Eideard

Wen Jiabao, Naoto Kan and Lee Myung-bak at evacuation center in Fukishima City
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea publicly munched on farm produce grown near the stricken Japanese nuclear plant on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Japan’s recovery efforts.

Premier Wen Jiabao of China and President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea arrived in Japan on Saturday for a two-day meeting that was expected to focus on resolving differences over Japan’s handling of the nuclear crisis.

China and South Korea have criticized Japan for spilling radiation into the air and sea, and have banned imports of farm products from areas near the plant, citing what they call inadequate checks for radiation. Japan says the restrictions are unjustified.

Before the meeting began in Tokyo on Saturday night, the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, took the leaders to visit a refugee shelter in Fukushima, 40 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Before entering the shelter, a converted gymnasium, Mr. Kan steered the group to a table displaying strawberries, cucumbers and other produce grown in Fukushima Prefecture.

The leaders, who did not appear to have been surprised by the photo op, smiled and nibbled gamely. “Very delicious,” Mr. Wen said…

Before meeting Mr. Kan, the two visiting leaders also paid separate visits to the city of Natori, which was devastated by the tsunami.

“The warm feelings of the two leaders came through in their visits to disaster areas and an evacuation center,” Mr. Kan told reporters. “I’m glad they came.”

No doubt import restrictions to China and South Korea will be reduced following this meeting. The interesting bits will be – what else is resolved over the weekend?

The earthbound disaster has pushed Japan’s economy into an artificial recession. Individual Japanese corporations have started working their way out of the context of parts suppliers and individual enterprises both being handicapped by the damage to physical plant and infrastructure. Collective effort will be welcomed – no doubt – to aid Japan’s recovery.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is having some fun — and raising some money — from a flap over whether Obama was born in the United States.

The Obama campaign is offering a “Made in the USA” T-shirt emblazoned with the president’s birth certificate in exchange for a $30 donation. There are coffee mugs as well.

Some Republicans [and other dipshits] have theorized Obama was born in Kenya, birthplace of his father, instead of Hawaii.

Obama ignored the accusations until wealthy real estate magnate Donald Trump made the “birther” issue a central part of his campaign to decide whether to challenge Obama in 2012. The U.S. Constitution requires the American president to be born in the United States.

With a sizable percentage of Americans expressing doubts about Obama’s birthplace, Obama last month produced a longer version of his birth certificate that confirmed he was born at a Honolulu hospital in 1961…

The issue has since ebbed and Trump this week opted against a campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

“If the facts can’t make these ridiculous smears go away, we can at least have a little fun with it,” deputy campaign manager Julianna Smoot said in an email to supporters.

One of the best ways to handle populist dullards and their conspiracy cousins is laughter. Turning that laughter into a fund-raising tool – makes it worth even more. You get to laugh at these clowns while helping the 2012 campaign of the Black man they hate the most.

“Sure.. you say that now.. but just think how remarkable it would
have been if I had been RIGHT ! “

Broadcaster silent as Judgment Day hours tick by

Children are becoming weaker, less muscular and unable to do physical tasks that previous generations found simple, research has revealed. As a generation dedicated to online pursuits grows up, 10-year-olds can do fewer sit-ups and are less able to hang from wall bars in a gym. Arm strength has declined in that age group, as has their ability to grip an object firmly.

The findings, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica, have led to fresh concern about the impact on children’s health caused by the shift away from outdoor activities.

Academics led by Dr Gavin Sandercock, a children’s fitness expert at Essex University, studied how strong a group of 315 Essex 10-year-olds in 2008 were compared with 309 children the same age in 1998. They found that:

■ The number of sit-ups 10-year-olds can do declined by 27.1% between 1998 and 2008

■ Arm strength fell by 26% and grip strength by 7%

■ While one in 20 children in 1998 could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars, one in 10 could not do so in 2008…

Previous research has already shown that children are becoming more unfit, less active and more sedentary and, in many cases, heavier than before.

But the new study also found that children in 2008 had the same body mass index (BMI) as those a decade earlier. Lead author Daniel Cohen, of London Metropolitan University, said this meant that, given their declining strength, the bodies of the recent test group are likely to contain more fat and less muscle then their predecessors. “That’s really worrying from a health point of view. It’s good news that their BMI hasn’t risen, but worrying that pound for pound they’re weaker and probably carrying more fat,” said Sandercock…

“Climbing trees and ropes used to be standard practice for children, but school authorities and ‘health and safety’ have contrived to knock the sap out of our children,” said Tam Fry of the Child Growth Foundation.

“Falling off a branch used to be a good lesson in picking yourself up and learning to climb better. Now fear of litigation stops the child climbing in the first place.”

I doubt if the situation among some working class kids in the US is much different. I do feel that folks a bit further up the income scale – and/or those with the perception and education associated with that lifestyle – are less likely to be failing this way. And that understanding often is acquired outside the education factories grounded in the fear of litigation that Tam Fry notes.

Active lifestyles have sufficient advocates over recent decades to have motivated plenty of American families to bring their children into active exercising patterns. Running, hiking, cycling, skating, soccer, lifetime sports have become a movement that touches many families in the United States – even if it isn’t considered acceptable by either end of our economic extremes, e.g., layabout trust funders or redneck fans of watching almost any sport rather than participating in one.

Proposed Hudson Yards

Manhattan developers are planning the city’s biggest decade of office construction since the 1980s, betting on rising demand for modern space even with tenants unsigned and the availability of financing more limited.

More than 25 million square feet of projects are under construction or may be built in the next nine years, according to brokerage Cassidy Turley. Developers including Related Cos. and real estate investment trusts Boston Properties and Vornado Realty Trust are in talks with potential tenants as they step up plans for towers. Some, including Vornado, may proceed without lease agreements.

Builders and brokers say Manhattan is ready for the boom, citing corporate appetite for the latest in comfort, energy efficiency and technological capability in an area where more than 60 percent of buildings are at least half a century old. The risks for developers are that they are competing for tenants and may have to put up more money as banks are reluctant to fund new projects just three years after the credit crash…

Including buildings completed last year, Manhattan could see about 28.5 million square feet of new office space in this decade. Only 7.4 million square feet was built in the 1990s, and 18.5 million in the 2000s, according to Cassidy Turley. The 1980s had 47.2 million square feet of offices built…

“We’re getting to the point where new construction is logical and the developers are ready to come out of the ground,” said Robert Sammons, Cassidy Turley’s vice president of research. Property companies that stockpiled money during the recession now want to be “ahead of the curve,” he said…

Manhattan’s Far West Side, the area roughly between Pennsylvania Station and the Hudson River, may be one of the biggest areas for development as Related and Brookfield Office Properties take the first steps to attract tenants and start construction on a potential 10 million square feet of offices. Penn Station is the busiest U.S. commuter rail hub, with its 590,000 passengers a day approximating the population of Milwaukee…

Spending on U.S. office construction fell to $24.4 billion in 2010, down 36 percent from 2009, and 56 percent from the peak year of 2008, according to the Census Bureau.

RTFA if you feel the need for detail and market motives. David Levitt did a superb job of research and the complete article has depth and knowledge of the history of office construction in NYC. It’s also a positive sign for the US economy – dealing as it does with the center for American commerce.

A suspected U.S. drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal region killed four suspected militants Friday, intelligence officials said.

It was the latest in a spate of suspected drone attacks that the United States has carried out in Pakistan since U.S. forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the early morning hours of May 2.

Why must American journalists speak lawyerese? I understand why media owners, editors and producers crack the whip on “suspected perpetrator” and similar crap in daily domestic news. We’re talking about military operations on the other side of the planet.

The suspected drone fired two missiles on a vehicle in the area of Miran Shah of North Waziristan, a region near Pakistan’s border that is rife with Islamic extremists, two intelligence officials said. They asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Suspected U.S. drone strikes, a source of tension between the two nations, have increased in pace in Pakistan since bin Laden’s death.

The United States has carried out six suspected drone strikes in Pakistan in the past 15 days, according to a CNN count based on information from Pakistani intelligence sources. That works out to an average of one strike every 2.5 days.

From January 1 through May 5, by contrast, the United States conducted 20 suspected strikes, an average of one drone strike every six days, according to CNN’s count.

The recent increase, however, probably is not due to intelligence gained from bin Laden’s compound, Bill Roggio, a military affairs analyst and editor of the Long War Journal, has said.

“This uptick is not unusual from a recent historical perspective, he said. “What has happened, since the bin Laden raid, is that the U.S. has not felt pressured to dial back the attacks due to Pakistani sensibilities.”

Makes sense to me. Apparently, the White House and the State Department don’t feel much pressure to keep up the patent leather pretense that the Pakistan government has broad-based control over all departments, everyone follows political guidance as expressed by President Zardari.

Uh-huh.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has teamed up with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to study a rare storm in the atmosphere of the planet Saturn in more detail than has ever been possible before…

The atmosphere of the planet Saturn normally appears placid and calm. But about once per Saturn year (about thirty Earth years), as spring comes to the northern hemisphere of the giant planet, something stirs deep below the clouds that leads to a dramatic planet-wide disturbance.

The latest such storm was first detected by the radio and plasma wave science instrument on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around the planet, and also tracked by amateur astronomers in December 2010…

This is only the sixth of these huge storms to be spotted since 1876. It is the first ever to be studied in the thermal infrared — to see the variations of temperature within a Saturnian storm — and the first ever to be observed by an orbiting spacecraft.

“This disturbance in the northern hemisphere of Saturn has created a gigantic, violent and complex eruption of bright cloud material, which has spread to encircle the entire planet,” explains Leigh Fletcher…lead author of the new study. “Having both the VLT and Cassini investigating this storm at the same time gives us a great chance to put the Cassini observations into context. Previous studies of these storms have only been able to use reflected sunlight, but now, by observing thermal infrared light for the first time, we can reveal hidden regions of the atmosphere and measure the really substantial changes in temperatures and winds associated with this event.”

The storm may have originated deep down in the water clouds where a phenomenon similar to a thunderstorm drove the creation of a giant convective plume: just as hot air rises in a heated room, this mass of gas headed upwards and punched through Saturn’s usually serene upper atmosphere. These huge disturbances interact with the circulating winds moving east and west and cause dramatic temperature changes high up in the atmosphere.

“Our new observations show that the storm had a major effect on the atmosphere, transporting energy and material over great distances, modifying the atmospheric winds — creating meandering jet streams and forming giant vortices — and disrupting Saturn’s slow seasonal evolution,” adds Glenn Orton…another member of the team.

Delightful stuff – knowledge and dreams. I’ve dreamt of space travel, adventure and exploration, since I was a kid. There’s hardly an area of human endeavor that grabs the focus of my attention more.

Ilene and Arnold Bangerter

He hit the mother lode, but not once did Josh Ferrin even think of laying claim on the more than $45,000 cash that he found in his garage. In fact, he gave it all back. “You can’t make plans for money like this that’s found in a situation like this,” Ferrin said. “It just doesn’t feel right to do anything but give it back.”

Within an hour of closing on his first home, Josh Ferrin, an artist for the Deseret News, used the keys to take his first official look inside.

While taking it all in, he noticed a tiny scrap of carpet peeking out of a small door in the ceiling of a workshop at the back of the garage. He got a ladder and climbed up to explore the unseen space. It was dark and musty, but Ferrin could see a black metal box sitting there.

It was a heavy metal box — the kind used to haul ammunition during World War II — and it was filled with cash, old stamps, bond certificates and other random memorabilia.

“I immediately closed it, locked it in my truck and called my wife. ‘You won’t believe what I just found,’” he said. Tara Ferrin immediately knew the couple had to return the money to its rightful owners.

However, Arnold Bangerter, the former homeowner, passed away in November 2010 and his youngest son, Dennis Bangerter, the executor of Bangerter’s estate, had just signed the 1950s red-brick rambler away…

“Going through those boxes, I felt like I had a peek into his life,” Josh Ferrin said about the man who left the surprising find. “This is a beautiful outcome and it feels good to be a part of it. It’s a rare opportunity to be able to do something extraordinarily honest.”

Arnold Bangerter, an fisheries biologist for the former Utah Department of Fish and Game, had purchased the home in 1966 and lived there with his wife, who died in 2005…

The money is being divided among Mr. Bengerter’s six children. From honest folks in Bountiful, Utah.

US atheists are to hold parties in response to an evangelical broadcaster’s prediction that Saturday will be “judgement day”.

The Rapture After Party in North Carolina – “the best damned party in NC” – is among the planned events.

Harold Camping, 89, predicts that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday and true believers will be swept up, or “raptured”, to heaven…Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage…

The Rapture After Party in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is a two-day event organised by the Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists.

“Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it’s a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason,” said a posting about the party on the group’s website.

Atheists in Tacoma, Washington, have headed their celebration “countdown to back-pedalling”.

Events are also planned in Houston, Florida and California.

Invite a few politicians. You won’t have to spend any money on them because guaranteed they won’t show up to something irreligious – even if it’s just laughing at a noodnik like Harold Camping. Besides – he has the millions he’s scooped up from True Believers to keep him comfy.

Click to view enlarged image.

When viewing the larger version, you can click on that one as well for a still larger pic. Fun for the whole family.