Author: Serkadis

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal would create bigger deficits than advertised every year of the next decade, with the shortfalls totaling $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The nonpartisan agency said yesterday the deficit will remain above 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product for the foreseeable future while the publicly held debt will zoom to $20.3 trillion, amounting to 90 percent of GDP by 2020. By then, interest payments on the debt will have quadrupled to more than $900 billion annually, the report said. Deficits between 2011 and 2020 would total $9.76 trillion, the CBO said.

Economists generally consider deficits topping 3 percent of GDP to be unsustainable because that means government debt is growing faster than the ability to pay back the money.

Read the whole story at Bloomberg >

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See Also:

• Deficit Hawks Who Don’t Understand Economics Are About To Ruin The Recovery
• The British Stop Laughing As January Borrowing Explosion Makes Deficit Worse Than Greece
• Niall Ferguson’s Deficit Warnings For The US Are Nothing But Excessive Hysteria

When a President has the opportunity to appoint several Supreme Court justices it’s an opportunity to have a far-reaching, lasting impact on the entire nation, beyond the President’s term.

But you don’t hear much about packing the Fed.

Expect to hear a lot more about this, with Donald Kohn having announced his departure.

Bob Eisenbeis of Cumberland Advisors wrote:

Kohn’s resignation creates the third current vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board, which will give the administration the ability to pick or reappoint six of the seven members of the Board.  It has already appointed Governors Duke and Tarullo, neither of whom have experience in monetary policy, and the President reappointed Chairman Bernanke to a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors.  With Kohn’s departure, Chairman Bernanke is the Board’s only economist.  While this might be fine with some, the fact is that such experience and background is critical to policy formation.
 
This clustering of appointments is not supposed to happen, given the legal structure of the Board, and it gives the current administration the chance to pack the Board with appointees with similar political and economic preferences and leanings.  The economic perspective is especially critical, given the Federal Reserve’s so-called dual mandate of low inflation and full employment and the potential tradeoffs between the two, which can critically affect policy and its timing.  Our concern here is not whether the present administration is Democrat or Republican, but rather is simply the ability to pick so many governors at one time.  This ability is contrary to the intent of how the Board of Governors was structured.  Specifically, each of the seven governors is appointed to a non-overlapping fourteen-year term, with a term expiring every two years.  Theoretically, this would give an administration the ability to fill at most two vacancies within a President’s four-year term.  But of course, Presidents have had the opportunity to make more appointments than that, because governors have typically left long before their terms expired, but the current situation is an extreme.  Most governors who have left recently had served substantially less than half their allotted terms (of course, some have filled unexpired terms).  There are many reasons for early departures, one of the biggest being the low salary and high cost of living in Washington.

This will get some play in the media (though since the public doesn’t understand monetary policy the way it does, say, abortion, it won’t be nearly as much of a topic. But a fierce political battle will brew behind the scenes. Monetary policy is very divisive, as you can see by the ongoing squabbles between inflation hawks (the WSJ editorial board), and anti-inflation hawks (Krugman, Delong, etc.).

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Federal Reserve’s Donald L. Kohn To Resign
• Okay, Here Is Our Exit Strategy
• The Federal Reserve Printing Press Destroyed Your Wage Gains Last Year

Why will Tomonobu Itagaki’s new game sell four million copies? Because it’s a “super dreadnought class project”, that’s why.

Filed under: New York Auto Show, Spy Photos, Performance, Wagon, Cadillac, GM

Well, it sure looks like it. All credit for this one goes to one Aaron P., who emailed the following to us:

So I was walking down Grand Avenue in Downtown LA, and they were shooting a Caddy commercial. There was a covered car, which I thought was the CTS Coupe, but the wind blew off the cover and there was a CTS-V Wagon. I only had time to snag this pic before they put the cover back on but you can see the wagon lines. I hope that means its coming cause that would be an amazing car.

Hmm. Seems like Aaron got awfully close for this pic, a curiously *perfect* upskirt teaser, but regardless of the circumstances behind it, reports of the Cadillac CTS-V Wagon being given the green light date back to September of last year. It’s basically been a guessing game of which show will provide the backdrop for its formal unveiling.

With New York the sole remaining major show on the U.S. circuit this year, and Bob Lutz’s retirement scheduled to begin exactly one month after that, we’ll bet our whole chip stack that El Generalissimo Roberto Maximo goes out with a bang, introducing the CTS-V Sport Wagon at the Javits Center, because the car in the above photo is most definitely a wagon, that is most definitely the “V” badge, and those are the correct wheels. Very badass, indeed.

Thanks to Aaron for the photo!

Peekaboo: Cadillac CTS-V Wagon spied in L.A.? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’m not usually an advocate of the whole koombayah, use your words movement. That being said, I think this German video deftly illustrates that shock value sometimes diffuses a situation quicker than even an ass kicking could have…

Turns out Crystal Dynamics weren’t joking when they said Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was “very different to what people might be expecting.” Instead of the third-person shooter we’ve come to know and love, Guardian of Light

Beyonce was seen hugging fans outside the Phoenix House Foundation in Brooklyn after unveiling her Cosmetology Center yesterday.

03.05 – Phoenix House Foundation in Brooklyn

View another video after the jump.

EES Delta Survey (Patricia Spencer)

With photos.

At the end of our first week of work for the British Museum at Balamun. Despite the bad weather just after we arrived here, we did manage to start work as planned on the 27th, though the site was very muddy and wet for the first few days. Usually our first job is to re-erect our wooden site hut, which is the base for our day and night guards and where our site equipment (wheelbarrows, picks, baskets, etc) is stored overnight. This year, because of the state of the surface, it wasn’t possible to erect it before we started work as donkey carts weren’t able to access the site. So, on our second working day, after the breakfast break when everything had dried to some extent, some of our workmen and the site guards moved the hut and re-erected it next to our excavation.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

El Periodico

Barcelona Reporter

Quiron Hospital of Barcelona has reconstructed the face of an Egyptian mummy from 2000 years ago

The presentation of the newly reconstructed face was given by Drs Felix Scales, Xavier Perich and Jordi Clos, president of the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona, and showed the technological advances used in the facial reconstruction process that so far had not been used for archaeology, and the visible effect on the mummy.

Scales spoke of the importance of this project, because, thanks to advances in science, it is now possible to probe the internal structure of a mummy without having to open the shroud.

Madrimasd

La presentación del descubrimiento, a cargo de los doctores Félix Escalas y Xavier Perich del Hospital Quirón junto con Jordi Clos, presidente del Museo Egipcio de Barcelona, mostraron los avances tecnológicos que utilizaron en el proceso de reconstrucción facial que hasta ahora no se habían empleado para la arqueología, así como los resultados visibles en la momia.

Esta nueva tecnología no invasiva, que permitirá reconstruir la imagen de las momias y conocer con mayor detalle la estructura ósea de los restos arqueológicos, ha permitido confirmar que la reconstrucción facial que se había hecho de la Dama de Kemet se corresponde con el dibujo que cubre la momia.

La momia de la Dama de Kemet, ha explicado el presidente de la Fundación del Museo Egipcio, Jordi Clos, presenta un vendaje en el que aparecen pintadas imágenes divinas que hacen referencia al ciclo eterno de la vida.”Una de sus principales características es la representación en su rostro de uno de los llamados ‘retratos de El Fayum’, que se sitúan cronológicamente en la época de dominación romana de Egipto”, ha añadido Clos.

Europa Press

With a photograph of the mummy and its original portrait

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Scope (Lia Steakley)

With photos.

Conservators at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley are in the midst of reviewing CT images of a pair of crocodile mummies, which were scanned at Stanford last week.

The crocodiles, a wrapped mummy with a painted mask and an unwrapped mummy with a pack of offspring on its back, are part of a larger museum collection of Egyptian objects excavated in the early 1900s that will be on exhibit next month. Below is a photo of the wrapped mummy being prepped for scanning.

The mummies were first scanned at Stanford Medicine Imaging Center and then again at the School of Medicine’s Radiological Sciences Laboratory.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil)

An excellent overview of the recent symposium.

Coptic history never ceases to enthral. Jill Kamil attends this year’s symposium near Aswan.

Clockwise from top: the western corridor to the north of the apse of the Monastery of Deir Al-Hedra; map of Aswan and environs; view of the Nile at Aswan with a sheikh’s tomb known as Qubbet Al-Hawa on the west bank of the Nile, and the Monastery of Qubbet Al-Hawa in front of noblemen’s tombs to the left; a young student interviews Father Martyros Angelos in English

“Early Christianity and Monasticism in Aswan and Nubia” was the fifth symposium on Coptic Studies to take place at a monastic centre. Organised by Coptologist Gawdat Gabra, Fawzi Estafanous of the St Mark Foundation for Coptic History Studies, Hani Takla, president of the St Shenouda Society, and under the auspices of Pope Shenouda III and Anba Hedra, archbishop of Aswan, it was held in the new Monastery of St Hatre (still under construction), within walking distance of the ruins of the famous Monastery of St Hatre in the Western Desert — known for some unknown reason by early archaeologists and travellers as the Monastery of St Simeon.

Situated due south-west of the southern tip of Elephantine, the monastery is named after an anchorite who was consecrated by Patriarch Theophilus, bishop of Syene (Aswan), at the beginning of the fifth century.

Before the opening ceremony the participants walked down the rocky incline from the new monastery to the old, where a mass was held. As we made our way back to the conference centre we were left wondering why this large and impressive monastery was in such a sorry state of repair. It was apparently examined and published by Peter Grossman in 1985, and in 1998 the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) removed some debris from the church, but little else appears to have been achieved.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Here are all the High Quality pictures of Beyonce at the unveiling of the Beyonce Cosmetology Center on March 5, 2010 in New York City.

03.05 – Cosmetology Center Unveiling

Check out two videos after the jump…

Times of Malta

Middle East Online

Retrieving the items came after “long negotiations” with the University of London, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.

The artifacts include a stone axe that dates back 200,000 years as well as pottery from the seventh millennium BC which bears the finger prints of its producers, the ministry said.

The artifacts “will constitute the foundation for a collection from the (pre-dynastic) Naqada period,” named after a village in southern Egypt which represented “one of the oldest centres of civilisation in the world,” Hawass said.

They will be displayed at the Ahmed Fakhri Museum, currently under construction in Dakhla, an oasis in Egypt’s western desert.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

On Friday, Beyoncé spoke in downtown Brooklyn, New York, at the Phoenix House, a nonprofit recovery center for drug and alcohol addiction, to unveil a project she and her mother, Tina, have dreamed of and worked on for years: the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center.

According to the press release, the program is “a seven-month cosmetology training course for adult men and women.” L’Oréal has donated all the products to be used at the center, and their spokeswoman Beyoncé, along with her mother, have pledged to donate $100,000 annually.

After brief remarks by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tina Knowles, among others, Beyoncé graciously took to the podium to explain both her ties to the house — she first visited in 2007 as part of research for her role as Etta James in “Cadillac Records” — and her hopes for the program.

While Phoenix House provides varied vocational training, “I felt like they needed something that was geared towards women — something that would teach them skills that would give them hope even after the Phoenix House,” Beyoncé explained about why she chose to fund a beauty school. Her mother also owned and operated a salon in Knowles’ hometown of Houston.

“I saw that a salon was a place for women to socialize, share stories, cry, laugh and get advice,” she continued about her experiences growing up around a beauty parlor. She was close to tears as she added, “Most importantly, I saw the joy it brought my mother, knowing she was a part of their transformation.”

B admired the strength of the women and men who’ve chosen to go to Phoenix House, citing the stigma placed on the disease of drug and alcohol abuse, and that while none of them chose to be addicts, they have all “chosen to get better.” As the speech ended and a brief set of photo ops — including the cutting of a ceremonial ribbon — began, Beyoncé took to the microphone one last time. “It’s a very proud day for me and my mother,” she beamed.

Alicia Keys visited Oprah Winfrey on March 5. During her appearance on the talk show, the singer who is currently on tour to promote her latest studio installment “The Element of Freedom” provided fans with a new set footage of her “Put It in a Love Song” video shoot.

Just before the clip was shown to the audience, Alicia told Oprah how she ended up making a duet with Beyonce Knowles in the song and its accompanying music video. The singer furthermore said she and Beyonce had so much fun and the video shoot which took place in Brazil was “insane”.

You can watch the video after the jump…

Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Al-Masry Al-Youm (Andrew Bossone)

Dark, black kohl surrounded the eyes of ancient Egyptians for beauty and protection, but were they using toxic lead in their make-up?

A recent study in France says it’s likely ancient Egyptians used lead-based make-up for the kohl that decorated their eyes. A local maker of natural beauty products, however, disagrees.

“We have analyzed more than 70 samples from makeup containers preserved in the Louvre museum and about 80 percent of them are lead-based compounds,” said Philippe Walter, one of the authors of the study that is published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The study was carried out after excavations of women’s tombs yielded ancient cosmetic bags, along with with mirrors, hairpins, eyeliner applicators and makeup receptacles.

Walter said, however, that they only examined jars of coloring, not make-up that is known for certain to have been used on humans.

The original article is only available to subscribers or for purchase.

Finding Out Egyptian Gods’ Secret Using Analytical Chemistry: Biomedical Properties of Egyptian Black Makeup Revealed by Amperometry at Single Cells
Issa Tapsoba, Stphane Arbault, Philippe Walter and Christian Amatore
Anal. Chem., 2010, 82 (2), pp 457–460
Publication Date (Web): December 23, 2009 (Letter)
DOI: 10.1021/ac902348g

Here’s the abstract:

Lead-based compounds were used during antiquity as both pigments and medicines in the formulation of makeup materials. Chemical analysis of cosmetics samples found in Egyptians tombs and the reconstitution of ancient recipes as reported by Greco-Roman authors have shown that two non-natural lead chlorides (laurionite Pb(OH)Cl and phosgenite Pb2Cl2CO3) were purposely synthesized and were used as fine powders in makeup and eye lotions. According to ancient Egyptian manuscripts, these were essential remedies for treating eye illness and skin ailments. This conclusion seems amazing because today we focus only on the well-recognized toxicity of lead salts. Here, using ultramicroelectrodes, we obtain new insights into the biochemical interactions between lead(II) ions and cells, which support the ancient medical use of sparingly soluble lead compounds. Submicromolar concentrations of Pb2+ ions are shown to be sufficient for eliciting specific oxidative stress responses of keratinocytes. These consist essentially of an overproduction of nitrogen monoxide (NO°). Owing to the biological role of NO° in stimulating nonspecific immunological defenses, one may argue that these lead compounds were deliberately manufactured and used in ancient Egyptian formulations to prevent and treat eye illnesses by promoting the action of immune cells.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

El Periodico (Anna Abella)

With photos.

Descansaban, olvidadas y anónimas, en el suelo de una tumba utilizada como almacén –la cachette–, en Luxor. Eran 18 momias y hoy los egiptólogos las han bautizado como Princesa Blava, Indiscreta o Pulseras. No se sabe con certeza cuándo ni cómo llegaron hasta allí. Algunos de sus secretos, como su identidad, siguen ocultos, pero otros, como las enfermedades que sufrieron o que fueron 12 mujeres y 6 hombres, probablemente de origen noble, que vivieron en el Tercer Periodo Intermedio (1069-525 a.C.), acaban de salir a la luz. Es gracias a los estudios antropológicos y radiológicos realizados por el equipo del Proyecto Monthemhat, misión arqueológica que trabaja en la tumba de este importante gobernador egipcio del siglo VII a.C., dirigida por el alemán de origen egipcio Farouk Gomaà y en la que participan miembros del Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya (MAC).

I have a close friend who has Dupuytren’s in both hands and it’s no picnic.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Living In Egypt (Maryanne Stroud Gabbani)

With photos of the museum visit.

Laurie and I have been friends on email for over 15 years and friends face to face for almost 10 years. We got to know each other on Equine-L so it was only natural that, having recently retired from her work, she should decide to come and visit me in Egypt and go riding. What might not seem so completely natural is the fact that she brought a friend along to “see” Egypt who is blind. I was a bit taken aback at the idea of Gail wandering around our stretch of the Sahara with only someone calling out directions, but all went well and will be in a Sarcophagus post soon. When we were planning activities for Laurie and Gail the seeing issue was an interesting parameter. We talked about museums, but as Gail said “Once you’ve felt one glass case, you’ve felt them all”. So true.

BUT…I’d read that the Egyptian Museum was instituting special tours for the blind so I called them. Mona, the assistant to the director Dr. Wafaa el-Saddik, told me that so far the tours had been done for school children and not for adults but she would see what they could do.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

A good round up of the two most recent discoveries.

A colossal head of Tutankhamun’s grandfather in Luxor and the burial chamber of Queen Behenu of the Sixth Dynasty in Saqqara are the latest antiquities discovered in Egypt, reports Nevine El-Aref

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes