The End of QEII: It’s Time to Make the Donuts
April 26th, 2011Via: PIMCO:
Just as Charles Ponzi needed donuts to turn back a suspicious crowd of investors, the Fed needs “donuts” in order to fill the bellies of the literally millions of investors worldwide who worry about the alarmingly large U.S. budget deficit and the impact that the U.S. debt dilemma could have on their Treasury holdings. Investors are no doubt worried they may have bought into an unsustainable scheme: the creation of a scourge of debt so large that the Fed itself has had to purchase the debt to keep the game going.
Al-Qaida Bomber Worked for MI6
April 26th, 2011Via: Guardian:
An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as a “facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al-Qaida”, was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and later sent to Guantánamo Bay.
But according to Hamlili’s Guantánamo “assessment” file, one of 759 individual dossiers obtained by the Guardian, US interrogators were convinced that he was simultaneously acting as an informer for British and Canadian intelligence.
Kings Point, New York: ‘The Most Extensive Municipal Surveillance System In The United States’
April 26th, 2011Via: CBS:
The wealthy Long Island village is planning an extensive network of security cameras that scan license plates to help reduce the number of property and home invasion crimes.
The 3.3-square mile North Shore community is home to 5,000 residents. The plan calls for 44 cameras to eventually be installed at the village’s 19 entrances. That’s about one camera for every 120 people.
Mayor Michael Kalnick said the project is needed to protect residents.
The system runs the license plate scan through criminal databases and if a match is found immediately notifies police.
Dollar: All Time Low vs. Swissy
April 26th, 2011Via: AFP:
The euro struck a 16-month high against the dollar and the Swiss franc notched a record high versus the US unit Tuesday amid heightened investor nerves over this week’s busy economic calendar.
The European single currency hit $1.4653 in morning trade, the highest point since mid-December 2009, as many dealers returned from a long holiday weekend. It later stood at $1.4619, compared with $1.4572 late in New York on Monday.
The dollar meanwhile tumbled to an all-time low point of 0.8745 Swiss francs.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Scientists Develop Inexpensive Catalysts for Fuel Cells
April 26th, 2011Read this one within the context of Daniel Nocera’s artificial leaf technology.
Via: Science Daily:
Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles.
…
Polymer-electrolyte hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. The cells can be enlarged and combined in series for high-power applications, including automobiles. Under optimal conditions, the hydrogen fuel cell produces water as a “waste” product and does not emit greenhouse gasses. However, because the use of platinum in catalysts is necessary to facilitate the reactions that produce electricity within a fuel cell, widespread use of fuel cells in common applications has been cost prohibitive. An increase in the demand for platinum-based catalysts could drive up the cost of platinum even higher than its current value of nearly $1,800 an ounce.
The Los Alamos researchers developed non-precious-metal catalysts for the part of the fuel cell that reacts with oxygen. The catalysts — which use carbon (partially derived from polyaniline in a high-temperature process), and inexpensive iron and cobalt instead of platinum — yielded high power output, good efficiency, and promising longevity. The researchers found that fuel cells containing the carbon-iron-cobalt catalyst synthesized by Wu not only generated currents comparable to the output of precious-metal-catalyst fuel cells, but held up favorably when cycled on and off — a condition that can damage inferior catalysts relatively quickly.
Moreover, the carbon-iron-cobalt catalyst fuel cells effectively completed the conversion of hydrogen and oxygen into water, rather than producing large amounts of undesirable hydrogen peroxide. Inefficient conversion of the fuels, which generates hydrogen peroxide, can reduce power output by up to 50 percent, and also has the potential to destroy fuel cell membranes. Fortunately, the carbon- iron-cobalt catalysts synthesized at Los Alamos create extremely small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, even when compared with state-of-the-art platinum-based oxygen-reduction catalysts.
Research Credit: BM
The U.S. State Department’s Proposed Biographical Questionnaire for Passport Applicants
April 26th, 2011Via: Papers Please:
The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for passport applicants. The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a variety of other information. According to the proposed form, “failure to provide the information requested may result in … the denial of your U.S. passport application.”
Research Credit: neverwas
U.S. Dollar: Make or Break
April 26th, 2011WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell of hold any financial instrument.
Update: Next Leg Down
73.562
—End Update—
73.833; trying for the next leg down.
Resistance is just ahead at 73.735. Pare it down, lock it in, don’t get greedy, etc. This is a local support, though, and probably not strong.
Related:
U.S. DOLLAR INDEX: INTRADAY DOWNSIDE BREACH 74.170
Syrian Army Slaughters Anti Government Protestors
April 26th, 2011Via: Deutsche Welle:
Syrian troops have stormed the city of Daraa, where anti-regime protests began last month. Four European countries, including Germany, have called on the UN Security Council to condemn the violence and urge restraint.
Thousands of Syrian troops backed by tanks entered the southern city of Daraa early Monday, firing indiscriminately and leaving bodies lying in the streets, activists said.
The army entered the town overnight in an apparent crackdown against the ongoing anti-government protests which began a month ago.
International and Arab journalists are banned from reporting in Syria, so there was no way to obtain independent confirmation of the figures – although activists say at least 18 people were killed on Monday. Phone lines and electricity were also cut off in the area, but some mobile lines were still working.
“I can tell you 3,000 troops entered the city and they are currently raiding homes in Daraa,” a Syrian taxi driver who lives in Daraa told the German news agency DPA.
“There are many casualties and ambulances are unable to move due to the heavy shooting,” he said.
A witness told the Reuters news agency he saw bodies in the street after hundreds of soldiers in armored vehicles poured into Daraa.
Speaking on Syrian state television, a military official said the troops had been invited in by citizens of Daraa, “who urged the armed forces to intervene in the killings and destruction by extremist terrorist groups.”
17% of Full-Time Employed Americans Raiding Retirement Funds Early
April 26th, 2011I thought that this was worth mentioning, despite the cringe inducing consumers this, consumers that nonsense.
Via: Bankrate:
Nearly one-fifth of full-time employed Americans have raided retirement accounts in the past year to cover emergencies, according to a national Bankrate survey.
Despite increasing signs of a stabilizing U.S. economy, 19 percent of Americans — including 17 percent of full-time workers — have been compelled to take money from their retirement savings in the last year to cover urgent financial needs, the Financial Security Index found.
Though 80 percent of full-time workers didn’t dip into retirement funds, far too many consumers are ill-prepared for emergencies, says Kim McGrigg, manager of community and media relations at Money Management International, a credit counseling agency.
“Perhaps the most alarming thing about these numbers is that they suggest a lack of other options,” she says. “Consumers generally consider using retirement funds only as a last resort.”
Nearly 500 Taliban Break Out of Prison
April 25th, 2011Via: AFP:
Almost 500 Taliban fighters and commanders tunnelled out of a prison in an audacious jailbreak in southern Afghanistan which the government admitted on Monday was a security “disaster”.
The Taliban said it was behind the operation to free the inmates through a 360-metre tunnel into Kandahar prison which it been digging for five months. It claimed all those who escaped were Taliban, including over 100 commanders.
The daring breakout in the Taliban’s heartland, the prison’s second in three years, threatens to undermine recent gains claimed by NATO forces in the area after a US-led troop surge, just as the annual fighting season begins.
It is also a major embarrassment for Afghan forces who are due to take on greater responsibility for security in their country ahead of the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.
“A tunnel hundreds of metres long was dug from the south of the prison into the prison, and 476 political prisoners escaped last night,” prison director General Ghulam Dastageer Mayar said.
The escapees, who represent over a third of the prison’s total population, came from its political section, he added.
Kandahar prison is the largest in southern Afghanistan and holds Taliban captured on nearby battlefields, which are among the country’s bloodiest.
Confirming the breakout, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer said he believed only 13 of the escapees had been recaptured so far.
“This is a blow, it’s something that should not have happened,” he said.
“We’re looking into finding out what exactly happened and what’s being done to compensate for the disaster that happened in Kandahar.”
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the Islamist militants were responsible for the mass breakout, which took place over several hours.
A separate Taliban statement said they had started digging the tunnel from a nearby safe house five months ago and that it passed under several government checkpoints and a major highway.
