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Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:10:04 -0500

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Superstitions Bring Real Luck, Study Reveals

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:28:08 -0500

The next time you cross your fingers or tell someone to break a leg, you may actually be bringing some luck.

Superstitious ways of bringing good luck are found in cultures around the world, and it turns out they may be ubiquitous for a very good reason: To some extent, superstitions work. New research shows that believing in, say, the power of a good luck charm can actually help improve performance in certain situations, even though the charm and event aren't logically linked.

This is what a team of psychologists at the University of Cologne in Germany report in the May issue of the journal Psychological Science. In a series of experiments employing tasks involving memory and motor skills, the scientists studied the effect of behavior and "object superstitions" – which rely on good luck charms – in college students.

Cross your fingers

The first experiment looked at the influence of the concept of good luck in a test of putting a golf ball. Experimenters handed participants a ball, and those who were told the ball was lucky tended to outperform those who weren’t.
In another experiment, participants were given a cube containing tiny balls and a slab with holes. The goal was to get as many balls in the holes as quickly as possible. Again, participants who were told, “I’ll cross my fingers for you,” by the experimenter performed better.

The final two experiments involved a lucky charm brought by each participant. In a memory test and an anagram test, the participants who were permitted to keep their lucky charms with them performed better.

Boosted confidence

To find out if superstitious beliefs were truly giving students an edge, the scientists surveyed them before the final two experiments to gauge their confidence levels. The participants who kept their good luck charms set higher goals for what they wanted to achieve on the tasks, and said they felt more confident in their abilities.

"Engaging in superstitious thoughts and behaviors may be one way to reach one's top level of performance," the researchers write in the journal article.

People often become superstitious when faced with unknown and stressful situations, possibly explaining why athletes and students are often superstitious, the researchers say. Engaging in a superstition could reduce tension related to a high-stakes competition or an exam.

As the study showed, superstitious beliefs may also increase a person's belief in his or her own abilities and talents. And what may seem like a “lucky break” when the underdog team wins may really be the result of team-wide, superstition-induced confidence.
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/supe...eals-0928/

The Gun IS civilization, plain and simple

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:05:10 -0500

The Gun IS civilization, plain and simple-- A very astute letter from a retired Marine.. (Semper Fi)

Posted By: Watchman
Date: Sunday, 11-Jul-2010 1808
Interesting take and one you don't hear much. . . . . .

As the Supreme Court hears arguments for and against the Chicago, IL Gun Ban, I offer you another stellar example of a letter (written by a Marine) that places the proper perspective on what a gun means to a civilized society.

Read this eloquent and profound letter and pay close attention to the last paragraph of the letter...

The Gun is Civilization
by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/for...ead=178001

Self employed loans

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:31:03 -0500

Hi
I've been self employed for 1 year and before this I was a student for 6 years. I work in a group business so someone else pays the bills, mortgage etc and I take a percentage of what I earn.
so, I have found a premises and we've said yes to the contract etc. I have some money from family but ideally want my own money from a bank. Does anyone know anywhere that would even entertain a self-employed person with only one yr books? I have a business plan etc all ready but so far, no-one will even entertain the idea.
Thanks

SNOPES - FAIL

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:50:10 -0500

SNOPES.COM is no longer the last authority on the urban legends and the bizarre. Turns out that the site itself is an urban legend.

http://fulldisklosure.org/wordpress/blog/2010/06/22/scopes-fail/

Remember this the next time you want to refute Bigfoot or UFOs!

Brazil floods: 1,000 missing, 39 dead

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:21:34 -0500

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/7845749/At-least-31-dead-in-Brazilian-floods.html

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called a crisis cabinet meeting and said the government would make federal funds available to help the homeless.
"Up until the early afternoon we had 26 confirmed dead in Alagoas and more than 1,000 people missing," Teotonio Vilela Filho, the Alagoas Governor, said.
"We are praying for the missing to be found alive. But we are very worried because bodies are starting to turn up on beaches and on riverbanks," Mr Vilela said.
Civil defence officials in devastated Alagoas state said the Mundau River burst its banks in the town of Uniao dos Palmares, leaving at least 500 people unaccounted for there.
"Pernambuco state's rivers all run out through Alagoas. Swollen as they were they devastated cities," Mr Vilela said. Thirteen people have been confirmed dead so far in Pernambuco, officials said.
The torrents swept away more than 40,000 houses, entire bridges and streets, as well as rail lines in 22 towns across Alagoas, Vilela said.
Firefighters said there were entire towns on the banks of the Mundau in Alagoas that were "wiped off the map," while others were severely damaged or left cut off by floodwaters.
The air force so far has sent in five helicopters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...-dead.html

Senator Lemuix calls Obama a Liar!

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:10:13 -0500

Some politicians are speaking their mind's and exposing the lies were being told
http://fulldisklosure.org/wordpress/blog...s-from-fl/

Monsanto Wins Supreme Court Case: Genetically Modified Alfalfa Ban Lifted

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:29:30 -0500

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON (AP)-- The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, despite claims they might harm the environment.

In a 7-1 vote Monday, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds because are resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup.

The U.S. Agriculture Department must now decide whether to allow the genetically-modified seeds to be planted. It had earlier approved the seeds, but courts in California and Oregon said USDA did not look hard enough at whether the seeds would eventually share their genes with other crops.

"This Supreme Court ruling is important for every American farmer, not just alfalfa growers," said David F. Snively, Monsanto's senior vice president and general counsel. "All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA, and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation."

A federal judge in San Francisco had barred the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa nationwide until the government could adequately study the crop's potential impact on organic and conventional varieties.

St. Louis-based Monsanto argued that the ban was too broad and was based on the assumption that their products were harmful. Opponents of the use of genetically engineered seeds say they can contaminate conventional crops, but Monsanto says such cross-pollination is unlikely.

"We agree that the District Court's injunction against planting went too far," said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion.

Justice John Paul Stevens was the only justice to dissent. "It was reasonable for the court to conclude that planting could not go forward until more complete study ... showed that the known problem of gene flow could in reality be prevented," he said.

Alfalfa, which is used for livestock feed and can be planted in spring or fall, is a major crop grown on about 22 million acres in the U.S., Monsanto said in court papers. Monsanto's alfalfa is made from genetic material from bacteria that makes the crop resistant to Roundup.

Justice Stephen Breyer took no part in the case because his brother, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco, issued the initial ruling against Monsanto.

Was the New World Settled Twice?

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:50:34 -0500

ScienceNOW

Were the primary ancestors of today's Native Americans really the first people to set foot in the New World? Genetic evidence suggests so, but ancient skeletons tell a different story. Now, the most detailed analysis yet of ancient American skulls concludes that there were two distinct waves of colonizers from Asia, suggesting that another group got here first.

A team of paloeanthropologists compared the skulls of several dozen Paleoamericans, which date back to the early days of migration 11,000 years ago, with those of more than 300 Amerindians, which date to 1000 years ago. The Paleoamerican remains came from four sites in South and Central America, and the researchers also compared them with more than 500 skulls from East Asia. In all, the team found clear differences in the shapes and sizes of the Paleoamerican and Amerindian samples. That suggests that more than one group of individuals migrated to the Americas from Asia, the team reports online today in PLoS ONE. And due to the age of the skeletons, the researchers say, this other group of individuals arrived before the primary ancestors of today's Native Americans.

Team member Katerina Harvati of Germany's Tübingen University says that although the study does not rule out a single migration, it demonstrates "that the story of the peopling of the New World was most likely more complex than is commonly thought."

The work is "solid" and "perhaps the most sophisticated analysis of craniofacial traits undertaken to date," says Theodore Schurr, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Schurr's own recent work on DNA in living people has led him to favor a single migration, but he says he is "willing to accept that there were pulses of migration into the Americas from Northeast Asia at different times."

Nevertheless, Schurr warns that the lack of large numbers of Paleoamerican skulls makes progress difficult and that the small sample sizes may not show the true morphological and genetic diversity of early American populations. The field, he notes, continues to be hampered by the lack of ancient DNA data because of poor bone preservation. Genetic studies of modern populations, by contrast, can draw on large numbers of samples. Dennis Stanford, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., adds that the authors could have benefited from additional samples from North America as well as more Asian skulls. He believes that there likely were three or four major migrations.

Harvati hopes that further studies will include more samples and agrees that "ancient DNA would be extremely helpful." But so far, she notes, such studies have not had much success.

New Batteries Pack More Punch

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:27:27 -0500

Source: ScienceNOW

Electric cars face severe limits in how far they can drive before running out of juice. Better batteries that can both store more energy and give it up quickly are essential for extending that range. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge have come up with a novel battery-making strategy that steers in that direction. For now, the new batteries can power only small devices. But if the strategy can be made to work on a larger scale, a task more difficult than just using more battery material, it could give electric car makers the jolt they need.

Today's most popular rechargeables, lithium ion batteries, are made from negative and positive electrodes separated by an electrolyte through which positively charged lithium ions can flow back and forth. In most such cells, the negative electrode is made of graphite, a form of layered carbon, whereas the positive electrode is made from lithium cobalt oxide or a related material. During use, lithium ions stored in the graphite flow to the lithium-based electrode, where they form chemical bonds with oxygen atoms, a reaction that generates an electric current. When the battery is recharged, the lithium-oxygen bonds break and an electric voltage pushes the ions back into the graphite.

Researchers have long sought to replace the graphite in the negative electrodes with carbon nanotubes, strawlike tubes of carbon. The hope is to create a more porous material with a higher surface area that could hold on to more lithium ions and thus make longer-lived batteries.

But in a paper posted online today in Nature Nanotechnology, the MIT team, led by materials scientist Yang Shao-Horn, took a very different approach: using carbon nanotubes to replace the oxide-based positive electrode. Normally, lithium ions wouldn't bind to plain carbon nanotubes. So Shao-Horn and her colleagues decorated the outer surfaces of their nanotubes with two different types of oxygen-containing chemical groups that gave them opposite charges. They then dipped their electrode starting materials alternatively in solutions containing the oppositely charged nanotubes, binding successive layers of tubes atop one another to build up their nanotube electrodes.

The result was a highly porous carbon nanotube electrode with lots of oxygens exposed on the surface, ready to bind with lithium. Detailed tests showed the new batteries hold five times as much energy as conventional quick-discharging devices called capacitors do, and they deliver that power 10 times as quickly as conventional lithium ion batteries can.

"This is certainly pioneering work," says Ray Baughman, a chemist at the University of Texas, Dallas. Baughman cautions, however, that the MIT team achieved its best results with very thin electrodes. The performance dropped off considerably as the electrodes were made thicker. Because thicker electrodes can store more charges, they allow a battery to hold more energy. So for now, hybrid batteries will be best suited to applications with low overall power demands, such as powering electronic circuitry in smart cards, credit cards with electronic chips that hold more information than magnetic strips do. For the batteries to be useful in hybrid cars or other power-hungry applications, researchers will need to find a way to make thicker electrodes that can still move charges quickly, a project Shao-Horn says she is working on now.

BP Death Clouds Already Onshore!

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:24:21 -0500

Consumer Deleveraging: The New Wall Of Worry

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:22:56 -0500

Everywhere one turns it seems that fear lurks just behind the corner, just waiting to pounce. Every day we’re bombarded by fear in the news headlines, be it from a financial, economic or geopolitical perspective. Nowhere is this more apparent than the current fear campaign over the U.S. debt situation, specifically, consumer deleveraging.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a commentary on consumer deleveraging. The article pointed to the sluggish job growth trend in spite of a bounce-back in corporate earnings and assigned the principle blame for this on consumer debt-cutting. The Fed announced earlier this week that consumer credit outstanding fell by $1 billion in April to $2.45 trillion, representing the 17th monthly decline in the past two years. WSJ points out that this is an unprecedented record in the 67-year history of the data set. "Just getting debt down to 18%," says the WSJ, "would require households to shed an additional $1.4 trillion of debt."　

Predictably, most economists are pessimistic on the prospects for a rebound in consumer spending. The major tool of the economist, linear extrapolation, leads most to assume that the consumer spending decline can only continue into the future, ad infinitum. "We've only just started the correction process," MFR Chief U.S. Economist Joshua Shapiro was quoted by WSJ as saying. Shapiro told WSJ he expects consumer spending to grow at only a 2.5% pace in the second half of this year and 2% in 2011.

The long-term graph of the consumer credit trend is fairly typical of where we are in the economic long wave, as well as the long-term Kress Cycles. As you can see, consumer credit outstanding peaked in the third quarter of 1984, which was exactly when the final 60-year Kress Cycle (the second one of the 120-year series) peaked. Since then, the long-term deflationary trend can be clearly seen in the consumer credit outstanding chart, which has made a series of lower highs and lower lows since the 1984 peak.

The long-term consumer credit trend also tends to fall precipitously during economic recessions, as you can see in the above chart. It tends to reverse higher following a recession and as you can see, the consumer credit trend has started to turn up since the beginning of this year.　

The WSJ article did make one prescient qualifying statement that, in my opinion, is probably the most likely outcome in the debt conundrum and one that analysts consistently understate, viz. debt repudiation. "Of course," writes WSJ, "it has rarely been wise to bet against the resiliency of the U.S. consumer. After all, many households are shedding debt now simply by defaulting on it." Of this we'll have more to say later on.　

"A rebound in home prices or a rally on Wall Street," concludes WSJ, "could give consumers a boost via the so-called wealth effect."

The “wealth effect” this article refers to is more likely to come from the rebound in stock prices. The widespread fears over debt levels and consumer deleveraging have acted as a pillar for the stock market’s “wall of worry” and should continue to do so. This high level of fear is being translated into a high short interest and put-call ratio in which the percentage of bears outnumbers the bulls. In a market which enjoys a rising interim trend, this high level of bearish sentiment tends to catalyze short-covering rallies at critical junctures, particularly when fear is at a heightened level.　

Another piece of news that crossed the financial news wires this week concerned the slowdown in mortgage delinquencies insured by the Federal Housing Administration. According to Monday's Wall Street Journal, home mortgages insured by FHA are falling into delinquency at a slower rate than they have in the past. If the trend is maintained, according to the WSJ, it could help the government agency avoid taxpayer bailout. April, the month for which the latest figures are available, was the third consecutive month in which delinquencies declined.　

Also worth mentioning is that the number of loans that were 90 days or more past due at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell in March for the first time in three years. Quoting from WSJ, "Last month, the Mortgage Bankers Association said that nationally, the number of loans that were 90 days or more past due fell to 9.54% at the end of March, from 9.67% at the end of 2009."

Lest you think a piece of seeming good news like this would be treated as such without qualification, WSJ was quick to add, "But even if the recent improvements continue, the mortgage market will remain troubled for some time because delinquencies are stabilizing at a horrendously high level....Banks have so many delinquent loans that it could take years to clear them out. An estimated 4.9 million borrowers were 90 days or more past due in foreclosure at the end of March, up from 3.7 million one year earlier, according to MBA's quarterly survey."

Here again we see the financial press snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in understating the positive and overstating the negative. The message of the financial market, which is the single most reliable indicator of future business conditions we have at our disposal, has been positive since last March. It accurately predicted the economic rebound from early 2009 onward and still hasn’t shown us that it’s time to be unduly worried about consumer deleveraging or the possibility of a “double dip” recession.

FYI, the web site http://www.calculatedriskblog.compublished a meaningful graph recently which shows the recovery trend in the labor market. It’s worth showing again here.

Gold price

The gold price had a nice little rally going on last week and our proxy for gold, the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD, 122.83), was up over 2% in the last couple of day and closed the latest week at a new high. We’ve been on a buy signal for GLD since the moving average confirmation signal The price for GLD ended up making a new high and has exceeded the pivotal 122 resistance level. Now that GLD has decisively cleared above 122 we could see additional buying interest in GLD from both the retail crowd as well as the hedge fund cliques. At the same time, we’ll also need to watch for potential short-term exhaustion since the move to new highs is already garnering headlines and is turning to the investor psychological profile for the yellow metal bullish. This will eventually work against the rally as the longs pile in and the smart money takes profits but for now the market’s forward momentum is still a force to be reckoned with.

Americans selling out, repo men getting shot at: Gulf Coast waits for the next shoe t

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:13:35 -0500

by Monica Davis

They're selling Junior's Superman cape. Fido's pedigree earned him a ticket to ride, and Freddie the prized tropical fish just got a fast case of sea sickness, after his owner filled a plastic bag with water and air and shipped his finny behind and a few of his friends across the country by parcel post.

You won't find the best gage of how scared Americans are in the headlines. If you want to know how scared and troubled our fellow citizens are, head to the corner bars and listen to the conversations. Look at the want ads. Join one of the on-line barter, trade or sell groups.

Then you will see how fearful we really are. People are having garage sales and auctions to raise money for everything from medical bills to living expenses. A Texas news outlet notes the trials and tribulations of a Texas woman who is raising money for a bone transplant;

After overcoming a paralyzing disease, then being diagnosed with Leukemia, a Lubbock woman is trying to raise money for a life saving bone marrow transplant. (SOURCE: KCBD NEWS )

And, before you say she should have medical insurance: she does. The insurance simply won't cover all of the transplant expenses. So her family and friends hope to raise big bucks through a series garage and yard sales and other fundraisers.

Medical expenses, rent, emergency car repairs. It seems that people are selling everything they can to get a stash of ready cash. From their children's spare (we hope) toys and clothes, to their pets, fish and comic collections, everything is for sale, up for grabs to the highest bidder. And, there are plenty of people who will tell you how to maximize your sales--if you don't know already.

The Yard Sale Queen will clue you in on "becoming yard sale savvy." Another yard sale entrepreneur will advise you on how to maximize your yard sale profits. Which can be a problem, given the many bargain hunters, thieves and con artists who are preying on everyone in sight.

The Tyler, Texas police department is hot on the trails of a bunch of counterfeiter who passed a bunch of fake bills at several local garage sales. According to news reports, local cops "... have released some descriptions of three suspects they are looking for. Two white females, one who is pregnant and one white male with a spider web tattoo on his left elbow."

But, many cities have ordinances controlling yard sales. You can't post a yard sale sign on public property, or in a utility easement in many cities. In my hometown, there's an ordinance against posting yard sale signs on utility poles--and you are limited in the number of sales you can have in a year. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't know the rules.

Some officious cops went after yard sale operators, turning a simple sale into a nightmare. The Canadian cops went after an elderly couple in Calgary in a nasty episode which had the couple in tears and their son on the warpath. News wires report that, "Police are apologizing after Don Bartole, 81, and wife Doreen, 82, were verbally berated by an officer who took issue with the placement of their garage sale signs."

Individuals are trying to raise money through yard sales, barter and trade groups and classified ads. However, non-profits and schools may be in for a rough ride when it comes to sales, fundraisers and auctions. Two years ago, before the economy went to pot, and before the Gulf oil catastrophe frightened the crap out of people, it was already getting tough for non-profits to raise money through auctions.

The uncertain economy is making it harder for schools to raise money through auctions, a study conducted by an online auction company reports. But with creativity and more lead time, an auction may still be- an excellent way to bring in cash for your school.

The survivalists are stocking up. People who consider themselves "just regular folk" are moving closer to the survivalist mode, selling many of their possessions, down sizing to rack up some spare cash "just in case."

But those in the know say cash isn't king in catastrophe. Barter is. Behold the future: neighborhood the garage sale/barter network.

Speaking of the future: repossession agents and foreclosure specialists are crawling out of the woodwork. Business is booming. An area car lot is advertising for a repo specialist. Of course, you have to have your own vehicle, nerves of steel--maybe a license to carry. On the job injuries come with the job--in a tight economy, people don't take vehicle repossession lying down, as this article from a Washington state newspaper shows.

Quote:Deputies were called to a Kingston house on June 6 by repossession agents. The repo men said they had loaded the repossessed (sic) car onto a tow truck when the 35-year-old and a Kingston woman approached and tried to stop them. The woman got in the car and tried to drive it off the tow truck, hitting one of the repo men in the leg. Read more

According to an internet source, being a repo man/woman isn't for the faint of heart or for those whose weight is less than the warrants that are out on them.

You have to be a smart, self starter, with go navigational skills. The job is not always at night, but of course requires night work and weekend work. Its a job of opportunity, meaning you have to be there when the car is available for a SAFE AND PEACEFUL recovery. When places have garages and such, you have to be able to go up talk to these people professionally and respectfully. Repo agents do make good money if you are working for a good reputable company. If you are a lazy butt, and just drive around form 9 to 5, and expect a car to just jump out at you with flashers on, you will not make money. You need a clean driving record, and a clean criminal history in order to obtain a repo license. (Source: Wikipedia )

Two weeks ago, a husband/wife repo team found out the hard way that repossessing a vehicle in the housing projects is risky business.

The victim told officers he was driving along the 2000 block of Bolt Drive with his wife searching for the vehicle to repossess around 1:30 a.m. when five men began shooting at his vehicle, police said. (Source: Augusta Chronicle)

Reacting to the story on the newspaper's blog, the victim of a bogus car repossession vented his ire:

Quote:I'll never forget a used car I'd just purchased...
The car was completely 100% paid for but the car dealer hadn't removed it from the repo-listings (previous buyer had financial issues). A repo-man stole a paid for car from me in the dead of night while I was asleep. I needed that car for transportation to work, for shopping, for taking my kid to daycare. For the normal business of daily life.

At the time I lived in a very rough neighborhood. I kept a 12gauge riot over my beds headrest. To this day I live with the certainty that if I would have woken-up I would have shot at him for trying to steal my car.

While this attitude might seem a little cowboy of me, realize that I was and am completely innocent of any crime - while he was completely untouchable of theft charges just because he was a repo-man. (Chronicle blog)

Things are getting desperate in many parts of the nation. Louisiana fishermen are losing the majority of their income because of the oil spill. They make the majority of their income in the first five months of the year. This oil spill means that they are losing a lot of money, and will be unable to pay their bills.

Even the rich and famous are having trouble paying their bills. One airplane repo artists said "...it's a boom time for this business, as you might imagine, as executives here, Canada and Latin America are all having to forfeit their big toys." Read more

Our fellow citizens are selling toys and furniture to make ends meet and sometimes even that isn't enough. When the repo men and foreclosure specialists come knocking on the doors of these angry fishermen, farmers and vehicle owners, they are apt to be met by angry, hopeless people.--even worse, angry people with guns. With rumors of mass evacuations, a 20 mile wide subsea explosive bubble of natural gas, and oil poisoning fish, farms and air, the potential for violence and death are increasing in the Gulf and around the nation.

How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:14:24 -0500

by Terrence Aym

Source: Helium

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

The same methane that makes coal mining operations hazardous and leads to horrendous mining accidents deep under the earth also can present a high level of danger to certain oil exploration ventures.

Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

According to some geological experts, BP's operations set into motion a series of events that may be irreversible. Step-by-step the drilling team committed one error after another.

Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-CA, and Bart Stupak, D-MI, in a letter sent to BP CEO Tony Hayward, identified 5 missteps made by BP during the period culminating with the explosion.

Waxman, chair of the Congressional energy panel and Stupak, the head of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said, "The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety."

The two Representatives also stated in the 14-page letter to Hayward that "Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense."

Called by some insiders investigating the ongoing disaster a "perfect storm of catastrophe," the wellhead blew on the sea floor catapulting a stream of mud, oil and gas upwards at the speed of sound.

In describing the events—that transpired in a matter of seconds—they note that immediately following the rupture the borehole pipe's casing blew away exposing a straight line 8 miles deep for the pressurized gas to escape. The result was cavitation, an irregular pressure variance sometimes experience by deep diving vessels such as nuclear submarines. This cavitation created a supersonic bubble of explosive methane gas that resulted in a supersonic explosion killing 11 men and completely annihilating the drilling platform.

Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.

The burgeoning toxic gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.

While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 100 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 6 inches above sea level. A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia—a state with no Gulf coastline—would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Loss of property is virtually incalculable and the days of the US position as the world's superpower would be literally gone in a flash...of detonating methane.

50 mile oil ‘patch’ just south of Florida Keys by June 19: Forecast

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:45:29 -0500

Latest HYCOM-GFS oilspill forecast shows a large stretch of oil approximately 15 miles south of the Florida Keys, near Marathon and Big Pine Key by this weekend.

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/50-mile-oil-patch-just-south-of-florida-keys-by-june-19-forecast

What may happen in 2012

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:36:51 -0500

Most of us have heard some of the theories about what may happen in 2012. Some people who suggest it is going to be a cataclysmic situation that results in the obliteration of mankind, and there are others who say it will be a time when man takes consciousness to a new level. The number of theories keeps adding up all the time. The latest theories are for 2012: Earth Changes, arrival of Planet X, giant solar storms, contact with Extra Terrestrial life, galactic alignment, and of course the destruction of the planet. But only God knows what will happen!

Obama To Use BP Oil Spill As An Opportunity To Push His Economy Killing Climate Chang

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:56:08 -0500

Mon Jun 14 2010 02:20

Never one to to allow a "good crisis" to go to waste, Barack Obama is pledging to use the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to push the U.S. Congress to pass his controversial climate bill. In fact, during a recent interview Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on. But the truth is that Obama's climate bill is the same economy killing legislation that it was before the BP oil spill. It would still drive gas and electricity prices through the roof, it would still cause large numbers of U.S. businesses to flee overseas, it would still be one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and it would still usher in an unprecedented era of climate fascism. But now thanks to the BP oil spill there is suddenly a lot more momentum in Congress for doing something about energy and about "climate change".

Source

Radiohead frontman: Music industry on verge of collapse

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:14:49 -0500

[/quoteRadiohead frontman Thom Yorke is warning the music industry is on the brink of collapse, insisting young musicians should resist signing record deals because the major labels will "completely fold" within months.

Thom Yorke of Radiohead performs during 'In Rainbows' tour in 2008 in London.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke is warning the music industry is on the brink of collapse, insisting young musicians should resist signing record deals because the major labels will "completely fold" within months.
The British rockers broke away from their longtime label, EMI, in 2007 and went on to embrace the new digital era with the release their seventh album, In Rainbows, which they offered up over the internet and allowed fans to choose the price.

Yorke has now issued a warning to upcoming artists, urging them not to sign traditional record deals because they would be tying themselves to "the sinking ship."

In an interview for a new high school textbook called The Rax Active Citizen Toolkit, which aims to inspire youngsters to become more politically literate, Yorke claims the music industry is on the verge of a major crisis and could collapse completely within "months".

He says, "It will be only a matter of time - months rather than years - before the music business establishment completely folds. (It will be) no great loss to the world."

-- World Entertainment News Network
http://blogs.chron.com/celebritybuzz/201...ndus.html#[/php]

Huge seas 'once existed on Mars'

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:30:41 -0500

The Hellas basin is the largest impact structure on Mars
US scientists have found further evidence that huge seas existed long ago on Mars.

A geological mapping project found sedimentary deposits in a region called Hellas Planitia which suggest a large sea once stood there.

The 2,000 km-wide, 8km-deep Hellas basin is a giant impact crater - the largest such structure on Mars.

The researchers say their data support a lake between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago.

Some scientists believe that conditions on Mars were more favourable for the evolution of life at this time than they were on Earth.

"This mapping makes geologic interpretations consistent with previous studies, and constrains the timing of these putative lakes to the early-middle Noachian period on Mars," said Dr Leslie Bleamaster, research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.

The researchers say that fine-layered outcrops around the eastern rim of Hellas are likely to be sedimentary deposits.

They were formed through the erosion and transport of rock and soil from the Martian highlands into a standing body of water.

The results support earlier studies of the western part of the Hellas basin.

Further study of the region could provide clues about where this water went and to how the Martian climate changed over geological history.

The mapping effort used data from a number of instruments aboard Nasa spacecraft, including the Viking orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_e...264182.stm

Cementing Becomes One Focus In Gulf Oil Probe

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:16:34 -0500

Quote: All the trading of BP shares, the Boots and Coots buyout - all point to foreknowlege.
Sending in SWAT teams and making the crew of Deepwater Horizon sign non-disclosure forms are 2 other suspicious things that point to intentional destruction.

A cementing job done by a Halliburton crew just hours before the oil accident in the Gulf of Mexico has emerged as a central focus of the investigation.

Bad cementing work has triggered leaks in the past, and some experts say it's hard to imagine a scenario where it was not part of the problem at the Deepwater Horizon well, too.

"That will certainly be a central part of the investigation," says Elmer "Bud" Danenberger, who recently retired as the chief of offshore oil regulations for the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

Still, experts say that even if cementing contributed, it was only one of a series of failures that resulted in an explosion that killed 11 people and sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Halliburton, the company responsible for the cementing, told members of Congress that it did its job correctly.

And it probably will take a long time before investigators know what, if anything, went wrong with the cementing, but experts and lawmakers have a lot of questions.

"I am suspicious that the cementing job played a role in this," says Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who heads the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

But he says he will withhold judgment pending a government inquiry.

"This is going be the biggest investigation that's taken place since Three Mile Island," Markey adds, referring to the 1979 nuclear plant meltdown. "We will have to go back and ensure that whatever happened never happens again."

Cementing Before The Explosion

Just 20 hours before the accident, a team from Halliburton was pumping cement into the Deepwater Horizon well.

There was already a pipe in the well for the oil to flow through, but no oil was supposed to flow yet. Cementing, one of the last steps in well construction, seals the crack between the pipe and the wall of rock. Crews pump the cement through the pipe, but it ends up on the outside of the pipe, in the space between the pipe and the rock wall. The cement also caps the bottom of the pipe.

Experts say there are several ways to botch a cement job. For instance, you could mix it incorrectly or not pump enough of it into the well.

If oil and gas are pushing through the rock into the drill hole anywhere along the length of the pipe, it might create a pocket that the cement would not fill in.

If that was the case, operators should have known about it because they would have had cement left over. It is kind of like baking — if the batter doesn't fit in the pan, it's a clue that something is amiss.

When drilling a well, the presence of leftover cement is a signal that pressure is rising back up the hole, probably from a mixture of oil, gas and other stuff.

"If some oil and gas were to invade the well, kind of get around the cement, if you will, before it dried, and then work its way up the well, then you could have a problem," says oil industry veteran Bruce Bullock, the director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University.

If there are gaps in the cement or it does not set correctly, oil and gas could surge up and out of the well. And if there's enough of it, it will explode, like Deepwater Horizon did.

A blowout preventer should stop a surge from causing a leak, but in this case it did not.

Cementing Implicated In Other Accidents

Still, Danenberger, the former regulator, says a cementing job should not create such a problem to begin with, because cementing is a standard part of drilling a well, and not even one of the riskiest steps.

"It's pretty established technology, and if you follow the right precautions and you monitor your information, it should be straightforward," Danenberger says.

But in recent years, cementing problems have become more prevalent.

Cementing contributed to half of the 39 U.S. blowouts between 1992 and 2006, according to a report that Danenberger co-authored in 2007.

After that, the government pushed to change cementing standards, but let the industry write them.

A cementing job done by Halliburton is also implicated in an Australian oil rig disaster last year that gushed oil into the Timor Sea for 74 days.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...=126536457