Global employment crisis will stir social unrest, warns UN agency

From The Telegraph  Excerpts:

The United Nations work agency said it was putting back by two years from 2013 its previous assessment of the time needed to create the 22 million jobs still needed to regain the pre-crisis level - 14 million in rich countries and 8 million in developing states.
And:
In 35 countries for which data exists, nearly 40 per cent of job seekers have been without work for more than one year, running risks of demoralisation and mental health problems, and young people were disproportionately hit by unemployment.

It noted that social unrest related to the crisis has been reported in at least 25 countries, including some recovering emerging economies.

This week riot police were on the streets as protesters in Spain, Belgium, Italy and Greece demonstrated against tough austerity measures.


On a metaphysical note:
Uranus re-enters Aries on March 12  Another perspective.

One More Reason To Be Pro-Tomato

Tomatoes combat killer diseases - and are even more potent when cooked.

Heirloom seed site.

It's the Inequality, Stupid

Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.  From Mother Jones.

New Moon in Pisces Pt. 1 - What's Happening in March 2011

Another great article from Robert Wilkinson at Aquarius Papers.    Short, SHORT summation:

Over the next 4 weeks, the New Moon in Pisces will illuminate our worth, our merit, and forms of protection as we "pursue our work of Destiny." It's part of a cluster of planets in Pisces, so expect to say goodbye to parts of your past, blessing and forgiving what cannot be taken with you while moving forward into the revolutionary period shown by Uranus about to enter Aries.

Give yourself some time, but part 1 is worth the read.

Libya Roundup, March 4, 2011

Reality leads US to temper its tough talk on Libya

The Obama administration is tempering its tough talk on Libya with a dose of reality, explaining that even a no-fly zone over the country would require a military attack on Moammar Gadhafi's regime. Two leading senators on defense matters responded Thursday by urging a strong U.S. stance aiding Gadhafi's opposition.

The Pentagon is making it clear that it doesn't want war.

Statements Wednesday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton illustrated the administration's effort to rein in "loose talk" about military options to force Gadhafi from power. It was an acknowledgement that, short of an unlikely military offensive by a U.S.-led coalition, the options for international action to stem the violence appeared highly limited, even as armed rebels pressed their fight against troops still loyal to the Gadhafi regime.

Report: Gadhafi's warplanes attack Libya rebels

Moammar Gadhafi's forces renewed air attacks on rebels in Libya Friday as both sides struggled for control of a strategic coastal road and oil industry facilities.


Bombs were dropped on the oil terminal town of Brega in the east of the country, the Al-Arabiya news network reported.

And rebel volunteers guarding a military base in the eastern town of Ajdabiya told Reuters that a Libyan warplane had dropped bombs just beyond the walls of the base Friday but did not hit it. 

"We were sat here, heard the jet, then the explosion and the earth shook. They fell outside the walls," said Hassan Faraj, who was guarding an ammunitions store at the Haniyeh base.

Uh-Huh..  Libya bombings were only to 'frighten' rebels: Gadhafi son

Bomb attacks on Brega harbour were intended to scare rebels fighting Moamer Gadhafi into leaving Libya's oil and gas hub, his son Seif Al-Islam said late Thursday.


"The bombs were just to frighten them to go away," Gadhafi told Britain's Sky News. "There is no city there, the city of Brega is miles away. I am talking about the harbour, only oil refinery there."

Libyan rebels braced for attacks ahead of anti-Gaddafi protests

Tripoli/Cairo - Libyan rebels were braced for more attacks by forces loyal to leader Moamar Gaddafi on Friday as they prepared for mass protests across the country.



Witnesses in Libya's third largest city, Misurata, said they aimed to have a 1-million-strong march and that some of them would head for Tripoli, where Gaddafi remains in control.


Opposition forces in the capital have also called for mass protests, set to begin at the city's mosques after traditional Friday prayers.

Gadaffi faces investigation over killings..  From the I.C.C...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has decided to investigate Libya’s leader over the killings of hundreds of civilians during uprisings across the country. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the ICC, concluded there was enough evidence to warrant and investigation of Gadaffi and his closest allies.

It doesn't really have to, but Oil rises to near $103 as Libya conflict escalates

 Oil prices rose to near $103 a barrel Friday in Asia as Libyan government and rebel forces dug in amid fierce fighting, raising investor fears of protracted oil output cuts in the OPEC nation.

Again:  The price of oil doesn't have to change, but Speculators can't control their greed.  Time to reign 'em in..   

It's Not Called Saturn; It's Caturn..

Close encounters of the purred kind: Aliens spoke to us in a 'cat-like language' claim Russian flight controllers  Excerpts: 

 

Air traffic controllers in Siberia claim they were buzzed by a high-speed UFO with a female sounding alien who spoke in an unintelligible cat-like language.

The mystery object suddenly burst onto flight monitors over the remote Russian diamond capital of Yakutsk.

It was shown flying at a speed of slightly over 6000 mph, and rapidly changing direction in the early morning sky, it is claimed.

The UFO was logged at a height of 64, 895 feet above sea level and appeared to interfere with aviation frequencies.

On footage posted on You Tube, an air traffic controller made clear he sought to make contact with the UFO.

The Russian aviation workers are heard in the control tower trying to make contact with the ship.
And:
A radar shows the UFO moving rapidly through the skies while surrounding planes in the air travel much slower.

'I kept hearing some female voice, as if a woman was saying mioaw-mioaw all the time,' he told the pilot of a passing Aeroflot flight.
..
 The air traffic control monitor automatically designated the UFO as '00000' because it did not have a flight number.

Video of the radar event here.

Huh.  Maybe cats are aliens, after all.  Or maybe the aliens taught them how.. To meow..  And to purr, of course..

As far as extreme pipe dream scenarios, that would be a cool cool one to be fully realized.  Alien cats!  Life just got awesomely stranger!  If indeed, that were the case..

The Implications Of Earthquake Prediction

Interesting.  This looks to be a pretty heated debate in New Zealand.  Did Ken Ring, School Assembly entertainer, Mathematician, Magician/Clown(no fake), Author, and Seminar Headliner, really predict the Christchurch earthquake?  Excerpts:

.. One sunspot in particular, called AR1158 is growing rapidly and poses a threat to Earth. Solar activity has been stepping up since 10 January but most activity has missed Earth because most blasts occurred on the far side of the sun. Statistically speaking, a plasma bullet in our direction may be overdue, according to spaceweather.com.

..
From Ken's site Predict Weather 

It means this area of the sun that corresponds to NZ is again seeing some activation. The window of 15-25 February should be potent for all types of tidal action, not only King tides but cyclone development and ground movement. The 18th may be especially prone. The possible earthquake risk areas are N/S faults until after 16 February, then E/W faults until 23rd. The moon will be full on the 18th and in perigee on the 19th. This perigee will be the fifth closest for the year. The 15th will be nodal for the moon. On the 20th the moon crosses the equator heading south. Strong winds and swells may arrive around 22nd to NZ shorelines.
..
These are opinions and not predictions, based on observation of repeating lunar patterns.
 ..
For an earthquake to occur many factors have to come together, but sun activity, full moon and perigee are arguably the most potent, and they are all starting to chime now. Over the next 10 days a 7+ earthquake somewhere is very likely. This could also be a time for auroras in the northern hemisphere and in the southern tip of NZ. It may also be a time for whale strandings because of increases in underwater earthquakes. The 7+ is sure to be somewhere in the "Ring of Fire", where 80% of all major earthquakes seem to occur, and NZ is at the lower left of this Ring.  (While the Christchurch earthquake was a 6.3, is was very shallow, and its damage was comparable to a 7 magnitude or larger.)

The mathematician is a long-range weather forecaster who bases his predictions around the moon, sun and other scientific activity. Beyond 'Moon Forecasting', it’s his earthquake calls that have people a-buzz.


On February 14, 2011 Mr Ring made this tweet: “Potential earthquake time for the planet between 15th-25th, especially 18th for Christchurch, +/- about 3 days.” Short... and sharp.


The 6.3 magnitude quake struck four days from his 18th assessment, just one day outside his margin of error. For some, the coincidence and that forecast - despite not being absolutely precise - are just too accurate to discount. Very close, it seems, is enough for a little eyebrow raising. However, on the other side of the fence (and there's plenty of opinion to be found on the Internet) his delusional ramblings have no basis beyond the minds of the mad.

Last September though, Ken Ring had said that another big one was on its way, again in a tweet: "The Christchurch earthquake was predictable. And there's another coming in 6 months."
And:
But it’s his final warning - the Valentine's Day Tweet - that perhaps allows some thought to an eerie ability to ‘read’ and forecast weather patterns... and even natural disasters such as earthquakes?


During the interview with Lush he said the next big quake would come March 20 in Christchurch, along the east-west fault-line in Marlborough and Canterbury.

So, when Christchurch suffered an earthquake on the 22nd(February, of course..), people took notice.  And now, he's predicted another big one for Christchurch again, this time on March 20th.  This seems to have freaked out the local populace.  And now, everyone seems to have a passionate opinion about his credibility, his motives, his accuracy, and the necessity of his message..  Credibility and motives aside(We'll find out soon enough), the necessity of message boils down to these passages: ..Campbell(A Newscaster who got into a public fight with Ken Ring) was forced to apologise, admitting he didn't believe Mr Ring's theories.
 
"But many people I've spoken to do - and Mr Ring's predictions terrify them," the broadcaster said, before begging him to "stop scaring people".
 
And scaring them he is. Elderly Australian Gloria Cotton survived the quake and said that predictions of another were "ghastly".
 

"Tell them to stop, please just stop," the 84-year-old said from her damaged Christchurch home.

"Life is so hard anyway. We can't cope with hearing about another one."



"If the information was there wouldn't you rather have access to it?



"How terrible would it be if I knew all the seismic signs were there and I didn't say anything? I couldn't live with myself.



The scientists, however, remain unconvinced.
I don't know, so I can't know what the people of Christchurch are going through at this time.  With Arkansas' tectonic activity revving up, maybe I'll receive some firsthand empathy real soon.  Without knowing exactly how I would react in the same situation, I think I'd welcome the information.  It might be terrible news, but having as much valuable prep time for another event is much more preferable than not having that prep time in favor of not being scared by news I don't want to hear.  But that's just me.

What about the 84 year old woman?  Maybe she's alone, maybe unable, her husband dead, or unable, or fully able at 86(But that's not a big help..), anything is possible.  Her house is damaged; the walls of her entire world cracked and broken.  She's old, and tired.  It takes all she has to get through the minimum of house duties.

And now her house is broken.  Nothing will ever be the same again.  She's overwhelmed by the implications of what has happened--Can't process..  And someone comes along and says another one's coming.  This woman wants it to stop, and wants no more reminders of what has happened.  And she probably doesn't have enough people in her life strong enough to take care of themselves and repair her world.  .  When one ages, it is very likely the scope of their entire world shrinks to the outer walls of their home.  When their house is damaged or destroyed, so is their world.  If someone like her wants denial, so be it.

When disaster strikes an area, it effects everyone collectively, and individually.  Emotions are raw, the future is uncertain, and people's reactions can be unpredictable in the face of what they've just experienced.  People's needs will be different, and part of surviving a trauma of this magnitude is all about meeting the basics, and everyone coming together in the face of the horror they just faced.

At this moment in time, this particular debate should cease.  The prediction is out there.  There is no right answer.  And this all distracts from the urgency at hand. 

The people of Christchurch have been through enough, but this is far from over.  In the short term, Ken Ring's March 20th deadline looms.  I'm hoping he's wrong, as I'm sure everyone effected feels the same.  The short clock countdown for this next predicted disaster continues, while the time before Christchurch's return to normal must feel like it's moving backwards.
 (Note:  This post was destroyed last evening when Blogger's Autosave failed to work.  The last save happened probably 30 minutes before I attempted to publish, which was unsuccessful.  The version saved was very different than my first attempt,  and this post is pretty different that what I'd written last night..  The last few lines of "If you'd rather not know.." is not showing up on the draft page, so I can't delete it, yet it continues to show up on Preview.  Up until last night and today, Blogger had been performing well.  I'm hoping this is an anomalous frustration..)


"If you'd rather not know, then please don't read it."Mr Ring for his part said he believed most people would rather be safe than sorry.

Uh Oh..: Pakistan Edition

Breaking:Pakistan minorities minister shot dead in Islamabad  Excerpts:

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country's controversial blasphemy law, was killed in a gun attack in Islamabad on Wednesday, officials said.

Police said the shooting took place near an Islamabad market. Bhatti was the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet.

"The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a Kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened," said Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani.
Also:
On Jan 4 the governor of the most populous province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards.
And:
The anti-blasphemy law has its roots in 19th-century colonial legislation to protect places of worship, but it was during the military dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s that it acquired teeth as part of a drive to Islamise the state.  
..
Blasphemy convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal, but angry mobs have killed many people accused of blasphemy.

U.S., Pakistan could use a Muslim ritual to resolve Raymond Davis case  Excerpts:

One way out of the mess surrounding the Jan. 27 arrest in Lahore of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, say senior U.S. and Pakistani officials, is a Muslim ritual for resolving disputes known as "blood money."

This approach would require a prominent Islamic intermediary - perhaps from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates - who would invite relatives of the two men Davis killed to the Gulf. Payment to the victims' families could then be negotiated quietly. Once the next of kin had agreed to this settlement, the legal case against Davis for murder might be moot in a Pakistani court.
And:
Asked about such a third-party mediation to free Davis, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday: "The United States is open to exploring any and all options that could resolve this matter. . . . It's in our mutual interest to move beyond the Davis issue, and we believe the Pakistanis understand the stakes involved."

Pakistan also wants a pledge by the CIA that it will not conduct "unilateral" operations within its borders, like those in which Davis was allegedly involved. The Pakistanis say they want to be treated in intelligence matters like other allies of the United States, such as Britain and France, or, closer to home, Egypt, Israel and Jordan. (Uh-huh..)
Also:
The Davis case remains mysterious more than a month after it surfaced. He was arrested after shooting two Pakistanis following him, who, according to the official U.S. version, he thought were thieves. But an unnamed ISI official cited in a Feb. 23 Associated Press story from Islamabad said that Davis "knew both the men he shot." This suggests the two might have been operatives from the ISI or even a terrorist group who were assigned to tail or harass him.
..
The paperwork for Davis's visa and work assignment is fuzzy, at best. He was carrying three different ID cards when he was arrested. He wasn't included on a Jan. 25 U.S. list of people needing to be registered with the Foreign Office; his name is said to have been added within a day or two after his arrest. It's still not clear just what he was doing in Lahore, or whether he may have worked as a Defense Department contractor before shifting to the CIA.

For now, the one certainty is that the CIA and ISI would like to resolve this issue quietly, with outside help, if necessary - before it gets any worse. If mediation fails and the case goes to court, says one Pakistani, it will be an "atomic bomb."

Man, that's an ominous choice of words..

Activists on Facebook call for March protests in Saudi Arabia

Activists on Facebook call for March protests in Saudi Arabia  This is interesting and troubling, but I won't discuss why right now:  Only in retrospect.  This is more of a reference/time stamp.

Nook-you-luuurr.. How Many Time I Gotta Say Yer Speakin' It Wrong?

Fears over new leak at Chernobyl spark plea for radiation shield  We'll go ahead and add this to the "CON" side regarding "Nuclear power" - Pro, or Con?  Excerpts:

Fears that the destroyed nuclear reactor at Chernobyl could collapse and again leak deadly radiation have prompted European agencies to seek hundreds of millions of pounds to fund the construction of a vast steel building to encase the site.

As the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history approaches, there is a funding shortfall of €740m (£631m) for projects to build a "shelter" over the destroyed reactor and to safely store nuclear fuel from the other nuclear reactors at the site.

..In the months after the accident, a "sarcophagus" of concrete was hastily erected over the destroyed shell of the reactor, with many of the workers involved being subjected to life-threatening doses of radiation to get the work done.

In recent years, the structure has become extremely unstable, with experts warning that if it collapses, a catastrophic amount of radiation could be released into the atmosphere. Stopgap stabilising work on one of the walls of the sarcophagus has reduced the chances of collapse and extended its life by around 15 years, but this might not be enough to prevent a disaster.

..The new shelter is designed to be safe for 100 years.

Bitch, argue, and scream all you want:  Nuclear energy is still the most dangerous alternative of all the alternatives to oil.  No contest.  So when the shills talk about how clean, safe, and CHEAP nuclear power is, know they haven't factored in the future costs of cleaning and re-cleaning Sector 7G mistakes for hundreds of years to come, nor have they factored the human cost for those "fortunate" enough to be in the path of falling radiation. 

Adding say, 70 billion on the front end to cover any potential "accidental catastrophe" would change people's minds about the true cost of Nuclear power.  Only after putting up some assurance money that they'll actually clean up after themselves,  should Nuclear Energy corporations be considered as viable alternatives.. 

Two Earthquakes Hit Guy, AR. One Was A 4.7 Magnitude. Local Hillbillies Shaken; Stirred..

Sunday night Earthquake felt in the Ozarks, USGS reports two in Guy, AR  Wow.., and Uh-Oh..  Excerpts:

SPRINGFIELD —

Just after 11 p.m. (11:00:50) Sunday, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake registered near Guy, Arkansas.

The quake was felt as far north as Ebenezer and Ozark, Missouri, as far west as Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and as far northeast as Cabool and Willow Springs, Missouri.

The USGS reports, 18-minutes later, an apparent aftershock.  A second earthquake near Guy registered at 3.8 magnitude.

So, wow..  Earthquake, huh?  I guarantee Monday will be a busy day for the insurance agencies..  Lots of policies bought today..  Lots of hillbillies, jawin' at the grocery store.  And a lot more people will now take the possibility of a catastrophic earthquake in the SW Missouri NW Arkansas area seriously, that's for sure.. 

I didn't feel it.  And that makes the odd sounding thunder I half paid attention to actually earthquake booms. 

At this time, we (The area effected is my area..) are still under a tornado watch until 3 a.m..  My dog's been acting very aloof and generally odd today, which isn't like her at all.  I wrote her behavior off as pre-thunderstorm nerves, but in hindsight, maybe it was earthquake jitters..  We might have sedated her maybe once before in the last almost eight years, (I got a prescription for doggie downers a couple years ago, but forget to use them until it's too late. Events that effect her happen infrequently, and I get a little scattered..  I should be more proactive, but am not..) but this was, at the most, the second time ever for her.  She was flyin' highhigh at 11:00, but did lift her head for the booms, got up to run, but was just too..  fluid..  to go too far.  So she laid back down.  It appears that she enjoys the sedation. 

A little while later I heard some more thunder from the oncoming storm, which almost magically, according to the radar, split open and missed us, save for a little rain.  The dog is now on a blanket on the couch, almost snoring.  The house is almost quiet. 

And here I sit, staring, typing, staring, and hoping this was not a foreshock or an omen, portending a larger, more active future, while the spectre of Earthquake rises, almost simultaneously, within the Ozarkian populace.

I hope that History never writes the passage, "At 11:00 p.m. on February 27, 2011 the first earthquake hit.  Locals felt the rumbling over a large area in both Arkansas and Missouri, but viewed the quake with curiousity, rather than as a warning.  That perspective turned out to be catastrophic.." 

Creepy, right?

How About That? Another "Conspiracy Theory" Validated..

Past medical testing on humans revealed  From the Associated Press.  The Medical Establishment would Never do that, would they?  Excerpts:

 

Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

..
U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States — studies that often involved making healthy people sick.
..
At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results.

And:
Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the '60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated.
Examples:
A federally funded study begun in 1942 injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients at a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Mich., then exposed them to flu several months later. It was co-authored by Dr. Jonas Salk, who a decade later would become famous as inventor of the polio vaccine.

Some of the men weren't able to describe their symptoms, raising serious questions about how well they understood what was being done to them. One newspaper account mentioned the test subjects were "senile and debilitated." Then it quickly moved on to the promising results.

..
A University of Minnesota study in the late 1940s injected 11 public service employee volunteers with malaria, then starved them for five days. Some were also subjected to hard labor, and those men lost an average of 14 pounds. They were treated for malarial fevers with quinine sulfate. One of the authors was Ancel Keys, a noted dietary scientist who developed K-rations for the military and the Mediterranean diet for the public. But a search of various news archives found no mention of the study.

..
Though people in the studies were usually described as volunteers, historians and ethicists have questioned how well these people understood what was to be done to them and why, or whether they were coerced.

And:
Around the time of World War II, prisoners were enlisted to help the war effort by taking part in studies that could help the troops. For example, a series of malaria studies at Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois and two other prisons was designed to test antimalarial drugs that could help soldiers fighting in the Pacific.



It was at about this time that prosecution of Nazi doctors in 1947 led to the "Nuremberg Code," a set of international rules to protect human test subjects. Many U.S. doctors essentially ignored them, arguing that they applied to Nazi atrocities — not to American medicine.
And:
By the early 1970s, even experiments involving prisoners were considered scandalous. In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.
..
Edward "Yusef" Anthony, featured in a book about the studies, says he agreed to have a layer of skin peeled off his back, which was coated with searing chemicals to test a drug. He did that for money to buy cigarettes in prison.



"I said 'Oh my God, my back is on fire! Take this ... off me!'" Anthony said in an interview with The Associated Press, as he recalled the beginning of weeks of intense itching and agonizing pain.
..
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons in the mid-1970s effectively excluded all research by drug companies and other outside agencies within federal prisons.

As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries.



It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs.



Additional sets of ethical guidelines have been enacted, and few believe that another Guatemala study could happen today. "It's not that we're out infecting anybody with things," Caplan said.

..
Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general reported that between 40 and 65 percent of clinical studies of federally regulated medical products were done in other countries in 2008, and that proportion probably has grown. The report also noted that U.S. regulators inspected fewer than 1 percent of foreign clinical trial sites.

"It's not that we're out infecting anybody with things," And "U.S. regulators inspected fewer than 1 percent of foreign clinical trial sites."

Put those two sentences together, and the second invalidates the certainty of the first.  We inspect less than one percent of foreign research sites.  Can we be sure this type of research has been fully halted?  How can we be sure the Corporate Medical Establisment isn't still testing on the disenfranchised? 
 
If not, can we be sure there's nothing dangerous happening to those people forced into experimentation?  The upside?  Corporate media will be sure to expose the atrocities six decades after the fact. 
 
Sleep well!

Libya's 'Love Revolution': Muslim Dating Site Seeds Protest

Sweet..  Gaddafi's thugs were zigging, so naturally, the Libyan people zagged..  Excerpts:

To avoid detection by Libyan secret police, who monitor Facebook and Twitter, Mahmoudi, the leader of the Ekhtalef ("Difference") Movement, used what's considered the Match.com of the Middle East to send coded love letters to rally the revolution.
..
So he created a Mawada profile called "Where Is Miriam?" and pretended to be on the hunt for a wife.

The conservative site doesn't allow men to communicate with other men, so other revolutionaries posed as women to contact him, assuming aliases like "Sweet Butterfly," "Opener of the Mountain," "Girl of the Desert" and "Melody of Torture."
..
On the site, the revolutionaries used poetry laced with revolutionary references to gauge support and make initial contact. Then they had detailed follow-up conversations via text message and Yahoo Messenger.

Nice.  So far, when the game changes, The People are the ones changing it;  Not The Oppressors.

This Is Interesting By Omission..

Go to GOOGLE, type "comet elenin" and hit news search..................

New comet.  Google Web search - Lots of hits. Google News search - No hits.

Deafening silence, except for the whoosh of that comet whizzin' by..

England Thinks Gaddafi's Already Dead, Too..

Libya Now, Iran Then: How Close Are We to 1979?  Gonzalo Lira.  Excerpts:

Today, the UK’s Telegraph is reporting that British government drones in Whitehall are figuring out the legal means to seize Muammar al-Gaddafi’s assets in Britain, which are said to total some £20 billion.
..
That these assets are going to be seized is, according to the story, a done deal: The only issue seems to be the legal means by which to do so—


—which means that the British government isn’t worried about pissing off Gaddafi—


—which means that Gaddafi’s days in power are numbered: Whitehall would never dare seize his UK assets, unless they were sure that Gaddafi won’t be around to exact revenge or retribution. After all, the Brits let the Lockerbie Bomber go in 2009, in order to shore up relations with Gaddafi.


Lira's article continues by exploring a comparison of economic/global circumstances between '79's Iranian Revolution and and Now.  Short answer?  2011 does not fare well, as circumstances in 1979 were way better.  Way better.

My point being, England has assessed that Gaddafi is, without a doubt, going down.  Killed or Captured or Captured Then Killed, they're sure he's not going to talk, so they're going for his cash.  Not the worst thing in the world, right?  Lira then brings up the possibility of the beginnings of what could be many oil shocks, the likes of which America can't survive..  Excerpts from original article..

Now, what happened after 1979’s Iranian Oil Shock? Like I said: Severe inflation, unemployment, and a Fed that had to raise rates catastrophically, in order to stop an inflation that was spiralling out of control.

But back in 1979, there was no kindling for that inflationary fire. Federal Reserve money policies were fairly responsible. The Federal government’s total debt and liabilities was less than 50% of GDP. Back in 1979, the U-3 unemployment rate was about 5%, compared to over 9% today.

Back in 1979, there was no ZIRP, no QE2, no $1.6 trillion deficit. There weren’t so many freshly-minted dollars sloshing around, looking for yields like army ants looking for dead meat. There wasn’t a total government debt that was bigger than the total gross domestic product of the United States.

In short, back in 1979, the economy, the fiscal situation and the monetary policy were far healthier than they are today.

Yet the 1979 Oil Shock brought us the worst recession since the Great Depression.

And that is very, very bad for us today, in 2011.

Seriously:  Shouldn't we be taking all the alternative energy projects off the back burner and fast tracking Every Bit Of It right now?  We as a society can see the potential cataclysm in front of us:  Shouldn't we start talking about directions away from disaster, or at least trying to cushion the impact? 

Then again, it was Way Too Late way before I wrote these words. 

The Tsunami Approaches, and we stare; transfixed.