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Home of the Famous Scarecrow Invasion
Delicious Homemade Perogies
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Lasagna • Sausage on a Bun
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Was it just lying around somewhere?
On Tuesday the U.S. government agreed that the Federal Reserve would supply $85 billion to bail out American International Group, the world's largest insurance company. Does the government really have a spare $85 billion lying around just in case?
Yes. There's no stack of unused money gathering dust in the federal coffers, but the Federal Reserve can always raise cash by selling off some of the securities it keeps in reserve. The Fed maintains a massive balance sheet that shows exactly what its assets are; right now, its reserves are estimated to be less than $200 billion, down from $800 billion at the beginning of this year. These reserves take the form of securities, often purchased from the U.S. Treasury. The securities function as a kind of "under the mattress" stash that can easily be converted into cash on the open market... www.slate.com
Supreme Court to Bush: You're not above the law
For the third time in four summers, the U.S. Supreme Court has slammed the Bush administration's detention policies at Guantánamo Bay -- locking up terrorist suspects indefinitely and beyond the law. And this time, some real progress might even come out of it. In a 5-4 decision drafted by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus -- that is, to challenge the legal basis for their detention in a federal court.
Let's be clear, the decision doesn't do a number of things. It doesn't shut down Guantánamo. It doesn't order all detainees who have not been charged with an offense to be released. And besides saying that the detainees are entitled to a "prompt habeas hearing," it doesn't even say what factors the courts should consider when deciding whether the U.S. government can hold them... www.salon.com
Tragic history unites the House
The federal government delivered yesterday a profound, comprehensive and, by all appearances, sincere parliamentary apology for a century of residential school nightmares inflicted on thousands of native children, finally giving some meaning to the money it has pledged to victims.
After a lone aboriginal stood high in the spectator seating waving an eagle feather to bless what was to come, native leaders walked onto the floor escorted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to an all-party standing ovation.
Euphoria broke out in the galleries above, where drums rumbled and former students or their families roared their approval - and damn all to that parliamentary prohibition against public noise in the Commons. And then ... silence. www.nationalpost.com
Giant Greenhouse Complex
Photocell Live @ Call The Office London, ON - May 2, 2008
www.photocell.tv
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Paul Gitto (Arcturus Observatory)
Explanation: What is that inverted rainbow in the sky? Sometimes known as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc is created by ice, not fire. For a circumhorizon arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds are present. Furthermore, the numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight like a single gigantic prism. Therefore, circumhorizon arcs are quite unusual to see. Pictured above, however, a rare fire rainbow was captured above trees in Whiting, New Jersey, USA in late May.
Of all the copy shops in all of England, Trudy Coughlan had the rotten luck of walking into Document Image Processing. It was June 2007 in sleepy Surrey County, and Coughlan, a statuesque blonde, sauntered through the door of the shop holding a sheaf of 780 pages. Scan them onto two CDs, she told the clerk, a forgettable middle-aged guy in a forgettable office park in the middle of nowhere. Nothing strange about the order, unless you happened to be a Formula One fan and happened to take a close look at the material: schematic drawings, technical reports, pictures, and financial information — enough insider dope to design a Formula One race car. Each page was emblazoned with one of the most famous logos in the world: the prancing black horse of Ferrari.
Surrey is McLaren country, just down the road from what locals call the Spaceship, the futuristic, top-secret, half underground headquarters of the McLaren Formula One racing team. But as it happened, the copy clerk was a rabid Ferrari fan — among the legion who worshipped Ferrari's star F1 driver Michael Schumacher and agonized over the fact that the Ferrari team was lagging behind top-ranked McLaren that summer. Thus began the biggest scandal ever to rock the world of Formula One racing... www.wired.com
Bangkok, Thailand - Across Asia, the bugbear of inflation is back, and it's not just policy wonks who are feeling the strain. Faced with rippling social unrest over soaring prices for fuel and food, governments are struggling to cushion the blow, while keeping economic growth on track.
With inflation rates at multiple-year highs in Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and Indonesia, policymakers are reluctantly raising interest rates in a bid to keep a lid on rising prices. At the same time, Asian governments are having to slash fuel subsidies to stop their own budget blowouts, all the while keeping a wary eye on the political backlash.
Last week, Malaysia raised pump prices by 41 percent for gasoline and 67 percent for diesel, to the dismay of consumers accustomed to cheap fuel, and to the delight of an emboldened opposition that has begun planning nationwide anti-inflation rallies. Reaction was swifter in India, where protests broke out in West Bengal after double-digit fuel price rises that, analysts say, could dent the popularity of the ruling Congress Party... www.csmonitor.com
Lewis Calls For Protection For Women, Girls
It could be a strategy of war from among the most reviled of invading armies throughout human history: "If you want to destroy a nation, you do so by destroying its women.'' But these are the words of a surgeon at the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an African country where an estimated 200,000 women and girls have been raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence over the last decade."The hospital was born out of suffering,'' says Dr. Roger Luhiriri, who took part in a Toronto news conference Monday sponsored by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which called on the United Nations to fulfill its mandate to protect women and girls in Africa from ongoing violence. Opened as a maternity hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu in the Congo, the Panzi now also provides free medical care to victims of war, particularly females subjected to often unspeakable forms of sexual brutality.
The hospital's six surgeons operate on about 60 patients a week, repairing and reconstructing women's reproductive systems that have been mutilated during sexual violence often perpetrated by marauding packs of armed gangs and militias. "The nature of the raping is so violent,'' said Lewis, who announced his charitable foundation is donating another $300,000 to support the Panzi Hospital.
"There's mutilation and amputation and the use of knives and the use of guns, terrible things done in front of families and families forced to participate in the raping of family members or face death,'' he said in an interview. Lewis, former UN envoy for AIDS in Africa, said what is so incomprehensible about the unchecked violence against women is that "the world knows'' it is happening, but little is being done to stop it... www.owensoundsuntimes.com
Oil, What, Where & When in North America Over the Next 3 Years
Many countries have very heavy crude oil and it can only be used to refine certain products. Saudi crude cannot be used for gasoline production because of this. Mexico and Venezuela also have almost all of their oil as heavy crude. It can be used to produce heavy bunker oil used in ships and asphalt production. In Canada’s Alberta oil patch, the oilsands is also very heavy crude and must be refined in an upgrader to allow it to become a very light crude then be refined into gasoline and other light oil products. It costs a great deal more time and money to refine the heavy crudes into light grade products..A certain percentage of very heavy crude is also lost in the double refining process which is one reason it brings a much lower price.
When normal West Texas Intermediate ( WTI ) crude was selling for $75 a barrel a few months ago, the heavy oilsands crude of northern Alberta was worth only $28 a barrel on the market. Therefore asking Saudia Arabia to increase very heavy oil production to try to help out with high gasoline prices makes no sense when you understand the basics. Saudi crude is no good for gasoline production.
Husky Oil, a Calgary, Alberta based company, which is more than 50 percent owned by the Chinese for the past 3 years, just bought a half share in a refinery in Ohio. They spent about 2 months rejigging the refinery in early 2008 with it’s American partner and will be sourcing the crude from Alberta. The agreement with their partner is that they will not get any refined products for the first 2 years which means all the finished gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, jet fuel and propane that this plant will produce, will go only to it’s American customers and none to Canada. This is partly Chinese money that has help made this possible. Whatever your opinion is of that, this will be a big help in the summer supply of all fuels.
Do you have trouble sticking to a diet? Have patience. Within 10 years, Dr. Kurzweil explained, there will be a drug that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight.
Before we get to Ray Kurzweil’s plan for upgrading the “suboptimal software” in your brain, let me pass on some of the cheery news he brought to the World Science Festival last week in New York.
Worried about greenhouse gas emissions? Have faith. Solar power may look terribly uneconomical at the moment, but with the exponential progress being made in nanoengineering, Dr. Kurzweil calculates that it’ll be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in just five years, and that within 20 years all our energy will come from clean sources.
Are you depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging. And then, before the century is even half over, you can be around for the Singularity, that revolutionary transition when humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with ever-improving software.
At least that’s Dr. Kurzweil’s calculation. It may sound too good to be true, but even his critics acknowledge he’s not your ordinary sci-fi fantasist. He is a futurist with a track record and enough credibility for the National Academy of Engineering to publish his sunny forecast for solar energy... continued at: www.nytimes.com
Why Does This Prominent Amazon Researcher
Face 14 Years in Prison for Biopiracy?
Motoring up Brazil's Arauazinho River during the rainy season is like navigating a lake full of trees. The rust-colored water escapes its banks and spreads out across the rain forest, leaving the channel indistinguishable from the jungle around it. Marc van Roosmalen, however, seems to sense the river's course. Perched on the bow of our small aluminum boat, the primatologist confidently directs our pilot up the main artery, and we head deeper into the Amazonian wilderness with every turn.
Thin and leathery, with a deep tan and a goatee, Van Roosmalen looks younger than his 60 years. A Dutch-born naturalized Brazilian, he first came to this remote and untouched area of the Amazon more than a decade ago to study a biological El Dorado, a treasure of rare and undescribed biodiversity. For many researchers, discovering a single new species is a career maker. Van Roosmalen has discovered at least 10 — fantastical-sounding creatures like the dwarf marmoset and the giant peccary. His work along the Arauazinho and the Aripuana has earned him a reputation as one of the world's greatest living naturalists.
The boat edges around another curve, and Van Roosmalen's longtime field aid, Francis Correêa, shouts and points at an enormous anaconda, thick as a palm tree, curled on the bank. "Francis has such a keen eye," Van Roosmalen says as the snake eases into the water and underneath the boat.
A few minutes later, our engine quits. "I think I'll have a swim," Van Roosmalen announces, grabbing a snorkel out of his bag. "This water is really nice. The only problem is the electric eels. And the anacondas. And the sting rays, but that's only in the dry season." He doffs his blue button-down and yellow T-shirt and jumps into the water. I'm dubious, but he persuades me to join him, narrating the river's features as we paddle among the submerged tree trunks.
Eventually the pilot gets the motor going, but only barely. We beach the boat and strike out overland. The hike is slow going because Van Roosmalen pauses to note every fruit and tree, every monkey scratch in the bark. He picks up a large, hollowed-out nut. "This is a new species in the Brazil nut family that I'd like to describe," he says wistfully. "In the old days, I would collect this and then later return for the flowers."
He walks a few steps and then stops abruptly. "Automatically I put it in my pocket," he says, pulling out the nut and dropping it to the ground. "If I forget and go back to Manaus" — the capital of the state of Amazonas — "they can throw me in jail."
He may sound paranoid, but he's actually facing a bleak reality. In the summer of 2007, Brazilian authorities put him into one of the country's most dangerous prisons for two months, the beginning of what was supposed to be a 14-year sentence. They called him a traitor and a biopirate and convicted him of stealing the country's natural resources. As a result, Van Roosmalen was fired from his job at the government scientific institute where he'd spent two decades. He became estranged from his family, mired in debt, and afraid for his life. Even as we trudge through the Arauazinho, he awaits the verdict on his final appeal. If he loses, he goes back to prison to serve out his term.... www.wired.com
People displaced from Abyei waited for emergency food rations distributed by the World Food Programme in Agok, south Sudan in this picture made available by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). Southern Sudanese officials dismissed Khartoum's proposal for a joint north-south administration in oil-rich Abyei as a publicity stunt. The US suspended talks with Sudan on normalizing relations on Tuesday, saying leaders from the north and south were not really serious about ending clashes. Before any agreement removing sanctions, which Sudan has been under for more than a decade, the US wants to ensure a lasting and legitimate peace in the south and an end to the conflict in the western Darfur region.
Briefing: Lessons from past food crises
A burgeoning population. Soaring energy costs. Rising demand for meat. A catastrophic harvest. A sudden run on the grain market – and an 80 percent surge in food prices in three years. A brief run-down of the current world food crisis? Yes, but it also applies to the early 1970s – the last time the collective cupboard was bare. Despite similarities, today's food price shock also has some striking features which sets it apart from past crises.
As world leaders gather in Rome Tuesday for a three-day United Nations conference on what steps to take to address the international food crisis, they might study what lessons can be learned from the recent pages of history. How unusual is this food crisis? The current situation is hardly unprecedented. The 1972 alarm, triggered by a hungry Soviet Union seeking to compensate for failed grain harvests, had brutal knock-on effects in East Africa and the Asian subcontinent. Farm prices didn't start falling until 1975, once Washington and Moscow reached an agreement on grain trade. The deal sought to regulate Soviet grain purchases and calm markets by removing any sudden spikes in demand that would drain stockpiles. The episode left a clear lesson: transparency and regular trading between big market players can prevent price spikes... www.csmonitor.com
Why Australia is leaving Iraq
Sydney, Australia - Australia's prime minister said Monday that the reasons used to justify joining the war in Iraq turned out to be false. Labor leader Kevin Rudd made the remarks a day after ordering his country's 550 combat troops to head home after five years in Iraq.
As one of the United States' staunchest allies, Australia was quick to pledge military support for the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. But that decision was made by conservative prime minister John Howard, whose 11 years in office came to an end in November's election.
Bringing home Australia's small but politically significant contingent of combat troops was one of Mr. Rudd's main election campaign pledges. He dismissed one by one the reasons used by the Howard administration – and by association the Bush administration – to topple Saddam Hussein.
"Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest," Rudd told Parliament."Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No... www.csmonitor.com
