China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest net oil importer, according to a Financial Times report. The US has been the world’s largest net oil importer since the mid-1970s, but the country’s net oil imports – crude and refined oil products – dropped in December to 5.98 million barrels per day, the lowest since February 1992.
Chinese net oil imports surged to 6.12 million barrels per day, according to the customs office. The swing has yet to be confirmed by more monthly data, as taxation may have distorted estimates for December’s net oil imports.
Luis Rodriguez painting pot ~photo by Bruce Montgomery
Three potters from Mata Ortiz, Mexico demonstrated their work and interacted with guests at the Cabot Pueblo Museum in Desert Hot Springs the weekend of March 1st through the 3rd, 2013.
29 year old Luis Rodriguez and his 27 year old wife Claudia Ledezma are second generation potters, learning their craft from their parents. Their work can be found in high end galleries and museum shops around the world (and now in our home as well!)
Luis uses brushes made from human hair to paint Mimbres designs, a period of history which fascinates him. He began forming and selling his own small pots at the age of fourteen.
Claudia learned from her mother the square grid patterns known as cuadriculas. Since being married, Luis and Caudia have each influenced the other’s style. Claudia began painting with the Mimbres patterns like her husband but in the sgraffito style. In 2009, the first year she participated in the pottery competitions in Mata Ortiz, she won first place in the sgraffito category.
Jerardo Tena is also a second generation potter, and is now passing down the traditions to his own children. He has won numerous awards, has taught many classes and given many demonstrations and his art has been shown in many locations in the U.S.
His very appealing pottery includes animals and other forms of life, a few of which are shown in this set.
The best chili cooks in the area competed with one another in a chili cook off to benefit Food Now on Saturday February 23, 2013 at the DIllon Road House. Here are a few photos of a fun and happy (and good tasting) event.
The Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce met for its monthly breakfast at Mission Lakes Country Club on Wednesday, February 27, 2013. Guest speaker was Bob Schneider, owner and operator of Desert Adventures (red-jeep tours). He gave a fascinating autobiographical account of his background in corporate marketing and how he came to be a business owner in the Coachella Valley.
World demand for oil will reach its peak between 2035-2040, after which solar power or gas will take the lead a study by Royal Dutch Shell predicts.
After research into global energy prospects, Shell has come up with two possible scenarios called ‘Mountains’ and ‘Oceans’. The first one predicts slow international economic development and the markets largely controlled governments that will stimulate nuclear energy exploitation.
It also suggests that ecology-friendly natural gas will become the backbone of the world’s energy system substituting coal as the main fuel in electricity generation. In this case, there will be some changes in transportation, with trucks and cars largely powered by electricity and hydrogen, and CO2 emissions will be reduced.
The second forecast, ‘Oceans’, considers a more dynamic and ‘fluid’ global economy where reforms trigger a productivity growth and whose development will be determined largely by market forces and civil society, with a smaller role of government.
Energetically speaking, this scenario focuses on solar power that can become the dominant energy source overshadowing the traditional ones in 2060s-2070s as high energy prices unlock more expensive resources and technologies. Renewable energy could reach “60-70% saturation if the time horizon is extended still further,” Shell reported in its study. If this is the case, nuclear energy development will be restrained by the popular concern while coal will continue to be widely used in electricity generation, Shell experts predict.
Poor Americans will be the first to suffer from the looming sequester budget cuts, Margaret Bogenrief of ACM Partners told RT. The harsh budget cuts are set to begin in the US on Friday at midnight.
The deadlock between the Republicans and the Democrats in the US Congress makes any kind of last-minute deal to avoid the sequester nearly impossible. Starting on March 1, the austerity program will cut $85 billion from the country’s budget by the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
“The sequester is, in and of itself, clearly an inefficient method for tackling deficit growth, existing instead a reflection of the absolute and ugly political deadlock seizing DC,” Bogenrief said. “Perhaps most incisively, the (threat of the) sequester signals how absolutely unwilling Republicans are to tackle the tax side of the cutting spending and increase tax, which equals the decreased deficit part of the equation.”
“Instead, most members of the GOP publicly fighting the President have already skipped ahead to thinking about the 2014 midterms, when they’ll be held to task for seeming to be ‘soft’ on Obama and the Democrats’ (and, really, reality’s) assertions that taxes must be play a role in the compromise,” she continued.
“Instead, those up for re-election are concerned that, should they compromise, even more extreme potential electoral candidates will emerge post-sequester debate, claiming the incumbents went ‘soft,’ ergo winning the votes of the traditionally more-conservative mid-term electorate watching these proceedings closely. Obama, in turn, appears willing to wait out the detractors, after having scored a resounding win last November,” she concluded.
Bogenrief believes that Washington will eventually come to a consensus, but not any time soon.
“Wait until April 15, the deadline for Congress to act, lest its members wish to forfeit receiving taxpayer-funded paychecks,” she explained
The budget cuts will be equally divided between defense and non-defense, with education, public transport and social services to be affected.
“The cuts that are set to hit March 1 will, inevitably as in all things political and financial, hit the poor and disenfranchised, while avoiding the deficit’s biggest drivers,” Bogenrief said. “While $42.7 billion of the total $85 billion of cuts hits discretionary defense spending (a mere decimal point in the United States military industrial complex, which is currently paying down hundreds of billions of dollars in interest incurred on debt used to fund previous wars), the remaining $42.3 billion of cuts dig into discretionary nondefense spending, Medicare, and other mandatory spending.”
“Even more relevantly, a significant portion of these cuts (including those in defense) are set to hit specific geographical areas dependent on both the defense department for employment and other government and social programs, thereby making a consensus even more difficult for lawmakers focused on serving only their districts (after all, why would a Congressperson from Nevada tackle a politically contentious issue or fight to score a win for the constituents of Alabama?),” she said.
“Eventually, the United States must learn, no matter how painfully, that to spend much revenue, much revenue must be taken in. And there are only so many social programs and schools and communities that can take a hit until the larger (taxation) problems are forced to the forefront and, hopefully, addressed,” she added.
The current crisis stems from a 2011 clash over raising the debt ceiling , during which time US lawmakers agreed that automatic cuts could take effect if Republicans and Democrats failed to come to terms on a tax and spending package.
China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest net oil importer, according to a Financial Times report. The US has been the world’s largest net oil importer since the mid-1970s, but the country’s net oil imports – crude and refined oil products – dropped in December to 5.98 million barrels per day, the lowest since February 1992.
