Which is 'in the world's interest'?

"Money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world. And part of the issue in convincing people to put sanctions on a specific country is to convince them that it's in the world's interest that they forgo their own financial interest."
President George W. Bush Feb. 14, 2007

In other words, when The Chief wants to
go kick some ass in some far off land, he has
trouble convincing the moneyed interests.

Who will win is hard to say.

A prelude?

Keep your eyes on markets world-wide.

It started in China. Question is, where's
it gonna go? Just a blip?

I doubt it.

Here's the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

What I can't get to appear in this chart is
a 40 million share (a massive spike) volume
that was there along the bottom of the chart
when the market was trading and taking about
a 600 point dive at the same time.

Important? Only because a large portion of
the planet follows and puts money on these
twits.

When you know which way the herd is running
you know how to avoid that stampede.

Some trappings of power

This [politics] is all role playing, and it’s designed to achieve one thing: power. Over you.

Full essay.

Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half.
...

The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. We are not there yet. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt - down from $100 in the late 1970s.

Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade.
...

"We don't need subsidies, we just need governments to get out of the way and do no harm. They've spent $170bn subsidising nuclear power over the last thirty years," he said.

I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I can cut that
power cord. This breakthru may just come at a
very opportune time, if donkeys are to remain
just pets. It would also topple large parts of The
System giving independence to each of us,
disruptive technology at its best.

Read.

Ripped from Bill St. Clair

Economic storm brewing in America

As we report today, the rate of insider stock sales by company directors on both sides of the Atlantic is the highest since records began 20 years ago, with sales outnumbering purchases by 60:1.

Smart money. What more needs to be said?

Read.

An Elliott Wave Analysis of the 21st Century

Elliott Wave Theory is a complex topic and
something I've studied for many years.

The simplest way to describe it is that it's
a theory. The classic and correct
way to define a theory is that it works
under certain conditions. An internal
combustion engine is a theory, by the way.

If you don't do pattern recognition well or
know anything of Elliott Wave, this will
probably not blow your skirt up but give it
a try.

It's a long and grim read but I found it
well-reasoned and couldn't stop.

After reading, you may want to go hunt
for a cave. The authors see the worst
possible outcome of the current
"civilization" I've ever seen.

Here it is.

Sideways moving crabs

Fine burlesque comedy.

Watch.

The Big Lies just get bigger

Big government requires big lies — and not just on wars but across the board. The more powerful government becomes, the more abuses it commits and the more lies it must tell. Interventions beget debacles that require cover-ups and denials. The more the government screws up, the more evidence the government is obliged to bury or deny. The government becomes addicted to the growth of its own revenue and power — and this growth cannot be maintained without denying or hiding the adverse effects of government power. Likewise, rulers become addicted to prestige and adulation — and these often cannot survive honest accounts of their actions. Lies have propelled Leviathan’s growth.

Kamin’s Third Law:

"Combined total taxation from all levels of government always increases (until the government is replaced by war or revolution)."

This seems to go with the size of
the lies.

There also appears to be implied in
The Big Lie argument that smaller lies,
i.e. smaller government are what’s
necessary for “reform”.

Now read Kamin’s Third Law again.

I see a hamster treadmill in man's future
...again.

Looking in the wrong places...again

Now Branson is offering 25 million dollars of his
own money as a prize for anyone who can reduce
CO2 in the atmosphere over a 10 year period.

What about the other greenhouse gas the planet
oozes by the ton?

Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential.[1] When averaged over 100 years each kg of CH4 warms the Earth 23 times as much as the same mass of CO2.

Now if someone could just work out how to trap
it and burn it, we'd have enough energy to thaw
hell after it froze over.

By the way, no one has shown me methane is
human caused or can be controlled.

Anyway, following the links shows conflicting
information which just tells me we don't know
squat about the global climate. Pontificators
would have you believe otherwise.

Then there's this and this, just two of
many articles and studies.

The geocentric view of earth was believed
by everyone for thousands of years.

Now we have the belief that man is the cause
and center of climate warming.

If the Universe could laugh at signifying
earthmonkey's hubris, it would.

Escape from America, Belize style

Before moving to a foreign land, I suggest
you live there until you're satisfied it's what
you want then...

...go fur it.

Reading someone else's account is looking
through their "window" on the place.

Tomorrow I will not worry about losing my ass in the declining real estate market. I will not commute three nerve grinding hours a day, or nervously engorge myself in front of my laptop for hours on end. Nor will I or wake up with the crimes of the empire running like adding machine tape in my head, annotated with all the ways I contributed to those crimes by participating in the American lifestyle. After more than two years of effort, I'm outta the gilded gulag, by damned, and tell myself that I have at last quit being part of the problem — or at least as much as much as anyone can without living stark naked in a Himalayan cave and toasting insects over a dung fire.

Take a look.

Universal service

You are an atom in the vast universe of government
bullshit, no matter where you live. --jomama

I can't imagine anyone outside of government not
already knowing this.

Swiss low tax levels now a "crime"

One thief deserves a bigger one...

In a move that is both remarkable and disturbing, the European Commission plans to file a complaint - and threaten protectionist trade barriers - because attractive Swiss tax policies are supposedly a violation of a free-trade accord. The bureaucrats in Brussels are not arguing that Switzerland is imposing barriers against EU products. Instead, the Commission actually is taking the position that low taxes are attracting businesses that might otherwise operate in high-tax nations.

Read.

Moving in the right direction

...but using the same tools of aggrandizement.

Can he see what's coming, i.e. the FedGov cutting
funding?

Who will pay for his grand plans?

SOMETHING interesting is happening in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have grasped the essential truth that no nation — not even the United States — can be managed successfully from the center once it reaches a certain scale. Moreover, the bold proposals that Mr. Schwarzenegger is now making for everything from universal health care to global warming point to the kind of decentralization of power which, once started, could easily shake up America’s fundamental political structure.(My emphasis)

Read.

Are you ready for this?

Don’t wonder if "it" (a fascist takeover of the United States government) can happen here. It has happened here. This administration can wage war when, where and how it pleases, for as long as it pleases, for whatever reason it wants and – under current conditions – there is nobody in America, within or without the government, who can stop it. The US Government is effectively a dictatorship in all matters of war and peace.

If, at any point, this dictatorship felt itself in real, impending danger from Congress or the people, it might react like a wounded animal. What if, despite the best efforts of the Republican and Democratic establishment, talk of a real impeachment movement (even a credible whisper thereof) were heard in the halls of congress? Considering the character of those in the White House, and their history of desperate and murderous political solutions (the "surge" comes to mind), the notion that the US Government could attack its own citizens in a false-flag terrorist operation (to force lockstep, "wartime" obedience) is no longer a fringe conspiracy theory.

If waves of Americans eventually show up on the streets in sustained, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer demonstrations, so forceful as to cause civil disruptions and an actual threat to the existence of the Administration, it will draw government troops, whether those troops be police, National Guard, the US Army (posse comitatus be damned) or contractors like those from Blackwater Security, dispatched fresh from their war crimes against the people of Iraq to deal as they see fit with the people of the United States.

Read.

A beginning

In Beirut's religiously mixed Mazraa commercial district, almost every shop now has a sign banning all talk of politics.

"It's not just for the customers; it's a reminder for us, too," said Ahmed Baasiri, a jewelry shop owner. He said businesses in the area made a collective decision last week to post the signs and take down political slogans and pictures of politicians.

The article.

Ripped from The Freeway To Serfdom.

Watch the bouncing ball

We're fucked if most of us don't have the
perceptual tools to avoid the distractions.

After you see this video, imagine a witness report
to a crime or an accident.

See what I mean.

Foreclosures Soaring

January 28, 2007 -- The number of New Yorkers forced into foreclosure is skyrocketing, especially in Nassau County, where foreclosures have jumped a stunning 82 percent in the past year.

According to foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac, the number of city foreclosures went up 15 percent in 2006 from the year before, while Long Island jumped 55 percent. The national rate surged by 42 percent.

Full report.

The volume is increasing

As we know, or should know if we pay attention, the “war on terrorism” is a ruse, not even categorized as blowback, as folks over on the so-called left keeping babbling, but an engineered ruse. It’s all about stealing our treasure, not that there is anything left but a massive mountain of debt for our grand children, and with Bush’s latest “budget,” debt and misery for their children as well. Call it time travel debt, already threatening the future, that is if we have a future by the time these crooks are finished. In fact, we have nothing to look forward to but an old age of dumpster diving, or at least those of us who ridiculously are called “baby boomers,” largely chumps for Joe’s tax, raised by way of manufactured fear and dread.

Joe Lieberman can stick his “war on terrorism tax” where the sun doesn’t shine.

Kurt doesn't even know the third of it.
(See the chart in the article.)

A look at another Glorious Leader and the results

The [Zimbabwe] central bank’s latest response to these problems, announced this week, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who raises prices or wages will be arrested and punished. Only a “firm social contract” to end corruption and restructure the economy will bring an end to the crisis, said the reserve bank governor, Gideon Gono.

Bwahahahaha.

If you think the institution (the central bank and the
government) that created the problem can fix it, you
need some serious help.

That growing loss of control is apparent. The black market, which already flourishes beyond the reach of tax collectors and regulators, is likely to grab an even larger share of the economy when the government freezes prices in March, because stores will be unable to make a profit selling products at government-fixed prices.

Automatic. Bank on it.

For the government, “the big problem about Zimbabwe is that the one thing you can’t rig is the economy,” said one Harare political analyst, who refused to be identified for fear of being persecuted. “When it fails, it fails. And that can have unpredictable effects.”

...something that almost no one anywhere
understands, particularly The Controllers who
believe that everything is controllable by them.

Now imagine yourself as one of those citizen victims.

What would you do in such circumstances?

Your answers may be critical to your survival,
no matter which area of the planet you live in.

Read.

"Russia Is Slipping Back into an Authoritarian Empire"

...not realizing the empire part has gone

Sorokin: Our government hasn't become accustomed to the fact yet that Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Baltic states -- in fact, the entire former Soviet Union -- are now independent countries.

Coming soon to a government near you.



See the interview with Vladimir Sorokin on his book, Day of the Oprichnik.

The Effect of Power

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." --William Colby, former CIA director...as quoted by Dave McGowan in his book Derailing Democracy

Thanks to Rick White.

States Take Action To Oppose National Driver's License

The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real I.D. Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases.

Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real I.D. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network.

Keep in mind here the continuing decline of
the Nation State.

Full report.

Further insanity

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

Instant Dark Age.

Like I've said. Force always eats itself. You can
try to be one of the ones on the sidelines.
You have my full support but it doesn't look like
that will do you much good.

Read.

Thanks to Rick White.

Government is a hoax

"Government" is a group of men and women providing the service of protecting "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" at the barrel of a gun. We have no choice in accepting and paying for their wonderful services. Their services are so valuable we’re compelled to accept and pay for them. And non-political libertarians and voluntaryists are the extremists?

Read.

'time bomb' mortgages

Analysts estimate that between $1 trillion and $2 trillion will be owed on these mortgage loans due to resetting in 2007 with an average 25 percent increase in monthly payments, meaning “payment shock,” said Allen Fishbein, Consumer Federation of America director of housing and credit policy.

See the whole report.

Out of control...again?

From Davos, Switzerland, where the men yodel
and these clueless pontificators pontificate...

This last point is important, and indeed the primary reason policymakers are increasingly useless. The marginal price of risk
is set by the one who takes it, who now resides far away from the tentacles of the central bankers. Thus when a Chinese buyer purchases US risk, he in effect enters a "no man's zone" between the central bankers of China and the US. As with all no man's zones, the financial world has its own code of conduct, one that is far removed from the teak-stained halls that the mandarins of Washington or Beijing are used to.

Read.

The Living Dead

Up until now, I’ve always thought of the American Empire in conventional terms as a continuing enterprise that, sooner or later, would decline and fall. No more. Today I began thinking of it as dead, ethically, that is. This helps to fix its place among good and bad human institutions. I think we can think of the state in the same way. Why give these institutions one shred of credit more than they deserve?

As I see it, the Empire was stillborn ethically. Whatever life it had and has, was and is, ethically invalid. Its life is drawn from us the living; we die as it battens on our blood. Like a vampire, the Empire is morally dead. It lives by night and darkness, has no reflection in any mirror, and can’t survive without inflicting death on the living. The body of the Empire keeps on fighting for blood, round after round; but it’s a moral zombie. Unfortunately for us, we are part of it. As in the Dracula story, we sustain it, we are hypnotized by it, and after awhile we become a disciple of the dreadful creature. We see and live the night and day of the living dead.
...
Domestically and internationally, the machinery of state surrealistically clanks on, but it is hopelessly clogged up. Its rhythm lacks measure and cadence in its chaos of nervous exhaustion. It goes through the motions, incanting the tired slogans and spells of its once-powerful magic. The bizarre atmosphere dispensed by the strange and unbelievable practices of the American Empire contains no life-giving oxygen. It suffocates whatever it envelops with a poisonous gas of laws, pressures, and regulations. Morally and ethically dead, dispersing ever-more utterly outlandish emanations, the machinery of state deals death upon whatever it touches.

Then he gets to this...

Then we have to take steps not to repeat these massive collective sins.

Who's this "we"? I didn't have anything to
do with it, voluntarily.

Otherwise, quite fine analysis.