"And he said, you know, credibility at the Fed is about subtleties and about perceptions, as opposed to reality."--Carmen Segarra quoting Mike Silva, the senior Fed official stationed inside Goldman.
42-year-old Omar J. Gonzalez rushed across the lawn and into the First Family’s residence, where the trespasser was “confronted by a female Secret Service agent, whom he overpowered.” I did not know the agent was a woman.
Ireland has found itself the center of controversy in Europe these days, because of the tangled tax regimes of the other countries. Ireland has given itself the opportunity to outcompete other states through low corporate taxes and give companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and others a 12.5% tax rate, well below the European average and lower than even the United Kingdom's 21% rate. (The U.S. rate is around 33%.) Bono, speaking as an economic commentator, said that "tax competitiveness has brought our country the only prosperity it's ever known." All this has brought criticism from the other European countries who would prefer tax transfers.
According to wine and science writer Jamie Goode, what we call "tannin" in wine is an older term, derived from the practice of using plant extracts to cure leather (what we know as "tanning"), which is possible due to the fact that tannins have a strong tendency to link up chemically with proteins. When applied to animal hides, tannins cross-link with the proteins, turning the soft material into a substance tough enough to use for shoes, saddles and belts.
According to wine and science writer Jamie Goode, what we call "tannin" in wine is an older term, derived from the practice of using plant extracts to cure leather (what we know as "tanning"), which is possible due to the fact that tannins have a strong tendency to link up chemically with proteins. When applied to animal hides, tannins cross-link with the proteins, turning the soft material into a substance tough enough to use for shoes, saddles and belts.
Who was.....Carmen Segarra?
The Maersk Triple E is the largest ship ever built, the pride and joy of the largest shipping company in the world, Maersk. The ship was a huge hit with the public last year when it docked in Copenhagen for a week, 50,000 people visited, tours were given and an exhibition about the boat was made. It towered above the Copenhagen skyline. Maersk has commissioned 20 Triple E’s to be built by the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea, the second largest shipbuilder in the world. There are 8 other Triple E’s at different stages of production at the shipyard currently. It can carry 18,000 containers stacked 11 levels high. The engine room is 5 stories tall. There’s a small cinema and swimming pool for the 15-person crew.
Cimmerian: very dark and gloomy. After Cimmerians, a mythical people described in Homer's Odyssey, who lived in perpetual darkness at the entrance of Hades. The historical Cimmerians, who lived in Crimea, were unrelated. Earliest documented use: 1594.
In a move seeming designed to ramp up pressure on Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters, Chinese authorities have detained one scholar and banned the books of eight writers, according to Reuters.
There is a new book out on secret messaging and invisible ink by espionage historian Kristie Macrakis. When the Greek tyrant Histiaeus wanted to incite a revolt against the Persian Empire, he had the call to arms tattooed on the scalp of a slave. After the hair grew back, the slave was sent on his mission; no Persians thought to inspect his scalp, so the message made it through. Mary, Queen of Scots, wrote her plans for revolution in cipher and with disappearing ink made from alum.
Carmen Segarra worked for the Fed. Her expertise was helping big banks with the procedures and systems they need to comply with the many rules and regulations they face, here and overseas. She had done it for over a decade. She speaks four languages: French, Italian, Spanish, English. She’s currently learning Dutch. She has degrees from Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia, and studied international law at the Sorbonne.
She discovered that Goldman Sachs did not have any policy on conflict of interest when it advised El Paso Corporation on selling itself to Kinder Morgan, a company in which Goldman Sachs owned a US$4 billion stake, and with several former Goldman Sachs employees who had previously worked for Kinder Morgan on the El Paso team. She was pressured by her superiors at the Federal Reserve to alter her report, but stated that her professional view of the situation did not change, and refused to do so. She was dismissed shortly after.
Segarra sued the Federal Reserve over her dismissal, but the case was dismissed for technical reasons, without considering its merits.
The Dutch public prosecutor said on Tuesday that motorbike gang members who have reportedly joined Kurds battling the Islamic State group in Iraq are not necessarily committing any crime. (Not the Onion)
In 2005, two-thirds of medical practices were physician-owned. Today, that number has dropped to around half, with hospitals controlling the other half. With their larger staffs, hospitals are better positioned to absorb the burgeoning costs of red tape — including over 13,000 pages in the ACA alone. Perversely, the government also pays private physicians less than hospitals for exactly the same services.
Golden oldie:
In his new book “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War,” reporter James Risen follows how $20 billion was sent to Iraq with little or no oversight and without any clear direction on how it should be spent. Most of this money was flown from East Rutherford, N.J., in bricks of $100 bills. Pallets of cash were distributed at will. Today $11.7 billion remains unaccounted for. Much of it made its way into private bank accounts. A Pentagon report found that in the decade after 9/11, the Defense Department gave more than $400 billion to contractors who had been sanctioned in actions involving $1 million or more in fraud.
Eugene "Gene" Johnson, a civilian bio-hazard expert who ran the Ebola research program at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), identified the Marburg virus in a blood serum sample taken from an Ebola infected boy)in 1986. He also proved--or at least theorized-- that Marburg and Ebola have the ability to travel through the air. (From "Hot Zone") Preston, who wrote "The Hot Zone," said this in a recent interview (he is updating the book): "With what we know now about the genetic code of the virus, Ebola does not travel through the air in airborne form and is very unlikely to mutate that way. Another thing that’s been learned about Ebola is the mutation rate. The virus is continually mutating as it’s moving through the human population."
There are five active spacecraft orbiting Mars: NASA's MAVIN, MRO, Mars Odyssey, as well as ESA's Mars Express, and India's Mars Orbiter
The Daily Beast reports that the U.S. is sending humanitarian aid to ISIS. "Not only are foodstuffs, medical supplies—even clinics—going to ISIS, the distribution networks are paying ISIS ‘taxes’ and putting ISIS people on their payrolls."
At least 38 people, including trekkers from Canada, India, Israel, Slovakia, Poland and Japan, died in the blizzards and avalanches that swept the Himalayas last week. Most of the victims were on or near the Annapurna trekking route, a 220-kilometer (140-mile) collection of trails through the mountain range. Most of the casualties were among those caught on the Thorong La pass, one of the highest points on the circuit. The fatality-to-summit ratio (32%) is the highest of any of the so called "eight-thousanders," mountains of 8000 km or more.
AAAaaaannnnnnddddd... a Rosetta spacecraft Selfie, about 8 miles off the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, that looks like a barbell at 12 o'clock :
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