Category: News

We’ve already heard about what carries over to White Knight Chronicles 2 from the original, but apparently what Famitsu revealed last week was just the tip of the iceberg. Sony has released further details on the game’s Japanese website.

Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech

Natural News
Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Rotavirus vaccines are commonly given to children, and this year’s batch of vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are contaminated with a pig virus, the FDA recently discovered. So the FDA called a meeting to determine whether injecting a pig virus into the bodies of young children might be some sort of problem requiring a recall of the vaccines.

Can you guess what conclusion the agency reached? As reported by Reuters, the FDA concluded “…it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo’s Rotarix and continue using Merck’s Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm…”

In other words, as long as they can bury the evidence and deny any link between vaccines and health problems — which has been the standard excuse of the FDA for decades — they can continue to claim the vaccines are safe enough to inject into little children.

Never mind the fact that the pig virus found in the vaccines actually causes a wasting disease in baby pigs, giving them intense diarrhea and causing them to rapidly lose weight. DNA from these viruses was detected in the “master cells” used to make the vaccines.
Suppressing the evidence of harm
An FDA advisory panel said the risk to human health from the viral contamination was only “theoretical.” But of course it’s easy to claim anything is “theoretical” if you suppress the evidence that it’s real. By simply ignoring any reports of neurological side effects from the vaccine, the FDA can always claim there is “no evidence” of harm. Well, no evidence they’re willing to accept as real, anyway.

And that’s how vaccine science works these days: Suppress any evidence of harm, deny any links between vaccines and neurological problems, then okay practically any viral contamination from any animal and declare it’s all safe to be injected directly into the bodies of infants and children.

So much for science, huh? The vaccine industry operates more like a cult than a scientific organization, and anyone who questions the beliefs of their cult is immediately branded a heretic and publicly condemned.

By the way, even though these rotavirus vaccines are contaminated with a pig virus, the companies that make them claim there is “no manufacturing or safety issue” with the vaccines. In other words, this is normal!

Think about that for a moment: The discovery that a vaccine being injected into children is contaminated with a virus from a pig doesn’t even result in a product recall! It doesn’t raise any red flags! It’s just business as usual in the vaccine industry, where DNA from any number of diseased animals is often used in the vaccine formulas.

Last year, rotavirus vaccines earned nearly a billion dollars in revenues for Big Pharma. The risk of a child in the United States actually dying from a rotavirus infection is ridiculously small. What these kids need is good nutrition and vitamin D, not an injection of a questionable vaccine made with pig virus DNA.

Sources for this story include:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS…

Cyclone Laila arriving at 90 miles per hour struck the southern coast of India killing 15 people, 55 fishermen missing, and left 50,000 people temporarily homeless. Uprooted trees and electric lines blocked off roads and caused widespread 10-hour blackout in hundreds of villages. The state government started rescue missions in nine coastal districts with helicopters and buses readied for evacuation and relief operations.

Andhra Pradesh was hit by the worst cyclone in 1977 leaving 10,000 people dead. The tropical cyclone originated in the Bay of Bengal and move northwestward before reaching India. Around 120 relief camps were opened in Machlipatanam, a possible cyclone landfall point. Although the cyclone is weakening, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah said it still could cause heavy damage.Other parts of the state had been experiencing heavy rainfall before the cyclone arrived. Around 800 villages were left vulnerable. Armed forces were mobilized to help out in the rescue and relief operations. The state government had been preparing for this natural calamity.

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Kendra Wilkinson — who just gave birth to son Hank Baskett IV last December — is trying to get pregnant again in a last ditch effort to save her troubled marriage to NFL star Hank Baskett.

Oh Kendra — everyone knows that the “Save The Marriage Baby” never quite does the trick….

The couple’s 11-month union hit the skids last month — following the emergence of a sex tape which stars a 19-year-old Kendra engaged in a saucy romp with “multiple partners.” A humiliated Hank is said to be furious over the X-rated blast from Kendra’s past, and the former Playboy model and reality star, 24, hopes another child will give the couple something positive to focus on.

“They’ve been trying for a second child for a while. And Kendra hopes it will happen sooner rather than later,” a source sequels in Life & Style Magazine’s May 31 issue. “Kendra knows she upset Hank over all this sex tape stuff, and she wants it all to go away. Focusing on another baby would help. There was some tension, but they managed to get over their problems and focus on the baby. At the end of the day, Kendra’s main concern is keeping her family intact, and a new child could only help.”

Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

Washington’s Blog
May 20, 2010

The U.S. government suppressed health information after 9/11. For example, as Newsday noted in 2003:

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available. 

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA.

Because the government lied about the health risks involved, many heroic first responders didn’t use any real precautions, and so have gotten sick and died. And see this.

The same thing appears to be happening in connection with the Gulf oil spill.

Specifically, marine toxicologist Ricki Ott writes:

Local fishermen hired to work on BP’s uncontrolled oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are scared and confused. Fishermen here and in other small communities dotting the southern marshes and swamplands of Barataria Bay are getting sick from the working on the cleanup, yet BP is assuring them they don’t need respirators or other special protection from the crude oil, strong hydrocarbon vapors, or chemical dispersants being sprayed in massive quantities on the oil slick.

Fishermen have never seen the results from the air-quality monitoring patches some of them wear on their rain gear when they are out booming and skimming the giant oil slick. However, more and more fishermen are suffering from bad headaches, burning eyes, persistent coughs, sore throats, stuffy sinuses, nausea, and dizziness. They are starting to suspect that BP is not telling them the truth.

And based on air monitoring conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a Louisiana coastal community, those workers seem to be correct. The EPA findings show that airborne levels of toxic chemicals like hydrogen sulfide, and volatile organic compounds like benzene, for instance, now far exceed safety standards for human exposure.

***

There is no excuse for sick people. BP and the federal agencies charged with worker safety know that the risks of working on a hazardous waste cleanup are extraordinarily high and that it will take a concerted effort to keep workers safe and healthy. Further, it will take an equally extraordinary effort by BP and the federal government to protect public health in coastal communities downwind or downstream from the toxic stew in the Gulf.

Yet I don’t see either BP or the federal government taking sufficient–or any–action to prevent human tragedy in the form of acute and likely long-term illnesses from its uncontrolled leak.

Update: McClatchy is reporting on some of these issues today.

I had the chance to attend a TED event last weekend, namely the TedxTokyo conference, which took place for the second time in Japan. And as CrunchGear’s Japan correspondent, I was naturally most interested in the geekiest presentation delivered: that of Professor Sankai from Tsukuba University (near Tokyo). (The video was of the presentation was uploaded just a few hours ago, which is why I waited till today.)

Sankai talked about and showed the latest version of his brainchild, the super-cool robotic exoskeleton HAL-5. Made by his spin-off company Cyberdyne (yes, HAL-5 and Cyberdyne), the robo suit helps paralyzed persons walk and lift heavy objects through transforming brain signals sensed through the skin into motion.

You can find more technical details in our detailed article from last summer. In the meantime, Sankai developed wearable robot arms that can carry 80kg each. And now it’s also possible for people who lost a leg, for example, to make use of HAL-5. In other words, the leg part can now even help people who need to rely on an artificial replacement, not a “real” leg. Both new accomplishments are demo’d in the video embedded below.

Here’s the impressive presentation Sankai gave during TedxTokyo (in English) on video (not made by me). I shot the pictures you see above myself during the day of the event.

El medio Autocar acaba de publicar una noticia cuanto menos reseñable. El modelo low cost (bajo coste) Fiat Uno se pondrá a la venta en el mercado europeo apartir del año 2011. Incluso, se afirma que las unidades serán fabricadas en la planta que Fiat tiene en Zastava (Serbia).

Recordemos que este modelo actualmente sólo está disponible en latinoamerica aunque visto las buenas ventas que estan consiguiendo este tipo de vehículos en Europa, era de esperar que tarde o temprano la marca se decidiera a lanzarlo en este mercado.

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Via Prison Planet.com » World News

Vincent Fernando, CFA
Business Insider
May 20, 2010

This morning we learned that the Independent’s Andrew Buncombe was one of the foreign journalists injured during last night’s Bangkok violence.

He was the one referred too by this:

He’s now recovering, and he’s already written a piece describing the violence which ensued after ‘red shirt’ protest leaders surrendered to police.

One of the broader take-aways from his eye-witness account, to us, is that the official death toll so far from yesterday seems too low. Mr. Buncombe describes seven people dead in his area:

Independent:

Of those killed yesterday, several died directly outside the temple – and many, many more wounded. Those sheltering inside the temple were just as vulnerable. In one of the compound’s buildings, seven bodies were laid out on the floor.

Seven dead here, yet what’s the official death toll for all of yesterday’s violence, which included multiple locations across Bangkok, and gun skirmishes for many hours? Seven, according to the medical authorities. Does this mean that nobody died outside of the temple? Have they failed to count the temple deaths yet? We know for sure there was at least one more, the Italian journalist Fabio Polenghi who died. That would seem to make eight deaths based on just this basic count. Perhaps the medical authorities are still running their tally, but it seems like the official death count is substantially lower than what likely transpired.

Anyhow, at the very least we expect the official death toll to climb once things have calmed down here. Yet with media locked down and curfews, we wouldn’t be surprised if the real number will be higher, but never proven. (UPDATE: Thai media is now reporting 14 as the total death count)

Regardless, without further ado, a first-hand account of one flash point, from the brave Andrew Buncombe:

Independent:

And then things rapidly changed. From the west, we could hear loud firing as troops advanced towards the temple area. Some reporters who had been outside said that a small number of Red Shirts were firing back with sling-slots, hand guns and petrol bombs. A photographer said he saw a man shot in front of him as he ran away from a line of soldiers, two bullets hitting him in the back and apparently exiting from the chest. The image that photographer had taken did not look good.

Suddenly the firing intensified. The explosions grew louder and appeared to get nearer to us and the crack of weapons became more frequent, their cap-gun noises giving no clue as to their deadly capability.

Continue reading the full account here >

Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

The initial official excuse for such a perceptions drop in the Dow was a wrong keystroke, which is ludicrous.

Then there is the almost total control by Goldman Sachs of the market and control via the Supplementary Liquidity Provider. All they have to do is cut off liquidity and the market plunges. Thus, there is no question in our minds that Goldman attacked the market and took it down to let House and Senate members know that they can make the market do whatever they please with the full cooperation of the SEC and CFTC, this convinced lawmakers that the Illuminist threat was very real. There would be no breakup of too big to fail banks and no real audit of the Fed. The public would be thrown a bone. This is a good reason why program trading has to end and why derivatives have to be abolished. This is all a reflection of two sets of justice. One for the elitists and one for us. This also shows us that crime pays. It also proves our country is under the financial control of terrorists. This power has to be taken away from these criminals. The legal way to do that is by throwing most all of Congress and the Senate out of office. Then we will have a chance to save our country. Otherwise you will see this all move into the streets.

This same cabal has arranged for Europe’s $1 trillion bailout, which will not be successful and they know that. As a result the euro has fallen from $1.50 and is approaching $1.20. Could it be that the euro could go to parity? Yes, of course, it could. Then what or who is next? The pound, yen and then the dollar? Then we ask, “Who will save them?” Who will rescue the world from deflationary depression and another planned world war? You say they actually plan wars? Well, of course, they do. How do you think we were able to predict a 9/11, and the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan? They were profitable diversions for the Illuminists. They kept the potboiling and sidetracked public thinking away from economic and financial problems. The propagandized and mindless public did not know they were being bamboozled again. In the meantime the Trilateralists tell us Israel should be attacking Iran, which in part proves our point. It is now just a question of when. Hasn’t the world public been deceived enough? When are they going to catch on? Do we have to pound it into their heads with a hammer? Of course, in time this is going to affect the dollar, particularly versus gold, which is the world’s ultimate currency. What will the world say when it discovers the US has little or no gold left? Will by that time 25% to 50% unemployed stand still and tolerate this crime? Will they riot and demand changes? Of course, they will and the elitists won’t listen, which will bring about their demise, as masters of the universe. This is why November’s election is so important. It is the last hope of changing our country without resorting to protest in the streets, as we are now seeing in the streets of others. What happens when Americans find out we have no gold left? That it was wasted in an attempt to cover up the seriousness of our collapsing economic and financial system that was being systematically looted. America is just as bad off as Europe. How can throwing money and credit at the system solve the problem? How can austerity solve the problem? It has all gone to far. The world has to have depression – there is no other solution. These are all legitimate questions, because no one is safe or exempt. Government cannot and does not even want to protect you. We no longer have a sovereign government; we have an ongoing criminal enterprise controlling our country. What we have seen over the past several years, what could never happen, has already happened. What is to come is going to be a nightmare.

World markets are dysfunctional and stability doesn’t exist. Man set distortions and economic imbalances – a system that functions without regulation, derivatives and unbridled and unfettered speculation, surrounds us. Leveraged speculation dominates the markets, particularly debt instruments. Unfortunately, this speculation is fostered by government and central banks perpetual willingness to bail out everyone in banking and finance just to keep the system afloat.

This brings us to the dilemma of Greece again. Eurozone policymakers, bankers and governments have been caught again perpetuating imprudent lending to a profligate Greece, whose leadership for years lied to the Greeks, kept two sets of books and were aided and abetted by international elitist bankers, such as Goldman Sachs. Those in authority in the eurozone and the bankers knew exactly what was going on. They deceived everyone in the eurozone including the Greeks. They did this because they knew the public would be called upon to bail them out in a European version of TARP, which was used to bailout the American financial community that was elitist connected. Our markets have been dominated by this cabal of crooks for the past 15 years. They held one interest rate for all to the limits, and the result of that is the deplorable financial condition not only in Greece, but in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy as well. This situation was allowed to flourish. The ECB should get no sympathy, because they did what they did knowingly. They have been monetizing just like the Federal Reserve for the past seven years. The creation of money and credit slowed over the past year, but it will have to resume if Europe and the US expect to survive financially and economically.

Even with the problems we have seen over the past two years and 10 months, now those in Europe you would think would realize how serious these situations are. Now we have debtors in trouble having to lend to serious debtors in more serious trouble. That surely doesn’t make things better; it makes them worse. Incidentally, these are the people who caused the problems in the first place. They knew and we know, no matter what they say that their policies are unsound, unstable and unsustainable. As a result they are faced with a collapsing market for sovereign debt, which is affecting other debt and stocks worldwide. The fact that the Fed failed to solve the credit crisis and affect a recovery tells us that they are ineffective and the ECB is no more competent as well. Debt contagion is on and will sweep the world. Dead beats are dead beats even if they are sovereign nations.

Last week the Dow gained 2.3%; the S&P rose 2.2%; the Russell 2000 rose 6.3% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 3.1%. Cyclicals rose 4.4%; transports 4.4%; consumers 1.8%; utilities 2.4%; high tech 2.1%; semis 2.1%; Internets 4.5% and biotechs 3.7%. Gold bullion rose $22.00; the HUI rose 7.9% and the USDX rose 2.1% to 86.25, as the euro and other currencies folded. Two-year T-bills fell 3 bps to 0.72%; the 10-year notes increased 3 bps to 3.46% and the 10-year German bund rose 6 bps to 2.88%.

The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell 7 bps to 4.93%; the 15’s fell 6 bps to 4.30%. The one-year ARM’s fell 4.02% and 3-year jumbos fell 15 bps to 5.63%.

Fed credit dipped $1.2 billion to $2.310 trillion – it was up $90.3 billion y-t-d and 9.2% yoy. Fed foreign holdings of Treasuries and Agency debt fell $11.8 billion, as custody holdings for foreign central banks increased $108 billion ytd, up 14.2% yoy.

M2 narrow money supply rose $34.3 billion to $8.504 trillion. It is off $8.1 billion ytd and 1.4% plus yoy.

Total money market fund assets rose $24.2 billion to $2.878 trillion. This year assets are off $416 billion, with a yoy decline of $912 billion, or 24.1%.

Amports Inc. will lay off 116 workers at two auto terminals at the Port of Baltimore this summer.

As teachers marched nearby in protest, members of the Long Beach Board of Education on Tuesday voted to issue pink slips to 243 employees – mostly teachers – at the end of this school year as part of a budget-cutting effort.

The five-member board unanimously voted to lay off the employees to help the Long Beach Unified School District cut $90 million over the next two fiscal years. Ninety of those affected are workers on year-to-year contracts, while the remainder are permanent or probationary employees.

Drug company Takeda cutting 1,600 jobs.

The West Coast’s last big shipbuilder, a major employer in San Diego County, is planning at least 900 layoffs because of a prolonged industry slump.

General Dynamics NASSCO says it has sent letters to about a fourth of its 4,100 workers about possible layoffs in mid-July. Half of NASSCO’s 500 subcontractor jobs might be cut, too.

NASSCO spokesman Karl Johnson on Wednesday blamed the downturn in commercial and government shipbuilding as well as fluctuations in the Navy’s repair schedule.

NASSCO builds logistics ships for the Navy and commercial container ships and tankers.

Payment networks giants Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. were beaten down after the US Senate included limits on debit card fees in the financial overhaul bill and analysts said the House is likely to approve the measure. The proposal would give the Federal Reserve the power to curb debit card “swipe’’ fees charged to merchants. The limits may crimp revenue at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan, the biggest US debit card issuers. The measure cleared the Senate because of the industry’s “terrible’’ attitude toward merchants, said majority whip Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who pushed the fee curbs. Merchants last year paid $19.7 billion in fees tied to debit transactions processed by the two networks. The firms counter the bill would benefit retailers at the expense of consumers.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a revised spending plan Friday that pegged the state’s budget shortfall at $19.1 billion and called for deep cuts to welfare and health programs—but no tax increases—to close the gap.

The new shortfall estimate is higher than the previous projection of $18.6 billion partly because the state collected less tax revenue than expected in April for the 2009 tax year. Court decisions challenging some of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s cuts also added to the budget gap.

This will be the third straight year that Mr. Schwarzenegger has proposed deep spending cuts. Tax revenue in California has plunged because of the collapse of the real estate and financial markets. Legislators closed a $60 billion budget gap last year, but not before state officials had to issue IOUs to creditors to keep the state solvent.

‘It is very hard to believe that the total US notional derivatives positions of US commercial banks and trusts is $43.9 TRILLION dollars. By comparison, the US GDP, all the goods and services produced and consumed in our entire great nation by every single American each year, was only running $10.1t in the first quarter. The US M3 money supply, the broadest measure of money, was only $7.4t at the time. The 500 best and biggest companies in the United States, the S&P 500, were only worth $10.4t at the end of the first quarter. Clearly, the $43.9t dollars of the notional value of derivatives that a mere 395 commercial banks and trusts control is simply staggering as it far exceeds the entire US GDP, the entire broad US money supply, and the entire value of all the stocks traded in the United States! BIG, BIG, BIG numbers!’

Global demand for long-term U.S. financial assets strengthened in March to a record as investors from China to the U.K. purchased the most Treasuries since November, a Treasury Department report said.

Net buying of equities, notes and bonds totalled $140.5 billion in March, more than double economists’ projections, after net buying of $47.1 billion in February, the report released today in Washington showed. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, investors abroad purchased

Manufacturing in the New York region expanded at a slower pace in May than forecast as sales cooled.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index fell to 19.1 from 31.9 in April, which was the second- highest level in four years. Readings greater than zero signal gains in the so-called Empire State Index that covers New York, northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut.

US NAHB Housing Market Index improves to 22 in May from 19.

US Net Long-term TIC Flows rise to $140.5B in Mar vs. $47.1B in Feb.

Goldman Sachs is ceasing proprietary trading in one type of structured debt. A group of traders who were focused on making bets on collateralized loan obligations with the New York-based firm’s own money are now handling trades for clients.

Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman denied allegations the U.S. bank misled investors about mortgage derivatives it sold them.  The firm is being probed by U.S. prosecutors over whether the bank misled clients when it sold them collateralized debt obligations as its own traders bet that the value of the securities would drop. Wall Street firms are facing unprecedented scrutiny from lawmakers and prosecutors over whether they mis-sold CDOs linked to the subprime mortgages that caused the credit crisis.

The fallout from the European debt crisis raises the risk of a ‘double dip’ recession for the global economy, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd.  ‘When you have a vulnerable post-crisis economic recovery and crises reverberating in the aftermath of that, you have some very serious risks to the global business cycle,’ Roach said. This concept of the global double dip which no one wants to talk about is alive and well.

New Jersey’s Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce legislation to resurrect an income-tax surcharge on residents who earn $1 million a year or more.

The U.S. posted its largest April budget deficit on record as receipts declined in a month that typically sees an increase in individual income tax payments.  The excess of spending over revenue rose to $82.7 billion last month compared with a $20.9 billion gap in April 2009. April marked a record 19th straight monthly shortfall. Deterioration in the government’s balance sheet in coming years raises the risk of higher interest rates even as an improving economy helps lift tax receipts.  ‘With the recovery in place, we should be seeing higher revenue and lower outlays, not the other way around,’ said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. The government’s April budget deficit compares with a median forecast of $57.9 billion. The last time the U.S. had back-to-back April deficits was 1963-1964. For the fiscal year that began in October, the budget deficit totalled $799.7 billion compared with $802.3 billion during the same period last year.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will seek ‘terrible cuts’ to eliminate an $18.6 billion budget deficit facing the most-populous U.S. state through June 2011. California’s revenue in April, when income-tax payments are due, trailed the governor’s estimates by $3.6 billion, or 26%.

“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a new round of budget cuts, including eliminating the state’s main welfare program for families, to close a $19.1 billion budget deficit for the year starting July 1.  The $83.4 billion plan calls for $12.4 billion in spending reductions, $3.4 billion in additional federal aid and $3.4 billion in fund shifts, fees and assessments…”

“In June 2006, a year before the subprime mortgage market collapsed, Morgan Stanley created a cluster of investments doomed to fail even if default rates stayed low — then bet against its concoction.  Known as the Baldwin deals, the $167 million of synthetic collateralized debt obligations had an unusual feature… Rather than curtailing their bets on mortgage bonds as the underlying home loans paid down, the CDOs kept wagering as if the risk hadn’t changed. That left Baldwin investors facing losses on a modest rise in U.S. housing foreclosures, while Morgan Stanley was positioned to gain.  ‘I can’t imagine anybody would take that bet knowingly,’ said Thomas Adams, a former executive at bond insurers Ambac Financial Group Inc. and FGIC Corp… ‘You’re overriding the natural process of risk-mitigation.’”

 David Rosenberg echoes our view: There are classic signs indeed that the recession in the U.S. ended last summer — output, sales, etc. But the depression is ongoing and the reason we say that is because real personal income, excluding handouts from the government, has barely budged. In fact, real organic personal income is nearly $500 billion lower now than it was at the peak 16 months ago and this has never occurred before coming out of any technical recession. It is a depression. The share of U.S. personal income being derived from Uncle Sam’s generosity has risen above 18% for the first time ever.

Estimates of how much the government’s spending is actually stimulating growth vary wildly — some economists contend it has no net effect at all. But if you believe the economists at Goldman Sachs, who have spent a lot of time poring over the details, the effect is quite significant: about two percentage points of annualized growth in both this quarter and the last. Indeed, if one subtracts that stimulus effect and the boost from changing inventories — also a temporary factor — there’s been no recovery at all. Growth in the first and second quarters of 2010 would be zero.

In the second half of this year, both those temporary factors will fade. The stimulus could even become a drag as it winds down: Goldman estimates it will shave about half a percentage point from annualized growth in the fourth quarter of this year, moving up to nearly two percentage points in the third quarter of 2011, as the overall amount of spending shrinks.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among 10 banks Massachusetts is targeting in a probe of trading of municipal credit default swaps, according to the office of Secretary of State William Galvin.  

The state’s securities division sent letters today to 10 underwriters of municipal bonds, asking them to detail their trading of credit-default swaps linked to state and local government bonds they’ve underwritten in Massachusetts since 2003. Recipients have until May 28 to respond. The letter asked each bank to “identify the entity that purchased CDS from your firm for each Massachusetts state or municipal bond offering.”

China boosted its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt for the first time in six months, U.S. officials said Monday. That development could ease concerns that lagging foreign demand will force the United States to pay higher interest rates to finance its debt.

The Treasury Department said that China’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose 2 percent in March, to $895 billion, the first increase since last September. The purchases solidified China’s position as the world’s largest holder of U.S. debt.

Japan, the No. 2 investor, also increased its holdings in March. They rose 2.1 percent, to $784 billion. Total foreign holdings of Treasury securities rose 3.5 percent, to $3.9 trillion.

The government reported that net holdings of long-term securities, which includes the debt of U.S. companies as well as government debt, rose $140 billion in March, the largest one-month gain on record. It surpassed the old record of $135.8 billion in May 2007.

You’ve got hundreds of billions of recapitalization’s needed in Europe, says Meredith Whitney, who is speaking on CNBC this afternoon.

And the fact that Europe is worse than the US is saying something, she says, since she’s definitely still not positive on US banks.

Other than that, her interview appears to be a rehash of her op-ed arguing that financial reform will kill jobs.

“It could be very bad.”

As for specific aspects of financial reform that concern her: pre-emption (rules that would allow banks to move to different states and take advantage of lower interest rates in some markets) and interchange fees regulation.

Specifically, she expects that interchange regulations will cream smaller banks to the benefit of the larger banks, hampering merchants’ access to capital.

As for the stock market: The second half will be “bleak.”

EUR/USD (short term):. The pair fail to break resistance. Sell under: 1.2445. TP at 1.2350 and 1.2260. Key levels: 1.2150, 1.2260, 1.2350, 1.2416, 1.2445, 1.2520, 1.2605

GBP/USD (short term): Look for downside move. The pair is under pressure. Sell under: 1.4440. TP 1.4315 and 1.4235. Key levels: 1.4175, 1.4235, 1.4315, 1.4357, 1.4440, 1.4510, 1.4580

EUR/JPY (short term): The pair is challenging it’s medium-term trend line resistance, but should weaken soon. Sell under 114.05. TP 112.40 and 111.00. Key levels: 110.00, 111.00, 112.40, 112. 99, 114.05, 114.80, 116.00

GBP/JPY (short term): The pair is under pressure. Sell under 133.15. TP 131.00 and 129.75 Key levels: 129.00, 129.75, 131.00, 131.85, 133.15, 133.95, 135.00

Click for actual Quotes

Click for Economic Calendar

Source: Forexyard

Related posts:

1. Technical Analysis /12:18 GMT/ (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, USD/JPY) 07.05.2010.
2. Technical Analysis /16:15 GMT/ (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY) 16.05.2010.
3. Technical Analysis /16:15 GMT/ (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY) 22.04.2010.

Eco Factor: Sustainable building uses solar panels to provide 40% of domestic hot water needs.

With the advent of technology, architecture can be seen walking the green pavement. Architects and designers across the globe are giving an eco-friendly twist to their designs. Joining the league is the Philippon-Kalt Architects, who have recently given Paris its first building of social housing with solar panels.

(more…)

Via Prison Planet.com » Prison Planet

Maija Palmer
Financial Times
Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Google executives are wrestling over whether to launch controversial facial recognition technology after a barrage of criticism over its privacy policies.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive, said a series of public disputes over privacy issues had caused the management team to review its procedures and the launch of new technologies. According to Google executives, facial recognition is one of the key topics of internal debate.

Mr Schmidt said: “Facial recognition is a good example?.?.?.?anything we did in that area would be highly, highly planned, discussed and reviewed. When you go through these things, you review your management procedures.”

However, he would not rule out any eventual roll-out, saying: “It is important that we continue to innovate.”

Full article here

The very much anticipated Transformers 3 movie is in the works!. Although, Paramount Pictures confirms that Megan Fox will not be in the movie. Megan Fox was said to have left the movie becouse she simply wanted to leave. The producers loved working with her and would love to work with her in the future. The new cast for the third revison is LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich among those onboard. The cast is started screening this tuesday. The movie is set to  be released on July 1st 2011.

Watch the sneak peak here

Transformers 3 Sneak Peak

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Megan Fox, Out in Transformers 3
2. Megan Fox will not be in Transformers 3
3. Transformers 3: ‘Its Me Who Rejected The Offer’, Megan Fox Speaks To Defend Role

Is everyone’s favorite Scottish spinster set for a visit to the halls of McKinley High? Glee creator Ryan Murphy has approached Susan Boyle’s “people” in hopes of snagging the “I Dreamed A Dream” crooner for a guest spot on the Emmy-winning TV musical.

And he already has the perfect role lined up for SuBo if she agrees: “(Susan), I have two words for you: ‘Lunch. Lady.’ I think (the character) Kurt would just die to give her a Christmas makeover. I don’t even know if she’s interested but it’s been pitched,” Murphy told Entertainment Weekly Wednesday.

The announcement most people with interest in web video expected at the Google I/O 2010 conference has been made. Google has open-sourced the VP8 codec, which it acquired along with On2, but went beyond that with the announcement of the WebM Project. The project’s aim is to develop and spread the WebM video format recently launched… (read more)

As with most software, there are always a number of applications known for being the best in their
field. Programs such as Dreamweaver and Photoshop, for example. Another
well known professional application is Macromedia’s Flash, designed to
produce dynamic content for websites and web pages. Unfortunately, if you are a fairly
inexperienced user and don’t have access to applications such as Flash
but you’d like to create dynamic content for a site of your own, are
there any good alternatives available?   

KoolMoves
7.4.4 enables users to produce high
quality Flash content for websites. The application is relatively easy-to-use and
ships with numerous advanced and powerful animation effects as well as
other useful features that help you quickly and easily produce content using pre-defined templates.

KoolMoves
7.4.4 link.

So, just yesterday we wrote about Pakistan’s decision to block all of Facebook, because some users had set up a page for “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” (in response to the threats made to Comedy Central concerning an episode of South Park). Originally, just that one page had been banned, but apparently that wasn’t enough, and a court ordered the entire site should be banned for allowing that sort of content to appear. In response, I asked if Pakistan would ban the internet if a page was put up advocating the same thing. It looks like the country may be trying to ban services one-by-one.

Now it’s been announced that Pakistan is blocking access to YouTube over the same issue. Of course, Pakistan tried to block YouTube a few years ago, and it ended up taking down a large chunk of the internet — so hopefully this time they’ve come up with a more sophisticated way of doing this. In the meantime, though, I’m still at a loss for how completely banning a site makes sense here, but it appears my original post somehow is being spread around Pakistan, because starting not so long ago there was a sudden rush of comments coming from people in Pakistan, defending the blocking decisions. Given that, how long until Techdirt gets blocked as well?

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