The Bankrupt Gets More Bankrupt (Fannie)

Only in America can you go bust for nearly two years sequentially, quarter after quarter, and still continue to operate:

May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company operating under federal conservatorship, said it will seek $8.4 billion in aid from the U.S. Treasury Department after reporting its 11th-straight quarterly loss.

$11.5 billion this time, and they need more money. They've lost $137 billion so far and keep adding to it quarter after quarter, having long since burned the tiny residual capital they once possessed.

Remember, these are the folks who were geared 80:1 (and that's being kind in how we count it.)

It gets better of course. They included a "going concern" statement, more or less, in a couple of places:

When Treasury provides the requested funds, the aggregate liquidation preference on the senior preferred stock will be $84.6billion, which will require an annualized dividend of approximately $8.5 billion. This amount exceeds our reported annual net ncome for each of the last eight fiscal years, in most cases by a significant margin.

This, in English, means "We do not earn enough in a quarter to pay the dividend - that is, the interest on the borrowed money."

In other words there is no foreseeable future date at which the company can start reducing its indebtedness, and in fact it continues to dig a deeper and deeper hole the longer it operates.

Although Treasury’s funds under the senior preferred stock purchase agreement permit us to remain solvent and avoid receivership, the resulting dividend payments are substantial. Given our expectations regarding future losses and draws from Treasury, we do not expect to earn profits in excess of our annual dividend obligation to Treasury for the indefinite future. As a result of these factors, there is significant uncertainty as to our long-term financial sustainability.

Translated: "We are entirely dependent on sucking off the public teat for our survival. Should that end for any reason we will be instantly bust, as we do not earn enough money to pay the dividends and thus would be immediately in default."

There's no plan to fix this either. Not in the company and not Congress.

On any day where there was a rational market, the concept that the largest single financing source for home purchasers has been for two years and remains insolvent would produce an instantaneous and negative reaction in the stock market, for what should be obvious reasons.

But in the Ponziconomy, where nobody has to pay any debts (ever), a new economy to which Americans should become completely aware and attuned to (along with acting themselves in this fashion), since they are now being tapped to pay off the debt of default European banks in the name of "Euro Stability", no such reaction is forthcoming.

One would hope that Americans recognize this "new normal" and take it into account when deciding whether to pay their debts for things such as homes, automobiles and credit cards.

After all if it's good for Fannie and European Banks, it's good for you, right?

Pirates released after assault operation near Gulf of Aden apparently perished

RIA "Novosti" ^ | May, 11, 2010

Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:49:15 PM by Freelance Warrior

The Somali pirates who were captured in an assault operation after hijacking a Russian tanker near the Gulf of Aden and then released by Russian military officials have not reached the coast and have apparently perished, a top-ranking source in Russia's Defense Ministry told journalists on Tuesday.

Russia's Moscow University tanker was hijacked last week near the Gulf of Aden. Ten pirates were captured and one was killed in the assault operation.

The captured pirates were initially to be sent to Moscow for prosecution, but Russian military officials then made the decision to release them, citing the absence of a legal base to carry out prosecution procedures against pirates.

The pirate's boat reportedly disappeared from radars an hour after they had been released by the Russian military.
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: gulfofaden; piracy; pirate; russia; somali; somalia; somalipirates
FLAUNT THE AMERICAN FLAG DAY!
Nationwide Protest Wednesday, May 12, 2010

1 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:49:16 PM by Freelance Warrior
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To: Freelance Warrior

Yeah, I am sure the Russkies “released” them all right.

Such a shame. Now they are good muslims.

2 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:51:28 PM by FormerACLUmember ("Subtlety is not going to win this fight": NJ Governor Chris Christie)
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To: FormerACLUmember

sniff sniff

3 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:53:26 PM by Husker24
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To: Freelance Warrior

A clear message to the pirates:

Attack a Russian ship and you will disappear off the radar screen.

4 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:53:28 PM by FormerACLUmember ("Subtlety is not going to win this fight": NJ Governor Chris Christie)
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To: FormerACLUmember

To Russia With Love!

5 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:53:30 PM by STD (islam a spiritual-legal-political Theocratic system of governance which is not to be questioned;)
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To: Freelance Warrior
PC works every time it's tried?

Hey Ruskies, kill them clean next time. Bullet to the Freekin HEAD!

Good grief, they just let-em drown. What a waste of saving a bullet.
6 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:55:04 PM by MaxMax (Conservatism isn't a party)
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To: Freelance Warrior

They may be sliding back into communism but they sure know how to handle the terrorists.

7 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:55:23 PM by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: Freelance Warrior
The pirate's boat reportedly disappeared from radars an hour after they had been released by the Russian military

LMAO
8 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:57:04 PM by Lancey Howard
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To: Lancey Howard

“The pirate’s boat reportedly disappeared from radars an hour after they had been released by the Russian military”

Must have been a slow leak, hahaha.

9 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:59:17 PM by AlexW (Now in the Philippines . Happy not to be back in the USA for now.)
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To: Freelance Warrior

I REALLY like the outcome!! Too bad that the pantywaists in our WH and military don’t have the cojones to do the same to the pirates.

10 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:59:28 PM by octex
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To: Freelance Warrior

11 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:00:04 PM by longjack
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To: Freelance Warrior

Too bad, so sad.

Next!

12 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:00:33 PM by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
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To: AlexW

Yeah, I heard torpedoes can cause slow leaks.

13 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:00:43 PM by Lancey Howard
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To: Freelance Warrior
Hehehehe...

You gotta hand it to the Ruskies. They delivered a message in a way that was unequivocal, but utterly deniable.

Gee, the pirates didn't make it home? Gosh, I hope nothing happened to the poor guys.

I imagine a small Semtex charge, with a timer detonator molded to the underside of the boat took care of things nicely.
14 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:01:37 PM by Ronin
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To: octex

The Russians can’t hold a candle to how the Chinese handle these “Cough” situations.

15 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:02:13 PM by MaxMax (Conservatism isn't a party)
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To: Freelance Warrior

I’m sure they were released “with extreme prejudice”. Released from this mortal coil, apparently.

16 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:09:41 PM by Bush_Democrat ((Ex-Dem since 2001 *Folding@Home for the Gipper - Join the FReeper Folders*))
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To: Freelance Warrior

Ok and thanks for the update.

17 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:13:46 PM by Cindy
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To: Freelance Warrior

I remember the comments on the thread about the pirates being givin a rubber boat with no motor and set off to sea.

So the obvious then is confirmed now.

They sank.

18 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:16:40 PM by Global2010 (We have De Humanized our Society because we have De Christianize our society. Fr.Corapi)
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To: Freelance Warrior
The pirate boat disappears from the Russian radar screen. So sad, really. I hate it when these accidents happen.


19 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:16:43 PM by FormerACLUmember ("Subtlety is not going to win this fight": NJ Governor Chris Christie)
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To: FormerACLUmember

They released them alright.

In a rubber boat with no motor, shoved them off into the big big sea.

Fish food now.

20 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:18:09 PM by Global2010 (We have De Humanized our Society because we have De Christianize our society. Fr.Corapi)
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To: Freelance Warrior

ROFL! I have no doubt the pirate ship disappeared from radar. Probably with the help of a cruise missile. No muss, no fuss, no trial. Just barbecued shark bait.

21 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:23:27 PM by Enterprise (Dan Rather said Obama is so incompetent he couldn't sell watermelons.)
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To: Freelance Warrior

I’m predicting that Russian flagged ships will be left alone now. Maybe another such incident if the pirates are slow learners.

Russia is demonstrating an understanding of how these things work that our leadership seems to lack.

It wasn’t always that way.

22 posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:32:20 PM by Riley (The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.)

Mapping Ancient Civilization, in a Matter of Days

The New York Times ^ | 10 May 2010 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:52:12 PM by Palter

For a quarter of a century, two archaeologists and their team slogged through wild tropical vegetation to investigate and map the remains of one of the largest Maya cities, in Central America. Slow, sweaty hacking with machetes seemed to be the only way to discover the breadth of an ancient urban landscape now hidden beneath a dense forest canopy.

Even the new remote-sensing technologies, so effective in recent decades at surveying other archaeological sites, were no help. Imaging radar and multispectral surveys by air and from space could not “see” through the trees.

Then, in the dry spring season a year ago, the husband-and-wife team of Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase tried a new approach using airborne laser signals that penetrate the jungle cover and are reflected from the ground below. They yielded 3-D images of the site of ancient Caracol, in Belize, one of the great cities of the Maya lowlands.

In only four days, a twin-engine aircraft equipped with an advanced version of lidar (light detection and ranging) flew back and forth over the jungle and collected data surpassing the results of two and a half decades of on-the-ground mapping, the archaeologists said. After three weeks of laboratory processing, the almost 10 hours of laser measurements showed topographic detail over an area of 80 square miles, notably settlement patterns of grand architecture and modest house mounds, roadways and agricultural terraces.

‘We’re in the final days of white life in South Africa’

The gunman leant forward and pushed the pistol hard into Manie Potgieter’s neck. “Listen, you white bastard,” he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. “I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you, got it?”

From his position on the floor, hands tied behind his back, he could hear his assailant’s three accomplices pulling the tracksuit bottoms off his wife, Helena, 28.

“I was sure they were going to shoot me, but I just prayed she would be OK. She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry. I just prayed,” Mr Potgieter, 30, a blond giant of a man, told The Times.

Suddenly, a clang of metal echoed through the early morning air — and the attackers took fright. They had been in the remote farmhouse for an hour and dawn was fast approaching. “Let’s go, someone is coming,” one of them shouted in panic. Without firing a shot they were suddenly gone.

The Potgieters’ nightmare was over — but it was one of the very few happy endings to a spate of attacks on South Africa’s white Afrikaner farming communities in which an estimated 3,000 people have been killed since 1994.

On another farm, a few miles away, Louis Boshoff, 65, and his wife, Elsabe, 57, were not so lucky. A few months ago, Mr Boshoff arose early one morning, as he has done for almost 47 years, to milk his small dairy herd.

“Two men were hiding in one of the outdoor sheds. They had balaclavas on and came at me. One had a gun and the other a catapult with ball bearings as shot,” he said.

When one of them fired at his barking dogs, Mr Boshoff saw red and tried to rush them, but he was shot twice. He lost his spleen, most of his pancreas and half his liver. His wife rushed to be at his side, tripped and suffered a broken leg.

The subject of attacks on white farmers is deeply disliked by the ruling African National Congress for the unflattering comparisons that it brings with neighbouring Zimbabwe, but it has come to the fore since the murder of the white supremacist leader Eugène Terre’Blanche a month ago. That incident followed a sharp deterioration in race relations after Julius Malema, the outspoken leader of the ANC’s Youth League, started singing at rallies an old anti-apartheid struggle song that includes the words “shoot the boer [farmer]”.

The High Court banned the song but the ruling is now under appeal. Mr Malema faces an ANC disciplinary hearing after he defied orders and continued to sing the song while visiting Zimbabwe, where he praised President Mugabe for land reform policies, under which 4,000 white commercial farmers have been driven off the land in the past decade.

Since Terre’Blanche’s murder the farm attacks have continued unabated. Last week another two white farmers were killed in separate attacks.

“The murder of TB [Terre’Blanche] was planned. They start singing ‘kill the boer’ — then the most famous boer of the lot is murdered. I did not support him, but do not tell me it is not linked,” said Ian Bothma, 47, a tradesman from Terre’Blanche’s home town who has recently applied to emigrate to Australia. “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.”

The Government points out that blacks are also the targets of farm attacks; black unions, for their part, emphasise that, 16 years after the end of apartheid, many black farm workers are still ill treated, with their white employers accused of fuelling the violence by paying derisory wages and using illegal migrant labour.

At the root of the problem is the Government’s failure to carry out land reforms that meet black aspirations without destroying the productive agricultural sector. It wants at least one third of productive farm land to be in black hands by 2014 but is way off target. The land bank set up to finance farm purchases is broke; fleeced by its own managers, with a corruption investigation under way.

Andre Botha, chairman of Agriculture South Africa’s rural safety committee, told parliament recently that the biggest challenge facing the industry was “irresponsible remarks” by officials and politicians. “If we are excluded from being South African then there is a big question mark put on democracy,” he said.

Last week, President Zuma promised that there would be no Zimbabwean-style land grabs — but most whites are not convinced. “I was born and bred here but it is time to go,” Mr Bothma said. “It is unfair to inflict such a future on our children.”

Land in crisis

40,000 farmers in South Africa

3,000 farmers murdered since the end of apartheid

800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated since 1995

200,000 hectares of abandoned farmland has been leased by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to farmers fleeing South Africa

87% of agricultural land was owned by whites at the end of the apartheid era

30% of land must be in black hands by 2014, if government targets for land reform are to be met

2% of land has changed hands so far, with funds for further purchases having dried up and a corruption inquiry under way

20% of South Africans of all races want to emigrate, with 95 per cent of those naming violent crime as the single most important factor

Sources: Times database; BBC; Newsweek; Australian Department of Immigration

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Neil VH wrote:
Remember, freedom wasn't won by the ANC, it was given to them. A majority of white people voted for the country to become a truly democratic nation, and give voting power to all blacks. Now, 16 years later, all our expectations has been shattered by a ruling party who is totally corrupt and care more for their own accumulation of wealth than for the people that they "fought" to free.
A recent poll by a South African newspaper showed that, had white people voted back then, knowing what they do now, the vote would have been 2/3's NO, instead of 2/3's YES. If you look at all the news reports, you see patterns emerging. Politicians and the police seem to be encouraging the masses to thinking in the direction of Julius Malema, the Youth League leader. He keeps yapping on about Zimbabwean style land invasions, a revolution, being militant, etc. etc. What a surprise, when only yesterday, I read that the SA police minister recently urged youths to be "militant," for when there is a "war to pursue in a revolutionary situation."
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100503043722985C279130
These few, amongst many other facts out there, makes that previous statement about the World Cup, very accurate, I think.
The sad thing is, killing whites and taking everything they own will not cure this economic sickness. I guess the western concept of an economy is best left to be tended by westerners.
May 6, 2010 12:33 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Mike Dively wrote:
This didn't happen when farmers where able to arm themselves to defend their family and property. This is what happens when criminals have guns and citizens don't.
May 6, 2010 3:44 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Robert Mclean wrote:
Thank you Tamsanqa, this is indeed very selective journalism. No-one is doubting that crime is a problem in SA and that it is wrong to kill white farmers. But I agree, what does this have to do with the murder of the Nazi thug ET? And what about the black victims of crime? Why is it always only newsworthy when whites are the victims?

I'm also a bit confused when I read comments saying SA will return to "heart of darkness". Do you mean Apartheid?

It is amazing how many see Apartheid as a good thing. It is amzing how so many of you only look at the "plight of the white".

Anyone who thought that the dismantling of Apartheid would instantly cure all ills is naive. I don't think Mandela or deKlerk envsioned that. But BOTH blacks and whites are struggling to turn the country around and it will take time.

May 5, 2010 5:14 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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john papi wrote:
Why do you always ignore my comments on important issues like this and publish rubbish comments instead. If you do not want my comments then say so!
May 5, 2010 5:10 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Tamsanqa Mlilo wrote:
The heading is rather alarmist while the whole story is quite misleading. This is quite clearly selective and unhelpful journalism. I do not in any way condone Malema's behaviour neither do I support his/ANC song nor find any justification for counter racism in SA but the case for a link between TB's murder with Malema's singing is weak. Pretending that only white citizens are victims of violent crime is disingenous as evidence suggests more black people than white experience violent crime in SA. I agree the SA government has to do more to tackle crime and racism.
May 5, 2010 4:24 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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geraldine Leale wrote:
Once productive farm land gets into black hands it ceases to be farmed. It becomes squatter camp.

ROBERT McLEAN - one of the top business women and her partner in CApe Town - will not divulger her name here but she owns a very successful luxury goods company - all products are locally made - has to fight off 4 intruders to her home last week. She was knifed and neither her or her partner were armed. He however challenged hem and they ran off because the panic alarm had been sounded.

So affluent business people n CT also affected.
As long as SA does not control its borders there is going to be high crime here.

YOu can say/think what you lie abou the white farmers - but historically they are the ones who have created the wealth in produce for this country.

There are massive drug problems which hand in hand with generally poor education, over population, unemployment, malnutrition and dunces in control with big mouths - yo uknow who they are. SA is screwed - its just going to be a long and and painful one.
May 5, 2010 3:49 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Elder Yank wrote:
Whether it's right, wrong or simply pay-back, one didn't have to be a genius to have seem this coming years ago.
May 5, 2010 3:39 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Fone wrote:
Another great African nation being ruined because the black cannot rule, they have not the wit nor the sense to be able to do this.
Just take a look at all the countries run by the black, & you will see the same old story!
This is not racism, this is observation, yet the pc idiots in the world think its good that countries & people are ruined by someone of their own colour?
Stupidity, utter stupidity!
May 5, 2010 11:34 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Andrew Ervin wrote:
Imagine the headlines if the races were reversed. The world media would be descending on South Africa and the calls for the government to intervene would be deafening. Instead we get a story on the violence against white South African farmers once in a while, usually with some mention of the previous intolerable apartheid against the blacks. Gotta love double standards.
May 5, 2010 8:58 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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John Francis wrote:
In 1936 Hitler temporarily put his persecution of the Jewish population into abeyance for the duration of the Olympic games.
Consequently, many foreign visitors returned with the view that things weren't that bad for the Jews after all.
Immediately after the games closed and the visitors left, Hitler really got down to business.
The South African government shows no sign of trying to halt the murders and attacks on the farmers.
If conditions for the remaining white farmers in South Africa are bad now whilst the visitors are about to flock in, and the worlds attention is focused
on the country and it's games; what is likely to happen after the visitors leave?
The parallels are there for all to see.

May 5, 2010 8:49 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Lest we forget: Three more heroes return in coffins from the war our party leaders 'forgot' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-127473

By Ian Drury
Last updated at 11:18 PM on 7th May 2010

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It was hard to ignore the squabbling, squealing and scrabbling for power in Westminster yesterday.

In Wootton Bassett, they managed it with dignified silence.

And as hundreds of people gathered in the town to pay tribute to three young men who gave their lives for their country, that silence suddenly spoke loudest of all.
Hero: Comrades of Lance Corporal Barry Buxton, 27, of 21 Engineer Regiment, carry his coffin as his body was repatriated to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire

Hero: Comrades of Lance Corporal Barry Buxton, 27, of 21 Engineer Regiment, carry his coffin as his body was repatriated to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire

Silent tribute: Mourners bowed their heads as the hearses carrying the coffins of Sapper Daryn Roy, Lance Corporal Barry Buxton and Corporal Harvey Holmes passed through the town of Wootton Bassett

Silent tribute: Mourners bowed their heads as the hearses carrying the coffins of Sapper Daryn Roy, Lance Corporal Barry Buxton and Corporal Harvey Holmes passed through the town of Wootton Bassett

Corporal Harvey Holmes, Lance Corporal Barry Buxton and Sapper Daryn Roy, all killed in Afghanistan, were brought home to their families yesterday.

Their bodies were flown from the frontline to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire for a private ceremony before their Union Flag-draped coffins were driven through Wootton Bassett.

Last night grieving families and military commanders accused the party leaders of barely mentioning the Armed Forces and the war against the Taliban during the election campaign.

Relatives said they had swept the nine-year conflict under the carpet.

L/Cpl Buxton, 27, from Stoke- on-Trent, who served with 21 Engineer Regiment, died on Monday when a road collapsed and the vehicle he was commanding rolled into a canal.

His wife Emma described him as her 'knight in shining armour'. Spr Roy, 28, from Consett, County Durham, a 'happy-go-lucky' comrade from the same regiment, was killed on the same day when a roadside bomb exploded near Nad'e Ali in Helmand Province.
Corporal Harvey Alex Holmes
Daryn Roy
Barry Buxton

Lost heroes: The bodies of Corporal Harvey Holmes, Sapper Daryn Roy and L/Cpl Barry Buxton returned to the UK yesterday
Emma Buxton (centre, facing), wife of Lance Corporal Barry Buxton
In mourning: Emma Buxton (left), wife of Lance Corporal Barry Buxton and Claire Nugent, fiancee of Harvey Holmes

In mourning: Emma Buxton (left), wife of Lance Corporal Barry Buxton and Claire Nugent, fiancee of Harvey Holmes who were both killed in Afghanistan

Cpl Harvey Holmes, 22, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, of the 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), died in an explosion in Sangin while on foot patrol last Sunday.

As on more than 100 occasions since the Afghanistan conflict began, Wootton Bassett came to a standstill to mark the soldiers' final journey.

Mourners threw red, yellow and orange roses on to the hearses as they passed slowly by before stopping for two minutes' silence at the town's war memorial.

In the midst of grief, there was a strong feeling that politicians had refused to confront the human cost of the military mission.

Sapper Roy's tearful girlfriend Cheryl Edgar said more heroes return in our party leaders 'forgot'

British soldiers had been 'absolutely' forgotten by politicians during the month-long election campaign.
Family and friends of Sapper Daryn Roy weep as his coffin passes through the 'Highway for Heroes' after the repatriation ceremony

Tears: Family and friends of Sapper Daryn Roy weep as his coffin is driven down the 'Highway for Heroes' after the repatriation ceremony

Standstill: Wootton Bassett stopped to pay its respects to the three soldiers in what has become a regular event in the town

Standstill: Wootton Bassett stopped to pay its respects to the three soldiers in what has become a regular event in the town

Pauline Nugent, the mother of Cpl Holmes's devastated fiancee Claire, said: 'Politicians themselves haven't seemed to mention the war.

'They were all taken up with the election and trying to get votes instead of addressing real issues. I think they just downplayed it - particularly Labour.'

Cpl Holmes's best friend Paul Burgess, 29, from Manchester, said: 'It has been kept low key. The war is bad news and the voters are getting more and more discontented with it.

'The politicians don't want to remind people that soldiers are being killed in action. It's no good for your party or getting into power.'

Colonel Richard Kemp, who was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said: 'I was disappointed by the lack of emphasis on Afghanistan during the campaign, and the thinness of discussion of defence in the leaders' debate.'

He added: 'Our war effort in Afghanistan must remain a top priority even in the face of efforts needed to hold together a minority government.

'Whatever political compromises are needed, while our troops are fighting and dying we cannot afford to have divisions on the war strategy.'
Grief: Cheryl Edgar (front, second left)), the girlfriend of Sapper Daryn Roy, and other mourners break down as army vetarans salute the procession

Grief: Cheryl Edgar (front, second left)), the girlfriend of Sapper Daryn Roy, and other mourners break down as army vetarans salute the procession

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Brave lads. Politicians please read "Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling.

- Mike, Lancs, England, 07/5/2010 19:38
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It's touching how the people of Wooton Bassett come out to pay their respects to our fallen heros and especially how the army veterans also come to salute them. It's just a shame this had to happen in the first place, we should have never got involved with America's war!

RIP

- Cazza, Scotland, 07/5/2010 19:37
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The war criminals who sent them there have just had millions of people vote for them.

Unbelievable

- Sad4UK, UK, 07/5/2010 19:32
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are you watching Gordon and the rest of you warmongering idiots who vote for labour?

- stuart, Alicante, Spain, 07/5/2010 19:29
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FORCES-
"Whether active duty, retired,territorial army or reserve - is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to "Great Britain", for an amount of "up to and including my life". That is HONOR, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it." -Author Unknown

- pete taylor, liskeard cornwall, 07/5/2010 19:25

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1274739/Tearful-tributes-fallen-heroes-brought-home-Afghanistan.html#ixzz0nIoeUu4G

School for sabotage: How arson, bridge-blowing and silent killing was on the curriculum at Churchill's school for secret agents

By Barbara Davies
Last updated at 12:14 AM on 8th May 2010

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As a pretty young teenager in war-torn London, it was the prospect of wearing a smart hat that first attracted Noreen Riols to the idea of joining the Wrens.

'It was either the armed forces or working in a munitions factory,' she says. 'And I thought I'd look really smart in one of those lovely hats.'

It was 1941, and 17-year-old Noreen had no idea that her fluent French - she'd been schooled at the Lycee in London - meant she had already been earmarked for a task so secret she could not even tell her mother about it.
school

Wartime preparations: Beaulieu was a remote country estate in Hampshire where Churchill's most elite secret agents were being put through their final paces

Hastily asked to sign the Official Secrets Act, she was dispatched to a remote country estate in Hampshire where Churchill's most elite secret agents were being put through their final paces.

Today, Beaulieu is the home of the Montagu family and a major tourist attraction in the depths of the New Forest in Hampshire. But 70 years ago it was the last point of call for secret agents being sent into occupied territory, and at the centre of some of the most extraordinary wartime preparations made to beat Hitler.

Away from prying eyes, trainee agents were taught the arts of silent killing, housebreaking, bridge-blowing, arson, forgery, disguise and sabotage, as well as how to resist interrogation and torture.

'Security was very, very tight. It was like being in a very enclosed family,' says Noreen, now 84 and living outside Paris.

'I knew I had to keep my mouth shut and not ask questions. My mother thought I was working for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.'

In all, about 3,000 Special Operations Executive spies passed through Beaulieu's gates. Nearly half never returned, but those who did often owed their lives to their training.

'Beaulieu was no holiday camp,' says Noreen. 'The instructors would dress as Gestapo officers and hammer on the doors in the middle of the night, and if agents answered in English by mistake, they'd be shoved in a room and have lights shone in their faces.'
bob maloubier
Noreen Riols

Former agents: Bon Maloubier and Noreen Riols

A gamekeeper from the Queen's estate in Sandringham taught students how to move across a field in moonlight without being seen. A former safe-blower taught them how to pick locks. Two former Shanghai policemen showed them how to kill silently. Even the Soviet double agent Kim Philby was there, sharing the arts of 'black propaganda' - passing false information to the enemy.

A regular visitor to Beaulieu was Vera Atkins, a Sorbonne-educated intelligence officer, who joined the French section of SOE in February 1941 and became one of its most senior members.

'She helped agents put together their cover stories before they went to France, rehearsing them so that if they were arrested, their story came out pat,' says Elspeth Forbes Robertson, a historian and SOE expert.

'She passed on all the most minute details: you didn't take a bicycle on a train because in France, you had to book in advance and give an address. You didn't ask for a café au lait because there was no milk.'

Atkins was trying to give the agents the best possible start, and so too, in her own way, was Noreen, although the role she played as a decoy at Beaulieu was rather less straightforward. Agents coming to the end of their training would be taken for dinner at a hotel in Bournemouth by one of their officers.

'A gamekeeper from the Queen's estate in Sandringham taught students how to move across a field in moonlight without being seen. A former safe-blower taught them how to pick locks. Two former Shanghai policemen showed them how to kill silently'

The usual scenario was that Noreen would spontaneously appear and after being greeted like a long-lost friend by the officer, would be invited to join their table. The officer would then be called away by a phone call, promising to return but never doing so. 'Then it was up to me,' says Noreen. 'The hotel had a balcony overlooking the sea, and if I could get the man out there on a moonlit night that always helped.'

In most cases, she insists, the agents didn't talk. 'But if they were very young and far from their country and their families, they might,' she says. If they did, Noreen had to report it.

Retired Flight Lt Bob Large, a former Spitfire fighter pilot, volunteered to fly the agents into and out of France. Today, aged 88 and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion D'Honneur, he clearly recalls his 'little trips'.

'I would always have to land in a field, somewhere not surrounded by trees so I could make the approach. The field would be lit up by three lights in an L-shape by an agent on the ground. And you always kept the engine running.'

Those who returned safely were whisked to London to be debriefed. Noreen Riols witnessed some of these sessions.

'Some of them came back with their nerves shattered,' she says. 'They'd be smoking non-stop, their hands would be trembling. Others, who might have had much worse experiences, would be as cool as a cucumber. It made me realise you can never judge what people's reactions are going to be. No one knows what they can endure until it happens to them.'

Churchill's Spy School is on the Histor y Channel on 17 May at 9pm

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1274379/School-sabotage-How-arson-bridge-blowing-silent-killing-curriculum-Churchills-school-secret-agents.html#ixzz0nIm5S9Kt

One teenager in five leaving school unable to read or do maths Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1274947/One-teenager-leaving-school

By Laura Clark

Last updated at 10:11 PM on 7th May 2010

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Teenage girl in class

Illiterate and innumerate: Thousands are leaving school without basic skills (posed by model)

One in five teenagers leaves school illiterate and innumerate despite two decades of education reform, research shows. More than 100,000 lack the basic skills needed to function in society.

A study found there has been little or no change in the last 20 years in the proportion of youngsters rendered unemployable because they have such a poor grasp of words and numbers.

About 17 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds are functionally illiterate, according to the study led by Professor Greg Brooks from the University of Sheffield.

'People at this level can handle only simple tests and straightforward questions on them where no distracting information is adjacent or nearby,' the study said.

'Making inferences and understanding forms of indirect meaning, e.g. allusion and irony, are likely to be difficult or impossible.

'This is less than the functional literacy needed to partake fully in employment, family life and citizenship and to enjoy reading for its own sake.'

Some 22 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds are essentially innumerate, according to the study. This means they have 'very basic competence in maths, mainly limited to arithmetical computations and some ability to comprehend and use other forms of mathematical information'.

The study adds: 'While this is valuable, it is clearly not enough to deal confidently with many of the mathematical challenges of contemporary life.'

Levels of functional innumeracy are even higher among older age groups, the research claims.

The Tories claim Labour has been too slow to embrace the 'synthetic phonics' method of teaching children to read, which has been credited with virtually wiping out illiteracy where it has been used.

The technique, which involves teaching children the sounds that make up words, was only made mandatory four years ago.

The failure to get to grips with the basics early on is thought to increase pupils' disaffection with school, leading to them becoming alienated and dropping out.

Teachers said a 'long tail of underachievement' had long been a feature of English education.


More...

* Schools urged to axe homework because it 'pollutes' family life, says leading children's author

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said the Government should offer one-to-one tuition for pupils, support for parents and more training for teachers. But he added: 'There are no magic solutions.'

The study, which analysed decades of evidence, found that the average reading scores for 13 to 19-year-olds improved between 1948 and 1960 but remained 'remarkably constant' between 1960 and 1988.

They rose 'gently' until 2004 before a further plateau. Writing performance has been relatively static since 1979.

The study was published by the Times Educational Supplement as it emerged that one in three primary schools are failing to meet a Labour performance benchmark and facing greater scrutiny from local authorities and Government.

About 6,000 primaries are deemed to be under-achieving or 'coasting' because they are failing to improve results fast enough.

Labour has spent billions on a string of initiatives aimed at raising standards of basic skills. This has included giving teachers extra training in grammar and maths and making them follow prescribed lesson plans.

A 'functional skills' exam for 16-year-olds was devised to tackle employers' concerns, but plans to make passing this a pre-condition of good GCSE results were dropped.

Labour embraced the Conservatives' primary school literacy hour in 1997 and introduced a similar initiative for maths, before extending the drive to secondary schools.

But it dropped the prescribed daily literacy and numeracy hours following numerous updates to the programmes and evidence that test results were stalling.

Men are better at map reading, but women are superior at remembering routes, study finds Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270534/M

By Katherine Faulkner
Last updated at 2:37 AM on 3rd May 2010

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They are often accused of being poor navigators because they can't read maps as well as their male counterparts. But women are actually less likely than men to get lost because they are better at recalling routes, new research has shown.

Although men will be better able to use a map, the fairer sex can often can get to their destination quicker on subsequent journies because they remember landmarks.

The study looked at a group of men and women from a Mexican village who were sent to gather mushrooms fitted with satellite positioning systems and heart rate monitors.
Different talents: Men are better at map reading, but women shine when it comes to remembering routes

Different talents: Men are better at map reading, but women shine when it comes to remembering routes

Although men and women returned with roughly the same amount of mushrooms, the women had expended far less energy because they knew where they were going.

The men had climbed higher, travelled further and used 70 per cent more energy than the women. Meanwhile the women made more stops but seemed to know where to go.

They were more likely to recall their routes by using landmarks and retraced paths to the most productive patches of plants.

Luis Pacheco-Cobos, who led the research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, said: 'These findings show that women perform better and more readily adopt search strategies appropriate to a gathering lifestyle than men.'

And scientists said the results are as true of shopping for vegetables in a supermarket as gathering mushrooms in the wild.

Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University, said: 'Women develop a certain intuition and make better judgment calls. Men make a big thing about it and turn the most basic tasks into a very big deal. They tend to overcomplicate it.'
Pugh

'We're not travelling until you've invented the DVD player'

The study confirms the long-held belief that men's and women's skills at route finding developed differently over time because men were the hunters and women the gatherers.

It is believed that the differences emerged during the Pleistocene age— which began more than 2.5million years ago and ended almost 12,000 years ago.

The male approach is the most useful for hunting down prey but the female approach is better for gathering growing food.

Similar research using 140 volunteers at Queen Mary, University of London, showed that while men were better at discovering hidden objects, women were more successful in tests requiring them to remember where objects lay.

Annabelle Bond, the British mountaineer who was the fastest woman to climb the 'seven summits' - the highest mountains on each continent — said the survey reflected her experience of male and female mountaineers.

'If I have been somewhere before, then I can definitely find that place again very quickly,' she told the Sunday Times.

'But I don’t trust my map-reading skills, and on a mountain I would always rely on a man for that. We are programmed to do things in different ways.

'That is why men can get lost in a supermarket and women can speed around it in minutes. Of course, most men have no interest in being there and that is why they get lost in the aisles.'

The results of the study will be published in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behaviour later this year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270534/Men-better-map-reading-women-superior-remembering-routes-study-finds.html#ixzz0nIl1DlDG

Magic 'Pixie Dust' made from pig bladders helps 'regrow' limbs of wounded soldiers Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270990/

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:14 AM on 5th May 2010

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A powder nick-named "Pixie Dust" is being used to save the limbs of war heroes who have been wounded in Afghanistan.

Surgeons have already used the dust to save several soldiers so badly mutilated that they were at risk of amputation.

Made from pig bladders it has the ability to help the human body grow new tissue to replace large areas of a leg or arm destroyed by blast damage.
Enlarge soldiers

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion the Coldstream Guards and the Afghan National Army patrol Helmand. American scientists are about to trial a new treatment that 'regrows' human tissue and could save limbs lost in combat

Many British and American soldiers have lost limbs to roadside bombs in the bitter battle for control of Afghanistan.

Now there is hope that limbs that would have been previously amputated can be saved.

Pig bladders contain a substance called extra cellular matrix, which is made up largely of collagen.

Scientists have already used powdered pig bladders help grow replacement human bladders.

But researchers working for the American military realised the substance might also help hundreds of wounded soldiers.


More...

* British man has world's first heart operation using remote control-operated robotic arm
* The super sniper: Hero picks off two Taliban from a mile and a half away

Professor Steve Wolf one the US's top plastic surgeons -is carrying out a trial in Houston, Texas on victims of the Afghan fighting and has already treated several young soldiers whose limbs were so badly damaged they were unable to walk or faced amputation.

He said: 'The word has got around about how this substance from pig bladders has got this magic ability to grow new tissue. Then one day one of the patients used the phrase 'pixie dust' to describe it and the name stuck

'We don't quite know how it works which adds to its magical qualities. We think that it attracts cells in the body that have the ability to multiply and gives them a chemical signal to make new tissue.'
Professor Wolf

Professor Wolf said medical experts were not entirely sure how the 'pixie dust' worked

Professor Wolf - chief of clinical trials at the American Army's Institute for Surgical Research is just about to start a formal trial using 'pixie dust' on bomb victims after the successful treatment of a handful of blast victims last year.

One of the first soldiers to receive the treatment was Corporal Isais Hernandez.

He was so severely wounded by a mortar round that amputation of his leg seemed likely.

Corporal Hernandez, a 25-year-old marine, was wounded in 2008, in an incident in which a colleague died.

He said: 'The surgery that Dr Wolf performed has been fantastic. Within a few weeks of the operation last year I was doing things with the leg I hadn't done for months.

'It was so quick that you could almost see it growing and filling the hole where I was blasted.

'Before I had the sheets made from pigs bladder put into my leg I could barely use it. I had to crawl upstairs or take the elevator and I was either on sticks or in a wheelchair. It was pretty much useless.

'I had only 10 per cent strength in my injured leg compared to my good leg which was one reason why they'd wanted to amputate.

'After the operation it was up to 25 per cent. Now my leg is back to 35 per cent strength and I'm able to get out on my mountain bike and I can walk as far as I want.

'The Extra Cellular membrane had not only made muscle but also built nerves. I could feel my limb tingling as the new tissues grew.'

'Professor Wolfe has said there's a good chance I might be able to go back to active duty.'

He had a gaping, crater-like wound, in his thigh right down to the bone and doctors had no way of replacing the muscle and other tissue that had been blown away.

Professor Wolf operated and instead of using powered bladder he used it in sheet form putting layers of it into the large wound in leg Corporal Hernandez's leg.

Magically over a period of several weeks new tissue and muscle grew until the wound was filled.

Professor Wolf said: 'This was an amazing result. It was quite a sight to see the body regenerate in this way because in the past we have not been able to replace muscle and tissue once it has been lost.'

The Extra Cellular Matrix grew nerves, ordinary tissue and muscle where there had been none.

Corporal Hernandez is now able to walk on the limb - which he couldn't do before surgery -and is undergoing physiotherapy to restore as much strength as possible to his limb.

A large scar covers the area where the sheets of pig bladder worked their magic.

'It was several inches deep and you could see right down to my thigh bone,' he said.

'It has healed really well. My army mates all joke about me being cured by pixie dust. It is amazing stuff I think it's a great name for something that seems to work like magic.'

Pixie dust was developed by scientists at the Centre of Regenerative Medicine in Pittsburgh and one of their successes was to grow a completely new finger tip including blood vessels tissue, skin and finger nail for a man who severed it with the propeller of a model aeroplane.

Professor Wolf believes that pixie dust has huge potential. He said: 'We've seen a definite effect from using this powder in our first few patients which is why we are pressing ahead with full scale trial to see if we can get the same effect again.'

D. Steven Badylak, the institute's deputy director is convinced that the key to regeneration is finding the switch in human bodies that tells cells to grow as they do in the womb.

He said: 'The accepted wisdom is that we're born with what we have and that's it. We think we've proved that wrong with our initial work.

'Extra Cellular Matrix is loaded with signals that instruct cells to do things, as well as serving as a structural support.'

The Pentagon is investing millions of pounds in Professor Wolf's research in the hope that pixie dust might be able to help doctors grow new arms and legs.

He said: 'We're some way off from that at the moment but that would our eventual aim.'

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Comments (19)

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We have been using such materials for years in small animal veterinary medicine in the U.S. The brand name of the product is "ACell". I have had very good luck using it for severely damaged corneas, in the sheet form. It is a bit expensive to use in the large quantities that are probably employed for limb sparing.

- Steve Fenster, DVM, Fresno, CA, 05/5/2010 09:28
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I worked as a ward sister on a plastic surgery ward in Nottingham back in 1976 and we were using pigskin on severly burnt patients then. This was done because there were no other areas to take any skin from on the patient. We had some great results then. More to pigs than meet the eye!!

- Diane Baker, Tiverton Devon UK, 04/5/2010 08:34

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270990/Pixie-Dust-pig-bladders-regrows-limbs-wounded-soldiers.html#ixzz0nIkSMjKv

Market action, Fat fingers etc.... Vanity...

me again | 5 07 20010 | me

Posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:08:42 AM by Zeneta

Fat finger BS !!!

It's a simple function of market mechanics.

1. If there are no willing buyers at a given time the bid is 0. This has always been the case.

2. If the market declines (when I say market, it's the market for individual securities) to a level that has been identified as my exit, my stop loss, the number that says get me out NOW. My stop orders (sell orders are triggered).

3. There is NO SUCH THING as a MARKET order when you use a Direct Access platform. They built algo's that mimic market orders. The (automated market orders are actually IOC, immediate or cancel, orders) They will hit the best bid if your a seller with a selectnet prefrence and if your filled BUT still have more shares to sell it will hit the next best bid. A lot of individuals are now trading on direct access platforms and have no idea what they are doing.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chat; vanity
Fat finger BS !!!

It's a simple function of market mechanics.

1. If there are no willing buyers at a given time the bid is 0. This has always been the case.

2. If the market declines (when I say market, it's the market for individual securities) to a level that has been identified as my exit, my stop loss, the number that says get me out NOW. My stop orders (sell orders are triggered).

3. There is NO SUCH THING as a MARKET order when you use a Direct Access platform. They built algo's that mimic market orders. The (automated market orders are actually IOC, immediate or cancel, orders) They will hit the best bid if your a seller with a selectnet prefrence and if your filled BUT still have more shares to sell it will hit the next best bid. A lot of individuals are now trading on direct access platforms and have no idea what they are doing.

4. All it takes is one guy with a few (10,000 shares or less) to get the ball rolling. These are STUPID orders but there is no one to say so and stop it.

5. Once a level (price point) has been broken it will trigger these STUPID orders. I used to make a lot of money off these guys.

6. If you recognised a Stupid order that was willing to sell at ANY price, What price would you be willing to buy at ? How about $1.00 or less on a $40.00 stock ? I would buy that all day, if I could. I once bot 3000 share of GE at $3.00 a share when it was trading at $53.00 (clearly an error, and the trade was busted)

7. There was a vacuum that was a perfect storm of events that can happen anytime and will happen again. It happened to DNDN about a year or so ago. The stock droppped from about 24 to 7 in less than 3 minutes. It was one big seller that had no clue how the system works beyond his keyboard. I looked at all the trades for ACN, a stock that went from 38 to .01 (whatever), it was no more than 10,000 shares that triggered the selloff. The best offer, when it traded at a buck was $ 33.00. It was a seller on auto pilot without safeguards or a clue of the way this maket works.

8. SELL NOW !!!!

Are you sure ?

Yes

But,,,,,,,,,,,,,At this price ?,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The computer says yes, at any price.

It was kinda funny that as this was happening you could see that traders saw the stupidity, started to put in bids at sub $10.00 levels not knowing how many shares this bozo had, just hoping to catch a few shares.

I've been doing this for over 20 years. There are a lot of folks that have no clue how the market works.

I've seen "fat finger" errors, and this was not one.

This is the result of technology and effiency that drive all aspects of business.

It's the wild wild west again !!!!

Time to make some money !!!!!

Sorry, but I have no patience for idiots that think they know what they are doing.

BTW, this same thing happened in the 90's to the upside.

Order types:

Market

Limit

Stop market

Stop limit

Limit AON

Market "not held" (love this one)

Fill or Kill (generally stupid)

IOC (immediate or cancel)

MOO (market on open)

MOC (market on close) (because they have too) this is easy cash.

These are your basic order types. There are variations and combinations that are used for various reasons.

At the end of the the day, you need to know what your doing and WHERE you are playing. This is the most competitive arena you can engage.

Be Safe
1 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:08:42 AM by Zeneta
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To: Zeneta

Can Someone Explain The HUGE Volume Spike In Accenture An Hour Before It Hit $.01?

http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-this-huge-volume-spike-in-accentures-stock-a-full-hour-beofre-the-infamous-1-cent-bid-2010-5#ixzz0nIHG0kTd

2 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:15:26 AM by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: Zeneta

When the story first came up that it was someone clicked B (billions) instead of M (millions) my BS meter went through the roof. Orders aren’t written out like that (ie, you don’t order 1.5M shares, you order 1,500,000 shares).

The next explanation was that it was a decimal error. My BS meter is also going off with that because it would only change the amount by a factor of 100 which means there was still some pretty heavy trading on the downside. Also, the orders for the trade for the ‘billion’ orders would have had to have an account that could have supported that large of a trade. If it was PG, that means the minimum account value just to cover the trade would have been over $60 Billion. Not too many institutions have that much free capital available to close that order.

3 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:16:34 AM by mnehring
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To: Zeneta
I was testing a desktop trading system pushing 10 trades from an Excel file. The system was supposed to be connected to an off-line test exchange but the developer routed it by mistake to a real one.

Like I said these were test trades not market reality based ones and they got confirmed. The positions posted cost the trading company about 230,000.
4 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:16:39 AM by AU72
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To: Zeneta

Wow. Thank you for a very informative post!

5 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:17:13 AM by NCjim ("You can't pick up a turd by the clean end", Bob Lonsberry on Obamacare)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

nice

good eye

I suspect it was an error but would need to check it out. I’ll see if I can get me platform up.

very cool

6 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:18:46 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
WOW!

It is almost like someone was expecting a drop and placing orders on it before it happened, but it may have gone well below what they expected. Maybe hackers (China?) trying to manipulate the prices and it got out of control?
7 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:19:30 AM by mnehring
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To: Zeneta

Did you see this:

Feds trace flash crash to Chicago:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36946.html

8 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:21:19 AM by Revel
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To: mnehring
Million or a Billion

It's all just numbers on a screen.

Most if not all Institutions have safeguards for this.

Decimal point errors happen all the time, But the RISK is also checked by “most institutions”.

There are some very large “retail” accounts that don't know what they are doing.
9 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:24:26 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: AU72

That’s a cluster F*********

10 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:25:34 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: mnehring

No REAL money was made here.

Aside from the busted trades, there where only a few thousand shares traded at those lows.

11 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:27:38 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: Revel

OK,

Flash guys are seeking liquidity, they don’t hit bids that aren’t real.

HFT (High frequency Trading) these guys are looking to capture small increments, one or two PENNIES, They make there money from REBATES for providing liquidity.

12 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:34:03 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
Can Someone Explain The HUGE Volume Spike In Accenture An Hour Before It Hit $.01?

It may have well been a real trade, but it is still a trade none the less, a buyer and a seller that BOTH AGREED too.
13 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 9:54:21 AM by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)

Is Sovereign Debt Crisis Contained to Subprime? (Peter Schiff)

Euro Pacific Capital ^ | 5-7-10 | Peter Schiff

Posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 8:24:22 AM by RKBA Democrat

As Americans observe the chaos in Greece, most assume that the strength of our currency, the credit worthiness of our government, and the vast expanse of two oceans, will prevent a similar scene from playing out in our streets. I believe these protections to be illusory.

Once again the vast majority fails to see a crisis in the making, even as it stares at them from close range. Just as market observers in 2007 told us that the credit crisis would be confined to the subprime mortgage market, current analysts tell us that sovereign debt problems are confined to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and perhaps Italy. They were wrong then, and I believe that they're wrong now.

During the housing boom, subprime and prime borrowers made many of the same mistakes. Both groups overpaid for their homes, bought with low or no down payments, financed using ARMs instead of fixed rate mortgages, and repeatedly cashed out appreciated home equity through re-financings. The market largely overlooked the glaring similarities, and instead merely focused on FICO scores. Yes, prime borrowers had better credit, but their losses on underwater properties were no less devastating. As the magnitude of home price declines intensified, prime borrowers defaulted in levels that were almost as high as the subprime crowd.

So when mortgage backed securities started to go bad, it wasn't as if the problems emanated in subprime and subsequently "contaminated" the rest of the market. All borrowers were infected with the same disease, but the symptoms merely expressed themselves sooner in subprime. The same is true on a national level, whereby Greece plays the part of the subprime borrower. Though the U.S. is considered to be the highest order of "prime" borrower, based on historic precedent, our debt to GDP levels are at crisis levels, and are not that much lower than Portugal or Spain. When off-budget and contingency liabilities are properly accounted for, one could argue that we are already in worse financial shape than Greece.

Most importantly, like Greece (and homeowners who relied on adjustable rate mortgages), we have a high percentage of short-term debt that is vulnerable to rising rates. The one key difference is that while Greece borrows in euros, a currency it cannot print, America borrows in dollars, which we can print endlessly. In reality however, this is a distinction with very little substantive difference.

What if Greece had not been a member of the euro zone and had instead borrowed in their former currency, the drachma? First, given its past history of fiscal shortfalls, Greece would not have been able to borrow nearly as much as it had (They may well have been forced to borrow in euros anyway). Under those circumstances, creditors would have been more reluctant to lend without the possibility of a German led bailout. Had Greece never adopted the euro as its currency, but nevertheless borrowed in euros, it would now face the same difficult choices, but would not be offered the carrots or sticks provided by other euro zone nations that are worried about the integrity of their currency. The IMF would have been Greece's only possible savior.

Many of our top economists now argue that all would be well in Greece if the country was in charge of its own currency. In such a scenario, Greece would indeed have had no problems printing as many drachmas needed to pay its debts. However, would this really be a "get out of debt free" card for Greece?

The main reason the Greeks are protesting in the streets is that they do not want their benefits reduced or taxes raised to repay foreign creditors. But despite the likely domestic popularity of a drachma-printing policy, would it really get the Greeks off the hook? They would stiff their creditors by repaying them in currency of diminished value. But the same result could be achieved through an honest debt restructuring, which would involve "haircuts" for all creditors. In a restructuring, the pain falls most squarely on those who foolishly lent money to a "subprime" borrower.

But with inflation it's not just foreign creditors who would suffer. Every Greek citizen who has savings in drachma would suffer. Every Greek citizen who works for wages would suffer. Sure nominal benefits are preserved and taxes are not raised, but real purchasing power is destroyed. If the cost of living goes up, the reduction in the value of government benefits is just as real.

Of course, the negative effects on the economy of run-a-way inflation and skyrocketing interest rates are worse than what otherwise might result from an honest restructuring or even out right default. It is just amazing how few economists understand this simple fact.

Just because we can inflate does not mean we can escape the consequences of our actions. One way or another the piper must be paid. Either benefits will be cut or the real value of those benefits will be reduced. In fact, it is precisely because we can inflate our problems away that they now loom so large. With no one forcing us to make the hard choices, we constantly take the easy way out.

When creditors ultimately decide to curtail loans to America, U.S. interest rates will finally spike, and we will be confronted with even more difficult choices than those now facing Greece. Given the short maturity of our national debt, a jump in short-term rates would either result in default or massive austerity. If we choose neither, and opt to print money instead, the run-a-way inflation that will ensue will produce an even greater austerity than the one our leaders lacked the courage to impose. Those who believe rates will never rise as long as the Fed remains accommodative, or that inflation will not flare up as long as unemployment remains high, are just as foolish as those who assured us that the mortgage market was sound because national real estate prices could never fall.

'Impulse buys' are actually planned by our subconsciou Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1274420/Impulse-buys-actually-planne

By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 9:03 PM on 7th May 2010

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1274420/Impulse-buys-actually-planned-subconscious.html#ixzz0nIg6Mxst

When you pop into the supermarket for a pint of milk and emerge with a bag full of treats, it is easy to blame it on impulse.

In fact, you may have planned to spend the extra cash all along.

A study has revealed that when we write our shopping list, we factor in extra cash for items we've forgotten.

Buying them simply takes our grocery bill up to the expected amount.

In other words, impulse buying isn't so impulsive after all.

The U.S. researchers questioned shoppers at several grocery stores in Texas.

They were asked about the items they planned to purchase, how much they expected to spend on these items and how much they expected their total bill to come to.

After shopping, the volunteers provided their receipts and answered questions about themselves and the experience.

More than three-quarters had set aside cash for items that weren't on their list - a phenomenon the researchers call 'in-store slack'.

Reasons given for deviating from their shopping list included 'forgotten needs' and 'unplanned wants' - things they hadn't realised they'd need.

Others had actually factored in cash for impulse buys, the Journal of Consumer Research reports.

Overall, the actual difference between spending and planned spending was less than 30p.

But not everyone was so restrained, with some who trawled all the aisles giving in to temptation.

Researcher Kirk Wakefield, of Baylor University in Texas, said: 'For the majority of consumers, having in-store slack appears to be a rational way to use the store to cue needs and preserve self-control.

'In contrast, in-store slack leads to overspending for highly impulsive individuals who shop in most aisles.

'Highly impulsive individuals may want to consider planning as many purchases in advance as possible.'

In other words, those who lack willpower should write very detailed shopping lists. Dieters should also make lists with care.

The researchers said: 'Having in-store slack may also create a self-fulfilling prophecy where consumers buy unplanned items they don't really need.

'Even if people subconsciously intend to use their slack for "forgotten needs", many consumers are subject to temporary visceral urges such as hunger that may result in behaviours that are inconsistent with self-interests.

'As a result, they may ultimately spend in-store slack on unwanted or unhealthy items.

'If in-store slack leads to the purchase of more unhealthy items, this would suggest that individuals trying to restrict their eating should make the effort to fully plan every item they intend to purchase before going to the grocery store.'

Supermarkets, meanwhile, should try to tempt customers into as many aisles as possible, in an effort to get them to blow their mental budget.

In other studies on shopping, scientists have argued that there is little advantage in giving customers lots of choice.

In one experiment, customers bought more jam when faced with six varieties rather than 40.

But businessmen argue that with choice comes competition - and better quality for the customer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1274420/Impulse-buys-actually-planned-subconscious.html#ixzz0nIg1e4LC

The recession probably ended months ago but employment has not yet started to recover. Is America’s jobs machine broken?

America's labour market

Something's not working
The recession probably ended months ago but employment has not yet started to recover. Is America’s jobs machine broken?
Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

IN THE summer of 1984, Ronald Reagan declared “morning in America”. Running for re-election after a tumultuous first term during which unemployment rose to a postwar record of 10.8%, the president needed a hopeful message to take to the American people. When Reagan’s television advertisement ran, nearly two years after the official end of recession, unemployment was still high, at about 7.5%. But the president could accurately claim: “Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history.”

In the spring of 2010, a similar dawn is some way off. Economic recovery probably began ten months ago, but employment has scarcely risen from its trough (see chart 1). About as many Americans are working as in the autumn of 1999—in a population that is larger by 28m. If Barack Obama wants to repeat Reagan’s boast in his own re-election campaign, by which time the recovery will be three years old, the economy will need to add jobs at a rate of more than 3m a year. That has not happened in over a decade.

It is well known that America shed jobs at a furious rate as recession took hold. The rise in the unemployment rate between boom and bust, of nearly six percentage points, was the largest since the Depression. Adjusted for the age distribution of the population, the jobless rate hit a postwar high. So did the number of long-term unemployed, reaching 6.5m, or nearly half the total (see chart 2).

What is less well understood is that the American jobs machine has stalled badly. Granted, employment has been rising—non-farm payrolls were up by 162,000 in March—and may gain strength in the months ahead as cyclical joblessness falls. But the recovery has not yet brought jobs for the millions of workers idled by recession. This is at odds with what economists refer to as Okun’s law, a rough but empirically regular connection between changes in GDP and changes in unemployment. Over the past 12 months unemployment has not fallen as quickly as economists have come to expect. The hitherto tight link between economic activity and job creation looks disturbingly slack.

To see how this has come about, it helps to divide the recession into three phases. In the first, in 2008, workers were laid off rapidly, particularly during the second half of the year. At the same time, both hiring and vacancies plummeted. Most people who lost their jobs during this period had little hope of finding new ones. The second phase began early in 2009. Layoff rates peaked and declined, but firms still had little interest in hiring. Vacancies continued to shrink in the first half of the year, as companies adjusted to falling demand.

By the middle of last year, a surprising third phase had started. As the economic weather brightened, firms began advertising new vacancies. But despite the large pool of available unemployed workers, hiring did not rebound. The pattern has continued into 2010: 15m Americans remain unemployed, and the jobless rate continues to hover near 10%.

Long slogs out of recession are not unfamiliar to Americans, who have become used to jobless recoveries. Employment did not regain its previous peak for 23 months after the 1991 recession, or for 39 months after that of 2001. But there are signs that this time the delay is of a different nature. After the 2001 recession, hiring began to rise nine months before the number of new vacancies did. Now vacancies are already rising, even though hiring is not. For one reason or another, available jobs are not being filled.

Why aren’t more people being hired? In the first and second phases of recession, the answer clearly lay with demand. Real output shrank by 3.7%, the deepest decline of any postwar recession (a record shared with the downturn of 1957). Facing a collapse in global trade and consumer demand, firms slashed production and cut their payrolls to match. Employers are still cautious and weak demand will continue to limit new hiring. No one expects, say, a repeat of the blazing recovery of Reagan’s re-election year, when GDP rose by 7.2%. The Federal Reserve forecasts that GDP will grow by a bit more than 3% in 2010 and nearly 4% in 2011. The IMF thinks 3% will be a stretch in each of the next two years.

Nonetheless, GDP has been recovering. Were demand all that mattered, employment would be stronger. But its weakness, taken with the divergence of hiring and vacancies, suggests that other explanations are needed. It looks increasingly likely that America’s labour market has developed structural problems that may explain why it is struggling to respond.

One is that the recession hit certain industries, such as manufacturing and construction, especially hard. Jobs lost there will return slowly if at all, and people turned out of factories and building sites may be poorly suited to openings in growing fields such as health care and education. Critics of this theory (including Christina Romer, head of Mr Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers) point out that the rate at which unemployed workers get new jobs has fallen across all industries. But other measures, such as sectoral differences in stock returns, suggest that the downturn’s impacts were historically uneven. Adjustments across industries will be needed, and skills mismatches will slow them down.

So will geographic factors. Ten percentage points separate the states with the highest and lowest unemployment rates. But the property crash is making it much harder for Americans to move to where the jobs are. A quarter of mortgage borrowers owe more than their houses are worth. Many people are stuck in places with poor employment prospects, unable to leave for cities where their skills may be in demand. Although the economy is starting to create new and often highly remunerative jobs, they are out of reach to those who cannot move.

An unprecedented extension of jobless benefits may also be to blame. Congress has voted several times to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits, and in many states an unemployed worker can receive jobless benefits for nearly two years. This could encourage workers to pass up potential job opportunities. (It could also encourage people to register as unemployed, without affecting underlying labour supply.) Most studies suggest that the extensions can be blamed for an increase in the unemployment rate of about a percentage point, although a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco says the effect is much smaller, just 0.4 percentage points.

Complicating matters is the rapid increase in long-term unemployment (ie, lasting 27 weeks or more). The long-term unemployed take longer to find work, because their skills and job connections erode and employers tend to be sceptical of their abilities and work habits. The authors of a new paper published by the Brookings Institution estimate that the rise in long-term unemployment alone could cause labour-market recovery to take twice as long as after the 1982 recession.

The risk is that hiring will be so slow that long-term unemployment becomes permanent, and the jobless recovery becomes sclerosis. So far America is avoiding this fate. The rate at which people exit unemployment is about four times faster than was typical in continental Europe over the past few decades, according to the Brookings paper. (That said, Europe is probably better than it was at getting people back to work.) But the unemployment rate may still be above “normal” by the middle of this decade.

A lasting blight
The long-term effects of all this are hard to predict, especially when the recession ended so recently. But history provides some guide to the unpleasant shifts that lie ahead for many Americans.

Lots of laid-off workers will never regain their former earning power. A study of those who lost stable jobs in 1981-82 found that their earnings fell at once by 30%; they had made up less than half the gap 15-20 years later. New graduates entering the labour force will earn less than they might have done a few years ago, although the effects will fade during their careers. A recent study by Yale’s Lisa Kahn estimates that each percentage-point increase in the national unemployment rate produces a loss in initial wages of 6-7%. New graduates take less prestigious jobs and stay in them longer, stunting upward mobility.

For those aged 16-24 the effects are even greater. Some have chosen to carry on studying, which should lead to increased productivity and pay. Enrolment rates at high schools and colleges have increased by several percentage points since the recession began. But many other young people have become idle, neither in work nor in school, and can expect low pay when they do find a job. Idleness in this age group has risen most among males, and especially black males—to 24%, from just under 18% before the recession. That this trend has not coincided with an increase in crime has surprised many analysts. Rates of violent and property crimes ticked up in the early 1980s and in 1991, but tumbled in 2008 and 2009. Larry Katz, an economist at Harvard, has mused that video games and online diversions may have absorbed the attention of young, idle people.

Older people have less time to make up for lost earnings. Some have put off retirement plans in order to rebuild lost wealth but half as many again, says a recent estimate, have retired early because job prospects are poor. These people face a longer retirement on reduced means, especially because early drawing of Social Security (ie, state pension) benefits means a lower payout. The shift will place extra strain on public finances, because older people will pay less in taxes and collect more in benefits. By reducing payroll-tax revenues, the recession has hastened the arrival of an annual deficit in Social Security, once forecast for 2016 but now expected this year.

Income inequality is likely to widen. Educated people were less likely to lose their jobs during the recession. For workers without a high-school diploma, the unemployment rate peaked at 15.6%; for those with one, it was more than four percentage points lower. A college degree knocked off another six points. The educated may be favoured by future job growth too. That would place upward pressure on wages that are already above average, while the incomes of less skilled workers stagnate. Richer households will also find it easier to adjust to structural obstacles in the labour market. They can more easily afford to send children to university, absorb property losses or move to another city.

The knock-on effects from these shifts are hard to predict. Research indicates that recessions in early adulthood can shape attitudes toward success and government intervention. If these people vote, they may demand more redistributive government policies. They may also prefer economic nationalism to free trade.

Some may see in this the beginnings of a shift in the American economy towards a pattern more familiar to Europeans. High unemployment, especially of the long-term variety, sets in. That calls forth demands for a more generous social-safety net, which in turn exacerbates the structural flaws in the labour market.

Old-world thinking
It is much too early to reach such a gloomy conclusion. America seems to be in little danger of repeating the mistakes Europe made in the 1970s and 1980s in encouraging early retirement and protecting employment. Its politicians have largely resisted calls to follow Europe’s lead in the latest recession, too. Germany’s Kurzarbeit programme shared declines in labour demand across workers by curtailing hours, for example. That has limited unemployment but may contribute to longer-term problems should recovery require more of a structural adjustment.

Nevertheless, America’s jobs machine is sputtering. The economic engineers who work on it should preserve and if possible enhance labour-market flexibility. Hiring subsidies may help mop up cyclical unemployment. Investments in training and (more likely) broader education could begin to address structural problems. But adjustments to global economic shocks do not happen overnight. What is important is that the American government avoids costly mistakes. In facing the recession it heeded the lessons of the 1930s. In the aftermath it should remember those of the 1970s and 1980s.

ANOTHER PONZI CASE And a Warning for Investors

Department of Justice ^ | 05/03/10 | FBI

Posted on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 9:14:21 AM by Larry381

He was living the high life—taking up residence in a Miami Beach mansion worth more than $5 million, cruising around in a million-dollar yacht and his leased Mercedes-Benz, shelling out more than $400,000 for floor seats at Miami Heat basketball games, and donating thousands of dollars to the athletic program of a local university (the school was so appreciative it named a student athlete lounge after him).

But it all came crashing down on Florida businessman Nevin Shapiro last month, when he was charged with orchestrating a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme involving about 60 victims throughout the United States.

From January 2005 through November 2009, according to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey (where one of his victims resides), Shapiro raised more than $880 million from his investors. These individuals thought they were investing in his wholesale grocery distribution business—Capitol Investments, a Florida corporation with offices in Miami Beach that Shapiro owned and ran as CEO.

In reality, there was no grocery distribution business. Shapiro allegedly used new investor money to fund principal and interest payments to existing investors—a textbook Ponzi scheme—while at the same time, taking tens of millions of dollars for his own use.

How did Shapiro convince his investors to give him their hard-earned money? According to the charges, he and others working for him showed potential investors fake documents that touted the profitability of his business, including:

* Financial statements claiming that the business generated millions of dollars in annual sales; * Shapiro’s personal and business tax returns (also fraudulent); * Phony invoices revealing transactions that Shapiro’s business had supposedly entered into with other businesses; and * Promissory notes reflecting the amount of the victims’ investment, along with a schedule for a payment of interest (at anywhere from 10 to 26 percent on an annual basis) and the return of their principal.

The scheme eventually went the way of most Ponzi schemes—collapsing in on itself when it got too big to maintain financially. The criminal complaint alleges that Shapiro defrauded investors out of at least $80 million.

This particular case was brought in connection with the recently-established Financial Fraud Task Force, led by the Department of Justice, which investigates and prosecutes major financial crimes. And the case was definitely a multi-agency effort—in addition to the FBI, it was worked by the IRS Criminal Investigative Division and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

So how can you avoid being victimized by a Ponzi scheme? A few tips:

* Be careful of any investment opportunity that makes exaggerated earnings claims.

* Exercise due diligence in selecting investments and the people with whom you invest—in other words, do your homework!

* Consult an unbiased third party, like an unconnected broker or licensed financial advisor, before investing.

Apollo 13 controller Gene Kranz: President's space path 'dangerous'

By Lee Roop, The Huntsville Times
May 03, 2010, 7:30AM

HUNTSVILLE, AL - Gene Kranz, the legendary NASA flight director who controlled the first flights to the moon and helped save Apollo 13, says President Barack Obama "has put our nation on a dangerous path" with his proposed new space program.

"My concern is this might possibly be the epitaph for the manned space program for the next decade," Kranz said Thursday night at an international conference of space mission controllers here.

The president wants to scrap most of the Constellation rocket program currently under way. It employs 2,200 NASA and contractor employees here.

Instead, Obama wants to fund commercial rocket companies to carry astronauts to and from the space station while NASA focuses on the problems and requirements of deep-space travel.

In an interview on the balcony of the U.S Space & Rocket Center near a life-sized model of the Saturn V rockets he launched four times, Kranz said he's worried about losing unique NASA expertise.

"I believe that our nation cannot afford this kind of an impact," the 76-year-old Kranz said. "We have the most talented team of people - scientists, engineers, mathematicians, technicians.

"I was there when we started and had to build this kind of a team," Kranz said. "It took three to five years to get the people in place and get them trained, and we had a very healthy aircraft industry at that time that we could get people from.

"Once you send this team away," Kranz said, "I think they have totally underestimated the difficulty they're going to have getting a team capable of designing, building and testing a spacecraft."

Kranz said he's also worried because the next space goal isn't clear.

"In order to build a program, you have to have an objective or set of objectives," Kranz said. "This has to be translated into conceptual missions, what we call flight profiles. The flight profiles are then used to establish the type of spacecraft, the type of mission you're going to fly, the type of launch vehicle you're going to use.

"There are no shortcuts in this business," he said.

"The president has put our nation on a dangerous path in space," Kranz concluded. "I don't know where he's going to find the people; I don't know how we're going to inspire the young people."

Kranz, who was mobbed by the young controllers "like a rock star," in one NASA staffer's words, praised Huntsville's role in the space program.

"I don't think of it as Marshall (Space Flight Center)," Kranz said. "I think of it as Huntsville. Huntsville has always provided marvelous space systems."

The Huntsville-designed Saturn V "was a darn well-designed spacecraft," Kranz said. "I wish we had it today."

enuffsenuff
Posted by enuffsenuff
May 03, 2010, 7:46AM

A dinosaur clinging to a past. Go enjoy your retirement grandpa and let the kids run things now.
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sixpetdad
Posted by sixpetdad
May 03, 2010, 9:02AM

I am optimistic about the new direction for manned spaceflight, but at the same time I understand the reservations of those who are skeptical. I do feel they are too wedded to what has worked in the past.

Nevertheless, don't disrespect Gene Kranz. Such comments are uncalled for. He brought Apollo 13 home practically through the force of his own willpower. He is a living American hero and whether you agree with his views or not, he deserves respect. Either give him that respect, or be silent and leave him alone.
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HeadCheeze
Posted by HeadCheeze
May 03, 2010, 9:32AM

"Let the kids run things"? That's part of the problem. More like the patients running the aylum, if you ask me. If more of your ideologue heroes in Washington had his American values, attitude and good ol' determination, I guarantee we would be in far better shape than we are now.

The super sniper: Hero picks off two Taliban from a mile and a half away Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270414/British-sniper-se

By Ian Drury
Last updated at 9:02 PM on 2nd May 2010

* Comments (45)
* Add to My Stories


Hero: Craig Harrison saved his Army colleagues by killing two Taliban machinegunners from more than 1.5 miles away

An army sniper has earned a place in military history by killing two Taliban machine gunners from more than a mile and a half away.

Craig Harrison's record breaking shots felled the insurgents with consecutive bullets - even though they were 3,200ft beyond the official range of his rifle.

The Household Cavalry veteran's kills from a distance of 8,120ft beat the previous record by 150ft.

He was using the British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army's most powerful sniper weapon.

He was so far away that the 8.59mm-calibre bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target. Scores of Taliban gunmen h-ve fallen to the gun which has been nicknamed The Silent Assassin.

It is only designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft - just less than a mile - and capable of only ' harassing fire' beyond that range.

But Corporal Harrison took his record-breaking shots after his commander and Afghan soldiers were attacked during a patrol in Helmand in November last year.

His vehicle was further back on a ridge, with his sights trained on a Taliban compound. He said: 'We saw two insurgents running through its courtyard. They came forward carrying a machine gun and opened fire on the commander's wagon.

'Conditions were perfect, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility.


More...

* British soldier dies while protecting comrades in Afghanistan

'The first round hit a machine gunner in the stomach. He went straight down and didn't move. The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and my second shot hit him in the side.'

The previous sniper record, 7,972ft, was held by a Canadian soldier.

Corporal Harrison, a married father-of-one from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, killed 12 more rebels and wounded seven others. During an extraordinary six-month tour of duty he also survived a bullet that went though his helmet and a roadside bomb.

The blast broke both his arms but he was eventually able to return to duty, his accuracy unaffected.
sniper graphic



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Great guy,

- Terry, leicester, 02/5/2010 18:22
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Having qualified several years ago as a Police sniper I really congratulate this soldier on his accuracy. The most we were trained at was 1000 yds and to get a body hit at that range was considered pretty exceptional although we used the 7.62mm ammunition. His rifle must have been zeroed in perfectly as the 'cold shot' ie the first out of the barrel is the one that counts. To hit 2 more targets after that makes it even more incredible. Well done

- Les, NW England, 02/5/2010 18:22
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I remember the famous reply that a British sniper made to an obviously disapproving Western TV interviewer in Afghanistan - " and what do you feel when you shoot dead another human being?'. ' a slight recoil in my shoulder" he calmly replied. A job very well done Cpl Harrison.

- Peter, Devon, 02/5/2010 18:22

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270414/British-sniper-sets-new-sharpshooting-record-1-54-mile-double-Taliban-kill.html#ixzz0mq9TujY3

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