The “Conspiracy Theory” Label: Powerful Tool of Media Disinformation and Political Discourse

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Cognitive Infiltration for the Masses

By James F. Tracy

Global Research, April 01, 2014

Region: USA

Theme: Culture, Society & History, Media Disinformation

On March 18, 2014 Cass Sunstein released his latest collection of essays, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas.[1] Like his other works geared toward a mainstream readership, the prominent Harvard law professor, former Obama administration regulatory czar, and NSA advisor [2] points to numerous alleged dangers posed by even “rational people” who are susceptible to adopting “crippled epistemologies.” What Sunstein fails to explain throughout his most recent medley of gentle authoritarianism is how the “conspiracy theory” term has received vigorous promotion from the editorial practices of certain major corporate news media.
“Conspiracy theory” is not merely a flippant or off-handed water cooler term, but rather a powerful tool of political discourse. “Deployed as a pejorative putdown,” political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith observes,

the label is a verbal defense mechanism used by political elites to suppress mass suspicions that inevitably arise when shocking political crimes benefit top leaders or play into their agendas, especially when those same officials are in control of agencies responsible for preventing events in question or for investigating them after they have occurred.[3]

Along these lines, “conspiracy theory” and its common variants, “assassination buff,” “crackpot,” “wacko,” and so on, were essentially interpolated into news reports and commentary in the late 1960s by CIA media assets as the agency maneuvered to bolster the Warren Commission’s “lone assassin” explanation of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIiOztc52g

When confronted in 2012, Sunstein does not “remember very well” co-authoring a 2008 paper, “Conspiracy Theories,” the namesake of his most recent book.
Only in the past forty years or so has the label become an especially salient discursive technique for channeling political dialogue and inquiry. From the late 1800s through the first half of the 1900s the phrase can seldom be found in news discourse. A search of the Historical New York Times database finds that “conspiracy theory” is used 30 times between 1870 and 1960, often in accounts of criminal court proceedings. Yet from 1960 to 1969 alone there are 46 instances of the term’s usage in Times articles. Since 1970, it is invoked in over 1,700 pieces, with a peak between 2000 and 2009 (728).[4]
Today the pejorative not only acts as a disciplinary measure–journalists and scholars alike fear such a trenchant smear–but also as a technique to shape information and analysis. It serves as a more-than-subtle way of saying, “Look here, not there,” thereby guiding readers and viewers to place their reasoning faculties in abeyance and adopt what are often uncritical and even misleading modes of substantiation and conclusion. While this phenomenon is clearly demonstrable in print news media, it is also widespread in US-based cable and broadcast news.
A LexisNexis search of news program transcripts for the dates March 1, 2011 to March 1, 2014 reveals 2,469 usages of the “conspiracy theory/theories” term. Probing the surveyed time span reveals CNN (586 transcripts) and MSNBC (382) as the foremost purveyors of the phrase, with Fox News (182) a distant third. The US government’s transcript service, US Federal News, comes in at fourth, suggesting persistent strategic usage of the label at federal government press conferences and similar functions to drive home official positions and dispel challenges to them. Programming on National Public Radio ranks fifth, with 115 instances.
The following is a breakdown of the cable or broadcast outlet/program referencing “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theories” in transcript text within the aforementioned three-year span.

CNN Transcripts  -  586
Global Broadcast Database (local broadcast transcripts)  -  416
MSNBC  -  382
Fox News  -  182
US Federal News  -  144
National Public Radio  -  116
Australian Broadcasting Corporation  -  71
NBC News  -  67
Congressional Quarterly Transcripts  -  57
ABC News  -  55
CTV TV (Canada)  -  55
CBS News – 54
CNN International  -  48
Imus Simulcast  -  39
Financial Market Regulatory Wire  -  31
PBS News Hour  -  21
Bloomberg: Surveillance Show  -  17
Congressional Quarterly Testimony  -  16
The Charlie Rose Show  -  15
Follow the Money  -  14
Euro News  -  13
Lou Dobbs Tonight – 12
Cavuto – 8

To be more conclusive, the specific contexts in which the term is mobilized might be more fully examined and delineated. An argument may also be waged that this metric is not exactly proper given the dissimilar breadth of content produced by each outlet. After all, a 24-hour cable news channel such as CNN simply has far more “news hole” to fill than a daily one-hour broadcast like PBS News Hour or Charlie Rose.

Image: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (Wiki Commons)

Yet even here the variances are telling. For example, when comparing domestic CNN transcripts to those of the channel’s counterpart, CNN International, the former uses the term over twelve times as frequently. Such findings suggest the execution of a clear-cut editorial policy to fulfill certain propaganda-related ends–indeed, not unlike the Central Intelligence Agency’s usage of the term to combat alternative interpretations of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Along these lines, further examination of the data sample distinguishes how even news personalities’ bylines are correlated with frequent employment of the “conspiracy theory” label. Searching within the same data set, transcripts with CNN Anderson Cooper’s byline possess the highest incidence of the expression (81), with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton tied for second place (77), and Piers Morgan (38) ranking third. CNN’s Erin Burnett and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tie for fourth. Ostensibly conservative Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity use the expression less frequently.

Anderson Cooper (CNN)  -  81
Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)  -  77
Al Sharpton (MSNBC)  -  77
Piers Morgan (CNN)  -  38
Erin Burnett (CNN)  -  31
Chris Hayes (MSNBC)  -  31
Sean Hannity (Fox News)  -  29
Bill O’Reilly (Fox News) – 19

Image: CNN’s Anderson Cooper (Wiki Commons)
With the exception of ABC (Australia) and CTV (Canada), all of the outlets are US-based, suggesting how the American population, well known for its limited historical comprehension and political sophistication, is expressly targeted with repeated usage of the “conspiracy theory” phrase. A population relying on sensation, caricature, and hearsay to understand national and world affairs has already forsaken its freedom.  It is perhaps ironic that CNN and MSNBC in particular cater to audiences that see themselves as open-minded and “liberal”–indeed, the opposite of cunning technocrats such as Sunstein. At the same time, if these two networks’ continually depressed ratings are any indication, the public is becoming more and more skeptical of how it is being patronized.[5]
A most profound political act any individual can undertake may involve adopting a basic regimen of intellectual self-defense that would include an increased awareness of the “conspiracy theory” label itself and a resolve to assess the term’s utilization vis-á-vis the context in which it is employed, in an effort to better determine what it seeks to obscure, legitimate, and redirect attention to.
Notes
[1] Cass Sunstein, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.
[2] “America’s Joseph Goebbels to Serve on NSA Oversight Panel,” Liberty Blitzkrieg, August 25, 2013.
[3] Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013, 9.
[4] See also deHaven-Smith, 126-131.
[5] “Key Indicators in Media & News,” Pew Research Journalism Project, March 26, 2014.

Stock Buybacks and Margin Debt

"Frothy" Markets Climb Higher

By Mike Whitney

Global Research, April 01, 2014

CounterPunch 1 April 2014

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy

Are you looking for signs of froth in the stock market? Then you might want to take a look at stock buybacks.According to the Wall Street Journal, almost 20 percent of the total value of stocks today are stock buybacks, that is, corporations that purchase their own shares to push up prices. Here’s the scoop from Jason Zweig at the WSJ:

“Last year, the corporations in the Russell 3000, a broad U.S. stock index, repurchased $567.6 billion worth of their own shares—a 21% increase over 2012, calculates Rob Leiphart, an analyst at Birinyi Associates, a research firm in Westport, Conn. That brings total buybacks since the beginning of 2005 to $4.21 trillion—or nearly one-fifth of the total value of all U.S. stocks today.” (Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?, Wall Street Journal)

“$4.21 trillion” is a heckuva lot of froth. It means that the market is overpriced by at least 20 percent. Corporate bosses have been aggressively pumping up prices to reward shareholders even though earnings and revenues are looking increasingly shaky. The reason buybacks have caught fire is because– up to now– they’ve been considered a reasonably safe bet. With interest rates locked at zero, and the Central Bank flooding the financial system with $55 billion every month, stocks have been following the path of least resistance which is up, up, and away. (As of Friday, the S and P was up 176 percent from its March 2009 lows.)The point is, stock buybacks are a natural reaction to the Fed’s easy money policies. Corporations are just following the Fed’s lead. If the Fed didn’t want companies to engage in this kind of reckless behavior, it could either turn off the liquidity or raise rates. Either way, the buybacks would stop. The fact that the Fed keeps juicing the system just shows that the it’s real objective is to buoy stock prices regardless of the risks involved. And there are risks too. Keep in mind, that most of the money corporations use for buybacks is borrowed, which leaves them vulnerable to fluctuations in prices. If the market suddenly goes South, then over extended investors have to sell other assets to cover their bets. That leads to firesales, plunging prices and deflation.Surging margin debt is another sign of froth. Margin debt is money that investors borrow to finance the purchase of stocks. Margin debt has been trending higher since the recession ended in 2009, but it’s really skyrocketed in the last year as eager investors have piled into equities confident that the Fed has their back. The problem is that large amounts of margin debt usually indicate a peak in the market. Here’s a little background from an article in USA Today:

“The amount of money investors borrowed from Wall Street brokers to buy stocks rose for a seventh straight month in January to a record $451.3 billion, a potential warning sign that in the past has coincided with irrational exuberance and stock market tops…“One characteristic of getting closer to a market top is a major expansion in margin debt,” says Gary Kaltbaum, president of Kaltbaum Capital Management. “Expanding market debt fuels the bull market and is an investors’ best friend when stocks are rising. The problem is when the market turns (lower), it is the market’s worst enemy.”…“Forced liquidations can occur,” says Price Headley, CEO of BigTrends.com. “If the decline in the market is dramatic, it can cause a true flush-out, when everyone is getting forced out by margin calls.” (Record margin debt poses risk for bull market, USA Today)

Investors seem to think that the Fed has superhuman powers and can stop the market from correcting. But that’s a bad bet. Stocks will tumble, and when they do these same speculators will get a call from their broker telling them they need more cash to meet the required minimum. That “margin call” will lead to the dumping of stocks and other assets in a mad scramble for cash. If the margin call is broad-based enough, then debt deflation dynamics will kick in pushing down prices across the board paving the way for another spectacular stock market crash. That’s what happened in 2008 when a run on the shadow banking system (repo) sparked a panic that sent global shares plunging. Here’s a chartthat shows how closely stock prices follow the build up of margin debt.Like stock buybacks, margin debt is a natural reaction to Fed policy. Zero rates provide a subsidy for speculation while QE reduces the aggregate supply of financial assets thus pushing up prices. This is why there’s so much froth in the markets, because the Fed creates incentives for risk taking. Remove the incentives, and the bubbles quickly vanish. Poof.There are other areas where bubbles are emerging too, but it may be more worthwhile to consider “valuation metrics” which give us a better idea of where stock prices would be without the Fed’s liquidity injections. Here’s a brief excerpt from a post by John Hussman who’s done extensive research on the topic and who believes that the S&P 500 is currently more over-valued than the housing market in 2006:

“Based on valuation metrics that have demonstrated a near-90% correlation with subsequent 10-year S&P 500 total returns, not only historically but also in recent decades, we estimate that U.S. equities are more than 100% above the level that would be associated with historically normal future returns…It is the series of extreme instances over the past year that give investors the hope and delusion that historically reckless market conditions will lead only to further gains and greater highs. This is a mistake born of complacency in the face of a nearly uninterrupted, Fed-enabled 5-year market advance, and is the same mistake that was made in 2000 and again in 2007. By the time the present market cycle is completed, we expect the S&P 500 to be at least 40% lower than present levels.” (Hussman Warns S&P 500 Over-Valuation Now Higher Than Housing In 2006, Zero Hedge)

Okay, so what does that mean in plain English?It means that stocks are ridiculously overpriced, and the reason they’re overpriced is because the Fed has been juicing the market with easy money and monthly liquidity injections. Chief US Equity Strategist for Goldman Sachs, David J. Kostin, was even more blunt than Hussman. He said, “The current valuation of the S&P 500 is lofty by almost any measure, both for the aggregate market as well as the median stock.”So by any measure, the market is overvalued. That means that investors can expect either lower returns in the future or big losses. It’s going to be one or the other.So what are the chances that stocks will fall sharply in the next few months putting another dent in the pensions and life savings of the many of the Mom and Pop investors who just got back into the market in the last 12 months?I don’t have the foggiest idea. But the outlook is pretty bleak. Take a look at this from Mark Hulbert at Marketwatch:

“Nejat Seyhun, a finance professor at the University of Michigan, has found from his research…that only some (corporate) insiders have a consistently accurate view of their companies’ prospects.The insiders worth paying attention to are a company’s officers and directors…Prof. Seyhun — who is one of the leading experts on interpreting the behavior of corporate insiders — has found that … insiders do have impressive forecasting abilities. In the summer of 2007, for example, his adjusted insider sell-to-buy ratio was more bearish than at any time since 1990, which is how far back his analyses extended.Ominously, that degree of bearish sentiment is where the insider ratio stands today, Prof. Seyhun said in an interview.” (Corporate insider bearishness at pre-2008 crash levels; Opinion: Don’t ignore the behavior of executives in the know, Mark Hulbert, Marketwatch)

Then there’s this brief summary from Baupost Group founder and billionaire Seth Klarman who advises his clients to be prepared for a “trend reversal”. Here’s the quote from Business Insider:

“Six years ago, many investors were way out over their skis. Giant financial institutions were brought to their knees…The survivors pledged to themselves that they would forever be more careful, less greedy, less short-term oriented.But here we are again, mired in a euphoric environment in which some securities have risen in price beyond all reason, where leverage is returning to rainy markets and asset classes, and where caution seems radical and risk-taking the prudent course. Not surprisingly, lessons learned in 2008 were only learned temporarily. These are the inevitable cycles of greed and fear, of peaks and troughs.Can we say when it will end? No. Can we say that it will end? Yes. And when it ends and the trend reverses, here is what we can say for sure. Few will be ready. Few will be prepared.” (If You’re Bullish About Stocks, You Should Ponder This Warning From One Of The Smartest Investors Ever, Business Insider)

So the Fed has done what the Fed always does; set us up for another crash. Stocks are over-priced, insiders are selling and QE is winding down. It’s only a matter of time before the roof caves in and all hell breaks loose.But why? Why does the Fed keep steering the economy from one financial catastrophe to the next?That’s easy. Just take a look at this chart by economists Atif Mian and Amir Sufi and you’ll see for yourself who’s getting rich on this deal. This is the class of people who actually benefit from the Fed’s serial bubblemaking. Take a look:

“Here is the distribution of financial asset holdings across the wealth distribution. This is from the 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances:

The top 20% of the wealth distribution holds over 85% of the financial assets in the economy. So it is clear that the direct income from capital goes to the wealthiest American households.” (Capital Ownership and Inequality, House of Debt)

Who benefits from QE?Now you know.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

“The Renminbi Clearing Solution”: Dollar Hegemony Challenged by China and Germany

By Global Research News

Global Research, April 01, 2014

Blacklisted News

Region: Asia, Europe

Theme: Global Economy

The word dollar didn’t even come up. “The volume of transactions that can be carried out in the Chinese currency in international and German financial centers is not commensurate with China’s importance in the global economy,” the Bundesbank explained in its dry manner on Friday in Berlin, after signing a memorandum of understanding with the People’s Bank of China. President Xi Jinping and Chancellor Angela Merkel were looking on. It was serious business. Everyone knew what this was about. No one had to say it.

The agreement spelled out how the two central banks would cooperate on the clearing and settlement of payments denominated in renminbi – to get away from the dollar’s hegemony as payments currency and as reserve currency.

This wasn’t an agreement between China and a paper-shuffling financial center like Luxembourg or London, which are working on similar deals, but between two of the world’s largest exporters with a bilateral trade of nearly $200 billion in 2013. German corporations have invested heavily in China over the last 15 years. And recently, Chinese corporations, many of them at least partially state-owned, have started plowing their new money into Germany.

This “renminbi clearing solution” – the actual mechanism, clearing bank or clearing house, hasn’t been decided yet – will be an important step for China to internationalize the renminbi and ditch its reliance on the dollar. It will be located in Frankfurt; that the city is “home to two central banks,” Bundesbank Executive Board Member Joachim Nagel pointed out, made it “a particularly suitable location.”

As a world payments currency, the renminbi is still minuscule but growing in leaps and bounds: in February, customer initiated and institutional payments, inbound and outbound, denominated in RMB accounted for only 1.42% of all traffic, but it set a new record, according to SWIFT, the NSA-infiltrated, member-owned cooperative that connects over 10,000 banks, corporations, the NSA, and other intelligence agencies around the world.
Despite China’s heft as the second largest economy, the yuan was only in eighth place as payments currency, behind the Swiss franc. The dollar and the euro have been duking it out over the top spot. In February, the dollar accounted for 38.9% and the euro for 33.0% of all payments traffic. January last year, for example, the euro was in first place with a share of 40.2%, while the dollar only came up with 33.5%. As China moves away from the dollar, its share as payments currency will continue to drop.
And Merkel, whose job it had been to keep the Eurozone together by tightening duct tape and bailing wire around the necks of other countries, hasn’t forgotten: “We’re very thankful that China made efforts during the euro crisis to consider the euro a stable currency,” she said at the press conference. “China never questioned its trust in the euro, and I find that very important….”

Setting up Frankfurt as an offshore renminbi trading center has been in the works since 2012. A steering committee was set up in July 2013 that included the Economics Ministry of the state of Hesse, the Federal Finance Ministry, and the Bundesbank. In October 2013, the “RMB Initiative Group” – which included the four Chinese banks with a presence in Frankfurt, German financial services giants, and the Bundesbank – met for the first time. The working group that deals with the establishment of the RMB clearing solution is headed by the Bundesbank and counts SWIFT among its members. German corporations and trade associations all support the initiative.

It was “a major step forward in intensifying Germany’s economic relations with China,” said Bundesbank Executive Board Member Carl-Ludwig Thiele.

In its coverage of the event, state-owned Xinhua News Agency outlined China’s “three-pronged” strategy for promoting the internationalization of the RMB: “facilitating international trade and investment denominated and settled in RMB, encouraging offshore RMB service centers to develop offshore RMB-denominated financial products, and encouraging central banks to hold RMB assets as part of their foreign exchange reserves.”

A succinct definition of breaking the dollar’s hegemony as payments currency, investment currency, and reserve currency – China’s strategy since 2009.

At the time, the financial crisis in the US sent cold shivers down the spine of China’s government that until then had been sitting loosey-goosey on mountains of US paper that suddenly threatened to evaporate, such as Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s mortgage backed securities that China had somehow thought were worth something when in fact they were not – at least not until China applied enough pressure on the Bush Administration to guarantee them and on the Fed to buy them to inflate their value.

China got bailed out by the US taxpayer and the Fed, but the episode taught the government a lesson: dump the dollar. And so it went about it, carefully, systematically, step by step, but relentlessly, as Xinhua said, in a “multi-pronged” strategy that included making broad-ranging bilateral currency deals with one country at a time.

Compared to China, Russia is small fry in terms of trade and financial relations with the US. But it too has had it. The first official warning shot was fired before its all-out assault on the dollar system begins. Not by a Putin advisor that can be brushed off, but by Russia’s Minister of Economy and former Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank. A major escalation.

Copyright Blacklisted News, 2014

Malaysian government admits altering MH370 pilot transcript, hiding evidence and misleading the public in massive cover-up

naturalnews.com

Originally published April 1 2014by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) As the facts about MH370 slowly emerge, it is increasingly apparent that the Malaysian government has been -- and continues to be -- involved in an elaborate cover-up that falsified and hid evidence the public deserves to know about the fate of Flight 370 passengers.

The government openly admitted this, in fact. "A Malaysian team have told relatives of Chinese passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 that there was sealed evidence that cannot be made public, as they came under fire from the angry relatives at a briefing on Wednesday," reported the Straights Times.(1)

The Times also reports:

"We demand you retract announcement that MH370 ended in south Indian Ocean and continue search-and-rescue operations,'' one relative said at the briefing.

Why would a government seal evidence concerning the fate of MH370? It would only do so if it didn't want the public to see that evidence, of course. This is typically done under circumstances of national security or military secrets. We all have to wonder: what evidence is there concerning MH370 that the Malaysian government would not want to be made public? And why?

Pilot transcript altered, mischaracterized for weeks

We also know that the Malaysian government altered the pilot transcript, misleading the public for weeks about the sign-off words uttered by either the pilot or the copilot. The government's claim that the pilot said, "all right goodnight" turned out to be false. This strange-sounding sign-off was apparently floated by the Malaysia government to support its contention that the pilot was suicidal and departing from customary communications protocols.

But now, we've learned the pilots actually said, "Good night, Malaysian three seven zero."(3)

It is, of course, impossible to misconstrue "Good night, Malaysian three seven zero" as "all right goodnight." This means the Malaysian government deliberately altered the pilot transcript and fed disinfo to the public. This charade continued for weeks until public pressure finally forced the government to release the real transcript, as follows:

Families of MH370 victims not fooled by deceptive Malaysian government

The families of MH370 passengers are, of course, outraged at the increasingly apparent deceptions being pushed by the Malaysian government. As the Straights Times reports:

Some family representatives targeted Malaysian envoy Iskandar Sarudin, asking him: "You expect us to accept a report you cannot defend?"

"No comment,'' said Mr Iskandar.

He again declined to comment when asked "how do you expect us to feel friendly towards Malaysia?"

Upset by the response from the Malaysia team, a relative said: "You have once again left us speechless!"

The Malaysian government is now engaged in a stonewalling exercise to deliberately prevent the public from learning the truth.

Governments routinely deceive the People and withhold crucial evidence

This is how governments routinely operate, by the way. Here in the USA, this is exactly the same response thousands of building architects and engineers got when trying to ask intelligent questions about how Building 7 collapsed in the 9/11 attacks.(4)

The entire "9/11 Truth Movement," in fact, grew out of the U.S. government's unwillingness to honestly and openly review the evidence of what happened in those attacks. Now, MH370 has become Malaysia's 9/11, complete with the government stonewalling honest questions posed by concerned, intelligent people about what really happened.

Why do governments always have to lie? Because they are almost always engaged in nefarious activities and cover-ups which must be kept from public scrutiny. The altered pilot transcript, secret "sealed" evidence and absurd secrecy of the Malaysian government's response to current events is indicative of the arrogance and disdain with which world governments treat "the little people" (their constituents).

It's also why a global trend toward civil war, civil disobedience and popular revolts is now on the rise. The "Age of Civil Unrest" is upon us, experts now warn.(5) Everywhere on the globe, people are fed up with governments that routinely lie to them about everything while brutally attacking innocent people through militarized police departments that assault civilians as if they were military targets.(6)

What the Malaysian government elite are doing to families of MH370 passengers, world governments are doing to everybody: lying, stonewalling and concealing the truth.

Sources for this article include:
(1) http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/mi...

(2) http://rt.com/news/malaysia-mh370-search-coc...

(3) http://www.voanews.com/content/official-says...

(4) http://www.ae911truth.org

(5) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-31/mar...

(6) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/...

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BREAKING: ‘Hijacked Flight 370 PASSENGER SENT PHOTO FROM HIDDEN IPHONE Tracing Back to secret U.S. Military Base Diego Garcia’

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http://www.secretsofthefed.com/breaking-hijacked-flight-370-passenger-sent-photo-hidden-iphone-tracing-back-secret-u-s-military-base-diego-garcia/

Is passenger Phillip Wood and others still alive after flight 370 was hijacked then taken to a secret U.S. military base located on a remote island in the Indian Ocean?

By Shepard Ambellas

INDIAN OCEAN (INTELLIHUB) — According to freelance journalist Jim Stone, one of the American passengers, Phillip Wood, a technical storage executive at IBM, who was aboard the now missing Malaysian Airlines flight, keystered his iPhone 5 in his anus after the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people was hijacked by military personnel while on route to China.
Amazingly, Stone claims that metadata within the photo yields evidence confirming “100 percent” that Phillip Wood sent the photo, along with a brief voice activated text, from GPS coordinates which put Wood only a few miles away from the U.S. controlled Diego Garcia military base which is located on an island south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. In his post Stone claims that the coordinates are off by a few miles, proving that the iPhone actually sent the otherwise blank black picture revealing nothing else. Stone speculates the picture was taken in a dark room or in some position in which Wood’s hands were bound.
As reported by Stone, the picture was posted along with the following text allegedly from Wood:
“I have been held hostage by unknown military personal after my flight was hijacked (blindfolded). I work for IBM and I have managed to hide my cellphone in my ass during the hijack. I have been separated from the rest of the passengers and I am in a cell. My name is Philip Wood. I think I have been drugged as well and cannot think clearly.”
Strangely the blank black image labeled “1395192158752.jpg” contains the following metadata:
Dimensions: 240 x 320
Device Make: Apple 
Device Model: iPhone 5
Color Space: RGB
Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Focal Length: 4.12
Alpha Channel: No
Red Eye: No
F Number: 2.4
Exposure Program: 2
Exposure Time: 1/15
Stone also points out in detail how the above Exchangeable Image Format (EXIF) image data is the “smoking gun”, writing:
The Exif is intact. Exif data gets embedded in every image by every camera and includes the circumstances under which the photo was taken. It can be viewed by saving the image to your desktop, and then right clicking it and selecting image properties. Hit the details tab. You can see that the image was taken on March 18 with an iPhone 5, with the ISO at 3200 and a shutter of 1/15. The coordinates are included in the exif data because the iPhone knows where it is, and the coordinates are for Diego Garcia. THE FIRST TIME A BLANK PHOTO SAID IT ALL. 
Exif can’t be rewritten with common software, it can only be added to in fields such as image credits with some advanced applications. It can be erased as well but NOT CHANGED. Photos with the exif intact will hold up in court. If the Exif is hacked and this is not real, the CIA or a really good hacker did this, which I doubt, I’d say it’s probably real.
Another smoking gun is that the voice recognition software put the word personal instead of personnel. This is completely consistent with a blind software assisted dial out.
Surrounding this story is the fact that the man who managed to get this information to Farganne (forum member Glitch) was harassed and received many threatening voice mails over it, that is another piece of evidence pointing to this as being real. One thing is certain, once it’s posted here on this site the genie is OUT OF THE BOTTLE. I cannot stress how important it is that the GPS coordinates in the photo do not perfectly match what Google says and are not posted anywhere on the web, because it proves that the source of those coordinates did not come from google or Wikipedia, they really did come from the imaging device and it HAD TO be at Diego Garcia when it took the photo.
Interestingly, 7-days ago, on March 24, 2014  at 2:30 AM EDT, it was reported by Intellihub News that flight 370 landed at Diego Garcia, a secret U.S. military base leased from the EU, during the early morning hours of March 8, 2014 after a YouTuber by the name of Montagraph put two-and-two together following other reports.
An excerpt from the article reads:
“[...] MH370 most likely landed at Diego Garcia and the plane may have been ushered into a massive “Faraday cage” style hangar to avoid passengers from communicating with the outside world.”
Surprisingly, this all dovetails with a Malaysian Insider report released on Mar. 18 titled “US military base, South Asian airports in MH370 pilot’s simulator, says paper“, as the pilot of MH370 was found to have had scale simulations of Diego Garcia in his home flight simulator.
An except from the Malaysian Insider reads:
Investigations into the flight simulator taken from the missing pilot’s home showed a software for five practice runways, including one belonging to the United States, Berita Harian reported today.
“Among the software we checked so far is the Male International Airport in Maldives, three airports in India and Sri Lanka, and one belonging to the US military base in Diego Garcia. All have a runway length of 1,000 metres,” a source told the Malay daily.
Police seized the flight simulator from pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s house last Saturday before reassembling it at the federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman, where experts were conducting checks.
If anyone has anymore information on this matter we urge you contact us at Intellihub News right away.
Update 2:49 PM EST: The following information was posted as a tip on Steve Quayle’s website:
Hi Steve,
Re: the black/blank photo from the IBM tech on the lost Malaysian jet. The photo was taken inside a building just off the runways at Diego Garcia. I put the photo into my editing software, grabbed the GPS point and here it is. Try this: go to: itouchmap.com , choose #6, go to the bottom right box and input the info:
-7 18 58.3 LATITUDE
72 25 35.6 LONGITUDE
Click on: SHOW POINT
Zoom in and you will see where the photo originated. Wow. You’ll probably recognize the heavy aircraft parked nearby.
Via SteveQuayle.com:

This is What Happens When a “UFO” is Tracked on Military Radar

April 1, 2014 by Arjun Walia.//  http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/04/01/this-is-what-happens-when-a-ufo-is-tracked-on-military-radar/

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Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are grabbing the attention of more people everyday, and for good reason. Obviously, if there are unknown objects in the sky, military/defence organizations will see them on radar, along with other organizations that monitor air traffic, like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This happens on a regular basis, objects of unknown origin are constantly tracked on radar, along with visual confirmation by pilots, performing maneuvers that defy our understanding of physics as well as traveling at unattainable speeds.

When the FAA tracks them on radar, a protocol is followed. When a UFO is sighted and tracked on radar, they report it to data collection centers, one of them being the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. (1) But evidence suggests that it’s not so simple as just following protocol. Retired FAA Senior Division Chief, John Callahan, shared his experience with regards to a specific UFO incident, you can read more about that here. Representatives from the FBI and CIA showed up to find out more about the incident, and to obtain all documentation and video footage. Bigelow Aerospace Director, Mike Gold, recently expressed that he is glad somebody is taking the reports, because it is a “serious issue,” but he also said that he could not comment on what they do with them. To see that interview, click here.

“If one thing is glaringly obvious, it is that the UFO phenomenon is global and has included many military encounters.” - Richard Dolan, Author, Historian, UFO Researcher.(0)

So, what happens when UFOs are tracked on military/defence agency radar? Well, the first thing that happens is that it is recorded and documented. Documents regarding UFOs and the tracking of them on radar have been declassified within the past few years, there are countless examples from multiple agencies, like the NSA. (2)

If something is violating your airspace, and performing maneuvers that defy our understanding of physics, maneuvers that no known  air craft can perform, you’re going to want to take a closer look. As former UK Ministry of Defence personnel Nick Pope puts it, “UFOs present a number of defence, national security and air safety issues.”

In the case of UFOs, military jets are scrambled to intercept the objects, and what happens after that might shock you. Again, I’d like to mention that these encounters have constantly occurred throughout history, they are well documented.

“We, or at least some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after.” - Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Defense Minister. (source)

One case in particular I’d like to start out with is the incident over Tehran, Iran. This incident occurred on the night of September 18th, 1976. A four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describes the encounter in detail. (3)(4) Furthermore, both of the pilots involved discussed the event years later.(0)

What happened on this night is an example of what has happened multiple times with regards to military encounters with UFOs. Residents of the city noticed a big bright object in the sky. The airport traffic controller also noticed, “it was an intensely bright object that was not supposed to be there.” (0) The Iranian Air Force was contacted (at the time they were a close ally of the United States, under the rule of the Shah), and they dispatched two F-4 fighter jets to check out the object. The United States took this encounter very seriously, a report of what happened was sent to multiple national security officials AND U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, CIA Director George Bush, and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, among others.(0)  (3)(4)

Both of the F-4 interceptor pilots reported seeing the object visually, it was also tracked on their airborne radar. Both planes experienced critical instrumentation and electronics go offline at a distance of twenty-five miles from the object. Here is an excerpt from the report:

“As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. “   (3)(4) (0)

The report also described how a smaller object detached from the bigger object, turned inside the arc of the F-4 itself, and then regained the original object. This incident lasted for several hours. I decided to use this example because it has a number of declassified supporting national security documents, which goes to show how serious this event was taken.

“The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data. Maybe when this group of nations acquires more precise and definite information, it will be possible to release the news to the world” – General Carlos Castro Cavero, Spanish Air Force General (0)

Another significant event occurred over NATO’s Aviano Air Base in Italy, on July 1, 1977. During this event, several U.S. Air Force personnel saw a UFO hovering outside of the base perimeter. While the object was there, the facility lost electrical power.(5)

“Governments believe that if they told the truth, which is that there are objects in our atmosphere, which are technically miles in advance of anything that we can deploy, we have no means of stopping them from coming here, and that we have no defense against them should they be hostile, that I believe is the governments fear if it did disclose those facts. I however, do not believe people would panic. There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by other civilizations. Who they are, where they are from and what they want should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubbishing by tabloid newspapers.” – Lord Admiral Hill Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff (UK), 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. (source)

From November 9th through December 18th in 1978, several major UFO events occurred over the oilfields of Kuwait. They also appeared to disrupt major electrical equipment in this case. This event received major attention from the Kuwaiti government, as well as the U.S. government and Embassy.(6)(0)

According to Richard Dolan, one of the world’s leading UFO researchers, perhaps the most dramatic of all were two encounters that year on December 16th by the Chilean Air Force:

“Two pilots on a training mission, each flying an F5 fighter aircraft, tracked the object on their airborne radar. It gave a return equal to ten or more aircraft carriers-except this object was in the air, not floating on the water. Each pilot assumed his radar equipment was faulty, until he learned that the other pilot was also getting the same return. Not only this, but ground radar from a nearby airport also picked up the object and confirmed its huge size. The pilots also saw the object with their own eyes. One pilot later said that at a distance of twenty miles, it looked “like a plantain banana swathed in smoke.” The pilots were frightened, having no missiles or weapons. As they approached the massive object, which had been motionless all this while, it took off at an unimaginable speed. All at once, it vanished from the three radar screens.”(7)(0)

The very next morning the Chilean Air Force scrambled some F5 fighter jets to intercept another very large UFO. The pilots described this one as very bright, and very large. The Chilean Air Force has officially acknowledged these events, but could not explain what had occurred. (7)(0)

On May 19, 1986, there was a large portion of Brazilian airspace that was constantly occupied by UFOs. The Brazilian air-force constantly scrambled their jets to get a closer look at what they were picking up on radar. Here is a quote from the Brazilian Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Otavio Moreira Lima:

“At least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn’t have optical illusions. We can only give technical explanations and we don’t have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It’s very remote and it’s not the case here in Brazil. It’s fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear.” (8)(0)

I’d also like to point out that UFOs have been seen and coincide with the deactivation of nuclear missiles and nuclear missile facilities all over the world. This has been well documented, and you can read more about that here.

The list goes on and on, UFOs tracked on radar and military jets scrambled to check them out is nothing new. I hope I’ve given you a good amount of info to further your research if interested. Dozens and dozens of governments have recently released their UFO files, admitting to the phenomenon being real. You can access the United Kingdoms latest batch that was released in June 2013 here.

Commercial airline pilots also constantly report UFOs. There have been many cases, the most recent I am aware of was an A320 Airbus Captain who reported a near miss with a UFO over Heathrow Airport. You can read more about that here.

From all of these encounters one thing is evidently clear, even when incidents’ occur in other countries, the United States is highly interested. This gives more validity to UFO researcher Timothy Goods’ belief, that the United States Air Force Space Command (USAFSC) is in charge.

According to U.S. defense records, an interesting sighting of a UFO was reported by the Ghana Air Force on July 27, 1987. It was a large, silent object which the pilot described as two or three times large than a Boeing 747. He said that the “object dropped altitude, then gained altitude, then was replaced by small bluish lights arranged in a circular formation.” (9)(0)

It’s hard to do justice to the topic of UFOs tracked on radar, and military jets scrambled to intercept them when there are what seems to be hundreds upon hundreds of documented cases. What is very intriguing is the level of interest these events garnish by military and intelligence agencies worldwide. There are thousands upon thousands of documents that prove this, some of which I have put links to in the article. Since there are so many, this is a great little video to demonstrate a tidbit of documentation that’s been released into the public domain.

So What?

The UFO Cover-Up in 10 Minutes

The UFO phenomenon is a serious one, and raises many other questions. What are they? Where are they coming from? What type of propulsion systems are they using (clearly not the known propulsion systems we use today). Are they secret military aircraft? Are they extraterrestrial air-craft? The list of questions goes on and on, one thing for certain is that the UFO phenomenon is real, and continues to increase as we move through 2014 and beyond. More and more people are becoming aware of this phenomenon, and maybe one day soon we will know what exactly is going on in our skies.

If they are extraterrestrial in origin, how long have the been here? What are they doing? What do they want? There are a myriad of questions to be asked if this is indeed the case.

Many prominent people have expressed that these are indeed extraterrestrial craft.

“In one of the cases during the cold war, 1961, there were about 50 UFOs in formation flying South from Russia across Europe. The supreme allied commander was very concerned and was about ready to press the panic button when they turned around and went back over the North Pole. They decided to do an investigation and they investigated for three years and they decided that with absolute certainty that four different species, at least, have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. There’s been a lot more activity in the past two decades, especially since we invented the atomic bomb. They are very concerned about that and if we will use it again, because the whole cosmos is in unity and it affects not just us but other people in the cosmos. They’re very much afraid that we might start using atomic weapons again and this would be very bad for us, and them also.” –Paul Hellyer (source)

“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any kind of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon” - Dr Brian O’leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)

The list of quotes goes on and on, there are hundreds of high ranking military, political and other personnel who have made some shocking statements, I’ve provided just two.

Along with these statements we have the documentation, which makes it clear that something is definitely going on here.  Personally, I believe many of these objects are classified military projects, that come from the Black Budget world. I also believe that many of them are indeed extraterrestrial and that there is a lot of evidence to point to that.

Furthermore, we have reported contact encounters with millions of human beings across the planet. Many of these stories coincide with each other and might provide some insight as to why (if extraterrestrial) they are here. But that’s a completely different topic all together.

For more information on the UFO/Extraterrestrial topic, and for more articles on the subject by CE, click HERE.

Sources:

(0) Dolan, Richard. UFOs For the 21st Century Mind: New York: Richard Dolan Press, 2014
(1) http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/ATC/atc0908.html
(2) http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/comint_part_j.pdf
(3) http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/us_gov_iran_case.pdf
(4) http://foia.abovetopsecret.com/ultimate_UFO/UFO_GOVT/UFO_Cases/Sept1976iranufo.pdf
(5) http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/avistamientos_ovnis/Chiumiento,AFO%20Alert%201977,NATO%20Base,Italy,FSR84V30N2.pdf
(6) U.S. Department of State Telegram, January 29, 1979, “UFO sightings Cause Security Concern in Kuwait,” From American Embassy Kuwait to Secretary of State, Washington, Dc; Kuwait Times, Nov. 16, 18, 1978; Arab Times, Nov. 23,25, 1978; “UFOs in Arab Nations,”MUFON UFO Journal, Jan-Feb 1979; “UFOs Over Kuwait,” The APRO Bulletin, Jan. 1979; Fawcett, Lawrence and Greenwood, Barry, Clear Intent, 90-91.
(7) Huneeus, J, Antonio, “A Chilean Overview,” MUFON UFO Journal, 6/86; Huneeus, J. Antonio, “A Historical Survey of UFO Cases in Chilie,” MUFON 1987 International Symposium Proceedings (MUFON, 1987.)
(8) Department of Defense JCS Message Center, Subject: B6/BAF Has a Close Encounter of the First Kind. Date: 20 May 86. Subject: Numerous Unidentified Objects Were Cited in the Skies over Brazil. But BAF Fighters Were Unable to Intercept Them. Berliner, Don, The UFO Briefing Document, p. 121-127. Huneeus, J. Antonio, “UFO Alert in Brazil,” MUFON UFO Journal, 11/86. Andrus, Walt, “UFOs Over Brazil,” MUFON UFO Journal, 9/86. Smith, Dr Willy, “The Brazillian Incident,” International UFO Reporter, 7-8/86. Smith, Dr. Willy, “More on Brazilian OVNIs,” MUFON UFO Journal, 9/86. 
(9) U.S Defense Department Information Report, August 20, 1987. From JCS; To AIG; Subject Unidentified Flying Object; Item Number 00427453.
(10) (10) http://books.google.ca/books?id=g5skkMudyHAC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=%22The+nations+of+the+world+are+currently+working+together+in+the+investigation+of+the+UFO+phenomenon.+There+is+an+international+exchange+of+data+Maybe+when+this+group+of+nations+acquires+more+precise+and+definite+information,+it+will+be+possible+to+release+the+news+to+the+world&source=bl&ots=ZVPgV2PUT6&sig=hlHXYxji3JhP1uN4Y_Lo54KppVs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D1g4U_zRHYqqsQTpzYCAAw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20nations%20of%20the%20world%20are%20currently%20working%20together%20in%20the%20investigation%20of%20the%20UFO%20phenomenon.%20There%20is%20an%20international%20exchange%20of%20data%20Maybe%20when%20this%20group%20of%20nations%20acquires%20more%20precise%20and%20definite%20information%2C%20it%20will%20be%20possible%20to%20release%20the%20news%20to%20the%20world&f=false

TSHTF Inflation: “What YOU Will Pay for What You Need to Survive”

John Galt April 1st, 2014 John Galt FLA

This extremely informative article has been generously contributed by John Galt. Follow his John Galt FLA web site for essential news, informative analysis and a truly unique perspective on global happenings. Be sure to check out his widely popular The Day The Dollar Died series available for free online, as well as John’s latest The Year After the Dollar Died.

20 cans of Tuna? Check
100 MREs? Check.
20 bushels of Corn? Check.
2 rolls of pre-1964 ‘Junk’ Silver dimes? Check.
400 rounds .22 LR? Check.
500 rounds .223 ammo? Check.
Sounds like a nice stash of survivalist/prepper goods to start with doesn’t it? I could continue on with the list but it only begins to belie the myth that sadly so many members of the prepper community believe to be their ideal that they are 100% prepared for the collapse of America and perhaps Western civilization. How can I make such a statement and not back it up with facts? I shall provide my readers with one fact, the lowly Twinkie:

$200,000 for one box of Twinkies? What the hell does that have to do with survival when the proverbial situation arises as TSHTF (look it up if you don’t know what it means)?
Everything.
This was the case last year when the Hostess Bakery filed for bankruptcy when the unions failed to find a reasonable deal with a corporation which had overpaid for their services for years yet nobody who worked their thought it was enough. In the end, the company filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the unions lost their jobs, and the thought of no more Twinkies ever being made ever again thus causing a Twinkie panic and prices to be driven out of reality as there was this belief that people were stupid enough to pay this much for a so-called piece of Americana junk food history.
But this is an isolate incident, right? Uh, no, there were literally hundreds upon hundreds of stupid eBay listings like this:

So what does a Twinkie have to do with TSHTF, inflation, and the fallacies of the survivalist community?
Once again, EVERYTHING.
To begin with, this article is neither to demean the starting prepper nor launch into my fellow bloggers and authors about their version of what being prepared for the worst case scenario might well be; even though the criticism is valid and should remind everyone of the old adage that NO ONE is totally prepared for a societal collapse.
The theory that many of the Pollyanna view of the end of modern convenience then in the end civilization is that indeed, mankind would seek his brother out and be at his best working together to rebuild and save humanity and rebuild civilization. The other view is the darker perspective, the so-called “Jericho” scenario on steroids where no one can or should be trusted and if one works within a community structure the enemy, in often cases the new or what’s left of the existing government will either extinguish or work with other groups to seize control from any opposition to their way of thinking.

This brings me back to an old posting, a portion of my past where I pointed out the original barter spreadsheet, something most individuals have forgotten about:

(click on the thumbnail to enlarge to full size)

In 2010, I too thought that mankind would be somewhat, not totally, but somewhat reasonable in its assessment of civilization and how and what we would do to deal with each other. I published the spreadsheet based on current prices for 2010 and thought that this guide would provide anyone a basic price list for trade should TSHTF soon after that time.
I was wrong.
If you look the version updated on March 20, 2014 the prices have varied some, only because of the value of the dollar and deliberate efforts by yours truly to find the cheapest prices for commodities; however for meat like pork and beef the ratio has exploded beyond belief compared to the staples in the spreadsheet below:
(click on the thumbnail to enlarge to full size)

The problem with the spreadsheet above is that the current regime of pricing might well be extinct within the next 180 days as the world shifts from the petrodollar to a true, commodity based currency. I warned about this problem two weeks ago in the article:

Russia’s Financial Nuclear Option against America

yet only a few American financial outlets took the Russian threat seriously.   Fast forward to the news linked two sentences above, a conflict openly possibly involving NATO troops in a mode of retreat and protect, along with a Chinese government electing to engage its long time enemies as an aggressor. The US Dollar Index would collapse from its absurdly overvalued level of just over 80 as world governments abandon its potential future as the peg for their currencies:
(chart via INO.com 03/21/2014)

Imagine the impact far beyond groceries of a US Dollar 50% lower than currently valued. There is a lot of insane analysis that in fact the American citizens will indeed behave in a “civilized” manner despite the initial premise that civilization is collapsing. Thus why the chart I present below, priced in only estimated gold and silver valuations might well wake some of my readers from their Pollyanna perspective that we will continue to exist as a normalized group of people despite every civilization’s collapse indicating otherwise:

The first question is why no comparisons to other commodities like the previous spreadsheets? That answer is easy:
Screw you, I’ll charge whatever the bleep I want.
You have 100 bushels of corn. So what the hell up?
You have 50 bottles of Jack Daniels for trade? Great, find an alcoholic who is a surgeon to operate on your child who needs his or hers appendix removed.
You have 500 gallons of motor oil and diesel fuel? BFD. I have a gasoline powered vehicle, enough motor oil to make the trip to Mexico and back. And really don’t care if your wife has a disease and she needs my gold to buy her cure.
The reality is that all perceived norms of civilization are out the window once organized governments and currencies collapse. Inflation is the reality of the day as all items are in short supply. Does anyone really think the snipers in Croatia and Bosnia gave one rat’s ass about how many eggs your chicken could poop when they held the high ground, the ammo supply, and enough precious metals to reload until the freaking USMC showed upon the scene?
My friends, and enemies, everyone still thinks in the norm. The two spreadsheets about fair barter only apply in a semi-civilized society. In reality, TSHTF inflation occurs when those who have the most toys, the most gold and silver, get to dictate what YOU will pay for what you need to survive. If you do not have what it takes for barter, you will starve, your children may well die, or worse, you might get turned in to the new “authorities” of the upcoming DHS wet dream era.  It is time to dismiss the insane, insipid, and antiquated idea that America will continue to function as a “Christian” or “Judeo-Christian” society when it all collapses. The truth is that it will look more like the South in the 1865-1867 time period, or worse, the Balkans when Yugoslavia disintegrated.
At that point in time it is survival of the fittest and those who need goods had best have an ample supply of real currency, a 4000 year old plus monetary system, if they wish to survive. If you, my reader does not believe this, do like the 1939 Jew, get in line, get a number to exist and avoid freedom guaranteed with real money within a dictatorship, that of gold, silver, and cunning. As a merchant of life, I would not accept anything less for my family that what I would need in the future to trade or bribe my freedom out of a region for to survive. I need not a truckload of corn, wheat, or fuel. I need not 50,000 rounds of ammunition, three thousand pounds of steak, nor 5,000,000 Advil tablets.
I need what it shall take to move on foot or via transport, using real money to buy my freedom or maintain it behind enemy lines. The alternatives are quite real, quite stark, and quite accurate if anyone has witnessed a FEMA trailer assembly after a natural disaster.
Of course there are alternatives: One could  just move to Venezuela before we collapse here, which is duplicating the errors of humanity’s past:

Hattip Ol’ Remus at Woodpile Report

Claim: We Found the Holy Grail: “The Cup Which Touched the Lips of Jesus Christ”

Mac Slavo April 1st, 2014 SHTFplan.com

Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
Matthew 26:27-29

(Pictured: The Infanta Dona Urraca identified as the legendary Holy Grail of scripture)

It was shared with his disciples at the last supper and just days later St. Joseph of Arimathea used it to collect the blood and sweat of Jesus Christ as his grand-uncle tended to him on he cross. When he was subsequently imprisoned in a tomb for several years Joseph reportedly sustained his life with its power by consuming fresh water and food from it until his release. At that point it was reportedly transferred to a spectacular castle in a region called Corbenic somewhere in modern day England. The location of the castle itself has been veiled in secrecy and purportedly lost to history.
But the legendary story didn’t end there.
The Knights Templar searched Europe and Arabia for it, as did the Nazi’s during the middle of the 20th century. Historians and treasure hunters the world over have spent centuries looking for the Cup of Life and today some 200 chalices lay claim to the title of “The Holy Grail.”
But according to a new book titled Kings of the Grail, two researchers claim they have conclusive evidence that they have found the one and only, true Holy Grail of scripture. After a three year quest involving analysis from ancient documents, starting with an Egyptian parchment that describes the grail in detail, authors Margarita Torres and Jose Manuel Ortega del Rio say there is absolutely “no doubt” that the cup which touched the lips of Jesus Christ has been identified.
Their research led them to a a museum in San Isidro Basilica in the northwestern Spanish city of Leon, where the cup has been on display in a small viewing room for years.

The supposed Holy Grail was offered to King Fernando I, who ruled between 1037 and 1065, as a peace offering by the head of a Muslim kingdom within Spain, the historians said.
The cup, made of agate, gold and onyx, is actually two goblets formed together, the authors claim.
The artifact had been known until last week as the goblet of the Infanta Dona Urraca, King Fernando I’s daughter.

With so many other historical investigations making similar claims the evidence for the Infanta Dona Urraca being the Grail has yet to be scrutinized by scholars, but Torres and Ortega del Rio are certain they have found the treasure of the ages.

At first glance, the jewel encrusted Grail is the opposite of what one might expect a carpenter’s cup would look like. But according to the researchers the jewels and other accouterments were added much later.

There is ‘no doubt’ it contains the cup which touched the lips of Jesus Christ, two historians claim.
In an explosive book charting three years of ‘scientific research’, Margarita Torres and Jose Ortiza del Rio reveal there is conclusive evidence from scrolls in Egypt that confirm their theory.
The onyx vessel made between 200 BC and 100 AD, they claim, is trapped inside a bejewelled medieval chalice.
According to two medieval documents written in Arabic, it was stolen from Jerusalem by Muslims, who gave it to the Christian community in Egypt.
Centuries later, in around 1050 AD, it was sent as a gift to King Fernando I of Castile to thank him for sending aid during a famine, they say.
By that point, it had been concealed with opulent decorations.

Gold inside, with patterns etched around the edges, the revered ornament is covered with pearls, emeralds, amethysts and sapphires, which the Egyptian kings will have designed to honour the well-liked Fernando.

It is said that those who drink from the Grail can attain eternal life, a legend depicted in various stories and perhaps most popularly by Indiana Jones. But many believe these to be fables created over the years to advance Christianity, namely during the Christian crusades.
Whether the mythical vessel for Christ’s blood has actually been found, or that it holds special powers such as those used to sustain Joseph’s life during his imprisonment, is left to one’s imagination.
But that a hunt for the treasure is still being actively pursued after twenty centuries is, at the very least, intriguing.

THE TRANSHUMANIST SCRAPBOOK: THE SEARCH FOR “EXTRAORDINARY HUMANS”

how many windows does Dr.Farrell have 2 open ???

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: Genetics • http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/03/transhumanist-scrapbook-search-extraordinary-humans/

This one is another significant development in the growing transhumanist story, and one for the transhumanist scrapbook(and my thanks to M.M. for finding this one, and bringing it to my attention). It seems the scramble is on to search for “extraordinary humans” and that this scramble is being led by pharmaceutical companies. Hold on to your hat, folks, because the implications here are enormous as we’ll see in a moment:
Drug COmpany Launches Global Hunt for Superhumans
This one almost compels all sorts of high octane speculation. For our purposes, there are two paragraphs here that provide the compelling force:

“’For example, individuals or groups who exhibited exceptional wound healing after surgery or trauma might warrant further investigation. Equally, those who have consistently displayed exceptional resistance or immunity to infections, or who, after a robust clinical diagnosis, displayed unusually fast or spontaneous disease remission might be the basis for a winning submission,’ (Dr. Duncan McHale) said.”

And this one:

“A ten-year-old Pakistani street performer’s ability to cut himself with knives and walk on burning coals without experiencing pain caught the attention of researchers in 2006. Scientists have since discovered that he and a handful of other people in the region lack a particular protein on the surface of their nerves and hope to replicate this trait to treat severe pain.”

We’ve already seen the agribusiness industry use its modifications of naturally occurring crops and seeds to patent those modifications, and via patent law to claim royalties and license fees and to sue farmers in court for even more money for the horrible crime of their fields having been found to be growing their crops without a license, through the natural processes of birds eating and dropping seeds, wind, and so on. In our book Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, Dr. Scott de Hart and I wondered what would happen if this precedent in law were applied to genetic modifications of humans that entered the general population: could corporations claim rights to fees for modifications? or even outright ownership?
But the central core of my high octane speculation today is something else altogether. Most readers of this website are probably aware of the stories of unusual human beings, the peasant in Georgia in the Transcaucusus region who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and who lives to be 120 years old, or, as the article itself mentions, people who seldom seem to get sick, or if they do, who inexplicably heal much fast than others. As the article avers, many of these phenomena are due to unusual genetics. So in their search for such people with (1) longevity genes or (2) special healing properties or (3) ability to withstand pain without any anaesthetic, we see hidden agendas, for by combining such traits, by engineering them, one could create, for example, a soldier able to heal on the battlefield or endure much more than the normal amount of punishment((under torture, for example), or longevity.
There may be even deeper agendas, for lurking behind any such major drug companies are the major shareholders, who cannot help but be, at some point, the very wealthy families whose names we are all familiar with, including many families of European nobility, and that raises the prospect that, behind the potential corporate and military agendas, there is an even deeper one: looking for genetic confirmations of old ideas, and old texts, and old “bloodlines.” And given that some of those old ideas and old texts suggest that certain old technologies also alluded to in those texts could only be activated by certain people in physical contact or proximity with them, then that raises the stakes of the high octane speculation considerably.(See my The Cosmic War: Interplanetary Warfare, Modern Physics, and Ancient Texts in this regard).