Breaking News Wed. April 4, 2012

Happy Hump Day to everyone. Hope you week is going well so far.

Here's an interesting article from Counterpunch today.

The Real Nuclear Outlaws

While United States and Israeli leaders, duly assisted by a warmongering media, ramp up war talk against Iran, two troublesome pieces of information are ritually ignored. First, even American intelligence reports conclude that Iran is not close to building a nuclear-weapons program. Second, it is the U.S. and Israel – not Iran – that stand in flagrant violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The real nuclear outlaws are located in Washington and Tel Aviv rather than in Tehran.

The consensus of 17 U.S. agencies, as reported by National Intelligence Estimates of 2007 and 2011, finds that Iran has not enriched uranium above 20 percent purity, far short of the nearly 90 percent essential to weapons development. Further, no viable nuclear delivery system or command structure has been uncovered. High-powered U.S. surveillance and espionage operations, many inside Iran, have revealed nothing beyond (an entirely legal) civilian energy program. Recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigations, the latest in November 2011 and February 2012, cite “continuing enrichment processes” but nothing beyond the 20 percent level. The IAEA merely states what should be obvious – that some Iranian sites “could be” used for a weapons program at some point in the future.

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 in finding great news stories for us! Be sure to check out their blogs and sites today, and don't forget to visit the forums linked at the bottom of the post.


Peak Oil and Energy News
Atlantic: More on Japan Energy Death Spiral & Illusion of Saudi Oil Option
Forbes: Ethanol, Minus The Corn: It Could Fuel America If It Weren't Illegal
Reuters: U.S. oil stocks rise, products fall - API
TOD: Does the U.S. Really Have More Oil than Saudi Arabia?
EnergyBulletin: Dealing with energy shock in Japan


Global Conflict
BBC: '9/11 planners' to face US trials - The US formally sends to trial five suspected al-Qaeda militants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of planning the 9/11 terror attacks.
WashingtonPost: Khalid Sheik Mohammed to face death penalty trial
KPCC: The real mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

He was water-boarded 183 times and tortured in numerous other ways. But Meyer explains that KSM quickly adapted to the hardship

BlacklistedNews: The 'Legal Issue' of Operation Cast Lead: ICC Rules That Palestinians Cannot Investigate Israeli War Crimes
ExtinctionProtocol: U.S. activates missile defense shield for North Korean missile test
McClatchy: Only one shooter likely in Kandahar killings, Afghan investigator says
VancouverSun: 200,000 flee fighting in Mali as UN World Food Programme suspends aid

 (thanks Ozarker for the above story. Looks like the Mitt Romney method of animal hauling to me. LOL)

AFP: Clinton warns of 'destabilizing' Iran options 
Reuters: Iran says could hit US if it came under attack - paper 
VOA: Syria Fighting Continues as UN Moves to Send Peacekeepers  - Fierce clashes between government troops and rebel forces in Syria continued Tuesday as the United Nations moved to send a team to Damascus to discuss the deployment of peace monitors in the country.
Atlantic: The Muslim Brotherhood's Bold New Strategy 
Guardian: Somalia theatre suicide bombing kills top sports officials 

CBS: Afghan blasts kill at least 3 NATO troops

Reuters: Netanyahu says sanctions hurting Iran but not enough - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that international sanctions were hurting Iran's economy but not enough to persuade it to curb its nuclear ambitions even slightly.
SeattlePI: Netanyahu wants deal to prevent 'binational state'
Spiegel: At the Taliban's Mercy - German Military Fears for Afghanistan's Future
MSNBC: Expert: War on terror at 'critical' point as al-Qaida looks to regroup in Africa

VancouverSun: Melting Arctic changing global trade, travel - Arctic powers, others view each other with suspicion over possible change to geopolitical map 
IBTimes: Russia Warns Against Arming Syrian Rebels
Hosted: French police arrests 10 in crackdown on radicals 
Atlantic: Why the U.S. May Be Secretly Cheering a Muslim Brotherhood Run For Egypt's Presidency 
BBC: Syria rebels 'will not beat army' 
Wired: CIA Committed 'War Crimes,' Bush Official Says
Alternet: Somali female bomber kills Olympic, football chiefs 
Atlantic: The Accidental Coup: How Confused Protesters Seized an African Country - In Mali and beyond, more of history may be accidental than we think.
Hosted: Pakistan rebuffs US bounty for militant leader 
ETFDaily: When Russia’s Worried, We All Should Be Worried 
MiamiHerald: 3 US soldiers among dead in northern Afghanistan 


OWS/US Protests
USAToday: California students pepper-sprayed - SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – Campus police pepper-sprayed as many as 30 demonstrators after Santa Monica College students angry over a plan to offer high-priced courses tried to push their way into a trustees meeting, authorities said.
LAT: 2 hospitalized in Santa Monica College pepper-spray incident


Hacker News
MSNBC: Anonymous plans Saturday attack on British government
Campaign to fight the extradition of three accused criminals

Domestic Financial News
ETFDaily: Ben Bernanke To Engineer A ‘Shock & Awe’ To Save The Fed 

CNNMoney: Obama trashes trickle-down economics
FT: The Fed’s IOUs Can Cripple the Economy in 2013 - Does Fed Chair Ben Bernanke know what he’s doing? We better hope so. Every tweet and cluck from the Open Market Committee has the power to move markets, as we saw again yesterday. Traders dumped stocks after reading the minutes from the central bank’s March 13 meeting; the report hinted at a slightly better job market and doused hopes for another round of quantitative easing.   
Guardian: Yahoo confirms layoff of 2000 employees in bid to renew company
SFGate: Moody's downgrades General Electric a notch 
CNNMoney: Car prices at record highs - and rising
NYT: Regulators Move Closer to Oversight of Nonbanks - The Financial Stability Oversight Council, the country’s top financial regulatory body, moved closer on Tuesday to increasing its oversight of nonbank financial institutions, like hedge funds, private equity firms and insurers.
WSJ: ADP: 209000 Jobs Added
SFGate: Men taking 88% of jobs in economic recovery - Men, who lost more than twice as many jobs as women during the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, have landed 88 percent of the nonfarm jobs created since the recession ended in June 2009. The share of men saying the economy is improving jumped to 41 percent in March, compared with 26 percent of women, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index. 
Zerohedge: NYSE Margin Debt At Highest Since July Means Threat Of Margin Calls High
NakedCapitalism: Have Four Pension Funds Blown Up the $8.5 Billion Bank of America Settlement? - Yves Smith - A ruling in the Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of the City of Chicago et al v. Bank of New York Mellon is a game-changer in mortgage investor litigation.  
CapitalGainsAndGames: Bowles-Simpson Is As Dead As The Edsel
CalculatedRisk: U.S. Light Vehicle Sales at 14.4 million annual rate in March - Based on an estimate from Autodata Corp, light vehicle sales were at a 14.37 million SAAR in March.

WSJ: Obama Blasts 'Trojan Horse' GOP Budget
CNNMoney: Beware the tax bite of oil and gold ETFs
ConversableEconomist: The Problem of Low-Wage Jobs - John Schmitt discusses "Low-wage Lessons" in a January 2012 paper written for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Define "low-wage jobs" as those that involve earning two-thirds or less of the median hourly wage: that is, those earning less than about $10/hour.
WSJ: Owning Regains Appeal
EconomistsView: : Fed Watch: Fed Minutes Confirm Policy on Hold

NYT: The Promise of Today’s Factory Jobs - Master Lock, which has made locks in Milwaukee since 1921, has brought 100 jobs back from China over the last year and a half. And Mr. Bink, who has worked at the plant for 33 years and heads the United Auto Workers local, is sure more will follow.

ProjectSyndicate: Are US Multinationals Abandoning America?

NakedCapitalism: Looking at a Foreclosure Ground Zero: Jacksonville, Florida

CreditSlips: Deepthroat: Debt Collector Edition - The American Banker has been running an important series on credit card debt collection (here, here, and here) that Joe Nocera highlighted in his NY Times column today. The story that they're telling, however, is only part of the picture. To fully understand the debt collection industry, it's necessary to take Deepthroat's advice, and "follow the money."
Zerohedge: Guest Post: America: The List
WSJ: Obama Signs Ban on Insider Trading by Congress


Global Financial News
Zerohedge: Syntagma Square Suicide Note Ends With Call To Young Greek People To "Hang The Traitors" - Earlier today, we remarked on the story of a 77-year old Greek, now identified as Dimitris Christoulas, who at around 9 am took his life in the middle of Athens' central Syntagma Square with a bullet to his head. His full suicide note has been released. The note, presented below, ends in a solemn call to arms to "hang the traitors of this country."
Reuters: Merkel reiterates stance against common euro zone bonds
FatasMinhov: The Euro Divorce - Arnab Das and Nouriel Roubini write today in the Financial Times a commentary suggesting that Euro members should get a divorce (they call it an "amicable divorce settlement").
NYT: I.M.F. Seeks More Money for Struggling EconomiesTAE: Disaster Capital Hits Europe
Time: Europe’s Economic Woes: That Sound You Hear Is the Euro Cracking 
NYT: Greece Is in a Face-Off With Its Bond Holdouts
WSJ: Chinese Premier Blasts Banks - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a national audience on Tuesday that China's state-controlled banks are a "monopoly" that must be broken up... In an evening broadcast on state-run China National Radio, Mr. Wen told an audience of business leaders that China's tightly controlled banking system needs to change.
FiscalTimes: Brazil Rescues Ailing Economy
FT: Dutch boy’s doodle steals prize limelight - An eleven-year-old Dutch boy has stolen the limelight in a UK-organised prize competition on breaking up the eurozone with a scribbled cartoon scheme for ejecting Greece that seemed at least as plausible as some proposals by his grown-up rivals.
Guardian: IMF rattles tin for more money - I need more money. That, bluntly, was the message sent out by Christine Lagarde as she warned a Washington audience that the world was deluding itself if it imagined everything was once again rosy.
Reuters: UPDATE 2-Spanish debt yields rise as deficit problems mount
ETFDaily: Destruction of Spain’s Economy Duplicates Greece - Jeff Nielson: More than two years ago I began warning readers of the most heinous acts of fraud ever perpetrated by the Western banking crime syndicate, which I dubbed “economic terrorism”. These swindles involved nothing less than the destruction of entire European economies, solely so that the banksters could profit on approximately $100 trillion in bets they had placed on the debts of these
CreditWritedowns: Seven Observations about the Euro


Commodities/Metals
ETFDaily: Steel Prices: The Downside For Steel Stocks Is Already Priced In (SLX, NUE, X, TX, MTL, TKR)
CommodityOnline: Gold may be shaking off some of inflation premium: Thomson Reuters GFMS
CommodityOnline: Gold at $2175 oz Crude oil at $85 barrel: Morgan Stanley forecasts
BusinessInsider: Gold Is Tanking And Mining Stocks Sinking (VALE, FCX, NEM) - Gold has continued its fall this afternoon after yesterday's hawkish comments in the Federal Open Markets Committee minutes.
Mineweb: South Africa's gold mining index at nine-month low


Environmental
 USGS
M 2.6, Southern California
M 2.6, Nevada

M 2.7, Southern California

M 4.3, eastern Turkey

M 2.5, Southern CaliforniaScienceDaily: Amount of coldest Antarctic water near ocean floor decreasing for decades
MSNBC: Recommended: 'Very unusual' start to tornado season - Tornado season is only just beginning, but already this year has seen dozens of destructive twisters from Illinois to Texas, where up to 18 might have touched town on Tuesday alone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
YahooNews: Multiple tornadoes cause massive damage across Dallas, Fort Worth and North Texas 
USNews: Texas cleans up as Southeast braces for more twisters

WashingtonPost: 3 taken to hospital after United flight from Tampa to Houston hits turbulence
CBSNews: Texans "just glad to be here" after twisters 
ScientificAmerican: Bat-Killing Fungus Continues Deadly Spread; Death Toll Now at 7 Million
HuffingtonPost: Dodo Extinction Tied To Muddy Swamp On Mauritius, Fossils Show
BBC: Thousands lose power after gales
DesdemonaDespair: Matterhorn disintegrating in the face of global warming
Guardian: Rick Perry criticises UK initiative to influence US climate sceptics - Rick Perry, the governor of Texas and former Republican presidential candidate, has criticised the UK's Foreign Office for funding an environmental group which aimed to "educate" Texan policymakers about climate science and "move them from a state of denial and inaction to one of acceptance and effective action".
ExtinctionProtocol: Dramatic increase in activity reported at Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano
DesdemonaDespair: Christian climatologist: Global warming ‘threatens the concept that God is control’

In the Book of Revelation, Christian believers are promised, along with the return of Christ, a new heaven and a new earth.
But Christian climatologist Katharine Hayhoe said in an interview Tuesday that until the promise is fulfilled believers in the here and now aren't excused from tending the planetary garden granted them.

 
America in Decline
RawStory: Florida law requires GOP to allow concealed weapons at convention - Be advised if you plan on attending the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida this summer. You can’t bring your water gun to the designated protest zones, but your concealed pistol? That’s just fine, according to an article in the Tampa Bay Times. 

BlacklistedNews: Even Congress Wants To Know What The NSA Is Doing With This $2 Billion Utah Spy Center
BBC: The US prisoners in solitary for 40 years
As two men in Louisiana complete 40 years in solitary confinement this month, the use of total isolation in US prisons is on the rise. What does this do to a prisoner's state of mind?
NakedCapitalism: William Lazonick: How High CEO Pay Hurts the 99 Percent - While most Americans struggle to make ends meet, the CEOs of major U.S. business corporations are pulling eight-figure, and sometimes even nine-figure, compensation packages. When they win, the 99 percent lose.
Technolog: Failing to provide Facebook password gets teacher's aide fired
Alternet: Department of Justice Cuts Off Negotiations With Sheriff Joe Arpaio - In December, the DOJ accused Arpaio'so office of engaging in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing, including racial profiling in traffic stops, immigration operations and discriminating against Spanish speakers in the county jails.
Alternet: 5 Ways Virginia May Be the Worst State in the Nation - It isn't known for being a bastion of liberalism, but even for a 'purplish' state, Virginia has taken extraordinarily conservative actions recently.
TheNation: Colleges Withhold Transcripts From Grads in Loan Default


Food and Water
BigPictureAgriculture: The Ag Hot Five No. 3 - PURPLE PASSION ASPARAGUS
Vitals: Salmonella in sushi may have sickened 90
Alternet: Owning Pigs a Felony in Michigan? Big Ag-Inspired Law Targets Small Farms

Owning certain kinds of pigs -- namely the ones not raised on industrial hog farms -- could land you in jail for 4 years.
CivilEats: GE “EnviroPig” Project Stops Research

This week, the University of Guelph, the Canadian university that developed the genetically engineered (GE) “Enviropig,” announced it is closing down its research. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is now calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to stop any work on approving the GE pig. For years CFS has criticized the developers of the “EnviroPig” for engineering an animal specifically to fit into large-scale and highly polluting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  CFS has also criticized the genetically engineered “AquAdvantage” salmon developed by AquaBounty, Inc.–also under review by the FDA–which was similarly engineered to grow better in the confined tanks of industrial fish farming operations.

ArsTechnica: Farm-fresh infringement: Can you violate a patent by planting some seeds? - Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market?

Science and Technology
WashingtonPost: Rocket carrying classified payload launches from California's central coast
The National Reconnaissance Office has kept mum about the purpose of the satellite. The agency oversees the nation’s constellation of spy satellites.
Intelligence analysts think it’s a radar imaging satellite capable of seeing at night and through bad weather.
TheAustralian: Rocket carrying top-secret cargo launches
ArsTechnica: Mutant H5N1 bird flu virus papers to be published in full
ScientificAmerican: 'Breathtaking' Mummy Coffin Covers Seized in Israel
The confiscated wooden covers are adorned with hieroglyphics and highlight what is a seemingly vast black market for mummies
ScientificAmerican: Infectious Selflessness: How an Ant Colony Becomes a Social Immune System
PopSci: PopSci Q&A: How To Track Down International Jewel Thieves Via Facebook
MSNBC: Venus and the Pleiades are shining in a celestial show  - Planet and star cluster glitter in western skies; Venus due to change shape and size
RedditScience: Earth's other moons
Atlantic: What China's Talking About Today: Hitting Back Against Online Censorship - Race car driver and author Han Han says the recent censorship of Weibo comments isn't about rumor-spreading as much as Beijing showing muscle.  
SingularityHub: Humanoid Robots Fight WWF Style at Japan’s ROBO-ONE
PopSci: While the LHC Hunts Higgs, the Jefferson Accelerator Looks to Illuminate Mysterious 'Dark Photons'
FT: YouTube to Offer Movie Rentals
ScientificAmerican: Flame Retardants May Create Deadlier Fires
ArsTechnica: Google to chill servers with thermal storage at Taiwan data center - It's well known that Google operates some of the most efficient data centers on the planet. Now, the company is adding a new weapon to its arsenal for keeping data centers running cool without breaking the bank on energy costs.
Wired: Giant Feathered Tyrannosaur Found in China

PopSci: Video: Google's Straight-Out-of-Sci-Fi Augmented Reality Glasses
RedditScience: Exquisitely preserved woolly mammoth with 'strawberry-blonde hair' discovered


Medical and Health
WashingtonPost: Too much happiness can make you unhappy, studies show
Vitals: Half of cancer survivors die from other diseases - About half of cancer survivors die from diseases other than cancer, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, a new study says. 

ScienceDaily: Incisive research links teeth with diet
WashingtonPost: Some mothers see health benefits in eating their placenta after giving birth
Reuters: Medicine spending rose to $320 billion last year
RawStory: Bald ‘cancer Barbie’ doll to debut in 2013 - They will not appear on store shelves, but will go straight to hospitals treating children with cancer in the United States and Canada. 
ScienceDaily: Link between estrogen and tobacco smoke: Estrogen may help promote lung cancer
NYT: Scientists Link Rare Gene Mutations to Heightened Risk of Autism 
  

Healthcare Law
McClatchy: Answers to questions about possible changes to Medicare
Brookings: Why Health Care Isn’t Broccoli - Brookings Institution - It isn't often that the course of history turns on principles taught in freshman economics. But the fate of the health reform legislation is now in jeopardy in part because some Supreme Court justices have so far failed to grasp such principles.
FT: Obama delivers warning over healthcare law - Barack Obama has delivered a surprisingly strong warning to the US Supreme Court, saying that it would be guilty of an “unprecedented” case of “judicial activism” if it overturned his signature healthcare law.


Doomsteading, Gardening, Urban Farming
WaldenEffect: Why incubate?
WaldenEffect: Garter snakes in the garden 
CityFarmer: Urban agriculture takes root in Montreal
ModernSurvival: When the Trucks Stop, It’s Over


Other News
Gawker: Naked French Academic Found Dead in NYC Hotel Room
BBC: Airlines fear Easter 'gridlock' - The home secretary has been warned by 11 airlines that Britain "risks gridlock" at airports over the Easter break because of staff shortages. 
CBS: FBI begins "parallel investigation" into Trayvon Martin shooting

Hosted: CA attack suspect upset about expulsion, teasing
SCMonitor: Mega Millions mess unfurls as Maryland 'winner' draws suspicion 
Grist: Of soccer moms and sinister U.N. plots
McClatchy: Impact of ending military's 'don't ask, don't tell' law 'negligible'
Spokesman: Man arrested for Planned Parenthood bombing - GRAND CHUTE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man faces federal charges after a bombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in eastern Wisconsin.
The FBI says 50-year-old Francis Grady is charged with arson of a building used in interstate commerce and intentionally damaging a facility that provides reproductive health services.
Spiegel: Controversial Poem about Israel: Günter Grass's Lyrical First Strike - Never in the history of postwar Germany has a prominent intellectual attacked Israel in such a cliche-laden way as Günter Grass with his controversial new poem, "What Must Be Said." The Nobel Prize laureate has delivered a lyrical first strike against Israel.

Politics
IBTimes: Heather Childers: Fox News Anchor Questions Obama Campaign’s Intent To Murder Chelsea Clinton In Twitter Post
NYT: Mitt Romney Wins Maryland, Tightening Grip on Nomination - Mitt Romney was poised to tighten his grip on the Republican nomination, and found himself in his first direct engagement with President Obama.
BlacklistedNews: There Really Is A Secret Alliance Between Ron Paul And Mitt Romney
IBTimes: National Tell A Lie Day: Best Lies Told By U.S. Presidential Candidates, Republican And Democrat



Forums
TinfoilPalace: Pentagon Briefing on Removing "the God Gene" (GLP video)
TinfoilPalace: Ryan Leaf and his GPS Tracking System
TheOilAge: Major tornados tearing through Dallas-Ft Worth area
TheOilAge: New Swiss military study on peak oil
HubbertsArms: Food Storage Question, Fats & Oils
HubbertsArms: Total Gas Leak (Allegedly) Untouchable. Gales Blowing Gas Into Scotland Now
SilentCountry: Stormtroopin' USA
SilentCountry: Police State U.S.A. Strip Search
DestinyCalls: Synchronicity 
DestinyCalls: Strange Earth Noises (article from 1984, "Unexplained" magazine)