Michael sez: This whole ordeal is fishy to me. Something is afoot in this incident that is not coming out. Yeah. I know. Pakistan had to move lots of troops from the Afghan border and leave it unprotected. Pakistan and India both have nuclear weapons. And they are of major religions that are sworn enemies. That is the face of the news. That is what is being reported. So what the hell is going on? This story is taken from the Belfast News from Ireland.
**********
It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.
Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus.
"I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but theydidn't seem to care."
The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. "I first saw the gunmen outside the station," Mr D'Souza said. "With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.
"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."
But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back.
"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."
As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."
The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."
Sunday, November 30, 2008
NWO AND THE CRASH MINIMUM
Michael sez: Got this from a British newspaper. It is another attack on our rights by the NWO folks. We are now about to experience the CRASH MINIMUM. You read it first on Staying Alive. It will be colder than a well diggers ass in the Klondike this Winter but these NWO freaks will be posting their crap without let-up. These people want a legally recognized entity to be able to gather money from around the globe for what ever purpose they wish. It's what you and I would call Global Taxation. If they get a steady stream of income then they will be able to afford troops and armaments and all kinds of neat stuff to keep us in bondage. We survivalists will be mocked and ridiculed beyond belief by the money controlled media. Hang on to your hats folks. This crap is going on for at least two years! And don't forget the earthquakes in the next couple of weeks. Volcanoes and earthquakes seem to become more frequent in a Minimum.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:29PM GMT 28 Nov 2008
Stephen Hockman QC is proposing a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment.
The first role of the new body would be to enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions set to be agreed next year.
But the court would also fine countries or companies that fail to protect endangered species or degrade the natural environment and enforce the "right to a healthy environment".
The innovative idea is being presented to an audience of politicians, scientists and public figures for the first time at a symposium at the British Library.
Mr Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, said that the threat of climate change means it is more important than ever for the law to protect the environment.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland this month is set to begin negotiations that will lead to a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen next year.
Developed countries are expected to commit to cutting emissions drastically, while developing countries agree to halt deforestation.
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has agreed the concept of an international court will be taken into account when considering how to make these international agreements on climate change binding. The court is also backed by a number of MPs, climate change experts and public figures including the actress Judi Dench.
Mr Hockman said an international court will be needed to enforce and regulate any agreement.
"The time is now ripe to set this up and get it going," he said. "Its remit will be overall climate change and the need for better regulation of carbon emissions but at the same time the implementation and enforcement of international environmental agreements and instruments."
As well as providing resolution between states, the court will also be useful for multinational businesses in ensuring environmental laws are kept to in every country.
The court would include a convention on the right to a healthy environment and provide a higher body for individuals or non-governmental organisations to protest against an environmental injustice.
Mr Hockman said the court may be able to fine businesses or states but its main role will be in making "declaratory rulings" that influence and embarrass countries into upholding the law.
He said: "Of course regulations and sanctions alone cannot deliver a global solution to problems of climate change, but without such components the incentive for individual countries to address those problems – and to achieve solutions that are politically acceptable within their own jurisdictions – will be much reduced."
The court would be led by retired judges, climate change experts and public figures. It would include a scientific body to consider evidence and provide access to any data on the environment.
Most importantly, Mr Hockman said an international court on the environment would influence public opinion which in turn would force Governments to take the environment seriously. He said: "If there are bodies around that can give definitive legal rulings that are accepted as fair and reasonable that has its own impact on public opinion."
Friends of the Earth welcomed the idea.
A spokesman said: "We think any institution that is going to promote and help people enforce their right to a clean and healthy environment is a good thing."
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:29PM GMT 28 Nov 2008
Stephen Hockman QC is proposing a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment.
The first role of the new body would be to enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions set to be agreed next year.
But the court would also fine countries or companies that fail to protect endangered species or degrade the natural environment and enforce the "right to a healthy environment".
The innovative idea is being presented to an audience of politicians, scientists and public figures for the first time at a symposium at the British Library.
Mr Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, said that the threat of climate change means it is more important than ever for the law to protect the environment.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland this month is set to begin negotiations that will lead to a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen next year.
Developed countries are expected to commit to cutting emissions drastically, while developing countries agree to halt deforestation.
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has agreed the concept of an international court will be taken into account when considering how to make these international agreements on climate change binding. The court is also backed by a number of MPs, climate change experts and public figures including the actress Judi Dench.
Mr Hockman said an international court will be needed to enforce and regulate any agreement.
"The time is now ripe to set this up and get it going," he said. "Its remit will be overall climate change and the need for better regulation of carbon emissions but at the same time the implementation and enforcement of international environmental agreements and instruments."
As well as providing resolution between states, the court will also be useful for multinational businesses in ensuring environmental laws are kept to in every country.
The court would include a convention on the right to a healthy environment and provide a higher body for individuals or non-governmental organisations to protest against an environmental injustice.
Mr Hockman said the court may be able to fine businesses or states but its main role will be in making "declaratory rulings" that influence and embarrass countries into upholding the law.
He said: "Of course regulations and sanctions alone cannot deliver a global solution to problems of climate change, but without such components the incentive for individual countries to address those problems – and to achieve solutions that are politically acceptable within their own jurisdictions – will be much reduced."
The court would be led by retired judges, climate change experts and public figures. It would include a scientific body to consider evidence and provide access to any data on the environment.
Most importantly, Mr Hockman said an international court on the environment would influence public opinion which in turn would force Governments to take the environment seriously. He said: "If there are bodies around that can give definitive legal rulings that are accepted as fair and reasonable that has its own impact on public opinion."
Friends of the Earth welcomed the idea.
A spokesman said: "We think any institution that is going to promote and help people enforce their right to a clean and healthy environment is a good thing."
PREPS AND POLITICS
It's raining outside. It's in the 30's and it's raining. One thing I do not like is wet cold. But we have warmth and that helps us, if we stay inside. We are supposed to have snow this afternoon but I cannot feature it sticking. At the worst we will have a slick time of it tomorrow morning. But we are preppers and we are presumably ready for whatever comes along. We are having a communal breakfast this morning and it should really be a dandy. The thing I don't like about communal meals is that they have so much carbohydrates. I like fats and proteins. They fill you up and nourish your body. Carbs just turn to fat unless you are pretty active.
Mention was made this morning of the stable price of Chinamart ammo these past few months. I figure we should all have our bullets accumulated by the first of the year. We have all watched the political routine and we have an idea of what is coming so, true to our school, we will be ready. I know I will. If you come to get back to back with me you had better bring a 12 gauge shotgun. Fun guns! And it is hilarious how people avoid getting in front of them. Folks hear that familiar click, clack, and they start looking to be somewhere else. Can't say as I blame them.
.223 and .308 are pretty expensive unless you buy a whole lot and have it shipped in. And .308 will still be pretty dear using THAT method. What it all boils down to is the Democrat Party is the shooting industries best friend. When reasonable people know that the democrats are coming they buy like crazy and prepare for the worst. Horrible regulation and product shortages are the name of the game. Thank goodness I got started on my ammo collection three years ago. Dubya was letting the guns and ammo flow to the public and there was no democrat in sight. So I bought. Now a crisis of huge proportions is upon us, whether real or imagined, and the prices are going up. The liberals are going to have a fight on their hands with the mid-term elections, if we have them. It's getting to be a toss-up these days as to whether or not the government will actually let us vote. Voting is not one of my priorities. Folks say you can't bitch about government unless you vote and I say kiss my ass. If I want to bitch I will and no one will stop me. I didn't vote this time because the candidates were so rotten I couldn't bear to do it. And it is all just a game anymore. Voting is not going to make a difference on the national scene. The American voters have to get their faces rubbed in shit before they will do anything about their lot in life. I can't help that. I did not cause that. I just have to live with the outcome of it. And you do too!
My food stash is coming along quite well and if I don't have to eat a lot of my Cranberry beans this Winter and Spring I will have quite a bit of seed to grow in the garden. Some folks are concerned that confiscation of food will be brought up on us by this new administration. I am not too worried about that. With all the people out of work and hungry the fedgov will have it's hands full feeding folks and fighting off a civil war. Hungry people will do that sort of stuff, you know. I guess that when people really get hungry they will start paying attention to what is going on around them. I read a quote from Thomas Jefferson this morning that went along the lines of "I would rather have dangerous liberty than secure slavery. Well done, Tom.
Y'all stay alive and prosper the best you can. Our day is coming. Do not be fooled.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
Mention was made this morning of the stable price of Chinamart ammo these past few months. I figure we should all have our bullets accumulated by the first of the year. We have all watched the political routine and we have an idea of what is coming so, true to our school, we will be ready. I know I will. If you come to get back to back with me you had better bring a 12 gauge shotgun. Fun guns! And it is hilarious how people avoid getting in front of them. Folks hear that familiar click, clack, and they start looking to be somewhere else. Can't say as I blame them.
.223 and .308 are pretty expensive unless you buy a whole lot and have it shipped in. And .308 will still be pretty dear using THAT method. What it all boils down to is the Democrat Party is the shooting industries best friend. When reasonable people know that the democrats are coming they buy like crazy and prepare for the worst. Horrible regulation and product shortages are the name of the game. Thank goodness I got started on my ammo collection three years ago. Dubya was letting the guns and ammo flow to the public and there was no democrat in sight. So I bought. Now a crisis of huge proportions is upon us, whether real or imagined, and the prices are going up. The liberals are going to have a fight on their hands with the mid-term elections, if we have them. It's getting to be a toss-up these days as to whether or not the government will actually let us vote. Voting is not one of my priorities. Folks say you can't bitch about government unless you vote and I say kiss my ass. If I want to bitch I will and no one will stop me. I didn't vote this time because the candidates were so rotten I couldn't bear to do it. And it is all just a game anymore. Voting is not going to make a difference on the national scene. The American voters have to get their faces rubbed in shit before they will do anything about their lot in life. I can't help that. I did not cause that. I just have to live with the outcome of it. And you do too!
My food stash is coming along quite well and if I don't have to eat a lot of my Cranberry beans this Winter and Spring I will have quite a bit of seed to grow in the garden. Some folks are concerned that confiscation of food will be brought up on us by this new administration. I am not too worried about that. With all the people out of work and hungry the fedgov will have it's hands full feeding folks and fighting off a civil war. Hungry people will do that sort of stuff, you know. I guess that when people really get hungry they will start paying attention to what is going on around them. I read a quote from Thomas Jefferson this morning that went along the lines of "I would rather have dangerous liberty than secure slavery. Well done, Tom.
Y'all stay alive and prosper the best you can. Our day is coming. Do not be fooled.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
Saturday, November 29, 2008
GETTIN' READY IN ARKANSAS
Michael sez: I got this off of Drudge. It made me think of the folks at Half Past Human and their prediciton of an earthquake aound the 10th or 12th of December, and then another one a couple days from then, if I got that right. I read George Ure when I remember it. I have so much on my mind at times I can forget things I hadn't oughta. Goes with the turf I reckon.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A series of small earthquakes that rattled central Arkansas in recent weeks could be a sign of something much bigger to come.
By this weekend, seismologists hope to install three measurement devices to gather data about future temblors in the area. That information could show whether the rumbles come from heat-related geological changes or from an undiscovered fault — which could mean a risk of substantial earthquakes in the future.
"The potential for generating a high-magnitude earthquake is real," said Haydar Al-Shukri, director of the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Five earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 2.2 to 2.7 have hit central Arkansas this month. Quakes with a magnitude of 2.5 to 3 are typically the smallest felt by people.
While hundreds of earthquakes occur each year, including several in Arkansas, the location of the recent ones give Al-Shukri pause. Arkansas quakes generally occur in the state's northeast corner, part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, where three temblors with magnitudes of around 8 struck during the winter of 1812 and smaller ones continue today.
But central Arkansas does not have any seismic history, Al-Shukri said.
"It is abnormal. It is significant," he said. "We need to carefully watch this activity."
The area does not have any permanent seismograph, so researchers asked the University of Memphis in Tennessee if they could use its portable equipment. The nearest seismographs aren't close enough to provide the detailed readings scientists need to determine what could be causing the tremors or properly locate their origin, said Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazard supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey.
"I don't know if you've looked at a map of where these events are located, but they've got a scatter on them," he said. "We're thinking this is probably the inherited error built in when you try to locate events of this small a magnitude from that far away."
Ausbrooks said officials would install the three seismographs around Magnet Cove, a Hot Spring County community near where a magnitude-2.7 earthquake hit on Nov. 1. Residents told police dispatchers they heard what sounded like an explosion.
One possible culprit could be a hydrothermal quake, caused by extremely hot fluid pushing into rocks under the surface. The hot fluid percolates into the cracks of the rocks and causes movement, Al-Shukri said.
That theory matches the geologic history of the area. Central Arkansas is home to Hot Springs, a city that grew up around its namesake spas. The springs have 143-degree waters rushing to the surface continuously.
If that's the case, the earthquakes likely wouldn't pose a drastic danger to the area, Al-Shukri said. At their strongest, such quakes reach only a magnitude of 5, the U.S. Geological Survey's threshold for "moderate."
However, if the earthquakes are caused by a previously unknown fault, that could mean a much more powerful temblor in the future. A recently discovered fault in eastern Arkansas near Marianna caused an earthquake with a magnitude of between 7.2 and 7.5 in the past 5,000 years, Al-Shukri said. That could cause widespread, heavy damage.
"Now, it's not active, but in geologist time, that's yesterday," he said.
Ausbrooks wouldn't speculate on what could be causing the earthquakes, saying he wanted to see what data the seismographs capture. However, he acknowledged an unknown fault could be running through the area.
"There are numerous faults across the state, both known and unknown," Ausbrooks said. "This area has got a lot of faults associated with it from the mountain building of the Ouachitas, but they're considered inactive."
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A series of small earthquakes that rattled central Arkansas in recent weeks could be a sign of something much bigger to come.
By this weekend, seismologists hope to install three measurement devices to gather data about future temblors in the area. That information could show whether the rumbles come from heat-related geological changes or from an undiscovered fault — which could mean a risk of substantial earthquakes in the future.
"The potential for generating a high-magnitude earthquake is real," said Haydar Al-Shukri, director of the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Five earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 2.2 to 2.7 have hit central Arkansas this month. Quakes with a magnitude of 2.5 to 3 are typically the smallest felt by people.
While hundreds of earthquakes occur each year, including several in Arkansas, the location of the recent ones give Al-Shukri pause. Arkansas quakes generally occur in the state's northeast corner, part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, where three temblors with magnitudes of around 8 struck during the winter of 1812 and smaller ones continue today.
But central Arkansas does not have any seismic history, Al-Shukri said.
"It is abnormal. It is significant," he said. "We need to carefully watch this activity."
The area does not have any permanent seismograph, so researchers asked the University of Memphis in Tennessee if they could use its portable equipment. The nearest seismographs aren't close enough to provide the detailed readings scientists need to determine what could be causing the tremors or properly locate their origin, said Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazard supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey.
"I don't know if you've looked at a map of where these events are located, but they've got a scatter on them," he said. "We're thinking this is probably the inherited error built in when you try to locate events of this small a magnitude from that far away."
Ausbrooks said officials would install the three seismographs around Magnet Cove, a Hot Spring County community near where a magnitude-2.7 earthquake hit on Nov. 1. Residents told police dispatchers they heard what sounded like an explosion.
One possible culprit could be a hydrothermal quake, caused by extremely hot fluid pushing into rocks under the surface. The hot fluid percolates into the cracks of the rocks and causes movement, Al-Shukri said.
That theory matches the geologic history of the area. Central Arkansas is home to Hot Springs, a city that grew up around its namesake spas. The springs have 143-degree waters rushing to the surface continuously.
If that's the case, the earthquakes likely wouldn't pose a drastic danger to the area, Al-Shukri said. At their strongest, such quakes reach only a magnitude of 5, the U.S. Geological Survey's threshold for "moderate."
However, if the earthquakes are caused by a previously unknown fault, that could mean a much more powerful temblor in the future. A recently discovered fault in eastern Arkansas near Marianna caused an earthquake with a magnitude of between 7.2 and 7.5 in the past 5,000 years, Al-Shukri said. That could cause widespread, heavy damage.
"Now, it's not active, but in geologist time, that's yesterday," he said.
Ausbrooks wouldn't speculate on what could be causing the earthquakes, saying he wanted to see what data the seismographs capture. However, he acknowledged an unknown fault could be running through the area.
"There are numerous faults across the state, both known and unknown," Ausbrooks said. "This area has got a lot of faults associated with it from the mountain building of the Ouachitas, but they're considered inactive."
THE GOLD RUSH
Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels. Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world's monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup.
The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.
This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.
"They are throwing the kitchen sink at this," said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist.
"The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.
"Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don't think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes," he said.
"This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised."
"What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We're already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore," he said.
Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. "If true, this is a very material change," he said.
Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. "People have started to question the value of government debt," he said.
Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months – reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency.
Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses.
The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.
This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.
"They are throwing the kitchen sink at this," said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist.
"The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.
"Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don't think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes," he said.
"This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised."
"What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We're already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore," he said.
Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. "If true, this is a very material change," he said.
Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. "People have started to question the value of government debt," he said.
Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months – reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency.
Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses.
A CLUE TO THE SCENE
Even after the historic stock market rally, global markets have lost $50 trillion in wealth over one year. I think people still haven’t come to terms or grasp the magnitude of wealth destruction we have just lived through. Sure, we can flip out about the $200 billion the U.S. Treasury injected into consumer debt markets so people can go out and jump on the consumption treadmill on Black Friday but that is a drop in the bucket compared to the wealth destruction we just went through. And future indicators point to further market distress.
What are the 3 major areas where this wealth was destroyed? We have global equity markets, real estate, and commodities.
First, let us take a look at the financial damage done in the global financial markets:
In this area alone, more than $32 trillion in global wealth has evaporated. The global stock markets provided the quickest and most up to date information on the perceived market value of actual assets in countries around the world. The fact that we are $32 trillion poorer on paper this year than in 2007 should make you think what exactly happened to that money? If you need a helping hand you should read the article describing deflation and exactly what wealth destruction will do to a society.
Much of this destruction is based of course on the credit crisis. So far, institutions have taken credit losses on bad loan write-downs to the tune of $910 billion. Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg when we consider all the commercial real estate that will be busting in 2009.
So that is one area where the money has evaporated. Let us now look at how much wealth has been destroyed in U.S. real estate markets. During the peak, residential real estate in the United States had a value of $24 trillion. Since that peak, as measured by the Case-Shiller Index U.S. residential real estate is now down by 22%.
So only in residential real estate in the U.S. $5.28 trillion in housing wealth is now gone:
$24 trillion x 22% = $5.28 trillion
Keep in mind that this doesn’t factor in the collapse of the commercial real estate market as well. In addition, there were global housing bubbles in the U.K., Spain, Ireland, Australia, and China that are facing similar price declines to the United States.
The other wealth destruction comes from the utter collapse of the commodities markets.
The most visible and probably most highly followed is the collapse of the oil markets:
The oil markets have collapsed by 67% since the peak of $147 a barrel was reached. This is a stunning reversal of the fortune of many countries dependent on oil. For example the Russian Trading System Index was holding up a bit stronger due to exports in oil but with the collapse, the index is now down a jaw dropping 74% and the market had to be closed a few times during the turmoil.
What this global collapse should prove is that anyone that thought that there was going to be decoupling was simply wrong. We are completely tied together. No economy is isolated and what this shows is that there was really hardly any place for money to hide.
$50 trillion is now gone from the system. Will there be more losses to come?
What are the 3 major areas where this wealth was destroyed? We have global equity markets, real estate, and commodities.
First, let us take a look at the financial damage done in the global financial markets:
In this area alone, more than $32 trillion in global wealth has evaporated. The global stock markets provided the quickest and most up to date information on the perceived market value of actual assets in countries around the world. The fact that we are $32 trillion poorer on paper this year than in 2007 should make you think what exactly happened to that money? If you need a helping hand you should read the article describing deflation and exactly what wealth destruction will do to a society.
Much of this destruction is based of course on the credit crisis. So far, institutions have taken credit losses on bad loan write-downs to the tune of $910 billion. Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg when we consider all the commercial real estate that will be busting in 2009.
So that is one area where the money has evaporated. Let us now look at how much wealth has been destroyed in U.S. real estate markets. During the peak, residential real estate in the United States had a value of $24 trillion. Since that peak, as measured by the Case-Shiller Index U.S. residential real estate is now down by 22%.
So only in residential real estate in the U.S. $5.28 trillion in housing wealth is now gone:
$24 trillion x 22% = $5.28 trillion
Keep in mind that this doesn’t factor in the collapse of the commercial real estate market as well. In addition, there were global housing bubbles in the U.K., Spain, Ireland, Australia, and China that are facing similar price declines to the United States.
The other wealth destruction comes from the utter collapse of the commodities markets.
The most visible and probably most highly followed is the collapse of the oil markets:
The oil markets have collapsed by 67% since the peak of $147 a barrel was reached. This is a stunning reversal of the fortune of many countries dependent on oil. For example the Russian Trading System Index was holding up a bit stronger due to exports in oil but with the collapse, the index is now down a jaw dropping 74% and the market had to be closed a few times during the turmoil.
What this global collapse should prove is that anyone that thought that there was going to be decoupling was simply wrong. We are completely tied together. No economy is isolated and what this shows is that there was really hardly any place for money to hide.
$50 trillion is now gone from the system. Will there be more losses to come?
SURVIVALISM
Michael sez: This is a very nice article sent to m by Jim Haddix. It is amazingly well spoken. I especially liked the part where survivalism was called a celebration of community. I will try to make it to that party!
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Survivalism: for Peak Oilers and Ecotopians Too?
Written by Jerry Erwin, Portland Peak Oil
As a peak oiler myself since 2002, I have often wondered why most of the prominent peak oil authors and activists dismiss the survivalist movement.
It seems that many of the peak oil heavyweights, including Richard Heinberg and Dmitry Orlov, in particular, despite their own ingenious contributions to analyzing our current predicament, seem to blithely dismiss survivalism. They apparently do not understand the basic technical constructs of survivalism, such as the military skill sets, weapons, and organization that go into survivalism. They also do not seem to understand the technical aspects of long-term food storage (i.e. oxygen absorbers, desiccants, dry ice, etc.), or the emphasis that survivalism also places on organic gardening and food preservation.
Survivalism derives its origins from several sources: Government-sponsored civil defense, threats of nuclear warfare, religious beliefs, writers warning of social or economic collapse, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and climate change.
During the 1970s, modern survivalism, as we understand it, was pioneered by various individuals: newsletter writer Kurt Saxon (who may have invented the term survivalism), and the combat shooting instructor Mel Tappan, the author of several books. The main threat being prepared for during the 1970s and 1980s was that of nuclear war.
The practice of survivalism seemed to wane around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, during the 1990s under Clinton’s presidency, a small fringe of ultra-right wing people did begin forming militias, which seemed to associate itself with survivalism. These people, mostly religious fundamentalists, had a fear of a one-world government and UN occupation of the US (this may have been due to UN troops training at the US Army’s Joint Readiness Training Centers, with their vehicles and equipment seen being transported by rail and flatbed semis).
During the late 1990s however, there was a more mainstream following of survivalism, particularly among technical professionals, due to the perceived threat of a Year 2000 computer crash. Many of these survivalists had established retreats in rural areas, with a deep larder (i.e., long-term food storage), complete with perimeter security and military-grade weapons. This was in preparation for wandering looters and hostile refugees, looking for food and other supplies. There were also fears of FEMA exercising Executive Orders that would allow them to confiscate personal property for redistribution, along with the use of vehicles, etc (this actually took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).
Currently, people having learned about peak oil, particularly from documentaries such as The End of Suburbia and various books written on the subject, have swelled the ranks of people within the survivalism/preparedness movement. Jim Rawles, the modern patron saint of survivalism, has acknowledged this himself. Rawles runs Survivalblog.com, the number one internet site on survivalism/preparedness.
There are many misconceptions between peak oilers and survivalism. The following are the main two:
Claim: Peak Oilers believe in community, and survivalists don't.
This is false. It also depends on what you physically have around you for a “community.” For instance, if you already live in an intentional community, an Eco-village, or similar type of urban or rural environment, then you are set, regarding community (assuming you can survive an outside armed threat, which has already manifested itself by “the bad guys” within Survivalist chartrooms, message boards, etc). This would also include neighborhoods with like-minded, progressive-thinking individuals.
If however, you live in suburbia, where all your neighbors are trapped within the dominant culture, never heard of Peak Oil or any other collapse theory and get all their news from the major corporate networks, these neighbors could be your worst nightmare. As several posts to Survivalblog.com have indicated, based on actual occurrences of power outages, etc., these neighbors borrowed things without giving them back, or before the fact, had admitted, “Now I know where to come if (fill in the blank) happens…” However, these same people offer nothing in return to the prepared individual, or the rest of the neighborhood, for that matter. This attitude seems particularly pervasive in upper middle-class, suburban communities.
Granted, an individual who practices survivalism could try to organize his or her community, but depending on the mindsets of the neighbors, this could be difficult to impossible. Having a feel for my own neighborhood, I have concluded with the latter, except for possibly the family directly across the street. Based on the characteristics and behavior of our own neighborhood association, my own wife and I have concluded that we should maintain an extremely low profile. Otherwise the other neighbors will expect me to protect them, or for us to feed them.
Survivalists also have their own communities; nationwide on the internet, and in local areas, where survivalism is an accepted norm, such as in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc. To the people in these areas, “survivalism” is simply a newer word describing the self-sufficiency practiced in these areas for generations. Many of these people routinely barter between their rural households, and in many ways, already live the “Post Peak Oil” lifestyle. "I'd say that survivalism is indeed a celebration of community," Rawles asserts. "It is the embodiment of America's traditional can-do spirit of self-reliance that settled the frontier." [editor’s note: it was already settled, although significantly depopulated by European diseases.]
Claim: Survivalists will only add to the problem, once the problems start.
This is another misconception, and has been clearly stated by several peak oilers, particularly Richard Heinberg, author of the masterpiece The Party’s Over: War, Oil, and the fate of Industrial Societies.
First off, in terms of a “fast crash” (as compared to a “slow crash”, similar to what we are witnessing the beginning stages of, currently), survivalists are people who have already prepared for their own civil defense considerations, and will therefore not seek to burden the authorities, FEMA, Red Cross, etc.
Second, the more theologically motivated practitioners of survivalism have specifically set themselves up, in order to dispense charity, or to “give until it hurts”, to quote Jim Rawles, himself a fundamentalist Christian. This is also a concern for many other survivalists, as they see people reduced to refugees, who have children among them. In the event of a fast crash, we could witness heart-rending hardships among refugees, the likes of which have not been seen since the American Civil War.
From a scene in his prophetic Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse (the current ‘bible’ of the survivalist movement, an instruction manual dressed as fiction), a passing group of refugees with children is ambushed by the main characters from concealed spider holes, without any shots being fired (roughly one year into the collapse). After going through a number of security procedures, they determine that this group is indeed peaceful. The refugees are then given an entire five gallon storage bucket of grain, in addition to peanut butter, potatoes, onions, ammunition for their weapons, etc. They were also given the warning that if they came back, they would not get anything, and that if they moved on their retreat, they would “get cut down like sheep”.
However, in all honesty, some survivalists will not be in a position to dispense charity, especially if their suburban home is their retreat, or they happen to live near a high-traffic area for refugees, etc.
Conclusion:
The bottom line here is this: The Peak Oil movement has got to acknowledge that people under the circumstances of a fast crash are not necessarily going to be nice. Personally, I have met many other professional people around the country, who flatly admit, “I’m not worried about anything. Besides, if anything happens I’ve got a gun, so I’ll have food”. In addition, based on the message traffic on the internet previously mentioned, there are already people with their own plans to ‘go shopping,’ so to speak, at the expense of pre-announced, unarmed ecotopian communities, as one discussion board post has already stated. As someone who was forced to live in California’s foster care system during a previous period of fossil fuel scarcity (late 1970s), I am reminded that people will resort to whatever means to economically (or physically) survive, especially if that means exploiting the weaker members in that society.
Octavia Butler seemed to understand this. In 1993, her brilliant, fictional masterpiece, Parable of the Sower, was published. It takes place in the year 2025, in an oil-depleted and climate-changed world. After traveling north on Interstate-5 within a sea of refugees from the Los Angeles area, the main characters settle into their own eco-village, complete with perimeter security, to include obstacles, as well as posted and roving armed security.
Being unarmed, and simply trusting everyone around you, when they happen to be struggling with their own survival, is not necessarily a good idea. Even in a slow crash, we will experience more crime in the form of break-ins, robberies, assaults, murders, etc. As Dmitry Orlov himself has stated in one interview conducted earlier this year, there were many people who simply disappeared during the societal decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union, who were likely murdered. These deaths were “hardly ever investigated, much less solved” (Orlov).
Home
Survivalism: for Peak Oilers and Ecotopians Too?
Written by Jerry Erwin, Portland Peak Oil
As a peak oiler myself since 2002, I have often wondered why most of the prominent peak oil authors and activists dismiss the survivalist movement.
It seems that many of the peak oil heavyweights, including Richard Heinberg and Dmitry Orlov, in particular, despite their own ingenious contributions to analyzing our current predicament, seem to blithely dismiss survivalism. They apparently do not understand the basic technical constructs of survivalism, such as the military skill sets, weapons, and organization that go into survivalism. They also do not seem to understand the technical aspects of long-term food storage (i.e. oxygen absorbers, desiccants, dry ice, etc.), or the emphasis that survivalism also places on organic gardening and food preservation.
Survivalism derives its origins from several sources: Government-sponsored civil defense, threats of nuclear warfare, religious beliefs, writers warning of social or economic collapse, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and climate change.
During the 1970s, modern survivalism, as we understand it, was pioneered by various individuals: newsletter writer Kurt Saxon (who may have invented the term survivalism), and the combat shooting instructor Mel Tappan, the author of several books. The main threat being prepared for during the 1970s and 1980s was that of nuclear war.
The practice of survivalism seemed to wane around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, during the 1990s under Clinton’s presidency, a small fringe of ultra-right wing people did begin forming militias, which seemed to associate itself with survivalism. These people, mostly religious fundamentalists, had a fear of a one-world government and UN occupation of the US (this may have been due to UN troops training at the US Army’s Joint Readiness Training Centers, with their vehicles and equipment seen being transported by rail and flatbed semis).
During the late 1990s however, there was a more mainstream following of survivalism, particularly among technical professionals, due to the perceived threat of a Year 2000 computer crash. Many of these survivalists had established retreats in rural areas, with a deep larder (i.e., long-term food storage), complete with perimeter security and military-grade weapons. This was in preparation for wandering looters and hostile refugees, looking for food and other supplies. There were also fears of FEMA exercising Executive Orders that would allow them to confiscate personal property for redistribution, along with the use of vehicles, etc (this actually took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).
Currently, people having learned about peak oil, particularly from documentaries such as The End of Suburbia and various books written on the subject, have swelled the ranks of people within the survivalism/preparedness movement. Jim Rawles, the modern patron saint of survivalism, has acknowledged this himself. Rawles runs Survivalblog.com, the number one internet site on survivalism/preparedness.
There are many misconceptions between peak oilers and survivalism. The following are the main two:
Claim: Peak Oilers believe in community, and survivalists don't.
This is false. It also depends on what you physically have around you for a “community.” For instance, if you already live in an intentional community, an Eco-village, or similar type of urban or rural environment, then you are set, regarding community (assuming you can survive an outside armed threat, which has already manifested itself by “the bad guys” within Survivalist chartrooms, message boards, etc). This would also include neighborhoods with like-minded, progressive-thinking individuals.
If however, you live in suburbia, where all your neighbors are trapped within the dominant culture, never heard of Peak Oil or any other collapse theory and get all their news from the major corporate networks, these neighbors could be your worst nightmare. As several posts to Survivalblog.com have indicated, based on actual occurrences of power outages, etc., these neighbors borrowed things without giving them back, or before the fact, had admitted, “Now I know where to come if (fill in the blank) happens…” However, these same people offer nothing in return to the prepared individual, or the rest of the neighborhood, for that matter. This attitude seems particularly pervasive in upper middle-class, suburban communities.
Granted, an individual who practices survivalism could try to organize his or her community, but depending on the mindsets of the neighbors, this could be difficult to impossible. Having a feel for my own neighborhood, I have concluded with the latter, except for possibly the family directly across the street. Based on the characteristics and behavior of our own neighborhood association, my own wife and I have concluded that we should maintain an extremely low profile. Otherwise the other neighbors will expect me to protect them, or for us to feed them.
Survivalists also have their own communities; nationwide on the internet, and in local areas, where survivalism is an accepted norm, such as in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc. To the people in these areas, “survivalism” is simply a newer word describing the self-sufficiency practiced in these areas for generations. Many of these people routinely barter between their rural households, and in many ways, already live the “Post Peak Oil” lifestyle. "I'd say that survivalism is indeed a celebration of community," Rawles asserts. "It is the embodiment of America's traditional can-do spirit of self-reliance that settled the frontier." [editor’s note: it was already settled, although significantly depopulated by European diseases.]
Claim: Survivalists will only add to the problem, once the problems start.
This is another misconception, and has been clearly stated by several peak oilers, particularly Richard Heinberg, author of the masterpiece The Party’s Over: War, Oil, and the fate of Industrial Societies.
First off, in terms of a “fast crash” (as compared to a “slow crash”, similar to what we are witnessing the beginning stages of, currently), survivalists are people who have already prepared for their own civil defense considerations, and will therefore not seek to burden the authorities, FEMA, Red Cross, etc.
Second, the more theologically motivated practitioners of survivalism have specifically set themselves up, in order to dispense charity, or to “give until it hurts”, to quote Jim Rawles, himself a fundamentalist Christian. This is also a concern for many other survivalists, as they see people reduced to refugees, who have children among them. In the event of a fast crash, we could witness heart-rending hardships among refugees, the likes of which have not been seen since the American Civil War.
From a scene in his prophetic Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse (the current ‘bible’ of the survivalist movement, an instruction manual dressed as fiction), a passing group of refugees with children is ambushed by the main characters from concealed spider holes, without any shots being fired (roughly one year into the collapse). After going through a number of security procedures, they determine that this group is indeed peaceful. The refugees are then given an entire five gallon storage bucket of grain, in addition to peanut butter, potatoes, onions, ammunition for their weapons, etc. They were also given the warning that if they came back, they would not get anything, and that if they moved on their retreat, they would “get cut down like sheep”.
However, in all honesty, some survivalists will not be in a position to dispense charity, especially if their suburban home is their retreat, or they happen to live near a high-traffic area for refugees, etc.
Conclusion:
The bottom line here is this: The Peak Oil movement has got to acknowledge that people under the circumstances of a fast crash are not necessarily going to be nice. Personally, I have met many other professional people around the country, who flatly admit, “I’m not worried about anything. Besides, if anything happens I’ve got a gun, so I’ll have food”. In addition, based on the message traffic on the internet previously mentioned, there are already people with their own plans to ‘go shopping,’ so to speak, at the expense of pre-announced, unarmed ecotopian communities, as one discussion board post has already stated. As someone who was forced to live in California’s foster care system during a previous period of fossil fuel scarcity (late 1970s), I am reminded that people will resort to whatever means to economically (or physically) survive, especially if that means exploiting the weaker members in that society.
Octavia Butler seemed to understand this. In 1993, her brilliant, fictional masterpiece, Parable of the Sower, was published. It takes place in the year 2025, in an oil-depleted and climate-changed world. After traveling north on Interstate-5 within a sea of refugees from the Los Angeles area, the main characters settle into their own eco-village, complete with perimeter security, to include obstacles, as well as posted and roving armed security.
Being unarmed, and simply trusting everyone around you, when they happen to be struggling with their own survival, is not necessarily a good idea. Even in a slow crash, we will experience more crime in the form of break-ins, robberies, assaults, murders, etc. As Dmitry Orlov himself has stated in one interview conducted earlier this year, there were many people who simply disappeared during the societal decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union, who were likely murdered. These deaths were “hardly ever investigated, much less solved” (Orlov).
Friday, November 28, 2008
TROUBLE IN THE DAKOTA'S
Michael sez: This story came from the Daily Kos, through Stan Dayo, thrugh Jim Haddix and now through me. It's a long time time coming but it is here now. Notice the line about the insurance company maybe being insolvent.
*********
November 27, 2008
By Neal Rauhauser
Daily Kos
Last week I received a very concerned call from South Dakota farmer and agronomist Bryan Lutter. "Neal, we're out of propane!" I figured this was personal distress – he and his family farm over three square miles of land and I know this has been a tough year for many people. He promptly corrected my misconception when I tried to console him. "No, everybody is out, all three grain elevators, we can't get fuel for the bins, and we're coming in real wet this year."
There are equally dramatic issues due to the bankruptcy of Verasun and the apparent insolvency of the nation's largest private crop insurance program. Payments that would have come in June or July of a normal year are still not dispersed at the end of November and this has grim implications for next year's crop.I started digging into the details and unless I'm badly mistaken people are going to be starving in 2009 over causes and conditions being set down right now. It's a complex, interlocking issue, and I hope I've done a good job explaining it below the fold ...(I just submitted my personal story and a vision for the nation at change.gov - I sure hope someone is listening over there.)
The Dakotas have faced fuel restrictions for at least the last two years. They're at the far end of the pipeline network and after complete outages in 2007 everyone orders their diesel well in advance. Vehicle tanks are kept fuller and the on farm tanks are not allowed to run low. Gasoline supply dynamics have changed as well; British Petroleum shuttered three hundred stations in the area, citing the high cost of trucking fuel to the locations from the pipeline terminals. This year propane is in short supply. Rural homes in that part of the world are heated with propane and the grain elevator and on farm drying require it to bring corn moisture down for storage. There is no sense that homes will go cold this year, at least not due to supply issues; the grain drying season is a short period of intense usage that will draw to an end within the next week. Pray to whatever higher power you recognize that the unheard of figure of 18% of the crop still in the field is brought in before the snow flies.
The Dakotas were very wet this year and the corn is coming in at 22% moisture. A more usual number would be 18% and for long term storage it must be dried to 14% to avoid spoilage. That doubling in the moisture reduction needed, an 8% drop instead of 4%, pretty much doubles the amount of propane used. Right now the harvest is at a dead stop. What can be dried has been and what is left can't even be combined without the fuel to make it ready for storage; it would all just spoil in the bin if put up wet.
I wondered if this was a spot problem in that particular part of South Dakota, but Bryan said it was widespread – he'd talked to farmers as far away as St. Louis and they were reporting similar issues.I made a few calls to try to figure out how broad the problem was. I ended up talking to Rollin Tiefenthaler at fuel dealer Al's Corner in Carroll, Iowa about the issue.
The Iowa crop comes matures earlier and is brought in earlier, so that is done, but he confirms that propane is being trucked long distances because local terminals have outages. They did have one farmer's cooperative run out of propane and they scrambled to get them enough, but in general it wasn't a problem. These are plains cooperatives, operations with thirty employees, dozens of vehicles, and tens of millions of dollars in inventory and commodities under management, so one running out of fuel is a problem that would affect a whole county.
Diesel has been a bigger concern for them – instead of the thirty mile drive to the Magellan pipeline terminal in Milford they're running as far as Des Moines or Omaha, each about two hours away, and the added time and cost for running more trucks is eating them alive.
The die has already been cast in the Dakotas, they'll either get the crop in or they won't. If they don't and it winters in the field they not only lose 40% of the yield on that ground they lose 20% of next year's yield in soy beans. The corn makes an excellent snow fence, trapping drifts six feet high, and they're slow to clear in the spring. The farmers have to wait until it's dry enough to plant before they can finish bringing in the corn crop, then they plant their soy, and that delay cuts into the growing degree days available for the soy beans and thusly we see the yield drop.A few of you might not be from farm state and thusly won't know the normal work flow. The corn crop is still partially in the field, but the soy beans are already done. Soy matures and dries earlier, so it gets tended first. There would never been an instance of soy being left to overwinter just based on crop timing and I don't think the small, thin stocks with relatively fragile pods would prove to be terribly durable under snow banks.I wrote earlier about the famine potential we face due to the underfertilization of the wheat crop.
Wheat that gets enough ammonia is 14% protein, if it is unfertilized closer to 8%, and that 43% reduction in total plant protein is going to cause unimaginable suffering in places like Egypt, where half of the population gets subsidized bread. Global end of season per capita wheat stocks have been about seventy pounds my entire life, except the last three years where they've dropped to only forty pounds. One mistake in this area and one of the four horsemen gets loose, certainly dragging his brothers along behind. That mistake may already have been made in the lack of wheat fertilization this fall.
The fall nitrogen fertilizer application has been 10% of the norm. A typical year would see 50% put on in the fall and 50% in the spring. During fertilizer application season the 3,100 mile national ammonia pipeline network runs flat out and the far points on the network experience low flow both fall and spring. If they try to jam 90% of the fertilization into a period of time when the system can only flow a little more than half of the need much of our cropland will go without in the spring of 2009.
Finances as much as weather are the issue with regards to fertilization this fall. Crop prices have fallen to half of what they were, ammonia prices have dropped but ammonia suppliers here, receiving 75% of their supply from overseas, still have product in their storage tanks purchase at the historical highs last spring and summer.
When farmers plant they record the acreage and they purchase crop insurance - $20 to $40 an acre depending on the crop. If they have a failure they file a claim, an adjustor contacts them, and they get a check to cover the deficit. Some of this runs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and some of it is through private insurers.
My conversations with farmers earlier this week lead me to believe that the largest private insurer, Des Moines Iowa's Rain and Hail Agricultural Insurance may be insolvent. Flooding claims from this spring were filed and payments would have typically been received by the end of June or beginning of July. It's now the end of November and payments are not being dispersed. Individual farmers are told there was something wrong with their paperwork, but this is nonsense – some of these guys have been farming thirty years and they all didn't forget how to fill out a simple form all at the same time. Iowa did have its second five hundred year flood in a decade and a half this spring which certainly has something to do with the situation, but I suspect Wall Street's sticky fingers got hold of Rain & Hail's assets, just as they've done to every pension fund and state run municipal investment pool.
So, we're already facing what Bryan Lutter calls "the mother of all fertilizer shortages" next spring and on top of that local banks won't lend to farmers.
The local bank was quite willing to lend to a farmer on a crop despite the weather related risks just like they'd lend on a car despite the driving risks. So long as the asset was insured the risk was deemed manageable. There were sure to be losses here and there, but they'd be administrative hassles associated with well known risks. If the auto insurance companies were viewed as untrustworthy no one would be getting a car without 100% down at the dealership and the same rule is now in effect for farmers.
Farmers without financing can't afford nitrogen fertilizer at $1,000 a ton, which translates to $100 an acre at current application rates. They won't be paying $300 for a bag of 80,000 hybrid corn kernels, again a $100 per acre expense. The average farm size in Iowa is four hundred acres and planting to harvesting would run about $120,000.
This looks incredibly bad. Bryan and I are both puzzled as to why the mainstream media isn't covering this. Perhaps the need to sell Christmas season advertising trumps the need for the public to know about the troubles that are brewing.This is already 1,600 words and I haven't even touched Verasun. Executive summary? The nation's second largest ethanol maker took corn from farmers, went bankrupt without paying many of them, and a whole lot of family farms are going to be foreclosed upon in short order if something isn't done.
*********
November 27, 2008
By Neal Rauhauser
Daily Kos
Last week I received a very concerned call from South Dakota farmer and agronomist Bryan Lutter. "Neal, we're out of propane!" I figured this was personal distress – he and his family farm over three square miles of land and I know this has been a tough year for many people. He promptly corrected my misconception when I tried to console him. "No, everybody is out, all three grain elevators, we can't get fuel for the bins, and we're coming in real wet this year."
There are equally dramatic issues due to the bankruptcy of Verasun and the apparent insolvency of the nation's largest private crop insurance program. Payments that would have come in June or July of a normal year are still not dispersed at the end of November and this has grim implications for next year's crop.I started digging into the details and unless I'm badly mistaken people are going to be starving in 2009 over causes and conditions being set down right now. It's a complex, interlocking issue, and I hope I've done a good job explaining it below the fold ...(I just submitted my personal story and a vision for the nation at change.gov - I sure hope someone is listening over there.)
The Dakotas have faced fuel restrictions for at least the last two years. They're at the far end of the pipeline network and after complete outages in 2007 everyone orders their diesel well in advance. Vehicle tanks are kept fuller and the on farm tanks are not allowed to run low. Gasoline supply dynamics have changed as well; British Petroleum shuttered three hundred stations in the area, citing the high cost of trucking fuel to the locations from the pipeline terminals. This year propane is in short supply. Rural homes in that part of the world are heated with propane and the grain elevator and on farm drying require it to bring corn moisture down for storage. There is no sense that homes will go cold this year, at least not due to supply issues; the grain drying season is a short period of intense usage that will draw to an end within the next week. Pray to whatever higher power you recognize that the unheard of figure of 18% of the crop still in the field is brought in before the snow flies.
The Dakotas were very wet this year and the corn is coming in at 22% moisture. A more usual number would be 18% and for long term storage it must be dried to 14% to avoid spoilage. That doubling in the moisture reduction needed, an 8% drop instead of 4%, pretty much doubles the amount of propane used. Right now the harvest is at a dead stop. What can be dried has been and what is left can't even be combined without the fuel to make it ready for storage; it would all just spoil in the bin if put up wet.
I wondered if this was a spot problem in that particular part of South Dakota, but Bryan said it was widespread – he'd talked to farmers as far away as St. Louis and they were reporting similar issues.I made a few calls to try to figure out how broad the problem was. I ended up talking to Rollin Tiefenthaler at fuel dealer Al's Corner in Carroll, Iowa about the issue.
The Iowa crop comes matures earlier and is brought in earlier, so that is done, but he confirms that propane is being trucked long distances because local terminals have outages. They did have one farmer's cooperative run out of propane and they scrambled to get them enough, but in general it wasn't a problem. These are plains cooperatives, operations with thirty employees, dozens of vehicles, and tens of millions of dollars in inventory and commodities under management, so one running out of fuel is a problem that would affect a whole county.
Diesel has been a bigger concern for them – instead of the thirty mile drive to the Magellan pipeline terminal in Milford they're running as far as Des Moines or Omaha, each about two hours away, and the added time and cost for running more trucks is eating them alive.
The die has already been cast in the Dakotas, they'll either get the crop in or they won't. If they don't and it winters in the field they not only lose 40% of the yield on that ground they lose 20% of next year's yield in soy beans. The corn makes an excellent snow fence, trapping drifts six feet high, and they're slow to clear in the spring. The farmers have to wait until it's dry enough to plant before they can finish bringing in the corn crop, then they plant their soy, and that delay cuts into the growing degree days available for the soy beans and thusly we see the yield drop.A few of you might not be from farm state and thusly won't know the normal work flow. The corn crop is still partially in the field, but the soy beans are already done. Soy matures and dries earlier, so it gets tended first. There would never been an instance of soy being left to overwinter just based on crop timing and I don't think the small, thin stocks with relatively fragile pods would prove to be terribly durable under snow banks.I wrote earlier about the famine potential we face due to the underfertilization of the wheat crop.
Wheat that gets enough ammonia is 14% protein, if it is unfertilized closer to 8%, and that 43% reduction in total plant protein is going to cause unimaginable suffering in places like Egypt, where half of the population gets subsidized bread. Global end of season per capita wheat stocks have been about seventy pounds my entire life, except the last three years where they've dropped to only forty pounds. One mistake in this area and one of the four horsemen gets loose, certainly dragging his brothers along behind. That mistake may already have been made in the lack of wheat fertilization this fall.
The fall nitrogen fertilizer application has been 10% of the norm. A typical year would see 50% put on in the fall and 50% in the spring. During fertilizer application season the 3,100 mile national ammonia pipeline network runs flat out and the far points on the network experience low flow both fall and spring. If they try to jam 90% of the fertilization into a period of time when the system can only flow a little more than half of the need much of our cropland will go without in the spring of 2009.
Finances as much as weather are the issue with regards to fertilization this fall. Crop prices have fallen to half of what they were, ammonia prices have dropped but ammonia suppliers here, receiving 75% of their supply from overseas, still have product in their storage tanks purchase at the historical highs last spring and summer.
When farmers plant they record the acreage and they purchase crop insurance - $20 to $40 an acre depending on the crop. If they have a failure they file a claim, an adjustor contacts them, and they get a check to cover the deficit. Some of this runs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and some of it is through private insurers.
My conversations with farmers earlier this week lead me to believe that the largest private insurer, Des Moines Iowa's Rain and Hail Agricultural Insurance may be insolvent. Flooding claims from this spring were filed and payments would have typically been received by the end of June or beginning of July. It's now the end of November and payments are not being dispersed. Individual farmers are told there was something wrong with their paperwork, but this is nonsense – some of these guys have been farming thirty years and they all didn't forget how to fill out a simple form all at the same time. Iowa did have its second five hundred year flood in a decade and a half this spring which certainly has something to do with the situation, but I suspect Wall Street's sticky fingers got hold of Rain & Hail's assets, just as they've done to every pension fund and state run municipal investment pool.
So, we're already facing what Bryan Lutter calls "the mother of all fertilizer shortages" next spring and on top of that local banks won't lend to farmers.
The local bank was quite willing to lend to a farmer on a crop despite the weather related risks just like they'd lend on a car despite the driving risks. So long as the asset was insured the risk was deemed manageable. There were sure to be losses here and there, but they'd be administrative hassles associated with well known risks. If the auto insurance companies were viewed as untrustworthy no one would be getting a car without 100% down at the dealership and the same rule is now in effect for farmers.
Farmers without financing can't afford nitrogen fertilizer at $1,000 a ton, which translates to $100 an acre at current application rates. They won't be paying $300 for a bag of 80,000 hybrid corn kernels, again a $100 per acre expense. The average farm size in Iowa is four hundred acres and planting to harvesting would run about $120,000.
This looks incredibly bad. Bryan and I are both puzzled as to why the mainstream media isn't covering this. Perhaps the need to sell Christmas season advertising trumps the need for the public to know about the troubles that are brewing.This is already 1,600 words and I haven't even touched Verasun. Executive summary? The nation's second largest ethanol maker took corn from farmers, went bankrupt without paying many of them, and a whole lot of family farms are going to be foreclosed upon in short order if something isn't done.
TURKEY DAY AND CHINA
It's Black Friday. The day America is supposed to go out and start spending. I'm betting it is not going to be too pretty. Deep sales are being advertised to get shoppers into the stores. The retail guys are desperate to get this shopping boosted up there. But there is a sickness in the financial world. It is a sickness of lies and treachery and deceit. It is not going to stand. It will come crashing down.
We had National Turkey Day yesterday and the wife and I both ate until we hurt. In the spirit of reality, I will christen this day National Bowel Movement Day. Get your business in early folks cause the lines will be busy. Sewer lines that is. As is customary, the Oyster Dressing ran out first. You just can't keep Oyster Dressing out on the serving table. It is gone, gone, gone.
The ladies cooked so much food it was incredible. The big dishes were full of Turkey, of course, followed by mashed potatoes. Then there were salads, bean casseroles, etc. Homemade rolls were plentiful this year because we ran out last year. Naturally, there was plenty of Turkey gravy for the potatoes.
There were about 150 to 200 people at the meal. You can call communal people just about anything but don't call them late for a meal. And, as can be expected, everyone ate the good food in extraordinary volume. I only had two plates of food and a small saucer of dessert but I saw some people really packing it in. But they were eating it and not wasting it so everything was fine. There was not too much walking around and socializing. People were busy with the task at hand and that task was to enjoy a wonderful repast with their friends. The men were all stalwart and handsome and the ladies were all beautiful. I enjoyed it immensely. We had a lot of young folks at the dinner. That is always a happy thing. The young are the future. I worked my body and wracked my brain for 30 hard years to help build this place and I have no quarrel with turning the next phase over to the young. My generation got the concrete poured and built the launching pad to the future. The young can build the rocket ship and launch the damn thing. They have a land base and some businesses. If God will bless them they are on the way. And I believe he will bless them. I believe it is part of his plan.
As I look at the situation with the Chinese as I posted earlier this morning, I am seeing America making enemies. America is going to take the hit for the failed business model of the Chinese government. I mean, after all, we have to remain pragmatic and rational here. You think those Chinese Bureaucrats will take the blame for any mistakes they have made? Hell no! The greed of the Americans will take the blame. The greed of the Chinese will never be mentioned. Never mind that China is investing billions of dollars in Africa and South America. Never mind that China maintains a 2,000,000 member Army. Never mind that they are pouring money into a space program. Never mind that China poured money into a housing and business construction industry for their nation that swept the worlds supply of sheet rock and concrete and copper and lumber and steel away to Asian shores. Just their use of copper alone has doubled the price of our ammo here in this country. But America is going to get blamed for this, so get ready for some good old nationalistic hatred to come spewing out of China. We will be the scapegoat. And in a sense we are. We sold this idea of selling debt to the rest of the world and to ourselves. Hey! Wanna buy my debt? You'll get rich doing it! Hah!
The house of cards collapses.
Stay alive.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
We had National Turkey Day yesterday and the wife and I both ate until we hurt. In the spirit of reality, I will christen this day National Bowel Movement Day. Get your business in early folks cause the lines will be busy. Sewer lines that is. As is customary, the Oyster Dressing ran out first. You just can't keep Oyster Dressing out on the serving table. It is gone, gone, gone.
The ladies cooked so much food it was incredible. The big dishes were full of Turkey, of course, followed by mashed potatoes. Then there were salads, bean casseroles, etc. Homemade rolls were plentiful this year because we ran out last year. Naturally, there was plenty of Turkey gravy for the potatoes.
There were about 150 to 200 people at the meal. You can call communal people just about anything but don't call them late for a meal. And, as can be expected, everyone ate the good food in extraordinary volume. I only had two plates of food and a small saucer of dessert but I saw some people really packing it in. But they were eating it and not wasting it so everything was fine. There was not too much walking around and socializing. People were busy with the task at hand and that task was to enjoy a wonderful repast with their friends. The men were all stalwart and handsome and the ladies were all beautiful. I enjoyed it immensely. We had a lot of young folks at the dinner. That is always a happy thing. The young are the future. I worked my body and wracked my brain for 30 hard years to help build this place and I have no quarrel with turning the next phase over to the young. My generation got the concrete poured and built the launching pad to the future. The young can build the rocket ship and launch the damn thing. They have a land base and some businesses. If God will bless them they are on the way. And I believe he will bless them. I believe it is part of his plan.
As I look at the situation with the Chinese as I posted earlier this morning, I am seeing America making enemies. America is going to take the hit for the failed business model of the Chinese government. I mean, after all, we have to remain pragmatic and rational here. You think those Chinese Bureaucrats will take the blame for any mistakes they have made? Hell no! The greed of the Americans will take the blame. The greed of the Chinese will never be mentioned. Never mind that China is investing billions of dollars in Africa and South America. Never mind that China maintains a 2,000,000 member Army. Never mind that they are pouring money into a space program. Never mind that China poured money into a housing and business construction industry for their nation that swept the worlds supply of sheet rock and concrete and copper and lumber and steel away to Asian shores. Just their use of copper alone has doubled the price of our ammo here in this country. But America is going to get blamed for this, so get ready for some good old nationalistic hatred to come spewing out of China. We will be the scapegoat. And in a sense we are. We sold this idea of selling debt to the rest of the world and to ourselves. Hey! Wanna buy my debt? You'll get rich doing it! Hah!
The house of cards collapses.
Stay alive.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
CHINESE GETTING THE SHAFT
Michael sez: The Chinese have done no wrong. They have worked hard and worked well. They have gone along with the program as they were asked. Now they are getting the shaft. Now they are being lied to. Now they are pissed off. More friends for America.
CHINA
Chinese leaders in panic over crisis and unemploymentA rapid rise in unemployment is expected, because of the shutdown or lower production of many companies. The jobs of 120 million migrants are at risk, but also those of 6 million new graduates. Social protests are growing among workers fired without proper severance pay.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - "Owing to dramatic changes in the international economic and financial environment, the Chinese economy currently faces growing downside pressure," and "the global financial crisis has not bottomed out yet."
Zhang Ping, president of the national commission for development and reform, the highest office of economic policy in the country, said today at a press conference that the crisis in the country has become much more severe since November, and said that in 2009, "excessive bankruptcies and production cuts will lead to massive unemployment and stir social unrest."
This is already happening now, and protests continue to break out among workers fired with minimal severance, or without being paid at all. On the night of November 25 in Dongguan, about 500 workers fired from the toy factory Kader Holdings (one of the oldest in the area) broke windows and furniture in the offices, and clashed with police in protest against the "unjust severance" they had received.
The crisis is especially severe for the 120 million migrant workers concentrated in the big cities, upon whose sacrifice China built the economic boom, and who are now the first to be fired. Of the 8.6 million people living and working in Shenzhen, less than 25% are "permanent residents." Economist Andie Xie expects "about 20% of the migrants to lose their jobs."
Meanwhile, there are also 6 million new graduates seeking work, who are also being hit by the crisis.
In order to stimulate production, the central bank has cut interest rates by 1.08 points, the biggest cut since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
It is an ad hoc measure that has left a number of experts puzzled. Stephen Green observes that "rate policy in this environment is a marginal factor - businesses think about possible returns on investments, and households will look at house price prospects."
Erwin Sanft, an economics expert, tells Bloomberg that "there’s near-panic in Beijing as they look at ways to cushion the slowdown."
CHINA
Chinese leaders in panic over crisis and unemploymentA rapid rise in unemployment is expected, because of the shutdown or lower production of many companies. The jobs of 120 million migrants are at risk, but also those of 6 million new graduates. Social protests are growing among workers fired without proper severance pay.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - "Owing to dramatic changes in the international economic and financial environment, the Chinese economy currently faces growing downside pressure," and "the global financial crisis has not bottomed out yet."
Zhang Ping, president of the national commission for development and reform, the highest office of economic policy in the country, said today at a press conference that the crisis in the country has become much more severe since November, and said that in 2009, "excessive bankruptcies and production cuts will lead to massive unemployment and stir social unrest."
This is already happening now, and protests continue to break out among workers fired with minimal severance, or without being paid at all. On the night of November 25 in Dongguan, about 500 workers fired from the toy factory Kader Holdings (one of the oldest in the area) broke windows and furniture in the offices, and clashed with police in protest against the "unjust severance" they had received.
The crisis is especially severe for the 120 million migrant workers concentrated in the big cities, upon whose sacrifice China built the economic boom, and who are now the first to be fired. Of the 8.6 million people living and working in Shenzhen, less than 25% are "permanent residents." Economist Andie Xie expects "about 20% of the migrants to lose their jobs."
Meanwhile, there are also 6 million new graduates seeking work, who are also being hit by the crisis.
In order to stimulate production, the central bank has cut interest rates by 1.08 points, the biggest cut since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
It is an ad hoc measure that has left a number of experts puzzled. Stephen Green observes that "rate policy in this environment is a marginal factor - businesses think about possible returns on investments, and households will look at house price prospects."
Erwin Sanft, an economics expert, tells Bloomberg that "there’s near-panic in Beijing as they look at ways to cushion the slowdown."
Thursday, November 27, 2008
A VICTIM OF GLOBAL WARMING
David Bellamy November 25, 2008
Article from: The Australian
WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.
According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.
My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"
It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.
At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.
I've seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies: CO2 is not the driver. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles. It's a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.
If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago, we'd be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn't be here otherwise.
People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you've got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.
In fact, it's not even science any more; it's anti-science.
There's no proof, it's just projections, and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry-pick the ones that support their beliefs. To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.
Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.
And how were we convinced that this problem exists, even though all the evidence from measurements goes against the fact? God knows. Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that's not global warming. They're drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.
So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore's biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.
Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I'm still an environmentalist, I'm still a Green and I'm still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming "problem" that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are bigger problems at stake.
I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I've been saying for 35 years.
Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.
David Bellamy is a botanist, author of 35 books, and has presented 400 television programs.
Article from: The Australian
WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.
According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.
My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"
It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.
At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.
I've seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies: CO2 is not the driver. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles. It's a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.
If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago, we'd be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn't be here otherwise.
People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you've got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.
In fact, it's not even science any more; it's anti-science.
There's no proof, it's just projections, and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry-pick the ones that support their beliefs. To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.
Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.
And how were we convinced that this problem exists, even though all the evidence from measurements goes against the fact? God knows. Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that's not global warming. They're drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.
So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore's biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.
Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I'm still an environmentalist, I'm still a Green and I'm still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming "problem" that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are bigger problems at stake.
I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I've been saying for 35 years.
Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.
David Bellamy is a botanist, author of 35 books, and has presented 400 television programs.
A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
The following is an excerpt from a recent post to a friend:
The stupid sheople of this country have managed to allow, even
encourage a circumstance where we are now in truly desperate straits.
We, armed Americans, have essentially NO automatic weapons. Statutes
are already 'well above the horizon' which will remove from us
'untagged' ammunition, or make felons of those who possess untagged
ammo.
We have no heavy weapons. We have no anti-air. We have no
helicopters. We have no TacAir. We have no explosives. We face the
simple fact that there is a snitch behind every other face.
Those remaining are subject to pressure from various and sundry government
agencies, and will roll over and turn snitch at almost any time. Our
food is becoming vastly more expensive. Our medicine, likewise. Those
with a clue are rapidly aging.
The magic at the government's ready supply include drones, which fly
too high and too quietly to observe, much less strike at, which will
call down hell and destruction on any force as large as a squad.
Our phones are ALL tapped. Our every expenditure is monitored. By
monitoring email and such, ALL the potential leaders of any resistance
are known. Soon enough, if the new would be Tyrant gets his way, as
it appears he will, most of our children will be suborned.
Our grandparents sold us into slavery, with Roosevelt. THEIR parents
laid the groundwork with Woodenhead Wilson and the FedRes and FBI and
all the rest. THEIR grandparents allowed Lincoln and his gang to
actually poison the Republic, and only now is the carcass seen to be
utterly beyond resuscitation and putrefying.
In short-- any 'resistance' will be onesies and twosies, will consist
of random and scattered sabotage and single killings of the tyrant's
servants. The higher reaches of the tyranny, anything above simple
state legislators, who are nothing more already than simple servants
of the elites, will be beyond reach, certainly beyond reach if someone
hopes to survive the effort at removing them.
With 'security cameras' becoming ubiquitous, nothing will be without
constant surveillance.
Any concentration of force is precisely what the military and
militarized law enforcement is specifically geared to handle. And the
lone wolves are, as stated, already known.
In short, Xxxx... too little, too late..... we could well be screwed.
The state uber alles is all but a completed reality.
Organized force of any size is a non-starter.
The stupid sheople of this country have managed to allow, even
encourage a circumstance where we are now in truly desperate straits.
We, armed Americans, have essentially NO automatic weapons. Statutes
are already 'well above the horizon' which will remove from us
'untagged' ammunition, or make felons of those who possess untagged
ammo.
We have no heavy weapons. We have no anti-air. We have no
helicopters. We have no TacAir. We have no explosives. We face the
simple fact that there is a snitch behind every other face.
Those remaining are subject to pressure from various and sundry government
agencies, and will roll over and turn snitch at almost any time. Our
food is becoming vastly more expensive. Our medicine, likewise. Those
with a clue are rapidly aging.
The magic at the government's ready supply include drones, which fly
too high and too quietly to observe, much less strike at, which will
call down hell and destruction on any force as large as a squad.
Our phones are ALL tapped. Our every expenditure is monitored. By
monitoring email and such, ALL the potential leaders of any resistance
are known. Soon enough, if the new would be Tyrant gets his way, as
it appears he will, most of our children will be suborned.
Our grandparents sold us into slavery, with Roosevelt. THEIR parents
laid the groundwork with Woodenhead Wilson and the FedRes and FBI and
all the rest. THEIR grandparents allowed Lincoln and his gang to
actually poison the Republic, and only now is the carcass seen to be
utterly beyond resuscitation and putrefying.
In short-- any 'resistance' will be onesies and twosies, will consist
of random and scattered sabotage and single killings of the tyrant's
servants. The higher reaches of the tyranny, anything above simple
state legislators, who are nothing more already than simple servants
of the elites, will be beyond reach, certainly beyond reach if someone
hopes to survive the effort at removing them.
With 'security cameras' becoming ubiquitous, nothing will be without
constant surveillance.
Any concentration of force is precisely what the military and
militarized law enforcement is specifically geared to handle. And the
lone wolves are, as stated, already known.
In short, Xxxx... too little, too late..... we could well be screwed.
The state uber alles is all but a completed reality.
Organized force of any size is a non-starter.
DEPRESSION, SPORTS AND REGULATION
DEPRESSION
The mainstream media does not want to use the "D" word so they now say we are in a deep recession. Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My Ass Off. It seems so clear to me that these people cannot tell the truth no matter what they are faced with. My dad used to say they couldn't say shit if they had a mouthful. The recession started last year and we have now made progress to the initial stages of Depression. What ever the unemployment figure is in the news, you just double it and get the facts. They say we have 6.5 % unemployment, well then, we really have 13 %. See how easy that was. We know the inflation rate is a cooked book so figure it at about 13 % also. Cheap gas is the only thing keeping the lid on the pot of American emotions. The nations airports are really quiet for this time of year. People can get through security and be ready to board in 10 minutes. It just means that fewer people are traveling for Thanksgiving.
SPORTS
I hear the NFL is starting to cut ticket prices. The NBA and MLB cannot be too far behind. I don't know how those $100,000 per game basketball players are going to make it. There is a pattern of behavior in sports these days that says a malcontent or a sociopath player of great ability can make a fortune. That could change pretty quickly.
REGULATION
Michael sez: Maybe something of what happened at the G-20 meeting.
www.newsmax.com
Dick Morris' Political Insider
Bush Hands Over Reins of U.S. Economy to EU
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:28 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy.
In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in total, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation, and excessive government regulation.
Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merging with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.
At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.
According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."
Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices.
The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.
There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation.
Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.
We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.
The European Union achieved this massive subjugation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve.
What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing.
By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.
All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of responding to the global financial crisis.
Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government!
The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.
Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to.
George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union.
In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe.
Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge?
How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, whose population is 50 percent greater?
It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper.
Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush — not Obama — Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.
The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?
The mainstream media does not want to use the "D" word so they now say we are in a deep recession. Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My Ass Off. It seems so clear to me that these people cannot tell the truth no matter what they are faced with. My dad used to say they couldn't say shit if they had a mouthful. The recession started last year and we have now made progress to the initial stages of Depression. What ever the unemployment figure is in the news, you just double it and get the facts. They say we have 6.5 % unemployment, well then, we really have 13 %. See how easy that was. We know the inflation rate is a cooked book so figure it at about 13 % also. Cheap gas is the only thing keeping the lid on the pot of American emotions. The nations airports are really quiet for this time of year. People can get through security and be ready to board in 10 minutes. It just means that fewer people are traveling for Thanksgiving.
SPORTS
I hear the NFL is starting to cut ticket prices. The NBA and MLB cannot be too far behind. I don't know how those $100,000 per game basketball players are going to make it. There is a pattern of behavior in sports these days that says a malcontent or a sociopath player of great ability can make a fortune. That could change pretty quickly.
REGULATION
Michael sez: Maybe something of what happened at the G-20 meeting.
www.newsmax.com
Dick Morris' Political Insider
Bush Hands Over Reins of U.S. Economy to EU
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:28 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy.
In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in total, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation, and excessive government regulation.
Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merging with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.
At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.
According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."
Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices.
The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.
There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation.
Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.
We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.
The European Union achieved this massive subjugation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve.
What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing.
By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.
All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of responding to the global financial crisis.
Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government!
The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.
Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to.
George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union.
In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe.
Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge?
How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, whose population is 50 percent greater?
It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper.
Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush — not Obama — Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.
The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
THE VATICAN SUED!
A federal appeals court has permitted a lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse to proceed against the Vatican, creating potential liability for the seat of the Roman Catholic faith for the activities of Catholic clergy in the U.S.
Monday's ruling, issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, marks the first time a court at so high a level has recognized that the Vatican could be liable for the negligence in sexual-abuse cases brought in the U.S.
The ruling is seen as a breakthrough by those allegedly abused by priests. Investigators and grand juries have found several instances where the church failed to report alleged abusers and covered up alleged misdeeds to protect them.
Jeffrey S. Lena, the attorney for the Holy See, said he was not "presently inclined" to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.
It remains to be seen whether the Vatican, which is a sovereign state recognized by the U.S. government, will make further arguments that it is immune from U.S. civil proceeding.
Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have paid out at least $1.5 billion to alleged abuse victims, most of this since the scandal broke open nationwide in 2002.
The appeals court found that the church government may be held liable for actions taken in the U.S. based on the Vatican's policies or directives.
"What the court has allowed us to do is proceed against the Vatican for the conduct of the U.S. bishops because of the bishops' failure to ... report child abuse," said William F. McMurry, the attorney for three men who claim they were abused as children by priests in the Louisville, Ky., archdiocese. He is seeking class-action status in the district-court case.
The ruling marks the first time that a federal appeals court recognized that the Vatican could be liable under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a 1976 law that governs when a foreign nation or its agents can be sued, said Marci Hamilton, a constitutional-law scholar who is part of the legal team in the Louisville case.
"If someone can crack that barrier of immunity, it opens the door to other claims against the Catholic church," says Jonathan Levy, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents concentration-camp survivors in a suit against numerous parties including the Vatican bank. The Vatican, in that case, prevailed in its claim of sovereign immunity.
Mr. Lena, the lawyer for the Holy See in the Louisville case, said Monday's ruling is a small step and one that is far from establishing whether Vatican policy contributed to thousands of incidents of abuse that have been alleged over several decades. "We're miles away from liability," he said. The ruling is "very incremental."
One of the central pieces of evidence in the case is a 1962 memo, issued by the Vatican and disclosed by reporters in 2003, which directs Catholic bishops to keep silent about claims of sex abuse. The document was approved by Pope John the 23rd.
Monday's ruling will allow the plaintiffs' case to proceed in U.S. District Court in Louisville.
Among the legal questions yet to be decided in the case is whether U.S. bishops are employees of the Vatican, and whether they acted on the Holy See's orders.—Nathan Koppel contributed to this article.
Monday's ruling, issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, marks the first time a court at so high a level has recognized that the Vatican could be liable for the negligence in sexual-abuse cases brought in the U.S.
The ruling is seen as a breakthrough by those allegedly abused by priests. Investigators and grand juries have found several instances where the church failed to report alleged abusers and covered up alleged misdeeds to protect them.
Jeffrey S. Lena, the attorney for the Holy See, said he was not "presently inclined" to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.
It remains to be seen whether the Vatican, which is a sovereign state recognized by the U.S. government, will make further arguments that it is immune from U.S. civil proceeding.
Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have paid out at least $1.5 billion to alleged abuse victims, most of this since the scandal broke open nationwide in 2002.
The appeals court found that the church government may be held liable for actions taken in the U.S. based on the Vatican's policies or directives.
"What the court has allowed us to do is proceed against the Vatican for the conduct of the U.S. bishops because of the bishops' failure to ... report child abuse," said William F. McMurry, the attorney for three men who claim they were abused as children by priests in the Louisville, Ky., archdiocese. He is seeking class-action status in the district-court case.
The ruling marks the first time that a federal appeals court recognized that the Vatican could be liable under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a 1976 law that governs when a foreign nation or its agents can be sued, said Marci Hamilton, a constitutional-law scholar who is part of the legal team in the Louisville case.
"If someone can crack that barrier of immunity, it opens the door to other claims against the Catholic church," says Jonathan Levy, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents concentration-camp survivors in a suit against numerous parties including the Vatican bank. The Vatican, in that case, prevailed in its claim of sovereign immunity.
Mr. Lena, the lawyer for the Holy See in the Louisville case, said Monday's ruling is a small step and one that is far from establishing whether Vatican policy contributed to thousands of incidents of abuse that have been alleged over several decades. "We're miles away from liability," he said. The ruling is "very incremental."
One of the central pieces of evidence in the case is a 1962 memo, issued by the Vatican and disclosed by reporters in 2003, which directs Catholic bishops to keep silent about claims of sex abuse. The document was approved by Pope John the 23rd.
Monday's ruling will allow the plaintiffs' case to proceed in U.S. District Court in Louisville.
Among the legal questions yet to be decided in the case is whether U.S. bishops are employees of the Vatican, and whether they acted on the Holy See's orders.—Nathan Koppel contributed to this article.
EXTRA TICKET COPS IN NYC
Michael sez: This article from CBS lays to rest once and for all the notion that police are out there to protect and serve. They are out there to serve their government masters. They should be indicting Wall Street criminals but no, they are fining any driver they possibly can. We can now forget about any denials of quotas and all of that. They lied. The truth has found them out.
NYC On Ticket Blitz; 200 Traffic Agents Added
Better Be On Your Best Behavior With Your Car Because Cash-Strapped City Is Out To Raise $66 Million
Manhattan To Get 100 Agents; Staten Island Spared ... For Now
ReportingPablo Guzman NEW YORK (CBS) ―
You may have begun to notice more traffic tickets being written. And you may have guessed -- correctly -- that it has to do with getting New York City more money. Well, brace yourselves, the city is putting 200 more ticket-writing traffic agents to work. The city's latest move to close the budget gap is annoying New Yorkers to no end. Soon, you may not be able to avoid the police no matter what you do. Approximately 100 of the agents will be in Manhattan; the other 100 will be spread out across the other boroughs. "You get stuck out there in the middle; not because you're not paying attention," driver Rob Frangavilla said. "People walk across; you're stuck there. I just think it's a crazy way to raise money." "No more tickets, because they're so aggressive," driver Ephraim Kaufman said. "It's unbelievable. Like, you go to pay the ticket -- for machine -- but while you put in the money to buy the ticket they give you a ticket!"
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly laid out the plan on Tuesday. "[We will put them] in Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. We will not deploy them right now in Staten Island," Kelly said. The agents will be looking primarily for drivers who "block the box" at intersections. That ticket will cost $115. However, Mary Jo Albanese thinks it's a good idea. When asked if she'd be annoyed if the traffic agents came up to her and ticketed her instead of putting the notice n her car, Albanese said, "Well if I was doing the right thing, I wouldn't get a ticket." The city thinks it can raise an extra $66 million this way.
NYC On Ticket Blitz; 200 Traffic Agents Added
Better Be On Your Best Behavior With Your Car Because Cash-Strapped City Is Out To Raise $66 Million
Manhattan To Get 100 Agents; Staten Island Spared ... For Now
ReportingPablo Guzman NEW YORK (CBS) ―
You may have begun to notice more traffic tickets being written. And you may have guessed -- correctly -- that it has to do with getting New York City more money. Well, brace yourselves, the city is putting 200 more ticket-writing traffic agents to work. The city's latest move to close the budget gap is annoying New Yorkers to no end. Soon, you may not be able to avoid the police no matter what you do. Approximately 100 of the agents will be in Manhattan; the other 100 will be spread out across the other boroughs. "You get stuck out there in the middle; not because you're not paying attention," driver Rob Frangavilla said. "People walk across; you're stuck there. I just think it's a crazy way to raise money." "No more tickets, because they're so aggressive," driver Ephraim Kaufman said. "It's unbelievable. Like, you go to pay the ticket -- for machine -- but while you put in the money to buy the ticket they give you a ticket!"
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly laid out the plan on Tuesday. "[We will put them] in Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. We will not deploy them right now in Staten Island," Kelly said. The agents will be looking primarily for drivers who "block the box" at intersections. That ticket will cost $115. However, Mary Jo Albanese thinks it's a good idea. When asked if she'd be annoyed if the traffic agents came up to her and ticketed her instead of putting the notice n her car, Albanese said, "Well if I was doing the right thing, I wouldn't get a ticket." The city thinks it can raise an extra $66 million this way.
AMERICA THE NOT-SO-BEAUTIFUL
Looks like another day at the survival mine. I'm sending in for 15 cans of Treet this morning. My protein stash is on steroids these days. You can't get enough protein, says I.
I had a funny experience this morning. I read an article at a well known survival site that said to put away some cash for the days ahead and then further down in the article is said we would be going into hyper-inflation. What the fuck? Over... I cannot see the sense of having cash when we're going into hyper-inflation. I said from the beginning that TANGIBLES was where it was at and I am sticking to that idea. Beans, bullets and band-aids will lead the way into the next arena of life and I, for one, am ready for a change. I am sorta sick of the things that have been going on in this country for the last few decades. Too much monkey business going on to make any sense to a rational person.
And isn't that what really bothers a lot of people around the globe? The fact that America is not making any sense anymore?
Getting into a little scripture here I note that the Book says that "a fool is known by his much speaking." And we have these fools talking all the time about problems, but they never solve them. They just use their words of stupidity to start wars and to tax the people some more. They talk about Liberty and make oppressive laws to stifle it. What a bunch of jerks. Why don't they just sit down and listen for a change. We won't hurt them. We'll give them good advice and strong motivation. We will sit right there with them. It says to keep your foot under the table and do not offer the sacrifice of fools. The sacrifice of fools is getting to your feet and telling the world how it is going to be and God not telling you a word of it to say. Foolish men.
America has always wanted the front seat at the table of nations. They have always wanted respect. They have always wanted to be obeyed. They have always wanted to have their way in all matters. Truthfully, this is not any new attitude for a strong and powerful nation. There have been many powerful nations in the past who have been the same way. And they crumbled too. Just like this nation is crumbling.
After WWII the planet was in ruins. The islands in the Pacific were bombed out. Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. China had suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese. Southeast Asia all the way across India was blackened by war. The Middle East had been hammered. The countries around the Mediterranean were in ruins. Europe had suffered hugely and was a pile of rubble. Russia had taken some of the worst hits of the entire war. England was a pile of battered bricks. The USA was the shining beacon of prosperity and victory to the entire world. One attack on Pearl Harbor was the extent of her infrastructure damage. She had massive factories and a prosperous, hard working people. She held up her ideals for the rest of the world to marvel at. America claimed her form of government to be superior to all others. She was the Queen of all nations. She was on the gold standard monetarily and her currency was good. She had given the Allies the needed firepower to crush the Germans. The Axis powers were all in flames. The Bretton Woods agreement was formed and signed. America was the provider of the world's reserve currency. She had oil and coal and iron for steel. She had natural gas and huge forests. She had a skilled workforce who could build anything from a chicken coop to a nuclear bomb. America had it all and was in a position to help the entire world.
But America had developed some quirks. While she could have changed the whole world for good she instead gave herself to cut-throat business. Her number one priority was the amassing of huge piles of money from foreign markets. Her business was to find people in great need and rip them off. The more poor and needy, the better to exploit. This attitude will surely get you in good with God. Not! Her military fights wars of convenience for her businesses that are exploiting the rest of the world. We do very little, if any, to make things right on this planet. And the chickens are coming home to roost. When America takes a big blow that knocks her from her pedestal of power there will not be any body of nations rush to her aid. Too many people have grown up taking it twixt the cheeks from America for her to be able to garner much sympathy. She has been blessed beyond belief and she has squandered her blessings. Let her reap her just deserts.
I am not anti-American. I love this country. But I am more in love with the part that God created than I am the bipeds walking around ruling it. The part I mentioned earlier, the part where I talked about America not making any sense to the rest of the world, is that the whole world is watching this American behavior and wondering why she is so stupid? She is going to take some vicious hits in her finances. There will be riots and burning and horrible trouble. Why is America acting like she is? She will need all the friends she can get. Yet she is making a fool of herself. She is becoming the song of the drunkards. Her name is cast for scorn. I pity her in the days to come. I hope everyone who feels the impulse to prepare does so with all possible speed and strength. Stay alive.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
I had a funny experience this morning. I read an article at a well known survival site that said to put away some cash for the days ahead and then further down in the article is said we would be going into hyper-inflation. What the fuck? Over... I cannot see the sense of having cash when we're going into hyper-inflation. I said from the beginning that TANGIBLES was where it was at and I am sticking to that idea. Beans, bullets and band-aids will lead the way into the next arena of life and I, for one, am ready for a change. I am sorta sick of the things that have been going on in this country for the last few decades. Too much monkey business going on to make any sense to a rational person.
And isn't that what really bothers a lot of people around the globe? The fact that America is not making any sense anymore?
Getting into a little scripture here I note that the Book says that "a fool is known by his much speaking." And we have these fools talking all the time about problems, but they never solve them. They just use their words of stupidity to start wars and to tax the people some more. They talk about Liberty and make oppressive laws to stifle it. What a bunch of jerks. Why don't they just sit down and listen for a change. We won't hurt them. We'll give them good advice and strong motivation. We will sit right there with them. It says to keep your foot under the table and do not offer the sacrifice of fools. The sacrifice of fools is getting to your feet and telling the world how it is going to be and God not telling you a word of it to say. Foolish men.
America has always wanted the front seat at the table of nations. They have always wanted respect. They have always wanted to be obeyed. They have always wanted to have their way in all matters. Truthfully, this is not any new attitude for a strong and powerful nation. There have been many powerful nations in the past who have been the same way. And they crumbled too. Just like this nation is crumbling.
After WWII the planet was in ruins. The islands in the Pacific were bombed out. Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. China had suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese. Southeast Asia all the way across India was blackened by war. The Middle East had been hammered. The countries around the Mediterranean were in ruins. Europe had suffered hugely and was a pile of rubble. Russia had taken some of the worst hits of the entire war. England was a pile of battered bricks. The USA was the shining beacon of prosperity and victory to the entire world. One attack on Pearl Harbor was the extent of her infrastructure damage. She had massive factories and a prosperous, hard working people. She held up her ideals for the rest of the world to marvel at. America claimed her form of government to be superior to all others. She was the Queen of all nations. She was on the gold standard monetarily and her currency was good. She had given the Allies the needed firepower to crush the Germans. The Axis powers were all in flames. The Bretton Woods agreement was formed and signed. America was the provider of the world's reserve currency. She had oil and coal and iron for steel. She had natural gas and huge forests. She had a skilled workforce who could build anything from a chicken coop to a nuclear bomb. America had it all and was in a position to help the entire world.
But America had developed some quirks. While she could have changed the whole world for good she instead gave herself to cut-throat business. Her number one priority was the amassing of huge piles of money from foreign markets. Her business was to find people in great need and rip them off. The more poor and needy, the better to exploit. This attitude will surely get you in good with God. Not! Her military fights wars of convenience for her businesses that are exploiting the rest of the world. We do very little, if any, to make things right on this planet. And the chickens are coming home to roost. When America takes a big blow that knocks her from her pedestal of power there will not be any body of nations rush to her aid. Too many people have grown up taking it twixt the cheeks from America for her to be able to garner much sympathy. She has been blessed beyond belief and she has squandered her blessings. Let her reap her just deserts.
I am not anti-American. I love this country. But I am more in love with the part that God created than I am the bipeds walking around ruling it. The part I mentioned earlier, the part where I talked about America not making any sense to the rest of the world, is that the whole world is watching this American behavior and wondering why she is so stupid? She is going to take some vicious hits in her finances. There will be riots and burning and horrible trouble. Why is America acting like she is? She will need all the friends she can get. Yet she is making a fool of herself. She is becoming the song of the drunkards. Her name is cast for scorn. I pity her in the days to come. I hope everyone who feels the impulse to prepare does so with all possible speed and strength. Stay alive.
Michael
mboone@rtccom.net
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
ICELAND IN THE NEWS
Michael sez: This is off of iTulip and is pretty intersting. I am following most stories about Iceland because there may be some tips in there for us here in America. They have food; fish and lamb. And they are getting some fuel from someone who is being kind about it, But keep your eyes peeled for Iceland stories. They could get real interesting.
Report from the Front: Post-crash Iceland
I just returned from a brief sojourn in Iceland a month after the currency collapse there.
Not the end of the world for Icelanders, but no picnic either. The first thing to note is that everything still works in Iceland. The banks are open, the ATMs work, and you can change money. The social order has not broken down. Throughout my trip I received the official rate of about 200Kr to one Pound Sterling. Before the collapse the exchange rate was 100Kr or so. During the maelstrom we read reports of extreme depreciation reaching 400Kr to the pound. In the light of the local prices those reports appear ridiculous. However, as you might expect, the trip was much cheaper than it would have been a year ago.
I witnessed no rioting, civil unrest, vandalism, muggings or other social disorder. Icelanders are hardy bunch, historically used to the grinding poverty afforded by an economy that relied primarily on fishing. By contrast to its past, poverty in modern Iceland is almost unknown. The nation's past experience with hardship imbues Iceland society with a culture of thrift, to make do with enough, to share fairly, and to look after each other. Iceland will not collapse into a lawless Mad Max state, a dark fantasy of a particular strand of American politics. They will just be poorer. The country is also small enough to adapt quickly and has plenty of indigenous food resources – fish and lamb – to feed itself without relying heavily on imports, although oil imports may become more expensive; petrol remains fairly cheap by UK standards, about 150Kr/l.
The capital of Reykjavík is renowned for its party atmosphere at the weekend. Certainly this was obvious on the Saturday night I arrived. As I remarked on the revelry to my taxi driver, he said ruefully, "It should be twice this... the atmosphere is a bit strange."
Throughout the trip there was an absence of the liveliness and confidence that the Icelandic people were known for. Indeed there is a sense of something dark having happened, and the recriminations are only starting. It is anyone's guess whether the right people will be pinned down for blame. To give a flavour of the mood, the picture that accompanies this iTulip Report from the Front was spotted on the window of, of all places, an optician's on Reykjavík's main street. It is a variation on a popular theme. A local English-language paper printed some interesting letters blaming, by turns, an usurious international banking system, Gordon Brown, the Icelanders, the Jews, and the Danes. Some of the letters were by ex-patriots working in Reykjavík.
What is notable is that the relative pricing is now different from the UK. Luxury services – spas, the fancier restaurants – have experienced in Krona terms a significant inflation of about 20%-30%, at a guess. Presumably this is because they are tourist oriented. Food is more difficult to pin down. Supermarket items are reasonable by UK (London) standards but I imagine more expensive by local standards. It is still possible to get imported food. Books priced in Krona kept their tag, while those priced in Euros kept their Euro tag. Car hire was very reasonable, while the hotel was, given the location, extremely cheap, although keep in mind it was November. As I signed the hotel bill the chap at reception remarked "That's a lot of money," as I was thinking "Wow, that's cheap." This leads me to believe that Icelandic wages have not gone up 20-30% to keep up with inflation.
Some businesses were keen to take foreign currency directly, all took Krona, and all would give you the official rate. What is also noticeable is that business with locals was slow. The frequency of transactions in the internal economy, as compared to the tourist-facing economy, has clearly dropped sharply. This seems to invite the interesting possibility that, in one sudden move, the velocity of money has dropped, total credit has dropped, and yet inflation has occurred, due to the interface with external economies, both inflation and debt-deflation at the same time. This seems to run counter to the conventional MV=PQ theory.
Report from the Front: Post-crash Iceland
I just returned from a brief sojourn in Iceland a month after the currency collapse there.
Not the end of the world for Icelanders, but no picnic either. The first thing to note is that everything still works in Iceland. The banks are open, the ATMs work, and you can change money. The social order has not broken down. Throughout my trip I received the official rate of about 200Kr to one Pound Sterling. Before the collapse the exchange rate was 100Kr or so. During the maelstrom we read reports of extreme depreciation reaching 400Kr to the pound. In the light of the local prices those reports appear ridiculous. However, as you might expect, the trip was much cheaper than it would have been a year ago.
I witnessed no rioting, civil unrest, vandalism, muggings or other social disorder. Icelanders are hardy bunch, historically used to the grinding poverty afforded by an economy that relied primarily on fishing. By contrast to its past, poverty in modern Iceland is almost unknown. The nation's past experience with hardship imbues Iceland society with a culture of thrift, to make do with enough, to share fairly, and to look after each other. Iceland will not collapse into a lawless Mad Max state, a dark fantasy of a particular strand of American politics. They will just be poorer. The country is also small enough to adapt quickly and has plenty of indigenous food resources – fish and lamb – to feed itself without relying heavily on imports, although oil imports may become more expensive; petrol remains fairly cheap by UK standards, about 150Kr/l.
The capital of Reykjavík is renowned for its party atmosphere at the weekend. Certainly this was obvious on the Saturday night I arrived. As I remarked on the revelry to my taxi driver, he said ruefully, "It should be twice this... the atmosphere is a bit strange."
Throughout the trip there was an absence of the liveliness and confidence that the Icelandic people were known for. Indeed there is a sense of something dark having happened, and the recriminations are only starting. It is anyone's guess whether the right people will be pinned down for blame. To give a flavour of the mood, the picture that accompanies this iTulip Report from the Front was spotted on the window of, of all places, an optician's on Reykjavík's main street. It is a variation on a popular theme. A local English-language paper printed some interesting letters blaming, by turns, an usurious international banking system, Gordon Brown, the Icelanders, the Jews, and the Danes. Some of the letters were by ex-patriots working in Reykjavík.
What is notable is that the relative pricing is now different from the UK. Luxury services – spas, the fancier restaurants – have experienced in Krona terms a significant inflation of about 20%-30%, at a guess. Presumably this is because they are tourist oriented. Food is more difficult to pin down. Supermarket items are reasonable by UK (London) standards but I imagine more expensive by local standards. It is still possible to get imported food. Books priced in Krona kept their tag, while those priced in Euros kept their Euro tag. Car hire was very reasonable, while the hotel was, given the location, extremely cheap, although keep in mind it was November. As I signed the hotel bill the chap at reception remarked "That's a lot of money," as I was thinking "Wow, that's cheap." This leads me to believe that Icelandic wages have not gone up 20-30% to keep up with inflation.
Some businesses were keen to take foreign currency directly, all took Krona, and all would give you the official rate. What is also noticeable is that business with locals was slow. The frequency of transactions in the internal economy, as compared to the tourist-facing economy, has clearly dropped sharply. This seems to invite the interesting possibility that, in one sudden move, the velocity of money has dropped, total credit has dropped, and yet inflation has occurred, due to the interface with external economies, both inflation and debt-deflation at the same time. This seems to run counter to the conventional MV=PQ theory.
MIKE KEMP TALKS ABOUT WATER
Drinking Water
The only thing more important for your very life than clean drinking
water is air.
Understand this well. You MUST have clean drinking water.
By 'clean' I do not necessarily mean that it has to be crystalline
clear. In fact, crystalline clear really is not an absolute guarantee
that it is fit to drink. Muddy water can fairly easily be made clear.
A couple of barrels, some pea gravel, and some sand can do wonders for
murky water.
I'm not going to delve too deeply into the technique of making a water
filter from a couple of stacked plastic barrels, but in essence, what
I mean is taking a 55 gallon drum (or even a 5 gallon bucket),
perforate the bottoms all over with a drill or a nail (or even a
heated screwdriver, if plastic), fill the bottom bucket/barrel 3/4
full of sand (some cheese cloth or something similar helps retain the
sand), perforate the tops the same as the bottoms, and stack the
second bucket/barrel 3/4 full of pea gravel on top of the
bucket/barrel with sand. Pour or allow to flow the dirty water on to
the perforated top of the top bucket/barrel. Water flows down through
the pea gravel, out the perforated bottom, through the perforated top
of the bucket/barrel with sand in it, and out the perforated bottom.
Provide an inclined pan or some other means of collecting and 'aiming'
the flow to a catch basin.
You are using gravity; these buckets/barrels must be positioned so
that gravity can do the work. It can be fed water by simply pouring
buckets of water onto the top of the top bucket/barrel, but some means
must be provided to capture the water flowing out the bottom of the
bottom-most bucket/barrel.
The water that comes out of the bottom bucket/barrel will be more or less clear.
But all this is doing is providing minimal removal of suspended
solids, such as entrained dirt. It has more of an aesthetic effect
than a 'purifying' effect.
The largest hazard in water of unknown quality is the bacteria e.
coli. This can produce severe diarrhea, which can quickly dehydrate
the victim. It will certainly weaken the victim, and can even kill. E.
coli isn't the only possible biological contaminant, but it is
certainly the most prevalent.
A little chlorine in the water will do wonders to truly purify it. It
takes very, very little. A few drops, certainly no more than a
teaspoon per gallon of plain, ordinary, UNSCENTED chlorine bleach--
Clorox, for example-- does wonders to kill off any little critters
living in the water. Powdered, unmodified swimming pool chlorine is
even easier to store, and is MUCH more concentrated than liquid
bleach. Just make certain that you are buying a pure 'hypochlorite'
bleach, with no added chemicals. You are looking for bulk swimming
pool powdered chlorine, not the 'tablets'. This powder is simply the
powdered form of what is generally sodium hypochlorite dissolved in
water that is found in liquid laundry bleach.
That is why it is very, very wise to provide a goodly supply of Clorox
or generic equivalent or powdered swimming pool chlorine with your
survival supplies.
However, if pressed into a survival situation which lasts an extended
amount of time, sooner or later you will run out of Clorox or powdered
chlorine (hypochlorite).
So, before that happens, you need to consider where you are going to
get non-biologically contaminated drinking water.
E. coli principally comes from feces, either animal or human. Runoff
from cattle pastures will almost certainly have e.coli in abundance.
Likewise, if septic tanks or outhouses drain into a ground water
supply, e. coli will be in the water.
First, and this may seem obvious, be most particular about where
outhouses are sited. Be cognizant about where 'upstream neighbors' may
have outhouses. Be cognizant about where runoff from animal sources
may contaminate your water supply.
So, you've done all the above. Now, here is a bit of information that
can save your lives. Chlorine (and iodine) are very, very closely
related, chemically, to oxygen. Where can you get large quantities of
oxygen, in a never ending supply? Yes. From the air. So, after your
bleach, or peroxide, or iodine, or whatever you have treated your
drinking water with is exhausted, you will have to aerate your
drinking water supply. And that means, aerate the pure living
daylights out of it.
Too much chlorine, or peroxide, or iodine can impart a bad taste to
water, or even be potentially bad for you. But there is no such thing
as too much oxygen in the water. In fact, heavily aerated water has,
for almost everyone, a most pleasant taste.
In bulk water storage, you can aerate it by means of a bellows and
appropriate hose or tubing. But, with a bellows, it requires tight
fittings, and not very much 'water head'-- water too deep over the air
inlet to the water storage vessel. That means that a wide, shallow
water storage vessel or container is much better than a narrower,
deeper vessel, if you are going to depend on a bellows for aeration.
And operating a bellows is going to require a lot of work from
someone. Or, will require harnessing some sort of animal power to pump
the bellows.
It is possible to thoroughly agitate water by the simple mechanism of
thrashing the top of the water storage tank with sticks, or any other
means of mechanical agitation. This, also, requires considerable human
(or perhaps animal, if using some sort of 'paddle wheel' arrangement)
effort and/or equipment.
It is possible to heavily aerate water by spraying it into the air and
allowing it to fall back into the reservoir. However, in general, it
is a lot more difficult to move water than to move air. Circumstances
can affect this, such as having the supply of water elevated from the
storage reservoir, and allowing gravity flow to provide the impetus
for a spray aeration scheme.
I am talking now about large, bulk storage of water, suitable for a
significant number of people, not the number of people comparable to
even a large single family. For smaller quantities of water, the
simple expedient of vigorous shaking in a gallon, two gallon, five
gallon container to aerate it is sufficient, and more than sufficient.
It is very much possible to super-aerate water by mechanical shaking,
but that is, in general, a 'small scale solution'.
The drawback to using aeration in lieu of chlorine, or iodine, is that
e. coli and other pathogenic bacteria have evolved over time to
tolerate a certain amount of oxygen. Oxygen is everywhere, and neither
chlorine nor iodine is present in any significant quantity. So severe
and repeated oxygenation of drinking water of suspect quality is an
absolute MUST.
Do not think that you can use table salt, sodium chloride, as a
chlorinating agent. It simply doesn't work that way. I won't go into
the reasons, but just think of the concept that the chlorine has
already been exhausted of its purifying ability by being combined in
the salt molecule.
Do also note-- chemical toxins are, by and large, simply not affected
by aeration. If your water supply is chemically contaminated, there is
no choice-- you have to find a different source of water.
For practical matters, unless you want to forever be tied to some
means of mechanical agitation (and significant human/animal effort),
you must somehow locate a source of non-biologically contaminated
water. Yes, it is possible to boil water to decontaminate it. For any
number of people, from family-sized groupings on up, this requires a
significant investment of time, fuel, resources, and effort. It simply
is not practical for the long haul.
So. In simple terms, for those in a survival situation, a reliable
source of biologically (and other sources of contamination, as well)
an uncontaminated water source is almost an outright necessity. And,
as noted, even severe, repeated aeration is not an ironclad guarantee
of purifying the water of biological contamination.
Mike Kemp
The only thing more important for your very life than clean drinking
water is air.
Understand this well. You MUST have clean drinking water.
By 'clean' I do not necessarily mean that it has to be crystalline
clear. In fact, crystalline clear really is not an absolute guarantee
that it is fit to drink. Muddy water can fairly easily be made clear.
A couple of barrels, some pea gravel, and some sand can do wonders for
murky water.
I'm not going to delve too deeply into the technique of making a water
filter from a couple of stacked plastic barrels, but in essence, what
I mean is taking a 55 gallon drum (or even a 5 gallon bucket),
perforate the bottoms all over with a drill or a nail (or even a
heated screwdriver, if plastic), fill the bottom bucket/barrel 3/4
full of sand (some cheese cloth or something similar helps retain the
sand), perforate the tops the same as the bottoms, and stack the
second bucket/barrel 3/4 full of pea gravel on top of the
bucket/barrel with sand. Pour or allow to flow the dirty water on to
the perforated top of the top bucket/barrel. Water flows down through
the pea gravel, out the perforated bottom, through the perforated top
of the bucket/barrel with sand in it, and out the perforated bottom.
Provide an inclined pan or some other means of collecting and 'aiming'
the flow to a catch basin.
You are using gravity; these buckets/barrels must be positioned so
that gravity can do the work. It can be fed water by simply pouring
buckets of water onto the top of the top bucket/barrel, but some means
must be provided to capture the water flowing out the bottom of the
bottom-most bucket/barrel.
The water that comes out of the bottom bucket/barrel will be more or less clear.
But all this is doing is providing minimal removal of suspended
solids, such as entrained dirt. It has more of an aesthetic effect
than a 'purifying' effect.
The largest hazard in water of unknown quality is the bacteria e.
coli. This can produce severe diarrhea, which can quickly dehydrate
the victim. It will certainly weaken the victim, and can even kill. E.
coli isn't the only possible biological contaminant, but it is
certainly the most prevalent.
A little chlorine in the water will do wonders to truly purify it. It
takes very, very little. A few drops, certainly no more than a
teaspoon per gallon of plain, ordinary, UNSCENTED chlorine bleach--
Clorox, for example-- does wonders to kill off any little critters
living in the water. Powdered, unmodified swimming pool chlorine is
even easier to store, and is MUCH more concentrated than liquid
bleach. Just make certain that you are buying a pure 'hypochlorite'
bleach, with no added chemicals. You are looking for bulk swimming
pool powdered chlorine, not the 'tablets'. This powder is simply the
powdered form of what is generally sodium hypochlorite dissolved in
water that is found in liquid laundry bleach.
That is why it is very, very wise to provide a goodly supply of Clorox
or generic equivalent or powdered swimming pool chlorine with your
survival supplies.
However, if pressed into a survival situation which lasts an extended
amount of time, sooner or later you will run out of Clorox or powdered
chlorine (hypochlorite).
So, before that happens, you need to consider where you are going to
get non-biologically contaminated drinking water.
E. coli principally comes from feces, either animal or human. Runoff
from cattle pastures will almost certainly have e.coli in abundance.
Likewise, if septic tanks or outhouses drain into a ground water
supply, e. coli will be in the water.
First, and this may seem obvious, be most particular about where
outhouses are sited. Be cognizant about where 'upstream neighbors' may
have outhouses. Be cognizant about where runoff from animal sources
may contaminate your water supply.
So, you've done all the above. Now, here is a bit of information that
can save your lives. Chlorine (and iodine) are very, very closely
related, chemically, to oxygen. Where can you get large quantities of
oxygen, in a never ending supply? Yes. From the air. So, after your
bleach, or peroxide, or iodine, or whatever you have treated your
drinking water with is exhausted, you will have to aerate your
drinking water supply. And that means, aerate the pure living
daylights out of it.
Too much chlorine, or peroxide, or iodine can impart a bad taste to
water, or even be potentially bad for you. But there is no such thing
as too much oxygen in the water. In fact, heavily aerated water has,
for almost everyone, a most pleasant taste.
In bulk water storage, you can aerate it by means of a bellows and
appropriate hose or tubing. But, with a bellows, it requires tight
fittings, and not very much 'water head'-- water too deep over the air
inlet to the water storage vessel. That means that a wide, shallow
water storage vessel or container is much better than a narrower,
deeper vessel, if you are going to depend on a bellows for aeration.
And operating a bellows is going to require a lot of work from
someone. Or, will require harnessing some sort of animal power to pump
the bellows.
It is possible to thoroughly agitate water by the simple mechanism of
thrashing the top of the water storage tank with sticks, or any other
means of mechanical agitation. This, also, requires considerable human
(or perhaps animal, if using some sort of 'paddle wheel' arrangement)
effort and/or equipment.
It is possible to heavily aerate water by spraying it into the air and
allowing it to fall back into the reservoir. However, in general, it
is a lot more difficult to move water than to move air. Circumstances
can affect this, such as having the supply of water elevated from the
storage reservoir, and allowing gravity flow to provide the impetus
for a spray aeration scheme.
I am talking now about large, bulk storage of water, suitable for a
significant number of people, not the number of people comparable to
even a large single family. For smaller quantities of water, the
simple expedient of vigorous shaking in a gallon, two gallon, five
gallon container to aerate it is sufficient, and more than sufficient.
It is very much possible to super-aerate water by mechanical shaking,
but that is, in general, a 'small scale solution'.
The drawback to using aeration in lieu of chlorine, or iodine, is that
e. coli and other pathogenic bacteria have evolved over time to
tolerate a certain amount of oxygen. Oxygen is everywhere, and neither
chlorine nor iodine is present in any significant quantity. So severe
and repeated oxygenation of drinking water of suspect quality is an
absolute MUST.
Do not think that you can use table salt, sodium chloride, as a
chlorinating agent. It simply doesn't work that way. I won't go into
the reasons, but just think of the concept that the chlorine has
already been exhausted of its purifying ability by being combined in
the salt molecule.
Do also note-- chemical toxins are, by and large, simply not affected
by aeration. If your water supply is chemically contaminated, there is
no choice-- you have to find a different source of water.
For practical matters, unless you want to forever be tied to some
means of mechanical agitation (and significant human/animal effort),
you must somehow locate a source of non-biologically contaminated
water. Yes, it is possible to boil water to decontaminate it. For any
number of people, from family-sized groupings on up, this requires a
significant investment of time, fuel, resources, and effort. It simply
is not practical for the long haul.
So. In simple terms, for those in a survival situation, a reliable
source of biologically (and other sources of contamination, as well)
an uncontaminated water source is almost an outright necessity. And,
as noted, even severe, repeated aeration is not an ironclad guarantee
of purifying the water of biological contamination.
Mike Kemp
WELFARE CCTV IN COUPLES BEDROOM
Social workers set up a CCTV camera in the bedroom of a couple with learning difficulties in order to monitor their behaviour, a new report claims.
By Martin Beckford
Council staff are said to have spied on the young parents at night as part of a plan to see if they were fit to look after their baby, who was sleeping in another room.
The mother and father were forced to cite the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to a private life, before the social services team backed down and agreed to switch off the surveillance camera while they were in bed together.
The case is highlighted in a new dossier of human rights abuses carried out against vulnerable and elderly adults in nursing homes and hospitals across Britain.
It comes just days after the Government admitted town halls have gone too far in using anti-terror laws to snoop on members of the public.
Recent figures show three-quarters of local authorities have used powers granted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to spy on residents suspected of putting their bins out on the wrong day, allowing pet dogs to foul the pavement or breaking school catchment area rules.
In the latest case, documented in a report published by the British Institute of Human Rights to mark the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Act, an unnamed council used CCTV to keep an eye on a mother and father with learning difficulties as their parenting skills were under question.
Social services departments are allowed to place adults in units known as “residential family centres” if they fear their children could be at risk of abuse or neglect. Staff assess the families in a controlled environment to determine whether their children should be taken into care.
The centres can use CCTV cameras as well as listening devices but Government regulations state that staff must “respect parents’ and children’s privacy”.
However, the BIHR report claims that the centre in question breached the couple’s right to respect for private and family life, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that was incorporated into English law a decade ago.
The study states: “A learning disabled couple were living in a residential assessment centre so their parenting skills could be assessed by the local social services department.
“CCTV cameras were installed, including in their bedroom. Social workers explained that the cameras were there to observe them performing their parental duties and for the protection of their baby.
“The couple were especially distressed by the use of the CCTV cameras in their bedroom during the night.
“With the help of a visiting neighbour, the couple successfully invoked their right to respect for private life.
“They explained that they did not want their intimacy to be monitored and that, besides, the baby slept in a separate nursery.
“As a result, the social services team agreed to switch off the cameras during the night so that the couple could enjoy their evenings together in privacy.”
The BIHR said the case illustrated the way in which the much-maligned Act, which has given birth to a new industry of specialist lawyers and led to convicted murderers and terrorists winning the right to remain living in Britain, had also made it easier for innocent people to have their rights protected without the need for costly court cases.
Ceri Goddard, its acting director, said: “The Human Rights Act is 10 years old and should be celebrated for the positive changes it is making to people’s everyday lives – in our hospitals, care homes and schools.”
By Martin Beckford
Council staff are said to have spied on the young parents at night as part of a plan to see if they were fit to look after their baby, who was sleeping in another room.
The mother and father were forced to cite the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to a private life, before the social services team backed down and agreed to switch off the surveillance camera while they were in bed together.
The case is highlighted in a new dossier of human rights abuses carried out against vulnerable and elderly adults in nursing homes and hospitals across Britain.
It comes just days after the Government admitted town halls have gone too far in using anti-terror laws to snoop on members of the public.
Recent figures show three-quarters of local authorities have used powers granted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to spy on residents suspected of putting their bins out on the wrong day, allowing pet dogs to foul the pavement or breaking school catchment area rules.
In the latest case, documented in a report published by the British Institute of Human Rights to mark the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Act, an unnamed council used CCTV to keep an eye on a mother and father with learning difficulties as their parenting skills were under question.
Social services departments are allowed to place adults in units known as “residential family centres” if they fear their children could be at risk of abuse or neglect. Staff assess the families in a controlled environment to determine whether their children should be taken into care.
The centres can use CCTV cameras as well as listening devices but Government regulations state that staff must “respect parents’ and children’s privacy”.
However, the BIHR report claims that the centre in question breached the couple’s right to respect for private and family life, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that was incorporated into English law a decade ago.
The study states: “A learning disabled couple were living in a residential assessment centre so their parenting skills could be assessed by the local social services department.
“CCTV cameras were installed, including in their bedroom. Social workers explained that the cameras were there to observe them performing their parental duties and for the protection of their baby.
“The couple were especially distressed by the use of the CCTV cameras in their bedroom during the night.
“With the help of a visiting neighbour, the couple successfully invoked their right to respect for private life.
“They explained that they did not want their intimacy to be monitored and that, besides, the baby slept in a separate nursery.
“As a result, the social services team agreed to switch off the cameras during the night so that the couple could enjoy their evenings together in privacy.”
The BIHR said the case illustrated the way in which the much-maligned Act, which has given birth to a new industry of specialist lawyers and led to convicted murderers and terrorists winning the right to remain living in Britain, had also made it easier for innocent people to have their rights protected without the need for costly court cases.
Ceri Goddard, its acting director, said: “The Human Rights Act is 10 years old and should be celebrated for the positive changes it is making to people’s everyday lives – in our hospitals, care homes and schools.”
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