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..

In Memorium: Adam Yauch, aka MCA

Tonight, it's all about The Beastie Boys. 

Seattle Attorney Andrew Basiago Claims U.S. Sent Him On Time Travels (VIDEO)

Sweet.  Despite the really annoying interviewer and audio, the video is interesting.  The Huffington Post.  Excerpts:

A lot of people have a hard time trusting lawyers as it is, but what about one who claims he was part of a secret government time travel program when he was a kid?



Since 2004, Seattle attorney Andrew Basiago has been publicly claiming that from the time he was 7 to when he was 12, he participated in "Project Pegasus," a secret U.S. government program that he says worked on teleportation and time travel under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.


"They trained children along with adults so they could test the mental and physical effects of time travel on kids," Basiago told The Huffington Post. "Also, children had an advantage over adults in terms of adapting to the strains of moving between past, present and future."
Exploits:
Basiago claimed he can be seen in a photograph of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1863, which he said he visited in 1972 via a plasma confinement chamber located in East Hanover, N.J.



"I had been dressed in period clothing, as a Union bugle boy," he said. "I attracted so much attention at the Lincoln speech site at Gettysburg -- wearing over-sized men's street shoes -- that I left the area around the dais and walked about 100 paces over to where I was photographed in the Josephine Cogg image of Lincoln at Gettysburg." (The boy on the left in the photo below).(At the link..)


In addition, Basiago said he traveled to Ford's Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination on five or six occasions. "I did not, however, witness the assassination," he said. "Once, I was on the theater level when he was shot and I heard the shot followed by a great commotion that arose from the crowd. It was terrible to hear."


Basiago said each of his visits to the past was different, "like they were sending us to slightly different alternative realities on adjacent timelines. As these visits began to accumulate, I twice ran into myself during two different visits."


Being sent back in time to the same place and moment, but from different starting points in the present, allowed two of himselves to be in Ford's Theatre at the same time in 1865.

Whether or not you believe him, he is articulate, focused and feels very comfortable with the topic at hand.  I'm hopeful the concept is reality, so I hope Andrew Basiago is indeed telling the truth.  Ladies and Gentlemen; Steve Burns with The Flaming Lips..

The rise of the new Holy Roman Empire? EU technocrats plot to create powerful EU president

Let the cloak and dagger shenanigans begin!  Spoiler alert:  The takeover is spearheaded by a power mad German!  Shocker, right?  Express, via The Extinction Protocol. Excerpts:

Senior Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realize their dream of abolishing Britain, we can reveal. A covert group of EU foreign ministers has drawn up plans for merging the jobs currently done by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. The new bureaucrat, who would not be directly elected by voters, is set to get sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic union. Tellingly, the UK has been excluded from the confidential discussions within the shady “Berlin Group” of Europhile politicians, spearheaded by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. Opponents fear the plan could create a modern-day equivalent of the European emperor envisaged by Napoleon Bonaparte or a return to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne that dominated Europe in the Dark Ages. They are concerned that David Cameron’s coalition Government is doing nothing to prevent the sinister plot. The secret talks were uncovered by Independent Labour peer Lord Stoddart of Swindon.

 This won't end well.

Satellite Images Reveal an Ancient Network of Rivers in Arabian Desert

Evidence and Examples of Earth Changes Throughout History.  The Truth Behind The Scenes.  Excerpts:

Satellite images have revealed that a network of ancient rivers once flowed through the sands of the Arabian Desert, leading scientists to believe that the region experienced wetter periods in the past.


The images are the starting point for a major potentially ground-breaking research project led by the University of Oxford into human evolutionary heritage. The research team will look at how long-term climate change affected early humans and animals who settled or passed through and what responses determined whether they were able to survive or died out.


Until now this part of the world has been largely ignored by scholars despite its critical location as a bridge between Africa and Eurasia. In a project funded by the ERC (European Research Council), a multidisciplinary team of researchers will study the effects of environmental change in the Arabian Peninsula over the last two million years. The systematic study of the Pleistocene to Holocene periods will be unique in its length and level of detail.


Over the course of five years the researchers will study the landscape features and excavate sites of likely archaeological interest, using the network of water courses as a map. They will use the latest dating techniques to pinpoint the ages of fossils of animals, plants and different stone tool technologies and compare the similarities and differences displayed in the region’s rock art.


The team’s main focus will be the Arabian Desert, but the work will also cover the wider Peninsula. One key question they will attempt to answer is when the first early modern humans are likely to have first arrived in the Arabian Peninsula from Africa and perhaps surrounding regions. They will also look for evidence that suggests how early modern humans were able to survive, or not, in arid and extreme conditions.


Project leader Professor Michael Petraglia, Co-Director of the Centre for Asian Archaeology at Oxford University’s School of Archaeology, said: ‘From NASA images (above) taken of the Arabian Desert we can see physical landscape features that are visible from space that denote a whole network of former river valleys and lake basins. These lines and dips in the sand provide us with a map of the region upon which we will focus our research activity. The presence of water is an accurate indicator of where early humans and animals migrated to or settled.

Given enough time, a completely, radically different understanding of Earth's physical history will develop.  It's happening now, and when unified, will be awesome.  Not now, but soon.  Tomorrow's Started..

FCC urged to revoke Fox broadcast licenses

Wow.  CREW's picking a HUGE fight.  Now that Rupert's been ruled unfit for stewardship of NewsCorp International in Great Britain, there's a chance he can lose his American television licenses, too.  It'll be interesting to see how the media covers this one..  The Raw Story.   Excerpts:

A Washington-based ethics watchdog is calling on federal regulators to revoke News Corporation’s 27 Fox broadcast licences in the wake of the highly critical report on phone hacking from the UK parliament.



Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has written to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, calling on the regulator to pull the plug on Rupert Murdoch’s lucrative television licences on grounds of character.


The letter argues that the final report of the UK Commons culture, media and sport committee, which concluded that Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company, had implications for the US regulators that they had now to act upon.


Melanie Sloan, Crew’s director, said that the Murdochs had clearly failed the character test that is embedded within US media law as it is within British. “If they are not passing the character standard under British law, it seems to me that they are not going to meet the character standard in America.”


In their report, the British parliamentarians found Rupert Murdoch was “not a fit person” to exercise stewardship of a major international company. The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed “wilful ignorance” of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010.


Under FCC regulations, broadcast frequencies can only be handed to firms run by people of good “character” who serve the “public interest” and speak with “candor”. In making that judgment, the FCC is entitled to consider past conduct of media owners, including conduct that does not relate directly to their broadcasting interests, as well as any patterns of alleged misbehaviour.
..

But Crew insisted that as more information emerges about the failure of News Corp to deal with its hacking crisis, federal authorities would eventually be forced to act. The watchdog has also written to the US Senate and House committees on commerce calling for congressional hearings into whether the Murdochs were fit to hold the Fox TV licences. A similar request from Crew last year went unanswered.

And:
Some shareholders are intensifying their calls for a shake-up at the top of News Corp on the back of the British parliamentary report. Change to Win, an advisory group that works with pension funds with over $200bn in assets, called for Murdoch to resign. Senior policy analyst Michael Pryce-Jones said News Corp’s board should meet to form a succession plan immediately. “This is a company in crisis,” he said.



Pryce-Jones said that when he first saw the headlines about the report he had assumed they were talking about James Murdoch. “This is far worse than I had expected,” he said. “The focus is now on Rupert.”
He added: “In any other company James would have have been sacked in July and we’d be preparing for succession. [Rupert] Murdoch clearly can not stay on a CEO and chairman of this company.”


Pryce-Jones said he blamed News Corp’s independent directors for much of what had gone wrong. The directors include top US lawyer Viet Dinh, chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City department of education and Rod Eddington, former chief executive of British Airways. “They have said that they are going to act, but they have done nothing. They need a Plan B. Plan A was apparently to ignore this and hope it would go away,” he said.


The headwinds Rupert faces now just got stronger.

Music Spolight: Really Random 70's. Really.

Pay attention!  Beginning at 10 seconds, going to 24, the man on the far right:  Best dancing I've ever seen.  Brilliant.

Sakurajima erupted

Short and sweet post from Fukushima Diary, and non-nuclear, to boot!  The pictures are worth the click.  Sakurajima's activity is not out of the ordinary, as they had 996 eruptions last year (Averaging almost three a day..).  Scientists are concerned, though, that further crustal deformations might facillitate more serious eruptions.  No event timeline predictions were included.

Today's Blind Items - The Hookers Return

Juicy.  Crazy Days And Nights.  Excerpts:


I have written about the hookers a couple of times. The famous duo that split when one had success and the other continued to keep selling her body for less and less money. The less successful hooker just has never been able to find that gold mine but now she figures she has a huge way to make money and has been shopping a book about her former partner in crime. It features stories that even I didn't know and apparently also documents how the more successful hooker has always planned to have happen what is happening in her life right now. There are e-mails and copies of texts from a few years ago when they were still speaking all the time about how the more successful hooker wanted to find a rich man who was good looking but in the closet. It turns out that the successful hooker hates sex. In fact, the less successful hooker says that pills are about the only way the more successful one can get through it. The successful hooker even named four guys she thought would be perfect for her and she got one of the four.



The book also names names and how much celebrities and athletes paid. It talks about every athlete they have been with and how many times they were busted by wives but because the hookers were celebrities they managed to not get accused of doing anything with the husbands. They would say they were with the husband for a reality show idea. The wives would get so excited at the prospect of being on a reality show they would not even wonder why the husband had been with one or both of the hookers in his hotel room.


Yowsah.  The consensus from commenters appears to indicate either Brittany Gastineau or Paris Hilton(!) for the less successful hooker, and Kim Kardashian(!!) as the more successful one.  Crazy?  Maybe..  Other than that miserable, short lived "E" show, I've never heard of Gastineau, and if she has a sex tape out, it isn't nearly as famous as the other two.  Also, that's how they became famous!  Both of their biographies make more sense if this is indeed about them.  The phenomenon of famous-for-being-famous has never made sense to me, especially considering none of these people seem to have "talent." 

So if this indeed who the consensus thinks this is, when their sex tapes were released, were they "accidents" as much as they were "marketing strategy?"  Also, would this really be that much of a stretch to believe that, with sex as pervasive as it is culturally, that nationally famous attention whores might have started their careers as bona-fide whores?

I feel bad for whomever this may be.  Money, fame, fabulous-ity, surrounded by equally soul-less vessels, all dancing faster as The Void becomes larger, inescapable..  Chaos and  flashbulbs and chasing the Next Big Fix slowly snuffs out any remains of humanity.  The quiet of an empty room must be terrifying.

Spain in recession as austerity bites deep

Austerity is Stasis/Immovable Object.  Dynamic populations are Inertia/Irresistible Force.  There's definitely going to be more trouble before stability and growth returns.  Reuters.  Excerpts:

Spain sank into recession in the first quarter and economists said spending cuts aimed at meeting strict EU deficit limits, together with a reeling bank sector, would delay any return to growth until late this year or beyond.



It is the second recession in just over two years for the euro zone's fourth largest economy and comes as the government tries to convince investors it will not need outside aid to put its house in order.


The country is caught between pressure from its European peers to fix public finances and growing domestic resistance to austerity measures that have helped push unemployment to more than double the EU average.



Ratings agency Standard & Poor's added to the country's problems with a two-notch rating downgrade last week and on Monday it chopped the credit score of 11 banks.
..
"The wheels are very clearly coming off," Jefferies economist David Owen said. "It wouldn't surprise me to see a very significant decline in GDP both in the second and third quarters this year."

..
Spain's demand for electricity, a good indicator of the strength of economic output, fell for the eighth month in a row in April, the national grid operator said.



Spanish bonds showed little reaction to the GDP report but yields have risen to around 6 percent in recent weeks. At around 7 percent, they are seen as financially unsustainable.


The IBEX share index finished April down 12.7 percent, its worst monthly showing in nearly 1-1/2 years..

The real problems haven't even begun.  Spain and Greece are just the opening act.  Followed by, in no particular order, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland.  The others(E.U. and non-E.U.) will also be sucked asunder, victims of Austerity's implosion wave.  How much pressure can France, and ultimately Germany, withstand? 

The E.U.'s individual country/collective state implosion illustrates the concept of Immovable Object/ Irresistible Force:  I'm unsure of the outcome, but the Victor will soon be known by all.  These circumstances, at present, cannot sustain.  There will be no dispute after this head-on, high-impact event.

Mysterious ‘Montauk Monster’ Washes Up In Seal Beach, CA – April 26, 2012

Aww yeah..  He, she, or it is back!  The Truth Behind The Scenes.  Excerpts:

An unidentified ‘Mountak’ creature was discovered Wednesday by a woman taking her daily walk along the shore in Seal Beach.



Karen Summers says the animal corpse didn’t look like anything she had ever witnessed.
And:
The discovery is reminiscent of the so-called “Montauk Monster,” an unidentified creature that allegedly washed up on a beach near the business district of Montauk, New York in July 2008.”

Techno Chimera?  What remains of a test animal from a failed time travel experiment?  Designer Pet?  Montauk Monster; Explain yourself!