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Jack Lew, who has been nominated as the next treasury secretary, oversaw up as many as a hundred Cayman Island investments when he worked at Citi Bank as chief operating officer of the alternative investment services unit, SEC disclosures reveal. It has previously been reported that Lew himself had been invested in a fund that was based in the Cayman Islands. "To meet your complex hedge fund, fund of hedge funds and private equity fund needs, Citi is your single provider with market-leading experience, global reachand state-of-the-art technology. Our unmatched worldwide presence, economies of scale and comprehensive portfolio of solutions...

U.S. Territory of Guam photographed from the NASA Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on December 30, 2011. Map 1 and Map 2. 2013 x 3020, 2680 x 4020, 3346 x 5020, 4014 x 6021. Via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-201304.htm

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama called Cayman Island investments "the biggest tax scam on record." Now, in 2013, President Obama has nominated Jack Lew, who had $56,000 in Cayman Island investments, to be the next secretary of Treasury. Here's Obama making the claim in 2008:

“The island has now been elevated by 9 cm due to the magma pressure. Last night there was one quake of 4.4 on the Richter scale, at a depth of 18km, which was also felt on the neighbouring island of La Palma.”

The Army has been creating an island since 1998 on the Northeast coast of the United States. Slowly, the US Army Corps of Engineers built concrete dikes to establish its perimeter and then have spent more than decade filling them with mud. Its name: Poplar island. Fortunately, no weird stuff is going on there (that we know of, anyway). Poplar Island, which is being rebuilt in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, is 30 miles south of Baltimore Harbor, where all the mud is coming from.

Let’s face it, Greasy Joe probably has no idea where he is most of the time, so the fact he’s heading to Road Island probably doesn’t register with him. Joe Biden‘s camp might be overly-reliant on spell-check. The White House recently announced that the Vice President would be attending campaign events in “Road Island.” The glaring misspelling of the Ocean State showed up in a widely-distributed press release detailing Biden’s upcoming travel plans. After spending the holiday weekend in Wilmington, Del., the VP will make stops on Thursday in Boston, Mass., Manchester, New Hampshire, and finally, Providence, Rhode Island. In...

Athens. It is believed that the tomb of Alexander the Great and the Ark of the Covenant have been found on the Greek Island of Thasos, announced Russian Grekomania.ru, which is information partner of the Greek Minister of Culture and Tourism.

Billionaire Peter Thiel shocks again. Details magazine, reports he’s supporting what could be described as “Fantasy Island” or “Lord of the Flies” – revolutionary manmade floating nation-states, only 200 miles off the coast of San Francisco. It’s a story now receiving both national and international interest. From The Washington Post: The micro-countries Thiel proposes are diesel-powered, moveable, 2,000-ton structures built on oil rig-like platforms, with space for 270 residents to live. Thiel believes these islands may be important in “experimenting with new ideas for government,” such as no welfare, no minimum wage, fewer weapons restrictions, and looser building codes. The...

Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine. Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fifteen suspected illegal immigrants who were stranded on a remote Southern California island for three days were being held Monday after what may have been a 300-mile journey in a rickety boat — the latest evidence that Mexican smugglers are heading farther north to avoid capture. Fourteen men and a woman in their 30s and 40s were rescued from the north side of Santa Cruz Island on Sunday — days after a man called 911 to say he and three other men had been dropped off somewhere on an island and were stranded, authorities said. "It...

Maybe he just didn't like the food. "Bristol police charge Saudi student in bomb threat at RWU," by Donita Naylor in the Providence Journal, May 9 (thanks to Block Ness): BRISTOL, R.I. -- The suspicious person arrested at Roger Williams University on Thursday was a Saudi Arabia man studying English, police said Monday. They had been called to investigate a possible bomb threat. Lt. Steven Contente said Abdulrahman Khalid Althuwayb, 25, asked for food service at the dining center before it opened Thursday morning. A dining supervisor said that Althuwayb was served, and he was asked to come during business...

United States District Court, D. Hawaii. February 21, 1979. THE HAWAII LAW ON NAMES The basic statute in Hawaii on names was adopted in 1860. Until 1967, it was required that all children born in wedlock shall have their father's name as a "family name" and ". . . a Christian name suitable to their sex."

Semisopochnoi Island, from space, from sea level This image came up a few days ago in the Earth Observatory. Clicking it here will go to the full image from space, which isn't labeled. I wondered if they were any images of the Semisopochnoi volcanoes from sea/ground level or aircraft. There are. Below are two pictures of the Fuji-esque Sugarloaf Peak. Second is clickable, first isn't.

North Korea fired artillery barrages onto a South Korean island near their disputed border Tuesday, setting buildings alight and prompting South Korea to return fire and scramble fighter jets. At least one South Korean marine was killed and 13 wounded, the military said. The skirmish came amid high tension over North Korea's claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility and just six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il unveiled his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent. One South Korean marine was killed, three were seriously wounded and 10 slightly wounded, a Joint Chiefs...

South Koreans return fire- scramble fighter jets Some houses in South Korea's Yeonpyeong Islandin the Yellow Sea are ablaze as scores of rounds of artillery,fired by North Korea at 2:34 p.m. on Nov. 23, hit the island.  As revelations of secret advances made in Pyongyang's ability to enrich uranium come to light, some have suggested arming the South with nuclear weaponry... looks like Dear Leader didn't care for that prospect much... North Korea on Tuesday fired dozens of rounds of artillery toward South Korean waters and an island near the tense west sea border, the South's military said, leaving at least...

(Reuters) - North Korea on Tuesday fired dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island, setting buildings on fire and prompting a return fire by the South, Seoul's military and media reports said.

N. Korea fires artillery towards S. Korean island, official says SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday fired several rounds of artillery towards South Korean waters and an island near the tense west sea border, the South's military said. The North's artillery shells fell at 2:34 p.m. in the South's waters off the island of Yeonpyeong, some of them landing directly on the island, said Col. Lee Bung-woo, spokesman at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff. The South's military responded with its artillery firing.

This week, a couple of waterfalls on the island of La Reunion (which, bye-the-bye, also has its own active volcano, Piton de la Fournaise, erupting right now.) La Reunion is the French version of Hawaii: tropical, waterfalls, old volcanoes with landscapes like Kauai, and the active one, too. I've posted pictures of the big 1,000+ foot volcano in the Iron Hole crater; these are some other nice ones. Click for full-size. Cascade Niagara (not the one in Canada!) And if you want adventure:

<p>NEW DELHI – For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.</p> <p>New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.</p>

One of the oldest archaeological sites not on a heritage list, this Pacific state, like Easter Island, is an engineering marvel We zigzag slowly in our skiff around the shallow coral heads surrounding Pohnpei. The island, a little smaller than New York City, is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is nestled in a vast tapestry of coral reefs. Beyond the breakers, the Pacific stretches 5,578 miles to California. A stingray dashes in front of us, flying underwater like a butterfly alongside our bow. Our destination is Nan Madol, near the southern side of the island, the only...

A team of British archaeologists has solved the mystery of how the famous statues dotting the landscape of Easter Island acquired their distinctive red hats. Dr Sue Hamilton from University College London and Dr Colin Richards from the University of Manchester believe the hats were constructed in a hidden quarry and then rolled down from the slopes of an ancient volcano. They are the first archaeologists ever to have excavated the Puna Pau quarry on the tiny Pacific island. The team have discovered the mystery behind the red hats worn by the Easter Island statues Around 70 intact giant red...

In a battle of "democracy over bureaucracy", monks and residents on a tiny Welsh holy island are fighting to protect an ancient right to independence amid fears they could become part of Tenby. Under local government proposals Caldey Island, a religious retreat for more than 1,000 years and with an electorate of 28, will come under the seaside town's local council. But the islanders, which include the semi-trappist brothers of the Reformed Cistercian Order, say the move could cost them £55 a year each in council precept for no additional benefit. With only a few hundred yards of road,...

NASA's Earth Observatory inspires a couple of different views this week. First of all, there's this: Fogo, Cape Verde Islandswhich in part notes that there are villages inside the caldera which holds the volcanic peak of Fogo (actually Pico do Fogo, if you're wondering why it's labeled Pico in the picture). I wouldn't think that's exactly prime real estate! In the picture below you can see the villages as small white dots, and the road to them through the caldera. The other images are a few I found that the two villages from various perspectives. View from the 1995 eruption...

It looks like the Obama administration has finally found a home for the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo. According to the Associated Press, the small Pacific Island of Palau is reportedly taking all 17 Uighurs in exchange for $200 million. If true, this raises a few obvious observations and questions. First, it says much about how poorly the effort to close Gitmo is going that no nation, other than an island resort nation that is heavily dependent on aid from the U.S., is willing to take the Uighurs. The Obama administration considered the Uighurs the easiest bunch of detainees to...

“I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion,” wrote one particularly ambitious contributor in his 1935 Harvard 30th anniversary classbook. “I seek social ownership of all property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”

A Britten-Norman Trislander, the kind of small aircraft that disappeared off the Dominican Republic Monday with 12 on board. A small Caribbean airplane that vanished into thin air Monday was allegedly stolen by a fired Dominican Navy cadet who may have been trying to carry illegal immigrants to America, the plane’s owner told FOXNews.com. Luis Perez, the Puerto Rico-based owner of the aircraft charter company, said his twin-engine plane was stolen by an unlicensed pilot named Adrian Jimenez. Authorities told him Jimenez was a student of the Dominican Republic Armed Forces and a former Navy cadet. “They took his pilot’s...

WITH their milky white skin, wispy hair and haunting, pale eyes, they are called “the living ghosts” by locals. And the vulnerable albinos of Tanzania in East Africa have more than insults to fear. They are being hunted down and hacked to death to satisfy a growing demand for their body parts and blood to use in black magic. It is the stuff of nightmares. In the Mwanga district, near Mount Kilimanjaro, a baby girl was dressed in black by her mother and left alone in the family hut. A group of men cut off the pale girl’s legs, slit...

The legendary literary story of Robinson Crusoe, cast away on a desert island, has captivated readers for centuries. Now archaeologists have unearthed fresh evidence about the real-life Crusoe - Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk - who was marooned in 1704 on a small tropical island in the Pacific Ocean for more than four years. During a dig on the island of Aguas Buenas , a nautical instrument was discovered, along with proof of a campsite dwelling, thought to be used by Selkirk. The research, presented in the journal Post-Medieval Archaeology, supports contemporary record of the Scotman's existence on the island, since...

(10-12) 23:25 PDT Angel Island -- A fast-moving brush fire atop Angel Island shot flames high in to the air and glowed so brightly Sunday night that it could be seen for miles around the San Francisco Bay by residents in several counties. "We are seeing a silhouette of the island in flames," said Jacqueline McCrath, who was watching the fire from Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. "It's been spreading really fast -- we saw a vigorous blaze at the top of the hill at first, and now it has spread across a lot of the island. It appeared very...

LONDON (Reuters) - The owner of a tiny island in off Scotland declared its independence from the United Kingdom on Saturday, saying he wanted the territory, population one, to be a crown dependency like the Channel Islands. In a declaration on his Web site, Stuart Hill, who owns the 2.5 acre island of Forvik in the Shetland Islands in the North Sea, said he no longer recognised the authority of the government or the European Union, and cited a centuries-old royal marriage dowry deal as the basis for his claim. "Forvik owes no allegiance to any United Kingdom government, central...

ABC News' Eloise Harper reports: Since the Pennsylvania primary Sen. Hillary Clinton has been calling for a debate with her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. She continued her plea in Penuelas, Puerto Rico, standing outside a restaurant while less than 100 people gathered on a dirt walkway. Obama has rebuffed these requests and has instead begun campaigning in states that would be important for him in the general election if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. "I was informed that Univision will sponsor a debate between Sen. Obama and myself about the issues affecting Puerto Rico," Clinton said. "I accept that...

Orkney Islanders have Siberian relatives Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/05/2008 A new study on ancient human migrations suggests that Orcadians and Siberians are closely related, writes Roger Highfield. Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations. The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the...

The report, in Spanish, basically states that Her Excellency will be traveling to the Island soon, prior to their June 1st primary (63 delegates at stake).

Japan to plant coral island in the Pacific By Julian Ryall in Tokyo Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/04/2008 Japanese scientists will attempt to "grow" an island in the Pacific Ocean to maintain its fishing territory. Up to 50,000 shards of coral will be transplanted into the waters around Okinotorishima, two stone outcrops 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, in an effort to stop them sinking. The outcrops sit just 4in above water at high tide. If they disappear, Japan's maritime territory will shrink dramatically. addition, rights to oil, minerals and gas beneath the seabed could be lost. However, the £3.6 million...

Modern-day scientific Magellans and Columbus's, exploring the uncharted seas at the fringes of the Periodic Table of the Elements, have landed on one long-sought island - the fabled Island of Stability, home of a new genre of superheavy chemical elements sought for more than three decades. In a presentation at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, one of the captains of these expeditions into the unknown, described how researchers now are eying other islands on the more-distant fringes of the periodic table. "Now that it has been shown that the 'island of stability' of superheavy elements exists,...

Easter Island statue 'vandalized' SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A Finnish tourist was detained after allegedly stealing a piece of volcanic rock from one of the massive Moai statues on Easter Island. Chilean Investigative Police released this photo showing the damage to the right earlobe. Marko Kulju, 26, faces seven years in prison and a fine of $19,100 if convicted of stealing pieces of the right earlobe from a Moai, one of numerous statues carved out of volcanic rock between 400 and 1,000 years ago to represent deceased ancestors. A native Rapanui woman told authorities she witnessed the theft Sunday at...

DRIGGS, Idaho - Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," is serving six months' unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car. She was sentenced Feb. 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving. Under a plea agreement, three misdemeanor counts — driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance — were dropped. On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was...

Ancient tomb found on Greek island By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS Associated Press WriterA partly demolished, 3,000-year-old tomb recently discovered on the western Greek island of Lefkada is seen in this undated hand out photo released by Greek Culture Ministry on Wednesday, March 5, 2008. Archaeologists said the beehive-shaped tomb, which contained several human skeletons and grave offerings, was the first major Mycenaean-era monument to be found on the island.ATHENS, Greece --Road construction on the western Greek island of Lefkada has uncovered and partially destroyed an important tomb with artifacts dating back more than 3,000 years, officials said on Wednesday. The find...

On a windswept Arctic island 1000 kms from the North Pole, a group of Norwegian engineers and scientists have been constructing a gigantic seed bank inside a frozen mountain. To be managed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a group dedicated to the ongoing diversity of plants through a variety of genetic strains, the International Seed Bank will open this week. Known as the Doomsday vault, the seed bank has the capacity to hold 4.5 million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's main food crops -- more than "...twice as many varieties of agricultural crops as...

BROWN POLL FINDINGS INDICATE SUPPORT FOR REPUBLICAN APPROACH TO STATE'S FISCAL PROBLEMS SAYS RIGOP CHAIRMAN WARWICK, RI - The latest Brown University Poll, released 2/11/08, shows there is more support for Governor Carcieri and the Republican approach to addressing the fiscal crisis among the majority of Rhode Islanders despite the claims of the Governor’s critics. The poll found more than half of the respondents would seem to agree with the Governor’s policies on three important themes: reducing the number of state workers and reforming some of their pay and benefit provisions; reducing the amount of time welfare recipients can remain...

Model of Easter Island Collapse Might Reveal Message for Today By Lisa ZygaGraphs based on the researchers’ model, showing the population (top) and resources (bottom). The decline of resources coincides with a sharp population increase, followed by a sharp decrease. Image credit: M. Bologna and J. C. Flores. When a thriving civilization suddenly collapses, it’s often a mystery – and an ominous one, at that. For Easter Island circa 1000-1400 AD, experts believe it was a case of humans overexploiting their natural resources – mostly, the palm tree. But exactly where did the culturally rich Rapanui society go too far?...

ACLU blasts Carcieri record on civil rights09:05 AM EST on Wednesday, December 5, 2007By STEVE PEOPLES Journal staff writerPROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri has consistently attacked the civil rights of the state’s most vulnerable residents during the first year of his second term, according to a report released yesterday by the Rhode Island Affiliate, American Civil Liberties Union, which likens the term-limited governor’s recent comments to the “nativist” philosophies of the 18th century. The report, according to Steven Brown, ACLU executive director, was prompted by a string of actions the group deemed a broad attack on underprivileged groups such as...

Ancient Headless Skeletons Found in Island Grave By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writerposted: 29 October 2007 11:36 am ET More than fifty headless skeletons have been unearthed in one of the oldest Pacific Islander cemeteries in the world. The individuals were members of a socially complex society, traveling between islands hundreds of miles away, a new study suggests. The finding could solve a long-held debate over whether the Lapita people, thought to be ancestors of the Polynesians, were isolated on individual islands or interacted with other distant Lapita tribes to find marriage partners, exchange information and maintain social ties. Results,...

INFRA-red footage showing a "superbreed" of giant flesh-eating house mice chewing into an albatross chick has been used as a stark warning of what awaits pest-infested Macquarie Island.

Hobbit hominids lived the island life Wed Apr 18, 6:43 AM ET PARIS (AFP) - A tantalising piece of evidence has been added to the puzzle over so-called "hobbit" hominids found in a cave in a remote Indonesian island, whose discovery has ignited one of the fiercest rows in anthropology. Explorers of the human odyssey have been squabbling bitterly since the fossilised skeletons of tiny hominids, dubbed after the diminutive hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien's tale, were found on the island of Flores in 2003. Measuring just a metre (3.25 feet) tall and with a skull the size of a grapefruit,...

Volcanic Italian island on alert Emergency plans have been put into operation after two new craters opened on the summit of the volcanic Italian island of Stromboli. One of the new lava streams created on the island, just north of Sicily, has already started flowing into the sea. Coastguard patrol boats have been deployed and the population of 750 people has been urged to stay away from the danger areas. The last major eruption in 2002 caused a collapse that led to a small tsunami. The wave reached 10 metres (33ft) high and caused serious damage to Stromboli village on...

Grab bag; a rare picture of Kerguelen from space (usually cloud-covered) and a nice picture of Bryce Canyon. Sorry I missed last week. If you click the Kerguelen picture, you get a 250-meter resolution version. Even though there have been surveys, supposedly there are still places on Kerguelen that have never been visited by a human being in recorded history. Bryce Canyon from Bryce Point

Research team discovers village OSU News Service A team of researchers, led by Oregon State University anthropologist Deanna Kingston, has discovered a prehistoric village on a tiny island in the Bering Sea. The archaeological site, shown by carbon dating to be 800 to 900 years old, indicates that King Island, Alaska, was inhabited by Inupiat walrus hunters for at least a millennium. The effort is part of a four-year study of the plants, birds, place names, dialect and culture of King Island, supported by two grants from the National Science Foundation, one for $540,000 and another for $23,000. Kingston —...

Art From the Island of Hobbits Indonesian statue reshapes Australian gallery Reuters Nov 21, 2006 (National Gallery of Australia)CANBERRA—An Indonesian weaver and her suckling baby are reshaping Australia's national art gallery. The Bronze Weaver, a tiny 1,400 year-old Indonesian statue, has gone on exhibition at the Australian National Gallery in Canberra in an attempt to lure art-wary Australians away from traditional European masterworks and educate them in Asian forms. "With its intriguing sixth-century dating, The Bronze Weaver may be the most striking, rare and important object of Indonesian ancestral art in existence," Robyn Maxwell, the gallery's senior curator of Asian...

Quake Near Pacific Island of Vanuatu Wednesday October 18, 2006 6:46 PM SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A magnitude 6.2 earthquake rumbled deep below the earth's surface off the Pacific island of Vanuatu on Wednesday, but no damage or injuries were reported. The quake struck 86 miles below the seabed off the coast of Vanuatu at 9:45 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was centered about 195 miles northwest of the capital, Port Vila. No tsunami warning was issued. Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides Islands, is made up of 13 main islands located about 1,400 miles east of Australia....