DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
Monday, December 08, 2014
Why Gasoline Prices Are Down — And How to Keep It That Way
If you’re like most Americans, you haven’t been questioning the welcome drop in gasoline prices. You just fill ’er up and feel grateful that you’re spending less.
But why has this remarkable drop come about? And what can we do to help keep prices lower?
Some of it, unfortunately, is beyond our control. Worldwide demand for oil is down now. That always causes the cost of gasoline to drop.
But the other side of the equation -- the part that is under our control -- has gone largely unheralded in many media accounts: the boom in U.S. energy production. Simply put, we’re producing much more energy domestically these days, and that is, predictably enough, pushing prices downward.
Since 2008, we’ve increased our domestic supply of oil by 50 percent. Thanks to technological breakthroughs such as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling, we’re able to find and extract far more oil than we possibly could have years ago.
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But why has this remarkable drop come about? And what can we do to help keep prices lower?
Some of it, unfortunately, is beyond our control. Worldwide demand for oil is down now. That always causes the cost of gasoline to drop.
But the other side of the equation -- the part that is under our control -- has gone largely unheralded in many media accounts: the boom in U.S. energy production. Simply put, we’re producing much more energy domestically these days, and that is, predictably enough, pushing prices downward.
Since 2008, we’ve increased our domestic supply of oil by 50 percent. Thanks to technological breakthroughs such as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling, we’re able to find and extract far more oil than we possibly could have years ago.
More
Pharrell and 'Frozen' Top iTunes' Year-End List, Beyonce Named Best Artist
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Frozen is the top-selling movie and the third season of HBO's Game of Thrones is the top TV show.
pple also released its own editorial list, naming Beyonce best artist, Swift's 1989top album and Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" collab with Charli XCX as best song of the year. Not surprisingly, breakout singer Sam Smith was named best new artist.
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USA Today is calling it quits on its weekend magazine, Layoffs Expected
USA Today is calling it quits on its weekend magazine, USA Today president and publisher Larry Kramer announced in a memo to staffers Friday. USA Weekend, which is currently the nation's second-largest news magazine, will print its final issue on Dec. 28.
The closure will reportedly result in approximately 30 layoffs for staffers, though the exact number is not yet confirmed.
The company underwent significant layoffs in September, cutting some 70 jobsfollowing news that the paper's owner, Gannett, would spin off and separate its publishing business from its broadcasting and digital entity. In 2011, the company underwent an even greater overhaul, cutting about 9 percent of employees, in an effort to focus on its digital strategy.
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The closure will reportedly result in approximately 30 layoffs for staffers, though the exact number is not yet confirmed.
The company underwent significant layoffs in September, cutting some 70 jobsfollowing news that the paper's owner, Gannett, would spin off and separate its publishing business from its broadcasting and digital entity. In 2011, the company underwent an even greater overhaul, cutting about 9 percent of employees, in an effort to focus on its digital strategy.
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Eric Garner’s widow denies race was chokehold motive
The chokehold death of Eric Garner in NYPD custody wasn’t “a black-and-white thing,” his widow said Sunday — a stunning admission that breaks sharply from lawmakers and protesters who have seized on the racial aspect of the case.
Esaw Snipes said she believed her husband was “murdered unjustly,” but said skin color wasn’t a factor behind his fatal arrest for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island last summer.
The statement flies in the face of demands by Snipes and others — including the Rev. Al Sharpton — for the civil rights investigation announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder last week.
“I don’t even feel like it’s a black-and-white thing, honestly, you know, in my opinion,” Snipes told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I really don’t feel like it’s a black-and-white thing. I feel like it’s just something that he continued to do and the police knew. You know, they knew.”
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Esaw Snipes said she believed her husband was “murdered unjustly,” but said skin color wasn’t a factor behind his fatal arrest for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island last summer.
The statement flies in the face of demands by Snipes and others — including the Rev. Al Sharpton — for the civil rights investigation announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder last week.
“I don’t even feel like it’s a black-and-white thing, honestly, you know, in my opinion,” Snipes told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I really don’t feel like it’s a black-and-white thing. I feel like it’s just something that he continued to do and the police knew. You know, they knew.”
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Quiz: So You Think You Know Christmas Carol Lyrics?
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More Jobs Created, But Not All Jobs are Equal
The economy may be creating more jobs; but not enough of the kinds of jobs that make ends meet. Here's a look at one Texas city where salaries are not keeping up.
WAXAHACHIE, Texas -- In Waxahachie, Texas, at her small roadside food stand, 47-year-old Kathy Jones told me she's been struggling for five years to raise herself above minimum wage.
Her high school education only got her fast food jobs. So now she works seven days a week at the food stand just to break even.
"Just doing the best I can right now to just let it stay afloat," she said. "Pretty much what I make, I put it right back out."
Restaurant owner Jonathan Evola pays his kitchen help up to $13 an hour, nearly twice the minimum wage in Texas but he can't keep pace with the cost of living, up 11 percent since 2008.
"My employees need more than what I'm even able to give them to pay their current bills," Evola said. "And I pay above average for what most of my industry people get paid."
"We are seeing a recovery, there are jobs out there," City Manager Paul Stevens told me.
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WAXAHACHIE, Texas -- In Waxahachie, Texas, at her small roadside food stand, 47-year-old Kathy Jones told me she's been struggling for five years to raise herself above minimum wage.
Her high school education only got her fast food jobs. So now she works seven days a week at the food stand just to break even.
"Just doing the best I can right now to just let it stay afloat," she said. "Pretty much what I make, I put it right back out."
Restaurant owner Jonathan Evola pays his kitchen help up to $13 an hour, nearly twice the minimum wage in Texas but he can't keep pace with the cost of living, up 11 percent since 2008.
"My employees need more than what I'm even able to give them to pay their current bills," Evola said. "And I pay above average for what most of my industry people get paid."
"We are seeing a recovery, there are jobs out there," City Manager Paul Stevens told me.
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TEMPORARY SERVICE INTERRUPTION SCHEDULED IN WORCESTER COUNTY, MD
BERLIN, Md. – Weather permitting, Delmarva Power plans to do transmission line work in Worcester County, Md., that will necessitate a power outage from midnight to 4 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13 to approximately 4,500 electric customers served by the Town of Berlin.
Delmarva Power chose the overnight hours for the service interruption in order to minimize the impact to residents of Berlin.
“Our rebuild of a more than 50 year old transmission line between Berlin and Ocean City is designed to improve electric service reliability in Worcester County,” said John Allen, Delmarva Power region vice president. “We will make every effort to keep the outage as brief as possible. We also apologize for any inconvenience while this work takes place and thank the public for their patience and understanding.”For more information about Delmarva Power, visit www.delmarva.com. Follow us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/delmarvapower and Twitter at www.twitter.com/delmarvaconnect. Our mobile app is available at www.delmarva.com/mobileapp.
Delmarva Power chose the overnight hours for the service interruption in order to minimize the impact to residents of Berlin.
“Our rebuild of a more than 50 year old transmission line between Berlin and Ocean City is designed to improve electric service reliability in Worcester County,” said John Allen, Delmarva Power region vice president. “We will make every effort to keep the outage as brief as possible. We also apologize for any inconvenience while this work takes place and thank the public for their patience and understanding.”For more information about Delmarva Power, visit www.delmarva.com. Follow us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/delmarvapower and Twitter at www.twitter.com/delmarvaconnect. Our mobile app is available at www.delmarva.com/mobileapp.
Phony Navy SEAL faces felony gun charges related to military-training program
A convicted felon is reportedly facing gun charges in Nevada after setting up a military-style training school and a security firm on the strength of a long-running and widely disseminated lie that he was a decorated Navy SEAL.
ABC News reports A.J. Dicken, 57, parlayed such lies into nearly a million dollars in financial backing from unsuspecting investors, as well as untallied sums allegedly swindled from the people who went to his Carson City school.
"He can be very charming, very engaging," Dr. Brian Romaneschi, one of Dicken’s principal investors, told ABC News after learning the truth. "He presents a face that kind of draws you in."
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ABC News reports A.J. Dicken, 57, parlayed such lies into nearly a million dollars in financial backing from unsuspecting investors, as well as untallied sums allegedly swindled from the people who went to his Carson City school.
"He can be very charming, very engaging," Dr. Brian Romaneschi, one of Dicken’s principal investors, told ABC News after learning the truth. "He presents a face that kind of draws you in."
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Government Tells Americans To Stop Eating Cookie Dough
“Avoid raw or partially cooked eggs or foods containing raw eggs, such as cookie dough,” USDA advised in an email over the weekend.
Carrying out that simple 15-word recommendation would radically change millions of lives, from families who routinely bake cookies and invite the kids to scoop batter out of the bowl, to people who scarf down pre-packaged cookie dough, to everyone who eats cookie dough found in ice cream.
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Study: California Drought Worst in 1200 Years
This week's statewide rains have made little impact in relieving California's extreme drought. In fact, according to a new scientific study, this drought is the worst that California has experienced in 1200 years. Researchers studying tree rings concluded that "the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years, with single year (2014) and accumulated moisture deficits worse than any previous continuous span of dry years."
The study, published as a research letter in the journal of the American Geophysical Union, was written by Daniel Griffin of the University of Minnesota and Kevin J Anchukaitis of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. By measuring tree rings from nearly 300 blue oaks, and comparing those measurements with data from older trees such as giant sequoias, scientists were able to generate estimates of rainfall for centuries.
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The study, published as a research letter in the journal of the American Geophysical Union, was written by Daniel Griffin of the University of Minnesota and Kevin J Anchukaitis of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. By measuring tree rings from nearly 300 blue oaks, and comparing those measurements with data from older trees such as giant sequoias, scientists were able to generate estimates of rainfall for centuries.
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Immigration Activist Suggests Race May Be Why GOP Opposes Obama Executive Action — Then It Was Trey Gowdy’s Turn
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) interrogated Marielena Hincapie, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, during a Tuesday House hearing on President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration reform after she seemingly suggested race may be the basis behind the GOP’s opposition to the unilateral action.
“I could’ve sworn in response to a question you received… you suggested race is the basis for why we may have this constitutional perspective,” Gowdy said to Hincapie. “Did I understand you correctly?”
“I believe I was responding to the question about, is there an explanation about why…” Hincapie began before being cut off.
“Well let me offer another explanation to you, OK? Not a single Republican who is here right now has ever served under a Republican president — not one. So I hope I do live long enough to hold a Republican president to the exact same standard that I am holding this one. But for you to run to race as the explanation for why we hold the position that we do.”
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“I could’ve sworn in response to a question you received… you suggested race is the basis for why we may have this constitutional perspective,” Gowdy said to Hincapie. “Did I understand you correctly?”
“I believe I was responding to the question about, is there an explanation about why…” Hincapie began before being cut off.
“Well let me offer another explanation to you, OK? Not a single Republican who is here right now has ever served under a Republican president — not one. So I hope I do live long enough to hold a Republican president to the exact same standard that I am holding this one. But for you to run to race as the explanation for why we hold the position that we do.”
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Martin O’Malley, Long-Shot Presidential Hopeful, Is A Real Climate Hawk
In January, O’Malley will leave office after eight years because term limits prevented him from running for a third term. He will likely run for president in 2016, despite low name recognition and a lack of classic charisma. But whatever his seeming political deficits, he has won a steady stream of elections, made tangible progress in governing, and earned respect from progressives, including climate hawks.
When he walks in — no jacket, sleeves rolled up to his forearms — to the annual ClimateStat meeting at the Maryland State House in late October, where agency heads report on their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he amps up the dry proceedings with rapid-fire questions and his enthusiasm for the nitty-gritty of policy. “That’s awesome! That’s a good use of GIS [geographic information system],” he exclaims over a map of tree coverage on the projector. (O’Malley likes data visualization; he later observes, “People under 40 communicate in charts and graphs.”)
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A Mother And Her Two Young Children Among Six People Dead After A Plane Crashed In Gaithersburg
Montgomery County Fire chief Steven Lohr said all three people on-board the plane were killed in the 10:45 a.m. crash. The plane was ripped to shreds following impact, ABC7's Brad Bell observed at the scene.
ABC7 News confirmed that Michael J. Rosenberg, the CEO of North Carolina-based Health Decisions, was among the three fatalities on the plane. He was described as "an experienced pilot."
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Only Yesterday—-How The Federal Debt Went From $1 Trillion To $18 Trillion in 33 Years
In the great fiscal scheme of things, October 22, 1981 seems like only yesterday. That’s the day the US public debt crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time. It had taken the nation 74,984 days to get there (205 years). What prompts this reflection is that just a few days ago the national debt breached the $18 trillion mark; and the last trillion was added in hardly 365 days.
I remember October 1981 perhaps better than most because as the nation’s budget director at the time I had some splain’ to do. Ronald Reagan had waged the most stridently anti-deficit campaign since 1932 when, ironically, FDR promised a balanced budget while denouncing Herbert Hoover as a “spendthrift”. Likewise, Gov. Reagan had denounced Jimmy Carter’s red ink and promised a balanced budget by 1983.
But as 1981 unfolded and the US treasury borrowed large sums each day to fund what we were pleased to call Jimmy Carter’s “inherited deficits”, the trillion dollar national debt threshold rushed upon us. And, in truth, it came far more rapidly than had been anticipated because by the fall of 1981, the Reagan White House had enacted the largest tax reduction in American history. On top of that, it had also green-lighted a huge defense build-up, yet, as we liked to rationalize at the time, had made little more than a “down payment” on sweeping reforms of domestic spending and entitlements.
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I remember October 1981 perhaps better than most because as the nation’s budget director at the time I had some splain’ to do. Ronald Reagan had waged the most stridently anti-deficit campaign since 1932 when, ironically, FDR promised a balanced budget while denouncing Herbert Hoover as a “spendthrift”. Likewise, Gov. Reagan had denounced Jimmy Carter’s red ink and promised a balanced budget by 1983.
But as 1981 unfolded and the US treasury borrowed large sums each day to fund what we were pleased to call Jimmy Carter’s “inherited deficits”, the trillion dollar national debt threshold rushed upon us. And, in truth, it came far more rapidly than had been anticipated because by the fall of 1981, the Reagan White House had enacted the largest tax reduction in American history. On top of that, it had also green-lighted a huge defense build-up, yet, as we liked to rationalize at the time, had made little more than a “down payment” on sweeping reforms of domestic spending and entitlements.
More
Lost Dog 12-8-14: UPDATE
Obama: Racism 'Deeply Rooted In Our Society'
President Obama will sit down with BET Networks to discuss calls for criminal justice reform after two controversial grand jury decisions cleared white officers in the death of black men.
In a special segment, "BET News Presents: A Conversation with President Barack Obama," the president will help find meaningful solutions to unrest after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner sparked nationwide protests.
"This isn't going to be solved overnight," Obama said in an excerpt of the interview to air Dec. 8 at 6 p.m.
The interview, hosted by BET host and TV journalist Jeff Johnson, marks the president's first network discussion outlining his strategy to investigate the incidents and ways the country can unify during this time.
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In a special segment, "BET News Presents: A Conversation with President Barack Obama," the president will help find meaningful solutions to unrest after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner sparked nationwide protests.
"This isn't going to be solved overnight," Obama said in an excerpt of the interview to air Dec. 8 at 6 p.m.
The interview, hosted by BET host and TV journalist Jeff Johnson, marks the president's first network discussion outlining his strategy to investigate the incidents and ways the country can unify during this time.
More
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