CAROLINA NATURALLY: Mar 20, 2010

Saturday, March 20, 2010

The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:
You've had it with delays, roadblocks, interruptions and all the rest of those interesting do-not-pass-go situations the universe has gleefully tossed in your path for the past several weeks -- or has it been years?
Regardless of what you call them, the nuisances are finally coming to an end -- and just in the nick of time.
Still, give it a day or two before you try to make plans you actually want to keep.

Some of or readers today have been in:

Heerhugowaard, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

London, England, United Kingdom

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Vienna, Wien, Austria

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia

Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia

Erlangen, Bayern, Germany

Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia

Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, India

Kingston Upon Hull, England, United Kingdom

Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Bad Homburg, Hessen, Germany

as well as Portugal, and the United States in such cities as Richlands, Crystal lake, Kearney, Lago and more

Today is Saturday, March 20, the 79th day of 2010.

There are 286 days left in the year.

Spring arrives at 1:32 p.m. Eastern time.

Today In History March 20

Today's unusual holidays and celebrations are:

National Agriculture Day

National Quilting Day

National Jump Out! Day

Corn Dog Day

Maple Syrup Day

Ostara

Today is Ostara.

The time of new beginnings.
(Also known as the Vernal equinox)

President Obama's Weekly Address

Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
Weekly Address
March 20, 2010

On Monday, the Banking Committee of the United States Senate will debate a proposal to address the abuse and excess that led to the worst financial crisis in generations. These reforms are essential. As I’ve urged over the past year, we need common-sense rules that will our allow markets to function fairly and freely while reining in the worst practices of the financial industry. That’s the central lesson of this crisis. And we fail to heed that lesson at our peril.
Of course, there were many causes of the economic turmoil that ripped through our country over the past two years. But it was a crisis that began in our financial system. Large banks engaged in reckless financial speculation without regard for the consequences – and without tough oversight. Financial firms invented and sold complicated financial products to escape scrutiny and conceal enormous risks. And there were some who engaged in the rampant exploitation of consumers to turn a quick profit no matter who was hurt in the process.
Now, I have long been a vigorous defender of free markets. And I believe we need a strong and vibrant financial sector so that businesses can get loans; families can afford mortgages; entrepreneurs can find the capital to start a new company, sell a new product, offer a new service. But what we have seen over the past two years is that without reasonable and clear rules to check abuse and protect families, markets don’t function freely. In fact, it was just the opposite. In the absence of such rules, our financial markets spun out of control, credit markets froze, and our economy nearly plummeted into a second Great Depression.
That’s why financial reform is so necessary. And after months of bipartisan work, Senator Chris Dodd and his committee have offered a strong foundation for reform, in line with the proposal I previously laid out, and in line with the reform bill passed by the House.
It would provide greater scrutiny of large financial firms to prevent any one company from threatening the entire financial system – and it would update the rules so that complicated financial products like derivatives are no longer bought and sold without oversight. It would prevent banks from engaging in risky dealings through their own hedge funds – while finally giving shareholders a say on executive salaries and bonuses. And through new tools to break up failing financial firms, it would help ensure that taxpayers are never again forced to bail out a big bank because it is “too big to fail.”
Finally, these reforms include a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to prevent predatory loan practices and other abuses to ensure that consumers get clear information about loans and other financial products before they sign on the dotted line. Because this financial crisis wasn’t just the result of decisions made by large financial firms; it was also the result of decisions made by ordinary Americans to open credit cards and take on mortgages. And while there were many who took out loans they knew they couldn’t afford, there were also millions of people who signed contracts they didn’t fully understand offered by lenders who didn’t always tell the truth.
This is in part because the job of protecting consumers is spread across seven different federal agencies, none of which has the interests of ordinary Americans as its principal concern. This diffusion of responsibility has made it easier for credit card companies to lure customers with attractive offers then punish them in the fine print; for payday lenders and others who charge outrageous interest to operate without much oversight; and for mortgage brokers to entice homebuyers with low initial rates only to trap them with ballooning payments down the line.
For these banking reforms to be complete – for these reforms to meet the measure of the crisis we’ve just been through – we need a consumer agency to advocate for ordinary Americans and help enforce the rules that protect them. That’s why I won’t accept any attempts to undermine the independence of this agency. And I won’t accept efforts to create loopholes for the most egregious abusers of consumers, from payday lenders to auto finance companies to credit card companies.
Unsurprisingly, this proposal has been a source of contention with financial firms who like things just the way they are. In fact, the Republican leader in the House reportedly met with a top executive of one of America’s largest banks and made thwarting reform a key part of his party’s pitch for campaign contributions. And this week, the allies of banks and consumer finance companies launched a multimillion dollar ad campaign to fight against the proposal. You might call this ‘air support’ for the army of lobbyists already arm twisting members of the committee to reject these reforms and block this consumer agency. Perhaps that’s why, after months of working with Democrats, Republicans walked away from this proposal. I regret that and urge them to reconsider.
The fact is, it’s now been well over a year since the near collapse of the entire financial system – a crisis that helped wipe out more than 8 million jobs and that continues to exact a terrible toll throughout our economy. Yet today the very same system that allowed this turmoil remains in place. No one disputes that. No one denies that reform is needed. So the question we have to answer is very simple: will we learn from this crisis, or will we condemn ourselves to repeat it? That’s what’s at stake.
I urge those in the Senate who support these reforms to remain strong, to resist the pressure from those who would preserve the status quo, to stand up for their constituents and our country. And I promise to use every tool at my disposal to see these reforms enacted: to ensure that the bill I sign into law reflects not the special interests of Wall Street, but the best interests of the American people.
Thank you.

As The World Turns

As The World Turns

Year's biggest sandstorm turns Beijing sky orange

China's capital woke up to orange-tinted skies Saturday as the strongest sandstorm so far this year hit the country's north, delaying some flights at Beijing's airport and prompting a dust warning for Seoul.

Little fanfare for Iraq war anniversary

Almost seven years after the first bombs in the war to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraqis went about their business Friday with little observance of the anniversary, looking to the future with a mixture of trepidation and hope.

Full story

The State Of The Nation

The State Of The Nation

Democrats discover the benefits of taking a stand on health reform

Read it. Spot on.

If health-care reform finally staggers across the finish line, it will be because President Obama and congressional Democrats recognized -- at long last -- the truth that has been staring them in the face for more than a year: They'll be better off politically if they just try their best to do the right thing.

No matter what the Democrats attempt or how they go about it, Republicans are going to complain, obstruct and attack. That's the inescapable lesson from this whole exercise, and it's hard to fathom why it took so long to sink in. The Democrats looked ridiculous, sitting around the campfire and singing "Kumbaya" while the opposition was out in the forest whittling spears and arrows.

As if to prove my point, some Republicans are already talking about trying to repeal the reform bill even though it hasn't been passed. This hardly seems in the spirit of bipartisanship -- which the GOP, with cynical but skillful rhetoric, has elevated into some kind of saintly virtue.

You have to admire the GOP's chutzpah. George W. Bush governed like a steamroller as he enacted his radical initiatives -- massive tax cuts, a huge shift in the balance between privacy and security, an unprecedented "big government" takeover of education policy, an expensive and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program.

But the moment the Republicans were out of power, they discovered a moral imperative for the majority party to do everything in a bipartisan fashion.

Via the Washington Post

Google targets April 10 to leave China: report

Google is eying a departure from China on April 10th, according to a report in The China Business News. The report came less than a week after a FT report that said that Google was 99.9 percent certain to leave China.

Full story

Shell, Nexen make big find in Gulf of Mexico

Royal Dutch Shell and Canadian oil explorer Nexen Inc said they had made a "significant" discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest in a string of big finds in the Gulf in the past year.

Full story

Local Hospitality

Local Hospitality

Two arrested on prostitution charges

Huntersville Police arrested two women last week on prostitution charges, and officers are investigating if more people were involved.

Full story

Man stabs himself to death at South Carolina airport

A 49-year-old man who was located in a restricted area of Myrtle Beach International Airport was pronounced dead this morning soon after he stabbed himself several times, officials said.
A maintenance man located the man on the airport grounds at 10:45 a.m. and called airport police, said Sgt. Robert Kegler of Horry County police.
The man then pulled a knife and stabbed himself several times, Kegler said.
The man suffered several superficial stab wounds to the abdomen area and a more serious wound to the upper chest, Kegler said.
The man's identity has not yet been released, said Horry County Deputy Coroner Chris Burroughs.
It is unclear how the man got past a barbed-wire fence outside the airport and onto the airfield, said Lauren Morris, spokeswoman for Horry County Dept. of Airports. Horry County police are reviewing security tape to see how the man got into the restricted area.
The man was rushed to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center by EMS and later died at 11:05 a.m., Kegler said.
Flights and passengers inside the terminal were affected, Morris said.

Mexico-Iceland rosters set for Charlotte game

A sad jobless milestone

Charlotte-area levels hit 12.8% in January, highest in at least 20 years.

But more are actively seeking work.

Full Story

South Carolina lawyer accused of Ponzi scheme

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Scientific Minds Want To Know

700 year old brain

ResearchBlogging.orgEvolutionary psychology tends to receive harsh criticism, and often rightly so. One of the main reasons for this is the severe lack of evidence for many of it’s proposals given that the paucity of fossilised brains fails to bolster many a case. And it isn’t even anyone’s fault. That’s just the way it goes sometimes, that the brain is a jelly-like substance that is subject to decay after death, and there’s no way we can objectively analyse or verify any differences in brains of long ago with brains of today.
This isn’t set to change anytime soon, but the remarkable discovery of a medieval child’s brain was the subject of a Neuroimage paper published recently. This is extremely exciting on many counts: the brain has been so fantastically preserved that it is possible to identify the frontal, temporal and occipital lobes, and even the sulci and gyri, the grooves and furrows channeled into brains.
However it is only the left-hemisphere that survived and not the entire brain, which had also shrunk to about 80% of it’s original weight due to the (natural) mummification process.

700-year-old Brain Found Preserved

Perfect visual memory

Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see.
A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals’ ability to remember objects they had seen.

A drug that could give you perfect visual memory

Rich historical artifacts dating back to 3,000 years have been unearthed from the Jajmau mound on the bank of the Ganga in Kanpur where archaeologists belonging to Uttar Pradesh State Archaeology Department have been doing excavation work for the last two and half years.

3,000-year-old history unearthed

Hubble 3D - The Universe Up There

American space-flight technology has certainly changed in the almost 50 years since Alan Shepard went aloft, and so has filmmaking technology.

Full story

Lunatic Fringe

Lunatic Fringe

The Misinformed Teabaggers

Teabaggers think that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

For an anti-tax group, they don't know much about taxes.

Liars and Fools

Paul Broun (reptile-Georgia) compares health care reform to "the Great War of Yankee Aggression".

Lindsey Graham (retard-South Carolina) and Faux's Glen Brick agree: Health insurance reform is like a Japanese bombing attack.

The wackiest of the wackiest agreeing, now here is news.

Faux's Glenn Brick lies saying "what is ahead may loosen the bonds of society," may end with "a French Revolution".

More delusions.

Lush Dimbulb lies accusing Obama of "not doing anything to stop terrorist attacks".

Hey, Lush ... ALL terrorist attacks under Obama's watch have been thwarted - can't say that about the shrub.

Steve King (reject-Iowa) and Faux's Glenn Brick agree: Voting for health insurance reform on Sunday is "an affront to God".

Nobody informed god of this did they?

How Glen Brick and the Teabaggers feel about the violent overthrow of our government?

From Crooks and Liars:

You watch stuff like this and can't help feeling that people like Glen Brick are what made the Soviet Union great.

Virginia's homophobic attorney general is a birther

From WingNutDaily:

A newly unearthed recording reveals a state attorney general explaining how the president's eligibility could be tested in the courts by a lawyer defending a client against an accusation brought under legislation signed by Obama.

The recording of Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli puts him on a growing list of elected leaders, members of Congress and state officials who have addressed concerns over Obama's eligibility to occupy the White House.

Cuccinelli released a statement this week that the recording, apparently made either while he was campaigning for the office or shortly after he was elected, was a "hypothetical" answer to a "hypothetical" question.

In Matters Of Health

In Matters Of Health

Ancient Therapy Causes A Buzz In China

It might not be much fun - but an ancient therapy which involves bees stinging patients to cure their ailments is causing a buzz in China.

Multi-drug resistant TB a serious global threat

The World Health Organization warned Thursday that lethal multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is becoming a serious threat to global health with just a small proportion of cases diagnosed.

Odds and Sods

Odds and Sods

Kidnapping Ex-Cop No Angel On the Force

The victim thought he was going to die when kidnappers pulled the trigger. If he'd seen his tormentor's file from his police days, he might have been sure of it.

Texas gov. gives copy of pardon to man's family

The family of a Texas man who died while imprisoned for a rape he didn't commit has been given a framed copy of the state's first posthumous pardon - a document that finally proves his innocence.

NASA ready to test mini shuttle

The U.S. has built a brand new space shuttle, and it's ready to launch next month.

Dracula-Wannabe Bites NYC Cabbie

The NYPD is looking for this man, who looks a lot like Dracula, for allegedly biting a cabbie in the neck during an attempted robbery.

Portland middle school principal bands hugging

A Portland middle school principal wants to limit physical contact. So she sent a letter home to parents informing them about a new hugging ban.

Anna Nicole gets none of oil fortune

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Anna Nicole Smith's estate will get none of the more than $300 million the late Playboy model claimed a Texas billionaire to whom she was briefly married meant to leave her after he died.
The elderly Texas billionaire who married Anna Nicole Smith in the last year of his life never intended to leave the former stripper any portion of his vast fortune, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Full story

A woman accused of giving an IRS official $2,000 and a $100 Starbucks gift card to avoid a tax liability has been charged in San Francisco federal court.

Woman accused of trying to bribe IRS

Fed must reveal data on loans to firms, court says

The Federal Reserve must reveal documents identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the financial crisis, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Full story

It's The Economy Stupid

It's The Economy Stupid
From Treehugger:

It's an age-old pattern: when the price of oil rises, we start hearing all kinds of talk about eliminating the nation's dependence on foreign oil, and anti-oil company populism runs high. When oil prices fall, Americans tend not to care so much. But the threat of an oil price spike to the economy remains very real nonetheless. So it's worth taking note of the National Resource Defense Council's new report (pdf), which details just how vulnerable various US states are to an oil spike.

Article continues: How Vulnerable is Your State to an Oil Price Spike?

Owners snubbed over home made of tires

A couple was trying to be eco-friendly but now find that lenders don't like them.

'Trash' house's drawbacks

Also:

Interesting In General

Interesting In General

Amazon's got garden sculptures

Homegrown Evolution has a gallery of various terrible garden sculptures for sale on Amazon.com.

This one is my favorite Amazon sculpture offering. Looks like something Saddam Hussein would have installed by one of the shark ponds. Suggestive and creepy all at once.

The Scary World of Garden Sculpture

From Treehugger:

The picture you're looking at above isn't of just any Happy Meal. It's a Happy Meal that's an entire year old. Yup, author Joann Bruso decided to undertake a little experiment with McDonald's most recognizable icon (besides that bizarre man-clown, that is). So she bought a Happy Meal, took out the hamburger, and plopped down in her office. For a year. This is what happened.

Article continues: McDonald's Happy Meals Evidently Invincible