The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
YouTube Added: 19.02.2013
– Mount Etna’s Dramatic New Eruption: Video (LiveScience, Feb 19, 2013):
Italy’s Mount Etna sent lava and gas shooting toward the stars early this morning (Feb. 19), the first big eruption for the volcano in 2013.
The famous Sicilian volcano burst to life overnight, sending a fountain of fire into the air. The dramatic scene was captured in a video by Klaus Dorschfeldt, a videographer and webmaster at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.
– Robbers breach gate, steal $50 million in diamonds at Belgian airport (CNN, Feb 19, 2013):
Night had fallen. Some 20 airplane passengers had taken their seats for the short hop from Brussels, Belgium, to Zurich, Switzerland.Unknown to them, a precious cargo was being loaded into the airplane hold along with their suitcases: $50 million in rough and polished diamonds.
But the diamonds would never reach their final destination.
”This event was so much bigger than anything we’ve seen on video that it doesn’t surprise me the guess was off by three orders of magnitude.’
– Margaret Campbell-Brown, physics professor at the University of Western Ontario
– Russian meteorite 1,000 times bigger than originally thought (FOX News, Feb 19, 2013):
It turns out the meteor that landed in Russia last week was a bit bigger than the 10 tons first reported. About 1,000 times bigger.
When a hunk of rock raced out of the morning skies over Russia on Friday and exploded with nearly 500 kilotons of energy, early size estimates from the Russian Academy of Sciences that were carried by the Associated Press, Reuters and other news wires pegged it on the small size, with a weight of about 10 tons.
Oops.
Later in the evening, after studying infrasound data from stations around the world, NASA released a new estimate revising that first guess upward by a thousand-fold: The meteorite actually weighed closer to 10,000 tons, scientists said — approximately as much as 170 M1 Abrams tanks.
Read moreRussian Meteor 1,000 Times Bigger Than Originally Thought
– Just Say NO: Seattle Residents Kill the City’s Drone Program (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Feb 19, 2013):
The anti-surveillance state movement is gaining traction and following Charlottesville, Virginia becoming the first city to pass anti-drone legislation, the engaged citizenry of Seattle have now succeeded in killing their city’s own drone program earlier this month. On the state level, while legislation has been introduced in several places, it appears Florida is closest to enacting domestic surveillance drone regulations into law. The title of the bill is the “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act.”
From Forbes:
Read moreJust Say NO: Seattle Residents Kill the City’s Drone Program
– Super-Rich Hold Up To $32 Trillion In Offshore Havens: Report (Reuters, July 22, 2012):
Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday.
The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts – excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion.
The research was carried out for pressure group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.
He used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks.
– Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves (Economic Collapse, Feb 19, 2013):
Is America really “the land of the free”? Most people think of money as simply a medium of exchange that makes economic transactions more convenient, but the truth is that it is much more than that. Money is also a form of social control. Just think about it. What did you do this morning? Well, if you are like most Americans, you either got up and went to work (to make money) or to school (to learn the skills that you will need to make money). We spend a great deal of our lives pursuing the almighty dollar, and there are literally millions of laws, rules and regulations about how we earn our money, about how we spend our money and about how much of our money the government gets to take from us. Not that money is a bad thing in itself. Without money, it would be really hard to have a modern society. Unfortunately, our money is based on debt, and debt levels in the United States have exploded to absolutely unprecedented levels in recent years. The borrower is the servant of the lender, and if you are like most Americans, nearly every major purchase that you make in your life is going to involve debt. Do you want to get a college education so that you can get a “good job”? You are told to get a student loan. Do you want a car? You are encouraged to get an auto loan and to stretch out the payments for as long as possible. Do you want a home? You are probably going to end up with a big fat mortgage. And of course I could go on and on and on. The cold, hard truth of the matter is that most Americans are debt slaves. Most of us spend our entire lives trapped in an endless cycle of debt that we never escape until we die, and meanwhile our years of hard labor are greatly enriching those that own our debts.
– Connecticut proposes bill for forced mental health checks on homeschoolers ?(Natural News, Feb 19, 2013):
Connecticut officials are proposing legislation that would require state investigations of children on an unprecedented level, critics contend, by calling for a “confidential behavioral health assessment” of every public school student in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades, as well as every homeschooled student aged 12, 14 and 17.
The proposed legislation, called Bill 374, has been labeled by critics as little more than a shocking home invasion measure, WorldNetDaily reported.
“It’s outrageous that state officials could come into private homes and potentially remove children if they are assessed as a threat as a result of the investigation,” Dee Black, senior counsel to the Home School Legal Defense Association, told the website. “Regardless of what state officials claim, I don’t believe the results [of the investigations] will be held confidential.”
Read moreConnecticut Proposes Bill For Forced Mental Health Checks On Homeschoolers
– Presenting The College Whose Graduates Have A 62% Student Loan Default Rate (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):
It is common knowledge by now that the US has a student loan problem. Specifically, a subprime-sized, student loan default problem, which as was reported last year, has now surpassed a 23% default rate at “for profit” institutions. Yet as all statistical measures, this one too deals in means and medians: very boring, impersonal metrics. Where the truly stunning data emerge is when one performs a granular college by college analysis of the US higher learning system, which is precisely what the WSJ has done, breaking down some 3500 colleges and universities by annual cost, graduation rate, median amount borrowed and most importantly, student-loan default rate. In this context we feel quite bad for the students who graduate from ICPR Junior College of Puerto Rico (or rather the 52% of them who graduate), with a modest $2,250 in student loans to cover the otherwise manageable tuition of $7,158, as a mindboggling 62% of them end up defaulting on their loans!
…
– Greenpeace wants nuclear plant suppliers held accountable for Fukushima crisis (Japan Times, Feb 20, 2013):
The international environmental group Greenpeace launched an online campaign Tuesday saying nuclear power plant manufacturers should be held accountable for the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Greenpeace wants Japan’s law on compensation for nuclear damage to be revised so that the companies who designed and built the reactors pay as well.
Read moreGreenpeace Wants Nuclear Plant Suppliers Held Accountable For Fukushima Crisis
I find the term ‘The END’ very appropriate, not for Fukushima, but for Japan itself.
– Not Appropriate to Say Japan N-Accident Contained: Minister (Jiji Press, Feb. 19 2013):
Tokyo –It is not appropriate to say that the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s <9501> Fukushima No.1 power plant has been contained, industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Tuesday.
“The word, ‘end,’ is inappropriate because many tasks remain unresolved,” Motegi told a House of Councillors Budget Committee meeting, speaking of a declaration of the end of the accident that was issued by the previous government.
“We don’t use that word.”
Read moreMinister Toshimitsu Motegi: Not Appropriate To Say Fukushima Contained
– Santelli Bashes Central Bankers’ “Sand-Castle Economies” (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):
It has been four years since Rick Santelli’s epic “are you listening Mr. President?” speech and the bad behavior has merely been more and more rewarded. Assisted by the enablers of the world – Central Bankers – and their liquidity pump of awesomeness, Santelli exclaims that all we are doing is “promoting bad behavior,” as the elites “build sand castle economies.” His frustration is contagious as he outlines just what has not happened in the last four years – from no-budget to blow-out deficits, and from grand deals to grand bargains to no deals, and Europe’s imploding economies – he sums it up perfectly – “we’re gonna need a lot of luck.”
– GlaxoSmithKline creates monstrous six-in-one vaccine jab specifically for children in developing countries (Natural News, Feb 19, 2013):
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which recently pleaded guilty to the largest drug industry scandal in recorded history (http://www.naturalnews.com), has partnered with an India-based pharmaceutical company to develop a six-in-one, single-dose vaccine jab that will deliver vaccine material for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis), hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type B specifically to the world’s poorest people living in developing countries.
According to reports, GSK will add the contents of its injectable polio shot to a pentavalent vaccine already being manufactured by Biological E Ltd. that contains the other five vaccines. Together, as part of a 50-50 joint venture, the two companies will manufacture the hexavalent vaccine, which will rival similar combination vaccines for polio currently being developed and administered by rival drug companies in India such as Serum Institute of India Ltd. and Sanofi Pasteur.
– U.S. farmers may stop planting GMOs after horrific crop yields (Natural News, Feb 19, 2013):
Some farmers across the United States may stop planting genetically modified crops after poor yields are increasing costs beyond what they can absorb.
According to Farmers Weekly, those farmers are considering returning to conventional seed after increased pest resistance and crop failures have meant smaller GM crop yields over non-GM counterparts.
Read moreU.S. Farmers May Stop Planting GMOs After Horrific Crop Yields
– Is Nigeria, And Its Light Sweet Crude, About To Be Drawn Into The Mali “Liberation” Campaign? (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):
Precisely a month ago, when we last looked at the ongoing French campaign in Mali, whose diplomatic justification before the people of the “democratic” world was the eradication of “insurgents”, and various other “Al Qaeda rebels”, we asked readers, rhetorically, to look at a map of Mali and tell us what they see.
“Nothing. Mali is one of the most irrelevant countries in West Africa from a resource standpoint, and what happens inside of it is certainly irrelevant from a greater geopolitical standpoint. What is more important is what this map doesn’t show, specifically the name of the country located a few hundred miles to the south: Nigeria.
Now Nigeria is important: very important. Or rather, Nigerian light sweet, one of the highest quality crudes in the world, is. And thanks to the “bungled” French peacemaking attempt, the US now has a critical foothold in what is the most strategically placed stretch of desert in Western Africa, a place where US “military trainers” will now be deployed at will. Be on the lookout for curious escalations in violence around the capital Abuja, and key port city Lagos, in the coming months once the current Mali fracas is long forgotten.”
It appears that Nigeria will be drawn into the fray far sooner than even we expected following today’s news that Islamist militants from neighboring Nigeria abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in northern Cameroon on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said. Next up: Al Qaeda is mysteriously discovered to be aiding and abetting “evil” insurgent Malians out of Nigeria, and the French campaign, with the generous and stealthy support of the US, shifts slowly but surely southward to its ultimate destination: liberating all that Nigerian light sweet oil.
From Reuters:
Flashback:
– Watch Bernanke Lie To Congress: Monetizing The Debt (The Daily Bail):
“The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.”
– Fed Buys Back 30 Year Bond Auctioned Off Last Thursday (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):
Earmuffs time for those people (all utterly clueless three or so of them) that the Fed does not monetize the US debt.From last Thursday, the the US Treasury so generously issued $16 billion in 30 year bond (Cusip: QZ4)…
Read moreFed Buys Back 30 Year Bond Auctioned Off Last Thursday
– EU approves 500-strong military mission in Mali (PressTV, Feb 18, 2013):
The European Union (EU) has formally given the go-ahead to the launch of a 500-strong military mission in Mali to support France in its war on the West African country.
During a Monday session, European Union foreign ministers formally approved the final phase in setting up the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) to purportedly train the Malian army.
– US to play active military role in Mali: US Senator (PressTV, Feb 18, 2013):
An American Senator says the United States is likely to play a more active military role in Mali, where a French-led war is raging, after the West African country holds elections.
“There is the hope that there will be additional support from the United States in these and other areas, but… American law prohibits direct assistance to the Malian military following the coup,” Senator Christopher Coons, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, told journalists in the Malian capital, Bamako, on Monday.
Read moreUS Senator: US To Play Active Military Role In Mali
– Mikhail Pakhomov Dead: Body Of Russian Lawmaker Found In Barrel Filled With Cement (Huffington Post, Feb 18, 2013):
Police made a gruesome discovery in a private garage in the Noginsky district of the Moscow region on Sunday night. A body found hidden in a metal barrel filled with cement reportedly belongs to Russian lawmaker Mikhail Pakhomov.
“Pakhomov’s body was discovered in a barrel of cement near the village of Obukhovo in the Moscow Region district of Noginsk,” a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee told state news agency RIA Novosti.
“Investigators have gathered enough evidence to establish the violent nature of Pakhomov’s death,” the Committee also said, according to SkyNews.
Read moreBody Of Russian Lawmaker Mikhail Pakhomov Found In Barrel Filled With Cement
– Feds buying enough bullets for ’24-year war’ (WND, Feb 17, 2013)
Federal, non-military agencies, noted radio host Mark Levin last week, have purchased enough ammunition recently to not only shoot every American five times, but also engage in a prolonged, domestic war.
The numbers are based on recent reports that put the total federal ammunition buy in the last 10 months at approaching two billion rounds.
“To provide some perspective,” Levin noted, “experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, the [Department of Homeland Security] is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war. A 24-year Iraq war!”
What do federal agencies need with all that ammunition?
Read moreDepartment Of Homeland Security Now Armed For ’24-Year Iraq War’
– [Hope] Technology to produce solar cell from wood pulp is developed, “Manufacturing cost is 1/100,000? (Fukushima Diary, Feb 19, 2013):
Associate professor Nogi from Osaka university developed the technology to produce solar cell from wood pulp with his developing team.
The manufacturing cost is 1/100,000 of the one with glass substrates, 1/500 ~ 5,000 of the one with plastic.
Flashback:
Documentary: America: Freedom To Fascism – Director’s Authorized Version
– Abolish The Income Tax: You Won’t Believe Who Is Getting Away With Paying Zero Taxes While The Middle Class Gets Hammered (Economic Collapse, Feb 18, 2013):
The federal income tax is a bad joke and it needs to be abolished. All over the nation, hard working American families are being absolutely crushed by oppressive levels of taxation, and our politicians are constantly coming up with new ways to extract money from all of us every single year. Meanwhile, many ultra-wealthy Americans and many of the most profitable corporations in the country pay little to nothing in taxes. In fact, as you will see below, there are dozens of very prominent corporations that make billions of dollars in profits and yet don’t pay a dime in taxes. Tax avoidance has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Those that have the resources to “play the game” use shell companies, offshore tax havens and the thousands of loopholes in our tax code to minimize their tax burdens as much as possible. Meanwhile, the rest of us get absolutely hammered. This is fundamentally unfair. The federal income tax system is irreversibly broken at this point, and it is time to abolish it. If you think that the federal income tax system can be “fixed”, then you probably have never studied it. Our tax code is nearly 4 million words long and it is absolutely riddled with thousands of loopholes that favor big corporations and the ultra-wealthy. We should come up with a better, fairer way to fund the government. The United States once prospered greatly without a federal income tax, and it could do so again.
– High levels of cesium detected in fish off Chiba (NHK, Feb 18, 2013):
Fish caught in waters off Choshi City in Chiba Prefecture have been found to contain radioactive cesium above the government safety limit.
Choshi is nearly 200 kilometers south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Chiba Prefecture says it found 130 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in Japanese sea bass caught about 10 kilometers off Choshi on Thursday of last week. The acceptable limit is 100 becquerels.
It is the first time that higher-than-permitted levels of radioactive substances have been found in fish landed at ports in the prefecture.
– The Reflation Party Is Ending As China Withdraws Market Liquidity For First Time In Eight Months (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):
Since institutional memories are short, it is time to remind readers that it was the threat, and subsequent reality, of China overheating in the spring and summer of 2011 (when record high food prices sent the entire North African region in a state of coordinated revolt and gradually moved far east), when even the Great firewall of China could not block news of frequent break outs of localized violence from hungry and angry mobs, that halted and broke the spine of the great reflation trade then (and yes, 2013 has so far been a carbon copy replica of 2011 as we summarized in “It’s Deja Vu, All Over Again: This Time Is… Completely The Same“).
Furthermore, as only Zero Hedge forecast back in mid-2012, when ever other commentator was shouting over the rooftops that an RRR or interest rate cut out of Beijing was imminent, the PBOC would be the last to stimulate the market with monetary easing as it was well-aware that an entire developed world reflating at the same time would hit none other than China the fastest as the hot money flew straight into Shanghai. Just as it did in 2011. So instead China proceeded to engage in a series of daily reverse repos, or ultra-short term liquidity injections that prevented the advent of wholesale inflation: after all the Fed, the BOJ, the ECB and soon, the BOE, were doing it for them. And the last thing the country with the highest allotment of CPI, or book inflation, to food and energy can afford, is to let foreign central banks dictate its price level. After all, it has more than enough of its own.
Well, the Chinese New Year celebration is now over, the Year of the Snake is here, and those following the Shanghai Composite have lots to hiss about, as two out of two trading days have printed in the red. But a far bigger concern to not only those long the SHCOMP, but the “Great Reflation Trade – ver. 2013″, is that just as two years ago, China appears set to pull out first, as once again inflation rears its ugly head. And where the PBOC goes, everyone else grudgingly has to follow: after all without China there is no marginal growth driver to the world economy.
End result: China’s reverse repos, or liquidity providing operations, have ended after month of daily injections, and the first outright repo, or liquidity draining operation, just took place after eight months of dormancy.
Chinese authorities took a step to ease potential inflationary pressures Tuesday by using a key mechanism for the first time in eight months.
The move by the central bank to withdraw cash from the banking system is a reversal after months of pumping cash in. That cash flood was meant to reduce borrowing costs for businesses as the economy slowed last year—but recent data has shown growth picking up, along with the main determinants of inflation: housing and food prices.
From the article (180 km from Fukushima Daiichi):
“Everything I’ve done up till now, it’s all become no good. I can’t collect wild vegetables and I can’t sell my mushrooms. There are problems with the fish in the rivers and I have to worry about contamination levels in the wild game, too. That’s what makes me the most angry,” he said.
– Fukushima radiation threatens to wreak woodland havoc (Japan Times, Feb 17, 2013):
For Yuji Hoshino, mushrooms were a way of life. The 50-year-old farmer grew up watching his father raise shiitake mushrooms on their land at the foot of the mountains in Sano, southern Tochigi Prefecture.
Later, he became the one to yearly cut about 15,000 logs, each about a meter long and the diameter of a coffee saucer, from oak forests near his home. He would stud these logs with specially inoculated spore pegs and then stack them in forests and greenhouses for the crop to mature. Three to eight years later, hundreds of thousands of fleshy, white-and-brown mushrooms would be ready to pick.
Read moreFallout Ruining Everything 180 Km Away Fukushima Nuke Plant
– Retail Apocalypse: Why Are Major Retail Chains All Over America Collapsing? (Economic Collapse, Feb 17, 2013):
If the economy is improving, then why are many of the largest retail chains in America closing hundreds of stores? When I was growing up, Sears, J.C. Penney, Best Buy and RadioShack were all considered to be unstoppable retail powerhouses. But now it is being projected that all of them will close hundreds of stores before the end of 2013. Even Wal-Mart is running into problems. A recent internal Wal-Mart memo that was leaked to Bloomberg described February sales as a “total disaster”. So why is this happening? Why are major retail chains all over America collapsing? Is the “retail apocalypse” upon us? Well, the truth is that this is just another sign that the U.S. economy is falling apart right in front of our eyes. Incomes are declining, taxes are going up, government dependence is at an all-time high, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the percentage of the U.S. labor force that is employed has been steadily falling since 2006. The top 10% of all income earners in the U.S. are still doing very well, but most U.S. consumers are either flat broke or are drowning in debt. The large disposable incomes that the big retail chains have depended upon in the past simply are not there anymore. So retail chains all over the United States are now closing up unprofitable stores. This is especially true in low income areas.
When you step back and take a look at the bigger picture, the rapid decline of some of our largest retail chains really is stunning.