Pradeep Ravle

Couple wrote to BBC to tell of suicide

2009-11-03T19:59:00.001-08:00

A couple who wrote to the BBC to say they had chosen to take their own lives and criticised British laws on assisted suicides have been found dead at their home, police said last night .
Dennis Milner, 83, and his wife Flora, 81, from Newbury, Berkshire, sent a letter and statement to the BBC saying they had "chosen to peacefully end our lives" to avoid "a living death". The letter was received by the broadcaster yesterday . The couple's bodies were discovered on Sunday, Thames Valley police said.
In the note, the couple said they hoped to draw attention to the "serious human dilemma" faced by those who want to end their lives. In handwritten notes below a typed section of the letter, Dennis Milner wrote: "Arranging this so that it does not fail has been very difficult and traumatic for us. This need not and should not be the case."
In a statement with the letter they said that they had enjoyed "a happy, loving and exciting life" and thanked the NHS for extending their lives. But they said they had "just one serious and disappointing criticism of our society".
"Today we have been denied what we believe to be our basic human right - to terminate our own lives, in our own home, at our own choosing, with our loved ones around us, without anyone having to face any legal possibilities or harassment," they said.
The couple's daughter, Chrissy, told the BBC her parents were in good health but wanted to end their lives before they were unable to care for themselves. "I think they made this decision because they'd had a very positive life. They'd enjoyed life," she said. "They'd always said they wanted a positive death, they wanted a good death."
She said she and her brother, Nigel, supported their parents' decision. The siblings had been informed of their parents' intentions to end their lives but the couple had never mentioned a specific date, saying only: "We won't be here for Christmas."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, a group which the couple supported and which has campaigned for a change in the law on assisted dying, said they was "saddened" by the news.
"Both were supporters of Dignity in Dying's campaign to change the law on assisted dying for terminally-ill adults," she said. "Their case highlights some people's deep concerns about suffering unnecessarily at the end of life, and the lack of a safeguarded choice which can prompt people to take drastic action through fear."
Thames Valley police said: "Police were called to two unexplained deaths at an address in Enborne Road just before 9am on November 1."
A post mortem examination has been carried out but further toxicology tests are required. Under current legislation, those who "aid, abet, counsel or procure" someone to end their own life can be prosecuted and jailed for up to 14 years.
The director of public prosecutions issued guidelines in September designed to make it easier for those helping someone taking their life to know if they would face charges. About 100 Britons are believed to have ended their lives at the Swiss clinic of the right-to-die organisation Dignitas.
Switzerland is considering restricting or banning organised assisted suicide to reduce so-called "death tourism".

Obama's famous speech earlier as he wins 2008 US election

2008-11-05T19:53:00.000-08:00

Following is the text of the speech which Barack Obama gave at the convention:
On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place; America which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor he signed up for duty, joined Patton's army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west in search of opportunity.
And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. They are both passed away now. Yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.
I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.
This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that's moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college.
Don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.
In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. That man is John Kerry. John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and sacrifice, because they've defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we've seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. His values and his record affirm what is best in us.
John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he'll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home. John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves. John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields. John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us. And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option, but it should never be the first option.
A while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6'2'' or 6'3'', clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he'd joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. As I listened to him explain why he'd enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us? I thought of more than 900 service men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or with nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists. When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.
Now let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated. John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure. John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.
A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!
In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!
Tonight, if you feel the same energy I do, the same urgency I do, the same passion I do, the same hopefulness I do -- if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president, and John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come. Thank you and God bless you.

First day of the fall of 2008

2008-09-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

The first day of fall occurs at the autumnal equinox: Monday, September 22, 2008, at 11:44:16 EDT (15:44:16 UCT).
This date is different from the season of fall, which is one of the major divisions of the year based on the change of weather. In temperate and polar regions generally four seasons are recognized while in tropical or subtropical regions seasons are defined by wet, dry, and sometimes cool. These meteorological seasons are reckoned by temperature, with summer being the hottest quarter of the year and winter the coldest quarter of the year. The equinoxes and solstices mark the start of spring/autumn and summer/winter. The divisions are based on the rotation of the earth with respect to the angle of the earth. As the earth goes around the sun, picture it looking down on its orbit from above. summer solstice is when the earth's north pole is pointed most directly towards the sun (longest day) - warming the northern hemisphere. Winter solstice is when the earth's south pole is most directly pointed toward the sun warming the southern hemisphere and leaving the north cold. (shortest day) The equinoxes are the midway points between the solstices with the sun halfway between its northmost and southmost points, so we have equal day and night.

Technical fault halts LHC machine for 2 months

2008-09-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

The giant Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most expensive scientific experiment, will be shut down for at least two months, scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva said Saturday.
The shutdown casts into doubt the hopes of CERN physicists to achieve high-energy collisions of protons in the machine before the end of the year.
“It’s too early to say whether we’ll still be having collisions this year,” said James Gillies, chief of communications for CERN, in an e-mail message.
The laboratory shuts down to save money on electricity during the winter. A gala inauguration party scheduled for Oct. 21 will still take place, Dr. Gillies said.
The collider is designed to accelerate the subatomic particles known as protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts, far surpassing any other accelerator on Earth, and bang them together in search of new particles and forces.
After the initial success of threading protons through the machine on Sept. 10, physicists had hoped they could move ahead quickly to low-energy collisions at 450 billion electron volts and then five-trillion-electron volt collisions as early as mid-October.
Several mishaps, including the failure of a 30-ton electrical transformer, have slowed progress since then. In the worst case, on Friday, one of the giant superconducting magnets that guide the protons failed during a test. A large amount of helium, which is used to cool the magnets to within 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero, leaked into the collider tunnel.
In a terse statement, the laboratory said that an electrical connection between the magnets had melted because of the high current. To fix it, engineers will have to warm that section of the tunnel, and then cool it all the way down again.
Physicists say such setbacks are an inevitable part of starting up such a large and complicated machine, which has cost $8 billion and taken 14 years.
“This is just an unfortunate fact of life when starting up a machine like the L.H.C,” Dr. Gillies said.

Learn about LHC
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight

2008-09-18T04:38:00.001-07:00

The financial crisis that began 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.
Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad bets on mortgages have evaporated. New fault lines are emerging beyond the original problem -- troubled subprime mortgages -- in areas like credit-default swaps, the credit insurance contracts sold by American International Group Inc. and others. There's also a growing sense of wariness about the health of trading partners.

The consequences for companies and chief executives who tarry -- hoping for better times in which to raise capital, sell assets or acknowledge losses -- are now clear and brutal, as falling share prices and fearful lenders send troubled companies into ever-deeper holes. This weekend, such a realization led John Thain to sell the century-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Each episode seems to bring government intervention that is more extensive and expensive than the previous one, and carries greater risk of unintended consequences.
Expectations for a quick end to the crisis are fading fast. "I think it's going to last a lot longer than perhaps we would have anticipated," Anne Mulcahy, chief executive of Xerox Corp., said Wednesday.
"This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."
Spreading Disease
The U.S. financial system resembles a patient in intensive care. The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government's unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.

Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called deleveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt. Between 2002 and 2006, household borrowing grew at an average annual rate of 11%, far outpacing overall economic growth. Borrowing by financial institutions grew by a 10% annualized rate. Now many of those borrowers can't pay back the loans, a problem that is exacerbated by the collapse in housing prices. They need to reduce their dependence on borrowed money, a painful and drawn-out process that can choke off credit and economic growth.
At least three things need to happen to bring the deleveraging process to an end, and they're hard to do at once. Financial institutions and others need to fess up to their mistakes by selling or writing down the value of distressed assets they bought with borrowed money. They need to pay off debt. Finally, they need to rebuild their capital cushions, which have been eroded by losses on those distressed assets.
But many of the distressed assets are hard to value and there are few if any buyers. Deleveraging also feeds on itself in a way that can create a downward spiral: Trying to sell assets pushes down the assets' prices, which makes them harder to sell and leads firms to try to sell more assets. That, in turn, suppresses these firms' share prices and makes it harder for them to sell new shares to raise capital. Mr. Bernanke, as an academic, dubbed this self-feeding loop a "financial accelerator."

"Many of the CEO types weren't willing...to take these losses, and say, 'I accept the fact that I'm selling these way below fundamental value,'" said Anil Kashyap, a University of Chicago Business School economics professor. "The ones that had the biggest exposure, they've all died."
Deleveraging started with securities tied to subprime mortgages, where defaults started rising rapidly in 2006. But the deleveraging process has now spread well beyond, to commercial real estate and auto loans to the short-term commitments on which investment banks rely to fund themselves. In the first quarter, financial-sector borrowing slowed to a 5.1% growth rate, about half of the average from 2002 to 2007. Household borrowing has slowed even more, to a 3.5% pace.
Not Enough
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist Jan Hatzius estimates that in the past year, financial institutions around the world have already written down $408 billion worth of assets and raised $367 billion worth of capital.
But that doesn't appear to be enough. Every time financial firms and investors suggest that they've written assets down enough and raised enough new capital, a new wave of selling triggers a reevaluation, propelling the crisis into new territory. Residential mortgage losses alone could hit $636 billion by 2012, Goldman estimates, triggering widespread retrenchment in bank lending. That could shave 1.8 percentage points a year off economic growth in 2008 and 2009 -- the equivalent of $250 billion in lost goods and services each year.
"This is a deleveraging like nothing we've ever seen before," said Robert Glauber, now a professor of Harvard's government and law schools who came to Washington in 1989 to help organize the savings and loan cleanup of the early 1990s. "The S&L losses to the government were small compared to this."
Hedge funds could be among the next problem areas. Many rely on borrowed money to amplify their returns. With banks under pressure, many hedge funds are less able to borrow this money now, pressuring returns. Meanwhile, there are growing indications that fewer investors are shifting into hedge funds while others are pulling out. Fund investors are dealing with their own problems: Many have taken out loans to make their investments and are finding it more difficult now to borrow.
That all makes it likely that more hedge funds will shutter in the months ahead, forcing them to sell their investments, further weighing on the market.
Debt-driven financial traumas have a long history, from the Great Depression to the S&L crisis to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Neither economists nor policymakers have easy solutions. Cutting interest rates and writing stimulus checks to families can help -- and may have prevented or delayed a deep recession. But, at least in this instance, they don't suffice.
In such circumstances, governments almost invariably experiment with solutions with varying degrees of success. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt unleashed an alphabet soup of new agencies and a host of new regulations in the aftermath of the market crash of 1929. In the 1990s, Japan embarked on a decade of often-wasteful government spending to counter the aftereffects of a bursting bubble. President George H.W. Bush and Congress created the Resolution Trust Corp. to take and sell the assets of failed thrifts. Hong Kong's free-market government went on a massive stock-buying spree in 1998, buying up shares of every company listed in the benchmark Hang Seng index. It ended up packaging them into an exchange-traded fund and making money.
Taking Out the Playbook
Today, Mr. Bernanke is taking out his playbook, said NYU economist Mr. Gertler, "and rewriting it as we go."
Merrill Lynch & Co.'s emergency sale to Bank of America Corp. last weekend was an example of the perniciousness and unpredictability of deleveraging. In the past year, Merrill had hired a new chief executive, written off $41.4 billion in assets and raised $21 billion in equity capital.
But Merrill couldn't keep up. The more it raised, the more it was forced to write off. When Merrill CEO John Thain attended a meeting with the New York Fed and other Wall Street executives last week, he saw that Merrill was the next most vulnerable brokerage firm. "We watched Bear and Lehman. We knew we could be next," said one Merrill executive. Fearful that its lenders would shut the firm off, he sold to Bank of America.
This crisis is complicated by innovative financial instruments that Wall Street created and distributed. They're making it harder for officials and Wall Street executives to know where the next set of risks is hiding and also contributing to the crisis's spreading impact.
Swaps Game
The latest trouble spot is an area called credit-default swaps, which are private contracts that let firms trade bets on whether a borrower is going to default. When a default occurs, one party pays off the other. The value of the swaps rise and fall as the market reassesses the risk that a company won't be able to honor its obligations. Firms use these instruments both as insurance -- to hedge their exposures to risk -- and to wager on the health of other companies. There are now credit-default swaps on more than $62 trillion in debt, up from about $144 billion a decade ago.
One of the big new players in the swaps game was AIG, the world's largest insurer and a major seller of credit-default swaps to financial institutions and companies. When the credit markets were booming, many firms bought these instruments from AIG, believing the insurance giant's strong credit ratings and large balance sheet could provide a shield against bond and loan defaults. AIG believed the risk of default was low on many securities it insured.
As of June 30, an AIG unit had written credit-default swaps on more than $446 billion in credit assets, including mortgage securities, corporate loans and complex structured products. Last year, when rising subprime-mortgage delinquencies damaged the value of many securities AIG had insured, the firm was forced to book large write-downs on its derivative positions. That spooked investors, who reacted by dumping its shares, making it harder for AIG to raise the capital it increasingly needed.

Credit default swaps "didn't cause the problem, but they certainly exacerbated the financial crisis," said Leslie Rahl, president of Capital Market Risk Advisors, a consulting firm in New York. The sheer volume of CDS contracts outstanding -- and the fact that they trade directly between institutions, without centralized clearing -- intertwined the fates of many large banks and brokerages.
Few financial crises have been sorted out in modern times without massive government intervention. Increasingly, officials are coming to the conclusion that even more might be needed. A big problem: The Fed can and has provided short-term money to sound, but struggling, institutions that are out of favor. It can, and has, reduced the interest rates it influences to attempt to reduce borrowing costs through the economy and encourage investment and spending.
But it is ill-equipped to provide the capital that financial institutions now desperately need to shore up their finances and expand lending.
Resolution Trust Scenario
In normal times, capital-starved companies usually can raise money on their own. In the current crisis, a number of big Wall Street firms, including Citigroup Inc., have turned to sovereign-wealth funds, the government-controlled pools of money.
But both on Wall Street and in Washington, there is increasing expectation that U.S. taxpayers will either take the bad assets off the hands of financial institutions so they can raise capital, or put taxpayer capital into the companies, as the Treasury has agreed to do with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
One proposal was raised by Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Rep. Frank is looking at whether to create an analog to the Resolution Trust Corp., which took assets from failed banks and thrifts and found buyers over several years.
"When you have a big loss in the marketplace, there are only three people that can take the loss -- the bondholders, the shareholders and the government," said William Seidman, who led the RTC from 1989 to 1991. "That's the dance we're seeing right now. Are we going to shove this loss into the hands of the taxpayers?"
The RTC seemed controversial and ambitious at the time. Any version today would be even more complex. The RTC dispensed mostly of commercial real estate. Today's troubled assets are complex debt securities -- many of which include pieces of other instruments, which in turn include pieces of others, many steps removed from the actual mortgages or consumer loans on which they are based. Unraveling these strands will be tedious and getting at the underlying collateral, difficult.
In the early stages of this crisis, regulators saw that their rules didn't fit the rapidly changing financial system they were asked to oversee. Investment banks, at the core of the crisis, weren't as closely monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission as commercial banks were by their regulators.
The government has a system to close failed banks, created after the Great Depression in part to avoid sudden runs by depositors. Now, runs happen in spheres regulators may not fully understand, such as the repurchase agreement, or repo, market, in which investment banks fund their day-to-day operations. And regulators have no process for handling the failure of an investment bank like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Insurers like AIG aren't even federally regulated.
Regulators have all but promised that more banks will fail in the coming months. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is drawing up a plan to raise the premiums it charges banks so that it can rebuild the fund it uses to back deposits. Examiners are tightening their leash on banks across the country.
Pleasant Mystery
One pleasant mystery is why the crisis hasn't hit the economy harder -- at least so far. "This financial crisis hasn't yet translated into fewer...companies starting up, less research and development, less marketing," Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said Wednesday. "We haven't seen that yet. I'm sure every company is keeping their eyes on it."
At 6.1%, the unemployment rate remains well below the peak of 7.8% in 1992, amid the S&L crisis.
In part, that's because government has reacted aggressively. The Fed's classic mistake that led to the Great Depression was that it tightened monetary policy when it should have eased. Mr. Bernanke didn't repeat that error. And Congress moved more swiftly to approve fiscal stimulus than most Washington veterans thought possible.
In part, the broader economy has held mostly steady because exports have been so strong at just the right moment, a reminder of the global economy's importance to the U.S. And in part, it's because the U.S. economy is demonstrating impressive resilience, as information technology allows executives to react more quickly to emerging problems and -- to the discomfort of workers -- companies are quicker to adjust wages, hiring and work hours when the economy softens.
But the risk remains that Wall Street's woes will spread to Main Street, as credit tightens for consumers and business. Already, U.S. auto makers have been forced to tighten the terms on their leasing programs, or abandon writing leases themselves altogether, because of problems in their finance units. Goldman Sachs economists' optimistic scenario is a couple years of mild recession or painfully slow economy growth.

Quotes

2008-09-18T04:38:00.000-07:00

Thou seest reality in the transitory body because of ignorance.Remove this ignorance that viels thy true knowledge, and know thy self as pure,free, divine, abolute.
-Srimad Bhagavatam 11.4

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don't want the other person to forget that we forgave.
- Ivern Ball

Konowledge is power,
but enthusiasm pulls the switch...
- Ivern Ball

Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch taken over

2008-09-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest US investment bank, has filed for bankruptcy protection, dealing a blow to the fragile global financial system. The news led to sharp falls in share prices around the world, and officials took measures to reassure markets. Lehman had incurred losses of billions of dollars in the US mortgage market.
Merrill Lynch, also stung by the credit crunch, has agreed to be taken over by Bank of America, the latest twist in a dramatic turn of events on Wall Street. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the US was "working through a difficult period in our financial markets right

Lehman Bros headquarters at Manhattan

now as we work off some of the past excesses". Paulson upbeat despite turmoil but he added: "The American people can remain confident in the soundness and resilience of our financial system." However he warned that uncertainty remained and it was likely that there would be further "rough spots" ahead before the market was corrected.

Turmoil would continue in financial markets until the housing correction was completed, he added. Mr Paulson said he was committed to working with regulators in the US and abroad, as well as policymakers in Congress to take the necessary steps "to maintain the stability and orderliness of our financial markets". But he gave no details of what such steps might mean.
Earlier in the day President George W Bush said: "In the long term I am confident that our financial markets are flexible and resilient and can deal with these adjustments."
'Extraordinary 24 hours'
Separately, Bank of America said it had agreed to buy investment bank Merrill Lynch for $50bn (£28bn), in a deal that will create the world's largest financial services company. Three of the top five US investment banks have now fallen victim to the credit crunch. Lehman and Merrill join Bear Stearns, which was sold to JP Morgan for a knockdown price in March.
The BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, said that it had been Wall Street's most extraordinary 24 hours since the late 1920s. He said that Merrill's sale was almost as shocking as Lehman's demise. "The global financial economy has never in recent years been tested by quite such a combination of accidents and jolts to confidence," he said.

A subatomic venture

2008-09-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

These were the words of the famous physicist Albert Einstein, who went on to say that "Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

If you venture into the subatomic world in an attempt to unveil its inner workings, possession of all the knowledge in the world is not enough. Instead, invite your imagination to serve as a guide, because many rules as we know them no longer apply. Just like the story of Alice In Wonderland, this new world may look familiar but it is not fully comprehensible. Scales shift and matter transforms. Transitory twins appear and extra dimensions hide.
Nature has the ability to throw us the biggest surprises, so expect dramatic twists and unexpected turns; many before you have dreamed up mind–blowing theories and crazy concepts. Some of these have prevailed against the tests of time and armies of knowledgeable critics – thus far.
Someone, sometime, somewhere, may succeed in completing these unfinished mysteries, or even rewrite the chapters entirely. The book is by no means finished.

For more, go to following link of CERN site

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/Science-en.html

Big Bang Experiment

2008-09-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

Google search showed the LHC as part of its logo today.

First beam in the LHC - accelerating science

Geneva, 10 September 2008. The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN1 was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery.
“It’s a fantastic moment,” said LHC project leader Lyn Evans, “we can now look forward to a new era of
understanding about the origins and evolution of the
A historic moment in the CERN Control
Centre: the beam was successfully steered
around the accelerator.

universe.”
Starting up a major new particle accelerator takes much more than flipping a switch. Thousands of individual elements have to work in harmony, timings have to be synchronized to under a billionth of a second, and beams finer than a human hair have to be brought into head-on collision. Today’s success puts a tick next to the first of those steps, and over the next few weeks, as the LHC’s operators gain experience and confidence with the new machine, the machine’s acceleration systems will be brought into play, and the beams will be brought into collision to allow the research programme to begin.
Once colliding beams have been established, there will be a period of measurement and calibration for the LHC’s four major experiments, and new results could start to appear in around a year. Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to complete a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity. Gravity acts on mass, but so far science is unable to explain the mechanism that generates mass. Experiments at the LHC will provide the answer. LHC experiments will also try to probe the mysterious dark matter of the universe – visible matter seems to account for just 5% of what must exist, while about a quarter is believed to be dark matter. They will investigate the reason for nature's preference for matter over antimatter, and they will probe matter as it existed at the very beginning of time.
“The LHC is a discovery machine,” said CERN Director General Robert Aymar, “its research programme has the potential to change our view of the Universe profoundly, continuing a tradition of human curiosity that’s as old as mankind itself.”
Tributes have been coming in from laboratories around the world that have contributed to today’s success.
“The completion of the LHC marks the start of a revolution in particle physics,” said Pier Oddone, Director of the US Fermilab. “We commend CERN and its member countries for creating the foundation for many nations to come together in this magnificent enterprise. We appreciate the support that DOE and NSF have provided throughout the LHC's construction. We in the US are proud to have contributed to the accelerator and detectors at the LHC, together with thousands of colleagues around the world with whom we share this quest.”
“I congratulate you on the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider,” said Atsuto Suzuki, Director of Japan’s KEK laboratory, “This is a historical moment.”
“It has been a fascinating and rewarding experience for us,” said Vinod C. Sahni, Director of India’s Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, “I extend our best wishes to CERN for a productive run with the LHC machine in the years to come.”
“As some might say: ‘One short trip for a proton, but one giant leap for mankind!’ TRIUMF, and indeed all of Canada, is delighted to bear witness to this amazing feat,” said Nigel S. Lockyer, Director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory. “Everyone has been involved but CERN is to be especially congratulated for bringing the world together to embark on such an incredible adventure.”
In a visit to CERN shortly before the LHC’s start-up United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said: “I am very honored to visit CERN, an invaluable scientific institution and a shining example what international community can achieve through joint efforts and contribution. I convey my deepest admiration to all the scientists and wish them all the success for their research for peaceful development of scientific progress.”
1 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

Fed's Cup

2008-09-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

No matter what anyone else said or thought, Roger Federer knew he was still capable of elite tennis.
Knew he was still capable of winning Grand Slam titles.
Knew he was still Roger Federer.
Back at his best, back at the top of tennis, Federer easily beat Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 Monday to win his fifth consecutive U.S. Open championship and 13th major title overall.
Federer is the first man since Bill Tilden in the 1920s to win the tournament that many times in a row. He also moved within one major championship of tying Pete Sampras' career record of 14.
"One thing's for sure," Federer said in an on-court interview. "I'm not going to stop at 13. That would be terrible."
The victory clearly came as something of a relief to Federer, who has struggled during a lackluster-only-for-him season. He lost in the semifinals at the Australian Open, and to nemesis Rafael Nadal in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon, meaning Federer was on the verge of his first year since 2002 without a major title. And his record streak of 237 consecutive weeks at No. 1 ended last month when Nadal surpassed him.
"I had a couple of tough Grand Slams this year ... so to take this one home is incredible," Federer said. "It means the world to me."

Serena Williams Wins U.S. Open and Returns to No. 1

2008-09-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Serena Williams flung her racket straight up and jumped for joy, hopping and skipping and screaming and generally looking like someone who had just won her first Grand Slam title.
Displaying the talent and tenacity that helped her dominate tennis earlier in the decade, Williams outlasted Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 7-5 Sunday night in a thrill-a-minute match chock full of marvelous strokes and momentum swings to win her third U.S. Open championship and ninth Grand Slam title.
And there was this "added bonus," as Williams termed it: She returns to No. 1 in the rankings.
As the women met at the net afterward, Williams felt compelled to say to Jankovic, "I'm sorry I got so excited."
No apology necessary.
Four times a single point from heading to a third set, Williams was simply relentless. She took the final four games and took the title without dropping a set. The closest she came to losing one? In the quarterfinals, when she beat older sister Venus in two tiebreakers.
On this night, Venus was in the guest box, cheering for Kid Sis.
"Serena was a better player tonight," Jankovic said. "She was just too good tonight."
It was Williams' first triumph at Flushing Meadows since 2002, and it guaranteed that the American will lead the rankings Monday for the first time since August 2003 - the longest gap between stints at No. 1 for a woman.
Jankovic was in that spot for one week last month and would have returned there by winning a title match that was postponed from Saturday night because of Tropical Storm Hanna.
Williams’s place in the pantheon of American luminaries was secure no matter what transpired Sunday. That she last held the No. 1 ranking in August 2003 — a generation ago in sports years — did not preclude the two men behind the recent HBO documentary, “The Color List,” from including her in their portraits of 22 of the most fascinating and influential African-Americans.
The 26-year-old Williams joined, among others, the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and the former Secretary of State Colin Powell in pulling back the curtain to reveal the challenges and rewards of black life in the United States in the documentary, a collaboration between the photographer and filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell, a former film critic for The New York Times.
“I felt honored that they wanted me to speak on it and to be a part of it,” Williams said. “I was so excited to do it.”
Morrison talked about writing being her only “free place,” an unfiltered outlet for her expression. The tennis court is that place for Williams, an entertainer inexorably drawn to the spotlight. Her flair for drama makes each of her matches an improvisational play in two or three acts.
While Morrison and Williams would appear to have much in common, Williams found Powell’s interview the most illuminating. “I was really struck by his story,” she said, “and everything he was saying.”

Belgian GP - Rain plays havoc

2008-09-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Kimi Raikkonen says he wasn't prepared to settle for second following a disappointing end to the Belgian Grand Prix. The Finn was slugging it out with Lewis Hamilton for P1 when the two made contact during the final stages of the race. Hamilton eventually passed him, but just as Raikkonen looked like he was ready to challenge the Brit again, the rain started to fall and he spun off the track. The Ferrari driver says he was ready to go all out during the battle with Hamilton. "I was prepared to win or lose, but unfortunately I went off," the Finn told reporters. "I only wanted to win. I slid wide on the fast left-hander, and tried to come back on the circuit but I spun. "I needed to get points so wanted to win it or lose it but unfortunately went off. I didn't want to finish behind we would have lost points." Raikkonen refused to go into too much detail about the race stewards' decision to investigate his altercation with Hamilton. The two made contact at the Bus Stop corner and the McLaren driver jumped the chicane, but Hamilton allowed the Finn to pass him. Hamilton earlier claimed Raikkonen "pushed him wide", but the Ferrari didn't want to comment about the incident. "There are rules about cutting chicanes and gaining an advantage and they are looking it. So I don't have anything to say," he added.

Fruit Art

2008-09-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Paes-Black - Mixed Double US Open Title Winners

2008-09-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Leander Paes of India won their first U.S. Open mixed doubles title by beating Liezel Huber of the United States and Jamie Murray of Britain 7-6 (6), 6-4 in the final Thursday.
Paes has won four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, and Black has won three — but this was the first for each at Flushing Meadows and the first for them as a team.They were seeded fifth at the U.S. Open. Huber and Murray were unseeded.

Ivanovic sent packing - US Open

2008-08-28T20:22:00.001-07:00

Even for the mathematics major from Clemson, it just didn't add up: How could someone who recently struggled so badly she wanted to quit tennis stay on the court with the No. 1 player in the world?
Ana Ivanovic probably wondered the same thing.
In one of the biggest upsets in the sport's history, the top-seeded Ivanovic was ousted from the U.S. Open, stunned by 188th-ranked Julie Coin 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second round Thursday.
Never before in the Open era that began in 1968 had the No. 1 woman lost this early in the tournament. Plus, all the favorites had been breezing at Flushing Meadows.
Coin spent much of the year playing in minor league events and nearly got knocked out of the qualifying event to merely make it into the Open. She recently played so poorly she thought about giving up the sport and relying on her degree.
"I was thinking, 'Am I really made to play tennis?"' she said.
Still, Coin couldn't have figured on it. Asked whether she'd thought such a win was possible, she gave a direct, honest answer.
"No," she said.
And when did she believe it might happen?
"I guess when it was over," she told the crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, drawing a huge ovation.

Spirit

2008-08-26T03:59:00.000-07:00

Human Bondage
Man is bound by his own action except when it is performed for the sake of sacrifice. Therefore, Arjuna, do efficiently perform your duty, free from attachment, for the sake of sacrifice alone.
- Bhagvad Gita 3.4
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee...”
- St. Augustine
“A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. The striving, the effort to achieve success and to excel is not a bad thing. However, to make that the ultimate goal of life is nothing short of being foolish for earthly gains and achievements are short-lived. It is the search for the divine truth that ultimately brings real fulfilment."
- Albert Einstein

Season of Hope

2008-08-26T02:27:00.000-07:00

US Open - First day
"We got here Thursday. I really don't know what day it is any more. I thought today was Friday."

Venus Williams struggles with the time difference after flying in from China.

“We were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”

Michelle Obama - Denver Democratic Convention (Wife of Barack Obama)

“For me, this is a season of hope.”
“This is the cause of my life,” New hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — North, South, East and West, young, old — will have decent health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege."
“Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race, gender and group against group and straight against gay,”

Edward M. Kennedy - Denver Democratic Convention

Idea of Happiness

2008-08-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

From Net

Happiness is the taste of the hot and sweet jalebis that you eat in the shade of the nukkad's sweets shop, watching the rain splashing outside.
Happiness is the smile on the face of the little beggar boy when you give away the last penny of your pocket money that you had saved to buy your favorite ice cream, to him.
Happiness is the beauty of the moonlight when you sit in the calmness of the rooftop, listening to your favorite music.
Happiness is what you see in the laughing eyes of a toddler, completely ignorant of the harshness of life ahead.
Happiness is what u feel when you put your head in your Mom's laps and she strokes your hair so fondly.
When it comes to happiness, I can never forget that day when I got late to my class and got scoldings that even today send a shiver up my spine. It was a rainy day and i had stopped on my way to help an old vegetable seller to stand her stall. Even after the scoldings, when i saw my face in the rain-laden window glass of my class, I was smiling!

Kodaikanal Trip

2008-08-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to Kodaikanal trip:

http://johnfranklin.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album16

Best Things in life

2006-10-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

The Best Things in Life

Falling in love.
Laughing so hard your face hurts.
A hot shower.
No lines at the Super Wal-Mart.
A special glance.
Getting mail.
Taking a drive on a pretty road.
Hearing your favorite song on the radio.
Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.
Hot towels out of the dryer.
Finding the sweater you want is on sale for half price.
Chocolate milkshake.
A long distance phone call.
A bubble bath.
Giggling.
A good conversation.
The beach.
Finding a $20 bill in your coat from last winter.
Laughing at yourself.
Midnight phone calls that last for hours.
Running through sprinklers.
Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.
Laughing at an inside joke.
Friends.
Falling in love for the first time.
Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.
Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.
Your first kiss.
Making new friends or spending time with old ones.
Playing with a new puppy.
Late night talks with your roommate that keep you from sleeping.
Having someone play with your hair.
Sweet dreams.
Hot chocolate.
Road trips with friends.
Swinging on swings.
Watching a good movie cuddled up on a couch with someone you love.
Wrapping presents under the Christmas tree while eating cookies and drinking eggnog.
Song lyrics printed inside your new CD so you can sing along without feeling stupid.
Going to a really good concert.
Getting butterflies in your stomach every time you see that one person.
Making eye contact with a cute stranger.
Winning a really competitive game.
Making chocolate chip cookies!
Having your friends send you homemade cookies!
Spending time with close friends!
Seeing smiles and hearing laughter from your friends.
Holding hands with someone you care about.
Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change.
Discovering that love is unconditional and stronger than time.
Riding the best roller coasters over and over.
Hugging the person you love.
Watching the expression someone's face as they open a much-desired present from you.
Watching the sunrise.
Getting out of bed every morning and thanking God for another beautiful day.
Having friends you know you can cry on or talk to about your deepest problems

Mumbai Blasts

2006-07-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

The phrase 'Mumbai Spirit' is back in vogue. Some guy was saying that if it continues like this, we will have nothing but Spirits roaming in Mumbai streets!

First ODI

2006-02-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

First ODI turned out to be total disaster for India. Even after scoring 328 India could not put it across Pakistan. Even though Sachin, Dhoni, Irfan and Yuvi did well.
India is taking it well these days with Golf outing at some club there.

India Pakistan Build up

2006-01-10T00:06:00.000-08:00

India had drawn the match with Pakistan 'A'. The bowling would be a concern for India as 3 of their batsman made more than 50 and one of them remained not out.
The opening batsman Jaffer has also played well. Now, who is going to open for India will be watch eagerly. Shewag is not in such a form in recent times, but main thing about him is he plays
well when India is playing outside, this can't be said of all other people.

Sourav Saga - Farewell

2005-12-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

I read in paper today, how Steve Waugh was given farewell. Before hand the ACB told him that his time was coming to end. So, he was prepared and exited gracefully. He even scored 86 in the last match. Any captain of any side has the right to exit gracefully,so that there is pride and respect in the game that future people will play.

India-Srilanka 2nd Test

2005-12-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

The India/SL match is thereon Saturday. Hope to catch some action. The SA/Australia match is starting on 16th. That may be a good match.

Ulhasnagar Demolitions

2005-12-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

Today in UlhasNagar in Mumbai, the demolition of building's was halted due to public anger.
Public is right in saying that the people i.e. local politicians and administrators should be bought
to book, for allowing such building's to stand. Another, is government should provide them
alternate accomadation, as they are not being paid any compensation as per Mumbai Mirror
newspaper.