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Italy's Garbage Crisis Worsens
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/895402--naples-trash-crisis-highlights-berlusconi-weakness
Garbage hasn't been collected for weeks in Naples and blame is being directed towards Italy's prime minister.
The rotting garbage piled up on the streets of Naples has become an enduring symbol to Italians of the many problems facing Silvio Berlusconi’s crumbling conservative government. The prime minister came to power as a “Mr. Fix It” less than three years ago vowing to clean up a mess that his centre-left predecessor had failed to sort out, and often cites the clearing of Naples’ streets as one of his biggest successes. He even held his first cabinet meeting there, promising a break with past administrations that had failed to solve the chronic rubbish problem in Campania—the poor, southern region of which Naples is the capital. Halfway into his term, facing the prospect of early elections due to the implosion of his centre-right coalition and a string of sex and graft scandals, Berlusconi is seeing Naples’ trash back on the front pages of newspapers and TV bulletins. “Naples garbage? It’s just like two years ago,” read the headline of the daily La Stampa on Tuesday.
9 Photos Of The Garbage Crisis In Italy
http://www.buzzfeed.com/provincialelitist/9-photos-of-the-garbage-crisis-on-italy-4t5
The mother of all bull markets thanks to Shanghai
Posted by Moise Levi
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/11/mother-of-all-bull-markets-thanks-to.html
Just type "Shanghai" in my blog search (see top left), and you'll notice that I use it as my leading indicator. Was able to call the bottom of the bear market thanks to the bullish break out Shanghai did in Feb 09.
You'll notice that I am also quite bullish on crude oil and copper.
I am expecting a MEGA HUGE bull market, driven by China.
Once the Shanghai index gets above the 3400 level, all markets will be on fire ..... until the next bubble ..... (I'll keep you informed if I see a parabolic rise).
A while ago I called this bear market the mother of all buy on the dip :)
Canadian couple who won $11.2m in the lottery give it ALL away to charity
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326473/Canadian-couple-Allen-Violet-Large-away-entire-11-2m-lottery-win.html#ixzz14TIIZqUU
Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico
Published: Friday, October 22, 2010, 10:30 PM Updated: Friday, October 22, 2010, 10:57 PM
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/10/massive_stretches_of_weathered.html
Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fishers Friday found miles-long strings of weathered oil floating toward fragile marshes on the Mississippi River delta.
A boat travels through oil that was spotted in West Bay just west of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River Friday October 22, 2010.
The discovery, which comes as millions of birds begin moving toward the region in the fall migration, gave ammunition to groups that have insisted the government has overstated clean-up progress, and could force reclosure of key fishing areas only recently reopened.
The oil was sighted in West Bay, which covers approximately 35 square miles of open water between Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the river, and Tiger Pass near Venice. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort said they have been reporting large areas of surface oil off the delta for more than a week but have seen little response from BP or the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the clean-up. The captains said most of their sightings have occurred during stretches of calm weather, similar to what the area has experienced most of this week.
On Friday reports included accounts of strips of the heavily weathered orange oil that became a signature image of the spill during the summer. One captain said some strips were as much as 400 feet wide and a mile long.
The captains did not want to be named for fear of losing their clean-up jobs with BP.
Coast Guard officials Friday said a boat had been dispatched to investigate the sightings, but that a report would not be available until Saturday morning.
However, Times-Picayune photojournalist Matt Hinton confirmed the sightings in an over-flight of West Bay.
Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said if the sightings are confirmed by his agency, the area will be reclosed to fishing until it is confirmed oil-free again.
Just Tuesday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, in charge of the federal response, and his top science adviser, Steve Lehmann, said that little of the 210 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf remained on the surface or even on the Gulf's floor. Lehmann pointed to extensive tests conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that included taking samples of water from various depths, as well as collections of bottom sediments both far offshore and close to the coast.
Those claims, announced on the six-month anniversary of the spill, brought quick rebuttals from a variety of environmental and fishermen's groups who insist their members have been reporting sightings of surface oil all along.
LSU environmental sciences professor Ed Overton, who has been involved in oil spill response for 30 years, said he believes both claims could be accurate. The Louisiana sweet crude from the Deepwater Horizon is very light and has almost neutral buoyancy, Overton said, which means that when it picks up any particles from the water column, it will sink to the bottom.
"It's quite possible that when the weather calms and the water temperatures changes, the oil particles that have spread along the bottom will recoagulate, then float to the surface again and form these large mats.
"I say this is a possibility, because I know that the (Coast Guard) has sent boats out to investigate these reports, but by the time they get to the scenes, the weather has changed and they don't see any oil."
"I think the reports are credible, but I also think the incident responders are trying to find the oil, too,'' Overton said. "This is unusual, but nothing about this bloody spill has been normal since the beginning."
Overton said it is important for the state to discover the mechanism that is causing the oil to reappear because even this highly weathered oil poses a serious threat to the coastal ecology.
"If this was tar balls floating around, that would be one thing, but these reports are of mats of weathered oil, and that can cause serious problems if it gets into the marsh," he said
The reports are a great concern to wildlife officials. The Mississippi delta is a primary wintering ground for hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese, some of which already have begun arriving. The West Bay area leads into several shallower interior bays that attract ducks, geese and myriad species of shore and wading birds each winter.
Earlier this month state wildlife officials were expressing optimism the spill would have minimal impact on most waterfowl visitors because little oil had penetrated the sensitive wintering grounds.
I never knew goats had such gonads... wowzers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1320804/Mountain-goats-climb-160ft-near-vertical-Cingino-dam.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
These incredible pictures show Alpine Ibex goats wandering across the face of the near-vertical dam in Northern Italy without a care in the world.
The gravity-defying goats typically live in very steep and rocky terrain at altitudes of up to to 4,600m and have no fear of falling whether climbing up or down the 160ft dam wall.
And they aren't doing it just to show off.
It is thought the goats are actually grazing, licking the stones for their salts.
http://www.ruralramblings.com/alpine-ibex-on-cingino-dam
Apparently the ibex like to eat the moss and lichen off the stone, and to lick the salt off the dam wall.
Request Deletion Review
Post Date: 10/12/2010 10:44:38 AM in reply to a deleted post by Paula
Board: Tornado Alley (PROG) Reason: Off-Topic
are you talking about this POS?
A Toothy Bird With a 17-Foot Wingspan Once Ruled the Air
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/09/16/a-toothy-bird-with-a-17-foot-wingspan-once-ruled-the-air/
Here’s a new creature for the record books. In Chile, paleontologists have found the fossilized remains of a huge, toothy bird whose wingspan stretched 17 feet across. That means the bird, Pelagornis chilensis or “huge pseudoteeth,” had the longest wingspan ever recorded–a wingspan that was about as long as a giraffe is high.
This newly named species belongs to a group known as pelagornithids, birds that had bony tooth-like projections and long beaks. The well-preserved fossil that researchers turned up belonged to a bird that weighed about 64 pounds and had relatively light, thin-walled bones, according to the description published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It cruised the skies between 5 and 10 million years ago.
The enormous wingspan gave P. chilensis certain advantages, like the ability to travel long distances and reach areas of the open ocean thick with potential prey. The researchers think it feasted on fish and squid, and may have trolled its hunting grounds with its lower beak skimming the water until its teeth could clamp down on a wriggling meal. But lead researcher Gerald Mayr says that a 17-foot wingspan is probably close to the maximum for a flying bird.
“There are a number of drawbacks if you become so large,” he added. Chicks would have to be raised over a long period of time, making them more prone to predation. “Moreover,” he added, “bird feathers are quite heavy, so very large birds may have become too heavy.” [Discovery News]
Mayr notes that these giants of the sky were “true birds,” not winged reptiles like the pterosaurs of the Jurassic era. He also seems a bit jealous of our early hominid ancestors, who may have caught a glimpse of P. chilensis in the flesh. Says Mayr:
“Their last representatives may have coexisted with the earliest humans in North Africa…. Bird watching in Chile would be thrilling if birds with more than 5-meter wingspans and huge pseudo-teeth were still alive.” [press release]
The Republican Plan to Commemorate Ground Zero
via boingboing
New spill in Gulf area after barge crashes into abandoned oil well
July 27, 2010
Oil and mud spew from busted La. well
Pictured here is an aerial photo of smoke billowing from a wellhead after a towing vessel's dredge barge allided with the structure in Barataria Bay, La., as the vessel and barge exited Mud Lake, July 27, 2010. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Wayne Alleyene. )
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/New-Video-Oil-and-mud-spew-from-busted-La-well/c5kCQQyVmkSkck41A3QnbA.cspx
Jefferson Parish - It's not the kind of news Jefferson Parish was prepared to hear.
"There's about a 100 foot plume of natural gas and oil spewing from the well head. And it appears to be the well head is spewing both natural gas, contaminated water and some light crude, not very heavy crude," said Jefferson Parish Emergency Manager Deano Bonano.
Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, a barge being pushed by a tug boat ran into an abandoned well head.
The tug captain smelled gas and called the Coast Guard, which planned to visit the site at daybreak.
Before Coast Guard investigators got there another boat captain called in and reported natural gas and oil leaking.
"We have investigators going over the incident and conducting interviews with the captain to find out exactly what happened," said Coast Guard Captain John Arenstan.
Governor Bobby Jindal and local officials surveyed the site, which is in Bayou St. Dennis, 15 miles south of Lafitte.
The Coast Guard has a two mile radius around the leak closed to traffic and has hired a contractor that was already working on the BP spill to also clean up this one.
"You know the bad part here is that over the weekend we had to take down some of the assets that were out in the water trying to protect from the initial spill and yesterday and today focus has been trying to get the boats and the boom back out following the tropical system that threatened us this weekend and then the main waterway here is blocked off," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts.
It's not clear yet how much oil and gas is leaking, but whatever the amount this spill is one more woe on the water Jefferson Parish doesn't need.
"We thought once we got Barataria Bay cleaned up and they have a temporary cap on the well, looks like they're gonna try to kill it next week, we felt comfortable," said Councilman Elton Lagasse.
The Coast Guard says the well head should have been lit, but the tug captain says it was not lit.
The well is owned by a Houston company called Cedyco, which is no longer in business so the federal government is dipping into the country's Oil Spill Trust Fund to cover the cost of the clean-up.
13-year-old knuckleballer Chelsea Baker hasn’t lost a single sanctioned game in four straight seasons,
and is widely believed to be the best Little Leaguer in the country.
This is her story.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5386830
Afghanistan Field Report: Losing the Arghandab They Never Had
Monday, Jul 26 2010, 4:21AM
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/07/afghanistan_fie/
This is a guest note by Al Jazeera correspondent Clayton Swisher who is currently embedded with US troops fighting in Afghanistan. This essay originally ran on Al Jazeera's "The Asia Blog."
(The photo below is of 82nd Airborne soldiers in Arghandab; Photo by Tom Nicholson; reprinted with permission.)
Losing the Arghandab They Never Had
Last night we got a 0345 wakeup call from Spooky. For those of you who play Call of Duty-type video games, you'll know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, Spooky is the Vietnam-era call sign for the AC-130U Gunship, a massive airplane that blasts 105mm artillery and 40mm shells from its fuselage.
It was raining death and destruction on a position just a few kilometres from us across the Arghandab River. The Taliban have virtual free reign west of the river and have made a mockery of American forces setting up Forward Operating Bases in their midst.
There aren't too many Spooky Gunships here in this country. They are flying collateral damage machines, used by the Air Force Special Operations to support commandos on the ground. But their employment over the skies of Arghandab signals a reality that most soldiers here understand: that conventional army tactics have failed to wrest this real estate from the Taliban.
Fighting the Taliban in Arghandab - where much of its history is based - is like taking on the Crips in LA's Compton or the Italian Mafia in Sicily. As far as war goes in Afghanistan, the Arghandab and neighbouring Panjwaye and Zahri Districts remain the toughest areas of fighting. From Arghandab it is an easy ride to Kandahar, where insurgents stage and conduct attacks against the Afghan government and Isaf forces in the country's second largest city.
As I fell back asleep, I couldn't help but trust that the Taliban would have the final answer. Since we started this embed on July 14th, their attacks have been as harassing a presence as the blazing hot, 45 degree Celsius temperatures. Rocket launches during our check in at the Kandahar Airfield. Small arms fire at the Forward Operating Base once we arrived. The unmistakable sound of roadside bomb detonations - every day since we've been here - somewhere in the tangle of Arghandab's lush orchards and mud villages.
The soldiers getting hit the hardest are a replacement unit near our perch at Forward Operating Base Sarkari Bagh. A few kilometres across the river, at Combat Outpost Nolen, a platoon of men from the 101st Airborne have gone to "combat ineffective" after just weeks of being here. They arrived in Arghandab in early July with 17 men. Only 9 remain.
Thus the late night calls from Spooky. Though pummelling the villages around Western Arghandab will hardly bring a solution, however good the vengeance feels.
The unit we've embedded with, Delta Company of the US Army's 82nd Airborne, 2-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, seem to get that. They're short timers here in Arghandab.
They have just a few weeks left in their year-long deployment. They're not thinking much about policy discussions back in Washington over whether this country should split along the predominantly Pashtun South and more ethnically-mixed North. Soldiers we've joined out on patrol here have told me bluntly that as soon as the Isaf packs up "this country will go straight to civil war," which might anyhow bring that partitioned outcome, policymakers be damned.
For most US troops here, the goal is to get home alive, after so many dozens from their Regiment have been sent home crippled, or worse, from the Taliban's lethal tactics, supported by many here in the South.
This is a snapshot of the war being fought here in Arghandab. Men lacing up their boots to fulfil their required patrols, thankful to come back alive, falling asleep to the sound of exploding ordinance. They hope it's the Taliban blowing themselves up while seeding their bombs.
But oftentimes they learn the next day it is not. Whenever their Internet access is cut - which has been often, since summer fighting season began - they know the dead includes someone from within their unit, sprawled out in this area. It's a paltry measure aimed at preventing fellow members of their unit from emailing home about casualties before the families of the fallen have been formally and properly notified.
Thousands of miles away, no doubt Washington politicians and America's foreign policy elite are readying their minivans for August vacation or re-election campaigning.
The soldiers here feel out of sight-out of mind, and one has to wonder after visiting the Arghandab if they might be right.
From neighbouring barracks, the sombre metal lyrics have droned all day with Alice in Chains' "The Rooster." It aptly sums their sentiment, helping others either to sleep, or in this case, through one more night on patrol:
Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stingin' sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids, household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhere
As we finish our day and settle down once again to sleep, the sound of Spooky returns. The bass shakes the ground as its cannons belch rounds. Bright orange chaff drops, as Spooky makes its slow left banking turn repeatedly while firing on the Arghandab villages. A full moon gives away the madness of it all.
Desperation, really, for a coalition that has little chance of winning after nine years of conflict.
-- Clayton Swisher
Update: This is a video report by Swisher from Arghandab as well.
SP 500 moment of truth
SP 500 chart analysis ;
1) My trading system is still in a "neutral" mode on both short & long term signals.
2) People, we are facing a key moment of truth .... expect a wild move !
3) Current channel pattern (down) suggests we are heading down ....
4) This last "tight channel" will be our moment of truth
5) Focus on those "key triggers"
6) Short term trigger : long above 1100
7) Long term signal : long above 1130
PS : a break below 1050 could cause some serious damage .... a break below 1010 .... mmm
Posted by Moise Levi at 7:57 PM
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/07/sp-500-moment-of-truth.html
Forty-ton whale lands on yacht during Cape Town sailing trip
A couple who took a yacht for a quiet sailing trip were stunned when a 40-ton whale crash-landed on their boat off Cape Town.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7901247/Forty-ton-whale-lands-on-yacht-during-Cape-Town-sailing-trip.html
Teabaggers Welcome White Supremacist, running for governor in Arkansas
“I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status,” he says.
Jul. 15, 2010 11:37 PM
Billy Roper is a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas and an unapologetic white nationalist.
“I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status,” he says.
Roper also is a tea party member who says he has been gathering support for his cause by attending tea party rallies.
Snips ~~
“We go to these tea parties all over the country,” Roper said. “We’re looking for the younger, potentially more radical people.”
Accusations about racism within the tea party have rumbled for a year, but they suddenly exploded this week with a resolution at the NAACP convention in Kansas City saying the party is attracting people and groups hostile to minorities.
More facts on 'Billy Roper'
Roper, a former organizer for the neo-Nazi National Alliance and now chairman of White Revolution, said he has been attending tea party rallies to recruit members and garner support for his 2010 write-in campaign for Arkansas governor.
Roper, a member of the ResistNet.com tea party, said in an interview that he sees tea parties as a base of support.
--------------------
Ron Wight, who stood with dozens of tea party activists at the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain in April, complaining about the Obama administration, its socialist agenda and being called a racist.
Those like him who complain about President Barack Obama are accused of racism, lamented the semi-retired music teacher from Lee’s Summit.
Then he added: “If I was a black man, I’d get down on my knees and thank God for slavery. Otherwise, I could be dying of AIDS now in Africa.”
------------------------
Another concern — even within the tea party — is the actions of some who are in leadership positions.
A photo circulating on the web shows Dale Robertson, founder and president of Houston-based TeaParty.org — also called the 1776 Tea Party — at a 2009 rally carrying a sign that said: “Congress = Slave Owner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”
Robertson also sent a fundraising e-mail that contained a picture depicting Obama as what some describe as a stereotypical black pimp with a thin mustache and wearing a zebra-striped fedora trimmed in white fur with a black feather on top.
----------
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a St. Louis-based group that promotes the preservation of the white race, has sponsored its own tea parties in some Southern states.
The council’s website has referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity” and said non-white immigration would turn the country into a “slimy brown mass of glop.”
Gordon Baum, the group’s founder, told The Star that the council encourages members to participate in tea parties.
He described the tea party rallies as “mainly a white thing, because there’s not a whole lot of blacks that participate, and the ones that do get to be speakers.”
“They have black speakers, and sometimes when they can’t get one lined up, they just get some poor devil that’s on their side, black guy, in the audience and drag him up on stage,” he said.
---------------------
Some other white supremacy groups also see tea parties as recruiting grounds.
Roper, a former organizer for the neo-Nazi National Alliance and now chairman of White Revolution, said he has been attending tea party rallies to recruit members and garner support for his 2010 write-in campaign for Arkansas governor.
--------------
Watchdog fears
Those who monitor hate groups are worried about racism in the tea party.
“There are probably close to a couple thousand of these local tea party chapters now,” said Devin Burghart, vice president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which is finalizing a special report on tea parties.
“A number of these groups have been either thoroughly infiltrated by more hard-core folks, or at least those more hard-core folks are allowed to swim in that same ocean.”
As examples, Burghart cited Robertson, as well as some speakers promoted by tea parties, such as Red Beckman, an anti-Semite who was once evicted from his land by the Internal Revenue Service for refusing to pay taxes.
The racism isn’t coming only from the fringe, Burghart said.
“This is not just a nut showing up in the audience with a crazy sign,” Burghart said. “It’s someone who they vetted and decided to give a platform to.”
Zeskind said racist tendencies may be broader within the party than even critics realize.
------------------
“Liberals think these are all poor, angry, working-class whites, but that’s not true,” said Zeskind, who helped draft the NAACP resolution. “It’s a solid middle class. The belief that these are people hit by the economic downturn is a myth. It’s people who have what they want and don’t want it taken away. They’re defending white privilege. Their slogan is ‘We want our country back.’ ”
there's more
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/15/2087023/tea-party-rejects-racist-label.html
Tom Toles on America's "Captain Ahab-ism"
Pursuing al Qaeda, a.k.a. Moby Dick.
AI
