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Second U.S. recession could be worse than the first
A second recession, what many are calling the double-dip recession, could be on its way, economists warn. And should it come, it will probably be even more devastating than the previous period of economic woe.“It would be disastrous if we entered into a recession at this stage, given that we haven’t yet made up for the last recession,” Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics, told the New York Times.
The Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the U.S.’s credit rating bodes ill for the world’s financial markets as well as the domestic market.
President Barack Obama, once the debt deal with Congress to avoid a debt default was struck, announced a pivot to focus on jobs.
“I’ll continue also to fight for what the American people care most about: new jobs, higher wages and faster economic growth,” Obama said in a statement to press after the debt deal was passed last week.
While the working age population has grown 3 percent in the past four years, the economy has 5 percent fewer jobs — or 6.8 million less than four years ago. Unemployment stands at 9.1 percent.
Economists don’t think another stimulus package will do the trick, either.
“There are only so many times the Fed can pull this same rabbit out of its hat,” Torsten Slok, the chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, told the Times.
London Riots: Government Prepares Troops – Martial Law Imminent. – 9th August 2011
LONDON, United Kingdon – Martial law seems imminent as 16,000 police officers, nearly twice the police officers in Haiti, will take to the streets in the captial city of London to hopefully prevent a fourth night of manifestations, rioting and looting.
UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to restore order, meeting with Parliament on Thursday in response to what he describes as “sickening scenes”. Metropolitcan Police, which has already drafted in support from 30 other forces, says it will consider using plastic bullets. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said use of the ammunition – never before Read more…
Minotaur rocket to carry military weapon
More than 15 months after the first one failed, the Defense Department plans a second test of its super-fast weapon that will ride in a rocket scheduled to launch Wednesday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The Minotaur 4 Lite rocket, assembled by Orbital Sciences Corp. crews from retired Peacekeeper missile stages, is scheduled to blast off between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. Wednesday from Space Launch Complex-8 on South Base.
The rocket will carry the Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle or HTV-2 for the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Tactical Projects Office.
Weather for Wednesday morning remains suitable for blastoff, but not necessarily viewing. Launch weather officers say the marine layer and fog will be prevalent at the start of the window, but begin breaking up later in the morning. Visibility is expected to be one mile with mist falling.
Space weather could Read more…
MAJOR SOLAR FLARE: August 9th, 2011.
This morning at 0805 UT, sunspot 1263 produced a powerful X7-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion’s extreme ultraviolet flash.
The solar flare was not Earth directed but a minor proton storm is in progress around our planet, which could affect satellites.
Radiation from the flare also briefly disrupted communications on some VLF and HF radio frequencies.
We may get a glancing blow from the flare. Read more…
Several Objects Inbound with Elenin. 2 Observatories Confirm —- Aug 2011
Japan tsunami broke huge icebergs off Antarctica
The massive March 11 Japan earthquake and its ensuing tsunami were so powerful that they broke off huge icebergs thousands of miles away in Antarctica, according to a new study.
The calving of icebergs (where a huge chunk of ice breaks off from a glacier or ice shelf) from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica was linked to the tsunami, which originated with the magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of the Japanese island of Honshu, by satellite observations of the Antarctic coast immediately after the earthquake.
Icebergs have been reported to calve following earthquakes before, including after the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on Feb 22. But the new finding marks the first direct observation of such a connection between tsunamis and iceberg calving.
Chemical spill fear after dike breached
Huge waves pound the coast of Yantai city, Shandong province, on Monday. [Photo / Xinhua]
Authorities say situation under control as sea defenses rebuilt
DALIAN, Liaoning – Towering waves whipped up by tropical storm Muifa breached sea defenses protecting a petrochemical plant near a northeastern coastal city on Monday, raising fears of a toxic spill, before the breaches were plugged with thousands of tons of rocks and concrete slabs.
At about 3:30 am, two sections of a dike, each at least 30 meters wide, were breached by waves up to 20 meters high at the Jinzhou Industrial Zone in Dalian city, Liaoning province, according to local authorities.
The breaches threatened toxic chemical tanks at the petrochemical plant, located about 30 kilometers from downtown Dalian.
The nearest tanks were located about 50 meters away from the dike.
As of Monday evening, authorities had yet to confirm or deny if leaks had occurred in any of the tanks.
The Fujia chemical plant produces Read more…
Collision With Huge Asteroid Caused 17 Kilometer Diameter Crater Found in Congo
Scientists have newly confirmed the Luizi impact structure, Democratic Republic of Congo– and provide insights into central uplift formation and post-impact erosion
Ludovic Ferriere of the Austria’s Natural History Museum and colleagues report on the large, ~17-km-diameter Luizi structure, located in the remote and politically tumultuous Democratic Republic of Congo.
Credit: 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science ConferencEarth’s Dirty Secret: Our Magnetic Field Traps Antimatter
Satellite confirms the existence of antimatter belts surrounding our planet, opens hopes for fuel use
The proton is a familiar figure for those who have taken high school physics. With a +1 charge it is a key constituent to most of the matter of the universe. But nature holds an outlandish vanishing twin — the antiproton. This exotic antimatter particle carries a -1 charge.
Fifty-six years after their first laboratory observation, a treasure trove of antiprotons — a component of antimatter (right) — has been discovered within the Earth’s magnetic field.
Now astrophysicists have discovered a treasure trove of antimatter hidden in the Earth’s magnetic field, which could hold the key to grand insights and new space travel possibilities.
I. What is Antimatter?
The antiproton was first predicted by luminary physicist Paul Dirac in his 1933 Nobel Prize lecture [PDF]. It would take physicists over two decades to prove Professor Dirac right. In 1955 Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain, research professors at the University of California, Berkley, Read more…
Dow plunges 635 points as downgrade fuels market turmoil
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 635 points Monday, dropping below 11,000 as the impact of an unprecedented downgrade to the U.S. credit rating reverberated through financial markets.
The downturn came on the heels of a brutal week for the market, capped off when the Dow lost 512 points on Thursday. That gave the blue-chip stock index two of its 10 biggest point losses in the last three trading days.
The S&P 500 and NASDAQ stock indices were both down nearly 7 percent at the close of Monday’s trading.
The dramatic point drops followed the first-ever downgrade of United States debt by Standard & Poor’s late Friday evening. The credit rating agency, citing increasing concern over the nation’s political infighting and the relatively small amount of deficit reduction included in the deal to raise the debt limit, knocked America down from its top rating for the first time, moving it down one notch to AA+.
In an ironic twist, the financial product that was downgraded reaped the Read more…
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