Politically-dividing disagreements and record-breaking debt are being blamed for the decline in global competitiveness of the United States after the World Economic Forum declared America the seventh most competitive economy this week.

On Wednesday, the WEF released their annual listing of the world’s leading economies arranged in order of most- to least-competitive, and the numbers aren’t anything for Americans to write home about. The United States, at one point the country behind the world’s most competitive economy, has slipped down the report and is now listed as the seventh in terms of its competitiveness, despite still being the largest in the world.

Last year, the US placed at number five.

“There is … continuing concern about the macro-economic environment, continuing debt levels – the inability to get the spending under control and really political deadlock about how to even deal with this issue,” the report claims.

The WEF goes on to report that political problems in Washington are, “leading to concern about political institutions in general,” and “inefficient government bureaucracy” is considered the number one reason for the problematic nature of doing business with America today, ahead of tax rates and regulations at second and third place, respectively.

“In addition to the burgeoning macroeconomic vulnerabilities, some aspects of the country’s [United States] institutional environment continue to raise concern among business leaders, particularly the low public trust in politicians and a perceived lack of government efficiency,” the report’s authors say, adding elsewhere,“So, the business sector has concerns about its confidence in politicians to make the sorts of decisions that are needed going forward.”

The WEF adds, however, that the United States remains “extremely productive” and boasts one of the best centers of innovation in the world. According to the forum, though, they were no match for the competition this year: ahead of the US on the list’s ranking were Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.

Rounding out the top ten this year behind the US were the UK, Honk Kong and Japan. The US has been dropping in placement on the last for four years straight.

The Secret Service is up in arms over claims being made by a group that says they have obtained White House hopeful Mitt Romney’s tax records. In a message posted online, the group says they will leak the files if not paid $1,000,000 in Bitcoins.

An unidentified group says that they managed to make their way into the Franklin, Tennessee branch of Romney’s PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP company and accessed the computer servers that contained encrypted copies of “tax documents for one Willard M Romney and Ann D Romney.” Now they want his campaign to convert one million US dollars into Bitcoins, a decentralized digital crypto-currency, or else they will release the files to the press.

The group has issued a warning but has so far provided no material proof to validate their claim. If their demands are not met, however, they insist that they will follow through with their threat.

“All major news media outlets are going to be sent an encrypted copy of the most recent tax years that your company had on file since you did not have them all in a convenient electronic form,” the author of the letter, posted to Pastebin.com and first discovered by the Nashville City Paper, writes.“If the parties interested do not want the encrypted key released to the public to unlock these documents on September 28 of this year then payment will be necessary.”

The mastermind behind the alleged extortion plot says that the group will release “all available 1040 tax forms for Romney” if his campaign does not contribute the funds by September 28, at which point, “the entire world will be allowed to view the documents with a publicly released key to unlock everything.”

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When the Democratic National Committee dropped the word “God” from their platform ahead of this week’s convention, Republicans capitalized on the exclusion. Now a last minute attempt to reverse that measure may have made matters worse.

The delegation at day two of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was split on Wednesday after a motion was approved to recognize God’s role in the party and affirm Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — two issues that are often brought into political debates on both sides of the aisle yet had been removed from this year’s official platform, despite being included during the 2008 presidential election. All that changed on Wednesday, when a motion proposed by former Ohio governor Ted Strickland was approved by delegates participating in a voice vote, a contest that was quickly contested by members of the Democratic Party.

Although the motion ended with the committee declaring it approved, the vote and the method in which it was conducted were challenged by delegates in the immediate aftermath.

Convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa asked the audibly divided delegation to participate in a voice vote inside Time Warner Arena, informing them that a two-thirds majority would be needed to approve any motion introduced to the committee. Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, was unable to assess the crowd’s response, although it was clear that he was not met with a two-thirds opinion from either side. The mayor was prompted to ask the delegates to vote either for or against the motion three separate times before deciding. Following the third and final vote, Villaraigosa declared that the motion was approved, despite rampant disapproval from opposed members of the Democratic Party.

Even though two-thirds majority was needed to have the motion passed, broadcasts of the vote seem to show that roughly half of the delegates were still opposed to the motion. When Villaraigosa discounted this and approved the motion much to the chagrin of critics, those in disagreement returned his decision with a refrain of audible booing.

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2nd Friday Old Schoolhouse Lecture Series

Twentynine Palms, CA, September 14, 2012
Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep Camera Coordinator, Bob Burke, will share his knowledge of desert bighorn sheep conservation at the Second Friday Old School House Lecture Series.  Bob has organized the SCBS project that has collected more than 300,000 photos by use of infrared trail cameras during a four year study.  In the process he has observed many interesting and surprising visitors to water developments created by the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep.  These water developments are vital to nearly every species of desert dwelling animal from desert bighorn sheep to quail, coyotes, even bobcats and mountain lions.  Without water, nothing can survive in the desert.

Sponsored by the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park and the Twentynine Palms Historical Society, this lecture is held at the Old Schoolhouse Museum, 6760 National Park Drive, Twentynine Palms, on Friday, September14 at 7 pm. This lecture is open to the public and costs $5 per person at the door. Optional dinner with speaker at 5 pm at the 29 Palms Inn, room is limited and attendees are responsible for their own meal. If interested in dinner please RSVP to Marion Gartner 760-361-1202 or HYPERLINK “mailto:desert29palms@yahoo.com” desert29palms@yahoo.com.