Category: cool stuff

Saudis Look To The East, While The West Covers Her Back

“The Saudis are particularly concerned about the shape of the global market where all the growth comes from the east and all the security comes from the west,” Mr. Alterman said.

China’s oil demand is set to grow by 900,000 barrels a day in the next two years. Chinese oil consumption reached 8.5 million barrels a day last year, compared with 4.8 million in 2000. It will account for a third of the world’s total consumption growth this year.

While China is by far the fastest-growing oil market in the world, the United States is still the top consumer: despite the slump, Americans consumed 18.5 million barrels a day in 2009. That amounts to 22 barrels of oil a year for each American, compared with 2.4 barrels for each Chinese.

via More Saudi Oil Goes to China Than to U.S. – NYTimes.com.

Solutions to Mexico’s Drug Crisis – WSJ.com

Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world’s most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.

Earlier this year, three former Latin American presidents known for their free-market and conservative credentials—Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil—said governments should seriously consider legalizing marijuana as an effective tool against murderous drug gangs

Some Mexican officials say privately that the U.S. should seriously consider allowing cocaine to pass more easily through the Caribbean again in order to squeeze Mexican gangs. “Would you rather destabilize small countries in the Caribbean or Mexico, which shares a 2,000-mile border with the U.S., is your third-biggest trading partner and has 100 million people?” one official said.

via Solutions to Mexico’s Drug Crisis – WSJ.com.

Why the EPA should have listened to Alan Carlin on global warming

As reported earlier in this series of articles (see here, here and here), EPA analyst Alan Carlin wrote a report in March that urged the EPA to conduct further review of evidence on the science of global warming. Continue reading “Why the EPA should have listened to Alan Carlin on global warming”

The Road to Area 51

The problem is the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk—in fact, five men are.

“We couldn’t have told you any of this a year ago,” Slater says. “Now we can’t tell it to you fast enough.” That is because in 2007, the CIA began declassifying the 50-year-old OXCART program. Today, there’s a scramble for eyewitnesses to fill in the information gaps. Only a few of the original players are left.

via The Road to Area 51 – Los Angeles Times.

Evidence We Are Living In A “Matrix” Hologram

The movie :the Matrix” may be onto something. The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard ‘t Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

via Our world may be a giant hologram – space – 15 January 2009 – New Scientist. Continue reading “Evidence We Are Living In A “Matrix” Hologram”

Blame HGTV for the Real Estate Crash

HGTV is an evil empire that never rests. You can loathe your current domicile 24/7 with programs such as “Stagers” (move a few things around and double the value of your home); “Designed to Sell” (you can sell your house, even if the house next to yours is in foreclosure); “Design on a Dime” (see, it’s cheap); and “Property Virgins” (losing your virginity was fun, wasn’t it?) Every show features highly attractive hosts who show you how to “unlock the hidden potential” in your home, how to turn a $10 thrift-store table into a “wow” media center, and how to make everything “pop.” Pop is the word of choice on HGTV.

Ironic, isn’t it, given the fact that pop is the sound we keep hearing from the McMansion-sized housing bubble HGTV created.

via Jim Sollisch: Blame Television for the Bubble – WSJ.com. Continue reading “Blame HGTV for the Real Estate Crash”