I just attended the Saturday session of the 2011 ASPO USA conference. I had been hoping to take a few personal days and attend Thursday and Friday as well, but it is hard to predict the future. I had to get some drawings out on Thursday, and had to do a code study for a Monday meeting. At least commuting was easy on Saturday. I took Metro to Union Station, walked out past Bike Station and about three blocks to the Hyatt Regency.
There were four morning sessions listed: Investor's Roundtable featured Robert Rapier, whose R-Squared blog I read a bit, Community Adaptation and the Post-Peak Economy with ArchDruid John Michael Greer and Kollapsnik Dmitry Orlov, each of whom I follow a lot, Bringing Peak Oil into the National Policy Debate, and Innovative Communications, Writing a New American Story with Farmer/Author Sharon Astyk, who I also follow a lot. I chose Community Adaptation and sat in the front row. A woman sat next to me and we started chatting about the horrid traffic in DC. They had driven in from Ohio. Her husband brought the latest NY Times and Wall Street Journal. Then a familiar-looking young woman stopped in and gave her a hug. "Was that Megan Quinn Bachman?" I asked. Bachman was moderating the panel, and I had seen her picture on The Oil Drum many years ago when she had co-produced The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Benton, a Jeffersonville, Indiana, jewelry-store owner, says sales fell 40 percent in two weeks after the Sherman Minton Bridge connecting his border community to customers in Kentucky closed Sept. 9. ...
In a newly updated study from the think tank Resources for the Future, Shanjun Li, Joshua Linn, and Elisheba Spiller examined the program against a counterfactual world where it never existed, drawing on trends at the time from Canada. They looked at the total sales from the program (a reflection of its economic impact) and at the composition of the vehicles sold (a sign of environmental impact, based on improvements in fuel economy).
A 10-year-old Aiken trick-or-treater pulled a gun on a woman who said she would take his candy on Halloween.
According to a police incident report, the 28-year-old victim told authorities she recognized some boys from her neighborhood while they were trick-or-treating about 6:30 p.m. Monday near Schroeder and George streets and jokingly told them she would take their candy.
One 10-year-old in the group of about 10 juveniles responded with “no you’re not …” and then pointed a 9 mm handgun at her.
(Reuters) - Occupy Wall Street has raised more than $500,000 in New York alone to support anti-greed demonstrations and, seven weeks into the movement, protesters are finding that having money creates headaches.
The challenges have included how to become a non-profit entity, how to deal with credit card companies withholding donations, choosing a bank that shares the movement's philosophy and budgeting what to spend cash on.
Joining the Occupy Wall Street protests has its dangers. You could get pepper-sprayed or end up in handcuffs. Or, as Brooklyn-based journalist Caitlin Curran explains, your boss could see a photo of you holding up a sign at a protest and fire you the next day.
A quirky, iconic, uniquely Minnesotan voice -- and creator of an astounding array of captivating, hilarious, bawdy sounds -- has fallen silent.
Tom Keith, longtime master of radio sound effects for Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and cohost of "The Morning Show," died of a heart attack on Sunday at his Woodbury home, Keillor said on Monday. The St. Paul native was 64.
Keith provided sound effects and voices for the nationally syndicated show, which is produced by Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media.
By Donal on Mon, 10/31/2011 - 1:40pm | Arts & Entertainment
America in Primetime is structured around the most compelling shows on television today, unfolding over four hours and weaving between past and present. Each episode focuses on one character archetype that has remained a staple of primetime through the generations – the Independent Woman, the Man of the House, the Misfit, and the Crusader – capturing both the continuity of the character, and the evolution. The finest television today has as its foundation the best television of yesterday.
At first, the outraged members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York were mainly met with ridicule. They didn't seem to stand a chance and were judged incapable of going up against their adversaries, Wall Street's bankers and financial managers, either intellectually or in terms of economic knowledge.
Over the years, the season ending WTA championship event has moved from New York to Munich to Los Angeles to Madrid to Doha and this year to Istanbul (not Constantinople) — and is scheduled to be held there until at least 2013. In accommodating such an event, the ancient city wants to prove itself fit to host the 2020 Olympics. By this time of the year, a lot of the top players are tired and banged up, but up to 1500 ranking points were available and prize money ranged from $110,000 for just playing to $1,750,000 for winning the title (if undefeated in the round robin).
[Update: The WTA and BNP Paribas, the title sponsor, announced Saturday a joint donation of $250,000 to the Turkish Red Crescent to assist victims of the earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed at least 580 people on Oct. 23.]
[Neocon John Podhoretz is shocked - and appalled - to find grandstanding in the Republican race:] "Memo to the Republican field: You’re running for president. Of the United States. Of America. Start acting like it. Stop proposing nonsense tax plans that won’t work. Stop making ridiculous attention-getting ads that might be minimally acceptable if you were running for county supervisor in Oklahoma.
For three days last summer, Mayor Linda Thompson joined religious leaders to pray for a "cooperative spirit" among city leaders, the business community and residents here in Pennsylvania's state capital.
Occupy Wall Street may be "leaderless," but it's far from directionless.
In the time since the protest movement began on Sept. 17, its "We Are the 99 Percent" message has exploded into a national rallying cry, inspiring not only a bustling mini-city in New York's financial district, but also an overnight network of sympathizers from Seattle to Miami. According to the unofficial umbrella group Occupy Together, some 1,500 cities worldwide will see "Occupy" events this week.
By Donal on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 9:18pm | Social Justice
Occupy Baltimore Livestream picked up by 1100 Global Revolution viewers as OB general assembly discusses the group's responses to Parks and Recreation's deferment of issuing a permit.
By Donal on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 2:21pm | Social Justice
The Portland Press Herald reports on the bombing of Occupy Maine:
"We are more motivated to keep doing what we're doing," said Stephanie Wilburn, of Portland, who was sitting near where the chemical mixture in a Gatorade bottle was tossed at 4 a.m. Sunday. "They have heard us and we're making a difference."
[Daniel Kahneman] Many decades ago I spent what seemed like a great deal of time under a scorching sun, watching groups of sweaty soldiers as they solved a problem. I was doing my national service in the Israeli Army at the time. I had completed an undergraduate degree in psychology, and after a year as an infantry officer, I was assigned to the army’s Psychology Branch, where one of my occasional duties was to help evaluate candidates for officer training. We used methods that were developed by the British Army in World War II.
