Free Republic

The takedown of the file-sharing site over copyright violations provides a warning about being careful where you store stuff. Megaupload file seizure shows why many cautious about the cloud Megaupload users are crying foul after their personal files, not necessarily copyright-infringing material, stored with the file-sharing service was seized on Thursday along with a trove of illegally distributed copyrighted works. Some of those users took to Twitter complaining about the loss of their files, as first reported by TorrentFreak. "I had files up there...gone forever..and they were personal recordings! No copyright infringement!" said Twitter user J. Amir. Another user complained...

Indiana’s 8th District didn’t have a representative in the U.S. Congress from January 1st to May 1st in 1985. Why? Because Bunky, The Democrat-controlled House simply refused to seat the Republican winner, and after a few disputed recounts that still pointed to the Democrat losing, finally decided to simply seat him against the will of the people who deigned to presume that voting makes a difference. The blatant abuse of power was so obvious that the Republicans walked out in protest when the Democrat “loser” was arbitrarily declared the winner.

IMF Issues Brand New Warning About The Massive Risks To The Banking System Joe Weisenthal Sep. 21, 2011, 9:37 AMReleased this morning by the IMF. A new statement on huge risks to the banking sector. ------------------------------ * Weak growth, balance sheets and political resolve cause crisis of confidence * Large number of countries effected by government debt risks * Policymakers need to act to repair household, government and financial balance sheets Financial stability risks have risen sharply in recent months, as slower economic growth, market turbulence in Europe, and the credit downgrade of the United States have weighed on the...

WASHINGTON — The risk of an unprecedented evacuation of the International Space Station will spike if Russian craft cannot resume their missions and return by November, a senior NASA official has warned. "There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it's unmanned than if it were manned," Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said in a conference call with Russian officials. "The risk increase is not insignificant," he added. Russia on Monday delayed its next manned mission to the ISS by at least a month after an unmanned cargo vessel crashed into Siberia...

It’s hard to know what to make of Alex’s astounding ascents. No words can describe the difficulty and dangerousness of these ascents. It’s simply pure brashness. Let’s face it–the kid has a lot of chutzpah. Climb high Alex, and be safe.

Gun ownership, carrying a gun linked to heavy alcohol use Large, multi-state study shows certain gun owners more likely to drink excessively June 14, 2011 (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Gun owners who carry concealed weapons or have confronted another person with a gun are more than twice as likely to drink heavily as people who do not own guns, according to a study by UC Davis researchers. Binge drinking, chronic heavy alcohol use, and drinking and driving were all more common among gun owners generally than among non-owners, even after adjusting for factors such as age, sex, race, and state of...

Harold Macmillan, the prime minister who watched US power rise as the British empire crumbled, used to say that Britain would play ancient Greece to America’s Rome. These days it looks as if Rome is declining too. The US finds it increasingly hard to drive forward its vision of international trade and economics over the objections of big emerging-market countries.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Failure by Congress to raise the U.S. debt limit "could plunge the world economy back into recession," President Barack Obama declared Friday, and he acknowledged that he must compromise on spending with Republicans who control the House to avoid such a crisis. "I think he's absolutely right that it's not going to happen without some spending cuts," the president told The Associated Press in an interview in his hometown, agreeing with House Speaker John Boehner's assessment. Obama urged swift action, saying he doesn't want the United States to get close to a deadline that would destabilize financial...

It was only a matter of time before environmentalists would point toward Japan, say, "We told you so," and then declare a moral victory for anti-nuclear activism. Merely for the sake of argument, let's pretend they are right. Eliminating nuclear power might be a nice experiment. But there is one big problem: Environmentalists are trying to eliminate all the other alternatives, as well.

Could it happen here? That's the question on everyone's mind as we watch the nuclear emergency unfold at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. As it turns out, the U.S. government has long been asking the same question. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently provided MSNBC with an updated list of the American plants most at risk of core damage (which can lead to meltdowns and radiation release) in the event of an earthquake. What parts of the country are most at risk? You may be surprised. Most people would assume California plants, built around the turbulent San Andreas fault line, might...

Egypt has been embroiled in political turmoil since protests, inspired by those that overthrew the regime in Tunisia, started last week. While Egypt, and its Suez Canal, have been worry one for investors world wide since last week, the next big question is whether this dissent could spread to other countries around the region, and world. It's a challenge to state led authoritarian capitalism, but it is also a response to rising food costs and soaring unemployment. There is also the social media factor, which has allowed protesters to circumvent traditional state run media sources and organize more efficiently. What...

The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an order to McGuff Pharmaceuticals instructing it to cease producing and distributing intravenous ascorbic acid (IAA). The grounds for the FDA action laid out in its order stated that IAA is “an unapproved new drug.” Ascorbic acid, more commonly known as vitamin C, has been in use for decades to treat a variety of conditions. IAA has accomplished many amazing cures as detailed in the book Curing the Incurable by Dr. Thomas Levy. The FDA rejected the argument of effectiveness outright. “The very effectiveness of IAA argues that it is, in fact,...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Losing weight is often touted as a way to improve health, but many weight-loss programs may not help stave off disease since people tend to gain the weight back, Australian researchers say. In a report in the International Journal of Obesity, they note the focus of such programs may need to change if they're really going to have a lasting effect. To test the potential impact of different diets, the researchers ran two computer simulations: One included a low-fat diet, the other a diet rich in whole grains and vegetables plus 180 minutes of exercise...

PARIS (AFP) – Men whose index fingers are longer than their ring, or fourth, fingers run a significantly lower risk of prostate cancer, according to a study published Wednesday in the British Journal of Cancer. The chances of developing the disease drop by a third, and even more in younger men, the study found. "Our results show that relative finger length could be used as a simple test for prostate cancer risk, particularly in men aged under 60," said Ros Eeles, a professor at the Institute of Cancer Research in Britain and co-author of the study. Finger pattern could help...

Sacrosanct tax breaks, including deductions on mortgage interest, remain on the table just weeks before the deficit commission issues recommendations on policies to pare back with the aim of balancing the budget by 2015. The tax benefits are hugely popular with the public but they have drawn the panel's focus, in part because the White House has said these and other breaks cost the government about $1 trillion a year.(Snip)At stake, in addition to the mortgage-interest deductions, are child tax credits and the ability of employees to pay their portion of their health-insurance tab with pretax dollars.

Reuters’ economists may have reason to move their already-pessimistic projections further downward. Yesterday afternoon, a study conducted jointly by Thompson Reuters and Price Waterhouse Cooper shows that venture capital investment dropped 7% in the third quarter, a harbinger of higher unemployment and economic decline: Venture capitalists poured less money into U.S. startups in the third quarter and split this among more companies, signaling that investors are trying to be more economical with their funds.According to a study set to be released Friday, startup investments declined 7 percent to $4.8 billion in the July-September period, compared with $5.2 billion invested during...

Like her boss Barack Obama, Ohio Democratic Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy has been accused of hiding a radical past. Further evidence has emerged confirming that Congresswoman Kilroy was once a member of America's largest marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America. In this post New Zeal provided documentary evidence that Kilroy was a member of D.S.A. in the early 1990s and was supported by that organization in both her 2006 and 2008 Congressional races. Now comes more confirmation of kilroy's socialist ties from an article in Oakland California based marxist journal CrossRoads;, October 1992. The author Bob Fitrakis, is also a...

"Blacklisted" in Europe by alphabetical order (last modified : 07/07/2010): Aero Benin - Benin - On the blacklist since 16 December 2009Aero Service - Republic of the Congo - BF - RSR - On the blacklist since 16 December 2009Aerojet - Angola - On the blacklist since 16 December 2009Aeroprakt Kz - Kazakhstan - APK - On the blacklist since 16 December 2009Aerowurks Aerial Spraying Services - Philippines - On the blacklist since 30 March 2010Africa Airways - Benin - AFF - On the blacklist since 16 December 2009Africa Connection - Sao Tomé et Principe - On the blacklist since...

WASHINGTON — The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm. A government report finds that about 26 percent of the oil released from BP’s runaway well is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, in principle, cause new problems. But most is light sheen at the ocean surface or in a dispersed form

A couple of weeks ago, I published a column outlining my doubts about the health of China’s banking system in the lead-up to the Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank)’s IPO. Given the lackluster performance of that share launch – despite the considerable political capital Beijing mobilized behind making it a success – it seems I was hardly alone in my concerns. Now some concrete data is starting to emerge regarding the potential size of the problems that may be lurking on China’s bank balance sheets — in particular, the losses that may be incurred from risky stimulus loans made to...

Which governments will not be able to pay their bills? The ones with private sectors that are not doing well enough to bail out the government. That should be one lesson of the near default this year of the Greek government. Government finances are important, but in the end it is the private sector that matters most. If so, those who focus on fiscal policy may be missing important things. Spain appeared to be in fine shape, with government surpluses, before the recession hit. Now Spain is being downgraded and has soaring deficits. “Academics and market practitioners have not had...

A new study said that a popular class of antihypertension drugs—including those made by Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Merck & Co. and Novartis AG—is associated with a modestly increased risk of cancer. The researchers cautioned that the limited data make it impossible to calculate the exact cancer risk for each individual drug in the class, but said the issue should be investigated further. The study was published online Sunday by the Lancet Oncology medical journal.

One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy. But traders rule the roost -- and as much as risk managers and regulators might want to limit that risk, they lack the power or knowledge to do so. A quadrillion is a big number: 1,000 times a trillion. Yet according to one of the world's leading derivatives experts, Paul Wilmott, who holds a doctorate in applied...

Putting aside religious beliefs, nothing in life has 100% upside--nothing. But the closest thing to a guaranteed better, safer and more fulfilling life is freedom. Freedom means responsibility. It also means failure, accidents and mistakes. This, in turn, leads to learning, which is why successes outweigh the failures. However, humans must be free to understand the consequences of their actions. Without consequences, there is little learning. When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the natural improvement of the human condition. Capitalism is created by free people. Socialism, on the other...

While listening to Obama's discussion with the press about BP and the oil spill one part of what he said stood out to me. [youtube video] The money quote is: "Given the fact they (BP) didn't fully account for the risks I don't want someone else bearing the costs of those risks that they took." My immediate response to that statement was "then why the hell are we, the American taxpayer, bearing the costs of bailing out all of these different companies who didn't manage their risks?"

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily Headlines reports on research by Oregon State University marine geologist Chris Goldfinger showing that earthquakes of magnitude 8.2 (or higher) have occurred 41 times during the past 10,000 years in the Pacific Northwest. By extrapolation, there is a 37% chance of another major earthquake in the area in the next 50 years that could exceed the power of recent seismic events in Chile and Haiti. If a magnitude-9 quake does strike the Cascadia Subduction Zone, extending from northern Vancouver Island to northern California, the ground could shake for several minutes, highways could be torn to...

Last week's passage of the Dodd finance reform plan dredged up bad symbolism, none of it good. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal front page headline touted legislation that would be the "Biggest Regulatory Overhaul of Wall Street Since Depression". Though most of us didn't suffer the federal government's persecution of the productive back in the ‘30s, basic history tells us that reforms back then did nothing to revive an economy on its back thanks to too much government. In that sense, we perhaps shouldn't pin all of the stock market's recent ill health on problems in a country as economically...

The names are distressingly familiar: Fortis (FORSY). Dexia (DXBGF). Société Générale (SCGLY). BNP Paribas (BNPQY). ING (ING). Barclays (BCS). Deutsche Bank (DB). Remember them? They were so neck-deep in the Lehman/AIG/mortgage-backed-assets debacle that they required government bailouts. (Deutsche Bank may quibble. It got its cash from American International Group (AIG, news, msgs), so, technically, I suppose it didn't get government money. But because the AIG payout used cash from a government bailout of that company, I think it's a distinction without a difference.) And now? Well, these companies all make the shortlist of European banks most at risk in the...

To Risk To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out is to risk involvement, To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return, To live is to risk dying, To hope is to risk despair, To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies, part of McGraw-Hill Co's Standard & Poor's, has launched a new credit score tool that lets users compare credit profiles of more than 26,000 companies worldwide. The so-called credit health panel can provide default probabilities and overall credit health scores for the largest universe of companies ever addressed by S&P, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Overall scores will be based on a firm's operational risks and its ability to generate cash and meet its financial obligations. Users can also assess default risks over the next 12 months based...

The policies of the current U.S. administration have created "political risk" to investing in the United States, billionaire real estate investor Sam Zell said on Wednesday. Appearing on a panel at the Urban Land Institute's real estate summit in Boston, Zell said "what's going on now is frightening" and working to undermine confidence, although he allowed that an economic recovery is under way. "Up until this administration, you knew the rules and had a very stable environment," Zell said. Never one to mince words, Zell said he saw similarities that are "a little eerie" between Nero's Rome and the United...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday voted to propose assessing higher fees on large, risky financial institutions and possibly lower fees for many small and less-risky big banks.

Summary:  Many people hold that terrorism poses an existential threat to the United States. But a look at the actual statistics suggests that it presents an acceptable risk -- one so low that spending to further reduce its likelihood or consequences is scarcely justified. JOHN MUELLER is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University. MARK G. STEWART is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle, in Australia. Their book, Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security, will be published in 2011.An...

In an interview with Bloomberg's Tom Keene, Richard Clarida of PIMCO has pretty much sealed the fate of Greece: "I don’t think that [7%] would be an attractive enough yield. Greece is sort of like the Titanic. Eighteen things went wrong, and when they go wrong at once it’s problematic." Of course, with this kind of rhetoric the 10 Year will be trading at 8% tomorrow, followed up by Clarida saying not even 9% would be attractive, and so forth. When you have the world's largest bond fund say it is not touching Greece with a ten foot pole essentially...

I told you so..... According to information Commerzbank was concerned about the Greek bonds accepted as guarantees of Greek bonds. Commerzbank has provided some liquidity to Greek banks are more concerned about the Greek bonds. Based on a reliable source in the recent past, foreign banks have applied to withdraw repo with Greek banks even offer powerful bonus. (Hattip Zerohedge) If repos are being yanked from Greek banks they're finished. This is the overnight lending market and that, coupled with depositor runs (which, as soon as Greeks figure this out, will accelerate dramatically) will drive a stake through the heart...

Greek website bankingnews.gr reports that today's breach of 400 bps in spread to bunds on the 10 Year GGB is a very critical level, and that if spread widening continues, Greece "risks completely losing control" of its funding situation. The critical level in the 10 Year GGB spread to bunds beyond which all hell will break loose is 450 bps at which point "everyone will unload bonds and then control will be completely lost." (pardon our translation) Odd - no mention of CDS speculators having blown up Greece today: instead it is bond selling... How novel. The site also notes...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is warning that some of his Democratic colleagues are being threatened with violence when they go back to their districts — and he wants Republicans to stand up and condemn the threats. The Maryland Democrat said more than 10 House Democrats have reported incidents of threats or other forms of harassment about their support of the highly divisive health insurance overhaul vote. Hoyer emphasized that he didn’t have a specific number of threats and that was just an estimate. TheFederal Bureau of Investigation, Capitol Police and sergeant at arms briefed Democrats behind closed doors today...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Methane, a potent global warming gas, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic faster than had been expected. Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and a warming climate is now resulting in its release, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. "The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans," said Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author. Concerns about global warming have centered on rising levels of...

Just 50 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast is an earthquake hotspot that threatens to unleash on Seattle, Portland and Vancouver the kind of damage that has shattered Chile. The fault has been dormant for more than 300 years, but when it awakens — tomorrow or decades from now — the consequences could be devastating.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Emergency funding the U.S. government provided during the credit crisis has left financial institutions with huge cut-price loans that could harm banks' profits and economic growth once borrowing costs rise. Banks that borrowed cheaply in the corporate bond market with a government guarantee will see their borrowing costs rise sharply once the debt matures, analysts said. That may swell bank expenses and constrain their ability to lend. By some time in 2012, about $309 billion of government-guaranteed debt outstanding under the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP) will mature. Banks will have to refinance with their own...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) said last week he was “shocked” to hear a senior Department of Defense official agree with him that the administration’s plan to move detainees of Guantanamo Bay to Thomson, Ill., would pose an increased security risk. At a press conference in the House of Representatives, Manzullo said the official “agreed with me there would be an increased security risk to northwest Illinois, but he had no way of estimating the extent of this threat.”

One of the numerous adverse side-effects of the horrendous policy decision to start bailing out each and every risky bank, and thus allowing no more risk in any investment (for the time being), has been the very simple observation that massively mispriced risk has gotten concentrated to an unparalleled degree among very few players. The population of Big Banks has been massively trimmed (Goldman thanks everyone for allowing them to have massive Fixed Income bid/ask spreads) and now a mere five banks account for the bulk of loans, deposits, and derivative exposure. When the economy is faced with another Lehman...

LONDON — The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline says it has advised medical staff in Canada to not use one batch of swine flu vaccine for fear it may trigger life-threatening allergies. GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Gwenan White said Tuesday the company issued the advice after reports that one batch of the swine flu vaccine might have caused more allergic reactions than normal. She says the affected batch contains 172,000 doses of the vaccine. She declined to say how many doses had been administered before the advice to stop using them was given.

Final-salary pension plans urged to take more risks David Budworth Trustees of struggling final-salary pension plans are being urged to adopt racier investment strategies or risk losing up to £150 million of benefits for thousands of scheme members. About 75 final-salary pension plans have such large funding shortfalls that they will wind up in the next two years — forcing 15,000 members into the Pension Protection Fund — unless they take radical action, according to Hewitt Associates, a human resources consultancy, but the schemes could be saved if the trustees overhauled their investment strategies, turning to alternative assets, such as...

The future of investing: academics predict more complexity By Maik Rodewald Published: October 11 2009 10:21 | Last updated: October 11 2009 10:21 “A theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.” If one applies Albert Einstein’s words to a colourful basket of theses from leading US academics about the future of investing, it could look like this: Andrew Lo of MIT’s Sloan School of Management provides the foundation of the theory. For one of America’s current academic superstars, it is pretty clear how the future must look: “We need to solve investors’ biggest problem – uncertain outcomes...

I can't think of a better way to describe the last 2 years than as times of great uncertainty. Not only did we have two near catastrophic banking failures worldwide, but we also have the ever present Iran Israel nuclear contention. The USD held reasonably well during this period, although it's weaker. In any case, gold has held up amazingly well over the period of the last two years too, in fact is at highs. What else is except US T bonds? Pimco's Bill Gross just said the longer term of the US T yield curve is flattening and that...

Governments' contingent liabilities Fiscal iceberg Sep 24th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition Guarantees offered during the crisis pose lasting risks to America THE visible costs of the financial crisis are well known: bank recapitalisations, stimulus spending and shrunken tax revenues. Another set of liabilities—the guarantees thrown up around financial systems a year ago to quell panic and keep credit flowing—has received far less attention. Guarantees are popular because they entail no immediate cost. But they leave the sovereign balance-sheet exposed to lurches in the financial system’s fortunes. In July the International Monetary Fund estimated that the...

PAKISTAN SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON: The United States warned Tuesday that reputed Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has regained freedom of movement in Pakistan, still risks spreading his nuclear weapons know-how. It stopped short of criticizing its ally in the war on terror but recalled that Washington has long raised with Islamabad its fears about Khan, who five years ago admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya." SNIPPET: "David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and nuclear specialist, told AFP that ‘it is a mistake’ to remove restrictions on a man who cannot be ‘trusted.’He said there is...

WASHINGTON – Aircraft design standards aren't tough enough for planes to withstand collisions with growing numbers of large birds, safety investigators examining an Oklahoma crash that killed five men said Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the bodies of commercial aircraft to withstand a collision with a bird weighing 4 pounds or 8 pounds depending upon the section of the plane — standards that haven't been updated since the 1970s, investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board. An FAA advisory committee spent 10 years examining whether the standards should be updated and then disbanded without reaching a conclusion, investigators said....

Doing business with China has never been easy or without risks. It’s a littlie dicier these days because what’s regarded elsewhere as commercial information instead is seen by Beijing as a state secret. And that’s especially true when trade negotiations aren’t going China’s way. Case in point: The recent “detention” of four Rio Tinto Group employees in Shanghai on charges they had steel and iron ore market information. Australian iron ore mining giant Rio Tinto and the Chinese steel industry, the largest in the world, have been haggling for months over a fiscal 2009-2010 master supply contracts. China wants a...