Here it is Wed. already! Boy, time sure is flying by this week. I hope everyone is having a good week so far and getting to get outside and enjoy the weather. Won't be long till full on summer is upon us and these cool spring days will be nothing but fond memories.
Here's an essay from one of my favorite people, Guy McPherson.
Here's an essay from one of my favorite people, Guy McPherson.
Knowing nothing about de Tocqueville, the ten-year-old son of a friend put his own spin on recent history: “Mom, I think people value Father Time more than they value Mother Earth.”
His words sting me like freezing rain, squeezing tears from the corners of my eyes. There’s nothing new there for me, except the perspective of youth: I often weep when I think about the hellishly overheated world we’re leaving him and his young friends. We’re destroying this world in large part because we care more about chasing fiat currency than we care about the living planet and its occupants.
Much thanks also 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! Do check out their blogs and websites and don't forget to visit the forums linked at the bottom of this, and every, post.
Peak Oil and Energy News
What Happened To Peak Oil? -- Fears that the world is running short of oil aren't going away, but judging by the latest figures on global oil production there's no sign that the peak oil factor is an imminent threat.
BBC: YPF Repsol row: EU warns Argentina over nationalisation
BusinessInsider: Drilling In The Gulf Is Back With A Vengeance
April 21--Drilling in the deep Gulf of Mexico is becoming robust two years after the oil spill that prompted a six-month moratorium on deep-water exploration, but more of the work now is left to large companies.CommodityOnline: Iraqi oil projects could add upto 12mbpd in extra supplies
ETFDaily: 7 Billion Reasons Why Oil Prices Are Header Higher
Global Conflict
Reuters: Israel legalizes three West Bank outposts
BusinessInsider: SHOCKER: IDF Chief Calls Iran's Leaders 'Rational' Says They Won't Build A Nuke - It's springtime and a young man's fancy turns, yet again, toward thoughts of war with Iran.
TheTap: Iran vs US is David vs Goliath
U.S. plans to attack Iran with a mix of nuclear and conventional weapons have been in readiness since June, 2005, according to Michel Chossudovsky. a distinguished authority on international affairs.Reuters: FBI chief in Yemen as drone kills AQAP leader
"Confirmed by military documents as well as official statements, both the U.S. and Israel contemplate the use of nuclear weapons directed against Iran," writes professor Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal.
The plans were formulated in 2004. The previous year, Congress gave the Pentagon the green light to use thermo-nuclear weapons in conventional war theaters in the Middle East and Central Asia, allocating $6 billion in 2004 alone to create the new generation of "defensive" tactical nuclear weapons or "mini-nukes".
"In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney ordered USSTRATCOM (Strategic Command) to draft a 'contingency plan' that included "a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons," Chossudovsky writes. The plan went beyond the terms of reference outlined in the Pentagon’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which called for a "preemptive" "first strike use" of nuclear weapons against Russia and China as well as Iran and North Korea.
BBC: Iran 'undecided on nuclear bomb' - The head of the Israeli military says he does not think Iran will develop nuclear weapons, partly because international pressure is bearing fruit.
SeattlePI: Jordan training 10,000 Libyan policemen
Telegraph: Israel takes unprecedented step of legalising settler outposts
Israel defied its Western allies by expanding the number of officially-sanctioned settlements in the West Bank for the first time in 12 years.
MSNBC: Pakistan tests nuclear-capable missile as arms race intensifies - Pakistan successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Wednesday, the military said, less than a week after rival India tested a missile capable of delivering nuclear warheads as far as Beijing and Eastern Europe.
VOA: North Korea Boasts of Ability to Destroy US Military in 'Single Blow'
(US to NK. ditto.)
Spiegel: The World from Berlin: 'There Is No Doubt Tymoshenko Is Seriously Ill'
Yulia Tymoshenko was the face of 2004's Orange Revolution in Ukraine, but the former Ukrainian prime minister's fortunes have waned quickly in recent months. Tymoshenko has been imprisoned since her conviction in October on charges of abusing her office. She is believed to have suffered a slipped disc in prison, a condition for which she has refused treatment by Ukrainian authorities. This week, she announced she has gone on a hunger strike to protest her conditions in prison.WSJ: China Escalates Crackdown on Internet
Hacker News
NYT: Hints of Collusion Between News Corp. and British Minister
MSNBC: Rupert Murdoch grilled at UK phone-hacking inquiry
Domestic Financial News
BusinessInsider: These 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy
ETFDaily: World Reserve Currency: Is The Yuan A Real Challenger To The U.S. Dollar?
WSJ: Apple Profit Surges 94% on Strong iPhone, iPad Sales
Reuters: Consumer confidence edges down in April
CapitalGainsAndGames: The Budget Debate Should Not Be Fiscal Instant Messaging
ThinkProgress: Death Valley's 113°: Hottest April Temperature On Record In U.S.
CalculatedRisk: Real House Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio at late '90s Levels - Case-Shiller, CoreLogic and others report nominal house prices. It is also useful to look at house prices in real terms (adjusted for inflation) and as a price-to-rent ratio.
BusinessInsider: And Now Let Us Gaze In Awe At The Global Colossus That Is Apple...
WSJ: Source's Cover Is Blown by SEC
Jesse'sCafe: PBS Frontline: Money, Power, and Wall Street
Reuters: Judge denies AIG motion in BofA $8.5 bln settlement - A New York judge on Tuesday rejected an effort by AIG Inc and other objectors to Bank of America Corp's proposed $8.5 billion mortgage bond settlement to convert the case to a proceeding that may have widened its scope.
McClatchy: American cites bleak finances in bankruptcy court - American Airlines on Tuesday made its most forceful case yet to terminate its labor contracts as the company’s top restructuring official laid out the airline’s bleak finances in bankruptcy court.
Businessweek: U.S. Lost AAA on Danger of Liquidity Crisis: S&P
EconomyWatch: Fed struggles to spur slowest recovery in memory
CNNMoney: $1.6 billion in missing MF Global funds traced
CNNMoney: U.S. stocks bolstered by Apple, Boeing
RawStory: Colbert: Canada’s glow-in-the-dark coin is a threat to America
EPI.org: Romney opposes the Buffett Rule? Why would that be? - Via the Washington Post‘s Fact Checker by Glenn Kessler, I see that Mitt Romney has adopted the specious “if it doesn’t fix the entire problem, it’s not worth doing,” objection to the Buffett Rule.
EPI.org: Sequestration will slow the recovery and job growth, period - Wednesday morning, the House Budget Committee is holding a hearing on “Replacing the Sequester”—the sequester being the automatic spending cuts established by the debt ceiling deal that are scheduled to kick in next year. It’s a safe bet that Republicans will scream about defense cuts being bad for jobs, but let’s just remember that ALL these cuts are bad for joblessness in the short-run.
Forbes: Investors Flock To Housing, Looking To Buy Thousands Of Homes In Bulk - Forbes: Investors have been snapping up homes. Lots of homes. The National Association of Realtors’ Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey reports that investment-home sales soared a whopping 64.5% in 2011, with investors purchasing 1.23 million homes compared to 749,000 in 2010. With foreclosures continuing to flood marketplaces and home prices down nationally about 35% over the past five years (and down more than 50% in the hardest hit areas), investors believe housing is a promising place to park cash.
THOnline: Illinois might let schools charge for bus service
DetroitNews: GE CEO defends tax rate after protesters disrupt speech
Prospect: The Joys of Recession: The Social Security Trustees have just projected that the date by which the system will no longer be able to meet all of its payouts has been moved up three years from 2036 to 2033. This has prompted the usual clucking about the need for drastic benefit cuts of partial privatization right now. What nobody seems to have noticed is that the primary reason for the pessimistic forecast is the lousy economy, particularly the high unemployment and depressed wages.
Courant: Medicare trustee report hangs on uncertain assumptions - Medicare, the U.S. healthcare program for the elderly, should be able to stave off insolvency for the next 12 years, depending on a number of financial and political assumptions that may prove unrealistic, officials and other experts said on Monday.
Zerohedge: FOMC's Bag Of Tricks Is Empty... For Now - Full Statement Redline
Global Financial News
Reuters: Dutch crisis deepens as opposition rejects austerity
NYT: British Economy Slips Back Into Recession
Zerohedge: Bloomberg reports U.K. Plunges Into Double-Dip Recession, as does CNBC, UK Back Into Recession in First 'Double Dip' Since 1970s
RealityZone: IT'S OFFICIAL: Keynes Was Right
Krugman: Rogoff's Bad Parable - Ken Rogoff has a piece in the FT comparing Europe’s woes to those of a family with a shared checking account, some of whose members start abusing the privilege. It’s a cute story — but it’s almost completely wrong.
UPI: Britain facing bad economic news
JOC: Container Ship Fleet Grows 10 Percent - Capacity gains outpace growth in demand, hitting rates and vessel utilization, Alphaliner says
Reuters: British PM faces "tsunami" of recession, Murdoch - Prime Minister David Cameron endured the worst day of his premiership on Wednesday after Britain slipped back into recession and he was forced to defend a minister alleged to have colluded with Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
EuroNews: Spain presents toughest austerity budget since Franco era - (video) The Spanish government has presented to parliament the country’s most austere budget since the Franco dictatorship.
CRI.cn: China's Tax Revenue Growth Hits Three-year Low
Commodities/Metals
ETFDaily: Is The Multi-Month Consolidation In Gold, Silver and The Miners Ending? (GLD, SLV, AGQ, SIL, GDX)
Mineweb: German Chancellor demands transparency for raw materials derivatives
CommodityOnline: Central banks to remain net Gold buyers in 2012: Commerzbank
ETFDaily: Warren Buffett’s Dirty Little Secret On Gold
Environmental
USGS
M 4.2, Aegean Sea
concerning this article.
It is being further discussed here.
ThinkProgress: James Lovelock Finally Walks Back His Absurd Doomism, But He Still Doesn’t Follow Climate Science
Famed scientist James Lovelock has always been in a category of one when it comes to global warming. See for instance my June 2009 post, “Lovelock still makes me look like Paula Abdul, warns climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age.” That’s mostly because he doesn’t follow the scientific literature.(special thanks to greenman at Climate Denial Crock of the Week)
Now that he has dialed back his doomism — alarmism is a wholly inadequate word for Lovelock’s (former) brand of unjustified hopelessness — the media and the deniers are just so excited. That’s especially true since Lovelock has now overshot in the other direction of climate science confusion and just keeps peddling nonsense.
How to Talk to an OSTRICH: Today's CO2 is nothing Special
IBTimes: Arctic Region Holds Huge Amount of Methane, Says Nasa
Counterpunch: Why Fukushima is a Greater Disaster Than Chernobyl
NoTechMagazine: The Future Will Not Be Like The Past (2)
CBSNews: Feds make 1st arrest in BP oil spill
ACloserLook: ALEC Says It Plans To Craft Legislation To Take Down State Renewable Energy Targets
(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - A BP engineer intentionally deleted more than 300 text messages that said the company's efforts to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were failing, and that the amount of oil leaking was far more than what the company reported, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
In the first criminal charges related to the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010, the Justice Department arrested Kurt Mix and charged him with two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence sought by federal authorities, officials announced in a statement.
DesdemonaDespairL Is this village in Alaska home to first climate change migrants in U.S.?
ACloserLook: Death Valley's 113°: hottest April temperature on record in U.S.
America in Decline
CBSNews: Research shows the US is a low wage country - Recent research from John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research shows that the US leads developed countries in the share of workers earning low wages. The research also shows that increased wage polarization over the last several decades is one of the reasons for the large share of low wage-work in the US.
DownwardSpiral: Great Recession Porn: Illegal Mexican Immigrants Are Going HomeNJ.com: N.J. students hoping, praying for relief from soaring college loan rates
The End Of Manifest Destiny - Whilst the Empires of Europe have long crumbled into corrupt foreign adventurism the USA could well be soon at the point when the policy engine of Manifest Destiny, central to its thinking since 1823 goes into reverse. The map above shows what the USA in 1820. It is very different from that of today. Were you to have maps of the disposition of American troops in 1820 and that of 2012 the contrast would be startling. Then there were confined to limited areas within its own sphere, now they reach across the world.
WCSH6: Detroit fire plan allows vacant buildings to burn - Detroit Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin is proposing the city allow vacant buildings and homes to burn themselves out - but under conditions. "We are in no way looking to 'let the city' burn, this is about saving lives and money," Austin said. "My department is strapped, the budget is strapped, and it's time to look at a new way of doing things."
NewsWorks: Child poverty growing 14 percent in New Jersey - The latest "Kids Count" report shows more children in New Jersey are living in families that are struggling to make ends meet.
NPR: Firm Leaves Miss. After Its Prison Is Called 'Cesspool'
(must read article. thank you Ozarker. This is a horrific story.)
Walnut Grove, located an hour's drive east of Jackson, is a 1,450-bed prison that houses inmates ages 13 to 22 who are minors convicted as adults. It is run by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, which posted a profit of $284 million last year. The Mississippi Department of Corrections pays GEO to manage the prison.NationalJournal: In Nothing We Trust
MUNCIE, Ind.—Johnny Whitmire shuts off his lawn mower and takes a long draw from a water bottle. He sloshes the liquid from cheek to cheek and squirts it between his work boots. He is sweating through his white T-shirt. His jeans are dirty. His middle-aged back hurts like hell. But the calf-high grass is cut, and the weeds are tamed at 1900 W. 10th St., a house that Whitmire and his family once called home. “I’ve decided to keep the place up,” he says, “because I hope to buy it back from the bank.”
Whitmire tells a familiar story of how public and private institutions derailed an American’s dream: In 2000, he bought the $40,000 house with no money down and a $620 monthly mortgage. He made every payment. Then, in the fall of 2010, his partially disabled wife lost her state job. “Governor [Mitch] Daniels slashed the budget, and they looked for any excuse to squeeze people out,” Whitmire says. “We got lost in that shuffle—cut adrift.” The Whitmires couldn’t make their payments anymore.
HuffingtonPost: Dean Baker: Killing the Messenger: The Downsizing and Death of the Postal Service: It is fashionable to think of the postal service as an antiquated relic of a different era in the same way that all right-thinking people regarded standard 30-year fixed rate mortgages as old-fashioned at the peak of the housing bubble.
FiscalTimes: Why America Is One Big Pothole
Nearly every day, rush-hour traffic backs up for miles on both ends of the overburdened Brent Spence Bridge, which spans the Ohio River and links Cincinnati with its suburbs in Kentucky. The bridge, one of the busiest in the U.S. interstate system, has been dubbed "functionally obsolete" by the federal government because its narrow four lanes on each level, originally designed as three lanes, create massive bottlenecks for traffic.
Food and Water
LAT: Mad cow disease found in California dairy cow
Time: Mad Cow Disease: How the New Case Was Discovered
Reuters: CME live cattle tumble on US mad cow case - U.S. live cattle futures tumbled more than 2 percent on Tuesday for their biggest drop in seven months, hit by rumors of a new, domestic case of mad cow disease that later received government confirmation.
CNN: US beef sales curbed in South Korea after 'mad cow disease' case
FiscalTimes: The Fight Over Food Stamps and Farm Subsidies
Counterpunch: In the Fields of America’s Green Prison
...To refer back again to Steinbeck:
“[T]he great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”
Science and Technology
ScienceDaily: Discerning males remain faithful ... if you are a spider
Chron: Asteroid miners announce their plans to create a trillion dollar industry
Planetary Resources released its preliminary plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for raw materials today.CNN: Skype app for PS Vita announced
To take the first step the company says it has developed a deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series space telescope. It will be used in low-Earth orbit to help identify targets for follow-up exploration.
The company’s broadly stated goal is to create a trillion-dollar industry based around asteroid mining. It intends to do this by applying commercial innovation to space exploration.
FutureOfTech: Cargo ships could make way under huge 164-foot sails
Modern cargo vessels burn millions of gallons of low-grade fuel to get where they're going, but it wasn't so very long ago that their predecessors plied the waves with nothing but the wind in their sails. The Wind Challenger project hopes to combine the two by equipping ships with enormous metal sails. They claim that fuel consumption could be reduced by as much as 30 percent.ArsTechnica: China deletes accounts on Twitter-like service as part of social media crackdown
Just two days after President Obama and the United States government hit Syria and Iran with new sanctions "to hold accountable those who assist in or enable such [human rights] abuses through the use of information and communications technology," China has now stepped up its online crackdown in the wake of a political scandal.PopSci: New Study Finds Vast Galactic Network, No Sign of Dark Matter
TechReview: Psychologists Use Social Networking Behavior to Predict Personality Type
ScienceDaily: NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveals secrets of giant asteroid Vesta
Medical and Health
DoctorTipster: Sleep Apnea Harmful Effects Noticeble After Just One Month Of Onset
The mechanism underlying sleep apnea consists of airway collapse, which translates to snoring followed by periods of apnea. The patient wakes up from sleep, falls asleep again and the episode occurs again dozens of times each night. Cessation of breathing causes decreased oxygen and increased carbon dioxide in the blood stream. Decreased oxygen leads to nervous system and cardiovascular overload. Gradually patients may develop coronary artery disease, hypertension and other complications.FrugalDad: The Cost of Getting The Flu (Infographic)
DoctorTipster: Cocaine Use Ages The Brain Faster, According To New Study
CNN: In people, symptoms of mad cow disease include psychiatric and behavioral changes
ChicagoBuisness: Medicaid plan would shift $250 million tab to private insurers — The Quinn administration's proposal to force health insurance companies to shoulder a greater share of the cost for treating severely sick children might save the state $250 million a year, but it likely will drive up premiums on policyholders. Reducing Medicaid spending on children with “special health care needs” — ranging from cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease to chronic pain and depression — is a key part of Gov. Pat Quinn's plan to cut spending by $2 billion a year for the federal-state health insurance program for the poor.
TheChart: Sextuplets born to Houston mom
RockCenter: Health care laws leave hospitals overwhelmed by 'permanent patients'
TheChart: Mortality rates still too high for world's teens
Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
ModernSurvivalOnline: Guest Post: Preparation – Will You Make the Cut? -
RelaxShacks: My Cool Campervan- Book Review and Photo Gallery of Travel Vans/Road Campers
WaldenEffect: No-till soil structure
Grist: Wendell Berry: This old farmer is still full of piss and vinegar
Other News
UPI: Actor dies after 'Passion' play hanging - The mishap took place during a production of the play April 6 in Itarare. Klimeck was playing the role of Judas Iscariot, a biblical figure who commits suicide by hanging after betraying Jesus Christ.
WBIR: Puzzling crucifix email comes as TN guns-in-trunks bills delayed - A senior House committee voted to delay guns-in-trunks legislation until at least next year, despite a day of heated debate that included a call for the political crucifixion of a top Republican leader.
The Republican-dominated committee took action on the bills swiftly, drawing a threat of litigation from a top Democratic lawmaker for not following proper procedures. Republican leaders also stood by their decision not to bring the bills to a floor vote, even after a prominent gun rights activist sent an email calling on followers to use this fall's elections as an opportunity to set up a "used crucifix" at the Capitol as a warning to future legislators who defy them.
"Rep. Debra Maggart's political career needs to end much as the Romans crucified criminals - not just to end her tenure but as a glaring example to other Republicans that you cannot take the grassroots groups or the rights of citizens for granted," he wrote, adding, "it is time to display a used crucifix at the entrance to the General Assembly as a warning."
Hosted: Judge refuses to dismiss GI's WikiLeaks case
Guardian: Bradley Manning lawyer says case 'mishandled' as hearings continue
Guardian: Bradley Manning lawyer says case 'mishandled' as hearings continue
David Coombs says prosecutors have withheld key documents in case over the leak of secret state documents to WikiLeaks
Guardian: Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy
Telegraph: Bradley Manning trial: US government ordered to release WikiLeaks damage assessments - The US government has been ordered to release its assessments on how much damage WikiLeaks' publication of secret files caused to US interests, after lawyers for Pfc Bradley Manning argued they were essential to his defence.
The US government's suppression of all accountability and transparency in prosecuting the WikiLeaks suspect is totalitarian
Reuters: Norway bomb blast diverted police, court hears
LAT: Marine staff sergeant arrested on suspicion of killing Marine wife
BBC: 'Unexplained' DNA on dead spy bag
Specks of unexplained DNA were found on the holdall containing the curled-up body of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, his inquest has heard.UPI: Boys allegedly videotaped gang-rape -STOCKHOLM, Sweden, April 24 (UPI) -- Several teenage boys were arrested in Stockholm, Sweden, after allegedly gang-raping an underage girl and videotaping the incident, police said.
The body of Mr Williams, 31, originally from Anglesey, was found locked in the bag in the bath of his London flat.
BBC: Breivik: Insanity report is lies
iReport: Cheyenne tries out her new prosthetic leg
Cheyenne was the second horse in the United States to get a prosthetic leg. Today she recieved her new prosthetic replacement leg in 31/2 years. Many thanks to Hanger Prosthetics in Santa Fe who incorporated Winters Gel cushion liner (of dolphin tail) in Cheyennes' newly designed prosthetic leg. Her dads Jim & Adrian are thrilled and grateful that it was a perfect fit and Cheyenne adapted immediately.
Politics
IBTimes: Gingrich May Drop Presidential Bid After Tuesday's Delaware Primary
ACloserLook: Eight of the Top Ten 2012 Super PAC Donors Are Republicans
ABCNews: Who's Who in the John Edwards Trial
TheAtlantic: Mitt Romney Sweeps Northeastern GOP Primaries
Fox: Gingrich to leave presidential race next Tuesday, sources say
CBS: Romney sweeps 5 state primaries
HubbertsArms: Ron Paul Wins Washington
Forums
TinfoilPalace: Diary of a Time Traveller from the Year 2040 (GLP)
TinfoilPalace: Project Bluebeam to be Used to Create Fake Appearances of Religious Figures Worldwide
TheOilAge: A New Age of Brain Science!
TheOilAge: G-10 macro-data worst in 6 months, turns negative
HubbertsArms: 'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change
HubbertsArms: If I wanted America to fail... Advertisement from the freemarketsamerica.org
SilentCountry: Bradley Manning Wikileaks: Court to Weigh Dismissal
SilentCountry: Florida man mistakes girlfriend for hog, shoots her
DestinyCalls: Self knowledge oracle card website
DestinyCalls: Hypnosis: Reaching Beyond Oneself
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