CosmicLog: This week, Samoa will skip Friday
Rachel Maddow reports on a peculiar switch in the calendar for Samoa as they move to the other side of the International Date Line and lose a Friday in order to be better aligned with their trading partners.
I honestly had more links up for us and my 'puter froze up and i had to restart it and then I noticed quite a few links were gone. 'Puter's been acting cranky all morning too. Don't know if it's something here or maybe that CME that's hitting us today and through the weekend. At any rate, hope it's just something here. Leave a comment in the comment section if you're also having mysterious computer or electronic problems. Might be interesting.
Thanks to RJ at Global Glass Onion and the Ozarker at Conflicted Doomer, for their contributions and help. Be sure to check out their great blogs today as well as the forums linked at the bottom of the blog!
Japan
WashingtonsBlog: Island of Japanese Debris the Size of California to Hit West Coast of North America
WashingtonsBlog: Canadian Medical Association Journal: Japanese Response to Fukushima Even Worse than Communist Russian Response to Chernobyl … “The Japanese Government Was Lying Through Its Teeth”
Global Conflict
NYT: Noise Level Rises Over Iran Threat to Close Strait of Hormuz
Hosted: Oil price falls as Saudis trump Iran threat
Fox: Pentagon: Iranian Disruption of Oil Route 'Will Not Be Tolerated'
NationofChange: Propaganda Re-Runs from Iraq Used on Iran
Zerohedge: Iran Outlines Key Steps And Actors In A Potential Straits Of Hormuz Closure
Yahoo: U.S. Fifth Fleet says won't allow Hormuz Disruption
McClatchy: Iranian oil threat is mostly bluster, say observers
VancouverSun: Iran's oil transit channel, Strait of Hormuz, could easily be closed: navy chief
IBTimes: Oil Prices - Saudis, Gulf States Ready to Offset Loss of Iran Oil
CNN: Snipers rule the streets in the besieged Syrian city of Homs
RawStory: Venezuela’s Chavez: did U.S. give Latin American leaders cancer?
Telegraph: Syria: Arab League observers reportedly filmed caught in crossfire in Homs
CNN: The Arab League monitors are fanning out to trouble spots
MSNBC: Red flags ahead of US weapons sales to Iraq - While US is eager to beef up Iraq's military, some fear that the move could backfire CBS: Deadly Syria crackdown persists despite monitors
Time: Turkey Attacks Suspected Rebel Targets in Iraq
Telegraph: Syrian forces 'kill 13 people' despite Arab League mission
Financial News
BlacklistedNews: Britain's poorest hit by £2.5bn 'stealth tax'
Mish 2012 Predictions; 2011 Year in Review with Max Keiser
Zerohedge: The US Auto Industry Drifts Off To China
Zerohedge: Former Fed VP Accuses Bernanke Of Bailing Out Europe Via Currency Swaps
DailyBail: Federal Reserve History: Breaking News From 1948 - Banking Mogul Ousts Fed Chairman
CalculatedRisk: A Pickup for Housing in 2012? - Residential investment made a small positive contribution to GDP in 2011, for the first time since 2005. And construction employment turned slightly positive in 2011. Now the question is what will happen in 2012?
Zerohedge: Italy Sells Long-Dated Bonds To Weak Demand, 10 Year Prices Just Inside Of 7%, Bids To Cover Miss
CEPR: The Daily Beast Acts Up on the Economy - Dean Baker - Sometimes a little kid will deliberately be bad just to get attention from her teacher or parents. This seems to be the philosophy of a Daily Beast column by Zachary Karabell, which uses what seems to be some deliberately bad economic analysis to tell us things are really pretty good. The piece begins with the incredible assertion: "years from now, when we look back at 2011, it may be remembered as one of the best worst years of the early 21st century. You’d be hard-pressed to come up with an extended period where people were more negative, yet remarkably, in the United States at least, not much actually happened."
TruthOut: Goodbye "Shop Til You Drop" Mentality: Renegade Band of Economists Call for "Degrowth" Economy
IBTimes: Greek Financial Crisis Tearing Apart Families and Children
Angela Merkel's economic adviser Weder di Mauro refuses to rule out eurozone break-up
One of German Chancellor Angela's Merkel's economic advisers, Beatrice Weder di Mauro, has refused to rule out a break-up of the eurozone, in an interview published on Thursday.
CapitalGainsandGames: Payroll Tax Extension Will Be Only Hostage-Taking Opportunity For GOP In 2012
MSNBC: Jobless claims show labor market improving
Peak oil and Energy News
Reuters: Oil falls on dollar's rise, Wall Street pullback
Bloomberg: Crude Oil, Gold Slump on Europe Woes: Commodities at the Close
LAT: Gasoline prices climb to record end-of-year highs ... again
IBTimes: Natural Gas - The U.S.'s 21st Century Energy Form?
IBTimes: Oil - It Still Has the United States Over a Barrel
Reuters: Oil above $107, US stocks and Iran in focus
ViableOpposition: Iran: An Oil Giant
DetroitNews: Plan to add pumps may boost natural gas autos
Commodities/Metals
Mineweb: Supplies of gold and silver American Eagles adequate as demand drops - U.S. Mint
Environmental News
DesdemonaDespair: Scientists test sick Alaska seals for Fukushima radiation
SOTT: Weird Christmas weather: Australia tornadoes and unusual warmth in UK and South Pole
ProPublica: Oh, Canada’s Become a Home for Record Fracking - Early last year, deep in the forests of northern British Columbia, workers for Apache Corp. performed what the company proclaimed was the biggest hydraulic fracturing operation ever. The project used 259 million gallons of water and 50,000 tons of sand to frack 16 gas wells side by side. It was "nearly four times larger than any project of its nature in North America," Apache boasted.
ClimateChangePsychology: Global Warming Hates A White Christmas - This winter has been unusually warm, crippling ski resorts, ruining holiday traditions, and dashing hopes of a white Christmas across the northern hemisphere. While the billions of tons of greenhouse pollution in our atmosphere sometimes encourage freak snowstorms, the primary effect of global warming on winter is, well, warmer temperatures — making white Christmases less likely.
Grist: Photos don’t lie: See the dramatic expansion of Canadian tar sands
MMN: A new island appears in Red Sea - Photo: NASA Earth Observatory The Red Sea has a new inhabitant: a smoking island. The island was created by a wild eruption that occurred in the Red Sea earlier this month.
Telegraph: Relief for BP as US judge rules it was not at fault for Alaskan spill
BP has scored a legal victory in the US after a judge dismissed government claims that the company was at fault for a second oil spill in Alaska.
America in Decline
NationofChange: U.S. Troops Charged After Fellow GI, Hazing Victim Found Dead in Afghanistan
DailyBail: Watch The 'Chinese Professor' TV Commercial That Is Causing All The Controversy (VIDEO)
StratRisks: The Pentagon and its Sock Puppets
BaltimoreSun: Home values fell 17% in three years, state assessors say - Notices mailed to owners Tuesday
Food and Water
CityFarmer: State Senator looks to amend Michigan Right to Farm Act, let Detroit regulate urban farming
Science and Technology
TechReview: The Year on the Web - Social networking grew up in 2011, becoming more of a fundamental underpinning of the Web.
CosmicLog: Will Russia's Mars probe fall in Afghanistan? Too early to tell
Zerohedge: The Tide Is Turning Against SOPA … And We Might Actually Succeed In Stopping It
BlacklistedNews: Street Cams Can Now Tag, Track and Follow Individuals
ArcheologyNewsNetwork: DNA tests to solve mystery of Yeti's finger
PopSci: Cheap Tricks: Slow the Expensive Data Flow From Your Smartphone
TechReview: The Year in Materials
TechnoLog: Verizon has third data outage in a month
CNN: Experts: Twitter account case may blaze new trails in social media law
Medical and Health
ScienceMag: Breakthrough of the Year - HIV Treatment as Prevention
RedditScience: Forgetting Is Key To A Healthy Mind: Letting go of memories supports a sound state of mind, a sharp intellect--and superior recall
TheChart: Tests for biomarker may diagnose heart attack within hours
M&C: Hong Kong government building at centre of killer bug scare
MSNBC: Maker of tainted wipes gets FDA nod toward reopening
ProPublica: The Champion of Painkillers
The news about narcotic painkillers is increasingly dire: Overdoses now kill nearly 15,000 people a year -- more than heroin and cocaine combined. In some states, the painkiller death toll exceeds that of car crashes.CNN: Third infant reportedly sickened by rare bacteria
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
CityFarmer: The only urban beekeeping store in the world is in San Francisco
ModernSurvivalBlogNatural Remedies To Boost Immune System
NationofChange: To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts
AllRecipes: Authentic Louisiana Red Beans and Rice (I'm having this for dinner today, without the meat. Thought some of you might like to try it too! Using my own homemade hot sauce in it too. Yummy!)
ModernSurvivalBlog: EMP Commission Warns Catastrophic Consequences
Other News
VOA: North Korea Bids A Snowy, Dramatic Farewell to Kim Jong Il
BusinessWeek: Chavez Says US May Be Behind South America Leaders' Cancer
Reuters: Three trapped by mine fire in eastern Tennessee
BusinessInsider: Here's What Happens To Your Bag After You Check It At The Airport - Delta Airlines released a video showing exactly what happens to your bag once you check it at the airport.
Politics
CSMonitor: Gary Johnson sets third-party pot bubbling as he quits GOP race
First Thoughts: The all-out brawl for Iowa begins
Guardian: Michele Bachmann's Iowa campaign chief switches to Ron Paul
Fox: Bachmann Accuses Defector of Being Bought Off by Paul Campaign
The Forums
TinfoilPalace: Get ready for a tug-of-war in 2012
TinfoilPalace: Backyard farmers by necessity: self-sufficient & debt-free TheOilAge: Growing US-Iran confrontation over Strait of Hormuz
TheOilAge: Greedy Televangelists!
HubbertsArms: Israel preparing for another Gaza war
HubbertsArms: Red flags ahead of US weapons sales to Iraq
SilentCountry: Gold down $55, silver down $1.99
SilentCountry: Credit Card Spending Increased Over Holidays
puter has frozen a few times this week, mostly lack of bandwidth I think, lots of people at home on their puters perhaps
ReplyDeleteyou know what? i'll bet you're right! I didn't even think of that. Everyone is home for the holidays! LOL Duh!
ReplyDeletethanks!