• Grassroots Group Fights NAFTA Superhighway
  New documentary highlights grassroots movement to kill the NAFTA superhighway.
  By Mark Anderson
The focus of the new edition of the film documentary “Truth Be Tolled” is the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) blatant bias and extralegal actions in its highly publicized Keep Texas Moving campaign — designed to sell the public on expensive tolls roads as the wave of the future of state transportation, while relentlessly pushing the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC).

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• Stop Blaming Capitalism For Government Failures
  By Yaron Brook and Don Watkins
Speaking of the financial crisis, French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said, "Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished." Sarkozy was echoing the views of many, including president-elect Obama, who assume that the financial crisis was caused by free markets - by "unbridled greed" unleashed by decades of deregulation and a "hands off" approach to the economy. And given this premise, the solution, they say, is obvious.

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• Where Did the Reagan Votes Go in the 2008 Election?
  By Phyllis Schlafly
Where did the super majority of votes gathered by Ronald Reagan in his Presidential campaigns go in 2008? Can they be reclaimed by future Republican candidates?

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• Hostile Green Takeover: The Auto Industry Faces Environmental Thuggery
  Senate Floor Speech - November 20, 2008
  Senator James Inhofe
Mr. President, Americans are once again being asked to foot the bill for yet another “urgent” bailout. In October, Congress voted for an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, and now much of the same alarmist rhetoric is being employed to pressure members to act quickly.

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• The Emerging Threat to Conservative Talk Radio
  By Wes Vernon
Despite President-elect Obama’s claim that he will not seek a new “Fairness Doctrine” to silence conservative voices in the media, commentators are bracing for a battle over their free speech rights under the First Amendment. Indeed, the battle is already underway and the enemies of free speech have made it clear that their censorship campaign will initially be based on claims that conservatives do not reflect “local” and “diverse” viewpoints. The so-called Fairness Doctrine may come later.

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• Peak everything: Waking up to the century of declines
  By Frosty Wooldridge
Everything in 20th century America pointed toward progress, growth, goods and services. Each generation enjoyed bigger houses, more cars and higher standards of living. Parents assured their kids, “You’re gonna’ have a better life than we did.” The human race raised its eyes to the moon, and amazingly, walked on it!

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• Republicans Invite Bad Press Coverage
  By Cliff Kincaid
The Washington Times has a front-page story about House Republican Eric Cantor, who charges that “the Republican Party in Washington is no longer ‘relevant’ to voters and must stop simply espousing principles…” The story seems designed to help Cantor capture the number two position in the House Republican leadership. But deep inside the article we learn that Cantor “ended up voting for the Democrats’ [Wall Street bailout] bill.”

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• Turning Boom into Bust
  By Alan Caruba
Energy is called “the master resource” because every other aspect of life operates off of it. Nations that are rich in energy resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal, grow wealthy.

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• The world has never seen such freezing heat
  By Christopher Booker
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

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• Labor's role in Detroit's disaster
  By Henry Lamb
While Detroit's big three automakers grovel for a tax-funded bailout, 14 U.S-based, international automakers announced last year's additional investments of $39.3 billion in 69 facilities that employ 92,700 people with an annual payroll of $6.3 billion. Why are the U.S.-based international automakers expanding, while Detroit's big three are grasping for a life-saving handout? The answer, of course, is labor unions; only two facilities of the U.S.-based international automakers are unionized, one in California, the other in Illinois. All the others are union-free and are doing quite well.

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• Giving special interests power to take your property
  By Rep. Jason Murphey
In the past, I have written about the possibility of the expansion of the Trans-Texas Corridor into Oklahoma and described why it is important that we not allow foreign-owned companies to control Oklahoma roads.

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• Restricting Freedoms and Choices
  By Ron Paul
As the financial sector continues its tailspin despite efforts to bail out Wall Street, among the few gainers in recent stock trading have been those companies looking for a new “shot in the arm” with government funding from the next administration.

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• Opportunity
  By Tom DeWeese
There is no question that election day, 2008 was a dismal one for those who believe in limited government, free enterprise and individual liberty - the principles of freedom upon which this nation was founded. There is carnage on the battlefield; despair in our hearts; and fear for our future. What does the future hold? Where do we go from here? Can we survive?

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• Global warming numbers get a little help from their friends
  By Lorne Gunter
Last week, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies – one of four agencies responsible for monitoring the global temperatures used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – released its statistics for October. According to the GISS figures, last month was the warmest October on record around the world.

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• Data Is Not Enough to Dissuade Politically-Correct "Scientists"
  By Fred Gielow
The idea the earth is warming has been so impressed upon the public consciousness as a result of relentless propaganda, little attention is given to actual data that suggest nothing of the sort is going on. According to theory, as CO2 continues to be released into the atmosphere by thoughtless human beings, the globe gets proportionally warmer. So, with ever-increasing CO2 emissions, we should see ever-increasing temperatures. That is, if the global warming fear mongers are right.

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Archived articles for
the week of
November 10 - November 14, 2008

• Election could alter salmon debate
  New senators in Idaho and Oregon may help get all sides to the table to break the deadlock over recovery.
In the past two weeks, the political dynamics of the Columbia and Snake River salmon debate changed dramatically. The election of new U.S. senators in Idaho and Oregon - one a Republican and the other a Democrat - may signal the coming of expanded talks on salmon and dams.

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• UI researchers help to improve carbon measurements in global climate studies
University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues have found a way to improve existing estimates of the amount of carbon absorbed by plants from the air, thereby improving the accuracy of global warming and land cover change estimates, according to a paper published in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Science.

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• Tadpole Tests Show Lethality of One Pesticide
  Banned Elsewhere, Poison Is Deadly to Insects ... and Some Frogs
Here's the gist of a new study: Take a little bit of a poison, and it may not be dangerous. Mix a little bit of a lot of "safe" poisons, and it can be deadly. The poisons in this case are the world's 10 most widely used pesticides. The dead in this case are amphibians. The University of Pittsburgh research on "contaminant cocktails" is published in Oecologia.

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• Was Earth Headed for the Mother of All Ice Ages Before Global Warming?
Before we humans came along with our Industrial Revolution and our greenhouse gases, the earth was hurtling towards an intense ice age that could have covered much of the northern hemisphere with deep ice sheets as soon as 10,000 years from now, according to a tentative new study. But that’s no reason to thank our lucky stars for global warming, says study coauthor Thomas Crowley: “We’re creating a situation at least as dangerous, only going in the opposite direction” [Wired News].

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• Nations consider a new Scientific body for biodiversity, ecosystem services
Close to 100 nations have called for the formation of a new scientific body able to put the loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and their multi-trillion dollar services at the top of the political agenda.

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• The Green Pseudo - Revolution
With a worldwide recession advancing, strong action on global warming has been thrown into jeopardy. This matters, because in little more than a year, the world will sit down in Copenhagen to negotiate the follow-on treaty to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Yet, with people losing jobs and income, immediate economic help seems to matter more than temperature differentials 100 years from now.

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• Temps drop, Brits rise to pass global-warming bill
A spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance says the recent passage of a radical global-warming bill in London is a good example of hysteria setting political policy.

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• IEA stokes doubts over world's climate fight
The world will have to bet on extreme measures to avoid serious global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, adding to growing worries that governments have under-estimated the problem.

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• Howl of the Urban Wild
  Experts say coyotes here to stay
Despite its Warner Bros. cartoon portrayal as a resourceful but ineffective, self-destructive creature, the coyote actually lives quite well by its wits among us humans. While often escaping notice, they populate urban as well as rural populations by the thousands. They can spread disease. They eat our food, along with that designated for our pets. Unfortunately, it’s domestic dogs, cats and rodents that often become coyote chow themselves.

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• Elias: Greenhouse gas plan might aid economy
Vocal skeptics were out in force from the moment California's Air Resources Board released the newest version of its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent before 2020.

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• Environment Writer Condemns FEMA's Decision To Ban Use of Trailers
Michael D. Shaw - Health News Digest's environmental columnist - is outraged that FEMA director R. David Paulison will not allow the many made homeless in the wake of this latest natural disaster to occupy trailers, which are currently sitting in storage.

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• Restrictions sought to protect lynx
  Groups say traps are harming “threatened” cat
A federal judge heard arguments Monday on a petition to suspend some trapping throughout northern Maine in order to avoid harming the Canada lynx. The Animal Welfare Institute and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine have asked the court to force the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to shut down certain types of trapping until the state can get a special permit from federal authorities.

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• Is clean coal possible?
As demand for cheaper domestic sources of energy increases, one thing Barack Obama and John McCain agreed on is "clean coal" is a good idea. What qualifies as clean coal, however, is open to debate.

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• Obama’s Possible EPA Pick Still Fighting Against Coastal Wind Farm
A long-simmering disagreement within the environmental community over a plan to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., is now boiling over into a highly public quarrel.

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• 30 years later, Pinelands protection still debated
The Pine Barrens - before they were the Pinelands - were in danger. Thirty years ago, the wooded region faced two major threats: the construction of hundreds of new homes, after 1976 legislation cleared the way for casinos in Atlantic City, and an energy crisis that led oil companies to propose drilling off New Jersey's coast.

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• City Council OKs Willets Point eminent domain plan
The controversial $3-billion redevelopment plan designed to transform 62 sewerless acres in Willets Point into a thriving new community passed the New York City Council yesterday by a vote of 42-2 with one abstention.

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• FLDS land sale goes before court today
The Utah Supreme Court refused to halt a hearing scheduled for today on the proposed sale of more than 700 acres that members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church claim is a holy temple site.

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• Coastal Commission gives city officials more time to fine-tune shoreline plan
In a victory for Solana Beach, the California Coastal Commission yesterday granted the city more time to finish a land-use plan that will ensure more local control over shoreline development, including sea walls.

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• FLDS asks Utah high court to halt land sale
Lawsuits and appeals are being filed in Utah and Arizona, challenging the pending sale of a swath of farmland that members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church claim is a future temple site.

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• Battle lines drawn on city trail
Some homeowners along an undeveloped West Linn neighborhood trail are realizing there may be less to their property than they thought. The city of West Linn began a property survey last week to figure out who owns what on 110 sites along and near the Palomino Loop Trail, a mile-long ring of open space that runs from just off Highway 43 to Palomino Park, slopes south toward Appaloosa Way then east between Palomino Way and Apollo Road, and then skirts Palomino Circle to complete the loop.

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• Public hearing set on Lake Caroline golf course’s fate
Residents in Lake Caroline will soon know the fate of the now defunct 18-hole golf course that has been at the center of controversy for several years. The Madison County Board of Supervisors has set a public hearing for December 1 to adopt a new master plan for the 3,000-lot Lake Caroline Planned Unit Development (PUD), following a recent order from the Mississippi State Supreme Court.

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• Private property rights groups debate Senator Mike Crapo's efforts to pass Owyhees bill
A national private property rights groups is urging its members to “deluge” Republican Sen. Mike Crapo’s office with calls and e-mails urging him to back off of the Senate bill that would protect wilderness and public land ranchers in Owyhee County.

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• Neptune to review eminent domain ban
The Township Committee will wait until its Dec. 1 meeting to decide whether it will continue its self-imposed ban on the use of eminent domain. Township Committee members discussed the ban at their Nov. 10 meeting, but came to no conclusion.

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• $79 million slated to buy hospital land
The city of New Orleans is prepared to spend up to $79 million buying scores of houses just north of downtown and relocating the people who live there to provide the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with land where it can build a new hospital.

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• Appeal pursued in gas company easement case
A landowner in White County is pledging an appeal of a judge's ruling that turned away an attempt to block a natural gas pipeline from being located on private property.

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• Florida and U.S. Sugar Revamp Everglades Deal
Governor Charlie Crist and the United States Sugar Corporation are close to an agreement that would scale back the state’s ambitious purchase of the company to gain a wide swath of land for Everglades restoration, environmental groups close to the negotiations said Monday.

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• Business owners worry plan will push them out
A revitalization plan released in September concerning an area some residents consider eminent domain was met with disapproval again Monday night during a public forum. The North Prong Strategic Revitalization Plan was devised over the past six months with the help of consulting firm Mahan Rykiel Associates of Baltimore, in conjunction with Salisbury's Urban River Task Force II.

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• Jersey City school bus operator booted to clear way for new park
A bus company that ferries children with special needs to public schools in and around Jersey City is getting booted from its parking lot to make way for a 13.5-acre park.

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• Amish ways clash with technology-driven efforts to regulate, protect food supply
It’s not like Glen Mast to be confrontational or to draw attention to himself. He is Old Order Amish and is happy to tend his 35-acre farm, build furniture for his children, and repair horse-drawn buggies for the Amish in his rural central Michigan community.

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• Landowners fighting Highlands act
  Morris landowners part of lawsuit seeking to throw out restrictions
A group of landowners is pressing forward with efforts to have the four-year-old Highlands law invalidated even as staff at the New Jersey Highlands Council work to bring municipalities into compliance with the new regional master plan.

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• Oil Falls To 22-Month Low
Crude oil prices fell for a third straight day yesterday to hit a 22-month low of $55 a barrel as mounting pessimism about the global economy outweighed OPEC's comments that it could cut output again as early as end of November.

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• EPIC: Consumers say biofuels key to long-term energy solutions
Biofuels top the list as the most acceptable avenue to long-term energy security in the U.S. That's the conclusion of a national survey commissioned by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Respondents were asked what they would consider "acceptable" solutions to the current energy situation in the U.S. and 73 percent of them responded with the answer, domestically produced biofuels such as ethanol to replace oil.

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• Utah Coal-Fired Plant Blocked By EPA Panel
A federal appeals board has blocked a proposed coal-fired power plant expansion in eastern Utah, citing the project's failure to adequately address the issue of carbon-dioxide emissions. A large national law firm that represents electric utilities said Thursday's decision will "require the Obama administration to decide early in its tenure whether and to what extent it intends to regulate CO2 emission under the CAA (Clean Air Act)."

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• U.S. Preview: Energy Inventories Expected to Increase
U.S. crude inventories likely increased by 1000k barrels in the week ending Nov. 7, a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is expected to reveal.The Weekly Petroleum Status Report will be released a day later than usual and at 11:00 a.m. EST due to Monday's Veterans Day holiday.

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• Cellulosic Ethanol Facility Planned for Mississippi
Raven Biofuels International Corporation has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Price Biostock to develop a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery located in the Gulf Opportunity Zone of Mississippi.

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• Commissioners, elected officials spar on paying for energy project
A project to make county buildings more energy efficient became a hot topic at a meeting of the Allen County commissioners this morning. All agreed the project was a good idea. The controversy was how to pay for the project.

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• A closer look at Obama’s energy plan
  Economy may slow it, but ‘green’ jobs may grow it.
If President-elect Barack Obama enacts the energy plan he laid out during his campaign, American taxpayers will each get a $500 rebate check – funded by a windfall profits taxes on big oil companies. But that’s just for starters. Besides taxing oil giants more, Senator Obama’s detailed 30-point energy agenda calls for big changes to address carbon emissions, fuel efficiency for vehicles, and domestic and renewable power and efficiency.

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• Pickens in our pockets
  Energy independence is going to cost us, but just how much?
The most contentious presidential election in recent memory is now over, and most Americans are breathing a collective sigh of relief. The attack ads might be off the air, but one campaign continues, with billionaire T. Boone Pickens at the helm. Peddling his plan for energy independence, Pickens and his Energy Army, as he has dubbed his followers, have already amassed about 1.3 million “signatures” on his online petition at www.PickensPlan.com.

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• Crude falls below $58, leads broad energy decline
Crude-oil futures fell below $58 per barrel Wednesday morning, ready to extend their decline to a second session as concerns about a sharp slowdown in demand pushed prices to a fresh 21-month low.

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• Climate Fight Would Strain Electric Grid
  Grid Can't Deliver Electricity from Remote Renewable Energy Sources
Scaling up renewable energy on a national scale will strain the electric grid, and threaten blackouts, according to a new report by the American Electric Reliability Corporation, an industry group for utilities and other power producers.

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• Putin denies plan of OPEC-style gas cartel
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sought to ease fears Tuesday over the possibility of Russia joining an Opec-style cartel of gas exporting countries, he said in talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Nazif. "We support this idea. But we know about apprehensions and even fears voiced by certain energy consumers," Putin was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying. "I wish to state once and for all: there are no grounds for such fears."

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• Baltimore Saving Money By Converting Methane Gas To Electricity
Baltimore has gas - sewer gas to be precise - and its now using that methane power to generate electricity. Baltimore's Public Works director says the city is now using the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant as a new waste-to-energy facility that generate electricity.

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• Energy policy debate ramps up in sector
  Chevron CEO says $65-a-barrel oil still pricey; OPEC mulls cut
The debate over U.S. energy policy escalated Monday as Chevron's CEO, calling oil still pricey at $65 a barrel, called for more U.S. exploration and production, and Democrats fought over a key panel appointment.

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• Report: Sun, wind power strain power grid
The nation's electrical grid could be strained by electricity that is being introduced to it from the wind and sun, an industry group said. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. said in a report that the nation's transmission lines weren't designed for large power transfers over long distances that new alternative energy sources require.

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• Credit crunch could dull appetite for green tech
The global credit crunch and easing oil prices may take some of the immediate wind out of the sails for investing in green energy, a major growth initiative for General Electric Co, but it is unlikely to reverse a long-term trend toward renewable power sources.

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• Committee Slams Trans Texas Corridor Project
An advisory group appointed by the Texas Transportation Commission will release a 25 page report Friday, calling the Trans-Texas corridor a bad idea.

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• F.D.A. Detains Chinese Imports for Testing
Candy, snacks, bakery products, pet food, and other Chinese products that contain milk will be detained at the border until tests prove that they are not contaminated, the federal government announced Thursday.

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• Citigroup to Raise Credit Card Rates
Citigroup is reneging on a promise it made to tens of millions of credit card customers in good times. After pledging that it would no longer reserve the right to raise card rates at any time for any reason, Citigroup now plans to start raising rates for customers who have not had an increase in at least two years. The move appears to backpedal from a commitment that top Citigroup executives made to Congress in early 2007 when they tried to fend off greater regulation by promising not to raise rates until the account expires.

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• Voters want Obama to fix the economy
Throughout President-elect Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, he promised change in how politics is done in Washington, D.C. and cautioned America that the change he plans to make will not be easy or come overnight.

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• 85,000 homes lost to foreclosure in October
  As government and industry scramble to reverse the tide of foreclosures, filings jumped 25% in October.
As government and industry scrambled to stem the housing crisis, another 84,868 homes were lost to foreclosure in October, according to a report released Thursday.

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• U.S. Jobless Claims Reach Seven-Year High of 516,000
First-time claims for U.S. unemployment insurance rose last week to the highest level since September 2001, when the economy was last in a recession, as weakening demand led companies to fire more workers.

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• Report: Obama to Replace Intelligence Chiefs
A U.S. newspaper says the nation's two highest-ranking intelligence officials expect to be replaced when President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

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• Pelosi supports new help for ailing U.S. automakers
Democratic congressional leaders want Congress to work in a lameduck session on a financial bailout for the troubled U.S. auto industry, which is suffering under the weight of poor sales, tight credit and a sputtering economy.

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• Paterson plans school, health trims
Faced with a worsening economy, Governor Paterson wants to slash school aid, shrink health care funding and hike public college tuition, the Daily News has learned. The governor, who will propose $2 billion in budget cuts Wednesday, also wants public employees to go without raises for at least a year, sources said.

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• Remembering Veterans Today
Veterans Day is a time to honor the men and women who serve our country. Locally and across the nation people will honor Veterans with ceremonies and dedications.

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• Obama, Bush Meet at the White House
U.S. President George Bush and President-elect Barack Obama held their first formal meeting at the White House on Monday. VOA's Paula Wolfson reports the historic session between two men with very different political views took place behind closed doors, and followed a tough presidential election campaign.

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• Carmakers' best chance for aid is with Congress
The U.S. auto industry's best chance for $25 billion in immediate government help to survive a steep financial slide rests with Congress, which may have a brief window to act next week.

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• Obama to make first visit to Oval Office
President-elect Barack Obama will set foot inside the Oval Office for the first time Monday as he meets with President Bush to talk about the problems his incoming administration will face. The meeting between president and president-elect is a historic formality, but it's also a time for serious talks.

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• Salazar: BLM may see significant change under Obama
Coloradans may expect to see significant changes in how the Bureau of Land Management oversees drilling on federal lands in a future Barack Obama presidential administration, Sen. Ken Salazar said last week.

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• AIG Gets Expanded Bailout, Posts $24.5 Billion Loss
American International Group Inc. got a $150 billion government rescue package, almost doubling the initial bailout of less than two months ago as the insurer burns through cash at a record rate.

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• U.N. calls for $300-B bailout package for developing countries
A $300-billion bailout plan from the Group of Eight (G8) for the benefit of developing countries, including the Philippines, was sought by the United Nations (U.N.) on Friday.

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• No quick answers to the economic crisis
  President Bush meets with world leaders this weekend to figure out solution to economic crisis
On the eve of the G-20 summits on the current financial crisis, the U.S. President, George W. Bush, acknowledged on Thursday that the global economic meltdown can’t be solved overnight and called for decisive action from governments around the world.

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• U.N. heritage status could double Loch Ness visitors
A FIVE-star tourist attraction in Drumnadrochit predicts it could double its annual 250,000 plus visitors — if Loch Ness and the Great Glen were granted World Heritage status.

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• NATO reaffirms close ties with Ukraine
NATO defense ministers on Thursday reaffirmed the alliance's commitment to assist Ukraine in its goal of joining the military bloc, a move likely to further strain the West's relations with Russia.

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• Israeli Blockade Creates Food Shortages in Gaza
A crippling Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is creating food shortages. Robert Berger reports from the VOA bureau in Jerusalem.

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• Darfur: Ban welcomes Sudanese ceasefire, plan to disarm militias
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the Sudanese Government’s declaration today of an immediate ceasefire between its forces and the rebel movements in Darfur and also Khartoum’s stated plan to disarm allied militias operating in the war-torn region.

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• Gaza Again Plunged into Darkness, Hunger as Israel Blocks Fuel, Food to Suffering Population
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has worsened in the aftermath of Israel’s latest blockade of fuel and food. We speak to Diana Buttu, a former lawyer for the Palestinian Authority, and Reverend Edwin “Eddie” Makue of the South African Council of Churches, a veteran of South Africa’s apartheid struggle. They are on an “anti-apartheid” speaking tour across the US for the next two weeks.

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• Number of hungry people in Iraq has dropped steeply, says U.N.-backed report
The number of people without adequate access to food in Iraq has been slashed by three-quarters between 2005 and 2007, according to a new assessment conducted jointly by the war-torn nation’s Government and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

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• Saudi Arabia to Lead U.N. Faith Forum
Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Islamic kingdom that forbids the public practice of other religious faiths, will preside Wednesday over a two-day U.N. conference on religious tolerance that will draw more than a dozen world leaders, including President Bush, Israeli President Shimon Peres, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

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• Countries discuss possible U.N.-backed global body to tackle biodiversity
The possibility of establishing a United Nations-supported scientific intergovernmental body to address biodiversity loss and protect ecosystems is being discussed at a global conference which kicked off in Malaysia today.

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• Mexico's president names new interior minister
Mexican President Felipe Calderon reached deep into his conservative political party Monday to name a new interior minister, replacing the senior official killed last week in a still-unexplained plane crash.

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• U.N. warns Gaza food aid may end
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) aid agency said Tuesday that it will have to halt food distribution to 750,000 needy Gazans by Friday if Israel keeps the territory sealed.

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• Gaza shut to fuel and journalists
Over the last six days, Israel has all but closed its crossings with the Gaza Strip. No fuel (paid for by foreign donors) has been allowed into Gaza for its power station, no food has been allowed in for the United Nations' aid distribution centres on which most Gazans rely.

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• Sri Lanka Rebels Urged to Lay Down Arms Before Considering Truce
The Sri Lankan government has turned down a truce offered by Tamil Tiger rebels as the military presses on with an offensive to capture a key rebel stronghold. From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha reports the government hopes to crush the rebels, who have been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland for a quarter century.

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• Rebel leader Nkunda vows to fight peacekeepers in Congo
The Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, today warned he would fight African peacekeepers if they were sent to back government troops in fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

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• What is sustainable development
  By Jim Davidson
It's been said that over time we can do anything we really want to do. We can eat an elephant if we take it one bite at a time. This is the concept behind a group of elitist people who would like to take over the world, including America, and in the process take our precious freedom from us. Now that sounds like a radical statement, but hear me out and then make your own judgment as to how radical it is. Sometime back a thoughtful reader sent me a booklet titled, "Understanding Sustainable Development - Agenda 21 - A Guide for Public Officials."

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• Stop Blaming Capitalism for Government Failures
  By Yaron Brook and Don Watkins
Speaking of the financial crisis, French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said, “Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”

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• How Barack Obama will ensure his victory in 2012
  By Selwyn Duke
Even before the election, with the realization that a Barack Obama presidency lay on the horizon, many saw a silver lining in the cloud that drifted into Washington, DC, from the left coast. "The right will be re-energized," many thought, "and we'll have a better Republican candidate and improved prospects in 2012." Moreover, it was figured that Obama will exacerbate a bad situation, causing a meltdown in our economy and emboldening enemies without and within, thereby creating fertile ground for a Republican victory. Of course, the GOP nominee may in fact be better four years hence, although he is far more likely to be so in terms of persona than policy. But his prospects are a different matter.

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• Looting the National Treasury
  By Alan Caruba
In the November issue of The DeWeese Report, published by the American Policy Center, Tom DeWeese provides one of the most cogent explanations for the current financial crisis that you will read anywhere. You can read it online at http://www.americanpolicy.org/more/market.htm.

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• Ten reasons why Mexicans captured America: And Americans lost
  By Frosty Wooldridge
Anyone looking at present day Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Houston, Albuquerque, Chicago, and New York City — cannot help but see and hear that Americans have lost America. Americans surrendered their language and culture to Mexicans streaming across their borders like a “human Katrina.”

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• The Catholic Connection to Barack Obama
  By Phyllis Schlafly