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Stackers. *lol*
World Needs $100 TRILLION More Credit Says World Economic Forum.
*ROFLAMO*
We're going to need more printing presses!
OMG if they do that and the banks leverage that we're looking at quadrillions of dollars in circulation. $24,000 gold a pipe dream? I think it could be conservative.
http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/central-bank-finance-crisis/
India vs. Monsanto: seeds of discord (about to take legal action against Monsanto)
LATEST UPDATE: 21/09/2011
For the first time ever, a country - India - is accusing a multinational company of "bio-piracy". That means stealing indigenous plants, and then trying to develop genetically modified versions of them, without giving any compensation back to the local people or nation where the plant originally came from. Our reporters travelled to one of the affected areas and spoke to those who say it's their environment which has been stolen.
VIDEO
http://www.france24.com/en/20110921-india-monsanto-gmo-brinjal-bio-piracy-biopiracy-steal-seeds-terminator-cotton-onion-melon-debt-suicide
Is The SEC Telling Us Something? Schapiro To Cut Global Circuit Breaker Thresholds By 33%
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/27/2011 11:58 -0400
Circuit Breakers Dow Jones Industrial Average
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/sec-telling-us-something-schapiro-cut-global-circuit-breaker-thresholds-33
Remember the below chart which we are so fond of posting on Zero Hedge occasionally? Well, it will have to be redone very soon, because the SEC has just submitted a proposal for public comment to cut market-wide circuit breakers in half from the current thresholds of 10%, 20% and 30%, by 33%. And if the SEC is actually proactively looking at something such as marketwide circuit breakers, a glaring admission that vol is about to surge, but not quite enough to actually trigger the 30% market collapse needed for a full day market halt, then all hell must be about to break loose.
As a reminder this is how the global circuit breaker looks like right now:
And this is what the SEC is now proposing:
The proposals would revise the existing market-wide circuit breakers by:
Reducing the market decline percentage thresholds necessary to
trigger a circuit breaker from 10, 20, and 30 percent to 7, 13, and 20
percent from the prior day’s closing price.
Shortening the duration of the resulting trading halts that do not
close the market for the day from 30, 60, or 120 minutes to 15 minutes.
Simplifying the structure of the circuit breakers so that rather
than six there are only two relevant trigger time periods — those that
occur before 3:25 p.m. and those that occur on or after 3:25 p.m.
Using the broader S&P 500 Index as the pricing reference to
measure a market decline, rather than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Providing that the trigger thresholds are to be recalculated daily rather than quarterly.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Especially after 3:25 pm.
Well I can see the problem clearly............ you drink tea. :)~
JFSAG: Gold Stupidity
Still here. :)
"the euro is “practically dead” and Europe faces a financial earthquake from a Greek default"... “The euro is beyond rescue”... “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”...."A Greek default will trigger an immediate “magnitude 10” earthquake across Europe."..."Holders of Greek government bonds will have to write off their entire investment, the southern European nation will stop paying salaries and pensions and automated teller machines in the country will empty “within minutes.” In other words: welcome to the Apocalypse...
But wait, there's more. From Bloomberg:
The impact of a Greek default may “rapidly” spread across the continent, possibly prompting a run on the “weaker” banks of “weaker” countries, he said.
“The panic escalating this way may sweep across Europe in a self-fulfilling fashion, leading to the breakup of the euro area,” Szalay-Berzeviczy added."
(full article)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/step-aside-bbc-trader-head-unicredit-securities-predicts-imminent-end-eurozone-and-global-finan
(referenced article translated from Hungarian)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=hu&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Findex.hu%2Fgazdasag%2Fpenzbeszel%2F2011%2F09%2F28%2Fa_nagy_bankrablas%2F
Like they weren't using CGI on the news in 2001? :)~
JFSAG: Shocking News Cast
As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
Adnan Abidi/Reuters
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
MADRID — Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.
Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.
They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.
“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”
Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.
But even in India and Israel, where growth remains robust, protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.
Young Israeli organizers repeatedly turned out gigantic crowds insisting that their political leaders, regardless of party, had been so thoroughly captured by security concerns, ultra-Orthodox groups and other special interests that they could no longer respond to the country’s middle class.
In the world’s largest democracy, Anna Hazare, an activist, starved himself publicly for 12 days until the Indian Parliament capitulated to some of his central demands on a proposed anticorruption measure to hold public officials accountable. “We elect the people’s representatives so they can solve our problems,” said Sarita Singh, 25, among the thousands who gathered each day at Ramlila Maidan, where monsoon rains turned the grounds to mud but protesters waved Indian flags and sang patriotic songs.
“But that is not actually happening. Corruption is ruling our country.”
Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.
In that sense, the protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.
The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.
“You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing,” said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren’t anymore.”
Yonatan Levi, 26, called the tent cities that sprang up in Israel “a beautiful anarchy.” There were leaderless discussion circles like Internet chat rooms, governed, he said, by “emoticon” hand gestures like crossed forearms to signal disagreement with the latest speaker, hands held up and wiggling in the air for agreement — the same hand signs used in public assemblies in Spain. There were free lessons and food, based on the Internet conviction that everything should be available without charge.
Someone had to step in, Mr. Levi said, because “the political system has abandoned its citizens.”
The rising disillusionment comes 20 years after what was celebrated as democratic capitalism’s final victory over communism and dictatorship.
In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, a consensus emerged that liberal economics combined with democratic institutions represented the only path forward. That consensus, championed by scholars like Francis Fukuyama in his book “The End of History and the Last Man,” has been shaken if not broken by a seemingly endless succession of crises — the Asian financial collapse of 1997, the Internet bubble that burst in 2000, the subprime crisis of 2007-8 and the continuing European and American debt crisis — and the seeming inability of policy makers to deal with them or cushion their people from the shocks.
Frustrated voters are not agitating for a dictator to take over. But they say they do not know where to turn at a time when political choices of the cold war era seem hollow. “Even when capitalism fell into its worst crisis since the 1920s there was no viable alternative vision,” said the British left-wing author Owen Jones.
(Page 2 of 2)
Protests in Britain exploded into lawlessness last month. Rampaging youths smashed store windows and set fires in London and beyond, using communication systems like BlackBerry Messenger to evade the police. They had savvy and technology, Mr. Jones said, but lacked a belief that the political system represented their interests. They also lacked hope.
Enlarge This Image
Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
ISRAEL A government committee proposed new housing policies after tent cities popped up
“The young people who took part in the riots didn’t feel they had a future to risk,” he said.
In Spain, walloped by the developed world’s highest official rate of unemployment, at 21 percent, many have lost the confidence that politicians of any party can find a solution. Their demands are vague, but their cry for help is plaintive and determined. Known as indignados or the outraged, they block traffic, occupy squares and gather for teach-ins.
Ms. Solanas, an unemployed online journalist, was part of the core group of protesters who in May occupied the Puerta del Sol, a public square in Madrid, the capital, touching off a nationwide protest. That night she and some friends started the Twitter account @acampadasol, or “Camp Sol,” which now has nearly 70,000 followers.
While the Spanish and Israeli demonstrations were peaceful, critics have raised concerns over the urge to bypass representative institutions. In India, Mr. Hazare’s crusade to “fast unto death” unless Parliament enacted his anticorruption law struck some supporters as self-sacrifice. Many opponents viewed his tactics as undemocratic blackmail.
Hundreds of thousands of people turned out last month in New Delhi to vent a visceral outrage at the state of Indian politics. One banner read, “If your blood is not boiling now, then your blood is not blood!” The campaign by Mr. Hazare, 74, was intended to force Parliament to consider his anticorruption legislation instead of a weaker alternative put forth by the government.
Parliament unanimously passed a resolution endorsing central pieces of his proposal, and lawmakers are expected to approve an anticorruption measure in the next session. Mr. Hazare’s anticorruption campaign tapped a deep chord with the public precisely because he was not a politician. Many voters feel that Indian democracy, and in particular the major parties, the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, have become unresponsive and captive to interest groups. For almost a year, India’s news media and government auditors have exposed tawdry government scandals involving billions of dollars in graft.
Many of the protesters following the man in the white Gandhian cap known as a topi were young and middle class, fashionably dressed and carrying the newest smartphones. Ms. Singh was born in a village and is attending a university in New Delhi. Yet she is anxious about her future and wants to know why her parents go days without power. “We don’t get electricity for 18 hours a day,” she said. “This is corruption. Electricity is our basic need. Where is the money going?”
Responding to shifts in voter needs is supposed to be democracy’s strength. These emerging movements, like many in the past, could end up being absorbed by traditional political parties, just as the Republican Party in the United States is seeking to benefit from the anti-establishment sentiment of Tea Party loyalists. Yet purists involved in many of the movements say they intend to avoid the old political channels.
The political left, which might seem the natural destination for the nascent movements now emerging around the globe, is compromised in the eyes of activists by the neoliberal centrism of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The old left remains wedded to trade unions even as they represent a smaller and smaller share of the work force. More recently, center-left participation in bailouts for financial institutions alienated former supporters who say the money should have gone to people instead of banks.
The entrenched political players of the post-cold-war old guard are struggling. In Japan, six prime ministers have stepped down in five years, as political paralysis deepens. The two major parties in Germany, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have seen tremendous declines in membership as the Greens have made major gains, while Chancellor Angela Merkel has watched her authority erode over unpopular bailouts.
In many European countries the disappointment is twofold: in heavily indebted federal governments pulling back from social spending and in a European Union viewed as distant and undemocratic. Europeans leaders have dictated harsh austerity measures in the name of stability for the euro, the region’s common currency, rubber-stamped by captive and corrupt national politicians, protesters say.
“The biggest crisis is a crisis of legitimacy,” Ms. Solanas said. “We don’t think they are doing anything for us.”
Unlike struggling Europe, Israel’s economy is a story of unusual success. It has grown from a sluggish state-dominated system to a market-driven high-tech powerhouse. But with wealth has come inequality. The protest organizers say the same small class of people who profited from government privatizations also dominates the major political parties. The rest of the country has bowed out of politics.
Mr. Levi, born on Degania, Israel’s first kibbutz, said the protests were not acts of anger but of reclamation, of a society hijacked by a class known in Hebrew as “hon veshilton,” meaning a nexus of money and politics. The rise of market forces produced a sense of public disengagement, he said, a feeling that the job of a citizen was limited to occasional trips to the polling places to vote.
“The political system has abandoned its citizens,” Mr. Levi said. “We have lost a sense of responsibility for one another.”
Tumbling silver prices prompt U.S. Mint suspension of silver coins
Volatility in precious metals markets prompted the U.S. Mint to temporarily suspend a number of silver numismatic products. Bullion coin sales remain unaffected.
Author: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: Wednesday , 28 Sep 2011
(Running fucking scared)
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page32?oid=136300&sn=Detail&pid=92730
RENO, NV -
The U.S. Mint has temporary suspended the sale of several silver collector coins and sets including the uncirculated American Silver Eagles and the American the Beautiful Five Ounce silver
Plummeting silver prices prompted the Mint to initiate several product suspensions on Monday.
The 2011 American Eagle Silver Uncirculated coin debuted with 184,967 orders between its launch on September 15th and as of September 19th. However, the silver price plummeted on September 26th to $28.16 per ounce.
The pre-suspension price of the one ounce 2011 Uncirculated American Silver Eagles was $60.45. If the Mint chooses to change its product pricing, the new prices will probably be posted in the Federal Register before they go into effect.
Although the price of gold has also plummeted, no changes or sales suspensions have thus far occurred in other U.S. Mint products such as the American Gold Eagles. In August the Mint introduced a new pricing grid methodology, based primarily on the London Fix weekly average. This methodology allows the Mint to change the prices of gold products as often as weekly to better reflect the costs of gold for these coins. Numismatic gold production and prices are re-evaluated and adjusted as needed every Wednesday.
Thus far suspended silver items include the 2011 American Eagle Silver Proof Coin; the America the Beautiful Silver Proof Set for both 2010 and 2011; the U.S. Mint Silver Proof set for both 2010 and 2011; the 2011 Gettysburg National Military Park America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin; and the 2010 Mount Hood National Forest America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin.
Currently the Mint's online store displays a message that "This product is temporarily unavailable for product repricing" on eight product pages.
Professor sues Pittsburgh for using sonic device at G-20 protest
By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 -- 7:03 pm
(crap I didn't know they'd used these on civilians!)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/22/professor-sues-pittsburgh-for-using-sonic-device-at-g-20-protest/#.Tnv5XHhqeyI.facebook
Tags: carnegie mellon university, long range acoustic device lrad, witold walczak
A bystander who suffered permanent hearing loss after Pittsburgh police deployed a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) against protestors during the 2009 G-20 Summit has filed a federal lawsuit against the city. The device emits pain-inducing sounds to disperse crowds and is also deployed on American warships.
Karen Piper, then a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, tried to observe the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh as research for her book on globalization.
The G-20 represents the leaders of the world's most powerful economies and the group's summits attract a large crowds of anti-globalisation activists and others opposed to what they see as an undemocratic group promoting harmful free market policies.
While Piper was trying to leave the protest, without warning the police activated a LRAD a short distance away from her. She immediately became nauseous and dizzy, and felt fluid flowing from her ear.
"The intensity of being hit at close range by a high-pitched sound blast designed to deter pirate boats and terrorists at least a quarter mile away is indescribable," said Piper, now an English professor at the University of Missouri.
"The sound vibrates through you and causes pain throughout your body, not only in the ears. I thought I might die. It is shocking that the LRAD device is being promoted for use on American citizens and the general public."
Since then, Piper has suffered from permanent nerve damage, tinnitus, barotrauma, left ear pain and fluid drainage, dizziness, and nausea.
She is being represented by the the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Police departments should not be using weapons built for the military on civilian protesters," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania "As this case shows, the LRAD cannot be controlled to prevent serious harm to innocent bystanders. Collateral harm to innocents may be justifiable in wartime, but not to quell protesters who overturned a couple of trash dumpsters."
The lawsuit claims Pittsburgh violated Piper's constitutional right to peacefully assemble, and that the use of the LRAD was unjustified and violated her due process rights.
Silver $32.59, I can almost smell the $20's. Almost time to pull the trigger.
Neutrinos clocked moving at faster-than-light speed
CERN scientists ask for confirmation of discovery that could rewrite laws of nature
(Eistein's theory down the drain)
The CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso experiment sends muon neutrinos through a tunnel at the French-Swiss border in the direction of a detector in Italy, more than 450 miles away.
By Frank Jordans and Seth Borenstein
updated 9/22/2011 5:40:39 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001#.Tnw2UHNMcWw
GENEVA — A pillar of physics — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light — appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.
Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity — the famous E (equals) mc2 equation — just doesn't happen.
"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The organization, known as CERN, hosted part of the experiment, which is unrelated to the massive $10 billion Large Hadron Collider also located at the site.
Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.
AP
This undated file photo shows famed physicist Albert Einstein, whose special theory of relativity —the famous E (equals) mc2 equation —could be at risk.
"They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said Thursday.
Scientists at the competing Fermilab in Chicago have promised to start such work immediately.
"It's a shock," said Fermilab head theoretician Stephen Parke, who was not part of the research in Geneva. "It's going to cause us problems, no doubt about that — if it's true."
The Chicago team had similar faster-than-light results in 2007, but those came with a giant margin of error that undercut its scientific significance.
Other outside scientists expressed skepticism at CERN's claim that the neutrinos — one of the strangest well-known particles in physics — were observed smashing past the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second).
Anja Niedringhaus / AP
The globe of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, is illuminated outside Geneva.
University of Maryland physics department Chairman Drew Baden called it "a flying carpet," something that was too fantastic to be believable.
CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there were no flaws in the experiment.
"We have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement," said Antonio Ereditato, a physicist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who was involved in the experiment known as OPERA.
The researchers are now looking to the United States and Japan to confirm the results.
A similar neutrino experiment at Fermilab near Chicago would be capable of running the tests, said Stavros Katsanevas, the deputy director of France's National Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research. The institute collaborated with Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory for the experiment at CERN.
Katsanevas said help could also come from the T2K experiment in Japan, though that is currently on hold after the country's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.
Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."
He cautioned that the neutrino researchers would have to explain why similar results weren't detected before.
"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.
WI Judge to Zinniker, FTCLDF: No "Fundamental Right" to Own a Cow, or Consume Its Milk...Am I Making Myself Clear?
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 09:11AM
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2011/9/15/wi-judge-to-zinniker-ftcldf-no-fundamental-right-to-own-a-co.html
Judge Patrick J. Fiedler
Those raw milk proponents advocating "teach, teach, teach" may want to enroll Wisconsin Judge Patrick J. Fiedler in their first class--in the kindergarten section.
In response to a request from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the judge issued a clarification of his decision last week regarding his assessment of the constitutionality of food rights. The judge expanded on his original statement that such constitutional issues are "wholly without merit."
He explained that the FTCLDF arguments were "extremely underdeveloped." As an example, he said the plaintiffs' use of the Roe v Wade abortion rights case as a precedent does "not explain why a woman's right to have an abortion translates to a right to consume unpasteurized milk...This court is unwilling to declare that there is a fundamental right to consume the food of one's choice without first being presented with significantly more developed arguments on both sides of the issue." Gee, I thought they both had to do with the right to decide what to do with your own body.
As if to show how pissed he was at being questioned, he said his decision translates further that "no, Plaintiffs to not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;
"no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;"
And in a kind of exclamation point, he added this to his list of no-nos: "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice..."
You have to wonder if maybe even the regulators are getting a tad uncomfortable with the rulings coming from the nation's judiciary on food rights. Many of these individuals, biased as they are against raw milk, dabble in farming to some extent, or grew up on farms. This judge has gone way beyond what many of them have come to assume--that everyone has the right to own a cow and consume its milk Even in places that ban raw milk sales, there's nearly always a provision in state law that anyone who owns a cow has the right to consume its milk.
It seems Judge Fiedler is saying it's not a "fundamental right," but rather a right granted us by the state.
According to the judge's interpretation of Wisconsin law under the original decision, only "a license holder" or an individual "who has a bona fide ownership interest in the milk producer" can make milk available. The judge added in this new interpretation: "Finally, it is clear from their motion to clarify that the Plaintiffs still fail to recognize that they are not merely attempting to enforce their 'right' to own a cow and board it at a farm. Instead, Plaintiffs operate a dairy farm (Emphasis added). As this court already said in its decision and order, if Plaintiffs want to continue to operate their dairy farm then they must do so in a way that complies with the laws of Wisconsin."
Is it safe to say that under the judge's interpretation, anyone who owns a cow operates a dairy farm? I don't think I want the judge's answer to that question. If you live in Wisconsin, it seems you have only one remaining choice, a highly personal choice, if you truly do believe you have certain "fundamental rights."
***
At long last, a major media outlet is giving credence to European studies suggesting that raw milk reduces the incidence of asthma and allergies in children. (This is a followup study indicating that it's a protein killed in pasteurization that provides the allergies/asthma protection.) Yes. Fox News plays up all the warnings about raw milk's dangers, but discerning consumers will get the message. If the scientific research says it's good, and the FDA and CDC say it's bad, well, it must be good.
Ya I can see DOW 4,000 just below there.
BPA found in canned foods marketed to kids
Posted by Lisa McTigue Pierce -- Packaging Digest, 9/21/2011 7:40:59 AM
http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/519394-BPA_found_in_canned_foods_marketed_to_kids.php
Spokespeople discuss findings at www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqEBLSljvU.
A new report released by the Breast Cancer Fund documents the presence of the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in canned foods marketed to children. Every food sample tested positive for the chemical, with Campbell's Disney Princess and Toy Story soups testing the highest.
Exposure to BPA, used to make the epoxy-resin linings of metal food cans, has been linked in lab studies to breast and prostate cancer, infertility, early puberty in girls, type-2 diabetes, obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Childhood exposure is of concern because this endocrine-disrupting chemical can affect children's hormonal systems during development and set the stage for later-life diseases.
"There should be no place for toxic chemicals linked to breast cancer and other serious health problems in our children's food," says Jeanne Rizzo, president/CEO of the Breast Cancer Fund. "We hope this report will shine a spotlight on this issue and encourage companies to seek safer alternatives to BPA."
The new report, "BPA in Kids' Canned Food," found BPA in the following canned food products (levels measured in parts per billion, or ppb, average of two samples):
• Campbell's Disney Princess Cool Shapes, Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth 114 ppb
• Campbell's Toy Story Fun Shapes, Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth 81 ppb
• Earth's Best Organic Elmo Noodlemania Soup, USDA Organic 38 ppb
• Annie's Homegrown Cheesy Ravioli, USDA Organic 31 ppb
• Chef Boyardee Whole Grain Pasta, Mini ABC's & 123's with Meatballs 20 ppb
• Campbell's Spaghettios with Meatballs 13 ppb
"In all of these products—but particularly in the Campbell's Disney Princess and Toy Story soups—a child-sized serving could result in BPA exposure at a level of concern," says Gretchen Lee Salter, policy manager at the Breast Cancer Fund. "Consider the number of servings of canned foods—soups, pastas, vegetables, fruits—that a child eats in a week, in a year, and then throughout her developing years, and you start to see the urgency of getting BPA out of food cans."
"This report shows the that we're all part of a big experiment to see what BPA will do to our kids and us," says William Goodson, M.D., a breast cancer surgeon and senior clinical research scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, who just last week published a study showing that BPA causes non-cancerous cells to grow and survive like cancer cells. "We weren't given any choice about being in this experiment, and it's time for that to change."
Research has also uncovered a relationship between household income and BPA exposure, showing that people with the highest BPA exposure are from the lowest income groups. This data may be attributed to the fact that canned foods are usually cheaper, last longer and are more readily available in low-income neighborhoods than fresh foods.
In response to these findings, the Breast Cancer Fund is launching a "Cans Not Cancer" campaign, urging manufacturers to replace BPA with safer alternatives. Sample consumer letters to Campbell's and other companies highlighted in this report can be found at www.breastcancerfund.org/cansnotcancer.
"Every day, children are being exposed to BPA through canned foods marketed to them using slick advertising and their favorite characters," said Salter. "The Breast Cancer Fund's Cans Not Cancer campaign is about our health, our children's health, and a safer future where breast cancer rates have dropped because we've reduced our exposure to toxic chemicals."
Some canned food companies are already switching to a BPA-free can liner or changing their food packaging altogether. Eden Foods, for example, uses an oleoresinous c-enamel, which is a mixture of an oil and a resin extracted from plants, for some of its canned foods. While some other companies say they are using BPA alternatives, they are not transparent about the alternatives they are using.
At the public policy level, 10 states have restricted BPA in infant food containers. While these laws do not cover the kinds of canned foods tested in this study, they send a strong signal to the marketplace that states are taking action to protect children from harmful chemicals in food packaging. In addition the Breast Cancer Fund is supporting pending federal legislation authored by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would ban BPA from all food and beverage containers.
The "BPA in Kids' Canned Food" report also lists a number of convenient alternatives parents can use in place of canned food including dry or frozen pasta, boxed macaroni and cheese, soups in Tetra Pak cartons (70 percent paperboard combined with thin layers of low density polyethylene and aluminum foil) and frozen or fresh fruits.
The report can be downloaded at www.breastcancerfund.org/bpakids.
Science for Stupid Idiots
September 22, 2011
By Randall Hoven
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/science_for_stupid_idiots.html
You might be a stupid idiot, like me. At least I must be a stupid idiot, since I'm called that quite often. You see, I have doubts about some things. Things like catastrophic, man-caused global warming; neo-darwinistic explanations of evolution; the safety and efficacy of at least some mandatory vaccines; etc.
I'm not always called an "idiot." On global warming, I'm a "denier." On evolution, I'm a "creationist." On vaccines, I'm an "anti-vaccine nut." But you get the idea. I'm not rational and fact-based, like they are.
Here's my thinking on a vaccine, before injecting one of my kids with one: what are the chances of harmful effects without the vaccine, and with the vaccine? I want two numbers. My nutty logic is that I want to minimize the chances of harmful effects on my child. To calculate that for a particular vaccine, I need those two numbers. An emotionless robot or computer would need those two numbers.
Yet we are rarely given even one of those numbers, much less both. Not from my doctor. Not from the CDC. Not from geniuses who write articles about how dumb I am for not simply believing their repeated assurances. They tell me it's all about informed consent, but they don't inform me (with the two numbers I need), and they don't ask for my consent. (Sometimes you can opt out, but try that with Hep B shots for your kid.)
Case in point: a recent press release from the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS told us that "few health problems are caused by vaccines." That report was then used to tell idiots like me, "For Pete's Sake, Go Get Your Kids Vaccinated Already!"
The NAS did not put a number on "few." Even if it did, that would be only one of the two numbers needed. In fact, the NAS explicitly said it doesn't have those two numbers. It said this about its study committee.
It did not examine information that would have allowed it to draw conclusions about the ratio of benefits to risks.
So the NAS cannot draw conclusions about the single thing of importance to a parent. But somehow everyone else can. You see, "fact-based" people can draw conclusions even where the NAS can't. And therefore, you are an idiot to not vaccinate your kid.
If you want us to be fact-based, you ought to provide us some facts.
Maybe you are thinking this is all too hard and we should just believe the experts here: doctors.
Do you know how many doctors, some literally brain surgeons, made an important statistical mistake in their studies? Half of them. These were studies trying to prove that some medical treatment was actually effective.
Yes, half the studies showing that some medical treatment is effective are in error. We just found that out this week (at least for neuroscience journals).
Sander Nieuwenhuis and his associates from the Netherlands have done a study on one particular type of statistical error that apparently crops up in an inordinately large number of papers published in neuroscience journals. In their paper, published in Nature Neuroscience, they claim that up to half of all papers published in such journals contain the error.
So how much can we trust an NAS study that is a study of studies, when half of those underlying studies contain a major error? (Also see this study of studies about video games on behavior: "most, if not all, of these studies suffer from common pitfalls in experimental design.")
And those errors were not even big enough to cause the papers to be withdrawn. Do you know how many medical research papers were withdrawn from publication due to major errors or outright fraud in the last decade? The answer is 788.
That is, hundreds of medical research papers have errors so egregious that the papers had to be withdrawn completely. And half or more of the rest might have serious errors. We should not be treated like benighted troglodytes for being skeptical of medical "science."
Take salt in your diet. The scientific consensus on that was so strong that the mayor of New York City forced city restaurants to start reducing the salt content in their meals. But a recent study showed that that might all be based on bad science. I don't know which studies are correct. Then again, I'm not writing laws that tell people how much salt they can have.
I have a tip for "scientists" and the pundits who love them, from Socrates: "Wisdom is knowing how little we know."
Unfortunately, today we are getting the polar opposite of such wisdom. The American Physical Society, for example, says the science on man-caused global warming is incontrovertible!
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever had this to say about that.
In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this "warming" period.
Did you grow up reading about the brontosaurus, the largest dinosaur ever? It was the symbol of Sinclair Oil. If you are over 40 you probably knew all about the brontosaurus from science books at the time. But it never existed. It was a screw-up due to a fossil mix-up (head and body didn't really match). But scientists thought it was real -- for decades. It took about 90 years for the real story to come out and to be accepted.
I went to a science museum only a few years ago. It had an exhibit showing how the Bernoulli effect is what makes airplanes fly. (Maybe you've seen the animation of little dots going over the top, and under the bottom, of a wing.) Unfortunately, that is almost totally wrong. NASA explains how it really works. (Blowing over a piece of paper is much easier than solving five simultaneous partial differential equations.)
About 20 years ago, astronomers noticed that stars on the outer edges of galaxies had greater speeds than the known laws of physics would indicate, based on the observed amount of mass in the galaxies. So the scientists simply assumed there is a lot more mass, unobserved mass, in galaxies. They gave it a name: dark matter.
Astronomers also noticed that galaxies appear to be accelerating away from each other, counter to all known forces. So they simply assumed there is another force. They gave it a name: dark energy.
Dark matter and dark energy are believed to make up 95% of the universe. So far, they have been unable to find either thing that is 95% of everything.
There are many examples of things we thought we knew that turned out to be wrong. Not just the brontosaurus, but epicycles, philostogen, contact static electricity, bathybius, among others. General relativity and quantum theory conflict, unless you believe in string theory, which might not even be testable. There are serious issues with the Big Bang theory.
Recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry took a lot of grief for the statement that "evolution is a theory" with "some gaps in it." Oh my. Let me give you a quote from the book Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism. According to its dust jacket, it "eviscerates the new assault on evolution" with "overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution."
There will be questions that perhaps will never be answered, simply because it is unlikely that we will ever uncover enough evidence -- the great diversification of invertebrate life at the beginning of the Cambrian period, more than 500 million years ago, being one possible example.
Being never able to explain the Cambrian explosion sounds a bit like a "gap" in the theory to me. Go ahead and research evolution yourself. If you think there are no gaps in it, who's being dogmatic? There are gaps in every theory scientists have. The opposite of saying there are gaps is to say there are no gaps. Who in their right mind would say there are "no gaps" in any theory you could name? Rick Perry is simply in his right mind.
Maybe you heard of the book The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen J. Gould, famed paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and Harvard professor. That book is devoted to debunking the work of Samuel Morton in measuring skull sizes among races in the 19th century. In the words of anthropologist John Hawks, "Gould used the well-documented work of a long-dead man to make an argument that unconscious bias is widespread in science."
As it turned out, the only unconscious bias in this case was Gould's. Wired writes as follows.
In a study published June 7 in Public Library of Science Biology, researchers led by anthropologists Jason Lewis of Stanford University and the Paleoanthropology Institute's David DeGusta re-measured 308 skulls on which Morton had published data. Their conclusion: Morton's numbers differed significantly from their own in just 7 cases, and those few mismeasurements didn't favor the narrative of Caucasian superiority that Gould ascribed to Morton's motivation. Three of them actually overestimated the volume of Egyptian skulls.
As Wired summarized, "[a]nd Gould did provide an excellent example of how science can be skewed by prejudice. It just wasn't the example he intended."
Speaking of such prejudice, let me give a final example. The "Standard Model" of particle physics says that there is a Higgs particle. If experiments show that there is no such particle, then the Standard Model breaks down. The particle zoo and its strange charms would have to be revamped or even dropped. Scientists have been using the Hadron collider to find the Higgs particle. They are now 95% sure it doesn't exist. (They want to be 99+% sure, so they're still looking.)
I'd like you to look at the last paragraph of the Digital Trends story that reported on the Higgs particle results, where the reporter tries to answer "what it means."
Another, less profound, but far more obnoxious, outcome is that people who choose to dismiss science altogether simply because it doesn't have the all the answers (in this case, the answer to, "How did we come to exist in the first place?") will have new ammunition for their arguments. So, don't be surprised when CERN's troublesome admission that Higgs boson is likely a myth is cited as a reason that global warming doesn't exist. [My emphasis.]
The Higgs particle has nothing to do with global warming. But see how it is all tied together in the minds of those who obsess about global warming? Stupid idiots like me must not be allowed to doubt any part of any currently held scientific theory. If we are allowed to doubt one, then we might doubt them all. And then, chaos! We won't even believe global warming!
Finally we get to why we must believe "science," meaning taking whatever "scientists" say is incontrovertible truth. If we start having doubts about any of it, we just might start thinking for ourselves. We will no longer simply swallow what our betters feed us.
The irony is that so many "scientists" have become the enemy they once fought. They now sit like the elders of the Church at the time of the Guttenberg press. Imagine the chaos that would result if people could read the Bible themselves! Better not teach them to read.
Real science is the scientific method. It means skepticism. It means publishing your data (as Samuel Morton did). It means doubt. It means humility.
Wisdom is knowing how little we know.
It also would be OK to admit that.
Novel Alloy Could Produce Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight
ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2011) — Scientists from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville have determined that an inexpensive semiconductor material can be "tweaked" to generate hydrogen from water using sunlight.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830151229.htm
The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was led by Professors Madhu Menon and R. Michael Sheetz at the University of Kentucky Center for Computational Sciences, and Professor Mahendra Sunkara and graduate student Chandrashekhar Pendyala at the University of Louisville Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research. Their findings were published Aug. 1 in the Physical Review B.
The researchers say their findings are a triumph for computational sciences, one that could potentially have profound implications for the future of solar energy.
Using state-of-the-art theoretical computations, the University of Kentucky-University of Louisville team demonstrated that an alloy formed by a 2 percent substitution of antimony (Sb) in gallium nitride (GaN) has the right electrical properties to enable solar light energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. When the alloy is immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water is broken. The hydrogen can then be collected.
"Previous research on PEC has focused on complex materials," Menon said. "We decided to go against the conventional wisdom and start with some easy-to-produce materials, even if they lacked the right arrangement of electrons to meet PEC criteria. Our goal was to see if a minimal 'tweaking' of the electronic arrangement in these materials would accomplish the desired results."
Gallium nitride is a semiconductor that has been in widespread use to make bright-light LEDs since the 1990s. Antimony is a metalloid element that has been in increased demand in recent years for applications in microelectronics. The GaN-Sb alloy is the first simple, easy-to-produce material to be considered a candidate for PEC water splitting. The alloy functions as a catalyst in the PEC reaction, meaning that it is not consumed and may be reused indefinitely. University of Louisville and University of Kentucky researchers are currently working toward producing the alloy and testing its ability to convert solar energy to hydrogen.
Hydrogen has long been touted as a likely key component in the transition to cleaner energy sources. It can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, burned to produce heat, and utilized in internal-combustion engines to power vehicles. When combusted, hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water vapor as its only waste product. Hydrogen also has wide-ranging applications in science and industry.
Because pure hydrogen gas is not found in free abundance on Earth, it must be manufactured by unlocking it from other compounds. Thus, hydrogen is not considered an energy source, but rather an "energy carrier." Currently, it takes a large amount of electricity to generate hydrogen by water splitting. As a consequence, most of the hydrogen manufactured today is derived from non-renewable sources such as coal and natural gas.
Sunkara says the GaN-Sb alloy has the potential to convert solar energy into an economical, carbon-free source for hydrogen.
"Hydrogen production now involves a large amount of CO2 emissions," Sunkara said. "Once this alloy material is widely available, it could conceivably be used to make zero-emissions fuel for powering homes and cars and to heat homes."
Menon says the research should attract the interest of other scientists across a variety of disciplines.
"Photocatalysis is currently one of the hottest topics in science," Menon said. "We expect the present work to have a wide appeal in the community spanning chemistry, physics and engineering."
Stop Slavery At Amazon.com
I usually don't do this but the article is 9 pages long talking about deplorable conditions in Amazon.com warehouses and how OSHA and other agencies just turn a blind eye to people working in 115F+ heat. That's not even all of it. Just read the article.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,1246510.story
I've been end running Amazon.com from a long time. I find what I want on their website, used/new books, music from secondary vendors, they list the vendor names. I look them up, contact them directly and sometimes I even get a better deal than the Amazon price by 10% - 20% if I'm lucky.
Al Jazeera director resigns amid scandal; WikiLeaks cable reveals he met with U.S. intelligence, agreed to remove ‘disturbing’ content
By Dylan Stableford | The Cutline – 10 hrs ago
(WikiLeaks)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/al-jazeera-director-resigns-amid-scandal-wikileaks-cable-202032780.html
Al Jazeera's longtime managing director Wadah Khanfa announced his resignation on Tuesday amid a scandal unearthed by a diplomatic cable from the U.S. embassy in Doha.
According to the cable published by WikiLeaks, Khanfa met with a U.S. intelligence official to discuss "disturbing Al Jazeera website content." According to the report, Khanfa agreed to delete the content. "Not immediately, because that would be talked about, but over two or three days," Khanfa said, according to the cable.
In a lengthy memo emailed to staffers announcing his resignation, Khanfa made no mention of the meeting.
"This month marks my eighth year at the helm of Al Jazeera," he wrote. "Having served as the organisations top executive since 2003, first as Managing Director and then as Director-General, I have decided to move on."
"For sometime [sic] I have been discussing my desire to step down with the Chairman of the Board," Khanfa continued. "He has kindly expressed understanding and has accepted my decision."
The announcement of Khanfa's departure on Al Jazeera's website makes no mention of the WikiLeaks controversy, either.
On Tuesday, the Qatar-funded network named Sheik Ahmad bin Jasem bin Muhammad Al-Thani, a member of the Qatar royal family, to replace Khanfa.
A representative for Al Jazeera did not immediately respond to a Cutline request for additional comment.
Khanfa, who is widely credited with transforming the Arab media landscape, wasn't shy about saying so.
"Through your hard work and persistence, often in times of great adversity, we now reach millions of viewers across the world," a defiant Khanfa wrote. "This includes inroads into the most competitive media market in the world, the United States of America. This was no easy feat--not long ago, then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unfairly attacked our coverage of Iraq while today, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, hails our news coverage. We were not weakened by Rumsfeld's comments nor made complacent by Clinton's . . . . Our independent and integral coverage has not changed."
"When we launched in 1996 'media independence' was a contradiction in terms," he added. "State media was prevalent and was blatantly used for propaganda and misinformation. Within such an environment the public probably doubted that Al Jazeera would fulfill its promise of independent journalism. We managed to pleasantly surprise them by exceeding all expectations."
'Inexhaustible' Source of Hydrogen May Be Unlocked by Salt Water, Engineers Say
ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2011)
— A grain of salt or two may be all that microbial electrolysis cells need to produce hydrogen from wastewater or organic byproducts, without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere or using grid electricity, according to Penn State engineers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110919151317.htm
"This system could produce hydrogen anyplace that there is wastewater near sea water," said Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. "It uses no grid electricity and is completely carbon neutral. It is an inexhaustible source of energy."
Microbial electrolysis cells that produce hydrogen are the basis of this recent work, but previously, to produce hydrogen, the fuel cells required some electrical input. Now, Logan, working with postdoctoral fellow Younggy Kim is using the difference between river water and seawater to add the extra energy needed to produce hydrogen.
Their results, published Sept. 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "show that pure hydrogen gas can efficiently be produced from virtually limitless supplies of seawater and river water and biodegradable organic matter."
Logan's cells were between 58 and 64 percent efficient and produced between 0.8 to 1.6 cubic meters of hydrogen for every cubic meter of liquid through the cell each day. The researchers estimated that only about 1 percent of the energy produced in the cell was needed to pump water through the system.
The key to these microbial electrolysis cells is reverse-electrodialysis or RED that extracts energy from the ionic differences between salt water and fresh water. A RED stack consists of alternating ion exchange membranes -- positive and negative -- with each RED contributing additively to the electrical output.
"People have proposed making electricity out of RED stacks," said Logan. "But you need so many membrane pairs and are trying to drive an unfavorable reaction."
For RED technology to hydrolyze water -- split it into hydrogen and oxygen -- requires 1.8 volts, which would in practice require about 25 pairs of membrane sand increase pumping resistance. However, combining RED technology with exoelectrogenic bacteria -- bacteria that consume organic material and produce an electric current -- reduced the number of RED stacks to five membrane pairs.
Previous work with microbial electrolysis cells showed that they could, by themselves, produce about 0.3 volts of electricity, but not the 0.414 volts needed to generate hydrogen in these fuel cells. Adding less than 0.2 volts of outside electricity released the hydrogen. Now, by incorporating 11 membranes -- five membrane pairs that produce about 0.5 volts -- the cells produce hydrogen.
"The added voltage that we need is a lot less than the 1.8 volts necessary to hydrolyze water," said Logan. "Biodegradable liquids and cellulose waste are abundant and with no energy in and hydrogen out we can get rid of wastewater and by-products. This could be an inexhaustible source of energy."
Logan and Kim's research used platinum as a catalyst on the cathode, but subsequent experimentation showed that a non-precious metal catalyst, molybdenum sulfide, had a 51 percent energy efficiency. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology supported this work.
It's Official: HFT Breaks Speed-of-Light Barrier, Sets Trading Speed World Record
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/20/2011 11:03 -0400
Direct Edge Market Crash NASDAQ New York Stock Exchange Reality Reg NMS
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/its-official-hft-breaks-speed-light-barrier-sets-trading-speed-world-record
(got to site for the graphs)
Submitted by Nanex
HFT Breaks Speed-of-Light Barrier, Sets Trading Speed World Record
Adds a new unit of time measurement to the lexicon: fantaseconds.
On September 15, 2011, beginning at 12:48:54.600, there was a time warp in the trading of Yahoo! (YHOO) stock. HFT has reached speeds faster than time itself. Up to 190 milliseconds into the future, or 0.19 fantaseconds is the record so far. It all happened in just over one second of trading, the evidence buried under an avalanche of about 19,000 quotations and 3,000 individual trade executions. The facts of the matter are indisputable. Based on official exchange timestamps, there is unmistakable proof that YHOO trades were executed on quotes that didn't exist until 190 milliseconds later!
Millions of traders depend on the accuracy of exchange timestamps -- especially after bad timestamps were found to be a key factor in the disastrous market crash known as the flash crash of May 2010. We are confident the exchange timestamp problem has been completely addressed by now: the SEC would have made sure of it. It's not like adding accurate timestamps is rocket science, or even considered a difficult problem. Based on recent marketing materials, the exchanges are practically experts on measuring time. And with hundreds of millions in annual data feed subscriptions paid by the same subscribers expecting quotes with accurate timestamps, there is no shortage of funds to make it happen.
So we can be certain the exchange timestamps were accurate, which means that HFT has truly entered the era of the fantasecond.
But let us suppose for a moment that in reality, quotes became queued (delayed) and were timestamped after leaving this queue. After detailed analysis of the UQDF data feed (see chart below) that transmits this information to traders, we find that the traffic rate for both the total of all output lines and specifically multicast line #6 which carries YHOO, were both well below peak rates. So it doesn't appear there were any capacity problems which have always been an excellent indication of feed delay.
This raises a few thorny questions.
Does this mean there are far more delays than we previously thought? Is there a delay every time we see an explosion of quotes in one stock? Because that sort of thing happens. All the time.
Regulation NMS is pretty clear that direct exchange feeds are prohibited from having a speed advantage over the UQDF data feed. UQDF computes the NBBO after all. So how does one ensure trade-through price protection if the price being protected hasn't even occurred yet? The NBBO lies at the heart of Regulation NMS (Reg. NMS) and is the key concept that assures investors are getting the best price when buying or selling stocks.
Maybe it would be better to just fantasize about fantaseconds after all.
The first chart is a 250 ms interval chart of the NBBO in YHOO which is plotted as vertical lines and colored red if the NBBO was crossed during the interval, yellow if it was locked, and gray if it was normal. The implied quote rate is shown as a histogram at the bottom -- and scaled in quotes/second. We will focus on the time shown in the black circle.
(graphs below)
Row over how much Greenland has shrunk
by Mike Swain, Daily Mirror 20/09/2011
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/20/row-over-how-much-greenland-has-shrunk-115875-23432761/
A COLD War has broken out between map-makers and polar scientists over Greenland’s permanent ice cover.
The latest edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World has reduced Greenland’s ice mass by 15%.
Map makers say “alarming and accelerating” climate change in the past 12 years has shrunk it by 116,000 square miles – about the size of the UK and Ireland.
Advertisement >>
But scientists at the Scott Polar Research Institute say the ice had melted on the world’s biggest island by 0.1% in that period.
The atlas claim has been compared to Himalayagate, a blunder when United Nations’ scientists said glaciers would disappear from the Himalayan mountain range by 2035.
But atlas editor Jethro Lennox said: “With every new edition of the atlas, we are giving people across the globe an up-to-date accurate and instant picture of the current state of the planet.”
The Scott Institute insisted the ice was not melting as it has been mapped. It said: “It is crucial to report climate change and its impact accurately and back bold statements with concrete and correct evidence.”
Institute glaciologist Dr Poul Christoffersen, of Cambridge University, said they found the Times Atlas 15% ice shrinkage “puzzling”. He put the loss “on the order of 0.1% by volume over 12 years”.
Prof J Graham Cogley, of Trent University, Ontario, Canada, said: “Fortunately the mistake about the Greenland ice sheet is much more obvious and indefensible than the Himalayan error.
“Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the claims here are simply not backed up by science. This pig can’t fly.”
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/20/row-over-how-much-greenland-has-shrunk-115875-23432761/#ixzz1YULAx7FW
Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information
Conservative peer Lord James of Blackheath: I'm a money washer, not a money launderer
'I wrote off more than £1billion of IRA cash'
Thursday, 4 November 2010
(This is just weirdness, the whole article is strange but strange enough to want to post. I'm seriously expecting them to try to pull the space alien arrival card anytime soon)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/conservative-peer-lord-james-of-blackheath-im-a-money-washer-not-a-money-launderer-14995248.html
Conservative peer Lord James of Blackheath has said that he was appointed by the Bank of England to "deal with problems" caused by the laundering of IRA money.
Addressing fellow peers late on Monday night Lord James said:
"I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money."
Labour peer Baroness Hollis of Heigham asked: "Where did it go to?"
Lord James, a respected corporate troubleshooter, replied: "Not into my pocket. My biggest terrorist client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1billion of its money.
"I have also had extensive connections with north African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems."
However Lord James said today that he had not intended to imply he had done anything improper.
He told technology and business website ZDNet UK that he had been brought into five companies between 1989 and 1997/98 at the direction of the Bank of England.
Lord James' express instructions were to run the companies down and liquidise the assets as they had been identified as conduits for IRA funds.
"The IRA had five companies completely ruined. They had built the companies up as pensions funds.
"I'm a money washer, not a money launderer," he said.
Shadowy Foundation X will pay UK debt
The life-peer also told colleagues during Monday's address that a shadowy group has contacted him with an offer to help solve the UK's economic problems.
Lord James claims the group, which he referred to as 'Foundation X', has more gold on hand than all the world's bullion reserves combined. He said the group has offered to give the UK £5bn immediately and another £17bn for schools, hospitals and London's crossrail project.
"I have come to the absolute conclusion that foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth into the world at this present moment, as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy."
Lord James said he has been investigating this group for the last 20 weeks during which time he has consulted with Lord Sassoon, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury and who sits in the Cabinet and Lord Strathclyde who leads the Conservative party in the House of Lords. Lord James said that after this 20 week probe he is convinced that 'Foundation X' is 'absolutely genuine and sincere'.
"For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords [Sassoon and Strathclyde], in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country.
"For want of a better name, I shall call it Foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, 'We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate'?"
"Foundation X is saying at this moment that it is prepared to put up the entire £5 billion for the funding of the three Is recreation; the British Government can have the entire independent management and control of it—foundation X does not want anything to do with it; there will be no interest charged; and, by the way, if the British Government would like it as well, if it will help, the foundation will be prepared to put up money for funding hospitals, schools, the building of Crossrail immediately with £17 billion transfer by Christmas, if requested, and all these other things.
"These things can be done, if wished, but a senior member of the Government has to accept the invitation to a phone call to the chairman of foundation X—and then we can get into business."
Lord James ended his speech saying: "This is too big an issue. I am just an ageing, obsessive old Peer and I am easily dispensable, but getting to the truth is not. We need to know what really is happening here. We must find out the truth of this situation."
His address lasted over 15-minutes before proceedings moved on.
Lord James of Blackheath told ZDNet UK that 'Foundation X' is to his knowledge a viable organisation.
Bloggers have speculated that 'Foundation X' was the "United Nations Office of International Treasury Control" (UNOITC). Lord James said he had not been approached by UNOITC and that no links exist between Foundation X and UNOITC.
Background
Lord James is a City grandee, whose career spans five recessions and has been corporate restructuring expert for over 30 years. He is an adviser for Cerberus Capital Management, a US private equity house and distressed debt investor, that tried to bid for Northern Rock.
He has also been involved with restructuring of Lloyd's of London in the 1980s, the Eagle Trust - the manufacturer involved in the Iraqi supergun affair, and the doomed Millennium Dome.
In 2005 he was appointed as an adviser to Michael Howard, awarded the CBE in 1992 and made a life baron in 2006. Read more at Wikipedia
Video and transcript
The full transcript of the proceedings is listed in the official parliamentary records Hansard here.
A video of the speech is available to view below. Lord James
Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/conservative-peer-lord-james-of-blackheath-im-a-money-washer-not-a-money-launderer-14995248.html#ixzz1YTmm4LsL
US to announce new China trade enforcement action
(Gotta have a trade war before you start lobbing bombs at one another)
WASHINGTON, Sept 19 | Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:57pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. trade officials will announce a major trade enforcement action against China on Tuesday, according to a U.S. Trade Representative's office advisory obtained from a business group.
The advisory, which was distributed to media on a not-for-publication basis, said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk "will hold a press conference to announce a major trade enforcement action against China."
The release did not provide any additional details. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Peter Cooney)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/usa-china-trade-idUSS1E78I20P20110919
Consumerlab.com Tests CoQ10 And Ubiquinol Supplements
Consumerlab.com, NPI Center
Jan. 13, 2009 12:00am
http://newhope360.com/antioxidant/consumerlabcom-tests-coq10-and-ubiquinol-supplements
"Among thirty-nine products, the suggested daily servings ranged from 22 mg to 600 mg, and some products were “solubilized” formulas, which deliver more than twice as much CoQ10 into the blood as standard capsules of CoQ10 powder. ConsumerLab.com’s tests of the supplements showed that all but one contained the listed amount of ingredient: A product that made a cGMP claim, denoting FDA Good Manufacturing Practices, provided only 87% of its claimed amount"
"Brands included in the report are Andrew Lessman, Berkley & Jensen (BJ’s), Bio-Q-Sorb Active Q, Biosolv Quinogel, Carlson, CarniQNol Active Q, CoQfactor (Vital Basics), Doctor’s Best, Drinkables, Dr. Ronald Hoffman/Vitamin Shoppe, Enzymatic Therapy, Essentials (Gero Vita), FoodScience of Vermont, Good ‘N Natural, Healthy America, Healthy Origins, Life Extension, Member’s Mark (Sam’s Club), Nature Made, Nature’s Bounty, New Chapter, Origin (Target), Physician’s Health and Diet (Wellness International), Protocol for Life Balance, PureGels, Puritan’s Pride, Source Naturals, Swanson, Trace Minerals, Twinlab, USANA, VitaFusion, Vitamin World, Vitasmart, and Webber Naturals.".
Dosage and Standardization
September 15, 2005 Table of Contents
Coenzyme Q10
ROBERT ALAN BONAKDAR, M.D., and ERMINIA GUARNERI, M.D.
Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, La Jolla, California
Am Fam Physician. 2005 Sep 15;72(6):1065-1070.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0915/p1065.html
The majority of coenzyme Q10 products are synthesized in Japan through proprietary fermentation of yeast strains.45 It is available in various formulations, with research demonstrating variation in bioavailability and dosage consistency.46,47 Selected brands that have passed independent testing for product purity and consistency are listed in Table 1.47 Brands used in positive randomized controlled trials include Vitaline for Parkinson’s disease and UbiQGel for mitochondrial cytopathies. The efficacy, adverse effects, interactions, dosages, cost, and bottom line are summarized in Table 2.
TABLE 1
Selected Coenzyme Q10 Brands*
Product name Dosage Formulation
Biosan
60 to 120 mg
Capsule
Carlson
50 mg
Softgel
CVS pharmacy
100 mg
Softgel
Enzymatic therapy/Vitaline
100 to 200 mg
Chewable
Nature Made
100 mg
Softgel
Nature’s Bounty
75 to 150 mg
Softgel
Nutrilite
30 to 90 mg
Softgel
Olay vitamins
150 mg
Softgel
Origin
100 mg
Softgel
Puritan’s Pride
75 to 200 mg
Softgel
Spring Valley
150 mg
Softgel
Sundown
50 to 150 mg
Softgel
Vitamin World
90 to 200 mg
Softgel
That's $164.34 for a 6 mo supply not $79.
New Discovery of the oldest civilization ever existed on the face of earth in IRAN
That was much, much later.
The Harappan Civilization
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/harappa-mohenjodaro.html
The Corporate Bank Run Has Started: Siemens Pulls €500 Million From A French Bank, Redeposits Direct With ECB
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/19/2011 15:43 -0400
(I wonder if Siemens got a toaster and their first 500 checks free with the new account?)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/shocker-siemens-pulls-€500-million-french-bank-redeposits-direct-ecb
Bank Run European Central Bank Eurozone Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Germany Goldman Sachs goldman sachs Greece Risk Management SocGen
In a shocking representation of just how bad things are in Europe, the FT reports that major European industrial concern Siemens, pulled €500 million form a large French bank, which is not BNP and leaves just [SocGen|Credit Agricole] and deposited the money straight to the ECB. The implications of this are quite stunning, as it means that even European companies now refuse to work directly with their own banks, and somehow the ECB has become a direct lender/cash holder of only resort to private non-financial institutions! As Bloomberg reports further on the FT story, in total, Siemens has deposited between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros, mostly through one-week deposits, with the ECB, FT says, cites the person. It isn’t clear from which bank Siemens withdrew its deposits, per the FT... but it is hardly difficult to figure out. BNP Paribas isn’t the bank involved, FT reports, cites unidentified person familiar with the bank. This story should be having far more impact on the EURUSD than any rumors about Greece lying it will fire all of its public workers only to make sure Eurobanks can survive one more day.
More from the FT:
The company’s move came almost a year after Europe’s largest engineering conglomerate prepared itself for a future financial crisis by launching its own bank, an unusual move for an industrial group outside the car sector, where companies run big car financing and leasing businesses.
In an interview last December, Roland Châlons-Browne, chief executive of Siemens’ financial services unit, said its banking business would enable the group to tap the central bank for liquidity and deposit cash at the ECB.
“In the case of another financial crisis, we will be able to broaden our flexibility and take out risk with our own bank,” Mr Châlons-Browne said at the time.
Siemens does not only use the ECB as a haven; it also gets paid a slightly higher interest rate than it would get from a commercial bank.
The ECB paid an average interest rate last week of 1.01 per cent for its regular offers of one-week deposits, under which it withdraws from the financial system an amount of liquidity equivalent to the amount it has spent on eurozone government bonds.
Update: reader Arnold informs us that Siemens was lucky enough to be the functional equivalent of a Goldman Sachs ATM (you know, Goldman as an FDIC insured "depository" organization) when back in 2010 it got a bank license:
At the end of 2010, Siemens was granted authorization by the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to operate banking business in Germany.
Through its loan business, Siemens Bank expands the product range of Siemens’ Financial Services unit, especially in sales financing. In addition, the deposit business of the bank increases flexibility in the area of corporate financing and provides the opportunity for the further optimization of risk management.
Siemens Bank is based in Munich and will be located in Germany only for the time being. Cross-border activities are planned in future. European countries will be the initial focus of such activities. Select emerging markets are additional focal points.
Siemens Bank is a subsidiary of Siemens AG and acts as an independent company. Nonetheless, it profits from its inclusion in the network of Siemens Group’s financial services companies. The bank employs about 100 people, mainly experts from the areas of risk management and risk controlling as well as specialists from loan origination & structuring.
I like this version. :)~~~~
I wonder if they've overcome people going batty living underground yet?
Interesting, Fulford, I am almost positive is the guy I heard in an interview with about 5 or 6 years ago that claimed there was a shadow faction in China just waiting for the Communist Party to falter. That they were fully capable of taking over all government functions as soon as the people turned against the Communist Party. He also talked about there being a rift at the top of the Western power structure, Rothschilds/Rockefellers, that the American side wanted to plow ahead with their plans for death and destruction but the Europeans were losing their blood lust for continual boom, bust, crush, kill, destroy, boom again cycles. Thanks! I never could remember who this guys was.
There's an underground highway that runs from D.C. to the Greenbriar Resort in WV. The old bomb shelter is now open to the public. The article doesn't talk about the highway but it is basically an openly known secret in West Virginia that it exists.
http://www.avhub.net/congressionalhideawaygreenbriar.htm
I thought I'd post this because the general concsensus seems to be that this is a cheap price, coQ10 600 mg 6 months supply for $79.95.
If you can find it cheaper let me know.
http://www.puritan.com/coenzyme-q-10-055/q-sorb-co-q-10-600-mg-030453?NewPage=1
Germany Rejects Geithner, ECB Refuses To "Print", Greece Gets Final Warning
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/17/2011 12:21 -0400
Ben Bernanke European Central Bank European Union Federal Reserve Germany Greece International Monetary Fund Italy Monetary Policy Poland Reality Reuters Timothy Geithner
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/germany-rejects-geithner-ecb-refuses-print-greece-gets-final-warning
Looks like no more official trips for G-Pap anywhere very soon:
ECB'S WEIDMANN-IT IS WRONG TO ABANDON ALL PRINCIPLES OF MONETARY POLICY BY CITING A GENERAL EMERGENCY-SPIEGEL
GERMAN CSU HEAD - IF GREECE CAN'T OR WON'T KEEP TRACK WITH RESCUE PLAN THAN AN EXIT FROM THE EURO ZONE IS CONCEIVABLE-SPIEGEL
More from Reuters:
European Central Bank Governing Council member Jens Weidmann told Germany's Spiegel magazine in an interview he considered it wrong to "throw out all established principles of monetary policy by citing a general emergency."
In a preview of an interview to be published in the new edition of Spiegel, Weidmann, head of the Bundesbank, said: "Once people start to use monetary policy there will always appear to be reasons suggesting it should continue to be used."
Abd:
The leader of Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU), part of Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition, reiterated in an interview with Germany's Spiegel Magazine that Greece might have to leave the euro zone if it failed to meet conditions set by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"If the Greek government and parliament can't or won't keep to the path then we shouldn't wait for the financial markets to force us into accepting reality. Then an exit of Greece from the euro zone must be conceivable.
And in other official news, Germany officially slammed the door on Geithner's face:
Germany’s top two finance officials rejected using the European Central Bank to boost the euro-area rescue fund’s firepower, rebuffing a suggestion by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Inviting Geithner to a euro meeting for the first time, European finance chiefs who wrapped up two days of talks in Wroclaw, Poland, today also said the 18-month debt crisis leaves no room for tax cuts or extra spending to spur an economy on the brink of stagnation.
The German stance risks leaving the euro area without sufficient means to prevent the crisis from engulfing Spain and Italy. Geithner floated a variation of a 2008 policy he developed while at the New York Federal Reserve that would expand the reach of the 440 billion-euro ($607 billion) European Financial Stability Facility using leverage in a partnership with the ECB, said Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan.
“The EFSF’s sole purpose is the financing of states and that’s in order as long as it’s done via the capital market,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told reporters today. “If it’s done via the central bank it constitutes monetary state financing,” which is forbidden under European Union rules.
"Luckily" for the US middle class, adhering the rules never stopped Timmy-G before...
But the biggest slap down is not that of Pinocchio, but of Bernanke himself:
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs meetings of euro region finance ministers, said yesterday: “We’re not discussing the increase or the expansion of the EFSF with a non-member of the euro area.” Instead, the ministers recommitted to a July 21 decision to empower the fund to buy bonds in the secondary market, offer precautionary credit lines and create a bank-recapitalization facility.
“We don’t think that real economic and social problems can be solved by means of monetary policy,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaking alongside Weidmann after the meeting of EU finance ministers and central bank governors. “That has never been the European model and it won’t be.”
Funny: does Bernanke realize that Europe just mutinied? What happens if the head USD printer suddenly decides to shut down those expanded swap lines after all.