British Household Debts Reach Record High
December 14th, 2010Via: Independent:
More than half of households are struggling to repay credit cards and loans, a Bank of England survey suggested today.
A total of 51% of respondents reported that their unsecured debts were a “burden” – a record high for the annual study.
Illustrating the financial pressures faced by millions, one in two households also said they had seen their disposable income fall over the past year.
More than a quarter – or 28% – said their monthly earnings had fallen by more than £100 during that time, with just 14% saying it had gone up.
Afghanistan: Petraeus Triples Air War
December 14th, 2010Via: Wired:
November is ordinarily the month when the air war in Afghanistan — and really, the whole American-led campaign — ratchets down for the winter. This November, with Gen. David Petraeus in charge of the war effort, things have been different. Radically different. NATO fighter jets and attack planes launched their bombs and missiles on 850 separate missions this November. That’s three-and-a-half times the number of attack sorties they flew in November 2009.
Next House Finance Chairman Declares: Regulators Exist to Serve the Banks
December 14th, 2010Via: Raw Story:
Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus, the incoming chairman of the House banking committee, suggested Congress and federal regulators should play a subservient role with banks.
“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” Bachus told The Birmingham News in an interview.
The Republican leadership last week designated Bachus the next chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which is tasked with overseeing banks, financial markets, housing and consumer credit.
Grand Compromise or Great Conspiracy?
December 14th, 2010Via: Money and Markets:
When Americans went to the polls last month, many thought they were voting for a return of fiscal sanity in Washington. And with fiscal sanity, we’d have far better assurance of bond-market stability.
Instead, three houses of ill repute — two on Capitol Hill and one on Pennsylvania Avenue — are joining to deliver one of the most wanton, deficit-busting, bond-wrecking bills of all time.
What most people seem to overlook is that there are actually two bills in the works. There’s the bill Congress will pass this year. And there’s the bill you and I will have to pay next year, the year after, and perhaps till the day we die.
President Obama and the Republican leadership are calling it a “grand compromise to stimulate the economy.”
In reality, it’s little more than a great conspiracy to slaughter our nation’s finances.
Scientist Warns of Dire Consequences with Widespread Use of Glyphosate (RoundUp)
December 14th, 2010Grim.
Via: Organic Consumers:
In a paper published in the European Journal of Agronomy in October 2009, Huber and co-author G.S. Johal, from Purdue’s department of botany and plant pathology, state that the widespread use of glyphosate that we see today in agriculture in the United States can “significantly increase the severity of various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable for plant use.”
Further, the authors state that glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium and “can have serious consequences for sustainable production of a wide range of susceptible crops.” The authors warn “ignoring potential non-target detrimental side effects of any chemical, especially used as heavily as glyphosate, may have dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious. To do otherwise might well compromise not only agricultural sustainability, but also the health and well-being of animals and humans.”
Research Credit: RJF
Stallman Continues to Warn Against Cloud Computing as Google Gets Ready to Push ChromeOS
December 14th, 2010Via: Guardian:
Google’s new cloud computing ChromeOS looks like a plan “to push people into careless computing” by forcing them to store their data in the cloud rather than on machines directly under their control, warns Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the operating system GNU.
Two years ago Stallman, a computing veteran who is a strong advocate of free software via his Free Software Foundation, warned that making extensive use of cloud computing was “worse than stupidity” because it meant a loss of control of data.
Now he says he is increasingly concerned about the release by Google of its ChromeOS operating system, which is based on GNU/Linux and designed to store the minimum possible data locally. Instead it relies on a data connection to link to Google’s “cloud” of servers, which are at unknown locations, to store documents and other information.
The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company’s machine’s rather than your own, Stallman points out: “In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company’s machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company’s server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant.”
Google gave ChromeOS a “soft” launch last week, showing off aspects of the software and providing developers and some journalists with Cr-48 laptops set up to run it, while saying that it won’t be widely available until mid-2011.
Racial Factions in Prisons Unite for Large Protest Against Inhumane Conditions; Actions Coordinated via Contraband Mobile Phones
December 14th, 2010Via: Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Corrections officials said the prisons on lockdown are Hays State Prison in Trion, Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe, Telfair State Prison in Helena and Smith State Prison in Glennville.
However, advocates said inmates, at times, have shut down all activity at Augusta, Baldwin, Calhoun, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Rogers, Smith, Telfair, Valdosta and Ware state prisons. There are 30 prisons in the state system, housing almost 53,000 men and women.
The protest, which started last Thursday, was organized by inmates using contraband cell phones purchased from guards, according to Elaine Brown, a prisoner advocate who has been in contact with the inmates.
According to Brown, the inmates are protesting the lack of fruits and vegetables in their meals, no pay for their work, poor living conditions and parole decisions.
Federal Judge Strikes Down Obama Administration’s Requirement that All Americans Buy Health Insurance
December 14th, 2010Via: USA Today:
A federal judge in Virginia has struck down the Obama administration’s requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, a key provision in the landmark health care bill that the president signed in March.
Today’s ruling, if upheld, could undercut the entire health care plan, though U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson wrote that his decision will surely be appealed — probably all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The outcome of this case has significant public policy implications,” Hudson wrote. “And the final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court.”
Detroit Halting Garbage Pickup, Police Patrols In 20% Of City
December 14th, 2010Via: Business Insider:
Detroit has been bankrupt for years. It simply refuses to admit it. Detroit’s schools are bankrupt as well. A mere 25% of students graduate from high school.
Yet, in spite of hints and threats from mayors and budget commissions, and in spite of common sense talk of bankruptcy, Detroit has not pulled the bankruptcy trigger.
In a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable one last time, Mayor Bing’s latest plan is to cutoff city services including road repairs, police patrols, street lights, and garbage collection in 20% of Detroit.
The Shadow War
December 13th, 2010Via: Newsweek:
Historically, Israel’s covert operations have been on the violent side. When it comes to strategic murders, the Mossad has established a record 50 years long of “targeted assassinations,” often taking out scientists who tried to help its enemies develop weapons of mass destruction. It has carried out hits all over the Middle East and Europe (see following story). Iran knows this history well: Israeli intelligence sources, who decline to be named on the record, coyly suggest that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are so convinced the Mossad directed the assassination plots that the Guards are taking extreme measures to protect the man considered next on the hit list: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a professor of nuclear physics whom the Israelis sometimes call “the Iranian Dr. Strangelove.” They believe he’s directing a secret nuclear-weapons program that is distinct from the public enrichment operations at Natanz and elsewhere, which are open to United Nations inspectors. (The official Iranian government position is that all its nuclear research and all its uranium enrichment are for purely peaceful purposes.)
The real damage to the Iranian nuclear program, however, was done by Stuxnet—the most sophisticated computer worm ever detected and analyzed, one targeting hardware as well as software, and a paradigm of covert cyberweapons to come. “Stuxnet is the start of a new era,” says Stewart Baker, former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency. “It’s the first time we’ve actually seen a weapon created by a state to achieve a goal that you would otherwise have used multiple cruise missiles to achieve.”
