Poll: 4% of Jewish Israelis Think Obama Is pro-Israel
The number of Israelis who see US President Barack Obama’s policies as pro-Israel has fallen to four percent, according to a Smith Research poll taken this week on behalf of The Jerusalem Post.
Fifty-one percent of Jewish Israelis consider Obama’s administration more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel, according to the survey, while 35% consider it neutral and 10% declined to express an opinion. The poll of 500 people representing a statistical model of the Jewish Israeli population had a margin of error of 4.5%.
A much-cited Post poll published on June 19 that put the first figure at 6% had been cited by top officials in both the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office as the catalyst for recent American efforts to improve the American-Israeli relationship. But the new poll proves that those efforts have not improved Obama’s reputation among Israelis.
FDIC Could Use A Financial Lifeline of It’s Own
The government agency that guarantees you won’t lose your money in a bank failure may need a lifeline of its own. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. coffers have been so depleted by the epidemic of collapsing financial institutions that analysts warn it could go red by the end of this year.
That has happened only once before — during the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s, when the FDIC was forced to borrow $15 billion from the Treasury and repay it later with interest.
The agency reveals today how much is left in its reserves. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair may also use the quarterly briefing to say how the agency plans to shore up its accounts.
Small and midsize banks across the country have been hurt by rising loan defaults in the recession. When they fail, the FDIC is responsible for making sure depositors don’t lose a cent.
It has two options to replenish its insurance fund in the short run: It can charge banks higher fees or it can take the more radical step of borrowing from the U.S. Treasury.
None of this means bank customers have anything to worry about. The FDIC is fully backed by the government, which means depositors’ accounts are guaranteed up to $250,000 per account. And it still has billions in loss reserves apart from the insurance fund.
Bair today will also update the number of banks on the FDIC’s list of troubled institutions. That number shot up to 305 in the first quarter — the highest since 1994 and up from 252 late last year.
Because of the surging bank failures, the FDIC’s board voted Wednesday to make it easier for private investors to buy failed financial institutions.
Private equity funds have been criticized for taking too many risks and paying managers too much. But these days fewer healthy banks are willing to buy ailing banks, and the depth of the banking crisis appears to have softened the FDIC’s resistance to private buyers.
1,000 Banks to Fail In Next Two Years
The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” Kanas told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They’re smaller companies.” (See the accompanying video for the complete interview.)
Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank.
“Government money has propped up the very large institutions as a result of the stimulus package,” he said. “There’s really very little lifeline available for the small institutions that are suffering.”
Three-parent Biological Baby May Be Possible One Day
August 30, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
The prospect of a human baby with three biological parents has moved closer after scientists created monkeys using a technique that one day could stop children from inheriting severe genetic diseases. The birth of four healthy macaque monkeys in the US offers the strongest evidence yet that DNA can be transplanted safely from one egg to another to correct genetic defects that damage health.
The successful experiment in a close human relative suggests that it should be possible within a few years to use the method to help women who carry genetic disorders to avoid passing them to their children.
It should allow scientists to replace faulty “cellular batteries” called mitochondria, which affect about one in 6,500 births. While most mitochondria defects have mild effects, some can trigger severe brain, heart, muscle and liver conditions, as well as cancer, diabetes, blindness and deafness.
The technique is controversial, however, because the children it creates would inherit genetic material from three parents.
The mother and father would contribute most of their child’s DNA but a small amount would come from a second woman donating healthy mitochondria. Such children would be the first produced by germline genetic engineering, in which genes introduced by artificial means would be passed to successive generations.
WHO Warns Of Severe Form Of Swine Flu
Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
Some countries are reporting that as many as 15 percent of patients infected with the new H1N1 pandemic virus need hospital care, further straining already overburdened healthcare systems, WHO said in an update on the pandemic.
“During the winter season in the southern hemisphere, several countries have viewed the need for intensive care as the greatest burden on health services,” it said.
“Preparedness measures need to anticipate this increased demand on intensive care units, which could be overwhelmed by a sudden surge in the number of severe cases.”
Earlier, WHO reported that H1N1 had reached epidemic levels in Japan, signaling an early start to what may be a long influenza season this year, and that it was also worsening in tropical regions.
“Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections,” WHO said.
“In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays.”
9 Earthquakes Reported In Central Oklahoma
More rumblings underground, all in the same location, have been reported as earthquakes by the Oklahoma Geological Survey in Norman, bringing the total to 9 separate earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the state, the U.S. Geological Survey reports today.
All but one of the earthquakes was reported in eastern Oklahoma County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The other quake one was reported northeast of Ada early Thursday.
The largest earthquake was registered as 3.7 magnitude on the Richter scale Thursday night in Jones.
No damages have been reported.
The last quake in the eastern Oklahoma County area was recorded at 10:30 p.m. Thursday on the north and northeast side of Jones, reading 2.4 magnitude on the Richter scale.
In the same location at 10:15 p.m. on the north and northeast side of Jones, an earthquake reading 2.3 magnitude on the Richter scale, according to the survey.
The survey reports the largest was at 9:09 p.m. Thursday, a 3.7 magnitude earthquake was felt in the same area.
Lutherans to Allow Sexually Active Gays As Clergy
Leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran church voted Friday to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Gays and lesbians are currently allowed to serve as ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America only if they remain celibate. The proposal to change that passed with 68 percent approval.
At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA is one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy.
The final decision on whether to hire gay clergy in committed relationships will lie with individual congregations.
Some critics of the proposal have predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to split off from the ELCA, as has been the case with other Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church.
via Read Article.
Obama Plan – Temple Mount Under Arab-Muslim Sovereignty
The Middle East peace plan that United States President Barack Obama will unveil soon involves the creation of a Palestinian Authority state by 2011 and the transfer of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem [presumably including the Temple Mount – ed.] to Arab-Muslim sovereignty, Saudi newspaper Al-Ukaz has learned.
According to the report published Sunday in Al-Ukaz, the Obama plan also includes the following elements:
- Some parts of eastern Jerusalem [presumably Neveh Yaakov, Pisgat Ze'ev and the like - ed.] would be transferred to Israeli control.
- There would be an international presence in the Jordan Valley and other parts of Judea and Samaria.
- The Palestinian Authority terror organizations would be disbanded and turn into political parties.
- The large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria would not be dismantled.
- The fate of smaller Jewish settlement areas would be decided in a three-month-long negotiation period.
A reporter for the Saudi newspaper received the information from Hassan Harisha, the Second Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Authority Parliament. Harisha told him that the U.S. has handed over a draft of the peace proposal to the PA and other Arabs for their perusal.
Dollar to Fall as It Loses Reserve Status
Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, said the dollar will probably fall as it loses its status as a reserve currency. The dollar will especially drop against emerging-market counterparts, Curtis A. Mewbourne, a Pimco portfolio manager, wrote in a report on the company’s Web site. Investors should consider cutting their holdings of the U.S. currency, he said.
“While we have not yet reached the point where a new global reserve currency will arise, we are clearly seeing a loss of status for the U.S. dollar as a store of value even in the absence of a single viable alternative,” Mewbourne wrote.
The Dollar Index, which Intercontinental Exchange Inc. uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners including the euro and yen, fell about 3 percent this year.
Pimco, based in Newport Beach, California, is a unit of Munich-based insurer Allianz SE.
via Pimco Says Dollar to Fall as It Loses Reserve Status (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Study Finds Tiny Traces of Cocaine on 90% of U.S. Dollars
August 18, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
Chances are there’s cocaine in your wallet. Researchers looked at 234 bank notes from the U.S. and found that 90 percent had small traces of the illegal drug. Bills from larger cities, such as Baltimore, Boston and Detroit, were among those with the highest average cocaine levels. Salt Lake City had the lowest. Most of those analyzed from Washington had tiny amounts of cocaine.
In some large US cities evidence of “dirty money” is even stronger. Analysis of bank notes from Washington DC showed that 95 per cent of them carried minute amounts of the class A drug.
The study was the biggest ever undertaken of cocaine contamination of bank notes.
Paper money can pick up cocaine particles directly from users snorting the drug through rolled up bills, or from the handling of cash during drug deals.
Contamination can spread when bills are stacked together or run through counting machines.
Scientists tested bank notes from more than 30 cities in the US, Canada, Brazil, China and Japan.
They found “alarming” evidence of cocaine contamination in many areas. The US and Canada had the highest levels, with an average contamination rate of between 85 per cent and 90 per cent. China and Japan had the lowest rates of 20 per cent and 12 per cent.
Source
Mega-quake Could Strike Near Seattle
Using sophisticated seismometers and GPS devices, scientists have been able to track minute movements along two massive tectonic plates colliding 25 miles or so underneath Washington state’s Puget Sound basin. Their early findings suggest that a mega-earthquake could strike closer to the Seattle-Tacoma area, home to some 3.6 million people, than was thought earlier.
The deep tremors, which humans can’t feel, occur routinely every 15 months or so and can continue for more than two weeks before they die back to undetectable levels.
The instruments are detecting an inch or two of movement — known as “episodic tremor and slip” — as the Juan de Fuca plate grinds and sinks beneath the North American plate.
Closer to the surface, the two plates are locked together.
When they snap, scientists say, it could produce a massive 9.0 or greater earthquake and a tsunami.
By comparison, the largest earthquake ever recorded was 9.5, in Chile in 1960.
The largest in North America was the 9.2 Great Alaska earthquake in 1964, which spawned a tsunami that struck the Northwest coast.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which killed 750 to 2,500 people, was estimated to be an 8.3.
Whereas the scientists once predicted that a mega-earthquake would be centered just off the Northwest coast, now — using data from the tremors research — they say that it could be 30 miles or more inland,under the Olympic Peninsula, which lies to the west of Seattle and Tacoma across Puget Sound.
“The closer you are to the source, the stronger the shaking,” said Steve Malone, a research professor emeritus at the University of Washington.
Obama Comes Down On DOMA
August 18, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
A pro-family leader says the Obama administration is playing dishonest “Chicago-style politics” by defending the Defense of Marriage Act while undermining the law in a court filing.
The Obama Justice Department today filed court papers claiming the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act discriminates against homosexuals. In the meantime, the DOJ lawyers are seeking to dismiss a suit brought by a homosexual California couple challenging DOMA. (See Associated Press story below)
Gary Bauer 1Gary Bauer, president of American Values, says President Obama is committed to repealing DOMA — but does not want to take the political flak that would come along with it.
“What the White House wants is for a court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act so that the White House and the president don’t have to take the political damage for undermining a law that protects normal marriage,” he explains.
Bauer argues Obama is contradicting a campaign pledge. “President Obama ran promising he would be open and transparent, and no longer practice the usual politics of Washington, DC,” he notes. “Millions of people voted for him because they thought he would be more honest and more open in the way he governed.”
According to Bauer, that is not happening. “What we’re seeing here is something more reminiscent of the way they do politics in the wards of Chicago — saying one thing and then doing something else behind the scenes,” he states.
Principal, Athletic Director Face Jail for Prayer Before Lunch
A principal and an athletic director in Florida could be charged with crimes and spend six months in jail after they prayed before a meal at a school event, the Washington Times reported. Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman will go on trial in federal district court Sept. 17. They’re accused of violating the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union, according to the Times.
Local pastors and some students and teachers are outraged that Lay and Freeman face criminal charges, and they have protested during graduation ceremonies, the newspaper said.
“I have been defending religious freedom issues for 22 years, and I’ve never had to defend somebody who has been charged criminally for praying,” said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the Christian-based legal group that is defending the two school officials.
But an ACLU official said the Santa Rosa County School District has been guilty of “flagrant” First Amendment violations for years, the Times reported.
“The defendants all admitted wrongdoing,” said Daniel Mach, ACLU’s director of litigation for its freedom of religion program. “For example, the Pace High School teachers handbook asks teachers to ‘embrace every opportunity to inculcate, by precept and example, the practice of every Christian virtue.’”
The case stems from a Jan. 28 incident in which Lay, a local Baptist church deacon, asked Freeman to offer mealtime prayers at a lunch for school employees. Staver said no students were there and the event took place on school property after hours.
Mach countered that the event was held during the school day and Lay has admitted in writing that there were students present, according to the newspaper.
Will Science Create A Computer With A Human Brain
August 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
There are only a handful of scientific revolutions that would really change the world. An immortality pill would be one. A time machine would be another.
Faster-than-light travel, allowing the stars to be explored in a human lifetime, would be on the shortlist, too.
To my mind, however, the creation of an artificial mind would probably trump all of these – a development that would throw up an array of bewildering and complex moral and philosophical quandaries. Amazingly, it might also be within reach.
For while time machines, eternal life potions and Star Trek-style warp drives are as far away as ever, a team of scientists in Switzerland is claiming that a fully-functioning replica of a human brain could be built by 2020.
This isn’t just pie-in-the-sky. The Blue Brain project, led by computer genius Henry Markram – who is also the director of the Centre for Neuroscience & Technology and the Brain Mind Institute – has for the past five years been engineering the mammalian brain, the most complex object known in the Universe, using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
