Cucumber Flu? E.coli outbreak opens 2011 virtual virus hysteria season
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Mysterious surgeries performed by early humans… Strange beings with miraculous powers… And a cover up–destroying centuries of scientific knowledge. Are recent breakthroughs in medicine the result of years of research? Or does the knowledge of healing really come from an otherworldly source? Evidence of advanced medical procedures practiced in the ancient world has been found everywhere from carvings on the walls of temples to actual skeletal remains. But just who were the practitioners of this extraordinary science?
And where did their knowledge of the human body come from? Accounts from various cultures describe similar divine, birdlike figures that brought advanced medical knowledge to mankind thousands of years ago. Who–or what–were these ancient surgeons? Is it possible that these Gods may have been extraterrestrial beings that came to Earth to teach humans how to heal themselves?
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CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago area could get the first snowfall of the season on Monday, after temperatures dipped below freezing overnight.
CBS 2 Meteorologist Megan Glaros reports, although it’s a bit early for measurable accumulations of snow, it’s not out of the realm of possibility later Tuesday along I-80 in Illinois, and as far east as Porter County, Ind.
A freeze warning was in effect through 8 a.m. Tuesday, as temperatures dropped below freezing, with temperatures as low as 24 degrees in Aurora, 25 degrees in Joliet, and 26 degrees in Kankakee at 4:30 a.m.
The temperature also dropped to 30 degrees overnight at O’Hare International Airport, and 31 degrees at Midway International Airport.
Though conditions were dry for the morning rush, the evening rush could see a mix of rain and snow. The best chance of snow will be south of I-80.
Any snow that falls won’t stick around long, with high temperatures around 45 degrees in the city on Tuesday.
Temperatures likely will drop below freezing again Tuesday night.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENEDPost id = does not exist.
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago area could get the first snowfall of the season on Monday, after temperatures dipped below freezing overnight.
CBS 2 Meteorologist Megan Glaros reports, although it’s a bit early for measurable accumulations of snow, it’s not out of the realm of possibility later Tuesday along I-80 in Illinois, and as far east as Porter County, Ind.
A freeze warning was in effect through 8 a.m. Tuesday, as temperatures dropped below freezing, with temperatures as low as 24 degrees in Aurora, 25 degrees in Joliet, and 26 degrees in Kankakee at 4:30 a.m.
The temperature also dropped to 30 degrees overnight at O’Hare International Airport, and 31 degrees at Midway International Airport.
Though conditions were dry for the morning rush, the evening rush could see a mix of rain and snow. The best chance of snow will be south of I-80.
Any snow that falls won’t stick around long, with high temperatures around 45 degrees in the city on Tuesday.
Temperatures likely will drop below freezing again Tuesday night.
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(NaturalNews) Hidden beneath the pleasing scent of lavender is a fierce natural medicine and formidable protector. Used since antiquity, lavender was a significant guardian against some of the most deadly infectious diseases of all time – the great epidemics of plague sweeping across Europe throughout the Middle Ages and into the 17th century. The protective aspects of the plant were discovered when tannery workers who utilized the oil in manufacturing, and those who tended lavender fields, appeared to be immune to the disease. Unbeknownst at the time, lavender is an exceptional bactericide and also stimulates the production of white blood cells, thereby creating a robust defense against harmful invading pathogens. Today, with the threat of H1N1 influenza and antibiotic-resistant superbugs, foregoing hazardous vaccinations and heading toward the lavender aisle instead is a wise choice. Here are six methods for using the oil which can keep you healthy during the flu season and beyond.
Hand sanitizer - This offers convenient and portable protection. In a small, leak-proof bottle, combine 1 tablespoon aloe vera gel, 3 tablespoons grain alcohol and 10 drops lavender essential oil. Shake thoroughly and use liberally throughout the day.
Direct application - A therapeutic grade lavender oil can be your best friend this autumn and winter. By placing a few drops of the essential oil on the skin several times per day, the immune system is primed and ready to tackle cold bugs and flu viruses.
Antiseptic soap - Wash your hands frequently and enjoy one of the best practices for deterring illness. Even better, use a natural germicidal soap. In a mixing bottle, add 20 drops of lavender essential oil per 8 ounces neutral liquid soap (such as castile). Shake vigorously to combine. Transfer to a hand soap dispenser and use often.
Disinfectant - Utilizing lavender essential oil as a disinfectant spray will help keep your environment free of breeding pathogens. Add 40 drops of the oil to a medium spray bottle and fill with 2 cups water. Shake well before each use and generously spray countertops, toilet seats, handles and knobs along with the telephone and any other high traffic surfaces.
Air sanitation - This is a simple practice which minimizes infectious disease at home or in the office. Place several drops of lavender essential oil in a pot of simmering water or use a nebulizer. Diffuse for 30 minutes. With this method, the air is naturally disinfected and the immune system enhanced.
Additionally, the following is an adaptation of a blend said to have been used by grave robbers during the Black Death in the mid-14th century. It provides significant antiseptic, antibacterial, antiviral and anti-infectious properties. According to Mountain Rose Herbs, the oil will stimulate the immune, circulatory and respiratory systems and offers a powerful defense against sore throats, influenza, colds, pneumonia and bronchitis.
Combine the following in a dark glass bottle:
For ultimate potency and safety, use only organic essential oils. The blend must be diluted before application – six to eight drops per ounce of carrier oil, such as almond, apricot kernel, olive or jojoba. The diluted oil can be massaged into the feet and sore muscles or dabbed onto the skin several times per day for immune support and illness prevention.
Sources:
http://science.naturalnews.com
About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her website www.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people who share a similar vision.
Find at Diaspora: thriveliving@joindiaspora.com
Follow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Thrive_Living
At Facebook, connect here: www.facebook.com/pages/Thrive-Living/4995788…
For Pinterest fans: www.pinterest.com/thriveliving/natural-news/
Read her other articles on Natural News here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Author1183.html
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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Anna Netrebko and Mariusz Kwiecien rehearsed “Eugene Onegin” at the Metropolitan Opera.
By tradition the gala opening night of a Metropolitan Opera season is a fashionable and pricey affair. But during his tenure as general manager of the company Peter Gelb has also made opening night a statement of artistic purpose, as it was on Monday when the Met opened the season with a new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” a landmark Russian opera based on the novel in verse by Pushkin.
The production, directed by Deborah Warner (though there are some complications to this story), starred the appealing Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien as the dashing but aloof Onegin, a bored aristocrat; the glamorous Russian soprano Anna Netrebko as Tatiana, the bookish young dreamer who falls impulsively for Onegin; and the Russian maestro Valery Gergiev conducting an insightful and rhapsodic, if sometimes untidy, account of Tchaikovsky’s great score.
Opening nights under Mr. Gelb have also become a gift to the people of New York. The performance was broadcast live on a huge outdoor video screen to an audience that packed Lincoln Center Plaza and was also shown on video in Times Square.
But, as things turned out, Mr. Gelb felt compelled to make an unanticipated statement on this opening night. For weeks, an online petition had been gathering signatures (about 10,000 to date) calling for the Met to dedicate opening night to the support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people as a protest of the punitive law in Russia signed this June by President Vladimir V. Putin banning all “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships.” As the head of the storied Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Mr. Gergiev has received crucial support from Mr. Putin and the government. He and Ms. Netrebko, longtime colleagues, were open advocates for Mr. Putin’s election last year.
In addition, a contingent of about three dozens protesters organized by the activist group Queer Nation stood near Lincoln Center Plaza on Monday calling on Mr. Gergiev and Ms. Netrebko to speak up against Mr. Putin’s antigay policies. And in the house, just before the start of the opera, some activists sitting in the Family Circle shouted “Putin, end your war on Russian gays” and more. After a couple of minutes the demonstrators were led out and the opera proceeded without interference.
The opening night program book contained an insert by Mr. Gelb, a copy of a statement published on Monday by Bloomberg News, in which, while deploring the “tyranny of Russian’s new antigay laws,” he explains why it would be inappropriate for the Met to dedicate a particular performance to any special social or political cause. It has been terrible to see the rights of gay people in Russian trampled upon. Still, to make the Met the target of this call for action seems not entirely fair. If opera lovers, activists and journalists want to press Mr. Gergiev for his position on Mr. Putin’s policies, that is their right, just as it is his right not to reply and take the consequences to his reputation. It should be remembered, though, that standing up for civil rights in Russia does not come without risk.
For now, let me put aside these difficult questions and get to the new “Eugene Onegin.”
Mr. Gelb has raised the stakes for every new production at the Met by talking up how essential it is for the art form to bring in today’s most lively and innovative directors and designers. Some of the productions on his watch have met that standard. Some have been curiously bland, or nothing special. This disappointing “Eugene Onegin” belongs among the roster of also-rans.
It replaces a 1997 production by the director Robert Carsen that was visually arresting, with an almost abstract look, full of autumnal colors and a stage floor covered with fallen tree leaves. There was one problem: the set had no real walls or ceiling to help project the voices into the house. But the production was actually bolder than the new one.
Ms. Warner’s staging, with sets by Tom Pye, is a coproduction with the English National Opera. It shifts the story’s setting from the 1820s to roughly the late 1870s, contemporaneous with the years Tchaikovsky wrote the piece. Handsome costumes of the period are designed by Chloe Obolensky.
The opening scene is typically set, as per the stage directions, in a garden of the Larin estate in the country, where we meet the sisters Tatiana and Olga and their fretful mother, Madame Larina. In this production the action takes place in what looks like a sun room that opens to a garden grove. Dingy curtains cover wall-size windows. Lots of work takes place on a country estate and this drab room looks like a real workplace, which is the problem: you get tired of it.
Olga, the strong mezzo-soprano Oksana Volkova, and Tatiana sing a wistful song together. The pensive Tatiana lives in a world of books. But vivacious Olga has a fiancée, the boyish Lenski, an aspiring poet (the excellent Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, in bright, ringing voice). Lenski arrives with his friend Onegin, who has inherited a neighboring estate from his uncle, though he has no interest in running it. Flirting with Tatiana amuses the superior Onegin. This is all it takes to unleash pent-up fantasies of romantic love in Tatiana.
The swimming pool. It’s the first thing we see in the episode that kicks off the final chapter of “Breaking Bad.” Only the pool — that frequently showcased pseudo-oasis in the White family backyard whose tranquility has previously been broken by mangled pink teddy bears and Skyler White plunging literally and metaphorically off her own deep end — doesn’t look like a pool. It’s empty, nothing now but hot, scuffed pavement that serves as a makeshift skate park for Albuquerque’s modern-day equivalent of the Z-boys.
The implication of this episode-opening flash-forward — a flash-forward that appears to take place shortly after Walter White walked out of a Denny’s in last year’s “Live Free or Die” — is that the life Walt got into the crystal-blue-persuasion business to maintain is now completely destroyed. Or rather, it will be by the time Walt reaches his 52nd birthday. With this second glimpse of the future, Vince Gilligan and the “Breaking Bad” writers have again given us a sense of where this antiheroic saga is headed as it hurtles toward its simultaneously anticipated and dreaded ending. We know it’s going somewhere bleak and scary, where it’s not just the pool that’s barren — it’s the entire, once modestly cozy White household. That place isn’t just empty, it looks like a one-time crime scene, aggressively ransacked within, fenced-off outside and undoubtedly destroying the property values for Carol — the petrified next-door neighbor who drops her groceries in shock at the sight of Walt — and anyone else unfortunate enough to live on Negra Arroyo Lane. There is some good news for house hunters interested in eventually purchasing that charming three-bedroom rambler, though: the yellow, spray-painted HEISENBERG on the paneled wall in the living room comes with the house.
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In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is a brown bear walking behind the Brooks Falls viewing area. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is a brown bear walking behind the Brooks Falls viewing area. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, a brown bear climbing on top of Brooks Falls for a better angle at salmon swimming upstream. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is longtime bear cam viewer Shawn Turner looking at bears in the Brooks River. The Portland, Ore., man spent his two week vacation camping out at the park. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
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KATMAI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, Alaska (AP) — Stars snarling at each other, mate swapping, dominant males posturing and establishing their territory.
It’s not quite “Jersey Shore,” but these are among the highlights of the second season of an Internet reality show coming your way this week.
The stars are the brown bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve in remote Alaska. Eight web cams, an increase of five from last year, have been set up at various parts of the park to livestream the daily life and drama of the park’s famed bears. Social aspects also have been enhanced, with live web chats planned with rangers and scientists, and a new photo sharing feature.
“We know that Katmai is a cost-prohibitive place to visit so not a lot of people get the opportunity to come here,” park ranger Michael Fitz said.
“We still want people to have an understanding of what Katmai is like, and enjoy, especially enjoy the brown bears that are here, so explore.org is able to partner with Katmai to provide many different webcams along the Brooks River so you have a chance to watch the bears and have an opportunity to experience their lives,” Fitz said.
About 10,000 people a year visit the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, which is only accessibly by float plane. Katmai is on the Alaska Peninsula, across the Shelikof Strait from Kodiak Island.
Among the new camera views this year will be another angle from Brooks Falls, where bears — as many as four abroad one day last week— stand in the water and try to catch salmon traveling upriver to spawn. The new camera is at eye-level of the bears, a perspective that neither rangers nor visitors see. Cameras also are situated at the riffles, a few hundred yards downstream from the falls, and at the lower river, where cameras will catch the bears fishing near the pedestrian bridge, oftentimes sharing the river with anglers.
There also are two cameras placed on top of each other on the bridge. One is underwater, trying to provide images of the salmon or the bear’s feet as they run by, or possibly a bear’s head as it goes into the water trying to catch a salmon. The second camera is positioned a little higher to catch the bear’s actions.
“This year is all about trying to bring some more interactivity to the web cams, trying to engage the visitors more, facilitate them taking snapshots and sharing with one another,” said Roy Wood, chief of interpretation at Katmai. The snapshots are essentially screen grabs of what people are seeing on their computers.
Both the positioning of the new cameras and the snapshot ideas came from Charles Annenberg, the creator of explore.org, which is underwritten by the Annenberg Foundation.
He wanted to recreate what people do every day when they are out enjoying nature.
“What is everyone doing but taking photos every second, and then you sit back at night and look at them,” he said. “Why not put a little camera icon up there so people can take photographs and send them and share them with people? I mean, it’s just so simple and I was just trying to duplicate the experience.”
There has been a dedicated community of faithful viewers at explore.org/bears, posting 20,000 comments last year, even alerting rangers to bear activity. They also witnessed some things very few ever see.
Last year, in October, long after rangers packed up and left the park for the winter, viewers noticed a bear protecting a kill site. When the cameras came online the next day (they’re shut off to conserve solar power), there was a different bear — nicknamed Lurch — on top of the cache, which had more than doubled in size.
Rangers speculated on what was in the cache. The contents were confirmed one day as Lurch was tearing the cache apart to snack on a smaller bear.
“We now know that Lurch killed another bear. For some of the people, that was traumatic,” he said.
The comment board on the web site lit up: “Lurch is a killer!” ”He’s psychotic!” ”When is the park service going to kill him so he doesn’t kill again?”
Wood said he logged into the comment board and explained this was natural behavior and to a bear, it’s all about calories, getting fat before winter.
By the end of the week, the comments had almost completely changed, and were noting admiration for Lurch’s strength, his survival instincts, and power, universal concepts that park service personnel also use when talking about bears.
“It was wonderful to see the tide completely shift,” Wood said. “For me, that was really assuring because up to that point, you could almost argue the cameras were a novelty.”
Shawn Turner is one of those dedicated members of the community who watched Lurch from his home in Portland, Ore. He said he enjoyed not only watching people’s reactions to the kill, but actually seeing one bear eat another.
“You don’t see that every day,” he said.
Turner said he’s wanted to visit Katmai for years and watching the webcams motivated him to make the trip this year. Turner, who works in the finance department for computer chip maker Intel Corp., camped for two weeks at the park.
He experienced many things that the web cams can’t prepare you for, including sharing Brooks Camp with the bears.
At the height of the season, there will be up to 70 brown bears within one square mile of the camp, and it’s common to see bears walking or running as humans make their way through camp.
Turner said it was a little unnerving the first day, but you loosen up after you experience it a little more.
One morning, walking out of the bathroom, a ranger told him to go back in until a bear left the area. “I’m going to hide in the bathroom?” he asked. “It’s ridiculous.”
Allen Gilbert of Los Angeles stumbled on the web cams last year, and that heightened his interest in visiting Katmai, a place the world traveler had targeted many years ago to visit. After he booked the trip for his family, including his wife and two daughters, he returned to the website to scout out potential places to photograph the bears.
“I didn’t have any expectations that we would be literally within feet of the brown bears and I would be able to get full-frame photos of their heads,” he said.
The bears’ cameras are just some of the 50 high definition wildlife cams operated worldwide by explore.org, including osprey and puffin cams in Maine, and bison and polar bear cams from Canada. More than 5 million hours of content were streamed over a 30-day period last year.
The cams are monitored and operated remotely by people, including many volunteers working from their laptops across the world.
____
Online:
Explore.org/bears
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is a brown bear walking behind the Brooks Falls viewing area. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is a brown bear walking behind the Brooks Falls viewing area. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, a brown bear climbing on top of Brooks Falls for a better angle at salmon swimming upstream. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
In this photo taken July 4, 2013, in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, is longtime bear cam viewer Shawn Turner looking at bears in the Brooks River. The Portland, Ore., man spent his two week vacation camping out at the park. It’s expensive and difficult to reach the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, and explore.org has again set up high definition webcams to livestream the daily activities of the bears at the park. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
| Buy AP Photo Reprints | ||
|
KATMAI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, Alaska (AP) — Stars snarling at each other, mate swapping, dominant males posturing and establishing their territory.
It’s not quite “Jersey Shore,” but these are among the highlights of the second season of an Internet reality show coming your way this week.
The stars are the brown bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve in remote Alaska. Eight web cams, an increase of five from last year, have been set up at various parts of the park to livestream the daily life and drama of the park’s famed bears. Social aspects also have been enhanced, with live web chats planned with rangers and scientists, and a new photo sharing feature.
“We know that Katmai is a cost-prohibitive place to visit so not a lot of people get the opportunity to come here,” park ranger Michael Fitz said.
“We still want people to have an understanding of what Katmai is like, and enjoy, especially enjoy the brown bears that are here, so explore.org is able to partner with Katmai to provide many different webcams along the Brooks River so you have a chance to watch the bears and have an opportunity to experience their lives,” Fitz said.
About 10,000 people a year visit the park about 250 miles west of Anchorage, which is only accessibly by float plane. Katmai is on the Alaska Peninsula, across the Shelikof Strait from Kodiak Island.
Among the new camera views this year will be another angle from Brooks Falls, where bears — as many as four abroad one day last week— stand in the water and try to catch salmon traveling upriver to spawn. The new camera is at eye-level of the bears, a perspective that neither rangers nor visitors see. Cameras also are situated at the riffles, a few hundred yards downstream from the falls, and at the lower river, where cameras will catch the bears fishing near the pedestrian bridge, oftentimes sharing the river with anglers.
There also are two cameras placed on top of each other on the bridge. One is underwater, trying to provide images of the salmon or the bear’s feet as they run by, or possibly a bear’s head as it goes into the water trying to catch a salmon. The second camera is positioned a little higher to catch the bear’s actions.
“This year is all about trying to bring some more interactivity to the web cams, trying to engage the visitors more, facilitate them taking snapshots and sharing with one another,” said Roy Wood, chief of interpretation at Katmai. The snapshots are essentially screen grabs of what people are seeing on their computers.
Both the positioning of the new cameras and the snapshot ideas came from Charles Annenberg, the creator of explore.org, which is underwritten by the Annenberg Foundation.
He wanted to recreate what people do every day when they are out enjoying nature.
“What is everyone doing but taking photos every second, and then you sit back at night and look at them,” he said. “Why not put a little camera icon up there so people can take photographs and send them and share them with people? I mean, it’s just so simple and I was just trying to duplicate the experience.”
There has been a dedicated community of faithful viewers at explore.org/bears, posting 20,000 comments last year, even alerting rangers to bear activity. They also witnessed some things very few ever see.
Last year, in October, long after rangers packed up and left the park for the winter, viewers noticed a bear protecting a kill site. When the cameras came online the next day (they’re shut off to conserve solar power), there was a different bear — nicknamed Lurch — on top of the cache, which had more than doubled in size.
Rangers speculated on what was in the cache. The contents were confirmed one day as Lurch was tearing the cache apart to snack on a smaller bear.
“We now know that Lurch killed another bear. For some of the people, that was traumatic,” he said.
The comment board on the web site lit up: “Lurch is a killer!” ”He’s psychotic!” ”When is the park service going to kill him so he doesn’t kill again?”
Wood said he logged into the comment board and explained this was natural behavior and to a bear, it’s all about calories, getting fat before winter.
By the end of the week, the comments had almost completely changed, and were noting admiration for Lurch’s strength, his survival instincts, and power, universal concepts that park service personnel also use when talking about bears.
“It was wonderful to see the tide completely shift,” Wood said. “For me, that was really assuring because up to that point, you could almost argue the cameras were a novelty.”
Shawn Turner is one of those dedicated members of the community who watched Lurch from his home in Portland, Ore. He said he enjoyed not only watching people’s reactions to the kill, but actually seeing one bear eat another.
“You don’t see that every day,” he said.
Turner said he’s wanted to visit Katmai for years and watching the webcams motivated him to make the trip this year. Turner, who works in the finance department for computer chip maker Intel Corp., camped for two weeks at the park.
He experienced many things that the web cams can’t prepare you for, including sharing Brooks Camp with the bears.
At the height of the season, there will be up to 70 brown bears within one square mile of the camp, and it’s common to see bears walking or running as humans make their way through camp.
Turner said it was a little unnerving the first day, but you loosen up after you experience it a little more.
One morning, walking out of the bathroom, a ranger told him to go back in until a bear left the area. “I’m going to hide in the bathroom?” he asked. “It’s ridiculous.”
Allen Gilbert of Los Angeles stumbled on the web cams last year, and that heightened his interest in visiting Katmai, a place the world traveler had targeted many years ago to visit. After he booked the trip for his family, including his wife and two daughters, he returned to the website to scout out potential places to photograph the bears.
“I didn’t have any expectations that we would be literally within feet of the brown bears and I would be able to get full-frame photos of their heads,” he said.
The bears’ cameras are just some of the 50 high definition wildlife cams operated worldwide by explore.org, including osprey and puffin cams in Maine, and bison and polar bear cams from Canada. More than 5 million hours of content were streamed over a 30-day period last year.
The cams are monitored and operated remotely by people, including many volunteers working from their laptops across the world.
____
Online:
Explore.org/bears
With the Fed forcing interest rates low, commercial and industrial lending has picked up. That may sound like a good thing, but is it?
I suggest it’s not. Competition is such that “covenant light” lending has returned in full force. “Cov-lite is financial jargon for loan agreements which do not contain the usual protective covenants for the benefit of the lending party.“
Flood of Cheap Money Sparks Covenant Light Lending
Please consider Covenant-light lending making its presence felt again
Competition is feral at the institutional end of the banking industry, where quantitative easing is creating a flood of cheap money, and in the big banks a recent development has everyone talking: covenant-light lending appears to be making a comeback.Covenant-light loans were a phenomenon of the boom that ushered in the global financial crisis. Bankers who say covenant-light lending is on the rise again say loans that are being proposed now are not as radical as the ones created ahead of the crisis, but say they are watching closely.
Covenants are designed to protect lenders from corporate implosions. They impose financial limits on the borrower, maximum gearing levels, for example, and if they are breached, the lenders can take steps to protect their position.
Bankers say now that US banks and investment banks are leading the revival of covenant-light lending. They are surprised it has returned so quickly, but acknowledge that quantitative easing has created enormous pressure.
Their best guess is that covenant-light lending is back to where it was around the middle of 2006, before the final, frenetic stage of the boom. It is lighter-covenant rather than covenant-free lending, and it is only being offered to top-rated corporations where survival and debt servicing capacity is not in question.
The local bankers wonder, nevertheless, whether the return of covenant-light lending is a sign of QE seeding another unsustainable debt boom, but they still need to work out how to respond: if the trend continues and they don’t join it, their share of the institutional lending market will fall.
J.C. Penney Loan Arranged by Goldman Sachs Is Covenant-Light
On April 29, Bloomberg reported J.C. Penney Loan Arranged by Goldman Sachs to Be Covenant-Light
J.C. Penney Co. (JCP), the retailer that’s working to rebound from its worst sales year, will offer fewer safeguards to lenders on its $ 1.75 billion financing.The five-year covenant-light deal, which is being arranged by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., won’t include financial maintenance requirements that typically prevent borrowers from loading up on debt, according to a regulatory filing today.
Surge in Commercial lending Raises Bubble Worries
Yahoo! Finance reports Surge in commercial lending raises bubble worries.
There was a time when robust growth in U.S. commercial loans was seen as a good sign for the economy, but this year a double-digit surge is being seen as a red flag.U.S. banks reported $ 1.53 trillion in commercial and industrial loans in the first quarter, a 12 percent year-over-year gain.
Bankers and analysts say this big gain in C&I lending looks more like an early asset bubble than an economic breakout. The banks reported double-digit gains in 2011 and 2012, too.
Mid-size companies and publicly traded corporations are not using the loans to grease the skids of the economy for expansion. Instead, they’re mostly getting cheaper credit lines or refinancing the replacement of obsolete factory equipment by dictating easy terms to banks clamoring for their business.
“With so much liquidity, banks feel a lot of pressure to make loans,” said Mariner Kemper, chairman of UMB Financial Corp, a Kansas City, Missouri-based bank with $ 3.2 billion in outstanding C&I loans.
“There’s deterioration in covenant terms and pricing and that’s potentially the kind of behavior that drives a crisis.”
Douglas Bryant, a senior lender for Wells Fargo in New England, calls the C&I lending shift the “return of the silly season.”
“Any well-known company with a credit need is called on by a half a dozen or so banks,” Bryant said. “These companies are offering very aggressive term sheets on price and loan covenants.”
Bryant said banks today are lucky to get one or two strong covenants on a loan. Covenants allow banks to restructure loans if a company fails to meet projections on leverage, cash flow and debt service, for example. But with more leeway on those financial metrics, a company can get deeper into trouble before it breaks a covenant, exposing banks to greater losses.
“A company can deteriorate a significant amount before you get back to the table to restructure the loan,” Bryant said. “We used to get as many as five strong covenants.”
Return of the Silly Season
The Fed wants corporations to hire workers and expand their businesses. Instead, the Fed has ushered in “silly season” lending competition that is good for corporate profits, but bad for banks should some of these companies get into trouble.
And with a slowing global economy it’s a sure thing that yet another credit bubble is brewing.
Fear of Missing Out
Banks fear “If the trend continues and they don’t join it, their share of the institutional lending market will fall“.
This sounds similar to a statement by former Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince: “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing“.
Prince made that statement on July 10, 2007. Recall that on November 2, 2007 the Music Stopped for Chuck Prince and he did a two-step out the door.
It’s hard to say when the music stops this time, but it will, with similar results.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
With the Fed forcing interest rates low, commercial and industrial lending has picked up. That may sound like a good thing, but is it?
I suggest it’s not. Competition is such that “covenant light” lending has returned in full force. “Cov-lite is financial jargon for loan agreements which do not contain the usual protective covenants for the benefit of the lending party.“
Flood of Cheap Money Sparks Covenant Light Lending
Please consider Covenant-light lending making its presence felt again
Competition is feral at the institutional end of the banking industry, where quantitative easing is creating a flood of cheap money, and in the big banks a recent development has everyone talking: covenant-light lending appears to be making a comeback.Covenant-light loans were a phenomenon of the boom that ushered in the global financial crisis. Bankers who say covenant-light lending is on the rise again say loans that are being proposed now are not as radical as the ones created ahead of the crisis, but say they are watching closely.
Covenants are designed to protect lenders from corporate implosions. They impose financial limits on the borrower, maximum gearing levels, for example, and if they are breached, the lenders can take steps to protect their position.
Bankers say now that US banks and investment banks are leading the revival of covenant-light lending. They are surprised it has returned so quickly, but acknowledge that quantitative easing has created enormous pressure.
Their best guess is that covenant-light lending is back to where it was around the middle of 2006, before the final, frenetic stage of the boom. It is lighter-covenant rather than covenant-free lending, and it is only being offered to top-rated corporations where survival and debt servicing capacity is not in question.
The local bankers wonder, nevertheless, whether the return of covenant-light lending is a sign of QE seeding another unsustainable debt boom, but they still need to work out how to respond: if the trend continues and they don’t join it, their share of the institutional lending market will fall.
J.C. Penney Loan Arranged by Goldman Sachs Is Covenant-Light
On April 29, Bloomberg reported J.C. Penney Loan Arranged by Goldman Sachs to Be Covenant-Light
J.C. Penney Co. (JCP), the retailer that’s working to rebound from its worst sales year, will offer fewer safeguards to lenders on its $ 1.75 billion financing.The five-year covenant-light deal, which is being arranged by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., won’t include financial maintenance requirements that typically prevent borrowers from loading up on debt, according to a regulatory filing today.
Surge in Commercial lending Raises Bubble Worries
Yahoo! Finance reports Surge in commercial lending raises bubble worries.
There was a time when robust growth in U.S. commercial loans was seen as a good sign for the economy, but this year a double-digit surge is being seen as a red flag.U.S. banks reported $ 1.53 trillion in commercial and industrial loans in the first quarter, a 12 percent year-over-year gain.
Bankers and analysts say this big gain in C&I lending looks more like an early asset bubble than an economic breakout. The banks reported double-digit gains in 2011 and 2012, too.
Mid-size companies and publicly traded corporations are not using the loans to grease the skids of the economy for expansion. Instead, they’re mostly getting cheaper credit lines or refinancing the replacement of obsolete factory equipment by dictating easy terms to banks clamoring for their business.
“With so much liquidity, banks feel a lot of pressure to make loans,” said Mariner Kemper, chairman of UMB Financial Corp, a Kansas City, Missouri-based bank with $ 3.2 billion in outstanding C&I loans.
“There’s deterioration in covenant terms and pricing and that’s potentially the kind of behavior that drives a crisis.”
Douglas Bryant, a senior lender for Wells Fargo in New England, calls the C&I lending shift the “return of the silly season.”
“Any well-known company with a credit need is called on by a half a dozen or so banks,” Bryant said. “These companies are offering very aggressive term sheets on price and loan covenants.”
Bryant said banks today are lucky to get one or two strong covenants on a loan. Covenants allow banks to restructure loans if a company fails to meet projections on leverage, cash flow and debt service, for example. But with more leeway on those financial metrics, a company can get deeper into trouble before it breaks a covenant, exposing banks to greater losses.
“A company can deteriorate a significant amount before you get back to the table to restructure the loan,” Bryant said. “We used to get as many as five strong covenants.”
Return of the Silly Season
The Fed wants corporations to hire workers and expand their businesses. Instead, the Fed has ushered in “silly season” lending competition that is good for corporate profits, but bad for banks should some of these companies get into trouble.
And with a slowing global economy it’s a sure thing that yet another credit bubble is brewing.
Fear of Missing Out
Banks fear “If the trend continues and they don’t join it, their share of the institutional lending market will fall“.
This sounds similar to a statement by former Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince: “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing“.
Prince made that statement on July 10, 2007. Recall that on November 2, 2007 the Music Stopped for Chuck Prince and he did a two-step out the door.
It’s hard to say when the music stops this time, but it will, with similar results.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
Satellite image of Hurricane Sandy in October of last year.
NOAA
Satellite image of Hurricane Sandy in October of last year.
NOAA
Today marks the beginning of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season. Maybe it’s a good sign, then, that it’s pretty quiet out there. The National Hurricane Center is watching only a small wave near Mexico that has a low possibility of developing into a tropical system.
NPR’s Debbie Elliott, however, reports the season is expected to be pretty busy. She filed this report for our Newscast unit:
“Federal forecasters say water and weather conditions in the Atlantic basin are expected to produce more and stronger hurricanes, making for an active season.
“Last year was the third busiest on record with 19 named storms. Ten were hurricanes, including Sandy, which caused $ 50 billion in damage along the Eastern Seaboard.
“State officials say coastal residents should be preparing evacuation plans and taking other precautions before the peak of hurricane season in late summer.
“Along with the alert to be ready, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is telling residents to be wary of scams, including a recent rash of companies offering window film as hurricane protection.”
As we reported earlier this month, NOAA said there is a 70 percent chance of 13 to 20 named storms this season. Six of them, said NOAA, could become major hurricanes, which means hurricanes with winds grater than 111 mph.
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