"Some fear that the North Dakota oil fields may be less promising than they appear because the source — underground shale formations — traditionally produce a lot of oil in the early stages of drilling and then fall off shortly after"
Are you s***ting me?
I need a cigarette!
"Electronic cigarettes sprout on Boston shelves; Tobacco firms push product" by Kay Lazar | Globe Staff, July 08, 2013
Boston shopkeepers are rushing to sell electronic cigarettes, apparently driven by sales pitches from the nation’s third-largest tobacco company. Lorillard representatives have been offering retailers display samples and suggesting they stock the tobacco-free smokes.
The push comes amid a reignited national debate about the safety of electronic cigarettes, following last month’s announcements from the country’s two other big tobacco companies, R.J. Reynolds and Altria, that they too will be jumping into the market....
The three big US tobacco companies, buffeted by decades of declining sales, have entered a national e-cigarette market already awash in independent purveyors. The smaller companies have typically hawked their wares online, promoting them using lower-budget social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. Many health advocates worry that with big tobacco’s deep pockets, the marketing will become more aggressive, and even more youth-oriented, creating a young generation of e-cigarette smokers hooked on nicotine before researchers fully understand what risks the products may pose, a dilemma with which many public health officials are grappling. The devices, often sold in flavors such as berry, peach, and vanilla, seem to entice younger customers, which health advocates worry may lead them toward tobacco cigarettes. Yet the products have also attracted a following of older former smokers who swear they helped them quit tobacco.
Yeah, I see the TV commercials all the time. E-cigarettes are a good thing.
Studies on this issue — and whether the devices pose health risks — are still pending. E-cigarettes are unregulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, making it difficult for consumers to know how much nicotine or other chemicals they may be inhaling. The agency has announced its intention to regulate the products as tobacco but has not provided a time frame. Regulation would subject the products to the same standards and scrutiny as conventional cigarettes.
Manufacturers contend e-cigarettes are safer because they do not contain tar, which has been linked to lung cancer, and do not have a flame. Regulators point to the potential long-term dangers of inhaling vaporized nicotine and other chemicals....
Yeah, that can't be good no matter what way you deliver it..
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"NYC proposes raising age for buying cigarettes to 21; Officials contend law will slice number of users" by Jennifer Peltz | Associated Press, April 23, 2013
NEW YORK — No one under 21 would be able to buy cigarettes in New York City under a proposal unveiled Monday to make the city the most populous place in America to set the minimum age that high.....
Let me get this straight. They can serve, kill, and die in the military when they are 18 -- but no smoking? Isn't that a freedom this country was founded upon and why we are fighting?
‘‘The point here is to really address where smoking begins,’’ City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, flanked by colleagues and the city’s health commissioner. With support in the council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s backing, the proposal has the political ingredients to pass.
Related: Bloomberg's Buckshot
Also see: Weiner pulls into lead in race for mayor of New York City
Related: Weiner Wants to Be Mayor
But it may face questions about its effectiveness and fairness. A retailers’ representative suggested the measure would simply drive younger smokers to neighboring communities or corner-store cigarette sellers instead of city stores, while a smokers’ rights advocate called it ‘‘government paternalism at its worst.’’
Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country. Four states and some localities have raised the age to 19, and at least two communities have agreed to raise it to 21.
In Massachusetts, the age limit is 21 in Needham and is headed toward 21 in Canton....
A similar proposal has been floated in the Texas Legislature, but it is on hold after a budget board estimated it would cost the state more than $42 million in cigarette tax revenue over two years.
$ee what they really care about?
To public health and antismoking advocates, the cost to government is far outstripped by smoking’s toll on human lives....
That was about the time government stopped subsidizing tobacco and started on this anti-smoking kick.
Smoking has become less prevalent overall in New York City over the last decade but has plateaued....
It is already illegal for many of them to buy cigarettes, but raising the minimum age would also bar slightly older friends from buying for them.
City officials cited statistical modeling, published in the journal Health Policy, that estimated raising the tobacco purchase age to 21 nationally could cut the smoking rate by two-thirds among 14- to 17-year-olds and by half among 18- to 20-year-olds over 50 years. Texas budget officials projected a one-third reduction in tobacco product use by 18- to 20-year-olds.
A higher minimum tobacco purchase age could cut into sales that make up 40 percent of gross revenues for the average convenience store, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
But he suggested younger smokers might just go outside the city — the minimum age is 19 in nearby Long Island and New Jersey, for instance — or to black-market merchants.
To smoker Audrey Silk, people considered old enough to vote and serve in the military should be allowed to decide whether to use cigarettes.
‘‘Intolerance for anyone smoking is the antismokers’ excuse to reduce adults to the status of children,’’ said Silk, who founded a group that has sued the city over previous tobacco restrictions.
Advocates for the measure say the parallel is not voting but drinking. They cite laws against selling alcohol to anyone under 21.
They won't let you have sodas either.
The nation’s largest cigarette maker, Altria Group Inc., had no immediate comment, spokesman David Sutton said. He has previously noted that the Richmond, Va.-based company, which produces the top-selling Marlboro brand, supported federal legislation that in 2009 gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products, which includes various retail restrictions.
Representatives for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail inquiries. Based in Winston-Salem, N.C., it makes Camel and other brands.
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Related: N.J. bill raises age to buy tobacco to 21
You can serve in war bit can't smoke?
"Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States. It is responsible for the majority of lung cancer deaths and is a deadly factor in heart attacks and a variety of other illnesses. Concerned about the stalled smoking rate, the CDC launched a graphic advertising campaign last year that was the agency’s largest and starkest anti-smoking push."
Related: Russia smoking ban takes effect
"SJC overturns part of award in tobacco case; Orders retrial on $81m in punitive damages" by Travis Andersen | Globe Staff, June 11, 2013
The state’s highest court on Tuesday partially set aside a landmark judgment in a smoking lawsuit, unanimously ordering a retrial on $81 million in punitive damages won by the family of a Roxbury woman who died of lung cancer.
In an 82-page ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court found that the Suffolk Superior Court jury deciding the case against Lorillard Tobacco Co. received inadequate instructions. The justices, however, upheld $35 million in compensatory damages awarded to the family of Marie Evans, who died in 2002.
The case was the first to challenge Lorillard’s strategy a half-century ago of handing out Newport cigarettes to urban communities, including Roxbury, where menthol brands are particularly popular, and of marketing the brand as a “fun’’ cigarette to youngsters.
We call them drug dealers now!
Tobacco industry critics, while conceding that Lorillard prevailed on some claims, said the SJC’s arguments exposing the tobacco firm’s rationale behind manipulating addictive nicotine and tar levels could pave the way for additional lawsuits in Massachusetts....
Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at the Northeastern University School of Law, said such a finding could have a far-reaching effect on future lawsuits.
“This is huge,” Gottlieb said. “This really makes Massachusetts the most attractive state at this point and time to represent past victims of the tobacco industry — people with lung cancer and folks like Ms. Evans who were addicted for a long time and tried to quit and now find themselves sick and dying.”
After the SJC set the punitive damages aside? What has he been smoking?
Marie Evans said in depositions before she died that she started receiving the cigarette samples in her Orchard Park housing development when she was just 9 years old. At first, she traded them for candy. By 13, she started smoking them, and she then developed a lifelong habit that continued until she died....
Michael Weisman, a lawyer for the Evans family, focused on the partial victory for the plaintiffs in a brief statement.
“We are gratified that the SJC affirmed the substantial compensatory damage award. We are contemplating our next steps.”
In a statement, a spokesman for the North Carolina-based Lorillard praised the punitive damages section of the SJC decision.
“We are gratified that today’s ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered a new trial for punitive damages based on errors made during the Evans trial,” said spokesman Gregg Perry.
I'm glad the antismoking guy and the tobacco companies are both happy with the smoke.
“However, Lorillard disagrees with the affirmation of compensatory damages and the Company is currently considering its options for further review of the ruling.”
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Also see: FDA takes steps on tobacco products
E-cigarettes: the new fracking
Only difference is the nicotine only hurts the individual. Fracking is ruining the water and earth for all of us.
"Unrest in Middle East pushes gas cost higher; Even with increased domestic production, prices are soaring again" by Jay Fitzgerald | Globe Correspondent, July 16, 2013
So US gasoline prices are still influenced by world events.
Even though oil imports are approaching 20-year lows, and the United States is enjoying a boom in new fuel sources, gasoline prices are soaring again because of political troubles halfway around the world. The civil unrest and military coup in Egypt — a relatively small exporter of crude oil — and the ongoing in-fighting in Syria have energy markets worried that the unrest could spread to other oil-producing countries in the region, disrupting supplies.
That's a crock of crap to cover for the real reason: Bernanke running that printing press to the tune of $85 billion a month, lowering the value of your dollar. Thus, prices rise.
In just the last week, gas prices in Massachusetts jumped 14 cents, to $3.62 a gallon, according to AAA Southern New England. Crude oil prices are also rising quickly and now top $100 a barrel. Analysts believe gas prices are going to climb another 5 cents or more a gallon.
Related: US drivers get a break as gas prices begin summer slide
Hey, a lot can change in two weeks.
Hope you understand why I'm sick of bu$ine$$ section fart mist.
This comes as the much higher output from domestic sources, particularly underground shale fields in North Dakota, as well as crude oil from western Canada are adding billions of gallons of crude oil per year to US supplies. The growth has been enough to raise the prospect that North America would soon be cushioned from worldwide oil-price shocks.
But there are still shortcomings in the pipeline — literally — that are contributing to higher gas prices. There isn’t enough pipeline capacity to transport all the oil produced in North America, and not enough refinery capacity to convert the oil into gasoline....
And that train derailment in Canada just gave pipeline plans, proposals, and production a shove.
And though the flow of imported oil has been steadily falling, the United States remains a huge consumer of foreign fuel and will continue to be subject to global events, said Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics LLC in Austin, Texas.
The co$ts of empire.
“It’s still a global market,” said Schenker, whose financial consulting firm monitors the global oil industry. “We’re subject to global demand because we’re still importing millions of gallons per day from overseas.”
There is some disagreement among energy specialists on where prices will head next.
Who do you like to win the football games?
Sarah Emerson, president and managing principal at ESAI Energy LLC in Wakefield, said the recent spikes are the result of temporary problems that periodically strike the energy markets, such as downed refineries along the East Coast, and that there is nothing fundamentally amiss to keep prices high.
“This is a tempest in a teapot,” Emerson said. “Oil prices will come back down. I just don’t know exactly when.”
Translation: I don't know anything.
Joseph H. Petrowski, chief executive of Framingham’s Cumberland Farms Gulf Oil Group, which has 3,000 gas stations in 29 states, is convinced that American consumers will eventually benefit from the surge in North American oil production. He predicted that crude oil prices one day could fall as low as $50 per barrel, perhaps pushing US gas prices below $3 a gallon.
“The good news is that we’re eventually going to see lower prices,” he said.
Others are less cheery about the domestic outlook. For example, some fear that the North Dakota oil fields may be less promising than they appear because the source — underground shale formations — traditionally produce a lot of oil in the early stages of drilling and then fall off shortly after.
What? That is the FIRST I have READ of such a thing in my Globe!
John Hummel, president of AIS Futures Management LLC in Wilton, Conn., said the expectations for ever-growing US oil production are “absolutely overblown.”
He also expects global events will continue to pressure oil prices higher, noting that developing countries such as China and India are growing fast and will need more and more oil in coming years.
“We believe that the global market has been and will continue to be tight, with very slow growth in global production and higher demand,” said Hummel.
John Howell, executive director of the New England Service Station and Automotive Repair Association, said he just wants to see prices fall soon....
"Federal railroad officials to inspect Maine tracks
Federal railroad officials say they will be in Maine this week to inspect tracks belonging to the railroad involved in a runaway train that killed dozens of people and leveled much of a small Quebec town’s downtown. US Representatives Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree said Monday that the FRA will inspect the Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic Railways’ equipment, operations, and track in Maine using in-person inspections and a track inspection rail car. The inspections follow the July 6 derailment in Lac-Megantic about 10 miles from Maine. Michaud and Pingree say that oil shipments through Maine to an oil refinery in New Brunswick have skyrocketed in the past year and that Mainers need to know that the tracks on which the tank cars travel are safe."
"HUNTING FOR ANSWERS -- Workers in Canada continued to examine the site of the train wreck in Lac Megantic on Tuesday. The crude oil freight train that derailed and blew up in the small Quebec town this month was traveling far too fast when it went off the rails, according to investigators (Boston Globe July 17 2013)."
I'm about to go off mine in anger.
Also see:
Blog Derailed By This Post
Blog Back on Track
Slow Saturday Special: Chugging Along
Can't you see the puffs of smoke?
