Dancing

 

China's Property & Credit Bubble

Buildings developed by China Evergrande Group that authorities have issued a demolition order on in Danzhou, Hainan Province, China, January 7, 2022. Picture taken with a drone.(Aly Song/Reuters)



The country’s property and credit-market bubble is now showing every sign of bursting — at a dangerous time for both China and the world at large.


The late American Enterprise Institute economist Herb Stein famously wrote that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.


Mr. Stein might very well have had in mind the unsustainable, decade-old, property and credit-market bubble in China, which is now showing every sign of bursting. 

Compounding matters, it is doing so at the very time when the Chinese economy is experiencing a perfect economic storm as a result of President Xi’s zero-tolerance Covid policy, his attack on big business, and his ramping up of political tensions with the United States over Taiwan now coinciding with a severe drought. 

A Chinese economic slowdown would have major implications for the world. Not only is China the world’s second-largest economy; until recently, it was also the world’s main engine of economic growth and its largest consumer of internationally traded commodities.

Over the past decade, China’s economic miracle was heavily based on an unsustainable property and credit-led economic-growth model. 

That led to a situation where private-sector credit grew by more than 100 percent of GDP: a pace of credit expansion faster than that which preceded Japan’s lost economic decade in the 1980s, or that which preceded the 2007 bursting of the U.S. housing and credit-market bubble.  READ MORE...

Campfire

 

A Week At Myrtle Beach

 

Today, my wife and I drove to Myrtle Beach, SC for a week's vacation although I am not sure why because we have been retired since 2015 and don't really need vacations.  Still, we like to travel and it is nice to get away since we have not been anywhere for over a year.  This is only our second vacation since COVID appeared on the scene.

Because of my back surgery, we had to stop every two hours...  so instead of 6 & 1/2 hours in the car, we spent a little over 7, stopping for about 15 minutes each time.  The traffic was not bad and that might have been because of the day.  We left at 7am and arrived at 3pm but stopped for gas and coffee before we left town.

Today, we are reminded of the terrorist attack inside our borders and even though it was 2 decades ago, for some of us, it is like it just happened yesterday.

Do you remember where you were?

I was at work and it was about 30 minutes before my shift started so I was in the lounge watching whatever was on the TV and saw a plane crash into a high rise building.  I thought it was a movie.  But, was soon told, it was the news.

For 20 years we have worried about another attack and for 20 years nothing has happened.  However, I am sure that the Arabs who hate us, have planned numerous events but all have been avoided because of our alert status with the military and homeland security.

Was COVID another terrorist attack except this time, it was unleashed by the Chinese?  And, why is our government protecting the Chinese when they are our sworn enemy?

Well, enough of this troublesome shit...  I'm at the beach and I'm going to start enjoying myself and I suggest that you do the same.

Remembering the 911 Terrorist Attacks

 

911: Two Decades Later

Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. 

And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Vampire Grave Found In Poland

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FROM THE TORUŃ NICHOLAS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY HAVE FOUND A GRAVE FROM THE 18TH CENTURY, CONTAINING A ‘FEMALE VAMPIRE’ BURIED WITH A SICKLE OVER THE NECK TO PREVENT HER ASCENSION TO VAMPIRISM.

The concept of a blood-sucking spirit, or demon consuming human flesh has been told in the mythology and folktales of almost every civilisation throughout the centuries.

One of the earliest vampiric depictions stems from cuneiform texts by the Akkadians, Samarians, Assyrians and Babylonians, where they referred to demonic figures such as the Lilu and Lilitu.

During the late 17th and 18th century, the folklore for vampires as we imagine became rampant in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.

They were described as the revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit or the victim of a vampiric attack.

During the 18th century, vampire sightings across Eastern Europe had reached its peak, with frequent exhumations and the practice of staking to kill potential revenants. This period was commonly referred to as the “18th-Century Vampire Controversy”.

Archaeologists found the burial near Bydgoszcz, a city in northern Poland. An anthropological study revealed that she had protruding front teeth, suggesting that her appearance may have led superstitious locals in the 17th century to brand her a witch or vampire. In fear of her ascension, a sickle was placed around her neck, while a padlock was tied to the toe on the left foot.  READ MORE...

Vine Holding Lazy

 

Obiter Hit By A Coronal Mass Ejection

The sun-observing Solar Orbiter spacecraft makes regular flybys at Venus, taking measurements 

of the planet's magnetic field as a side project. (Image credit: ESA)

The sun-exploring Solar Orbiter spacecraft came face to face with a massive eruption of plasma from the sun, just ahead of a pivotal flyby of Venus.


An enormous coronal mass ejection (CME), a burst of charged particles from the sun's upper atmosphere, the corona, shot out from the sun on Aug. 30 in the direction of Venus. Shortly after that, the bubble of solar material reached Solar Orbiter, which was just preparing for its latest orbital flyby of the second planet of the solar system.

Fortunately, the ESA-NASA observatory is designed to measure the very kind of violent outburst it just encountered and thus could withstand the solar assault with ease.

The spacecraft carries 10 science instruments to observe the sun's surface and collect data on CMEs, the solar wind and the sun’s magnetic field. Some of these instruments were turned off during the close approach to Venus, due to the potential risk from sunlight bouncing off the highly reflective Venusian atmosphere, ESA said in a statement.  READ MORE...

Helicopter Tree

 

Through Space

 

Eating Oatmeal Everyday

It's a good thing medical experts recommend oatmeal as a healthy breakfast—there's so much you can do with a container of oats. You can enjoy them warm, soak them overnight, bake them into bars or muffins, or even blend them into a waffle batter. 

Yet besides such delicious versatility, why exactly do health experts recommend oatmeal as a go-to morning meal? How does a simple bowl of oats affect your long-term health? Here's what the science says about consuming oatmeal on a regular basis.


Oats are a great source of fiber, a carbohydrate that the body cannot digest. Because fiber slows down digestion, you won't feel as hungry for a longer period, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eating fiber-rich foods helps avoid spikes and dips in your blood sugar levels while reducing feelings of hunger. 

"Having oats for breakfast or incorporated into different foods as meals and snacks is a great way to give the meal more staying power and help you feel fuller for longer," says Maggie Michalczyk, RDN. 

According to the USDA's FoodData Central, 1 cup of cooked oatmeal contains 4 grams of fiber, which is 16% of the recommended daily value.

You'll Have an Easier Time in the Bathroom
"Oats contain a special type of soluble fiber called beta-glucan," says Michalczyk. "Beta-glucan forms a gel-like consistency in the gut and helps to keep things moving in your digestive tract and keep you regular." 

This helps with bulking up your stool, making it easier for your bowel movement later. Plus, pairing your oatmeal with sources of insoluble fiber—like unpeeled sliced apples, nuts or blackberries—can also help keep things moving in your digestive tract and make things easier in the bathroom later.  READ MORE...

Blending

Photos of an Alien World

The HIP 65426 b gas giant planet photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope on the 

background of the Digitized Sky Survey (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), 

the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI))

The James Webb Space Telescope took its first direct image of a planet orbiting a distant star, proving its potential to revolutionize exoplanet research.


The absolute majority of exoplanets have only been observed through temporary dips in brightness of the stars they orbit; only about two dozen have been imaged directly. But that might soon change. Less than two months after it started its science operations, the James Webb Space Telescope has delivered its first direct photo of a planet beyond our solar system.


The planet, a gas giant orbiting the star called HIP 65426 some 385 light-years from Earth, appears in the image as a tiny splotch close to the glowing star. Webb photographed the exoplanet using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), each of which focuses on a different flavor of infrared light.

"This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally," Sasha Hinkley, an astronomer at the University of Exeter in the U.K. who led these observations, said in a statement(opens in new tab).


Scientists had discovered the planet in 2017 with the Very Large Telescope in Chile; Webb isn't tailored to discovering new exoplanets and will instead excel at teaching scientists about worlds other observatories identified.

Exoplanets are extremely difficult to observe directly because they are so much fainter than the stars they orbit. This one, HIP 65426 b, could only be spotted thanks to a combination of factors. First, it's extremely far away from its parent star, 100 times the distance from the sun to Earth (for comparison, Pluto orbits only 40 sun-Earth distances from the sun). Second, HIP 65426 b is also extremely massive — 12 times the size of Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet.  READ MORE...

Blue Planet