ECB President Draghi defends bond-buying program | News | DW.DE | 24.10.2012

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi faced German lawmakers today to defend the bank's new unlimited bond-acquisition program. Germany's central bank has spearheaded the opposition to the program.

The European Central Bank's President Mario Draghi (pictured center) told German lawmakers on Wednesday that his controversial bond-buying plan won't create inflation and will not allow struggling countries to backslide on economic reform efforts.

The ECB's plan to buy unlimited amounts of short-term government bonds of troubled euro countries has been met with skepticism in Germany and resistance from the head of the country's central bank. DW.DE EU to decide on reforms in December

Despite a compromise by EU leaders on banking supervision, progress on further European integration remains slow. Major decisions will not be made until December - and the new supervisor won't begin work until late 2013. (19.10.2012)

In prepared remarks delivered at the beginning of his meeting with the lawmakers, Draghi addressed point by point their concerns about the program - dubbed Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT).

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

UK support for US drones in Pakistan may be war crime, court is told | World news | guardian.co.uk

The British government's support for US drone operations over Pakistan may involve acts of assisting murder or even war crimes, the high court heard on Tuesday.

In the first serious legal challenge in the English courts to the drones campaign, lawyers for a young Pakistani man whose father was killed by a strike from an unmanned aircraft are seeking to have the sharing of UK locational intelligence declared unlawful.

Noor Khan, 27, is said to live in constant fear of a repeat of the attack in North Waziristan in March last year that killed more than 40 other people, who are said to have gathered to discuss a local mining dispute.

The British government has declined to state whether or not its signals intelligence agency GCHQ passes information in support of the CIA drone operations over Pakistan, although the court heard that media reports suggest that it does.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Greece wins two-year reprieve on bailout program | Business News | DW.DE | 24.10.2012

Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras has said his debt-laden country would be given more time to meet bailout requirements. The reprieve comes in exchange of yet another multi-billion-euro austerity package.

Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Yannis Stournaras said that Greece now had "an extension" to rein in its runaway debt and reform public finances. However, the Greek Finance Minister didn't say how long the reprieve, granted by its international creditors, would actually be. DW.DE Greek savings are a 'sensational achievement'

European parliament member Jorgo Chatzimarkakis explains why the Greek government has done a good job in handling the state debt crisis so far - but why it also needs more time. (21.10.2012)

In tough negotiations dragging on since July, Athens sought two more years to implement austerity measures imposed by a troika of lenders from the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission.

According to media reports Wednesday, the extension would give the debt-laden eurozone country time until 2016 to reduce its deficit to the EU limit of three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) rather than the previous deadline of 2014.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Hillsborough: Norman Bettison resigns from West Yorkshire police | UK news | guardian.co.uk

Sir Norman Bettison has resigned as chief constable of West Yorkshire police amid mounting claims over his role in the smearing of fans killed in the Hillsborough disaster.

Bettison had announced his intention to step down but was planning to serve out a notice period. West Yorkshire police said it had accepted his resignation on Wednesday morning with immediate effect.

This week the Labour MP Maria Eagle told the House of Commons of claims that Bettison "boasted" about having helped to "concoct" a false account of how the 1989 Hillsborough disaster was caused.

Speaking in a parliamentary debate following last month's publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report, Eagle cited a letter written by John Barry, who studied with Bettison on a part-time course at Sheffield Business School while Bettison was serving with South Yorkshire police.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Chancellor Merkel inaugurates a memorial to Roma and Sinti | News | DW.DE | 24.10.2012

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has inaugurated a memorial in Berlin today to the Roma and Sinti murdered by the Nazis. The German President and 100 survivors of the genocide attended the commemoration.

The monument consists of a dark round pool of water with a triangular stone in the middle on which a single fresh flower will be placed each day. The poem "Auschwitz" by Italian Santino Spinelli is engraved around the rim of the pool in English and German. It tells the story of suffering and sorrow of the extermination of half a million Sinti and Roma by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. 0:00:00|0:00:00 First German Sinti-Roma memorial opens

Twelve-year-old Messina Weis, the granddaughter of one of the Sinti survivors led Chancellor Angela Merkel, German President Joachim Gauck and other German dignitaries to the site, where the commemoration ceremony began with a minute of silence.

Chancellor Merkel stressed the crucial importance of living up to the crimes of history and providing a site to mourn and commemorate the victims and to warn coming generations. "That is why we must have appropriate places where that is possible -- where people can also go in the future when the survivors are no longer alive," she said.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Kerviel's sentence upheld in French court | News | DW.DE | 24.10.2012

A court in France has upheld the jail term and 4.9 billion euro ($6.4 billion) fine given to Jerome Kerviel for a fraud case that nearly toppled France's Societe Generale bank in 2008.

The Court of Appeals in Paris rejected Kerviel's appeal on Wednesday, saying the five-year sentence - two of which had been suspended - would stand, and the money Kerviel (pictured above on the left) cost the bank must be repaid.

"Jerome Kerviel was the sole creator, inventor and user of a fraudulent system that caused these damages to Societe Generale," the court's written ruling said.

David Koubbi, Kerviel's lawyer (pictured above on the right), said the decision was an "absolutely appalling injustice," and added that Kerviel may look to take the case one step further to France's highest court, the Court of Cassation.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Parliament approves austerity budget in Spain - Europe - Al Jazeera English

The Spanish parliament has preliminary passed a new budget, which the opposition slammed as deepening the country's recession and poverty.

The 2013 budget was approved by 179 votes to 148 on Wednesday, and it will now pass through parliamentary commissions and the senate before its definitive approval in December. 

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's Party (PP) has an absolute majority in parliament and all other parties, with the exception of one small party close to the PP, either voted against or abstained.

This means that spending by government ministries is likely to be slashed by 8.9 per cent. 

The budget for the health sector will be cut by 22.6 per cent, the culture budget by 19.6 per cent, investments in infrastructure by 15 per cent and development aid by 23 per cent. 

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Insight: Hungary's far-right party gains as it targets Roma | Reuters

(Reuters) - Decades of animosity between Hungarians and ethnic Roma in this small town in western Hungary had attracted little attention until the far-right Jobbik party saw an opportunity to score a few political points.

A protest rally organized by the party, a little after a brawl between a Roma family and some local people, turned into a running street battle that has left the town thoroughly shaken but which Jobbik was able to exploit for its own ends.

It is a strategy that has worked well for Jobbik, a party that once made use of a "Hungarian Guard" of vigilantes dressed in fascist-style uniforms to target the Roma.

Support for Jobbik, or the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strong and the party could well hold the balance of power between the ruling Fidesz party and the left wing opposition after parliamentary elections in 2014.

Eurointelligence Daily Morning Newsbriefing: Germany also wants Greek primary surpluses go to escrow account (25.10.2012)

More details came out from the German draft, which is a lot worse than even we had thought; Germany not only wants the Greek tranches paid into an escrow account, but also wants a dedicated portion of primary surpluses to go in that account; in the absence of primary surpluses, Germany wants a mechanism that automatically reduces expenditures; if that does not work, there shall be "technical assistance" from outside to implement the thumb screws; the Greek finance minister announced that a two-year extension of the programme had been agreed - but the German government denies this; he also said he was upbeat about the state of the negotiations with the troika, while the troika is more cautious; the Greek government has decided to pool the entire package into two separate items - on austerity and on reforms; a draft on EU banking supervision by the Cypriot EU presidency says the ECB should only actively supervise the biggest banks, and those in ESM programmes; but the draft upholds the principle that the ECB is overall in charge, and that powers of bank supervision to national regulators is only delegated; Mario Draghi goes to Berlin, and hardly anybody turns up; we have a rare report of a German bank in some difficulties; Silvio Berlusconi has made a final decision that he will not run in the 2013 elections;  Tito Boeri does the math on Italy's 2013 budget, and says it is worse than useless; Quadrio Curzio says the EU urgently needs a pact for growth, and Mario Monti to deliver it; Moody's retains its Spanish bank ratings with a negative outlook; Fitch releases a sobering report on the prospects of Spain's bad bank; total Spanish bad bank guarantees are now over 30% of GDP, rising towards 40% in 2013; there are more signs of a recession in Germany; France guarantees the bonds of Peugeot's finance arm; Wolfgang Munchau, meanwhile, says the German court of auditors' demand for a gold audit reflects a generalised state of paranoia in Germany.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

Poland's veto on EU climate laws `has no legal basis' | EurActiv

EXCLUSIVE: Poland's use of a veto to block EU climate goals for 2050 has no legal basis, according to internal legal documents from the Council of the European Union, obtained by EurActiv.

Polish media have reported that Warsaw may try to wield a veto against measures supporting carbon market reform and the EU's low carbon roadmap during a meeting of EU environment ministers taking place in Luxembourg today (25 October).

The Polish veto is anticipated as the Council, representing the 27 EU member states, tries to adopt a common position for the UN climate summit in Doha next month.

But Warsaw's block on climate issues has no legal basis and may be circumvented easily by other EU member states as unanimity is not required to vote the common position at today's Environment Council meeting, EurActiv has learned.

"A qualified majority of weighted votes in favour cast by at least two-thirds of members" is all that such decisions require, according to a legal opinion cited by the Council's General-Secretariat (GSC) in response to a transparency request by the environmental group WWF.

The advice was written by the then-legal counsel, Jean-Claude Piris in 2004, in response to a November 2003 dispute at the Council over the breakdown of the Stability and Growth Pact. 

'Unanimity is just a habit from the past'

"Unanimity is just a habit from the past to look for consensus," said Jo Leinen, a German Socialist MEP and former chair of the European Parliament's environment and constitutional affairs committees.

"There is no legal basis for the Environment Council to take decisions unanimously and with 27 members in the EU now, it has proved to be impractical and counter-productive."

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

US sues BofA for $1bn over home loans - FT.com

The US Department of Justice sued Bank of America for more than $1bn on Wednesday, alleging the bank committed civil fraud by selling defective home loans to US government-backed mortgage companies.

The lawsuit said that Countrywide, the California-based mortgage originator that BofA bought in 2008, implemented a process called the "Hustle" to deal with loans at high speed without checking their quality.

Thousands of loans were then sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which guarantee most US mortgages, and later defaulted, the Justice Department's lawsuit claims.

"As described, Countrywide and Bank of America systematically removed every check in favour of its own balance - they cast aside underwriters, eliminated quality controls, incentivised unqualified personnel to cut corners, and concealed the resulting defects," said Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York. "These toxic products were then sold to the government sponsored enterprises as good loans."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

EU accuses Microsoft of breaking browser deal | Business News | DW.DE | 24.10.2012

EU regulators have sent Microsoft a formal complaint, accusing the software firm of failing to give customers a choice among Internet browsers. Microsoft's spat with the EU might cost it 10 percent of its 2012 revenues.

The European Union Executive Commission detailed its charges in a statement of objection, which was sent to Microsoft on Wednesday.

In the statement, EU antitrust regulators said the US software giant had failed to comply with its commitments to offer users a choice screen, enabling them to choose their preferred web browser.

"If companies enter into commitments they must do what they are committed to do. Otherwise they must face the consequences," EU antitrust commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a news conference.

In 2009, Microsoft agreed with EU regulators to offer browser choices in an effort to stop an EU antitrust investigation and to avoid a hefty fine. The EU set a deadline until July this year which was not met by Microsoft.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Bernanke Seen Attacking Jobless Rate With QE Through 2013 - Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke says he'll stoke the economy until the job market recovers "substantially." That promise may force him to keep buying bonds until the final months of his term ending in January 2014, according economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Sixty-eight percent of 60 economists said the Fed chairman's third round of quantitative easing will last until late next year or beyond. Just 51 percent of them said the strategy will help boost employment, with a median estimate of 116,000 jobs over the course of next year.

Read: China Industry Gauge Rises as Easing Prospects Abate

"The recovery in the labor market is probably going to be more sluggish than the Fed recognizes" said Michael Hanson, senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York and a former Fed economist. He said policy makers have "painted themselves in a bit of a corner, waiting to see a significant improvement in the labor market."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Gold Falls to Six-Week Low on Draghi Deflation Warning - Bloomberg

Gold futures fell below $1,700 an ounce to a six-week low as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said his plan to buy government bonds "will not lead to inflation."

Draghi told lawmakers in Berlin that "in our assessment, the greater risk to price stability is currently falling prices in some euro-area countries." German business confidence unexpectedly dropped in October amid Europe's sovereign-debt crisis. Gold jumped 11 percent in the third quarter after the U.S., Europe and Japan announced economic stimulus measures.

"The market is sensing the deflationary worries, and that is not good for gold," Michael Gayed, the chief investment strategist and co-portfolio manager of ATAC Inflation Rotation Fund at New York-based Pension Partners LLC, which advises on more than $150 million in assets, said in a telephone interview.

Gold futures for December delivery fell 0.3 percent to $1,703.60 at 12:28 p.m. on the Comex in New York. Earlier, the price touched $1,698.90, the lowest for a most-active contract since Sept. 7.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Ford says 4,000 to lose jobs in Belgium - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Ford has announced it will shut down its factory in Genk, Belgium within two years, moving the production of three models produced there to Spain.

More than 4,000 workers will lose their jobs when the factory closes and many are already worried about finding new jobs in difficult economic times.

Car sales across Europe have slumped since the economic crisis began, and Ford expects to lose more than $1bn in the region this year.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

The Entitlement Crisis That Isn't - Truthdig

An article by author and economist Jeff Madrick in the November 2012 issue of Harper's Magazine offers an antidote to the view that social spending--not anemic tax revenues--is the cause of America's deficit problem.

"Contrary to warnings by politicians of both parties and by almost all of the mainstream press," Madrick writes, "America's biggest fiscal problem is not spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; it is our almost complete unwillingness to tax ourselves sufficiently to maintain a modern state."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Khartoum fire blamed on Israeli bombing - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Sudan has accused Israel of bombing a military arms factory, threatening retaliation after a resulting fire killed two people and injured a third.

"We think Israel did the bombing," Culture and Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told a news conference.

"We reserve the right to react at a place and time we choose."

The minister said four "radar-evading" aircraft were involved in the attack, which occurred at about midnight (2100 GMT) on Tuesday at the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility in south Khartoum.

It took troops several hours to contain the blaze.

Evidence pointing to Israel was found among remnants of the explosives, Osman said, adding that the cabinet would hold an urgent meeting at 8:00pm.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Israel and Gazans in tit-for-tat attacks - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Tensions were high around Gaza after Israeli raids killed four Palestinians and two Thai workers were seriously wounded by rocket fire, with Israel's defence minister vowing to punish Hamas.

The escalation began on Tuesday evening when Palestinian fighters fired six rockets at Israel shortly after a high-profile visit to Gaza by the Qatari emir.

Several hours later, Israeli aircraft killed two fighters from Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in northern Gaza, sparking more rocket fire.

An early-morning raid near southern city of Rafah killed a third fighter from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and later in the morning, a Hamas fighter hurt in the evening strikes died of his injuries, medics said.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said: "Four Palestinians killed in a day is spike in numbers, with the killings and also the rockets there is an increase in tension, things currently are really tense in Gaza as border crossings are also closed."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Eid truce awaits Syrian government response - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Syria has said its military command is still studying a proposal for an Eid al-Adha ceasefire with rebels, contradicting international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi's announcement that Damascus had agreed to a truce.

Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League special envoy, on Wednesday told a news conference at the Cairo-based Arab League that both the government and most rebel groups would observe the truce for the Muslim holiday.

Within an hour, Syria's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the proposal was still being studied and that "the final position on this issue will be announced tomorrow".

A previous ceasefire arrangement in April collapsed within days, with the government and the opposition each accusing the other of breaking it.

Brahimi has crisscrossed the Middle East over the past two weeks to push the warring factions and their international backers to agree to the truce - a mission that included talks with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus at the weekend.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Mourdock apologizes for `misinterpretation' of rape comments, Obama campaign pounces

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock on Wednesday insisted his comments about rape and pregnancy were being willfully misinterpreted for political gain even as President Obama's campaign sought to ensnare Mitt Romney in the growing controversy.

"If there was any interpretation other than what I intended, I really regret that," Mourdock  said in an midday press conference in the Hoosier State. He added: "Anyone who goes to the video tape and views that understands fully what I meant."

Mourdock's explanation will likely do little to quiet the national firestorm his initial comments at a debate Tuesday night -- "I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," he said -- have caused. (The full video of Mourdock's comments are at the bottom of this post.)

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

The Israeli Police (not yet in English) has just taken all their computers off the internet, and forbidden the introduction of any portable devices, from fear of a cyberattack. It's not clear if it's based on a warning, or whether the attack has already occurred. Also not clear if it has anything to do with the amateurish Shamoon virus that brought down Aramco's network.

AndesInfo:The ex-ambassador of the United Kingdom to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, informed this Monday that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (CIA) is investing $87 million with the intent to bring down the Ecuadorian (President Correa).

Pan-American Post: On Tuesday the government of Panama suspended a bid to sell state-owned land to private companies in the duty-free zone of Colon, in response to widespread clashes with police in the city that have left at least three people dead. In a statement to the press issued late Tuesday night, Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said that the land sales would be put on hold temporarily.

More from Bananama Republic.

Jamaica Gleaner: Hurricane Sandy barrelled into Jamaica yesterday and left hours later with damage estimated at several billion dollars in its wake.  At least one person died as a result of the hurricane. The police say the resident of Bedward Gardens in eastern St Andrew was killed after a boulder rolled on to a house..

More Here.

Guatemala, Nisgua,The death toll of last week's massacre of Maya K'iche protesters in Totonicapán continues to increase, with reports of up to 8 or 9 killed; at least 6 of the 34 people injured in the attack remain hospitalized. Initial evidence, as well as eye-witness testimony, confirms the denunciation of the 48 communities of Totonicapán that military and police forces fired on the unarmed protesters.

Oct 23 (Reuters) - Mexico's Senate gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to a labor reform bill that could result in the biggest shake-up of the country's job market in more than four decades.

More news and commentary by Aguachile.

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

Rajat Gupta Sentenced To 2 Years In Prison For Insider Trading

The former Goldman Sachs director was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison, followed by another year of parole, and ordered to pay a $5 million fine.
[...]
It remains to be seen how much of a deterrent Gupta's sentence will be. At the time of his conviction, many experts suggested that such convictions attract attention for a little while and then fade in memory. Insider trading is fairly rampant, in part because there's so much money to be made at it, and few of the people doing it ever think about getting caught.
[...]
"The Court can say without exaggeration that it has never encountered a defendant whose prior history suggests such an extraordinary devotion, not only to humanity writ large, but also to individual human beings in their times of need,"
[...]
Gupta was convicted of giving tips to another convicted inside-trader, former hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Gupta's defense team said the evidence was circumstantial, including evidence of a phone call Gupta made to Rajaratnam immediately after a September 2008 conference call discussing an offer from Warren Buffett to invest $5 billion in Goldman to carry it through the financial crisis. Rajaratnam bought up a bunch of Goldman stock after the call from Gupta, turning an immediate profit of more than $1 million after Buffett's investment became public knowledge.

In Rakoff's words, Gupta's tip was "the functional equivalent of stabbing Goldman in the back."

Poor Goldman Sachs.

So not the kind of time we wanted, and not for the crime we wanted.

-----
sapere aude

US downplayed effect of Deepwater oil spill on whales, emails reveal | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well.

It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April that year - a time of huge public interest in the fate of whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other threatened animals - and yet US government officials supressed the first reports of the discovery and blocked all images until now.

The photographs, along with a cache of emails obtained by the campaign group Greenpeace under freedom of information provisions and made available to the Guardian, offer a rare glimpse into how many whales came into close contact with the gushing BP well during the oil spill.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Presidential debates offered nothing on climate change | McClatchy

WASHINGTON -- For the first time since the topic surfaced in a presidential race in 1988, nominees made no mention of climate change during the prime-time television debates this year between the presidential contenders themselves or their running mates.Debate moderators also chose not to ask President Barack Obama or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney about the issue, despite a clamor by climate activists and some not-so-gentle prodding on the part of pundits and scientists.

The national hush on climate change - which became a toxic political issue after a cap-and-trade bill collapsed in Congress in 2010 - became so deafening this election year that some activists dubbed it "climate silence." Some environmentalists struggled to summon enthusiasm for the Democratic president's re-election campaign until Obama's assertion that "climate change is not a hoax" brought delegates to their feet at the Democratic National Convention.

Even former Vice President Al Gore, whose film "An Inconvenient Truth" swayed public opinion on global warming, made mention of it during Monday night's debate on foreign policy. "Where is global warming in this debate?" he asked on Twitter. "Climate change is an urgent foreign policy issue."

But no matter who takes office in January, the next administration will have to take bold steps to address global warming and its consequences, environmental experts say. Already, sea levels are rising in some places, and sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean fell to the lowest extent in satellite history this summer. Emergency managers have begun grappling with more intense hurricanes, drought and other extreme weather that could be tied to changing global temperatures.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Penn State climate scientist files defamation suit | McClatchy

WASHINGTON -- Penn State University scientist Michael Mann, whose work showed that Earth's temperatures have risen along with increased fossil fuel use, announced Tuesday he had filed a lawsuit against the conservative National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation, complaining that they falsely accused him of academic fraud and compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

Organizations that deny climate change is a serious problem have condemned Mann for years.

Mann was one of the scientists whose emails were hacked from a climate research center at Britain's University of East Anglia in 2009. Climate skeptics quoted portions of the emails in an attempt to discredit the scientists in what the critics dubbed "Climategate." But government and university investigations found no misconduct.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, argued that the two conservative outlets and two writers named in the suit, Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, "maliciously accused (Mann) of academic fraud, the most fundamental defamation that can be levied against a scientist and a professor."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Can Controversial Ocean Iron Fertilization Save Salmon?: Scientific American

In a bid to restore lost fish abundance, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. (HSRC) undertook to mimic the effects of a volcanic eruption by fertilizing the ocean with iron. The idea was to provide the missing nutrient for a plankton bloom that would then trickle up the food web and restore salmon--with the ancillary effects of gathering data on the ocean food web and, potentially, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"What if this is a means by which ocean pastures can be stewarded and brought back to health?" asks Russ George, chief scientist of the expedition as well as a controversial businessman with a history of attempting to start CO2-removal schemes ranging from reforestation to ocean fertilization. "This is a tiny village of people trying to take care of their backyard."

Old Masset village on the Haida Gwaii Islands off the British Columbia coast did this by contracting George and others to initiate the largest such intentional ocean fertilization effort to date. It authorized the release of roughly 110 metric tons of iron dust, 91 metric tons of the iron sulfate fertilizer commonly used as a lawn treatment and employed in other scientific experiments, and nearly 20 metric tons of the iron oxide found in soils around the world. "It's micronutrient enrichment," Jason McNamee, operations officer and corporate director for the HSRC, told a press conference on October 19. "We took a bag of iron, and we slapped it over one square kilometer [of ocean]."

To do that, this past July the HSRC team motored more than 300 kilometers west from the Haida Gwaii Islands to an ocean eddy in the fishing vessel Ocean Pearl. The area had previously been scouted by collecting water samples since January and lies outside Canadian territorial waters. The team also used more than 20 autonomous oceangoing robots, including two bright yellow gliders and 20 Argo drifter robots on loan from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to survey the scene--work that is ongoing. Over the course of several days the researchers then released the 110 metric tons into the fishing boat's wake in an attempt to raise the levels of iron in the water from one or two parts per trillion up to five to 10, although both concentrations are estimates.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Frack site near Pennsylvania nuclear plant - Shale Reporter : Industry

Chesapeake has a permit to frack one mile from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport, Pa. Whether that is cause for alarm, experts can't say.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

Grandmas made humans live longer: Chimp lifespan evolves into human longevity, computer simulation shows

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2012) -- Computer simulations provide new mathematical support for the "grandmother hypothesis" -- a famous theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren.

"Grandmothering was the initial step toward making us who we are," says Kristen Hawkes, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and senior author of the new study published Oct. 24 by the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The simulations indicate that with only a little bit of grandmothering -- and without any assumptions about human brain size -- animals with chimpanzee lifespans evolve in less than 60,000 years so they have a human lifespan. Female chimps rarely live past child-bearing years, usually into their 30s and sometimes their 40s. Human females often live decades past their child-bearing years.

The findings showed that from the time adulthood is reached, the simulated creatures lived another 25 years like chimps, yet after 24,000 to 60,000 years of grandmothers caring for grandchildren, the creatures who reached adulthood lived another 49 years -- as do human hunter-gatherers.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Why 'singing' sand dunes hum certain notes

Sand dunes only sing in a few areas across the globe, and their songs -- always a low, droning sound -- have been an object of curiosity for centuries. Marco Polo encountered their haunting drone during his travels and Charles Darwin, in his book "The Voyage of the Beagle," wrote of testimonials from Chileans about the sound of a sandy hill they called the "bellower."

The song of the sands is a low hum at a frequency within the bottom half of a cello's musical range. These dunes only sing when the sand is sliding down their sides. People can set the sand in motion themselves or, more eerily, the wind can create sand avalanches, creating a sudden, booming chorus.

Scientists previously thought the sound arose because avalanching sand created vibrations in the more stable underlayers of the dunes. But evidence that the avalanche of sand itself sings, not the dunes, emerged from experiments in 2009 by researchers who got a shallow pile of sand to sing while spilling down a laboratory incline. Now, the same research team has investigated a deeper mystery of the dunes -- how multiple notes can sound simultaneously from one dune.

To study this question, physicist Simon Dagois-Bohy and his fellow researchers at Paris Diderot University in France recorded two different dunes: one near Tarfaya, a port town in southwestern Morocco, and one near Al-Askharah, a coastal town in southeastern Oman. No matter where recordings were made near the Moroccan dune, the sands sang consistently at about 105 hertz, in the neighborhood of G-sharp two octaves below middle C. The Omani sands also sang powerfully, but sometimes unleashed a cacophony of almost every possible frequency from 90 to 150 hertz, or about F-sharp to D, a range of nine notes.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Media Ignored Expert's Shocking Findings That Marijuana Helps Prevent Lung Cancer: Now It's Med-School Material | Alternet

October 24, 2012  |       Like this article?Join our email list:Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.        

You'd think it would have been very big news in the spring of 2005 when Donald Tashkin, a professor of pulmonology at UCLA's David Geffin School of Medicine, revealed at a conference that components of marijuana smoke, although they damage cells in respiratory tissue, somehow prevent them from becoming malignant. But headlines announcing "Pot Doesn't Cause Cancer" did not ensue. 

Tashkin will review his findings and discuss current research this Thursday in Santa Monica, California as part of a course for doctors accredited by the University of California San Francisco. (It is open to the public; pre-registration is $95.)  

Tashkin has special credibility. He was the lead investigator on studies dating back to the 1970s that identified the compounds in marijuana smoke that are toxic. It was Tashkin who published photomicrographs showing that marijuana smoke damages cells lining the upper airways. It was the Tashkin lab reporting that benzpyrene -- a component of tobacco smoke that plays a role in most lung cancers -- is especially prevalent in marijuana smoke. It was Tashkin's data documenting that marijuana smokers are more likely than non-smokers to cough, wheeze and produce sputum. 

The National Institute on Drug Abuse supported Tashkin's marijuana-related research over the decades and gave him a grant to conduct a large, population-based, case-controlled study that would prove definitively that heavy, long-term marijuana use increases the risk of lung and upper-airways cancers. What Tashkin and his colleagues found, however, disproved their hypothesis.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Science News: Self as Symbol

The loopy nature of consciousness trips up scientists studying themselves

"We ... draw conceptual boundaries around entities that we easily perceive, and in so doing we carve out what seems to us to be reality," Hofstadter wrote. "The `I' we create for each of us is a quintessential example of such a perceived or invented reality, and it does such a good job of explaining our behavior that it becomes the hub around which the rest of the world seems to rotate."

You can't be me, I'm taken

Hacked terminals capable of causing pacemaker deaths - Hackers - SC Magazine Australia - Secure Business Intelligence

Security holes enable attackers to switch off pacemakers, rewrite firmware from 30 feet away.

IOActive researcher Barnaby Jack has reverse-engineered a pacemaker transmitter to make it possible to deliver deadly electric shocks to pacemakers within 30 feet and rewrite their firmware.

The effect of the wireless attacks could not be overstated -- in a speech at the BreakPoint security conference in Melbourne today, Jack said such attacks were tantamount to "anonymous assassination", and in a realistic but worse-case scenario, "mass murder".

In a video demonstration, which Jack declined to release publicly because it may reveal the name of the manufacturer, he issued a series of 830 volt shocks to the pacemaker using a laptop.

The pacemakers contained a "secret function" which could be used to activate all pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in a 30 foot -plus vicinity.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

1938 - The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces swing music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell".

For your degenerate pleasure:

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

This voiceover was rather painful to do.

You can't be me, I'm taken