From futurist Stephan A. Schwartz - Trends That Will Affect Your Future …

From futurist Stephan A. Schwartz - Trends That Will Affect Your Future …

This is truly and utterly over the top...

"The implosion of the Roman Church over financial and sexual issues seems from the outside both tragic and absurd. From the inside it must be unutterably sad. Here is its latest scene. Perhaps because I still have images from Rosemary's Baby in my memories, I just can't get to the place where one's sexuality is so distorted this could take place.

Father Thomas Euteneuer made a career of being judgmental and condemning of others; yet found it o.k. to look down at a woman he believed to be possessed by demons, in the midst of his carrying out one of the Church's most mysterious rituals, and thought: God, I'd like to have sex with her. What could one say: The devil made me do it."
Stephen R. Schwartz

Exorcism - Sex: Father Thomas Euteneuer's controversial confession


Earlier this week Father Thomas Euteneuer made a confession to a sexual indiscretion during an exorcism. The confession has rocked the Catholic Church and the anti-abortion movement. The Priest had once been an up and coming "rock star" in the Catholic Church and a "superstar" of the international pro-life movement as President of Human Life International.

A secret scandal in August forced Euteneuer to quietly resign his positions of authority and take a low profile in the church. Until last week, when one of Euteneuer's "exorcism" victims was rushed to a Florida emergency room. At that time the scandal broke wide open, and Euteneuer was forced into making a public confession.

The former superstar of the international pro-life movement, and exorcist for the Catholic Church, has now confessed to sexually abusing at least one woman under his spiritual care.
The scandal had been shrouded in secrecy, leaving only rumors and innuendo as concerned members of the Catholic Church and the pro-life movement tried to find answers for Euteneuer's disappearance from the public stage.

There should be no surprise that the church and Euteneuer tried to make the rumors and allegations of misconduct go away. This is standard operating procedure for the Catholic Church. And for six months they were able to maintain their conspiracy of silence.

Yet Euteneuer's controversial confession yields more questions than answers. Euteneuer claims:

My violations of chastity were limited to one person only, an adult woman;
The violations of chastity happened due to human weakness but did not involve the sexual act;
The accusation that I “targeted” vulnerable women or otherwise sought them out for spiritual direction is utterly false and a serious defamation of my character and ministry;

The entire confession rings hollow, and defensive. The fact that he denies his "violation of chastity" did not "involve the sexual act" seems counter intuitive. How can a violation of chastity not involve a sexual act? Also, the fact that his victim was under his spiritual care, and deemed to be possessed by demons, lends little credibility to the claim that he did not target vulnerable women.

No doubt their is more to the story. Whether or not more details will surface, remains a mystery.

Source;
http://www.examiner.com/humanist-in-national/exorcism-sex-father-thomas-euteneuer-s-controversial-confession

so nice to see you here, gio ....
thanks for the info ....
the really sad thing is, i am not surprised ....
and i am quite sure that there is much more
to this sordid affair than Euteneuer or anyone has admitted ....
violation of chastity, but no sex?
i smoked but i didn't inhale ....
it depends on what your definition of is, is ....
please ...
transparent, yes ...
i am not so sure sometimes if we, the people, are ready
for full transparency ... but keep it comin' anyway

Welcome back Gio!

This article reminds me a little of a film that is coming out with Anthony Hopkins called 'The Rite'

Thank you WineHippie and Reunite,
Yes the Roman CC seems to be now wallowing in its own a ~muck (shit)! Just recent headlines alone indicate this. But a foretelling indicator of this, is the Church's embracing of its (far to late) media image. In particular its new ventures into the exorcist stick. With collaboration with the Discovery Channel on a new (TV) series coming soon ~ into this once hidden area within its bowels! http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/01/05/discovery-exorcist-files/

Note, I read this movie "The Rite," got bombast-ed by the reviewers...and it is said... Anthony Hopkins is as excellent as ever, but he's no match for The Rite's dawdling pace and lack of chills ~ or Colin O'Donoghue's tentative performance in the leading role. Note, i do like Anthony Hopkins, but first run movies are beyond my entertainment pleasures as of late~ will see if i can download on Vuse, when available?

i love that last line by Hopkin's in the trailer "You can only defeat it ~ when you believe in it" Not!!!!

Note, i will put extra effort into posting here on this forum, i do like its shared intimacy and well heeled collection of members! Gio

Gio honey, dont forget the fairy picture I asked about for you to post here from James' ranch.

I do love fairies. xo

Sorry its off topic got to go to the doctors. Back later.

Grid battles...

The Green Transition is desirable, but it is not going to be easy. Personally for environmental and national security reasons I think a decentralized local and regional energy structure is best.



‘Battle of the Grids’, a new Greenpeace report, says that we are fast reaching a showdown between ‘green’ and ‘dirty’ energy. ‘Thousands of wind turbines delivering near free energy were turned off in 2010 to allow polluting and heavily subsidised nuclear and coal plants to carry on business as usual. It is estimated Spain had to ditch around 200GWh of energy last year. The buzz on the lips of industry specialists, lobbyists and in boardrooms is about system clash and the costs of building and running what is increasingly becoming a dual system’.

It is certainly true that there is a conflict looming as we plan the expand both nuclear and renewables. What happens when there is a lot of wind power available but energy demand is low, as at night in summer. Do we then switch it off or switch off inflexible baseload nuclear plants?

The Greenpeace report demonstrates the problem on a European scale, and offers suggestions for how it can be resolved. Together with Greenpeace’s 2010 Energy [R]evolution report, it builds on its earlier Renewables 24/7 study, exploring a new system for the EU which it says can deliver 68% renewable energy by 2030 and nearly 100% by 2050, with the use of gas, coal and nuclear then phased out. That’s in line with several other recent ‘100% renewables by 2050’ studies; see my earlier blog.

But this report goes a further and looks in more detail at how to balance variable renewables and variable demand across the EU

It’s based on modeling work by Energynautics, covering electricity consumption and production patterns for every hour 365 days a year at 224 nodes of electricity interconnections across all 27 EU countries, plus Norway, Switzerland and the non-EU Balkan states.

The report calls for the development of a smarter, more efficient EU-wide grid linking up variable renewables and energy storage facilities, which it claims could ‘guarantee supply despite extreme weather conditions, delivering green energy around Europe via efficient, largely below ground DC cables’. High Voltage Direct Current supergrids are much more efficient over long distances than conventional AC grids (with energy losses of perhaps 2% over 1000km compared to up to 10% for AC grids) and it’s claimed that it is easier and cheaper to put DC cables underground.

In the proposed optimal approach to balanced energy supply, natural gas is phased out by 2030 as are most coal and nuclear plants, and by 2050 it’s almost 100% renewable with wind and solar dominating: ‘even if technical adaptations could enable coal and nuclear plants to become more flexible and ‘fit in’ the renewable mix, they would be needed for only 46% of the year by 2030 and further decreasing afterwards.’

A key element in their approach is demand side management via an EU-wide interactive smart grid system, which allows loads to be shifted in time to avoid peaks, and can balance inputs from variable renewable across a much wider geographical area – thus avoiding the need for curtailment of excess wind or back ups when there isn’t enough wind locally or regionally.

That is pretty ambitious. At present wind is usually seen as only having a small capacity credit (i.e. only perhaps 10–15% of the installed capacity can be relied on statistically to meet peak demands, due to natural wind variability). So it’s seen as mainly just a fuel saver, replacing the output of some fossil plants some of the time – these fossil plants then returning to full load when there is no wind. So they are the back-up – they are mostly gas-fired plants that we already have, so there is no extra capital cost. Indeed they are already used to balance the twice daily peaks in demand and to deal with variable supply e.g. when a conventional or nuclear plant goes off line suddenly. Balancing the slower variation in wind (with improved wind forecasting helping to reduce the uncertainty) means that they have to ramp up and down to and from full power a few more times.

However, that involves operational and economic penalties – these plants are less efficient when running part loaded. That is even more the case with nuclear plants, which are run 24/7 to recoup their large capital costs and can’t ramp up and down quickly or repeatedly. So that is why we are seeing excess wind being dumped and hearing talk of having to build more back-up plants to balance wind. Greenpeace suggests that similar inflexibility problems would also emerge with coal plants fitted with Carbon Capture and storage.

In the Greenpeace scenario all this is avoided by using a mix of demand side measures (e.g. switching off some loads than can be easy interrupted without problems for a few hours, such as freezer units) and importing green power from other regions via the EU wide supergrid. In addition, their system has inputs from biomass-fired plants and geothermal plants, that can be varied, and from pumped hydro storage, topped up when there is excess wind or other green power somewhere on the system.

It’s a much more interactive system, with no formal ‘always on’ baseload, although the biomass, geothermal and hydro plants can perform that function.

What would it cost? They claim that it’s much more expensive to waste valuable wind and other variable renewables than to build balancing supergrid networks. They put losses from curtailing wind at €32bn/p.a. but offer a version of their proposed grid system which they say would cost €74bn between 2030 and 2050.

This ‘Low Grid’ pathway would seek to produce as much renewable energy close to areas with high electricity demand as possible (i.e. within central EU, e.g. with PV solar). They say: ‘Security of supply relies less on the electricity grid and long distance transmission. Instead the gas pipelines are used more intensively to transfer gasified biomass from one region to the other, thereby optimising the use of biomass as a balancing source’, with former gas plants converted from natural gas to biogas.

By contrast their ‘High Grid’ approach would install ‘a maximum of renewable-energy sources in areas with the highest output, especially solar power in the south of Europe and interconnections between Europe with North Africa.’ This would minimize generation costs but increase interconnection costs to €581bn between 2030 and 2050. It would give strong security of supply, 24/7, since they say the supergrid capacity exceeds demand. It also balances solar production in the south and wind production in the north of Europe.

It’s challenging stuff, with some very large capacities being installed, for example, by 2050, in the EU27, PV is at 888–974GW, wind 497–667GW, bioenergy 224–336GW, depending on the scenario, while Hydro is at 163GW, CSP 99, Geothermal 96, and Ocean energy 66GW.

Source;
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2011/02/grid-battles.html

see original www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/battle of the grids.pdf.

Who could blame them...

Generation net: The youngsters who prefer their virtual lives to the real world


Different life: A study has found that children are often more happy with their lives online than they are with reality, as it allows them to be who they want


By Liz Thomas
Last updated at 5:29 PM on 8th February 2011

Children are often happier with their online lives than they are with reality, a survey has revealed.

They say they can be exactly who they want to be – and as soon as something is no longer fun they can simply hit the quit button.

The study also shows that, despite concerns about online safety, one in eight young people is in contact with strangers when on the web and often lies about their appearance, age and background.

Researchers for children’s charity Kidscape assessed the online activities of 2,300 11- to 18-year-olds from across the UK and found that 45 per cent said they were sometimes happier online than in their real lives.

The report – Virtual Lives: It is more than a game, it is your life – lays bare the attitudes of children today to the internet and includes revealing insights into how they feel when they are on the web.

One told researchers: ‘It’s easier to be who you want to be, because nobody knows you and if you don’t like the situation you can just exit and it is over.’

Another said: ‘You can say anything online. You can talk to people that you don’t normally speak to and you can edit your pictures so you look better. It is as if you are a completely different person.’

One teenager admitted the only place he or she felt comfortable admitting they were gay was on anonymous internet forums.

Around 47 per cent of children said they behaved differently online than they did in their normal lives with many claiming it made them feel more powerful and confident.

Psychotherapist Peter Bradley, who is also deputy director of Kidscape, said that the desire for so many to adopt a different identity online was a cause for concern because the children were being divorced from reality.

He added: ‘These findings suggest that children see cyberspace as detachable from the real world and a place where they explore parts of their behaviour and personality that they possibly would not show in real life. We can’t allow cyberworlds to be happier places than our real communities, otherwise we are creating a generation of young people not functioning adequately in our society.’

The report found that of those who spoke to strangers online 60 per cent did not tell the truth about their age, and 40 per cent were not honest about personal relationships.

Around 10 per cent said they changed aspects of their appearance and their personality for their online activity. Mr Bradley warned that children were still taking serious risks with encounters, putting themselves or their friends in danger.

‘We were alarmed by the number of risks being taken by teenagers whilst online,’ he said. ‘Safe online behaviour is taught in schools, but teenagers seem to be unable to relate the risks to themselves.

‘This research should challenge teenagers, parents and professionals to do their best to make internet safety guidelines meaningful.’

Xbox boy runs up £1,000 in debts

A boy of 11 spent more than £1,000 on his mother’s debit card while playing computer games on the family’s Xbox console.

Dawn Matthews agreed to enter her card details so her son Brendan could play online with friends at a subscription cost of £5.99 a month.


Angry: Dawn Matthews with her son Brendan Jordan. She blames Microsoft for making it 'too easy' for her son to spend the money

But, unaware of the implications, he also used the account to buy accessories and new features – racking up a total of £1,082.52 in six months and leaving his mother with an overdraft at Barclays.

Miss Matthews, 37, from Strood, Kent, has complained to Microsoft, which produces the Xbox LIVE system. The sales executive and part-time singer, who also has a daughter, Abigail, 13, said: ‘I work two jobs just to look after my family and pay the bills, so I cannot afford all these extortionate charges.’

She blames Microsoft for making it ‘too easy’ for her son to spend the money. ‘It was only when I explained it to him that he realised how much money he had spent. He burst into tears.’

A spokesman for Microsoft said that if Miss Matthews had used the available parental control setting it would have prevented Brendan from spending her money.


Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1354702/Children-happier-virtual-lives-real-world.html#ixzz1DQvcr5h6

If you haven't begun this practice... what are you waiting for

Long time SR readers know it is my belief that the single most important thing you can do to take control of your life, and to lead a life of wellness, is to develop the discipline of meditation.


Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks
Mass. General-led study shows changes over time in areas associated with awareness, empathy, stress


Sue Mcgreevey - Massachusetts General Hospital

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

"Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."

Previous studies from Lazar's group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced mediation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.

For the current study, MR images were take of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation – which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind – participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images were also taken of a control group of non-meditators over a similar time interval.

Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection. Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.

"It is fascinating to see the brain's plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life." says Britta Hölzel, PhD, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. "Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change."

Amishi Jha, PhD, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training's effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, "These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an 8-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amydala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR's potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder." Jha was not one of the study investigators.

###

James Carmody, PhD, of the Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts Medical School, is one of co-authors of the study, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the British Broadcasting Company, and the Mind and Life Institute. More information on the work of Lazar's team is available at http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~lazar/.

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of its founding in 1811, Massachusetts General Hospital is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of nearly $700 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.

Source;
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/mgh-mmt012111.php

Israelis Divided On How to Respond to Egypt Turmoil...

The Israelis are going to have to be very supple to move through this enormous transformation in the Middle East, themselves. If they are smart they will support the development of a democratic Egypt. This will lead to the blossoming of a new era in the Middle East. However, if their Right wing prevails they will fail in this by responding, just as the American Right is, from fear and paranoia. It will be one of history's great lost opportunities to everyone's loss. If you want to get a sense of what this worldview looks like spend a hour with Fox News. I spent about two hours today listening to them. It is the Shadow parallel universe.

Our goal, I believe, as I wrote when the revolution began, is to help Egypt turn into a version of Turkey. A democracy with religious tolerance for all its citizens, a just legal system, and a robust private market. It will be more conservative than Turkey, but if it stabilizes in this way, within three years the Middle East will be transformed. Every other country in the region will see that it can be done, and people will see that radicalization just results in one's country becoming a pariah from most of the world, like Iran.

I think this democratic Egypt can happen. Not that it will, but that it can. Egypt has three major income streams, tourists, a bit of oil, and the Suez Canal. It is different than Iran. I lived in Egypt for most of two years, and know that every Egyptian understands prosperity flows in part from tourists, and that they will disappear if the country is radicalized, repressive, and violent. Also Egyptians like stability. They see themselves proudly as the heirs of one of humanity's great civilizations. Much will depend on how Israel and Egypt work out their relationship.

Israelis Divided On How to Respond to Egypt Turmoil

Critics say Israel's leaders have seemed unprepared to react to the likelihood of a leadership change in Egypt, whose landmark 1979 peace treaty with Israel has been a cornerstone of Israel's stability.



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in Tel Aviv, emphasized the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. In a speech Tuesday to European leaders, Netanyahu sounded an alarm that Egypt could "go the way of Iran." (Ariel Schalit, Associated Press / February 10, 2011)


By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
February 11, 201

Reporting from Jerusalem —
As Israel faces what many fear could turn into its most serious national security threat in decades, fault lines are widening over how it should respond and some critics say the government appears ill prepared.

With the resignation Friday of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was widely seen as Israel's most predictable Arab ally, a quiet panic is spreading here as Israelis debate their next move.

"This whole situation is making Israel's hawks more hawkish and the doves more dovish," said Yossi Alpher, a former government peace talks advisor and co-editor of Bitterlemons.net, a Middle East political research firm.

Critics say Israel's leaders have so far seemed surprisingly unprepared to react to leadership change in Egypt, whose landmark 1979 peace treaty with Israel has long been a cornerstone of Israel's stability.

Even as late as Thursday, many Israeli officials were still confidently predicting that Mubarak would survive until at least September. An Israeli lawmaker telephoned Mubarak on Thursday afternoon to offer words of encouragement.

"They allowed themselves to go into denial," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli Justice Ministry advisor who is now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington. "Now they've got no strategy and their options just narrowed."

Levy said Israel had relied heavily on Mubarak to defend its regional policies regarding peace talks with the Palestinians and the security cordon around the Gaza Strip, and now will have difficulties adjusting to a more democratic Egyptian government.

"You can't be a friend of Arab democracy if you're an enemy of Palestinian freedom," Levy said. "In that sense, they are as out of touch with Middle East reality as Mubarak was."

Israeli government officials declined to comment Friday evening.

George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, a global political research firm, said, "Israel focused on the Mubarak government as if it were eternal."

"Israelis have obsessed over lesser threats like Hezbollah [in Lebanon], Hamas [in the Gaza Strip] and the notional threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, but they took for granted the relationship with Egypt, which is a much greater threat to Israel's survival."

Friedman said Israel has relied too heavily on the United States and the international community to protect its interests. "What is Israel's national strategy to maintain the peace treaty with Egypt?" he said. "There are things they could do, but they don't want to do them."

In Israel, familiar camps are forming over how the country should act. On one side, many conservatives are pushing Israel to circle the wagons, bolster its defenses and lobby the international community to ensure that Egypt's next government is as friendly toward Israel as the current one.

Others say that now is the time to try to make friends in the region, by attempting to restore soured relations with Turkey, pursuing a peace deal with Syria and ending the occupation of the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government so far has focused its official statements on warning against an Islamist takeover of Egypt. In a speech Tuesday to European leaders, Netanyahu sounded an alarm that Egypt could "go the way of Iran."

Behind the scenes, Israeli officials have argued to the United States that, in the volatile Middle East, stability should trump democracy. They advocated that Mubarak's close aides or the military should take power rather than handing control over to a civilian body or opposition coalition. According to a newly released WikiLeaks cable, Israeli officials told U.S. officials in 2008 that they viewed Omar Suleiman, whom Mubarak recently made his vice president, as a suitable replacement for Mubarak.

Israel seems to be betting that whatever power takes control in Egypt, it probably will opt to honor the 1979 treaty rather than risk resumed hostilities with Israel. Nevertheless, Israel's military is preparing to boost its defenses along its southwestern border with Egypt, accelerating construction of a security fence.

Regarding stalled U.S.-brokered peace talks, most expect Netanyahu's government to adopt a harder line, particularly when it comes to territorial concessions.

"The new situation will push Israel to be much more obstinate in demands from Palestinians," said Zvi Mazel, another former Israeli ambassador to Egypt. "We will need a lot of guarantees."

Israeli President Shimon Peres is among those countering that Israel should move aggressively to reach an agreement on a Palestinian state to bolster its moderate allies in Egypt.

"These dramatic events increase the necessity of removing the burden of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the regional agenda," Peres told a gathering of opinion makers at the annual Herzliya Conference.

Some believe a deal for Palestinian statehood would increase support for moderates in Egypt and Jordan, who have paid a political price in recent years for working with Israel even amid its controversial military offensives in Lebanon and Gaza. Jordan's King Abdullah II, whose country signed a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, recently distanced himself from Netanyahu, citing the lack of progress on peace talks.

Others suggest that Israel should revisit its rejection of the 2002 Arab League peace initiative, which offered Israel normalized relations with Arab nations in return for an end to the occupation.

"Rejecting the Arab peace initiative was a grave mistake," said Moshe Maoz, a professor of Islamic and Mideast studies at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. "We are becoming much more isolated. This may be our last chance."

Critics scoff at the notion that resolving the Palestinian problem would suddenly end hostility toward Israel, saying the poor relations are rooted in anti-Semitism or a refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist. After three decades of a "cold peace" with Egypt, Israeli businesses complain that their attempts to bolster trade have been rejected. In 2010, the countries traded about $500 million worth of goods, a relatively small amount considering Egypt's size.

"We tried everything [to make peace with the Arab world]," former ambassador Mazel said. "They are not ready to accept us."

Alon Liel, a former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel must decide whether it wants to try to reach out to the Arab world. He said that a decade ago, Israel had diplomatic relations with nine Muslim countries that have all since closed their offices or withdrawn representatives. Egypt, he warned, may be next.

"Israel has been ousted from the Middle East," Liel said. "The Israeli government seems to be in this mood that says, 'All right, if the Middle East is lost for now, we can do without it.' … Now we have to think about our action plan. We have two choices: accept it, or try to change it."

Source;
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...552,full.story


edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman of The Times' Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

The food crisis arising largely from climate issues -- drought, principally -- is gathering momentum faster than I had thought possible. And its implications are very grave. Yet there is almost nothing about it in the political conversation.

Wheat prices
Not just China’s problem

Feb 10th 2011

FEW commodities are impervious to the “China effect”—the upward pressure on prices from rampant demand in the world’s bounciest big economy. Coffee is one: few Chinese drink the stuff. Wheat has been another. China is the world’s biggest producer, remaining largely self-sufficient by growing some 18% of the global harvest. Higher prices have been caused by growing appetites and supply disruptions elsewhere.

Things could be about to change. On February 8th the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that a drought in China’s wheat belt could devastate harvests in June. So the country may buy large amounts on global markets. This could be a “game changer” for wheat, says Sudakshina Unnikrishnan of Barclays Capital.

The FAO reported that rain and snowfalls were well below average in eight wheat-growing regions. The local weather bureau claims, a bit implausibly, that if there are no showers soon in Shandong province the drought will be the worst for 200 years. The parching threatens a quarter of the country’s crop.

The worst may not happen. As Kisan Gunjal of the FAO points out, the heavens may yet open in the coming months. China’s government has pledged to divert water to the stricken areas and provide cash for wells. “Weather modification” teams, which apparently helped to keep the Beijing Olympics rain-free, are turning their hand to seeding clouds with chemical-filled artillery shells to encourage downpours.

China has also built up sizeable wheat stocks—60m tonnes, according to America’s Department of Agriculture—since the 2008 food crisis. But it is likely to want to keep these buffers high, particularly after a series of recent disruptions to supply. Drought in Russia, a big supplier, led to an export ban last year. Floods in Australia—linked to the broader La Niña phenomenon, an occasional wobble in the climate which may also be playing a role in China’s drought—have hit the quality of wheat for export.

The International Grains Council estimates world wheat production in 2011 will be 647m tonnes, much lower than in the two years before. If China starts buying, importers may step up efforts to secure wheat and exporters may impose more bans. Dark clouds are gathering, but not the right sort.

Source;
http://www.economist.com/node/18118817

There is a blessing in this for all humanity...

Japan ends Antarctic whaling season early
17 February 2011 Last updated at 22:11 ET



Video/Story here;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12502006

I hope to God the Sea Shepherd keeps after them till they stop altogether.

Hail to the whale
Maybe the sheperds get time, to learn the the whales jump rope

We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on "intelligence" and "security" and this is what we bought. It has proven useless at identifying and warning in advance about things like the Egyptian revolution. But is it excellent at violating your ever diminishing civil rights, and groping you at the air port. Increasingly I feel like I am living in an Orwell novel.

***********

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people





By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, February 18th, 2011

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your "friends" are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?

In the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas," allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people as they'd like.

The revelation was among those contained in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their systems.

In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.

"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.

Government involvement

Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."

While there are certainly legitimate applications for such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.

Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel suspicions. As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."

It continues, noting the need for secure virtual private networks that randomize the operator's Internet protocol (IP) address, making it impossible to detect that it's a single person orchestrating all these posts. Another entry calls for static IP address management for each persona, making it appear as though each fake person was consistently accessing from the same computer each time.

The contract also sought methods to anonymously establish virtual private servers with private hosting firms in specific geographic locations. This would allow that server's "geosite" to be integrated with their social media profiles, effectively gaming geolocation services.

The Air Force added that the "place of performance" for the contract would be at MacDill Air Force Base, along with Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad. The contract was offered on June 22, 2010.

It was not clear exactly what the Air Force was doing with this software, or even if it had been procured.

Manufacturing consent

Though many questions remain about how the military would apply such technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual "people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering them to create the illusion of consensus.

You could call it a virtual flash mob, or a digital "Brooks Brothers Riot," so to speak: compelling, but not nearly as spontaneous as it appears.

That's precisely what got DailyKos blogger Happy Rockefeller in a snit: the potential for military-run armies of fake people manipulating and, in some cases, even manufacturing the appearance of public opinion.

"I don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives think," the blogger wrote. "I consider all views. And if there appears to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.

"That's me. I believe there are many people though who will base their judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob can be really effective."

It was Rockefeller who was first to highlight the Air Force's "persona" contract, which was available on a public website.

A call to MacDill Air Force Base, requesting an explanation of the contract and what this software might be used for, was answered by a public affairs officer who promised a call-back. No reply was received at time of this story's publication.

Other e-mails circulated by HBGary's CEO illuminate highly personal data about critics of the US Chamber of Commerce, including detailed information about their spouses and children, as well as their locations and professional links. The firm, it was revealed, was just one part of a group called "Team Themis," tasked by the Chamber to come up with strategies for responding to progressive bloggers and others.

"Team Themis" also included a proposal to use malware hacks against progressive organizations, and the submission of fake documents in an effort to discredit established groups.

HBGary was also behind a plot by Bank of America to destroy WikiLeaks' technology platform, other emails revealed. The company was humiliated by members of "Anonymous" after CEO Aaron Barr bragged that he'd "infiltrated" the group.

A request for comment emailed to HBGary did not receive a reply.

Update: HBGary Federal among bidders

A list of interested vendors responding to the Air Force contract for "persona management software" included HBGary subsideary HBGary Federal, further analysis of a government website has revealed.

Other companies that offered their services included Global Business Solutions and Associates LLC, Uk Plus Logistics, Ltd., NevinTelecom, Bunker Communications and Planmatrix LLC.

Source;
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/18/revealed-air-force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-virtual-people/

i realize this report, is in regards to only the United States, but this is a very good indicator that fresh food production and prices will continue to rise...
Very soon water supply forecasts are going to be a regular staple of weather reports. While the deniers chant their mantras the world is changing before our eyes.





U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook for March to May 2011

By Terry Barrett - Feb 17, 2011

Following is the text of the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook as released by the National Weather Service in Camp Springs, Maryland:

Latest Seasonal Assessment - The drought outlook for Spring (March-May) 2011, made on February 17, was based largely upon climate anomalies associated with an ongoing, mature La Ni? that has begun to weaken, with ENSO-neutral or La Nina conditions equally likely by May-June. The CPC monthly and seasonal outlooks indicate enhanced odds for below median precipitation and above median temperatures across the southern tier of the Nation and in the central Plains which favors drought persistence from southern Arizona eastward into the southern and central Plains, along the Gulf Coast States, and northward into the Carolina Piedmont. Similarly, drought development is forecast across much of the rest of the southern U.S., from southwestern Arizona eastward into the southern and central Plains, northern and southeastern Texas, and along parts of the Gulf and southern and middle Atlantic Coasts. Although there were some concerns in the Northwest that spring drought development was possible after a mild and very dry January, a good start to their wet season plus ongoing storms and enhanced odds of above median March precipitation suppresses any notion of spring drought development. Prospects for improvement are indicated for the lower Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ohio Valleys, with some improvement predicted for the AR-LA-TX region, the northern Alabama and Georgia border, and in the central Appalachians. This is based upon enhanced odds for above normal monthly precipitation in this area, plus some hints of wetness in the La Nina MAM composite and trend, although the frequency of occurrence is low. Drought relief has occurred in Hawaii this winter, courtesy of heavy rainfall associated with La Nina, and continued improvement is forecast for the islands remaining in drought.

A very dry and cold December and January, along with spotty early February precipitation, has resulted in expanding drought across most of the middle and southern Atlantic States. Many USGS stream flows from western South Carolina northward into central Virginia have fallen below the 10th percentile (much below normal). An exception to this was in northern Florida and southern Georgia where late January and early February moderate to heavy rains improved drought conditions and increased stream flows to above-normal values. In contrast, USGS river flows in north-central Florida, still suffering from long-term drought deficiencies, remained at or below the 25th percentile. Since La Niña MAM precipitation composites and the CPC monthly and seasonal outlooks strongly favor enhanced odds for below median precipitation in the southern Atlantic States, drought is expected to persist or develop across Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. In the mid-Atlantic North Carolina to southern New Jersey), the odds for subnormal monthly and seasonal precipitation gradually decrease in the outlooks as one heads north (e.g. become equal chances), and actually tilt toward above median monthly precipitation further to the west (e.g. central Appalachians). However, the La Niña MAM precipitation composites hint at dryness along the coast while lingering effects from last summer’s drought point toward persistence and development. Forecast confidence for southern Atlantic States are high; Forecast confidence for middle Atlantic States are moderate.

Across the Southeast, La Niña MAM composites indicate the highest negative precipitation anomalies along the central and eastern Gulf Coast, from southern Louisiana eastward to northeast Florida. The CPC monthly and seasonal outlooks indicate the highest odds for below median precipitation along the eastern two-thirds of the Gulf Coast, and lower odds along the western Gulf. Subnormal precipitation odds in both the monthly and seasonal outlooks quickly decrease to equal chances as one heads north, and actually transition to above median precipitation for March in Tennessee and areas northward. Therefore, drought is expected to persist or develop across most of the Southeast, except in northern sections of Mississippi and Alabama where initial conditions are wetter and the monthly outlook favors near to above median precipitation. Due to the weak and mixed signals among the precipitation tools beyond mid- February, some improvement is forecast in western Mississippi and the northern border of Georgia and Alabama. Forecast confidence for the immediate Gulf Coast States are high; Forecast confidence for the remainder of the Southeast is moderate.

From mid-November into late January, northwesterly flow, attributed to a strong and persistent negative Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation (upper-air blocking pattern), resulted in abnormally cold and dry conditions across the lower Ohio, Tennessee, and middle Mississippi Valleys. This in turn caused a slight expansion of moderate drought and abnormal dryness in northern Arkansas, southern Missouri, and southern Illinois. Furthermore, the persistent and strong AO/NOA suppressed the expected winter surplus precipitation that normally occurs in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys during a La Niña. Currently, with the AO/NAO a non-factor and less influential during spring, the CPC monthly outlook favors a tendency for above median precipitation across the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys. In the lower Mississippi Valley, the seasonal La Niña MAM composites also point toward above normal precipitation although the frequency is rather low. In addition, the seasonal CPC outlook has equal chances. And as already mentioned, most forecast tools and the CPC outlooks favor enhanced odds of below normal precipitation as one nears the Gulf Coast. Accordingly, improvement is forecast in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into northern Arkansas, while some improvement is expected for the rest of Arkansas. Forecast confidence for the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys are moderate to high; Forecast confidence for Arkansas is moderate.

In most of Texas, near to above normal precipitation has fallen since late December, resulting in a reduction of drought coverage and severity across southern, southeastern, and eastern sections of the state. Surplus fall precipitation had carried the Panhandle into the winter without any drought impacts. However, forecasts favor drier and warmer than normal conditions during March which continue through the spring, although subnormal seasonal precipitation odds are less than the monthly outlook. Due to these relatively dry and warm forecasts, drought is expected to continue (or worsen), and return to northern and southern Texas. Forecast confidence for Texas is moderate to high.

Following a very dry January, two heavy snow storms blanketed parts of the south-central Plains in early February, but missed most of the main drought areas. Some improvement is forecast in eastern Oklahoma where heavy snow occurred and the La Niña MAM composites indicate some wetness (but with a low frequency of occurrence). Elsewhere in the central Plains, precipitation tools at most time ranges indicate an elevated chance for below median precipitation, especially the La Niña MAM composite which has a high frequency occurrence. Just to the north, however, forecast tools point toward wetness, plus soil moistures are extremely high (above 90th percentile). This limits any northward drought expansion due to existing moisture conditions. Accordingly, the persistence area in eastern Colorado and western Kansas was kept from the previous outlook issued on February 3, while the area of development in the central Great Plains slightly expanded northward and eastward in line with the monthly and seasonal outlooks, but confined by the very wet soil moisture conditions in the northern Plains and upper Midwest. Forecast confidence for the south-central and central Plains are moderate to high.

Since mid-December, drier than normal conditions have affected much of Arizona and New Mexico. As of February 15, SNOTEL average river basin snow water content values are 30 to 70 percent of normal in southern and central Arizona and New Mexico, with basin average precipitation since October 1 running at about the same values (32 to 75 percent of normal). Precipitation tools at all time ranges indicate enhanced odds of below median precipitation and above normal temperatures. Due to a lack of adequate precipitation this winter, a tendency for dryness during La Niña, forecasts of below median precipitation and above normal temperatures, and decreasing precipitation climatologies for areas already in drought, drought persistence and development can be expected across much of Arizona and New Mexico, and into southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. However, expansion is not forecast for southern California as many locations have already exceeded their normal winter precipitation and approached their normal ANNUAL totals from December’s excessive precipitation. Forecast confidence for the Southwest is high.

During the 2010-11 winter, heavy rainfall alleviated drought and dryness on Kauai and Oahu and diminished drought conditions across the rest of the central and western Hawaiian Islands which is typical for a La Niña winter. Enhanced rainfall during early-to-mid February and the ongoing La Niña favor additional improvement in Hawaii. Forecast confidence for Hawaii is high.

SOURCE: National Weather Service
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-17/u-s-seasonal-drought-outlook-for-march-to-may-2011-text-.html

Yikes. !!!!!

This was as predictable as spring following winter. We have financed two wars on borrowed money, and now the country that holds our markers, wants what it wants, and we can hardly say no.

Cables show China used debt holdings to press US

Feb 21 04:45 PM US/Eastern

Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China's willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan's sovereignty to Washington's financial policy.

China's clout -- gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt -- has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival's concerns.

An October 2008 cable, released by WikiLeaks, showed a senior Chinese official linking questions about much-needed Chinese investment to sensitive military sales to Taiwan.

Amid the panic of Lehman Brothers' collapse and the ensuing liquidity crunch, Liu Jiahua, an official who then helped manage China's foreign reserves, was "non-committal on the possible resumption of lending."

Instead, "Liu -- citing an Internet discussion forum -- said that as in the United States, the Chinese leadership must pay close attention to public opinion in forming policies," according to the memo.

"In that regard, the recent announcement that the United States intends to sell another arms package to Taiwan increases the difficulty the Chinese government faces in explaining any supporting policies to the Chinese public."

His comments came days after the Pentagon notified Congress it was poised to sell $6.5 billion worth of arms to China's arch rival Taiwan.

The much-delayed package was eventually sold, but did not include requested F-16 jets.

Taiwan and the mainland have been governed separately since they split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, but Beijing sees the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

In the same meeting, Liu -- wary about Chinese losses -- also pressed US officials for a government guarantee that any investments in US financial institutions would be back-stopped.

"Liu remained non-committal on the possible resumption of lending, but agreed that (China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange) had sufficient confidence in those institutions and would consider a system whereby the Federal Reserve or other US government agency would act as a guarantor," according to the cable.

Trying to allay his concerns, Liu's US interlocutors pointed to the government's ability to "guarantee bank liabilities to support the banking system and address the systemic financial risk that could be caused by a potential bank failure."

Another cable, dating from March 2009, showed US sensitivities about possible changes in the composition or level of those holdings, which could have major repercussions for US finance.

China is the largest holder of US debt, underpinning US government spending. Its holdings of US Treasuries have more than doubled since 2007.

A week after Premier Wen Jiabao stated publicly that he was "'concerned" regarding the security of its US Treasury holdings," the US embassy in Beijing sent a cable to Washington hoping to answer the question: "What Did Wen Mean?"

"Wen's remarks immediately generated intense speculation that China might be contemplating some adjustment in its foreign reserve management policy," the note said, reporting that a senior Treasury official had also sought clarification.

The writer pointed to China's concern about US inflation -- which could reduce the value of Chinese dollar holdings -- stemming from the Federal Reserves' ultra-easy monetary policies.

Source;
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ae2d2f54b4997246bb7b180d2736bac1.e1&show_article=1

Sounds familiar... Just another corrupt dysfunctional governmental system...

***********

Mikhail Gorbachev lambasts Vladimir Putin's 'sham' democracy

Former Soviet leader launches harshest criticism yet of Russia's ruling regime ahead of 80th-birthday celebrations

from; Miriam Elder in Moscow
Monday 21 February 2011


Mikhail Gorbachev accuses Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin of arrogance over
their plan to jointly decide who should run in next year's presidential elections.

Russia under prime minister Vladimir Putin is a sham democracy, Mikhail Gorbachev has said in his harshest criticism yet of the ruling regime.

"We have everything – a parliament, courts, a president, a prime minister and so on. But it's more of an imitation," the last president of the Soviet Union said.

Gorbachev, who oversaw the softening of the communist system and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, has become increasingly critical of the modern Russian state, accusing its leaders of rolling back the democratic reforms of the 1990s.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of his 80th birthday, Gorbachev criticised Putin for manipulating elections.

In response to the prime minister and former president's comments that he and his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev, would decide between them who would run for office in March 2012, Gorbachev said: "It's not Putin's business. It must be decided by the nation in elections."

He called Putin's statements a sign of "incredible conceit".

Asked how he thought the regime approached human rights, Gorbachev said: "There's a problem there. It's a sign of the state of our democracy." He was echoing statements made by Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during a visit to Russia last week.

Gorbachev said United Russia, the ruling party founded with the sole goal of supporting Putin's leadership, was a throwback.

"United Russia reminds me of the worst copy of the Communist party," he said. "We have institutions but they don't work. We have laws but they must be enforced."

Its stranglehold over political life would eventually backfire. "The monopoly ends in rotting and hampers the development of democratic processes."

Gobachev said he did not like how Putin and Medvedev were behaving. "It's a shame that our modern leaders aren't very modern," he said.

Gorbachev now runs a charity foundation that will hold a gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 30 March to mark his birthday. He co-owns the country's leading opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

Held up in the west as a hero for his softening of the Soviet system and eventual acceptance of its fall, Gorbachev remains widely despised inside Russia, where he is seen as a traitor who allowed the empire to crumble and ushered in a period of great uncertainty. Over the years he has aligned himself with the cause of Russia's sidelined liberals.

On Monday, Gorbachev called the regime's campaign against jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky politically motivated. "Politics shouldn't have been involved in [the case], but they were," he said.

He noted the case of Natalya Vasilieva, a court clerk who worked on the Khodorkovsky trial and broke ranks to publicly announce that the judge had been pressured throughout and had a verdict and sentence pushed on him.

"I fully believe her," Gorbachev said. "People can't stand it anymore – she saw what was happening with her own eyes."

• This article was amended on 22 February 2011 to restore missing text in the third paragraph.

Source;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/gorbachev-birthday-putin-democracy-russia

Power...Control...Profits...
This, of course, is just what it looks like: an attempt by Pharma to take control of what -- thanks to the medical marijuana initiatives -- it realizes is a hugely profitable market. It is a completely cynical move. Big Pharma wins, and the DEA wins because this assures their budget will continue. I predict it isn't going to work.

DEA to legalize marijuana only for ‘Big Pharma,’ NORML claims

By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 -- 8:33 pm

A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposal to reclassify the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana as a Schedule III substance would allow pharmaceutical companies to market the drug while still penalizing common recreational use, according to marijuana law reform advocates.

The main psychoactive chemical in marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is currently a Schedule I substance within the US Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive schedule with the greatest criminal penalties.

In November 2010, the DEA proposed reclassifying dronabinol, a synthetic THC, as a Schedule III substance, which would place it among substances such as hydrocodone and allow it to be dispensed with a written or oral prescription.

"The DEA's intent is to expand the federal government's schedule III listing to include pharmaceutical products containing naturally derived formations of THC while simultaneously maintain existing criminal prohibitions on the plant itself," Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), wrote at AlterNet.

With its proposal, the DEA is responding to the demands of large pharmaceutical companies, he claimed.

Marijuana plants and THC extracts would remain illegal under the proposal, but companies would be able to purchase THC from a government-licensed provider to develop pharmaceutical products.

"While the DEA's forthcoming regulatory change promises to stimulate the advent of legally available, natural THC therapeutic products... the change will offer no legal relief for those hundreds of thousands of Americans who believe that therapeutic relief is best obtained by use of the whole plant itself," Armentano added.

"Rather the DEA appears content to try to walk a political and semantic tightrope that alleges: 'pot is bad,' but 'pot-derived pharmaceuticals are good.'"

THC can help cancer patients regain their appetites and sense of taste, according to a study published on Wednesday.

"This is the first randomized controlled trial to show that THC makes food taste better and improves appetites for patients with advanced cancer, as well as helping them to sleep and to relax better," Dr. Wendy Wismer, associate professor at the University of Alberta, said. "Our findings are important, as there is no accepted treatment for chemosensory alterations experienced by cancer patients."

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to legalize the medical use of marijuana.

Source;
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/23/dea-to-legalize-marijuana-only-for-big-pharma-group-claims/

Has any nation ever successfully invaded Russia...And why would they ever want to??
The imperial insanity continues...Forget about feeding your people and repairing your failing infrastructures...

Russia plans $650bn defence spend up to 2020

Eight nuclear submarines, 600 jets and 1,000 helicopters feature in plans to renew Russia's military by 2020, priced at 19tn roubles (£400bn; $650bn.

One hundred warships are also due to be bought in, including two helicopter carriers, in addition to two already being purchased from France.

The submarines will carry the Bulava missile, despite recent test failures.

Analysts say the ambitious programme only makes sense if the military upgrades its training and recruitment.

A painful drive to streamline the armed forces is already under way, with up to 200,000 officers losing their jobs and nine out of every 10 army units disbanded, the Associated Press news agency notes.

If the renewal is a success, it will leave Russia less reliant on the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the USSR.

"Russia needs a professional non-commissioned officer corps to train specialists who can really put these arms to effective use," Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst, told AP.

"This spending necessitates a whole new kind of military."
Missile defence boost

Last week, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin announced that spending on defence development would triple from 0.5% of GDP to 1.5% from next year.

The defence spending was detailed in Moscow on Thursday by First Deputy Defence Minister Vladimir Popovkin.

"The main task is the modernisation of our armed forces," he said.

Much of the new spending will go on Russia's long under-funded navy. Apart from the submarines, 35 corvettes and 15 frigates will be ordered.

Russia has already ordered two French-built Mistral helicopter carriers, allowing it to rapidly deploy hundreds of troops and dozens of armoured vehicles on foreign soil.

Ten divisions equipped with the new S-500 anti-missile system are set to become the backbone of the country's missile defences.

New aircraft will include Su-34 and Su-35 fighters, and Mi-26 transport and Mi-8 gunship helicopters, AP adds.

Repeated failures of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile caused embarrassment for Russia, though two successful tests were reportedly conducted last year.

Source;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12567043

Reting Lama - The person responsible for choosing the false Dalai Lama

This may seem a very esoteric issue from our cultural view. But Asia sees it differently, and this has large consequences. The death of the current Dali Lama will change the game utterly and the Chinese, thanks to thousands of years of culture, can commit to and carry out a long game. Note particularly the statute outlawing the Dali Lama's reincarnation outside of China.

Thanks to Jim Baraff.


The Politics of Reincarnation

It’s probably best not to even try making sense of Beijing’s pronouncements on the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan spiritual leaders: you’ll only make your head hurt. Last week the officially atheist Chinese government’s State Administration for Religious Affairs disclosed plans to enact a new law forbidding the 75-year-old Buddhist deity to be reborn anywhere but on Chinese-controlled soil, and giving final say to Chinese authorities when the time comes to identify his 15th incarnation.

That might seem to pose a dilemma, given the exiled leader’s earlier promise that he will never again be reincarnated in Tibet as long as his homeland remains under China’s heel. Still, no one seems too concerned just now about the Dalai Lama’s next life. Instead, attention has focused on an all-too-worldly fracas over the finances of the 25-year-old Tibetan-born holy man who seems most likely to assume leadership of the exile community after the current Dalai Lama’s death: the 17th Karmapa Lama.

It began in late January when a random police check found a car in northern India hauling roughly $200,000 in Indian currency. Investigators followed the trail to the Karmapa’s monastery in the Indian town of Dharamsala, where they confiscated trunkloads of cash, reportedly amounting to $1.6 million, including more than $100,000 in Chinese currency—a discovery that immediately revived old suspicions in India’s intelligence community that the Karmapa is a Chinese spy. Beijing didn’t help calm the situation when it quickly issued a denial that the Karmapa was any such thing.

Indian authorities have kept a close eye on the Karmapa ever since he fled Chinese-occupied Tibet in the winter of 1999–2000. Born to a nomadic Tibetan family in 1985, Ogyen Trinley Dorje was identified at the age of 7 as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and taken to a monastery to be raised under constant surveillance by Chinese security forces, forbidden to leave the country even briefly. When his India-based religious tutor was barred from Tibet, the boy staged a harrowing escape via SUV, horseback, and helicopter, arriving in Dharamsala by taxi in early January 2000.

In the years since, the Karmapa has refrained from criticizing the Chinese government—in sharp contrast to the Dalai Lama’s blunt denunciations since his escape from occupied Tibet in 1959—and Beijing has never admitted that the Karmapa has left for good. The Chinese say he’s merely on a quest to retrieve a black hat said to have magical powers and other artifacts currently housed at a monastery in the eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim. The lack of recrimination has only heightened suspicions among some Indian intelligence operatives who still seem unable to accept that a mere 14-year-old could elude Chinese security forces and survive such a trek across snow-choked Himalayan passes. “There are people in the shadows who are suspicious of China and deeply uncomfortable with the Tibetan exiles’ perceived long-term drift towards accommodation with Beijing,” says Robert Barnett, a Tibetologist at Columbia University.

The politics of reincarnation has always been a treacherous area in Tibet. In past centuries, rival claimants were often in danger of assassination, and after the Dalai Lama gave his blessing to a Tibetan boy as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995, the child disappeared and Chinese authorities installed another youngster in his place. The man generally recognized as the 17th Karmapa himself has at least two rivals for the title, although his claim is supported by both the Dalai Lama and Beijing—and most ordinary Tibetans. Still, to prevent possible unrest, Indian authorities have barred all claimants from the monastery where the black hat is kept. Followers of the two rivals have clashed violently in the past.

As for the mysterious trunkfuls of cash, the Karmapa’s financial representatives stuck to their story that the money had all been donated by his devout followers—including many inside China. And by last week Indian investigators at last conceded that they were telling the truth. “I’ve seen Chinese society ladies swooning all over him,” says Jamyang Norbu, a U.S.-based author and blogger. “This translates into big money.” (Any inclination to celebrate the Karmapa’s exoneration was dampened by news that the Dalai Lama’s 45-year-old nephew had been struck and killed by an SUV while engaged in a 300-mile “Free Tibet” hike in Florida.)

Nevertheless, the uproar was no more than a tame affair compared with what’s sure to ensue when the 14th Dalai Lama finally moves on. He’s said he might come back as a woman, or he might not come back at all. The one certainty is that he won’t go quietly.

With Sudip Mazumdar in New Delhi

Source;
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/20/the-politics-of-reincarnation.html

more here;
http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/dalai-lama/the-false-dalai-lama/

Monsantos continuing genocide...The Great Seed Wars
There is no such thing as real freedom...if you can not grow your own food.

***********

This story has gone unreported in the U.S. to the American media's great shame. Monsanto has become like a large devouring monster but, having bought the U.S. Congress there is no one to take them on.

Thanks to Chris Jordan.

India's hidden climate change catastrophe

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves


Sugali Nagamma holds a portrait of her husband, who killed himself by swallowing pesticide in front of her


By Alex Renton

Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we can sell the salt from our table."

Ms Nagamma, 41, showed us a picture of her husband – good-looking with an Elvis-style hairdo – on the day they married a quarter of a century ago. "He'd been unhappy for a month, but that day he was in a heavy depression. I tried to take the tin away from him but I couldn't. He died in front of us. The head of the family died in front of his wife and children – can you imagine?"

The death of Mr Naik, a smallholder in the central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, in July 2009, is just another mark on an astonishingly long roll. Nearly 200,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the past decade. Like Mr Naik, a third of them choose pesticide to do it: an agonising, drawn-out death with vomiting and convulsions.

The death toll is extrapolated from the Indian authorities' figures. But the journalist Palagummi Sainath is certain the scale of the epidemic of rural suicides is underestimated and that it is getting worse. "Wave upon wave," he says, from his investigative trips in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. "One farmer every 30 minutes in India now, and sometimes three in one family." Because standards of record-keeping vary across the nation, many suicides go unnoticed. In some Indian states, the significant numbers of women who kill themselves are not listed as "farmers", even if that is how they make their living.

Mr Sainath is an award-winning expert on rural poverty in India, a famous figure across India through his writing for The Hindu newspaper. I spoke to him at a screening of Nero's Guests, a documentary film about the suicide epidemic and some of the more eye-popping inequalities of modern India.

"Poverty has assaulted rural India," he said. "Farmers who used to be able to send their children to college now can't send them to school. For all that India has more dollar billionaires than the UK, we have 600 million poor. The wealth has not trickled down." Almost all the bereaved families report that debts and land loss because of unsuccessful crops were among their biggest problems.

The causes of that poverty are complex. Mr Sainath points to the long-term collapse of markets for farmers' produce. About half of all the suicides occur in the four states of India's cotton belt; the price of cotton in real terms, he says, is a twelfth of what it was 30 years ago. Vandana Shiva, a scientist-turned-campaigner, also links failures of cotton farming with the farmer suicides: she says the phenomenon was born in 1997 when the Indian government removed subsidies from cotton farming. This was also when genetically modified seed was widely introduced.

"Every suicide can be linked to Monsanto," says Ms Shiva, claiming that the biotech firm's modified Bt Cotton caused crop failure and poverty because it needed to be used with pesticide and fertilisers. The Prince of Wales has made the same accusation. Monsanto denies that its activities are to blame, saying that Indian rural poverty has many causes.

Beyond any argument – though no less politically charged – is the role of the weather in this story. India's climate, always complicated by the Himalayas on one side and turbulent oceans on the two others, has been particularly unreliable in recent years. In Rajasthan, in the north-west, a 10-year drought ended only this summer, while across much of India the annual monsoons have failed three times in the past decade.

India's 600 million farmers and the nation's poor are often the same people: a single failed crop tends to wipe out their savings and may lead to them losing their land. After that, there are few ways back. The drought, following a failed monsoon, that I saw in Andhra Pradesh in 2009 was the tipping point that drove Mr Naik to suicide.

Such tragedies and even the selling of children for marriage or as bonded labour – a common shock-horror news story in India – are the most dramatic results. But far more common is the story of rural families migrating, in tens of millions, to India's cities, swelling the ranks of the urban poor and leaving holes in the farming infrastructure that keeps India fed.

I visited an idyllic village, Surah na Kheda, last month in the limerick-worthy district of Tonk, Rajasthan. We arrived to find the rows of whitewashed mud-walled houses gleaming in the rising sun, while inside the courtyards women in bright saris were stirring milk to make yogurt and butter for the day's meals. Their daughters kneaded dough for the breakfast chapattis.

But there was an odd thing: a distinct lack of people. There were the old and the very young – but virtually no one of working age. Half the village, some 60 adults and many children, had gone to Jaipur, the state capital, to look for work. Even though the Diwali holiday fell the following week, no one expected their neighbours and relatives back. Times were too hard.

Prabhati Devi, 50, said four of her seven children had joined the exodus. "They had to go," she said. "Twenty years ago, we could grow all we needed, and sell things too. Now we can't grow wheat, we can't grow pulses, we can't even grow carrots, because there is not enough rain. So we go to the cities, looking for money."

She looked bereaved as she talked of the damage the 10-year drought had done. "It crushes people," she said. "Before, we were able to deal with drought. It would come every four years, and you could prepare. We would store grain and people could share it. In the past, when your buffalo wasn't giving milk, neighbours would share theirs. But now kindness is no longer possible."

I found the other end of Surah na Kheda's story under a flyover in Jaipur. Here, in the early morning, hundreds of men and boys, farmers from all over northern India, gather looking for work as labourers on the city's building sites. Many of them sleep under the flyover, and their clothes were stiff with dirt. The air was tense, and smelled of drugs and cheap alcohol.

Shankar Lal, one of the Surah na Kheda émigrés, was sipping tea at a stall under the flyover with half a dozen other young men from the village, waiting for a contractor to give them a lift. "If the rains came back we would be farmers again. But will they?" He did not think so: "In 10 years' time, there will be no village. Everyone will be here in the city. Or they will be dead."

The men were working for 150 rupees (£2.15) a day, decorating a house in one of Jaipur's posh suburbs. This is relatively good work, and they had all found a floor to sleep on. In another building site, we found a seven-strong rural family who slept in the cement store. The mother and grandmother were working for less than £1 a day, carrying cement and bricks on their heads up precarious bamboo scaffolding. In one half-built block of flats a baby slept in the dust next to the cement mixer. None of these people were happy to be in the city. "If we could survive at home we would go straight back," I was told.

Many of the labourers on the sites were children, some as young as 12: an interrupted education is another part of the social fallout of rural collapse. In Rajasthan, most older people in the villages told me they had not gone to school, but they were proud that their children had. However, the new poverty brought about by the "chaos in the weather" was keeping their grandchildren out of school.

According to the World Food Programme, 20 million more people joined the ranks of India's hungry in the past decade, and half of all the country's children are underweight. Some analyses say that fast-developing India is performing worse than some of the poorest countries, such as Liberia and Haiti, in addressing the basic issue of hunger. With so many farmers giving up, the question is how India will feed the entire country, not just its poor.

It is widely agreed that there have been radical shifts in the weather patterns in India in the past two decades; what is less certain are the causes. Is the change in the weather "climate change"? For many development workers, the question needs answering, because the collapse of India's rural economy – if it continues – will bring about a catastrophe that will affect people far beyond India's borders: even rumours of a poor monsoon or bad harvest in India tends to send food prices on the world commodity markets soaring, as they did again this spring.

Alka Awasthi, of Cecoedecon, a Rajasthani rural poverty organisation part-funded by Oxfam, asks: "When is the data going to catch up with the stories? Why don't the scientists come and listen to people who actually work with the rain? They don't know what a woman like Prabhati Devi is dealing with."

But at Rajasthan's Institute of Development Studies, Surjit Singh believes the calamitous weather shifts are as much to do with changing patterns of farming, growing population and failed government policies as any greater human-induced change to the climate. "The state has failed the rural poor, and so has the private sector. Economic liberalisation has clearly failed. How long can the boom go on? The economy may be growing at 9 per cent but food-price inflation is running at 16 to 18 per cent."

Dr Singh is in no doubt, though, that the changes in weather have increased poverty in rural India – and that there lies a huge injustice. "Climate change puts the onus on the poor to adapt – but that's wrong. Who is using the planes, the cars and the plastic bottles? Not the poor man with no drinking water."

For Mrs Devi and Sugali Nagamma, though, such debates are meaningless. I asked Mrs Devi if she had a question to ask me. "If these industries and factories stop burning petrol and sending poison into the atmosphere will it bring our rains back?" I had to tell her I did not know.

For more on Oxfam's work in India visit: www.oxfam.org.uk/climate

Source;
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/indias-hidden-climate-change-catastrophe-2173995.html

i guess we could thank China for this...

An Armada of Lost Plastic Ducks


The fate of a shipment of bath toys missing since 1992 has led to greater knowledge of the world's oceans





Lost at sea: On the trail of Moby-Duck

By Guy Adams

Sunday, 27 February 2011

They are small, yellow and designed to endure nothing more stressful than a quick journey around a bathtub. But after almost 20 years lost at sea, a flotilla of plastic ducks has been hailed for revolutionising mankind's knowledge of ocean science.

The humble toys are part of a shipment of 29,000 packaged ducks, frogs, turtles and beavers made in China for a US firm called First Years Inc. They were in a crate that fell off the deck of a container ship during a journey across the Pacific from Hong Kong in January 1992.

Since that moment, they have bobbed tens of thousands of miles. Some washed up on the shores of Hawaii and Alaska; others have been stuck in Arctic ice. A few crossed the site near Newfoundland where the Titanic sank, and at least one is believed to have been found on a beach in Scotland.

Now the creatures, nicknamed the "Friendly Floatees" by various broadcasters who have followed their progress over the years, have been immortalised in a book titled Moby-Duck. It not only chronicles their extraordinary odyssey, and what it has taught us about currents, but also lays bare a largely ignored threat to the marine environment: the vast numbers of containers that fall off the world's cargo ships.

No one knows exactly how often containers are lost at sea, due to the secretive nature of the international shipping industry. But Donovan Hohn, the book's author, says that oceanographers put the figure at anything from several hundred to 10,000 a year. While some sink, others burst open, throwing their contents into the upper layer of the ocean where they often pose a threat to wildlife. Plastic debris can be particularly hazardous, since it eventually breaks into small particles, which are eaten by fish and mammals.

"I've heard tales of containers getting lost that are full of those big plastic bags that dry cleaners use," says Mr Hohn. "I've also heard of crates full of cigarettes going overboard, which of course end up having their butts ingested by marine animals. In fact, one of the endnotes in my book lists the contents of a dead whale's belly: it was full of trash. Plastic pollution is a real problem. It's far from the greatest environmental danger to the ocean, but it is one of the most visible, and that means it can be important as a symbol of less visible damage, such as overfishing, agricultural run-off and the warming of the oceans."

The fate of the ducks has been studied by a small but devoted band of enthusiasts since roughly six months after the accident, when the ducks began to wash up in large numbers on the beaches of Alaska, Canada, and America's Pacific north-west.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer and enthusiastic beachcomber who lives in Seattle, used records held by First Years Inc to trace the ship they had been carried on. By interviewing its captain, he was able to locate the exact point at which their journey began. He was able to track their rate of progress on the constantly circulating current, or "gyre", which runs between Japan, south-east Alaska, Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands.

"We always knew that this gyre existed. But until the ducks came along, we didn't know how long it took to complete a circuit," he says. "It was like knowing that a planet is in the solar system but not being able to say how long it takes to orbit. Well, now we know exactly how long it takes: about three years."

Mr Ebbesmeyer estimates that a couple of thousand of the ducks are still in the gyre, and have completed half a dozen circuits. Others went south towards Hawaii or north to the Bering Sea, through which they are thought to have reached Europe. "I have a website that people use to send me pictures of the ducks they find on beaches all over the world," he says. "I'm able to tell quickly if they are from this batch. I've had one from the UK which I believe is genuine. A photograph of it was sent to me by a woman judge in Scotland."

Understanding the 11 major gyres that move water around the world's oceans is thought to be highly important, says Mr Ebbesmeyer, who has also tracked lost shipments of 51,000 Nike shoes. It will help climatologists to predict the effects of climate change on the marine environment.

The fate of the ducks also tells us about the longevity of plastic, he adds. "The ones washing up in Alaska after 19 years are still in pretty good shape."

Source;
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/lost-at-sea-on-the-trail-of-mobyduck-2226788.html

That is an amazing story Gio. Sounds like a new TV series.

THE AMAZING DUCK RACE.

giovonni wrote:

Monsantos continuing genocide...The Great Seed Wars
There is no such thing as real freedom...if you can not grow your own food.

this just in ....