From Jenna Orkin:
Military/Energy/Intelligence
Report: Seized weapons were heading to Iran
Iraq to double oil supply to China
Gov't Run Radio Predicts Coup in Pakistan (from F. Kamilov)
Bin Laden’s lost family found in Iran
A heart-warming Christmas story.
PetroChina Shuts Two Fertilizer Units on Gas Shortage
Russia Discussing Amphib Deal With 3 Nations (from Rice Farmer)
China Signs Deals With Venezuela, Securing Oil Access
Bin Laden came within minutes of killing Clinton
Venezuela Orders 20% Reduction in Electricity Use
Cheniere CEO sees record US LNG imports in 2010
Hackers steal U.S.-S. Korean secrets (from Rice Farmer)
Hacked Drones-- How Secure Are Spy Planes?
Massive Cyber Heist? Citibank Denies It
FBI probes cyber attack on Citigroup: report
British ID card program meets resistance (from Rice Farmer)
Police Expect Mumbai Style Attack in London (from Gamedog)
Economy/US
From the, "She asked for it" school of thought: Thrifty families ‘prolonging the recession’
Flaherty Says Russia, China May Buy Canadian Dollars to Diversify Reserves
Geithner: No 'Second Wave' To Crisis
Read my lips.
Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California (from Rice Farmer)
U.S. Taxpayer Burden Lightened to $8.2 Trillion
AIG bonus-return pledge mostly unfulfilled
$7 Billion Profit for U.S. Hedge Fund Bets on Banking Recovery
Bet on banks nets financier $2.5bn
Taxpayers to help with the rent at Goldman’s new office tower (from Rice Farmer)
Texas to Gain Four U.S. House Seats Under Reapportionment, Analysis Shows
Priest says it is OK for poor to shoplift (from Rice Farmer)
Environment/Science
'Copenhagen Was an All-Out Failure'
After the fiasco at Copenhagen, we must focus on energy security
Squid Invasions Signal Changes in the Pacific
Q+A: Environmental fears over U.S. shale gas drilling
Federal Officials Promote Use of Coal Waste on U.S. Farms (from Rice Farmer)
5 million doses of nasal H1N1 vaccine recalled
Spray Flu Vaccine Is Recalled 60 million in U.S. vaccinated against swine flu
Tips on Surviving a Disaster
Not the disasters we have in mind but some of the principles are apt.
Gold
The US has more than 8,000 tonnes of gold...nearly 80% of its reserves. Meanwhile, China - America's most likely rival for superpower status - has only 600 tonnes of gold. It keeps less than 1% of its reserves in the yellow metal. Put all the BRICs together and you get 1,500 tonnes, less than a quarter of the US hoard. And the BRICs have 10 times as many people....
If the BRICs wanted to bring their reserves up to just half the level of the US, they'd have to buy 2,500 tonnes.
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21 comments:
Interesting blog...my first time here.
In response to this; "Tell us what you have learned. Share what you think (in the spirit of cooperation). Comment with only one prime directive, 'What can we share here that will save lives by providing people with choices, experience, strength and hope?"
...my answer to that is to live on a sailboat outfitted with wind generators, solar panels, and a massive canvas cover to block the sun keeping the boat cool, which can also double as a rain catcher to fill the water tanks.
Live on a sailboat and you; don’t pay property tax; can move at anytime (weather permitting); can use wind, solar and tides to recharge batteries; have better access to fresh fish than land lubbers; can use a bicycle for transport and you own a lot less useless stuff because there’s limited storage space.
Don’t like your marina neighbor – move. Don’t like your marina – move to another one. Don’t like marinas (expensive) – find an anchorage (free). Don’t like the country you are living in – sail to a friendlier one.
To make this work more efficiently an aluminum sailboat is preferable (less maintenance) and a good set of tools (essential) and the experience to use them.
Basically the self sufficient sailor is living off the grid, but has the added benefit of easily moving great distances at minimal cost, which would be difficult for the self sufficient land owner.
One downside to the sailing idea is that the US Coast Guard can board any US flagged vessel anywhere in the world at any time …for no particular reason. They have that right.
California is in really bad shape
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget23-2009dec23,0,7164018.story
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), in an interview last week, said: "I'm planning to spend a lot of time in Washington. I have to. . . . The national economic recovery is tied to California's economic recovery."
Yeah,good luck with that,Darrell-ikt.Obama has to let the cat out of the bag,the pressure cannot continue for to much longer,I believe this christmas will be the last as we know it,best wishes to all on this blog,you guys are great.
GREEN TAX WARNING FOR BRITAIN
BRITAIN would return to the Middle Ages if we took on the huge financial burden of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to levels pledged at the Cop...Energy costs would double and the price of staple foods such as bread, fresh vegetables and meat would rocket due to new green taxes...the Government accused Mr Ebell of “scare tactics”."
And there's me thinking prices only doubling was quite optimistic!
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/147488/Green-tax-warning-for-Britain
Doomed out on doom?
"End of Suburbia" Producers Working on New Film
"The End of Suburbia exposed urban truths in a new way. That's what we want to do again with this new film. But rather than focus on the problems, we want to explore solutions. There are way too many films out there dwelling on the problems, including ours."
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/new-film-resilient-city.php
The Goodies of Good Words - #23 - Part One
eyeballs, F.Kamilov, agape wins, and FTW in general: Please forgive Ruthie's and my interjection; we hold all of you, and these discussions concerning restraint, free will, quantumism, what's going on in Pakistan, what we are doing to survive etc -- in much regard. Everything that comes forth here at FTW is valuable, if not all of it necessarily in agreement with that which is ours. For instance:
From these quarters such uncertainties as how to productively approach need of managing our human potentials so that we harm nothing yet optimally enjoy those potentials are exactly where FTW's collective genius and potentials should be aimed to understand and best ensure our species' successful passage into its future. At the same time, all information being posted and linked to here indicates there is precious little opportunity remaining to actualize FTW's potentials in service to fully realizing the human condition's potentials. Yet, perhaps there is not even a single person here besides RanD who is interested in such an undertaking! Is it not true that until we first agree on what we ultimately are all about we can never know how to aim ourselves? And is it then not also true that whatever we might first agree to, specific questions never broached, discussed, and answered can never produce a fruitful target?
Ruthie and I have literally invested our lives in bringing such issues as these clearly into focus for resolution, initially for ourselves and ultimately for our species, whereby literally all of us can be benefitted to experience our species' "successful passage into its potential future". For one, we are absolutely certain that human kind's raison d'etre and evolutionary destination are ultimately as grand and wonderful and perfect as cannot be imagined given the circumstances in which we find ourselves today; yet, our only obstacle to being already "there" is our species' current state of insufficient knowledge and agreement regarding such matters!
The Goodies of Good Words - #23 - Part Two
There are of course always prerequisites to realizing/actualizing/fulfilling such heady yet sensible objectives as would beneficently move the human species beyond where it is presently floundering. Nonetheless, RanD has, since becoming a blogger here at FTW in 2006, and more than 33 years before then, been working toward achieving fulfillment of exactly those prerequisites and that objective. And then: is not fully conscious personal commitment exclusively to that which will ensure fulfillment of the Universal Common Good a worthy prerequisite in service to such a worthy objective? Would any of us here be satisfied with anything less?
It is perhaps good to also point out that the doing of such requires a level of informational assimilation that is generally uncommon throughout Earth's current human condition, and that there is absolutely no desire here in saying so as if merely to impress anyone with such a completely normal human undertaking as is equally available to all average human organisms with reasonably well functioning brains. So it is, consequently, self-evident to RanD that our species' inability to beneficently make its way from where we're now at to where we would all rather be is determined entirely by whether one has the will to commit to such a perhaps initially seeming heady yet perfectly sensible adventure.
Also from RanD's perspective, what is taking place here at FTW -- in its entirety -- is a product ultimately of existence, itself; and that our species, and therefore we, are but grandly sophisticated instruments comprised of physical matter & consciousness which are motivated by the SPIRIT which flows throughout, gives life to and actualizes the whole of that which we daily experience, interact with and come to know & revere for being that which it is, which is existence, itself. And the alternative is absolutely nothing at all.
*****
We thank our beloved friends and family members for being here with us. GOD blesses us all, and is ever with us in doing well in service to that which gives us existence. And we but need assimilate such information as this to go forward, rather than otherwise necessarily return to where we began and start over again. Sincerely.
The coup continues,this must be stopped.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/us/24judges.html?hpw
Jeff: Electing judges vs. appointing them doesn't seem like an open/shut matter... A well-informed public can elect good people, but with elections based on money (the present system) there's no denying the likelihood of corruption. At least O'Connor's plan provides for retainment elections, where unpopular judges could be voted out. Rather than argue the merits of appointment vs. election, I'd rather see effort directed toward money-free elections.
Gamedog,
Pray tell, where do you envision us progressing/Returning too?
Look around you, read the labels, set aside any relating to Chemicals, Synthetic,
artificial, or otherwise "Man made"; exclude any Perishable/Fresh/Frozen/Refrigerated, products, add anything transported over-(your mileage/Cost), distance!
Now look at How/Where you live, central heat, indoor plumbing, rambling/roomy "Dwelling".
I can't tell you what to accept/reject, if you see a "Huge Financial burden" as a Nightmare,
think walled Palaces/fortified cities, "Haves & "Serfs"!
Look at Iraq's Red Zone/AfPak.
Read RanD & F.Kamilov, go to his Blog;
http://social-order-front.blogspot.com/
There are other Thought provoking sites, but I babble, I am Optimistic, but our Fatcat/Heaven
on Earth, we have created Must end--Sooner/Later--Plan, Think Amae, Namaste,Agape!
Now on to reading RanD's latest.
Agape, I see the environmental movement making all the arguments for the elites global carbon tax scam for them. This "activism" is using up all the eco activist funding, and while they're so busy doing that, they are not preventing the ecocide of rain/boreal forests, they are not preventing ground water contamination by frack drilling, or opencast mines, hardly questioning tar sands, or a million other more important eco disasters they should be preventing. While they are busy campaigning for TPTB they are not addressing Peak Oil.
Just imagine for a moment the sceptics are right about Co2, and you may see that the whole eco movement has been diverted by a changed meme - the alarmism we have had for the last 15 years is nothing more than Neuro-linguistic programming. The IPCC was NEVER tasked to weigh the evidence, it was tasked to invent a cover issue for Peak Oil. A cover enabling them to profit on coLLapse, as surely the truth out on peak oil with the same vigour would have meant zero profitability control. This way they control the profits, control the money, control the developing world and get to invent a new financial bubble making a trillion dollar business out of a new worthless commodity, profiting from coLLapse. MCR's words haunt me at this point "IT MAY NOT BE PROFITABLE TO SLOW DECLINE"
Plants grow fastest at 600ppm Co2, are you absolutely sure this policy is not aimed at keeping food production down? Why would plants have that ability in the first place if todays levels are "unprecidented"?
Read this review of the science, note the Co2 graph, and the log curve for Co2, (it's pdf)
http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM150.pdf
Just because I refute the alarmist science does not mean I am unaware of ecological issues, or that I do nothing to minimise my own footprint on this ecosystem. I have a very low carbon footprint, drive less than 2000 miles a year (mostly business) probably walk and cycle further, self sufficient in fuel (wood stoves), 50% of our food, produce minimal waste of less than a carrier bag full in 8 weeks which is ALL re-cycled, and no prodigy, our impact stops with us.
We're planting a community forest garden this spring, encouraging our local community to join in, slowly educating permaculture principles. I hope to run a full PDC on my site next summer, family commitments allowing. I am not your average "denier" because I can't work out what I'm denying, besides the elite cash flow.
Carbon tax will make everything MUCH more expensive, it is a tool of the Eugenicists IMO, which is EXACTLY where this climate change bunkum came from, google on it a while and ponder the results.
Cheers,
Jeff and dalex: Whether electing judges or appointing them is, from RanD's perspective, a red herring. Is it not yet fully apparent to the FTW family that the current global-wide human condition is in a state of -- as FTW's founder informs us -- general CoLLapse? Is it possible that not everyone here is posting her/his perspective while not concurring with the evidence so well provided by our benefactor that a general state of the current human condition's downfall is imminent, if not already upon us?
If so WAKE UP, dear friends, the world is evolving from what it has been as we speak!
I want to wish everyone here, Mike, Jenna, everyone on the blog, a healthy and wonderful holiday. I love you all.
-Anthony
RE: Priest says it is OK for poor to shoplift
Father Tim Jones is not a heretic. He is, in fact, returning to a theological truism of the middle ages: that a person in dire need is justified in using the property of another. This basic tenet of early Christianity was lost as Europe was re-moniterized in the 13th and 14th centuries.
In 1328, the pope pronounced that wealth was better than poverty, gutting the vision of St. Francis. In protest, about half the Franciscan Order quit and attempted (unsuccessfully) to continue outside the papal domain. After this point, usury gradually became sanctified, whereas it had once been a mortal sin.
If you don't believe that some things are right and that others are wrong, and that a vastly empowered God will get you for doing the wrong stuff, then this may not matter. Rejection of pre-set moral codes and theological dogma, justified as the rejection may be, have left many people apathetic and normless. For those whose ethics amount to hard-won understanding of our common destiny, the truth of Father Jones' sermon should be admitted with a shrug.
In fact, the question goes to the core of our current dilemma: What is wealth? What is it for? Will we be complicit with a system that allows a man to doom his neighbor to starvation? Doom the biosphere to extinction? Where do the rights of the rich give way to basic decency? Or do they?
Merry Christmas, everybody!
gamedog, Your reportage on enviro-politico propaganda & corruption is commendable. As best as we can independently determine, the connections you make between IPCC/AGW/Copenhagen Summit decision-making/etc and fat cat profiteering are completely valid, although virtually impossible to do anything sensible about other than report.
All such unsavory issues as these we see as indicators of the scope and gravity of degradation that is defining the global-wide collapse of civilization right as we're experiencing it. We also see these systemically corrupt goings-on becoming red herrings, in terms of diverting our focus from doing what we must. (See RanD's post to Jeff and dalex, above.) What we see as crucially necessary is to expand our focus from just describing what we're going through to include recognizing and benefitting from the paramount opportunity that this extremely rare moment in our species' evolutionary continuum presents us with. (Also see RanD's "The Goodies of Good Words - #23" posts above.)
If we miss this opportunity, it could be as long as several thousands of years before we're back to where we are today. Which means we can avert literally millions of violent deaths by doing what we can today, rather than go all the way back and do over again another version of what we've just been through.
Happy Holidays!
This looks like it could lead to trouble,soon.
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-44988420091225
Here's an interesting semi-acknowledgment I found.
Was watching ESPN the other day when a Honda/Acura commercial came on.
"I believe we have a limited amount of time...candidly. No one can tell us when we'll run out of oil. But we will."
The quote is from John W. Mendel, executive V.P. of auto sales for Honda/Acura. I'm sure you can find it @ dreams.honda.com
Do they get it?
The remainder has tons of great fun facts about alternative fuels, electric cars and hyrbids.
I'm not sure they do.
eyeballs, Our response to the questions you pose in the last paragraph of your splendid Christmas Day 2009 post:
"Wealth" -- in a true, fully existential sense -- cannot generally occur for humankind except within a fully consciously/purposely actualized state of Universal Common Good.
I.e., that which is dictionarily defined as wealth within human civilization's most recent 10,000 yrs or so long operational paradigm (i.e., wealth, n. 1. a [i.e., 'any'] great quantity or store of money, property, or other riches. 2. plentiful amount; abundance; affluence.) is made virtually unavailable for humankind in general by our 'legislatively/lawfully' forcing ourselves to subscribe to the now global-wide self-profitting monetarized socio-psycho-economic system which now controlls/manages to greater or lessor extents virtually every sustaining aspect of human life on Earth.
Wealth, as it naturally exists in environments such as Earth's, however -- when sans specifically self-aggrandizing/greed-oriented/profiteering human interventions -- is of course potenially absolute for and incorruptible by its ecosystemically compatible life-forms. Earth's natural wealth is readily and freely available to ALL via enviro-ecosystemically determined developmental and distribution systems -- even for human beings, but, specifically ONLY for those who care to intelligently/patiently develop and provide themselves with such appropriate means & systems of accessing and equitably distributing Earth's natural wealth within exclusively non-destructive, enviro-ecosystemically defined, constraints.
*****
ALL of what we need for truly wealthy living is but a matter of properly linking up with the proper Source of how to go about properly accomplishing such a thing. Sincerely.
Do the film makers of "End of Suburbia" really think that humans have a better chance of survival in cities rather than the suburbs?
From gamedog:
"According to Greene, the future of mankind is to be found in cities, not in a return to the countryside. "In the developing world, the issue is going to be urban migration. Two billion people are projected to move into cities over the next 25 years." This massive migration to cities around the world, he says, means that humanity's response to climate change and other environmental shocks will effectively be decided in cities."
How will this ever be possible? These guys are totally naive.
Rice Farmer, comment?
Nippon to close units
Nippon Oil Corp and Nippon Mining Holdings Inc, set to merge in April, will shut three oil refining units and cut capacity at another plant by March 2011 as fuel demand shrinks in the world’s second-biggest economy. Nippon Oil will close three crude distillation units in Japan with a combined capacity of 204,000 barrels a day, the company said in a statement released in Tokyo. Nippon Mining will also reduce capacity at a plant in Kashima, near Tokyo. The two companies aim to shed 600,000 barrels a day, or about one-third of capacity, by March 2015 and save ￥100 billion (US$1.1 billion) a year.
Marry late Xmas, 12,26,09.
I have deleted my personal reflections about Christmas, I know the failings/motivation of all controlling systems.
http://www.trib.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_19cc80f0-85f9-55d2-a103-1c1fb7483a8d.html
Check out the comments, Steve shops with us, to him the only correct viewpoint is his (bless Him)!
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Now RanD's mostly correct 3 posts.
"Yet, perhaps there is not even a single person here besides RanD who is interested in such an undertaking!"
I Agape,find many here
"interested"; any venture requires many talents, if an Army only has rifleman, or Generals, it would not get far, a Navy with Just Battleships, would be Sunk (pun intended)!
" Is it not true that until we first agree on what we ultimately are all about we can never know how to aim ourselves?"
Again we have to know what we, each of us is/are capable of, where we can most profitably use the talent we have.
I remarked about knowing which weeds to pull, F.Kamilov commented about one weed being like another (he may not have been replying to my remark, & are not his exact words), I being from a Farm family, have pulled countless weeds, in many crops. A good Farmer, who knows his crops, knows which "WEEDS" Must be pulled, & which will do more damage if pulled; just as an Army will "contain" Enemy troops to avoid losses (walk around that Snake)!
"And is it then not also true that whatever we might first agree to, specific questions never broached, discussed, and
answered can never produce a fruitful target?"
I'll approach this backwards; this is a worldwide issue with Many "Fruitful Targets", what is an issue here, may have already
been settled over there, or be a non "Issue"!
That is why I have stressed staying where you know the Battleground, & pick the Local Targets which are most "Fruitful".
Yes we have to be more open in "Broaching, & Discussing" "Targets/Issues", AND their Resolution, but remember "The
Walls have Ears", "Play your Cards close to your Chest".
Now the start of your question; It is NOT TRUE that we "Might agree to/on", again what fits in USA, may not in England,
Never in AfPak.
I was an expert Tech on the B-52, can now barely get around a Computer, The West was successful at the beginning of
WWII, because of the enemy's old Brains in Industry, as they were killed off, the young improvised, did things their "Boss's"
would/could not, the Enemy was winning the War of Technology/innovation!
What other reason to "Carpet Bomb" Germany, & Japan, why do it in Viet Nam, why are we losing to the "Primitives" in the
east, right now?
This is how my generation would fly us/You across the Rubicon!
http://w1.rob.com/pix/B52_crash/B52CRSH2
pstajk, Excellent post, of coarse I agree, I started this yesterday, thanks.
Would you trust Them!!
Filmmakers Gregory Greene and Barry Silverthorne with the End of Suburbia Smart Car (photo courtesy of the filmmakers).
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/new-film-resilient-city.php
"2 Billion people to move to the Cities over the next 25 years"
I lived in a tent at 4 to 5 yr old, eating what we could grow, plus wild plants, & game.
At 5 we were moved into a City by the Welfare people, after that we had moldy bread, sour Milk, & bugs in the Macaroni & Tomato's(sauce), no Cheese, or Sugar, we got Head lice, & lived with Rats, & roaches! at 9 I asked a friend if he knew where Milk came from, He replied " oh they have a Faucet somewhere"!
12,26,09 Cont. from the last.
I know times have changed, but there are still millions living in Slums; sick, under fed, crowded, abused, with no heat/cooling.
All this suits TPTB just fine, we escaped back to the Farm when I was 11, not heaven, but better than the HELL of the working
poor in the City Ghettos, which are controlled by the "Slum Lords". Remember there is always another side to hear.
http://www.iceagenow.com/
Amae.
Lithium is a valuable natural(?) treatment, if used properly.
there is a product which is added to some municipal water supplies,
used to remove/reduce build up in the water mains, 10 years ago the Webb page was written differently, now it makes no claims/suggestions
other than that of "Sequestration".
http://www.aquasmartinc.com/newsletters/seaquest/page1.html
http://www.aquasmartinc.com/newsletters/seaquest/page6.html
What do you suspect is "stored" in these deposits which in the past were "removed" & dumped in a "Lined " landfill along with other Hazardous waste? I can testify that it does not smell like something I would like
to drink, or put on my skin!
One of the claims made was that it reduced the "Aggression" rate where
added to the water supply, it was being added to Casper's water, & the truck driver was instructed to remove the label before arriving in
Casper. I don't know if it is still used, as there is no law requiring disclosure of what is used to treat the potable water supply.
I have A topic Dermatitis, a Skin condition, driven by stress & allergies.
http://www.medicinenet.com/eczema/article.htm#tocc
Because our supply is contaminated by Oil, Refineries, & their
byproducts, Casper uses many chemicals including Chloramine, to make the Water "Potable", see the link below for the bad news!
http://www.freeh2otesting.com/chloramine.htm
I have to take Sponge baths, with Distilled Water, & drink bottled Water.
We have overpopulated to the point that "natural" Water is dangerous to mankind; Visualize what liquid you/we will be consuming as things come
apart at the seams? When equipment breaks down, & people
dump "whatever" randomly. It will be years before the population is
reduced to where you can drink "Raw" Water.
Water is being used to "Medicate"; Fluoride, alone or/and with other
additives will/does Affect your health, Body & SOUL
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_salt
http://www.bipolarworld.net/Medications/Mood%20Stabilizers/meds6.htm
Polyphosphate:
http://www.sperchemical.com/potable.html
Again Amae.
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