Tornadoes Tear Through Downtown Atlanta

More Energy, More and More Intense Weather

Science, with it’s by-product, Technology, represent humanity’s extended senses to our expanding grasp of Universal Reality. Science and Technology promote an increasing capacity toward sustainable, thriving, and prosperous survival, through the extension of our senses: to see/hear/touch/move - further, closer, smaller, faster, heavier, etc.; to boundless creation of- new products, health advancement, and new realities previously unimaginable with just our physical bodies and senses alone.

Any obstruction to filtering Simple Understanding of the sciences to the masses, any obstruction to the sciences themselves, will result in a spectacular, heretofore unheard of, calamity to humanity, overshadowing all historical events, surpassing even the fables and legends.

The pending lethal evidence stands clearly before all eyes, even those without scientific training:

* The coming nuclear resource wars – byproducts of the dumber than dumb scientific energy concepts promoting the beliefs in “there is not enough to go around” & “what little there is, it’s all mine” – the 2% corporate golden greedy guts who own 98% of the world)

* Global Warming/Pollution/Ecological Imbalance threat - caused by the successful Obstruction to Energy Evolution since the late 1940’s. Energy Evolution, the highest priority to humanity’s sustainable and prosperous evolution, has broken all records in stagnation; stifled to such an extent, that more and more highly respected scientists today exemplify “The Trouble With Physics” foundational problems with preposterous models and theories, including the outlandish belief in physical "time" travel.

In StarSteps, even a fourth grader could explain the vast differences in measurement of a flat plane and a curved ball; neglecting the curve disfigures reality with a flat earth belief when the curve on the ball's surface is not considered in measurement. The extended concept of E=MC2 throws the same curve ball measurement across the micro to macro realities, through the radius of curvature concept of all natural law – a recognition permitting simple 4th grade understanding of PhD level science to filter down to the people, carrying with it the capacity to overcome any known problem today with highly advanced energy systems and greatly expanded comprehension of energy space time relationships.

March 16, 2008
Tornadoes Tear Through Downtown Atlanta
By SHAILA DEWAN and BRENDA GOODMAN
ATLANTA — A powerful tornado struck directly at the commercial center of downtown Atlanta on Friday night, blowing windows out of dozens of high-rise buildings, tossing trees and cars, and severely damaging many of the city’s landmarks, including the CNN Center, the Georgia Dome and the convention center.
At least 27 people were injured and taken to hospitals, said Capt. Bill May of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, most with cuts and bruises from flying debris.
No fatalities had been reported by Saturday morning, but crews were combing through a loft complex in the southeastern part of the city where officials said four floors had collapsed, making search and rescue operations difficult and dangerous.
Another wave of tornadoes and thunderstorms, striking Saturday afternoon, killed two people in northwest Georgia, state officials said, one in Polk County and another in Floyd County.
The severity of the Atlanta storm surprised forecasters, who broke into prime-time programming Friday around 9:40 p.m. to report that tornadoes could be heading for downtown. Thousands of people had gathered in the area for two basketball games and a dental convention.
The twister brought what was supposed to be a busy Saturday to a near-standstill. The convention was canceled, as was the St. Patrick’s Day parade and the Atlanta Home Show. The Southeastern Conference basketball playoffs were moved from the Georgia Dome to a smaller stadium at Georgia Tech open only to players and their families.
The storm damaged the roof of the CNN Center, sucked furniture out of its lobby and sent storm water into the newsroom. CNN, which stayed on the air, said that one of its computers had been pulled through a window and that dust, glass and water were scattered throughout the building. The storm wreaked havoc on landmarks large and small. Two of the Olympic torch replicas were knocked over at Centennial Olympic Park, and the large sign outside the Philips Arena was damaged. The storm blew the windows out of Ted’s Montana Grill, owned by Ted Turner, and the Tabernacle, a popular concert venue. Skyscrapers were pocked with broken windows, and billboards were twisted into skeletal scaffolds.
Brenton Young, a dentist from Shelby, N.C., had just put in his drink order at Thrive, a downtown restaurant, when street-level windows started exploding.
“People were jumping up and screaming,” Mr. Young said. “We didn’t know if a car had hit the building or what had happened. People were hitting the floor. People were running for the center. It was a chaotic three seconds.”
Cheryl Denton, also in town for the convention, said she was in her hotel when the storm hit. “It just came up all of a sudden,” she said. “We looked out the window and stuff started swirling, and it was there and gone that quick.”
Her friend Dwayne Hawkins added, “It was on the news, and it hit 15 minutes later.”
At a 2 a.m. news conference Saturday, Kelvin J. Cochran, the fire and rescue chief, said the search and rescue operation would take 24 to 36 hours.
At the Georgia Dome, where the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball playoffs were under way, players from Mississippi State and Alabama froze on the court during overtime, mouths gaping, when part of the fabric roof was torn away by the storm. Catwalks at the top of the building swayed and bits of insulation rained down, halting play and sending many of the 18,000 spectators scrambling for the exits. The game resumed after a 65-minute delay.
Cory Reavis, a 32-year-old firefighter who lives in the loft complex where the floors collapsed, said most of the damage there occurred in an area that was under renovation and not occupied. But he said he helped rescue one man in another part of the complex.
“He was sleeping and the roof collapsed on top of him,” Mr. Reavis said, adding that the man’s injuries were not serious.
Mr. Reavis and his girlfriend were in his loft when the storm hit. “We thought it was the Marta train,” he said, referring to the subway system. The noise grew louder and louder until it seemed to shake the building. “Three minutes later, it was over.”
The National Weather Service said the tornado’s winds reached 130 miles per hour and in 20 minutes cut a path 6 miles long and 200 yards wide through downtown. There was considerable damage to older trees in the area, made worse by the region’s long drought, weather officials said.
After going through downtown, the storm continued east, passing the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District before hitting and devastating a loft complex. The largely residential neighborhood behind it, known as Cabbagetown, was littered with tree trunks, smashed cars and debris, and about 20 homes were damaged or destroyed.
Not far from Cabbagetown, two men stood in a parking lot littered with cinder blocks that had once formed the walls of a two-story auto parts warehouse.
“This don’t happen too often,” said Ruben Thorpe, 50, a deliveryman for the warehouse owners, the Southeastern Auto Company. “A lot of bad weather, it goes around us. And for this to happen right here, it’s shocking.”
Laurie Kimbrell, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta chapter of the American Red Cross, said about 80 people had been taken to two shelters Friday night, 50 of whom were elderly residents evacuated from the damaged Antoine Graves high-rise apartments.
The Atlanta mayor, Shirley Franklin, declared a state of emergency at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, a designation needed to make the city eligible for federal recovery funds.
A spokeswoman for Georgia Power said that as of Saturday evening, about 10,000 customers were still without power in the city, along with thousands more upstate.

Toxic world fallout from Iraq invasion

"....The critics countered that the threat was an illusion, that the US was invading illegally and sought control over the region and Iraq's oil". Others recalled the United Nations world wide telecast announcement by US speaker giving the reason for the Iraq invasion - and how many women and children died and were maimed because of Iraq's WMDs, weapons of mass donkeys?

US World Image Projection - What are we Projecting? Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law which ignore Reality, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money? Is the current status quo in energy science the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice and economics based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and

morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

Toxic world fallout from Iraq invasion
By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent BBC News website
The war in Iraq was supposed to be over long before now.
It was not supposed to provoke a conflict between Sunni and Shia or stir up an al-Qaeda hornet's nest.
Nor was it supposed to alienate much of the rest of the world from US foreign policy, which post 9/11 was on the crest of a wave of sympathy.
It was intended, its proponents argued, to remove a threat to world peace and to plant the flag of freedom in a Middle East democratic desert.
The critics countered that the threat was an illusion, that the US was invading illegally and sought control over the region and Iraq's oil.
Bush doctrine
The Iraq invasion was also part of President Bush's doctrine of pre-emption and of his hopes for what he called the "advance of freedom".
In a speech in November 2003 he declared: "Iraqi democracy will succeed - and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran - that freedom can be the future of every nation."
His doctrine, under which a pre-emptive attack is justified even if the threat is not critical, has been another casualty of the war.
Dr Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said: "All three candidates in the US presidential election will move away from it in significant ways.
"To a significant extent the experience in Iraq has discredited the doctrine of pre-emption, though it has not killed it off. But the US will not naively invade again and simply hope everything will turn out OK, as seems to have happened in Iraq."
Hopes rise again
The last chapter on Iraq of course has not been written. After the recent improvements, there are claims that it will still all work out, not unlike the Korean War, which went through its own disastrous phase.

"This has to be the worst managed foreign policy of any president since the Second World War" David Rothkopf, Carnegie Endowment
The former White House economist Lawrence Lindsey, who believes the financial cost of the Iraq war is "relatively minor in budgetary terms", still hopes for the best.
He wrote in Fortune magazine: "A stable Iraqi government selected by its own people would be a first in the Arab world. It would suggest that there is a third alternative to the current choice between repressive regimes and Islamic fundamentalism."
One of those who called in 2006, not for a withdrawal but the surge, was Washington writer Frederick Kagan. In the neo-conservative bible, the Weekly Standard, he says it has worked and credits the American commander General David Petraeus and his subordinate General Raymond Odierno:
"When General Odierno relinquished command of MNC-I [Multi-National Corps Iraq] on February 14, 2008, the civil war was over. Civilian casualties were down 60%, as were weekly attacks. AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] had been driven from its safe havens in and around Baghdad and throughout Anbar and Diyala. The situation in Iraq had been utterly transformed."
The cost
However, even if the war turns out to be "winnable", its critics dismiss any suggestion that it was "worth it".
David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and now with the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, said: "Declaring this to be a success based on recent improvements is like saying that a person badly disabled by gunshots has seen his wounds heal. The damage has been done.
"Bush's foreign policy has been a failure and it will be judged on Iraq. He will bear responsibility for an unnecessary and costly war that violated international law, alienated allies and distracted us from the core issues of terrorism, Afghanistan and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
"This has to be the worst managed foreign policy of any president since the Second World War. Even if in the medium term Iraq becomes comparatively peaceful, would it be worth the cost? I do not think so."
The diplomatic fallout
As for America's standing around the world, the war alienated some major American allies, France and Germany most notably. Others did send troops after the invasion - Spain and Italy among them - but then left as public opinions at home turned hostile.
On the other hand, a number of smaller countries, many of them from the former Soviet block, saw an opportunity to show their loyalty to the US and sent contingents - the Czech Republic, Poland, Georgia and others. For them, a strong and active United States bodes well for their future security.
In turn, Britain's support for the United States has led to further divisions within Europe. These had an impact in the Lisbon treaty talks about a future foreign policy for the EU, strengthening the British determination to keep it firmly in the hands of individual governments.
The invasion of Iraq also caused alarm bells to ring in Russia. There, a new mood of hostility to the West has developed and the Russians have become wary of American power.
Nor has Iraq sparked the democratic revolution in the Middle East that Mr Bush hoped for. And the Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.
Ironically it is Iran, with which the US shares a mutual hostility, that has emerged with greater strength, to the concern of the Gulf Arab states.
The fallout continues.
mailto:Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7293689.stmPublished: 2008/03/16 12:23:06 GMT

China issues human rights record of United States in 2007

US World Image Projection - What are we Projecting? Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law which ignore Reality, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money? Is the current status quo in energy science the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice and economics based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

11:35, March 13, 2008
China issues human rights record of United States in 2007
Related News
One out of eight U.S. citizens lives in poverty More people in U.S. go hungry, homeless "Cash race" has permeated various kinds of elections in U.S. Workers' right to unionize restricted in U.S U.S. authorities improperly obtain citizen's personal information
China issued on Thursday the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007 in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007 issued by the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday. Released by the Information Office of China''s State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show the human rights situation in the United States and its violation of human rights in other countries. The report says the United States reigns over other countries and make arrogant and malicious attacks on their human rights issues, but mentions nothing about its own human rights problems. By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007, the report says it aims to "help the people have a better understanding of the real situation in the United States and as a reminder for the United States to reflect upon its own issues". The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2007 from seven perspectives: on life and personal security, on human rights violations by law enforcement and judicial departments, on civil and political rights, on economic, social and cultural rights, on racial discrimination, on rights of women and children and on the United States'' violation of human rights in other countries. The report says the increase of violent crimes in the United States poses a serious threat to its people''s lives, liberty and personal security. According to a FBI report on crime statistics released in September 2007, 1.41 million violent crimes were reported nationwide in 2006, an increase of 1.9 percent over 2005. Of the violent crimes, the estimated number of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters increased 1.8 percent, and that of robberies increased 7.2 percent Throughout 2006, U.S. residents age 12 or above experienced an estimated 25 million crimes of violence and theft, according to the FBI report
11:35, March 13, 2008
China issues human rights record of United States in 2007 (2)
In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun wounds every year, according ...

China issues human rights record of United States in 2007 (3)
The freedom and rights of individual citizens are being increasingly marginalized in the United States,

China issues human rights record of United States in 2007 (4)
Poor population in the United States is constantly increasing. According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2007, the official poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent. There were 36.5 million people, or 7.7 million families living in poverty in 2006.

China issues human rights record of United States in 2007 (5)
The invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops has produced the biggest human rights tragedy and the greatest humanitarian disaster in modern world. It was reported that since the invasion in 2003, 660,000 Iraqis have died, of which 99 percent were civilians.

Full Text all the above

Government Reports Warn Planners on Sea-Rise Threat to U.S. Coasts

Sea level rise and other changes fueled by global warming threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure, according to new government reports, and policy makers and planners should be acting now to avoid or mitigate their effects.While increased heat and “intense precipitation events” threaten these structures, the greatest and most immediate potential impact is coastal flooding.." Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law which ignore Reality, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money? Is the current status quo in energy science the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

NYT March 12, 2008
Government Reports Warn Planners on Sea-Rise Threat to U.S. Coasts
By CORNELIA DEAN
Sea level rise and other changes fueled by global warming threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure, according to new government reports, and policy makers and planners should be acting now to avoid or mitigate their effects.
While increased heat and “intense precipitation events” threaten these structures, the greatest and most immediate potential impact is coastal flooding, according to one of the reports, by an expert panel convened by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Another study, a multiagency effort led by the Environmental Protection Agency, sounds a similar warning on coastal infrastructure but adds that natural features like beaches, wetlands and fresh water supplies are also threatened by encroaching salt water.
The reports are not the first to point out that rising seas, inevitable in a warming world, are a major threat. For example, in a report last September, the Miami-Dade County Climate Change Task Force noted that a two-foot rise by 2100, the prediction of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.”
But the new reports offer detailed assessments of vulnerability in the relatively near term. Both note that coastal areas are thickly populated, economically important and gaining people and investment by the day, even as scientific knowledge of the risks they face increases. Use of this knowledge by policy makers and planners is “inadequate,” the academy panel said.
“It’s time for the transportation people to put these things into their thought processes,” Henry G. Schwartz Jr., a member of the National Academy of Engineering and chairman of the panel, said in an interview. The 218-page academy report, “Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation,” was issued Tuesday and is available at http://www.nationalacademies.org/.
Noting that 60,000 miles of coastal highways are already subject to periodic flooding, the academy panel called for policy makers to inventory vulnerable facilities — “roads, bridges, marine, air, pipelines, everything,” Dr. Schwartz said — and begin work now on plans to protect, reinforce, move or replace on safer ground. Those tasks will take years or decades and tens of billions of dollars, at least, Dr. Schwartz said. “We need to think about it now,” he said.
The multiagency report, a draft assessment, is one of a series aimed at helping policy makers around the nation do just that. The 800-page draft, “Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region,” was posted last month for public review at www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-1/public-review-draft/. It focuses on the area from Montauk Point, Long Island, to Cape Lookout, N.C.
Produced by a collaboration among agencies that also included the United States Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Transportation, the report offers three estimates for sea level rise by 2100: about 16 inches a century, a rate it said has already been exceeded; about two feet, an estimate many scientists regard as optimistic, and up to three feet — something the report says would be catastrophic for wetlands and other coastal features but which is “less than high estimates suggested by more recent publications.”
The academy report cited similar estimates.
The multiagency report cited as an example the Port of Wilmington, Del. The report says that if sea level rises by two feet or even a bit less, 70 percent of port property will be affected. Meanwhile, it says, comparable sea level rise would leave almost 2,200 miles of major roads and almost 900 miles of rail lines in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and the District of Columbia “at risk for regular inundation.”
The Academy report made similar points, noting for example that airports in many large coastal cities are built in tidal areas, often on fill, making them “particularly vulnerable.” In metropolitan New York, Newark and LaGuardia are particularly vulnerable, Dr. Schwartz said.
Some experts have suggested that additional fill could be brought in to keep pace with rising water, just as many beaches are kept alive today with periodic infusions of sand pumped from offshore. But S. Jeffress Williams, a coastal expert at the geological survey and an author of the multiagency report, noted in an interview that necessary quantities of high quality fill may not be readily available where they are needed.
In that case, he said, policy makers would have to consider constructing immense systems of coastal armor or accept the need for “strategic retreat.”
As a first step, the academy report said, transportation officials must realize that climate patterns that prevailed in the past “may no longer be a reliable guide for future plans.” Instead, it said, they should incorporate climate change into their plans for capital improvements, maintenance schedules, emergency preparedness and so on.
The panel also recommended changes in the National Flood Insurance Program, a federally-subsidized program for coastal properties. Among other things, the report said the maps the program uses in setting rates are “woefully inadequate” because they do not reflect the influence of climate change.
“Part of our problem is one of scale,” Dr. Schwartz said, because climate experts are far more confident about global trends than they are about predicting local effects of climate change. “What the transportation people needed was not what the climate science could provide, so they did not talk,” he said.
The academy panel recommended that the Department of Transportation organize interagency efforts to focus on adapting to climate change.
But acting on climate threats may be difficult, the E.P.A.-led report said. For one thing, it is impossible to predict the timing and magnitude of possible impacts. It also said that “institutional inertia is a key barrier to change,” especially when officials confront decisions about “whether and how particular areas will be protected with structures, elevated above the tides, relocated landward or left alone and potentially given up to the rising sea.”

Subprime CEOs Explain Why They Made Millions While Americans Lost Homes

"...Congressional Democrats got right to the point today: How could the CEOs of three companies behind the subprime mortgage market make millions of dollars while thousands of Americans lost their homes and investors lost billions of dollars?" There seem to be two different economic realities operating in our country today." Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

Subprime CEOs Explain Why They Made Millions While Americans Lost Homes
Three CEOs Testify About the Subprime Mortgage Collapse and Their Pay Packages
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ ABC NEWS Business Unit
March 7, 2008 —
Congressional Democrats got right to the point today: How could the CEOs of three companies behind the subprime mortgage market make millions of dollars while thousands of Americans lost their homes and investors lost billions of dollars?
"There seem to be two different economic realities operating in our country today. And the rules of compensation in one world are completely different from those in the other," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "Most Americans live in a world where economic security is precarious and there are real economic consequences for failure. But our nation's top executives seem to live by a different set of rules."
In 1980, chief executives in the United States were paid 40 times what the average worker made. They now make 600 times the average worker's salary, Waxman said.
"I think there's merit to pay for performance," Waxman said. "But it seems like CEOs hit the lottery even when their companies collapse."
But the Republican ranking member on the committee warned ...full text

Revolt in Mississippi: Indian Workers Claim 'Slave Treatment'

"The workers claim they were defrauded by a Signal International recruiter in India who promised them green cards and permanent residency in the U.S. in exchange for a $20,000 fee. The workers allege that they instead received 10-month work visas, which was only enough time for them to pay off their recruitment fees. The workers also claim that Signal forced them to live in substandard housing, with 24 men crammed into a small room. The men say Signal charged them more than $1,000 a month to live in company housing."For more than one year, hundreds of Indian workers at Signal International have been living like slaves," Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

Revolt in Mississippi: Indian Workers Claim 'Slave Treatment'
Workers Call for Signal International to Be Prosecuted on Alleged Human Trafficking Charges
By JOSEPH RHEE
March 7, 2008—
Rebelling against alleged "slave treatment," some 100 workers recruited from India staged a dramatic protest at a Mississippi shipyard Thursday, claiming they had been tricked into coming to the United States.
The workers, brought from India to work as welders and pipe-fitters at Signal International shipyard in Pascagoula, hurled their hard hats at company gates and demanded a federal investigation.
The workers claim they were defrauded by a Signal International recruiter in India who promised them green cards and permanent residency in the U.S. in exchange for a $20,000 fee. The workers allege that they instead received 10-month work visas, which was only enough time for them to pay off their recruitment fees.
The workers also claim that Signal forced them to live in substandard housing, with 24 men crammed into a small room. The men say Signal charged them more than $1,000 a month to live in company housing.
"For more than one year, hundreds of Indian workers at Signal International have been living like slaves," said former Signal worker Sabulal Vijayan. "Today the workers are coming out to declare their freedom. This trafficking needs to end."
The workers have reported their situation to the U.S. Department of Justice and are calling for Signal International to be prosecuted on human trafficking charges.
Signal International strongly denied ...full text

Mortgage Company Heads Grilled By Congress

"....There's a complete disconnect with reality," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. CEOs now receive about 600 times what the average worker earns, compared to about 40 times in 1980." Is there a deliberate design flaw in the Economic & Judicial systems of rule and law, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's (Evolving Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Survive) ?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.


Mortgage Company Heads Grilled By Congress
WASHINGTON, March 7, 2008

Lenders Under Fire
Congress is asking tough questions of mortgage lenders who made millions while the many Americans who borrowed from them lost their homes. Chip Reid reports

(CBS/AP) Three corporate executives called in for a shaming by Democratic lawmakers Friday defended raking in hundreds of millions of dollars despite contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis that has their companies reeling from losses and the nation on the edge of recession. "There's a complete disconnect with reality," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But the CEOs testifying before the committee, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp.; Stanley O'Neal, formerly of Merrill Lynch & Co; and Charles Prince, formerly of Citigroup Inc.; defended their pay as appropriate. "As our company did well, I did well," said Mozilo, founder of Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender and a key player in the subprime problem. "But when our company did not do well, as in 2007, my direct compensation and the value of my holdings declined materially, which is as it should be." Republicans on the committee generally agreed. "This is a hearing in search of bad guys," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "All of you complied with the transparency rules and the best practices rules." The hearing was the second held by Waxman on the issue of executive pay, which Forbes magazine said averaged $15.2 million for the CEOs in the largest 500 U.S. companies in 2006, an increase of 38 percent in one year. The House Government Reform Committee last December also looked at large, publicly traded companies that hire compensation consultants who are receiving millions of dollars from corporate executives whose compensation they were supposed to assess. Republicans on the committee questioned the need for the hearing, saying it falls outside the panel's primary role of investigating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. "The impact of corporate executive compensation is debatable," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, top Republican on the committee. "Fine, but that debate ... should not degenerate into a sanctimonious search for scapegoats." Rep. Waxman questioned how all three CEOs could profit handsomely at a time when their companies were losing billions of dollars and stock values were plunging. "You're in the middle of an enormous debacle," Waxman said. "It seems like everyone is hurting except for you." "It's only in the wacky world of CEOs where you get severance for failing," said Nell Minow, editor of The Corporate Library and one of the economic experts testifying. Committee figures showed that Countrywide suffered a $1.2 billion loss in the third quarter of 2007 and then lost another $422 million in the fourth quarter. By the end of the year, the company's stock had fallen 80 percent from its five-year peak in February. During the same period, Mozilo received a $1.9 million salary, $20 million in stock awards contingent upon performance and sold $121 million in stock. Some of those stock sales occurred at the same time the company was borrowing $1.5 billion to repurchase its shares. In 1969, Mozilo, a butcher's son from New York, co-founded Countrywide and turned a one-room office into a $500 billion home loan empire while turning himself into one of the nation's highest paid CEOs, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., questioned Mozilo's insistence - documented in a November 2006 e-mail - that he be reimbursed for taxes owed when his wife traveled on Countrywide's corporate jet. Mozilo related how he had started Countrywide from the kitchen of his small New York apartment. He said his direct compensation and the value of his stock holdings declined substantially last year and he had not received, and will not receive, a bonus for 2007 and 2008. Mozilo also said he would give up some $37 million in severance pay if Bank of America proceeds with plans to acquire Countrywide. His defense of his compensation may fall on some unsympathetic ears however. While countless Countrywide customers faced foreclosure on their homes, Mozilo enjoyed his $15 million mansion and a high-flying lifestyle that included an abundance of expensive perks. At the same time, thousands of Countrywide employees lost their jobs, reports Reid. O'Neal received a retirement package of $161 million when he was pushed out as Merrill Lynch CEO last October. But the committee said that if the company had terminated O'Neal for cause rather than letting him retire, he would not have been entitled to $131 million of that in unvested stock and options. During 2007, the firm reported $18 billion in writedowns related to subprime and other risky mortgages. O'Neal countered that he had received no bonus in 2007 and no severance pay. He was defended by John Finnegan, chairman of Merrill Lynch's compensation committee. "All of the $161 million related to prior-period performance and all were amounts to which Mr. O'Neal was entitled as a retirement-eligible employee." The lawmakers also asked why Citigroup, which saw its stock fall 48 percent at the end of 2007 compared with a year earlier, would award Prince a cash bonus worth $10.4 million after he stepped down as CEO last November. He also received $28 million in unvested stock and options and $1.5 million in annual perquisites upon his departure. "I'm proud of my accomplishments," Prince said, speaking of his contributions over almost three decades to Citigroup's growth and the company's efforts to assist homeowners facing foreclosure. Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, top Republican on the committee, noted that Mozilo's total compensation package in 2007 was about $22 million, half that of 2006, while Prince also saw his compensation halved in 2007 to about $12 million. Linking executive pay to the subprime crisis "only seems to muddle the issue further," he said. Several of the executives did acknowledge public resentment over the fact that large company CEOs now receive about 600 times what the average worker earns, compared to about 40 times in 1980. The question, said Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup's personnel and compensation committee, is "how do we remain competitive without contributing to something that could be tearing at the fabric of society." Reid reports that some Republicans said today's hearing was nothing more than a search for scapegoats in the mortgage crisis, arguing that there's already plenty of blame to go around, even right here in Congress.

26-Year Secret Kept Innocent Man In Prison

Is this a deliberate design flaw in the Justice law system, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's, with the inclusion of judicial systems design that imprison the innocent? Is the current status quo the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans)

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's

Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

26-Year Secret Kept Innocent Man In Prison
March 6, 2008
(CBS) Alton Logan doesn't understand why two lawyers with proof he didn't commit murder were legally prevented from helping him. They had their reasons: To save Logan, they would have had to break the cardinal rule of attorney-client privilege to reveal their own client had committed the crime. But Logan had 26 years in prison to try to understand why he was convicted for a crime he didn't commit. Logan, still in jail, speaks to 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon in his first interview for a report that also includes the lawyers which will be broadcast this Sunday, March 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. "Yes. Sympathize with [the lawyers’ dilemma], yes. Understand it, no," Logan tells Simon. "If you know this is an innocent person, why would you allow this person to be prosecuted, convicted, sent to prison for all these years?" asks the 54-year-old inmate. Lawyers Jamie Kunz and Dale Coventry were public defenders when their client, Andrew Wilson, admitted to them he had shot-gunned a security guard to death in a 1982 robbery. When a tip led to Logan's arrest and he went to trial for the crime, the two lawyers were in a bind. They wanted to help Logan but legally couldn't. "The rules of conduct for attorneys, it's very, very clear…. We're in a position to where we have to maintain client confidentiality, just as a priest would or a doctor would. It's just a requirement of the law. The system wouldn’t work without it," says Coventry. They watched Logan’s trial to see whether he got a life or death sentence. "We thought that somehow we would stop at least the execution," Coventry tells Simon. "Morally, there’s very little difference and we were torn about that, but in terms of the canons of ethics, there is a difference -- you can prevent a death." Logan doesn't see it that way. "There is no difference between life in prison and a death penalty, none whatsoever. Both are a sentence of death," says Logan, who pointed out that it is easy to be murdered in a dangerous prison. The lawyers say it was hard on them mentally. "There’s nothing you can say [to Logan]," says Coventry. "It's been difficult for us. But there’s no comparison whatsoever to what it's been for this poor guy," he says "Alton, whether or not you can understand it, we’ve been hurting for you for 26 years," says Kunz. "How often did I think about it? Probably 250 times a year. I mean I thought about it regularly." It’s little consolation to Logan. "Everything that was dear to me is gone," he tells Simon. The lawyers did get permission from Wilson, to reveal upon his death his confession to the murder Logan was convicted for. Wilson died late last year and Coventry and Kunz came forward. Next Monday, a judge will hear evidence in a motion to grant Logan a new trial. It's the first step in what could be a long process. "They are quick to convict but they are slow to correct their mistakes," says Logan. Coventry is satisfied with his decision. "In terms of my conscience, my conscience is that I did the right thing. Do I feel bad about Logan? Absolutely, I feel bad about Logan." Logan doesn’t know when he will be exonerated and released, but when that time comes, he has a plan. "To leave this state on the quickest thing I can get. I want nothing more to do with the state of Illinois," he tells Simon.

Companies Are Piling Up Cash

"....But, with the debt-burdened American consumer cutting back, wouldn’t the risk of a recession decline if companies with overstuffed wallets took their cash out and spent it? Emphatically not, said Professor Stulz. Research strongly suggests that companies are holding more cash because they need it to operate more safely in a risky environment, he said.“If they spend it, they will become more fragile,” he added. “And an increase in the number of fragile firms is not in the best interests of the economy.” (huh? It is better to work people to death at low wages and destroy a country??? Is this a deliberate design flaw in business and economic law lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts???

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism, where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE SYSTEM, on top of scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's? Is the current status quo the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans)

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

March 4, 2008
Companies Are Piling Up Cash
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
At least someone knows how to fill a piggy bank.
Unlike most American consumers, whose failure to save has exasperated economists for years, the typical American corporation has increased its savings so sharply that it probably has enough cash on hand to completely pay off its debts.
That should be good news in an economy unsettled by rising energy prices, tightening credit, gyrating stock prices and declining values for the dollar and the family homestead. Indeed, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, cited strong corporate balance sheets as a bright spot in the darkening forecast he presented to Congress last week.
Some analysts also speculate that these cash-rich companies may start sharing their wealth with investors through special dividends, providing welcome stimulus for the economy.
Corporate spending on equipment and other capital expenditures has declined as savings have soared, suggesting that companies could stimulate the economy now by going on a hiring and spending spree. But that raises worries among some analysts that companies will spend their cash unwisely, making them more vulnerable in the future.
The increase over the last decade in the amount of cash, as a percent of total assets, for the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has been steep. One study shows that the average cash ratio doubled from 1998 to 2004 and the median ratio more than tripled, while debt levels fell. According to S.& P., the total cash held by companies in its industrial index exceeded $600 billion in February, up from about $203 billion in 1998.
René M. Stulz, who holds the Reese chair in banking and monetary economics at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, said research he conducted with two other professors on corporate cash levels since 1980 indicated that growing cash holdings over that period most likely reflected the simple fact that the world became a much riskier place for business.
“Companies responded to those rising risks by saving more,” said Professor Stulz, whose study excluded utilities and financial companies because their cash reserves are monitored by regulators.
An even longer savings trend was spotted by Jason DeSena Trennert, managing partner and chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners in New York, who said his own rough examination of corporate balance sheets shows that “cash, as a percent of total assets, is as high as it’s been since the 1960s.”
The ledgers of many individual companies bear out these findings. For example, the cash ratio at Paychex — cash and short-term investments as a percent of total assets — has more than doubled, from less than 30 percent in 1988 to more than 70 percent by last summer. Over the same period, Apple’s cash ratio grew to more than 60 percent, from just over 38 percent.
The cash ratio at Avon Products, just under 3 percent in 1988, was nearly 17 percent by last December. And Microsoft’s savings account is so large that its chief financial officer has observed that the company could, if it wished, cover most of the $20 billion cash component of its pending $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo from its own reserves.
This cash-saving trend may have a downside, though. Because companies can spend from their own account without scrutiny from the investment bankers or commercial bankers who might otherwise lend them money, corporate executives can do some really dumb things with their cash, said Amy Dittmar, an assistant professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, who has studied corporate spending habits in the United States and abroad.
“There is a subtle line between having enough money to do what you have to do versus having enough money to do anything you want to do,” Professor Dittmar said.
Manny Weintraub, a former managing director and top-performing money manager for Neuberger Berman who formed his own investment advisory firm in late 2003, agreed. “Like your mother told you, the rule should be that if you don’t have anything nice to buy, don’t buy anything,” he said.
The Stulz team’s study showed that this trend of rising cash ratios was not limited to very large corporations — indeed, the average increase is more pronounced among firms below the top one-fifth of the sample.
Over the same time, the study found, one measure of corporate debt — the net debt ratio, or debt minus cash as a percent of total assets — fell so sharply that, by 2004, it was below zero, where it stayed at least through 2006.
“In other words,” the researchers noted, “on average, firms could have paid off their debt with their cash holdings.”
Those who study corporate balance sheets suggest that several factors have contributed to this change in corporate savings patterns.
In the last 25 years, the speed and scale of globalization ...full text

Science Debate Is Set; Now, Will Candidates Come?

Science, with it’s by-product, Technology, represent humanity’s extended senses to our expanding grasp of Universal Reality. Science and Technology promote an increasing capacity toward sustainable, thriving, and prosperous survival, through the extension of our senses: to see/hear/touch/move - further, closer, smaller, faster, heavier, etc.; to boundless creation of- new products, health advancement, and new realities previously unimaginable with just our physical bodies and senses alone.

Any obstruction to filtering Simple Understanding of the sciences to the masses, any obstruction to the sciences themselves, will result in a spectacular, heretofore unheard of, calamity to humanity, overshadowing all historical events, surpassing even the fables and legends.

The pending lethal evidence stands clearly before all eyes, even those without scientific training:

* The coming nuclear resource wars – byproducts of the dumber than dumb scientific energy concepts promoting the beliefs in “there is not enough to go around” & “what little there is, it’s all mine” – the 2% corporate golden greedy guts who own 98% of the world)

* Global Warming/Pollution/Ecological Imbalance threat - caused by the successful Obstruction to Energy Evolution since the late 1940’s. Energy Evolution, the highest priority to humanity’s sustainable and prosperous evolution, has broken all records in stagnation; stifled to such an extent, that more and more highly respected scientists today exemplify “The Trouble With Physics” foundational problems with preposterous models and theories, including the outlandish belief in physical "time" travel.

In StarSteps, even a fourth grader could explain the vast differences in measurement of a flat plane and a curved ball; neglecting the curve disfigures reality with a flat earth belief when the curve on the ball's surface is not considered in measurement. The extended concept of E=MC2 throws the same curve ball measurement across the micro to macro realities, through the radius of curvature concept of all natural law – a recognition permitting simple 4th grade understanding of PhD level science to filter down to the people, carrying with it the capacity to overcome any known problem today with highly advanced energy systems and greatly expanded comprehension of energy space time relationships.

February 11, 2008, 11:01 am
Science Debate Is Set; Now, Will Candidates Come?
By Andrew C. Revkin
Question for candidates: Should we keep sending people into space when a robotic rover can take pictures of the Victoria Crater on Mars? (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell)



http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/science-debate-is-set-now-will-candidates-come/index.html
The organizers of a proposed science and technology debate among the presidential candidates have set a date, April 18, and place, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. This would be four days before the Pennsylvania primary.
The group, ScienceDebate2008.com, has sent invitations to each of the remaining candidates.
Now the big question is whether their handlers will allow them to engage the thorniest scientific issues — like the dribble of money that the United States has invested in energy research through Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses; fetal rights and embryonic stem cell research; the need to add a cost to burning fossil fuels; reconciling science with belief in an all-powerful deity; the theory of evolution, which so many Americans (read voters) reject; etc.
[UPDATE: The organizers pointed out that the invitation specified that they are not “interested in state-level battles such as the evolution versus creationism/ID debate,” although they also said no subjects will be expressly excluded ahead of time.
In an e-mail and then a phone chat today, Shawn Otto, the CEO of Science Debate, Inc., which was set up to make the event happen, said the main goal was to get the candidates to explore how an invigorated science and technology enterprise could form the foundation for sustained, and sustainable, economic activity.
Here’s an excerpt from the email:
“This has never been about a science quiz. It has always been about the big policy issues facing the next president…. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett just signed on because this is an issue of American economic competitiveness. Science and technology have driven 50% of our growth in GDP over the last 50 years, and yet by 2010 90% of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia. That’s a huge fundamental change the next president is going to have to be dealing with, and yet nobody’s talking about it….”
“How are we going to compete? We’re seeing the candidates talk about short-term economic stimulus packages, but what about the fundamentals of our economic engine: our investment in research, and in science and math education? And that’s before we even talk about climate change or the environment, or health care…. This debate is about your pocketbook, it’s about your job, it’s about whether you can still afford health care, whether we’re going to do something about climate change or not, what kind of world your kids are going to be living in in ten or fifteen years, how are we going to respond to peak oil, where is the next transistor economy going to come from? Everybody knows these investments spin off economic engines – the transistor and Google are two examples….
This is the future of America, not some quirky science quiz. I’m not a scientist, I’m a writer and a concerned citizen. I care about the future for my son’s sake and for my own conscience, and I’m doing everything I can to elevate these issues in our national dialogue because they are that important…”]
Is there a big enough constituency passionate about science and related issues for campaign strategists to justify having candidates spend an hour or two on such prickly issues?
The latest polling from the Pew Research Center on public concern (the lack of it, actually) about climate change doesn’t suggest a groundswell. I’d like to think the candidates and their advisers will consent, but my guess is they’ll offer surrogates (although I’ll happily be proved wrong).
John Tierney, over at TierneyLab, asked readers back in December to suggest questions. I posted on the debate prospect when David Goldston, who spent 20 years in the science-policy tussle on Capitol Hill, said it could backfire.
The organizers of the debate have been accumulating thousands of endorsements — including those of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science — and hundreds of possible questions, as well, which can be explored on their Web site.
The site contains reams of useful background provided by the organizers, who include two screenwriters, one of whom is a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin (whose 199th birthday happens to be Tuesday), and the science blogger and author Chris Mooney.
If you were an adviser to one of the front-tier candidates, what would you suggest?

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Science, with it’s by-product, Technology, represent humanity’s extended senses to our expanding grasp of Universal Reality. Science and Technology promote an increasing capacity toward sustainable, thriving, and prosperous survival, through the extension of our senses: to see/hear/touch/move - further, closer, smaller, faster, heavier, etc.; to boundless creation of- new products, health advancement, and new realities previously unimaginable with just our physical bodies and senses alone.

Any obstruction to filtering Simple Understanding of the sciences to the masses, any obstruction to the sciences themselves, will result in a spectacular, heretofore unheard of, calamity to humanity, overshadowing all historical events, surpassing even the fables and legends.

The pending lethal evidence stands clearly before all eyes, even those without scientific training:

* The coming nuclear resource wars – byproducts of the dumber than dumb scientific energy concepts promoting the beliefs in “there is not enough to go around” & “what little there is, it’s all mine” – the 2% corporate golden greedy guts who own 98% of the world)

* Global Warming/Pollution/Ecological Imbalance threat - caused by the successful Obstruction to Energy Evolution since the late 1940’s. Energy Evolution, the highest priority to humanity’s sustainable and prosperous evolution, has broken all records in stagnation; stifled to such an extent, that more and more highly respected scientists today exemplify “The Trouble With Physics” foundational problems with preposterous models and theories, including the outlandish belief in physical "time" travel.

In StarSteps, even a fourth grader could explain the vast differences in measurement of a flat plane and a curved ball; neglecting the curve disfigures reality with a flat earth belief when the curve on the ball's surface is not considered in measurement. The extended concept of E=MC2 throws the same curve ball measurement across the micro to macro realities, through the radius of curvature concept of all natural law – a recognition permitting simple 4th grade understanding of PhD level science to filter down to the people, carrying with it the capacity to overcome any known problem today with highly advanced energy systems and greatly expanded comprehension of energy space time relationships

NYT February 14, 2008
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
By PATRICIA COHEN
A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”
Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”
Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.
Joining the circle of curmudgeons this season is Eric G. Wilson, whose “Against Happiness” warns that the “American obsession with happiness” could “well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation.”
Then there is Lee Siegel’s “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob,” which inveighs against the Internet for encouraging solipsism, debased discourse and arrant commercialization. Mr. Siegel, one might remember, was suspended by The New Republic for using a fake online persona in order to trash critics of his blog (“you couldn’t tie Siegel’s shoelaces”) and to praise himself (“brave, brilliant”).
Ms. Jacoby, whose book came out on Tuesday, doesn’t zero in on a particular technology or emotion, but rather on what she feels is a generalized hostility to knowledge. She is well aware that some may tag her a crank. “I expect to get bashed,” said Ms. Jacoby, 62, either as an older person who upbraids the young for plummeting standards and values, or as a secularist whose defense of scientific rationalism is a way to disparage religion.
Ms. Jacoby, however, is quick to point out that her indictment is not limited by age or ideology. Yes, she knows that eggheads, nerds, bookworms, longhairs, pointy heads, highbrows and know-it-alls have been mocked and dismissed throughout American history. And liberal and conservative writers, from Richard Hofstadter to Allan Bloom, have regularly analyzed the phenomenon and offered advice.
T. J. Jackson Lears, a cultural historian who edits the quarterly review Raritan, said, “The tendency to this sort of lamentation is perennial in American history,” adding that in periods “when political problems seem intractable or somehow frozen, there is a turn toward cultural issues.”
But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.
Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.
She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.
Ms. Jacoby, dressed in a bright red turtleneck with lipstick to match, was sitting, appropriately, in that temple of knowledge, the New York Public Library’s majestic Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue. The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
Ms. Jacoby doesn’t expect to revolutionize the nation’s educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off “American Idol” and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism. After all, “the empire of infotainment doesn’t stop at the American border,” she said, yet students in many other countries consistently outperform American students in science, math and reading on comparative tests.
In part, she lays the blame on a failing educational system. “Although people are going to school more and more years, there’s no evidence that they know more,” she said.
Ms. Jacoby also blames religious fundamentalism’s antipathy toward science, as she grieves over surveys that show that nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution.
Ms. Jacoby doesn’t leave liberals out of her analysis, mentioning the New Left’s attacks on universities in the 1960s, the decision to consign African-American and women’s studies to an “academic ghetto” instead of integrating them into the core curriculum, ponderous musings on rock music and pop culture courses on everything from sitcoms to fat that trivialize college-level learning.
Avoiding the liberal or conservative label in this particular argument, she prefers to call herself a “cultural conservationist.”
For all her scholarly interests, though, Ms. Jacoby said she recognized just how hard it is to tune out the 24/7 entertainment culture. A few years ago she participated in the annual campaign to turn off the television for a week. “I was stunned at how difficult it was for me,” she said.
The surprise at her own dependency on electronic and visual media made her realize just how pervasive the culture of distraction is and how susceptible everyone is — even curmudgeons.