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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.andThanks 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..
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.
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..
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 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..
$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..
$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..
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."
"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..
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.
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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..
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..
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.
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 $31.68 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..
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..
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