Pits Add To Stonehenge Mystery

November 30, 2011

MSN

By Alan Boyle

Researchers say they’ve found two pits to the east and west of Stonehenge that may have played a role in an ancient midsummer ceremony. The discovery suggests that the 5,000-year-old circle of stones we see today may represent just a few of the pieces in a larger geographical, astronomical and cultural puzzle.

The previously undetected pits could provide clues for solving the puzzle.

“These exciting finds indicate that even though Stonehenge was ultimately the most important monument in the landscape, it may at times not have been the only, or most important ritual focus, and the area of Stonehenge may have become significant as a sacred site at a much earlier date,” Vince Gaffney, an archaeology professor at the University of Birmingham, said in a news release issued over the weekend.

The pits, which measure about 16 feet (5 meters wide) and at least 3 feet (1 meter) deep, have been covered over for centuries and can’t easily be spotted on the ground. But they showed up in a survey that was conducted using non-invasive mapping techniques such as ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry. The survey is part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, which was initiated last year with backing from the University of Birmingham’s IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Center and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna.

The placement of the pits is intriguing: They were found on the eastern and western sides of the Cursus, a racetrack-style enclosure north of Stonehenge itself that spans 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) from east to west and is up to 100 yards (meters) wide. From the perspective of an observer standing at the Heel Stone, a massive upright stone just outside Stonehenge’s main circle, the sun would rise just above the eastern pit on the day of the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. The same observer would see the sun set that evening in line with the western pit.

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As Home Prices Sink, Home Ownership Heads to New Lows

November 30, 2011

CNBC

By: Diana Olick

Home prices across the nation are now right back where they were at the beginning of 2003. All that was gained is largely now lost, and the effect on home ownership could continue for decades.

“Consumer attitudes have gotten a lot more negative about long-term commitment,” said Standard and Poors’ David Blitzer, after reporting home prices through September had fallen a deeper-than-expected 3.9 percent compared to the third quarter of 2010. “They dropped to new lows. This takes them below the point we saw in 2009, where briefly we all thought this thing was about to turn around.”

And that’s the problem.

Every time we think things are turning around in the housing market, we get hit with some new problem, like last year’s so-called “robo-signing” foreclosure paperwork scandal, which managed to stall the cleansing of distress in the market for over a year. Now that foreclosures are ramping up again, prices are coming down again.

All this could push home ownership down to levels not seen at least since before the Census began tracking this data in 1963. Home ownership soared to 70 percent in 2005, but it could fall to 62 percent by 2015, according to the number crunchers at John Burns Real Estate Consulting. They suggest that the effect of foreclosures drops home ownership 5.6 percent, and cyclical trends, like poor consumer confidence, tightening mortgage credit and the weak economy drop it 3 percent. Positive demographic trends would only offset that by 0.7 percent.

“People’s memories take a while to fade,” says John Burns. “It [also] takes a while to rebuild your balance sheet after a recession, and that’s what many people need to do before they buy homes again. Homeowners need to build back up to have a down payment for their next house, and renters will need to save more than before to become homeowners.”

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S&P Downgrades Top U.S. Banks’ Credit Ratings

November 30, 2011

USA Today

By The Associated Press

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has lowered its credit ratings for many of the world’s largest financial institutions, including the biggest banks in the U.S.

Bank of America and its main subsidiaries are among the institutions whose ratings fell at least one notch Tuesday, along with Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

S&P said the changes in 37 financial companies’ ratings reflect the firm’s new criteria for banks, and they incorporate shifts in the industry and the role of governments and central banks worldwide. The agency did not release its evaluation of each company but said it plans to discuss the changes during a conference call early Wednesday.

Bank of America’s issuer credit rating was cut to “A” from “A+,” while its Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch units and a series of related subsidiaries were cut to “A-” from “A.”

Ratings downgrades are never seen as positive, but this round may be particularly damaging for Bank of America.

Concern already was growing Tuesday about whether B of A has enough capital to withstand another downturn in the U.S. economy or further trouble in Europe, and the bank’s stock fell to a two-year low before the ratings announcement.

The Charlotte-based bank said in a recent regulatory filing that downgrades from S&P or Fitch Ratings, which also is reevaluating its ratings, “could likely have a material adverse effect on our liquidity” and cut off its access to credit markets.

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Facebook Settles FTC Charges Over 2009 Privacy Breaches

November 30, 2011

CNN Money

By Julianne Pepitone

“You might think twice about posting that picture of you from the frat party.”  –KTRN

Facebook has agreed to 20 years of privacy audits to settle a lengthy complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, which says Facebook misled its members about its use of their private data.

Facebook “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public,” the FTC said in its complaint.

The complaint cites several examples of alleged false promises from Facebook, most of which took place several years ago. One example: In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so that some information that users had shared with a private group of friends was made public — and users weren’t warned about the change.

These events “were unfair and deceptive, and violated federal law,” the FTC said.

“Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy,” FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a prepared statement.

Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook will have to undergo a third-party privacy audit every two years for the next 20 years. Twitter and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) have recently signed similar deals with the FTC.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg commented on the FTC settlement in a Facebook blog post on Tuesday afternoon.

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Americans Could Be Sent to Gitmo Under ‘Indefinite Detention’ Bill

November 30, 2011

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

“John McCain is not American. Anyone who wrote a bill suggesting that American citizens could be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay is out of touch with reality.” –KTRN

Senator Rand Paul told Judge Andrew Napolitano last night that Americans could be stripped of their rights and sent to Guantanamo Bay under the terms of the ‘indefinite detention’ provision of the National Defense Authorization Act set to be passed by the Senate this week.

Appearing on Napolitano’s Fox Business show, Paul said it perplexed him “how anyone could vote to send an American citizen who’s been accused of a crime to a detention center in a foreign land without due process”.

Paul has offered an amendment to the NDAA bill that would completely strip Section 1031 from the legislation, although it’s unlikely to pass following yesterday’s rejection of Senator Mark Udall’s weaker amendment that would have merely provided more oversight.

The Senator said that he had spoken with other Republicans who had pointed out the numerous instances where the Constitution specifically mentions the right to a speedy trial, habeas corpus and legal due process, all of which would be completely eviscerated with the passage of the ‘indefinite detention’ provision of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Republican supporters of the bill are citing Supreme Court cases to justify the provision that don’t even validate their argument. As Napolitano pointed out, even a saboteur for the Nazis during World War II was allowed to have a trial because he was an American citizen and had innate rights that could not be stripped away.

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TSA Whistleblower: Feds Covered-Up Sexual Assault

November 30, 2011

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

“Remember when flying used to be enjoyable? Anyone up for a road trip?” –KTRN

The Transportation Security Administration has found itself embroiled in yet another scandal after a TSA whistleblower accused the federal agency of covering up her sexual assault at the hands of a TSA investigator by forcing her to sign a false disavowal.

“Nilda C. Marugame, a TSA worker at Lihue airport, sued the TSA’s governmental parent, the Department of Homeland Security, in Federal Court. Marugame claims a TSA investigator (TSI) “sexually assaulted her” on Aug. 26, 2009,” reports Courthouse News Service.

When Marugame subsequently attempted to notify the Assistant Federal Security Director about the incident, she was immediately suspended for three days and then coerced into signing a statement that erroneously characterized the sexual advances as being consensual.

“She says she is “at least the third woman to report unwelcome sexual advances” from the same man, and that all of his victims were retaliated against with suspension or threats of termination,” states the report.

Click here for the full report.

Twisted Government Accounting Behind Postal Service Woes

November 30, 2011

NBC

By Bob Sullivan

“It’s hard to imagine the United States Postal Service being in financial trouble. They should be raking in the cash on Netflix alone. There is obvious mismanagement here.” –KTRN

You might have heard that the United States Postal Service is in trouble: that it’s losing billions, that it will have to end Saturday service and close branches — and most inflammatory, that it might need a government bailout. Perhaps you heard that the Postal Service couldn’t pay $5.5 billion bill that came due Sept. 30 and that only an emergency postponement saved it from the government’s equivalent of default.

In fact, it’s the Postal Service that’s currently bailing out the U.S. government. Politicians have been raiding Postal Service revenues for years, using them to make the federal deficit appear smaller than it really is. The fiscal gyrations are so twisted that the Postal Service is right now forced to pre-pay health care benefits for employees the agency hasn’t even hired yet — in fact, for many future employees who haven’t even been born yet — all to artificially shrink the federal deficit.

It’s these crushing accounting tricks, not the cost of delivering mail, that has pushed this 200-year-old institution to the brink.

Welcome to the wacky world of Washington, D.C., accounting.

There’s a long and a short story to the tragic tale of Postal Service financial trouble. I’ll start with the short one. Right now, the Postal Service is being forced to pre-pay health benefits for the next 75 years during a 10-year stretch. In the past four years, those prepayments have totaled $21 billion. The agency’s deficit during that time is about $20 billion. Remove these crazy pre-payments — a requirement that no other government agency endures and no private industry would even consider — and the Postal Service would be in the black.

Click here for the full report.

Fury At ‘Deliberate’ Nato Attack Rises In Pakistan

November 30, 2011

The Independent

By Omar Waraich

“If Ron Paul was president, we wouldn’t be fighting in this bogus war to being with. They want us to leave and we should listen. Why are we there if we are not wanted?” –KTRN

Pakistan has angrily rejected claims that its troops opened fire on Afghan and Nato forces before Nato airstrikes left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead on Saturday. In an escalation of tensions, the Pakistan army has said that the attack was deliberate and unprovoked.

“There was no fire from this direction,” said Major General Athar Abbas, the Pakistan military’s chief spokesman. “If there was any fire, where are the casualties on their side? Where’s the effect of our firing?”

Afghan officials had claimed that the Pakistanis started the firing, forcing them to call for close Nato air support that led to a retaliatory strike.

Gen Abbas also said that Pakistan had already given Nato the coordinates of two border posts that were attacked, 300 metres inside Pakistani territory, dismissing suggestions of a mistake.

The border posts were established in the Mohmand tribal agency after the Pakistan army pushed militants across the border into Afghanistan. Some 24 Pakistani soldiers and officers manned each of the posts.

Click here for the full report.

Herman Cain May Drop Out Of Presidential Race After Affair Allegations

November 30, 2011

Reuters

By Brent Lang

“Herman Cain is a loser. This is just one more example why Ron Paul is the answer. No one can find a scandal involving him. He is the real deal.” –KTRN

Is it R.I.P. for 9-9-9?

Herman Cain is weighing abandonment of his hunt for the GOP presidential nomination, according to the National Review.

The Republican candidate is reeling from a fresh allegation of sexual impropriety, the latest wrinkle centering on claims that Cain had a 13-year affair with a Georgia business woman.

On a conference call with senior staff, Cain denied having an affair with the woman, Ginger White, but he said that the allegations may have created too much of “a cloud” for him to push forward, the National Review reports.

Cain told staff he would continue with his usual schedule and will make a decision in the next few days.

“Any time you put another cloud of doubt, unfortunately, in the court of public opinion, for some people, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Cain said on the call. “And so, the public will have to decide whether they believe her or whether they believe me. That’s why we’re going to give it time, to see what type of response we get from our supporters.”

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Kucinich: Federal Reserve Has Captured Control Of Our Government

November 30, 2011

The Raw Story

By Eric W. Dolan

“Does you think Dennis Kucinich secretly supports Ron Paul?” –KTRN

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for the U.S. Federal Reserve to be reformed after Bloomberg reported the central bank secretly loaned nearly $8 trillion to financial institutions from 2007 to 2009.

Tens of thousands of documents obtained by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act showed that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion in profits thanks to the low-interest loans. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley accounted for $4.8 billion of that total.

“Remember the great debate we had here over the 700 billion in TARP funds?” he said on the House floor Tuesday. “There was no debate over the 7.7 trillion the Fed gave the banks.”

“Did Congress have a clue?” he continued. “There is another game going on way over our heads, and our constituents are struggling while the banks with the help of the Feds have captured control of our government.”

“Now the rating services are threatening us, if we don’t come up with a deal they’ll downgrade U.S. debt. Could the threat to our national sovereignty be any clearer?”

Kucinich has proposed legislation, called the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act, that would incorporate the Federal Reserve within the United States Treasury and thereby make it accountable to Congress.

Click here for the full report and video.

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