Monday, September 26, 2011

The GOP’s Trillion-Dollar “Failed Stimulus”

Rich People And Corporations: The GOP’s Trillion-Dollar “Failed Stimulus”

nationofchange.org - http://www.readability.com/articles/vjfhm2rf


"Class warfare!" Whenever you heard those words, it's a pretty sure bet whoever's saying them is the one who's really conducting class warfare.

And that you're the target.


The Fast and the Spurious
The Republican responses to President Obama's moderate plan for jobs creation have been fast and furious - and really, really repetitive. "Class warfare" is getting thrown around a lot, but other rhetorical warhorses are getting even more of a workout.

"This is another failed stimulus that will not stimulate the economy," said Texas Republican Rep. Francisco Canseco. (Well, a failed stimulus, wouldn't, would it?)

"The President needs to move beyond the failed stimulus programs of yesteryear," said Republic Rep. Mike Conway. ""I had hoped the President would have taken this opportunity tonight, before a Joint Session of Congress, to move past his failed stimulus policies," said Rep. Randy Neugebauer.

That's the new Republican mantra. In fact, a Google search on the phrase "failed stimulus" yields nearly half a million hits. And yet more than half of the President's $447 billion proposal comes in the form of tax cuts. We can debate whether these tax cuts are the most efficient use of dollar. There are better, more direct ways of get the economy moving and put Americans back to work, and the rest of the President's proposal includes some of them.

But tax cuts are more than half of the President's plan.

Party LinesQuestion: When did tax cuts become a form of "stimulus"? Answer: When a Democrat proposed them. And no matter how much the President tries to position himself as above party lines, the Republicans will never let him forget that he is a Democrat. That's why they keep calling his tax cuts a "stimulus," which is now a four-letter word in Washington.

But if the President's tax cuts are a "stimulus" plan, then so are other tax cuts designed to create jobs. The GOP says it opposes the President's proposal to raise taxes on millionaires. It would rather expand these tax giveaways because, they say, the wealthy are "job creators." Same goes for the ultra-large corporations who, they say, are "job creators," too.

When you give money to create jobs, whether directly through spending or indirectly through tax breaks, that's a "stimulus." And the Republicans' rhetoric makes it clear that their tax breaks are, too.


Mr. Boehner's America - "Job creators."

If John Boehner's said it once, he must have said it a million times. If so, that would be about once for every $3,500 spent on lobbying last year in Washington. And the $350 billion spent on lobbying in 2010 was actually down from the year before.

(You don't think corporation-friendly, rich-people-coddling notions like these grow on trees, do ya?)

The Speaker says that "private sector job creators are at the heart of our economy and they always have been. That's the America that I was raised in."

John Boehner was born in 1949, when the top tax bracket was over 82%. It went up the following year, and the top bracket stayed over 90% until he was fifteen years old. That's the real "America he was raised in," and it was a time of much greater growth and job creation than we're seeing today.

Today the top bracket is 35%, and can be as low as 15% for hedge fund billionaires and other members of the ultra-wealthy class. Mr. Boehner's fighting to keep it that way - and to lower these rates even more. That's not fighting for "the America he was raised in." That's fighting for "the America that funds his races."

Rich America.


The Job-Creator Scorecard
But let's take the Republicans at their word: Let's assume they support these tax cuts because they believe that they help "job creators" do what job creators are supposed to do - create jobs. That means each and every Republican tax cut for rich people and big corporations should be measured by its ability to create jobs and boost wages for the rest of us.

How's that workin' out for ya?

After a decade of giveaways to the "job creators," official unemployment is still over 9% and the real number is much worse. Wide swaths of the population are living in permanent recession or outright depression. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash which they refuse to spend, because people are too cash-strapped or too fearful to spend and get the economy moving again.

And everybody keeps saying we can't do more about jobs because of the government's deficits. Where did they come from?


Deficits: Reagan's Real Legacy

The Republican tax giveaways began under Ronald Reagan. So did our exploding deficits. That's no coincidence. How badly did Reagan drive our government spending into a ditch?

For more than forty years before Reagan took office, the tax rates for the highest earners never fell below 70%, It was frequently in the 90%-94% range. Then Reagan slashed those rates.

When Reagan was elected in 1980, the "runaway" government debt he campaigned against was $930 billion. When he left in 1988 that debt was $2.6 trillion. For all their rhetoric, Republicans didn't care about deficits much back then.

They don't care about them now, either. Deficit talk is just another mechanism for preserving these tax breaks for the wealthy by making people believe we "can no longer afford" the basic services that were the foundation of our most prosperous century. Sure we can.

If we hadn't entered a thirty-year binge of tax breaks for the wealthy, we'd be in great financial shape right now. We'd have surpluses as far as the eye can see.


GOP Tax Breaks: The Stimulus That Failed
We can afford our great national programs just fine, thank you very much. What we can't afford is to keep coddling rich people. Unless, that is, they really are "job creators." Are they?

Michael Linden at the Center for American Progress looked at the data and found that "growth was actually fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates. Back in the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent, real annual growth averaged more than 4 percent. During the last eight years, when the top marginal rate was just 35 percent, real growth was less than half that."

In other words, we've never created jobs by lowering taxes for rich people. That's a "failed stimulus" plan if ever there was one. What we have created with these tax cuts is deficits - the rationale that's being used for all these cuts.

If you want to reduce the deficits, raise taxes on the wealthy. We could use that money to create some jobs, too.


Trillions More Wanted For Failed GOP Stimulus
How much more money do Republicans want to squander on their failed stimulus ideas?
They want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which will cost an estimated $4 trillion. Since more than half of those cuts benefited the top 5% of earners in 2010, that means they're proposing roughly $2 trillion more of the same failed Republican stimulus.
They're against limiting deductions and exemptions for income above250,000 per year. That's another $410 billion of the same failed Republican stimulus.
They're against closing loopholes and special interest deductions. That's another $300 billion of the same failed Republican stimulus.
Romney wants to cut corporate taxes by a third. That's another $900 billion (yep, nearly a trillion!) of the same failed Republican stimulus.
Romney also wants to eliminate the estate tax, which only the richest of the richest heirs pay these days. That's another $175 billion of the same failed Republican stimulus.

Although, to look on the bright side, it does give Paris Hilton some more partying money.


Fixing Their Failures
The simplest and best thing the country could do is adopt and increase the President's direct job creation proposals, the ones that put people to work doing things that need doing. We can pay for these jobs by ending these failed stimulus programs for the rich and the big corporations.

The President's tax cuts are an inefficient way to create jobs, and the fact that they target Social Security's source of funding is a potential disaster. But there's no bigger "failed stimulus" in history than the Republican Party's thirty-year-long, multi-trillion-dollar giveaway to the rich and to corporations that hoard their cash and ship jobs overseas. They've driven deficits sky-high and failed to create jobs.

So let's make the President's partially-good program even better by increasing direct jobs spending and de-emphasizing the cuts. And when they attack those tax hikes for the wealthy and the idea of closing loopholes for corporations, just tell them we don't want to get stuck with another "failed Republican stimulus."

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Center for Copyright Infringement - Leaked Details

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Database Of U.S. Internet Pirates Will Be Decentralized1


Starting in a few months, millions of online ‘pirates’ will be monitored as part of an agreement between the MPAA, RIAA and all major U.S. Internet providers. Alleged infringers will be notified about their misbehavior, and repeat offenders will eventually be punished. Thus far the details on the operation have been very slim, but TorrentFreak has learned that unlike in France, the U.S. database of Internet pirates will be decentralized.
In June the MPAA and RIAA announced a ‘ground-breaking’ deal with all the major Internet providers in the United States. In an attempt to deter online piracy, a third-party company will monitor BitTorrent and other public file-sharing networks and collect the IP-addresses of alleged infringers.
The ISPs will then notify these offenders and tell them that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include slowing down the offender’s connection.
This new system is a formalized version of the existing takedown system that’s already in use by copyright holders. It was announced under the name ‘Copyright Alerts‘ and will be managed by the Center for Copyright Information, but little is known about how the data on alleged infringers is collected and stored.
Previously we tried to get more background info, but to no avail. However, via a detour we got in touch with a spokesman for the Center for Copyright Information2 (CCI) who kindly provided us with some additional information.
We wanted to know what will happen with the IP-addresses that are collected, for how long will they be stored, and will there be a central organization that’s responsible for this process like there is in France. The CCI spokesperson informed us that the data will be exclusively kept by the ISPs.
“ISPs will hold this information, as they do today. Please also note that no personal information about subscribers will be shared with rights holders without the required legal process being completed,” he told us.
There’s no agreement on how long the data will be stored, but a minimum of 12 months is required.
“ISPs will determine this individually based on their own policy. However, please note that the Memorandum of Understanding allows for a 12 month reset period. That means that, if an ISP does not receive any ISP notices from rights holders concerning a subscriber’s account for a 12 month period, all prior ISP notices and copyright alerts from the subscriber’s account may be expunged.”
Aside from the data storage issue we also asked if the company that will track millions of copyright infringers will have its evidence gathering techniques properly tested. This is indeed the case.
“There will be an independent technical review. The agreement requires that an independent technical expert review methodologies used by content owners to detect alleged content theft and by ISPs to identify and forward alerts to applicable subscribers,” TorrentFreak was told.
The independent technical expert has not yet been selected according to the spokesperson. However, it seems unlikely that the results of the evidence review will be made public, which is a major disappointment.
“The results of the reviews will necessarily vary company by company, and industry by industry. As such, they will contain proprietary information and will not be made public,” we were told.
Previously two independent sources informed us3 that DtecNet was already picked as the official tracking company, but the CCI spokesman said that no official contract has been signed yet. More information on this, as well as the start date of the new system, is likely to be released in the near future.
In the coming months we’ll continue to keep a close eye on developments, because if rightsholders want to track millions of copyright infringers, they better do it right.
Read more at www.readability.com

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

The Juniper-Tree

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Grimms Fairy Tales


The Juniper-Tree
It is now long ago, quite two thousand years, since there was a rich man who had a beautiful and pious wife, and they loved each other dearly. They had, however, no children, though they wished for them very much, and the woman prayed for them day and night, but still they had none. Now there was a court-yard in front of their house in which was a juniper tree, and one day in winter the woman was standing beneath it, paring herself an apple, and while she was paring herself the apple she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the snow. Ah, said the woman, and sighed right heavily, and looked at the blood before her, and was most unhappy, ah, if I had but a child as red as blood and as white as snow. And while she thus spoke, she became quite happy in her mind, and felt just as if that were going to happen. Then she went into the house and a month went by and the snow was gone, and two months, and then everything was green, and three months, and then all the flowers came out of the earth, and four months, and then all the trees in the wood grew thicker, and the green branches were all closely entwined, and the birds sang until the wood resounded and the blossoms fell from the trees, then the fifth month passed away and she stood under the juniper tree, which smelt so sweetly that her heart leapt, and she fell on her knees and was beside herself with joy, and when the sixth month was over the fruit was large and fine, and then she was quite still, and the seventh month she snatched at the juniper-berries and ate them greedily, then she grew sick and sorrowful, then the eighth month passed, and she called her husband to her, and wept and said, if I die then bury me beneath the juniper tree. Then she was quite comforted and happy until the next month was over, and then she had a child as white as snow and as red as blood, and when she beheld it she was so delighted that she died.
Then her husband buried her beneath the juniper tree, and he began to weep sore, after some time he was more at ease, and though he still wept he could bear it, and after some time longer he took another wife.
By the second wife he had a daughter, but the first wife's child was a little son, and he was as red as blood and as white as snow. When the woman looked at her daughter she loved her very much, but then she looked at the little boy and it seemed to cut her to the heart, for the thought came into her mind that he would always stand in her way, and she was for ever thinking how she could get all the fortune for her daughter, and the evil one filled her mind with this till she was quite wroth with the little boy and she pushed him from one corner to the other and slapped him here and cuffed him there, until the poor child was in continual terror, for when he came out of school he had no peace in any place.
One day the woman had gone upstairs to her room, and her little daughter went up too, and said, mother, give me an apple. Yes, my child, said the woman, and gave her a fine apple out of the chest, but the chest had a great heavy lid with a great sharp iron lock. Mother, said the little daughter, is brother not to have one too. This made the woman angry, but she said, yes, when he comes out of school. And when she saw from the window that he was coming, it was just as if the devil entered into her, and she snatched at the apple and took it away again from her daughter, and said, you shall not have one before your brother.
Then she threw the apple into the chest, and shut it. Then the little boy came in at the door, and the devil made her say to him kindly, my son, will you have an apple. And she looked wickedly at him. Mother, said the little boy, how dreadful you look. Yes, give me an apple. Then it seemed to her as if she were forced to say to him, come with me, and she opened the lid of the chest and said, take out an apple for yourself, and while the little boy was stooping inside, the devil prompted her, and crash. She shut the lid down, and his head flew off and fell among the red apples. Then she was overwhelmed with terror, and thought, if I could but make them think that it was not done by me. So she went upstairs to her room to her chest of drawers, and took a white handkerchief out of the top drawer, and set the head on the neck again, and folded the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and she set him on a chair in front of the door, and put the apple in his hand.
After this Marlinchen came into the kitchen to her mother, who was standing by the fire with a pan of hot water before her which she was constantly stirring round. "Mother," said Marlinchen, "brother is sitting at the door, and he looks quite white and has an apple in his hand. I asked him to give me the apple, but he did not answer me, and I was quite frightened." "Go back to him," said her mother, "and if he will not answer you, give him a box on the ear." So Marlinchen went to him and said, "Brother, give me the apple." But he was silent, and she gave him a box on the ear, whereupon his head fell off. Marlinchen was terrified, and began crying and screaming, and ran to her mother, and said, "Alas, mother, I have knocked my brother's head off," and she wept and wept and could not be comforted. "Marlinchen," said the mother, what have you done, but be quiet and let no one know it, it cannot be helped now, we will make him into black-puddings." Then the mother took the little boy and chopped him in pieces, put him into the pan and made him into black puddings, but Marlinchen stood by weeping and weeping, and all her tears fell into the pan and there was no need of any salt.
Then the father came home, and sat down to dinner and said, "But where is my son?" And the mother served up a great dish of black-puddings, and Marlinchen wept and could not leave off. Then the father again said, "But where is my son?" "Ah," said the mother, "he has gone across the coutry to his mother's great uncle, he will stay there awhile." "And what is he going to do there? He did not even say good-bye to me."
"Oh, he wanted to go, and asked me if he might stay six weeks, he is well taken care of there." "Ah," said the man, "I feel so unhappy lest all should not be right. He ought to have said good-bye to me." With that he began to eat and said, "Marlinchen, why are you crying? Your brother will certainly come back." Then he said, "Ah, wife, how delicious this food is, give me some more." And the more he ate the more he wanted to have, and he said, "Give me some more, you shall have none of it. It seems to me as if it were all mine." And he ate and ate and threw all the bones under the table, until he had finished the whole. But Marlinchen went away to her chest of drawers, and took her best silk handkerchief out of the bottom draw, and got all the bones from beneath the table, and tied them up in her silk handkerchief, and carried them outside the door, weeping tears of blood. Then she lay down under the juniper tree on the green grass, and after she had lain down there, she suddenly felt light-hearted and did not cry any more. Then the juniper tree began to stir itself, and the branches parted asunder, and moved together again, just as if someone were rejoicing and clapping his hands. At the same time a mist seemed to arise from the tree, and in the center of this mist it burned like a fire, and a beautiful bird flew out of the fire singing magnificently, and he flew high up in the air, and when he was gone, the juniper tree was just as it had been before, and the handkerchief with the bones was no longer there. Marlinchen, however, was as gay and happy as if her brother were still alive. And she went merrily into the house, and sat down to dinner and ate.
But the bird flew away and lighted on a goldsmith's house, and began to sing - my mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little marlinchen, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
The goldsmith was sitting in his workshop making a golden chain, when he heard the bird which was sitting singing on his roof, and very beautiful the song seemed to him. He stood up, but as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. But he went away right up the middle of the street with one shoe on and one sock, he had his apron on, and in one hand he had the golden chain and in the other the pincers, and the sun was shining brightly on the street. Then he went right on and stood still, and said to the bird, "Bird," said he then, "how beautifully you can sing. Sing me that piece again." "No," said the bird, "I'll not sing it twice for nothing. Give me the golden chain, and then I will sing it again for you." "There," said the goldsmith, "there is the golden chain for you, now sing me that song again." Then the bird came and took the golden chain in his right claw, and went and sat in front of the goldsmith, and sang -
my mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little marlinchen, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then the bird flew away to a shoemaker, and lighted on his roof and sang -
my mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little marlinchen, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
The shoemaker heard that and ran out of doors in his shirt sleeves, and looked up at his roof, and was forced to hold his hand before his eyes lest the sun should blind him. "Bird," said he, "how beautifully you can sing." Then he called in at his door, "Wife, just come outside, there is a bird, look at that bird, he certainly can sing." Then he called his daughter and children, and apprentices, boys and girls, and they all came up the street and looked at the bird and saw how beautiful he was, and what fine red and green feathers he had, and how like real gold his neck was, and how the eyes in his head shone like stars. "Bird," said the shoemaker, "now sing me that song again." "Nay," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing, you must give me something." "Wife," said the man, "go to the garret, upon the top shelf there stands a pair of red shoes, bring them down." Then the wife went and brought the shoes. "There, bird," said the man, "now sing me that piece again." Then the bird came and took the shoes in his left claw, and flew back on the roof, and sang - my mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little Marlinchen, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
and when he had finished his song he flew away. In his right claw he had the chain and in his left the shoes, and he flew far away to a mill, and the mill went, klipp klapp, klipp klapp, klipp klapp, and in the mill sat twenty miller's men hewing a stone, and cutting, hick hack, hick hack, hick hack, and the mill went klipp klapp, klipp klapp'klipp klapp. Then the bird went and sat on a lime-tree which stood in front of the mill, and sang - my mother she killed me, then one of them stopped working, my father he ate me, then two more stopped working and listened to that, my sister, little Marlinchen, then four more stopped, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, now eight only were hewing, laid them beneath, now only five, the juniper tree, and now only one, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then the last stopped also, and heard the last words. "Bird," said he, "how beautifully you sing. Let me, too, hear that. Sing that once more for me."
"Nay," said the bird, "I will not sing twice for nothing. Give me the millstone, and then I will sing it again."
"Yes," said he, "if it belonged to me only, you should have it." "Yes," said the others, "if he sings again he shall have it." Then the bird came down, and the twenty millers all set to work with a beam and raised the stone up. And the bird stuck his neck through the hole, and put the stone on as if it were a collar, and flew on to the tree again, and sang - my mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister, little Marlinchen, gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
And when he had done singing, he spread his wings, and in his right claw he had the chain, and in his left the shoes, and round his neck the millstone, and he flew far away to his father's house.
In the room sat the father, the mother, and Marlinchen at dinner, and the father said, "How light-hearted I feel, how happy I am." "Nay," said the mother, "I feel so uneasy, just as if a heavy storm were coming." Marlinchen, however, sat weeping and weeping, and then came the bird flying, and as it seated itself on the roof the father said, "Ah, I feel so truly happy, and the sun is shining so beautifully outside, I feel just as if I were about to see some old friend again." "Nay," said the woman, "I feel so anxious, my teeth chatter, and I seem to have fire in my veins." And she tore her stays open, but Marlinchen sat in a corner crying, and held her plate before her eyes and cried till it was quite wet. Then the bird sat on the juniper tree, and sang - my mother she killed me, then the mother stopped her ears, and shut her eyes, and would not see or hear, but there was a roaring in her ears like the most violent storm, and her eyes burnt and flashed like lightning - my father he ate me, "Ah, mother," says the man, "that is a beautiful bird. He sings so splendidly, and the sun shines so warm, and there is a smell just like cinnamon." My sister, little Marlinchen, then Marlinchen laid her head on her knees and wept without ceasing, but the man said, "I am going out, I must see the bird quite close." "Oh, don't go," said the woman, "I feel as if the whole house were shaking and on fire." But the man went out and looked at the bird. gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I on this the bird let the golden chain fall, and it fell exactly round the man's neck, and so exactly round it that it fitted beautifully. Then he went in and said, "just look what a fine bird that is, and what a handsome golden chain he has given me, and how pretty he is." But the woman was terrified, and fell down on the floor in the room, and her cap fell off her head. Then sang the bird once more - my mother she killed me. "Would that I were a thousand feet beneath the earth so as not to hear that." My father he ate me, then the woman fell down again as if dead. My sister, little marlinchen, "Ah," said Marlinchen, "I too will go out and see if the bird will give me anything," and she went out. Gathered together all my bones, tied them in a silken handkerchief, then he threw down the shoes to her. Laid them beneath the juniper tree, kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then she was light-hearted and joyous, and she put on the new red shoes, and danced and leaped into the house. "Ah," said she, "I was so sad when I went out and now I am so light-hearted, that is a splendid bird, he has given me a pair of red shoes." "Well," said the woman, and sprang to her feet and her hair stood up like flames of fire, "I feel as if the world were coming to an end. I too, will go out and see if my heart feels lighter." And as she went out at the door, crash. The bird threw down the millstone on her head, and she was entirely crushed by it.
The father and Marlinchen heard what had happened and went out, and smoke, flames, and fire were rising from the place, and when that was over, there stood the little brother, and he took his father and Marlinchen by the hand, and all three were right glad, and they went into the house to dinner, and ate.
--The End--
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Sunday, September 04, 2011

Use the Food Algorithm to Buy Food at Rock Bottom Prices

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lifehacker.com
Know When to Stock Up on Groceries with a Basic Food Algorithm

Know When to Stock Up on Groceries with a Basic Food AlgorithmCommon sense dictates that we should stock up on the foods we routinely eat when on sale, but frugal living blogger Mr. Money Mustache has taken this concept a bit further, developing what he calls a food algorithm.
- if a food is overpriced, buy zero or the minimum possible amount you can live with
- if a food is regular price, buy an amount to last until your next grocery trip (minimum 1 week supply)
- if a food is underpriced, buy at least enough to last until the next expected sale at this level (4 weeks?)
- if a food is drastically underpriced, buy a near-infinite amount, limited only by shelf life of food and available stock on shelves. If Bananas go to 1 cent per pound, you can't really benefit. But if rolled oats dropped to an all-time low, I'd probably buy at least a year's supply (100 pounds).
Stocking up makes sense for items that won't perish and you know you'll use. My family routinely has a stock of dried pasta, breakfast cereal, and cleaning products as my wife is skilled at buying these items cheaply by combining sales and coupons.
The food algorithm is mostly common sense, but if you're a young person out on your own it can be helpful while learning to manage your food costs.
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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Tsunami in the Sky

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"Tsunami in the Sky" Storm Cloud

The "Giant Wave" Supercell Pictures That Will Blow You Away

The results of the 2011 spring storm chasing season are in. Mike Hollingstead2 from Extreme Instability has been chasing storms for many years (his site is always a fascinating read for thrill-seekers). We featured his adventures before - see, for example, our article "Fog Storm Over Badlands"3. However this time, what you're going to see is going to blow you away - this is possibly the most epic sight on the whole Earth:

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