Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192195832?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Who Won Big at the Golden Globes?
Led by provocative-as-always but much-less-visible host Ricky Gervais, the 2012 Golden Globes proved to be an entertaining mix of A-list presenters (in the usual sleek tuxes and gorgeous gowns), funny moments and some surprising wins. George Clooney had a big night, from the red carpet (where everyone gawked at his girlfriend Stacy Keibler) to the podium, where he picked up a statue for best actor in a potion picture - drama. The movie he won it for -- the quirky dramedy The Descendents -- also won the top prize of best motion picture - drama.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
In South Carolina, Romney, Gingrich brace for Super PAC attacks
The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision opening up campaign ads to unlimited donations has launched Super Pac attacks against some Republicans in South Carolina.
So far, Super PACs ? independent campaign groups with unlimited fundraising rights ? have proven effective in the Republican presidential primary race, to date mostly helping former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tar his rivals and cement his lead.
Skip to next paragraphBut as the Super PAC blitz gears up with a slew of ads to begin airing in the first Southern primary state of South Carolina, the Republican Party may be experiencing a bit of Super PAC hangover as ads placed by such groups are exposing rifts in the GOP, pointing out candidate weaknesses, and giving a treasure trove of material for President Obama's reelection team to exploit.
Gingrich, for one, was put in a complicated spot on Friday, when he asked a Super PAC vying for his election to withdraw a factually flawed ?documentary? ad on Romney, entitled ?King of Bain,? which is set to air in South Carolina on Sunday.
Since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that paved the way for Super PACs also forbids ?coordination? between the PACs and candidates, Gingrich was forced to make the entreaty to the Winning Our Future PAC as a ?citizen.? (That pretzel-twisting inspired a primer on the process by Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert, who handed off his real Super PAC to colleague Jon Stewart on the air last week.)?
Meanwhile, a Super PAC that backs Romney, Restoring Our Future, aired ads in Iowa that painted Gingrich as "having more baggage than the airlines." Gingrich accused Romney of lying about not coordinating with the PAC on the attack ads, given that it's run by former Romney aides. (The Gingrich PAC received a $5 million donation by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson ahead of the South Carolina primary push.)
?The substance of the ads has been to accuse Gingrich of being unreliable as a politician and Romney of being unscrupulous in business,? the Los Angeles Times writes in an editorial. ?That's Citizens United at work, and Republicans may be reminded to be careful what they wish for.
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Immigration courtrooms silent during ICE review (AP)
DENVER ? In a trial of a politically divisive program, U.S. prosecutors in Denver and Baltimore are reviewing thousands of deportation cases to determine which illegal immigrants might stay in the country ? perhaps indefinitely ? so officials can reduce an overwhelming backlog by focusing mainly on detainees with criminal backgrounds or who are deemed threats to national security.
Federal deportation hearings for non-criminal defendants released from custody were suspended Dec. 5 for the review and resume this week. Similar reviews are planned across the country to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target deportations of illegal immigrants with criminal records or those who have been deported previously.
While the immigration courtrooms in Denver have fallen silent, prosecutors had time to examine case files, check residency history ? such as whether someone was brought to the country as a child ? as well as criminal history.
In Denver, 25 ICE prosecutors and three managers spent their work days during most of December and early this month poring over as many files in their case load as possible, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said.
"They come in on weekends," Gonzalez said. "They're looking at every case."
Officials have not released information on how many cases will be placed on low priority based on the review. When they're finished, cases of those here illegally but deemed not a threat to public safety or national security will be placed on administrative hold and the numbers will be released.
Citing tight budgets, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced this summer that nearly 300,000 deportation cases would be reviewed to determine which could be closed through "prosecutorial discretion." Republicans have decried the policy as a back-door way of granting amnesty to people who are living in the U.S. illegally.
"We simply cannot adjudicate all these cases that are pending," said spokeswoman Gonzalez. Some cases in Denver date to 1996, she said.
"It's a holiday for anybody in the country illegally," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes the initiative. "They're doing this with the intention of dismissing as many of them as they possibly can."
Several attempts at immigration reform have failed in recent years, including the so-called DREAM Act, which would have allowed some young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to earn legal status if they went to college or joined the military.
In June, ICE director John Morton announced that prosecutors and immigration agents would consider a defendant's length of time in the country, ties to the community, lack of criminal history and opportunity to qualify for some form of legal status in deciding whether to press for deportation.
Denver has about 7,800 deportation cases pending, while Baltimore has about 5,000. Hearings and deportations involving criminal immigrants continued in both Baltimore and Denver. The suspended hearings dealt only with non-criminal defendants.
Before expanding the program, officials will examine the effect of the review on caseloads. They are also seeking to balance hearing high priority cases with those in which a person might have a strong case but has waited years for a hearing because of the backlog, said former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner Dorris Meissner.
Those who offered prosecutorial discretion don't have to accept, and can insist on having their case heard by a judge.
"Everybody thinks that people just want to have their case dismissed," said Meissner. "If they accept prosecutorial discretion, it's true they don't go before a judge and they don't get deported, but their case is in limbo."
For some, word that their cases have been postponed brings relief ? but not closure. They're still in the country illegally.
Jesus Gerardo Noriega, 21, of Aurora, Colo., said he learned in December his case was being closed.
"I'm happy that I don't have to show up in court every six months so they don't deport me," Noriega said. But, he added: "I'm in limbo. I can't do anything."
Noriega's family brought him to the United States from Mexico when he was 9. His parents and three brothers live here legally, and he graduated from high school ? but only applied for a work visa last year. He faced deportation after being arrested in April 2010 for driving with no license plate light.
Deportation cases have risen sharply since 2007, when Homeland Security began using fingerprints collected from those held in local jails to identify and deport criminals and repeat immigration violators. Those cases increased from about 174,000 in 2007 to about 298,000 in 2011, according to figures compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group affiliated with Syracuse University.
Immigrant advocates have blasted the fingerprint program, called Secure Communities, for subjecting people to deportation after minor traffic infractions or misdemeanors. Some state laws require police to notify ICE of suspected illegal immigrants.
But advocates say they welcome the federal review as a way to deal with a sluggish immigration court system where cases can linger for years.
"The courts are a mess," said Susan Barciela, Miami-based policy director for Americans for Immigration Justice. "The volume keeps getting bigger and people's rights are being violated."
During the pilot program, Denver and Baltimore immigration judges were assigned to hear detainee cases elsewhere.
"The immigration courts are empty," said Denver immigration attorney Hans Meyer of the scene in December and early this month. "It's a pretty busy place, so it's kind of strange."
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Boxer is a Free DOS Game Emulator for your Mac [Mac Downloads]
Mac: Computer games have come a long way since the days of Doom, Zork, Tie Fighter, and Castle Wolfenstein, but many of us who grew up with those games would like to replay them. Boxer is a free app that will let you play any DOS game on your Mac.
After installing the app you can download any DOS game and import it into the app by dragging it into the import window in Boxer. You'll never see a terminal window.
Options include using a joystick, locking your mouse pointer so it can't accidentally mess up your game, and rendering the graphics four different ways: original, fast smoothing (MAME), Fancy Smoothing (HQx), and with added TV Scanlines. You can also switch from full-screen to the 4:3 aspect ratio that PC monitors at that time used.
If you're a retro gamer or just want to try out some of the games you parents keep talking about you may want to give Boxer a spin. Note that there are two different versions of the app?one is for Mac OS X 10.5 and up and the other is for 10.4 and below. The app comes with four games: Commander Keen 4 and demos of Epic Pinball, Ultima Underworld, and X-COM: UFO Defense.
Boxer | via Addictive Tips
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Ringtone halts NY Philharmonic performance (AP)
NEW YORK ? It's the dreaded sound at any live performance ? a ringing cellphone.
That's what happened Tuesday night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall toward the end of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic.
Conductor Alan Gilbert stopped the orchestra until the phone was silenced.
Betsy Vorce, speaking for Lincoln Center, says an announcement is usually made before every performance telling audience members to turn off their phones. If a device does go off, ushers discreetly ask the owner to turn it off.
This time, when the iPhone went off, it was the conductor who turned his head to signal his displeasure. But the ringing from the first row persisted.
Gilbert asked that the offending noise be turned off and finally stopped the orchestra until it was.
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'Extinct' tortoises may still be roaming a Galapagos island
A giant tortoise species studied by Charles Darwin and believed to be extinct for more than 150 years may be alive and well, an ambitious genetic survey has revealed.
Blood sampling of more than 1,600 tortoises on the largest Galapagos island, Isabela, has revealed that about 84 of them had at least one purebred parent from a supposedly extinct species that once lived at the other end of the archipelago.
Researchers hope they can find these tortoises in the flesh on Isabela Island, breed them in captivity and then release them back onto Floreana Island, their native home.
The study, published in Tuesday's edition of the journal Current Biology, may be the first rediscovery of an "extinct" species ever made through looking for genetic markers in hybrid offspring.
The giant tortoise, among the largest living reptiles on Earth, is an icon of the Galapagos Islands, which take their very name from the Spanish word for tortoise, gal?pago. The creatures are thought to have arrived on the volcanic islands about 2 million to 3 million years ago from the South American mainland.
Each tortoise species ? some larger, with domed shells, and others smaller, with saddleback shells ? was unique to a particular island or volcano, living and evolving in isolation from the others. The diversity of tortoise species Darwin saw during his 1835 visit to the Galapagos Islands partly inspired his theory of evolution.
"I never dreamed that islands, about 50 or 60 miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted," Darwin wrote in "The Voyage of the Beagle," first published in 1839.
But within just a few years of Darwin's voyage, one of the tortoises ? the saddleback Chelonoidis elephantopus, living on the southern Floreana Island ? had already vanished.
Darwin himself never saw one alive. Whaling ships and pirates had long hunted the animals for food and oil; tortoises were handy supplies to keep on board, as they could be stowed in the hull for months ? flipped on their backs so they couldn't escape ? without receiving food or water.
And humans introduced new threats on the islands. Rats from the ships preyed upon tortoise eggs; goats trampled them and devoured the islands' vegetation. All tortoise species around the Galapagos Islands suffered from the onslaught; but perhaps none more than Chelonoidis elephantopus. By 1850, it was gone.
In recent years, however, scientists sampling a different species, Chelonoidis becki, came across a surprising discovery. Within this population of tortoises native to Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island, there were a handful bearing traces of Floreana tortoise DNA in their genomes. At some time in the past, it appeared, the Floreana tortoise had made it to ? and mated on ? Isabela.
Spurred on by this suggestion that the Floreana tortoise might still exist on Isabela, the researchers, led by population geneticist Ryan Garrick, who is now at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, decided to look more closely.
Garrick and colleagues took blood samples from 1,669 tortoises living on Wolf Volcano ? about one-fifth of the tortoise population there ? and ran them against a database of tortoise DNA.
The analysis showed that 84 of the tortoises had more than just traces of C. elephantopus within them: One of their parents was purebred C. elephantopus, a creature supposedly extinct for more than a century and a half.
Based on genetic analysis, the scientists estimate that about 38 C. elephantopus tortoises had parented these offspring on Wolf Volcano. And though many of those parents may not be alive today, some probably are. Thirty of the 84 hybrids Garrick and his co-workers found were less than 15 years old, and the creatures are thought to live for more than 100 years. Purebred parents are very likely still roaming the volcano.
It's just a matter of finding them.
George Amato, director of the genomics program at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, called the results "very exciting."
"To be honest with you, I can't think of another example of this kind of work on endangered species that's done such a detailed job of reconstructing this very interesting history," Amato said.
The researchers have some thoughts on how the tortoises managed to get from one of the southernmost islands to the archipelago's northwestern edge. Fast-moving whalers, or pirates looking to reduce their load while fighting or fleeing, may have hurriedly dumped the animals, taken along for food, at sea.
"These guys don't swim, but they float like a wine cork in a bathtub," Garrick said. "The prevailing current goes northwest in the ocean, making [Isabela] island the last place they would catch land before getting swept into the north Pacific."
The search is now on for live, purebred C. elephantopus tortoises on Isabela. If they're found, the researchers hope to start a breeding program in captivity to raise more of them and then bring them back to their native Floreana.
Tortoises are a very important part of an island's ecosystem, Garrick said. They keep the prickly pear cactus in check by grazing on it and, by relieving themselves around other parts of the island, also act as the plant's primary seed-dispersal method.
Even if the purebred tortoises don't turn up, intensively breeding the most promising hybrids could be useful as well, Garrick added.
"This really comes down to not giving up on biodiversity conservation, even when things look grim," he said.
amina.khan@latimes.com
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
US video game sales drop 21 percent in December (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories fell 21 percent in December from a year ago to $3.99 billion as players bought fewer games for their aging consoles.
Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 will turn 7 years old this year, while Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Corp.'s Wii will turn 6.
Market researcher NPD Group says December sales of software ? the video games themselves ? fell 14 percent from a year ago to $2.04 billion.
That's a bigger decline than the 5 percent drop expected by analyst Doug Creutz of research firm Cowen & Co.
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Turkey: Materials likely destined for Iran nuclear program seized (video)
Turkey is determined to prevent Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon, Namik Tan, Turkey's ambassador to the US, said Thursday. It intercepted materials Iran might have used to advance its nuclear program, he says.
Turkey has intercepted materials destined for Iran that could have been used to advance Tehran?s nuclear program, Turkey?s ambassador to Washington said Thursday.
Skip to next paragraphThe Turkish official, Namik Tan, said Turkey, as Iran?s neighbor, is perhaps more determined than other more distant countries to keep Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon, and he suggested that Turkish-Iranian relations are deteriorating over the nuclear issue.
?Some other countries have tried to transfer certain goods which would help Iran?s nuclear program, and we have stopped them,? Ambassador Tan said at a Monitor breakfast gathering of reporters.
Tan refused to divulge any other information about the interception, including what the materials were, when it happened, and the country of origin, but he insisted that Turkey would never accept the existence of a nuclear bomb next door in Iran. Alluding to one line of thinking in Washington ? that the international community will ultimately fail to stop Tehran?s progress and so the real objective becomes containing a nuclear Iran ? Tan said Turkey would never resign itself to an Iranian bomb.
?Even if you come to terms with a nuclear Iran, we will be against it,? he said.
Turkish officials this year have acknowledged intercepting Iranian planes and trucks suspected of transporting arms to Syria, but US officials have repeatedly expressed concerns about Turkey serving as a conduit for Iran to procure equipment for its nuclar program ? especially with bilateral trade soaring.??
Ankara?s representative to Washington also confirmed that the Turkish government is seeking military equipment including drones from Washington, as part of an effort to enhance its border defenses.
Turkey?s robust trade relations with Iran have been hurt recently by actions on the Iranian side, Tan suggested. That comment comes amid a boom in Turkish-Iranian trade, but also in the aftermath of recent warnings out of Tehran that did not go down well in Ankara.
Tehran recently warned Turkey that bilateral trade will suffer if Turkey does not alter a number of its policies, including what Iran sees as Turkish obedience to US demands.?Trade between the two nations, at $10 billion in 2010, is estimated to reach $30 billion by 2016 absent any setback in relations.
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Friday, January 13, 2012
Africa Unchained: Nigeria's finance minister -Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ...
Nigeria's finance minister -Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala- speaks to Al Jazeera
From
Al Jazeera:
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan is facing opposition to his decision to cut fuel subsidies, which saw petrol prices double overnight when the decision was made at the start of the year.
Labour unions have now called for a nationwide strike to begin on Monday. This comes following a series of demonstrations held over the past week.
Sectarian violence in the country has also worsened recently, causing a rise in tensions on the street.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance minister, spoke to Al Jazeera from the capital Abuja...[more here]
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Source: http://africaunchained.blogspot.com/2012/01/nigerias-finance-minister-ngozi-okonjo.html
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Western Oil Firms Remain as US Exits Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq - On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal.
Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.
Earlier this year, Emerson was awarded a contract to provide crude oil metering systems and other technology for a new oil terminal in Basra, currently under construction in the Persian Gulf, and the company is installing control systems in the power stations in Hilla and Kerbala.
Iraq's supergiant Rumaila oil field is already being developed by BP, and the other supergiant reserve, Majnoon oil field, is being developed by Royal Dutch Shell. Both fields are in southern Iraq.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Iraq's oil reserves of 112 billion barrels ranks second in the world, only behind Saudi Arabia. The EIA also estimates that up to 90 per cent of the country remains unexplored, due to decades of US-led wars and economic sanctions.
"Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq's oil market," oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz told Al Jazeera. "But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973."
Juhasz, author of the books The Tyranny of Oil and The Bush Agenda, said that while US and other western oil companies have not yet received all they had hoped the US-led invasion of Iraq would bring them, "They've certainly done quite well for themselves, landing production contracts for some of the world's largest remaining oil fields under some of the world's most lucrative terms."
Dr Abdulhay Yahya Zalloum, an international oil consultant and economist who has spent nearly 50 years in the oil business in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, agrees that western oil companies have "obtained concessions in Iraq's major [oil] fields", despite "there being a lack of transparency and clarity of vision regarding the legal issues".
Dr Zalloum added that he believes western oil companies have successfully acquired the lions' share of Iraq's oil, "but they gave a little piece of the cake for China and some of the other countries and companies to keep them silent".
"The last thing the US cares about in the Middle East is democracy. It is about oil, full stop." - Dr. Abdulhay Yahya Zalloum
In a speech at Fort Bragg in the wake of the US military withdrawal, US President Barack Obama said the US was leaving behind "a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people".
Of this prospect, Dr Zalloum was blunt.
"The last thing the US cares about in the Middle East is democracy. It is about oil, full stop."
A strong partnership?
A White House press release dated November 30 titled, "Joint Statement by the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq Higher Coordinating Committee", said this about "energy co-operation" between the two countries:
"The United States is committed to supporting the Republic of Iraq in its efforts to develop the energy sector. Together, we are exploring ways to help boost Iraq's oil production, including through better protection for critical infrastructure."?
Iraq is one of the largest oil exporters to the US, and has plans to raise its overall crude oil exports to 3.3m barrels per day (bpd) next year, compared with their target of 3m bpd this year, according to Assim Jihad, spokesman for Iraq's ministry of oil.
Jihad told Al Jazeera that Iraq has a goal of raising its oil production capacity to 12m bpd by 2017, which would place it in the top echelon of global producers.
According to Jihad, Iraq's 2013 production goal is 4.5m bpd, and in 2014 it is 5m bpd. The 2017 goal is ambitious, given that Iraq did not meet its 2011 goal, and many officials say 8m bpd capacity is more realistic for 2017.
Unexplored regions of Iraq could yield an additional 100bn barrels, and Iraq's production costs are among the lowest in the world.
To date, only about 2,000 wells have been drilled in Iraq, compared with roughly one million wells in Texas alone.
Globally, current oil usage is approximately 88m bpd. By 2030, global petroleum demand will grow by 27m bpd, and many energy experts see Iraq as being a key player in meeting this demand.
It is widely understood that Iraq will require at least $200bn in physical and human investments to bring its production capacity up to 12m bpd, from its current production levels.
Juhasz explained that ExxonMobil, BP and Shell were among the oil companies that "played the most aggressive roles in lobbying their governments to ensure that the invasion would result in an Iraq open to foreign oil companies".
"They succeeded," she added. "They are all back in. BP and CNPC [China National Petroleum Corporation] finalised the first new oil contract issued by Baghdad for the largest oil field in the country, the 17 billion barrel super giant Rumaila field. ExxonMobil, with junior partner Royal Dutch Shell, won a bidding war against Russia's Lukoil (and junior partner ConocoPhillips) for the 8.7 billion barrel West Qurna Phase 1 project. Italy's Eni SpA, with California's Occidental Petroleum and the Korea Gas Corp, was awarded Iraq's Zubair oil field with estimated reserves of 4.4 billion barrels. Shell was the lead partner with Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, winning a contract for the super-giant Majnoon field, one of the largest in the world, with estimated reserves of up to 25 billion."
Zalloum says there is a two-fold interest for the western oil companies.
"There is development of the existing fields, but also for the explored but not-yet-produced fields," he said. "For the old fields, there are two types of development. One is to renovate the infrastructure, since for most of the past 25 years it has depreciated due to the sanctions and turmoil. Also, some of these fields have different stratum, so once they use innovative techniques like horizontal drilling, there is a huge potential in the fields they have explored."
But there are complicating factors. As a spasm of violence wracked Baghdad in the wake of the US military withdrawal and political rifts widen, Iraq's instability is evident.
"Iraq has lots of cheap-to-get oil, but it also has a multitude of problems - political, ethnic, tribal, religious etc - that have prevented them from exploiting it as well or as quickly as the Saudis," says Tom Whipple, an energy scholar who was a CIA analyst for 30 years. "Someday it may turn out that Iraq has more oil underground than Saudi Arabia. The big question is how stable it will be after the US leaves? So far it is not looking all that good."
Jihad, Iraq's ministry of oil spokesman, however, said attacks against Iraq's oil pipelines have minimal effect on production capabilities, and claimed "sabotage will not affect our oil production and exports because we can fix these damages within days, or even hours".
Whipple, a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, says Baghdad had driven a hard bargain with western oil companies.
"The only reason they are participating is because everybody else is and they hope to get a foot in the door in case some new government in Iraq changes its policies to let other outsiders make more money. Remember it is not all the traditional western oil companies that are in there; the Chinese, Russians and Singapore all want a piece of the action."
Wrong idea?
Spokesman Jihad told Al Jazeera that the reason many Iraqis think western oil companies are operating in Iraq is simply to steal Iraq's oil.
"These ideas were obtained during the regime of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, and these are the wrong ideas," he said. "The future will help Iraqis understand these companies have come to work here to help Iraq sell its oil to help the people, and they work to serve the country."
Jihad admitted that his media office works "to help Iraqis understand the nature of the work of these companies and their investing in Iraq".
Despite the efforts of Jihad's office to prove otherwise, Iraqis Al Jazeera spoke with disagree.
"Only a na?ve child could believe the Americans came here for something besides our oil," Ahmed Ali, an unemployed engineer, told Al Jazeera. "Nor can we believe their being here has anything to do with helping the Iraqi people."
Basim al-Khalili, a restaurant owner in Baghdad's Karada district, agrees.
"If Iraq had no oil, would America have sacrificed thousands of its soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars to come here?"
Oil analyst Juhasz also agrees.
"The US and other western oil companies and their governments had been lobbying for passage of a new national law in Iraq, the Iraq Oil Law, which would move Iraq from a nationalised to a largely privatised oil market using Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs), a type of contract model used in just approximately 12 per cent of the world's oil market."
She explained that this agreement has been summarily rejected by most countries, including all of Iraq's neighbours, "because it provides far more benefits to the foreign corporation than to the domestic government".
But it has not been an easy road for the western oil companies in Iraq.
"Major western companies, such as Chevron and ConocoPhillips, that had hoped to sign contracts were unable to do so. A third round [of contracts] took place in December 2010 and saw no major western oil companies (except Shell) win contracts. I believe that there was an Iraqi backlash against the awarding of contracts to the large western major oil companies. Thus, in December 2010, fields went to Russian oil companies Lukoil and Gazprom, Norway's Statoil, and the Angolan company Sonangol, among others."
Unlike under Iraq's Oil Law, these contracts do not need to go through parliament, according to the central government. This means the contracts are being signed without public discourse.
"The public is against privatisation, which is one reason why the law has not passed," added Juhasz. "The contracts are enacting a form of privatisation without public discourse and essentially at the butt of a gun - these contracts have all been awarded during a foreign military occupation with the largest contracts going to companies from the foreign occupiers' countries. It seems that democracy and equity are the two largest losers in this oil battle."
Iraq's oil future?
Under the current circumstances, the possibility of a withdrawal of western oil companies from Iraq appears remote, and the Obama administration continues to pressure Baghdad to pass the Iraq Oil Law.
Nevertheless, resistance to the western presence continues.
"The bottom line is that it seems clear that the majority of Iraqis want their oil and its operations to remain in Iraqi hands," said Juhasz. "Thus far, it has required a massive foreign military invasion and occupation to grant the foreign oil companies the access they have thus far garnered."
While Iraq's security remains as volatile as ever, as does the political landscape - which can change dramatically at any moment - there is one thing we can always count on as being at the heart of these conflicts, and that is Iraq's oil.
? 2012 Al-Jazeera
Source: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/07-3
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
MMP Blog #31: FUNCTIONAL FINANCE: Monetary and Fiscal Policy ...
MMP Blog #31: FUNCTIONAL FINANCE: Monetary and Fiscal Policy for Sovereign Currencies
By L. Randall WrayThis week we begin a new topic: functional finance. This will occupy us for the next several blogs. Today we will lay out Abba Lerner?s approach to policy. In the 1940s he came up with what he called the functional finance approach to policy. In one of those amazing historical coincidences, Lerner happened to teach at UMKC when he published one of his most famous papers, laying out the approach. Maybe there is something special in the air in Kansas City?Lerner?s Functional Finance Approach. Lerner posed two principles:First Principle: if domestic income is too low, government needs to spend more. Unemployment is sufficient evidence of this condition, so if there is unemployment it means government spending is too low.Second Principle: if the domestic interest rate is too high, it means government needs to provide more ?money?, mostly in the form of bank reserves.The idea is pretty simple. A government that issues its own currency has the fiscal and monetary policy space to spend enough to get the economy to full employment and to set its interest rate target where it wants. (We will address exchange rate regimes later; a fixed exchange rate system requires a modification to this claim.) For a sovereign nation, ?affordability? is not an issue?it spends by crediting bank accounts with its own IOUs, something it can never run out of. If there is unemployed labor, government can always afford to hire it?and by definition, unemployed labor is willing to work for money.Lerner realized that this does not mean government should spend as if the ?sky is the limit??runaway spending would be inflationary (and, as discussed many times in the MMP, it does not presume that government spending won?t affect the exchange rate). When Lerner first formulated the functional finance approach (in the early 1940s), inflation was not a major concern?the US had recently lived through deflation in the Great Depression. However, over time, inflation became a serious concern, and Lerner proposed a form of wage and price controls to constrain inflation that he believed would result as the economy nears full employment. Whether or not that would be an effective and desired way of attenuating inflation pressures is not our concern here. The point is that Lerner was only arguing that government should use its spending power with a view to moving the economy toward full employment?while recognizing that it might have to adopt measures to fight inflation.Lerner rejected the notion of ?sound finance??that is the belief that government ought to run its finances as if it were like a household or a firm. He could see no reason for the government to try to balance its budget annually, over the course of a business cycle, or ever. For Lerner, ?sound? finance (budget balancing) was not ?functional??it did not help to achieve the public purpose (including, for example, full employment). If the budget were occasionally balanced, so be it; but if it never balanced, that would be fine too. He also rejected any attempt to keep a budget deficit below any specific ratio to GDP, as well as any arbitrary debt to GDP ratio. The ?correct? deficit would be the one that achieves full employment.
Similarly the ?correct? debt ratio would be the one consistent with achieving the desired interest rate target. This follows from his second principle: if government issues too much debt, it has by the same token issued too few bank reserves and cash. The solution is for the treasury and central bank to stop selling bonds, and, indeed, for the central bank to engage in open market purchases (buying treasuries by crediting the selling banks with reserves). That will allow the overnight rate to fall as banks obtain more reserves and the public gets more cash. Essentially, the second principle just says that government ought to let the banks, households, and firms achieve the portfolio balance between ?money? (reserves and cash) and bonds desired. It follows that government bond sales are not really a ?borrowing? operation required to let the government deficit spend. Rather, bond sales are really part of monetary policy, designed to help the central bank to hit its interest rate target. All of that is consistent with the modern money view advanced previously.Functional Finance versus Superstition. The functional finance approach of Lerner was mostly forgotten by the 1970s. Indeed, it was replaced in academia with something known as the ?government budget constraint?. The idea is also simple: a government?s spending is constrained by its tax revenue, its ability to borrow (sell bonds) and ?printing money?. In this view, government really spends its tax revenue and borrows money from markets in order to finance a shortfall of tax revenue. If all else fails, it can run the printing presses, but most economists abhor this activity because it is believed to be highly inflationary. Indeed, economists continually refer to hyperinflationary episodes?such as Germany?s Weimar republic, Hungary?s experience, or in modern times, Zimbabwe?as a cautionary tale against ?financing? spending through printing money.Note that there are two related points that are being made. First, government is ?constrained? much like a household. A household has income (wages, interest, profits) and when that is insufficient it can run a deficit through borrowing from a bank or other financial institution. While it is recognized that government can also print money, which is something households cannot do, these is seen as extraordinary behaviour?sort of a last resort. There is no recognition that all spending by government is actually done by crediting bank accounts?keystrokes that are more akin to ?printing money? than to ?spending out of income?. That is to say, the second point is that the conventional view does not recognize that as the issuer of the sovereign currency, government cannot really rely on taxpayers or financial markets to supply it with the ?money? it needs. From inception, taxpayers and financial markets can only supply to the government the ?money? they received from government. That is to say, taxpayers pay taxes using government?s own IOUs; banks use government?s own IOUs to buy bonds from government. This confusion by economists then leads to the views propagated by the media and by policy-makers: a government that continually spends more than its tax revenue is ?living beyond its means?, flirting with ?insolvency? because eventually markets will ?shut off credit?. To be sure, most macroeconomists do not make these mistakes?they recognize that a sovereign government cannot really become insolvent in its own currency. They do recognize that government can make all promises as they come due, because it can ?run the printing presses?. Yet, they shudder at the thought?since that would expose the nation to the dangers of inflation or hyperinflation. The discussion by policy-makers?at least in the US?is far more confused. For example, President Obama frequently asserted throughout 2010 that the US government was ?running out of money??like a household that had spent all the money it had saved in a cookie jar.So how did we get to this point? How could we have forgotten what Lerner clearly understood and explained?In a very interesting interview in a documentary produced by Mark Blaug on J.M. Keynes, Samuelson explained: ??????????????? "I think there is an element of truth in the view that the superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times [is necessary]. Once it is debunked [that] takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure ??????????????? out of control. There must be discipline in the allocation of resources or you will have anarchistic chaos and inefficiency. And one of the functions of old fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that the long-run civilized life requires. We have taken away a belief in the intrinsic necessity of balancing the budget if not in every year, [then] in every short period of time. If Prime Minister Gladstone came back to life he ?? would say "uh, oh what you have done" and James Buchanan argues in those terms. I have to say that I see merit in that view."The belief that the government must balance its budget over some timeframe is likened to a ?religion?, a ?superstition? that is necessary to scare the population into behaving in a desired manner. Otherwise, voters might demand that their elected officials spend too much, causing inflation. Thus, the view that balanced budgets are desirable has nothing to do with ?affordability? and the analogies between a household budget and a government budget are not correct. Rather, it is necessary to constrain government spending with the ?myth? precisely because it does not really face a budget constraint. The US (and many other nations) really did face inflationary pressures from the late 1960s until the 1990s (at least periodically). Those who believed the inflation resulted from too much government spending helped to fuel the creation of the balanced budget ?religion? to fight the inflation. The problem is that what started as something recognized by economists and policymakers to be a ?myth? came to be believed as the truth. An incorrect understanding was developed. Originally the myth was ?functional? in the sense that it constrained a government that otherwise would spend too much, creating inflation and endangering the dollar peg to gold. But like many useful myths, this one eventually became a harmful myth?an example of what John Kenneth Galbraith called an ?innocent fraud?, an unwarranted belief that prevents proper behaviour. Sovereign governments began to believe that the really could not ?afford? to undertake desired policy, on the belief they might become insolvent. Ironically, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Obama repeatedly claimed that the US government had ?run out of money??that it could not afford to undertake policy that most believed to be desired. As unemployment rose to nearly 10%, the government was paralysed?it could not adopt the policy that Lerner advocated: spend enough to return the economy toward full employment. Ironically, throughout the crisis, the Fed (as well as some other central banks, including the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan) essentially followed Lerner?s second principle: it provided more than enough bank reserves to keep the overnight interest rate on a target that was nearly zero. It did this by purchasing financial assets from banks (a policy known as ?quantitative easing?), in record volumes ($1.75 trillion in the first phase, with a planned additional $600 billion in the second phase). Chairman Bernanke was actually grilled in Congress about where he obtained all the ?money? to buy those bonds. He (correctly) stated that the Fed simply created it by crediting bank reserves?through keystrokes. The Fed can never run out ?money?; it can afford to buy any financial assets banks are willing to sell. And yet we have the President (as well as many members of the economics profession as well as most politicians in Congress) believing government is ?running out of money?! There are plenty of ?keystrokes? to buy financial assets, but no ?keystrokes? to pay wages.That indicates just how dysfunctional the myth has become.Next week, we?ll show that some Kansas City air might have drifted northeast to the bastion of free market economics: the University of Chicago
Source: http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2012/01/mmp-blog-31-functional-finance-monetary.html
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Spanish lawmakers OK $11.5 billion austerity deal (AP)
MADRID ? Spain's Parliament approved the new conservative government's first austerity measures Wednesday, which aim to rein in the country's swollen deficit with euro8.9 billion ($11.5 billion) in spending cuts.
The measures, which also include income and property tax hikes, were approved by 197 deputies in the 350-seat lower house, where the ruling Popular Party has an absolute majority of 185 seats after a landslide election win in November.
Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said the measures were severe but necessary, owing to what he called the mismanagement of the economy by the former Socialist government.
"The economy is stopped, we're on the verge of a recession and the accounts are unbalanced as a consequence, among other things, of the deplorable decisions taken by the former government, which only made the situation worse," Montoro told lawmakers.
Spain is battling to avert being dragged further into a debt crisis that has already forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek financial bailouts.
In 2010, Spain began to emerge from a near two-year recession triggered by the collapse of a property and construction bubble that had fueled growth for nearly a decade. The country now has a 21.5 percent unemployment rate ? the highest in the eurozone ? and Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said recently the economy would slide back into recession early this year with the last quarter of 2011 and the first of 2012 both registering negative growth.
Montoro accused the former Socialist government of deliberately hiding figures that showed that Spain's deficit for 2011 would be 8 percent of national income, and not 6 percent as the Socialists had claimed. He said the deviation represented an estimated euro20 billion ($25.4 billion) "black hole."
However, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has acknowledged that the deficit of regional governments, most of which are run by his own conservative party, was responsible for 75 percent of the deviation.
Other measures in the austerity package include a freeze on civil servants' salaries and on practically all government hiring. Pensions, however, are to be increased by 1 percent, the only area of spending to rise. Taxes on income and property will also be raised but only for two years.
Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro said the tax increases will be progressive, with the wealthiest paying more and that the impact on lower-income earners will be minimal.
The government projects that the tax increases will bring in euro6.2 billion ($7.9 billion) on top of the euro8.9 billion saved on the spending cuts.
The package was part of an extension of the 2011 budget because the last government did not pass one for 2012. More austerity measures are expected when the government presents its 2012 budget by the end of March.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Inimai Chettiar: Downsizing Incarceration is Good for Fairness, Safety, and our Wallets
It's no secret that the United States is the largest incarcerator in the world. It's also no secret that our government selectively enforces criminal laws disproportionately against poor people and people of color, resulting in the mass incarceration of black and brown Americans. Now, one in nine black children has a parent in prison; there are more black men under the control of corrections than were enslaved in 1850. Our addiction to incarceration has decimated the social and economic futures of generations of Americans.
What might be a secret to most Americans, however, is how the budgetary practices of state legislatures may actually be contributing to the mass incarceration problem. A report released today by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the American Civil Liberties Union explains how poorly performed state evaluations of the budgetary consequences of criminal justice legislation are causing some states to spend unnecessarily on prisons while cutting other vital state programs. The report, Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A Strategy for Better Outcomes and Saving Money, details how a change to the way states perform budget evaluations of proposed legislation could help reduce our incarceration rate - and save states money.
Across the nation, state governments are mired in economic crisis. Unfortunately, many states have taken a short-term attitude toward solving their economic problems: in order to balance budgets in the current year, they cut spending on essential public programs like schools, public assistance, and infrastructure. At the same time, almost all states have increased their spending on prisons. Over the last 25 years, state corrections spending grew by 674 percent, outpacing the growth of other spending to become the fourth-largest category of state spending. Currently, almost $70 billion of our annual collective tax dollars go to our penal system, often toward incarcerating people who pose little or no safety risks.
This prison spending explosion is a direct result of our ineffective, inefficient, and racially biased "war on drugs" and "tough on crime" policies of the 1980s and 1990s. Now, our prisons are filled to the brim with petty offenders, the mentally ill, the elderly, children charged as adults, those with drug addiction in need of treatment, and poor people unable to pay bail.
Some states have not realized the wisdom of reforming their laws to rely less on prison, even though such reforms have been proven by research to reduce recidivism and correction costs while protecting the public. Instead, many state budget analyses tend to focus on the upfront start-up costs of a bill, but fail to examine the later savings these programs will bring - even savings that could be realized in the following year.
Earlier this year, for example, bipartisan legislators in Maryland proposed a bill to create non-prison sanctions for individuals who commit technical parole violations, such as missing a meeting with their parole officer or failing to complete community service. More than one-third of the people behind bars in this country are there for similar technical violations, not for new crimes. Several other states have implemented this same kind of reform and reduced its prison population and spending within just a few years, while continuing to see their crime rates drop. But in Maryland, a poorly performed state budget evaluation considered only the up-front costs of the proposed program and ignored the future savings it would bring, concluding incorrectly that the reform would cost too much. As a result, the bill was scaled back. Now, Maryland will continue to automatically send most individuals who violate parole conditions back to prison even if it is for something as small as missing a parole meeting.
Today's report finds that it's not just Maryland where budget evaluations account only for costs and not savings; in fact, most states lack rigorous procedures to account for the full budgetary impacts of proposed laws. And when states examine policies through a cost-only lens, instead of a cost-effectiveness lens, legislators and the public are more likely to reject policies that would actually save us all money overall. The report recommends changes to states' budget impact procedures that will illuminate the short- and long-term benefits of policies to end our dependence on incarceration, in turn bolstering reforms that will reduce prison spending and save states millions that they can spend on other vital services.
The current system of mass incarceration is stripping away the fundamental rights of a large portion of the population - mostly people of color - at a huge cost to taxpayers. Locking people up unnecessarily not only deprives them of their liberty, it also destroys their future employment and educational prospects, strips them of their right to vote, and leaves their children without parents. Americans who care about basic fairness, not to mention their safety and their wallet, should be wondering why our state governments are spending more and more of our hard-earned tax dollars on prisons when there are cheaper and more effective alternatives.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/inimai-chettiar/downsizing-incarceration-_b_1199987.html
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Acer S231HL
If you're in the market for an attractive 23-inch monitor that won't strain your budget, consider Acer's S231HL ($199 list). This svelte LED backlit monitor offers three video inputs and generally good color performance, but it has trouble displaying portions of the grayscale and is susceptible to color shifting when viewed from a side angle. As you might expect from a monitor in this price range, features are scarce.
Design and Features
At 0.70-inches thick the S231HL is thinner than most monitors, but not quite as thin as the AOC e2243FW ($149 list, 3 stars) (.50-inch). The cabinet juts out to around 1.2-inches towards the bottom. Razor-thin piano black bezels frame the 1,920-by-1,080 TN+ panel, which sports a matte coating that cuts down on glare while remaining non-reflective. The cabinet is perched atop an oval base (also piano black) that allows you to tilt the panel forward and backward, but doesn't support height, swivel, or rotation adjustments.
Beneath the lower bezel are five buttons that are used to activate and navigate your way through the settings menu system. Pressing any button brings up an on-screen quick-launch menu with function icons positioned above each button. Shortcuts include e-Empowering (for selecting picture modes), Auto Adjust (for automatically adjusting clock and focus with an analog signal), Menu (which opens the main OSD menu screen), and Input (to select one of three video sources). There are five picture modes including Movie, Standard, Text, Graphic, and User; the Standard mode offers the best all-around picture, but you can take advantage of the User mode to create your own custom mode with specific color and luminance settings. The Main menu offers very basic picture settings such as brightness, contrast, and color temperature. Here you can manually adjust clock and focus settings as well. Other settings include Wide mode (aspect ratio), screen position, and DDC/CI (Display Data Channel/Command Interface) on and off.
At the rear of the cabinet are HDMI, DVI, and VGA video ports, but you won't find any USB ports or audio jacks, nor are there any built-in speakers. Still, it's nice to have at least two digital inputs, which allows you to switch between your PC and another external device (such as a gaming console) without having to swap cables. The S231HL comes with DVI and VGA cables in the box and a nice three year warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting.
Performance
The S231HL is an average performer; it handled the DisplayMate Color Scales test without issue, producing uniform colors that scaled evenly from dark to light. It had trouble displaying the lightest swatches of gray on the 64-Step Grayscale test, however, and dark grayscale performance was only marginally better. Pass on this monitor if you require grayscale accuracy for things like photo editing. Small text was legible down to 5.3 points, the smallest font on my tests, which is good news for anyone who deals with multi-page documents and spreadsheets.
Off-angle viewing is less than stellar. While viewing images from a side angle I noticed significant color shifting where light blue colors actually appeared tan. The screen also darkened when viewed from the top and bottom angles, a common characteristic of inexpensive TN+ panels.
The panel's 5-millisecond (g-g) pixel response kept ghosting and smearing to a minimum. I tore through several rounds of the street racing game Split Second while connected to my PS3 console via HDMI and the action was smooth with no noticeable lag. Blu-ray movies also looked great in full (1080p) HD.
The S231HL uses LEDs for backlighting and doesn't require lots of power, but there are more energy efficient monitors to be had. It used 26-watts of power during my testing while the 24-inch Asus ML248H ($209.99 list, 3.5 stars) used 23-watts. Neither came close to the Lenovo LS2421p Wide ($219.99 direct, 4 stars) and Gateway FHX2402L ($229.99 list, 3 stars), both of which used 16-watts.
Decent color quality at an affordable price make the Acer S231HL a compelling choice for anyone seeking a 23-inch monitor for everyday use. However, you don't get many bells and whistles with this monitor and its viewing angle and grayscale performance are less than stellar. If you have an extra $20 to spend, the Editors' Choice Lenovo LS2421p Wide is a much better deal; it has four USB ports, uses less power, and offers a bit more screen real estate.
COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Asus PA246Q with several other monitors side by side.
More monitor reviews:
??? Acer S231HL
??? Asus PA246Q
??? Sony PlayStation 3D Display
??? Lenovo LS2421p Wide
??? Viewsonic VX2753mh
?? more
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/VxSswS78F3Y/0,2817,2398467,00.asp
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Raonic beats Tipsarevic in Chennai Open final
Canada's Milos Raonic celebrates his win in the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. Raonic won 6-7. 7-6, 7-6. (AP Photo)
Canada's Milos Raonic celebrates his win in the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. Raonic won 6-7. 7-6, 7-6. (AP Photo)
Canada's Milos Raonic celebrates his win in the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. Raonic won 6-7. 7-6, 7-6. (AP Photo)
Canada's Milos Raonic holds the trophy after winning the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. Raonic won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Canada's Milos Raonic holds the trophy after his win in the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. Raonic won 6-7. 7-6, 7-6. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Canada's Milos Raonic kisses the trophy after winning in the final match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic at the ATP Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
CHENNAI, India (AP) ? Milos Raonic beat top-seeded Janko Tipsarevic 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) in a serve-dominated Chennai Open final Sunday, earning his second career title.
Fourth-seeded Raonic hit 35 aces in a marathon match that lasted 3 hours, 16 minutes and didn't include a break of serve.
"It is an awesome feeling," said the 21-year-old Raonic, who won all 48 of his service games during the week to become the first player to win a tournament without dropping serve since Roger Federer at the 2008 grass-court tournament in Halle.
Raonic dropped only four points on serve in the first set and had four chances to break in the fourth game before the Serbian stole it in the tiebreaker.
"Tipsarevic took it away in the first set," Raonic said. "But I took my opportunities in the second and third."
Raonic established a 4-1 lead in the second-set tiebreaker before leveling the match on his second set point. He had to save break points early in the decider but dominated the tiebreaker with his serve.
"My serve is a big factor in my game ... in 99 percent of my matches," said Raonic, who averages 124 mph on his first serve. "My job is to take care of my serve."
The ninth-ranked Tipsarevic now has lost six of eight ATP finals in his career.
"Guys like Milos are special players," Tipsarevic said after his first match against the Canadian. "It was a great game of tennis. Nobody knew till the end who would win.
"Unluckily for me it was I who lost. It was just a matter of a few points here and there. Hopefully the next time I will get the better of him."
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Monday, January 9, 2012
Money Manager: American Airlines and jobs
WFAA contributor
Posted on January 7, 2012 at 9:14 AM
Financial expert Eric Amado discusses what American Airlines' bankrupty filing means for employees and passengers, and also talks about some encouraging news for job-seekers.
Source: http://www.wfaa.com/news/business/Money-Manager-American-Airlines-and-jobs-136871293.html
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Jim Rome Left Partly Because Of Stuff Said About Him In The ESPN Book
So Jim Rome is going from ESPN to CBS Sports Network even though the Worldwide Leader had offered him a multi-year extension for Rome Is Burning. According to a source, Rome wanted out at least in part because of comments made by an ESPN executive in Those Guys Have All The Fun, the oral history published last year.
According to the book, a pair of ESPN executives had a dispute over whether to give Rome his own show on ESPN2 as the new channel prepared to launch on Oct. 1, 1993. At the time, Rome had his own sports-talk show in San Diego that was about to be syndicated nationally on the radio. John Lack, ESPN's executive vice president of marketing and programming, wanted to bring him on, thinking he would attract a younger audience. But John Walsh, the network's executive vice president, was against it. The following passage, which is attributed to Lack, is taken from pages 250-251 of the book:
"[Rome] was brash and young, and his dream was to be on someplace like ESPN. He wasn't a great TV personality at the time?he was kind of awkward?but he had that great voice, a great mind, and he had the respect early of the trash-talking black and Hispanic audience. I thought he was good-looking enough to be an eventual star on television.
So I told Walsh, 'Look, he is by far the best available, and he doesn't have to quit his radio show, so it won't cost us a lot of money. We can get him part-time, we'll sign him to thirteen weeks, and if he doesn't work out, we can always get rid of him.' John looked at the tapes and went gaga; he thought this was going to be Waterloo, and he was going to fight this one because he thought it flew in the face of the journalistic ethics of ESPN. I kept saying, 'It's not about journalism, it's about young people, and getting involved in what they care about.' He didn't buy any of that psychological shit. All he cared about was, 'This guy is too controversial and I don't think that he's smart enough.' And I said, 'Look, he's definitely smart enough.' We went back and forth, I auditioned Rome, then sent him a contract, and all the time John is just boiling. One day, I got a call from Steve [Bornstein, the chairman of ESPN at the time]. He said, 'You better get in here because John's going nuts and he says if you hire Rome, he's going to quit.' Okay, whatever.
We schedule a meeting for the next morning. John comes, looks at me, and says, 'You're going to ruin the journalistic integrity of this network, which we've built up all these years. We're finally getting to a point where we are the real deal in sports journalism, and this guy's going to blow it all in a week on the air.'
And I said, 'We're not impinging on the journalistic values of ESPN, the mother ship; this guy's not going to appear on ESPN, he's going to do a show in the afternoon on ESPN2, where our audience is very young?the main audience I want.' Now Steve agreed with me as a programmer, but John was getting so heated about it, Steve doesn't know what to do. So the meeting ends, Steve asks me to stick around, and says to me, 'Can't we just find some other guy? It's not worth this fight with John.' I said, 'This is a guy who's going to cost us fifteen or twenty grand who could do a point-three or point-four rating, which means we could make a couple of hundred thousand dollars on this show alone.' So he says, 'Okay, I'll tell John.' I was told by Vince Doria, who was with Steve at the time, that Walsh said, 'If Rome comes here, and Lack has the right to do that, then I'm quitting.'"
In 1994, Rome did have an on-air confrontation with former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jim Everett in which Rome baited Everett into attacking him physically. The video can be seen here:
On pages 300-301 the book, Walsh recounts his reaction to the episode:
"I thought it was a complete embarrassment. Exactly what I was worried about with this guy. Mark Shapiro [then a production assistant who would eventually become ESPN's executive vice president for programming] called and got me out of my fantasy baseball draft in New York to tell me what happened. He just said, 'Hey, you should know this happened. He walked off the set. There was confrontation. It was physical. The whole works. We gotta get PR in the room. What are we going to say? What are we going to do?' I don't think he was elated. I think he was nervous. This was a new experience for him, and he was a young guy, so he was kind of looking for what's the best direction here. We all got together and talked with Bornstein, and we decided we weren't going to suspend or fire him. I'm not going to give you what my opinion was on that."
Walsh, of course, is still at ESPN. Lack left in December 1995.
ALSO: An Interview With Jim Everett About "Teeny, Tiny" Jim Rome's Departure From ESPN
Source: http://deadspin.com/5873815/jim-rome-left-partly-because-of-stuff-said-about-him-in-the-espn-book
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