BOULDER, Colo. -- A 22-year-old man was killed early Tuesday morning when he swung from a large crane and hit a building. According to University of Colorado police, the accident happened about 3:13 a.m. in the area of 18th Street and Colorado Avenue. Police said the victim, Ryan Young, and another man climbed a construction crane at the CU-Boulder ATLAS Building site and attached climbing ropes to it, then swung from the giant machine.
"Weeeee! Watch me do this!"
Young was killed when he hit the side of the CU power plant building on 18th Street.
"Weeeee...SPLAT!"
Police said a wind gust might have contributed to the accident. The second man climbed down from the crane and cut his friend loose.
Two people who happened to be in the area saw the accident and called police. They say that Young and his friend appeared to be technical climbers who knew what they were doing.
I think the evidence refutes that
"They had all the gear," said witness Logan Nahmias.
Just not the brains
He was taking a late study break with a friend when they saw that two men had climbed more than 10 stories on the crane. "So we heard this loud noise like something bouncing off metal," said Nahmias. "Our first instinct was just to look over there, so we did and there was this black silhouette," he said. "It was a silhouette of this guy hanging by a climbing harness. Our first instinct was to get him down, and my buddy was already on the phone to 911."
Nahmias performed CPR but it was too late. Young was taken to Boulder Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
"He's dead, Jim"
"His friend was in a complete state of shock. You can tell this guy was not happy about what was going on," Nahmias said. "It was supposed to be just an innocent, you know, thrill-seeking thing ... it's nuts but if you know what you're doing, it's a pretty simple process. They just lower straight down. So I guess the guy, he just probably rigged his gear wrong. "
Another Darwin nomineee
Posted by: Steve ||
12/08/2005 10:59 ||
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#1
FWIW, it was also about 5 below zero at the time.
#4
"So we heard this loud noise like something bouncing off metal," said Nahmias. "Our first instinct was just to look over there, so we did and there was this black silhouette,"
I've seen this in cartoons.
From now on, it's gonna make me laugh even harder.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/08/2005 12:29 Comments ||
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#5
Got the Warner Bros. frying pan *bonk* sound in my head now.
#8
Another story said that cranes like this aren't locked into position, and they swing like a weathervane. Dumbass gets on the side, starts swinging, the crane moves and splats him against the building.
Joke's on the construction company, though - they'll get sued by his relatives for negligence because they didn't put electric fences and razor wire around the crane.
AMBAE ISLAND, Vanuatu (AP) - An erupting volcano on this remote South Pacific island burst into spectacular life Thursday - shooting steam and toxic gases 9,845 feet into the sky. Huge columns of dense white steam and muddy ash spewed above Ambae Island to reach the greatest height seen since the Mt. Manaro volcano began erupting Nov. 27.
Thousands of villagers have been evacuated from the path of a possible lahar, or mud flow, that vulcanologists fear could burst over the crater lip if the eruption continues or intensifies, sweeping away the flimsy homes in its path. A ``red zone'' has been declared around the volcano and several ships were ready to evacuate islanders if the situation worsens dramatically. New Zealand vulcanologist Brad Scott, who is on Ambae monitoring the eruption, said ``it remains a low-level eruption, but it could go either way - worsen or slowly subside.''
Thanks, Brad
The plumes of steam and gases were bursting from a huge vent in the middle of a muddy gray-brown Lake Vui in the crater - which before the eruptions began last month was a picturesque calm aqua blue. Pilot Charles Nelson of local charter company Flight Club Vila said the lake ``is looking like a huge grubby bowl of hot kava,'' referring to a murky local drink made of the pounded roots of a local pepper plant mixed with water. Nelson was speaking after flying close to the erupting volcano Thursday morning.
Dead trees ring the edge of the crater, while trees in dense jungle nearby were covered in ash that has been belching from the volcano.
The huge smoke, ash and gas plume cast a shadow over now deserted villages clinging to the volcano's flank.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/08/2005 10:02 ||
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A German man who fell asleep in a rubbish container after a bout of heavy drinking had a lucky escape after he was tipped into the hydraulic press of a garbage truck, police said on Wednesday.
The 47-year-old was only saved from being crushed when the truck's driver stopped to urinate before continuing his round. He quickly switched off the press after he heard swearing coming from the truck's interior.
"The man admitted drinking a lot of booze the previous night and climbing into the container to seek refuge from the rain where he passed out," the police said in a statement. The man, from Fischbachtal in southwestern Germany, suffered only a minor head injury and mild shock.
THE death knell sounded for one of the Soviet Unionâs most enduring symbols yesterday when the makers of the majestic but chronically unreliable Volga car announced that it is to be discontinued from 2007.
The Volga went on the market in 1956, in an effort to prove that the Soviets could make cars as big and luxurious as the Americansâ models. It remained a status symbol for millions of Soviet citizens until the collapse of Communism. The Volga was the choice of mid-level party officials; the top brass cruised around in the Chaika (Seagull) limousine. Some owners even called the Volga "Russiaâs Mercedes".
Volgas and Ladas still dominate the roads in the former Soviet Union. But they face competition from cheaper, more reliable foreign cars, especially from Japan, South Korea and China, as Russia prepares to join the World Trade Organisation.
Privatised in 1994, the Gorky Automobile Factory (GAZ), which also produces vans and lorries, sold only 50,000 Volgas last year, with prices starting at $7,000 (£4,000). Ford, by comparison, expects to sell 60,000 of its Focus model in Russia next year for about $10,000 each. The Gorky Automobile Factory was founded on the orders of Joseph Stalin in 1930 with the help of the Ford Motor Company. Its first passenger car, the GAZ-A of 1932, was based on the Ford A. By the mid 1930s the engineers had abandoned the American prototype and begun producing their own models, which soon began to compete with their Western rivals.
GAZâs crowning achievement was the GAZ-21 Volga, which could reach 60mph (96 km/h) in 34 seconds and had a top speed of 80mph. It was upgraded several times but the basic design stayed the same.
#3
My sweetie says that one of his buddies got his Volga up to 180km/hr on the freeway, so they do go faster than what the article states. It just took a long time to get there compared to a Western car.
He also said the power steering, while it lasted, would make a hissing noise like a snake whenever you made a turn.
Chop it, give it a candy-apple or metal flake finish, and you could have a pretty funky cruiser...
#9
Read the last more carefully. The GAZ-21, which had the "performance" numbers mentioned, was upgraded many times. So, you might be able to do 0-60 in under 30 seconds now. You could probably stay up with a Chevette diesel.
THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction. They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the countryâs food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place.
Fun jellyfish fact from the article--jellyfish travel in smacks.
#6
Terrifying until they discover that they can be eaten
Right. They already eat one of the most poisonous fish in the world as a delicacy. All they need is some marketing and chefs to slice them up into artistic pieces.
MALE animals can produce a lot of sperm or grow big brains but cannot do both, according to a study that may confirm the suspicions of many women. The study of 334 bat species suggests that energy-hungry brains can evolve only at the expense of other tissues.
Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, Scott Pitnick, of Syracuse University, New York, reported that species with promiscuous females had evolved extra large testicles but smaller brains. "The general rule that is emerging is that sperm production can be incredibly costly," said Dr Pitnick, who first found the relationship in insects. Male fruit flies, for example, can make sperm 7.5 centimetres long.
"This led me to examine bats, as sperm competition is rife, and so testes can be ridiculously large," he said.
If only we could think with them ...
heh. some do
."Brains are metabolically expensive organs to develop and maintain, so looking for a trade-off there seemed obvious."
The most interesting implications of the study are for the co-ordinated evolution of brains, behaviour and extravagant sexually selected traits: ornaments such as the peacock's tail and armaments such as antlers. Dr Pitnick said: "The road to sexual success can lie in being clever, in being a dull yet well-armed brute that can fight for paternity, in being spectacularly ornamented, or in providing a rich cocktail of seminal fluids and costly sperm."
Dr Pitnick carried out the study with Kate Jones, of the London Zoological Society, and Jerry Wilkinson, of the University of Maryland
You know, the cheerleader types in college snickered at women who dated or married the engineers, science majors etc. But a lot of us are still quite happily married to those guys 20, 30 yrs later. A nice balance of sex and smarts -> a good life together. Meanwhile the head cheerleader from my class at school is on her 3rd divorce, poor thing -- and age hasn't been kind to her either. She should'a gotten to know a few of the guys who have it all, in the right proportions ...
Posted by: john ||
12/08/2005 00:00 ||
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One day God came to Adam to pass on some news. "I've got some good news and some bad news", God said.
Adam looked at God and said, "Well, give me the good news first."
Smiling, God explained, "I've got two new organs for you. One is called a brain. It will allow you to be very intelligent, create new things, and have intelligent conversations with Eve. The other organ I have for you is called a penis. It will allow you to reproduce your now intelligent life form and populate this planet."
Adam, very excited, exclaimed, "These are great gifts you have given to me. What could possibly be bad news after such great tidings?"
God looked upon Adam and said with great sorrow, "The bad news is that when I created you, I only gave you enough blood to operate one of these organs at a time."
/ancient joke
#2
God looked upon Adam and said with great sorrow, "The bad news is that when I created you, I only gave you enough blood to operate one of these organs at a time."
#4
Mmm! The important relationship is with female promicuity and not brain size. If you take Humans, gorillas and chimpanzees, the testicle size relative to body mass is Chimpanzees largest, humans second and Gorillas smallest, which is the order of how promiscuous the females are.
#14
All things in moderation, including moderation.
Re: male fruitfly sperm are 7.5 cm long. Holy Smoke! Is Mother Nature creating a vehicle for reproduction or a plumber's snake for cleaning out a stuck trap?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/08/2005 21:37 Comments ||
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The authorities in the Angolan capital, Luanda, recently destroyed more than 600 homes, housing activists say. Many families are reported still to be living in the open in the Cambamba neighbourhood where they were evicted. When the demolitions began two weeks ago, police detained 13 protesters for 24 hours and are investigating charges. Luis Araujo of the housing rights group SOS Habitat said the demolitions had begun early in the morning of 24 November and were still continuing.
Sounds just like what's happening in Zimbabwe
On 30 November, police destroyed shelters which the residents had built using tin sheeting and other remnants of their homes. So far 628 houses, each housing an average of seven people, have been demolished, according to SOS Habitat.
Mr Araujo told the BBC News website the evictions were illegal. "The state protects land rights - there can be expropriations in the public interest, but only using the proper measures," he said. He said the only prior notice had been given by the head of the Nova Vida housing project speaking on state television. It is not clear who the beneficiaries of the Nova Vida ("New Life" project will be.
But I'll wager payoffs to government officials are involved
Mr Araujo - who was among those detained for protesting on 24 November - said the case against him and his colleagues had been referred to the Provincial Criminal Investigation Directorate, but he did not know what the charge against him was. In Angola's biggest single demolition campaign, the authorities destroyed about 10,000 residences in the inner-city neighbourhood of Boavista in 2001.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/08/2005 08:44 ||
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#1
An Angolan expansion of Bad Bob's "Operation Murambatsvina" over in Zim. Kind of an Kelo v. New London "eminent domain" on steroids. Isn't progress wonderful?
#4
I suspect a lot of countries around the world are contemplating similar measures. They have just become sick of enormous shack ghettos in their major cities. Some of these slums are immense--around Mexico City are almost 2 million people living in what amounts to a garbage dump that circles the city.
Rio also has an enormous ghetto city, as do lots of other places. Bob has finally shown them the way: just kick them out into the countryside and let them fend for themselves.
Think of it as "third and fourth world welfare reform".
People repeatedly terrorised by intruders could have "safe rooms" fitted in their homes at taxpayers' expense in an overhaul of the help given to the victims of crime.
At least 20,000 people a year will lose cash payouts and instead be offered practical assistance to recover from the experience. Victims of violent attacks could be offered cosmetic surgery, dental treatment or therapy, including counselling for post-traumatic stress, or issued with personal attack alarms. or a GLOCK Model 22C if now residing in the States.
Householders who are burgled could be given help in fitting alarms and more robust locks. In the most serious cases, "safe rooms" with reinforced walls and ultra-secure locks could be installed in victims' homes. Fiona Mactaggart, the Home Office minister, said the rooms could be built if "someone was being a repeat victim of violent crime".
Under the Home Office proposals, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority would be reformed to ensure more of its £200m annual budget was targeted on the most seriously injured. The current £500,000 cap on compensation, heavily criticised in the wake of the London bombings in July which killed 52 commuters, will be swept away. But the new higher payments are unlikely to be introduced until 2007 - and will not be paid retroactively.
Ms Mactaggart said more than half of the 40,000 people who currently get compensation cheques from the scheme each year will in future be given practical help. With only half of compensation orders handed out by the courts being paid, she said ministers were determined to make more criminals pay out to their victims. She said: "We need to ensure that victims receive the support that they need when they need it."
It was also taking too long to get the money to victims, with average pay-out times being 39 weeks, she added.
The Home Office is also considering ending payments to people injured by violent crime at work, and to police and other public servants injured on duty. "We, as a government, are prepared to consider the virtually unheard of possibility of public sector employers taking the responsibility of compensating their employees," said a Home Office consultation paper published yesterday.
Dame Helen Reeves, the chief executive of Victim Support, said: "We believe that even a small payment of state compensation is an important gesture of recognition and solidarity for the distress and suffering caused by a violent crime. An even larger and more effective "gesture" would be apprehending and hanging the perpetrator!
"We welcome the wish to speed up and simplify the compensation system, but in an ideal world there would be well-resourced services alongside an effective and equally well-resourced compensation system." ....run by a well-bureaucratized and ineffecient governmental scheme.
Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The Government talks a lot about placing victims at the heart of our justice system. But these reforms could mean many victims receive no compensation at all.
"It is to be welcomed that the upper limit on awards for criminal injuries is to be removed in order that barristers can run wild as in the colonies.. But it is still vital that victims of less serious crimes receive compensation and proper recognition."
People repeatedly terrorised by intruders could have "safe rooms" fitted in their homes at taxpayers' expense in an overhaul of the help given to the victims of crime. At least 20,000 people a year will lose cash payouts and instead be offered practical assistance to recover from the experience. Victims of violent attacks could be offered cosmetic surgery, dental treatment or therapy, including counselling for post-traumatic stress, or issued with personal attack alarms.
Householders who are burgled could be given help in fitting alarms and more robust locks, higher garden walls with concertina wire. In the most serious cases, "safe rooms" with reinforced walls and ultra-secure locks could be installed in victims' homes. Fiona Mactaggart, the Home Office minister, said the rooms could be built if "someone was being a repeat victim of violent crime". Lovely, a private bedroom for an abusive spouse constructed at government expense, how novel.
Dame Helen Reeves, the chief executive of Victim Support, said: "We believe that even a small payment of state compensation is an important gesture of recognition and solidarity for the distress and suffering caused by a violent crime.
"We welcome the wish to expand and make even more orneous speed up and simplify the compensation system, but in an ideal world there would be well-resourced services alongside an effective and equally well-resourced compensation system."
Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The Government talks a lot about placing victims at the heart of our justice system. But these reforms could mean many victims receive no compensation at all.
"It is to be welcomed that the upper limit on awards for criminal injuries is to be removed. But it is still vital that victims of less serious crimes receive compensation and proper recognition." What a bunch of liberal rubbish!
#1
I keep in mind a fascinating psychological study done by the FBI at least 10 years ago. Interviews with serial killers in how they chose their victims found out that in a good number of the cases, the victims actually sought out their killer.
One killer, who had himself noticed the phenomena, and was puzzled by it, said that he would have arrived in a new city, where he had never been before. He was hungry and tired and just wanted to get a bite to eat and find a motel to sleep in.
"But somebody I had never seen before would see me, and come running across four busy lanes of traffic to get in my face. He or she would offer to buy me a cup of coffee or dinner or would want to party with me. They wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. I had no idea who this person was, and just wanted to be left alone, but they would keep nattering away at me."
He concluded by saying that, "It was a positive relief to kill them."
As part of the study, the FBI also studied violent rape, and found out that statistically, women who had been sexually molested or assaulted when they were young had a 220% higher likelyhood of being sexually attacked again when they are adults.
#2
Hey what a novel way to fight crime! Lock up the victims!!
Now exactly how big and well equipped are these "safe" rooms? How often and for how long are the potential victims supposed to be in residence in their own personal jail cell? Or are they supposed to ask the intruder to wait while they go lock themselves away?
This is really disgusting. If it wasn't real I'd expect some one of ripping off Monty Python....Run away, Run away!!
Now that Canada is banning all hand guns for the law abiding, how long before this is there approach to crime prevention?
Glock, Sig, S&W, CZ, Browning, Ruger, etc. so many choices, so much cheaper, so much more liberty.
#3
I wonder if this was dreamed up by the same genius who invented the barbed condom a few days ago. A pissed off burglar will simply light a fire and leave.
#4
He or she would offer to buy me a cup of coffee or dinner or would want to party with me. They wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.
Just proving that anyone who gives a cheery hello to a stranger deserves to die. And sounds like those rape victims really did deserve it, right moose?
One of the most decorated British fighter pilots of the Second World War has sold his medals, diaries and other memorabilia partly to pay for a hip replacement operation for his wife who faced at least a six-month wait on the National Health Service.
Sqn Ldr Neville Duke, 83, the Royal Air Force's top-scoring ace in the Mediterranean theatre who set a world air speed record of 728 mph in 1953, put the collection up for auction rather than subject his wife Gwen to months of pain and discomfort while she waited for an operation...
#3
What, the Queen couldn't kick down with some loot to repay a debt of honor to one of Britain's bravest warriors? The royals are increasingly decorative. The government should have arranged for the national museum to acquire Duke's journals and medals as part of the nation's collection of military honors.
Mexico's electoral institute will use a 21-hour show on U.S. television on Wednesday to convince more Mexicans living north of the border to vote in next year's presidential election. The television show will be broadcast by Spanish-language network Univision in 24 U.S. cities, including New York; Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. During the show Mexican electoral officials will answer questions phoned in by viewers on how to vote from outside Mexico.
"And don't forget to send those remittances!"
In June, Mexico's Congress voted to allow mail-in ballots from outside Mexico, something migrant groups had demanded for years. The July election will be the first time Mexicans living abroad will be allowed to cast absentee ballots, but as of November 22, only a little over 2,000 of 11 million Mexicans living outside their country had applied to mail in their vote. Potential absentee ballot voters have until January 15 to mail in registration forms, which can be found on the electoral institute's Web site and at Mexican consulates in the United States and other countries.
Government officials estimate that 98 percent of the 11 million Mexicans living abroad reside in the United States. About 4 million of those are believed to be registered voters. Absentee ballots will be used only for the presidential election.
#1
Time to run public service announcements that mail lacking return addresses will not be processed. Random sampling will be conducted to verify mailer's address. Additional sampling of mail bearing official foreign addresses will be checked against INS records. :)
#3
Government officials estimate that 98 percent of the 11 million Mexicans living abroad reside in the United States. About 4 million of those are believed to be registered voters.
The question is, how many of those 10.78 million Mexicans are illegal immigrants?
Italians would have to pay a 20 percent tax on pornography according to a budget amendment that cleared a first legislative hurdle, news reports said Thursday. The proposed tax was approved at committee level and is expected to go before the Chamber of Deputies, Italy's lower parliamentary house, early next week.
The tax is expected to raise about euro220 million (US$260 million) to help reduce the national deficit and to help fund government tax breaks to families.
"I believe the porn tax is important not for moralistic reasons, which don't concern me, but because I think that at a time of difficult economic conditions for families it is right to tax products that are not essential," lawmaker Daniela Santache was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.
Actually, I believe him. These kind of people simply want more taxes. They'd probably legalize murder if they could earn enough in taxes.
A Croatian general charged with war crimes has been held in Spain, the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor has said. Ante Gotovina was one of the most wanted men from the 1990s Balkan wars. He is accused of war crimes against Serb civilians during a Croatian offensive to expel Serb forces from the country in 1995. Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, had repeatedly sought Gen Gotovina's detention.
Gen Gotovina was arrested on Wednesday night in the Canary Islands, Ms Del Ponte said, and was due to be transferred to The Hague. Spanish officials indicated that he could appear at an extradition hearing in Madrid as early as Thursday. He was held in a hotel in the Tenerife resort of Playa de las Americas after being followed for several days, the Spanish news agency EFE reported. Speaking in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, Ms Del Ponte said she hoped Gen Gotovina's detention would speed up efforts to arrest Bosnian Serb fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
Throughout the tribunal's efforts to track him down, Gen Gotovina has maintained support from a wide section of the Croatian public, some of whom regard him as a national hero. Gen Gotovina, 50, was indicted for crimes against humanity by the war crimes tribunal in 2001. He is alleged to have failed to prevent the murder of 150 Serbs killed by shooting, stabbing or burning during Operation Storm, the August 1995 push against Serb forces in Croatia's Krajina region. The indictment also accuses him of co-ordinating a campaign of plunder and looting throughout operations in ethnically Serb areas of the region.
He was sent into early retirement in 2000 when Croatia promised to investigate allegations of war crimes among its military during the 1990s. Croatia has claimed that he subsequently fled the country. He vowed never to turn himself in.
Trial should start in, what, ten years?
No way; Carla del Ponte will still be busy with Slobo's trial.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/08/2005 08:52 ||
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JOHANNESBURG, Dec 8 (Reuters) - A conservation group said on Thursday that there was little evidence to back the view that migrating wildfowl were spreading bird flu and that eastern Europe's outbreak probably stemmed from poultry imports. "As the year draws to a close, millions of wild birds have flown to their wintering sites across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas without the widely predicted outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu associated with their migration routes," BirdLife International said in a statement. "The most obvious explanation is that migrating wild birds are not spreading the disease," said Dr Michael Rands, Director and Chief Executive of BirdLife.
The bird flu virus has killed nearly 70 people in four Asian countries since 2003 leading to mass culls of birds. Officials say the H5N1 virus could spread to new countries through migratory birds from China, Mongolia, Vietnam and Russia -- which have reported major outbreaks.
The avian flu has been discovered in Romania and Ukraine and bird tissue samples were sent to Britain and elsewhere to determine whether an outbreaks there is H5N1.
But BirdLife said no "smoking gun" had been detected among wild birds in the region. "The limited outbreaks in eastern Europe are on southerly migration routes but are more likely to be caused by other vectors such as the import of poultry or poultry products. The hypothesis that wild birds are to blame is simply far from proven," said Rands. "Wild birds occasionally come into contact with infected poultry and die: they are the victims not vectors of H5N1 bird flu," he said.
Hummm, do I detect an agenda in that statement?
BirdLife said banning the movement of poultry and related products from infected areas and restricting the global trade in captive birds were the best prevention methods.
OK, that sounds reasonable
"Migratory wild birds were blamed for spreading bird flu west from Asia, yet there's been no spread back eastwards, nor to South Asia and Africa this autumn," BirdLife said. The H5N1 strain has not been detected in Africa yet but experts say uncovering it in the region's rural areas will be difficult because of poor logistics and already high mortality rates among the continent's backyard chickens.
PARIS, Dec. 7 - They could not agree on a single constitution, and now it looks like Europeans cannot agree on the best way to identify themselves on the Internet.
"I like '.eu'!"
"Sounds too much like 'eeee-yew'!"
"Does not!"
"Does, too!"
For the first time, residents of the 25-nation European Union could today register Internet addresses ending in ".eu."
"I think we should use '.bob'. It's friendlier!"
"I think all our web pages should be required to be in Flemish!"
The move, which lifts .eu to the same prominence as the Web site suffixes .com, .org and .net, is intended to allow the expression of a single European identity in cyberspace. But the arrival of dot-eu is also dividing the Union. Some of those who run the domain names for individual European Union countries are preparing a campaign to promote their own national addresses, arguing that .fr for France or .it for Italy conveys important cultural information.
"You can't have '.it' web pages written in Flemish!"
"We can if we issue a directive!"
"We'll need a conference for that..."
"I'll call the caterer!"
"Sounds too much like 'eeeee-yew' to me. And I think all web pages should be written in Basque!"
The company overseeing the .eu domain name, a Brussels-based nonprofit called EURid,
Editors' note: We did not make that up.
dismissed the idea that there could be any rivalry with national domain names. "We have no intention of being competitive," said Kurt Vincent, spokesman for EURid.
"We're not even quite sure what 'competitive' means!"
The idea for .eu originated with the European Commission in 2000, back when the euro was about to be adopted by many members of the European Union and plans for adding 10 countries to the Union were speeding along. Cross-border commerce was aggressively pushed by many in the business world, along with the euro, and a dot-eu address was seen by some as helping ease Union-wide trade.
"But they have to be in Flemish. And use frames."
"I think they should be designed for 640x480, too."
"Can we have popups?"
"They'll have to be mandatary."
But there is already widespread use of so-called country-code domain names, like .de for Germany, which are also often considered sovereign property and allotted by a government arm. The .de suffix for Germany, for example, accounts for 11 percent of all registered domains, while .uk accounts for another 5 percent. In response to the European Union Internet address, Spain and up to five other national domain registries in Europe plan a marketing push in the coming weeks, according to Giovanni Seppia, general manager of Centr, a Brussels organization that represents country-level registrars. Seppia said he could not provide details, leaving that up to the national registries. But, he said, "looking at the success of such campaigns in Spain and Mexico, I think they will have quick growth and challenge the .eu."
"See what I mean? Should have gone with '.bob'."
"We can't use that. Microsoft owns it."
"We could take them to court again."
Already, first-day sales through 4 p.m. today totaled nearly 100,000, with the vast majority coming from companies claiming national trademarks, Mr. Vincent of EURid said.
There goes my chance at owning "feta.eu", I guess. I'll have to stick with liederkranz.de.
The first three domain names, which were applied for within two seconds of the site's opening, were tickets.eu, job.eu and hotels.eu. The most requested domain names, on the other hand, were sex.eu, hotel.eu, travel.eu and jobs.eu. Names with multiple requests - there are 204 claimants to the domain sex.eu - will be examined by the company to determine who has the strongest case.
Right. They'll examine the screen shots over lunch.
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/08/2005 00:05 ||
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#1
dominance domain name
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/08/2005 0:07 Comments ||
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Posted by: Steve White ||
12/08/2005 1:07 Comments ||
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#6
From what I hear, Microsoft's Bob is available, isn't doing anything, never amounted to anything much, and was a cluster-farg from the get-go. He's perfect for the EU.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/08/2005 1:08 Comments ||
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#7
I think .pu would be far better. They could even claim it's for Perfect Union instead of "We're stinky."
#8
From what I hear, Microsoft's Bob is available, isn't doing anything, never amounted to anything much, and was a cluster-farg from the get-go. He's perfect for the EU.
ISLAMABAD - More than 400,000 houses need to be built in northern Pakistan for those left homeless by Octoberâs catastrophic earthquake, the official responsible for quake reconstruction said on Wednesday. Lieutenant-General Muhammad Zubair, head of the governmentâs Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority, said the government plans to provide 175,000 rupees ($2,930) to help replace each house destroyed or damaged. âWe are supposed to construct 400,153 houses,â he told Reuters in an interview.
Just click your heels three times, general ...
âIf you construct a two-bedroom house with a kitchen, based on local materials and seismic-resistant design, this...can be made with this money.â
He said reconstruction work was expected to begin in April, once the government had analysed seismic reports from China and Turkey to determine which areas were safest to build in.
How about where there's no rubble?
Zubair expressed optimism that the international community would honour its promises to help with reconstruction. Zubair said the government would provide grants, but it was up to the people to build their houses in line with officially approved designs. âIt will be owner-driven but controlled construction,â he said.
Zubair said the government would encourage people to use wood, mild steel and corrugated iron sheets that could resist earthquakes. He said it would discourage them from using concrete for roofs, to avoid casualties in future quakes. Many concrete-roofed buildings, including most government offices and schools, collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude quake, burying thousands of people under rubble.
To assist reconstruction, Zubair said the government had allowed the import of corrugated iron sheets and mild steel from neighbour and rival India, where around 1,300 people were killed in the quake. âWe should not make it an ego point because we have to facilitate our poor people. If we start looking at our ego, then we are damaging our own people,â he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/08/2005 00:00 ||
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âIf you construct a two-bedroom house with a kitchen, based on local materials and seismic-resistant design, this...can be made with this money.â
Thousands of Chinese tourists are exploiting their new freedom to make pilgrimages to the German birthplace of Karl Marx - and squeeze in some shopping as well. This year more than 30,000 people from across China will have visited Trier, near the border with Luxembourg - an invasion jokingly attributed to the "Marx Factor".
The top priority for the travellers is to be snapped on their digital cameras in front of the baroque villa where the founding father of communism was born in 1818. They buy plaster busts of Marx and Marx wine from the vineyard bought by his father, Heinrich, as an investment to support him in his old age. However, pralines imprinted with Marx's bearded face do not attract many buyers.
"They say they consider it too disrespectful to eat him," a museum guide said.
The Chinese, who have been allowed to travel to Germany freely only in the past two years, are now the second biggest group of visitors after the Dutch. After a visit to the museum, most go shopping, spending an average of £135 a day on items such as non-stick saucepans, steel cutlery, chocolate, designer suits and Swiss army knives.
Trier, which is Germany's oldest city and was the capital of the western part of the Roman empire, has made great efforts to accommodate its new guests. But Beatrix Bouvier, of the Friedrich Ebert foundation, which manages the museum, said: "There is widespread, albeit unspoken, frustration about the fact that they tend to bring their own food.
"Many of those from the countryside who are used to stand-up latrines have no idea how to use our lavatories. Some hotels have despaired of the results but they dare not turn away the custom."
The museum curators say the Chinese visitors are often taken aback by the warts-and-all portrayal of Marx. Last week a group of Beijing aerospace engineers giggled on being told that he had a mistress and an illegitimate child called Freddy.
"I did not know that," said Liu Liyong, 33. "But it makes him seem more human and fallible and I like that. Like the fact that he was born in this posh house, despite being a representative of the poor worker."
Sun Ting Ting, a tour guide, was saddened to learn from one display that two of Marx's daughters committed suicide.
"To think they were disillusioned because their father's dreams did not work out the way they had hoped," she mused. "And he really wasn't liked in his homeland, was he? But then neither was Jesus."
Outside the museum Miss Ting Ting waited impatiently for her group of visitors. "If you don't hurry, the shops will be closed," she said. She added: "I think Marx might have found it difficult to understand this but shopping is our new hobby." Welcome to Wackyland--"It Can Happen Here"
The authorities in Iran are facing bitter criticism over Tuesday's crash of an ageing military transport plane that killed about 110 people. Reports say the plane had experienced technical problems all morning, causing the take-off to be delayed for hours. The BBC's correspondent in Tehran, Frances Harrison, says some unconfirmed reports claim the pilot himself was unhappy about the condition of the plane and the same plane nearly crashed in the desert a week ago. Its engines had to be switched on and off five times before it could take off on its final flight, she says.
On Wednesday, Tehran's prosecutor said that a court nearby the airport would investigate the crash. But the investigation will not be aided by a black box - the data collection devices usually mounted in the tail of an aircraft. The deputy commander of the Iranian army, Brig Gen Mohammad Hasan Nami, said Iranian military aircraft were not equipped with the devices. Brig Gen Nami also rejected accusations that the plane was allowed to take off in spite of technical problems.
The C-130 came down in a densely-populated residential district of south-west Tehran and ploughed into a 10-storey apartment block, setting it on fire. Among those killed were 68 journalists being flown to the southern city of Bandar Abbas to report on military exercises. The Iranian culture minister, Mohammad Hoseyn Saffar-Harandi, called the crash a "disaster for the journalistic community" and declared a day of mourning.
Iran's media has been scathing about the lack of adequate safety checks said to be a widespread issue in Iran. A Hamshahri editorial demanded that the authorities explain why a plane said to have technical problems was authorised to take off. It also pointed out that the "aeroplane had requested an emergency landing twice yesterday and the control tower didn't issue landing permission". In the reformist Sharq newspaper, Rasul Khadem, a member of Tehran City Council, attacked the military for taking unnecessary risks.
Army officials have strongly denied any negligence and because this was a military flight, many people are wary about asking tough questions about their safety procedures.
The Iranian air force is believed to have about 15 US-made C-130s in operation, dating back to before the 1979 Islamic revolution and the US boycott of Iran. The country's civil and military aircraft have a poor safety record. Officials blame the high frequency of crashes on a lack of aviation spare parts due to US sanctions.
South Africa's Winnie Mandela has appealed to the governor of California to halt the execution of reformed gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams. "If we forgave what was done for to us in South Africa, is not it possible to forgive?", asked the ex-wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela.
Williams, 51, was sentenced to death in 1981 for the murder of four people. Co-founder of the notorious Los Angeles Crips street-gang, he denies committing the 1979 murders. Williams faces death by lethal injection on 13 December at San Quentin prison, north of San Francisco. While in jail, he has won praise for his anti-gang books, earning several Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his teachings. He has generated a public campaign calling for clemency.
California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to hold a clemency review on Thursday. At a news conference, Ms Mandela said that, in a recent visit she made to the US, Mr Schwarzenegger had refused to meet her because it conflicted with the law. Good on ya Arnie, she ain't worth your time.
"I regret it very much that a man who has wined and dined with comrade Mandela in his home would react in this manner," she added. and Winnie, please tell us about YOUR current connection to "comrade Mandela."
The anti-apartheid campaigner also said that if Williams was executed, she would follow through on his request that he and she be buried or have his ashes scattered in South Africa. "I would be honoured to carry out his wishes."
Ms Mandela remains a controversial political figure in South Africa following her divorce from Nelson Mandela and convictions for kidnapping, probable murder, and fraud. She is the latest low-life high-profile personality to call for clemency for Williams. The reformed gang leader's supporters range from Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx and rap star Snoop Dogg (himself a former Crips member) to Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and a long list of other welfare pimps, extortionists, and losers.
#1
The anti-apartheid campaigner also said that if Williams was executed, she would follow through on his request that he be buried or have his ashes scattered in South Africa.
Would those ashes include the tire?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/08/2005 14:45 Comments ||
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#2
Does Winnie know that we don't throw tires over them and set them on fire when we put these people down? I mean, that would be, like, cruel and unusual punishment...
#4
I have a real simple test on what is right and wrong: If the left hates it, it musty be right. The left hates tax cuts? They must be right. They oppose the war? Must be right. The inverse is also true: what the left likes must be wrong. They want socialized health care, so it must be bad. They want to spring a convicted multiple killer, well we know that must be wrong. If he gets a commuted sentence that next step will be to make him a citizen of Paris and demand his release.
The War on Christmas seems a little less intense this season.
Last year some feared it would escalate until ACLU shock troops dragged Salvation Army bellringers into the streets and made them kiss a copy of "Atheism for Dummies." Christmas trees would be renamed "arboreal solstice commemoration devices" by order of the United Nations, and churches would have to wrap their clappers in cotton lest the sound of the pealing bells make someone feel uncomfortable.
Because that's the worst thing that can happen: You feel uncomfy. Left out of the reindeer games.
This is why some people devote December to getting angry about Christmas. Never mind the possibility of a flu pandemic or a nuclear-armed Iran, either of which might make you feel, um, dead. The hard left has priorities: It must convince America the war in Iraq is lost, the founder of the Crips who shotgunned innocent people must be spared, and no one can shout "Jesus" on public property unless he's slipped on the ice and hit his tailbone. Now let's get out there and improve America!
If the War on Christmas has simmered down this year, there might be three reasons:
-- The lull is an illusion; the war continues. Attention-starved atheist filmmaker Brian Flemming has taken out ads in The New York Times, The New Yorker and USA Today to promote his new movie "The God Who Wasn't There," and promises that his "300-member street team" will interrupt "Christmas-themed public events" to distribute his movie. Finally: an atheist answer to Fred Phelps and his despicable "God Hates Fags" losers. Give the man a few years and he'll be showing up at little kids' funerals shouting "There isn't any heaven!" at the mourners.
-- A truce has been reached: The secularists have agreed not to picket the Postal Service for putting the "Virgin" Mary on a stamp, and the religiously minded have promised not to say "Merry Christmas" to strangers unless they first secure a signed waiver for mental stress, and do not say the words within 500 feet of a school.
-- The war is over, and the secularists won. It's hard to see any other conclusion, really. Wal-Mart -- that crass, horrid wad of red-state values, if you believe the left -- can't even say "Merry Christmas" on its home page. As Wal-Mart goes, so go 9,000 Chinese factories, all of which are busily stamping out "Happy Holidays" signs for 2006.
This isn't to say that Christmas is over, driven underground by cackling tools of the Antichrist. It just means that the "elites," to use a sloppy buzzword, have ceased to care or pretend. Where once it was standard for radio shows to end with "Merry Christmas" and "God bless" and "Buy Chesterfields," it's now standard to say "Happy holidays" and leave it at that. (And don't smoke Chesterfields!) Ninety-six percent of the country celebrates the holiday, so it's not exactly a niche market big business feels it must pursue.
The overclass has disconnected from a common American reality, but that's nothing new. The overclass hangs on a thin, dense sliver clinging to the coasts, a worried, furrowed state of mind cleaved by the broad, smooth brow of Jesusland. People note how the elites quail and simper and wring their hands before the terrifying sound of "Merry Christmas," and shrug. Whatever. No surprise. It's not the end of the Republic. Nothing ever is, which is why it's hard to get people interested in the little things that change, forever, the character of the culture.
Wherever you stand on this issue, you have to admit there's something odd about a culture that makes shopgirls in malls unable to say "Merry Christmas" without coughing as though they had inhaled a fishbone, and looking around to see if the manager heard. Not that the manager would care, but there was a memo.
Of course, given Wal-Mart's market, you could argue that saying "Merry Christmas" to their customers is like saying "Praise Allah" during the hajj; it almost goes without saying.
But there's something to be said for saying it.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/08/2005 10:41 ||
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#1
I have an idea. What say we Christians simply have our own holiday events. Christians have always invited everyone to join - and it will always be that way. But perhaps we just allow the "elites" to rename the "Christmas Holiday" for what it has become, "A Hollow Celebration Of Excess Consumerism, Want and Flashing Lights
Apparently approx 80% of us want to celebrate Christmas, perhaps it's time we did.
#2
When I was a kid, prominent religious folks were worried about the "overcommercialization of Christmas," which they seemed to think was a bad thing. Now prominent religious folks, who are a very different lot from the ones likely to be quoted in the '60's, are worried Christmas isn't commercial enough. Strange.
Me, I don't expect Wal-Mart or my kid's school to take the lead in celebrating Jesus' birth - I have a church and my home for that. Let the stores do what they want.
#3
Yes, I think in the future we should all say, "Happy Consumerism!" And we can sing, Oh Meaningless Night, the Hollywood Stars are Shrill and Whining Or...Gifts aren't free, oh, gifts aren't free, your gay green cash delights us. Or my new personal favorite - Away with the manger, that's what our lawyer said..
No more Joy to the World. Only joy to politically sanctioned victims groups. Let's all become hollow, self-absorbed and demand what is rightfully ours - more stuff.
"If there's any theme to the year," said David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, "it's that people only want to read the truth." That explains why the NYT's circulation numbers are down. So while nonfiction sales are generally good, he said, fiction sales are best defined, in Mr. Rosenthal's usual plain-spoken manner, by an expletive. Yup, thath's the Times
This continues a trend that began at least four years ago, when, after 9/11, a large segment of readers seemed to give up on fiction, flocking instead to nonfiction works, first about 9/11 itself, then about Islam, the Middle East, Iraq and United States politics.
Two books that are selling well ahead of expectations this fall fit that mold: "Our Endangered Values," by Jimmy Carter, an assessment of the country's current political and religious debates, published by Simon & Schuster; and "A Man Without a Country," by Kurt Vonnegut, a series of essays leavened with the author's trademark humanist view, published by Seven Stories Press. Why do I have the susicion these are not the only two books selling ahead of expectations?
"Both of these men have a moral profile" that is helping their books, said Jim Harris, an owner of Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City. He added that the authors' "authoritative voices" have attracted buyers who do not place themselves at one political extreme or the other. In Iowa city that's probably true. How about Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake? Well, maybe not Ames, either.
Mr. Carter's book has sold nearly all of the 310,000 copies in its initial printing, said Mr. Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster, and the company has since pushed the number in circulation to 675,000. Mr. Carter has had best-selling books before, most notably his 2001 memoir, "An Hour Before Daylight," which sold 300,000 hardcover copies.
Mr. Vonnegut, too, is no stranger to the best-seller lists, but he has more often arrived there with works of fiction. His latest book, his first best seller since the 1997 novel "Timequake," has sold nearly 100,000 copies, according to the publisher, and spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. It is also the first entry on the Times list for Seven Stories Press, an independent publisher that in 2000 published a previous book of essays by Mr. Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian."
Gerry Donaghy, an inventory supervisor at Powell's Books in the heart of Blue America Portland, Ore., said Mr. Vonnegut's book had attracted buyers because, at a time when political dialogue is increasingly polarized, "he is not as strident as Michael Moore or Al Franken." Besides, Mr. Donaghy added, while many new hardcover books are priced as high as $35, Mr. Vonnegut's has a relatively low list price of $23.95, and "many people are buying multiple copies to give as gifts."
If you're not offended yet, check the NYT Non-fiction best cellars:
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Top 5 at a Glance
1. OUR ENDANGERED VALUES, by Jimmy Carter
2. TEACHER MAN, by Frank McCourt
3. TEAM OF RIVALS, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4. THE WORLD IS FLAT, by Thomas L. Friedman
5. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, by Joan Didion
#3
Robert Spencer's "Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" is also selling very well, but somehow that has gone completely unremarked-on by all the major media and Those Who Cover Publishing.
And I bet his book isn't being bought by the case by George Soros-linked organizations either....
#4
"Do as I say not as I Do" is 15th on the Amazon list (which varies somewhat from the NYT list but is quite similar).
Carter's book has a big advantage in that many public libraries and university libraries will buy it. Hillary's book sold very well also because of this (and because some leftist organizations bought it and gave it away as a gift prize for attending socialist propaganda seminars).
However, basically, it doesn't matter much because the people who actually read a Carter book are only a fraction of the people who buy it and of those, 99% were dedicated leftists before they bought it.
#5
mhw, very true. My best friend in College has become the number one Jimmy Carter fan. He has everything JC ever wrote. It's best for both of us if we don't talk politics.
Besoeker, I really miss Powell's, I got lost in there for several days one time.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/08/2005 11:03 Comments ||
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#6
Makes a great chew toy for the dogs. A bit pricey though...
#7
My favorite recollection about Carter was a cartoon by the late, great cartoonist Jeff MacNelly. Carter is preparing for the debates, standing waist-deep in trash. His campaign advisor admonishes, "No, No, Jimmy, you're supposed to stand ON your record, not in it!"
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
12/08/2005 15:25 Comments ||
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#8
Yep - I predict the next big NPR promotion. Donate $100 and get a free copy of Carters book. Donate $50 and get two free copies.
In 2005 the US current account deficit is expected to top $700bn. It comes after 27 years of unbroken deficits that have totalled more than $5,000bn, leading to concerns of an impending global crisis. Once the massive financing required to keep on paying for such a widening gap dries up, there will be an ugly adjustment in the world economy. The dollar will collapse, triggering a stampede away from US debt, interest rates will shoot up and a sharp global recession will ensue.
But wait a minute. If this is such an open and shut case, why have markets not precipitated the crisis already?
Maybe it is because there is something wrong with the diagnosis.
...
Part of the answer is that the US benefited from about $1,600bn of net capital gains(which, at best, cuts the puzzle in half). The other part of the official answer is that the US earns a higher return on its holdings of foreign assets than it pays to foreigners on its liabilities.
We measure the assets according to how much they earn and the current account by how much these assets change over time. ...
We know that the US net income on its financial portfolio is $30bn. This is a 5 per cent return on an asset of $600bn. So the US is a $600bn net creditor, not a $4,100bn net debtor.
Since the assets have remained stable then on average the US has not had a current account deficit at all over the past 25 years. That is why it is still a net creditor.
This is a pretty big issue. It means we're in much better financial condition that has been assumed or feared. It's like using your credit cards a lot but being able to pay them off monthly.
We call the $4,700bn difference between our measure of US net assets and the standard numbers âdark matterâ, because it corresponds to assets that generate revenue but cannot be seen. The name is taken from a term used in physics to account for the fact that the world is more stable than you would think if it were held together only by gravity emanating from visible matter.
There are several reasons why dark matter exists. The most obvious is superior returns on US foreign direct investment. Why do US assets earn such returns? Because that investment comes with a substantial amount of know-how that increases its earning potential. It explains why the US can earn more on its assets than it pays on its liabilities and why foreigners cannot do the same.
In measuring FDI, the value of the know-how is poorly accounted for. There are other sources of dark matter, but FDI is where the big bucks are. Once dark matter is considered, the world is surprisingly balanced. The US and European Union essentially cover their apparent imbalance with the export of dark matter, emerging markets use their surplus to import dark matter and Japan finances the rest of the world. Net asset positions of all big regions are fairly small.
Is US dark matter a stable asset? We find that it is. It now stands at more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product and has fallen in only six of the last 25 years, never by more than 1.9 per cent of GDP.
In a nutshell our story is simple. Once assets are valued according to the income they generate, there has not been a big US external imbalance and there are no serious global imbalances.
Ricardo Hausmann is director of the Center for International Development at Harvard Universityâs Kennedy School of Government; Federico Sturzenegger is visiting professor of public affairs.
#1
When currencies float, by definition the amount of money entering and leaving a currency (zone) are equal. Therefore if the USA were running a deficit on trade and investment, US dollars must be piling up somewhere. The fear was that lose of confidence would cause those USDs to be sold and cause a sharp fall in the dollar.
Assets are only relevant to the equation to the extent they are bought and sold and generate income.
The Dark Matter concept is intriguing, but its hard to see how it would generate the income required to offset the trade imbalance.
#2
That excerpt wasn't enough to convince me these guys know more about dark matter than do physicists.
The question they ask, why have markets not precipitated the crisis already? is a good one, but the answer is because no one can see a way to make a profit doing it. A better question is what would it take to precipitate such a crisis.
At the moment, there are two things that pop to mind immediately. The first is a political dispute with China. The second is a disruption of petroleum flows. Both would create acute economic dislocations sufficient to threaten the country as it has not been since the Great Depression. They might help the value of the dollar initially with a flight from risk. They might even have a positive effect for a longer while if we repudiated the debt we owe as a wartime measure.
While I stand in second place to no one in my respect for the Partier's commercial accomplishment's, the comment that it's like using your credit cards a lot but being able to pay them off monthly is a bit off base. It's more like using your credit cards a lot and being able to get even more new ones to pay off the interest on the old ones without ever paying the balance owed down.
It seems to me that the reason for this no visible means of support deficit is a form of seigneurage for being the consumer of last resort. Who else will buy (insert name of export driven economy)'s products and where else can they invest the dollar payment they receive? Like all things credit related it rests on the 3 c's of credit, character, capacity, capital, condition and collateral. In this case, the character is so beneficial, the capital, condition and collateral so immense that no one is paying attention to the capacity.
But, ultimately the markets are supported by confidence. And the markets continue to vote for the dollar because they see no new top dog on the horizon.
#3
How do they calculate the billions of US dollars that are employed by 25 or so other countries that use it as their national currency? How do they calculate the US dollars that are literally stuff in mattresses or kept in old coffee tins around the world because people don't trust their own government's economic integrity and currency manipulations?
Its sort like, you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than one other person in your party.
#4
SH, most dollars held overseas exist as accounting entries in bank accounts rather than as paper currency. Re: stuff in mattresses, economists measure the 'velocity' with which money is turned over in new exchanges rather than being held in bank or informal savings. Lots of people spend whole careers, I guess, figuring out different measures of the money supply.
TO, I agree with much of what you wrote. What made this particular study interesting to me is that the authors apply an investor's point of view to the question of why trade deficits have persisted. The answer is that those who hold $$s or $$-denominated debt do so because they've done the same kind of analysis that investors do when they decide whether or not to buy a corporate bond: namely, will this company/country generate a Return on Assets purchased using the bond funds that makes it very likely I'll get repaid with the promised level of interest.
So agree, it's all about confidence, this just gives a new and interesting point of view re: the basis for that confidence.
#5
lotp, no some countries actually use American paper and coins rather than issue their own currancy. Ecuador which converted in 2001. The number of countries is somewhere over 20.
As of June 2005, currency in circulationâthat is, U.S. coins and paper currency in the hands of the publicâtotaled about three-quarters of a trillion dollars. The amount of cash in circulation has risen rapidly in recent decades and much of the increase has been caused by demand from abroad. The Federal Reserve estimates that the majority of the cash in circulation today is outside the United States.
I can't find the table now, but almost all of that, monetarily, is $100 bills. It will be interesting to see if the 500 Euro note horns in on that and If we start issuing a $1,000 bill in retaliation.
#9
So, if we are to be reassured our trade imbalance with China is covered by 'dark matter' and the dollar really is stable, why is the price of gold at record highs and Europeans buying it up? Last summer, the Malaysian PM suggested they go on the gold standard when the dollar was devalued, showing he fully expected a major correction. Economics are challenging for me, but I do hope the deficit would disappear this easily.
re: cash currency held overseas, holding $100 bills is like having 24k gold jewelry you wear all the time (as some friends of mine from Asia still do) - it's an insurance policy in unstable times. But while 3/4 of a trillion dollars is a lot of money, it isn't a huge percentage of the total dollar-denominated holdings abroad, by any means.
To put it in perspective, roughly $2 trillion of currency trades occur every day on the major exchanges.
#11
Panama has an official currency, the Balboa. I never saw a Balboa note the entire 18 months I was stationed there in 1967-68. Everything was done in US$$. The British Virgin Islands also use US$$ as their official currency. It would be interesting to discover which other countries also use US currency as their official currency. I know the former Trust Territory of the Pacific nations do. Who else?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/08/2005 23:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
BOULDER, Colo. -- A 22-year-old man was killed early Tuesday morning when he swung from a large crane and hit a building. According to University of Colorado police, the accident happened about 3:13 a.m. in the area of 18th Street and Colorado Avenue. Police said the victim, Ryan Young, and another man climbed a construction crane at the CU-Boulder ATLAS Building site and attached climbing ropes to it, then swung from the giant machine. 
AMBAE ISLAND, Vanuatu (AP) - An erupting volcano on this remote South Pacific island burst into spectacular life Thursday - shooting steam and toxic gases 9,845 feet into the sky. Huge columns of dense white steam and muddy ash spewed above Ambae Island to reach the greatest height seen since the Mt. Manaro volcano began erupting Nov. 27. 
MALE animals can produce a lot of sperm or grow big brains but cannot do both, according to a study that may confirm the suspicions of many women. The study of 334 bat species suggests that energy-hungry brains can evolve only at the expense of other tissues.
Mexico's electoral institute will use a 21-hour show on U.S. television on Wednesday to convince more Mexicans living north of the border to vote in next year's presidential election. The television show will be broadcast by Spanish-language network Univision in 24 U.S. cities, including New York; Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. During the show Mexican electoral officials will answer questions phoned in by viewers on how to vote from outside Mexico.
PARIS, Dec. 7 - They could not agree on a single constitution, and now it looks like Europeans cannot agree on the best way to identify themselves on the Internet.
ISLAMABAD - More than 400,000 houses need to be built in northern Pakistan for those left homeless by Octoberâs catastrophic earthquake, the official responsible for quake reconstruction said on Wednesday. Lieutenant-General Muhammad Zubair, head of the governmentâs Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority, said the government plans to provide 175,000 rupees ($2,930) to help replace each house destroyed or damaged. âWe are supposed to construct 400,153 houses,â he told Reuters in an interview.
"If there's any theme to the year," said David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, "it's that people only want to read the truth." 
