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In 1946, the United States conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in what’s known as Operation Crossroads. A total of two bombs were detonated to test the effects nuclear blasts had on naval warships. The second, named Baker, was the world’s first nuke to be detonated underwater. Due to the unique properties of underwater explosions, the Baker test produced a number of unique photographs that the world had never seen before.

Wall Street warns against using eminent domain to seize underwater mortgagesBy Peter Schroeder - 08/19/12 05:00 PM ET Heavy hitters in the financial industry are lining up against a new idea brewing among local government officials to help struggling homeowners by seizing control of their mortgages through eminent domain. With many areas of the country still digging out from the housing crisis, some local governments are considering taking on the underwater mortgages at a substantially lower price, thus making them more affordable for the borrower. With policymakers at the federal, state and local level struggling to find a way to...

Spying seems to be hardwired into Russian DNA and for decades the USSR and now Russia have sent Combat Divers a.k.a. “frogmen” on clandestine missions to infiltrate other countries’ military complexes by using their harbours as a gateways to enemy naval bases. Because of the aggressive nature of their missions (they are the invaders after all) these Spetsnaz (Russian special operations) units are armed with specialized APS and ASM-DT underwater rifles. APS Underwater rifle APS Underwater rifle The APS underwater rifle, developed in the mid 1970s, was Russia’s first attempt at an underwater long gun and the world’s first movement...

The latest quarterly report out of CoreLogic is as usual full of curious insights about the state of US housing. Key among them is the finding that "negative equity and near-negative equity mortgages accounted for 27.8 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the fourth quarter, up from 27.1 in the previous quarter. Nationally, the total mortgage debt outstanding on properties in negative equity increased from $2.7 trillion in the third quarter to $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter." In other words, courtesy of no Mark To Market, there is at least $2.8 trillion in debt held...

President Barack Obama, whose economic acumen was shaped by left-wing, Big Government ideologues, wants to fix the housing market mess that government, in large part, is responsible for creating. His plan to tax big banks to raise money to guarantee refinanced loans for existing homeowners to lower their monthly payments is fundamentally flawed, almost certainly won't pass Congress, but it is political pandering of the first order. In an election year, is anyone surprised he would push something he knows won't happen while positioning himself as Rescuer-in-Chief? He can always blame Congress when it doesn't come to pass. The rest...

According to real estate data firm CoreLogic, about 11 million American homeowners are underwater, and half of all U.S. mortgages are owned by non-government lenders. On Wednesday, President Obama announced plans to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Obama is seeking to make interests rates for borrowers lower, and he plans to pay for the estimated $5 billion to $10 billion cost with a fee on the nation’s largest banks. “It is wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” Obama said. “I refuse to...

U.S. homeowners who owe more than their properties are worth got new help on Monday when a U.S. regulator expanded a government program in a step that could help up to one million borrowers. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, eased the terms of a refinancing program which helps so-called underwater borrowers who have been on time with payments but are unable to refinance. *snip* FHFA said it was scrapping a cap that prohibited borrowers whose mortgages exceeded 125 percent of their property's value from participating in the Home Affordable Refinance...

Las Vegas – Seeking to breathe new life into a sagging economy, President Obama will attempt an executive branch rescue of homeowners trying to refinance underwater mortgages, with a new initiative that lets people with little or no equity get a better interest rate at a reduced cost. The initiative, the first in a series of announcements expected this week by the president, applies to homeowners with federally guaranteed mortgages who are current on their payments. The revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program, which aims to avert foreclosures, is expected "to encourage new, lower-cost loans" to more homeowners who are paying...

A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region. Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ocean floor — nearly tall enough to break the water's surface. "That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a vulcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition to the region in 2007 and 2010. The group of 12 underwater mountains lies...

FALL RIVER (CBS) — There’s another strange twist after a woman’s body was found floating in a public pool in Fall River, possibly going unnoticed for days. The mayor of Fall River says “that health inspectors from the City visited the pool on Monday and on Tuesday and inspected the facilities,” which was during the time that body was believed to be in the water. Marie Joseph was at the pool on Sunday and hadn’t been seen since. It wasn’t until Tuesday night, when some kids broke into the Veteran’s Memorial swimming pool and found Joseph’s body floating in the...

Reporting from North Las Vegas, Nev.— Charles Mills can barely afford to stay here. But he also can't afford to move. That's why the 44-year-old heavy-equipment operator was preparing to leave his wife and young daughter here and go where he could find work — the Oklahoma oil fields. Mills has a mortgage to pay, even if its size pains him. He purchased his house in 2006 for $308,500. Current value: $105,797. "We talked about it: What can we do with the house?" Mills said. "Nobody's going to buy it. Nobody's going to rent it. If we walk away, my...

Now we know what is really causing global warming. It's not caused by man, it's caused by penguins farting underwater. We better get Al Gore out there to put meters on their derrieres so we can check the rate of global warming gasses emanating from these birds before the polar caps completely melt. This is a funny video of a penguin that farts in the face of another penguin who does an about face and heads the other way. Follow the link below to see the video of a Penguin Farting in Another Penguins Face.

China Told U.S. of Underwater Nuclear Plant in N.Korea China obtained information in 2008 that North Korea has a secret underwater nuclear facility in its coastal waters, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables show. According to a Sept. 26, 2008 cable from the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai disclosed by WikiLeaks, a North Korea expert in Shanghai announced this in a meeting about the six-party nuclear talks with Christopher Beede, the political and economic chief at the consulate. The expert said the nuclear declaration the North submitted to China, the chair of the six-party talks, in May the same year was "incomplete" and...

Hannity was surprised to hear a famous ex Air Force General tell him “That Is A Missile, Shot From A Submarine!” I quote retired Air Force Lieutenant General Tom McInerney (ex commander of 11th Air Force in Alaska) “I spent 35 years flying fighters, and you can see the guidance system kick in, I have watched that film 10 times, I am absolutely certain that that is not an aircraft, but a sub launch ICBM missile!!!” See the video and judge his words for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LivRJOWrcpA&feature=player_embedded#! I will next post a clickable link.

As underwater archaeologists dive to recover 300-year-old artifacts from the shipwreck presumed to Blackbeard’s flagship, the effort to keep the public a part of the project are all 21st century. A six-week dive expedition at the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site began this week, and anyone interested in following its progress can do so via the Facebook page Blackbeard’s-Queen Anne’s Revenge. Full information on the project is also available at the website qaronline.com. After a day of field preparations, a Wednesday afternoon Facebook post announced the biggest news of the expedition: “Returning to USCG Fort Macon. Still need to get...

Momentum Gathers For A New, Massive Bailout Of Homeowners Joe Weisenthal Sep. 19, 2010, 8:48 AM A new federal program that would be tasked with a massive refinancing of mortgages for strapped Americans has been chattered about for awhile, though The White House has never indicated that the idea is on the table. But the calls are growing louder. This time it's from the NYT op-ed page, where former Bush advisor (and now Columbia business prof) Glenn Hubbard along with Columbia's Chris Mayer are calling for exactly that -- a massive new agency to bail out underwater homeowners via refinancing....

This is a great video and photos of an underwater statue of Christ off the shores of Florida. It is awesome. I never knew it existed. Here is the link to the...Video of "Christ of the Abyss"

The Obama administration is trying to jump-start its sputtering plan to tackle the foreclosure crisis with an effort to assist up to 1.5 million homeowners who owe more on their properties than their homes are worth. The Federal Housing Administration will allow lenders to give these "under water" borrowers refinanced loans if the lender agrees to forgive at least 10 percent of the original mortgage amount. The plan, which was announced in March, is being made available starting Tuesday. The FHA said in a document published last month that between 500,000 and 1.5 million homeowners are projected to be helped....

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is trying to jump-start its sputtering attempts to tackle the foreclosure crisis with an effort to assist homeowners who owe more on their properties than their homes are worth. The Federal Housing Administration will allow lenders to give these borrowers refinanced loans if the lender agrees to forgive at least 10 percent of the original mortgage amount. The plan, .. announced in March, .. available starting Tuesday. The FHA said .. between 500,000 and 1.5 million homeowners are projected to be helped.

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier who held his 4-year-old daughter’s head underwater in a kitchen sink at their Yelm home as punishment for not reciting the alphabet will spend the next two months in jail. Joshua Ryan Tabor, 27, was sentenced Thursday; he earlier had pleaded guilty under an Alford plea to three counts of third-degree felony assault of a child, domestic violence, as part of a plea deal. Under an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but concedes there is enough evidence to convict if the case goes forward at trial. As part of the plea deal,...

From CoreLogic Real Estate News and Trends •23% of mortgaged properties (11 million) were under water by $766 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2010 •An additional 2.4 million had less than 5% equity – That makes 28% negative or near negative •5 million borrowers are in “severe negative equity” and defaults will be high for an extended period •Top 5 states: Nevada 68%, Arizona 50%, Florida 46%, Michigan 38%, California 33%

With todays cars and not many manual window cranks what do we do if we go in the water?

Ironic isn't it, that the day after a Federal Judge lifts the Deepwater Drilling Ban, BP has another accident and the cap is off the well, and uncontained or restricted oil is now flowing into the Gulf again. Not to mention the $2 Billion dollars that Petrobras was loaned and their stock is down from a Monday high of $39.45 to currently $36.25. As reported last year by the Wall Street Journal; The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field...

More tough news for Twin Cities metro homeowners surfaced this morning as home values in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area slid 4.6 percent in March from a year ago. More troubling, the real estate website Zillow.com calculates that more than 268,000 Twin Cities area single-family homeowners with mortgages owe more than their homes are worth. That number is about 41.2 percent of the total. That compares with an estimated national average of 23.3 percent of single-family mortgages with negative equity, according to the report.

To walk, or not to walk? That is the question for nearly a quarter of US homeowners who can still make their mortgage payments but are “underwater,” or living in a house worth less than the amount they owe on the mortgage. Should such homeowners with “negative equity” simply pack up and leave, mailing the house keys to their lender in a desperate act known as “jingle mail”? Or should they honor the “promise to pay” in their loan contract and keep up with monthly payments, hoping for steady growth in home prices? ...But by and large, many “underwater” Americans...

More than 11.3 million homeowners -- nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage -- owe more on their loan than their home is now worth... More than 10% of people with mortgages owe 25% more than their home is worth. The number of underwater mortgages increased by about 620,000 from the third quarter... Another 2.3 million mortgages had less than 5% equity in their home, which could be wiped out if home prices fall further. Underwater mortgages are concentrated in few states: California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia. In Nevada, 70% of mortgages were underwater. In California, more...

NEW YORK - One of every five U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth in the fourth quarter, a trend that poses a serious threat to the U.S. housing market's recovery, real estate Web site Zillow.com said on Wednesday. Homeowners with "underwater'' mortgages are more prone to defaults and foreclosures. They typically do not qualify for refinancings and are unable to sell their homes because they would need to cough up cash at closing time to pay off their mortgage.

February 3, 2010 No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away By DAVID STREITFELD In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040. “People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?” After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration’s loan...

December 18, 2009 Deep-sea volcano erupts 4,000ft under the Pacific Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney Scientists have filmed a volcanic eruption 4,000ft (1,220m) under the sea causing molten lava to flow across the deep ocean floor. The incredible footage, recorded by a submersible robot, shows the exact moment that a deep-sea volcano erupts from the ocean floor, sending an explosion of bright red lava bubbles and plumes of smoke-like sulphur through the water. The eruption of the West Mata volcano was filmed by US scientists in May during an underwater expedition south of Samoa. It is the deepest erupting volcano to...

Here is a video report showing the underwater eruption of the West Mata Volcano south of Samoa, near Fiji and Tonga. This was reportedly filmed from 4,000 feet down, and is the deepest filming ever of an underwater eruption of a volcano. . . . (VIDEOS)

Drop in Unemployment Could Have Little Impact on Default Numbers: Analysts 12/04/2009BY: CARRIE BAY he unemployment rate dropped in November, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday, as companies shed the fewest number of jobs since the recession kicked in two years ago. Government statistics show that last month, the jobless rate edged down to 10.0 percent, falling from the 26-year-high 10.2 percent hit in October. Only 11,000 jobs were lost in November, the Labor Department said. Economists had forecast a loss of as much as 130,000, consistent with the average of 135,000 job cuts seen in the prior three months....

1 in 4 Borrowers Under Water By RUTH SIMON and JAMES R. HAGERTY The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery. Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif. These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market. Economists...

Banks Get New Rules on Property By LINGLING WEI Federal bank regulators issued guidelines allowing banks to keep loans on their books as "performing" even if the value of the underlying properties have fallen below the loan amount. The volume of troubled commercial real-estate loans is skyrocketing. Regulators said that the rules were designed to encourage banks to restructure problem commercial mortgages with borrowers rather than foreclose on them. But the move has prompted criticism that regulators are simply prolonging the financial crisis by not forcing borrowers and lenders to confront, rather than delay, inevitable problems.

Ibrahim Didi, right, the minister of fisheries and agriculture in the Maldives, signs a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a major climate change conference in December. (Mohammed Seeneen/Associated Press) Cabinet ministers in the Maldives held an underwater meeting Saturday to draw attention to the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth. President Mohammed Nasheed and members of his cabinet wore scuba gear as they arrived for the meeting in a lagoon off the island of Girifushi. They sat at a table anchored to the sand on the floor of...

Maldives Cabinet Meets Below Waves to Highlight Climate Change Threat By Steve Herman New Delhi 17 October 2009 In an effort to highlight climate change, the Cabinet of the government of the Maldives, an Indian island nation, has held a meeting under water. Meetings of government ministers can sometimes be a dry affair. That certainly was not the case during the latest gathering of the Cabinet of the Maldives. President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers, plus the vice president and Cabinet secretary, donned scuba gear and plunged six meters below the shimmering turquoise surface of an Indian...

August 13, 2009 More than half of Sacramento-area mortages are under water UPDATE: Here are the local numbers: Rather shocking.... In Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville-Woodland, 257,871, or 51.10 percent of all properties with a mortgage, are in negative equity. Santa Ana-based First American CoreLogic just minutes ago released a grim look at the mortgage crisis, reporting that 32.2 percent of all U.S. mortgages were tied to homes worth less than the amount of their loans. In California, it says, 42 percent of mortgages are in that condition often referred to as "under water." The report says 2.9 million California mortgages are in a...

An estimated 25 million homeowners, or 48% of those with mortgages, will owe more on the loan than the house is worth by the first quarter of 2011, according to an analysis by Deutsche Bank released this week.

The reason that these colorful shrimp are important: is because they are living next to this: NW-Rota in Eruption Video (suggest turning down computer sound/speakers, volume level is set on high for this video) More info: Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Expedition to NW Rota 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home values in the United States extended their fall in the first quarter, with more than one in five homeowners now owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday. U.S. home values posted a year-over-year decline of 14.2 percent to a Zillow Home Value Index of $182,378, resulting in a total 21.8 percent drop since the market peaked in 2006, according to Zillow's first-quarter Real Estate Market Reports, which encompass 161 metropolitan areas and cover the value changes in all homes, not just homes that have recently...

PARIS (AFP) – A predicted slowdown in Atlantic Ocean currents will cause sea levels along the US northeast coast to rise twice as fast as the global average, exposing New York and other big cities to violent and frequent storm surges, according to a new study. Manhattan's Wall Street, barely a metre (three feet) above sea level, for example, will find itself underwater more often as the 21st century unfolds, said the study, published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Sea levels vary across regions by up to 24 centimetres (9.5 inches), influenced in part by powerful currents that coarse around...

Underwater Stock Options Get a Lifeline From Firms By Tomoeh Murakami Tse Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 7, 2009; D01 Nearly 100 companies have undertaken programs that allow employees, many of them executives, to exchange sharply depreciated stock options for new awards with more generous terms. The companies, from Google to Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics, argue that the exchange -- which increases the chances that executives will be able to collect rewards even though the company stock has plummeted -- is necessary to retain and motivate personnel. Critics say the practice undermines the purpose of performance-based bonuses and puts...

[snip] None of the existing proposals to help homeowners with negative equity would eliminate the incentive to default. In an earlier article on this page I proposed a plan to prevent declines of house prices back to the prebubble level from pushing current positive-equity homeowners into the negative-equity group. The essential feature of that plan is to replace 20% of the homeowner's existing mortgage with a separate, full-recourse loan from the government. That "mortgage replacement loan" would have a very attractive, low interest rate. Because it would be separate from the mortgage and would have full recourse, it would establish...

 (edit)The concept car developer Rinspeed calls its "sQuba" the first real submersible car(edit) Rinspeed says its car can provide a stable "flight" at a depth of 30 feet."For three decades I have tried to imagine how it might be possible to build a car that can fly underwater," says Frank Rinderknecht, Rinspeed's 52-year-old CEO and a professed James Bond fan. "Now we have made this dream come true." The car will be unveiled at next month's Geneva Auto Show.Rinderknecht says it is difficult to make a car watertight and pressure-resistant enough to be maneuverable underwater."The real challenge, however, was to...

Underwater city could be revealed Sonar, underwater camera and scanning equipment will be used Britain's own underwater "Atlantis" could be revealed for the first time with hi-tech underwater cameras. Marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon and Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, will explore the lost city of Dunwich, off the Suffolk coast. Dunwich gradually disappeared into the sea because of coastal erosion. "It's about the application of new technology to investigate Britain's Atlantis, then to give this information to the public," Professor Sear said. Mr Bacon, director of the Suffolk Underwater Studies, first located the debris of the lost...

An enormous underwater landslide 60,000 years ago produced the longest flow of sand and mud yet found on Earth. The landslide off the coast of north-west Africa dumped 225 billion metric tonnes of sediment into the ocean in a matter of hours or days. The flow travelled 1,500km (932 miles) - the distance from London to Rome - before depositing its sediment. The work, by a British team of researchers has been published in the academic journal Nature. The massive surge put down the same amount of sediment that comes out of all the world's rivers combined over a period...

Underwater Archaeologists Find Possible Mastodon Carving On Lake Michigan Rock September 4, 2007 11:51 p.m. EST Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer Traverse City, MI (AHN) - Underwater archaeologists in Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay are speculating a boulder they found in a June ship wreck to be engraved with a prehistoric carvings. Mark Holley, a scientist with the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council, believes that the granite rock, which was found hidden at a depth of about 12 metres, has markings that resemble a mastodon. A mastodon is an elephant-like creature that once inhabited parts of North America....

Experts survey seabed off Gujarat for Dwarka evidence New Delhi, Aug 17 : A group of archaeological experts and Indian Navy divers have conducted the first scientific survey off the Gujarat coast to establish whether or not the ruins on the seabed are of the mythological city of Dwarka, the capital of Hindu god Krishna. "The area off the Samudranaraya temple at (present day) Dwarka is known to contain structures which have been widely reported and interpreted by renowned scholars. However, no scientific study of the area had been conducted so far," Alok Tripathi of the Archaeological Survey of India...

A race against time is under way to try to save a Stone Age settlement found buried at the bottom of the sea in the Solent. The village under the sea off the Isle of Wight was found by chance Eight thousand years ago the area would have been dry land, a valley and woodland criss-crossed by rivers. A swamped prehistoric forest was identified off the northern Isle of Wight coast in the 1980s, but Bouldnor Cliff's buried Stone Age village was only found - by chance - a few years ago. Divers taking part in a routine survey spotted...

Thousand of new volcanoes revealed beneath the waves 10:04 09 July 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic The true extent to which the ocean bed is dotted with volcanoes has been revealed by researchers who have counted 201,055 underwater cones. This is over 10 times more than have been found before. The team estimates that in total there could be about 3 million submarine volcanoes, 39,000 of which rise more than 1000 metres over the sea bed. "The distribution of underwater volcanoes tells us something about what is happening in the centre of the Earth," says John Hillier of the...

Despite challenges such as darkness, limited visibility and cold temperatures, the waters in and around Sweden offer unique opportunities for underwater exploration. Worlds away from the warm, clear waters of the tropics, Swedish diving is in a class of its own.