Archive for May, 2011
Massive Floods Extend Across Midwest, South
May 4th, 2011Via: CNN: An engorged Mississippi River spilled out onto huge swaths of farmland in the South and Midwest on Wednesday, prompting massive flooding from Minnesota to Louisiana. Heavy rains spawned flooding that meteorologists say is not expected to fully relent until early June. Areas along the Ohio River Basin also experienced heavy flooding, forcing residents […]
Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat)
May 4th, 2011If you are a faculty member of a university physics department (or other related discipline) and would like a comment to appear here, please email me from your university account. Know that your full name will appear along with the comment. Via: NyTeknik: In a detailed report, two Swedish physicists exclude chemical reactions as the […]
Blackwater’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft
May 4th, 2011Via: Wired: The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater. Ashcroft will head Xe’s new […]
The Global Economy’s Corporate Crime Wave
May 4th, 2011Via: Project Syndicate: The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it […]
Recovery: About 1 in 7 in U.S. Receive Food Stamps
May 4th, 2011Via: Christian Science Monitor: As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise. In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina. […]
Japanese Government Raises ‘Safe’ Radiation Limits So Children Can Legally Attend Schools That Have Been Covered in Fallout from Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
May 4th, 2011Via: Guardian: Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools. Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime […]
Deutsche Bank Faces U.S. Fraud Lawsuit Over Mortgage Lending
May 3rd, 2011via: Bloomberg: Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Germany’s biggest bank, was sued for more than $1 billion by the U.S. government, which claims it “repeatedly lied” so that thousands of risky mortgages qualified for a government insurance program. The Frankfurt-based bank and its MortgageIT unit falsely certified that borrowers didn’t face risk of default, qualifying the […]
Army Corps Detonates Explosives on Flood Levee
May 3rd, 2011Via: Reuters: The government on Monday detonated explosives to blow a hole in a flood levee on the Mississippi River and save several towns from being inundated, including Cairo, Illinois. Six plumes of flame rose from the area of the explosion and a loud boom was heard at about 10 p.m. local time, a Reuters […]
Resisting the Rise of the Machines as Marketing Meme to Sell Cars?
May 3rd, 2011Via: Dodge / YouTube: Related: Life in Touchscreen Hell
Japan: Kan, “Will Study the Possibility of Setting Up an Alternative Capital to Take Over Tokyo’s Role in an Emergency”
May 2nd, 2011Via: NHK: Kan said measures were not taken despite previous accidents and warnings, and that he must admit that the utility and the government failed to fully deal with the situation. He also suggested that he will study the possibility of setting up an alternative capital to take over Tokyo’s role in an emergency, saying […]
