Friday, 15 January 2010

“The greatest threat to a government is people who think for themselves,” believes US Congressman Ron Paul.

Watching - “The greatest threat to a government is people who think for themselves,” believes US Congressman Ron Paul.

Paul said the billions of dollars spent by the American government on intelligence could not prevent the recent terror attempt in US skies.“If you condition people to everyday, all day, depend on the government to do their thinking for them – they will become more obedient.”

“I think the responsibility has fallen on the $75 billion bureaucracy that has 16 agencies that cannot co-ordinate their work,” he said. “Airlines should be responsible for who gets on their planes,” he added.

According to the congressman, all the efforts of the US government to introduce new technical systems for airport passenger control, such as body scanners, are “just to make us obedient servants of the state, to teach us that they are in charge of us and to tell us what to do, that we are robots and are supposed to obey them.”

“It’s not that individuals are perfect, it’s just that governments are always imperfect, they always make mistakes and when they do – they are very painful and they hurt each and every one of us.”

Paul said that America has made an amazing shift away from traditional values while even former communist regimes are moving in the direction of a free market.

“[The economy] should be micromanaged by the people, by the consumer. In the free market the consumer is king,” Paul said. “But in the US, as in most countries in the world today, it is being micromanaged by the central government and central banks.”

Speaking about the earthquake in Haiti, Paul said, “just handing out money to Haiti is not going to solve their problems.”

According to the outspoken politician, the best thing the US could do for Haiti in the long term would be to introduce the country to sound economic policies so that they would not suffer from poverty.

Commenting on the situation in Yemen, Paul said that the US is “looking for another war” and that it is a“disastrous continuation of the foreign policy of George Bush.”

Thursday, 14 January 2010

East Boston cat called to jury duty - family is trying to figure out how their pet cat was summonsed for jury duty.

Reading - East Boston cat called to jury duty - family is trying to figure out how their pet cat was summonsed for jury duty.

BOSTON -- Duty calls for an East Boston resident.

Someone is getting called for jury duty...but it's no human.

A family is trying to figure out how their pet cat was summonsed for jury duty.

“I said, Sal, what’s this? You know, I don’t believe it I was shocked,” said Guy Esposito, Sal’s owner.

Sal’s owners, Guy and Anna Esposito, think they may know the source of the mix up: Sal really is a member of the family, so on the last Census form, Anna Esposito listed him under “pets”.

“I just wrote ‘Sal Esposito’, scratched out the ‘dog,’ and wrote, ‘cat,’” said Anna.

Anna filed for Sal’s disqualification of service. However, the jury commissioner was unmoved and denied the request.

Sal’s service date at Suffolk Superior Court is set for March 23. Anna said that if the issue isn’t cleared up by then, she will simply have to bring the cat to court.

'Doomsday Clock' Moves Away From Midnight by 1 Minute - Despite Threats, Scientists Say State of Affairs Is 'Hopeful'

Reading - 'Doomsday Clock' Moves Away From Midnight by 1 Minute - Despite Threats, Scientists Say State of Affairs Is 'Hopeful' -

PHOTO Today, a group of international scientists will move the hands of the symbolic

Greenpeace activists put up mock "doomsday clocks" in this file photo. A group of international scientists will move the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" for the first time in two years.

(Bobby Yip/Reuters)

A group of international scientists this morning announced that they are moving the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" away from midnight -- or the figurative apocalypse -- but only by one minute.

The clock, which is maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was designed to reflect how close civilization is to "catastrophic destruction." First set at seven minutes to midnight, the clock has been moved only 18 times since its creation in 1947.

The group, which includes more than a dozen Nobel laureates, last moved the hands of the clock in 2007, from seven to five minutes before midnight to reflect the threat of a "second nuclear age" and the challenges presented by global warming.

Today, at a press conference in New York, the Bulletin announced that despite the looming threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, it would move the hands of the clock from five to six minutes before midnight.

"By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement.

Citing collaborative efforts by world leaders to reduce nuclear arsenals, secure nuclear bomb-making materials and pledge to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the group said the world was facing a "hopeful" state of affairs.

The Bulletin also said that the election of President Barack Obama, along with his efforts to initiate arms reduction talks with Russia and negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, affected its decision.

"We are poised to bend the arc of human history," said Lawrence M. Krauss, co-chair of the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors and a professor at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration and its physics department.

Still, Krauss said the Bulletin chose one minute to highlight the precariousness of the current global situation.

"What that means is that there's great potential for it to move in either direction depending on what happens," he said, adding that while there's been a "sea change" in attitude and the expansion of possibilities, there still hasn't been a lot of action.

"That's hopeful enough to move it but just by a little bit," he said.

Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Nasa photographs 'Trees' on Mars - probe has sent back photographs of what appears to be trees on surface -

Reading - Nasa photographs 'Trees' on Mars - probe has sent back photographs of what appears to be trees on surface -

The "trees" are really trails of debris caused by landslides as ice melts in Mars's spring Photo: NASA

The images appear to show rows of dark "conifers" sprouting from dunes and hills on the planet surface. But the scene is actually an optical illusion.

The photographs actually show sand dunes coated with a thin layer of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, less than 240 miles from the planet's north pole.

The "trees" are really trails of debris caused by landslides as ice melts in Mars's spring. You can even see a cloud of dust, just to the left of centre of the picture, where an avalanche is caught happening.

The photograph was taken from orbit around Mars by HiRISE, the most powerful camera sent to another planet.

NASA's Candy Hansen told The Sun: "The streaks are sand, dislodged as ice evaporates, which slide down the dune. At this time of the Martian year the whole scene is covered by CO2 frost."

Last month Nasa announced a new telescope had detected five planets outside the solar system. The observatory, which was launched last year to find other Earths, made the discoveries in its first few weeks of science operations.

Although the new worlds, called exoplanets, are all bigger than Neptune, Nasa said their discovery showed that the planet hunting telescope was working well.

Sheep Gives Birth to Human-Faced Lamb - fruit of unnatural relationship between the female goat and a man -

Reading - Sheep Gives Birth to Human-Faced Lamb - fruit of unnatural relationship between the female goat and a man -

A sheep gave birth to a dead lamb with a human-like face. The calf was born in a village not far from the city of Izmir, Turkey.

Erhan Elibol, a vet, performed Cesarean section on the animal to take the calf out, but was horrified to see that the features of the calf’s snout bore a striking resemblance to a human face.

“I’ve seen mutations with cows and sheep before. I’ve seen a one-eyed calf, a two-headed calf, a five-legged calf. But when I saw this youngster I could not believe my eyes. His mother could not deliver him so I had to help the animal,” the 29-year-old veterinary said.

The lamb’s head had human features on – the eyes, the nose and the mouth – only the ears were those of a sheep.

Veterinaries said that the rare mutation most likely occurred as a result of improper mutation since the fodder for the lamb’s mother was abundant with vitamin A, CNNTurk.com reports.

A goat from Zimbabwe gave birth to a similar youngster in September 2009. The mutant baby born with a human-like head stayed alive for several hours until the frightened village residents killed him.

The governor of the province where the ugly goat was born said that the little goat was the fruit of unnatural relationship between the female goat and a man.

"This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing," he reportedly said. "The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control. We often hear cases of human beings who commit bestiality but this is the first time for such an act to produce a product with human features," he added.

The mutant creature was hairless. Local residents said that even dogs were afraid to approach the bizarre animal.

The locals burnt the body of the little goat, and biologists had no chance to study the rare mutation.

Time to move to California - California Lawmakers consider bill to allow pot for pleasure -

Reading - Time to move to California - California Lawmakers consider bill to allow pot for pleasure -

The first step to legalize marijuana in California is on a roll.

Lawmakers on Tuesday approved Assembly Bill 390 -- legislation to tax and regulate marijuana. The Assembly's Public Safety Committee voted 4-3 on bill at a hearing in Sacramento. The bill will now be passed to the full Assembly on Friday for consideration.

The bill, authored by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, would essentially treat pot the same way alcohol is treated under the law and would allow adults over 21 to possess, smoke and grow marijuana.

The law would also call for a fee of $50 per ounce sold and would help fund drug eradication and awareness programs. It could help pull California out of debt, supporters say, raising up to $990 million from the fees.

Among the supporters of legalizing marijuana is a group of police, judges and prosecutors who formed a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. The organization firmly believes that legalizing marijuana for adults will help improve American society by restricting youth access to it and taking the attraction away from cartels that traffic pot as an illegal substance.

"The mere fact that there will be votes in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago." Retired Orange County California Supreme Court Judge Jim Gray said via a statement from the group. "And if the bill doesn't pass this year, it will soon. Or, the bill will be irrelevant because the voters will have passed the measure to regulate and tax marijuana that will be on the ballot this November."

Gray testified before the assembly's informational hearing in October 2009 and defined the group's position about why they are for overturning the prohibition on marijuana.

This is the first time in U.S. history any state legislative body has ever considered repealing marijuana prohibition, which has been in place since 1913.

Mystery object to whizz by Earth Wednesday - It won't hit our planet, but scientists are stumped by what exactly it is

Reading - Mystery object to whizz by Earth Wednesday - It won't hit our planet, but scientists are stumped by what exactly it is -

Tue Jan 12, 1:52 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A mystery object from space is about to whizz close by Earth on Wednesday. It won't hit our planet, but scientists are stumped by what exactly it is.

Astronomers say it may be space junk or it could be a tiny asteroid, too small to cause damage even if it hit. It's 33 to 50 feet wide at most.

NASA says that on Wednesday at 7:47 a.m. EST, it will streak by, missing Earth by about 80,000 miles. In the western United States it may be bright enough to be seen with a good amateur telescope.

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Google threatens to leave China after Massive Cyberattacks - tried to access Gmail accounts -

Reading - Google threatens to leave China after Massive Cyberattacks - tried to access Gmail accounts -

January 12, 2010 (Computerworld) Google today said that a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack against its network last month originated in China, and tried to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

In a blog post Tuesday, David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, said that attacks have forced the company to "review the feasibility of our business operations in China." Google, continued Drummond, is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

The end result of those discussions, said Drummond, may be that Google shuts down its search engine and close its offices in the People's Republic of China.

"This is a bold and a very difficult move on [Google's] part," said Leslie Harris, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group. "But with the revelations that there have been major cyber attacks aimed at human rights activists, both in China and in the West, it's hard to see how Google could have remained silent."

According to Drummond, Google was one of at least 20 large companies that were targeted by massive attacks in December. In Google's case, the attacks resulted in the theft of some company intellectual property.

More troubling, said Drummond, was that the attacks were aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China. Gmail is officially unavailable in the country, but activists and others use anonymous proxies to circumvent that rule.

"We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists," said Drummond, who added that with the exception of two accounts, those attacks had been unsuccessful. The message content of those accounts was not compromised, Drummond claimed; instead, only some information, such as subject lines and the date the account was created, was accessed.

Drummond also said Google had discovered that the Gmail accounts of dozens of U.S.- and Europe-based advocates of human rights in China had been "routinely" accessed by unauthorized users.

"We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech," said Drummond.

Google launched its Chinese-language search engine at google.cn in early 2006, and at the time spelled out its position on business in the country. "We will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China," the company said four years ago.

The disturbing nature of the attacks, as well as what Drummond called "attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web" by Chinese authorities, gave the company pause, then led it to a decision.

"Any company in China has to constantly monitor the situation," said Harris of the CDT. "And at some point, it may be untenable. Google made that very clear when it went into China. It appears that Google has decided that the risks to their users and their own values outweigh the benefit of operating in China."

Harris declined to speculate on what impact a Google withdrawal from China would have on other technology firms that operate in the country -- both Microsoft and Yahoo, for instance, have a presence there -- but said she expected Google to face resistance if it did pull out. "I can't imagine this was an easy decision for them," she said. "They're certain to get push-back from some shareholders."

If Google does end up closing shop in China, Harris acknowledged that it would be a setback for the idea that Western companies could change China's position on issues such as human rights. "I don't think that [this idea] has had the impact we would have liked, but it has had a huge impact on access of information that China's citizens now have," she argued.

Like Drummond of Google, Harris noted that recent moves by the Chinese government have been hard to stomach. "They've become increasingly shrill about what a company makes available, who can have blogs and domains in the country," she said. "They've been piling on the restrictions."

But the battle isn't over, even if Google leaves, Harris said. "The fact is, [the Chinese government] cannot control all information. That's the hope we've always had, that at some point technology wins."

Drummond did not set a timetable for the discussions Google wants to have with Chinese authorities, or, failing a settlement agreeable to both sides, a deadline for any decision to withdraw from the country and shutter its search site.

Monday, 11 January 2010

JP Morgan: Largest Provider Of Food Stamps In U.S. - Really? - Really! -

Watching -

JP Morgan: Largest Provider Of Food Stamps In U.S. - Really? - Really! -

Source: Bloomberg TV

Sunday, 10 January 2010

China's 2009 Trade Surplus Falls A Record $100 B - no wonder that the Chinese r buying everything it can stockpile -

Reading - China's 2009 Trade Surplus Falls A Record $100 Billion - no wonder that the Chinese government is buying anything and everything it can stockpile

After posting a record crude-oil import month in December, as well as the second highest iron-ore import month in history, China's program economy is roaring back to life, even if the imports are actually sitting in full warehouses, used to build empty cities that consume negative electricity, make washing machines that never launder anything except the government's flawed economic statistics, and create cars that somehow use up ever-less gasoline. Of course, when the government has trillions in increasingly worthless excess dollar foreign reserves that have to be used up for something, it is no wonder that the Chinese government is buying anything and everything it can stockpile, and that can't be devalued by Tim Geithner, hand over fist. As for exports: courtesy of the dollar peg, which makes China's exports as cheap as the US' (assuming the latter had much of anything to export besides financial innovation), China had no shortage of counterparties to purchase its $1.2 trillion in 2009 exports. Yet despite all this, China's trade surplus plunged a record $100 billion, or 34%, to $196 billion from 2008's $296 billion.

[1]

Notably, in December China's crude-oil imports hit a record 21.26 million metric tons, or 5 million barrels per day. It is good that at least for one country the "great recession" never happened. In 2009, China imported 14% more oil than in 2008, for a total of 204 million tons. But the real kicker was in iron-ore imports which was 62.16 million metric tons in December, 22% more than November, and an unbelievable 80% more than a year earlier, and the second highest ever recorded. For all of 2009 628 million tons of iron were imported, 41.6% higher than in 2008. Those empty cities apparently really need more peers. And one wonders why Australia's (5.4% more imports in 2009) and Brazil's (5.3% less) economy are humming: it takes a lot to provide the raw materials to build the biggest bubble in the world.

The simple observation is that instead of having to finance the US consumer's continued spending binge by buying hundreds of billions in Treasuries in 2009, China was let off the hook by the Federal Reserve, which did all of its mandated purchase instead. So with all the excess money China went and stockpiled, stockpiled, stockpiled. Now the only question of whether the required end-consumer demand will ever materialize will determine who is correct in the China bubble debate: Chanos or Rogers. As the US consumers are tapped out (save for some Spanish tourists who apparently can't wait to purchase g-strings at A&F), China better hope its own middle class will use its savings to buy everything the government has already made and built, and counted (hopefully not double or triple) in its GDP calculation.

On the other hand, despite having a savings rate that Americans could only dream of, China is also gripped by gambling fever: who really knows what the domestic balance sheet looks like. Yes, having cash is great, but if the liability side of the consumer balance sheet has 0 equity (or only equity in a massively inflated stock market) and the rest are cheap loans, which the government handed out freely in 2009 to the tune of 11 trillion renminbi, then all bets really are off when the profit taking inevitably begins (as it always does).

Here are some more charts that demonstrate why the traditional Chinese model of an export-led economy may be in trouble if the US and EU consumers don't come back (as a reference point, exports to the EU dropped 19.4% or $236 billion, while those targeted at the US sank by $221 billion or 12.5%).

The chart below demonstrates the phenomenal rise in China's trade surplus, which was effectuated primarily on the backs of the US and EU consumers, who had found themselves big spenders in the years after 2003 courtesy of the HELOC piggybank, a surging stock market, and low interest rates.

[2]

What is very amusing on the above chart is the massive surge in China's trade balance in the months following the Lehman bankruptcy. Truly with the rest of the world shut down for the subsequent quarter, China was exporting excess billions of "stuff" to somebody. Who that somebody was, would be interesting to find out. Had the export data been normalized for the October-February period, $85 billion in GDP would have been removed from the Chinese economy. Yet what is glaringly obvious is that China will have a very tough time at recreating the same surge in the trade surplus in 2010 and onward, especially if calls for renminbi appreciation continue growing ever louder.

Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/chinas-2009-trade-surplus-falls-record-100-billion

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