Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Scientists say biblical plagues really happened
Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.
The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues.
The rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to dry up, turning the fast flowing river that was Egypt's lifeline into a slow moving and muddy watercourse.
These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood.
Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae.
He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood algae or Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3,000 years ago and still causes similar effects today.
He said: "It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm waters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water red."
The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues – frogs, lice and flies.
Frogs development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress.
The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived.
But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control.
This, according to the scientists, could have led in turn to the fifth and sixth plagues – diseased livestock and boils
Professor Werner Kloas, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute, said: "We know insects often carry diseases like malaria, so the next step in the chain reaction is the outbreak of epidemics, causing the human population to fall ill."
Another major natural disaster more than 400 miles away is now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that bring hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt.
One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterranean islands of Santorini, just north of Crete, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.
Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms.
Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fall out from the ash.
He said: "The ash fall out caused weather anomalies, which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that's exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts."
The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight causing the stories of a plague of darkness.
Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any volcanoes in Egypt.
Analysis of the rock shows that it came from the Santorini volcano, providing physical evidence that the ash fallout from the eruption at Santorini reached Egyptian shores.
The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim.
That's the National Geographic version or you can read Exodus 7-11.
Asia and the world have increasing demand for steel
Sumitomo Metal Industries Co., Japan’s third-biggest steelmaker, agreed to pay Vale $100 to $110 a metric ton for the quarter starting April 1, spokesman Toshifumi Matsui said. BHP, the largest mining company, today said it will sell the majority of its production to Asian steel mills on shorter-term contracts without giving pricing.
A Shanghai judge yesterday blamed the collapse of annual price talks last year on Rio Tinto Group executive Stern Hu and three colleagues for obtaining commercial secrets, sentencing them to between 7 years and 14 years in prison for that charge and bribery. Moving to quarterly pricing will help producers benefit from surging spot prices for iron ore, which are trading at more than double the annual-contract price.
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And the demand for iron ore is not just relegated to Asia.
The commercial shipping season is under way early on the Great Lakes, a sign that the economy is improving.
Recently, the Army Corps of Engineers opened the Soo Locks, which connect Lake Huron and Lake Superior, four days early because of favorable ice conditions and growing demand for iron ore and coal.
"Things are moving quicker, sooner than a year ago. And it seems like more ships are involved," said Eric Reinelt, Port of Milwaukee executive director.
Of five ships that spent the winter docked in Milwaukee, three have already left. One huge freighter, the Stewart J. Cort, is scheduled to leave soon after having been docked here since November 2008.
"It has orders to move iron ore from Duluth to Chicago. That's a pretty good sign," Reinelt said.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Reuters vs reality
U.S.
The U.S. recession has turned a serious shortage of drivers into a surplus virtually overnight. Disappearing credit has hurt production and shipments of goods of all kinds all at once, idling thousands of trucks.
"When I began trucking two years ago you couldn't throw a dime up in the air without hitting a trucking job," said Brian Short, 26. "Those days are gone."
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That's Reuters take.
Reality is that good drivers are hard to find. Who wants to work for the low ball wages of 35-40K that some of these corporations are offering drivers?
No thank you. They'll just sit back and collect their unemployment check instead.
Good truck drivers are hard to find.
You want good drivers? Pay more!
The Reuters story?
It will soon be hopelessly dated.
How China treats gamers that cheat
You can tell from the guy's x-ray, they jammed an 11 in. knife into the cheater's skull almost to the hilt. The youth was rushed to hospital shortly after where Doctors spent nearly 10 hours in surgery to safely remove the blade (which they said was only stopped by the other side of his skull!). Apparently the gamer was using a common "Wallhack" that allowed him to see through walls, but even so jamming a knife into someone's head isn't the best way to deal with it.
(no link because the site will attempt to attack your computer)
Wrong way bears keep pimping their case
Kim Kardashian twitted this picture, and Demi Moore tweeted this vacuous nonsense back.
Now how is it, that everyone can recognize nonsense in the gossip pages, but you can't recognize nonsense and vacousness or vapidity on Wall Street?
Maybe because the NY Times can't either! They had a story out this morning questioning why the markets are rallying.
David Rosenberg had this to say in the NY Times:
“The market is as overvalued now as it was undervalued a year ago,” said David A. Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff, an investment firm.
So why then, didn't he get bullish??
Because stocks are still undervalued, and he can't see it. And when we get to 1440 on the S&P he'll say the same thing!
I've never met a group of bigger crybabies, than these wrong way, ne'er do well bears.
And if these folks are so smart, why is it that they can't follow the most simplistic truism that any rookie follows?
Don't fight the tape!
Because they still suffer from hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia!
And at least it was diagnosed here, and diagnosed early!!!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia strikes!
The fear of 666!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
The S&P hit it's low at 666.
The inflation-adjusted return of the S&P from the 1982 bottom, to the 2000 top was 666%.
The return from the Dow's low of the 1987 crash, to the 2000 high was 666%.
And now, 666 strikes again.Don't fight the tape!
But instead, they want to fight last year's war!
Trump SoHo still a flop
The Trump SoHo hotel and condominium has too many vacancies.
The 46-story building is scheduled to open April 9 in Manhattan. Sales were initially brisk, but only about a third of the 391 units are now in contract. What's more, it isn't clear how many of those will actually close, because that process won't begin until the hotel opens.
The hotel, which was announced on a episode of Donald Trump's hit television show, "The Apprentice," is another of the boom-time projects that looked easy to finance until the recession hit. Recently, Bank of America dumped a mezzanine loan on the project for a fraction of its $75 million face value, according to people familiar with the matter. Now, the developer is in restructuring talks with lenders who hold some $350 million in debt.
Other condo-hotel projects under the Trump brand have run into trouble. The Trump International Hotel & Tower in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., faces foreclosure after developers defaulted on a $139 million loan, though the Trump Organization had only a licensing agreement that has since been terminated.
What did you expect the Donald to do with his spare time? Work on his tan?
Unemployment line or Condo buyers in Canada?
And the idea that the typical family in the US will be content to rent, won't last either.
They're just not buying condos from Trump!
The pre-existing condition insurance loophole
William G. Schiffbauer, a lawyer whose clients include employers and insurance companies, said: “The fine print differs from the larger political message. If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost.”
..Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate commerce committee, said: “The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.”
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Fatty foods are addictive as cocaine
A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin...
The ingredients in purified modern food cause people to "eat unconsciously and unnecessarily," and will also prompt an animal to "eat like a drug abuser [uses drugs]," says Wang.
The neurotransmitter dopamine appears to be responsible for the behavior of the overeating rats, according to the study. Dopamine is involved in the brain's pleasure (or reward) centers, and it also plays a role in reinforcing behavior. "It tells the brain something has happened and you should learn from what just happened," says Kenny.Overeating caused the levels of a certain dopamine receptor in the brains of the obese rats to drop, the study found. In humans, low levels of the same receptors have been associated with drug addiction and obesity, and may be genetic, Kenny says.
What's up with Bud?
Madonna selling beer?
Madonna????
Who is running the ad budget for AB?
Where the bears on Wall Street end up--Siberia!
Shocking to most, bear owner Viktor Kirpichnikov, says he acts only out of love.
“These bears are my life. And it’s for their own good I don’t set them free as they wouldn’t know how to cope in the wild. Their mother was killed by hunters when they were just a few months old. We rescued them,” he explained.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Fight breaks out among "girlie men" at Chicago welfare office
Watch how well security handled this--and then, watch as the victor struts his stuff as though he's on the Birdcage!
The ending is too funny. He's doing an En Vogue victory dance!
What would Precious say?
We can do better?
The Masculine Mystique
The WSJ has an article about the Masculine Mystique that showed that
"They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation's World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease."
Since the United States has a lower mortality rate and higher life expectancy and some testosterone laced men have a higher incidence of infidelity ----"But if health comes at the expense of fidelity and good parenting, how much does masculinity really matter?"
Thus women in the United States are safe to choose the antitheses of the Jesse James type, and choose, as Schwarzenegger would say, "girlie men."
Because, as the WSJ intones, "In the Face Lab study, women with the weakest masculinity preferences tended to live in some of the healthiest countries."
So who needs the testosterone laced male? So who did Murdoch, of the WSJ put a face on the "girlie man" that a weak women would choose? (Check out the three grid jaw above in the WSJ grid at the bottom of that picture with that of the man below it. Evidently Murdoch decided to show his jaw in black and white, because he wanted this to be an arm's length story. Fair and balanced. The B&W picture doesn't show Arthur's pancake makeup!!)
None other than Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the NY Times.
You can find his picture here, on the NY Times website, where he is known as its publisher.
Henceforth known as "girlie-man" by Rubert Murdoch of the WSJ!
Magazine covers tell the story
Let's re-visit April 24 last year when the dreaded Anglerfish made itself known.....
And it gets worse. When an angler fish mates, the male bites into her back, his body dies, and he shrinks down into just a couple of gonads, the size of a parasite. The media used to be the parasites living off of the bears ideas. Now we have another "fluff" piece, but this time the bears are the parasite as they've been neutered by the market.
As advertised!!!!!
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