July 27, 2014

Saharan dust played a major role in the formation of the Bahamas islands

A new study suggests that Saharan dust played a major role in the formation of the Bahamas islands. Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science showed that iron-rich Saharan dust provides the nutrients necessary for specialized bacteria to produce the island chain's carbonate-based foundation.

UM Rosenstiel School Lewis G. Weeks Professor Peter Swart and colleagues analyzed the concentrations of two trace elements characteristic of atmospheric dust -- iron and manganese -- in 270 seafloor samples collected along the Great Bahama Bank over a three-year period. The team found that the highest concentrations of these trace elements occurred to the west of Andros Island, an area which has the largest concentration of whitings, white sediment-laden bodies of water produced by photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

"Cyanobacteria need 10 times more iron than other photosynthesizers because they fix atmospheric nitrogen," said Swart, lead author of the study. "This process draws down the carbon dioxide and induces the precipitation of calcium carbonate, thus causing the whiting. The signature of atmospheric nitrogen, its isotopic ratio is left in the sediments."

Swart's team suggests that high concentrations of iron-rich dust blown across the Atlantic Ocean from the Sahara is responsible for the existence of the Great Bahama Bank, which has been built up over the last 100 million years from sedimentation of calcium carbonate. The dust particles blown into the Bahamas' waters and directly onto the islands provide the nutrients necessary to fuel cyanobacteria blooms, which in turn, produce carbonate whitings in the surrounding waters.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140724182933.htm

July 27, 2014

Mysterious signal from the center of the Perseus Cluster unexplained by known physics

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to explore the Perseus Cluster, a swarm of galaxies approximately 250 million light years from Earth, have observed the spectral line that appears not to come from any known type of matter. The signal they received can not be explained by known physics but they say it shifts suspicion to the dark matter.

Perseus Cluster a collection of galaxies and one of the most massive known objects in the Universe, immersed in an enormous 'atmosphere' of superheated plasma. It is approximately 768 000 light years across.


Perseus Cluster. Image credit: Credit: NASA / Chandra

"I couldn't believe my eyes," says Esra Bulbul of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics. "What we found, at first glance, could not be explained by known physics."

"The cluster's atmosphere is full of ions such as Fe XXV, Si XIV, and S XV. Each one produces a 'bump' or 'line' in the x-ray spectrum, which we can map using Chandra. These spectral lines are at well-known x-ray energies."

Yet, in 2012 when Bulbul added together 17 day's worth of Chandra data, a new line popped up where no line should be.

more

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2014/07/25/mysterious-signal-from-the-center-of-the-perseus-cluster-unexplained-by-known-physics/

July 27, 2014

'Everlasting storm' has 1 million lightning strikes a year

The Catatumbo Lightning glows over Venezuela, as seen from the island of Curaçao. (Photo: Shutterstock)

There is a place on Earth where an "everlasting storm" appears almost every night, averaging 28 lightning strikes per minute for up to 10 hours at a time. Known as Relámpago del Catatumbo — the Catatumbo Lightning — it can spark as many as 3,600 bolts in an hour. That's one per second.

This storm lives above a swampy patch of northwestern Venezuela, where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo, and has provided near-nightly light shows for thousands of years. Its original name was rib a-ba, or "river of fire," given by indigenous people in the region. Thanks to the frequency and brightness of its lightning, visible from up to 250 miles away, the storm was later used by Caribbean sailors in colonial times, earning nicknames like "Lighthouse of Catatumbo" and "Maracaibo Beacon."


The lightning has also played an even larger role in South American history, helping thwart at least two nocturnal invasions of Venezuela. The first was in 1595, when it illuminated ships led by Sir Francis Drake of England, revealing his surprise attack to Spanish soldiers in the city of Maracaibo. The other was during the Venezuelan War of Independence on July 24, 1823, when the lightning betrayed a Spanish fleet trying to sneak ashore, helping Adm. José Prudencio Padilla fend off the invaders.

So what causes such a powerful storm to develop in the same spot, up to 300 nights a year, for thousands of years? Why is its lightning so colorful? Why does it not seem to produce thunder? And why does it sometimes vanish, like its mysterious six-week disappearance in 2010?


Read more: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/blogs/everlasting-storm-has-1-million-lightning-strikes-a-year

July 27, 2014

Tow company owner arrested, allegedly targeted Gay Days visitors' cars

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The owner of an Orange County towing company has been arrested and is accused of targeting drivers who were parked near Gay Days events in June.

Jason Combs, the owner of ASAP Towing, didn't say anything as he was escorted to a deputy's patrol car.

"Jason, were you targeting people at gay days?" Channel 9 reporter Jeff Deal asked.

The Sheriff's Office said Combs illegally towed cars from a lot on International Drive across from the DoubleTree hotel. It was the site of the annual Gay Days celebration that took place between June 5 and June 9.

"He had no authority to tow vehicles from that property during the time he took those people's cars," said Cpl. Rick Schmeltzer with the Sheriff's Office.

more

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/tow-company-owner-arrested-allegedly-targeted-gay-/ngnn9/?__federated=1

July 27, 2014

The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less

Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.

For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising for the typical household, although at a slower pace than for households in higher wealth brackets. But much of the gain for many typical households came from the rising value of their homes. Exclude that housing wealth and the picture is worse: Median net worth began to decline even earlier.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/business/the-typical-household-now-worth-a-third-less.html

July 26, 2014

Toon: Middle East Travel Tips

July 26, 2014

Rich Guy Is Pretty Sure His Megayacht Counts As Philanthropy

Pharmaceutical gazillionaire Dennis M. Jones "was struck by an intriguing coincidence" upon upgrading his 151-foot yacht to a 164-foot, custom-built yacht named the D’Natalin IV, the Times reports. That coincidence? That the D’Natalin IV's $34 million price tag was roughly equivalent to the $34 million he'd given to charity since 2000.

Which got him thinking: $34 million on curing disease and helping the homeless, $34 million on "high gloss raised panel walnut cabinetry and inlay stone floors" for a floating mansion. What's the difference, really?

No, really, that's the thought process that went through Jones's mind, according to the Times.

Could the purchase of a superyacht be more than an act of self-indulgence? Could it provide something as significant, Mr. Jones wondered, as the financial aid he has given to children, homeless people, drug addicts and groups that promote education and entrepreneurship?

The answer to all of those questions, of course, is "hell no, are you crazy?" (In fact, studies have shown the exact opposite — that high-end luxuries like yachts and sports cars actually perpetuate inequality.) But that didn't stop Jones from rationalizing his Scrooge McDuck lifestyle as an act of charity. He even called in the CEO of Christensen Yachts, which built the boat, to testify about how truly meaningful his order had been to the once-struggling company.

more

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/rich-guy-pretty-sure-his-yacht-is-philanthropy.html

"Mr. Jones said he wanted to encourage other wealthy people to think about how their opulent lifestyles could provide jobs just as their charity helps people in need," the Times said.

July 26, 2014

Charles P Pierce- Agent Double-O Soul Rides Again

Senator Aqua Buddha dropped by the Urban League conference in Cincinnati today to show how down he is with the Bill of Rights, and how Dr. King's dream is his as well. First, though, he'd like to clear up some misconceptions.

In an acknowledgment of what was perhaps the biggest cloud hanging over his visit, Mr. Paul delicately touched on the controversy over his 2010 comments in which he suggested that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 encroached on individual liberties. On Friday, the senator said his support for the act was unequivocal, echoing comments he has made repeatedly since 2010. And he also said he wanted to see a greater role for the federal government in enforcing a second landmark civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "Not only do I support the Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights Act," he said, "I'm a Republican who wants to restore a federal role for the government in the Voting Rights Act."

Well, now that is precious. This is a guy who, up until a year ago, had a guy working for him whose secret identity was as a neo-Confederate called The Southern Avenger, and who got all tangled up talking to kindly Doc Maddow until he seemed to come out against the provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that allowed black people to eat at whatever lunch counter was open. Now, we are to believe that the scales have fallen from his eyes altogether and that he is now where decent people were on this subject in 1966. Thank god-almighty, he's free at last.

5...4...3...2...1...

Back when the Shelby County case was handed down, and the Voting Rights Act gutted, Aqua Buddha didn't see what all the fuss was about.

"The interesting thing about voting patterns now is in this last election African-Americans voted at a higher percentage than whites in almost every one of the states that were under the special provisions of the federal government," Paul said Wednesday according to WFPL's Phillip Bailey. "So really, I don't think there is objective evidence that we're precluding African-Americans from voting any longer."

Now, almost a year closer to the Iowa caucuses, he "wants to restore a federal role for the government in the Voting Rights Act," whatever in god's name that means, since the Voting Rights Act is a federal law and, therefore, a "federal role for the government" in the act is rather understood. If Aqua Buddha wants to overturn Shelby County, and put teeth back into the enforcement procedures, he should propose a bill to that effect. At the moment, his entire New Conservative Vision on voting rights is to caution Republicans not to be so vocal about their voter-suppression efforts, a few tepid comments in favor of early voting, and some decent work trying to re-enfranchise non-violent felons in Kentucky when they are released. Now, we are to believe that the scales have fallen from his eyes altogether and he is now walking in spirit with John Lewis over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

It's two years away, and I can already see what the biggest question is going to be in regards to the Republican primary field. Is Paul Ryan the Flim and Aqua Buddha the Flam, or is it the other way around?

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Aqua_Buddha_Gets_His_Groove_On

July 26, 2014

Zombie-eyed Granny Starving, 2.0

By Charles P. Pierce

Between 1750 and 1860, the British Parliament passed a series of laws called The Inclosure Acts. The point of these laws was to repurpose open fields that had heretofore been treated as part of the Commons by the British peasantry. Traditionally, the peasants were able to farm these large areas and graze what animals they had there. They were also allowed to range freely over what were called "wastes," which were swampy, unproductive places in which the rural poor could fish, or gather firewood, or do whatever they needed to do to keep body and soul together.

(In an informal way, this had been going on for years, as had ineffective attempts by the peasantry to assert their traditional rights. Kett's Rebellion of 1549 was a protest against the enclosure of common land by the gentry and it was centered in the unfortunately named town of Mousehold. The Midland Revolt in 1607 also had the enclosure of common land as its casus belli.)

The Inclosure Laws ended all that, destroying part of the idea of the Commons along the way. The fields were fenced in, and the most productive of them parceled off to wealthy landowners and to those with serious political connections. This was great for agriculture and a lousy deal for the peasants, who were left with a series of unpleasant options. These included emigration, or internal migration to cities that were rapidly becoming hopelessly overcrowded and in which the luckier ones among the displaced would find work in the dark, Satanic mills that were just then accelerating toward the Industrial Revolution, or, finally, grubbing out a life as a tenant farmer for the rich people to whom what previously had been common land had been parceled off. Among other things, this set in stone a grotesquely unbalanced landlord-tenant system throughout the agricultural economy of the United Kingdom. This, as we know from our history, worked out splendidly in Ireland. The basic philosophy of the Inclosure Acts was applied generally throughout the British Empire. The effect on indigenous populations was not a good one.

(A lot of the peasants who emigrated came to America, to which they brought a deep distrust of distant autocratic power. This came in handy in 1776.)

If the peasant wanted to continue to farm any land at all, he often had to sign a contract with one of the wealthy landowners to do so. This pretty much made him a serf. (In fact, some historians have likened the Inclosure system to a rudimentary experiment in what Stalin eventually would do with his collective farms.) His livelihood, and that of his family, depended on the landlord's whims. The peasant essentially was paid (poorly) in the crops he grew, and not in actual money. In 1770, Oliver Goldsmith wrote the epic poem, The Deserted Village, in which he described the effect of enclosure on the people who had lived off the land.

more

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-new-scam

The last para is worth noting:

Paternalism doesn't change through the ages. It just dresses differently. And there, ultimately, is Paul Ryan's new political persona. He's the poor person's landlord, enclosing the fields. He's the man who brought sharecropping to the welfare state.

July 26, 2014

Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

With all the crap about impeaching President Obama, it is worth remembering that there was a time when the MAJORITY of Americans supported impeaching W-if he was spying on Americans. We of course now know that he was doing so.

For Release: January 16, 2006

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2