Solar activity intensifies – Sunspot AR11476 unleashed a M5.7 Solar Flare – May 10, 2012

Here we go..  The Truth Behind The Scenes.  Excerpts:


Huge sunspot AR1476 is crackling with M-class solar flares and appears to be on the verge of producing something even stronger. The sunspot’s ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field harbors energy for X-class flares, the most powerful kind. Earth is entering the line of fire as the sunspot rotates across the face of the sun.



This morning, May 10th around 0418 UT, sunspot 1476 unleashed an impulsive M5.7-class solar flare. This is the 4th M-Class flare in 24 hours from this growing region.


Apparently, the almost-X class explosion did not hurl a significant CME toward Earth. NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of more M-class flares and a 10% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.

Russian plane wreckage found in Indonesia

The mystery begins.  CNN.  Excerpts(plus video at the link):

Thick fog and steep, mountainous terrain forced rescuers to halt their efforts to reach the wreckage of a Russian jetliner that crashed on a demonstration flight in Indonesia, the country's state news agency reported Thursday.



The Sukhoi Superjet 100 came to rest on the side of Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, Vice Marshal Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told the Indonesian news agency Antara. Efforts to reach the wreck are expected to resume Friday morning, said Daryatmo, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.


"We have identified the crash coordinates, but our personnel have not yet arrived at the location," Antara quoted Daryatmo as saying. "However, because there is thick fog covering Mount Salak and the tilt of the cliff is 85 degrees, the evacuation process has been halted until tomorrow morning."


The Russian Investigative Committee said 48 people were on board the plane, including eight Russian crew members. But the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti said the number was 45, citing Sukhoi Civil Aviation President Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk as saying three of the people on the passenger list did not board the flight.

The wreckage was spotted at an elevation of about 5,800 feet (nearly 1,800 meters). Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for the rescue agency, said the authorities hope to start removing bodies from the area by helicopter Friday, and there has been no sign that anyone survived.


Daryatmo said the Sukhoi logo had been identified amid the wreckage of the plane, which disappeared off radar screens Wednesday. An image released by the Indonesian military showed bits of debris strewn across a patch of steep mountainside that had been stripped bare of the thick surrounding vegetation.


The cause of the crash remained unclear. The Russian Investigative Committee said it had launched a criminal probe into possible safety violations.


The plane was on a demonstration flight for Indonesian Ministry of Transportation officials and representatives of Indonesian airlines, the Russian Embassy in Jakarta said before the crash.


Indonesia's Sky Aviation signed a $380 million deal in 2011 to buy 12 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, and press reports said a number of Sky employees were on the plane that went down. Sukhoi employees are also among the missing.

Another battle in a secret war?  What..  Corporations can't fight each other?  Other conspiracy minded folks say Poland's Revenge.  There's more to this story, and there is more information to come..

UPDATE: JPMorgan (JPM) Falls After Surprise Call, Mark-to-Market Losses

Whoopsie.  Things just got wobbly for JP Morgan.  Street Insider.  Excerpts:

Shares of JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) are under heavy pressure after-hours Thursday after announcing a surprise conference call and large surprise mark-to-market loss in its chief investment office and exposure to a possible credit downgrade.



Since March 31, 2012, the company said its CIO has had significant mark-to-market losses in its synthetic credit portfolio. JPMorgan said the portfolio has proven to be "riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the Firm previously believed."


The company said it now see a loss of $800 million in its CIO unit, versus an expected profit of up to $200 million. (A one billion dollar swing from projections!)  Although CEO Jamie Dimon said it could "easily get worse."

The company said the loss was driven by $2 billion trading loss in its synthetic credit portfolio.

Despite the loss, JPMorgan said at this time it still expects to earn $4 billion in the quarter.

My guess is this is just the first of many surprise calls and losses in store for many, many corporations, finance-related or not.  If JP Morgan cannot sustain, the worldwide economic repercussions will be significant and quick.  Could JP Morgan be that falling domino that starts the chain reaction crash? 

Nicolas Sarkozy faces questioning in raft of investigations as immunity ends

Boi-oi-oi-oing!  Someone's post-Presidential calendar's already filling up!  The Telegraph UK.  Excerpts:

Nicolas Sarkozy could face questioning in a raft of party financing and corruption cases when he leaves the Elysée next week and loses his presidential immunity.

..
..The outgoing president could soon be called for questioning – either as a witness or potentially as a suspect – in several corruption cases when he loses presidential immunity a month after leaving office on May 15.



Judges are likely to want to summon him over an investigation into who ordered French intelligence to unlawfully seek to uncover the source of journalists working for Le Monde. France's intelligence chief is currently under investigation over the affair in which Le Monde exposed embarrassing links between Mr Sarkozy's government and Liliane Bettencourt, the l'Oréal billionaire caught up in a tax evasion and illegal party financing inquiry.
..
Another case in which Mr Sarkozy's name has cropped up is the so-called "Karachi affair", a complex investigation into alleged kickbacks on arms contracts.



Judges are looking into irregularities in the financing of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's 1995 presidential campaign. Mr Sarkozy was Mr Balladur's campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time.


Magistrates suspect the Balladur camp of receiving illicit "retro-commissions" from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Mr Sarkozy's best man and former ministerial cabinet chief are both under formal investigation over the affair.
Plus!:
The most recent corruption allegation to be levelled against him is that he received 50 million euros of illegal campaign contributions from the late Muammar Gaddafi. (Sweet!  This should really play well for his image, yeah?)



Last month, investigative news website Mediapart published what it said was a copy of a document signed by Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi's intelligence chief in 2006 outlining the alleged funding deal. Mr Sarkozy has dismissed it as a forgery.


Saif-Al Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi's son and former heir, last year unambiguously claimed that Libya had funded Mr Sarkozy's election.

Sarko!  You've got some 'splainin' to do!

The Latest Popo Info..

Volcanic debris from Popocatepetl volcano closes Mexico airport.  Terra Daily via  The Extinction Protocol.  Excerpts:

Ashes from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano forced officials to close the airport in nearby Puebla for some 14 hours, to allow for cleanup after it spewed out heaps of ash and rock. The Puebla International Airport was able to reopen Wednesday after dozens of workers cleared its runways of volcanic ash that posed a risk to departing and arriving aircraft, said officials. The airport’s closing caused just one cancellation, a flight to Houston, Texas early Wednesday, said Puebla’s civil protection director Jesus Morales. Since Popocatepetl came to life several weeks ago, it has spewed gas and glowing rock as much as one mile (1.6 kilometers) beyond its crater, and has intermittently belched out water vapor and ash.
..
The city of Puebla lies in the shadow of the volcano about 55 kilometers (35 miles) from the federal capital Mexico City. The country’s second highest peak, Popocatepetl, means ‘smoking mountain’ in the indigenous Nahuatl language.


The distance between Popocatepetl and Mexico city is 43 miles, so the airport was about eight miles away.  This was just a burp, but volcanic activity is increasing.  Continuing..

Heh.. You said, "Ball Lightning." Heh heh.

Incredible Ball Lightning phenomenon in the sky over Russia – May 5, 2012  Trippy video.  Can lightning perform evasive maneuvers?  Can it?  The Truth Behind The Scenes.  Excerpts:

Ball lightning may be an atmospheric electrical phenomenon, the physical nature of which is still controversial. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes, which last only a fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds.



Laboratory experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but it is presently unknown whether these are actually related to any naturally occurring phenomenon.

Blahblah..  Watch the video.  I love Dude's "Whatzefok!  I forget!" Exclamation on seeing "ball lightning" for the first time..

That's not lightning, zipping around, or staying in the same place, flashing.  Not lightning..

First Official Greek Exit Polls: Pro-Bailout Parties Plunge; Anti-Bailout Radical Left, Neo-Nazis Soar

For Greece:  Shit just got real.  Without a bailout, Greece's economy implodes.  Then what?  Can a bunch of crazy Neo-Nazis and Leftists really find common ground opposing the E.U./German bailout, and maybe, even a little romance..?  Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

As we expected, the previous unofficial poll forecasts were total rubbish, and according to exit polls from NET TV, the results are as follows:



•New Democracy: 17-20%


•Pasok: 14-17%


•In a stunner, Syrizia, or the coalition of the radical left - a vehement anti-Bailout party - gets more votes than the ruling PASOK party: 15.5%-18.5%


•Independent Greeks: 10-12%


•Finally, and not surprisingly in the aftermath of the French results, the ultra right Golden Dawn gets 6-8% of the vote and will make it into Parliament.
..
Tallied across, up to 60% of the new parliament will be anti-bailout (at least according to exit polls), and hence "Domino toppling." Good luck with that pro-bailout coalition government. Needless to say these results are very ugly and make any prospect of a pro-bailout coalition cabinet virtually impossible. Suddenly the fate of the European experiment is in the hands of the ultra right and the far left - yup, Neo-Nazis will determine the future of Europe. How quaint... again - congratulations Europe.

Meanwhile, in Germany..
And just to confirm that the world is losing it, in the Schleswig-Holstein election, according to ARD, after the CDU (with 30.5%), SPD with 29.5%, Green Party with 14%, and FDP with 8.5%, we get... the Pirate Party 8%.



So Neo-Nazis in Greece, Pirates in Germany: the world has officially lost it.
And in France?

French hope for change as ‘Mr. Normal’ defeats ‘President of the Rich’  Raw Story.  Excerpts:


François Hollande has won the presidency of France, turning the tide on a rightwards and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe’s handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures.



The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France’s first left wing president for 17 years. Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%.


His emphatic victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago.
And:
The defeat of the most unpopular French president ever to run for re-election was not simply the result of the global financial crisis or eurozone debt turmoil. It was also down to the intense public dislike of the man seen as “President of the Rich” who had swept to victory in 2007 with a huge mandate to change France. Most French people felt he had failed to deliver his promises, and he was criticised for his ostentatious display of wealth, favouring the rich and leaving behind him more than 2.8 million unemployed. Political analysts said anti-Sarkozyism had become a cultural phenomenon in France. The turnout was high, estimated at around 80%.

 
The world wide markets should be reacting shortly.  Greece has killed their bailout.  The French threw out bailout enabler Sarkozy.  Like it or not, Change will follow shortly throughout Europe, that is for sure.. 
 
CBC resumes live coverage 3 a.m. Central.  It's gonna be a "newsy" week..

Kevin Shields-The shoegaze titan on the strange saga behind My Bloody Valentine's remasters.

I'm excited not only for remasters of  MBV's entire catalog, but for the news that the follow-up to Loveless is almost ready..!!  Get those headphones ready, good-music-lovin' babies!  I had assumed and was a little worried that Shields had musician's block, or that he'd taken too many drugs to produce an appropriate follow up(Like Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream after Screamadelica..).  Turns out, MBV's troubles track back to standard music industry bullshit.  Surprise!  Pitchfork.  Excerpts:

Rumors of My Bloody Valentine reissuing their back catalog started whirling around the internet as early as 2004. But, as is the case with most things involving these shoegaze originators, things took a bit longer than expected. A solid eight years later, though, they're finally here. On May 7, Sony releases remastered CDs of 1988's Isn't Anything and 1991's Loveless, along with a compilation of the band's early material, EP's 1988-1991, that features three unreleased tracks including the rumbling "Good for You", above(At the link..).



While many would assume that MBV leader Kevin Shields' notoriously meticulous work ethic was responsible for the delay, that's not really the case, according to the man himself. Instead, the story behind these reissues is one of corporate greed and suspiciously lost tapes that nearly required the services of Scotland Yard to retrieve. "The true story is as yet to be determined," says Shields on the phone from London, looking back on the twisty saga. One thing's for certain: These reissues were seen through by Shields, and he's proud of them. Though he does few interviews and is typically out-of-sight, Shields isn't especially shy or mumbly during our chat. Talking about the different ways he's been screwed by labels over the years, he sometimes veers off into the harried cadence of a conspiracy theorist, though there's no reason to doubt his claims.



The crown jewel of the reissue series is a 2CD version of MBV's all-time classic Loveless that features a remaster of the original disc as well as another based on previously discarded analog tapes. (Shields says vinyl versions of the remasters are due "probably in a few months.") And the overall project just might act as a precursor to the two-decades-in-the-making follow up to Loveless. "We might finish it really quickly, and it might be up in a few months," he says, tantalizingly. "I tend to work really quickly, suddenly, and I might be willing to do that right now. We'll see!"
..
Pitchfork: These reissues have been in the works for a few years. Why did it take so long for them to be released?
Kevin Shields: The process actually started in 2001, when we managed to come to an agreement with Sony, who inherited us from Creation. Part of the Sony deal was that I wanted all of the EPs made into one package because, back in 2001, you could get the albums pretty easily but not the EPs. So it was basically a compilation of all the EPs, and that was it.



Then we decided to do Isn't Anything and Loveless as well-- if we're gonna remaster [the EPs], we should remaster everything. In 2002, I tried to start working on it, but the studio that had the tapes, Metropolis Studios, lost them; the analog multi-tracks were all missing for a year. Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear.
..
That took us to 2003. And then Sony fell into complete breach of contract due to various issues, and it took until last year to fully sort it out. In the meantime, I started the work anyway in 2006, and I completed it in 2007-- those are the ones [that leaked] on the internet, that was the near-completed work. And then Sony behaved very badly again-- like most sociopathic companies do, they can't help it-- and I had to re-adjust the situation until it was slightly fair again, and that's why stuff is coming out now.



Pitchfork: Are you saying Sony hid the tapes on purpose back in 2002?
KS: Oh, they did. The contract we did in 2001 basically gave me ownership of the tapes, and then the Sony regime that existed when that contract was signed left. And when the new regime came in, the tapes disappeared. That was relevant because even though I was the owner, it would only revert back to me if I remastered from the original tapes-- if the tapes were gone, I couldn't remaster from them and hence I couldn't ever own them.
[When asked for a response to Shields' comments above, Sony sent the following message: "We have really enjoyed working on these hugely iconic re-issues with Kevin, and can't wait for the release."]
..
Pitchfork: Is the idea of ownership over this material important to you?

KS: Ownership and control is important, because if you don't own what you do, all sorts of stupid stuff happens to it, and people spend good money on garbage.
..
Also, you don't get paid if you don't own it-- you know, we've never been paid one penny from the United States from any of the records we've ever made. In the record company's world, we're always in debt. But the strange part of the story is Loveless alone sold enough copies in its first year to put us out of debt. But somehow Warners have managed to create a situation where, hundreds of thousands of records down the line, we're still in debt. That's why the compilations aren't coming out on Warner Bros. They're extremely in breach of contract as well at the moment.
[We did not receive an official statement from Warner Bros. on this matter by press time.]

Pitchfork: Sounds like you've been dealt an awful hand with these label issues.

KS: I'm no victim here-- this is just the way it is for everybody. It's a bit like being in the middle of a battlefield and getting shot in the arm and going, "Why me?" I mean, to put it very, very, very simply: The corporate system is fully psychopathic, and any creative people who enter into business with any of these organizations come up against a lifetime of issues. You just deal with it as you go along. It'll keep on happening until people reorganize the organizations.


Pitchfork: What do you mean exactly when you refer to these labels as psychopathic entities?
KS: Well, the organizations are, but probably 70% of the individuals in them are decent people. But a significant controlling minority have no empathy. They don't give a shit. If you put them in a situation where they can't make any decision but one that is in your favor, they will-- but that can take years. That's the game. Most people just give up with time and go, "I'm a victim." The only reason I've got the reputation for delays and spending a long time on things is because I just don't stop. We've had incredibly huge obstacles in our way-- no tapes, no royalties, no cooperation on any level-- and we sort it out. 

Kevin Shields kicks ass.  Others in his position might have just given up and let the business bullies win.  Thankfully, he's a fighter!  Anyone obsessed with Loveless has waited over 20 years now for a suitable follow-up.  Hopefully, our wait is just a few more weeks away.. Hopefully..  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean my ears with some MBV..