>’Global Katrina’: Biggest solar storm ever could cause power cuts for MONTHS

>

The world is overdue a ferocious ‘space storm’ that could knock out communications satellites, ground aircraft and trigger blackouts – causing hundreds of billions of pounds of damage, scientists say.

Astronomers today warned that mankind is now more vulnerable to a major solar storm than at any time in history – and that the planet should prepare for a global Katrina-style disaster. A massive eruption of the sun would save waves of radiation and charged particles to Earth, damaging the satellite systems used for synchronising computers, airline navigation and phone networks.

If the storm is powerful enough it could even crash stock markets and cause power cuts that last weeks or months, experts told the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The chances of a disruption from space are getting stronger because the sun is entering the most active period of its 11 to 12-year natural cycle. The world got a taster of the sun’s explosive power last week when the strongest solar eruption in five years sent a torrent of charged plasma hurtling towards the world at 580 miles per second. …

Solar storms are caused by massive explosions on the sun.

The explosions release waves of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation which smash into the Earth within minutes, disrupting radio signals and damaging the electronics of satellites. They are followed ten to 20 minutes later by a burst of energetic particles which cause even more havoc with satellites – and then 15 to 30 hours later by supercharged plasma which collides with Earth’s magnetic field.

The plasma create the aurora – or Northern Lights – and can induce electrical currents in power lines and cables. Jane Lubchenco, head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘This is not a matter of if, it is simply a matter of when and how big.

‘The last time we had a maximum in the solar cycle, about 10 years ago, the world was a very different place. Cell phones are now ubiquitous; they were certainly around  but we didn’t rely on them for so many different things. ‘Many things that we take for granted today are so much more prone to the process of space weather than was the case in the last solar maximum.’ …
via ‘Global Katrina’: Biggest solar storm ever could cause power cuts for MONTHS | Mail Online.

What happened last time?

From August 28, 1859 until September 2, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun. Just before noon on September 1, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest flare,^[4] which caused a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) to travel directly toward Earth, taking 18 hours. This is remarkable because such a journey normally takes three to four days. It moved so quickly because an earlier CME had cleared its way …

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over the Rocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.^[4]

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed in some cases even shocking telegraph operators.^[5] Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.^[6] Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.^[7]

Here is an account from an actual telegrapher:

Thursday, February 19, 1852

“Towards evening, a heavy blue line appeared upon the paper, which gradually increased in size for the space of half a minute, when a flame of fire succeeded to the blue line, of sufficient intensity to burn through a dozen thicknesses of the moistened paper. The current then subsided as gradually as it had come on, until it entirely ceased, and was then succeeded by a negative current (which bleaches, instead of coloring, the paper). This gradually increased, in the same manner as the positive current, until it also, in turn, produced its flame of fire, and burned through many thicknesses of the prepared paper; it then subsided, again to be followed by the positive current. This state of things continued during the entire evening, and effectually prevented any business being done over the wires.”

Another account:

During the auroral display, I was calling Richmond, and had one hand on the iron plate. Happening to lean towards the sounder, which is against the wall, my forehead grazed a ground wire. Immediately, I receive a very severe electric shock, which stunned me for an instant. An old man who was sitting facing me, and but a few feet distant, said that he saw a spark of fire jump from my forehead to the sounder.”  …

I’m not worried about communications disruptions. No one is talking about the fires. This is the time to buy CO2 fire extinguishers that put out electrical fires. Lots of them.

NOTE!: Never use a water extinguisher on grease fires, electrical fires … – the flames will spread and make the fire bigger! CO2 extinguishers have an advantage over dry chemical extinguishers since they don’t leave a harmful residue – a good choice for an electrical fire on a computer or other favorite electronic device such as a stereo or TV.  … Class C fires involve electrical equipment … – fire-extinguisher101.com

Even 144 years ago, many of Earth’s inhabitants realized something momentous had just occurred. Within hours, telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous fires – nasa

The extremely high currents resulted in many telegraph wires short-circuiting, causing some telegraph poles to catch alight.  … The CME was also responsible for the huge currents generated in telegraph wires. The
CME caused distortion of Earth’s magnetic field, establishing a constant flow of charge — a direct current —in the wires. This is an example of a geomagnetically
induced current – The Carrington Event: Flare or CME?

In 1859, wires were scarce, but not today. Imagine a fire starting anywhere there is a wire, and worse … in 1859, there were no nuclear power plants and no nuclear bombs. Here’s hoping to hell the bombs, pipelines, and billions of miles of wires we now have don’t catch fire and/or explode burning down every major city.

The sun could send us back to the stone age.

Tips:

• If you get a shock and see blue flames coming out of your computer or other electronics, stay calm, grab your CO2 fire extinguisher
• Stand on your Non-Conductive (Switchboard) Matt to be protected from deadly high voltage shocks. You’ll only have to stand there for one evening if it is like the last time.
  
• Be sure you use power strips or battery power supplies (UPSs) on your computers and other equipment.  They can absorb high voltage and save your stuff.

• Put on your cool blue anti electric arc suit.
  

 

>’Global Katrina’: Biggest solar storm ever could cause power cuts for MONTHS

>

The world is overdue a ferocious ‘space storm’ that could knock out communications satellites, ground aircraft and trigger blackouts – causing hundreds of billions of pounds of damage, scientists say.

Astronomers today warned that mankind is now more vulnerable to a major solar storm than at any time in history – and that the planet should prepare for a global Katrina-style disaster. A massive eruption of the sun would save waves of radiation and charged particles to Earth, damaging the satellite systems used for synchronising computers, airline navigation and phone networks.

If the storm is powerful enough it could even crash stock markets and cause power cuts that last weeks or months, experts told the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The chances of a disruption from space are getting stronger because the sun is entering the most active period of its 11 to 12-year natural cycle. The world got a taster of the sun’s explosive power last week when the strongest solar eruption in five years sent a torrent of charged plasma hurtling towards the world at 580 miles per second. …

Solar storms are caused by massive explosions on the sun.

The explosions release waves of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation which smash into the Earth within minutes, disrupting radio signals and damaging the electronics of satellites. They are followed ten to 20 minutes later by a burst of energetic particles which cause even more havoc with satellites – and then 15 to 30 hours later by supercharged plasma which collides with Earth’s magnetic field.

The plasma create the aurora – or Northern Lights – and can induce electrical currents in power lines and cables. Jane Lubchenco, head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘This is not a matter of if, it is simply a matter of when and how big.

‘The last time we had a maximum in the solar cycle, about 10 years ago, the world was a very different place. Cell phones are now ubiquitous; they were certainly around  but we didn’t rely on them for so many different things. ‘Many things that we take for granted today are so much more prone to the process of space weather than was the case in the last solar maximum.’ …
via ‘Global Katrina’: Biggest solar storm ever could cause power cuts for MONTHS | Mail Online.

What happened last time?

From August 28, 1859 until September 2, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun. Just before noon on September 1, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest flare,^[4] which caused a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) to travel directly toward Earth, taking 18 hours. This is remarkable because such a journey normally takes three to four days. It moved so quickly because an earlier CME had cleared its way …

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over the Rocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.^[4]

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed in some cases even shocking telegraph operators.^[5] Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.^[6] Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.^[7]

Here is an account from an actual telegrapher:

Thursday, February 19, 1852

“Towards evening, a heavy blue line appeared upon the paper, which gradually increased in size for the space of half a minute, when a flame of fire succeeded to the blue line, of sufficient intensity to burn through a dozen thicknesses of the moistened paper. The current then subsided as gradually as it had come on, until it entirely ceased, and was then succeeded by a negative current (which bleaches, instead of coloring, the paper). This gradually increased, in the same manner as the positive current, until it also, in turn, produced its flame of fire, and burned through many thicknesses of the prepared paper; it then subsided, again to be followed by the positive current. This state of things continued during the entire evening, and effectually prevented any business being done over the wires.”

Another account:

During the auroral display, I was calling Richmond, and had one hand on the iron plate. Happening to lean towards the sounder, which is against the wall, my forehead grazed a ground wire. Immediately, I receive a very severe electric shock, which stunned me for an instant. An old man who was sitting facing me, and but a few feet distant, said that he saw a spark of fire jump from my forehead to the sounder.”  …

I’m not worried about communications disruptions. No one is talking about the fires. This is the time to buy CO2 fire extinguishers that put out electrical fires. Lots of them.

NOTE!: Never use a water extinguisher on grease fires, electrical fires … – the flames will spread and make the fire bigger! CO2 extinguishers have an advantage over dry chemical extinguishers since they don’t leave a harmful residue – a good choice for an electrical fire on a computer or other favorite electronic device such as a stereo or TV.  … Class C fires involve electrical equipment … – fire-extinguisher101.com

Even 144 years ago, many of Earth’s inhabitants realized something momentous had just occurred. Within hours, telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous fires – nasa

The extremely high currents resulted in many telegraph wires short-circuiting, causing some telegraph poles to catch alight.  … The CME was also responsible for the huge currents generated in telegraph wires. The
CME caused distortion of Earth’s magnetic field, establishing a constant flow of charge — a direct current —in the wires. This is an example of a geomagnetically
induced current – The Carrington Event: Flare or CME?

In 1859, wires were scarce, but not today. Imagine a fire starting anywhere there is a wire, and worse … in 1859, there were no nuclear power plants and no nuclear bombs. Here’s hoping to hell the bombs, pipelines, and billions of miles of wires we now have don’t catch fire and/or explode burning down every major city.

The sun could send us back to the stone age.

Tips:

• If you get a shock and see blue flames coming out of your computer or other electronics, stay calm, grab your CO2 fire extinguisher
• Stand on your Non-Conductive (Switchboard) Matt to be protected from deadly high voltage shocks. You’ll only have to stand there for one evening if it is like the last time.
  
• Be sure you use power strips or battery power supplies (UPSs) on your computers and other equipment.  They can absorb high voltage and save your stuff.

• Put on your cool blue anti electric arc suit.
  

 

>Oldest fossils ever found may not be fossils after all

>

A rock formation in Western Australia was the site of great excitement a couple of decades ago when it revealed evidence of the oldest fossils of bacteria ever found, but a new study casts doubt on those findings.

The Pilbara craton in the northwest of Western Australia is one of only two remaining areas of pristine Archaean (3.6-2.7 billion years old) crust remaining on Earth. (The other is is Kaapvaal in South Africa.) The region is renowned for its deposits of apex chert, a fine-grained cryptocrystalline material rich in silica and featuring microfibrous sedimentary rock. The Pilbara Apex Chert has been dated at 3.5 billion years old and contained what was thought to be filaments of the oldest fossilized cyanobacteria in the world.

There has been some debate about whether or not the deposits were really fossils since the formation is now believed to be a hydrothermal site rather than the remains of a shallow sea floor. The ancient remains of hydrothermal sites are sometimes mistaken for fossils.

Assistant professor of paleobiogeochemistry, Dr Alison Olcott Marshall and colleagues from the University of Kansas in the US decided to settle the debate by analyzing new samples of the Apex Chert. They cut small, 300 micrometer sections of the debatably biological filaments, but for the first time they also cut sections 30 micrometers long to enable more light to enter the samples.

The shorter sections revealed the filaments were actually fractures in the rock, filled with a dark mineral and a light, clear mineral. They used Raman spectroscopy to identify the minerals, which turned out to be hematite (dark) and quartz (light), neither of which are biological in origin.

Martin Brasier, of the University of Oxford, UK, who first proposed the formation was hydrothermal, said he was not surprised at the new study’s results since in 2002 his team found a fossil known as the “red banana,” which led them to suggest many of the filaments identified as fossils were hematite. …

via Oldest fossils ever found may not be fossils after all.

…  the fossil record has been pushed back to between 2.3 and 3.5 billion years before the present.^[13] Most of these Precambrian fossils are microscopic bacteria or microfossils. However, macroscopic fossils are now known from the late Proterozoic …

‘Microfossil’ is a descriptive term applied to fossilized plants and animals whose size is just at or below the level at which the fossil can be analyzed by the naked eye. A commonly applied cutoff point between “micro” and “macro” fossils is 1 mm, although this is only an approximate guide. Microfossils may either be complete (or near-complete) organisms in themselves (such as the marine plankters foraminifera and coccolithophores) or component parts (such as small teeth or spores) of larger animals or plants. Microfossils are of critical importance as a reservoir of paleoclimate information, and are also commonly used by biostratigraphers to assist in the correlation of rock units. – wiki

>Plankton key to origin of Earth’s first breathable atmosphere

>

Pam Frost Gorder – Researchers studying the origin of Earth’s first breathable atmosphere have zeroed in on the major role played by some very unassuming creatures: plankton.

In a paper to appear in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Ohio State University researcher Matthew Saltzman and his colleagues show how plankton provided a critical link between the atmosphere and chemical isotopes stored in rocks 500 million years ago.

This work builds on the team’s earlier discovery that upheavals in Earth’s crust initiated a kind of reverse-greenhouse effect 500 million years ago that cooled the world’s oceans, spawned giant plankton blooms, and sent a burst of oxygen into the atmosphere.

The new study has revealed details as to how oxygen came to vanish from Earth’s ancient atmosphere during the Cambrian Period, only to return at higher levels than ever before.

It also hints at how, after mass extinctions, the returning oxygen allowed enormous amounts of new life to flourish.

Saltzman and his team were able to quantify how much oxygen was released into the atmosphere at the time, and directly link the amount of sulfur in the ancient oceans with atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide.

The result is a clearer picture of life on Earth in a time of extreme turmoil.

“We know that oxygen levels in the ocean dropped dramatically [a condition called anoxia] during the Cambrian, and that coincides with the time of a global extinction,” said Saltzman, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State.

In a paper in the journal Nature just last month, the same researchers presented the first geochemical evidence that the anoxia spread even to the world’s shallow waters.

“We still don’t know why the anoxia spread all over the world. We may never know,” Saltzman said. “But there have been many other extinction events in Earth’s history, and with the exception of those caused by meteor impacts, others likely share elements of this one — changes in the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans.”

“By getting a handle on what was happening back then, we may improve our understanding of what’s happening to the atmosphere now.”

Something enabled oxygen to re-enter the oceans and the atmosphere 500 million years ago, and the study suggests that the tiny plant and animal life forms known as plankton were key. …

Plankton may be at the bottom our food chain today, but back then, they ruled the planet. There was no life on land at all. And aside from an abundance of trilobites, life in the oceans was not very diverse.

Not diverse, that is, until a geologic event that scientists call the Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion (SPICE) occurred. In previous work, Saltzman and his collaborators showed that the SPICE event was caused by the burial of huge quantities of organic matter in ocean sediments, which pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and released oxygen.

The more oxygen plankton encounter in their cells, the more selective they become for the light isotope of carbon in carbon dioxide, and absorb it into their bodies.

By studying isotopes in fossilized plankton contained in rocks found in the central United States, the Australian outback, and China, the researchers determined that the SPICE event happened around the same time as an explosion of plankton diversity known as the “plankton revolution.”

“The amount of oxygen rebounded, and so did the diversity of life,” Saltzman explained.

Other researchers have tried to gauge how much oxygen was in the air during the Cambrian, but their estimates have varied widely, from a few percent to as much as 15-20 percent.

If the higher estimates were correct, then the SPICE event would have boosted oxygen content to greater than 30 percent — or almost 50 percent richer than today’s standard of 21 percent. …

via Plankton key to origin of Earth’s first breathable atmosphere.

>Refuting a Myth About Human Origins

>

John J. Shea – For decades, archeologists have believed that modern behaviors emerged among Homo sapiens tens of thousands of years after our species first evolved. Archaeologists disagreed over whether this process was gradual or swift, but they assumed that Homo sapiens once lived who were very different from us. These people were not “behaviorally modern,” meaning they did not routinely use art, symbols and rituals; they did not systematically collect small animals, fish, shellfish and other difficult-to-procure foods; they did not use complex technologies: Traps, nets, projectile weapons and watercraft were unknown to them.

Premodern humans—often described as “archaic Homo sapiens”—were thought to have lived in small, vulnerable groups of closely related individuals. They were believed to have been equipped only with simple tools and were likely heavily dependent on hunting large game. Individuals in such groups would have been much less insulated from environmental stresses than are modern humans. In Thomas Hobbes’s words, their lives were “solitary, nasty, brutish and short.” If you need a mental image here, close your eyes and conjure a picture of a stereotypical caveman. But archaeological evidence now shows that some of the behaviors associated with modern humans, most importantly our capacity for wide behavioral variability, actually did occur among people who lived very long ago, particularly in Africa. And a conviction is growing among some archaeologists that there was no sweeping transformation to “behavioral modernity” in our species’ recent past. …

There are no known populations of Homo sapiens with biologically constrained capacities for behavioral variability. Generations of anthropologists have sought in vain for such primitive people in every corner of the world and have consistently failed to find them….

In the unforgiving Pleistocene environments in which our species evolved, reproductive isolation was the penalty for stupidity, and lions and wolves were its cure. In other words: No villages, no village idiots. If any such cognitive “winner take all” wipeout event ever happened, it was probably among earlier hominins (Homo ergaster/erectus or Homo heidelbergensis) or during the evolutionary differentiation of our species from these hominin ancestors. …

Even today, a caveman remains the popular image of what a prehistoric person looked like. This individual usually is shown with enlarged eyebrows, a projecting face, long hair and a beard. The stereotypical caveman is inarticulate and dim-witted, and possesses a limited capacity for innovation. In 2006, GEICO commercials put an ironic twist on this image. Their cavemen were more intelligent, articulate, creative and culturally sophisticated than many “modern” people. In a striking case of life imitating art, recent archaeological discoveries are overturning long-standing misconceptions about early human behavior.

via Refuting a Myth About Human Origins » American Scientist.

>’Printing out’ new ears and skin

>

The next step in the 3D printing revolution may be body parts including cartilage, bone and even skin.

Three-dimensional printing is a technique for making solid objects with devices not unlike a computer printer, building up line by line, and then vertically layer by layer.

While the approach works with polymers and plastics, the raw ingredients of 3D printing have been recently branching out significantly.

The printers have been co-opted even to make foods, and do-it-yourself biology experiments dubbed “garage biotech” – and has most recently been employed to repair a casting of Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker that was damaged in a botched robbery.

But at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, the buzzword is bioprinting: using the same technique to artfully knock out new body parts. …

James Yoo, of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University, told the meeting of his group’s aim to print skin directly onto burn victims.

“What motivated us to start this programme and development is the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

“Up to 30% of all injuries and casualties that occur from the war involve the skin, and using bioprinting we thought that we could address some of the challenges they’re facing with burn care.”

Professor Yoo’s group is developing a portable system that can be brought directly to burn victims.

“What’s unique about this device is that it has a scanner system that can identify the extent and depth of the wound, because every wound is different,” he said. …

via BBC News – ‘Printing out’ new ears and skin.

The article goes on to say that the next big challenge will be connecting all the blood vessels and so on in the real body to the new printed part, but this will happen and the technology will one day be mainstream.

>’Printing out’ new ears and skin

>

The next step in the 3D printing revolution may be body parts including cartilage, bone and even skin.

Three-dimensional printing is a technique for making solid objects with devices not unlike a computer printer, building up line by line, and then vertically layer by layer.

While the approach works with polymers and plastics, the raw ingredients of 3D printing have been recently branching out significantly.

The printers have been co-opted even to make foods, and do-it-yourself biology experiments dubbed “garage biotech” – and has most recently been employed to repair a casting of Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker that was damaged in a botched robbery.

But at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, the buzzword is bioprinting: using the same technique to artfully knock out new body parts. …

James Yoo, of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University, told the meeting of his group’s aim to print skin directly onto burn victims.

“What motivated us to start this programme and development is the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

“Up to 30% of all injuries and casualties that occur from the war involve the skin, and using bioprinting we thought that we could address some of the challenges they’re facing with burn care.”

Professor Yoo’s group is developing a portable system that can be brought directly to burn victims.

“What’s unique about this device is that it has a scanner system that can identify the extent and depth of the wound, because every wound is different,” he said. …

via BBC News – ‘Printing out’ new ears and skin.

The article goes on to say that the next big challenge will be connecting all the blood vessels and so on in the real body to the new printed part, but this will happen and the technology will one day be mainstream.

>Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?

>

Matt Taibbi – … Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling.

What’s more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even “one dollar” just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick “The Gorilla” Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars. …

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. “If the allegations in these settlements are true,” says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, “it’s management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims.” …

Read more:  Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics.

 

>Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?

>

Matt Taibbi – … Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling.

What’s more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even “one dollar” just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick “The Gorilla” Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars. …

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. “If the allegations in these settlements are true,” says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, “it’s management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims.” …

Read more:  Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics.

 

>Thousands flee homes as Philippine volcano erupts

>

Thousands of people in the Philippines fled their homes as a volcano erupted yesterday, sending a spectacular column of ash high into the sky, residents said. The eruption of Bulusan, a 1,559-metre (5,115-foot) volcano, turned mid-morning into night for about 20 minutes across largely farming areas around its slopes, regional army spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc told AFP.

There was a major ashfall. There was zero visibility,” Cabunoc said. State volcanologist Ramil Vaquilar told AFP that rumbling sounds accompanied the ash column that rose between two and 2.5 kilometres (1.2-1.6 miles) above the crater. About 2,000 residents were evacuated from three farming villages in the area as the government banned people from within four kilometres of the crater, said Lieutenant-Colonel Santiago Enginco, the local army commander.

Thirty-eight high school students were treated for ashfall inhalation, Enginco said. Volcanic ash can cause nose, throat, eye or skin irritation as well as contaminate tap water, while prolonged exposure can cause lung disease, according to the health ministry. Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Renato Solidum said on national television that planes should avoid the skies over Bulusan, as ash might clog jet engines.

However the area is not widely used in the aviation industry. …

via Thousands flee homes as Philippine volcano erupts » Kuwait Times Website.