Birds Dying In Italy: Thousands Of Turtle Doves Fall Dead From Sky

This time its Italy, and that the birds happen to be doves gives it even more of an Omen-feel..

On Wednesday, GeaPress reported hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of dead and dying birds in Italy. Countless turtle doves were found scattered in the streets, in flower beds and hanging tragically from trees "like Christmas balls" in the town of Faenza.

Many of the birds that fell dead from the sky were discovered with a mysterious blue stain in their beaks.
The next paragraph lists sights of mass animal deaths in the last week, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Sweden, and fish kills in Maryland, Arkansas, New Zealand, and Brazil, along with a mass crab kill in England, but goes on to say:
While the events are likely unrelated, most still remain a mystery. Officials suggest fireworks are likely responsible for many of the bird deaths and that unusually cold weather could be to blame for the strange mass deaths of fish and crabs.

Sure. Unrelated. Check. And yes, it is true animal die-offs do occur, and with more regularity than the public notices. Articles are written, but due to the singular nature of the event (one species kill, usually not too large, obscure, rural areas of the planet, something more sensational happening), no one pays attention. These things do happen. But.. This seems different. The largeness of the kills, the short time period, the diversity of locales, these feel related. And, by the attention paid to this developing situation, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Will a common denominator be identified?

Researchers Find "Alarming" Decline in Bumblebees

Let's see: No bees=no pollination=no agricultural produce=no food=Well.. extinction. It's all about the bees, babies.. Excerpts:

Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported on Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.

They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species,
and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence the bees are vulnerable to inbreeding caused by habitat loss.

"We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calling the findings "alarming."
And:
While no crops are in immediate danger, the results show that experts need to pay attention, Cameron said. Pollinators such as bees and bats often have specific tongue lengths and pollination behaviors that have evolved along with the species of plants they pollinate.
And:
"This is a wake-up call that bumblebee species are declining not only in Europe, not only in Asia, but also in North America," she said.

As I've stated before, this is a serious problem because our systemic(both government and corporate) will be far too slow to prevent the oncoming catastrophe. The "cost to taxpayers" and "fiscal bottom line" will be the excuses used. This mounting horror's symptoms needed to be addressed years earlier, and there's no evidence to suggest the situation or pace will change. Ever the pessimist regarding large, controlling entities moving quickly to avert what could be averted, I'm saying it's already too late. We are doomed.

No Doubt The Jedi Felt This..

South Korea Buries One Million Pigs Alive Creepy, horrifying, and WTF excerpts:

South Korea has been heavily criticised for burying up to one million pigs alive as it grapples with a foot and mouth disease outbreak.

The South Korean government has so far refused to vaccinate pigs against the disease and is now slaughtering them in record numbers despite appeals to stop.

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) told Sky News Online that South Korea's actions contravene international guidelines.

Joyce D’Silva, Director of Public Affairs for CIWF said: "Compassion in World Farming is appalled that the Republic of Korea is allegedly throwing pigs into pits and burying them alive.

"This is totally contrary to international guidelines on humane culling, which the Korean government endorsed five years ago. "We urge the Korean government to end this horrendous practice at once and to ensure that, if animals are culled, this is done humanely."

For fuck's sake, did no one in South Korea see "No Country For Old Men?" Awful; simply awful.

WikiLeaks: China's Doing What We Thought China's Doing..

Meh. WikiLeaks: China Hiding Military Buildup, Intentions Excerpts:

The public line out of Beijing has always been simple: China's military is for the defense of the homeland.

The reality, however, may be more complicated. Newly released leaked U.S. diplomatic cables claim China is probably hiding both the size of its military buildup, as well as, on occasion, its intentions.

Australia's national intelligence agency conducted a strategic assessment of China's military spending, and concluded that the communist countries military buildup "threatens regional stability," reports the Australian daily The Age.

A leaked cable states that the agency found that China spent $90 billion on its military in 2006 - double the $45 billion budget publicly announced by Beijing, The Age reports.

While this is just a fraction of the nearly $500 billion the U.S. spends annually on its military, it is still noticeable for the fact that they were probably not publicly forthright about their military spending.

Allow me to respond to the four highlighted passages: 1, 2, and 3: Duh: Ya think? And 4: But America is?

C'mon.. If we've learned anything about how large government/ corporations/ entities work, NONE OF THEM are remotely close to transparent! To think the average citizen in the U.S. (as opposed to any other average citizen in any other country)has more knowledge of our military's black ops or secret spending or the second, third, or fourth set of books involved in how the entire operation(any operation) functions is naive, bordering on stupid/insane. I'm not knocking WikiLeaks for releasing this, nor am I knocking the military for operating in this manner; It's just the way things have always been done. Not that that makes current operations all right, but if we don't have a realistic assessment of systems function, we cannot fix given system without crippling it.

Thank you, WikiLeaks, for the confirmation, however un-necessary, and to CBS News: For God's sake, step it up and give me some real news, please..

WikiLeaks: Yeah, Still Happening..

U.S. envoy to Libya ensnared in WikiLeaks uproar
Was government WikiLeaks’s Bank of America source?

Julian Assange has never explicitly said that WikiLeaks's next target is
Bank of America, but fear that it might be was enough to send the bank’s stock
tumbling in November after he hinted a major, damaging disclosure about an
American bank would be forthcoming. (The idea that BoA was the target came from a year-old interview in which he said he had access to a hard drive of a BoA
executive.)
Now The New York Times looks into all the preventive action the
bank is taking just in case, as well as the internal attempts to find the leak.
The going theory, which the Times sets up and then mostly knocks down, is that
the leak was coming from within the House.

Xymphora's neat little round up of the big bombshells here..

And what it all means..

WikiLeaks' Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our Government Lies to Us

Do you believe that it is in Americans' interest to allow a small group of U.S. leaders to unilaterally murder, maim, imprison and/or torture anyone they choose anywhere in the world, without the knowledge let alone oversight of their citizens or the international community? And, despite their proven record of failure to protect America -- from Indochina to Iran to Iraq -- do you believe they should be permitted to clandestinely expand their war-making without informed public debate? If so, you are betraying the principles upon which America was founded, endangering your nation, and displaying a distinctly "unamerican" subservience to unaccountable authority. But if you oppose autocratic power, you are called to support Wikileaks and others trying to limit U.S. Executive Branch mass murder abroad and failure to protect Americans at home.

WikiLeaks has been forced to take a media back burner at the moment. I'm sure Julian Assange accounted for such a possibility. What will he do to counter this turn of events? What's his next move? Is this a brief pause before another round of whistle blowing fireworks?

While We Were Bird Watching..

North Korea made some peaceful gestures to end the latest Korean crisis, but South Korea's not buying it.. Excerpts:

North Korea called Wednesday for "unconditional and early'' talks with rival South Korea to put an end to months of tensions. Seoul quickly dismissed the offer as insincere and said it's waiting for an apology for two deadly attacks blamed on Pyongyang.
It's rare for North Korea to issue such a statement addressed to South Korea and it came as the U.S. envoy on the North was in the region to discuss the standoff. Earlier in the day, Stephen Bosworth sought to calm fears of conflict on the peninsula.
..
But the North has made some conciliatory moves recently. On New Year's Day, the government issued a lengthy statement calling for warmer ties and the resumption of joint projects with South Korea. Pyongyang, eager for food and fuel assistance, has said it wants stalled international aid-for-nuclear-disarmament talks to restart. Washington and Seoul have said the North must first fulfill past nuclear disarmament commitments.
On Monday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed to increase his country's defenses but made clear the door was open for talks with Pyongyang and was willing to enhance economic cooperation between the rivals. On Wednesday, North Korean officials responded with their own call for negotiations.
"We are ready to meet anyone anytime and anywhere, letting bygones be bygones, if he or she is willing to go hands in hands with us,'' said a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. It added that history has shown that such confrontations can only lead to an "armed clash and war.''
South Korea's Unification Ministry immediately rebuffed the overtures late Wednesday.
"We don't consider it as a sincere offer of dialogue,'' ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said. North Korea first must apologize for the two attacks and take "sincere'' steps toward nuclear disarmament, she said.

It would be a real shame if the final diplomatic straw that starts World War Three is "Your apology wasn't sincere enough." I realize the South is pulling an Alpha bluff, and that it's consistent with their "take no shit" philosophical stance towards the North, but at some point, this will backfire when North decides to not back down. Then, the whole peninsula will light up, and quick. There has to be a better solution to a potentially global nuclear conflict than the equivalent of two bullies staging intermittent pissing contests.

Animal Death Events Continue To Grow..

Whatever "this" turns out to be, it has certainly caught the attention and imagination of my normally inattentive friends, the ones who smirk when I talk of conspiracies or anomalous events..

A poster at my favorite conspiracy site provides this list of the latest die-offs, along with a map of event locations. (This also might be the "WTF Moment" predicted by the webbots, but that's another post at a later date..) And though I wouldn't definitively rule out any cause at the moment, it's starting to look less like a WMD release(The deaths are too widespread for Sorcha's theory, and why just birds and fish?), fireworks(no..), or cloaked UFOs(no, and why now?).

Possible explanations that seem plausible include: BP's Corexit saturation finally starting to manifest world wide(Long shot, but if you fuck with nature, side effects will occur..), Methane "burps,"(possible, but that's a lot of methane burping world wide..), HAARP(What's HAARP? Too short of an answer-man made magnetic disturbance-this one's still a Big maybe..), or Non-man made magnetic disturbance(with all the information available, this seems to be the most sensible). If this is some kind of magnetic disturbance, is it coming from space, or from the earth itself?

George Ure at Urban Survival has put together a fairly compelling argument involving the animal die offs as a precursor to some really major earthquake activity. The article's called Coping: Terra's Biggest Bite To Come? (Mr. Ure doesn't post single items, so scroll down to find it. It's in the January 5th column..) Not so encouraging excerpts:

What ties together all those parts of Arkansas, has been associated with bird kills, and might also be somehow related to Baton Rouge down river? You aren't going to like the answer, but here goes:
New Madrid.
Not only have we had some earthquakes in the central Arkansas area in the past couple of months - and there was a 4.2 in that area back in February of 2005 if memory serves me right. We has a little tiny 1.9 quake, just west of the Arkansas bird kill, too:
..
Let me pop up a map I developed last week for Peoplenomics subscribers and then put forth a wild hypothesis: I drew a great circle line around the globe which very roughly links all the big quakes from the China quake, down through the south Pacific, across the Pacific and Nazca plates to Chile, and let's not forget Argentina last week. (You really should check out the map; the visual helps.)

Now imagine for a moment that nature tends toward symmetry. We notice this line happens to come down through the Middle East very near those anomalous quakes in the Gulf of Aden, and then it comes down where that big Rift is developing in Africa which scientists figure may turn into a new inland sea in the future. And possibly something much bigger - think ocean.

Suppose that with all this activity in the southern hemisphere that some outburst of quakes might come to the northern hemisphere as a result.

If such wild guessing - and it is only that for now - held, then activity might be expected 90-degrees offset from the line - and since nature would likely quake along existing faults instead of creating new ones, maybe the the range would be somewhere in the area of +75 to +105 degrees. Uncertainty due to the bulge of the earth and so forth.
And:
So will my "shadow quake line" generally north of the equator appear?

Mr. Ure theorizes that maybe, just maybe, the entire planet might be in for (or effected by) some sort of global quake event(s), larger than anything we've ever experienced. While this is a horrifying proposition, it does seem to tie most of variables into a working theory. A scary, potentially life, history, and future altering theory.

And then, if this theory is correct, the larger question remains: What would cause a global quake event: Jesus, 2012, or Planet X?

Webbot Update From Clif High

We are just two weeks away from completion of the information flood/Tipping Point forecast by the webbots for the period of November 14, 2010, to January 17th, and to me, it certainly feels like the world is changing..  Yes, no one event has emotionally "blown us all away," but the pace and intensity of events certainly feel like something Major could happen at any moment, from any number of directions, including off planet occurrences..  Excerpts from Clif's latest article.. Parentheses Clif, bolded and colored emphasis me..

In the data sub set that forecast the [logical frank] meme also provides

for our next 'hot date' of January 7th and suggests that 3/three separate
memes will express on that day with some escalation of the release
language already involved; these 3/three are [economic], [terra
(intrusions on human activity)], and [alien wars]. This last is the larger
context extracted from the SpaceGoatFarts entity {ed note: the data sub
set within our work where we put all the [officially denied], [totally
unknown], and [suspected unknowns] that we encounter.} and is
specifically, on this day of the 7th of January, referring to [future
(reality) emergence]. This is to say that whatever 'events' or occurrence
that universe manifests in this archetype on that day will have the msm
(mainstream media - also known as = propaganda press) using future
tense words relative to the meme. Though note that these expressions
may not be on that day, but over this next (upcoming) week.

It is the [great global awakening] that will define the underlying

emotional 'tone' of this year, 2011. From our work, the data seems to be
forecasting 2011 as a year of some significance, that is to say, a year of
recognized, and fundamental, change. The nature of the language
forecasting fundamental change comes from old sub sets that emerged in
the data some years back under the archetype of [monumental]. Now
note that this word, 'monumental' is always representing a past-looking
view...in other words, the view from the point of view of those humans
in the future who will look back and be so damned amazed by what
will manifest, that they will build 'monuments' to us poor bastards about
to 'live through' those events. Make sense? Clear as dark roast at the
bottom of a cuppa? So for us poor bastards, we will look at the times,
while living through them, as being [epic] rather than [monumental].
Descriptors aside, it is just the same linguistic tone, viewed from
differing perspectives in the ever present now.(The last bold is Clif's..)

Clif's style is a bit dense to the uninitiated, but is worth "decoding."  If you aren't familiar with his work, please visit halfpasthuman and familiarize yourself.  His work, his style, and the information contained is beyond interesting, and may be the words that give you comfort and stability during the coming weeks and months, in that, eventually, humanity will live through what is upcoming.  There are many people who don't believe in Clif's work or his motives.  Not me.  I think he's a genius, his motives are pure, and his work worth much consideration.  In this coming year 2011, good luck to you and yours.  I think we're going to need it..

Dead Birds, This Time In Sweden..

Mysterious mortality in the Falkirk  Translation from Google.. Excerpts in italics:

A mysterious mortality in the affected Falkirk.



About 40 dead birds covered the ground last night at an intersection.


- It was a horrible sight, "said a resident who discovered the birds on their evening walk.
 
Bird Death in Falkirk was late in the night remains a mystery. The police did not know what the mass death could depend on.



- We received the alarm about 40 dead birds in a small space, "said Johan Ljung, duty officer in Västra Götaland.
 
This might be a natural die off, and it's not a mass kill, but we'll keep it in the "information pile" for the meantime.  This looks to be a pretty big jigsaw puzzle, still with no clear picture..
 
Possibly related:  Birds flying north over St. Louis (Video-view at 480 only, or you won't be able to see them..)  Are they bugging out, or scrambled because of an electro-magnetic disturbance?

And Now, A Word From Our Favorite Conspiracy Nuns..

I knew this event was tailor made for a weigh in from the Sisters of Sorcha Faal..  Excerpts in italics:

A shocking report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Foreign Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) states that one of the United States top experts in biological and chemical weapons was brutally murdered after he threatened to expose a US Military test of poison gas that killed hundreds of thousands of animals in Arkansas this past week.

According to this report, John P. Wheeler III, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington, D.C. from 2005-2008, when he became the Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Logistics and Environment, was found brutally murdered and dumped in a landfill..
..
Wheeler’s military career included writing one of the most important manuals on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons which led to his being hired in 2009 as a consultant to the Mitre Corporation, whose aviation system development department, the GRU reports, is at the forefront of creating the computer command and control systems used by the US Air Force in their fleet of aerial spraying planes.

These aerial spraying planes, this report continues, are based at the Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas that over the past few months have been involved with ‘test dispersants’ of poisonous gasses in the Afghanistan War Theater using chemical weapons stocks obtained from Iraq and held at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, also located in Arkansas.
..
According to this report, the US relocated from Iraq to the Pine Bluff Arsenal an estimated 63,000 metric tonnes of the poisonous gas Phosgene that is described as one of the most feared chemical weapons ever used due to its ability to literally cause the lungs and respiratory system to explode.

Nearly immediately after Russia accused the US this past summer of not fully destroying Iraq’s Phosgene poisonous gas stockpile the Pine Bluff Arsenal began an ‘accelerated’ disposal programme injecting it deep into the ground in central Arkansas, but which, unfortunately, since this past September, has caused over 500 minor earthquakes to occur raising the concerns of their local population.  (They tied in the earthquake swarm, too--If this weren't such a potentially serious situation, it would be major-conspiracy-sweet..)

The problems I have with this "report"?  This theory still doesn't answer why just the blackbirds and fish were effected, not dogs, cats, wild animals, and people.  If Phosgene were to blame, wouldn't there be more evidence?  Official reports on the birds cause of death have one strange aspect:  blood clots in the lungs, accompanied by trauma and internal bleeding.  While the blunt force trauma seems to be mentioned frequently, reports of clots are not.  That bothers me. 

The Wheeler tie-in is really troubling, as this angle feels accurate in a cloak and dagger kind of way, and may cause some other journalists to pursue this direction.  But the earthquake swarm?  Arkansas is a seismic zone, albeit a quieter one than California or Alaska, but I'm not sure about chemical dumping causing this recent activity.. 

Also:  Blackbirds don't normally fly at night.  Why this peculiar behavior?  That leads me back to some kind of electro-magnetic disturbance, but again, at this stage, anything is possible.

Every additional piece of information seems to breed more questions.  At this point, anyone claiming to have definitive answers cannot be correct.  There are far too many circumstances with unanswered questions, but God love Sorcha Faal for trying..

Gerry Rafferty, R.I.P.

Baker Street singer Gerry Rafferty dies in hospital.  Liver failure. 

To tell you the truth, I thought he died several years ago, as that seemed to be the general consensus.  I guess I missed the follow-up..

While mostly forgotten within the music industry, Rafferty was well known in the 70's and into the 80's for Stuck In The Middle With You(Stealer's Wheel), Baker Street(Maybe the best saxophone hook in rock music..), and a few other hits, including Right Down The Line, Get It Right Next Time, and Home and Dry.

And, evidently, he wrestled with alcohol most of his adult life, and in the end, alcohol, or its after effects, won out.  To you, Mr. Rafferty;  I hope you've found peace and an end to your suffering.  I'm sorry your end of life became so difficult and painful..  Thank you for providing some great, great tracks for my personal, teenage soundtrack.  I enjoyed them all..

Bird Die Off: Alternate Theory

ALERT!!! This is How the Mass Bird Death Happened - The New Madrid Fault may produce MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE soon!  This one combines two unexplained variables I couldn't define:  A gaseous or chemical (or influenza strain) release would effect a wider range of species, and the sudden-ness of the kill, and resulting physical trauma to the birds.  The poster explains..

Birds are very sensitive to electrostatic charges. A simple thunder cloud will irritate a bird severely. This is why birds fly low to the ground just before a storm, to avoid the very uncomfortable charges in the air.

In Arkansas there is one of the Worlds Largest Quartz deposits underground. Quartz is piezoelectric which means a charge develops over the surface of the quartz when pressure is applied to the crystal. The charge is millions of volts but it happens so fast its nearly harmless to people on a small scale. This is how some lighters work. A hammer hits a quartz device releasing a spark.

Anyways, the recent earthquake has placed new pressures on the quartz deposits in Arkansas. This results in a massive discharge of billions of volts of electricity. Think how a small piece of quartz the size of a pea can light a lighter. Now think about millions of Tons of quartz discharging under the extreme pressures the Earth can push.

At some point, the charges below created a brief surface charge, positive charge, during a discharge event. The electrostatic charge is immense and knocks the birds out cold in flight. The birds are still alive though, just knocked unconscious. The birds that were flying high were the ones killed upon impact. Blunt force trauma. The birds that were in the trees survived. Some birds like to fly high, others fly low. This explains why it was species specific as the birds that flew high were the ones to die.

The poster theorizes that this quartz sparking action means there will be a large earthquake event along the New Madrid Seismic Zone sooner rather than later.  As I write this, I am located within what would be the effected area, so I hope not.  But I will be buying some extra water in the next few days, just in case..

Edit:  I must clarify..  When I said wider range of species, I am making the assumption the original poster assumed the fish and bird kill were unrelated(although it doesn't fully rule out an event relationship), as other types of birds were seemingly unaffected.  This continues to develop..

Dead Animals: Epidemic, Or Meme?

This week's animal double die off in Arkansas seems to have caught the public imagination/pushed the national "freakout" button.  Are these events related?  What's the root cause for either event?  And then, what about these new events?

Mysterious killing of fish in coastal  Translated from the original Portuguese article from Brazil.. Excerpts:

A survey conducted by the Federation of Fishermen's Colony of Paraná, Paranaguá on the coast of the state, indicates that at least 100 tons of fish (sardine, croaker and catfish) have turned up dead since last Thursday off the coast of Parana.

Apart from Paranagua, Ferreira said the dead fish are starting to appear in other coastal towns. "The dead fish are going to Antonina, and Guaraqueçaba Pontal do Paraná. We need an urgent solution to this, "he warns.

Captain Edson Oliveira Avila, regional coordinator of Civil Defense in the Paraná region, believes there are three hypotheses for the death of fish. "We will wait to see what happened, but speculations suggest that fish may have died due to an environmental imbalance, dropping a fishing boat or leakage of chemicals," he says.

Or maybe there's a fourth hypothesis..

Japan on alert after finding dead birds

Recent discovery of several dead migratory birds in Japan has raised concerns about H5NI avian influenza, avian experts said.

Bird sanctuaries, poultry farms and zoos were put on high alert last month after the migratory birds in some region were found dead, The New York Times reported Monday.  Times article here..

Hundreds of dead fish found at Goytre Wharf

A possible reason is a 30cm drop in the water level at the marina caused by work upstream, but the cold weather, ice and a lack of oxygen are more likely to have killed the fish.

Smaller fish were found alive in the marina and initial tests showed there was no pollution.
(This event is probably a "natural" die off that is more common, but is included because it occurred during the same time frame..)

Uh-Oh..  Mayrbe it is bird flu..

10,000s of Birds found dead in Manitoba

Local reports have circulated that an extremely virulent strain of bird flu has infected both wild and farm birds. At the same time an extremely aggressive winter flu has hit Canada sometime in December and mortality rates are expected to rise alarmingly in vulnerable populations.
(Note:  All of this is more than unsubstantiated at the moment, so don't go freakin' out just yet..)

Hundreds of DEAD Black Birds Found In Louisiana

500 dead birds have been found near New Roads Louisiana just days after thousands of birds turned up dead in Arkansas and at least ten identical birds were reported dead in Kentucky!

Is God mad?

Or possibly this person is correct--Are these fish and bird die offs a false flag?

Something, my friends, is afoot.  More follow ups shortly..

Detroit in ruins

Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's extraordinary photographs documenting the dramatic decline of a major American city

These pictures fill me with such sadness.  We have allowed our cities, our infrastructures, our cultural and architectural landmarks to fall into a state beyond repair.  Detroit fucking Michigan was THE industrial hub of this nation not even 50 years ago, and now it has become an urban wasteland.  This city is a metaphor for the gradual decline-into-disintegration of America as Crumbling Empire. 

The cancer of concentrated money and power flowing to the Controlling Interests of this country to the exclusion of the rest of society metastasizes first in Detroit, and will spread quickly around the country, destroying cities and spirits alike. The pundit class continues to "search" blindly for the root cause, blaming all those but the ones to blame, those who sign their checks, and sadly, all are unwilling to make any sacrifice to keep us, our country, and our former way of life alive.  We will all continue to die slowly, until we begin to die quickly. 

And then, the real chaos will begin..

This Week In Shakey Shakey..

Major 7.1 magnitude earthquake hits Chile

Indiana's magnitude 3.8 earthquake felt in Michigan
     Wait; what?  Indiana?

When it comes to earthquakes, yes size matters, but so does depth.  Take, for instance, this 7.0 non quaker in Argentina..

The most curious current earthquake event is still the earthquake swarm in Guy, Arkansas, with another 2.5 magnitude mini quake earlier this week.  The rash of minor quakes might be due to fracking, or not.  What might *Might* be a harbinger of some major tectonic activity is the thousands of birds dropping dead in Arkansas skies, and thousands of fish dying and washing ashore in Arkansas lakes..  A possible instance methane out gassing?  Which leads to speculation about whether or not there are unknown fault lines in Arkansas, and a possible volcano around Hot Springs. 

And the earth change conspiracy theorists have already begun speculating.. 

Everything's Bigger In Australia; Including Disasters..

Australia flood waters cover area bigger than Texas  Inundated excerpts in italics:

Military aircraft dropped supplies to towns cut off by floods in northeastern Australia as the prime minister promised new assistance Friday to the 200,000 people affected by waters. Southern Australia, meanwhile, soaring temperatures and tinder dry conditions have sparked wildfires.
..
Authorities warned of rising health risks from flood waters, along with the danger of crocodiles and snakes in flooded homes.
..
Officials say half of Queensland's 715,305 square miles is affected by the relentless flooding, which began last week after days of pounding rain caused swollen rivers to overflow. The flood zone covers an area larger than Texas.

While the rain has stopped, the rivers are still surging to new heights and overflowing into low-lying towns as the water makes its way toward the sea.
..
The muddy water inundating thousands of homes and businesses has led to a shortage of drinking water and raised fears of mosquito-borne disease.

"This is without a doubt a tragedy on an unprecedented scale," Bligh told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Bligh warned that drenched communities could be stuck underwater for more than a week, and cleanup efforts were expected to cost billions of dollars.

Astrology: An Overview of What 2011 Will Bring

From Robert Wilkinson at Aquarius Papers.  One of my favorite Internet author/personalities, Wilkinson's style is accessible to astrology fans, beginners, or the merely curious.  Excerpts in italics:

A tremendous amount of change, new beginnings that rapidly become solid, confronting the consequences of one's willingness to become response-able, and a shift in collective consciousness across the current degree span representing the cusp of where the Age of Pisces slips into the Age of Aquarius. Of course, there's more.
..
The first half of the year will be radically different than the second half. The first half shows harvests and entryways, as well as the resumption of what we all saw or realized "for the first time" between June and August 2010. Whatever we've said goodbye to, whatever we've had to forgive, let go of, or view with the eyes of radical compassion, whether for others or ourselves, will rapidly give way to a highly energetic period that will crest in May.

The second half of the year will give substance to, or confirm in some way, the new vision of Summer 2010 that rapidly develops during the first half of the coming year. We will initiate some management forms and skills in February which will be needed to deal with the substantial forms presenting themselves at the end of the first half of 2011.

The first half of the year will show everyone the power inherent in the natural roles we've accepted as part of our transformational process, while the second half of 2011 will give substance to the responsibilities or duties that have been strongly activated in December 2010. We've all been shown ways to "pick up and deliver spiritual power," and this emergence from an old "cocoon" state will be finalized in February and March 2011.
..
A few things to consider as we move into a new Era: Though these times are very unstable, the potential is enormous. A broader view of our ability to respond will lead us to new power, resources, and clarity about what will sustain us into the future. Find your vision and tie yourself to that pillar of clarity, since that will help ground your vision in practical, natural, substantial forms.

While there are always limiting conditions, these show us what we do and do not need to deal with as we maintain our inner center of equipoise. Sometimes in history we must rise to our more effective Self regardless of how tough outer conditions can become. The striving is everything, as the creative tension finds an echo in the greater space we all share together.

I hope for each and every one of you every bit of your personal potential realized in amazing, unusual, and specific-to-you ways, thereby re-enforcing the wonder of our collective universe.  Happy 2011!

Korean Update: January 2nd, 2011

Some hopeful developments on the Korean penninsula this week, laced with some standard passive/nuclear agressive pronouncements..  All courtesy of North Korea, of course..  Excerpts:

North Korea, in a New Year message, said tensions with South Korea should be defused while calling for “intense combat training” for the North Korean army.

“The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean Peninsula,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a New Year editorial carried by newspapers including Rodong Sinmun and Joson Inmingun. “If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

And, true to its technological reputation, North Korea sent these greetings via fax.  Ringring..  1994 calling..
Also, as another testament to Kim Jong Il's unique leadership style, "Bend it like Beckham" has been shown on North Korean state television, and is the first western movie to ever be broadcast in North Korea. 

"Apparently the people were amazed that a Western film was shown," Hughes told The AP. "And there has been a buzz around the country as people have talked about the film and its content."

Kim Jong Il, the Lady Ga Ga of world leaders, strikes again..