It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, May 05, 2022
Brazil's Petrobras posts $9 billion profit as Bolsonaro rails against company
Gram Slattery and Roberto Samora Thu, May 5, 2022,
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's Petrobras posted a first-quarter net income that beat forecasts on Thursday, just minutes after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro railed against the state-run oil company's profitability, saying its executives had no sympathy for ordinary people.
In a securities filing, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, posted a quarterly net income of 44.56 billion reais ($8.86 billion), above a Refinitiv consensus estimate of 43.5 billion reais and almost 40 times greater than the same quarter last year.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, came in at 77.71 billion reais, slightly above the Refinitiv estimate of 76.3 billion reais.
In comments accompanying the results, Petrobras attributed the profit jump to factors including high Brent crude oil prices, wider margins in its diesel business and reduced liquefied natural gas imports. It noted that its divestment program had slowed from the previous quarter.
The first-quarter results, however, were largely overshadowed by comments made by Bolsonaro during a weekly broadcast on multiple social media platforms, just minutes before the results were published.
In a particularly free-wheeling address, he said Petrobras was committing a "crime" and a "rape" against Brazil by posting bumper profits, while squeezing Brazilian consumers at the gas pump.
The far-right Bolsonaro said he would not interfere with Petrobras' operations, but implored the company not to raise fuel prices any further.
Bolsonaro faces a tough fight in his bid for a second term as president in the October election and has been trailing the left-wing former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in opinion surveys.
Petrobras has a policy of pegging domestic fuel prices to international rates, a policy which has come under fire as prices have skyrocketed amid the war in Ukraine.
"All of this generates economic development throughout the entire chain of production, creating employment, wealth and tax income for the nation," Coelho wrote.
"This quarter, we will pay to federal, state and municipal governments an amount equal to one and a half times our net income in taxes."
The company announced ordinary dividend payments of 3.715 reais per share early on Thursday. The government is by far its largest shareholder.
($1 = 5.03 reais)
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Rio de Janeiro and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo; editing by Richard Pullin and Leslie Adler)
U.S. Shale’s Cash Bonanza Will Wipe Out $300 Billion Loss
Kevin Crowley Thu, May 5, 2022,
(Bloomberg) -- It may have taken an investor rebellion, a pandemic and a war in Europe, but U.S. shale oil and gas producers are now on the cusp of making back their losses from the last decade.
The industry is on course to make $172 billion of free cash flow this year, enough to wipe out 60% of its losses from 2010 through 2019, according to Deloitte LLP. With smaller gains already chipping away at the $292 billion deficit in 2020 and 2021, U.S. shale should be back in the black next year
It’s been a long road. When small domestic oil and gas producers pioneered the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the 2000s, it seemed like a wealth of riches was imminent. But they were almost too successful, pumping so much that natural gas prices spiraled into a long-term decline through the 2010s. A surge in oil output followed, and OPEC allowed crude prices to collapse in 2014 in an attempt to win back market share from the U.S., which later overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer.
Investors also got burned. Shale companies borrowed heavily to fund production growth, resulting in massively negative cash flow. Energy went from more than 16% of the S&P 500 Index in 2008 to 2% in 2020.
All those trends have now reversed. Shareholders pushed shale to become more financially disciplined, while the pandemic forced executives to cut back on production and spending. Now, with the war in Ukraine causing oil prices to soar above $100 a barrel, the turnaround is almost complete.
The industry is now leveraging the “short-cycled nature of shales to quickly monetize an opportunity, without giving away discipline,” said Amy Chronis, managing partner of Deloitte’s Houston office. “The recent oil and natural gas price surge has given the shale industry a shot in the arm.”
Investors are taking notice. Nine of the 10 top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year are oil companies. Energy is now 4.4% of the S&P 500 Index, up from 2.7% at the beginning of the year. Brent crude has advanced 42% this year to $110.69 a barrel as at 2:13 p.m. in New York.
(Updates chart source, adds crude price in final paragraph.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP are raking in massive profits, and this could be just the beginning
Tristan Bove Thu, May 5, 2022, Eddie Seal—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Oil prices have been soaring this year, as Western sanctions hit the Russian economy hard, disrupting the global oil supply from one of the world’s largest producers. But while high gasoline prices at the pump make life difficult for consumers, fossil fuel companies are making a killing.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine over two months ago, Brent crude, an international benchmark for oil pricing, has surged past $100 a barrel, the highest oil has sold for since 2012.
According to the latest round of quarterly reports from the world’s largest oil and gas companies, the fossil fuel industry has been benefiting massively from this surge. Demand for energy this year has soared as economies rebound from historically low demand during the pandemic, and coupled with a constrained supply from Russia, one of the world’s largest fuel exporters, the rest of 2022 could be just as profitable for fossil fuel companies.
Oil companies posting big profits
The COVID pandemic hit the oil industry hard as global industry came to a standstill and the need for fuel collapsed. But oil demand had begun to steadily rebound in 2022.
British petroleum company Shell announced their quarterly profits on Thursday, posting a record $9.1 billion in earnings. That’s compared to $6.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Although Shell posted the highest profits, other major oil companies also announced major gains.
BP announced it hit $6.2 billion in first quarter earnings, up from the $4.1 billion reported last quarter. French oil major TotalEnergies also reported a $9 billion profit in the first quarter, up 32% from the last quarter of 2021. U.S.-based Chevron reported $6.3 billion in earnings, up from $5.1 billion last quarter.
The windfall comes despite many oil majors making the call to end most investment projects and relationships in Russia this year in the wake of the invasion. Shell, BP, Halliburton, and ExxonMobil have all suspended their operations in Russia to comply with Western sanctions, but the withdrawal appears to have done little damage to these companies’ earnings.
Oil remains highly volatile, with factors other than sanctions and the Ukraine War affecting the commodity, but analysts still believe that prices this year will stay high, and major oil companies are likely to continue bringing in high profits as energy costs around the world soar.
A strong year ahead
A number of factors have collided in the early months of 2022 to send oil prices swinging wildly.
Prices have since been in a constant state of volatility, dropping below $100 later in March of this year, when demand for oil dropped in China, the world’s largest crude importer, in response to a resurgent COVID-19 wave. But prices rebounded quickly, and did so again in April after another wave of city-wide lockdowns in China impacted demand.
The price swings have led some analysts to revise their earlier worst-case scenario predictions of $200 oil barrels this year, but that doesn’t mean that the good times are ending for the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.
While slower demand in China will continue to be important for oil prices, demand in the rest of the world is continuing to surge, as countries move past pandemic-era restrictions and industries such as travel reopen.
“Except for China, which is still imposing a zero-Covid policy, the economy reopening worldwide has been ongoing for some time,” oil analyst Lukman Leong recently told trading platform Capital.com on Wednesday. “If there are no more shocking factors and [the Russia–Ukraine] conflict does not worsen, ideally, oil should range from $100–$110 per barrel this year.”
While prices are likely to fluctuate, oil will likely stay around $100 a barrel for the rest of the year, according to many analysts.
“Because of war-related trade and production disruptions, the price of Brent crude oil is expected to average $100 a barrel in 2022,” the World Bank announced in a statement on April 26 accompanying its April Commodity Markets Outlook report.
That range would still be the highest oil has been since 2012, the last time fossil fuel companies reported such high profits. And while oil prices should stay high, major oil companies are selling another highly-valuable commodity this year: natural gas.
Demand is spiking for natural gas, especially for its liquid form (LNG), which can be frozen and shipped worldwide without the need for pipelines, as countries scramble to replace missing Russian gas imports. And the same companies that have been profiting off of high oil prices could soon begin profiting from the LNG boom.
Shell is the world’s largest LNG trader, operating over 40 carriers around the world. Chevron is another major LNG player, managing nearly 150 terminals around the world to either freeze natural gas or regasify LNG. Chevron also has large stakes in some of the biggest LNG development plans in the world, such as the Gorgon Project in Australia.
It was a week of firsts for Shell. A new chief financial officer, Sinead Gorman, presented her first set of hard numbers in its first-quarter results on Thursday. Those, too, set a precedent. The Anglo-Dutch oil company boasted its best-ever ebitda result in that period, and the top quarterly out-turn since June 2008.
She must help her boss Ben van Beurden perform a tricky balancing act. Shareholders hunger for payouts while some politicians hope to divert surfeit cash flow towards other perceived societal priorities.
Certainly, Shell gushes profit from every unit, including its downstream products division, which included a strong trading result. This business’s $2bn of ebitda gets credit for the group’s pleasant earnings surprise.
Adjust its earnings for various write-offs, including those for its abandoned Russian operations, and the oil major had returns on average capital employed of more than 10 per cent, well above its cost of capital. All this for 3.4 times (including net debt) its estimated ebitda.
BP, too, had excellent quarterly results this week. And so, some in Westminster howl for windfall taxes. Lex generally opposes these as investment hindrances. But arguing that any such tax would curb production of oil and gas makes it sound like a carbon tax.
That is not so far from the oil producer’s thinking process. Shell already weighs down any prospective project’s internal rate of return with carbon costs. It may well have its own global internal estimate, but says it varies by country. That must be rising if Europe’s emissions trading system is anything to go by. Its carbon price topped €91 per tonne this week, up 82 per cent over 12 months. The new UK contract trades at a similar value.
Just tipping its overflowing free cash flow coffers into the pockets of Shell shareholders via increased buybacks is hard for UK ministers to defend. A hint of better than expected payouts later in the year helped boost the share price 4 per cent on the day, first among its peers. Yet a Janus-like approach by US and European governments to the energy sector — harangued over both climate change and supply shortfalls — only encourages inertia.
Eventually, worries about economic recession should temper commodity prices and any fury over Big Oil’s profits. No wonder investors are greedy for all they can get this year.
Conoco posts a five-fold profit leap, raises shareholder returns
By Sabrina Valle and Rithika Krishna
Thu, May 5, 2022,
HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips on Thursday reported a first-quarter profit that jumped five-fold and exceeded Wall Street estimates on higher energy prices and volumes.
Conoco pledged to bump up shareholder returns by 25% to $10 billion this year but gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for full-year production while raising project spending.
Still, its year-over-year profit gain outshone that of rivals Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc and TotalEnergies thanks to the absence of Russia writedowns and a primary focus on crude and gas production instead of fuels or renewable energy sources.
"We see demand continuing to grow over the next couple of years," Chief Executive Ryan Lance told analysts, adding oil prices are "going to be probably above $90 a barrel" for the year.
Major oil producers in recent years have faced investor pressures to shift from fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, and more recently to pump more oil to reduce fuel prices for consumers.
Shares were down 0.5% at $103.36 on Thursday afternoon with analysts raising concerns about Conoco's 8% increase in the year's capital spending budget.
Results "will be viewed as fairly neutral," RBC Capital Markets analysts Scott Hanold and Davis Petros said in a note.
The Houston-based company's adjusted earnings leapt to $4.29 billion, or $3.27 per share in the first quarter, from $902 million, or 69 cents per share a year earlier, beating Wall Street estimates of $3.03 per share, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
Its oil and gas fetched $76.99 per barrel, 70% higher than in the first quarter of 2021, reflecting crude's jump above $100 per barrel this year on rising demand and supply worries over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Output rose about 15% in the quarter to 1.75 million bpd of oil and gas from a year earlier on a large acquisition of Shell Plc's shale holdings. But excluding Shell's assets, production fell in the quarter.
The company also expects a sequential decrease in second- quarter output, to between 1.67 million-1.73 million bpd.
Conoco raised its capital spending budget to $7.8 billion from previous guidance of $7.2 billion. Rising cash flow will help accelerate debt reduction, it said.
While the company has committed to making its operations generate net zero carbon emissions by 2050, it has rejected broader, Scope 3 targets, in which emissions from use of its fuels are counted.
"Should you hold a company like ConocoPhillips responsible for a consumer's decision to buy a pickup truck versus a Toyota Prius?" Lance asked. "The problematic piece has always been the Scope 3 because of the double counting."
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston and Rithika Krishna and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Barbara Lewis, Bernadette Baum and Matthew Lewis)
Ballerina statue cut down in Tulsa, sold for scrap metal
Mon, May 2, 2022
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A bronze statue depicting one of Oklahoma's most famous Native American ballerinas was cut from its base outside a Tulsa museum and sold for scrap to a recycling company, authorities said Monday.
Museum officials say the Five Moons statue of Marjorie Tallchief was likely removed Thursday from its plinth outside the Tulsa Historical Society, the Tulsa World reported.
Museum officials received a call Monday from CMC Recycling in southwest Rogers County to identify what was believed to be pieces of the bronze statue, the newspaper reported.
Michelle Place, director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, checked out the recovered pieces late Monday morning and verified that they came from the statue.
“The Tulsa Police Department is working diligently to apprehend the thief,” the historical society said in a statement.
Pieces of the statute, including the head and part of an arm, are still missing.
Place said the original mold for the statue burned in a foundry fire, so recreating the statute will be much more complicated.
“I am devastated by this,” she said.
The statues known as the Five Moons were created by Tulsa-area artists Monte England and Gary Henson. England worked on two of the pieces before his death in 2005, and Henson completed the project.
The other Five Moons statues of renowned American Indian ballerinas depict Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief's sister.
Pee on Your Veggies
Lillian Stone Thu, May 5, 2022, Photo: WindAwake (Shutterstock)
Industrial agriculture has a fertilizer problem. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are an ecological disaster waiting to happen, emitting potent greenhouse gases and slipping into waterways. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing a global fertilizer shortage. It’s time to rethink the way we grow our food—and some researchers say that pee is the answer. Yeah, man. Human pee.
Why urine makes great fertilizer
In an AFP report published earlier this week, researchers discussed how human urine could “reduce reliance on chemicals and cut environmental pollution” in the agricultural realm. This isn’t anything new; agricultural experts around the world have a long history of using human waste as fertilizer. That’s because whiz is full of plants’ favorite nutrients—namely nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which we naturally excrete when we hit the can. In fact, AFP cites one UN study which found that global wastewater has the “theoretical potential to offset 13% of the world’s demand for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in agriculture.”
What’s stopping Big Ag from using Big Pee?
There are a few roadblocks preventing widespread adoption of urine as fertilizer. First: how does one collect all that pee? AFP reports that a urine-centric agriculture system would have to involve overhauling the sewage system, perhaps even using fancy urine-diverting toilets that funnel urine into separate containers. Similar endeavors are underway in countries including Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, the U.S., and France, AFP notes—but then there’s the PR of it all. The Pee Relations, if you will.
The big question is this: Are consumers ready to dive into a new, urine-soaked agricultural reality? Yes and no. Per AFP, the “acceptance rate” is very high in countries including China, France, and Uganda for example, but remains quite low in others. Personally, I’d take a pee potato over an artificially-fertilized potato any day. I’m ready to eat, drink, and pee merry.
IN THE NEW NETFLICKS SERIES FROM SPAIN; HEIRS OF THE EARTH, URINE IS USED FOR FERTILIZING GRAPES IN JEWISH VINEYARD IN THE 14TH CENTURY
There's a reason why aliens haven’t visited Earth yet, say scientists
Sarah Knapton Tue, May 3, 2022, Satellite over Earth - Michael Dunning/The Image Bank RF
The Fermi paradox questions why aliens have never visited Earth despite the Universe being so old and so vast that races should have evolved interstellar travel and come calling by now.
Now two scientists believe they may have the answer.
Astrobiologists Dr Michael Wong, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, and Dr Stuart Bartlett, of California Institute of Technology, have hypothesised that civilisations burn out when they grow too large and technical.
Faced with an ever-growing population and eye-watering energy consumption, worlds hit a crisis point known as a "singularity" where innovation can no longer keep up with demand.
The only alternative to collapse is to abandon "unyielding growth" and adopt a balance that allows survival but prevents the society moving any further forward, or venturing far from its own spot in the universe.
Writing in the Royal Society Open Science, Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett said: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilisations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritising homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.
“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilisation collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilisations.” Large civilisations reach crisis points
The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
Once on the path, life is likely to follow a similar trajectory to the civilisations of Earth, they claim, eventually organising into a globally connected state, with technology that needs increasing amounts of energy to maintain growth.
Using city growth equations, which sets limits on how far societies can scale up, the experts show how large civilisations eventually hit crisis points, which, once recognised, causes a halt in further growth.
The pair point to similar ‘mini-awakenings’ on Earth which have prevented global crises, such as the de-escalation of weapons of mass destruction since the Cold War, and the ban on Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to mend the hole in the ozone layer.
However alien civilisations which are close to burnout may be the most easy to detect, according to the research, because they would be using energy in a ‘wildly sustainable manner’ which would provide a good signal emanating from their world.
“This presents the possibility that a good many of humanity’s initial detections of extraterrestrial life may be of the intelligent, though not yet wise, kind,” they conclude. Previous explanations
Previous suggestions for why intelligent aliens have not already visited Earth, include the discovery of a physical difficulty which makes space travel infeasible, whether related to astronomy, biology or engineering.
Some scientists have suggested that aliens have simply never chosen to visit us, or if they have we have not noticed, perhaps arriving before humans had evolved.
It is also possible that advanced civilisations arose too recently, and too far away, for aliens to have reached us yet.
In 2015, scientists analysing data from the Hubble and Kepler space telescopes concluded that around 92 per cent of potentially habitable worlds did not exist when Earth formed, so it may be that our Solar System is simply ahead of the game.
World Bank Reviews Alleged Abuses by Cambodian Microlenders Gavin Finch and David Kocieniewski Thu, May 5, 2022,
(Bloomberg) -- The World Bank is reviewing a complaint by two Cambodian human rights groups alleging that microlenders backed by the development bank’s financing arm have engaged in predatory debt-collection practices, including pressuring borrowers to sell their land.
The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or Licadho, and Equitable Cambodia accused the World Bank’s International Finance Corp. of failing to adequately vet six microlenders before committing to lend $400 million to the firms in the past five years. The complaint, filed with the IFC’s compliance ombudsman in February, alleged that money was used for projects that violated the bank’s exclusion list, which prohibits investments that involve child labor or infringe on indigenous peoples’ land rights.
“The IFC’s reckless investments and lack of due diligence regarding its microfinance projects have destroyed lives and wrecked communities across Cambodia,” Naly Pilorge, Licadho’s outreach director, said in a statement posted Tuesday on the group’s website. “They must take steps to offer real relief to these borrowers.”
The announcement came on the day Bloomberg News reported that the IFC and other development banks have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds into microfinance companies that charge high interest rates and engage in aggressive collection practices in developing countries including Cambodia.
Cambodia is one of the only countries in which microlenders require borrowers to post collateral such as land titles. Licadho has documented dozens of cases in the past three years in which women have been coerced into selling their land and homes to repay microlenders funded by the IFC. In a 2019 report, the group alleged numerous other human rights abuses linked to microfinance, including debt-driven migration, children being taken out of school to earn money and bonded labor.
A spokesperson for the IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, or CAO, confirmed that an assessment was underway “to clarify the issues raised in the complaint.” The CAO, the spokesperson said, has not determined the merit of the issues and isn’t conducting an investigation of any microlenders at this point.
The IFC “will provide full support” to the CAO during its assessment, said Elena Gex, a spokeswoman for the development bank. She said the IFC “works with its clients to promote responsible lending practices in the microfinance industry.”
The IFC previously told Bloomberg it had received assurances from government regulators that there hadn’t been any forced land sales in Cambodia. It said that it vets all recipients according to strict guidelines regarding responsible finance, particularly in overheated markets like Cambodia. “We have become much more selective about who we do business with in Cambodia” and have stopped funding some lenders, said Martin Holtmann, an IFC microfinance official, declining to identify which lenders were cut off.
Two of the companies cited in the Bloomberg story and named in the complaint are LOLC Cambodia and Prasac. In March, the IFC said it would lend Prasac as much as $50 million, according to the development bank’s website. LOLC Cambodia has received tens of millions of dollars from the Microfinance Enhancement Facility, which counts the IFC as a major shareholder and co-founder.
LOLC Cambodia said in a statement that it welcomes IFC “to conduct an independent verification of these allegations and will provide our fullest corporation.” The company said it wasn’t “involved in human rights violations including coerced land sales.” Prasac didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“The IFC already has systems set up to prevent harm,” said Natalie Bridgeman Fields, founder and director of Accountability Counsel, an organization that supports communities harmed by international finance. “To meet its mission, and to respect the rights of communities, the IFC must not only follow its own rules, but also adopt a long-overdue remedy framework to address harm people experience when those rules are broken.”
Lou Coatney: Russia now left with no choice but nuclear war
I was a junior in Rock Island Senior High during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when we almost did have a nuclear war with Russia then, but this is infinitely worse, with weapons far more powerful and instantaneous and computerized retaliation systems like Russia’s Dead Hand.
In Juneau in the '80s, I strongly defended national defense and nuclear deterrence when we were on the defensive, but we have since become the aggressor. In 1992, I was at Gorbachev’s end of the Cold War speech at Westminster College in Missouri, and we were all so happy the fear was OVER, and we could welcome the Russians as the friends they wanted to be.
Instead, our “liberal/humanitarian interventionists” and “neoconservatives” — the revolution, coup-, and war-spreading opposite of conservative who are utopians like their older members were once openly Trotskyists — have since wrecked everything: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine/Russia.
In 1999 we broke our promise — documented — not to push NATO east, when we added Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Russia-hating Poland. Then, we forced our Kosovo bombing war on the Serbs with Rambouillet Appendix B which made betrayed and enraged Russian democrat Boris Yeltsin turn Russia back over to its national security community: Putin.
See George Shultz’s Dec. 11, 2020, Washington Post column about the Russians’ trust we had and threw away.
In 2014 we broke our Budapest peace agreement with the Russians with our Kyiv coup — not a “revolution” for four obvious, objective reasons — threatening them at their throats with NATO which became an aggressor with Kosovo and then Libya — no longer a legitimate defensive alliance.
In 2016 was a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — World War 3 then. In the final 2020 debate, Kristen Welker wouldn’t ask Biden the most dangerous question and issue: whether he would push for adding Ukraine to NATO as he has long wanted.
By Nuremberg starting/causing a war is the worst war crime of all, begetting all the war crimes which follow. And Biden and Blinken stubbornly and decisively opposing the Russians getting the security treaty they need (and we owe them after our broken promises/agreements) caused this war, making them at least as responsible for any war crimes which have happened.
Zelensky himself specifically triggered the war when — pumped up by the Europeans at Munich — he indicated Ukraine would be open to getting nuclear weapons. The next day, the Russia invaded.
It was always known the Russians could not win a conventional war with us/NATO which this now is. Just as we left them with no choice but war, they are now left with no choice but nuclear war.
The Russians have real civil defense and some chance of survival. We do not, except for our war-eager elites, of course.
Ukraine opinion: Roundtable: What U.S. actions in Ukraine would you support? Parents and grandparents should be strongly telling Congress that we do not want nuclear war and that it/they should instead be pushing Ukraine to sign a treaty to end this Ukraine War, before it becomes the nuclear holocaust my generation has always lived in dread of.
I cannot believe this is happening, and I deeply fear for my children and grandchildren.
Lou Coatney was born in Galesburg and grew up in Rock Island. He was a volunteer U.S. Army draftee in NATO in West Germany. His WIU thesis about the 1940 Katyn Massacre (and others) as a Cold War issue can be read on ibiblio. He is a retired Carl Sandburg College librarian over in Norway for his two younger Norwegian-American children.
China Orders Government, State Firms to Dump Foreign PCs Bloomberg News Thu, May 5, 2022,
(Bloomberg) -- China has ordered central government agencies and state-backed corporations to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years, marking one of Beijing’s most aggressive efforts so far to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.
Staff were asked after the week-long May break to turn in foreign PCs for home-made alternatives that run on operating software developed domestically, people familiar with the plan said. The exercise, which was mandated by central government authorities, is likely to eventually replace at least 50 million PCs on a central-government level alone, they said, asking to remain anonymous discussing a sensitive matter.
The decision advances China’s decade-long campaign to replace imported technology with local alternatives, a sweeping effort that covers everything from semiconductors to networking gear and phones. It’s likely to directly affect sales by HP Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc., the country’s biggest PC brands after local champion Lenovo Group Ltd.
Lenovo erased losses to climb as much as 5% on Friday morning in Hong Kong, while software developer Kingsoft Corp. also recouped its earlier decline to gain 3.3%. On mainland Chinese exchanges, Inspur Electronic Information Industry Co., a Chinese server maker, gained 6% while peer Dawning Information Industry Co. jumped more than 4%.
The replacement effort reflects Beijing’s growing concerns around information security as well as a confidence in homegrown hardware: the world’s biggest laptop and server makers today include Lenovo, Huawei Technologies Co. and Inspur Ltd., while local developers such as Kingsoft and Standard Software have made rapid strides in office software against the likes of Microsoft Corp. and Adobe Inc.
The campaign will be extended to provincial governments later and also abide by the two-year timeframe, the people said. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and State Council Information Office didn’t respond to faxed requests for comment.
China has been encouraging use of home-made IT products in government agencies for at least a decade, regularly barring certain products from government procurement lists. In response, U.S. IT giants such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Microsoft have set up joint ventures with firms backed by the Chinese government, to secure orders from the richest state-owned companies.
That process has long been dogged by inadequacies in Chinese-developed software and circuitry, forcing users to rely on imported equipment. That changed in recent years, as local champions such as Inspur and Lenovo gained global market share, though their products still rely on cutting-edge American components such as processors from Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. As of Friday, HP-branded machines were still available for purchase on a website used by central government procurement bodies, though it’s unclear if transactions would go through.
The latest central government directive is likely to cover only PC brands and software, and exclude hard-to-replace components such as processors from Intel and AMD, the people said. China will mostly encourage Linux-based operating systems to replace Microsoft’s Windows. Shanghai-based Standard Software is one of the top providers of such tools, one person said.
Certain agencies, including state-owned media and cybersecurity bodies, may continue to buy advanced foreign equipment under special permits as they always have, one of the people said. That permit system could be tightened in future, the person said.
Dolphin found tangled in illegally-placed fishing net off Texas coast, officials say
U.S. Coast Guard District 8 Kaitlyn Alanis Wed, May 4, 2022, 5:00 PM·1 min read
A bottlenose dolphin was tangled up in a fishing net that is illegal in Texas waters, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Fortunately, someone in a charter boat spotted the dolphin and called for help.
Crews with Coast Guard Station South Padre Island were called to the net at about 10:30 a.m. May 4, according to a news release from the agency.
Alongside the dolphin were 10 bonnethead sharks, a blacktip shark, 20 catfish and a redfish, officials said.
“This incident clearly exemplifies the negative impacts of illegal fishing gear used in U.S. waters,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Drew Ferguson, a Station South Padre Island boarding officer, in the news release. “Not only does it impact marine life, but the entire ecosystem as a whole. Thankfully, we were able to free the dolphin and remove the gillnet before it trapped and killed any additional marine life.”
Gillnets — “consisting of a wall of netting with mesh designed to trap fish’s head” — are a major cause of marine animal deaths, according to the Coast Guard. The nets are illegal in Texas waters.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries says gillnets are used to target fish including salmon, tuna and sea bass. They can also catch whales, dolphins, sea lions and other marine mammals.
If a marine mammal is tangled up for too long, officials say they can drown.
“A variety of regulations and factors determine the mesh size, length, and height of commercial gillnets, including area fished and target species,” according to NOAA.
Wildlife Photographer Captures Tender Moment Between Tiger Mom and Her Cubs in India
People Staff Wed, May 4, 2022,
A British wildlife photographer recently captured a tiger mother tending to her cubs on camera.
Guide and conservationist Paul Goldstein spotted the striped feline family resting in the trees at Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh, India, during a visit in April.
Goldstein, from Wimbledon, England, believes the tiger mom was in the shade to escape the hot morning after a night of suckling her ten-week-old cubs.
"'I have worked with local guides in Bandhavgarh for well over 20 years. My dear friend Pappu often jokes that mums keep their cubs from me," Goldstein told SWNS, adding that this changed "when we found the mother who initially looked tired. It was unsurprising as she had probably suckled several times in the night, and although early, it was fearfully hot."
Goldstein and the group with him spotted four cubs with the adult female tiger.
"My group was ecstatic, as was I. To watch them cuddle their mother's muzzle would move even the most cold-hearted," Goldstein said.
"It is hard enough for mum to raise four of them, but when you consider what is happening to tigers elsewhere, these kittens have a decent chance of reaching adulthood," he added.
According to SWNS, the photographer is dedicated to conserving wildlife, especially tigers. In late May, he will run the Everest Marathon in Nepal in a tiger costume. This will be Goldstein's 20th time running a marathon in the outfit. He has raised hundreds of thousands for tiger conservation through these events.
"My charity campaign is called Worth More Alive, and they really are, which is why I will be running my final marathon in the rarefied air of Nepal on the 29th of this month, having trekked to basecamp," Goldstein said.
"A man in his late fifties running a marathon 5,500 meters up, in a tiger suit, what could possibly go wrong? However, during the tougher moments, I will certainly be thinking of this gorgeous one-parent family," he added.
Rescue Group Working to Save Dozens of Golden Retrievers and Corgis from Slaughter in China
Kelli Bender Tue, May 3, 2022
China Rescue Dogs is rushing to save a large group of canines from the slaughterhouse.
According to a release from the nonprofit, 46 adult golden retrievers, 22 corgis, and numerous golden retriever puppies are waiting in Shanghai, China, for a fresh start. The Shanghai Animal Rescue reached out to China Rescue Dogs for help after finding the canines at a breeding farm, which planned to sell the dogs to slaughterhouses and the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, per China Rescue Dogs.
"The living conditions at this dog breed farm are just awful," Jill Stewart, the president and founder of China Rescue Dogs, said. "It is heartbreaking that this breeder was going to just discard their entire inventory of dogs to be slaughtered. We had to do something. Doing nothing was not an option."
China Rescue Dogs started rescue efforts immediately after learning about the needy animals and has saved 29 golden retrievers and their puppies from the breeding farm. The dogs are resting and receiving vet care at a sanctuary where there is no risk of getting sent to the slaughterhouse.
The nonprofit is now focused on moving the farm's remaining dogs to safety. Once all of the golden retrievers and corgis are out of harm's way, China Rescue Dogs will start finding homes for the pets in the U.S.
China Rescue Dogs told PEOPLE that WeatherTech and the company's founder and CEO, David MacNeil, have played a pivotal part in helping these dogs find safety.
Those interested in learning more about China Rescue Dogs' Shanghai rescue effort can stay updated on the nonprofit's Facebook page and website.
BACK TO THE SEVENTIES
FOX NEWS
Brian Kilmeade Questions Why A Pregnant Woman Got An 'Important' Job
Josephine Harvey
Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade said he doesn’t understand why the government would give an important job to a pregnant woman.
On “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning, Kilmeade criticized the rollout of a new advisory board in the Homeland Security Department ― the Disinformation Governance Board ― which intends to counter the spread of Russian and other disinformation.
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who has managed programs for Russia and Belarus for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and advised the Ukrainian government, was appointed to lead the unit.
But for some reason, Kilmeade couldn’t understand why she was appointed.
“Then, we find out who is in charge of it ... Nina Jankowicz, who’s about eight-and-a-half-months pregnant, so I’m not sure how you get a job and then you just – you can’t do a job for three months,” he said.
“I’m not faulting her, but I don’t know why you would give someone a job that you think is so important.”
His co-host Ainsley Earhardt pushed back, asking, “How long has she had this job?”
“About two months, it looks like,” Kilmeade replied.
“Well, I’ll defend her on that one, Brian,” Earhardt said. “She has the right to have a baby and have maternity leave.”
It is illegal to discriminate based on pregnancy for any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, promotions and pay.
This is not the first time Kilmeade has attacked Jankowicz for getting a job while pregnant. “If you’re going to take over a brand new bureau, shouldn’t you not need maternity leave the first few weeks in?” he said last month.
Kilmeade has a history of making sexist remarks on air. In 2012, he said Fox News hires female hosts by checking the “Victoria’s Secret catalogue” and asking, “Can any of these people talk?” In 2020, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said: “I’m not getting into gender, but she is emotionally losing it in every public event.”
Karine Jean-Pierre to replace Jen Psaki, becoming first Black woman and openly gay White House press secretary
WASHINGTON — Karine Jean-Pierre will make history by becoming the first Black woman, and first openly LGBTQ person, to hold the job of White House press secretary, President Biden announced on Thursday afternoon.
“Jill and I have known and respected Karine a long time and she will be a strong voice speaking for me and this Administration,” the president said in a statement.
Jean-Pierre will replace Jen Psaki, who was originally expected to serve for only the first year of Biden’s term. New coronavirus variants and the war in Ukraine kept her in the job for several months beyond that self-imposed limit.
“She is passionate. She is smart and she has a moral core that makes her not just a great colleague, but an amazing Mom and human. Plus, she has a great sense of humor,” Psaki said in a tweet of Pierre, now her top deputy in the White House press shop.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (R) speaks flanked by current Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, May 5, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
"Representation matters. She will give a voice to so many, and show so many what is truly possible when you work hard and dream big. And that matters. And we should celebrate that," Psaki said at the White House briefing on Thursday, while also touting Jean-Pierre's resume. "But I also want to make clear what all of her qualifications are. ... She comes to this job with decades of experience."
Jean-Pierre will take over the podium at a crucial phase in the Biden presidency, with the congressional midterms nearing and a presidential reelection campaign looming.
During the 2020 presidential primary, Jean-Pierre worked for the campaign of then-Sen. Kamala Harris. She has been at the White House since the start of the Biden administration.
The 44-year-old daughter of Haitian immigrants will inherit a position that attracted intense scrutiny during the Trump administration. Psaki has tried to keep the White House briefings free of the kinds of dramatics that, during the Trump years, turned some journalists into celebrities.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, right, with deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in March. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Biden praised Psaki for “returning decency, respect and decorum to the White House Briefing Room.”
Some thought the job might go to White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, who filled in capably while Psaki was home with COVID-19 last month. The war in Ukraine also raised the profile of Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, and he was also rumored to be under consideration.
Biden also announced that Anita Dunn, a trusted adviser who last year returned to the private sector, was rejoining the White House.
Biden taps 1st Black woman, LGBT White House press secretary
ZEKE MILLER
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday named Karine Jean-Pierre to be the next White House press secretary, the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ person to serve in the role. Incumbent Jen Psaki is set to leave the post next week.
Biden is also bringing back longtime Democratic strategist Anita Dunn as his senior adviser. She had served in the Biden White House last year for several months after Biden was sworn into office.
“Karine not only brings the experience, talent and integrity needed for this difficult job, but she will continue to lead the way in communicating about the work of the Biden-Harris administration on behalf of the American people," Biden said in a statement praising Jean-Pierre, who has served as his principal deputy press secretary since Inauguration Day.
Psaki, who leaves the White House on May 13, praised her successor as a “partner in truth,” noting the significance of the history-making appointment.
“Representation matters and she is going to give a voice to so many and show so many what is truly possible when you work hard and dream big," Psaki said.
Taking the lectern briefly while Psaki briefed the press Thursday, Jean-Pierre said she was “still processing” the significance of her hire, calling it “an honor and privilege to be behind this podium."
“This is a historic moment, and it’s not lost on me," she said. “It's a very emotional day.”
Psaki said Biden offered the job to Jean-Pierre Thursday in the Oval Office. White House staffers were gathered after the offer and greeted Jean-Pierre with applause, an official said. Two “warm bottles” of champagne were procured for a toast in White House paper cups, the official added, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal gathering.
Jean-Pierre had occasionally taken the lectern in the press briefing room instead of Psaki and more frequently held off-camera “gaggles” with reporters when Biden was traveling on Air Force One. She traveled with Biden to Europe last fall and in March instead of Psaki, who had tested positive for COVID-19 before both trips.
Before joining the Biden presidential campaign, Jean-Pierre was the chief public affairs officer of the progressive group MoveOn.org and a former political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. She also worked in political affairs in the Obama White House and on his reelection campaign.
The press secretary is responsible for holding daily briefings with the news media and leading a department of more than a dozen staffers who help address queries from the press.
When she took the job, Psaki, who has two young children, said publicly she aimed to remain in the job for about a year. She is expected to join MSNBC later this year. She was expected to remain as the public face of the administration until her departure next Friday.
Biden said Psaki “has set the standard for returning decency, respect and decorum to the White House briefing room."
“I want to say thank you to Jen for raising the bar, communicating directly and truthfully to the American people, and keeping her sense of humor while doing so,” Biden said. "I thank Jen for her service to the country, and wish her the very best as she moves forward.”
Dunn is a partner at the Democratic consulting firm SKDK, and was a senior adviser on Biden's 2020 campaign and previously chief strategist and communications director for President Barack Obama. The White House said she is returning to “assist in advancing the President’s policy and communications objectives.”
Biden’s Team Eyes $125,000 Income
Cut-off for Student Loan Relief
Jennifer Jacobs and Justin Sink Tue, May 3, 2022,
(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden is considering limiting his program to relieve student debt to Americans earning less than $125,000, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
Biden said last week he would soon take executive action to forgive some student debt. White House officials have previously said the plan would relieve at least $10,000 of debt per borrower, and that they expected the program would include income restrictions.
Psaki offered $125,000 as a possible threshold in a briefing for reporters traveling with the president to a weapons plant in Alabama.
The president has been prodded by progressives including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren to forgive at least $50,000 per borrower, but Biden has said he won’t relieve that much debt by executive action. He proposed eliminating $10,000 per borrower during his presidential campaign.
The Biden administration has repeatedly extended a temporary freeze on student debt payments enacted shortly after the pandemic began in 2020.
White House aides have said the president hoped Congress would take legislative action on student debt relief, and that his team has been divided on the merits of broad forgiveness. Some deficit hawks have expressed concern that broad relief would worsen inflation already weighing heavily on Democrats’ political fortunes in November’s midterm elections.
As President Joe Biden mulls enacting some student loan forgiveness, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blasted him for even considering such a move.
“Student loan socialism would be a giant slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, to every graduate who paid their debt, to every worker who made a different career choice so they could stay debt-free,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Thursday.
The prominent Republican added that instead of “trying to help middle-class families, Democrats are cooking up massive bailouts for Ivy League graduates. You can hardly dream up something more unfair.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) participates in a Pop-Up Conversation with Punchbowl News at the AT&T Forum on March 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The president is reportedly considering forgiving at least $10,000 in federally-backed student debt for each borrower with income less than $125,000 or $150,000 as individual tax filers in the previous year (and double the amounts for couples filing taxes jointly).
McConnell argued that cancellation was a misguided policy with inflation pushing up household costs, noting that some American taxpayers who would be paying for the policy did not pursue higher education.
The longtime Republican leader also revisited a period of time in recent history when the president was reluctant to cancel debt via executive action.
“A little more than a year ago, President Biden was saying ‘I don’t think I have the authority to do it by signing with a pen,' McConnell stated, later adding: "But apparently, lackluster poll numbers have the president considering breaking the law and plowing ahead anyway.”
Then-Vice President Joe Biden and Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell make their way to the House floor for President Obama's State of the Union address on January 12, 2016. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
“Democrats want construction workers, police officers, and small business owners in Kentucky to effectively eat the student loans of surgeons, corporate lawyers, and people in New York City who chose to borrow $180,000 for a master’s from the Columbia Film School with no plan whatsoever for paying it back,” McConnell said, seemingly referring to a 2021 Wall Street Journal report that spotlighted the high cost of graduate degrees such as a master's in film from the Ivy League institution.
Biden changed his tune, telling reporters on April 28: "I am considering dealing with some debt reduction. I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction. But I’m in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there are going to — there will be additional debt forgiveness, and I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks."
Democratic lawmakers argue that canceling debt has much a more transformative effect than what Republicans believe.
"Democrats win when we deliver, and we have to deliver in ways that are impactful, tangible, and transformative, like canceling student debt," Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said in a Yahoo Finance Presents interview (video above). "This is good policy, and it is also good politics."
