http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/01/09/arts/AP-EU-Greece-Art-Theft.html

Thieves carried out a well-organized, pre-dawn heist at Greece’s biggest state art museum on Monday, taking two oil paintings by 20th century masters Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian, police said.
A police statement said the burglars who entered through a balcony door also took a pen and ink drawing of a religious scene by Italian 16th century painter Guglielmo Caccia. It said a fourth work by Mondrian also was removed from the National Art Gallery in one of the best-guarded areas of central Athens, but the thieves abandoned it as they fled.

Museum officials were unable to immediately estimate how much the stolen works were worth.

Police said the heist took about seven minutes. The thieves had intentionally set off alarms on several occasions since Sunday evening without actually entering the building, prompting guards to disable at least one.

The burglars still triggered a sensor in the exhibition area, but a guard only got there in time to see a man running off.

Among the stolen works was a cubist female bust by Pablo Picasso, which the Spanish painter had donated to Greece in 1949 with a dedication “in homage to the Greek people” for their resistance to Nazi occupiers during World War II.

http://www.naturalnews.com/034602_Mountain_Dew_mouse_dissolved.html

While drinking Mountain Dew, have you ever seen (or perhaps felt on your tongue) a thick, jelly-like substance? Maybe you assumed the ingredients in the soda had gelled. According to Mountain Dew manufacturer Pepsi, you may have been ingesting some extra protein with your beverage in the form of a liquified rodent.

Lawsuit results in unusual defense
An Illinois man is suing Pepsi, claiming he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. Ronald Bell of Edwardsville, a small town near St. Louis, alleges there was a mouse in a can of soda he purchased and drank in 2009. Bell says he spit out the mouse and called the company to complain. At the soda manufacturer’s request, he sent them the mouse corpse. Pepsi had a veterinary pathologist examine the body. Their scientific expert found the rodent could not have been in the can since the soda case was sealed in August 2008, and its body would have dissolved as a result of the acid in the soda.

Bell says that Pepsi destroyed the evidence in the case and is seeking judgment. Pepsi’s legal team has moved to dismiss the case. Bell’s suit initially also involved the owners of the convenience store chain where he purchased the beverage, but those defendants have been dropped from the case and an amended suit was filed. The trial was set to begin in late 2011; however a Madison County Circuit Court judge granted Pepsi another month to argue for dismissal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/my-guantanamo-nightmare.html

ON Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as “undeliverable,” and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.

Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children’s lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court ordered the government to defend its actions before a federal judge that I was finally able to clear my name and be with them again.

I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this.

The fact that the United States had made a mistake was clear from the beginning. Bosnia’s highest court investigated the American claim, found that there was no evidence against me and ordered my release. But instead, the moment I was released American agents seized me and the five others. We were tied up like animals and flown to Guantánamo, the American naval base in Cuba. I arrived on Jan. 20, 2002.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/07/why-bootstrapping-over-rated/

Entrepreneurship requires balancing unbridled optimism with delusional foolishness. Most entrepreneurs are mocked and misunderstood until they are wildly successful, at which point the chorus changes from “good luck with that ‘business’, pal” to “I always believed in ya, buddy!”

Master of your Domain

There is an undeniable appeal to the notion of bootsrapping your company to success without venture capital. While bootstrapping has many advantages aside from control and ownership—such as being master of your domain and giving you the freedom to build your own Xanadu for all stakeholders—the reality is that the disadvantages may be greater. I speak from experience, having bootstrapped my own company, WatchMojo.

http://www.naturalnews.com/034586_Fukushima_USA_fatalities.html

For the very first time, a scientific study published in a peer-reviewed journal has come up with a solid estimate of the total number of US deaths caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the weeks following it. Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, and his colleagues say that, based on compiled data, at least 14,000 people in the US were killed during the 14 weeks following the Fukushima catastrophe — and the majority of these deaths were in children under age one.

Published in the International Journal of Health Services, Mangano’s study looked at both infant and adult death rates during the time when Fukushima occurred, as well as in previous months and years. During the 14 weeks prior to Fukushima, for instance, infant deaths had been declining by 8.37 percent, while in the weeks following the disaster they increased by 1.8 percent. Among adults, a 4.46 percent death rate was observed in the weeks after Fukushima, compared to 2.34 percent, which is about half that rate, a year prior.

“This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal,” said Mangano. “It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”

http://blog.friendseat.com/how-to-id-genetically-modified-food-at-the-supermarket

For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU code on the sticker consists of four numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9. Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8.

For example:

- A conventionally grown banana would be: 4011
- An organic banana would be: 94011
- A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) banana would be: 84011

http://smartfaststartup.com/2011/09/20/how-to-become-a-must-have/

http://rdist.root.org/2011/12/30/the-lost-van-jacobson-paper-that-could-save-the-internet/

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/228583-Scientists-cure-cancer-but-no-one-takes-notice

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57349913-281/godaddy-bows-to-boycott-now-opposes-sopa-copyright-bill/

Flashy neurons may get the attention, but a class of cells called glia are behind most of the brain’s work—and many of its diseases

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-hidden-brain

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577118682763082876.html

America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here.

The Fed is using what is termed a “temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement” with the European Central Bank (ECB). There are similar arrangements with the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan. Simply put, the Fed trades or “swaps” dollars for euros. The Fed is compensated by payment of an interest rate (currently 50 basis points, or one-half of 1%) above the overnight index swap rate. The ECB, which guarantees to return the dollars at an exchange …

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money

http://www.politicususa.com/en/anonymous-censorship-twitter

… “The corrupt fear us, the honest support us, the heroic join us.” …

http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/how-the-long-tail-cripples-bonus-contentmultimedia.html

. . . The quality is going to remain in the writing and in the bravery of ideas, not in teams of people making expensive digital books. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/italys-uphill-financial-fight/2011/12/23/gIQAJhETJP_story.html

THE WORLD ECONOMY’S future may hinge on Europe’s ability to resolve its debt crisis. And Europe probably won’t be able to resolve its crisis unless Italy gets its financial house in order. With a gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion and a national debt of $2.6 trillion, Italy is both dangerously close to insolvency and too big for the rest of Europe to bail out. The bond markets are charging Italy unsustainably high interest rates, and that won’t change unless and until the country can start shrinking its debt-to-GDP ratio.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/39330/

The brewing solar trade war between the United States and China sullies what should be a triumphant moment in the global photovoltaic (PV) industry: the arrival of affordable solar electricity.
After decades of global competition and collaboration, many solar markets around the world have reached grid parity—the point at which generating solar electricity, without subsidies, costs less than the electricity purchased from the grid. In other words, solar technology is ready to be a major contributor to solving our planet’s energy and environmental crisis.

However, trade protectionism threatens to inhibit the solar industry at the very time when it is breaking through to a new level of global interdependence, collaboration, and maturity.

On October 18, the U.S. government was asked to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese solar cells and modules, based on the argument that China-based producers have been heavily subsidized and are selling solar products at unfairly low prices. Perhaps not surprisingly, some Chinese companies have now asked the Chinese government to impose tariffs on imports of American solar products, arguing that U.S.-based producers have been heavily subsidized, too. And just like that, the production of affordable and competitive solar products has become a political liability in the world’s two largest producers and consumers of energy.

http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html