Pinwheel Raises Awareness
If words had cousins, creative’s would be imaginative, original and inventive. This week, on Kentucky’s Backroads, we travel to Morehead to meet a woman who used her creativity to shed light on a serious matter.
And also, check out the following post over at Matt Cardin's The Teeming Brain.
Be sure to stop by their blogs and sites and thank RJ at the Global Glass Onion and the Ozarker at Conflicted Doomer , and Doug at 3Es News and David at ETF Daily. These good friends help make this blog what it is
so do, go by and help support their efforts and hard work.
And....don't forget the forums!
Peak Oil and Energy News
EnergyBulletin: The Race for BTU - The world's major central banks -- including the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Federal Reserve -- appear to have finally won a major battle in the deflationary war that broke out five years ago in 2007. While the ultimate victor is yet to be determined, it now seems likely that a period of nominal growth could ensue for another two years, perhaps even longer.
This will not be high-quality growth. And little of the growth will be real.
Reuters: China may face some energy tightness
Geek: Self-Sustaining Solar Reactor Creates Clean Hydrogen Fuel
Zerohedge: Global Oil Risks in the Early 21st Century - The Deepwater Horizon incident demonstrated that most of the oil left is deep offshore or in other locations difficult to reach. Moreover, to obtain the oil remaining in currently producing reservoirs requires additional equipment and technology that comes at a higher price in both capital and energy.
CreditWritedowns: Chart of the Day: Price Divergence between Oil and Natural Gas
Spiegel: Confusion at the Pumps - Big Oil's Strategy for Jacking Up Gas Prices
Prices at German gas pumps oscillate wildly, sometimes changing several times a day. The rises and falls are far from random, however. Studies and market observers say it is an attempt by big oil to ratchet up the cost of a fill-up as high as possible.
MarginalRevolution: Saudi Arabia fact of the day - The country is not energy efficient: With domestic electricity demand rising 10% per year in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom now devours more than a quarter of its oil production—nearly three million barrels per day. International Energy Agency figures show that Saudi Arabia now consumes more oil than Germany, an industrialized country with triple the population and an economy nearly five times as large.
GlobeAndMail: Pain at the pumps starts to squeeze economy
UPI: U.S. oil inventories at historic highs
CNNMoney: Global oil production trouble - it's not just Iran
Reuters: Analysis: In Iraq, oil majors play north versus south - In the weeks before Iraqi Kurdistan revealed that Exxon Mobil had signed up to explore for oil there, executives at rival Shell faced a dilemma over whether or not to join the U.S. oil major in its foray north and risk angering Baghdad.
FDL: Democrats Continue to Push Speculation Angle on Gas Prices - House Democrats have continued their efforts to keep the notion of oil speculation driving the run-up in gas prices at the head of the national conversation.
Global Conflict
WashingtonPost: Former CIA officer indicted on charges of leaking classified information to journalists
Reuters: U.S. not backing off as Iran sanctions bite
CNN: Syrian villagers clash with government loyalists, opposition says- Fierce fighting erupted Friday between armed men loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels from opposing villages
IBTimes: North Korea: New Satellite Images Show 'Sophisticated' Rocket Launch Pad
Spiegel: In the Eye of the Storm: Israel Wary of Changes in the Arab World - For decades, Israel had been hoping for change in the Arab world. Yet now that the region is in upheaval, its not just Israeli citizens who are concerned. The government has shown a preference for walling itself in rather than exploring new opportunities.
NYT: The Next War: A Smaller Navy Ship With Troubles, but President’s Backing
TheAtlantic: Who is Waging Cyberwar Against the Jihadi Networks?
Time: Can The Hague Wrest Gaddafi's Son from Libya and a Powerful Militia?
Zerohedge: The Hunt For Red Pyongyang: South Korea On Alert For Naval Attack After "Losing" 4 North Korean Subs - Just because the imminent launch of a North Korean rocket along a trajectory which will likely force Japan to strike it down, something which Pyongyang said would be equivalent to an act of war, was not enough, it now appears that South Korea has commenced the hunt for Red Pyongyang or four, as it is now "searching for four North Korean submarines that disappeared after leaving their bases on the tense peninsula." ABC News reports that "A military source quoted in a South Korean newspaper says up to four North Korean submarines slipped out of port in recent days and have so far avoided detection.
Reuters: Mali rebels declare independence in north
Telegraph: Malawi president dies, leaving nation in political suspense
NYT: Hezbollah’s Syria Policy Puts It at Risk - Though it remains strong, Hezbollah could find itself caught up in a sectarian war between Iran, the region’s Shiite power, and Saudi Arabia,
BlacklistedNews: Seymour Hersh: US Trains And Facilitates MEK Terror Attacks In Iran -
When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When he’s OUR terrorist.
This just about knocked my socks off! Sy Hersh, reporting in the New Yorker, one ups Mark Perry and just about everybody else with a story that the Bush administration provided MEK operatives terror training at secret facilities in Nevada starting in 2005:
Photoblog: A pause in fighting allows Syrians to get food, collect their dead in Idlib
Telegraph: Syria: troops attack Damascus suburbs despite peace plan
Syrian authorities have told Kofi Annan they have begun withdrawing troops from three areas, despite fresh reports this morning that they are attacking a suburb of the capital Damascus.
MSNBC: Anti-American Egyptian candidate may be tripped up by mother’s US ties - Abu Ismail said his mother didn't receive US citizenship
McClatchy: Iraq unstable, sectarian, with signs of authoritarian rule
Hacker News
ArsTechnica: Accused LulzSec member pleads guilty to hacking Sony
Domestic Financial News
CapitalGainsAndGames: Paul Krugman Is Wrong
ETFDaily: U.S. Economy: 19 Signs Of Very Serious Economic Trouble Ahead CBSNews: March jobs report report disappoints - The March jobs report was a disappointment: Only 120000 new jobs were created, versus expectations of over 200000 and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent in February, leaving 12.7 Americans still out of work.
Zerohedge: NFP Big Miss: 120K, Expectations 205K, Unemployment 8.2%, "Not In Labor Force" At New All Time High
CNNMoney: Ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski denied parole - Former Tyco executive Dennis Kozlowski was denied parole Thursday, according to a spokesman for the New York State Department of Corrections.The fallen CEO was sentenced to 8-1/3 to 25 years in prison in 2005 for his part in stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the manufacturing conglomerate.
Zerohedge: Net Worthless: People As Corporations
MyBudget360: The phony economic deception machine – JP Morgan Chase CEO earns $23 million in 2011 while 2.7 million foreclosures are filed in the US. GDP at record levels but employment figures down by 5.3 million from their peak.
FiscalTimes: Justice Department Probing Widespread Stimulus Fraud
CommodityOnline: US import tariff not to impact China s competitiveness in solar panels
NASDAQ: Fed's Balance Sheet Contracts In Latest Week -- The Fed's asset holdings in the week ended April 4 were $2.868 trillion, compared with $2.880 trillion a week earlier, it said in a weekly report released Thursday.
NorthernTrust: Has the Fed Boosted the Stock Market? - You bet. And aggregate demand for goods and services, too.
NYT: Census Data Offers Look at Effects of Recession
Telegraph: JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon blasts governments for 'making the recovery worse'
Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, has blasted governments and regulators for slowing the global economic recovery.
EconomyWatch: US unemployment rate slips, but job creation slows
EconBrowser: The Recovery According to Ed “We are not in a recession” Lazear - In Tuesday’s WSJ, Edward Lazear argued that we are now experiencing the “Worst Economic Recovery in History”. Before dissecting this remarkable document, it would behoove the reader to recall that while he was Chair of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, he stated unequivocally in May 2008 (also in the pages of the WSJ): "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession." He wrote this less than five months before US GDP took a remarkable dive;
Global Financial News
Yahoo: Next Great Depression? MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030
Telegraph: Violent protests erupt in Athens over debt suicide
Violent protests broke out in Athens last night after an elderly man committed suicide near to the country's Parliament building, claiming he was distraught at the prospect of "looking in the garbage to feed myself".
CreditWritedowns: Seven Observations about the Yen
Zerohedge: Greece: Even Corruption Is In A Deep Recession
TimeBusiness: Spain’s Death Spiral and the Hypocrisy of the Euro
ETFDaily: The Triffin Dilemma Will Create a 3-G World
TheNation: Egypt's Looming Economic Shock Doctrine
Egypt is teetering on the edge of an economic crisis. Cast adrift in a deepening political quagmire over the past fourteen months, the economy has now reached a critical juncture, as the country faces the pressing challenge of financing a large budget deficit as rapidly dwindling foreign currency reserves threaten to crack apart an already fragile situation.MarketWatch: Spanish yields rise above pre-LTRO levels - Fears that Spain could reignite the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis were underlined Thursday, with yields on Spanish government bonds rising to levels not seen since the European Central Bank injected cheap liquidity into the region’s financial system.
TheAtlantic: What China's Talking About Today: Odd Price Changes in Staples
CNN: Austerity drives up suicide rate in debt-ridden Greece
Commodities/Metals
CommodityOnline: Current factors impacting Precious Metals not particularly constructive: FCStone
Mineweb: US lead producers pummelled by soaring battery prices
ETFDaily: What Happens To Gold If We Enter A Recession or Depression?
Environmental
USGS
M 4.7, Banda Sea
EneNews: Fukushima monthly fallout higher now than 8 months ago in June
ScienceDaily: New threat to birds posed by invasive pythons in Florida - Smithsonian scientists and their colleagues have uncovered a new threat posed by invasive Burmese pythons in Florida and the Everglades: The snakes are not only eating the area's birds, but also the birds' eggs straight from the nest.
CBSLocal: Miami Blue Butterfly Added To Endangered Species List
The Miami blue butterfly is a coastal, non-migratory butterfly. Populations once extended from the Dry Tortugas north along the Florida coasts to about St. Petersburg and Daytona. But a loss of habitat from urban sprawl, pesticides, changes in sea levels and predatory iguanas decimated their numbers.
It was believed they were extinct after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but a small population was discovered in Bahia Honda State Park in 1999. Conservationists said that population has disappeared and the species only survives now in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge.
Wired: Unexplained Melting at the Askja Crater Lake in Iceland
WildlifeNews: Trapped wolf photo adds up to anger, threats (updated last on April 6)
Reuters: UPDATE 3-Cut nuclear reliance to zero-Japan energy minister
CNN: Satellite documents thinning ice shelf
MSNBC: Hunted for horns worth more than gold, South Africa's rhinos face worst year on record
LIMA, Peru -- When a retired fisherman called to report that about 1,500 dolphins had washed up dead on Peru’s northern coast, veterinarian Carlos Yaipén’s first reaction was, “That’s impossible.”
But when Yaipén traveled up the coast last week, he counted 615 dead dolphins along a 135-kilometer stretch of coastline.
Now, the death toll could be as high as 2,800, based on volunteers’ counts. Peru's massive dolphin die-off is among the largest ever reported worldwide.
All of the 20 or so animals Yaipén has examined showed middle-ear hemorrhage and fracture of the ear's periotic bone, lung lesions and bubbles in the blood. To him, that suggests that a major acoustic impact caused injury, but not immediate death. Most of the dolphins apparently were alive when they beached, or had died very recently.
America in Decline
Zerohedge: This Month In Fascism - The U.S. Supreme Court, based on the urging of the Obama administration,- has ruled that any prisoner - even those arrested for offenses such as dog leash laws, peaceful protests, and driving with an expired license - can be subject to a routine strip search upon entering prison.
The government is also openly saying that it will use all of our smart devices, internet connections, and tv to spy on Americans.
LegitGov: CIA agent who publicly opposed waterboarding charged with leaking classified secrets to journalists
Thanks to RJ for the following story, it pretty much sums things up.
RobertReich: The Fable of the Century - Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation’s total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Imagine that the richest people in this country use some of their vast wealth to routinely bribe politicians. They get the politicians to cut their taxes so low there’s no money to finance important public investments that the middle class depends on – such as schools and roads, or safety nets such as health care for the elderly and poor. Imagine further that among the richest of these rich are financiers. These financiers have so much power over the rest of the economy they get average taxpayers to bail them out when their bets in the casino called the stock market go bad. They have so much power they even shred regulations intended to limit their power. These financiers have so much power they force businesses to lay off millions of workers and to reduce the wages and benefits of millions of others, in order to maximize profits and raise share prices – all of which make the financiers even richer, because they own so many of shares of stock and run the casino. Now, imagine that among the richest of these financiers are people called private-equity managers who buy up companies in order to squeeze even more money out of them by loading them up with debt and firing even more of their employees, and then selling the companies for a fat profit. Although these private-equity managers don’t even risk their own money they nonetheless pocket 20 percent of those fat profits. And because of a loophole in the tax laws, which they created with their political bribes, these private equity managers are allowed to treat their whopping earnings as capital gains, taxed at only 15 percent – even though they themselves made no investment and didn’t risk a dime.
RitHoltz: US Labor Market: Increasingly Low-Wage Driven - Since tomorrow is the big NFP day, let’s take a look at some of the details of recent job creation, via today’s Bloomberg Briefing:“Improved hiring conditions and a decline in jobless claims are encouraging signs the economy is slowly healing. While these gains in the labor market may be sustainable over time, the quality of jobs driving this improvement is weak and confined to low-paying areas of the economy.
and here is another great article from the eXiled.
eXiled: Recovered Economic History: “Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious”
“Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society…It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth.”
Food and Water
Reuters: UPDATE 2-World food prices rise further, raising fears of unrest
Cryptogon: Poland to Ban Monsanto’s GM Maize
CivilEats: Gleaning for Good: An Old Idea Is New Again - an old-fashioned concept—gleaning for the greater good by harvesting unwanted or leftover produce from farms or family gardens—is also making a comeback during these continued lean economic times.
OilPrice: Pakistan And India To Go To War Over Water? - Lahore’s “The Nation’ newspaper on Sunday published an editorial entitled, “War with India inevitable: Nizami,” the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust Chairman, Majid Nizami, asked his fellow citizens to prepare for a war with India over water issues. “Indian hostilities and conspiracies against the country will never end until she is taught a lesson.” At issue are Pakistan’s concerns over India’s ongoing construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River
BigPictureAgriculture: Agriculture News April 5, 2012
BlacklistedNews: The Genetically Modified Food You Eat Every Day
Internet and Online Privacy News
ArsTechnica: Slow learner? MPAA chief hints at talks to revive SOPA - Christopher Dodd, the former Connecticut senator who now leads the Motion Picture Association of America, hasn't given up on his dream of censoring the Internet. In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, he said that Hollywood and the technology industry "need to come to an understanding" about new copyright legislation.
Science and Technology
ClimateCrocks: Google Glasses Video. And the Inevitable Parody.
USNews: Drones inflicting information overload on Air Force - The Air Force has such a glut of data – photos and videos and such – captured by its fleet of drone aircraft that it can’t keep up with analyzing the information, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Thursday.
ArsTechnica: Particle accelerators' search for nature's hidden dimensions comes up empty
RedditScience: Magnetic storms spotted on Venus, a planet with no intrinsic magnetic field.
TechReview: If an iPad and a Moleskine Had a Child... (good God, how utterly grotesque!)
ExtremeTech: Just how big are porn sites?Photoblog: Farewell to the northern lights - A stunning aurora season is finally coming to an end in the far north, thanks to the longer days and the shorter nights. But there were still a few opportunities this week for the northern lights to ripple across the sky in a "last dance," as this picture from Norwegian photographer Thorbjørn Riise Haagensen shows.
MSNBC: NASA's Mars missions take shape, out there and back here - Getting to Mars, Part 3: While probe approaches Red Planet, NASA gets set for crew vehicle
ScienceDaily: 12-mile-high Martian dust devil caught in act
RawStory: Sex offenders booted from videogame playgrounds
ANN: 1,500 yr-old altar for human sacrifices found in Peru
Medical and Health
UPI: Most Germans didn't get H1N1 vaccine
ScientificAmerican: Drug-Resistant Malaria Spreads, Scientists Hunt Down Genetic Causes
CNN: Can a dirt-cheap diabetes drug fight cancer?
Vitals: Birth control shots tied to breast cancer risk, study says
MSNBC: Studies show genes play major role in autism - A sweeping study of hundreds of families with autism has found that spontaneous mutations can occur in a parent's sperm or egg cells that increase a child's risk for autism, and fathers are four times more likely than mothers to pass these mutations on to their children, researchers said on Wednesday.
MSMagazine: At 11th Hour, Georgia Passes “Women as Livestock” Bill
ExtinctionProtocol: Hormone evolution: Girls are developing faster than ever and doctors have no idea why - April 5, 2012 – HEALTH – Breast growth at age 5? Stop! That can’t be a thing… Can it? It can.
WSJ: Pain-Pill Crackdown Spreads
ScienceDaily: Big advance against cystic fibrosis: Stem cell researchers create lung surface tissue in a dish
CNN: Former cowboy flying free health care to those in need
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
ModernSurvival: Emergency Food 101
WaldenEffect: Filling the incubator
PreppingToSurvive: Book Review: Surviving the Fog
CanadianDoomer: Horses
UrbanFarming: Urban Orchard
CityFarmer: New York Times reports on largest rooftop farm
Other News
NAPOWrimo: National Poetry Writing Month
ChicagoTribune: Military fighter plane crashes in Virginia
CNN: Navy jet crashes into apartments in Virginia
At least two people were hurt, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The pilot and a person
who was on the ground were being treated for injuries, but the nature
and extent of those injuries were not immediately clear, the spokeswoman
said.
Alternet: Fla. Task Force Examines Stand-Your-Ground Law
Spiegel: Chasing a Better Life: Roma Immigrants Find 'Paradise' in Troubled Berlin District - The Berlin district of Neukölln is considered one of Germany's poorest and most troubled neighborhoods. But for hundreds of residents of a small village in Romania, it has become a welcome new home, a source of generous state benefits and a symbol of hope for those left behind.
CNN: Vietnamese businessmen scoop up smallest US town for $900000
Hosted: Ga. Easter egg hunt canceled after past violence
RawStory: Urinal game allows users to ‘play guitar’ with their pee
CBS: Audio: Ex-Saints coach urging injury
Williams appears to target specific body parts of several 49ers for injury, including running back Frank Gore's head.NYT: Death of Rape Victim in Morocco Sparks Calls for Legal Reform - On March 10, Amina Filali, 16, died in a hospital in Larache, a small town in northern Morocco, after swallowing rat poison.
"We've got to make sure we do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore's head. We need to decide on how many times we can meet Frank Gore's head," Williams is heard saying.
They also allegedly targeted tight end Vernon Davis's ankle.
Allegedly raped at knife point by a man nearly 10 years older, she had committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist to protect him from prosecution, under a law designed to safeguard female, and family, honor.
RawStory: More than 640,000 thank Starbucks for supporting same sex marriage
Alternet: ICE Arrest 3k Immigrants in 6 Days, Largest Roundup Ever
IBTimes: Malaysia Announces Funding To Tackle Gays, And 'Sexual Disorders Like LGBT'
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has announced funding for counselors to tackle people facing "sexuality problems" and "sexual orientation disorders like LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender)," regional media reports said.WashingtonPost: Self-proclaimed Mega Millions winner says she has misplaced the lucky ticket
NYDailyNews: Phone calls may help George Zimmerman
LegitGov: 'Long Live Zimmerman' Spray-Painted On Ohio State's Black Cultural Center
Politics
BusinessInsider: POLL OF THE DAY: The Scott Walker Recall Election Is Shockingly Polarizing
RawStory: Maddow mocks ‘war on caterpillars’: GOP needs to own up to its agenda
Alternet: Santorum Death Watch: Romney Leads in PA
Reuters: Insight: Key Democratic donors cool to pro-Obama Super PAC
NYDaily: Harvard-educated Mitt rips Obama for spending too much time at Harvard
Hosted: Resentment lingers in PA after Santorum's loss
RawStory: Bachmann: Obama a ‘health care dictator’ for contraception mandate
Forums
TinfoilPalace: Was Trayvon Sacrificed for Dick Cheney?
TinfoilPalace: Mohamed Merah’s family denies he was Toulouse, France gunman
TheOilAge: UFO seen on frames of movie Phenominon
TheOilAge; Second foreclosure tsunami coming
HubbertsArms: Supreme Court Considers GM Crop Patent Case
HubbertsArms: Vote for me, vote for fascism!
SilentCountry: Cesium-137 is 200 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident
SilentCountry: Arsenic and Other Chemicals Found in Chicken
DestinyCalls: "I wanna believe"
DestinyCalls: Collection of Random Musings
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