Hi all a new scratch pad.this could be the month that a roll on the dinar train could start for the Iraqi people and we dinarians
MAY GOD BLESS US ALL AND IRAQ
I agree with you Ron.
We may be very close.
Though often the catalyst for positive changing of economic situations can be negative, at first.
As, I suppose, it would seem the fortunes of Iraq were about to be terrible, just on the eve of the US going in to take out Saddam Hussein.
It yeilded a good outcome, eventually.
But that wasn't the feeling going into the war, was it?
Nothing like having a peacenik in the Whitehouse during a time of war.
One who does too little, too late.
One whose approach, this article says.. has failed.
QUOTE: Obama's attempts to emphasise diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran – a contrast to the Bush administration's approach – have failed
And also... quite obviously,
One whose stance as a warrior championing the US cause is not taken seriously.
===
US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles
Pentagon says Patriot shield will deter strike on American allies in the Gulf
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 January 2010
Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barack Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran.
The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries – Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait – and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.
American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat.
The deployment comes after Obama's attempts to emphasise diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran – a contrast to the Bush administration's approach – have failed to persuade Tehran to open its nuclear installations to international controls. The White House is now trying to engineer agreement for sanctions focused on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, believed to be in charge of the atomic programme.
Washington has not formally announced the deployment of the Patriots and other anti-missile systems, but by leaking it to American newspapers the administration is evidently seeking to alert Tehran to a hardening of its position.
The chief of the US central command, General David Petraeus, said in a speech 10 days ago that countries in the region are concerned about Tehran's military ambitions and the prospect of it becoming a dominant power in the Gulf: "Iran is clearly seen as a very serious threat by those on the other side of the Gulf front."
Washington is also concerned at the threat of action by Israel, which is predicting that Iran will be able to build a nuclear missile within a year, a much faster timetable than assessed by the US, and is warning that it will not let Tehran come close to completion if diplomacy fails.
The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and other senior officials in Jerusalem last week to discuss Iran.
Pro-Israel lobby groups in the US have joined Republican party leaders in trying to build public pressure on the administration to take a tougher line with Iran. One group, the Israel Project, has been running a TV campaign warning that Iran might supply nuclear weapons to terrorists.
"Imagine Washington DC under missile attack from nearby Baltimore," it says. "A nuclear Iran is a threat to peace, emboldens extremists, and could give nuclear materials to terrorists with the ability to strike anywhere."
Washington is also concerned that if Iran is able to build nuclear weapons, other states in the region will feel the need to follow. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to already have atomic bombs, although it does not officially acknowledge it.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said in London last week that the US will press for additional sanctions against Iran if it fails to curb its nuclear programme.
However, China and Russia are still pressing for a diplomatic solution.
Tony Blair, Middle East envoy on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU, continually referred to what he described as the Iranian threat during his evidence at the Chilcot inquiry last Friday. Textual analysis now shows that he mentioned Iran 58 times.
"A nuclear Iran is a threat to peace, emboldens extremists, and could give nuclear materials to terrorists with the ability to strike anywhere."
You don't say.
"Imagine Washington DC under missile attack from nearby Baltimore.."
ONE nuclear missile, you mean?
Has anyone ever noticed that the terrorists tend to use multiple attacks at once?
Like the latest coordinated attacks in Iraq and the ones referred to before that, highlighted below:
====
At least 36 dead as car bombs rock Baghdad hotels
Haider Kadhim, BAGHDAD
Mon Jan 25, 2010
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three large car bombs rocked well-known Baghdad hotels on Monday, killing at least 36 people and ending a 1-1/2-month lull in coordinated assaults on the Iraqi capital as the country heads into a March election.
Police said at least 71 people were wounded in the separate suicide car bombings, which went off within minutes of one another. Some of the casualties were police. Health Ministry data showed a lower figure for the death toll.
The first blast occurred near an entrance of the Ishtar Sheraton hotel, a Baghdad landmark on the eastern side of the Tigris River. The shock wave blew open doors, shattered windows and sent thick dust swirling into the Reuters offices nearby.
A giant mushroom cloud of debris rose from the blast site as ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene. Helicopters buzzed overhead and soldiers blocked off entry.
Towering concrete blastwalls protecting the hotel along the Abu Nawas riverside boulevard fell like dominoes. The blast took place across from a park frequented by families and picnickers.
The building has not been a regular hotel for years and largely houses company offices and some media organizations, but some adventurous international tour groups began using it last year.
Police said another blast went off just outside the al-Hamra hotel, which has been a hub for many Western journalists since the 2003 U.S. invasion. One Western reporter said the hotel had sustained heavy damage. The Washington Post said three of its Iraqi employees were wounded.
Houses collapsed near the Hamra, and civil defense officials searched for survivors. The blast at the Hamra, like that at the Sheraton, ripped a giant crater in the pavement.
A final bomb appeared to have blown up near the Babylon hotel, which is used by Iraqi travelers and sometimes for government meetings.
The last major attack on Baghdad occurred on December 8 when a series of car bombs killed more than 100 people. On October 25 and August 19, a total of around 250 people were killed in suicide assaults on government buildings.
Report says Al-Qaeda still aims to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Mowatt-Larssen, a 23-year CIA veteran, led the agency's internal task force on al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later was named director of intelligence and counterintelligence for the Energy Department. His report warns that bin Laden's threat to attack the West with weapons of mass destruction is not "empty rhetoric" but a top strategic goal for an organization that seeks the economic ruin of the United States and its allies to hasten the overthrow of pro-Western governments in the Islamic world.
He cites patterns in al-Qaeda's 15-year pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that reflect a deliberateness and sophistication in assembling the needed expertise and equipment.
Mowatt-Larssen said he has seen no evidence linking al-Qaeda's program with the anthrax attacks on U.S. politicians and news outlets in 2001. Zawahiri's plan was aimed at mass casualties and "not just trying to scare people with a few letters," he said.
Evidence from al-Qaeda documents and interrogations suggests that terrorists leaders had settled on anthrax as the weapon of choice and believed that the tools for a major biological attack were within their grasp, the former CIA official said. Al-Qaeda remained interested in nuclear weapons as well but understood that the odds of success were much longer.
"They realized they needed a lucky break," Mowatt-Larssen said. "That meant buying or stealing fissile material or acquiring a stolen bomb."
Who needs to buy or steal fissile material when Iran is about to go nuclear?
Do you honestly think Iran won't help the Al-Qaeda get the "Great Satan?"
Obama sure seems a "lucky break" for the terrorists.
A real God-send.
Is America fiddling with the economy while Rome is about to burn?
To those holding the Iraqi Dinar instead of expecting a revaluation prepare for devaluation. Iraq like the USD is expanding its monetary supply by monetizing its debt while obtainning more; Iraq has just accepted a 7 trillion dinar loan from the IMF. Iraq will continue to accumulate debt. Unforunately, the Iraqi government like its U.S. counter part is is currently in the process of debasing its currency. Like the USD Iraq's dinar has little to no purchasing power while the banking sector attempts to create another debtor nation. Finally, the Iraqi Dinar like the USD does not have any tangible assets tied to it.
Iran's Threats.. a review of the attack level first
You know, Iran has often threatened things and not carried through on them.
But one of these days, they intend to.
It does make a person wonder if the veiled threat given today is the one, with the rating of "severe" being the terrorist threat level now in the UK and terrorists trying to get into the US (to do what?) as I said in my previous post.
QUOTE:
Remember that pesky previous article about an upcoming attack?
===
Bin Laden wording 'indicator' of upcoming attack: monitor
Sun Jan 24, 2010
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden's word choice in the latest audio message attributed to him is seen as a "possible indicator" of an upcoming attack by his Al-Qaeda network, a US monitoring group warned Sunday.
Well.. I have to ask you.. WHERE is that attack likely to be?
Hmmm..
Well, the UK felt their intelligence people indicate it may be them.. so they have raised their risk level to just under imminent/critical.. to SEVERE, the highest level possible without specific intelligence to help them know where or when:
===
Terrorist threat level raised to 'severe'
January 22, 2010
Britain's terrorist threat level was raised tonight from “substantial” to “severe” - meaning that counter-terrorism agencies believe an attack is “highly likely”.
Sources said there had been intensive discussions throughout the day relating to intelligence suggesting a possible attempted “spectacular” by an al-Qaeda affiliated group.
THEN.. they said that they had apprehended two people on their 'no fly' lists.. heading where? To the USA.
That story here:
===
Terror alert: Two men on 'no-fly' list stopped at Heathrow
24/01/2010
Two men were stopped boarding US-bound planes at Heathrow days before Britain's terror threat was raised to "severe".
News of the incidents came hours after Home Secretary Alan Johnson lifted the threat level amid fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack.
The new level, which means an attack is reckoned "highly likely", is second only to "critical".
Anti-terror officials said the past week had seen an "unusually high" number of people on their no-fly list trying to board US-bound planes.
So lets connect the dots.. severe threat.. Bin laden indicating an upcoming attack.. and these two men heading TO THE USA who are terrorists. What kind of specialized knowledge would they possess? Anything about WMD, perhaps? Then yesterday the one about Al-Qaeda seeking WMD... and this one sheds further light by showing the target, uncannily, is the same place these two men were heading.. the USA.
===end quote===
So.. in light of this.. what about today's threat?
Does it mean anything?
Iran To Deliver ‘Harsh Blow’ On Feb 11
From Iran’s Press TV:
‘Iran will deliver telling blow to global powers on Feb. 11′
Mon, 01 Feb 2010
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the nation will deliver a harsh blow to the "global arrogance" on this year’s anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
"The Islamic Revolution opened a window to liberty for the human race, which was trapped in the dead ends of materialism," Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
"If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles," he added.
The Iranian president made the remarks as the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approaches.
Iranians are expected to pour into the streets on February 11 to celebrate the occasion in public rallies across the country, as they have done annually over the past three decades.
===
Funny, Hitler and his crew often spoke of Nazism as the third way between money-grubbing (Jewish) capitalism and (Jewish) Marxism.
This may be related the the ultimatum/deadline that Iran gave the West a couple weeks ago:
Iran Gives West A One Month Deadline
Iran gives West ultimatum to accept uranium swap
by Aresu Eqbali Sat Jan 2
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s foreign minister gave the West a one-month "ultimatum" on Saturday to accept a uranium swap, warning that it will produce its own nuclear fuel for a Tehran reactor if there is no deal.
"The international community has just one month left to decide whether or not it will accept Iran’s conditions," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by state television as saying.
"This is an ultimatum."
On Wednesday, US State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said the West will still focus on "dual-track policy" regarding the Islamic republic.
"Even as we leave the door open to engagement," world powers agree that Iran will pay the consequences if it does not meet its international nuclear obligations, Darby told AFP.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain — plus Germany are "in the process of considering next steps consistent with our dual-track policy," he said.
===
Mind you, Mr. Obama’s December 31, 2009 deadline that Iran ignored was the final, ‘we really mean it this time,’ mother of all deadlines.
But Iran knows it will never face any real consequences.
Soo.. maybe it is only that they will finally produce their own nuclear fuel.. is that it?
Or is there something more to it?
It is a blow to hear a new program has started developing nuclear fuel, but..
Is it truly a HARSH BLOW to GLOBAL ARROGANCE/GLOBAL POWERS?
Reply to your post as soon as I can, I need to give it some thought on exactly how to address your points.
.....................
Hmm... I've been thinking..
I am not sure the points are relevant, to start off.. because of you having no Dinar which means you are arguing from a certain point of view we Dinarians already do not have.. namely, that the investment is pointless. I'm not sure it is worth addressing the entire paradigm shift or worldviewpoint you have, as opposed to picking off your arguments one by one. But surely you can see the direction I am going?.. and I can certainly see how Dinar Revaluation could easily fit into how the future world will look, in spite of those pointed objections you brought up. Or maybe it is like chess.. which is a game about who sees how many moves ahead in the game. But if I prove you wrong.. will you admit it and rebuy Dinar? Somehow, I just think you will argue til you are blue in the face and not do so.. so why should I try? I don't enjoy hitting my head against a brick wall, really. Sometimes, it is enough to know the truth yourself. It isn't necessary to convert others to your point of view. You are already convinced of what you are saying that it is correct. Why can't we politely disagree and move on? Pretty obviously, I have listened to rational arguments I consider convincing which disprove (to my mind) your view. Let's just disagree and move on. I don't think you are open to convincing.
The Iraqi Dinar will neither revalue nor revert to a previous rate; expect the physical currency to lop. Either Iraq will introduce smaller denominations or it will wait until it joins the GCC. Once inflation is under control for a period the current notes will not be needed. The Bremer Dinar is a transitory currency a stop gap measure between the old Saddam notes to a new currency without the three zeros.
Like the U.S. Iraq continues to print Dinars; according to the CBI's own website the money supply has continued to increase. Like the U.S. Iraq continues to monetize its debt and economy by this increase in money supply. Like the U.S. Iraq's money supply exceeds GDP this environment creates an imbalance. Like the U.S. Iraq continues to accumulate debt; I have mentioned several times their recent loan from the IMF for 7 trillion Dinars. Like the U.S. Iraq's currency is not tied to any tangible assets. Through current monetary and fiscal policy Iraq cannot tie the Dinar to its oil because of the excessive quantity in circulation. Regardless, of the amount of oil produced Iraq's monetary supply will continue to increase.
Many expect in the next 3 to 5 years a formal devaluation of the dollar by the Fed and since Iraq's Central Bank is following the same monetary and physical policy as it makes sense the Dinar follow the same course of action. Until these concepts are grasped you will continue to wait for an event that is not going to happen.
Sighh.. you CAN'T leave it alone, can you, Rob?
You just HAVE TO try and rain on other people's parades.. fine.
Ok.
Nothing like a left brain arguing with a right brain, hey..?
So, Here goes:
Rob N wrote:
".. the Iraqi Dinar like the USD does not have any tangible assets tied to it."
YET.
Speculate, Rob N.
What if it DID have tangible assets tied to it.
You say that would STILL not cause an upward valuation..
because there are too many Dinars out there.
Pretty much your entire argument relies on money supply dynamics.
However, if you look at how much things are worth based on rationality, where would the US dollar actually be?
It relies not on quantity issued, but on faith to remain at its current value.
Read these stats from an article I'll entitle,
The Obama Fiscal Disaster Admitted by The Wall Street Journal Obama's spending restraint religion arrives a year, and trillions of dollars, too late.
JANUARY 27, 2010
Meet President Obama 2.0. Unlike the 2009 version, this 2010 update isn't the spender who has sent the federal deficit to levels unseen since World War II. This new fellow is a fiscal conservative.. as he delivers his State of the Union address.
Whether or not Americans choose to believe him, there's no denying the fiscal reality created by the rollout version of President Obama last year, as detailed in the Congressional Budget Office report released yesterday. For the second year in a row, fiscal 2010 will see a trillion-dollar deficit—an estimated $1.35 trillion, or 9.2% of GDP, which is down slightly from last year's post-World War II record of 9.9%.
Mr. Obama did inherit a recession, which is partly responsible for this ocean of red ink. The slow pace of economic recovery has contributed to a collapse in revenues, down to 14.8% of GDP in 2009 and an estimated 14.9% this year. That's well below the modern historical average of about 18.1%, and it is a reminder that economic growth is the most important contributor to smaller deficits. Had last year's "stimulus" worked half as well as the White House advertised, these deficits wouldn't be as large.
But as the nearby chart shows, Mr. Obama's major contribution to deficits has been a record spending spree. In 2007, before the recession, federal expenditures reached $2.73 trillion. By 2009 expenditures had climbed to $3.52 trillion. In 2009 alone, overall federal spending rose 18%, or $536 billion. Throw in a $65 billion reduction in debt service costs due to low interest rates, and the overall spending increase was 22%.
In one year.
CBO confirms that Democrats have taken federal spending to a new and higher plateau: 24.7% of GDP in 2009, 24.1% this year, and back to an estimated 24.3% in 2011. The modern historical average is about 20.5%, and less than that if you exclude the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s that helped to win the Cold War and let Bill Clinton reduce defense spending to 3% of GDP in the 1990s.
This means that one of every four dollars produced by the sweat of American private labor is now taxed and redistributed by 535 men and women in Congress.
The slight deficit improvement for 2010 isn't due to any spending restraint. The feds will get a $218 billion windfall from reduced spending on TARP bailout cash, plus $27 billion in reduced deposit insurance outlays. All of that money and more is going right out the door again in $112 billion more in so far unspent stimulus, a 7% increase in nondefense discretionary spending, 6% more for Medicare and 11% more for Medicaid.
Compared to this gusher, Mr. Obama's touted spending freeze for some domestic agencies is the politics of gesture. It would apply to only 17% of the budget, and these programs have already had a 22% increase in their annual appropriations in the past two years, and another 25% increase including stimulus.
As for the deficit, CBO shows that over the first three years of the Obama Presidency, 2009-2011, the federal government will borrow an estimated $3.7 trillion. That is more than the entire accumulated national debt for the first 225 years of U.S. history. By 2019, the interest payments on this debt will be larger than the budget for education, roads and all other nondefense discretionary spending.
If this borrowing were financing defense investments or tax rate reductions to spur the U.S. economy, we wouldn't be worried. But most of this money is going to transfer payments to individuals, or subsidies to home buyers and inefficient businesses that do little for wealth creation.
As it always does, CBO forecasts that deficits will decline in the later years of its 10-year budget window. But this forecast depends on assumptions about Congress so fanciful that James Cameron couldn't make them up. CBO projects that all of the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2011—even those for the middle class—and that the Alternative Minimum Tax will hit more than 30 million mostly middle-class families over the next decade. Democrats say neither will happen.
CBO also assumes that Medicare will cut reimbursements to doctors by $250 billion, though Democrats have promised to stop such cuts in return for the American Medical Association's endorsement of their health bills.
If the middle-class tax cuts remain, the AMT doesn't soak the middle class and spending grows at its historic norm, then CBO concedes "the deficit in 2020 would be nearly the same, historically large, share of GDP that it is today and the debt held by the public would equal nearly 100% of GDP." Buongiorno, Italia.
Oh, and none of this includes a penny for ObamaCare.
The tragedy is that Mr. Obama's fiscal conversion is coming a year too late, assuming it is now real. If the President and his party really are serious, they can do more than promise a spending freeze after 2012. They can stop spending more now: Drop the health-care bill, cancel the unspent stimulus spending from last year, kill the $150 billion new stimulus that has already passed the House, and bar all repaid bailout cash from being re-spent. Everything else is marketing.
CBO concedes "the deficit in 2020 would be nearly the same, historically large, share of GDP that it is today and the debt held by the public would equal nearly 100% of GDP."
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF GDP.. the entire production of the USA!!
Yesterday, Glenn Beck in this segment (watch all of this segment, very interesting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt6z-R_2SiY
At the mark 5:47 he states that it in 1929 the Debt to GDP was 16.3%.
He goes on to state that this year Debt to GDP will be 94% of GDP.. NINETY FOUR PERCENT!! and in 2011 it will be 99% of GDP!!!
So.. exactly where is the rationality you are making in that scenerio?
What I am arguing is.. you are expecting rational sense, and it isn't working here..
Sooo... Knowing this (above), what is keeping the US afloat?
I don't think the rational playing field you imagine exists.. that isn't the reality of this world.
It isn't how it works NOW.. nor will it ever be.
So your arguments won't matter in the end, either.
There is NOTHING backing the US dollar. Not oil, not exports.. nothing. How rational is that?
And there are some game changing plans in the works.
A lot of history isn't sensible, logical and linear as you are saying.. wars and messy policies get in the way.
Kinda like since the last election..
Let's just wait.. it isn't over yet.
The RV is yet future.. and your "lop" has not happened, either.
That is why this is called a "speculative" investment.
Those with the keys are not speculators.. they are "in the know".. you aren't and neither am I.
But.. we do speculate. You along your path and me along mine.
We got to see how good Barack Hussein Obama has been with the economy.
Now we get to see how he does with national security.
Your thoughts?
===
Intelligence Officials Warn Attempted Al Qaeda Attack Only Months Away
February 02, 2010 The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress
WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday.
The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al Qaeda is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.
Director of National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair described Hassan as homegrown extremist. He also said that Al Qaeda can be expected to continue and try to attack the United States until Osama bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, are dead.
And could that threat against the US possibly fit with this article from earlier this month?
===
Al-Qaida seeking tools for nuclear 9/11 Intel agents 'certain' terrorists will try for Pakistan's bombs
Posted: January 18, 2010
LONDON – Agents for Britain's MI6 Secret Intelligence Service say they are "certain" al-Qaida is poised to try and grab some of the 80 nuclear weapons that Pakistan possesses, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The al-Qaida leadership – Osama bin Laden and Ayman a-Zawahri – are believed to have spent the winter months in Pakistan's Tribal Areas finalizing their plans for an attack.
It will spearhead al-Qaida's global network and its capability to carry out a wide range of terrorist onslaughts.
The MI6 analysis is based on what the agency calls "al-Qaida's zone of terrorism." It includes the Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in East Turkistan and al-Shabaab in Somalia. In the Sahara region al-Qaida has reformed Islamic Magreb (AQIM) which has grown out of Algerian resistance movement.
But nothing poses more of a threat than al-Qaida's plan to steal Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
MI6 agents in Pakistan say there is mounting evidence "the leadership is thinking of a nuclear 9/11 and are approaching it in increasingly professional ways."
Nuclear experts have told the Secret Intelligence Service that the biggest fear is of "an inside job."
One analyst said, "There are up to 12,000 people in Pakistan with some kind of role which brings them into nuclear facilities, whether as part of a team of scientists or working in security."
Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan security research center at Bradford University in England, has tracked a number of attempted security breaches in the past four years at Pakistan's nuclear facilities.
Past attacks have included a suicide bomber striking Kamra where Pakistan Air Force F-16 jet aircraft are stationed with nuclear bombs. Another attack was against a nuclear weapons complex in Punjab where a nuclear warhead assembly plant is based.
Now, Rob N.. we are speculating on the Dinar.. you in your way, and me in mine.
And I have some theories about this coming nuclear attack on the USA,
one I believe is a point of view unique because I am working from a different perspective.
I am working like a person with forensic evidence after a crime.. with the data given AFTER the event.
Because I can "see" what happened in my mind and work from there.
Just like they do with a crime scene.. using the evidence to piece together clues.
It has allowed me to understand and piece together what I think happened.. or rather, will happen in the near future.
Like speculation on the Dinar.. perhaps I will be wrong and it won't happen as I predict.
I might have it wrong.
Maybe it will be a lop.. when I think it will be a RV.
But on the other hand.. it is worth a minute of exploring.. since it will effect all our lives, AND the Dinar.
It will change our world.
It will end a lot of people's worlds.
So.. here is my view.. it will take a few posts and much prayer, but here goes:
First off, I saw an article a while back about the economy being INTENTIONALLY destroyed.
It postulated that if that was so then.. it wasn't Bush's fault, after all, was it?
And a poster asked.. if that was so.. why didn't everyone say it wasn't his fault?
And the author of the article asked why no one was at all concerned with who on earth stuck us without a boat in the middle of the ocean.
Here is that one, because it is relevant as to who is attacking the USA..
===
The electronic run on banks nobody seemed to notice
By Mary Claire Kendall
01/15/10
Sixteen months after the 11 a.m. simultaneous withdrawal of billions of dollars out of money market accounts in the aftermath of Lehman’s demise a few days earlier, no one seems to care about the dimensions of this event.
After all, this catastrophic event did not have quite the physicality of say an actual bank run.
There were no investors standing in line waiting to take their money out for Americans to see just who they were—from what country, wearing what kind of clothes, honest or squirrelly looking, working in tandem with each other? Just computer generated orders simultaneously withdrawing billions of dollars adding up to $550 billion within about an hour.
And, certainly, if it were an act of economic terrorism, which no one seems to have the imagination or cojones to raise, the visual is not there. No Boeing 737 ramming into the Twin Towers, bursting into flames, innocent victims burning alive jumping out the windows to their death, prior to the buildings’ collapse into rubble.
But, make no mistake, this electronic run on the banks of Sept. 18, 2008, was every bit as catastrophic, with numerous victims.
Sure, it could be pure coincidence that exactly at 11 a.m. a wave of concerned investors all decided it was time to electronically withdraw their funds thus creating this crescendo drawdown effect setting in motion a worldwide panic.
It could be coincidence. But, it’s doubtful.
The fact that the identities of those who simultaneously decided to withdraw their money at 11 a.m. on Sep. 18, precipitating this panic, were never released, does lead one to question whether or not something sinister was at work.
Is there no one else with even the vaguest curiosity to ask if it was a coincidence or not? And, to suggest maybe an investigation is in order to deliver that vaunted “transparency” that voters seemed to believe they would get after the 2008 elections.
If nothing sinister was at work, then why so much secrecy concerning the destination of this $550 billion in money withdrawn on Thursday, Sept. 18, and those responsible for redirecting these funds out of the U.S. money markets.
Surely the money didn’t go back into the American economy.
No, $550 billion was drained away from the American economy, the consequences of which we suffer to this day.
The exact contours of this event were described by Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) on C-SPAN on Wednesday, Feb. 11, two days after the 200th anniversary of Abe Lincoln’s birth.
An enraged caller had just erupted over the ill-advised $700 billion bailout a few months earlier and Rep. Kanjorski felt pressed to reveal what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had told Congress behind closed doors, which so shocked them into supporting this mind-bogglingly huge bailout.
“On Thursday [Sept. 18, 2008] at about 11 o’clock in the morning,” Kanjorski began, “the Federal Reserve noticed the tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550 billion dollars being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. It pumped $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide.”
At that point, officials realized, Kanjorski relates, “We were having an electronic run on the banks.”
In response, Kanjorski continued, “They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there and that’s what actually happened.”
And, if nothing had been done, Kanjorski revealed, “their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, five and 1/2 trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed (which would have meant) … the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”
Kanjorski concluded, “Someone threw us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft. And, we’re trying to determine which is the closest shore, and whether there’s any chance in the world to swim that far. We don’t know.”
But why is no one in the least bit curious to know who that “someone” is who “threw us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft”—the consequences of which have so damaged our economy’s job-creating engine?
This writer, for one, would like to know.
Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based journalist and screenwriter, working with Providence Productions in LA.
Sooo.. SOMEONE did this INTENTIONALLY to the USA.
Who was it?
Maybe this could be a clue.. a man who told President Bush that "war has started".. on August 8, 2008, barely ONE MONTH before this event of an electronic run on the banks. He told President Bush this during the Bejing Games:
===
Paulson Says Russia Urged China to Dump Fannie, Freddie Bonds
By Michael McKee and Alex Nicholson
Jan 29 2010
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Russia urged China to dump its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 in a bid to force a bailout of the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.
Paulson learned of the “disruptive scheme” while attending the Beijing Summer Olympics, according to his memoir, “On The Brink.”
The Russians made a “top-level approach” to the Chinese “that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies,” Paulson said, referring to the acronym for government sponsored entities. The Chinese declined, he said.
Russia’s five-day war with U.S. ally Georgia started on Aug. 8, the same day as the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush during those ceremonies that “war has started,” according to Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.
“The report was deeply troubling -- heavy selling could create a sudden loss of confidence in the GSEs and shake the capital markets,” Paulson wrote. “I waited till I was back home and in a secure environment to inform the president.”
Russia never approached China about dumping U.S. bonds, Peskov said today. “This is not the case,” he said by phone.
Russia sold all of its Fannie and Freddie debt in 2008, after holding $65.6 billion of the notes at the start of that year, according to central bank data. Fannie and Freddie were seized by regulators on Sept. 6, 2008, amid the worst U.S. housing slump since the Great Depression.
Paulson said he was surprised not to have been asked about the Fannie and Freddie bonds during a trip to Moscow in June. “I was soon to learn, though, that ,” he said of his meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, who succeeded Putin in the Kremlin the previous month.
Putin kept Paulson waiting before their meeting at the government’s headquarters and made the conversation “fun” by being “direct and a bit combative,” Paulson said. “He never took offense and we could spar back and forth,” he said.
Paulson’s book is scheduled to be released Feb. 1, though Bloomberg News bought a copy at a New York bookstore.
So why wouldn't anyone SAY anything, explain it was an electronic attack??
For the same reason that Glenn Beck brought out in his program.. China is America's financial boss.
See his discussion at the 1:55 mark of that same program I mentioned from yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt6z-R_2SiY
So the US was scared to say anything.. even though they know who did it.
It was an attack.. by China and Russia, together.
Getting a big picture here?
And wasn't it coincidental that after a joint attack by Russia and China resulting in a financial crisis..
the US elected Barack Hussein Obama and has moved towards the left.. toward socialism?
Moving toward those very same positions that Communist Russia and Communist China hold..
Isn't that just.. so coincidental?
As everyone and his brother on this blogsite knows, I am not much for rumors, but found them enjoying.
There has always been a low bubbling rumor pool here in the camps, but not more than it could be easily dissmissed.
Lately though, rumors on the camps have started to take on an epedemic, and they seems to have reach a high point of fever.
There are guys (and girls) here starting to get in on a ...buy a million Dinars per paycheck....diet.
I have not been able to pinpoint any real source of rumors going on lately, and when askin around where they have gotten the info, it seems always to be the scenario that ...-"a guy that I talked with had spoken with" ...and so on.
This latest Dinar craze that I have experienced here on the bases, , well I have a possible explanation to it.
The time is up for most people here in Iraq, and bases are closing out one by one, people are being shuffled around like cattle from base to base, and the living conditions have been deteriorating as more and more services are terminated.
We had a lot of drivers ( about 85 of them) coming in from TQ when that base closed, and the drivers came from their own hootch , dinner facility cloeby, entertainment centers close by and so on, straight to beds that was lined up in an old warehouse.
Same with me, I moved from Taji over to Liberty, and went from my own room, to living in tents with a lot of other people, that snores.
The writing is on the wall, there are not too many paychecks left to collect here, and perhaps people start to look at what will "bail them out".
On the other hand, if Iraq wanted to do something with it's currency this would not be a bad time to do it.
I can see that we have some dissatisfied former investors here, that are trying to convince the rest of us that this is a train to hell, it is illusional, dreamlike and probably a pipedream.
What exactly have I done wrong then?
I give all the nyumbers to crunch for anyone that cares.
My total investment is in US Dollars 26500, or 40 million Dinars, at the time of the purchase.
I have 10 millions in a savingsaccount in Iraq, that currently gives 7% (where in the US will you get 7% anywhere today)
I put 30 Millions in stocks.
The stock value have about trippled. Last two months I have had about 10 e-mails from my bank.
telling me that I have recieved dividents from this or that company, and the dividentws are astonishing, between 10 and 47%.
And that is on top of the stock value increase.
Usually I get it in stocks, but also in cash value, that is directed straight into my savings account.
(and I get 7%interest on that too, of course)
Then the value of the Dinar has gone up about 33-35% (something like that) since I bought it.
Add that to the total value and you can see some interesting numbers.
US value ( I must admit I have not done a close caluclation yet) of my Dinar investment is in the neighborhood of 65-70000 US Dollars
Ok, Starting from 26.500 and ending up with 65-70000 bucks and the darn currency have not even revalued yet.
What exactly did I do wrong.
Mayber I should have bought 10 million Dinars, sold it back and then whine about it.
Me agreeing to disagree and move on does not mean I will not post my perspective. You are right this economy and the U.S. dollar are intentionally being debased It is not for foreign entity destroying our economy. If it were not for China and Japan buying U.S. treasuries economic collapse would have already occured.
The responsible parties for this debasement is Allen Greenspan, George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, and now Obama. These gentlemen all have the same agenda; the destruction of the U.S. economy. These men have placed too much currency in circulation and creating a national debt of 21 trillion dollars by 2011. These men have stopped free markets from operating and instead have manipulated the market to the point of a currency crisis.
Concerning the Central Bank of Iraq, it continues to follow the same monetary and fiscal policy of its U.S. occupiers. For Iraq to truly prosper will require a coup by the people. Al-Malaki and Barzani are traitors and will be tried if the people are successful in an overthrow of the U.S. regime as Iran did in the 1970s. Though only a coup can Iraq rid themselves of the occupiers, Bremer Dinar, and a Rothschild controlled Central Bank. I believe if a possible nuclear attack occurs the people responsible are those currently occuping the executive branch and oour own industrial military complex. A crisis of this magnitude will justify the implementation of martial law carried out by NORTHCOM. An event like this will wipe away what little freedom we have left.
I am very glad to hear things are winding down there -
though of course, it would be nicer if folks had a booming economy to come back to.
As for RV, the Iraqis can do that anytime they wish.
Certainly, pegging their currency to assets is also something they are capable of doing.
It would give them short term prosperity.. which may be useful in the near future..
and I believe that they may be pursuaded it is a good time for them to do so, soon.
Stay safe.. you are always in my prayers.
Rob N - Depends on what you consider a "foreign entity".. I suppose. Certainly, there are elements set against the US and her defense from within and without (though we may disagree on specifics). I suppose the founders put that in the pledge about defending America from "all enemies foreign and domestic" for a reason. I was just pointing out some of the enemy elements which are external, and have indicated that they are going to WAR with the United States, as in August 2008, quote, "Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush during those ceremonies that “war has started,”".. (end quote). An interesting statement in light of what has happened since.. (beginning with.. an economic "war?"). This, along with the fact that Russia was urging China to dump all Fannie and Freddie - and the disclosure that Russia, quote, "sold all of its Fannie and Freddie debt in 2008".. which makes you wonder WHEN, of course. During the Sept. 18, 2008 electronic "run on the banks".. perhaps?
I have had a computer hard drive failure, with what looks like a virus wiping out my bios. After trying to get to the operating system, it won't work, and I won't go into the sordid details of the various things I have tried.. including attempting to load a flash from dos/startup, etc. Must go spend time fixing, and if not, researching what to buy to replace it.. so no posts for a while from me, I should suppose.
Perhaps it is just as well. If the Feb 11th date set by Iran to teach the "global arrogance" is the fruition of what I saw, my disclosure would not prevent it, and I am certain this Administration doesn't listen to anyone who isn't lockstep with them, anyway.. even if it would preserve their own lives. Because what I saw took out this Administration.. ALL of corrupt Washington (with some collateral damage).. and they would not have time to get underground in the scenerio I saw. At least three nuclear bombs exploded within seconds of one another in Washington in what I saw (it may have been more, the cloud just got bigger after that, not distinct explosions anymore). As I said.. it makes sense.. how this could happen with no warning as I witnessed.. I can see how it would work now - after carefully piecing together the facts disclosed by sources in the news with the evidence of what I saw.. but now I have other things I am forced to do.
Perhaps it is just as well because, after all.. if the enemy hasn't thought of it, I wouldn't want to unintentionally be putting it up on the internet, telling them how to do it successfully and thus precipitating that very event. That said, I do think the enemy has thought this through already, and are about to let it go.. very soon. As that last article I posted states, "Intelligence Officials Warn Attempted Al Qaeda Attack Only Months Away" saying, "The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress"... An attack on the USA "in a few months time".. or, perhaps sooner?
Sara, keep talking to Rob N. I've read his posts twice. IMHO, they don't make any sense. Rob must be going through a spiritual crisis of some sort. My guess is, that's why he had his "paradigm shift". Romans 8:28
A lop and new currency is coming. I have enclosed this article posted on another forum.
Monetary policy to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency
Iraqi Central Bank is working on a strategy to delete the zeroes of the Iraqi currency in and out of their face value while maintaining the values of cash and purchasing power.
Central Bank of Iraq adviser to the appearance of Mohammed Salih said that this year will witness the launch of this strategy, stressing that the bank has completed 50% of the preparations that are working on since 2005.
Salih said the strategy was based on the principle of gradual substitution of the Iraqi currency with another is lower than in the nominal value, and pointed out that the positives of this strategy is that it will be less expensive and easier to trade.
For his part, sees Dr. Hilal Al-Tahan, that the application of such a strategy will not cause economic turmoil, or damage to the local market at the present time, while the economic analyst is willing to find satisfaction بليبل that the timing of the launch of this strategy is not appropriate, noting that the country's economy must be in a position of strength before the application of such changes.
I am not sure how my posts can not make sense. Iraq is following our Fed. According to the CBI website the supply of currency continues to increase year over year. As oil production increases their currency supply will also increase. Like the U.S. Iraq is attempting to monetize its debt by printing more currency. Currency supplies exceed current GDP. Any economist will tell you this creates an imbalance in the economy.
Like the U.S. Iraq faces a currency crisis because it is not tied to any tangible asset. For example, Canada ties their currency to commodities limiting the amount of money supply. Good faith in the USD does not work anylonger. The U.S. has been placed on credit watch and China has decreased the amount of junk U.S. treasuries it buys. Once the dollar collapses the Iraqi Dinar will also crash.
There is a remedy for the Dinar and that is to lop the inflationary zeros off of its currency making a 25000 note into a 25 dinar note; this will lessen the amount of currency in circulation. Limiting and reducing money supply after the lop should allow them to tie the dinar to a tangible asset like oil.
I posted an article from another forum about the plan to lop the currency; this has been caught in the spam filter hopefully it will be released soon. Concerning the points made I cannot see what I have stated is confusing. Perhaps your mind is only open to a mythical revaluation that will not occur.
Thanks so much, Confuzed.. I was wondering if I was talking to myself.. and the "Mad Hatter" in Alice and Wonderland there (meant good naturedly, of course). But with the way things are going right now, I think it is like living in Alice in Wonderland.. where the heck are we? It is enough to make a person Mad. The reason people turn to conspiracy theories is that they are a way of explaining the inexplicable and making sense when the world seems to be making very little sense at all. Also.. when things get as crazy as this, we have to admit that "something is afoot, my Dear Watson" and look for who has the football after the last fumble. I watched Glenn Beck's Feb 4th program and he talked about Iran.. he has been following this for eight years, he says.. and even HE doesn't see what they are about to do.
Since being forewarned is forearmed.. let's consider what the scenerio could possibly be? Let's see...
Well, let's suppose people are willing to help Iran go nuclear. Strange as that may seem, and as undiscussed as the point is, there are elements here, there and everywhere trying to help them with their goals, A FEW of which we can see when the attempts fail:
===
Parts sent to Iran could be used for nuclear weapons; 3 charged in alleged plot
January 13, 2010
Los Angeles - Three men, including an Iranian-born chemical engineer living in Glendale, have been charged in a scheme to smuggle sophisticated industrial components into Iran that could be used in the development of a nuclear weapon, authorities said Wednesday.
The case has drawn interest at the highest levels of government, an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Times. The charges come as the U.S. is rallying allies to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Authorities allege that the men were attempting to smuggle high-grade vacuum pumps and other items into Iran in violation of federal trade laws and U.S. sanctions against the country. Investigators’ suspicions were heightened by the great lengths to which the defendants went to hide their alleged activities.
“These were educated men,” said Louis Rodi, a top supervisor in the Los Angeles ICE office. “These individuals knew what they were doing.”
According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Jiraiir Avanessian, 56, of Glendale was paid several hundred thousand dollars to ship “high dollar vacuum pumps and pump related” equipment to Iran.
The parts, which were mislabeled and significantly devalued on shipping manifests, were initially sent to the United Arab Emirates, making it appear that was their final destination, federal authorities said. But a co-defendant would then forward the items to a third defendant in Tehran, according to court papers.
Rodi stressed that investigators have no proof about what the devices were ultimately going to be used for, but said that he had been briefed on their potential uses and that they included “development of nuclear capabilities.”
Taiwan Firm: China Got Iran Part With Nuke Uses
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 8, 2010
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A Taiwanese company agreed to a request from a firm in China to procure sensitive components with nuclear uses, then shipped them to Iran, the firm's head said Friday. Such transactions violate U.N. sanctions imposed on the Middle Eastern nation.
The admission by Steven Lin of Hsinchu-based Heli-Ocean Technology Co. Ltd. comes amid an international effort led by the United States to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. While Lin said he didn't know whether the parts -- a vital component in the production of weapons-grade uranium -- were eventually used by Iran militarily, he did acknowledge that they have nuclear applications.
U.N. sanctions to prevent Iran from expanding its uranium enrichment program have led it to the black market to obtain sophisticated nuclear-related equipment. Aided by these illegal purchases, the program has grown to the stage where thousands of centrifuges are churning out enriched material, which can be used both for fuel or as the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Iran insists that it wants to enrich uranium to generate nuclear power, but its attempts to evade probes by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its refusal to stop enrichment are increasing suspicions it actually seeks weapons capabilities.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Lin said he received an Internet order from a Chinese firm in January or February 2008 to obtain an unspecified number of pressure transducers, which convert pressure into analog electrical signals.
While pressure transducers have many commercial uses, they furnish the precise measurements needed in the production of weapons-grade uranium.
Nuclear proliferation expert David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security told the AP that Iran tried hard to procure the transducers in Europe and Canada, but was thwarted by a concerted international effort.
However, he said, the existence of the Taiwanese-Chinese connection shows that Iran still has the ability to get what it needs by tapping alternative sources.
Lin did not identify the Chinese company that placed the transducer order, except to say that it was involved in the manufacture of pipeline for the oil industry.
He said that he obtained the transducers from a Swiss company, which he declined to name.
A Taiwanese government official told the AP on Friday that an official probe of the Taiwanese-Iranian transducer connection confirmed that 108 of the transducers had been sent from Taiwan to Iran at a Chinese request, but that the equipment was not precise enough to be placed on the island's export control list.
Beside being prohibited by the U.N. from pressure transducer purchases, Iran is also banned from buying them on the open market by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an international body established to limit nuclear proliferation by controlling the export of materials that can be used in building atomic weapons.
Asked about the circuitous route of the transducer transaction -- from China to Taiwan to Switzerland, then back to Taiwan and finally to Iran -- the Taiwanese official said that such deals were common in international trade.
''It is fairly common to do business through third parties,'' he said. He did not elaborate.
Washington has been pressing both China and Russia to agree to stepped up sanctions to pressure Iran into stopping its alleged nuclear program, but so far without result.
Over the past several years China has been accused of directly aiding the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development on a number of occasions. Washington has enacted sanctions against several Chinese companies. China has denied involvement in Iran's nuclear programs.
At the same time, Beijing has courted close relations with Iran, with Chinese state companies purchasing Iranian oil and investing in Iran's energy industry.
QUOTE: Asked about the circuitous route of the transducer transaction -- from China to Taiwan to Switzerland, then back to Taiwan and finally to Iran -- the Taiwanese official said that such deals were common in international trade.
COMMON are they? So.. can we at least acknowledge that the sanctions are likely not stopping Iran from obtaining all they need for their "nuclear power plants".. or making nuclear weapons? The Iranians are not exactly finding it impossible to move toward their goals.. and people like China are furthering them in their nuclear ambitions. Obama's diplomatic stance is not keeping the world safe, just like Chamberlain wasn't containing Hitler by appeasement. It just gives them cover to take "the circuitous route" to get to where they are going. And China, who, coincidentally tends to be an enemy of the United States,"has courted close relations with Iran".. how close? Could they be among those who are helping in supplying them with the technology they need to build nuclear weapons??.. under the table of course... at arms length so it won't be traced back. Maybe that is the reason, quote, "Washington has been pressing both China and Russia to agree to stepped up sanctions to pressure Iran into stopping its alleged nuclear program, but so far without result.
And what about Russia, who, I documented (above), has stated "war has started" just before the economic meltdown in the same year when, coincidentally, they got rid of all their Fanny and Freddie debt, quote, Russia sold all of its Fannie and Freddie debt in 2008, after holding $65.6 billion of the notes at the start of that year, according to central bank data.
How are the Russians in their relations with Iran and its development of nuclear weapons?
===
Israel names Russians helping Iran build nuclear bomb
October 4, 2009
Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.
Netanyahu flew to the Russian capital with Uzi Arad, his national security adviser, last month in a private jet.
His office claimed he was in Israel, visiting a secret military establishment at the time. It later emerged that he was holding talks with Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and President Dmitry Medvedev.
“We have heard that Netanyahu came with a list and concrete evidence showing that Russians are helping the Iranians to develop a bomb,” said a source close to the Russian defence minister last week.
Related links: Israel admits Bibi's secret Moscow trip Iran's missiles are ‘ready to destroy Israel’ Russia denies Arctic Sea arms shipment to Iran
Israeli sources said it was a short, tense meeting at which Netanyahu named the Russian experts said to be assisting Iran in its nuclear programme.
American officials said concern about Russian experts acting without official approval, had been raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a report more than a year ago.
“There has been Russian help. It is not the government, it is individuals, at least one helping Iran on weaponisation activities and it is worrisome,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
However, Israeli officials insist that any Russian scientists working in Iran could do so only with official approval.
Robert Einhorn, the special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is understood to believe that Russian companies have also supplied material that has been used by Iran in the production of ballistic missiles.
The disclosures came as Iran agreed at talks in Geneva to submit to IAEA inspections of its newly disclosed enrichment plant, which is being built under a mountain on a military base at Qom. Iran revealed the plant to the IAEA to pre-empt being caught out by an imminent announcement from western governments, which had discovered its existence.
The West says the plant is tailor-made for a secret weapons programme and proves Iran’s claim that its nuclear programme is intended only for peaceful purposes is a lie. The plant is designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges — enough to produce the material needed for one bomb a year.
Iran’s conduct over the next few weeks will determine whether the West continues its new dialogue or is compelled to increase pressure with tougher United Nations and other sanctions.
While there is consensus in the West that Iran is trying to acquire the capability to build a weapon, the progress of its weaponisation programme is a matter of fierce debate among intelligence agencies.
The Americans believe secret work to develop a nuclear warhead stopped in 2003. British, French and German intelligence believe it was either continuing or has restarted. The Israelis believe the Iranians have “cold-tested” a nuclear warhead, without fissile material, for its Shahab-3B and Sejjil-2 rockets at Parchin, a top-secret military complex southeast of Tehran.
The vast site is officially dedicated to the research, development and production of ammunition, rockets and explosives. Satellite imagery as early as 2003 has shown Parchin to be suitable for research into the development of a nuclear weapon, say western experts.
The Shahab-3B, which the Iranians test-fired last Monday, is capable of carrying a 2,200lb warhead. Its 1,250-mile range puts parts of Europe, Israel and US bases in the Middle East within its reach.
According to the Israelis, Russian scientists may have been responsible for the nuclear warhead design. But western experts have also pointed the finger at North Korea.
Triangulating and quietly cooperating together.. maybe the saying about people being friends if they have common enemies (like the United States/Great Satan) is true? Quite apart from the backroom elites and fodder for conspiracy theorists.. could our traditional enemies have a degree of cooperation going on there toward the same aim.. namely, removing the US from being the superpower (China's interest), Ushering in the Mahdi (Iran's interest)? and defeating the USA in the "second round" of the Cold War (Russia).
How real is the threat against the USA?
How soon could they procure the weapons?
I contend they already have them.. and are about to use them, shortly.
Perhaps as soon as February 11, 2010.
Note the MSM press is complicit by ignoring the threat like ostriches with their heads in the sand, while a brave few piece together the puzzle.. from an article in 2005:
===
Why Haven't We Seen This?
Saturday, October 29, 2005
If you follow the news you may have seen the picture of Iran's President Ahmadinejad speaking at the "World Without Zionism" conference where he spoke of wiping "Israel off the map."
But the rest of the graphic speaks a thousand words.
The Iranian government produced sophisticated visual props for this important speech, designed to send a message to the USA and the English speaking world. Those who produced this graphic were sophisticated enough to know that it would provide a great photo op.
What is the message they are trying to send?
Yes, that is the USA already at the bottom of the hourglass.
But notice that the USA is already broken in the bottom of the hourglass prior to the fall of Israel.
For some reason the world media has largely ignored his statements against the USA. In his speech he said:
QUOTE:
We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e. the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years. ...
The issue of this [World without Zionism] conference is very valuable. In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels ...
Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved...
===end quote===
So how would the Iranian regime achieve this?
You only need to listen to Ahmadinejad's chief strategic guru Hassan Abbassi, for the answer. Abbassi is the architect of the so-called "war preparation plan" currently under way in Iran. This is the same Hassan Abbassi who said:
QUOTE:
We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization... we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.
==end quote==
According to respected Iranian analyst, Amir Taheri, Abbassi has also stated, QUOTE:
The Americans are not ready to send a million men (to defeat the Islamic Republic)," Abbasi said. "Even economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic will fail thanks to opposition from the Western public opinion and the refusal of most countries to implement (them). ...
But it is not only the US that Abbasi wants to take on and humiliate. He has described Britain as "the mother of all evils". In his lecture he claimed that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the Gulf states were all "children of the same mother: the British Empire." As for France and Germany, they are "countries in terminal decline", according to Abbasi.
"Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover," he told his audience.
===end quote==
So it appears that in the short term, the regime is hoping to start a limited war with the USA that it believes it can survive, since they don't believe that the West has the will nor the means to occupy Iran at this time. This will buy them time for their longer term strategic plans for the world. Why is no taking these threats seriously?
So note this.. "the regime is hoping to start a limited war with the USA that it believes it can survive", they have picked out 29 sensitive sites which they are planning to attack "by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles".. saying ""Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover."
Just inflammatory rhetoric? You see, the way people are thinking.. such as Glenn Beck and even the military exercises against Iran sending missiles at the USA.. FROM IRAN.. are so old school in their thinking. Are there any other ways nukes could get onto US soil from Iran.. but not sent actually sent up directly from the location of Iran? And the failure of the test did not inspire confidence, either:
===
U.S. defense fails missile test mimicking Iran strike
Jim Wolf, WASHINGTON
Mon Feb 1, 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A maiden U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar the Defense Department said.
The Missile Defense Agency said both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, had performed normally after launch on Sunday.
"However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected," the agency said on its web site. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.
The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defense, the sole U.S. bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
It was the first time the United States had tested its long-range defense against a simulated Iranian attack. Previous drills have imitated a flight path from North Korea, another country in a standoff with the international community over its nuclear program.
Experts have compared the simulation to a bullet hitting another bullet in space. O'Reilly said the goal was to destroy the target over the north central Pacific when the missiles had a combined closing speed of more than 17,000 miles per hour.
"Whenever we have a situation where we're taking on a missile more head on than from the side, that increases the challenges," O'Reilly had said.
The SBX radar is mounted on a mobile, ocean-going oil-drilling platform designed to provide the layered U.S. missile defense system with a powerful sensor that can be positioned to cover any spot on the globe.
O'Reilly said the goal was to destroy the target over the north central Pacific...
Would they really send them over the Pacific Ocean and past the entire land mass of the USA in trying to strike Washington, D. C.? Or would it be like I saw.. a coordinated attack along the East Coast, quickly wiping out the command and control structure of the USA and Canada, up and down the entire coast? Which is more rational to believe an objective?
And what was that about suicide bombers and missiles, again?
There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them. we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles.
And now, there are people boarding PLANES headed for the USA.. wonder how that could fit? You think they might possibly be part of an "operation" in the works? A coordinated one.. with suicide bombers AND missiles.. not from the location on the globe called IRAN directly.. but directed from there and from closer by, perhaps. How could that work?
Now, the problem with living on the other side of the globe and trying to nuke America from there is.. it is awfully hard operationally to do it. No.. really. If you have the structure in place with suicide bombers (with or without suitcase nukes) and missiles (close to the US, not being sent from a billion miles away where it is easy to pick it off).. how do you coordinate all that? Well.. a satellite with telecommunications capabilities is certainly a great boon to those goals, isn't it?
===
Iran Unveils New Satellite Capabilities on Eve of Revolution Anniversary
FEBRUARY 3, 2010
By CHIP CUMMINS
DUBAI—Iran test-fired a new satellite rocket and unveiled a series of what it said were home-grown advances in a space program that has worried Western officials because of possible cross-over applications in the country's weapons program.
In addition to the test-firing, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on Wednesday three new telecommunications satellites and a new satellite-carrier engine, according to state media.
The test firing comes as the Islamic Republic celebrates its 31st anniversary. Commemorations began earlier this week and culminate on Feb. 11, the day in 1979 that the shah's forces capitulated during the Iranian revolution. During the same commemoration period last year, Iran launched its first domestically made and propelled satellite.
Tehran has long said its space program, like its nuclear program, is aimed at peaceful purposes. Wednesday's rocket carried a capsule of living organisms—a rat, two turtles and worms—into space for experimentation, the state-run English-language Press TV reported.
Iranian claims of technological advances, especially in weapons development, are often viewed skeptically by outside analysts. Still, the test-firing could raise fresh alarms about Iran's weapons development. Many of the same technologies used in satellite development can be applicable to missile-delivery systems.
The satellite announcement comes a day after Mr. Ahmadinejad surprised many Western observers by suggesting in a televised interview late Tuesday that Tehran no longer objected to a long-stalled nuclear-fuel deal at the heart of current efforts by Western capitals to rein in the country's nuclear ambitions.
See: Iran Is Ready for Nuclear Deal, Leader Says
Washington is pushing for fresh economic sanctions against Iran after being frustrated by Tehran's response to the draft deal, hammered out between Iran, Western powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency last year. The deal calls for Iran to ship out the bulk of its low-enriched uranium, to be refined overseas and then returned for use in a medical-research reactor. Western officials see the deal as a way of delaying any Iranian effort to develop a nuclear weapon.
After Iranian negotiators agreed to the proposed deal, several Tehran officials spent months criticizing it, and appeared to rule out the deal in its current form in December. But Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments late Tuesday night suggested Tehran's position has changed once again. U.S. officials remain wary, saying that if Iran has agreed to the deal, Tehran should officially notify the IAEA.
My thoughts on this? Yeah, nothing like that olive leaf of "being ready for a nuclear deal" as they complete their secret plans for their command and control center structure for the nuclear strike using their TELECOMMUNICATIONS satellites, hey? Carrot of peace.. while arming their (very large) stick in the background. NO, the rocket launch isn't to send up missiles FROM IRAN against the USA.. it is to COORDINATE the attack.. using both missiles (closer in) and suicide bombers and trained operatives on the ground. Remember the claim of TWENTY NINE sites they have targeted.. could it be on US/Canadian soil? How can they hit so many in coordination? They need eyes in the sky.. to send messages to those on the ground and to push the buttons to launch missiles which are not a million miles away in Iran.. but close by to the US.. ready to be fired. Remember.. the aim is quote, "a world without America and Zionism." Without AMERICA.. takes quite a bit of doing, don't you think? But if they target 29 sites which are strategic and then have coordinated units on the ground afterward.. could it make sense this goal might not be so fantastical and out of the park?
How about running this as the scenerio.. ??.. instead of missiles sent from Iran toward the US, which is so very highly unlikely to achieve its aim.
Of course, other groups could be coordinating with each other.. and Iran, as well:
===
Officials: 'Credible Intelligence' on Terror Attack Planning Against U.S.
FOXNews.com
Updated January 14, 2010
Credible intelligence has emerged that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is plotting another attack against the United States and U.S. interests abroad, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.
The intelligence is described as not specific about time, place or method of attack, but is being taken seriously, according to this official.
The new information does not come from 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to bring down flight 253 on Christmas Day.
According to those familiar with the intelligence, the strategic threat from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, has intensified and the group is emboldened by the failed Dec. 25 plot.
"The threat did not end on Christmas Day", according to one source familiar with the intelligence.
Al Qaeda in Yemen and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, known as Al Shabaab -- translated as Mujahadeen Youth -- are described as having "shared interests and shared goals."
U.S. counterterrorism officials say clear connections now can be traced between the two terrorist groups and they are not ruling out the possibility that they are working together to attack U.S. interests.
U.S. officials also remain concerned about two dozen Somali Americans who disappeared into the Al Shabaab training camps in Somalia in the last 18 months. Their American passports would allow them to reenter the United States.
And certainly, they would use anything at their disposal to get through the US defenses in the case of such a planned coordinated attack. Again, the planes may not be the real target here in the case of a staged massive-casualty coordinated event:
===
Women bombers create new security challenge 'These may not look like al-Qaida, and may not be men'
Posted: January 27, 2010
Security officials are expressing concern over how to detect non-Arab speaking women with Western appearances who may now be used as suicide bombers, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The U.K. terror threat level was raised from "substantial" to "severe" this week – the second highest rating, meaning a threat is "highly likely." Former White House adviser Richard Clarke said the move followed intelligence that al-Qaida has trained women to bring down planes.
At least two women are thought to have been trained by the Yemen-based group behind syringe bomber Umar Abdulmutallab's Christmas Day jet bomb plot. They are thought to have non-Arab appearance and to be traveling on Western passports, making them difficult to trace.
"They have trained women. There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins – that means people who we do not have a record," Clarke said. "These people may not look like al-Qaida, may not be Arabs and may not be men."
Security officials believe that using such candidates will offer a serious challenge to U.S. security.
Women's names generally are not on the various no-fly lists, nor are they incorporated in intelligence that has helped security teams focus on the likely troublemakers. That is precisely the type of focus that al-Qaida is counting on for future terrorist attacks.
There is, quote, "intelligence that al-Qaida has trained women to bring down planes. "
I wonder what other training they may have had.. remember those on the ground of the USA who were practicing slitting throats?
From a previous post:
'Chilling' new video: How to slit throats Jihad maneuvers taught at New York compound
Posted: December 15, 2009
By Bob Unruh
A new video released by the Christian Action Network shows Muslim women at a compound in New York state practicing throat-slitting techniques and assault weapons attacks. Jamaat ul-Fuqra has built 35 compounds – mostly in the northeastern corridor of the U.S.
The video shows women marching in military formation, scaling walls, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and also reveals a Muslim confirming that the organization's own census revealed that Muslims are a majority in the United States and they are claiming it as their own.
Texas Homeland Security Chief: 'Terrorists Crossed Border' -- MSM Ignores News
By Warner Todd Huston
September 19, 2007
DALLAS - Texas' top homeland security official said Wednesday that terrorists with ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaida have been arrested crossing the Texas border with Mexico in recent years.
"A porous border without question is a national security threat," he said.
"War Has Started" Russia... Officially Declares Right to Nuke Potential Aggressor??
Now, in keeping with the fact that Russia and China are helping Iran arm with nukes, and Putin telling President Bush that "war has started" in August of 2008, this becomes very important:
===
Russia Officially Declares Right to Nuke Potential Aggressor
Front page / Russia / News from the Kremlin
14.10.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru
A new version of Russia’s military doctrine will contain details of using nuclear arms when repelling aggression with the use of conventional means of destruction in both large-scale and local armed conflicts.
Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper that Russia would consider an opportunity of using nuclear arms depending on circumstances and intentions of a potential enemy.
“In situations critical for national security, a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor is not ruled out,” he said.
The section of Russia’s military doctrine about the opportunity to use nuclear weapons was formulated to preserve the status of a nuclear power for the Russian Federation. The document states that Russia can apply nuclear deterrence against potential enemies to prevent aggression against Russia and its allies.
“It will be a transparent military doctrine, to let everyone know which security measures we elaborate in Russia and abroad, which goals we have and how we are going to achieve them,” Patrushev said.
The current military doctrine was approved in 2000. It particularly says that Russia is entitled to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an act of a large-scale war against Russia.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio station that the USA did not permit a nuclear first-strike under its own military guidelines.
Nothing like a level playing field here, is there.. the USA did not permit a nuclear first-strike under its own military guidelines. ... BUT Russia can apply nuclear deterrence against potential enemies to prevent aggression against Russia and its allies.
How might that work? Who are Russia's "allies"?
IRAN, maybe?
===
Iran To Build Ten New Enrichment Plants
From Iran’s Press TV:
Iran set to construct ten new enrichment plants
Sun, 29 Nov 2009
Days after a new resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog called on Iran to halt the construction of its Fordo enrichment plant, the Iranian government tasks the Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) with building ten more nuclear enrichment sites.
According to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the AEO should begin the construction of five of the requested enrichment facilities over the next two months.
Upon the Iranian government’s request, the organization should also propose locations for the remaining five enrichment plants within a two-month period.
===
Meanwhile, also from Iran’s Press TV:
Iran, Russia begin joint economic session
Sun, 29 Nov 2009
Iran and Russia have kicked off a summit of the countries’ joint energy commission with the establishment of a joint oil firm and a gas swap deal topping the agenda.
Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko arrived in Tehran on Sunday to attend the two-day summit.
The summit aims to discuss details of an agreement for swapping gas from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf; the setting up of a joint venture for energy projects in the two countries as well as third-party states; and the joint exploration and development of oil and gas fields.
The agreement was signed between Shmatko and Iranian Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari on the sidelines of an OPEC summit in March.
Swaps are agreements by which a country can supply goods to another in exchange for the latter giving the equivalent to a third party.
Tehran and Moscow plan to swap up to 50 million cubic meters of Iran’s natural gas from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.
Shmatko is also expected to discuss with Tehran officials the long-delayed Bushehr nuclear plant in the southern Iran.
The Bushehr plant was originally scheduled to be completed in 1999 but its completion has repeatedly been delayed.
Russia has recently announced the nuclear plant would not become operational, as promised, by the end of 2009.
Russia has cited “technical” issues as the reason for the delays, ruling out any political motivation in the matter.
In a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki earlier on Sunday, the Russian energy minister said Moscow’s policy towards Tehran would not change, saying his country is seeking “long-term relations” with Iran.
===
Aren’t we glad we pushed the ‘reset button’ with the Soviet Union/Russia?
They are so helpful now.
This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Sunday, November 29th, 2009.
Comment:
1) beautyofreason
Well, the Russians and Iranians are really milking Obama’s appeasement to the limit.
Giving up that missile defense system in Poland has really made Russia love us.
Well, you know, in the military structure of countries, it is generally acknowledged that the reason for secrets and higher levels of clearance is that, well.. they do things in secret which are BEYOND what the acknowledged capabilities are. So.. if we know about it, chances are.. they have something better that tops that one, right? So.. these folks who have just changed their military stance and said they will nuke POTENTIAL aggressors (when is a better time to nuke America than now, I ask you?).. what are they acknowledging they can or will soon be able to do?
THIS:
===
Russia To Develop ‘Invincible’ Missiles
From Russia’s Izvestia, via Pravda:
Russia and India To Develop Supersonic Missile Invincible to Interception
16.10.2009
Russia and India will start the development of a new supersonic missile nearly invincible to interception. No army in the world has anything similar to it. The sum of the investment has not been defined yet, but it can be expected to reach billions of dollars.
The missile is to become a successor of the supersonic missile BrahMos (known as Yahont in the Russian army) that is now installed on ships, land missile complexes and may soon be installed on Su-30 MKI fighter jets and submarines. This possibility was discussed on Tuesday at the meeting of an intergovernmental committee on military and technical collaboration that took place in Moscow and was chaired by Russian and Indian Defense Ministers, Anatoly Serdyukov and Arackaparambil Kurien Antony…
It is unique since it’s the only cruise missile in the world that can be launched both as a single unit and a group. Its highly intelligent operational system allows the missile to reach the speed of Mach 3.0, which is three times faster than the speed of the subsonic American Tomahawk cruise-missile). BrahMos can engage any sea target, and a group of these missiles can destroy an entire ship formation.
The missiles are so clever that they not only detect a target but develop a plan of attack based on the enemy’s air defense. They know exactly which target is the primary one, which of them is an attacker and which is a defender. When the main target is destroyed, they re-prioritize and continue with the attack. Now even more advanced missile is on the way…
===
Er, what was the supposed benefit of dropping the missile defense shield for Europe again?
Isn’t this one of the weapons that would no longer be built?
And of course we were to get increased co-operation from the Russians in our efforts to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
Lies. All lies.
This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Friday, October 16th, 2009.
Comments:
1) proreason
This will even things up between Russia and the US, and make the world safer.
And even if it doesn’t, we meant well.
2) RightWinger
Don’t forget the news that Barry is going to give some more missle technology to the Chinese, who will then parse it out to the North Koreans for some more proxy sabre rattling. That will somehow trickle down to the Iranians for better missle guidance.
I’m just wondering when Barry will finally get around to saying we are going to completely disarm in the name of “world peace”.
3) GetBackJack
PsyOps
Exactly the same plan that Reagan’s White House developed to pressure the Soviet bloc into choosing to collapse rather than attempt spending themselves blind trying to keep pace with American technology development. Payback. An attempt to further derange Obama’s peeps and make them go crying into a corner.
The hare now chases the fox. Or, in this instance, the sloth.
If these ‘missiles’ can fly faster than the speed of light, then by all means they’re invincible. Since you’ve recently heard of airborne laser weapons platforms you would be well advised to bet every dollar you can get at the Big Window in Vegas that what’s allowed to seep out into the public domain is … in a phrase … Old News. Let alone the electro-magnetic wave front weapons systems we ALREADY possess.
Heads of mush.
4) canary
Obama wrote Reagan’s star wars was a complete failure. Obama has repeatedly tried to cut down our defense budget. Town Hall in Missouri he said in 2 years if we pay out social security there won’t be funds for troops; and national parks will have to be closed (his future mega lands he scoped out on his campaign vacation)
Obama blames America for Indonesia’s problems (terrorist muslims wiping out moderate muslims that’s been going on for centuries only esculating to murder in the streets) After we wiped out the communist Japanese and Dutch who took over Indonesia; Obama is angry because while Indonesia itself worked at destroying communists in their country, America did not stop it. But, Obama claims Vietnam was a mistake. And Obama writes questions, why Iraq? Why not N. Korea, instead. (duh. we saved S. Korea, and N. Korea wasn’t bombing and destroying the entire globe)
Another example of how Afganistan war is different than the Vietnam war?
In Vietnam our soul purpose was to kill the communist North who were slaughtering the South, like the Korea war.
Afganistan is different because our soldiers are living in the belly of the most dangerous terrorists in the present world, and instead of focusing on destroying them, our soldiers have to be careful and protect their goats, build their wells, and compounds, bring them supplies, education, medical supplies, etc. Our soldiers can not shoot a woman who points a rifle at them. They can only point their rifle back and play Russian Roulet.
Obama wrote he had no ideas or answers in how to fight the terrorists, but was open to ideas. (2006) Over all, he believes in Truman’s Cold War policies. (might explain that statement respecting Churchill ?) Unbelievably, no one pointed this admittance of Obama that he did not have the answers for this war.
Americans voted for an ignorant bottom of the barrel 2-bit lawyer who admitted he knows nothing about fighting a war.
Obama only knows how to fight a war against the U.S. of America, choosing his Bill Ayers, Marxist, & communist friends as his mother taught him.
5) pdsand
I thought any development in American nuclear missile technology or missile shield technology was a threat to Russia and destabilized world peace. How come Obama’s not out their criticizing the Russians for being a threat to the U.S. and world peace? Oh silly me. I forgot they just want the U.S. to have poor nuke technology and the Russians to have superior power so that they can defeat us.
6) beautyofreason
How many foreign policy foibles can one President rack up in a year?
I’ll take ‘we’re screwed’ for 1000, Alex.
1. Effort: Invite Iranian diplomats to fourth of July celebrations in Washington.
Result: Ouch! Declined – oh, and a couple hundred Iranian kids got shot for protesting a fake election.
2. Effort: Remove missile defense system plans from a European ally to please Russia, and exert pressure on Iran.
Result: Ouch, Russia is the kind of girl who strikes your heart when you’re vulnerable. No push for Iranian sanctions, a new missile system, AND a new policy allowing nuclear war for small-scale conflicts. But at least we’re lowering our defenses. Drop trow – Score!
3. Effort: Outreach to the Muslim world
Result: Bow to the Saudi King, ignore Islam’s political branch, splurge to cover Fatah’s budget shortage and choose a Muslim adviser who calls Shariah law “misunderstood.” Bing.
4. Effort: The world must love us
Result: Well, you’ve at least got compliments from Castro and Chavez (it takes a lot of heart to go from “big Satan” to “read this”). Keep trying, soon Iran will love you too!
Now, whereas the one commenter (above) correctly states that there has to be superior (classified) weaponry out there.. he then incorrectly says not to worry, because though we may have super secret superior weapons.. that relies on time to react. We don't have a computer running the defense systems of the USA.. we have people.. and it was a vowed promise of Obama to take the US off "hair trigger alert".. so a missile travelling at mach 3 (or above) shot from a platform at sea.. how fast could that reaction be? Remember, these missiles are "to become a successor of the supersonic missile BrahMos (known as Yahont in the Russian army) that is now installed on ships, ... fighter jets and submarines. AND they are intelligent.. and the only cruise missile in the world that can be launched both as a single unit and a group. What I saw I am convinced was a group. The strikes looked simultaneous and there was no interception. It happened too fast for those "no longer on hair trigger alert" to do anything about it, perhaps?
Also, note that the Obama Administration is not exactly a war oriented group and how they have performed in the past was, as stated in the following assessment "the DNI/NCTC basically allowed everyone to assume that someone else would take charge of threat “dots,” and no one ever did."
Think it can't happen?... when it is quote, "to the point where Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), the chair of the House committee that oversees the no-fly/TIDES effort, says that “The program not only can’t connect the dots, it can’t find the dots.”"
===
NYT: Obama administration missed more terror warning signs than acknowledged in report
January 18, 2010
by Ed Morrissey
In his televised address to the nation almost two weeks ago, Barack Obama said “the buck stops with me” and took responsibility for the failure to prevent the EunuchBomber. The report from Obama’s national-security team acknowledged a failure to connect the dots, blaming it on bureaucratic snarls and a lack of attention to mission guidelines. However, the New York Times reports today that the Obama administration missed more red flags than it has acknowledged — and didn’t pay enough attention to the growing threat from Yemen:
Mr. Obama this month presented his government’s findings on how the plot went undetected. But a detailed review of the episode by The New York Times, including more than two dozen interviews with White House and American intelligence officials and with counterterrorism officials in Europe and Yemen, shows that there were far more warning signs than the administration has acknowledged.
The officials also cited lapses and misjudgments that were not disclosed in the declassified government report released Jan. 7 about what went wrong inside the nation’s counterterrorism network.
In September, for example, a United Nations expert on Al Qaeda warned policy makers in Washington that the type of explosive device used by a Yemeni militant in an assassination attempt in Saudi Arabia could be carried aboard an airliner.
In early November, American intelligence authorities say they learned from a communications intercept of Qaeda followers in Yemen that a man named “Umar Farouk” — the first two names of the jetliner suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — had volunteered for a coming operation.
In late December, more intercepts of Qaeda operatives in Yemen, who had previously focused their attacks in the region, mentioned the date of Dec. 25, and suggested that they were “looking for ways to get somebody out” or “for ways to move people to the West,” one senior administration official said.
And the same day those White House meetings on terrorist activities took place, a Qaeda figure made ominous — and seemingly prescient — threats against the United States.
“We carry prayer beads, and with them we carry a bomb for the enemies of God,” a man describing himself as a Qaeda fighter from Yemen announced in a video released on Al Jazeera satellite television. “The issue is between us and America and its allies, and beware, those who stand in the ranks of America.”
====
Why didn’t the Christmas Day reference tighten security on flights to the US? Counterterrorism officials just assumed that the Yemeni branch of AQ didn’t have the sophistication to get a terrorist onto a flight. And worse, no one took command of any one particular threat thread. The massive bureaucracy imposed by Congress in 2005 as the DNI/NCTC basically allowed everyone to assume that someone else would take charge of threat “dots,” and no one ever did.
The assumption of a lack of sophistication seems utterly inexplicable. Just a few months earlier, a terrorist used the exact same device to detonate his underwear in an attempt to assassinate the Saudi head of counterterrorism operations. He failed to kill his target, but the terrorist succeeded in getting the bomb past multiple layers of tight security. That should have ended any assumptions about a lack of sophistication on the part of Yemeni AQ.
Now, the intelligence community is angry over the White House attempts to put the blame on its operations, claiming that political considerations impede their ability to do tasks like update the no-fly list and the TIDES database. The Times report still makes a rather compelling case that the main problem with identifying and blocking Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was not political, though, but bureaucratic. The structure of the DNI/NCTC has added to the problems identified by the 9/11 Commission rather than solving them — to the point where Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), the chair of the House committee that oversees the no-fly/TIDES effort, says that “The program not only can’t connect the dots, it can’t find the dots.”
Barack Obama can legitimately say that he inherited these problems, although in part from himself, since he was part of that Congress that created the mess in 2005. The question is whether he will end the mess and create a more flexible and responsive structure for intelligence that finds and connects the dots before Dutch filmmakers have to throw themselves onto terrorists bound for America.
The intelligence community says "political considerations impede their ability to do tasks."
You don't say?
Whether political or bureaucratic, the point is.. it puts America at risk. “The program not only can’t connect the dots, it can’t find the dots.”
And all these enemies need is the time to launch one set of bombs.
Exactly how that can be achieved is debatable..
But I do wonder if perhaps this set of launched missiles is what I saw.
If so, I still believe they may be able to launch them successfully.. all too soon.
Rob B, and Rob N, I will enjoy my money, once an RV happens, and will make a toast to all the foolish people who prematurely sold theirs, due to imaginary theories.
Will someone please tell me what kind of freedom has the U.S. occupying force brought to Iraq? Are the Iraqi people better off having a foreign troops in their country? Was Poland, Belgium, and Holland better off by having the Nazi's occupy them. Currently, the U.S. controls the Iraqi government. One proof of this statement is a Iraq's monetary and fiscal policy; it is exactly what our FED is doing. Al-Malaki and Karzai in Afghanistan are merely puppets of the U.S. government.
Karzi won the election in Afghanistan because of U.S. interference in the election process. I am certain some U.S. interference will result in a one-sided parliamentary elections in Iraq. For Iraq to truly prosper they must rid themselves of the occupiers and a coup de tat must occur overthrowing the government of Al-Malaki. Al-Malaki is a traitor to the Iraqis and should be tried as such. He along with the current GoI and CBI continue increase money supply in order to monetize its debt. They are a debtor nation and as long as they follow what our FED does they will continue to be a debtor nation.
Unless Iraq's monetary and fiscal issues with the Bremer Dinar are addressed the country will remain inpoverished regardless of how much oil is produced. In my view, this Bremer Dinar is a dead currency without hope of appreciating. For those of you that hold cash dinars or even bank accounts at Al-Warka prepare yourselves for a devaluation of the currency once the usd collapses. With a collapse of the usd the CBI cannot continue to maintain the managed rate of 1170/1. Since the Iraqi Dinar is tied exclusively to the dollar this expected collapse will further weaken the people's purchasing power.
Since the Bremer Dinar is not tied to oil and can not ever be linked to oil production because of the amount of currency in circulation; waiting for a revaluation or reversion is a complete waste of time. Current monetary and fiscal policy does not warrant such action by the CBI. I offer this as a warning to speculators dump those dinars because the end result is that you will loose all you have invested. As my grandfather used to say; "get out while the getin is good".
My theories are not imaginary. It is a fact that there is to much money currently in circulation in Iraq. Visit the CBI website to see a graph showing the continued increase of the money supply year after year. Next, it is a fact that Iraq continues to print currency in order to monetize its debt. This same practice is being done here in the U.S. Iraq and the U.S. are printing so much currency in order to debase their respective currencies. It is a fact while Iraq continues to print its currency it is at the sametime assuming more debt. They recieved a 7 trillion dinar loan from the IMF. It is a fact that Iraq's monetary supply exceeds GDP. It is a fact that the Dinar lacks purchasing power impoverishing its people.
Regardless of what you think there will never be a revaluation. You may exchange your Bremer Dinar with the inflationary zeros in for smaller denominations or GCC notes unless Iraq closes its borders during the exchage period. The idea of $1,000.00 usd for a 1000000 dinar and hope for a 100,000% gain is dellusional.
February 06, 2010
BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi Central Bank is planning to redenominate the national currency in an effort to ease transactions and allow people to carry less paper money, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reports.
Mudhhir Muhammad Salih, a member of a Central Bank advisory panel, told RFI that a plan has been made to remove three zeros from the currency and phase out the current banknotes late this year.
Salih said by the end of 2010 the new banknotes will be fully introduced while the old banknotes will be gradually removed from circulation. He did not specify when the new notes would be issued.
Both will be legal tender in Iraq until the old notes are completely withdrawn.
Iraqi officials have had a long-running plan to redenominate the Iraqi dinar. In 2006, the Finance Ministry recommended to the Central Bank that it carry out such a plan.
Salih pointed out that banks are having a hard time accepting cash savings and deposits, but by dropping the zeros it will make it easier for both the banks to deal with their customers and for the general public to carry money. He said some 80 percent of Iraq's money supply is cash in circulation.
Salih added that in 1990 the value of banknotes in circulation was about 25 billion Iraqi dinars but is currently some 25 trillion dinars.
Economic analyst Hilal al-Tahhan told RFI that the bank's move is overdue. He said he expects the currency change to go smoothly because of the decision to allow both the old and new banknotes to coexist, leading to less turbulence in the economy.
The current exchange rate is 1,167 Iraqi dinars to the U.S. dollar.
There was this Hindu who saw a scorpion floundering around in the water. He decided to save it by stretching out his finger, but the scorpion stung him. The man still tried to get the scorpion out of the water, but the scorpion stung him again.
A man nearby told him to stop saving the scorpion that kept stinging him.
But the Hindu said: "It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting?"
Don't give up loving.
Don't give up your goodness.
Even if people around you sting.
If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.
What is this strike Iran is saying will STUN the West on Feb 11th..
===
Khamenei: Iran Set to Deliver 'Punch' to Stun West on Anniversary
Monday, February 08, 2010
Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution, AFP reported.
"The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman, February 11, in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel according to AFP.
The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the U.S.-backed shah on February 11, 1979.
His reported comments came as Iran said it would begin to produce higher enriched uranium from Tuesday, in defiance of Western powers trying to ensure the country's nuclear drive is peaceful.
Khamenei told the air force personnel the "most important aim of the sedition after the election was to create a rift within the Iranian nation, but it was unable to do so and our nation's unity remained a thorn in its eyes.
If this strike is intended to attack the US capital, then the world-record breaking snow dump is God's mercy on America and Washington - to those who would never heed a warning about it on their own. Instead, they will be forced to not be in session (at work or out doing what they would normally do for errands), to save them.. due to His mercy. How many will not be where they would have been.. if these are the areas Iran is targeting? If so, like 911 survivors, many may one day attribute their survival.. to a God-given snow storm.
===
Major Cities To Break Seasonal Snow Records
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
AccuWeather.com is now projecting that Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Wilmington (DE), Baltimore, Atlantic City and others will break their records for snowiest season in recorded history, after tomorrow's storm. Here are the stats (in inches, current/record/expected after tomorrow):
That is 72.3 inches.. by tomorrow on D.C.
That is six feet of snow.
How much of normal commerce will be taking place?
Not much.. and maybe, that is His plan.
Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010
Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010 Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010 Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010 Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010 Iraqi Finance denies intention to delete the zeros of the national currency
09/02/2010 09:02 09/02/2010 09:02
. Arbil, February 9 (AKnews) - U.S. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Iraqi economy, the ministry's intention to delete the zeroes from the national currency of Iraq, adding that the Iraqi economy, do not complain about inflation, there is no need for the implementation of this strategy.
The Prophet told Fadel Kurdistan News (AKnews) that "the process of deleting the zeroes of the Iraqi currency has no economic gain, and any positive impact on the purchasing power of the process of Iraq, but will also create other problems, to issue coins of small denominations such as" 10 money "and "50" penny quarter of a dinar and a half dinars. "
. He explained that "did not issue a formal decision on this matter, was not talking officially start work this fiscal policy to raise zeros from the Iraqi currency."
He noted that "the only win for the deletion of zeros from the currency is issued in small groups only, either in terms of their purchasing power will remain the same as dollar against foreign currencies and the euro, and there will be any increase or improvement."
". For his part, said the economist is capable Rizgar that "if the replacement of the Iraqi currency, Nabgy we work to maintain the stability of buying and selling rates of the Iraqi currency against foreign currency, for a limited period, so the process does not cause loss of citizens who deal in buying and selling foreign currency, often What is this period of six months. "
". He said "the deletion of zeros does not help to increase the value of local currency, because the high value of the currency is linked to the security situation of the country, as well as the ability of local production and commercial activity and reduction of inflation rates in the country."
It is worth mentioning that the Central Bank of Iraq said in a statement issued on February 6 this year, announced a plan to delete the zeros of the Iraqi currency before the end of the year 2010, and has completed 50% of the preparations for the work according to this strategy. It is hoped to be completed this fiscal policy later this year.
(آكانيوز)ت: و ز 9/2/2010 (AKnews) T: and g 9/2/2010
Recently, there has been conflicting information concerning the removal of zeros from the Iraqi currency. In my view. the articles from late 2008 are clear concerning the CBI's intention. The inflationary zeros will be removed from the currency and introduce smaller denominations.
I don't know about Anonymous, but I truly and very seriously doubt the lop scenerio will become the enacted policy, whatever the intentions may seem to be by the various parties involved.
Two currencies coexist together and gradual replacement
Central Bank (time): Delete the zeros start end of the year
BAGHDAD - Ahmed Saleh Khyoun
CBI begins the end of the year and gradually replace the currency now in circulation a new currency which zeroes deleted within the strategy to reform the monetary system started in 2005.
Bank consultant and announced the appearance of Mohammed Saleh told (time) on that (the bank has completed 50 percent of a strategy switch in and out, delete the zeros of the nominal value of the new currency while retaining the cash value and purchasing power), said that (the replacement process will be gradually and spontaneously high and without fanfare, as will be There are two currencies to trade at the same time go hand in hand), but (that the purchasing power of the new currency will remain fixed).
Saleh said (there are multiple advantages of this strategy, including ease of trading between the citizens and facilitate the work of banks, counting, sorting, and stand on the counterfeit currency and to facilitate transactions of the citizens with the banks on the deposits and withdrawals in addition to facilitating the process of monetary reform after hitting a currency issued in circulation now 25 trillion dinars, while in 1990 was about 25 billion dinars and this in itself calls for the deletion of zeros).
In the answer to a question by (time) whether the Central Bank has set a deadline for the replacement of the currency said (we did not define this ceiling until now that the matter is still under study and the reality of work at that time will decide how long the replacement process).
Responding to another question about the Iraqi currency held abroad and how to replace it "(The right of a citizen is to remove the $ 200 thousand dinars and he could only replace it like any ordinary citizen here in Iraq, either from abroad, the banks in the States would be responsible to us of the assets of our currency), He pointed out that (a media campaign will precede and guide the process in order to raise public awareness of the importance of this and that our banks and our will all be ready to provide all facilities to the citizens and emphasize once again that the process does not affect absolute quiet in the market also note that many countries replaced their currency and benefit from their experiences in this area, including Turkey, Russia, Brazil and others).
I read it and understand your position.
I just don't think it will go down the way they think it will.
Remember..
Pro 16:9 A man's heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps.
Certainly this is in their hearts to do.. but if you look at history and even today's politics, people's wills are often changed... often by circumstances beyond their control (say, would nuclear war affect or change that.. or maybe their next door neighbor arming with nukes? - just askin').
"Tomorrow could be an important day. It's the day that the Iranian leadership has promised that they would punch the West. I don't know what that means - they say this every year. It could be bad, but I don't know. I do know this - Iran is a serious threat to us and Israel and to the rest of the world. The threat that has been ignored for far too long, unfortunately. I've been warning about this for about five years now. It's too late to do anything. Time for tough action - its gone...
==end quote==
Personally, I think it is very rare in a fight that a person only throws one punch.
I am glad it was only a one punch.. not a one-two.
But I am not so deceived as to think that means those throwing punches are not serious about making another and perhaps far more deadly one.
I agree with Mr. Beck.. Iran poses a very serious threat.
And you know.. that threat from Iran actually DOES relate to the Dinar, for those who have eyes to see how.
===
Iran is now a 'nuclear state' says Ahmadinejad as thousands take to the streets
By Mail Foreign Service
11th February 2010
Iran is now a 'nuclear state', President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced this morning.
As Gordon Brown warned that the world's patience is wearing thin, Ahmadinejad told scores of cheering Iranians that the Islamic Republic is capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.
He spoke as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
He said it had produced its first batch of 20 per cent enriched uranium - and had the capability to enrich to far higher levels at its Natanz plant.
Enriching uranium produces fuel for a nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons.
The international community has warned Iran against further enrichment activities, threatening new UN sanctions.
Today Gordon Brown.. said the international community did not want to impose sanctions but would do so if Iran did not cooperate more fully over its nuclear plans
The Iranian leader insisted the material was not intended to produce an atomic bomb, however.
'We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent (the level needed to create an atomic bomb),' he said in a speech broadcast live on state television.
'But we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it...
'When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb,' he told the crowd. 'If we wanted to manufacture a bomb we would announce it.'
The tone of the rallies has shifted from outrage over alleged fraud in President Ahmadinejad's re-election to wider calls against the entire Islamic system, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Neither side has shown much appetite for compromise in the eight months since the disputed June presidential vote, which the opposition says was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election.
Iran faces growing Western calls for targeted sanctions against it after Ahmadinejad ordered production of higher-grade uranium, stirring fears that Tehran aims to make nuclear bombs, not just fuel for civilian use as it says is the case.
The authorities, who say the poll was fair, have struggled to suppress the protests, and opened trials in recent weeks of people charged in connection with bloody riots on December 27.
Opposition leaders have said the trials were an attempt to deter people from taking part in protests today.
An Iranian opposition website claimed today that security forces attacked opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi when he attended a rally.
'Karoubi was attacked by security forces in central Tehran... they shattered his car's windows ... Karoubi was not seriously injured,' Jaras website reported. The same website said security forces also attacked former president Mohammad Khatami.
Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said on Wednesday her country faced a catastrophe that would wreck peace in the whole Middle East if what she called government repression of the people were not halted.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Karoubi say the reform movement is alive despite pressure from the hardline rulers to disband. Karoubi predicted last month that Ahmadinejad would not be able to complete his four-year term.
'Even if he stays in power until the end of his term, he will be the weakest president since the revolution,' an Iranian analyst who did not want to be named said this week.
I agree with you -
That is VERY funny!
It's almost like.. global warming.. isn't.
Doesn't global warming mean things like -
the seas will rise from everything MELTING.. stuff like that?
Not.. deep freeze weather, right?
Hilariously funny.
Anyone with a shred of common sense sees through it.
Someone Who is in control of it all has a wonderful sense of humor.
I have been in Iraq on different bases now for about year and a half, and in the Dinar game much longer than that, but never have I experienced a rumor mill as active as the last month on the issue of the Iraqi Dinar.
I never seem to be able to locate the source of the rumors, but they are experssed very often and very publicly now.
Everybody and his brother here on the US bases in Iraq are expecting something to happen soon.
I mailed some stuff back home the other day and the mailman doing my mail noticed all my Forex books, and immediately went straight into the subject of "when do you think the Iraqi Dinar will revalue"?
I can overhear the subject being discussded in busses and dinner hall lines.
One friend of mine that works in Security, had contact with people in the State Dep and it seems to be a buzz in those ranks to get Dinars...."before they RV"., so my friend asked me how to set him up in Warka Bank with some Dinars stashed in his account.
Many drivers have approaced me lately and asked for e-mail addresses and how to go about to open up accounts.
Funny, for most of the time I have been here in Iraq, the issue of Iraqi Dinars have always been discussed in a small exclusive club, and there have never been a stampede into the issue as I am experiencing right now.
Dates and RV numbers are tossed out all over the map, and everyone and his brother seems to sit on some kind of "insider info".
The spread on dates and RV numbers are so big in the rumor mill, that I would say that the numbers and dates would be equally represented by a Chimpansee throwing darts on a wall that's got a pinned up calender, and some random numbers pinned here and there.
Right or wrong, I don't have a clue, but I have a feeling that what is feeding this latest rumor mill is a couple of very active rumor websites.
Either something is about to happen and info are leaking out, or dealer sponsored Rumor Blogs, have done a hell of a great job in convincing people that it is urgently needed to get into Iraqi Dinars before it is too late.
Either way, the rumors are high pitched right now, and that in itself, may or may not mean anything.
It is fully clear that Iraq needs to do SOMETHING, with it's currency situation, but exactly what, and when, is a proposition we have been waiting for since the day the Bremer administration introduced the New Dinars, so the waiting has been long.
There for sure have been no urgency in the past from CBI or anyone else for that matter, that could possible make a change in the value of the Dinar.
I can't see the immediate urgency now.
Dinarians that has been into this game for a while and still are in it, have skin on the nose, and have seen a couple of rumor mills in the past, that also reached big heights.
However, this time around, I have never seen as high fever pitch as I am seeing every day now.
I suspect some Dinar rumor blog sites have sterred this up, but then again, you never know.
The Dinars will have to change sometime, rumors or not, so who knows, maybe these feverpitched rumors will at least help putting pressure on the issue.
Whether you like it or not Iran is a sovereign nation and have a right to have uranium for energy or for their military and the U.S. does not have a right to dictate it.
Iran may be a sovereign nation, but their leader is a godless, certifiable lunatic that pays no attention to the directives of the united nations or anybody else. He has no rights as far as I'm concerned. I'm actually pretty tired of hearing about the "rights" of people that hate us, threaten us, and want to kill us. Personally I'm a lot more concerned about the safety and well being of the United States, and Israel too for that matter, than I am the "rights" of some lunatic.
If a man shows up on my porch threatening my family and myself, or to blow up my neighbors house, his "rights" are going to get busted in the head and sent down the road, if he's still able. And that's what will eventually happen to Iran.
This will probably be my last blog from Iraq, I am in the process of leaving here, and are actually today doing my last working day, My outprocessing starts tomorrow, and I will be back home hopefully within 2-3 at most 4 days.
Fnancially I reached all my goals while being here, so in that sense I am happy.
I am not sure I made a difference though there are so many people here and you seem to dissapear in the ants nest pretty quick.
The last observation I can send back would be the mood of things over here.
Seems like we all are in the "going home moode".
Whatever has been done is done now, if the Iraqis adapted or not, if they agreed or dissagreed, if they got the idea or not, it seeems now like all that stuff is up to the Iraqis, and there are no more holding hands.
The company I am with are hiring on 6 months contracts now, and have abandoned the traditionally 1 year contract.
There are a lot of movements amongs the bases, lot of relocation and a lot of redistribution of materials. It seems like everything is getting more and more concentrated into the bigger bases, and the "last push" out of here is staging up.
Earl,
I may just take you up on the offer of yours on a fish dinner in Seattle. Once home I have to recoup a little bit to get my life back.
Rob N.
You are a puzzling man, if you sold out and are out of all the Dinars, what does Dinars do for you now?
Why are you here?
I am of course not trying to stop you from being on Dinar blog sites , the point is more that Dinar blog spots would do for you now about as much as blog spots for home gardening, crouche' or vintage motorcycles.
You're done, why are you lingering in it.
If I would have taken the decisions you have just taken, I would have closed the doors long ago, and moved on.
What does Dinars do to you now?
Is this a forum for you to "educate" us all on the conspiracies that your'e talking about?
If you're out of the Dinars, why haven't you moved on?
Rob N wrote: "Whether you like it or not Iran is a sovereign nation and have a right to have uranium for energy or for their military and the U.S. does not have a right to dictate it."
Rob, the leaders of Iran have said in the past they would like to wipe Israel off the map. I guess nuclear bombs would help, but of course Israel has lots of bombs to throw back.....you trying to start a nuclear war, or what?
Rob, don't listen to Roger. Don't go way. You are entertaining. You remind me of my favorite crazy uncle Bob. He used to tell me Martians had invaded and were living next door, disguised as an elderly British couple, the Johnsons. Every family needs an interesting uncle Bob.
Besides, I don't want to be the only clown here. It gets lonely.
IRAQ. Iraq expects to redenominate its dinar currency by knocking three zeros off the nominal value of bank notes to facilitate currency transactions, reported Reuters, citing a central bank official.
Emerging from years of war and sanctions, Iraq is trying to revamp its economy and boost oil production with a raft of crude deals that may vault it to one of the world's top oil producers.
"The goal is to improve the payment and receiving system in the country and consequently to reform cash management," Mudher Kasim, a senior advisor at the central bank, told Reuters.
Kasim said that the central bank expected to start rolling out new notes by the end of the year or the beginning of 2011.
An Iraqi cabinet committee ordered the change in 2007, but the central bank did not think it appropriate until recently, Kasim said. The dinar's value will remain unchanged, he said.
Speaking to Radio Free Iraq (RFI) Mudhhir Muhammad Salih, a member of a Central Bank advisory panel, pointed out that banks are having a hard time accepting cash savings and deposits, but by dropping the zeros it will make it easier for both the banks to deal with their customers and for the general public to carry money.
Salih said some 80% of Iraq's money supply is cash in circulation.
Salih added that in 1990 the value of banknotes in circulation was about 25 billion Iraqi dinars but is currently some 25 trillion dinars.
Economic analyst Hilal al-Tahhan told RFI that the bank's move is overdue. He said he expects the currency change to go smoothly because of the decision to allow both the old and new banknotes to coexist, leading to less turbulence in the economy.
The local unit is managed through foreign exchange auctions, and trades around 1,170 per dollar.
I tend to lean toward the vision of the founding fathers rather than the current demagogues leading AmeriKa. Iran has been an enemy of the U.S. since the people overthrew the Shaw of Iran. The U.S. is again creating puppet regimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan in order to control these countries natural resources of oil and opium. Like Iran during the revolution of 1978 the people of Iraq and Afghanistan will rise up and throw off the yoke imposed upon them by Al-Malaki and Karzai as representatives of the western occupiers. I do not impune Iran for not wanting a U.S. puppet to rule them instead the Iranian people have a right to self-determination. In my view, an AmeriKan citizen standing against Iranian self-determination is not a proponent of freedom. Unfortunately the U.S. exacerbates the tension between Iran and Israel by being present in the region contributing to anti-Israeli comments from Iran.
Rob, the best way for Iran to be free is to become strong and embrace American values like capitalism and the free press and freedom of religion. Then they will get rich and share much in common with us. Once everyone in the world agrees to our principles, then the world will be rich and free. Iran embraces an intolerant religion and don't believe in personal freedom, and don't believe in freedom of the press.
America is not perfect, but has the best, God-inspired principles. Principles don't belong to anyone. If Iran is so worried about America, they should embrace American values, so they will be rich and strong, and America won't invade them. If they continue to embrace loser values, America will probably blow up their nuclear arsenal. I encourage America to do so.
France has similar values to us and they have nuclear weapons and we are not worried about them, because we have much in common. Iran's leaders still have not embraced American values, so they are a threat. Either Iran's Islamic values, or America's Christian-inspired values will rule the future. America should win that fight. Iran is a great country but is run by losers with stupid ideas. If they get their asses kicked, it's their own fault for being so stupid.
Countries like Iran get kicked around by stronger countries like America, because countries like Iran are weak BECAUSE of their ungodly, wicked un-Christian values. Countries like Iran should smarten up, realize they are wrong in their thinking and principles, and turn to God-inspired Christian values. This will make them strong, and not a threat. Otherwise, they get what they deserve.
Self-determination means that a soveregin nation chooses its own path. In Iran's case they have chosen a theocracy to rule its people. Islam is only intolerent to your liberal western perspective; for the Iranian it is the tie that defines their rest of the world. Back to my previous point, like Hilter who invaded Poland, Belgium, and Holland spreading an anti-jew facist agenda and using those countries natural resources for the benefit of the the Third Reich the U.S. is following this path. The U.S. has invaded Iraq now Afghanistan. Our military has dropped bombs on both Yemen and Pakistan. Like Hitler we have hijacked the natural resources of oil in Iraq and opium in Afghanistan. I think parellels between Hitler and America's war on terror have similarities that cannot be ignored. I have already mentioned the use of the natural resources by the occupiers.
Unfortunately, Iran does not loose. They did not loose when overthrowing the Shaw of Iran and they will not loose in this present environment. The U.S. cannot convice either Russia or the Chinese to enact sanctions upon Iran. The covert operations inside Iran prompted by U.S. interference has not to date topple the theocracy reigning the country. The Iranian leadership continue to thumb its nose at the western occupier of Iraq.
Ronald, you believe without question the propganda offered by our government through state run media about Iran. U.S. involvement in the middle-east provokes the Iranians; because they are provoked they seek nuclear power. You speak of American values. What values are you referring to? America has murdered 49,551,703 babies since Roe V. Wade. How many abortions occur in Iran? From preliminary research I found Iran performed 135 in 1994 and 75 in 2002; obviously a downtrend in the country. What about infanticide? According to the child trends databank, "Between 1970 and 1990, the official infant homicide rate rose dramatically - from 4.3 to 8.4 infant deaths per 100,000 residents (See Figure 1). This higher rate continued during the 1990s; in 2000, the infant homicide rate was 9.1. Almost one infant homicide per day was reported in the year 2000 (349 total)." In Europe, infanticide is used to control population. In Iran, could not find data. What about euthanasia? In the U.S. it is legal in Washington and Oregon. In Iran both the Koran and Islamic Scholars oppose this practice of euthnasia? I ask, which country values life? Obviously it is not the United States.
What about homosexuality? The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates there are 8.8 million homosexuals in the United States. Iran is openly anti-homosexul. So what values in where America is superior? Stop listending to the U.S. propaganda designed to demonize Iran; instead, I think we need to scrutinize the current neo-con fascist foreign policy being pursued by the demagogues that inhabits the executive branch and our own industrial military complex.
The people of Iran do not want a theocracy anymore, they want a democracy, like America. That's why the young people took to the streets. The old Muslim rulers are corrupt and incompetent and steal the people's money. Then they rig elections so they can continue stealing money. It's only the old people who want a theocracy. Iran only turned to Ayatollah Khomeni because they were tired of being manipulated by the Shah. Then when they watched the Islamists rule, they soon tired of them and want to throw them out. Iran's young people want to be like Americans, that's why 300,000 moved to Los Angeles. How many Americans would move to Iran, if they had a choice?
Zero.
That's because America is better than Iran.
Young Iranians who have lived in Iran and America know the truth, and can compare, and they vote with their feet, to stay in America, because America is better than Iran.
Iran will embrace American values, and the troubles will stop.
If Iran wants to stop being kicked around and being losers they should embrace American values.
America has it's problems, but at it's core it is a Christian nation. That's why America is great.
I have to agree with RobN even though he has divested himself of his Dinars and is no longer a bonified member of the Dinar Blog, he has the right idean in that the USA has no authority to tell any other country what is right or wrong. I previously asked how would we feel if France decided to invade and correct the way we had treated black people. Sure, there is a lot of brutality going on in this world but it is non of our business unless they pose a threat to us.
I consider Iran, North Korea, Libya and any of these other tin-horn countries to be an irritant rather than a threat. The rule needs to be that you attack us and we take you off the face of the earth. If we determine that someone harms the USA with a weapon from any country, that we take out the facility that produced and sold the weapon.
We need to concentrate our concern and efforts on China and Russia who can do us mortal harm and to concern ourselves primarily with coming up with more domestic oil or alternate fuels. We can be shut down very quickly if the oil spigot is cut off.
Iraqi is under chapter 7 UN sanctions and as we all know we may see the removal or modification of Chapter 7 sanctions this Tuesday the 16th as the UNSC meets on this very issue.
Chapter 7 is the 7th chapter of the UN charter which places nations under strong international economic
sanctions.
Iraq has been under UN Chapter 7 sanctions from 1991 until present.
They were placed under these sanctions right after the invasion of Kuwait.
It was under the authority of Chapter 7 sanctions that the UN/IMF/World Bank came into Iraq and took over the Central bank and the currency of Iraq.
When they did this they deemed all Iraqi Saddam Dinars void and issued the New Iraqi Dinar that we now hold.
This company DelaRue printed 9 Trillion IQD and they introduced this in October of 2003 and gave the Iraqis 3 months to exchange the old for the new.
A total of 4.5 trillion was exchanged and went into circulation and the rest was placed into protective storage.
When the new IQD was printed there were 14 denominations printed but only 9 have been issued to date and it is speculated the lower denominations that were not released are the ones that are about to go into circulation now as they remove the larger “zero notes”
It is speculated that the 5 missing denominations that we are about to see are the 25 dinar the 10 dinar the 5 dinar the 1 dinar and the 1/2 dinar notes.
When they did this change of currency they also devalued the currency to near worthless.
This massive devaluation was done for specific reasons.
Reason 1 was to prevent and hinder the resistance from having the funding to fight the US and British forces.
And the second reason was to prevent or reduce the pending humanitarian disaster that would have been caused by a flood of refugees into surrounding nations.
So by doing this massive over night devaluation they effectively froze/removed the personal monetary assets of all Iraqis.
Now it is under this same authority of the UN Chapter 7 and the sweeping powers it gives the international community over Iraqi assets that the revaluation of the Iraqi Dinar will happen and this also provides the legal bases of same.
So all that we will be seeing when the revaluation takes place is the return of the assets which were removed from the nation of Iraq and its people.
It is not like the nation of Iraq will be getting something out of no where…it is just that what was taken from the people and the nation of Iraq will be returned and even then only a fraction of what they once had.
So the reality of the situation is that after all is said and done the nation of Iraq after coming out of near 20 years of economic sanctions and after the return of the assets and wealth to the people and nation of Iraq the value of the Iraqi Dinar even AFTER the revaluation will be a fraction of what it was pre UN sanctions.
As it should be.
So what we are seeing now with all of the confusing articles on the removal of zeros is to be expected.
My analysis of all of the “removal of zero” articles is the following:
1. They are about to revalue the Iraqi Dinar to at or just above $1.00.
2. They at the same time will place into circulation the lower denominations, 25,10,5,1, and 1/2 dinar notes.
3. They will then give a set time for the removal of the “3 zero notes” (large denominations) and that deadline may be the end of 2010.
Now I have always thought we would see the removal of Chapter 7 sanctions at or near the same time as the revaluation of the Iraqi Dinar and as stated before we see that they have set this Tuesday the 16th for the meeting on this very subject.
So that is it…we see Iraq moving forward with the free and open democratic elections and we have the UNSC meeting this very week on the removal of Chapter 7 sanctions so all in all things are looking great.
So I just thought I would share this refresher with all on just where we have come from in an effort to clarify just where we now stand.
Thank you, Dinar Daddy, for re-directing the blog back to it's originally stated purpose, and away from all of the philisophical babble about nuclear weapons and who's better, us or them. And thank you for such a clear, concise, and logical explanation and progression of what you believe and why. I just hope your right! God bless you.
DinarDaddy's refresher along with Roger in Iraq's speaking of how rampant the Dinar Rumor Mill is over there are hopeful signs toward Dinar Revaluation.
Thanks for the good posts of late, all. Entertaining and thought provoking reading all round as we wait and see.. even the back and forth speculation on Iran and its place, which can very definitely affect the Dinar and its fortunes, has been interesting. I found your points interesting and worth consideration, Ronald.
Dinar Daddy,
How would the issuing of the lower notes affect the 50, 250 and 500 denominations?
Would they not remove them and keep them as part of the new value structure?
TIA.
I've been musing on a plausible scenerio I thought I would share with the board.
How does this scenerio strike you?
Though this commission was worried more about biological attack than nuclear..
If the F can also mean that Iran gets nuclear weapons:
===
Obama Gets 'F' on Stopping Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction
By Judith Miller
Updated January 26, 2010
In a 19-page report card being published Tuesday, the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism gives the Obama administration an "F" for failing to take key steps the commission outlined just over a year ago in its initial report.
The commission repeated its warning that unless nations acted decisively and urgently, it was more likely than not that a WMD will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013, and that the terrorists' weapon of choice would be biological, rather than nuclear.
Ultimately, the commission chairman and vice chairman say, the "lack of preparedness" and "consistent lack of action" reflect "a failure of the U.S. government to grasp the threat of biological weapons."
Two defenders of the administration's policies, both of whom asked not to be identified by name because they were speaking without authorization, said that the Obama White House gave bio-defense and countering nuclear proliferation high priority.
Well, no matter how high a priority, it appears Iran has the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the bag.
And how does that affect the Iraqis.. and the Dinar?
Say, if Iran decided it would like to make a play for some of the oil fields between them?
Maybe this was a test balloon to see how things would go.. and how much they can TAKE?
===
Iran Forces Occupy Iraqi Oil Well, Border Guard Says
By Maher Chmaytelli and Kadhim Ajrash
Dec. 18, 2009 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian forces yesterday entered Iraqi territory at dawn and occupied a well in the East Maysan oil field, Border Guard General Zafer Nazmi said.
The Iranian forces positioned tanks around well number 4, which is in the al-Fakah region, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Baghdad. The two neighbors have disputed the border of southeast Iraq for decades.
“They positioned tanks around it and dug trenches,” Nazmi said by phone from Basra. “They are still there, they raised the flag.”
Iraq’s National Security Council will hold a meeting to discuss the situation, state-run television al-Iraqiya said. The government in Baghdad will issue a statement later today and has taken no military action because it will seek a diplomatic solution, it said.
Iraq’s al-Hurra television station also reported that Iranian forces crossed the border into Iraq, citing the U.S. army saying the incident wasn’t violent.
Yes, they have been having a dispute for decades.. only Iran didn't have nukes before.
Maybe this was a test by Iran of resolve.. checking the will and forces against their seizing Iraqi oil wells??
So if the Iraqis feel under pressure from Iran's nuclear ambitions and somewhat unfriendly stance (see above).. and turn to Obama to help shore up their military ability to withstand Iranian onslaught or stepped up nuclear threats.. how willing to engage in war would Obama be on their behalf? What would he pledge to them? "You are on your own, I am pulling out... OR.. of course we would go to war with a nuclear Iran to protect you even though you have given us absolutely nothing in return." (Remember the previous poster mocking the "stupidity" of President Bush for not getting oil in return for the blood expended in Iraq.) Also, remember that Obama was all for pulling out of Iraq and allowing GENOCIDE on their people in recent history.
===
Obama: Don’t stay in Iraq over genocide
July 20, 2007
SUNAPEE, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
So Obama says not to stay in Iraq over genocide of the Iraqi people.. What about a nuclear genocide and seizing of the oil fields of Iraq.. regrettable, but then, he was never for the entire interference in Iraq thing, was he? - could be the Obama Administration sentiment. If the Iraqis feel the need for a powerful friend and ally against the possibility of being nuked out of existence (by the way, do you think the Iranians have any moral qualms about nuking the entire country and taking the oil for themselves?).. maybe Obama might be enticed to protect them and give them cover.. IF they were willing to revalue the Dinar, so that the US could pay off the national debt. Surely it is possible that Obama could have even a slight bit of temptation to do this.. as we know from our past conversations on the issue, the US is the main holder of Dinar and a revalue could save the US economic future.. couldn't it?
So, Board.. what do you think of the scenerio? The US is pulling out of Iraq, Iran is arming with nukes, and once the US has a very greatly decreased presence, won't Iraq be vulnerable to her neighbor's intentions.. since they are much more powerful and nuclear armed? And note this skirmish recently on the border.. won't it be a temptation to Iran to simply nuke Iraq and take their oil? I mean.. they stand to gain so very much if they were to own ALL of Iraq.. is that unreasonable to wonder about? Certainly, at no other time in history have they had someone in the Whitehouse liable to let them do just that. Remember this recent skirmish on the border.. do you think it possible that Iran is thinking it would be nice to own ALL of Iraq's oil?
Oh, and is it coincidental that the rich elite end up with their aims concerning the currency happening? If the Dinar Revalues due to this scenerio, I mean. Maybe Iran is being allowed to arm with nukes for many reasons.. theirs.. and other people's reasons. As the saying we hear a lot lately goes - Why let a good crisis go to waste?
Stunner. Obama Now Says He’s “Agnostic” On Raising Taxes On Those Making Less Than $250,000
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Jim Hoft
Another Broken Promise–
During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama pledged not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.
"I can make a firm pledge," Obama said in 2008. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax. Not your payroll tax. Not your capital gains taxes. Not any of your taxes."
After tripling the national budget deficit his first year in office Barack Obama told reporters yesterday that he’s “agnostic” to raising taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year to bring down the deficit.
Bloomberg reported:
President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.
Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
“The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.”
Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and households earning less than $250,000 a year.
Could he become "Agnostic" about protecting Iraq from an Iranian nuclear genocide threat?
Say the Iran drops a nuclear bomb on Iraq and then threatens to drop more.. will he be "completely agnostic, in terms of solutions" then, too?
And what would it take from the Iraqis to make him less than Agnostic.. particularly if the Iranians said that they would promise not to harm any US forces, but only nuke and take Iraq.. after all, non-interference is a policy Obama stood by in the past concerning "humanitarian problems" such as Iraq has been experiencing.
Remember:
Obama: Don’t stay in Iraq over genocide
July 20, 2007
SUNAPEE, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
You see, the US shouldn't involve itself in such "humanitarian problems."
That was just a previous bad policy.. too caring, Christian - and, well, just plain stupid since the US didn't get anything out of it, like oil.
CHANGE - Right?
Remember where the Iraqis would be today if Obama and the Democrats had been calling the shots THEN:
===
Cheney Snickers at Joe Biden Taking Credit for Success in Iraq (Video)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Jim Hoft
Dick Cheney was on This Week this morning. During the interview he was asked about cut-and-runner Joe Biden’s claim that Iraq would be one of the great achievements of the Obama Administration (even though they both voted to leave the country to the terrorists).
Dick Cheney got a good laugh out of that.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl: One thing he (Joe Biden) said is that he thinks Iraq would ultimately prove to be one of the greatest achievements of the Obama Administration.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney: Well (laugh) I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by my friend Joe Biden. I’m glad he now believes Iraq is a success. Of course, Obama and Biden campaigned from one end of the country to another for two years criticizing our Iraq policy. They opposed the surge that was absolutely crucial to our getting to the point where we’re at now with respect to Iraq. For them to try to take credit for what’s happened in Iraq strikes me as a little strange. If they had had their way, if we followed the policies of pursued from the outset or abdicated, Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Baghdad today.
Sorry, Iran has a fundamental right (being a soveregin nation) to nuclear power if it wishes to pursue its development and implementation. Our neo-con fascist leaders do not have the authority to meddle in internal Iranian affairs.
George W. Bush and Barrack Hussein Obama are both war criminals and are responsible for more deaths than the Iranian government. Instead of spewing your right wing propaganda why not use your time and energy to denounce U.S. foreign policy that pursues a quest for oil in Iraq and opium in Afghanistan. Our government (Bush, Obama, and our industrial military complex) chooses oil and opium as more important than the lives of our American soldiers sent into battle.
Many reviewers state how this book scared them. I could not read this book in a single sitting, but I had to put it down for a bit of time to digest what I had just read, and settle that nervous feeling in my belly.
But I am not feeling 'scared' now, but informed. Made aware. It's not the sky about to fall that is causing me to panic, but, what I need to start to do to prepare before the sky falls that's making me search for answers.
And there's the problem. There are answers. Alternatives to oil and gas. But commiting to these alternatives on a grand scale will take great effort, great commissions, and will also be additional draws on the remaining energy reserves, changing the energy and economic systems of North America will take a generation, and there are warning signs of oil and natural gas reserves today.
I keep hearing politicans offering to turn to nuclear energy as an answer, but further research shows that from the moment the decision is made to go nuclear until the first watt of electricity is produced is 10 years AND is an energy (oil) intensive constuction process. (Let alone we still don't know what to do with the spent fuel rods.)
As of this review writing, US Pres. Obama would finish his term, be re-elected, (not likely) and whoever his replacement is would have run out his first year in office before one watt of power is produced by the next nuclear plant to be built. BUT, no final decision to actually build one gas been made yet. It IS an answer, but it's not an answer today (this very day!) and it may not be an answer soon enough.
And there is trouble brewing. The largest oilfield in the world, The Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, seems to be sputtering. There hasn't been enough oil discovered in the last 30 years to make up for the loss of this oil field. Salt water is being pumped into the field to push up the oil, so that the remaining oil can be pumped out, but reports say that what is coming out of the pumps is 90% salt water.
And it's not just gas for your car. Everything plastic is an oil product. Also, like to eat? Without the fertilizers and insecticides that are oil and natural gas byproducts, North America agricultural production would fall 75%. And the beef and pork and chicken are fed from the same pool of agricultural product. AND people want to stop using the crops for food and start using them to make biofuel which still needs oil as a base. And oil byproducts are necessary for pharmaceutical production.
So? Is it hopeless? For the masses, yes, it might just be. I wrote 'keep your head down...' The solutions that are available can be undertaken and completed at the individual, and even better, at the local level. I started reading thinking if this is true how do I find cover now before the sky falls, but finished with the awareness that solutions will work best with the village undertaking them. There are answers, but it is sad to say that the first ones to the exit will have the best opportunities to be hurt the least. Make the changes now, buy and install the alternative systems now before everyone, when millions may all try to do it at once, and when energy shortages dramatically increase the costs of production, and transport, or will simply make those systems unavailable.
One thing though, the author tells about having a solar generation system at a camp, and that the power was unreliable and the storage batteries, darned expensive, only lasted a few years needing replacement. Basically having to be replaced before paying for themselves. I did a little research and found some individuals who actually have modern solar systems in place (one who generates all thier own power), and current batteries are guaranteed for 30 years, and with proper maintainance, should last even longer. The maintence of them is checking and maintaining the distilled water levels in the batteries every few months. And in 30 years who knows what the world will be like, other than older.
Kunstler is a pessimist and an alarmist. Most of what he has to say is doubtless true, but he seems a little too confident in his doomsday scenarios. Unlike Jared Diamond (Collapse) or Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down) he is a writer first and a scholar second. The measured tones of these other two writers carry more weight for me. The Long Emergency is very well written and extremely engaging, but compared to the other books just mentioned there is a certain something missing by way of passion, the will to do good, and compassion. It just seems a little resigned and detached. The world desperately needs the wake-up call, but that information is more valuable couched in terms more of hope and less of despair. Kunstler seeks to alarm, but not very much to empower. Maybe his despair comes out of his American context and his long meditations on the dysfunctionalty of American suburbia.
Don't like Iraq? Don't like war? Don't like right-wingers leading America to war? Fine. Do something about it, other than whine. Show the world how to get off oil.
Just back from Iraq, and are enjoying the clean air after coming from a place where an inversion layer of smoke is always impinging on your smell senses. Baghdad could use an air cleanup.
-"Iran have the right to....."
Yes of course, choices are inherently a given right. Problem is, we humans are social beings and are imposing rules on each other to benefit, we want the greatest survival for the greatest number.
You can choose to be a criminal as much as you want, the choice itself is not harmful to anyone, but the actions that comes as a result of that choice is harming the society, and therefore criminal actions are punished, rules an laws that would hinder or prevent the criminal action is put in place by the victims and enforced by a hired law enforcement, so the criminals can not continue to pray on the other members of the society, leaving them unharmed.
Sometimes death of a few in the society is accepted, if the enresult is survival for the greater number. A soldier can expect to be killed in his line of duty.
A nation that have got a regime, that is criminal, have lost all the rights, the same as a criminal that have been convicted and sentenced.
The regime in Iran wants to completely destroy Israel, and the US, so we have now a nation memeber of this earth, that have called out his murder threaths, at the same time as he is busy hammering swords in his blacksmiths shops.
Would Iran be on Mars, Venus or anywhere else this would not matter, but as Iran is situated on the same planet as it's intended victims, this matters, and it also makes Iran a member of humanity, no matter if they like it or not.
Humanity in the power it currently have,... UN , alliances, treaties, weapon pacts, trade blocks, union nations and whatever alliances humanity have managed to concieve...they WILL act in accordance to the humanities most basic instinct.
The basic instinct to let the greatest number of members of the human race survive.
As little as we can have rapists, murderers, thiefs runing around in society, causing havoc, Iran is already judged by his peers, the human race, and found to be guilty.
You see... Rob N. The right is not with the criminal, the right is with the criminals victim.
The intended victims in this case...Israel and the US, and it's allies, could long ago have dropped a terrible destructive weapon upon Iran and this problem would have been solved long ago.
It's not that easy, we are humans, and in our hearts we want the greatest number to survive, even as many Iranians as possilble.
Much of it's population is in strong opposition to it's own regime, and if there is a chance that the opposition can overthrow the current regime, it is all won.
If , like in Germany, the population can not overthrow it's regime( that is why I am in favor of the 2nd Ammendment, the population must be able to overthrow as a last resort, it's rulers if they turn into tyrannts), an the Iranian regime are pushing ahead with it's nuclear programme, to such extent that it is obvious that their warheads are ready, cocked and locked, Iran will be taken out.
Rob N. I don't know how real this is to you, or if you even are able to relate to any of it as relevant, but I will tell you a story what heppened to me when I was in Dubai, two days ago, travelling from Iraq, to the US.
At Dubai Intl Airport I met three Iranians, one man and a woman and a younger boy. The man and the woman was in their upper 20's , and looked dressed like any other westerner ( I don't have a clue what they have to wear in Iran, I can just guess).
They were very intelligent people, they met me with their eyes when they had a point they wanted to get across, and was almost appealing to me to understand them. I listened very intensively, and asked them a lot of quesitons.
They all lived in Teheran, and was on their way back.
They described what was going on, that they had a president and religious rulers that was completely nuts.
They have very hard censorship, very hard rules, and many of their friends have been arrested, for protesting.
Despite that, these people told me they were going to continue to do something, whatever it took to overthrow the regime, and their religious rulers.
They were very aware of the possibility of a military pre emptive strike against them, and almost expected Israeli or US warheads would start falling on them very soon.
These people were also completely clear of the fact that their regime has gotten them into the situation that they are in, and not Israel or the US, or its allies.
I asked them if they wre scared to go back, and they all said "yes" but still they had no problem going back home taking care of their business.
They may succeed, getting rid of their regime, or they may not, the regime stays....but one request really hit me in the heart when we were parting ways.
The woman turned to me, looked me in the eyes, and almost half whispered to me....-"Please....please... pray for us".
Rob N. These Iranian people don't give any "rights" to their oppressors, but you do.
Rob N. These three Iranian people I met are so much greater than you ever will be.
OIL MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND. WITHOUT IT, WE'D COLLAPSE. IT IS ENERGY THAT MAKES EVERYTHING GO, IT INCREASES POPULATION, AND PROBLEMS.
FACTS RELATING TO OIL, FROM THE BOOK, THE UPSIDE OF DOWN,
Population:
Although India's population is growing at the slow rate of 1.4% a year, because the country has over 1 billion people, that low rate translates into an additional 16 million people (or the equivalent of adding an extra Calcutta to its population each year) annually.
In 1950, there were about two poor people for every rich person on Earth; today there are about four; in 2025, there will be nearly six.
Energy:
Between 2000 and the beginning of 2005, China's daily oil imports soared 140%. As recently as 1993, China could meet its oil needs from its own fields; now it imports half its oil, and in fifteen years it will import three-quarters of its supply.
3 large spoonfuls of crude oil contain about the same amount of energy as eight hours of human manual labor. When we fill our car with gas, we're pouring into the tank the energy equivalent of about two years of human manual labor.
Since 1930, the average depth of an oil well in the United States has increased from 1,000 to 2,000 meters, and the average reserves of a new oil field has fallen fell from more than 20 million barrels to fewer than 1 million. And because more work is needed to extract oil in the U.S., the cost of producing a barrel has nearly quadrupled.
While U.S. energy intensity has fallen almost 2 percent annually over the past twenty years, the country's economy has grown faster, at over 3 percent annually. So although energy intensity has dropped almost 40 percent since 1980, the total U.S. appetite for energy has still gone up more than 27 percent.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer of oil, has pumped a total of 46 billion barrels of oil in the past seventeen years, without any decrease in its stated reserve figure of about 260 billion barrels. The world is likely to get no warning before Saudi output peaks — an event that credible authorities suggest could happen soon.
Stresses & Multipliers:
Diverse events like the Iraq war, the 9/11 attacks, the 2005 urban riots in France, and hurricane Katrina may be the foreshocks of a coming global breakdown.
Humankind now makes up one of the largest bodies of genetically identical biomasses on Earth: all of us, taken together, weigh nearly a third of a billion tons. Combined with our proximity in enormous cities, and our constant travel back and forth across the globe, we're now a rich environment — just like a huge Petri dish brimming with nutrients — for the emergence and spread of disease.
The financial repercussions of the September 11th attacks were enormous: the total cost of lost economic growth and decreased equity value around the world ultimately exceeded $1 trillion. Since the cost of the attack on the World Trade Center to Al Qaeda was probably only a few hundred thousand dollars, the terrorists multiplied their impact well over a million-fold.
Living off the Land:
Between 1970 and 2002, the floor area of the average American house grew nearly 50%, even though the number of occupants per house fell.
Between 1977 and 1996, the weight of the average American cheeseburger grew over 25%, and the volume of the average soft drink grew more than 50%.
While a catalytic converter reduces the smog-producing chemicals coming out of a car's tailpipe, it also results in greater gas consumption per mile along with increased emissions of carbon dioxide. In the process of dealing with one problem - urban smog - we've increased our impact on Earth's atmosphere and climate.
China is one of many countries where fires burn nonstop in underground coal seams, often triggered by poor mining practices. By some estimates, these human-created fires in China consume more than two hundred million metric tons of coal each year and produce nearly as much carbon dioxide as all the cars and small trucks in the United States.
About 40% of the world's population now lacks sufficient water for basic sanitation and hygiene, and nearly one out of every five people does not have enough to drink.
Nearly half of the world's major fish stocks are now fished to their maximum limit; since 1950, industrialized fishing has reduced the total mass of large predatory fish in the world's oceans by 90 percent.
Climate & Environment:
Over the past twenty years, warming of the Arctic ocean has been eight times faster than it was over the past hundred years.
Scientists have recently found that the Greenland ice sheet's rate of ice loss has more than doubled in the past ten years, from 90 to 220 cubic kilometers annually. In 2006 the ice sheet will dump into the ocean about 225 times the amount of fresh water that Los Angeles consumes.
According to a 2005 study, the atmosphere's level of carbon dioxide is the highest in 650,000 years.
Nine of the ten hottest years since the 1860s (when people began accurately recording temperature) have occurred since 1995, and 2005 was statistically tied with 1990 as the warmest year on record.
By 2100 emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels are likely to have tripled from today's level to over seventy-five billion metric tons a year — even assuming that new technologies will steadily reduce carbon dioxide output per dollar of GDP.
The International Energy Agency predicts that the increase in China's emissions from 2000 to 2030 will nearly match the increase from all rich countries.
Widening gaps:
Financial crises have become more frequent over the past thirty years. According to the World Bank, ninety-three countries experienced an astonishing 112 systemic banking crises between the late 1970s and the year 2000.
According to UNICEF, 1 billion children (nearly half the children in the world) are severely deprived of nutrition, water, sanitation, health, shelter, or education. Over 640 million children lack adequate shelter, and every day four thousand die because of dirty water or poor sanitation.
At the other end of the spectrum, in 2006 the world has 793 billionaires with a combined wealth of $2.6 trillion. If they'd liquidated this wealth in 2006, they could have hired the poorest half of the world's workers — the 1.4 billion workers who earn a few dollars a day — for almost two years.
In 1870 the average income in the world's richest country was about nine times greater than that in the world's poorest country. By 1990 it was forty-five times greater.
The number of overweight people in the world — about 1.2 billion, mostly in rich countries — now roughly equals the number of underfed and undernourished, almost all in poor countries.
lOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A FEW PROBLEMS ON THIS WHIRLING BALL, MAKING IT'S WAY AROUND THE SUN.
The Iraqi Dinar was never devaluated purposely to near worthlesness, by any US or coalition administrative force.
The Iraqi Dinar have once had the value of about $3.50 about the time Saddam took power long time ago.
The Iraqi Dinar have, during the Saddams time been set different times, but the real exchange value have always been dropping during the whole extent of Saddams rule.
You can research yourself the drop and the timing of Saddam, and you can see that the exchange value have been almost a straight dropping line from Saddams first appearance on the Iraqis political scene, until the time of the Exchange with the NIQ ( the currency we see today).
When Iraq came under sanctions in 1991 by WB/UN and IMF it was just another nail in the coffin for the Iraqi Dinar. The infamous oil for food program started up then. The intent was to curtail Saddams regime financially, not specifically to devalue the Iraqi Dinar, even though that was one of the effects. In 1991 we were happy to call it a victory in Desert Storm and I would like to see anyone in this world that had such a good crystal ball at that time that he could implement the sanctions with the described purpose of denying any future enemy financing after a possible future invasion.
Anyhow, when the new currency was exchanged with the currency with Saddams face on, it was exchanged 1 to 1, and no devaluation took place at that time.("Swiss Dinars", was exchanged higher)
I just wanted to point out that particular historic fact, as it could be interpreted from your blog that there was a concious effort from some of the occupational powers to purpously devalue the dinar before it was exchanged.
It didnt happened that way, the Dinar had already been dropping in value to this point, and at the time of the exchange with the new currency, all that actually took place was a face change of the currency.
The days after the invasion everything that was government owned and not guarded, was looted, so was the Central Bank.
Bremer administration had now a country on his hands without a Cental bank, and therefore no functioning fiscal power source in Iraq.
It had to get reinstated, and Saddams face had to go off the currency quick.
So a bypass of power was enacted, ( an occupational force is in itself a by pass power) and a Central Bank of Iraq was established that aligned itself with the rest of the worlds bank practices, so with WB and UN heavily involved as authorizing agents, the CBI was established almost as a copy of the Federal Reserve Bank.
(You can amuze yourself and read the two banks basic fundamental laws, and you will see how very similar they are)
Any deep concieved plan that looked upon a foresight of depriving AlQueda or opposing forces funding by devalue the currency, in order to make it hard to fund opposition, .....just didn't happened.
First, remember at this time, Iraq was calm, there was very little opposition, and there was no insurgency.That happened after the Dinar had been exchanged for the new currency.
Secondly, any deep thoughts about strategic financial planning just didn't take place, instead, this was a time when financial incompetence was at it's peak.
Loads of US Dollar was brought in, anyone and his brother could come and claim he was a contractor, and needed fifteen millions in advance, and a highschool droppout kid with pimples on his nose would happily give it to you.
Theyre still trying to sort out that mess, and the amount of missing million Dollars are staggering. It's such a high number that it is jawdropping, and much of it is just gone, without trace.
Franko - Let me know when you hear about that, too.
Rob N - I think Roger pegged it pretty well with his reply about Iran not having the right to commit murder or genocide. Thanks, Roger, for those gracious words. You may disagree Rob N, but history writes the tales, not armchair pundits.. and history is, as Roger wrote, filled with tales of people paying for their crimes.
Roger - Inspiring tale of the Iranians you met. It brought tears to my eyes and prayers to my lips.. thanks for sharing.
Doctor Doom, et al - Time for some GOOD NEWS!!!
Please check your numbers.. they are just plain wrong. Do the math, please. First.. on fearmongering over population control.. a pet project of those who want smaller amounts of people whom they can more easily control. Please take the total sum of earth's inhabitants, divide up Texas and Louisiana's square footage and take each of those humans alive - be it a man, woman or child.. and give them a one thousand square foot home. It fits into those two states and the rest of the earth is uninhabited. No joking. Do the math. We are not about to overwhelm the earth or destroy it due to overpopulation. Those who want you to think so are pulling your chain. We are like the flea in Aesop's fable, QUOTE:
Aesop's Fables
THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL
A gnat happened to land on the back of a camel and lingered there on top of the baggage. When he finally decided to disembark, he said, 'I will let myself down now as fast as I can so as not to burden you any longer, weighed down as you are.' 'Much obliged,' said the camel, 'but I was not even aware that you had landed, and your departure is not going to lighten my load.'
===end quote===
Or, try this.. take the largest city in the world according to land area, and place every single man, woman and child in that city standing shoulder to shoulder.. they will all fit in that one city.. leaving the rest of the world completely uninhabited. No joke.. do the math. People don't starve because we don't have enough arable land to feed them with.. they starve because of the Politics of food.
Not to say we should be poor stewards of the earth's resources, of course not.. but stick to the facts, please. It just.. isn't so.
Secondly, on oil.. we are not running out. Just let Americans have the ability to drill and there will be plenty and we will have time to figure out other sources by the time it will (supposedly) run out.
===
Industry Study: Dems Cost US $2.36 Trillion in Oil Money
Monday, February 15, 2010
Jim Hoft
In 2009 Democrats scrapped oil and gas leases in Utah, permanently banned drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and nixed offshore drilling.
For decades Democrats have blocked efforts to responsibly develop this nation’s energy resources, transforming vast areas of opportunity into “The No Zone.”
A new study was released recently that examined the cost of these democratic policies of not drilling and developing domestic oil reserves. The SAIC Corporation discovered that democrats will cost the US $2.36 Trillion through 2029.
Bloomberg reported, via HotAir:
Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.
Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.
Former President George W. Bush and Congress ended bans in 2008 on drilling along the U.S. coastline. The Interior Department hasn’t acted to open the newly available areas, including offshore Alaska and on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Congress has kept the Arctic refuge off limits.
Ed Morrissey added:
There are obviously some opportunity costs lost in the refusal to use our own resources for energy production. Instead of sending billions to Brazil to boost oil production off of their coast, the private sector could invest its own money into leases and extraction. This would create hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs here in the US, as well as reduce our trade deficit. It would provide a more stable bridge towards our shift to replacement energy sources in renewables, while boosting access to cheaper energy in the short run to make the American economy more dynamic. Without it, energy prices will rise much faster than inflation, making our economy more sluggish than necessary.
If THAT isn't enough to cheer you up.. read this one:
===
Peak Oil Theory in Crisis
Posted in: Guest Commentary
By Jerry A. Kane
Monday, September 14, 2009
Peak Oil cult membership may wane now that scientists have proved fossil fuels can be created synthetically by replicating the high pressure, high temperature conditions found in the upper mantle of the earth's crust. In other words, the fossils of animals and plants aren't needed to produce oil and gas, which means oil and natural gas will be easier to find and may abound all over the world.
The three-member team (Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov, Alexander Goncharov) of research scientists at the Lomonosov Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have simulated the process of generating hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas. Gaseous hydrocarbons are produced naturally in the inner strata of the earth's crust by pressure and heat.
Kutcherov says the research clearly indicates that oil supplies are not drying up, a persistent fear of experts and researchers in the field.
"There is no doubt that our research has shown that raw oil and natural gas occur without the inclusion of fossils. All types of rock formations can act as hosts for oil deposits," Kutcherov claims.
The energy required to produce synthetic fuels is prohibitive, so the researchers have promoted their discovery as an aid to conventional drilling rather than for surface level production of synthetic fossil fuels. Drilling for oil and natural gas is an expensive process, and the scientists estimate their discovery will increase drilling accuracy from 20 – 70 percent, which will create a cost savings for both petroleum companies and consumers.
According to Kutcherov, 61 percent of the world's total energy consumption comes from raw oil and natural gas, a fact that makes his team's findings extremely important.
Currently, the researchers are looking to refine the method that makes it easier to locate drilling points for oil and natural gas. Their findings were published online July 26 and appear in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience 2 566 – 570 (2009).
I have not an issue with an organic movement to remove the current Iranian regime; that is self-determination. If you read my post I make the statement that the Iranian people have a fundamnetal right to choose their own path without interference from the United States.
I oppose covert operations initiated by our CIA or by our Industrial Military Complex to overthrow Iran's government. It is not our directive to interfere in internal Iranian affairs. Obviously, both you and Sara missed the meaning of my post. I suppose I did not explain it well enough. I hope these statements clarify my position. It is the people that must rise up and make the change not an inference from an outside source.
U.S. foreign policy toward Iran has been combative since the populous uprising that overthrew the Shah of Iran. Those people did not want American Imperialism then and the people of Iran do not want American Imperialism now.
Our debacle in the desert will teach us we cannot interfere in the internal affairs of a soveregin nation. A populous or national movement will arise in Iraq and it is my hope the occupiers (The Great Satan: America) are embarrassed there too. The people of Iraq will cast out the regime of Al-Malaki and his corrupted bi-cameral parliament. I believe the people must make a choice toward self-determination. The current regime and U.S. rigged elections is not self-determination. I find cause to rejoice that after 8 years of war in Iraq victory has not been declared and George W. Bush was made a fool by declaring such aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Barack Hussein Obama will also be made a fool in Afghanistan; our troops like the Soviets before will be forced to withdraw. Like Iraq, Obama and our industrial military complex will not declare victory in there either. The Afghan people do not want American Imperialism. Afghanistan has been said to be the graveyard of empires. Once America has been defeated Karzai and his puppet regime will be powerless. The people of Afghanistan will exact justice upon him for being alligned with the western occupiers.
Finally, we may be our own worst enemy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Budget deficits of 12.3 trillion dollars makes these wars unsustainable; coupled with Bernanke injecting liquidity by printing more currency threatens our very way of life here at home. The Chinese have stopped buying U.S. Treauries and now they are beginning to sell. Once the mass rush by our foregin creditors begin to sell the U.S. Dollar it will the economic collapse of America and the crash of the dollar. A depression with Zimbabwe like inflation will occur; we will all be millionaires but a worthless currency will buy us nothing.
I saw on CNN yesterday the plan for another round of stimulous. Instead of a stimulous we need massive tax cuts and cuts in government spending and a cut in Medicare, Medicade, and Social Security spending. Our government officials are not brave enough to correct the course we are on. Once the economy collapses and the dollar implodes both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will come to an end. Perphaps we can start over or we might want to start learning Mandarin.
Thanks for the refresher on the constitution, lets hope we never lose our rights! As far as the Mandarin....didn't waste my time.
Roger,
Welcome back home and to clean air. My experience in Balad was the same and became sick from it! Anyway thank both of you for the good reads, Im here till the end! God bless America!
"Please take the total sum of earth's inhabitants, divide up Texas and Louisiana's square footage and take each of those humans alive - be it a man, woman or child.. and give them a one thousand square foot home. It fits into those two states and the rest of the earth is uninhabited. No joking. Do the math."
That sounds too crowded. If the world is so simple, why are so many children starving?
‘Net Energy’ Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society
Post Carbon Institute & International Forum on Globalization - September 2009
Overview
THIS REPORT IS INTENDED as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society’s energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed—but in any case they are unacceptably hazardous to the environment. And contrary to the hopes of many, there is no clear practical scenario by which we can replace the energy from today’s conventional sources with sufficient energy from alternative sources to sustain industrial society at its present scale of operations. To achieve such a transition would require (1) a vast financial investment beyond society’s practical abilities, (2) a very long time—too long in practical terms—for build-out, and (3) significant sacrifices in terms of energy quality and reliability.
Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation. There is a strong likelihood that future energy systems, both conventional and alternative, will have higher energy input costs than those that powered industrial societies during the last century.We will come back to this point repeatedly.
The report explores some of the presently proposed energy transition scenarios, showing why, up to this time, most are overly optimistic, as they do not address all of the relevant limiting factors to the expansion of alternative energy sources. Finally, it shows why energy conservation (using less energy, and also less resource materials) combined with humane, gradual population decline must become primary strategies for achieving sustainability.
The world’s current energy regime is unsustainable. This is the recent, explicit conclusion of the International Energy Agency1, and it is also the substance of a wide and growing public consensus ranging across the political spectrum. One broad segment of this consensus is concerned about the climate and the other environmental impacts of society’s reliance on fossil fuels.The other is mainly troubled by questions regarding the security of future supplies of these fuels—which, as they deplete, are increasingly concentrated in only a few countries.
To say that our current energy regime is unsustainable means that it cannot continue and must therefore be replaced with something else.However, replacing the energy infrastructure of modern industrial societies will be no trivial matter. Decades have been spent building the current oil-coal-gas infrastructure, and trillions of dollars invested. Moreover, if the transition from current energy sources to alternatives is wrongly managed, the consequences could be severe: there is an undeniable connection between per-capita levels of energy consumption and economic well-being.2 A failure to supply sufficient energy, or energy of sufficient quality, could undermine the future welfare of humanity, while a failure to quickly make the transition away from fossil fuels could imperil the Earth’s vital ecosystems.
Nonetheless, it remains a commonly held assumption that alternative energy sources capable of substituting for conventional fossil fuels are readily available—whether fossil (tar sands or oil shale), nuclear, or a long list of renewables—and ready to come on-line in a bigger way. All that is necessary, according to this view, is to invest sufficiently in them, and life will go on essentially as it is.
But is this really the case? Each energy source has highly specific characteristics. In fact, it has been the characteristics of our present energy sources (principally oil, coal, and natural gas) that have enabled the building of a modern society with high mobility, large population, and high economic growth rates. Can alternative energy sources perpetuate this kind of society? Alas, we think not.
While it is possible to point to innumerable successful alternative energy production installations within modern societies (ranging from small homescale photovoltaic systems to large “farms” of threemegawatt wind turbines), it is not possible to point to more than a very few examples of an entire modern industrial nation obtaining the bulk of its energy from sources other than oil, coal, and natural gas. One such rare example is Sweden, which gets most of its energy from nuclear and hydropower. Another is Iceland, which benefits from unusually large domestic geothermal resources, not found in most other countries. Even in these two cases, the situation is more complex than it appears.The construction of the infrastructure for these power plants mostly relied on fossil fuels for the mining of the ores and raw materials, materials processing, transportation, manufacturing of components, the mining of uranium, construction energy, and so on. Thus for most of the world, a meaningful energy transition is still more theory than reality. But if current primary energy sources are unsustainable, this implies a daunting problem. The transition to alternative sources must occur, or the world will lack sufficient energy to maintain basic services for its 6.8 billion people (and counting).
Thus it is vitally important that energy alternatives be evaluated thoroughly according to relevant criteria, and that a staged plan be formulated and funded for a systemic societal transition away from oil, coal, and natural gas and toward the alternative energy sources deemed most fully capable of supplying the kind of economic benefits we have been accustomed to from conventional fossil fuels.
By now, it is possible to assemble a bookshelf filled with reports from nonprofit environmental organizations and books from energy analysts, dating from the early 1970s to the present, all attempting to illuminate alternative energy transition pathways for the United States and the world as a whole.These plans and proposals vary in breadth and quality, and especially in their success at clearly identifying the factors that are limiting specific alternative energy sources from being able to adequately replace conventional fossil fuels.
It is a central purpose of this document to systematically review key limiting factors that are often left out of such analyses.We will begin that process in the next section. Following that, we will go further into depth on one key criterion: net energy, or energy returned on energy invested (EROEI).This measure focuses on the key question: All things considered, how much more energy does a system produce than is required to develop and operate that system? What is the ratio of energy in versus energy out? Some energy “sources” can be shown to produce little or no net energy. Others are only minimally positive.
Unfortunately, as we shall see in more detail below, research on EROEI continues to suffer from lack of standard measurement practices, and its use and implications remain widely misunderstood. Nevertheless, for the purposes of large-scale and long-range planning, net energy may be the most vital criterion for evaluating energy sources, as it so clearly reveals the tradeoffs involved in any shift to new energy sources.
This report is not intended to serve as a final authoritative, comprehensive analysis of available energy options, nor as a plan for a nation-wide or global transition from fossil fuels to alternatives. While such analyses and plans are needed, they will require institutional resources and ongoing reassessment to be of value.The goal here is simply to identify and explain the primary criteria that should be used in such analyses and plans, with special emphasis on net energy, and to offer a cursory evaluation of currently available energy sources, using those criteria.This will provide a general, preliminary sense of whether alternative sources are up to the job of replacing fossil fuels; and if they are not, we can begin to explore what might be the fall-back strategy of governments and the other responsible institutions of modern society.
As we will see, the fundamental disturbing conclusion of the report is that there is little likelihood that either conventional fossil fuels or alternative energy sources can reliably be counted on to provide the amount and quality of energy that will be needed to sustain economic growth—or even current levels of economic activity—during the remainder of the current century.
This preliminary conclusion in turn suggests that a sensible transition energy plan will have to emphasize energy conservation above all. It also raises questions about the sustainability of growth per se, both in terms of human population numbers and economic activity.
Hard copies of the report are available for purchase from IFG at $15/copy
Are you with the military or a contractor? Youv'e been in JBB, still in the big snake? Still there? I was in Taji with KBR TTM.
The Taji base was almost always in a stinky inversion layer of smoke from the burnpit.
I went to F2, Sad'r City, War Eagle and a lot of smaller bases all around Baghdad area quite a bit, and almost always the same stink in the air.
On the way between Taji and F2 there is a huge big dump, a couple of square miles big, with Iraqis living in mud huts, with goats and children (and always a satellite antenna on the roof), and theyre always burning there.
Outside of Sad'r city there is a big refinery, with a constant burning big sothy flame, and any dump of tires are never shreded, and recycled, but used by the Iraqis as fuel. Every road block between Taji and JBB burns three or four tires per night, as a way for the Iraqi Army to keep warm. Used motor oil is burned, no need to spare the earth of contamination, because there is naturally so much oil in the ground that gravel looks patchy wet in summer time.
Cars have no air cleaning devices, and a cathalytic converter would probably not survive too long anyway, with the gas that is sold. It's hard to say what kind of gas it is. It is mainly sold by private individuals along the road, with a couple of very dirty plastic containers, with something that hopefully is gasoline in them.
100% of electricity on any of the big US bases are made by container size generators parked along each other in groups, and endlessly running and refilled with fuelers. Most lectricity produced in the Baghdad area comes from smaller generator units endlessly running it's diesel engines, and the fixed electric grid are still used in lesser procent.
Some newer cars are in traffic now, but still, the majority of the vehicles are old and some are real smokers.
All in all, this big cake of smog in the area will sting the newcomer in the nose, it is a pungient undefined smell that by guess seems to be a combination of plastic, PVC, rubber, diesel smoke combined with endless dust in the air.
I could see it in Taji on occasion, but especially in Anaconda, all the treffic with trucks of every kind, running on dusty roads, will kick up a local dust storm on occasion, and many times you can see the base from a distance judging from where the dust cloud is.
Franko, I don't know if you have been around much, depending on your job or duty, but as being on convoy in TTM I was around quite a bit.
I was one of the last trucks pulling out of TQ when it closed, and oh man did we haul out junk, and left good stuff behind. The Iraqis was to take over the base at noon the next day as I departed.
Only a week later I got word that much of the stuff we left behind in TQ was being sold in Baghdad flea markets.
I've got a lot of stories from my time in Iraq, good, bad, and ugly.
My last two weeks I spent in Liberty , I was on an inside the wire LOTD mission, and Demobed from there. During that time I picked up so uch Dinar rumors that it was almost unreal.
Tell me something, in the base your'e on right now, do you hear the same rumors?
Are the subject of Dinars coming up more frequently now?
It would be interesting to confirm if what I experienced was only a local phenomenon, or if it is the same rumor mill all around right now.
Rob N.
On the issue of sovreign nations, and other nations interference....all your arguments mean squat, if one person threatens to murder another person....or one nation promises to eradicate another nation.....same shit ....different wrapping.
I can tell you this though, regarding you prognosis of the Dollars implosion.
I wouldnt give much for all your Dollar theories, they might fit your Nostradamus crystal ball, and you may have all your lines connected with all your dots, it's just that I am sorry to say but most of your dots are false.
We need a weak Dollar right now, did you hear that???
A weak currency, means our goods and services will have a chance to be exported.
If I would be worried about a currency, I would be more worried about the Euro right now.
We ( the US and Canadian trade zone) are right now much further ahead in recovery than most of the world.
It don't work the way you're describing it with a declining Dollar.
Currencies value are determined in a couple of basic ways. It is traded openly and freely without any interference from any source.
That is usually the case for North American and European currencies.
Japan, Singapore , Australian, and NZ. The currencies in the Asian zone, are still freely traded currencies, but will have Central banks that are more prone to a more direct effort to manipulate their currencies.
FIAT currencies, have set value of their currencies in comparison with another "peg" currency, or an average of a currency basket. This are completely controlled currencies.( Iraqi Dinars ...anyone?)
A currency is worth as much as someone else is prepared to buy it for.
Value of currencies are held at levels determined by interest rates in tht particular contry.
Japan, is an export nation, and will benefit very much if their currency is held down or valued very low. Sony, Honda and all those Japanee mega companies benefit with increased sales if this is happening, and thus the whole nation.
So..if you want to deposit any money in any Japanese bank, you will get the most shit poor interest on the planet earth. They are holding it down in this way, and thus Kawasaki is a hot bike all over the world.
Australia and NZ are a comodity rich trade source, gold, butter you name it, but they dont have the Japanese consumption goods production, so they will benefit from a very strong currency.
So what do they do, well if you want to put money in a bank somewhere, Australia and NZ is one of the best interest paying places to put it in, and so the hedge fund managers do just that.
So where is the money borrowed from....be smart now....Japan, you can borrow money and only have to pay a very small interest, with those money, you buy NZ or Australian Dollar, and deposit the money in Australia or NZ.
So, now you get a very big interest on money you borrowed from a place where you only have to pay very little interest for it. The difference is bagged as profit, and brought back as US Dollars.
Rob N. this is the way things work, it is not conspiracies by Rotchilds, or evil presidents.
The US Dollar needs to be weak right now, the problem is that the rest of the world also are very weak, and in a recession, so their currencies are sparring in weakness.
The Federal Bank in the US or Central Banks in Europe are trying to weaken their currency, for their export to pick up, and as we speak we have right now very low interest rates all over the board.
And correctly observed...when the interest is low, fewer foreign investments will be made in this country by foreign investment banks, foreign funds etc....of course, its simple, we have such a low interest rate so why would they.
The intrest rate is slowly creeping up now, it is still in a very low range, but just by the fact that it is creeping up, it means that we are recovering.
The Dollar is responsible for about 85% of all money transactions all over the world. The Euro is big, but is not even close.
Look at this difference in perception. Euro is worth more on the face than the Dollar, but is a much smaller volume currency.
Trades for goods, funds, stocks comodities, or just trades for pure money speculation totals all in all a volume of 3 Trillion Dollars a day. That is with a T and an R.
With other words, the whole worlds trade volume in Dollar , would need only a COUPLE OF DAYS TO COMPLETELY SWALLOW UP THE TOTAL US DEBT.
This mr Rob N, leaves us with your laugable proposition that evil presidents, secret societies and secret sworn conspiracies are brewing behind any and all money that moves on this planet.
Why don't you just admit it....you don't have a clue...right?
Doctor Doom,
How may holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall?
Sara,
Just curious, are you learning Mandarin?
Steve,
I have also had some problems getting in on ISX lately.
( I am joining the crowd that tries to put a deep meaning into everything, and hereby declare that this means that an RV will happen last week)
I read your comments and I must say you are the one that is wrong. Bernanke and and little Timmy Geithner are out to destroy this currency. The U.S. currently has a 13 trillion deficit and printing currency out of nothing will contribute to a Zimbabwe like inflation. Who holds the majority of this debt? China. For too long the U.S. has exported its debt to the Asian Dragon; while we have been consumming Chinese made televisions, toys, and trinkets they have been buying U.S. real estate like the Emipre State Building.
China is a creditor nation characterized by a robust economy and a trade surplus; in contrast, the U.S. is a debtor nation. Because of this injection of phantom currency and Chinese refusal to buy more junk U.S. treasuries the financial collapse of the USD and our economy is inevitable. It is a real possibility that China dumps those trillions of dollars? George W. Bush and now Obama has placed this country in a compromising position and they both should be tried for treason along with our own Military Industrial Complex, Now, it is China that is on the rise to be the next super-power and the U.S. is in decline. At last count the average Chinese citizen saved 35% of their income; in contrast, the citizens of the USD save only 1% of income.
A country that only consumes and never produces is a country that will end like the Roman Empire did. A country that produces and comsumes very little will be a powerful country. The United States is passe; we had our time as a super-power. Just as the 19th century saw the decline of Great Britain and the rise of America; the 21st century will see the rise of China. China is the future. I suggest we all learn Mandarin because we will need to know it to conduct business; instead of the USD being the world reserve currency the Chinese Yuan will become the world's reserve currency. America is finished.
Never count United States out, you have very good point that if we do not get are finanical straight we will collapse, and that is right for everyone, China also is in a finacial Bubble and soon it will also feel the pain of over building and producing, right along with the EURO nations comsuming nations with debit will also be the end of the Euro, but the Dollar will still be the world reserve currency not the Chinese Yuan which have been devalued for years.
Dr. Doom asked, "If the world is so simple, why are so many children starving?"
I covered that.. when I said, "People don't starve because we don't have enough arable land to feed them with.. they starve because of the Politics of food."
A few examples of food being used politically leap to mind.
Think about the war between the Hutus and the Tutus.. they just plain hated each other. There was war, fleeing, killing, refugee camps. There were skirmishes between them and the world sent them aid. But the militant ones got ahold of the aid by force and kept the food from the refugee camps. People starved. It wasn't due to a lack of willingness or aid which could have provided for those people.. it was due to the POLITICS of some preventing others from obtaining food.
Russia did something similar to the Ukranians, taking their food and making them starve. Don't tell me the Ukraine could not support their people with food, the Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. The Russians made them harvest their crops and then put it into shipments and sent it back to Russia, killing anyone who tried to take a handful of food for themselves or their families. The people were so desperate, there were reports of people eating those who died. The Russians put up signs saying, "It is immoral to eat people." Yeah, that really helped.
Similarly in the Myanmar disaster recently where there was aid sent but the government did not distribute the food to its starving people nor did it allow in any aid workers to bring relief.
In these cases and countless others, it isn't due to overpopulation that people starve. It is due to mankind's basic inhumanity to their fellow man. Basically, it is a heart problem and the fact that those who control power are often the most ruthless, immoral, corrupt and heartless people. Look around at the governments of the world.. how many would you like to live under? Is it coincidental that those you would NOT like to live under have starvation in their country? I don't think so. That is the politics of food.
They say power corrupts. That corruption leads to starvation for many people. It is like wealth. The world isn't mainly poor because there isn't enough wealth to go around. It has to do with politics.. poverty or prosperity are a result of politics. Incorrect policies result in poor outcomes like poverty and starvation.. and good policies result in good outcomes like prosperity and plenty of food to eat. If you need to know which policies are the ones which are successful in bringing about prosperity and plenty, you go to those who have done it successfully and morally. Note we don't speak of children starving to death by the thousands in America.. maybe there is a reason for that. Just as there is a reason for the very sad stories of those who do starve to death in other countries. Again, the politics of food. If it were only about numbers, we would see starvation increase with population, even in America. It simply does not happen that way - correlated to population growth - in the USA or other developed nations. The successful nations are simply not like in the places which have widespread poverty and starvation. The answer lies elsewhere for the answer to poverty and starvation than with the numbers of people. It lies with the policies and politics of food.
Roger,
Here till the end I meant on this site and holding to my dinars win or lose. My job as a contractor was related to security but to what extent and who I worked for I cannot divulge here as to whom may read, one to one would be ok. Hopefully one day if we were to meet as in a pig roast I to could share some stories, and yes it was one hell of a ride. I was in the Mid East for 3 years 2003, to 06 mostly in Iraq "Balad, Bagdad, Biap, Kirkuk and TQ" and other places not relevant to here. The experience alone made me realize that there is no other place to live than the U.S. and those who disagree need to live it themselves. Some of my buddies are still there and what they tell me confirms what you have written. Time will tell and patience is what I have learned with this investment. There were a couple locals selling but I purchased my stash in 04 from a guy named Friday at Anaconda and it didn’t take long for him to sell quickly all what he had the days he came. I know he must have made a killing alone on the spread. This is my one concern with the rumors there for this is how they make there their living. I can see it coming together and hope that the Iraqi government is appreciative enough to take care of their people and for us to share in its wealth for what we have done. If I hear anything that sounds promicing I'll be sure to share here. Hats off to you Roger for putting yourself in harm’s way and hope you stay home for awhile.
Sara said, about millions of people starving: "I covered that.. when I said, "People don't starve because we don't have enough arable land to feed them with.. they starve because of the Politics of food."
Go read "The Weathermakers". Soon hundreds of millions around the world will starve because we Americans like to drive big cars and destroy the natural weather patterns, by having too big a carbon foot print. Africa soon won't be able to feed it's people at all, no matter what. Same with Australia. Much of America's heartland will be barren deserts. Thank you, Exxon.
The "Politics of food" is the big oil companies wanting the public hooked on a fuel source that is destroying the world. They don't care because they make money on it.
Glad you "covered that". Tell that to the starving children of the world.
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I'll say it again
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
Í don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in Mantra
I don't believe in gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that's reality
The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dreamweaver
But now I'm reborn
I was the Walrus
But now I'm John
And so dear friends
You just have to carry on
The dream is over
"Soon hundreds of millions around the world will starve because we Americans..."
Hasn't happened yet.
SOON.. means it hasn't happened.
You THINK it will.
AND you think the cause of it is AMERICANS.
You need a placard around your neck stating "THE END IS NEAR"..
Wait a sec.. isn't that supposed to be religious nutjobs who do that?
I know, I know.. if Americans sneeze over here, Africa becomes infested with disease..
its all so interrelated or something, in your religious viewpoint.
I just don't buy it.
And if the arguments were so logical and scientific, you would be able to summarize it simply and easily here, (instead of implying by your words that I am in need of reeducation and should read one of your recommended Climategate books. - ed) No.. it isn't easy or commonsense.. its nonsense, and most people, thankfully, know it and don't get sucked in to the scaremongering of folks who think the earth is about to end.. due to Climategate where, as Doctor Doom said in his post, quote "Soon hundreds of millions around the world will starve because we Americans like to drive big cars and destroy the natural weather patterns, by having too big a carbon foot print." It's a religion, Doctor D, - an irrationally based worship of the earth. And as Jesus said, people either ultimately serve God, or money.
Hence:
===
Global Warming Fraudsters Bilked EU & US for £800,000 Annually for Last 20 Years
Sunday, February 14, 2010, 4:05 PM
Jim Hoft
This weekend top global warming expert Professor Phil Jones the former director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) admitted that global warming was a fraud.
-* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has gone missing
-* There has been no global warming since 1995
-* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changes
Jones admitted this weekend that there has been no significant global warming in the last 15 years.
But, that didn’t stop these fraudsters from bilking the EU and US for £800,000 ($1,253,624.84) annually for the last 20 years.
The members of the CRU were not the only ones bilking the system. Al Gore saw his net worth grow from $2 million in 2000 to over $100 million in 2008.
EDP24 reported:
Over the last 20-year period, CRU’s budget has been an average of £800,000 per annum which comes from various sources, mainly research grants but also from the European Union and from the US Department of Energy, which has helped fund Prof Jones’ work.
---
Isn’t it about time for a full scale investigation of this massive green fraud?
Sara quoted me, saying I supposedly said, ""You are so stupid, read one of our books."....you know perfectly well I never said that. Quotes are used to replicate what someone else said. I never said that. It's not nice to lie, Sara.
Sara, Religion is based on belief. Scientific training is not a religion. It deals with evidence, and is open to revision. There are a flaws in the data on any theory, but the overwhelming evidence is in favor of global warming as a theory. Scientists who study it don't get paid to come up with preconceived notions. However, skeptics get paid by oil companies to debunk the theory.
It's not nice to destroy God's creation and then deny your sin. Destroying the earth is a very big sin.
Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real Story Highlights
•Most earth scientists believe humans cause of global warming, according to survey
•97 percent of climatologists canvassed believe humans play a role
(CNN) -- Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists. However there remains divisions between climatologists and scientists from other areas of earth sciences as to the extent of human responsibility.
A survey of more than 3,000 scientists found that the vast majority believe humans cause global warming.
Against a backdrop of harsh winter weather across much of North America and Europe, the concept of rising global temperatures might seem incongruous.
However the results of the investigation conducted at the end of 2008 reveal that vast majority of the Earth scientists surveyed agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.
The study released today was conducted by academics from the University of Illinois, who used an online questionnaire of nine questions. The scientists approached were listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.
Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement.
"The petroleum geologist response is not too surprising, but the meteorologists' is very interesting," said Peter Doran associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and one of the survey's authors.
"Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon."
However, Doran was not surprised by the near-unanimous agreement by climatologists.
"They're the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it.
"The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes," said Doran
I am sure there is a conspiracy to destroy our currency, all planned by Fed reserve Bank, Rotchilds and evil presidents.
You bought the book that says so, so I the rest of us must be the suckers, nevermind that the book costs 49.95.
Let me give you a couple of other concepts to lick on, lick on them slowly like a lollipop you like, and maybe by looking at it long enough, it ...may...sink in.
Dollar implosion, dollar being worthless.
The Dollar is valued in comparison to other currencies, that is the value you can give it.
The higher costs you see at WalMart and Popeye, is another phenomenon. That is inflation, inflation in itself is a value decreasing effect, but that is a steady effect on all economies, not only the US economy.
Other currencies are also experiencing inflation, so the stories you have heard from your grand parents that they remember when gas was 16 cents a gallon, are not unique to this country. They are happening in all the other countries with their currencies also.
There can be a percieved collaps of the Dollar when everything seems to be more and more expensive, but I can assure you that you can go to most any country and the same perception is there as well.
The value of the Dollar is what the Dollar is worth in comparison with other currencies.
After WW2 a fixed system was set up, in where almost all the maincurrencies had been given a fixed value , this was the Bretton Woods agrement that was disbandoned in the eary-70's. During that period the Dollar was overvalued.
Since then, the Dollar have to prove itself on the open market, like most other currencies.
The Dollar follows the market pretty much the way it should.
For example, Gold up-Dollar down. Oil Down-Dollar up. High base interest rate- Dollar up. Low interest rate- Dollar down, and so on. There are a lot more indicators, but just to give a few examples.
The Dollar is hard to manipulate, but the Feds have in their hands a pretty good tool, setting interest rates.
Right now as we have a global recession, and in order to protect the home economy, we now badly need a low rated Dollar ( remeber rated low in comparison with other currencies) an of course the feds implement low interest rates.
(I know Rob N. You have an idea that they are doing this in order to destroy the Dollar and they have a secretly conceived plan to destroy America or whatever)
There are always fluctuations on currency values, and you can see a prime example of it now, when oil is going up, and interest rates are low here in the US.
However, overall value of the Dollar (compared with other currencies)on a long track back, shows that the Dollar have fluctuated in cycles, but in general been the most steady currency in the world.
The British Pound have had a much more rollercoaster existence, not to talk about the Euro, when it first was introduced, it went straight down in value, and had to be propped up on an emergency basis by Canada, US and the Brits, and only after that, did it stabilize itself.
The Euro is right now vastly overvalued, and Greece is almost bankrupt. Other European nations, mainly alongside the Mediteranean Sea, just didn't seem to take off finacially as hoped, when the Euro was introduced, instead they have dragged the Euro into a crisis.
Irans Fachist Dictator was the first one that started to scream and promoted the idea to leave the Dollar, Hugo Chavez from Venezuela jumped in into that choir, and ofcourse MSM hooked on to it, and have us all belive that the US Dollar is not in demand no more.
Crock of shit.
Again Rob N. I hate to repeat myself, but after a fact is presented to you, you seem to have a hard time to get that "aha" moment.....so, again.
3 Trillion Dollars are traded with Daily on the money market, and the vast vast majority of that trade is in Dollar.
The money market is not only someone trying to make money on exchanging currencies, but all the big banks and big companies are in on that market. You need to buy copper from Chile, and in order to fill that order on 5 shiploads of copper you might need 850 gazillion bucks converted into their currency. The "smart money" guys that are buying stocks, might think that the Japanese stock market is very attractive and wants in, so here goes the Dollar and here comes the Yen, and here comes the stock purchases.
Politicians, that are voted in and out every 4 years , or secret societies have minimal effect on the value of currencies. They can manipulate it, like the central banks(Fed Reserve in our country) are trying to do to get advantageous currency rating, may it be high or low, depending on the circumstance.
However the juggernaut that the finance world are streaming around the world each second is in volume so big that the US debt is swallowed within a couple of days, the Chinese hording of the Dollar may take almost a week to swallow, but all in all, as big as the Chinese pile is, and as big as the national debt is, it is small potato compare with the enormous financial muscle that is pulsating everyday all around the world.
Individual persons has on occasion been able to manipulate this currency stream. George Soros was betting against the British Pound at a time when the Brit was very vunerable, having signed up to a financial pact ( basically the fore runner to the now in effect European Union), that it could not sustain.
He was able to rip off the Brits about a Billion Dollars worth of currency. ( guess he is a very popular person in the UK now)
Those maneuvers are very very few, and would he had tried today, he would most probably have not succeded.
That's twenty years ago, and the rip off is still a legend.
Central Banks are trying to push the currency value in one diraction or the other, in the Americas, and the EU field, it is more a long term management of currency value, while in the Asian hemisphere, Central banks are trying to intervene on the daily run of things, by trying to lower or raise their currencies, with different tricks.
However, even if a Federal Bank, or a Central Bank are intervening, there is absolutely no guarentee that the currency will behave exactly like they want it to do.
There are plenty of history about that.
So the value of a currency is in the end a very hard animal to govern, unless it is a Fiat currency, and most likely reason for that is that the currency market is governed by chaos.
A predictable and useable business pattern is possible to develop for stock market, commodity market and fund market but the world is still today waiting for a reliable business model for the currency market. It is too volatile, and chaotic.
The money market, Rob N. this is the exact market that determines any currencys value, is an international, borderless entity, that have no clearing house, no regulation and no over seer.
It consist of basically a separate world wide web, where everyone and his brother can bid, buy and sell.
The big players in this field is primarily banks, big and small, from all over the world, finance institutions, and all the big brand companies you can recall hearing and seeing that exist on the stock market, both in the US and outside of the US. ( how many car manufacturers can you name, how many electronic companies do you know, how may telecommunication companies can you remember...)
THAT, my dear Rob N, is determining the value of the Dollar, and any other currency as well.
Rob N.....any other statement is false.
I am really trying to make you understand how the wheels spin, and honest Rob N. I really don't feel like going back and do this over and over again, either you get it or you don't.
You have been on conspiracy weebsites, listen to assholes, that don't know squat, they are loud, demanding and doom and gloom.
The Dollar is not imploding even if your websites are saying so, your books in this subject are not worth the paper they are printed on, an all the secret societies, evil presidents, and brainwashed co conspirators that are trying to destroy us all .....are in fact existing.
They exist in your own reality bubble.
Hard to pop such a complex creation, isn't it?
Good luck Rob N.
Franko,
I am home for good now. Seems like you did a good deal on your Dinar. And, you're right, some of the stuff from over there is security stuff and can not be discussed in an open forum.
I guess the time you were there and the time I was there was two completely different time periods.
In the very beginning, it was all "go boys", a lot of improvisation, and a "go" attitude.
It was still a little bit of that when I came there at first, but it changed gradually to -"Were done, lets get out of here" attitude.
I am very glad I went there though, I saw it firsthand, and have another experience under my belt now.
One thing I observed just at the end there, was that there are a lot of reorganizations going on righ tnow, bases are closing, and there seem to be an endless relocation of people back and forth, big numbers, at least in the transportation sector, I was in.
I did also notice that it is probably close to another wave of layoffs, or at least a purging of some people. there was a lot of people that had less and less to do, and it will probably come as a natural consequense as more and more troops are leaving.
Either way, thats behind me now, and now I am getting my attention back to the Dinar.
Thanks, Roger, for straightening out Rob N, who was starting to catch on to our secrets about how we control the money supply. Well, I gotta go to my Elders of Zion meeting....muhahahahahahahahahahah....
So much has happened since that time to disprove manmade global warming, have you followed the debate at all since that time?
The main part of the article is summarized at its top and basically it is stated in the first sentence of the article, "Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists."
So, the point of your posts (apart from the off topic correction where I should not have put that statement in quotes as it could be construed as quoting you, sorry - though I thought the context enough to disprove such a claim - Admin, correct/edit it?) - the point you are making appears to be that 3000 scientists agreed to manmade global warming and this was a "concensus" of scientific opinion, correct? If so then your argument is not on the data but about how many people can agree with you and if you are in The Majority. Based on that argument then, I will see your 3000 scientists and raise you an additional 28,000 scientists in this article:
Obviously, if expert opinion is the bar for acceptance, then it is not true when you say, "the overwhelming evidence is in favor of global warming as a theory." However, you also obviously did not read or assimilate the latest data I quoted showing the data was FAKED they based their theory on. Perhaps you should reread it. I summarize it here:
-* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has "gone missing"
-* There has been no global warming since 1995
-* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changes
Jones admitted this weekend that there has been no significant global warming in the last 15 years.
(end quote)
Hello!! Notice.. NO Global Warming in the last 15 years.
And you call that SCIENCE??
So you are here quoting this article saying 3000 scientists agree that manmade global warming is so.. but what about the 31,000 who disagree? If you take "expert" opinion, which ones are to be regarded and which discarded? Will you now say the case is proven by the larger base of scientific opinion against manmade GW? At the least, can you take the scientific approach and agree that there is no consensus at all, and this, like all true science, is open to revision?
===
Scientific “Consensus” of Man-made Global Warming is a Myth
Friday 31 August 2007
A new study using methods endorsed by the Al Gore crowd concludes that there is no “consensus” among scientists that man is contributing to global warming. Also can 31,000 scientists be wrong?
One of the most often cited pieces of evidence that man is causing global warming is a study by Naomi Oreskes that showed 75% of the examined scientific abstracts either explicitly or implicitly backed a view that man was contributing to global warming. This “consensus view” has been repeated ad nauseam, ad infinitum and is behind Al Gore's “the case is closed” statements. The Naomi Oreskes study was based on a keyword search of a database of scientific studies. This keyword search found 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003. Of those 928 abstracts 75% explicitly or implicitly backed the “consensus view” of anthropogenic climate change (or man-made global warming).
Of course there has been a lot of criticism of this study in that it is not at all scientific even though its purpose is to review scientific studies. To begin with the keyword search only looked for “global climate change”, if your viewpoint doesn't believe in global warming you may not use that term. Certain terminology is used by people if they have a certain viewpoint, other terms may be used if they have the opposite viewpoint. There were other studies that challenged the “consensus view” that showed as few as 30% of the studies supported the “anthropogenic climate change” view.
Since many of the studies found in Naomi Oreskes' survey are now nearly 15 years old a new survey was done using the same techniques. By examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte repeated Oreskes' study. The new study found 528 papers that matched the search results for the period 2004 through February 2007. Of those only 7% gave an explicit endorsement of the “consensus view”. Extending the scope to those that gave either an explicit or implicit endorsement the study found 45% in support of the “consensus view”. Even more striking is that a majority (54%) now either reject the “consensus view” outright or are now neutral regarding anthropogenic climate change. You can read more regarding this new study at DailyTech.com.(url hyperlink, see url below)
Also refuting the “consensus view”, and almost never mentioned in the popular news media, was a petition signed by over 31,000 scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, against the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was sponsored by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Here is part of what these scientists signed their names to:
QUOTE:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
(end quote)
This was not an anonymous survey, these scientists put their reputations on the line and put their name beside their opinion. You can read more about this at the Global Warming Petition. One needs to keep in mind the following regarding this petition:
- over 2/3rds of the signatories had advanced degrees,
- 2,660 were physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists
- 5,017 were scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences
Hardly a bunch of “flat earth” types as the global warming mass hysteria crowd likes to call anyone that dares to challenge their scientifically weak viewpoint that man is destroying the planet by causing global warming.
So the next time you hear the media throw out the terms “consensus view” or “scientific consensus” regarding man-made global warming (or CO2 causing global warming) you'll know they either haven't done their homework or they've drank the Al Gore Kool-Aid and don't want to report the truth.
UPDATE (6/10/2008): The petition now has over 31,000 verified signatures.
You quoted the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine as your main source of scientific opinion collectors. Are you sure you want to go there?
Here's what you said: "Also refuting the “consensus view”, and almost never mentioned in the popular news media, was a petition signed by over 31,000 scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, against the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was sponsored by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine."
I looked up their homepage. Here's how they described themselves: "The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is a non-profit research institute established in 1980 to conduct basic and applied research in subjects immediately applicable to increasing the quality, quantity, and length of human life. Research in the Institute's laboratories includes work in protein biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, NUTRITION, preventive medicine, and aging."
Really Sara? Your main source of data on global warming are people who study carrots?
A badly made forgery that was so badly done that even a wanker could have seen that the document was made by a drunk clown.
It was made somewhere in Russia in the late 1800's, as a "prof" of a jewish world wide conspiracy.
The fun part is that it is still refered to by many as a "prof" of a world wide jewish conspiracy.
The most fun part is, if a person is being serious about it and referring to it, he will immediately say to the world that he is stupid.
It remind me of a TV program I saw some time ago, about Pakistans religious and political movements.
In there, was a young guy, he talked like a parrot, in a young boys squeeky high pitched tone, while his father was sitting and listening to him proudly.
-"Everybody knows that there was 3000 jews that did not come to work, the day World Trade Center got hit"
His father was obviouly very impressed of his sons "knowledge".
It's garbage knowledge like that, that builds up to conspiracies.
I have a theory that the simpler things are, for some people, the harder they are to look at.
It just haaaaas to be another answer to it.
A shadow regime run by another secret group, that have seven levels of awareness only revealed in ultrasecret meetings, and each step is only revealed after a very evil deed is done.
This is about the level of discussion you can have with a person that has lived his life as a childmolester driving ice cream trucks in the neighborhood, and now in his late years are cruising around the elementary schools on his Rascal Scooter.
His actions are harmful, but he himself....who cares, he never got it straight anyway.
You could use some carrots.
They have been proven to help eyesight, and blindness.
It might help you to "see" better, too. :)
Quote:
Eating carrots won't give a nearsighted person 20/20 vision. But carrots are rich in beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A -- a crucial nutrient for maintaining proper eyesight. Vitamin A deficiency can cause night blindness, says John Allred, a professor of nutrition at Ohio State University. An extreme deficiency can even cause blindness. Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of blindness in the Third World.
As for attacking all people who believe natural remedies can help humanity and ease suffering and disease, a Quote from a book I am reading:
Research should be unbiased, but in the medical world there is a bias against anything developed outside academic centers, particularly anything natural. As a result, patients are the losers. Penicillin comes from mold; digitalis comes from foxglove, Adriamycin, a major chemotherapy drug, comes from a bacterium - and these drugs have great acceptance today. But the present perception is that if the idea or the medicine wasn't developed within the academic club, it can't possibly be of benefit. In true, open, science-based medicine, you never know when a new idea will offer promise.
- Suzanne Somers "Interviews with Doctors who are CURING CANCER and how to prevent getting it in the first place"
Fascinating reading, and if you are not completely close-minded the stories of proven CURES for cancer are refreshing considering that cancer is now, as of this year 2010, the leading killer in the world. An ounce of nutritional "nonsense" to you, is a pound of "CURE" for many whose lives have been saved from stage four cancer (the worst it can be) by that same nutritional "nonsense."
I was rereading your post and you say, "Research in the Institute's laboratories includes work in protein biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, NUTRITION, preventive medicine, and aging... Your main source of data on global warming are people who study carrots?"
I was noticing that you mentioned that the lab worked with protein biochemistry. ONE of the doctors interviewed in the book I am reading, Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski of Texas, he noticed that in the blood of ALL cancer patients they have a deficiency of a certain PROTEIN. He wondered if you supplemented in a synthetically made replica of that protein, if it would help cancer patients. (Insulin, used for diabetics, is also a synthetic protein, the FIRST synthetically produced protein.) He was and is hated for thinking that thought by the medical community who dislikes his natural approach.. which WORKS, just like insulin works for diabetes.
The patients which come to him - remember that generally they come to alternate therapists only after all else has failed, so they are already written off and on death's door by the time they reach him - his patents are cured from type four stage cancers in up to 60% of the cases. I am talking about a person being diagnosed with cancer, going for chemo and radiation which is unsuccessful and their being told they have a couple of weeks to live and then turning up on his doorstep at death's door.. and being alive 18 years later, and healthy. That is a CURE.. and it is done with a synthetic protein supplement (similar to insulin for diabetes), not a drug. So yes, these Institutes have true academic and scientific rigor in my books because they show the way to life and health for those who need something which WORKS.. not those who are stuck in their close-minded mindframe and won't ever hear of another way outside of their own academic doctor's club. In health, one becomes very pragmatic.. and if it WORKS, and can be proven by xrays and lab tests to WORK.. most who are not prejudiced believe it's good enough.
Talking about carrot science..
Scientific?
Maybe this warrants a closer look at the "settled science" of Global Warming.
See this Wall Street Journalist's conclusion in this article written only four days ago,
"we are discovering the U.N. reports are sloppy political documents intended to drive the climate lobby's regulatory agenda. "
===
The Continuing Climate Meltdown
More embarrassments for the U.N. and 'settled' science.
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
It has been a bad—make that dreadful—few weeks for what used to be called the "settled science" of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.
First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.
Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there's no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC's headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.
Take the rain forest claim. In its 2007 report, the IPCC wrote that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state."
But as Jonathan Leake of London's Sunday Times reported last month, those claims were based on a report from the World Wildlife Fund, which in turn had fundamentally misrepresented a study in the journal Nature. The Nature study, Mr. Leake writes, "did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning."
The IPCC has relied on World Wildlife Fund studies regarding the "transformation of natural coastal areas," the "destruction of more mangroves," "glacial lake outbursts causing mudflows and avalanches," changes in the ecosystem of the "Mesoamerican reef," and so on. The Wildlife Fund is a green lobby that believes in global warming, and its "research" reflects its advocacy, not the scientific method.
The IPCC has also cited a study by British climatologist Nigel Arnell claiming that global warming could deplete water resources for as many as 4.5 billion people by the year 2085. But as our Anne Jolis reported in our European edition, the IPCC neglected to include Mr. Arnell's corollary finding, which is that global warming could also increase water resources for as many as six billion people.
The IPCC report made aggressive claims that "extreme weather-related events" had led to "rapidly rising costs." Never mind that the link between global warming and storms like Hurricane Katrina remains tenuous at best. More astonishing (or, maybe, not so astonishing) is that the IPCC again based its assertion on a single study that was not peer-reviewed. In fact, nobody can reliably establish a quantifiable connection between global warming and increased disaster-related costs. In Holland, there's even a minor uproar over the report's claim that 55% of the country is below sea level. It's 26%.
Meanwhile, one of the scientists at the center of the climategate fiasco has called into question other issues that the climate lobby has claimed are indisputable. Phil Jones, who stepped down as head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit amid the climate email scandal, told the BBC that the world may well have been warmer during medieval times than it is now.
This raises doubts about how much our current warming is man-made as opposed to merely another of the natural climate shifts that have taken place over the centuries. Mr. Jones also told the BBC there has been no "statistically significant" warming over the past 15 years, though he considers this to be temporary.
***
All of this matters because the IPCC has been advertised as the last and definitive word on climate science. Its reports are the basis on which Al Gore, President Obama and others have claimed that climate ruin is inevitable unless the world reorganizes its economies with huge new taxes on carbon. Now we are discovering the U.N. reports are sloppy political documents intended to drive the climate lobby's regulatory agenda.
The lesson of climategate and now the IPCC's shoddy sourcing is that the claims of the global warming lobby need far more rigorous scrutiny.
Roger: Glad that you are back and safe in the USA. I have been following with amusement the debate between you and RobN. When you first came on this blog, most people thought that you were a goofball but I was the first to recognize that along with your humor there was a headfull of intelligence and knowledge and I have been a firm supporter of you from that point on.
If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that the dollar is relatively strong and desirable to the rest of the world and although it has had its ups and downs that it is still a prestigeous currency. You are right-at this time things are manageable and we can still print money and give to any worthy cause throughout the world with no apparent consequence. We can face any situation with freshly printed money and buy the results that we desire.
You can give any family in the USA a line of credit for $100,000.00 and they will live good and have good will toward everyone, and when the money runs out increase the LOC to $200,000.00 and keep the family in good shape and continue this on and on so long as the family needs money. This is great until that day when the loans are stopped and the lender starts asking for their money back. The USA has followed this scenario and we are approaching that time when lenders are going to stop lending and start asking for their money back.
So far, noone is asking for their money back so everything is rosy but their is a lot rumbling going on about dumping dollars and demanding repayment. That is when the dollar goes to hell. Not now because the dollar is still in good shape but what is around the corner for the dollar and the welfare of the USA. We can become a third world nation and a banana republic with just a few strategic moves by our creditors.
You kinda made light of RobN's allusion that there was a conspiracy going on to undermine the future of this country but I will be the first to tell you that I do not trust Obama with all his Czars and radical spending, appeasement of our enemies, giving homosexuals free run in our military, proposing radical legislation and a myraid of other idiotic moves.
You are probably saying now that the military welcomes the gays to serve openly. What you need to know about the military is that they are all "yes men" from the Generals on down to the Privates because the first time that they say no to anything that high-up advocate, they are either courts-martialed or asked to resign. So when you ask a soldier what he thinks about serving with gays, he will say I have no problem with that.
RobN has a pretty good handle on what is going on in this country and what is going to happen in this country and should be treated with a little more respect.
Thanks. Yes that is a proposition that has been brought forward by a lot of people, and it makes a lot of sense.
Take the amount of "bailout money" that has been spent, instead if all those money would have been evenly divided by all registered taxpayers and a lump sum would have been paid to them instead, a lot of this crisis would have been averted.
The numbers is a matter of what source is used, but any number like 100.000 or 200.000 will be in the ballpark.
Ok so here is the population a bunch richer in an instant, and what will they do.
Well, of all those that was in a mortgage jam, they would immediately have paid off all their debts, and most of them ( the smart ones) would even have paid down, or paid out ther mortgage in full.
Now....tadaaaaa...here comes a flood flod of money straight back onto the mortgage system and immediately put them back on their feet again, no bailout needed.
What will the rest of the population do, that didn't have a house.
Most of them would probably go straight into a dealer lot and get that Chevy or Chrysler , boosting the car industry immensively....no bailout needed.
Some of them (the smart ones) would save money, in an account fund or other place that gives decent return. So here would a flood of money go straight into the banks....no bailout needed.
Some ( also smart ones) would sign up their son, daughters, or themselves for College, University or other form of education, and thus flood the education system with funds. The education system would stay strongly funded, and the general workforce would be higher qualified, for higher paid jobs.
The counties would benefit from higher income, without having to rais the taxes , with more people paying their real estate tax. This is usually a significant part of a countys income, so no counties in distress. ( no more 4 day work weeks with only 6 hours/days worth of work available)
As a side effect probably the malls and shops would be very very busy filling the need for all the demand. No layoffs in the retail industry. Trucking and transport in general would have to work overtime.
People want to take holidays, vacation or do that trip to the other coast to visit all the relatives that have been put off for so long. Hotel, railroad, and airline services would boom, no layoffs or no more airliners going belly up. No cruise ship lying in docks, they would be all full and have to scramble to get staff.
Any consumption would increase the tax income, gas tax, property tax, for those states with sales tax, phone tax, any existing consumtion tax.
The whole economy would actually take off like a Top Fuel dragster driven by Don Garlits.
I am with you on that one, but unfortunately we have a socialist right now as the President of the USA, and they see things differently.
Re Rob N. Dignity and respect is earned.
Conspiracy theories will undermine everything, even though we have tough times, this does not confirm the proposed conspiracies.In one grown mans lifetime he can count three or four recessions, it is nothing new,and it is absolutely not the end of the world.
Conspiracy theorists will try to take down our goals, positive out look, our values, and basically tearing down our future, by painting it in a hopeless color, where criminals are running around fooling everyone, and we are all dumb sheep saying "baaa".
They attack nothing but the future, yesterday is gone, we live in present time, and the only thing we can look forward to is our future, may it be close or distant.
Conspiracy theorists propose nothing but a system, that shows that there are no solutions to anything, it is all hopeless, and there is no escape, and no way out. Our future will be a horror, where we at best will live in a green swamp genetically muted to something that are only able to communicate with simple syllables.
Partly truth, hidden truths, fear, shock, panic, and blantantly false or omitted obvious facts are always presented.
If you would hang onto what Rob N is saying, you would think that the Dollar is not liked, not in use, or a marginal currency. You would think that the Dollar is an instrument of evil men on third world countries, mainly by military force, (and then, as we are using the Dollar, we must be participants in those evil deeds)
It doesn't matter what you explain to a conspiracy theorist, it is an endless debate, his dots are already connected, and he, in his own mind is doing this from the kindness of his his heart, because he wants to "warn" you and I about our terrible future.
Re The Dollar.
If you take all the international world trade, and as a significant, use a round pizza instead, you can roughly cut out one quarter.
That is all the other currencies that are in use. Euro, Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen, British Pound ( Stirling), Australian dollar, ....you name it.
(at this point, you are actully alloud to eat that slice)
The rest of the pizza ( three quarters left) used in all other international trades, is the USD , (Yankee dollar).
The most significant currency that is number two, the Euro, doesn't even come close.
The Euro, big as it is, is completely dwafed by the Dollar.
On top of it all, to give some good news, if Dollar strengh is important for anyones sleep. The last four weks, the Dollar have rallied against the Euro.
We are still deep down in recssion, but signs of it's end, is emerging, lo and behold, the interest rate was moved up a fraction recenty.
The recession is global. However analysts now say that the best place to be, where the recovery will take place strongest and happen first, is......tadaaaaa...... Canada/US.
Neil said: "RobN has a pretty good handle on what is going on in this country and what is going to happen in this country and should be treated with a little more respect."
I agree.....story of my life, No Respect, No Respect, know what I mean?
My little girl came into my wife and my bedroom, and started screaming, "Mommy, the house is on fire".....My wife said to her, "Quiet, dear, you'll wake daddy".....no respect, no respect, know what I mean?
Roger said; "Our future will be a horror, where we at best will live in a green swamp genetically muted to something that are only able to communicate with simple syllables."
That's terrific Roger. Everyone will then be like me!
Paul Epstein, Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, wrote an exceptional letter to The New York Times last week:
“That fossil fuel industry-financed forces are continuing their campaign to undermine the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chief scientists should not distract us from what we know about our climate.”
“Two physical findings stand out. In the last 50 years the world ocean has accumulated 22 times as much heat as has the atmosphere (data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce). It is this repository of heat -- through processes like evaporation and ocean overturning -- that drives the changes in weather we are experiencing: heavier precipitation events, sequences of large storms, bitter cold spells and prolonged droughts in some regions.”
“The I.P.C.C. 2007 report also found that winds have changed -- specifically circumpolar westerly winds (those blowing from the west) in both hemispheres. This ominous sign means that weather fronts and weather patterns are less stable.”
“Our society, security and the health of the global economy depend upon a stable climate. Getting off fossil fuels is the first, necessary step toward achieving climate stabilization.”
"The problem with the world today is that fools are confident, and wise men are full of doubt"-Bertram Russel
END
Comment:
Sara, biology is a mind-boggling complex subject. The inter-relationships in nature are so complex, as to almost be unbelievable. Humans have barely started that process. New biological inter-linking processes are found constantly. A "simple human cell is about as complex as the wiring diagram of a 747". Human beings are barely beginning to understand these complexities and biological inter-relationships. Nature is sometimes like a game of Pickupsticks. Pull out the wrong stick, only one, and the whole thing collapses. That's what an eco-system is like. It is foolish in the extreme to mess too much with things we barely understand. As you said, medical research is changing all the time. We barely understand the human body. So are our views and understanding of nature, changing all the time. You are recklessly foolish in your confidence that you know what you are talking about. You don't. You talk about nature as if it were simple, and easy to understand. It's not. If human beings screw up our natural habitat, we are finished.
To be unaware of one's own ignorance is dangerous folly.
You know, all those idiots on Wall Street, with their complex, fancy math, they all figured they understood how money worked, what risk really is, and how to calculate it. They didn't. And they screwed up the world's economy. Nature is several trillion times more complex than any financial calculation ever done on Wall Street, and if we couldn't even get risk management on Wall Street right, we sure won't get risk management in nature right.
How can we make good choices if we don't know what we are doing? We can't. And we are idiots for trying. When you don't know what you are doing, and when the cost of mistakes is so high, only a fool is confident, the fool does without thinking, and the wise man does as little as possible, interferes with nature as little as possible, until he has some idea what is actually going on.
No, I do not believe in conspiracies; but I do believe in economics. In short, Roger, both Greenspan and Bernanke have followed Keynesian economic theory by injecting too much liquidity and keeps interest rates artifically low in an effort to restore the circular flow of money. Because of their inference in the natural cycle of our economy in effort to keep the real estate bubble inflated via baiouts and stimulous there is economic peril on the horizon.
Neil is absolutely correct; once our creditors, namely, China and Japan stop accepting dollars the economic peril will be a Zimbabwe type inflation that will lead the government to price controls which will lead to a formal devaluation of the dollar and eventually shortages. U.S. food inventory has been the lowest they have been in 30 years. Family farmers have been unable to receive loans for equipment and fertilizer. The danger we face is that 300,000,000 people will starve and this will lead to civil unrest. There isn't a conspiracy theory here Roger this what will happen if the dollar collapses because of too much liquidity in the system and our creditors stop accepting our dollars. China and Japan have already began to lessen the amount of U.S. junk treasuries it chooses to accept. Just as I have chosen to dump my dinars imagine if all the nations that hold USD chooses to dump them at the same time. Prices would substantially increase overnight and continue to increase at an alarming rate.
Okay, now solutions to control and pay our overwhelming national debt. Interest rates must be raised to at least 20% to stave off Zimbabwe type of inflation. Next, a dramatic cut in government spending including the abolishment of NASA and a 80% reduction in military spending. The U.S. must eliminate Medicare, Medicade, Welfare, and Social Security. Forget this silly notion of a nationalized health care. Eliminate from our vocabulary stimulous and bailouts. Allow business to either succeed or fail. About this idea that any business is too big to fail is nonsense. Finally, impose upon every American a value added tax. This tax would be temporary and only in effect until our foregin creditors were paid what is owed them. Government must stop spending more than it takes in.
It is time for the citizenry of this great nation to stop buying telvisions, trinkets, and toys made in China. We must stop being a nation that only consumes; instead, we must start producing our own products and food stuffs again instead of importing everything. Instead of saving only 1% of our income we must emulate the Chinese by saving 35% of our income; but we cannot do that until we get out of the debt our citizens are in. Stop financing your cars, houses, clothes, and everything else. The U.S. is currently a debtor nation and we must become a creditor nation again. Unless we correct the path we are on destruction lies ahead.
Roger, classifying as believing in conspiracy theories is your way of attempting to dismiss me; unfortuately for you I have history on my side. For example, Japan in the 1990's had gone down this same road of bailouts, stimulous, and the injection of too much liquidity in order to expand the money supply and it has taken them 20 years to recover. I am pessimistic that the U.S. will correct its current path. I believe in my life time that the Chinese Yuan will become the worlds reserve currency and that Mandarin will be the language of commerce.
Roger, I have explained this to you again; I hope you will not make me rehearse these remarks. Unlike you I am willing to do so until you get it.
Global Warming is a farce with no scientific proof to substantiate its claims. The climate change hoax is a methodology to ultimately burden the U.S. population with more taxes paid to the banking elite. If a lie is told often enough the people begin to believe it. This lie has been repeated and yet the majority of Americans still do not believe in this global warming hoax. I am sure you are aware of the hackers obtaining 160 megabytes of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Those emails are proof that climatologists have been fudging the numbers concerning the rise in the earth's temperature. In fact, the reverse has been true these emails indicate a a decrease in the earths temperature.
Dr. Doom in your debate with Sara you fail to take into consideration the Medieval Warm period which science has confirmed that period between 800-1300 was warmer than anything we have seen. Warming and cooling are cyclical depending upon activity from the Sun. The notion that carbon dioxide is a "green-house gas" contributing to an increase in earth's temperature is ludicrous. I have a letter that I will post again where scientist in an open letter to Ban Ki Moon reject the notion of global warming. I know you are in favor of Cap and Trade legislation but thanks to those hackers both Cap and Trade and Global Warming are dead.
We must do THIS...or 349.631 people will starve, if THAT isn't done with at least 26% more force .....there will be a fault zone opening up, ....if we don't get rid of 45% of institutions it will take 23.7 years to recover...Greenspan, Redspan an Oscar Mayer have driven this into the ground.
Zimbabwe is our only future.
*****why don't they unerstaaaaand*****
Still no clue, Rob N?
Just do this....ok.
Re read the two long blogs I wrote on how the global finance machinery ticks.
Your world is still flat, you haven't looked yet.
About Global Warming,
The exact correlation is not fully known yet, but sunactivity an the earths temerature seems to be corresponding pretty good.
Just at the end of Medieval time and a bit into the 17 hundreds, the sun had a calm period, with very few or almost no sunspots. The period corresponds almost exactly to what we call "the little iceage", and temperatures was far below the normal for a couple of hundred years.
Exactly how that corresponds are not fully understood yet, as the sun will dim slightly when it is active, the sunspots will in fact cover some percentage of the suns surface and lessen the radiation, so logic would dictate that the phenomenon would be the other way arund.
Even as the exact mechanics of it is not fully known, the fact that the earth is experiencing cooler temperatures when the sun is lesser active, is fully established.
One of the false pictures that is painted when discussing global warming (if we indeed have one, that is) is the proposition that we live in a closed shell, closed environment that is a zero game. Even if it is true when it comes to pollution,(stuck in the atmosphere) it is not true when it comes to temperatures. (heat does not get stuck in the atmpsphere)
The atmosphere (Normal clouds are the best comforters) can slowdown the heat transfer, or make it radiate back, but it is not a sealed container.
You can go to Death Valley in the summer and die of heat exhaustion in the daytime, and in the very exact same spot next night, you can die of exposure, you freeze to death.
Assuming it is cloudfree, the heat picked up at daytime will radiate in a straight line out to space.
The earth is radiating out so much of it's heat energy that if the sun would stop shining suddenly, our survival here on earth would be very hard after only a short time. a day perhhaps, two days at most.
THAT is what regulates the temperature here on earth.
Global warming as proposed by environmentalists, is cause by man made gasses that traps heat.
Now, let me go on a sideline here, I don't like what is coming out of our cars exhaust pipe, I fully agree, that that stuff is garbage, and not good for the environment, same as I don't like trashy freeways, or polluted waterways.
You don't really need to call yourself an environmentalist to not like garbage or pollution.
I think it is just common sense, that we should clean up around us.
Ok back to gasses that traps heat.
It is fully clear that heat can get trapped and a runaway effect can happen (Venus, a planet very close in size with earth, closer to the sun, have an atmosphere that traps so much heat that the place is pretty close to hell when it comes to temperature. However the atmpsphere is many many times thicker than earths, and of different composition, so a direct comparison with earth can not be done other than point out that gasses can trap heat)
But as an object become warmer, the radiation (heatloss) will also rise. (Venus is stable in it's temperature range, that is, it is radiating out as much as it is recieving from the sun, so the expression "runaway" is not really appropriate to use)
Any gas that is able to trap heat, is to THE SAME DEGREE capable of shielding from incoming radiation. So we run into a zero game here. We may as well argue that with greenhouse gasses, we will get less heat to earth.
I will acknowlede that there is a lot of unknowns here, and I rather go with the idea to thread carefully when it comes to exact causes to any global warming.(again ... if we have a man made global warming)
If we would take a bet right now, I would go with the sun, it has been over the average active, the last 150 years or so.
Talking about conspiracy nuts.. that was a classic you posted:
That fossil fuel industry-financed forces... are continuing their campaign to undermine the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chief scientists should not distract us from what we know about our climate.”
Yeah, it is them which undermined the IPCC's data, sure.
Betcha they are the ones behind today's retraction.. or could it be SCIENCE instead of politically motivated interests starting to show through?
===
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown
David Adam
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 February 2010
Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.
At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results".
Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.
"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process," he said. "Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances."
Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience, said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.
The paper – entitled "Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change" – used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.
In a statement the authors of the paper said: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.
"One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes."
As for your questions about being confident and the ignorance of mankind, I have been giving those thoughts of yours some consideration. You are a thoughtful well-meaning person, though misdirected in my opinion on this issue. But you have some good points. I think the key one you are considering and directing your post to was about confidence.. how can we be confident or sure about things, particularly when it is so very complex an issue? You say, "To be unaware of one's own ignorance is dangerous folly." I agree. I just think that should drive us to God to relieve our ignorance. The founders of America relied fully upon God to begin and to keep the nation of America. It was a dangerous enterprise but the most successful in human history, not because they relied on their own intellects and wisdom alone, but they relied on God. They founded their successful enterprise on "one nation under GOD".. and it has the best track record of any nation in the history of planet earth. I think that is a very successful foundation there.
I agree with and am so glad you also see the incredible degree of intricacy, complexity and DESIGN inherent in the entire creation. We simply DON'T KNOW a heck of a lot of things. I too believe that "when you don't know what you are doing.. only a fool is confident" but, just like those who stood and committed to each other their sacred honor and lives, we can have a godly confidence which is not a vain show based on nothing substantial. We CAN know what we are doing and be confident if we have based what we are standing on on what is real and true. The reason we have succeeded over the previous generations to such a degree technologically is that we were lifted out of the grime by great scientific thinkers.. giants who laid the foundations for what we have confidence in now. These giants upon whose shoulders we stand were Christians for the most part and I think understanding how we got here and how it came about allows us to have certainty and a measure of confidence, too. We will never be Omnicient (all knowing) as God is, but we can be assured we can rely on what we know if we have the true facts of the case. We don't have to be stabbing in the dark, we can have confidence and trust in our thought processes when they are based on reality and truth. Here is why I state that with such confidence:
I state here the words of Entomologist Stanley Beck, an articulate anticreationist who has the boldness of a man who believes and states truth no matter where the chips may fall, which is the essence of true science.. a man who acknowledged the fact that, quote, "The first of the unprovable premises on which science has been based is the belief that the world is real and the human mind is capable of knowing its real nature... The second and best known postulate underlying the structure of scientific knowledge is that of cause and effect.. The third basic scientific premise is that nature is unified."
These concepts, which have advanced us so far, are Christian and based upon that worldview. Such concepts were largely either unformulated, ignored or rejected by the pagan philosophers of antiquity. Much as we can respect "primitive" peoples, they did not have these premises at all. Beck acknowledges that they are essentially Christian in origin and nature. Quote, "These scientific premises define and limit the scientific mode of thought. It should be pointed out, however, that each of these postulates had its origin in, or was consistent with, Christian theology."
Why, then, should there be a conflict between Christian theology and true science? The fact is that there is no conflict, but the modern evolutionary scientists have introduced an additional, extraneous postulate.. that all science must have as its cause nothing beyond natural measurable forces. That is, science is presumed to be not only rational and causal and unified, but also due only to natural causes, never supernatural ones, banning by definition the First Cause or God from being the Creator of all we see - also banning as an explanation any present work He would wish to do now in this world. But such an assumption is purely arbitrary, not held by the great scientists of the past, and is not indicated by any actual scientific data.
The reason I bring this up is because we CAN have confidence in our conclusions being correct IF the data is correct because of these great Christian premises of scientific thought. God made our existence rational. If you drop a book a million times, it will fall down every time, not up. It is a repeatable, real and rationally understandable cause and effect event. And it happens in China just as much as here.. the entire creation is unified under one set of laws. We can come to know and understand those laws with our minds and we can trust our reason and test theories we have because the world is rational and real. This is the Christian view based on a rational God who is the First Cause of the phenomenon we call Cause and Effect and whose laws are universally applicable.
So, while I agree with you when you say how you see how much we do NOT know and that it is mind boggling and humbling.. yet you must not throw out the baby of modern scientific thought with the bathwater of poorly done data. The IPCC report was based on MISTAKES.. or wrong data. Science is not overturned by admitting to truth.. it is furthered. We throw out a zillion wrong theories until we find the right. Science is a quest for truth and for finding out WHY things are as they are. If there is no agenda (monetary, usually) trying to muddy the waters of data, the data will show us the way to the truth. If Global Warming is True Science, it would be bourne out by the facts. If it is not, it should be abandoned like any other flat-earth wrong idea.
But some people are committed to their ideas for reasons which go against pure science. Maybe they will make a lot of money or lose their job. Whatever their reasons, if they will not just let the chips fall where they may, we end up with distortions for a time. You will notice the flat earthers are discounted now. But there was a time there of transition where they were being disproved and those who held to the old and disproven data had egg foo yong on their faces and they fought back against the round-earthers. This is the current state of affairs with Global Warming. They do NOT have the data on their side. They FAKED the hockey stick data. They admit MISTAKES and retract the idea of oceans rising. They admit there has been "no significant global warming in the last 15 years." They admit that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon. The IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group, a mountaineering magazine and a student paper..the science is disproving the theory.
You say the natural order of things is incredibly complex. It is. But I am not an idiot for stating that truth can be known and understood. It is being known and understood.. but the problem is that you are not willing to admit that it is because it is disproving what you have believed. But the earth will not cease to exist (nor will you) if you merely admit what these scientists are being forced to admit - that the data does not prove the Global Warming THEORY. It isn't that it is too complex or we should have a lack of confidence in the data if it does not correspond exactly with our own preconceived notions. We must change to fit the truth. That is the Christian basis of all scientific inquiry. Science speaks and we must let the chips fall where they may.
And we move on.
Sara.
Isaiah 30:15 "..in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."
I think I have probably posted this before. Man-made global warming is non-existent; if valid then why did those at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England act in a false and malicious manner to cover data that does not support the Global Warming farce.
Dec. 13, 2007
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line
by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:
z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.
z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.
In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.
The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.
The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.
Yours faithfully,
[List of signatories]
Leading scientists, engineers and economists active in research of climate-related areas who signed the open letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Canberra, Australia
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, U.S.
William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000
Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Canada
Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, UK; Editor, Energy & Environment journal
Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.
Reid A. Bryson, Ph.D. D.Sc. D.Engr., UNEP Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, U.S.
Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta, Canada
Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada
Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.
Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand
David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, U.S.
Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J., U.S.
Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University, U.S.
Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia
Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands
Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University, U.S.
Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, Canada
David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak', Australia
William Evans, PhD, Editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, U.S.
Stewart Franks, PhD, Associate Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia
R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey, U.S.
Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany
Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay
Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adj Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden
Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, New Zealand
William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, U.S.
Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut, U.S.
Louis Hissink M.Sc. M.A.I.G., Editor AIG News and Consulting Geologist, Perth, Western Australia
Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona, U.S.
Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA
Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, U.S.; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis, Russia
Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland
Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia
Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, U.S.
David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand
Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former Research Scientist Environment Canada; Editor "Climate Research” (03-05); Editorial Board Member "Natural Hazards, IPCC Expert Reviewer 2007
William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization’s Commission for Climatology
Jan J.H. Kop, M.Sc. Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Professor of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands
Professor R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands
The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.
Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary, Canada
David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware, U.S.
Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS
Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant - power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand
William Lindqvist, PhD, consulting geologist and company director, Tiburon, California, U.S.
Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.
A.J. Tom van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; former President of the European Association of Science Editors
Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, U.S.
Richard Mackey, PhD, Statistician, Australia
Horst Malberg, PhD, Professor for Meteorology and Climatology, Institut für Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany
John Maunder, PhD, Climatologist, former President of the Commission for Climatology of the World Meteorological Organization (89-97), New Zealand
Alister McFarquhar, PhD, international economist, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.
Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Canada
John McLean, Climate Data Analyst, computer scientist, Melbourne, Australia
Owen McShane, B. Arch., Master of City and Regional Planning (UC Berkeley), economist and policy analyst, joint founder of the International Climate Science Coalition, Director - Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand
Fred Michel, PhD, Director, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Canada
Frank Milne, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Economics, Queen's University, Canada
Asmunn Moene, PhD, former head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway
Alan Moran, PhD, Energy Economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia
Nils-Axel Morner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden
Lubos Motl, PhD, physicist, former Harvard string theorist, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
John Nicol, PhD, physicist, James Cook University, Australia
Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa, Canada
James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University, U.S.
Cliff Ollier, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Geology), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia
R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Canada
Al Pekarek, PhD, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, U.S.
Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology, Sedimentology, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences
Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University
Colonel F.P.M. Rombouts, Branch Chief - Safety, Quality and Environment, Royal Netherlands Air Force
R.G. Roper, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.
Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C., Canada
Tom V. Segalstad, PhD, (Geology/Geochemistry), Head of the Geological Museum and Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, Norway
Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA, U.S.
S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service
L. Graham Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville, U.S.
Peter Stilbs, TeknD, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Research Leader, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden
Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Dick Thoenes, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Brian G Valentine, PhD, PE (Chem.), Technology Manager - Industrial Energy Efficiency, Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Maryland at College Park; Dept of Energy, Washington, DC, U.S.
Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD, geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand
Len Walker, PhD, power engineering, Pict Energy, Melbourne, Australia
Edward J. Wegman, Bernard J. Dunn Professor, Department of Statistics and Department Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.
Stephan Wilksch, PhD, Professor for Innovation and Technology Management, Production Management and Logistics, University of Technology and Economics Berlin, Germany
Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland
David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., UN IPCC Expert Reviewer, energy consultant, Virginia, U.S.
Raphael Wust, PhD, Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Australia
A. Zichichi, PhD, President of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva, Switzerland; Emer
Science can bring us so far in making us rely on scientific reality to verify what direction we are heading in. As Roger wrote, it certainly seems that the science can verify that sunspot activity is creating the changes in temperature we are seeing. Certainly, if that were all I had to go by, I personally would stand as Roger does, saying it is a very likely explanation. But.. I have more, and so I state with absolute certainty that it is truly sunspot activity. I have a personal relationship with God and each Christian has unique ways in which they relate to and know God to be real. With me, God speaks and reveals things to me. It is like this Scripture:
Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, except that he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.
A few years back, God directed my attention to a set of unusual sunspot activity. He had me research it so I understood it, watching these very interesting flares coming from the sun and enveloping the earth with huge amounts of sunspot flare. I asked Him what He was doing. He told me He was changing the weather. I asked Him what the sunspot activity He was doing would do to the earth. He said He was putting North America into a deep freeze (and there is a second effect which I have not yet verified). Subsequently, that is what has happened. It is certainly hard not to be confident when you have the science back up what you have been told before it happens. Like scientific theories, I have had the possible explanation given ahead of time, followed by the evidence and reality unfolding as the cause and effect experiment occurs before our eyes in real time. It then verifies the theory you started with, doesn't it?
You don't have to believe me, I understand. But for me, I KNOW that the sunspot activity CAUSED the cooling effect on North America, and I also KNOW that God was the direct agent behind that action. I find it rather interesting and cool, really. And I wouldn't trade my unique position of understanding for anyone else's. I like knowing what is going on ahead of time. I want to know what is going on ahead of time. It is a privilege to know ahead of time. It is how I can be sure that the US is not going away. That Iran's rants against the US and saying it will be destroyed are fiction, no matter the enemies and plans set against her. I know that the US will end up secure and make the sacrifices necessary to be put back on the road it needs to be on. Things look pretty dire out there, but I KNOW that things will turn out that way because God showed me what the US looks like 140 years from now. He showed me this ten years ago, so it was 150 years in the future at the time God revealed it to me. Between now and then will be some pretty heavy duty times, but the US as a nation is going to make it and not be lost. It will remain/return to a great nation, based on the Constitution and peopled with Patriots. It will again be prosperous and peaceful. It will not end up in poverty or a third world country. Therefore, those who die in that cause do not die in vain, but for a goal which will be achieved. God is not finished with America, and He will make it come out right, though there are some dark times before that is achieved. I pray the dark times will be few and the sacrifice as small as is possible to achieve the end I was shown of a prosperous, peaceful future for the USA.
This is also how I know what I know about CERN. He has taught me much about the fifth dimension. The Fifth Dimension is what is the actual cause of nuclear explosions, not the atom smashing they think is behind it. And it is this lack of understanding of this dimension that means that if CERN ever gets up to speed, they will blow a five kilometer (or was it five miles, not sure now which He said) hole in the earth where CERN used to be. It is only a THEORY that they are smashing an atom when the nuclear bomb happens. It is a plausible explanation, but one which is three dimensional, not fifth. Anyhow, not likely they will listen to me. When they do get CERN up to speed, they will create a very large crater in the ground - no, not from a Black Hole, but from touching the fifth dimension, which is what they do when they create atomic/nuclear explosions. Certainly, I don't know a lot about the fifth dimension, but I know this much. I know they will go bye-bye when they smash the atoms together just as they do when they do it with nuclear bombs. Fortunately, like nuclear explosions, it is self-limiting. Ripping a hole in the seam of the fabric of the fifth dimension does make that dimension seep into ours with destructive effect and yes, I can explain how in detail and why when that dimension touches ours it is with destructive effect. However, it is plugged by a self-limiting mechanism God has put in place, so no "black hole" which gobbles everything up will happen. But it will be pretty messy, like at ground zero after a nuke. And no, you don't have to believe me. But still, I am very confident that what I am saying is not just a theory of mine.. God told me that this is the dimension they are playing with, and this is what will happen to them if they try it, followed by why and how, in detail. Again, maybe He is being very kind in not allowing this to happen by plaguing the project with so many delays and leaks that they cannot get up to the speed they wish for some time. But one would think that it might occur to them that nuclear weapons are a kind of atom smashing/splitting, too.. would you not think that to be quite logical? And this CERN is to smash atoms at higher velocities than have ever been achieved before by mankind.. couldn't that possibly duplicate in some way the destructive "explosion" they think happens with a nuke? Smashing atoms together at lower speeds does not have the velocity to spin it into the next dimension, but CERN can and will. I suppose that if they don't go down the donkey trail of thinking it was a small Black Hole, that it will make them rethink atom smashing in light of nuclear explosions and what that means. It might give them clues about the fifth dimension... and help verify factually a lot of what I have been given to understand about this dimension. If my knowing ahead of time cannot stop them from their set path of creating such a destruction, at least it will help move science forward by giving facts which will lead toward greater understanding of that dimension, posthumously. Even failures in science can advance the science when we learn from them.
Dr. Doom's Comment: I thought these guys in the LA Times hit the right note, of a fair and balanced view of where we are today: Summary: there was a bit of fudging of the data in East Anglia, but the vast majority of the evidence still says climate change is potentially a very large threat; and that as I said before, the science is incredibly complex, as well as new, and more is being learned all the time.
Nothing is certain here, in understanding climate change. It's like Quantum Physics, where you only deal with statistical realities of where atoms should be. They aren't always where you think they should be. All we are dealing with is probabilities, in complex systems. And as I said previously, if people get this wrong, the disaster for the next generation is enormous.
People who think there is no evidence at all, or no chance that there may be potentially lethal consequences to climate change are misinformed, kidding themselves, or scientifically illiterate, or listening to fools. Some of you may be smoking crack supplied by reformed alcoholic Glen Beck. Personally, I wouldn't take advice from that drunk, nor that mean buffoon/drug addict Rush Limbaugh.
Again, to repeat the obvious, if you are to understand anything, who do you trust? People who spend their lives understanding something. To repeat, 97% of people who study this for a living believe man-made climate change is real, and potentially a very big problem.
As they put it in the article: "We do not believe the East Anglia e-mails expose a conspiracy that invalidates the larger body of evidence demonstrating anthropogenic warming; nevertheless, the damage to public confidence in climate science, particularly among Republicans and independents, may be enormous."
Los Angeles Times Articles
Climate change e-mail scandal underscores myth of pure science
The East Anglia controversy serves as a reminder that when the politics are divisive and the science is sufficiently complex, the boundary between the two may become indiscernible.
Opinion
December 16, 2009|By Daniel Sarewitz and Samuel Thernstrom
As two scholars with different political orientations but common concerns, we have each worked to challenge conventional wisdom that has undermined public understanding of the climate change problem. Many Republicans have been too reluctant to acknowledge strong evidence of human-caused warming and the need for prudent policies that could reduce its harmful effects. Democrats have let their own political judgments and values infect climate science and its interpretation, often understating the uncertainties about the timing and scale of future risks, and the tremendous costs and difficulties of effective action.
Yet both parties have agreed, although tacitly, on one thing: Science is the appropriate arbiter of the political debate, and policy decisions should be determined by objective scientific assessments of future risks. This seductive idea gives politicians something to hide behind when faced with divisive decisions. If "pure" science dictates our actions, then there is no need to acknowledge the role that political interests and social values play in deciding how society should address climate change.
The idea that pure, disinterested science should decide political disputes was a staple of Democratic politics during the George W. Bush administration. Now it's payback time, as Republicans gloat over an alleged "smoking gun" of scientific misconduct provided by recently released e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. After decrying the "Republican war on science," Democrats are hard-pressed to explain the discovery of their own partisans in the scientific trenches.
We do not believe the East Anglia e-mails expose a conspiracy that invalidates the larger body of evidence demonstrating anthropogenic warming; nevertheless, the damage to public confidence in climate science, particularly among Republicans and independents, may be enormous. The terrible danger -- one that has been brewing for years -- is that the invaluable role science should play in informing policy and politics will be irrevocably undermined, as citizens come to see science as nothing more than a tool for partisans of all stripes.
Central to this disaster has been scientists' insistence that they are unsullied providers of truth in an otherwise corrupt and indecipherable world. It was never so. Scholars continue to argue over whether such titans of science as Pasteur and Millikan lied, cheated and fabricated results or were simply exercising good scientific intuition. Popular chronicles of real-world science such as "The Double Helix" demonstrate that, in practice, science is competitive, backbiting, venal, imperfect and, indeed, political. Science, in other words, is replete with the same human failings that mark all other social activities.
Moreover, problems such as climate change are much more scientifically complex than determining the charge on an electron or even the structure of DNA. The research deals not with building blocks of nature but with dynamic systems that are inherently uncertain, unpredictable and complex. Such science is often not subject to replicable experiments or verification; rather, knowledge and insight emerge from the weight of theory, data and evidence, usually freighted with considerable uncertainty, disagreement and internal contradiction.
Thus, we write neither to attack nor to defend the East Anglia scientists, but to make clear that the ideal of pure science as a source of truth that can cut through politics is false. The authority of pure science is a two-edged sword, and it cuts deeply in both directions in the climate debate: For those who favor action, the myth of scientific purity confers unique legitimacy upon the evidence they bring to political debates. And for those who oppose action, the myth provides a powerful foundation for counterattack whenever deviations from the unattainable ideal come to light.
East Anglia researchers and their defenders claim they succumbed to paranoia and secrecy only as a result of relentless pressure from their enemies. Critics argue that the e-mails reveal the science to be biased and subjective. Neither side acknowledges the underlying, uncomfortable reality: When the politics are divisive and the science is sufficiently complex, the boundary between the two may become indiscernible.
The East Anglia controversy serves as a reminder that when the politics are divisive and the science is sufficiently complex, the boundary between the two may become indiscernible.
The real scandal illustrated by the e-mails is not that scientists tried to undermine peer review, fudge and conceal data, and torpedo competitors, but that scientists and advocates on both sides of the climate debate continue to claim political authority derived from a false ideal of pure science. This charade is a disservice to both science and democracy. To science, because the reality cannot live up to the myth; to democracy, because the difficult political choices created by the genuine but also uncertain threat of climate change are concealed by the scientific debate.
What is the solution? Let politics do its job; indeed, demand it.
We do not believe that climate change is merely a Trojan horse for a Democratic dream of destroying global capitalism. Nor do we believe that Republicans are so bent on maximizing the profits of the fossil fuel industry that they are choosing to consign their grandchildren to a ruined world. Yet these are only slight caricatures of the fantasies that each side cherishes about the other because the true complexity of the climate debate has been camouflaged by the myth of pure, disinterested science.
That myth has allowed politicians to shirk their responsibility to be clear about the values, interests and beliefs that underpin their preferences and choices about science and policy. Better to recognize that decision-makers, depending on their political beliefs, will weigh the evidence and risks of climate change differently when evaluating policy options. Their choices will influence the distribution of benefits and costs, and will have varying and uncertain prospects for success. Voters should evaluate the decisions on that basis, rather than on the false notion that science is dictating the choices.
Can science and politics recover from the damage done in the name of scientific purity? We believe the weight of scientific evidence remains sufficient to justify prudent action against climate change -- but we are equally aware that the consequences of both climate change and climate policies remain highly uncertain.
The choices are extraordinarily difficult; the costs of action, and inaction, are potentially momentous. No one can know what the "right" decisions will be, but the e-mail controversy reminds us that imperfect people, not pure science, must decide that question. This is a job for democratic politics, informed by, but not shackled to, a pluralistic, insightful and imperfect scientific enterprise.
Daniel Sarewitz is professor of science and society and co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University. Samuel Thernstrom is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
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