FINANCIAL TIMES:  After decades of importing every drop of fuel, Israel has struck it rich, uncovering vast reserves of natural gas in the Mediterranean…
The men on board the Sedco Express are busy testing the field’s multiple wells in preparation for the long-awaited day next April, when a US-Israeli consortium will start pumping the gas onshore. With reserves of almost 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the Tamar field is a hugely valuable asset for the Israeli economy. Discovered in January 2009, it was the biggest gas find in the world that year, and by far the biggest ever made in Israeli waters. But the record held for barely two years.

In December 2010, Tamar was dwarfed by the discovery of the Leviathan gasfield some 20 miles farther east – the largest deepwater gas reservoir found anywhere in the world over the past decade. The two fields, together with a string of smaller discoveries, will cover Israel’s domestic demand for gas for at least the next 25 years, and still leave hundreds of billions of cubic feet for sale abroad. The government take from the gasfields alone is forecast to reach at least $140bn over the next three decades – a staggering sum for a relatively small economy such as Israel’s.

Experts are convinced that Tamar and Leviathan will not be the last big Israeli discoveries…   (more)

HUFFINGTON POST:  A federal judge sided with the Obama campaign and ruled Friday to order Ohio to restore three days of early voting before Election Day, a decision that could affect the outcome of the 2012 election in a key battleground state.

Judge Peter C. Economus of the Southern District Court of Ohio granted an injunction in favor of Obama For America, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, which sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to restore in-person voting in the last weekend before the election.

“On balance, the right of Ohio voters to vote in person during the last three days prior to Election Day — a right previously conferred to all voters by the State — outweighs the State’s interest in setting the 6 p.m. Friday deadline,” ruled the court. “The burden on Ohio voters’ right to participate in the national and statewide election is great, as evidenced by the statistical analysis offered by Plaintiffs and not disputed by Defendants. Moreover, the State fails to articulate a precise, compelling interest in establishing the 6 p.m. Friday deadline as applied to non-UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] voters and has failed to evidence any commitment to the ‘exception’ it rhetorically extended to UOCAVA voters.” …  (more)

HUFFINGTON POST:  …In a discussion during Current TV’s coverage of the Republican National Convention, Gore and his co-panelists argued that Electoral College system had a corrosive effect on the power of votes and presidential leadership. For voters, casting ballots in a state that is predictably red or blue feels pointless in determining presidential elections. For leaders, visiting a state that is already in the bag for Republicans or Democrats seems unnecessary.

“I really do now think that it’s time to change that,” Gore said. “It’s always tough to amend the Constitution and risky to do so, but there is a very interesting movement under way that takes it state by state, that may really have a chance of succeeding. I hope it does.”

Gore and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) proceeded to bring up a proposal, floated by a California professor, that would change the electoral vote allocation and partially tie it to congressional district outcomes…  (more)

EDITOR:   The idea:    If the larger states were to divide their electoral votes by Congerssional Districts, the results would better reflect the will of its voters.

HUFFINGTON POST: …California voters are inclined to support a proposed ballot initiative that would change how the Golden State allocates its electoral votes in presidential campaigns, but they’re not yet sold on the idea, a Field Poll released today showed.

Currently, California employs a winner-take-all system that awards the state’s entire 55 electoral votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote.

Under the proposed measure, which could be on the June 2008 ballot, the presidential election would become, in essence, a congressional district-by-congressional district contest. The winner of the statewide popular vote would receive two electoral votes, but the remaining votes would go to the winner in each of the 53 congressional districts…  (more)

EDITOR:   On the assumption that CA will go Democrat in the presidential election, it is unlikely that either candidate will spend much time electioneering there except to attend fund raising events.   This would change radically if the electrol votes were apportioned by Congressional Districts.

An article “East King mulls improvements” reports:

“A NID [Neighborhood Improvement District]  would improve city life for everyone who lives or works there, supporters of the project said Tuesday.

“But the new tax needed to pay for it — proposed as an additional 2.16 mills, or a 5 percent increase over current city and school tax levels — would be a hardship for the poorest residents, opponents countered.

” ‘It’s taking from the poor and giving to the rich,’  Randolph Carney, of Sherman Street, argued during a meeting of the NID steering committee Tuesday at Stevens College….

” ‘This has real potential to improve the quality of life for everyone in the district … and create a sense of place,’ urban-planning consultant Jack Howell said.

WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail for an apparently factual and well balanced.

We do note with some apprehnsion that Jack Howell, the main proponent of the mercifully moribund downtown street car proposal, is the urban planner.

PITTSBURG POST-GAZETTE:  …Ethane in July cost about 31 cents per gallon, a drop of about 60 percent from one year ago and the steepest drop among the hydrocarbons extracted from the Marcellus Shale gas formation that underlies much of Pennsylvania.

An unseasonably warm winter that reduced the need for heaters didn’t help things, driving the price of propane down to 88 cents per gallon in July 2012 from the $1.53 seen one year prior, according to figures at the country’s main processing plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. The propane market has endured sudden month-to-month plunges this year, with a 20 percent drop from April to May.

The softening in prices is sorry news for drillers that have relied on natural gas liquids to compensate for record-low natural gas prices. Natural gas liquids, or NGLs, are extracted alongside the natural gas and stripped out for sale at prices that tend to follow higher crude oil figures. Their use in manufacturing, particularly in plastics, have made them desirable to a petrochemical industry growing to accommodate the rise in production…  (more)

WASHINGTON POST:   Harvard University is investigating whether dozens of undergraduate students cheated on a take-home exam last spring.

School officials said they discovered students may have shared answers or plagiarized on a final exam. They declined to release the name of the class, the students’ names or the exact number being investigated, citing privacy laws.

The undergraduate class had a minimum of 250 students and possible cheating was discovered in roughly half the take-home exams, university officials said Thursday…  (more)

EDITOR:   This is  sad almost beyond words.   Harvard attracts the top students of their generation.  The standards are incredibly high.   That half  taking an exam would participate in cheating indicates one of three things:   1)  Those who have so distinguished themselves have often done so at a sacrifice of ethics; 2)  there is something very much the matter with the extreme  competitiveness nurtured at that institution;  and 3)  this is representative of a universal decline in fair play, the  sense of belonging to a community,  the  idolizing of  success and undervaluing good effort and less spectacular  achievements.      

More later on how we no longer see and feel ourselves as part of a community.  The Middle Ages built churches.  The “Greatest Generatio” fought a war.   We honor such blow-hards as Donald Trump.

by Bill Keisling

What a difference an election makes!

Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Attorney General David Freed for months has been nothing but complementary and supportive of Gov. Tom Corbett’s role in the long-running Jerry Sandusky case.

Ever since Freed was personally installed by Corbett as the GOP’s pick for AG, Freed has been effusive and full of praise for his political patron’s handling of the growing Sandusky scandal.

In a press release on June 22, Freed complemented former AG Corbett and his glacial non-handling of Sandusky’s case by saying:

“Today’s verdict represents why Pennsylvania must always have a criminal justice system that works, that is blind to special interests and must do the right thing for the right reasons, every time. I commend the numerous public servants of law enforcement and the Attorney General’s office….”

And, four days later, on June 26, the Harrisburg Patriot-News ran an article titled, “Pa. attorney general hopefuls say justice was served by Jerry Sandusky verdict.”

“‘I was pleased for the victims, pleased for the justice system,’” Freed, the Cumberland County district attorney, told a crowd gathered on Monday for the Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon at the Hilton Harrisburg.  ‘I think everybody involved in the case deserves to be commended.’”

This of course includes Tom Corbett, to Freed’s way of thinking.

But lately Freed’s poll numbers have been down, at the same time there’s been growing public awareness that AG Corbett didn’t play straight with Sandusky and his many young victims.

So it comes as no surprise, two months after Freed’s glowing praise for Corbett at the Harrisburg Hilton — and two months out from a very high-stakes general election — that Freed has changed his tune, no less in the pages of the same Republican-leaning Patriot-News.

In an August 30 article titled, “State attorney general candidates want to review Sandusky case,” Freed now tells the Patriot’s editorial board something apparently was lacking in the AG’s office, and he now wants to “take a closer look” at the Sandusky case.

” ‘It wouldn’t be a thorough review if you didn’t talk to the people in the case,’ said Freed, the Cumberland County district attorney,” Freed told the Patriot’s editorial board.

One imagines how this “talk,” and the intensive questioning between AG Freed and Gov. Corbett, will go:

“You did a great and commendable job with Sandusky, didn’t you, Tom?”

“That’s right, I did.”

Case closed.

The Patriot, in its latest story, didn’t even bother to hold Freed to account for his contradictory previous statements, or try to reconcile them.

But at least, we’re led to believe, a chastened Freed now is thinking about “talking” to his embattled political patron, Tom Corbett, about why a well-connected serial pedophile wasn’t convicted for thirteen or fourteen years.

Freed’s opponent in the race, Lackawanna County prosecutor Kathleen Kane, has said all along she’d investigate the attorney general’s office handling of the Sandusky matter.

“In response to a question about whether she would try to use her office’s powers if Corbett didn’t cooperate, (Kane) said, ‘According to the rules of the grand jury and the law, it’s possible to compel testimony unless there’s a right against self-incrimination,’ ” the Patriot reported on August 30

So there you have it. Kane is, and has been since the primary, Tom Corbett’s worst nightmare.

Kane’s position, the potency of the Sandusky issue, and Freed’s closeness to Corbett are all obviously having an effect on what Freed now thinks he must say to win election.

HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS: Penn State has signed off on an agreement that outlines the changes it will make and the new procedures it will adopt in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal…

It calls for the selection of an integrity officer for athletic programs and describes the duties of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who will act as the independent monitor overseeing its compliance with sanctions…

The 13-page agreement includes oversight provisions as well as training and reporting requirements involving team monitors, the athletic director and a new Athletics Integrity Council. It took effect immediately… (more)

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: Challengers seeking to block the new voter ID law argued in a filing with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday that a lower court decision applied the wrong legal standards in assessing the potential harm of the requirement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and other opponents of the law requiring photo identification at the polls are appealing the decision of a Commonwealth Court judge that the requirement should go forward for the Nov. 6 general election. They had argued that many voters lack acceptable identification and that some would be unable to acquire the documents in time. But Judge Robert Simpson ruled that obtaining and presenting identification is not an unconstitutional burden and allowed the law to proceed.

The voter ID proposal passed the Legislature with the support of Republicans, who said it would protect the integrity of elections. Democrats and advocates for the poor vigorously opposed the measure, arguing it would prevent vulnerable — but eligible — voters from casting their ballots… (more)