A Goldman Sachs report released Tuesday suggested that the price of crude oil could reach as high as $150 to $200 a barrel.

While the high price of oil has kept demand limited in the U.S., demand in developing counties such as India and China has been surging, supporting the spiking price of crude.

China had a very cold winter, and so the United States exported a lot of distillate oil, which is used to make home heating fuel and diesel fuel, to the region.

"This is truly a global market," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago, who said the U.S. also exported heating oil to Japan and Europe.

For oil to hit $150 a barrel, "demand would have to continue as it is abroad," said Lebow.

money.cnn.com/2008/05/09/...oil_records/

I really think most people in the USA does not realize what this means to the poorest countries.

The effect of the credit crisis in the United States is reducing people's disposable incomes and you'd expect this to have an impact on the oil price, but it's not having any impact.

Collectively, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC earned $36.9 billion in the first quarter, a 25 percent increase from last year.

... delinquency notices, auctions sale notices and bank repossessions - were up 112% during the first three months of 2008 compared with the same period a year ago. Community advocates and policy makers are worried that the problem will worsen as the interest rates on as many as 1.8 million mortgages reset this year.

Because of price drops, many of the borrowers are now "upside-down," meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. Many of the owners had counted on the idea that their home values would continue to soar, increasing their home equity, which they could then tap to pay their bills. Now, they can't afford to pay off their mortgages and they have no assets to rely on.

156,000 families lost their homes during the first three months of the year

So many people argued with me that this would never happen

www.youtube.com/watch

manu chao

About 31,000 people who are not American citizens are held in detention in a patchwork of county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities while the government decides whether to deport them.

Getting details about those who die in custody is a difficult undertaking left to family members, advocacy groups and lawyers.

As the immigration detention system has ballooned to meet demands for stricter enforcement of immigration laws, Congress has listened to complaints about the secrecy and confusion surrounding deaths in custody. In January 2008, the House passed a bill that would reward states that require jails to report all deaths. But the bill is stalled in the Senate, and even if it becomes law, it will not cover deaths in federal facilities.

In 1858, Benito Juárez was elected President of the United States of Mexico to defend the Mexican Constitution established on February 5th, 1857. After much internal struggle, Juárez was re-elected in 1861. Because of financial instability, mainly due to the Mexican-American war, the Mexican Congress suspended foreign debt repayment for two years.

The creditors in Europe (England, Spain and France) decided intervention was needed to collect the debts.

France had its own agenda. France wanted to dispose of the Mexican Constitutional Government and set up a monarchy favorable to France. Napoleon III, Emperor of the Second French Empire had grandiose plans to impose a monarchical government upon the nations of Central and South America. This was to provide raw materials and trade for the European nations as well as check the growing power of the US Republic following the annexation of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

France's designs were formented and abetted by the plutocratic and conservative land owners of Mexico who feared loss of land and political power to the newly elected constitutional government of Benito Juárez. On December 8th, 1861 the European powers landed and occupied Veracruz, Spain arrived first. By April 11, 1862 after realizing France's intent, England and Spain withdrew their support.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City, President Juárez (a full blooded Zapotec Indian, and a lawyer who had studied to become a priest), was taking countermeasures: "There is no help in defense but I can assure you... the Imperial Government will not succeed in subduing the Mexicans, and its armies will not have a single day of peace... we must stop them, not only for our country but for the respect of the sovereignty of the nations"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo

www.youtube.com/watch


Manu Chao

Some important information regarding the economy stimulus checks, Your Tax Rebate:

The federal government is sending to each and everyone of us a $600 rebate. However, if we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.

If we purchase a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala.

If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan...and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to buy prostitutes, weed, beer, and tattoos since these are the only products still produced in the USA.

Thank you for your help & please support the USA.

Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD has died.
He was 102 years old.

"“Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom. I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.”

"In old times, and also in our time among the Indian tribes, psychedelic substances were considered sacred and they were used with the right attitude and in a ritual and spiritual context. And what a difference if we compare it with the careless and irresponsible use of LSD in the streets and in the discotheques of New York City and everywhere in the West. It is a tragic misunderstanding of the nature and the meaning of these kinds of substances.”

“It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity.”

“It was an April day and I went out into the garden and it had been raining during the night. I had the feeling that I saw the earth and the beauty of nature as it had been when it was created, at the first day of creation. It was a beautiful experience! I was reborn, seeing nature in quite a new light.”

“They do not know very good Latin, these botanists.”

“At the beginning of the 1960s, here in the United States, LSD became a drug of abuse. In a short time, this wave of popular use swept the country and it became drug number one. It was then used incautiously and people were not prepared and informed about its deep effects. And then all kinds of things happened, which caused LSD to become an infamous drug. It was a troublesome time! Telephones, panic, and alarm!”

“I thought I would increase very cautiously the quantity of LSD in subsequent experiments to see if any of the dosages were active. It turned out that when I ingested this quarter of a milligram, I had taken a very strong, a very high dosage of a very, very active compound. I got into a strange state of consciousness.”

“This is a wonderful birthday party we are having. One could say it is a consciousness-expanding experience without LSD.”

“Before LSD got onto the streets (in the 1960s), we were able to gather a lot of therapeutic experiences. The substance was used in the psychoanalysis of patients who couldn't be talked to.”


“I had wonderful visions. I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream. What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared.”

“After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt quite fresh, like a newborn.”

“I knew immediately that this drug would have importance for psychiatry but, at that time, I would never have believed that this substance could be used in the drug scene, just for pleasure. For me it was a deep and mystical experience and not just an everyday pleasurable one. I never had the idea that it could be used as a pleasure drug.”

“What began as a miracle substance subsequently became a youth cult drug, and thus a political danger for America. The decision of the U.S. to ban LSD was purely political. Every doctor has controlled access to heroin, morphine and even strychnine. But for LSD there's a total prohibition.”


“ I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be. ”


—Albert Hofmann

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa may not be long for this world, both in a political sense and in genuine life-or-death sense. He recently fired his defense minister, army chief of intelligence, and commanders of the army, air force, and joint chiefs.

Why might those firings cost Correa his job or even his life? Because the reason he fired them was that Ecuador’s intelligence systems were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the CIA.” As other rulers around the world, including democratically elected ones, have learned the hard way, bucking the CIA is a real no-no that sometimes leads to coups and assassinations.

What’s the CIA doing infiltrating Ecuador’s military intelligence systems? Good question! Maybe it’s because the CIA still fears the threat of communism. Don’t forget that that was the apparent rationale for the U.S. government’s support of Operation Condor, the campaign of assassination and torture co-sponsored by the brutal regimes in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru during the 1970s. Don’t forget also that many of the brutal military personnel in those regimes received their training at the U.S. Army’s infamous School of the Americas, famous for, among other things, its torture manuals.

To make matters worse for Correa, he promises to throw the U.S. military out of his country when the U.S. government’s lease at its base in Manta expires in 2009. The U.S. government spent $60 million to build the base in 1999, securing a 10-year lease that provided no rent to be paid to Ecuador.

www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-04-22.asp