Eeyore's News and View

If they can't stand the heat they need to get out of the kitchen
Proposed anti-picketing bill in D.C. riles unions, ACLU
By Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer 12/15/08
A D.C. Council member is mulling emergency legislation that would bar demonstrations outside homes in residential neighborhoods, a response to increasingly aggressive protests by an extremist animal rights group.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh has submitted written notice that she will introduce the Residential Tranquility Emergency Amendment Act during the council’s final legislative meeting of the year. Cheh, a constitutional law professor, contends the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty has harassed numerous D.C. residents in their homes — shouting obscenities, yelling death threats, banging on doors.
The legislation, at least one draft of which was obtained by The Examiner, would make it a misdemeanor “for any person to repeatedly engage in unwanted targeted picketing before or about an individual’s dwelling place in a residential neighborhood with the intent to intimidate, threaten, abuse, annoy, or harass the individual.” Picketing under the measure is defined as “marching, congregating, standing, parading, demonstrating or patrolling … without the implied or express consent of the occupant.”
Cheh said Friday she had not committed to a version, or any bill at all.
“Nobody believes in free speech more than I do,” she said. “But there has to be a line here and I’m just trying to figure out what it is.”
The bill drew immediate repudiation from labor groups and the American Civil Liberties Union. It may have been inspired by one group, but the legislation is certain to affect unions and other organizations that use picketing as a means of getting their message across, said Johnny Barnes, executive director of the ACLU’s national capital-area chapter.
“The best answer to speech you don’t like is more speech, good speech,” Barnes said Friday. “When you limit speech, it becomes very dangerous.”
Similar anti-picketing laws have withstood U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny. The First Amendment “permits the government to prohibit offensive speech as intrusive when the ‘captive’ audience cannot avoid the objectionable speech,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in 1988, in the majority opinion of Frisby v. Schultz.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is behind a global campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British-based business that tests drugs on roughly 70,000 animals a year. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described SHAC members as radicals who employ “frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists.”
Attempts to locate a contact for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty were unsuccessful.
This is the second protest-related bill that Cheh has backed this year. Watered-down noise restrictions approved in June restrict daytime noncommercial speech in residential neighborhoods to no more than 80 decibels when measured from inside the nearest occupied home.
http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/121508- ... _ACLU.html

Alternative Currencies Grow in Popularity
By Judith D. Schwartz Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008
Most of us take for granted that those rectangular green slips of paper we keep in our wallets are inviolable: the physical embodiment of value. But alternative forms of money have a long history and appear to be growing in popularity. It's not merely barter or primitive means of exchange like seashells or beads. Beneath the financial radar, in hip U.S. towns or South African townships, in shops, markets and even banks, people throughout the world are exchanging goods and services via thousands of currency types that look nothing like official tender.
Alternative means of trade often surface during tough economic times. "When money gets dried up and there are still needs to be met in society, people come up with creative ways to meet those needs," says Peter North, a senior lecturer in geography at the University of Liverpool and the author of two books on the subject. He refers to the "scrips" issued in the U.S. and Europe during the Great Depression that kept money flowing and the massive barter exchanges involving millions of people that emerged amid runaway inflation in Argentina in 2000. "People were kept from starving [this way]," he says. (Find out 10 things to do with your money.)
Closer to home, "Ithaca Hours," with a livable hourly wage as the standard, were launched during the 1991 recession to sustain the economy in Ithaca, N.Y., and stem the loss of jobs. Hours, which are legal and taxable, circulate within the community, moving from local shop to local artisan and back, rather than leaking out into the larger monetary system. The logo on the Hour reads "In Ithaca We Trust."
Alternative (or "complementary") currencies range from quaint to robust, simple to high tech. There are Greens from the Lettuce Patch Bank at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in rural northeastern Missouri. In western Massachusetts one finds fine-artist-designed BerkShares, which are convertible to U.S. dollars. More than $2 million in BerkShares have been issued through the 12 branches of five local banks, according to Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, the nonprofit behind the currency. And in South Africa, proprietary software keeps track of Community Exchange System (CES) Talents; one ambitious plan is to make Khayelitsha, a vast, desolate township of perhaps 1 million inhabitants near Cape Town, a self-sustaining community.
An alternative currency is generally used in conjunction with conventional money; one may use local currency at the farmers' market and regular greenbacks at the supermarket. "It doesn't try in any way to replace cash," says Christoph Hensch, a Swiss national and former banker living in Christchurch, New Zealand. Rather, it offers a way "for people to share and redeem value they have in the community." He says the currencies are most useful in geographical areas or social sectors where money doesn't flow sufficiently, citing, for example, New Zealand's Golden Bay, which is so remote that it sometimes nearly functions as its own economy.
Advocates of alternative currencies say they are a means of empowerment for those languishing on the margins of fiscal life, granting economic agency to people like the elderly, the disabled or the underemployed, who have little opportunity to earn money. For example, in some systems one can "bank" Time Dollars for tasks like child care and changing motor oil. It's not whether you're employed or what financial assets you have that matter, says Les Squires, a consultant on social-networking software who has been working with groups developing alternative currencies. Each person has "value" that is "exchangeable" on the basis of time spent or a given task.
Alternative currency comes in many forms. In addition to time-banking, there are Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), systems of mutual credit that vary by location. This model was developed by Michael Linton in Canada, though it seems to have taken off mostly in the British Isles; an estimated 40,000 people in the U.K. use these for at least some transactions. (See TIME's top 10 everything of 2008.)
Similarly, the CES is an online money and banking system and trading marketplace that tracks credits and debits. While LETS function as clubs that set their own guidelines, CES is administered through an online program that connects local groups to create a global network. The CES website points to more than 100 exchanges in 15 countries. Squires says the Internet has made alternative forms of exchange more viable, as databases can keep account of credits. In the rarefied world of monetary theory, think tanks are abuzz with ideas about future forms of money. One visionary, Jean-Francois Noubel, co-founder of AOL-France, foresees "millions of free currencies circulating on the Net and through our cell phones" as money follows the distribution path that media have over the past decade. Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist and author who helped develop the euro, has proposed the Terra, a transnational currency backed by established commodities that would coexist with conventional notes, the monetary equivalent of Esperanto.
In recent years, the impetus for alternative currencies in established economies has stemmed in part from localization movements. Periodically ditching the dollar (or the pound or the yen) in favor of homegrown currency doesn't merely fortify the local economy; it also builds community. People have a stake in their neighbor's well-being because that neighbor represents both market and supply chain. Some argue that such transactions are more secure than others because knowing the person you're dealing with, and his family and friends, serves as a kind of social collateral.
The use of BerkShares has helped solidify local ties, says Witt. "It's cash, so you have to pay your bills by walking into the store or dentist's office." Local pride does have its challenges, however. In September the town of Lewes in Sussex, England, issued the Lewes Pound — complete with a special-edition beer from Harvey's, a local brewery, to celebrate the introduction. There was an immediate run on the currency, limiting its circulation; Lewes Pounds were going for 35 pounds sterling on eBay. The organizers quickly went back to press and dealt with the situation. As Witt is the first to say, "Local currencies are not easy."
Some are moved to create currencies for environmental reasons: they minimize the use of energy. With diminishing oil supplies, "we will not be able to move goods around the world as cheaply," says North. One strategy, he says, is to produce more locally, and a way to facilitate that is through local currency. This was one inspiration for the Lewes Pound and for the Totnes Pound in Devon, England. Both towns are part of the Transition Town movement, which seeks creative, upbeat, community-based approaches to dealing with climate change and diminished oil reserves.
Paper-money currencies, like BerkShares or the Lewes or Totnes Pound, slip fairly seamlessly into the national economy; their use is taxed like ordinary money. More abstract exchanges are a bit more complicated to deal with. But the tax concern is not insurmountable. "If you use local currency for your main income-generating activity, you must pay income tax," says Hensch, who consults in complementary currencies. Likewise, if you have a business, you'll pay sales tax on any local currency — in New Zealand, that would be Green Dollars, part of LETS — you bring in. But if you trade in "neighborhood help," like lawn-mowing, that would not be taxed.
The rules vary from country to country. In the U.S., any business transaction must be recorded and reported to the IRS; tax levies apply as if the trade were made in cash. As Squires puts it, professional services are subject to income tax, but for noncommercial transactions, barter rules hold. "If I bake a cake for you, that's not a taxable event," he says.
Andrew Rose, Bernard T. Rocca Professor of International Trade at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, sees local currencies as limited by their unwieldiness. "Money is primarily just a convenience for enabling exchanges between two parties. The more widely accepted, the more convenient it is," he says. If you need to use different currencies in different locations, the money then becomes less convenient.
Do large financial institutions have anything to fear from the use of alternative currencies? Not at all, says Rose. "It's got to be so tiny. It has no effect at all," he says. Besides, he notes, the Fed doesn't care about currency or even the number of bills circulating in the economy. "The Fed cares about monetary policy and deal[s] with that in different ways."
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0%2C8599%2C1865467%2C00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-biztech

National Guard Take Control of City Jail
Celling point: Indiana National Guard would take old Warrick jail off town’s hands
Lydia X. McCoy
Courier Press
December 13, 2008
BOONVILLE, Ind. — The inmates of the old Warrick County Jail are long gone, but the steel bars that held them remain.
But, with hope, not for much longer.
After about a year of talks, Warrick County officials are trying to seal a deal to give the cells to the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, Ind.
While the cells haven't been used for a number of years, the rest of the building currently is occupied by the Warrick County EMS.
The compound, the only one of its kind in the United States, is a secluded, self-contained community, once home to the Muscatatuck State Developmental Center. The 1,000-acre site was turned over to the Indiana National Guard in July 2005 and has been evolving into a full-immersion contemporary urban training environment.
Lt. Col. Chris Kelsey, site manager for Muscatatuck, said the National Guard wants to use the cells for a prison at the training center.
"We want an actual prison; the more realistic the better," he said. "We can do the real thing or a replication. We're trying to provide the real thing."
The cells at the "old jail" in Warrick County would help the training center in that goal.
On Thursday, 1st Lt. Michael Brandt and three other soldiers visited Boonville to examine the cells and determine the best way to move them.
"Today, I brought some of the actual engineers in who would be working on and supervising the project," he said.
Brandt said the visit would help the engineers — Sgt. Tim Hadley, Staff Sgt. Ryan Wenk and 1st Lt. Richard Hoover — determine what they will need to disassemble the cells.
"(So) when we come up, we're equipped to basically dismantle and haul out the jail cells ourselves, with just Army labor at no cost to the county," he said. "It's kind of a win-win. We help them out by taking out this, giving them a usable bay again, and they help us out by supplying us with stuff we're actually looking for and trying to find.
"That's the great thing of how we're able to work with local governments to get stuff like this. It enhances the realism if we can get some (things) that's actually been used.
"The artwork on some of these cells that the inmates have drawn is great. We'll leave that intact, so when we put it back up, it'll actually look like it's been occupied."
Brandt said if the deal is finalized, he'd like to start disassembling the cells by mid-January and have everything completed in about a month.
County officials have been trying to figure out a way to remove the cells since spring. They did a bid process but decided to look for alternatives when the prices were higher than anticipated, said the county's purchasing manager, Joe Grassman.
Then, Grassman was contacted by Muscatatuck about the cells. Grassman said he's "pretty optimistic" that the deal will go through.
And he agrees that it's a win-win situation.
"The most important thing is that they will be used for training ... instead of becoming scrap metal. They'll reconstruct them and they'll serve a purpose," Grassman said.
"It will save Warrick County a ton of money. It's just one of those win-win situations."
The Warrick County Commissioners will decide what to do with the space.
Don Williams, commissioners president, said two options are being considered. Either use it to store ambulances for Warrick EMS or use it to store county records.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/d ... ing-point/
http://www.mutc.in.ng.mil/

Supermarket defends itself over Adolf Hitler cake

December 17, 2008 - 6:11pm

Heath Campbell, left, with his wife, Deborah, and son Adolf Hitler Campbell, 3, pose in Easton, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008. Deborah and Heath attempted to buy a birthday cake for their son at a nearby ShopRite supermarket in Greenwich, N.J. but were told that the store would not spell the youngster's name out on the cake. The Campbells also have two daughters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

EASTON, Pa. (AP) - A supermarket is defending itself for refusing to a write out 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on his birthday cake. Deborah Campbell, 25, of nearby Hunterdon County, N.J., said she phoned in her order last week to the Greenwich ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.

Karen Meleta, a ShopRite spokeswoman, said the store denied similar requests from the Campbells the last two years, including a request for a swastika.

"We reserve the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate," Meleta said. "We considered this inappropriate."

The Campbells ultimately got their cake decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said Tuesday.

A Wal-Mart spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday that in light of the incident, the company would review its guidelines regarding cake decorations and other requests.

"It's clear that in serving this customer, some people were offended," spokesman Greg Rossiter said. "As a result, we're going to review our policies."

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name."

The Campbells' two other children are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in a few months, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, who will be 1 in April.

Campbell said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.

"Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine, I don't really care," he said. "That's his choice."

He said about 12 people attended the birthday party Sunday, including several children of mixed race.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=456&sid=1551680

Oil tumbles despite OPEC's record cut in production

WASHINGTON — Oil prices plunged to the lowest level in 4½ years Wednesday as gloomy prospects for energy demand in the slumping world economy overshadowed a record cut in OPEC's production target.

The price of a barrel of light, sweet crude oil trading for delivery in January fell $3.54, or 8.1%, to $40.06, the lowest since July 2004. Oil prices are down more than $100 since peaking in July.

The decline Wednesday came even after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it's cutting production 2.2 million barrels a day starting Jan. 1 in a bid to prop up prices. That is on top of the 2 million barrels the cartel pledged to cut in previous months and brings OPEC's daily production target to 24.8 million, the lowest in 4½ years.

OPEC said supply is exceeding demand. The cartel said prices threatened to get so low that it would no longer make sense to make investments to ensure enough supply in the long run.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil, Algeria's energy head, suggested the cartel could cut again before its next regularly scheduled meeting in March. "We are in a very, very deteriorating environment," he said at a news conference broadcast over the Internet.

But Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, says further cuts might not work. Investors don't take OPEC's announcements seriously because members often produce more than promised, he says. More important, the economy is slipping too quickly for even OPEC to influence prices.

"The overall global economic challenges are such an overhang on this market right now that there's not a whole lot they can do to stimulate the market until we see the demand side pick up again," Bullock says.

OPEC's cut is "short-sighted," Energy Department press secretary Healy Baumgardner says.

The Energy Information Administration forecast U.S. oil consumption will fall through 2010.

In the USA, drivers are using less gasoline even though the price at the pump has plunged. Demand for gasoline in the four-week period ended Dec. 12 was down 3.5% from a year earlier, EIA said.

The nationwide average for a gallon of regular gas is $1.667, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-12-17-opec-oil-cut_N.htm

Eeyore's News and View

After yesterdays Thankful Devotional, i figured i would give everyday a part of the Thanksgiving Story. It is really America's only Holiday that is uniquely American. Going to have different stories about Thanksging right up to the day.

Indian Aid and a Blessed Thanksgiving by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

If it weren't for Indian deaths, the Pilgrims would have been hard-pressed to settle in Plymouth that cold winter of 1620. In a brief skirmish, the Pilgrim's muskets had slain no natives, nor had any arrows struck Englishmen. Disease had been the killer. The Pilgrims discovered corn fields cleared in the forests, now deserted. What had once been a bustling village of Patuxet Indians nearby, stood empty, ravaged by disease four years earlier, leaving but a single survivor.
Survivors
The Pilgrims, themselves, lived on the edge of survival that first winter. They had begun well enough. After 66 days crossing the stormy Atlantic, 104 Pilgrims beheld the New World, including a baby boy, Oceanus, born at sea.
"Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land," wrote Governor William Bradford, "they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element."
But within four months, scurvy, pneumonia, and a virulent strain of tuberculosis had cut down whole families of Pilgrims. As the sickness raged, only six or seven persons in the whole company were strong enough to tend the sick and comfort the dying.
Six died in December, then eight in January, seventeen in February. Of March, Bradford wrote, "This month thirteen of our number die ... scarce fifty remain, the living scarce able to bury the dead." Of eighteen married women, only three remained. Baby Oceanus died.
Indian Aid
But in April, when it was time to put in gardens, the Indians whom they feared came to their aid. One day, unannounced, the tall, powerful warrior Samoset strode into their camp, armed with a bow and arrows, nearly naked except for a leather string around his waist "with a fringe about a span long, or a little more," the embarrassed Bradford recorded. To the Pilgrims' surprise, Samoset greeted them with the word, "Welcome!" He had learned some English from fishermen in his native Maine. Later, he introduced the Pilgrims to Massasoit, chief of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe, and to Squanto, last known survivor of the Patuxets.
Though the Wampanoag braves towered over the short Englishmen, and outnumbered their tiny militia 60 to 20, they reached a treaty of peace that stood for forty years until Massasoit's death.
Squanto, who had been kidnapped and lived for a while in England, spoke their language, too. He taught the Pilgrims where to trap eels and how to plant corn. The Pilgrims, who had pilfered Indian corn the previous December, may not have been deserving. But this unexpected help made the difference for them between survival and starvation. Settler Edward Winslow described it thus:
"We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown, they came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom."
Nevertheless, the harvest was good and the Pilgrims' food ration increased substantially. By fall, eleven houses lined the street of Plymouth Colony, seven private homes and four common buildings. The dying had stopped, and trade had begun with the Indians.
A Thanksgiving Celebration
To celebrate, the Pilgrims invited Massasoit to a harvest festival, and a hunting party shot enough waterfowl to feed the company for a week. But when Massasoit arrived, he was joined by ninety ravenous braves. For their contribution the Indians went out and returned five deer. It was a three-day feast of venison, roast duck, roast goose, clams and other shellfish, succulent eels, white bread, corn bread, leeks and watercress, with wild plums and dried berries -- all enjoyed with wine newly made from grapes that grew wild in the forest.
It was a feast of thanksgiving, of thankfulness to God. Edward Winslow wrote to friends in December, "Although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
The goodness of God was often on their minds. Though the Pilgrims had suffered great loss and hardship, they also were aware of God's great blessing: the produce of the land, peace with the natives, the joy of life, and homes snug for winter.
"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,and into his courts with praise.Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;and his truth endures to all generations." (Psalm 100:4-5)

http://www.joyfulheart.com/thanksgiving/indian-thanksgiving.htm

Tin foil hat alert, here for fun is a listing from the UK of the top 30 conspiracy's, i had not heard of all of them, but had (and believe) a fair share, i guess i need to get fitted with my hat tomorrow?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/3477148/The-greatest-conspiracy-theories-in-history.html?image=29

Have fun with it.

Russia is dong what the American people wanted done. Is to drill off the coast and now they will will be tapping some of the best oil and we again will have it washed up on the shore, killing our animals and we won't be getting anything from it. The irony is people will sue the government for the oil spills and get reimbused for damages that we did not cause or create. If it was so stupid it would be funny. You can not make up how stupid out government can be sometimes.

Official: Russians want to search for oil off Cuba

November 23, 2008 - 2:24pm

HAVANA (AP) - Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island.

Russian oil companies have "concrete projects" for drilling in Cuba's part of the gulf, said Mijail Kamynin, Russia's ambassador to Cuba, to the state-run business magazine Opciones.

Kamynin also said Russian companies would like to help build storage tanks for crude oil and to modernize Cuban pipelines, as well as play a role in Venezuelan efforts to refurbish a Soviet-era refinery in the port city of Cienfuegos, according the article published this weekend.

Medvedev comes to former Cold War ally Cuba on Thursday, part of a tour of Latin America to strengthen his country's economic and political ties in the region. Kamynin said trade between Russia and the island would top $400 million this year.

Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prohibits U.S. companies from investing on the island. But Cuba's state-run oil concern has signed joint operating agreements with companies from several countries to explore waters that Cuban scientists claim could contain reserves of up to 20 billion barrels of oil.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited Cuba in October for the signing of agreements allowing state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA to invest $8 million initially for a seven-year, deep-water exploration project north of the famed beach resort of Varadero. If reserves are confirmed, Brazil would produce oil and natural gas recovered there over the next 25 years.

Opciones did not give details on what the Russian proposals would entail.

The Soviet Union was communist Cuba's chief economic benefactor until it disbanded, throwing the island's economy into disarray. Cuba-Russia relations soured after that, but warmed when President Vladimir Putin visited in 2000.

Steel has to go down, with much less building a buildings and cars, the price had to fall.

After record profits, steel shaken by sudden drop
November 23, 2008 - 4:08pm
By DANIEL LOVERING
AP Manufacturing Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Just weeks after posting record profits, steel makers are facing a harsh new reality: dwindling orders, production cuts, layoffs. And tougher times lay ahead, analysts say.
The steel industry had been riding high earlier this year, as surging demand from China and other countries, coupled with soaring prices for materials used in steel making, produced the most lucrative market for the metal in more than 60 years.

But the credit crisis and global economic slowdown have undercut customers in key markets _ construction, automobiles and industrial equipment _ sending prices tumbling and prompting steel companies to slash production, scale back shipment forecasts, delay expansion plans and furlough workers.

Lower revenues and more layoffs loom in the months ahead, and production may not return to levels seen earlier in 2008 for more than two years, according to some analysts.

"The downturn has been dramatic, both in the speed and the magnitude," said Christopher Plummer, managing director of Metal Strategies Inc., a consulting firm in West Chester, Pa. "It's quite concerning and alarming."

John Anton, a steel economist with IHS Global Insight, said he expects U.S. steel production to fall next year, and that steel companies will be lucky to make about 65 percent as much as they did in 2008. Revenues could fall 35 to 40 percent, and pre-slowdown production levels may not return until 2011.

Layoffs and production cuts are inevitable, but "as long as (steel companies) saved some of the huge profits they made in 2008 ... they should survive," he said.

The U.S. steel industry has been particularly hard hit by a decline in the number of new houses being built after multiple years of excessive construction, Anton said. While little steel is used in new residences, they bring shopping centers, hospitals and schools _ buildings made from larger amounts of the metal.

"The real big drop in steel demand hasn't happened yet _ that's the decline in nonresidential construction," said Charles Bradford, an analyst with Bradford Research/Soleil Securities. "That's just beginning to show up."

Booming demand from China, particularly construction, helped revive the steel industry after a severe downturn from 1998 through 2002 caused by the Asian economic meltdown and other financial crises, as well as a strong dollar that made U.S.-produced steel more expensive on the world market.

Steel prices also got a boost from companies passing along the rising costs of raw materials and services used in steel making: iron ore, coke, metallurgical coal, ocean shipping.

Then demand suddenly began drying up in August. China's expansion waned partly due to a drop in demand for Chinese goods, while North American and European construction tailed off. U.S. auto makers reported plummeting sales and continued shifting toward smaller cars that require less steel. The dollar strengthened, dampening exports, and steel distributors liquidated their inventories.

"Best I can tell, the buyers went on strike in August and they haven't come back yet," said Bradford.

The drop in demand has pulled down prices. Scrap steel, used by steel mills, recently slid to about $90 per gross ton after trading around $550 in July. The metal, from junked cars and other refuse, is considered a market indicator.

Meanwhile, hot-rolled sheet steel, used in autos, office furniture and appliances and considered the industry's benchmark product, dropped to about $785 per ton a few weeks ago from $1,080 in July. It had reached that lofty level after surging from $570 at the end of 2007.

Lower scrap prices have helped companies such as Nucor Corp., which turns the used metal into steel in electric arc furnaces. But even the Charlotte, N.C.-based company _ which relies on so-called minimills that can be shut down and restarted quickly to adjust for demand _ has declined to forecast its future financial performance.

AK Steel Holding Corp. earlier this month said it was temporarily closing plants in Ohio and Kentucky because of sharply lower demand, laying off as many as 1,190 workers, though a small number will stay to maintain the facilities. Earlier, the West Chester, Ohio, company lowered its projected fourth-quarter steel shipments by about 14 percent.

Also this month, Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp., which posted record profits for the three months ended in September, said it was laying off 675 workers in the U.S. and Canada due to weaker demand amid the economic downturn.

The company said earlier it had reduced production to match declining order rates and warned of weaker results for the rest of the year due to weakening demand in North America and Europe. It also postponed plans for a $450 million plant in Alabama.

ArcelorMittal SA, the world's largest steel producer and operator of 21 plants in the United States, plans to cut output by nearly a third and has predicted tougher times ahead. It cited a need to rebalance supply and demand and put on hold an expansion plan that would have boosted steel shipments by a fifth by 2010.

In a very short period, steel went from its worst market since World War II, from 1998 to 2002, to its strongest, said Plummer, of Metal Strategies. "And now you can see we're in a significant free-fall."

U.S. steel mills are now probably operating at less than half their capacity, down from full capacity in August, said industry analyst Michelle Applebaum. That would be their lowest point since the early 1980s.

Industry analyst John Tumazos said he estimates the weekly operating rate for U.S. steel mills will not bottom out until the December holidays. "Some of the workers being furloughed may not get back soon," he said.

The domestic industry has changed drastically since the 1970s and 1980s, when it collapsed partly due to competition from imported steel and broader economic problems. U.S. mills have become consolidated among relatively few international players.

Annual global steel production last declined in 2001, said Anton, of IHS Global Insight, citing figures from the American Iron and Steel Institute. The U.S. industry has been more erratic, with a 7 percent gain in 2006 and a 1.5 percent decline last year, he said.

China, the world's biggest steel-making country, has responded to sinking demand this year by cutting output 20 percent. Over the past 12 years, China's steel industry _ once comparable to the U.S. industry's output of about 100 million metric tons per year _ has added mills that together produce more than four times the amount of steel made in the United States.

In North America, about 40 percent of steel demand comes from the devastated construction market, while 20 percent comes from hard-hit automakers and another 20 percent comes from industrial equipment makers. The rest is split among smaller markets, such as the energy sector _ which uses steel pipe _ appliances, office furniture, and food cans and other containers.

But the industry's sudden pain will be felt universally.

"Steel production is going to be bad," Anton said. "It's going to be bad everywhere in the worl

d."

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1524678

I guess we need to figure out a way to make a buck off of Thanksgiving.
Historic Plymouth, Mass., hopes to become movie Mecca

By Denise Lavoie, The Associated Press

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — In this place sometimes known as America's hometown, schoolchildren and tourists flock to see Plymouth Rock, a replica of the Mayflower and the place where the Pilgrims and Mashpee Wampanoags Indians shared the first Thanksgiving meal.

But the staid and historic image of Plymouth could soon be tempered by a decidedly modern attraction: a $488 million film and television studio, complete with 14 sound stages, a 10-acre back lot, a theater, a 300-room upscale hotel, a spa and 500,000 square feet of office space.

The thought of turning Plymouth into a movie Mecca has won the enthusiastic support of many residents, but some don't like the idea of adding Hollywood to their history.

"We don't need you; we've already got Plymouth Rock," says Laurien Enos, one of just three of 116 Town Meeting members who voted last month against allowing the developers to build the studio on a golf course here, about 40 miles south of Boston.

While Enos and others worry about traffic and Hollywood glamour changing their town, most residents have embraced the studio.

More than 1,100 people showed up at a recent jobs fair hosted by the project's developers.

"I think it's a great idea," said Renee Stoddard, a waitress at The All-American Diner. "It's going to bring lots of jobs and more people into Plymouth, and more business for us. It couldn't be a better time for that. We get plumbers and carpenters in here all the time and they're saying there's no work."

Even though construction isn't expected to begin until at least April once the final approvals are set — and the studio won't be ready before late 2010 or early 2011 — developers Plymouth Rock Studios LLC have pre-leased about 60% of the office space they'll need.

Led by David Kirkpatrick, a former president of Paramount Pictures, with Earl Lestz, another former Paramount executive, Plymouth Rock Studios doesn't yet have financing. And that could prove a major obstacle given the current economy.

But Joseph DiLorenzo, chief financial officer of Plymouth Rock Studios and former CFO of the NBA's Boston Celtics, is confident lenders will come through. He notes that the film industry — though faltering now — has weathered recessions before and that the project offers sound stages where filmmakers can do everything related to production, including editing and scoring.

"Now that we know we can build on it, we'll go raise money," said DiLorenzo. "We've had letters from HBO, Warner, Paramount and Fox, saying, 'If you build it, we will come."'

Big-name producers and directors will come to Massachusetts because it offers filmmakers a sales tax exemption and a 25% tax credit for payroll and production expenses, DiLorenzo said.

For its part, in addition to a zoning change, Plymouth's Town Meeting gave the developers a 75% break on the studio's real estate taxes for the first five years. The exemption will gradually decrease over 20 years.

"We want to become the alternative to Hollywood for the film industry," said DiLorenzo.

That may be a tall order, given the competition Massachusetts faces from other states that also offer financial incentives, including neighboring Connecticut, which offers a tax credit of up to 30% for in-state production expenses, and Rhode Island, which gives a 25% tax credit on production costs for movies, videos or TV shows produced primarily in the state.

New York, which is widely seen as Hollywood's closest competitor, offers a 35% tax credit. And Michigan, also considered an attractive state for filmmakers, has begun refunding studios up to 42% of their in-state production expenses.

Nicholas Paleologos, executive director of the Massachusetts Film Office, calls the Plymouth proposal "enormously ambitious" but says Plymouth could be a big draw. The number of tourists visiting Plymouth has dropped in recent years from about 1 million a year to about 750,000.

"Plymouth is already a tourist attraction, and now, if you've got a place where people can visit the sets and take a tour of the back lots, it just enhances the tourist industry that's already there," Paleologos said.

Plymouth also is just 20 miles from picturesque Cape Cod, where ferries take visitors to the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, popular vacation spots for celebrities.

Since the first version of the incentive law went into effect in 2006, the state has seen a dramatic jump in the number of movies made here and the amount of money spent in the state by those productions.

The film industry spent about $6 million in Massachusetts in 2005 and $60 million in 2006. Direct spending more than doubled to $125 million in 2007, on eight major films, including: "The Women," starring Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, and "Pink Panther 2," starring Steve Martin. Direct spending is expected to double again this year to $350 million to $400 million on 10 films, Paleologos said.

DiLorenzo said the developers expect the project to create about 1,000 construction jobs and another 2,000 permanent jobs at the studio, which is to be built on the Waverly Oaks Golf Course in a rural residential neighborhood in South Plymouth. The group secured the rights to the name "Hollywood East" from the Hollywood, Calif., Chamber of Commerce.

Even people who work at the historic sites in Plymouth like the thought of a movie studio in town.

Ann Young, the director of visitor services at Pilgrim Hall Museum, which houses the largest collection of Pilgrim artifacts in the world, said she isn't worried the glitz of a movie studio could taint Plymouth.

"We're all thrilled about it," Young said. "I think that (the developers) are trying to do something new. They are like pilgrims coming to Plymouth to start something new."

But some think the town has rushed, blinded by the thought of movie stars walking down the street.

Ann Marie Flanagan, a Town Meeting member who voted against the proposal, said the developers have not answered key questions, such as how they are going to finance the project and how much they hope the town will contribute in infrastructure improvements.

"People are just mesmerized," Flanagan said. "They're dropping names like Julia Roberts, and saying you're all going to have jobs."

DiLorenzo said the development group couldn't seek funding until Town Meeting approved the zoning change. The project also needs to get a state environmental permit and state approval for an access road.

The developers have pledged to provide buses to take tourists from the historic sites in Plymouth to the studio.

"We think people will come here for the tax credits and for the location," DiLorenzo said. "You have the ocean, the hills, foliage, the city — it's all here."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-23-plymouth-goes-hollywood_N.htm