Rupert Murdoch resigns from newspaper boards

Strategic consolidation of remaining power, or the first very visible cracks in Rupert's facade of impervious-ness?  Raw Story:

The (U.K.) Telegraph is reporting that media mogul Rupert Murdoch has resigned from the boards of his various newspaper holdings in both the United Kingdom and the United States.



Filings with both the United Kingdom Registrar of Companies and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicate the resignations were made within the past week.


Though a News Corporation spokesman called Murdoch’s departure from that company board, as well as NI Group, Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp Investments, “nothing more than a corporate housecleaning exercise prior to the company split,” there is speculation mounting that it means he and his son James, at one time mentioned as a potential successor, could be on their way out from News Corp entirely.


“James and Rupert have decided that they are not welcome in the UK, and they’re right,” said Claire Enders at Enders Analysis. “There is an enforced emotional withdrawal from these assets because they are no longer useful [in terms of influence].”

Remember:  Just because the media's not talking non-stop about Murdoch's scandal(s), doesn't mean that authorities have given up their investigation(s)..  We wish Rupert Murdoch well in his future endeavors..

The Hedge Fund Trail In Liborgate Gets Hotter: Mega Fund Brevan Howard Next?

Oh my..  Lieborgate's turning out to be a real super inclusive club/scandal.  Zero Hedge.


Two days ago we made the "missing link" connection between traders in Libor manipulating banks (all of which curiously had a hub in Singapore: something else for the media that has been about 4 years too late on this topic to focus on) and hedge funds (most of which curiously centering on the otherwise sleepy bastion of banking: Geneva, Switzerland). The immediate aftermath was the loss of trading privileges of one Michael Zrihen. We are fairly certain this is just the beginning of the hedge fund bust: when all is said and done, many more funds will have terminated traders they hired for reasons (and kickbacks) unknown over the past 2 years as Lie-bor manipulators sought to put a clean firewalled break between their old employer and current one. Because apparently sometimes the regulators are that stupid and can be confused by a simple job change. And while many have assumed (and even calculated based on completely groundless assumptions) that only BBA member banks have benefited from Libor manipulation, the reality is that hedge funds were just as complicit and benefited just as much if not more. What is worse, they took advantage of their whale client status with manipulating banks, and courtesy of Total Return Swap and other leveraged gimmicks, made far more money when they co-opted two or more banks to do their bidding. Impossible you say: hedge funds would never be so stupid. Oh very possible: we present exhibit A - Brevan Howard, a "fund, with assets of $20.8 billion as of Dec. 31, has never had a losing year and returned 14.4 percent annualized from its April 2003 inception through the end of 2008" as Bloomberg said in a made to order profile of the funds recently. Perhaps there is a very simple reason for this trading perfection: "Brevan Howard telephoned on 20 Aug 2007 to ask the defendant to change the Libor rate," according to a paper filed with the Singapore High Court cited by Bloomberg."



Here is The Telegraph with a smoking gun that was promptly buried in the avalanche of sudden media coverage in the aftermath of the Barclays Liborgate settlement.

Tan Chi Min, a former RBS trader who claims he was wrongfully dismissed by the bank after it fired him for allegedly trying to manipulate Libor - the average rate at which banks lend to each other - said he had received the request in 2007 from Brevan Howard.
"Brevan Howard telephoned on 20 Aug 2007 to ask the defendant to change the Libor rate," according to a paper filed with the Singapore High Court cited by Bloomberg.

Oops.
That one statement should be enough to send shivers into the heart of whoever may be General Counsel of Brevan Howard (and many other mega funds right now whose names will make front page appearances in the coming weeks), as it provides the banks with something that so far has been missing. Motive. Because while it may be difficult to prove that Barclays or RBS benefited from Libor manipulation, pandering to a mega client is very, very easy to prove - there is always a trace. It also makes it very easy for the prosecution to include hedge funds, which are just as hated by the general populace as big banks if not more, into what is shaping up as one perfect litigation storm (and distraction from the real culprit here: the global central bank cartel).


Telegraph goes on:

The court filing alleges RBS "received this request without objection". Brevan Howard is not a party to the lawsuit and is not being investigated or sued for any alleged wrongdoing. RBS and Brevan Howard both declined to comment.


Mr Tan claimed in his filing that Scott Nygaard, head of short-term markets finance at RBS, knew about the call from Brevan Howard. However, the filing contained no further details to support his allegations. However, he is reported to have said he would provide further evidence at a later stage.
The legal case follows Mr Tan's firing in December over allegations he had attempted to improperly influence RBS's Libor-setting staff between 2007 and 2011. Mr Tan, who worked for RBS in Singapore as head of delta trading, claims he was wrongfully dismissed by the bank.

Ah yes our old friends: the ubiquitous Delta Traders who somehow have a finger in everything from ETF trading, to gamma, to convexity trades, and now- serving as the nexus between Libor manipulation demanding clients and in house Libor fixers.



The plot just gets thicker and thicker.

Mr Tan is claiming $1.5m (£943,000) in bonuses and 3.3m RBS shares that he says the bank owes him in pay. He claims in his lawsuit that asking for changes in Libor was "common practice" among RBS traders and that the bank "took requests from clients" to alter the rate.

And there it is: "Took requests from clients" not just manipulated rates for its own interest. And this is where the universe of guilty parties explodes exponentially, and reaches not only Geneva Switzerland, but virtually every single hedge fund that had even a modest fixed income trading link over the past decade.



Watch this space closely: it will get very hot soon.

Yes.  Yes it will get hot, very hot, very soon!

Drug decriminalization in Portugal decreases number of addicts

Buncha weirdo hippies pushing their drug agenda..  Business Insider(!!), via Global Post:

On July 1, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.



Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong.


Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labeling drug users as criminals to labeling them as people affected by a disease. This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow.


First, some clarification.


Portugal's move to decriminalize does not mean people can carry around, use, and sell drugs free from police interference. That would be legalization. Rather, all drugs are "decriminalized," meaning drug possession, distribution, and use is still illegal. While distribution and trafficking is still a criminal offense, possession and use is moved out of criminal courts and into a special court where each offender's unique situation is judged by legal experts, psychologists, and social workers. Treatment and further action is decided in these courts, where addicts and drug use is treated as a public health service rather than referring it to the justice system (like the US), reports Fox News.
The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following 10 years. Portugal's drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report.

One more outcome: a lot less sick people. Drug related diseases including STDs and overdoses have been reduced even more than usage rates, which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts.


While this policy is by no means news, the statistics and figures, which take years to develop and subsequently depict the effects of the change, seem to be worth noting. In a country like America, which may take the philosophy of criminalization a bit far (more than half of America's federal inmates are in prison on drug convictions), other alternatives must, and to a small degree, are being discussed.


For policymakers or people simply interested in this topic, cases like Portugal are a great place to start.

Less addicts.  Less sick people.  Less people the Justice and Health Care systems have to process.  Sounds nice, right?  This is what a rational response to a societal problem looks like.  Stupid Europeans, with their logic and their thinking and their alternative policies that turn out to be right..

Regarding Aurora..

There's no doubt this is another tragedy in the quest for equilibrium our armed, yet free society seeks to achieve.  There's also no doubt nothing will be done, and very little will be learned.  Prove me wrong.  Please.

Drip.. Drip.. Drip..

What's in there? Scientists fascinated after NASA orbiter photographs open crater leading into underground cavern on Mars  The Daily Mail.  Excerpts:

Nasa scientists are baffled as to what - or maybe even who? - created this unusual hole on the surface of Mars. The hole was discovered by chance on images of the dusty slopes of the Red Planet's Pavonis Mons volcano.  It appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated to the right of the opening.

Holes such as this are of particular interest because their interior caves are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life.

These pits are therefore prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers. The images were taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars.

Why Won't Mitt Won't Release His Taxes?

A lot is being made right now regarding Mitt's taxes, and his astonishingly stubborn response to releasing more than just the 2010 returns(And we're still missing a page, there, too..), the theory being Romney paid no taxes in 2009.  This is probably true, but maybe there's more:  What if he made a bunch of money in the quickly blooming LIBOR scandal between 2005 and 2009?  Like, a fuckin' killing?  Huge, HUGE MONEY! 

Maybe Bain ain't the only thing Mitt's got goin' on..  23 years of taxes to John McCain and only most of one year is part of the equation:  Maybe 2008 as opposed to 2012 is the other.  Four years ago during the economic meltdown,  nobody could prove nuthin'.  Maybe now they can.

So what if that's the case?  Nobody knows just how much this guy's really worth, or what financial vehicles he rode to his current success.  So much institutionalized financial shenanigans in the 2000's, and Mitt's a rich rich man in the wealth accumulation department.  Maybe transactions..  Overlapped.  Formerly sterling associations are now more..  Negative and/or Criminal than they were in 2008. It might all still be "legal," but it is also impossibly complicated and convoluted, and might not "feel" legal to unwashed, uneducated eyes.. 

You do realize some things are next to impossible to explain to you people, don't you?

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I just bought my horse an island, and I'd like to celebrate by buying another island."

Reuters: Head of Tepco ‘shocked’ people are concerned about No. 4 fuel pool — ‘Baffled’ by criticism of company’s role in Fukushima disaster

He's right:  It's CRAZY to be worried about an ongoing catastrophe/potential Extinction Level Event.  Crazy, I tells ya..  Reuters, via ENEWS:

The new head of the company at the centre of Japan’s nuclear disaster said on Thursday he was baffled by fierce criticism of the firm where he has worked nearly 40 years and hoped to rebuild public trust but offered no clear idea how to do so.

[...]
At one of the meetings, a moderate earthquake struck and he was quickly peppered with questions about the safety of a badly damaged building at Fukushima full of spent fuel rods.


That was “quite a shock for us,” [President of Tepco Naomi Hirose] said, because the company assumed its reinforcement work has been sufficient.


Fukushima’s spent fuel pool No. 4 has been a source of international concern because they are exposed to the atmosphere after one of the explosions that hit the station tore the reactor building roof off and caused its walls to tilt.
[...] 

His attitude is very comforting, in a clueless rich guy who makes a disaster scenario oh so much worse kinda way, don't you think?  I can't wait for his public reaction when the inevitable happens:  GUUUUHHHHH??   Wuuuuuhhh?  Howdathappen?

Scientist claims jellyfish-like aliens exist

Not your garden variety flying saucers and anal probers, to be sure, but then again, maybe we've just been looking in the wrong places..  The Telegraph.  Excerpts:

Dr Maggie Alderin-Pocock envisages creatures that float through clouds of methane, scooping chemical nutrients into their gaping mouths.



The aliens keep themselves aloft by means of dangling onion-like buoyancy bags, and communicate with pulses of light.


Dr Alderin-Pocock, a leading scientist at European space company Astrium, said: “Our imaginations are naturally constrained by what we see around us, and the conventional wisdom has been that life needs water and is carbon-based.


“But some researchers are doing exciting work, playing with ideas such as silicon-based life forms.

“Silicon is just below carbon in the periodic table, has some chemical similarities, and is widely available in the universe.

“So perhaps we could imagine similar instructions to DNA but with silicon.



“Maybe life doesn’t have to resemble anything like DNA at all.”


Her aliens would probably die on Earth, finding the damp oxygenated atmosphere lethally corrosive. Equally, humans would not survive on Titan.
 

Based on the latest discoveries of star-orbiting planets, she also believes as many as four intelligent extraterrestrial civilisations could exist in our galaxy, the Milky Way. But they are so far away it is unlikely we will ever meet them.


“The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is carrying a recording of greetings from Earth in different languages, has been travelling through the Solar System since the 1970s and has only just made it into deep space,” she said.


“To get to our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri, would take it 76,000 years.”

Rather than looking up, maybe we should be looking down..

Russian Underwater Encounters With Underwater Humanoids and UFOs  From The Truth Behind The Scenes.


Russian Underwater Encounters with Underwater Humanoids and UFOs: What Lurks Beneath The Surface – By Paul Stonehill



In the summer of 1982, Mark Shteynberg, along with Lt. Colonel Gennady Zverev, were conducting periodic training of the reconnaissance divers (“frogmen”) of the Turkestan and Central Asian military regions. The training exercises had been taking place at the Issik Kul Lake, a deep water lake in the Transiliysk Ala Tau area.

Quite unexpectedly the officers were paid a visit by a very important official, Major-General V. Demyanko, commander of the Military Diver Service of the Engineer Forces of the Ministry of Defense, USSR. He arrived to inform the local officers of an extraordinary event the had occurred during similar training exercises in the Trans-Baikal and West Siberian military regions. There, during their military training dives, the frogmen had encountered mysterious underwater swimmers, very human-like, but huge in size (almost three meters in height!)



The swimmers were clad in tight-fitting silvery suits, despite icy-cold water temperatures. At the depth of fifty meters, these “swimmers” had neither scuba diving equipment (“aqualungs”), nor any other equipment, only sphere-like helmets concealing their heads.


Well, the local military commander (quite alarmed by such encounters) decided to capture one of the creatures. With that purpose in mind, a special group of seven divers, under the command of an officer, had been dispatched.


As the frogman tried to cover the creature with a net, the entire group was thrown out of the deep waters to the surface by some powerful force. Now, because autonomous equipment of the frogmen does not allow surfacing from such depths without strict adherence to the process of decompression stops, all of the members of the ill-gated expedition were stricken by aeroembolism, of the Caisson disease. The only remedial treatment available consisted of an immediate confinement under decompression conditions in a pressure chamber. They had several such pressure chambers in the military region, but only one in working condition. It could contain no more than two persons.


Hence, local CO had forced four frogmen into the chamber. As a result, three of them (including the leader of the group) perished, and the rest became invalids – terrible consequences caused by the usual Soviet military bungling.

The major-general rushed to the Issik Kul to warn the local military against similar “devil-may-care” actions. Although the Issik Kul Lake is more shallow than the Baikal Lake, the depth of the former was sufficient to contain similar mysterious creatures. Did the major-general know something that Officer Shteynberg did not?

Maybe, just maybe there are several, Several types of unknown organisms all here at the same time?  They don't all have to be little green men, do they?

Incredible Photos of Russian Peasants in the 1800s

Slideshow and text courtesy Enviornmental Graffiti.

Bachmann flees CNN cameras over questions about anti-Muslim attacks

Boy, Shelly's one tough bitch when it comes to calling out the Muslim Brotherhood phantoms, but her sweet little heels must've been on fire when Dana Bash tried confronting her!  Sodahead:

The video proves that when hate-filled conservatives like Bachmann are confronted and asked to explain their hate, they run away from truth very quickly. Bachmann is a cowardly woman peddling anti-Muslim hatred.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Wednesday ran from CNN cameras as Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash asked her about her accusations that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, was infiltrating the U.S. government on behalf of radical Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood.


Earlier on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had taken to the Senate floor to rip Bachmann and four other Republican lawmakers for their “specious and degrading attacks” on Abedin.


“The allegations about Huma Abedin and the report from which they are drawn are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant,” the Arizona senator said. “These attacks have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop. They need to stop now.” 

I wonder where Shelly was running off to so fast?  I'm guessing she was late for a "pray the gay away" session with "husband" Marcus..

Pretty disgusting tactics, even for an attempted dual loyalist..

Deep Into The Lieborgate Rabbit Hole: The Swiss Hedge Fund Link?

Just because 16 banks did the rigging, doesn't mean Almost Everyone Else didn't know about it, and use it to their advantage.  Derivatives are firmly involved now, and so is Geneva, Switzerland.  The derivatives Leviathan rises from the depths; The monster's size grows quickly to the horizon, then beyond.  We gasp at its size, unable to process..  Zero Hedge connects all the dots.  Excerpts:


That Lieborgate is about to spill over and take down many more banks is well known: as previously reported that the world's biggest bank Deutsche Bank, has become a rat for the Liebor prosecution having turned sides. The reason: "Under the leniency programs of the EU, companies may get total immunity from fines or a reduction of fines which the anti-trust authorities would have otherwise imposed on them if they hand over evidence on anti-competitive agreements or those involved in a concerted practice." However, just like in the case of Barclays (with Diamond), JPM (with Bruno Iksil), UBS (with Kweku) and Goldman (with Fabrice Tourre), there always is a scapegoat. Today we find just who that scapegoat is. From Bloomberg: "Regulators are investigating the possible roles of Michael Zrihen at Credit Agricole, Didier Sander at HSBC and Christian Bittar at Deutsche Bank, the person said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The names of the banks and traders were reported earlier today by the Financial Times."



Of course, as so very often happens, the link between the investigated firm, and the person in question no longer exists - after all what better brute way to tie up loose ends, than to fire the person in question at some point in the past: "Michael Golden, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank, confirmed that Bittar left the bank last year and declined to comment on the investigation." Not surprising. Yet this is where the story gets interesting, and provides a whole new twist on the Lieborgate scandal.


Notice that up until now, the only firms that have been implicated in Lieborgate are, by definition, the BBA member banks which provided daily USD Libor fixings. However, nowhere is it said that this information never exited this close knit cabal of 16 manipulating banks. After all, there are $2 trillion in AUM (a number that is likely $5 trillion when accounting for all the rehypothecated assets at the Prime Brokers) out there run by unregulated hedge funds, and all of these entities would certainly find a way to make a pretty buck on even the tiniest 'manipulated', and leveraged Libor arbitrage. And would also pay a pretty penny to get that info. Which brings us back to Bittar. And LinkedIn.
And:

The original LinkedIn list continues (much to the likely chagrin of at least one SocGen trader and one more CA-CIB banker), but we have seen enough, and the pattern is forming: it appears that the bankers who were allegedly involved in Libor manipulation in some capacity in their previous lives working for banks, decided to quietly depart under mutually acceptable conditions and find new lives, still trading Libor and IR derivatives, in some of the best known, and even less regulated, Swiss hedge funds and private banks.




Our question then is the following: while much has been said about Lieborgate as being purely associated with the 16 BBA USD fixing member banks, just who else made money, and is the traditionally quiet and always under the radar Swiss financial community about to be exposed for having profits far more from Lieborgate than any of the BBA member banks?


Because if the stigmatized traders were accepted with open arms at various Swiss hedge funds, one would think there may, just may have been, some quid pro quo in the past (for those who have worked in the financial industry this needs no further explanation).


We eagerly await the answer, and perhaps the Swiss regulators to finally wake up to their own "pristine" financial industry.


So really..  Just about anyone remotely on the inside could pay for manipulated rate information, and now, it's possible that many, many, many people did, and they all profited from it;  A lot.  All on the backs of those who didn't.  Also known as "muppets," also referred to as "customers." 

LIBOR goes global in three..  Two..

The Troubling Feeling I Have About The Whole Limbaugh Baingate Hilarity..

Holy rewrite!  Limbaugh tries to deny Batman conspiracy.  Video courtesy of The Rachel Maddow Show.

Of all of Limbaugh's oafish blithering, I'm bothered by this rant, but not for any standard "I'm offended" bullshit reasons, other than the generalized escalation of poisonous rhetoric from the entirety of what used to be the Grand Old Party..  Other than that.  But with Limbaugh specifically:  I think this episode is the beginning of some kind of neurological disorder.  I'm assuming that, unless he surrounds himself with total lickspittles and has zero fact checkers, someone on his staff could have easily researched this accusation tangent and saved fatty the embarrassment of even going down to crazytown in the first place. 


No, Limbaugh went off-off script with this one, and caught everyone off-guard.  Having witnessed first hand my father's descent into the deteriorating cognitive abyss, I have the same feelings watching Limbaugh that I did when dad began his slide.  There are brain farts, and then there are Brain Farts.  This was a big one.  He could have acknowledged the mistake and moved on, but didn't, deflecting, saying we heard wrong, not that he misspoke.  Hilarious, when paired with the first video, by the way.. 


My father couldn't acknowledge any mistake, either.  If he were to, then he'd have to question deeper as to why he made that mistake.  It's a door he never opened; Ever.  If I'm correct about Rush, I doubt he'd be quick to open that door, either, as you just can't un-know what you know..  Until you forget it.  And by then, it doesn't matter.


Also, the few times he looks towards the camera..  I've seen that look before, and I know what it means..  At least I know what it meant within our family..  I could be wrong.  My intuition may be off.  I've watched this video a few times, and Limbaugh does a good job passing this off as nothing, but there's something substantive there happening, if only seen in hints and slivers.  There is something not       quite      right           happening.. 

Top Barclays exec claims boss told him to rig rates

Eventually, they'll all turn on each other.  In the meantime, you might want to try some flavored butter with your popcorn..  Stay tuned; It's gonna be a grrrrrrreat show!  Raw Story:

A top Barclays executive who quit over the bank’s rigging scandal told British lawmakers Monday that he was instructed by his former boss Bob Diamond to manipulate key inter-bank lending rates.



Jerry del Missier resigned two weeks ago over the scandal, which has also claimed the jobs of Diamond and Barclays chairman Marcus Agius and rocked the City of London, one of the world’s top financial hubs.

It had emerged that del Missier told Barclays traders to manipulate the bank’s submissions for the Libor and Euribor rates in a bid to make it seem as if other banks were more willing to lend to Barclays than they actually were.
Diamond has said that del Missier did this after “misinterpreting” a phone conversation between Diamond and Bank of England (BoE) deputy governor Paul Tucker in October 2008.


But asked by the British parliament’s Treasury Select Committee on Monday whether the phone call was “an instruction” from Diamond to cut the submissions, del Missier replied: “Yes, it was.”
Diamond, who stepped down as Barclays chief executive hours before del Missier on July 3, previously told the committee he had not instructed del Missier to manipulate the rates.


According to Diamond’s account of the phone call, Tucker had told him that Barclays’ Libor submissions did not always need to be so high.


Diamond said Tucker told him that, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, British officials were interpreting Barclays’ relatively high Libor submissions as a sign that the bank was struggling.


Diamond told the committee that he had not interpreted the conversation as an instruction from the central bank to rig the rates, but del Missier had.


On Monday, del Missier said: “What was communicated to me by Mr Diamond was that there was political pressure … regarding Barclays’ health and that we should get our Libor rates down.”



Del Missier said he relayed the conversation to the head of the money markets desk and “fully expected that the Bank of England’s views would be incorporated in the Libor submissions.”


He added: “I would have expected that taking that into account would have resulted in lower submissions.”


However, asked by one of the panel if he had been told outright by Diamond to invent submissions, the Canadian replied: “No sir, that’s not what Mr Diamond said.”


Del Missier said that in the context of the events that were shaking the financial world at the time, “it didn’t seem a significant event.”


Asked if he knew that manipulating the Libor rate was illegal, del Missier said: “No, it did not seem an inappropriate action given that this was coming from the Bank of England.”


Barclays was fined £290 million ($452 million, 360 million euros) after admitting attempting to manipulate the Libor and Euribor rates between 2005 and 2009.


Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) is a flagship London instrument used as an interest benchmark throughout the world, while Euribor is the eurozone equivalent.


The rates play a key role in global markets, affecting what banks, businesses and individuals pay to borrow money.

More to follow:  More testimony, more daggers, more bloodletting.  How's that popcorn?  Delicious?

Where Is the Woman Who Allegedly Had Hot Lesbian Sex With Florida’s Lieutenant Governor in Her Office?

Beautiful, hilarious, and sexy, with just a hint of arson!  I hope this story continues to "blow" up!  Please go to the link for more juicy background links..  Gawker: 

Jennifer Carroll is Florida's Lieutenant Governor, second in command to the insane and unpopular Rick Scott. Carroll is one of the few nationally prominent black female Republicans. (She is also insane, but that's a topic for another day.) A former aide to Carroll says that she walked in on her in a sexually compromising position with Beatriz Ramos, Carroll's travel aide. So then—where is Beatriz Ramos?



Here is a good rundown of this convoluted and completely bananas sex scandal, which has been making headlines in Florida since last week. The short version: Carletha Cole, a former aide to Carroll, was fired last year, and later arrested after leaking (allegedly illegal) recordings to the press that were damaging to Carroll. Cole says that she was railroaded after she walked into Carroll's office one day and saw Carroll being orally serviced by Beatriz Ramos, her travel aide. From a polygraph examiner's letter obtained by Mother Jones [sic'd]:

(Cole) walked into the Lt. Governors Jennifer Carroll's office and observed the Lt. Governor sitting at her desk with her foot up on the cadenza and her skirt hiked up. Beatrice Ramos was kneeling in front of Carroll, poised as if she (Ramos) was about to or had performed oral sex on the Lt. Governor.

Carroll gave a typically insane statement denying that she was a lesbian. Money quote: "I'm the one that's married for 29 years. The accuser is the one that's single for a long time. So. Usually black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that. *Cackling laughter*" Yes, she is insane. There's also a whole side scandal about Beatriz Ramos trying to set Cole's trash can on fire, which could have burned down the Florida State Capitol. And a subsequent scandalous squelching of a state investigation of that incident. We are not making any of this up. Just normal Florida news.


The question that is very pertinent right this moment is: where oh where is Beatriz Ramos? The average American, whether Democrat or Republican, immediately searches for a picture of the oral sex-giver when a lesbian political scandal of this nature comes up. But as far as we can tell, there are no online photos to be found of Beatriz Ramos. Quite a tragedy. Ramos has also been staying quiet since this scandal broke. She's not peddling a tell-all. She's not posing for Playboy. What's going on down there? Granted, it's only been a few days. Still. This is America. More than that—this is Florida. All most come out.

If you know anything about Beatriz Ramos, email us. Together, we will get deep, deep inside this mystery.


I, for one, believe her.  Women who look like Jennifer Carroll would never engage in lesbian sex.  Isn't that right, Wanda Sykes?

Jennifer Carroll spots an attractive lesbian at a Mixed Martial Arts event?

If Jennifer Carroll's straight, I'm Ray Romano! 

Growth of Earth's core may hint at magnetic reversal

The New Scientist.  Excerpts:

Lopsided growth of the Earth's core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand years. If it happened now, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of knocking out global communications and power grids.



One side of Earth's solid inner core grows slightly while the other half melts. Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, used numerical modelling to establish that the axis of Earth's magnetic field lies in the growing hemisphere – a finding that suggests shifts in the field are connected to growth of the inner core.


There are signs that the next switch may be under way: rapid movements of the field's axis to the east in the last few hundred years may be a precursor to the north and south poles trading places, the researchers speculate.
(..)
"They are suggesting very cautiously that maybe this rapid change is somehow suggestive of us going into a reversal event," he says. "You could imagine if the field were to collapse it would have disastrous consequences for communication systems and power grids."

 
Wouldn't it be nice to know that these types of considerations are taken seriously and given high priority?  That won't happen soon, or maybe ever, so don't hold your breath.  Still, wouldn't it be nice if they were?

Jong-un’s top military protector abruptly loses all his positions

Something's afoot in Pyongyang.  Who let him go?  Kim Jong-un, or The Korean People's Army?  What's next?  Korea Joongang Daily.:


North Korean military chief Ri Yong-ho, 70, a key mentor to young leader Kim Jong-un, was dismissed from all his posts Sunday, the North’s Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a brief dispatch yesterday.



Ri was considered the second-most influential military figure in the North after Kim Jong-un, who is supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army.
According to the KCNA, the central committee of the Workers’ Party decided Sunday to “relieve Ri Yong-ho of all his posts for his illness” at a meeting held by the member of the political bureau, North Korea’s ultimate inner circle.


KCNA did not specifically mention Ri’s position as chief of the general staff of the Korean People’s Army. It named no replacement for him for any of the positions.


While KCNA cited illness as the reason, Jeon Hyun-jun, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said, “We cannot rule out the possibility that Ri was dismissed because he lost a power struggle with other military leaders in the North.”


Ri was a member of the central presidium of the Workers’ Party and also vice chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission.


Ri, who was born in Tongchon, Kangwon Province in North Korea, joined the military in 1959 and was appointed lieutenant general of the Army in September 2003. He was promoted to general in 2009.


In September 2010, Ri emerged as a prominent military figure when the North convened its first parliamentary meeting in 44 years.


At the meeting, Ri was appointed vice marshal of the Army and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, holding the same rank as Kim Jong-un.


It was at the meeting that Kim Jong-un made his first public appearance. Analysts speculated that Ri’s speedy promotion was related to the plan for Kim Jong-un to succeed his father Kim Jong-il given the fact that Ri was often standing between the father and son at major events.


After former leader Kim Jong-il died last December, Ri is known to have played a role in helping Jong-un maintain control of the military. Ri accompanied Jong-un on his first several trips to military units.


Ri was also one of the eight top officials who escorted the funeral coach of Kim Jong-il last year, along with Jong-un and his uncle and protector Jang Song-thaek.


Although KCNA cited illness for Ri’s fall, speculation is rising that the North is in a major power struggle.


The South Korean government also remarked on the “unusual” nature in the surprise announcement.


“It’s considered unusual to hold a political bureau meeting on a Sunday, and unprecedented to discuss a personnel-related matter and also to dismiss such an influential figure,” said an official from South’s Unification Ministry.


“It looks like there may be some irrational goings-on within Pyongyang’s internal power structure.”


According to South Korean officials, records show that the North usually gives a grace period before dismissing an ailing official.


In the case of Jo Myong-rok, a top military official and a political heavyweight loyal to Kim Jong-il who died of heart disease in 2010 at the age of 82, despite his age and health problems, he retained his post.


“We have to see the move as an internal power feud,” said a senior government official, saying that Ri showed no sign of illness when he made a speech in late April at a meeting of top officials marking the 80th anniversary of the Army’s founding.


Ri was also cited in state media as having accompanied Kim Jong-un at public events as recently as last week. This year alone, Ri is known to have accompanied Kim Jong-un 32 times in public.


If I were a betting man, I'd bet Kim Jong-un's days are numbered.  I'd bet that no more than two months out, North Korea's power structure will change.  Follow up question:  How big might this coup turn out to be?


Yeah, I'd bet 20 bucks.

Shocking! Have Gas Prices Been Manipulated Too?

Was the petrol price rigged too?  Found this trolling on Godlike Productions, from The Telegraph/UK.  Excerpts:



Motorists may have been paying too much for their petrol because banks and other traders are likely to have tried to manipulate oil prices in the same way they rigged interest rates, an official report has warned.


Concerns are growing about the reliability of oil prices, after a report for the G20 found the market is wide open to “manipulation or distortion”.



Traders from banks, oil companies or hedge funds have an “incentive” to distort the market and are likely to try to report false prices, it said.


Politicians and fuel campaigners last night urged the Government to expand its inquiry into the Libor scandal to see whether oil prices have also been falsely pushed up.


They warned any efforts to rig the oil price would affect how much drivers pay at the pump, which soared to a record high of 137p per litre of unleaded earlier this year.

Robert Halfon, who led a group of 100 MPs calling for lower fuel prices, said the matter “needs to be looked at by the Bank of England urgently”.

I'm sure The Bank of England will jump right into a comprehensive investigation and get to the bottom of this Shocking!  Scandal..  Uh huh..  The only thing Shocking! about this report is that people still find the idea of Oil and Gas and Gold and Silver and Interest Rate price manipulation Shocking(!).  Seriously, if Speculators can affect commodities prices, don't you think that prices can be fixed on a more "institutional" level?  And that price fixing has been happening for..  Forever?  Also, to clarify:  This is, as of now, a British financial scandal, but due to global inter-connectedness, how long do you think it'll take for these same accusations to surface in the US?  A lot longer, probably, given the shitty state of American bought and paid for media, also called "The Liberal Media," by those who obviously have no fucking clue as to what is happening all around them!

Also, in case those in finance trot out the old "It was an accident, and we'll all do better next time," my "very good Internet friend" Bartcop puts it best:  If you benefit from "mistakes" you keep making, can you honestly continue to call them "mistakes," as opposed to "strategy?"  Not verbatim, of course, but you get the gist..

IMF Says Japan And Spain Are Done, "Debt Ratio Will Never Stabilize"

Needless to say, this is not good news..  Zero Hedge:  (Emphasis theirs..)

The IMF believes that advanced economy deficits will decline by about 0.75 percentage points of GDP this year which 'strikes a compromise between restoring fiscal sustainability and supporting growth". However, continued focus on nominal deficit targets runs the risk of compelling excessive fiscal tightening if growth weakens. In addition, there is a risk in the United States of political gridlock that puts fiscal policy on autopilot and results in a sharp and sudden decline in deficits—the “fiscal cliff.” What is more troubling is the significant upward revision to all of the peripheral European nations (with Greece now at 171% Debt/GDP in 2013 versus 160.9% forecast only 3 months ago). While the average debt-to-GDP ratio among advanced economies is projected to continue to rise over the next two years, surpassing 110 percent of GDP on average in 2013, debt ratios will by then have peaked in several advanced economies - though rather explosively they do not see debt ratios for Spain and Japan stabilizing.

Study: N. America’s West Coast to be most contaminated by Fukushima cesium of all regions in Pacific in 10 years — “An order-of-magnitude higher” than waters off Japan

Ooh.  The odds of Godzilla attacking Los Angeles as opposed to Tokyo have increased!  ENEWS.  Excerpts:

[...]



In the following years, the tracer cloud continuously expands laterally, with maximum concentrations in its central part heading east. While the northern portion is gradually invading the Bering Sea, the main tracer patch reaches the coastal waters of North America after 5–6 years, with maximum relative concentrations ( > 1 × 10−4) covering a broad swath of the eastern North Pacific between Vancouver Island and Baja California. Simultaneously some fraction of the southern rim of the tracer cloud becomes entrained in the North Equatorial Current (NEC), resulting in a westward extending wedge around 20°N that skirts the northern shores of the Hawaiian Archipelago. After 10 years the concentrations become nearly homogeneous over the whole Pacific, with higher values in the east, extending along the North American coast with a maximum (~1 × 10−4) off Baja California. The southern portion of the tracer cloud is carried westward by the NEC across the subtropical Pacific, leading to increasing concentrations in the Kuroshio regime again.


[...]

Region I = Western Pacific


With caution given to the various idealizations (unknown actual oceanic state during release, unknown release area, no biological effects included, see section 3.4), the following conclusions may be drawn. (i) Dilution due to swift horizontal and vertical dispersion in the vicinity of the energetic Kuroshio regime leads to a rapid decrease of radioactivity levels during the first 2 years, with a decline of near-surface peak concentrations to values around 10 Bq m−3 (based on a total input of 10 PBq). The strong lateral dispersion, related to the vigorous eddy fields in the mid-latitude western Pacific, appears significantly under-estimated in the non-eddying (0.5°) model version. (ii) The subsequent pace of dilution is strongly reduced, owing to the eastward advection of the main tracer cloud towards the much less energetic areas of the central and eastern North Pacific. (iii) The magnitude of additional peak radioactivity should drop to values comparable to the pre-Fukushima levels after 6–9 years (i.e. total peak concentrations would then have declined below twice pre-Fukushima levels). (iv) By then the tracer cloud will span almost the entire North Pacific, with peak concentrations off the North American coast an order-of-magnitude higher than in the western Pacific.

You can find the simulation model video here.

As one ENEWS commenter stated, this study is based on a one time event, as opposed to ongoing radioactive release, which is what is happening.  The saturation levels are worthless, but see how it spreads?  That's the takeaway, here..