"it may become possible to read feelings"

Scientists extract images directly from brain
12 Dec 2008
Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color.
“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design — particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient.
ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron.

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America's Sport

A Brief History Of Competitive Eating

Thursday, Jul. 03, 2008 By CLAIRE SUDDATH

Joey Chestnut competes in the 2007 International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, New York.

Stan Honda / AFP / Getty

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The Fourth of July is a time for family, patriotism, and, thanks to a Coney Island hot dog vendor, seeing how many frankfurters a grown man can eat in ten minutes.

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Face-stuffing has been around for centuries, of course: the Edda, a collection of 13th-century Norse myths, tells of an eating contest between the god Loki and his servant (the servant won by eating the plate). But organized competitive eating — consuming as much as you can, as fast as you can, within a given period of time — is relatively new. According to Major League Eating, the sport's governing body (yes, there is one) the American version of the pastime began in 1916, the year that Nathan's Famous held its first Fourth of July hot dog-eating contest in Coney Island. According to legend, four immigrants competed to determine who was the most patriotic (the Irishman won with 13).

Eating contests weren't limited to hot dogs, however. New York Yankees outfielder Ping Bodie competed in a 1919 pasta-eating contest against an ostrich in Jacksonville, Florida. (Again, according to legend, the ostrich passed out after its 11th bowl and Bodie won by default.) In 1958, a pair of American and Soviet weightlifters fought their own version of the Cold War by eating eight lobsters and six squab in front of 250 onlookers at a New York restaurant. They didn't even touch the dozen lamb chops and 10 steaks waiting for them, and ultimately declared themselves failures. And in 1963, Eddie "Bozo" Miller ate 27 chickens at a Trader Vic's restaurant in San Francisco to win the Guinness Book of Records title of "world's greatest trencherman."

After languishing for decades in county fair pie-eating obscurity, the sport rediscovered legitimacy in the mid-1990s when two brothers, George and Richard Shea, took over Nathan's publicity. They increased the hot dog contest's attendance from the hundreds to the thousands, and other restaurants jumped on the trend. The Sheas founded the International Federation of Competitive Eating (since retitled Major League Eating) to oversee the events. They now host 80 to 100 competitions a year, featuring everything from deep fried asparagus to tiramisu. The top events are broadcast live on ESPN; last spring, Nintendo announced a competitive eating video game for the Wii, although it has yet to be released.

Like more established sports, competitive eating has its own body of myth (skinny competitors do better, supposedly because their stomachs have more room to expand), strategy (dunking food into juice or lemonade helps it dissolve) and controversy: when world champion Takeru Kobayashi was unseated last year by American Joey Chestnut, who ate 66 dogs to Kobayashi's 63, the Japanese nosher was allegedly hobbled by a jaw injury. ("I believed he was fully recovered," Chestnut said.) Top eaters train for months before a big event, and for good reason — this year, some 40,000 fans are expected to come watch Kobayashi and Chestnut face off at Coney Island again, and the winner will take home $20,000.

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Surprise, Surprise..

"The entire governmental system broke down; we had to rely on ourselves and our neighbors."

With resources tight, Californians take on wildfires themselves

By Carol Pogash

Published: July 7, 2008

ELK, California: When he spotted a small fire two weeks ago atop a steep hill outside this blocklong town, Charlie Acker, 57, the president of the local school board and a volunteer firefighter, jumped inside his stubby red 1965 fire truck and, with a skid and a prayer, drove up the severe incline to check out the situation.

Knowing that every other volunteer firefighter in this community of 100 residents was battling a larger blaze nearby, he used his cellphone to call his wife. She roused a crew of young kayakers who cater to tourists in this picturesque old logging town at the edge of the Pacific, some 140 miles, or 225 kilometers, north of San Francisco, and joined Acker on the line.

The state fire agency, CalFire, had promised to send a helicopter, but just as Acker was waiting its arrival, it was diverted, he said, "to a higher rent district" in another county. When he radioed for more firefighters and an air tanker with fire retardant, he was sent 13 state prison inmates and told he was on his own.

For two weeks that has been the case here in Mendocino County, known for its majestic redwoods, prized grapevines and pungent marijuana plants. Resources have been stretched thin since lightning ignited about 1,100 fires throughout the drought-ridden region.

While the few cities in this county have paid firefighters, in the small communities that dot this region, fires are fought mostly by trained volunteers.

To fight the 123 fires that have been burning over 41,000 thickly wooded, mountainous acres, or about 17,000 hectares, there was only one helicopter, no air tanker with fire retardant and no one tending to 17 of the fires. But help began arriving on Sunday: 15 helicopters, 3 air tankers and the promise of 200 National Guard soldiers. Tracy Boudreaux, the public information officer here for CalFire, said that with 1,700 personnel already working on the fire lines, the county could use twice that and more fire trucks and water tenders. The fires are 45 percent contained with only two fires unattended.

When the lightning fires struck in June, Acker said, "The entire governmental system broke down; we had to rely on ourselves and our neighbors."

Residents ran tabs at local stations to pay for gasoline for fire engines. Merchants placed tall jars on counters seeking contributions.

A restaurateur offered firefighters free meals.

The owner of a hardware store refused payment from volunteer firefighters for crucial supplies. When a local radio station called for money to help defray firefighting costs, people descended on the Redwood Drive-In, known for its malts, shakes and curly fries, and donated more than $4,000.

Landscapers whacked and carted away brush around houses free of charge. A caterer fed 150 volunteer firefighters daily. One market delivered submarine sandwiches to the weary workers, while residents baked gooey cakes and made quinoa salads. A fire chief's wife grilled steak fajitas for a crew of inmates. Another woman delivered tinctures and balms to firefighters to soothe sore muscles and dry throats. On a map in the Boonville firehouse, a sign offered free massages.

When the blazes broke out, Leggett, population 300, had more fires than firefighters until an unsanctioned call went out on local radio and some 40 people with rakes and shovels began showing up at the firehouse every morning.

Residents expressed both pride and shock that they mostly had to fend for themselves. "This community of rugged individualists pulling together is part of the reason we love where we live," said Deborah Cahn, who with her family owns Navarro Vineyards. "But isn't this what government is supposed to do?"

On June 21, traffic on CalFire's Web site was so heavy that Boudreaux, the public information officer, could not log on to order equipment. "You got what you got," she said she was told when she called. "Nothing else is coming."

Boudreaux said: "With the number of fires in Northern California, the resources were limited. It has been phenomenal that we have avoided potential catastrophic disasters to life and structures." Only two homes have been destroyed in the fires.

"This is not a normal situation for CalFire, one of the largest fire organizations in the world," she continued. The lack of resources has been "shocking across the board," she said.

Cahn said that when she spotted smoke near her ridge, the 911 operator told her no resources were available. It took three days before firefighters were available to find and fight the blaze. Bob Roland, a 63-year-old retired aerospace executive and volunteer firefighter, died Thursday, apparently of a heart attack, while folding hoses at that fire.

Colin Wilson, the fire chief in Boonville, described managing about seven fires with 30 firefighters working continuously for several days. "We knew we had no resources," he said.

Throughout the siege, firefighters have had to attend to medical emergencies unrelated to the fires. When he was off the mountain, Acker said he helped a woman who thought she was suffering a stroke.

Instead, he said, she was having a strong reaction to a birthday cake laced with marijuana. Michael Maynard, a fire captain with CalFire who was checking on his parents' home in a rural development built a few decades ago, said he jumped through flames to save four residents, one in capri pants and flip-flops, who were fighting a fire on their own.

"It was a little hairy," Maynard said. "I wouldn't do it again."

Larry Tunzi, 49, a cattle rancher and volunteer fire chief in Comptche, a nook where everyone knows your name, stood on a ridge top recently and counted 30 fires to be fought by his crew, which included a carpenter, a butcher, a nurse, computer programmers and Wally Stubbs, a 70-year-old retired chief operating officer of a manufacturing company. Many ended up working 60 hours on the line without going home.

With two other volunteer firefighters, Patty McCummings, 53, a real estate agent, spent one night with little water and only hand tools fighting back flames that jumped a line on a ridge that "was steeper than a cow's face," McCummings said. Tunzi called their efforts "the last stand at Tank 4 Gulch."

During a break, Stubbs said, "I've never been prouder of working with any people than I was with this group."

As David Severn, part of an all-volunteer ambulance crew in Boonville, said, "Fending for yourself in this community does not mean you're standing alone."

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F!@K IT! F@*K T!!!!!!I

Yellow Science

By JAMES KERIAN

from The Wall Street Journal
June 25, 2008

In the late 19th century, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer developed what would come to be known as yellow journalism. By disregarding what had been standard journalistic methods, particularly in regards to the verifying of sources, these two publishers were able both to push their country toward war with Spain and dramatically increase the circulation of their respective newspapers.

Man has always had a healthy desire for knowledge, and it is the feeding of this hunger that ennobles journalism. Hearst and Pulitzer were acutely aware that man has a less healthy but no less voracious desire to believe that he has knowledge, particularly knowledge of something sensational. It is the feeding of this hunger that irreparably disgraced journalism, and a century later now threatens to do the same to science.

* * *

Scientists, like journalists, are called upon to plumb the depths of the unknown and to fairly and objectively report their findings to their own professional community as well as the general public. Scientists, like the journalists of yesteryear, have specific methods for ensuring that the public trust placed in them is not abused. The most fundamental of these methods is the well-known, if not so creatively named, scientific method. The essence of the scientific method is the formulation of hypotheses (ideas) and the using of these hypotheses to make predictions that can be experimentally tested. In the words of Sir Thomas Eddington in "The Philosophy of Physical Science," "Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure."

Nevertheless, over the past several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings. No equations have been shown to explain the relationship between fossil-fuel emission and global temperature. The only predictions that have been made are apocalyptic, so the hypothesis has to be accepted before it can be tested.

The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of "an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure." Global warming may or may not be "the greatest scam in history," as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an "item of physical knowledge."

Nevertheless, the acceptance of man-made global warming as scientific fact has become so prevalent that the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, recently declared: "The debate is over. It's time to discuss solutions." Leaving aside the question of the secretary-general's qualifications, that is certainly one of the most antiscientific statements ever made. The first question that this raises is why have so many scientists chosen to ignore this glaring failure of the global warming hypothesis to meet the standards of their own profession? The second question is what, if anything, can be done about it?

The first, and most obvious, temptation for this sort of willful blindness is financial. Hearst made only a fraction of his estimated $140 million in net worth from yellow journalism. Global warming, on the other hand, has provided an estimated $50 billion in research grants to those willing to practice yellow science. Influence in the public sphere is another strong temptation. It might not be as impressive as starting the Spanish-American War, but global-warming alarmists have amassed a large group of journalists and politicians ready to silence any critics and endorse whatever boondoggle scheme is prescribed as the cure to our impending climate catastrophe.

Finally, one should not underestimate the temptation of convenience. Just as it is far easier to publish stories without verifying the sources; so is it much more convenient to practice yellow science than the real thing. It takes far more courage, perseverance, and perspiration to develop formulas, make predictions, and risk being proved wrong than to look at historical data and muse about observed similarities. Yellow scientists have fled the risks of science that Albert Einstein described when he said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong."

* * *

The layman might object that this is not his problem. Surely Joe Six-Pack should not be expected to monitor the findings of research physicists; if anything is to be done about this collapse of scientific standards, it must be done by the scientific community itself. Unfortunately, history has shown the inability of professional communities to police their own ranks. When it first reared its head, yellow journalism was roundly condemned by the journalistic community. In fact, it was these critics who coined the term yellow journalism. The condemnation of their peers was an insufficient deterrent for Pulitzer and Hearst, because it was the approval of the public that drove their circulation. Eventually the entire journalistic community acceded to the sensationalism that the public seemed to insist on.

In recent decades, the scorn of prominent scientists such as John Coleman has been similarly unable to stop the ascendancy of the global-warming hypothesis as the public has been increasingly drawn by its sensationalism. The scientific community as a whole is on the brink of acceding to Ban Ki-Moon's insistence that "the debate is over" and turning now to their grant applications.

Ultimately, it is only the public that holds the power to enforce professional standards, and therefore each of us must accept this responsibility. Most of us will not be able to comprehend the latest climatologic studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but fortunately that is not necessary. However complex the information may be, the standards are quite clear. One need not be a Beltway newshound to know that whatever follows the phrase "unnamed sources in the capital" or "rumors in Hollywood are" is not real journalism. Similarly, one does not need an advanced degree in natural science to understand that whatever follows the phrase "most experts agree" or "no one can measure the exact effect but" is not real science. In fact, if there is no possible way that a statement can realistically be tested, it probably fails to meet the standards for any professional community and is of no real use to the public.

The long-term results of yellow journalism have probably been more devastating than the war it started. Journalists have lost the respectability of their profession, and the public has lost real journalism. We are in very real danger, as scientists and as a nation, of losing the respectability of a professional community that has done so much to make this country great in the past hundred years. If yellow science overcomes real science it will not only be on account of the greed, ambition, and cowardice of our scientists but also the sloth and cowardice of a public that is unwilling to stand up and demand professionalism. This is why, as the editors of the New York Press said in 1897, I "called them yellow because they are yellow."

Mr. Kerian is a mechanical engineer and small business owner in Grafton, N.D.

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Google is making us stupid

(selected paragraphs from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google)

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.
....
The Net’s influence doesn’t end at the edges of a computer screen, either. As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets. When, in March of this year, TheNew York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts” would give harried readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news, sparing them the “less efficient” method of actually turning the pages and reading the articles. Old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.
...
“The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,” Page said in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Last year, Page told a convention of scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale.”

Such an ambition is a natural one, even an admirable one, for a pair of math whizzes with vast quantities of cash at their disposal and a small army of computer scientists in their employ. A fundamentally scientific enterprise, Google is motivated by a desire to use technology, in Eric Schmidt’s words, “to solve problems that have never been solved before,” and artificial intelligence is the hardest problem out there. Why wouldn’t Brin and Page want to be the ones to crack it?

Still, their easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

‘Perhaps 60% of today’s oil price is pure speculation’

by F. William Engdahl


Global Research, May 2, 2008



The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?

First, the crucial role of the international oil exchanges in London and New York is crucial to the game. Nymex in New York and the ICE Futures in London today control global benchmark oil prices which in turn set most of the freely traded oil cargo. They do so via oil futures contracts on two grades of crude oil—West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent.

A third rather new oil exchange, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), trading Dubai crude, is more or less a daughter of Nymex, with Nymex President, James Newsome, sitting on the board of DME and most key personnel British or American citizens.

Brent is used in spot and long-term contracts to value as much of crude oil produced in global oil markets each day. The Brent price is published by a private oil industry publication, Platt’s. Major oil producers including Russia and Nigeria use Brent as a benchmark for pricing the crude they produce. Brent is a key crude blend for the European market and, to some extent, for Asia.

WTI has historically been more of a US crude oil basket. Not only is it used as the basis for US-traded oil futures, but it's also a key benchmark for US production.




‘The tail that wags the dog’


All this is well and official. But how today’s oil prices are really determined is done by a process so opaque only a handful of major oil trading banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley have any idea who is buying and who selling oil futures or derivative contracts that set physical oil prices in this strange new world of “paper oil.”

With the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures over the past decade or more, the way has opened for the present speculative bubble in oil prices.

Since the advent of oil futures trading and the two major London and New York oil futures contracts, control of oil prices has left OPEC and gone to Wall Street. It is a classic case of the “tail that wags the dog.”

A June 2006 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices,” noted, “…there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.”


What the Senate committee staff documented in the report was a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading so huge a herd of elephants could walk through it. That seems precisely what they have been doing in ramping oil prices through the roof in recent months.

The Senate report was ignored in the media and in the Congress.

The report pointed out that the Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”

Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?

They seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil.

Enron has the last laugh…

As that US Senate report noted:

“Until recently, US energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated exchanges within the United States, like the NYMEX, which are subject to extensive oversight by the CFTC, including ongoing monitoring to detect and prevent price manipulation or fraud. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous growth in the trading of contracts that look and are structured just like futures contracts, but which are traded on unregulated OTC electronic markets. Because of their similarity to futures contracts they are often called “futures look-alikes.”

The only practical difference between futures look-alike contracts and futures contracts is that the look-alikes are traded in unregulated markets whereas futures are traded on regulated exchanges. The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC electronic exchanges was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 in the waning hours of the 106th Congress.

The impact on market oversight has been substantial. NYMEX traders, for example, are required to keep records of all trades and report large trades to the CFTC. These Large Trader Reports, together with daily trading data providing price and volume information, are the CFTC’s primary tools to gauge the extent of speculation in the markets and to detect, prevent, and prosecute price manipulation. CFTC Chairman Reuben Jeffrey recently stated: “The Commission’s Large Trader information system is one of the cornerstones of our surveillance program and enables detection of concentrated and coordinated positions that might be used by one or more traders to attempt manipulation.”

In contrast to trades conducted on the NYMEX, traders on unregulated OTC electronic exchanges are not required to keep records or file Large Trader Reports with the CFTC, and these trades are exempt from routine CFTC oversight. In contrast to trades conducted on regulated futures exchanges, there is no limit on the number of contracts a speculator may hold on an unregulated OTC electronic exchange, no monitoring of trading by the exchange itself, and no reporting of the amount of outstanding contracts (“open interest”) at the end of each day.” 1

Then, apparently to make sure the way was opened really wide to potential market oil price manipulation, in January 2006, the Bush Administration’s CFTC permitted the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the leading operator of electronic energy exchanges, to use its trading terminals in the United States for the trading of US crude oil futures on the ICE futures exchange in London – called “ICE Futures.”

Previously, the ICE Futures exchange in London had traded only in European energy commodities – Brent crude oil and United Kingdom natural gas. As a United Kingdom futures market, the ICE Futures exchange is regulated solely by the UK Financial Services Authority. In 1999, the London exchange obtained the CFTC’s permission to install computer terminals in the United States to permit traders in New York and other US cities to trade European energy commodities through the ICE exchange.

The CFTC opens the door

Then, in January 2006, ICE Futures in London began trading a futures contract for

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, a type of crude oil that is produced and delivered in

the United States. ICE Futures also notified the CFTC that it would be permitting traders in the United States to use ICE terminals in the United States to trade its new WTI contract on the ICE Futures London exchange. ICE Futures as well allowed traders in the United States to trade US gasoline and heating oil futures on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Despite the use by US traders of trading terminals within the United States to trade US oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures contracts, the CFTC has until today refused to assert any jurisdiction over the trading of these contracts.




Persons within the United States seeking to trade key US energy commodities – US crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures – are able to avoid all US market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York.

Is that not elegant? The US Government energy futures regulator, CFTC opened the way to the present unregulated and highly opaque oil futures speculation. It may just be coincidence that the present CEO of NYMEX, James Newsome, who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, is a former chairman of the US CFTC. In Washington doors revolve quite smoothly between private and public posts.

A glance at the price for Brent and WTI futures prices since January 2006 indicates the remarkable correlation between skyrocketing oil prices and the unregulated trade in ICE oil futures in US markets. Keep in mind that ICE Futures in London is owned and controlled by a USA company based in Atlanta Georgia.

In January 2006 when the CFTC allowed the ICE Futures the gaping exception, oil prices were trading in the range of $59-60 a barrel. Today some two years later we see prices tapping $120 and trend upwards. This is not an OPEC problem, it is a US Government regulatory problem of malign neglect.

By not requiring the ICE to file daily reports of large trades of energy commodities, it is not able to detect and deter price manipulation. As the Senate report noted, “The CFTC's ability to detect and deter energy price manipulation is suffering from critical information gaps, because traders on OTC electronic exchanges and the London ICE Futures are currently exempt from CFTC reporting requirements. Large trader reporting is also essential to analyze the effect of speculation on energy prices.”

The report added, “ICE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other evidence indicate that its over-the-counter electronic exchange performs a price discovery function -- and thereby affects US energy prices -- in the cash market for the energy commodities traded on that exchange.”


Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices

In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”

The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an

additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.

Perhaps 60% of oil prices today pure speculation

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are major players and fund numerous hedge funds as well who speculate.

In June 2006, oil traded in futures markets at some $60 a barrel and the Senate investigation estimated that some $25 of that was due to pure financial speculation. One analyst estimated in August 2005 that US oil inventory levels suggested WTI crude prices should be around $25 a barrel, and not $60.

That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today’s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on Nymex and ICE exchanges in New York and London it is more likely that as much as 60% of the today oil price is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London and they certainly aren’t talking.

By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures

prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.

As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.

Compelling evidence also suggests that the oft-cited geopolitical, economic, and natural factors do not explain the recent rise in energy prices can be seen in the actual data on crude oil supply and demand. Although demand has significantly increased over the past few years, so have supplies.

Over the past couple of years global crude oil production has increased along with the increases in demand; in fact, during this period global supplies have exceeded demand, according to the US Department of Energy. The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently forecast that in the next few years global surplus production capacity will continue to grow to between 3 and 5 million barrels per day by 2010, thereby “substantially thickening the surplus capacity cushion.”

Dollar and oil link

A common speculation strategy amid a declining USA economy and a falling US dollar is for speculators and ordinary investment funds desperate for more profitable investments amid the US securitization disaster, to take futures positions selling the dollar “short” and oil “long.”

For huge US or EU pension funds or banks desperate to get profits following the collapse in earnings since August 2007 and the US real estate crisis, oil is one of the best ways to get huge speculative gains. The backdrop that supports the current oil price bubble is continued unrest in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Venezuela and Pakistan and firm oil demand in China and most of the world outside the US. Speculators trade on rumor, not fact.

In turn, once major oil companies and refiners in North America and EU countries begin to hoard oil, supplies appear even tighter lending background support to present prices.

Because the over-the-counter (OTC) and London ICE Futures energy markets are unregulated, there are no precise or reliable figures as to the total dollar value of recent spending on investments in energy commodities, but the estimates are consistently in the range of tens of billions of dollars.

The increased speculative interest in commodities is also seen in the increasing popularity of commodity index funds, which are funds whose price is tied to the price of a basket of various commodity futures. Goldman Sachs estimates that pension funds and mutual funds have invested a total of approximately $85 billion in commodity index funds, and that investments in its own index, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), has tripled over the past few years. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs.

F. William Engdahl is an Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. He may be contacted at info@engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net


1 United States Senate Premanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 109th Congress 2nd Session, The Role of Market speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices: A Need to Put the Cop Back on the Beat; Staff Report, prepared by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, Washington D.C., June 27, 2006. p. 3.

Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes firing bows and arrows
By MICHAEL HANLONLast updated at 11:39 AM on 30th May 2008
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Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away.
Behind the two men stands another figure, possibly a woman, her stance also seemingly defiant. Her skin painted dark, nearly black.
The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable. For they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes, who live in the Envira region in the thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier.
Thought never to have had any contact with the outside world, everything about these people is, and hopefully will remain, a mystery.
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Painted: In a thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian border, these tribespeople are thought never to have had any contact with the outside world
Their extraordinary body paint, precisely what they eat (the anthropologists saw evidence of gardens from the air), how they construct their tent-like camp, their language, how their society operates - the life of these Amerindians remains a mystery.
'We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said Brazilian uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior. 'This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.'
Meirelles, who despite once being shot in the shoulder by an arrow fired by another tribe campaigns to protect these peoples, believes this group's numbers are increasing, and pointed out how strong and healthy the people seemed.
But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru and populations are being decimated.
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Mystery: The tribespeople are likely to think the plane that took this photograph is a spirit or large bird
Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.
'What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world,' said Meirelles.
It is extraordinary to think that, in 2008, there remain about a hundred groups of people, scattered over the Earth, who know nothing of our world and we nothing of theirs, save a handful of brief encounters.
The uncontacted tribes, which are located in the jungles of South America, New Guinea and a remote and the beautiful and remote North Sentinel island in the Indian Ocean (the inhabitants of which have also responded to attempts at contact with extreme aggression) all have one thing in common - they want to be left alone.
And for good reason. The history of contact, between indigenous tribes and the outside world, has always been an unhappy one.
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Human nature: One man points at the plane. Others ready their weapons
In our overcrowded world their very future hangs in the balance. Almost all of these tribes are threatened by powerful outsiders who want their land. These outsiders - loggers, miners, cattle ranchers - are often willing to kill the tribespeople to get what they want.
Even where there is no violence, the tribes can be wiped out by diseases like the common cold to which they have no resistance.
According to Miriam Ross of Survival International, which campaigns to protect the world's remaining indigenous peoples, 'These tribes represent the incredible diversity of humankind. Unless we want to condemn yet more of the earth's peoples to extinction, we must respect their choice. Any contact they have with outsiders must happen in their own time and on their own terms.'
As to who these people are, how they live their lives, what language they speak - we know nothing. 'Normally you can tell who tribes are by their language, how they wear their hair, how they adorn their bodies and so on, but in this case the photos don't allow us to get close enough to see,' says Ms Ross.
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Hidden homes: The tribe's tent-shaped dwellings deep in the rainforest
When anthropologists first overflew the area, they saw women and children in the open and no one appeared to be painted. It was only when the plane returned a few hours later that they saw these individuals covered head-to-toe in red. 'Tribes in the Amazon paint themselves for all kinds of different reasons - one of which includes when they feel threatened or are aggressive,' Ms Ross says.
'And they are almost certain to feel threatened by or aggressive towards a plane, which was where the photos were taken from. They are almost certain not to understand what the plane is - perhaps a spirit or a large bird.
'The jungle is fundamental to their lives and survival. It's their home, their source of food, the source of their culture etc. Without it, they could not exist as a people.'
Contact is usually a disaster for these remote tribespeople, who live a life probably unchanged for more than 10,000 years. Even if the loggers do not shoot them (which they often do) or force them off their land, diseases against which these isolated humans have no resistance typically wipe out half an uncontacted tribe's numbers in a year or two.
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Stay away: The anthropologists saw evidence of gardens, but exactly what they eat, how they build their huts and why they paint their bodies remains unknown
Ms Ross added: 'These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.'

More failed Domino's ideas

Domino's Dots
12 delicious dots of dough, baked to perfection & covered with cinnamon. Served with sweet vanilla icing.

Though I never had the official thing, apparently these were delicious.


CHEESY DOMINO'S DOTS

What's in a name? Pizza, at least according to the savvy shills at Domino's.

Do you want $1,000 worth of gift certificates from Domino's? Might you give birth on Sunday, February 29? Would you consider naming your child Dorothy or Dot? If you answered "no" to all of the above, join the club. If by chance you answered "yes" to all three questions, then Tom Monaghan's successors have a deal for you.

Domino's has conceived a gimmick to hawk its leftover dough and cheese. These tiny, flavorless balls are called Cheesy Domino's Dots. If your child is one of the next added to the rare list of leap-year babies, and you're willing to let her grow up being a public-relations tool, give the nefarious folks at Domino's a call.

Domino's: "As for new Cheesy Domino's Dots, no vote is necessary to know that Domino's adds 360 degrees of cheesy, zesty, all-around fun to the traditional pizza meal with the introduction of its newest side dish. Named after the dots in the Domino's Pizza logo, Cheesy Domino's Dots are small, round balls of cheesy, zesty, delicious bread, covered with a blend of lots and lots of melted Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses and then sprinkled with Domino's delicious garlic and romano cheese seasoning. Cheesy Domino's Dots are served 12 per order, with a side of marinara sauce to round off the delectable taste."


PHILLY CHEESE STEAK PIZZA

Before Domino's launched its Philly Cheese Steak Pizza, the company conducted an authenticity check with Frank Olivieri, Jr., owner and great nephew of the founder of the famous Pat's King of Steaks® in Philadelphia. According to Mr. Olivieri, "It's a thumbs up. If you can't get a Pat's steak sandwich, Domino's Philly Cheese Steak Pizza is the next best thing."

"The Olivieri family is an icon in the cheese steak business, and to receive their stamp of approval is a real honor," said Calwell. "Domino's is proud to have its Philly Cheese Steak Pizza recognized by the experts – Philadelphia residents – as a high-quality product inspired by the original."

Introduced in September 2003, Domino's Philly Cheese Steak Pizza, the first new pizza Domino's launched since January 2000, starts with a traditional pizza crust, golden brown and crisp on the outside, tender and delicious on the inside. It is then smothered with onions, peppers and mushrooms. Tender slices of marinated, premium steak come next, seasoned and cooked as if imported straight from South Philly. Finally, this superb pizza is topped with a layer of shredded provolone cheese to capture the authentic, mouth-watering taste of a Philly Cheese Steak in a great-tasting pizza.

DOUBLEMELT PIZZA

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec 15, 2004 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Do you see double when you write your name? Did you marry someone with the same last name as your first? Are you a Michael Michaels, Frank Franklin, Adam Adams or Carol Carroll? If so, Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ), the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, is looking for you. Domino's continues to celebrate its new Doublemelt Pizza by giving the pizza to people with double names.

"This is a fun way for Domino's to give a special treat to consumers with double names," explains Holly Ryan, Domino's Pizza spokesperson. "With double the crust and double the cheese, we're rewarding our double-named customers with double the fun."

Domino's Doublemelt Pizza was rolled out in September 2004. Domino's Doublemelt starts with a thin crust, covered in a creamy blended cheese sauce full of herbs and a hint of garlic. A second thin crust is added and topped with the basics -- tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and choice of toppings. To top it off, another blend of six cheeses is added.

CHEESEBURGER PIZZA

Domino's used its March appearance on the highly-rated NBC series, "The Apprentice," and celebrity businessman Donald Trump to introduce the American Classic Cheeseburger pizza. The Domino's Pizza/Donald Trump commercials made enough of a splash that the company was honored to be featured in a parody spot on "Saturday Night Live" in April.

STEAK FANATIC

In September, the company "mooved" in a different direction and introduced Steak Fanatic Pizza, an indulgent product featuring two kinds of steak and two cheeses, together with roasted onions, which is available now through the end of the year.

The Steak Fanatic Pizza combines guys' ultimate food cravings -- steak and pizza -- into one delicious arrangement. The new Steak Fanatic Pizza is crafted with Domino's signature hand-stretched dough piled with Angus steak -- on top of more steak -- and smothered in American and provolone cheeses. To embolden the distinct steak flavor, the new Steak Fanatic Pizza is topped with a special sauce developed specifically to complement the hearty Angus steak topping. And of course, no authentic steak experience would be complete without a layer of fire-roasted onions and thick mushroom slices.

"Domino's is committed to our customers' satisfaction, and each new pizza introduced undergoes strict testing through our disciplined new product testing process to ensure its popularity among consumers," said Ken Calwell, Domino's Pizza, chief marketing officer. "The new Steak Fanatic Pizza is the product of consumer demand. This pizza is truly 'man-fuel' -- (although women like it too!) -- It's perfect for guys' night in, when cooking is out of the question but you're craving the flavor of steak."

Domino's is partnering with the Cattlemen's Beef Board and the Federation of State Beef Councils division of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association on this promotion, bringing together two tastes that Americans crave -- steak and delicious Domino's pizza. The U.S. beef industry's highly recognized Beef Checkoff logo will appear on many of the promotional materials associated with the roll-out.

Xtra Little Pizza, XLP

Domino's Pizza Uses April Fools' Joke to Launch XLP

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its new XLP product launch on April Fools' Day, Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ), the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, spoofed pizza lovers by introducing an "Xtra LITTLE pizza." In reality, Domino's is offering XLP- an "Xtra LARGE pizza" for an extra little price.

Available nationwide, Domino's new XLP is 30 percent bigger than its current large pizza. For just $9.99, customers get a piping hot, one-topping pizza with eight extra large slices. And, for just $2 more (at participating stores in select markets), customers can pile on as many toppings as their stomachs' can handle.

"Our customers don't need to read the fine print to know they're getting a great deal with our new XLP," said Ken Calwell, Domino's Pizza chief marketing officer. "The offer is simple and the value is evident. XLP delivers more pizza for your money."

April Fools!

The XLP concept was introduced Tuesday (March 28) with an early April Fools' Day gag on hundreds of pizza eating college students. Domino's visited the campus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti to distribute samples of the XLP. But, in this case, the acronym stood for "Xtra Little Pizza!" Comedic actors asked students to taste and comment on Domino's mini-pies that measured a mere three inches in width and were topped with extra tiny bits of pepperoni.

The joke was on the students who actually believed that Domino's was coming out with an Xtra Little Pizza. Their reactions were mixed as they popped the tiny pizzas into their mouths.

Some students loved the idea of the Xtra Little Pizza for its portability. "I think it is a really great idea," said John Lanphear, a student from Plymouth, Mich. "It would be great for parties because it is kind of awkward carrying around a slice of pizza when you are partying and dancing. Four or five bites is just enough to get you a little less hungry."

Other students felt that the Xtra Little Pizza was just not enough to satisfy their extreme hunger. "It's too small," said Julia Nuoffer, a student at Eastern Michigan University. "I would have to eat like ten of them to fill me up."

FUDGEMS! (August 17, 2005)

a new and irresistible chocolaty dessert to America's doorstep. Available nationwide beginning August 21, Domino's customers who order a large pizza at regular menu price will receive an order of Domino's new oven-baked Brownie Squares absolutely free.

A new twist on a classic dessert, Brownie Squares are Domino's first dessert menu item to not use traditional pizza dough among leading national pizza chains. According to Restaurants & Institutions magazine's 2005 Menu Census, brownies are one of the top five desserts appearing on most foodservice menus. Additionally, Domino's found in its own test market research that customers loved the idea of rounding out their pizza meal with warm Brownie Squares. Now Domino's is the first to deliver oven-baked brownies among all quick service restaurants.

Domino's new Brownie Squares come 10 to an order -- bite-sized brownies with warm chocolaty centers. All orders are delivered with a side of fudge dipping sauce. These bite-size treats are perfect for sharing at the end of a meal, or enjoying by oneself.

To support the new product launch, Domino's retained Fudgems to spearhead the effort. Fudgems, a three-foot-tall brownie character, will serve as the mascot and figure head for the national launch appearing in Domino's television and print advertising and the Internet to increase excitement -- and appetites -- for the new Brownie Squares.

Brooklyn Style (brought back again with Philly in 2007)

Just in time for Halloween -- when Domino's (NYSE: DPZ) expects to sell one million pizzas in a single day -- the world leader in pizza delivery is launching its newest creation, Brooklyn Style Pizza.

The new Brooklyn Style Pizza is crafted with Domino's signature, hand- tossed dough stretched thin and cut into 6 big, foldable slices. The pizza includes a blend of mozzarella and provolone cheeses and a choice of new extra large Brooklyn-style sausage or pepperoni. Available in select markets beginning this week and nationwide on October 30, customers can receive a large Brooklyn Style Pizza for just $9.99. For just $2 more, customers can upgrade to an extra large.

"Brooklyn is known for its great people, friendly neighborhoods and, of course, delicious pizza," said Ken Calwell, Domino's Pizza chief marketing officer. "We want to deliver the unique taste of Brooklyn to our customers by offering them something they'd otherwise need to travel to New York to enjoy. We call it delivering the old neighborhood to your neighborhood."

Domino's is rewarding customers with the name "Brooklyn" or "Brooke Lynn" with a free Brooklyn Style Pizza. Beginning today through December 17, Domino's is giving away gift certificates good for a free Brooklyn Style Pizza to the first 300 people who can prove it.

CHEESY GARLIC BREAD PIZZA

Prepare to go into sensory overload as Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ), the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, unleashes the mouth-watering taste, sight and smell of its new Cheesy Garlic Bread Pizza.

Cheesy Garlic Bread Pizza delivers delicious garlic bread flavor, with layers of cheese on a new light, flaky and buttery hand-tossed crust. The combination creates a pizza that stimulates the senses. Beginning nationwide on Feb. 12, customers everywhere can indulge in a medium Cheesy Garlic Bread Pizza with their favorite topping for just $9.99. They can also add a second medium, one-topping pizza for just $5 more.

OREO DESSERT PIZZA

Domino's OREO(R) Dessert Pizza is a new twist on one of America's favorites. The first nationally available dessert pizza in Domino's nearly 47- year history, OREO(R) Dessert Pizza starts with a new dessert-style thin crust that's layered with vanilla sauce and covered with OREO(R) cookie crumbles. When it's fresh out of the oven, a sweet icing is drizzled on top. Beginning this week, customers can try Domino's new OREO(R) Dessert Pizza for just $3.99 with any purchase.

CRISPY MELT PIZZA

-two distinct sensations united in one pizza.

The Crispy Melt Pizza includes melted provolone and cheddar cheeses, pizza sauce and your favorite toppings, sandwiched between twin crispy crusts. Beginning October 22, customers can purchase a medium, one-topping Crispy Melt Pizza for just $9.99.

"The melted cheeses, toppings and twin crispy crusts of our new Crispy Melt Pizza really create diverse and delicious tastes in one great pizza," said Ken Calwell, Domino's Pizza chief marketing officer. "Our stores are really excited about the unique combination of this new pizza and we're sure our customers will be, too."

STATUS UNKNOWN (2006):

Domino's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Man Drives Cross-Country, Correcting Typos

I can be ecentric when it comes to mispelling out of principal, but your crazy if you have enough time on your schedual to do this!

Jeff Deck is on a mission. Loaded up with a supply of pens, pencils, crayons, erasers, and White-Out, the 28-year-old Dartmouth grad is driving cross-country through America, keeping his eyes peeled for places where he might need to make an emergency stop to offer his assistance. Within minutes of stopping, he's back on the road, headed for another destination in desperate need of help.So how, you might ask, can Deck help the world using the tools of the classroom? Simple: He corrects its grammar.As most of us know, it's impossible to leave your house without spotting an array of atrocities against the written word: Unnecessary quotation marks (see this hilarious blog for some glaring examples), misspelled words, and don't even get him started on the travesty of the misplaced apostrophe: "The apostrophe shows up when it's not wanted and is never there when you need it," Deck lamented to ABC News.So, over the last year, Deck has been driving through long stretches of the country on the look-out for grammatical errors to correct. In New York, he finds a "chicken parmasan" on a menu; in California, he spots "carmel corn" for sale. Each spelling and grammatical correction is carefully documented in Deck's blog, Typo Hunt Across America.Deck isn't being nit-picky for no reason – he's trying to keep American society from sliding into illiteracy. He doesn't want to watch children grow up thinking "strawberries" is spelled "strawberry's," just because they saw it spelled that way on a sign. And though Deck may seem a little on the gruff side when it comes to grammar, he's not as judgmental as you might think. "We try not to be jerks about it," he said. "We want to help them out. It's not about making anybody feel bad or making somebody look stupid or something. It's just really about going after the errors themselves."

1 in 100 adults now in prison

2,319,258 Americans behind bars in 2008, most of any nation

From staff and wire reports

February 29, 2008

NEW YORK - For the first time in U.S. history, more than one in every 100 adults are in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.

Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 - one in 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation.

The report, released yesterday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Related links

• Americans in Prison Graphic

• Prisoner Record Graphic

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," the report said.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are pressuring many states to consider cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the past for fear of appearing soft on crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said. "They want to be tough on crime. They want to be a law-and-order state. But they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."

Some Maryland lawmakers said they hope the report will spur reforms in drug-sentencing laws.

"We've been pounding the governor and chairmen of committees with this information for almost five years," said Del. Curtis Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat who has sponsored several bills that would lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. "The fact that somebody else is saying it and it's a national report might help us wake them up to this issue."

There are 23,342 people incarcerated in Maryland, according to the Pew report. "And roughly 70 percent of them are in prison for drug or drug-related offenses," Anderson said. "And of that 70 percent, 92 percent are African-American."

Anderson said the Pew report was not surprising. "We have the highest incarceration rate of every country in the world, including backward and despotic countries like Cuba," he said. "The problem is that the folks we put in jail aren't violent offenders or dangerous to society, but mainly low-level drug users or drug dealers. The way we should be dealing with these people is to put them into treatment, which is far less expensive and much more effective."

Anderson, chairman of the city's legislative delegation, has proposed a bill this session that would reduce mandatory sentences for some drug offenses from 20 years to 10 years. The General Assembly passed a similar bill last year, but it was vetoed by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Anderson said he has been collaborating on a new bill with O'Malley's staff and is hopeful it will be signed into law this year.

The Pew report noted Kansas and Texas as states that have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate populations. They are making greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than imprisonment for offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less-dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.

While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.

"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes. But we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase - 12 percent - was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased 600 percent.

The report was compiled by the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers," said the project's director, Adam Gelb.

According to the report, the average annual cost per prisoner was $23,876, with Rhode Island spending the most ($44,860) and Louisiana the least ($13,009).