Archive for August, 2011
Government Will Borrow $72 Billion in Debt Auctions Next Week
August 3rd, 2011Right back at it. Via: AP: The government will borrow $72 billion in debt auctions next week now that Congress has raised the nation’s borrowing limit. The Treasury Department says it will sell 3-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds to raise the money. About one-third will go to repay debts that are due on […]
Court Rules Pesticide Drifting Onto Organic Farm Constitutes Trespass
August 3rd, 2011Via: Star Tribune: Oluf Johnson’s 1,500-acre farm in Stearns County is an organic island in a sea of chemically treated corn and soybeans. Improperly applied pesticides repeatedly drift over from neighboring farms, often with dire consequences for Johnson. But now, thanks to a new court ruling, he and other farmers can sue to recover their […]
Tepco Reports Second Deadly Radiation Reading at Fukushima Nuclear Plant
August 3rd, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported its second deadly radiation reading in as many days at its wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo. The utility known as Tepco said yesterday it detected 5 sieverts of radiation per hour in the No. 1 reactor building. On Aug. 1 in another area it recorded radiation […]
SWITZERLAND TRIES TO SLOW RISE OF FRANC; CUTS INTEREST RATE
August 3rd, 2011Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. It’s starting: At a minimum, states will try unilateral capital controls in an attempt to prevent their currencies from disorderly appreciation vs. the toxic dollar. Via: New York Times: Switzerland’s central bank moved unexpectedly Wednesday to ease the pressure on the […]
Central Banks Join Rush to Gold
August 3rd, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: Central banks are ramping up their gold buying as they seek to diversify their reserves away from the dollar and other beleaguered currencies. South Korea became the latest government to disclose a big bullion purchase, saying Tuesday that it recently bought 25 metric tons – more than doubling its holdings to […]
Someone Strapped a Bomb Around the Neck of a Girl Who Is Part of One of Sydney’s Wealthiest Families
August 3rd, 2011Update: ‘Safe and Well’ Via: Sydney Morning Herald: An 18-year-old Sydney schoolgirl is safe and well after a ten-hour bomb ordeal in her Mosman house. —End Update— Via: Daily Telegraph: POLICE are trying to defuse a bomb strapped to a teenage girl at a multimillion dollar house at Burrawong Avenue in Mosman, Sydney. The drama […]
The Secret Patriot Act Is Staying Secret
August 3rd, 2011Via: Wired: The secret Patriot Act is staying secret. Two Senators have been warning for months that the government has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act so broad that it amounts to an entirely different law — one that gives the feds massive domestic surveillance powers, and keeps the rest of us in […]
U.S. Indirectly Arming Al-Qaida-Allied Somali Insurgents
August 3rd, 2011Via: Wired: Bad news in the five-year-old U.S. proxy war against al-Qaida–allied Somali insurgents. Half of the U.S.-supplied weaponry that enables cash-strapped Ugandan and Burundian troops to fight Somalia’s al-Shabab terror group is winding up in al-Shabab’s hands. The kicker: It’s the cash-strapped Ugandans who are selling the weapons to the insurgents. This revelation, buried […]
Moody’s Confirms U.S. AAA Rating; Food Stamp Use Rises to Record
August 3rd, 2011Just a quick juxtaposition of two stories to demonstrate how absurd the kabuki theater has become. Moody’s Confirms U.S. AAA Rating, Assigns Negative Outlook Record Numbers Are Receiving Food Stamps
‘The Chinese Guy’: Chinese Firm Floods U.S. with Fake IDs
August 3rd, 2011Via: Seattle Times / Washington Post: A Chinese company mails untold thousands of fake driver’s licenses to the United States, many of them to college students. Research Credit: ottilie
