NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street banks are facing a "systemic margin call" that may deplete banks of $325 billion of capital due to deteriorating subprime U.S. mortgages, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), said in a report late on Friday.
JPMorgan, which sent a default notice to Thornburg Mortgage Inc. (TMA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) after the lender missed a $28 million margin call, said more default notices and margin calls were likely. The Carlyle Group's mortgage fund also failed to meet $37 million in margin calls this week.
"A systemic credit crunch is underway, driven primarily by bank writedowns for subprime mortgages," according to the report co-authored by analyst Christopher Flanagan. "We would characterize this situation as a systemic margin call."
The credit crisis that began about a year ago will likely intensify after Friday's weak February U.S. employment report "that most definitely signals recession," JPMorgan said.
Indeed, corporate bond spreads widened to a new record on Friday, surpassing levels seen in October 2002 during a boom in bankruptcies following the dot-com crash. U.S. employers cut payrolls in February for a second consecutive month, slashing 63,000 jobs, the biggest monthly job decline in nearly five years, the ...   more »

By Charles Krauthammer
She threw the kitchen sink at him. Accused Barack Obama of plagiarism. Mocked his eloquence. Questioned his truthfulness about NAFTA.
Wasn't enough. Hillary Clinton still faced extinction in Ohio and Texas. So what do you do when you have thrown the kitchen sink? Drop the atomic bomb.
Hence that brilliant "phone call at the White House at 3 a.m." commercial. In the great tradition of Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" ad, it was not subtle -- though in 2008 you don't actually show the nuclear explosion. It's enough just to suggest an apocalyptic crisis.
Ostensibly the ad was about experience. It wasn't. It was about familiarity. After all, as Obama pointed out, what exactly is the experience that prepares Hillary to answer the red phone at 3 a.m.?
She was raising a deeper question: Do you really know who this guy is? After a whirlwind courtship with this elegant man who rode into town just yesterday, are you really prepared to entrust him with your children, the major props in the ad?
After months of fruitlessly shadowboxing an ethereal opponent made up of equal parts hope, rhetoric and enthusiasm, Clinton had finally made contact with the enemy. The doubts ...   more »

'We hope common sense prevails, people wait for Supreme Court'
By Bob Unruh
An attorney working on an appeal to the California Supreme Court of a ruling declaring homeschooling by parents illegal says the threat to such families is serious and immediate, especially if there has been a contentious previous relationship with authorities.
Ultimately, Brad Dacus, chief of the Pacific Justice Institute, told WND the ruling involving a Los Angeles family might even be used by "overzealous" school district officials and social workers to try to remove a child from a family.
"We are hoping enough common sense prevails for everyone to wait and see how this plays out before the state Supreme Court," he said. But in California, such appellate level rulings are binding on lower courts when they are issued, he said.
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The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child advocates. The lawyers appointed by the state were unhappy with a lower court's ruling that allowed the family to continue homeschooling and challenged it on appeal.
Justice H. ...   more »

By Brandon Keim    
Scientists have developed a computer model that predicts the brain patterns elicited by looking at different images -- a possible first step on the path to mind reading.
Image: University of California at Berkeley Tell me what you see.
On second thought, don't: A computer will soon be able to do it, simply by analyzing the activity of your brain.
That's the promise of a decoding system unveiled this week in Nature by neuroscientists from the University of California at Berkeley.
The scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine -- a real-time brain scanner -- to record the mental activity of a person looking at thousands of random pictures: people, animals, landscapes, objects, the stuff of everyday visual life. With those recordings the researchers built a computational model for predicting the mental patterns elicited by looking at any other photograph. When tested with neurological readouts generated by a different set of pictures, the decoder passed with flying colors, identifying the images seen with unprecedented accuracy.
"No one that I know would ever have guessed our decoder would do this well," study co-author Jack Gallant said.
As the decoder is refined, it could be used to ...   more »

By Ted Landphair
This is the alignment of stars on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill that some deliberately resembles the Jewish Star of David
There has been a flurry of Internet traffic flying back and forth about a bit of symbolism on the U.S. dollar bill, of all things.
More than most other nations' colorful currencies, which feature predictable national heroes and indigenous palm trees and elephants and the like, U.S. paper money is loaded with metaphorical symbols. The one-dollar bill, for instance, does honor the requisite legend — George Washington, our first president. But it also contains such images as scales that represent a balanced budget, and a drawing of a key — as in the key to the national treasury. Most likely because there were thirteen original colonies, there are exactly thirteen arrows in an eagle's left talons, thirteen leaves in the olive branch in its right talons, thirteen steps on a mysterious pyramid, and so forth. 
According to one account, soon-to-be President George Washington, who appears on the dollar bill, allowed a Jewish patron to arrange stars in the new U.S. Great Seal in the shape of the Star of David
But the buzz on ...   more »

By LOLITA C. BALDOR,  
Al-Qaida terrorists may be plotting more urgently to attack the United States to maintain their credibility and ability to recruit followers, the U.S. military commander in charge of domestic defense said.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, also told reporters Thursday he has not seen any direct threats tied to the U.S. presidential elections. But he said it would be rash to think that such threats are not there.
"We need only to look at Spain and see that they're certainly willing to try to do something that is significant that could affect an election process," Renuart said. "I think it would be imprudent of us to let down our guard believing that if there's no credible threat that you know of today, there won't be something tomorrow."
While he said that U.S. authorities have thwarted attacks on a number of occasions, he said terrorist cells may be working harder than ever to plot high-impact events. He did not point to any specific intelligence that authorities have received but said the "chatter" they are hearing "gives me no reason to believe they're going to slow down" in their efforts to ...   more »