User:Bob Burton

Bob Burton/Archived messages

Economics, Science and Communications Institute

Greetings, indeed the ECI is more of a policy research institute than a think tank. We're more of the legitimate kind as there is no actual external influence, not even funding. However since there is no such category, it felt appropriate to list it under think tank. I thought I had made a mistake last night and recreated it, you might want to go ahead and remove it. I added information about the origins of the institute (on the site, not the wiki), which might clear some questions.

Rich.

Critique

Hi, Thanks very much for the critique. It has been very helpful since I have no previous background as a writer.

I think I may split the issues out of the article and add to the appropriate places where already existing in peak oil and then add sections which I feel are needed, the history of past oil price spirals, regulatory actions, similar industry actions which impact prices, etc. I've already added one section concerning antitrust which I hope will highlight other reasons for the current price spiral rather than the 'cover' story of peak oil.

Thanks again, James Horn

Well, it's a start. Hope you like it. [1]

Started discussion on antitrust issues. [2]

Storms shutting down oil production is lie

You can bet that most of what this guy says is true: [http://www.rense.com/general67/PRICE.HTM Lies To Hike The Price Of Oil]. Unfortunately, there's no evidence, unless one wants to do a field trip to the GOM (Gulf of Mexico).

66.136.185.203 < This guy is definitely off his medication.

Gas Industry Maneuvering

[Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas] Just about everything here is a misdirection away from the real issues. After passage of EPA legislation to curtail industry (read power company) pollution, the industry dragged their heals on technology development for years and the technology that was finally developed has been having some serious problems in implementation having impact on the bottom line. This is probably the real basis behind the industry complaint of EPA regs. causing to much financial impact. While they were dragging their feet, the power industry turned to gas powered turbine peaking plants as a response to increased capacity demand and to decrease pollution per generated kilowatt/hour.

The result was a huge increase in natural gas demand by this industry which naturally drove up prices for everyone. The problem with this strategy is that it uses limited natural gas resources rather than plentiful coal resources. Also, the btu delivered by natural gas vs. a similar quantity of coal is much less. Only about 30% of the energy from either gas or coal is converted to electricity which is then delivered to households that use electrical heating with additional transmission losses. It would be much better to have the power industry use coal with pollution control technology to generate electricity and have natural gas delivered directly to homes for heating, thereby using the in excess of 90% conversion efficiencies of the gas to heat. A grade schooler can easily do the math on this.

stuff

Bob, in regards to the graphics file from a year ago, i think i came to it through a rss link to WH war protest graphic query, and then a jump from there to wherever i found it. It was probably my fault, not paying attention,

I wrote up a bit of research into Posse Comitatus Act several years ago (4or5, i think), the trick would be figuring out which CD archive I burned it on. If i run into anytime soon, i post the data over to you.

also, i've been doing my share of arguing other places, mostly in regards to my opposition to Roberts on what I believe to be constitutional construction, as well as a lot of Weldon critique. I'll see if I can't put some of the latter together for a S/W stub, something like Curt Weldon: Fable Arranger?. Weldon is a nightmare waitng to happen, even NRO has put on the moonsuit to separate themselves from him, and Ledeen writes for them. Look at what Podhoretz blogged. It's too bad the National Review no longer has morals. This stupidity would be over if they were willing to keep the high ground.

A few days ago i messaged a journalist of The Scotsman, hard and low, asking if if it was spin or was he spun. He had cited a FPRI major Radu, and it offended me. To his credit, he responded. Might turn out to be a decent contact.

recently, i did a bit of research into a WorldNetDaily ad for a book that masqueraded as an article, and after tracking the references came up with term, circlejerking citations. They even cite a Commentary Jornal piece. It would be tough to be more NeoConniving than supporting a NeoCon book by citing one of the obscure journals that was CIA funded, and helped feed the NeoCons during the 50' and 60's The book marketed in this evil fashion is ironically titled "The Marketing of Evil". Nasty bit of work it is indeed, and i didn't make any new friends on the conservative board where i was playing either.

--Hugh Manatee 05:37, 27 Sep 2005 (EDT)

See main newslinks. [3]

CSR & AIG

Hi,

Saw your article on CSR and it reminded me of some news I'd seen concerning AIG. Seems they're having a bit of difficulty in the CSR area. Then lo and behold they have a class action against them concerning Katrina. I think you'll get a laugh out of the first story.

Fortune: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,368676,00.html Financial Times: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fca1b31c-369d-11da-bedc-00000e2511c8,_i_rssPage=9d5b9ebe-c8bc-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html Also - http://www.nysscpa.org/home/2005/1005/1week/article94.htm Delaware Online: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051007/BUSINESS/510070351/1003/NEWS Business Insurance: http://www.businessinsurance.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=6482 PR Newswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-07-2005/0004163844&EDATE= Grand Island Independent: http://ap.theindependent.com/pstories/state/ne/20051007/3344770.shtml SFGov: http://www.sfgov.org/site/cityattorney_page.asp?id=31882 San Diego Source: http://www.transcript.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=10&SourceCode=20051007tbc Hurricane Katrina Suit: http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54736

Most of the above thnx to AIG search on Topix.net: http://www.topix.net/search/?q=AIG&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

JH

odd data someone might want

Bob,

I just ran into this, but I don't know who might be interested in it. I thought maybe you would know if it was within anyone's research field of vision:

Hoping to limit winery-consumer shipments, distributors go on contribution spree, WWMT-TV, Kalamazoo, MI, October 25, 2005

LANSING (AP) - A powerful group representing Michigan beer and wine distributors spent nearly $50,000 on campaign contributions to prevent wineries from shipping directly to Michigan customers.

New campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State's office show the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association's political action committee contributed to Governor Granholm and lawmakers from both parties between July and October.

Lawmakers are considering bills that would change the state's wine shipment law.

The Supreme Court ruled in May that Michigan's law discriminates against out-of-state wineries by banning them from shipping directly to consumers.

The wholesalers group represents the middlemen who buy from wine makers and sell to licensed retailers.

Some highlights of the campaign finance report:

• Governor Granholm, a Democrat, received $5,000
• Campaign committees for the House Democrats and Republicans took in $3,000
• Senate Democrats received $2,500
• Representative Chris Ward - a Brighton Republican who introduced a bill banning all wine shipments from wineries - received $2,000

--Hugh Manatee 19:50, 25 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Sorry Bob, I missed out a word in the Sherwood piece, I’ve corrected that. Also I was a little untidy with the Colombe Foundation. Apologies. I feel I have improved my understanding of how to use all the functions but am still on a learning curve! I'm also trying to look and add at a variety of different issues. --Ben Malcom

Hill and Knowlton affiliate

I don't know if you have a use for this, but I caught it browsing some Press Releases:

Resource Communications

from PR web

Contact name: Aman Gupta
Address: 5/30, Jangpura B
New Delhi, New Delhi 110014 India
Phone: 91 11 4317045
Fax: 91 11 4321031
E-Mail: amangu AT hotmail.com
Website: www.resourcepr.com

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Resource is India's first PR firm specialising into life sciences and life products sector or in more broader terms healthcare.

Formed in year 2000, the year of Genome, it has evolved as India's premier communications advisory.

With team of proffessionals from background in healthcare, pharmceuticals, journolism, business management, etc. and a network that spans India ( 11 offices), it offers the complete pan-Indian appraoch to each client.

Resource communications, with its affliation with Hill & Knowlton also offers, global PR to companies in India and also work with global companies in India.

--Hugh Manatee 18:53, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Pajamas Media

Bob, I swiped Hugh's data dump on Pajamas Media (guess great minds sorta think alike) off your talk page and started the article .. didn't want to duplicate. Hope you don't mind ... Artificial Intelligence 10:54, 30 Oct 2005 (EST)

---

thanks

thanks Bob, i did refrain from any references to the Chemical light stick of GOP enlightenment...

also, I noticce AI did a stub for Pajamas Media. I am dumping the following on her talk page also.

the concept of grouping blog together into a money making co-opt is fairly new, but there are prior instances:

some blog co-opts

• TPM Cafe - just started monitoring them. They have some noteworthy posters.
• Gawker Media - Wonkette's parent - da bosses blog
• liberal blog advertising network
• The Liberal Prose

The TPM Cafe has impressed me with their ability to hit fast on news items. I load them up in my RSS reader often. I just ran into them about two weeks ago.

Also, if you don't have an RSS reader you are satisfied with, I am using RSS Owl presently, an am pretty happy with it. It's a sourceforge hosted open-source project, free for the taking, but you need current java runtimes for smooth sailing with it. I can dump a few opml files (properly coded links to be read by RSS readers) to you if you are looking for some RSS links too.

--Hugh Manatee 00:13, 31 Oct 2005 (EST)

RSS Reader

Bob, if you have up to date java executables, download RSS Owl, let me know, and I'll upload some link files for for newsites and the few blogs that I've collected so far. It even uses IE as an internal browser. self-contained, but if you have a good deal of ram, you can load links outside of program in browser of choice. It's an easy prog to operate, but I haven't even used it to aggregate yet.

Once the site data is loaded, it's almost self-explanatory for general usage.

RSS isn't well utilized yet by all major papers, but it's coming into more common usage day by day.

Major Toledo Blade Series

"BushFundRaisersReapMillions.html Bush fund-raisers reap millions in contracts, corporate subsidies", The Toledo Blade, October 30, 2005

Sorry if you've heard of it. The Blade is known for some powerful stories now and then. This is the first day of a four day series. The above link is an intro to four stories published on the 30th.

AP Wire tossed out a teaser on it too:

The Associated Press, "Report: Bush fundraisers got $1.2 billion in public funds", Clevland Plain Dealer, October 30, 2005

--Hugh Manatee 07:23, 31 Oct 2005 (EST)

in re the TolBlade story, your welcome Bob, and if interested, I am probably going to archive all of them into one self-contained dynamic page, sort of like BCCI financial time series i did, if you ever downloaded it.

Thanks Bob - Appreciate the material you sent over. They are group that require more research, particularly with their close connections to members of the Labour Party. I would like to do more on DNA Bioscience. -- Ben Malcom

Notwithstanding...

Please see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Talk:United_States_used_chemical_weapons_in_Iraq.

The Iraqi's were quick to claim war crimes during the earlier periods of the war which was nothing more than propaganda intended to turn world opinion to their favor, regardless what our excuse was to enter the war.

JH

hi

Hi Bob, I've dropped you a line. Cheers, Neoconned 22:20, 24 Nov 2005 (EST)

---

Re

Hi AI, was just trying to find if there was a SW article on how the media has covered the war in Iraq to copy some Spin of the Day material across -- can't see anything that fits. (there pages on govt propaganda/disinformation etc not not specifically on how the media have covered the war). Is there a page on the topic that I'm missing? cheers --Bob Burton 15:35, 25 Nov 2005 (EST)

Funny that you should ask, as it has come to mind several times that we don't have an article for that.

Rather than dupe original post across to your page thought I might as well respond here and delete when done. Yes, there was I thinking it must be in there somewhere just I couldn't find it.

How about: media coverage of the war in Iraq? :-)

How about a slight tweak How the media covered the war in Iraq - to avoid it becoming just a listing of media coverage -- what I was looking to post across from Spin of the Day was one comparing media coverage in Vietnam with Iraq and how governments have shaped the coverage.

• Judd, "Fox News Host Chris Wallace Claims Bush “Never” Linked Saddam and al-Qaeda," Think Progress, November 27, 2005.

• Note: You'll need a whole separate category just for Fox. Artificial Intelligence 10:23, 28 Nov 2005 (EST)

BTW .. did you notice the flip-flop on Pajamas Media?

Just had a look -- all the twists and turns of a new and apparantly unstable venture. Be interesting to see how it plays out. --Bob Burton 17:49, 25 Nov 2005 (EST)

Artificial Intelligence 16:37, 25 Nov 2005 (EST)

---

Christian Bailey ref: many details, unchecked

• corrente blog June 13, 2005

--Hugh Manatee 06:04, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

---

Pfeiffer

It seems we may have had a visit from Mr. Pfeiffer. [4]

Also appears from his blog that he has had a falling out with Mr. Mike Ruppert of FTW [5] and has edited the above to reflect this fact. Should the article now say "He was a contributing editor for Michael C. Ruppert's From The Wilderness? In any event, the link to Ruppert is now gone. You may wish to revert the whole edit..

I'd like to hear your thoughts for future reference.

Thanks, JH

possible document for archives

Coalition Provisional Authority "Industry Day" Event Crystal City, Virginia, November 19, 2003

MS Excel spreadsheet - 222kb

Corporation Names - representatives - addresses

maybe a good resource for researching

--Hugh Manatee 19:44, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

---

Suggestion:

Bob, How about dumping the Bob Woodward story on SW page and bringing in the fake news/Lincoln Corp stuff? :-) Artificial Intelligence 04:59, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

--- Agree - will go do now - meant to do it this morning. cheers bob

Ignacio Balderas--Memo 17

Hi Bob... I don't know what happened to those pages. They were links to IPOA so they must have dropped that address, and along with it the pdfs of those letters. I deleted it for now because the links are bad and nothing is showing up in google. However, I have a copy of the pdf. Is there any way to upload it? Cheers -Spacegrit 12/08/05 16:09 (PDT)

Thanks. I didn't know you could do that. -Spacegrit 12/9/05 13:46 (PDT)

Concerns about Ibrahim El-Hibri

Hi Bob,

I'd like to flag up the article on Ibrahim El-Hibri for review and possible deletion. It's fascinating reading, but there are absolutely no references and very few external links.

--Neoconned 07:46, 13 Dec 2005 (EST)

email

Hi Bob,

Should be on the way. -Spacegrit