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A Day in the Life: 11/28-29/13

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Nov 29, 2013, 12:05:55 PM11/29/13
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http://chemtrailsplanet.net/2013/11/28/un-ipcc-climate-scientist-says-spreading-contrails-warm-the-climate/

UN IPCC Climate Scientist Says Spreading Contrails Warm the Climate       

WXYZ News Interviews UN IPCC Climate scientist, Dr Joyce Penner

“The contrails that are spreading, would tend to warm the atmosphere.”

dane-wigington-mugDane Wigington, at geoengineeringwatch appeared on Detroit’s WXYZ News to get the word out about the global aerosol geoengineering plague.

Local affiliate stations have a long history of running chemtrail stories that tend to make activists look like conspiracy theorists and WXYZ was no different.

Dr Joyce E Penner MugHowever there was an unexpected payoff in this report when meteorologist Chris Edwards interviewed UN IPCC climate scientist, Dr. Joyce Penner at the U. Michigan.

Her area of scientific work as a climate scientist reveals that spreading contrails aggravate global warming to make the climate warmer.  This finding actually agrees with Cliff Carnicom’s conclusions from a decade ago.

Dr. Penner’s status as a climate scientist on the UN International Panel on Climate Change implies a consensus on the issue of contrails warming the atmosphere to affect climate change.

So, this begs the question:

When will the IPCC reach a consensus to investigate the cause of spreading contrails and recommend methods of mitigation?


WXYZ Interviews Dr Joyce Penner on Contrails
WXYZ Interviews Dr Joyce Penner on Contrails

This video was edited for clarity in order to present the most appropriate content for this story.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/27-7
Published on Wednesday, November 27, 2013 by Common Dreams

In Protest Against Unending Drone Attacks, Pakistani Party 

'Unmasks' CIA Station Chief

Political party of Imran Khan accuses CIA chief John Brennan of murder and calls for arrest of agency top spy in the country


- Common Dreams staff

The political party of Imran Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has reportedly 'unmasked' the identity of the CIA station chief in Pakistan, demanding he not be allowed to leave the country and stand trial for murder and war crimes for his role in the continued U.S drone attacks there.

As the Guardian reports:

The [PTI] named a man it claimed was head of the CIA station in Islamabad in a letter to police demanding he be nominated as one of the people responsible for a drone strike on 21 November, which killed five militants including senior commanders of the Haqqani Network.

John Brennan, the CIA director, was also nominated as an "accused person" for murder and "waging war against Pakistan".

According to the Associated Press:

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd would not confirm the Islamabad station chief's name and declined to immediately comment. The Associated Press is not publishing the name given by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party because it could not verify its authenticity.

Shireen Mazari, the party's information secretary, called for the station chief and CIA director John Brennan to be tried for murder and waging war against Pakistan in connection with a recent drone strike in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She claimed the station chief did not enjoy diplomatic immunity.

If the man's identity is confirmed it will be the second time anti-drone campaigners in Pakistan have outed the identity of a top US spy in Pakistan. As the Washington Postreports:

The names of two previous CIA station chiefs in Islamabad were exposed during a six-month stretch three years ago. In one case the CIA officer became a target of death threats after his cover was blown, forcing the agency to rush him out of the country.

And the New York Times adds:

... the move is expected to infuriate American officials, who had to recall a previous C.I.A. station chief in 2010 after he was identified in the local news media, also in relation to a legal suit brought by anti-drone campaigners.

But while that outing was blamed on smoldering tensions between the C.I.A. and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, this time it appears to be driven more by Mr. Khan’s increasingly confrontational stance against drone strikes.

In an appearance on a television talk show on Wednesday evening, Mr. Khan said he had named the station chief essentially to punish the C.I.A. for a deadly drone strike this month in the province his P.T.I. party controls, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Now, he said, it was up to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government to take the next step against the American spy agency.

In recent weeks, he had threatened to cut off NATO supply traffic passing through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on the way to Afghanistan. That statement came after the American drone strike that killed the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Mr. Khan has been a leading advocate of ceasing military action against the Pakistani Taliban, despite the fact that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is the region hardest hit by militant violence.
***

Karzai condemns US strike that killed toddler, threatens not to sign security deal

Published time: November 29, 2013 00:21 
Edited time: November 29, 2013 07:55


President Hamid Karzai has blamed the US for a drone strike on a home in southern Afghanistan that killed a 2-year-old child and wounded two women, vowing that he will not sign a key bilateral security deal if such attacks continue.

“This attack shows that American forces are not respecting the life and safety of Afghan people’s houses,” Karzai said in the statement Thursday. “For years, our innocent people have become victims of the war under the name of terrorism, and they have had no safety in their homes.”

Karzai made it clear that he will not sign the security agreement if such “oppressions by foreign forces continue.”

The president stated that the airstrike was suspected to have been carried out by US “pilotless aircraft”and targeted a house in Helmand Province. Karzai added that he received his information from the governor of the province, Mohammad Naem. 

No details were provided by the US-led coalition about Thursday’s airstrike. But the NATO-led force in Afghanistan said it will investigate it, adding that it "deeply regrets" any civilian deaths that happened, according to Reuters. 

The strike came as US and Afghanistan are in the midst of negotiating a bilateral security agreement that has so far not fleshed out the details about under what conditions US troops will stay in Afghanistan past the NATO forces’ pullout in 2014.  

Last week US had thought it finalized the deal by proposing to leave 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan to train and assist the country’s military. But, Karzai had doubts about signing the deal, expressing concerns over US meddling in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. 

This week, Karzai has called on the US to cease all military operations against civilian homes and show a clear dedication to the peace process before a security pact is signed. 

Karzai set the conditions in a meeting with US National Security Advisor Susan Rice, the US envoy to the region and the NATO commander in Afghanistan, Reuters reported. "President Karzai outlined new conditions for signing the agreement and indicated he is not prepared to sign the BSA promptly," the White House said.

The conditions included returning Afghan citizens from the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay as a clear step to launch the peace process ahead of the scheduled exit of most US and NATO forces beyond 2014. 

Karzai’s new conditions for a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) come after he rejected the endorsement of the security deal by an assembly of Afghan elders on Sunday. The Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, recommended Karzai to sign the agreement. 

Earlier, the US government said that if the deal with Afghanistan is not signed by the end of 2013 then it will have to begin withdrawing its troops completely starting next year.

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Date: November 29, 2013 7:59:36 AM GMT-05:00
Subject: [via-info-en] Fwd: La Via Campesina in Bali to call for an End to the WTO and the Free Trade Regime

Media Advisory - La Via Campesina

La Via Campesina in Bali to Call for an End to the WTO and the Free Trade Regime

(Bali, 29 November 2013) The international peasants' movement -La Via Campesina, with over 200 million members in 70 countries, will organize in a massive way from Dec 1-6 2013 at the upcoming World Trade Organization 9th Ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia. It will bring in a large delegation of peasants from around the world to Bali in order to demonstrate its opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO, the emblematic institution of free trade and corporate-led globalization has been trying to push for the expansion of its free trade rules through the Doha Round launched in 2001. After several collapses and stalemates in the negotiations, the WTO has found a way to revive not only itself but also to deepen the free trade liberalization agenda and expand into areas not previously covered by trade. Through the proposed Bali Package, the WTO is bringing life back to the negotiations by making empty promises of development to Least Developed Countries, a terrible deal on Agriculture to developing countries and in return, taking a legally binding agreement on Trade Facilitation. La Via Campesina denounces these efforts to revive the severely de-legitimized organization and calls for an End to the WTO and the free trade regime.

For La Via Campesina, 18 years of the WTO is enough. Small farmers the world over have suffered long enough. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), for example, has allowed billion dollar subsidies to agribusiness, which has pushed small farmers out of their lands and their livelihoods. This market-oriented approach to agriculture is a serious threat to food sovereignty, public health and livelihoods. Developing countries have been demanding the right to support their small farmers in the interest of food security and public stockholding but the developed countries will not allow it. Instead, the rich countries are offering a palsy “peace clause” in the Bali Package, a temporary measure for developing countries like India, Indonesia and others, to provide support but under highly restrictive conditions.

La Via Campesina calls not only for the rejection of the Bali Package but a rejection of the whole WTO and the free trade regime. Only a grim future awaits on this path of free trade liberalization. Instead, La Via Campesina believes the time is now for Economic Justice, an economy based on equity and restores balance between humanity and nature and has at its heart the principles of food sovereignty.

La Via Campesina is not alone in calling for an End to the WTO. Together with Gerak Lawan (Indonesian Peoples Movement against Neocolonialism and Imperialism) and the Social Movements for an Alternative Asia (SMAA), a newly formed coordination of social movements in Asia, which includes the Migrant Forum in Asia, Jubilee South-APMDD, World March of Women, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Alliance of Progressive Labor, Focus on the Global South, water movements, climate justice movements and several others, more than 100 organizations and movements the world over, have signed the call for an End to the WTO.

These movements are also organizing an #EndWTO Bali Week of Action to not only demonstrate the growing movement against the neo-liberal regime but also to highlight the proposals for alternatives from the different social movements and communities.

The EndWTO Bali Week of Action has begun with the departure of the Youth Food Movement Caravan from Jakarta last November 25. The Caravan will go through 7 cities in Java and will arrive Bali on December 1. The Week of Action then opens on December 1 with the social movements assembly and the welcome of the Caravan. It is then followed by an Economic Justice Assembly on December 2 which will challenge the mainstream notion that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism, it will highlight concrete alternatives on economic justice through speakers on food, trade, migration, climate and others. A massive and colorful mobilization for economic justice will take place near the Renon Park in Denpasar, Bali, on December 3, bringing together more than 2,000 activists from around the world. A People's Tribunal will take place on December 4, with eminent judges and lawyers that will carry out a public inquiry into the crimes against humanity and the planet by the free trade regime. Dec 5 and 6 will be the days of a Women's Assembly and several organizations will organize more than 15 different activities- assemblies, roundtables and panels on different topics.

La Via Campesina and the members of SMAA and Gerak Lawan will also have a number of press conferences inside the official venue of the WTO Ministerial and outside at the Week of Action.

For more information on the Bali week of Action :-

  1. Information on the schedule of activities inside the WTO Ministerial NGO Centre in Nusa Dua, Bali:

December 3: 6pm-7:30pm: Press Conference: The end of growth and the future of the WTO. Evaluation and proposals

December 4: 3:30pm-6:30pm: The failure of the WTO and alternatives from the People for Economic Justice, Room

December 5: 3:30pm-5pm: The geopolitics of free trade: links between TPP FTA and WTO

December 6: 11:30am-1pm: Press Conference: The post-Bali Roadmap of the People

  1. Information on the media activities, updates of #EndWTO Week of Action in GOR Yowana Mandala, Jl. Trengguli I, Tembau, South Denpasar, Bali:

www.smaa.asia/endwto | Twitter: @GerakLawan, @socmovasia, @YFMovement | Facebook.com/groups/endwto | Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/endwto/

December 2: 9 -10.30 am Press conference to kickback the #EndWTO campaign, GOR Yowana Mandala

December 6: 7 pm onwards: EngageMedia video screening #EndWTO campaign, Kedai
kopikultur, Little Tree Building, JL Sunset Road, Denpasar, Bali


December
 7: 10-12 am Final press conference #EndWTO campaign, Kedai

Kopikultur, Little Tree Building, Jl Sunset Road, Denpasar, Bali*

  1. Read more about LVC in Bali at: http://www.viacampesina.org/

  2. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL

  3. Twitter: https://twitter.com/via_campesina | https://twitter.com/via_campesinaSP | https://twitter.com/via_campesinaFR

  4. Watch short videos on TV Via Campesina: http://tv.viacampesina.org/

LVC media contacts in Bali:

  1. Ashlesha Khadse: ashlesh...@gmail.com, +6287862889114

  2. Muhammed Ikhwan: m.ik...@gmail.com, +62 819 32099596

More information on viacampesina.org

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Published on Thursday, November 28, 2013 by DeSmogBlog.com

Firm with History of Spill Cover-Ups Hired to Clean Up North Dakota Oil Spill


by Steve Horn

Tesoro Logistics — the company whose pipeline spilled more than 800,000 gallons of fracked Bakken Shale oil in rural North Dakota in September — has hired infamous contractor Witt O'Brien's to oversee its clean-up of the biggest fracked oil spill in U.S. history.

The oil was obtained via hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in the Bakken Shale basin.

As revealed after ExxonMobil hired the same firm in the aftermath of a 210,000-gallon tar sands oil spill in April 2013, Witt O'Brien's — formerly known as OOPS, Inc. — is a firm with a history of oil spill cover-upsdating back to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It alsooversaw the spraying of toxic oil dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico during BP's summer 2010 mega-spill and a literal cover-up of Enbridge's massive "dilbit disaster" tar sands pipeline spill in Michigan. 

Witt O'Brien's also won a $300,000 contract to develop an emergency response plan for TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline in August 2008.

The same firm is now maintaining Tesoro's website dedicated to offering updates — also known as crisis communications management — for the massive spill's recovery efforts at TesoroAlert.com

Buried at the bottom of the website is a mention that the site is "powered by the PIER System." PIER — short for "Public Information Emergency Response" — is owned by Witt O'Brien's.

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SkyderAlert New 10-Minute Promo ‘Look Up!’

Posted by RustyChemtrail NewsFeaturedTuesday, November 26th, 2013

This film trailer was just released by film maker George Barnes from the http://www.skyderalert.com, he is really trying to help us raise awareness on the ever-worsening geoengineering issue.
Hope all can help to expose George’s work, and thus expose geoenigneering.
DW

 

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Published on Thursday, November 28, 2013 by Common Dreams

Walmart Workers Mobilize for 'Unprecedented' Nationwide Strikes

Massive turnout expected for strike against low wages, illegal retaliation


- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

As the shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday came early this year with an increasing amount of retailers opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day, employees for one of the largest big-box-stores in the country, Walmart, prepared protests for 1,500 locations nationwide.

Organizers with the group OUR Walmart, who have helped rally Walmart workers that are fed up with poverty wages and poor working conditions at the retail giant's locations across the country, said this year's protests will be "unprecedented" in scope.

As Allison Kilkenny at The Nation notes, this year's Black Friday protests are the culmination of roughly a year of protests and strikes against Walmart by employees and their supporters, and this week has seen a number of preliminary actions ahead of the big day. Kilkenny reports:

On Monday, Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) joined Walmart workers in Minnesota who walked off the job, and in Los Angeles, workers went on a two-day strike that culminated in the largest-ever act of civil disobedience against Walmart. Last week, workers in Seattle, Chicago, Ohio and Dallas joined them in walking off their jobs.

Additionally, Walmart workers at three Washington, DC, area stores went on strike Tuesday, calling on the company to end its illegal retaliation against workers, and calling for better wages and full-time work.

As Al-Jazeera reports, organizers see this year as a perfect opportunity to increase pressure and raise awareness about Walmart's labor standards, as anger over income inequality has grown worldwide and Walmart has been embedded in controversy over its policies:

Wal-Mart is not the only corporation in the spotlight, but it is by far the biggest — and this year proved an especially potent one for Wal-Mart controversy. The retail giant seemed to unable to avoid scandal: from reports that the company’s environmental policies are failing, to revelations that the Bangladesh factory that collapsed in April, killing more than 1,000 workers, produced goods for Wal-Mart, to stories highlighting the company’s low wages in the United States.

Groups critical of Wal-Mart existed before 2013, but this year they have been better coordinated and more willing to use controversial tactics to get their points across, according to Stephanie Luce, a labor studies professor at the City University of New York.

According to OUR Walmart, protests this Black Friday are expected in major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Miami, Bay Area, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., Minneapolis and Sacramento amongst other locations, "in what is set to be one of the largest mobilizations of working families in American history."

In addition to better labor standards, full time work opportunities and fair wages, the workers are calling for an end to illegal retaliation by Walmart against outspoken employees and those who have taken part in actions.

Follow the live Twitter feed created by OUR Walmart for live updates Thursday and Friday:

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The Deal with Iran: Confronting the Israeli Lobby in US Congress

Global Research, November 29, 2013

Press TV has conducted an interview with James Petras, Middle East expert, to further discuss the recent deal on Iran’s nuclear energy program. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Petras, how do you see this recent deal on Iran’s nuclear program?

Petras: Well, I think it is a historical step forward, the fact that the negotiations took place, that a temporary agreement was made. There is a strategy towards a permanent solution.

I think Iran made enormous concessions regarding its nuclear facilities. It is downgrading its twenty-percent enriched uranium; it is limiting the operations of its centrifuges, etc. This is much more than any of the negotiators anticipated.

The fact that the US agreed to lower sanctions is very minimal impact right now and for the foreseeable future. It will not have any effect on the world oil market because only a fraction of increase will take place. But the fact of the matter is the big fight is still to come and that is the fight with the Israel lobby that has such a stranglehold on the US Congress.

It is time if this is going to advance – the peace process, the negotiations, the reconciliation. Obama has to pull his pants up and take on the Israeli lobby in Congress because if the Israeli lobby gets their way, what they are demanding is the surrender of Iranian sovereignty to dismantle its entire program. That is Netanyahu’s agenda. That is what the Israeli lobby is pushing and that is what the influence in American Congress.

That should not pass and I think the only way is for the White House to stand up to that and continue on a progressive path beginning with the initial settlement that has taken place.

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Who is behind Syria’s “Opposition Rebels”? Mother Agnes Mariam versus the US Media

Global Research, November 29, 2013

Mother Agnes Mariam, mother-superior of the monastery of St. James, the Mutilated in Qara, in the Qalamoun District of Syria, which is north of Damascus, visited Denver as part of a U.S. tour which is taking her coast to coast.

She spoke at three public venues in two days and then rushed off to catch a plane to Lincoln, Nebraska, where she also has had several speaking engagements, covered by the Nebraska press.

The Christian Palestinian family of the good mother-superior hails from Nazareth, now in Israel, from whence it was expelled and made refugee in 1948 when Israel was founded. Growing up in Lebanon, she was educated by that country’s Maronite Community. Before entering the Melkite Greek Catholic order, Mother Agnes-Mariam claims to have partnered with a group of American hippies in her youth, she with bible in hand. While little attracted to their hashish smoking, she absorbed their commitment to world peace.

Those of us who heard her speak were impressed with her dignity, her commitment to all of the Syrian people and to peace. Her concerns are for all Syrians and her approach distinctly non-sectarian. At the same time, Mother Agnes-Mariam is rightly concerned about the future of Christians both in Syria and the broader Middle East. That community which goes back to the time of Christ is under siege in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere where Salafist elements hope to homogenize the region culturally of its rich, diversified heritage. The Christian community in Syria is, itself, as old as Christianity itself. St. Paul was the Bishop of Antioch. The St. James, the Mutilated Monastery, which Mother Agnes-Mariam has helped refurbish was first built in the fifth century, that is, prior to the rise of Islam and 700 years before the Crusades began.

The Syrian Resistance – Hijacked by Islamic Militant Elements, as in Libya and Mali

The accusation  there was a national campaign to slander her U.S. tour  that she is “an agent of Assad” is, in my view, little more than mischievous nonsense being spread to undermine popular support of a negotiated solution to the Syrian crisis. Her analysis of the Syrian situation suggests a reality that hardly appears in the U.S. mainstream media, far more nuanced and accurate concerning what is transpiring on the ground there. While no fan of the Assad government  she has openly criticized its repressive character  Mother Agnes Marian insisted that the government has substantial support among the country’s population and that the last thing the country’s Christian population wants to see is a radical Islamic takeover of the country.

Despite this, some American academics and even peace groups, with their heads in the sand, have lined up in support of the rebels and still support the demented pipe dream of a military victory for the rebels. Not surprisingly, these so-called defenders of human rights also line up against a negotiated solution to the Syrian crisis.

Many of the American supporters of the Syrian rebel factions frame their support for the rebels within the framework of humanitarian intervention, failing to see that such an approach, as in Libya, is little more than a pretext for big-power military intervention. While claiming humanitarian concerns, they fail to acknowledge  or hardly  the crimes against humanity committed by the so-called rebels, their targeting of the Syrian civilian population, their false-flag operations (the chemical weapons incidents), all by now extensively and well documented.

Those supporting military interventionism on humanitarian grounds in support of the Syrian rebels tend to downplay the degree to which the Syrian opposition is infested with Salafist-Wahhabist fighters arguing that there are only “a few thousand” foreign fighters in Syria. But such claims are quite inaccurate, deceptive. There are currently more than 2,000 foreign Islamic armed militias  no one knows the exact number  in Syria. As they see no place in Syria’s future for non-Sunni Moslems, Christians, and Jews, these Salafist elements have put together quite a record of death and destruction that includes destroying 50 churches  some of them dating back to the time of Christ, such as the 2,000-year-old Jobar Synagogue in Damascas, one of the world’s oldest, if not the oldest)  and 100 mosques of Druze, Alawite and other Islamic Shi’ite and related sects.

Actually, the militant Islamic rebel factions are Syria’s version of cruise missiles on the ground. If, in Iraq, the United States destroyed infrastructure and civil society from the air by intensive bombing campaigns that actually started in 1991 and accelerated after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, in Syria it is Islamic guerrillas who attack civilian communities, factories, schools, religious institutions, and power stations to the same end. Their goals: to make life unlivable for Syrians, drive them either into the opposition or into exile and to destroy as much of Syria as a country so that it will literally collapse and Syria cease to exist as a state, as happened in Iraq, all the while blaming the lion’s share of the damage on the Syrian military.

Mother Agnes-Mariam Explains What Obama Doesn’t Have the Courage To Her U.S. visit comes two months after the Obama Administration has tried to shift gears on both the Syrian civil war and U.S.-Iranian relations, moving from policies of confrontation to calls for international negotiations to resolve the tensions between the United States and two of its main Middle Eastern adversaries. This shift in U.S. policy, motivated by regional and global concerns, surprised many and came after it appeared that U.S. military operations against Syria were in the offing.

It is no secret that many among the American public are somewhat at a loss to understand the Obama administration’s sudden shift in policy towards the Syrian crisis. One day Obama is speaking of sending in the cruise missiles, the next day negotiating. Having poisoned the media atmosphere here in the U.S. concerning Syria so blatantly and for so long, with so many distortions appearing in the mainstream media and supported by a stream of bellicose pronouncements from Obama administration spokespeople (and the president himself), it is understandable that many in the American public are confused by the sudden shift in policy. As Mother Agnes-Mariam puts it: “It is scandalous the way the mainstream media has approached the Syrian crisis.”

Washington’s Shifting Global Priorities

To understand Washington’s Syria shift from war-to-peace mongering, it helps to put U.S. foreign policy in its more global perspective. Globally, the United States, concerned with the growth of Chinese economic and political influence, is trying to re-direct its political and military attention to East Asia and to a certain extent away from the Middle East. The Obama Administration has come to the conclusion (and this probably happened months ago) that a U.S. military intervention in Syria, necessary to reverse the current military balance of forces in Damascus’ interest on the ground, would be a major strategic error. Another Middle East military quagmire is the last thing the United States needs. The fact of the matter is that neither the sanctions against Iran nor support for the rebels in Syria produced the desired, sometimes articulate, often denied, result in either country: regime change.

If the Obama Administration is turning its eyes towards Asia, it simply cannot afford to blast Assad out of power in Syria. Too many undefined factors come into play. So the decision was made to put a limit on its military engagements in the Middle East and Central Asia, which have gone poorly, with devastating results for the region, in Afghanistan and Iraq. The buck stopped at Syria. Unable to resolve the Syrian crisis militarily because of all the variables, Obama, wisely  for a change understood the need to find a way out of the Syrian morass. There are now reports emerging suggesting that the United States and the Russians have been “talking” about Syria for more than six months. I would not be surprised at all if such talks took place. The real problem for the Obama Administration has been how to get out of Syria while still saving face. The Russians, key players in the Syrian crisis, seemed to help Obama come up with some kind of a plan.

Deconstructing the Syrian Opposition

Enter Mother Agnes-Mariam, who is telling the American people, gently actually, essentially what their government has been doing all along in Syria but what Washington itself doesn’t have the courage to relate. Mother Agnes-Mariam comes to the United States just at the time when the Obama Administration is trying to re-shape its Syria policy. But Obama has painted himself into a corner in so idealizing the role of the Syrian opposition. Mother Agnes-Mariam came to Denver with a message of peace  a call for a negotiated settlement of the Syrian crisis  as well as a warning. It is the peace message which the Obama Administration should be announcing to the American people but doesn’t seem to have mustered up the courage to do so as of yet, so they hide behind the robes of a Carmelite nun instead and let her take the heat.

Granted, as mentioned above, there are legitimate Syrian elements in the opposition who will have to have a voice in any settlement. But the United States  through its regional allies  has unleashed some very destructive forces in Syria and now has the formidable task of getting these “jinns” back into the bottle. The shift in policy has angered  if not infuriated  Washington’s regional allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey  whom it appears were taken by surprise by the policy shift and are howling in pain and very openly angered at with the shift, about which they can do little.

“The peace message” was essentially that no side will “win” the military conflict in Syria, and that the crisis there  which is essentially now a civil war  can only be resolved through negotiations between the Assad government and its “Syrian-based” (and she stressed this particular formulation) opponents.

“The warning” was that while there is a legitimate Syrian opposition engaged in the fighting against the Assad government, that much of the so-called rebellion had been hijacked by Islamist fundamentalist radicals armed, trained and funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey (and others). Responsible for much of the bloodshed and terror  they seem to have a particular penchant to beheading people  the Islamists are mostly foreign elements recruited from throughout the region to fight. Their goal is the establishment of an Islamic state based upon Shari’a law. Mother Agnes-Mariam opposed their participation in the peace process, and calls for their expulsion from Syria. Although by no means an easy goal, unless the United States  through whatever mechanism it can find  can rein in these radical Islamist elements, there will be no peace in Syria.

Concerning the Syrian opposition Mother Agnes-Mariam’s main point is that the Syrian opposition has long been hijacked by radical fundamentalist elements, its main secular, domestic opposition having been shunted to the sidelines in the fighting. Similar scenarios have unfolded recently in both Libya and Mali, where opposition movements were hijacked by Salafist-Wahhabist elements.

At the same time Mother Agnes-Mariam actually sympathizes with the grievances of the Syrian opposition, that part of it that is domestically based. She expressed deep concern for the fact that the opposition has been hijacked by Islamist fundamentalist elements that get logistical, financial support and military training from American regional allies  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey. Although she didn’t mention it, these Islamist factions, trained in Jordan, Turkey and northern Lebanon, also have received both financial and military support from the United States Special Forces.

There are also several reports in the Israeli press of French special forces and Israeli commandostraining and supporting Syrian rebels. Despite all this outside support meant to bring down the Assad government, government forces are winning the military confrontation and enjoy strong political support from major elements of the Syrian population. The latter might not have warm and fuzzy feelings for the Assad government and are well aware of its shortcomings, but much prefer Assad to a Salafist/Wahhabist-run political system based upon Shari’a law.

Those (in Washington, Paris, Riyadh, Ankara, Doha) who argued that the Assad government would fall like a house of cards, as did Gadaffy’s rule in Libya, have made a strategic blunder. Assad remains in power and, if anything, his social base is strengthening while the opposition, despite some legitimate grievances that any peace process will have to address, is something approaching shambles both politically and militarily. As numerous commentators have warned for several years now there will be no military solution to the Syrian conflict. Neither side will win on the battlefield. Only a negotiated settlement under internationally supervised auspices can create a path out of the destruction, death and suffering from which the country is now experiencing.

Right on, Mother Agnes-Mariam!

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Published on Friday, November 29, 2013 by TruthDig.com

World Fights Back Against the Biggest Brother in History


The United States’ vast and indiscriminate worldwide surveillance of ordinary people and heads of state has no historical precedent. Now countries around the world are fighting back using the United Nations as a vehicle for change. In a move that received little media coverage in the U.S., a United Nations committee approved without a vote a draft resolution entitled “The Right to Privacy in a Digital Age.” The nonbinding resolution, which will now head to the General Assembly where it has broad support, follows from a report published in June by the United Nations Human Rights Council. It detailed the negative impact of state surveillance on free expression and human rights and lamented that technology has outpaced legislation.

The remarkable U.N. draft resolution affirms privacy as a human right, on par with other globally recognized civil and political rights. Several leading advocacy groups, including Access Now, Amnesty International, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch and Privacy International, signed an open letter to the U.N. General Assembly backing the resolution. The letter stresses the “importance of protecting privacy and free expression in the face of technological advancements and encroaching State power.”

Carly Nyst, the head of international advocacy at Privacy International, told me, “This resolution could not be more important. At the moment we’re seeing serious threats to the protection of the right to privacy in the form of [National Security Agency] spying but also in the form of other surveillance practices that are taking place across the world. We think that voting in favor of this resolution is a really important stand for states to take so that they will no longer stand for global surveillance practices undertaken by the U.S. and others. This is a pivotal moment.”

Opposition to the U.N. resolution has come primarily from a small alliance of countries that share surveillance data, known as the “Five Eyes” (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia). These five countries are party to a secret treaty originally signed by the U.S. and U.K. in 1941, which came to light only in 2010. Little is known about the details of the agreement. According to Nyst, “We know that there is a very, very high level of integration between the intelligence services of each of the [Five Eyes] countries to the extent that Americans are working out of Australian bases, the British are working out of New Zealand bases, etc. That information is shared, almost is standard across all five countries and there is no such thing as a no-spy deal. That means that even though they have a very high level of cooperation there are also instances in which they are spying on each other.” Nyst added, “It’s a completely secret, covert arrangement that implicates the privacy rights of almost everyone who uses the Internet.”

Despite the best efforts of the Five Eyes nations to weaken the U.N. draft resolution on privacy, opposition to U.S. spying is so strong that most of the original language remains unchanged. According to The Guardian newspaper, the only major compromise has been to drop a reference linking human rights violations to extraterritorial surveillance.

The U.S. also fought to limit the jurisdiction over privacy rights to countries themselves, but lost. That point underscores what many around the world see as a double standard between how the NSA spies on Americans versus non-Americans. The U.N. draft resolution enshrines the protection of privacy of all people equally.

According to Katitza Rodriguez, international rights director of the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Most of the discussion around NSA spying in the United States has focused on the privacy rights of Americans because our laws only protect Americans but do not extend those protections outside U.S. borders. The U.N. resolution makes clear that privacy is an international universal human right and states have the obligation to protect privacy not only at home but also abroad.”

What has lent the resolution greater weight was that it was sponsored by two major nations: Germany and Brazil, whose leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dilma Rousseff, were alleged to have been spied upon by the NSA. Nyst admitted that “Unfortunately, even though we knew months ago that the German people and the Brazilian people had been spied upon, it was not until the leaders of those countries found that they were also under the microscope, that they really were quite enraged and decided to take action at the international level. That is the unfortunate reality that until these practices were shown to affect the leaders of the highest level of power, it wasn’t necessarily politically useful for them to make a stand against the U.S.”

Nyst takes issue with nations, such as Brazil, that want to pursue electronic independence by developing their own Internet infrastructure to counter U.S. surveillance. She says, “In fact it would not necessarily be of benefit to Internet users if countries decided to splinter off to create their own networks to protect from U.S. spying. Actually one of the most important parts of the Internet which really guarantees our freedom to look at what we like online and to say what we like online is the decentralized nature of the Internet where no one country has control over it.”

Nyst fears that “If the result from this NSA scandal is that countries like Brazil and Germany—perhaps with good reason—decide that they want to splinter off and start protecting their citizens by establishing their own Internet, actually what we might see is a real balkanization of the Internet. And that means that citizens of some countries will have much worse protections than they previously have had. If a country like Russia or Iran or China followed their lead and said, ‘Well we too are going to establish our national Internet,’ then that would drastically disadvantage the citizens of that country. That’s the last thing that we as Internet advocates want to see.”

Treating privacy as a fundamental, internationally recognized human right may offer the best protection to ordinary people from all countries. But even Americans, who are ostensibly better protected legally, have found that their privacy is often routinely violated and that they cannot do anything about it.

The U.N. resolution, if it passes, would lack enforcement mechanisms. The question then arises, what is the point? According to Rodriguez, it “definitely makes clear what is the standard to protect privacy globally and if the U.S. doesn’t comply with it then they will be in violation of international law. And that’s a huge problem because the United States has been seen as a champion of promoting free expression in the United Nations. So having them taking a position that infringes upon international law is not good for the reputation of the United States’ foreign policy.”

It is likely that the U.N. General Assembly will debate and vote on a version of the draft resolution in the coming months. Regardless of how robust the protections of privacy are in the final version, or how strongly the U.S. and its allies will feel bound by it, public opinion is certainly shifting in favor of treating privacy as a human right.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Privacy International are leading a collaboration with hundreds of civil society organizations worldwide on a framework reflecting global consensus on privacy rights called Necessary & Proportionate. That effort reflects a growing global grass-roots movement forming in parallel to the U.N.’s attempt to protect privacy. It remains to be seen whether the world can win the fight against the Biggest Brother history has ever witnessed.

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Published on Friday, November 22, 2013 by Common Dreams

21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare


Dear America:

Costly complexity is baked into Obamacare. No health insurance system is without problems but Canadian style single-payer full Medicare for all is simple, affordable, comprehensive and universal.

In the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson enrolled 20 million elderly Americans into Medicare in six months. There were no websites. They did it with index cards!

Below please find 21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare.

Repeal Obamacare and replace it with the much more efficient single-payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital.

Love, Canada

Number 21:
In Canada, everyone is covered automatically at birth – everybody in, nobody out.

In the United States, under Obamacare, 31 million Americans will still be uninsured by 2023 and millions more will remain underinsured.

Number 20: 
In Canada, the health system is designed to put people, not profits, first.

In the United States, Obamacare will do little to curb insurance industry profits and will actually enhance insurance industry profits.

Number 19:
In Canada, coverage is not tied to a job or dependent on your income – rich and poor are in the same system, the best guaranty of quality.

In the United States, under Obamacare, much still depends on your job or income. Lose your job or lose your income, and you might lose your existing health insurance or have to settle for lesser coverage.

Number 18:
In Canada, health care coverage stays with you for your entire life.

In the United States, under Obamacare, for tens of millions of Americans, health care coverage stays with you for as long as you can afford your share.

Number 17:
In Canada, you can freely choose your doctors and hospitals and keep them. There are no lists of “in-network” vendors and no extra hidden charges for going “out of network.”

In the United States, under Obamacare, the in-network list of places where you can get treated is shrinking – thus restricting freedom of choice – and if you want to go out of network, you pay for it.

Number 16:
In Canada, the health care system is funded by income, sales and corporate taxes that, combined, are much lower than what Americans pay in premiums.

In the United States, under Obamacare, for thousands of Americans, it’s pay or die – if you can’t pay, you die. That’s why many thousands will still die every year under Obamacare from lack of health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time.

Number 15:
In Canada, there are no complex hospital or doctor bills. In fact, usually you don’t even see a bill.

In the United States, under Obamacare, hospital and doctor bills will still be terribly complex, making it impossible to discover the many costly overcharges.

Number 14:
In Canada, costs are controlled. Canada pays 10 percent of its GDP for its health care system, covering everyone.

In the United States, under Obamacare, costs continue to skyrocket. The U.S. currently pays 18 percent of its GDP and still doesn’t cover tens of millions of people.

Number 13:
In Canada, it is unheard of for anyone to go bankrupt due to health care costs.

In the United States, under Obamacare, health care driven bankruptcy will continue to plague Americans.

Number 12: 
In Canada, simplicity leads to major savings in administrative costs and overhead.

In the United States, under Obamacare, complexity will lead to ratcheting up administrative costs and overhead.

Number 11:
In Canada, when you go to a doctor or hospital the first thing they ask you is: “What’s wrong?”

In the United States, the first thing they ask you is: “What kind of insurance do you have?”

Number 10:
In Canada, the government negotiates drug prices so they are more affordable.

In the United States, under Obamacare, Congress made it specifically illegal for the government to negotiate drug prices for volume purchases, so they remain unaffordable.

Number 9:
In Canada, the government health care funds are not profitably diverted to the top one percent.

In the United States, under Obamacare, health care funds will continue to flow to the top. In 2012, CEOs at six of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. received a total of $83.3 million in pay, plus benefits.

Number 8:
In Canada, there are no necessary co-pays or deductibles.

In the United States, under Obamacare, the deductibles and co-pays will continue to be unaffordable for many millions of Americans.

Number 7:
In Canada, the health care system contributes to social solidarity and national pride.

In the United States, Obamacare is divisive, with rich and poor in different systems and tens of millions left out or with sorely limited benefits.

Number 6:
In Canada, delays in health care are not due to the cost of insurance.

In the United States, under Obamacare, patients without health insurance or who are underinsured will continue to delay or forgo care and put their lives at risk.

Number 5:
In Canada, nobody dies due to lack of health insurance.

In the United States, under Obamacare, many thousands will continue to die every year due to lack of health insurance.

Number 4:
In Canada, an increasing majority supports their health care system, which costs half as much, per person, as in the United States. And in Canada, everyone is covered.

In the United States, a majority – many for different reasons – oppose Obamacare.

Number 3:
In Canada, the tax payments to fund the health care system are progressive – the lowest 20 percent pays 6 percent of income into the system while the highest 20 percent pays 8 percent.

In the United States, under Obamacare, the poor pay a larger share of their income for health care than the affluent.

Number 2:
In Canada, the administration of the system is simple. You get a health care card when you are born. And you swipe it when you go to a doctor or hospital. End of story.

In the United States, Obamacare’s 2,500 pages plus regulations (the Canadian Medicare Bill was 13 pages) is so complex that then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said before passage “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Number 1: 
In Canada, the majority of citizens love their health care system.

In the United States, the majority of citizens, physicians, and nurses prefer the Canadian type system – single-payer, free choice of doctor and hospital , everybody in, nobody out.

For more information see Single Payer Action.

===================================================================================

France Makes Virtue out of Vice to Exploit Central Africa Chaos

By Finian Cunningham

The strategic value of uranium cannot be overstated as a vital national interest for France. Continue

Iran: It’s Not about Nuclear Weapons

By Sheldon Richman

Look at the leading opponents of the agreement: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Continue

Netanyahu’s Peace Gesture is Meant to Extract Concessions

By Jonathan Cook

Netanyahu’s offer was as hollow as his previous utterances about Palestinian statehood. Continue

US Sends B-52s to China’s Air Defence Zone

By John Chan 

If China responded by scrambling fighters to the area and the US military called in fighters from nearby Japanese bases, the incident could have led to an aerial clash with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic ramifications. Continue

Top-Secret Document Reveals 
NSA Spied On Porn Habits 

By Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher and Ryan Grim

The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites. Continue

The N.S.A. Dips Into Pornography

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL


J. Edgar Hoover compiled secret dossiers on the sexual peccadillos and private misbehavior of those he labeled as enemies — really dangerous people like Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, for example. Continue

America, Want Freedom of Choice? Try Public Healthcare Like Canada

By Adrienne Silnicki 

Our system ensures the right to care without considering ability to pay or profit margins. No one gets betweens us and our doctors. Continue

Pope Francis Understands Economics Better Than Most Politicians

By Heidi Moore 

The pope's screed on "the economy of exclusion and inequality" will disappoint those who considers themselves free-market capitalists, but they would do well to listen to the message. Continue

Shakespeare and the Defeat of the Swiss Referendum on Compensations

By Jimmie Moglia

The defenders of extreme capitalism in Switzerland spent as much money as required to defeat the measure, and employed all that can impress awe upon the mind of man. Continue

We Will NOT Fight For Queen and Country 

Video


The vile religion of Patriotism. Continue

Russell Brand "I'm Awake Now"
The Only Thing That Matters To Any Of Us Is Love

Short Video

“The dead human ape has fulfilled its potential," - "now we must transform, become enlightened, so that we can acces the next realm of conciousness necessary for evolution.” Continue

Tony Blair Asked Me To 'Help Invade Zimbabwe', Says Thabo Mbeki

By David Blair

South Africa's former president claims that his country was asked to help Britain topple Robert Mugabe.Continue

Washington’s B-52 Diplomacy 

By Nile Bowie

US flyover in China-Japan island row: Will the real provocateur please stand up? Continue

New Snowden Docs Show U.S. Spied During G20 in Toronto

By Greg Weston, Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government allowed the largest American spy agency to conduct widespread surveillance in Canada during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits. Continue

Glenn GreenwaldThe Goal Of The U.S. Government Is To Eliminate ALL Privacy Globally!" 

Video - BBC - Hardtalk

Glenn Greenwald - the man who broke the Snowden story. His mission, he says, is to hold power to account. Is this a journalistic crusade that's gone too far? Continue

9/11 - Investigating The Role of the Saudi Government

Video

Revealing the 9/11 Conspiracy Would Undo the Entire US-Saudi Alliance -- Sen. Bob Graham Continue

Outgunned

By P.T.W. and K.N.C.

How America’s military spending stacks up. Continue

John Perkins : The Economic Hitmen 

Short Video

A great illustration on how corporations take control of countries, and how capitalism drives the expansion of the Military Industrial Complex. Continue

Discovering the Power of People’s History – and Why it is Feared Today

By John Pilger

"Austerity" - the new jargon for imposed poverty. Continue

The 1% Are The Very Best Destroyers Of Wealth The World Has Ever Seen

By George Monbiot 

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.
Continue

The Empire Strikes Back 

By Laura Gottesdiener


How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme -- Again. Continue

Thanksgiving in America

By Andre Damon and Barry Grey

Even as food banks across the country report increasing demand and dwindling supplies, the US media is obsessed with snowstorms, travel delays and Black Friday sales. Continue

The End of American Thanksgivings: A Cause for Universal Rejoicing

By Glen Ford

The Mayflower's cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims" Continue

On Thanksgiving
A Radical and Simple Solution Set for Humanity


By Carlo Ami 

Do you really want to move through life continuing to accept a world in which a tiny minority hold the majority of this planets’ wealth while 40,000 people starve to death every day?  Is this OK with you?Continue


***

November 29, 2013

  • FeaturedQMoGen > MrTurboturbine >
    QMoGen by MrTurboturbine - The set-up is similar to the QMoGen arrangement we've seen so many times now (this is the 33rd) in which a smaller motor powers a larger generator, with enough power left over to loop back to keep the motor running, while producing excess power for practical use. In MrTurboturbine's set-up, he doesn't appear to self-loop the system, but the title of his video implies that he's getting a lot more energy out than what he's putting in. (PESWiki)

November 28, 2013

===================================================================================


Thanksgiving Is a Celebration of Genocide

Turkeys at Flying Snail Ranch

THE END OF AMERICAN THANKSGIVINGS
THE BLACK COMMENTATOR ~ ISSUE 66

Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of "the founders" as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year - a pure glorification of racist barbarity.
We at [Black Commentator] are thankful that the day grows nearer when the almost four centuries-old abomination will be deprived of its reason for being: white supremacy. Then we may all eat and drink in peace and gratitude for the blessings of humanity's deliverance from the rule of evil men.
Thanksgiving is much more than a lie - if it were that simple, an historical correction of the record of events in 1600s Massachusetts would suffice to purge the "flaw" in the national mythology. But Thanksgiving is not just a twisted fable, and the mythology it nurtures is itself inherently evil. The real-life events - subsequently revised - were perfectly understood at the time as the first, definitive triumphs of the genocidal European project in New England. The near-erasure of Native Americans in Massachusetts and, soon thereafter, from most of the remainder of the northern English colonial seaboard was the true mission of the Pilgrim enterprise - Act One of the American Dream. African Slavery commenced contemporaneously - an overlapping and ultimately inseparable Act Two. [Continue reading at]:

===================================================================================


                                                 Dane Wigington Interview on Jeff Rense MONDAY DEC. 2 @ 8:00pm PT


===================================================================================

From: Rick Davis <rda...@yin.or.jp>
Date: November 28, 2013 7:59:36 PM GMT-05:00
Subject: News Links, November 28-29, 2013

Euro zone loans contraction increases pressure on ECB
A contraction in loans to households and companies in the euro zone quickened in October, piling pressure on the European Central Bank to do more to buoy the euro zone's weak recovery.
Venezuela central bank denies transactions with Wall Street
Venezuela's central bank president denied on Thursday that the institution is carrying out any transactions with Wall Street banks, a day after a senior government source said it was evaluating a swap agreement involving its gold reserves.
Canada Jetlines: Ultra-low cost carrier being proposed for Western Canada
Calming tensions just costs more money, which will further weigh on the air travel regime. -- RF

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##
New clashes between army, Islamists in Libya's Benghazi
S. Korea official hints at possible thaw
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se stressed Wednesday the need for both his country and Japan to make efforts to mend their soured relations.
A rundown of the geopolitics and economics behind the deal. -- RF

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
Thai protesters force evacuation of top crime agency
More and more in the mainstream are admitting the truth of peak oil. -- RF
S.Korea nuclear reactor hit by auto shutdown; six units now off
A "safety-related action" automatically shut down one of South Korea's 23 nuclear reactors on Thursday, the country's nuclear operator said, bringing the tally of those closed to six and hiking the chances of power blackouts this winter.
Russian Government Plans to Build 21 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030
This is, unfortunately, true. Despite all the warm, fuzzy talk about running the world on renewables, high-living industrial societies require the concentrated energy of fossil fuels. -- RF
There is only so much high-quality and easy-to-get oil, and that's why everyone is going after low-quality and hard-to-get oil. Angola is doing what it must to stretch its oil supply. -- RF
Germany sets out plan to rein in surging energy costs
German parties have agreed to limit the growth of renewables and reform controversial incentives for the sector by next summer in a move to slow the rise in electricity costs for households and give big utilities more time to adapt their business models.
In a sign of growing desperation, the plans just keep getting more and more grandiose. -- RF
Very likely the net energy of methane hydrates will be negative. -- RF

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
EU demands protection against U.S. data surveillance

## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
Floating city: Plan for 40,000 people to live on the high seas
High-energy pipe dream. -- RF
Madness: Japan to spend about 1 trillion yen on public works for stimulus: sources
Japan can't shake the belief that big spending on useless, make-work construction projects will be a boon to the economy. What often happens is that municipalities end up with nice-looking facilities of questionable utility that operate in the red and increase the taxpayer burden. -- RF
China Is On A Debt Binge And A Buying Spree Unlike Anything The World Has Ever Seen Before
Record Spread Blowout Sparks Mini-Crisis Warning: China Credit
Chinese companies’ borrowing costs are climbing at a record pace relative to the government’s, increasing the risk of defaults and prompting state newspapers to warn of a limited debt crisis.
It is not at the federal level that the rubber meets the road in the US, but at the state and municipal level, where many states and municipalities are poised to hit a financial brick wall at a hundred miles an hour, as Detroit spectacularly did on July 18th.

And finally...

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