Tidbits From The Web #68

Pixels destroy NYC... (props to Schteke)
Pentagon coverup continues...
I am feeling a bit lightheaded...
Make some bubbles...curb global warming...
Jurassic 5 swing set animation...
Stop drinking diet soda...
Beware the 3 horsemen of the depression!
In debt we trust...
iPad in a car dashboard...
Judaism discovered...or uncovered... (watch all 6 parts if you can)
Visual genius...Storm Thorgerson...
The lost decade financially speaking...
Beware a false flag terror attack!
ObamaCare rotten egg...
Who are the Raelians?
Do you hate days like this?
Government gets larger whilest private sector gets smaller...
The magical time of day...
American Pop...
Google Maps lets you find biking trails...
Game of the week...Super puzzle gallery...
Where dogs come from...
The story of Gage...
5 secrets to aging well...
Introducing the green Coke bottle...
Start you day with uplifting thoughts...
Lady Gaga indie rock style...
WTF...oh yeah I feel better...


The Sphinx hides a secret...

New Reality TV Show Shows People Will Kill Others When Told To...

Zone Xtrême is a reality TV show in which the contestants, when they get answers wrong, are hit with an electric shock. The shocks get more and more powerful as the contestants scream with pain until, on occasion, they appear to have died.

But there's a twist: in fact, Zone Xtrême is a set-up, and it's the people administering the shocks that are being tested -- the "contestants" are actors, the audience is fake, and the entire series isn't reality TV but a documentary.

It is, in essence, a repeat of the famous experiments by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who, in the wake of horrifying revelations about Nazi Germany, was studying people's obedience to authority.

French commentators see in the documentary (called Le Jeu de la Mort, or "the game of death") a terrible revelation about the effect of reality TV on society -- has reality TV come to the point where it can convince people to kill?

I’ve previously written about the dangers TV pose to the young minds growing up in society today, and if this faux show-documentary is any indication, it seems most people are in dire need of redirecting their attention to healthier pursuits.

Research has shown that watching TV has a major impact on your brain chemistry. The longer you watch the TV screen, the easier your brain slips into a receptive, passive mode, meaning that messages are streamed into your brain without any participation from you.

This is an advertiser’s dream, and could be used for more nefarious purposes as well – creating and maintaining passive, dumbed-down citizens, who, as this show illustrates, may be capable of little more than following orders, no matter where they come from.

It’s a great reminder to THINK about what you and your children are watching, and how much…

This video should be required viewing for every member in Congress, every teacher in the United States, and every parent with children in public education. The video compares the U.S. public education system with that in Europe, and with magnet and charter schools vs. districts where there is no competition.

The results are shocking.


Remember this video everytime you pay any type of tax...

Knowledge

What Is It?

Today's feature was developed by a blogger who photographs unusual objects that he has been buying for quite a while, then posts them on the Net as puzzles for visitors to figure out what they are. The site is usually updated once or twice a week so the puzzles do not get stale. As our blogger states "I guarantee that you'll see some things that you've never seen before." You'll have fun trying your hand at formulating your own solutions!

Water Jet Cutting

Water jet cutting provides a versatile, cold cutting option that basically is a super-sonic erosion of flat-stock materials. Brian Sherick of Flow International talks about the advantages of water jet cutting over plasma or laser cutting in machining operations.

Synthetic Human Tissue

The standard for testing on tissue has been live animals; you need a large study to determine data. Putting aside the ethical considerations, that gets fairly expensive. SynDaver Labs has developed synthetic tissue that is so real, you can simulate surgery. Dr. Christopher Sakezles gives us an overview of how testing in the medical field is going to change.

Parkinson’s research advances device and drug therapies

Though the causes of Parkinson’s remain unknown, treatments are advancing greatly in three categories: delivery, electronic, and medicinal.

Insight

Who gossips to you will gossip of you.

--Puerto Rican Proverb

Gossip is when you hear something you like about someone you don't.
--Earl Wilson

Today's Quotes

EXCELLENCE

"No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction." -Charles Kendall Adams

"All I want to do is just go out there and play hard. If I do that, good things will happen. It's as simple as that." -Carlos Pena

"Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Few have excellence thrust upon them - they achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly by doing what comes naturally and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.'" -John William Gardner

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself - and be lenient to everybody else.” -Henry Ward Beecher

Fun

GPS

Scene: A conversation between two of my friends.

Friend #1: Are you visiting us tomorrow? Do you need directions?

Friend #2: I'm all set. I have the address, a GPS, and a GPS override.

Friend #1: What's a GPS override?

Friend #2: My wife.





Whiskey & Gunpowder
By William J. Anderson
March 29, 2010
Frostburg, Maryland, U.S.A.

It’s Not Just Neocon Stupidity Anymore

More than seven years ago – what seems to be an eternity now – Charles Krauthammer spoke to a Hillsdale College gathering which was celebrating the “success” of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and was about to celebrate the “success” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I read the speech after it came out and then had real concerns, but little did I know those concerns would be mild compared to the reality that has become the United States of America today.

Like so many other government programs, wars in which a stronger army invades a weaker country bring the “good effects” first, and only later do we see the “bad effects.” One recalls the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazi express on the Western Front in the spring of 1940, and the early successes of the German invasion of the U.S.S.R. in 1941. One does not have to search far to see what was happening to the Wehrmacht in 1945 to gauge the “success” of the German retreat.

(Not-so-ironically, “Wehrmacht” originally meant “home defense” forces, just as it is ironic that the U.S. Department of War became the U.S. Department of Defense after World War II, and the number of U.S. “defense” excursions overseas, not to mention military bases overseas, has multiplied into something perverse that cannot economically be sustained.)

Thus, it was in that heady, self-congratulatory atmosphere in which the Neoconservatives were claiming “victory,” and they greatly applauded Krauthammer’s speech. Instead of offering critiques, I will include portions of that speech and let Krauthammer’s words speak for him:

At the end of the Cold War, the conventional wisdom was that with the demise of the Soviet Empire, the bipolarity of the second half of the 20th century would yield to a multi-polar world. You might recall the school of thought led by historian Paul Kennedy, who said that America was already in decline, suffering from imperial overstretch. There was also the Asian enthusiasm, popularized by James Fallows and others, whose thinking was best captured by the late-1980s witticism: “The United States and Russia decided to hold a Cold War. Who won? Japan.”

Well, they were wrong, and ironically no one has put it better than Paul Kennedy himself, in a classic recantation emphasizing America’s power: “Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power, nothing. Charlemagne’s empire was merely Western European in its reach. The Roman Empire stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in Persia and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison.”

He continues:

We tend not to see or understand the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army than the land powers of Europe, and its navy was equaled by the next two navies combined. Today, the American military exceeds in spending the next twenty countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well to every other aspect of international life―not only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.

And continues:

…September 11 demonstrated a new kind of American strength. The center of our economy was struck, aviation was shut down, the government was sent underground and the country was rendered paralyzed and fearful. Yet within days, the markets reopened, the economy began its recovery, the president mobilized the nation and a unified Congress immediately underwrote a huge worldwide war on terror. The Pentagon, with its demolished western facade still smoldering, began planning the war. The illusion of America’s invulnerability was shattered, but with the demonstration of its recuperative powers, that sense of invulnerability assumed a new character. It was transmuted from impermeability to resilience―the product of unrivaled human, technological and political reserves.

But, he saves the best for later: “So we bestride the world like a colossus.”

And so it is that more than seven years later, the U.S. economy is in freefall, and the current government – elected in large part because of the recklessness of the Bush administration that Krauthammer so praises – is placing huge financial burdens upon the economy that it cannot support. The wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, except they no longer are wars of invasion but, instead, are wars of occupation, and no matter how ruthless the occupier might be, in the long run a war of occupation cannot be victorious for those people who don’t belong there.

Krauthammer’s praise of U.S. “unilateralism,” which is a nice term for “bullying,” was popular that night with his audience. It was full of people who believed that “American exceptionalism” means the use of military power wherever the government damn well believes it can – and should – be used. It means floating bonds around the world and expecting the rest of the world to pick up our spending tab.

Ultimately, it means bankruptcy and humiliating defeat. True, publications like The Nation can claim that as long as our government printing presses remain operational, the USA never will go bankrupt because it can pay its creditors with paper – if it chooses to pay them at all. Paul Krugman claims that we can play “beggar-they-neighbor” against China and the only consequences will be felt by the Chinese.

In other words, it no longer is just the Neocons being arrogant and aggressive. The “torch” of political power has passed from the Republicans to the Democrats, but the arrogance and delusion of Washington, D.C., continues. Perhaps it is fitting that Krauthammer gave his speech to a Hillsdale College gathering, but the meeting was held in D.C.

Krauthammer declared that all the USA had to do was to demonstrate its “power” and the rest of the world would quake and humbly follow in obedience. Republicans – and later Democrats – have followed his not-so-sage advice and we see what lies before us: financial ruin and poverty. Just as there really was no “Argentine exceptionalism” of the 20th Century, as that once-great country inflated itself into poverty and ruin, so will be the reality of the Neocons’ “American exceptionalism” unless Americans come to realize that our present path of war abroad and reckless spending at home will destroy all of us.

Regards,
William Anderson
LewRockwell.com

The Bursting of a Super-Bubble
Vitaliy N. Katsenelson The world looks at China with envy. China’s economy grew 8.7 percent last year, while the world economy contracted by 2.2 percent. It seems that Chinese “Confucian capitalism” – a market economy powered by 1.3 billion people and guided by an authoritarian regime that can pull levers at will – is superior to our touchy-feely, democratic capitalism. But the grass on China’s side of the fence is not as green as it appears. In fact, China’s defiance of the global recession is not a miracle – it’s a “super-bubble.” When it deflates, it will spell big trouble for all of us. To understand the Chinese economy, consider three distinct periods: “Late-stage growth obesity” (the decade prior to 2008); “You lie!” (the time of the financial crisis); and finally, “Steroids ’R’ Us” (from the end of the financial crisis to today). Late-stage growth obesity About a decade ago, the Chinese government chose a policy of growth at any cost. China’s leaders considered strong GDP growth essential for political survival and national stability. Because China lacks the social safety net of the developed world, unemployed people aren’t just inconvenienced by the loss of their jobs, they starve; and hungry people don’t complain, they riot and cause political unrest. Remember the 1994 movie “Speed?” A young cop (Keanu Reeves) had to save passengers on a bus that would explode if its speed dropped below 50 m.p.h. Well, China is like that bus with 1.3 billion people aboard. If the Communist Party can’t keep the economy growing at a fast clip, the result will be catastrophic. To achieve high growth, China has kept its currency, the renminbi, at artificially low levels against the dollar. The cheap renminbi makes Chinese-made even cheaper to buyers around the globe. Thus, China became a significant exporter to the developed economies. Normally, if free-market economic forces were at work, the renminbi would have appreciated and the US dollar would have declined. However, had China let this occur, demand for its products would have declined, and its economy wouldn’t have grown at roughly 10 percent a year, which it did during the past decade. The more China sold to the United States, the more dollars it accumulated, and thus the more US Treasuries it bought, driving our interest rates down. US consumers responded to these cheap goods and easy, inexpensive credit by going on a buying binge, further boosting Chinese economic growth. However, companies and countries that grow at very high rates for a long time will inevitably suffer from late-stage growth obesity. Consider Starbucks: In 1999, it had 2,000 stores and was adding 1.8 stores a day. In 2007, when it had 10,000 stores, it had to open 5.5 stores a day in a desperate bid to keep growth rates up. This resulted in poor decisions and poor quality – a recipe for disaster. In China, political pressure for full employment has led to similar late-stage growth obesity. In 2005, China built the largest shopping mall in the world, the New South China Mall: Today it’s 99 percent vacant. China also built up a lavish district in a city called Ordos: Today, it’s a ghost town. You lie! All good things come to an end, and great things come to an end with a bang…or a pop. When the financial meltdown erupted in 2008, US and global banks started dropping like flies. Economies everywhere suffered contraction. Even China’s. During the crisis, Chinese exports were down more than 25 percent, tonnage of goods shipped through railroads was down by double digits, and electricity use plummeted. Yet Beijing insisted that China had magically sustained 6 to 8 percent growth. In other words, China lies…or maybe it just doesn’t tell the truth. The country’s ruling elite go to great lengths to maintain appearances, including censoring media and jailing those who write anti-government articles. That’s why we have to rely on hard data instead. Steroids ‘R’ Us Today the global economy is stabilizing, thanks to Uncle Sam and other “uncles” around the world. But the consumers of Chinese-made goods are still in debt, unemployment is high, and banks aren’t lending. You might think the Chinese economy would be growing at a lower rate. But no, it is growing again at nearly 10 percent, as though the financial crisis never occurred. Though this growth appears to be authentic – electricity consumption is back up – it is not sustainable growth, because it is based on an unprecedented stimulus package and extraordinary government involvement in the economy. In the midst of the financial crisis, in late 2008, Beijing fire-hosed $568 billion stimulus program into the Chinese economy. That’s enormous! As a percentage of GDP, it would be like a $2 trillion stimulus in America, nearly triple the size of the one Congress passed last year. This story gets even more interesting. Unlike Western democracies, whose central banks can pump a lot of money into the financial system but can’t force banks to lend or consumers and corporations to spend, China can achieve both at lightning speed. The government controls the banks, so it can force them to lend, and it can also force state-owned enterprises (one-third of the economy) to borrow and to spend. But government’s are notoriously inept at allocating capital in the private sector. And the Chinese government is no exception. Political decisions (driven by the goal of full employment) are often uneconomical, while instances of corruption and cronyism result in “stimulus projects” that squander wealth, rather than create it. To maintain high employment, for example, China has poured money into infrastructure and real estate projects. This massive effort explains why the Chinese keep building new skyscrapers even though existing ones are still vacant. The enormous stimulus has exacerbated problems that already existed, threatening to turn China into a less shiny, but more drastic, version of debt-riddled Dubai. Ominously for the rest of us, what happens in China doesn’t stay in China. A meltdown there – or even a slowdown – would have severe consequences for the rest of the world. A sever Chinese slowdown would tank the commodity markets, for examkple. While demand for industrial goods would fall off a cliff. At the same time, China’s appetite for dollars would likely drop – putting pressure on the greenback’s value and driving US interest rates higher. No more 5 percent mortgages and 6 percent car loans. No more shortcuts to prosperity...for either China or the U.S. We look at China and are mesmerized by its 1.3 billion people, its achievements of the past decade, its recent economic resiliency, and its ability to achieve spectacular results on the fly. But we have to remember that economic bubbles are usually just a good thing taken too far. The Chinese economy is no exception. Its long-term future may be bright, but in the short run, we’ve got a bubble on our hands. Everyone wants a shortcut to prosperity, but there isn’t one. China has been trying to bend the laws of economics for a while, and with the control it exerts over its economy it may seem that it has succeeded. But China’s recent success is partly a mirage, which will dissipate into a painful reality. No, there is no shortcut to prosperity – not for individuals and not for nations. Vitaliy Katsenelson for The Daily Reckoning

Scattering Under the Light of the SEC

Why America hates Goldman Sachs

Eric Fry Reporting from Laguna Beach, California... If you shine a light on a cluster of cockroaches, they scatter and hide. But when you shine a light on a cluster of investment banking con men, they simply stare back and reply, "The SEC's charges are completely unfounded in law and fact and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation." As the entire investing world knows by now, Goldman Sachs is the latest cockroach to scuttle under the spotlight. Last Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Goldman of defrauding investors out of $1 billion. The details of the SEC's complaint allege that Goldman failed to disclose "vital information" about a mortgage-back security called Abacus. The SEC said: "Unbeknownst to investors, Paulson & Co. [a hedge fund]...which was posed to benefit if the [securities in Abacus] defaulted, played a significant role in selecting which [securities] should make up the portfolio...In sum, Goldman Sachs arranged a transaction at Paulson's request in which Paulson heavily influenced the selection of the portfolio to suit its economic interests." Goldman responded in classic fashion - crying "Foul!" and claiming that it is the victim of a gross misunderstanding. Does anyone really believe them? To rephrase the question, does anyone really believe that this single instance of alleged fraud is the only such instance? This question reminds us of another truism about cockroaches: There's never just one. Any financial firm that is capable of committing a fraud as egregious and flagrant as the one the SEC's complaint describes is certainly capable of committing a second fraud...and maybe even a third or a fourth...or a fortieth. The fraud the SEC identifies in its complaint against Goldman is not a mere "Oops!" It is a fraud that every licensed stockbroker in the land would recognize as a career-ending no-no. "The product was new and complex," explained Robert Khuzami, a director from the SEC's Division of Enforcement, "but the deception and conflicts were old and simple." In other words, a lie is a lie. Nevertheless, your editor is content to let due process run its course...and to wait as long as necessary for the guilty verdict to arrive. Whatever the ultimate verdict, Goldman is already "guilty by association" in the eyes of most Americans. It is guilty by its close association with the practices that precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. It is also guilty by its close association with the powers in Washington who decided which firms would receive billions of dollars of emergency assistance (i.e. Goldman Sachs) and which would be allowed to fail (i.e., Lehman Bros.). And most of all, it is guilty by its close association with the obscene sense of entitlement that characterizes Wall Street pay practices. In short, America hates Goldman Sachs. So the fact that Goldman may have actually committed a large-scale fraud is a very big deal. Suddenly, the Goldman-haters are carrying loaded weapons...and the ensuing firefight might produce some significant volatility in the financial markets. For starters, this event might produce a very convenient excuse for a very pronounced selloff. But Goldman is not merely an excuse for a stock market selloff; Goldman is the stock market...and it is also the commodity market and the Treasury market. Goldman is the biggest market maker in the US stock market and among the biggest players in every major commodity market. Goldman is also one of the largest primary dealers of Treasury Securities. So maybe it is no fluke that most commodities tumbled Friday, right along with the stock market. Gold and crude oil both tumbled more than 2%. And as this new week begins, Goldman's troubles are mounting. Citing Goldman's "moral bankruptcy," Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a full inquiry by Britain's Financial Services Authority in conjunction with the SEC. Germany also said it would ask for detailed information about the case. Both governments had to bail out banks that lost hundreds of millions of dollars on investments marketed by Goldman. None of this will be good news for the stock markets of the world. And yet, none of this is really a surprise either. Nearly two years ago, in a column entitled, "The Goldman Sachs Phenomenon," your California editor remarked, "The American financial system still possesses too much talent and creativity to operate prudently... Consider yourselves forewarned!" We are re-publishing this column in today's edition of The Daily Reckoning. Just two months before this column first appeared, JP Morgan Chase had acquired the failing Bear Stearns. As part of the deal the Federal Reserve took responsibility for $29 billion in toxic assets from the Bear Stearns portfolio - effectively handing a $29 billion subsidy to JP Morgan, and establishing a precedent for the hundred-billion-dollar subsidies that would flow to Wall Street's largest firms just six months later. We smelled a rat back then...and the rat doesn't smell any better now...

Bits & Pieces

HAVE FAITH

Both faith and fear may sail into your harbor, but allow only faith to drop anchor.

Author unknown


The world has a way of giving what is demanded of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty, you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world. Expect victory and you make victory.

Pristine Bradley


Peace, love, and happiness...until next time...