Carlyle to Sell Stake to a Mideast Government, NY Times

While this may seem like old news, it is interesting to watch what The Carlyle Group is up to. I would recommend you to do your own research on The Carlyle Group so you may have a clearer understanding of what is at play,

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: September 21, 2007

The Carlyle Group, the buyout firm, agreed yesterday to sell a minority stake to the Abu Dhabi government in a deal that reflects the growing financial power of the oil-rich Middle East.
The deal, which values Carlyle at nearly $20 billion, strengthens the buyout firm’s ties to the Middle East, which has began to use the profits from higher oil prices to go on a buying spree.
Carlyle, which manages about $76 billion, has long had ties to the region. It was one of the original fund-raisers there and is now in the midst of setting up a fund there.

Why American Business Fails

'Good news: It was a normal day in Sharon Springs , KS, when a Union Pacific crew boarded a loaded coal train for the long trek to Salina .

The Bad news: Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing became overheated and melted, letting a metal support drop down and grind on the rail, creating white hot molten metal droppings spewing down to the rail.

The Good news: A very alert crew noticed smoke about halfway back in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules.

The Bad news: The train stopped with the hot wheel over a wooden bridge with creosote ties and trusses. The crew tried to explain to higher-ups but were instructed not to move the train! They were instructed "The Rules" prohibit moving the train when a part is defective!

What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us?

Two neuroscientists say that a now-extinct race of humans had big eyes, child-like faces, and an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens.

As if the Boskop story were not already strange enough, the accumulation of additional remains revealed another bizarre feature: These people had small, childlike faces. Physical anthropologists use the term pedomorphosis to describe the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. This phenomenon is sometimes used to explain rapid evolutionary changes. For example, certain amphibians retain fishlike gills even when fully mature and past their water-inhabiting period. Humans are said by some to be pedomorphic compared with other primates.Our facial structure bears some resemblance to that of an immature ape. Boskop’s appearance may be described in terms of this trait. A typical current European adult, for instance, has a face that takes up roughly one-third of his overall cranium size. Boskop has a face that takes up only about one-fifth of his cranium size, closer to the proportions of a child. Examination of individual bones confirmed that the nose, cheeks, and jaw were all childlike.
The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. The naturalist Loren Eiseley made exactly this point in a lyrical and chilling passage from his popular book, The Immense Journey, describing a Boskop fossil:

Ancient Mongolian Tomb Holds Skeleton of Western Man

The remains of a 2,000-year-old skeleton found in eastern Mongolia reveal a man of multi-ethnic heritage.

Dead men can indeed tell tales, but they speak in a whispered double helix.
Consider an older gentleman whose skeleton lay in one of more than 200 tombs recently excavated at a 2,000-year-old cemetery in eastern Mongolia, near China's northern border. DNA extracted from this man's bones pegs him as a descendant of Europeans or western Asians. Yet he still assumed a prominent position in ancient Mongolia's Xiongnu Empire, say geneticist Kyung-Yong Kim of Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, and his colleagues.
On the basis of previous excavations and descriptions in ancient Chinese texts, researchers suspect that the Xiongnu Empire -- which ruled a vast territory in and around Mongolia from 209 B.C. to A.D. 93 -- included ethnically and linguistically diverse nomadic tribes. The Xiongnu Empire once ruled the major trading route known as the Asian Silk Road, opening it to both Western and Chinese influences.

Snowpocalypse Seen from Space

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this true-color image on February 7, 2010, showing part of the region affected by heavy snowfall. Snow blankets the area hundreds of kilometers inland from the Atlantic coastline. Along the latitude of New York City, however, snow cover thins considerably. Credit: NASA

On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners, NY Times

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected. The New York Times

That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures.

But archaeologists and experts on early nautical history said the discovery appeared to show that these surprisingly ancient mariners had craft sturdier and more reliable than rafts. They also must have had the cognitive ability to conceive and carry out repeated water crossing over great distances in order to establish sustainable populations producing an abundance of stone artifacts.

Turkey: Archeological Dig Reshaping Human History

Vast complex which predates the Egyptian pyramids is unearthed in Turkey. — Newsweek

They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent.
Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.

The Occult Symbolism of Sherlock Holmes

Read this article and then watch the movie.

Feb 8th, 2010 By Vigilant Category: Vigilant Reports
The latest Hollywood blockbuster Sherlock Holmes revolves around occult murders and world conspiracies. The movie is riddled with occult symbols and allusions to a “New Order”. We’ll look at the history of Sherlock Holmes, the origins of the symbols found within the movie and its meaning in today’s context.

Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, the movie Sherlock Holmes brings back to life the famous detective of the nineteen century. The plot revolves around murders that are apparently connected with occult rituals. This leads Sherlock into the mysterious world of secret societies and political conspiracies. Doyle’s works contained some vague references to occultism or Freemasonry; the movie, however, focuses solely around those themes and incorporates elements that are very relevant in today’s context: a New World Order lead by secret societies.

Arthur Shopenhauer - Quote - 1788-1860 German Philosopher

""" So everything lingers but a moment, and hastens on to death, The plant and the insect die at the end of summer, the brute and the man after a few years; death reaps unweariedly. Yet notwithstanding this, nay, as if this were not so at all, everything is always there in its place, just as if everything were imperishable... This is temporal immortality. In consequence of this, notwithstanding thousands of years of death and decay, nothing has been lost, not an atom of the matter, still less anything of the inner being, that exhibits itself as nature. Therefore every moment we can cheerfully cry, 'In spite of time, death and decay, we are still all together!'"""
- Arthur Shopenhauer

This Recovery Will Hurt Like Hell, Newsweek

Need a reason to feel good about life today?? Then read this article by Gregg Easterbrook.

Home prices keep falling, but productivity is rising fast. GDP grew 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high. Inflation is nonexistent, while the consumer confidence index just rose to 55.9 from 53.6—whatever that means. Can't make sense of these economic indicators? Don't worry, because nobody else can, either.
Here is what you really need to know: a Sonic Boom is coming. It will be caused by globalization. And while globalization may be driving you crazy, it's just getting started. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen, China, did not exist; today, it has nearly 9 million residents, roughly the same as New York City. In a single generation, it has grown from a village of tar-paper shacks into an important urban center. It has become the world's fourth-busiest port, busier than Los Angeles and Long Beach combined. Never before has a great city been built so fast, nor a productive economy established from so little.

CLIMATE CHANGE WILL CHANGE EVERYTHINGDramatic economic change will happen at the same time as climate change. Either one would be a challenge in itself. Now, they're going to occur simultaneously, which will cause economic convulsions unparalleled by any event other than World War II. Winners are likely to be those in high-latitude regions. Yakutsk, Russia, located in Siberia just below the Arctic Circle, is currently home to the world's leading museum of woolly-mammoth fossils. But what if Siberia were to become a temperate expanse? The minerals and oil thought to lie beneath the permafrost could boost the global supply of commodities, not to mention Russia's national wealth.


The Boom Is Nigh
Gregg Easterbrook
Why the coming recovery will hurt like hell.
The World’s Most Successful Failure
'Death, Debt, and Divorce'
Is Europe’s Job Miracle For Real?