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A combination of rains and accumulating sludge likely contributed to the disaster—one of two major ash pond collapses in the past decade. All told, about 2.6 million cubic yards of so-called coal ash slurry escaped, the TVA says. The collapsed pond is one of three on the site.

“We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide,” said Tom Kilgore, TVA president and CEO in an official statement today.

Such slurry worries environmentalists and public health activists because it is the residue of coal burning. The burning concentrates the impurities in the coal, including arsenic, lead and mercury, among many other potentially toxic contaminants. Coal ash is also radioactive.

But dealing with the 129 million tons of coal ash produced in the U.S. every year is not easy. Some 25 million tons of it is dumped in old coal mines, and some companies incorporate it into cement. The rest is typically dumped in landfills or stored in large coal-ash ponds like the one that collapsed. But many environmentalists argue for only disposing of it in lined landfills, to prevent contaminants from leaching out.

For the last several years, hiring in the United States Foreign Service was minimal because of a lack of Congressional funding. In addition, war has created an urgent need for diplomatic personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as officers have moved to these countries their previous jobs have remained unfilled.

So, in the last several months — with a new president on the horizon and new funding from Congress — both the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, are ramping back up.

A supplemental war funding bill, which became law in June, has provided money for Foreign Service hiring. And President-elect Barack Obama “has talked explicitly about the need to increase the Foreign Service and we hope he will make that a priority,” said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional association and labor union representing career diplomats.

The Fed announced late Wednesday that it had approved GMAC Financial Services’ request to become a bank holding company. That designation makes GMAC eligible to receive a portion of the bailout fund and get emergency loans directly from the Fed. The plan also significantly reduces the ownership stakes of GM and Cerberus Capital Management, LP., in GMAC.

Analysts had speculated that without financial help, GMAC would have had to file for bankruptcy protection or shut down, dealing a serious blow to GM’s own chances for survival. The Fed cited “emergency conditions” in justifying its decision.

Before the Fed’s decision, GMAC was facing a crucial deadline Friday to complete a deal with its bondholders that would allow it to exchange debt for equity. GMAC was struggling to convince investors to provide the capital that it desperately needed to win approval to become a bank holding company. The U.S. central bank acted before the debt deal deadline, which GMAC says still stands and will expire on Friday.

The Fed’s move to provide government aid to one of the nation’s biggest suppliers of auto loans was just the latest extension of the federal bailout program, initially designed to shore up ailing banks. As the credit crisis kept ballooning, the program expanded to include insurers, credit card companies, and the automakers themselves. Just last week, President George W. Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the industry, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans, and citing imminent danger to the national economy.

“To make the auto package complete they had to do something with the financing,” said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. “It’s really tied to the whole survival of the industry.”

“GMAC was basically frozen,” he said. The Fed’s move “has a huge impact on dealers and consumers. … The Fed wanted to avoid a disaster in the automotive sector very, very badly for the cascading factor it would have on the overall economy.”

Under the regulations, bailiffs for private firms would for the first time be given permission to restrain or pin down householders. They would also be able to force their way into homes to seize property to pay off debts, such as unpaid credit card bills and loans.

The government, which wants to crack down on people who evade debts, says the new powers would be overseen by a robust industry watchdog. However, the laws are being criticised as the latest erosion of the rights of the householder in his own home.

“These laws strip away tried and tested protections that make a person’s home his castle, and which have stood for centuries,” said Paul Nicolson, chairman of the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a London-based welfare charity. “They could clearly lead to violent confrontations and undermine fundamental liberties.”

Bailiffs have for hundreds of years been denied powers to break into homes for civil debt or to use force against debtors, except in self-defence. In a famous declaration, William Pitt the Elder, the 18th-century prime minister, said: “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown.” Ministers have now proposed bailiffs be given powers to physically remove debtors who try to defend their property, for example by draping themselves over a car or blocking the door of their home. Lord Bach, a junior justice minister, has assured the House of Lords that any new powers will be implemented only after a consultation and will not be used to search debtors’ pockets or to remove jewellery.

It emerged last week that Her Majesty’s Courts Service has already handed out guidance to privately employed bailiffs, pointing out that under legislation passed in 2004 they can already break down doors as a last resort to collect court fines.

Some restraint should be exercised, according to the “search and entry powers” guidelines. “If a person locks himself in their home, it might be reasonable to break open the door, but probably not to smash a hole in the wall,” it advises.

Details of the new guidelines were obtained under freedom of information laws. They say homes should not be broken into when nobody is in. Reasonable grounds for breaking down the door include the “movement of a curtain”, a radio being heard or a figure being spotted inside which “may be the offender”.

Societal overextension (overextension) occurs when a society’s lifestyle paradigm, its “way of life”, is enabled by the persistent overexploitation of ecological resources and economic resources.

In industrialized societies, ecological resources are the raw materials (natural resources) and waste repositories (natural habitats) that enable people to produce, provision, and utilize goods and services. Ecological resource overexploitation occurs when a society:

* Persistently utilizes renewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as water, croplands, pasturelands, fisheries, and forests, at levels greater than those at which Nature can replenish them;

* Persistently utilizes nonrenewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, and metals, which Nature does not replenish; and/or

* Persistently degrades atmospheric, aquatic, and terrestrial natural habitats that are critical to its existence, at levels greater than those at which Nature can regenerate them.

Economic resources provide the “purchasing power” that enables people to procure goods and services. Economic resource overexploitation occurs when a society:

* Persistently depletes its previously accumulated economic asset reserves;

* Persistently incurs intergenerational debt, which it has neither the capacity nor the intention to repay; and/or

* Persistently defers indefinitely investments critical to its future wellbeing.

An overextended society and its lifestyle paradigm are unsustainable, and will inevitably collapse.

…

The prevailing American perception[31] is that “our system is broken” and must therefore be “fixed”, or “rescued”, or “bailed out”… This perception is fundamentally inaccurate; as a result, the proposed prescription is fatally flawed.

As the preceding analysis clearly demonstrates, we are irreparably overextended—living hopelessly beyond our means, ecologically and economically[32]. Our resource utilization behavior, which enables our “system”—our American way of life—is detritovoric[33]; that is, we are systematically eliminating the very ecological resources and economic resources upon which our ever-increasing population and our historically unprecedented living standards depend.

The inescapable conclusion is that our American way of life is not sustainable—it cannot, therefore, be “fixed”; it must be displaced[34]. Desperate and futile attempts to perpetuate our existing lifestyle paradigm simply waste remaining, and increasingly scarce, time and resources.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. Police did not find a suicide note.

De la Villehuchet was one of several money managers and investors left reeling in the wake of Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, and his suicide demonstrates how the repercussions of this gigantic scam are intensifying by the day.

De la Villehuchet, 65, was a distinguished financier who came from a long line of aristocratic Frenchmen, and he tapped his connections in the world of European high society to attract clients to his firm, Access International Advisors. It was not immediately clear how he knew Madoff or who his clients were.

He grew increasingly subdued after the Madoff scandal broke, arousing suspicion among janitors in his Madison Avenue office tower Monday night when he demanded that they be out of there by 7 p.m. Less than 13 hours later, a security guard checked on him in his 22nd-story office suite. But de la Villehuchet was dead — a trash can placed near his body to apparently catch the blood, Browne said.

His death came as swindled investors began looking for ways to recoup their losses. Funds that lost big to Madoff are also coming up against investor lawsuits and backlash for failing to properly vet Madoff and overlooking some red flags that could have steered them away. It’s not immediately known what kind of scrutiny de la Villehuchet was facing over his losses.

De la Villehuchet (pronounced veel-ou-SHAY) comes from rich French lineage, with the Magon part of his name referring to one of France’s most powerful families. The Magon name is even listed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a world-famous monument that was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806.

“He’s irreproachable,” said Bill Rapavy, who was Access International’s chief operating officer before founding his own firm in 2007.

The Frenchman’s firm enlisted intermediaries with links to upper-crust Europeans to garner investors. Among them was Philippe Junot, a French businessman and friend who is the former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Prince Michel of Yugoslavia.

De la Villehuchet, the former chairman and CEO of Credit Lyonnais Securities USA, was also known as a keen sailor who regularly participated in regattas and was a member of the New York Yacht Club.

He lived in an affluent suburb in Westchester County with his wife, Claudine. They have no children. There was no answer Tuesday at the family’s two-story house. Phone calls to the home and de la Villehuchet’s office went unanswered.

Guy Gurney, a British photographer living in Connecticut, was friends with de la Villehuchet. The two often sailed together and competed in a regatta in France in November.

“He was a very honorable man,” Gurney said. “He was extraordinarily generous. He was an aristocrat but not a snob. He was a real person. When he was sailing, he was one of the boys.”

The two were supposed to have dinner last Friday but Gurney called the day before to cancel because of the weather. But during the call, de la Villehuchet revealed he had been ensnared in the Madoff deceit.

“He sounded very subdued,” Gurney said.

Gurney said de la Villehuchet was happily married to his wife.

The Bush administration doesn’t want to wait to find out. It’s planning to test the incoming government’s readiness next month in a series of tabletop exercises involving top Bush and Obama officials.

Concerned about the first handoff of presidential power since Sept. 11, 2001, the White House also is preparing briefing books and office manuals designed to bring the incoming Obama administration up to speed in a hurry.

“This is the first wartime transition in 40 years, and it’s probably the first transition in a couple of centuries in which our homeland itself has been under threat,” says White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who’s supervising the effort. The goal is to “make sure that those who are coming in are as well prepared as they can be to deal with an actual threat here in this country.”

Although Obama’s emerging team includes many former Clinton administration officials and members of Congress, most have not served in the executive branch since the Department of Homeland Security was created. That makes it critically important that they quickly understand the federal government’s terrorism-response capabilities.

White House officials have not said what specific scenarios will be played out in next month’s exercises. One overriding concern since 2001 has been the possibility that Washington comes under attack. In that case, plans would need to be in place for the replacement of key government officials.

“They would be smart to be thinking about these things,” says John Fortier, executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission, created by Congress in 2002 to help plan for terrorist attack aftermaths. “You face a lot of perverse scenarios.”

Norman Ornstein, a presidential and congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has participated in similar tabletop exercises, says the Bush administration’s preparation efforts are “fabulous.”

“No president coming in in the past has had a ready-made crisis management process in place,” Ornstein says.

The briefings and test-runs on domestic terrorist attacks are just part of a broad White House effort to make this the smoothest transition of power in history.

“This … isn’t about good manners,” Bolten says. “It’s about preparing the next administration to deal with the challenges that the country faces. It’s about our responsibility to the public more than it is about our responsibility to each other.”

Over the past month, federal agencies have hosted scores of meetings with members of Obama’s transition team and prepared reams of documents — manuals for key White House offices, briefing books for key federal agencies and issue briefs on pending policy matters ranging from the threat of pandemic flu to relations with North Korea.

“This is not intended as the administration’s attempt to dictate what the next administration does,” Bolten says. “It’s intended completely in the spirit of, ‘Here’s what we know, you take it from here.’ ”

That passing of the torch began at the top the week after Election Day, when President Bush hosted Obama in the Oval Office.

Neither the 43rd nor the incoming 44th president has revealed much about that private talk or any phone conversations they have had since then.

“I was impressed by the questions he asked,” Bush said last week. “And I told him I wouldn’t reveal them, so that if he ever asked for my advice again, he would feel comfortable doing it.”

Bolten says that Bush and Obama “have already established a good relationship of candor.”

Similar relationships are forming between outgoing and incoming officials. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for instance, has met and dined with Obama’s choice for the job, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Perhaps the most robust transition was organized by Bolten for his successor, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. Earlier this month, Bolten invited the 16 living former White House chiefs of staff to breakfast at the White House “to meet the newest member of the club and provide some counsel.” Thirteen showed up, including two who date to the Ford administration — Vice President Cheney and his mentor, former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The prospect of the chip, which could be a decade away, is emerging from progress in deep brain stimulation, in which tiny shocks from implanted electrodes are given to the brain. The technology has been used in America to treat Parkinson’s disease.

In recent months scientists have been focusing on an area of the brain just behind the eyes known as the orbitofrontal cortex. This is associated with feelings of pleasure derived from eating and sex.

A research survey conducted by Morten Kringelbach, senior fellow at Oxford University’s department of psychiatry, and reported in the Nature Reviews Neuroscience journal, found that the orbitofrontal cortex could be a “new stimulation target” to help people suffering from anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from such activities. Stimulating this area can produce pleasure as intense as “devouring a delicious pastry”, he said.

His colleague Tipu Aziz, a professor of neurosurgery at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, predicted a significant breakthrough in the science behind a “sex chip” within 10 years.

“There is evidence that this chip will work,” Aziz said last week. “A few years ago a scientist implanted such a device into the brain of a woman with a low sex drive and turned her into a very sexually active woman. She didn’t like the sudden change, so the wiring in her head was removed.”

The wiring remains a hurdle: Aziz says current technology, which requires surgery to connect a wire from a heart pacemaker into the brain, causes bleeding in some patients and is “intrusive and crude”.

By 2015, he predicts, micro-computers in the brain with a range of applications could be self-powered and controlled by hand-held transmitters.

“When the technology is improved, we can use deep brain stimulation in many new areas. It will be more subtle, with more control over the power so you may be able to turn the chip on and off when needed.

“In 10 years’ time the range of therapies available will be amazing – we don’t know half the possibilities yet,” he said.

An electronic machine that generates sexual sensations is already under development by a North Carolina doctor, Stuart Meloy, who is modifying a spinal cord stimulator to produce pleasure in women. He calls it the Orgasmatron, a name taken from an orgasm-producing device in the 1973 Woody Allen film Sleeper. A similar device, the Excessive Machine, featured in Jane Fonda’s 1968 film, Barbarella.

Some critics regard the techniques as only a step away from brain washing.