Sunday, June 28, 2009

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Google Makes A Case That It Isn't So Big Top
Google, a $22 billion company, handles roughly two-thirds of all Internet searches. It owns the largest online video site, YouTube, which is more than 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. Google makes more money from advertising than any media company in the world. With all those riches and more, how is Google a relatively small company, one that is vulnerable to competition and whose luck could turn any day? Dana Wagner is happy to explain. More on Google
 
Stephen Schlesinger: How The UN is Faring Under Ban Ki Moon Top
Days after Sri Lanka's government defeated its long-time foe, the Tamil Tigers, in May, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew into the country's capital, Colombo, for a 24-hour visit to urge its president to open up its refugee camps to international aid groups. This was another urgent trip by Ban to a war-torn capital, as part of his regular duties as the UN's chief representative, seeking to uphold peace and restore global comity. But who really knew much about this latest foray into a troubled region by the UN chief? Not many. Ban, who has just marked the half-way point in his five-year term in office, has so far been unable to attract a large worldwide audience for his activities. This is due, in part, to a stylistic reasons, but also to the vagaries of UN diplomacy. Still in his quiet way, Ban is spending more than a third of his time on the road, and has accomplished much over the past 30 months. In Darfur, he managed to get African Union peacekeepers into Sudan's killing zone in his first year in office through intensive behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Though the political process has since stalled, he has pushed for more peacekeepers and helicopters. In Kosovo, Ban was able to lower the temperature on the boiling issue of the province's independence. He persuaded the European Union and the United States to allow continued UN oversight in Kosovo while gradually permitting self-governance - all without triggering dangerous confrontations with the two states which oppose its breakaway, Serbia and its close ally, Russia. In Myanmar, despite bitter resistance from the military regime, Ban pressured the authorities to let in humanitarian aid after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country last year. His public and private entreaties, including dozens of phone calls and meetings, saved perhaps a half-million lives. Today, he continues his call for the release of the democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. In Haiti, which still suffers from underdevelopment, political turmoil, and the effects of destructive hurricanes, Ban appointed former US President Bill Clinton as his Special Representative to help deal with the country's plight. This followed two visits he made to Haiti over the past 18 months and a donor's conference he sponsored in April that sought to raise $300 million in aid and investment. More recently, Ban took an active role in the Gaza crisis. He has regularly defended the Palestinians' rights to a state, but he also condemned Hamas's rocket attacks on southern Israel. During the fighting in Gaza, he publicly demanded a halt to the warfare and requested that Israel open Gaza's borders to relief aid. He also visited the UN compound in the center of Gaza to express the UN's grave concern over its bombing. Ban has taken a leadership position on the problem of global warming. He tackled the issue at the Bali Conference of 2007, made it one of his central concerns at the UN, and will attempt to forge a new agreement among all global states at the UN Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. And he has moved forward in the health field. He accelerated efforts to eliminate the world's most dangerous ancient scourge, malaria, by naming a special adviser on the disease, and by forging innovative partnerships within the UN system that have brought together private industry, foundations, and non-governmental organizations. His campaign has already helped to reduce the incidence of malaria. The problem for Ban is his diffident manner, which stands in stark contrast with that of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, a larger than life secretary-general who dominated the scene through his flair, eloquence, and star power. Ban, by contrast, is neither charismatic nor an inspirational speaker - indeed, his English is not as good as Annan's. In his own way, though, he is an engaging, polite man, hip to contemporary cultural icons, and even given to singing at public occasions with wry lyrics and verses. Nonetheless Ban is sometimes criticized for not doing more, not listening enough, or deferring too much to the Big Five countries on the Security Council. One of the main complaints is that communicating with him can be difficult. Ban invariably nods his head in polite agreement without giving clear guidance. Others say he has yet to prove he is a good manager and must push harder for internal management reforms at the UN. Ban, in turn, has openly chastised member states for not giving him sufficient resources. But, wherever the truth may lie, few critics take into account that he, like all former UN chief executives, has to deal with the reality that he possesses only moral power, not economic, military, or political power. Still throughout his tenure, Ban has consistently displayed progressive instincts on issues, despite the fact that his candidacy was originally championed by an authoritarian Chinese government and a right-wing, UN-bashing American envoy to the organization, John Bolton. In the end he should be measured by what he has accomplished rather than by personal foibles or flatness of style.
 
Maria Chapur Speaks: Argentine Woman Admits Sanford Relationship Top
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A 41-year-old Argentine former reporter acknowledged having a relationship with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, saying Sunday that widely published e-mail correspondence between the two was obtained from her account without permission. In a brief statement sent to news network C5n of Buenos Aires, Maria Belen Chapur said she will not talk about her private life, which has already been the focus of intense media scrutiny in the United States and Argentina. "I have decided to send this statement to clear up certain incorrect things that are being reported and put an end to a matter that, as you imagine, is very painful to me, my two children, my entire family and close friends." Chapur said someone accessed her Hotmail account without permission late last year and leaked e-mail correspondence that described a relationship with Sanford to the South Carolina newspaper The State. But she denied the "hacker" is a friend of hers _ as has been widely reported here _ saying he is as much a victim of the media frenzy as she. "I have a strong suspicion of who is responsible for this evil act that was directed at me but also destroyed the lives of so many others," Chapur said. "But without sufficient proof, and for legal reasons, I am obligated to not reveal the name. "It is not for me to judge anyone. I leave it all in the hands of God," she concluded. The statement was addressed to C5n anchor Eduardo Feinman, who read it on camera. Feinman was Chapur's editor when she worked briefly as a television reporter in 2001. It was widely reported that Chapur was Sanford's mistress after the governor admitted to the relationship following a secret trip to Argentina earlier this month. But he did not identify Chapur. Reporters staked out Chapur's building in an upper-class neighborhood in the Argentine capital for days trying to locate her, and pressed for information from neighbors and the owner of a bar she reportedly visited with Sanford. People who know Chapur describe her as an elegant, well-mannered, soft-spoken woman who speaks several languages. She is a graduate in political science from the Catholic University of Buenos Aires and the divorced mother of two sons. Heber Alvarez, a doorman at her building, said she often rises early for morning jogs through the neighborhood.
 
Stan Goff: Honduras Coup Top
Outside of the direct actors, we don't know exactly what just happened in Honduras. But the spinning will start soon, and neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Clinton have called for the return of President Zelaya to his rightful office. They have made tepid statements of opposition to military takeovers and a return to "democracy" and "constitutionality." While we wait, I will share an older piece about the US-directed coup in Haiti (which Obama and Clinton apparently support) and the attempted coup -- with US support -- against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. In 1994, when my last Special Forces team, Operational Detachment Alpha 354, entered the Haitian city of Gonaives, I along with three members of that detachment waded through a huge and agitated crowd to encounter four soldiers and two plainclothes death squad members about to fire into that crowd with M-1 Garands. They were surprised to see us, and we took advantage of that surprise to compel them to lay their weapons down and submit to arrest. One of the plainclothes gents hesitated to relinquish his weapon, and I came very near shooting him. I'm only being honest - knowing this will put some people off - when I say that I now wish I had gone ahead and pulled the trigger. Instead, I protected him from a very angry crowd, one member of which lambasted him across the head with a heavy stick when he finally laid his weapon down, obliging my own team's medics to suture his gaping scalp laceration. Link to Part 1 In this part of the world, it never pays to be intellectually lazy on these issues. They're tricky. Haiti has two predominant ruling classes, one based on land and one based on money. Duvalier's base was among the landed class that exploited peasants in a sharecropping system. Their dominance was challenged by the mechanized capitalist form of agriculture that was imposed on much of the island in conjunction with the 19-year US Marine occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. This accounts for Duvalier's hostility to the US, which was only resolved when both Duvalier and the US were alarmed by a leftist uprising in Haiti. Duvalier massacred the communists, and from then on the US and Papa Doc were on fine terms. But the class of cosmopolitans in Haiti who have survived through international trade sought the lowest price for export crops grown on these tenant plots, while the big landowners sought the highest price, which was a structural antagonism between the two. Given the nationalist xenophobia of the landowners and the desire for more foreign investment by the compradors, there was another, deeper, political antagonism. These two groups have fought fiercely in the past, and they share only one point of unity. Link to Part 2 I hope Obama-mania and the reign of Democrats hasn't completely effaced out skepticism.
 
'Transformers' Crushes The Weekend Competition Top
LOS ANGELES — Alien robots have transformed into box-office superstars with $200 million in domestic ticket sales in just five days. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" took in $112 million in the sequel's first weekend and $201.2 million since opening Wednesday, according to Sunday estimates from Paramount, which is distributing the DreamWorks movie. It was well on the way to becoming the year's top-grossing movie. That was a few million dollars higher than other studios were expecting for the movie, and the figures could change a bit when final numbers are released Monday. Still, it was a colossal start for the "Transformers" sequel, whose opening five days amounted to nearly two-thirds of the $319 million domestic total the franchise's first movie did over its entire run in 2007. Now playing in almost every other country except India, the movie added $185.8 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $387 million. That's well over half the $708 million global total for the first "Transformers." That first movie began with a $70.5 million weekend. Based on how well the sequel has done, "Revenge of the Fallen" could join the handful of movies that have topped the $400 million mark domestically. "I'd say given the momentum it has, it's got a real shot," said Rob Moore, vice chairman at Paramount. For the first five days, the "Transformers" sequel was second only to last summer's "The Dark Knight" with $203.8 million. This was the biggest opening weekend of this year, surpassing the $85.1 million debut of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" in early May. The sequel began with $60.6 million on its opening day Wednesday. That also was second only to "The Dark Knight," which had the biggest box-office day ever with $67.2 million on opening day. With $14.4 million at 169 IMAX theaters, "Transformers" set a record for a five-day opening in the giant-screen format, nearly doubling the previous best of $7.3 million set by "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." "Transformers" overcame harsh reviews from critics, who called it a visual-effects extravaganza without much story or human heart. Director Michael Bay has a history of bad reviews and big box office with "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor." "Michael Bay knows how to build the perfect summer box-office beast," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "He squarely aimed right at the demographic, right at what summer movie-goers want, and he put it on the screen. And audiences can't seem to get enough of it." The sequel broadened the franchise's fan base. Females accounted for just 40 percent of the audience for the first "Transformers" but 46 percent for the sequel, Moore said. Much of that was due to the on-screen romance for the characters played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, who were relative unknowns when the first movie came out. With a $13 million weekend, Disney and Pixar Animation's "Up" became the year's top-grossing film domestically at $250.2 million. It surpassed Paramount's "Star Trek," which did $3.6 million over the weekend to hit a $246.2 million total. The reign of "Up" at the top of the year's box-office chart will be short-lived, though. The "Transformers" sequel should shoot past it in a matter of days. The Warner Bros. melodrama "My Sister's Keeper," with Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin, had a so-so debut, coming in at No. 5 with $12 million. Breslin plays a daughter conceived as a donor for her older sister, who has leukemia. Summit Entertainment's Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" had a strong start in limited release, taking in $144,000 in four theaters for an average of $36,000 a cinema. That compares to an average of $26,453 in 4,234 theaters for "Transformers." Starring Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as members of a U.S. bomb squad in Baghdad, "The Hurt Locker" has a chance to become the first real commercial success among recent war-on-terror movies, which audiences generally have avoided. "The Hurt Locker" has earned stellar reviews since debuting at film festivals last year. It rolls out to more theaters on July 10. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday. 1. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," $112 million. 2. "The Proposal," $18.5 million. 3. "The Hangover," $17.2 million. 4. "Up," $13 million. 5. "My Sister's Keeper," $12 million. 6. "Year One," $5.8 million. 7. "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," $5.4 million. 8. "Star Trek," $3.6 million. 9. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $3.5 million. 10. "Away We Go," $1.7 million. ___ On the Net: http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice ___ Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney's parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp.
 
Karen Robinovitz: Branding 101 Top
Purple Lab needed an image - logo, design, a vibe that would convey a message at every touch point. Think of branding like boxes of cereal - you know what you're getting with each delicious bite. I am a branding snob and completely driven by aesthetics - for me, it's key to have a look and feel that says something fun, sexy, glamorous, chic, which is what the brand is about. Image, image, image. It's everything. My friend JD owns the most amazing creative design shop called Calliope Studios. He's done branding work and website design for Nars, John Varvatos, Kirna Zabete (www.kirnazabete.com my personal fashion Mecca - a.k.a. the drug den), amongst others. He also owns Yoya and Yoya Mart, the best baby stores you will ever see and the only place I buy baby gifts for friends. He is so inspiring. His eye is slick, cool, sexy, and sharp. He totally gets my vibe and I knew he would be the best person to hire for our branding, website, collateral, everything... But the man does not come cheap. I went to his office with cupcakes and 6 years of friendship to back up my plight - please help me and don't really charge me anything because I don't have much money and I'm trying to make it big and when I do, you will be repaid! That got me a little bit of love... He gave me some time on the weekends and we went to town. I showed him the things and sites that inspire me - Colette in Paris (www.colette.fr), Dita von Teese, Kate Moss, the artist Anselm Reyle (his purple foil piece sleighs me... FYI, it's 600k! Availalable at Gagosian , the ultimate blue chip gallery), the purple Nina Ricci dress Reese Witherspoon wore to the Oscars post-divorce . We poured through font books to see what stood out. A few days later, he came back with this - check out our website to see! www.purplelabnyc.com (Purplelab.com was taken. Figures!) I was so in love, I actually printed the image, shrunk it and laminated it so I could carry it in my wallet! The design went to the manufacturer so we could see a comp. New trouble began. The manufacturer went completely AWOL! I mean, the business was still around but my contact stopped returning calls and emails. The third of a series of panic attacks began. That roofdeck leap was looking pretty good again! My lab, meanwhile, kept asking me about the timing on things. Note: they wouldn't really make any money until I placed a full order and I couldn't place a full order until I had components coming. See the dilemma? They referred me to another manufacturer, a very established and well known company based in New Jersey, home of many a lab and beauty manufacturers (not to mention the glamorous state in which I grew up). This company... I'll call them X (no names right now - you'll see why later, it didn't turn out to be the best experience) was able to manufacture the exact same component that I wanted. Before I placed the order, they sent a comp with our "deco design" (that is the graphic on the component). It took a few weeks for it to arrive (remember, it was coming from China). In that time, I focused on packaging with JD. Speaking of... back to packaging. My main goal was to have a box that stood out, something that would pop in a sea of products. JD sketched an hourglass shaped number and came up with the idea of the gradient purple (like that Reese Witherspoon dress I was obsessed with). LOVE! But is it possible? He fiddled and played and actually came up with a way to make it work. Just needed to find a printer who could bring it to life on a large scale. Easier said than done. JD saw the panic on my face (I was like... ugh, back to frantic calls!). He promised he'd find someone to come to the rescue. "It just has to be affordable," I warned. I have a habit of making things more expensive than they have to be! That's another story - ask my accountant. Better yet, don't! JD wound up scoring me a guy who could whip up our box - a bit more than we were hoping for. Boxes in the beauty world tend to be around $0.10 to about $0.50 - ours was a few dollars. The impression it makes was worth it to me - I would rather make less money and put something out there that gives women a fabulous emotional experience. I decided to go for it. Had to keep true to my "cut through the clutter" mantra. Come back soon for the rest of the purple tale... there's A LOT more! Mwah! Karen Purple Lab Creatrix
 
Mallika Chopra: Bloodsuckers and the World of Michael Jackson Top
In the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death, I found myself in a surreal situation that gave me a glimpse into the dark side of bloodsuckers, media and celebrity. In those few hours, I saw a side of humanity that saddens me - where people try to take advantage of vulnerability, confusion, and grief for their own advantage. I realized that much of media has so much more to gain when they report salacious gossip, even in the aftermath of a tragic death like Michael's. I also realized that all of us, myself included, who participate in the engagement of that media feed so-called journalists to do anything to get their information. In the end, personalities like Michael are portrayed as freaks and dysfunctional, people who love them are taken advantage of, and those seedy, washed out journalists profit. I share my experience because it involves Grace Rwaramba, who served as the nanny to Michael's three kids. Grace is more than my best friend - I refer to her as my sister, and she thinks of my parents as her own (she actually calls my father papa). In the last day in the aftermath of Michaels death, recent quotes have surfaced about her life with Michael, as well as speculation about her role in potential custody battles for the three children. Grace has read this article before I published it. Michael had a pattern of letting those close to him in and out of his life, and Grace was no exception. Lisa Marie Presley’s reflection on her emotional relationship with Michael expressed beautifully the power Michael had with those he loved. Over the years, Grace faced a similar cycle of wanting to save him and being hurt by him. It was an endless cycle that seemed similar to those faced by friends and families of other addicts. Michael had a knack of surrounding himself with enablers, and avoiding people who wanted to help him like his family, real friends who cared deeply about him, Grace and my father, Deepak Chopra. Daphne Barak, a so-called journalist who claims to be a friend of the Jackson family and who got to know Grace through them, has been cultivating a friendship with Grace over several years. Unfortunately, the story with Daphne and Grace seems to be one that echoes the vultures that took advantage of Michael throughout his life. Daphne reached out to Grace a few weeks ago, when she knew she was in a vulnerable place, having recently been let go by Michael yet again (this was a regular pattern). In the 17 years that Grace has worked with Michael, she has never spoken to the press. She loves Michael and his children at her core. Grace genuinely believed Daphne was her friend who was trying to help her. Daphne had offered to help Grace launch a foundation she was creating to monitor non profit work in Africa. (Grace was originally from Rwanda.) She told Grace that they should record her speaking about the work. However, every time they began to record, her questions would center on Michael. Grace would say she was uncomfortable speaking about him. On the morning of June 26th, after finding out that Grace was also in London, I rushed to her hotel. She was staying in a suite with Daphne. Daphne told tell me she had invited Grace to stay with her in Switzerland as her guest, and how she had helped Grace with the immediate aftermath of shock hearing about Michael's death. She said that she had spent several thousand dollars to buy a business class ticket for Grace to fly to LA. She boasted about how close she was to the Jackson family, world leaders, etc. I witnessed Daphne act as a friend while trying to bait information from Grace on her conversations with Jackson family members and friends about his death. She warned Grace that the family was going to try to set her up for Michaels downfall, and that it was critical that Grace speak with a lawyer before leaving. As a friend, she had organized a "lawyer" to get Grace's story before she left for the airport. In essence, Daphne was setting up a scenario to garner more information from Grace before she left for LA. I discovered that one of her friends who happened to be there had made a documentary on Princess Diana. When we tried to leave, Daphne screamed at Grace - in front of my young children who began to cry -- that she was an ingrate. She had spent thousands of dollars hosting her, she was her guest, and she wanted to spend the time to say goodbye. (Daphne obviously could not believe her luck that she had baited Grace as a sympathetic friend for stories before he died, and had Grace with her on that sad day.) Ultimately, Daphne, having obviously drunk a bit much, threatened to release the recordings she had made of their private conversations. Grace was petrified. I held her by the shoulders, looked in her eyes, and said lets just go. So what, let her put it out there. She is a washed up journalist trying to mine a tragic situation. Michael was gone now, and the future is the wellbeing of the children. Grace agreed. Ultimately, I had to get the hotel manager involved to escort Grace out of the hotel. I also bought Grace's ticket home myself, discovering that Daphne had misled us about the time and the price. It was a 650 Pound economy ticket, not several thousand dollars. Twenty four hours later, I found that Daphne indeed had written an article full of quotes by Grace for a tabloid magazine. (A quick search of her other work not surprisingly shows she did a recent feature on Amy Winehouse.) Grace's quotes are now being picked up by other tabloids and will find their way into more magazines and articles. (People Magazine is also featuring some today, including the inaccurate claim the Grace pumped Michael's stomach several times. For the record, Grace never pumped Michael's stomach. She has no idea how she would even do such a thing.) Which quotes are true, which are in context, (many are not) to me frankly doesn't matter. I will not be surprised if Daphne releases audios or videos soon. Grace feels used, insecure and shaken that she could have been so naïve, particularly having witnessed so many vultures in Michael's world over the years. She made a mistake. The sad truth is that when you are a celebrity, or a close friend or family of one, in a world of tabloids, you must be impeccable in what you say and to whom. Michael probably faced the epitome of vultures, bloodsuckers and hanger-ons displayed in his endless cycle of managers, enabling doctors, and new business partners. How could anyone blame him for becoming so paranoid in his life? In the article, Daphne tries to portray a rift between Katherine Jackson and Grace. This is not true. I would like to go on record, with Grace's permission, to say that Grace firmly hopes that the Jackson family gets custody of Prince, Paris and Michael. It would be detrimental to the children to be separated, and they should be with Michael's family. They should know their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and they should learn about who he was as a person, not just as an icon. She has no interest in custody, and just wants the children to be happy and secure. She will be there for them whenever they need or want her. As for the appetite for the salacious details of Michael's life, my hope is that we let him go in peace. We already know he led a tortured life. He also led a great one in which he loved, and was loved, by many. Let his family heal, and let his fans celebrate his music and his giving heart. This post was originally posted on www.intent.com. Mallika Chopra is the founder of Intent.com , a site focused on personal, social and global wellness More on Michael Jackson
 
Raymond J. Learsy: Our Lob(obotomized)bied Congress' Energy Bill Excludes Our Most Efficient, Cleanest, Newly Plentiful Energy Source: Natural Gas Top
It is a further example of the deep dysfunction of our government. Bad enough that Wall Street was bailed out while dragging down the economic standing of the nation together with trillions of its citizens dollars and only now to find Wall Street blithely going back to fat bonuses and fatter salaries. This while home foreclosures continue on almost unabated and retirees have to go back to work because their nest eggs have been devastated. But Congress is shameless, ever genuflecting to special interests even when trying to do well. On Friday the House passed legislation in the form of a 1200 page bill addressing the very real and urgent concerns of global warming. Here was an effort, difficult to navigate as it was, to deal with an the issue of profound long term consequences. It was focused on transforming the way the nation produces and uses energy to curb the heat trapping gases linked to climate change. Cap-and-trade is at its core, meant to limit the emissions of CO2 gases, gases that are rapidly building up in the atmosphere at unacceptable and existentially dangerous levels given their shelf life of up to 1,000 years, or in terms of the human experience, an infinity. The legislation would impact a broad spectrum of industries and professions including electric power generation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and architectural design. And yes their would be clear winners for those new or underutilized technologies that can become contributors to the new carbon economy- Wind, Solar, geothermal, would receive a big boost. The bill mandates that 20% of the nation's electricity come from such sources by 2020. Here the focus is to support carbon free initiatives and to step away where possible from fossil fuels. Coal and oil derived products, i.e. gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, are in the line of fire and the coal industry is deeply concerned consumption will diminish drastically. Coal of course is loaded with carbon. The bill provides concessions for "clean" coal projects, an important plus for the coal industry and coal producing states. A classic example of entrenched interests protecting entrenched infrastructure. Yet the bill has a glaring omission. There is practically no reference nor programmatic inclusion of natural gas in the bill. Given the fact that natural gas, though a fossil fuel, is vastly more efficient and cleaner burning than coal or petroleum based products, this is a glaring and inexcusable omission explained only by the malign power of vested industrial and political interests. Doubly so, in that with new drilling technology the natural gas reserves within the United States alone have literally exploded over the last half dozen years. In Louisiana the Haynesville Shale Basin is now considered to hold a store of BTU's equivalent to that of the North Slope. This while the huge Marcellus Basin encompassing much of Pennsylvania and New York State holds as much, and possibly much more. Our gas reserves have expanded by a factor of nearly five. And that may be just the beginning. And to point out the obvious, they are all on shore and all within the Continental United States. Not to speak of the clear benefits at hand to our balance of payments and security interests. Perhaps even more tellingly, these reserves lie under a massive nationwide distribution network of 2 ½ million miles of pipeline. The Department of Energy today is a very different organization than under the Bush administration. Its focus is the well being of its fellow citizens and not the parochial interests of the oil industry and the energy field. It is staffed with people of scientific competence determined to deal with issues of green house warming in a decidedly pro-active way. And yet the Department of Energy is not Congress. It is a Department that understands what needs be done and that science tells us we must move aggressively. Their pragmatism can best be summarized quoting their working credo: "are changes cost effective, materially significant, timely". That should be the Energy Bill's watchword as well. Without a clear provision and mandate for natural gas the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" will be a failed bill, and if not, certainly something far less than it could have. May I close in recommending to you a video broadcast of an interview with former Senator Timothy Wirth of Colorado. Succinctly, without bombast he instructs us all on the fatal consequences of the omission of a great national resource at this time, at this moment of urgent action and government resolve. More on Financial Crisis
 
Gay Pride Parade Marks 40th Anniversary Of Stonewall Riots Top
(AP) -- Decades after a riot at a Greenwich Village bar sparked a movement for equal rights, gay New Yorkers celebrated their gains at Sunday's gay pride parade and lamented the state has not legalized same-sex marriage. The annual march down Fifth Avenue commemorated the Stonewall rebellion of 40 years ago, when patrons at a gay bar resisted the police. The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising became one of the defining moments of the gay rights movement. The celebration was tempered by the knowledge that other states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa, have legalized same-sex marriage before New York. "Hopes and dreams and expectations have been raised, and there is nothing worse than to for people to have their hopes die out, to have the rug pulled out from under them," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, New York City's most prominent openly gay elected official. Gov. David Paterson said he remains hopeful that the state Senate will pass a same-sex marriage bill -- if it can resolve the partisan stalemate that has paralyzed it. "If we have an end to the stalemate in Albany I would think that it would be passed shortly after," he said, referring to the state capital. "We believe we can pass the bill." This year's march featured the usual mix of seasoned activists, dazzling drag performers and floats blasting disco beats. A faux Liza Minnelli in a slinky dress and spiky wig lip-synched "New York, New York" atop the Stonewall Inn float. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center's float was sponsored by the Broadway musical "Shrek," whose ogres-need-love-too message was apparently a good fit. Flavia Rando marched with the Gay Liberation Front, which began in 1969 after the Stonewall uprising. "It feels like we changed the world," Rando said. "We started a global movement." In addition to Paterson, one of the parade's grand marshals, elected officials marching included Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer. Parade organizers claimed as many as 500,000 participants. That number was difficult to verify, but many thousands marched or lined Fifth Avenue to watch. Spectator Mark Jester of Maryland, visiting New York for the first time, said the parade was "awesome," especially the drag queens. "I have a lot of respect, because if I would do that at home I literally would have to fight," he said. Danielle Staub of the Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives Of New Jersey" marched in heels that rivaled a drag queen's and said gay people deserve the right to marry. "My two marriages didn't last as long as most of the gay community's partnerships," she noted. As part of the yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch encounter with New York, Amsterdam officials held a contest for couples to marry in that city, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2001. The winners, five couples with one Dutch partner and one American partner, will travel to Amsterdam for its August gay pride celebration and get married there. "We kept saying we were going to do it here once it was legal in New York state," said contest winner Stephan Hengst, who was born in the Netherlands and now lives in Highland, New York, with his partner Patrick Decker. "We hope to see it become legal in New York very soon."
 

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