When The Needs Of Industry Are Weighed Against The Needs Of The Rest Of Us, Who Wins?

Revealed: Texas officials covered up dangerously radioactive tap water for years Disgusting excerpts in italics:

Texas officials charged with protecting the environment and public health have for years made arbitrary subtractions to the measured levels of radiation delivered by water utilities across the state, according to a series of investigative reports out of Houston.

Those subtractions, based on the test results' margin of error, made all the difference for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ): without the reduction, demonstrated levels of dangerous radiation would have been in excess of federal limits for years.

This was being done in direct contravention of an order by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which told state regulators in 2000 to stop subtracting the margin of error.

This is nice..

Confronted by reporter Mark Greenblatt, TCEQ staffer Linda Brookins claimed that the radiation was "natural" and people shouldn't be concerned. She also refused to read on camera the EPA's order to stop subtracting margins of error from radiation test results.
and
Thanks to the TCEQ's under-reporting of radioactive content, one particular water provider in Harris County was able to skirt needed maintenance for years, even though uncensored tests showed radiation was almost always above legal limits.

What did we learn today? Regulation with corrupt Oversight is worse than no Regulation at all. Sleep well, my Texan friends.. It's probably not a tumor..

Head's Up--Incoming!

Meteor Fireball Explodes Over Netherlands

plus

Breaking News- Fireball in Baltimore MD & York PA - Nov 12, 2010 Meteor/Meteorite News 13NOV2010

plus

Breaking News: Serbia and Macedonia Major Bolide Meteor Fireball Producing Earthquake 12NOV2010 13NOV2010

Expect more stories like these..

Somewhere in Hollywood, Lindsay Lohan attempts to read AND take notes..

Terrifying moment shark took a bite out of sea paparazzi.

"Bite camera then run off. Got it.."

This Week In Tipping Point..

BBC News - Violence at student protest outside Tory headquarters. (Video link)

NASA's Fermi Telescope Finds Giant Structure in our Galaxy(Video)

Astronomers find giant, previously unseen structure in our galaxy(Article)

Ireland's crisis flares as investors dump bonds

Chinese bond agency cuts U.S. debt rating (For those who might not know, This is BIG..)

Multiple independent lab tests confirm oil in Gulf shrimp..

2010 Food Crisis for Dummies

Very Clear Night Pyramid Over Turkey 11-05-2010

Mount Merapi Earthquake Hits Indonesia

Three days until The Tipping Point.. How will it all play out?

Sadly, This Makes Sense, If You Believe In VooDoo Hexes..

Or essentially carrying on with the same policies of your predecessor.. ‘I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me,’ Bush reportedly said.

After this week of Bush's return to the world's stage, I really wish he would have shown up October 1st. People would have "remembered," and the election would have been waaaay different.

Spot Silver Price, Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 12:26 a.m. CST

Silver $27.58
Gold  $1396.90

Kitco chart from Urban Survival.  Silver and Gold both dipped after new highs($29.38/Silver, and $1425.50/Gold), but are recovering losses from today's bottom($26.43/$1381.70).

Tomorrow is another day..

Government De-Regulation: Another Success Story..

Town in ‘Erin Brockovich’ suffers as groundwater grows even more toxic. Excerpts:

A tiny desert town whose plight was made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" has seen a dramatic increase in the size of a toxic plume of chromium as it has spread to multiple groundwater wells.

Water regulators earlier this year discovered a well with increasing concentrations of the cancer-causing pollutant and now even more wells have been uncovered with elevated levels, said Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control board.

The water board on Monday ordered Pacific Gas & Electric to do additional groundwater monitoring at the site near Hinkley, about 120 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

"The more dispersed chromium continues to move," Kemper told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "Because of the widespread nature of the lower concentration chromium, it's difficult to capture the contamination."

The contamination was first publicized during a 1996 court case in which PG&E settled with more than 600 Hinkley residents for $333 million. Many sick residents blamed the contaminated water for their crippling health problems that included Hodgkin's disease and breast cancer.

No mention of prosecution for this most recent contamination.. PG&E to Hinkley, California? Screw you; Maybe we'll do some more testing.. Doesn't really matter, though, does it? After all, it's not YOUR little town in peril..

Rich People Are Subject To The Same Laws As The Rest Of Us(coughcough.. choking on my sarcasm lie..)

Rich Vail Fund Manager Hits Cyclist And Runs, Gets Off Because Charges Might "Jeopardize His Job" With "Are you f/n kidding me?" excerpts in italics..

The rich are different from you and me; they get to hit and run, almost killing a cyclist, but get off without serious charges because it is hard to be money manager for Smith Barney if you have a record. District Attorney Mark Hurlbert is not charging Martin Joel Erzinger with a felony, because "Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger's profession," which is managing billions for rich people.

Dr. Steven Milo, the victim, is not impressed.

Mr. Erzinger struck me, fled and left me for dead on the highway," Milo wrote. "Neither his financial prominence nor my financial situation should be factors in your prosecution of this case."

Milo was bicycling eastbound on Highway 6 just east of Miller Ranch Road, when Erzinger allegedly hit him with the black 2010 Mercedes Benz sedan he was driving. Erzinger fled the scene and was arrested later, police say.


Erzinger allegedly veered onto the side of the road and hit Milo from behind. Milo was thrown to the pavement, while Erzinger struck a culvert and kept driving, according to court documents.

Erzinger drove all the way through Avon, the town's roundabouts, under I-70 and stopped in the Pizza Hut parking lot where he called the Mercedes auto assistance service to report damage to his vehicle, and asked that his car be towed, records show. He did not ask for law enforcement assistance, according to court records.

Vomitous, or Goddamned disgusting, if you prefer..

Xymphora(Thanks for the link!) says it perfectly..

"Back in the day, there was one law which governed the royals and the nobility (which is to say no law at all), and another law for everybody else. Then there were some revolutions and stuff, and there was supposed to be one law for all. With the victory of the counter-revolution of the plutocrats, American prosecutors are no longer even pretending that the rich are subject to the law."

And the "Haves" wonder why the "Have Nots" are angry..

Spot Silver Price, Tuesday, November 9, 2010, 1:34 a.m. CST

$28.09/Silver 

1411.30 Gold

Source:  Kitco chart via Urban Survival

Silver increased in price $1.35 in less than 24 hours.  Clif said that silver first increase by a dollar a day, then to five dollars a day, and then..  Change is just around the corner..

Spot Silver Price, Monday, November 8, 2010, 2:19 a.m. CST..

$26.76  From Kitco.com.  I don't have a screen shot, and Silver is likely to change in price once the market opens.  This is just for documentation.  $26.76 at the open of Monday's market..

And The Weirdness Begins..

Tucked in the second paragraph of the already politically *Major* article Lords stunned by Tory peer's IRA funding claim is this MegaBlast:

Lord James of Blackheath also claims that he is in touch with a secret organisation which he called Foundation X, with vast sums of money at its disposal, which is prepared to lend billions to the British government, interest free, to help reduce the deficit, but he has been unable to get ministers to believe him. His claims were ridiculed as coming from a man who has lost touch with reality when he voiced them in the House of Lords this week, but a government minister, Lord Sassoon, said that they had been the subject of "detailed discussions".

Don't get me wrong.. Admitting to laundering money for multiple terrorist organizations(the biggest being the IRA) is a pretty big revelation in itself..

Lord James told peers: "I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money. My biggest client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1bn of its money. I have also had extensive connections with North African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems."

But Foundation X.. That's.. Something.

He told peers that he was approached for or five months ago by a City firm, on behalf of "a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy". Later, Lord James gave a figure of £75bn. He said: "I have come to the absolute conclusion that Foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy."


He said that he had arranged for a representative of Foundation X to meet the leader of the House of lords, Lord Strathclyde, but that the meeting went so badly that" neither of them ended up by inviting the other out for a coffee or drink at the end of the evening, and they did not exchange telephone numbers".

Of course there are critics..

Lord Strathclyde later told Lord James that the claims made about Foundation X could not be true, because all of their wealth is supposedly backed by gold bullion, which would imply they held more bullion than had been mined in the history of the world. Lord James, who is 72, said the total amount of bullion in the world may have been miscalculated, because "the total value of the Vatican bank reserves would claim to be more than the entire value of gold ever mined".

Lord James' credentials:

As a businessman, David James had a reputation as a "company doctor" who was called in to take over enterprises that were on the brink of failure, including the Millennium Dome. In preparation for the 2001 general election, he was a member of an exclusive club of businessmen each of whom donated at least £10,000 a year to the Conservatives.


Michael Howard, David Cameron's predecessor, sent for him in 2004 to hold a review into how a Tory government might save £35bn a year by cutting Whitehall waste. The James Review of Taxpayer Value was praised by George Osborne as a "valuable exercise in identifying poor value for money". At Mr Howard's request, David Cameron arranged for James to be rewarded with a life peerage, as a working peer, in 2006.

So.. Who or What is Foundation X? The nuns known as Sorcha Faal have an answer of course, and the conspiracy includes John Stewart. Awesome. Come to think of it, that might explain Tim Geithner meeting with Stewart earlier this year, which was odd.. Or, more like "weird."

Clif High Latest Radio Interview

Courtesy Veritas.

New Reality Transmission

"On 11-11, 2010, one million people across the globe will mentally project a unified vision of a new paradigm for our species... a new reality.  The very real physics that connects human consciousness with molecular structure will be harnessed en masse during the largest scale simultaneous manifestation transmission in recorded history."

Actually, this is an 11 day event, culminating on the 11th, so it's happening now.  If you're interested, link up and pass it on..

November 2, 2010

What's left of the "Right/Left"-paradigm-believer in me was a little depressed as to how today's election results would play out.  For me, it's not so much the transfer of power (It's cyclical, and spiraling tighter..), it's the sheer obvious-ness of America's massive and collective Attention Deficit Disorder and catastrophic lack of fundamental and recent history, political, economic, and otherwise.  It's the dark, murky cynicism shown in the more aggressive of political ads, not only for the opponent, but towards the voting populace.  You will believe anything I say if the accompanying soundtrack is scary enough..  It's the chasm between what was promised and what (and in what form) was delivered.  I'm immersed and obsessed and disgusted by the entire process.

So I didn't watch.  I got a few updates from the net, watched Modern Family episodes, The Nanny Marathon, and surfed the net.  And I feel much more peaceful than I would have subjecting myself to the non-stop poison disguised as "political discorse" that dominates the MSM.  And, whatever the result, I didn't want tonight's results to remove focus from November's(and beyond) considerations.  According to many sources, the Shit Is Coming, possibly within one week.  Here are just a few..  "considerations" to file underneath the umbrella term "Global Tipping Point."

Earth changes:  Iceland and Indonesia(!!) getting ready to blow..  Literally. 

Stuxnet and the new cyber-warfare: 

From Urban Survival..  Coping: Fears of Stuxnet - the Anagram & Heysham /Italics:

Although we've covered the possibility that "Son of Stuxnet" could be the kind of problem that sets off our 'tipping point' next week, the prospect had actually been a ways down my list of 'suspects' since I hadn't previously spent much time figuring out what a massive disruption to the internet would do to everyday life.


But, upon inspection, the impacts of an attack, directed at key machine hardware in high level internet router equipment could be HUGE. And that's putting it mildly.

To start with, a colleague of mine - a high level academic - called on Monday to say that one of his colleagues who was one of the 'early draft picks' to be involved with the cybersecurity efforts against terrorism was a bit freaked out over the possibility.

"Seems that the design of the Stuxnet virus was really head and shoulders above what the cyber warfare people had been anticipating," he began. "This was a very sophisticated virus which would have taken dozens of people years to create..."

We chatted a bit more and I idly started to list some of the impacts of a Stux-type attack if it were directed against the whole internet via the high-level routers that are in place. 

*Finances would seize up. Not more online stock trading.
*No more ATM - few if any credit cards would work.
*AC power systems could fail because much of the admin traffic to run the SCADA systems transits the physical transport layers of 'the net'
*And along with that, much of the public switched telephone network would go down for the same reason - PSTN packets transit them, too.

Then there are wire transfers, orders for things like warehouse reorder levels and so on...

I stopped jotting down the impacts, because it was just the kind of thing that could account for a) Clif's "data gap" that we've been nattering on about for what, a year now? If you're new, the rickety time machine project which uses conversations on the whole of the internet (less emails and private traffic of course) to figure out likely futures - and sometimes, it's been really very much on target. Here next week, we come into what we expect, based on language shift, to be a huge 'tipping point' which will last at least under mid-January of 2011. It would also, b), account for the curious language shift around this 'tipping point' - really the only major one globally since 9/11, which is the first one we caught back in mid 2001.
---
As usual, if I have any question about anything having to do with computers, I get on the phone to Clif and ask him for an assessment of Stuxnet - and his answers were anything but reassuring... a couple of notes and ponder points follow which I've written down best I can recall them from a guy who captured a chucnk of stuxnet and took it apart to see what's in it, using some of the old-school tools like the EXE to BIN converters that still run on W98 machines......

Stuxnet was a very complex piece of code. But complex not so much in the sense that it carried a lot of libraries on board, but because it was many 'open calls' deep in the code that were, best I can decrypt our conversation, designed to go out and look for local libraries and local devices.

These 'open calls' mean that Stuxnet could be looking for more than a single device class. Oh, sure, the Siemens PLC (programmable logic controllers) were the first device-specifics, but seems that the 'freak out' at the academic level is that there may be other devices on its shopping list.

The virus is huge as viruses go. Guys like Clif are mighty proud of being able to write compact code, and some of the versions of his Vortex Reader software (originally written for screen display of individual words - in flicker-fashion to provide for high speed reading - was extremely small - under 40 kilobytes. Stuxnet, by comparison is over a megabyte and it doesn't carry big libraries around.


This leads - at least to a programmer of some competence - to the idea that the libraries which are called by the sections of Stuxnet that haven't 'gone active' may have been previously 'positioned'.

Evidence that the Sun is becoming.. energetically unstable..

Again with all the fuckin' warlike behavior..

What if the US Dollar collapses and dies, almost overnight?

Not to mention food, water, and employment shortages..

Some of the woo-woo predictors include the webbots (radio interview through here), Timewave Zero (theory here), Bulgarian prophet Baba Vanga, the Federal Reserve, Astrological influences.. 

And then there's this nagging, persistent.. foreknowledge that these circumstances just..  can't..  remain..  the.. same.  It feels like we all have a ringside seat for the manifestation of the meeting of immovable object versus irresistable force..  And the results of that confrontation will alter all of us from here on out.  A feeling, but a very specific feeling, and I am definitely not alone in feeling this way..

Taking A Break

Be back tomorrow. 

It all starts soon. 
Whatever it is, is almost manifest. 
Whatever it turns out to be will change Everything. 

Here we go..

R.I.P. Zecharia Sitchin

Nibiru expert and author Zecharia Sitchin passed away this month. The family did a good job of keeping Sitchin's death quiet until early last week, in fact it's a little odd.. From the post/Italics:

"It appears that many (including some who actually knew him) are surprised to hear of Zechariah Sitchin's passing in such an odd manner. It is certainly a mystery to me why no obituary or press release went out about this great man at the time just after his actual passing or why no mention was made until weeks after his funeral...and only then through an obscure PR website".

I don't see a conspiracy afoot in the news delay of Sitchin's death; After all, what would it be? Estate/Inheritance related and family infighting scenarios, maybe, but the information of his passing serves no larger purpose that I can see. So.. Sad circumstances and an odd obituary situation, but nothing more..

Sitchin's site.

Of Course They Did.

Letter: BP, Halliburton knew of flaws in cement in Gulf oil spill well. Friggin' ridiculous excerpts in italics:

Oil giant BP and contractor Halliburton knew of potential flaws in the cement slurry used to reinforce the oil well below the Deepwater Horizon rig before it exploded in April, according to a letter Thursday from the lead investigator for a federal probe of the Gulf oil disaster.

The letter from Fred Bartlit Jr. to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling said that tests in February on a cement slurry similar to what was used on the Macondo well showed instability -- and that both companies had the data.
..
"Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data," the letter said."

"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well," the letter continued.

The news caused Halliburton stock to drop in value by almost 8 percent by the end of trading Thursday, to $3
1.68 a share. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, called for the oil spill commission to get full subpoena power, and for BP CEO Bob Dudley to agree to testify before Congress.

"The fact that BP and Halliburton knew this cement job could fail only solidifies their liability and responsibility for this disaster," Markey said in a written statement. "This is like building a car when you know the brakes could fail, but you sell the cars anyway."

Hey look! The perfect example of the failure of Government de-regulation regarding corporate safety practices, and all it took was a catastrophic environmental disaster that is far from over, far from "capped." Rather, the consequences of this disaster are just beginning to bloom. And there are no doubts this fruit will be poisonous..

Ever Have Your Mind Blown By An Internet Comic?

You're about to..  An artist friend of mine has a new web comic called "Blaed Race" (Pronounced 'Blade.').  It's super-cool, and if you've got some free time, you should really check it out.  Then when Scotty Richard becomes famous, you can say you've been reading his stuff since (almost) the beginning!  Enjoy!

Sadly, I Called This..

Reappearance of Huge Plumes of Oil is Making It Hard to Pretend that the Problem Has Disappeared

All those catastrophic environmental and health worst-case-scenarios didn't disappear. They just hid for awhile..

Here's A Doom Nugget Buried Under Charlie Sheen's Unconscious, Drunken Body..

Not literally, people; come on.. Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles. Excerpts/Italics:

President Obama was briefed this morning on an engineering power failure at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming that took 50 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), one-ninth of the U.S. missile stockpile, temporarily offline on Saturday.

The base is a main locus of the United States’ strategic nuclear forces. The 90th Missile Wing, headquartered there, controls 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. They’re on full-time alert and are housed in a variety of bunkers across the base.
..
..engineers believe that a launch control center computer (LCC), responsible for a package of five missiles, began to “ping” out of sequence, resulting in a surge of “noise” through the system. The LCCs interrogate each missile in sequence, so if they begin to send signals out when they’re not supposed to, receivers on the missiles themselves will notice this and send out error codes.

Since LCCs ping out of sequence on occasion, missileers tried quick fixes. But as more and more missiles began to display error settings, they decided to take off-line all five LCCs that the malfunctioning center was connected to. That left 50 missiles in the dark. The missileers then restarted one of the LCCs, which began to normally interrogate the missile transceiver. Three other LCCs were successfully restarted. The suspect LCC remains off-line.
And:
The defense official said that there had not been a power failure, though the official acknowledged that that explanation had made its way through public affairs channels.

“We’ve never had something as big as this happen,” a military officer who was briefed on the incident said. Occasionally, one or two might blink out, the officer said, and several warheads are routinely out of service for maintenance. At an extreme, “[w]e can deal with maybe 5, 6, or 7 at a time, but we’ve never lost complete command and control and functionality of 50 ICBMs.”

The Military says this happened previously in 1998 to two bases in North Dakota and Montana, and the same piece of hardware is blamed, too(see article linked), but I find the timing and magnitude of this incident particularly disturbing. I can't imagine the same programming/system problem that happened twelve years ago happened again because they couldn't isolate the bugs. 1998 was the Stone Age in cybertime, so no progress finding a fix? Really? Rating: Highly Suspect to Unadulterated Bullshit.

So.. What caused it? How did the Military lose command and control of one ninth our ballistic missiles? Escalating tensions between North and South Korea, China and Japan, Israel and Iran, Russia and Georgia, stealth cyber warriors everywhere and nowhere at once, and something locks up our nukes? And what if something were to actually take control of those nukes and turn them inward?

Have you noticed no one's talking about Stuxnet anymore? It must have just dissolved and gone away overnight..

Highest alert issued for Indonesia's Merapi volcano

From BBC. Excerpts:

Indonesia has raised the alert for its most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, to its highest level and warned villagers in threatened areas to move to safer ground.
And:
Officials said about 500 volcanic earthquakes had been recorded on the mountain over the weekend.

"The magma has been pushed upwards due to the escalating seismic energy and it's about a kilometre below the crater," AFP news agency quoted government volcanologist Surono as saying.

The region is active. If the sun pops off a big enough CME in the next few days, we might see some real seismic activity, with both quakes and volcanoes striking this same area. The conditions seem perfect for some big destruction..

Geopolitically, This Is A (Really) Big Deal..

Vatican body asks UN to 'end Israeli occupation' Key excerpts in italics:

Israel cannot use the Biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new "settlements" in Jerusalem or territorial claims, a Vatican synod on the Middle East said on Saturday.
And:
US-brokered peace talks have stalled since Israel rejected appeals to extend a temporary moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank that expired last month.

Since the freeze expired, Israel has announced plans to build another 238 homes in two east Jerusalem neighborhoods, drawing the condemnation of Palestinians and world leaders.

In a separate part of the document, a section on cooperation with Jews, the synod fathers also took issue with Jews who use the Bible to justify settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.


"Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable," the document said.

Many Jewish settlers and right-wing Israelis claim a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria and regard as a part of historical, ancient Israel given to the Jews by God.

Asked about the passage at a news conference, Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, said:


"We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.

"The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians," he added. "The justification of Israel's occupation of the land of Palestine cannot be based on sacred scriptures."

This is big. The Vatican is criticizing THE Fundamental Justification of Israel's Military Strategy and doing it to the United Nations. Whatever your thoughts are on either organization doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that this bit of information means jack-shit your little corner of the world.

To the entities involved, this is a big slap in the face and won't be forgotten anytime soon. My prediction is that Israel will take a much more defensive posture, thereby escalating tensions, not only in the region(including Iran), but with Russia, China, and the U.S. What alliances actually occur is something I won't speculate on, at least, not at the moment..

It Looks Like People Are Getting Wise To High Fructose Corn Syrup's Lies..

Corn Syrup Lobby Courts Mommybloggers, Gets Spanked. Excerpts/Italics:

Some scientists and food experts, including the well-regarded sustainable food advocate Marion Nestle, have argued that high fructose corn syrup is really no worse, nutritionally speaking, than traditional refined table sugar, which is certainly no health food. But mounting evidence suggests that subtle chemical differences between the two sweeteners might cause HFCS to affect the body differently than regular sugar, in potentially harmful ways.

A 2007 Rutgers University study linked HFCS in soda to diabetes. There was the revelation in 2008 that some brands of HFCS contained traces of mercury. Then a Princeton study, published just this March, connected high fructose corn syrup consumption to obesity in rats.

As a result of all the bad publicity associated with these scientific findings, more than 50% of Americans now believe high fructose corn syrup may pose a health hazard. Sales of high fructose corn syrup have plummeted as manufacturers scramble to replace HFCS with familiar, old-fashioned table sugar.

So last month, the Corn Refiners Association, a trade organization that lobbies the U.S. government on behalf of corn processors, launched a campaign to change the name of high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar.
Along with the usual press releases and web site, there's this..

Specifically, the CRA approached bloggers who write compensated product reviews for MomCentral, a targeted social media marketing organization whose clients include such corporate giants as Unilever, Bayer, and Procter and Gamble.
...
For the Corn Refiners Association, MomCentral arranged a webinar for blogger members, where attendees were apparently treated to a CRA sponsored presentation of evidence that high fructose corn syrup, a.k.a. "corn sugar," and traditional table sugar are nutritionally equivalent and affect the body in exactly the same way. The bloggers were then paid, with Walmart gift certificates, to write about what they had learned from the CRA.
And:
The blogger backlash against the CRA / MomCentral corn sugar marketing campaign was swift and severe. Prominent members of the parent blog community, including Mom-101's Liz Gumbinner, Work It Mom's Mir Kamin, and Christine Koh of Boston Mamas, came out strongly against the marketing campaign, calling the CRA messaging misleading and taking the bloggers who repeated CRA's assertions uncritically to task for failing to do their own research on high fructose corn syrup to present more balanced reviews.

These tactics aren't working. The public is becoming aware of the dangers of HFCS, not only through information, but also by becoming aware as to how they personally feel, in response to ingesting High Fructose Corn Syrup. The industry has lost ground, but don't expect them to give up: They'll just change tactics, again.

File Under: Reeeeeeeeeeeeeally?

Abstinence-Only States Have More Teen Pregnancy. Excerpt/Italics:

While US teen pregnancy rates are falling overall, some states currently have dramatically higher rates than others, according to a new CDC study—and they just happen to be states emphasizing abstinence-only sex education. In New England, for example, 2008 birth rates stood at less than 25 per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. But in Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, rates run higher than 60 per 1,000 teens.


Sex Education=Less pregnancies, less unwanted children, less societal dysfunction, less resource depletion. It always, Always tracks back to Education..

This Explanation Makes More Sense.

Even though it comes from a far out source.. Pentagon Fired On As America Nears All-Out Civil War. I don't know if "Civil War" is imminent or not, but the official line is complete and utter crap. Six random shots to the Pentagon, the military hub of the most powerful nation in the world, all-encompassing surveillance from all angles at all hours, and no one sees a thing?

Sure. Sounds like a gangbanger or a hot-head or some tourist with a beef, right?

This Won't End Well..

At least two dead after shooting in Russia’s Chechen parliament. When Russia storms in and shoots up the place, we'll join CNN International for Breaking News and continuing coverage..

"I'll Take 'Official Stories Gone To Crap' For 400 Please, Alex.."

"What are the 7/7 Bombings?" Germain Lindsay doesn't sound like a Suicide Bomber to me, either. Excerpts/Italics:

Mr. Fayad Patel was employed as a customer service assistant by London Underground and was on duty at a barrier at the end of a ‘gate line’ near the main ticket hall in King’s Cross underground station. Mr Patel, sometime between 08:15 and 08:45 was approached by a man he later identified as being Germain Lindsay – who, we are told, shortly afterwards murdered 26 people on a tube train travelling between King’s Cross and Russell Square.

According to Mr. Patel’s evidence to the court, Mr. Lindsay told Mr Patel that he “wanted to speak to the “duty Manager”…..then later “It’s something very important.” Patel had earlier given this testimony in 2006 under oath, and here repeated it without change. Patel gave an equally startling and unexpected reply to Lindsay: “Well, we’re quite busy at the moment because of, obviously, with the station control.” – The what?

Mr Patel described to the Inquest how delays on the Northern Line, on National Rail and perhaps elsewhere that morning meant that “the entire Tube gate line area was congested and we’d implemented a station control to try and minimise the flow of passengers.” (Empasis author, not me)This involved shutting escalators off, shutting the main entrance and exit points and then periodically opening them as and when appropriate. Therefore unusual controls were being imposed on the main concourse at King’s Cross. Passengers were being delayed and, as Mr Patel says later, getting angry and “abusing” staff.
The Police were also coming into the station..
Q. Do you know why they were there?
A. I believe they were just passing through or they were going to a training course or something, and they heard about — and they came to help.
Q. What had they heard about?
A. They had just heard that there’s some kind of problem or some kind of power failure or — at King’s Cross.
..
So this is the scene confronting the ‘suicide bomber’ Lindsay as he arrives at King’s Cross underground station on the morning of 7/7.
And:
The question arises…. What goes through the mind of a suicide bomber during his final hour on earth?

We already know from Inquest evidence given previously during the week that he arrived early in the car park at Luton station, dozed off while waiting for the others in his car and got given a parking ticket while asleep.
That’s one relaxed suicide bomber.

Now, inside King’s Cross, he sees hordes of angry people being prevented from moving around the station and he has something “very important” to say to the station Duty Manager. (Mr Patel found it very unusual that Lindsay would use this specific term for the man in charge. Normally people ask for ‘the foreman’ or ‘the supervisor’)
And:
The obvious point here is that the idea of a SUICIDE BOMBER wanting to approach a station manager to sort out an issue, however serious, is utterly, utterly ridiculous.

To any reasonable person this fact alone should prove that Germain Lindsay was definitely NOT a suicide bomber.

Great article. Read the whole thing. There's so much I didn't include.. I've always thought 7/7 was horseshit--Terror drills happening where terror just so happens to also occur? Sure.. I wonder what the statistics are for such combination drill-into-real-event-events?

This is also my introduction to this site, so I'll probably be posting much from here at a later time.

File Under: Unusual And Escalating Solar Activity..

Enormous Ring is Developing on the Sun

Curious mathematical law is rife in nature

From NewScientist Math nerds take note: Excerpts/Italics:

"WHAT do earthquakes, spinning stellar remnants, bright space objects and a host of other natural phenomena have in common? Some of their properties conform to a curious and little known mathematical law, which could now find new uses.

A subject of fascination to mathematicians, Benford's law states that for many sets of numbers, the first or "leading" digit of each number is not random. Instead, there is a 30.1 per cent chance that a number's leading digit is a 1. Progressively higher leading digits get increasingly unlikely, and a number has just a 4.6 per cent chance of beginning with a 9.
And:
...such distributions are "scale-invariant": if you convert the units of the numbers in the set, from metres to yards, say, the set will still conform to Benford's law."

There's more, but you've either tuned out or clicked the link, so I'm done..

Yeah, I bet he did..

Rescued miner says he saw God, devil during captivity. I bet they all saw a lot of things..

There are some occult dimensions to this story, and a fantastical theory or two, but it does bother me that they won't be talking about their first 17 days of captivity. Was it the fear of not knowing if they were to die or not, what they confessed out loud to ease their conscience.. Just in case, or was it something else? As of now, we won't ever know.

Well, How About That: The UFO's Did Come! Maybe/Kinda..

UFO Sighting Witness By Thousands Over Chelsea, New York, USA Oct 13, 2010. Video here..

UFO's over Golden Gate Bridge on Live webcam - 10/13/2010(video) (Interesting video of a forum discussing this footage.)

And a really freaky one..

Village in China disappears after UFO sightings On October 13, 2010 Google translation here..
Crazy f/n video here. The person taping this is too far off to get a detailed view of whatever the hell was going on, but a blue and white light that changes color, lights up the sky, and moves coupled with that wall of chaos sound.. This one strikes me as true, as the people within mic distance of that camera sounded freaked out, and unsure of what was happening. And the military supposedly has the whole thing cordoned off. Weird, I tells ya..

None of this is conclusive, though. I still can't decide: Is this Contact or Hoax?

Another thought: Conspiracy forums and theorists always have the next "doom date" that something major is project to happen. Usually, they are "misses." Even if these UFO's are debunked, this would constitute a "hit," as a much larger collective of our consciousness became focused on the subject of aliens and UFO's on this day, October 13, 2010..

An Earthquake In Oklahoma? Ok..

Earthquake rating upgraded to magnitude 5.1. Anyone feel it?

Retired NORAD Officer's New Book Predicts a Tentative Worldwide UFO Display on October 13, 2010

Fish or cut bait, aliens. But don't worry, when you finally reveal yourself, some religious earth-ikans would like to speak with you..

Although CERN's Been Out Of The Limelight For Awhile, It Could Still Kill Us All..

At least according to these guys.. How it Will Happen: Earthquakes, Strangelets and Black Holes. The reality of CERN's destructive potential is still theoretical, but scientists will have another chance end the world with horror, screaming, and fire November 9th, when CERN fires up and starts producing strangelets. Will CERN doom us all? Great news: Clif, creator of the Webbots doesn't think so. Not so great news: Clif does belive something's coming.. Something major. An event that will change our planet forever, arriving November 8th through the 12th. So.. That's something to look out for coming up in the next few weeks.. Happy Halloween!

Heartening..

Toxic sludge reservoir damage could lead to repeat of Hungarian flood. Key word: "Repeat.." Same reservoir, different cracking wall. Blurg..

Ancient Anomalies and Aliens - Part 1: Art

Pretty comprehensive and convincing post regarding the presence of aliens throughout the ages portrayed in paintings, symbology, and figurines. It's hard for me to dismiss UFO's when there are so many consistent images from so many disperate times and regions. They're all in on the hoax? It's actually easier to dismiss the admant debunkers who dismiss any evidence presented, clinging to what's left of a static worldview being torn apart by the dynamism of our changing -- universe.

Up to 40 states plan inquiry into foreclosure data

Boom! Excerpts:

The attorneys general of up to 40 states plan to announce soon a joint investigation into banks' use of flawed foreclosure paperwork.

A person briefed on the investigation said Saturday night that an announcement could come as early as Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was not yet public.
And:
A joint investigation by 40 states would further escalate pressure on banks to widen their suspensions of foreclosures. On Friday, Bank of America became the first bank to halt foreclosures in all 50 states.


JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ally Bank's GMAC Mortgage unit and PNC Financial have stopped foreclosures in the 23 states where foreclosures must be approved by a judge.
And:
A furor has been growing as evidence has surfaced that mortgage lenders have been using flawed court papers to evict homeowners (It must be an accident, right?). That's led state and federal officials to ramp up pressure on the mortgage industry.

Hit And Run News Roundup

Microscopic Combo Suspected in Killing Bees.  Scientists Believe the Combination of a Virus and Parasite is the Probable Cause of Large, Mysterious, Bee Die-Off.

Hungarian chemical sludge spill reaches DanubeToxic red sludge from a spill at an industrial plant in Hungary has reached the River Danube, officials say.




PM Viktor Orban called the spill an "ecological tragedy". There are fears the mud, which burst out of a reservoir on Monday, could poison the Danube.


Countries downstream from Hungary, including Croatia, Serbia and Romania, are drawing up emergency plans.
And:
Disaster official Tibor Dobson said all life in the Marcal river, which feeds the Danube, had been "extinguished".


The BBC's Nick Thorpe in western Hungary says news that the spill has now reached the Danube is worrying.

Government withholding key data on Gulf seafood testing, scientists say

D.C. Internet Vote Scheme Hacker: 'Within 36 Hours We Had Total Control of Server, Ability to Change Votes, Reveal Secret Ballots'

1st extinction event: Leaked CERN documents state LHC has 70% chances to produce strangelets on 11/9 

Airstrikes in north, central Gaza injure 5

Lou Dobbs' Undocumented Workers

US Banks Fake Documents to Rush Foreclosures

"Hi--Larry Summers. You know that upcoming worldwide economic crash thing? Yeah; I did that.."

His words, not mine. Heh.. No, not really. This, really. Larry Summers and the Subversion of Economics. If you'd like a relatively short explanation as to why MegaCrash is coming, this is it. Excerpts in italics:

The Obama administration recently announced that Larry Summers is resigning as director of the National Economic Council and will return to Harvard early next year. His imminent departure raises several questions: Who will replace him? What will he do next? But more important, it's a chance to consider the hugely damaging conflicts of interest of the senior academic economists who move among universities, government, and banking.
Summers is unquestionably brilliant, as all who have dealt with him, including myself, quickly realize. And yet rarely has one individual embodied so much of what is wrong with economics, with academe, and indeed with the American economy. For the past two years, I have immersed myself in those worlds in order to make a film, Inside Job, that takes a sweeping look at the financial crisis. And I found Summers everywhere I turned.

Consider: As a rising economist at Harvard and at the World Bank, Summers argued for privatization and deregulation in many domains, including finance. Later, as deputy secretary of the treasury and then treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, he implemented those policies. Summers oversaw passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall, permitted the previously illegal merger that created Citigroup, and allowed further consolidation in the financial sector. He also successfully fought attempts by Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Clinton administration, to regulate the financial derivatives that would cause so much damage in the housing bubble and the 2008 economic crisis. He then oversaw passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of derivatives, including exempting them from state antigambling laws.



After Summers left the Clinton administration, his candidacy for president of Harvard was championed by his mentor Robert Rubin, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who was his boss and predecessor as treasury secretary. Rubin, after leaving the Treasury Department—where he championed the law that made Citigroup's creation legal—became both vice chairman of Citigroup and a powerful member of Harvard's governing board.

And:

Summers remained close to Rubin and to Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. When other economists began warning of abuses and systemic risk in the financial system deriving from the environment that Summers, Greenspan, and Rubin had created, Summers mocked and dismissed those warnings. In 2005, at the annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., conference of the world's leading central bankers, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Raghuram Rajan, presented a brilliant paper that constituted the first prominent warning of the coming crisis. Rajan pointed out that the structure of financial-sector compensation, in combination with complex financial products, gave bankers huge cash incentives to take risks with other people's money, while imposing no penalties for any subsequent losses. Rajan warned that this bonus culture rewarded bankers for actions that could destroy their own institutions, or even the entire system, and that this could generate a "full-blown financial crisis" and a "catastrophic meltdown."

When Rajan finished speaking, Summers rose up from the audience and attacked him, calling him a "Luddite," dismissing his concerns, and warning that increased regulation would reduce the productivity of the financial sector. (Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and Alan Greenspan were also in the audience.)



And:

Then, after the 2008 financial crisis and its consequent recession, Summers was placed in charge of coordinating U.S. economic policy, deftly marginalizing others who challenged him. Under the stewardship of Summers, Geithner, and Bernanke, the Obama administration adopted policies as favorable toward the financial sector as those of the Clinton and Bush administrations—quite a feat. Never once has Summers publicly apologized or admitted any responsibility for causing the crisis. And now Harvard is welcoming him back.


Summers is unique but not alone. By now we are all familiar with the role of lobbying and campaign contributions, and with the revolving door between industry and government. What few Americans realize is that the revolving door is now a three-way intersection. Summers's career is the result of an extraordinary and underappreciated scandal in American society: the convergence of academic economics, Wall Street, and political power.
And:

Over the past 30 years, the economics profession—in economics departments, and in business, public policy, and law schools—has become so compromised by conflicts of interest that it now functions almost as a support group for financial services and other industries whose profits depend heavily on government policy. The route to the 2008 financial crisis, and the economic problems that still plague us, runs straight through the economics discipline. And it's due not just to ideology; it's also about straightforward, old-fashioned money.

This is ultimately why America and The West will fail: This labyrinth that is what Economics has been allowed to become is too murky and unintelligible to the vast majority of society that we can't see the full extent of how badly we are being robbed, and that the damage is catastrophic and terminal. These economists are so incestuous, so inbred between associations and organizations, they've actively advocated and enacted deregulation that artificially grew the entire sector while allowing disproportionate and inappropriate profit to careen out of control. And even now, when Crash is Inevitable, the entire cabal continues to steal, and game the system in their favor. We are royally fucked, kids. Other than Total Systemic Collapse, there is no end in sight..

Life On Mars; Or That Cloud Looks Like..

You decide. Satellite photo analysis of Mars is sometimes like seeing objects in clouds: People see what they want to see. This feels different. If this is a hoax, it's a good one. I'll post this video without further comment, and you see for yourself. Tell me what you think..

"The Fountain Of Youth" Is Not A "Where," But A "What.."

The chemical equation that causes human ageing might have been solved. Video from Russia Today via Godlike Productions.

On the surface, this is amazing news. Skulachev has found the antioxidant that will change History. Imagine a future where people barely(if at all) age, and people easily live to be 150 years old! The overall health of the world skyrockets to previous levels of health, and society can move on to other planetary problems. Awesome, but.. Seven billion people living 150 plus years consuming resources the way we do now? Not so much.

During the 20th century, population control has been addressed in think tanks, books, and UN subcommittees. Family planning and reproductive health clinics were available in the U.S. from the 1960's, and many countries enacted some pretty stringent laws and programs, but far too few(programs) to have any noticeable effect in the overall direction of world population. And people are living much longer, so world population has exploded in the last 50 years to the tune of almost four billion people. There were more people born since 1960 than were living in 1959. Think on that a moment..

If this new antioxidant is indeed the Real Deal, then debate on Population Control will have to follow. Hopefully, with advances like this in societal health, the planet-wide debate can take place publicly, and without the negative connotations that allowed us to reach where we are right now. Please note the difference between immediate Population Control (Which I find to be sinister, to say the least), and long term, planned Population Control, aimed more at zero population growth, gradually reducing resource usage to acceptable, sustainable levels. Population Control for the future without the buzzkill of aggressive Eugenics is called Proper Planetary Planning.

The Government Wouldn't Do That; Would They?

I guess they would.  U.S. apologises for scientists DELIBERATELY infecting mentally ill patients with STDs.