Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Digital Comics Publisher Breaks Away From the Print Model by Heading Back to Print


Image: Courtesy Monkeybrain Comics
When publisher MonkeyBrain Comics launched nine months ago, it bucked quite a few trends in the world of comic books with a line of exclusively digitally published comics that not only allowed creators to keep the rights to their content, but offered titles for half the cost — or less — of most mainstream digital comics. Now the publisher continues to break new ground, announcing exclusively to Wired that its line of digital titles will also be published in print format beginning this summer.
But since the print rights — indeed, all rights outside of digital publication — reside with the creators of each comic, Monkeybrain won’t be licensing out its entire line to one single publisher. The first MonkeyBrain print edition, a collection of the superhero titles Edison Rex by MonkeyBrain co-founder Chris Roberson and artist Dennis Culver, will be released by IDW Publishing in June. A month later, Image Comics/Shadowline will release the second print collection, Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson’s Masks and Mobsters, and the following month, IDW will put out the third collection, Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire’s Amelia Cole and The Unknown World.
According to co-founder Allison Baker, this sort of choose-your-own-print-publisher option makes sense, because they see MonkeyBrain as just “one piece of the publishing model. What we do is create a spotlight and a platform and a conduit for people to publish their work through us, then they can take that work and sell it again to a print publisher [or] any subsidiary as well. The investment capital doesn’t sit with any one entity, the risk doesn’t sit with one entity. The risk is less for every single person involved.”
MonkeyBrain has quickly established itself as one of the most interesting companies in the digital space not only because of its willingness to leave so much control in the hands of actual comics creators, but also its real-time exploration of what it means to publish digitally in a medium that is still finding its footing in the format. “We’re learning a lot of things about the psychology of the customer,” Roberson told Wired. “It’s different [from the print market].”
One of the most obvious differences has been the issue of price. Whereas new digital releases from big publishers like Marvel and DC Comics tend to mirror their print costs of 20 pages of content for $2.99 or even $3.99, MonkeyBrain prices its releases at far more reasonable rates: 99 cents for comics around 10 pages, and $1.99 for longer works in the range of 20 pages. Lower price points — enabled by the lower overhead of no printing costs — make the comics far friendlier to impulse buys.
But Baker says the differences they’ve discovered between print and digital also include the most fundamental ideas about how comic books sell. “The digital model is completely different than the [print comic book] direct market…. It’s almost backward.” Unlike print, where sales of print comics tend to decline over the run of a series after its issue no. 1 debut, she says, the numbers for digital comics actually go up. ”Say you have issue 5 of Edison Rex [coming out]…. You have a certain number [of sales] for the new issue, but that also spikes sales of the fourth issue, and no. 3, no. 2 and no. 1 in that month. Basically, people are finding the book for the first time because the new issue has come out.”

MonkeyBrain Co-Founders Allison Baker and Chris Roberson
The key difference is that unlike print releases where earlier issues often sell out or become more difficult to find, digital makes “back issues” permanently available at the click of a button, allowing new readers to jump on and read the first issue of a series or storyline at any point.
“We don’t have that limited timeframe of the week or month of release to sell the material, or the limited timeframe of X number of weeks before sales reach a point where it’s no longer profitable,” Roberson says. ”The mindset that some people had had trouble getting past is [in print]…. There might be [collected edition royalties] later on, but otherwise, that month’s sales are it. What we’ve been trying to explain is the first month’s sales are the starting place. That issue will keep generating revenue potentially indefinitely. However small, it’ll add over time. If you add it up over time, it’ll all make sense.”
Baker agreed that digital lends itself more to a longer-term perspective on profitability. “The more issues go up [online], the more everything sells. You can’t look at it as you’ll make your money upfront, it’ll be trickling in over time, but it’ll be a steady stream. Eventually, it’ll become more and more every month.”
IDW’s director of e-publishing, Jeff Webber, told Wired that his company “is very supportive of creators testing the waters [in digital] … so a book is ready to go in print” with a more established online fanbase. “We’re finding that many readers buy the same comics in print and digital…. When they want something to save, they go for the collected print edition. But also keep in mind that less than 15 percent of the comics audience is digital, so bringing the MonkeyBrain titles to print is reaching a whole new group of readers.”
Baker and Roberson hope that the success of the print editions will mean more people will discover the MonkeyBrain titles, but haven’t lost their focus on the importance of original digital releases. Roberson believes that the lower costs involved in digital release allow for a greater variety of work than to flourish than the current print comics market can support. “Things that would die on the vine in print have a chance to find an audience [at MonkeyBrain] and then go back to print.”
“We’re able to go longer and let the books find people, and let people find the books.” said Baker. Overall, she says, it “helps everybody.”

3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production

Engineer Jim Kor and his design for the Urbee 2. Photo: Sara Payne
Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo.
Urbee’s approach to maximum miles per gallon starts with lightweight construction – something that 3-D printing is particularly well suited for. The designers were able to focus more on the optimal automobile physics, rather than working to install a hyper efficient motor in a heavy steel-body automobile. As the Urbee shows, making a car with this technology has a slew of beneficial side effects.
Jim Kor is the engineering brains behind the Urbee. He’s designed tractors, buses, even commercial swimming pools. Between teaching classes, he heads Kor Ecologic, the firm responsible for the 3-D printed creation.
“We thought long and hard about doing a second one,” he says of the Urbee. “It’s been the right move.”
Kor and his team built the three-wheel, two-passenger vehicle at RedEye, an on-demand 3-D printing facility. The printers he uses create ABS plastic via Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). The printer sprays molten polymer to build the chassis layer by microscopic layer until it arrives at the complete object. The machines are so automated that the building process they perform is known as “lights out” construction, meaning Kor uploads the design for a bumper, walk away, shut off the lights and leaves. A few hundred hours later, he’s got a bumper. The whole car – which is about 10 feet long – takes about 2,500 hours.
Photo: Sara Payne
Besides easy reproduction, making the car body via FDM affords Kor the precise control that would be impossible with sheet metal. When he builds the aforementioned bumper, the printer can add thickness and rigidity to specific sections. When applied to the right spots, this makes for a fender that’s as resilient as the one on your Prius, but much lighter. That translates to less weight to push, and a lighter car means more miles per gallon. And the current model has a curb weight of just 1,200 pounds.
To further remedy the issues caused by modern car-construction techniques, Kor used the design freedom of 3-D printing to combine a typical car’s multitude of parts into simple unibody shapes. For example, when he prints the car’s dashboard, he’ll make it with the ducts already attached without the need for joints and connecting parts. What would be dozens of pieces of plastic and metal end up being one piece of 3-D printed plastic.
“The thesis we’re following is to take small parts from a big car and make them single large pieces,” Kor says. By using one piece instead of many, the car loses weight and gets reduced rolling resistance, and with fewer spaces between parts, the Urbee ends up being exceptionally aerodynamic.” How aerodynamic? The Urbee 2′s teardrop shape gives it just a 0.15 coefficient of drag.
Not all of the Urbee is printed plastic — the engine and base chassis will be metal, naturally. They’re still figuring out exactly who will make the hybrid engine, but the prototype will produce a maximum of 10 horsepower. Most of the driving – from zero to 40 mph – will be done by the 36-volt electric motor. When it gets up to highway speeds, the engine will tap the fuel tank to power a diesel engine.
But how safe is a 50-piece plastic body on a highway?
With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it’s more motorcycle than passenger car.
“We’re calling it race car safety,” Kor says. “We want the car to pass the tech inspection required at Le Mans.”
The design puts a tubular metal cage around the driver, “like a NASCAR roll cage,” Kor claims. And he also mentioned the possibility of printed shock-absorbing parts between the printed exterior and the chassis. Going by Le Mans standards also means turn signals, high-beam headlights, and all the little details that make a production car.
To negotiate the inevitable obstacles presented by a potentially incredulous NHSTA and DOT, the answer is easy. “In many states and many countries, Urbee will be technically registered as a motorcycle,” Kor says. It makes sense. With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it’s more motorcycle than passenger car.
No matter what, the bumpers will be just as strong as their sheet-metal equivalents. “We’re planning on making a matrix that will be stronger than FDM,” says Kor. He admits that yes, “There is a danger in breaking one piece and have to recreate the whole thing.” The safety decisions that’ll determine the car’s construction lie ahead. Kor and his team have been tweaking the safety by using crash simulation software, but the full spectrum of testing will have to wait for an influx of investment cash. “Our goal with the final production Urbee,” Kor says, “is to exceed most, if not all, current automotive safety standards.”
Kor already has 14 orders, mostly from people who worked on the design with him. The original Urbee prototype was estimated to cost around $50,000.
When the funding comes in, the head engineer is planning to take the latest prototype from San Francisco to New York on 10 gallons of gas, preferably pure ethanol. The hope is that the drive will draw even more interest. “We’re trying to prove without dispute that we did this drive with existing traffic,” Kor says. “We’re hoping to make it in Google [Maps'] time, and we want to have the Guinness book of world records involved.”

The Rapidly Emerging Drone Technology Industry: Dream Technology or Orwellian Nightmare?



By Sarah Dee
theintelhub.com
February 27, 2013
Regardless of the controversy that surrounds drone warfare use by the U.S. abroad, technology in the field of drones, also called Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV‘s) or Micro Air Vehicles (MAV‘s), is growing at a rapid rate.
The government is already working to develop MAV’s that would mimic birds and insects in their size and movements.
These mini-drones that masquerade as creatures from the kingdom of nature could be let loose on an urban center and within minutes set-up a communication and surveillance network rivaling the most advanced its human counter-parts could achieve in any spy movie.
According to an article at The Daily Mail:
“The U.S. Air Force is developing tiny unmanned drones that will fly in swarms, hover like bees, crawl like spiders and even sneak up on unsuspecting targets and execute them with lethal precision.
The Air Vehicles Directorate, a research arm of the Air Force, has released a computer-animated video outlining the the future capabilities of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The project promises to revolutionize war by down-sizing the combatants.
‘MAVs will become a vital element in the ever-changing war-fighting environment and will help ensure success on the battlefield of the future,’ the narrator intones. ‘Unobtrusive, pervasive, lethal – Micro Air Vehicles, enhancing the capabilities of the future war fighter .’”
The project is fittingly seated at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where aviation pioneers, the Wright brothers, originated.
But just as the Wright brothers and car magnate Henry Ford’s new industries shut down out-dated technologies, new drone technology could put fighter jets out of business.
National Geographic reported that:
“The U.S. has deployed more than 11,000 military drones, up from fewer than 200 in 2002.…Within a generation they could replace most manned military aircraft, says John Pike, a defense expert at the think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
Pike suspects that the F-35 Lightning II, now under development by Lockheed Martin, might be “the last fighter with an ejector seat, and might get converted into a drone itself .”
Fighter jets soon to be left in the junkyard with the horse-and-buggy, and granpaw’s old VCR? These times they are a’changin.
The Role of the FAA
Apparently American skies could have been filled with UAV’s for years now, but for the stringent rules imposed by the FAA keeping them out of U.S. airspace.
There are only a few locations now nationally that allow UAV to fly without direct human supervision, much to hobbyist and engineer’s chagrin. One of these locations is in Costa Mesa County, Colorado, near the now infamous Aurora, CO.
The National Geographic article also explained that:
“Miser is a former Air Force captain who worked on military drones before quitting in 2007 to found his own company in Aurora, Colorado. The Falcon has an eight-foot wingspan but weighs just 9.5 pounds.
Powered by an electric motor, it carries two swiveling cameras, visible and infrared, and a GPS-guided autopilot. Sophisticated enough that it can’t be exported without a U.S. government license, the Falcon is roughly comparable, Miser says, to the Raven, a hand-launched military drone–but much cheaper. He plans to sell two drones and support equipment for about the price of a squad car.”
“A law signed by President Barack Obama in February 2012 directs the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by September 30, 2015.
But for now Mesa County, with its empty skies, is one of only a few jurisdictions with an FAA permit to fly one. The sheriff ’s office has a three-foot-wide helicopter drone called a Draganflyer, which stays aloft for just 20 minutes.”
Big Brother’s Watching: Constant Surveillance the Future Norm?
Though their use has been primarily military in recent years, but UAV applications are endless and hungry inventors are ready for this emerging market to take flight.
The National Geographic article continued:
“One of those entrepreneurs is Donald Smith, a bearish former Navy aircraft technician with ginger hair and a goatee. His firm, UA Vision, manufactures a delta-wing drone called the Spear.
Made of polystyrene foam wrapped in woven carbon fiber or other fabrics, the Spear comes in several sizes; the smallest has a four-foot wingspan and weighs less than four pounds.
It resembles a toy B-1 bomber. Smith sees it being used to keep track of pets, livestock, wildlife, even Alzheimer’s patients–anything or anyone equipped with radio-frequency identification tags that can be read remotely.”
The tiny robots have many beneficial applications, but if this technology flew into the wrong hands the possibilities are rather chilling.
Sources:
Zennie, M. (2013, February 19). Death from a swarm of tiny drones: U.s. air force releases terrifying video of tiny flybots that can can hover, stalk and even kill targets. The Daily Mail.
Horgan, J. (2013, March). Unmanned flight: The drones come home. National Geographic Magazine.
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Read more articles by this author HERE
Sarah Dee is a University of Texas graduate and animal lover who enjoys writing, reading, and living in the Lone Star State. She is also a guest co-host on Truth Exposed Radio Show and an investigative journalist for theintelhub.com a popular alternative news website.

Clint Richardson Explains CAFR and The Corporation Nation



By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com
February 27, 2013
Tonight on the Bob Tuskin Radio Show we will be covering some of the days top headlines from around the world.
Also be sure to catch tonight’s guest, Clint Richardson.
Click here to listen live at 10PM-11PM eastern standard time on February 27, 2013
Clint Richardson is best known for his work exposing the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report‘s or “CAFR” as well as his popular documentary “Corporation Nation”.
From his website:
The Corporation Nation is the United States of America, U.S. Incorporated.
The United States is comprised of over 185,000 incorporated state, county, city, town, municipality, district, councils, school district, pension fund, enterprise operation, lottery, alcohol monopoly, and many other private and for-profit corporations, which have mistakenly been called our “representative government”.
The hidden wealth and investment totals for all of these “collective” 185,000 corporations (governments), when added together, equate to well over 100 trillion dollars, over 26 trillion in just pension fund investment assets.
A trillion dollars is a million million.
With these investments, the government owns controlling ownership interest in all Fortune 500 companies, most major domestic and international companies, and most of everything you see around you. Malls, mini-malls, strip-malls, golf courses, movie theaters, etc…
Federal lands include about 87% of all state land, 97% of Utah land, 95% of Nevada, etc…
This is all easily verifiable by looking at the general accounting system of government, as required by federal law, called the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, or CAFR.
“The Corporation Nation” documentary proves all of this without a shadow of a doubt.
It is free, it will never be for sale, and needs to be seen by all Americans.
Within this documentary is the governments own admission of corporate governance and fascism. It will not only astound you, but it will also answer just about every question you ever had with regards to the question of why
why is every law and every bill passed in the legislature unconstitutional?
why has the government deregulated all industries and allowed monopolies and corporate tyranny?
…why can banks charge as much interest as they want, despite state laws against usury?
why was the “Obama-Care” health car bill passed, and who really profits from it?
why is our infrastructure and land being sold off to private and foreign corporations?
All of these questions will be stunningly clear once you have watched this movie. And with the information you will now possess, you will never again be left to wonder why anything happens in government…
Because you will see first hand that government owns the corporations that it regulates through stock investment.
Government votes for each corporation’s board of directors.
Government votes on whether each company should merge with or acquire other corporations.
Government is the corporations, by controlling stock ownership.
Please watch The Corporation Nation, pass it on, download the film, make copies, and pass them out to everyone you can. For this is the only issue any of us should be focused on…
For this is the root of corporate fascism in America.
-Clint Richardson-
*****
Read more articles by this author HERE.
J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter-culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, a staff writer, reporter for theintelhub.com and Executive Producer of the Bob Tuskin Radio Sh
You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website www.aotmr.com

Study Shows Drone Pilots Suffer Stress Disorders Like Regular Pilots



By Sarah Dee
theintelhub.com
February 27, 2013
A recent study done on drone pilot operators shows that they suffer from stress disorders like anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and depression as much as pilots that operate from manned aircraft do.
This study was the first of its kind, and only one in a series of many firsts concerning unmanned air vehicles or drones.
The Air Force is currently developing a miniature class of drones (MAV’s ) that will be able to camouflage themselves as insects or birds, charge their batteries from power lines, and stealthily sneak up on a target and deliver a lethal blow.
The IntelHub also reported on a first-of-its-kind medal of honor for drone operators, which will be the first medal given to military members that haven’t seen physical combat.
This study shows that the cost of seeing the violence on screen, may take its toll. Though drone operators control the unmanned vehicles from the U.S., they are active in places as far away as Yemen and Somalia, and the pilots get a front row seat to any violence that occurs thanks to on-board cameras capturing all the action.
 The New York Times reported that:
“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones.”
That is one major difference between pilots of bombers and fighter jets, is that they don’t witness the after-effects of delivering their payload first-hand, whereas drone pilots see it all on the live-camera feed.
It appears that the number of drone pilots being trained is on the rise, as cyber warfare comes to the forefront of today’s military strategy.
Source:
Dao, J. (2013, February 22). Drone pilots found to get stress disorders much as those in combat do. The New York Times
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Read more articles by this author HERE
Sarah Dee is a University of Texas graduate and animal lover who enjoys writing, reading, and living in the Lone Star State. She is also a guest co-host on Truth Exposed Radio Show and an investigative journalist for theintelhub.com a popular alternative news website.

Howard Stern- Alex Jones Interview 02/26/13

Yes, Hitler & Stalin Did Take The Guns




Debunking the meme that historical gun grabs by dictatorships is a myth
By Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com 
February 26, 2013
Following Alex Jones’ explosive appearance on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight last month, gun control advocates reacted to Jones’ fiery historical defense of the right to bear arms by attempting to dismiss the fact that tyrannical regimes always disarmed their target populations as a myth or a hoax.
Numerous left-wing blogs successfully gamed Google’s search engine results so that when people searched for terms such as ‘Nazi gun control’, they were met with a plethora of articles claiming the historical basis for this connection was a fabrication.
A meme has been launched claiming that historical gun grabs by dictatorships is a myth – an insulting attempt to literally re-write history in the name of pursuing a contemporary political agenda.
In reality, the Nazis did take existing gun control laws and make them more draconian in order to target their political adversaries. That is a manifestly provable historical fact.
Hitler disarmed his domestic enemies before launching a genocide against them.
The Nazi Weapons Law of November 11, 1938 prohibited Jews from “acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons,” and ordered them to turn in all guns and ammunition to local police.
As historian William Sheridan Allen noted, the Nazis also began house to house gun confiscations targeting “subversives” shortly after they came to power.
In addition, historians like Israel Guttman have outlined how the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis was hampered by the fact that imprisoned Jews did not have access to adequate arsenals of firearms, although their resistance did lead Goebbels to note in his diary:
“This just shows what you can expect from Jews if they lay hands on weapons.”
Similarly, as J.E. Simkin and Aaron Zelman document in their book “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny, in October 1918, the Council of People’s Commissars (the Communist government) ordered citizens to surrender all firearms, ammunition, and sabres, having first mandated registration of all weapons six months earlier. Just like the Nazis, Communist Party members were exempt from the ban.
A 1920 decree then imposed a minimum six month prison sentence for any non-Communist possessing a weapon. After the civil war, possession became punishable with three months hard labor plus fines. After Stalin came to power, he made possession of unlawful firearms a crime punishable by death.
Stalin disarmed his domestic enemies before launching a genocide against them.
With Russians almost universally disarmed, Stalin was given free reign to carry out one of history’s most brutal prolonged genocide, with tens of millions of people executed or starved to death in the three decades that followed, a model subsequently mimicked in China and Cambodia.
Brutal dictatorships have almost always been preceded by widespread gun confiscation, and to allow leftists to claim otherwise in the pursuit of their contemporary political agenda is an insult to the historical record.
H/T - This web page has an excellent and fully sourced list of all the countries where gun control was a pre-cursor to mass genocide.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

Pentagon unveils plan to tap potential of mobile devices


Blackberry Z10 devices are displayed at a Rogers store in Toronto
The Pentagon unveiled a plan on Tuesday to ultimately enable the Defense Department’s 600,000 users of smartphones, computer tablets and other mobile devices to rapidly share classified and protected data using the latest commercial technologies. The system aims to quickly enable the latest technologies to be securely used by the military while remaining “device agnostic,” said Major General Robert Wheeler, a Defense Department deputy chief information officer.
That sets the stage for an intensified struggle for Pentagon customers among BlackBerry devices, Apple’s iPhones or iPads, and units using Google’s Android platform.
The Defense Department currently has more than 600,000 mobile device users, including 470,000 with BlackBerries, 41,000 who have Apple operating systems, and 8,700 who use Android devices.
The new plan will result in the use of a much wider variety of mobile devices across the military. Currently most devices using Apple and Google platforms are in pilot or test programs, officials said.
Few commercial devices are used for classified communications, whereas the new system aims to bolster security of commercially available devices so they can be used for classified information, they said.
Wheeler said the implementation plan aimed to ensure that mobile devices, wireless infrastructure and mobile applications remain “reliable, secure and flexible enough to keep up with the fast-changing technologies of today.”
He said the department has a broad range of mobile device users, from the chairman and planners on the Joint Chiefs of Staff to policymakers and soldiers on the battlefield, all of whom would be affected by the implementation plan.
The military services would decide which devices to buy and provide to users based on need. The system would not initially enable an individual service member to purchase their own mobile devices and use them on the Pentagon’s networks, but that is a longer-range goal if security can be assured, officials said.
The plan is a step toward implementing the “mobility strategy” the Pentagon released last June. The strategy aims to use smartphone, tablet and other mobile technologies to improve information sharing and collaboration across the department.
The plan aims to “align the various mobile devices, pilots and initiatives across the department under common objectives to ensure the war fighter benefits from these activities,” Teri Takai, the Pentagon’s chief information officer, said in a statement.
Read More Here

Gun Control Idiot Test


The following video was produced by SailingManuel
A very sincere and direct video on the ludicrous nature of gun-control arguments.  Gun grabbers love to use skewed statistics and false assumptions to draw 2nd Amendment advocates into irrelevant tangents and muddle the bottom line.  In the end, there is only one question that needs to be asked or answered:
What would THEY do when faced with armed attackers or the threat of harm to their loved ones?  Would they use a gun? Run and leave their family behind?  Or, die on their knees begging for mercy while waiting for the cops?  Any HONEST gun control activist would at least have the sense to admit that they would want the best possible protection for themselves and their family, which is a gun (for multiple attackers, it would be a high capacity semi-automatic).  Only paid government trolls and idiots would argue that a firearm is not necessary.  Again, it's one simple question that every gun grabber should be confronted with.
(Warning: For those sensitive to rough language, do not watch this video...)
Brandon Smith, Founder Of Alt-Market.com            

SANDY HOOK: A STARTLING REVELATION

Fear Of A Nuclear Harvest




Fear Of A Nuclear Harvest

Fear Of A Nuclear Harvest

FEAR OF A NUCLEAR HARVEST

In the year 2013, we are still living under the radiated cloud left behind by the cold war. It is unfortunate that the political climate has focused on pseudoscience with a manufactured crisis about climate change because one of the most pressing issues that barely gets press is all of the nuclear waste and threats that exist when nuclear power plants fail during a power grid failure.
Back in 1950’s and 1960’s Americans were forced into getting used to nuclear bomb tests because of an arms race that was out of control. Both the Soviet Union and the United states had areas where nuclear tests were carried out routinely. The ‘nuclear genie’ was let out of the bottle and there are still victims today that are falling victim to what can be called the ‘nuclear harvest’.
There does not need to be a mushroom cloud present in order to know of the major threats that exist in contaminated areas around the world. While we all are fearing the possibility that some rouge nation may use the bomb to annihilate our country, it is the slow and silent death that comes from continuous exposure to radioactive waste and nuclear disasters like what happened at Chernobyl, the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Facility in Japan – and now we hear that the Hanford Nuclear Power Plant in the Pacific Northwest is now leaking contaminated water which poses a danger as it borders the Columbia River.


If we reach back into our radioactive history, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer published a paper entitled, “The Rights of the Unborn and the Peril Today.” In his paper, Schweitzer spoke out against the “campaign of assurance” that used crunched numbers and the typically homogenized denials to convince people that exposure to radioactivity was of little or no danger. This was at a time where it was reported that levels of radioactivity in milk were rising to alarming rates around the world.
In July of 1963, the US and USSR signed an agreement partially banning atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. President Kennedy announced that, “The number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards, but this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue… The loss of even one human life or the malformation of even one baby— who may be born long after we are gone—should be of concern to all of us. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.
Meanwhile in the Pacific Northwest near Hanford, little lambs were born without eyes or mouths. Some had legs that had fused together; some had no legs at all. Many were stillborn. There over thirty that died in one night.
It would not be out of the ordinary to look over at an adjacent pasture and find a few dead cows. Bloated and stiff all four hooves stretched upward. The Yakama tribesmen reported that they pulled a three-eyed salmon from the Columbia. There were other trout that were covered in cancerous ulcers. Babies were also getting sick and some would die, as well. There were also reports of still born babies as well.
Michael D’Antonio, in his 1993 book “Atomic Harvest“, wrote about these horrifying incidents that took place in the 1960’s. These are just a few of the many horror stories that took place in the area surrounding Hanford, Washington, the site of America’s first full-scale plutonium production facility.
The facility is sprawled over 586 square miles in the remote emptiness of eastern Washington. This facility is where the United States once produced most of its nuclear raw materials for the Cold War. Though it was decommissioned in 1988, it remains the most contaminated location in the entire Western Hemisphere.
The US Department of Energy recently revised its timetable for Hanford’s decontamination, which is the biggest environmental cleanup in American history. The end date was moved back, once again. It now hopes to finally wrap up their cleanup by September 2052 — more than 108 years after Hanford was opened.
Now, federal and state officials say six underground tanks holding a deadly concoction of radioactive and toxic waste are leaking, raising concerns about delays for emptying the aging tanks.
Once again we are told that there is no immediate danger because according to officials it would take years for the chemicals to reach groundwater.
The “nothing to see here” stance by authorities can be only seen as lip service because of what he have experienced in the past with regards to “no immediate danger” reports.
Fukushima Daiichi’s nuclear disaster is still a threat and with it we still are teetering towards mega death and an extinction level environmental catastrophe around the world all we need is one more seismic push and we wake up in the ‘zombie apocalypse.’
It doesn’t stop with Fukushima or Hanford.
The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in the U.K., were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001 and the “Shock & Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003. The British government facility that monitored the lethal effects was taken over 3 years ago by Halliburton, which refused to release air monitoring data, as required by law. It seems that private enterprise doesn’t want you to know just how lethal “depleted uranium tipped bombs can be.”
When we hear of depleted uranium weaponry we don’t stop and think that the word ‘depleted’ is public relations spin. It makes it sound like the nuclear material is worn out. It’s not. It’s uranium.
Nuclear waste remains radioactive for billions of years, contaminating ground, water and air which causes cancer, birth defects and death although DU is allegedly “safe” for humans, according to Pentagon scientists. Safe even though it is made to kill people? stupidity never ceases to amaze me.
Cancer rates and birth defects have skyrocketed in Iraq. Infertility rates have also skyrocketed, as have cases of depression and suicide.
However, Americans can sit back and say that the so called enemy had it coming. The demon that they created is the demon we can control. However the same demon is being unleashed and the deaths can be had with another bit of plausible deniability because it takes years to realize the effects, and years to forget that the cause was always there beaming deadly radiation, as the numerous protestors and pseudo scientists spout off their nonsense of global cooling, warming and change as if there is anything we can do about it.
Where is the concern for global radiating, and the waste and contamination that is far more expedient than paying out compensation for carbon credits?
When it comes to anyone who has to endure radioactive contamination, should we resolve that we had it coming? That we deserve the radiated death and nuclear harvest?
The federal government built the Hanford facility at the height of World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The remote site produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan and continued supporting the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal for years.
Today, it is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, still surrounded by sagebrush but with Washington’s Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco several miles downriver.
Several years ago, workers at Hanford completed two of three projects deemed urgent risks to the public and the environment, removing all weapons-grade plutonium from the site and emptying leaky pools that held spent nuclear fuel just 400 yards from the river.
But successes at the site often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges. Nowhere have those challenges been more apparent than in Hanford’s central plateau, home to the site’s third most urgent project: emptying the tanks.
Hanford’s tanks hold some 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools and many of those tanks are known to have leaked in the past. An estimated 1 million gallons of radioactive liquid has already leaked there.
Despite evidence that every aspect of our physical environment is being manipulated and damaged for various war efforts, some Americans cannot accept that there are more immediate dangers to the environment other than the politically based global warming.
Our very own country and its various scientists have put us in danger and the biggest stumbling block for most is that a government would not harm others because “they have families too” and that they can empathize with ‘family” and “survival.”
Although “they” had families too, the U.S. government and its defense contractors exposed citizens of the United States to huge and deliberate releases of radioactive iodine from the Hanford Nuclear Site, and the Nevada test Site, where downwinders were affected by fallout, virtually creating mutant citizenry prone to thyroid problems and cancers.
Those Cold War “protectors of freedom” released unleashed radiation illnesses upon thousands of down winders, some of whom received up to 350 rads of radiation, during radioactive bomb tests in Utah and New Mexico. To this day, Dugway Proving Ground in Utah contains some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world and whistleblowers have stated that there are still strange things that go on in the west deserts of Utah.
We are told that defense officials perpetrated these tests so that scientists can learn about how to “protect” Americans from nuclear attack. Now it seems we are under a silent attack because of our gullible support of a political war machine.
The federal government spends $2 billion each year on the Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department report released calls for annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort.
What is inexplicable and inexcusable is the amount of our nation’s money that has been spent on climate change since that UN Panel, composed mainly of research-money-seeking scientists, invented global warming. We put into a black hole nearly 79 billion dollars that we spend on global warming research.
Meanwhile, the nuclear harvest is guaranteed so that some “progressive lobbyist” can ban plastic bags in supermarkets and jet around the country – all the while warning us of the dangers of bottled water and how it contributes to the carbon footprint.
Priorities seem to be misdirected and that is an understatement. If you have ever wondered if the government wants to let a few die just look at nuclear cleanup budgets compared to global warming budgets and you will walk away realizing that your government is banking on your death by cancer, leukemia and thyroid, kidney and liver failure. All can be diagnosed as all part of your so called lifestyle of over eating, drinking and smoking.
Most of the forces involved in making earth’s weather are beyond man’s ability to control or alter or even prevent from going chaotic. How is man going to eliminate the unpredictable behaviors of volcanoes, sea currents, and the sun itself? The Sun fluctuates the amount of energy and heat it radiates; these cycles have been going on for hundreds of millions of years.
Meanwhile, Hanford is leaking and it won’t be cleaned up until 2052.
Clearly, the public should not trust the government-controlled media as it extols the benefits of trying to control the weather by culling people and their carbon footprint. It is obvious that the way they carry out this murder is to pay less money to the lean up of radioactive waste.
We were told in 2006 by NASA and other groups that the earth did not stand a chance of remaining a stable eco-system within a 4 year window. Now the truth is coming forward. In the seven years we have been mentally beaten and reeducated about global warming and climate change.
The Earth continues to deteriorate under the radioactive cloud of uncertainty. The nuclear harvest is inevitable as we bump and smash our way through a catastrophic cycle that may include nuclear disasters and possible bomb detonations.

Part I: Aldrich-Vreeland Act, Federal Reserve, Jekyll Island

The architects of our economic demise

Author
- Doug Hagmann (Bio and Archives)  Wednesday, February 27, 2013


The architects of our economic demise
Today, we are witnessing the final stages of the greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated on the American people. Behind the massive debt, threat of “sequestration,” and the threat of massive pending layoffs exists a story that must be told and understood by every American. It is a truth that too few understand and even fewer will talk about.
The system has been rigged. However, understanding exactly what is being done to us, our country, and our economy has been deliberately made difficult for a person of average or even above-average intelligence by the architects of our demise. This process continues today, and much of it is done in secret or behind closed doors.
Every person on the planet is being robbed of their wealth by a select group of people. Worse, they are robbing your children, grandchildren, and further generations of their wealth not yet earned and (by extension) their time not yet invested, while making you believe that their enrichment is your moral obligation. It’s mental conditioning on a grand scale.

How we got here

A significant aspect of understanding why we find ourselves in our current financial mess is to understand exactly how we got here in the first place. Like most events taking place in Washington, DC, we are witnessing the ongoing shredding of the United States Constitution by both sides of the political divide. Yet how many people actually understand that what is taking place is completely unconstitutional? Thanks to the incremental infusion of Communist goals into the legal and societal framework of the fabric of America, people have been intellectually hobbled by a complicit media and a compromised educational system.
Discarding revisionist history and knowing the truth behind the larger global scheme will tell us, by default, what we must do to get out of the mess we’re in, and identify those who are responsible, both past and present.
The founders of our country fought a difficult war of independence to break free of the constraint and oppression of England. The blood that was shed on the battlefield over two centuries ago resulted in the creation of our Constitution.
Article I, Section 8, Part 5 of the United States Constitution states that “[T]he Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof…” Yet, that has been violated to the detriment of all Americans. So, what is the truth?
There is a rich history of our country’s monetary system, and significant events that occurred before the twentieth century. For example, why have some of the real factors for the War of 1812 been expunged from our history books? There is no mention of our forefathers’ refusal to permit a central bank to run America, thereby creating antagonism with England. What were the causes of the previous financial panics that struck America in her early years? History has been revised. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll begin with the events of last century and end with the present.

In all conspiracies, there must be great secrecy

In response to a Wall Street orchestrated financial panic in 1907 that saw a 50% fall in the stock market, a National Monetary Commission was created by the U.S. Congress in 1908 and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was a “study group,” ostensibly to prevent further financial panics and economic troubles. Known as the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, it was a Republican-led initiative introduced by Senator Nelson Aldrich. It is important to note that Senator Aldrich was a business associate of J.P. Morgan, and the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller. He was ultimately named head of the National Monetary Commission, a group that spent two years in Europe studying the structure of their banking and financial system.
Two years later, and under the cover of darkness, a meeting of about a half-dozen of the wealthiest people in America took place amid great secrecy on an island just off the coast of Georgia. The meeting was set up by Aldrich himself and held on Jekyll Island, which was purchased in 1888 by J.P. Morgan and William Rockefeller (the brother of John D. Rockefeller).
Late on the night of November 22, 1910, Senator Nelson Aldrich, his personal secretary, and six of the wealthiest men in the world[ia] stealthily boarded Aldrich’s personal rail car in Hoboken, New Jersey to make a trip of nearly a thousand miles to this remote location, where no media or others outside of this clique were allowed.
In addition to Aldrich and his personal secretary, the other men who secretly boarded that rail car included A. Piatt Andrew (the Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Treasury, and Special Assistant to the National Monetary Commission),Frank Vanderlip (President of the National City Bank of New York), Henry P. Davison (senior partner at J.P. Morgan Company, and considered Morgan’s personal emissary), Charles D. Norton (President of the First National Bank of New York, a Morgan dominated bank), Benjamin Strong (also of J.P. Morgan), and Paul Warburg (a German immigrant working for Kuhn, Loeb and Company).[ii]
The unprecedented secrecy surrounding this nine-day conference on Jekyll Island was such that the attendees were only permitted to use first names of others, causing some to refer to the group as “The First Name Club.” Unbeknownst to all Americans, the framework was being set for the greatest financial Ponzi scheme that still exists today.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913

As a result of that secret meeting on Jekyll Island in 1910, the Federal Reserve (or “Fed”) was created after a three-year long magic act designed to fool the American people into believing that the Federal Reserve was something it was not. On December 23, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law after it passed in a nearly empty Capitol chamber,since many lawmakers had already departed for the Christmas holiday.
It is important to understand that, during the three years between the meeting at Jekyll Island and the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, there is a rich history of deception and subterfuge. This included influencing the presidential election that brought Woodrow Wilson (governor of New Jersey, and former president of Princeton University) into office, over popular incumbent William Howard Taft. Historians could rightfully assert that the primary (and perhaps only) purpose of getting Wilson elected as U.S. President at this time was in order to assure that a central banking system would be signed into law.
President William Howard Taft was the incumbent, and favored for re-election. The Republicans also held a majority in both houses of Congress. It was not until the former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (the creator of the National Monetary Commission) entered the race as a third party candidate that Taft was threatened. Roosevelt was highly funded by members of both parties who wanted a central banking system put in place in the United States. The entry of Theodore Roosevelt split the vote, and Woodrow Wilson was elected.
Two figures who played a very prominent role in the creation of a central bank, and the passage of the Federal Reserve Act behind the scenes, were Paul Warburg (a German immigrant) and Colonel Edward Mandel House from Texas. Both had European connections. House was a friend of he most powerful man in America at that time - President Woodrow Wilson. He also had connections to the Rothschild money dynasty in London. The influence of Colonel House over two presidential administrations is without question. Accordingly, he and his ideology warrant a closer look.
“Colonel” is only a nickname, as he had no military experience, just an odd and influential friendship with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. House was active in Texas politics, and became an advisor to Wilson in foreign affairs. Much like today, access to the President appears to hinge on “excess,” or how much money one has. According to one account, House reportedly showed up at the Wilson White House with a $35,000 political contribution.[iii]
In 1911, House anonymously published a novel titled Philip Dru: Administrator, in which the main character causes a civil war in the United States and then becomes a dictator. As dictator, the character Dru turns the U.S. into a Socialist nation - a Socialist utopia, as dreamed by Karl Marx. The cumbersome novel seemed to serve as a blueprint for President Wilson. Then later,it influenced President Roosevelt, in terms of the implementation of socialist programs.
It is interesting that House, an avowed Socialist, viewed the enactment of the Federal Reserve as the crowning achievement of the Wilson administration.[iv] Among other decidedly Socialist “reforms,” House (personally and through his novel) actually called for the creation of the Federal Reserve, or a central banking system.[v] A centralized banking system, along with a progressive or graduated income tax, is one of the ten planks of the Communist goals.

What’s in a name?

Before the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law, it was initially known as the Aldrich Plan, named after Senator Nelson Aldrich. To positively impact public opinion, national banks organized a propaganda campaign through three American Universities: Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. The banks contributed $5 million to this propaganda campaign, much of it spent by the National Citizens’ League, an organization composed primarily of college professors.
As facets of the Republican Aldrich Plan became known, however, there was staunch opposition launched against it by Democrats, who presented their own plan in the form of the Federal Reserve Act. It is here - at this point in American history - that the Republican-Democrat political paradigm seems to have been essentially and forever dissolved. Much print space could be dedicated to this time period in history alone, that would enlighten readers to the collusion between parties at their highest and most powerful levels, in order to fool the American people.
Perhaps one of the most disingenuous feats during this period was this inter-party collusion for the centralization and control of our national monetary system. The illusion of dueling plans was thrust upon the American people by a simple name change. The Aldrich plan was associated with the Republicans. The Federal Reserve plan was associated with the Democratic party. The difference was in name only.
Despite the identical nature of the plans, those pushing for a central banking system made it appear that they were at odds with each other. Aldrich joined with Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank, to publicly denounce the Federal Reserve Act.
The people of the United States had fought previously against the implementation of a central banking system under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, when the Rothschild family attempted to install such a system (and briefly succeeded via The First Bank of the United States and the Second National Bank, respectively). Therefore, the advocates of the Federal Reserve Act wanted to hide the fact that it was really a centralized banking system.
Accordingly, one of the architects at Jekyll Island, Paul Warburg, devised the plan to set up a series of regional banks throughout the U.S., in order to make it appear that the Federal Reserve was not a central bank. Additionally, Warburg also seemed to alleviate concerns over who would oversee the appointments to head the Federal Reserve by making it appear that the U.S. government had full authority over such appointments. Actually, appointments were (and are) made from a list of “acceptable candidates” provided by the Federal Reserve alone.
After the political theater that made it appear that the Republicans and Democrats were at odds with each other, the objective of the architects of a central banking system prevailed. As previously noted, the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913.
Wilson apparently realized what he had done. In 1916, Wilson wrote, “Our system of credit is concentrated [in the Federal Reserve]. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities, are in the hands of a few men.”

London bridges

The creation of the Federal Reserve concentrated the power, wealth, and industry of the United States into the control of a handful of people, including J.P. Morgan who was (for all practical purposes) an emissary for the Rockefeller dynasty. But it was not only the Rockefellers who benefitted from this devious plan; the Rothschild family of London also controlled the wealth of the U.S. by proxy. The Rothschilds also took over the Vatican Bank in 1824.
It is becoming clear that all roads and bridges lead to the bankers of London. Not just to London, but a specific area within London—a city within a city. It is within this magical mile where the root of untold wealth and power exists. It is here where its denizens control men and might, plan wars and “a New World Order.”
Accordingly, honest investigation into the creation and continued existence of the Federal Reserve must include identifying the people behind its creation, as well as its current existence.

“Thou doth protest too much”

Additionally, honest investigation and research into the Federal Reserve, past and present, would not be complete without looking at its “protagonist threats” and their fates. Examples can be found in President Abraham Lincoln (who issued “Greenbacks”), President James A. Garfield (who suggested serious monetary reforms just before his assassination in 1881), and of course, President John F. Kennedy.
It is applicable to introduce Louis Thomas McFadden, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives serving from 1923 to 1935. He was a member of the House Banking and Currency Committee, and had a working understanding of what the central bankers and the power elite were doing to the United States.
On June 10, 1932, Rep. McFadden addressed the House of Representatives with this important message [emphasis added]:
“Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. The Federal Reserve banks are the agents of the foreign central banks. Henry Ford has said, ‘The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.’ The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.”
Based on his analysis of the treachery taking place by the Federal Reserve and its enablers, McFadden introduced House Resolution No. 158, Articles of Impeachment on May 23, 1933 against the Secretary of the Treasury and two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury; the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the officers and directors of the Federal Reserve Banks for their guilt and collusion in causing the Great Depression.
McFadden stated: “I charge them with having unlawfully taken over 80 billion dollars from the United States Government in the year 1928, the said unlawful taking consisting of the unlawful recreation of claims against the United States Treasury to the extent of over 80 billion dollars in the year 1928, and in each year subsequent, and by having robbed the United States Government and the people of the United States by their theft and sale of the gold reserve of the United States.”
Rather than a bullet, McFadden was instead marginalized by rumors that he was legally insane. The Progressives of that era heavily funded his political opposition. Between the allegations of his insanity and the money furnished to his opposition, McFadden lost his congressional district and faded into relative obscurity. The impeachment resolution never saw the light of day.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Quietly backed by the Socialist and Communist parties, Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, ostensibly to end Wall Street domination and free the American people from the evil domestic banking cartel and its equally evil international influences that caused the Great Depression.
But who was Roosevelt? He was himself was an international banker who floated large issuances of foreign bonds in the U.S. during the 1920s. He was also the was President and Director of United European Investors, Ltd., which also floated millions of German marks in this country. Like the pattern we have witnessed more recently, the bonds defaulted and Americans collectively lost millions of dollars.
Perhaps most telling were his associations. Upon taking office, Roosevelt appointed James Paul Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, as Director of the Budget and Vice President of the International Acceptance Bank and other corporations.
Moving quickly through history, there were a number of significant events related to the Federal Reserve and our economy that brought us to this most dangerous point in history.

Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933

Partly due to the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 essentially separated commercial and investment activities by banks.Enacted in part as a result of the findings of the Pecora Commission, an investigation of the events that led to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the commission’s findings led to the Glass-Steagall Banking Act.
Most telling about the secrecy and conspiracy of the central banks, bankers and the Federal Reserve is an entry in the memoir of Ferdinand Pecora, published in 1939:
“Bitterly hostile was Wall Street to the enactment of the regulatory legislation. Had there been full disclosure of what was being done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker’s stoutest allies.”

The Banking Act of 1935

This legislation greatly increased President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s power over the country’s finances and accordingly, his power as president. It repealed the specific clause of the Glass-Steagall Act that provided that a banking house could not be on the Stock Exchange and also be involved in investment banking. The most essential provision of the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1935, thus permitting the Federal Reserve Banks to loan directly to industry.

Summary of Part I

“The dollar represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks create money out of thin air to buy Government bonds from the United States Treasury, lending money into circulation at interest, by bookkeeping entries of checkbook credit to the United States Treasury. The Treasury writes up an interest bearing bond for one billion dollars. The Federal Reserve gives the Treasury a one billion dollar credit for the bond, and has created out of nothing a one billion dollar debt which the American people are obligated to pay with interest.”—Money Facts, House Banking and Currency Committee, 1964, p. 9
It is clear that the Federal Reserve and central banks across the globe represent a shadowy, elite group of the wealthiest and most powerful men on this planet. The central bankers finance wars, often all sides of the conflicts, loaning money for war materials for their own financial gain.
Because of the very manner in which it was established, our current economic system is untenable and is destined for collapse, leaving only those elite with the riches stolen from the American people.
Is there a conspiracy of global takeover, of a “New World Order,” of global governance that has been in the works since the United States gained independence from Great Britain? The honest answer is undeniable: yes.
I’ve attempted to cover as much history in Part I to establish the groundwork and backdrop of Part II: Who is responsible today for robbing the Americans of our wealth, our heritage, our freedom, and our country. Today, we have men and women in power who, by the very definition of the word, are involved in the greatest conspiracy to be thrust upon America and all of the world. By definition, they are traitors to our country, and will be responsible for the collapse of the United States. They must be identified and exposed. But to adequately and effectively do so, it is important to understand the history of the conspiracy of which we are the victims.
When the U.S. dollar collapses, who will appear to be our savior, rescuing the United States from economic destruction through restructuring? I contend that our salvation, which will be our imprisonment, will rise from the seat of economic power - a city within the city of London. The significance of this cannot be understated, as we will be facing the end of our country and our freedoms. It will be the final stage of the implementation of global governance.
Perhaps then people will understand the significance and true meaning of the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics.
[ia] Extensive research for this report noted conflicting reports pertaining to the identities of the attendees of this meeting, even 100 years later.
[ii] Eustace Mullins, The Secrets of the Federal Reserve (Bridger House Publishers, Inc., Carson City, Nevada, 1991), pages 1-2.
[iii] Ibid, page 26.
[iv] George Viereck, The Strangest Friendship in History: Woodrow Wilson and Col. House (Liverwright, New York, NY, 1932) page 45.
[v] Edward Mandell House, Philip Dru, Administrator.
Copyright © Douglas Hagmann
Douglas J. Hagmann and his son, Joe Hagmann host The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, a live Internet radio program broadcast each weeknight from 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET.
Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.
Doug can be reached at: director@homelandsecurityus.com
Older articles by Doug Hagmann

In new bodies, brain cells find longer lives

Transplanted mouse neurons survive for twice the lifespan of a mouse.

The search for the fountain of youth is nothing new; we humans have long been trying to lengthen our lifespans. In recent years, science and medicine have made great strides in increasing how long we live. The average life expectancy of an American is now more than 78 years, up nearly a decade since 1960. But as we live longer and longer, what will happen to the cells that compose our brains?  If we are able to live to 120, 150, or longer, can our brain cells survive that long too? Or in the future, will our neurons die long before we do, leaving our brains depleted?
To start answering this question, three Italian researchers carried out a series of transplant experiments and found that neurons can last far longer than the organisms in which they originated. In this week’s issue of PNAS, the scientists describe their research, which suggests neuron survival may be more flexible than previously thought.
The researchers chose to work with mice and rats. The two animals are similar in many regards, but they differ substantially in their life expectancy (rats survive far longer than mice). By transplanting cells between these two species, the scientists could determine whether neurons have a pre-programmed lifespan based on genetics or whether they have more plasticity.
They took “neuroglial precursors”—cells that develop into neurons—from mice bred to express a fluorescent protein and then transplanted these cells into rat embryos. Thanks to the fluorescence, the researchers could visibly track the transplanted neurons as the rats aged, keeping an eye on the cells' development, status, and survival.
The researchers focused on a certain type of neuron, called a Purkinje cell, that plays a role in motor function and movement. These large neurons tend to deteriorate and die off as animals age. Mice, for instance, lose as many as 40 percent of their Purkinje cells by the time they die.
The mouse-donated cells took hold in 20 of the 59 rats, developing in these animals just as normal rat neurons would. However, they retained many of the characteristics of mouse neurons, such as shape and size. Just as they would have under normal circumstances, the transplanted brain cells deteriorated somewhat, slowly losing dendritic spines.
But inside the rats’ brains, the cells didn’t die off after 18 months, when most of the mice they originated in would have died. Instead, the neurons survived as long as the host rats did, up to 36 months. In other words, inside a rat’s brain, the donated neurons survived for the lifespan of two average mice.
This discovery suggests brain cell survival isn’t pre-programmed by genetics—or at least it isn’t completely tied to the lifespan of the organism where the cells originate. Instead, their survival may depend on the microenvironment of the organism that they inhabit. Neuron aging and survival appear to be controlled by two processes which—while related—may be separable. But there's much more to learn, since we don't yet know much about either of these processes.
Despite the unknowns, this is good news for those of us who want to live long past 78 years (and still be coherent enough to enjoy it). The research suggests that scientists could potentially extend our lifespans dramatically without leaving us devoid of brain cells.
PNAS, 2013. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1217505110  (About DOIs).
Listing image by Hey Paul Studios

Comcast Punishes BitTorrent Pirates With Browser Hijack

Comcast revealed today how it will deal with customers who receive multiple warnings under the newly launched “six-strikes” anti-piracy system. After four alerts the ISP will “hijack” web-browsers of suspected serial pirates with a persistent pop-up notification, making it impossible to browse the Internet. The pop-up will disappear after the customer “resolves the issue” with a Customer Security Assurance professional.
pirateEarlier this week when the six strikes system launched, little was known (officially) about the punishments ISPs were planning for persistent pirates.
Since then Verizon reinstated their copyright alerts section, revealing the mitigation measured that leaked last month. Today Comcast follows with a brief overview on how they will handle things.
In common with other ISPs, Comcast will start out with friendly alerts informing customers that their account has been used to share copyrighted material. After four warnings, repeated offenders will then enter the “mitigation phase” during which their service will be interrupted.
Comcast has chosen a browser “hijack,” making it impossible for customers to browse the Internet, but without interrupting VOIP and other essential services.
“If a consumer fails to respond to several Copyright Alerts, Comcast will place a persistent alert in any web browser under that account until the account holder contacts Comcast’s Customer Security Assurance professionals to discuss and help resolve the matter,” Comcast writes.

First alert
comcast-alert
How quickly customers will be able to resolve the matter and what they will have to do remains a mystery. However, the ISP stresses that no accounts will be terminated under the copyright alert program.
“We will never use account termination as a mitigation measure under the CAS. We have designed the pop-up browser alerts not to interfere with any essential services obtained over the Internet.”
Comcast further assures its customers that the browser hijack system has been tested for years, and that it should work smoothly.
“The browser alert system has been tested for years by Comcast as part of our program to alert our subscribers when their Internet access device is infected by a malicious bot, and the alert technology is now being deployed for this purpose,” Comcast explains.
In addition, the ISP emphasizes that the privacy is secured, up to a certain degree.
“We’ve worked with the Center for Copyright Information and outside experts in privacy, education and consumer rights to design the Copyright Alert System in a way that will safeguard our customers’ privacy and ensure we don’t share any personal customer information under this system with anyone.”
Comcast can be asked to hand over IP-addresses of persistent infringers, and the ISP acknowledges that copyright holders can then obtain a subpoena to reveal the personal details of the account holder for legal action.
Provided that doesn’t happen, the measures should seem rather reasonable to most.
A group that wont be happy with the new regime is the Open Wireless Movement. The tens of thousands of people who share their Internet connection with neighbors or complete strangers will no longer be able to do so.
Conversely, VPN providers and BitTorrent proxies can look forward to new clientele.
During the weeks to come we hope to learn more about the efficiency of the copyright alert system, and how the various alerts and mitigation measures work in the wild.

Piracy Doesn’t Hurt Game of Thrones, Director Says

With millions of downloads per episode Game of Thrones was by far the most pirated TV-show of last year. However, according to the show’s director, David Petrarca, these unauthorized downloads actually do more good than harm. Petrarca explains that the show needs “cultural buzz” to thrive and survive, and this buzz is being generated in part by pirates.
game of thronesWith 4.3 million downloads per episode, Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV-show on the Internet last year.
To a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for Game of Thrones’ high piracy rates.
They want to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights for a huge sum of money. Combined with delayed airing in many parts of the world, these restrictions are the main reason why so many people chose to download the show illegally.
However, according to the show’s director David Petrarca these elevated piracy levels are not necessarily a bad thing. When he was confronted with TorrentFreak’s download statistics, he suggested that piracy may do more good than harm.
Petrarca responded by saying that all these unauthorized downloads don’t matter because shows such as Game of Thrones thrive on “cultural buzz” and benefit from the social commentary they generate.
“That’s how they survive,” he said during a panel discussion at the University of Western Australia.
In other words, the director believes that the buzz created by pirates puts the show on the radar and eventually leads people to buy HBO subscriptions.
Whether it is the best decision in terms of revenue has yet to be seen. It’s clear that HBO prefers more exclusiveness over less piracy, but this can be a dangerous game in the long run.
HBO might make decent money by selling subscriptions now, but the limited availability also breeds pirates. One has to wonder how easy it is to convert these people to subscriptions once they have experienced BitTorrent.
The notion that piracy broadens the audience is not new in the TV-industry. Half a decade ago “Heroes” and “Lost” co-producer Jesse Alexander already told us that BitTorrent pirates helped these shows to grow and that TV networks should move away from artificial restrictions.
The third season of Game of Thrones starts next month, and we have a feeling that some piracy records will be broken again, generating some much-needed cultural buzz.

Game of Thrones Season 3