School to Put Students in ‘Prison’ Jumpsuits as Punishment

July 30th, 2008

Via: Local Six:

A school in Texas will force students who don’t follow the rules to wear prison-like jumpsuits in a controversial move this coming school year.

Gonzales High School has new navy blue jumpsuits that students will wear if they break the dress code.

Violators will be forced to wear the jumpsuit for the day, the report said.

Some parents said the jumpsuits will make students feel like prisoners but the district said it’s just a way to keep the children dressed appropriately for school.

A school board official said it’s “worth a try” because it’s a way to keep the district’s conservative values intact.

Some students said the plan may backfire on the school.

“I talked to some of my friends about it and they said they are not going to obey the dress code just so they can wear the jumpsuit,” high school student Jordan Meredith.

Before the jumpsuits students who didn’t follow the code had to sit in the office and wait for their parents to bring them clothes or face in-school suspension.

Related: Breakfast Stick


Fed Extends Emergency Loan Program for Wall Street

July 30th, 2008

Via: AP:

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it is extending its emergency borrowing program to Wall Street firms and is taking other steps to ease a severe credit crunch that has hobbled the national economy.

The Fed said the program, where investment houses can tap the central bank for a quick source of cash, will now be available through Jan 30. Originally the program, started on March 17, was supposed to last until mid-September.

Another program, where investment firms can temporarily swap more risky investments for super-safe Treasury securities also will continue through Jan. 30, the Fed said. And, it also will let commercial banks, in a separate program, bid on cash loans that last longer — for 84 days, besides the 28-day loans now available.

The Fed said it was taking these steps “in light of continued fragile circumstances in financial markets.” The Fed said that the emergency borrowing program for investment houses and the program that lets investment firms temporarily borrow Treasury securities would be withdrawn should the Fed determine that conditions in financial markets are “no longer unusual and exigent.”

The smooth flow of credit is the economy’s oxygen. It permits people to finance big-ticket purchases, such as homes and cars, and help businesses expand operations and hire workers. Fallout from a trio of crises — housing, credit and financial — have badly bruised the economy. Growth has slowed and companies have cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Investment houses were given similar, emergency loan privileges as commercial banks after a run on Bear Stearns pushed the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy. The situation raised fears that other Wall Street firms might be in jeopardy.


Gold Sharply Lower, Under $900

July 30th, 2008

WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

Many eggs. Many baskets.

Via: MarketWatch:

Gold futures fell sharply Wednesday to trade below $900 an ounce, as the dollar gained against other currencies after U.S. private-sector employment data showed a small increase in July.

Gold for August delivery dropped $21 to stand at $895.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


EEStor Announces Independent Certification of Chemical Purification Process

July 30th, 2008

Closer.

Via: MarketWatch:

Edward D. Golla, PhD, Laboratory Director for Texas Research International (acting as an independent agent) has certified that EEStor, Inc. test equipment, procedures, and techniques are capable of providing the EEStor, Inc. required testing accuracy for EEStor’s chemicals and powder production processing analyses.

Since the beginning of 2007, EEStor, Inc. has been advancing its chemical purification and powder production processes. The decision to focus on these processes was made to help assure that EEStor, Inc. could meet the most critical demands of business segments for production throughput, cost, and energy storage. The certification data described in this press release will assist in indicating the success EEStor, Inc. has had in completing its objectives.

EEStor, Inc. has achieved success on one of its most critical technical milestones and that is the certification of the completeness of the powder crystallization of the constituents utilized in producing its CMBT powders. The percent of the constituents crystallized in the CMBT powders ranged from 99.57% to 100.00% with the average being 99.92%. This level of crystallization provides the path for the possibility of EEStor, Inc. providing the published energy storage for present products and major advancements in energy storage for future products.

The purification of the EEStor, Inc. chemicals has been certified by the same chemical analysis company as EEStor’s press release dated January 17, 2007 and now indicates that EEStor has improved its chemical purity to the parts-per-billion range. The aluminum oxide particle coating material purification has been certified to be in the parts-per-trillion level. Achieving these levels of purification are additional major factors in allowing EEStor, Inc. the potential to reach its target working voltage. EEStor, Inc. has certification data from outside sources that purified aluminum oxide, in the range that EEStor, Inc. has certified, can have a voltage breakdown of 1,100 volts per micron. The target working voltage of EEStor’s chemical processes is at 350 volts per micron. This provides the potential for excellent protection from voltage breakdown.

Related: Lockheed Martin to Use EEstor’s Ultracapacitors for Military and Homeland Security Applications

Related: EEstor: More Clues Emerge

Full Time Coverage: bariumtitanate.blogspot.com

Posted in Energy | Top Of Page | Comments Off on EEStor Announces Independent Certification of Chemical Purification Process

UK: 3,000 Blank Passports and Visas Stolen from “Security” Van

July 30th, 2008

Via: Reuters:

The Foreign Office has launched an urgent inquiry into the theft of 3,000 blank passports and visas from a security van in Manchester.

The documents, which were being taken to RAF Northolt for delivery to embassies abroad, were snatched after the van driver stopped and went into a shop at 6:40 a.m. on Monday.

A Foreign Office spokesman acknowledged the theft was a serious breach and said an immediate review had been ordered.

It is the latest in a string of incidents involving government loss of personal data and documents including child benefits information and top secret intelligence files.

The Identity and Passport Service said the hi-tech embedded chip features on the e-passports meant they would be unusable.

But security experts reported in the media said they could be used for fraud and employment and had a street value of about 2.5 million pounds.

“Although these passports were blank, they could be worth a lot of money to criminals,” said Detective Constable Natalie Brennan of Oldham CID.

Keith Vaz, chairman of parliament’s Home Affairs Committee, said he is writing to the Home Secretary to order an inquiry, fearful the passports could be used by illegal immigrants.


FDIC Chairwoman: Bloggers “Out of Control,” Government Planning “Public Education Campaign”

July 30th, 2008

Good luck with that.

Via: San Francisco Business Times:

The federal agency insuring bank deposits learned that it can’t afford to ignore the blogs following its seizure this month of IndyMac Bank, the largest bank failure since the 1980s.

“The blogs were a bit out of control,” Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told the San Francisco Business Times after a speech in San Francisco this week.

…

The FDIC plans to pay closer attention to the blogosphere in the future.

“We’re very mindful of the media coverage and blogs in controlling misinformation. All I can say is were going to continue to stay on top of it,” Bair said. “The misinformation that came out over the weekend fed a lot of depositors’ fears.”

The FDIC also plans to begin airing public service announcements as part of a public education campaign on the nation’s deposit insurance program.

Although Bair declined to disclose financial institutions on the agency’s troubled-bank list, she said most institutions on the list will survive. Some, though, may decide to team up with healthier institutions. Historically, only 13 percent on the troubled banks list actually fail, she said, adding that disclosing who is on the troubled list would likely boost the failure rate from 13 percent to 100 percent as customers pulled deposits.


America’s House Price Time Bomb

July 30th, 2008

Via: BBC:

With the American housing market in its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Bush is expected to sign into law a massive new government intervention designed to slow the slide.

The intervention would come as a little known quirk of US law threatens to drive down house prices even faster.

Faced with seemingly never-ending falls in the value of their properties, some American home-owners are taking radical action; they are choosing to walk away from homes and their mortgages.

…

Professor Wachter believes that, to date, most people have had their homes repossessed because they could not manage the repayments.

The trend of people now positively choosing to walk away because it makes financial sense to do so is a worrying new development.

“The dangers are extraordinary,” Professor Wachter says.

“If all that is needed is that the house value is less than the mortgage value, there is a large number of homeowners in the United States who are in that situation”.

…

It is impossible to know for sure how many of the people who are now walking away from their homes could have gone on paying their mortgages.

But Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University, one of the first economists to warn of the dangers of the American house price boom, believes the number of people positively choosing to walk away is growing rapidly.

“This is becoming a tsunami of voluntary defaults,” Professor Roubini says.

“The losses for the financial system from people walking away could be of the order of one trillion dollars when the entire capital of the US banking system is only $1.3 trillion.

“You could have most of the US banking system wiped out, so this is a total disaster.”

Which is why it is not just US policymakers who are hoping America’s new, multi-billion dollar initiative to stabilise the housing market will succeed in its aims and thus make walking away less attractive.

Because if it fails, the economic fallout could be felt far beyond America’s shores.


UK: Innocent People Want Their DNA Removed from Government Database

July 30th, 2008

Via: Reuters:

Britain’s DNA database, the most comprehensive in the world, should remove details of people who are acquitted of crimes, a government-funded panel said on Wednesday.

A “citizen’s inquiry” instigated by the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) also called for the National DNA Database to be taken out of direct control of the police and government, with oversight handed instead to an independent authority.

The conclusions will fuel controversy about the ethical foundations of the database, which was established in 1995 in Britain — the country where scientists first pioneered the technique of DNA fingerprinting.

It now contains genetic profiles on more than 4 million people, representing the highest proportion of any population on a forensic DNA database in the world, at over 6 percent.


U.S. Air Force General, Thomas L. Tinsley, Dead from Gunshot Wound to Chest

July 30th, 2008

Interesting Coincidence: Tinsley’s previous boss, Michael “Buzz” Mosely, resigned in the wake of the Minot Nukes incident.

Via: AP:

The officer who commands an air force wing in Alaska has died of a gunshot wound that likely was self-inflicted, authorities said Monday.

Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Tinsley suffered a gunshot wound to his chest late Sunday night and was pronounced dead within a half hour, said Col. Richard Walberg, who assumed command at Elmendorf Air Force Base after Tinsley’s death.

The weapon was likely a handgun, Walberg said.

Medical responders who rushed to Tinsley’s home on base were unable to save him. Tinsley’s wife and college-age daughter were home at the time.

Tinsley was named base commander in May 2007. He had served as an F-15 instructor pilot, F-15C test pilot, wing weapons officer, exchange officer and instructor with the Royal Australian Air Force.

His previous 22-month assignment was executive officer to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Mosely, who resigned in June under pressure in an agency shake-up.

Mosely, the Air Force military chief, and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne, the agency’s civilian head, were held accountable for failing to fully correct an erosion of nuclear-related performance standards. One concern was a cross-country flight in August of a B-52 carrying armed nuclear weapons.

Walberg said Tinsley was not under investigation or undue stress.

“As far as stress, sir, this job, by nature of being an Air Force officer in a nation at war, is stressful,” he said. “Undue stress, no.”

Representatives of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will do a report and declare whether Tinsley’s cause of death was suicide, Walberg said. Such reports take about 30 days.


S&P: Home Prices Drop by Record 15.8% in May

July 29th, 2008

Via: AP:

A closely watched housing index shows home prices fell by the steepest rate ever in May, as the housing slump continued to deepen nationwide.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index, released Tuesday, is off 15.8 percent for May compared with a year ago, a record decline since its inception in 2000. The narrower 10-city index has fallen 16.9 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history.

No city in the Case-Shiller 20-city index saw price gains in May, the second straight month that’s happened. The monthly indices have not recorded an overall home price increase in any month since August 2006.

The steepest decline in the index is in Las Vegas, where prices fell 28.4 percent in the month. Miami is a close second, with prices down 28.3 percent.


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