Life is full of beauty.
Notice it.
Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces.
Smell the rain, and feel the wind.
Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.

Ashley Smith Robinson
American Author and Speaker
inspirationpeak.com

Posted: 5:15:52 PM  

The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. "We're moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster," says Daniel Baker, a space weather expert based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and chair of the NAS committee responsible for the report.

It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma - charged high-energy particles - some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see "When hell comes to Earth"). If one should hit the Earth's magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.

Posted: 12:38:29 PM  

Amazing street art by Edgar Müller

A STREET rages into a wild river, a road melts to the earth's core and a pier falls into an icy crevasse – Edgar Müller did it all.

metanamorph.com

Posted: 7:46:17 AM  

"We have lent a huge amount of money to the United States and of course we're concerned about the security of our assets and, to be honest, I am a little bit worried," Wen said in Beijing after conclusion of the second session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC). "That's why here I would like to urge the US to keep its commitment and promise to ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

China's dollar reserves, America's debt

W I K I on US DEBT

Why China Needs US Debt

If government paper cannot fill its needs, China could turn to commodities — if anything, perhaps gold could provide a viable store of value without subjecting China to the fiscal swashbuckling of a foreign government.
But even here, the size of the gold market could not support Beijing's investment needs. Even if China were somehow able to absorb the total annual output of the world's gold mines - roughly 80 million troy ounces - doing so would both collapse global debt markets and send gold prices to stratospheric heights.
(Not exactly a welcome scenario for a country utterly dependent upon international trade.) And for all that, China could sock away the same amount of value after only about three months of trading with the United States.

Posted: 7:38:25 AM  

The Czech prime minister has condemned US President Barack Obama's economic recovery plans as "a way to hell".

Posted: 7:24:24 AM  

US backing for world currency stuns markets

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner shocked global markets by revealing that Washington is "quite open" to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund.

Posted: 7:17:11 AM