Looks like a jungle out there!
Thanks to our friends RJ at Global Glass Onion and the Ozarker at Conflicted Doomer for the links this morning. Be sure to check out their blogs as well as the blogs linked on the left here and the great forums linked at the bottom of this post.
Wish me luck in the garden today, it's getting hot and muggy out there but I know that somewhere in all that chaos of weeds, there are sweet sweet red ripe tomatoes crying out for liberation!
Have a good day folks and now for the news.
Japan
DesdemonaDespair: Video: Daily life in Fukushima: ‘It was like visiting another universe’
NakedCapitalism: Guest Post: Fukushima Cover Up Unravels
BusinessInsider: Almost Half The Kids In Fukushima Have Thyroid Radiation Exposure
Global Conflict
VOA: Iraq Hit by Multiple Bombings
MSNBC: 'So, this is democracy': Frustration rife in new Egypt
Revolution brings new economic woes, demands for immediate solutions
PBS: Report: Female Journalists Facing More Risks, Intimidation Abroad
AirforceTimes: AFRICOM: AF, Navy still flying Libya missions
CNN: At least 35 killed in twin explosions near Baghdad
NationalJournal: PICTURES: Obama’s Six Wars (So Far)
NationalJournal: Defining Down WarObama is already adept at going to war without saying so, but the team of Panetta and Petraeus is likely to turn this age-old deception into an art form.
StarTribune: Attacks leave Yemen's economy on edge of collapse
WashingPost: Global race on to match U.S. drone capabilities
CNN: Authorities: Mexican drug lord tied to death of ICE agent captured
Hacker News
IBTimes: AntiSec hacking boom: Anonymous hackers protest Orlando anti-homeless law
Financial News
Forbes: China Wants to Buy Facebook
On Thursday, Business Insider reported that China is trying to buy “a huge chunk” of Facebook.
According to the business news website, Beijing approached a fund that buys stock from former Facebook employees to see if it could assemble a stake large enough “to matter.” Moreover, Citibank is rumored to be trying to acquire as much as $1.2 billion of stock for two sovereign wealth funds, one from the Middle East and the other Chinese. Business Insider reports a third source, from a “very influential” Silicon Valley investment bank, confirms that Citi is representing China.
BusinessInsider: How A Murdered Schoolgirl's Hacked Voicemail May Cost Murdoch His British Ambitions
Many observers have been wondering when exactly the phone hacking scandal currently engulfing Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers would cross over into the public consciousness.
Sure, the scale of the phone hacking was ridiculous, but most of the victims were either celebrities (who thus don't deserve their privacy) or obscure officials that the public found it difficult to relate to.
CNNMoney: The scariest risks to the economy
TPM: Constitutional Crisis? The Political And Legal Risks Of Ignoring The Debt Limit
Now, it appears the tipping point may have been found.
Guardian: Greek bailout challenged in Germany's constitutional court
Eurosceptics argue bailouts are contrary to German constitution's protection of property
TruthOut: The New War of Independence - Against Corporate Politics
Spiegel: The Saboteurs Among Us. Danish Border Controls Shake EU Foundations
BusinessInsider: More Signs Of Eurozone Disintegration, As Denmark Throws Up New Blocks At The Border
The newest threat to the eurozone may be coming from the North.
This morning, Denmark reintroduced customs checkpoints on its borders with Germany and Sweden, in a move that threatens the integrity of passport-free travel within the EU.
MyBudget360: How the Federal Reserve continues to conduct shadow bailouts for the banking beasts and sets the world economy on FIRE.
Fed balance sheet now at a record $2.84 trillion as wages decline and banking profits soar. Fed balance sheet now equivalent to 20 percent of U.S. GDP.
MSNBC: Why the Dow will end up plunging to 7,000
There are too many financial risks on the horizon that are being dismissed
MyBudget360: College education becomes a predator’s lounge for Wall Street and the government
Since 2000 the real cost of college is up by 23 percent yet the real earnings of college graduates is down by 11 percent.
USAToday: Obama and the debt: A 14th amendment solution?
NakedCapitalism: Ron Paul Suggests Using Fed to End Run Debt Ceiling Impasse
The only reason to think Republicans are serious about their threat to have the Federal government default rather than raise the debt ceiling is that they have an undue fondness for apocalyptic outcomes. I suppose I should actually favor this sort of thing; I’ve long thought the only hope for getting the US freed from rule by financiers was another financial crisis, provided it came soon enough and it was big enough. This one might fit the bill on those scores.
FDL: Fear of Credit Default Swaps Used to Protect Stupid Banks
StarTelegram: Great Recession still very much alive on Main Street
WSJ: Eurozone CDS Spreads Wider
FT: Scare tactics lift prices for smokers
(what they'll eventually do I think, is decriminalize pot but make tobacco illegal. That will be funny as hell)
IBTimes: Gold Could See $1,800/oz on Seasonal Strength and Deepening Eurozone and U.S. Debt Crisis
Gold is higher today and showing particular strength against the euro and the Japanese yen. The relief rally seen in equities since the latest Greek 'bailout' is under pressure as S&P have said the debt rollover proposal would be a "selective default". The ECB may selectively reject the S&P Greek downgrade and arbitrarily select the best credit rating being offered.
Platts: Japan wants to resume talks on E China Sea projects, shipping security
Japan has urged China to resume high-level talks on resource development in the East China Sea, as well as called on Beijing to take "appropriate" action to assure "free and safe" passage for ships, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Monday.
RawStory: World needs $1.9 trillion a year for green technology: UN
The world needs $1.9 trillion in green technology investments a year, with over half of that sum necessary for developing countries," the UN said Tuesday.
MineWeb: Gold a lifeboat which will not be sunk
The state of the gold market today as seen by gold specialist Julian Phillips in South Africa.
AxcessNews: Hiring Bias Creates "Unemployed Professional to Poverty" Class
BusinessInsider: Meet The 15 Biggest Retailers In America
WashingtonPost: Obama calls the GOP’s bluff
WashingtonPostFactChecker: A well-used but misleading Medicaid statistic
HuffPost: Vatican Returns Profit After Three Years In Red, But Donations Down (the Vatican is a business???? Who knew?)
Peak oil and Energy News
EnergyBulletin: Peak coal and China
Platts: UK government announces tax break to aid new North Sea investors
The UK finance ministry Tuesday announced an extension of a tax relief measure aimed at assisting new investors in North Sea oil and gas fields, a move welcomed by producers still reeling from a surprise tax hike imposed earlier this year.
YahooFinance: Oil climbs above $96 per barrel
Oil rises as analysts forecast tighter supplies in 2012; gas pump price down slightly
PoliticalCalculations: Surprising Impotence
Environmental News
SOTT: US - Massachusetts town hit by tornado forced to cancel annual July 4th event; organizers lost their homes
DesdemonaDespair: A hidden risk of climate change: More property damage from drought-induced soil subsidence in Europe
DesdemonaDespair: How rising temperatures change weather and produce fiercer, more frequent storms
MarketWatch: ‘Dirty’ coal is good for the environment
CBSNews: Yellowstone oil pipeline was cited for safety
Reuters: Exxon Mobil says oil leaked into Yellowstone River
(just a comment, but remember when the spill in the Gulf first happened? They said it was about 1000 barrels spilled? Just thought that was interesting)
A pipeline operated by Exxon Mobil Corp leaked as many as 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana and has been shut down, the company said.
ThinkProgress: How the Media Gets It Wrong on Climate Change: The False, the Confused and the Mendacious
ScienceDaily: Australian Volcano Eruptions Overdue, New Study Confirms
Latest research into the age of volcanos in Western Victoria and South Australia has confirmed that the regions are overdue for an eruption, potentially affecting thousands of local residents.
RawStory: Fox News uses backyard grilling to ‘debunk’ climate change
Fox News used a new study that asked whether grilling contributed to global warming to attack supporters of climate change. Guest Joe Bastardi, chief meteorologist of Weatherbell.com and an outspoken critic of climate change, called the study an attack on American tradition.
America in Decline
AmericanDream: The Elite Are Not Even Trying To Hide How Much They Hate The U.S. Constitution Anymore
MSNBC: Independence Day blues?
Americans sense decline More see the nation as less powerful and more vulnerable, a new poll finds
LAT: What's behind GOP attack on product-safety database?
The Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee has approved a spending bill that cuts off all funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission's online database of product complaints.
LAT: U.S. could drop screening for deadly strain of E. coli
Budget cuts may end routine federal testing of produce for pathogen
NPR: 'Go To Work!' Minnesotans Vent As State Government Shutdown Continues
NYT: A City’s Wrenching Budget Choices
WILMINGTON, N.C. — When Engine 5 pulled up to a burning house on Woodlawn Avenue early on March 19, the firefighters were told that a man might be trapped in the back left bedroom. As two firemen trained a hose toward that corner, Capt. Don Ragavage crawled through smoke and flames to search for the missing resident.
It was an inopportune moment for the water pressure to plummet. But that is what happened when Engine 5’s motor, strained to the limit by 16 years and more than 100,000 miles of hard service, abruptly sputtered and died.
BlackListedNews: US spends billions every year prosecuting marijuana violations while economy tanks
HuffingtonPost: A Solution to Mobile Homelessness
Mobile homelessness may be the fastest growing poverty demographic in America today. People lose their job, then their apartment, and do everything they can to keep their vehicle. In most communities it's actually illegal to sleep in a car or RV, making the life of a mobile homeless person even harder.
OverheadBin: Woman escorted off US Airways flight after snapping photo
It doesn't take much for a passenger to be a security threat these days.
Miami photographer Sandy DeWitt was reportedly escorted off a US Airways flight from Philadelphia International Airport on Friday after she used her iPhone to snap a photo of an employee's name tag, according to the photography website Pixiq.
Food and Water
ABC: Australia's GM wheat will only worsen world hunger
TransitionVoice: The joy of comfort food
Bloomberg: The Ultimate Dog’s Dinner: Hotel Offers Fine Dining for Pooches
(think about this one when you're waiting in line at the foodstamp office or soup kitchen.)
NatGeo: Food Ark A Crisis is Looming
To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply—but we must take steps to save them.
Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. It seems counterintuitive, but then everything about this farm stands in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of neatly rowed corn and soybean fields that typify modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds. It is home to the Seed Savers Exchange, one of the largest nongovernment-owned seed banks in the United States.
TimesofIndia: Diesel hike, supply crunch fuel tomato prices in city
NEW DELHI: It's been a double whammy for consumers this week. The diesel price hike coupled with a shortage of crop has pushed up prices of vegetables. And tomatoes are the worst hit with prices shooting up to Rs 40-45 per kg in retail chains in the city. The mood at Azadpur Mandi is grim. Traders say until fresh stocks arrive from nearby regions, prices will continue to shoot through the roof.
Science and Technology
CNN: Today in Tech: Why you should switch to Google +
TechReview: Sulphur Breakthrough Significantly Boosts Lithium Battery Capacity
Trapping sulphur particles in graphene cages produces a cathode material that could finally make lithium batteries capable of powering electric cars
Wired: The Cutting-Edge Physics of Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock, famous for his deceptively random-seeming drip paintings, took advantage of certain features of fluid dynamics years before physicists thought to study them.
WiredScience: Physicists: Universe Almost Certainly Not a Hologram
Medical and Health
Nature: Harvard scientists disciplined for not declaring ties to drug companies
ConLie: $5,317 – too rich to receive medicaid according to the Governor who spent that on one trip.The Republican Governor who spent over $5000 of taxpayers money travelling to see his son play a sports game thinks that level of salary should disqualify you from medicaid.
The man who gave 16,000 of New Jersey’s richest residents a tax cut worth over $1billion a year wants to gut the program provided to 23,000 of the poorest residents in the State.
ScienceNewsBlog: Can air pollutiuon lead to depression?
(Medical press)- Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to physical changes in the brain, as well as learning and memory problems and even depression, new research in mice suggests.
Hosted: Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say
Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal's decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.
DeviceGuru: Bionic body parts offer hope to the disabled
HealthZone: Quit-smoking drug raises heart risks: Study
CNN: Antidepressant use in pregnancy may raise autism risk
StraitsTimes: Dengue situation at 'warning levels'
Congress reconvenes this week to consider options in budget talks
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
TheArchDruidReport: How Not to Play the Game
It’s been more than a year now since the theme of “green wizardry” became central to the posts here on The Archdruid Report, and I’ve pretty much covered the first two of the three themes I mean to discuss before it becomes time to shift the conversation elsewhere. We’ve discussed organic gardening and its associated arts, and we’ve discussed homescale energy production and conservation. At this point, before we go on to the third leg of the tripod, which used to be called “recycling” thirty years ago and deserves a more robust name now, I’d like to step back for a moment and talk a bit about strategy.
GoldGold.com: GOLD PANNING INSTRUCTIONS
DoomerinCanada: Surviving in the Canadian Wilderness
At the end of the survival quiz, we were told that there were twelve "correct" answers. Selecting any ten of the twelve meant you survived.
Other News
CNN: Korean office tower evacuated after mysterious shakingAuthorities in Seoul, South Korea, ordered the evacuation of a 39-story office building Tuesday after occupants reported that it shook for about 10 minutes, local media reported.
There was no seismic activity reported at the time of the tremors, which began about 10:10 a.m., according to a report in The Korea Times.
Exonomix: The Legend of Margaret Thatcher
ZeroHedge: Preview Of This Week's Washington Soap Opera
Prospect: The Other Big Court Battle: State Immigration Laws
RawReplay: Buchanan: Socialism is ‘bringing down’ western civilization
Good: Pedal to Prosperity: Fighting Poverty with Sturdy Bikes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Never underestimate the power of a good bike. Particularly in the rural areas of the developing world, where great distances and poorly-maintained roads separate nodes of development, bikes that stand up to potholes make a huge difference for people in search of an education, healthcare and employment. That's why World Bicycle Relief (WBR) has dedicated itself to connecting people across sub-Saharan Africa with sturdy bicycles since the organization's founding in 2005.
DomasJefferson: Libertarians Call For Arrest Of TSA Agents
IBTimes: Obama Was Never Assassinated - President spends Independence Day at the White House [PHOTOS]
Salon: The three fundamentalisms of the American right
In contradiction to the hostility to Darwinism shared by many of its constituents, the American right is evolving rapidly before our eyes. The project of creating an American version of Burkean conservatism has collapsed. What has replaced it is best described as triple fundamentalism -- a synthesis of Biblical fundamentalism, constitutional fundamentalism and market fundamentalism.
The Forums
TinfoilPalace:New Madrid Fault and interesting research in the similar events of 1811 to 2011 preceeding the major earthquake
TinfoilPalace:Em Just Got Another Quake
TheOilAge:Desperation turns to scrapping
TheOilAge:Use old tires!
Hubberts-Arms:Iceland’s former prime minister charged with negligence over financial crisis
Hubberts-Arms:Military stalemate in Libya heightens US-NATO crisis
SilentCountry:Guy McPherson: Guest essay at Nature Bats Last (Preparing for uncertain futures)
SilentCountry:China in denial over peak oil
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