Meteors! Image from Flickr.

Welcome to the holiday season during a recession. Millions of consumers rack up credit card debt every year during the holiday season, but this year an unusually high number of Americans already are in debt, but the holiday spirit will no doubt convince them to accumulate even more debt, even if it means they have to face the debt consolidation process later.

Consumers generally cut back on spending on entertainment during this period, either because of the cost of buying gifts, an aversion to the cold or both. However, a lot of people are excited about the Leonid Meteor Shower, which will be at its peak tonight. The best part is that watching a meteor shower is free.

Leonid Meteor Shower 2009 time

Reports say the Leonid Meteor Shower’s 2009 peak time will be during the very early morning hours on Nov. 17, but there are some conflicting reports regarding exactly what time star gazers will have the best view. CNN reports that NASA says the view in the U.S. will be best at 4 a.m. ET or 1 a.m. on the West Coast.

The timing is pretty inconvenient for making it a family activity, but the price is just right, as looking at the stars is free. All you need is blankets and a good spot to watch it, though many areas reportedly will be too cloudy for watching the 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower.

Leonid Meteor Shower history

The Leonid Meteor Shower comes about every three decades, according to CNN:

The Leonid shower is made of bits of debris from the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which streaks through Earth’s inner solar system every 33 years.

CNN also says people in the U.S. should be able to see 20 to 30 meteors during the Leonid Meteor Shower’s 2009 peak time. Of course, that’s if skies are clear.

Appreciating natural phenomenon

With movie ticket prices getting higher all the time and other activities such as eating out and going to other types of shows getting more expensive, I’m sure a lot of families are wishing they could TiVo a middle-of-the-night meteor shower. Though unemployment is at a 26-year high and underemployment is skyrocketing, too, inflation is continuing with no regard for people’s finances.

Interesting, free activities are hard to come by, so some individuals or families very well may be willing to lose some sleep to see the Leonid Meteor Shower tonight. A meteor shower is a great way to teach kids about space and the solar system without having to pay for tickets to a museum.

Image by flickr

Yes, NASA is reporting today that it has found water on the moon. How did they do that? Well, to put it in layman’s terms (because that is the only language I speak), they sent a rocket with all kinds of sensory instruments hurtling toward the moon. When it crashed it created a big plume of debris, and this sensitive rocket detected that there was water in it.

So, if you picturing a puddle or a river or pond, that’s not quite the case. The rocket reported that there was water vapor and ice grains. NASA discovering water on the moon has got people talking about what they could do with this water. As is the American way, a lot of people are throwing around ideas for how they could make money off of it, even though no money lender in her right mind would invest in moon water products.

Ideas for water on the moon

I have one particularly witty friend who wrote on Facebook today: “Ice found on moon! Get some barley, hops and yeast up there and start brewing!” I came across a space blog that said “I don’t have to tell you about the implications here. Just think of how much you could sell authentic Moon bottled water for.”

Both of these ideas, bottled moon water and moon beer, would most definitely sell. I would pay a good chunk of money for moon beer. I am sure people with tons of disposable income would pay staggering amounts for a bottle of moon water.

Marketability is not the problem

Of course, no matter how much money people are willing to pay for moon water or moon beer, there’s no way the sale price would cover the cost of collecting water on the moon. Everyone knows space travel and exploration are super expensive. Almost as expensive as war.

So before you start making phone calls to investors or designing moon beer labels, remember that profit means you have to take in more money than you spend. Still, if anyone out there does end up making moon beer, please let me know.

Is this person singing the inner city blues over payday loans? Don't bet that it's that simple. (Photo: flickr.com)

Have you ever heard that statement before – that “correlation does not imply causation?” What it means is that even if one can identify a correlation (strength and direction of a relationship between two random variables), it does not automatically imply that one causes the other. Making such a connection is falling prey to a logical fallacy known in Latin as cum hoc ergo propter hoc, which translates to “with this, therefore because of this.”

People falling prey to a logical fallacy in conversation is one thing, but if a logical fallacy is central to the argument in a published academic paper that is attempting to shape public opinion and even advise lawmakers as to procedure, the work becomes irresponsible and even harmful. Such is the case with a recent intercollegiate study by Charis Kubrin and Gregory Squires of George Washington University and Steven Graves of Cal State Northridge entitled “Does Fringe Banking Exacerbate Neighborhood Crime Rates? Social Disorganization and the Ecology of Payday Lending.” Through the use of a logical fallacy, the authors attempt to link the rise of payday loan companies in middle- to low-income neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington with increased community violence. As if there could be no other contributing factors (which is something the authors even concede to more than once during their study, completely invalidating their previous hypothesis).

First, the Pro and Con Payday Loan Arguments

As we’ve heard many times before, those who are against payday loans claim that the businesses exploit the underprivileged and the uneducated. Supposedly, they cause poverty and an endless spiral of debt. On the other hand, supporters indicate that payday loans address a particular need for those who experience short term financial difficulty and are credit constrained and have little or no liquid assets to help deal with the problem. For every study that claims that payday loans cause bankruptcy, there are studies that indicate to the contrary regarding payday loans. Furthermore, numerous studies regarding the profitability of payday loans indicate that the rate charged is justified by the risk involved and that payday lending outlets do not reap excessive profits.

Causing Cities to Tear Themselves Apart?

The study authors take the angle of payday lending being an agitating agent that brings out the worst in the communities where brick-and-mortar stores are present. They see greater instances of crime in areas of Seattle where payday loan store penetration is most concentrated as a previously unstudied “price” that the communities pay for allowing the presence of payday lenders. The authors state that because payday loan stores operate with late and weekend hours – when hoodlums supposedly are out in force? –there is a greater potential for violence. Whether it is the stores themselves or their customers being subject to robbery, the authors would have us believe that providing consumers with payday loans when said consumers’ access to traditional forms of credit is restricted and short term financial need is great is somehow the fault for the violence. By that same logic, wouldn’t ATM machines, banks, liquor stores, gun stores or any other place where money is kept be a potential instigator of violence? It’s ridiculous. Capitalism should either be allowed to work as it can or American society should be dramatically restructured along the dreaded socialist lines that so many Americans claim to fear. Having payday lending outlets in your neighborhood is no more the cause than any other business where money is exchanged.

Why Seattle? Why Payday Loans?

The authors hold up Seattle as being representative of a typical large U.S. city, which sounds reasonable, but they admit that it may not create an accurate picture of the supposed payday loans/violence link for American as a whole. The Seattle communities with the greatest instances of violence in the authors’ study tended to be those where poverty was greatest. So are they saying that because payday loan outlets may be present in or near such communities that the payday loan outlets were the cause of the poverty – or the violence that stems from human frustration and need? That’s a very simplistic view that does not exist upon a well-reasoned, logical framework.

But Texas Payday Loan Customers Only Make $18K Per Year!

I’m not aware of the methodology of the Fox study that the authors cite for Texas payday loan customers, but the results seem highly unlikely (or need much greater clarification). Personal Money Store has found that the average online payday loan applicant makes $31,690 per year. For those approved for payday loans, that rises to $36,000. For those denied, it only falls to $30,672. It is indeed suspicious that there could be such a disparity between those results and those in Texas, but such questions could be indicative of the kind of care in research that the authors used in studying Seattle communities.

Repeat Customers: Beaten Down Victims?

Referring to other studies, the authors make the claim that as much as 60 percent of payday loan customers frequently and quickly borrow again. Personal Money Store customers don’t follow that model at all. Since only 4.64 percent of visitors to the site return and 7.36 percent of applicants are return visitors, it certainly doesn’t support the idea held by the authors that payday lending organizations create financial stress by hooking customers into an endless cycle of debt. It is implied that the stress such a situation could theoretically cause is in turn the flash point that spurs people in the Seattle communities to violence and violent crime. Illicit drug use and abuse, domestic violence, robbery and related crimes have what nearly any sociologist or psychologist would tell you are a complex chain of causes. The presence of payday loan stores in a community – once more – is too simplistic an answer.

Explain it Away, Social Disorganization Theory

The authors use the Social Disorganization Theory to attempt to explain their preconceived connection between the presence of payday lending and community violence. “According to the theory,” they write, “certain neighborhood characteristics can lead to social disorganization, defined as the inability of a community to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls.” Such social disorganization is the root of crime, according to the authors.

What role do payday loan stores play in the characteristics of a community? Do they structure the daily routines of residents, as the theory would require? The bulk of payday loan customer survey respondents say they use the product to help with an emergency expense, and that this hardly represents a daily occurrence. But more importantly, you cannot assume that one institution is responsible for a social problem. Bars, low-income housing and liquor stores tend to appear in distressed neighborhoods as well, but their financial import to the economic health of said communities is very real. The arguments that liquor stores and bars promote alcoholism or that gun stores promote violent crime will always be on someone’s mind, but that doesn’t make the arguments valid. The connection between payday loan stores and violence/violent crime is even more tenuous.

Build More Community Centers and Libraries

The authors (as well as many others) find that such institutions contribute positively to a community’s identity. Perhaps a lack of sufficient community resources along these lines would be a greater indicator of social disorganization? It’s no stretch to say that the community that is fragmented and the community that doesn’t spend time together would be more prone to communication breakdowns that can lead toward violent confrontation. Stifling market competition by singling out payday loan stores – not to mention robbing disadvantaged consumers of a choice that can genuinely help in the short term – is hardly a way to organize a community in a healthy manner.

While you’re at it, why not install greater security measures in areas where consumers are walking away with large sums of cash? This could be considered a failing of payday loan companies in at-risk communities. With proper security measures, perhaps robbery numbers would go down. If people know there’s a greater chance that they will be caught, they’re much less likely to commit a crime.

Payday Loans and the Drug Trade

Having cash on hand tends to be a prerequisite if an individual wishes to purchase any form of harmful street contraband. However, such behavior should never be encouraged. Payday loan stores certainly do not do so simply by nature of them providing cash to their customers. Banks do the same thing – even ones in less than reputable neighborhoods – but they are not being accused by the authors of this problematic study. Where’s the balance there?

Where the Need is Greatest

“The safest neighborhoods in Seattle have no payday lenders in them,” write the authors. There are many reasons this could be the case. Perhaps the larger, more established traditional banking industry in Seattle has effectively swayed local politicians into pushing their payday loan competition out of high-rent neighborhoods. It certainly wouldn’t be unheard of in big-city politics. What consumers in lower-income neighborhoods tend to face are situations where their restricted access to credit makes qualifying for traditional bank loans next to impossible. Hence, having payday loans they can qualify for in their own neighborhoods constitutes a great service.

Some critics would argue that big banks and credit unions are beginning to offer their own alternative to the payday loan, making those outlets obsolete. However, that’s just in theory. In execution, banks who participate in such programs admit that they do so at a loss. Their real goal – stated by none other than the FDIC – is to transition consumers into other products like overdraft protection and traditional loans. Is it any coincidence that these products can be much more expensive for consumers?

Property Values Go Down Because of Payday Loans?

Of course the authors claim that payday loans are the culprit in those at-risk communities. But remember, correlation does not imply causation. To assume that payday loans are the reason why is to be unintentionally simplistic at best, intellectually dishonest at worst. There are many factors that can contribute to a drop in property values. Many of them are beyond one’s immediate control.

The Effects of Over-Regulation

The study authors challenge lawmakers to enact policies to help control the “blight” of payday loan store presence in American communities. Capping the annual interest rate at 36 percent is one idea, which the federal government has already instituted on loans to active military. However, considering the costs of operating payday loan stores, being allowed to charge less than $2 per $100 loaned for the standard two-week payday loan duration is not enough to keep such businesses open. The result of removing the distressed consumer’s ability to choose payday loan credit is to drive them toward more expensive or even dangerous alternative. I’d like to see the authors connect those alternatives, from loan sharks to other illegal activities, to the violence they claim surrounds the payday lending industry.

Widen the Net for More Meaningful Results, Please

“An obvious extension of this research would be case studies of additional cities,” write the authors. “We suspect our findings are not unique to Seattle. But there may be variations associated with the size, demography, regional location, industrial structure, and other city characteristics that affect the linkage between payday lending and crime.” No, I’d say those factors could be some of the real causes of the violence you’re studying – rather than additional links between payday lending and crime. The authors suggest that further study in the matter is needed to fully understand the supposed connection. I’d agree that further study is needed, but that study should be based on sound reasoning and logic, rather than a logical fallacy. Politicians are easily swayed by things that resemble facts but are in reality statistical noise. On the count that their work could contribute to such institutional delinquency and laziness, Kubrin, Squires and Graves’ theory regarding payday loan stores and violence is irresponsible.

Superstitious knick knacks clutter your cupboard? Your fingers may be why… so if you know this, you can avoid needing payday loans to fuel such an intuitive compulsion. (Photo: wikipedia.org)

When you believe in things
That you don’t understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain’t the way

- Stevie Wonder, “Superstition”

Psychologists have sought answers for some time as to why people believe in superstitious things and paranormal phenomenon. According to University of Helsinki psychologists Kia Aarnio and Marjaana Lindeman in an article entitled “The Origin of Superstition, Magical Thinking and Paranormal Beliefs: An Integrative Model,” “explanations have ranged from personality traits, psychological motivation, and flawed cognition, to emotional instability, demographics, and social influences.” That’s an awfully broad net to cast, but I’d tend to place the most stock in the social influences aspect. However, from the same pseudo-science (funded by payday loans rather than academic grants?) that brought you the digit ratio theory that supposedly enables you to tell if someone will be predisposed toward homosexual orientation based upon how long their index and ring fingers are in relation to each other comes… something rather disappointing.

Superstition is in the Fingers and Hormones?

According to author Martin Voracek, whether or not someone will be predisposed to believe in the fantastic and the paranormal may be determined before they even hear their first ghost story. It may be set in the womb, relegating those with increased intuitive thinking and decreased analytical thinking into following in Fox Mulder’s footsteps.

Stereotypically, Women Show the Intuitive Trait

Is this a disguised way for the old-boy scientific community to throw age-old “weaker sex” put-down around? Or is this based on solid scientific ground? Voracek is convinced that “there are biologically based, prenatally programmed influences on paranormal and superstitious beliefs.” It just so happens that one of the same indicators for superstition – that digit ratio thing – also connects to the homosexuality theory.  Voracek bases his findings on a survey of 1,118 Austrians, both men and women, who ranged from 17 to 72 years old.

Surveyed for Belief

Voracek questioned subjects regarding their position on all sorts of supernatural beliefs and phenomenon. Then data was collected on weight and length at birth, current age, education level and current height and weight. Inevitably, the digit ratio check came into play as well. While certain hormones do affect growth and proportions, it’s hardly a universal determinant. According to Discovery, “Men tend to have ring fingers that are slightly longer than their index fingers. In women, these fingers are usually about the same length, or the index digit is slightly longer.”

What Hormone are We Talking About?

For the sake or argument, let’s see. Oh, it appears that androgen exposure is involved. If the traditionally female sex hormones are more dominant, then I suppose you will chase Bigfoot the rest of your life. Just accept it, grow a mullet and live out of an RV.

What Voracek believes he’s found tends to follow conclusions Aarnio and Lindeman tended to arrive at:

Shorter feminized digit ratios in women also correlated with a greater likelihood of superstitious beliefs, as did a woman’s lighter weight at birth. For both sexes, shorter body length at birth was associated with later beliefs in superstitions and the paranormal.

Jock Scientists Taunting Nerd Scientists?

What is this, really? It sounds to me like yet another way to attempt to marginalize a minority group. If men or women have the wrong length of finger and want to do something about it, perhaps their innate belief in telekinesis can be used to create a psychic knife (a la Sylar in “Heroes”) and trim the digits down to size. Seriously, though, you should never actually try to do something like that. You’d injure yourself severely and find out that payday loans are in your future to help take care of the hospital bills. Of course if you believe in or actually are clairvoyant, you already knew that.

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Occasionally, if you watch Google Trends, people search for things that are sort of interesting, like zoology – which is a form of knowledge.  (You don’t see it often – most of the time Trends searches are about some less than intelligent event concerning so called “celebrities.”)   The earth is full of interesting creatures, and one that I personally don’t want to see unless on a plate is the coconut crab.  Not that I have anything against them, or want them exterminated, but a lot of people would like to keep them at arms length or further away.  The body length is up to 16 in, and a leg span of almost 3 feet.  Oh, and these boys live only on land.  Oh, did we mention they like to come inside?

Why are they called coconut crabs?

They are called coconut crabs because they are known to pick a coconut from a tree, and crack it open with their claws.  (Imagine what that will do to a person – and the fact that the average human bone will break with 16 psi of pressure.)  They are  one of the few animals that eat coconuts by tearing holes in a coconut and removing the flesh within.  They are also called robber crabs, palm thieves, and terrestrial hermit crabs, and are the largest of the land dwelling crabs, as they cannot swim.  They are members of the hermit crab family.

What’s really interesting about them

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about them, at least to us who waste enough time finding about these sort of things when maybe we should be looking up credit repair, is that they have what’s known as a branchiostegal lung. (More on it at Wikipedia.)  A branchiostegal lung is a type of lung which is halfway between a gill and the lungs that we and other animals breathe with, though the coconut crab can’t live in water.  (They’ll drown.)   As water is passed through gills, it goes over tissues which extract oxygen.  Lungs, by contrast, inflate with air, and the oxygen is extracted from it by lung tissues.  Branchiostegal lungs are essentially gills that only work out of the water – kind of cool, isn’t it?

I don’t know if they make good pets…I would doubt it

You might be tempted to think of getting one as a pet, but in most places the coconut crab makes it’s home – which ranges all over the South Pacific into the Indian Ocean – it’s considered a delicacy.  It’s a large arthropod, that weighs up to 10 pounds – that’s a lot of meat!  A veritable chicken of the beach.  They aren’t considered mortally dangerous, but you probably don’t want your kids playing around them.  If this thing can pry off the top of a coconut, a kid’s pusillanimous little arm would be no problem.  However, the only time you’d be likely to see one in the states is either in an exhibit, or handing over a cash advance for a dinner of one.

Glenn Close image from Wikimedia.

Some celebrities, or pseudo-celebrities like Adam Jasinski, choose to use their money for destructive purposes such as drugs and material excess. However, I am encouraged today to see that famous actress Glenn Close is using her extensive wealth for good.

Glenn Close this morning appeared on “Good Morning America” to talk about her new mental illness awareness campaign, Bring Change 2 Mind. Glenn Close, with the help of her sister Jessie Close, has started a national campaign to bring mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia.

Why mental illness, why Glenn Close?

People who have been to war have a lot more to worry about than paying off their military personal loans. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a disease just as cancer or diabetes is a disease, says Glenn Close regarding mental illness. She was inspired to start the Bring Change 2 Mind campaign because of her sister, Jessie, who is diagnosed as bipolar.

Jessie’s son, Calen, has been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, which is both schizophrenic and bipolar at once. Glenn Close says all the people in her Bring Change 2 Mind commercials are real people with real disorders and the people they rely on to help them. In videos on the Bring Change 2 Mind web site, the people who appear in the Grand Central Station commercial, which you can also watch on the site, talk about their specific illnesses.

Seeking help

On Good Morning America, Jessie Close talked about struggling with her disorder all her life. She didn’t officially find out she was bipolar until she was 47. She talked about the struggle with the decision to take medication.

The bottom line is, through the Bring Change 2 Mind campaign the Close sisters want to spread awareness about mental illness to diminish the stigma that surrounds it. They also want people who have mental illness to get help and support.

“We’re getting more and more sophisticated medication,” Glenn Close said. “We need to keep people with mental illness living full and productive and creative lives.”

Consumers budgets are already stretched out. Cash Advances help, but will the upcoming global warming bill make things worse? (Photo: flickr.com)

Studies are showing people are increasing cash advances as they wait for new massive global warming bill to go into effect. In the next few weeks, Congress will be reviewing a huge global warming bill.  The bill, named Waxman-Markey, will create a cap-and-trade program that aims to police greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama has already espoused the virtues of this new bill, believing it will create “millions of new jobs all across America.”

Unfortunately the bill is facing criticism from experts, who believe that it won’t be an advantage to the taxpaying public. They claim that the bill is overly industry-sided and doesn’t do enough to impact the global situation.  Private organizations “Friends of the Earth” and “Public Citizen” have both sent letters to Congress decrying the bill that it “does not do what the science says is necessary to avoid the worst effects of global warming and to rescue the climate.”  Another agency, the Heritage Foundation, believes that the bill would regulate energy prices so strictly that the average American family would need an additional $1,500 a year to handle energy bills.

Waxman-Markey

The Waxman-Markey bill looks to set strict limits on greenhouse gasses that businesses, factories and utility companies are allowed to emit.  This cap is supposed to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020.  There are a certain number of companies that would be allowed permits to emit over the specified cap.  These permits would be auctioned off by the government.  The intention is to control pollution, beyond just taxing or regulating it.  Carbon permits are estimated to bring in an additional $60 billion by 2012 if the bill is passed.

What this means to consumers

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, stated that the cap-and-trade program costs would be “passed along to consumers of energy and energy-intensive products.”  The agency estimates that a 15 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2020 means the bill would cost the average American household $1,500 to $1,800 a year, with lower-income households carrying the bulk of the added cost. Many lower-income households that are currently struggling will have to look to cash advances and installment loans to carry the added burden.

Critics also cite that when the government auctions off the permits, they will be getting a huge amount of revenue back. They will benefit greatly from the passing of the bill, while Americans will pay for it.  Although some of the auction money will come back to consumer in the form of tax credits, the numbers are too small to have a large impact on the overall expense.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in 2012 the tax credit will be about $161 for a single person and up to $359 for a family of five.  However, only people with an income of less than $23,000 for single-person households and $42,000 for households with children will be eligible.

Energy in the future

If the Waxman-Markey bill is passed, Americans will have to be prepared for the added cost to their energy bills. Many will be looking to cash advances and payday loans as emergency ways to fund the additional expense.  Hopefully, the government will see the added strain on consumers and either turn more of the auctioned money into aid or change the tax-credit laws to benefit more taxpayers.

Get a Cash Advance HERE

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That's no message in a bottle. There's a light bulb ban on, and that's an enemy of green living. Destroy! (Photo: flickr.com)

This reminds me of when Americans were stocking up on firearms as the fear of Obama clawed at their hearts. Unfounded or not, when there’s talk that something people need or like is perhaps going to be taken away, people race to the stores and fill their arms with as many of the offending items as they can carry to the register and out the door. In a similar fashion, if governments begin to crack down on small-scale consumer money lenders, you’ll see a drive for loans before the fall.

But what about the light bulb ban?

According to the New York Times, the European Union (EU) has restricted the sale of incandescent bulbs across Europe in an effort to combat global warming and save energy. Now shops can’t buy or import incandescent frosted glass bulbs; retailers are being allowed to sell out their stock. The United States and Canada expect to follow a similar path by 2012. We’ll see. I’m not sure how much faith I have in America’s ability to do anything quickly, unless it’s Cash for Clunkers (and that was done TOO quickly).

C’mon, America. Australia and Cuba have already done it. Do you want Castro to bask in the harsh glow of fluorescents before hard-working American citizens? Well, perhaps you do… perhaps it will be more effective than the exploding cigar the CIA once considered. In his current weakened condition, perhaps the harsh glare will push him over the edge.

The current move is on to switch incandescent bulbs out for fluorescent (CFL) bulbs or even LED lighting. The former use around 80 percent less energy and do not burn out as quickly, but the lighting is harsh and the individual bulbs are much more expensive (as much as 15 to 20 times more expensive than one incandescent bulb. Sure, they’ll save a family in the long term. But in the short term, when families need all the recession help they can get, spending $15 on a CFL bulb can be prohibitive.

What about the mercury in CFLs?

Environmental mercury is a concern many have over the light bulb ban and switch, which makes the EU light bulb ban a kind of test case for what the U.S. and Canada may experience. CFL bulbs contain mercury (a toxic metal element), and as the EPA direction sheet shows, cleaning up mercury is no simple matter. If a bulb breaks, you have a lot of work to do. Is energy efficiency and reduced problem of incandescent bulbs in landfills worth the chance that excess mercury is entering the atmosphere? Plus, entire industries will be crippled by this changeover. Some will adapt, many won’t. Workforce displacement is definitely a factor in the debate. If they are hired in lower paying jobs and need some help from money lenders, they can click the button to apply here.

Stephen Russell of ANEC, an EU consumer product safety standards group, said that the allowed limit for mercury in CFL bulbs is too high. Currently five milligrams are allowed per bulb, but EU officials would like to see that reduced to two milligrams.

This says nothing for aesthetics

From photography to reading to interior design, lighting plays an essential role. This light bulb ban creates a definite strain upon EU citizens’ ability to capture images, read and be comfortable in their homes. From my point of view, CFL bulbs are horrible, but perhaps a necessary evil until LED lighting becomes more affordable for the general public. As you can see from the video below, LEDs use around a quarter of the electricity of fluorescents. However, where CFLs may cost around $15 per bulb, the cheapest LED home light bulbs are closer to $100 in America as of this writing.

So the Swedes have come up with a mercury-free CFL option, eh? Leave it to the creators of IKEA to set the tone. But it looks a bit dim… (Photo: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3155/2751088844_3e4f74549e.jpg)

Some argue that CFLs also don’t stand up to the wear and tear of being turned on and off regularly. In fact, some studies show they expire before some incandescent bulbs under those conditions. In response to this, various EU officials have recommended halogen bulbs. However, environmental groups believe those should have been banned along with incandescent, as they’re similarly wasteful.

The light bulb ban also doesn’t address the mental health issue. There are those who suffer from epilepsy and anxiety who depend upon incandescent lighting for normal function. By comparison, CFL bulbs can cause adverse effects.

Clear incandescent bulbs OK until 2012

EU officials want this to be gradual, so 60-watt clear incandescent bulbs will be available until September 2011, while 40-watt will be around until 2012, says the Times. The United States and Canada have similar plans for gradual phase out. But after that time, if CFLs aren’t an option, LED lighting will have to be more affordable for the average consumer.

Turn on your heart light

Let it shine wherever you go. Yes, I’m talking the Neil Diamond song about E.T. It takes some heart to make the right choice for the environment in this light bulb ban fracas. Sure, incandescent bulbs are more convenient in the short term – and the quality of light is definitely better. But what must happen is that we must press manufacturers of LED lighting to produce it more cheaply. Whatever legislation and research is necessary to make this happen needs to commence or be augmented, because CFL bulbs are not a viable option. People may have mercury fillings in their teeth and justify CFL bulbs on those grounds, but we don’t know what the long-term effects of mercury in teeth will be. I would wager it isn’t exactly harmless. If it means I’ll need to contact money lenders to find money for LED lighting in my home, I’ll consider it. But please, throw the people a bone.

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Traveling through an ocean garbage dump the size of Texas (Photo: seacat.wordpress.com)

In the Pixar film “Wall-E,” pollution has run rampant, to the point where the Earth is uninhabitable. Much of this pollution comes straight from the waste inherent in our high-speed consumer culture of convenience. As a result of their sloth, humankind have been forced to evacuate the planet and live a complacent life among the stars.

And what should we learn?

The movie is meant to draw our attention to the responsibility we have to maintain our world for future generations. There will come a time when we must take to the stars and look for new places to continue the spreading of our race. I’m not saying it will be exactly like “Wall-E,” “Dune” or any other science fiction stories we’re familiar with, but astronomic events will eventually rob Earth of its ability to sustain life. There are numerous astronomers and scientists who believe this, so I’m not a lone voice in the wilderness here. I’d bet short term loans and payday loans with no faxing on it, if I were a betting man…

But let’s not rush to muck things up!

That’s exactly what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch represents: our lack of care, moving us ever closer to the day when life will be choked away by all the garbage. I include apocalypse/”Rapture”-type cults among this garbage… it’s just garbage that chokes out the intellect instead of birds, plants, fish and asthmatics.

Paul Rogers reports for MercuryNews.com that scientists are doing all they can to learn more about “one of the most glaring examples of waste and environmental pollution on Earth,” the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a place 1,000 miles west of California and north of Hawaii where all the trash from our sewers and storm drains flows. It’s “a massive vortex of floating plastic trash estimated by some researchers to be twice the size of Texas,” says Rogers.

It’s everywhere

Mary Crowley, co-founder of the nonprofit expedition Project Kaisei, believes that it’s high time something be done about this serious threat to life in the Pacific Ocean.

“More and more now, you see signs of marine debris and plastic everyplace. You can be at very remote beaches, and you’ll see plastic bottles, barrels, toys and a lot of plastic fishing nets,” she said.

I say more effort should be made to clean up such waste and recycle it, whenever possible. If you want to start such an effort in your community, take that first step. It may take a little bit of money to get it off the ground (biodegradable advertising signs, a Web site, etc), and if you need a cash boost to get that going, payday loans with no faxing and short term loans are available right here.

Find a new use for plastic – fast!

It’s unclear exactly when the Great Pacific Garbage Patch began to form or what its exact boundaries are, but it is know that the plastic that forms the bulk of it will not decompose in the traditional sense. Exposure to sunlight will eventually break it down into small pieces, but that could simply make it more difficult to clean up. Truly, many scientists believe that cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be impossible. The last hope may be that it can be converted into some sort of fuel.

Studying the harm done

Crowley and other researchers like Miriam Goldstein aim to study the size of the garbage patch and how it affects ocean wildlife.

“We are going to try to target the highest-plastic areas we see to begin to understand the scope of the problem,” said Goldstein. “The team of graduate students will be studying everything from phytoplankton to zooplankton to small midwater fish.”

The danger of confetti

That’s what the plastic essentially breaks down into. According to Rogers, there are billions of pieces of tiny plastic floating just below the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Not only are the smaller pieces much harder to collect, but they’re much more likely to be consumed by wildlife like sea birds and fish. The plastic then fills their stomachs without providing nutrients. This often leads to death of the animal. Furthermore, plastic pieces can absorb toxic chemicals, which migrate up the food chain and eventually make it to humans.

And more frightening bits

Plastic fishing line, some of them from drift nets that are several tons in weight, entangle thousands of sea turtles, whales and marine mammals each year. In addition to this, plastic junk carried by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre include cigarette lighters, floats, toothbrushes, bottle caps and more. Some of the junk is decades old.

To put the amount of waste in perspective, scientists point out that for every pound of plankton in the center Pacific Ocean, there are as many as six pounds of marine litter as seen in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. That’s about 46,000 pieces of plastic litter for each square mile of the oceans, according to a 2006 United Nations study.

What can we do?

Full cleanup may be impossible, so in the time we have left on Earth before space travel makes a mass exodus possible, we must be responsible. Try to recycle your plastic waste, or only use products that break down in the environment. Dispose of waste properly, too – don’t just chuck it down the drain or into the ocean. Also, whenever the opportunity comes about to help fund scientific studies and projects designed to help combat such problems, donate if you can.

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Have you ever seen a solar eclipse? It’s quite a site that shouldn’t be missed. Some people go to great trouble to view them, to the point of purchasing special lenses or traveling long distances in search of the optimal viewing experience. Thus, fast cash and cash loans have been in the repertoire of devoted sun worshipers.

The same will hold true for SOLAR ECLIPSE: JULY 2009

Rebecca Carroll reports for National Geographic that this eclipse will pass over some of Earth’s most densely populated areas on Wednesday, July 22. As a result, it will likely become the most viewed eclipse to date in human history. People in central India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and parts of China will know darkness in daylight then. From Shanghai and Hangzhou, China alone, it is estimated by scientists that 30 million people will witness the event.

Where will it go after China?

Follow the path of the solar exclipse

Japan’s Ryukyu Islands will be in the eastbound path. Once at its maximum point over the Pacific Ocean, the moon will completely block the sun for six minutes and 39 seconds, according to NASA’s Fred Espenak. In addition to being the most viewed solar eclipse, that 6:39 period should be the longest eclipse so far in the 21st century.

Get ready for the no-sun

Jay Pasachoff of Williams College in Massachusetts has been chasing solar eclipses since 1959 as a member of the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.

“We brought about half a ton of equipment and picked up an equal amount borrowed here from our Chinese colleagues, so there is a lot to get ready,” he added.

How can the moon block out the sun?

Isn’t the sun about 400 times larger than the moon? Why yes it is, Mr. Wizard. However, it’s also 400 times more distant from Earth, so from the ground on this planet, the moon appears slightly larger. This never changes, yet people are still drawn in from everywhere by the “mystery.”

Appropriate eclipse wear (Photo: davelandweb.com)

As you get to the last several minutes before totality, that’s when your eyes actually start noticing things getting dark around you, and you can feel the air cooling. It gets really dark and totality appears, and that’s when it gets most spectacular. You see a black hole in the sky where the sun used be, and if there are birds around, they may stop chirping, because they think it’s night.

Are you going to make it to China in time to watch the solar eclipse of July 2009?

It’s pricey, so watch out. Travel isn’t getting cheaper, so perhaps fast cash and cash loans can save your budget from being eclipsed…

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Some people believe this picture is real...and we let them vote.

Ever since NASA announced that they had lost the back up tapes from the Apollo 11 moon landing, the conspiracy theorists and peanut gallery has been touting their belief that there is an Apollo 11 Moon Landing Hoax – in that NASA filmed all of it in a studio as a cover up.  Of course, the missing tapes prove nothing, but we’ll get to that in a minute.  (I’d give some fast cash to makes this and other ill-conceived conspiracies go away.)

The tapes were backups, get over it!

The tapes in question were telemetry tapes, meaning that they were broadcast from the moon with the video signal, audio signal, and the other information being relayed from the command module, and video and audio were transferred to two inch television tape in Parkes, Australia, and broadcast world wide. The missing tapes, in essence, were negatives – back ups – it’s a non-issue, but they are having the original tapes restored. Click Here, for part one of this series.

A Conspiracy of dunces

This is a widely popular subject, and there is an extensive page on Wikipedia about it. Now to the meat of the thing:

It first started with a book written in 1974 by Bill Kaysing, a former employee of Rocketdyne, who wasn’t an engineer; he was part of their publishing unit, and held a degree in English. (English is NOT a science.) Kaysing has been denounced every step of the way, and ultimately was told by his own publisher he was full of it.

As to the tapes: NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz (Ed Harris in the film Apollo 13) has repeatedly admitted the telemetry tapes got erased and reused, as it was procedure back then.

The science of conspiracy doesn’t add up

Certain objections are raised from a scientific point of view – for instance, the flag appearing to be waving. Several pictures exist of the flag in the same position, with Buzz Aldrin in different poses. This is because the flag was crinkled due to being folded, and didn’t completely unfurl in a vacuum due to the crease.
Aldrin has been repeatedly harassed about the conspiracy, especially by one Bart Sibrel, who viciously stalked him, and when Aldrin made it clear that he wanted to be left alone, punched Sibrel in the face.

Also, it’s been announced that a lunar orbiter has just captured pictures of the remnants of lunar landing modules, which were taken a few days ago.

Also, the peanut gallery has yet to summon a response to the following – putting the moon landing hoax on would have been far more expensive and elaborate than actually GOING to the moon.  I’d give a cash advance to hear someone explain that one….

And now, for your viewing pleasure – Bart Sibrel Punched in the Face!

Certainly some among us remember watching the moon landing on July 20th, 1969. It was one of the most watched moments in all of televisions history. Neil Armstrong descended from the Lunar Module and said those famous words, becoming the first human being to walk on the surface of a planetary body other than our own.  (Buzz Aldrin became second shortly thereafter, and sowed the seeds of sour grapes in the lunar soil.)

Recently, NASA announced that they had been searching for missing telemetry tapes that were made of the landing for some time, and that there had been no success, no matter how much fast cash they threw into the project.  The tapes in question were not the original copies, but backups with possibly better picture quality than the original two inch tape used in TV production at the time.

Throwing in the Towel; Bringing in Hollywood

Instead of giving up all hope, they have decided to take the best surviving footage, and run with it, turning to Lowry Digital, a California based film restoration company.  (Click here for the Source.)  Lowry expects the project to be completed in September, and NASA will be looking into the possibility of any other tapes left in the tracking center in Parkes, Australia, where the original signal was sent to from the Moon.

Recent Shuttle Activity

The Space Shuttle Endeavor recently lifted off from Cape Canaveral for a rendezvous and mission with the International Space Station, after 5 attempts to launch were scrubbed due to weather.  The shuttle was thought to have sustained some damage from liftoff debris, and the crew will be inspecting any damage and making repairs after docking.  The Shuttle Program is expected to be ditched in favor of a return to rockets and capsules next year, which will take a cash advance or two to get off the ground, so to speak.  (Hey, even NASA is into retro styles!) The rockets are to be dubbed Ares and Orion, respectively.

Missing tapes make conspiracy nuts go….well, nuts!

Apollo moon landing hoax theories have been circulating for years, and no matter how many facts, figures, and objective and empirical proof gets thrown their way, they still won’t keep quiet.  This tape debacle, which is a non issue, is going to fan the flames of conspiracy, which defies all manner of sound thinking and has been debunked numerous times.  Still, no matter how much evidence is provided, even a cash advance won’t silence the peanut gallery.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 – Conspiracy lovers are going to hate it!

Micro-thin graphene electronics (Photo: Ji Hye Hong)

Science frequently works hand-in-hand with industry to find bigger, better, faster ways of improving production processes and making products better. For any country, there’s a certain pride that goes along with making a breakthrough scientific discovery that changes the face of an industry.

Make it cheaper, please

Frequently, a key consideration in innovation is money.  Part of making something better is making it cheaper to produce without sacrificing quality. Considering the difficult economy as it currently stands, saving money wherever possible is good.  On a personal level, we can use a payday loan or cash advance to save us the bumps and bruises of late fees. In the world of industry, discoveries like graphene may be the ticket to major technological breakthroughs.

Staying ahead of Moore’s Law

Robert Boyd reports for McClatchy at http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090708/sc_mcclatchy/3268145 that graphene is made from a sheet of carbon that’s one atom thick – but it’s stronger than diamond and conducts electricity “100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.” Understandably, physicists, electronics engineers and chemists are salivating over the possibilities. The applications for increasing the power of personal computers would be tremendous.

The thinnest and the strongest

“It is the thinnest known material in the universe, and the strongest ever measured,” wrote University of Manchester physicist Andre Geim in Science. Not only that, but it doesn’t take much to do big jobs. According to graphene researcher Rod Ruoff of the University of Texas, “A few grams could cover a football field.” Just so you know, one gram equals 1/30 of an ounce.

That’s carbon, baby

Graphene is pure carbon, just like diamond. It looks like honeycomb under an electron microscope, an indication of its structural integrity. Yet you can bend it and fold it, so it’s easy to handle. Imagine a pencil. Did you know the lead (which is not actually lead) is actually made of stacks of graphite layers? The bonds that hold them together in your pencil are weak, however, so when you write, the layers flake off onto the paper as the dark marks. When the lead breaks or you sharpen the pencil, the lead only breaks because the layers of graphene aren’t stuck together.

How can graphene be used?

This is where the practical applications for industry come in. Graphene can be used to create screens that won’t break; small, light solar cells and other energy-storage devices; ultra-light parts for cell phones; and, ultimately, high-speed computer chips. Potential graphene applications include touch screens, solar cells, energy storage devices, cell phones and, eventually, high-speed computer chips. That last application is years away, and the silicon industry is backed by billions of dollars, so I don’t think silicon computer chips will be replaced quickly.

Research is on the move

Government scientists, various university labs, big companies like IBM and even start-ups are hard at work to discover ways that graphene can be used. Ruoff founded Graphene Energy, a renewable energy company that is very interested in storing the energy captured by solar cells and even the heat from automobile brakes. The Pentagon is spending $22 million in their research to figure out how quickly we can start using the substance in computer chips and transistors.

The “Scotch Tape technique”

Graphene as it would appear under an electron microscope

That used to be the only way scientists knew to make graphene. They’d mount graphite on sticky tape and separate a single layer by pulling the tape away. But now, graphene can be made on a base of nickel, copper or silicon. After combining, the base is scraped off. This is a much more efficient method than the tape method, according to scientists like Geim, who discovered graphene about five years ago. It may have also advanced graphene research by years in just a short period of time.

Here come the hybrids

“I’m confident there will be many commercial applications,” Ruoff said. “We will begin to see hybrid devices – mostly made from silicon, but with a critical part of the device being graphene – in niche applications.”

But here’s what I want to know

If it’s true that graphene can also be used for car parts – making my vehicle lighter – I’m all for it because I’ll get better gas mileage and won’t need a payday loan or cash advance to fill the tank so often.

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Wait, wait, wait. This isn’t THAT kind of article. It’s THIS kind of article…

Whether you’re straight, gay, bi or asexual, it’s your own business. No one else’s. And your sexual orientation has absolutely no bearing on whether you can obtain pay day loans for quick cash.

But since everyone and their sex therapist is feeding upon the flesh of the media image that has been created for Michael Jackson, let’s talk about the significance of being asexual. According to Brooke Shields, she and Michael “instantly became friends” when he was 19 and she was 13. The reason for this, she claims, is that there was no sexual tension to get in the way.

Who’s on first? What’s second base?

The child stars spent a lot of time together, but instead of developing a sexual attraction, the relationship took a different course. Shields said he became “more asexual” as they grew. Yet he was curious about her previous relationships.

“He was like a little kid who talked about the bases – what first base was, what second base was,” Shields said. “It sounded very odd to the outside, I can imagine, but to the inside, to someone who’s never really left his bubble, you can understand how he would be curious.”

Is that as far as it went for him?

Nobody knows for sure, or if they do, they aren’t telling. I believe that is as it should be, considering how personal one’s sexuality is. But putting Michael aside for the moment, here’s an interesting question: What’s so great about sex?

Think about it. Think of the sum total of humanity’s visual arts, stories, poems, songs, dances, from the sublime to the crass. Look at science, evolution, our emotions and everything in-between. Even the Songs of Solomon or similar ancient literature. Sex is integral to who we are.

Science Daily suggests that the answer isn’t as evolutionarily obvious as it would seem. They refer to a recent article from American Naturalist magazine that sex evolved as a defense against parasites.

When ultra-efficiency = danger

The human race is still learning about sexuality. However, from an evolutionary standpoint, it is crystal clear that reproduction is necessary to ensure the survival of a species. Asexual reproduction seems quite efficient, in that it doesn’t require a partner. Furthermore, if an entire species has this ability, the odds of survival would seem great based upon the sheer math.

Why don’t the birds and bees take care of things before leaving home, then? Many scientists believe that asexual organisms are particularly susceptible to parasites. This susceptibility leads to a thinning of the herd, because perfect copies will all have the same vulnerability. If an enterprising young parasite or fatal disease strikes pay dirt and finds this opening, an entire species can be lost.

But what do you get when two crazy kids of any species get together and exchange genes (and jeans, if they’re into that)? You get genetically unique, genetically diverse offspring, often with different vulnerabilities. So parasites can’t Jonestown a carbon copy race formed via asexual budding.

Does diversity work?

When it comes to reproduction, yes, although more studies would be helpful. Scientists Jukka Jokela, Mark Dybdahl and Curtis Lively observed Potamopyrgus antipodarum (freshwater New Zealand lake snails) for 10 years, beginning with 1994. It’s one of those rare species that feature some populations that reproduce sexually and others that are asexual.

What did they find? Clones plentiful in the beginning were more frequently brought down by parasites over time. Some of these types became completely extinct. But the sexual snail populations remained stable. They lived to couple another day.

“The rise and fall of these female-only lineages was surprisingly fast and consistent with the prediction of the parasite hypothesis for sex,” Jokela said. “These results suggest that sexual reproduction provides an evolutionary advantage in parasite rich environments.”

Oh, don’t forget that pay day loans and quick cash can diversify your budget when short-term troubles come to call. Diversity is good that way, too.

We live in a parasite-rich environment, don’t we?

As great an entertainer and kind heart as he may have been, a race of Michael Jacksons would not have survived. The TMZs, Stars and Enquirers of the parasite kingdom would have burned out the gene pool. But I digress. It isn’t a fact that Michael Jackson was asexual. I tend to believe that he was extremely repressed and never grew out of childhood as a defense mechanism against abuse. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I wish Michael Jackson the peace he may have found only rarely in life.

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There are non-adventurous souls out there who will tell you that there are certain things that we are better off not knowing. What goes into hot dogs? What do your bed sheets look like when you magnify them 1,000 times? What’s all the fuss about the unknown life form in a North Carolina sewer?

Myself, I’m the curious type. However, my father once told me that I shouldn’t stick my hand into spaces that I can’t see. He was referring to the space under his workbench, away from the light. Those dark corners where all manner of foul beasts lurk. Some that poison, some that suck the lifeblood from the body, others that lay eggs in the spinal fluid and take up residence inside the brain. Where, of course, they control the action. Their first course of action would be to force me to take out fast cash and online loans in amounts greater than what I need. Because that’s how evil creatures of the deep dark roll.

Fine, fine, I may be stretching the truth a bit, but here’s something that was recently discovered in a Cameron Village sewer underneath Raleigh, North Carolina. A routine inspection of the pipes via a video camera on the end of a drain snake (hissss!) discovered a strange life form that so far has not been definitively identified. What is it? WHAT… IS… IT?!!!

Squirming, sliding, they’re outta to getcha

As your gracious servant, I have included the video footage below. Take a look when the camera closes in and see what you think – if you can bare to look at all! Mwuh-ha-HAAA! It looks like something out of a science fiction film, and since the diameter of the pipe is not immediately apparent when you view the pipe, it’s uncertain exactly how LARGE these creatures are. Some have claims that these are “sludge worms” or “sewer worms,” which may be accurate. Others think it’s sacks of spider eggs. But a growing number of people in North Carolina and beyond have sounded the alarm. These subterranean creatures are not of this world! Prepare for your mind to be invaded. Hooray.

Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video

And they have at least one everyday use for us humans

Scott Patterson, one of the users on the same Inspection News board, brings things down to earth. And his wife is none too pleased about it:

Those worms are common food for tropical fish both salt and freshwater.

I feed live tubifex worms to my freshwater tropical fish. I have a 75 gallon tank with Discus and neons. They eat about 10 oz of worms every two weeks. I keep them in a Tupperware container in a spare refrigerator in the garage. Wife hates them! They live for about 10 days as long as you rinse them off with fresh cool water every couple of days and keep them in the frig.

Nature’s amazing variety – of ALIENS!

Sure, these things tend to hang around polluted water, and there may just be cracks in the sewer pipe that have allowed them inside. But I’d say that to keep them from coming up out of your toilet, you need to build personal disintegration rays immediately. If you need the fast cash of online loans to get the parts, then you also need help. Or at least a stern talking to. This is normal, people. No aliens here. But it is disgusting, isn’t it? Don’t put your hand in that old drain!

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Bienvenidos a Miami, Oklahoma, Sr.Ray

If you’ve ever had to move, you know that it can be very expensive. Boxes, tape, packing material, help moving larger items, moving van rates, gasoline – it all adds up very quickly. Then there’s the deposit or down payment on a new place. You wouldn’t be alone if you have ever sought help from pay day loans and personal loans to deal with such an undertaking.

But what happens if you’re forced to move because your entire town is being condemned? That’s exactly what happened to Orval “Hoppy” Ray in Picher, Oklahoma. He was the last resident to leave the town in the wake of many years of lead and zinc mining that have left Picher, OK one of America’s largest, most polluted toxic-waste sites.

Poisoning generations

John Sutter eloquently reports for CNN that Picher, Oklahoma was a center of lead and zinc mining for many years (until 1970) before there were many environmental safety requirements that mines had to follow. As a result, children of Picher suffered lead poisoning as the local creeks coughed up orange water, a cocktail of heavy metals. Plus, homes were built atop mine shafts. Now those abandoned mines are in danger of collapsing. Orval Ray was the last resident to leave.

There were signs of things to come. Back in 2006, the federal government announced it was going to pay people to leave Picher, Oklahoma and the nearby Tar Creek Superfund Site. That would leave room for the government to execute its toxic-waste cleanup program. They told people that their homes could collapse into the stained earth.

Aiding the war effort

Some were happy to take the money and run, but old timers like Ray, 84, wouldn’t leave without a fight. He claimed he’d die first. He’d worked the mines with his dad and brothers, mining lead that was turned into bullets for U.S. soldiers in both world wars. But once the wars were done and the last mine shut in 1970, Picher, Oklahoma began its slow slide into the grave. A recent tornado also played a significant role in making Picher what it is today.

“I thought it was important that people ought to know what Picher’s role was in two world wars,” Hoppy said. “Hell, to me, it was important. … Without the mines here in Ottawa County [Oklahoma], those wars would’ve lasted a lot longer.”

Time to go, dad

Ray’s son insisted that his father move to Miami, Oklahoma. It was only 10 miles south of Picher, but for Hoppy, it was like moving a world away. Unfortunately, there was no other option. The house he’d lived in for nearly 50 years had been slated to be condemned.

Sutter writes that “outside Picher, the mining town’s former residents are branded ‘lead heads’ and ‘chat rats.’ People wonder whether living in the polluted area made them stupid.” Hoppy has heard it all before.

Starting again

“There’s not any point in thinking about it,” he said, “because there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it — just break out, go someplace else and start all over again.”

Goodbye, Picher, Oklahoma. You served your country admirably. Unfortunately, it didn’t do the same for you. Now everyone has moved on, hopefully toward happier, healthier days. Days where you can get pay day loans and personal loans if you need them.

Yet in his dreams, Hoppy envisions the old days when Picher was a vibrant place. Ghettos of ghost towns are all that remain now. For more of Ray’s recollections, read Sutter’s article. It grants a small glimpse into an America that is dying. The bones of small towns are everywhere. If that means something to you, read the article.

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(Photo: John Wagner / Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

Are you a pack rat? Do you collect piles and piles of things that have no real purpose, other than to sit in their proper places and be yours? Sometimes people form sentimental attachments to their things that no garage sale can remedy. Once they run out of room in their homes, some even go to the expense of renting a storage unit for their useless junk. Some people are beyond hope, spending more money on trinkets than their budget can easily bear. Payday loans and cash advances become a part of their daily lives, but for the wrong reasons.

If you’re in this situation, it could be that your possessions own you, rather than the reverse.  If you aren’t able to get it in check yourself, I suggest professional help. However, one of the benefits of being a purveyor of useless junk is that Karen Hawes might pay you a visit. She is a self-proclaimed “trashtronaut.”

Blasting off for adventure

Jeff Richardson of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the 40-year-old Hawes decided it was the right time in her life to embrace trash. In an effort to see all the trash this nation has to offer, she opted to begin a great journey. Alaska, her state of birth, would be the jumping off  point into a filthy world of fascinating, useless junk.

So she loaded up her Honda Element and struck out north from California. This was in May. For the next 10 months, Hawes will explore dumpsters, landfills and salvage yards in order to learn about people and the things they leave behind. The journey will span two continents, ending in Argentina. Will that be in Maria Belen Chapur’s yard? Perhaps Mark Sanford left his sanity there. If so, a trashtronaut can find it.

An obsession

For Hawes, the obsession with trash is simply an outgrowth of her natural curiosity. Plus, she enjoys making contact with new and interesting people, so her trashtronaut journey serves a social purpose as well. There’s no real plan behind this junk journey, but for those who are also curious about useless junk can follow the action at www.trashtrip.com. If things go well, perhaps a book will emerge from the rubble.

Keep feeling fascination

Hawes first discovered that trash was a loathsome, offensive brute that she could not look away from in 2006. She made a camping trip to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, hoping to find a nice, out-of-the-way spot to enjoy nature’s simple grace. She thought she’d found it, but discarded aluminum beer cans shook her from her pocket of silence. She realized that escaping from people and their useless junk is incredibly difficult.

But she wasn’t discouraged by this. On the contrary, it fired creative sparks in her brain. Hawes’ natural curiosity for human culture led her toward her trash odyssey. She would observe and report on what useless junk can tell us about people – where they’ve been, where they are and where they’re going. Before you jump to the conclusion that the answer to the last is “nowhere fast,” think about it for a moment. Sometimes junk disposal falls because of laziness, but I think the nature of disposable goods should also come into question.

Societal limitations

image by flickr

Beginning her journey of garbage in Alaska enabled Hawes to see how small communities like Prudhoe deal with the issue of waste disposal. Judging by the things she saw, it is quite difficult for small, remote communities to effectively deal with the things people collect and throw away. What is left behind are monuments to human desire, their yearnings and those bread crumbs that mark the trails of daily habit.

“It’s just amazing what people will amass,” Hawes said. “Acres and acres of useless junk, but they can’t give it away – it would be like giving away a child.”

Don’t give away your children. Try to make your useless junk work for you. Adopt the recycling mindset and try to avoid containers manufactured so that they’ll go straight into the landfill. Your own odyssey of useless junk can help the environment and save you from having to take out emergency payday loans and cash advances to fill out your shopping cart. Not that there’s anything wrong with borrowing money, but save when you can.

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Sometimes, I wonder why people Google certain things. Often the top search terms that appear on Google Trends are related to breaking political, economic or entertainment news. But sometimes, the results are simply surreal. Like parts of this article.

Yes, I’ll admit that I’m not watching the Today show, Dr. Phil, Oprah or Regis and Kelly. People are watching those programs while seated at their computers. They’re searching for subjects brought up on those shows; I get that. But what is it that has drawn the attention of the online public to Salvador Dali’s class surrealist painting “The Persistence of Memory?”

Sure, you can take a look at it online and understand that time is ephemeral, but that doesn’t solve your budget-busting issues. An online payday loan (or military payday loans if you are so inclined) will not melt. They will persistently boost your bottom line when the bottom threatens to drop out of your corrugated sailing shingle of waxwork, your linguine razor at the ready for encounters with overdraft mavens of monkish solemnity. Fish fall from the iPhone; log, rinse and rephrase your seven-year financial itch plan. Be a responsible flounder.

Dali persists

Paul Simon saw angels in the architecture, Christopher Hume of The Toronto Star sees the surreal in the shelter hulks surrounding our solitary, shambling flesh villages. Dali and the surrealists had a great influence on the art form of buildings. Is it purposeful? Is it accidental? Barcelona is known in no small part for the architecture of Antonio Gaudi, whose melting churches and muezzin Moor structures sing the charms of a great city. Yet Paris, which is considered the “Mother City” of surrealism, stands as rational as the Arc de Triomphe and majestic as the Eiffel Tower. Few irrationalities melt the landscape like butter love. It splashes at random on Mexico City, Mumbai and beyond, so you see it’s difficult to find a coherent surreal plan among the architecture angels. But that could be part of the plan.

Toronto, writes Hume, appears on the surface to be far from a hotbed for surrealism. But the odd juxtapositions make for a varied landscape. “High-Anglican Gothic” and post-war modern slammed together with the rugged Canadian landscape to create an outwardly searching mix. That’s one side of it, but “starchitecture” projects with a dash of the surreal (as Hume puts it) also define the city. Spiral staircases leave buildings on their way to the stars. Daniel Libeskind’s “crystals” of glass and aluminum and glass from walls speak to the brain from the unconscious quarry. And then there’s Will Alsop’s flying tabletops that pay duties to the memories of M.C. Esher.

Irrational civic enterprise

Sometimes, a certain persistence of memory applies to the tiny public spaces of Hume’s city. Order is on the edge of melting, but it won’t go away. It may change beyond recognition, but it’s there. The reporter mentions “the north side of Charles St., east of Yonge, beside the entrance to 30 Charles,” where there is an opening to no place in particular (unless that is your destination to begin with). Follow the trail in no particular way and you’ll stand upon a concrete platform with a bike encircled by towers.

What is happening in this space? It’s leftover, it’s nothing, it’s something particular. It is certainly deliberate. The bike will remain so long as the towers stand and our own persistence of the memory erects barriers of reason. We give the bike purpose, yet wonder persistently at just how still a still life can be when invisible pelicans transport potential energy in their bills and laws.

Leaving Toronto

Hume’s persistence of memory for his local landscape leads him just outside to Mississauga next. “An empty sunburnt landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope,” he calls it. “Marilyn Monroe” twin condos sashay across the street from the “metaphysical” city hall. The ladies bring their feminine swerve with no reserve, breasts, hips and thighs to the sky. Mississauga City Hall, wings about to take flight, spires and postmodern bracing against the persistence of memory for all things boring, is about angles rather than curves. They’re sexy buildings, daring buildings, far from utilitarian.

Mississauga was built fast, writes Hume. It has little persistence of memory on its own, as it has had no time to sit back and ponder itself. “There’s less occasion for the conscious mind to intervene and the results are closer to the irrational impulses the surrealists celebrated,” he writes.

Of madelines and amygdalas

Enough about Toronto. The vehicle being driven here is a V8 Dali, complete with vitamins, minerals and nasal-labial exodus that stir our imaginations. We feel the Persistence of Memory in different ways. But the common thread is emotion. Marcel Proust in “Swann’s Way” testifies to taste and smell

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

What triggers us? What floats our boat? Google searchers know that the amygdala is involved. Significant research points to the connection between the emotion centers of the brain (like the amygdala) and memory… Proust knew (and scientists know) that memory and emotion cannot be separated. From the scientists:

The amygdala and hippocampal complex, two medial temporal lobe structures, are linked to two independent memory systems, each with unique characteristic functions. In emotional situations, these two systems interact in subtle but important ways. Specifically, the amygdala can modulate both the encoding and the storage of hippocampal-dependent memories. The hippocampal complex, by forming episodic representations of the emotional significance and interpretation of events, can influence the amygdala response when emotional stimuli are encountered. Although these are independent memory systems, they act in concert when emotion meets memory.

Feelings are a persistence of memory

The unconscious mind takes the lead in how memories serve us. In pleasure, pain and utility (or a combination of these elements), persistence of memory is anything but rational. Rationality is a tool we can choose to wield, but the mind resists absorbing it within. The way is shut like a injunction between sperm and seed. In order to accept the surrealism that shapes us, we must accept the power of the unconscious mind. It’s a rational transaction in an other irrational chain of life for us organisms scratching a life here. Oh, an online payday loan and military payday loans are also rational choices. But what life can throw at us is frequently irrational, so we must be persistent in applying the best tools available to surmount choirs and choirs of trouble. It’s what Salvador Dali did in his life, even when the persistence of memory would melt and decay. He chronicled the cycle of degradation and survival.

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Mathematics holds a vital place in a wide variety of fields, including the sciences and finance. Number calculations have proved the viability of countless scientific phenomenon. Money lenders generally need statistical data to evaluate a consumer’s financial situation before granting them a loan (although installment loans are easier to come by). Whatever the field, math leads to results.

According to David Landes of the Swedish news publication The Local, a 16-year-old student named Mohamed Altoumaimi from Falu Frigymnasium high school has achieved a significant accomplishment in the field of mathematics. He has derived a formula with Bernoulli numbers that is normally the territory for only seasoned professional mathematicians. Professors at prestigious Uppsala University have recognized the young man’s accomplishment, and hope to see more from him.

What are Bernoulli numbers?

Bernoulli numbers are “a sequence of rational numbers with deep connections to number theory,” according to Wikipedia. They’re named for the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli. There a number of practical applications to number theory, which is sometimes referred to as “pure” math. Such applications include cryptography, cryptanalysis, computer science and numerous uses in physics, such as (reference here):

• Analytic regularizations in quantum theories
• Selberg Trace formula, is very similar to Gutzwiller formula for the trace of resolvent (E-H+i\epsilon)^{-1}
• Negative values of Zeta function \zeta (-m) or Bernoulli Numbers (related to negative value of Zeta) can be used to compute divergent series and integrals
• Combinatorial problems of Number theory has application to Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac statistics

… in case you were wondering and weren’t familiar…

Go over their heads if they won’t help you

Mohamed Altoumaimi, a Swedish citizen originally from Iraq, has long been interested in math. His efforts to write a formula to explain the relationships between Bernoulli numbers took about four months for him to complete. Once he announced to his high school instructors that he’d derived a formula on his own, they were understandably skeptical.

“When I first presented it to my teachers, none of them believed that the formula I had written down really worked,” Altoumaimi told the newspaper Falu Kuriren.

But the boy was undeterred. He contacted a professor at Uppsala University so that his work could be validated.

“Right away, he wanted to take a look at all my calculations and the documents where I show that the formula really works,” said Altoumaimi.

“A very clever guy”

While this isn’t the first time a person has established Bernoulli numbers relationships, the fact that a 16-year-old high school student has done it is impressive, said Uppsala University senior mathematics lecturer Lars-Åke Lindahl. The calculations are difficult, to say the least.

“He’s a very clever guy,” Lindahl told Landes. “What he did isn’t necessarily new, but it is quite remarkable for a first year high school student to take on these types of problems all on his own. It’s certainly an achievement.”

Beyond the help of high school

Lindahl verified Mohamed Altoumaimi’s formula and proof, which led to the student’s increased recognition.

“We’re going to keep our eye on him,” said Lindahl. He also encouraged Altoumaimi to attend Uppsala University after high school. In the meantime, he’s offered books and tutoring to help the young man in his continued quest to develop his math skills.

“I think he’s likely beyond being able to get the kind of help he needs from high school math teachers,” said Lindahl.

So make him a teacher

Jacob Bernoulli

Since Mohamed Altoumaimi’s math skills are beyond those of his high school instructors, Falu Frigymnasium plans to use the young man in a teaching capacity – to teach the teachers. In the fall, Altoumaimi will serve as an instructor for a number of the math teachers. He’ll explain his Bernoulli numbers work to them with the hope that they’ll be able to pick up on his computations and pass them on to other students who aren’t quite as advanced.

“It’s really exciting, now all the teachers have come and congratulated me,” said Altoumaimi.

School is not out for the summer

This summer, Altoumaimi has plans to continue his studies of  advanced mathematics and physics. School is never out, and the exciting opportunities mathematics like Bernoulli numbers have opened for the high school student are yet another motivation to continue on the path of discovery.

“I wanted to be a researcher in physics or mathematics; I really like those subjects. But I have to get better at English and social science,” he told Falu-Kuriren.

Depending upon his religion, Mohamed Altoumaimi may not be allowed to go to money lenders for a loan once he graduates school and enters the working world. But with his number skill, he might not even need the service.

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The discovery of a new species is cause for excitement, for the longer we live on Earth, the more we discover how little we know. Like consumers in need of a pay day, discovering new species is like a windfall of payday advances, an infusion of currency to the theory that we are never alone.

Lately, scientists have recently discovered a number of previously unknown (or mistaken) species. Hilary Whiteman reports for CNN that 10 previously unknown plant and animal species (including the world’s longest bug, the phobeaticus chani) have grabbed the limelight for their 15 minutes.

“Ghost slugs and pint-sized snakes”

Phobaeticus chani made the cut of the 10 most exciting new species discovered in 2008, according to the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University, as well as an international committee.

“Most people do not realize just how incomplete our knowledge of Earth’s species is or the steady rate at which taxonomists are exploring that diversity,” says Quentin Wheeler, director and entomologist for the International Institute for Species Exploration. “We are surrounded by such an exuberance of species diversity that we too often take for granted.”

“Pint-sized” is the operative phrase when it comes to the recent winners, as they are indeed small. That could be why it’s taken so long for us to notice them. Of the entries in the parade, the smallest is a kind of bacteria that lives in hairspray (Microbacterium hataononis). Thank Japanese scientists for discovering them. The longest living insect in the world is the aforementioned phobaeticus chani, also known as Chan’s megastick. It was discovered on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. Interestingly, the previous record-holder for longest insect was also discovered on Borneo, the phobaeticus kirbyi. That one was more than 14 inches long. Phobaeticus chani blows little kirbyi out of the water at 22.3 inches in length. Think about that… a bug about as long as two 12-inch rulers. Wow.

Wait, there’s more

Witness tiny seahorses (hippocampus satomiae) that were found near Derawan Island by Kalimantan, Indonesia.  They measure over a centimeter in height and length. Then there’s the world’s smallest snake, the Barbados Threadsnake (Leptotyphlops carlae). Discovered in St. Joseph Parish, the tiny snake is only 10 centimeters long. See how it stacks up to a quarter.

If you like fish both living and dead, you’ll be happy to know that they’re covered, too. The fish fossil is of a fish in the process of giving birth about 380 million years ago. John Long, who discovered the fossil, named it after his mother “Josie.”

And in the garden aisle

You’ll find the ghost slug (Selenochlamys ysbryda) of Cardiff, Wales. How you miss a pale white slug is beyond me, as it does stand out. Perhaps it emits toxic fumes that blind gardeners. Going back to Malaysia, there’s a species of snail (opisthostoma vermiculum… check out the shell!) Then there’s a gigantic new species and genus of palm (tahina spectablilis) which produces one large flower (an enormous sex organ), then quickly dies. Less than 100 of them were discovered in a remote area of northwest Madagascar. Finally, there’s the first recorded instance of a caffeine-free coffee plant from Central Africa (coffea charrieriana). Apparently they don’t like to get edgy in Cameroon. Does Africa need more strife, I ask you?

Understanding the history of life

Competition for the top 10 spots was stiff, according to Wheeler. To show you how difficult it was, the year 2007 boasted more than 18,500 new species discoveries. There were even more in 2008. Wheeler believes that the discovery rate will only increase as new tools become available.

“Charting the species of the world and their unique attributes are essential parts of understanding the history of life,” Wheeler said. “It is in our own self-interest as we face the challenges of living on a rapidly changing planet.”

In order for discoveries like this to continue, I advocate the funding of science programs and education. Thankfully, the current American president understands the value of scientific research. Science funding is a pay day for human intellect, payday advances for the future of our species.

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