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Thursday 07.26.2012

Gold Roars, Treasury Bores, Equity Floors, US Scores
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedges.com
With GDP on Friday, FOMC around the corner, month-end T-3 ahead of that, and a market so ultra-sensitive to any and every word uttered from EU leaders, it is perhaps little wonder that volume was lack-luster (and so was commitment with the lowest average trade size of the year) today. What is perhaps most notable about a day when Treasuries ended unch to +1bps and stocks marginally higher is the weakness of the USD (pulling back to unch on the week) and strength in Gold (and Silver). What also surprises is the dramatic rise in correlation across asset classes - suggesting a high degree of systemic preparedness for some 'event'. Equities leaked higher all night helped by Nowotny's nonsense, double-topped at around the magical 1340 level once again and ended up pulling back down to VWAP (what a surprise). Financials led along with Industrials (and Utilities!?) as Tech lagged thanks to CRAAPL's 4.3% loss. WTI staged a solid comeback from earlier weakness but it was Gold and Silver that won (as the former managed to test $1610 - its highest in 3 weeks). The S&P 500 remains very marginally better than the Long Bond YTD as Gold is catching up. VIX dropped from around its 'fair' equity/credit price to spur some strength is stocks and ended the day down around 1 vol at 19.4% as ES managed to once again close just above its 50DMA (with heavy volume and large average trade size once again coming at VWAP into the close) perfectly at 50% of the March-to-June swing.

Where Do You Hde %50 Billion of Gold in Hong Kong?
This Fall: A Brand Spanking New
Gold Storage Facility in Hong Kong
By Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Hong Kong's largest gold-storage facility, which can hold about 22 percent of the bullion now in Fort Knox, will open in September to meet rising demand from banks and the wealthy, according to owner Malca-Amit Global Ltd, reports Bloomberg.
The facility, located on the ground floor of a building within the international airport compound, has capacity for 1,000 metric tons, said Joshua Rotbart, general manager for the Hong Kong-based company's Malca-Amit Precious Metals unit. Two of the vaults may hold assets, including gold, for banks and financial institutions, and others will be used for diamonds, jewelry, fine art and precious metals, said Rotbart.

End Is Near for Economic Rebound
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
Since the start of the global economic recovery in 2009, the status of the U.S. economy has been a perplexing one. We've been bombarded with conflicting reports as to the economy's strength or weakness at various times over the past 3+ years and at any given time it's hard to get a good read on how well the domestic economy is performing overall.
When confusion prevails the best approach to cutting through the uncertainty normally begins with defining the basic terms involved. When news commentators talk about the "economy," for instance, what they're referring to is the sales and revenue trends of multi-national corporations such as McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, et al. Under this rather limited definition of economy, how well these U.S.-based multinationals are doing in foreign markets like China or India counts for as much (if not more) as how much they are selling to customers here in the U.S. Under this definition of "economy," the global rebound since 2009 has been truly impressive.

Financial First Responders discuss
whether US has become "Too Sexy to Survive"
As stocks fall, volatility spikes, perceived safe haven yields hit record lows, potential criminal Libor charges loom, and headlines tout "Global Economy in Worst Shape Since 2009," a large group of investors are meeting in Vancouver for the Agora Financial conference. The theme of the conference is 'Innovate or Die: Empire at a Turning Point.' We check in with the organizer, Eric Fry, Editor of the Daily Reckoning and Chief Investment Strategist at Agora Financial to find out why high profile investors and economic experts see such high stakes and what answers they may have.
Also, with new lows for treasury yields, the US government has never borrowed this cheaply. We talk to Eric Fry about what the indebted US may learn from the extinction of the Irish Elk.
With major Italian cities on the verge of collapse and residents taking to social media to demand return of the Lira, we talk to blogger extraordinaire Mike "Mish" Shedlock about what lies ahead for Europe.

Deflation Now. Inflation Later.
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
07/25/12 Vancouver, Canada – Stocks down another 104 points yesterday…measured by the Dow.
What's going on…? What's going on?
That was a song by Marvin Gaye. It was also the question the interviewer asked. Followed by, what's going to happen next?
But those are questions no one can answer. All we can do is guess…speculate…and wonder.
"Deflation now. Inflation later" is what we've been saying for the last 4 years.
The interviewer seemed happy with the answer. And the elaboration:
"Japan now…but don't be surprised when we end up in Argentina."
What do Japan…Argentina…and the US all have in common? They can print money. And when their backs are to the wall, that is what they will do.

House easily approves Paul's 'audit the Fed' bill in 327-98 vote
By Pete Kasperowicz - TheHill.com
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) won a rare legislative victory on Wednesday when the House passed his legislation allowing for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, including an audit of the Fed's monetary policy decisions.
The House approved Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act, H.R. 459, in a bipartisan 327-98 vote. The vote split Democrats almost evenly — 89 for and 97 against — while only one Republican, Rep. Robert Turner (R-N.Y.), voted against it

US House passes Fed audit bill;
measure seen dying in Senate
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:00pm EDT
(Reuters) - Legislation to subject the Federal Reserve's monetary policy to audits sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday although the measure is expected to die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The legislation, written by Republican representative Ron Paul, whose anti-Fed crusade prompted a presidential bid and his grass-roots folk-hero status, passed the House by a 327-98 vote on Wednesday, exceeding the two-thirds majority needed.

LIBOR 2.0: Is the Biggest Manipulation Yet to Come?
by Bob English - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Is LIBORgate the crime of the century? Or is the real crime yet to come? As has long been alleged at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, the biggest manipulators of short term rates are the central bankers themselves. Yet, they (unfortunately) have been ignored by the MSM in this mess--even the Bank of England, which appears to be directly culpable.

Tim Geithner investigating
whether Treasury lost out over Libor
Treasury secretary appears before House committee and blames British regulators for failing to stop rate manipulation
By Dominic Rushe - Guardian.co.uk
US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner said he was investigating whether the US government had lost out as a result of the Libor scandal as politicians grilled him over the growing scandal.
Appearing before the House financial services committee, Geithner once again blamed British regulators for failing to stop the manipulation of Libor interest rates. Geithner was head of the New York Federal Reserve at the time that Barclays and other banks are alleged to have manipulated the key set of interest rates used to set more than $800tn in securities and loans worldwide.

Of course, Timmy never bother to bring it up during all those congressional hearings, did he?
Geithner says he did all he could to address Libor problem
By Rachelle Younglai and Pedro da Costa
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:58pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, under pressure for not doing enough to stop fraudulent manipulation of a key benchmark interest rate, told lawmakers on Wednesday he alerted the appropriate authorities "early on."
In his first chance to defend his actions on the widening Libor scandal before Congress, Geithner said he became aware of the problem in 2008, when he was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, an influential bank regulator.

Geithner says he acted appropriately on LIBOR at New York Fed
By Jim Puzzanghera - LATimes.com
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told lawmakers Wednesday that he acted appropriately as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when he learned in 2008 that a key international interest rate could be manipulated by large banks.
But despite concerns that the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, was vulnerable to under-reporting by banks at the time, Geithner said he and other Fed officials felt it was not a problem to use the rate to set the terms for the $182 billion bailout of American International Group and a $1-trillion emergency lending program called the Term-Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility.

Marc Faber on a Global Crash,
the U.S. Treasury Bubble and China's Slowdown

Major Sell Signal Triggered
Written by Lance Roberts - StreetTalkLive.com
For some time now we have been warning about the danger to portfolios given the deteriorating fundamental, economic and technical backdrop in the markets. Our warnings, for the most part, have been ignored as individuals continue to chase stocks in hopes that "this time will be different", and somehow, stocks will continue to ramp higher even though all three support legs are weakening. Currently, it is the imminent arrival of the next round of Quantitative Easing (QE) that keeps "hope" elevated but further Central Bank interventionis unlikely in the near term leaving the markets at risk of a further correction.

The Shift to a New Global Currency
Alters International Relations
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
Last week I wrote about how Israel's newfound natural gas wealth is catalyzing a shift in Middle-Eastern relations. It was a topic that generated much discussion in our office - we knew that the Mediterranean Sea resource is highly significant for the Jewish state, which has long struggled with energy insecurity, but the deeper we delved into the issue the more we realized that Israel's new resource is already having wide global implications. In particular, we were very intrigued to realize just how cozy Russia and Israel are becoming - this being the same Russia that usually supports Iran and Syria, Israel's sworn enemies.

Global Trade Likely to Collapse if Romney Wins -
Interview with Mike Shedlock
By James Stafford - OilPrice.com
As markets continue to yo-yo and commentators deliver mixed forecasts, investors are faced with some tough decisions and have a number of important questions that need answering. On a daily basis we are asked what's happening with oil prices alongside questions on China's slowdown, which commodities or instruments will provide safety in the current environment, will the Euro-zone split in the future and what impact the presidential election is going to have on the economy and markets?

Why a eurozone break-up is just the sort of shock the UK needs
Forget the latest GDP figures, depressing reading though they undoubtedly make.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
I'm not going to pretend they don't matter, but the demands of the Westminster village and a 24-hour rolling news agenda make them seem more significant than they really are.
Like many others, I'm not even convinced they give the true picture. Rising tax revenues, still significant levels of job creation, including the announcement on Wednesday of a further 1,100 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, and much of the survey evidence all point to a marginally growing economy, not a declining one. What's more, the Jubilee and the wettest April to June quarter on record plainly had a significant effect.

Dominoes
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
Europe appears to be dismembering. We see Spanish yields breaking well above 7%. The Spanish government bond market is essentially closed to private investors. The only funding for Spain, and many of its political subdivisions, is now institutional and governmental from elsewhere in the eurozone.
The sovereign default process in Europe resembles falling dominoes. It started with Greece and has moved on to Ireland (which appears to be attempting resuscitation on its own), Portugal, Cyprus, and now Spain. The danger is that this sequential toppling of countries may be accelerating.

Euro exit beats begging bowl, says Spanish elder statesman
The regional leader of Asturias in Spain has become the country's first major figure to call for a radical change of strategy and exit from the euro, unless monetary union is fundamentally reformed.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Francisco Alvarez Cascos, the region's president and former secretary-general of Spain's ruling party, accused premier Mariano Rajoy of humiliating the nation by touring Europe with a "begging bowl".
The attack came as Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos hopped from Berlin to Paris in a desperate attempt to drum up support as yields on Spanish two-year debt surged to a fresh record of 7pc.

Greek economy is in a 'Great Depression' says Samaras
Greece is in a "Great Depression" similar to the American one in the 1930s, the country's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told former US President Bill Clinton on Sunday.
Reuters - Telegraph.co.uk
Mr Samaras's comments come two days before a team of Greece's debt inspectors arrive in Athens to push for further austerity measures if the debt-laden country wants to qualify for further rescue payments and avoid a chaotic default.
Athens wants to soften the terms of a €130bn bailout agreed last March with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, to soften their impact on an economy going through its worst post-war recession.

Gerald Celente --
National Intel Report with John Stadtmiller --
July 24, 2012

Down Goes Britain: The UK Economy Tumbles Deep Into Recession
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The economic crisis that is sweeping Europe is starting to hit Britain really hard. Over the last couple of years economists have been warning that we can't let the "contagion" spread from troubled nations such as Greece and Portugal to the rest of Europe. Well, it is too late for that now. Spain and Italy are coming apart at the seams at this point, and even "stronger" nations such as the UK and France appear to be deeply troubled. According to numbers that were released just this week, the UK economy has now contracted for three quarters in a row. During the second quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.7 percent. That was a much larger contraction than the 0.2 percent contraction that economists were forecasting. At this point we have got a definite trend going. During the fourth quarter of 2011, the UK economy shrunk by 0.4 percent. During the first quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.3 percent. And now in this latest quarter the contraction of the UK economy appears to be accelerating. This economic downturn in the UK is being called "the longest double-dip recession for more than 50 years". So will Britain soon look like Greece and Spain and Italy or will it be able to pull out of this nosedive in time?

IMF Says China's Economy Has Managed a 'Soft Landing'
By ELAINE KURTENBACH - AP - DailyFinance.com
SHANGHAI -- China has achieved a "soft landing" in its economic slowdown, the IMF says, while cautioning that more sweeping reforms are needed to ensure healthy growth in the longer term.
In a report Wednesday on its website, the International Monetary Fund praised China's leaders for adjusting policies to help counter the malaise plaguing the global economy that has also slowed robust growth in China and other emerging nations.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Hires JPMorgan, Goldman For IPO
By Serena Saitto and Christopher Palmeri - Bloomberg.com
MGM Holdings Inc. (MGMB), the parent of Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, hiredJPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) to manage its initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the situation.
JPMorgan will lead the share sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public. MGM submitted a draft IPO registration statement confidentially to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles- based company said in a press release dated today, without disclosing details of the offering.

World Bank president: 'I want to eradicate poverty'Jim Yong Kim says he will bring urgency to efforts to end global poverty in exclusive Guardian interview
By Sarah Boseley, health editor, in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
The new president of the World Bank is determined to eradicate globalpoverty through goals, targets and measuring success in the same way that he masterminded an Aids drugs campaign for poor people nearly a decade ago.
Jim Yong Kim, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian, said he was passionately committed to ending absolute poverty, which threatens survival and makes progress impossible for the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.
"I want to eradicate poverty," he said. "I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank."

Senate Dems pass middle-class tax-rate extension
in close vote
By Bernie Becker and Ramsey Cox - TheHill.com
Senate Democrats narrowly pushed through a measure to extend tax rates for family income up to $250,000 for a year, as both parties continued their election-year messaging war on taxes.
By a 51-48 tally, Democrats overcame two defections to win passage of a measure that would also raise the top rate on capital gains and dividends, as well as continue several targeted tax provisions that Democrats say help the middle class.

Bankruptcy Bonuses:
Another Way Execs Cheat Workers (and Taxpayers)
By Bruce Watson - DailyFinance.com
Ever since 2008, when sordid tales of big bonuses at bailed-out Wall Street banks flooded the news media, the huge checks that top executives often write themselves have been reliable class warfare bait. Little wonder: That year, amid failing banks, mass foreclosures, skyrocketing unemployment and frenzied bailouts, New York financial companies paid their workers an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses.
Since then, Wall Street has gotten a bit more careful about its bonus structure. Many companies reduced their bonuses, some capped the amount that employees could receive, and still others found creative ways to conceal their biggest paychecks. Even so, banker bonuses remain a tough sell to the general public, especially when it appears that they are coming at the expense of average workers -- and taxpayers.

The Big Jobs Myth: American Workers
Aren't Ready for American Jobs
What ails the American worker? Republicans and Democrats, chief executives and certain academics all say they see a mismatch between workers' skills and employers' needs. The data see something different.
By Barbara Kiviat - TheAtlantic.com
A specter haunts the job market. You've witnessed it on the campaign trail. You've seen it on TV. It is the idea that the skills of U.S. workers don't match the needs of the nation's employers.
This "skills mismatch" is routinely held up to explain why the unemployment rate is still at 8.2% three years after the Great Recession officially ended, and why nearly half of those out of work have been so for more than six months. The Romney campaign affirms that the skills mismatch "lies at the heart of our jobs crisis." In his State of the Union speech, President Obama quoted conversations with businessmen who can't find qualified workers, and then proposed "a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job."

Peter Schiff 2012 -
"We've Been in a Depression Since End of 2007"

Sales Of New U.S. Homes Decrease
From Two-Year High: Economy
By Michelle Jamrisko - Bloomberg.com
Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly dropped in June from a two-year high, a sign the market is being held back by a lack of inventory after builders curtailed projects.
Purchases fell 8.4 percent to a 350,000 annual rate, the weakest since January, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 74 economists was 372,000. The decline was led by a record plunge in the Northeast, where the number of properties available last month was the fewest for any June.

How Caterpillar Explains the World
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Caterpillar builds machines for digging up the earth. When countries grow, they need more machines. When they stop growing, they need fewer. That's one reason why a company like Caterpillar, while perhaps not as sexy as Apple or Goldman Sachs, actually paints a better picture of the world economy than almost any other big corporation. So the company's announcement today that it's earnings rose 67 percent year over year in the second quarter has, predictably, been received as great news on Wall Street.
But breaking down Caterpillar's sales by geography, as I've done in the chart below, also tells us about the strange, precarious position that the world's in these days.

California's Impending Energy Crash
By Gregor Macdonald - OilPrice.com
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that's exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
Its two nuclear plants -- San Onofre in the south and Diablo Canyon on the central coast -- together have provided more than 15% of the electricity supply that California generates for itself, before imports. But now there is the prospect that San Onofre will never reopen.

Bye-bye to printed magazines
Newsweek plans eventual transition to digital-only format
Owner of magazine says company is examining its options as manufacturing costs continue to hinder publication's profits, but Tina Brown denies imminent closure of print edition
By Staff and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
The owners of Newsweek have said they are considering whether to make the weekly news magazine available only in a digital format.
Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InteractiveCorp, told analysts on a conference call that a major problem with Newsweek is with the cost of "manufacturing" a weekly. He then strongly hinted at taking the Newsweek brand to a digital-only format similar to its sister title the Daily Beast.

Reid sets crucial cybersecurity vote
By Jennifer Martinez - TheHill.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a crucial procedural vote that could determine the fate of cybersecurity legislation in the upper chamber.
The test vote is set up for Friday on Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) cybersecurity bill, but an aide for Reid said Republicans will likely yield back time for the vote to take place on Thursday.

Bypassing Government Roadblocks to Your Personal Prosperity
By David Galland, Casey Research - TheBurningPlatform.com
Recently I helped out with some delivery chores. As I drove about, I discovered that one of the roads I would normally use was closed by roadblocks. It was, I imagine, due to road repair work. I had to reverse course and take a substantial detour.
I wondered why the road crew hadn't put up a sign indicating the road was closed back at the main intersection, but I shrugged and muttered something like "Typical government operation."
Driving back home, this idea of roadblocks took root in my mind. The thing is, only governmental entities can set up roadblocks – at least, legally.

Michigan City Shuts Down Teen's Hot Dog Vendor Cart

Drought will bring about higher food prices, US warns
Department of agriculture says catastrophe in the corn belt will push up prices, with drought now covering two-thirds of America
By Suzanne Goldenberg - Guardian.co.uk
The US government acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that the drought now covering two-thirds of the country will lead to significantly higher food prices.
The catastrophe in the corn belt, which has seen crops decimated by extreme heat and prolonged drought, will have ripple effects throughout the food system, the department of agriculture said in its food price outlook.

Why Gas Producers Are Getting Crunched by the Shale Boom
By Keith Schaefer - OilPrice.com
North America's shale drilling revolution is taking a toll on natural gas producers.
The reason? The shale boom has generated a tremendous oversupply of Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) – These are the byproduct gases and liquids like ethane, pentane, and propane which come out of the well alongside oil and regular natural gas.
The supply glut, for its part, has forced a sharp drop in the price of NGLs in North America. And that is crunching the profits of gas producers.

The Future of Farmland in a World
of Financial Fraud and Safe Haven Bubbles!

Gun sales surge in US following Colorado shooting
American buyers of firearms fear politicians may use the Aurora massacre to push for new ownership restrictions
Associated Press in Denver - Guardian.co.uk
Firearms sales are surging in the US in the wake of the Coloradomassacre as buyers express fears that politicians may use the shootings to seek new restrictions on owning weapons.
In Colorado – the scene of Friday's shooting during the screening of a Batman film that killed 12 and injured dozens of others – gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm – 25% more than the average Friday to Sunday period in 2012 and 43% more than the same period the week before.

McManus: The NRA has won
Don't count on new gun control laws any time soon.
By Doyle McManus - LATimes.com
Politicians haven't always been allergic to gun control, not even Republicans.
In 1968, after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr., Congress — on a bipartisan vote — outlawed guns sales to felons and the mentally ill. In 1993, when Congress passed the Brady bill requiring background checks for gun purchasers, former President Reagan, who narrowly escaped assassination in 1981, was among its supporters.

Rocks thrown at Anaheim cops at protest

Anaheim officials scramble
to contain public anger as protests escalate
Looting and vandalism mar demonstrations against spate of police shootings, exacerbating city's stark race divisions
By Andrew Gumbel in Anaheim - Guardian.co.uk
Officials in Anaheim, the southern California home to Disneyland, are scrambling to contain public anger over a rash of police shootings of young Latino men and pleaded for calm following a fourth night of street demonstrations marred by vandalism and looting.
Members of a 1,000-strong crowd broke windows and set fire to garbage skips in downtown Anaheim on Tuesday night, leading to hours of clashes with police, who responded with pepper spray and rubber bullets and made at least 24 arrests. The demonstrators said they were expressing frustration at what is widely seen as indifference by the city's all-white leadership to the majority Latino population.

Holmes DARPA Connection

DHS head: Expect more members
of terrorist organizations to visit US
WashingtonExaminer.com
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress today to expect more members of designated foreign terrorist organizations to visit the United States.
"I think you are right in pointing out that as we move forward we are going to continue to have visitors to this country that the State Department and others feel are useful to bring to the country to have discussions moving forward who say they are members of the political party that in the past have been so designated," Napolitano told House Homeland Security Committee chairman Pete King, R-N.Y. during a committee hearing this morning.

Chairman King Presses DHS Sec. Napolitano
on visa to Hani Nour Eldin, member of terrorist org

East End Has Thousands In Illegal Squalor Near Olympics
By Simon Clark and Chris Spillane - Bloomberg.com
Five thousand meters from London's gleaming, white-spoked Olympic Stadium -- a 3.1-mile distance that games organizer and gold medalist Sebastian Coe once ran in 14 minutes and 6 seconds -- Christine Lyons has ferreted out a modern-day scene evocative of VictorianEngland.
In a side street with cracked, weedy paving covered in litter and rubble, just past an old stable, she knocks at a whitewashed shed built of bricks. A Hungarian couple in their 20s open the door to the single room they rent for 155 pounds ($240) a week. There's barely space to walk around a bed, a chair, a table, a bicycle, a rack covered with drying clothes and a sink on the wall. A bathroom is closed off in a corner. A bare light bulb hangs in the middle of the ceiling.

This May Be the First Computer-Generated Motion Picture
Of course, it was made at Bell Labs, like everything else.
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
This simple animation of a satellite orbiting a sphere may be the very first computer-generated movie. Ed Zajac created the simulation at Bell Labs in an effort to better understand the forces at play in the company's work with Telstar satellites.

Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude
control system - Edward Zajac
1963 "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system" by Edward Zajac at Bell Labs

Yes, there's violence, but some Syrians think it's time to return
There has been a rebel surge – but most of the country is still under Bashar al-Assad's iron rule
By Robert Fisk - Independent.co.uk
A Syrian friend calls me early. "Just to let you know we're going back – things are OK now in the Mezzeh area." I wonder. Then a Lebanese colleague tells me that three Syrian friends of hers have just called to say goodbye, they're going back to Damascus with their families now that the fighting has died down.
Then the same woman calls to tell me that she spoke to a friend in Aleppo on Tuesday night to check on his welfare. "He was in a packed restaurant in the centre of the city – it was difficult to hear what he was saying over the noise." The lines of posh Syrian cars outside Beirut restaurants last weekend – belonging to supporters of the regime taking a brief "holiday" from Syria – have suddenly vanished from the streets.

Syria rushes reinforcements to its largest city
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY - APNews.MyWay.com
BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian troops rushed dozens of tanks and reinforcements Wednesday toward Aleppo, the country's strategically vital commercial capital, in a bid to crush a rebel advance that has spread to wide swaths of the sprawling city.
As five days of fighting in Aleppo intensified, and with rumors swirling of a final showdown in that city, neighboring Turkey tightened its borders but said refugees will be allowed through.

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