Author: Brian

There’s a lot of hype out there about “piracy”: Mother of Sales

The RNC, McCain, and the superstitious denialists crowing about mystic markets, promoting corporate welfare and lazy government, used the 2008 election season to urge privatization of social security and medicare. Operated by listed firms, they said their ‘free market’ is the answer.

The S&P 500 is down 39.22% from Dec. 31, 1999 through Monday’s close, the worst decade ever.

“The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone. Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He wasn’t politically active and hadn’t taken part in the turmoil that has rocked Iran for over a week, they said.

“Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a ‘bullet fee’ — a fee for the bullet used by security forces — before taking the body back [from the government].”

Astronauts on the Space Station took this photo of the initial blast of a volcanic eruption northeast of Japan.

The huge plume of ash and steam billowing skyward created a shock wave in the atmosphere.

The smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column.

At Edge, Lera Boroditsky asks whether the language we speak shapes what we think.

Even what might be deemed frivolous aspects of language can have far-reaching subconscious effects on how we see the world.

A comprehensive summary of world and U.S. economies:

…the world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30.

Looking just at the US leads one to overlook how alarming the current situation is even in comparison with 1929-30.

The good news, of course, is that the policy response is very different. The question now is whether that policy response will work.

John Mauldin

Not a single top executive of a Wall Street securities firm responsible for causing the financial crisis has had the courage or the decency to step forward in front of the cameras and explain to the American people in his own words exactly how and why he allowed his firm to cause the crisis.

Rigging:

An analysis of official statistics from Iran’s Interior Ministry by Britain’s Chatham House think-tank suggested that in the conservative Mazandaran and Yazd provinces, turnout was more than 100 percent.

It said that in a third of all provinces, official results would have required Ahmadinejad to take all former conservative, centrist and all new voters, and up to 44 percent of reformist voters, “despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.”

Jesus and Mohammad discuss erroneous conclusions.

Florida’s St. Petersburg Times is stepping out with a detailed report on Scientology. After posting the first chapter, buzz is abounding.

Scientology: The Truth Rundown
High-ranking defectors provide an unprecedented inside look at Scientology…

Scientology: ‘We’ll take care of her’
New details about the case of Lisa McPherson, who died in the care of Scientologists, from the executive who directed the Church of Scientology’s handling of the case.

Scientology: No Escape From Reality
Four high-ranking defectors describe bizarre behavior and physical beatings inflicted by Scientology leader David Miscavige.

The reporters interviewed the four defectors multiple times, and met with church spokesmen and lawyers for 25 hours.

Government officials in Britain admitted last night that illness rates from the swine flu virus could reach 50 per cent.

Based on this figure, the workforce could be reduced by 15-20 per cent at the pandemic’s peak. In the unlikely event that every school closed, this could rise to 35 per cent.”

As part of ongoing planning, the NHS is being asked to ensure that antiviral collection points could, if needed, be put into action in a week.”

Deflation is a “significant risk” as a result of the pandemic’s impact on the economy – putting back economic recovery by two years, says the report.

A $2.5 trillion cut in global GDP is a possibility – with a flu outbreak in the autumn hitting the world economy just as it starts to recover from the credit crunch.

Don’t blame the messenger.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says car air conditioners account for seven billion gallons of gasoline, about six percent of the nation’s total yearly fuel consumption. Refrigerant leaks are responsible for 50 million metric tons of CO2 emissions a year.

House GOP submits energy plan centered on 100 new nuclear reactors in the next decade.

More at Knight Science Tracker

Was it that long ago? In April 2007, the FDA received 12,000 pet food complaint calls, more in one month than any entire year for any product. The company that imported the bulk melamine labeled wheat gluten issued a press release:

ChemNutra states that the firm “imports quality ingredients from China to the U.S. for the feed, food and pharma industries.

“We are a professionally managed, American owned company experienced in negotiating, securing and delivering ultra-competitive pricing on high-quality chemicals and ingredients from quality-assured manufacturers in China.

“We bridge the business and cultural gaps…including all regulatory, compliance, import and transportation requirements.”

But as the wheels of justice turn, ChemNutra officers have pleaded guilty to distributing a tainted ingredient used to make pet food that reportedly killed thousands of animals.

Deny it at your peril.

This is the hilarious paradox of America, of modern life in general.

We do not actually want complete freedom. We don’t even understand what the hell such an unfettered beast would entail, really. As Thomas Hobbes so famously said, were mankind to live in a true state of nature, free of structure and laws and our million beloved social contracts, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” And who the hell wants that?

Most of us don’t really want government to stop protecting us from the world and ourselves, the FDA to stop making sure our foods aren’t poisonous, the EPA to stop checking on the water supply, the myriad agencies to stop making sure we don’t die every single day from 1,000 slings and arrows and outrageous growth hormones and insane militant right-wing murderous gun nuts.

How furious we get when something goes wrong because the government failed to regulate! How angry we get that the agency didn’t do its job, the law wasn’t enforced, the police didn’t respond, the rules were not followed, the warning label not clearly displayed, the restaurant not inspected, the meat not real, the doctor not certified, the corporation not ethical, the pothole not filled!

And yet we seem reluctant to claim it.

The idea that we are trying to create a culture whose primary satisfaction is its beauty is not really such an extravagant thought. When we say that we desire a world in which nature is intact and animal life thrives; when we say that we desire human communities in harmony with nature; and when we say that within those communities human beings should be able to live in dignity, so that they can be something more than worker-consumers, we are arguing for a reality that is first aesthetic. Environmentalists argue for such a reality all the time. It is what they propose in the place of a barbaric culture of profit and violence. Even so, we are often seduced by the economic and scientific appeals to efficiency, sustainability, and prosperity, in spite of the fact that we suspect that these appeals are actually part of the problem. But in our heart of hearts we are not fooled. What we want is the beautiful.

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” – Albert Einstein

Handwashing is the primary means to stop the spread of the H1N1.

The White House sent a letter to every public school superintendent that outlines how to encourage handwashing to slow swine flu.

via barfblog

Have you ever thought about chewing gum? Asked any Mayan archaeologist lately?

By the late 1880s, Adams produced five tons of chewing gum daily. By 1930, chicle forests were nearly extinct, thus we’ve been chewing flavored petroleum and wax.

But now, the world’s first biodegradable chewing gum is coming to market.

link to Smithsonian

American Fez on bathroomology:

As there was no “business” to discuss at our morning meeting, some overbearing busybody with nothing better to do brought up the tedious topic of office etiquette. “I wish the guys among us would remember to put the seat down in the bathroom,” she bleated.

A reasonable enough request, no doubt, in normal circumstances, and normally I would have left the matter there, but the speaker was a grotesque and miserable cow whom I detest, so I didn’t.

“That seems a pretty old-fashioned and sexist code of conduct to me.” I said. “Since we are all equal at work these days maybe we should make an effort to be equal in the toilet also.”

I could almost hear the eyes-rolling in my colleagues’ heads, but bravely forged ahead with my argument anyway.

“Of course, I’m not suggesting that ladies should leave the seat up every other day on some kind of rota system,” I explained. “But if both men and women left the seat at a forty-five degree diagonal twixt bowl and the cistern, well, perhaps then we can achieve some sort of bathroomological gender parity on this issue.”

Unfortunately everybody ignored me.

“I was thinking it would be a simple matter of tightening the toilet seat hinges themselves, so that the seat can remain immovably elevated at the correct angle when the toilet isn’t in use,” I added to a quickly emptying conference room.

If boomers had any time, would they march in the streets?

“The home price declines to date have resulted in negative equity for approximately 50% of the remaining performing borrowers in the 2005-2007 vintages.

In addition to continued home price deterioration, unemployment has risen significantly since the third quarter of last year, particularly in California where the unemployment rate has jumped from 7.8% to 11%… The projected losses also reflect an assumption that from the first quarter of 2009, home prices will fall an additional 12.5% nationally and 36% in California, with home prices not exhibiting stability until the second half of 2010.

To date, national home prices have declined by 27%. Fitch Rating’s revised peak-to-trough expectation is for prices to decline by 36% from the peak price achieved in mid-2006. The additional 9% decline represents a 12.5% decline from today’s levels.”

So, what does an aging population do that has seen its retirement nest egg in the form of housing and stocks go literally nowhere for 12 years? You go back to work! David Rosenberg, now with Gluskin Sheff, offers us this insight:

“What really struck us in the employment report of a few weeks ago was the fact that the only segment of the population that is gaining jobs is the 55+ age category. This group gained 224,000 net new jobs in May while the rest of the population lost 661,000. In fact, over the last year, those folks 55 and up garnered 630,000 jobs whereas the other age categories collectively lost over six million positions. This is epic.”

“Moreover, the number of 55 year olds and up who have two jobs or more has risen 1.1% in the last year, the only age cohort to have managed to gain any multiple jobs at all. Remarkable.

“These folks have seen their wealth get destroyed by two bubble-busts less than seven years apart — the Nasdaq nest egg back in 2001 and the 5,000 square foot McMansion in 2007.

“Both bubbles ended in tears … and so close together.”

John Mauldin’s Newsletter

Obama found out that only half of all cardiac guidelines are based on scientific evidence — half.

Rush University Medical Center:

After adjusting for age, sex, education and race, a higher purpose of life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of mortality.

Thus, a person with high purpose in life was about half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared to a person with low purpose.

The association of purpose in life with mortality did not differ among men and women or whites and blacks, and the finding persisted even after controlling for depressive symptoms, disability, neuroticism, the number of medical conditions and income.

The AMA only represents 15.0% or 135,300 practicing physicians in its 250,000 membership from approximately 900,000 practicing physicians in America. Since 1918 the Association is strongly against public health insurance. link

“William McGuire while running United Health Insurance received $1.6 billion in stock options from an insurance company doing its best not to provide health insurance,” cites Senator Bernie Sanders. link

FTTP (fiber to the premises) can boost the US economy by at least $440 Billion.

Full Broadband rollout can boost $110 billion per 30 million people.

There is about a 15% productivity boost from broadband.

Various studies calculate over 10 times GDP return from each dollar invested in broadband.

Scaling to gigabit access could increase GDP by about an extra 3% per year.

I think there are rational pointers here, in this calm conversation at UK’s Guardian with economist Paul Krugman:

The idea that we sort of bounce along the bottom is all too easy to imagine.

Guardian: Is it just a story about the right dose of fiscal policy? What structural change would you advocate in the economy, to support recovery?

Krugman: Financial regulation. Rein in that monster. The huge increase in general private-sector leverage is at the core of how we got so vulnerable. We went for 50 years after the Great Depression without any major financial crises, and that, I think, was because we had a financial sector that didn’t let people get as deeply into debt as they have now.

Guardian: So rein in the financial monster and give a fiscal stimulus. So you would leave the American way of doing capitalism untouched?

Krugman: I’m not that cosmic in this stuff. But it is true that Gordon Gekko [the anti-hero of Oliver Stone’s film Wall Street, motto: Greed is Good] went hand in hand with the wave of financialisation. Corporations got more brutal and fiercer.

Our skin is colonized by 1,000 species of bacteria.

100 billion individual bacteria live on our 19 square feet of skin.

Bacteria have colonized us inside and out.

And we’re just finding this out for the first time.