Bush Plan to Sell Public Lands To Fund Schools
Forest Service officials and Western lawmakers battled Tuesday over an administration proposal that would sell national forest lands to help pay for a rural schools program, as the vital 30-day public comment period began.

Armed forces are put on standby to tackle threat of wars over water
Across the world, they are coming: the water wars. From Israel to India, from Turkey to Botswana, arguments are going on over disputed water supplies that may soon burst into open conflict.

Quick Overview

• U.S. Jobless claims were up 15,000 last week to 294,000, more than expected.
  

• Top executives of U.S. companies expect to see continued strength in the nation's economy over the next six months, especially in new hiring, according to a survey released by the Business Roundtable on Thursday
  

• The European Central Bank raised its interest rate from 2.25% to 2.50%.
  

• Retail sales in Germany were up 2.7% in January more than expected.
  

• Retail sales in Australia were up 0.8% in January.
  

• The DoE said that underground supplies of natural gas were down 171 billion cubic feet to 1.972 trillion cubic feet. Supplies are up 21% YoY.
  

• Silver futures closed above $10 an ounce Thursday, at the highest level in more than two decades, with traders upbeat about the prospects for a silver exchange-traded fund.

FOX Ratings In Free Fall - O'Reilly Leads The Way Down
As we all know, the media is rampant with sycophantic, corporate shills and can't be trusted to deliver a pizza. But an intersting trend is developing that ought to shake their confidence in the suck-up school of journalism.

Gonzales Seeks to Clarify Testimony on Spying
"It seems to me he is conceding that there are other NSA surveillance programs ongoing that the president hasn't told anyone about,"

Quick Overview

• U.S. Commerce Department said that Personal income increased 0.7 percent, consumer spending rose 0.9%.
  
  
  

• The average U.S. home increased 12.95% in value in 2005, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Wednesday.
  
  

• The ISM index rose to 56.7% in February from 54.8% in January -- more than expected.
  
  

• U.S. Construction spending was up 0.2% from December's pace.
  

• Australia's GDP was up 0.5% in the fourth quarter, weaker than expected. For 2005 the GDP was up 2.5%, the slowest in four years.
  

• The unemployment rate in the Euro zone remained at 8.3% in January. For the EU-25, the unemployment rate was 8.5%.
  

• Brazilian traders returned to work on Wednesday and lifted stocks to a record high on news that Standard & Poor's upgraded the country's credit rating -- the Real ended near a five-year high.
  

• YoY consumer prices in the Euro zone have increased 2.3% in February.
  

• Canada's industrial product price index rose 0.5% in January.
  

• The Chinese economy grew 9.9% in 2005, up from 9.5% in 2004.
  

• South Africa's GDP increased 4.9% in 2005, up from 4.5% in 2004.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were up 1.6 million barrels to 328.3 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were up 300,000 barrels
  Supplies of heating oil were down 2.1 million barrels.
  

• The International Sugar Organization estimates world sugar production in 2005-2006 at 149 million tons and total use at 151.2 million tons. Resulting in a production shortfall of 2.22 million tons -- larger than previous estimates.
  

• London copper inventories are at 115,275 tons.
  

Prodded to spend, China's consumers prefer to save

Fed Official Warns of Changes A top Federal Reserve official warned yesterday that the U.S. financial system is evolving faster than the ability of investors, lenders and regulators to evaluate and manage the risks involved

We Are All Killers..Until we stop flying
New fuel consumption figures for both fast passenger ships and ultra high-speed trains suggest that their carbon emissions are comparable to those of planes(22). What all this means is that if we want to stop the planet from cooking, we will simply have to stop travelling at the kind of speeds that planes permit.

Global credit ocean dries up
"There are several hundred billion dollars of positions in the carry trade that will be unwound as soon as they become unprofitable," said Stephen Lewis, an economist at Monument Securities. "When the Bank of Japan starts tightening we may see some spectacular effects. The world has never been through this before, so there is a high risk of mistakes."

Quick Overview

• The National Association of Realtors said resales of U.S. homes dropped 2.8% in January to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.56 million, the lowest in two years.
  
  

• The Conference Board said U.S. consumer confidence fell unexpectedly in February to 101.7 from a revised January 106.8.
  
  

• Chicago purchasing managers index fell to 54.9 in February from 58.5 in January.
  
  
  

• The U.S. Commerce Department said that U.S. GDP was up 1.6% in the fourth quarter, better than the previous estimate of 1.1%. For all of 2005, GDP increased 3.5%.
  
  

• Canada's GDP was up 0.6% in the fourth quarter and up 2.9% for 2005.
  

• YoY Consumer prices in the Euro zone were up 2.4% in January
  

• Industrial production in Japan was up 0.3% in January.
  
  

• YoY surface trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico rose 13.5% in December, the Department of Transport said.
  
  

• Argentina's jobless rate fell a full percentage point in the fourth quarter as the thriving economy continued to create new jobs.
  
  

• France Jan. Unemployment Rate rose to 9.6% vs. 9.5%.
  
  

• Australia Current Account Deficit for Q4 out at -14.4B AUD vs. -13.6B expected
  

• Newmont Mining (NEM) reported a drop in fourth quarter production despite high gold prices.
  
  

• Dow-Jones Newswires reported that Brazil is building 52 sugarcane mills to meet growing domestic and global demand for ethanol.
  

Neocons jump ship

Harper's Calls For Impeachment
“To take away the excuse,” he said, “that we didn't know.” So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, “Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?” when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that “somehow it escaped our notice” that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.

Senator Feinstein's War-Profiteering
The Democrats aren’t just letting the Republicans get away with murder, however, some of them are also reaping the benefits of the Bush wars. We constantly hear about Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and how his ex-company is making bundles off US contracts in Iraq. But what we don’t hear about is how Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband are also making tons of money off the “war on terror”.

Venezuela Cautions U.S. It May Curtail Oil Exports The minister, Rafael Ramírez, said Venezuela, which is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and supplies more than 10 percent of American oil imports, could act in the face of what he described as aggression by the Bush administration

America's younger workers losing ground on income
From 2001 to 2004, median income fell 8 percent for householders under 35, a survey shows.

Quick Overview

• A survey by the National Association for Business Economics increased its estimate of first quarter U.S. GDP growth from an annual rate of 3.4% to 4.5%.
  
  
  

• New home sales fell 5% in January to the lowest level in a year, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Sales fell for the fourth time in six months during a balmy January, while the number of homes on the market hit a record high (Ed. Note: Right now, the number of homes on the market in the United States is 528,000) - the largest supply of homes in nine years. Sales are down four times in six months. December home sales rose 3.8%. Sales fell 7.0% in November, rose 7.7% in October, sank 2.0% in September and fell 7.1% in August.
  
  
  
  

• China should reduce the dollar share of its foreign exchange reserves because of the risks posed by the instability of the U.S. currency, influential economics professor Xiao Zhuoji said in an interview published on Monday.
  
  

• Hawkish comments by Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui last week fueled expectations the central bank will end its ultraeasy monetary policy around April.
  
  

• Canada's exports were up C$6.1 billion because of higher energy prices. Imports were up C$2.1 billion.
  
  

• YoY Japan's exports of cars, trucks and buses jumped 17.3% in January, rising for the sixth straight month.
  

• Intel Corp announced plans Tuesday to build a $300-million chip assembly and testing factory in southern Vietnam

Free speech, even if it hurts
Today, you may be imprisoned or fined for dissenting from the accepted Holocaust history in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland.

Cancelled home orders: Latest bubble prick?
Home builders are growing concerned about an increasing number of cancelled new home orders, which experts say could be a sign of an underlying weakness in the recent run in home prices.

Verizon Faces New $20B Suit over NSA Spying Complicity
Upping the ante in what may be a high-stakes legal battle, an Upstate New York lawyer filed a $20 billion class-action lawsuit against Verizon last week, charging that the company violated customer confidentiality in aiding warrantless eavesdropping by a federal spy agency.