Vanessa Gibbs had no problem getting her Western-themed purse through security at Jacksonville International Airport. But, on her return trip from Norfolk, Virginia, she was told her purse was a federal offense, reports News 4 Jax.
Gibbs, 17, carries the purse, embellished with a faux-gun design, nearly every day.
Agents eventually recognized the gun was fake, but she was told to check the bag or surrender it. The ordeal caused Gibbs to miss her flight and be re-routed to Orlando. (Read more)
The last two years marked a significant shift in central banks’ attitudes toward gold. Since 1988, central banks have been net sellers of the precious metal. Lacking convertibility of their paper currencies into the commodity, this occurrence makes perfect sense. Why hold a physical asset with costly storage fees when there is no risk that it will ever be needed? Better to hold an interest-bearing (and easily stored) asset like a government security to earn a profit in the interim. So goes the typical explanation for why central banks load their balance sheets with financial assets instead of physical ones.
Yet over the last two years a dramatic shift in gold purchases has occurred. In the third quarter of this year alone, net gold purchases by central banks amounted to 150 tons — more than double the amount of the whole yearly total of 2010. For the first time in over 20 years, central banks of the world are buying more gold than they are divesting themselves of.
Yet if central banks deal exclusively in nonconvertible (and fiat) money, what explains the sudden change of heart? (Read more)
A group of customs employees at the Suez seaport have revealed that the Egyptian Ministry of Interior is in the process of receiving 21 tons of tear gas from the US. (Read more)
Also: Last week, 5,000 files of private email correspondence among several of the world’s top climate scientists were anonymously leaked onto the Internet. Like the first “climategate” leak of 2009, the latest release shows top scientists in the field fudging data, conspiring to bully and silence opponents, and displaying far less certainty about the reliability of anthropogenic global warming theory in private than they ever admit in public.
The scientists include men like Michael Mann of Penn State University and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia, both of whose reports inform what President Obama has called “the gold standard” of international climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The new release of emails was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the original climategate leak and with the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa. And it has already stirred strong emotions. To Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), for example, the leaker or leakers responsible are attempting to “sabotage the international climate talks” and should be identified and brought “to justice.”
One might sympathize with Mr. Markey’s outrage if, say, the emails were maliciously rewritten or invented. But at least one scientist involved—Mr. Mann—has confirmed that the emails are genuine, as were the first batch released two years ago. (Read more)
Vanessa Gibbs had no problem getting her Western-themed purse through security at Jacksonville International Airport. But, on her return trip from Norfolk, Virginia, she was told her purse was a federal offense, reports News 4 Jax.
(Read more)