Teleportation Is Real – But Don’t Try It at Home

By Danielle Dowling   TIME MAGAZINE

                                                                                                                                                                                 Physics and magic aren’t often mistaken, but increasingly, physicists themselves seem to be trying to change that. Last year, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that it had developed materials that could lead to an invisibility cloak. Last month, a group of researchers at Harvard University and the National Institutes of Health reported that it had accomplished something not unlike levitation, causing a microscopic sphere of gold to rise above a glass surface. Now, according to a paper published in the Jan. 23 issue of Science, a team of scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan has joined the fun. The current bit of legerdemain?

Burden of Debt Weighed on Family in Murder-Suicide

Ervin and Ana Lupoe had five children, Brittney, 8, twin girls Jaszmin and Jassely, 5, and twin boys Benjamin and Christian, 2.

 LOS ANGELES — Ervin and Ana Lupoe had planned to move closer to family in Kansas to weather the financial storm their lives had fallen into. But a bounced check to the Internal Revenue Service last week may have changed those plans, police detectives said Wednesday, digging the couple deeper into mounting mortgage debt. Instead of building a new life, Mr. Lupoe killed his wife and five children hours before shooting himself in the head on Tuesday morning.

Iraqi Women Vie for Votes and Taste of Power

 

Mahdiya Abed-Hassan al-Lami, a teacher and a women’s rights advocate, in her Baghdad home. She is a candidate for a seat on the provincial council.

BAGHDAD — Amal Kibash, a candidate for the Baghdad provincial council, is running a bold and even feverish campaign by most standards. With elections coming on Saturday, she is trolling for every vote she can muster.

What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses

By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived.

Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.

House Passes Stimulus Plan Despite G.O.P. Opposition

WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.

Caveman and No Electricity Blues…

Thanks to the ICE STORM we are in the dark here!

Here I sit in the dark pretty much, generator out on porch thumping away so I can watch a bit of  T.V. and post a rant about how damn miserable it is here!   We have 3 other couples staying with us, because they had no heat, we have 3 large fireplaces here to keep us all toasty. 

Obama Stimulus Package Breakdown

January 26, 2009 – 11:16 ET

What is the money being spent on-general breakdown between infrastructure, tax cuts, etc…?

Some highlights of the package, by the numbers:

• $825 billion total (as of 1/15/09)
• $550 billion in new spending, described as thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.
• $275 billion in tax relief ($1,000 tax cut for families, $500 tax cut for individuals through SS payroll deductions)
• $ 90 billion for infrastructure
• $ 87 billion Medicaid aid to states
• $ 79 billion school districts/public colleges to prevent cutbacks
• $ 54 billion to encourage energy production from renewable sources
• $ 41 billion for additional school funding ($14 billion for school modernizations and repairs, $13 billion for Title I, $13 billion for IDEA special education funding, $1 billion for education technology)
• $ 24 billion for “health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients and introduce cost-saving efficiencies” and “to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective healthcare treatments.”
• $ 16 billion for science/technology ($10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation; $6 billion to expand broadband to rural areas)
• $ 15 billion to increase Pell grants by $500
• $ 6 billion for the ambiguous “higher education modernization.”

[Source: Committee on Appropriations: January 15, 2009]

Here is a further breakdown of the package:

FBI offers hearing aid in John Travolta extortion probe

John Travolta with wife Kelly Preston enjoy a night out in Paris with their children Jett and Ella Bleu

The FBI is lending a hand or, more accurately, an ear into the alleged extortion plot involving John Travolta and Kelly Preston, with special voice-analysis experts assisting Bahamas police with the case, E! News exclusively reported last night.