Bio | Buika

Hailed as the "Flamenco Queen," Buika is the daughter of political refugees from the African nation of Equatorial Guinea and grew up in a gypsy neighborhood on the Spanish island of Mallorca. The New York Times calls her unique blend of flamenco, jazz, soul and blues, "luminous...magnificent...superb!"

Never mind the NYT, that's what I think too.

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

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

I taped two goggles with darkened film "glasses" (which i kept since the 1999 solar eclypse) in front of a binocular (same method I used during the 2004 transit).  even faintly saw one of the sunspots (the biggest one, above the airplane on the photo below from this gallery).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Even digital printers have their little foibles - so always talk to the guy or gal who works with the machine. 2 hours discussing crackbacks, bleeds, nuutaus (the art of folding) and UV lacquer is just my cup of tea.

This company also has a speciality: printing on plastic. Printed mirror on the reverse (so the image won't scratch or wear) and then heat welded with a soft non-slip backing. At first we thought of mousepads, (cheap at 2€ a pop) but who uses them? Then our brilliant cat lady designer came up with food mats for pets (and babies). When I told this to Mr Inky Fingers, his eyes lit up. "Those pet people will spend any money - pet's are substitutes, right?"  Sometimes one must go with the flow.

You can't be me, I'm taken

...Minmetals Land Inc.'s replica of Hallstatt, a quaint Austrian alpine hamlet, is located in subtropical southern China.

The original is a centuries-old village of 900 and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a housing estate that thrives on China's new rich. In a China famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard.

The Chinese Hallstatt features a church spire, a town square ringed by pastel-colored buildings and angel statues. They're among architectural flourishes inspired by the original, a centuries-old village of 900...

People in Hallstatt first learned a year ago of Minmetals' plan when a Chinese guest at Wenger's hotel who was involved with the project inadvertently spilled the beans. Minmetals staff had been taking photos and gathering data while mingling with tourists, raising suspicions among villagers.
Minmetals Land is the real estate development arm of China Minmetals Corp., China's largest metals trader.

Also, any suggestions about Paris near the Gare de L'Est? I have about 5 hours to wait between trains: The salons de grandes voyageurs are closed on weekends, and I think the Eurostar lounge still blocks ET, among other things.

To our knowledge, the only one to challenge this benign view was Peter Garber in a 1998 paper on the role of TARGET in a crisis of monetary union (Garber, 1998). The paper insightfully recognized that the federal structure of the Eurosystem and the corresponding continued existence of national central banks with separate individual balance sheets made it possible to imagine a speculative attack within monetary union. According to Garber, the precondition for an attack "must be skepticism that a strong currency national central bank will provide through TARGET unlimited credit in euros to the weak national central banks". His conclusion is that "as long as some doubt remains about the permanence of Stage III exchange rates, the existence of the currently proposed structure of the ECB and TARGET does not create additional security against the possibility of an attack. Quite the contrary, it creates a perfect mechanism to make an explosive attack on the system".

And clearly, that is what we are seeing today.  Incredibly, Europe's leaders still apparently believe they can bluff their way out of the problem.  They have been herd-like, like the gnu; they have put their heads in the sand, like the ostrich.

Merler and Pisani-Ferry wrote the following in March:

"The benign view prevailed during the first ten years of EMU. It even continues to dominate today."

...

Now that the deposit run has unexpectedly gotten out of hand, the ECB and the EU authorities have been afraid to make any mention of it because, in drawing attention to it, they fear exacerbating the run.  Intense efforts in Brussels and Frankfurt and maybe even Washington to deal with the fatal flaw that Peter Garber identified 14 years ago have probably been underway since last fall. Because the flaw is so fatal, solutions have probably been hard to come by, especially for politicians, each with their vested interests, and central bankers desiring to cling to their precious "independence" and their belief in "rational markets".

Carmel Asset Management's Jonathan Carmel gave this massive presentation on German exposure to the potential outcomes of the eurozone crisis, and concluded that "Germany is riskier than you think."

Since the beginning of the European Monetary Union, German banks and the government have been expanding their exposure to peripheral Europe. No matter what how the crisis ends--fiscal union or euro break-up--dealing with the consequences is likely to be expensive for Germany.

Click here to find out why Germany will probably lose no matter what