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Sunday Reads: Bombs, F-Bombs and Earthly Booms

Posted: January 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: just because |28 Comments »

192810427766537540_wArSGRAR_cGood Late Morning!

Damn, I overslept! (Hey, I coulda used a F-Bomb in that sentence.)

Since this post is running late, I will just give you a few links to tide you over…until I can get some coffee and finish a proper post.

Bombs, and there are a lot of them are the theme of this post, as I give you these quick reads of interest.

First, a link to an interactive map of the bombs that fell in London. h/t to The Maddow Blog: Mapping the World War II bomb census

The Bomb Sight project takes the original London WW2 bomb census maps, with a breakdown of the first day and first week of the Blitz, previously only available for viewing in The Reading Room at the National Archives, and plots them on an interactive map for casual exploration (and awe). If you zoom far enough in you are able to click the individual bomb points for some more information, including remembrances of locals from the area.

Take a look at this image of the map zoomed out to cover the lower half of England.  Bomb Sight – Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census

FireShot Screen Capture #378 - 'Bomb Sight - Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census' - bombsight_org_#9_51_5036_-0_0906

Moving forward, another Bomb image to see, this time “The Bomb” is a big one.

Rare photo of A-bomb split cloud found in Hiroshima

Rare black-and-white photo provided by the Honkawa Elementary School on January 9, 2013 and recently found at the school shows the mushroom cloud from the Hiroshima atomic bombing split in two. Photo via AFP.

A rare photo showing the mushroom cloud from the Hiroshima atomic bombing in two distinct parts, one above the other, has been discovered in the city, a museum curator said Wednesday.

The black-and-white picture is believed to have been taken about half-an-hour after the bombing on August 6, 1945, around 10 kilometres (six miles) east of the hypocentre.

“The existence of this shot was always known in history books, but this is the first time that the actual print has been discovered,” said a curator at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

“A shot showing the mushroom cloud split into two like this is very rare.”

F-Bombs…a couple of more reviews on Django Unchained. One from Roger Ebert and the other is written by a sample of the youth of America.

Faster, Quentin! Thrill! Thrill! – Roger Ebert’s Journal

I really enjoyed the first review in this next link…the second review seems a bit of a half-assed attempt to get the copy in before the deadline.

Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly | Alternet

I tell you, that second review makes me think of my son, and his response to the question, “Do your homework. Don’t you have a report due?”

To which he replies, “It isn’t due for a week.”

The earth releases f-bombs too, check this out, make sure you see the video: BBC News – Spectacular scenes as Russia volcano erupts

Gas and ashes have risen almost 2.5 miles (4km) into the sky during the ongoing eruption of a volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.

Wow.

Okay, I will get a cup of coffee and see you shortly.

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28 Comments on “Sunday Reads: Bombs, F-Bombs and Earthly Booms”

  1. JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    January 13, 2013 at 8:44 am

    Sorry it is late!

  2. ecocatwoman says:
    January 13, 2013 at 8:55 am

    Good morning, jj. You needed the sleep after Friday night. Hope you’re rested.

    On the bomb front, I just wanted to recommend an old book that touched me so deeply that years ago I bought many copies and gave them to friends. It’s A Chorus of Stones by Susan Griffin, one of my favorite authors. It’s about war, primarily, but details the consequences of one of the last bombings by the Allies at the very end of WWII. Her description made the horrors of bombing real for me.

    • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
      January 13, 2013 at 3:37 pm

      Have to check that book out…the bomb site link will take you a map where you can click on the bomb and it will bring up photos and interviews of folks who lived through the Blitz. Really is something to spend some time at.

  3. RalphB says:
    January 13, 2013 at 10:31 am

    Good morning JJ. More from marvelous nature, this time from afar. Very cool find though the headline is far too sensational.

    Astronomers may have found the oldest star in the universe

    Astronomers have discovered the Methuselah of stars — a denizen of our Solar System’s neighborhood that is at least 13.2 billion years old and formed shortly after the Big Bang.

    “We believe this star is the oldest known in the universe with a well determined age,” says Howard Bond of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who announced the finding 10 January at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.

    The venerable star, dubbed HD 140283, lies at a comparatively short distance of 186 light years from our Solar System and has been studied by astronomers for more than a century. Researchers have long known that the object consists almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, a hallmark of having formed early in the history of the universe, before successive generations of stars had a chance to forge heavier elements. But no one knew exactly how old it was.

  4. janicen says:
    January 13, 2013 at 10:33 am

    Speaking of F-bombs, the anti-women forces in Virginia are upset with the vulgarity of those whose rights are being stripped away. They would prefer we were more lady-like when they oppress us. This is what they are upset about…

    Shelley Abrams, who runs an abortion clinic in Henrico County, plans a pro-choice rally at the Capitol on Wednesday. Through Facebook, she invited her fellow protesters to crash the Family Foundation’s prayer breakfast that day and then “fuck with Victoria Cobb a bit afterwards.”

    http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/vulgar-activists-clash-with-pro-lifers/Content?oid=1807724

  5. RalphB says:
    January 13, 2013 at 11:25 am

    Tim Duy’s Fed Watch. A compelling case for special circumstances at this time.

    Economists View: On The Disruptiveness of the Platinum Coin

    Apparently fiscal and monetary cooperation is alive and well – the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve conspired to kill the platnium coin idea. In retrospect, we should have seen this coming. As the debate continued, it became increasingly evident that the platinum coin threatened the conventional wisdom in very deep and profound ways. It was a threat that could not be endured by Washington.

    This realization hit me this morning, working on my last piece. Begin with the effectiveness of monetary policy at the zero bound. Or, more accurately, the lack of effectiveness as the Federal Reserve is swapping one zero-interest asset for another. Rarely do we take this to its logical conclusion for fiscal policy: If there is no difference between cash and Treasury bonds, why should we issue bonds at all? Why not simply issue cash? In other words, at the zero bound, what is the argument against monetizing deficit spending?
    [...]
    Bottom Line: The platinum coin idea was ultimately doomed to failure because neither the Federal Reserve nor the Treasury could allow for even the remote possibility it might be successful. Its success would not just alter the political dynamic by removing the the debt ceiling as a threat. The success of a platinum coin would fundamentally alter the conventional wisdom about the proper separation of fiscal and monetary policy and the need to control the debt immediately.

    • bostonboomer says:
      January 13, 2013 at 11:47 am

      It might prevent Obama from offering Chained CPI to cut SS benefits too. NYT editorial: Misguided Social Security ‘Reform’

      As the next round of deficit reduction talks gets under way, the administration seems determined to include the COLA cut in any new package of spending reductions. Rather than using the issue as a bargaining ploy, the administration appears to have embraced it as a worthy end in itself.

      Is it? In a word, no.

      That is not to say that Social Security should be off the table. There are reforms that are eminently sensible, if only the political will could be found to enact them. But reducing the COLA is not a sound idea now and may never be.

      • RalphB says:
        January 13, 2013 at 1:45 pm

        If this is Obama’s idea of reform, then I am well and truly done with him.

      • bostonboomer says:
        January 13, 2013 at 2:44 pm

        I’m not sure it is Obama’s idea of reform. I still think he probably cares about his legacy and I know he responds to public opinion. I have to admit Obama’s thinking is mysterious to me. It could very well be that he thinks the onus SHOULD be on the Congress–which it should in a sane world.

        I haven’t given up on Obama yet. In the end, I his motivations don’t really matter. What matters is what he ends up actually doing. It certainly looks like he’s given up any possible leverage, but maybe he thinks the best leverage is to force Republicans to take responsibility for their actions.

    • RalphB says:
      January 13, 2013 at 1:51 pm

      Oops.

      The Fed Killed Trillion-Dollar Coin

      “Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” said Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley.

      But it was the Federal Reserve that killed the proposal, the official told BuzzFeed, denying a purely political rationale for the announcement, saying the independent central bank would not have credited the Treasury’s accounts for the vast sum for depositing the coin.

      • dakinikat says:
        January 13, 2013 at 2:24 pm

        I can understand why they did that which is why I’ve kept quiet on this. They’d have to absorb it onto their balance sheet or monetize it and the accompanying weirdness it would create with monetary policy is just too much for them to do with out doing mounds of study. I haven’t posted on this because it would take about 3 weeks worth of lectures on monetary policy to discuss the mechanics on this. From a monetary policy standpoint, that coin would just be absurd. From the Fed’s standpoint, it wouldn’t be political at all. It would have to do with its stability, the stability of the fiat money, and its relationship with the Treasury. The idea it being platinum alone is a throwback to the goldbug days. If Congress is that rattled about debt–which they really aren’t any way–they should just freaking sell off gold and platinum as commodities for pete’s sake. It would be like running an oil-based economy for awhile. It would tank the price of gold, but hey, their gold bug libertarian friends could just bite my ass.

      • bostonboomer says:
        January 13, 2013 at 2:48 pm

        Obviously, the 14th amendment option makes more sense. People brought this coin idea up because Obama took the 14th amendment off the table in 2011. See my comment above. I can understand that too, because it would probably end up in court. We need a real solution to the Republican obstruction. But SS should be off the table. I’d also like to see a real debate about the meaning of the deficit and the dangers of austerity. Unfortunately, Obama seems to believe in at least some level of austerity.

      • RalphB says:
        January 13, 2013 at 2:53 pm

        I do wonder what monetizing the debt, to some extent, would do at the zero bound. It seems to have not worked badly for Japan, from an inflation pov anyway, though Japan hasn’t had growth either. ???

        • dakinikat says:
          January 13, 2013 at 3:08 pm

          Chances are they’d absorb most’ve of it on to their balance sheet which is crazy since they’ve got so much bad stuff their already from the 2008 blow out …

  6. dakinikat says:
    January 13, 2013 at 12:41 pm

    ARghhh!!!!

    Jindal tax plan could eliminate taxes on oil and gas extraction

    http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/jindal_tax_plan_could_eliminat.html

  7. dakinikat says:
    January 13, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Paul Krugman Explains the Keys to Our Recovery

    http://billmoyers.com/segment/paul-krugman-on-recessions-and-recovery/#.UPL-r2H2hpM.twitter

    • ecocatwoman says:
      January 13, 2013 at 2:17 pm

      The segment following the one with Krugman was REALLY depressing. Moyers interviewed the CEO of Goldman Sachs (what a mega-schmuck) & lists the freebies for corporations in the FC deal. We are so screwed.

      I am so tired of saying, following the Prez elections, that it could have been worse. This from Alternet about Jack Lew was like a punch in the gut: http://www.alternet.org/economy/matt-taibbi-bill-black-obamas-new-treasury-secretary-failure-epic-proportions?paging=off

      WILLIAM BLACK: Well, on financial matters, Jack Lew has been a failure of pretty epic proportions, and he gets promoted precisely because he is willing to be a failure and is so useful to Wall Street interests. So, you’ve mentioned two of the things in terms of the most important and most destructive deregulation under President Clinton by statute. But he was also there for much of the deregulation by rule, and a strong proponent of it, and he was there for much of the cutting of staff. For example, the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, lost three-quarters of its staff, and that huge loss began under Clinton. And the whole reinventing government, Lew was a strong supporter of that. And, for example, we were taught—instructed by Washington that we were to refer to banks as our “clients” in our role as regulators and to think of them as clients.

      There is much more & it doesn’t get any better.

    • purplefinn says:
      January 13, 2013 at 4:50 pm

      Thanks to all of your references to Krugman, I watched this program. He makes so much sense!

      • dakinikat says:
        January 13, 2013 at 5:42 pm

        It’s just basic economic theory we’ve known about for years. It’s been proven and the Republican brand of trickle down has been disproved too. Governments are so captured by the super rich they just ignore everything we now. Again, it’s like all this obvious global warming weather disasters and we keep giving everything away to oil and coal interests.

  8. bostonboomer says:
    January 13, 2013 at 3:20 pm

    In 2007, Obama said the solution for SS long-term is to raise the payroll tax cap.

    By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | October 28, 2007

    WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama yesterday proposed raising Social Security taxes on the wealthier, saying the nation’s “most regressive tax” needed to be revamped to increase revenues to the retirement fund and spread the burden of paying for the program more evenly.

    “This is an issue that we’ve been punting, and it’s going to make it harder to solve it in the long term,” Obama said in an interview with the Globe before peddling the idea before a group of senior citizens in Iowa.

    Obama reiterated that he would not raise the retirement age or cut benefits for what he called “the most successful social insurance program we have.” But he said he would consider raising the cap on the Social Security tax – currently imposed on earnings up to $97,500 – or creating a so-called doughnut hole that would reinstate the tax once income hits a certain level, as Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has proposed.

    Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has suggested reimposing the Social Security tax on earnings above $200,000 so that upper-middle income earners – those making $97,500 to $200,000 a year – would not suffer an additional tax burden.

    • RalphB says:
      January 13, 2013 at 3:47 pm

      That would seem the best way. Since it’s known now that the increase in life expectancy is highest among the well off, they will receive more benefits so it seems right they should make more of a contribution.

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