Archive for February, 2010
Britain: Manchester’s Central Library Moving Many Books to Deep Underground Salt Mines
February 26th, 2010Is the seed vault full? Via: Manchester Evening News: ONE million books from Manchester’s Central Library – including valuable volumes dating back to the 15th century – are to be put into temporarily storage with many going deep underground in the Cheshire salt mines. Works from the city’s reference library will be stored in the […]
Clinton: U.S. Deficit a National Security Issue
February 26th, 2010Via: Reuters: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said “outrageous” advice from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan helped create record U.S. budget deficits that put national security at risk. Appearing before congressional panels to defend the State Department’s $52.8 billion budget request for 2011, Clinton said the massive U.S. foreign debt had sapped […]
U.S. Senator Warns of ‘Financial Meltdown’ Risk
February 26th, 2010Via: Financial Times: The US is heading for a debt-driven “financial meltdown” within five to seven years [?], according to Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator for New Hampshire. In a robust and at times testy video interview for the Financial Times’s View from DC series, Mr Gregg also complimented China for showing rising alarm […]
Weaponizing Mozart: How Britain Is Using Classical Music as a Form of Social Control
February 26th, 2010Via: Reason: In recent years Britain has become the Willy Wonka of social control, churning out increasingly creepy, bizarre, and fantastic methods for policing the populace. But our weaponization of classical music—where Mozart, Beethoven, and other greats have been turned into tools of state repression—marks a new low. We’re already the kings of CCTV. An […]
Ex-Madoff Operations Director Arrested by FBI
February 25th, 2010Via: CNBC: A former executive for imprisoned swindler Bernard Madoff’s firm was arrested Thursday and charged with concealing the scope of its multibillion dollar fraud and using at least $750 million of investor money to support the company’s trading arm. The executive, Daniel Bonventre, was described by investigators as the director of operations of the […]
Senate Extends Patriot Act
February 25th, 2010Via: AP: Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the primary U.S counterterrorism law, stymied by Senate Republicans who argued the changes would weaken terror investigations. The proposed protections were cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Dashing the hopes of liberals, the Senate Wednesday night instead […]
Something Very Strange Is Happening With Treasuries
February 25th, 2010Related: In 2009, the Federal Reserve Bought 80% of U.S. Debt Via: NASDAQ: This means that the Treasury took up EVERY single cent of competitive bids coming from indirect buyers. Remember, indirect buyers are usually assumed to be foreign governments (even the Treasury website admits this). If this was the case yesterday, then foreign governments […]
Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide
February 25th, 2010But first, a quick walk down memory lane: Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won: In late October 2007, as the financial markets were starting to come unglued, a Goldman Sachs trader, Jonathan M. Egol, received very good news. At 37, he was named a managing director at the firm. Mr. Egol, a […]
Fed to Look Into Insurance Contracts on Greek Debt
February 25th, 2010Bernanke is going to get to the bottom of it??? Via: AP: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Thursday that the central bank is looking into the use by Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms of a sophisticated investment instrument to make bets that Greece will default on its debt. Bernanke said the […]
Do Toxins Cause Autism?
February 25th, 2010Just take a breath of fresh air. Via: New York Times: Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children. Over recent decades, other development disorders […]
