TGIF! Hello and I hope everyone has had a good week and heading into a great weekend! I have some brush to clear this afternoon so I'm heading outside with "implements of destruction" soon as the blog is posted! LOL
Much thanks 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 their help today! These good friends help make this blog what it is so do, go by and help support their efforts and hard work.
Peak Oil and Energy News
OilVoice: Marathon Oil, Total agree to jointly explore two blocks in the Kurdistan region of Iraq
GreedGreenGrains: Should the Ethanol Mandate be Temporarily Suspended?
SolarIndustryMag: SMA Rolls Out New Off-Grid Solar PV Inverters
Forbes: The High Stakes Chess Game For Iraqi Oil
Reuters: Iraq Kurdistan oil export restart may be temporary
OilVoice: Russia's oil output up to 10.34 million bpd in July
NPR: States Ask Detroit: 'Build Us A Natural Gas Car, Please'
Global Conflict
NYT: Resigning as Envoy to Syria, Annan Casts Wide Blame
LAT: Kofi Annan's exit makes it clear: Force trumps talk in Syria
WSJ: Diplomacy Hits Dead End in Syria
SeattlePI: New Egypt government puts Brotherhood in key posts
SeattlePI: Iraq blocks US extradition for Hezbollah commander
NYT: Syrian Leader's Weapons Under Strain
VOA: White House Dismisses Reports of Aid to Syrian Rebels
ChicagoTribune: US nuclear bomb facility shut after security breach
PopSci: Navy Experimental Rail Gun to Fire GPS-Guided Projectiles
CommonDreams: US Drone Attacks in Pakistan Violate Sovereignty, Weakening Democracy: Diplomat - Ambassador Wajid Shamsul Hasan says US prefers to deal with dictators, not democratic institutions
WashingtonPost: Syrian activists: Mortars strike Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, killing 21
ArabNews: ‘Main battle for Aleppo about to start'
OWS/Protests
NBCNews: Oak Ridge uranium plant shut after protesters breach 4 fences, reach building
Domestic Financial News
USAToday: Jobs report beats forecasts with 163000 jobs in July
CNNMoney: July jobs report: Hiring picks up, unemployment rises
CNBC: 'Real' Unemployment Rate Shows Far More Jobless - While the national unemployment rate paints a grim picture, a look at individual states and their so-called real jobless rates becomes even more troubling.
SacBee: Bond insurer blasts Stockton for favoring pensions over other debtorsReuters: Senate panel passes US tax bill in rare bipartisan show
Zerohedge: The Fed's Gold Is Being Audited... By The US Treasury
WSJ: Bristol Executive Faces Charges - A Bristol-Myers Squibb executive who allegedly read a blog post called "Ways to Avoid Insider Trading" on his work computer was arrested on charges of making more than $300,000 in illegal profits on secrets about the drug maker's acquisition targets.
DetroitNews: U.S. unemployment aid applications rise to 365,000, but average falls
USAToday: What do jobless do when unemployment checks run out?
TaxPolicyCenter: Why Romney’s Tax Agenda Doesn’t Add Up, Even if it Isn’t a Middle-Class Tax Hike
AngryBear: Does Romney Even Know What the Word “Plan” MEANS? - Romney released a new middle class economic plan [today]. [The] plan is called: “Mitt Romney’s new plan for a stronger middle class.” It contains ideas we’ve heard before: more access to domestic energy resources; cutting taxes and capping spending; repealing Obamacare. Mark Hopkins at Moody’s Analytics tells me that it is mostly a set of assertions about outcomes Romney wants, rather than a set of policies on how to achieve them. “There aren’t enough specifics here to evaluate the plan,” Hopkins said. “It’s not clear in most cases what specific policies underlie the assertions of outcomes he wants.” -- Hopefully Obama and more members of the media will point out the distinction between a stated plan and a mere statement of claimed outcomes of an unspecified plan.
TakingNote: Tax Policy Center Analysis of Romney Tax Plan - The Romney campaign’s increasingly desperate attempts to dismiss a new study of its tax plan are a pretty good sign that the study is devastating. That isn’t to say the campaign is trying to counter it with actual specifics. Performed by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, the study shows that Mitt Romney’s proposal would lead to significantly lower taxes for the rich, and a higher tax burden on middle- and lower-income taxpayers.It’s been well known for a while that Mr. Romney’s tax plan was a mathematical impossibility. He promised to reduce marginal tax rates by 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, and end the capital gains tax for middle-income taxpayers – all while not lowering the amount of revenue coming into the treasury.
Economix: Food Stamps: Married People Need Not Apply
Economix: Under Pressure, Biggest Banks Rely on 3 Myths
BehavioralEconomy: The Incredible Shrinking U.S. Workforce
NewYorker: Romney's "Recovery Plan" Could Bring On Another Recession
Zerohedge: What The US Government Spends Its Money On - The following chart from today's TBAC presentation slidedeck should put to bed all debate of not only what the US government spends its money on (of which about half is generated through tax collection and half is borrowed primarily from either China or the Fed), but also what the trends in current year spending are compared to 2011. In summary: of the 4 biggest categories HHS (Medicare & Madicaid), Social Security or together Welfare, Treasury and Defense, Welfare is higher, Treasury is higher, and Defense is not only lower, but has lost to Treasury as the third biggest expense category year to date.
WashingtonPost: European financial crisis has ripple effect on U.S. businesses
CNNMoney: Chinese buying of U.S. business at record pace
ATaxingMatter: Corporations Don't Need More Tax Breaks - If you listen to the corporate lobbyists, and the right-wingers who plead their cases for them in Congress and in the media, you'd think that corporations are so heavily taxed that it is threatening their ability to continue to conduct business and be competitive in world markets. But is that really the case?
NYT: U.S. Manufacturing May Be Softening; Factory Orders Fell in June
Bottomline: IRS may have sent more than $5B to identity thieves - Investigators say the Internal Revenue Service may have delivered more than $5 billion in refund checks to identity thieves who filed fraudulent tax returns for 2011.
Global Financial News
Time: European Bank Willing to Buy Bonds to Save Euro
Reuters: North Korea's Kim tells China, economy a priority
Zerohedge: Greece Runs Out Of Money. Again
Reuters: JPMorgan's "London Whale" was prodded to boost valuations: WSJ
DetroitFreePress: GM earnings drop 41% to $1.5 billion, pushed by losses in Europe, but still beat expectations
DealBook: Japan Widens Inquiry Into Insider Trading
TimeBlogs: Argentina Celebrates Bond Payoff as End of an Era - Bond payoffs are supposed to be boring, but Argentina’s president is celebrating Friday’s final $2.3 billion payment on a bond given to people whose savings were confiscated a decade ago, calling it a lesson for European countries now mired in foreign debt.
MarginalRevolution: *From Miracle to Maturity: The Growth of the Korean Economy*
NakedCapitalism: Draghi Continues Handwaving as EuroCrisis Worsens
Zerohedge: China PMI Misses And Prints Lowest In 8 Months With 10 Of 11 Sub-Indices Contracting
WSJ: China's Biggest Problems Are Political, Not Economic - Although China has successfully confronted its recent short-term economic problems, large challenges remain. Some are economic. But the bigger challenges are political, both internally and with the rest of the world.
NYT: Draghi Edges Closer to Bond Purchases, but Hopes Are Blunted
Commodities/Metals
ETFDailyNews: Precious Metals Are The Most Under-Owned Asset Class On The Planet
CommodityOnline: Weaker US jobs data may boost Gold: HSBC
Environmental
USGS
M 5.0, Southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge
GlobeAndMail: Storm chasers touching down on the prairies
WSJ: Lawns, the Quiet Victims of Recession
ArcticNews: Year 2012 set to break all records
ClimateCrocks: Saving Mangroves Could be a Cheap Way to Lock up Carbon
Scientific American: Found along the edges of much of the world's tropical coastlines, mangroves are absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at an impressive rate. Protecting them, a recent study says, could yield climate benefits,
CNN: 2 tropical cyclones strike Chinese coast in quick succession
CNN: No drought aid for farmers, ranchers as Congress breaks for summer
NBCNews: Coal mining threatens India's dwindling tiger population, report warns
America in Decline
CommonDreams: Congressional Probe Reveals Cover-Up of “Auschwitz-Like” Conditions at U.S.-Funded Afghan Hospital
SeattleTimes: No state money for parks: what next?
NYT: Goldman to Invest in City Jail Program, Profiting if Recidivism Falls Sharply - New York City, embracing an experimental mechanism for financing social services that has excited and worried government reformers around the world, will allow Goldman Sachs to invest nearly $10 million in a jail program, with the pledge that the financial services giant would profit if the program succeeded in significantly reducing recidivism rates.
CommonDreams: Extremism Normalized: How Americans Now Acquiesce to Once Unthinkable Ideas
CommonDreams: For-Profit Prison System Preying on Immigrants: Report
Food and Water
ETFDaily: How Corn’s Massive Price Spike Impacts You
CattleNetwork: Drought worsens in farm states
Time: House Passes Livestock Disaster Relief Bill
MacroBusiness: Of corn and Chinese pork - The recent surge in global food prices triggered by the drought in US has raised fears of another round of food inflation, particularly in the emerging markets.
Vitals: Listeria fears expand N.C. cantaloupe recall; feds find 'unsanitary conditions' - Federal health inspectors have found unsanitary conditions at a North Carolina cantaloupe packing shed, leading to an expanded recall of melons that may be potentially contaminated with listeria.
MSNBC: Garden Fresh recalling 7 tons of packaged salads
Science and Technology
CNN: 83 million Facebook accounts are fakes and dupes
PopSci: Why Is It So Hard to Land On Mars?
CosmicLog: Mars probe records radiation blasts that could affect future astronauts
Hat tip to Doug at 3Es Daily, a great news site that I highly recommend!
The Truth About Hobbits
CosmicLog: Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada to win NASA backing for spaceships
Medical and Health
TheNation: The Upside of Ugly
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Nadia Ilse, a bullied 14-year-old, recently received $40,000 in free cosmetic surgery from the Little Baby Face Foundation, an organization that helps children with facial deformities. It sounds like a quite a nice story until you hear what Ilse’s “deformity” was: Her ears stuck out a bit.InHealth: Facts About Biologics for RADenverPost: WHO official: Ebola under control in Uganda
The Georgia teen’s supposedly corrective surgery included having her ears pinned back, a nose job and a chin reshaping. This is our culture now: teen girls thinking that the slightest perceived imperfection—any deviation from what they see in magazines—is tantamount to deformity and in need of surgical correction.
There are plenty of culprits to point to—misogyny, pop culture and the plastic surgery industry, for starters. But there’s also a more insidious problem: the notion of self-esteem as a cure-all for girls.
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
DIY home for less than $3500
GizMag: Freedomky prefab house designed for affordable off-grid living
WaldenEffect: Anna: Winter is icumen in
Other News
WSJ: North Korea Allows Games on TV
Rawstory: Megachurch pastor investigated over sex with teen girl
TheNation: To Be American, Christian and Oppressed
Hosted: Fort Hood suspect fined again for sporting beard
Politics
Reuters: Taxes again dog Romney on his return to US campaign
CSMonitor: Is Mitt Romney 'hiding something' as Reid claims?
NYT: Pile of Bills Is Left Behind as Congress Goes to Campaign
CNN: How do you feel about Romney and Obama? Ask the 'Twindex'
CNNMoney: Romney promises 12 million jobs in four years
TheNation: A Presidential Candidate Willing to Get Arrested to Fight Foreclosure Abuse
SeattleTimes: Republicans grill IRS commissioner on health care - House Republicans on Thursday grilled the head of the Internal Revenue Service on the agency's decision to apply the health care law's tax credits in states that decide not to carry out a key provision of the statute.LAT: Conservatives blast Chick-fil-A 'Tastes like hate' vandalism
Forums
TinfoilPalace: Protect Yourself from Psychic Attack
TinfoilPalace: Danny Boyle's "satanic" extravaganza
TheOilAge: Education Bubble Failing?
TheOilAge: The Cult of State...
HubbertsArms: Animation research could offer unparalleled control of characters without skelet
HubbertsArms: Washington Begins to Plan for Collapse of Syrian Government
SilentCountry: Australia to sell uranium to UAE
SilentCountry: Grain Markets Soar
DestinyCalls: A wtf movie in november
DestinyCalls: Timewave zero from june 2012
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