Blipits

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Jason wrote:
Jason wrote:I want to dedicate a post here to Russia as this isn't getting anywhere near mainstream news and this is BIG. Katrina was one town....and really less than 25% of one town. In Russia right now the whole country is burning up. The crops (within weeks of harvest) are destroyed. Underground water pipes in Moscow are boiling water....its horrific.

Again this is like Canada getting sustained temps 95 and above for prolonged period. Russia is not equipped to fight the fires.

Several of the links are repeated from posts above.....but Russia specific as well as some new ones.





Here's some pictures from a blog -
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3313180.html

Fires in Eastern Siberia
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss

Fires and Smoke near Moscow
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... p?id=44966








Putin is going to put down the iron fist....or face a civil war!
Smoke over Western Russia

Hundreds of fires burned across western Russia on August 2, 2010, but it is the smoke that conveys the magnitude of the disaster in this true-color image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Dense gray-brown smoke extends across the width of this image, a distance of about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles). The smoke clearly continues both east and west beyond the edge of the image, and is visible in both previous and successive orbits of the Terra satellite. The smoke is so thick that it is not possible to see the ground beneath it.

The fires ignited in late July and early August as record heat combined with drought turned plants tinder dry. Nearly 700 fires burned on August 2, reported CNN, burning homes, killing at least 34 people, and pushing about 500 towns and villages into a state of emergency. The western half of the impacted region is shown in this image. One of the worst hit communities, Nizhny Novgorod, is beneath the dense smoke on the left side of the image. The city’s approximate location is marked.

Many of the fires burned in peat bogs, producing the thick smoke shown in the image. Because of the smoke, the air quality was poor from Moscow (east of the area shown in the image) to west of the Ural Mountains. MODIS detected some of the fires along the edge of the smoke. These fires are outlined in red and visible in the large image. Additional fires in the forests of eastern Siberia pumped dense smoke over eastern Russia.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Heatwave grinds on

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saw some of the fire damage for himself in Nizhny Novgorod region last week. On Monday, he held meetings with regional leaders in Moscow to discuss further help for affected communities.

Russians are bracing themselves for another week of high temperatures, with forecasts of up to 40C (104F) for central and southern regions.

Officials also expect stronger winds in some regions, which will fan the flames.

By Sunday night, wildfires were still raging across some 128,000 ha (316,000 acres).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10836281

Wildfires force state of emergency for 500 Russian towns
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08 ... A+World%29

Wildfires Spread Across Russia's West
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... nds_Strong




Russia declared a state of emergency in seven regions on Monday as the death toll climbed from wildfires sweeping the European part of the country. The fires have devastated homes, farmland and forests across a huge swathe of European Russia, which has been left parched by a prolonged heatwave and drought. A fifth of Russia’s grain crop has been destroyed by lack of rain, prompting a surge in world wheat prices and driving many farmers to the brink of bankruptcy.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, signed a decree on Monday declaring an emergency in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Voronezh, Mordovia and Mari El regions, the Kremlin said in a statement.

The decree bars Russians from entering forests and peat bogs at risk of fire until the emergency is lifted. It also calls for the recruitment of volunteers to help combat the wildfires.

Mr Medvedev urged Russians visiting the countryside to be vigilant. “Much depends on us and on your behaviour,” he said. “It is difficult in the city, stuffy and very hot . . . Everyone wants to go out to the country. Remember, any discarded match can bring about an irrevocable disaster. These are not banal words, it is how things are.”

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, called a meeting of regional governors to discuss the crisis. “Every day several hundred new fires break out including tens of huge ones. We must do everything possible effectively to battle with this dreadful calamity,” he said.

Weather forecasters warned on Monday that there was no hope of respite from the record-breaking heatwave, which has gripped European Russia for more than five weeks.

In Moscow, people donned masks as smog from the burning peat bogs cloaked the city on Monday morning.

Health officials advised children and the elderly to stay at home as pharmacies reported a rush on oxygen canisters used to ease respiratory problems.

Avtovaz, Russia’s biggest carmaker, halted assembly lines on Monday. The company said the forecast temperatures of 45°C could damage the health of workers.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cd5c8f2-9e61 ... ftcamp=rss

Russia declares fire emergency
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13 ... =351020602

Check Out These Incredible Photos Of The Fires Engulfing Russia
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-w ... f-moscow-1
Bad Russian wheat harvest boosts US farmers

MOSCOW — A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, the world's third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained.

Expectations that Russia will slash exports by at least 30 percent have sent wheat prices soaring and this is good news for farmers in the world's largest wheat exporter — the United States.

The higher wheat prices may mean that Americans and Europeans pay slightly more for bread, but the bigger burden will fall on people in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia, analysts say.

The Russian Grain Union said Monday that it expects exports to decline to 15 million tons, down from 21.4 million tons in 2009, while the SovEcon consultancy sees them at 12 million tons and other analysts at even less.

"Russia has become the price-maker on the market," said Dmitry Rylko, director general of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, who says he expects minimal exports.

Russian farmers have little incentive to export. Even though grain prices are rising on world markets, with further gains on Monday, they are growing even faster in Russia, so many farmers are holding on to their harvested grain in the hopes of still higher profits.

The majority of the damage to Russia's wheat crop has been caused by the drought, one of the worst in decades as much of the country suffers through the hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. But in recent days, wildfires raging through much of western Russia have spread into farmland and there are fears that more fields will be lost.

The director of a small state farm outside Moscow said fire destroyed its entire wheat crop one night before they planned to harvest.

"The fruits of the year's labor of the farm went up in smoke — this is very painful," said Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm, said Monday on Russian television. He said a woman who worked as a horticulturist at the farm was weeping in his office.

State farms have been marginalized since the fall of the Soviet Union and most of Russian grain production comes from big, often multinational companies. After years of stagnation, Russian agriculture has been on the upswing as Russian firms and foreign investment funds have started to buy up land and upgrade production.

Wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade surged in July by 42 percent, the biggest monthly gain in more than a half century, and are now the highest they have been in nearly two years. With no immediate end in sight for the drought in Russia, analysts expect prices to continue to rally.

Wheat futures rose more than 5 percent Monday to $6.975.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... QD9HBGF3G0

Morning markets: wheat sprints into August as Russia bakes
http://www.agrimoney.com/marketreport/m ... --690.html
Fires in Eastern Siberia

Intense fires continued to burn in the boreal forests of eastern Siberia on August 1, 2010. The fires are outlined in red in this image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The fires span the borders of Russia’s Chukotskiy, Magadan, and Koryakskiy provinces.

Burning in coniferous (evergreen) forests, the fires blanketed northeastern Siberia with thick brown smoke. The smoke hugs the ground near the fires, filling valleys, and soars over clouds farther away from the flames. On August 1, the smoke flowed north from the fires and over the Arctic Ocean. A wide view of the Arctic shows the smoke crossing the Bering Strait and clouding skies over northern Alaska.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Russia Declares Fire Emergencies
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/world ... ss&emc=rss

Video: Russians Flee From Inside Forest Fire
http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... ire/60809/

Putin positioning himself to reclaim Russia presidency
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 7982.story

Dmitry Medvedev would not run against Vladimir Putin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Putin.html

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Police say gunman among dead in Conn. shooting
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_beer_dist ... _shootings
China’s House of Cards

Besides the profitless exporting covered in my Saturday post, the following should look familiar to the American experience. Local Gumnuts in China are using the land and housing bubble as their primary source of revenue. It’s the hangover afterwards that takes the whole economy down. Will make local and state Gumnut in the US look like a cakewalk in comparison.
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail
Economist Adam Smith wrote about ethics in economics in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and came to two principle conclusions regarding man’s conceit for his own ideal plan for government and the tendency for the public to act independently of those plans:

* If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

Fast forward to 2010 and it should be obvious that a high degree of social tension is the consequence of this bizarre attempt to keep the fraud going to save the economy. A compelling argument can also be made that the purpose of keeping the economy going is to save the fraud. Take your pick or take both. Any thoughtful person would walk away confused as to the current sorry state of ethical, economic and political affairs and would have to conclude that the ultimate outcome will very much be a high degree of disorder.
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail
The Rockefeller Foundation: America's 'New Normal'

The report documents a steady increase in economic insecurity since the 1960s, and concludes that annual income losses of 25 percent or greater increased by 49.9 percent between 1985 and 2009.

“Putting this trend in terms of population,” the report states, “approximately 46 million Americans were counted as insecure in 2007, up from 28 million in 1985.” The head of the research team that prepared the report, Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, told an interviewer, “What we’re seeing, basically, is what we’re calling ‘the new normal.’ We’re slowly ratcheting up this level of economic insecurity.”

The research group has devised what it calls the Economic Security Index (ESI), which measures the share of Americans in a given year who experience at least a 25 percent decline in their available household income and who lack a financial safety net to replace the lost income. Such a sudden income drop—usually due to the loss of employment, high medical expenses, or a combination of the two—often leaves people facing destitution.

The report does not include 2010, when long-term joblessness has become endemic. The ESI for this year will doubtless be considerably higher than for 2009.

The study notes that a staggering 60 percent of Americans experienced at least one income loss of 25 percent or more over the 1966-2006 period, and that losses of this size have become more common across most income sectors since the mid-1980s.

“Those with the most income and education have faced the least insecurity,” the report states. “The less affluent, those with limited education, African-Americans and Hispanics have faced the most. Virtually all groups, however, experienced significant increases in insecurity over the past 25 years.”

The study also found that the size of the typical income drop has grown, from 38.2 percent between 1985 and 1995 to 41.4 percent between 1997 and 2007. And the level of income insecurity relative to unemployment at any given point has risen over the past quarter century. In 1985, the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent and the ESI was 12 percent. In 2002, when the jobless rate was 5.8 percent, the ESI was 17 percent.

The report relates the protracted rise in economic insecurity to the explosive growth of both medical costs and household debt, and the decades-long increase in the concentration of wealth at the very top of the economic ladder. It notes the finding of the Congressional Budget Office that between 1979 and 2006 average after-tax income rose by 21 percent for the middle fifth of American households, but increased by 112 percent for the richest 10 percent of households and 256 percent for the top 1 percent.

The sharp rise in economic insecurity documented by the Rockefeller Foundation study is the outcome of a three-decade-long offensive by the American ruling class against the jobs, wages and living standards of the working class. This assault has only intensified since the eruption of the financial crisis in September 2008, which ushered in the worst recession since the 1930s. Under Obama, the drive to offload the crisis onto the working class has been stepped up, in the form of wage cuts, speedup and savage cuts in social spending at the state and local level.

The Obama administration extended the Wall Street bailout launched under Bush. It then signaled the intention of the ruling class to use mass unemployment to permanently lower the wages and conditions of American workers toward those of impoverished workers in Asia when its Auto Task Force drove General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy last year. This was done to impose new plant closures and layoffs and slash the wages of newly hired auto workers to half the previous level.

Next came the so-called health care “reform,” which will lower health costs for businesses and the government by rationing care and reducing benefits for tens of millions of workers and retirees. Since the passage of the health care overhaul, the administration has abandoned any economic stimulus measures in order to focus on slashing the budget deficit by attacking basic social programs upon which millions of working people rely.

The result of these policies is a record rise in corporate profits, based almost entirely on the reduction in labor costs through layoffs, wage and benefit cuts, and speedup. In many cases, companies have reported sharply higher profits, even though their sales and revenues have declined.
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... &Itemid=35

Fed Says Will Test Liquidity Extracting Reverse Repos (Including MBS) Even As It Prepares To Flood Market
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fed-sa ... es-flood-m

More Bad News: Factory Orders And Pending Homes Sales Both Miss Big, Durable Goods Revised Lower
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/more-b ... evised-low

Is The Baltic Dry Dead Cat Bounce Over?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/baltic ... ounce-over

Consumption And Spending Both Miss Estimates As Double Dip Fears Push Savings Rate To Highest Since June 2009
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/consum ... ghest-june
10 Year Drops Below 2.90%

For those who are unlucky enough to be on vacation and having to keep track of the deranged lunacy that passes for markets, the 10 Year just dropped below 2.90% as futures turn green! This is so insane, that it makes all the sense in our bizarro world now. Remember, last week we warned of a 10% meltup in stocks and bonds. So far it is working. In Europe, the same thing as Bund stops are triggered, and as 10 year Gilts trade to lowest yields since April 2009. Thank you Ben Bernanke: you have once again destroyed any semblance of logic in the market and driven another batch of traders out of the market: those who have no recourse to lose other people's money. Bloomberg's Matthew Lynn sums it best in Risk Is the New Black in World Turned Upside Down: "Investors need to reverse everything they thought they knew about risk. Assets such as property, the dollar and developed-country bonds are only for those who don’t mind losing their shirts. Small-time investors who depend on getting their money back should be buying into small companies, emerging markets and private-equity or hedge funds. We don’t know precisely what will emerge as “safe” once the dust has settled on both the credit crunch and the sovereign-debt crisis. But emerging markets are safer than developed ones, equities beat property, and corporate bonds are preferable to government notes. Sometime around 2015, don’t be surprised if bankers are advising widows and trust funds, which need to preserve capital above all else. They will be offered Turkish bonds, a hedge fund or two, and a portfolio of small emerging-market stocks. Real estate, Treasury bills, and dollar or euro blue-chips will only be for people who fancy a flutter -- and have already been warned they may lose everything." Logic is now dead.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/10-yea ... -below-290

The Aftermath of the Global Housing Bubble Chokes the World Banking System. Only a Coordinated Worldwide Loan Massacre Could Defeat a Japanese-Style Dead-and-Dying-of-Debt Kamikaze. Hell Approaches Us All, But Only For An Extended Period.
http://housingstory.net/2010/07/28/the- ... ng-system/

Pending Home fall to record series low in June
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index Hits Record Low, Future Expectations Dip Below Zero First Time Ever
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

Krugman: "Why Is Deflation Bad?"
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29
The Newest Deflationists

“Deflation isn’t just a topic of intellectual curiosity, it’s happening,” says Mr. Gross, who runs the $239 billion mutual fund Pimco Total Return Fund, citing an annualized 0.1% decline over the past two years in the U.S. consumer-price index. “It’s an uncertain world that’s tipping toward deflation.” …
http://dailycapitalist.com/2010/08/02/t ... italist%29



Tropical Storm Colin has made its debut over the Atlantic, but does not appear to be a threat to any land areas over the next five days. Satellite imagery shows that Colin is intensifying, as both the intensity and areal extent of heavy thunderstorms has increased over the past few hours. A respectable low-level spiral band is developing to the north of the center, and upper-level outflow is beginning to appear on all sides of the storm. Colin is a very small storm, and its tropical storm force winds extend out just 30 miles from the center. Colin passed about 50 miles south of Buoy 41041 early this morning, and generated top sustained winds of 27 mph at the buoy. There is some dry air associated with the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) to the northwest of Colin, but this dry air is not getting entrained into Colin at present. Wind shear is a low 5 - 10 knots and sea surface temperatures are a very warm 28 - 29°C, so continued development is likely today. The main negative for development appears to be the storm's small size, which makes it vulnerable to modest increases in wind shear or dry air entrainment. The first flight of the Hurricane Hunters into Colin is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

The Ukraine ties its record for hottest temperature in history
On August 1, the Ukraine tied its record for hottest temperature in its history when the mercury hit 41.3°C (106.3°F) at Lukhansk. The Ukraine also reached 41.3°C on July 20 and 21, 2007, at Voznesensk. Sixteen of 225 nations on Earth have set extreme highest temperature in history records this year, the most of any year. The year 2007 is in second place, with fifteen such records.

Five major U.S. cities record their warmest month in history during July
July 2010 was the warmest month in history for five U.S. cities:

Las Vegas, NV: 96.2°F (old record: 95.3°F, July 2005).
Atlantic City, NJ: 79.8°F (old record: 78.7°F, July 1983)
Washington, D.C.: 83.1°F (tied with July 1993)
Baltimore, MD: 81.5°F (tied with July 1995)
Trenton, NJ: 80.5°F (tied with July 1955)

Also, in June, Miami, FL recorded its warmest month in history: 85.6°F (old record: 85.4°F in June 1998.)

Commentary
None of the 303 major U.S. cities listed in the records section of Chris Burt's book Extreme Weather has set a coldest month in history record since 1994 (these 303 cites were selected to represent a broad spectrum of U.S. climate zones, are not all big cities, have a good range of elevations, and in most cases have data going back to the 1880s.) There were just three such records (1% of the 303 major U.S. cities) set in the past twenty years, 1991 - 2010. In contrast, 97 out of 303 major U.S. cities (32%) set records for their warmest month in history during the past twenty years. It is much harder to set a coldest month in history record than a coldest day in history record in a warming climate, since it requires cold for an extended period of time--not just a sudden extreme cold snap.

Are the pattern of U.S. temperature records due to the Urban Heat Island effect?
Is the huge disparity between extreme heat records and extreme cold records in the U.S. due to global warming, or the Urban Heat Island effect? The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect occurs when development of former natural areas into pavement and buildings allows more heat to be trapped in cities, particularly at night. During the day, the UHI effect often leads to a slight cooling, since it can increase the amount of turbulence, allowing cooler air to get mixed down to the surface. For example, Moreno-Garcia (1994) found that Barcelona, Spain was 0.2°C cooler for daily maxima and 2.9°C warmer for minima than a nearby rural station.

However, temperature records are typically taken in parks and airports removed from the main heat-trapping areas of cities, and are not as strongly affected as one might expect. There are several reasons for this. One is that when tall buildings are present, they tend to block the view to the sky, meaning that not as much heat can escape upwards. In addition, the presence of moist vegetation keeps the atmosphere moister in park-like areas (which include the grassy fields near airports where temperature measurements are taken). This extra moisture helps cool the atmosphere on a local scale of tens of meters, due to latent heat effects (the energy required to convert liquid water to water vapor). Peterson (2003) found that "Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures." The study used satellite-based night-light detection to identify urban areas. Recent research by Spronken-Smith and Oke (1998) concluded that there was a marked park cool island effect within the Urban Heat Island. They found that parks in typical cities in the U.S. have temperatures 1 - 2°C cooler than the surrounding city--and sometimes more than 5°C cooler. While the Urban Heat Island effect probably has contributed to some of the reduction in record low temperatures in the U.S. in the past decade, research by Parker (2004, 2006) and Peterson (2003) theorizes that Urban Heat Island effect is a factor ten or more less important than rising temperatures due to global warming.

Chris Burt wrote me yesterday about Las Vegas' all-time warmest month record set in July. He noted that none of the sites nearby Las Vegas' McCarran Airport (where the official obs are kept) came close to setting a warmest month in history record. McCarran Airport has set new warmest month in history records in 2003, 2005, and now 2010. These two facts make us suspect that in the case of Las Vegas, an urban heat island effect may be contributing to the spate of recent warmest month in history records there. The heat records for Atlantic City, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Trenton do not appear to have as much of a UHI influence, since record highs were set over such a large area of the mid-Atlantic in July.

Is the Urban Heat Island effect partially responsible for global warming?
Global warming is affecting the entire Earth, including rural areas far from cities, and the 70% of the world covered by ocean. Thus, the Urban Heat Island effect--if not corrected for--can cause only a small impact on the global temperature figures. Since the Urban Heat Island is corrected for, the impact on the observed global warming signal should be negligible. For instance, NASA uses satellite-derived night light observations to classify stations as rural and urban and corrects the urban stations so that they match the trends from the rural stations before gridding the data. Other techniques (such as correcting for population growth) have also been used. Despite these corrections, and the fact that the Urban Heat Island effect impacts only a relatively small portion of the globe, global warming skeptics have persistently used the Urban Heat Island effect to attack the validity of global warming. There are no published peer-reviewed scientific studies that support these attacks.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1565
Aurora Alert: The Sun Is Waking Up

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2010) — Sky viewers might get to enjoy some spectacular Northern Lights, or aurorae, on Wednesday (Aug. 3, 2010). After a long slumber, the Sun is waking up. Early Sunday morning, the Sun's surface erupted and blasted tons of plasma (ionized atoms) into interplanetary space. That plasma is headed our way, and when it arrives, it could create a spectacular light show.

Aurorae normally are visible only at high latitudes. However, during a geomagnetic storm aurorae can light up the sky at lower latitudes. Sky watchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north on the evening of August 3rd/4th for rippling "curtains" of green and red light.

The Sun goes through a regular activity cycle about 11 years long on average. The last solar maximum occurred in 2001. Its latest minimum was particularly weak and long lasting. This eruption is one of the first signs that the Sun is waking up and heading toward another maximum.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165451.htm

Violent sun throws fit, massive blast of plasma to hit Earth tomorrow
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/03/viol ... earth-tom/

Nasa says CME on Sun headed for Earth: Expected Arrival August 3rd
http://welcometoafreeworld.blogspot.com ... d-for.html
Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth - The earth could be hit by a wave of violent space weather as early as Tuesday after a massive explosion on the sun, scientists have warned.

The solar fireworks at the weekend were recorded by several satellites, including Nasa’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory which watched its shock wave rippling outwards.

Astronomers from all over the world witnessed the huge flare above a giant sunspot the size of the Earth, which they linked to an even larger eruption across the surface of Sun.

The explosion, called a coronal mass ejection, was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space.

Images from the SDO hint at a shock wave travelling from the flare into space, the New Scientist reported.

Experts said the wave of supercharged gas will likely reach the Earth on Tuesday, when it will buffet the natural magnetic shield protecting Earth.

It is likely to spark spectacular displays of the aurora or northern and southern lights.

"This eruption is directed right at us," said Leon Golub, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

"It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time."

Scientists have warned that a really big solar eruption could destroy satellites and wreck power and communications grids around the globe if it happened today.

Nasa recently warned that Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... earth.html





Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... Itemid=123

Magnitude 6.3 - MOLUCCA SEA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 10zma4.php

Garbage islands threaten China's Three Gorges dam
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6710SH20100802
Pakistan floods ravage lives of millions: UNICEF

(Reuters) - The worst floods in memory in Pakistan have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday, while outrage over the unpopular government's response to its people's plight spreads.

The catastrophe, which started almost a week ago and has killed more than 1,400 people, is likely to deepen as more rains are expected. A breakout of water-borne diseases such as cholera could create a health crisis.

The disaster has also, once again, called into question the leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari, already hampered by problems ranging from a stubborn Taliban insurgency, widespread poverty to chronic power cuts in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100803

Floods kill 1,400, maroon 30,000 in Pakistan
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=624099

Drought Hits Europe's Crops
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

....couple of thoughts here - 1) Get your food storage!!! 2) When government takes over there is also a nasty little side effect - the people then depend on the government and DEMAND that the government solve all of their problems (which I think is nearly impossible to accomplish most especially in the face of more intense sermons from the Lord).

You see this in Russia with the general dissatisfaction in the government's response and the hasty pledges by government representatives to rebuild villages and repair what's been done. The government will lose all power when the people see the inability of the government to respond to growing disasters and take matters into their own hands.....most especially when stomachs contract and violence goes exponential....

Greece will be a war zone - warn Greek security forces
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=624108
(Reuters) - A forest fire destroyed at least 13 hangars containing aircraft and equipment at a navy base outside Moscow last Thursday, Russia's Prosecutor General's office disclosed on Tuesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6723BN20100803
Russian Wildfires Kill 40 People as 58 Drown Trying to Escape Record Heat

Firefighters are battling 529 blazes that cover 172,372 hectares (666 square miles), the Emergency Situations Ministry said on its website today. Since the start of the fire season, 648,555 hectares have burned and more than 155,000 emergency personnel have been deployed in suppression efforts, the ministry said.

Since the start of the year, 3,472 people have drowned in Russia, including 1,600 in July, the hottest in European Russia in 130 years, the ministry said.

Russia’s worst drought in at least 50 years, which already drove wheat prices to the biggest jump since 1973, will continue in August and threaten more crops and winter-grain sowings, the state Hydrometeorological Center said on its website. Rainfall last month in central Russia and along the Volga River was 10 percent to 30 percent of the long-term average, the center said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... -heat.html
Bold and Underline mine.....the devil's in the details....

Some wildfires raging out of control in Russia
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9HC4B880

Russian law hinders forest fire fight
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0803/russia.html
Smoke from Fires in Canada

A ribbon of smoke snaked east across western Canada on August 2, 2010, clouding skies over Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and the Hudson Bay. On August 2, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center reported 1,015 fires burning in Canada, most of which were ignited by lightning. This smoke is probably coming from large fires in northern Saskatchewan.

As of July 28, more than two million hectares of land had burned in Canada during 2010, nearly twice the 10-year average, said Natural Resources Canada. For the week of July 28, most of the area burned was in Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories, and on August 2, several fires were detected in Saskatchewan. Additional large fires were burning in British Columbia, and these fires may also have contributed to the smoke.

Smoke from forest fires can travel long distances. Smoke contains small particles, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and other ozone-producing gases, all of which can cause respiratory problems.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss




After Assad ditches Hizballah, Lebanese clash with Israeli troops
http://www.debka.com/article/8946/
What We’re Following: Israeli-Lebanon Border Clash

Talk about border tensions: Israeli soldiers went out to trim a tree along its northern border with Lebanon and came under sniper fire from Lebanese soldiers. The IDF responded with tank and artillery fire, the Lebanese soldiers shot back with small arms including RPGs.

So far, the toll stands at one Israeli light-colonel, a battalion commander, three Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist killed; reports say an Israeli captain and five Lebanese wounded. UNIFIL peacekeepers have urged both armies to exercise “maximum restraint,” which seems unlikely at this point.
http://defensetech.org/2010/08/03/what- ... der-clash/

Iraq poised for civil strife after US combat forces pull out
http://www.debka.com/article/8945/

NORAD and Russian Air Force plan cooperative air defense exercise
http://www.norad.mil/News/2010/080210.html

US Missile Shield in Poland in 2018
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... leId=20438

The Ultimate Betrayal: Police and Military Working Together to Oppress Americans
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/ult ... itary.html

FBI Continues Attack on Civil Rights, Demands Increased Powers
http://www.truth-out.org/FBI-Continues- ... sed-Powers+

Secret Government Contractors Tracking Your Online Activity
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... &Itemid=33

US military documents leak, an 'orchestrated campaign against Pak': Envoy to UN
http://www.pakistannews.net/story/667808



FDA Failed to Regulate Toxic Chemicals Found in Personal Care Products
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... &Itemid=38

'Vaccinate all women who are expecting'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 245570.cms

Cyberwar? It's a phoney war
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... Itemid=114

....just like the War on Drugs and the War on Terror....

$1 Million Bounty for Arizona Sheriff’s Murder
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/1 ... r_08032010

Feds raid Amish dairy and threaten action over raw milk sales
http://www.federaljack.com/?p=16524

Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food
http://www.theworldsprophecy.com/senate ... rown-food/

Clone farm's milk is on sale: Food watchdog investigates after dairy farmer's astonishing admission
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ssion.html
Coca-Cola: Pollution in a Bottle?

Last year, drinks sold by Coca-Cola in the UK were found to contain pesticides up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water. Researchers tested 102 cans and bottles of soft drinks bought from 15 countries, for the presence of 100 pesticides. The UK products were bought in London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, St Andrews and at Gatwick Airport.

Experts said the levels found were low under the maximum residue levels allowed for fruit, but they were ‘very high’ and ‘up to 300 times’ the figure permitted for bottled or tap water. (4)

The average level of the total pesticide contamination of the British drinks was 17.4 parts per billion – 34.6 times the EU maximum residue level for water. Coca-Cola GB insisted the products are safe. A spokesman said;

The generally miniscule levels that were detected were well within the acceptable daily intake levels and these findings should reassure consumers there is no safety issue here.

Similar results have been found in India. Tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2003 showed that total pesticides in all Coca-Cola brands on average were 0.0150 mg/l, 30 times higher than the European Economic Commission (EEC) limit. All samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides;
....
In April, 2010, 22 percent of Coca-Cola shareholders voted in favor of a resolution urging the company to disclose how it is responding to public fears over bisphenol A (BPA) used in the linings of Coke’s beverage cans. The company dismissed the proposal, saying it did not think the information requested in the proposal ‘would be useful to our shareholders’.

In a review article published online May 25 in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, the researchers express the need for more complex strategies for studying how this chemical affects health but report that ample evidence already supports changing public health and environmental policies to protect the public from exposure to BPA. Particularly at risk are developing embryos. (9)

“The evidence indicates that exposure to BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may contribute to diseases that manifest during adult life, such as increased cancer rates in the industrialized world. These chemicals have also been linked to obesity, altered behavior, and infertility,” says author Ana Soto, MD, professor in the department of anatomy and cellular biology at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM).
http://arch1design.com/blog/?p=8688

Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development
http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/up ... 7cc719.pdf
Americans who swap passports

At the US Embassy in London, there is a waiting list that none of the officials likes to discuss. On the list are Americans hoping to give up their citizenship, as they seek shelter from the Internal Revenue Service.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0ae8415c-9e5e ... ab49a.html

....question is....Why in the world would they go to the UK? Just as bad if not worse....

National Citizenship Service for 16-year-olds launched today
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... today.html

BP says over 15% of oil cleanup workers show high levels of Corexit dispersant toxin; Figure likely much higher
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/bp-sa ... uch-higher


CZ 75 Czechmate pistol coming stateside
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

Steyr Arms again importing MA1 and SA1 pistols
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

Mossberg Tactical 22: The new AR-15 style .22 rifle
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

UPDATE:




According to reports during the past several days from SpaceWeather.com, during 1-Aug-2010, something extraordinary happened on the Sun and sunspot 1092. The occurrence is yet another wake up call that the upcoming 2011 – 2012 solar maximum could be a big one, one we’ve never experienced before with the vulnerable technologies that exist today.

After a period of quiet years, the sun has begun to produce more sunspots which have been firing off solar flares and CME’s (coronal mass ejection). The approximate 11 year cycle is due to peak in 2011 – 2012. The National Center for Atmospheric Research has indicated that this peak could be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one, and could be comparable to the 1958 solar maximum when auroras were frequently seen as far south as Mexico. Back then we had none of the vulnerable technology that is common today, and in fact, the United States had only just launched its very first satellite into space.

During August 1, a complex solar eruption occurred, one which had characteristics that I don’t recall having seen before.

(SpaceWeather.com) On August 1st, the entire Earth-facing side of the sun erupted in a tumult of activity. There was a C3-class solar flare, a solar tsunami, multiple filaments of magnetism lifting off the stellar surface, large-scale shaking of the solar corona, radio bursts, a coronal mass ejection and more.

Seeing the sun erupt on such a global scale has galvanized the international community of solar physicists. Researchers are still sorting out the complex sequence of events and trying to understand why they all happened at once.


Evidently the 11-year solar cycle periods also follow an approximate 40-year cycle which produces even higher levels of solar activity due to the way that the solar ‘conveyer belt’ works. Similar to how the Earth’s ocean conveyer currents work, so do similar currents work on the Sun, except with gases which flow from the poles to the equator and back again. The conveyer sweeps the surface of the sun and picks up any ‘worn out’ geomagnetic regions (decaying sunspots) and pulls them down from the poles deep into the sun where they are re-energized, become buoyant and float back up to the surface. The speed of the conveyer varies to make one loop (30 to 50 years). The conveyer was turning fast between 1986 and 1996 and more geomagnetic activity than normal was swept up during that time, which is expected to reappear as big sunspots when the loop comes around again during the upcoming 2011 – 2012 solar maximum.

Regarding the recent activity on the sun during 1-Aug-2010, the fact that the events occurred all at once, along with the fact that much of the sun was ’shaking’, is enough of a cause for alarm. Alarm in the sense that we need to get our noses out of our Blackberries and iPhones long enough to look around us and see what is going on in the real world. There are events occurring all around that are warning that we are not almighty beings. There are infinitely more powerful forces at work on the Earth and in the Universe while we are mere specks, just along for the ride. We need to take notice, understand what could happen, and become prepared.

Evidently, if a sunspot cycle is going to be more active than normal, it will also ramp up faster than normal. We shall see how this upcoming solar maximum reveals itself during the months ahead. Got food storage?
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/solar-cyc ... valBlog%29
Trimming Archduke Ferdinand's Hedges: Will Landscaping Be The Cause For Another Israel War?

Earlier today, the Middle East again came once step closer to war after the latest Israel-Lebanon clash claimed the most lives since the Second Lebanon War. As part of the escalation, 3 Lebanese soldiers and 1 journalist were killed, as well as an Israeli officer, over what appears to have been a day of gardening gone horribly wrong: Haaretz reports: "The violence apparently erupted over a move by Israeli soldiers to trim some hedges along the border, a sign of the level of tensions at the frontier where Israel fought a war in 2006 with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah." Surely this latest escalation explains the most recent surge in stocks, as Ben Bernanke will now have an excuse to take his money paradrop operation over to the Middle East, in hopes of keeping everyone occupied through endless amazon.com purchases of assorted useless gizmos.

More from Haaretz:

Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire on the border Tuesday in the most serious clashes since a fierce war four years ago, and Lebanon said at least three of its soldiers and a journalist were killed in shelling.

The violence apparently erupted over a move by Israeli soldiers to trim some hedges along the border, a sign of the level of tensions at the frontier where Israel fought a war in 2006 with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Israel Defense Forces GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot announced Tuesday that two Israeli officers had been very seriously hit during the exchange of fire. Eizenkot said that the incident had been a "deliberate ambush."

Eizenkot told Israeli media that "a routine operation was carried out during the afternoon near Misgav Am – an operation whose purpose was to trim some bushes near the border, in our [Israeli] territory. It was on both sides of the border but still within [Israeli] territory. Officers oversaw the operation from a permanent position. Sniper fire was directed at the officers, and two of them were wounded as a result."

The GOC Northern Command stressed that "this was a pre-planned event, aggression by the Lebanese army who shot at soldiers inside Israeli territory without any provocation. We view this as a very severe incident."

In other news, nothing like keeping the world on edge, and all eyes glued to the TV, as the terminal wealth transfer program in the US continues uninhibited and without intervention.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/trimmi ... israel-war
BP / Gulf Oil Spill - How Big? Just Got Bigger. Again.
Well, we warned ya. That estimate didn't last very long.

Yesterday the government released new estimates of how much oil was spewing on a daily basis from BP's Macondo well into the Gulf of Mexico, based on much better data and hi-def video. It's worse than we thought: initially the well was gushing oil at a rate of 2.6 million gallons (62,000 barrels) per day. At the time, BP and the Coast Guard claimed the spill rate was 62 times smaller than that -- 42,000 gallons (1,000 barrels) per day.

Eight days into the spill, NOAA got involved and raised the estimate to 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) per day. BP grudgingly accepted this, and it remained the official estimate of the spill rate - more than 10 times too small, we now know - until May 27, more than a month after the disaster began.

Working with BP as a consultant back in the 1990s, I interacted with some of the smartest geologists and reservoir engineers I've known. How could they get this so very wrong, knowing the bottomhole pressure of the well, the size of the reservoir, and the relative percentage of oil to natural gas? And how could the US Coast Guard - the agency that responds to oil and hazardous materials spills of all kinds and sizes - not know that they were dealing with a spill 10 times larger than the official estimate?

As the well leaked oil and natural gas, pressure in the reservoir below gradually lessened, so the flow rate of oil declined to 2.2 million gallons (53,000 barrels) per day. The well was capped on July 15, totally shutting off the flow of oil and gas.

Bottom line: using these new government numbers, and the estimate in a previous Washington Post article that about 33.6 million gallons were diverted from the leaking well and never entered the Gulf, we come up with a total spill of 172.2 million gallons (4.1 million barrels) - more than 15 times the official size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/08/bp-gul ... kyTruth%29

....AND OVER 2 MILLION GALLONS OF DISPERSANT!





Censored Gulf news: State-sponsored terrorism targets Deep South for Agenda 21 (Pt1)
http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-R ... act-of-war

"OUR OWN GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME OUR ENEMY"
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin605.htm

New Evidence About Prisoners Held in Secret CIA Prisons in Poland and Romania
http://www.truth-out.org/new-evidence-a ... mania61965

Karachi riots leave 45 dead after MP assassinated
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... s-pakistan

42 killed in Iraq attacks as Al Qaeda plants flag
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0803/42-kil ... ants-flag/

Unnoticed: Obama drops 2009 pledge to withdraw combat troops from Iraq
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0803/unnoti ... oops-iraq/

War in Eastasia - We have entered an age of “imperial overkill,” in which we “rely even more heavily on the military to compensate for a waning hegemony in other domains.” -
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/03 ... -eastasia/

Bombers, missiles could end Iran nukes - Pentagon has plan for attack
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ran-nukes/

What Is “Project Vigilant,” and Is It Violating the Law?
http://volokh.com/2010/08/03/what-is-pr ... spiracy%29

Army’s Vaccine Plan: Inject Troops With Gas-Propelled, Electro-Charged DNA
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08 ... more-28630
The following are 22 statistics about America's coming pension crisis that will make you lose sleep at night....

Private Pension Plans And Retirement Funds

1 - One recent study found that America's 100 largest corporate pension plans were underfunded by $217 billion at the end of 2008.

2 - Approximately half of all workers in the United States have less than $2000 saved up for retirement.

3 - According to one recent survey, 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything at all to retirement savings.

4 - The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation says that the number of pensions at risk inside failing companies more than tripled during the recession.

5 - According to another recent survey, 24% of U.S. workers admit that they have postponed their planned retirement age at least once during the past year.

State And Local Government Pensions

6- Pension consultant Girard Miller recently told California's Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have $325 billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities. When you break that down, it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in California.

7 - According to a recent report from Stanford University, California's three biggest pension funds are as much as $500 billion short of meeting future retiree benefit obligations.

8 - In New Jersey, the governor has proposed not making the state's entire $3 billion contribution to its pension funds because of the state's $11 billion budget deficit.

9 - It has been reported that the $33.7 billion Illinois Teachers Retirement System is 61% underfunded and is on the verge of total collapse.

10 - The state of Illinois recently raised its retirement age to 67 and capped the salary on which public pensions are figured.

11 - The state of Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time ever.

12 - In New York City, annual pension contributions have increased sixfold in the past decade alone and are now so large that they would be able to finance entire new police and fire departments.

13- Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management recently calculated the combined pension liability for all 50 U.S. states. What they found was that the 50 states are collectively facing $5.17 trillion in pension obligations, but they only have $1.94 trillion set aside in state pension funds. That is a difference of 3.2 trillion dollars.

Social Security

14 - According to one recently conducted poll, 6 out of every 10 non-retirees in the United States believe that the Social Security system will not be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.

15 - A very large percentage of the federal budget is made up of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare that cannot be reduced without a change in the law. Approximately 57 percent of Barack Obama's 3.8 trillion dollar budget for 2011 consists of direct payments to individual Americans or is money that is spent on their behalf.

16 - 35% of Americans over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone.

17 - According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes in 2010. That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016. The Social Security deficits are projected to get increasingly worse in the years ahead.

18 - 56 percent of current retirees believe that the U.S. government will eventually cut their Social Security benefits.

19 - In 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. In 2010, each retiree's Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 U.S. workers. By 2025, it is projected that there will be approximately two U.S. workers for each retiree.

20 - The shortfall in entitlement programs in the years ahead is mind blowing. The present value of projected scheduled benefits surpasses earmarked revenues for entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare by about 46 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.

21 - According to a recent U.S. government report, soaring interest costs on the U.S. national debt plus rapidly escalating spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019. That is before a single dollar is spent on anything else.

22 - Right now, interest on the U.S. national debt and spending on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent of GDP. By 2080, those combined expenditures are projected to eat up approximately 50 percent of GDP.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... p-at-night

Why Tier 5 Extension Is Necessary: High Unemployment, High Bank Closures, High Home Foreclosures
http://all247news.com/why-tier-5-extens ... ures/3053/
Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/03/2010 -- California has 10 out of the 12 metro areas having an unemployment rate of 15 percent and above. One of its metro areas, the El Centro metropolitan area, has an unemployment rate of 27.6 percent; the highest in the country. The data has been gathered from the Labor Department.
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/sbwire-52254.htm

Personal Income Flat, Private Wages and Salaries Decline in June; Is Consumer Spending 70% of GDP? Checkmark Recovery Revisited
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29
Commercial real estate maturities will peak in 2012 – $350 billion in loans coming due and hundreds of additional bank failures. Bank lending in the CRE market collapsing.

The commercial real estate disaster is sinking banks on a weekly basis. Talk of a V-shape recovery is now largely a moot point since we are past the point of a quick and strong recovery. The question now revolves around what we are going to face for the next few years. Commercial real estate really is a harbinger of what went wrong in the last decade. Banks and builders hungry for massive profits overestimated the demand for Starbucks and Macys locations around the country. After all, you actually need money to spend and many average Americans are struggling just to pay their monthly bills. The only way commercial real estate (CRE) was going to do well is if we had a booming population of young and wealthier professionals with more disposable income. Yet that did not happen.

Even though the claim of building and bottom talk is now out there in the open, banks that actually lend the money for these projects have different ideas:

Lending for commercial loans has collapsed. Even though banks would like you to believe that all is healthy and strong they have a front row seat to the carnage in the CRE market. And with CRE locations you get an actual real feel of the economic problems we are facing. Many Americans have pulled back on their spending and without spending many places simply cannot move forward. Banks are also taking scissors to American credit cards and access to other people’s money is slowly going away. The CRE market at one point was valued at $6.5 trillion. Today it is closer to $3 to $3.5 trillion. The loan amount at the peak was roughly $3.5 trillion so you had a nice equity cushion. Today, the balance is nearly the same but the value of the collateral has collapsed:

Although you see a slight increase, this is largely due to the massive amounts of government stimulus and bailouts. The increase on the supply side also has to do with many businesses cutting inventories to rock bottom levels during the dark days of the crisis when the stock market seemed to be at a free fall. Businesses restocked and this provided a nice little short-term boost but that was it. Now we are burning through that and realize that we have an enormous amount of unused capacity in our economy. In other words, there is little need for all the CRE out there in the market.

If we are to carefully examine the bank balance sheet of a too big to fail bank, what we find is that banks are now shifting their energy from funding new businesses to actually investing in the stock market casino. Let us take a look at the balance sheet for Bank of America:

“The above tells you more of what is going on than what any media outlet will tell you. What you see is a clear reduction in loans outstanding with BofA. At the same time, you see a massive increase in more investment activities. Wall Street has learned to leverage the easy money from the Federal Reserve to speculate on Wall Street instead of lending it out to Americans.”

Do you remember any U.S. Treasury head saying this was the actual plan? Of course not but that is exactly what is happening with the trillions of dollars now backstopping the banking system.

The CRE market is a reason for that reduction in loan amount. Many of the properties are defaulting and have to face the realization that they are worth a lot less than once thought. Many of the borrowers bought the properties with optimistic cash flow scenarios that would never materialize. You can buy a property for cash flow or appreciation purposes. It looks like the vast majority bought for appreciation and we entered a period where prices crashed. That is what we are now living through from a poorly calculated bet.

And the reality is we are merely entering the first few stages of the CRE bust with CRE loan maturities coming due:

Does the above chart look daunting? It should. The peak won’t hit until 2012 when nearly $350 billion in CRE loans will come due. And just look at the amount held by banks and thrifts. This is why predicting another 1,000 bank failures (at least) is within the cards. The connections between the banking sector and CRE run deep and we have a long way to go before we can say we are out of the economic woods.
http://www.mybudget360.com/commercial-r ... get+360%29

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Coronal Mass Ejection Headed for Earth

On August 1st, almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun erupted in a tumult of activity. There was a C3-class solar flare, a solar tsunami, multiple filaments of magnetism lifting off the stellar surface, large-scale shaking of the solar corona, radio bursts, a coronal mass ejection and more. This extreme ultraviolet snapshot from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun's northern hemisphere in mid-eruption. Different colors in the image represent different gas temperatures ranging from ~1 to 2 million degrees K. Credit: NASA/SDO

On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was Earth-facing sunspot 1092. C-class solar flares are small (when compared to X and M-class flares) and usually have few noticeable consequences here on Earth besides aurorae. This one has spawned a coronal mass ejection heading in Earth's direction.

Coronal mass ejections (or CMEs) are large clouds of charged particles that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours and can carry up to ten billion tons (1016 grams) of plasma. They expand away from the Sun at speeds as high as a million miles an hour. A CME can make the 93-million-mile journey to Earth in just three to four days.

When a coronal mass ejection reaches Earth, it interacts with our planet’s magnetic field, potentially creating a geomagnetic storm. Solar particles stream down the field lines toward Earth’s poles and collide with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, resulting in spectacular auroral displays. On the evening of August 3rd/4th, skywatchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north for the rippling dancing “curtains” of green and red light.

The Sun goes through a regular activity cycle about 11 years long. The last solar maximum occurred in 2001 and its recent extreme solar minimum was particularly weak and long lasting. These kinds of eruptions are one of the first signs that the Sun is waking up and heading toward another solar maximum expected in the 2013 time frame.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/ ... 0-cme.html
Russia Wildfires Rage Amid Record Heat

After a month of baking hot temperatures, wildfires are exploding across Russia at the rate of 300 a day, emergency officials said Tuesday.

While officials say they doused most fires within hours, the week-long fire epidemic is taking its toll: at least 40 dead, 2,000 homes burned, and about 100,000 people evacuated. Fifty peat bog fires now ring Moscow, infiltrating a gray haze through the onion domes of the Kremlin and the glass towers of the financial district.

Now, weather forecasters say it could get worse.

After enduring the hottest July since record keeping started in the czarist era, Moscow residents face a week of temperatures forecast to hit 38 C daily through Saturday.

On Tuesday, Sergei Kiriyenko, Russia's nuclear chief, flew to the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, about 500 kilometers east of Moscow. On Monday, flames spread to the fences of Sarov, a closed city where Russia's nuclear bombs are developed. On Tuesday, water tanker planes and hundreds of firefighters fought to protect Sarov, sister city of Los Alamos, New Mexico, home of the U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratory.

Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Medvedev on Tuesday that the situation at Sarov is 'quite complex'. He told the president that 155,000 emergency personnel are fighting fires around the nation, but several are "out of control."

Last Thursday, flames roared through a Navy supply base 100 kilometers east of Moscow. In response, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered soldiers to dig trenches and fell trees to create fire breaks around military bases and nuclear plants.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Ru ... 50004.html
Putin Sang Songs While Russia Burned

In developed countries, citizens don’t perish in fires. Firefighters perish. In Russia, it is directly the opposite, and there is a very good reason for this. In so many cases, there are no firefighters to put out the fires. Take, for example, the village of Verkhnyaya Vereya in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where all of its 341 houses burned to the ground and seven people died. There was no fire station in the village, and the two firefighting vehicles on watch drove the other way when they were called to duty.

People don’t die this way in Europe or the United States. This is how people die in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Verkhnyaya Vereya. While wearing a neatly pressed button-down shirt, he promised to severely punish bureaucrats who did not properly fight the fires. In reality, there is really only one bureaucrat who is responsible for this tragedy — Putin himself. After all, it was Putin who signed the Forest Code in 2007. The code placed the responsibility for defending forestlands on those who had the rights to use them. What an ingenious idea. This means that the Forest Code allows the Khimki forest to be “protected” by those who are now cutting it down.

There were two main groups who lobbied Putin to pass the Forest Code: paper mill owners — one of the biggest being Oleg Deripaska — and real estate developers.

Independent analysts and environmentalists heavily criticized the Forest Code. They predicted several years ago that the code would inevitably result in an increase in wildfires. Even the most loyal United Russia members from heavily forested regions opposed the code, but it was shoved through the State Duma under strong pressure from Putin’s presidential administration.

Although Russia has been burning for a month, the army was ordered to join the firefighting battle only several days ago. Why was the army not called up three weeks ago? Because there is no fundamental system of controlling and managing the country. Putin decides everything in Russia, and he was too busy with other things during the first three weeks of the fires — for example, doing photo ops with bikers in Crimea or singing songs with the 10 spies who recently returned from captivity in U.S. detention centers.

In the modern world, there are no natural disasters but only social ones. For example, the number of victims in an earthquake depends less on its magnitude than on how effectively the state responds to the disaster. The Haiti earthquake is a case in point. And what is true for an earthquake is doubly true for forest fires.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/a ... 11636.html

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

American DC-9 5.5 ton cocaine bust (video at link)-
http://www.madcowprod.com/index.html

Defending Yourself Against Deflation

The dreaded "D" word is back in circulation, and I don't mean "depression." Having skirted that potential calamity, the worry for policy makers and investors now is deflation.

On the face of it, deflation -- falling prices -- doesn't seem like it would be so bad. Who wouldn't welcome discounts that just keep getting better, like those sales at Filene's Basement where prices got lower the longer merchandise stayed on the racks?

Of course, who knows what it really feels like, since most of us have never experienced prolonged deflation in our lifetime.

Maybe deflation would be a nice thing for people with secure, steady incomes. But deflation erodes profits and asset values. People wait to buy expecting lower prices, reducing demand. Lower profits cause companies to cut expenses, including employees. It is a downward spiral that, if Japan's experience is any indication, is difficult to arrest.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budget ... et=&ccode=

Baltic Dry Drops Another 0.4%
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/baltic ... another-04

Record Number of Illinois Families on Food Stamps
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/08/04/rec ... od-stamps/

China Tells Banks to Stress Test for 60% Home-Price Drop
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... rices.html

Foreclosed On—By the U.S.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 26218.html

US Treasury yields fall to record low on Fed's 'QE lite' plan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... -plan.html

A growing pile of debt for state unemployment insurance programs
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/s ... adlines%29

Senate Cuts Food Stamps; Leaves Oil and Gas Subsidies Intact
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/sen ... l-and.html



Thick smog from raging wildfires engulfs Moscow

PEREDELTSY, Russia – Moscow was engulfed Wednesday by the thickest blanket of smog yet this summer, an acrid, choking haze from wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base.

Passengers on Moscow's subway said the eye-stinging haze hovered above the platforms, and City Hall warned of health risks from the smoke, which is carrying harmful gases including carbon monoxide.

"I woke up before dawn and thought I was going to die of suffocation," said Yadviga Pashkova, a frail, 62-year-old former schoolteacher who lives in central Moscow. "It felt awful because there was no way out."

To the east, firefighters focused on beating flames back from a top-secret nuclear research facility. In the capital, President Dmitry Medvedev fired several high-ranking military officials over what he called criminal negligence in fires that ravaged a military base.

Russia is suffering through its worst heat wave on record, a condition that has sparked forest and peat fires across its central and western regions that have killed at least 48 people in the past week.

Over the last 24 hours, firefighters have extinguished 293 fires, but 403 others have been spotted and more than 500 others have continued to rage over large swathes of countryside, some of them out of control, the Emergencies Ministry said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100804/ap_ ... ssia_fires
Smoke over Western Russia

Hundreds of wildfires continued to burn in the bogs and forests of western Russia on August 3, 2010, producing thick smoke that blanketed a broad swath of the country. The smoke fills the width of the image, which shows an area about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) across. If the smoke shown in this image were in the United States, it would stretch from San Francisco to the Midwest, just east of Chicago.

It took three overpasses of NASA’s Terra satellite for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to see the full plume from east to west. This image is a composite of the three overpasses. It was 12:30 p.m. (8:30 UTC) in Moscow when the final overpass started. Two time zones away, the first overpass was at 5:15 UTC, 9:15 a.m. Moscow time.

Red squares outline fires that MODIS detected through the smoke. The red squares are difficult to see in the web image, but are clear in the higher-resolution large image. The large image is the most detailed version of the image. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response System.

Drought and extreme heat dried vegetation and peat bogs, creating dangerous fire conditions. On August 3, 529 fires burned throughout western Russia, reported BBC News. The fires killed 40 and left thousands homeless, said news reports.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss

Russia forest fires: smoke and smog blanket Moscow, turning the sky orange
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picture ... range.html

Russia Wildfires Rage Amid Record Heat
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/eu ... 50004.html

Solar tsunami to trigger northern lights across Canada
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/08/03 ... ss-canada/

Magnitude 6.4 - EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 10znav.php

Magnitude 6.3 - ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 10znbf.php

......Pacific plate is bouncing around again.....
Tropical Storm Colin was ripped apart by wind shear yesterday, and the storm's remnants are passing just north of the northernmost Lesser Antilles Islands today. Most of the heaviest thunderstorms are passing north of the islands, as seen on Guadeloupe radar. Long range radar out of Puerto Rico also shows this. Colin's remains are in a rather unfavorable environment for re-development, since the disturbance is passing beneath an upper-level low pressure system with dry air and high wind shear. Wind shear is a high 20 - 25 knots over Colin's remains this morning. Recent satellite imagery shows that heavy thunderstorm activity has increased in intensity and areal coverage over the past few hours, though, and Colin's remnants will need to be monitored for re-development.

92L
A tropical wave (Invest 92) in the south-central Caribbean is moving west at 15 - 20 mph. This wave is over warm water and is experiencing low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots, and could show some development over the next two days. However, the wave's rapid westward motion should bring it ashore over Nicaragua and Honduras on Friday, and 92L probably does not have enough time over water to develop into a tropical depression. NHC is giving a 20% chance of this disturbance developing into a tropical depression by Friday morning. This storm was being tagged as 98L yesterday; I'm not sure why it is being called 92L today.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1566
Argentina Has Colder Winter Than Antartica, Spurring Record Power Imports

Argentina is importing record amounts of energy as the coldest winter in 40 years drives up demand and causes natural-gas shortages, prompting Dow Chemical Co. and steelmaker Siderar SAIC to scale back production.

Electricity supplied from Brazil and Paraguay rose to a daily combined record of about 1,000 megawatts on July 12, while consumption peaked at 20,396 megawatts three days later, according to Buenos Aires-based energy broker Cammesa. Shipments of liquefied natural gas are set to double this year.

Argentina is bracing for a renewed polar front this month. On Aug. 1, almost half of the country’s 23 provinces registered temperatures below zero, while the northern city of La Quiaca on the border with Bolivia fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit.) The average low predicated through Aug. 5 is 1 degree, according to the National Weather service.

Dow closed a polyethylene plant in July and reduced operations at another facility to minimum capacity after gas supplies were rationed by the government, said Soledad Echague, a spokeswoman for the Midland, Michigan-based company in Buenos Aires. The cuts were more severe than the company had expected, she said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... lants.html
Pakistan (Reuters) - After wrecking Pakistan's northwest, the worst floods in 80 years swept through the economically vital Punjab in a catastrophe that has raised doubts about President Asif Ali Zardari's fragile leadership.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100804

Pakistani flood death toll hits 1,500
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/08/ ... A+World%29

New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ygreen/newgarba ... ndianocean

The BP Oil Spill: The Static Kill Process Has Started
http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spi ... +Update%29

Gulf Loop Current Stalls from BP Oil Disaster
http://pesn.com/2010/08/01/9501682_Gull ... _BP_Spill/











U.S. Finds Most Oil From Spill Poses Little Additional Risk
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/scien ... .html?_r=1

Global Wheat Harvest in Question

The world may have to make do with less bread this year if early warnings prove accurate. Many of the world’s largest wheat producers are struggling. Canada and Russia, especially, face disastrous harvests. Global stocks look manageable, but what if something happens to America?

On Monday, wheat prices staged the most dramatic rise in more than 50 years. A bushel of wheat traded above $6—a 42 percent monthly increase—but possibly for good reason.

In Russia, the fertile Volga River region is reportedly in crisis. Parched and cracked clay sparsely populated by withered wheat stalks tell the tale. Drought and heat have reduced the harvest by an expected 50 percent of previous years, the Wall Street Journal reported August 3. Russia is the world’s third-largest wheat producer.

Drought has hit Ukraine and Kazakhstan too, reducing harvests. Within the European Union, there have been reports of patchy drought conditions.

In Canada’s breadbasket, an extremely wet spring with widespread flooding delayed planting. The Canadian Wheat Board is forecasting a drop of 35 percent in production. But if Saskatchewan and Manitoba get hit with an early winter, then all bets are really off.

Australia, another major wheat exporter, is coping with widespread locust infestations. “Australia continues to be a ‘game of two halves’ with prospects looking almost ideal in the east but poor in the west,” reports commodities analyst Dave Norris.

Nations relying on food imports are already taking action to mitigate shortages and prevent a return to the food riots of 2008. The Wall Street Journal reports that Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, concluded its second major purchase of wheat in the past two weeks—at volumes above what it had budgeted for. China is warning against grain hoarding. Indian officials, it has been reported, have allowed last year’s plentiful stockpiles to rot in fields, driving up prices and setting the stage for social problems.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=7386.5969.0.0
Bold and Underline mine


.....if you haven't done so already.....Get Your Food Storage!!! 45lbs of wheat in buckets at Costco for less than $15.....


Iran's Ahmadinejad Survives Grenade Attack
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/afghan ... ade-attack

Ahmadinejad survives assassination attempt
http://www.debka.com/article/8949/

Ahmadinejad motorcade hit by firecracker not grenade: Iran
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0804/ahmadi ... nade-iran/

Iran denies reports of grenade lobbed at Ahmadinejad's convoy
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/08/ ... A+World%29

Firecracker sparks rumors of attempt on Ahmadinejad
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-08-04/irans ... -bomb.html

VIPS Sends Memo To Obama Warning Israel May Bomb Iran "As Early As This Month"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/vips-s ... arly-month

Iran Claims It Has Obtained S-300 Air Defense Missile System
http://defensetech.org/2010/08/04/iran- ... le-system/

Clash on Israel-Lebanon Border Holds Potential for Strategic Escalation
http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/Middle ... +Update%29

The Lebanese army emerges as Israel's new pro-active foe
http://www.debka.com/article/8948/

The Israeli-Hezbollah War is Inevitable
http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=3543

Clashes Between Israeli, Lebanese Forces Spark Fears of Wider War
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -voa05.htm

Europe And Beyond: U.S. Consolidates Global Missile Shield
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08 ... le-shield/

Germany gave assassination list to secret US unit
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0803/german ... cret-unit/
Friday, the American Consulate in Ciudad Juarez was closed indefinitely because of what was called a credible bomb threat. This follows the car bomb in Juarez Thursday that killed 4 people.

"We're not taking any chances, especially since we know cartel gangs are increasingly desperate and frustrated," said a senior U.S. law enforcment official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "You cannot be too careful on questions of security."

Earlier this week, the Mexican military raided the "safe house" of Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel was raided. Coronel was killed during the raid when he attempted to fire back at the hoard of three helicopters and 200 paratroopers.

No doubt that eliminating "The King of Ice" responsible for much of the methamphetamine distributed by the Sinaloa Cartel is a "victory" for Calderón. However, the patterns of violence will almost certainly ramp up as the cartel factions both in and outside of the Sinaloa jostle for position. Coincidentally, and tragically,

15 bodies were found near Guadalajara where Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have continued their bloody battle for control and pre-eminence in the state of Tamaulipas.

The situation in Mexico is sad for the citizens who live in fear.
http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2010 ... tsWatch%29

No, The Combat Troops Are Not All Leaving Iraq
http://www.countercurrents.org/co030810.htm

Taliban Attack Main US Base in Southern Afghanistan
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -voa04.htm

S. Korea Vows Counter-Attack If North Opens Fire During Drills
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/as ... 24604.html




A flawed system? U.S. boasts highest prison incarceration numbers in world.
http://welcometoafreeworld.blogspot.com ... rison.html

Lobbyists Bet on Harry Reid, DCCC Plans Ad Offensive and More in Capital Eye Opener: August 4
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08 ... ns-ad.html
Republicans want review of birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON – Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the 14th Amendment right, although he emphasized that Washington's immigration focus should remain on border security.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_republica ... itizenship

Kilpatrick loses House re-election bid in Michigan as voters knock out sixth incumbent.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0804/incumb ... rep-loses/

Police Training to Focus on Spotting Extremism
http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/14218/128/
Washington, D.C. - Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced a series of initiatives to support state and local law enforcement and community groups across the country in identifying and mitigating threats to their communities and expanded DHS' "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign to the Washington, D.C., area in conjunction with National Night Out, an annual anticrime campaign involving citizens, police and neighborhood groups.
http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=9981

(U//LES) New Jersey ROIC: Soda Bottle Bombs Warning
http://info.publicintelligence.net/SodaBottleBombs.pdf


Cancer cells slurp up fructose, U.S. study finds
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfea ... tudy-finds

EUROPE: Europe Clears Import of New Biotech Corn Varieties
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15612


6 Quick ways to increase your survival education
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/08/03/6- ... education/


Stag Arms SBR Uppers soon to be available to general public
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

UPDATE:





With blazing summers, wildfires in one hemisphere and a deep freeze in the other, is, 2010 the year of extreme weather?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ather.html

Stanford Researchers Develop New Solar Energy Conversion Method
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.c ... ion-Method

Mexico ready to debate legalisation as drug war claims 28,000 lives
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... tion-drugs

Peru suffers deadly outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... lague.html

SSM decision in Cali (next move Supreme Court)
http://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/prop8/FF_CL_Final.pdf

BILL OF ATTAINDER ISSUED UNDER U.S. TREASURY REGULATIONS TO DENY U.S. CITIZENS THE RIGHT TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL COUNSELS AND ACCESS TO AN IMPARTIAL ART. III COURT.
http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/04/bil ... ensored%29

Social Security Under Attack Again
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/04 ... ack-again/

Pakistan floods: third-largest dam at risk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... s-dam-risk
Pakistan (Reuters) - After wrecking Pakistan's northwest, the worst floods in 80 years swept through the economically vital Punjab in a catastrophe that has raised doubts about President Asif Ali Zardari's fragile leadership.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100804
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (BNO NEWS) – Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said that Hamas was responsible for the rocket attacks last Monday and that the Jewish nation will retaliate.

“Don’t test our determination to protect our citizens. Israel will retaliate for every assault. Whoever shoots at Israeli citizens, and it doesn’t matter from where, we will find them and hit them hard,” Netanyahu said during his televised speech.
http://wireupdate.com/wires/8352/israel ... -imminent/
And Scene: ICI Reports 13th Consecutive Week of Massive Domestic Equity Outflows As Banks Start To Panic

The latest update from ICI shows that the week ended July 28 saw a record 13th consecutive outflow from domestic mutual funds as stocks bloody surged. Good thing the HFT algos can now essentially communicate with each other in the actual unique flow patterns of cancelled stock bids, thereby announcing to all other participants the plans of one which promptly become those of all, in the most under the radar concerted effort to "club" the market's HFT participants as one big trading force. As for retail: it is all over. We won't even chart the latest move. Figure it out: nearly $50 billion in outflows YTD as the market is well green. When the coordinated computerized front running game (of stupid carbon based lifeforms) in which one Atari machine sells to another, and repeats into infinity, while all book liquidity rebates, comes to an end and the theater is finally perceived to have been burning all along, watch out for the binary stampede.

But don't take our word for it. According to the FT, banks are starting to panic that as a result of collapsing trade volumes, profit target misses and massive layoffs are just around the corner.

US banks with Wall Street operations are bracing for a slump in trading profits this year after the third quarter got off to a poor start, with global economic uncertainty and Europe’s sovereign debt woes leading to a slowdown in market activity in July.

Executives said volumes and profitability last month were even lower than during the sluggish second quarter, with hedge funds particularly reluctant to take big bets on equities and debt.

“July was a miserable month for trading,” one senior banker said. “If August and September don’t rebound sharply, banks will be forced to cut jobs.”

The squeeze in trading profits highlights the rising importance of groups’ consumer and commercial banking operations, whose performance is improving as the economy heals.

The lack of activity led many banks to miss internal targets for trading revenues in both fixed income commodities and currencies – a key recent driver of profitability – and equities.

John Brady, senior vice-president at MF Global, said: “A lot of the drop we have seen in trading volumes during June and July follows violent changes in markets during the preceding months.”

Retail investors have also shunned stocks. US equity mutual funds have been hit by 12 straight weeks of outflows totalling $40.7bn, says the Investment Company Institute.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/and-sc ... -start-pan

US 10 Y Closes At 2.95%, Japanese 10 Y at 1.00%
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-10- ... e-10-y-100
Gov't OKs $600M in housing aid for 5 states

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration plans to send $600 million to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure in five states.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that mortgage-assistance proposals submitted by North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina received approval. The states estimate their efforts could help up to 50,000 homeowners.

The administration is directing $2.1 billion from its existing $75 billion mortgage assistance program to a total of 10 states. Each state designed its own plan. Treasury approved money in June for Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

In the latest package of aid, Ohio will receive $172 million -- the largest amount of money. That could aid around 15,000 homeowners by helping borrowers pay their mortgage for up to a year while they search for jobs. It could also provide incentives for mortgage companies to reduce borrowers' mortgage balances.

North Carolina is receiving $159 million, and South Carolina is in line for $138 million. Oregon is receiving $88 million and Rhode Island is receiving $43 million.

"These states have designed targeted programs with the potential to make a real difference in the lives of homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments because of unemployment," Herbert Allison, an assistant treasury secretary, said in a statement.

More aid to the unemployed is coming. The sweeping financial reform bill passed signed into law by President Barack Obama last month provides an additional $3 billion to help jobless homeowners pay their mortgages.

Of that money, $2 billion is coming from Treasury's foreclosure-prevention effort. The rest is to be managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Govt-OKs- ... et=&ccode=

....rob from one to give to another....minus a servicing fee!
MOSCOW, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- Wildfires raging in 17 Russian regions became the only topic discussed during a meeting of the national Security Council chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The president ordered the Interior Ministry not to let anarchy spread in the areas affected by the fires.

"By no means you may allow anarchy as a result of severe accidents and tragedies. You must not let the situation go out of local authorities' control," Medvedev said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 430371.htm

Russian Wildfire Threatens Nuclear Facility
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/eu ... 61334.html

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level in decades for the sixth time in seven weeks, offering the most attractive opportunity for those who qualify to refinance or purchase a home.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mortgage- ... et=&ccode=





vs. the hyperinflationista's

The Death of Paper Money
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... Money.html

IMF blueprint for a global currency – yes really
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/08 ... es-really/

Initial Claims Surge To 479K, Trounce Expectations Of 455K, Severe Deterioration From Last Week's 460K
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/initia ... weeks-460k

Food stamp use hit record 40.8m in May
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washi ... 8m_in_may/
Wheat Trades Limit Up As Russia Halts Grain Exports Through Year End

By now readers have likely seen the satellite photos of smoke clouds over pretty much all of western Russia, as today Moscow once again bakes in record heat and the entire former USSR breadbasket is caught in a historic drought. Recent concerns about the Soviet wheat harvest have already caused wheat prices to surge, yet this morning's announcement from Putin that Russia will stop all grain exports starting August 15 and continuing through the end of the year just sent what limit up. FT reports: “I think it would be expedient to introduce a temporary ban on export grains and other agricultural goods,” Mr Putin told a cabinet meeting. “We cannot allow an increase in domestic prices and we need to maintain the number of cattle. Wheat prices rallied sharply on the news. In Chicago, wheat jumped by its daily limit of 60 cents to a new two-year peak above $7.85 a bushel, up almost 80 per cent in a little over a month.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wheat- ... h-year-end

Russia Bans Wheat Exports as Drought Worsens, Wildfires Rage
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/eu ... 36124.html

Wheat prices soar as Russia sizzles: a pictorial
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wheat- ... _news_stmp
Sounds like the opening lines of Red Dawn:

"-- Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years."
If They Can’t Afford Wheat Let Them Buy Real Estate? Why the Price of Food Will Guarantee a Chinese Real Estate Crash
http://israelfinancialexpert.blogspot.c ... m-buy.html

Wheat storm will soon blow itself out
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... f-out.html

...possibly....but my gut tells me this time is different - I think this is the beginning of a huge ramp up in natural disasters with the corresponding supply/production shocks and supply/production failures that are bound to happen. Get prepared....Get Your Food Storage!!!

Dare to Prepare: Collapse of Civilization Now Guaranteed
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/dar ... se-of.html
As if the main rumor of the prior week, that the government was going to automatically push rates on all mortgages down to market rates (which as of today hit a fresh record low of 4.49%) was not enough, today James Pethokoukis reports that the latest iteration in the "let's make Fannie and Freddie broker than ever" rumor mill is that the "Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth." As readers will recall, we highlighted a few days ago that the number of underwater mortgages is at least 14.7 million (and likely far more), and amounts to just about $770 Billion in underwater equity. In other words, if the rumor is true, the US taxpayers are about to subsidze over three quarters of a trillion in underwater equity (and bail out banks on the hook for over $2 trillion in impaired debt).
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/forget ... orgiveness

Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... es_all.php

....don't know if the CME had anything to do with it....but we had 5 that were 6 and higher yesterday....

....more here on CME if you missed that -
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/ ... 0-cme.html

Northern Lights seen as far south as Michigan after Sun's 'solar tsunami' but no sightings reported in the UK ... yet
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... flare.html

Docs: Running to Stand Still
http://american.com/archive/2010/august ... tand-still

Law of the Sea Redux
http://www.augustreview.com/news_commen ... 100804158/#

Active Volcano Update - 28 July-3 August 2010
http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/ ... 728#gorely
The remains of Tropical Storm Colin continue to generate heavy thunderstorm activity over the waters a few hundred miles northeast of Puerto Rico. Colin's remains are in a rather unfavorable environment for re-development, since the storm is passing beneath an upper-level low pressure system with dry air and high wind shear. Despite the high wind shear of 20 - 25 knots, Colin's remains have grown more organized during the past day, and a low-level circulation has formed. A pass of the Windsat satellite last night revealed that ex-Colin is already generating tropical storm force winds of 40 mph in isolated regions. Recent satellite imagery shows that heavy thunderstorm activity has increased in intensity and areal coverage this morning, and a low level circulation that may or may not persist has formed near 23.5N 65.5W (Figure 1.)

92L
A tropical wave (Invest 92) a few hundred miles south of Jamaica is moving west at 15 - 20 mph. This wave is over warm water and is experiencing low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots, and could show some development over the next two days. However, the wave's rapid westward motion should bring it ashore over Nicaragua and Honduras on Friday and the Yucatan Peninsula on Saturday, and 92L probably does not have enough time over water to develop into a tropical depression. NHC is giving a 10% chance of this disturbance developing into a tropical depression by Friday morning.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1567

The Psychology of Conspiracy Denial
http://www.infowars.com/the-psychology- ... cy-denial/

Hail fighters - Weather Mod pilots having busy summer
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/cont ... l?nav=5010





The Deadly Neurotoxin Nearly EVERYONE Uses Daily (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercol ... 68692.html

Will This Phone Kill You? The science about cancer and cell phones is even murkier than you think. What you should know before you dial.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/05/will ... l-you.html

Texas City Workers: Chemicals Spewed From Broken Pipe ‘Like Water From a Fire Hydrant’
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/tex ... rom-a-fire

Florida Dengue Fever Outbreak Leads Back to CIA and Army Experiments
http://www.federaljack.com/?p=16537

Peru suffers deadly outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... lague.html

Russian wildfires: 'Even the road seemed to be on fire. It was like descending into hell'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 43553.html

Russia Sacks Military Officers After Wildfires Reach "Secret" Nuclear Facility
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles ... 20Facility
Lena Melnikova: Dark rumours in a city suffering a nightmare of heat and smog

For weeks now, life in Moscow has been like living on the set of a Tarkovsky film. We haven't seen blue skies for ages – just various shades
of a bright-greyish nightmare. But yesterday was the worst ever. I did not want to get out of bed to face another obnoxiously hot morning. Overnight, the wind blew more smoke in from the blazing forests and moors around the city. The smog settled among the trees
and apartment blocks, obstructing the sun and views of distant buildings.

The smell of burning gets into your clothes, hair, even the furniture and curtains. It makes your throat itch and eyes water. Most people are coughing, complaining of headaches and nausea. The carbon monoxide level was 10 times above normal yesterday. No one knows what the health implications are.

Little work is being done. Some bosses are allowing people to finish early. But who wants to leave an air conditioned office for the melting asphalt and the smoking hot shoebox of a home?

It's a miracle the city continues: no power cuts, no major fires, no mass heart attacks, no panic.... but this being Russia, there are dark rumours. The latest is that the Americans are testing their new climatic weapon on us. Some things here never change – whatever happens, blame the Americans.

And now the poor confused weather guys cannot even promise any relief for the next few weeks. God, have mercy on us.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 43554.html

Russia struggles to contain raging wildfires
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10879121

6 Countries Join Russian Firefighters
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/arti ... 11792.html
Fire-plagued Russians say they breathe as long as they don’t inhale

Of the 24 peat fires 13 are in the Moscow Region. The residents of the Russian capital are suffering from choking smog more than anybody else. In this respect Wednesday has been the worst day ever. On the roads visibility was no more than 100 meters. Air pollution in Moscow peaked to record-highs.

In some areas of the city the quality of air proved the worst during the whole period of fires in the Moscow Region – four-five times the tolerance limit. For a non-smoker inhaling this air is tantamount to consuming two or three packs of cigarettes over several hours. Doctors insistently advise everybody to stay at home, if possible, and to wear wet masks outdoors.

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.htm ... &PageNum=0



The Real Drug Lords - A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/blum1.html

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows: David Reilly
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-01-2 ... eilly.html

John McCain – A Closer Look at Evil (Part 8)
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/05 ... il-part-8/

End of Iraq Combat Operations or Beginning of Downsized, Rebranded Occupation Relying Heavily on Private Military Contractors?
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/3/en ... rations_or

U.S. national security headed for 'train wreck'
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=187793

Elena Kagan tied to Obama's birth certificate - 'It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it?
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=187797

Israel threatens to destroy hostile Lebanese border positions
http://www.debka.com/article/8950/

Huge Iranian energy plant explosion coincides with bid on Ahmadinejad's life
http://www.debka.com/article/8949/


Remington’s new VERA MAX shotgun and Versaport gas system
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

A DIY Submachine gun
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29


UPDATE:

Russia Bans Grain Exports as the End Game Trade Begins

I am now more convinced than I was two weeks ago that we are once again in the “end game trade.” Just like in the late 2007 to mid 2008 timeframe no one seems to notice or care. Back then the parabolic rise in commodities was attributed to phenomenal ROW growth that had decoupled from the U.S. and so no one really worried about the moves until it was too late. This time people don’t even seem to notice! I don’t even hear a make believe storyline that attempts to explain away what is happening in a bullish context….yet. The news this morning that Russian Prime Minister Putin has banned the export of grain and related farm products as a result of the drought is extraordinarily important. While the ideological nitwits at the Federal Reserve who pray to a false economic religion and Obama’s economic dream team of Neo-Keynesian psychopaths will completely fail to grasp what is happening due their never having worked a job in the real world in their lives instead having spent their entire existence being fawned on by their fellow academics and bureaucrats, the Chinese and others know exactly what is happening…

What is happening at the moment on the world stage is that essentially the governments of all major countries on planet earth are on the verge of collapse one way or the other. While there are certainly many differences between the governments of China, Russia and the United States for example, there is one huge similarity. They are all highly bureaucratic centrally planned economies. What is so interesting about the present time is that we are witnessing the end of the current monetary and financial system that has dominated the world since 1971. This will also invariably mean that we are about to witness dramatic political and social change in virtually every country on earth. The very elite in the United States know this which is why they are using their puppets in D.C. to pass laws that will put the citizens into a neo-feudalistic debt slavery so that they will not revolt once it becomes clear to all that the politicians are a bunch of crooks and scoundrels that have sold them out entirely. On a positive note, I think a critical mass has already been achieved in the U.S. and I think D.C. will collapse under its own weight. As I wrote to a small group of friends earlier this week as relates to the fact that a sheriff there stated “Our Own Government Has Become Our Enemy.":

It doesn’t matter what you think about the AZ law. It is merely a microcosm for a bigger battle being waged between states rights and the gulag federal government. The second American revolution HAS begun and it started in Arizona (I thought it might be Texas). Either way, what I expect to happen in the months ahead is more and more people are going to STOP obeying federal laws and ultimately states will also simply not obey. This is not necessarily what I am endorsing I am just telling you where I think this is headed. This will put the Federal government into a corner where they will need to respond. The stock market is being used as a government weapon to make people think things are ok when there is a massive tempest brewing that will wipe away the entire structure. Either way, the revolution will not be televised. Commerce will increasingly move to a black market model (l have heard big discounts are being offered in Greece if you pay in cash and that will be here too).

This all fits into the whole “Dangers of a Failed Presidency” concept that I wrote about around a month ago. Washington D.C. has now officially lost the mandate of the people it governs and this is a very dangerous scenario. If history repeats itself the government will look for a way to vilify another country or a group of people within the country. As such, I implore everyone that reads this to be as vigilant as possible in the months and years ahead. Do not accept war (don’t we have enough wars) and do not allow the government or media to demonize a particular subset of the American people. This is the oldest trick in the book, it’s the divide and conquer or export chaos strategy. Right now we need to identify who sold us out and how they did it. Therefore when things crumble we know who the culprits are and we don’t let them change the story and divert anger and confusion elsewhere.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest- ... ade-begins
Food Stamp Usage Hits 18 Sequential Record High At 40.8 Million

Not much commentary needed here as boston.com says it all: "The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday. Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website. Participation has set records for 18 straight months. An average of 40.5 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according to White House estimates. The figure is projected to rise to 43.3 million in 2011." But who cares: can someone please tell these ungrateful sods their stocks are up like 70% since the Fed became the market in March 2009.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/food-s ... 08-million
IRS To Withhold Indicator That Shows Refunds Owed To Taxpayers

Just headlines for now. Think of all the budget savings from the ever increasing lack of transparency. Perhaps the administration can say that by keeping the Fed's books in the dark for perpetuity it is saving US taxpayers several trillion on an NPV basis. Perhaps the "people" will respond appropriately by withholding to pay taxes...
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/irs-wi ... -taxpayers









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Posts: 2358

Re: Blipits

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Jason wrote:
Republicans want review of birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON – Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the 14th Amendment right, although he emphasized that Washington's immigration focus should remain on border security.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_republica ... itizenship

KEYES: The 14th Amendment is not something that one should play with lightly. I noticed, finally, that Linsey Graham, used the term — as people have carelessly done over the years — referring to the 14th Amendment as something that has to do with birthright citizenship, and that we should get rid of birthright citizenship. Now let me see, if birthright citizenship is not a birthright, then it must be a grant of the government. And if it is a grant of the government, then it could be curtailed in all the ways that fascists and totalitarians always want to.

I think we ought to be real careful before we adopt a view we want to say that citizenship is not a reflection of our unalienable rights. It is not a grant of government, but arises from a set of actual conditions, starting with the rule of God, that constrain government to respect the rights of the people, and therefore the rights that involve the claim of citizenship. Those are really deep, serious issues, and when the amendment was written, and when it was first referred to in the Slaughterhouse cases, the Supreme Court declared that they knew they were touching on something that was absolutely fundamental. And I think before we play games with it in any way, we need to remember that ourselves.

Watch it:


User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Mazal wrote:
Jason wrote:
Republicans want review of birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON – Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the 14th Amendment right, although he emphasized that Washington's immigration focus should remain on border security.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_republica ... itizenship

KEYES: The 14th Amendment is not something that one should play with lightly. I noticed, finally, that Linsey Graham, used the term — as people have carelessly done over the years — referring to the 14th Amendment as something that has to do with birthright citizenship, and that we should get rid of birthright citizenship. Now let me see, if birthright citizenship is not a birthright, then it must be a grant of the government. And if it is a grant of the government, then it could be curtailed in all the ways that fascists and totalitarians always want to.

I think we ought to be real careful before we adopt a view we want to say that citizenship is not a reflection of our unalienable rights. It is not a grant of government, but arises from a set of actual conditions, starting with the rule of God, that constrain government to respect the rights of the people, and therefore the rights that involve the claim of citizenship. Those are really deep, serious issues, and when the amendment was written, and when it was first referred to in the Slaughterhouse cases, the Supreme Court declared that they knew they were touching on something that was absolutely fundamental. And I think before we play games with it in any way, we need to remember that ourselves.
Thank you for the additional commentary and video on that one!!! Amen!!!

Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It

For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports "could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege."

The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it's ABC News or your uncle's video blog. That's all about to change, and the result couldn't be more bleak for the future of the Internet, for television, radio and independent voices.

How did this happen? We have a Federal Communications Commission that has been denied authority by the courts to police the activities of Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast. All because of a bad decision by the Bush-era FCC. We have a pro-industry FCC Chairman who is terrified of making a decision, conducting back room dealmaking, and willing to sit on his hands rather than reassert his agency's authority. We have a president who promised to "take a back seat to no one on Net Neutrality" yet remains silent. We have a congress that is nearly completely captured by industry. Yes, more than half of the US congress will do pretty much whatever the phone and cable companies ask them to. Add the clout of Google, and you have near-complete control of Capitol Hill.

A non-neutral Internet means that companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google can turn the Net into cable TV and pick winners and losers online. A problem just for Internet geeks? You wish. All video, radio, phone and other services will soon be delivered through an Internet connection. Ending Net Neutrality would end the revolutionary potential that any website can act as a television or radio network. It would spell the end of our opportunity to wrest access and distribution of media content away from the handful of massive media corporations that currently control the television and radio dial.

So the Google-Verizon deal can be summed up as this: "FCC, you have no authority over us and you're not going to do anything about it. Congress, we own you, and we'll get whatever legislation we want. And American people, you can't stop us.

This Google-Verizon deal, this industry-captured FCC, and the way this is playing out is akin to the largest banks and the largest hedge funds writing the regulatory policy on derivative trading without any oversight or input from the public, and having it rubber stamped by the SEC. It's like BP and Halliburton ironing out the rules for offshore oil drilling with no public input, and having MMS sign off.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silv ... 71617.html

Wall Street's Big Win
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/188551

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... &Itemid=35

Senate confirms Kagan as 112th justice
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_ ... reme_court
Weather Modification Pilots

Weather Modification pilots are on call every hour of every day from June 1 through August 31. The season can be extended in eight-day increments if necessary, such as in times of a late harvest. Often pilots are flying after midnight, heading for storms building up during the early morning hours.

"This year it seem half the flights have been at night," remarked Miller. "We've had a few at 3 and 4 a.m."

With planes strategically placed throughout western North Dakota, usually no more than two are called upon per storm. Each plane carries an estimated two hours worth of dispersant.

"It doesn't matter if it is 3 a.m.," said Schneider. "We launch aircraft and seed the storms. It gets interesting, that's for sure."

Weather Modification Inc., based in Fargo since 1961, is the largest cloud seeding company in the world.
http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com//i ... Itemid=123





...does that include oil laced with dispersant????

Corexit - (ton of videos and links at site)
http://blog.imva.info/medicine/corexit

Poison Tap Water
http://www.infowars.com/poison-tap-water/

The Great Gay Distraction Perfectly Timed for November Elections
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/gre ... timed.html

Mexican Drug War Videos Of The Week – 8/5/10
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/08/05/mex ... week-8510/
Intense fires continued to rage in western Russia on August 4, 2010. Burning in dry peat bogs and forests, the fires produced a dense plume of smoke that reached across hundreds of kilometers. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captured this view of the fires and smoke in three consecutive overpasses on NASA’s Terra satellite. The smooth gray-brown smoke hangs over the Russian landscape, completely obscuring the ground in places. The top image provides a close view of the fires immediately southeast of Moscow, while the lower image shows the full extent of the smoke plume.

The fires along the southern edge of the smoke plume near the city of Razan, top image, are among the most intense. Outlined in red, a line of intense fires is generating a wall of smoke. The easternmost fire in the image is extreme enough that it produced a pyrocumulus cloud, a dense towering cloud formed when intense heat from a fire pushes air high into the atmosphere.

The lower image shows the full extent of the smoke plume, spanning about 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) from east to west. If the smoke were in the United States, it would extend approximately from San Francisco to Chicago. The MODIS sensor acquired the right section of the image starting at 5:55 UTC (10:55 a.m. local time, 8:55 a.m. in Moscow). The center section is from the overpass starting at 7:35 UTC (11:35 local time, 10:35 in Moscow), and the westernmost section was taken at 9:10 UTC (12:10 p.m. local time in Moscow).

Early analyses of data from the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), another instrument on the Terra satellite, indicates that smoke from previous days has at times reached 12 kilometers (six miles) above Earth’s surface into the stratosphere. At such heights, smoke is able to travel long distances to affect air quality far away. This may be one reason that the smoke covers such a large area. The pyrocumulus cloud and the detection of smoke in the stratosphere are good indicators that the fires are large and extremely intense.

According to news reports, 520 fires were burning in western Russia on August 4. MODIS detected far fewer. It is likely that the remaining fires were hidden from the satellite’s view by the thick smoke and scattered clouds. High temperatures and severe drought dried vegetation throughout central Russia, creating hazardous fire conditions in July.

As of August 4, 48 people had died in the fires and more than 2,000 had lost their homes throughout central Russia, said news reports. The dense smoke also created hazardous air quality over a broad region. Visibility in Moscow dropped to 20 meters (0.01 miles) on August 4, and health officials warned that everyone, including healthy people, needed to take preventative measures such as staying indoors or wearing a mask outdoors, reported the Wall Street Journal. In the image, Moscow is hidden under a pall of smoke. Close to the fires, smoke poses a health risk because it contains small particles (soot) and hazardous gases that can irritate the eyes and respiratory system. Smoke also contains chemicals that lead to ozone production farther away from the fires.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Fires in British Columbia, Canada

Several large forest fires burned in British Columbia, Canada on August 4, 2010. The fires are outlined in red in this true-color image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The fires shown in this image are in the Cariboo region of the province, where 120 fires were burning on August 3. Many of the large fires ignited in a lightning storm on July 28, and additional lightning-caused fires started on August 3, said the wildfire management branch of the forest service in British Columbia. More than 400 fires burned throughout British Columbia on August 3, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Weeks of torrential rains, and resulting floods and mudslides, pushed the death toll in China above 1,000, Voice of America reported in early August 2010. As the death toll throughout the country climbed, authorities watched two rivers with growing concern: the Yalu and Tuman Rivers that mark the border between China and North Korea. The Xinhua state news agency reported that water levels on those waterways were dangerously high.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured evidence of rising water levels along the Yalu River, or Yalu Jiang, in early August 2010. The top image shows the area on August 2, 2010, and the bottom image shows the same area almost a year earlier, on August 12, 2009. Both images use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Vegetated land appears in varying shades of green, and water appears navy blue.

Although the differences in water levels along Yalu Jiang are not dramatic, they are discernible. The river appears wider in 2010, and higher water levels appear along the multiple tributaries feeding the river.

Flooding along the Yalu and Tuman Rivers had the potential to devastate North Korea, Voice of America reported. Flooding in China’s Jilin Province had already killed at least 74 people and forced the evacuation of nearly 800,000 more. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that nearly 1,700 people were dead or missing in China as of August 4, and with more rains on the way, Chinese authorities warned that the situation could worsen.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Four million hit by Pakistan floods

The United Nations has said that more than four million people have now been affected by the worst flooding in Pakistan's history, with at least 1,600 left dead.

After causing huge destruction in the northwest, floodwaters have now moved down the country and submerged villages and some urban centres in Punjab and Sindh province.

As fresh rains fell on Thursday, bloated rivers gushed southward towards Sindh, where hundreds of thousands of the most impoverished Pakistanis live along the water because of fertile soil.

Authorities are using around 30 boats to help the evacuation of 500,000 people living along the river banks and have set up 400 relief camps, Sauleh Farooqi, a disaster-response official in the province, said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Punjab province, loaded with their belongings and livestock, and fears are growing of a food crisis as crops and farmland are washed away by the floodwaters.

A US embassy spokesman said 800 people had been evacuated and relief goods distributed.

"Between them four Chinook and two Blackhawk helicopters flew up to 18 sorties today and dropped 66,000 pounds of relief supplies and evacuated more than 800 people from Kalam," said Richard Snelsire, an embassy spokesman.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/ ... 23771.html

....30 boats....1/2 million people and belongings......must be some big boats....
Nearly 1,700 dead, missing in China floods

BEIJING — The number of people killed or missing in devastating floods across China so far this year has risen to nearly 1,700, the government said Wednesday, warning the situation could still get worse.

Parts of southern, central and northern China have been hit by summer downpours that have caused the worst flooding in a decade, triggered deadly landslides, cut off roads, and left villages inaccessible.

"So far this year, 140 million people have been impacted in 28 flood-hit provinces, 1,072 have been killed and 619 people are missing," Shu Qingpeng, spokesman for China's flood control headquarters, said in an online briefing.

Shu warned that if rain continued to pour down on disaster-hit areas "the flood-control situation would no doubt get even more severe."

He added that "August and September are the months when typhoons frequently form and make landfall," which could aggravate the situation.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 3n7f0l0IFw
Flooding In Asia Worst Ever?

So much trash has piled up at the Three Gorges Dam the locks could get stuck. China's Meteorological Agency predicts three more days of record rainfall. China Daily reports forecasters expect flooding in northeast China, along the border with North Korea.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... worst-ever
Trash Threatens Three Gorges

“The large amount of waste in the dam area could jam the miter gate of the Three Gorges Dam,” Chen Lei, Three Gorges engineer, told the China Daily.
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010 ... ee-gorges/
Rains 'too late' for Australia's main wheat state

Farming officials in Western Australia, which typically produces about 40% of the national wheat crop, have cut yield hopes for this year's crop, warning that they could fall in some central areas to levels expected only once every two decades.

The downgrades follow the third driest start to the year since record began, in 1900, in some parts of the state, with "lack of subsoil moisture now a concern throughout".

Rains are expected to improve later in the year thanks to the onset of a La Nina weather pattern, which raises the chances of the southern part of the state receiving at least average rainfall.

However, damage already sustained meant that "a significant portion of the crop is unlikely to achieve average yields even with normal rainfall events through the remainder of the growing season", Western Australia's farm department said,

In fact, both Australian and foreign meteorologists were predicting drier-than-normal conditions in the south of the state until October.
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/rains-too ... -2071.html
Wheat soars to limit on Russia export halt

Manitoba (Reuters) - Chicago wheat futures soared on Thursday, settling up the permitted daily maximum for the first time in two years after No. 3 exporter Russia said it would temporarily halt grain shipments.

Chicago Board of Trade soft red winter wheat has risen seven of the past eight days and buying by funds and traders initially spilled across the grain markets. Corn and soybeans pared most of their gains to end up 0.8 and 0.2 percent respectively.

The benchmark contract finished up 8.3 percent, the biggest daily percentage gain in three weeks, and has gained 82 percent since the prices bottomed on June 9 at $4.25-1/2 per bushel.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6742QQ20100805

The fires and flooding aren't going away anytime soon (we are just getting into the "season").....get your food storage.....this is just the beginning!

You can get 45 lbs wheat in sealed buckets at CostCo for less than $15 each. The Bosch outlet just off I-215 (sorry if you're not local) has 50 lbs bags of wheat on sale for $13.99 and its supposed to be higher quality wheat (higher protein levels)....at least that's what the store employee told me last night when I picked up a couple hundred pounds.

You can also get 50 lbs bags of wheat from Honeyville Foods ($42.99) shipped anywhere in US for $4.49 (obviously they are making up the shipping cost in the purchase price).
10% OFF YOUR ENTIRE ORDER* from Wednesday, August 4, 2010 thru Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 6:00PM PST. Simply enter the coupon code SUMMER during checkout. - Honeyville
Wheat is the best bang for the buck I've found in terms of calories and also good protein/carb ratio. In terms of storage the best bang for the buck I've found is using 5 or 6 gallon buckets using 4 to 6 oxygen packets vs. #10 cans.

Best price I've found on these is Industrial Container (sorry if you aren't local) -
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en ... 2653611482

http://www.industrialcontainer.com/

http://www.industrialcontainer.com/Food ... torage.pdf

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Original_Intent
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Posts: 13005

Re: Blipits

Post by Original_Intent »

50 lb. bags of wheat at Macy's are around $14, it has been as low as $12. And the bags are made for long term storage, so you don;t need to transfer to another container. Handy!

I've also decided to start growing navy beans like crazy. You can grow a lot on a small amount of land and they seem to do well in this area. And you can possibly squeeze two full growing seasons in. The biggest sell for me is it is easy to harvest and you don;t need to know how to do canning to store them! I am actually going to try to squeeze a crop in this year, hopefully we have an Indian summer! Great protein content and they can also be ground into flour and mixed with your wheat flour! Also obviously lots of dishes you can make with them from chili, to lots of bean based Mexican dishes.

And as the current cost of these is around $45 for a 25 lb. bag, you don't have to grow many to save yourself some significant money!

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Original_Intent wrote:50 lb. bags of wheat at Macy's are around $14, it has been as low as $12. And the bags are made for long term storage, so you don;t need to transfer to another container. Handy!

I've also decided to start growing navy beans like crazy. You can grow a lot on a small amount of land and they seem to do well in this area. And you can possibly squeeze two full growing seasons in. The biggest sell for me is it is easy to harvest and you don;t need to know how to do canning to store them! I am actually going to try to squeeze a crop in this year, hopefully we have an Indian summer! Great protein content and they can also be ground into flour and mixed with your wheat flour! Also obviously lots of dishes you can make with them from chili, to lots of bean based Mexican dishes.

And as the current cost of these is around $45 for a 25 lb. bag, you don't have to grow many to save yourself some significant money!
With a few small preventative measures and some educated crop choices you can grow nearly year round.....especially in Utah.

Here's one of the best books I've found on the subject -
http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... CCsQ8wIwAg#

This will be my first winter implementing these steps....but Eliot does this in Maine which is 2 to 3 zones higher than us...

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_ ... ier_killer

Doug Casey: War Is Coming
http://www.lewrockwell.com/casey/casey53.1.html

Emirates Official Says Japan Tanker Was Attacked
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world ... anker.html

UAE: Al Qaeda Responsible for Japanese Tanker Attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162- ... 03543.html

....of course....Al Qaeda is responsible for anything bad that happens.....the boogiemen!

Nazi America? Congressmen says Whistle Blowers Should be Executed!
http://theintelhub.com/2010/08/05/freed ... -executed/

Portland government shuts down 7-yr-old girl's "unlicensed" lemonade stand -- "We need to put the public's health first"
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=31689

U.S. Frees Terrorist Decades Early
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/ ... ades-early

How Disney Magic and the Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age
http://www.truth-out.org/how-disney-mag ... l-age62008

Is There A Coup In The Maine Tea Party?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c ... ckraker%29




Flash floods kill 103 in Indian-held Kashmir
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100806/ap_ ... dia_floods

From Russia With Fire Extinguishers: Interactive Visualization Of A Country On Fire
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/russia ... untry-fire
A reborn Tropical Storm Colin is taking aim at Bermuda, and should bring tropical storm force winds to the island by Saturday afternoon. Colin continues to pass through an unfavorable environment for development--an upper-level low pressure system with dry air and high wind shear. High wind shear of 20 - 25 knots has exposed the surface circulation to view, as seen in recent satellite imagery. Colin's heavy thunderstorm activity is all on the east side of the storm, and the associated rains can now be seen approaching the island on Bermuda radar.

Forecast for Colin
The latest SHIPS model forecast predicts that wind shear will drop to the low to moderate range, 5 - 15 knots, tonight through Saturday afternoon. This relaxation of shear prompts the intensity models to predict that Colin will strengthen to a 50 - 70 mph tropical storm by Sunday. With the forecast path of the storm predicted to take Colin just west of Bermuda, the island will be in the strong right front quadrant of the storm, and may see wind gusts in excess of hurricane force, 74 mph. After its encounter with Bermuda, Colin will head towards Newfoundland, and it is possible the storm could bring tropical storm force winds to the island on Monday. However, wind shear will be on the increase again beginning Saturday night, and it is unlikely Colin will be a hurricane when it makes it closest approach to Newfoundland.

93L
A tropical wave (Invest 93) about 700 miles west of the Cape Verdes Islands off the coast of Africa is moving northwest at 10 mph. Wind shear is a moderate 10 - 20 knots over 93L, which is low enough to allow some slow development. This system currently does not appear to be a concern to any land areas over the next seven days. NHC is giving a 40% chance of this disturbance developing into a tropical depression by Sunday morning. The GFS and NOGAPS models predict 93L will become a tropical depression.

The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 continues
One of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime is unfolding this summer in Russia, where an unprecedented heat wave has brought another day of 102°F heat to the nation's capital. At 3:30 pm local time today, the mercury hit 39°C (102.2°F) at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. Moscow had never recorded a temperature exceeding 100°F prior to this year, and today marks the second time the city has beaten the 100°F mark. The first time was on July 29, when the Moscow observatory recorded 100.8°C and Baltschug, another official downtown Moscow weather site, hit an astonishing 102.2°F (39.0°C). Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow's history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record four times in the past eleven days. The 2010 average July temperature in Moscow was 7.8°C (14°F) above normal, smashing the previous record for hottest July, set in 1938 (5.3°C above normal.) July 2010 also set the record for most July days in excess of 30°C--twenty-two. The previous record was 13 such days, set in July 1972. The past 24 days in a row have exceeded 30°C in Moscow, and there is no relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures near 100°F (37.8°C) for the next seven days. It is stunning to me that the country whose famous winters stopped the armies of Napoleon and Hitler is experiencing day after day of heat near 100°F, with no end in sight.

The extreme heat has led to the worst drought conditions in European Russia in a half-century, prompting the Russian government to suspend wheat exports. The drought has caused extreme fire danger over most of European Russia (Figure 3), and fires in Russia have killed at least 50 people in the past week and leveled thousands of homes. The fires are the worst since 1972, when massive forest and peat bog fires burned an area of 100,000 square km and killed at 104 people in the Moscow region alone. Smoke from the current fires spans a region over 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from east to west, approximately the distance from San Francisco to Chicago. Dozens of flights were canceled at Moscow's airports today, thanks to visibilities of 300 meters in smoke. Also of concern is fires that have hit the Bryansk region of western Russia, which suffered radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in nearby Ukraine. There are fears that fires may burn through the contaminated area, releasing harmful radiation into the atmosphere.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1568




Agflation fears as Russia halts all grain exports

Mr Putin said it was a temporary ban on wheat, corn, barley, rye, and grain products until the end of the year due to "abnormally high temperatures", adding that Russia needs to cap domestic food prices and build its own reserves.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... ports.html
"And the winner so far in the wheat crisis is...."

As we noted earlier this week, with soaring demand from key regions of the world and other supply problems beyond Russia’s drought, such as Canada’s floods, Ukraine’s crop failures and India’s grain storage crisis, wheat is rapidly becoming the “gold” of the grain markets.
http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/201 ... is-is.html
Wheat Heads for Biggest Gain in Half a Century on Export Bans

Wheat headed for the biggest weekly gain in half a century on concern other countries may follow an export ban by Russia, and may reach $10 a bushel, a price not seen since the global food crisis in 2008.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Kazakhstan and Belarus should also suspend shipments as Russia announced a ban on grain exports from Aug. 15 to yearend. “It’s got $10 written all over it,” said Peter McGuire, managing director at CWA Global Markets Pty, who on Aug. 3 correctly forecast the surge to $8.50. Wheat was last at $10 in March 2008, and a gain to that price would be up 23 percent from yesterday’s close.

Wheat prices have doubled in less than two months as drought slashed the harvest in Russia, the third-largest grower, and rains cut Canadian output. The surge may herald a new food crisis as corn and other staples jump, said a trade group from Indonesia, Asia’s top wheat buyer.

Wheat for December delivery rose 1.2 percent to $8.25 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade at 2:14 p.m. Paris time, taking gains for that contract to 25 percent this week. That’s the most since at least 1959.

Wheat has rallied as a heat wave in Russia, dry weather in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the European Union, and flooding in Canada hurt crops. Some Russian farmers are reluctant to sow winter grains after soil became too dry because of the drought, the government said today.

Food Riots

Wheat reached a record $13.495 in February 2008, part of a surge in prices that sparked food riots from Haiti to Egypt. Still, concern that lower-than-expected wheat output may contribute to a food crisis is “unwarranted at this stage,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Aug. 4.

There should be sufficient global supplies of wheat, “barring no more production setbacks,” said Doug Whitehead, an analyst at Rabobank in London. “The market will pay very close attention to crop prospects in Australia and Argentina.”

World wheat stockpiles may fall 2.5 percent to 192 million tons by June as the dry weather hurts the outlook for crops in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the EU, the International Grains Council said on July 29, reversing a forecast for higher inventories.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... vance.html


Wildfires Ravaging Swaths of Russia
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world ... .html?_r=1
Moscow Inundated by Smoke as Russian Heartland Burns

Temperatures as high as 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) will continue to plague central Russia and along the Volga River, where the fires are concentrated, at least through Aug. 8, the state Hydrometeorological Center said on its website. “Extreme” fire danger is forecast for many regions, the center said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... lazes.html

Worst smog yet hits Moscow
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 63002.html
Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow in heatwave

The smog has disrupted air traffic at two international airports in Moscow - Domodedovo and Vnukovo. Many Russians are wearing masks as the temperature rises close to 40C (104F). Medical experts say the concentration of toxic particles in the air is far higher than the norm, and can be especially harmful to toddlers and the elderly. Meanwhile, the level of CO2 in Moscow's air is more than three times higher than normal, officials say. According to some experts, inhaling the polluted air is as dangerous as smoking several packets of cigarettes a day.

On Thursday Russian officials said there were 589 wildfires raging across 196,000 ha (484,326 acres). More than 160,000 firefighters have been deployed.

Forecasters expect Moscow's high temperatures to persist for several more days.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10890557

Pakistan floods 'hit 12m people'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10896849
Half a million evacuated from Pakistan floods

Pakistan's worst monsoon floods in 80 years have now killed 1,600 and affected at least 12 million according to the government disaster management agency, since torrential rain began in the northwest last week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... loods.html

...DEPRESSION NEAR STORM STRENGTH OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHWESTERN MEXICO...
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MI ... 1449.shtml

Flash Floods in India's Remote Himalayan Region Kills More Than 60
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/as ... 12664.html

Due to heat wave, fires break out across Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/du ... bled=false

BP Puts Cement Plug at Top of Macondo Well
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/06- ... 14512-BP-0



Employment-To-Population Ratio Back To October 1983 Levels: The Only Chart That Matters
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/employ ... rt-matters

139,000 full-time jobs disappear
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... le1664046/

There’s Something Rotten in the Treasury Dept.
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail

Post Office's Quarterly Loss Hits $3.5 Billion
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08 ... s-billion/

Social Security in the red this year
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... time-ever/
Fannie Mae: REO Inventory doubles, expected to increase "significantly"

Fannie Mae reported: "a net loss of $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2010, compared to a net loss of $11.5 billion in the first quarter of the year." and the FHFA requested another $1.5 billion from Treasury.

On house prices, Fannie Mae "expects home prices to decline slightly for the balance of 2010 and into 2011 before stabilizing, and that home sales will be basically flat for all of 2010."

Fannie Mae reported that their REO inventory more than doubled since Q2 2009, from 62,615 to 129,310 in Q2 2010.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

IMF document illustrates plan to raise global currency
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0805/imf-do ... -currency/



Fantasy or Reality: The Hybrid Sniper/Assault Rifle
http://kitup.military.com/2010/08/fanta ... rifle.html

The Kushnapup Bullpup Saiga-12 Stock
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

More on the VERA MAX shotgun system
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29


Commentary: Walking away from Christianity

Only sleepwalkers and fanatics slide through life without reconsidering their values and philosophical outlook. Still, I never expected to be challenged quite so fundamentally by a writer of vampire stories and bisexual erotica.

Enter Anne Rice, the 68-year-old author of bestselling novels about the sexy undead and, pseudonymously, of various sadomasochistic-inflected tales. Since returning to her girlhood Catholicism more than a decade ago, she's also written a string of devotional volumes and "a spiritual confession" that might best be characterized as rhapsodic. All that came to an abrupt end last week when Rice announced on Facebook that she had left both the church and organized Christianity.

"Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out," she wrote. "I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. ... In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/05/9 ... anity.html

.....it will be interesting to see how long before something similar from Stephenie Meyers comes out....








Last edited by Anonymous on August 6th, 2010, 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

singyourwayhome
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Re: Blipits

Post by singyourwayhome »

Remember the church's Home Storage Centers, too. Current price for wheat is 25# for $5.80 for white wheat, $6.35 for red.
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/mult ... 00_pdf.pdf

When we had the wheat-price scare a couple years ago, the 'cannery' couldn't keep up with demand, at least for white. The explanation I got was that the Church only grows red wheat, so their white was coming from outside sources, which were limited.
Sounds like the price for white will most likely rise there, too.

I bought some last night, it's from a different farm than the last batch I got. Don't know if that's important, just struck me as interesting.

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

singyourwayhome wrote:Remember the church's Home Storage Centers, too. Current price for wheat is 25# for $5.80 for white wheat, $6.35 for red.
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/mult ... 00_pdf.pdf

When we had the wheat-price scare a couple years ago, the 'cannery' couldn't keep up with demand, at least for white. The explanation I got was that the Church only grows red wheat, so their white was coming from outside sources, which were limited.
Sounds like the price for white will most likely rise there, too.

I bought some last night, it's from a different farm than the last batch I got. Don't know if that's important, just struck me as interesting.
That's what I was told by cannery folks on the last go-around too....

They lagged the market a bit making the prices very attractive.....and looks to be the case now. I haven't been to the cannery in the past year or two (since the beginning of the last epidemic caused by hedge funds getting into commodities).....do they still have purchase quantity controls???

Some of the church cannery's prices are awesome.....and on other stuff you can get way better deals at CostCo, Macies, Honeyville, etc....

This time around is the "real" deal imo fwiw......serious weather issues in the world right now that don't appear to be easing anytime soon.

pritchet1
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Re: Blipits

Post by pritchet1 »

Okay, which missionary dusted his feet off on Moscow?

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

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Wheat panic ebbs, ample stocks blunt shortage fear

MOSCOW/PARIS (Reuters) - Panic buying of wheat subsided on global markets on Friday, sending prices tumbling as officials reassured markets that ample global supplies would prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis that triggered food riots around the globe.

Russia's worst drought in 130 years -- and an export ban announced Thursday -- has sent world wheat soaring with U.S. wheat prices nearly doubling in the past month. Many traders said the market has now factored in most of the damage as mounting supply problems prompted speculators to pour money into the market.

Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on Friday the export ban from August 15 to year end may be revised depending on results of the harvest season.

Clouds of smoke from peat and forest fires sparked by ferociously high temperatures choked Moscow on Friday as Shuvalov made his comments.

Despite drought in Russia and other Black Sea states, crop conditions elsewhere are favorable. Global stockpiles are 50 percent higher than they were two years ago -- equal to 14 times as much grain as was lost in Russia's drought.

"At this stage it's much too early to make comparisons with the 2007/08 price spike," said Ken Ash, director of trade and agriculture for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.

"I think probably what we're seeing now is not fundamental supply and demand factors...but market expectations," he said.

Wheat prices slumped even as the first evidence emerged of shippers attempting to back out of deals, with trading companies that have sold Russian wheat considering canceling contracts that could involve up to 1 million tonnes of wheat.

U.S. wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell the maximum daily trading limit on Friday, tumbling 7.6 percent after nearly doubling since early July to $8.41 a bushel. Corn and rice futures were dragged along for the ride, with corn rising 30 percent and rice rising nearly 25 percent before Friday's sell-off.

In early 2008, U.S. wheat rose above $13 a bushel, fueling food inflation that triggered rioting in many countries across the world. But analysts said world stocks have surged, with the last couple of years producing the two biggest wheat crops in history.

This year's ample stockpiles are equal to about 30 percent of annual global consumption, according to the Washington research group Concept Capital.

"Stocks are close to 50 percent higher today (than they were during the last price spike in early 2008). You had a completely different scenario then," said Barclays Capital analyst Sudakshina Unnikrishnan.

Russia on Thursday banned grain exports for several months to head off inflation, and the railroad monopoly said Friday it would stop loading grain for export from Saturday. Ukraine, another major wheat exporter, has imposed some new controls but has not halted shipments.

Traders are also closely watching the recently planted wheat crops in Argentina and Australia. A La Nina weather anomaly is expected to ramp up in the equatorial Pacific later this year, bringing dry conditions to South America, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center forecast.

The recent spike in wheat prices suggest food prices - particularly cereal and bakery products - may rise as well, as they did in 2008.

Manufacturers may have to ease up discounts that retailers pushed for during the global recession that slashed consumer spending.

"If prices remain elevated for a sustained period, then the probability of upward adjustment in retail price of wheat and its derivatives goes up," Barclays Capital said in a report.

"However, food prices tend to be politically sensitive, so we can expect some action from Asian governments."

Top consumers China and India are largely insulated from rising prices by sufficient wheat reserves.

Russia had been the world's third largest wheat exporter last year but is set to slide down the table this season with the worst drought since records began devastating crops.

"Effectively, a big chunk of the global market is off-line -- there's going to be something like 5 million tonnes that aren't going to be available for export," said Matthew Kaleel, a commodities specialist at fund manager H3 Global in Sydney.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wheat-sur ... et=&ccode=

....a bit of spin.....the other area's of the world aren't in great shape. Far east across to Pakistan experiencing flooding.....all while rolling into the middle of typhoon season -
Typhoons strike China more frequently than any other country. From May to December, China is vulnerable to typhoons which over the past 30 years have struck China more frequently than any other country---at a rate of 7 a year.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/travel/40474.htm
China braces for typhoons as record-breaking floods leave 1,000 dead, missing

"Since 60 to 80 percent of the annual rain level occurs in June, July and August, we should be prepared to prevent and combat potential disasters," Liu said.

Already, three-quarters of China's provinces have been plagued by flooding and 25 rivers have seen record-high water levels, Liu said.

Flooding, particularly along the Yangtze River basin, has overwhelmed reservoirs, swamped towns and cities, and caused landslides that have smothered communities, including toppling 645,000 houses.

The Three Gorges Dam faced its highest levels ever this week and water breached the massive dam.

"Although water levels in the upper stretches of the Yangtze River have surpassed that of 1998, the flood situation is still not as severe because the Three Gorges Dam has played a key role in preventing floods along the river this year," Liu said.
China's got some massive crop damage and a lot of people to feed....Pakistan is also experiencing heavy flooding and crop damage but still considering exports...
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is still considering exporting some surplus wheat to capitalise on higher global prices sparked by Russia's move to halt grain exports, officials said on Friday, after earlier caution over sales due to a weak market.

“The volume could be just above half a million tonnes,” one official said.

Pakistan, Asia's third-largest wheat producer, harvested 23.80 million tonnes of wheat from the 2009/10 crop and, along with a carryover of 4.22 million tonnes, and has a stock of more than 28 million tonnes of wheat.

Annual demand is around 23 million tonnes.

Officials in the food ministry said Pakistan might not export that whole amount to ensure supplies after the worst floods in 80 years, which affected millions of people and killed over 1,600. The floods are still headed south to Sindh province after raging through the agricultural heartland of Punjab.

“While it is now unlikely Pakistan will export 2 million tonnes because of the recent floods, there is still an option to export some, but there is no final decision,” said one official who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak.

“It could be in the range of 500,000 to 700,000 tonnes.”
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... ials-ss-01
Pakistan's poor storage capacity has been a factor in the decision to export excess wheat. Some 78,000 tonnes of the grain had been either destroyed or damaged in recent monsoon rains in Punjab.

The government may have to divert some wheat supplies to the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the hardest-hit region hit by the floods which now faces the prospect of severe food shortage.

Wheat is a staple in Pakistan and any shortages or steep rise in prices will fuel anger with civilian governments that are largely viewed as corrupt and weak and are unable to handle major crises, leaving the powerful army to step in.
http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE6750B5.htm

....of course that doesn't make a dent in the hole left by Russia who anticipated exporting 20-24 million tons of wheat for the 2010/11 crop year (begins July 1, 2010).....
LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Russia's drought-hit wheat crop is expected to total 46.5 million tonnes this year, a fall of about one-quarter from one of the world's top wheat exporters compared with 2009, a Reuters snap poll showed on Thursday.

Neighbouring Kazakhstan is seen suffering an even steeper output decline of 30 percent to 11.7 million tonnes after a record crop in 2009 while Ukraine should see a 13 percent drop to 18.1 million, median estimates in the global survey showed.

Last year's Russian wheat crop was 61.7 million tonnes, Kazakhstan's 16.5 million and Ukraine's 20.9 million, the International Grains Council said.
http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/77047/

....Canada is also experiencing flooding earlier in the year and now moving on to dry conditions and fires....
Even as the world is busy gleefully looking at favourable prospects for major field crops in the US and elsewhere, weather conditions in the Prairies of Canada (the country's breadbasket region) have remained hostile for an extended period. As result, planting of wheat, barley canola (rapeseed) and pulses is seriously impaired across the Prairies.

Wet weather has continued to cause serious impediment to seeding. It is not just pulses, but wheat is facing a threat.

Speaking from Winnipeg, Mr Harry Siemens, popular radio commentator on farm issues told Business Line that as much as 10 million acres (about 4 million hectares) may have gone unseeded so far especially in Saskatchewan province. “It is not just pulses, but wheat in particular and to an extent Canola (an oilseed) will be affected,” he said.

Weather woes

Growers are rather concerned about the weather havoc they have not faced in decades. “My brother-in-law planned to seed 1,500 acres of pulses, but could manage only 400 acres,” Mr Siemens rued. He is not alone in despairing over nature's wrath; there are thousands across the Prairies.

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) in its preliminary crop forecast on Friday said, “Exceptional spring rainfall will severely impact this year's wheat, durum and barley production, leaving more than 8 million acres unseeded”. The CWB believes in most cases these acres have been lost for this season and will not see any crop.

The situation is so bad that between 8.25 million and 12.5 million acres will go unseeded across the Prairies. CWB has projected the western Canada seeded area for all wheat at 19.15 million acres, the smallest area in 40 years that is since 1971. Barley crop is likely to fare even worse with acreage lowest since 1965.

There is no further scope for planting at this stage and normally by early June, seeding is completed, according to Mr Siemens. Saskatchewan province is the worst hit, he pointed out adding that as crop development is falling behind normal schedule, the risk of frost damage later in season (nearer harvest time) is real.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/201 ... 731400.htm

Fires in British Columbia, Canada
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
Saudi Arabia and Turkey generally buy wheat from Russia and Canada, where production is expected to drop because of wet weather, said Roger Baker, head of CHS’s North America wheat- trading desk in St. Paul, Minnesota. Both countries will now switch to the U.S., increasing the company’s exports, he said.

“In order for farmers to capitalize, another farmer has to take a loss,” said Ron Suppes, a farmer who grows wheat on 3,000 acres in Kansas. “It’s a sad situation.”

The European Union is the world’s largest wheat producer followed by China and India in the 2010-2011 crop year, according to the USDA.

“If there is a poor wheat crop, the world will have to come back to the U.S. for wheat exports” as it did in 2007 and 2008, Steven R. Mills, ADM’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call Aug. 3. ADM spokeswoman Beth Chandler declined to comment.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-0 ... t-ban.html

User avatar
Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

I will now make a prediction based on the negative debt and public admission of a fiscal crisis... Take note, the U.S. is collapsing.

This March Moody's investor services warned the U.S. that unless it got it's spending under control there would be a possible future downgrade of it's triple-A credit rating... (see here)

Regardless of how long Moody or S&P try to stretch and prolong the inevitable downgrade and regardless of how much Tim Geithner says all is well DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE COSMETIC SMEAR JOB! We, like the rest of the world are quickly approaching debt insolvency if we aren't there already! There is no turning back now and what we will see is that things will start deteriorating very quickly now.

Watch the news, keep an eye out for new developments. We are now moving very rapidly to a cashless society. Don't buy into the gold and silver manipulation schemes out there and stay away from those that prey on the helpless and try to get you to invest in gold. Gold is the banksters money, and they will confiscate it just like they did during the 1930's because it is their money!

What you should be doing with your dollars is buying non-perishable foods, and anything that will sustain you and your family throughout this global transition. When they introduce the global electronic cashless system your gold won't be redeemable.

This economic impending disaster is one that Americans do not understand and will overtake the mass majority like a thief in the night. Your typical American will not fully realize what has actually happened until they go to the bank to cash their check and find it closed with military guarding the front door.

The day is coming soon when the U.S. Treasury will declare a force majeure on debt. The U.S. is now so far in debt that collapse is inevitable and unavoidable. Make preparations for it now.

Should America (along with Israeli forces) launch a war against Iran - the costs of such a war will overwhelm an already crippled economy and push the U.S. over the edge into oblivion. I believe this is all pre-planned and orchestrated. I predict within 2 years time Americans will be begging for food and the bare necessities just to survive. Contingency plans by our military and FEMA are already in place for riots, and possible insurrection.

The greatest depression ever is currently underway and about to get worse. This is going to be global in scope. The blackmarket will rule, so stock up now on things like lighters, whiskey, cigarettes, canned protein, oats, rice, batteries, first aid kits, medicine, toilet paper, etc. people will trade their silver and their gold just to get their hands on simple pleasures.

There is no more time left...

You have been forewarned.
http://www.futuredatabank.com/global_forecast3.html

....interesting perspective fwiw....still researching on this Anthony Tomei...I'll attempt to stitch together the basic logic behind this and see if it comes together and makes sense...
JP Morgan Chase To Create Global Corporate Bank

JPMorgan Chase emerged from the financial crisis as one of the strongest banks on American soil. Now it wants to make up lost ground overseas, Eric Dash reports in The New York Times.

The bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, announced a series of management changes toward that end on Tuesday, appointing one of his closest lieutenants to a new position with a mandate to start a global corporate banking business and scout out opportunities in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The executive, Heidi G. Miller, was named president of the bank’s international operations and chairwoman of a new global advisory committee made up of about a dozen senior bankers and regional business heads. The new role should further cement Ms. Miller’s standing as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street.

Ms. Miller’s appointment set off other changes to the bank’s organizational chart. Michael J. Cavanagh, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer, will take over for Ms. Miller as head of the bank’s Treasury and Securities division, which focuses on back-office recordkeeping and securities lending for big institutional investors like hedge funds and pension funds.

Mr. Dimon, who spent the last two weeks hopscotching across China, India and Russia, had been laying the groundwork for international expansion for some time. A few years ago, he assigned two top lieutenants to scout out potential consumer banking opportunities overseas. He created a network of global advisers, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and established a partnership with a buyout firm started by several former Citigroup colleagues to hunt for overseas acquisitions.

The global credit crisis postponed those plans. But at a meeting of the bank’s top executives on Sea Island, Ga., last summer, Mr. Dimon committed to spending billions of dollars in the coming years to bolster the bank’s overseas business. The bank plans to focus on a dozen or so emerging markets, Mr. Dimon said, including the so-called BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as places like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and parts of Africa.
http://sueliz1.wordpress.com/2010/06/25 ... rate-bank/
Managing Global Bank Accounts: It’s Easier Than You Think With eBAM

In today's electronic world, managing your company's multiple bank accounts needn't be complicated. Through electronic bank account management (eBAM), manual and paper-based practices are being replaced by automated processes that will streamline the management of global bank accounts.

What is eBAM?
eBAM refers to the electronification and automation of the bank account management lifecycle. It's an industry-wide initiative that establishes a standard, electronic format to facilitate account management activity between a financial institution and its clients. A series of eXtensible Markup Language(XML) messages provide a framework for corporate customers to manage account opening, account maintenance, account reporting and account closing, electronically. The ISO 20022 eBAM standard is especially valuable to businesses managing hundreds of accounts, across several banking relationships and multiple locations.

Who Benefits, and How?
With eBAM, corporations will be able to open, maintain and close accounts electronically. This will help improve efficiency, increase transparency and enhance security and controls through audit reporting of account management activity. eBAM:

* Expedites the creation and delivery of bank accounts and streamlines their management – for greater ease of use.
* Eliminates paper from the account management request process by automating the delivery of bank account management requests. J.P. Morgan, for example, will accept requests in standard format initiated by clients through any vendor – or through proprietary software.
* Uses existing direct bank connections and security credentials. There's no need to purchase new security devices from third party providers. At J.P. Morgan, we offer an open architecture, vendor agnostic eBAM solution. We accept all industry standard digital credentials and validate locally, using a customer-supplied key.
* Strengthens the internal control environment over bank account management. eBam improves the internal reporting and "audit trails" for account management activities.
* Offers a flexible approach. Client requests can be generated in several ways, including third-party software or proprietary systems.

Addressing Security Concerns
At J.P. Morgan, we understand our clients' concerns about security. We believe that digital interoperability will ultimately benefit our clients, as well as the industry, by employing open standards that will allow clients to use the same digital credentials across multiple banking partners. Digital interoperability will allow banks to accommodate all industry standard credentials and provide a consistent experience to all clients.

Leading the Industry In Support of Open Architecture
J.P. Morgan, an early proponent of open architecture standards, was one of the founding members of SWIFT's eBAM working group, and our firm played a leading role in advancing the development of eBAM standards. We believe that SWIFT's eBAM initiative holds tremendous market value for banks, clients and vendors – and is a natural evolution of the industry whose time has come.
http://www.jpmorgan.com/tss/General/Man ... 6219439187
The Future of Money

The original Member countries of the OECD are Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The following countries became Members subsequently through accession at the dates indicated hereafter: Japan (28th April 1964), Finland (28th January 1969), Australia (7th June 1971), New Zealand (29th May 1973), Mexico (18th May 1994), the Czech Republic (21st December 1995), Hungary (7th May 1996), Poland (22nd November 1996), Korea (12th December 1996) and the Slovak Republic (14th December 2000). The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD (Article 13 of the OECD Convention).

Looking to the next few decades, technological advances combined with fairly dramatic economic and social changes could create conditions for the emergence of new, virtual forms of money and credit. On the positive side these digital forms of money could help to create more efficient and more global economies and societies. On the negative side tomorrow’s new forms of money could make it easier to engage in anti-competitive behaviour; exacerbate exclusion and inequality; foster economic volatility; facilitate criminal activity; and even undermine the effectiveness of macroeconomic policy.

To examine these issues and advance the dialogue among high-ranking government officials, business leaders and academics, an OECD Forum for the Future conference was held in Luxembourg on 11-13 July 2001. The conference had two primary aims: first, to explore the interrelationship between new forms of money and technological, economic and social change; and second, to consider the implications for leadership in the public and private sectors.

To put it in succinct and current terms, money’s destiny is to become digital. This general conclusion emerges from an examination of money’s long historical record and its likely relationship to future socioeconomic changes. Historically, money has been on the path towards greater abstraction, or pure symbolic representation disassociated from a precise physical materialisation, for millennia. Less evident, when looking to the future, is the question of the rate at which the last vestiges of physical money will disappear and, in the minds of some, if it is really destined to vanish. Views also differ regarding the economic and social importance of traversing this “last mile” and what it would take to achieve it.

Today the costs of cash (and near-cash instruments like cheques and credit cards) are largely hidden from consumers. For instance, there is little discussion of the equity dimension of the cross-subsidy, imposed when credit card companies prohibit
merchants from offering discounts for cash payment, between people who pay cash (particularly the “unbanked” without other options) and those who pay with credit cards. Similarly, many clearing and settlement systems give rise to expensive
service charges and lucrative floats that have serious social consequences in areas such as remittances by foreign workers, providing financial services to the excluded, or encouraging the start-up of micro-enterprises. Equally serious is the possibility that a major social fault line could develop in the future when access to digital money becomes the principal way to benefit from lower transaction costs and burgeoning cyber markets.

Adding these social concerns to the economic ones makes a strong case for proactive policies that aim to accelerate the diffusion of digital money to the point where it would marginalise physical cash.

Indeed, as became apparent at this conference, policy makers have good reasons not only to increase the pace at which tomorrow’s digital money diffuses throughout the economy, but also to shift the policy focus away from monetary technology (physical) towards monetary agreements and standards (virtual) that underpin clearing and settlement systems that could be used by all participants in money-based transactions.

Two precedents offer important insights into why it makes sense to redirect policy efforts towards the virtual side of money. First, the Internet, as a network of networks, shows how uniform standards (TCP/IP and HTML, both originally sourced from the public sector) can be neutral with respect to the particular technologies (physical and digital) that use the system. This is crucial because it creates a wide-open market on the connection side where competition, technical advances and a very wide diversity of uses can flourish. Second, the national interbank clearing systems and international currency markets provide some examples of how, in the past, policy makers have helped to introduce the rules, as well as nurture the institutions, that run complex settlement systems with relatively high degrees of confidence and efficiency. Taking these kinds of policy initiatives could go a long way towards transforming technological potential into practical and efficient economic reality.

Finally, the terrorist events of September 11th, 2001 give additional salience and urgency to the accelerated introduction of much more widespread clearing and settlement systems based on broadly agreed rules for ensuring transparency of financial transactions. Establishing Internet-type open standards for ubiquitous payment systems, with internationally agreed principles for respecting privacy and the responsibilities of citizenship embedded in the basic software code, offers a major opportunity to marginalise illegal transactions of all kinds. First it would significantly reduce the place of cash, and second, it would bring all economic agents onto a level playing field when it comes to the transparency of their financial activities. Many pieces of such systems are either in place or being developed. Now, with global interdependence so clear to everyone, there is an opportunity to add a sense of urgency to setting an ambitious and innovative policy agenda for the future of money.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/31/35391062.pdf
Over the past few years, U.S. government debt held by the public has grown rapidly—to the point that, compared with the total output of the economy, it is now higher than it has ever been except during the period around World War II. The recent increase in debt has been the result of three sets of factors: an imbalance between federal revenues and spending that predates the recession and the recent turmoil in financial markets, sharply lower revenues and elevated spending that derive directly from those economic conditions, and the costs of various federal policies implemented in response to the conditions.

Further increases in federal debt relative to the nation’s output (gross domestic product, or GDP) almost certainly lie ahead if current policies remain in place. The aging of the population and rising costs for health care will push federal spending, measured as a percentage of GDP, well above the levels experienced in recent decades. Unless policymakers restrain the growth of spending, increase revenues significantly as a share of GDP, or adopt some combination of those two approaches, growing budget deficits will cause debt to rise to unsupportable levels.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=11659

Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/116xx/doc116 ... _Brief.pdf
New IMF Strategy Document Charts Launch Of “Bancor” Global Currency

A newly published IMF strategy document calls for the implementation of a global currency, called the “bancor”, to stabilise the international monetary system, while acknowledging that only a monumental shift toward acceptance of globalism will make it possible in the short term.

The IMF blueprint, authored by Reza Moghadam, director of the IMF’s strategy, policy and review department, has stayed under the radar for three months.

However, an article on the Financial Times blog alphaville, entitled IMF blueprint for a global currency – yes really, today highlights the document and the clear strategy of the global financial body.

The IMF’s road to a global currency hinges on a wider use of and eventual implementation of an international monetary system based on special drawing rights (SDR), the IMF’s synthetic paper currency.

Once an SDR-based system is in place, the IMF envisages just one final step to the launch of a new global currency.

The document even gives the global currency a name, the “bancor” after John Maynard Keynes’ proposed, but never implemented, World Currency Unit of clearing.

The document concludes that without a catalyst to create a sudden clamour for globalism, the implementation of a global currency will take time:

It is understood that some of the ideas discussed are unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future absent a dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation.

The IMF first touted the possibility of a new global currency in March of last year. The issue was then debated at the G20 Summit in London just days later.

A clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders led to analysts describing the dawn of a “revolution in the global financial order.”

“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” The clause stated.

“In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph wrote at the time.

“The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” he added.

The same conclusion was drawn by the Washington Post’s Anthony Faiola, who described how the IMF is on course to be transformed into “a veritable United Nations for the global economy.”

The move has also been endorsed separately by the World Bank and the UN.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has repeated the call for a global currency via SDR multiple times.

The introduction of a new global currency and taxation system, with an overarching regulatory body, is a key cornerstone in the move towards global government, centralized control and more power being concentrated into fewer unaccountable hands.
http://truthalliance.net/Archive/News/t ... rency.aspx
IMF document illustrates plan to raise global currency

It's no secret that many of the world's largest industrialized nations are somewhat eager to ease their reliance on the U.S. dollar. For months China and Russia have pushed ever subtly, for a new "global reserve currency," to give governments around the world enhanced economic stability in the event of greater fluctuations in the dollar's value.

But what wasn't known, until recently, is how far along the International Monetary Fund was in the planning of elevating its so-called "special drawing rights" from mere international agreement to an actual, legitimate global currency.

The report examines what it calls the "imperfections" of the global reserve banking structures, and how hoarding of reserves by sovereign nations can subject the system to risk and occasional shocks.

In 35 pages of extrapolation and footnotes, the IMF's Strategy, Policy and Review Department lays out the how and why of a global currency, which would move from an "inside money" as the SDR to an "outside money" that is traded by governments.

"[In] the eyes of the IMF at least, the best way to ensure the stability of the international monetary system (post crisis) is actually by launching a global currency," they note.

"And that, the IMF says, is largely because sovereigns — as they stand — cannot be trusted to redistribute surplus reserves, or battle their deficits, themselves."

President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have steadfastly maintained that the world does not need a new reserve currency.

To the contrary, Russia has predicted the world is a mere decade away from that inevitability.

“There is a need to make the IMF a true representative of the world’s leading economies. It’s not there right now,” said Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin during a June 2009 economic forum, noting that China had a lower representation quota than Switzerland or Belgium.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0805/imf-do ... -currency/

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... 041310.pdf

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

'Relief well' to follow 'static kill' in Gulf oil spill cleanup
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/06/gulf.o ... tml?hpt=T2

Tests suggest oil dispersant washing up on Alabama beaches
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/08/tests_s ... incart_mce





Job of collecting evidence against BP may go to — BP
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0806/job-co ... nce-bp-bp/





Significant increases in seafloor seepage, likely methane hydrates — Developing (3 VIDEOS)
http://sitfu.com/2010/08/significant-in ... -3-videos/





BP: We might drill again in disaster zone
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0806/bp-dri ... ster-zone/


Hornig:The Oil Spill is The Least of Florida's Problems
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38562306

Failing U.S. States Should not Accept Fed and Bank "Relief " PERIOD
http://truthalliance.net/Archive/News/t ... ERIOD.aspx
CoStar: Commercial Real Estate Prices decline sharply in June

# The commercial real estate market’s pricing has been a tale of two worlds with the largest metro markets attracting significant institutional capital and forcing prices upward over the first two quarters of 2010, while the broader market has continued to soften.

# This divergence of the two worlds may soon change as we are now witnessing a pause and softening even within the investment or institutional grade primary markets.

# Over the past ten months we have seen the overall CCRSI oscillate from positive to negative and back again, with preliminary July figures very likely to be down for the investment grade property markets. From May to June, the overall CCRSI was down 7.78% with the investment grade property declining by 4.83%, reversing previous positive movement.

Distress is also a factor in the mix of properties being traded. Since 2007, the ratio of distressed sales to overall sales has gone from around 1% to above 23% currently. Hospitality properties are seeing the highest ratio, with 35% of all sales occurring being distressed. Multifamily properties are seeing the next highest level of distress at 28%, followed by office properties at 21%, retail properties at 18%, and industrial properties at 17%.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Bank Failure #109: Ravenswood Bank, Chicago, Illinois
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Middle class in shambles – more debt, more job losses, more deceit. Banks attempt final push to break up the middle class. Housing values down by 30 percent but total household debt only down by 2 percent.
http://www.mybudget360.com/middle-class ... 0-percent/

The New Push for a Global Currency
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1049


Telling Swiss secrets: A banker's betrayal
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/euro ... ng-secrecy

More on UBS and Secret Banking Jurisdictions: Birkenfeld Tells All to Global Post
http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2010 ... -2010.html

The CLEAR ACT: They are stealing it all: Land, water, minerals and the air we breathe
http://farmwars.info/?p=3583


Russia set $1 Billion for 1,700 Foreign Light Armored Vehicles
http://www.defence-update.net/wordpress ... +Update%29

Venezuelan diplomatic break with Columbia comes amidst massive US military expansion in the region
http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/06/ven ... ensored%29

Neocons Hope Israel Will Start a Fire the U.S. Will Be Forced to Put Out
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/07 ... o-put-out/

Report: Secret meeting held between Israeli, Hamas officials
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... bled=false



The Dark Side of Vitaminwater
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robb ... 69716.html

Examining Chemo Drugs' Potential Threats to Health Care Workers
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/j ... 08-05.html


Moscow under smog health warning as wildfires burn

Nearly 560 fires were still burning across central Russia as of Friday. Of these, 39 were peat bog fires, 27 of them in the Moscow region alone, accounting for the acrid smoke choking the capital. Daytime temperatures in Moscow remain close to 40C (104F) with little sign of relenting in the next few days.

In the south of Moscow, visibility at the international airport Vnukovo was reduced to 300m (yards), and at Domodedovo airport it was no more than 400m. Seven regions are under a state of emergency. Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan and Voronezh are reported to be the worst hit.

Russia has announced it is banning the export of grain from 15 August to 31 December after drought and fires devastated about a fifth of its grain crop.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10897116

Smog Smothers Moscow for 2nd Day
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/eu ... 82964.html
(Reuters) - Russian troops dug a 8-km (5-mile) long canal to keep fires caused by a record heatwave away from a nuclear arms site, local media said on Saturday as air pollution from the crisis rose to more than six times above normal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6751T820100807
Pakistan floods 'hit 14m people'

Twelve million are affected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, while a further two million are affected in Sindh. In Indian-administered Kashmir, at least 113 people died in mudslides. Flooding has submerged whole villages in the past week, killing at least 1,600 people, according to the UN.

And the worst floods to hit the region in 80 years could get worse, as it is only midway through monsoon season.

According to the federal flood commission, 1.4m acres (557,000 hectares) of crop land has been flooded across the country and more than 10,000 cows have perished.

A UN official, Manuel Bessler, told the BBC that with crops swept away by floodwaters, some Pakistanis could be forced to rely on food aid to get through the winter.

"In my opinion, when assessments are complete, this will be the biggest disaster in the history of Pakistan," the general said in Islamabad.

Along a 1,200km (750-mile) stretch of the River Indus in Sindh province, the government has evacuated one million people and is evacuating another half a million, provincial minister for irrigation Jam Saifullah Dharejo told the BBC.

About half a million people from the area left their homes earlier to stay with family and friends.

"The flood is at its peak right now, and we expect the waters following to start to recede once these torrents have passed," the minister said.

Pakistan's meteorological department has predicted further downpours for the country, especially in flood-affected areas.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10896849
Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistanis desperate to get out of flooded villages threw themselves at helicopters on Saturday as more heavy rain was expected to intensify both suffering and anger with the government.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100807
Gaza loses power as heat wave sweeps the region - Engineers shut down Gaza City's sole power plant on Saturday because of a lack of fuel, switching off electricity to some half a million people in the midst of a heat wave.

Engineers shut down Gaza City's sole power plant on Saturday because of a lack of fuel, switching off electricity to some half a million people in the midst of a heat wave.

Gaza's Hamas rulers are in a dispute with the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank, which provides it with the fuel for the plant.

For the past few months the plant has supplied just six to 10 hours of power a day because of the ongoing problems getting enough fuel due to the feud with the West Bank government.

Residents who can afford it use generators to supplement the shortage.

But a complete power cut is expected to deepen misery in Gaza, where residents have suffered through a sweltering heat wave - severe even by the standards of this hot, dry area. Temperatures have soared over 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) for the past few weeks.

Gaza's rulers, the militant Islamic group Hamas, are meant to collect utility bills through a power distribution company and send the cash to their rivals, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which is supposed to buy the fuel.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib says Hamas isn't sending enough money, and on average, they were receiving only $1.3 million a month from the distribution company, while they were paying $9 million for the fuel.

"We need some transparency here. There has to be some kind of audit," Khatib said.

A statement issued by the Hamas-controlled power company denied the charges, saying they were sending the full amount collected.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/internation ... bled=false
100-Square-Mile Glacier Breaks off Greenland

An ice island with an area of 100 square miles (260 square km) has broken off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers in an event that is the biggest of its kind for nearly 50 years.

A chunk of ice was predicted to come away from the Petermann Glacier - of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland - but never at this scale.

The 600ft (180m)-thick island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada, according to Sky News reports.

A researcher from University of Delaware has reported that a huge chunk of ice, 4 times that of Manhattan's size, has broken away from a Greenland glacier.

Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering reported the discovery. "The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days," Muenchow said.

The island will enter Nares Strait, a deep waterway between northern Greenland and Canada. Here, it may become land-fast, block the channel, or it may break into smaller pieces as it is propelled south by the prevailing ocean currents, according to Sify.
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/07- ... reenland-0

Giant ice island breaks off Greenland
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38600087/ns ... e-science/

4 people feared dead after volcano eruption in Indonesia
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... .eruption/
Tropical Storm Colin is taking aim at Bermuda, and could bring tropical storm force winds to the island tonight. Colin continues to pass through an unfavorable environment for development, as the storm is being affected by dry being pumped in from an upper-level low pressure system to the west. Wind shear has dropped to about 10 knots, but Colin has not yet been able to take advantage of the low shear. Recent satellite imagery shows that Colin is a disorganized system, with limited heavy thunderstorm activity. What few intense thunderstorms Colin has have been pushed over to the east side of the storm by yesterday's high wind shear, and the rains from these thunderstorms can be seen approaching Bermuda on Bermuda radar.

Forecast for Colin
The latest SHIPS model forecast predicts that wind shear will remain low to moderate today as Colin makes its closest pass by Bermuda. This may allow the storm to intensify to a 50 mph tropical storm before it moves past Bermuda early Sunday morning. The shear will increase again on Sunday as Colin heads out to sea, and it is unlikely that the storm will ever attain hurricane status.

93L
A tropical wave (Invest 93) about 850 miles west of the Cape Verdes Islands off the coast of Africa is moving northwest at 10 mph. Wind shear is a moderate 10 knots, and is expected to stay in the moderate range the next five days. NHC is giving a 40% chance of this disturbance developing into a tropical depression by Monday morning. The GFS model shows some weak development of 93L occurring early next week. This storm will probably only be a concern to shipping interests. There are no other areas of concern the models are showing for the next seven days.

Belarus records its hottest temperature in history
The European nation of Belarus, on the western border of Russia, recorded its hottest temperature in history yesterday, August 6, when the mercury hit 38.7°C (101.7°F) in Gorky. The previous record was 38.0°C (100.4°F) set at Vasiliyevichy on Aug. 20, 1946.

The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 chokes Moscow with smoke for a second day
Smoke from wildfires caused by the worst heat wave in Russia's history have choked Moscow for a second straight day today, bringing air pollution levels to six times the safe mark and forcing cancellation of dozens of flights. Visibilites dropped as low as 325 meters at Moscow's airport today, as temperatures hit 97°F (36°C). The past 25 days in a row have exceeded 30°C (86°F) in Moscow, and there is no relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures near 100°F (37.8°C) for the majority of the coming week. As I reported in yesterday's post, the number of deaths in Moscow in July 2010 was about 5,000 more than in July 2009, suggesting that the heat wave has been responsible for thousands of deaths in Moscow alone. I would expect that by the time the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 is over, the number of premature deaths caused by the heat wave will approach or exceed the 40,000 who died in the 2003 European Heat Wave. As seen in Figure 2, the Russian heat wave of this year is more intense and affects a wider region than the great 2003 heat wave, though the population affected by the two heat waves is probably similar.

Commentary
Belarus' new all-time extreme heat record gives the year 2010 the most national extreme heat records for a single year--seventeen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth's surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, Seventy-five counties set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries). My source for extreme weather records is the excellent book Extreme Weather by Chris Burt. His new updates (not yet published) remove a number of old disputed records.

Keep in mind that the matter of determining extreme records is very difficult, and it is often a judgment call as to whether an old record is reliable or not. For example, one of 2007's fifteen extreme hottest temperature records is for the U.S.--the 129°F recorded at Death Valley that year. Most weather record books list 1913 as the year the hottest temperature in the U.S. occurred, when Greenland Ranch in Death Valley hit 134°F. However, as explained in a recent Weatherwise article, that record is questionable, since it occurred during a sandstorm when hot sand may have wedged against the thermometer, artificially inflating the temperature. Mr. Burt's list of 225 countries with extreme heat records includes islands that are not independent countries, such as Puerto Rico and Greenland. I thank Mr. Burt and weather record researchers Maximiliano Herrera and Howard Rainford for their assistance identifying this year's new extreme temperature records.

Earth has now seen four consecutive months with its warmest temperature on record, and the first half of 2010 was the warmest such 6-month period in the planet's history. It is not a surprise that many all-time extreme heat records are being shattered when the planet as a whole is so warm. Global warming "loads the dice" to favor extreme heat events unprecedented in recorded history.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1569


UPDATE:

Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistanis desperate to get out of flooded villages threw themselves at helicopters on Saturday as more heavy rain was expected to intensify both suffering and anger with the government.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100807

Wikileaks, Legitimate Whistleblowers or CointelPro?
http://theintelhub.com/2010/08/07/wikil ... ointelpro/

Mexico drug cartels thrive despite Calderon's offensive
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 1156.story

Beck: Conservative agenda means dismantling federal government
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0807/beck-a ... overnment/









User avatar
ready2prepare
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1063
Location: Quitman, MS
Contact:

Re: Blipits

Post by ready2prepare »

Re: The video Jason posted on "A Tale of Two Wells."

My intuition told me all along that the sudden
seemingly miraculous capping of the oil "well"
was simply a dog and pony show designed to
divert media attention from the real leaking
well (the blown-out runaway well) and calm
the public so that the real work of drilling the
relief wells to stop the blowout could go on
with much less public scrutiny.

Well, a good number of the residents in the
Gulf States aren't buying the "all is 'well'"
(pun intended) propaganda story from BP
because all is not well. "All" is TWO wells!

And the two wells are just a few hundred feet
from each other. It appears Matt Simmons was
right after all.

More corroborating evidence here:
http://www.acgriffith.com/2010/08/bp-oil-wells-a-and-b/

Best Regards,
Sharon in Mississippi

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Matt Simmons Has Died Of A Heart Attack

CNBC notes the apparent cause of death of the recently popular BP skeptic, and founder of oil company Simmons & Co., was a heart attack. A conflicting report according to WLBZ cites the source of death as drowning.

NORTH HAVEN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) - The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.

Simmons was a leading investment banker for the energy industry and had recently retired to work full time on the new Ocean Energy Institute.

He was a leading proponent of offshore wind power and had started raising money to develop and build offshore turbines.

He and his family had also bought and rebuilt the Old Strand Theater in downtown Rockland.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/matt-s ... art-attack

....how terribly ironic that CFR member and BP Gulf spill critic (apparent turncoat) has suddenly died of a heart attack (or was it from drowning....heart attack after drowning???) after presenting some of the most important information and predictions on the Gulf spill....
Matt Simmons apparently drowned at his home Sunday night

The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.
http://www.wlbz2.com/news/local/story.a ... 86&catid=3
Matthew Simmons, an international oil expert who most recently focused on developing renewable energy from the waters off Maine, died Sunday night of an apparent heart attack, his office is reporting. He was 67.

According to police reports, Simmons suffered a heart attack while in a hot tub at his home on North Haven. An autopsy is planned for today in Augusta, according to the Knox County Sheriff's Office.

Simmons was a leading energy investment banker, a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush, and author. He wrote the 2005 book “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,” which laid out an argument that the world was approaching peak oil production.
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Ener ... Haven.html


....life gets very hard and dangerous in a hurry for whistleblowers....

Andrew McGuire, whistle-blower on market manipulation, injured in hit-and-run accident
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/20567 ... n-accident

Madoff business associate drowns in his pool
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33472579/


NKorea fires artillery off west coast

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea fired about 110 rounds of artillery Monday near its disputed sea border with South Korea, the South's military said, amid high tension over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on North Korea.

The firing came shortly after South Korea ended five-day naval drills off the west coast that the North called a rehearsal for an invasion, vowing to retaliate.

All the artillery shells harmlessly landed into the North's waters and caused no damage to the South, a South Korean Joint Chief of Staff officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_koreas_tension
Not to belabor a point, but some die-hard defenders of the October Surprise cover-up continue to insist that there is real evidence debunking the now overwhelming case that Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign interfered with President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/080610.html

Targeting Iran: Is the US Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... leId=20536

Fidel Castro Calls on the World to Persuade Obama Not to Unleash a War
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=624181

Mexican Prison Doubles as a Hotel for Cartel Hit Men
http://www.mexidata.info/id2758.html

The Growing Desperation of Mexico's Juarez Drug Cartel
http://www.mexidata.info/id2762.html
Border sheriff shares views at local town hall meeting

According to Sigifredo Gonzalez, the sheriff of Zapata County, the battle on the Texas border is best described as “domestic terrorism.”

“How many more police officers have to die? The border is not owned by the United States or Mexico - it is owned by the drug cartels,” Gonzalez said to the crowd at Congressman Ted Poe’s town hall meeting at Lone Star College-Kingwood July 31. It was the second town hall meeting of the week for the District 2 congressman.

Like many communities along the Texas-Mexico border, Zapata County, just south of Laredo, has been ravaged by crime and other issues surrounding illegal immigration, according to Gonzalez. He compared members of the drug cartels to terrorists and said the brutal acts along the border coincide with the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism.
http://www.hcnonline.com/articles/2010/ ... wnhall.txt

War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... california

The Central America Regional Security Initiative
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/145956.pdf

Military Threats Directed Againt China? US aircraft carrier heads for Yellow Sea
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... leId=20539

Attacking Iran: US Options
http://www.countercurrents.org/dyer060810.htm

Four armies on alert, Khamenei takes charge of Lebanese crisis
http://www.debka.com/article/8958/

Is the Military Option Back on the Table?
http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php ... &read=4291

Friday prayers interim leader: US interests to be at stake in case of Iran attack
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/libra ... irna02.htm




Moscow deaths double amid smog to 700 people a day

MOSCOW – Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said Monday.

Moscow health chief Andrei Seltsovky blamed weeks of unprecedented heat and suffocating smog for the rise in mortality compared to the same time last year, Russian news agencies reported. He said city morgues were nearly overflowing, filled with 1,300 bodies, close to their capacity.

Acrid smog blanketed Moscow for a six straight day Monday, with concentrations of carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances two to three times higher than what is considered safe. Those airborne pollutants reached a record over the weekend — exceeding the safe limit by nearly seven times.

Daily highs have reached up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), compared to the usual summer average of 75 F (24 C). And, according to the forecast, there will be no respite this week.

The severe drought and wildfires have destroyed 20 percent of Russia's wheat crop, prompting the government last week to introduce a ban grain exports for the rest of the year. The news drove the price of wheat, which has already jumped 70 percent on world markets this summer, even higher.

"Every night it's like we prepare for war," blogger Tsirtsis wrote on the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta's Web site. "With open windows, it's impossible to breathe because of the burning, and with closed windows we choke in the stifling heat."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_fires

Moscow opens anti-smog centers as fires burn
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=624186
State of emergency announced in Russia's nuclear center of Ozersk

MOSCOW, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- A state of emergency has been declared in Russia's Urals city of Ozersk, where one of the largest nuclear storage and fuel-reprocessing center Mayak is located, reported RIA Novosti news agency Monday, citing the local administration.

Local authorities forbad the access and egress to the nearby forest territories since Aug. 6, claiming the move was caused by the "complicated situation" with peat bog fires.

"The state of emergency has been imposed on the territory of Ozersk district and nearby forests in connection with fire dangerous zone," a statement published by local government said.

The heads of local enterprises were ordered to perform all the immediate measures to ensure safety of the territories.

Wildfires caused by ongoing heat and drought have been raging in Russia's 17 regions. In 13 regions, the state of emergency has already been declared.

The city of Ozersk is one of the largest nuclear centers financed by the Russian government and belonging to Rosatom, the Russian Federal Nuclear Agency.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 437160.htm
Smoke over Moscow

Fires continued burning around Moscow on August 7, 2010, forcing airports to delay flights, and prompting locals to stay indoors or venture out only with gauze masks, Bloomberg reported. Carbon monoxide levels in the capital city were several times the maximum allowable limit. Meanwhile, firefighters fought 577 fires covering 193,516 hectares (747 square miles).

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on August 7. Red outlines indicate actively burning fires, and multiple fires cluster east of Moscow, many of them sending their smoke right over the city. Smoke almost completely hides the land surface throughout this scene.

High temperatures contributed to tinder-dry conditions along the Volga River, and Bloomberg reported that temperatures as high as 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) would continue to plague central Russia for at least another day.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 brought temperatures of 37°C (99°F) to Moscow today, and smog and smoke from wildfires blanketed the city for a sixth straight day. Air pollution levels were 2 - 3 times the maximum safe level today, and peaked on Saturday, when when carbon monoxide hit 6.5 times the safe level. The death toll from heat and air pollution increased to approximately 330 people per day in Moscow in recent days, according to the head of the Moscow health department. Yevgenia Smirnova, an official from the Moscow registry office, said excess deaths in Moscow in July averaged 155 per day, compared to 2009. The heat wave began on June 27. These grim statistics suggest that in Moscow alone, the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 has likely killed at least 7,000 people so far. A plot of the departure of July 2010 temperatures from average (Figure 1) shows that the area of Russia experiencing incredible heat is vast, and that regions southeast of Moscow have the hottest, relative to average. Moscow is the largest city in Russia, with a population just over ten million, but there are several other major cities in the heat wave region. These include Saint Petersburg, Russia's 2nd most populous city (4.6 million), and Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's 5th most populous city (1.3 million people.) Thus, the Russian population affected by extreme heat is at least double the population of Moscow, and the death toll in Russia from the 2010 heat wave is probably at least 15,000, and may be much higher. The only comparable heat wave in European history occurred in 2003, and killed an estimated 40,000 - 50,000 people, mostly in France and Italy. While the temperatures in that heat wave were not as extreme as the Russian heat wave, the nighttime low temperatures in the 2003 heat wave were considerably higher. This tends to add to heat stress and causes a higher death toll. I expect that by the time the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 is over, it may rival the 2003 European heat wave as the deadliest heat wave in world history.

Worst Russian heat wave in 1,000 years of history
The temperature at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport hit 99°F (37°C) today. Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow's history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record five times in the past two weeks. Temperatures the past 27 days in a row have exceeded 30°C in Moscow. Alexander Frolov, head of Russia's weather service, said in a statement today, "Our ancestors haven't observed or registered a heat like that within 1,000 years. This phenomenon is absolutely unique." There is some slight relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures of 31 - 33°C (88 - 91 °F) Wednesday though Sunday.

Belarus records its hottest temperature in history for the second day in a row
The Russian heat wave has also affected the neighboring nations of Ukraine and Belarus. All three nations have recorded their hottest temperatures in history over the past few weeks. Belarus, on the western border of Russia, recorded its hottest temperature in history on Saturday, August 7, when the mercury hit 38.9°C (102°F) in Gomel. This broke the all-time record for extreme heat set just one day before, the 38.7°C (101.7°F) recorded in Gorky. Prior to 2010, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Belarus was the 38.0°C (100.4°F) in Vasiliyevichy on Aug. 20, 1946. As I described in detail in Saturday's post, Belarus' new all-time extreme heat record gives the year 2010 the most national extreme heat records for a single year--seventeen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth's surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, Seventy-five countries set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries). Earth has now seen four consecutive months with its warmest temperature on record, and the first half of 2010 was the warmest such 6-month period in the planet's history. It is not a surprise that many all-time extreme heat records are being shattered when the planet as a whole is so warm. Global warming "loads the dice" to favor extreme heat events unprecedented in recorded history.

July SSTs in the tropical Atlantic set a new record
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) in the Atlantic's Main Development Region for hurricanes had their warmest July on record, according to an analysis I did of historical SST data from the UK Hadley Center. SST data goes back to 1850, though there is much missing data before 1910 and during WWI and WWII. SSTs in the Main Development Region (10°N to 20°N and 20°W to 80°W) were 1.33°C above average during July, beating the previous record of 1.19°C set in July 2005. July 2010 was the sixth straight record warm month in the tropical Atlantic, and had the third warmest anomaly of any month in history. The five warmest months in history for the tropical Atlantic have all occurred this year. As I explained in detail in a post on record February SSTs in the Atlantic, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and its close cousin, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), are largely to blame for the record SSTs, though global warming and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) also play a role.

The magnitude of the anomaly has increased slightly since June, because trade winds over the tropical Atlantic were at below-normal speeds during July. These lower trade wind speeds were due to the fact that the Bermuda-Azores High had below-normal surface pressures over the past month. The Bermuda-Azores High and its associated trade winds are forecast to remain at below-average strength during the next two weeks, according to the latest runs of the GFS model. This means that Atlantic SST anomalies will continue to stay at record warm levels during the remainder of August, and probably during September as well. This should significantly increase the odds of getting major hurricanes in the Atlantic during the peak part of hurricane season, mid-August through mid-October.

94L
A area of disurbed weather (94L) over South Florida is generating disorganized heavy thunderstorms over Florida and the adjacent waters, but is not a threat to develop today due to high wind shear of 20 - 30 knots. The latest SHIPS model forecast predicts that wind shear will fall to the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, tonight through Thursday. This relaxation in shear may allow 94L to begin to organize. However, 94L will not have much time over the Gulf of Mexico to become a tropical depression or tropical storm, as steering currents favor a westward or west-northwestward motion over the Gulf that would bring the storm ashore over the northern Gulf coast by Wednesday or Thursday. NHC is giving 94L a 20% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Wednesday morning. The Hurricane Hunters are on call to investigate 94L on Tuesday afternoon.

93L
A tropical wave (Invest 93) in the middle Atlantic Ocean is close to tropical depression status. The disturbance has a well-defined surface circulation, but only a limited amount of heavy thunderstorm activity, thanks to dry air and wind shear of 10 - 20 knots affecting it due to a large upper-level low pressure system to the west. Wind shear is expected to stay in the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, over the next two days, which should allow 93L to become a tropical depression by Tuesday. NHC is giving a 70% chance 93L will become a tropical depression by Wednesday morning. Both the GFDL and HWRF models predict 93L will develop, and the GFDL predicts the storm will become a hurricane. A strong trough of low pressure moving across the central Atlantic should force 93L to turn northward on Wednesday, and 93L should only be a concern to shipping interests. None of the reliable computer models are forecasting tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic over the next seven days, other than for 93L.

The deadly 2010 monsoon kills hundreds more in China, India, and Pakistan over the weekend
The Asian Southwest Monsoon has been exceptionally deadly this year. Northwest China's Gansu province was hard hit over the weekend with torrential monsoon rains, and the resulting flooding and landslides claimed at least 127 lives. At least 1300 people are missing in the disaster. Fresh monsoon rains in Pakistan over the weekend triggered landslides that killed sixty more people, in addition to the 1,500 - 1,600 people who died in monsoon floods that began in late July. At least 137 died in floods and landslides in the neighboring Indian state of Kashmir over the weekend, with 500 people missing. Monsoon flooding and landslides have also killed at least 65 people in Afghanistan in the past two weeks. Dave's Landslide blog has some great discussions of the flooding and destruction wrought by the terrible monsoon rains this year in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and China. I plan to write much more about this year's deadly monsoon on Tuesday.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1571

Smoke Cloud Covers Moscow - Authorities Warn of Radioactive Cloud
http://www.thirdage.com/news/smoke-clou ... z0w50w38Ls
Fires in British Columbia, Canada

Several large forest fires burned in British Columbia, Canada on August 4, 2010. The fires are outlined in red in this true-color image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The fires shown in this image are in the Cariboo region of the province, where 120 fires were burning on August 3. Many of the large fires ignited in a lightning storm on July 28, and additional lightning-caused fires started on August 3, said the wildfire management branch of the forest service in British Columbia. More than 400 fires burned throughout British Columbia on August 3, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The large image is the highest resolution (most detailed) version of the image. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response System.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss
NOAA Still Expects Active Atlantic Hurricane Season; La Niña Develops

ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2010) — The Atlantic Basin remains on track for an active hurricane season, according to the scheduled seasonal outlook update issued Aug. 5, 2010 by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. With the season's peak just around the corner -- late August through October -- the need for preparedness plans is essential.

NOAA also announced that, as predicted last spring, La Niña has formed in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This favors lower wind shear over the Atlantic Basin, allowing storm clouds to grow and organize. Other climate factors pointing to an active hurricane season are warmer-than-average water in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean, and the tropical multi-decadal signal, which since 1995 has brought favorable ocean and atmospheric conditions in unison, leading to more active seasons.

"August heralds the start of the most active phase of the Atlantic hurricane season and with the meteorological factors in place, now is the time for everyone living in hurricane prone areas to be prepared," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

Across the entire Atlantic Basin for the whole season -- June 1 to November 30 -- NOAA's updated outlook is projecting, with a 70 percent probability, a total of (including Alex, Bonnie and Colin):

* 14 to 20 Named Storms (top winds of 39 mph or higher), including:
* 8 to 12 Hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or higher), of which:
* 4 to 6 could be Major Hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of at least 111 mph)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 205434.htm
Severe flooding in Pakistan- The Big Picture

It is only the start of the monsoon season, but already Pakistan is experiencing some of the worst flooding it has seen in over 80 years. Entire villages have been washed away, an early estimate of over 1,600 deaths so far and over 2 million displaced or otherwise affected. Not only is the immediate water damage causing havoc, the floods have inundated crop-producing areas, dealing a crippling blow to the agricultural-based economy and threatening a food crisis. The Pakistani government now struggles to rescue and provide aid to millions - while still fighting with militant Islamist forces in many of the hardest-hit regions. With even more heavy rains predicted in the coming days, here are a handful of recent photographs of Pakistanis as they cope with this latest disaster. (41 photos total)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/0 ... istan.html



Wheat Crisis Threatens Inflationary Timebomb, Food Riots
http://www.infowars.com/wheat-crisis-th ... ood-riots/


Once in a blue moon I stumble across a document chock full of relevant material. Such is the commercial real estate (CRE) marketCongressional Oversight Report (COR) produced by a committee chaired by Elizabeth Warren. Much of the source and chart material I provide is from this well-written report.

Most CRE lending is concentrated in commercial banks and asset-backed securities issuers (CMBS); but other players, including the government and insurers, are involved. CMBS issuance is at $709 billion.

We see about two-thirds of the commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) portion in the office and retail sectors. Even during the boom period, retail and office vacancy rates were never that robust, but the loans were made anyway. Now things are ugly and getting worse. In general, rents in CRE are down five to 10 percent. During the third quarter of 2007 alone, and at the very peak of the CRE cycle, 28 percent of CMBS were originated. There is little or no amortization cushion built up, as about 85 percent of these are interest only (IO) or partial IO loans.

A common form of CRE financing is a term balloon that is usually the five years but sometimes seven. Most CRE uses 25 percent equity financing, although now banks want at least 30%. The other key factor to consider is the origination date (vintage) applied to the maturity schedule. Referencing the price index chart below, we can calculate the overall capitalization situation of CRE. Anything between 1.2 to 1.4 on the index ( as the 2004 vintage), means there might be a little equity left but it would still be badly under capitalized. Between 1.4 to 1.6 such as for the 2005 vintage, equity would be wiped out and around 10 to 15 percent underwater, especially with those that originated during the second half of 2005. This next chart is what an equity gap might look like on a 2005 vintage property. Above 1.6 would constitute the 2006, 2007 and 2008 vintages. Those properties are severely underwater and would require large equity infusions to be adequately capitalized.

Turning to the maturity schedule, one can note that so far in 2010 the bankers were mostly dealing with 2004 and pre- 2004 vintages, the majority of which are marginally manageable for kick-down-the-road solutions.

The COR describes (in theory) what is necessary to refinance a balloon under current conditions:

“To qualify for refinancing, under current conditions, the borrower must generally satisfy three criteria: (1) the new loan balance must be greater than or equal to the existing loan balance, (2) the LTV ratio must be no greater than 70 (current maximum LTVs are between 60 and 65), and (3) the DSCR (assuming a 10-year, fixed-rate loan with a 25-year amortization schedule and an 8 percent interest rate) must be no less than 1.3.253. DSCR is Net Operating Income (NOI) / Total Debt Service.”

Then there is the issue of neglect and deferred maintenance. Steve Wynn commenting on Las Vegas properties:

* “One of the things that’s happening here as the market softened and many of these companies with very bad capital structures neglected their properties rather severely. And the properties are all showing the wear and tear. They’re showing the lack of capital expenditures. And the public, of course, takes note of this immediately. There’s no secrets. The minute the place is not clean or it’s getting threadbare, it has a very bad effect on your clientele.

There’s no doubt that much of the maturing CRE comes up well short on these qualifications, but who is looking.

During the first quarter of this year, lenders restructured loans totaling $23 billion; however, those were the easier 2003 through early 2005 vintages. Recent statistics have shown a drop in the percentage of loans successfully refinanced at maturity to 20.5 percent by balance in the last month, according to Cushman and Wakefield. Three to six months after maturity, the percentage of those refinanced or paid off climbs to 33 percent and 56 percent respectively. For the rest of the ballooning loans, it’s much easier to extend and pretend by granting one-year extensions or by doing nothing at all. This is particularly true for smaller banks, which will collapse once the extend-and-pretend tab comes due.

One of the problems with tracking the numbers is the lag in reporting, but the Trepp chart on CMBS indicates where the market stood sometime during the first half of 2010. Roughly 9 percent of the market is dicey, but foreclosures, and especially REOs, are in the first inning. Note that so far only 1.1 percent are matured balloons. Compounding the woes, however, are recent signs that prices are swooning again. A commentary from Costar says CRE prices were swooning in June with distressed sales making up 23 percent.

While eyeballing the maturity charts, count forward five years and note that during the first half of 2010 the 2005 vintages were maturing closer to 1.4 on the price index (first of 2005 origination) rather than 1.6 (second half 2005 origination). However, as this year winds down and 2011 arrives, the bankers will be dealing with a tougher strain of late 2005 and 2006 underwater CRE debts. Then, stunned and staggering, the banking system will be hit with a tidal wave and a final knock-out punch of large-scale and severely underwater vintages from 2006 to 2008, which are duly listed on the late 2011 to 2012 maturity schedule. Unless the fundamentals (higher rents, lower vacancies and interest-rate wildcards) are strongly improving, the market will be in an acute condition well before that onslaught.

Moodys says, “A large number of smaller banks, which constitute just 15 percent of total system assets but carry 50 percent of all CRE loans outstanding, will likely continue to struggle under the weight of their CRE exposures, and many will collapse.”

Bankregdata.com’s next charts from the first quarter of 2010 show the CRE non-performing and charge-off rate for the entire banking system. It also clearly indicates the completely delusional commitment of the regulators to the extend-and-pretend strategy. Little has been charged off.

Regardless of the unknown methodology used, the result of the stress test would have us believe that the total CRE debt against the underlying collateral of about $3.4 trillion means suffering losses of about 10 percent under the adverse scenario. More importantly, the exposure of the system beyond the largest 19 banks was not analyzed at all in the stress test. In addition, the focus of the test was only through the end of 2010. They conveniently overlooked the financing structure of almost all CRE beyond that point.
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail

Commercial Real Estate Lobby Ask For Taxpayer Aid To Help Recapitalize Banks Saddled With Billions In Underwater CRE Loans
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/commer ... ions-undew
Freddie Mac reported: "a net loss of $4.7 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, compared to a net loss of $6.7 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2010." and the FHFA requested another $1.8 billion from Treasury. (ht jb)

"We recognize that high unemployment and other factors still pose very real challenges for the housing market" said Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Haldeman, Jr.

Freddie Mac reported that their REO inventory increased 79% year over year, from 34,699 in Q2 2009 to 62,178 in Q2 2010. REO: Real Estate Owned.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Recession Causing a Banking Awakening in Tough-Hit Midwest
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/rec ... ening.html

Record High: 1 in 8 Americans Are Receiving Food Stamps
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/08/record-h ... rmation%29
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank says 600,000-700,000 more jobs will be lost in the next year. State, local, private contractors and other government dependent business will be mainly effected.

The recent $26 billion in federal aid is projected not to save enough jobs slow the progression of the failing job market.
http://www.examiner.com/x-60269-Scranto ... -next-year
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ― Pennsylvania State Police say they have nearly 300 trooper positions vacant and they don't know when they'll have the money to graduate a new cadet class because of state budget cuts.

State police funding has been cut $9.1 million this year and the training of any new officers is on hold.
http://kdka.com/wireapnewsfnpa/Pa.state ... 49769.html
New York's Legislature on Tuesday night passed a state budget that's more than four months late. The budget increases spending 2 percent, or less than inflation, a fraction of the nearly 10 percent increase in spending a year ago in the first year of a fiscal crisis. The 2010-11 budget completed Tuesday night includes a 5 percent cut -- about $1.4 billion -- in school aid and addresses a $9.2 billion deficit stemming from the fiscal crisis.

The Senate and Assembly agreed, at Paterson's insistence, on a contingency plan to deal with the possibility that $1 billion in promised Medicaid reimbursement won't come from Washington. Starting in September, Paterson will exact across-the-board funding cuts and in December will provide a more comprehensive plan, with the Legislature's input, to compensate for any lost aid.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... CLSC80.htm
There will be no U.S. economic recovery in the second half of 2010 – 13 charts showing weak housing trends, option ARM data, dramatic employment changes, and mortgage equity withdrawals.

n fact, we’ll look at 13 charts showing that a recession never really went away for most Americans. The exotic loans and lack of employment growth still ripple through the economy even as profits for banks are on the rise.
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/seco ... e+SoCal%29







Genetically modified canola found growing wild in Dakota

Pittsburgh - A University of Arkansas researcher has found genetically modified canola growing wild in Dakota -- in addition, she found two different GM varieties had interbred to produce a completely new GM canola.
Dr. Cynthia Sagers, an ecologist with the University of Arkansas, presented her findings to the 9th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America on Friday. Sagers said her findings showed there is a lack of "proper monitoring" and control of GM plants in the United States, reported Nature. Sagers said

"The extent of the escape is unprecedented."

NPR reported that all the varieties of GM canola that Sagers and her team found growing wild in Dakota were all modified to be resistant to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, but at least two different GM varieties bred together to produce a third variety of GM with a new trait, prompting Sagers to say

"What we've demonstrated in this study is a large-scale escape of a genetically modified crop in the United States."
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295612

Report finds drug industry funded studies almost always yield good results
http://www.naturalnews.com/029394_clini ... ustry.html

The Codex, Fluoride, Auschwitz, Monsanto Connection
http://farmwars.info/?p=3613&utm_source ... rm+Wars%29

Froot Loops contaminated with 2-methylnaphthalene chemical
http://www.naturalnews.com/029395_Froot ... alene.html

Castration drug given to kids as autism therapy
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-a ... full.story

The Patents of Mind Control
http://www.truthwinds.com/siterun_data/ ... 1202164025



The new world orders great city: Astana, Khazakhstan
http://welcometoafreeworld.blogspot.com ... stana.html

Obama Wants Mob Banker To Fill His Old Senate Seat
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/ ... enate-seat


Remington VERSA MAX Synthetic Semi-Auto 12-Gauge Shotgun with Self-Regulating Multi-Load VersaPort System: Is this gas-operated shotgun reliable enough for military combat? Only one way to find out.
http://www.defensereview.com/remington- ... -find-out/

Tactical Short Barreled Shotgun
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

Spiritual survival tips

It’s not all bullets, beans, and band-aids. Survival is just as much emotional, mental, and spiritual as it is having lots of STUFF. This list was submitted by Dennis S. who notes, “I know some of this may not be politically correct in some arenas, but is the best advice this 69 year old grandfather can offer to prepare for and follow during anything the future has to offer.”

1. Establish (or strengthen) a real ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. Work toward trusting and relying on Him.
3. Have a regular quiet time for meditation and communicating praise and worship.
4. Establish a prayer journal, noting requests, answers to prayer, and blessings.
5. Be thankful.
6. Take steps to resolve conflicts with loved ones quickly.
7. Share emotions honestly but kindly, not allowing toxic emotions to remain inside.
8. Maintain transparency by admitting faults and shortcomings.
9. Have neither pride in own abilities or accomplishments nor the false humility of belittling self as worthless.
10. Forgive self and others totally and completely with no resentment remaining.
11. Establish an attitude of giving (including non financially) and helping without being asked.
12. Lovingly train our children/grandchildren by precept and the example of our own actions.
13. Follow the Golden Rule of treating and speaking to others with unconditional positive regard.
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/08/09/sp ... ival-tips/



UPDATE:

U.S. electricity blackouts skyrocketing
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation ... tml?hpt=C1

....dilapidated infrastructure is dying....

The Crime of the Century: What BP and the US Government Don't Want You to Know, Part I
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cop ... 62971.html

Obama’s CIA Pedigree
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/07 ... -pedigree/


UPDATE 2:


Container ship crashes, tips near Mumbai
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynewspoint/2010 ... int_ts3376

Gulf relief well down to final, tricky 100 feet
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

....what a crack up - Which well are we talking about????




Smoke over Western Russia

Russia’s wildfires continued to rage on August 9, 2010, producing thick smoke that blanketed much of western Russia. The fire activity and the smoke seemed to be concentrated in two areas, divided by the Volga River. In this true-color image, the most intense fires in the western cluster appear to be south and east of Moscow. Distinct plumes of smoke can be seen rising from several fires immediately southeast of the capital. These fires and others in the region envelop the city in choking smoke, completely obscuring the city from view. Moscow’s approximate location is marked in the image.

East of the Volga River, the fires are concentrated in and near the Ural Mountains. These fires are also visible by the plumes of smoke they are emitting.

On the morning of August 9, 557 wildfires burned in Russia, reported BBC News. Smoke from the fires releases carbon monoxide, fine particles, and ozone-producing chemicals into the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide levels were twice the accepted level in Moscow on August 9, said BBC News.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on August 9, 2010. The image is a composite of three separate satellite overpasses. A diagonal line marks the boundary between each successive overpass. The large image is the highest-resolution version of the image, but the image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss

Heatwave in Russia
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45069

Pakistan floods threaten key barrage in southern Sindh
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10910778

It's official! Social Security now bankrupt
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=189329

Why Obama is not first 'imposter' president and won't be the last
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/09/ ... tml?hpt=C1

'Afghanistan to expel US security firms'
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13 ... =351020403

Personal income declined in 2009 in most of the nation’s metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

The combined REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory for Fannie, Freddie and the FHA increased by 13% in Q2 2010 from Q1 2010. The REO inventory (lender Real Estate Owned) increased 74% compared to Q2 2009 (year-over-year comparison).
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Iran Unveils New Submarines and Makes More Persian Gulf Warnings
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/70728

Rise in wheat prices to strain state budget
http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=29073

US Debt Duration Grows As T-Bill Share Plunges To Pre-Crisis Levels
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-deb ... sis-levels

China Takes The Property Bubble To A Whole New Level: An Explosion Of (Vacant) Inland Cities Is Coming
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/next-c ... and-cities

Market Volume Tumbles To 50% Below Average As Dislocations Abound
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/market ... ons-abound











User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

S510 - Illegal To Grow, Share, Trade, Sell Homegrown Food SB S510 Will Allow Government To Put You In Jail ....
http://www.rense.com/general91/dehe.htm

The Government is Dealing with the Oil Spill Like the Soviets Dealt with Chernobyl
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/08/ ... spill.html

Iran Retaliates Against Sanctions: To Drop All Trade In "Filthy" Euro, Dollar
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/iran-r ... uro-dollar

Another Revision Of The Q2 GDP Number By JPM: Firm Now Estimates That The Real Economic Performance Was 1.3% (From 2.4%)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/anothe ... -was-13-24
The monsoon season of 2010 continues to generate havoc in Asia, as lingering rains from the latest monsoon low continue to affect hard-hit Pakistan, China, and India. At least 702 are now reported dead and 1,042 are missing in China's Gansu province, due to torrential monsoon rains that triggered a deadly landslide and extreme flooding on Sunday. At least 137 died in floods and landslides in the neighboring Indian state of Kashmir over the weekend, with 500 people missing. Monsoon flooding and landslides have also killed at least 65 people in Afghanistan in the past two weeks. But no country has suffered more than Pakistan, where monsoon floods have destroyed huge portions of the nation's infrastructure and killed at least 1600 people. The number of people affected or needing assistance has been estimated to be as high as 13 million people--8% of the nation's population. The disaster is the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history, and is rightfully being called "Pakistan's Katrina."

94L
A 1010 mb low pressure system (94L) near the Florida Keys is generating disorganized heavy thunderstorms over Florida and the adjacent waters, and could become a tropical or subtropical depression as early as Wednesday. Current Key West radar shows the rotation of the storm, but the thunderstorm activity has not yet organized into low-level spiral bands. A few areas in the Keys and extreme South Florida have seen 1 - 2 inches of rain thus far from 94L. Wind shear is currently a moderate 10 - 20 knots over 94L, and water temperatures are very warm, 30 - 31°C. Water vapor satellite imagery shows that 94L is forming beneath an upper-level low with plenty of dry air, and there is a substantial flow of dry, continental air wrapping into 94L. This dry air is retarding the development of 94L, and may force the storm to organize into a subtropical storm instead of a tropical storm. A subtropical storm typically has a large, cloud free center of circulation, with very heavy thunderstorm activity in a band removed at least 100 miles from the center. The difference between a subtropical storm and a tropical storm is not that important as far as the winds they can generate, but tropical storms generate more rain. There is no such thing as a subtropical hurricane. If a subtropical storm intensifies enough to have hurricane force winds, than it must have become fully tropical. It usually takes at least two days for a subtropical storm to make the transition to a tropical storm.

93L
A tropical wave (Invest 93) in the middle Atlantic Ocean is close to tropical depression status. The disturbance has a well-defined surface circulation, but only a limited amount of heavy thunderstorm activity, thanks to dry air and wind shear of 10 - 20 knots affecting it due to a large upper-level low pressure system to the west. Wind shear is expected to stay in the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, over the next four days, which is low enough that 93L could become a tropical depression at any time during that period. NHC is giving 93L a 60% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Thursday morning. The GFS, GFDL, and HWRF models predict 93L will develop, and the GFDL forecasts that the storm will become a hurricane. A strong trough of low pressure moving across the central Atlantic is recurving 93L to the north, and the system should only be a concern to shipping interests. None of the reliable computer models are forecasting tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic over the next seven days, other than for 93L and 94L.

Moscow hits 99°F again today
Temperatures at Moscow's Domodedovo airport hit 37°C (99°F) today, the 28th day in row that temperatures have exceeded 30°C (86°F) in Moscow. The average high temperature for August 10 is 21°C (69°F). Moscow's high temperature have averaged 15°C (27°F) above average for the first ten days of August--a truly extraordinary anomaly. Smog and smoke from wildfires continued to blanket the city today, with the Russian Meteorological Agency reporting that pollution due to carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and hydrocarbons exceeding the safe limit by factors of 1.2 - 2.2. Air pollution levels peaked at 6.5 times the safe level on Saturday. As I reported in yesterday's post, the heat wave has likely killed at least 15,000 people in Russia so far. There is some slight relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures of 31 - 33°C (88 - 91°F) Wednesday though Sunday--still 20°F above normal, but better than the 27°F above normal so far this month.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1572

China Mudslide Points to Costs of Deforestation
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 05034.html

Rescue a bright spot as 700-plus die in China mudslides
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html

Russian Fires Approach Nuclear Plants
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... ar-plants/

Russians fight to keep wildfires away from top secret nuke plants
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... ities.html

Analysis: Drought to crimp not cripple Russia recovery
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67922Z20100810

The BP Cover-Up
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010 ... n-cover-up


...blog feeds aren't working today....gonna have to call it quits till I get the problem figured out...









pritchet1
captain of 1,000
Posts: 3600

Re: Blipits

Post by pritchet1 »

Websites are continuing to be shut down by government(s). Especially those that targeted the POTUS in any derogatory manner.

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

pritchet1 wrote:Websites are continuing to be shut down by government(s). Especially those that targeted the POTUS in any derogatory manner.
Google has shut me down several times now. My content I back up and shift out to 5 or 6 other blogs I have in case they make it permanent. But I rarely add to it anymore as I've lost interest for the most part in getting the word out to the world (now pretty much focused on LDS FF audience....but losing interest there as well)....as the information is there and readily accessible for those that want it until the internet is turned off.....which appears to be coming shortly.

Now I primarily use my blog as an information collector through feeds as its quick to set up and monitor. Problem is transferring feeds to other blogs is a bit of a pain as I'm not very html savy......and feeds are constantly changing and dynamic. New ones are discovered and old ones die.

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Col. Flagg
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 16961
Location: Utah County

Re: Blipits

Post by Col. Flagg »

Jason wrote:
pritchet1 wrote:Websites are continuing to be shut down by government(s). Especially those that targeted the POTUS in any derogatory manner.
Google has shut me down several times now. My content I back up and shift out to 5 or 6 other blogs I have in case they make it permanent. But I rarely add to it anymore as I've lost interest for the most part in getting the word out to the world (now pretty much focused on LDS FF audience....but losing interest there as well)....as the information is there and readily accessible for those that want it until the internet is turned off.....which appears to be coming shortly.

Now I primarily use my blog as an information collector through feeds as its quick to set up and monitor. Problem is transferring feeds to other blogs is a bit of a pain as I'm not very html savy......and feeds are constantly changing and dynamic. New ones are discovered and old ones die.
Honestly, I don't know how they'll ever get justification to shut down the internet, unless they do it and blame it on a cyber-attack? There are too many consequences for them to do it as simply a 'decision', such as businesses disappearing, income loss, etc. If they do it, it will have to be done under the guise of a massive cyber-attack (IMHO), even though they now have the legislation to do it 'legally'. :lol:

User avatar
Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Col. Flagg wrote:
Jason wrote:
pritchet1 wrote:Websites are continuing to be shut down by government(s). Especially those that targeted the POTUS in any derogatory manner.
Google has shut me down several times now. My content I back up and shift out to 5 or 6 other blogs I have in case they make it permanent. But I rarely add to it anymore as I've lost interest for the most part in getting the word out to the world (now pretty much focused on LDS FF audience....but losing interest there as well)....as the information is there and readily accessible for those that want it until the internet is turned off.....which appears to be coming shortly.

Now I primarily use my blog as an information collector through feeds as its quick to set up and monitor. Problem is transferring feeds to other blogs is a bit of a pain as I'm not very html savy......and feeds are constantly changing and dynamic. New ones are discovered and old ones die.
Honestly, I don't know how they'll ever get justification to shut down the internet, unless they do it and blame it on a cyber-attack? There are too many consequences for them to do it as simply a 'decision', such as businesses disappearing, income loss, etc. If they do it, it will have to be done under the guise of a massive cyber-attack (IMHO), even though they now have the legislation to do it 'legally'. :lol:
They are spending billions ($1.5 billion for computer building at Camp Williams - for comparison Utah budget for the state for coming fiscal year is $11.2 billion) to be able to not only monitor....but actively engage in policing and control. I think we are within 12 to 18 months of them being able to turn off websites/blogs/etc as needed.
Last edited by Anonymous on August 10th, 2010, 6:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

pritchet1
captain of 1,000
Posts: 3600

Re: Blipits

Post by pritchet1 »

I'm turning off mine later this month (August 2010) due to "economic conditions". :shock:

Squally
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1296

Re: Blipits

Post by Squally »

Jason wrote:
pritchet1 wrote:Websites are continuing to be shut down by government(s). Especially those that targeted the POTUS in any derogatory manner.
Google has shut me down several times now. My content I back up and shift out to 5 or 6 other blogs I have in case they make it permanent. But I rarely add to it anymore as I've lost interest for the most part in getting the word out to the world (now pretty much focused on LDS FF audience....but losing interest there as well)....as the information is there and readily accessible for those that want it until the internet is turned off.....which appears to be coming shortly.

Now I primarily use my blog as an information collector through feeds as its quick to set up and monitor. Problem is transferring feeds to other blogs is a bit of a pain as I'm not very html savy......and feeds are constantly changing and dynamic. New ones are discovered and old ones die.
I just wanted thank you for all you have posted here and on the forum. You have definately helped me to realize many things that I previously had not understood.

Thanks for blipits and and all the info you share here on economics, politics, finance etc...

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