Viewing the Northern Lights

New Jersey Has Prime Seats for Tonight’s Aurora Borealis

Apr 13, 2013 The Northern lights will be on display tonight for the top half of the United States, thanks to a Thursday morning solar flare. A small sliver of the mid-Atlantic should get the best view. I’m not exactly sure how that all works, so here’s Accuweather’s Samantha-Rae Tuthill to explain: On the Kp index, the flare has been categorized at 6 to 8. This is a scale for measuring the intensity of a a geomagnetic storm. The 6 to 8 rating means that the effects of the radiation will have a greater reach. Oh. Hmm. Perhaps meteorologist Gary Szatkowsi can help: “We are seeing only moderate storm activity right now,” he said. “The rating for these storms is G1-G5, with G1 being the lowest.” Szatkowski said right now the storm is rating a G2, which is moderate. Okay, here’s a pretty simple map, also courtesy of Accuweather: If you’re in the visible zone and want to see them for yourself, 8 pm EDT is estimated to be the prime borealis time — though, as with most things Mother Nature, it’s impossible to pinpoint an exact time. Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at saramorrison@gmail.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. Sara Morrison Topics: Aurora Borealis, Weather, Northern Lights

History, Local News

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April 14, 2013

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New Jaguar 2-seater. Will it Surpass the XKE?

  As Jaguar launches the F-Type, its first new two-seater since 1961, Jonathan Meades rates its predecessor “the high point of English automotive achievement”

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, March/April 2013 ENZO FERRARI CALLED Peter Collins “a really great driver”. He described the E-Type, designed by Malcolm Sayer and launched in 1961—three years after Collins’s death at the Nürburgring—as “the most beautiful car ever made”. Yet in their home country, both man and car were, 50 years ago and in a Britain still saturated with post-war monochrome, ahead of their time. They were fast—a tad gaudy, immodestly glamorous, almost Italian.

Collins lived on a yacht in Monaco, shirked National Service, looked like a film star and married an American actress. The E-Type would doubtless have behaved kindredly. For it was, after all, a Jaguar. And in those days Jags possessed—in their native country if not elsewhere—the reputation of being the car of choice of the spiv, the wide boy, the chancer. A Jag, especially the 2.4 and the 3.4, was the automotive equivalent of bookie’s checks. No matter that the E-Type’s precursors, the C-Type and D-Type, had won Le Mans five times in the 1950s—the marque quite lacked the handmade allure of Bristol, AC, Morgan, etc. Jaguars, however, were for driving and boasting, for amour propre and seduction.

Further, the E-Type was not a sports car but belonged to the exotic classification of GT (Gran Turismo): indeed, it was initially destined for the export market. It was evidently more at home on Highway One or La Grande Corniche than heading for adventure between Mundesley and Cromer. At about £2,000 it was less than half the price of an Aston Martin DB4, a third of the price of a Ferrari 250. Of the last, only 39 were built, whereas 70,000 E-Types were manufactured between 1961 and 1974. This comparatively cheap, mass-produced vehicle matched the performance and outdid the looks of every other car in the world. Speed, sleekness and high style had been democratised—to an extent.

Malcolm Sayer would claim that aerodynamic properties determined the E-Type’s appearance: no designer will ever admit to being led by something so trivial as mere looks. But it was those looks which made the world gasp. They anticipated the “organic”, biomorphic forms of today’s buildings. Blobbiness had never been so sexy. Its only contemporary rival in this regard was a Flaminaire cigarette lighter shaped like a pebble. Other cars still retained the vestigial articulation of their parts. Their design was accretive: wheels, cabin, boot and so on. Form was partly determined by functions. Streamlining existed in a single dimension. But the E-Type’s semi-monocoque construction lent it an appearance that was integrated to an unprecedented degree. It represents, half a century on, the high point of English automotive achievement.

The circumstances were propitious. Petrol was cheap, the first oil crisis a dozen years in the future. Emissions were not mentioned in polite conversation. The environment had yet to be invented and seatbelts were for flakes. Mankind was not as risk-averse, as pusillanimous, as it is today. Cars contain the preoccupations of their era. Most contemporary cars claim to be at least 200% sustainastic, green as algae. Sullen and heavy, they snarl their eco-sanctimony like four-wheeled Tartuffes. Gaiety and grace have absented themselves. Can they be revived with a name?

The Jaguar F-Type will be launched this spring. It at least shows an alphabetic progress which cannot be said for the unwisely named new Citroën DS. But whereas the E-Type was, on its launch, unlike any other car of its era, the F-Type appears to be pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the pack. And I mean pack: where once GTs were lithe and darting, like outside halves and wing three-quarters, today they are bulkily muscled hulks from the front row of the scrum, and about as lovely as those man-monsters. They may be useful but they are unlikely to prompt the sheer awe and joy that an E-Type could. The F-Type is not, admittedly, as stupidly ugly as the Ferraris and Lamborghinis that footballers race along Park Lane and Deansgate. It is akin to the current crop of Aston Martins and Maseratis. Maybe it’s their peer in the tiresome matter of performance.

What is certain is that it is cheaper. And that it will be more revered outside England than in it. Not long ago in Lyon I spotted a Series 1 XJ of about 1970. Gleaming chrome. Fabulously rich burgundy bodywork. Whitewall tyres. I reflected that the only XJS of that vintage to be seen in England are in breakers’ yards. This one had Torinese plates. Italians are on to something.

Jonathan Meades is the author of “Museum Without Walls” and a broadcaster.

Art, classic car, History

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April 14, 2013

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The Americans TV Series

The Americans, Season 1

Is a spy’s home ever more than a safe house? By June Thomas|Posted Friday, April 12, 2013, at 1:07 PM Episode 10 2:

Is a Spy’s Home Ever More Than a Safe House? By: June Thomas 1: You Never Forget Your First Recruit By: June Thomas Episode 9 Episode 8 When Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Gregory (Derek Luke) are hanging out together, a safe house feels like a home.

Elliott Holt and I talked about the ways this episode of The Americans pitched thoughts against feelings—ideology versus love—but “Only You” is also full of profound reflections about the places we live. Where do we truly feel comfortable, and who or what do we need there to make it feel like home? Even before it gets to the question of whether Gregory Thomas, a black civil rights activist turned super efficient KGB operative, could be happy in Moscow, the episode is suffused with talk of home.

The first image shows Philip and Elizabeth pulling up to the drab motel where Philip is staying. It looks awfully similar to their first stop in America, the hotel room where Philip marveled at the wonders of air conditioning. Now that he’s been spoiled by creature comforts, his standards are much higher. “Home sweet home,” he mumbles, self-pityingly, and when Elizabeth starts to argue, he tells her, “Go home.” A little later, in the FBI vault—a surprisingly homey room where the chairs are comfortable, portraits hang on the wall (albeit of most-wanted targets rather than family members), and secrets can be shared—Agent Gaad tells Stan Beeman, “Go home. Get some rest.” Stan would prefer to stay and work, but rather than contravene orders, he goes to Philip’s motel, where a little drunk and slurring, he tells Philip about all the “shitty motel rooms” he slept in during his time undercover.

Rooms like this are depressing and impersonal. “No matter where you are, no matter what city or town, you’re always in the same place,” he says. Advertisement Philip offers to drive Stan home, but the next place we see Stan is in the safe house the FBI has given him to rendezvous with Nina. It has all the trappings of home, but it’s a soulless place with no music, no art. For once they sit on the couch, rather than the bed, but their talk is of Amador and Vlad, friends they have lost.

Meanwhile, over at the Jenningses’ place, Elizabeth is bickering with the kids and then with Philip when he shows up uninvited. No one is happy in the places where they’re supposed to be most comfortable. In fact, the first glimpse of a home that seems cozy and warm is Gregory’s apartment: Jazz is playing, there are paintings and photos on the walls, a worn, woolen throw over the back of the sofa. It’s a place where he can relax—until he’s summoned by Elizabeth’s signal and eventually learns that his life in America is over. When Grannie describes the life he could have in the Motherland, the first thing she mentions is “a nice apartment.” Everyone knows that moving to Moscow would be a drastic upheaval, but Philip points out that the alternative is “life in a cage—or 1,000 volts running through his body.”

Then suddenly everyone’s talking about getting away. Gregory tells Elizabeth, “Let’s just get out of here, you and me.” She refuses, though she can’t say why. Sandra Beeman begs Stan: “We could just leave. I don’t care where we go. We could live in a shack, and I wouldn’t care.” But no one can escape. The Beemans are held in place by his sense of duty, and the Directorate S officers are kept on a tight leash by Grannie, who describes herself as a guard dog rather than a bodyguard. She isn’t protecting Philip and Elizabeth. She’s protecting the KGB. “That’s why they sent me halfway around the world,” she tells Gregory.

Home comforts haven’t made Elizabeth happy.  In the end, though, the focus is on Gregory’s decision. “I won’t take to Moscow,” he says, and despite Elizabeth’s attempts to persuade him of the Soviet capital’s cosmopolitan delights, his decision to die in a hail of bullets seems like a happy one. Unlike the rest of them, he has a home. “I lived here, I fought here,” he tells Elizabeth, and when he leaves the safe house—a cold, impersonal place that was transformed into a cozy love nest when he and Elizabeth were eating Chinese food and hanging out together there—he seems more content than any of the people he’s leaving behind.

In the amazing final scene—which intercuts 17 shots of sad departures, lonely meals in dismal motel rooms and family dining rooms, KGB officers sending the body of a fallen comrade home to his final rest, and Stan in his cubicle at FBI headquarters, along with the shootout—Gregory’s fate almost feels like the most desirable. He goes out on his own terms, on his own streets, of his own volition. The rest of them are trapped at home, and they’re miserable there.

Entertainment

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April 13, 2013

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Brave New World

How Kaggle Is Changing How We Work

Like it or not, hyper-efficient job markets are on their way. THOMAS GOETZ APR 12 2013, 10:40 AM ET

The technology industry loves its laws. There’s Moore’s Law of processing power, Metcalfe’s Law of networks, and Gilder’s Law about bandwidth. And then there’s Joy’s Law, a more obscure truism named after Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy. “No matter who you are,” Joy is said to have said, “most of the smartest people work for somebody else.” For decades this koan about the scarcity of labor and expertise has held true, because of both economics and geography. The problem isn’t merely the cost of hiring the smartest people, but the other frictions in the labor market that prevent companies from finding the right people, knowledge- and skills-wise.

But Joy’s Law may not be sacred for much longer. A new wave of startups are bringing innovation to several labor markets, making the smartest people in the world available and employable by anybody (for a price). There’s no better example of this than Kaggle. Founded in 2010, Kaggle is an online platform for data-mining and predictive-modeling competitions. A company arranges with Kaggle to post a dump of data with a proposed problem, and the site’s community of computer scientists and mathematicians — known these days as data scientists — take on the task, posting proposed solutions. Importantly, competitors don’t just get one crack at the problem; they can revise their submissions until a deadline, driving themselves and the community towards better solutions.

“The level of accuracy increases, and they all tend to converge on the same solution,” explains Anthony Goldbloom, Kaggle’s co-founder and CEO. Companies as varied as MasterCard, Pfizer, Allstate, and Facebook (not to mention NASA) have all created competitions. GE sponsored a contest to give airline pilots tools to make more efficient flight plans en route. Health technology company Practice Fusion funded another challenge to identify patients with Type 2 diabetes based on de-identified medical records. Prizes for the winning solution have ranged from $3,000 to $250,000. A $3 million prize, offered by the Heritage Provider Network for the best prediction of which patients will be admitted to a hospital within the next year, based on historical claims data, closed last week, and the winner will be announced in June at the Health Datapalooza.

The key to Kaggle is the community: 85,000 data scientists (who knew there were that many data scientists in the world!) have entered competitions, and each is ranked according to their skill and results in competitions. Xavier Conort, a French actuary living in Singapore, holds the Number One spot (he’s won 6 prizes and come in the top 10 percent a dozen times). As I’m writing this, Joshua Moskowitz, an American who joined 9 minutes ago, is at the other end of the pecking order. Just wait till Joshua starts competing, though; he could be a challenge Xavier in a matter of months. That everyone-has-a-chance ethos means that any competitor, no matter how isolated they may be, can judge their talents against the top rank of their field. What’s more, in the company’s forums competitors can swap techniques and hone their skills. Goldbloom says that a good programmer can work their way up the ladder fairly quickly, by scoring well in two or three competitions.

The really disruptive thing about Kaggle, though, comes through the company’s new service, Kaggle Connect. Here, Kaggle acts as a match-maker, where customers with a specific problem can hire a specific data scientist well-suited to their problem; candidates are drawn the top tier of Kaggle participants: the top 1/2 of 1 percent, or about 500 data scientists. Which means that now you can hire Xavier, or one of the other best data scientists in the world — if you can afford them. Or, if you’d rather pay less, you can go down the trail to people less highly ranked, but still with the Kaggle seal of approval. On one level, of course, Kaggle is just another spin on crowdsourcing, tapping the global brain to solve a big problem. That stuff has been around for a decade or more, at least back to Wikipedia (or farther back, Linux, etc). And companies like TaskRabbit and oDesk have thrown jobs to the crowd for several years. But I think Kaggle, and other online labor markets, represent more than that, and I’ll offer two arguments.

First, Kaggle doesn’t incorporate work from all levels of proficiency, professionals to amateurs. Participants are experts, and they aren’t working for benevolent reasons alone: they want to win, and they want to get better to improve their chances of winning next time. Second, Kaggle doesn’t just create the incidental work product, it creates a new marketplace for work, a deeper disruption in a professional field. Unlike traditional temp labor, these aren’t bottom of the totem pole jobs. Kagglers are on top. And that disruption is what will kill Joy’s Law. Because here’s the thing: the Kaggle ranking has become an essential metric in the world of data science. Employers like American Express and the New York Times have begun listing a Kaggle rank as an essential qualification in their help wanted ads for data scientists. It’s not just a merit badge for the coders; it’s a more significant, more valuable, indicator of capability than our traditional benchmarks for proficiency or expertise.

In other words, your Ivy League diploma and IBM resume don’t matter so much as my Kaggle score. It’s flipping the resume, where your work is measurable and metricized and your value in the marketplace is more valuable than the place you work. “We’re solving a market failure,” says Goldbloom. “People were using really poor proxies” for skills and credentials. That’s the big shift here. Kaggle represents a new sort of labor market, one where skills have been bifurcated from credentials. (Tom Friedman, among others, has been beating on this drum of late). Obviously, data science and computer code is particularly well suited to such a market. It’s digital, and the product is easily measured in both quality and efficiency. But this doesn’t mean that other fields won’t follow. It was the same way with open source software and other easily digitized fields — at first seems like only work with code. But then the model starts to get adopted and adapted by other industries that figure out how to inject the same magic into their fields. You don’t have to look hard to find other new companies that are building similarly disruptive labor marketplaces: 99Designs has created a contest-based community of designers, and has paid $51 million to designers for their winning contributions at a current rate of $1.8 million per month. And HealthTap has for created a community of 30,000 doctors who are using their spare cycles to answer patients’ healthcare questions, and are scored on the quality of their contributions. Founder Ron Gutman calls HealthTap an “arbitrage market for physicians,” that’s connecting a market need for expert healthcare advice with the suddenly available commodity of doctors with a few minutes on their hands.

The company has even started a ClubMD for top-ranked doctors that comes with special posting privileges. Though he was skeptical at first, Goldbloom conceded that even professions that don’t seem particularly quantitative might be similarly arbitraged. Take lawyers, for example – how would you rate them? But after a moments thought, Goldbloom had cracked it: you could pretty easily rank trial lawyers by their courtroom victories, or personal injury attorneys by their settlement amounts. And soon, it became clear that nearly every profession have some sort of metric for success, not just in terms of outcomes (which can measure success) but also in terms of process (which can measure efficiency). And suddenly, Joy’s Law doesn’t seem so sacred any more.

computer technology, Economic Systems, Finance and Economics, internet, Thinking and Intelligence

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April 13, 2013

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Remembering Jonathan Winters

Comedian Jonathan Winters dies at 87

By Todd Leopold, CNN updated 6:48 PM EDT, Fri April 12, 2013

Comedian Jonathan Winters died on Thursday, April 11, at his Montecito, California, home, a business associate told CNN. He was 87.

Winters influenced generations of comedians; Robin Williams: “He was my Comedy Buddha” Winters appeared in several movies, many TV shows (CNN) — Jonathan Winters, the wildly inventive actor and comedian who appeared in such films as “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “The Loved One” and played Robin Williams’ son on the TV show “Mork & Mindy,” has died. He was 87.

Winters died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California, according to business associate Joe Petro III. Winters was known for his comic irreverence, switching characters the way other people flick on light switches. His routines were full of non sequiturs and surreal jokes. Williams, in particular, often credited him as a great influence. “First he was my idol, then he was my mentor and amazing friend,” tweeted Williams. “I’ll miss him huge. He was my Comedy Buddha. Long live the Buddha.” Comedian Jonathan Winters dies 1989: Jonathan Winters says ‘goodnight’ Winters, who was widely admired by comedians in general, was awarded the Mark Twain Prize — which goes to outstanding humorists — in 1999.

“Genius” was a common touchstone as comedians reacted to Winters’ death. “R.I.P Jonathan Winters,” tweeted comedian and filmmaker Albert Brooks. “Beyond funny, he invented a new category of comedic genius.” “Had a great run. Actual genius,” tweeted Kevin Pollak. “A genius and the greatest improvisational comedian of all time,” tweeted Richard Lewis. Though he never had a breakout starring role, over the years his appearances on TV shows made him a beloved figure in the entertainment world. He was a favorite guest on “The Tonight Show” — particularly in the early ’60s when Jack Paar hosted it — and turned up on the game show “The Hollywood Squares,” Dean Martin’s celebrity roasts and countless variety shows.

He told the Archive of American Television about the creation of his character Maude Frickert, the sarcastic old lady, who came from a relative he had. “I decided, having seen a lot of older people, that many of them are shelved — put in retirement homes to rot,” he said. “I decided to (be) a hip old lady” — one who had a wicked sense of humor, the kind of person who was married 12 times and cracked a whip in a ward of cardiac patients. Other characters included Elwood P. Suggins, B.B. Bindlestiff and Lance Loveguard. He had a regular role on the final season of “Mork & Mindy,” putting him together with Williams, who played the space visitor Mork from Ork. Winters played Mearth, Mork’s son, who — having hatched from a giant egg — was the size of an adult but had the mind of a child. The attempted pairing of Williams and Winters was expected to create comic fireworks, but the show’s already falling ratings didn’t pick up, and “Mork & Mindy” was canceled in 1982.

Winters showed his range with the occasional dramatic role. In an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” he played a shark-like pool player. In the 1994 film “The Shadow” — with Alec Baldwin as the hero with the ability to cloud men’s minds — he played Baldwin’s police chief uncle. He was also a prolific recording artist, producing more than a dozen comedy records, including 1960’s “The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters.” Winters was born November 11, 1925, in Dayton, Ohio. He developed his talent for characters and voices from a young age. After serving in World War II, he married his wife, Eileen, in 1948 and hoped to become an artist. That career went nowhere, but his wife encouraged him to enter a talent contest. His win there earned him a position as a disc jockey on a local radio station, making up some of his interviewees.

Eventually he left for New York, becoming a nightclub comic and earning spots on “The Tonight Show.” In 1961, Winters suffered a nervous breakdown. He spent eight months in a mental institution and was diagnosed as bipolar. “It was one of the toughest times in my life,” he told the Archive of American Television. But when he got out — on April Fools’ Day, 1962 — he almost immediately got a call from director Stanley Kramer, offering him a role in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” Kramer was one of the most highly regarded directors in Hollywood, known for “The Defiant Ones” and “Judgment at Nuremberg.” He was reluctant about taking the role until his wife pushed him. “You’d better take it, because you’ll never work again if you don’t take it,” he recalled her saying. In the 1963 film, filled with comedy all-stars, Winters stood out as a truck driver who destroys a gas station. He was, many agreed, one of a kind. “The first time I saw Jonathan Winters perform, I thought I might as well quit the business,” tweeted Dick Van Dyke after hearing of Winters’ death. “Because, I could never be as brilliant.” His wife, Eileen, died in 2009. He is survived by two children and five grandchildren.

Humor, Memoirs, Obituaries, Senior Living

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April 12, 2013

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Climate Change: The Moral Choices

Climate Change: The Moral Choices

The effects of global warming will persist for hundreds of years. What are our responsibilities and duties today to help safeguard the distant future? That is the question ethicists are now asking.

illustration of couple lying on stark beach with smoke stack in background

One of the defining characteristics of climate change is poorly appreciated by most people: the higher temperatures and other effects induced by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will persist for a very long time. Scientists have long realized that carbon dioxide emitted during the burning of fossil fuels tends to linger in the atmosphere for extended periods, even for centuries. Over the last few years, researchers have calculated that some of the resulting changes to the earth’s climate, including increased temperature, are more persistent still: even if emissions are abruptly ended and carbon dioxide levels gradually drop, the temperature will stubbornly remain elevated for a thousand years or more. The earth’s thermostat is essentially being turned up and there are no readily foreseeable ways to turn it back down; even risky geoengineering schemes would at best offset the higher temperatures only temporarily.

It’s a shocking realization, especially given how little progress has been made in slowing carbon dioxide emissions. But it is precisely the long-term nature of the problem that makes it so urgent for us to limit emissions as quickly and radically as possible. To have a decent chance of meeting the widely accepted international goal of keeping warming at or below 2 °C, emissions need to be cut substantially over the next few years. By 2050 they must be reduced by half or more from 2009 levels.

The mismatch between when we need to act and when many of the benefits will accrue helps to explain why climate change is such a politically and economically thorny problem. How do you convince people and governments to invest in a far-off future? Clearly, it is not a problem that can easily be addressed by most politicians, given the immediate and pressing needs of their constituents. Because it involves defining and understanding our responsibilities to future generations, our action (or inaction) on climate change falls squarely into the realm of moral and political philosophy.

Over the last few years a small but growing number of writers have begun to wrestle with some profound questions. What ethical guidelines should economists follow when evaluating today’s costs against future benefits? How should we weigh uncertainties, including the risks of catastrophic changes wrought by global warming? Would geoengineering be ethical? How does climate change affect our perception of the world and our future role in it? The conclusions they’ve reached are nuanced and can turn on esoteric definitions of terms such as “justice” and “moral good.” But their reasoning often provides keen insights into today’s most pressing policy questions.

Climate Change, Climate Change, Environment, Science and Technology, Thinking and Intelligence

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April 11, 2013

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Bahrain Steps Up

Bahrain Places Hezbollah on Terrorist List

By Claude Salhani | Tue, 09 April 2013 21:50 | 0

The tiny Gulf kingdom of Bahrain became the first Arab country to place the Shiite Lebanese movement, Hezbollah, on their terrorist list earlier this week. It is a rather bold step on their part and the implications are enormous while the ultimate consequences are yet unknown. In punishing Hezbollah, Bahrain is at the same time pointing an accusing finger directly at Iran.

But first some background on the reasons behind this latest development. Bahrain, much like Lebanon has an important Shiite community. And much like the Shiites in Lebanon, those in the oil-rich sheikhdom felt that they were not treated on a par with their fellow citizens who belong to the Sunni majority. If indeed the Sunnis still hold the majority. In Lebanon, as in Bahrain their numbers have been growing though the authorities are reluctant to admit that may in fact have surpassed the minority status.

A popular movement of protests began to take to the streets in Bahrain a couple of years ago as the Bahraini Shiites were inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. If the revolts in North Africa were encouraged by some Gulf countries, the attitude when it came to Bahrain was a very different one. When the king of Bahrain was on the verge of conceding to Shiite pressures and appoint a prime minister from their community, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stepped in and dispatched troops to put down the rebellion.

All along the authorities in Manama, the Bahraini capital, blamed Iran and Hezbollah for fomenting the troubles. Bahrain claimed that Hezbollah was training Bahraini Shiites in revolutionary tactics in secret camps in Lebanon.

US intelligence sourced the notion of Iranian intervention in Bahrain, saying there was not enough evidence to support those accusations. In the past Bahrain tended to avoid naming Iran directly, accusing instead, “foreign powers.” No one had any doubts as to whom those powers might be, but still, it was one way of avoiding being too confrontational and leaving a back channel open for possible future negotiations.

This new move now leaves no room for diplomatic maneuvering and clearly and unequivocally places Iran in the dock of the accused.

Now that Hezbollah is directly named as a terrorist organization by an Arab country raises the stakes somewhat and places Bahrain in a position of possibly becoming the target of retaliatory attacks, either from Hezbollah or by groups or individuals supporting it. Or if one was Machiavellian enough, maybe even attacks by those who oppose the Shiite movement just to make it seems as though it was them, to further discredit them.

How would the interruption of Bahraini oil and/or gas affect the world markets?

What would it do to the price of oil at the pump?  One can only speculate at this time as of course much would depend on the extent of the damages suffered, if any, but suffice to say that Bahrain’s production of oil for 2012 was estimated around 44,800 bbl/day. And the country holds more than 107.2 million bbl of proven reserves.

No doubt his latest development will please a group of panelists who gave a talk last week at the Potomac Institute asking all countries to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization and to have sanctions imposed against it and travel restrictions imposed on its leaders.

Sanctions against a party, group or militia will hardly yield any results when sanctions against countries have failed. Travel bans on their leaders? Do you really think that Hassan Nasrallah and Sheikh Naim Qassem book their travel through commercial airliners? If and when they do leave the safety of their sanctuary in Beirut’s southern suburbs, it is typically for a very specific reason, such as a meeting with the leader of a friendly state, in which case transportation as well as security details is provided.

However, the likelihood of this approach working has little possibility of success. Indeed, the approach to solving this issues is so 1960; dated, passé, and ineffective. The policy suggested by the three speakers at this conference was after all not much different than what was proposed and advocated on dealing with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

But how that has changed. The PLO and their leaders are now received at the White House with all the honors due to any world leader.

Is Hezbollah a terrorist outfit? It depends on whom you ask. The organization is composed of three wings: a political wing that is represented in the Lebanese government and parliament, and given the Lebanese bizarre electoral structure, Hezbollah even has some Christian deputies on its electoral lists.

The military wing, or as some in the West refer to it, the terrorist wing.

And the third arm of the Shiite movement’s social affairs division. This is perhaps the most important section in the organization. They are the ones who lay the groundwork for the grass roots followers and gives the movement the strength is currently has by offering social services such as the schools and hospitals it provides in the absence of state institutions.

In the aftermath of the last major round of fighting between Hezbollah and the Israelis in 2007, party officials came out of the shelters in Beirut’s southern suburbs with boxes of US dollars to hand over on the spot to anyone who’s house was destroyed by the bombing. Where was the Lebanese government? Nowhere to be found. Guess where the majority’s sympathy goes.

By. Claude Salhani

Claude Salhani, a specialist in conflict resolution, is an independent journalist, political analyst and author of several books on the region. His latest book, ‘Islam Without a Veil,’ is published by Potomac Books. He tweets @claudesalhani.

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Claude Salhani

border wars, Economic Systems, Military News, politics, Religion, War on Terror

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April 10, 2013

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I Wonder Where Japan Learned about this Economic Maneuver

Japan
A cunning plan
Apr 5th 2013, 12:13 by Buttonwood

SO THIS is Japan’s national problem. The country has a lot of debt, much of it issued by the government. On the plus side, nominal interest rates are low, making the debt easy to service (albeit that interest costs are a quarter of government spending, see Andy Xie’s analysis). On the negative side, those low interest rates are a reflection of a deflationary, slow-growth environment that means its debt isn’t going to disappear.

Bring forward the cunning plan. Generate inflation and consumers will start spending, business confidence will improve and growth will resume. This will reduce the government’s annual deficit and reduce the real value of the debt over time. Problem solved. But what about investors? Won’t they demand a higher yield to compensate for the inflation? Marty Feldstein reckons a four percentage point rise in borrowing costs will push the annual deficit to 20% of GDP (admittedly, because of the average maturity of the debt, that would take some time to occur).

But no matter, because the central bank will buy a lot of the debt; it is both indifferent to the price it pays (and the return it gets) and has a theoretically infinite balance sheet. But isn’t this monetising the government debt? Not according to Gavyn Davies, writing in the FT, who says that

This is not helicopter money because the rise in JGB holdings (although more than large enough to finance the budget deficit in the next two years) is intended to be reversed in the long run.
The interesting question is whether outside investors should believe this. Mr Davies reckons the Bank of Japan will buy around 15% of GDP in the form of just long-term bonds, out of total bond purchases worth around 26% of GDP. In other words, whenever the BOJ offloads its bonds (whether it sells them outright, or doesn’t repurchase them when they mature, it makes no difference), the private sector will have to absorb the surplus. Over five years, that would be 5.2% of GDP each year on top of the running deficit the government would have to finance. Worse still, investors would then be aware that the BofJ would no longer be a buyer so the rise in yields would be substantial.

No matter, some will say; better to deal with the current crisis and worry about a future problem when it happens. But of course, there was a past taboo against central bank financing of government debt because it is very habit-forming; why bother raising money from angry taxpayers or skittish private sector creditors when you can just get your friendly central bank governor to lend it you? It is easy to think this finance is costless but there must be a cost; those who pay the cost may simply be unaware of it for a while (eg the financial repression levy).

Still while one can hold down bond yields, there is nothing to stop investors from reacting in a different way and selling the yen. George Soros worried about a yen plunge yesterday saying that

If the yen starts to fall, which it has done, and people in Japan realise it’s liable to continue and want to put their money abroad, then the fall may become like an avalanche
Of course, a certain amount of yen devaluation will be welcomed by the Japanese government since the prime minister called for it in December. The yen fell more than 3% against the dollar yesterday. Bill Gross said that so much yen devaluation will be needed to generate the desired inflation that other countries will complain about the trade competition.

Many will say that this is a domestic reflation policy, not a plan to boost Japan’s exporters (perish the thought). Mr Davies notes that

(Nor) is it overt exchange rate manipulation Swiss-style. Having flirted with a policy of deliberately buying foreign bonds, the BOJ and the government have not pressed this button yet.
However, I rather like this tart FT paragraph by Ben McLannahan and Chris Giles

Central bankers in developed economies say action aimed at boosting a domestic economy does not represent an aggressive act, because the aim is not to move the currency, even though that might be a side-effect. It is very different, they say, from direct management of currencies, such as China’s exchange rate policies, which they see as beyond the pale. Emerging economies tend to see this as semantic nonsense – a distinction without a difference.
In any case, Japan’s growth may be constrained by other factors than monetary policy, such as demographics and poor labour market policies, as Stephen King of HSBC notes. Another issue is that, as this blog has noted before, a devaluation is a fall in a country’s standard of living; it costs more to buy imported goods. In Britain, weaker sterling has led to above-target inflation and a squeeze in real wages. Mr Abe might find himself unpopular at home, as well as abroad, if a plunging yen eats into his citizens’ spending power.

Currencies, Economic Systems, Finance and Economics, Investment News, Thinking and Intelligence

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April 10, 2013

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Lunar Orbiter Update

Ten Cool Things Seen in the First Year of LRO

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will soon have been orbiting the Moon for 4 years. Here’s a reminder of ten cool things it “saw” in its first year.
From NASA’s mission pages.

The coldest place in the solar system

Astronauts first steps on the Moon

Apollo14 and the near miss of cone crater

Lukhnod 1 found

LOLA’s Lunar farside

Craters and boulders with Moon Zoo

Moon Mountains

Lunar Rilles

Pits and skylights

Areas of Near Constant Sunlight at the South Pole

Science and Technology, Space Exploration

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April 9, 2013

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Understanding Mortgage Derivatives

due to current interest in the topic, I am running this post again.

RichardB10001's avatarPassing Through . . . .

Derivatives Based on Real Property Loans

A few days ago, I published a post stating that interests in timeshares based on point, essentially were no different from derivatives based on mortgage loans.  I have had a few questions about derivatives based on mortgage loans, so I am posting this discussion.

I  like to begin by defining terms.  I found the following definition in an online dictionary:

”  an arrangement or instrument(such as a future, option, or warrant) whose value derives from and is dependent on the value of an underlying asset”.  It is important to note that the value is not in the underlying asset or mortgage but is merely derived from the underlying mortgage – more on that later in this post.

When applied to real estate loans secured by mortgages a definition would be A Financial Contract whose value is dependent on the value of the underlying mortgage loan.

Seems simple enough, so how did derivates help create the current economic…

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April 8, 2013

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