This amphipod is a freshwater cousin of the recently-discovered lyssianasid amphipod. Image from Flickr.

For decades, scientists have worked under the assumption that life, as we know it, is possible only in a very narrow set of circumstances. However, with the recent discovery of the lyssianasid amphipod, a distant cousin of the shrimp you had as an appetizer last weekend, that belief is being quickly broken down. Sure, none of these deep-sea creatures are going to be running a personal loan company anytime soon, but they are already blowing scientists away with their achievements.

What is a lyssianasid amphipod?

The Lyssiansid amphipod is a member of the Lysianassidae family of amphipods. Amphipods include more than 7,000 shrimp-like creatures with exoskeletons – their bones on the outside of their body.

This particular lyssianasid amphipod was captured on video by NASA scientists exploring the underside of Antarctic ice with video cameras. The scientists did not expect to see anything except bacteria in this subfreezing, ultra-dark water – so when this little pink amphipod parked itself on the camera cable, they were truly surprised.

Why is this lyssianasid amphipod special?

With more than 7,000 classified amphipods, what is so special about this lyssianasid amphipod? It’s special because it was not expected. For a very long time, scientists assumed that anything above a bacteria could not survive in the extreme environments on the planet.

However, as the Christian Science Monitor points out, this lyssianasid amphipod is just a part of the more than 500 new types of marine species that are discovered every year by scientists, some with small cash loans, others that are very well-funded. Some, like the recently-discovered lyssianasid amphipod, live in water that is so cold and dark the conditions mimic some of Jupiter’s moons. Other creatures live in water that can get hotter than 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

What does the discovery of the lyssianasid amphipod mean?

To make a very long story short, this lyssianasid amphipod is forcing scientists to rethink their definitions of “habitable.” Conventional wisdom has held for a very long time that life simply cannot exist outside of the very narrow band of environmental factors on our planet. However, creatures we are discovering in our own oceans are forcing a rethink of this. With a new, wider definition of where life can survive, it becomes theoretically possible that creatures above bacteria on the food chain could live much, much closer to our own planet than we had ever thought. Beyond “Men from Europa” or “Men from Mars,” though, the lyssianasid amphipod is proving to us that our own oceans still have plenty of surprises buried in the depths.

Katie Spotz, before her Atlantic mission. (Photo: Picasa)

“Endurance is patience concentrated.” – Thomas Carlyle

Katie Spotz, 22, knows something about endurance. After 2,817 miles of rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, she endured all that the elements and her body could throw at her. Now she is the youngest person ever to row across an ocean solo. Her 70-day, five-hour, 22-minute journey from Dakar, Senegal, to Georgetown, Guyana, is complete, and while Katie Spotz reaps the rewards of her momentous achievement, the real winners are those in need of clean water. According to the New York Times, Katie Spotz’ “Row for Water” raised more than $70,000 for The Blue Planet Run, a San Francisco-based non-profit committed to providing safe drinking water for people in need. These dollars aren’t unsecured loans; they’re gifts of life.

‘You really have to dig deep,’ said Katie Spotz to the Times

Considering that ocean currents forced her to change course – a move that added about 400 miles to her trip – there’s no doubt that Katie Spotz had to tap into an inner strength and determination. Yet her view of it was very pragmatic: You’re trapped in that boat, so what else are you going to do? Wind, currents, 20-foot waves, exposure and difficulty sleeping come with the territory.

What did Katie Spotz eat?

A better question would be if she had enough food to last the trip. Fortunately, she did. In fact, she had packed 110 days worth of food – from freeze-dried meals to granola and dried fruit that wouldn’t easily expire. Even if things had gone wrong and her life was at risk, Katie Spotz had a satellite phone and GPS. Her boat had solar panels as well, so dead batteries weren’t going to be an issue. Those panels also powered a machine that made it safe for her to drink ocean water, so she wouldn’t become dehydrated.

And what did Cleveland-born-and-bred Katie Spotz do to keep from getting bored when rowing wasn’t enough? Her iPod was loaded with audio books. Thank goodness for solar panels.

From Cleveland to the shores of greatness

Many things are said about what makes a person great. When it comes to physical achievement, our society tends to reward athletes with special status – and why shouldn’t we? Human achievement can be measured in many ways, including those physical accomplishments that cause some to simply wonder in awe while inspiring others to reach beyond limits in everything that they do. Katie Spotz becoming the youngest ever to row an ocean solo once again proves that humanity will constantly push the boundaries of what is possible. Dedicating her “Row for Water” as a cash advance to such a good cause proves that a noble heart beats within.

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U.S. Rare Earths owns deposits of minerals used in making computers and cell phones.

U.S. Rare Earths is a company that “holds the only known U.S. deposit of heavy rare earths with a concentration worth mining, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey,” says Fox News. So what does it all mean? Rare earths are used in all types of developing technology, such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives and cell phones.

U.S. Rare Earths and technology

Scientists have predicted that the world faces a rare earths shortage, but U.S. Rare Earths could prevent technological innovation in this country from being crippled. In the past, the U.S. has gotten most of its rare earth minerals from China. Now it is up to U.S. Rare Earths to develop its heavy rare earth mineral deposits.

Naturally, U.S. Rare Earths stock is a hot commodity as investors realize the potential for this company to make a killing. Some investors are probably getting instant cash loans as we speak to make sure they buy in to U.S. Rare Earths before the price per share skyrockets and even the biggest guaranteed payday loans out there won’t cover the cost.

Details on U.S. Rare Earths

Scientists’ predictions say the rare earths shortage will hit in about 10 years. Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist, says some developers are already experiencing a shortage. U.S. Rare Earths owns land rich with heavy mineral deposits on Lehmi Pass, which is on the border between Idaho and Montana. U.S. Rare Earths also owns mineral deposits in Diamond Creek, Idaho. On the periodic table of elements, heavy rare earth are the minerals ranging from terbium to lutetium.

U.S. Rare Earths’ founders started the company 15 years ago with the Lehmi Pass deposits. At the time, they were only interested in the concentration of thorium, which provides an alternative to nuclear fuel. After 15 years and countless technological innovations, U.S. Rare Earths finds itself in the position of owning the only known rare earth deposits in the country. For the time being, U.S. Rare Earths is concentrating on mining the Diamond Creek land in Idaho because it is closer to civilization and thus more “mining friendly.”

Old Fridge That Qualifies - Image From Flickr

Appliance rebates are the newest “cash for clunkers” program that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has been funding – so can you turn in your old clunker of an appliance for quick cash today?

Appliance rebate programs ending quickly

A few states, including Michigan and Iowa, have already started their appliance rebate programs. Just as quickly as they are starting, though, these programs are ending. In fact, according to Iowa’s Office Of Energy Independence, their appliance program ran out of money in just six hours.

Many state programs still have money

While Iowa’s program is out of money, many state appliance rebate programs are still up and running, or have yet to start. Energysavers.gov has a full list of approved state programs where you’ll get money for replacing your old appliance with a new, ENERGY STAR rated one. Over $300 million have been allocated for this program, and most states are or will be participating.

How do I get the rebate?

While every state has different requirements for getting a rebate on your appliances, there are a few commonalities. First, you must be replacing an old appliance that is currently being used in your home. Second, you have to agree that your old appliance will be recycled or destroyed, rather than continue to be used – so no keeping that old refrigerator as a kegerator if you want the refund. Third, the new appliance needs to be ENERGY STAR rated – meaning that they meet strict US Department of Energy guidelines for energy efficiency.

What’s the environmental impact of these rebates?

These rebates have been designed to reduce the environmental impact of appliances throughout the country. If you have an old appliance, then switching to one that has been ENERGY STAR rated can save you and the environment quite a bit of electricity (and therefore money)- up to one-third the operating cost of the appliance. However, if you toss your old appliance in the trash, you are also throwing out all the environmental good having an efficient appliance does – so find an appliance recycling program near your hometown and use it!

What if I miss out on the state appliance rebate program?

Even if you miss out on the rebates your state is offering, you can still get a fast cash return on your purchase of a new appliance. Heating and air conditioning systems as well as water heaters apply for federal tax credits. You should also check with your local utility company – most of them also offer rebates when you buy efficient appliances.

The recent 8.8-magnitude Chile earthquake has caused massive devastation in the South American nation. Recovery efforts are already underway amidst turmoil and looting that required military intervention, but here’s something interesting that has nothing to do with money and property. According to media outlets like CNN, NASA scientists are speculating that the massive Chile earthquake has altered Earth’s axis. It’s currently a theory and not instant money, but think about what this could mean.

Chile earthquake 2010 brings shorter days

We aren’t talking about a minor trembler here. Magnitude 8.8 is a massive earthquake. If NASA is correct and the Earth’s axis has shifted, then the planet’s rotation could be permanently affected by the redistribution of mass. Scientists believe this means shorter days, but only slightly: 1.26 microseconds shorter, they estimate. One microsecond is one-millionth of a second, which is not enough time to mess with your beauty sleep or make you late for work. But the global impact is still amazing to contemplate.

This is NOT a scientific demonstration

Earth’s rotation determines the length of our days

Earth's rotation speed on its axis determines the length of our days. (Photo: Wikipedia)

How fast does the Earth rotate? NASA provides the following basics: Earth rotates on its axis at just over 1,000 miles per hour. Its rotation around the sun (which affects seasonal changes in climate) occurs at about 67,000 miles per hour. Now you know.

Benjamin Fong Chao of NASA said in 2005 that “Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth’s rotation.” A popular analogy NASA uses is a figure skater. When she pulls her arms close to her body, she spins faster. The redistribution of mass is similar to what scientists believe happened after the Chile earthquake. The Earth’s axis has changed because of the mass shift. Richard Gross of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California speculated to the media that the axis could have shifted about three inches.

The Chile earthquake 2010 isn’t unique in its effect

Back in 2004 when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake made a gigantic tsunami in the Indian Ocean, our days shortened by 6.8 microseconds. But the converse of shortened days would be if a mass shift slowed the Earth’s rotation on its axis. CNN gives an example of the Three Gorges reservoir in China. If it were to be filled in by 10 trillion gallons of water, that mass would change the rotation to the point where our days would be .06 microseconds longer. An impossible-to-discern quick loan to our days, but scientists would know based on the math involved.

So when you think of the Chile earthquake and the Earth’s axis, think of the human impact – and how many fractions of a microsecond less per day they may have to reconstruct their lives before the cataclysm.

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Chile's Valparaiso Beach is likely empty of sunbathers now as the people pick up the pieces.

I used to live in a state that is known for its earthquakes, and while I experienced quite a few of them, I never felt an 8.8 magnitude like the Chile quake 2010, tsunamis and all. That’s a staggering seismic event, and much like the recent Haiti earthquake, there have been significant casualties. Various media sources claim anywhere from 122 to as many as 700 deaths directly related to the earthquake, and many buildings, bridges and highways have been destroyed. Quick loans to rebuild are needed.

Chile quake 2010 not as bad as Haiti? Think economically

According to NPR, the devastation level in Haiti was somewhat greater because Haiti is much less prosperous financially (80 percent of people in poverty versus 18 percent in Chile). However, we should not take away from the tragedy the people of Chile are now facing. Lives has been lost, lives have been upended and the people in need of relief. Tsunamis from the 8.8-magnitude Chile earthquake have hit as far away as Hawaii and French Polynesia, so these island nations must brace for the onslaught and prepare for recovery.

Speaking of economics – and game show contestants

A Reuters report indicates that the price of copper has dropped dramatically. This comes as a direct result of the Chile quake 2010. Tsunami of a different kind has hit this market, as Chile is one of the world’s primary copper producers. That isn’t exactly why former “American Idol” contestant Elliott Yamin was in Chile – he was there for a music festival in Vina del Mar – but the economic impact in disrupted copper mining and hastily ended music festivals certainly won’t help Chile.

You can help Chile after quake 2010

If you have the financial ability to contribute to what will surely be another massive recovery effort following this Chile quake 2010 (with tsunamis), NPR suggests a few outlets that can put your instant money and goods to good use.

• Save The Children — You can contribute to their Children’s Emergency Fund
• World Vision — If you can contribute needed supplies to Chile, World Vision can help
• AmeriCares — Medical supplies and other humanitarian aid can be given to their Chilean earthquake fund
• Habitat for Humanity — Homes will need to be rebuilt, which is their specialty
• International Medical Corps — Immediate medical care is the primary responsibility of the IMC’s emergency response fund
• ShelterBox — They’ll be sending aid directly to Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city and the one that saw the most damage from the Child quake 2010

Help the people pick up the pieces after Chile quake 2010. A tsunami is just an after-effect, albeit a devastating one. The epicenter of destruction is filled with people in need of aid.

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MN appliance rebate: the dollars and sense of it all

This is all part of a larger national program called the Trade-in & Save Appliance Program, which in turn is an arm of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). For Minnesota, it is estimated that 25,450 homeowners will receive a tax rebate if they get rid of their old refrigerators, dishwashers and other appliances for more energy-efficient ENERGY STAR models. Purchases must be made within the state in which you’re filing (in this case, Minnesota) between March 1 and 31, 2010. Retroactive rebates will not be allowed and the MN appliance rebate shall only apply to appliances used in the taxpayer’s residence – commercial and rental properties won’t count.

How much energy will the Minnesota appliance rebate 2010 save?

According to Arrowhead Electric Cooperative, “2,200,412 KWh in energy, 43,729,920 gallons of water and 4,705,065 lbs of carbon (CO2)” will be saved. That’s significant for the environment, and it will save you money when you need it most. Your pay day loans blogger wishes he had appliances he could replace to sop up the juicy appliance rebate in his state.

How does the MN appliance rebate break down by appliance?

I found this to be rather interesting. Arrowhead seems to know specifically how many of each appliance will be taken in by the Minnesota appliance rebate 2010. Specifically, 6,035 clothes washers ($200 rebate each); 6,005 dishwashers ($150 each); 1,999 freezers ($100 each with “proof of demanufacturing,” which means the old appliance won’t be reused or resold, or $50 without); 11,411 refrigerators ($200 with proof of demanufacturing, $100 without)

Other important facts about the MN appliance rebate

1. Only one rebate for one purchase allowed per household ($200 max rebate)
2. Once rebate is reserved, resident as 17 days to get the new appliance, recycle the old and send in the rebate application
3. Unclaimed funds will go to those on a wait list for the MN appliance rebate program. It will be done on a first come, first served basis.

For more information on the Minnesota appliance rebate 2010, visit http://www.mnappliancerebate.com/.

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A light turns on for alternative energy

Bloom Energy has launched a new energy server with patented solid-oxide fuel-cell technology that can generate 100 kW, enough to power one small office building or 100 average U.S. homes. The Bloom Energy Server makes it possible to generate electricity locally, rather than purchasing it from a utility company.

The company says a server costs from $700,000 to $800,000, not including fuel, and that it will generate electricity for eight to nine cents per kilowatt hour. Proponents hope that the servers will someday provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy around the world. To date, A-list customers include Google, eBay, FedEx, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises and Wal-Mart.

Not for everyone . . . yet

In a NewsFactor.com article, Bloom Energy CEO Dr KR Sridhar said the company is “dedicated to making clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world.” Right now, however,  it would take much more than a payday loan – more, even, than the combined amount of the maximum number of payday loans allowed by law — to get your hands on a Bloom Energy Server. The much-hyped launch of the energy server probably was not attended by many everyday people in need of a cash advance, but high-profile types like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and venture capitalist John Doerr were there.

One hundred percent cleaner than traditional methods

According to the NewsFactor.com article, the Bloom Energy Server contains thousands of ceramic fuel cells that generate electricity using an electrochemical process rather than the traditional combustion method. When the Bloom Energy Server cells are powered by biogas or some other renewable fuel source, the electrical generation process is 100 percent cleaner than traditional coal-fired electrical generation. When powered with fossil fuels, the Bloom Energy Server is about 67 percent cleaner than traditional methods.

Bloom Energy's bright idea has formed into a box that can provide electricity with clean energy. Image from Flickr.

“It is real. It works,” said K.R. Sridhar on “60 Minutes.”

He is talking about Bloom Energy’s invention, the Bloom Box, which creates power using fuel cells. Sridhar hopes that every home in the U.S. has a Bloom Box. The invention can provide electricity at a lower cost than a regular utility bill, and it’s better for the environment.

How does Bloom Energy work?

Sridhar, the scientist who developed the fuel-cell-powered Bloom Box and is co-founder of Bloom Energy, spoke about Bloom Energy recently on “60 Minutes.” Luckily, he didn’t have to take out personal loans to start his company. He got several hundred million dollars in capital investments from capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which also helped fund Google, Amazon and Netscape.

According to New York Daily News, the Bloom Box “generates its power wirelessly through a combination of oxygen and a fossil fuel – natural gas, bio-gas, etc.” Sridhar said on “60 Minutes” that the fuel cells in the Bloom Box use sand baked into a ceramic and coated with proprietary inks. Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box will officially be unveiled Wednesday in San Jose.

Testing and commentary

Kleiner Perkins reports that if a home uses Bloom Energy instead of going through a utility company, its carbon emissions will be reduced by about half, and it costs less. Of course, there are still some people who won’t believe it until they see it, including Michael Kanellos, editor-in-chief of GreenTech Media.

“I’m hopeful, but I’m skeptical,” Kanellos said. “People have tried fuel cells since the 1830s.”

However, Bloom Energy fuel cell technology is good enough for Google. The company’s headquarters in California has gotten its power from a Bloom Box for the past 18 months. “We have a 400-kilowatt installation on Google’s main campus that delivers clean and affordable power,” said Google spokesman Jamie Yood. Wal-Mart, FedEx and eBay have also used the Bloom Box. Keep your eye on bloomenergy.com for the official public unveiling.

These inventions don’t make themselves. It takes good, old-fashioned human ingenuity to come up with devices that spit out “how do I get my sister to sleep with me” when you type “How do I?” It is distasteful and taboo, but for Twittersphere prognosticators, it’s instant money on the OMG front.

Is this a Google bomb?

Also known as a “link bomb,” Wikipedia defines it as “practices intended to influence the ranking of particular pages in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions.” Is it a game bloggers play to entertain each other? Is Google complicit in the game because it gives their own desk jockeys the jollies? The world may never know.

Funny or die? Die, from an evolutionary perspective

Apparently it’s a slow news day, because the Huffington Post has gotten into the “how do I get my sister to sleep with me” act. Or perhaps it’s the Huffington Post that’s slow. You already accept it as a given that I’m playing the role of an information slog monkey, so I needn’t explain further. Whatever the case, it’s Googlicious. Here are some of their favorites. As for me, you can see my exploration of “how do I” in the image above.

Finishing second is NOT like kissing your sister

I don’t have a sister, but I don’t need one to know that “How do I get my sister to sleep with me?” is not a question that should be asked. It isn’t about being open-minded or sexually liberated. It doesn’t make sense from a biological standpoint. That’s enough for me. Genetic heritage and a fully-functional human race are real instant money in my book.

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For those of you who have never heard of this, it definitely bears repeating. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (aka “Garbage Island“) will eventually destroy the Pacific Ocean. That damper upon our vast ecosystem will be yet another thing that will eventually kill us, probably before our sun goes red giant or a hyper nova, Oort Cloud or other falling object can do the dirty. But I’m no expert on astronomical disasters. I just hype/hawk low interest loans.

Hocking up our lives in the North Pacific Gyre

North of Hawaii, west of North America and much bigger than Texas sits a plastic reminder of how wasteful the human race has become. It used to be that what was sucked into the North Pacific Gyre would biodegrade. Put wonderful plastic has changed that. It will eventually break down, but just into smaller pieces that are easier for ocean life to swallow. And that ocean life, in controlled numbers, will eventually hit our dinner tables!

It’s people at sea dumping their waste, right?

Not according to VICE. They report on VBS.TV that 80 percent of what’s found on Garbage Island comes from land disposal. Shampoo bottles, birthday balloons, those rings that hold six-packs together and all things plastic manage to migrate there. Much of the waste has been floating on Garbage Island for years. Now water samples indicate that it’s all turning into a chemical soup, which is more good news for everything that lives and breathes. Let’s get those cleanup projects going already. Launch it into the sun if we can’t nuke it all on Earth. Sure, it’ll cost more than all the low interest loans on the planet, but we need to protect life at all costs. Everything else is just for show.

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The Cash for Clunkers program doesn’t just deal with automobiles. President Obama wants to see a greener, more energy-efficient America, and you and I want to see more money in our pockets for the things that matter. Sure, a personal loan can pick up the slack on occasion, but reducing our consumption is a long-term solution.

That’s why energysavers.gov is doing everything it can to clue consumers into the appliance Cash for Clunkers aspect of Obama’s plan. Cash for appliances that spin the dials on your electric meter faster than they should is a great excuse to get new ones that are energy-efficient. And as you know, spending stimulates the economy, so it’s a win-win.

It’s a $300 million program – put it to the test!

Save money and energy. That’s what Beth Pinsker Gladstone of WalletPop.com tells the Seattle Times. Potential rebates range from $50 to $250 per qualifying appliance, so it is definitely worth your time. Dates for Cash for Appliances vary by state, and a wider variety of appliances will be accepted as the appliance Cash for Clunkers project continues. Much like the auto Cash for Clunkers, the program will continue until the money is exhausted – on Congress votes to funnel more into it. Check out energysavers.gov for additional information.

Go green and recycle

Think of the whole green equation this way: green appliances will save you money, but it will also help everyone else around you paying for electrical power. Gladstone suggests that if you’d like to learn more about green products, this is another useful resource, aside from what you can find at energysavers.gov. Keep in mind that part of being green is recycling, so those who aren’t sure how to proceed with recycling their old appliances should visit energystar.gov for more info. Even if you need to rent a truck with a personal loan, the savings you’ll reap and the good you’ll do the environment is worth it all.

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With the coastal Northeast of the United States hit by ferocious storms that have dumped snow everywhere over the past few days, schools, businesses and government offices have closed, flights have been grounded and billions of dollars have been lost. Millions of people are taking snow days, but some of them are still expected to get their jobs done.

For regular telecommuters it’s business as usual as long as their internet connections are still working. Many companies and government offices in New York, D.C., Pennsylvania, Virginia and other affected states have managed to keep vital services running by implementing emergency plans that allow certain other employees to work remotely too.

Telecommuting makes perfect financial sense

Although only 4 percent of people employed in the U.S. currently telework, around 40 percent have jobs that could be done at least partly from home. If all these workers were to telecommute 50 percent of the time, the total economic impact would be around $750 billion each year, according to the Telework Research Network. The group’s latest findings include the following:
The country would reduce its annual oil use by 453 million barrels, which could cut imports from the Gulf by 57 percent and save $31 billion a year (at $70/barrel).

• The nation’s productivity would improve by 6.2 million man-years, or the equivalent of $200 billion of labor every year.

• Businesses would reduce their spending on utilities, real estate, absenteeism and staff turnover by a total of $194 billion a year.

• Individuals would cut their costs for transportation and other work-related items (excluding daycare and eldercare) by $2500 to $11000 a year.

• More then $3 billion would be saved on highway maintenance, since people would be driving 180 billion fewer miles every year.

• Deaths and injuries from traffic accidents would drop by 150000 a year. This would shrink annual accident-related costs by $18 billion.

Teleworking is good for the environment, too

With fewer commuters on the roads and fewer offices requiring light, heat or air conditioning, the planet would benefit as well from having a greater number of remote workers. If more people worked from home, the decreased use of energy could help slow the pace of global warming and pollution.

• Annual greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 84 million tons, which is more than 40 percent of President Obama’s emissions-reduction target for 2020.

• Increased teleworking would sufficiently decrease the use of electrical power in offices to power 1.5 million homes every year.

Remote workers are less stressed

Imagine having two or three days a week when you don’t need to struggle through the traffic to get to and from work. As long as you have a reliable internet connection and a phone line you can do your job from home, wearing whatever you like and with your own coffee mug next to you. Since you don’t have a commute on those days, you can spend more time with your family and maintain a happier work-life balance. Think of all the money you’ll save on gasoline and other transportation costs too!

By saving money for your company you might even succeed in keeping your job more secure as well. Ask your employer if you can do some of your work from home, and you too can experience the personal and financial benefits of telecommuting.

Are they responsible for the Illinois earthquake? I think not. (Photo: daily44.wordpress.com)

No Barack Obamas, Rod Blagojeviches or Roland Burrises were harmed in the making of this story. Thankfully, Mothra avoided the Chicago area and Ronald Jones of Southland avoided utility shut off with the help of payday loans. Yet there was an Illinois earthquake anyway.

The Illinois earthquake came before dawn

MSNBC reports that the 3.8 magnitude Illinois earthquake was felt as far away as Iowa and Indiana, but the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that no damage or injuries were reported. It began around 4 a.m. Wednesday in an area about 50 miles northwest of Chicagoland. Needless to say, an Illinois earthquake, Chicago earthquake or whatever you want to call it is exceedingly rare. Luckily it was small – or as a Sycamore Fire Department spokesman told the media, “just a little shake.”

Kane County – the next fault line?

Not exactly, but Sheriff’s had to deal with a large influx of calls from startled residents. dispatchers near the epicenter in Kane County have been flooded with calls from startled residents. Books were tossed from their shelves and some residents were tossed from their beds according to Sheriff’s dispatcher reports, but it was nothing too serious.

If this had indeed been an Illinois earthquake emergency, the twin fairy princesses would have appealed to the great Mothra to spare the people of Chicagoland. Interpretive dance would have ensued, and surely someone has misplaced their dancing shoes. Quick payday loans would be imperative.

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Silica is the main component of spray-on liquid glass. Unlike these beads, however, the spray goes on completely clear.

We can all appreciate the difficulty of keeping up with household cleaning. Not only can it be back-breaking work, it can also be expensive, with one cleaner for this surface, yet another for the next. Not everyone can afford to keep up such a spotless regimen, and some resort to payday loans when their budgets threaten to break.

But what if you could spray household surfaces, products or even clothing with a substance that would enable you to clean them with just a quick wipe? That’s what the inventors of spray-on liquid glass are claiming will be possible soon.

Transparent and allegedly non-toxic!

Spray-on liquid glass can “protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections,” according to reports on Physorg.com. It bends, it’s breathable and it’s beautiful. Did I mention that it’s essentially bacteria-proof, as they cannot grow and divide easily on the substance? Oh, and if you pour an entire bottle of wine on a silk shirt that’s been sprayed, it will supposedly come right off. One spray is intended to last a year, according to reports.

Also known as “SiO2 ultra-thin layering,” the Turkish-invented spray-on liquid glass is made up almost entirely of silicon dioxide taken from quartz sand. To make the spray, water or ethanol is added. Scientists say that the spray bonds to surfaces due to quantum forces. It’s considered environmentally safe, but it isn’t entirely clear whether breathing in the particles will be harmful. Wild guess on my part would be yes, but those involved insist otherwise.

And you can wipe it with a damp cloth!

According to current patent holder Nanopool, all products will soon be coated with spray-on liquid glass. It’ll be Scotchguard for future generations. And it will provide a great sterile surface for cooking. Wipe it down with hot water and you’re set. Bleach or similar cleaners aren’t necessary. In addition to home uses, hotels, hospitals, restaurants and even cemeteries are considering the implications of spray-on liquid glass.

At around $8 a bottle, save money on dangerous chemical cleansers!

You thought it would be more expensive, didn’t you? I know I did, but that’s the price point identified by Nanopool. Spray-on liquid glass should be popping up more often in the U.S. soon, perhaps keeping more people from having to depend on payday loans to keep their homes clean.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/omakakii/ / CC BY 2.0)

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This is spongy metal foam. If Haitian buildings had this in their foundations, thousands more people could perhaps have been saved. (Photo: inventables.com)

The tragedy of the Haiti earthquake hasn’t been lost on people worldwide. The poor infrastructure of the country included substandard building materials that were not earthquake safe, which resulted in the collapse of countless buildings in and around Port-Au-Prince and many more deaths. The payday loans family at Personal Money Store wonders whether something like metal foam could have made a difference and saved lives. Of course money would have been involved, which Haiti does not have in surplus, monetary contributions aside.

Spongy metal foam?

Yes – and recent advancements in science have produced the strongest metal foam to date. It can absorb large impacts without damage by compressing itself as much as 80 percent while still maintaining its original shape. North Carolina State University’s Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei hinted to media that not only could this spongy metal foam eventually be used to help avert disasters like the collapse of homes in the Haiti earthquake, but there are cornucopias of other applications.  Think the sudden acceleration accidents that may have led to the Toyota recall were bad? With metal foam in bumpers and car body construction, injuries could potentially have been lessened or reduced.

How can metal form a sponge?

Basically, it’s a cellular structure with lots of empty space contained. According to Inventables, Dr. Rabiei has made the pockets more uniform than previous metal foams, which makes it both stronger and more elastic (compressible). Rabiei says that her metal foam “has a much higher strength-to-density ratio than any metal foam that has ever been reported.”

A practical example

Installing metal foam in the foundations of buildings in third-world economic level countries would be ideal, but complications would no doubt arise. Thus, obtaining data of how such buildings would stand up to earthquakes is difficult. But Dr. Rabiei theorizes that if her metal foam were used in the bumpers of colliding vehicles, impact at 28 mph would be perceived by the drivers in much the same was as a collision at a mere five miles per hour.

But let’s not stop at building materials and car bumpers

Rabiei’s metal foam could, she suggests, be used in such products as body armor and artificial limbs. As I’ve said, the applications appear almost endless. If toppled buildings during the Haiti earthquake or deaths from car accidents can be averted, then metal foam would prove its worth to the world. Your payday loans source is excited about this spongy metal future.

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How we'll get to the moon under Obama

Pardon me, but it seems obvious from the science we currently understand that humanity must find another home at some point in the future. We won’t need the moving boxes by 2012, but the cosmic calendar tells us that the departure date isn’t far away. Yet President Obama wants to change the NASA budget; he’s saying no to our recent plans for returning to the moon by 2020 and calling for “radically new space technologies.”

You and I may think payday loans are radical in a good way, in that they can assist our budgets. But combine the words “Obama,” “budget” (NASA or otherwise) and “radical” and you get something else entirely.

Use their resources for fuel, but don’t live there

That’s a part of the 2010 budget you may have heard our president talk about. The NASA budget he proposes will ask for $18 billion over five years, and the main focus will be using natural resources of other moons and planets for fuel. Didn’t the earthlings learn their lesson when they tried to take unobtanium from the Na’vi? We need to be able to fold space-time, not build faster rockets. That won’t be nearly enough.

Better rockets, crispy people

Yes, one prediction – this one based on science – is that Earth will be swallowed by the sun. Yet it isn’t all bad, I suppose. Academics like John Logsdon of George Washington’s Space Policy Institute have told the media that there is a silver lining to Obama’s NASA budget plan: “I think this is a dramatic shift in the way we’ve gone about particularly human spaceflight over the past almost 50 years.” But he also makes it clear that there is risk involved (i.e., the rubber band could break, or the cannon could misfire, which would have set Georges Méliès back).

“It is a somewhat risky proposition,” Logsdon told the New York Times, “but we’ve been kind of stuck using the technologies we’ve developed in the ’50s and ’60s.”

“No destination in sight” doesn’t seem bold, does it?

Obama calls his administration’s ideas for the NASA budget “bold,” but space experts disagree. The Constellation program and Orion rockets will be used for radically different purposes, such as “financing space taxi services from commercial companies.”

By the numbers, claims the Times, the NASA budget “would rise to $19 billion in the 2011 fiscal year from $18.7 billion. It would also get additional increases in subsequent years, reaching $21 billion in 2015. In total, NASA would receive $100 billion over the next five years.”

Let the Waltons and Richard Branson build their space taxis already!

Yes, NASA and other space program players would no longer actually own the rocket technology. They’d pay the corporate owners for tickets to get astronauts on board. Oh, and there could be safety issues! If NASA isn’t in control of it all, it becomes unclear how they’d verify the safety of the commercial rockets on which they’d book their astronauts.

There are many details to be worked out

Yet that didn’t stop the current administration from slamming through an unprecedented stimulus and bailout plan, did it? Details, details; we can always use payday loans to clean up our little messes. The government can use our tax dollars to do as it sees fit. The NASA budget will change in ways that benefit our corporate masters the most.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/ / CC BY 2.0)

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"Dude, I am so faded right now."

Is life a big pile of déjà vu for you? Different day, same reasons to take out payday loans? Sure, you may be trapped in a space-time continuum feedback loop, but let’s think for a moment. How has Groundhog Day been for Punxsutawney Phil? That’s where PETA directs our focus.

Groundhog Day 2010 is coming Tuesday, February 2

PETA and animal experts like those in DuPage County, Illinois say that waking Punxsutawney Phil from hibernation for the Groundhog Day ceremony could be putting his life at risk.

“During hibernation, a groundhog’s heartbeat, metabolism and respiration slow,” Animal ecologist Thompson told the Chicago Sun-Times. “(That) allows it to live on its body fat. If a groundhog is awakened from hibernation too early, it might not have the energy to find food and survive in cold winter temperatures.”

Must he die for a novelty weather report?

Some places are abstaining from official Groundhog Day ceremonies, but the reasons for turning down a chance to live it up with a woodchuck vary.

“The fact that we’re not having a Groundhog Day celebration is not really a stand we’re taking so much as it is that we have a really cranky groundhog who doesn’t like to be woken up,” said the St. Louis Zoo to the Chicago Tribune.

Cue the robotic Phil

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/outdoors/peta-groundhog-out-robot-in/1068953

PETA would have been there with robot dogs for Michael Vick. If only they’d been there in time to aid the psychopath (allegedly). They would also have replaced the eyes of young children who viewed their “Unhappy Meal” ads with robotic eyes, but that’s another story. PETA and other animal rights groups are sensitive to the plight of the Punxsutawney, so they’re proposing a robot stand-in that won’t be harmed by the bright lights and premature hibernation wakey-wakey.

And they’re performing so well

But William Deeley, a man who holds the esteemed title of “President of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club” (does that make him a Time Master like in Dr. Who?)  says Phil is “being treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania.” And THIS is why Johnny can’t read or write, I tell you!

Would he qualify?

If Phil had steady employment, banking references and some form of federal identification, he could apply for payday loans and buy some nice dark shades and anti-hangover drinks and snacks. Or he could be allowed to hibernate properly and PETA would happily move on to their next publicity platform.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickispix/ / CC BY 2.0)

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Many organizations make helping people easy by allowing you to donate online.

I have recently come across several cases of people shaming others for doing good things. For example, shortly after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Rush Limbaugh famously said “You already give to Haitian relief – it’s called the income tax.” While many were spreading the word and encouraging others to help fellow humans in a desperate situation, Limbaugh basically said that doing so was dumb.

Today on Facebook, a friend of mine from Idaho posted that she “is sick of seeing the status about being upset that people donate to Haiti because we have needy people in America.” I haven’t seen any status updates containing that sentiment in my Live Feed, but even knowing that it’s out there makes me sad. Really sad — and it’s not just because people in Haiti need money now for medical care, shelter, water and food. The general attitude of finding the negative in something so positive is frustrating.

More examples of damaging do-gooders

Unlike Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the people who discourage others from doing good do it in the name of doing something else good. The Facebookers say that people should stop donating to Haiti because they should be donating domestically. Similarly, a couple in Washington decided to help the environment and fund their wedding by paying for it by recycling aluminum cans. Sure enough, someone so focused on her own agenda that she failed to see how positive the project is wrote:

“If you used the energy you are putting into your one day event for something more socially conscious, your press would be better. Why not convert your idea and donate the money to a local homeless shelter?”

This, of course, was in the midst of a much longer post, part of which openly shamed them for what they were doing, calling them “incredibly selfish” for spending the money on their wedding. Never mind the fact that they’re having an extremely inexpensive wedding. Never mind that they are encouraging and facilitating recycling, which is great for the planet.

Stick to your agenda, but don’t criticize others

I applaud the Facebookers for wanting to help needy people within the U.S., and I encourage them to do so. I think it’s great that the Wedding Cans commenter wants to help the homeless. I say go do it. Do everything you can for the causes you believe in. While you’re at it, don’t discourage others from doing the same with causes they believe in.

In a world where there are so many problems that need to be fixed and so many people in need, people shouldn’t waste their energy criticizing others for their efforts to give or to help. There are a whole lot of people and causes who need help. Criticizing other people for who they have chosen to help is at best useless and at worst hypocritical. If you ever feel the need to criticize other people for the way they have chosen to make the world a better place, I suggest you spend your time making the world a better place yourself instead.

Reducing debt is at the forefront of most people’s minds, as is saving money. Anyone who has ever needed emergency cash or a short-term personal loan, knows the importance of both of these. In order to reduce debt, budgeting is necessary and so is reducing the amount of money spent on household costs. If people are able to save money while, at the same time, save the environment, shouldn’t everyone do so?

Five Green Debt Reduction Tips:

Green Debt Reduction Tip Number One – Change Household Lighting

Most people have heard of energy-efficient light bulbs and are using them. However, not everyone has considered the high cost of chandeliers and other multi-bulb lighting fixtures, which are common in most homes. Each bulb in these fixtures costs money every time they are lit. Instead, those who are serious about debt reduction and going green may want to consider changing to single-light fixtures. If style is an issue, shop around for pendulum lighting designs, which offer single-bulb solutions without sacrificing style.

Green Debt Reduction Tip Number Two – Waterless or Composting Toilets

While this debt reduction suggestion may sound a bit odd, those who are using waterless or composting toilets to save on their home water bills swear that they are worth it. These type of toilet fixtures are affordable, easy to install, require very little maintenance, do not require water and are actually quite sanitary to use. They are mostly available online or at chain home remodeling stores.

Green Debt Reduction Tip Number Three – Unplug Unused Appliances

Believe it or not, microwave ovens, water coolers, DVD players, computers and other electrical gadgets all continue to use energy even when they are not turned on. Therefore, money-conscious individuals looking to reduce debt while going green have found that unplugging unused equipment saves big on monthly utility debt and helps to save the environment.

Green Debt Reduction Tip Number Four – Redo Insulation

The insulation in most homes allow carbon emissions into the earth’s atmosphere at a very high rate. This is because insulation that was installed years ago was not created with a large focus on saving the environment. However, alternatives now exist, which will reduce home energy costs while allowing far fewer harmful emissions into the atmosphere.

Green Debt Reduction Tip Number Five – Downsize

Those with spare bedrooms, bathrooms and other space not regularly used may want to consider moving to a smaller residence. Doing so will significantly lower heating and cooling costs, as there is less space needing temperature control. Of course, downsizing will also most probably lower monthly rent or mortgage payments, as well. Debt reduction often means sacrifice and if several hundred dollars per month can be saved, just by living in a smaller space, most people find this advice to be worthwhile.

You can help–right in  your own home!

Debt reduction strategies like these have proven to be very helpful for individuals who are determined to save money while saving the environment. While most debt reduction strategies stress the importance of cutting excessive spending on luxuries, few people realize the savings to be found right inside of their own homes. As well, saving money generally tends to be for personal motives, but as more people realize the importance of efforts to save the earth, the strategies shared here will become more commonplace in homes all over the world.

Scorpions – rock band and source for a new pesticide. (Photo: asiaobserver.com)

If you need to control pests in your yard or home (and marital counseling doesn’t do the trick), you have to buy pesticide. That can be costly, although not as much as counseling. If your health begins to fail – let’s say you develop brain cancer – then you’ll need to find a way to deal with that. Aside from Dr. Frankenstein, no physicians I know of have perfected an effective brain transplant for humanoid creatures. Thus, radical treatments are required if you wish to take the off ramp before arriving at your deadly destination. All in all, you might need payday loans at some point.

Particularly if scorpion venom has set you back

It is among the most expensive liquid substances available, but science won’t let that deter progress. We know that scorpion venom can paralyze or even kill, although most American-variety scorpions are comparable to a bee sting (assume you aren’t allergic). But according to the Discovery Network, scientists are finding ways to use scorpion venom to create commercial pest control products, treat various cancers and even help with arthritis.

Don’t mess with the Zohan’s poison research

Discovery writes that Israeli scientists have cloned the genes that create the specific compounds found in scorpion venom. They’ve also figured out which parts of these compounds will best bind to the nervous systems of insects (because you want to kill them, right?) Expectations are that scorpion venom should eventually enable scientists to create pest-specific pesticides that won’t harm other creatures or the environment. They would be biodegradable, something current pesticides are not.

“A gift from nature”

That’s what Michael Gurevitz of Tel Aviv University calls scorpion venom. “Nature has developed compounds during millions of years that show complete selectivity to various groups of animals.” Evolution has done a lot of work for us; our job is to understand it. For instance, the pesticides have to be synthesized; venom proteins sprayed directly on crops can be digested by insects. It has to get into the bloodstream to be effective.

Hide the sodium channels, ma!

Gurevitz is studying how toxic scorpion venom interacts with sodium channels that are found on nervous and muscular cells. Scorpion venom, properly synthesized in bacteria, could bind there, paralyze your garden pest of choice and finally kill the creature. I’m expecting insect rights groups to mount a counteroffensive soon, as targeted insect cleansing could conceivably become a reality.

“As we know more details about how these toxins bind and affect the sodium channels, we would be able to engineer toxins” and develop chemical mimics that would be easier for industry to produce, said Gurevitz.

“A holocaust against insects”

Numerous scientists hint that we’ve been waging a losing battle against insects, who appeared to be slated for habitation on this world long after humanity as we know it now is gone. Now it appears that some long-term residency plans could change. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy to take out payday loans if it meant that my species would survive in its current evolving form. Just so long as we aren’t forced to breed with the praying mantis. I want to keep my head after mating.

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The Cayman Islands earthquake has people spooked after Haiti, but no injuries of damage were reported.

The recent Haiti earthquake that ravaged Port-au-Prince shook the lives of hundreds of thousands of people to their very foundation. The world has reached out with aid, from food to supplies to simply cash advance distributions for aid groups. Yet the lack of homes and the logistical nightmare of delivering aid via a completely demolished infrastructure have made Haiti a horrific scene, indeed. Now the Caribbean has experienced another earthquake: a Cayman Islands earthquake. Fortunately, this one was merely a 5.8 and there have been no initial reports of injuries or damage. It originated about 30 miles southwest of the Cayman Islands, from the Oriente Fracture Zone along the Cayman Trough.

Incidentally, the Cayman Islands experienced a 6.8 earthquake just after Hurricane Ivan in December of 2004. Even then, only minor structural damage was reported.

Buildings and homes shook while people held their breath

The Washington Post indicates that minor earthquakes are common (See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011901551.html) in the Cayman Islands region, the aftermath of the Haitian disaster weighed heavily on the minds of residents.

“The whole building was rocking,” said Junior Elliott, who was delivering water to a four-story office in the George Town capital when the 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit at 9:23 a.m. Elevators were shut down, so people in the building evacuated via stairwells. Reports indicate evacuation plans were conducted in an orderly fashion and emergency services were unnecessary.

Some phone service was out for a short time

But overall, the impact of the Cayman Islands earthquake was much less than the Haiti earthquake. Aside from the difference in severity, one reason for this is that Cayman building codes require homes and commercial structures to be able to withstand both hurricanes and earthquakes. Such regulations are likely possible because the overall economy of the Cayman Islands is superior to that of Haiti. The average income of $42,000 grants Caymanians the highest standard of living of all peoples of the Caribbean region. Incidentally, that amount is higher than those of the average cash advance customer in America – although not by as much as you’d think.

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Map of Haiti from Wikipedia.

Well, Pat Robertson is running his mouth, making Christians look bad again. Speaking about the earthquake in Haiti, on his Christian Broadcasting Network today he said:

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti. … They were under the heel of the French’ … and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you get us free from the French. True story.”

Based on this, and several other things that Pat Robertson has done and said — since the world did not end in 1982, as he predicted it would — I have a theory. Haiti didn’t make a pact with the devil; Pat Robertson made a pact with the devil. I think the devil promised to make sure he actually pulled in money off of his televangelism and would never need cheap payday loans if he’d make a TV station that did nothing but make Christians look completely crazy. Of course, part of the deal was that Pat Robertson would act totally crazy himself.

So many questions

Of course, this isn’t the first time some televangelist type has come up with the theory that a natural disaster was a punishment from God. However, it raises a lot of questions. Pat Robertson, if you are reading this, could you please post the answers to the following:

1. When “they got together and swore a pact to the Devil,” what did that look like? Was it a countrywide meeting?
2. Why is God just now punishing Haiti for a pact with the devil made more than 200 years ago?
3. You said in 1999 that said Scotland was “a dark land” overrun by homosexuals. Statistics indicate France has just as many homosexuals as Scotland. You’ve made it clear that you think homosexuality is evil. Why do you think God wants France running Haiti?
4. There have been a lot of wars in which countries fought against the rule of a large, powerful country and won freedom. Do you think they all made pacts with the devil, too? If so, do you think they will be punished by means of natural disaster?
5. What are the terms of your pact with the devil?

I suppose if I am asking him to clear up these questions for me, I’d better present some evidence to support the fact that he is currently fulfilling his own pact with the devil by making himself and the Christians who follow him look crazy. For the record, he has no official position with any church right now.

Evidence

As I mentioned before, before 1982 he preached that doomsday would arrive that year. (Guess what, it didn’t.) He predicted we’d have a terrible tsunami in the U.S. in 2007. He claims he can lift 2,000 pounds when doing a leg press. (The world record is 1,335.) He believes he can control hurricanes through prayer. Shall I go on?

Furthermore, he made himself look plain stupid today when he said “They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third or whatever,” when he was talking about when Haiti made a pact with the devil. Haiti became a free, independent nation three years before Napoleon III was born. Pat Robertson also has said nasty things about other Christian faiths, such as Protestants, so clearly he is on a mission to make as many Christians look bad as possible because of his pact with the devil.

The Haiti earthquake has proven to be a great disaster. Many organizations are sending cash advances and other forms of aid to help the Haitian people. I certainly don’t want to take credit for the following info, but I feel it is it is worth bringing to the attention of Personal Money Store readers. Investor and entrepreneur Chris Sacca has compiled “Six Ways You Can Help in Haiti” on his WhatisLeft.org blog, and his readers have added a few more ideas, and these top 10 ways to help Haiti are worth everyone knowing about.

Top 10 ways you can help Haiti

1. If you are in the United States, text “HAITI” to “90999″ to donate $10 to the Red Cross. This was set up by the U.S. State Department.
2. Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti aid program enables you to text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to aid the Haitian people.
3. Partners in Health are on the ground in Haiti and are accepting donations.
4. Non-profit Architecture for Humanity gets involved in world disasters. As the name would indicate, their focus is providing shelter for displaced peoples.
5. The cause charity:water works to bring clean water to over a billion people on Earth you need it. The need for clean water following an earthquake such as the one that hit Haiti is tremendous, so every dollar helps. Sacca indicates that charity:water has other partners in Haiti, too.
6. Don’t give without understanding the place where your money is going. Sacca suggests reading the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” if you’d like to know about ongoing humanitarian work in Haiti. A documentary film produced by Wyclef Jean entitled “Ghosts of Cité Soleil” should also prove illuminating.
7. Oxfam America is another notable charity working to help the people of Haiti.
8. Microfinanciers like Fonkoze (Haiti’s largest) are helping to lift Haitian families out of poverty. Earthquake aid goes a long way toward that end as well.
9. Don’t forget the Haitian Red Cross/American Red Cross. They have lots of information and donation links. Canadians can use this link.
10. Finally, a three-for-one. Shelterbox is helping out with tents and survival kits. World Vision is working hard to organize food, clean water, blankets, tents and more. Direct Relief is doing much of the same. Food, goods or even a cash advance. It all helps the Haitian people.

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Wyclef Jean has pledged to help the people of Haiti following the tremendous earthquake. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

Reports indicate that the Haiti earthquake death toll may reach into the thousands. The United States, United Nations, European Union, France, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Britain, the Inter-American Development Bank and various other agencies are all offering Haitian earthquake aid in the form of food, medical supplies and services, cash advance and other sundries. Musician Wyclef Jean has even offered help. This earthquake is truly a tragedy that has brought the world community together. Natural disasters of this nature are among the most destructive incidents imaginable, and Haitian relief organizations will be stretched to the limit.

From where did the Haitian earthquake originate?

According to Fox News, the quake came from a fault line that runs straight through the island nation. The tectonic plate sits on the boundary between the Caribbean and North American. These two plates move about .8 inches per year, which amounts to about 20 millimeters. However, geophysicist Carrieann Bedwell told the news agency that this small movement didn’t result in the massive 7.0 quake. Instead, it was a “release of energy” from the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake was the largest they’d felt in 200 years.

While thorough records throughout history of earthquakes are scant, it is believed that the largest earthquake in history that we know of occurred in 1556 A.D. in Shaanxi, China. An estimated 830,000 people were killed then.

Understanding earthquake magnitude

Earthquake magnitude is expressed on a logarithmic scale, so a 7.0 releases 10 times more energy than a 6.0 earthquake. The magnitude is “the strength of shaking produced by the earthquake at a certain location and is determined from the effects that shaking has on people, structures and the environment,” according to the news agency’s geophysics source. The depth of the recent earthquake was only 6.2 miles beneath the surface, which means the energy was very close to the surface.

Shaking was more intense and longer in duration that it would have been if it had come from deeper in the ground. This added to the devastation we’ve witnessed. And aftershocks are surely on the way, as are mudslides. Thankfully, scientists who spoke with Fox do not predict a tsunami, as the quake originated entirely on land.

Personal Money Store hopes the cash advance and aid of the world will help the people of Haiti recover from this great tragedy. Haitian earthquake damage has been tremendous. May the healing begin.

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Photo from Picasa

The Cap-and-dividend bill

Global warming is the increase in average temperature of the Earth’s surface air. It is a major concern of the Senate this coming year and new plans are in place to manage it. There is a new proposal on the table to curb global warming and it promises to return about $1,100 annually to American consumers. The new bill is known as “cap-and-dividend.” It would require oil, coal and natural gas companies to purchase permits monthly that would allow them to sell their fuels. Seventy-five percent of the money would be returned to the public every month in the form of a dividend check and the remainder of the money would go towards renewable energy studies and conservation programs.

Supporters of the new bill

Supporters of the new bill note that driving up the cost of fossil fuel and making renewables more competitive will cause the emissions to decline. Senator Maria Cantwell said, “The act provides businesses and investors with a simple, predictable mechanism that will open the way to clean energy expansion while achieving America’s goals of reducing carbon emissions.” It is hoped that the cap-and-dividend move manages to spur a greater nationwide trend of moving to energy-efficient ways of life. Cantwell added, “If the government is behind major changes and so are fuel companies, many consumers will follow suit with smaller, everyday changes they can make.”

Critics of the bill

Despite its supporters, there are still some who aren’t as partial to the new “cap-and-dividend” bill. Critics are worried that the new bill could potentially thwart innovation. By limiting Wall Street’s role in the trading of carbon credits, they believe that new technologies will not be nurtured in development. They are citing the lack of investment capital from communities as a major disadvantage.

The cap-and-trade plan

As of 2009 the most popular plan to reduce greenhouse gas effect is through a cap-and-trade plan. In this plan, power producers and emitters of carbon dioxide would have to purchase annual permits from the government to operate. The number of permits given out would slowly decline in numbers to slowly begin filtering out large emitters of gasses. The industries could then either pay to clean up their facilities, or trade permits amongst other facilities. A preliminary version of the cap-and-trade plan has already passed the House and has now moved on to the Senate floor.

What the numbers mean

Senator Susan Collins is a sponsor of the cap-and-dividend bill. She said that after consumers get their $1,100 in rebate checks annually, while paying higher gas and electric prices, they would end up ahead about $102. Costs of course are going to fluctuate from state to state, but on average the plan should level out at a savings of $175 per household. Collins said, “Climate change legislation must protect consumers and industries that could be hit with higher energy prices.”

The future of the bill

Overall the bill has a way to go prior to approval. It is going to be a difficult climb though. Even Democrats in the Senate are having a difficult time finding support strong enough to pass it. Many believe it is too costly for voters. Only time will tell if the bill gains the needed momentum to be passed, but even if it isn’t legislators are still focusing on aiding the world’s global warming problem.

The whale wars between the Sea Shepherds and Japan's whaling fleet continue. The Ady Gil, a pursuit craft, was literally sawed in half by the Shonan Maru 2.

“He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” – Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”

Whaling is an ancient practice that most of the modern world views with abject horror. Sure, it may provide employment and a large number of export products (making payday loans unnecessary for the beneficiaries), but the dangers of excessive hunting and the resulting legacy of blood are too hard for many to ignore. Japan is one of the few nations that still permit whaling, its ships hunting whales “for research purposes and the sale of surplus meat” in the Antarctic. They can take in excess of 1,000 whales per season thanks to a loophole in international law that permits this activity.

Groups who protest whaling are often labeled “terrorists” by those in the industry. The Ady Gil, a Sea Shepherd anti-whaling pursuit craft, appears to have been a casualty of the whale wars, bearing the brunt of that hot heart’s shell. The Japanese whaler Shonan Maru 2 blasted the Ady Gil with water cannons – before, during and after the time that they sawed the smaller vessel in half via collision.

You Can’t Stop that Great White Whale

The Ady Gil is a small pursuit craft belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an activist group that opposes Japanese each season in the Southern Ocean, which is south of Australia and New Zealand and encircles Antarctica. While Sea Shepherd Australia Director Jeff Hansen told the New York Times that the Ady Gil wasn’t sunk, “it’s in two pieces, and we’re trying to salvage what we can.” Ady Gil crew was rescued by an accompanying vessel, the Bob Barker. One crew member was injured.

The Price is Wrong, Whaler Man

The video below shows the Shonan Maru 2 plow through the Ady Gil, breaking off the nose of the smaller ship. No doubt the Japanese Whaling Industry considers it payback for all the stalking and harassment the Sea Shepherd group has caused their whalers, but they have yet to come forward with such a statement. Not surprisingly, Sea Shepherd is not undaunted. The whale wars will continue, at not doubt great expense. Will payday loans be necessary?

“They’ve really upped the ante this year,” said Hansen. “But we definitely won’t be leaving.”

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Image from Flickr.

New Year’s Eve is always a special day, but this year it is extra special. We’ve all heard the phrase “once in a blue moon,” and that “once” is happening on New Year’s Eve. A blue moon is when there are two full moons in one month, and it just so happens that not only will there me a full moon on New Year’s Eve, it will be the second one to occur in December 2009.

Brand X reports that a blue moon happens “just seven times every 19 years.” Huh? What kind of a screwed up statistic is that? That’s about once every 2.7 years. So next time someone says “once in a blue moon” to you, you’ll know what you’re dealing with. It’s about as often as people with jobs get denied no credit check payday loans.

Special keeps getting specialer

Just to make things more interesting, there will also be a partial lunar eclipse on New Year’s Eve. We won’t be able to see it from North America, but people in Asia, Africa and Europe will. A blue moon lunar eclipse is, of course, even less common than a blue moon, and it happens once every 15 to 20 years.

The Associated Press reports that a blue moon New Year’s Eve occurs only once every 19 years. Regarding a blue moon, lunar eclipse and New Year’s Eve ocurring at the same time, the web site Des Pardes says “Such a coincidence has not been witnessed on the planet in the present and previous centuries.”

Whoa. So does that mean this is the most special New Year’s Eve ever?

Be safe

In other super weird news, The Associated Press says a funeral home in Rome, Georgia, is offering free burials to anyone who signs a contract saying he or she will drink or take drugs and drive on New Year’s Eve.

Funeral home officials said the program is designed to save lives by making partygoers think twice about drinking and driving.

Well, it’s a strange way to do it, but reminding people that drinking and driving can have deadly consequences is important.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has now confirmed that scientific evidence clearly shows that greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people”.  The EPA has identified the main pollutant as “carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels” and called for a reduction in these emissions to be enacted by Congress or the White House.

Many call the timing of this announcement political due to the upcoming international conference on climate change. Environmentalists, however, seem thrilled with the timing because it shows a commitment on the part of the U.S. to step-up pollution control efforts either with or without the help of Congress.

A history of token responses

The United States has long been criticized by the rest of the world for putting its economy ahead of environmental responsibility. Many nations have condemned U.S. environmental legislation as being far too little and far too slow to make any real impact. Big business lobbies, especially the oil industry, have argued that too strong an environmental agenda would cripple many businesses. Given the latest health findings, however, and given that the auto industry already lies crippled, this argument seems to have lost some of its sway.

The connection between a green environment and the green in our wallets

Actually, the connection between money and values has been around for a long time. According to Investopedia, ancient cultures including the Jewish culture, have long promoted investing in companies that promote values that match their religious beliefs and avoiding businesses with that promote values counter to their religious teachings.

Here in the United States, the Quakers have long promoted a sense of moral stewardship by asking believers to patronize companies aligned with their beliefs. According to the Institute of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), beginning in the 1970s, this value-based investment style has come to characterize the “buy green” movement in the U.S.

What’s in it for us?

What’s in it for us may very well be our continued existence. The concept of “green” business has moved from the fringe to center stage, and the green advertisements of major companies demonstrate a growing belief that economic health, human health, and environmental responsibility are all intertwined.  Johnson and Johnson brags in a recent commercial that one of their power plants is powered by emissions from a garbage dump. IBM boasts of its cooler and more environmentally friendly servers. The list of green-conscious companies is growing by the day.

What is in it for you?

As an individual investor, a new layer of research must be added to our usual investment criteria. In addition to all the balance sheet issues, investors need to also analyze how the companies they’re considering buying into are positioned with regard to environmental issues. Will these companies hold up well to public scrutiny? Will they do well with existing and proposed environmental legislation? By investing in companies with environmentally sound practices, you will be investing in a healthier and cleaner future as well as greater financial returns.

(Image from peterblanchard, Flickr.com)

Why has a summit in Copenhagen to discuss climate change inviting thousands of delegates, journalists and activists from over 200 countries? The intentions of the summit may have been good, but the fact is that it has turned out to be a vacation in disguise for many who could have done better without it. These are not people who have taken a personal loan or borrowed money to be in Copenhagen. It seems more likely that their governments have wasted their tax payer’s money to send them there. What exactly have they been able to achieve? Copenhagen has managed to accumulate the 46,200 tons of carbon dioxide that it was actually trying to reduce across the world.

No Difference for Developed Countries

Developed countries are perhaps in the best position to attend a summit such as this, as it made no difference to their finances if they were looking to cut down on costs. The Kyoto agreement imposed fines on developed countries for failing to meet emission requirements, which was something they were looking to avoid, but promises worth billions of dollars were made if the Kyoto agreement was scrapped in favor of a new agreement. Instead, they attempted to shift the blame of all emissions on developing countries at this expensive and unnecessary summit.

Developing Countries Not to Blame

If a comparison of the carbon dioxide emissions at Copenhagen is taken into account during this summit, it amounts to the sum total of carbon dioxide emissions produced each year by 2,300 Americans against 660,000 Ethiopians. The figure may sound absurd but is a true evaluation, and is blamed on the vastly different consumption patterns of the two countries based on a report published in the United States in 2006. It is clear that the summit is a cover by some developed countries to pass on the blame and ask developing countries to cut emissions or face fines. Was this a way to get the developing countries to borrow more money from the IMF and/or the World Bank to meet these standards? No one can really answer that, but it seems that it may be true.

What Decisions Have Been Reached?

While negotiations are still on between some countries, others are creating a host of objections that are largely being ignored. It may all turn out to be an expensive vacation for the delegates, journalists and activists who ended up in Copenhagen, not to mention the fact that they would have some explaining to do after returning back home. What about all the money that was spent attending the summit? As no lender became involved in advancing any type of loans to the delegates and journalists, they may have nothing to worry about. Activists, however, made their own arrangements to reach Denmark, some of whom may have had to take out a personal loan to finance the trip. Was the overall expense justified? Now, they must confront their lender with excuses about how they are going to either repay or extend the loans they had taken.

Start Your Personal Loan Application HERE

Image from Flickr.

Regardless of the outcome of the debate over a new lethal injection method, the results of the Kenneth Biros execution will remain the same. Convicted murderer Kenneth Biros was executed this morning in Ohio by lethal injection. After 18 years in prison, Biros, 51, told his siblings “Now I am paroled to my father in heaven.”

The family of the woman Biros killed in 1991 made it clear they supported the execution. “We’ve been ready for 18 years,” said a member of Tami Engstrom’s family. Tami was 22 when Biros murdered her. Many people have taken a hard stance as being for or against the death penalty. However, ask most people what they think of the death penalty, and they’ll answer “it depends.”

Arguments regarding the death penalty

A few people look at the death penalty from a financial standpoint. Some say execution is too expensive, while others argue that keeping inmates alive and in jail is more expensive. Some ask whether Americans who are morally opposed to the death penalty should get tax resolution.

A large group of people say that whether the death penalty is warranted depends on the nature of the crime. They believe that if the crime is heinous enough, putting the prisoner to death is acceptable. However, the main debate surrounding the Kenneth Biros execution doesn’t have to do with money or circumstance; it’s about a new method of lethal injection.

Previous problems with lethal injection

A new method of one-drug lethal injection was used on Kenneth Biros, though his lawyers tried to halt his execution by saying that using this new drug amounted to experimentation. The United States Supreme Court refused to intervene. Ohio decided to switch to the one-drug injection after an incident in Ohio a few months ago, when an inmate’s execution was halted after executioners stuck him with needles 18 times trying to find a usable vein.

Death penalty opponents are both praising the one-drug method because it is reportedly less painful and arguing against it because it hasn’t been properly vetted. However, I can imagine it would be difficult to find willing human test subjects for experimenting lethal injections.

Execution is over, case is far from closed

The Kenneth Biros execution, the first execution using the one-drug method, went as planned. Biros died 11 minutes after recieving the injection, roughly the amount of time the three-drug cocktail took to work. Now that the Kenneth Biros execution is over, opponents of changing to a one-drug injection can no longer argue that it hasn’t been tested on humans.

Richard C. Dieter, from the Death Penalty Information Center, says that the key to whether a method of execution is acceptable depends on due process and that the Ohio Legislature should have examined this method more carefully before using it for the Kenneth Biros execution. “In this case, however, everyone has taken the Ohio Department of Corrections at their word, without an adversarial debate,” Dieter said.

A few different groups are looking into whether Ohio’s switch to the one-drug method was constitutional or whether further review is needed before the state can continue using the method.

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’re 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.

Related Video:

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.

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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.”

Rollie Anderson, a retired actuary from St. Louis, is now in China to see his 14th eclipse. “The cosmic coincidence that the sun and moon both appear in the sky as the same size, and then, on top of that, they line up every now and again. … Just the very idea of that is pretty mind-blowing,” he told National Geographic.

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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