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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

NEW YORK TIMES: Gas Prices Soar, Posing a Threat to Family Budget

Gas Prices Soar, Posing a Threat to Family Budget

David Ahntholz for The New York Times

Phyllis Berry, a factory worker in Cleveland, is taking her children, including daughter, Cirenna, 9, to the movies less often.

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By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: February 27, 2008

Gasoline prices, which for months lagged behind the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts saying they could approach $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily, and oil settled at a record high of $100.88 a barrel on Tuesday.

The increases could not come at a worse time for the economy. With growth slowing, energy increases that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere. These costs could worsen the nation's economic woes, piling a fresh energy shock on top of the turmoil in credit and housing.

"The effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between having a recession and not having a recession," said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist.

The depth of the nation's economic problems became clearer Tuesday with the release of figures showing that prices at the producer level rose 1 percent in January from December, driven in large measure by energy costs. Compared with a year ago, prices were up 7.4 percent, the worst producer price inflation in the United States since 1981.

Other new figures showed that home prices around the country are falling at an accelerating pace, suggesting no end is in sight for the housing slump.

As of Tuesday, regular gasoline was selling at a nationwide average of $3.14 a gallon, according to AAA, the automobile club, up from $2.35 a year ago. The price has jumped 19 cents a gallon in two weeks.

Energy specialists predict that, as demand picks up further this spring and summer, retail prices will surpass the high of $3.23 a gallon set last Memorial Day weekend. That high fell short of the inflation-adjusted record of $3.40 in today's money that was set in 1981.

On Tuesday, diesel prices rose to a record $3.60 a gallon, compared with $2.62 a gallon last year.

For a decade, rising oil prices failed to dent global economic growth. In the United States, consumers absorbed the higher costs because of easy credit and rising prosperity, while in developing countries, government subsidies helped ease the pain. The rise in energy prices was a result of growing demand around the world.

The price of oil has quadrupled in six years, and the close Tuesday was not far below the inflation-adjusted high set in April 1980, after the Iranian revolution. That record, $39.50 a barrel, equals $103.76 in today's money.

As oil prices spiked last fall, low wintertime gasoline demand helped keep prices in check. But now, experts say, the price of oil is finally showing up at the pump.

For ordinary Americans like Phyllis Berry, a 31-year-old factory worker for General Motors in Cleveland, gasoline costs are starting to hurt.

"I used to fill it up pretty regularly, but now I drive it until the tank is almost empty, looking for the cheapest place to buy gas," said Ms. Berry, who drives a beat-up Dodge Caravan.

She said that she used to take her four children to the movies four or five times a month. But with the cost of gas, tickets, popcorn and soda adding up to $70, they now go only once a month.

Still, things are not quite as bad as during the 1970s and 1980s oil shocks. In the early 1980s, at the height of the last energy crisis, energy accounted for about 8 percent of household spending. As prices fell and the economy became less energy-intensive, energy costs fell under 4 percent of household spending in the early 1990s.

With the run-up in prices in recent years, economists say energy's share of disposable income is slowly creeping up again. In December, that figure reached 6.1 percent, the highest level since 1985. The increase of two percentage points — amounting to $200 billion — is a huge sum, a little less than half what Americans spend each year on new cars and automobile parts.

"You're adding an oil shock on top of a crunch on credit and a housing collapse," said Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight. "Even the U.S. economy cannot withstand all of that at the same time."

American consumers have responded belatedly by cutting back on their energy use. Oil demand in the United States grew by just 0.4 percent in 2007 and is expected to be flat in 2008.

Contáctense con nosotros, opinen, escríbannos libremente.
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
 
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías en Responsabilidad Social empresarial RSE   a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile
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Democrats Clash on Trade, Health and Tactics

Democrats Clash on Trade, Health and Tactics

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama faced each other for the final Democratic debate before the March 4 primaries. More Photos >

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By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY
Published: February 27, 2008

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton confronted Senator Barack Obama on health care, Nafta, Iraq and his political tactics on Tuesday night in one of her most pugnacious debate performances of the campaign, as she fought for fresh momentum before four potentially decisive nominating contests next Tuesday.

Mr. Obama, pursuing a front-runner's strategy of nonconfrontation after winning 11 straight contests, mostly defended his positions and views, though he said he and his team had not "whined" about the Clinton camp's attacks on him. Sitting a couple of feet from Mrs. Clinton at a circular table, he appeared to listen intently to her attacks before responding in even tones.

The debate — the 20th for Democrats — was the final one before the March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas, states that the Clinton camp has labeled as must-win if she is to keep her campaign alive.

Questions about which approach Mrs. Clinton would take to sway voters were quickly answered as she immediately confronted Mr. Obama, and she was relentless throughout the meeting. She insisted on responding to virtually every point that he made — often interrupting the debate moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC, as they tried to move on.

At the same time, it was one of the most detailed and specific of all the debates, with both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama giving long explanations of their records and views.

Unlike their debate last Thursday, a more cordial affair that ended with Mrs. Clinton saying she was "honored" to share the stage with Mr. Obama, this exchange had a belligerent edge. Mrs. Clinton did not nod along as Mr. Obama made standard Democratic points, as she has been known to do. She was more apt to call him "Senator Obama" than the friendlier "Barack." She did not smile at him.

At one point, after the moderators asked her a series of pointed questions, Mrs. Clinton even vented her long-simmering frustrations with news coverage of Mr. Obama, citing a "Saturday Night Live" sketch from last weekend that portrayed debate moderators as fawning fans of Mr. Obama.

"Can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time?" Mrs. Clinton said, to a mix of boos and applause. "I do find it curious, and if anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow."

(In fact, in their two other one-on-one debates, Mrs. Clinton was asked to answer the first question and then was asked more questions over all.)

The tenor of the debate was set from the beginning, when the moderators played clips of Mrs. Clinton praising Mr. Obama at the debate last Thursday and then declaring "Shame on you, Barack Obama" on Saturday, after his campaign sent fliers to voters in Ohio suggesting that she viewed the North American Free Trade Agreement as a boon.

Nafta is hugely unpopular in Ohio, and the two candidates have records of both praising and criticizing it, though Mrs. Clinton never used the word "boon." In some of her strongest language to date, she said at the debate that she would "opt out" of the trade pact if Canada and Mexico did not renegotiate it.

Saying Mr. Obama had sent out mailings that were "very disturbing to me," Mrs. Clinton defended her newly aggressive tone — a posture that advisers have encouraged in recent days as she faces increasingly tighter races in both Ohio and Texas. (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote Tuesday.) "I think it's important that you stand up for yourself," Mrs. Clinton said about her broadsides against Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama denied misleading voters through the Nafta flier or another one about her health care plan's mandate that would require all Americans to buy insurance.

Mrs. Clinton criticized the health care flier, taking a strong swipe at Mr. Obama.

"What I find regrettable is that in Senator Obama's mailing that he has sent out across Ohio," she said "it is almost as though the health insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it."

Mr. Obama responded energetically to the accusation, and for 16 minutes they engaged in a terse back-and-forth over the now-familiar specifics of their health plans.

Their respective plans are quite similar; they both seek to make health insurance more affordable, and both have universal coverage as their goal. But the Clinton campaign has argued that 15 million Americans would go uncovered under Mr. Obama's plan, a number that relies on estimates by health care experts but is difficult to pin down depending on how a plan is devised.

"Senator Clinton, her campaign at least, has constantly sent out negative attacks on us," Mr. Obama said. "We haven't whined about it."

Contáctense con nosotros, opinen, escríbannos libremente.
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
 
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías en Responsabilidad Social empresarial RSE   a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile
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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Pentagon Is Confident Missile Hit Satellite Tank

Pentagon Is Confident Missile Hit Satellite Tank

Heesoon Yim/Associated Press

Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference after the missile hit the satellite.

WASHINGTON — Just hours after a Navy missile interceptor struck a dying spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean, a senior military officer expressed high confidence early Thursday that a tank filled with toxic rocket fuel had been breached.

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Completing a mission in which an interceptor designed for missile defense was used for the first time to attack a satellite, the Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser, fired a single missile on Wednesday night.

Video of the unusual operation showed the missile leaving a bright trail as it streaked toward the satellite, and then a flash, a fireball, a plume and a cloud as the interceptor, at a minimum, appeared to have found its target, a satellite that went dead shortly after being launched in 2006.

"We're very confident that we hit the satellite," said Gen. James E. Cartwright of the Marines, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank."

General Cartwright cautioned that despite visual and spectral evidence that the hydrazine rocket fuel had been dispersed, it could take 24 to 48 hours before the Pentagon could announce with full confidence that the mission was a success. Even so, he said the military had 80 to 90 percent confidence the fuel tank was breached.

The fuel tank aboard the satellite was believed strong enough to survive the fiery re-entry through the atmosphere, and officials expressed concerns that the toxic fuel could pose a hazard to populated areas.

General Cartwright said debris from the strike, with individual pieces no larger than a football, already had begun to re-enter the atmosphere. Most, he said, was predicted to fall into the ocean.

Even so, the State Department was alerting American embassies around the world so they could keep their host governments informed, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had put out instructions to first responders across the United States about steps to take should hazardous debris fall in populated areas.

The first international reaction came from China, where the government objected on Thursday to the American missile strike, warning that the United States Navy's action could threaten security in outer space.

Liu Jianchao, the Chinese foreign ministry's spokesman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States should also share data promptly about what will become of the remaining pieces of the satellite, which are expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and mostly burn up in the next two days.

"China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries," Mr. Liu said, according to the Associated Press. "China requests the U.S. to fulfill its international obligations in real earnest and provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way so that relevant countries can take precautions."

American officials were critical of China last year for using an anti-satellite weapon to destroy a satellite in a much higher orbit in January 2007 and then refusing to confirm the test for nearly two weeks. The Chinese test produced 1,600 pieces of debris that are expected to orbit the Earth for years, preventing other spacecraft from using the same or similar orbits.

During a Pentagon news conference Thursday morning, General Cartwright rebuffed those who said the mission was, at least in part, organized to showcase American missile defense or anti-satellite capabilities.

He said the missile itself had to be reconfigured from its task of tracking and hitting an adversary's warhead to instead find a cold, tumbling satellite. "This was a one-time modification," General Cartwright said.

Sensors from the American missile defense system were an important part of this mission, though, he said.

He stressed that "the intent here was to preserve human life," but also acknowledged that "the technical degree of difficulty was significant" and the accomplishment earned cheers from personnel in command centers across the military, as well.

Completing a mission in which an interceptor designed for missile defense was used for the first time to attack a satellite, the Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser, fired a single missile just before 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the missile hit the satellite as it traveled at more than 17,000 miles per hour, the Pentagon said in its official announcement.

"A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth's atmosphere," the statement said.

By early Wednesday, three Navy warships were in position in the Pacific Ocean to launch the interceptors and to track the mission.

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
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NYT: The Long Run

The Long Run

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

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By JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON
Published: February 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain's first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

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John and Cindy McCain leaving a news conference in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday.

The Long Run

Honor and Influence

This is part of a series of articles about the life and careers of contenders for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

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The lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whose relationship with Mr. McCain troubled some of his aides.

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A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist's client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain's political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain's relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman's client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

"He is essentially an honorable person," said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. "But he can be imprudent."

Mr. Cheshire added, "That imprudence or recklessness may be part of why he was not more astute about the risks he was running with this shady operator," Charles Keating, whose ties to Mr. McCain and four other lawmakers tainted their reputations in the savings and loan debacle.

During his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has played down his attacks on the corrupting power of money in politics, aware that the stricter regulations he championed are unpopular in his party. When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain stayed in the background.

With his nomination this year all but certain, though, he is reminding voters again of his record of reform. His campaign has already begun comparing his credentials with those of Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic contender who has made lobbying and ethics rules a centerpiece of his own pitch to voters.

"I would very much like to think that I have never been a man whose favor can be bought," Mr. McCain wrote about his Keating experience in his 2002 memoir, "Worth the Fighting For." "From my earliest youth, I would have considered such a reputation to be the most shameful ignominy imaginable. Yet that is exactly how millions of Americans viewed me for a time, a time that I will forever consider one of the worst experiences of my life."

A drive to expunge the stain on his reputation in time turned into a zeal to cleanse Washington as well. The episode taught him that "questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics," he wrote, "and because they incite public distrust they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption."

A Formative Scandal

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Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
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Renato Sánchez 3586
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e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

After Wins, Obama Is Focus of McCain and Clinton

After Wins, Obama Is Focus of McCain and Clinton

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By JOHN SULLIVAN
Published: February 20, 2008

The Democratic contenders on Wednesday both focused their campaigns on Texas, which has emerged as a critical race for the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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With Senator Barack Obama having won primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii on Tuesday by broad margins across nearly every voter group, Mrs. Clinton has now lost 10 contests in a row since splitting votes and delegates with him on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton's aides have calculated that she must win the party's next two major contests, in Texas and Ohio, on March 4.

Senator John McCain, all but assured of the Republican nomination, is in Ohio on Wednesday. Mr. McCain has turned his attention to Mr. Obama, calling on him to pledge to abide by the limits of public financing for the campaign.

Mrs. Clinton also focused on Mr. Obama as she went on the offensive early Wednesday in a speech at Hunter College in Manhattan, arguing that her rival has substituted rhetoric for practical experience.

"It is time to get real," Mrs. Clinton, of New York, said. "To get real about how we actually win this election and get real about the challenges facing America. It's time we moved from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions."

It is a familiar theme, but Mrs. Clinton delivered it with fresh intensity after the crushing defeats in Wisconsin and Hawaii on Tuesday.

Mrs. Clinton spent Wednesday morning in New York raising money before flying to Texas to campaign. Voters in Texas and Ohio, along with Rhode Island and Vermont, go to the polls in less than two weeks in contests that Democratic strategists say Mrs. Clinton must win if she is to have any hope of capturing the nomination.

Mr. Obama sought to counter Mrs. Clinton's charges at a campaign appearance on Wednesday afternoon in Dallas, saying "it is time to move beyond the politics of yesterday."

"Today, Senator Clinton told us that there was a choice in this race and you know, I couldn't agree with her more," Mr. Obama said. "But contrary to what she's been saying, it's not a choice between speeches and solutions, it's a choice between a politics that offers more of the same divisions and distractions that didn't work in South Carolina and didn't work in Wisconsin and will not work in Texas."

"Or a new politics of common sense, of common purpose, of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity," he said. "It's the choice between having a debate with John McCain about who has the most experience in Washington or having a debate about who's most likely to change Washington."

One day after victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Mr. Obama drew about 17,000 people to a rally at the Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas. While the primary is on March 4, early voting began on Tuesday and Mr. Obama encouraged his supporters to cast their ballots soon.

"As this movement continues, as this campaign builds strength, there are those who will tell you not to believe," Mr. Obama said. "There are those who will tell you it can't be done."

Saying he offered voters a chance to break from the policies of the past years, including the war in Iraq and the current economic situation, Mr. Obama said the race was a choice "that is not just about turning a page on the politics of the past but of turning the page on the policies of the past."

David Plouffe, the campaign manager for Mr. Obama, said that Mr. Obama had amassed a 159-delegate lead over Mrs. Clinton, based on his campaign tally. Following a win in Wisconsin by 17 percentage points, Mr. Plouffe said Mrs. Clinton would need to win in Texas and Ohio by double-digits to gain an edge in the fight for delegates.

"We have opened up a big and meaningful delegate lead," Mr. Plouffe said, speaking in a conference call with reporters. "They are going to have to win landslides to reverse it."

Reflecting Mr. Obama's lead on the Democratic side, Mr. McCain focused his criticism on him during a news conference in Columbus on Wednesday. He pounded Mr. Obama yet again for his commitment in writing a year ago to accept public funds for the general election about $85 million for each candidate — if the Republican nominee did the same. In doing so, Mr. Obama would have to surrender a phenomenal advantage in fund-raising and accept the limits of public financing.

Mr. McCain, who was the only other presidential candidate to sign on to the pledge, was responding to a column by Mr. Obama in USA Today on Wednesday in which the candidate wrote that he remained open to public financing, but that he was concerned about the spending of outside groups on behalf of candidates and that he wanted to reach a "meaningful agreement" with whoever is the Republican nominee. But he did not expect, he wrote, "that a workable, effective agreement will be reached overnight."

As conditions for such an agreement, Mr. Obama wrote that candidates "will have to commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fund-raising help by outside groups; and to limiting their own parties to legal forms of involvement."

Mr. Obama has broken all political fund-raising records in this election he has taken in more than $150 million so far, $36 million in January alone, and Mr. McCain's advisers have privately questioned why he would disarm himself of that advantage and not spend the prodigious amounts he has raised on his own. Mr. McCain, who raised $12 million in January, appears to be preparing for that possibility, but in the meantime is attacking Mr. Obama as someone who could not keep his word and should bear the responsibility for breaking the pledge.

If Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton do not accept public financing in the general election, Mr. McCain said, "I obviously would have to re-evaluate."

As the war of words continued throughout the day, Bill Burton, Mr. Obama's national campaign spokesman, e-mailed reporters with the retort that Mr. McCain, who has built a large part of his political persona around limiting the amount of money spent on campaigns, has not accepted public financing for the primaries and caucuses. On that score, neither has Mr. Obama.

Reporting was contributed by John M. Broder in New York, Elisabeth Bumiller in Columbus, Ohio, and Jeff Zeleny in Texas.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
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ask of Shooting Down Satellite Begins

Task of Shooting Down Satellite Begins

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By THOM SHANKER
Published: February 20, 2008

WASHINGTON — The many moving parts of a mission to shoot down a dying spy satellite with an anti-missile interceptor lined up Wednesday after the space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, officials said.

Military officials were reviewing the weather in the Pacific Ocean to determine if the operation could be launched overnight on Wednesday, as rough seas west of Hawaii prompted officials to caution that the attempt to destroy the satellite, carrying 1,000 pounds of toxic rocket fuel, might be delayed.

The goal of the mission is to prevent the fuel tank from reaching Earth and spilling its hazardous contents in a populous area. In the event that any of the hydrazine fuel falls on a populated area, the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday issued directions to community first responders on how to deal with dangerous debris from the satellite.

Military officials said their goal was to carry out the mission before March 1, when the satellite is predicted to start skidding against the upper reaches of the atmosphere. That initial friction would bump the satellite into a more unpredictable orbit around the Earth, even before it starts a fiery descent through the atmosphere.

Providing new information about how the mission would be carried out, a senior military officer on Wednesday described the vessels, weapons and command structure for the unusual operation, the first time an interceptor designed for missile defense would be used to attack a satellite. The senior military officer briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

The officer said that three Navy warships were in position in the Pacific Ocean to launch the interceptors, and that radar and other tracking equipment, both in space and on the ground, were being monitored at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, and at a space command headquarters in Colorado Springs.

The operation is being controlled from the Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb., with additional monitoring of information transmitted from the interceptor managed by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

Although the satellite circles the globe every 90 minutes, analysts have pinpointed a single overhead pass each day that would offer the best chance of striking it and then having half of the debris fall into the atmosphere during the very next three orbits over water or less-populated areas of the Earth.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who left Washington on Wednesday for a week of meetings in Asia, has been empowered by President Bush to issue the order to shoot down the satellite. Officials said Mr. Gates would have to weigh the opportunity of success against the many risks — including weather, technical problems and even world politics — before issuing the order.

Given rough seas on Wednesday, it was likely the mission would await at least a day. As the deadline approaches, officials said, such moderate risks as high seas might be overlooked.

The senior military officer said the mission would be launched in daylight to take advantage of radar, heat-sensor tracking and even visual tracking equipment.

When the order is given to carry out the mission, the Navy will have a window that lasts only tens of seconds as the satellite passes overhead, the senior military officer said.

An Aegis cruiser, the Lake Erie, has two Standard Missile 3 rockets on board that have been adapted to track the cold satellite, as opposed to the heated enemy warheads for which it was designed. A second Aegis ship, the Decatur, has a third missile as back-up, and another Navy vessel, the Russell, is sailing with the convoy for added tracking capabilities — what the senior military officer described as providing a "stereo picture."

Separately, a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, dismissed suggestions that the operation was designed to test the nation's missile defense systems or antisatellite capabilities, or that the effort was to destroy sensitive intelligence equipment.

"This is about reducing the risk to human life on Earth — nothing more," Mr. Whitman said.

While officials should be able to determine within minutes of the launch whether the satellite was hit by the interceptor, which carries no explosive but strikes with destructive force, it may take a day or more to determine whether the fuel tank with 1,000 pounds of toxic Hydrazine was destroyed. Any decision to launch a second or third missile may take several days.

The 5,000-pound satellite, roughly the size of a school bus, is managed by the National Reconnaissance Office and went dead shortly after it was launched in December 2006.

FEMA on Wednesday issued an 18-page instructions document, "First Responder Guide For Space Object Re-Entry," to help local authorities deal with debris from the satellite should it fall in their areas. "The satellite that is degrading from orbit has hazardous materials on board that could pose immediate hazards to people if they come in contact with the material," the FEMA document states. "Any debris should be considered potentially hazardous, and first responders should not attempt to pick it up or move it. First responders should secure a perimeter and control access around any debris. DO NOT pick up any debris."

The document describes specific dangers posed by the hazardous material, what protective clothing is required for emergency workers in the vicinity, and how to manage populations near a site where debris falls.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional en lobby - rse  y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

LAS LEYES DE TEXAS, INFORMACION RELEVANTE

pARA LOS QUE TIENEN NEGOCIOS EN TEXAS, EMPRESARIOS, ABOGADOS ...
 
Sitios para encontrar datos e información estadística sobre leyes de Texas, justicia criminal y el crimen en Texas:
 
el Departamento de Justicia Criminal de Texas, el Departamento de Seguridad Pública (DPS), la Junta de Justicia Criminal de Texas y la Comisión de Estándares Carcelarios de Texas.

Recursos
Estadísticas Criminales
Sitio actualizado por el Departamento de Justicia Penal de Texas. Enlaces a datos de estadística y divisiones.

Departamento de Seguridad Pública - DPS
El Departamento de Seguridad Pública (DPS) es la agencia de la policía del estado. Entérese más sobre la manera en que el DPS cumple su meta de mantener la seguridad pública en el estado.

Consejo de Justicia Criminal de Texas
El Consejo de Justicia Criminal de Texas es nombrado por el gobernador para supervisar a el Departamento de Justicia Criminal de Texas.

Comisión de Pautas para Cárceles de Texas
Información sobre las normas mínimas para cárceles, cambios propuestos, capacitación, informes de la población encarcelada y más...
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional EN LOBBY Y LA RSE  y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile
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Monday, February 11, 2008

Putting Candidates Under the Videoscope

Putting Candidates Under the Videoscope

ABC News

"Off-air reporters" like Eloise Harper produce many video clips of candidates.

By BRIAN STELTER
Published: February 11, 2008

One late night last November, Mitt Romney, campaigning in Greenville, S.C., was approached by three young women in bright matching outfits looking for a hug. Mr. Romney, thinking they were cheerleaders from nearby Clemson University, obliged.

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ABC News

Candid moments on the campaign trail. Above, Sen. Hillary Clinton with an Elvis impersonator and John Edwards pointing at an ABC reporter.

The young women worked at a Hooters restaurant. Unfortunately for Mr. Romney, Scott Conroy, who works for CBS News, filmed the hug with his Sony hand-held camera and sent the image to the television network's political desk in New York. The video was published online the next morning. "You're standing there doing your job, and all of a sudden Mitt Romney's hugging Hooters girls. It's one of the times you're glad you're filming," Mr. Conroy recalled.

Mr. Conroy, whose job title is "off-air reporter," (because he does not normally appear on television) is one of many young journalists hired by the networks to follow the candidates across the country, filing video and blog posts as they go. Originally hired to cut expenses — their cost is a fraction of a full television crew's — these reporters, also called "embeds," have produced a staggering amount of content, especially video. And in this election cycle, for the first time, they are able to edit and transmit video on the fly.

As a result, the embeds have changed the dynamic of this year's election, making every unplugged and unscripted moment on the campaign trail available for all to see. One particular video shot of American flags tilting over behind Hillary Rodham Clinton last November has been viewed more than 300,000 times on the ABC News Web site. A video of the Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shoving a member of Barack Obama's staff at a New Hampshire campaign rally has drawn almost 150,000 views on YouTube.

"There have always been cameras around campaigns. What is different now is how much more portable they've become and how much more prevalent," said Eric Fehrnstrom, who was the traveling press secretary for Mr. Romney's campaign until the Republican candidate dropped out last week.

Through cable television, network news sites and video sharing sites, these unexpected and unguarded moments at rallies and during campaign stops have become part of the narrative of the election. The campaigns themselves are well aware of how video clips can magnify a mistake or attach a faux pas permanently to the candidate.

"Whether it's a metaphor for the campaign or just a funny moment from the trail, there's a lot of demand for that kind of stuff," said Aaron Bruns, a political embed for Fox News Channel.

The methods of the off-air reporter trade are also increasingly being used as networks look for new ways to expand coverage while cutting costs.

Bulky satellite transmission units are gradually being replaced by portable broadband-based gear. Last year, ABC News assigned seven young journalists to serve as one-person bureaus in foreign countries where the network had not previously assigned correspondents. Fox News Channel has promoted technology that allows it to broadcast live reports from a moving vehicle.

Athena Jones of NBC News is, at 31, one of the oldest off-air reporters employed by the networks. She summed up the attitude of her colleagues: "We have a lot of mouths to feed. If you feed something in, someone will probably find a place for it in the 24-hour cable news beast."

Until January, off-air reporters like Mr. Conroy and Ms. Jones were the only television producers traveling with the presidential contenders. Since the Iowa caucuses, larger crews have followed the leading candidates to most campaign events, but the off-air reporters still film the rope lines and photo opportunities that are seemingly more intimate events for the candidates. The off-air reporters for ABC even post their itineraries on the social networking Web site Facebook.

"We basically keep our eyes and ears open at all times," said Eloise Harper, the ABC News off-air reporter who shot the video of the flags falling behind Senator Clinton. "We're always watching the candidates."

The emergence of off-air reporters dates to 1988, when the networks sought to save money by sending full TV crews to only some campaign events. Partly because most off-air reporters are relatively young and not members of a union, they create some cost savings for networks.

The off-air reporter role became especially prominent in 2004 when NBC News renamed them "campaign embeds," in an allusion to the embedding of correspondents during the Iraq war. During that election, hand-held cameras became ubiquitous, but the reporters did not have a ready-made outlet for their video.

Four years later, the 2008 presidential campaign is being conducted in the era of YouTube. Spurred by the proliferation of inexpensive hand-held video cameras and broadband Internet access, the dispatches that were once distributed internally are now published on blogs, and the video clips that would have wound up on the cutting room floor are posted on Web sites.

The ubiquitous camcorders and immediate Internet access do make the campaigns more wary of potential pitfalls. If a candidate becomes irritated during a newspaper reporter's interview, the instance may merit only a sentence in the next day's article. But if the exchange takes place in front of video cameras, "It gets put on the Internet for the whole world to see, not just for that day's news, but repeatedly over time," Mr. Fehrnstrom said.

Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at The George Washington University, noted that many people now own cellphones with picture- and video-taking abilities.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile
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