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Is M3 1 really gone? After reading this little known press release a few weeks ago, I started to wonder… and the surprising result is that (except for the Eurodollars element of M3), the data is still available with which to reconstruct M3.

Dr. Khurana says there may be broader health ramifications than asbestos or smoking. What? Now just think about that. Again, I foresee a huge higher tax on cell phone use and a higher health and life insurance premium. And maybe people (like me) that don't use cell phones unless its an emergency, would rather not be seated in bars and restaurants where cell phones are in use. Ah, can you say ban?

According to Kathryn Joyce, sneer-and-smear artist for The Nation, those who are concerned about the worldwide decline in birthrates are -- to put it mildly -- racist, neo-Nazis, who have a hidden agenda and (under the guise of demographic winter) are engaged in our age-old quest to control women's bodies. The Nation is this nation's oldest and largest-circulation left-wing journal (outside of The New York Times, of course). Joyce's screed, "Missing: The 'Right' Babies," will appear in the March 3 print edition, but is currently available online. Joyce believes -- with the faith of one immune to facts and logic...

Verbal bouquets are being thrown by presidential candidate Barack Obama at the ideals of bipartisanship, nonpartisanship, post-partisanship. You may want to consider some recent handiwork before buying in. Take last month's fuel-economy legislation, deemed "a nice little Christmas present" for the American people by Nancy Pelosi. President Bush wore himself out singing the bill's praises. Mr. Obama, who has been hell on the auto makers, practically called it America's salvation. But its only redeeming feature is that it's unlikely ever to take effect, at least in current form. We won't try to list all the built-in fudge factors. No two...

You don't have to be religious to qualify as a fundamentalist. You can be Al Gore, the messiah figure for the global warming cult, whose followers truly believe their gospel of imminent extermination in a Noah-like flood, if we don't immediately change our carbon polluting ways. One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. And so it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom, according to the Washington Times, "are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...

Seattle - In an open letter to Santa last week and a speech to children at Seattle’s Annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Westlake Center, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels last week offered a Grinch-like tone, grumbling about climate change threatening Santa, telling kids “I hope the reindeer can swim,” and blaming them and their energy-sucking video games for melting Arctic ice. As Nickels spoke, his assistants handed out stickers admonishing the crowd to “Save Santa.”

Here are those 11 corrections to Gore's film - and many will be familiar to readers of this column: Gore presents Mt Kilimanjaro's melting snows as proof of global warming. In fact, the snows are vanishing thanks to local factors, including deforestation. Gore suggests Antarctica's ice cover is melting. Most studies says it is increasing or stable. Gore shows scary graphics of cities drowning in seas that rise 7m, causing millions of refugees. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the seas will rise at worst by 59cm this century. Gore uses images of Hurricane Katrina and...

Conveniently, the American media is largely ignoring a significant statement from a UK High Court judge who said Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” promotes “partisan political views” and the schools should treat it as such. As a result the British government was forced to rewrite their website and their “guidance” and will need to issue a warning before showing the film.As NewsBusters reported, truck driver, part-time school official and father of two Stewart Dimmock brought a High Court action to ban the film from UK schools, claiming it is “unfit for schools” because it contains scientific inaccuracies, “sentimental mush” and is politically biased....

European, Asian and Canadian companies are taking advantage of the weaker dollar to buy their U.S. counterparts at a record pace, increasing investment in the United States but also raising fears about a potential loss of jobs and autonomy. "We could be looking at the world's largest tag sale if we continue to see declines in the dollar," said Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist at DataCore Partners. In the latest large deal aided by a weak dollar, Commerce Bancorp, which is based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, agreed Tuesday to be acquired by Toronto-Dominion Bank of Canada in a cash-and-shares deal...

The temperature of the ocean has cooled 0.2 degrees C in the past few of years, and is now only 0.1 degrees C warmer than it was throughout much of 1944. This data set had been showing a general warming trend since the late 1970s, (as well as a warming trend from the 1910s through the mid 1940s) with the warmest time being recorded in the El Nino year of 1998. Despite temperatures peaking in 1998, it's been reasonable to describe the temperature trend as continuing, since 1998 at the time was a flukishly hot spell. Since 1998, the "normal"...

Carry trade unwinds as yen hits one-year high An anonymous investor has placed a bet on an index of Europe's top 50 stocks falling by a third by the end of September, as world equity markets plunged for a third day and volatility hit a three-year high. The mystery investor has bought put option contracts on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index that will result in a profit if it plunges to 2,800 or below by the end of September. Based on the 2,800 strike price, the position covers a notional €6.9bn, and potentially even more using a market price of...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

As the stalemate over the budget continues into its seventh week, taxpayers are troubled over mischaracterizations in the mainstream media about who is responsible. The negative attention is focused on Senate Republicans who are being portrayed as the obstructionists. But viewed fairly, their position is both reasonable and mainstream. They want to see a balanced budget -- rather than saddle future generations with a massive debt load – and they want to ensure that the $42 billion dollars of bond financing for infrastructure just passed by voters last November is actually spent on infrastructure. Moreover, the position which these Senators...

Cerberus Capital Management may be celebrating its historic acquisition of Chrysler after turmoil in the credit markets delayed the deal, but no champagne is flowing for the private-equity firm's other landmark purchase in Detroit. GMAC, the finance arm of General Motors (GM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) that is 51%-owned by Cerberus, is facing worries in the derivatives markets about bankruptcy at its mortgage-lending unit. The price of credit protection for GMAC's mortgage business, Residential Capital, or ResCap, soared by more than $100,000 a year on Friday, as measured by the credit default swaps market. "ResCap is trading like it...

Jim Cramer today angrily called on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to lower interest rates, saying he "has no idea how bad it is out there" in the nation's credit markets. In his "Stop Trading" segment on Street Signs today, Cramer said the nation's central bank is "asleep" and should immediately "relieve the pressure" on financial firms and the nation's home owners who are facing big increases in their mortgage payments as 'teaser' rates expire. Many thousands will "lose their homes," he warned. "This is not the time to be complacent." About an hour later, he made a return appearance...

<p>The series of Live Earth concerts, organised in nine cities to raise awareness of climate change issues, began in Sydney.</p> <p>Among those playing in Sydney were rockers Wolfmother, with the reformed Crowded House rounding off the show.</p> <p>Live Earth was inspired by former US Vice-President Al Gore, who appeared as a hologram as the Tokyo gig began.</p>

Skeptics of manmade global warming have found further support in research linking solar output with the planet Neptune’s brightness and temperatures on Earth. The findings appeared in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The authors of the article, H.B. Hammel and G.W. Lockwood from the Space Science Institute in Colorado and the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, note that measurements of visible light from Neptune have been taken at the Observatory since 1950. Those measurements indicate that Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980. And infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that Neptune has been warming steadily...

Serious drought may strike western US 19:00 05 April 2007 From New Scientist Print Edition. Michael Reilly The western US may be heading towards a return to the dustbowl landscape that devastated the prairies of the 1930s, climatologists warn. The horror of that period in the US was vividly described in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath: thousands of people migrated from the parched American prairie – a dustbowl – and travelled west towards the "promised land". But the once-greener pastures are heading towards a drought more severe than the one that created the dustbowl of the 1930s.For the...

As the Business & Media Institute reported last year, press reports of climate change have been going on since the 1800s. Over the weekend, I was sent a list of New York Times articles dating back to 1855 addressing the global warming and cooling that has been happening on this planet for the past 150 years. I have taken the liberty of adding a few pieces that I discovered in the Times’ archives to further illustrate the point. As you review the following, try to keep in mind just how sure global warming alarmists like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore are that...

(Following the example of her pioneering father, Nina Leopold Bradley has documented our warming planet's effects on our state. The trend has us heading toward a new climate. Right now we're at the brink.) Second part in an occasional series...Town of Fairfield, WI - On a warm winter day, Nina Leopold Bradley walked nimbly along a trail to a weather-beaten cabin that figures prominently in modern environmental history. Bradley is 89 years old, and using a pair of hiking poles, she pointed out places where she has recorded the arrival of spring for the last 30 years. Her father, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium. At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found...

Global warming has reduced the summer Arctic ice cap by 40 percent since the 1960s, yet some skeptics still contend that this vast melting has nothing to do with the threatened extinction of one of nature's most magnificent creatures - the polar bear. One can only wonder if the Flat Earth Society is making a comeback and whether the Bush administration will grant it a federal charter.Although a number of endangered lesser-known species can be viewed as "canaries in the cage" as the earth's atmosphere and oceans speed into the red zone, none has captured public attention as much as...

An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday. Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036. Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart...

SNOW SHOW It’s not a bona fide winter storm until a TV reporter stands in it By Dan Williamson / February 15, 2007 The good news for those watching Channel 10 Tuesday morning was that they would miss the first five minutes and 50 seconds of Dr. Phil. 10TV pre-empted the 10 a.m. program for a special weather update: It was snowing outside. This was clear from the ticker running on the bottom of the screen, telling which schools, businesses and events would be closed. But the Channel 10 weather team had more to add. Meteorologist Mike Davis stood in...

WASHINGTON - Beneath the snow, ice and bitter cold of Antarctica, scientists have discovered a network of lakes that fill and empty with rapidly flowing water. It's a finding that may improve understanding of the interaction between global warming and the melting of Antarctic ice, which could contribute to a worldwide rise in ocean level. Researchers studying data from satellites were able to measure rises and falls in the overlying ice as the lakes filled and emptied. More than 100 lakes have been found in West Antarctica, according to research published Thursday in the online issue of the journal Science....

"The greatest single threat to human health since the discovery of AIDS". In particular, the release of a "transgenic nematode" (genetically altered and enhanced nematode) ,and subsequent trillions of releases since 1996 into the environment, via a loophole in United States law. The Law See: http://www.isb.vt.edu/epasrc/enacted/epa.gui.txt Evidence of its use See: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/arthropod/permits/9605201r/9605201r.html

The debate on global warming is over. That's the ultimate message from the report released in Paris today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body of leading researchers charged with analyzing climate science and producing the final word on what is happening — and will happen — to our planet. IPCC scientists now say that it is "very likely" that global warming is chiefly driven by the buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases caused by human activity, and that dangerous levels of warming and sea rise are on the way. Those two words...

PARIS - The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is "very likely" caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The scientists — using their strongest language yet on the issue — said now that world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution. The report also linked the warming to the recent increase in stronger hurricanes. "The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support...

S&P Housing Index Shows Price of Single-Family Home Rose at Slowest Rate in More Than 10 Years NEW YORK (AP) -- Prices of single-family homes across the nation rose in November at the slowest rate in more than a decade, a housing index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor's showed, countering other evidence that the housing slowdown may be nearing an end. The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index showed a 1.3 percent year-over-year increase in the price of a single-family home based on existing homes tracked over time in 10 metropolitan markets. For its 20-city composite index, prices grew 1.7 percent, the...

Earth's surface temperature could rise by 4.5 C (8.1 F) if carbon dioxide levels double over pre-industrial levels, but higher warming cannot be ruled out, according to a draft report under debate by the UN's top climate experts. The draft -- being discussed line by line at the four-day meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- grimly states that the evidence for man-made influence on the climate system is now stronger than ever. And carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution spewed out this century will stoke global warming and sea-level rise "for more than a millennium," given the time...

New data released Monday shows that the melting of mountain glaciers worldwide is accelerating, a clear sign that climate change is also picking up, the UN environmental agency and scientists said. Thirty reference glaciers monitored by the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service lost about 66 centimetres (two feet) in thickness on average in 2005, the UN Environment Programme said in a statement. "The new data confirms the trend in accelerated loss during the past two and a half decades," it added. The set of glaciers located around the world have thinned by about 10.5 metres (34.6 feet) on average since...

Scientists say rising greenhouses gases will make climate change unstoppable in a decade THE world has just 10 years to reverse surging greenhouse gas emissions or risk runaway climate change that could make many parts of the planet uninhabitable. The stark warning comes from scientists who are working on the final draft of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report, due to be published this week, will draw together the work of thousands of scientists from around the world who have been studying changes in the world’s climate and predicting how they might accelerate....

Experts split over climate danger to Antarctica Scientists challenge 'cautious' UN report Robin McKie, science editor Sunday January 28, 2007 The Observer (UK) Serious disagreement has broken out among scientists over a United Nations climate report's contention that the world's greatest wilderness - Antarctica - will be largely unaffected by rising world temperatures. The report, to be published on Friday, will be one of the most comprehensive on climate change to date, and will paint a grim picture of future changes to the planet's weather patterns. Details of the report were first revealed by The Observer last weekend. However, many...

THE widening gap between rich and middle-class Americans is undermining political support for free trade in the US, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Tim Geithner warns. Mr Geithner told the Council on Foreign Relations the political challenge of sustaining support for further global economic integration may be the greatest economic challenge of our time. He warned also that the inflow of surplus savings from abroad could be distorting US asset prices and keeping risk premiums artificially low across financial markets. Mr Geithner's comments came amid growing concern in US political and business circles over the risk of a...

Bird flu epidemic rumbles on around the world 12:31 11 January 2007 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie The H5N1 bird flu virus shows no signs of going away in 2007, with outbreaks in poultry and people flaring up across its heartland in east Asia and, most worryingly, in Africa. Other countries the virus reached in winter 2006, including Europe, are watching nervously for its return. And hitherto unaffected areas are anxiously testing mysterious bird deaths to see if they will be next. The biggest flare-up so far has been in Vietnam, where an outbreak in poultry that started in early...

On the day the North American Monetary Union is created--perhaps on January 1, 2010--Canada, the United States, and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the amero.1 On that day, all American dollar notes and coins will be exchanged at the rate of one US dollar for one amero (). Canadian and Mexican currencies will be exchanged at rates that leave unchanged their nations' competitiveness and wealth. In all three countries, the prices of goods and services, wages, assets, and liabilities will be simultaneously converted into ameros at the rates at which currency notes are exchanged.

A global pandemic of a novel, contagious and lethal form of influenza could kill as many people in a year as died in World War II, according to an estimate in a new study. In an calculation based on mortality from the "Spanish flu" pandemic that ran from 1918-20, US researchers believe 62 million people could die in the space of 12 months if a similar pathogen emerged today, according to a study published in the Lancet. The vast majority of deaths -- 96 percent -- would occur in the developing world. The study, led by Harvard University professor Christopher...

A major snowstorm blew across Colorado toward the Plains on Wednesday, canceling hundreds of airline flights for holiday travelers and shutting down major highways in parts of four states. The National Weather Service posted blizzard warnings for most of eastern Colorado and adjoining sections of Nebraska and Kansas. A day earlier, the storm had pummeled New Mexico with up to a foot of snow. Two feet of snow was possible in the foothills just west of Denver, with 2 to 3 feet a possibility farther north. Up to 20 inches could accumulate on the Plains of eastern Colorado and wind...

British Lord Stings Senators Rockefeller and Snowe: 'Uphold Free Speech or Resign' PR Newswire - December 18, 2006 09:58 WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2006 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, has sent an open letter to Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Snowe (R-Maine) in response to their recent open letter telling the CEO of ExxonMobil to cease funding climate-skeptic scientists. (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf). Lord Monckton, former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writes: "You defy every tenet of democracy when you invite ExxonMobil to deny itself the right to provide information to 'senior elected and appointed government officials' who disagree...

The worrying shrinkage of Arctic sea ice could accelerate dramatically in coming decades, leaving the planet's most northerly ocean virtually devoid of ice in summer by 2040, according to a study published on Tuesday. The paper, which appeared in the US journal Geophysical Research Letters, mainly points the finger at greenhouse-gas emissions. It warned that if carbon pollution continues to increase at present rates, the Arctic's normal cycle of freezing and thawing faces catastrophic disruption. A simulation run by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Canada's McGill University predicted that the area covered by ice in...

Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to a team of leading climatologists. Ships will be able to sail over the top of the world and tourists will be able visit what was, until climate change, one of planet’s most inaccessible landscapes. Researchers assessing the impact of carbon emissions on the world’s climate have calculated that late summer in the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040 or earlier - well within a lifetime. Some ice would still be found on coastlines, notably Greenland and Ellesmere...

“It’s different this time,” are four of the most alarming words an investor can hear. Very rarely do things turn out differently; history shows that normally they go wrong in almost exactly the same way they did last time round the cycle. But when it comes to the US housing market, there are reasons to expect that things will be different this time. But not in the way that optimists expect – instead the difference is that the damage could be more far-reaching than ever before. Plenty gets written about the vast scale of this real estate bubble, the world...

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Global warming and a rise in sea levels could dramatically affect South Carolina's coast, according to scientists and environmental officials meeting at a conference in Charleston this week. The rising ocean is "going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast," which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. Morris was at the Southeast Regional Workshop...

An Economic Pillar on the Verge of Collapse By Steven Pearlstein Wednesday, December 6, 2006; D01 It's been more than a year since we've heard from those who denied there was a housing bubble. Since then, the industry boosters, along with the "soft-landing" crowd over at the Federal Reserve, have coalesced around the idea that maybe the market got a bit frothy after all, but now the correction is almost complete, the unsold inventory's been worked off and the worst is behind us. But just when you're feeling hopeful again, you get reports like yesterday's Wall Street Journal piece reporting...

Toll Brothers hit by housing slowdown By Daniel Pimlott in New York Financial Times Dec 5, 2006 Toll Brothers said fourth-quarter net income plunged 44 per cent as the the largest builder of luxury homes in the US felt the full force of the downturn in the housing market....

Dollar woes poised to carry over into next year Greenback is down about 50% vs. euro in past five years; down 6% vs. yen By Wanfeng Zhou, MarketWatch Nov 28, 2006 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- After a precipitous slide in the last week that caught many traders off guard, the dollar is vulnerable to further losses and may continue to weaken against major rivals heading into 2007, analysts said Tuesday. "Sentiment for the dollar has been deteriorating steadily over recent weeks," said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign-exchange strategy at French investment bank Calyon. The decline was not prompted by...

The earth has a fever that could boost temperatures by 8 degrees Celsius making large parts of the surface uninhabitable and threatening billions of peoples' lives, a controversial climate scientist said on Tuesday. James Lovelock, who angered climate scientists with his Gaia theory of a living planet and then alienated environmentalists by backing nuclear power, said a traumatized earth might only be able to support less than a tenth of it's 6 billion people. "We are not all doomed. An awful lot of people will die, but I don't see the species dying out," he told a news conference. "A...

LONDON (Reuters) - The world has less than a decade to take decisive action in the battle to beat global warming or risk irreversible change that will tip the planet towards catastrophe, a leading climate scientist said on Tuesday. And the United States, the world' biggest polluter but major climate laggard, has a vital role to play in leading that fight, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters on a visit to London. "The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role -- quite the reverse," he said. "We...

AP Home Sales Plummet in 38 States in 3Q Monday November 20 By Lauren Villagran, AP Business Writer Third-Quarter Home Sales Plummet in 38 States During the Summer; Home Prices Also Tumble NEW YORK (AP) -- The feeble U.S. housing market showed more frailty when third-quarter home sales plummeted in 38 states, hitting Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California particularly hard, government data showed on Monday. The once-booming real estate market's persistent weakness over the past year has reined in expectations for economic growth but hasn't been severe enough to offset a rising stock market, lower gas prices and improved consumer...

Worry over the effects of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide in the air has become a familiar theme in public discourse about climate change. But news accounts (and movies by former Vice Presidents) that focus exclusively on CO2 in discussing global warming neglect an inconvenient truth: Other gaseous emissions add substantially to the atmosphere's ability to trap heat. In particular, methane (CH4) produces a climate forcing that is more than a third of that produced by carbon dioxide. The concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have both risen dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution, but unlike its...