Housing Optimism Premature.

 Yes we are assuming that the past informs the present. However I want you to look at this chart that I have posted from the second item. Fundamentally the new generation has adopted the condo lifestyle close to their work. The trend is moving against the single family dwelling model for efficiency sake.

Thus Shiller is right that optimism may well be misplaced and we could be seeing a new life way taking shape that backs of from the massive commitment that a single family home demands.

Cities are also waking up to the Vancouver model in which modern condos are all stuffed downtown to completely revitalize the region. Add in rapid transit to satellite hubs and the car is off the road.

In Vancouver the traffic entering the core has stagnated for years because of this while the population of the core has surely doubled.

SHILLER: All This Housing Optimism Is Way Too Premature

Henry Blodget and Lucas Kawa | Jan. 25, 2013, 4:36 AM

http://www.businessinsider.com/shiller-housie-prices-2013-1#ixzz2J0fBLXzj

Yale professor Robert Shiller is one of the pre-eminent experts in house prices.

Shiller created the "Case-Shiller Index," which tracks changes in house prices on a monthly basis and is the most closely followed house-price index in the country.

We sat down with Professor Shiller in Davos to get his take on the future of the housing market.

Henry Blodget: Everybody in the U.S. seems convinced that the housing market is going to come roaring back, it’s going to save the economy, house prices are going to rise, houses are a great investment again. Are they right?

Professor Shiller: First of all, I challenge your statement a little bit. The Pulsenomics survey of experts – they had 105 experts in their December survey – and not one of them predicted a return to the boom that we had. The most optimistic had a real return for the next 4/5 years of something like 6 percent.

Blodget: But that’s way better than zero.

Shiller: I’m taking the most optimistic out of 105. We also had – what’s that perma-bear guy, anyway, we had someone at minus 10 percent. I think that we may be recovering, but I also think that we may have further real price declines in the coming years.  People are overly – we tend to focus on the latest starts and permits and other indicators, but I think that there might have – and this isn’t a confident forecast – but there might have been a decline in our appreciation of this American Dream: detached, dispersed single family homes – you have to drive for 45 minutes to get there from your job. And the idea has gone, well it’s not gone, but it’s diminished – that this would be a good investment. So the latest data, ever since the crisis, almost all new housing has been rental. New household units want rentals. If that’s a trend, it means that home prices of single-family detached homes should probably go down, because it’s hard to maintain those as rental units. If people demand that kind of – I think they’ll sell at a discount. Co-ops and condos could have a different trend at the same time.

Blodget: So what is your sense of the next five years? Do you think we’ve hit bottom in the housing market or do you have to stratify it that way?

Shiller: I think that we might have [hit bottom], but my biggest sense is that probably nothing dramatic happens either way. If the Pulsenomics survey is right, and it’s up between 1 and 2 percent real, that’s plausible to me. But also down 1 or 2 percent real, that’s plausible. I’m sorry I don’t have a more precise forecast.

The Case-Shiller Index.

Blodget: One of the things I feel that people might be missing is that if the economy does return to strength, at some point presumably interest rates will start to rise to more normal levels which will change the cost of mortgages and make them much more expensive. How much do you think the cost of mortgages affects the price of housing, and if interest rates do go from 4 now up to 7 percent, will that dampen house prices?

Shiller: It would seem from economic theory that it ought to. If the 10-year Treasury goes from 1.8 percent to 7 percent, that means mortgage rates will go from 3.5 to 10 percent, or something like that. And that ought to affect home prices. And in a very broad sense, that seems to be the case. Home prices reached a low in the early 80s, right around the time Paul Volcker pushed interest rates up. But on the other hand, it doesn’t fit very well, this whole model. Home prices don’t look like an inverse of interest rates.

Blodget: They don’t? You’ve studied it hundreds of years of home prices and you haven’t seen a correlation between the two?

Shiller: No, in fact if you look at the path of interest rates since Paul Volcker, interest rates have just gone down secularly for 30 years. It’s absolutely amazing, how strong that downtrend is. And it’s hit practically zero, it’s at a record low right now. It can’t keep going down, so now where is it going to go from here? I don’t know. I don’t see as much commentary on this trend. Somehow, there was a turning point, a major turning point with Paul Volcker, that we went from an economy of increasing inflation to decreasing deflation, and not many people appreciated how profound that transition was. But now, the question is where are we going now when we’ve hit record lows. I wish I knew.

Blodget: Well, presumably there are two options. Either we’re Japan and rates stay low for 20 years, or they go back up.

Shiller: The question is attaching probabilities to those scenarios.

Blodget: Do you want to take a stab at that?

Shiller: I don’t know. This is something that, Bayesian statisticians have tried to represent ignorance by probabilities, and this is why my son is a philosophy Ph. D candidate right now, and he’s interested in how to represent uninformative priors. There’s all kinds of paradoxes when you try to do it. So we just don’t know, and I can’t attach a probability.

Blodget: Thanks, Professor Shiller.

This item comes from an investment newsletter and the chart tells it all.

Breaking: We Hit the Peak in 2005!

By Jeff Siegel | Monday, January 28th, 2013

62 miles.

This was my mother's daily commute for about two years after we moved out to the suburbs in 1981. Total transit time was about three hours round-trip, depending on traffic, of course.

So basically, my mother spent about two and half days' worth of time every month driving to and from work...

Two and a half days!

Fortunately, she only had to do that commute for a couple of years before getting reassigned back to the main office, which was much, much closer to home. But it was around that time I realized I would never put myself through that kind of hassle.

It just made no sense... the wear and tear on the car... the stinging fuel costs... the wasted time and productivity... the stress of daily traffic...

No, this was never something I wanted. And after college, I made a conscientious effort to never live more than ten or fifteen minutes from work. Anything more would just be unacceptable.

And as it turns out, I wasn't alone. Over the past ten or fifteen years, there's been an interesting shift in behaviors regarding daily work commutes. And what was once considered just a part of a daily routine has started to become an exercise in futility.

The mere thought of spending a significant amount of one's life behind the wheel of car, sitting in traffic and starting the day completely stressed out has sparked a migration back to some of this nation's cities — at least, for a younger generation that works within city limits.

And this has led to some folks not even needing a car anymore, as biking, mass transit, and carsharing services like Zipcar are making it easier for daily commuters to live without a car.

This new trend not only represents a complete reversal of the car-centric society in which I grew up, but some believe it could actually be one of the reasons behind what some are now calling “Peak Car.”

New Trends

There was an interesting article a couple of weeks ago by business and policy writer Tim Fernholz in which he considers the possibility that demand for cars has hit a plateau and, from this point forward, demand can only start to decline.

It's an interesting thought. But on the surface, it's a hard one to buy.

That being said, there has been a visible trend in vehicle miles traveled that could lend itself to Fernholz's argument. According to the OECD, growth in total vehicle miles traveled in the developed world has actually been decreasing steadily since the early part of this century...

In his piece, Fernholz attempts to justify this data with a few solid explanations that are at least worthy of consideration:

1. Increasing costs of fossil fuels, parking, and insurance at a time of stagnant wage growth in advanced countries.
2. Policies designed to mitigate pollution and reduce urban sprawl.
3. Availability of communications technologies that has made some work travel unnecessary.
4. New trends toward urbanization replacing the flight to suburbs.
5. A new generation of potential car buyers — specifically those in the Millennial generation — that doesn't view cars as rights of passage or status symbols, as previous generations have.
6. The inability for people to tolerate daily commutes for more than an hour.

The World's Longest Traffic Jam

Of course, current trends that can make a supportive argument for the case of "Peak Car" do not reflect the full global scenario...

Many automakers today are looking towards emerging markets for continued growth, and certainly we've seen evidence of this in China, India, and a few South American countries.

The question, however, is will these emerging economies embrace car-centric communities as we have done in the United States?

Car ownership in emerging economies is definitely viewed as a status symbol. And having this certain taste of freedom that we've grown so accustomed to in the U.S. is still very new in other parts of the world, and offers a tremendous amount of enthusiasm over car ownership.

Then again, with the significant availability of cars comes some of the hassles, too — particularly when it comes to fuel costs and traffic. Consider for a moment the world's longest traffic jam in history was in China in 2010: It stretched for 62 miles and lasted twelve days!

Truth is it's still too early to know exactly how car ownership will play out over the long-term in emerging economies. But here at home, we're already witnessing a transition to alternative forms of transportation and mass transit acceptance.

I can't say with absolute certainty that this could prove a "Peak Car" theory, but here's what we do know: There has been clear evidence of robust growth in mass transit ridership over the past 16 years.

According to the American Public Transportation Association, from 1995 through 2011, public transportation ridership increased by 34%, representing a growth rate higher than the 17% increase in U.S. population, and higher than the 22% growth in the use of the nation's highways over the same period.

Also worth noting, in 2011 Americans took 10.4 billion trips on public transportation — the second highest annual ridership number since 1957.

And as far as alternative forms of transportation, we know from the actions of automakers that the transition to more fuel-efficient vehicles, like hybrids and electrics, will continue; natural gas will eventually end up powering nearly all of our buses and trucks; and freight rail will continue to build market share, especially in the race to develop and secure this nation's oil and gas resources.

The Wild in the Wolf

This is quite surprising. The tamed dog postpones socialization and exploring its environment until all three senses have kicked in. Now does this also happen with other tamed animals? Can this effect be induced?

It certainly explains the ease in which pups adapt to human life ways. So equipped, it could adapt to any alien life way.

The interesting question is just how the process of domestication affects other animal in this part of behavior development.

Certainly wild animals can become comfortable around humans but are still wild for all that. Wildness may well be a strong fear reflex unconnected with the present. Thus actually safety with wild animals may mean discovering a way to control that particular reflex. Now we know something.

At least it is a starting point and a promising one. Without that reflex, the lion will and can lie down with the lamb.

UMass Amherst Study May Explain Why Wolves are Forever Wild, But Dogs Can Be Tamed

by Staff Writers

Amherst MA (SPX) Jan 21, 2013

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/UMass_Amherst_Study_May_Explain_Why_Wolves_are_Forever_Wild_But_Dogs_Can_Be_Tamed_999.html

Dogs and wolves are genetically so similar, it's been difficult for biologists to understand why wolves remain fiercely wild, while dogs can gladly become "man's best friend." Now, doctoral research by evolutionary biologist Kathryn Lord at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggests the different behaviors are related to the animals' earliest sensory experiences and the critical period of socialization. Details appear in the current issue of Ethology.

Until now, little was known about sensory development in wolf pups, and assumptions were usually extrapolated from what is known for dogs, Lord explains. This would be reasonable, except scientists already know there are significant differences in early development between wolf and dog pups, chief among them timing of the ability to walk, she adds.

To address this knowledge gap, she studied responses of seven wolf pups and 43 dogs to both familiar and new smells, sounds and visual stimuli, tested them weekly, and found they did develop their senses at the same time.

But her study also revealed new information about how the two subspecies of Canis lupus experience their environment during a four-week developmental window called the critical period of socialization, and the new facts may significantly change understanding of wolf and dog development.

When the socialization window is open, wolf and dog pups begin walking and exploring without fear and will retain familiarity throughout their lives with those things they contact. Domestic dogs can be introduced to humans, horses and even cats at this stage and be comfortable with them forever. But as the period progresses, fear increases and after the window closes, new sights, sounds and smells will elicit a fear response.

Through observations, Lord confirmed that both wolf pups and dogs develop the sense of smell at age two weeks, hearing at four weeks and vision by age six weeks on average.

However, these two subspecies enter the critical period of socialization at different ages. Dogs begin the period at four weeks, while wolves begin at two weeks. Therefore, how each subspecies experiences the world during that all-important month is extremely different, and likely leads to different developmental paths, she says.

Lord reports for the first time that wolf pups are still blind and deaf when they begin to walk and explore their environment at age two weeks. "No one knew this about wolves, that when they begin exploring they're blind and deaf and rely primarily on smell at this stage, so this is very exciting," she notes.

She adds, "When wolf pups first start to hear, they are frightened of the new sounds initially, and when they first start to see they are also initially afraid of new visual stimuli. As each sense engages, wolf pups experience a new round of sensory shocks that dog puppies do not."

Meanwhile, dog pups only begin to explore and walk after all three senses, smell, hearing and sight, are functioning. Overall, "It's quite startling how different dogs and wolves are from each other at that early age, given how close they are genetically.[ this is really unexpected and needs to be checked with other species also - arclein]

A litter of dog puppies at two weeks are just basically little puddles, unable to get up or walk around. But wolf pups are exploring actively, walking strongly with good coordination and starting to be able to climb up little steps and hills."

These significant, development-related differences in dog and wolf pups' experiences put them on distinctly different trajectories in relation to the ability to form interspecies social attachments, notably with humans, Lord says. This new information has implications for managing wild and captive wolf populations, she says.

Her experiments analyzed the behavior of three groups of young animals: 11 wolves from three litters and 43 dogs total. Of the dogs, 33 border collies and German shepherds were raised by their mothers and a control group of 10 German shepherd pups were hand-raised, meaning a human was introduced soon after birth.

At the gene level, she adds, "the difference may not be in the gene itself, but in when the gene is turned on. The data help to explain why, if you want to socialize a dog with a human or a horse, all you need is 90 minutes to introduce them between the ages of four and eight weeks.

After that, a dog will not be afraid of humans or whatever else you introduced. Of course, to build a real relationship takes more time. But with a wolf pup, achieving even close to the same fear reduction requires 24-hour contact starting before age three weeks, and even then you won't get the same attachment or lack of fear."

Real Employment Continued Contraction

What this tells you is that the real economy has contracted by about three percent since 2007. Everything else is window dressing to disguise this fact. As I posted in the past, we are repairing the credit collapse the hard way. It is also the slow way.

The good news is that the banking system now knows what they have to work with and they have begun to lend again and this will begin to stimulate demand to allow a recovery to get under way. I think we are now into a three year cycle of slow steady recovery.

I have also posted before that it did not need to be way but nothing approaching economic competence appear possible in Washington. Worse, the looting culture of Wall Street remains intact and will strike again in eight years unless real reform is put in place.

I think that the contraction itself is complete although governments everywhere are printing to support welfare payments. These statistics tells us that there are somewhere close to 20,000,000 workers out there wanting to participate in the economy and another 40,000,000 looking for a much better position. Capitalizing them and their jobs would readily support a plus five percent growth rate for five to ten years. Sadly it does not appear to be happening.

Perhaps it is time for Canada and the USA to do a joint Great Lakes Redevelopment Scheme similar to the TVA of times past.

Shocking Numbers That Show The Media Is Lying To You About Unemployment In America

by Michael, on February 1st, 2013

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/shocking-numbers-that-show-the-media-is-lying-to-you-about-unemployment-in-america

Did you know that the percentage of the U.S. labor force that is employed has continually been falling since 2006 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Did you know that the increase in the number of Americans "not in the labor force" during Barack Obama's first four years in the White House was more than three times greater than the increase in the number of Americans "not in the labor force" during the entire decade of the 1980s? The mainstream media would have us believe that 157,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January. Based on that news, the Dow broke the 14,000 barrier for the first time since October 2007. But if you actually look at the "non-seasonally adjusted" numbers, the number of Americans with a job actually decreased by 1,446,000 between December and January. But nowhere in the mainstream media did you hear that the U.S. Economy lost more than 1.4 million jobs between December and January. It is amazing the things that you can find out when you actually take the time to look at the hard numbers instead of just listening to the media spin. Back in 2007, more than 146 million Americans were employed. Today, only141.6 million Americans are employed even though our population has grown steadily since then. When the government and the media tell you that we are in a "recovery" and that unemployment is lower than it was a couple of years ago, I encourage you to dig deeper. The truth is that even the government's own numbers tell us that the percentage of the U.S. labor force that is employed continues to fall and that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession. The Obama administration and the media have been lying to you about unemployment and about the true condition of our economy. After you see the numbers that I have compiled in this article, I think that you will agree with me.

First of all, let's take a look at the percentage of the civilian labor force that has been employed over the past several years. These numbers come directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  As you can see, this is a number that has been steadily falling since 2006...

2006: 63.1

2007: 63.0

2008: 62.2

2009: 59.3

2010: 58.5

2011: 58.4

In January, only 57.9 percent of the civilian labor force was employed.

Do the numbers above represent a positive trend or a negative trend?

Even a 2nd grader could answer that question.

So how in the world can the Obama administration and the mainstream media claim that the employment picture is getting better and that we are in a "recovery"?

But most Americans believe what they are told. It is almost as if we are in some kind of a "matrix" where reality is defined by the corporate-controlled propaganda that is relentlessly pumped into our brains.

The only way that the government has been able to show a declining unemployment rate is by dumping massive numbers of Americans into the "not in the labor force" category.

Just check out how the number of Americans "not in the labor force" has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years...

2006: 77,387,000

2007: 78,743,000

2008: 79,501,000

2009: 81,659,000

2010: 83,941,000

2011: 86,001,000

In January, there were supposedly 89,868,000 Americans that were at least 16 years of age that were not in the labor force.

That number has risen by more than 8 million since Barack Obama first entered the White House, and that is highly unusual, because the number of Americans "not in the labor force" only increased by2,518,000 during the entire decade of the 1980s.

You sure can get the numbers to look more "favorable" if you pretend that millions upon millions of American workers simply "don't want a job" any longer. The truth is that if the labor force participation rate was at the same level it was at when Barack Obama was first elected, the official unemployment rate would be well above 10 percent.

But that wouldn't do at all, would it? 7.9 percent sounds so much nicer.

And of course even if you do have a job that does not mean that you are doing okay.

If you can believe it, in America today 41 percent of all workers make $20,000 a year or less.

To me, that is a mind blowing statistic. It would be incredibly challenging for anyone to live on $20,000 a year, much less try to support a family.

If you live in Washington D.C. or New York City and you have a "good job" working for the establishment, you may not realize it, but there are tens of millions of American families that are really hurting out there. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income" at this point, and most of those people actually do have jobs.

For much more on the "working poor" in the United States, please see my previous article entitled "35 Statistics About The Working Poor In America That Will Blow Your Mind".

If something is not done, the middle class will continue to disappearand poverty in America will continue to explode.

In a previous article, I noted that during Obama's first term, the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day.

How bad do things have to get before people realize that we are living through a nightmare?

Sadly, most Americans still have faith in the system.

Most Americans are still convinced that our politicians will somehow find a way to turn things around.

Most Americans will gather around their television sets this weekend and watch the Super Bowl and laugh at all the funny commercials without even thinking about how America is literally falling apart all around them.

But there is one group of Americans that is acutely aware of how bad things have really gotten.  Small businesses have traditionally been the primary engine of job growth in this country, but right now small business owners all over the nation are facing a tremendous crisis.

Millions of small businesses are on the verge of extinction, and yet our politicians just continue to pile on more taxes, more rules and more regulations.

A recent Gallup poll found that 61 percent of all small business owners in America are "worried about the potential cost of healthcare", and that an astounding 30 percent of all small business owners in America are not hiring and fear that they will go out of business within the next 12 months.

In a previous article entitled "We Are Witnessing The Death Of Small Business In America", I detailed how small businesses in America are being systematically wiped out.  Small businesses are dying all around us, and the number of new small businesses continues to decline.

According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per one thousand Americans breaks down by presidential administration...

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

Is that a good trend or a bad trend?

All of this is so simple that even the family pet should be able to figure it out, and yet most Americans seem oblivious to all of this.  They just keep gobbling up the mainstream media propaganda and they just continue to go out and wildly spend money.

It is almost as if we didn't learn any lessons from 2008.

Even while household spending in Europe has moderated, household spending in the United States continues to soar. Just check out the charting this article.

And guess what? The infamous "no money down mortgages" are back. If we wait long enough, perhaps "interest only mortgages" will make a comeback as well.

Unfortunately, I am afraid that time is running out. we have been living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it is only a matter of time until it bursts.

2008 was just a "hiccup" compared to what is coming.  Our politicians and the Federal Reserve were able to keep the house of cards from completely crashing down back then, but they are not going to be able to avert the economic horror show that is rapidly approaching.

I hope that you are getting prepared. Back in 2008, millions of Americans suddenly lost their jobs, and because many of them did not have any savings, many of them suddenly lost their homes. One of the most important things that you can do to prepare for the coming crisis is to build up an emergency fund. If things suddenly go bad, you don't want to lose your house and everything that you have always worked for.

In addition, anything that you can do to become more self-sufficient and more independent of the system is a good thing, because the system is failing. The years ahead are going to be much more chaotic than what we are experiencing right now, and when the next crisis strikes you will be very thankful for the time and the energy that you put into preparing.

So what are all of you seeing in your own areas?

Are businesses shutting down?

Are people having a hard time finding good jobs?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below...

Permafrost Agriculture

Once again, the received truth is that agriculture in permafrost country is an impossibility.  I do not generally agree.  It is clearly impossible to grow trees beyond a certain set of conditions, but much of their northern range is in fact underlain with permafrost.   So it is not so impossible as a species variant.

Yet we do know that the short growing season is capriciously rich for the few weeks that it lasts.  It is a mistake to discount it at all.

The problem for agriculture is to establish a secure seedbed as ever.  Modern equipment makes this much more practical.

What I would attempt is to use a blade to scrape the top soil aside from the underlying frozen subsoil to produce windrows on either side of the exposed surface.  I would create these bands say thirty to forty feet wide while producing a windrow just as wide.  In this manner half of the total field is exposed.  I would then let it winter over and allow the summer to thaw out the exposed ground down several inches.  I would then scrap that material onto the windrow to loosen it up and then push the entire windrow out onto the exposed ground to produce a thick bank of mixed soil and muck.  While at it I would scrape down the newly exposed soils to open up the remaining area.

In this way it should be possible to produce a deep bed of loose soil able to insulate the surface.  Repeating this process every year will keep the permafrost out of the soils while adding to the soil bed as needed.

This soil bed will warm easily enough and allow potatoes to be grown along with a full range of short season crops. This is a modified form of bank and ditch agriculture that leaves the ditches dry and drained.  I do think though that the banks need to be torn down if not every season, certainly every second season because the permafrost will wick it way up into the surface soils.

Yet it may also turn out that flooding with a few inches of river water at the height of summer can cure that and protect the late crops from frost.  Then when the frost sets in and the crop is harvested one merely drains the fields.  And since we are flooding those broad ditches, we may as well plant a crop of cattails for winter fodder at least.  All this of course provides a natural compost stream to steadily upgrade the fields.

New Type of Volcanic Eruption

 The outflow is buoyant but not explosive. This could well make sense of a lot of geology that presumes explosive eruptions yet generates huge deep flows of materials over a large area. When you consider it, we have no evidence of deep explosive sub sea events anywhere close to what we experience on land. They must then behave differently and this shows us how.

It is quite right to attach a fresh name to this type of volcano.

It also suggests that during the sub sea stage, most of the material will accumulate close to hand and help build the cone that does eventually break surface. It may even be a low faster than we actually expect. I the meantime, we think that they are rare, but they may be merely invisable.

A new type of volcanic eruption

by Staff Writers

Southampton UK (SPX) Jan 24, 2013

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/A_new_type_of_volcanic_eruption_999.html

Scientists based in the UK and New Zealand have described a "new" type of volcanic eruption. Volcanic eruptions are commonly categorised as either explosive or effusive. But now, in research published this month in Nature Geoscience, researchers at Victoria University, Wellington and the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton have uncovered a previously undocumented type of eruption in underwater volcanoes - by looking at tiny original bubble spaces trapped in volcanic rock.

Inside volcanoes, gases are dissolved in the molten magma as a function of the very high pressures and chemistry of the magma. In the same way that gases dissolved in carbonated drinks bubble up when you take the lid off, when magma is erupted as lava, the pressure is relieved and the gases exsolve to form small gas bubbles or so-called "vesicles".

In explosive eruptions these vesicles expand so quickly they fragment the magma, violently ejecting lava, which cools and degasses to form solidified pumice that can be sufficiently light to float on water.

In air pumice is obviously associated with violent, explosive eruptions. Consequently underwater volcanoes flanked by highly vesicular pumice have, to date, also been interpreted as having erupted explosively.

But the results of this study indicate that there is a third eruptive style unique to underwater volcanoes, which is neither effusive nor explosive.

"By documenting the shape and density of bubbles in pumices generated by an underwater caldera volcano in the southwest Pacific Ocean - the Macauley volcano - we found large differences in the number and shape of "bubbles" in the same pebble-sized samples, different to anything previously documented," said Professor Ian Wright of the National Oceanography Centre, who co-authored the paper.

"This range of bubble densities distinct in these pumice samples indicates that the lava erupting from the caldera was neither vigorous enough for an explosive eruption, nor gentle enough for an effusive flow."

The study proposes that rather than exploding in the neck of the volcano, the formation and expansion of bubbles in the magma created a buoyant foam, which rose to the seafloor and then buoyantly detached from the volcano as molten pumice balloons but with chilled margins. During its ascent to the sea surface, the vesicles within the molten interior would have continued to expand as the pressure - this time from the weight of the seawater – reduced.

"These processes explain the unique bubble structure seen in the samples analysed, which could have only occurred with an intermediate eruption style and in an underwater setting," said Professor Wright.

"We conclude that the presence of widespread deposits of pumice on underwater volcanoes does not necessarily indicate large-scale explosive volcanism."

The authors proposed that this style of eruption be named Tangaroan, the Maori god of the sea, and name of the research vessel used to collect the samples.

The study was led by Melissa Rotella, Professor Colin Wilson and Simon Barker from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The paper referred to is: Rotella M. D., Wilson C. J. N., Barker S. J. and Wright I. C. (2013) Highly vesicular pumice generated by buoyant detachment of magma in subaqueous volcanism. Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/NGEO1709.

Superior Lighting Developed

This is not about energy efficiency as we already have that. It is about light quality. This is a major breakthrough on sheer quality and flexibility. We can set up any geometry and I expect we will soon love light panels. A hanging tile gets rid of a lot of hardware we have no need for.

How about a parabolic shell that emits light? The options become endless the moment you are not dealing with a lot of metal and glass in awkward places.

So yes, this technology will meet price point and be outright superior in light quality. It will still roll out slowly but soon become fashionable and everywhere.

We will really have luminescence rooms in a range of colors such as gold that augment the white light we use to see well. Perhaps the darkened room will go out of fashion.

Professor Invents The Best New Lightbulb In 30 Years

Dina Spector

Jan. 22, 2013

Http://www.businessinsider.com/fipel-lighting-technology-david-carroll-wake-forrest-2013-1

Lighting accounts for about 12 percent of total U.S. energy consumption. 

Part of the reason the figure is so high is that traditional incandescent bulbs (Edison's filament bulb) eat up a lot of power to produce light: 90 percent of the energy is wasted as heat. 

So far the main alternatives to the common bulb have been compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, and light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, which can produce the same amount of light as traditional bulbs while using way less energy. 

Soon, a fourth lighting option will be thrown into the mix. It's called the FIPEL, which is short for field-induced polymer electroluminescent technology. 

"This is the first new light bulb in about thirty years," says Dr. David Carroll, a professor of physics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, who developed the new light source.  

To understand how this technology functions, you can think of how a microwave works, Carroll explains.

Take a potato, for example. When you place your potato in the microwave and press start, the device hits the potato with microwaves that induce what's known as a displacement current, meaning it makes the water molecules in the potato flip back and forth. This heats the potato up. What Carroll and his team have done is develop a special type of plastic that, when hit with an electric current, induces a displacement current in the same way. But in this case, it doesn't give off heat, it gives off light.

The new light source is made of several layers of very thin plastic. Each sheet is about 100,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair. The plastic is inserted between an aluminum electrode and a transparent conducting electrode. When a current is passed through the device, it stimulates the plastic to light up. 

Luckily for Carroll, FIPEL has entered the lighting technology ring at a time of unprecedented opportunity. The phaseout of traditional incandescent bulbs began to take effect at the start of the new year under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.  

As of Jan. 1, 2013, manufacturers can no longer sell 75-watt incandescents. The 40- and 60-watt incandescents will no longer be available starting Jan. 1, 2014.  

FIPEL’s light quality is unmatched by any technology currently, the product's manufacturer claims.

CFLs use about 75 percent less electricity than Edison's filament bulb to produce the same amount of light. LEDs use even less. This means to make the same light as a 100-watt incandescent, a compact fluorescent uses 23 watts and an LED uses 20. 

The FIPEL is slightly more efficient than a CFL bulb and on par with an LED, but comes with a few advantages over these other types of lights. CFLs and other fluorescent light bulbs contain a very small amount of mercury, which can be toxic if not disposed of properly. FIPELs do not use any caustic chemicals in manufacturing and can easily be recycled because they're made of plastic.

Some LEDs give off a blueish tint, which many people don't like to look at. FIPEL, on the other hand, can be made to have any tint, including the yellowish hue of the sun that our eyes have come to prefer, having evolved on Earth.  

"FIPEL can match the response of your eye more perfectly than any other lamp ever created," Carroll told Business Insider.

Although the new light source doesn't have the shape of a traditional light bulb — it's more a panel — it is moldable, so it can be customized to fit into conventional light sockets and work with many different types of lamp fixtures.

The FIPEL light has a lifetime of between 25,000 and 50,000 hours, which is comparable to an LED.

Carroll notes one drawback to FIPEL.

"From a pure physics point of view, the best efficiency that you could ever accomplish with this lamp is still going to be slightly lower than the best efficiency you could ever accomplish with an LED," says Carroll. Right now, LEDs do not perform at their theoretical best. But as both technologies mature, you can expect the LED to come out on top in terms of overall efficiency.

The FIPEL technology is currently under an exclusive world-wide license by CeeLite Technologies. David Sutton, management consultant for CeeLite, said the first units for commercial use will be available by the end of 2013. The new bulb will cost less than LEDs and slightly more than CFLs. 

"In five years, instead of saying I've got to get a new bulb, you're going to be saying I've got to get a new FIPEL. I do believe that these are going to be ubiquitous,"  says Carroll.  

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fipel-lighting-technology-david-carroll-wake-forrest-2013-1#ixzz2IonkOtvG 

Allah Keeps His Promises: Jerusalem Belongs to Israel

I am somewhat taken aback by this article inasmuch as I have never understood the deep roots of the Christian Judaic prophetic strain in Islam itself.  That the instructions received by Mohammed and reported in the Koran were also willfully altered in the name of political expedience is well understood by a careful study of the text.  Thus we are left with the picture of a true prophet arising unprepared to his task and receiving true instruction that he too weak to handle.

The word traditionally used is prophet, but a correct phrase would be a Spiritual Adept able to successfully channel GOD, GOD been mankind’s servant created with the first emergence of mankind.

This also shows us how the people of Islam can shed the barbaric strain promoted by fanatical lovers of death in their midst.

I have been tracking the prophetic strain all my live and I have observed a number of impossibilities become true in the flow of our history.  Most noteworthy is the reality today that the geographical assertion of Israel as prophesied is upon us and needs the smallest of nudges.   This was implausible only a couple of years ago and unimaginable a couple of decades ago.

Allah keeps His promises: Jerusalem belongs to Israel

Friday, February 01, 2013

By Ali Salim

http://www.speroforum.com/a/JYFYVVZQWN37/73583-Allah-keeps-His-promises-Jerusalem-belongs-to-Israel

 Jerusalem is the capital of the Children of Israel, now called the Jews; and it is forbidden for Muslims to demand it, just as a married woman belongs only to her husband. Is it possible that Allah, who on His infinite mercy, calls them the Chosen People, and promises them the Holy Land, also plans to murder them, using the Muslims in Palestine as His intermediary? Every Muslim knows that Allah does not break His promises.

If you listen in Arabic to the hate-speeches made by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; or to Turkish President Erdogan; or to the calls made from Qatar by Muslim Brotherhood leader SheikhYusuf al-Qaradawi and from the Gaza Strip by the head of Hamas,Khaled Mashaal for the killing of the Jews, you will understand why Arabs and Muslims believe Allah is punishing them by having them kill each other: It is because His prophecies are not being fulfilled.

For example, it is heresy and a violation of the will of Allah to sidestep calls for recognizing Jerusalem as official capital of the Children of Israel, and moving the American embassy there. It ignores the prophecy of the Noble Qur'an, which predicts the return of the Children of Israel to their land from the four corners of the earth, as it is written in Al-Isra, Verse 104, "And we said to the Children of Israel after him, "Dwell in the land, then, when the final and the last promise comes near, we shall bring you altogether as a mixed crowd."

[ this begs an important question.  Just where did the prophetic strain of Christianity and Judaism come from?  It is not spelled out in the Bible, yet it is well known and universally well received among evangelicals.   That it may have been captured in Islamic texts is both plausible and also startling.  Arclein ]

Although the stance adopted by the leaders of the Western world in general, and the American administration in particular, may be the consequence of their desire to strengthen their image in the eyes of the Muslim countries, their image is seen only as reflecting their weakness and attempts to ingratiate themselves with both radical Islam and Christian anti-Semitism.

It is not my intention to state that the other monotheistic religions do not also have their place in the holy city of Jerusalem. But political lies come mostly from radical Islamist sources, then somehow become accepted facts. This violates the prophecies of the messengers of Allah, and especially those of the greatest of His prophets, Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him:sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).

The various distortions of history and religion by politically-oriented Islamic sheiks and leaders for the sake of false, infidel, political goals, are legion. The way the Salafist Islamic sheiks and members of the Muslim Brotherhood twist the Noble Qur'an to suit their narrow political goals makes me angry, as it also makes angry the millions of Muslims around the world who know the eternal truth written in Islam's Noble Qur'an.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, for example, invented the fabrication that Palestinians are the descendants of the Jebusites and other Canaanite tribes of the land of the at the time of the Book. Behind this fabrication was Arafat's attempt to "prove" that the Palestinians lived in the Holy Land before the Children of Israel, and that therefore they have a greater right to it. [ this was a particularly clumsy fabrication but that is true of much of jihadist ideology anyway ]]

According to the Qur'an, however, "a race of giants" lived in the Holy Land but were destroyed by the Children of Israel, led by Joshua with the help of Allah the Almighty. [ this was surely the Philistines or Minoans cum Atlanteans we have spoken to and their allies the Irish Giants. - Arclein ]There were never "Palestinians" in the Holy Land, nor is there one word of them in the Noble Qur'an, nor any prophecy regarding their existence, nor any right to the Holy Land or any other place in the future or on Day of Judgment in the Noble Book of Allah.

The Palestinians are not mentioned or even hinted at in the Noble Qur'an, but the Children of Israel are mentioned countless times and they are mentioned as the Chosen People, as it is written in Al-Baqara, Verse 47, "O Children of Israel, remember My favor that I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds." They are mentioned as inheritors of the Holy Land which, according to all the Islamic commentators, is Jerusalem and the country around it. The Muslim claim that the Divine promise to the Children of Israel appears in the Noble Qur'an in the past tense and therefore is not relevant today is a malicious lie. Everyone knows that most of the Noble Qur'an was written in the past tense, but what was written about the Children of Israel was a promise and a prophecy, and Allah does not change His mind or break His promises.

Anyone who claims that what is written about the Jews is only relevant for the past and that the Children of Israel disappeared turns our beloved Prophet from prophet to mere historian who did not know what the future would bring. Anyone who claims that the "real" Children of Israel disappeared and that the Jews of today are not the genuine Children of Israel of the Noble Qur'an is a liar and a deceiver, because if there are no Children of Israel then the prophecy of Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) (sallal laahu alaihi wasallam), is irrelevant and he did not foresee the return of the Children of Israel to their land for the third time and instruct them to settle it, and promise that if they did what was right in the eyes of Allah and acted well they would succeed, as it is written in Al-Isra, Verses 6 and 7, "We gave you back the power against them, and aided you with wealth and children, and made you larger in numbers. Now, if you do well, you will do well for your own souls; and if you do evil, it will only go against them…."

And if one prophecy is false then all are false, and the Noble Qur'an has no value. Thus we have to admit that regardless of the mistakes the Jews make concerning our Palestinian brothers, they in fact act well, even to the Arabs in Israel, and they are charitable according to the tradition of Islam, and they are clearly more honest than the Arab and Muslim leaders today who oppress their own people and daily slaughter them and shed their blood.

To the eternal credit of Islam it must be said that in the seventh century the armies of Islam invaded Palestine and wrested it from the Byzantines, and that Jerusalem was turned over without a battle to the Muslims by the Christian Bishop Sophronius. This was the beginning of the Arab presence in the Holy Land, which ended and was renewed for years under various conquests, including the Crusaders, but ended for good nearly a century ago, when the Turks went back home. The Holy Land was then given back into the hands of the Children of Israel, according to the decree of the Noble Qur'an and the prophecy of Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him:sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).

The Children of Israel came from all the corners of the earth, as it is written in Al-A'raf, Verse 137, "And we caused the people who had been oppressed to inherit the eastern regions of the land and western ones, which We had blessed. And the good word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of what they had patiently endured."

The Palestinian claim that the Prophet Jesus was a Palestinian Arab is also a fabrication, unfortunately characteristic of Palestinian leaders who invent them and invest enormous sums of money to buy weapons, kill the Children of Israel, carry out terrorist attacks and launch Qassam rockets at civilians instead of rehabilitating the Palestinian refugees, their brothers, who, as a result of the establishment of Israel, actually returned to the bosom of the Islamic nation.

The more the Palestinians repeat the infamy that Jesus was a Palestinian Arab, the more likely it is that the Christians themselves will believe it, especially those who, by ignoring and denying the rights of the Children of Israel to Jerusalem, reveal their own baseness and lack of respect for their own religion, based on Judaism and begun in the Jewish capital of Jerusalem. According to such an absurdity, the Jewish prophet Jesus, son of Mary, who opposed the corrupt Jewish priests in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, was a "Palestinian Arab; " but it is just another way of denying the Jews the right to their land. Christians who ignore the Jewish right to Jerusalem are also denying their own religion.

From a religious point of view, the connection between Muslims and Jerusalem began with the "Night Journey," a dream that appears in the Noble Qur'an and was also reported by the Prophet's beloved child-wife, Aisha. According to the dream, Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam), went on a night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem riding on a marvelous animal named Al-Buraq, and from Jerusalem to heaven, where he received the principles of Islam. Jerusalem was then temporarily designated as the "Kibla," the first direction for Muslims to face during prayers; but Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam) changed the direction to Mecca. Since that time Jerusalem has been considered as only the third most sacred place for Islam.[ It appears that Mohammed received guidance and then chose to modify them! - Arclein ]

It is saddening to think that we deny the Jews, the modern-day Children of Israel, their identity, despite the fact that we know that they preserved their faith for thousands of years in the face of torture, rape, persecution, burning and genocide, all crimes committed against them because they were Jews and were determined to remain Jews.

We, however, the faithful of Islam, accept into our ranks every criminal and murderer who converts, in or out of prison, who only has to say, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet;" all it takes is five minutes. This new Muslim is considered a good Muslim, but a Jew who has adhered to the history and faith of his Jewish ancestors, the faith kept for thousands of years, is not in our eyes a genuine Jew, a Child of Israel. How long will we deny the Islamic faith and the prophecies of our Prophet Muhammad, (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) (sallal laahu alaihi wasallam)?

Unfortunately, even those among us who do believe that the Jews in Israel are genuine Children of Israel, the ones Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihiwasallam), referred to in his noble Surahs, the ones who have inherited the Holy Land promised to them by the Noble Qur'an, conduct themselves despicably. They adopt the counterfeit, apocalyptic, false sayings which do not appear in the Noble Qur'an and are falsely attributed to the Prophet of Allah. They adopt as genuine traditions those which are lies, and, contradicting the promises made by Allah in the Noble Qur'an, falsely prophesy the destruction of the Jews by the Muslims in Palestine.

These commentators, inspired by Satan, refer to the Jews as "Zionists," as though changing their name makes it permissible to kill the People of the Book and violate the words of Allah and His prophets. Is it possible that Allah, who in His infinite mercy calls them the Chosen People, and promised them the Holy Land, also plans to murder them using the Muslims in Palestine as His intermediary? Every Muslim knows that Allah does not break His promises. Therefore, his promise to the Children of Israel is both relevant and eternal. The Jews, weak and miserable, who came from all over the globe, victims of hatred and murder would not found their state in Palestine unless it were the will of Allah, who supports them.

Jerusalem is the capital of the Children of Israel and it is forbidden for Muslims to demand it, just as a married woman belongs only to her husband. Jerusalem is never mentioned by name in the Noble Qur'an, but it is mentioned there as the heart of the Holy Land given in perpetuity to the Jews. It therefore has to be capital of the Children of Israel in the Land of Israel and not of the planned state of "Palestine."

If, as Muslims, we look into our hearts, we have to admit that a state called Palestine never existed but we need to help it come into being, with the help of Allah, next to Israel. Since there never was a state called "Palestine" or a Palestinian people, Jerusalem was never their capital or the capital of any people or country except for the current State of Israel. Therefore the Palestinians cannot demand Jerusalem as its capital, but they can demand the right for all Muslims to pray at Al-Aqsamosque. Actually, the Jews allow freedom of worship to all the religions in Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa mosque is under the management of the king of Jordan, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).

In addition, nowhere in the world have Muslims turned a city holy to Islam into a capital. Neither Mecca nor Madinah is the capital of Saudi Arabia and Karbala and Qom are not the capitals of Iraq and Iran. Even Jordan, whose capital is Amman, did not turn Jerusalem into its capital when it controlled the city between 1948 and 1967.

Instead of the monotheistic religions' helping the Jews to construct Jerusalem in preparation for Judgment Day and as proof of the truth of the prophecies in the Noble Qur'an, the infidels protest construction of new housing. If the Muslims used the return of the Children of the Book to Israel as proof of the truth of the prophecy of the Noble Qur'an, they would succeed in fulfilling the mission of Muhammad, the prophet of the entire world (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam) to Islamize the world. Whoever goes against the will of Allah will fail.

The Christians as well suffer from the historical lie and from the denial of the rights of the Jews to Jerusalem. What is happening in the Middle East and the mutual bloodletting of the Muslims is not a consequence of the "problem of Palestine." It is a manifestation of Allah's anger at the infidels of the world who do not accept His prophecy regarding the return of the Jews to their land and establishing their capital in the united holy city of Jerusalem.

Ali Salim writes for The Gatestone Institute, from where this article is adapted.