Monday, May 14, 2012

Breaking News Mon. May 14, 2012

Happy Monday to one and all!
I hope you all had a good weekend, I sure did. Got to work out in the garden and have plenty of dirt under my fingernails to show for it. LOL

Well guys, this is it for Iran. Somebody somewhere in some country, drew a picture! OMG!
TorontoStar: Iran nuclear facility: Drawing based on insider info shows explosives containment chamber
 This rendering, said to come from inside Iran's Parchin military site and obtained from an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear activities, shows a chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests.
A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that UN inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there. 

Worse yet, it's a RENDERING! How can we stand idly by while someone somewhere is doing renderings of something that could be something bad and dangerous?
I don't know.


Thank you to RJ at the Global Glass Onion and the Ozarker at Conflicted Doomer , and to Doug at 3Es News and David at ETF Daily, for everything they do to help find important news stories for us.

Also, don't forget to check out the forums linked at the bottom of the blog post.


Peak Oil and Energy News
MJPerry: 200 Year Supply of Oil in Green River Formation
IMF.org: The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology - pdf - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently issued a new working paper called “The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology” (free PDF), which should be of interest to people who are following “peak oil” issues. This is a research paper that is being published to elicit comments and debate; it does not necessarily represent IMF views or policy.

Reuters: UPDATE 2-Japan assembly agrees to restart reactors, hurdles remainChrisMartenson: PEAK OIL: A Fact? Life As We Know It WILL Change 
DetroitNews: An oil glut is spouting in Oklahoma

HuffingtonPost: Shocking New Oil Propaganda Plan to Fool Americans
The Guardian has unearthed a shocking new propaganda plan intended to turn the American public against wind energy in the 2012 election cycle.
Guardian: Oil prices could double by 2022, IMF warned - Global trade would be profoundly affected if crude prices permanently doubled from current historic high of $113 a barrel

ClimateProgress: U.S. Coal Generation Drops 19 Percent In One Year, Leaving Coal With 36 Percent Share Of Electricity


Global Conflict
AFP: Iran tells West to 'correct its manner' ahead of talks
BBC: Sonic device deployed for Games - The Ministry of Defence has confirmed a device which can be used as a "sonic weapon" will be deployed in London during the Olympics.
Reuters: UN inspectors to push Iran on military site access

CTV.ca: Top member of Afghan peace council gunned down
UPI: Pakistan not invited to NATO summit
CSMonitor: Second Afghan peace broker assassinated

MSNBC: Report: Al-Qaida doctors trained to implant bombs in humans
CNN: 49 decapitated bodies found near U.S.-Mexico border
WashingtonPost: Culture war looms as Israel pledges to end ultra-Orthodox military exemptions

DailyStar: Iran warns West against applying pressure ahead of nuclear talks
Reuters: Al Qaeda bomb maker is top threat, must be killed: U.S. senator
AFP: p[222EU Palestinian aid projects destroyed by Israel: NGOs

BlacklistedNews: China Denies Preparations for War in Philippines Dispute 
Telegraph: Dalai Lama reveals warning of Chinese plot to kill him
WSJ: Ugandan Forces Catch Kony General

NYT: U.S. may scrap costly effort to train Iraqi police
CNN: Iranian officials visit the IAEA
CNN: EU slaps new sanctions on Syria

CSMonitor: Syrian violence spills over border into Lebanon 
MSNBC: Syria violence spills into streets of Lebanon's Tripoli


OWS/Protests
RigorousIntuition: Occupy Liberation 
MSNBC: NATO protesters arrested outside Obama campaign HQ


Domestic Financial News
StandardAndPoors: The Credit Overhang: Is A $46 Trillion Perfect Storm Brewing?NYT: JPMorgan Chase Fought Rule on Risky Trading 
FinancialTimes: How Millennials Are Saving the Economy 
DownwardSpiral: Austerity Porn: Shortfall In California’s Budget Swells To $16 Billion

MyBudget360: The wrecking ball of hidden inflation and Fed based strategies – food inflation far outpacing overall inflation and eating away at the purchasing power of 46,000,000 Americans on food stamps.
CNNMoney: Bye bye, unemployment benefits - More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program.

MSNBC: California's new budget mess: $16 billion deficit
Krugman: The Economics of Marginalization and Hopelessness
FiscalTimes: State of the 'Unions': Hard Times, But Hanging On

CNNMoney: Yahoo confirms CEO is out after resume scandal

Marketwatch666: March consumer credit, student loans, & the labor force participation rate..
LAT: 3 high execs at JPMorgan expected to resign - NEW YORK -- Three high-ranking executives at JPMorgan Chase are expected to leave their jobs this week after a trading blunder cost the bank $2 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

CalculatedRisk: Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 924 Institutions
NakedCapitalism: Colleges as Merchants of Debt  
Zerohedge: Has JPMorgan Already Unwound Its Losing Trade? 

FiscalTimes: Is the Government Backing a New Housing Bubble?
BusinessInsider: All Signs Are Go For The Last Great Ponzi Scheme
CNNMoney: Wall Street is betting as big as ever 

ETFDailyNews: Marc Faber Fears Stock Market Crash 
LAT: Jerry Brown releases revised budget to close $16-billion gap
Businessweek: Another Woman Loses a Top Spot on Wall Street 


Global Financial News
Rawstory: Merkel’s party gets only 26% in regional German election
IBTimes: The Silent Killer: European Austerity's Poster Child, Ireland, May Sink Stiff Economic Measures
While Paris and Athens have rebelled against German-inspired cuts, Ireland has taken the harsh medicine dutifully and, unlike its testy European peers, grimly borne cuts and tax hikes with minimal protest. That may be about to change. 
MSNBC: Gold! Haiti eyes potential $20 billion boom
Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet, Haiti's land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty, disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills — and silver and copper, too.
CBSNews: Spanish protest against austerity, grim economy
Hosted: Syria activists: At least 5 killed in village raid
CharlesHughSmith: A Crazy Idea That Might Just Work: Greece's New Currency, the U.S. Dollar

Krugman: Eating the Seed Corn - Jonathan Portes is angry, and rightly so. He points out that the Cameron government is systematically starving public investment:

Mish: Tax Collection Violence in Italy: Mail Bombs in Rome, Police Clashes in Naples, Molotov Cocktails in Livorno - Violent protests against the hated Equitalia, the Italian tax collection agency, are making headlines in several cities in the past few days. In Rome mail bombings have been ongoing since December. Via Google Translate, this time in Italian, please consider a trio of articles.

CreditWritedowns: Spain: EU estimates for contraction now considerably deeper
RealityZone: Crushing Defeat for Germany's Merkel as Voters Reject Austerity
WSJ: Merkel's Party Suffers Another Regional Loss In Germany 

Telegraph: Soldiers may be deployed to protect Italian tax offices
Bloomberg: Syriza Says It Won’t Join Greek National Unity Government

Krugman: Eurodämmerung - Some of us have been talking it over, and here’s what we think the end game looks like:

1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month.
2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany.
3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals.
3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the banks from collapsing.
4a. Germany has a choice. Accept huge indirect public claims on Italy and Spain, plus a drastic revision of strategy — basically, to give Spain in particular any hope you need both guarantees on its debt to hold borrowing costs down and a higher eurozone inflation target to make relative price adjustment possible; or:
4b. End of the euro.
And we’re talking about months, not years, for this to play out.

SoberLook: Greek exit would convert over half a trillion of external euro liabilities into drachma
NYT: Data Signals Economic Trouble in China - As China’s leaders have been preoccupied with a political struggle leading up to a once-in-a-decade leadership change this autumn, there are increasing signs that the Chinese economy may be running into trouble.

Telegraph: The final death throes of the euro
The euro crisis is entering its final stages. Economic pain is now interacting with political resistance to produce intense financial pressure. I expect Greece to leave the euro – and perhaps very soon. Spiegel: Time to Admit Defeat Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit 

NYT: At Least 100,000 March in Spain Over Austerity NYT: In Rebuke to Merkel’s Party, Social Democrats Win German Vote
Guardian: Eurozone crisis live: Markets slide as Greek euro exit looms

WSJ: Greeks Hold Last-Ditch Coalition Talks
NYT: Amid Signs of Economic Weaknesses, China to Free Cash for Lending
 

Commodities/Metals
ETFDailyNews: Gold ETF Raid Imminent As China Flushes J.P. Morgan of Physical CommodityOnline: Base metals declines amid weakness across financial markets: RBC 

ETFDailyNews: Global Super-Bugs Herald Age Of Silver - Jeff Nielson:  For several years I have been touting silver’s unique anti-microbial properties. Out of the nearly infinite list of technological/industrial applications for silver, it always seemed inevitable to me that this one use would ultimately become our single greatest need for the Metal of the Moon.


Environmental
USGS
M 2.5, 24km SW of Stella, Puerto Rico
M 2.6, 13km SSE of Waimea, Hawaii
Telegraph: 40 killed during hour-long hailstorm in China - Forty people were killed when a brief but violent hailstorm and torrential rain swept through a mountainous region of northwest China.
"Roads were blocked, houses collapsed, farmland was destroyed, and the power supply and telecommunications services were disrupted by the extreme weather," the agency said, quoting Xu Guangyao, a senior county official.
China hit by monster hail storm; dozens killed

WSJ: Great Lakes Invaders Face Salty Rebuff
IBTimes: UN's Earth Summit Sputters As Top World Leaders Back Out
CBSNews: Freak storm batters southern Chile - CBS News RAW: The storm, which is being described as a tornado, struck the heart of the town of Villarrica in southern Chile with winds of 75 to 110 miles. Nine people were injured in the rare weather phenomena which shocked residents who had never experienced such weather conditions.
IcelandVolcano/EarthquakeBlog: Katla volcano warming up for an eruption. Small glacier flood continues
BBC: VIDEO: Feed the birds: Turtle doves' decline - Once widespread in England and Wales, the turtle dove is now in serious decline, with only nine birds for every 100 there were in the 70s.
One cause is the disappearance of their main food source - so a new project is looking for alternative foods and protected feeding areas for the birds.

ScientificAmerican: Massive Active Fault Found beneath Japan's Mount Fuji 
Time: Global Warming: An Exclusive Look at James Hansen’s Scary New Math
A new analysis by the NASA climatologist for the first time ties specific weather events to human-induced climate change

Krugman: What's Really Scary - I don’t write very often about climate change, basically because I doubt that we can get action until the immediate economic crisis is resolved. But I may be part of the problem, because this issue is all too likely to trump, well, everything — yet those who know this have been reluctant to say it for fear of seeming, well, shrill. Joe Romm has a great post with a great illustrative figure (is it his own? He doesn’t say): All too true, from everything I’ve read. And horrifying.

DeclineOfTheEmpire: Capitalism And Constraints On Natural Resources
DesdemonaDespair: After dry rainy season, California faces high wildfire risks
WildlifeNews: Public hearing: Montana FWP moves toward new wolf hunting plan 

OilPrice: Chinese Government to Close 1,200 Companies to Help Clear Beijing Smog - Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and as China follows its desires to become a leader in clean, renewable energies, it must also look to clean up the air quality of its capital city.

RedditScience: Solar Eclipse (May 20th 2012)
DesdemonaDespair: Another Antarctic ice shelf threatened by warming 
CommonDreams: Epistle to the Ecotopians: Last Words to an America in Decline 

NYT: Game Over for the Climate 
WUnderground: Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog : U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record


America in Decline
Reuters: Tennessee governor signs controversial "gateway sexual activity" bill
Alternet: How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education - Student research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards.

Truthout: Caught on Tape: Governor Walker Plans for a Single-Party State
Mary Bottari, PR Watch: "Video was obtained and released less than a month before the June 5th recall election for Wisconsin governor that shows newly elected Governor Scott Walker in a frank conversation with one of his biggest supporters. 'Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions and become a right-to-work?' [billionaire Diane] Hendricks continued. 'What can we do to help you?' ... 'The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.'"

MSNBC: NYT: Soaring college costs hobble a generation
NYT: This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone - I had no idea that in 2001 an elementary school in New Jersey became America’s first public school “to sell naming rights to a corporate sponsor,” Sandel writes. “In exchange for a $100,000 donation from a local supermarket, it renamed its gym ‘ShopRite of Brooklawn Center.’

Truthout: Seniors' Social Security Garnished for Student Debts
RealityZone: Home Not So Sweet: Foreclosure & debt push Americans to extremes
BlacklistedNews: Garbage Truck Drivers, Landscapers Snoop for Cops
 
MarketWatch: Health bills in retirement: $240,000 BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Granted, it sounds overwhelming. A 65-year-old couple retiring this year is estimated to need nearly one-quarter of a million dollars to cover medical expenses throughout retirement, according to the latest retiree health-care costs estimate calculated by Fidelity Investments.

CNN: NYPD: 'Stop, question, frisk' effective
Bloomberg: House Votes to Cut Food Stamps to Avoid Defense Reduction


Food and Water
ScientificAmerican: Food Deserts Leave Many Americans High and Dry 
TechReview: Should iEat? Testing Food Ripeness with a Smartphone 

Truthout: Monsanto's Minions in California
Alexis Baden-Mayer, Organic Consumers Association: "Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman with the Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition, says requiring labels on genetically engineered food would increase food prices. What she doesn't say is that she's being paid by the trade association that represents both the biotech behemoths like Monsanto that engineer the GMO crops and the food industry giants like PepsiCo. that use ingredients made from these crops in their products."

Counterpunch: How the Times of India Colluded with Monsanto in Fake Reports of Bt Cotton Successes
MSNBC: Despite 'pink slime,' beef business is booming

CNN: Niger like 'Hunger Games' on steroids? 
Smithsonian: Rebuilding Rainwater Collection in India
 

Internet and Online Privacy News
Cryptogon: NSA Not Required to Reveal Any Dealings with Google 
SingularityHub: Younger Generation Embracing A New View Of Privacy - Would you give up your privacy for a free BlackBerry?
Wired: Wallpaper That Protects You From Identity Theft

YahooNews: US spy agency can keep mum on Google ties: court - The top-secret US National Security Agency is not required to reveal any deal it may have with Google to help protect against cyber attacks, an appeals court ruled Friday. The US Court of Appeals in Washington upheld a lower court decision that said the NSA need not confirm or deny any relationship with Google, because its governing statutes allow it keep such information secret. The ruling came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from a public interest group, which said the public has a right to know about any spying on citizens. The appeals court agreed that the NSA can reject the request, and does not even have to confirm whether it has any arrangement with the Internet giant. "Any information pertaining to the relationship between Google and NSA would reveal protected information about NSA's implementation of its information assurance mission,"


Science and Technology
MSNBC: Spaceship Enterprise in 20 years? Beam me up! 
ScientificAmerican: Eternal Sunshine Drug Makes a Rat Forget Bad Things [Video]
Working at Scientific American , known for its spiffy technical illustrations, I always look for material that can show what an article is trying to tell. I’ve never found a better example than this video(below) of a rat fed a drug that wipes out its long-term memory, and which bears a real-life resemblance to the scenario depicted in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The opening paragraphs of the article by Jerry Adler, called “ Erasing Painful Memories .” serves as a running narrative to the video. I’ve included them here:
BBC: Google profits from illegal ads
ArsTechnica: The tale of the hunt for the Higgs boson 
WashingtonPost: Jeff Flake’s plan to politicize the National Science Foundation 

MSNBC: Underwater volcano erupts in pulses  - One near Tonga collapsed, grew in height by football field in two weeks
Spaceweather.com: Chinese Space Station Transits the Sun


Medical and Health
Alternet: Why Are American Teens So Ignorant About Sex and Birth Control?
MSNBC: Amputations after botched buttocks injections
NYT: Whooping Cough Epidemic Hits Washington State 

ScientificAmerican: Why Are There No Biological Tests in Psychiatry? 
RedditScience: The genes behind human intelligence also made us vulnerable to autism 
NYT: Cutbacks Hurt a State’s Response to Whooping Cough 


Smithsonian: Medicine Goes Small
TheChart: Binkies, bottles and sippy cups: Handle with care
TodayHealth: Swallowed battery hazards: ER visits double 

CNN: 'miraculous survival' of woman fighting flesh-eating bacteria
BBC: Four vomiting bug patients die  - Four patients being treated for diarrhea and vomiting at a hospital in the west of Scotland have died.


Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
CanadianDoomer: Rhubarb! 
Cryptogon: Finally: BioLite Campstoves Up for Preorder
SabreDancing: Wooohooo the engine fits like a glove!!…

TinyHouseTalk: How to Floor and Frame a Tumbleweed Tiny House on a Trailer 
WaldenEffect: How to choose a scythe
DesdemonaDespair: Review: The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future Of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment

SurvivalAcresBlog: Disclosure
Milkwood: Why I’m not down with the whole zombie apocalypse thing  
ETFDailyNews: “We Are Preparing For Massive Civil War,” Says DHS Informant



Other News
BBC: VIDEO: The baby who was 'buried alive'
A baby girl is in hospital after her father and uncle allegedly tried to bury her alive, apparently as a sacrifice to protect the health of their other children.
Baby Radhika has acute malnutrition and is receiving treatment in the town of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh state, 80km (50 miles) east of Delhi.
Her mother, Bharati, is at her bedside.
MSNBC: 'Dead' man wakes up at funeral
McClatchy: Kansas Senate approves bill banning Muslim, other foreign laws from Kansas courts

MSNBC: Report: Online vendor sold Trayvon Martin gun-range targets
CBSNews: Video: Naked unicyclist arrested in Texas

ChicagoTribune: Trauma experts help question girls in US murder, abduction case

TheSmokingGun: As FBI Raided, Probe Target Knifed Computer
Child porn suspect tried to kill desktop with sword
The computer owned by Floridian Kamil Mezalka, 21, survived the attack, allowing investigators to recover hundreds of illicit images.

MSNBC: Man takes plea deal after sewing son's butt
BBC: Vanishing language - Last speaker of mysterious Nepal tribal tongue

TMZ: Mitchell Guist Dead -- Swamp People Star Dies in Louisiana

Truthout: Ten Most Racist Practices of Sheriff Joe Arpaio
NYBooks: The Myth About Marriage
HuffingtonPost: Homophobic Woman's Rant Goes Viral: Gay Men Molest Boys 'Because They Don't Have AIDS'  


Politics
McClatchy: Kansas Senate approves bill banning Muslim, other foreign laws from Kansas courts
Wired: Romney's 'Bullygate' Prompts Question: When Do Pranks Go Too Far?

DailyBeast: Gay Marriage Won’t Matter This Fall

NYDaily: Obama named 'The First Gay President' on Newsweek magazine cover
WSJ: Romney Advances With Evangelicals 
TheArchdruidReport: The Descent into Stasis 

WashingtonPost: Obama supports gay marriage while Romney speaks at anti-gay Liberty University 
Hosted: THE RACE: JPMorgan goof becoming a campaign issue 
Rawstory: Pat Robertson: Vote Romney because ‘you don’t have Jesus running’

USAToday: Ron Paul to stop spending money on primaries


Forums
TinfoilPalace: Modern Day MKUltra?
TinfoilPalace: Sylvester Stallone 'Discovered' in 500-Year-Old Painting And Other Celebrities Doppelgangers of Historical Figures [PHOTOS]


TheOilAge: London militarized for 2012 Olympics
TheOilAge: U.S. Military Taught Officers Use ‘Total War’ on Islam

HubbertsArms: The grapes of wrath II

HubbertsArms: Radioactive man pulled over by police


SilentCountryThieves Steal FOUR MILES (70,000 Pounds) Of Copper Wire
SilentCountry: Preparedness for Dark Times


DestinyCalls: Solving The UFO Enigma
DestinyCalls: Who really runs the world?

2 comments:

  1. Hmm, that 'rendering' looks somewhat similar to the 'renderings' of those mobile Iraqi chemical weapons trailers they had back in 2001. We found a bunch of those, right?? right?? Oh, wait.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know what? I think you're right, it does! LOL
    I don't think people will fall for it again, do you?

    ReplyDelete