By Gregory White and Kamelia Angelova
Continue reading The Sovereign Debt Crisis Snuck Up On Us Out Of Nowhere
Archive for June, 2010
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted initial approval for a “roadable aircraft” known as the Transition.
The flying car - which is manufactured by the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia - received an exemption from the FAA allowing the vehicle to qualify as a light sports aircraft.
The rather unusual move will allow the Transition to operate legally with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,430 pounds, or 110 pounds over the standard limit.
The extra weight is expected to be used to accommodate airbags, crumple zones, safety-cage structures and other equipment required by federal motor vehicle standards.
The $200,000 flying car is slated to touch down in a driveway near you by late 2011.
Continue reading Flying Car Wins Initial FAA Approval
By Richard Teitelbaum
Greg Palm, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. general counsel, took a call in his 37th-floor office at One New York Plaza on Dec. 16, 2008. It was his old boss, Stephen Friedman, a former Goldman chairman who was then head of the audit committee of its board of directors. Goldman’s stock was down 65 percent from its 52-week high during an accelerating global financial breakdown.
Friedman, who had become chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that year, told Palm he wanted to buy, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August issue.
Continue reading Scrutiny of Goldman’s Board Focuses on Silence Over Conflicts
Catherine Austin Fitts’ Blog Commentaries
Goldmam Whac-A- Mole 29 April 10
Thumbing Down on Blankfein 5 May 10
Spanking Buffet 7 May 10
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler appears to be on verge of achieving a big victory in his battle to impose stricter position limits on major energy futures contracts.
Back in January, Gensler unveiled proposals for tough new limits on futures positions in U.S. crude, natural gas, gasoline and heating oil. Unlike previous limits set by exchanges, these would be set by the Commission itself and would aggregate all positions in economically equivalent futures and options for a particular commodity. The proposals were designed to limit exemptions for firms seeking to hedge financial rather than physical exposures and largely restrict financial and physical hedgers from also running speculative positions.
Continue reading Gensler On Brink Of Position Limits Victory
By Fidel Castro
When I was writing one of my previous reflections, as a disaster for humanity was rapidly approaching, my greatest concern was to fulfill the elemental duty of informing our people.
Today I feel calmer than 26 days ago. As things continue happening in the short term, I can reiterate and enrich information to national and international public opinion.
Obama promised to attend the quarter-final game on July 2 if his country won in the second round. He must know, more than anybody, that those quarter finals could not take place if extremely grave events should happen beforehand, or at least he should know that.
Last Friday, June 25, an international news agency of known attention to detail in the information that it provides, published statements from “…the naval commander of the elite corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, General Ali Fadavi…” warning that “… if the United States and its allies inspect Iranian ships in international waters ‘they will receive a response in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.’”
Continue reading Warning Of War
Continue reading When Giants Fall
Related reading:
US Imposes New Sanctions Targeting Iran’s Energy And Financial Sectors
The Economic Times (26 June 10)
Catherine Austin Fitts’ Blog Commentaries
Saudi Arabia Gives Israel Clear Skies to Attack Iranian Nuclear Sites 25 June 2010
By Michael Snyder
Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.
In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.
Continue reading Warning To Gulf Volunteers: Almost Every Cleanup Worker From The 1989 Exxon Valdez Disaster Is Now Dead
Related reading:
Is It Safe To Go Swimming In The Gulf Of Mexico?
the American Dream (June 2010)
By Kari Goodnough - Devastating Beauty - June 2010
“Oil off the Coast of Alabama”
Since shortly after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico two months ago, relief wells have been discussed as the ultimate solution, their success in permanently plugging the runaway well deemed a foregone conclusion.
But BP and government officials are now talking about a long-term containment plan to pump the oil to an existing platform should the relief well effort fail. While such a failure is considered highly unlikely, the contingency plan is the latest sign that with this most vexing of engineering challenges - snuffing a gusher 5,000 feet down in the gulf - nothing is a sure thing.
Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president in charge of subsea containment and capping efforts, said Monday that the first relief well was “progressing very well” and on target to intercept the runaway well more than three miles below the surface of the gulf.
“It’s not a matter so much of if, as when,” Mr. Wells said of the effort, which will involve pumping heavy mud and cement through the relief well into the damaged well to plug the damaged well permanently.
Continue reading BP Turns to Backup Strategy to Plug Well
Related reading:
Hurricane Alex to Hamper BP’s Oil Spill Containment
Reuters (29 June 10)
Visualizing The BP Oil Spill Disaster
If It Was My Home (26 June 10)
Costner Cleanup Device Gets High Marks From BP
Yahoo News (25 June 10)
A Series Of Lucky Coincidences Involving Goldman Sachs And BP plc
Zero Hedge (1 June 10)
A leading Mexican gubernatorial candidate was killed early Monday in a state bordering Texas, in the highest-level assassination of a politician here since President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels in 2006.
The killing of Rodolfo Torre, who was seen as a shoo-in for governor in Tamaulipas, represents an escalation of the drug traffickers’ war against the Mexican state.
Continue reading Killing Escalates Mexico Drug War
Related reading:
Singer Murdered After Denying he Was Dead
Reuters (29 June 10)
Byrd’s Death Puts Financial Reform Efforts at Risk
Yahoo News (28 June 10)
Particles Collide at World-Record Rate
By Jennifer Ouellette
Take that, Fermilab! This seems to be the underlying message of yesterday’s BBC News article announcing that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland has smashed the record for most particle collisions, doubling the previous rate to reach about 10,000 particle collisions per second. More collisions means that many more opportunities to observe interesting new physics. And while Fermilab still holds the record for highest beam intensity at its Tevatron collider, the LHC’s collision rate leaves the poor aging machine in the dust. Boo-yah!
Maybe it’s payback for all the news Fermilab has been generating over the last month or so, including the possibility of not one, but five different Higgs bosons. The two facilities have a friendly scientific rivalry going, to be sure, and let’s face it: the Tevatron would dearly love to beat the LHC to the Higgs, just to prove that size isn’t everything.
“It’s clear that the LHC is the new boy in town, but in two years running we’re going to put Fermilab out of business,” the article quotes operation group leader Mike Lamont as boasting. (And who knew the LHC was male?) Sounds like a throw-down to me. And clearly, the clock is ticking.
Continue reading LHC Smash! Particles Collide at World-Record Rate