Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz:
New Scientist magazine has a huge chart showing the life of the natural resources that we use to make our big hunks of metal, our gadgets, and our junk:
And Oprah did a special on the HUGE floating plastic and trash pollution patch in the Pacific Ocean.
We’re turning the Earth into one big trash bin.
Mark Pittman at Bloomberg reports:
The Federal Reserve took on more than $74 billion in subprime mortgages, depreciating commercial leases and other assets after Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. collapsed.
In its biggest disclosure of the securities accepted to stabilize capital markets, the Fed said yesterday it had unrealized losses of $9.6 billion on the assets as of Dec. 31. The bonds, swaps and notes were taken in from Bear Stearns, once the fifth-biggest Wall Street firm by capitalization, and AIG, which had been the world’s largest insurer.
The losses on securities backed by assets such as home loans in Florida and California signal that U.S. taxpayers may be forced to reimburse the central bank through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California-based Institutional Risk Analytics.
“The numbers basically confirm that Treasury is going to have to take some TARP money and reimburse the Fed,” said Whalen, whose financial-services research company analyzes banks for investors. “It is essentially up to the Treasury to get the Fed out of this.”
WHY, WHY, WHY? Is anyone navigating this oceanliner called the US Economy? I think we need to look overboard to see if we can see ‘TITANIC’ printed anywhere…
Top soldiers age, losing their speed and brain power. Leave it to our military to mess with Mother Nature, trying to alter soldiers into SUPER SOLDIERS… And the antidote to aging? Perhaps a combo of red wine and naked mole rats. LOLZ.
WIRED Magazine reports:
the military has tried before to build stronger, longer-lasting soldiers. But, as they point out in their latest request for research proposals, spinach and sit-ups will only get you so far: “At present, individuals attempt to counter their mitochondrial decline with frequent exercise and antioxidants, both of which are crude methods with limited effectiveness.” Now, the army wants to get right to the source, and keep aging soldiers fit for duty with “a more precise methodology to stimulate mitochondrial energy production.” Military researchers liken the process to “replacing zinc carbon batteries with silver oxide batteries – more energy production capacity will enable the warfighter to sustain demanding cognitive or physical activities longer.”
That supercharging could be closer than we think, if the military can combine the potential of resveratrol with the power of the mole rat. In February, biochemists at the University of Texas Science Center expanded the mitochondrial theory, based on a study of the unbreakable proteins in mole rats, who outlive lab mice by around 20 years. Their work suggests that efficient mitochondria and resilient proteins may work in tandem to promote longevity. Scientists are now trying to determine the “protein protectant” that keeps the rats so darn frisky.
How about Global Peace? Then we wouldn’t have to jerry-rig our soldiers’ health…
In Obama’s speech at the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony, he said:
The story goes that when the Americans marched in, they discovered the starving survivors and the piles of dead bodies. And General Eisenhower made a decision. He ordered Germans from the nearby town to tour the camp, so they could see what had been done in their name. And he ordered American troops to tour the camp, so they could see the evil they were fighting against. Then he invited congressmen and journalists to bear witness. And he ordered that photographs and films be made. Some of us have seen those same images, whether in the Holocaust Museum or when I visited Yad Vashem, and they never leave you. Eisenhower said that he wanted “to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things, if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.”
Peterr at FireDogLake says:
In marked contrast to Obama’s remarks on Gitmo interrogations earlier this week, Ike said in essence, “Worries about polarization be damned. Here’s the evidence of what happened. If you think this is invented, if you think this is merely political spin, if you think this is made up for partisan advantage, let’s look at the evidence.”
My dad was one of the guys in the US Army Rainbow Division that walked into a concentration camp. As a young man from a small town in the Midwest, it DEEPLY disturbed him, he had nightmares for years.
If we, as a country, stomach the torture done in our name, without demanding full investigation and criminal charges against the guilty, then we aren’t the America of our Founding Fathers
.
Last year, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair that he did not “believe” that there had been a case where “any attacks had been disrupted because of intelligence obtained through the coercive methods.” John Miller, a spokesman for Mueller, confirmed that position to the New York Times on Tuesday, saying, “The quote is accurate.”
While serving as a U.S. attorney during the Bush administration, Christopher Christie, now a Republican candidate for Governor in New Jersey, tracked the whereabouts of citizens through their cell phones without warrants.
Yeah, that’s comforting… I’ll be right back, gonna go turn my cell phone off.
I can’t believe I’m the 1st person to make this:
I made this one myself, at totallylookslike.com.
What do you think?
Uncanny resemblance…
In an Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times, a former supervisory Special FBI Agent makes 3 important points:
OMG.
I have HUGE problems with each of his 3 statements:
None of these 3 things is ‘OK.’
We need a Congressional investigation,
we need charges against all involved
and we need to step into the light of leadership.
Our moral integrity is on the line.
The Associated Press reports that the highest Bush administration officials signed off on waterboarding.
Condeleeza Rice and Dick Cheney approved waterboarding, way back in 2002, according to declassified documents, consistently disregarding dissenting voices that named waterboarding as torture.
And Condeleeza played a greater role than she admitted last Fall in written testimony, surprise, surprise.
Congress, listening to the American people, is going to investigate our role in the torture of detainees.
Lets get to the bottom of this and let American stand tall, not bowed by torture.
If SHE knew and authorized it,
and HE knew and authorized it,
then undoubtedly HE knew too. And authorized it.
DANG, she’s GOOOOOOOOOD. His 1:34 is excructiatingly boring and long, she PWNs him for minutes that FLY BY.
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