Monday, July 16, 2012
New Release Sunday: New CD's From Twin Shadow And Frank Ocean
Twin Shadow - Confess. Pitchfork review here. Give this guy 70 seconds and he will win you over. George Lewis Jr. has total creative control of Confess, so every note, every pause, every flourish, every oddly perfect moment.. It's all exactly as he wanted. Stellar effort.
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange. The first of hopefully many amazing efforts. Pitchfork calls it a classic. Listen for yourself. Take a break. Strap on some headphones. Breathe deeply and actively listen. You'll have your reward.
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange. The first of hopefully many amazing efforts. Pitchfork calls it a classic. Listen for yourself. Take a break. Strap on some headphones. Breathe deeply and actively listen. You'll have your reward.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Magnesium's effects on the aging brain
From New Hope 360. Video at the link. Magnesium researcher, Guosong Liu, MD, PhD, explains how brain synapses work more efficiently with magnesium. After lab studies at MIT and six years of animal studies in China, a new magnesium form combined with a vitamin C metabolite shows improved sleep, mental sharpness and attention.
Not So Fast, Moonenites..
Earth's friend, Man's enemy: The Moon is layered in dust bathed in radiation, which could prove deadly for pioneers. The Daily Mail. Excerpts:
Living on the moon is surely humanity's goal as we make our first baby steps into space.
But our constant neighbour may not treat us so well - for scientists now think that the very dust on our luna partner is poisonous to humans.
The surface of the moon is coated in a layer of thick, undisturbed dust, which is not only ultra-fine - and therefore easy to inhale - but can increase the risk of various cancers, similar to breathing asbestos and volcanic ash.
Researchers from the University of Tennessee, referring to Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the moon, said: 'The Apollo astronauts reported undesirable effects affecting the skin, eyes and airways that could be related to exposure to the dust that had adhered to their space suits during their extravehicular activities and was subsequently brought into their spacecraft.'
Humans have only spent, at max, two or three days on the moon in total, and this time has often been spent in spaceships or airtight suits.
But with long-term exposure, the team says that inhalation would be harmful - even when wearing protective gear, as dust trails the astronauts back into living quarters.
Once inside the lungs the super-fine, sharp-edged lunar dust could(cause) health issues, affecting the respiratory and cardiovascular system, causing airway inflammation and increasing the risks of various cancers.
The dust -subjected to millenia of UV radiation, would penetrate deep into the lungs, and micro-gravity would only help in bringing the dust deep into the lungs.
Living on the moon is surely humanity's goal as we make our first baby steps into space.
But our constant neighbour may not treat us so well - for scientists now think that the very dust on our luna partner is poisonous to humans.
The surface of the moon is coated in a layer of thick, undisturbed dust, which is not only ultra-fine - and therefore easy to inhale - but can increase the risk of various cancers, similar to breathing asbestos and volcanic ash.
Researchers from the University of Tennessee, referring to Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the moon, said: 'The Apollo astronauts reported undesirable effects affecting the skin, eyes and airways that could be related to exposure to the dust that had adhered to their space suits during their extravehicular activities and was subsequently brought into their spacecraft.'
Humans have only spent, at max, two or three days on the moon in total, and this time has often been spent in spaceships or airtight suits.
But with long-term exposure, the team says that inhalation would be harmful - even when wearing protective gear, as dust trails the astronauts back into living quarters.
Once inside the lungs the super-fine, sharp-edged lunar dust could(cause) health issues, affecting the respiratory and cardiovascular system, causing airway inflammation and increasing the risks of various cancers.
The dust -subjected to millenia of UV radiation, would penetrate deep into the lungs, and micro-gravity would only help in bringing the dust deep into the lungs.
This Week In Financial Shenanigans..
Peregrine chief arrested for lying to regulators. Raw Story. Excerpts:
The head of collapsed US futures broker Peregrine Financial Group was arrested Friday on criminal charges, days after he apparently attempted suicide and confessed to fraud in a signed statement.
Russell Wasendorf, the sole owner and chief executive of Iowa-based PFG, admitted in the suicide note that he had embezzled millions of dollars from clients over 20 years.
The company’s accounts have a shortfall of about $200 million, according to a US regulator who sued the company Tuesday.
A US federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa said Friday that Wasendorf, 64, was charged with making false statements about customer funds.
He was due to appear in court later Friday.
“The complaint alleges that, from 2010 through July of 2012, Wasendorf made false statements to the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding the value of customer segregated funds held by Wasendorf’s company, Peregrine Financial Group, Inc.,” the court said in a statement.
According to the complaint, filed by the FBI, emergency personnel responding Monday to a 911 emergency call found Wasendorf “unresponsive” in his automobile, along with an apparent suicide note to his wife.
In addition, a signed statement was found inside the vehicle detailing fraud committed by Wasendorf through PFG over the past 20 years.
“I have committed fraud. For this I feel constant and intense guilt,” Wasendorf wrote.
“Through a scheme of using false bank statements I have been able to embezzle millions of dollars from customer accounts.”
The forgeries went undetected for nearly 20 years, he said, because he had sole access to the company’s accounts at US Bank.
Wasendorf said he used a combination of Photo Shop, Excel, scanners and printers to make “very convincing forgeries.”
“With careful concealment and blunt authority I was able to hide my fraud from others at PFG.”
When online banking became prevalent, he said he learned how to falsify online bank statements.
“The regulators accepted them without question.”
The Iowa court said that Wasendorf was interviewed by law enforcement personnel at the University of Iowa Hospital on Monday, and Wasendorf acknowledged he had written the statement and that the information it contained was true.
PFG, also known as PFG Best, filed Tuesday for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves the sale of assets to pay off creditors.
The action came hours after the CFTC sued PFG and Wasendorf, alleging they had falsified information in filings and overstated the company’s bank deposits.
The CFTC said the firm had a shortfall that currently exceeds $200 million.
“The whereabouts of the funds is currently unknown,” the CFTC said.
On Monday the National Futures Association, responsible for monitoring PFG for compliance with reporting requirements, took an emergency enforcement action against PFG and Peregrine Asset Management.
The NFA blocked new or additional customer accounts or funds, alleging PFG had failed to prove it had met capital and segregated funds requirements.
On Friday, other regulators indicated they were looking into the situation.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing records to determine where there are securities customer funds missing, SEC spokesman John Nester said.
A spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, told AFP that “FINRA reps have been on-site at Peregrine’s Cedar Falls offices to look into the firm.”
Suicide note and FBI affidavit here:
The Real Libor Scandal Paul Craig Roberts. From Activist Post. Excerpts:
The question is, why do investors purchase long term bonds, which pay less than the rate of inflation, from governments whose debt is rising as a share of GDP? One might think that investors would understand that they are losing money and sell the bonds, thus lowering their price and raising the interest rate.
Why isn’t this happening?
PCR’s June 5 column, “Collapse at Hand,” explained that despite the negative interest rate, investors were making capital gains from their Treasury bond holdings, because the prices were rising as interest rates were pushed lower.
What was pushing the interest rates lower?
The answer is even clearer now. First, as PCR noted, Wall Street has been selling huge amounts of interest rate swaps, essentially a way of shorting interest rates and driving them down. Thus, causing bond prices to rise.
Secondly, fixing Libor at lower rates has the same effect. Lower UK interest rates on government bonds drive up their prices.
In other words, we would argue that the bailed-out banks in the US and UK are returning the favor that they received from the bailouts and from the Fed and Bank of England’s low rate policy by rigging government bond prices, thus propping up a government bond market that would otherwise, one would think, be driven down by the abundance of new debt and monetization of this debt, or some part of it.
Libor: They all knew – and no one acted
"Trade-Off": A Study In Global Systemic Collapse Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
The argument that a large-scale and globalised financial-banking-monetary crisis is likely arises from two sources. Firstly, from the outcome and management of credit over-expansion and global imbalances and the growing stresses in the Eurozone and global banking system. Secondly, from the manifest risk that we are at a peak in global oil production, and that affordable, real-time production will begin to decline in the next few years. In the latter case, the credit backing of fractional reserve banks, monetary systems and financial assets are fundamentally incompatible with energy constraints. It is argued that in the coming years there are multiple routes to a largescale breakdown in the global financial system, comprising systemic banking collapses, monetary system failure, credit and financial asset vaporization. This breakdown, however and whenever it comes, is likely to be fast and disorderly and could overwhelm society’s ability to respond.
Why Don’t the Corrupt Players On Wall Street and In D.C. Show Remorse for Their Destructive Actions…And Why Don’t We Stop Them? Washington's Blog, via Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
(From Bloomberg)
The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame [for the financial crisis].
Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of “people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry” lack a “conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people.”
As a result, Boddy argues in a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, such people are “extraordinarily cold, much more calculating and ruthless towards others than most people are and therefore a menace to the companies they work for and to society.”
How do people with such obvious personality flaws make it to the top of seemingly successful corporations? Boddy says psychopaths take advantage of the “relative chaotic nature of the modern corporation,” including “rapid change, constant renewal” and high turnover of “key personnel.” Such circumstances allow them to ascend through a combination of “charm” and “charisma,” which makes “their behaviour invisible” and “makes them appear normal and even to be ideal leaders.”
***
They “largely caused the crisis” because their “single- minded pursuit of their own self-enrichment and self- aggrandizement to the exclusion of all other considerations has led to an abandonment of the old-fashioned concept of noblesse oblige, equality, fairness, or of any real notion of corporate social responsibility.”
***
He says the unnamed “they” seem “to be unaffected” by the corporate collapses they cause. These psychopaths “present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and as lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very convincing in blaming others for what has happened and have no doubts about their own worth and value. They are happy to walk awayeconomic disaster that they have managed to bring about, with huge payoffs and with new roles advising governments how to prevent such economic disasters.”
They continue to lie. We continue to let them.
The head of collapsed US futures broker Peregrine Financial Group was arrested Friday on criminal charges, days after he apparently attempted suicide and confessed to fraud in a signed statement.
Russell Wasendorf, the sole owner and chief executive of Iowa-based PFG, admitted in the suicide note that he had embezzled millions of dollars from clients over 20 years.
The company’s accounts have a shortfall of about $200 million, according to a US regulator who sued the company Tuesday.
A US federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa said Friday that Wasendorf, 64, was charged with making false statements about customer funds.
He was due to appear in court later Friday.
“The complaint alleges that, from 2010 through July of 2012, Wasendorf made false statements to the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding the value of customer segregated funds held by Wasendorf’s company, Peregrine Financial Group, Inc.,” the court said in a statement.
According to the complaint, filed by the FBI, emergency personnel responding Monday to a 911 emergency call found Wasendorf “unresponsive” in his automobile, along with an apparent suicide note to his wife.
In addition, a signed statement was found inside the vehicle detailing fraud committed by Wasendorf through PFG over the past 20 years.
“I have committed fraud. For this I feel constant and intense guilt,” Wasendorf wrote.
“Through a scheme of using false bank statements I have been able to embezzle millions of dollars from customer accounts.”
The forgeries went undetected for nearly 20 years, he said, because he had sole access to the company’s accounts at US Bank.
Wasendorf said he used a combination of Photo Shop, Excel, scanners and printers to make “very convincing forgeries.”
“With careful concealment and blunt authority I was able to hide my fraud from others at PFG.”
When online banking became prevalent, he said he learned how to falsify online bank statements.
“The regulators accepted them without question.”
The Iowa court said that Wasendorf was interviewed by law enforcement personnel at the University of Iowa Hospital on Monday, and Wasendorf acknowledged he had written the statement and that the information it contained was true.
PFG, also known as PFG Best, filed Tuesday for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves the sale of assets to pay off creditors.
The action came hours after the CFTC sued PFG and Wasendorf, alleging they had falsified information in filings and overstated the company’s bank deposits.
The CFTC said the firm had a shortfall that currently exceeds $200 million.
“The whereabouts of the funds is currently unknown,” the CFTC said.
On Monday the National Futures Association, responsible for monitoring PFG for compliance with reporting requirements, took an emergency enforcement action against PFG and Peregrine Asset Management.
The NFA blocked new or additional customer accounts or funds, alleging PFG had failed to prove it had met capital and segregated funds requirements.
On Friday, other regulators indicated they were looking into the situation.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing records to determine where there are securities customer funds missing, SEC spokesman John Nester said.
A spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, told AFP that “FINRA reps have been on-site at Peregrine’s Cedar Falls offices to look into the firm.”
Suicide note and FBI affidavit here:
The Real Libor Scandal Paul Craig Roberts. From Activist Post. Excerpts:
The question is, why do investors purchase long term bonds, which pay less than the rate of inflation, from governments whose debt is rising as a share of GDP? One might think that investors would understand that they are losing money and sell the bonds, thus lowering their price and raising the interest rate.
Why isn’t this happening?
PCR’s June 5 column, “Collapse at Hand,” explained that despite the negative interest rate, investors were making capital gains from their Treasury bond holdings, because the prices were rising as interest rates were pushed lower.
What was pushing the interest rates lower?
The answer is even clearer now. First, as PCR noted, Wall Street has been selling huge amounts of interest rate swaps, essentially a way of shorting interest rates and driving them down. Thus, causing bond prices to rise.
Secondly, fixing Libor at lower rates has the same effect. Lower UK interest rates on government bonds drive up their prices.
In other words, we would argue that the bailed-out banks in the US and UK are returning the favor that they received from the bailouts and from the Fed and Bank of England’s low rate policy by rigging government bond prices, thus propping up a government bond market that would otherwise, one would think, be driven down by the abundance of new debt and monetization of this debt, or some part of it.
Libor: They all knew – and no one acted
"Trade-Off": A Study In Global Systemic Collapse Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
The argument that a large-scale and globalised financial-banking-monetary crisis is likely arises from two sources. Firstly, from the outcome and management of credit over-expansion and global imbalances and the growing stresses in the Eurozone and global banking system. Secondly, from the manifest risk that we are at a peak in global oil production, and that affordable, real-time production will begin to decline in the next few years. In the latter case, the credit backing of fractional reserve banks, monetary systems and financial assets are fundamentally incompatible with energy constraints. It is argued that in the coming years there are multiple routes to a largescale breakdown in the global financial system, comprising systemic banking collapses, monetary system failure, credit and financial asset vaporization. This breakdown, however and whenever it comes, is likely to be fast and disorderly and could overwhelm society’s ability to respond.
Why Don’t the Corrupt Players On Wall Street and In D.C. Show Remorse for Their Destructive Actions…And Why Don’t We Stop Them? Washington's Blog, via Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
(From Bloomberg)
The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame [for the financial crisis].
Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of “people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry” lack a “conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people.”
As a result, Boddy argues in a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, such people are “extraordinarily cold, much more calculating and ruthless towards others than most people are and therefore a menace to the companies they work for and to society.”
How do people with such obvious personality flaws make it to the top of seemingly successful corporations? Boddy says psychopaths take advantage of the “relative chaotic nature of the modern corporation,” including “rapid change, constant renewal” and high turnover of “key personnel.” Such circumstances allow them to ascend through a combination of “charm” and “charisma,” which makes “their behaviour invisible” and “makes them appear normal and even to be ideal leaders.”
***
They “largely caused the crisis” because their “single- minded pursuit of their own self-enrichment and self- aggrandizement to the exclusion of all other considerations has led to an abandonment of the old-fashioned concept of noblesse oblige, equality, fairness, or of any real notion of corporate social responsibility.”
***
He says the unnamed “they” seem “to be unaffected” by the corporate collapses they cause. These psychopaths “present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and as lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very convincing in blaming others for what has happened and have no doubts about their own worth and value. They are happy to walk awayeconomic disaster that they have managed to bring about, with huge payoffs and with new roles advising governments how to prevent such economic disasters.”
They continue to lie. We continue to let them.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Baltic Sea UFO May Be Secret Nazi Weapon
Even if this isn't a UFO, this might just be the next best(?) answer. The Truth Behind The Scenes:
Divers exploring a ‘UFO-shaped’ object in the Baltic sea say that the strange, curved object may possibly be a secret Nazi device lost beneath the waves since the end of the Second Planet War.
Sonar scans have shown that the device, raised 10ft above the seabed and measuring 200ft by 25ft, could be the base of an anti-submarine weapon.
The weapon was built with wire mesh which could have baffled submarine radar, leading enemy craft to crash – a lot in the exact same way as turning out a lighthouse could be utilized as a weapon against shipping.
But now former Swedish naval officer and WWII expert Anders Autellus has revealed that the structure – measuring 200ft by 25ft – could be the base of a device developed to block British and Russian submarine movements in the area.
The large steel-and-concrete structure could be one of the most essential historical finds in years.
Autellus claims it would have been built of double-skinned concrete and reinforced with wire mesh to baffle radar – which could clarify why the dive team’s equipment repeatedly failed near the mystery object.
‘The location was important to the German war machine simply because most of the ball bearings for its tanks and trucks came from right here. Without having them the German army would have ground to a halt,’ explained one professional.
‘This device dwarfs anything ever located ahead of and is an essential weapons discovery,’ they added.
Explorer Stefan Hogeborn – who is studying the images for the Ocean X diving team – agreed: ‘It is a good candidate for the answer to this mystery. The object lies directly underneath a shipping route.’
'It would be of enormous weight in steel and concrete. Other Nazi anti-sub anchoring devices had been nowhere near as huge,’ he added.
Whilst the Ocean Explorer team is understandably excited about their potentially earth-shattering find, other individuals are slightly far more sceptical and are questioning the accuracy of the sonar technologies.
The 9th of July, Ocean X Team left on their second expedition to solve the mystery about the Baltic Sea anomaly. The crew will return to shore 21th of July
To be continued!
This does not, also, exclude those "crazy theories" about the Nazis and UFO's or "alien technology," either.. This is still my favorite non-doom story of 2012. Me want more Baltic Anomaly!
Divers exploring a ‘UFO-shaped’ object in the Baltic sea say that the strange, curved object may possibly be a secret Nazi device lost beneath the waves since the end of the Second Planet War.
Sonar scans have shown that the device, raised 10ft above the seabed and measuring 200ft by 25ft, could be the base of an anti-submarine weapon.
The weapon was built with wire mesh which could have baffled submarine radar, leading enemy craft to crash – a lot in the exact same way as turning out a lighthouse could be utilized as a weapon against shipping.
But now former Swedish naval officer and WWII expert Anders Autellus has revealed that the structure – measuring 200ft by 25ft – could be the base of a device developed to block British and Russian submarine movements in the area.
The large steel-and-concrete structure could be one of the most essential historical finds in years.
Autellus claims it would have been built of double-skinned concrete and reinforced with wire mesh to baffle radar – which could clarify why the dive team’s equipment repeatedly failed near the mystery object.
‘The location was important to the German war machine simply because most of the ball bearings for its tanks and trucks came from right here. Without having them the German army would have ground to a halt,’ explained one professional.
‘This device dwarfs anything ever located ahead of and is an essential weapons discovery,’ they added.
Explorer Stefan Hogeborn – who is studying the images for the Ocean X diving team – agreed: ‘It is a good candidate for the answer to this mystery. The object lies directly underneath a shipping route.’
'It would be of enormous weight in steel and concrete. Other Nazi anti-sub anchoring devices had been nowhere near as huge,’ he added.
Whilst the Ocean Explorer team is understandably excited about their potentially earth-shattering find, other individuals are slightly far more sceptical and are questioning the accuracy of the sonar technologies.
The 9th of July, Ocean X Team left on their second expedition to solve the mystery about the Baltic Sea anomaly. The crew will return to shore 21th of July
To be continued!
This does not, also, exclude those "crazy theories" about the Nazis and UFO's or "alien technology," either.. This is still my favorite non-doom story of 2012. Me want more Baltic Anomaly!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Blood, debt and fears: crowds rise up as Spain agrees new €65bn cuts
This time, it's Spain that's heating up. The Independent. Excerpts:
The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, unveiled a fresh round of spending cuts totalling €65bn over two years at a noisy session of parliament yesterday. The measures represent the country's latest bid to convince financial markets that its public finances are in order and prevent a debt crisis spreading to the rest of the eurozone.
At the same time, hundreds of striking miners led a rally which stretched for miles along Madrid's main road in protest over cuts in subsidies they say will destroy Spain's coal industry.
The protesters tossed fireworks and clashed with riot police, who fired rubber bullets, as the unions vowed widespread action for the week beginning on 21 July. The demonstrations spread to the capital's parliamentary building and the headquarters of the governing conservative People's Party (PP).
At least one volley of rubber bullets was fired directly at miners, relatives and sympathisers as they gathered outside the Industry Ministry after marching up Madrid's main north-to-south street, the Castellana.
Expect Spain's tensions and resistance to rise right up to July 21, and then.. It's anybody's guess.
Society's fabric unravels, unabated, breathtaking in its absolute.. Thoroughness.
Everything truly is all happening now.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, unveiled a fresh round of spending cuts totalling €65bn over two years at a noisy session of parliament yesterday. The measures represent the country's latest bid to convince financial markets that its public finances are in order and prevent a debt crisis spreading to the rest of the eurozone.
At the same time, hundreds of striking miners led a rally which stretched for miles along Madrid's main road in protest over cuts in subsidies they say will destroy Spain's coal industry.
The protesters tossed fireworks and clashed with riot police, who fired rubber bullets, as the unions vowed widespread action for the week beginning on 21 July. The demonstrations spread to the capital's parliamentary building and the headquarters of the governing conservative People's Party (PP).
At least one volley of rubber bullets was fired directly at miners, relatives and sympathisers as they gathered outside the Industry Ministry after marching up Madrid's main north-to-south street, the Castellana.
Expect Spain's tensions and resistance to rise right up to July 21, and then.. It's anybody's guess.
Society's fabric unravels, unabated, breathtaking in its absolute.. Thoroughness.
Everything truly is all happening now.
Why Turkey won't go to war with Syria
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet to understand the new deal struck between Russia and the US. When you put it that way.. Analysis by Pepe Escobar. Al Jazeera. Excerpts:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan never saw it coming.
He knew he was in trouble when the Pentagon leaked that the Turkish Phantom RF-4E shot down last week by Syrian anti-aircraft artillery happened off the Syrian coastline, directly contradicting Erdogan's account, who claimed it happened in international air space.
And it got worse; Moscow, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, offered "objective radar data" as proof.
There was not much to do except change the subject. That's when Ankara introduced a de facto buffer zone of four miles (6.4km) along the Syrian-Turkish border - now enforced by F-16s taking off from NATO's Incirlik base at regular intervals.
Ankara also dispatched tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery to the 500 mile (800km) border, right after Erdogan effectively branded Syria "a hostile state".
What next? Shock and awe? Hold your (neo-Ottoman) horses.
Lord Balfour, I presume?
The immediate future of Syria was designed in Geneva recently, in one more of those absurdist "international community" plays when the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council's Qatar and Kuwait sat down to devise a "peaceful solution" for the Syrian drama, even though most of them are reportedly weaponising the opposition to Damascus.
One would be excused to believe it was all back to the Balfour Declaration days, when foreign powers would decide the fate of a country without the merest consultation of its people, who, by the way, never asked them to do it on their behalf.
Anyway, in a nutshell: there won't be a NATO war on Syria - at least for now. Beyond the fact that Lavrov routinely eats US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for breakfast, Russia wins - for now.
Predictably, Moscow won't force regime change on Assad; it fears the follow-up to be the absolute collapse of Syrian state machinery, with cataclysmic consequences. Washington's position boils down to accepting a very weak, but not necessarily out, Assad.
The problem is the interpretation of "mutual consent", on which a "transitional government" in Syria would be based - the vague formulation that emerged in Geneva. For the Obama administration, this means Assad has to go. For Moscow - and, crucially, for Beijing - this means the transition must include Assad.
Expect major fireworks dancing around the interpretation. Because a case can be made that the new "no-fly zone" over Libya - turned by NATO into a 30,000-sortie bombing campaign - will become Syria's "transitional government", based on "mutual consent".
One thing is certain: nothing happens before the US presidential election in November. This means that for the next five months or so Moscow will be trying to extract some sort of "transitional government" from the bickering Syrian players. Afterwards, all bets are off. A Washington under Mitt Romney may well order NATO to attack in early 2013.
A case can be made that a Putin-Obama or US-Russia deal may have been reached even before Geneva.
Russia has eased up on NATO in Afghanistan. Then there was the highly choreographed move of the US offering a formal apology and Pakistan duly accepting it - thus reopening NATO's supply routes to Afghanistan.
It's crucial to keep in mind that Pakistan is an observer and inevitable future full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) - run by China and Russia, both BRICS members highly interested in seeing the US and NATO out of Afghanistan for good.
The "price" paid by Washington is, of course, to go easy on Damascus - at least for now. There is not much Erdogan can do about it; he really was not in the loop.
The Turkey/Syria/Iran media drumbeat has calmed down, for now. The media coverage just kind of vaporized, yeah? I was wrong about the back channel triangle of Tel Aviv, Ankara, and Damascus. If there were communications, they didn't matter: It's still all about Washington, Moscow, and Beijing's interests. So, while the Syrian civil war continues to escalate, the international players will remain in stasis until November, and that includes Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan never saw it coming.
He knew he was in trouble when the Pentagon leaked that the Turkish Phantom RF-4E shot down last week by Syrian anti-aircraft artillery happened off the Syrian coastline, directly contradicting Erdogan's account, who claimed it happened in international air space.
And it got worse; Moscow, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, offered "objective radar data" as proof.
There was not much to do except change the subject. That's when Ankara introduced a de facto buffer zone of four miles (6.4km) along the Syrian-Turkish border - now enforced by F-16s taking off from NATO's Incirlik base at regular intervals.
Ankara also dispatched tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery to the 500 mile (800km) border, right after Erdogan effectively branded Syria "a hostile state".
What next? Shock and awe? Hold your (neo-Ottoman) horses.
Lord Balfour, I presume?
The immediate future of Syria was designed in Geneva recently, in one more of those absurdist "international community" plays when the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council's Qatar and Kuwait sat down to devise a "peaceful solution" for the Syrian drama, even though most of them are reportedly weaponising the opposition to Damascus.
One would be excused to believe it was all back to the Balfour Declaration days, when foreign powers would decide the fate of a country without the merest consultation of its people, who, by the way, never asked them to do it on their behalf.
Anyway, in a nutshell: there won't be a NATO war on Syria - at least for now. Beyond the fact that Lavrov routinely eats US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for breakfast, Russia wins - for now.
Predictably, Moscow won't force regime change on Assad; it fears the follow-up to be the absolute collapse of Syrian state machinery, with cataclysmic consequences. Washington's position boils down to accepting a very weak, but not necessarily out, Assad.
The problem is the interpretation of "mutual consent", on which a "transitional government" in Syria would be based - the vague formulation that emerged in Geneva. For the Obama administration, this means Assad has to go. For Moscow - and, crucially, for Beijing - this means the transition must include Assad.
Expect major fireworks dancing around the interpretation. Because a case can be made that the new "no-fly zone" over Libya - turned by NATO into a 30,000-sortie bombing campaign - will become Syria's "transitional government", based on "mutual consent".
One thing is certain: nothing happens before the US presidential election in November. This means that for the next five months or so Moscow will be trying to extract some sort of "transitional government" from the bickering Syrian players. Afterwards, all bets are off. A Washington under Mitt Romney may well order NATO to attack in early 2013.
A case can be made that a Putin-Obama or US-Russia deal may have been reached even before Geneva.
Russia has eased up on NATO in Afghanistan. Then there was the highly choreographed move of the US offering a formal apology and Pakistan duly accepting it - thus reopening NATO's supply routes to Afghanistan.
It's crucial to keep in mind that Pakistan is an observer and inevitable future full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) - run by China and Russia, both BRICS members highly interested in seeing the US and NATO out of Afghanistan for good.
The "price" paid by Washington is, of course, to go easy on Damascus - at least for now. There is not much Erdogan can do about it; he really was not in the loop.
The Turkey/Syria/Iran media drumbeat has calmed down, for now. The media coverage just kind of vaporized, yeah? I was wrong about the back channel triangle of Tel Aviv, Ankara, and Damascus. If there were communications, they didn't matter: It's still all about Washington, Moscow, and Beijing's interests. So, while the Syrian civil war continues to escalate, the international players will remain in stasis until November, and that includes Turkey.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Shaking all over: Map of every major earthquake since 1898 reveals stunning image of planet's danger zones
Courtesy The Daily Mail/UK. I'm not sure, though, what is defined as "major." I'm guessing magnitude 6. Impressive map:
If you are looking for somewhere safe from an earthquake, this might help.
For this map shows the where every major quake has struck since 1898, and as you can see, the edge of the Pacific Ocean appears particularly dangerous. In total there are a staggering 203,186 of them, dotted all over the world.
The neon-coloured map was created as a side-project by mapping manager John Nelson, in a case of taking his work home with him, as he works for data-visualisation software maker IDV Solutions.
![]()
Go to the link. This map is bigger, and there's a bonus map of US tornadic activity over the last 61 years. It's like weather nerd catnip!
If you are looking for somewhere safe from an earthquake, this might help.
For this map shows the where every major quake has struck since 1898, and as you can see, the edge of the Pacific Ocean appears particularly dangerous. In total there are a staggering 203,186 of them, dotted all over the world.
The neon-coloured map was created as a side-project by mapping manager John Nelson, in a case of taking his work home with him, as he works for data-visualisation software maker IDV Solutions.
Go to the link. This map is bigger, and there's a bonus map of US tornadic activity over the last 61 years. It's like weather nerd catnip!
Fukushima Update: Some Good(?) News, Some Not So Good News..
Two from Fukushima Diary.. The Good News? Ok, the kind-of Good News?
[Reactor4] Debris removal was finished, fuel will be taken out soon.
Following up this article..[LIVE] Tepco is removing the upper part of reactor4
Tepco finished the debris removal of SFP4. Now the PCV and SFP4 are completely exposed outside.
They are going to take out 2 of the new fuel assemblies soon.[Link]
So.. Only 1551 fuel assemblies to go? This comment is also.. Troubling..
look, I have photos of SFP4 in the top part of reactor 4 building from last year – IT IS GONE.. Spent Fuel Pool Four is no longer part of the building. We can clearly see the top of the reactor (big yellow dome)but where is the fuel pool which should be ABOVE the reactor ???Where is SFP 4 ??
Huh.
Not so good news: Survey robot died in reactor 3
Related to this article..Robot destroyed within 2 hours in reactor 2
Survey runner robot stopped on the radiation measurement of torus room in reactor3.
From 11:00 to 15:00 of 7/11/2012, Tepco was taking radiation, visual and “sound” data in torus room of reactor3 by using a robot. The atmospheric dose was 360 mSv/h.
Human worker opened the door of the torus room to let the robot enter, it went around clockwise, but the communication was interrupted at the manhole located at the South-East of torus room.
The robot is cabled, Tepco hasn’t verify the cause yet. They only assume the cable might have been damaged on the way. Tepco can’t take the robot back either because the radiation level is too high.
The robot sent radiation and visual data until it stopped but because the sound data is recorded in it, it can’t be obtained until they get the robot back. They were planning to detect the water leaking point by recording the sound data.
They recorded the sound data when they conducted robot survey in torus room of reactor2 as well, but because the alarm of survey meter was too noisy, they couldn’t hear the sound of water flow.
I'd still like to know the circumstances around TEPCO busting ass to clean up Reactor4 much faster than scheduled. As with all things Fukushima, the bad news still outweighs the good.
LI(E)BOR-Gate Crosses Ocean, Blows Up Real Big..
US Attorneys General Jump On The Lieborgate Bandwagon; 900,000+ Lawsuits To Follow, And What Happens Next? What does happen next, Zero Hedge?
The second Barclays announced its $450 million Libor settlement, it was all over - the lawyers smelled not only blood, but what may be the biggest plaintiff feeding frenzy of all time. Which is why it was only a matter of time: "State attorneys general are jumping into the widening scandal over whether banks tried to manipulate benchmark international lending rates, a move that could open a new front against the top global banks. A handful of state attorneys general said they are looking into whether they have jurisdiction over the banks, and are starting preliminary discussions to determine what kind of impact the conduct involving the Libor rate may have had in their states."
From Reuters:
Also, as explained here before, not only is this a legal bonanza, but it will be a political feast for the Congressional circus to earn numerous C-SPAN brownie points.
1) Starting today and going forward, there will be numerous essays, "analyses" and white papers, all of which will try to estimate (some on a paid basis) the damages and impact of the Libor manipulation that took place at least in the period under discussion 2005-2009. All of these will be absolutely wrong, as nobody has any clear idea of how the cumulative impact of the Libor rate, which may have been pushed below either lower or higher depending on how it suited a given BBA-member bank, over a period of years will have impacted hundreds of trillions in partially offsetting notional securities. Therefore, while one day it may have led to impairments, another day it would benefit the end-holder of a given interest-rate sensitive product. But they will try. And the bigger the number, the better, which leads us to...
2) The lawyers will crawl out of the woodwork like worms after a torrential downpour, and will all be willing to work on contingency, telling potential clients they are owed thousands, nay, millions based on such and such analysis. All they need is to have held a mortgage, or a credit card, or any variable interest liability in the 4 years in question. And to sign the dotted line.
3) The resulting lawsuits, most of which in class action format, will be of gargantuan proportions, simply to encourage settlement, as ongoing litigation will easily destroy the financial system. The litigation reserves at the TBTF banks will explode and will cause years of EPS writedowns. But at least they will be one-time charges, so the stocks don't get crushed too much. That said, forget any growth out of the banking sector, and certainly the 16 BBA member banks, all of whom are about to be sued to smithereens in civil suits as more and more banks step up and settle to avoid criminal prosecution.
4) The biggest irony is that the torrent of upcoming suits will be in effect targeting none other than the Fed. Because while banks which all were massively levered to even a one basis point move in Libor were very sensitive to the smallest variations in 3 month USD libor, end-clients who did not have this leverage were far less impaired. But that doesn't matter: after all the same clients were impaired through gross borderline criminal negligence which is all that matters in a court of law (assuming the honorable judge John Roberts is not presiding pro hac vice). Thus the entity that will be sued by proxy is the Federal Reserve, whose Federal Funds rate is really the setter for the baseline Libor rate. Note the chart below which shows that over the past decade, the 3M USD Libor and the Fed Funds rate were virtually interchangeable: (Chart available at the link..)
Yet while it was the Fed's decisions at the bottom of it all, unless someone implicates the Fed or the BOE further, both will get away scott free: after all what they do is public policy, for the public good and to defend their various appointed mandates. And neither pushed banks to manipulate their rates (even if both were well aware there was gambling going on here), or so they claim, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.
What will really happen, is that the private banks, having been bailed out by the central banks at the taxpayers' dime, will now serve as a buffer to protect these same institutions from rising popular anger, not just at Lieborgate, but Robosigning, Robosettlement, CDOs, rehypothecation, High Frequency Trading, toxic assets marked-to-unicorns, the end of Mark-to-Market, ZIRP, NIRP, expert networks, insider trading, MF Global, and countless other examples of what happens when financial fraud is let loose with no fear of consequence in a Bernanke Put world.
As a result, the status quo will literally buy itself a few more years as it delays the tipping point by any means necessary, in the process kicking back a little to politicians, lawyers, and the general public in exchange for a few years of subpar earnings for bank shareholders that should have been wiped out back in 2008 anyway. And everyone will be happy.
That's how Lieborgate will play out.
I'm down with the article's overall cynicism, but I don't quite agree: The above post is a little too rosy a prediction regarding the status quo. This numbers, players, and their connections will ultimately be too big to be ignored or downplayed(No matter how many people become complicit), especially when paired with economic black hole that is derivatives. How do you visualize/quantify 600 plus trillion dollars? This is the preliminary level of the upcoming financial conflagration..
The second Barclays announced its $450 million Libor settlement, it was all over - the lawyers smelled not only blood, but what may be the biggest plaintiff feeding frenzy of all time. Which is why it was only a matter of time: "State attorneys general are jumping into the widening scandal over whether banks tried to manipulate benchmark international lending rates, a move that could open a new front against the top global banks. A handful of state attorneys general said they are looking into whether they have jurisdiction over the banks, and are starting preliminary discussions to determine what kind of impact the conduct involving the Libor rate may have had in their states."
From Reuters:
"Our office is aware of the allegations around the manipulation of the Libor, and we are working with other state agencies to determine whether Massachusetts has suffered any losses as a result," a spokesman for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said. A spokesman for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said his office is aware of the recent settlement reached by British bank Barclays with U.S. and UK authorities and "will look at the case to the extent that our office might have any jurisdiction in the matter."How many potential lawsuits are we talking about here? Quite a bit in fact as the FT explains:
A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts transportation authority, MassDOT, said the agency "is actively investigating its portfolio for the purpose of determining if it was underpaid on its bonds due to the brewing Libor situation," as are many other issuers of debt whose rate is governed by Libor.
Lawyers for several states have had early discussions about whether they might pool investigative resources and launch a broader, multi-state effort, but no formal consortium has been established yet, people familiar with the discussions said. New York might be expected to lead such an effort, since most of the banks' U.S. operations are based there. A spokesman for the New York attorney general declined comment on whether the issue is being looked at.
Some municipalities, including the city of Baltimore, and funds including the Frankfurt-based Metzler Investment GmbH, which manages 47 billion euros ($59 billion) in assets, have already sued more than a dozen banks, arguing they were bilked of potentially billions of dollars.
There are at least 900,000 outstanding US home loans indexed to Libor that were originated from 2005 to 2009, the period the key lending gauge may have been rigged, investigators have said. Those mortgages carry an unpaid principal balance of $275bn, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bank regulator.
Also, as explained here before, not only is this a legal bonanza, but it will be a political feast for the Congressional circus to earn numerous C-SPAN brownie points.
“I think the US government should be just as aggressive in getting to the bottom of this scandal as the United Kingdom has been,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, chair of the bank regulatory subcommittee on the Senate banking committee.What does the above mean?
“This was not isolated to London, but affected tens of millions of investors, borrowers and taxpayers in our country as well,” Mr Brown added.
1) Starting today and going forward, there will be numerous essays, "analyses" and white papers, all of which will try to estimate (some on a paid basis) the damages and impact of the Libor manipulation that took place at least in the period under discussion 2005-2009. All of these will be absolutely wrong, as nobody has any clear idea of how the cumulative impact of the Libor rate, which may have been pushed below either lower or higher depending on how it suited a given BBA-member bank, over a period of years will have impacted hundreds of trillions in partially offsetting notional securities. Therefore, while one day it may have led to impairments, another day it would benefit the end-holder of a given interest-rate sensitive product. But they will try. And the bigger the number, the better, which leads us to...
2) The lawyers will crawl out of the woodwork like worms after a torrential downpour, and will all be willing to work on contingency, telling potential clients they are owed thousands, nay, millions based on such and such analysis. All they need is to have held a mortgage, or a credit card, or any variable interest liability in the 4 years in question. And to sign the dotted line.
3) The resulting lawsuits, most of which in class action format, will be of gargantuan proportions, simply to encourage settlement, as ongoing litigation will easily destroy the financial system. The litigation reserves at the TBTF banks will explode and will cause years of EPS writedowns. But at least they will be one-time charges, so the stocks don't get crushed too much. That said, forget any growth out of the banking sector, and certainly the 16 BBA member banks, all of whom are about to be sued to smithereens in civil suits as more and more banks step up and settle to avoid criminal prosecution.
4) The biggest irony is that the torrent of upcoming suits will be in effect targeting none other than the Fed. Because while banks which all were massively levered to even a one basis point move in Libor were very sensitive to the smallest variations in 3 month USD libor, end-clients who did not have this leverage were far less impaired. But that doesn't matter: after all the same clients were impaired through gross borderline criminal negligence which is all that matters in a court of law (assuming the honorable judge John Roberts is not presiding pro hac vice). Thus the entity that will be sued by proxy is the Federal Reserve, whose Federal Funds rate is really the setter for the baseline Libor rate. Note the chart below which shows that over the past decade, the 3M USD Libor and the Fed Funds rate were virtually interchangeable: (Chart available at the link..)
Yet while it was the Fed's decisions at the bottom of it all, unless someone implicates the Fed or the BOE further, both will get away scott free: after all what they do is public policy, for the public good and to defend their various appointed mandates. And neither pushed banks to manipulate their rates (even if both were well aware there was gambling going on here), or so they claim, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.
What will really happen, is that the private banks, having been bailed out by the central banks at the taxpayers' dime, will now serve as a buffer to protect these same institutions from rising popular anger, not just at Lieborgate, but Robosigning, Robosettlement, CDOs, rehypothecation, High Frequency Trading, toxic assets marked-to-unicorns, the end of Mark-to-Market, ZIRP, NIRP, expert networks, insider trading, MF Global, and countless other examples of what happens when financial fraud is let loose with no fear of consequence in a Bernanke Put world.
As a result, the status quo will literally buy itself a few more years as it delays the tipping point by any means necessary, in the process kicking back a little to politicians, lawyers, and the general public in exchange for a few years of subpar earnings for bank shareholders that should have been wiped out back in 2008 anyway. And everyone will be happy.
That's how Lieborgate will play out.
I'm down with the article's overall cynicism, but I don't quite agree: The above post is a little too rosy a prediction regarding the status quo. This numbers, players, and their connections will ultimately be too big to be ignored or downplayed(No matter how many people become complicit), especially when paired with economic black hole that is derivatives. How do you visualize/quantify 600 plus trillion dollars? This is the preliminary level of the upcoming financial conflagration..
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
JAMES KUNSTLER: We're Entering A Dangerous New Period In History
He's not wrong. Businessinsider:
News that that a swarm of termites deep inside the British banking system have been fiddling the interbank interest rates (LIBOR) for years in order to systematically vacuum a few billion pence off the exchange floors for themselves is the latest blow to the credibility of the global money system - and probably a fine overture to a looming climactic implosion of the gigantic, creaking, smoldering, reeking, duck-taped edifice of broken promises, booby-trapped hedge obligations, counterparty follies, central bank euchres, sovereign flim-flams, and countless chicanes too various, dark, and deep to smoke out.
Next, we'll probably hear that Lloyd Blankfein over at Goldman Sachs has been tinkering with the rotation of the earth in order to gain a few micro-milliseconds of advantage in his firm's high frequency trading rackets. After all, back in 2008 Lloyd himself claimed to be "doing God's work."
In short, world banking is now hopelessly pranged, and I am not at all sure the project of civilization (modern edition) can continue by other means. The impairments of capital formation are now so profound that no one and nothing can be trusted.
Not only are all bets off, but nobody will want to make any new bets - and by that I mean venture to invest accumulated wealth (capital) in some useful project designed to sustain human well-being. What remains is just the desperate hoarding of whatever remains in assets uncontaminated by the pledges of others to pony up.
All this points to a dangerous new period of political history, a deadly Hobbesian scramble to evade the falling timber in a burning house as the rudiments of a worldwide social contract go up in flames. Such is the importance of legitimacy: the basic condition for governance, especially among supposedly free people.
You can meddle in a lot of distributory issues - who gets what - but when you mess with the most basic operations of money to the extent that no one is sure what it's really worth, or what it represents, then you are deeply undermining society. This is now the condition that is set to blow up republics.
Reality dislikes fraud and accounting tricks. Reality is serious about settling scores. Reality eventually intervenes and puts an end to monkey business. What will it be this time?
Europe and America have been buying a month here, a month there (of a fragile, continuing status quo) on the installment plan. That's what QE, TARPs, LTRO, EFSF, Operation Twist, et cetera, are all about. Think of them as multi-billion dollar (euro) fire extinguishers bought on credit cards. Europe is now completely out of credit to buy more fire fighting equipment.
For months now it has been down to whether Germany intends to keep supporting Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, the French banks (and a few stray forgotten places between the backwaters of the Danube and the Gulf of Finland) without any say in how they manage their allowance. Much as Germany enjoyed the Ponzi heyday of the Euro zone, a big "tilt" sign now flashes ominously over the continent, signaling game over. All fall down.
Everybody gets real poor real fast. M. Hollandaise over in Paris has already sealed his fate with his stupid plan to return to "go" on the Ponzi game-board. Merkel's tattered scarecrow of a coalition will blow away in the next national election. The Club Med countries will soon boil up in street-fighting, Holland and Finland will drink themselves to death, and across the channel outsider Britain will fizzle away to a burnt bowl of mulligatawny. That's what the end of the summer looks like to me.
Over here, in this sorry-ass edition of America, the election will look more and more like a World Wrestling Federation staged dumb-show between two catamite hostages of a foul corporate oligarchy. Imagine that horse's ass Mitt Romney spending the next four months denouncing Obama-care, modeled on his own health care reform in Massachusetts, while Obama pretends he has a grip on an economy where the rule of law is absent due to Obama's own omissions and negligence.
And if you can't stand that spectacle, just look around at America itself: a wasteland of futile motoring and discount shopping populated by depressed, overfed clowns bedizened with sinister tattoos, pretending to be Star Warriors. No nation ever seen in human history ever laid such a disappointing egg. Only to have it fry on the sidewalk.____________________________________
You ever get that sneaking suspicion 2013's gonna be real different than 2012?
Also: I'm in the mood to type like hillbillies talk, that's why.
News that that a swarm of termites deep inside the British banking system have been fiddling the interbank interest rates (LIBOR) for years in order to systematically vacuum a few billion pence off the exchange floors for themselves is the latest blow to the credibility of the global money system - and probably a fine overture to a looming climactic implosion of the gigantic, creaking, smoldering, reeking, duck-taped edifice of broken promises, booby-trapped hedge obligations, counterparty follies, central bank euchres, sovereign flim-flams, and countless chicanes too various, dark, and deep to smoke out.
Next, we'll probably hear that Lloyd Blankfein over at Goldman Sachs has been tinkering with the rotation of the earth in order to gain a few micro-milliseconds of advantage in his firm's high frequency trading rackets. After all, back in 2008 Lloyd himself claimed to be "doing God's work."
In short, world banking is now hopelessly pranged, and I am not at all sure the project of civilization (modern edition) can continue by other means. The impairments of capital formation are now so profound that no one and nothing can be trusted.
Not only are all bets off, but nobody will want to make any new bets - and by that I mean venture to invest accumulated wealth (capital) in some useful project designed to sustain human well-being. What remains is just the desperate hoarding of whatever remains in assets uncontaminated by the pledges of others to pony up.
All this points to a dangerous new period of political history, a deadly Hobbesian scramble to evade the falling timber in a burning house as the rudiments of a worldwide social contract go up in flames. Such is the importance of legitimacy: the basic condition for governance, especially among supposedly free people.
You can meddle in a lot of distributory issues - who gets what - but when you mess with the most basic operations of money to the extent that no one is sure what it's really worth, or what it represents, then you are deeply undermining society. This is now the condition that is set to blow up republics.
Reality dislikes fraud and accounting tricks. Reality is serious about settling scores. Reality eventually intervenes and puts an end to monkey business. What will it be this time?
Europe and America have been buying a month here, a month there (of a fragile, continuing status quo) on the installment plan. That's what QE, TARPs, LTRO, EFSF, Operation Twist, et cetera, are all about. Think of them as multi-billion dollar (euro) fire extinguishers bought on credit cards. Europe is now completely out of credit to buy more fire fighting equipment.
For months now it has been down to whether Germany intends to keep supporting Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, the French banks (and a few stray forgotten places between the backwaters of the Danube and the Gulf of Finland) without any say in how they manage their allowance. Much as Germany enjoyed the Ponzi heyday of the Euro zone, a big "tilt" sign now flashes ominously over the continent, signaling game over. All fall down.
Everybody gets real poor real fast. M. Hollandaise over in Paris has already sealed his fate with his stupid plan to return to "go" on the Ponzi game-board. Merkel's tattered scarecrow of a coalition will blow away in the next national election. The Club Med countries will soon boil up in street-fighting, Holland and Finland will drink themselves to death, and across the channel outsider Britain will fizzle away to a burnt bowl of mulligatawny. That's what the end of the summer looks like to me.
Over here, in this sorry-ass edition of America, the election will look more and more like a World Wrestling Federation staged dumb-show between two catamite hostages of a foul corporate oligarchy. Imagine that horse's ass Mitt Romney spending the next four months denouncing Obama-care, modeled on his own health care reform in Massachusetts, while Obama pretends he has a grip on an economy where the rule of law is absent due to Obama's own omissions and negligence.
And if you can't stand that spectacle, just look around at America itself: a wasteland of futile motoring and discount shopping populated by depressed, overfed clowns bedizened with sinister tattoos, pretending to be Star Warriors. No nation ever seen in human history ever laid such a disappointing egg. Only to have it fry on the sidewalk.____________________________________
You ever get that sneaking suspicion 2013's gonna be real different than 2012?
Also: I'm in the mood to type like hillbillies talk, that's why.
Uh-Oh: Sorcha Mighta Nailed It..
“Super Event” Warned Near As Weather Chaos Pounds Planet I had this article completely done and the "gremlins" ate it. Hmm; Funny how that happens.. Synopsis: Sorcha Faal is a sketchy source, but they predicted the 2004 Sumatra quake/tsunami three days prior. (Warning: This link could be sketchy and virus causing. My firewall really doesn't like me going there..) This post feels very similar.. Pakalertpress:
A grim report prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) for President Putin on the catastrophic flooding in the Krasnodar region that has killed at least 144 people warns that our world is fast approaching what is termed as a “Chizhevsky Super Event” due to the rapidly growing number of sunspots that continue to hurl M and X Class Flares towards Earth causing continued and massive global weather chaos.
A “Chizhevsky Super Event” is named after famed Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964) who founded “heliobiology” (study of the sun’s effect on biology) and “aero-ionization” (study of effect of ionization of air on biological entities). Chizhevsky was also was noted for his work in “cosmo-biology, biological rhythms and hematology.”
Chizhevsky is most notable for his use of historical research (historiometry) techniques to link the 11 year solar cycle, Earth’s climate and the mass activity of peoples, research that was confirmed by Western scientists earlier this decade in two important studies titled Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing and Synchronized Northern Hemisphere climate change and solar magnetic cycles during the Maunder Minimum.
Important to note, this report says, are the “four components” of Chizhevsky’s eleven year cycle and their approximate lengths: 1) a three year period of minimum activity characterized by passivity and autocratic rule; 2) a two year period during which masses begin to organize under new leaders and one theme; 3) a three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war; 4) a three year period of gradual decrease in excitability until the masses are apathetic.
Of these “four components”, this report continues, our world has now entered into the Third Period: A three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war.
According to Chizhevsky’s research, RAS scientists state in this report, the defining characteristics to be looked for when our world enters into a Third Period “Super Event” timeline is a rapid overturning of existing weather phenomena combined with an equally sudden major changing of the global social-political power structures all occurring during a period of Solar Maximum.
Interesting to note about the current Solar Maximum we are in was the 23 March 2009 scientific article titled Space Storm Alert: 90 Seconds From Catastrophe published by New Scientist that eerily describes somewhat exactly what is now occurring in the United States following their East Coast region being struck by what is being called a “derecho” storm that, in part, says:
“It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.”
According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center web site, a derecho (pronounced “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.
Chizhevsky’s research, however, states that derecho storms are but a precursor to the much more damaging events associated with a “Super Event”, a finding made even more terrifying with the 2008 news that NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft had discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms.
RAS scientists in this report blame this “loading up” of the magnetosphere caused by solar flares for causing not only the catastrophic Russian floods, but also our present global weather chaos, to include: 1.) The unrelenting heat wave hitting the United States that has caused at least 30 deaths, hundreds of forest fires and billions in crop damage. 2.) The torrential floods and rain continuing to batter the United Kingdom. 3.) The catastrophic floods that have hit India leaving nearly 100 dead and millions homeless. 4.) The historic and severe drought that has hit northern and central Mexico. 5.) The historic drought that has ravaged Brazil’s northeast.
Most important to note about a “Chizhevsky Super Event”, this report concludes, is that while no one is able to predict exactly what the “main event” may be, the historic record leaves no doubt whatsoever that it is coming with terrifying suddenness and will most certainly upend the entire world as we know it.
Of particular concern for this particular “Chizhevsky Super Event”, say RAS scientists in this report, would be the sudden outbreak of global war combined with an equally catastrophic global flu outbreak such as that which happened last century during the Solar Maximum decade of 1910-1918 that saw the outbreak of World War I and the Spanish Flu Pandemic that combined killed estimated 500 million people.
Not known to but a few researchers was that in 2001 Canadian researchers warned that influenza epidemics are more likely to sweep the globe when the sun develops spots and sends its excess energy barreling toward Earth such as it is doing now.
“Epidemics are four times as likely during solar maxima,” said Ken Tapping, a solar physicist with the National Research Council, pointing to the striking correlation between flu pandemics and the peaks of the 11-year sunspot cycle, also known as the solar maximum. He and two colleagues have compared flu and solar records dating back to 1729 and found a statistically significant connection. There were flu epidemics, some of them fatal to millions of people, in 1729, 1830, 1918, 1957, 1968 and 1977, years when solar activity and flares bombarded the Earth with extra radiation and cosmic rays.
The effects of solar cycles on influenza epidemics is especially important to note as along with the current global weather chaos the highly deadly Bird Flu virus has once again emerged in Mexico, China and Indonesia.
To me, this report feels authentic. It would also explain A Lot. It would also be unimaginably tragic. It helps nothing that we're also in a webbot window, also..
Look at it this way, if the Super Event fails to transpire, you still have Fukushima or the Presidential elections to look forward to!
Happy Summer, everyone!
A grim report prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) for President Putin on the catastrophic flooding in the Krasnodar region that has killed at least 144 people warns that our world is fast approaching what is termed as a “Chizhevsky Super Event” due to the rapidly growing number of sunspots that continue to hurl M and X Class Flares towards Earth causing continued and massive global weather chaos.
A “Chizhevsky Super Event” is named after famed Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964) who founded “heliobiology” (study of the sun’s effect on biology) and “aero-ionization” (study of effect of ionization of air on biological entities). Chizhevsky was also was noted for his work in “cosmo-biology, biological rhythms and hematology.”
Chizhevsky is most notable for his use of historical research (historiometry) techniques to link the 11 year solar cycle, Earth’s climate and the mass activity of peoples, research that was confirmed by Western scientists earlier this decade in two important studies titled Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing and Synchronized Northern Hemisphere climate change and solar magnetic cycles during the Maunder Minimum.
Important to note, this report says, are the “four components” of Chizhevsky’s eleven year cycle and their approximate lengths: 1) a three year period of minimum activity characterized by passivity and autocratic rule; 2) a two year period during which masses begin to organize under new leaders and one theme; 3) a three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war; 4) a three year period of gradual decrease in excitability until the masses are apathetic.
Of these “four components”, this report continues, our world has now entered into the Third Period: A three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war.
According to Chizhevsky’s research, RAS scientists state in this report, the defining characteristics to be looked for when our world enters into a Third Period “Super Event” timeline is a rapid overturning of existing weather phenomena combined with an equally sudden major changing of the global social-political power structures all occurring during a period of Solar Maximum.
Interesting to note about the current Solar Maximum we are in was the 23 March 2009 scientific article titled Space Storm Alert: 90 Seconds From Catastrophe published by New Scientist that eerily describes somewhat exactly what is now occurring in the United States following their East Coast region being struck by what is being called a “derecho” storm that, in part, says:
“It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.”
According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center web site, a derecho (pronounced “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.
Chizhevsky’s research, however, states that derecho storms are but a precursor to the much more damaging events associated with a “Super Event”, a finding made even more terrifying with the 2008 news that NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft had discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms.
RAS scientists in this report blame this “loading up” of the magnetosphere caused by solar flares for causing not only the catastrophic Russian floods, but also our present global weather chaos, to include: 1.) The unrelenting heat wave hitting the United States that has caused at least 30 deaths, hundreds of forest fires and billions in crop damage. 2.) The torrential floods and rain continuing to batter the United Kingdom. 3.) The catastrophic floods that have hit India leaving nearly 100 dead and millions homeless. 4.) The historic and severe drought that has hit northern and central Mexico. 5.) The historic drought that has ravaged Brazil’s northeast.
Most important to note about a “Chizhevsky Super Event”, this report concludes, is that while no one is able to predict exactly what the “main event” may be, the historic record leaves no doubt whatsoever that it is coming with terrifying suddenness and will most certainly upend the entire world as we know it.
Of particular concern for this particular “Chizhevsky Super Event”, say RAS scientists in this report, would be the sudden outbreak of global war combined with an equally catastrophic global flu outbreak such as that which happened last century during the Solar Maximum decade of 1910-1918 that saw the outbreak of World War I and the Spanish Flu Pandemic that combined killed estimated 500 million people.
Not known to but a few researchers was that in 2001 Canadian researchers warned that influenza epidemics are more likely to sweep the globe when the sun develops spots and sends its excess energy barreling toward Earth such as it is doing now.
“Epidemics are four times as likely during solar maxima,” said Ken Tapping, a solar physicist with the National Research Council, pointing to the striking correlation between flu pandemics and the peaks of the 11-year sunspot cycle, also known as the solar maximum. He and two colleagues have compared flu and solar records dating back to 1729 and found a statistically significant connection. There were flu epidemics, some of them fatal to millions of people, in 1729, 1830, 1918, 1957, 1968 and 1977, years when solar activity and flares bombarded the Earth with extra radiation and cosmic rays.
The effects of solar cycles on influenza epidemics is especially important to note as along with the current global weather chaos the highly deadly Bird Flu virus has once again emerged in Mexico, China and Indonesia.
To me, this report feels authentic. It would also explain A Lot. It would also be unimaginably tragic. It helps nothing that we're also in a webbot window, also..
Look at it this way, if the Super Event fails to transpire, you still have Fukushima or the Presidential elections to look forward to!
Happy Summer, everyone!
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