Ilargi writes: The upbeat messages coming from the guys I labeled the Three Stooges,
Summers, Obama and Bernanke (and Geithner can be their D’Artagnan) were
this morning put into a very bright light, and a clear focus, by the
arguably worst overall economic numbers to come out of the downturn to
date. I would strongly suggest that when they try that again, they take
the opportunity to address these numbers while they’re at it.

Political
capital is not something that is based on, or derived from, rational
evaluations. The majority of Obama’s popularity doesn’t seem to come
from people who do much if any analysis of his economic policies; they
are simply under his spell (or his wife’s, daughters’ or dog’s). What I
personally probably like least of all is that the president himself,
through his refusal to come clean on economic realities, and to be open
to the people about the miserable state the country is in, lends
credibility to these asinine tea parties sprouting up, which have as
much to do with reality as the commander-in-chief’s recent speeches.
The more lies and half-truths the White House spreads, the more they
empower the forces lining up against them. If you don’t tell the truth,
Mr. President, they don’t need to either. Here’s the crunching:

• Sam Zell, who made billions in the field, says US commercial real
  estate values are already down 30%. That is at a time when just about
  everyone still tries not to talk even mention CRE.

• The US consumer price index fell at an annual rate of 0.4% in March,
  the first time since August 1955 prices have decreased on a
  year-over-year basis.
• March retail sales fell 1.1% since February, while wholesale prices fell 1.2%.

• March output for factories, mines and utilities fell 1.5% in the past
  month. Industrial production is down 13.3% since the recession began in
  December 2007 and 12.8% since March 2008. Output fell at a 20%
  annualized rate during the first quarter of 2009.
• Factory production dropped 1.7% in March; it has fallen 15.7% since December 2007, and 15% in the past 12 months.
• Vehicle output is down 34.5% in the past year.
• Production of high-tech equipment fell 3.1% for the second month in a row, for a cumulative drop of 22.6% in the past year.

• As
  of March - or halfway through fiscal year 2009 - federal tax revenue is
  14%, or $160 billion, lower than last year, the Congressional Budget
  Office reported.
• Individual income tax receipts dropped 15% while those for businesses fell a whopping 57%.
• Revenue from miscellaneous taxes and fees has fallen by $10 billion, or 12%.

• Local tax collections rose 3.2%, as gains in property taxes (!!) offset falling sales taxes.
• David Walker, former comptroller general of the United States, warns taxes will double.

• Government spending levels midway through the fiscal year rose by $480 billion, or 33 percent.
• Large increases in how much the federal government spent on Medicaid
  (up 17%) and “other activities” (up 21%) like unemployment benefits.
• The CBO estimates that the annual deficit will spike to between $1.67
  trillion and $1.85 trillion. That’s nearly four times last year’s
  then-record $455 billion deficit.

• Foreclosure sales had dropped in the second half of 2008 as mortgage
  companies delayed taking action against delinquent borrowers.
• But foreclosure-related filings increased by nearly 6% in February from
  the month earlier, and were up almost 30% from February 2008.
• More than 2.1 million homes will be lost this year because borrowers
  can’t meet their loan payments, up from about 1.7 million in 2008,
  according to Moody’s Economy.com. …

I can’t wait for the next clown to claim the “shallow recession” is over. Anybody keeping tabs on who says what when about what point in the future? It’ll be a gas. (04/15/09)
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Thom Hartmann writes: CNBC Correspondent Rick Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” on Feb 19th in protesting President Obama’s plan to help homeowners in trouble. Santelli’s call was answered by the right-wing group FreedomWorks, which funds campaigns promoting big business interests, and is the opposite of what the real Boston Tea Party was. FreedomWorks was funded in 2004 by Dick Armey (former Republican House Majority leader & lobbyist); consolidated Citizens for a Sound Economy, funded by the Koch family; and Empower America, a lobbying firm, that had fought against healthcare and minimum-wage efforts while hailing deregulation.

Anti-tax “tea party” organizers are delivering one million tea bags to a Washington, D.C., park Wednesday morning - to promote protests across the country by people they say are fed up with high taxes and excess spending.

The real Boston Tea Party was a protest against huge corporate tax cuts for the British East India Company, the largest trans-national corporation then in existence. This corporate tax cut threatened to decimate small Colonial businesses by helping the BEIC pull a Wal-Mart against small entrepreneurial tea shops, and individuals began a revolt that kicked-off a series of events that ended in the creation of The United States of America.

They covered their faces, massed in the streets, and destroyed the property of a giant global corporation. Declaring an end to global trade run by the East India Company that was destroying local economies, this small, masked minority started a revolution with an act of rebellion later called the Boston Tea Party.

On a cold November day in 1773, activists gathered in a coastal town. The corporation had gone too far, and the two thousand people who’d jammed into the meeting hall were torn as to what to do about it. Unemployment was exploding and the economic crisis was deepening; corporate crime, governmental corruption spawned by corporate cash, and an ethos of greed were blamed. “Why do we wait?” demanded one at the meeting, a fisherman named George Hewes. “The more we delay, the more strength is acquired” by the company and its puppets in the government. “Now is the time to prove our courage,” he said. Soon, the moment came when the crowd decided for direct action and rushed into the streets.

That is how I tell the story of the Boston Tea Party, now that I have read a first-person account of it. While striving to understand my nation’s struggles against corporations, in a rare book store I came upon a first edition of “Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773,” and I jumped at the chance to buy it. Because the identities of the Boston Tea Party participants were hidden (other than Samuel Adams) and all were sworn to secrecy for the next 50 years, this account is the only first-person account of the event by a participant that exists. As I read, I began to understand the true causes of the American Revolution. (04/15/09)
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BBC Medical Science — A new drug which shows promise as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has been developed by UK scientists. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the drug, CPHPC, removes a protein thought to play a key role in Alzheimer’s from the blood. Tests at the University College London found the protein also disappeared from the brains of five Alzheimer’s patients given the drug for three months.

Longer and larger scale clinical studies are now being planned.

The protein - serum amyloid P component (SAP) is always present in both the sticky clumps (plaques) and the tangles of nerve fibres that are found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and are thought to damage healthy cells. It appears to prevent both structures from breaking up, and has also been shown - in lab experiments at least - to promote formation of the amyloid protein which forms the damaging plaques. There is also some evidence that SAP itself can damage brain cells directly.

Two of the big potential advantages CPHPC are that it is not broken down once inside the body, and it has a very specific action, not interacting with cells at all, thus reducing the risk of side effects. The researchers expected a depletion of SAP in the five patients’ blood - but were taken aback at the drug’s apparent effect on the brain.

By using laboratory tests they were also able to reveal both the molecular process underpinning the effect of the drug, and the way in which SAP accumulates in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease. The study also confirmed that use of the drug - and the removal of SAP from the brain - had no side effects on the patients.

CPHPC has already been given to patients with other diseases without any any adverse effects. Although the three-month treatment period was too short to show any clinical benefit there was no obvious deterioration. Longer and larger scale clinical studies are being planned to confirm safety and seek evidence of benefit to the patients.

Lead researcher Professor Mark Pepys said: “The complete disappearance of SAP from the brain during treatment with CPHPC could not have been confidently predicted, and the drug, also to our surprise, entered the brain. Coupled with the absence of any side effects, these new findings strongly support further clinical studies to see whether longer term treatment with CPHPC protects against the inexorable mental decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” (04/15/09)
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BBC Psychological Science — Blame a long winter, blame media fixations with bad news, blame the credit crunch and the thought of looming global depression - Britons are more fearful than they were 10 years ago, the Mental Health Foundation says. And more people are suffering from anxiety, which can lead to depression.

The foundation wants a “mental health promotion campaign that shows individuals how to look after their own mental health”. But what might that involve? We asked mental health professionals for some simple suggestions. We list 10 good ones below:

1. Lightboxes – The effect of long winters, some say, can be shortened with the use of lightboxes, which deliver a dose of bright light similar to daylight to alleviate seasonal depression.

“Certainly, there’s enough people in the two hemispheres who say ‘thank God it’s summer, I feel so much better’, and that may be because it’s light, or to do with heat,” says Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. “A lot of people swear by lightboxes.”

2. Get out in the garden — Gardening has often been cited as a hobby ripe for getting people out of depression. That’s because it takes people out of their own thoughts and helps them focus on something that needs their care and attention, says Dr David Harper, a reader in clinical psychology at the University of East London.

3. Get yourself out of breath — Exercise - be it swimming, playing badminton, or going on a 10-mile hike - often tops lists as a way to lift spirits. And it’s been proven to aid mental health as well as giving physical benefits. Choir singing Don’t fancy a jog? Singing can be a good backup…

4. Cook a meal from scratch – “Food is destiny,” Mr Hodson says. “We are what we eat in every sense of the word. And food is the physical pleasure that lasts longest in life.” Chopping spring onions on a board Turn your back on takeaways and cook a meal from scratch. There’s a sense of self worth in gathering ingredients and cooking a meal - one that grows the better we know the recipe so that we can do it almost on autopilot, allowing our minds to wander even while preparing our food.

5. Stroke a cat – Some care homes have brought in cats and dogs so that residents - some of whom may have had to give up pets moving into homes - can stroke and play with the animals. And in many cases the simple act of stroking a cat or dog can lift spirits. And more … (04/15/09)
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BBC Life Science – An Amazonian ant has dispensed with sex and developed into an all-female species, researchers have found. The ants reproduce via cloning - the queen ants copy themselves to produce genetically identical daughters.

This species - the first ever to be shown to reproduce entirely without sex - cultivates a garden of fungus, which also reproduces asexually. The finding of the ants’ “world without sex” is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Anna Himler, the biologist from the University of Arizona who led the research, told BBC News that the team used a battery of tests to verify their findings. By “fingerprinting” DNA of the ant species - Mycocepurus smithii - they found them all to be clones of the colony’s queen. And when they dissected the female insects, they found them to be physically incapable of mating, as an essential part of their reproductive system known as the “mussel organ” had degenerated. …

There are advantages to life without sex, Dr Himler explained. “It avoids the energetic cost of producing males, and doubles the number of reproductive females produced each generation from 50% to 100% of the offspring.”

But combining genetic material in sexual reproduction gives future generations many more advantages.

“If we’re more diverse, we’re more resistant to parasites and disease,” explained Laurent Keller, an expert in social insects from the University of Lausanne. In a colony of clones, if one ant is susceptible to a parasite, they will all be susceptible. So if you’re asexual, you normally don’t last very long. But in ants we’re seeing more and more reports of unusual methods of reproduction.”  He also points out that social insects, like ants, may be particularly well suited to this type of reproduction because it enables the queen to control the caste and sex of all the offspring in her colony. (04/15/09)
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BBC Life Science & Environment – The Sidamo lark could soon be the first bird on mainland Africa to die out since modern records began. A survey has found that just a few hundred of the larks survive in Ethiopia. Unless action is taken to save it, the bird will disappear. While it may be the first recorded bird extinction on the continent, it will not be the last, warn conservationists.

The birds inhabit a very small pocket of grassland within the Liben Plain of southern Ethiopia.

“This imminent extinction reflects a wider social and political crisis that is repeated throughout Africa,” said zoologist Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge. She led a survey of the bird’s habitat and published her findings in the journal Animal Conservation.

The Sidamo lark ( Heteromirafra sidamoensis ) is an enigmatic species, and one of the most ancient types of lark known anywhere. Discovered by scientists in 1968, the bird was only seen once in the following 25 years. “If we lose this species then we lose an important ancestral link in the evolution of the entire radiation of lark species,” said Dr Spottiswoode.

This area of highland savannah used to be maintained by fire and by the grazing of large herbivores, such as elephants, antelopes and gazelles. Borana pastoralists also traditionally walked their cattle across the plain as they migrated between different wet and dry season grasslands. For millennia, both the wild animals and pastoralists kept the grasslands in good condition.

This habitat is now being destroyed. Wild animals are too few to stop shrubs regrowing, while intensively reared livestock and agriculture are increasingly damaging the grasslands.

Dr Spottiswoode surveyed the Liben Plain with colleagues from the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society, Birdlife International and the University of East Anglia. They found that the Sidamo lark lives within a single patch of grassland of just 35 square kilometres. (04/15/09)
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