Exiting Dollar, Iran Puts 70% Resources in Gold and Other Currencies
The Ever Coy Iranian Oil Bourse
Why Bank of England's Gold has Lost Its Shine
Countercurrents
Scientists Report Severe Retreat of Arctic Ice
Troop Shortage Forces NATO to Rethink Elite Force
Pakistan Suicide Attack Likely an Inside Job
Pakistan Gets a New ISI Chief
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Quote of the day: "They say in matters of the heart that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. We're not sure that the same can be said about matters of the wallet."
Credit Turmoil Seen as a Run in the Shadow Banking Industry
Run on Banks in England
Shadow Government Statistics
Web of Debt
Spain Finished With Gold Sales
Maybe they don't have enough left with which to suppress the price.
Greenspan Spills the Beans on the Iraq/Oil Connection
The publication of Greenspan's memoirs has brought forth other interview gems like the comment that global inflation is really quite low if you just leave out "the Zimbabwes."
Date Moved Up To 2030 When Arctic May Be Ice-Free
Nigeria Moves to Halt U.S. Military
Ethnicity and Petroleum Geology
NYC: Eating the Fruits of the Five Boroughs
General in Tillman Case Wants to Speak
Signs of the Times: Diamond-Studded Skull
Credit Turmoil Seen as a Run in the Shadow Banking Industry
Run on Banks in England
Shadow Government Statistics
Web of Debt
Spain Finished With Gold Sales
Maybe they don't have enough left with which to suppress the price.
Greenspan Spills the Beans on the Iraq/Oil Connection
The publication of Greenspan's memoirs has brought forth other interview gems like the comment that global inflation is really quite low if you just leave out "the Zimbabwes."
Date Moved Up To 2030 When Arctic May Be Ice-Free
Nigeria Moves to Halt U.S. Military
Ethnicity and Petroleum Geology
NYC: Eating the Fruits of the Five Boroughs
General in Tillman Case Wants to Speak
Signs of the Times: Diamond-Studded Skull
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
GROUND ZERO
Jenna Orkin
GROUND ZERO
September 11, 2007 8:30 A.M.
At the corner of Fulton and Church, two dozen cops stand around, murmuring. Nearby huddles a smaller contingent of firefighters. More are undoubtedly on the A list of the actual ceremony in Zuccotti Park from which we hoi polloi are barricaded. The sky is fittingly bleak, spitting needles of rain.
Pedestrians pour out of the PATH station, a few talking loudly. A woman mimes, "Ssh."
A man with his arm around his twelve-year-old son is being interviewed for TV. He's flown in every year from San Diego, he says, to pay his respects.
Three hulks in black T-shirts reading "Investigate 911" with a picture of the towers billowing smoke, stride purposefully towards some meeting place.
In the plaza of Brown Brothers Harriman a sculpture of a giant red cube stands poised on one corner like a ballerina on pointe; a feat of engineering rather than art but these days no one cares about the difference. Across the street to the east is Chase Manhattan; to the south, HSBC; to the north, Bank of America. A block away stands the beleaguered former Deutsche Bank, - also site of a more recent tragedy - sixteen storeys shorter from its catastrophe-ridden deconstruction. We are in the heart of the beast.
The clock of Trinity Church which, for several months after September 11, 2001, was frozen at five to nine, inches towards 8:46.
At 8:43 a choir starts singing. At least that's when we in the plaza are able to catch a few high notes. Sounds like a harmonized version of the Star Spangled Banner. The distance adds to the removed, ghostly nature of this ceremony which seems designed to attenuate the memory of 9/11 and, as they are so fond of saying in booming downtown, to "move on."
South Korean TV wants to talk. I tell them they probably won't use what I have to say. They persist.
I tell them I'm here because 9/11 signalled the beginning of the end for much of America. Then I tell them, in brief, why I think so.
The reporter - who is the most respectful journalist I've ever come across, and in Lower Manhattan over the last six years, there have been many - says, "But some people want to move forward."
I am not giving him the poignant sort of soundbite he is looking for but he takes several minutes' worth of footage.
Next to a marble slab honoring that great New Yorker, Harry Helmsley, an African American guy blows a shofer, a beautiful ram's horn which, he explains, he laminated himself. It's a gesture of ecumenism since although he's Christian, he is playing a traditional Jewish instrument of mourning.
A reporter from WNYC who's been diligent about the environmental issue, also approaches for an interview in the course of which 9:03 comes and goes without apparent acknowledgment. This is what a moment of silence looks (and sounds) like from a block away.
As I leave I pass the podium where family members are reading the names of the victims ("...and my brother, firefighter....") including one whom I knew slightly from the playground when our children were small. The reading is slow and deliberate so as not to shortchange anybody. They are up to the letter D.
GROUND ZERO
September 11, 2007 8:30 A.M.
At the corner of Fulton and Church, two dozen cops stand around, murmuring. Nearby huddles a smaller contingent of firefighters. More are undoubtedly on the A list of the actual ceremony in Zuccotti Park from which we hoi polloi are barricaded. The sky is fittingly bleak, spitting needles of rain.
Pedestrians pour out of the PATH station, a few talking loudly. A woman mimes, "Ssh."
A man with his arm around his twelve-year-old son is being interviewed for TV. He's flown in every year from San Diego, he says, to pay his respects.
Three hulks in black T-shirts reading "Investigate 911" with a picture of the towers billowing smoke, stride purposefully towards some meeting place.
In the plaza of Brown Brothers Harriman a sculpture of a giant red cube stands poised on one corner like a ballerina on pointe; a feat of engineering rather than art but these days no one cares about the difference. Across the street to the east is Chase Manhattan; to the south, HSBC; to the north, Bank of America. A block away stands the beleaguered former Deutsche Bank, - also site of a more recent tragedy - sixteen storeys shorter from its catastrophe-ridden deconstruction. We are in the heart of the beast.
The clock of Trinity Church which, for several months after September 11, 2001, was frozen at five to nine, inches towards 8:46.
At 8:43 a choir starts singing. At least that's when we in the plaza are able to catch a few high notes. Sounds like a harmonized version of the Star Spangled Banner. The distance adds to the removed, ghostly nature of this ceremony which seems designed to attenuate the memory of 9/11 and, as they are so fond of saying in booming downtown, to "move on."
South Korean TV wants to talk. I tell them they probably won't use what I have to say. They persist.
I tell them I'm here because 9/11 signalled the beginning of the end for much of America. Then I tell them, in brief, why I think so.
The reporter - who is the most respectful journalist I've ever come across, and in Lower Manhattan over the last six years, there have been many - says, "But some people want to move forward."
I am not giving him the poignant sort of soundbite he is looking for but he takes several minutes' worth of footage.
Next to a marble slab honoring that great New Yorker, Harry Helmsley, an African American guy blows a shofer, a beautiful ram's horn which, he explains, he laminated himself. It's a gesture of ecumenism since although he's Christian, he is playing a traditional Jewish instrument of mourning.
A reporter from WNYC who's been diligent about the environmental issue, also approaches for an interview in the course of which 9:03 comes and goes without apparent acknowledgment. This is what a moment of silence looks (and sounds) like from a block away.
As I leave I pass the podium where family members are reading the names of the victims ("...and my brother, firefighter....") including one whom I knew slightly from the playground when our children were small. The reading is slow and deliberate so as not to shortchange anybody. They are up to the letter D.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Zimbabwe: Main Baker Almost Out of Flour
The baker, Lobel's, has almost exhausted its 4000 ton reserve and has two days' worth of flour left.
The baker, Lobel's, has almost exhausted its 4000 ton reserve and has two days' worth of flour left.
Monday, September 03, 2007
"They're Back!" 130 Liberty Street Official's Record at Ground Zero
Patterns That Reveal Gold Price Capping
How Far Will the Crash Go and What Do We Do Now?
Baer Says Iran Conflict is Coming
Zbig Endorses Obama
Most Interesting Hypothesis To Date on Motives for Iraq Invasion
Wisdom from Saturday night's fortune cookie: A bargain is something you don't need at a price you can't resist.
"They're Back!" 130 Liberty Street Official's Ground Zero Record
Jenna Orkin*
The fire at 130 Liberty Street on August 18 resulting in the deaths of two firefighters, Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino, has shed light on a number of metaphorical cockroaches and other scurrilous characters who have been operating behind the scenes of the ill-fated 'deconstruction' of the toxic former Deutsche Bank building.
One such, brought to light by the New York Sun , is Michael Burton, project manager at the site for United Research Services, a company linked to the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge this summer.
Burton rose to prominence during the cleanup of Ground Zero when he was Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction which he had helped create in 1997.
While one might have expected federal agencies such as FEMA and EPA to take charge of the cleanup, in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by Worby Grone Edelman and Napoli Bern against the city, Burton stated that FEMA's role in the disaster was simply to pay the State. while the abdication of EPA has been voluminously documented.
As far as speed goes, Burton’s m.o. worked. While initially projected to take 1½ years and cost $1.4 billion, in the end the cleanup took only 10 months and cost $800 million. But other priorities got lost in the process.
One was legal. The premium placed on "getting back to normalcy" [sic] led to the destruction of evidence from a crime scene of international importance. Burton and other DDC officials made the decision to transport much of the structural steel to scrap yards, to be shipped abroad and melted down for reuse.
Burton cleared the decision with Richard Tomasetti of Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, the prime consultant on the cleanup job. However, referring to the subsequent WTC investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology... Tomasetti later admit[ted] that had he known the direction that investigations into the collapses would take, he would have taken a different stand.
The other cost was human health. By waiving environmental laws on the pretext of emergency, the cleanup exposed the surrounding community to record levels of contamination. The barge operation, for instance, took place largely at the doorstep of Stuyvesant High School, (where this writer’s son was a student) and within a few blocks of a college, several elementary schools, a middle school and a residence for 5000.
Nor was the exposure restricted to Lower Manhattan or even New York City. This writer also remembers receiving an email from South Korea around December 2001 saying they were getting WTC scrap - Was it contaminated?
According to the WGENB lawsuit, safety during the cleanup was also not a high priority with Burton although defenders of the operation point out that injuries were comparatively low.
Bechtel, one of the four main contractors involved, maintained that the safety discrepancies they reported to Burton were wholly ignored. And in an intra-agency memo to Burton, DDC Health and Safety Officer Bob Adams wrote, “There was minimal follow-through by project management on safety... Universal opinion at the WTC Site was that there was a lack of commitment by senior project management to address safety concerns in a timely manner; and hold the supervision accountable. The City, the DDC and the contractors appeared to only address safety issues when doing so was convenient for the schedule of the project."
As for health, despite the by now infamous assurances that post-9/11 conditions downtown were relatively harmless, Burton apparently knew better. Unlike some Ground Zero workers who went home in contaminated clothes, thereby exposing their families, when Burton got home, he stripped before going inside to avoid contaminating the house, his main worry at that moment being that the neighbors might be looking.
The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank is 9/11 Redux, the same cast of characters (not only Burton but also Bovis, one of the four main companies at Ground Zero which is also implicated in the WGENB lawsuit) performing the same activities with the same ASAP mindset. And once again, the scope of the scandal is only being fully recognized when it's too late.
*Jenna Orkin of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the EPA.
How Far Will the Crash Go and What Do We Do Now?
Baer Says Iran Conflict is Coming
Zbig Endorses Obama
Most Interesting Hypothesis To Date on Motives for Iraq Invasion
Wisdom from Saturday night's fortune cookie: A bargain is something you don't need at a price you can't resist.
"They're Back!" 130 Liberty Street Official's Ground Zero Record
Jenna Orkin*
The fire at 130 Liberty Street on August 18 resulting in the deaths of two firefighters, Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino, has shed light on a number of metaphorical cockroaches and other scurrilous characters who have been operating behind the scenes of the ill-fated 'deconstruction' of the toxic former Deutsche Bank building.
One such, brought to light by the New York Sun , is Michael Burton, project manager at the site for United Research Services, a company linked to the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge this summer.
Burton rose to prominence during the cleanup of Ground Zero when he was Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction which he had helped create in 1997.
While one might have expected federal agencies such as FEMA and EPA to take charge of the cleanup, in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by Worby Grone Edelman and Napoli Bern against the city, Burton stated that FEMA's role in the disaster was simply to pay the State. while the abdication of EPA has been voluminously documented.
As far as speed goes, Burton’s m.o. worked. While initially projected to take 1½ years and cost $1.4 billion, in the end the cleanup took only 10 months and cost $800 million. But other priorities got lost in the process.
One was legal. The premium placed on "getting back to normalcy" [sic] led to the destruction of evidence from a crime scene of international importance. Burton and other DDC officials made the decision to transport much of the structural steel to scrap yards, to be shipped abroad and melted down for reuse.
Burton cleared the decision with Richard Tomasetti of Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, the prime consultant on the cleanup job. However, referring to the subsequent WTC investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology... Tomasetti later admit[ted] that had he known the direction that investigations into the collapses would take, he would have taken a different stand.
The other cost was human health. By waiving environmental laws on the pretext of emergency, the cleanup exposed the surrounding community to record levels of contamination. The barge operation, for instance, took place largely at the doorstep of Stuyvesant High School, (where this writer’s son was a student) and within a few blocks of a college, several elementary schools, a middle school and a residence for 5000.
Nor was the exposure restricted to Lower Manhattan or even New York City. This writer also remembers receiving an email from South Korea around December 2001 saying they were getting WTC scrap - Was it contaminated?
According to the WGENB lawsuit, safety during the cleanup was also not a high priority with Burton although defenders of the operation point out that injuries were comparatively low.
Bechtel, one of the four main contractors involved, maintained that the safety discrepancies they reported to Burton were wholly ignored. And in an intra-agency memo to Burton, DDC Health and Safety Officer Bob Adams wrote, “There was minimal follow-through by project management on safety... Universal opinion at the WTC Site was that there was a lack of commitment by senior project management to address safety concerns in a timely manner; and hold the supervision accountable. The City, the DDC and the contractors appeared to only address safety issues when doing so was convenient for the schedule of the project."
As for health, despite the by now infamous assurances that post-9/11 conditions downtown were relatively harmless, Burton apparently knew better. Unlike some Ground Zero workers who went home in contaminated clothes, thereby exposing their families, when Burton got home, he stripped before going inside to avoid contaminating the house, his main worry at that moment being that the neighbors might be looking.
The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank is 9/11 Redux, the same cast of characters (not only Burton but also Bovis, one of the four main companies at Ground Zero which is also implicated in the WGENB lawsuit) performing the same activities with the same ASAP mindset. And once again, the scope of the scandal is only being fully recognized when it's too late.
*Jenna Orkin of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the EPA.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Fire Claims Lives of Two Firefighters at Ground Zero; Wall St. Journal Blames Community
Jenna Orkin*
The tragic fire at the former Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan nine days ago which took the lives of two firefighters, Joseph Graffagnino, 33 and Robert Beddia, 53, and which has already spawned two criminal investigations, highlights problems about which the community of Lower Manhattan has been warning for years.
The company hired to perform the demolition of the building whose chief claim to fame, post-9/11, was that it had been contaminated with 150,000 times the normal levels of asbestos among other toxic substances, (which have since been reduced to a supposedly "safe" level) has "apparently never done any work like it" nor much of anything else since it was incorporated in 1983.
But while the John Galt Corporation has proven as mysterious as the eponymous character in the Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged - which opens with the question, "Who is John Galt?" - this elusiveness has allowed it to serve as an effective front for members of Safeway Environmental Corporation whose contract had been cancelled because of mob connections. One of Safeway's owners, Hank Greenberg, is a two-time felon who has been linked by the FBI to the Gambino crime family. So it was no great surprise, when a building in the process of demolition on Manhattan's Upper West Side collapsed ahead of time, trapping pedestrians including a seven-month-old baby, to learn that Safeway Environmental was in charge.
Another firm involved in the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank, United Research Services, told Minnesota transportation officials that it would be able to fix flaws in the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed this summer.
A third firm, Bovis Lend Lease "presided over" nine major safety incidents in the past five years apart from those at the former Deutsche Bank.
On top of this shaky foundation (not the sort one wants when demolishing the equivalent of a former Superfund site) the NYC Fire Department failed to check the standpipes at the former Deutsche Bank building every 15 days as required by law. Thus the firefighters who went in on Saturday were unaware of the broken standpipe in the basement which prevented water from reaching the two trapped members of their company.
Lest the reader assume that last Saturday's tragedy might result in at least a temporary show of caution, the following Thursday two more firefighters sustained serious head injuries from debris that fell from scaffolding at the site.
Shocking as all these events are, they are no surprise to the community of Lower Manhattan which initially brought to the public’s attention the shadowy connections of Safeway Environmental, protested the hiring of the equally dubious John Galt Corporation, highlighted unsafe conditions at the site such as windows falling out of the building and urged the City and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns the former Deutsche Bank building, to put in place emergency plans both for the work site as well as for the surrounding area.
Yet when the fire broke out, many residents received no warnings or instructions.
It is therefore particularly galling to read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal as well as a letter in the New York Times which essentially blame Saturday's tragedy on the community's preciousness about any remaining environmental hazards in the building.
The Times letter, whose writer lives in Brooklyn, maintains that the community's concern for 'every speck of dust and every fiber of asbestos' has delayed the demolition process and that somehow that delay caused the fire. For surely if the building had already been demolished, it wouldn't have caught fire, now, would it? And if you could go back in time and stop your grandparents from meeting....
The Wall Street Journal article compares the community's arguments (which are supported by scientific expertise as well as legal precedent) to "the endless debate and litigation we've also layered into efforts to surveil and prosecute terrorists." (That pesky Constitution again.)
The arguments put forth in these two pieces attempt to pit the interests of firefighters and site workers against those of residents, office workers and students. In fact, these populations have worked together effectively for six years and have always been able to see through the divide-and-conquer tactics of their opponents. They understand that such finger-pointing is designed to divert attention from the corrupt entities whose purported job is to protect the public but whose true purpose is to uphold the economy (particularly their own piece of it.) In this latter endeavor those entities have indeed done a heckuva job.
*Jenna Orkin of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization, is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the EPA.
The tragic fire at the former Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan nine days ago which took the lives of two firefighters, Joseph Graffagnino, 33 and Robert Beddia, 53, and which has already spawned two criminal investigations, highlights problems about which the community of Lower Manhattan has been warning for years.
The company hired to perform the demolition of the building whose chief claim to fame, post-9/11, was that it had been contaminated with 150,000 times the normal levels of asbestos among other toxic substances, (which have since been reduced to a supposedly "safe" level) has "apparently never done any work like it" nor much of anything else since it was incorporated in 1983.
But while the John Galt Corporation has proven as mysterious as the eponymous character in the Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged - which opens with the question, "Who is John Galt?" - this elusiveness has allowed it to serve as an effective front for members of Safeway Environmental Corporation whose contract had been cancelled because of mob connections. One of Safeway's owners, Hank Greenberg, is a two-time felon who has been linked by the FBI to the Gambino crime family. So it was no great surprise, when a building in the process of demolition on Manhattan's Upper West Side collapsed ahead of time, trapping pedestrians including a seven-month-old baby, to learn that Safeway Environmental was in charge.
Another firm involved in the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank, United Research Services, told Minnesota transportation officials that it would be able to fix flaws in the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed this summer.
A third firm, Bovis Lend Lease "presided over" nine major safety incidents in the past five years apart from those at the former Deutsche Bank.
On top of this shaky foundation (not the sort one wants when demolishing the equivalent of a former Superfund site) the NYC Fire Department failed to check the standpipes at the former Deutsche Bank building every 15 days as required by law. Thus the firefighters who went in on Saturday were unaware of the broken standpipe in the basement which prevented water from reaching the two trapped members of their company.
Lest the reader assume that last Saturday's tragedy might result in at least a temporary show of caution, the following Thursday two more firefighters sustained serious head injuries from debris that fell from scaffolding at the site.
Shocking as all these events are, they are no surprise to the community of Lower Manhattan which initially brought to the public’s attention the shadowy connections of Safeway Environmental, protested the hiring of the equally dubious John Galt Corporation, highlighted unsafe conditions at the site such as windows falling out of the building and urged the City and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns the former Deutsche Bank building, to put in place emergency plans both for the work site as well as for the surrounding area.
Yet when the fire broke out, many residents received no warnings or instructions.
It is therefore particularly galling to read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal as well as a letter in the New York Times which essentially blame Saturday's tragedy on the community's preciousness about any remaining environmental hazards in the building.
The Times letter, whose writer lives in Brooklyn, maintains that the community's concern for 'every speck of dust and every fiber of asbestos' has delayed the demolition process and that somehow that delay caused the fire. For surely if the building had already been demolished, it wouldn't have caught fire, now, would it? And if you could go back in time and stop your grandparents from meeting....
The Wall Street Journal article compares the community's arguments (which are supported by scientific expertise as well as legal precedent) to "the endless debate and litigation we've also layered into efforts to surveil and prosecute terrorists." (That pesky Constitution again.)
The arguments put forth in these two pieces attempt to pit the interests of firefighters and site workers against those of residents, office workers and students. In fact, these populations have worked together effectively for six years and have always been able to see through the divide-and-conquer tactics of their opponents. They understand that such finger-pointing is designed to divert attention from the corrupt entities whose purported job is to protect the public but whose true purpose is to uphold the economy (particularly their own piece of it.) In this latter endeavor those entities have indeed done a heckuva job.
*Jenna Orkin of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization, is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the EPA.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
US Attorney Comptroller Warns: Learn from the Fall of Rome
Cost/Benefit Analyses of Sustainability
CIA OIG Report
Bank Pulls Speech to Quell Instability
The Fed Blinks
Russia Restores Bomber Patrols...
...and Resumes Nuke Bomber Sorties
Russia's resumption of Cold War activity includes a recent flag-planting caper by a submarine on the floor of the Arctic, throwing down the gauntlet to Canada and the U.S.
J.O.
Venezuela to Get its First Oil From Ocean Floor
Zimbabwe Situation
Stan Goff: How Pat Tillman Died
Group Threatens to Sue Pentagon Over Military Role in Evangelical Festival
Warming Will Pause, Then Full Steam Ahead, Scientists Contend
Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts
This is another instance of an article being of interest not so much for what it says, which is no news to readers of this blog, but because of who's saying it: The Washington Post.
J.O.
Fight Global Warming by Taxing McMansions, Dingell Says
Albert Einstein once speculated that if honeybees were to become extinct, the world would starve in less than four years.
Cost/Benefit Analyses of Sustainability
CIA OIG Report
Bank Pulls Speech to Quell Instability
The Fed Blinks
Russia Restores Bomber Patrols...
...and Resumes Nuke Bomber Sorties
Russia's resumption of Cold War activity includes a recent flag-planting caper by a submarine on the floor of the Arctic, throwing down the gauntlet to Canada and the U.S.
J.O.
Venezuela to Get its First Oil From Ocean Floor
Zimbabwe Situation
Stan Goff: How Pat Tillman Died
Group Threatens to Sue Pentagon Over Military Role in Evangelical Festival
Warming Will Pause, Then Full Steam Ahead, Scientists Contend
Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts
This is another instance of an article being of interest not so much for what it says, which is no news to readers of this blog, but because of who's saying it: The Washington Post.
J.O.
Fight Global Warming by Taxing McMansions, Dingell Says
Albert Einstein once speculated that if honeybees were to become extinct, the world would starve in less than four years.
Monday, August 13, 2007
A Mike Ruppert Update
A colleague at another website wrote today asking the following question, among others. I answered the other questions but sent this one on to Mike whose response is below.
Query
Here's something I've wondered about for a while. Given the probability of increasing die-outs over the next several decades, and more aging baby boomers dying, there will be an increasing number of estates that go up for grabs, seized or badly gutted by the govt. if families and individuals do not plan legal steps carefully to pass on to family members or charitable causes. If one were to steer people towards ways to contribute money that would fight the criminal system instead of feeding it, what would they be? What would MCR recommend? Too bad FTW is gone...
The entire universe of charities and foundations has been corrupted, making good places harder than ever to find.
Mike Ruppert's response
Very big and very good things happening here. Very fast. Very, very good.
You know, as far as I'm concerned these days I wouldn't trust ANYcharity. That's not becuase I know they're all dirty or compromised. It's because I am just so burned out on trusting anything that's"in-the-system" that I won't take the time to even ponder thequestion.
There is no time left to do anything except get ready.
Get ready.
My health is fully restored (even improved). I have recently come into an inheritance after a two and a half year struggle. About 75% of all of FTW's debts (and mine) are paid in full. The rest will be taken care of soon; including refunds to all FTW subscribers and customers who paid for things they never received. Within the last month, myattorney and I have been to Los Angeles and Ashland.
Ashland proved to be a very loving homecoming.
In Ashland we had an excellent meeting with a detective and intell anylast from the Ashland Police Department. I canot say much except that there's a real possibility that one or more people are going to go to jail over the burglary of June 06. There's a lot more coming on that front.
As for me, Jenna and I are moving to Oregon within the year and we are taking our own advice.
Get ready.
MCR
Query
Here's something I've wondered about for a while. Given the probability of increasing die-outs over the next several decades, and more aging baby boomers dying, there will be an increasing number of estates that go up for grabs, seized or badly gutted by the govt. if families and individuals do not plan legal steps carefully to pass on to family members or charitable causes. If one were to steer people towards ways to contribute money that would fight the criminal system instead of feeding it, what would they be? What would MCR recommend? Too bad FTW is gone...
The entire universe of charities and foundations has been corrupted, making good places harder than ever to find.
Mike Ruppert's response
Very big and very good things happening here. Very fast. Very, very good.
You know, as far as I'm concerned these days I wouldn't trust ANYcharity. That's not becuase I know they're all dirty or compromised. It's because I am just so burned out on trusting anything that's"in-the-system" that I won't take the time to even ponder thequestion.
There is no time left to do anything except get ready.
Get ready.
My health is fully restored (even improved). I have recently come into an inheritance after a two and a half year struggle. About 75% of all of FTW's debts (and mine) are paid in full. The rest will be taken care of soon; including refunds to all FTW subscribers and customers who paid for things they never received. Within the last month, myattorney and I have been to Los Angeles and Ashland.
Ashland proved to be a very loving homecoming.
In Ashland we had an excellent meeting with a detective and intell anylast from the Ashland Police Department. I canot say much except that there's a real possibility that one or more people are going to go to jail over the burglary of June 06. There's a lot more coming on that front.
As for me, Jenna and I are moving to Oregon within the year and we are taking our own advice.
Get ready.
MCR
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Is Creaking America on the Road to Ruin?
More mainstream recognition of what FTW has been asserting for years.
"According to a report by Ernst & Young, the consultancy group, published in June, the US has a funding shortfall for infrastructure of $1.6 trillion (£785 billion), a sum needed merely to repair and bring the existing infrastructure back up to scratch."
Central Banks Take Emergency Credit Crunch Action
This looks like the work of an international arm of the Plunge Protection Team.
International Forum on Globalization
Food that Travels Well
In case we forgot that the devil is in the details, the article claims "...that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit."
Tillman Memo Contradicted Citation
CIA Report on 9/11 Due Labor Day
From Anne Scott
I am about to tell you the story of my morning. This does not end tragically, nor is it of global importance. It is a small, local happening. But the much broader significance will be frighteningly, gut quiveringly, evident.
For background: I've not had a dog for more than twenty years. Much travel with work and frequent moves made it impossible to happily raise a dog. Imagine my joy, after buying the farm, to find a lovely young pup at our local shelter. Never was a dog born who so richly deserved a farm. Nor has a better farm dog walked this earth.
This morning she walked up to the glass door and waited for me to see her. In horror I saw she had a face filled with porcupine quills! I grabbed a heavy shirt, gloves, pliers, and raced out to help her. I was only able to remove one quill before realizing she would not allow me to proceed. Even with two of us to hold her, it was not going to happen. She weighs eighty pounds, and though sweet tempered, even during this ordeal, I feared hurting her even more.
I called her vet at six a.m. No one there, and no one on call. I called another and within half an hour, she arrived and immediately sedated Sakai. Within an hour, the Dr. returned with more help and transported her to the clinic. By the time I arrived, moments later, they had already removed all the quills, given antibiotics and she was groggily returning to the world. I could not stop crying or saying thank you, thank you.
The bigger meaning of all this came crashing down on me as I waited for help to arrive. Peak oil, mega disasters, war, martial law, name your poison. I am more prepared and self-sufficient than ninety eight percent of the population, yet I was helpless in a fairly routine situation. I now will become more prepared. A stretcher to move someone, sedatives to give if needed, and what ever else occurs to me when my mind is operating at normal again. Because it is one thing to intellectualize about "help not arriving" and another thing entirely to feel the result of what could have been, and most probably, will be. The future is about no help being able to arrive.
I shall never forget the look in Sakai's eyes this morning. She did not whimper, or cry. Just looked at me.....help me mommy.....
I am crying as I write, can't seem to stop. She is sleeping peacefully and has just enough energy to wag her tail when I walk up.
So, now! I shall make more preparations. I'll miss something, no doubt. But I'll learn every lesson the Universe is sending. And say Thank You...Thank You.
Her name, Sakai, was given to her by the woman who rescued her and brought her to the shelter. It is from a Native American language and means "Brave little one".
Anne
More mainstream recognition of what FTW has been asserting for years.
"According to a report by Ernst & Young, the consultancy group, published in June, the US has a funding shortfall for infrastructure of $1.6 trillion (£785 billion), a sum needed merely to repair and bring the existing infrastructure back up to scratch."
Central Banks Take Emergency Credit Crunch Action
This looks like the work of an international arm of the Plunge Protection Team.
International Forum on Globalization
Food that Travels Well
In case we forgot that the devil is in the details, the article claims "...that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit."
Tillman Memo Contradicted Citation
CIA Report on 9/11 Due Labor Day
From Anne Scott
I am about to tell you the story of my morning. This does not end tragically, nor is it of global importance. It is a small, local happening. But the much broader significance will be frighteningly, gut quiveringly, evident.
For background: I've not had a dog for more than twenty years. Much travel with work and frequent moves made it impossible to happily raise a dog. Imagine my joy, after buying the farm, to find a lovely young pup at our local shelter. Never was a dog born who so richly deserved a farm. Nor has a better farm dog walked this earth.
This morning she walked up to the glass door and waited for me to see her. In horror I saw she had a face filled with porcupine quills! I grabbed a heavy shirt, gloves, pliers, and raced out to help her. I was only able to remove one quill before realizing she would not allow me to proceed. Even with two of us to hold her, it was not going to happen. She weighs eighty pounds, and though sweet tempered, even during this ordeal, I feared hurting her even more.
I called her vet at six a.m. No one there, and no one on call. I called another and within half an hour, she arrived and immediately sedated Sakai. Within an hour, the Dr. returned with more help and transported her to the clinic. By the time I arrived, moments later, they had already removed all the quills, given antibiotics and she was groggily returning to the world. I could not stop crying or saying thank you, thank you.
The bigger meaning of all this came crashing down on me as I waited for help to arrive. Peak oil, mega disasters, war, martial law, name your poison. I am more prepared and self-sufficient than ninety eight percent of the population, yet I was helpless in a fairly routine situation. I now will become more prepared. A stretcher to move someone, sedatives to give if needed, and what ever else occurs to me when my mind is operating at normal again. Because it is one thing to intellectualize about "help not arriving" and another thing entirely to feel the result of what could have been, and most probably, will be. The future is about no help being able to arrive.
I shall never forget the look in Sakai's eyes this morning. She did not whimper, or cry. Just looked at me.....help me mommy.....
I am crying as I write, can't seem to stop. She is sleeping peacefully and has just enough energy to wag her tail when I walk up.
So, now! I shall make more preparations. I'll miss something, no doubt. But I'll learn every lesson the Universe is sending. And say Thank You...Thank You.
Her name, Sakai, was given to her by the woman who rescued her and brought her to the shelter. It is from a Native American language and means "Brave little one".
Anne
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