GM crops found to affect reproduction in mice: Austrian study

*I am certain Monsanto will arrive on my blog to dispute this one.*

VIENNA (AFP) – Genetically-modified maize can affect reproduction in mice, an Austrian study has found, although its authors have dismissed warnings by environmental groups that it could also harm humans.

The long-term study, which was commissioned by the Austrian health ministry, found that female mice that had been given a diet consisting of 33 percent genetically-modified (GM) maize had fewer babies and fewer litters than those fed on non-GM food after a few generations.

But the authors of the study were keen to point out that these were only initial findings and that further tests were needed to confirm the effect of GM foods on other animals and on humans.

“This is an isolated case and the results cannot in any way be applied to humans,” the Austrian health and food safety agency AGES, which presented the study by Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine (VUW) Tuesday, said in a statement.

“Confirmation of these preliminary results is urgently needed through further studies,” the study’s author, Juergen Zentek, added.

Environmental groups like Global 2000 and Greenpeace were quick to seize on the study to call for a ban on all GM crops.

“Considering the severity of the potential threat to human health and reproduction, Greenpeace is demanding a recall of all GE (genetically-engineered) food and crops from the market, worldwide,” the group said in a statement.

Distributing GM foods was “like playing Russian roulette with consumers and public health,” added Greenpeace’s GM expert Jan van Aken.

EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou has requested a copy of the study and will then pass it on to the European food safety authority for expertise, her spokeswoman said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081112/hl_afp/environmentgmofoodsafetyaustria

The incredible bailouts that never end!!!!!!!!

*I need to proclaim myself a corporation or bank so I may receive these benefits.*

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) — General Electric Co. said the U.S. government agreed to insure as much as $139 billion in debt for lending arm GE Capital Corp., the second time in a month it has turned to a federal program designed to help companies during a global credit crunch.

Granting GE Capital, which isn’t a bank, access to a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. program may reassure investors and help the unit compete with banks that already have government protection behind their debt, said Russell Wilkerson, a spokesman for the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company. Coverage would be for about $139 billion, or 125 percent of total senior unsecured debt outstanding as of Sept. 30 and maturing by June 30.

“Inclusion in this program will allow us to source our debt competitively with other participating financial institutions,” Wilkerson said. GE sent investors an e-mail about the program today and posted the letter on its Web site. “Our participation is a positive development for our investors.”

GE’s finance businesses are able to seek FDIC debt coverage because its GE Capital subsidiary also owns a federal savings bank and an industrial loan company, both of which already qualify. GE last month started using a new Federal Reserve program designed to revive demand for commercial paper amid the global crisis.

The company’s exposure to the deepest global financial crisis since the 1930s has cut its market value by more than half this year, as Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt twice lowered his target for 2008 profit. GE fell $1.52, or 8.5 percent, to $16.29 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading amid a broad decline in U.S. stocks. The shares are at their lowest level since January 1997.

FDIC Program

Credit-default swaps on GE Capital Corp. dropped 35 basis points to 390 basis points from 425 basis points on Nov. 7, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group.

U.S. regulators introduced the FDIC program Oct. 14, making the insurance automatically available for banks on debt issued through June 30, 2009. Affiliated non-bank units have to apply separately, as GE did. Like the banks, GE would pay a premium for the insurance. GE said the coverage would begin on or before Nov. 14 and lasts through June 30, 2012.

“If you’re a GE shareholder you’d be a fool not to want them to take advantage of every possible opportunity out there,” Peter Sorrentino, a senior portfolio manager at Cincinnati-based Huntington Asset Advisors, which oversees 6.12 million GE shares, said today. “By the same token there are far more pressing situations at companies that would be beneficiaries of taxpayer generosity. Should we really be expending here?”

GE Capital

The FDIC would gain the right to examine GE’s other finance units as a condition of participation. GE’s bank units already are regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The program doesn’t require the U.S. to take a stake in GE, the e-mail said.

GE Capital, which carries the highest-possible AAA credit rating, includes divisions that are among the world’s largest lenders in commercial real estate, aircraft leasing and private- label credit cards. It also provides financing to help companies emerge from bankruptcy protection and so-called middle-market financing, or loans to smaller and midsized companies.

The unit makes money partly by taking advantage of the spread between the cost of debt it issues and the loans and finance contracts it writes.

GE’s finance divisions accounted for about half of sales and profit last year, and Immelt has said that percentage may shrink to about 40 percent in 2009. GE said Oct. 10 it still expects profit from the units to be about $9 billion this year.

General Electric Capital’s 5.625 percent notes due in 2018 rose 0.8 cent on the dollar to 88.5 cents, the highest since September, for a yield of 7.33 percent at 2:41 p.m. in New York, according to Trace, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s bond-pricing service.

FDIC’s Terms

U.S. regulators expanded the coverage last month after a similar move by European regulators to ease inter-bank lending. The insurance is offered through the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, which also includes expanded deposit coverage for business checking accounts. It guarantees all new senior unsecured debt issued between Oct. 14 and June 30, 2009, up to a cap set for each institution when it signs up.

“All participants are on notice under the terms of the regulation that the FDIC reserves the right to expand their oversight,” Louis Crandall, chief economist of Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey, said of the federal program.

The FDIC so far is taking an all-or-nothing approach on the terms of participation. Banks are automatically enrolled, unless they opt out. If a bank holding company joins, all of its banking subsidiaries must also join. Program terms apply to all commercial paper, promissory notes and other eligible debt.

GE Capital Debt

According to its Oct. 10 presentation to investors, GE Capital Services had $536 billion in debt at the end of the third quarter. Of that, commercial paper, or debt due in nine months or less, was $88 billion, or 17 percent. The company issues debt in 18 currencies, with about 60 percent in non-U.S. denominations.

GE Capital has about $81 billion in long-term debt maturing between now and the end of 2009, according to another Oct. 10 chart. Of that, $43 billion comes due by June 30.

GE is already among companies using a new short-term funding facility from the Federal Reserve opened to revive demand for commercial paper, the short-term borrowing that companies use to finance day-to-day operations. GE and its finance entities, top- rated issuers, had issued paper without interruption before tapping the facility.

Banks have until Dec. 5 to decide whether to opt out of the FDIC program. If they do, they’ll have to start paying premiums for the coverage, which lasts until June 30, 2012. For now, all FDIC-insured banks are automatically covered at no cost.

Fee Structure

In general, participating companies “will be charged an annualized fee equal to 75 basis points multiplied by the amount of debt issued, and calculated for the maturity period of that debt or June 30, 2012, whichever is earlier,” according to the FDIC interim regulation. The regulation also says no fees will be charged during the first 30 days of the program, and it includes several options for calculating the insurance premiums.

The FDIC now is in the process of revising its interim regulation in response to comments, so the final fee structure may be different.

Andrew Gray, a spokesman for the FDIC, wasn’t immediately available for comment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a59q5TXyQY8E&refer=news

Ford to Idle 9 Plants in 4th Quarter

Bloomberg is reporting that Ford will temporarily shut down 9 North American plants during the 4th quarter, slashing production to deal with an 18% drop in U.S. sales this year.

The plants, which employ about 23,000 production workers, reportedly include the plants in Flat Rock and Wayne.  Those facilities will be idled for about a week.  Other plants that are expected to be shut down are located in Louisville, Kentucky; St. Paul, Minnesota; Oakville and St. Thomas, Ontario; Kansas City, Missouri; Avon Lake, Ohio and Hermosillo, Mexico.

The shortest closures will be for a week, but the St. Paul facility is expected to close for the entire month of December.  The factories make a variety of vehicles, including the Ranger, the Mustang, Econoline vans, Edge and Flex wagons, Lincoln Town Car, Escape and Mariner SUVs and the Fusion sedan.

These closures are in addition to the shutdown of the Louisville truck factory, which will be idled from mid-December until early next year to add large SUVs.  Another plant in Wayne will temporarily close at the end of November to be retooled to make small cars, starting in 2010.

http://www.wxyz.com/content/news/autonews/story.aspx?content_id=48a644ef-4c02-47df-991b-9b2c859be2ee

The Mystery of Time

*VERY good essay by Varg, wanted to share it with everyone…*

Paganism: Part XV – The Mystery Of Time

Scientists speak of a universe that came to be in a big bang about 13,7 billion years ago, they say that our planet Earth is 5 billion years old, that the Sun will use up its fuel in 5 or 6 billion years, and so forth. However, their estimates in this context are at best educated guesses. The truth is that they have no idea how old the universe is, how old our planet is or how long it will take for the Sun to extinguish itself. Their science is nothing but speculations based in vague, often flawed and even completely incorrect scientific theories. Some of their theories are not even scientific, like the theory of (macro) evolution.

The scientists and man in general try to understand the world within the concept of time, because, after all, we exist in time. It is hard to grasp or even think of an existence or a creation of our world beyond time when we only know of the existence in time. However, there is a world beyond time too, and in Norse this is amongst other things called the vyrð (esteem), a word that has survived in modern English only as the “degenerated term” weird (from wyrd, the Anglo-Saxon or Old English version of vyrð).

Even for the enlightened Pagan initiate the vyrð was indeed a weird place, and the best way for me to describe it is to ask You to imagine how the world looks like in Your dreams. When You sleep You leave the body to recharge (some of) Your spiritual faculties in the vyrð, and the reason we most often forget our dreams the moment we wake up is simply because we need to cross the river Styx on our way back to the body. Some dreams we remember anyhow, because we need to or because they are instructions to us from the vyrð, but we forget the vast majority.

In our dreams we exist beyond time, in a world of magic, mystery, surprises and incomprehensible events and emotions. Some dreams are merely our spiritual faculties trying to get rid of useless and invaluable memories (for example scenes from a computer game you have been playing all day long, or the memory of something else you have been doing too much). This is some sort of “disc tidying”; our minds making room for more useable or valuable memories on the “hard drive” by cleaning out all the useless and invaluable memories. Other dreams are more chaotic and are a result of our minds trying to process and file the more useable and valuable memories.

The final type of dreams I will mention here are the dreams known as mythological dreams. They are instructions to us from the different powers in the vyrð, they are remembered by us and are often experienced as so significant that we never forget them. These dreams are a one-way communication with the gods, as they speak to us in our dream, and they give us our different (personal) missions in life. The mythological dreams are actually the only way for the uninitiated man to receive signals from what our (Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon) forefathers called the æsir or ése (respectively), or simply gods.

The initiate’s journey into the vyrð is experienced very much like a dream, obviously because this is a journey into the realm we all visit when we sleep (and dream). What makes the initiate’s journey so different is that he or she can cross the river Styx without forgetting and he or she can interact with the powers too. In the yearly Ragnarok the initiates used to travel to the vyrð and fight different destructive powers, often in the shape of an animal, to secure the fertility of the land, the health of the kin and so forth. They put on a mask (like we still do in the julebukk tradition in Norway) to be able to see the spirits of the vyrð, and they participated in the huge (yearly) battle we know as Ragnarok, that takes place every New Year’s Eve. They fought alongside the gods and goddesses, in a world beyond time.

To access the vyrð they used different magic symbols, like the famous Trojan Fortresses found all over Scandinavia (and in Greece). They danced into the centre of the symbol, on one foot, symbolizing the foot of Víðarr, that he uses when he kills the Fenrir wolf. We know a form of this dance from Ireland as river dance, and naturally it is called by that name because on their back from the vyrð the initiates had to dance across the river (we know best as) Styx¹ in a certain way in order not to forget what they had seen and experienced.

The Trojan Fortress symbolizes the grave mound (as seen from above, with the entrance clearly visible²). This is the entrance to the vyrð, that is also known as Ásgarðr (and Troy). This is the world of the dead, the world of the elves, the world of the gods, and it is a world that exists beyond time.

***

The problem with the existence beyond time is that there is no growth there; it is a rather static world. In order to in any way enhance the powers of the vyrð the gods need to send them into our world (of time), to have them work for a while, and then let them turn to the vyrð, changed. And, mark my words, we are such powers, that are sent into the world to work for some time. After a while, when we die, we return to the vyrð changed; we are different from what we were before life on Earth.

In other words; the gods created our universe, the physical world influenced by time, to change, purify, enhance and improve the powers of the vyrð. The tiny spark given to each man when he or she is born can grow into a bright and shining star, if we play our cards right in life. Had this spark never existed in time, it would simply have remained a spark forever. Without time there can be no growth, and without growth there can be no births or positive change.

We know that the gods are the children of other gods, but we never hear about a goddess being pregnant or one giving birth to another god or goddess. The only birth we are told about is the birth of Sleipnir (the Trojan horse), but for Loki to give birth to this horse he actually has to leave Ásgarðr, naturally because he cannot give birth to anything in a realm existing beyond time. He needs to do it elsewhere, in our world of time.

***

We don’t know, and cannot know, how old the universe is or when exactly the powers of our world came to be, because they were created beyond time. The world of time revolves around the world of the gods like the spokes of a wheel around its axis, and the distance from the past, the present and the future to the world of the gods is always the same.

Footnotes:

1. In Scandinavian mythology we have two rivers, called Þundr (self-solemnity) and Ífing (uncertainty, doubt), serving the same purpose as the river Styx in the Greek mythology.
2. And if You take this symbol and place it on top of an aerial picture of an ancient grave mound, for example the 7.000 year-old Newgrange in Ireland, You will see that it is like a map of the interior of the grave mound.

Varg “Greybeard” Vikernes
(05.03.2006)

Ohio running low on unemployment money

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With unemployment rising, state officials warn that Ohio’s fund for paying jobless benefits is dwindling and could be empty by next month.

When that happens, the state will be forced to take out a federal loan to keep the unemployment checks flowing, for the first time in 26 years.

Gov. Ted Strickland says he’s asking Congress for federal aid to replenish the fund, so the state won’t have to borrow. If Ohio were to have trouble paying back a loan, it could face high interest costs and the threat of automatic tax increases on the state’s employers after two years.

http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/Trust%20Fund%20Solvency%20Update%202008-Final.pdf

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread

SAN FRANCISCO — There is a new common symptom of the flu, in addition to the usual aches, coughs, fevers and sore throats. Turns out a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.

That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks, called Google Flu Trends.

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In early February, for example, the C.D.C. reported that the flu cases had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report was released. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading.

The C.D.C. reports are slower because they rely on data collected and compiled from thousands of health care providers, labs and other sources. Some public health experts say the Google data could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.

“The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza,” said Dr. Lyn Finelli, lead for surveillance at the influenza division of the C.D.C. From 5 to 20 percent of the nation’s population contracts the flu each year, she said, leading to roughly 36,000 deaths on average.

The service covers only the United States, but Google is hoping to eventually use the same technique to help track influenza and other diseases worldwide.

“From a technological perspective, it is the beginning,” said Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive.

The premise behind Google Flu Trends — what appears to be a fruitful marriage of mob behavior and medicine — has been validated by an unrelated study indicating that the data collected by Yahoo, Google’s main rival in Internet search, can also help with early detection of the flu.

“In theory, we could use this stream of information to learn about other disease trends as well,” said Dr. Philip M. Polgreen, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa and an author of the study based on Yahoo’s data.

Still, some public health officials note that many health departments already use other approaches, like gathering data from visits to emergency rooms, to keeping daily tabs on disease trends in their communities.

“We don’t have any evidence that this is more timely than our emergency room data,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, assistant commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City.

If Google provided health officials with details of the system’s workings so that it could be validated scientifically, the data could serve as an additional, free way to detect influenza, said Dr. Mostashari, who is also chairman of the International Society for Disease Surveillance.

A paper on the methodology of Google Flu Trends is expected to be published in the journal Nature.

Researchers have long said that the material published on the Web amounts to a form of “collective intelligence” that can be used to spot trends and make predictions.

But the data collected by search engines is particularly powerful, because the keywords and phrases that people type into them represent their most immediate intentions. People may search for “Kauai hotel” when they are planning a vacation and for “foreclosure” when they have trouble with their mortgage. Those queries express the world’s collective desires and needs, its wants and likes.

Internal research at Yahoo suggests that increases in searches for certain terms can help forecast what technology products will be hits, for instance. Yahoo has begun using search traffic to help it decide what material to feature on its site.

Two years ago, Google began opening its search data trove through Google Trends, a tool that allows anyone to track the relative popularity of search terms. Google also offers more sophisticated search traffic tools that marketers can use to fine-tune ad campaigns. And internally, the company has tested the use of search data to reach conclusions about economic, marketing and entertainment trends.

“Most forecasting is basically trend extrapolation,” said Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist. “This works remarkably well, but tends to miss turning points, times when the data changes direction. Our hope is that Google data might help with this problem.”

Prabhakar Raghavan, who is in charge of Yahoo Labs and the company’s search strategy, also said search data could be valuable for forecasters and scientists, but privacy concerns had generally stopped it from sharing it with outside academics.

Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers. To develop the service, Google’s engineers devised a basket of keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and many others.

Google then dug into its database, extracted five years of data on those queries and mapped it onto the C.D.C.’s reports of influenzalike illness. Google found a strong correlation between its data and the reports from the agency, which advised it on the development of the new service.

“We know it matches very, very well in the way flu developed in the last year,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org. Dr. Finelli of the C.D.C. and Dr. Brilliant both cautioned that the data needed to be monitored to ensure that the correlation with flu activity remained valid.

Google also says it believes the tool may help people take precautions if a disease is in their area.

Others have tried to use information collected from Internet users for public health purposes. A Web site called whoissick.org, for instance, invites people to report what ails them and superimposes the results on a map. But the site has received relatively little traffic.

HealthMap, a project affiliated with the Children’s Hospital Boston, scours the Web for articles, blog posts and newsletters to create a map that tracks emerging infectious diseases around the world. It is backed by Google.org, which counts the detection and prevention of diseases as one of its main philanthropic objectives.

But Google Flu Trends appears to be the first public project that uses the powerful database of a search engine to track a disease.

“This seems like a really clever way of using data that is created unintentionally by the users of Google to see patterns in the world that would otherwise be invisible,” said Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin