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A lot of alliteration and allegations regarding the Horn of Africa's crazypants country, eh? 1,000-Man Militia Being Trained In North Somalia. All the ingredients for a super weird, intriguing, politically charged situation slash latest George Clooney thriller are here(Of course, this isn't the plot of Clooney's latest; but it could be!): In the northern reaches of Somalia and the country's presidential palace, a well-equipped military force is being created, funded by a mysterious donor nation that is also paying for the services of a former CIA officer and a senior ex-U.S. diplomat.
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training for an anti-piracy force of up to 1,050 men has already begun in Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northern Somalia that is believed to hold reserves of oil and gas.
But key elements remain unknown — mainly who is providing the millions of dollars in funding and for what ultimate purpose.
Pierre Prosper, an ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues(Heh. This guy's desk probably had two inches of dust covering it..) under former President George W. Bush, told AP he is being paid by a Muslim nation he declined to identify to be a legal adviser to the Somali government, focusing on security, transparency and anti-corruption. (Read that again. Then again. Still senseless, right?)
Somalia hasn't had a fully functioning government since 1991 and is torn between clan warlords, Islamist insurgent factions, an 8,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force, government forces and allied groups. Given that mix, the appearance of an unknown donor with deep pockets is troubling, said E.J. Hogendoorn, a Nairobi-based analyst with the International Crisis Group.
"We don't know if this unknown entity is operating in the interests of Somalis or their own self-interest," he said in an interview. "If it's a company, there has to be a quid pro quo in terms of (oil and gas) concessions. If it's a government, they are interested in changing the balance of power."
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"You cannot have oil exploration if you have insecurity," Mohamed Farole said. "You have to eliminate the pirates and al-Shabab."
Energy exploration has started mainly just south of the mountains, although the amount of estimated reserves is unknown, or at least not publicly divulged.
Michael Shanklin, who was the CIA's deputy chief of station in Mogadishu 20 years ago, told AP he is employed by the unidentified donor country as a security adviser and liaison to the Somali government. Prosper said he is encouraging the Muslim donor nation, which insists on keeping its identity secret, to become more transparent. (The only one saying this "unknown" country is "Muslim" is a former CIA deputy chief. It might be true, but I'd like a second opinion before believing this..)
And:
In recent weeks, Shanklin and Prosper met several Nairobi-based diplomats to discuss the contract between the Puntland and Mogadishu governments and a private security company called Saracen International, Prosper said in written replies to questions from AP. Prosper said Saracen is doing the military training and is being paid by the unnamed Muslim nation. Saracen is not providing the militia with any weapons, he said.
Uganda-based Saracen International was named in a March letter written by the Somali president's former chief of staff, Abdulkareem Jama, and obtained by AP that described training for the presidential guard. And it was named in a Nov. 18 statement from Puntland's government announcing the anti-piracy training. Bill Pelser, the chief executive of Saracen International, said it is "definitely a mistake or a misrepresentation."
Pelser denied being involved in the training program in Puntland or the one for the presidential guard in Mogadishu, saying he merely made introductions for another company called Saracen Lebanon. Lebanese authorities have no record of a company called Saracen. Pelser did not respond to requests for contact information for Saracen Lebanon.
Pelser is a former South African special forces soldier. Like many of his staff, he used to work for Executive Outcomes, a South African mercenary outfit credited with helping defeat rebel forces in Sierra Leone in return for mineral concessions.(Fantastic. Subplots within denials, misdirection and nonexistent companies with no follow up information. Clear cut, so far..)
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Whoever controls a well-trained, well-equipped and consistently paid military force is in a strong position to make a bid for filling the power vacuum in Somalia.
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The U.N. is quietly investigating to see if the creation and outfitting of the new military force violates an arms embargo.. (Creating an army is considered violating an arms embargo?)
The embargo forbids the importation of arms, military equipment or any support to any armed group in Somalia, including to any Somali government, without authorization from the U.N.'s sanctions committee. There is an exemption for support for counter-piracy operations, provided the Security Council was notified and gave permission. In the case of the new military force, the Security Council was not notified. (Not notified? Another shock, I tells ya..)
Let's see.. A politically somewhat stable region of an unstable country with factional leadership and continual infighting receives support and paramilitary training from an unknown, possibly "Muslim" nation in exchange for unknown monies/ influence/ resources. Unknown country is facilitated in their efforts by a South African former mercenary, a Ugandan "anti-piracy" training something-or-other corporation, a former CIA deputy chief, and a former Bush administration official as Liaison?
When this becomes a movie, I certainly hope Clive Owen plays the South African mercenary. So sexy, and I'm sure he can handle the accent..
Here's the raw footage. Provided by CBS News, no less. Watch the entire video. These were not balloons. Not balloons. NOT BALLOONS. Project Bluebeam, maybe, but not balloons.
Druglord Loves Justin Bieber (Fantastic Outsider art mural picture included..)
Justin Bieber has groupies where you'd least expect them. An army of Brazilian cops raided the Rio headquarters of one of the country's most notorious drug gangs.
According to Perez Hilton, it appeared to be a typical seizure. 11 tons of marijuana, a “small arsenal” of weapons and… a gigantic mural of Justin Bieber?
I wonder what 2 a.m., any night, pre-bust at the casa was like? Who would film such a scene: David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, or Brian DePalma?
Side note: Three years ago, Justin Bieber could still be confused for a "normal" kid.
Interesting location for a quake.
New York City was jolted by a 3.9-magnitude earthquake Tuesday morning, rocking the area around Long Island.
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It is thought to be the biggest quake in the region in more than 18 years.
US navy seeks to move jet fuel in rare Japan-Korea route It's the "little stories" that worry me.. Excerpts:
The United States navy is seeking a medium-range oil tanker to move at least 30,000 tonnes of jet fuel from Japan to South Korea, industry sources said on Wednesday, at a time of heightened military tension on the Korean peninsula.
The transport route is unusual for jet fuel, shipping sources said, but an unnamed US military official said shipments of fuel for operational use are standard.
So.. Sources in shipping say this is unusual and the military says this is usual. I'm sure the military's right..
"We don't have any information on what you are talking about in terms of the contracting," the US military official said. (Really? Nothing?)
"There is no particular movement that has taken place in response to an incident in terms of large delivery of jet fuel or anything else."
Interesting choice of words, "no particular movement" is.
From AboveTopSecret, originating from Astrosurf. Someone's been busy. Excerpt:
This image is a 1 billion pixel RVB mosaic of the galactic center region (340 millions pixels in each R,V and B color). It shows the region spanning from Sagittarius (with the Milky Way center and M8/M20 area on the left) to Scorpius (with colorful Antares and Rho Ophiuchus region on the right) and cat paw nebula (red nebula at the bottom). This mosaic was assembled from 52 different sky fields made from 1200 individual images and 200 hours total exposure time, final image size is 24000x14000 pixels. The images were taken with a SBIG STL camera + Takahashi FSQ106Ed f/3.6 telescope and NJP160 mount from the clear skies of ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. This mosaic is one of the three parts of the ESO Gigagalaxy Zoom project together with this incredible whole sky mosaic image by ESO/S.Brunier and this fantastic ESO mosaic image of the Lagoon nebula region.
Check all these links out. These images are amazing. Some will resonate with their form of "heaven," whatever that is, while more logical types might consider our species progress thousands of years from now, our future ancestors spreading out further in our system, galaxy, or universe than we can possibly imagine. Consider: Each and every one of these worlds, each of these points of light, could,*could* host a form of consciousness, a location for interwoven experience, for perspective, for lifeforms that we, now, couldn't begin to understand.. They could. Could.
Now remember: These are only the entities we are aware of. These are only images of Observable Space, observed from our vantage point only. What's out there that we don't see?
Are you beginning to grasp the enormity, the totality, the magnificence, the infinite nature of all that surrounds you?
From Space dot com..The dark brown stripe of clouds on Jupiter that disappeared from view last year is reappearing.Astronomers confirmed Wednesday (Nov. 24) that the gas giant's South Equatorial Belt (SEB), one of two distinctive dark stripes formed by the planet's cloud chemistry and winds, is coming back. They attributed the return of the view to a shift in Jupiter's cloud cover.
Irish bailout 'stuns' experts The €35bn (£29.8bn) going into Ireland's banks shocked experts, who feared bailout might or might not help Ireland, but in any case might not contain contagion elsewhere in the eurozone.Brian Lucey, associate professor of finance at Trinity College Dublin was "stunned" at the cash poured in: "We've already put at least €32bn into them, so that's going to be €67bn, which is 50% of GNP, that's a world record". He also warned that a new government next year could rip up the deal. "Sovereign governments have a right to effectively do whatever they want," he said.Portugal's still feeling the heat.. Portugal's high debt burden remained a concern for the eurozone and financial markets on Monday, a day after European Union countries endorsed a plan to help Ireland with its ailing finances.Officials in the 16 nations using the euro currency had hoped Sunday's agreement to give euro67.5 billion ($89.4 billion) in loans to Dublin would check the spread of investor jitters to other fiscally vulnerable members of the bloc, especially Portugal and Spain.Portugal is regarded as the next weakest link after Ireland because of its high debt load and weak growth. It has been a target for market concern since Greece's bailout in May.Trouble in Portugal also could affect neighboring Spain, where low growth and high unemployment are shackling the economy.And:Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University who had predicted the financial crisis, told daily paper Diario Economico it is "increasingly likely" Portugal will require international assistance.He was quoted as saying there are ample funds to shore up Portugal, one of the eurozone's smaller countries which contributes less than 2 percent to the 16-nation bloc's gross domestic product. Roubini said Portugal is approaching "a critical point."But, he said, Spain, Europe's fourth-largest economy, is "too big to bail out."Meanwhile, in Greece: You know things are bad when governments can't buy arms from other governments.. Spain continues to reel: Irish backlash hits Spain, EU warns of blow to growth Contains the sentence: He commented: "Are we witnessing the early stages of a breakdown of the euro and indeed, possibly the European Union as well?"Wiki Leaks and Korea are more sensational, but this story is no less important. The possibility of a debt implosion contagion spreading to multiple countries thereby jeopardizing the whole European Union is, at this moment, very real. We are still in unknown territory, and none of the related news is optimistic.And, lest we forget.. Let the protests begin!
From e! Science News Excerpts:A tenuous atmosphere infused with oxygen and carbon-dioxide has been discovered at Saturn's moon Rhea by the Cassini-Huygens mission, the first time a spacecraft has captured direct evidence of an oxygen atmosphere at a world other than Earth. The NASA-led international mission made the discovery using combined data from Cassini's instruments, which includes a sensor designed and built at UCL's (University College London) Mullard Space Science Laboratory.Published today in Science Express, results from the mission reveal that the atmosphere of Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon at 1500 km wide, is extremely thin and is sustained by high energy particles bombarding its icy surface and kicking up atoms, molecules and ions into the atmosphere.The density of oxygen is probably about 5 trillion times less dense than in Earth's atmosphere. However, the formation of oxygen and carbon dioxide could possibly drive complex chemistry on the surfaces of many icy bodies in the universe."The new results suggest that active, complex chemistry involving oxygen may be quite common throughout the solar system and even our universe," said Dr Ben Teolis, a Cassini team scientist based at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio and lead author. "Such chemistry could be a pre-requisite for life. All evidence from Cassini indicates Rhea is too cold and devoid of the liquid water necessary for life as we know it."All evidence.. For now..
Saber rattling continues near NLL Excerpts:
Tensions are heightening in the area around Yeonpyeong Island, with the confirmation that North Korean forces deployed multi-launch rocket systems (MLRSs) forward to a coastal location facing the island and opened additional naval artillery firing ports on Sunday, the first day of joint South Korea-U.S. exercises. The North Korean military was also reported to have stepped up its anti-air posture targeting aerial activity by South Korean fighter planes, with the forward deployment of SA-2 earth-to-air missiles in the area north of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong Islands.
“The North Korean military was found to have deployed some of its 122 mm MLRSs forward to an inland area near Kaemori, from which the attack on Yeonpyeong Island was launched, and opened additional 76.2 mm naval artillery firing ports besides the previous fourteen locations,” said a military official said Sunday. “The South Korean military is also stepping up its alertness posture to prepare for a potential provocation situation.”
“It appears that North Korea positioned SA-2 earth-to-air missiles to the front following the attack on Yeonpyeong Island,” said a government source. “The government is mobilizing all its resources to precisely monitor the movements.”
Military authorities are taking this activity from North Korea as targeting South Korean fighter planes flying in the area near the NLL. The SA-2 is an anti-aircraft missile developed by the former Soviet Union, and has a firing range of 13 to 30 kilometers. The anti-ship missiles positioned by North Korean on the West Sea coast north of the NLL include Samlets and Silkworms, with a firing range of 80 km.
Although Monday's exercises were cancelled because of bad weather, the tension is still very high. North Korea is even using the really cool phrase "Ultra-Emergency" to describe the situation.. The South Korean military is protesting, and South Korea's President said Monday "Kick sand in our face just one more time and there's gonna be trouble.." Shit's heating up, yo.. Like I said, more updates to come..
WikiLeaks has staged document dumps in the past(Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm looking in your direction..), but nothing like this: Seven times the size of Iraq's release, and that was almost four hundred thousand documents! The focus of today's release? U.S. Diplomatic cables regarding everyone. Everyone. Allies, enemies.. It doesn't matter. And now, it's going to be all out there. And it's going to take months for press organizations, other governments, braver souls than I, etc.. to go through all these documents and really assess what they mean and the totality of their impact. Our diplomatic relations with the rest of the world is a big deal, and "lifting the veil" on how that diplomacy works and what our government is really thinking(and how they gossip about it)is a Big Deal.
And someone's not happy with Assange/WikiLeaks. I mean, of course, hackers(or groups wanting to look like hackers), disinformation groups, and the usual right wing types and Administration mouthpieces..
Sweet tribute to Hendrix from Aquarius Papers, complete with quite a few performance videos. He was The Innovator, and music and musical history was forever changed..
Here's my post regarding Hendrix from August of last year: Jimi Hendrix; Space Alien..
Chinese government to make 'urgent' announcementThe Chinese government said Sunday it will make an "urgent" announcement later in the day amid rising military tensions surrounding the Korean Peninsula.Whether anyone wants to officially admit it or not, China's involved. So there will be More-To-Follow, I'm sure..
Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war
A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.
Nothing coming out of the region suggests an easing of hostilities. And there's still those pesky Military Exercises coming up.. What will happen next?
Another great analysis from Gonzalo Lira. Excerpts:If I had to bet on which country will bring about the end of the Euro—and perhaps even the end of the European Union—I’d have to say it’s Spain.Right now, no one is talking about Spain—Spanish spreads are as quiet as a guilty man in a police line-up—everyone’s too concerned over Ireland, and the upcoming Portuguese Situation.But Spain is the key—Spain is what you should be paying attention to, if you want to find out what will happen to the European Monetary Union (EMU), and the European Union (EU) itself.And:According to IMF numbers for 2009, the gross domestic product of Greece was $331 billion, Ireland was $221 billion, and Portugal was $233 billion——but Spain’s GDP in 2009 was $1.468 trillion. Roughly twice Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. In other words, close to half of Germany’s GDP.And:Therefore, to bail out Spain, and plug up its fiscal balance sheet hole over the next three years would cost €450 billion—minimum. That’s about $600 billion.Look at that number again—look at it closely, and take your time:€450 billion.(600 billion US) That’s twice the size of Ireland’s total GDP for 2009.In order to figure out how much each party would have to shoulder of this €450 billion price tag, Bruce Krasting, in some private e-mail exchanges, thought that the percentages that the EU, the ECB and the IMF were shouldering for the Greek and Irish bailouts could serve as a template.Fair enough: If we go by Greek and Irish percentages, then roughly a third of that €450 billion price tag to bail out Spain would be shouldered by the IMF—and as everyone knows, the U.S. puts up 20% of IMF money.So the U.S. would be on the line for €30 billion—$40 billion—to save Spain.Then Bruce delivered his verdict: “The U.S. is going to say ‘Yes’ to that and ‘No’ to California? No way. Not going to happen with this new Congress."And:Therefore, the IMF’s participation in a Spanish bail-out will be severely reduced, if not marginal. Therefore, bailing out Spain will be a strictly European affair.Does Europe have €450 billion to bail out Spain? That is, does Germany have €450 billion to bail out Spain?No it does not. It does not have the money for such a bailout—and even if it did, it does not have the political will to push through such a bailout.Period.And Finally:Best case?Though they remain in the European Union, the weaker economies exit the EMU and go back to local currencies, which they quickly depreciate, while their Euro-denominated sovereign debts are restructured and paid off over time. The Euro becomes the currency of France, Germany, Holland, Finland and Austria.Worst case?I can imagine a number of worst cases, all of them different, except for one thing in common: They’ll all be bad.
North Korea intensifies threats ahead of Korea-U.S. military exercise near Yeonpyeong Island slated for Sunday. Excerpts:
Threatening "a shower of dreadful fire," North Korea warned Friday it will wipe out its enemies if its sovereignty is violated, raising already high tension after the communist country exchanged deadly artillery barrages with South Korea earlier this week.
The warning by the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea is the latest and one of the strongest threats the North has issued since South Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold joint drills near the communist country in a show of force.
Two South Korean marines and two civilians were killed in the artillery exchange between the Koreas on Tuesday in one of the most violent clashes on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea, officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), denies initiating the clash, warning it will mount additional attacks if its territorial waters are violated.
And:
Meanwhile, South Korea's military is checking reports of sounds of artillery fire around Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea border with North Korea, officials said. (Hence the "So that's what that was" reference..)
Joint Military Exercises with the U.S. start Sunday, so we've got that to look forward to..
'Artillery fire' heard near South Korea island Pre War Excerpts:
South Korea's military said two explosions were heard on Friday and it was checking the source of the sounds.
The two blasts were heard off Yeonpyeong island near the disputed border in the Yellow Sea, a Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman told AFP.
"We're checking the origin of the sounds," he said.
And:
Officials said “dozens” of artillery rounds had landed on Yeonpyeong Island at in the Yellow Sea, 50 miles off the South’s northwest coast in an area close to a disputed sea border.
Other reports suggested around 200 shells could have been fired in the attack which began at 2.34pm local time (7.34am GMT).
F-16 fighter jets were scrambled and South Korean land-based forces returned fire on the North as civilians were evacuated to emergency bunkers, according to witnesses quoted by the Seoul-based cable news television channel YTN.
If this turns out to be artillery fire, the Korean situation is rapidly blooming into Worldwide crisis. Once again, timing(Global Debt Crisis)and associations(China) figure heavily into why this sabre rattling is so much more important than past border squabbles. If we aren't already there, we're rapidly approaching the border of "One wrong move and it's over."
From Robert Wilkinson at Aquarius Papers In an article full of perfect passages, these are my two favorites:
So if you struggle with endings, of unknowns and apprehensions of what will or will not be, detach from the "not knowing" and contemplate your life as a timestream of experiences coaxing forth skills, strengths, realizations and talents throughout the difficulties and endings. You are an eternally evolving Consciousness, collecting forms of understanding to apply in your world the best you are able.
You have imagination and an ability to be creative in ways you've never known. You have a mind that when trained can easily cut through illusions and fears and express the strength of your heart's direct knowing. With an open mind and a strong heart you can move into unknown futures and find yourself doing your Being in excellent ways.
Read the whole thing. Good stuff.
Chinese villagers 'descended from Roman soldiers' Excerpts:
Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 per cent Caucasian in origin.
Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.
A local man, Cai Junnian, is nicknamed by his friends and relatives Cai Luoma, or Cai the Roman, and is one of many villagers convinced that he is descended from the lost legion. (Click the link and look at that picture. That man looks European to me..)
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The genetic tests have leant weight to the theory that Roman legionaries settled in the area in the first century BC after fleeing a disastrous battle.
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Thousands of Romans were slaughtered and Crassus himself was beheaded, but some legionaries were said to have escaped the fighting and marched east to elude the enemy.
They supposedly fought as mercenaries in a war between the Huns and the Chinese in 36BC – Chinese chroniclers refer to the capture of a "fish-scale formation" of troops, a possible reference to the "tortoise" phalanx formation perfected by legionnaries. The wandering Roman soldiers are thought to have been released and to have settled on the steppes of western China.
The theory was first put forward in the 1950s by Homer Dubs, a professor of Chinese history at Oxford University.
We are what we are, but sometimes we discover that we are more or different than we think..
Compelling news story from Houston's ABC affiliate about potentially THE biggest archaeological discovery EVER. If correct, what we think we know of our ancient history all comes up for review.
Hopefully, as more discoveries are made, what we think we know regarding this existence will be obsolete.. And replaced with something much more fantastical and genuine very soon. Here's hoping..
China, Russia quit dollar. Excerpts/Italics:
St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.
Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.
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The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
And:
Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.
Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.
Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.
This is some pretty dire news. The systems and relationships propping up the Dollar-as-World-Currency are failing, one by one, and soon, it'll be too big to ignore. But for now, take solace in Bristol Palin flaming out on Dancing With The Stars. No need to think about a plan of action just yet, right?
US Aircraft Carrier Heads for Korean Waters
A U.S. aircraft carrier headed toward the Korean peninsula on Wednesday, a day after North Korea launched dozens of artillery shells on a South Korean island.
The nuclear-powered USS George Washington, which carries 75 warplanes and has a crew of over 6,000, left a naval base south of Tokyo on Wednesday morning and would join exercises with South Korea from Sunday to the following Wednesday, U.S. officials in Seoul said.
"This exercise is defensive in nature," U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement. "While planned well before yesterday's unprovoked artillery attack, it demonstrates the strength of the ROK (South Korea)-U.S. alliance and our commitment to regional stability through deterrence."
China came under heavy pressure to rein in North Korea after its reclusive ally fired dozens of artillery shells at the South Korean island, killing two South Korean soldiers and setting houses ablaze in the heaviest attack on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.
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"We're in a semi state of war," South Korean coastguard Kim Dong-jin told Reuters in the port city of Incheon where many residents of Yeonpyeong island fled in panic as the bombardment triggered a fire storm.
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South Korea, its armed forces technically superior though about half the size of the North's one-million-plus army, warned of "massive retaliation" if its neighbor attacked again.
Sounds like South Korea has had enough. Two things set this apart from normal North/South squabbling: The heaviest attack since 1953 and on a completely domestic target (they'll count as one), and the particular timing of this event. Any escalation on the Korean peninsula will impact an already fragile, swaying world market. Will China via North Korea pull out one more global Jenga piece? Once events are set in motion, Inertia becomes impossible to stop. We are descending every day into bigger and more Novel situations in all facets of our lives. Maybe that was what The Tipping Point was about.
N. Korea fires artillery onto S. Korean island; one soldier killed This is hours old, and huge. Potential for escalation is great. It's all beginning to happen at once, eh?
Irish PM is forced to agree to dissolve government. Holy Crap! Excerpts in italics:Amid calls for his immediate resignation from at least two MPs in his own Fianna Fail party and the withdrawal of support from coalition partners the Green Party, Prime Minister Brian Cowen was forced on Monday to announce the pending dissolution of his government...The turmoil and political uncertainty following a bailout that was meant to bring stability has done little to calm markets; despite hopes the package would ease Ireland’s debt crisis, borrowing costs barely budged and the euro declined in the markets Monday. This has heightened concerns among European leaders that the rescue has failed and that further bailouts may be needed to prevent a run on Portuguese and Spanish banks and bond markets.Hours after the European Union and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund negotiated an €85-billion bailout-loan package on Sunday, the Green Party, which holds the balance of seats that allows Mr. Cowen’s Fianna Fail to govern, delivered a poison-pill announcement: it will pass the brutal austerity measures required as part of the bailout, but at the cost of killing the government.Green Leader John Gormley, expressing the views of increasingly furious Irish citizens, said he would allow the government to pass a four-year program to slash a further €15-billion from government spending through tax hikes and service cuts in the Dec. 7 budget bill. But he demanded a national election in January in return, a move that will almost certainly end the career of Mr. Cowen and possibly eviscerate his party.And:The allies of the Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, wasted little time in delivering the long knives on Monday, distancing themselves from a leader who has infuriated voters by insisting for weeks that Ireland’s sovereignty would be kept intact – and by keeping Ireland’s low 12.5-per-cent corporate tax in place while raising taxes and slashing welfare.Let the protests begin!And, because it's Ireland, the Real IRA's gonna kick it up a few notches..The speed of this whole process has been so much faster than any "mainstream" analyst dreamed it could be.. Last week, a bailout was proposed and implemented, and yesterday, it failed. And Ireland begins a descent into.. No one knows. And the pace of these events is accelerating..Portugal's next(Oops!). Then Spain. And Italy? And then?Pay close attention: History is being made right before our eyes.
This time; It's Portugal. And Payback. And Twice The VanDamage..(Thanks, Janeane Garafalo)Portugal, it seems, has a different set of problems than Ireland. Here's how: (from the Payback link..)Ireland’s government has money, but its banks are drowning in debt, and the government has vowed to guarantee debts, making the state itself vulnerable. Portugal’s problem is different. Its banks are not especially troubled, but the state itself has high debts and low growth, and the mound of both public and private debt is considerable. The total debt is larger than the annual gross domestic product, some $275 billion of debt in an economy of $232 billion a year, one of the highest ratios in the developed world.And:So the interest rates Portugal would have to pay on the markets, should it have to borrow money now, would be much too high, forcing it to seek money from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The government here, as in Dublin, hopes the markets will calm down. But other European Union governments are concerned that unless the markets are appeased now, by protecting Ireland and Portugal, the contagion will spread to huge Spain, the fourth largest economy among the countries that use the euro.The more I learn about this crisis, the more I tend to believe the worst possible outcomes will actually occur. There aren't any general answers applicable to more than one country, as economic circumstances will be country wide, but not regional. Solutions that appeal to both France and Germany would financially cripple or kill other EU countries. The solutions will be complex and incredibly painful for the weakest countries, and protests and riots are almost sure to follow. And still, the system will most likely collapse.To drive the point home.. So, if the EU fractures, what sort of effect will it have here in America? Our financial structures And our government are both perilously close to collapse, and locked in tight with all of Europe. How could we possibly absorb the implosion of so many economically interwoven allies? How?
Amazing and humbling video of a scientific "gamble" researchers made by pointing the Hubble Telescope at an "empty" part of space. The resulting pictures and 3D rendering show otherwise. We as humans cannot and will not ever be able to grasp the scale of the Universe, the expanse of Infinite, or the concept of Heaven, as it relates to an Infinite Universe.. These pictures prove that.And we will continue to grasp, struggling.And we will continue to struggle, grasping..
For the first time ever, Sense and Antisense hit 1000 page views this month. For others, this isn't a big milestone, as some sites I visit have over 1000 visitors at that moment. But, for me, this is a really nice first step. So, thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your stay. Come by again soon, as I'm sure to be freaking out over some thing or another..
From Aletho News:Patrick J. Leahy — VermontHerb Kohl — WisconsinJeff Sessions — AlabamaDianne Feinstein — CaliforniaOrrin G. Hatch — UtahRuss Feingold — WisconsinChuck Grassley — IowaArlen Specter — PennsylvaniaJon Kyl — ArizonaChuck Schumer — New YorkLindsey Graham — South CarolinaDick Durbin — IllinoisJohn Cornyn — TexasBenjamin L. Cardin — MarylandTom Coburn — OklahomaSheldon Whitehouse — Rhode IslandAmy Klobuchar — MinnesotaAl Franken — MinnesotaChris Coons — Delaware Aletho states effectively: This law takes down entire websites based on the government’s say-so. First Amendment protections make clear that if you are going to stop any specific speech, it has to be extremely specific speech. This law has no such restrictions. It’s really quite unfortunate that these 19 US Senators are the first American politicians to publicly vote in favor of censoring speech in America. Ooohhh.. Next stop: Totalitarian dystopia, but no one will know it because those who know won't be around(prison, dead, or exile), or won't be allowed to say anything(prison, dead, exile, or censored).
Man in quiet California town focus of terror hysteria. This article starts off innocently enough(just like Larry Coppello's Friday..)Washington - Larry Copello went to work at his tiny machine shop in a small town nestled in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains, having no idea Friday would be no ordinary day.The telephone began ringing. Dozens of news organizations in the United States and around the world had questions.Suddenly, Copello found himself at the centre of the terrorism hysteria that began Wednesday in the southern African country of Namibia, swept Thursday through Germany, and eventually led back to his little garage shop in Sonora, a town of 4,000 people near Yosemite National Park.We then find out: ..The scare started with a fake bomb made four years ago at Copello's company by none other than his then 80-year- old mother-in-law, Copello revealed in a telephone interview Friday with the German Press Agency dpa...Copello's company is in the business of making suitcases that contain detonators, batteries and wires that are designed to look like bombs. His firm of three employees makes the devices for government agencies who use the dummies to train security personnel on how to spot suspicious items in X-ray scanners at airports.But when one of his devices was left behind at Namibia's Windhoek airport among luggage bound for Munich, it sparked a terrorism scare. That scare hit hard in Germany, which had already been on high alert over unrelated intelligence warnings that a possible terrorist attack was in the works.And:"I am overwhelmed with all the talking to people about this," he told dpa. "What I don't understand is the power of the Internet and how one little thing can be all over the Earth. That to me is kind of frightening." When Copello, who said he doesn't even use email, was told of one Internet headlines in Germany that read "The mysterious suitcase of Larry Copello," he replied: "Oh, my God."At first, I thought his surprise was in reaction his fake bomb caught up in a terror scare. Are there any real bombs ever used? If there are real bombs involved, it's usually called "terrorism," then, right? But now, it seems to be his shock is purely over global reach of the Internet. I think he had no idea that his company would be so "Globally Outed" (Not to say they were guilty of anything, mind you..) in connection this week's Namibia/Germany scare. Maybe it was a realization that, for a few news cycles maybe, his anonymity is gone, and that a whole lot of people, who he doesn't and can never fully know of, know who he is, where he is, and enough to about him to form an opinion with the little information they have.To a man decoupled enough from technology to not have email (Email, for God's sake!), the awareness that people worldwide were discussing him could be unsettling, off-putting, or full blown terrifying. Larry Copello, meet the Internet; Internet, meet Larry Copello..
Humans do have psychic powers, study claims.. Obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant excerpts in italics:In one experiment, students were given a list of words to memorise which they were later asked to recall, before being given a selection of the words to type out.The volunteers were able to recall some words more easily than others – which tended to be those that they would later be asked to type. (I think the list in question was made up of pre-selected words..)In another experiment, the students were shown an image of two curtains on a computer screen and told to pick the one that concealed an erotic picture. They chose the correct curtain more often than could be explained by coincidence, Prof Bem claims.The position of the picture was randomly determined by a computer after the students made their decision, which Prof Bem views as evidence that the students were influencing future events.(Notice the similarities to properties of quantum physics? Observation/Interaction influences outcome..)Joachim Krueger, a US psychologist, said the claim that humans may have psychic powers is “ridiculous” but admitted that, having examined Prof Bem’s methodology, “frankly, everything seemed to be in good order”.What might we have learned? That Psychic Activity is both innate, and in some way, relate able to quantum physics. Which is cooler: That this potential is within us all, or that the paranormal now has links to avant garde mathematical theory? It's a tie, nerds, but then you knew that too, didn't you?
From The Daily Galaxy. Excerpts:"We can now say that the planet was altered on a global scale by liquid water about four billion years ago." - John Carter of the University of ParisMinerals in northern Mars craters observed by two NASA orbiters suggest that a phase in Mars' early history with conditions favorable to life occurred globally, not just in the south...In recent years, the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found clay minerals that are signatures of a wet environment at thousands of sites in the southern highlands of Mars, where rocks on or near the surface are about four billion years old. Until this week, no sites with those minerals had been reported in the northern lowlands, where younger volcanic activity has buried the older surface more deeplyAnd:CRISM Principal Investigator Scott Murchie of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said that the findings aid interpretation of when the wet environments on ancient Mars existed relative to some other important steps in the planet's early history.The prevailing theory for how the northern part of the planet came to have a much lower elevation than the southern highlands is that a giant object slammed obliquely into northern Mars, turning nearly half of the planet's surface into the solar system's largest impact crater. The new findings suggest that the formation of water-related minerals, and thus at least part of the wet period that may have been most favorable to life, occurred between that early giant impact and the later time when younger sediments formed an overlying mantle.With each new discovery, with every advancement in knowledge, those outlandish theories about Mars don't sound as far fetched as they once did..
Gonzalo Lira can help. Why is the EU Crisis important? Globalist financial/banking policy has tangled not only neighboring European countries economies together in a way impossible to decouple without serious turbulence, but the majority of the world's collective economy is also locked in a larger magnification of what currently ails the EU. And, as goes Europe, so goes the Global Financial System. Lira writes simply, directly, distilling complex financial situations into an easy to understand narrative of real-time economic events, and why there are no easy or immediate answers to this rapidly blooming global catastrophe..Lira also thinks the European situation is deteriorating rapidly, even more than he recently predicted. I know, I know.. The economic crisis is no where near as fun as Bristol Palin or even the Royal Engagement, but hopefully a few of you will take the 15 minutes or so required to read both articles. You should, then, have a much better handle on the implications this has for America's immediate financial future. Short answer: Huge, and Terrible.
From IO9 These diagrams from the March 2, 1942 issue of Life detailed the Nazi invasion of America shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Check out such alternate reality battles like the bombing of Detroit and invasion of Norfolk, Virginia.These maps were created as a follow-up to an article about an American defeat in WWII by pioneering science fiction author Philip Wylie, who wrote the proto-superhero novel Gladiator. These maps were made in the early days of US involvement in World War II, so there was a sense that this invasion was a real possibility.Although an American created these plans, it is a little chilling to see the maps and think about the possibility that they probably weren't too far from actual Nazi planning, and implementation and/or success in at least one multiverse..
47 Earthquakes between Mag. 4.3 and 5.2 off the Yemini coast and Gulf of Aden as of 7 p.m. CST November 16.Three thoughts come to mind.. Increased geologic activity(in overall magnitude, not in amount of quakes--note the distinction), not only in this region, but worldwide(including volcanoes)..Man-made tectonic activity. But why would this be? A poster from my favorite conspiracy site (from China, too!) says "There was an article on Veterans Today about the difficulties of a US invasion of Iran and that a possible way in is through the Yemeni port of Gwardar, but it's totally inadequate at the moment.No worries. Cause a buncha earthquakes on land or out in the seabed to cause a tsunami in the area. Next, shout out, "You poor Yemeni victims! Here, let us help and rebuild! No charge for now, pay later! We'll send the Seabees first, and you won't know the place when we're done!"Nice..But my favorite involves Aliens AND Pirates!The beauty of Conspiracy Theory is the divergent interpretive directions each perspective can travel. From the sublime to the insane to the infinitely sinister, they can all co-exist on not only collectively on the web, but within each of our own contradictory natures. To embrace the extremes of thought, to live the dissonance, is part of my wonder of life itself. Information as drug? Yeah; I'm hooked..
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) raises margins on commodities again, Excerpts:The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is continuing its assault to stem the speculation on commodities that threaten to go parabolic due to the Fed's QE2 and subsequent inflation.Last week, silver took a plunge immediately after the CME raised margin rates 30% from $5000.00 to $6500.00, and it is affecting other commodities such as copper as well.Tyler Durden from ZeroHedge says:Look for a second round of imminent margin hikes in cotton, sugar, coffee and wheat, as the exchanges are suddenly very concerned about what retail margin collapses may mean for the non-existent wealth effect.Change is afoot, friends, and all sectors of our (and the world's) economy are fluid. Watching CNBC will be so much more exciting in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Westboro protesters face jeers and slashed tires. I'm sure this incident won't shut them up, and it's not very nice(or legal), but they sure deserve every bit of good will they receive, don't you think?
Silver $25.69
Gold $1360.90
Chart courtesy of UrbanSurvival. Both metals on the rise again after being beat down in the four previous market days. Silver manipulation, anyone?
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