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Archive for the ‘New York Times’ Category

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 15th, 2008

New York Times:

The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly inexorable rise in food prices.

NYT poll: Weak economy sours public on future

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 3rd, 2008

I guess sometimes you need a pole to tell you what you already know:

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed that “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2003.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

No kidding!

USA 2008: The Great Depression

Posted by Charlie Kilo on March 31st, 2008

The Independent, one of the UK’s largest papers, has declared that the United States is in a “depression”! They report:

Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country’s economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story.

The story also reports a 5% increase in unemployment in March. The plot thickens…

Update. Here’s additional coverage from the New York Times: As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record

New York City attempts “overly broad’ subpoena in text messaging case

Posted by Charlie Kilo on March 30th, 2008

From Valleywag:

In representing the New York Police Department, which is facing charges that officers improperly detained hundreds protestors during the 2004 Republican convention, the New York City Law Department has subpoenaed MIT doctoral candidate Tad Hirsch, creator of TxtMob, demanding he turn over the time, content, and identity of people who sent and received SMS messages through the service. Hirsch says most of the data is gone, and his lawyer argues the subpoena is overly broad.

Text messages have become a favorite tool of direct action organizers worldwide, because they make it easy to quickly disseminate information to large groups and can be read and written even while sirens wail or helicopters make low passes. The NYPD was aware of the service at least a month before the convention, according to secret internal documents revealed last year by the court. Why not just ask the NSA to turn over their archives from the event? That seems easier.

Here’s detailed coverage from the New York Times.

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