Two years before the Deepwater Horizon blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP off-shore rig suffered a nearly identical blow-out, but BP concealed the first one from the U.S. regulators and Congress.
This week, EcoWatch.org located an eyewitness with devastating new information about the Caspian Sea oil-rig blow-out which BP had concealed from government and the industry.The witness, whose story is backed up by rig workers who were evacuated from BP’s Caspian platform, said that had BP revealed the full story as required by industry practice, the eleven Gulf of Mexico workers “could have had a chance” of survival. But BP’s insistence on using methods proven faulty sealed their fate.
One cause of the blow-outs was the same in both cases: the use of a money-saving technique—plugging holes with “quick-dry” cement.By hiding the disastrous failure of its penny-pinching cement process in 2008, BP was able to continue to use the dangerous methods in the Gulf of Mexico—causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. April 20 marks the second anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster.
There were several failures in common to the two incidents identified by the eyewitness. He is an industry insider whose identity and expertise we have confirmed. His name and that of other witnesses we contacted must be withheld for their safety.
The failures revolve around the use of “quick-dry” cement, the uselessness of blow-out preventers, “mayhem” in evacuation procedures and an atmosphere of fear which prevents workers from blowing the whistle on safety problems.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive!
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “We have laws that make it illegal to hide this kind of information. At the very least, these are lies by omission. When you juxtapose their knowledge of this incident upon the oil companies constant and persistent assurances of safety to regulators, investigators and shareholders, you have all the elements to prove that their concealment of the information was criminal.”
The first blow-out occurred on a BP rig in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 2008. BP was able to conceal such an extraordinary event with the help of the ruling regime of Azerbaijan, other oil companies and, our investigators learned, the Bush Administration.Our investigation began just days after the explosion and sinking of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010 when this reporterreceived an extraordinary message from a terrified witness—from a ship floating in the Caspian Sea:“I know how …. Would not be wise for me to communicate via [official] IT system, ….”
When the insider was contacted on a secure line, he stated that he witnessed a blow-out and the panicked evacuation of the giant BP “ACG” drilling platform.To confirm the witness’ story, British television’s premier investigative program, Dispatches, sent this reporter under cover into Baku, Azerbaijan, with a cameraman. While approaching the BP oil terminal, the Islamic republic’s Security Ministry arrested the crew.
To avoid diplomatic difficulties, we were quickly released. However, two new witnesses suddenly vanished, all communication lost with them, after they confirmed the facts of the 2008 blow-out. Both told us they had been evacuated from the BP off-shore platform as it filled with methane.Furthermore, witnesses confirmed that, “there was mud (drill-pipe cement) blown out all over the platform.” It appears the cement cap failed to hold back high-pressure gases which, “engulfed the entire platform in methane gas,” which is highly explosive.
In both cases, the insider told us, BP had used “quick-dry” cement to cap their well bores and the cost-saving procedure failed catastrophically.We have learned this week that BP failed to notify the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) about the failure of the cement. (British companies report incidents as minor as a hammer dropped.) Notification would have alerted Gulf cement contractor Halliburton that the process of adding nitrogen to cement posed unforeseen dangers. – TO READ THE FULL STORY GO TO ECOWATCH.ORG
19 April 2012
EcoWatch Exclusive - BP Coverup 'They Knew.'
15 April 2012
The Lifeboat Hour – 04/15/12
from Progressive Radio Network » Lifeboat Hour | Progressive Radio Network http://prn.fm/2012/04/16/the-lifeboat-hour-041512/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-lifeboat-hour-041512
Surviving Collapse Stats
I thought I would share: I just noticed that the overall pageviews have topped 10k already. Not bad for a one-man side project I never really planned on or prepared for. If this has become reality, then maybe there is something to my views after all? Thanks for letting me know what you want to hear, the glass is officially half-empty!
Stats: hey, that's a palindrome!
Stats: hey, that's a palindrome!
Taxation Decreases Productivity through Dead Weight Loss
14 April 2012
Mandatory Seat Belt Laws Cause Dangerous Driving, and Invade Privacy
Synopsis: House Bill 99-1212, which makes driving or riding in a car without a seat belt into a "primary" traffic offense, is yet another attempt to control peoples own decisions about risk taking. Research shows that when reckless drivers are forced to buckle up, they drive even more recklessly. Thus, careful drivers (who wear seat belts by choice) are endangered. Moreover, mandatory seat belt laws also increase the risk that minorities or other groups will be victimized by pretextual traffic stops.
What the Bill Does: This bill makes failing to wear a seat belt a more serious offense. At present, drivers are not cited for failure to wear a seat belt unless they are stopped for some other reason. This bill would make failing to wear seat belts a primary offense, meaning that police officers could stop vehicles and write citations whenever they see the seat belt law being violated. The bill makes the driver responsible for a Class B traffic infraction unless he, and all front seat passengers, are wearing seat belts.
Discussion: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that wearing a seat belt in an automobile accident reduces the risk of serious injury or death by roughly 50 percent. NHSTA argues that if the U.S. could achieve the 85% seat belt use rates enjoyed in "other countries," 5,421 fewer people would have died in motor vehicle accidents in 1996. These estimates are based on police-reported restraint use information for each individual occupant fatality, and include potential lives saved in all seating positions. Proponents of increasing the penalty for not using seat belts claim that increasing penalties increases usage, and that increased usage lowers traffic injuries and deaths.
Some states already have primary offense laws. A survey of seat belt use among the fatally injured suggests that seat belt use in that group was 15 percent higher in states with primary offense enforcement laws. In 1996, states that treated seat belt use as a primary offense reported that seat belts were used 74 percent of the time. States that treated seat belt use as a secondary offense reported usage rates of 61 percent.
Unfortunately, data like these fail to show that making seat belt usage a primary offense decreases traffic injuries and fatalities. In fact, no jurisdiction that has passed a seat belt law has shown evidence of a reduction in road accident deaths. To explore this odd but highly robust finding, experimenters asked volunteers to drive five horsepower go-karts with and without seat belts. They found that those wearing seat belts drove their karts faster. While this does not prove that car drivers do the same, it points in that direction.
[...]
Contrary to popular belief, mandating the use of seat belts does not decrease the risk of injury. It actually has the opposite effect, since people tend to drive in a less safe manner believing that the seat belts provide additional security. Accident rates were the lowest relative to the volume of overall drivers before seat belts were even introduced, let alone mandated by the State.
http://liberty.i2i.org/1999/02/10/mandatory-seat-belt-laws-cause-dangerous-driving-and-invade-privacy/
13 April 2012
Kymatica
Here is the follow-up to Esoteric Agenda.
Kymatica focuses on human and universal consciousness and goes deeper into the metaphysical aspects of reality.
This is the sequel to Esoteric Agenda which be found in a full length video HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJiCU6Jw0Co
In Ben's own words, this is his best movie project!
Thanks to Ben Stewart for allowing me to upload this full length video to my in5d YouTube channel. The DVD is available on his website at http://talismanicidols.org/ or http://esotericagenda.net/
Esoteric Agenda
It's a bit on the conspiracy side, but lots of information to digest and ponder on in this one...
There is an Esoteric Agenda behind every facet of life that was once believed to be disconnected. There is an Elite faction guiding most every Political, Economic, Social, Corporate, some Non-Governmental or even Anti-Establishment Organizations. This film uses the hard work and research of professionals in every field helping to expose this agenda put the future of this planet back into the hands of the people.
Thanks to Ben Stewart for allowing me to upload this full length video to my channel. The DVD is available on his website at http://talismanicidols.org/ or http://esotericagenda.net/
This is arguably one of the most inspiring videos you'll ever see!
For more on spirituality, metaphysics and 2012, please visit http://www.maya12-21-2012.com/ and http://www.in5d.com/
Watch the sequel to Esoteric Agenda, Kymatica here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AanQ2mY2jjc
11 April 2012
Global Systemic Risk Is Rising Rapidly Again | ZeroHedge
The risk of the 30 most systemically important financial institutions (SIFI) in the world has risen over 30% in the last three weeks as the effects of LTRO fade and encumbrance becomes the new reality. This less-manipulated, government-bank-reacharound-driven bond-market sense of reality has retraced almost 40% of its improvement from its peak last November at 311bps to its best level mid-March at 171bps.
(Basis Point (BPS) Definition | Investopedia)
The current 226bps level is extremely elevated and as one would expect is dominated by European and US banks (with US banks on average trading wider than Europeans - which may surprise many but Europeans dominate the worst names - most specifically the Spanish banks).
I am wondering how The latest covert EU bailout through swaps by the US (without the consent of the citizens) will be affected by this latest news?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/global-systemic-risk-rising-rapidly-again
Medical Marijuana Debated at Hearing, Headed for November Ballot
Lawmakers wrangling over whether to legalize marijuana for medical use continued Tuesday to struggle with questions pertaining to federal enforcement, offering no indication that a legislative compromise might be in the works and likely leaving the issue up to voters to settle in November.
The debate over the merits of federal enforcement of prohibition does not even begin to address the fact that said prohibition is the root cause of most related social and economic issues related.
Until the State can wrap its head around that self-fulfilling paradigm, don't expect the war on drugs to be any closer to ending. And then there is the matter of wasting over a trillion taxpayer (a form of violence) dollars dollars on that proven failed effort, but why let reality and truth prevent the State from continuing its propaganda efforts, tilting at windmills...
10 April 2012
Goldman Explains Why Economic Downturns Just Feel More Dangerous These Days
Bank failures are exactly what most of those institutions deserve.In a note out this evening, Goldman's Dominic Wilson touches on something that's really important:
A number of factors reinforce our desire to be more cautious about the data in the near term. First, our US forecast has continued to embody a relatively flat 2%-ish type GDP growth trajectory, so the notion that acceleration is now coming to an end is consistent with that forecast view. Second, we have become more confident that the weather has played an important role in some earlier data strength. The payback here may have begun, but there is probably more ahead. There is also rising focus on the US "fiscal cliff" at the end of this year, as Alec Phillips has described. Third, in the current post-bust setting, even modest slowing in growth feels more dangerous than normal. Fiscal policy is consolidating and conventional monetary policy has been exhausted in many places. And with plenty of leverage in parts of the global economy, slowing growth quickly also raises questions about debt sustainability in places. As a result, financial risks can re-emerge more quickly than normal as growth slows.
Indeed, it seems hard to remember the good old days, when an economic downturn didn't bring with it fears of bank failures or even sovereign failures.
The Fed's Secret Swap Bailout of the Eurozone
Full article: http://mises.org/daily/6002/The-Feds-Swap-Bailout-of-the-EurozoneOn Tuesday, March 26, 2012, I was invited by Ron Paul and his staff to assist a meeting of the Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services. The title of the hearing was "Federal Reserve Aid to the Eurozone: Its Impact on the U.S. and the Dollar."
Unfortunately, Ben Bernanke had not come to the hearing, being busy with propaganda lectures in favor of the Fed. Instead, two of his colleagues, Mr. William C. Dudley (president and chief executive officer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York) and Dr. Steven B. Kamin (director, Division of International Finance, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), showed up to answer the committee's questions on currency swaps with other central banks.
The hearing dealt mainly with the Fed's currency swap with the ECB, which amounts to a covert bailout of European banks.
But why did European banks need help from the Fed in the first place? European banks had borrowed dollars short term in international wholesale markets and lent these dollars for the long term to US companies or households. The maturity mismatch is highly risky, because once a bank cannot renew its short-term debts it becomes illiquid.
[...]
09 April 2012
CIA stealth drones made hundreds of passes over Iran
More than three years ago, the CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran. The bat-winged aircraft penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran's secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home. All the while, analysts at the CIA and other agencies watched carefully for any sign that the craft, dubbed the RQ-170 Sentinel, had been detected by Tehran's air defenses on its maiden voyage. "There was never even a ripple," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official involved in the previously undisclosed mission. CIA stealth drones scoured dozens of sites throughout Iran, making hundreds of passes over suspicious facilities, before a version of the RQ-170 crashed inside Iran's borders in December. The surveillance has been part of what current and former U.S. officials describe as an intelligence surge that is aimed at Iran's nuclear program and that has been gaining momentum since the final years of George W. Bush's administration.
Original Page: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/243866-CIA-stealth-drones-made-hundreds-of-passes-over-Iran
USDA ‘Doesn’t Know’ if You Are Eating Cloned Meat
It may come as a surprise, but you may be consuming cloned meat on a regular basis. In fact, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (head of the USDA) says that he has no idea whether or not cloned meat has been sold inside the United States — or [...]
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/prepperpodcast/flJA/~3/sElWnL9Krjo/
Fear of Tyranny Is Now Treated As A Psychiatric Disorder In The West
The modern totalitarian state is the psychotherapist for the whole of society. It acts on the elitist principle that it knows everything and the people deserve to be mind controlled and brainwashed for their own good.
It doesn't get much clearer than that.Defenders of the totalitarian system demonize their democratic critics as insane, and suppress political speech with the mind control techniques that have grown out of modern psychological and mental health research. If you point out their contradictions, lies, and inconsistencies in their narratives, they call you a conspiracy theorist and chew you out with psycho-babble. And if you acknowledge that you fear their despotic vision for Western society and the world, they call you paranoid and say you have a psychiatric disorder.
It does not matter what twisted and perverted ideology that the totalitarian power-seekers hide behind. It could be Communism, Nazism, Islamism, Neoconservativism, or Environmentalism. Every "ism" is a thought-control prison. Citizens are suppressed in the same manner under every totalitarian hellhole by their mental overlords.
Anti-democratic elites in all totalitarian prisons use the language of mental health to dismiss dissenters and enforce their dogmatic beliefs and totalitarian policies on an unwilling public. In 2009, Brendan O'Neill of Spiked.com wrote a powerful essay called, "The Psychologisation of Dissent: The Global Warming Skepticism Mental Disorder," about how the West is following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union. O'Neil wrote:
"The idea that 'climate change denial' is a psychological disorder – the product of a spiteful, willful or simply in-built neural inability to face up to the catastrophe of global warming – is becoming more and more popular amongst green-leaning activists and academics. And nothing better sums up the elitism and authoritarianism of the environmentalist lobby than its psychologisation of dissent. The labeling of any criticism of the politics of global warming, first as 'denial', and now as evidence of mass psychological instability, is an attempt to write off all critics and sceptics as deranged, and to lay the ground for inevitable authoritarian solutions to the problem of climate change. Historically, only the most illiberal and misanthropic regimes have treated disagreement and debate as signs of mental ill-health."
In the West, the mislabeling of dissent as "paranoia" and "crazy" has been taken to an extreme. People who believe there should be government transparency and media accountability have been exiled out of the mainstream political community.
[...]
Mexican Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity: End the War on Drugs
Narco News TV: Making Cable News Obsolete Since 2010: On March 28, 2012 the Mexican Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity celebrated its first year of nonviolent action to end the drug war. There, poet Javier Sicilia called on the citizens of the United States to pressure their government to legalize drugs.
Makes sense to me, since the war on drugs is on people, since you can't wage war no inanimate objects. Violent crime and crime related to the drug trade has been increasing since the war began, but the State seems happy to promote a policy that has violence as a direct result. End the war on drugs and the drug cartel terrorists will no longer have a stranglehold on the trade trade. Legalize drugs, even tax and regulate them, and drug dealers will no longer corner the market and use violence to protect their trade.
The war on drugs promotes violence, but legalization is tantamount to promoting peace and nonviolence.
06 April 2012
State Capitalism's Dirty Secret: Corporations Don't Create Good Jobs Anymore, They Destroy Them
While correct in directing its attention at the instability of the job market and unemployment, beyond that the article fails at a few points.
Free market capitalism works, but what we have is State-controlled capitalism. It's main tools for manipulating that market are regulation such as tariffs and taxes. Through these efforts, the State promotes industries and companies over others, even when the natural market would swing the other direction.Corporations are not working for the 99 percent. But this wasn't always the case. In a special five-part series, William Lazonick, professor at UMass, president of the Academic-Industry Research Network, and a leading expert on the business corporation, along with journalist Ken Jacobson and AlterNet's Lynn Parramore, will examine the foundations, history and purpose of the corporation to answer this vital question: How can the public take control of the business corporation and make it work for the real economy?
Remember when sugar was in soda, real sugar? Tariffs imbalances trade between sugar producers and consumers across borders. When the US impose high tariffs in sugar imports, it forced foreign sugar producers into drug crops and American companies to use corn sugar as a poor substitute. The State priced real sugar out of reach of both growers an consumers.
That is a failure of the State, not capitalism, which worked well before the State meddled in the business of private citizens and companies.
In reality, it is out legislators and representatives in government who have been stifling industries and our economy. This failure of control efforts is what is keeping us from returning to a sustainable trade market, one free of manipulation at a national level. Kill taxes and tariffs, end subsidies and regulations. Return to a free market where success is a reward that can not be bought from regulatory agencies and presidential administrations.For the last four decades, U.S. corporations have been sinking our economy through the off-shoring of jobs, the squeezing of wages, and a magician's hat full of bluffs and tricks designed to extort subsidies and sweetheart deals from local and state governments that often result in mass layoffs and empty treasuries.
04 April 2012
The EPA, Corruption, and Conflict of Interest
The EPA is charged with protecting the air and water quality, among other environmental efforts, yet corruption and conflict of interest are so ingrained in the agency that it really only effects the industries and companies not large enough to simply buy in, installing their own agents in the agency. A quick Google search will help shed some light on the issue. I wish we could trust these industries to self-regulate, but that is no more likely than to expect the regulatory bodies to be free of corruption. Either way, the populace is left out of the process, mostly willfully.
The EPA has a history of exempting large industry leaders from the Clean Air and Water Acts. It's simply a matter of money, dirty money. It's not that standards for protecting the environment should not exist, it is that the system of governance we have in most developed nations allows those companies and industries with the resources to simply invest in government, getting their own lobbyists and employees into regulatory positions. It's a revolving door sometimes, with individuals going back and forth between the industries and the agency charged with regulating them. It's not just the energy industry (fracking, lobbyists), it's agriculture as well. Many industries are in bed with the regulatory bodies charged with keeping them in line.
These reasons are why I support education of the population, rather than obedience to the State. When the populace holds the authority, rather than a select few, corruptible individuals, then we have more of a chance of making positive change on issues like the environment.
Part of the reason for my angst of the situation is that so many become complacent, believing that those elected or appointed are doing what the populace believes is best. The political Left is just as corrupt on these sort of issues as the Right. I honestly can't tell the difference anymore beyond the little letter after the politicians' names.
Left and Right are both Wrong.
03 April 2012
Celente: The Decline of Empire America
Gerald Celente on the decline of Empire America . The fall of Rome all over again. Cant blame the masses...blame the corporate owned media which floods people's minds with propaganda 24/7. This propaganda has succeeded in fusing individual ego with national pride, the whole point is to make people reluctant to outsider opinion.Its a vicious cycle, people will not listen to outside opinions and receive the only information from corporate media.
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TrendsForecastsAndPropheciesBlog/~3/4xmgknJyY4E/decline-of-empire-america.html
Monsanto’s Roundup Can Cause Amphibians to Change Shape
Holy GMO, Batman! Color me surprised!These people have to be stopped. Via ScienceDaily:
The world's most popular weed killer, Roundup®, can cause amphibians to change shape, according to research recently published in Ecological Applications. Rick Relyea, University of Pittsburgh professor of biological sciences in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and director of Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, demonstrated that sublethal and environmentally relevant concentrations of Roundup® caused two species of amphibians to alter their morphology. According to Relyea, this is the first study to show that a herbicide can induce morphological changes in a vertebrate animal.
</sarcasm>
Weeks, not generations. This stuff causes immediate physiological changes to the victim.Relyea set up large outdoor water tanks that contained many of the components of natural wetlands. Some tanks contained caged predators, which emit chemicals that naturally induce changes in tadpole morphology (such as larger tails to better escape predators). After adding tadpoles to each tank, he exposed them to a range of Roundup® concentrations. After 3 weeks, the tadpoles were removed from the tanks.
"It was not surprising to see that the smell of predators in the water induced larger tadpole tails," says Relyea. "That is a normal, adaptive response. What shocked us was that the Roundup® induced the same changes…
More: ScienceDaily
STOCKS FALL AFTER FED MINUTES: Here's What You Need To Know
Stocks fell after the Federal Open Market Committee indicated that it did not see the need for more monetary policy easing ahead. Here's your scoreboard:
Dow: 13,196, -68pts, -0.51%
NASDAQ: 3,114, -6pts, -0.20%
S&P 500: 1,413, -6pts, -0.42%
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMoneyGame/~3/XeH7K4tnPwI/closing-bell-april-3-2012-2012-4
Putting It All Into Perspective
Thank the gods for Tyler Durden. I was having a hard time getting through the opening credits...While it is amusing, almost laughable, to watch the market's every schizoid reaction to any given utterance out of the central planners (recall that back in mid-2009 we said that fundamental and technical analysis, is now dead, and the only thing that matters it he Fed's H.4.1 statement - we hope you are enjoying said central planning ladies and gents), we have decided to save our readers some pain and cut straight to the end credits by presenting "the big picture."
I smell fresh ink!Last summer, we shared an extended report from the Boston Consulting Group, which in a rather verbose format, explained everything that is wrong with the status quo. Unfortunately, that was also the report's biggest weakness, in this day and age in which everyone expects everything on a silver platter, prechewed if possible. So here it is again, clean, simple, precise, and so easy it can be printed out and pinned to one's wall - the chart below from Citi's Matt King puts everything in its proper perspective (if in a slightly optimistic light). The first two columns show the "impact" of Lehman and the Greek PSI - i.e., the amount of debt that was eliminated. These two tiny bars are what nearly caused the end of Western civilization (per Hank Paulson), and led Europe on a two year voyage to preemptively offload Greek exposure to European (and American) taxpayers. That's the good news. The bad news is is the column on the far right. This is the amount of debt that in Citi's estimate, has to be "reduced" across the four major developed markets for the world to return to a sustainable debt level. That's right: $30,000,000,000,000. By 2016. And after that it just gets even more parabolic.
This is not a discretionary cut. This is what has to be "reduced" for the world to have some chance of avoiding daisy-chained global sovereign defaults, up to and including the $707 trillion in global OTC (read unregulated) derivatives. Which means there are two actual definitions of 'reduced' - inflated or paid off (since a global default would "complicated" for existing equity stakeholders, read the 1%, to preserve their wealth). Furthermore, we are convinced that Citi is being generous: BCG estimated that the global debt overhang as of 2009 to get to a "sustainable" global debt/GDP of 180% is about $21 trillion. That number is easily $5-6 trillion more as of right now. Finally, with assets already at record lower cash flow generation as has been repeated here over and over, the only option is nominally inflating them away. Which means, you guess it, nominal devaluation of monetary intermediates. Translated: printing, printing, and more printing.
Still think the Fed, ECB, BOJ and BOE won't print, print, print?
Think again.
And for those who missed it the first time around, here is the full BCG analysis, which looks at not only the cuases of the global policy dead end, but provides some suggestions on how to deal with the issues. Needless to say, these are neither palatable nor favorable for risk assets.
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/oXuhlhSFOq0/putting-it-all-perspective
America's $15 Trillion Party
If you knew that you could live in luxury for the rest of your life but that by doing so it would absolutely destroy the future for your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren would you do it? Well, that is exactly what we are doing as a nation. Over the past several decades, we have stolen 15 trillion dollars from future generations so that we could enjoy a dramatically inflated level of prosperity.
Our 15 trillion dollar party has been a lot of fun, but what we have done to our children and our grandchildren has been beyond criminal. We ran up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the planet and we are sticking them with the bill. Sadly, both political parties have been responsible for the big spending that has been going on. Both Democrats and Republicans have run up huge budget deficits when in power. But instead of learning the hard lessons of the past, both political parties continue to vote for even more debt. They would rather continue to steal trillions of dollars from future generations than have the party end and have to face the consequences.
And the consequences will be dramatic when the party ends. During fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent 3.7 trillion dollars but it only brought in 2.4 trillion dollars. That means that the U.S. government spent about 1.3 trillion dollars that it did not have. It is important to understand that even if the U.S. government spent that 1.3 trillion dollars on really stupid things, that money still got into the pockets of ordinary Americans who then spent it on things like food, gas, housing, etc. In turn, most of those that received money from providing those goods and services would spend it on other things.
[...]
America's $15 Trillion Party | EconMatters
02 April 2012
Just In Time: When the Trucks Stop, America Will Stop (With Immediate and Catastrophic Consequences)
Most Americans take for granted the intricate systems that make it possible for us to engage in seemingly mundane day to day tasks like filling up our gas tanks, loading up our shopping carts at the local grocery store, obtaining necessary medications, and even pouring ourselves a clean glass of water. When we wake up each morning we just expect that all of these things will work today the same way they worked yesterday. Very few have considered the complexity involved in the underlying infrastructure that keeps goods, services and commerce in America flowing. Fewer still have ever spent the time to contemplate the fragility of these systems or the consequences on food, water, health care, the financial system, and the economy if they are interrupted.
A report prepared for legislators and business leaders by the American Trucking Associations highlights just how critical our just-in-time inventory and delivery systems are, and assesses the impact on the general population in the event of an emergency or incident of national significance that disrupts the truck transportation systems which are responsible for carrying some ten billion tons of commodities and supplies across the United States each year.
A shut down of truck operations as a result of elevated threat levels, terrorist attacks, or pandemics would, according to the report, have "a swift and devastating impact on the food, healthcare, transportation, waste removal, retail, manufacturing, and financial sectors."
So too would events such as an EMP attack or a coordinated cyber-attack that could shut down global positioning systems and the computers responsible for inventory control. Another potential scenario that is more likely now than ever before is liquidity problems within the financial system stemming from currency crisis or hyperinflation. All of our just-in-time delivery systems are built upon the unhindered transfer of money and credit, but when credit flow becomes restricted or money becomes worthless, no one will be able to pay for their goods. Likewise, no one will trust the credit worthiness of anyone else. This is exactly the scenario playing out in Greece right now and the consequences on the health care industry in that country have left many without life saving drugs. When there's no money, no one will be transporting anything.
The effects of a transportation shutdown for any reason would be immediate (in some cases, within hours) and absolutely catastrophic.
[...]
Via SHTFplan
Republican Blackmail: Make the Oil Companies Richer & Gas Prices Will Come Down
Yesterday, while appearing on CNN, the always effervescent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) told Candy Crowley that gas price would come down if the government simply lower taxes on the oil companies.
Neither this avenue nor it's opposite are either very practical, but there is a third option. Stop subsidizing the oil industry. America is critical of China right now for the same practice, so it is a bit of a disingenuous position to take, and definitely not the moral high ground.
The biggest oil companies don't pay taxes, the write off losses and it's a wash. BP reported insane profits after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, so tell me what makes more sense; keep doing what we have been, or try something different for a change?
Increasing taxes on these big companies makes less sense than to simply end taxes across the board for all companies. Big Government supports Big Business, not small businesses.
While we're at it, let's get rid of personal property and income taxes, and the State's ability to use the threat of violence to enforce their (invalid) authority.
Original Page: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/02/republican-blackmail-make-the-oil-companies-richer-gas-prices-will-come-down-video/
Radiation Inside Fukushima Reactor So High That New Machines Must Be Designed to Monitor It
One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and hardly any water to cool it, according to an internal examination Tuesday that renews doubts about the plant's stability.
A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No. 2 reactor's containment chamber for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago. The probe done in January failed to find the water surface and provided only images showing steam, unidentified parts and rusty metal surfaces scarred by exposure to radiation, heat and humidity.
The data collected from the probes showed the damage from the disaster was so severe, the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment and decommission the plant, a process expected to last decades.
Tuesday's examination with an industrial endoscope detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the chamber. Plant officials previously said more than half of melted fuel has breached the core and dropped to the floor of the primary containment vessel, some of it splashing against the wall or the floor.
Particles from melted fuel have probably sent radiation levels up to dangerously high 70 sieverts per hour inside the container, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co.
"It's extremely high," he said, adding that an endoscope would last only 14 hours in that condition. "We have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation" when locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning.
The probe also found the containment vessel — a beaker-shaped container enclosing the core — had cooling water up to only 60 centimeters (2 feet) from the bottom, far below the 10 meters (yards) estimated when the government declared the plant stable in December.
Finding the water level was important to help locate damaged areas where radioactive water is escaping.
He said that the actual water level inside the chamber was way off the estimate, which had used data that turned out to be unreliable. But the results don't affect the plant's "cold shutdown status" because the water temperature was about 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), indicating the melted fuel is cooled.
Three Dai-ichi reactors had meltdowns, but the No. 2 reactor is the only one that has been examined because radiation levels inside the reactor building are relatively low and its container is designed with a convenient slot to send in the endoscope.
The exact conditions of the other two reactors, where hydrogen explosions damaged their buildings, are still unknown. Simulations have indicated that more fuel inside No. 1 has breached the core than the other two, but radiation at No. 3 remains the highest.
The high radiation levels inside the No. 2 reactor's chamber mean it's inaccessible to the workers, but parts of the reactor building are accessible for a few minutes at a time — with the workers wearing full protection.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=28300
Maybe they just need to culture the fungus growing inside Chernobyl's dormant reactor and introduce it to Fukushima. I wonder if that would be considered an invasive species?
Film ‘There’s No Tomorrow’ Spreads Eco-Hysteria About Economic Collapse | NewsBusters.org
Film ‘There’s No Tomorrow’ Spreads Eco-Hysteria About Economic Collapse | NewsBusters.org: The current system of economic growth is unsustainable, and people should “try to avoid banks,” “consider gardening to grow your own food,” and reject the advances of globalization. That’s not a clip from National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers.” That is the latest message of doom and gloom from the environmental movement.Uh, yeah. That's a new perspective, that nothing is wrong with our society.
Incubate Pictures produced a nearly 35 minute animated film titled “There’s No Tomorrow,” which depicted a gloomy future of unsustainable economic growth, diminishing natural resources, and environmental degradation. “There’s No Tomorrow” argues that since the modern economy is based on continuous growth fueled by fossil fuels, and oil production has already reached its production peak, the economy will eventually collapse.
The solutions “There’s No Tomorrow” proposes for these drastic problems are stark. The film suggests the elimination of the capitalist economy and economic growth. The “Happy Ending” proposed by the film declares that economies should become localized, declaring that viewers should “consider the use of local currencies should the larger economy cease to function.”Wow, that sounds like quite the statist position. It promotes the idea that we should keep doing what we are seeing as mostly failure, despite reality, on economic, governmental, and social levels. What's the definition of insanity? Oh yeah, doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.
The dire predictions of “There’s No Tomorrow” echo the cries of eco-extremists like Paul Watson, who called for a return to sail-powered ships and a decrease in population to less than 1 billion. Its solutions mirror the cries of radical environmentalists such as Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen, and Aric McBay, who sought the destruction of human civilization.
“There’s No Tomorrow” claimed to address arguments that humans will technologically adapt to changing conditions by arguing that today’s challenges are too drastic to be solved, and even argued that “more advanced technologies may make the situation worse.” Essentially, the film rehashed the tired 200-year-old argument that humanity is doomed because it there is no possible way humans can adapt to the challenges they face.Uh, yeah. There's nothing wrong with that perspective. There's nothing wrong with the world, it's all fine. Go back to bed, America. Trust your government, vote for crooks and swindlers. It's not socialism if you give it a fancy, modern name. Here, watch 50 channels of CSI and Dancing with the Stars.
Despite the filmmakers’ claim that “every care has been taken to insure the accuracy of the data,” the film is riddled with inaccuracies and distortions. Discoveries of new methods of retrieving oil have further called into question the already highly speculative theory that we have reached “Peak Oil” propounded by “There’s No Tomorrow.” Developments in hydrofracking (opposed by environmentalists and their liberal political allies) have drastically decreased natural gas prices since 2007.
The inaccuracies inherent in “There’s No Tomorrow” are unsurprising, considering its reliance on flawed sources. Incubate Pictures notes that the making of “There’s No Tomorrow” was assisted by the Post Carbon Institute’s Richard Heinberg and Tod Brilliant. The Post Carbon Institute questions “whether or not human beings are unsustainable by nature” and declares that “institutionalized perpetual growth together with an exponentially-growing global population is a recipe for disaster.”
The idea that the world will run out of resources has haunted the fears of environmentalists since Thomas Malthus’ dire prediction that food production would fail to feed a burgeoning human population – in 1798. In modern times, biologist Paul Ehrlich has been among the most prominent proponents of imminent human and environmental collapse – famously claiming in 1970: "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Despite his track record of failed predictions, he still preaches the dark gospel of economic catastrophe.
The media have entered the controversy on the side of the doomsayers, amplifying the argument that the earth’s ever-growing legion of consumers will one day destroy the environment. Both environmentalists and the media ignore that people are creative and can solve the challenges they are faced with, myopically focusing only on the problems humanity faces.
No one denies that the technological, economic, and environmental challenges the world faces are daunting. But doomsayers have religiously predicted environmental and social disaster for human beings for over 200 years, and been proven spectacularly wrong on every occasion. Their forecasts of the end of the world have proven to be as accurate as Harold Camping’s.
The reality of the end of the world is not like the movies. It's a progression. We learn to adapt to a changing environment while also focusing on restoring individual liberties and reducing the role and authority of the central governments around the world so that we can all have an equal chance at surviving a world that is constantly changing around us.
This is the way the world ends...
01 April 2012
Global Temperature Trends Since 2500 B.C.
Until recently, global temperatures were more than a degree Fahrenheit warmer when compared to the overall 20th Century mean. From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees. Since that time, the mean reading has been fluctuating. (See Long-Term Chart Below.)
We, Cliff Harris and Randy Mann, believe that the warming and even the cooling of global temperatures are the result of long-term climatic cycles, solar activity, sea-surface temperature patterns and more. However, Mankind’s activities of the burning of fossil fuels, massive deforestations, the replacing of grassy surfaces with asphalt and concrete, the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect,’ are making conditions ‘worse’ and this will ultimately enhance the Earth’s warming process down the meteorological roadway in the next several decades.
From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, a climate research organization called the Weather Science Foundation of Crystal Lake, Illinois, determined that the planet’s warm, cold, wet and dry periods were the result of alternating short-term and long-term climatic cycles. These researchers and scientists also concluded that the Earth’s ever-changing climate likewise has influenced global and regional economies, human and animal migrations, science, religion and the arts as well as shifting forms of government and strength of leadership.
Much of this data was based upon thousands of hours of research done by Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler and his associates during the 1930s and 1940s at the University of Kansas. Dr. Wheeler was well-known for his discovery of various climate cycles, including his highly-regarded ‘510-Year Drought Clock’ that he detailed at the end of the ‘Dust Bowl’ era in the late 1930s.Interesting, global climate change might be cyclical, on a scale larger than most people can measure or even perceive. It might be affected by forces greater than man can influence, or abate.
During the early 1970s, our planet was in the midst of a colder and drier weather cycle. Inflationary recessions and oil shortages led to rationing and long gas lines at service stations worldwide. The situation at that time was far worse than it is now, at least for the time being.
The Weather Science Foundation also predicted, based on these various climate cycles, that our planet would turn much warmer and wetter by the early 2000s, resulting in general global prosperity. They also said that we would be seeing at this time widespread weather ‘extremes.’ There’s little doubt that most of their early predictions came true.
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Global Temperature Trends Since 2500 B.C.
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