Details on the consumer…

Gold stars for Cook as he heads off Apple…

The last of the bears Acuthan still stands by his call that the markets are up on fed juice and that data still stinks with the exception of employment; that he says will deteriorate.

SOURCE 

Given the media’s “Linsanity” surrounding Jeremy Lin, perhaps this was inevitable.

Following (justified) outrage over several examples of racially-insensitive coverage of Lin–including a headline published by ESPN.com which resulted in the firing of one staffer and suspension of another–the Asian American Journalists Association has issued a set of guidelines for media outlets salivating over the NBA’s Asian-American sensation.

“As NBA player Jeremy Lin’s prowess on the court continues to attract international attention and grab headlines, AAJA would like to remind media outlets about relevance and context regarding coverage of race,” the group wrote in an advisory. “In the past weeks, as more news outlets report on Lin, his game and his story, AAJA has noticed factual inaccuracies about Lin’s background as well as an alarming number of references that rely on stereotypes about Asians or Asian Americans.”

Among the “danger zones” identified by AAJA:

“CHINK”: Pejorative; do not use in a context involving an Asian person on someone who is Asian American. Extreme care is needed if using the well-trod phrase “chink in the armor”; be mindful that the context does not involve Asia, Asians or Asian Americans.

And:

“ME LOVE YOU LIN TIME”: Avoid. This is a lazy pun on the athlete’s name and alludes to the broken English of a Hollywood caricature from the 1980s.

AAJA urged caution “when discussing Lin’s physical characteristics, particularly those that feminize/emasculate the Asian male (Cinderella-story angles should not place Lin in a dress). Discussion of genetic differences in athletic ability among races should be avoided. In referring to Lin’s height or vision, be mindful of the context and avoid invoking stereotypes about Asians.”

The group added: “Stop to think: Would a similar statement be made about an athlete who is Caucasian, African American or Latino?”

Below are the AAJA’s guidelines in full:

THE FACTS

1. Jeremy Lin is Asian American, not Asian (more specifically, Taiwanese American). It’s an important distinction and one that should be considered before any references to former NBA players such as Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi, who were Chinese. Lin’s experiences were fundamentally different than people who immigrated to play in the NBA. Lin progressed through the ranks of American basketball from high school to college to the NBA, and to characterize him as a foreigner is both inaccurate and insulting.

2. Lin’s path to Madison Square Garden: More than 300 division schools passed on him. Harvard University has had only three other graduates go on to the NBA, the most recent one being in the 1950s. No NBA team wanted Lin in the draft after he graduated from Harvard.

3. Journalists don’t assume that African American players identify with NBA players who emigrated from Africa. The same principle applies with Asian Americans. It’s fair to ask Lin whether he looked up to or took pride in the accomplishments of Asian players. He may have. It’s unfair and poor journalism to assume he did.

4. Lin is not the first Asian American to play in the National Basketball Association. Raymond Townsend, who’s of Filipino descent, was a first-round choice of the Golden State Warriors in the 1970s. Rex Walters, who is of Japanese descent, was a first-round draft pick by the New Jersey Nets out of the University of Kansas in 1993 and played seven seasons in the NBA; Walters is now the coach at University of San Francisco. Wat Misaka is believed to have been the first Asian American to play professional basketball in the United States. Misaka, who’s of Japanese descent, appeared in three games for the New York Knicks in the 1947-48 season when the Knicks were part of the Basketball Association of America, which merged with the NBA after the 1948-49 season.

DANGER ZONES

“CHINK”: Pejorative; do not use in a context involving an Asian person on someone who is Asian American. Extreme care is needed if using the well-trod phrase “chink in the armor”; be mindful that the context does not involve Asia, Asians or Asian Americans. (The appearance of this phrase with regard to Lin led AAJA MediaWatch to issue statement to ESPN, which subsequently disciplined its employees.)

DRIVING: This is part of the sport of basketball, but resist the temptation to refer to an “Asian who knows how to drive.”

EYE SHAPE: This is irrelevant. Do not make such references if discussing Lin’s vision.

FOOD: Is there a compelling reason to draw a connection between Lin and fortune cookies, takeout boxes or similar imagery? In the majority of news coverage, the answer will be no.

MARTIAL ARTS: You’re writing about a basketball player. Don’t conflate his skills with judo, karate, tae kwon do, etc. Do not refer to Lin as “Grasshopper” or similar names associated with martial-arts stereotypes.

“ME LOVE YOU LIN TIME”: Avoid. This is a lazy pun on the athlete’s name and alludes to the broken English of a Hollywood caricature from the 1980s.

“YELLOW MAMBA”: This nickname that some have used for Lin plays off the “Black Mamba” nickname used by NBA star Kobe Bryant. It should be avoided. Asian immigrants in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries were subjected to discriminatory treatment resulting from a fear of a “Yellow Peril” that was touted in the media, which led to legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act.

via BBC NEWS

Tropical fish plot cocaine smugglers jailed

Olaf Urlik and Norbert Jarzabek tried to smuggle cocaine with a street value of about £1.6m to Nottingham from Colombia

_____________________

Two men have been jailed for trying to smuggle cocaine with a street value of £1.6m from Colombia to Nottingham in bags of tropical fish.

Olaf Urlik, 33, and Norbert Jarzabek, 32, both from Poland, admitted conspiracy to import Class A drugs at an earlier hearing on 5 January.

The cocaine was dissolved in fluid in plastic bags within larger bags holding the fish, thousands of which died.

Urlik and Jarzabek were both jailed for 11 years at Nottingham Crown Court.

Last April, Urlik and Jarzabek carried out a trial run without the cocaine in which all 16,000 fish were left to die, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said.

‘Very poorly’Jarzabek and a friend from Strelley, Nottingham, collected the consignment and took it to a lock-up garage in Islington, north London, where the fish were abandoned.

A second cargo, plotted by Urlik and Jarzabek and containing 17kg (37lb) of cocaine, arrived at Heathrow Airport on 9 July last year labelled “Live Tropical Fish, Handle With Extreme Care”.

The fish were in intensive care at London Zoo for several weeks

It contained 25 double boxes of almost 550 tropical fish.

Soca and UK Border Agency found 10 of the boxes to have dissolved bags of cocaine stored in the water with the fish.

The fish were left for two days at the airport before being picked up.

Once the boxes were collected they were taken to a flat on Glade Avenue, Nottingham, which Jarzabek had rented a month before.

Investigating Soca officers arrested the men at the property with the evidence.

The fish had limited oxygen for at least 96 hours and many were found dead or lay dying. Only 26 survived and were taken to London Zoo for treatment.

The fish are now in an aquarium at the zoo.

Rachel Jones, team leader of the aquarium, said the case was “really quite unusual”.

“We do work with the authorities to take confiscations but they’re usually of marine creatures like corals.”

She said the fish were “very poorly” when they first arrived and were in intensive care for several weeks.

“They were really skinny and they’d been in terrible water quality for many, many days.

“A lot of TLC was involved in encouraging them to feed. Now they’re quite plump and doing really, really well,” she said.

SOURCE

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or dinner. James Summers learned that lesson on Tuesday afternoon, police say, when he strolled into a Madison, Wis., Denny’s with a briefcase, claimed that he was the new general manager, cooked up his own cheeseburger and fries, and grabbed a soda

Even when police arrived, he stood his ground, and insisted there must have been a paperwork mixup,
reports Channel3000, a south-central Wisconsin news site.

Here’s what police say was the sequence of events: The gray-haired 52-year-old (pictured at left) entered the restaurant around 4.30 p.m. in a maroon tie and long black trenchcoat. He went to the office door of the current general manager, insisted that he was a three-decade veteran of the fast food chain, and had been sent from the corporate offices to immediately start his job as general manager.

The current manager told Summers that he must have gotten the wrong restaurant, and the interaction turned into a “nose on nose,” in her words. He left and told her that he was going to start work. His first task: cooking himself dinner.

The current manager started called her supervisors, and ignored the knocks on the doors from the bemused kitchen staff. The intruder was chowing down when she told him that he was definitely not who he said was. He continued eating, and said she just hadn’t got the memo.

By the time the police arrived, Summers was leaving the scene. He agreed to return, insisted again that he was the general manager, and although the police couldn’t confirm the facts, they arrested him. An officer discovered a stun gun in his belt, and when he asked Summers if he had a permit, he replied, “it’s in the pipeline.”

Summers now faces charges of fraud hotel or restaurant keeper, possession of electric weapon, disorderly conduct, and possession of drug paraphernalia. As he was taken away from the restaurant by police, Summers allegedly shouted out: “This is why you don’t dine and dash kiddies.” A good lesson for us all.

“One of the main points that Glenn took from his weekend in Europe was the overriding sense that we are currently in the middle of World War III. This time, however, the war is being fought with financial weapons of mass destruction and the goal is to attain power, money and influence. Below is a clip from Monday’s GBTV program in which Glenn explains the role that Middle East and oil will play in the conflict ahead. Hear why Glenn is frightened by this international battle:”

Watch and read more here:

L.A. is imposing a condom law in association with porn flicks. The industry is threatening to leave CA and many 10s of thousands of jobs behind….

“Gasoline prices in the U.S. are off on another tear. The national average just went by $3.57 for regular and due to a little problem of several major refineries that serve the U.S.’s East Coast shutting down, here in Northern Virginia we are running 20 to 25 cents a gallon higher than normal. The wisest of the prognosticators say we should seeing circa $4+ a gallon by late spring so the Washington area will likely be seeing circa $4.50. In case you missed it, they are already getting $5 for regular down by the Kennedy Centre. Somebody in Congress is sure to notice this soon.

While waiting to see how the latest settlement of the EU’s debt crisis or any of the on-going Middle East confrontations turn out, it seems like a good time to review a few of the hundreds of announcements of new energy technology that have made in the last few months. The 800 lb. gorilla of course remains cold fusion. While little new has happened in the cold fusion story recently, scientists from around the world continue to report that Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) really do take place and can make heat. So far two companies say they have developed the technology to the point where they can safely make useful amounts of heat and are preparing to bring heat-making devices to market. Unfortunately, both of these companies, for what they say are proprietary reasons, have refused to let outside scientists examine their technology to verify that it can perform as claimed.

This situation may be changing, however, for one of these two companies, a Greece-based organization called Defkalion, say they have arranged for teams of outside investigators to come in later this week and test their device. If this series of tests by outside scientists do take place, we should at least have some sort of independent verification that these “cold fusion” devices are for real, and not a scam as many believe.

In going through the energy-related announcements of technical developments that have been made in the last few months most seem to be related to motor vehicles and other means of transportation. It is clear that the global automobile industry is going through a renaissance so that in a few years the efficiency with which our cars and trucks burn energy will see dramatic improvements. Most of the announcements concern mundane, marginal, improvements – lower weight, less drag, more efficient or different kinds of power trains – but taken together could cut the need for motor fuels dramatically. The problem of course is that there are now about a billion cars and light trucks on the world’s roads that will have to be replaced in order to realize the anticipated savings – a task that will take decades.

It is interesting that announcements concerning new models of electrically-powered light trucks seem to be on the increase. Commercial vehicles are likely to be subjected to more rigorous cost-benefit analyses than personal vehicles so that in the coming era of very high gasoline and diesel prices, electrically powered delivery vehicles may become more common.

Many of the other announcements of new technology developments appear to relate to improvements to batteries or the production of cellulosic ethanol. Each month there are dozens of such announcements, most claiming that a significant breakthrough has occurred. It is impossible to tell which if any of these developments will lead to useful energy-saving technology and one day become commercial products. Most of these new technologies are still at the laboratory level.

The one announcement that seems to be of more than normal interest was made by the University of California, Berkeley where a team of chemists have come up with a catalyst that produces hydrogen from water without heat. Hydrogen, which can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, power moon rockets, make fertilizer etc. without making any kind of pollution, is nice stuff to have, but it is usually produced from natural gas or electrolysis of water both of which require energy. This new catalyst which uses an artificial version of molybdenite that has been engineered so that every molecule has a discrete catalytically active surface that could one day bring about a sustainable cost-effective hydrogen economy.

Once hydrogen in produced, storing it becomes a problem. To store useful quantities, such as would be necessary for a hydrogen-powered vehicle, expensive high pressures tanks are necessary. For this reason there is considerable research going on to find a way to store hydrogen inside the lattice work of metals. This is all rather exotic technology so it is hard to tell whether a commercially useful product will be available soon.

Another field where dozens of reports of progress are being released every month is that of advanced storage batteries. Here the goal is to get cheaper, higher energy density, faster to charge, longer lasting, batteries that could be used for electric vehicles or to store electricity from intermittent sources such as the sun, or wind. With numerous reputable labs issuing a stream of announcements concerning breakthroughs, again is it is difficult for the non-specialist to assess if real progress towards a commercially viable better battery is being made. The US Secretary of Energy recently announced that he expects substantial progress in the next few years. Let’s hope he’s right….”

Read More

It will not be long till all the candidates promise this….

“NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Housing is still one of the biggest drags on U.S. economic growth, but don’t look to the Federal Reserve for help. The central bank may have few tools left to fix it.

That’s the basic hypothesis of a paper top economists presented to a room full of monetary policy elites in Manhattan Friday.

The US. Monetary Policy Forum is a one-day meeting presented by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In attendance are Federal Reserve officials, members of foreign central banks and economists from some of the world’s largest banks and top universities.

At Friday’s meeting, these top thinkers focused heavily on weaknesses in the housing market, and the mood was not exactly upbeat.

Traditionally, the Fed could aid the housing market during tough times, by lowering its key interest rate and thereby lowering mortgage rates. But the Fed’s interest rate is already near zero and mortgage rates are already at record lows — and yet the housing market remains in a slump.

Could the Fed be out of bullets when it comes to this key part of the American economy?

Has Obama’s housing policy failed?

Read More

“Inflation will become a problem in the longer term for the U.S. economy, although price pressures will remain manageable at least for now, a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta survey shows.

Federal Reserve officials insist their ultra-loose monetary policies such as asset purchases from banks and commitments to keep interest rates low for years have not seriously pushed up inflation rates.

High prices at the pump, for example, are caused by factors other than Fed policies, such as supply strains.

Nevertheless, the Fed survey of 168 firms in the southeast U.S. finds inflation should average at 1.9 percent over the next 12 months, just below the Fed’s 2 percent goal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

However, that average jumps to 2.9 percent in five to 10 years, the survey finds, well above Federal Reserve comfort levels.

“What our panel of firms appears to be telling us is that the risks to the inflation outlook — in both the near term and longer term — aren’t particularly balanced,” Atlanta Fed economists Mike Bryan, Laurel Graefe and Nicholas Parker write in the study, according to the Journal.

“In the near term, they weigh the inflation risks more heavily to the downside. But looking over the next five to 10 years, the panel sees the inflation risks leaning decidedly to the upside.”

Read more:  

Nobody is trying to be a hater; just pointing out some interesting facts.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates over 80 trillion cubic feet of natty gas…

They sold to Eddie at the bottom.

Full article

No. Ticker % Change
1 CHTP 57.68
2 GU 26.02
3 KCP 19.66
4 PEIX 13.76
5 BIOF 13.64
6 SNMX 11.68
7 ANCI 11.51
8 PSDV 11.11
9 ELLI 10.97
10 OEH 10.64
11 MNTG 10.39
12 IDI 10.01
13 FREE 10.00
14 AXTI 9.61
15 OVTI 9.58
16 NDSN 9.46
17 JOBS 9.46
18 CYTR 9.38
19 TGX 8.55
20 OWW 8.39
21 TESO 8.26
22 RCON 8.24
23 MNEL 7.96
24 GMXR 7.89
25 PRGN 7.76

———————————-

No. Ticker % Change
1 RBCN -17.17
2 KND -16.25
3 CYDE -14.00
4 PGTI -13.41
5 DECK -11.33
6 WHRT -11.11
7 INT -10.46
8 CLDX -9.40
9 OESX -8.53
10 MMSI -8.01
11 CIR -7.89
12 CBMX -7.74
13 CROX -7.74
14 DRJ -7.60
15 MCP -7.32
16 LYV -7.14
17 CNAM -6.90
18 UAN -6.30
19 IAG -6.13
20 TIVO -6.00
21 CLWR -5.95
22 CRDC -5.80
23 CXZ -5.80
24 ANX -5.56
25 SR -5.31

3D heat map

S&P A/D Line

NASDAQ A/D Line

Predatory patent lawsuit…

ISSUE GAINERS                 SYMBOL   EXCH   LAST PRICE   MONEY FLOW    RATIO 
                                                          (in millions) 
Apple                          AAPL    NASD      520.40       +94.7       1.21 
iShr FTSE China 25             FXI     ARCA       40.26       +52.5      19.38 
Google                         GOOG    NASD      607.64       +48.1       2.32 
Cobalt Intl Engy               CIE     NYSE       29.61       +36.8       2.35 
Service Corp Intl              SCI     NYSE       11.24       +24.6     289.48 
Wells Fargo                    WFC     NYSE       30.39       +16.3       2.10 
ExxonMobil                     XOM     NYSE       87.36       +15.6       2.27 
Microsoft                      MSFT    NASD       31.39       +15.4       2.05 
IBM                            IBM     NYSE      197.51       +14.5       1.52 
Citigroup                      C       NYSE       32.69       +11.5       1.54 
Schlumberger                   SLB     NYSE       80.01       +10.8       2.18 
Hewlett-Packard                HPQ     NYSE       26.97       +10.4       1.69 
Wal-Mart Stores                WMT     NYSE       58.54       +10.2       2.01 
Bank Of America                BAC     NYSE        8.06       +10.2       1.55 
Amer Intl Group                AIG     NYSE       29.37        +8.7       1.34 
Pfizer                         PFE     NYSE       21.11        +8.6       2.41 
Freeport McMoran               FCX     NYSE       44.20        +8.4       1.51 
DirecTV Group Inc              DTV     NASD       45.47        +7.8       2.80 
PepsiCo                        PEP     NYSE       63.33        +7.7       2.19 
Union Pacific                  UNP     NYSE      113.00        +7.5       2.15 

ISSUE DECLINERS               SYMBOL   EXCH   LAST PRICE   MONEY FLOW    RATIO 
                                                          (in millions) 
SPDR S&P 500                   SPY     ARCA      136.97      -211.3       0.38 
Salesforcecom                  CRM     NYSE      141.80       -66.5       0.69 
Procter & Gamble               PG      NYSE       66.83       -26.8       0.56 
Qualcomm                       QCOM    NASD       63.76       -17.3       0.42 
Select Sector SPDR-Ind         XLI     ARCA       37.61       -16.2       0.24 
Chevron                        CVX     NYSE      108.78       -14.8       0.38 
VMware Inc                     VMW     NYSE      100.68       -11.1       0.46 
Coca-Cola                      KO      NYSE       69.23       -10.6       0.50 
Johnson & Johnson              JNJ     NYSE       64.42       -10.0       0.62 
Johnson Controls               JCI     NYSE       33.35        -9.9       0.26 
AT&T                           T       NYSE       30.47        -8.8       0.45 
General Electric               GE      NYSE       19.33        -8.1       0.48 
McDonald's                     MCD     NYSE      100.50        -8.0       0.44 
Oracle                         ORCL    NASD       29.03        -7.9       0.59 
ContinentalRes                 CLR     NYSE       94.74        -7.7       0.47 
Chesapeake Energy              CHK     NYSE       25.18        -7.3       0.57 
Verizon Communications         VZ      NYSE       38.27        -6.8       0.45 
Amazoncom                      AMZN    NASD      179.11        -6.6       0.84 
Intel                          INTC    NASD       26.66        -6.6       0.74 
ConocoPhillips                 COP     NYSE       75.62        -6.6       0.71

Twice the fun