Federal Judge Orders Detroit to Pay Another $85 Million to Banks Implicated in the City’s Bankruptcy

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Global Research, April 14, 2014

Pan-African News Wire

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy

A ruling by Federal Eastern District Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven W. Rhodes has awarded yet another large-scale payment to two banks that are heavily implicated in the financial ruin of Detroit and other cities throughout the United States.
Rhodes ruled on April 11 that the third negotiated attempt to terminate an interest-rate swap agreement involving Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) arrived at a “reasonable” plan for the working people of the city who will pay for this decision. The judge said that it was legal to hand over more money to these financial institutions despite the fact that they have been paid over $300 million since 2006.
Two earlier negotiated agreements between the state-imposed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and the two banks were so outrageous that they were rejected by the court. Another ruling late last year forced the EM to disclose the fees associated with crafting deal which is $4.4 million.
The deal will be financed by Barclay’s Bank which has been targeted in media reports and by regulatory agencies in England and the U.S. Justice Department for rigging interest rates related to inter-bank borrowing. The so-called ‘LIBOR scandal” (London Interbank Offered Rate) exposed even further the role of the finance capital in controlling the terms of lending to ensure that profit margins are maintained at the expense of working people and the poor.
Objections to the deal were presented from other capitalist interests, including  Syncora, a bond insurer which traps Detroit casino tax revenue in order to pay for the usurious debt . The other financial firms and bond-related entities only opposed the deal because it sets a legal precedent for placing a higher priority on pleasing the larger banks such as UBS and BOfA.
Nonetheless, the only real opposition to the deal came from Atty. Jerome Goldberg representing Detroit resident and City retiree David Sole. Goldberg had argued successfully in the previous hearing during December and January that the proposed settlement of initially $230 million and later $165 million were not only excessive but ignored the potential for regaining hundreds of millions in damages which are rightfully owed to the City of Detroit.
Judge Rhodes in his Jan. 16 ruling rejecting the second proposed settlement, clearly stated that the City should not engage in financial arrangements that were disadvantageous and that there was a possibility of suing the banks to regain resources needed for the operations and the maintenance of assets. Goldberg quoted from Rhodes’ ruling on Jan. 16 in his closing arguments on April 3, yet the decision on April 11 appeared to have moved 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
After reading his ruling on April 11 awarding BOfA and UBS the $85 million, Rhodes went on to “commend” the state-imposed EM and the banks for reaching the agreement. The City of Detroit is being tragically represented by Jones Day law firm which was also involved in the Chrysler bankruptcy of 2009.
Kevyn Orr, the EM appointed in March 2013 by multi-millionaire Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, is a former partner at Jones Day and was involved in the disastrous bankruptcy and restructuring at Chrysler which resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of dealerships. Jones Day and the EM have spent nearly $100 million on consultants over the last year which is enough money to hire three thousand city workers at $30,000 plus per year.
What’s at Stake in the Detroit Bankruptcy?
On April 1 retirees, workers, union representatives and community people took over the streets in front of the federal court downtown. They were demanding the preservation of their pensions and the re-instatement of their healthcare plans which were terminated by the EM on March 1.
Hundreds of pensioners, city residents and other interested parties have filed over 500 legal objections to the so-called “Plan of Adjustment” presented by Orr during late February. The EM document is vague about the source of its findings and only presents a series of draconian austerity measures as a method for “restructuring” the City’s finances.
Retirees who have sacrificed decades of service and deferred wages face cuts up to one-third of their monthly checks on the surface, but when the theft of their annuities and healthcare benefits are calculated into the scheme, the reductions amount to over 60 percent. The banks and bond holders are said to be asked to take up to an 80 percent cut, however, a deal reached with “unsecured” creditors involving insurers and other corporate interests provides between 70-80 percent of payments which they claim are owed to them by the working people of the city.
These attacks on unions, pensioners and residents in this majority African American city is setting the stage for a national assault on the deferred wages and benefits of workers. Corporate media editorials and news stories daily publish reports claiming that public pension funds are grossly underfunded and mismanaged.
In Illinois, which is said to have the worst funded pension system in the country, steps were taken by the state legislature in December which lawmakers say will cut $145 billion in public investments for the system over the next three decades. These measures have enhanced bond sales for the state since most capitalist investors favor the lessening and even abandonment of constitutional protections for public pensions. (Bloomberg, April 11)
Bloomberg stated that even though legislation was approved to purportedly remedy the system’s weaknesses, “The passage didn’t bolster the fifth-most-populous-state’s rating, as the credit companies cited legal challenges to the pension overhaul and the expiration at year-end of a temporary personal-income tax increase. “ (April 11)
The California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers) is also under attack by the bankers, bondholders and rating agencies. Calpers sued the rating agencies in 2009, and in 2012, a California judge ruled that Standard & Poor and Moody’s must answer to claims that they misrepresented actual bond values.
These bond-rating agencies are seeking an appeals court hearing in San Francisco to reverse the previous decision calling to account the role of the firms. According to Karen Gullo, a writer for Bloomberg, the bond-rating agencies are saying in court papers that “At the heart of Calper’s claim is an effort to hold the rating agencies liable for their publicly disseminated opinions on the grounds that these opinions failed accurately to predict the future.” (April 9)
This same article goes on to point out that “S&P is being sued separately for fraud in federal court in Santa Ana, California by the U.S. Justice Department, which accuses the company of lying about its ratings being free of conflicts of interest and may seek as much as $5 billion in penalties. It also faces similar lawsuits by U.S. states, including one by California Attorney General Kamala Harris.”
Another Bloomberg Municipal Market article notes that “New York state and localities including Westchester County borrowed a record $1.4 billion to cover retirement contributions this year, showing how even the wealthiest communities are struggling to make the payments….Even as Standard & Poor’s is poised to raise the state’s grade to its highest since 1972, rating companies have cut some New York City suburbs, citing the loans as a sign of imbalanced budgets.” (April 8)
The Wall Street bankers, bondholders, insurers and rating agencies are attempting to not only eliminate legal protections for public pensions but to also destroy their structures through the dissolution of their boards of directors and trustees which have representation from union officials and politicians. In Detroit at least $5-6 billion in pension funds are up for grabs and the EM is attempting to replace the pension boards of both the General Retirement System as well as the separate one established for Police and Firefighters.
On April 10, representatives for the Police and Firefighters unions held a press conference stating that if the bankers’ “Plan of Adjustment” put forward by Orr and Jones Day was approved by the federal bankruptcy court it would mean “destitution” for their membership. Judge Rhodes in his ruling took a swipe at the massive public opposition to the attacks on workers and retirees saying that now was the time to negotiate.
However, such an assertion does not acknowledge the massive cuts that workers have already endured in Detroit. Prior to the appointment of the EM last year, another “cost-cutting” plan worked out among City officials and unions was totally rejected by Gov. Snyder who then imposed Orr as the city’s dictator where he then unjustifiably placed the municipality in bankruptcy, the largest in the history of the U.S.
Forward to May Day
In response to these ongoing attacks and the failure of the federal courts to acknowledge the criminal role of the banks in destroying both the housing and municipal infrastructure of Detroit, a coalition of organizations are calling for demonstrations on May Day. Under the theme of “No Business As Usual”, activists want people to refrain from shopping and work and to protest against the banks and other centers of power that are putting in place additional mechanism to further exploit and oppress the people of the city.
The event will begin with a gathering at UAW Local 600 at 8:00 a.m. A car caravan will transport people downtown for a series of actions that will protest the undemocratic and racist character of the forced bankruptcy and restructuring of the city.
On July 16 the hearing will begin on the bankers’ “Plan of Adjustment” seeking approval by the federal court. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition based in Detroit is calling for a national demonstration in front of bankruptcy court demanding the preservation of pensions, healthcare, jobs, public assets and democratic rights.
THE PAN-AFRICAN RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION PROJECT– E MAIL: panafnewswire@gmail.com

MORE BANKER SUICIDES… AND MORE HIGH OCTANE SPECULATION… READ,READ !!!

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: Bankers • http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/04/banker-suicides-high-octane-speculation/

The dead bodies in the banking business just keep piling up, this time, in LIchtenstein, where a banker has been found murdered, and in the Netherlands, where a banker, his wife, and young daughter, are victims:
Lichtenstein bank CEO Frick Murdered
48 Year Old Man Killed in Bank Garage
Former Bank Helped Trigger Collapse
By now, it is (or at least should be) obvious to any reasonable person that all these suicides, from the unfortunate Chinese banker in Hong Kong, to the murder by defenestration that we’ve seen in New York and London with JP Morgan bankers, and now to Lichtenstein, Holland, and Scotland connections, are all somehow related and not accidental. We are now in a distinct and definite pattern. We are looking at murder. Look at what the stories have added up to thus far:

1. The “suicides” and murders have global extent, from China to Lichtenstein, thus suggesting that whatever is behind these murders is something of global extent;
2. The suicides have been connected to allegations of fraud(as in the case of Herr Frick), or are tied to areas of finance where there has been rampant financial fraud, such as mortages, and the “suicide” by nail gun of Colorado mortgage title businessman, Richard Talley;
3. The suicides have shown a consistent pattern of people connected to the computer-related aspects of finance, suggesting elements connected to high frequency trading and international financial clearing.

The question is, why all the murders?
One very obvious answer is suggested by the case of Lichtenstein banker Juergen Frick, one of the more recent victims, and clearly a murder victim, and that is the allegation of he raised of fraud. I have suggested this before, in connection with the hidden system of finance that I have argued was put into place after World War Two as a completely off the books system of finance designed as a covert (and vast) slush fund to finance secret research of a long term and exotic nature, and to fund covert operations. This has meant that the national security apparatus of the USA became involved in international banking (and therefore, its adjunct, clearing) at a very early period in the postwar world, and hence, the protection of this system, should anyone discover its internal workings or threaten to expose it, would be a national security secret, and certainly one that its managers would commit murder to protect.
In the operations of such a system, however, fraud becomes the norm, and hence, another reason for the evident pattern offers itself, and that is simply that with all the bad paper floating around – particularly in the wake of the credit default swaps and derivatives that were created prior to the crash of 2008 – evidence of the vast amounts of capital tied up in those securities has to be eliminated. We could, in other words, be looking at the liquidation of “loose ends” as the international financial community scrambles to reset back to normalcy, burning and shredding the bad paper, and anyone with deep knowledge of it. This has been the view argued in various places by my colleague Catherine Austin Fitts, to a certain extent.
But the Frick and Schmittmann cases linked above suggest another high octane speculative possibility, namely, that these bankers may be comparing notes, and coming to some interesting conclusions, conclusions I suggested yesterday in my blog about Goldman Sach’s breathtaking and apparent withdrawal (for the moment) from one of its own High Frequency Trading “dark pools”. What if Herr Frick discovered, during the course of his lawsuit, that the entity he had assumed had defrauded him, really hadn’t, but rather, that it had been used by some other entity, that it had been hacked, as it were, and that no one, at least in the public aspect of the system, had defrauded him at all? What if he had discovered evidence that the entire system of international clearing had been hacked and was under someone else’s control? In such a situation, one might hold panicked meetings in quiet board rooms, deciding what to do to protect one’s assets, electronic or otherwise, and one might, like Goldman Sachs, decide on a moratorium on involvement in any system it suspected may have been compromised. One would also, I imagine, put out the quiet word that everyone in “the business” would have to be carefully monitored, and, if they came to close to this explosive secret, or were suspected of possibly going public with it, quietly advised to remain quiet about it.
Such a secret would, of course, be explosive and, if true, and made public, could severely damage the financial system, already battered from lack of trust. What if they have discovered the presence of “something else” in the financial system they thought they were in control of, something that was executing trades in clear contradiction to their own buy or sell orders, and even in some cases overriding them? There are three possibilities for such a “hidden trader,” and I have mentioned one of them, but there are two others, and all three of them would be explosive news, if one had access to the numbers, orders, and programs, and could make a demonstrative and irrefutable case… that case would be a secret both worth exposing, and commiting murder to prevent from being exposed.

Reinventing Humanity – A New World Order Wet Dream

lol "they" never ,fucking EVER ..factor in ...evil  ...until "their" fucking monster ...runs  amok  ...than save us God ,save US  lol  ...oh victor ??? herr dr.  mr. frankenstein ...  ah oh yea ! his "monster" IS still chas~in his ass ALL over the N~poll  lol

That all-consuming quest for the key to eternal life.
Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
Science will control our shapes, our intelligence, even create new breeds of men – violent men to fight our wars, docile men to do our work – hell on earth. (Jekyll & Hyde, 1990)

Synthetic food, synthetic voice, synthetic body, synthetic memory, synthetic brain, synthetic everything. That is what we are headed for at an increasingly accelerated rate. We are losing our humanity minute by minute and replacing it with technology. This is not an accident. No, it is quite intentional. We are being programmed to accept the theory that technology is somehow better than nature, and that those who use it are superior to those who don’t, when in actuality, we are becoming hopelessly dependent on it.

There is nothing wrong with technology when it is used as a tool for accomplishing worthy goals. However, there is a big difference between using it in a positive, beneficial way, and as a manipulative tool to create terminal dependence as a way of life.
When you become dependent on the machine, those who own the machine own you.
We are increasingly using unnatural means to achieve “real” sounding and “real” looking artificial constructs to replace what nature has provided. Take for example, Auto-Tune technology. This is used to make singers sound on key when in reality they are taking a shortcut to what normally takes talent and years of practice. We have now replaced true human excellence in art with a microwave version of computerized sounds made to appear as human.

In January of 2010, Kesha Sebert, known as ‘Ke$ha’ debuted at number one on Billboard with her album, Animal. Her style is electro pop-y dance music: she alternates between rapping and singing, the choruses of her songs are typically melodic party hooks that bore deep into your brain: “Your love, your love, your love, is my drug!” And at times, her voice is so heavily processed that it sounds like a cross between a girl and a synthesizer. Much of her sound is due to the pitch correction software, Auto-Tune. LINK

This is the society of the future – Auto-Tuned, genetically manipulated, and living in a fantasy world. Not to worry if you can’t do something as good as the next person, or aren’t as physically attractive. Just add this enhancement and that enhancement and in less than the time it takes to say “hey, I want that too,” you will be just as good as the person who has worked for years to perfect his/her talent, nothing required but the bucks to buy the technology. An instant, microwave solution to life.
Cher – from singer to autotuned plastic surgery queen, and poster child for the artificial construct:
Before:
After:
A once naturally beautiful woman with a wonderful natural voice is now completely dependent on artificial constructs. She cannot go back. She has done this willingly, and without coercion. However, the majority of people who become guinea pigs for transhumanist medical experiments are the ones who do it for reasons other than fortune and fame. They do it because they have been sucked into thinking that a system designed to make them dependent on Big Pharma drugs, the medical establishment, and any experiments these industries choose to do, is actually working for them and in their best interests.

Creating Dependency

There are many ways to create dependency on the system, but the biggest success by far is the sick care industry run by Big Pharma. What better way to create dependency than to take aim straight at the one thing that if we do not have, we become hopelessly dependent on others for our very survival – our health. A sick population is easily manipulated, and the sicker it gets, the more dependent it is on Big Pharma and the medical establishment, and the more raw experimental data is able to be collected. The medical system is designed to collect and store mountains of data on each and every illness you have ever had since birth, each and every medication you have ever taken, the side effects that you have experienced, dosage reactions, etc.
One of the uses for data such as this is to determine a statistical database, which is used for risk assessment for insurance purposes. The bean counters. You know, the guys who decide that if the chances of you surviving whatever is in that pill you just popped are in the company’s favor or not. If they are, then it stays on the market and the profits just keep on rolling in. And with all that available data, including DNA information, drug reactions, etc., the medical establishment has a wealth of knowledge at its fingertips to help it move ever onward in its quest for more drugs, more genetic engineering, and more human-altering processes that form the basis for its existence.
The incidence of diseases such as cancer has been growing rapidly while there is relatively no real cure coming from the allopathic medical industry. Natural cures that have proven results are shunted aside in favor of drugs and treatments that fail time and time again. Wonder why? I have. And the conclusion that I have come to is that the top medical industry corporations are not actually working for a cure. If real cures for diseases were used and openly endorsed, a lot of people would stand to lose a lot of money, power and control. There is a big payoff in keeping people ill and ignorant and enrolled in a so called “health” plan for which they pay their dues, take prescription drugs, and keep on feeding the parasitic corporations that are killing them. And of course, there’s all that data…
Everyone Benefits but the Mice
We can clearly see the results of these unwholesome experiments on humanity and all other life forms. We see these results in the increase in cancer, auto-immune disease, neurological disorders, obesity, sexual dysfunction, and a host of other diseases that seem to be increasing exponentially.

It’s not just that Americans are getting sicker. It’s that young Americans are getting sicker. LINK

So, besides the obvious corporate fiscal benefits of raking in a hefty profit margin by keeping a society sickly and in need of ever increasing expensive medications, is there another motive in this wholesale push for prescription drugs, vaccines and genetically engineered plants, animals, fish and humans? Is there a motive so dark and sinister that no one really wants to look at it up close and personal, and those who point out the road signs are heralded as paranoid kooks in order to quell the rising tide of information that clearly points to something that is much bigger and comprehensive than we really want to face? Just what is the endgame, or is there one?
Let me tell you a story about a future that just might be lurking right around the corner…

The Reinventing of Humanity

I believe that the following scenario is much more than possible. In fact, I believe that we are headed down it already at an alarming rate. This is the logical conclusion, sans the rosy picture, that our society’s push towards a technocracy embraces:

The goal is eternal life for those who can afford it, and those who can’t are the test subjects. We are the ones who undergo experimental surgery, experimental drugs, and experimental treatments all for diseases that are fostered and in some cases created by the power elite who have an all-consuming quest for the key to eternal life, and there are no holds barred in that quest.
When we die, what we die of, the manner in which the disease spreads, are all documented variables leading to a “scientific” consensus of our physical properties. The results are cataloged, sorted, and the data is correlated and used for further testing in order to further research into creating the perfect “master” race and its subservient “worker” race. It simply does not matter if one test subject dies, there is always a replacement right around the corner, standing in line, eager to play. Begging to play, even if it costs him/her everything.
And the risks? Well, everyone understands that in order to build a better human, a few “eggs” must get broken in the process. And the added benefit of contributing towards population control is always a plus, not to mention the immense wealth and enormous gratification such power can bring from convincing your test subjects to fight for the chance to die for you and spend their very last dime on a “cure” that you provide that is never meant to actually cure anything. Just another experiment. Another cog in the wheel of technological progress running an updated Roman Gladiator game sans the arena.
But remember, it’s all for the greater good…

In other words, “twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag” (Leverage).
Creative Destruction – Out of Chaos comes Order
Chaos is instigated by disrupting as many patterns as possible. Patterns are orderly, and any disruption causes a chaotic state in which the organism has to adjust and form a new order.
The million dollar question: Is chaos being artificially induced with the intent to create a New World Order through a process called ‘creative destruction,’ that excludes anything resembling what we now recognize as natural?
Creative destruction – a process through which something new brings about the demise of whatever existed before it.
Genetically engineered varieties of plants, trees, fish, animals, drugs, and even people, all set to replace the natural varieties that existed before them. And if you are rich enough and powerful enough, you just might get an A ticket to the transhumanist definition of eternal life while those around you simply become obsolete by designing yourself a new artificial body that with care, should last forever.
There are those who are bent on obtaining this type of eternal life no matter what the cost. But just like the hydrogen bomb, just because we think we can doesn’t mean we should. Unless, of course, you don’t care a rodent’s patoot about the people you need to experiment on in order to accomplish your objective. So, the experiments continue. Eyes set on upgrading – ascending, if you will. The singularity. And it simply wouldn’t be paradise if it wasn’t for a subspecies of man to do the menial chores with a supposed superior race to rule them. A bit of integration into machines for the harder chores. Hey, designer humans, designer bots, anything goes. And the experiments continue, and the results of these massive experiments, fail or not, are the same. A whole lot of dead mice. Or, the way things are going, half mouse half human.
Life on this planet is being re-engineered in ways that will render everything unrecognizable in the years to come through such things as genetic engineering, nanotech, integration of man with machine, synthetic DNA, artificial life, and chemical/radiation mutagenesis, all geared towards supposedly creating a better world. But the millions of people that are being experimented on and cast aside as waste products have a different story to tell.
In other words, you and I are not the beneficiaries of the ‘perks’ that this brave new world supposedly provides. We are but cogs in the machine, the rabbits in the cages smack dab in the middle of the experimental lab. We don’t count. Never have, never will. Not in the minds of those who would control us and change us into their vision of the perfect species living on the perfect world. But one person’s vision of Eutopia is another’s nightmare. Welcome to the jungle…

“I recognized my two selves: a crusading idealist and a cold, granitic believer in the law of the jungle” – Edgar Monsanto Queeny, Monsanto chairman, 1943-63, “The Spirit of Enterprise”, 1934.

And just how do we get there from here?
Let me count the ways…

Genetic Load, Inbreeding & Mutagenesis

Genetic Load

Genetic load is the difference between the fitness of the theoretically optimal genotype in a population and the fitness of the observed average genotype in a population.
This is important to scientists because if genetic load gets too high the population will be in danger of going extinct because the organisms are not able to survive and reproduce.
One part of genetic load is “mutational load” — the piling up of harmful mutations that have not been eliminated for some reason by natural selection. Too many harmful mutations will be lethal. LINK

The Use of Inbreeding to increase then eventually decrease genetic load:

Inbreeding increases genetic load in the short run, but actually decreases genetic load in the long run. Overall, inbreeding increases the rates of homozygosity. In the short run, this means that offspring are more likely to get two recessive and deleterious alleles, so they will have lower fitnesses and experience an inbreeding depression. The result is that you could begin to weed out deleterious alleles, some scientists have gone so far as to claim that if a population begins to decline because of higher mutation rates then getting the remaining organisms to breed with their relatives will help push out some of the more harmful mutations.^[7] However, once the rate of the allele gets high enough the pairing frequency will get so high that it will start to weed out those alleles at a high rate since the organisms which get them will die before reproducing. This is referred to as a purging of the population as a result of inbreeding.^[8] This kind of load is dependent on sexual reproduction, so isn’t present in asexually reproducing species. LINK

Mutagenesis
Bath the organism in radiation or toxic chemicals then stand back and see what emerges. This is mutagenesis. It creates mutations and when the process is performed in a lab, the unwanted mutations are discarded and the desired mutations are kept.
Are we undergoing mutagenesis as a species? Dowsed with radiation, genetically engineered food, vaccines, medicines and toxic chemicals, what sort of mutations are and will be occurring? Especially considering horizontal gene transfer from genetically engineered organisms in our food supply….
Mutation load is the main contributing factor to genetic load overall.

Since we have not been experiencing severe natural selection since the Industrial Revolution, the number of harmful mutations in the typical individual must have increased by about forty or so. We must have devolved quite significantly. LINK
[There has been a] decline of general intelligence of approximately one standard deviation, or 15 IQ points. 1889-1989 LINK

Create the mutations, increase genetic load, then weed out and eliminate the genetic variants to reduce genetic load and create super babies:

One way to make better babies: get rid of the very low frequency mutations. The vast majority are harmful or neutral in effect. The many harmful mutations we all carry are known as genetic load. Cut down the genetic load and the result will be super babies. One of the benefits of cheap full genome sequencing is going to be the identification of these many lower frequency mutations. Better we do this to humans first before someone tries to use many Neanderthal genomes to basically vote on which genetic variants to keep in order to create a Neanderthal baby. Greg Cochran asks his readers what the problem is in doing this. The likely result of such an exercise: super Neanderthal. If a large number of Neanderthal genomes can be discovered and sequenced then that’ll enable more reduction of genetic load.
Those of us already born by reducing genetic load from many parts of our bodies. First we need the ability to grow replacement organs. We then need (and will soon have) massive amounts of full genome sequencing information to identify the harmful genetic mutations. Next, we need gene therapy that can fix pieces of our DNA in cells removed from our body and grown in culture. Basically, replace the harmful genetic letters and make cell lines immunologically compatible but superior. Then use one or more of these cell lines as starting points to grow replacement organs. Then we’ll be able to replace our body parts with new parts that are both younger and higher functioning. LINK

Mutated DNA via industrialization, GMO, radiation, chemicals, fluoridated water, inbreeding, etc., creates high genetic load. Use genetic engineering to “fix” mutations and make the subsequent cell lines superior. Thus the evolution of the species is theoretically directed. Erase the history and genetic memory of the human race and all life on earth in order to rebuild it according to some oligarch’s specifications. Yeah, that oughta work…

Genetic Engineering

Genetically engineered everything including body parts with superior qualities. On the surface that all sounds very beneficial and even philanthropic, but what about inherited genetic memory? What does the artificial manipulation of DNA do to our generational memory? The memories that make us who we are as a species? What is the mixing and blending of DNA from every sort of animal and plant with totally unrelated species going to do to our genetic memory?
If I were to rebuild society, might I want to start with a clean slate? Erase the genetic memory of life and start all over again with new constructs. Erase then rebuild inherited genetic memory…
Starting with the food we eat…
Horizontal Gene Transfer

Here, based on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies, we report evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments which are large enough to carry complete genes can avoid degradation and through an unknown mechanism enter the human circulation system. LINK

Not only is the genetically engineered food we eat changing our genetic structure, but this is also being done experimentally in a lab mixing the genes of animals, fish, humans and who know what together to see what comes of it.
And what about the descendents of genetically mixed humans? What happens to the children that inherit modified genes? And their children? But don’t worry, it’s for the greater good. Our new bodies are right over the horizon… well, maybe not yours…
Inherited Genetic Modification & Genetically Engineered Humans

The FDA public meeting to discuss mitochondrial replacement that was postponed due to the government shutdown in October has now been rescheduled for February 25-26. This will be the first public meeting ever held by the FDA to discuss the feasibility and desirability of a form of human inheritable genetic modification. LINK

Several research teams in the United States and the United Kingdom are currently requesting regulatory approval for techniques that would create an embryo with genetic material from three different people and result in inheritable genetic modification (changes that would be passed on to future generations). These techniques have been referred to with several terms, including “mitochondria replacement,” “mitochondrial manipulation,” “oocyte modification,” “three-parent IVF,” and “three-parent babies.” LINK

Animals with Mixed Genes
Just how long will it be before this ad for “bork” becomes a reality?
Animals with Human Genes

Animals containing human tissues, cells or genetic information are used to refine research methods, creating animal models that better represent human disease, and to develop and produce new therapeutics. LINK

A mouse that can speak? A monkey with Down’s Syndrome? Dogs with human hands or feet? British scientists want to know if such experiments are acceptable, or if they go too far in the name of medical research. LINK

A Powerful New Way to Edit DNA

In the past year or so, researchers have discovered that the bacterial system can be harnessed to make precise changes to the DNA of humans, as well as other animals and plants.
This means a genome can be edited, much as a writer might change words or fix spelling errors. It allows “customizing the genome of any cell or any species at will,” said Charles Gersbach, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University. LINK

“We’re not too stupid and we’re not too bright. To be a Gamma is to be just right.”

Robotics
Darpa Robotics Project
A melding of machine and man makes for a type of human/machine combination that just might be useful in combat or other situations.

It won’t be a superstar football player who takes the first kick of 2014′s Football World Cup in Brazil. Nope, instead, it will be a teenager, paralysed from the waist down, who will use the world’s most advanced mind-controlled exoskeleton to get things underway. LINK

An Olympic games for “augmented humans” will kick off in Switzerland in October 2016 featuring exoskeleton races among others. Hosted by the Swiss National Competence Center of Research, it is hoped the competition will spur interest in human performance-enhancing technology. LINK

Scientists have created a revolutionary new electronic membrane that could replace pacemakers, fitting over a heart to keep it beating regularly over an indefinite period of time.

From Cyborg to Android

Now that we’ve come this far, why not go all the way and create a completely artificial life construct that is as close to human-looking as possible?
Synthetic Biology & Artificial Life
DARPA Hacking Humans the 47th Chromosome
Artificial Wombs

The artificial womb exists. In Tokyo, researchers have developed a technique called EUFI — extrauterine fetal incubation. They have taken goat fetuses, threaded catheters through the large vessels in the umbilical cord and supplied the fetuses with oxygenated blood while suspending them in incubators that contain artificial amniotic fluid heated to body temperature. LINK

Artificial Chromosomes

One recently developed method for gene transfer that has the potential to address many of these shortcomings is the use of human artificial chromosomes (HACs). HACs possess several ideal properties, including very large DNA delivery capacities, stable, episomal maintenance within the cell, and lack of immunogenicity. LINK

Starting with commercially available snippets of DNA, Boeke’s team stitched together ever-larger DNA fragments, then added them to yeast cells. In the end, all the yeast carried a bioengineered version of chromosome III. The researchers named the artificial chromosome, described in this week’s edition of Science, synIII, derived from the word “synthetic.” When they tested the synIII-carrying yeast, they found it was as strong and vigorous as ordinary yeast.
In making the souped-up yeast chromosome, the researchers altered roughly 15% of the original. They deleted sections of chromosome that seemed unnecessary, and they spliced in bits of DNA that allow them to scramble the yeast’s genes on command. Such scrambling generates a batch of yeast with enormous genetic variation, allowing researchers to fish out the strains that grow best or fastest or have gained a particular ability.
“That’s where the real power of synthetic biology is going to come in,” Boeke says. “It’s evolution on hyperspeed.” LINK

Artificial Tissue and Organs

While the media focus on the possibility of 3D printing assault rifles, something far more meaningful has been going on in a number of university and commercial labs across the US: research to print human tissue and organs. LINK

A team of bioengineers has announced it’s one step closer to creating a four-organ human replica for experimentation.
Much of the work currently being done to engineer human organs through 3D printing and various other techniques is not carried out with the aim of delivering a fully-fledged implantable transplant candidate. Of course that’s the ultimate aim, but for now these tiny replicas — sometimes only half a millimetre in size for the sake of cost — are being developed to test drugs. LINK

Artificial Muscle

American scientists have developed a robotic muscle 1,000 times more powerful than a human’s – using a revolutionary material that fluidly changes its properties. LINK

Artificial Skulls

A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder — which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches — has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant. LINK

Artificial Heart

A team of cardiovascular scientists has announced it will be able to 3D print a whole heart from the recipients’ own cells within a decade. LINK

Artificial Liver

A US biotechnology company has 3D printed a tiny functioning liver in the lab that survived just over five days — more than twice the life expectancy of 2D versions. LINK

Artificial Intelligence

A new generation of artificial intelligence systems will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning; the biometrics age is fast developing facial, iris, and palm sensory recognition and voice characteristics…
‘We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing,’ said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of many research centers devoted to developing these new kinds of computer circuits. LINK

Put it all together and you have the perfect recipe for global domination and a separation of classes that can only exist on store shelves. You become what you can afford. All of these brilliant technological innovations, coming together and culminating in designer humans and designer bodies for the rich and powerful to choose from. Helluva deal.
©2014 Barbara H. Peterson

The Astounding Conspiracy Theories of Wall Street Genius Mark Gorton

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Mark Gorton is a prominent financier and a respected entrepreneur. He founded the music sharing site Limewire, and he runs Tower Research, a famed high-frequency trading firm. Gorton also believes that the "ruthless" secret cabal that assassinated JFK and planned 9/11 could be coming to kill his family.

Mark Gorton does not have a reputation as a crackpot. Quite the opposite. He's been favorably profiled in the New York Times for his business acumen and charitable deeds. His experience as the head of Limewire—which disrupted the music industry and then lost a $100 million lawsuit as a result—was closely followed by the press. And when Michael Lewis's blockbuster new book about high frequency trading was published recently, prominent media outlets turned to Gorton to learn what HFT firms are really like. The Huffington Post even dubbed him "the new face of Wall Street." He is a very respected and very wealthy man.

This week, we were forwarded documents that Gorton was sending out to employees at Tower Research. These documents—embedded at the bottom of this post—are essays by Mark Gorton, laying out his theories on the secret high-level murderous criminal "Cabal" that is responsible for, among other things, the JFK and RFK assassinations, the presidential careers of the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 plot, and the murder of countless witnesses, politicians, and journalists who sought to expose them, including Sen. Paul Wellstone and even Hunter S. Thompson. Everything, according to Gorton, has been an inside job.

It is really something.

The longest and most complete of Gorton's essays is titled "Fifty Years of the Deep State." To give you a taste of what he believes, a few brief excerpts. On the JFK assassination:

The assassination of JFK was part of a full scale Coup d'état, the violent takeover of our government by a group of criminals. I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that JFK's assassination was the work of a network of criminals embedded within the political system and power structure of the United States. Key among the players in the Coup of '63 were LBJ; Allen Dulles and the CIA; J Edgar Hoover and the FBI; right wing Texas oil executives including Clint Murchison Sr., H.L. Hunt and D.H. Byrd; the East Coast business establishment centered around Rockefeller interests and the Council on Foreign Relations; Curtis Le May (chairman of the joint chief of staff), other right wing leaders of the military and elements of military intelligence; and the Bush family (both Prescott and George H.W. Bush)...

LBJ planned to kill JFK from the moment he considered becoming vice president.

And Gorton believes that the plotters of the assassination were ready to literally start a nuclear war as part of the coverup:

The contingencies beyond how to blame Oswald were much more serious. If it were superficially obvious that JFK's killing was the result of a conspiracy, Castro was to be blamed, and an invasion of Cuba was to quickly follow. Many anti-Castro Cubans who participated in the Coup were deeply disappointed that the invasion of Cuba never materialized. My studies of the Coup of '63 have led me to believe that even graver fall back strategies were embedded in the plot. If JFK's killing was obviously perceived as being part of large conspiracy, and the US public was not buying the Castro did it angle, the Coup plotters were in truly dire straits. These desperate men who ran the military, the FBI, some of largest companies in the world, and the US government faced the prospect of being hung for treason. I believe that the darkest scenarios envisioned by the Coup plotters involved declaring martial law and blaming the Russians and taking the country to (and possibly over) the brink of nuclear war with Russia...

The coverup, Gorton writes, has been deadly:

Over the years, certainly 50 and more likely more than 100 people have been killed to preserve the secrets of the Coup of '63. Many witnesses, reporters, people who knew too much, plot members at risk of being exposed, overzealous law enforcement officials have all been killed. Some of these deaths were clearly violent. Many were made to look like something else.

Another of Gorton's writings, "The Political Dominance of the Cabal" is a point-by-point primer on the Cabal's alleged members and murderous conspiracies.(Example: President Bill Clinton was a "Senior Member of the Dixie Mafia... Associated with dozens of suspicious deaths"; George HW Bush masterminded the savings and loan crisis, Reagan's shooting, and "domestic death squads.") The third document, "The Coup of '63, Part 1" is a JFK assassination-centric shorter version of "Fifty Years of the Deep State."

Yesterday, we called Mark Gorton to ask him about the authenticity of these documents. After a long pause, he said that he was mulling over the "consequences for me" if these documents came to light. Like what? "People killing me and my children," he said. "This has the potential to change my life."

Gorton did confirm that he wrote the essays, though, which he described as works in progress. He even agreed to send us the most recent versions of the documents, which are the versions we've embedded below. In his email to us yesterday, Gorton described his fears:

I am concerned because the criminal syndicate that I describe in these documents has a long history of harassing and killing people who describe what they do. They not only kill the people that speak up, on occasion, they also kill their family members. I have a good life and four great kids, and I would prefer not to bring the wrath of a criminal government down upon my head.

I would ask that you completely read all three documents and think about what they have to say. Having these documents suddenly appear on a blog like Gawker changes my risk profile in life.

That being said, I do think that the truth needs to be told about what has happened to our democracy. I have written these documents and I have sent them out to a limited audience. If you are interested in publishing this material, I ask that you talk to me and that this be done in a thoughtful manner. I would prefer that my life not be put in jeopardy by a casual, quick, one off, blog post.

We have decided to publish the material. We trust that any shadowy forces will be kept at bay by the public attention we are drawing to this topic.

The Bundy affair is the tip of the iceberg to what’s coming

April 13, 2014

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The BLM has tucked their tail between their legs and run for cover. Sheriff Mack, the other sheriffs, various state legislators, Oathkeepers and average people who make up our militias personify the words courage, integrity and honor

By Dave Hodges

(INTELLIHUB) – May God bless and protect every brave soul who went to the aid of a beleaguered family. Our American heroes prevented another Ruby Ridge and Americans should forever be grateful to all who went to the aid of Cliven Bundy. America still has many great people who are worthy of the descriptive term, hero. Cliven Bundy has also demonstrated to the world what is means to be an American and stand up to tyranny and win. Like so many overreaching federal agencies, when confronted, they are cowards and they tuck their collective tails between their legs and run for cover.

They Will Be Back

As has been widely reported, the Chinese have paid $4.5 billion dollars to build a solar plant on the Bundy property. The Clark County (NV) Commissioners are on the hook for that money. This is why one of their threatened to send anyone traveling to the aid of Bundy home in a body bag. There is absolutely no way that the Bundy Affair is over.
Sometimes, our personal life experiences prepare us in ways which helps us to understand an event in a manner that the general public will not see because the public does not have the experience. The events at Cliven Bundy’s property is something that I have lived through and I can see clearly what is happening and what is coming. This is much more than a land grab and a case of simple cronyism resulting in a land grab of the Bundy property. This kind of event has been happening and is happening as I write these words. Soon this kind of event will be commonplace.
Nearly all people reporting on this issue see it as a one-time resource grab involving Senator Harry Reid, his sons, the Clark County Commissioners and the Chinese government. The people reporting this are correct. However, this goes much, much further. Unfortunately, I have the experience to recognize this for what this is. Also, I have come across a Bureau of Land Management Policy Manual which spells out what is happening to Bundy and why.
I feel compelled to tell you at this point that my life was endangered when I exposed these connections in my neighborhood. While on the air with Annie DeRiso and Jim Marrs, the building I was in was shot at eight times. This event was recorded on the archives of the Republic Broadcasting Network. Additionally, a pair of men repeatedly tried to run me off the road one Saturday night approximately 6 miles from my home. The event was recorded from my 911 call which lasted 10 minutes, but the transcripts and recordings all disappeared. In both cases, law enforcement covered the crimes committed against me despite the fact that there were multiple witnesses to each event. Each event involved my revelations to the public about John McCain cronyism with the foreign owners of the Canamex Highway system and their plans to steal all property within my rural community. This is precisely why Cliven Bundy’s life is in danger. He is experiencing what I have lived through. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Bundy affair is just getting started and the following paragraphs will demonstrate why this is true.

The Arizona Coalition to Protect Personal Property Rights (ACPPR) vs. Sen. McCain’s Canamex Highway Forces

I live in rural Arizona approximately 20 miles north of metropolitan Phoenix and 20 miles south of Wickenburg, AZ.  Over 10 years ago, 300 homeowners in our immediate area faced an undeclared de facto eminent domain action against us without so much as one dime being offered in compensation. My community responded to challenge by forming the ACPPR and I was asked to be the spokesperson and I later became the director.
My sleepy, rural area had grand designs placed upon us by the forces behind the North American Union and in particular the Canamex Highway which was to connect Mexico with Canada. The highway was to run 8 miles to the west of my home which should not have been a threat to the globalist forces behind this transportation corridor. However, my area was slated as a Canamex international multimodal hub. This meant that 6 miles to the east of home a railway hub, a trucking depository and a small auxiliary airport left over from WW II was to be converted to a small airport to service the goods and services coming into this hub. My community was caught between the highway and the multimodal hub. To make things worse, my community also sits upon the largest underground water aquifer in Arizona known as the Hassayampa. The globalists needed our water to service the hub and they could not allow 300 homes to drain the reservoir. Therefore, the McCain forces convinced local politicians to legislate against us and strip us of all property rights in attempt to force us out over a period of time without paying us for the loss of our homes.
Over an eight year period, I was able to convince several of our Maricopa County Commissioners and a good number of State Legislators as to what was truly happening us. We were able to build a coalition and turn back the McCain group who was working on behalf of the foreign ownership of the Canamex. In short, they wanted our water and our land to build a monolithic infrastructure hub. My subsequent media appearances designed to expose this tyranny is what led me to do the broadcasting and writing that I do today.

PLEASE HEED MY WORDS OF WARNING: I AM TELLING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO CLIVEN BUNDY IS VERY SIMILAR TO WHAT HAPPENED TO MY COMMUNITY AND THIS IS COMING TO YOUR COMMUNITY IN THE NEAR FUTURE. 

The powers that be wanted my community’s water, the globalists want Bundy’s land to build a monolithic energy hub which is powered by solar energy controlled by the Chinese and they want to put it on Bundy’s property and I have the document that proves these claims.

Solar Energy Zones

I have discovered the existence of a BLM document which introduces America to a new Agenda 21 land designation and it called a “Solar Energy Zone”. The smoking gun BLM document is entitled:

Regional Mitigation Strategy for the
Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone
Technical Note 444
Produced by:
Bureau of Land Management
March 2014
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/wo/blm_library/tech_notes.Par.29872.File.dat/TN_444.pdf

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The BLM produced document carefully spells out all the Agenda 21 precautions to protect the environment and indigenous wildlife in these newly created Solar Energy Zones. The document specifically mentions the tortoise and it need to be protected, which is at issue in the Bundy case. Every form of species is protected within these Solar Energy Zones except for humans and nothing is mentioned about how land will be acquired through the eminent domain process.
The document makes it clear that land can be acquired to protect local species which could be threatened. This is how the federal government is getting around declaring eminent domain and paying people fair market value for their land, prior to stealing it. This is exactly what my community went through in the last decade in fighting against the Canamex Highway.

Reid, Clark County Commissioners, the Chinese and Cronyism

“The Bureau of Land Management, whose director was Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) former senior adviser, has purged documents from its web site stating that the agency wants Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle off of the land his family has worked for over 140 years in order to make way for solar panel power stations”.
Most people view the recent events directed at Bundy to be a case of political and economic cronyism. There is certainly that element. However, this is much bigger than the corrupt Harry Reid and his sons. The next few sections will begin to connect the relevant dots and a clearer picture will begin to emerge.

Treason

Noted researcher, Vicky Davis, sent me the location of the proposed solar farm where Bundy’s property is located and its neighbor is Nellis Air Force Base. It’s right there  and Harry Reid is aiding and abetting the Red Chinese to locate a facility close the AFB. The same overlap is mentioned in the previously identified BLM Solar Energy Zones document.
When I was serving as the Spokesperson and later as the Director of the ACPPR, I noticed that nearly all Canamex Highways were located adjacent to a military base. I also noticed that the existence of an inland port was located in the same area. And we know that the Chinese are heavily involved in the control of inland ports.

Connecting the Dots

It is time to connect the dots on one leg of this land grab in Nevada. The I-15 Canamex Highway runs adjacent to the planned theft of the Bundy property. In this location, a new Agenda 21 land designation is emerging and it is called a “Solar Energy Zone”. Solar Energy Zones will connect the variables of the Canamex, the evisceration of private property rights, land use delineated in the Agenda 21 Wildlands, the control of all transportation corridors within the United States and the ultimate betrayal, the Chinese control of all military bases in the United States.
How do I know this? First, I have lived through the same resource theft, property rights grab with the Canamex. Additionally, in Arizona, we are also establishing a solar farm system that has all the hallmark traits of what is going on at the Bundy property. The Arizona state government is cooperating with various federal agencies to build a massive solar farm 70 miles southeast of Phoenix. The Arizona solar project is located adjacent to Luke AFB flight operations and it is near another energy resource, the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. As an aside, I was contacted by a Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant employee this week. FEMA has been on sight in a surprise inspection and my source has expressed apprehension and surprise at this development. Does anyone else smell a false flag coming? Also, as time goes on, I am certain this will connect the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant to the solar farm.
The Bundy area contains the exact same set of variables as what I am seeing here in Arizona in that we see the Canamex Highway nearby, a land grab, proximity to a military base and proximity to another large energy resource, the nearby Hoover Dam. I suspect that I am now going to hear from many people across the country who are going to now connect these dots in their home state and see this for what it is.
If the Chinese gain control of all new energy (i.e. solar power), can imagine what your energy costs will be? Our problems with this plot extend far beyond energy costs.

Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Chinese Solar on Bundy Ranch                        Arizona Solar Farm

Chinese money backing project	Chinese money involved in project
Creation of Agenda 21 “Solar Energy Zone”	Creation of Agenda 21 “Solar Energy Zone”
Located near a Canamex Highway (I-15)	Located near a Canamex Highway (1-10)
Located near a major energy source (Hoover Dam)	Located near a major energy source (Palo Verde Nuclear Plant)
Located near a major military base (Nellis AFB)	Located near a major military base ancillary facilities (Luke AFB)

If I were a betting man, I would say that the Chinese will soon have control of all interstate highways that are connected to the Canamex Highway Corridor system. This would be a precursor event to an invasion in which an invading force would secure all transportation routes.
It is becoming clear that these Solar Energy Zones will be merged with other major energy sources (i.e. hydroelectric and nuclear power). This will potentially give the Chinese complete control over our energy and they can charge whatever they want.
Further, placing Chinese interests near a major military installation can be construed as another precursor to invasion. The bases could easily be neutralized before they could stop the advance of an invading blue-helmet military force.

Conclusion

My fellow Americans, we are seeing this government hand off all future energy to the Chinese. They are stealing American land to do so, through agencies such as the EPA and BLM. The Chinese will soon be occupying the bases adjacent to these Solar Energy Zones. This should scare the hell out of all us. We are about to be occupied by Communist Chinese forces and our federal government agencies are a party to this take over. I will be writing on the military aspect of this threat in a future article.
(Image: YouTube)

Dave Hodges is a contributor to Intellihub News. You may also find his work on The Common Sense Show.

Report: Brazil, Argentina and Australia sign contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars to house displaced U.S. populace when Yellowstone supervolcano erupts

April 10, 2014  

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Contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars presented to at least 4 countries will run from 2014-2024, a 10-year span in which the Yellowstone supervolcano is expected to erupt, devastating a large portion of the U.S.

By Shepard Ambellas

(INTELLIHUB) — According to a recent report, the African National Congress (ANC) recently turned down a $10B a year disaster management plan offered by the United States to house American citizens who may become displaced in the event that the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts.
The U.S. plan for relocation was formulated after a recent scientific analysis of the park revealed that Yellowstone’s supervolcano has the potential to violently erupt within the next 10-years as noted by others including the famous astrophysicist Michio Kaku.
In fact, Praag, a Pakistani publication, recently reported:
It may take up to ten years for printing in the magma chamber of the super volcano to build. According to Dr. Jean-Philippe Perrillat of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France, “it is the difference in density between the molten magma in the caldera and the surrounding rock big enough for the magma from the chamber to the surface to increase “.
“The effect is the same as the extra buoyancy of a soccer ball under water fill with air, after which it rises to the surface because the surrounding water poet,” said dr. Perrillat. ”If the magma volume is large enough, it should go to the surface to rise and explode like a champagne bottle that ontkurk be.”

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According to Dr. Sipho Mathetwe, the South African government “sympathy for the American challenge (challenge) to Yellowstone, but we have our own challenges in South Africa. There are 200 million white people in America, and if too many of them to South Africa flights, it is a big problem, even though there is enough housing and infrastructure available. It will destabilize the country and may even bring back apartheid. South Africa is not for sale.”
According to the report, “Brazil, Argentina and Australia” jumped on the bandwagon, accepting the request from Washington.
Shockingly, this all comes at a time when wild animals have been reported to be fleeing the park from seismic vibrations.
It has also been reported that earthquake swarms in the area have become more rampant. 
Intellihub News journalist Shepard Ambellas in a pervious article wrote:
Recent reports suggest that ancient Helium4 gas has breached the surface layers of Yellowstone’s crust,escaping into the atmosphere.  Now couple that with the recent and abrupt ground level rise in the park–and we may be looking at a spell for disaster.
I mean after all, as Michio Kaku, famous theoretical physicist, pointed out on a Jan. 2011 CNN newscast, “When it blows [Yellowstone] it could destroy the United States as we know it. [...] That’s what is making us nervous”
I don’t know about you but to me the thought of living in that region is horrifying, but what do I know, I live right near a massive volcano myself in Hawaii.
Later in the newscast the popular physicist points out how a 1000-mile ring of the U.S. would likely be destroyed if the supervolcano actually went. And as scary as that seems to some, we are actually quite overdue for the big one. In fact, the last Yellowstone eruption was thought to have happened around 630,000-years ago, meaning we are 30,000-years overdue for a total explosion.
Please comment below.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Heartbleed Suspicion And NSA Denial Show Why NSA's Dual Offense/Defensive Role Must End

from the it's-a-problem dept

We've talked for a while how dangerous and ridiculous it is that the NSA has a dual role as both handling "offensive" attacks and (supposedly) stopping incoming attacks in a "defensive" role. While technically, the NSA is supposed to be handling the "defensive" side while the US Cyber Command handles the offensive, there is no real separation between the two. The US Cyber Command is headquartered within the NSA and is run by the same person. Despite multiple recommendations to split the roles, the White House refuses to do so. Meanwhile, the NSA itself has been doing more and more offensive work anyway.

However, the claim late last week that the NSA knew about and exploited Heartbleed, followed by the quick denial by the NSA, really puts an exclamation point on how untenable this dual role is for the NSA. It's difficult to take the NSA seriously given the competing interests within it. Add to this, President Obama basically giving his broad approval for the NSA to exploit security flaws it finds, and you have a very dangerous setup for your average internet user. The NSA, despite its job, will have little interest in actually protecting internet users.

Julian Sanchez summarizes the issue nicely by pointing out that the two roles are simply incompatible:

But the denial itself serves as a reminder that NSA's two fundamental missions – one defensive, one offensive – are fundamentally incompatible, and that they can't both be handled credibly by the same government agency.

The NSA's history of being less than forthright in the past, as well as many of the Snowden revelations, combined with its dual role, simply means that most people won't believe the NSA's denial about Heartbleed, even if it was much more strongly worded than earlier denials. If the NSA's role, however, were made much clearer, such that it was only focused on protecting systems, without the offensive elements, then it would be both a lot more believable, and a lot more trustworthy. However, the very fact that the administration (and the NSA) appear to have little interest in moving in this direction says a lot about how much they really prioritize protecting our computer systems.

Privatization of the US Prison System

we just consume & die!  our gov. our corp's & our fellow cit's ...just look at each other as ...money~tize~ our~ass~tion :0

By Global Research News

Global Research, April 14, 2014

Arrest Records 12 April 2014

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy

The following infographic shows us how profitable the US prison industry is. “Between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion” dollars. As reported in The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?, inmates, mostly Blacks and Hispanics, are also being exploited by various industries:

“For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold

They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.”

Privatization of the US Prison System. An Infographic from ArrestRecords.com

What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?

Repeat of 1859 Carrington Event would devastate modern world, experts say.

The night lights of the U.S. Gulf Coast shine below the International Space Station in October 2010.

Photograph courtesy NASA

A 2002 coronal mass ejection. Image courtesy SDO/NASA

Richard A. Lovett

for National Geographic News

Published March 2, 2011

On February 14 the sun erupted with the largest solar flare seen in four years—big enough to interfere with radio communications and GPS signals for airplanes on long-distance flights.
As solar storms go, the Valentine's Day flare was actually modest. But the burst of activity is only the start of the upcoming solar maximum, due to peak in the next couple of years.
"The sun has an activity cycle, much like hurricane season," Tom Bogdan, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said earlier this month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
"It's been hibernating for four or five years, not doing much of anything." Now the sun is waking up, and even though the upcoming solar maximum may see a record low in the overall amount of activity, the individual events could be very powerful.
In fact, the biggest solar storm on record happened in 1859, during a solar maximum about the same size as the one we're entering, according to NASA.
That storm has been dubbed the Carrington Event, after British astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed the megaflare and was the first to realize the link between activity on the sun and geomagnetic disturbances on Earth.
During the Carrington Event, northern lights were reported as far south as Cuba and Honolulu, while southern lights were seen as far north as Santiago, Chile. (See pictures of auroras generated by the Valentine's Day solar flare.)
The flares were so powerful that "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora," Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said at a geophysics meeting last December.
In addition, the geomagnetic disturbances were strong enough that U.S. telegraph operators reported sparks leaping from their equipment—some bad enough to set fires, said Ed Cliver, a space physicist at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Bedford, Massachusetts.
In 1859, such reports were mostly curiosities. But if something similar happened today, the world's high-tech infrastructure could grind to a halt.
"What's at stake," the Space Weather Prediction Center's Bogdan said, "are the advanced technologies that underlie virtually every aspect of our lives."
Solar Flare Would Rupture Earth's "Cyber Cocoon"
To begin with, the University of Colorado's Baker said, electrical disturbances as strong as those that took down telegraph machines—"the Internet of the era"—would be far more disruptive. (See "The Sun—Living With a Stormy Star" in National Geographic magazine.)
Solar storms aimed at Earth come in three stages, not all of which occur in any given storm.
First, high-energy sunlight, mostly x-rays and ultraviolet light, ionizes Earth's upper atmosphere, interfering with radio communications. Next comes a radiation storm, potentially dangerous to unprotected astronauts.
Finally comes a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a slower moving cloud of charged particles that can take several days to reach Earth's atmosphere. When a CME hits, the solar particles can interact with Earth's magnetic field to produce powerful electromagnetic fluctuations. (Related: "Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected.")
"We live in a cyber cocoon enveloping the Earth," Baker said. "Imagine what the consequences might be."
Of particular concern are disruptions to global positioning systems (GPS), which have become ubiquitous in cell phones, airplanes, and automobiles, Baker said. A $13 billion business in 2003, the GPS industry is predicted to grow to nearly $1 trillion by 2017.
In addition, Baker said, satellite communications—also essential to many daily activities—would be at risk from solar storms.
"Every time you purchase a gallon of gas with your credit card, that's a satellite transaction," he said.
But the big fear is what might happen to the electrical grid, since power surges caused by solar particles could blow out giant transformers. Such transformers can take a long time to replace, especially if hundreds are destroyed at once, said Baker, who is a co-author of a National Research Council report on solar-storm risks.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Cliver agrees: "They don't have a lot of these on the shelf," he said.
The eastern half of the U.S. is particularly vulnerable, because the power infrastructure is highly interconnected, so failures could easily cascade like chains of dominoes.
"Imagine large cities without power for a week, a month, or a year," Baker said. "The losses could be $1 to $2 trillion, and the effects could be felt for years."
Even if the latest solar maximum doesn't bring a Carrington-level event, smaller storms have been known to affect power and communications.
The "Halloween storms" of 2003, for instance, interfered with satellite communications, produced a brief power outage in Sweden, and lighted up the skies with ghostly auroras as far south as Florida and Texas.
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Buffing Up Space-Weather Predictions
One solution is to rebuild the aging power grid to be less vulnerable to solar disruptions.
Another is better forecasting. Scientists using the new Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft are hoping to get a better understanding of how the sun behaves as it moves deeper into its next maximum and begins generating bigger storms. (See some of SDO's first sun pictures.)
These studies may help scientists predict when and where solar flares might appear and whether a given storm is pointed at Earth.
"Improved predictions will provide more accurate forecasts, so [officials] can take mitigating actions," said Rodney Viereck, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center.
Even now, the center's Bogdan said, the most damaging emissions from big storms travel slowly enough to be detected by sun-watching satellites well before the particles strike Earth. "That gives us [about] 20 hours to determine what actions we need to take," Viereck said.
In a pinch, power companies could protect valuable transformers by taking them offline before the storm strikes. That would produce local blackouts, but they wouldn't last for long.
"The good news is that these storms tend to pass after a couple of hours," Bogdan added.
Meanwhile, scientists are scrambling to learn everything they can about the sun in an effort to produce even longer-range forecasts.
According to Vierick, space-weather predictions have some catching up to do: "We're back where weather forecasters were 50 years ago."