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Naomi Klein on the People's Climate March & the global grassroots movement fighting fossil fuels
Michael Klare: Oil rush in America
Whatever you may imagine, "peak oil" has not been discredited as a concept, a statement no less true for "peak fossil fuels." Think of them instead as postponed. We are, after all, on a finite planet that, by definition, holds a finite amount of oil, natural gas, and coal. Sooner or later, as such deposits get used up (no matter the new techniques that might be invented to extract more of the ever tougher stuff from the earth), we will reach a "peak" of production from which it will be all downhill.
That's a simple fact to which, as it happens, there's a catch. Here, according to the New York Times, is the key finding from the latest leaked 127-page draft report of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which manages to use the word "risk" 351 times, "vulnerable" or "vulnerability" 61 times, and "irreversible" 48 times: "The report found that companies and governments had identified reserves of these [fossil] fuels at least four times larger than could safely be burned if global warming is to be kept to a tolerable level."
In other words, while "peak oil" may be a perfectly on-target concept, "peak existence" turns out to precede it by decades and from that far more consequential "peak" we are, unlike "peak oil," already on the downhill slide. The scientists who produced the IPCC's draft report expect the average global temperature to increase by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-century and at least 6.7 degrees by its end, which will leave humanity on a staggeringly less habitable planet.
The damage, including the melting of the Greenland ice shield, which alone could raise global sea levels by an average of 23 feet, will be irreversible (at least on a historical — that is, human — timescale). Faced with this relatively straightforward reality, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare, the author of The Race for What's Left, reports today, oil companies are using remarkable ingenuity and spending billions of dollars to reach ever deeper, ever more difficult to extract, and ever more environmentally treacherous deposits of fossil fuels. No less strikingly, the Obama administration has been working energetically to pave the way for them to do so — to, that is, make real headway in removing those deposits four times larger than will be even faintly comfortable for our future. Not only is it doing so in a thoroughly drill-baby-drill spirit of cooperation with the globe's largest and most avaricious energy outfits, but it's bragging about it, too.
In my childhood, I remember ads that fascinated me. I'm not sure what they were selling or promoting, but they showed scenes of multiple error, including, if I remember rightly, five-legged cows floating through clouds. They were always tagged with some question like: What's wrong with this picture? Today, as in those ads, Klare offers us a picture filled with the energy exploitation and global-warming equivalent of those five-legged cows in the clouds and asks the same question. Tom Engelhardt
Oil is back!
A global warming president presides over a drill-baby-drill America
By Michael T. KlareConsidering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you'd think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil consumption is on an upward trajectory, climbing by 400,000 barrels per day in 2013 alone — and, if current trends persist, it should rise again both this year and next.
In other words, oil is back. Big time. Signs of its resurgence abound. Despite what you may think, Americans, on average, are driving more miles every day, not fewer, filling ever more fuel tanks with ever more gasoline, and evidently feeling ever less bad about it. The stigma of buying new gas-guzzling SUVs, for instance, seems to have vanished; according to CNN Money, nearly one out of three vehicles sold today is an SUV. As a result of all this, America's demand for oil grew more than China's in 2013, the first time that's happened since 1999.
As part of its black economy, oil sales earn ISIS $2 million every day
Luay Al Khatteeb writes: The United Nation Security Council dramatically escalated the conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), Al Nusra Front (JNF) and other Al Qaeda splinter groups by passing UN Resolution 2170 in August 2014, thereby expanding the range of retaliatory measures (short of military action) against individuals associated with those groups. This UN Security Council is the latest in a series of draconian UN Resolutions against terror groups pursuant to its responsibility of Forgotten Obligations and affirming its primary role as peacekeepers enshrined in the UN Charter.
The cumulative effect of these resolutions recognizes the long term threat posed by ISIL which was addressed by President Obama in a White House briefing on the 18 August. What Obama did not address however was ISIL's threat to global energy security, which forms (in part) the premise of this article.
The implications of these UN resolutions for ISIL are clear. The UN Security Council has effectively decided to cut off ISIL's main lifeline, which is the illicit black economy derived mainly from the oil resources under its control. Consequently, ISIL's ability to recruit and equip members, consolidate gains if not expand its theatre of operations will be affected. Furthermore, middle men including financiers, arms dealers, traders and Member States now face punitive action for failing to comply.
Whilst I have aired my thoughts on the main features of ISIL's black market economy, I set out in this Article, my analysis of the background and significance of the UN's latest bold move against ISIL, ANF and other Qaeda splinters.
Contrary to the media's one dimensional portrayal of ISIL as a bunch of nihilist extremists, ISIL have moved relatively fast and in a relatively sophisticated manner to create an 'ad-hoc' black market economy over the territories it controls. ISIL is no longer desperate for donors' funding to continue and expand their operations given they now possess a loosely integrated and thriving black economy consisting of approximately 60% of Syria's oil assets and 7 oil producing assets in Iraq. It has successfully achieved a thriving black market economy by developing an extensive network of middlemen in neighboring territories and countries to trade crude oil for cash and in kind.
ISIL's estimated total revenues from its oil production are around USD $2 million a day! Put simply, ISIL are in a position to smuggle over 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day to neighboring territories and countries at a price of between USD $25 to USD $60 per barrel depending on the number of middle men involved. [Continue reading...]
Naomi Oreskes: A 'green' bridge to hell
Call it the energy or global warming news of recent weeks. No, I'm not referring to the fact this was globally the hottest June on record ever (as May had been before it), or that NASA launched the first space vehicle "dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide." Nor do I mean the new report released by a "bipartisan group," including former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and three former secretaries of the treasury, suggesting that, by 2100, $238 billion to $507 billion worth of American property will be "below sea level"; nor that Virginia's coastline is already being eaten away by rising seas and storm-surge destruction in such a striking manner that state Democrats and Republicans are leaving global warming denialists in the lurch and forming a climate change task force to figure out what in the world to do.
No, I was referring to the news that the Obama administration has just reopened the eastern seaboard to offshore oil and gas exploration. To the extent that this has been covered, the articles have generally focused on the economic positives — for jobs and national wealth — of finding new deposits of oil and gas in those waters, and the unhappiness of the environmental community over the effect of the sonic booms used in underwater seismic exploration on whales and other sea creatures. Not emphasized has been the way, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, not to speak of the shale-gas fracking fields of this country, the Obama administration has had an all-of-the-above policy on fossil fuels. Our "global warming" president has consistently championed reforms (of a modest sort) to combat climate change. These, however, fit uncomfortably with his administration's anything-goes menu of oil and gas exploration and exploitation that is distinctly in the drill-baby-drill mode. Unlike that drill-baby-drill proponent Sarah Palin, however, the president knows what he's doing and what the long-term effects of such policies are likely to be.
Part of the way he and his officials seem to have squared the circle is by championing their moves to throttle coal use and bring natural gas, touted as the "clean" fossil fuel, to market in a big way. As it happens, historian of science Naomi Oreskes, an expert on the subject, has news for the president and his advisors: when looked at in a clear-eyed way, natural gas isn't going to turn out to be the fossil-fuel equivalent of a wonder drug that will cure the latest climate disease. Quite the opposite: its exploitation will actually increase the global use of fossil fuels and pump more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, while possibly suppressing the development of actual renewable alternatives. In a magisterial piece today, she explores every aspect of the crucial question of why natural gas is anything but a panacea for our climate change problems.
This couldn't be more important. Science historians Oreskes and Erik Conway have already written a classic book, Merchants of Doubt, on how Big Energy and a tiny group of scientists associated with it sold us a false bill of goods on the nature and impact of its products (as the tobacco industry and essentially the same set of scientists had before it). Together, they have now produced a little gem of a book on climate change: The Collapse of Western Civilization: a View From the Future. Written, so the claim goes, in 2393 by a "senior scholar of the Second People's Republic of China," it traces the events that led to the Great Collapse of 2090. You haven't heard of that grim event yet? Well, you will as soon as you pick up Oreskes's and Conway's "thought-provoking" and gripping work of "science-based fiction" on what our future may have in store for us — if we don't act to change our world. Tom Engelhardt
Wishful thinking about natural gas
Why fossil fuels can't solve the problems created by fossil fuels
By Naomi OreskesAlbert Einstein is rumored to have said that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that led to it. Yet this is precisely what we are now trying to do with climate change policy. The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, many environmental groups, and the oil and gas industry all tell us that the way to solve the problem created by fossil fuels is with more fossils fuels. We can do this, they claim, by using more natural gas, which is touted as a "clean" fuel — even a "green" fuel.
Like most misleading arguments, this one starts from a kernel of truth.
Kurdish independence: Harder than it looks
Joost Hiltermann writes: The jihadist blitz through northwestern Iraq has ended the fragile peace that was established after the 2007-2008 US surge. It has cast grave doubt on the basic capacity of the Iraqi army—reconstituted, trained and equipped at great expense by Washington—to control the country, and it could bring down the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose eight-year reign has been marred by mismanagement and sectarian polarization. But for Iraqi Kurds, the offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and other groups has offered a dramatic opportunity: a chance to expand their own influence beyond Iraqi Kurdistan and take possession of other parts of northern Iraq they've long claimed as theirs.
At the heart of these "disputed areas" is the strategic city of Kirkuk, which the disciplined and highly motivated Kurdish Peshmerga took over in mid-June, after Iraqi soldiers stationed there fled in fear of advancing jihadists. A charmless city of slightly less than one million people, Kirkuk betrays little of its past as an important Ottoman garrison town. The desolate ruin of an ancient citadel, sitting on a mound overlooking the dried-out Khasa River, is one of the few hints of the city's earlier glory. Yet Kirkuk lies on top of one of Iraq's largest oil fields, and with its crucial location directly adjacent to the Kurdish region, the city is the prize in the Kurds' long journey to independence, a town they call their Jerusalem. When their Peshmerga fighters easily took over a few weeks ago, there was loud rejoicing throughout the Kurdish land.
But while the Kurds believe Kirkuk's riches give them crucial economic foundations for a sustainable independent state, the city's ethnic heterogeneity raises serious questions about their claims to it. Not only is Kirkuk's population—as with that of many other Iraqi cities, including Baghdad itself—deeply intermixed. The disputed status of its vast oil field also stands as a major obstacle to any attempt to divide the country's oil revenues equitably. To anyone who advocates dividing Iraq into neat ethnic and sectarian groups, Kirkuk shows just how challenging that would be in practice. [Continue reading...]
Kurdish forces seize control of two key Iraqi oil fields
The Wall Street Journal reports: Kurdish Peshmerga forces took control of production facilities at two key oil fields near the northern city of Kirkuk Friday, in a politically-charged move that is likely to worsen already frayed relations between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Baghdad.
In statements that cast dramatically opposing views of the event, the central government and KRG confirmed Kurdish Peshmerga forces had taken control of oil fields around Kirkuk on Friday morning, and expelled employees of Iraq's central-government controlled North Oil Company.
The move places Iraq's prize northern oil field in the hands of the KRG; the Kirkuk field alone could add 250,000 barrels a day to the region's oil production capacity. Though Kurdish forces have held control of the disputed and oil-rich town of Kirkuk since insurgents overran the nearby town of Mosul, until now they have not sought control of the oil infrastructure.
However, the KRG claimed it moved to secure control of the oil fields Friday after learning that Baghdad planned to sabotage recently-built infrastructure that could help transport oil from the northern oil fields through Kurdistan to Turkey for export.
"This morning's events have shown that the KRG is determined to protect and defend Iraq's oil infrastructure whenever it is threatened by acts of terrorism or, as in this case, politically motivated sabotage," the KRG said in a statement. [Continue reading...]
Michael Klare: Fighting for oil
Call it a double whammy for the planet or simply irony with a capital "I." As the invaluable Michael Klare, TomDispatch regular and author of The Race for What's Left, points out today, if you scan the planet for conflict, what you'll find from Syria and Iraq to the South China Sea are a series of energy wars — fossil-fuel conflicts to be exact. At present, despite some hopeful signs, this crazed planet of ours is still a ravenous beast that only fossil fuels can sate. No question that conflicts and wars are terrible things. Just consider the million new refugees being generated by the disintegration of Iraq in a blaze of warfare and sectarian killings. But oil wars add a grim twist to the mix, because when they're settled, however miserably or bloodily, the winners take to the oil rigs and the refineries and pump out yet more of the stuff that puts carbon dioxide and methane, both greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere and, as in the Middle East today, creates the basis for yet more conflict.
That region has been going through a period of heightened dryness and drought that researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believe to be caused, at least in part, by global warming. This winter, the driest in decades, Syria and Iraq in particular have experienced a severe lack of rainfall in what should be the wettest part of the year and record heat as well. These are factors the Pentagon lists in its recent Quadrennial Defense Review as "threat multipliers." According to meteorologist Eric Holthaus, "As in neighboring Syria, it's increasingly clear that Iraq is drying out, an effect that's long been predicted as a result of the human-caused build up of heat-trapping gases like CO2. Since 1973… parts of Iraq and Syria have seen 'some of the most dramatic precipitation declines in the world.' Citing projected stark declines in rainfall and continued population pressure and upstream dam building, a study released earlier this year made the case that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers may no longer reach the sea by 2040."
The weather destabilization of Syria and the rise of ISIS seem to be connected. In the Mobius Strip of life, the more desperate you are — thank you, global warming — the more you're likely to fight over what resources, from water to oil, you can command, and then when you're done, you'll use those resources to heat the planet further. It's a closed system, a simple formula for the production of violent emotions, dead bodies, and a particularly nasty world. Tom Engelhardt
Twenty-first-century energy wars
Global conflicts are increasingly fueled by the desire for oil and natural gas — and the funds they generate
By Michael T. KlareIraq, Syria, Nigeria, South Sudan, Ukraine, the East and South China Seas: wherever you look, the world is aflame with new or intensifying conflicts. At first glance, these upheavals appear to be independent events, driven by their own unique and idiosyncratic circumstances. But look more closely and they share several key characteristics — notably, a witch's brew of ethnic, religious, and national antagonisms that have been stirred to the boiling point by a fixation on energy.
In each of these conflicts, the fighting is driven in large part by the eruption of long-standing historic antagonisms among neighboring (often intermingled) tribes, sects, and peoples. In Iraq and Syria, it is a clash among Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Turkmen, and others; in Nigeria, among Muslims, Christians, and assorted tribal groupings; in South Sudan, between the Dinka and Nuer; in Ukraine, between Ukrainian loyalists and Russian-speakers aligned with Moscow; in the East and South China Sea, among the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, and others. It would be easy to attribute all this to age-old hatreds, as suggested by many analysts; but while such hostilities do help drive these conflicts, they are fueled by a most modern impulse as well: the desire to control valuable oil and natural gas assets. Make no mistake about it, these are twenty-first-century energy wars.
Israel accepts delivery of disputed Kurdish pipeline oil
Reuters reports: A tanker delivered a cargo of disputed crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan's new pipeline for the first time on Friday in Israel, despite threats by Baghdad to take legal action against any buyer.
The SCF Altai tanker arrived at Israel's Ashkelon port early on Friday morning, ship tracking and industry sources said. By the evening, the tanker began unloading the Kurdish oil, a source at the port said.
The port authority at Ashkelon declined to comment.
Securing the first sale of oil from its independent pipeline is crucial for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) as it seeks greater financial independence from war-torn Iraq.
But the new export route to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, designed to bypass Baghdad's federal pipeline system, has created a bitter dispute over oil sale rights between the central government and the Kurds. [Continue reading...]
How the Kurds may benefit from the ISIS rampage
Foreign Policy reports: Amid the rubble left in Iraq by the rampage of Islamist insurgents, one group seems poised to benefit: the Kurds. Baghdad's flailing response to the offensive launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham opens the door to greater geographical reach for the Kurdish region, greater leverage over the central government, and a stronger possibility of becoming a big energy exporter in its own right.
The Islamist insurgents, known variously as ISIS and ISIL, continued their drive south toward the Iraqi capital on Thursday after having captured key northern cities, including Mosul. No less vigorous has been the Kurdish response: In sharp contrast to the Iraqi military forces, which evaporated despite outnumbering ISIS fighters, Kurdish military forces on Thursday took Kirkuk, an important city straddling the Arab and Kurdish parts of Iraq and the centerpiece of the northern oil industry. The Kurdish occupation, in a matter of hours, of a city that has been a bone of contention between Arabs and Kurds for centuries — and especially during Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq — underscores how dramatically the ISIS offensive is redrawing the map of Iraq.
"This may be the end of Iraq as it was. The chances that Iraq can return to the centralized state that [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki was trying to restore are minimal at this point," said Marina Ottaway, a Middle East specialist at the Wilson Center.
The contrast between robust security in Kurdish-ruled parts of the country and the security vacuum left by fleeing Iraqi troops could ultimately roll back decades of Iraqi history and put Kurdish leaders in Erbil in the catbird seat, especially when it comes to a contentious tug of war over energy resources.
"The strategic failure of Iraqi forces has really shifted the entire balance of power between the Kurdish Regional Government and Baghdad," said Ayham Kamel, Middle East director at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy. "It really allows the KRG to negotiate with Baghdad on entirely different terms" when it comes to a fight over the Kurds' right to export oil directly.
For years, Kurds in northern Iraq sought to benefit more from the region's abundant oil and gas resources, but energy exports were centralized in Baghdad, with export revenues shared among Iraq's regions. Kurdish leaders argued that the deal shortchanged them because they never got the 17 percent of revenues they were promised.
As a result, the Kurds decided — in the face of a barrage of threats and intimidation from Baghdad — to build their own energy-export infrastructure, enabling them to transport oil directly to nearby Turkey. That pipeline opened this year and energy firms operating in the region say that it will be fully operational later this year. Getting the export pipeline up to cruising speed is important for the Kurdish government. It needs to export about 450,000 barrels of oil a day to earn what it received from the central government. By the end of next year, the KRG hopes to be exporting as many as 1 million barrels a day. [Continue reading...]
Israel has Egypt over a barrel
David Hearst writes: It took the CIA 60 years to admit its involvement in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadeq, Iran's first democratically elected prime minister. The circumstances around the overthrow of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, may not take as long to come to light, regardless of whom is behind it.
Mossadeq sealed his fate when he renationalized Iran's oil production, which had been under the control of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later to become BP. Morsi's enemy was gas, and he proved to be a major obstacle to a lucrative deal with Israel – which nobody will be surprised to learn – is about to take place now he has been removed.
Clayton Swisher of Al Jazeera's investigative unit has spent five months delving into the corrupt sale of Egyptian gas to Israel. His report Egypt's Lost Power to be broadcast on Monday night reveals that Egypt has lost a staggering amount of money -$11bn , with debts and legal liabilities of another $20bn – selling gas at rock bottom prices to Israel, Spain and Jordan. [Continue reading...]
Russia joins global dash for shale oil in policy volte-face
The Telegraph reports: Russia is launching a strategic drive to unlock its shale oil wealth as crude output stagnates and reserves run low in the West Siberian fields, aiming to replicate America's technology leap in a near total reversal of policy.
The Kremlin has launched an "action plan" to master fracking methods and lure investors into the Bazhenov prospective, a shale basin the size of France to the east of the Urals. Officials are no longer dismissing shale's promise as a mirage. "We are clearing away the administrative barriers to exploration. This is the urgent challenge we are now facing," said Kirill Molodtsov, the deputy energy minister.
The US Energy Department estimates that Russia has 75bn barrels of recoverable shale oil resources, the world's largest deposits. The Bazhenov field is 80 times bigger than the US Bakken field in North Dakota, which alone produces 1m barrels a day.
BP joined the scramble on Saturday by signing a deal to explore for shale in Volga Urals with Rosneft, even though Rosneft's chairman Igor Sechin is on the US sanctions list. [Continue reading...]
Michael Klare: What's Big Energy smoking?
"The industry's position was that there was no 'proof' that tobacco was bad, and they fostered that position by manufacturing a 'debate,' convincing the mass media that responsible journalists had an obligation to present 'both sides' of it." Using a handful of scientists as their expert witnesses, the major tobacco companies also denied the science linking cigarette smoking and cancer and claimed that anti-tobacco findings were driven by a political agenda. Using publicity outfits, think tanks, and those "objective" scientists in their pay or thrall, they put their money where their mouths were and financed a massive campaign of what, in retrospect, can only be called disinformation on the effects of tobacco smoking on human health. In this way, they created the doubt and debate they wanted, successfully postponing a reckoning for their industry for years.
Sound familiar today? It should. As Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway documented in their classic book Merchants of Doubt, the seeding of doubt into the cigarette controversy proved a brilliant move. The two authors call it "the tobacco strategy." It was so successful for the cigarette companies that it would be imitated and replicated in similar encounters over acid rain, the ozone hole, and finally global warming, a "debate" still ongoing and, as Oreskes and Conway make clear, with the same tiny cast of doubting scientists, who have moved conveniently from one issue to the next (without themselves doing original work), ending up in league with the fossil fuel industry. It's quite a tale of men representing whole industries who have ended up repeatedly on the wrong side of science. On the effects of tobacco, acid rain, and the chemicals that were destroying the ozone layer, they were notoriously wrong and yet, for the industries that supported them, notoriously right. It's clear enough how the fourth of these "debates" on climate change will be decided. The question is only when — and on that question hangs human health on a global scale.
In the meantime, Big Energy has never stopped learning from Big Tobacco's successes. As TomDispatch regular Michael Klare, the author of The Race for What's Left, reveals today, they are once again adapting and exploiting the latest tobacco strategy in a new and devastating way. It couldn't be a more shameful tale and no one has told it — until now. Tom Engelhardt
Let them eat carbon
Like Big Tobacco, Big Energy targets the developing world for future profits
By Michael T. KlareIn the 1980s, encountering regulatory restrictions and public resistance to smoking in the United States, the giant tobacco companies came up with a particularly effective strategy for sustaining their profit levels: sell more cigarettes in the developing world, where demand was strong and anti-tobacco regulation weak or nonexistent. Now, the giant energy companies are taking a page from Big Tobacco's playbook. As concern over climate change begins to lower the demand for fossil fuels in the United States and Europe, they are accelerating their sales to developing nations, where demand is strong and climate-control measures weak or nonexistent. That this will produce a colossal increase in climate-altering carbon emissions troubles them no more than the global spurt in smoking-related illnesses troubled the tobacco companies.
The tobacco industry's shift from rich, developed nations to low- and middle-income countries has been well documented. "With tobacco use declining in wealthier countries, tobacco companies are spending tens of billions of dollars a year on advertising, marketing, and sponsorship, much of it to increase sales in… developing countries," the New York Times noted in a 2008 editorial. To boost their sales, outfits like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco also brought their legal and financial clout to bear to block the implementation of anti-smoking regulations in such places. "They're using litigation to threaten low- and middle-income countries," Dr. Douglas Bettcher, head of the Tobacco Free Initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO), told the Times.
Why do rail tank cars carrying crude oil keep blowing up?
Mother Jones reports: Early on the morning of July 6, 2013, a runaway freight train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, setting off a series of massive explosions and inundating the town in flaming oil. The inferno destroyed the downtown area; 47 people died.
The 72-car train had been carrying nearly 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken fields. While the recent surge in domestic oil production has raised concerns about fracking, less attention has been paid to the billions of gallons of petroleum crisscrossing the country in "virtual pipelines" running through neighborhoods and alongside waterways. Most of this oil is being shipped in what's been called "the Ford Pinto of rail cars"—a tank car whose safety flaws have been known for more than two decades. [Continue reading...]
China, Russia on verge of gas deal
The Associated Press reports: China plans to sign a multibillion-dollar deal to buy Russian gas during a visit by President Vladimir Putin next week despite U.S. pressure to avoid undermining sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.
Washington has appealed to Beijing to avoid making business deals with Russia, though American officials acknowledge the pressing energy needs of China, the world's second-largest economy.
Negotiations that began more than a decade ago had stalled over price. But analysts say Moscow, isolated over its role in Ukraine, faces pressure to make concessions in exchange for an economic and political boost.
"We are still exchanging views with Moscow and we will try our best to ensure that this contract can be signed and witnessed by the two presidents during President Putin's visit to China," a deputy Chinese foreign minister, Cheng Guoping, told reporters on Thursday. [Continue reading...]
Eighth major oil train accident in less than a year
The Guardian reports: A train carrying crude oil partly derailed and then caught fire on Wednesday along the James river in Lynchburg, Virginia, with three leaking tankers ending up in the water. It is latest in a series of fiery accidents involving oil transported on North America's rail network.
Nearby buildings were temporarily evacuated but officials said there were no injuries. The city of Lynchburg said firefighters on the scene made the decision to let the fire burn out. Three or four of the tankers were breached on the 15-car train that train company CSX said had been on its way from Chicago to unspecified destination.
Photos and videos posted online showed large flames and thick black smoke immediately after the crash. Later photos showed the fire mostly out.
In July 2013 a runaway oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in Canada near the Maine border. Forty-seven people died and 30 buildings were incinerated. Canadian investigators said the combustibility of the 1.3m gallons of light sweet crude released in Lac-Megantic was comparable to gasoline.
In all there have been eight significant oil train accidents in the US and Canada in the past year involving trains hauling crude oil, including several that resulted in large fires, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
"This is another national wake-up call," said Jim Hall, a former NTSB chairman said of the Lynchburg crash. "We have these oil trains moving all across the United States through communities and the growth and distribution of this has all occurred, unfortunately, while the federal regulators have been asleep.
"This is just an area in which the federal rulemaking process is too slow to protect the American people." [Continue reading...]
Is the rulemaking simply too slow or are there more nefarious forces at play? Every time there's another rail accident, I have little doubt the XL Keystone lobbyists jump at the opportunity to underline how oil transportation through pipelines is so much "safer."
Averting planetary disaster will mean forcing Big Oil to give up at least $10 trillion in wealth
Chris Hayes writes: In 2012, the writer and activist Bill McKibben published a heart-stopping essay in Rolling Stone titled "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math." I've read hundreds of thousands of words about climate change over the last decade, but that essay haunts me the most.
The piece walks through a fairly straightforward bit of arithmetic that goes as follows. The scientific consensus is that human civilization cannot survive in any recognizable form a temperature increase this century more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Given that we've already warmed the earth about 0.8 degrees Celsius, that means we have 1.2 degrees left — and some of that warming is already in motion. Given the relationship between carbon emissions and global average temperatures, that means we can release about 565 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere by mid-century. Total. That's all we get to emit if we hope to keep inhabiting the planet in a manner that resembles current conditions.
Now here's the terrifying part. The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a consortium of financial analysts and environmentalists, set out to tally the amount of carbon contained in the proven fossil fuel reserves of the world's energy companies and major fossil fuel–producing countries. That is, the total amount of carbon we know is in the ground that we can, with present technology, extract, burn and put into the atmosphere. The number that the Carbon Tracker Initiative came up with is… 2,795 gigatons. Which means the total amount of known, proven extractable fossil fuel in the ground at this very moment is almost five times the amount we can safely burn.
Proceeding from this fact, McKibben leads us inexorably to the staggering conclusion that the work of the climate movement is to find a way to force the powers that be, from the government of Saudi Arabia to the board and shareholders of ExxonMobil, to leave 80 percent of the carbon they have claims on in the ground. That stuff you own, that property you're counting on and pricing into your stocks? You can't have it.
Given the fluctuations of fuel prices, it's a bit tricky to put an exact price tag on how much money all that unexcavated carbon would be worth, but one financial analyst puts the price at somewhere in the ballpark of $20 trillion. So in order to preserve a roughly habitable planet, we somehow need to convince or coerce the world's most profitable corporations and the nations that partner with them to walk away from $20 trillion of wealth. Since all of these numbers are fairly complex estimates, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we've overestimated the total amount of carbon and attendant cost by a factor of 2. Let's say that it's just $10 trillion.
The last time in American history that some powerful set of interests relinquished its claim on $10 trillion of wealth was in 1865 — and then only after four years and more than 600,000 lives lost in the bloodiest, most horrific war we've ever fought.
It is almost always foolish to compare a modern political issue to slavery, because there's nothing in American history that is slavery's proper analogue. So before anyone misunderstands my point, let me be clear and state the obvious: there is absolutely no conceivable moral comparison between the enslavement of Africans and African-Americans and the burning of carbon to power our devices. Humans are humans; molecules are molecules. The comparison I'm making is a comparison between the political economy of slavery and the political economy of fossil fuel.
More acutely, when you consider the math that McKibben, the Carbon Tracker Initiative and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) all lay out, you must confront the fact that the climate justice movement is demanding that an existing set of political and economic interests be forced to say goodbye to trillions of dollars of wealth. It is impossible to point to any precedent other than abolition. [Continue reading...]
The bear and the dragon: Russia pivots to China in the face of western sanctions
The Globe and Mail reports: On March 20, the U.S. authorized sanctions against billionaire Gennady Timchenko amid the escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine. Three weeks later, the Russian tycoon, who amassed a fortune trading oil and selling natural gas, appeared on Russian television. He was not in Russia at the time. He was in China. The West, he said, was "pushing us away." China was not. In fact, Chinese companies were talking with Mr. Timchenko about buying more of Russia's abundant energy.
"There is a market with a lot of potential developing in the Asia-Pacific region," said the billionaire, who boasts close ties to Vladimir Putin and has been called one of Russia's most powerful men.
This week, the country's Prime Minister was even more explicit: "We are interested in diversifying today more so than ever before. Therefore we are implementing solutions for the export of gas and oil to Asian and Pacific countries, first and foremost China," Dmitry Medvedev said on Russian television.
As the global fissures radiating from Russia's moves against Ukraine call into question the future of its ties with Western powers, Russia is increasingly casting its gaze east, to a distant border long neglected. In May, Mr. Putin is expected to come to Beijing to sign a major contract that will see Russia pipe vast quantities of natural gas to China. It will mark the sixth meeting between Mr. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping since the beginning of 2013, as Russia pushes for a "pivot east" that has taken on sudden new urgency in the wake of the country's moves in Ukraine, which have earned it global criticism, and an increasing likelihood of punitive sanctions.
The change stands to have wide-reaching ramifications, redrawing geopolitical alignments and altering global energy flows, a matter of concern to Canada, among others.
For Russia's economy, Ukraine stands to create "a major crisis," said Vassily Kasin, a China expert with the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based defence studies organization. "And China will become the major economic partner." The two countries "will in fact move very close to an alliance, I think," he said. "This is a major change." [Continue reading...]
The Kashagan oil field: The world's most toxic money pit
Alex Pasternack reports: The Kashagan oil field, located fifty miles offshore in western Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea, takes its name from a 19th century poet and from the Kazakh word meaning "skittish" and "elusive."
That's one understated way to describe the oil that some of the world's biggest companies are hoping to suck out of the Earth. In thirteen years, they've spent $50 billion, building islands and pipelines and digging deep, some two and a half miles below the surface, to reach a so-called supergiant oil field where sour crude is mixed with toxic gas at ungodly pressures. In industry circles, Kashagan has become a watchword for massive complexity and near impossibility, and adopted an unofficial motto: "cash all gone."
Since geologists discovered the field in 2000, north of the also-massive Tengiz oil field, Kashagan remains the largest new oil deposit since the Prudhoe Bay field was found off Alaska in 1968. Estimates say that there are between 30 and 50 billion barrels (4.8 and 7.9 billion cubic meters) buried in a reservoir so complicated to plumb that only between four and 13 billion barrels are thought to be recoverable.
Even if the cost is five times that of a conventional oil development in Saudi Arabia, Kashagan alone could someday deliver as much as 1.2 million barrels per day; the US currently uses about 19 million barrels per day.
But thirteen years and $50 billion later, the global consortium operating Kashagan has produced almost no oil. [Continue reading...]


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text: #4888: Archive gnome-power-manager-3.10.1 --------------------+------------------------- Reporter: fo | Owner: blfs-book@… Type: task | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: 7.6 Component: BOOK | Version: SVN Severity: normal | Keywords: --------------------+------------------------- I reproduce below [http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/ticket/4862#comment:19], by Armin K. Any objections? With this commit [1), gnome-power-manager requires UPower-0.99.0, which is also required by rest of GNOME. But that version is not suitable for BLFS since it has dropped deprecated stuff (including support for pm-utils) and it requires systemd for some tasks, if not as a hard dependency. The solution is probably to drop the package. [1] [https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-power- manager/patch/?id=b6dd2b53ec4b96ebef0ea1742bda498d3524d2c5] -- Ticket URL: <http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/ticket/4888> BLFS Trac <http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs> Beyond Linux From Scratch


text:
SOLD!!! Thanks Ty! FIRST PERSON TO REPLY GETS FIRST SHOT...and so on and so on... I am in the process of piecing out my entire homebrew system. Rather than put everything in a single thread, I am going to list them individually. PLEASE DO NOT PM ME. If interested, reply to this thread. Also, please don't PM me asking what else I have for sale. I am not listing anything until I am actually ready to sell it. All items are pickup only (Douglassville, PA)...I will not ship anything. ------------------------------------------- Everything you need to make awesome starters. Come with the stirplate itself, a variable voltage power adapter, stir bar and 2000ml flask. Price: $30
...I'm back baby!!!!
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text:
On this week's episode, our pal Gene Demby is with us for a discussion of the recent Between Two Ferns episode in which the President of the United States chatted about the Hangover movies. What does this kind of appearance accomplish? What is the meaning of "keeping it real" in current popular culture? And what does this all have to do with mayonnaise? Oh, you'll find out.
Furthermore, you'll find out the surprising crossover of episode titles from one of television's creepiest franchises and shades from the minds that want to decorate your world to make it more beautiful. In our quiz "Paint Or Perp," you'll be asked to consider, for instance, whether anyone would paint a room "Anonymous."
And as always, we close with what's making us happy this week. I am happy about a great site that's kept me full for a week. Gene is happy about a series of videos that's making everybody smarter and more amused. Stephen is happy about three new bands and an update on his terrible, terrible cats. Glen is happy about the return of a show he truly, truly loves that has lots of yelling.
You can find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: Stephen, Glen, Gene, Trey, me, producer Jessica, also-producers Lauren and Nick, and our lifelong pal and music director Mike Katzif.


text:
AbdiAbdi (ăbˈdĪ) [key], in the Bible. 1 Merarite Levites. 2 Israelite married to a foreign wife. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More on Abdi from Infoplease:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Biblical Proper Names: Biographies |
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text:
Players finding ways to push fashion envelope
Wimbledon has long conformed to the all-white dress code. But red knickers and man-bags have defied this tradition. Bonnie DeSimone takes a walk down the 2007 fashion runway.
WIMBLEDON, England -- Show a tennis player an all-white clothing rule, and she'll show you a million and one ways to push the fashion envelope.
"We're one of the few sports that doesn't have a uniform per se, so we can explore that, and it sets us apart," said Minnesota-born Bethanie Mattek, who has sailed her spaceship to the outer limits of the athletic apparel universe with a few self-assembled outfits.
Mattek ditched her 2006 Wimbledon tomboy look -- which featured knee socks, a tube top over a halter top, a wide bandanna and shorts -- in favor of "a wavy sheer shirt over another, tighter sports bra shirt and a really ruffly skirt, so it was all really flowy and girly," she told ESPN.com Thursday after falling to fifth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia in the second round. "I've had the skirt for a while, but actually just bought the shirt in London."
Not to be outgarbed, Mattek bought some blue ones, but she went to the rulebook before staging her panty raid.
For the record, the All England Club's regulations require on-court clothing to be "almost entirely white," which means you're legal if your lingerie isn't longer than your skirt. Mattek's reaction: "I can do it! All right! I won't get in trouble!"
Golovin lost to 16-year-old Austrian Tamira Paszek on Thursday and faced a second straight day of interrogation about her undergarments.
"I'm totally within the dress code," Golovin said. "I might be pushing it, but I'm still within the rules.
"You know, I think I've already proved my tennis. I've won my first tournament and I've been top-20 for a while. Obviously, I want to do a lot better. But if they focus on our clothes, I think it's fun, too, because it is me and it's part of my personality, so it comes in a whole package."
But she isn't interested in coloring Wimbledon's world.
"We're all excited when you come from the clay courts and you get all dirty and then you have to come and play on the grass and wear all white," Golovin said. "So I think it's definitely a good custom."
Californian Gussie Moran, the iconoclast whose Ted Tinling-designed lace-trimmed knickers scandalized Wimbledon nearly 60 years ago, would have been proud.
Golovin's garb kicks off our walk down Wimbledon's 2007 runway, with commentary by Mattek, who said she was happy to weigh in even though she knows she's a little too out on the edge for most of her peers.
"A lot of the girls will be in the locker room and say, 'Oh my God, I love your stuff, but I would never wear it,'" said Mattek, 22, who is currently ranked 116th. "I get that a lot."
Federer the accessorizer: What Rafael Nadal did for man-pris with his three-quarter-length pirate pants, Federer is doing for the man-bag -- with matching shoes, of course. His Nike duffel sports the RF logo with subtle mock "quilting" punctuated by mini-Swiss crosses, a pattern repeated on his gold-trimmed sneakers. Four red Swiss crosses representing his four Wimbledon victories dot the space above the heels. Federer also is walking onto the court wearing throwback pants. Who said the emperor has no clothes?
Mattek's take: "I saw him walking off the practice court, and he was carrying his little coat in, like, a bag. You don't see that much coming off the practice court. That suits him, I think, that classy look."
Sharapova's Swan Song: Maria Sharapova made bird the word, tweaking the lines of her dropped-waist French Open dress by making it bleach-white, adding queenly pleats around the neck and rear ruffles that extend from her shoulder blades to the elegant small of her back.
Her take: "There's only so much you can do with white, and it's always going to be traditional. You just think of little creative things and details you can add to a dress." She joked that her coach "started feeding bread" to the frock and played along with reporters who informed her that a hawk patrols the grounds here daily. "Does the hawk usually bite the swan?" she asked. "Jesus, I might have to cut those pleats away."
Mattek's take: Hasn't seen it yet.
Venus on the half-shell: Budding fashion designer Venus Williams appeared in formfitting shorts -- a look we're more used to seeing on Serena, who has made peace with her self-described bootyliciousness -- for the first time.
Mattek's take: "The Williams sisters do a pretty good job of being different."
Blake's bifurcated biceps: A member of the sleeveless movement pioneered by Tommy Haas and Robby Ginepri, Blake reverts to a more modest look at Wimbledon.
His take: "I love a tradition. I love it here at Wimbledon. I still always wear the sleeves here. I'm sleeveless everywhere else but here. I think some of the guys coming up are really interested in fashion. I shave my head. I don't shave my face that often. I can't say I'm one of those guys that's always in a mirror. I don't know exactly what to do. I wear what Nike tells me to wear. The only times I've had input are when I did the Agassi tribute [at the 2006 U.S. Open], and a few times I've gotten yelled at for mismatching my outfits."
Mattek's take: "A lot of guys look good in [sleeveless]. If they're ripped, and most of them are pretty jacked, I'll go watch those matches."
Bonnie DeSimone is a freelancer who is covering Wimbledon for ESPN.com.
June 25-July 8
Women: Venus Williams
Men: Roger Federer
• Wimbledon Central
• TV schedule
Day 14
• Fifth straight title for Federer at Wimbledon
• Six straight in 2008?
• Garber: Federer closing in on Sampras
• DeSimone: Nadal closing gap on grass
• Clement, Llodra upset Bryans for doubles crowns
• Serve saves Federer
Day 13
• Venus wins fourth Wimbledon crown
• DeSimone: One determined Williams
• Men: Federer vs. Nadal in final
• Garber: Federer focused on five in a row
• Top 10 stats on Venus
• Notebook: Americans reach finals in junior event
Day 12
• Men | Women
• Bjorkman fined for lambasting umpire
• DeSimone: Missed opportunity for Roddick
• Garber: Bartoli shocks No. 1 Henin
• Notebook: Inclement conditions help Nadal
Day 11
• Men | Women
• Referee up a break and not apologizing
• Garber: Temperance never a virtue for Venus
• Notebook: Federer feeling the anxiety
• Blog: Djokovic ready for Big Dawgs?
Day 10
• Men | Women
• DeSimone: Five days for Nadal-Soderling match
• Garber: Venus rises to occasion
• Williams sisters pull out of doubles
• Notebook: Independence Day
• Doubles team sets Wimbledon record
• Roddick on serve, on set
Day 9
• Men | Women
• Garber: Blame it on the rain
• 'Organized chaos'
• Notebook: Teen takes out Mauresmo again
• Who wins: Justine or Serena?
Day 8
• Men | Women
• DeSimone: No cramping Serena's style
• Garber: Teeming with teens
• Davydenko bored by Wimbledon
• Chat wraps : ESPN.com | Todd Martin
• Notebook: Venus best when back's against wall
Day 7
• Federer into quarters on walkover
• Security tightened amid terror threats
• Martin: Bottom of draw at disadvantage
• Garber: Doubles doing just fine, thank you
• DeSimone: Goals simple at Evert academy
• Week 1 photo gallery


text:
Martinez, Keller urge higher pay for federal judges
Published: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 12:07 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 12:07 p.m.
Salaries for judges sitting on the federal bench ought to increase by as much as a proposed 30 percent, Florida representatives to Congress said Tuesday at the U.S. Courthouse in Orlando.
They spoke at the 2008 Congressional Breakfast to an audience of judges, lawyers and court officials, some listening via satellite from other divisional locations of Middle District of Florida.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said he recognized that federal judicial salaries should keep pace with those of lawyers in private practice.
"Our state has grown incredibly over the past 25 years," he said. "An independent judiciary is the cornerstone upon which our democracy is founded."
U.S. Rep. Ric Keller, R-Orlando, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said he supports legislation that proposes increasing the pay of federal appeals judges to as much as $230,00 a year.
"A federal judge should make more than a first-year associate at a New York City law firm," he said.
The current pay for a U.S. district judge is $165,200, which is about the same amount as for members of Congress, while pay for federal appeals judges is currently $175,100.
The House Judiciary Committee approved a draft bill in December which would raise the salaries of U.S. district judges to $218,000 a year.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a former attorney in private practice, has urged prompt passage of a congressional bill raising the pay of federal judges. He has been vocal on the issue since assuming the court bench.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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text:
Posted 21 June 2012 - 06:45 AM
I also have Betty crocker's Fruit by the foot, is that ok for super sensitives ? if anyone reacted I'd like to know because i react to almost everything
thanks for all the help
Posted 21 June 2012 - 09:53 AM
"We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English."
Winston Churchill
May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.
Posted 21 June 2012 - 12:28 PM
The Betty Crocker likely says gluten-free on the side of the box
When it says gluten free it usually isn't enough for me. I react to a ton of gluten-free stuff but that only means it needs to contain less than 20 ppm which is not low enough for me, i react to much less
Posted 22 June 2012 - 05:59 AM
The closest I come to candy these days is one particular honey which is expensive but delicious.
I used to give my kids those lollipops and we didn't ever notice a big reaction. That was near the beginning of being gluten free and we still had lots of cc sources in our diets, and lots of ongoing symptoms.
Posted 23 June 2012 - 11:34 AM
The closest I come to candy these days is one particular honey which is expensive but delicious.
Wait-- is honey a problem, or do you just have a preferred type? I'm trying to figure out why I still feel like crap, and I do have honey in my tea...
Neg Celiac tests, positive gene test
Life vastly improved off gluten
Dunno what that makes me, but I'm not going back.
Now corn, soy, and dairy free
Posted 24 June 2012 - 02:33 PM
You could do an elimination/challenge study if you are concerned.
0 user(s) are reading this topic
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text:
I ordered only one item just to try them out. But the the service they was gave looks as though I had a huge purchase. Brandi and Jeff are really...Read More ->
Hi. Guys, I'm from Russia and in our country are not many magic shops. And the choice of goods is very small. Therefore, choosing an online store...Read More ->


text:
ATN (American Technologies Network) is an established leader in the world of night vision and tactical optical designs. Their products are designed with diligence and technological advancements, with a focus upon value and functionality
If you're looking for a superior high-performance NVD, ATN's MO4-3P Night Vision Monocular is worthy of serious consideration. This high-powered nighttime viewing device delivers an incredible magnification level of 5.0x for safe viewing of distant subjects. Thanks to a commanding 90mm f/1.2 objective lens and a 3rd generation Pinnacle image intensifier from ITT, your view will feature well controlled contrast levels, and very fine details. When viewing in total-darkness conditions, an integral IR illuminator gives you the ability to see while remaining unseen.
There are many variables that affect the distance that one can see with a night vision device; the object's size, ambient weather and lighting conditions, the level of detail needed for recognition, etc. The important factors to consider when evaluating any night vision device are the generation of the intensifier tube along with its specified resolution and s/n ratio. The magnification, clarity, and light transmission performance of the NVD's optics also contribute to its low/no-light performance capabilities.
All NVDs sold by B&H feature bright-light protection systems. However, this does not mean that bright light can/will not damage the device. Exposure to bright light compromises the longevity and performance of image intensifier tubes.
Note: Export of this device described herein is strictly prohibited without a valid export license issued by the U.S. Department of State office of Defense Trade Controls, as prescribed in the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), Title 22, Code of Federal Regulation, Parts 120-130, and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce. For further information contact the Office of Defense Trade Control and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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text:
Red Bulls David Coulthard will be hoping for better luck on Saturday after enduring a frustrating first day of practice at Istanbul Park. Coulthard was restricted to 35 laps - 12 shy of team mate Mark Webber - due to an engine fire at the end of the first session.
A fuel leak on his RB3 sparked the flames, which caused damage to the cars electrical systems and wiring looms, prompting the Red Bull engineers to swap out its Renault V8 in a bid to try and get Coulthard out for the second session.
The team had to find the leak and change the engine, explained Coulthard. Originally, we were going to use the T car for the second session, but I wanted to stay with the race car, so we changed the engine instead. The boys did a great job to get the car out again when they did, as there was a lot of work to do - it was a good effort.
Coulthards cause wasnt helped by another lengthy interruption when the afternoon session was suspended due to a loose drain cover on the circuit. When practice finally resumed with around half an hour to run, the Scot had time for just 12 laps.
But despite his troubles, Coulthard took solace from his pace, which put him 11th fastest in the afternoon, six places up on Webber. His best lap - a 1m 29.792s - was just over nine-tenths down on that of leader Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren.


text:
Banshee Screamer Alarm User Reviews
"Cnet Reviewer is HIGH"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
"Good program, not so good with Windows 7"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
I have used this program for the past 10 years or so. In all that time, it's only failed to go off at the set time a few times & it's usually not the fault of the program itself (For instance, the first time it failed was because I hadn't disabled automatic Windows Updates, so my computer had rebooted itself & was waiting for a password to finish logging on...)
When using it on Windows 7, for some reason, it will not allow you to specify alternate mp3 files to use as the alarm - it will let you set them & will save your settings, but when the alarm plays it's just the default beep-beep-beep. I've tried it on 3 different computers with Windows 7, so it's not just a faulty set-up on one system. That's a real con considering I don't always wake up to a beep-beep-beep. (I normally customize it with a weird mix of sounds that my brain can't come up with a way to work into a dream - Big Ben/Roosters/Train Horn works well! LOL - but that's not possible with this glitch.)
Great little program, easy to use, not all functions work with Windows 7.
"An alarm - plain and simple"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Does what it needs to - enables me to set an alarm (or alarms) and snooze if I need to.
Not very intuitive to use. Sometimes doesn't sync with the time server.
The bottom line is that it does what I want - it allows me to set an alarm. It has a snooze feature, which I use if I need a few minutes to finish what I'm doing. It also has a timer feature, but I've never used it. This is not totally intuitive to use, so it took a few tries to get it right. I have to remember to set the time. I also have to remember to unset the alarm, or it may go off when I don't need it.
Overall this is exactly what I need in an alarm. -
"Easy and Awesome (like your mom)"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Everything about it from its small footprint to its ease of use
CNETS uninspired review
"Small, Works well, but won't open with shortcut"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Good minimalist countdown timer, clock and alarm
Very low overheadCons
Wouldn't open by shortcut..very strange
I've had this on various PC's for years. Was surprised that it wouldn't open with a shortcut
"Excellent Product"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Has a good look, easy to use once you get the hang of it, you can use you own music
After you download it, your a new tab will pop up and ask you to donate, not really a con, but slightly annoying
Overall a great product and it's free
"I think it changed some settings on my computer"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Easy to set up multiple reminder alarms and set them to play different wav files or music, and to set reminder messages. I guess the snooze feature is handy, although I didn't really need it.
I would have liked the alarm reminder message to be more obvious since that's the main reason I use a program like this. I would also like an hourly chime option, just because I got used to that with the old program I used before.
Seems like an okay program, but I stopped using it because It seems to have changed the power settings on my computer so it wouldn't go into standby or sleep mode (not absolutely certain it was because of this program, but they got changed somehow after I added it, so I have to suspect Banshee Alarm was the cause).
I still want my old Alfaclock original version back! -
"Great Alarm Wakes Me with an OPERA or BIG BEN"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Just drop in an mp3 file and there is your alarm sound. Automatic activation sets alarm only for the days of the week you need it. Always on top with tiny size won't distract you from your work or ruin your page view. Multiple alarm setting possible.
Typing in alarm times.
What a good old alarm clock for your PC. It seems like I have used this forever. That is what a good timepiece is all about. Service and longevity.
"Does what I need it to."
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
Loud and annoying alarm tone wakes me up when I need it to. It's simple and easy to use.
Gets stuck on timer
Older Version was better and less buggy
"Best alarm anywhere"
Version: Banshee Screamer Alarm 2.55
The Banshee works as advertised. I have several recurrent alarms set to different specs with different alerts and never fail.
More skins and sizing options would be a plus.
The alarms are easy to set and customize.
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text:
A science blog with Eric Berger
Posts filtered on Category
Your choice: health care or the 1st amendment
I'm a few days late on this, but Lindsey Tanner with the AP recently had a great story about the desire of doctors to limit the ability of patients to post online comments about them, and their practice. Use Internets? No medz for U. The anonymous comment on the Web site RateMDs.com was unsparing: "Very […]
[Read More]
New stem cell technology may make cloning easier
You probably recall the big news in 2007 when scientists created something called induced pluripotent stem cells, which are notable because they are derived from adult stem cells but have characteristics of embryonic stem cells. This generated considerable excitement as it potentially provided an alternative source of stem cells with embryonic stem cell-like qualities that […]
[Read More]
Most industry cancer studies never see the light of day
I don't think anyone can dispute that, all too frequently, clinical trials deliver mistaken results. That's partly because it's really hard to develop truly randomized trials in the real world. Sometimes a study suggests a drug is effective, or safe, and it later turns out not to be the case. Unfortunately, that's just how modern […]
[Read More]
Is the U.S. completely dependent on China for pharmacueticals?
That's the implication in this New York Times story: From China, with love? Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairman of Cipla, one of the world's most important suppliers of pharmaceutical ingredients, says his company and others have grown increasingly dependent on Chinese suppliers. "If tomorrow China stopped supplying pharmaceutical ingredients, the worldwide pharmaceutical industry would collapse," […]
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Dr. Cooley, 87, put the scalpel down only months ago.
As we recall the recent passing of Dr. Michael DeBakey, it would be remiss not to note another significant milestone in the Texas Medical Center when it comes to the titans of heart surgery. That would be the stepping down of Dr. Denton Cooley as president of the Texas Heart Institute, the institution he founded […]
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Michael DeBakey's profound influence
Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the Texas Medical Center's most important "founding father," has died. DeBakey was loved. DeBakey was feared. But above all DeBakey was respected. I had the pleasure of interviewing him three times, all toward the end of his life, and he couldn't have been more sweet, more of a gentleman, than he […]
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Bleeding-be-gone: a nanomaterial provides instant clotting
Technological Review has a report on a startling new application of nanotechnology that staunches blood flow in 15 seconds: A startup based in Cambridge, MA, says that it plans to soon begin clinical trials of a nanostructured material that stops bleeding almost instantly. A startup called Arch Therapeutics has licensed the technology from MIT and […]
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A heart dies. Then comes back to life. Happy Easter.
The media isn't always filled with doom and gloom: Brett Coomer/Chronicle Salina Gonzales and Scott ride to her Houston hospital room. At 28, Salina Gonzales had one month to live. Her heart, swollen to nearly the size of a coconut, could only pump a trickle of blood. As the schoolteacher from San Antonio lay dying […]
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Drug company rep 101: Know thy doc's menstrual cycle
Want to know how far drug company reps will go to make a sale? Read on. On Friday morning I had the opportunity to sit in on a talk Dr. Catherine DeAngelis gave at the American Medical Student Association's annual meeting. DeAngelis is editor in chief of the powerful Journal of the American Medical Association, […]
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Have we put the next generation of biomed science at risk?
It may seem far fetched as this blog, many others, and the mass media daily report upon fascinating new biomedical discoveries, but the edifice of medical research in this country may be falling into serious disrepair. A Broken Pipeline? Between 1998 and 2003 funding for the National Institutes of Health, which provides the lion's share […]
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Median Listing Price
Median Listing Price Per Sq. Ft.
# of Sales (30 days)
% Turnover (12 months)
What's the most popular storage unit size in Carrollton?
Those who rented self-storage in Carrollton were more likely to book a 5x10 storage unit than any other size.
Do I need a climate controlled storage unit in Carrollton?
The forecast low for Carrollton is 32 degrees today. The record low for today in Carrollton is 28 degrees. Low temperatures below 32 degrees can cause freezing. If you're considering storing items that are susceptible to damage from freezing during this period, consider renting a climate controlled storage unit.
How does seasonality affect Carrollton storage prices?
Storage prices in Carrollton tend to be somewhat volatile when compared to other cities. Prices can vary by about $33.88 monthly depending on the time of year. Carrollton storage prices are highest in December, and lowest in June.


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Apple iPhone 6 Will Probably Look Like This Leo Xavier / Friday, August 15, 2014, 6:56 am / No CommentsTake a look at the Apple iPhone 6.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, Apple, china, featured, foxconn, iOS 8, iPhone, iphone 6, isight, iwatch, TMZ
Apple Contracting More Suppliers to Keep Up with iDemand Michael Kwan / Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 12:50 pm / No CommentsYes, Apple will continue to use Foxconn as its primary supplier, but even the mega city-sized factory of Foxconn can't keep up.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: compal, foxconn, iPad mini, iPhone 5C, wilstron
Foxconn and Mozilla Teaming Up, Could Bring Firefox OS Tablet? Andrew Grush / Tuesday, May 28, 2013, 3:02 am / No CommentsRecently Foxconn and Mozilla announced they were working together on a Firefox OS related project. Now rumors have surfaced suggesting it will be a tablet.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: Firefox OS, foxconn, mozilla
Google Glasses To Be Manufactured In The US Leo Xavier / Thursday, March 28, 2013, 6:00 am / 2 CommentsThe Google Glasses will be produced in a Foxconn factory in Santa Clara, California. Its price tag will remain pretty high because of the "Made in USA" tag.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, barack obama, California, foxconn, google, google glasses
"Foxbots" Set to Replace Human Foxconn Employees Michael Kwan / Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 4:46 am / No CommentsYou don't have to worry about those kinds of things with robots, because "robot rights activists" simply do not exist. And that's possibly why Foxconn is prepping 10,000 "Foxbots" to replace their human employees.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: china, foxbots, foxconn, human rights, robot rights, robots, shenzhen
Could Foxconn be Considering Making Their Own Hardware? Andrew Grush / Monday, October 22, 2012, 11:00 am / No CommentsA new rumor has surfaced suggesting that Foxconn could be preparing to make its own tablet and smartphone hardware in the near future.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, foxconn, smartphones
Samsung Accused of Numerous Child Labor Law Infractions in China Michael Kwan / Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 2:24 pm / 1 CommentWhile there has been a lot of attention paid to Foxconn and Apple in recent years, other companies aren't exactly angels either. In fact, Child Labor Watch is accusing Samsung of all sorts of child labor abuse in at least one of its factories in China.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, child abuse, child labor watch, china, clw, foxconn, heg, labor abuse, labor laws, samsung
America Waits In Line For iPads, China Waits Hoping To Build Them Andrew Grush / Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 7:11 pm / No CommentsApple products give us shiny new toys to play with, and that's exciting- but in China the idea of upcoming new Apple products means that plants like Foxconn will need more seasonal workers to help push out these upcoming units and for those that are currently unemployed, nothing is more exciting than having income, even if there have often been accusations that Foxconn's conditions are less than desirable.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, apple ipad, apple iphone, foxconn
Foxconn Nano Nettop PCs Priced at $260 and $280 Michael Kwan / Monday, July 9, 2012, 6:48 pm / 3 CommentsThe Mac Mini isn't the only mini-PC in town. Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has formally announced its new AT-5250 and AT-5600 fanless nano PCs and they're looking pretty slick.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: fanless pc, foxconn, foxconn nano, mini pc, nettop
Amazon Kindle Smartphone Running Modified Android Too Michael Kwan / Friday, July 6, 2012, 2:05 pm / No CommentsBloomberg was told by "two unnamed sources" that Amazon is working with Foxconn to build the upcoming Android smartphone. The so-called Kindle Phone would likely run the same modified version of Android as its larger Kindle Fire cousin.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: amazon, amazon appstore for android, amazon phone, amazon smartphone, foxconn, kindle fire, kindle phone, kindle smartphone
Foxconn Manufacturing 7-inch iPad Mini for August Release Michael Kwan / Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 4:12 pm / No CommentsRecent reports make it look as though Apple has the wheels in motion for another iPad, the hotly-rumored iPad mini with the smaller screen could be just a few months away.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: 7-inch ipad, 7-inch. 7.85-inch, foxconn, iPad mini, iPhone 5, new iphone, Pegatron
iSight and Siri Cinema Display-Inspired Apple HDTVs Next Year Michael Kwan / Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 5:41 pm / No CommentsPeople thought Apple was crazy when it entered the mobile phone market with the iPhone, but look at where we are now. People are saying the same thing about Apple getting into TVs, but we've got reason to believe an Apple HDTV is very real and very much on the way.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, apple hdtv, apple tv, foxconn, home entertainment, itunes, sharp
The Making Of An iPad (Video) Leo Xavier / Thursday, April 12, 2012, 6:14 am / No CommentsApple's Foxconn factory may not be the best place on Earth for a worker to be, but what comes out of it is certainly loved by millions around the world. Reporter Rob Schmitz, the Shanghai Bureau Chief of Marketplace, recently gained access into the factory and has written a detailed ongoing report about his experiences there. But the video below stands out as it allows us to take a peek at the process of making an iPad.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, Apple Economy, facility, factory, foxconn, iPad, Making Of An iPad, Marketplace, Rob Schmitz, Shanghai, video
On The Heels Of FLA Inspection Beginning, Foxconn Raises Employee Pay Andrew Grush / Friday, February 17, 2012, 9:08 pm / 1 CommentIt seems all to convenient that this pay increase comes right on the heels of a new inspection by FLA, paid by Apple, to look over the company's work practices and ethics at Foxconn.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: apple, foxconn, taiwan
Overworked Foxconn Employee Outs iPhone 5 Release Date Leo Xavier / Thursday, January 26, 2012, 11:03 am / No CommentsWe have seen a lot of iPhone 5 rumors earlier, but this new one seems to be pretty trustworthy. It comes to us courtesy of the folks over at 9to5Mac who appear to have got the latest info on the next generation iPhone, tentatively called iPhone 5, via a Foxconn worker.more → Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged with: 4S, 9to5Mac, Android, display, droid razr, foxconn, iPhone, iphone 4, iPhone 5, iphone 5 release date, lg, MacBook Air, release date, rumor, specs


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Feb 23rd, 2012, 08:57 PM
It's her weaker side by a long shot. Technically her forehand is bad, she rarely makes winners with it, it's short. If you keep pounding it she will end up making an error. Why is it so difficult to comprehend for a player like Ivanovic for instance (who has an even worst backhand that Woz's forehand I admit, but still). I thought Safarova played on Woz's forehand as much as she could and ended up winning deservedly.


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Following in his family's tradition, Robert is a third generation artist. With a reputation for colorful expressions, Robert has passionately honed his talent over the years and tells his story through texture and colors. The result is this breathtaking collection of fine jewelry. View full biography
Bold and colorful, this eye-catching ring features a blue topaz gemstone framed by a halo of black and white diamonds set in 14k white gold.
View our education section to learn more about our gemstone jewelry.
Gave this Robert Leser Blue Topaz and Diamond Halo Ring in 14k White Gold to my wife for our anniversary and she loved it. It's not too large to be gaudy but several people noticed it on our outing and complimented her on it. Job done!
Anonymous, PLANO, TX – September 2014
Bought as a birthday present for my wife. She absolutely loves it. It exudes quality and is visually attractive without being gaudy.
Matt, Wayland, MA – June 2014
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Manchester City travel to Tottenham on Wednesday with the home side looking to avenge their 6-0 thrashing at the Etihad Stadium in November.
That result took place when Tottenham were being managed by Andre Villas-Boas, and since his sacking, the Spurs players seem to have come out of their shell, and have returned to playing exciting, attacking football under Head Coach Tim Sherwood. The new boss has also managed to get the best out of Emmanuel Adebayor, who scored two more goals as they won at Swansea City to close the gap to Liverpool.
There may have been a touch of complacency among the Man City players as they took on Watford in the FA Cup on Saturday. They eventually made it through despite that scare, however, continuing a winning run which has been going since mid-December. Sergio Aguero also added three more to his season's tally, and in doing so ensured that a potential quadruple is still on for Manuel Pellegrini's side.
Tottenham duo Sandro and Jan Vertonghen could return from injury, as could Erik Lamela, though the Italian remains a slight doubt.
David Silva and Alvaro Negredo could return for Man City after missing the game against Watford, but Samir Nasri still faces around six weeks out.
See what the expert tipsters at OLBG are tipping on Tottenham v Man City
Aston Villa vs West Brom - Premier League preview and team news
Hull vs Sunderland - Premier League preview and team news
Southampton vs Crystal Palace - Premier League preview and team news
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino "proud" of his players despite Capital One Cup final
Chelsea 2-0 Tottenham: Goal either side of half-time sees Chelsea win Capital One Cup final
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After 5 years in captivity, Shalit is back homeFrom Michal Zippori, Paul Colsey and Kareem Khadder, CNNUpdated 10:56 PM ET, Tue October 18, 2011Just WatchedGilad Shalit talks about his freedomreplayMore Videos ...Gilad Shalit talks about his freedom 02:28Story highlights Freed Palestinians travel to Turkey, Syria, Qatar, JordanNoam Shalit says his son suffered from shrapnel wounds, lack of sunlightHamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya weeps as he hugs freed Palestinians Mahmoud Abbas says more prisoners will be freed after this dealFreed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit arrived safe and sound in his northern Israeli hometown, feeling "good" in his first day of freedom after more than five years in Hamas captivity, but suffering small injuries from shrapnel wounds.In what was an arduous and emotional day for Israelis and Palestinians, Shalit won his release Tuesday morning in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, whose walk to freedom drew cheers from thousands in Gaza and the West Bank."We can say that we have experienced the rebirth of a son," his father, Noam Shalit, told reporters."Gilad has come home after an exhausting and long struggle. As I have said quite often, we were told that we were tilting at windmills. It was exhausting, but ultimately we managed to bring him home. As you have seen today he came home and walked up the steps that he left, and has come home, went through the door that he left so many days ago, 1,942 days ago."The first of several hundred released Palestinian prisoners made journeys of their own.According to Syria's official SANA news agency, 16 arrived Wednesday in Damascus. Fifteen arrived in Doha, reported the official (QNA) Qatar News Agency. Egypt's state-run al-Ahram newspaper said 46 Palestinians left Cairo and headed to Qatar, Turkey and Syria. Turkey's semi-official Anatolian agency said 10 are coming to that country.According to Hams' al-Aqsa TV, Ahlam al-Tamimi arrived in Amman, Jordan, from Cairo early Wednesday. She was a university student who served life terms for being an accomplice in a 2001 suicide bombing at a Jerusalem restaurant that killed at least 15 people.Shalit came via Egypt because it acted as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, which do not have relations. He was given medical checks that showed him to be in good health and cleared him to return home. He was flown to Tel Nof air base, where he was reunited with his family and saluted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on arrival there.A helicopter flew him and his family home from the air base to the northern Galilee village of Mitzpe Hila. He made his way by vehicle from the helipad to the village and was whisked into his home.Greeted along the road by hundreds of chanting and flag-waving supporters, people in the Galilee community laid out white roses and hung banners to welcome Shalit back, erupting in joy at the return of the young man who became an international cause célèbre. Noam Shalit grabbed him in a bear hug, held him tight and kissed him as they were reunited at the air base. The father told Israeli television earlier it was the happiest day of his life. "He basically came out of a dark hole, in a dark basement, and came out of that to a great crowd. I'm sure that this was an amazing experience for him when he arrived here at our village to see all of this going on. "Noam Shalit said his son "feels good" and is "very happy to be home.""But he is suffering from a number of small injuries that have remained with him because he wasn't treated properly. Shrapnel wounds, and also the results of a lack of sunlight. Now he has had extensive medical tests and he will have appropriate treatment from the Israeli medical forces," he said.Noam Shalit said his son couldn't communicate with people in his own language in captivity. "The only thing he was able to do is communicate with his abductors and his guards.""Of course it's difficult for him to just expose himself to so many people because he's been in isolation, really in isolation, for so many days and so many years."He told reporters that conditions in captivity at the beginning of his son's ordeal were difficult but they eventually improved. He said Gilad was able to listen to the radio and was able to watch some television, particularly the Arab TV stations.The father thanked all of the people who showed up to welcome his son "so warmly, so supportively with such solidarity and such warmth" and addressed the concerns of the survivors of people whose relatives were slain by some of the Palestinian inmates who were freed."We definitely identified with them and totally understand their anguish. And we understand the price that they are paying for Gilad's freedom."Gilad Shalit: Israeli captive freed at lastShalit learned about a week ago that he was going to be released, though he "felt it for the last month," he told Egyptian television after his release."I missed my family. I missed going out and meeting people," he said in the emotional interview, where he appeared pale, tired, tense, and sometimes out of breath, although he was seated in a chair.Just WatchedAbbas looks to future releasesreplayMore Videos ...Abbas looks to future releases 01:53PLAY VIDEOJust WatchedNetanyahu: Blessed with soldier's returnreplayMore Videos ...Netanyahu: Blessed with soldier's return 02:26PLAY VIDEOJust WatchedShalit back in IsraelreplayMore Videos ...Shalit back in Israel 05:01PLAY VIDEOJust WatchedAbbas greets prisoners after swapreplayMore Videos ...Abbas greets prisoners after swap 01:02PLAY VIDEO"I hope this deal will move the peace process forward," he told Shahira Amin of Egyptian TV, saying he would be glad if the remaining Palestinian prisoners are released "as long as they do not go back to fighting Israel."Why Israelis believe one soldier is worth 1,000 Palestinian prisonersThe interview came shortly after Egyptian television showed a short clip of Shalit walking unaided with an escort of about a half-dozen people. He looked thin and dazed, wearing a dark baseball cap and collared shirt.Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff said in a statement to Shalit that the "commanders and soldiers of the IDF respect you and are proud of your tenacity and resilience throughout these years. We will continue to support you for as long as you need. "On behalf of your fellow soldiers, who carry on their shoulders your generation's guardianship of the country, whether in the land, sea or air, in their offices or in the field, throughout the country, whether in their tanks, or artillery batteries, in their planes or in their ships -- in the name of the whole of the IDF, I congratulate you and your family upon your return to us."Israel freed 477 Palestinian inmates from Israeli jails shortly before Shalit was released, the first batch of Palestinians being swapped for Shalit's freedom.Enormous crowds of Palestinians estimated in the tens of thousands flooded the streets of Gaza, waving flags and banners, to welcome the inmates home. Greeted by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, prisoners went on a stage before a jubilant throng. Most of the crowd waved Hamas banners but some hoisted the flag of Fatah.In celebration of the freed detainees, Palestinian leaders have declared Wednesday a holiday for all government institutions, including schools, Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television reported.Haniya wept tears of joy as he hugged and kissed those who crossed into Gaza.Speaking for Palestinians everywhere, Haniya said, "this is the day of our God. It's our God that's given us this victory. He has made us this miracle and this pride on this proud people. It's God who has preserved our resistance fighters. It's God who set in his book that our our soldiers are the victorious."Haniya said Shalit was tightly guarded throughout the duration, adding that "for the purpose of liberating these heroes, we put our divisions behind our backs.""We have entered into a unity for the sake of these heroes from different factions," he said, noting that people in non-Hamas factions, like Fatah and Islamic Jihad, also were freed."Some people described what Hamas did as an adventure that does not merit what Gaza went through. But I tell you now these heroes deserve any adventure, risk-taking to bring them back."Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, speaking in Cairo, said the "victory is a result of the negotiation that was led by Hamas.""The ability to hide Gilad Shalit in Gaza for five years is something to be proud of. The Palestinian security mind has defeated the Israeli security mind, which is supported by all the rest of the world," Meshaal said.Meshaal said more prisoners could have been "liberated" with more time."We would have kept on negotiating. But we have realized this is the ceiling we can get to." After five very difficult years, Ahmed Qawasmi, 80, was awaiting the release of his son Amer, who was arrested when he was 17 and has been in jail 24 years."I am very, very happy for the release of my son Amer," he said, adding: "The celebrations and happiness won't be complete until all Palestinian prisoners are free from Israeli prisons."Nabil Hamouz, 21, told CNN he was waiting for the release of his mother Hanan, 42, who has served one year of a 2 1/2-year sentence for trying to stab an Israeli soldier."I am very happy and can't wait to hug my mother again," he said, weeping.Freed prisoners praised Egypt's role as a mediator in interviews on Palestinian television after they were released.Some are being sent to the West Bank and others to Gaza, while just under half are being sent abroad. A handful are going to homes in Jerusalem, elsewhere in Israel or to Jordan.Opinion: With Gilad Shalit's return, a sign of hopePalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas greeted some of them with hugs at his compound in the West Bank.Abbas told cheering crowds they had "fought and sacrificed, and you will see the results of your struggle in an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."And he said more prisoners will be released."I am not revealing a secret here. I do not reveal a secret. If I say that there is an agreement between us and the Israeli government to release more prisoners, the same number of prisoners released on this deal, once this current deal is over and therefore, we demand from them to honor their pledge if making pledges is a responsible act on their end," Abbas said.Hamas official Hassan Youssef welcomed the release of some prisoners, but said it was not enough. "We are all shedding two tears: One tear for the release of all of our fighters, and a tear of pain for all of our brothers still in prison," he said.Netanyahu used strikingly similar language to describe his nation's emotions at the release of Shalit in exchange for convicted attackers of Israelis."Today we are all united in joy and in pain. ... This is also a hard day; even if the price had been smaller, it would still have been heavy," he said.Gilad ShalitGilad Shalit talks about his freedomFreed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit says he's healthy and happy in his first interview since his release.Who are Palestinian prisoners?The release of the first half of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners elicited waves of joy Tuesday from relatives.Why Israelis believe 1 = 1,000 Israel plans to free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier. How and why has the controversial deal come about?Terror victims fight deal in courtFamilies of Israeli terror victims are urging the country's Supreme Court Monday to block the release of Palestinian prisoners.Outrage over prisoner exchangeCNN's Fred Pleitgen reports on why some Israelis do not approve the deal to get Gilad Shalit released.Return is a sign of hopeAfter five years of failed negotiations, it is clear that both sides have made concessions. And that is a sign of hope.Is exchange worth the cost?There is growing debate about the price Israel is willing to pay in order to free a single soldier.More from middleeastFlorida man arrested in UAE for Facebook post: I'm sorryISIS claims American carried out suicide attackAmid brazen, deadly attacks, gay Syrians tell of fear of ISIS persecutionPowered by Livefyre
Gilad Shalit talks about his freedomFreed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit says he's healthy and happy in his first interview since his release.
Who are Palestinian prisoners?The release of the first half of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners elicited waves of joy Tuesday from relatives.
Why Israelis believe 1 = 1,000 Israel plans to free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier. How and why has the controversial deal come about?
Terror victims fight deal in courtFamilies of Israeli terror victims are urging the country's Supreme Court Monday to block the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Outrage over prisoner exchangeCNN's Fred Pleitgen reports on why some Israelis do not approve the deal to get Gilad Shalit released.
Return is a sign of hopeAfter five years of failed negotiations, it is clear that both sides have made concessions. And that is a sign of hope.
Is exchange worth the cost?There is growing debate about the price Israel is willing to pay in order to free a single soldier.


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