From Jenna Orkin
Economy/US
Why the "recovery" is a head-fake and we're headed for a double-dip
U.S. sales tax rates hit record high
Is LA Doomed?
War Porn (Drones)
China to place US high-speed rail bids
China plans to bid for contracts to build US high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said on Saturday.
Justice Department’s witch hunt backfires in US
Liz Cheney, daughter of former US vice president Dick Cheney, has come under fire from left and right for orchestrating the campaign questioning the patriotism and loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers who represented terror suspects in private practice before they joined the agency.
…Even Kenneth Starr, who led the impeachment proceedings against then US president Bill Clinton in 1998, joined the group in rebuking Cheney.
World
Georgia invaded? Hoax report causes panic
England nuke drill mistaken for attack
Plans for abolition of House of Lords to be unveiled
Is China actually bankrupt? (from Rice Farmer)
"The nation has erected a complex system for magically making its debts disappear, but a look up China's sleeve shows that its IOUs may equal its GDP."
Hugo Chavez Wants Control Over the Internet
Venezuela seizes 2 tons of cocaine hidden at port
US-Israeli rift widens
Tony Blair is preparing to launch a "faith offensive" across the United States over the next year
Thousands of protesters call for Thai elections
Environment/Science
Haiti's Next Disaster Looms
Only weeks after the country was hit by an earthquake, Haiti is threatened by the next potential calamity. The upcoming rainy season could turn overcrowded refugee camps into hotbeds of disease
Strong earthquake rocks central Japan
IVF doctors to raffle human egg
The winner of the commercial venture will be able to pick the egg donor by racial background, upbringing and education
Scientists identify opium genes
Discovery raises possibility of manufacturing painkillers cheaply using microbes rather than fields
Monsanto May Have Antitrust Edge as Protecting Patents Trumps Competition
Honey bees secret world of heat revealed
Greener Coal Ash
...Dominion Generation, for example, reprocesses its ash at plant to mix into cement. This is a good approach because it chemically locks up many of the most offending agents in the coal ash and also because it substantially lowers the amount of energy needed to make new cement.
"Dominion wants its reprocessing of coal-ash to generate credits for carbon-emissions reduction, which it hopes to use in the Northeast’s carbon-reduction scheme, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But the Conservation Law Foundation, a Northeast environmental group, rejects this idea, saying that the carbon-reduction benefits of using coal-ash to reduce emissions from cement production are questionable.
http://calstarproducts.com/sustainability
Terror
Second Jihad Jane
Not one but two! So it's not just an anomaly, see.
Did the CIA Test LSD in the New York City Subway?
“The CIA itself was created and initially composed of wealthy men who came from Wall Street and New York City law firms.”
URGENT – 9/11 HEALTH CARE IS ON THE LINE NEXT TUESDAY
(from 9/11 Environmental Action)
On Tuesday, March 16th at 10am the 9/11 Health legislation will be voted on in the House Health Subcommittee at a meeting called a “markup.”
In the next few days before this critical vote, we need to do everything we can to ensure that the legislation passes with a guarantee of care for affected community members as well as the responders, and that the Survivor Program (which treats residents, area workers and students affected by 9/11) remains INTACT without being harmed by hostile amendments that could result in damaging cuts.
We believe it is ESSENTIAL for every member on the House Health Subcommittee to hear from THEIR CONSTITUENTS, the people who live in their districts, on the need for them to support these key aspects of the bill. We are attaching a spreadsheet with contact information for the entire Subcommittee, including the names of major cities that lie within their districts.
In particular, we have highlighted five Democrats who sit on the House Health Subcommittee and especially need to hear from their constituents. We have listed them below along with counties their districts, and their Washington DC office phone numbers.
How is this going to be accomplished??
We need you to reach out to any family and friends you may have who live in the districts of these congressmen. Ask them please to make a call on MONDAY March 15th to urge their representative to do the right thing on Tuesday, March 16th.
Since time is short, you may want to just phone your friends/family/contacts, but below, we provide a model for a “Dear Friends” letter you can paste into an email, along with a brief sample message for your contacts to use when they call their Representative.
***If you have friends or relatives who live in these congressional districts and you do only one thing to make sure the 9/11 health bill passes intact, this should be it:***
Here are the 5 Representatives who especially need calls:
Bart Gordon (D-Tennessee) Gordon’s district includes these counties in Tennessee-- Bedford, Cannon, Clay, DeKalb, Jackson, Macon, Marshall, Overton, Putnam, Robertson, Rutherford, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale and Wilson (including these cities - Murfreesboro, Gallatin, and Cookville). His Washington DC office number is 202-225-4231.
Mike Ross (D-Arkansas) Ross’s district in Arkansas includes the counties of Logan, Polk, Montgomery, Garland, Hot Spring, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Desha, Pike, Howard, Clark, Dallas, Cleveland, Lincoln, Drew, Chicot, Ashley, Drew, Bradley, Calhoun, Union, Columbia, Lafayette, Little River, Miller, Sevier, Nevada, Hempstead and Quachita (including the cities of Pine Bluff, Prescott, Hot Springs, Camden, Warren, Hope, El Dorado). His Washington DC office number is 202-225-3772.
Jim Matheson (D-Utah) Matheson’s district in Utah includes Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, Garfield, Grand, Iron, Kane, Plute, Salt Lake, San Juan, Uintah, Utah, Wasatch, Washington and Wayne counties (including the cities of Salt Lake City, , South Salt Lake, Alpine, Highland, Lehi, Sandy, Murray, Midvale, Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, Draper, Alta, Cedar, Hurricane, Blanding, St George and Price). His Washington DC phone number is 202-225-3011.
Zachary Space (D-Ohio) Space’s Ohio district includes the counties of Athens, Belmont, Carroll, Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Hocking, Holmes, Jackson, Knox, Licking, Morgan, Muskingum, Ross, Tuscarawas, and Vinton (including the cities of Dover, Zanesville and Chillicothe). His Washington DC office number is 202- 225-6265
Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) Braley’s Iowa district includes the counties of Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Clayton, Clinton, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayette, Jackson, Jones and Scott (including the cities of Waterloo, Davenport, Dubuque and Cedar Falls). His Washington DC office number is 202-225-2911.
Here is the “Dear Friends” letter:
Dear Friends,
I am writing to you to ask for your help in ensuring passage of a bill that will protect the health of tens of thousands of people, both in New York City and around the country.
As you know, 9/11 was an attack on our nation that killed nearly 3000. What you may not know is that thousands of people are now sick as a result of 9/11 from breathing toxic fumes and dust that resulted from the collapse and burning of the Twin Towers. Some of those people were the brave responders who engaged in rescue and recovery operations and some were people who lived, worked or attended school in the densely populated area around the WTC, the civilians targeted by terrorism.
This Tuesday, March 16th, H.R. 847, the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act will come up for a vote in the Health Subcommittee of the House of Representatives. If your representative is one of the following -- Bart Gordon, Mike Ross, Jim Matheson, Zachary Space, Bruce Braley – it’s very important that he hear from you. I am appealing to you to call him at his Washington DC office on Monday and urge him to give his full support to the bill.
Thank you so much for your much-needed help. If you want to call me for further details I can be reached at (your phone number).
Best,
(your name)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a sample message for your contacts to use in calling their Congressman:
Hello, I’m (your name). I live at (give your address and zip code)
I am calling to urge Congressman____ to give his full support to HR 847, the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. This bill will provide a guarantee of treatment for 9/11 related illnesses to survivors of the 9/11 attacks -- downtown Manhattan residents, students and local workers, as well as to the brave responders who came to the rescue.
I especially urge you to oppose any amendments that would eliminate, diminish or otherwise harm the Survivor Program. 9/11 was an attack on our nation. Those who were directly harmed as a result of the 9/11 attack deserve the right kind of medical help, help that this bill will provide. Thank you
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If you have family or friends who live in Illinois in the district of Republican John Shimkus, they should call to give him a big Thank You for doing the right thing! He is supporting the bill, the guarantee of care and the Survivor Program, intact, without damaging cuts. Ask his constituents to call him at 202 225-5271. His district includes the cities of Springfield, Centralia, Harrisburg, Collinsville and Olney
The other Republican supporting the bill needs to hear from constituents that the guarantee of care is essential to both responders and survivors and that the survivor program is critical to the health of the people who lived, worked and attended school in the vicinity of the World Trade Center. He is Mike Rogers (R-Michigan). Please direct any one you know who is a constituent of his to call him at 202 225-4872 His district includes the counties of Clinton, Ingham, Livingston, parts of Oakland, Shiawassee, (including the cities of Lansing, East Lansing, Dansville, Webberville)
If additional details would be helpful, please see the attached pdf document with the recent 9/11 health resolutions passed by all three Lower Manhattan Community Boards.
May all our hard work pay off on Tuesday!
And...
An Incurious Man: Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories
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25 comments:
love this new advocacy thing.
in case anyone hasnt seen pics of the chinese high speed rail system, here's an awesome photo gallery of them...
USA vs CHINA
The long-simmering clash between the world's two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system.
GrTz,
V
Financial collapse with guaranteed health benefits... Hmmm...
looks like burning platform has disappeared?
http://theburningplatform.com/
market ticker still going strong
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
@v india needs it more than we do too. but it's a curse, since it's going to evap someday soon anyway...
people need to deal with ordinary human poverty as the future.
@v: well if China ends up with middle east oil and denies us access to it, that would be dangerous... but they need it more than we do.
v & peddler, china has already ended up with the middle east oil; they got it the old fashioned way, they paid for it...
After all the financial collapse we've experienced, it should come as no big surprise that the Senate is now backing off from creating any real reform of our financial system here in the U.S.
A new consumer agency that would be part of the Federal Reserve? Now that's what we call reform!
Dodd Expected to Offer More Modest Financial Reform Legislation
Really? Supporting the health care bill on this blog? You guys sure are a lot more trusting of government these days.
spindles.
read what we're supporting: the 9/11 health and compensation act.
USA, UK MOVE CLOSER TO LOSING AAA
Marc Faber: 'A Dirty War Is Coming'.
A 15 minute interview.
GrTz,
V
They couldn't do enough for the 9/11 plaintifs as far as we're concerned. Jena is a hero. mrsp
Concerning the USA-China faceoff, and the view that China is The New Master of the World, I'd like to point out various momentums (momenta?) involved.
The British Empire tapped a rich North American continent, consolidated India and brought its enhanced production into the blossoming Industrial Revolution at Manchester and Birmingham. It managed to overwhelm ¼ of the globe, most of which was technologically inferior and easily conquered. Fertile lands were newly placed into production.
After WWII, when America really started kicking butt, there was still timber and gold and copper aplenty. The world population was less than half of what we have today. The first world was a tiny fraction of consumers in a sea of eager workers and new lands to plant and reap and mine and clearcut. There were fish in the sea.
China is a played out region held together by military force and is badly overpopulated. As Europe and America and Japan decline, they will demand less of China's booming export economy. Can domestic demand fill that gap? Most Chinese are subsistence farmers and can buy very little. The tiny middle class is dependent on the export economy.. It can sell things to itself, but such a closed loop needs constant inputs.
China could take the way of the Roman Empire, basing its economy on depredation of its neighbors, until it runs into some Persia out there (perhaps the same one). But it would not be expanding into an unexploited world of untapped resources. Rather, it faces an overpopulated, overfarmed, polluted world plagued by climate change, water shortage and ecological collapse. It might succeed to some extent, stripping the existing wealth from Thailand or even Japan, but that cannot keep China wealthy for long.
We have two possible scenarios. In the first, China is acknowledged as a major player in the game of states (to the extent that states still exist, and also to the extent that they, not stateless criminal gangs, call the shots) and the PRC government can look after its own citizens by prudent policies in keeping with global priorities (such as maintaining a healthy biosphere).
In the second scenario, the Chinese state is pitted against the interests of the rest of the world, in which case it may or may not score initial victories, as did Hitler and Napoleon. But the impracticality of warring against a starving, heavily armed planet will soon bring down that government, and possibly give a good deal of pain to its people, its new infrastructure and even its remaining natural ecosystems.
There's little we can do to influence the Chinese government – nor, it seems, the American government. But I believe we have been trying the wrong techniques. We are told in civics class that petitions and votes and manifestos are the way to participate in creating the future. But these have let us down.
If you are still going to big-box stores, or buying online, consuming Chinese luxury items – or even apparent necessities, like cheap garden tools, then you are participating in the problem. If you are stumping for Obama instead of planting trees and gardens, and working for some big corporation (even as the employee of a small company, serving these giants) you are part of the problem. If you live a heavily oil-dependent lifestyle, you are keeping the problem going. The strategy I recommend is to de-link from the dying machine -- not cold turkey, but as much as possible, and progressively more so.
By succeeding without the rotten system, instead of opposing it, we create a new society. And, inconsequential as it may seem (and this is good, to stay under radar) a small but flourishing subculture can expand as the old system ceases to satisfy. By staying in touch with other sensible people, and gently leading others out of the doom scenario, I think we CAN help shape the future.
sad.
Western Hills Nursery withers in foreclosure
Dear Mr Ruppert,
I have just been watching here in the UK, on BBC1 (the premier BBC TV station) a piece on a new popular science programme about peak oil.
This included an interview with Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin fame, who said that the demand for oil would outstrip supply in about five years time.
The piece can be seen here (but just for the next 7 days) on the BBC website -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rm0dk
The programme was called - "Bang goes the theory".
The segment on Peak Oil begins at 17.01 minutes into the program with the following introduction by the presenter:
"We use eighty-five billion barrels of oil a day -- what's going to happen when it runs out or we can't get to it anymore".
I hope this is of interest to you.
Good wishes and thank you for your informative blog.
God bless you!
Bryan
A large part of Monsanto's success comes from the fact that the judicial system has been lenient in allowing them to sue farmers whose fields have been contaminated with Monsanto's patented genes.
Because pollen is carried by wind and insects, non-Monsanto crops grown near a field containing Monsanto crops will cross pollinate. The Monsanto genes will then be found in the non-Monsanto field.
Monsanto has inspectors that go out secretly to farms and test their crops. If their crops have been polluted by Monsanto's genes, then they sue the farmer for damages.
The judges have been ruling in Monsanto's favor. Farmers have found it cheaper to switch to Monsanto products rather than pay the fines and lose their farms.
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Ludolphus said... Dear Mr Ruppert,
I have just been watching here in the UK, on BBC1 (the premier BBC TV station) a piece on a new popular science programme about peak oil.
Branson is a bit behind the times.
Demand grows at about 3% / year when production allows. Production of conventional oil has been in decline since 2005. Production of all liquids has been in decline since 2008.
So demand is already being destroyed.
MCR, JO, Anyone:
I have a question.
The market continues to go or at least stay up for no logical reason.
Links from here have pointed out that the US Gov and the Federal Reserve might be propping up the market. Experts being interviewed said they had no idea who was buying. They were anon.
Could it possibly someone else? Not that I can think of anyone who had those kind of deep pockets.
Suppose, a European Central Bank was buying a significant portion of the market--or of a number of major stocks.
What kind of havoc could they wreck once they had achieved a big portion of a number of companies?
thanks,
jw
Eyeballs: brilliant!
There has been a little back and forth hare about "Church", Organized Religion, &/or Spiritually!
We have to be clear about several points.
Any "Organization"/Church, or otherwise will quickly degenerate into a form for sustaining/growing
itself, the failings of our human/not so "Nature", or "Ego" dictate self preservation/degeneration.
Any writer/Author has an agenda, a mindset that motivates/originates the research, or the fabrication
of the subject. There is always a Bias, even a Lie must contain some truth to get an audience, the
more truth, the firmer the argument. When hearing or reading-even seeing something, think, use commonsense, logic, and then check the sources', or do some research on your own.
I have been criticized for the way I write, but I normally write to generate thought; I can be wrong,
led astray like anyone else. There are more than two sides to any issue, sort out what you see as truth, but always keep an open mind, question everything, especially "Common Knowledge", or "it stands to reason"!
When someone makes themselves an "Expert", they attract elements which want to detract from or destroy them or their object/goal/purpose. MCR is a good object lesson, he can testify about the negativity, & downright deception, in all aspects of his life!
TPTB, those in Control, seldom are truthful, & where they control education, always display a positive, sugar coated falsehood, & soon have control of the Mess MEDIA by default.
Truth can always be found in underground sources, Folk tales, and fairy tales; but again, do not swallow everything.
Again I say, I enjoy everyone's posts, if you object to, do not want to think about, what a poster writes about, just page past it. MCR, &/or Jenna can and will refuse a post (they have in the past), if they find it objectionable, a distraction, or of no value. They have also edited posts as required!
Live in the moment, where you are, I am; Amanzuri.
Speaking of Japanese, & before, of Fairy tales, please watch Ponzo.
The Japanese Little Mermaid!
http://www.rtl.nl/components/financien/rtlz/miMedia/2010/week11/ma_1730_faber.avi_plain.xml
talk with docter doom on dutch tv in english
@Ludolphus
Thanks for the post but apparently outside of the UK, we can't view this program. Censorship??
Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only, but all BBC iPlayer Radio programmes are available to you. Why?
If you are in the UK and see this message please read this advice.
Go to Radio channels home page
Everyone keeps looking to China as the new giant. I'm coming to a different conclusion with Peak Oil and seeing how it's playing out and the winners and losers. China is precipitating it's economic crash although it might take a few years for the government to collaspe.
I see oil skyrocketing to over $200/bbl during the next 18 months. As this happens inflation will drive up wages in China and start to make them uncompetitive in the global market place for the types of jobs they are after and the skilled work force they offer to MNC's.
This next round of super inflation will begin more de-globalization as the US and Europe fall again and the money isn't there to buy the Chinese exports. Factories close up again and the unwinding process will begin in China. That's why they are refusing to let their currency float on the international market, they are attempting to urbanzine their entire nation, but the fossil fuels aren't there to allow it as Mike and many others have pointed out. The next $220/bbl run up in oil prices will cause an economic crash in Western World and Asian world. It will send oil prices below $20,possibly into the teens again as demand falls off a cliff.
This will be the opportune time to use the printing press in the US to buy up the extra oil and natural gas on the market and put to use Mike's idea of an energy reserve for state and local government's across the United States.
On the High Speed rail, what a joke. The press doesn't tell the truth and we know this. In 2000 I worked for a company called WB&A that did opinion survey's in the Baltimore/Wasington/Northern VA region. On the list was a Maglev train that ran between Baltimore and Washington DC, it would reach speeds of over 200mph. The responses were not positive for such a system to be brought on board in the Baltimore/DC region and it would be the first of it's kind in the US and potentially the world if completed early enough. The technology for this DIDNOT come from China as the article posted will have people believe.
@eyeballs
"By succeeding without the rotten system, instead of opposing it, we create a new society. And, inconsequential as it may seem (and this is good, to stay under radar) a small but flourishing subculture can expand as the old system ceases to satisfy. By staying in touch with other sensible people, and gently leading others out of the doom scenario, I think we CAN help shape the future."
100% agreed!
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