Here's a great piece written by our own RJ!
FDL: notes on the SOTU, the FOMC, 4th qtr GDP, December’s LPS report, et al
way to nail some really important points RJ!
And also, for all of us suffering (or not) from anxiety, here is a perfect article!
My first thought of the day: I love my dog. My second: His death is inevitable.
Also, you can read much of Richard Heinberg's book "End of Growth" for free at the following link.
much thanks to Mr. Heinberg for making this available for people to read.
Much thanks to RJ at the Global Glass Onion and the Ozarker at Conflicted Doomer for their help today! And thanks to David at ETF Daily!
Japan
LegitGov: Japan finds water leaks at stricken nuclear plant
Global Conflict
SecurityBlogs: Audit: US Defense Department can't account for billions for Iraq --'The bulk of the records are missing.
VOA: Obama Confirms Drone Strikes in Pakistan
WashingtonPost: Navy sending commando 'mothership' to Middle East 27 Jan 2012 The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, 'al-Qaeda' in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.
Time: On the Ground in Afghanistan, a Taliban Whose Momentum Seems Anything But Broken
A fighting unit's experiences in Kunar poses doubts on President Obama's claim that the Afghan insurgency has been rocked back on its heelsIndependent: Doctor who led us to bin Laden was CIA agent, says US --Imprisoned CIA asset ran fake health scheme to get DNA evidence that al-Qa'ida leader was in house
WashingtonPost: Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence in reaction to China's Rise
TheAtlantic: Quietly, U.S. Moves to Block Lawsuits by Military Families
VOA: Clinton to Urge Security Council Action on Syria
CNN: Arab League head to address UN on Syria
Reuters: Gulf Arabs have plans against Hormuz closure-official - Coastguards and naval forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) group of Arab countries have contingency plans for a possible attempt by Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a Kuwaiti maritime official said on Monday.
CNN: Where is Syria crisis heading?
Spiegel: Prison Torture in Libya - 'Patients Who Had Been Electrically Shocked'WashingtonPost: Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on US soil, US Intelligence Report Finds
CNN: 9 killed in suspected drone strikes in Yemen - Three suspected drone strikes hit militant targets in southern Yemen Monday night and Tuesday morning, killing at least nine people believed to be linked to al Qaeda, Yemeni security officials said.
OWS
WashingtonPost: Tensions mount with arrest of Occupy DC protester and approach of deadline
WashingtonPost: Occupy DC protesters vow to carry on despite camping regulations
FoodFreedom: Occupy Monsanto with Farmers: Jan. 31, Foley Square (NYC) On January 31st, family farmers from across the county will take part in the first phase of the OSGATA et al. v. Monsanto court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) seed, which can contaminate organic and non-GMO farmers’ crops and open them up to abusive lawsuits. Meet at Foley Square in Manhattan at 9 am on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. As a result of aggressive lawsuits against farmers with contaminated crops, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. But farmers are fighting back! The Federal District Court judge has agreed to hear oral arguments in this landmark case to decide whether or not this case will move forward. Occupy Wall Street Food Justice, Occupy Big Food and Food Democracy Now! will assemble at Foley Square in Manhattan in solidarity with farmers on the front lines of the struggle against corporate domination of our food system.
IReport: Occupy DC protests The Alfalfa club
CNNiReport: Occupy Oakland's: Move In Day ABCNews: Occupy DC Tries to Stave off Eviction in Court
Hacker News
Not really hacker news but this was the best place for it.
Guardian: Julian Assange's extradition battle enters final round - WikiLeaks founder to face seven supreme court judges in appeal against extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations
Guardian: Julian Assange's extradition battle enters final round - WikiLeaks founder to face seven supreme court judges in appeal against extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations
Domestic Financial News
NYT: Deficit Tops $1 Trillion, but Is Falling
LifeInc: Cheat away on taxes, more Americans say
Reuters: US set for fourth year of $1 trillion-plus deficit: CBO
CalculatedRisk: Research: Weak labor demand explains increase in unemployment duration
MSNBC: video: Treating the shattered economy as a crime scene - Eric Schneiderman with Rachel Maddow
Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Among Banks Fighting to Exempt Half of Swaps Books - More than half of the derivatives- trading business of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley and three other large banks could fall largely outside the Dodd- Frank Act if they succeed in lobbying regulators to exempt their overseas operations, government records show.
WSJ: U.S. Gets Tougher on Debt Collecting - The Federal Trade Commission intensified its crackdown on the booming debt-collection industry, announcing a $2.5 million settlement with a company for allegedly coercing borrowers into paying debts they no longer legally owed.
BusinessWeek: Boehner Says He’s Confident Congress Will Extend Payroll Tax-Cut
FirstRead: Ban on congressional insider trading clears key Senate hurdleNYT: Treasury Investigates Freddie Mac Investment - The Treasury Department is investigating a report that Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, bet against homeowners’ ability to refinance their loans even as it was making it more difficult for them to do so, Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said on Monday.
McClatchy: Commentary: Three female regulators' warnings about financial crisis were ignored
DylanRatigan: Auction 2012: Banking
ETFDailyNews: It Is Pretty Obvious That Inflation Is Part Of The Government Plan
FT: The 'Take Care of Me' Society is Wrecking the USA
CNBC: Fed Members Laughed As Housing Bubble Grew
MSNBC: Home prices fall more than expected
Forbes: The Economist Blasts Private Equity, Romney's Path To Fortune
Zerohedge: Interesting & Informative Documentary on the Power of Rating Agencies, Along With Reggie Middleton Excerpts
MyBudget360: The law school bubble – At 50 law schools, 20% of the students are either unemployed, flunked out, or are unknown yet data does not show up in national rankings. Many more pass bar exam than actual job openings in legal field. Legal bubble is another tangent of the higher education bubble.
WSJ: Vital Signs: Americans Boost Savings
Salon: Wall Street’s gilded frat party
Global Financial News
MarketWatch: Short China: Its commodities bubble is set to pop
MarketWatch: Davos is just an ego trip for the 1%
NYT: Sarkozy Unveils Tax Raises but Not a Re-election Bid
CreditWritedowns: On Canadian and Australian bank risk
NYT: Japanese Auto Suppliers Are Fined, and Executives Agree to Prison, in a Price-Fixing Case
NYT: Japanese Auto Suppliers Are Fined, and Executives Agree to Prison, in a Price-Fixing Case
Good Grief, this is creepy sounding! thanks RJ!
BBC: EU summit: UK and Czechs refuse to join fiscal compact - Twenty-five of the EU's 27 member states have agreed to join a fiscal treaty to enforce budget discipline. The Czech Republic and the UK refused to sign up. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said his government would act if the treaty threatened UK interests. He still has "legal concerns" about the use of EU institutions in enforcing the fiscal treaty, he said. The Czechs cited "constitutional reasons" for their refusal, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy said. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a Eurosceptic, may be reluctant to sign the treaty, analysts say. The goal is much closer co-ordination of budget policy across the EU to prevent excessive debts accumulating. Germany - the eurozone's biggest lender and most powerful economy - was particularly keen to get a binding treaty adopted to enforce budget rules. The treaty will empower the European Court of Justice to monitor compliance and impose fines on rule-breakers. The treaty also spells out the enhanced role of the European Commission in scrutinising national budgets.
EconomicOutlook: Latest ECB data shows how bad things have become in EurolandFT: ‘Davos consensus’ under siege
ETFDailyNews: 20 Signs That Europe Is Plunging Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression
JOC: Hanjin’s 2011 Container Losses Hit $487 Million
NYT: In Victory for the West, W.T.O. Orders China to Stop Export Taxes on Minerals
CNNMoney: Stocks: Investors welcome Europe's fiscal pact
FinancialPost: Canada facing subprime mortgage risk
Telegraph: The perils of Mario Draghi's €1.5 trillion blitz
PostGazette: E.U. Leaders Set to Admit Austerity Is Not Enough
Peak Oil and Energy News
TheOilDrum: The Hydrogen Dream
CNNMoney: Exxon reports $9.4 billion profit
Forbes: Exxon Profits Beat Street, As $100 Oil Cures Many Ills
CNNMoney: Forget Iran, Iraq is threatening oil prices
Wired: Researchers Argue Peak Oil Is Here, Bringing Permanent Volatility - In Wednesday’s issue of Nature, James Murray of University of Washington and David King of Oxford University argue this sort of volatility is what we can expect going forward, and we’re likely to face it with other fossil fuels as well.
PriceofOil: The Best Bill Oil Money Can Buy
ArabNews: Kingdom capable of handling any future oil shortage: Al-NaimiNewScientist: Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever - If everyone in the world started living like wealthy Americans, we'd need to generate more than 10 times as much energy each year. And if, in a century or three, we all expect to be looked after by an army of robots and zoom up into space on holidays, we are going to need a vast amount more. Where are we going to get so much power from?
Gregor: Global Oil Production Update: A Strange Future Has Arrived - Since 2005, European oil consumption has fallen by 1.5 million barrels a day. And, in the same period, US oil consumption has fallen by 2 million barrels a day. If oil was priced at $60 a barrel, rather than $100 a barrel, then a fair portion of that lost demand might return. Instead, since 2005, global crude oil production has been bumping up against a ceiling around 74 million barrels a day. Thus, the tremendous growth in oil demand which emanates from the developing world, in Asia primarily, has been supplied by the reduction of demand in Europe and the United States. Why doesn’t the world simply increase the production of oil to 77, or 78 million barrels a day? After all, that is precisely the history of global oil production: a continual increase in supply to capture the advantage of rising prices. Today, in 2012, I observe that many analysts of global oil production—and the interaction between oil prices and the global economy—continue to engage in a guessing game about the future. But, frankly, the future has already arrived. And it is not a random future, but a future that was held to be improbable, if not impossible. For each extra barrel of oil produced over the past seven years from Russia, and Canada, there has been a loss of production from the North Sea, from Mexico, from Indonesia and elsewhere.
Commodities/Metals
Mineweb: Gold raises possibility of climb toward fresh high
ETFDailyNews: Hot Commodities: Orange Juice Futures Lead Commodities For 2012
BlacklistedNews: Why Are the Chinese Buying Record Quantities of Gold?
Environmental
BeforeItsNews: Radioactive Steam Released At Nuclear Power Plant In Illinois
ExtinctionProtocol: Bat population near extinction in U.S. Northeast
MSNBC: 62 below: Deep freeze grips much of Alaska
VancouverSun: Evidence for cause of 'Little Ice Age' found in Canada's NorthRSN: Dying Honeybees: It Was the Insecticides All Along - With news that the U.S. honeybee population has been so devastated that some beekeepers will qualify for disaster relief dollars, comes a report from Purdue University that one of the causes of honeybee deaths is - as long suspected -neonicotinoids.
I say one of the causes, because the article does. In fact, the levels of neonicotinoid contamination of the powder used to spread seeds - up to 700,000 times the lethal dose - suggest that this pesticide may be the major, or precipitating, cause, with Varroa mites and other problems simply the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
WashingtonPost: Death toll from severe cold spell in eastern Europe hits 54, many of them homeless
Reuters: More than 60 dead in east European cold snap
CSMonitor: Volcanic eruptions emerge as lead cause for Little Ice Age
SMH: Burmese pythons squeezing the life out of Everglades
NewScientist: Pythons hunt Florida mammals to brink of extinction
CBS: Minor Earthquake Awakens Northwest Suburban Residents
RawStory: Baboons wreak havoc at Zimbabwe border post
DesdemonaDespair: U.S. CO2 emissions to stay below 2005 levels as coal use shrinks
America in Decline
LegitGov: Thousand police officers deployed on streets of Indianapolis in massive Super Bowl security operation
CBS: LAPD and Special Forces Conduct Military Maneuvers In the Skies Above Downtown LA -The LAPD said the purpose of the training was in part to ensure the military's ability to operate in urban environments.
NYDaily: Marine in hazing case gets 30 days in jail
BlacklistedNews: U.S. Detained and Deported Irish and British Citizens Over Idiotic Twitter Messages
Gawker: Homeland Security Does Not Understand British SlangNYT: A Harder Squeeze on the Poor - House Republicans have hit upon a noxious scheme to help pay for an extension of the payroll tax cut: a tax increase on millions of poor working families. A bill passed by the House and now in conference seeks to deny cash refunds under the child tax credit to those who file tax returns using “individual taxpayer identification numbers” issued by the Internal Revenue Service. Only those using Social Security numbers would be eligible.
NYT: It’s Time to Police the N.Y.P.D.
Time: Birth Control: Could It Be Illegal Again? - The right to use contraception seems obvious, but a fierce battle is starting to heat upRawStory: South Korea group makes bid for LA Dodgers
LAT: LA teacher charged with lewd acts on 23 children
Food and Water
FoodPolitics: Marion Nestle: Isn’t it about time GM foods got labels?
Bloomberg: Australia Selling the Farm as 20% Price Slump Lures Influx of Global Funds - Winston Heywood ended a 200-year family history when he sold his parched wheat fields to a fund managed by U.S. investor Westchester Group Investment Management Inc. for more than A$6 million ($6.4 million). “They offered me the money I could live off for the rest of my life,” said the 62-year-old, who in August left for the New South Wales coastal town of Coffs Harbour after enduring his driest season since 2000. “My kids didn’t want to go through the ups and downs I went through.” At least four other funds are seeking A$1.6 billion to buy similar assets in Australia, lured by fresh rain, the prospect of bumper crops, and land prices that have dropped 20 percent nationwide, and in some areas have fallen by half, since the end of 2007. Now, three years after billionaire James Packer sold off cattle ranches larger than the Netherlands, rural land prices may have bottomed, according to Colliers International. The influx has pushed lawmakers to consider legislation that would increase scrutiny of overseas purchases after foreign ownership of land almost doubled since 1984. The funds also need to defy a history of farming ventures that have struggled to reward investors.
Internet and Online Privacy News
WashingtonPost: Carpathia: Don't call us for Megaupload data
ComputerWorld: Feds say Megaupload user content could be deleted this week
RawStory: Twitter CEO says new policy is for transparency: report
Science and Technology
NewScientist: Light test for laser-guided bullet
CSMonitor: Think you're a true geek? Take our quiz
LAT: When college applicants plagiarize, Turnitin can spot them
TechReview: Surveillance Video Becomes a Tool for Studying Customer Behavior
PopSci: Should Scientists Be Held Legally Responsible for Their Results?
McClatchy: Scientists create the world's first atomic X-ray laser
USAToday: Astronaut hopefuls flood NASA office
MSNBC: Russia blames radiation for space probe failure
MSNBC: If E.T. exists, he's avoiding us, cosmic number-crunchers say - Math suggests there's no way advanced civilizations wouldn't know about us by now
TechReview: Mobile Phone Data Reveals Human Reproductive Strategies - The pattern of calls and texts between humans reveals how women invest more heavily in their main relationship than men; and how this changes as they age.
Medical and Health
LegitGov: FDA secretly surveilled e-mail of scientists and doctors, intercepted communications with congressional staff
LAT: Contraceptive mandate could face tough sledding in Supreme Court
NYT: For Soldier Disfigured in War, a Way to Return to the World
RedditScience: Ketamine, long used as an anesthetic and illegally as a club drug (Special K) may provide a new way to quickly treat depression.
BodyOdd: Roller coaster ride linked to young man's stroke
TheChart: EPA offers free apps to check air quality, UV index
TheChart: Gates pledges $363 million to fight neglected tropical diseases
MSNBC: Senator's stroke shows they can hit the young, too - Strokes are on the rise among the young and middle-aged, experts find
NWITimes: Sen. Kirk upgraded to fair condition, is talking
RawStory: Calories count, but not where they come from: study
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
CityFarmer: New York City 100 years ago: “Where City Lots Raise Richer Crops Than Taxes”
ModernSurvivalBlog: Some Of The First Preps To Disappear
BeforeItsNews: 15 Ways to Conserve Household Water
Other News
LAT: Marine admits hazing California Marine who committed suicide in Afghanistan
MSNBC: Bank Customer Finds Skimming Device on ATM (this next one? posted without comment. LOL)
WSJ: What the Bible Teaches About CapitalismCryptogon: Bill Would Require Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners
MiamiHerald: Florida man who tied dumbbell to pit bull’s neck gets 40 days in the doghouse
MSNBC: Mexican official flies with $1.9 million cash in briefcase and backpack - Veracruz state treasury secretary says money was meant to promote tourism; political rivals allege it was part of secret advertising budget for presidential election
BeforeItsNews: 10 Crazy College Secret Societies
Politics
USNews: White House: Michelle Obama's Lavish Lingerie Shopping Spree 'False'
WashingtonPost: Daughter's illness is quandary for Santorum
MSNBC: Video: Cain: I would work for President Gingrich
TheAtlantic: Newt Revises His History on Health Reform
NorthJersey: Dozens of Port Authority jobs go to Christie loyalists
McClatchy: After Newt and Mitt cut each other up, can GOP recover?
IBTimes: Saul Alinsky: Newt Gingrich is an 'Alinsky Radical,' Too
Forums
TinfoilPalace: How The Recent Solar Flares Are Affecting Humans
TinfoilPalace: Backup generators kick in after shutdown at Exelon's Byron plant (Near Chicago)TheOilAge: Ammo Reloading Press...
TheOilAge: Obama's plan to put higher education on rations
HubbertsArms: What Happened to Canada? (Chris Hedges)
HubbertsArms: Google user data to be merged across all sites under contentious plan
SilentCountry: How "Unexpected" coming to a neighborhood near you soon.
SilentCountry: Gulf stream warms faster than the rest of the ocean
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