More is spent on jobless in U.S., but benefits near end

Watches this More is spent on jobless in U.S., but benefits near end



By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
More than 3 million Americans could lose unemployment benefits by the end of July even as the government spends record amounts to compensate the jobless, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The growing number of unemployed workers without benefits comes as Congress argues whether to again extend jobless benefits.

UNEMPLOYMENT: Long-term jobless fear loss of benefits
BOOST OR DRAIN? The debate over unemployment benefits
WHERE ARE THE JOBS? Forecast for 384 metro areas, 50 states
The number of people collecting benefits will fall from 10.5 million to 7 million at the end of July if Congress doesn't extend the payments.

About 400,000 Americans are exhausting their benefits every week, saving the government $2 billion since June and an estimated $34 billion through November.

Unemployment insurance has played a bigger role in this recession — the longest since the Great Depression— than in previous downturns, the USA TODAY analysis finds.

This extraordinary response has helped as many as 11 million people at one time — a record — while driving the program's cost to an annual rate of $145 billion in the first quarter. That's more than double what was spent in any previous recession, after adjusting for inflation.

Congress has extended unemployment benefits in every recession since the 1950s. The current extension — up to 99 weeks — far exceeds the previous longest extension of 65 weeks in 1975.

Economist Chris O'Leary of the non-partisan Upjohn Institute for Employment Research says jobless benefits have never been scaled back with unemployment near 10%. "An extension seems appropriate," he says.

Labor expert James Sherk of the conservative Heritage Foundation says a more limited extension is needed.

"Two years is excessive," he says. "If you've gone that long without work, there's a range of other anti-poverty programs available."

Copyright 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Real BP Gulf oil disaster is still to come

Hurricane season could bring petroleum-filled storms – but what if oil is belched out for another hundred years?


BP is yet to predict the worst-case scenario over the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Dave Martin/AP
Despite BP fighting valiantly to keep reporters and photographers away from the affected areas, the oil is still erupting out of the sea bed, making the waters of the Gulf of Mexico heavy with petroleum and smearing the coastline with black goo.

So what is going to happen now the hurricane season has arrived? The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration claims there won't be any oil droplets in any hurricane's precipitation. But Jeff Masters, the founder of Weather Underground, from the University of Michigan, disagrees. In fact, he claims that the oil droplets in the hurricane-force winds might actually cause "explosive deepening" of hurricanes in the Gulf.

What will happen when an oil-powered hurricane hits New Orleans and splatters its streets and buildings with crude oil? What will happen when it's not just pelicans and turtles that are plastered in black stuff but people? What about when rice and sugarcane are covered in oil? How will BP keep the reporters and photographers out of it then?

But BP is aware of the possibility of impending disaster a hurricane might bring. On the BP oil leak response website, Mike Utsler, the BP incident commander, based in Houma, tells us: "It's an area that we've put tremendous planning and preparation, from everything in terms of how we would respond to moving people, first and foremost, to safety, but how we would also protect and manage the equipment that's so vital to our operations …"

So that's all right then. BP is going to move everybody out of the way of any carcinogenic, petroleum-filled storms that hit the mainland.

But wait a minute! Mike Utsler isn't talking about the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. He's only talking about the people and equipment involved in the cleanup. "How do we do and manage our people," he says "in such a way that their safety is paramount."

In fact, BP apparently has a weather team working in conjunction with "the area command weather experts, as well as of course the hurricane centre, and our NOAA colleagues" so when a hurricane hits New Orleans and plasters the streets and buildings with crude oil, at least BP will have predicted it.

But what it's not predicting, at the moment, is the worst-case scenario.

BP doesn't actually know how big the oil field they drilled into is. They're drilling into lower tertiary (Paleogene) rock that was laid down at the same time mammals and birds were coming into being: 65-23m years ago. It is one of the deepest wells ever drilled by the oil and gas industry, so as you can imagine, they're feeling their way in all this.

Appearing before a House subcommittee in Washington, Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, estimated that there might be a modest 2bn gallons down there, which could mean it could go on belching out oil for another four years. On the other hand, when BP originally announced their discovery of the "giant" find at its Tiber Prospect, experts estimated the size at 42bn gallons. And since they were talking about "recoverable oil" (which could be only 20% of the actual oil in the site) it would mean the site may hold as much as 210bn gallons. In other words, it could go on belching out oil for another hundred years.

Could that be enough time for the oil slick to reach the Mediterranean? Or, heaven forbid, Brighton

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Camping is definitely not communist

Camping is definitely not communist
I once lived in a tent for two and a half months, and I can tell you the experience was far from a socialist utopia



Actually going camping dispels any notion that life under canvas engenders selfless comradeship. Photograph: Getty Images
G2's recent exploration of the joys (and horrors) of camping was pretty comprehensive, covering everything from the practicalities of sleeping under canvas to the controversial question of why some ethnic groups enjoy camping less than others.

This was taken a step further by Aditya Chakrabortty, who suggested that camping is a political experiment – "an exercise in practical communism".

On the surface, he appears to have a point. The popular impression of life on a campsite does sound like a communist utopia, where people share the potato-peeling duties and in the evening there is a big communal sing-song around a campfire. The parallels seem clear.

Until, that is, you actually go camping.

In a previous (and brief) career, I was an archaeologist. While digging holes in Bamburgh Castle, one of England's most striking, but least well-known, archaeological sites, I lived in a tent. For two and a half months. With a Welshman.

It was great fun. We enjoyed the beautiful landscape, we drank a lot of cider and, after running out of cider, we played drunken games of rounders in the dark.

However, the experience was far from the socialist utopia envisioned by GA Cohen.

It's true that our life on the campsite lacked many of the consumerist luxuries normally associated with capitalist urban living, but that was largely because the nearest Tesco was miles away and by the time we wanted to buy a job lot of Pringles or some more Rizlas no one was sober enough to drive.

The "rules of pay-as-you-go market exchange" were not suspended, but instead the mass market was simply replaced by a village shop two miles' walk away and a greasy spoon cafe on the campsite.

Instead of Sir Terry Leahy providing a bewildering range of cereals and two-for-one offers on beans, we had a chatty geordie lady who would cook delicious black-pudding sandwiches. Leahy would have envied her profit margins.

It would be wrong to mistake a lack of material wealth – reduced to living in tents rather than houses and playing practical jokes in the absence of a television – with an absence of capitalism. The people who could be bothered to walk to the village shop, or to drive to the supermarket, would still get a few quid for their trouble. Those who could afford it rented musty caravans rather than sleep on the ground.

We weren't rich, but that didn't make us experimental communists. Nor does camping induce a magical, selfless comradeship among those who pitch their tents in the same field. As we swiftly discovered, nothing is quite as funny as picking up someone's tent while they're asleep and moving it somewhere inconvenient, or hearing someone woken up by a burly archaeologist falling on to their rickety tent in the middle of the night.

Sure, if someone's guy ropes break or their tent pegs get stolen, their fellow campers will probably dig out some spare ones to lend to them. There is community on a campsite – but it has far more in common with the old-fashioned workings of a small village. You're either friends with your neighbours or you're stuck with them, so you help out when it's needed.

Communism has always been a daydream rather than a reality, and the same goes for the concept of camping as communism. From a distance, it's easy to get misty-eyed about shared ownership flourishing under canvas, but in practice it's still a load of drunk people living in a field

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Gulf oil to keep flowing while cap is analyzed

We are see this Gulf oil to keep flowing while cap is analyzed

NEW ORLEANS – The plan to start choking off oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was suddenly halted as government officials and BP said further analysis must be done Wednesday before critical tests could proceed.
No explanation was given for the decision, and no date was set for when testing would begin on the new, tighter-fitting cap BP installed on the blown-out well Monday.
In the meantime, oil continued spewing into the Gulf.
The oil giant had been scheduled to start slowly shutting off valves Tuesday on the cap, aiming to stop the flow of oil for the first time in three months. BP was initially ahead of schedule on its latest effort to plug the leak. The cap was designed to be a temporary fix until the well is plugged underground.
A series of methodical, preliminary steps were completed before progress stalled. Engineers spent hours on a seismic survey, creating a map of the rock under the sea floor to spot potential dangers, like gas pockets. It also provides a baseline to compare with later surveys during and after the test to see if the pressure on the well is causing underground problems.
An unstable area around the wellbore could create bigger problems if the leak continued elsewhere in the well after the cap valves were shut, experts said.
"It's an incredibly big concern," said Don Van Nieuwenhuise, director of Professional Geoscience Programs at the University of Houston. "They need to get a scan of where things are, that way when they do pressure testing, they know to look out for ruptures or changes."
It was unclear whether there was something in the results of the mapping that prompted officials to delay. Earlier, BP Vice President Kent Wells said he hadn't heard what the results were, but he felt "comfortable that they were good."
National Incident Commander Thad Allen met with the federal energy secretary and the head of the U.S. Geological Survey as well as BP officials and other scientists after the mapping was done.
"As a result of these discussions, we decided that the process may benefit from additional analysis," Allen said in a statement. He didn't specify what type of analysis would be done, but said work would continue until Wednesday.
Assuming BP gets the green light to do the cap testing after the extra analysis is finished, engineers need to shut off lines already funneling some oil to ships to see how the cap handles the pressure of the crude coming up from the ground.
Finally, they would shut the openings in the 75-ton metal stack of pipes and valves gradually, one at a time, while watching pressure gauges to see if the cap would hold or if any new leaks erupted. The operation could last anywhere from six to 48 hours, once it gets started.

Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc.

Breaking News (oil spill) July 9 2010 This is a warning

Watches this Breaking News (oil spill) July 9 2010 This is a warning



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