Daily Archives: May 4, 2013

05/4/13

Weekly Featured Profile – Joseph Stiglitz

KeyWiki.org

Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz is Professor of Economics at Columbia University, New York. He is also a member of the Committee on Global Thought and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Initiative for Political Dialogue at Columbia.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his analysis of markets with asymmetric information and is a former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank.

Stiglitz has served as an economic adviser to President Barack Obama and his 2003 book, “The Roaring Nineties,” was described by Bloomberg News as “a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s blueprint to reshape the U.S. economy.”

Stiglitz mentored several members of Obama’s economic team, including Budget Director Peter Orszag and Jason Furman, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

In 2009, Joseph Stiglitz served on the Board of Sponsors of the far left Federation of American Scientists.

On September 23, 2008, the Socialist International Presidium adopted a statement on “the Global Financial Crisis and the G20 Pittsburgh Summit.” In addressing the current phase of the global financial crisis and the upcoming G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, the Presidium received a report on the work of the SI Commission on Global Financial Issues which had held its most recent meeting in New York two days before on 21 September, under the Chairmanship of Professor Stiglitz.

Strengthening automatic stabilizers through the enhancement of social protections and increasing the progressivity of the tax structure would contribute both to the stability of the economic system and a broader sense of social justice and solidarity.

Stiglitz is also involved in the ‘Initiative for Policy Dialogue,’ a globalist group funded by leftist financial trader George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The Fundacion Ideas, or IDEAS Foundation for Progress, was created during the 37th Federal Congress of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party in 2008 to establish a “think-tank with the capacity to bring novel progressive ideas to the arena of political and social debate in an ever changing world.”

American members of the Fundacion Ideas Scientific Committee include Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, George Lakoff, Jeremy Rifkin and Pippa Norris.

(more…)

05/4/13

Saul Alinsky and the Gang of Eight

AskMarion

Exactly who will benefit from the “immigration integration” in the Schumer-Rubio bill?

Immigration reform rally in Los Angeles, May 1, 2013.

National Review Online: At the press conference introducing their bill, the Gang of Eight evoked the spirit of Ted Kennedy. But the 24 pages of the 844-page bill (pages 370–94) dealing with “immigrant integration” stand as a rousing tribute to Saul Alinsky. If this bill becomes law, you can be sure, as night follows day, that federal dollars will pour into radical left-wing activist groups to promote “immigrant integration.”

On the surface, the bill’s provisions to “integrate” newcomers appear reasonable enough. Various projects are established to foster the “linguistic, economic, and civic integration of immigrants.” A public-private partnership is created; a pilot project is launched to provide funds to states, localities, and nonprofit organizations; and grants are awarded for the purpose of assisting “aliens who are preparing an initial application for registered provisional immigrant status” (i.e., legalization) and “legal permanent residents seeking to become naturalized United States Citizens.”

How will the “immigrant integration” section of the Schumer-Rubio bill work in practice? Let us examine how “immigrant integration” currently works in two states: Illinois and Maryland.

Illinois:

The State of Illinois established a Governor’s Office of New Americans (GONA) in 2006. The director of GONA declared, “Immigrant integration in the State of Illinois is made possible through our Strategic partnerships with community based organizations, local governments,” and various state agencies. GONA’s website specifically highlighted that its “strategic partnership” with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) receives “national recognition.” The ICIRR will undoubtedly become a major beneficiary of the Schumer-Rubio proposal.

The major figure behind the ICIRR is longtime radical activist Joshua Hoyt. Stanley Kurtz in his powerful exposé Radical-in-Chief noted that Hoyt collaborated with Barak Obama and former terrorist Bill Ayers on issues related to the Woods Fund of Chicago, as it dispensed funds to radical groups such as ACORN. Hoyt was associated with the original Saul Alinsky front group, the Industrial Areas Foundation. Under Hoyt’s leadership, the ICIRR led successful campaigns to gain state support for illegal immigrants’ access to in-state college tuition, preschool, and health benefits, and secured recognition for foreign-consular (matricula consular) identity cards. Hoyt and ICIRR also supported Islamic groups that were resisting law-enforcement examinations of suspicious Muslim charities, and they worked with others to pass an Illinois law mandating that detainees for immigration violations have access to “religious counseling” (often from radical imams.)

On July 8, 2012, the ICIRR hosted “Electoral Organizing training designed for people who are planning to run electoral or issue campaigns in 2012.” Participating in the ICIRR’s electoral training was a close ally (listed on the ICIRR letterhead as an affiliated organization): the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC). This group works closely with the Islamist (and Muslim Brotherhood–aligned) Islamic Council of North America. The CIOGC, along with the ICIRR, as well as the radical Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is another official “strategic partner” of the Governor’s Office of New Americans, will clearly play important roles in any “immigrant integration” in Illinois.

Maryland:

At the center of immigrant integration is CASA de Maryland (originally Central American Solidarity Association) and its executive director, Gustavo Torres. CASA has tremendous influence in state politics both with the legislature and with Governor Martin O’Malley. Torres was co-chair of O’Malley’s transition team. He is a key member of the Maryland Council for New Americans, which advises O’Malley, and he chairs its working group on citizenship issues.

Torres left his native Colombia to support the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in the 1980s. According to the Washington Post, he was a Sandinista journalist who met his first wife, an American Sandinista sympathizer and “advocate for reproductive health,” in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas, it is worth remembering, were officially Marxist-Leninists — that is to say, Communists. In other words, during the Cold War struggle against Communism, Gustavo Torres of CASA de Maryland was not on the side of the free world, and he continues to this day to be a critic of Reagan’s anti-Communist policies.

Torres became executive director of CASA in 1993 and a U.S. citizen in 1995. In 2007 he spoke at a Chávez-funded conference in Venezuela on “revolution” in Latin America. Shortly thereafter, from 2008 to 2010, CASA received $1.5 million in funding from the Chávez regime. Besides Chávez, CASA’s funders include the Maryland state government, the U.S. government, the Ford Foundation, and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

CASA’s major activities consist of opposing federal, state, and local enforcement of immigration laws. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.) has charged CASA with “aiding and abetting criminal activity” by teaching illegal immigrants “how to circumvent the law.” On May Day in 2008, CASA organized a demonstration that included contingents from the American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party. Not surprisingly, CASA and Torres are strong supporters of the “Cuban Five,” five Castro spies convicted by the American government, whose cause has become trendy for the international Left.

We can be sure that “immigrant integration” will work in the Senate bill the same way it currently works in the states. The left-wing groups that will benefit from the “Alinsky” section of the Schumer-Rubio bill include the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Service Employees International Union, La Raza, the Asian Law Caucus, the National Immigration Law Center, CASA, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, and various organizations supported by Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood. National Review readers have been alerted to the activities of these groups particularly through the writings of Stanley Kurtz, as well as David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, co-authors of The New Leviathan.

As Lenin used to say, Cui bono? Who benefits? So who benefits from pages 370–94 of the Schumer-Rubio bill? Schumer knows. Does Rubio?

— John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is the author of Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others?

05/4/13

New Wyoming Lithium Deposit could Meet all U.S. Demand

By: John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

The U.S. currently imports more than 80% of the lithium it uses, with the silvery metal winding up in batteries from cell phones to electric cars.

According to a United States Geological Survey publication on lithium, “The only commercially active lithium mine in the United States was a brine ope ration in Nevada. The mine’s production capacity was expanded in 2012, and a new lithium hydroxide plant opened in North Carolina. Two companies produced a large array of downstream lithium compounds in the United States from domestic or South American lithium carbonate, lithium chloride, and lithium hydroxide. A U.S. recycling company produced a small quantity of lithium carbonate from solutions recovered during the recycling of lithium ion batteries.”

The bad news?

Last year virtually all of the major brine and mineral-based lithium producers increased their prices, which in turn has spurred prospecting. In the U.S. exploration has been largely centered in Nevada, but the growing worldwide market for lithium has also spurred exploration in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia and Canada.

And now, the good news.

University of Wyoming researchers found the lithium while studying the idea of storing carbon dioxide under ground in the Rock Springs Uplift, a geologic formation in southwest Wyoming. University of Wyoming Carbon Management Institute director Ron Surdam stated that the lithium was found in underground brine. Surdam estimated the located deposit at roughly 228,000 tons in a 25-square-mile area. Extrapolating the data, Surdam said as the uplift covered roughly 2,000 square miles, there could be up to 18 million tons of lithium there, worth up to roughly $500 billion at current market prices.

As a yardstick, the lithium reserves at Silver Peak, Nevada, the largest domestic producer of lithium total 118,000 tons in a 20-square-mile area. The University of Wyoming stated that in a best-case scenario, the Rock Springs Uplift’s 18 million tons of potential lithium reserves is equivalent to roughly 720 years of current global lithium production. UW researchers suggest that the lithium mining could be part of a carbon dioxide sequestration operation, since the lithium-bearing brine must be pumped to the surface from the underground rock formation to extract the lithium, creating space to store the CO2 in its place. Surdam highlighted the economic advantages to the combined lithium-CO2 storage operation, commenting, “You get paid to put the carbon in the subsurface and that’ll pay for the wells to remove the lithium.”

Carbon Management Institute senior hydrogeologist Scott Quillinan said, “Due to their high salinity, brines from the CO2 storage reservoirs would have to be pumped to the surface and treated – often an expensive process. Recovering and marketing lithium from the brines would produce significant revenue to offset the cost of brine production, treatment and CO2 storage operations .”

Several fortunate factors converge to make the lithium- CO2 storage reservoir concept more than merely feasible. While lithium production from brines requires sodium carbonate (soda ash), transporting soda ash to lithium production facilities is often a significant expense the Rock Springs Uplift CO2 storage site is located 20-30 miles of the world’s largest industrial soda ash supplies, so costs of soda ash delivery would be minor. While magnesium must be removed from brines before they can be used for lithium recovery, the Rock Springs Uplift reservoirs contain much less magnesium than brines at existing, currently profitable lithium mining operations. While brines must be heated and pressurized before lithium can be extracted, the Rock Springs Uplift brines lie so far underground, they are already at a higher pressure and temperature than brines at existing lithium operations, allowing any potential operators largely eliminate the step, furt her lessening costs. Finally, the treated water resulting from the recovery process could benefit local communities, agriculture and industry.

It will be interesting to see if any investment entities step up to the plate on this.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/New-Wyoming-Lithium-Deposit-could-Meet-all-U.S.-Demand.html

By: John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

05/4/13

Beware of Sugar Coated Sharia!

By: Aeneas Lavinium
ICLA

The practice of sugar coating sharia seems to be very fashionable activity in early 21st century society. There appears to be no shortage of Muslims and non-Muslims alike who claim that sharia is not this or that and that those who say otherwise are somehow ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’.

Such people must rely on the gullibility and laziness of the general public because the true nature of sharia can be quickly and easily confirmed by referring to the classic manual of sharia law – Reliance of the Traveller (1).

An article at Policymic.com entitled “Sharia Law is Not What You Think It Is” (2) illustrates the point. This article makes claims that sharia law applies only on Muslims and that barbaric punishments are not really part of it.

The article (2) brazenly claims:

“It is not meant to convert people to live culturally like Muslims: Sharia law only ever applies to Muslims.”

Reliance of the Traveller states:

“….non-Muslim subjects are obliged to comply with Islamic rules that pertain to the safety and indemnity of life, reputation, and property. In addition they…. (4) must keep to the side of the street, (5) may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims’ buildings…. (6) are forbidden to openly display wine or pork, (A: to ring church bells or display crosses,) recite Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays; (7) and are forbidden to build new churches.” (Reliance of the Traveller, o11.5, p608).

“If non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state refuse to conform to the rules of Islam, or to pay the non-Muslim poll tax, then their agreement with the state has been violated” (Reliance of the Traveller, o11.9, p609).

So much for sharia law not applying to non-Muslims. Non-Muslims must make their buildings lower than those of Muslims, they are not allowed to build new Churches, they have to pay protection money to be tolerated by the state, etc. As for barbaric punishments the article (2) makes the claim that such punishments are not part of sharia as follows:

“It is not a primitive system of eye-for-an-eye justice: Muslims do not support severe punishments (like cutting off a hand to punish theft) as accurate interpretations of sharia law.”

Reliance of the Traveller appears to contradict this claim and with regard to the punishment for theft it states:

“A person’s right hand is amputated, whether he is a Muslim, non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state, or someone who has left Islam….” (Reliance of the Traveller o16.3, p613).

With regard to the punishment that you could expect for the heinous crime of drinking alcohol it states:

“The penalty for drinking is to be scourged forty stripes, with hands, sandals, and ends of clothes. It may be administered with a whip, but if the offender dies, and indemnity (def: o4.4) is due (A: from the scourge) for his death….” (Reliance of the Traveller o16.3, p617).

So much for the sugar coating sharia. It clearly applies to non-Muslims and it clearly includes barbaric punishments. Sharia clearly is not something that respects human rights whatever sharia’s apologists may grandly claim.

(1) Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law

(2) Sharia Law is Not What You Think It Is (Policymic.com)