Galactic Views (15)

←                                                                                                                                         →
SPACE WATCH

First Supernova Companion Star Found
NASA – In 2004, an international team of astronomers had, for the first time, observed a stellar “survivor” emerge from a double star system involving an exploded supernova.

Supernovae are some of the most significant sources of chemical elements in the universe, and they are at the heart of our understanding of the evolution of galaxies. In this artist’s view, the red super-giant supernova progenitor star (left) is exploding after having transferred about 10 solar masses of hydrogen gas to the blue companion star (right).

Communist China the most efficient capitalist country of all

BOOK REVIEW
Maonomics, Author: Loretta Napoleoni.

By Miriam Cosic – Communist China is proving to be the most adept capitalist country of all: the result of a historic convergence of Marxist analysis, Confucian values and pragmatism. Despite the threat it appears to pose to the West – its burgeoning economic strength, the cynicism of its international relations, its human rights record – Napoleoni says China has set a new standard for capitalist success.

It is also redefining modernity. The French Revolution, with its groundbreaking Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, set the original political framework for the modern world.

“In the European crisis, if we had had someone like Deng Xiaoping, instead of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, who at every single step have to go back to their Bundestag or their parliament in order to find out what they can and cannot say, if we had someone with true vision of what Europe can be next, I think we wouldn’t be where we are.

“If we get out of the ideological box we are in, the sky is the limit. We can do anything.” more> http://is.gd/w4BjhO

Germany’s Merkel fights for euro, Cameron for UK

By Catherine Bremer and Stephen Brown – British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened on Friday to obstruct a Franco-German drive for swift change to the European Union’s treaty intended to help save the euro.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called earlier for rapid but limited treaty change to remedy what she sees as the root causes of Europe’s raging sovereign debt crisis, warning that Europeans faced a “marathon” to regain lost credibility.

“Resolving the sovereign debt crisis is a process, and this process will take years,” Merkel told parliament. more> http://is.gd/2WBaMe

related>

• Merkel calls for eurozone fiscal union, Chuck Penfold, Holly Fox, AFP/dpa/Reuters/Deutsche Welle
• The European debt crisis in eight graphs, Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff, Washingtonn Post
• Euro Meltdown, Ed Boyle, CBS News
• European debt crisis: Euro zone facing make-up-or-break-up choice, Howard Schneider, Washington Post
• A European Solution Germany Can Feel Good About, Zoe Chace, npr
  

Federal Reserve gave big banks $1 trillion in undisclosed loans

SLIDE SHOW (8)
By Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz – The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required emergency loans of a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market interest rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Saved by the 2007-2010 bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse. more> http://is.gd/FtwIaV

THOMAS Top Ten – compiled on Nov 20 2011

Library of Congress -

1. H.R. 3261 [112th]
   Stop Online Piracy Act
2. H.R. 2112 [112th]
   Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012
3. H.R. 822 [112th]
   National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011
4. H.R. 3012 [112th]
   Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act
5. H.R. 674 [112th]
   To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the imposition of 3 percent withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities, to modify the calculation of modified adjusted gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain healthcare-related programs, and for other purposes
6. S. 968 [112th]
   Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011
7. H.R. 2354 [112th]
   Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012
8. S. 1857 [112th]
   Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act
9. H.R. 4646 [111th]
   Debt Free America Act
10. H.R. 2838 [112th]
    Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011