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Saturday, December 31, 2011
What is your vision for a new Middle East and North Africa (MENA)? What does the...
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Offshore shell companies facilitate Florida land scams
Florida is the No. 1 state in the country for international residential real estate sales with almost one-third of the nation's foreign-backed property transactions.
Most deals are in cash.
However, Florida and the federal government may be left holding the bag, according to an investigative report from the Florida News Connection.
Some investors in the Florida housing market have found a way to avoid paying everything from state title transfer fees to federal capital gains taxes by going off-shore to places like a Caribbean island called Nevis.
The domestic housing bust made Florida properties appealing to overseas investors wanting to buy a house or condo in the Sunshine State, and 76 percent pay in cash. State and federal governments normally would get their cut of each transaction in fees and capital gains taxes.
A loophole is created when investors set up a shell company in an off-shore tax haven to buy a Florida condo.
R.M. Woodnutt, a former off-shore agent in Gibraltar, said tax avoidance is the name of the game.
"If you transfer the stock in the offshore company and do not actually sell the company or the real estate property outright, then you certainly avoid paying any taxes on the transaction. That is the beauty of all this," Woodruff said.
The Miami International Real Estate Congress claims foreign investment in South Florida is growing, and industry experts are predicting in 2012 there will be even more international interest in the area.
Creating an offshore company is simple, and can be done online: OffshoreFormations247.com specializes in creating shell companies to hide individual identities and assets. It is based in Nevis, a little Caribbean island just 200 miles south of Puerto Rico.
"A lot of people like Nevis 'cause it's quick and easy: three- to five-day turnaround to get a company back. For an LLC it costs only $1,295, a corporation is only $1,695. The only thing you need is name of the company, who the director will be and where to send it."
The offshore company buys the property in Florida. When it goes to unload it, the bearer certificates of company ownership are transferred to the new owners. There is no record in Florida of a sell-buy transaction, so no transfer fees or capital gains taxes are ever paid.
Rosa Schecter, an international real estate attorney in Coral Gables, said buying Florida property normally requires slogging through a lot of red tape and paying thousands in taxes and fees.
"There are different kinds of taxes," Schecter said. "There are transfer taxes that are associated with every real estate transaction in Florida that you have to pay on a deed; there also are intangible taxes that are due on promissory notes, and documentary stamp taxes. If a property is sold and there is gain on it, obviously there is tax to be paid on that gain."
Such taxes and fees are never recorded because as far as Florida is concerned, the property never changed hands - the deed is still recorded in the offshore company's name. What did change hands was the stock in the offshore company, a transaction that need not be disclosed.
Most overseas buyers do not qualify for an exemption from capital gains taxes since the properties are not usually their primary residence. Forming an offshore company to purchase a house in Florida hides any record of the property changing hands, thus no capital gains are recorded on the tax rolls.
There are advantages for American citizens, too, like dodging debts, child support or alimony payments.
Several state and federal law enforcement agencies have been made aware of this off-shore scheme.
Further information is available at www.nevisisland.com and www.offshore.barclays.com.
Source: http://www.bocagrandetalk.com/page/content.detail/id/516371.html
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Payton not divulging plan for Brees in finale (AP)
METAIRIE, La. ? A day after Sean Payton helped Drew Brees break the NFL's single-season passing record the coach wouldn't divulge whether he'd enable his star quarterback to maintain that distinction.
With 5,087 yards passing this season after Monday night's victory over Atlanta, Brees enters the final week of the season 190 yards ahead of New England's Tom Brady. Yet the Saints' regular-season finale may not matter in terms of playoff seeding, meaning the prudent choice for Payton could be to rest Brees for much of Sunday's game against Carolina.
The Patriots, by contrast, need to beat Buffalo to ensure they'll have the top seed in the AFC, and Brady has proven time and again he can put up a lot of yards in a single game. He had a season-high 517 yards against Miami in Week 1 and threw for 423 against San Diego. The last time New England played Buffalo, Brady threw for 387 yards.
So it's not out of the realm of possibility that Brady could finish the season with the passing record Brees now holds, particularly if the Saints' quarterback sits out.
"I'm not really aware of the space between the two. I am probably better off not knowing," Payton said Tuesday of Brees and Brady's yardage totals.
With the playoffs close, Payton said the Saints' priority must be how to "put ourselves in the best position to play well and put ourselves in an opportunity to win a championship."
"That's not always what is popular," the coach added.
Payton pointed out that he heard criticism of his decision during the 2009 season to rest Brees and other key starters in the regular-season finale against Carolina. The Saints lost that game, finishing a season that had started 13-0 on a three-game skid. No team had ever gone into the playoffs on a losing streak that long and won the Super Bowl, but Payton relished the chance to defy history ? and did.
"It was what we needed to do as a team," Payton recalled of his 2009 decision. "You make decisions. They are not always right. You try to make them with the right things to help your team.
"Last night was one of those situations," Payton added, referring to his decision to let Brees throw late in Monday night's game. "This upcoming game will be one of those situations."
Payton has his reasons for being cautious, though. They include bad and relatively fresh memories from the 2010 regular season finale, when then-leading rusher Chris Ivory, emerging tight end Jimmy Graham and starting free safety Malcolm Jenkins all got hurt.
The worst part was that the Saints could not have gained anything in terms of seeding by winning that game because Atlanta also won that day to wrap up the NFC South Division title. The next week, the Saints were bounced from the postseason by Seattle.
"We just have to be smart," Payton said. "We are playing well, with some momentum. Each year is different. We will look at that closely."
Now that New Orleans has clinched the division, this weekend's scenario is similar to last season in that the only way the Saints can improve their seeding is with both a win over the Panthers and a San Francisco loss at St. Louis, which is 2-13. If that happened, the Saints would jump to No. 2 and get a first-round bye and a second-round game at home. That, however, does not appear likely to odds makers, who've made the 49ers 10 1/2-point favorites.
Payton already has made one arguably unconventional move to help Brees set the record. He let his star quarterback keep throwing during the final minutes of Monday night's 45-16 victory over the Falcons to get the 30 yards he needed to surpass Dan Marino's 1984 record of 5,084 yards. The last pass was an otherwise inconsequential 9-yard touchdown to Darren Sproles.
While Payton exposed himself to criticism for running up the score, he said he was comfortable with his decision.
"You go with your gut," Payton said. "I thought it was the right decisions last night. This morning, I thought it was clearly the right decision. I felt overwhelmingly that most people that are involved in this game, and know a little bit about this game, probably felt the same way. The great thing about our game is that you can have an opinion about it."
When Brees came off the field after eclipsing Marino's mark on his last pass of the game, he carried the ball he threw on the history-making completion to Sproles.
Brees then said he wished there was a way to share the ball with his teammates, upon whom he showered credit for helping him succeed.
"I guess we could cut it up and give it to them all," Brees said. "I guess the ball itself is not as important to me as the memory we created, because that is something that will live forever."
The record itself, however, could be gone sooner than later ? unless Payton decides it's something worth fighting for come Sunday.
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
US to Iran:?Oil disruption 'will not be tolerated'
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates ??
The U.S. Navy's 5th fleet Wednesday warned Iran that any disruption of traffic flowing through the vital Strait of Hormuz oil route "will not be tolerated."
The warning came after Iran's navy chief Habibollah Sayyari told Iran's English language Press TV that "closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water."
"But right now, we don't need to shut it as we have the Sea of Oman under control and we can control the transit," said Sayyari, who is leading 10 days of exercises in the Strait. His reference to control was unclear.
In response, 5th Fleet spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich said, "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated."?
The U.S. Navy is "always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation," she said.
Rebarich declined to say whether the U.S. force had adjusted its presence or readiness in the Gulf in response to Iran's comments, but said the Navy "maintains a robust presence in the region to deter or counter destabilizing activities, while safeguarding the region's vital links to the international community."
At the Pentagon, Press Secretary George Little also said that Iranian interference with passage of vessels through the strategic waterway "will not be tolerated," NBC News reported.
Little said that blocking naval traffic through the Strait represents "an important issue for security and stability in the region," and called the Strait "an economic lifeline."
Iran's fears
Sayyari's warning underline Iranian concern that the West is about to impose new sanctions that could target Tehran's vital oil industry and exports.
Western nations are growing increasingly impatient with Iran over its nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies have accused Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying its program is geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.
The U.S. Congress has passed a bill banning dealings with the Iran Central Bank, and President Barack Obama has said he will sign it despite his misgivings. Critics warn it could impose hardships on U.S. allies and drive up oil prices.
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The bill could impose penalties on foreign firms that do business with Iran's central bank. European and Asian nations import Iranian oil and use its central bank for the transactions.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, with an output of about 4 million barrels of oil a day. It relies on oil exports for about 80 percent of its public revenues.
Iran has adopted an aggressive military posture in recent months in response to increasing threats from the U.S. and Israel that they may take military action to stop Iran's nuclear program.
Iran's navy is in the midst of a 10-day drill in international waters near the strategic oil route. The exercises began Saturday and involve submarines, missile drills, torpedoes and drones. The war games cover a 1,250-mile (2,000-kilometer) stretch of sea off the Strait of Hormuz, northern parts of the Indian Ocean and into the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea as a show of strength and could bring Iranian ships into proximity with U.S. Navy vessels in the area.
Iranian media are describing how Iran could move to close the strait, saying the country would use a combination of warships, submarines, speed boats, anti-ship cruise missiles, torpedoes, surface-to-sea missiles and drones to stop ships from sailing through the narrow waterway.
Iran's navy claims it has sonar-evading submarines designed for shallow waters of the Persian Gulf, enabling it to hit passing enemy vessels.
The Fifth Fleet consists of 20-plus ships supported by combat aircraft, with 15,000 people afloat and another 1,000 ashore.
A closure of the strait could temporarily cut off some oil supplies and force shippers to take longer, more expensive routes that would drive oil prices higher. It also potentially opens the door for a military confrontation that would further rattle global oil markets.
Iran claimed a victory this month when it captured an American surveillance drone almost intact. It went public with its possession of the RQ-170 Sentinel to trumpet the downing as a feat of Iran's military in a complicated technological and intelligence battle with the U.S.
American officials have said that U.S. intelligence assessments indicate the drone malfunctioned.
About the Strait of Hormuz:
Location: The most important oil transit channel in the world is a narrow bend of water separating Oman and Iran. It connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, the strait is only 21 miles across and consists of 2-mile-wide navigable channels for inbound and outbound shipping and a 2-mile-wide buffer zone.
Oil shipments
- Flows through the Strait in 2009 were roughly 33 percent of all seaborne traded oil (40 percent in 2008), or 17 percent of oil traded worldwide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
- Some 15.5 million barrels passed through in 2009, according to the U.S. EIA. U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure the safe passage.
- The bulk of the oil exported through the Strait of Hormuz travels to Asia, the United States and Western Europe. About three-quarters of Japan's oil imports and about 50 percent of China's pass through this strait.
- An additional 2 million barrels of oil products, including fuel oil, are exported through the passage daily, as well as liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Other shipments: Merchant ships carrying grain, iron ore, sugar, perishables and containers full of finished goods also pass through the strategic sea corridor en route to Gulf countries and ports such as Dubai.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45805706/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
TaylorTwellman: @GolazoEnergy 2 yrs of basketball, 4 of soccer/baseball and 2 of football
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@GolazoEnergy 2 yrs of basketball, 4 of soccer/baseball and 2 of football 
TaylorTwellman Taylor Twellman
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Police find 7 bodies in northern Mexico (AP)
MONTERREY, Mexico ? Police in the northern Mexico state of Nuevo Leon said Tuesday that information provided by arrested members of a kidnapping gang has led them to at least seven bodies found buried in shallow graves or dumped in a well.
By nightfall, Nuevo Leon state police had found seven sets of human remains around the cities of Linares and Montemorelos, near the border with Tamaulipas state. Four bodies were found burned or half-buried, and three others had apparently been thrown down a well.
A Nuevo Leon state detective who was not authorized to be quoted by name said information from a band of five kidnappers detained over the weekend by soldiers led police to the bodies.
The soldiers detained the gang after a woman's relatives alerted a passing army patrol that she was being kidnapped.
Nuevo Leon security spokesman Jorge Domene said the gang worked for the Zetas drug cartel.
Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon have been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Zetas and the Gulf cartel.
Also Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced that a former high-ranking federal police official has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for helping the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The case of former regional police security coordinator Javier Herrera Valles had been a scandal and for some a cause celebre, in part because he was arrested after having publicly accused some of his superiors of corruption or incompetence.
The Attorney General's Office said in a statement Tuesday that Herrera Valles had been convicted of organized crime charges for aiding the Sinaloa drug cartel, Mexico's most powerful gang.
He was arrested in 2008, around the same time Mexico arrested a number of high-ranking officials for collaborating with drug cartels.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Military History: Christmas brought Fayetteville, Camp Bragg together
Fran Williams, the indomitable Fayetteville lady leading the Red Cross, established a 1919 Christmas tradition all by herself.
The Fayetteville Observer reported: "Miss Fan Williams, chairman of a team of volunteers under the auspices of the Red Cross chapter, went out to Camp Bragg Christmas Eve night and distributed Christmas stockings to all the boys sick in the hospital at the time.
"The stockings contained candy, fruit, cigars, cigarettes, matches, handkerchiefs, et cetera."
Holiday hospitality linking the Army post in the Carolina Sandhills and the community down the road has been a tradition ever since that Christmas event.
By December 1919, Camp Bragg was a permanent post, at least for the time being.
Two understrength artillery regiments and service units were on post, about 1,500 officers and enlisted men.
Several dozen families lived in converted. barracks. Officers lived in singe-family structures.
A half dozen Army fliers were stationed at Pope Field, the camp's cotton-patch landing field.
The post was isolated, even from its neighbor, the textile-and-courthouse town of Fayetteville, seven miles away. You got there over a dirt road or riding the train from Manchester siding on the eastern edge of the cantonment.
People of the town were trying to establish traditions of hospitality linking post and town.
During earlier 1919 after the first troops arrived, Camp Bragg soldiers marched in town parades welcoming local World War I veterans, on May Day and Thanksgiving, and on the first "Armistice Day."
By Christmas 1919, everybody was ready for a party.
Many of the town's younger set were absent for Christmas 1918. They were in the Army in France.
In 1919, the Jazz Age reached all the way to the Presbyterian valley of the Cape Fear River as the polka and waltz music of prewar parties gave way to a new sound.
It was in this atmosphere of cordiality and fun that Camp Bragg greeted its first Christmas.
The Fayetteville Observer described it: "At Camp Bragg there was a Big Christmas at the Liberty Theater, under the auspices of the camp Education and Recreation Department."
The Observer described the scene: "The theater was filled with enlisted men and a number of officers and civilians.
"After films were shown on the screen, the curtain was raised, revealing an immense, beautiful Christmas tree, decorated in varicolored lights, Christmas bells and novelties. Santa Claus had remembered every man, woman, and child in the camp, and there was a present on the tree for everyone of them.
"Each soldier received a stocking filled with Christmas goodies, a handkerchief, a pair of sox, and cigarettes.
"On Christmas morning at the hostess house at the camp, Mrs. Pogue entertained at a delightful party for the children where all children on the reservation received presents and a Christmas stocking."
And on the evening before Christmas came Fran Williams and her crew of Fayetteville ladies.
"Miss Williams was assisted by Mrs. W.A. Stickley, Miss Jane Myrover, and Mr. Arthur McGuigan, director of service clubs of Camp Bragg. Quite a few of the kind-hearted people of Fayetteville have extended invitations to the enlisted men to partake in Christmas dinner with them."
While enlisted families were at Liberty Theater, several officers and their ladies were at the sprawling Officers Club for "a delightful Christmas dance, with music by the orchestra of the Fifth Field Artillery Regiment."
Meanwhile in town, festivities matched the post.
In the textile factory neighborhood of Massey Hill, families were welcoming home husbands and sons who had served in France.
At the "Happy Village of Tolar-Hart," factory families gathered in the company-built community center to light a Christmas tree. The "girls of the mill spinning room" presented a gift to Miss Lucie Currie, the company-paid social worker. "There were presents for children, and each family was presented with a large bag of fruit and Christmas goodies."
As the textile villages celebrated, so did Fayetteville's "uptown" society.
The Observer went all out describing it: "The Big Ball in the Marsh-McKethan Hall, the most brilliant event of the fall and winter season. One of the most beautiful dances held in Fayetteville in many years."
The venue for the big postwar social gala was the 1880s building still at at the southeast corner of Market Square and Person Street.
The newspaper reported: "Several hundred couples were on the floor, many of them from surrounding towns and cities, and the beautiful belles and handsome beaux of the upper Cape Fear section delighted in terpsichorean revelry until the wee small hours."
Most impressive was the music, supplied by a popular outfit of the emerging Jazz Age, the Meyer Davis Orchestra from Washington.
The grand march was led by handsome Charles Marsh, an ex-Navy aviator, with Miss Mamie Holt on his arm.
And reflecting social ties developing between post and town, "Ex-Lieutenant L.C. Mallory of Milwaukee" was dating Miss Bess Cotton.
Mallory was among the first Army fliers at Pope Field.
By Christmas 1919, he was evidently matching his dazzling flying technique with an equally dazzling technique on the dance floor.
Roy Parker Jr. can be reached at roypark2@aol.com.Source: http://fayobserver.com/articles/2011/12/25/1145176
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wecogitate: Breaking: Patriot Missiles Seized, Sold To China by Israel http://t.co/UHLvZK0T
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Breaking: Patriot Missiles Seized, Sold To China by Israel wp.me/pvpWa-6TI 
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Week in review: Social media slacking and Google's steely grip
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Source: www.newsreach.co.uk --- Sunday, December 25, 2011
Google and Mozilla have extended their search agreement, while UK firms could be missing out on the power of social media. ...
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dennisl: @csunwebmaster Thanks for the tip! One of the 3 heaters the landlord brought over is oil filled. Cold mornings lately up here n NorCal...
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@csunwebmaster Thanks for the tip! One of the 3 heaters the landlord brought over is oil filled. Cold mornings lately up here n NorCal... 
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
Two out of six GOP presidential candidates qualify for Virginia primary
GOP presidential candidates Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich failed to submit enough signatures from voters to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot on March 6, according to the Republican party of Virginia.
The RPV broke the news on Twitter, saying both GOP frontrunners did not submit the required 10,000 signatures from registered voters.
However, campaign officials from the two told state election officials they have submitted the required signatures and are considering an appeal, according to the Guardian.
More from GlobalPost:?Rick Perry TV ad featuring wife Anita lampooned
"Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull was quoted saying by Reuters. "Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.
Republican presidential candidates Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum also did not meet the Thursday deadline for submissions.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Republican Ron Paul were the only GOP presidential candidates successful in qualifying.?
The GOP candidates who won?t have their names on Virginia ballots could face major setback ? especially Gingrich who has been leading the race in a Virginia Republican poll. Virginia is also his adopted home state.
More from GlobalPost:?Newt Gingrich site pokes fun at Gingrich
The New York Times explains further:
?It could shake the confidence of his supporters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida ? all of whom vote in advance of Virginia ? that Mr. Gingrich will have the ability to stay in the race long term. Why, those early backers might ask themselves, should I throw my vote away on someone who might not be standing in a month?"
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111224/gop-presidential-candidates-virginia%20primary
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
LMFAO, Mindless Behavior, More Share Holiday Gifts Not To Buy
'Fruitcake, it's the most disgusting, repulsive food ever,' Travie McCoy tells MTV News.
By Christina Garibaldi
LMFAO
Photo: Jeff Fusco/Getty Images/MTV News
Don't panic, but you only have a few days left to find the perfect holiday gift. Yes, it can be daunting, and yes, it can drive you crazy, but we at MTV News are here to help. But instead of telling you what to buy this season, we asked some of your favorite stars at this year's annual Z100 Jingle Ball concert in New York to tell us what not to put on your holiday gift list.
"The worst gift you could give somebody is a gift that you got from them," Princeton from Mindless Behavior told MTV News.
Regifting is also a big no-no for Hot Chelle Rae's Nash Overstreet, who said, "[The worst gift] is a gift that you got that you didn't want, so you gave it to them."
Well, if Overstreet is looking to regift anything for his fellow bandmembers, it seems Ian Keaggy might have given him a not-so-subtle hint. "If you're a girl and you're looking for just a random guy gift," Keaggy said, "a safe bet perhaps [is] socks and boxers."
Big Time Rush's James Maslow agrees. "Cool, funky socks, or if it's really cold out and they're warm socks, that could be a good gift."
If you are planning on baking instead of buying for someone this holiday season, Gym Class Heroes' Travie McCoy says stay away from the fruitcake. "Fruitcake, it's the most disgusting, repulsive food ever," McCoy said. "Who decided to put gummy bears in bread?"
But what is the absolute worst thing you can give someone? Nothing at all. "The worst is when you forget to give a gift and they got you a gift," LMFAO's Redfoo said. "So no gift is the worst gift."
What is the one gift you should never give someone? Let us know in the comments.
Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1676423/worst-holiday-gifts-2012.jhtml
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A few questions about Alaska jobs, and maybe resort jobs too
? ? Tell me is there a way to make it known to AK Fishing Lodge's your intention to want a job like that, instead of waitng for it pop up?
? Is there a service or someone who has applied to these jobs and best know the proper way to do so, at creating a resume they will look at , as my?current?resume is so truck related I would have trouble getting a lodge to look at it,?
?By the way I am down 33 lbs so far with my new dedication of 90 days to getting fit and losing weight, may add 60 more days to the end , thus including March and April , here in the colds of Grand Forks , ND.
?But seriously , I am curious how best to prepare the applications to get people to at?least?call you and give you the courtesy of ?phone?interview, without being "Too Creative" , yet grabbing their attention, still...
? I do hope you all have a great Holiday Season
?remember to always designate, please
? Patrick
Source: http://my.coolworks.com/xn/detail/561627%3ATopic%3A265243
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Drifting snow makes travel tough in Great Plains (AP)
TOPEKA, Kan. ? A deadly storm that halted travel throughout the Great Plains weakened Tuesday as it headed east into Missouri and toward the Great Lakes, and officials reopened interstates in areas where motorists had been forced to adjust holiday plans mid-trip.
Authorities still were reporting snow drifts of up to 10 feet high in southeast Colorado, and Texas officials warned drivers to stay off the road in the Panhandle so crews would have a clear path to remove ice and snow. Major highways in the western half of the Oklahoma Panhandle remained closed.
Still, officials reopened Interstate 40 in the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, and portions of Interstate 70 in western Kansas that had been closed. New Mexico reopened a closed section of Interstate 25, the main highway from Santa Fe to the Colorado line after crews cleared drifts as high as 5 feet. The storm dumped as much as 15 inches of snow as it hit parts of five states.
At least 40 people were stranded at the Longhorn Motel on Main Street in Boise City, Okla., where manager Pedro Segovia said blowing snow had created drifts 2- and 3-feet high and closed the main road.
"Some people cannot even get out of their houses. There is too much snow," Segovia said. "It's was blowing. We've got big piles. It's real bad."
Receptionist MaKenzee Grove sympathized with the 50 or so people stranded at the hotel where she works in Guymon, about 60 miles east of Boise City. She too spent Monday night there.
"I have this rinky-dink car that does not do well in this," Grove said. "If we wouldn't have had the wind, it wouldn't have been as bad. The winds ... made the drifts really bad."
A few guests traveling to Oklahoma City managed to leave Tuesday, but others would likely have to wait another night before all roads were clear, she said.
In Kansas, schools in Manhattan canceled classes Tuesday, anticipating several inches of snow. The National Weather Service reported later that 3 inches or less fell.
To the east, a cold rain pelted the Topeka area, turned into a mix of light sleet and snow without much accumulation and tapered off. Forecasters said the storm became less potent as it moved northeast toward the Great Lakes.
Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Ben Gardner said the patrol dealt with dozens of accidents in which motorists slid off highways Tuesday morning.
"We had ice-covered roads, covered by snow packed on top," he said.
The late-autumn snowstorm lumbered into the region Monday, turning roads to ice and reducing visibility to zero. Many of the areas hit Monday had enjoyed relatively balmy 60-degree temperatures just 24 hours earlier.
The storm was blamed for at least six deaths Monday, authorities said. Four people were killed when their vehicle collided with a pickup truck in part of eastern New Mexico where blizzard-like conditions are rare, and a prison guard and inmate died when a prison van crashed on an icy road in eastern Colorado.
The Colorado Army National Guard said it rescued two stranded motorists early Tuesday in eastern Las Animas County, in the state's southeast corner, using a special vehicle designed to move on snow. Smaller highways in that area remained closed.
___
Associated Press writers Jeri Clausing in Albuquerque, N.M.; Matt Curry in Dallas; and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
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Oil price jumps more than 3 percent (AP)
Oil prices soared on promising economic news out of Europe and the U.S. Here's how energy contracts traded Tuesday.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange:
Crude rose $3.34, or 3.6 percent, to finish at $97.22 per barrel.
Gasoline rose 8.96 cents to end at $2.5787 per gallon.
Heating oil: rose 6.9 cents to finish at $2.8494 per gallon.
Natural gas rose 3.2 cents to end at $3.128 per 1,000 cubic feet.
On the ICE Futures exchange in London:
Brent crude rose $3.09 to finish the day at $106.73 per barrel.
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
Almost President
Why some of the candidates who lost the race for president ultimately had a bigger impact than many of those who won.
If you gave the average American five guesses as to who was the first person to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, odds are her or she wouldn?t come up with Henry Clay. A titan of his time, Clay (1777-1852) was a longtime senator from Kentucky who also served as Speaker of the House and secretary of state. He was Abraham Lincoln?s idol, ?and a study of Lincoln?s writings and speeches clearly shows that much of his political philosophy was directly inherited from Clay,? says Scott Farris in Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation.
Skip to next paragraphClay, who was known as ?The Great Compromiser? for helping to enact three legislative compromises that temporarily averted civil war, lost his three campaigns to become president and ?is the greatest example of how failing to become president obscures a candidate?s place in history,? says Ferris, a former bureau chief for United Press International. His book contains a dozen engrossing biographical sketches of men who ran for the presidency and lost ? ?but who, even in defeat, have had a greater impact on American history than many of those who have served as president.?
Farris starts with Clay and moves on to Stephen Douglas, William Jennings Bryan, Al Smith, Thomas E. Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Ross Perot and ? in a combined chapter ? the recent candidacies of Al Gore, John Kerry, and John McCain. He describes the circumstances that gave rise to each of these seminal ?losers? ? the causes they rallied around, the unique personalities they possessed ? and how their presidential losses laid the groundwork for later political victories, if not for themselves, then for their parties or their cub causes.
Douglas is forever linked to Lincoln, both as the loser of the 1860 presidential election and for their series of well-known debates. In one of those exchanges, Douglas said, ?I care more for the great principle of self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom,? the kind of regrettable comment that assures he will always stand as the flip side to Lincoln?s secular sainthood. Given all Douglas accomplished, though, that?s unfair, Farris explains.
After Douglas? loss to Lincoln, he remained committed to the Union and he insisted that his fellow Democrats remain independent from Republicans even as they remained loyal to the Union ? a tack that had enormous ramifications, Farris says. ?While unity may seem critical in a time of time civil war, scholars have concluded that continued partisan bickering was to the Union?s benefit.? In doing so, Douglas saved the Democratic Party, ?which remains the longest, continually functioning political party in the world.??
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/uUt8VxNuHik/Almost-President
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Monday, December 19, 2011
SEC charges ex-Fannie, Freddie CEOs with fraud (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled investors about risky subprime loans the mortgage giants held when the housing bubble burst.
Those charged include the agencies' two former CEOs, Fannie's Daniel Mudd and Freddie's Richard Syron. They are the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis.
The federal government has faced criticism for not bringing charges against top executives who may have contributed to the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression.
Mudd, 53, and Syron, 68, led the mortgage giants in 2007, when home prices began to collapse. The four other top executives also worked for the companies during that time.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York City.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives told the world that their subprime exposure was substantially smaller than it really was," said Robert Khuzami, SEC's enforcement director. "These material misstatements occurred during a time of acute investor interest in financial institutions' exposure to subprime loans, and misled the market about the amount of risk."
Fannie and Freddie both entered into agreements with the government on Friday, accepting responsibility for its conduct without admitting or denying the charges. The government-controlled companies also agreed to cooperate with the SEC on the cases against the former executives.
The Justice Department has opened up probes into Fannie and Freddie but has not charged anyone with a crime.
In a statement released through his attorney, Mudd said the lawsuit "should never have been brought" and said the government reviewed and approved all of the company's financial disclosures.
"Every piece of material data about loans held by Fannie Mae was known to the United States government to the investing public," Mudd said. "The SEC is wrong, and I look forward to a court where fairness and reason ? not politics ? is the standard for justice."
Syron's lawyers said the case was "without merit," and said the term "subprime had no uniform definition in the market" at that time.
"There was no shortage of meaningful disclosures, all of which permitted the reader to assess the degree of risk in Freddie Mac's" portfolio, the lawyers said in a statement. "The SEC's theory and approach are fatally flawed."
According to the lawsuit, Fannie told investors in 2007 that it had roughly $4.8 billion worth of subprime loans on its books, or just 0.2 percent of its portfolio. The SEC says that Fannie actually had about $43 billion worth of products targeted to borrowers with weak credit, or 11 percent of its holdings.
Mudd told a congressional panel in March 2007 that Fannie's subprime business represented less than "2 percent of our book." He also said the company held subprime mortgages "very carefully." A month later, he told a separate congressional panel that subprime loans represented less than 2.5 percent of Fannie's books.
Freddie told investors in 2006 that it held between $2 billion and $6 billion of subprime mortgages on its books. The SEC says its holdings were actually closer to $141 billion, or 10 percent of its portfolio in 2006, and $244 billion, or 14 percent, by 2008.
In a May 2007 speech in New York, Syron said Freddie had "basically no subprime exposure," according to the suit.
Fannie and Freddie buy home loans from banks and other lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and then sell them to investors around the world. The two own or guarantee about half of U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million loans.
During the financial crisis, the two firms verged on collapse. The Bush administration seized control of them in September 2008.
So far, the companies have cost taxpayers almost $150 billion ? the largest bailout of the financial crisis. They could cost up to $259 billion, according to its government regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Administration.
Mudd was fired from Fannie after the government took over. He's now the chief executive of the New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group.
Syron resigned from Freddie in 2008. He's now an adjunct professor at Boston College.
The other executives charged were Fannie's Enrico Dallavecchia, 50, a former chief risk officer, and Thomas Lund, 53, a former executive vice president; and Freddie's Patricia Cook, 58, a former executive vice president and chief business officer, and Donald Bisenius, 53, a former senior vice president.
Lund's lawyer, Michael Levy, said in a statement that Lund "did not mislead anyone." Lawyers for the other defendants declined to comment Friday morning.
Fannie and Freddie had traditionally purchased a small number of subprime mortgage loans, which involved borrowers with credit problems who could not qualify for cheaper prime loans. But starting in the late 1990s many firms started purchasing subprime loans, and Fannie and Freddie followed suit.
Legal experts say the cases, while unusual, might not yield much in penalties against the former executives.
In July, Citigroup paid just $75 million to settle similar civil charges with the SEC. The company's chief financial officer and head of investor relations were accused of failing to disclose more than $50 billion worth of potential losses from subprime mortgages. The two executives charged paid $100,000 and $80,000 in civil penalties.
A federal judge in the case said she was "baffled" by the low settlement.
Fines against executives charged in SEC civil cases can reach up to $150,000 per violation. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro has asked Congress to raise the limit to $1 million.
Mudd made nearly $4 million in salary and bonuses in 2007, and Syron made more than $18 million, according to company statements.
The SEC has charged more than 80 people, including 40 CEOs and senior executives, with violations stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
PFT: Peterson wants to play for fantasy owners
Getty ImagesFrom a team standpoint, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson has one reason to play on a sprained ankle ? avoiding the all-time franchise record for losses in a season.? But Peterson has other reasons to give it a try.
Apart from being 128 yards from his fifth 1,000-yard season and 165 yards from the franchise rushing record held by Robert Smith, Peterson wants to help his owners not named Wilf.
?It?s very important, especially for my fantasy team owners,? Peterson said Thursday, according to Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.? ?They?ve been giving me a hard time.?
Peterson was smiling when he said that, something his fantasy owners likely haven?t been doing lately.? And Peterson said that he has been hearing from his fantasy owners on Twitter.
?They?ll say, ?Will you please [play]. I?ll send my wife down to visit you,?? Peterson said.? ?Sometimes, it?s like, wow.? Some of the things I read on there is crazy.?
Last week, Peterson said he was 70 percent.? This week, he says he?s at 85 percent.? But he?s no longer limping, and he has practiced on a limited basis each of the last two days.
Peterson suffered a high ankle sprain last month against the Raiders.
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Hawaii parade honors Japanese-American WWII vets (AP)
HONOLULU ? Hundreds of Japanese-American veterans of World War II are being honored Saturday with a parade in Honolulu ? nearly 70 years after they volunteered to fight for their country even as the government branded them "enemy aliens."
About 200 veterans will ride along Kalakaua Avenue in convertibles, troop carriers and trolleys. The event celebrates the Congressional Gold Medal the veterans received last month.
Thousands of Japanese-Americans served in World War II even as the government viewed them with suspicion because their ancestors were from the country that bombed Pearl Harbor. Some on the mainland enlisted from internment camps, where the federal government had imprisoned 110,000 Japanese-Americans.
Fragile health prevented many of the surviving veterans ? the youngest of whom are in their 80s ? from traveling to Washington, D.C., to attend a ceremony at which the medal was presented.
Two-thirds of the Japanese-Americans who served were from Hawaii. Many others were from California, Oregon and Washington state.
The medal recognizes the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion which together saw some of the most brutal fighting in the war as the soldiers pushed their way through Italy, France and Germany.
By the end of the war, the combined unit became the most highly decorated military unit in U.S. history for its size and length of service.
The medal also honors Japanese-Americans who served as translators and interpreters against Japan, often on the front lines with Marines and soldiers fighting from island to island across the Pacific.
As members of the Military Intelligence Service, they deciphered key Japanese communications, including one that tipped off the U.S. to the flight plans of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto ? the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor ? in 1943. The U.S. shot down his plane, dealing a major blow to Japan.
The parade is also honoring members of the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion who were stationed on Oahu during the war.
The elite medal has been given selectively since 1776, when George Washington was awarded the first. Other honorees include the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Rosa Parks and the Dalai Lama. The Tuskegee Airmen, the first group of black fighter pilots, received the medal in 2007.
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Is Obama Hiding from the Media? (ContributorNetwork)
COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama made prime time with his "60 Minutes" interview with Steve Kroft. It almost makes you forget how few press conferences he's had during his first term in office. Is he scared of the media outside of the one-on-one interview? Or is here merely following a trend adopted by presidents over the years?
"Whatever the specific questions, it's clear that Obama doesn't love the cattle-call milieu and feels a lot less comfortable in front of a crowd of reporters," write Glenn Thrush and Julie Mason in their Politico article "Obama Gives First Press Conference in 3 Months."
So he's not dodging the media, but is he really ducking the outings which involve unscripted questions flying from a variety of reporters?
"Since taking office, Obama has done 13 full-on solo White House news conferences, as opposed to the so-called two-and-two sessions with foreign leaders, in which each country's press corps is allocated a pair of questions. Obama's rate is better than the eight solo pressers during the same period for former President George W. Bush - but far fewer than the 23 convened by former President Bill Clinton and the 44 by George Bush the elder, according to records compiled by [Towson University Political Science Professor Martha Joynt] Kumar," as noted in Thrush and Mason's Politico story .
Why has Obama held fewer press conferences than Clinton and Bush Sr.? Kumar tells Thrush and Mason that it's because Professor Obama gives long responses to short questions (as many do in my profession). But that wouldn't explain why Bush Jr. gave fewer press conferences than even Bush Jr. for the same time period. Additionally, why wouldn't the scholarly Obama do the same for a single interviewer?
In fact, Obama has given many one-on-one interviews in his career. "Through April 30, Obama sat for no fewer than 306 press interviews - one every few days on average. During the same period in their presidencies, George W. Bush did 91, Clinton 139 and George H. W. Bush at least 87, though records for him are incomplete," noted Thrush and Mason in their Politico piece.
Press conferences are less scripted and less predictable, of course. But the 1:1 interview is really just that: a confrontation between one journalist and one subject. There's no 40:1 ratio. The subject can point out inconsistencies in the interviewer's questions, as Obama did with Kroft as the reporter seemed to forget that he had accused the president not compromising at all with Republicans, when he chided the president for compromising too much with the GOP later in the interview. In a press conference, reporters have few chances to contradict themselves or make a similar gaffe. Even when one stumbles, the other 39 are still out there to, waiting for their chance to one-up the President of the United States.
It's not just Obama either. According to the data from the White House Press Office, I have found that Hoover gave an average of 67 a year, while FDR averaged 83 a year for his 12 years in office. Truman only have about half as many as Roosevelt, and Eisenhower's rate was only a little more than half of Truman's. Since Nixon, the number of press conferences has been below 20 per year, with most presidents having fewer press conferences in their entire term than Hoover gave in a year, with George W. Bush having the fewest per year. So many it isn't just Obama. All presidents seem to be increasingly hiding from the media pack, if not the interviewer.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Gustavo Arellano: ¡ASK A MEXICAN!: Special Conquistador Edition
Dear Mexican: This is the second rant I've felt I had to send to you. I don't know if readers are allowed "seconds" but here it goes: Much has been said about the terrible things happening to the United States and its citizens by the Mexican drug cartels. But what's the difference between the modern-day cartels and the Big Four of the period between 1492 and 1775? I refer you to the kings of England, France, Portugal, and Spain who invaded the Americas during the above-noted period. The invaders didn't bring cocaine, pot or meth but they brought various diseases that, if I read history correctly, led to the death of many thousands of native peoples. And, of course, they brought their heavyweight weapon, the one I believe that Lenin called the opiate of the masses: religion. Today, many people and our economy are hurt by today's cartels, and I'm not defending them in any way, but it strikes me the cartels of today are pikers compared to their predecessors, who killed an untold number of native peoples and stole a continent.
Mexica Tiahui!
Dear Wab: Sloppy seconds are always welcome here, cabr?n! It was Marx who dropped the line about religion, not, Lenin (he wrote of religion that it's "a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man"), and the natives were muy religious, but otherwise, your analysis doesn't go far enough. You forgot to mention how, like the cartels, the conquistadors fought each other for trade routes, killing each other and innocents in the process. How they demanded tribute from villagers, and terrorized them with public displays of brutality to keep them in line. How the conquistadors built empires that enriched only themselves, and created serfs out of those whom they didn't bribe into submission. The only real difference between the conquistadors and drug cartels is that the former did it in the name of Christ--and even the narcos aren't that pendejo to pull that card.
Does it make any sense to you that, in some cities in Mexico, there are statues of the Spanish conquistadors? After all these were the same people who believed that they were superior than the Mexicans so they had to force their ways on them, and not to mention the whole slaughtering of thousands of Mexicans, too.
Lies my Maestro Told Me
Dear Wab: Of course it does. Because, while though the conquistadors raped and murdered countless indigenous folks, they represent order and progress to Mexico's elite, the very people who have the money to erect statues and are more that proud to claim direct ancestry to the barbarians. Witness the furor that happened last year, when the city of Merida in the Yucatan erected a statue to its founder, the conquistador Francisco de Montejo. Even though Montejo laid waste to the Mayas back in the 16th century, and even though the descendants of the vanquished protested loudly, the city's elites erected the statue. And the same controversy happens whenever someone commemorates Juan de O?ate, the conquistador who swung his sword through New Mexico, much to the delight of the Hispanos who claim no Injun blood in their veins and to the horror of everyone else. But it's not just an elite-Mexican thing to side with the cruel--just look at the Southern love for the Confederacy.
MEET THE MEXICAN'S FRIEND! Legendary cartoonista Lalo Alcaraz will sign copies of his posters, calendars, and books this Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Calacas, 324 W. Fourth St., #B, Santa Ana, (714) 662-2002. Lecture, FREE; books, BARATO.
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gustavo-arellano/ask-a-mexican-special-con_b_1147055.html
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Putin's party clings to reduced majority in Russia (Reuters)
MOSCOW (Reuters) ? Vladimir Putin's ruling party clung to a much reduced majority in parliament on Monday after an election that showed growing weariness with the man who has dominated Russia for more than a decade and plans to return to the presidency next year.
President Dmitry Medvedev said the election was "fair, honest and democratic," but European monitors said the field was slanted in favour of Putin's United Russia and the vote marred by apparent manipulations including ballot box stuffing.
In the biggest electoral setback for Putin since he rose to power in 1999, the Central Election Commission said United Russia was set to lose 77 seats in the State Duma and end up with 238, a slim majority in the 450-member lower house.
At a government meeting, Putin emphasized that a simple majority of 226 was enough to pass most legislation and suggested it was sufficient to maintain the stability he says he has helped secure for Russia.
"United Russia has been a significant part of the foundation of our political stability in recent years, so its successful performance in the election was important not just for the government but, in my view, for the whole country."
But Medvedev, who led the party into the election at Putin's behest, said voters had sent "a signal to the authorities" and hinted officials in regions where the party did badly could face dismissal if they do not shape up.
"United Russia did not do too well in a series of regions, but not because people refuse to trust the party itself ... but simply because local functionaries irritate them," he said. "They look and they say ... if that's United Russia, there's no way I'm going to vote for him."
Opponents said even United Russia's official result -- just under 50 percent of the vote -- was inflated by fraud. The leader of the Communist Party, on target to increase its representation from 57 to 92 seats, said the election was the dirtiest since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Although Putin is still likely to win a presidential election next March, Sunday's result could dent the authority of the man who has ruled for 12 years with a mixture of hardline security policies, political acumen and showmanship but who was booed and jeered after a martial arts bout last month.
"Many Russians voted against the system and Putin is the head of that system," said Stanislav Kucher, a commentator with Kommersant FM radio station.
"Putin has a very difficult choice. To survive politically he needs to reform but he can only reform if he gets rid of many vested interests in the ruling circle. To stay as he is means the opposite of political survival."
Putin has cultivated a tough man image with stunts such as riding a horse bare-chested, tracking tigers and flying a fighter plane. But the public appears to have wearied of the antics and his popularity, while still high, has fallen.
Many voters, fed up with widespread corruption, refer to United Russia as the party of swindlers and thieves and resent the huge gap between the rich and poor. Some fear Putin's return to the presidency may herald economic and political stagnation.
PUTIN SAYS OPTIMAL RESULT
Putin and Medvedev, the protege he ushered into the Kremlin when he faced a legal bar on a third consecutive term in 2008, made a brief appearance at a subdued meeting at United Russia headquarters late on Sunday.
Medvedev said United Russia, which had previously held a two thirds majority allowing it to change the constitution without opposition support, was prepared to forge alliances on certain issues to secure backing for legislation.
As Putin said on Monday, United Russia will have enough Duma seats to pass most laws without turning to other parties.
Putin has as yet no serious personal rivals as Russia's leader. He remains the ultimate arbiter between the clans which control the world's biggest energy producer.
But there was little to cheer for Putin, 59, who has dominated Russian politics since he became acting president when Boris Yeltsin quit at the end of 1999 and was elected head of state months later.
His path back to the presidency may now be a little more complicated, with signs growing that voters feel cheated by his decision to swap jobs with Medvedev next year and dismayed by the prospect of more than a decade more of one man at the helm.
COMMUNIST GAINS
The Communists made big gains and official projections put left-leaning Just Russia on 64 Duma seats, up from 38, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist LDPR on 56, up from 40.
Many of the votes were cast in protest against United Russia rather than in support of communist ideals because the Party is seen by some Russians as the only credible opposition force.
"I voted against United Russia to support some kind of opposition in the country," said Tamara Alexandrovna, a pensioner in Moscow. "I've seen a one-party system and we cannot go back to that."
The other three parties on the ballot, including the liberal Yabloko, fell short of the 5 percent threshold needed to gain even token representation in the Duma.
A prominent party of Kremlin foes led by Putin's first-term prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov was barred from the ballot in advance because it was denied registration earlier this year.
United Russia's opponents complained of election violations across the country spanning 9,000 km (5,600 miles).
They say the election was unfair from the start because of authorities' support for United Russia with cash, influence and television air time. International observers added weight to those claims.
Election preparations "were marked by a convergence of the state and the governing party, limited political competition and a lack of fairness," observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly said.
The vote count "was characterized by frequent procedural violations and instances of apparent manipulation, including several serious indications of ballot box stuffing," the monitors said in their preliminary report.
"The country has never seen such a dirty election," said Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who dismissed the official results as "theft on an especially grand scale."
Zyuganov said police had barred Communist monitors from several polling stations and "some ended up in hospital with broken bones." Some ballot boxes were stuffed before voting began.
Medvedev said alleged violations must be investigated but asserted that there was no major fraud, saying, "All this talk about unrestrained use of administrative influence...where did this happen?"
He said United Russia's result reflected exactly its level of support among Russians -- "no more, no less. And in this sense the election was fair, honest and democratic."
The result is a blow for Medvedev, whose legitimacy to become prime minister in the planned job swap with Putin after the presidential vote could now be in question.
(Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Thomas Grove, Douglas Busvine and Darya Korsunskaya, Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Timothy Heritage.)
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Record massive black holes discovered lurking in monster galaxies
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University of California - Berkeley
Astronomers discover 2 10-billion-solar-mass black holes in giant elliptical galaxies
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
These black holes are at the centers of two galaxies more than 300 million light years from Earth, and may be the dark remnants of some of the very bright galaxies, called quasars, that populated the early universe.
"In the early universe, there were lots of quasars or active galactic nuclei, and some were expected to be powered by black holes as big as 10 billion solar masses or more," said Chung-Pei Ma, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy. "These two new supermassive black holes are similar in mass to young quasars, and may be the missing link between quasars and the supermassive black holes we see today."
Black holes are dense concentrations of matter that produce such strong gravitational fields that even light cannot escape. While exploding stars, called supernovas, can leave behind black holes the mass of a single star like the sun, supermassive black holes have presumably grown from the merger of other black holes or by capturing huge numbers of stars and massive amounts of gas.
"These black holes may shed light on how black holes and their surrounding galaxies have nurtured each other since the early universe," said UC Berkeley graduate student Nicholas McConnell, first author of a paper on the discovery being published in the Dec. 8 issue of the British journal Nature by McConnell, Ma and their colleagues at the university of Toronto, Texas and Michigan, as well as by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona.
To date, approximately 63 supermassive black holes have been found sitting in the cores of nearby galaxies. The largest for more than three decades was a 6.3 billion solar mass black hole in the center of the nearby galaxy M87.
One of the newly discovered black holes is 9.7 billion solar masses and located in the elliptical galaxy NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy in the Leo cluster of galaxies, 320 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. The second is as large or larger and sits in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster about 336 million light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Coma Berenices.
According to McConnell, these black holes have an event horizon the "abandon all hope" edge from which not even light can escape that is 200 times the orbit of Earth, or five times the orbit of Pluto. Beyond the event horizon, each black hole has a gravitational influence that would extend over a sphere 4,000 light years across.
"For comparison, these black holes are 2,500 times as massive as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, whose event horizon is one fifth the orbit of Mercury," McConnell said.
The brightest galaxy in a cluster
These 10 billion solar mass black holes have remained hidden until now, presumably because they are living in quiet retirement, Ma said. During their active quasar days some 10 billion years ago, they cleared out the neighborhood by swallowing vast quantities of gas and dust. The surviving gas became stars that have since orbited peacefully. According to Ma, these monster black holes, and their equally monster galaxies that likely contain a trillion stars, settled into obscurity at the center of galaxy clusters.
Ma, a theoretical astrophysicist, decided to look for these huge black holes in relatively nearby clusters of elliptical galaxies as a result of her computer simulations of galaxy mergers.
Astronomers believe that many, if not all, galaxies have a massive black hole at the center, with the larger galaxies harboring larger black holes. The largest black holes are found in elliptical galaxies, which are thought to result from the merger of two spiral galaxies. Ma found, however, that mergers of elliptical galaxies themselves could produce the largest elliptical galaxies as well as supermassive black holes approaching 10 billion solar masses. These black holes can grow even larger by consuming gas left over from a merger.
"Multiple mergers are one way to build up these behemoths," Ma said.
To look for these monster black holes, Ma teamed up with observational astronomers, including James Graham, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto, and Karl Gebhardt, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. Gebhardt had obtained the mass of the previous record holder in galaxy M87.
Using telescopes at the Gemini and Keck observatories in Hawaii and at McDonald Observatory in Texas, McConnell and Ma obtained detailed spectra of the diffuse starlight at the centers of several massive elliptical galaxies, each the brightest galaxy in its cluster. So far, they've analyzed the orbital velocities of stars in two galaxies and calculated the central masses to be in the quasar range. Having such huge masses contained within a volume only a few hundred light years across led the astronomers to conclude that the masses were massive black holes.
"If all that mass were in stars, then we would see their light", Ma said.
Modeling these massive galaxies required use of state-of-the-art supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
"For an astronomer, finding these insatiable black holes is like finally encountering people nine feet tall, whose great height had only been inferred from fossilized bones. How did they grow so large?" Ma said. "This rare find will help us understand whether these black holes had very tall parents or ate a lot of spinach."
###
Other coauthors of the Nature paper are Hubble postdoctoral fellow Shelley A. Wright at UC Berkeley and graduate student Jeremy D. Murphy of the University of Texas; Tod R. Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory; and Douglas O. Richstone of the University of Michigan.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and UC Berkeley's Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science.
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Public release date: 5-Dec-2011[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Robert Sanders
rsanders@berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley
Astronomers discover 2 10-billion-solar-mass black holes in giant elliptical galaxies
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
These black holes are at the centers of two galaxies more than 300 million light years from Earth, and may be the dark remnants of some of the very bright galaxies, called quasars, that populated the early universe.
"In the early universe, there were lots of quasars or active galactic nuclei, and some were expected to be powered by black holes as big as 10 billion solar masses or more," said Chung-Pei Ma, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy. "These two new supermassive black holes are similar in mass to young quasars, and may be the missing link between quasars and the supermassive black holes we see today."
Black holes are dense concentrations of matter that produce such strong gravitational fields that even light cannot escape. While exploding stars, called supernovas, can leave behind black holes the mass of a single star like the sun, supermassive black holes have presumably grown from the merger of other black holes or by capturing huge numbers of stars and massive amounts of gas.
"These black holes may shed light on how black holes and their surrounding galaxies have nurtured each other since the early universe," said UC Berkeley graduate student Nicholas McConnell, first author of a paper on the discovery being published in the Dec. 8 issue of the British journal Nature by McConnell, Ma and their colleagues at the university of Toronto, Texas and Michigan, as well as by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona.
To date, approximately 63 supermassive black holes have been found sitting in the cores of nearby galaxies. The largest for more than three decades was a 6.3 billion solar mass black hole in the center of the nearby galaxy M87.
One of the newly discovered black holes is 9.7 billion solar masses and located in the elliptical galaxy NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy in the Leo cluster of galaxies, 320 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. The second is as large or larger and sits in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster about 336 million light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Coma Berenices.
According to McConnell, these black holes have an event horizon the "abandon all hope" edge from which not even light can escape that is 200 times the orbit of Earth, or five times the orbit of Pluto. Beyond the event horizon, each black hole has a gravitational influence that would extend over a sphere 4,000 light years across.
"For comparison, these black holes are 2,500 times as massive as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, whose event horizon is one fifth the orbit of Mercury," McConnell said.
The brightest galaxy in a cluster
These 10 billion solar mass black holes have remained hidden until now, presumably because they are living in quiet retirement, Ma said. During their active quasar days some 10 billion years ago, they cleared out the neighborhood by swallowing vast quantities of gas and dust. The surviving gas became stars that have since orbited peacefully. According to Ma, these monster black holes, and their equally monster galaxies that likely contain a trillion stars, settled into obscurity at the center of galaxy clusters.
Ma, a theoretical astrophysicist, decided to look for these huge black holes in relatively nearby clusters of elliptical galaxies as a result of her computer simulations of galaxy mergers.
Astronomers believe that many, if not all, galaxies have a massive black hole at the center, with the larger galaxies harboring larger black holes. The largest black holes are found in elliptical galaxies, which are thought to result from the merger of two spiral galaxies. Ma found, however, that mergers of elliptical galaxies themselves could produce the largest elliptical galaxies as well as supermassive black holes approaching 10 billion solar masses. These black holes can grow even larger by consuming gas left over from a merger.
"Multiple mergers are one way to build up these behemoths," Ma said.
To look for these monster black holes, Ma teamed up with observational astronomers, including James Graham, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto, and Karl Gebhardt, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. Gebhardt had obtained the mass of the previous record holder in galaxy M87.
Using telescopes at the Gemini and Keck observatories in Hawaii and at McDonald Observatory in Texas, McConnell and Ma obtained detailed spectra of the diffuse starlight at the centers of several massive elliptical galaxies, each the brightest galaxy in its cluster. So far, they've analyzed the orbital velocities of stars in two galaxies and calculated the central masses to be in the quasar range. Having such huge masses contained within a volume only a few hundred light years across led the astronomers to conclude that the masses were massive black holes.
"If all that mass were in stars, then we would see their light", Ma said.
Modeling these massive galaxies required use of state-of-the-art supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
"For an astronomer, finding these insatiable black holes is like finally encountering people nine feet tall, whose great height had only been inferred from fossilized bones. How did they grow so large?" Ma said. "This rare find will help us understand whether these black holes had very tall parents or ate a lot of spinach."
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Other coauthors of the Nature paper are Hubble postdoctoral fellow Shelley A. Wright at UC Berkeley and graduate student Jeremy D. Murphy of the University of Texas; Tod R. Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory; and Douglas O. Richstone of the University of Michigan.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and UC Berkeley's Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science.
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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uoc--rmb120511.php
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