Disturbing Trends

US Debt Tsunami

2009-11-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

The US debt emergency is coming, and it is a man made Tsunami – after the erasure of an accumulation of massive fictional wealth – the complex debt structures borrowed with leverage against assumptions that have resulted in systemic deficiencies and bailouts – and may result in the collapse of one set of rules in favour of a new set.

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Head of IMF says keep stimulus

2009-11-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

When the head of the IMF speaks, the bankers sit up and listen. But is his advice going to be any more accurate than anyone else's?

It is hard to continue to mount up the debts investing in stability when jobs replacing all those that have vanished from the economy seem to fail to appear again anywhere else.

Governments may not recognise it is not just stability of the institutions that exchange and invest funds but the intergenerational pause that may work out far more costly.

There is a tendency to inherit old political stances and watch polls, instead of knowing what you are doing and hanging on for dear life as your popularity finally rises toward the end of your term.

More... Change is necessary

Grisly Cosmetics

2009-11-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

A Peruivan gang made a "wrinkle cream" from human fat collected from scores of murdered peasants.

"The gang have been nicknamed the Pishtacos after the ruthless assassins of indigenous Quechua legend who ambushed solitary victims and drained their fat as an offering to gods to make the land fertile. Another version depicts them as cannibal bandits who ate the skin and sold the fat. The stories date back to before the European conquest."

One answer

2009-11-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

Intellectual Ventures - a group of scientists who are coming up with viable scientific ideas that can help quell the effects of arctic ice loss due to global warming but imitation of volcanic spewing of sulphur dixoide into the stratosphere at about 60 degrees north, should cool the atmosphere.

Scientists love to isolate a problem and think outside the box. Intellectual Ventures has some innovative solutions.

The Problem with Global Warming

2009-11-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

Reduction targets as a goal seem ignore a fundamental problem. We are overheating the world by increasing our activity levels year on year. It is politically unsound to rail against productivity growth.

More on NZ being the worst climate offender - and what is wrong with our approach to global warming.

Making Peace - Summary

2009-11-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

Full article: Automatic Removed Warriors here, ends with this summary:

Military action always brings chaos.

Imagined political change is not sufficient reason to justify violence.

In 40 years nobody has tried peace as a solution.

Sharing the wealth with education and respectively putting up with the strange rituals of the other as something private is progressive as successful pluralities emerge.

Security Asylum

2009-10-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

The big difference between today and thirty years ago - nobody needed passwords then. Just a drivers licence. Now they want our retina and finger prints. Next they will be after more...

CO2 emissions

2009-10-23T23:42:00.001-07:00

Check this countdown timer for when the atmosphere has 1,000,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon in it - which is approximately past the threshold when the atmosphere will go above 2 degrees average and the real climatic instability proceeds with potentially disasterous consequences predicted.

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America

2009-10-17T14:01:00.001-07:00

America has changed culture more than most modern civilizations. This mutability or adaptability is a threat to the older established rigid moral compass of a world that did not have so many variables and survived as a reason of taking great care with physical rules.

Full article

OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

2009-10-09T03:39:00.001-07:00

President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said.

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Natures Design

2009-10-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

More about natural invention

Afghanistan – prospect of failure?

2009-10-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

Army chief warns of prospect of failure in Afghanistan.

When the chief of the army starts a claim for more pay with dire warnings of losing a war in Afghanistan it takes away some edge from the argument he is making. Losing in Afghanistan is a worse result than underpaid soldiers, certainly.

Full article on DT: Predicting Future Politics

The New Wars

2009-09-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

In this excellent TED presentation PW Singer talks of military robots and the future of war, being depersonalised by the massive growth in robotic military hardware being employed in the Iraqi war. Perhaps the motivation of GW Bush to go to war was in part to satisfy battlefield testing of a great deal of new technology that the military industrial empire of America was sitting on. Perhaps it was his motivation when early in his presidency, before 9/11 he absolved American's from war crimes in the theatre of modern war he wanted never to be considered for conviction at the world court.

By introducing mechanical toys and sophisticated robotics into the theatre of war, the forced imitation by the perceived enemy will mean that a condition of mutually assured destruction will also inevitably be reached, the "warning" sounded in the ridiculous "terminator" concept of machines having the logic to notice its masters were the real problem is not the future I see, it is more a wasteland of horrific pollution and scrap metal jungles that inevitably deadlock as attrition sets in.

Article continues inside

Shoe Thrower Release

2009-09-13T13:53:00.001-07:00

The Iraqi man who was jailed for throwing shoes at George Bush, after 9 months spent paying for his protest, is being released.

It is farcical to observe how the "free world" respected the right of the man to protest at the already naked emperor of GW Bush's presidency. 9 months prison for pointing out the war criminal in the room.

Risking Unemployment

2009-09-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

Unemployment is climbing and is rather bound to get worse. The 2 huge banking bailouts followed by the “Main Street” relief aimed at troubled mortgages will not solve the problem. By bailing out the banking industry, that had become a bit of a ponzi scheme attempting to leverage itself to heaven, the gold bricks have been left in place. The rescue of Ma and Pa Mortgages is well and good, but the future payments are still going to be a problem.

read the full article

Global Warming

2009-08-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

The rate of global warming since 1886 can be seen in this map.

Leonard Druyan and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, US, analysed past weather patterns to determine how well commonly-used climate models performed when replicating this past weather. Source: New Scientist

Map link

The right to bear arms

2009-08-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

Political protest is a sign of a healthy democracy.

In America, the Second Amendment gives a citizen a right to bear arms. Right wing protesters carrying assault rifles may be a legal right but is it a legitimate protest? How many presidents has American guns assassinated? On the Right we have Ronald Reagan, on the Left we have JFK. If Reagan had died, perhaps the Right would be a little more sensitive.

Is the right to carry arms relevant in today's world? And is that in fact a valid political protest or just perpetuating the myth that being under the threat of random death is a benefit to anyone?

A man mistaken by a security guard was shot in the back, and left his child without a father. In the back. He kept walking when the guard started to shout at him, trying to get away. He was innocent of any crime. Having a gun does not make you right. It makes you into a potential murderer.

Imprisonment and Torture

2009-08-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Economic Recovery

2009-07-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Signs of an economic recovery are starting to appear. After recapitalising the financial system, President Obama kept the US economy liquid. This is may have averted more depressing news but as the bankers start to return funds they were lent by the tax payer the question arises, where to now for the US economy?

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Shatner does Palin

2009-07-30T18:29:00.001-07:00

A view from before the beginning

2009-07-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

Time capsule - from 14 March 1998 when the Carlyle Group started to put pressure on Fanny May and Freddie Mac, how quickly the capital on which Bear Stearns dried up and then went super bad. The blog seems to have stopped just as things started to get nasty for the early "victims" of the credit crunch calamities that followed.

Sarah Palin's First Swipe

2009-07-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin has been published in the Washington Post criticizing Barack Obama's "Cap and Tax" energy policy. This appears to be an early evidence of why she resigned her appointment as Governor of Alaska. To take over the role of "Leader the of Opposition" as the now disheveled GOP Republican Party seems to have nobody but the ineligible Dick Cheney to foster its support base? That certainly seems the case, or Dick would have been less assailable in the media. Sarah Palin fares no better.

Sarah Palin, Voice in the Wilderness - full article.

Cultural Definition

2009-07-11T18:18:00.000-07:00

The need for culture to define itself in terms of relative values interferes with rightful progress. As we carry past solutions to now non-existent problems, our culture is subsumed by a need for tradition – the tired old call of parents too confused by their offspring to do much else but bark orders to limit action. We exceed our parents as we start where they left off.

Full article

The Dispossesed

2009-07-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

Saddam Hussein and Hitler had something in common. From their point of view it was a steel resolve but as a defeated enemy theirs became the view of the discredited. However it could be argued that Hitler’s eventual fate hastened the fate of Palestine whereas Saddam’s fate has given the Kurds more political power.

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Sarah Palin, Politically Spent

2009-07-04T01:30:00.001-07:00

In a move universally seen as ridiculous, Sarah Palin resigns as Governer of Alaska. Not during the good times does she hand it over to a well groomed successor, no epic battle, no scars, no situation. Just givin' up is all.

Full article