Author: Serkadis

Article Tags: Bob Ellis

By now virtually everyone on earth is aware of the hysteria being fostered by socialists over global warming.

Al Gore and his disciples claim that any planetary warming that is occurring must be caused by human beings. After all, the West and America have been dominant for the last century or more, and that is when temperatures seem to have begun to rise (recently in history, that is), so it must be the evil capitalists and their SUVs and industry causing it.

But does that contention stand up to actual science and history? Not even close. The only “science” that supports this silly theory consists of a lot of conjecture and some “fudged” computer models like the one left naked from the Climate Research Unit in the recent ClimateGate scandal.

History is also not a friend to the anthropogenic global warming religion. At many times during human history, our planet has been much warmer…and much cooler. For instance, around the year 1,000 AD, the Vikings colonized Greenland and had a thriving civilization there…only to be forced to abandon it as the climate cooled dramatically a few hundred years later. There was also a “Little Ice Age” in the 1600’s and 1700’s where things were much cooler in Europe and America than they were a few decades before…and since.

Source: dakotavoice.com

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Article Tags: You could not make it up

A dimming of the Sun to match conditions in the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the 17th century would only slightly slow global warming, according to new research.

World temperatures have risen 0.7°C since the Industrial Revolution led to increasing use of fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases when burnt, according to the UN panel of climate scientists.

Click source for more denial regarding the solar output of the Sun, on one hand this report confirms the cooling period with a calm sun but then goes on to say that the power of “Man Made Climate Change” is stronger! You Could Not Make It Up!!!!!!

Source: abc.net.au

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Here’s the stat you want to know about Mafia II. The game will be running for some 15 hours, and what do you know, the Xbox 360 version will come in not two, not three, but just

Beverley Sanctuary Stones

Marking the ancient boundaries of asylum around Beverley Minster

A haven for criminals of all stripes, the sanctuary stones of Beverley marked an ancient boundary inside of which thieves and brigands could escape the law.
Legend has it that King Athelstan granted Beverley sanctuary for the otherworldly assistance of St. John of Beverly in winning the battle of Brunanburh in 937. The battle made Athelstan the first king of all Britain, and sanctuary extended for a mile around the the saint’s tomb.
Winning the battle of Brunanburh was not the first miracle attributed to St. John of Beverley, and it would not be the last. The “Cult of St. John” was firmly established by Athelstan’s time, with pilgrims coming to the former bishop’s tomb for miraculous healings or saintly interventions in their lives. Centuries later, on St. John’s feast day in 1415, Henry V triumphed over great odds at the Battle of Agincourt, and he also credited the saint for the victory.
Sanctuary was an important component of medieval law and life. Established around AD 600, sanctuary laws provided safe asylum within churches. Or, in cases determined by the king, an entire town might be considered sanctuary, as in Beverley. Asylum-seekers could confess and hand over arms in exchange for a temporary stay of punishment and the possibility of intervention on their behalf by the clergy or others who may have needed time to mount a defense. This period of sanctuary usually lasted for 40 days.
At the end of the period of sanctuary, the asylum seeker had two options: to relent and face trial by the authorities, or to confess to the church and become a literal outlaw, exiled from the country via the nearest port. Outlaw fugitives in this case had their heads shaved, were often given a special outfit to wear and a staff to carry, and told to make for a specific port within a restricted amount of time. Many outlaws of the era simply opted, once safely out of view of the sanctuary, to change clothes, put on a hat, and return to their life of vice. Of course, should they have been caught, their punishments would’ve been severe.
The laws of asylum were effectively ended by Henry VIII during his crackdown on the powers of the church over the (his) state, and completely abolished in 1623 by James I.
The number of sanctuary stones is unknown. A first mention of the sanctuary stones of Beverley comes in the 12th century, with another two mentioned in the 16th. It is possible that there was a fifth stone, since there were five main roads into the city. The stones were originally fashioned into large crosses, and an asylum seeker would have needed to physically touch the stones in order to be considered within sanctuary.
Two of the four, or possibly five, original stones remain, all but unrecognizable as crosses after so many years. The southern cross is on Hessle Road, north of Bentley. The Killingwoldgraves cross is along the York Road. A possible third remaining sanctuary stone is on the Walkington Road.

Read more about Beverley Sanctuary Stones on Atlas Obscura…

Category: Strange Statues, Rites and Rituals
Location: Beverley, United Kingdom
Edited by: Annetta, Dylan, wythe

Homebrew coder AgentQ is back to release a new beta build of ScummVM, a homebrew emulator of some classic point-and-click adventure games for the Nintendo DS. The latest update of the brew has added support for more

We’ve seen all sorts of governments complaining about aspects of Google’s Street View offering, but here’s a first. Reader Joe points out that the city of Windsor, Ontario, has asked Google to come back and reshoot a certain location, because the current images capture a “murder crime scene” with police tape, police car and (apparently) bloody bandages. The city is upset because they feel it reflects poorly on the area and “That’s not Windsor.” They’re also upset because the Google cameras came through during a labor strike that resulted in lots of garbage being seen on the streets. It makes you wonder if towns and cities are going to start to “prepare” for Google Street View cars coming through and make sure that everyone is on their best behavior…

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CyberConnect2 is counting down the days to when they will finally announce their newest game. Could this finally be the announcement they shied away from before?
 
 
 

We know you want more, so here’s another batch of videos showcasing the PlayStation Move straight from Sony’s GDC press event. Check out the gameplay demo of Move Party and the mini game compilation Sports Champion after

Worldwide wheat inventories are expected to rise 19% this year, which is the largest annual increase since 2002 according to the USDA. This will put pressure on a variety of soft commodities this year. Which pushed us to issue a reminder:

Never forget that in the long-term, soft commodities should become cheaper and cheaper. That’s because human technology advances mean that farms will become more efficient. This has obviously already been the case, humans can now produce far more wheat, corn, etc. with far less effort than in the past. While we may all feel we know this, sometimes we may forget what this implies for soft commodities’ prices.

Soft commodities are in a permanent long-term downtrend since technology is in a permanent long-term uptrend. Obviously traders can make money every day both long and short, but never forget that the wind of progress is against you in softs.

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• Is Eric Sprott In The Market Trying To Buy 10 Tonnes Of Gold?
• Rick Bookstaber: Hedge Funds Are Pumping The Gold Bubble And Luring Investors Off A Cliff
• Gazprom Thinks It Will Steal 10% Of The U.S. Gas Market Since The American Shale Gas Revolution Will Fail

More from Sony’s GDC press event, we now have some fresh videos of Sony’s new motion-tracking technology in action. From the PlayStation Move’s official trailer, to some gameplay demos of a move-enhanced version of LittleBigPlanet, the upcoming

China Mobile (CHL US, 941 HK) is set to acquire a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (600000 CH), in a deal that has riled China Mobile shareholders. Pudong shares were suspended once the deal was made public, but interestingly they spiked 5.5% ahead of the deal’s evening announcement on February 25th:

Either buyers that day were extremely skilled in mosaic theory or they knew something was in the cards. That’s a pretty blatant jump.

Yet even these traders didn’t even get the best deal in town. That’s because China Mobile ended up getting its Pudong shares for 17.82 yuan each, 14% below the price at which Pudong shares were halted. Unfortunately, CHL can’t just flip its shares as fast as the traders above.

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See Also:

• Shareholders Screaming Murder As Their Chinese Telecom Company Is Being Forced To Bailout A Bank
• It Begins: China Cracks Down On The Shadow Banking System That Is Inflating Its Real Estate Bubble
• S&P Sends Another Warning Shot Over The Bow Of The Spanish Debt Armada

While Chinese food prices may be uncomfortably rising, here’s the data point the government will bandy about in order to dull criticism of their economic policy:

Bank lending grew by just 700 billion yuan in February, well below 1.39 trillion in January, and comfortingly 35% below the 1.07 trillion in new loans created during February 2009.

At the same time M2 money supply growth slowed in February, to 25.5% year over year from 26% in January, which indicates stabilization for now.

So drink up on this loans data. Consensus sure is, since they expect a soft landing.

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See Also:

• The Economist: Don’t Worry America, There’s Life After The Fall Of An Empire
• It Begins: China Cracks Down On The Shadow Banking System That Is Inflating Its Real Estate Bubble
• The World’s Largest Trade Distortion Annihilates Expectations

Ron Paul spoke on the House floor today in support of Dennis Kucinich’s H. Con Res 248 which would end the war in Afghanistan and bring U.S. Armed Forces home within 30 days.

Location: Congress
Date: 03/10/2010

Original cosponsors of Dennis Kucinich’s bill include Representatives John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI); Ron Paul (R-TX); José Serrano (D-NY); Bob Filner (D-CA); Lynn Woolsey (D-CA); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC); Danny Davis (D-IL); Barbara Lee (D-CA); Michael Capuano (D-MA); Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ); Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); Timothy Johnson (R-IL); Yvette Clarke (D-NY); Eric Massa (D-NY); Alan Grayson (D-FL); and Chellie Pingree (D-ME).

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. CON. RES. 248

Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 4, 2010

Mr. KUCINICH (for himself, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. FILNER, Mr. JONES, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. JOHNSON of Illinois, Mr. PAUL, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. MASSA, Mr. GRAYSON, Ms. LEE of California, Ms. PINGREE of Maine, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. CLARKE, Mr. SERRANO, and Mr. MICHAUD) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),

SECTION 1. REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM AFGHANISTAN.

Pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(c)), Congress directs the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan–

(1) by no later than the end of the period of 30 days beginning on the day on which this concurrent resolution is adopted; or

(2) if the President determines that it is not safe to remove the United States Armed Forces before the end of that period, by no later than December 31, 2010, or such earlier date as the President determines that the Armed Forces can safely be removed.

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At the post-conference interview with Sony’s Jack Tretton, he exclaimed that they’re locking their eyes to all areas of gaming for their PlayStation Move.
 
 
 

In the wake of the DMCA takedown notice that forced Cryptome offline, the EFF is pointing out yet another massive in with the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown setup: it leads to a ton of collateral damage in getting legitimate, authorized, non-infringing content blocked by overzealous takedowns. Obviously, there are lots of cases of false takedowns or where there’s a fair use argument — but even if we assume that (in this example) Microsoft’s DMCA was justified, the fact that the entire site got forced offline should be seen as a major problem with the DMCA:

This illustrates a basic problem built into the DMCA safe harbors. Microsoft’s notice targeted just one document. Network Solutions, however, couldn’t take down that single document, so opted to take down the entire site. Thus, although Cryptome’s beef was with Microsoft, Cryptome also had to persuade Network Solutions to take a chance of losing safe harbor protection (although not much of a chance, because Cryptome’s posting was protected by the fair use doctrine). Because Network Solutions wasn’t willing to take that small risk, a whole lot of speech was temporarily disappeared.

As the EFF notes, this happens because the notice and takedown process lets copyright holders go after “the weak link” by moving further and further upstream to find a player in the chain who will take down the content, even if it means taking down much more:

Copyright owners reach out to a “weak link,” the service provider with the least incentive to resist the takedown notice. Unless it has a free lawyer, the cost of doing a fair use analysis and defending a lawsuit–even if the service provider knows it will win–is almost certainly more than a service provider is charging any individual customer, or even a whole bunch of “innocent bystander” customers.

The EFF also follows this up with a list of ways that upstream service providers should react to such DMCA notices, and suggests that customers seek out service providers who will follow that course of action. Of course, the better solution would be to fix the DMCA, but that doesn’t seem likely any time soon.

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Here’s a quick sampling of what’s on our radar tonight:

• Chinese inflation: See here and here.
• Companies are borrowing like crazy again (WSJ)
• Toyota complaints surged AFTER first recall (WSJ)
• Conservatives in the UK raise fears of a new labour death tax (Daily Mail)
• Gary Gensler is hot (NYT)
• Obama still feuding with Harry Reid about the healthcare bill (POLITICO)
• Obama is really closing the healthcare home stretch by hitting hard on righty issues like waste and fraud (White House Blog)
• Rail traffic declines slightly in February (Calculated Risk)
• And now a trade war between the US and France? (Telegraph)

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See Also:

• The Inflation Number That’s Really Going To Freak Out Chinese Authorities
• Bill Gates Loses Forbes’ ‘World’s Richest’ Title To Carlos Slim
• As Risks Fade, Once Again Investors Are Loving Junk, Trash, And Financials

Food: Prices were up 6.2% y/y vs. 3.7% in January.

The people will tolerate other kinds of inflation — such as the value of the land they live on, which gives the illusion of wealth — but when food prices are spiking like these, this will demand action.

Now for your education, learn 14 of the craziest food items in the Chinese CPI >

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See Also:

• Chinese PPI Running At Red-Hot 5.4%
• The Mindblowing Bubble In The "Miami Of China"
• Now Stephen Roach Is Attacking ‘The Imminent China Collapse’ Strawman By Glorifying Big Government Intervention

China’s PPI is running red hot:

Shanghai Daily:

The producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 5.4 percent in February from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced today.

It quickened from 4.3 percent in January this year, and 1.7 percent in December 2009, when the figure posted the first monthly rise since December 2008.

Has the PBOC already blown it?

A report put out earlier, before this data was released, by our friends at Waverly Advisors says yes:

China’s trade data for February provided compelling evidence that policy makers waited
too long to begin tightening credit.  Despite the successive PBOC reserve increases in 
January and February and the impact of the long Lunar New Year holiday –which draws
millions of migrant workers away from their jobs for weeks to return home,  the figures
showed dramatic gains. Total exports increased by 46% year-over-year while imports
increased by 45% over February 2009.  Urban residential property prices meanwhile
increased by nearly 11% for the month while automotive sales posted a 46% Y/Y
increase

 Simply put, the PBOC ‘s tightening moves were too little, too late with total new loans in
February potentially exceeding 700 billion Yuan according to China Securities Journal.
This evening’s CPI and PPI releases will provide more data and, with consensus estimates
hovering between 2.5 and 3% Y/Y for consumer prices, any surprise may well spur more
dramatic action than we have seen to date.  Even if inflation numbers do register inside
consensus however, it still seems likely that another reserve level increase will be put into
effect this month.  

The Shanghai Composite is up modestly — not reflecting any worries that central bankers may seek to tighten further on the news.

Update: ForexLive has a nice rundown of the full data set here that’s been released. A big standout: food inflation at 6.2% vs. 3.7% in January!

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Mindblowing Bubble In The "Miami Of China"
• China’s Car Sales Growth Is Absolutely Massive
• China’s Challenge

Congressman Ron Paul explains on Fox News why he is opposed to a national ID card.

Channel: Fox News
Date: 03/10/2010

Transcript coming soon

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