14 Oct - Morning News Picks

Turks, Armenians restore relations in historic accord
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-10-10-turkey-armenia-accord_N.htm?csp=netvibes

The Real-Time Web? Been There, Done That
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=437521
The 'Web of Immediacy' has had negative effects in Korea

SILENT SOUND ARRIVES IN HALIFAX
http://www.openpassageexpedition.com
Silent Sound arrived at Bishops Landing on the Halifax waterfront on October 10, four months and four days after setting sail from Victoria, BC on her voyage through the Arctic. Friends and family from around the world were gathered on the docks to welcome the 40-foot yacht and her crew ashore.

The Open Passage Expedition successfully sailed through the infamous Northwest Passage while learning more about the land and people they encountered along the way. The Arctic is garnering global attention today because climate change is causing its sea ice to melt at a rapid pace, affecting the region’s communities and the wildlife they rely on for food and livelihood.

RETHINK Afghanistan
Bring Petition to the Capitol and demand hearings on the alternatives to war


Kashmir's main glacier melts at alarming speed
Indian Kashmir's biggest glacier, which feeds the region's main river, is melting faster than other Himalayas glaciers, threatening the water supply of tens of thousands of people, a new report warned on Monday.

Experts say rising temperatures are rapidly shrinking Himalayan glaciers, underscoring the effects of climate change that has caused temperatures in the mountainous region to rise by about 1.1 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years.

US coal plants dump thousands of gallons of waste into drinking water supplies a day 


Map of U.S. coal waste dumping  


In 1918 Pandemic, Another Possible Killer: Aspirin

A little tweak showed up in Lifehacker : set default homepage to 'about:blank' so that preloading a tab is disabled, saving time. But of course, Firefox instructions are for Windows. In Ubuntu Edit>Preferences>Main>Startup
Homepage  ( Just type it in or use another option if you want to change Homepage ). Of course, if you choose to open a single tab on Startup, that would really streamline things!

Dad2059’s Webzine of Science Fiction, Science Fact and Esoterica

Bail-Out Tinfoil, Web Bot Predictions and “I Know What I Saw”
Burning down the house?

Via Blacklisted News: Washington’s Blog:

Government leaders said that massive bailouts were necessary. Were they right?

Bullying Congress

The New York Times wrote on July 16th:

In retrospect, Congress felt bullied by Mr. Paulson last year. Many of them fervently believed they should not prop up the banks that had led us to this crisis — yet they were pushed by Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke into passing the $700 billion TARP, which was then used to bail out those very banks.

In his latest trend forecast, Gerald Celente writes:

It was the familiar fear tactic — one that had worked in the past and would work again — an economic version of the Bush/Cheney argument for the Iraq War. The people were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. If he wasn’t stopped, the next cloud would be a mushroom cloud.

The pretense was different but the game was the same: instill fear in a panicked public and they will follow their leader, regardless of how shallow the reasoning or how big the lie.

Just as the nation was hurried to war before it could be proven that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda ties, so too there was no time to debate what might happen if the “too big to fail” failed…

While the national pastime of “follow the leader” is always the path of least resistance, it comes at a high cost … financial ruin and/or war and death. In either case, when disaster strikes, the followers typically absolve themselves of any direct moral responsibility for both the outcome and for the role they played in allowing it to happen.

Celente is over-the-top, right? Tin foil hat time, right?

Well, maybe. But Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn’t passed:

[...]

Bait And Switch


Indeed, the Tarp Inspector General has said that Paulson misrepresented some fundamental aspects of Tarp.

And Paulson himself has said:

During the two weeks that Congress considered the [Tarp] legislation, market conditions worsened considerably. It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets—our initial focus—would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem. In consultation with the Federal Reserve, I determined that the most timely, effective step to improve credit market conditions was to strengthen bank balance sheets quickly through direct purchases of equity in banks.

So Paulson knew “by the time the bill was signed” that it wouldn’t be used for its advertised purpose – disposing of toxic assets – and would instead be used to give money directly to the big banks? But he didn’t tell Congress before they voted to approve the Tarp legislation? Does that mean that Paulson either actively misrepresented the purpose of the legislation or else committed a lie by omission – holding his tongue even though the fundamental idea behind his bill had changed?

It was a bait-and-switch, whether or not it was an intentional one.

The House Next Door

And while I have never heard of Obama and Bernanke’s “house next door” speeches before, Celente does a good job of describing them and then pulling the rug out from under their rationale:

Asked why taxpayers should be forced to foot the bill to bail out banks, brokerages, insurance companies and other institutions that had made bad bets, Mr. Obama responded, “You know, if my neighbor’s house is on fire, even if they were smoking
in the bedroom or leaving the stove on, right now my main incentive is to put out that fire so that it doesn’t spread to my house.”

When asked the same question seven months later, Ben Bernanke resorted to the same illegitimate analogy: “If you have a neighbor, who smokes in bed. And he’s a risk to everybody. If suppose he sets fire to his house, and you might say to yourself, ‘I’m not gonna call the fire department. Let his house burn down. It’s fine with me.’ But what if your house is made of wood? And it’s right next door to his house? What if the whole town is made of wood? Well, I think we’d all agree that the right thing to do is put out that fire first, and then say, ‘What punishment
is appropriate? How should we change the fire code? What needs to be done to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future? How can we fire proof our houses?’ That’s where we are now. We have a fire going on.”

Comparing a neighbor’s house on fire to spending trillions to bail out failed financial institutions is a totally fraudulent, puerile and transparent analogy … one that happened to be accepted without question by the entire media and foisted upon the public as the logic of the wise.

“Smoking in bed” and “the house on fire” bore no relationship to the reality. More to the point, what if your neighbor is a compulsive gambler who lost his fortune in Vegas and is now losing his house? Should the “whole town” be taxed for generations to come so that your neighbor is able to retain possession of his McMansion? And for his gross failures, should he be further rewarded with millions in “executive compensation” so he can travel first class back to Vegas to continue his wasteful, profligate ways?

Preventing the Next Fire

The bottom line is this. If the fire at the neighbor’s house was threatening your house, wouldn’t you want his matches taken away? Especially if he had lit fires that had burned down other houses in the past?

Unfortunately, as I have previously pointed out, Obama’s proposed economic regulations are like a law which makes arson illegal, but exempts convicted arsonists.

The top independent economists warn that the economy will not stabilize – and hundreds of billions or trillions of additional dollars will need to be thrown at the giant banks and financial companies – unless the fundamental problems are actually addressed and fixed. They agree that – to date – Obama, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and the rest of the boys have not done so.

Indeed, I would argue that the government is actually handing out matches by encouraging the financial giants to hide the extent of their toxic assets (through funny accounting and the continued use of SIVs), restart the shadow banking system, re-lever up, and engage in new types of financial schemes such as securitization of life insurance policies.

As I wrote a year ago, by trying to put out the raging fires of deleveraging, the government was ensuring that they would grow and wipe out the whole forest.

And as former head BIS economist William White wrote recently, we have to resist the temptation to blow another bubble every time the economy gets in trouble:

Forest fires are judged to be nasty, especially when one’s own house or life is threatened, or when grave harm is being done to tourist attractions. The popular conviction that fires are an unqualified evil reached its zenith after a third of Yellowstone Park in the US was destroyed by fire in 1988. Nevertheless, conventional wisdom among forest managers remains that it is best to let natural forest fires burn themselves out, unless particularly dangerous conditions apply. Burning appears to be part of a natural process of forest rejuvenation. Moreover, intermittent fires burn away the undergrowth that might accumulate and make any eventual fire uncontrollable.

Perhaps modern macroeconomists could learn from the forest managers. For decades, successive economic downturns and even threats of downturns (“pre-emptive easing”) have been met with massive monetary and often fiscal stimuli…

Just as good forest management implies cutting away underbrush and selective tree-felling, we need to resist the ­credit-driven expansions that fuel asset bubbles and unsustainable spending patterns. Recent reports from a number of jurisdictions with well-developed financial markets seem to agree that regulatory instruments play an important role in leaning against such phenomena. What is less clear is that central bankers recognise that they might have an even more important role to play. In light of the recent surge in asset prices worldwide, this issue needs urgent attention. Yet another boom-bust cycle could have negative implications, social and political, stretching beyond the sphere of economics.

Whoever started the fire in the first place, and whether or not there was really a crisis which required bailouts the first time around, the fact is that the government is ensuring more – and – bigger fires in the future.
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Want to know what WebBot is?

Find out in this interview that Heinrick Palmgren has with its’ creator, Cliff High!

Cliff High – Web Bot and Predicting the Future

…

According to film maker James Fox, if Gary McKinnon had just waited until October 19th, 2009, he wouldn’t be in as must trouble as he is with the American Federal Empire:

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon could be
facing 70 years in prison for hacking into government UFO files. He should
have just waited until Monday, October 19th @ 9 p.m. ET/PT when investigative
filmmaker James Fox (of FCZ Media) provides answers on the UFO phenomenon in
his feature-length documentary I Know What I Saw airing exclusively on The
History Channel.  Fox assembled the most credible UFO witnesses from around
the world to testify at The National Press Club in Washington D.C.  For the
first time, Air Force Generals, astronauts, military and commercial pilots,
and government and FAA officials from seven countries speak out on national
television, providing shocking evidence that UFOs are real.

Narrated by James Fox, I Know What I Saw traces sightings and reports
worldwide. Testimony includes high-ranking military personnel, pilots and
astronauts from France, England, Belgium, Chile, Peru, Iran and the United
States who all call on the U.S. Government to re-open its investigation into
UFOs – which the Air Force shut down over 30 years ago.

In I Know What I Saw, filmmaker James Fox uncovers new details of a UFO
landing at an American Air Force base in the UK.  U.S. Air Force Col. Charles
Halt recently admitted, “In December 1980 I was involved in a multi night
incident where a UFO landed, was touched, photographed and departed rapidly.
Two nights later, five or more intelligently controlled objects, assumed to be
extraterrestrial, returned to the area and were witnessed by numerous people.”
Air Force Sergeant, James Penniston, copied strange markings from the landed
UFO which filmmaker James Fox has analyzed by an expert symbologist for the
very first time. The results are startling.

Senator John McCain and Arizona Governor Fife Symington reveal their efforts
to investigate the infamous “Phoenix lights” sighting. “I believe that our
government should take an active role in investigating this very real
phenomenon,” said Symington, who was himself a witness to the reported mile
wide craft seen by thousands in Arizona while he was governor.

For more information about James Fox and I Know What I Saw go to
www.iknowwhatisawthemovie.com

I don’t how much truth was gleaned from Fox’s interviews, but interviewing the above listed people would go a long way toward some credibility in the study of UFOs.

But until the subject is studied under the same empirical scrutiny that SETI or others are given, all we have amounts the same as religious stygmata.

Cyclical Singularity

Discoveries like the ancient Greek Antikythera computer (1500 years before the invention of precision geared devices) the Baghdad batteries (2000 years before Volta “invented” the battery) or dental and brain surgery artifacts found in ancient Pakistan (8000 years out of historical sequence) appear “anomalous” within our current paradigm of history. However, they are not unexpected according to the ancient cyclical view.

Giorgio de Santillana, the former professor of the history of science at MIT, tells us that most ancient cultures believed consciousness and history were not linear but cyclical, meaning they would rise and fall over long periods of times. In his landmark work, Hamlet’s Mill, Giorgio and co-author Hertha von Dechend showed that the myth and folklore of over 30 ancient cultures around the world spoke of a vast cycle of time with alternating Dark and Golden Ages that move with the precession of the equinox. Plato called this the Great Year.

Although the idea of a great cycle timed by the slow precession of the equinox was common to multiple cultures before the Christian era most of us were taught this is just a fairytale; there was no Golden Age. However, an increasing body of new astronomical and archaeological evidence suggests the cycle may have a basis in fact. More importantly, understanding the cycle might provide insight into where society is headed at this time and why consciousness may be expanding at an exponential rate. Understanding the cause of precession is key to understanding the cycle.

NWO Population Control Propaganda / Commercial Space Venture Uses Old Soviet Tech with Conflict of Interest?

The Optimum Population Trust says today (August 17, 2009) that the climate change talks which will culminate at Copenhagen in December must ensure that all countries adopt non-coercive policies to limit and stabilise population growth. Family planning programmes in poorer countries should be treated as “legitimate candidates for climate change funding”. Empowering women to control their own fertility would also have major humanitarian benefits for the poorest women and children in the world.

Successful population policies, which answered the unmet need for family planning, could mean nearly three billion fewer people in 2050, a difference equivalent to 44 per cent of current world population (6.8 billion), OPT says. “All environmental problems, and notably those arising from climate change, would be easier to solve with a smaller future population.”
The Campaign To Control World’s Population
The Existentialist Cowboy
The Rising Cost of Idiocy
The dumbing down of America began with Ronald Reagan who made idiots feel good about being idiots. Reagan proved that not only was intelligence not required to be President, it might even be a handicap.

Reagan proved that any politician ignoring the 'idiot' voting block [the GOP] imperils his/her political future. Thus, Sarah Palin, who became an expert on Russia by observing its coast line from across the Bering Strait, is assured a growing constituency: the legion of idiots! She is the poster bimbo of idiocy! Its champion!

'Dumbing down' implies that the US still has a way to go before bottoming out! But that observation smacks of intelligence and may safely be ignored. The real idiot i.e, a GOP idiot, does not know where the f_ck we are or how we got there and is not smart enough to care! The word 'idiot' summons up images of Ronald Reagan and, more recently, George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, Reagan had essential Presidential skills. He could read cue cards. Bush could not or did not read! Reagan taught the GOP that how you say something is much more important than what is said. Bush, by contrast, was challenged to speak.

Reagan spouted racist crap about a welfare 'grandma' who drove a Cadillac. There was no such person. It was Reagan's kindly, grandfatherly head nod that sold it. Bush, by contrast, said: "Who cares what you think?"Had a smart person told that story, he would have been pilloried as a bald-faced liar. The story was untrue but Reagan's telling of it was not only tolerated by most of us but embraced by the increasingly stupid and psychotic GOP. 

Because of that and numerous other whoppers, the GOP was thus set free to roll out their every whopper. Reagan had taken the GOP into new and unexplored territory. Think of it: there was no whopper so outrageous, no lie so egregious, no bullshit theory so incredible that it could not be sold with help from a focus group, a head nod and a smarmy, 'grandfatherly' smile. 

Reagan's idiocy became an insurmountable political advantage, an advantage that would --one day --give us George W. Bush. Reagan was not evil, they said; he was just senile! Give him a break! With this bit of GOP-logic, we should all be thankful. We are --after all --still alive. The US survived eight years in a which a senile idiot might have plunged us into nuclear war. When he thought his microphone was off, he 'reported' that he had just ordered a nuclear strike on Russia.