Remembering PRESTAGS

Hexes are awesome

I found this on the ABC (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/us-election-trump-biden-states-polling/12822296). The number of hexes show them number of college votes each state gets. it is a completely archaic system, but makes for a great War Game map. The Chump has Made Elections Great Again!

Interesting new direction from Strategy and Tactics

The latest Strategy and Tactics games has cards. And not just a few cards, but more cards than counters. How interesting!

Note that me map is half size. The cards come in a nice sleeve - US player on one end and Activitista on the other.

The map really does not look like a wargame - almost more like an info graph from a reference book on the period. I like the way it teaches you a bit of history as you play - learn your presidents!

There seems to be an economic module - keep a war profitable and you can fight forever!

Being a period and part of the world where I have almost zero interest - except during the cricket season - I won;t set this one up. However, I welcome the inventiveness and wait from them to apply this to something I like.

Test

Testing how to load pdf documents to the blog.

 

Download Eisenhower_briefing

 

Download Oppenheimer_einstein

 

Download Oppenheimer_einstein

 

new firm black rubber

for the zoom ring on my 18-200 lens.

Finally got around to ordering this to replace the droopy old one. Had to order from USA and it came very very quickly.

Almost like a new lens again.

Has The Entire World Gone Mad?

Am I the only person who thinks World War III is a really bad idea?

I wish I lived in a remote village in New Zealand.

Brilliant

This is so true. Especially for Python.

 

Real Fake News: Climate Change

Python's post about polar bear numbers is good obfuscation but it can't hide the fact that the 'climate change' advocates (the current iteration of 'global warming' advocates) have simply failed to get their facts right, and because this is documented their failure is there for the whole world to see.

It might be difficult to determine polar bear numbers now and in the past but so what. The real issue is that the alarmists said polar bear numbers would decline to the point of extinction because the arctic ice cap would rapidly decline and may even be gone by summer 2014. So said Al Gore in his UN speech in 2009.

Gore was wrong. But the climate zealots never admit this and try and hide the error with silly articles about how difficult it is to count polar bears.

There were even more extreme statements made by the climate zealots. My favourite is that snowflakes would disappear (in 2000). A total fail and self-evident bullshit to anyone with half a brain. We have had two decades of climate nonsense now and you rarely hear about all the statements that have been proven to be false. You just get new false statements about the future.

Gore was the same charlatan who got the Nobel peace prize two years earlier (2007) and we know what a politicised joke that award is. Even Obama (another climate zealot and professional pathological liar) got a Nobel peace prize to celebrate all the wars and terrorist supporting he was about to embark upon. Gore is to science what Obama is to peace.

I am still waiting for the deluded but well intentioned climate change worriers to explain why the high tax - population control - poverty inducing - destruction of liberty policies that politicians like Obama and Gore present as solutions to the alleged climate change problem are (1) necessary and that no other more people friendly policies are available and (2) will work anyway.

Have you noticed that the solution to big alleged problems (think terrorism and think black market economics) is always the same: more government regulation, more taxes, more sacrifices by ordinary people (but not the elite like Gore), more control, more silencing of dissent etc.

If climate change was a genuine scientific problem, there would be an encouragement of dissent and debate and new ideas and testing of theories (ie did the polar ice cap disappear in 2014) and not censorship and attacks on alternative theories from other scientists. Truth defends itself in a democracy. As soon as governments attack scientific dissent one needs to be extremely sceptical of the prevailing orthodoxy and it disappoints me that well intentioned climate change advocates are not as appalled by the government censorship as the 'deniers' (a government propaganda term if there was ever one) are.

The good news is people aren't as stupid as governments would like and more and more people are waking up. President Trump might event take an axe to a lot of the phoney science.

We are entering a period in the solar cycle where solar activity is decreased. It will actually get colder, but let's hope we are not taxed and regulated into servitude by the climate fascists first.

Idling Away A Sunday Afternoon

Good Riddance to America's Worst President

I can't wait until America's worst and most unconstitutional President leaves the White House.

This smug, arrogant, pathological liar leaves the country in economic ruins. The numbers simply do not lie. 

Not to mention Obama's genocide in Libya, Syria and Yemen. So many slaughtered Christians and barely a whisper from Obama because he actually hates Christians. So many slaughtered muslims as well.

At least this sick bastard won't be able to get up every morning and play with his drones and undertake extrajudicial murder at his will around the world.

And don't get me started on his mass murder of babies and support for every deviancy.

Good riddance.

Who Would Have Thought

Who would have thought we would live in a world where the greatest threat of nuclear war comes from psychopaths in the United States. Where the US used its period as 'sole superpower' to meddle in the affairs of countless nations, to destroy entire countries through military force or economic sanctions, and all for the enrichment of a cadre of corporations.

Who would have thought the United States would eviscerate its own constitution, destroy freedom of expression, and promote the most vicious of dictators and terrorists around the world. Who would have thought extra judicial murder on a global scale, and the promotion of perversion of every kind, would become the hallmark of the United States.

Who would have thought Russia would become the Christian nation, and a champion of decency and international law.

Who would have thought the United States would turn the entire world financial system into a giant debt based Ponzi scheme for the enrichment of the 0.1%.

It is now so bad that I actually want the economic crash to come suddenly, before the lunatics in Washington start a war in an attempt to hide their culpability for economic destruction.

 

The Coming Crash, The Bubble and the Ka-Poom Theory

While I continue to read lots of rubbish from politicians about the "recovery", I am starting to notice more and more commentators put their reputations on the line and predict (like me although I have no economic or financial reputation whatsoever {and for the benefit of Python, I like my Yeoman game}) that a crash is imminent.

The charts of doom continue. A couple more this week, and significant ones: US home ownership is at the lowest level since 1967, and US wages growth is at the slowest pace on record. Unless a recovery is measured by the economic circumstances of the top 1% (who interestingly own the media) this aint no recovery.

The endless money printing (sorry, "quantitative easing") by central banks is not working. I remain amazed that anyone would actually think money printing could possibly work, it being economics 101 that printing money has never worked in history. Ever.

I read a great article by Chris Martenson (Peak Prosperity Website) who described very well that printing money and central bank interventions have only acted to elevate share prices and create a giant stock market bubble where prices are more and more removed from reality as the bubble expands:

"Whether the central banks can keep all of their carefully-propped equity and bond markets elevated throughout the next part of the cycle remains to be seen.  We know they will try very hard. They certainly are increasingly willing to use any all tools at their disposal to keep the status quo going for as long as possible. 

Whether it’s the People’s Bank of China stepping in to the market to buy 10% stakes in major Chinese corporations in a matter of weeks, the Bank Of Japan becoming the majority owner of key ETFs in the Japanese markets, or the Swiss National Bank purchasing $100 billion of various global equities, we see the same desperation. Equity prices are being propped, jammed and extended higher and higher without regard to risk or repurcussions.

It makes us wonder: Why haven’t humans ever thought to print their way to prosperity before?

Well, that’s the problem. They have.

And it has always ended up disastrously.  History shows that the closest thing that economics has to an inviolable law is: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Sadly, all of our decision-makers are trying their hardest to ignore that truth".

Chris Martenson also included a chart that illustrates perhaps more than any other how the effectiveness of money printing is a self-defeating process. The money printing (in addition to many other evils like cheap credit fostering mal-investment) creates debt which over time has less and less impact in creating real economic growth as measured by increases in GDP.

The chart below shows that between 1947 and 1952, when the middle class was expanding, each new dollar of debt increased GDP by $4.61. Today the number is $0.08. In other words, today it takes $12.50 of new debt to boost GDP by $1. There is a word for this kind of trend. Unsustainable.

I have more recently being turning my mind to what the crash will look like. There are different theories. Almost all of the crash prophets predict that the stock market will do what all bubbles eventually do - burst. But what happens then?

One of the theories is the Ka-Poom theory which was proffered by Erik Janszen but well described by Chris Martenson:

"Basically it [the Ka-Poom theory] states that the end of a bubble era begins with a sharp deflationary event (the ‘Ka’ part of the title), but ends in a highly inflationary blow-off, (the ‘Poom’).

It’s a one-two punch. Down then up.

The reason you get the deflationary portion is simply because bubbles always burst. They are seeking a pin from the moment they are born.

The logic for the inflationary secondary reaction is that the central banks always respond to deflation with more money printing. Ironically, this is a doomed attempt to stem the damage caused by their prior money printing efforts.

They never learn.

So that’s what we’re looking for: a deflationary crunch savage enough to scare the central banks into opening the monetary spigots even wider. But this next time, we think they’ll seek to goose economic growth by giving money directly to the people as well as non-bank corporations.

And we think that deflationary bust has already begun. Our record-high stock markets simply somehow haven’t gotten the memo yet".

If this theory is correct it is the double whammy. Deflation - the asset destroyer, and steroids for debt. Then Inflation - cancer for cash. And the consequences of both for an economy: destruction of wealth, especially for the middle and lower classes, massive unemployment, massive poverty, destruction of the revenue base for social services, elimination of healthy credit for business growth, evisceration of pension and retirement funds etc etc.

I am attracted to the Ka-Poom theory but I have a twist of my own to add. I believe while an economy as an entire construct can have a mathematical average number for the price of everything that is either deflationary or inflationary (ie average prices are falling or increasing) it is possible to have both existing in an economy at the same time for different things, such as to be highly destructive for average families. In other words, the prices of essential things like food and electricity can be going up, while the prices of other assets (like real estate)  can be going down. This is the worst of all worlds for ordinary people and there are many precedents for this including (already at the present time) China, parts of the United States, parts of London etc.

If the Ka-Poom theory is correct the first sign will be deflation. In the opinion of Chris Martenson this has already begun, and Australia may be hit early:

"Deflation is back on the front burner and it's going to destroy all of the careful central planning and related market manipulation of the past 6 years.

Clear signs from the periphery indicate that a destructive deflationary pulse has been unleashed. Tanking commodity prices are confirming that idea.

Whole groups of enterprises involved in mining and energy are about to be destroyed. And the commodity-heavy nations of Canada, Australia and Brazil are in for a very rough ride."

The above image was the one I intended to end with for this post. I'm not quite sure it captures the gravity of the situation.

Sitting Bull Says (3)

Cultural Censorship and Historical Revisionism

The current attacks on the Confederate Battle Flag in the United States constitute some of the greatest crap I have seen in many years of observing crap coming out of the formerly great United States.

If the Confederate flag is a racist symbol why isn't the United States flag a symbol of the genocide of the American Indians?

The nazi book burning is in full swing now, and how long before the cross is banned.

Look at some of this garbage:

As we reported yesterday, CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield suggested that statues of Thomas Jefferson should also be removed because he owned slaves. Co-host Don Lemon remarked that, “There may come a day when we want to re-think Jefferson.” 

The L.A. Times also weighed in the farce, noting that statues of Jefferson join “other public statues depicting Southern or Confederate figures, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, that some are arguing represent the country’s racist past and should be removed.”

Top retailers like Amazon, eBay, Sears and Walmart have all removed Confederate flags from sale (while continuing to sell Nazi memorabilia), while Warner Bros has announced that it will stop making the iconic Dukes of Hazzard car because it features the rebel flag on its roof.

Even the multiple Academy Award winning classic Gone With the Wind may not be safe, with film critic By Lou Lumenick calling for its censorship because the movie offers “the most iconic glimpse” of the Confederate flag. Nazi book burners would be proud.

Numerous other Army bases, parks and memorials are also under scrutiny, although at least former Georgia congressman Ben Lewis Jones, who is now chairman of Heritage Operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, declaring the move a form of “cultural cleansing.”

As someone who has actually taken the time to study American Civil War history (unlike most Americans) the ignorance displayed by the flag banners is staggering, and of course all of the old Civil War myths are being trotted out again.

It is so true that "the victors write the history", and so many facts about the American Civil War are never reported. The North is mythologized as going to war to free the slaves, however the North went to war to hold the union together.

Pres. Abraham Lincoln was personally against slavery, but in his first inaugural address, he made it clear that placating the Southern states was more important. Quoting himself in other speeches, he said, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."  You NEVER, EVER hear about this.

Even Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 left slavery intact in border states that hadn't seceded. In other words, slavery was only abolished in the Confederate States at that time. So much for the great principle or the high moral ground. You NEVER, EVER hear this either.

And as for the morons who want to destroy statues of Confederate generals, the Confederate president himself, Jefferson Davis, came to strongly support ending slavery. So did CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, Governor William Smith of Virginia. The CSA's two highest ranking generals, Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, both disliked slavery and supported emancipation. Lee called slavery "a moral and political evil." Johnston called it "a curse." Other Confederate generals who supported emancipation included General Daniel Govan, General John Kelly, and General Mark Lowrey. In fact, the majority of Confederate generals did not own slaves and did not come from slaveholding families. Yet again, you NEVER, EVER hear this.

The real history is even more interesting. Robert Lee was the South's greatest general, and he did not own slaves and found the institution of slavery to be vile and corrupting. Probably the most successful general of the North was Ulysses S. Grant (who actually became President of the United States after the Civil War) however - and you NEVER, NEVER, EVER hear this - was an overseer of slaves on his wealthy father-in-law’s 850 acre plantation known as White Haven in Missouri. These slaves were owned by Grant and his father-in-law until 1865. Wait – 1865? What about Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation’ Proclamation in 1863?

The victors write the history.

Vomiting Delusional Drivel Over Their Pretty Uniforms

Donna Wasson from News with Views has written an excellent article about President Obama's recent speech about "climate change". Here it is:

Captain Tee-Time, the usurping Occupant of the Oval Office has finally lost all touch with reality, and officially checked into la-la land. On Wednesday, May 20th, he appeared before the graduating class at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and proceeded to vomit the most delusional, psychotic drivel all over their pretty uniforms. He actually told them, with a straight face, that climate change is one of the most serious threats to America's national security.

Yes, you read that correctly. The former horror of an encroaching ice-age morphed into global warming which switched dresses and became 'Climate Change.' This is because the propagandists can't figure out if the planet is getting hotter or colder but, DANG IT, the temperature is changing, therefore we need to institute wealth re-distribution from rich nations to poor nations so we can all live in a communist utopia, and sing Kum-Ba-Yah forever and ever. Praise lucifer. Yeah, that's the ticket!

I'll admit that even the most conservative members of this country have to concede there IS such a thing as climate change. It's called the seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall. Other than that, the planet is getting along just fine, thank you very much. Aside from our inability to keep from dumping oil into the ocean, and that whole Fukushima episode poisoning the Pacific, the global temperature fluctuates the way God designed it to thousands of years ago, and driving an SUV isn't going to change that.

Here is his quote. Try to contain your hysterical laughter until you've read it in its entirety.

"Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security. Make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. So we need to act, and we need to act now. Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security. It undermines the readiness of our forces."

He also stated that avoiding the issue is a "dereliction of duty." And if anyone knows what a dereliction of duty is, it's Barack Obama.

The graduates need to get this straight: our national borders, which are wide open to every ISIS terrorist and Mexican drug cartel member on the planet, isn't the most pressing national security issue. The fact that we don't revoke the passports of people who've traveled to war-torn Middle Eastern countries to train in terror camps, isn't much of a concern either. Heck, we welcome them back with open arms!

The fact that the Occupant's administration is bursting with members of the Muslim Brotherhood isn't an issue. The deliberate purging of the most elite, most experienced, most highly decorated officers in every branch of our military isn't a national security issue because the "Commander-in-Chief" filled those positions with transsexuals, flaming sodomites and lesbians, so we're good to go there.

The fact that mentally unbalanced little troll in North Korea, Kim Jong-Nutjob, is boasting they have a miniaturized nuclear weapon that may be able to ride an intercontinental-ballistic missile to the shores of America, is no cause for sleepless nights either. No, the most serious national security issue facing the United States today is…'Climate Change.' Somebody cue 'Hail to the Chief.' Thank heavens the Occupant has America's best interest at heart. What an embarrassing putz he is!

How the entire class kept from cracking up at the Monty Python level absurdity of his speech is beyond me! It speaks well of their discipline and decorum. WHAT, pray tell, does he expect the military to do about climate change anyway?! Shoot it? Lob a missile at it? Drive electric tanks? 

 

Good on Donna. The only way to treat this rubbish is as comedy, because there is no scientific basis for it. To put the climate data at its ABSOLUTE HIGHEST, there is only a case to investigate something, there is certainly no case to radically change the entire global world economy and social structures.

Remember:

1) There hasn't been any global warming since 1997: This year, in 2015, we're going to have kids who graduate from high school who will have never seen any "global warming" during over 18 years. As I have posted previously, this isn't a controversial assertion either. Even the former Director of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, Phil Jones, admits that it's true. Since the planet was cooling from 1940-1975 and the upswing in temperature afterward only lasted 23 years, a 17 year pause is a big deal. It also begs an obvious question: How can we be experiencing global warming if there's no actual "global warming?"

2) There is no scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and caused by man: Questions are not decided by "consensus." In fact, many scientific theories that were once widely believed to be true were made irrelevant by new evidence. Just to name one of many, many examples, in the early seventies, scientists believed global cooling was occurring. However, once the planet started to warm up, they changed their minds. Yet, the primary "scientific" argument for global warming is that there is a "scientific consensus" that it's occurring. Setting aside the fact that's not a scientific argument, even if that ever was true (and it really wasn't), it's certainly not true anymore. Over 31,000 scientists have signed on to a petition saying humans aren't causing global warming. More than 1000 scientists signed on to another report saying there is no global warming at all. There are tens of thousands of well-educated, mainstream scientists who do not agree that global warming is occurring at all and people who share their opinion are taking a position grounded in science.

3) Climate models showing global warming have been wrong over and over: These future projections of what global warming will do to the planet have been based on climate models. Essentially, scientists make assumptions about how much of an impact different factors will have; they guess how much of a change there will be and then they project changes over time. Unfortunately, almost all of these models showing huge temperature gains have turned out to be wrong.

Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer says that climate models used by government agencies to create policies “have failed miserably.” Spencer analyzed 90 climate models against surface temperature and satellite temperature data, and found that more than 95 percent of the models “have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).”

There's an old saying in programming that goes, "Garbage in, garbage out." In other words, if the assumptions and data you put into the models are faulty, then the results will be worthless. If the climate models that show a dire impact because of global warming aren't reliable -- and they're not -- then the long term projections they make are meaningless.

4) Predictions about the impact of global warming have already been proven wrong: The debate over global warming has been going on long enough that we've had time to see whether some of the predictions people made about it have panned out in the real world. For example, Al Gore predicted all the Arctic ice would be gone by 2013. This has not happened at all. James Hansen of NASA fame predicted that the West Side Highway in New York would be under water by now because of global warming. It isn't.

If the climate models and the predictions about global warming aren't even close to being correct, wouldn't it be more scientific to reject hasty action based on faulty data so that we can further study the issue and find out what's really going on?

A New Hero

I have a new hero, and you may be surprised given his image. He shares at least two attributes with the Python, a ponytail (ok) and a guitar (not ok). However, when my wife came across this news story, she said she thought of Thygocanberra.

When you hear why he is a hero you may be surprised to learn that he has the somewhat placid profession of owning an organic herb and tea store in Colorado Springs. I notice his store has  a website.

This hero is Lucas Hinch, who did what we all want to do with our misbehaving computers. The 37 year old Mr Hinch was cited by Police in Colorado for carrying his computer into an alley then shooting it eight times with a handgun after what authorities said had been a long battle with the uncooperative machine.

Mr Hinch took the 9mm pistol he'd recently purchased on Craigslist out behind Organica Herb & Tea Co., which he operates with his girlfriend, and 'fired 8 shots into the computer,' according to city police, 'effectively disabling it.' The gun was lawful, and in my view he should receive no punishment. The computer was a Dell XPS 410.

The bullets are not closely grouped, but I understand the logic of spreading them around a bit to maximise damage to the computer. Given that most of the computer box is air (especially in a Dell) you would need to hit the motherboard and the hard drive to do real damage.

I have not found any mention in the various news reports of what operating system was on the computer. Nevertheless, my thought was: IT JUST HAS TO BE MICROSOFT. I have done a bit of research and, yes, the Dell XPS 410 shipped with Microsoft Windows XP.

Go Lucas Hinch, my new hero. 

 

It's All In The Walk

It's all in the walk. Real men walk like men.

 

Jerks walk like jerks.

More and More Charts of Doom

To add to previous charts of doom, there are more and more appearing every day.

If things are this bad, one must ask: surely the government knows? Surely economists know? I believe many in the powers that be are aware of the coming crash, and the better economists are warning us. There are plenty of clues and warnings around us.

Here is one warning:

Here is one clue:

Downright Lies

How can you possibly fix the economy if you don't acknowledge the problem in the first place.

Last Friday the delusional Obama administration applauded the latest 'statistics' from the BLS - the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I prefer to call it these Bullshit Labor Statistics.

The BLS 'statistics' supposedly show that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 295,000 in February, and the total unemployment rate edged down to 5.5 percent.

This is crap. Since 1994 the BLS rules were changed so as not to count 'long-term discouraged workers', ie the long term unemployed. These people are still unemployed. The BLS figures also do not count another category which includes short term unemployed workers who have stopped looking for work and other  marginally attached workers, and workers who are part-time but want to work full-time.

When you add and adjust for these other categories the true unemployment rate is 23.2% which is an economic crisis level.

The BLS 'statistics' also hide other important information about the context and quality of jobs, and whether the jobs reflect a healthy or an unhealthy economy.

In reality, the context and quality is at an alarming low level:

1.    Since February 2008, the size of the U.S. population has grown by 16.8 million people, but the number of full-time jobs has actually decreased by 140,000.

2.    The percentage of working age Americans that have a job right now is still about the same as it was during the depths of the last recession.  The chart below shows how the employment-population ratio has changed for the worse since the beginning of the decade.

3.    Nearly 33 percent of Americans above age 16 are not part of the workforce, the highest number since 1978. As at February 2015, 92,898,000 Americans above age 16 are not part of the labor force. When President Obama took office in January 2009 this figure was 80,529,000, so the number has increased by nearly 12 million.

4.    The quality of jobs continues to decline.  Right now, only 44% of U.S. adults are employed for 30 or more hours each week.

5.    Many millions of Americans are forced to take part-time jobs because that is all they can find. A staggering 39% of American workers make less than $20,000 a year, 52% of American workers make less than $30,000 a year, and almost three quarters or 72% of American workers make less than $50,000 a year.

6.    The average duration of unemployment for an unemployed worker is still about twice as long as it was just prior to the last recession.

The United States is not just a nation in decline, but a nation in denial.

The Coming Censorship

While the dumbed down masses are distracted with idiotic news stories about the colour of a dress, or Harrison Ford's latest crash landing, the Obama Administration has sought to commence regulation of the internet. Last week at the initiation of President "Drone Killer" Obama the FCC voted to regulate the internet like a 1930s era public utility, using Orwellian sounding "net neutrality" regulations.

Make no mistake about this, once the US government establishes a foothold into managing how Internet service providers run their networks they will next be deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all. Censorship. And of course where regulations go, taxes follow, so you can throw in an internet tax as well.

In a world when freedom of expression has been eroded by a corporate media which is essentially owned my a small number of commercial interests, and where other basic freedoms are being eroded by so-called "emergency powers" to fight a war against terrorists (of our own creating), the last bastion of genuine freedom of expression is the internet and the on-line alternative media. Needless to say, the Wall Street controlled political thugs wants to plug this gap in their control of information.

But there is some hope. House Representative Mrs Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill to block the FCC from imposing its 332-page “Net Neutrality” Internet takeover plan, which in a further Orwellian twist, has still not even been released to the public over a week after its adoption.

The bill, entitled the Internet Freedom Act (H.R.1212), would not only stop the FCC from “reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service and from imposing certain regulations on providers of such service,” but would also prevent the agency from imposing similar rules unless authorized by Congress. Blackburn said "the Obama administration will stop at nothing in their efforts to control the Internet”and “there is nothing ‘free and open’ about this heavy-handed approach.” Absolutely correct. Good on her.

Given that the US Congress is so beholden to Wall Street and the 1% I am not optimistic that Blackburn's bill will pass, however it is good to know a few politicians are not asleep at the wheel and are prepared to stand up for freedom of expression.

 

Impressive Delivery

I ordered this little game about a week ago, and it has already arrived from the US. I didn't even choose the super fast post, just the ordinary one. I was inspired to purchase this game because I am currently reading a very enjoyable book covering part of the Indian Wars called "Empire of the Summer Moon" which is actually about operations against the Comanches and not Custer's battle against the Sioux and the Cheyenne.

Although the game is two player, it looks like it has excellent solitaire potential, and also charddy and peanuts Boys Weekend potential (two players could share the Indians, one player could go the US cavalry).

The game is described as "Minutes to learn. Quick to play. Historically accurate'. It really is a mini game. Small map, only 40 counters, but also 19 cards. The cards include famous leaders like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

Bankrupt Bankers Trying to Start a War

The following article has just appeared in the Washington Post:

"U.S. military combat vehicles paraded Wednesday through an Estonian city that juts into Russia, a symbolic act that highlighted the stakes for both sides amid the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War. The armored personnel carriers and other U.S. Army vehicles that rolled through the streets of Narva, a border city separated by a narrow frontier from Russia, were a dramatic reminder of the new military confrontation in Eastern Europe.

The soldiers from the U.S. Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment were taking part in a military parade to mark Estonia’s Independence Day. Narva is a vulnerable border city separated by a river from Russia. It has often been cited as a potential target for the Kremlin if it wanted to escalate its conflict with the West onto NATO territory".

To my mind this is blatant military aggression by the United States. Just imagine the uproar if Russian troops were exercising on the American border in Canada or Mexico. Note also the deliberate false assumptions in the propaganda article which I have highlighted. There is no evidence whatsoever that Russia has any plans to attack Estonia or that it wants to escalate any conflict with the West. It is in fact NATO that has been building more and more bases closer and closer to Russia, and the US that staged the coup in Ukraine, not to mention the infamous missiles in Poland that America said are a 'defence against Iran' (you can't make this stuff up).

Estonia needs to be very careful playing these games with the US. It has a Russian speaking population of 24%. If Russia agitates them, or even arms them as insurgents, the tiny country of Estonia will become engulfed in civil war and become a disaster and hell hole just like the Ukraine - and it will be America that started it.

The recent assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov also has the smell of American corruption and interference about it. Putin is more popular than ever in Russia and there would be no advantage to him in being involved in something like this. Nemtsov, although a loud mouth, had no impact on Putin’s 85% approval rating. Nemtsov’s support resided in the Washington-funded NGOs in Russia. But America, desperate to stir up trouble in Russia, may have decided they can get more mileage out of this opposition leader dead than alive.

What is really happening? The psychopaths on Wall Street that control the US know that an economic crash is coming. They will do anything, even start a world war, to hide their culpability. Washington’s reckless and irresponsible destruction of the trust achieved by Reagan and Gorbachev has resurrected the possibility of nuclear war from the grave in which Reagan and Gorbachev buried it. Again, as during the Cold War the specter of nuclear Armageddon stalks the earth. It is unbelievable how far the United States has fallen. 

Lethal Aircraft Technology

We are accustomed to assuming that the United States has the best military technology in everything, and is invincible.

This is not true. Military success is a combination of technology, training, numbers of active units, tactics and many other matters.

The United States air force has some great aircraft, and lots of them, but is no longer ahead of Russia in terms of highly advanced aircraft flown by true professionals in large numbers in Europe. The US has been busy bombing the crap out of second and third world countries for the last several decades, but it has to be half a century since it has encountered any serious opposition.

Even Western military experts agree that the Russian SU-34, and its successor the SU-35 Flanker, are a match for American aircraft, and there will shortly be hundreds of these craft in the professional air force of Russia, and then of China and India. The US has more advanced and stealthy aircraft on the drawing board, but production of these craft is some time away, and Russia also has brilliant aircraft engineers working on their next generation of fighters.

We also tend to assume that only the United States has a strategic bomber capability. This is also not true, and Russia has not only  TU-95 "Bear" bombers but also the TU-160 "Blackjack" strategic and nuclear capable bomber. The Blackjack is the largest jet-powered, swing wing combat aircraft ever produced and includes the most powerful jet engines fitted to any military aircraft. This bomber is many times larger than the American B-1 bomber though no less lethal, and it has a better range and larger munitions capability.

No European nation has a match for Russia's TU-160, and the Western Europeans should think very carefully about their support for Obama's aggressive and lie-laden stance against Russia. Russia is no third world nation, and has massive air capability.

PS Russia also has the world's largest military transport plane, the AN-124 Antonov (named after a legendary giant).

And, when it comes to helicopters, Russia is also up there with the best of them. In particular, the Ka-52 Alligator which is an advanced military helicopter that can fly day and night and in all weathers. It is designed to eliminate armoured and non-armoured ground targets, low-speed aerial targets and enemy frontline and tactical reserve forces, and can also fly surveillance missions and be used to direct a team of attack helicopters.

A Grilled Cheese Sandwich and the Coming Economic Collapse

I have previously posted about the coming economic collapse.

This grilled cheese sandwich may not be a chart, but it is another sign of what is wrong with our current economic situation.

Let me explain.

The trillions and trillions of money printing have not created a recovery or improved economic circumstances for the vast majority of people. All that has been created is easy money for Wall Street, and a massively over-inflated stock market that only benefits the 1% who trade in shares. This over-inflation is now a bubble that is going to do what bubbles always do: burst.

Traditionally, a company's stock price is a reflection of the combined value of the company's underlying assets, plus perhaps a realistic margin for future growth potential and return on investment (cash flow through dividends). In the current bubble, many companies have a share price that vastly exceeds - and I mean VASTLY exceeds - the combined value of their assets and any objectively reasonable allowance for future growth or dividend cash flow.

A good example is The Grilled Cheese Truck Inc. which trades on the OTCQX marketplace under the ticker GRLD. This publicly listed company has 18 million shares and a recent stock price of $6 giving the company a market value of about $108 million.

But what are the underlying assets? According to the company’s financial statements, it has about $1 million of assets which include four (yes, only four!) grilled cheese trucks and almost $3 million in liabilities. In the third quarter of 2014, the company had sales of almost $1 million, on which it had a net loss of more than  $900,000. In short, and notwithstanding that the grilled cheese sandwiches may be excellent, the company is trading at in excess of $100 million over valuation. For those who bought shares low and sold high, great money. For those who bought more recently, disaster when the crash comes.

[This paragraph will make Python happy] The economic recession of 1973-1975, which John Michael Young lived through, was nothing compared to what we will have to endure when the crash comes.

When people tell you that the high stock market equals a recovery, just think of the grilled cheese sandwich.

Left Man, Right Man

Lies and Bombings

The man on the left tried to start military intervention and aerial bombing in Syria by lying about the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons. The man on the right exposed the lie, revealed evidence that Syrian rebels had used chemical weapons, and prevented military intervention based on a lie.

Lies and Invasions

The man on the left succeeded in invading and decimating a country, Iraq, based on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is far removed from the United States. The man on the left has an IQ of 59 and struggles to play 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey'. The man on the right has only ever invaded northern Georgia in defence of the Abkhazia Republic which was attacked by Georgian forces. Abkhazia is directly within Russia's sphere of influence. The man on the right has an IQ of 132 and plays chess.

Democracy and Constitutionalism

The man on the left overthrew the democratically elected government of Egypt, crushed the Arab spring, and restored the nation to harsh and corrupt rule by a military oligarchy. The man on the right has undergone three successions of power to positions as President or Prime Minister in accordance with the nation's democratic constitution.

Democracy and Self Determination

The man on the left used a CIA colour revolution, and snipers murdering policemen, to overthrow the democratically elected government in the Ukraine before the next election was due, and replaced the government with a far right coalition of billionaires. The man on the left achieved self determination for Crimea by holding a referendum in which there was 83.1 percent voter turnout and 96.77 percent voted in favour of integration of the autonomous republic of Crimea into the Russian Federation (exactly as had happened with Kosovo with the full support of the West).

Freedom of Religion

The man on the left is afraid of religion and leads a regime that openly persecutes religious groups, especially Christians and Buddhists. The man on the right supports religious tolerance and has overseen the rebuilding of Cathedrals destroyed by communists and a revival of Orthodox Christianity.

Lobby Groups

The man on the left has shown weakness in the face of the world's strongest lobby group, the homosexual lobby, and is seeking changes to practices that will expose people including children to erroneous and dangerous ideas about sexuality and family. The man on the right has enacted an anti-propaganda law that forbids the dissemination of deviant information to minors.

Terrorism

The man on the left supplies arms and training to Syrian terrorists, which terrorists have formed ISIS, and which terrorists continue to defect to ISIS on a regular basis. The man on the right supports the Syrian regime, which is the only nation state undertaking direct military action on the ground against ISIS.

Religious Values

The (wo)man on the left gives support and publicity to feminist rock groups like Pussy Riot and Femen that openly commit blasphemy (including desecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior which was rebuilt after destruction by the communists, and the chain sawing of a crucifix) and which use openly satanic imagery in performances. The man on the right enforces laws against hooliganism and achieved a conviction against Pussy Riot for hooliganism promoted by religious hatred.

Federation and Liberty

The man on the left oversees the EU which has become an uncontrollable apparatus which suffocates the liberties of its member nations, and drowns its citizens in red tape and political correctness. The man on the right supports a genuine federation which respects the liberties and rights of its members, and has acted to deconstruct unnecessary bureaucracy and inefficiencies.

Popularity

The man on the left has a personal approval rating of only 29%, and among his own parliamentary colleagues recently survived a spill motion (in which there was no declared alternative leadership contender) by 61 to 39. The man on the right has a personal approval rating of 87%.

Oil and Oligarchy

The man on the left has used the oil wealth of his nation to sustain a corrupt and medieval oligarchy, and to funnel wealth into the hands of a small group of (mostly related) families. The man on the right has broken the post-communism oil oligarchs, even jailing some of them,  and has directed the wealth from oil and natural gas towards the country as a whole.

Economic Development

The man on the left has used unsustainable loans from the World Bank to impoverished nations to create a cycle of debt, and has then imposed austerity and so called 'conditionalities' that require these nations to repay interest before health and education expenditure. Nations in West Africa in particular, now subject to an Ebola outbreak, saw their health infrastructure degraded before the outbreak. The man on the right has been instrumental in creating the BRICS nations' development bank to make sustainable loans to third world nations to build infrastructure.

European Independence

The (wo)man on the left has acted as a puppet of United States interests and has failed to develop a genuine European foreign policy with the capacity to withstand the unfair and dangerous demands of the United States, a dictator supporting nation which is grasping to maintain a position as the world's last superpower. The man on the right has acted with national independence and desires a European solidarity that is independent from the United States and Wall Street bankers.

Health

The man on the left is an elitist prat who maintains health and longevity by transfusions of children's blood and by special treatment in a health system which leaves other people his age to die in hospital with 'no extraordinary measures'. The man on the right maintains health by exercise and eating vegetables.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia, a political giant in a world of cheats and knaves.

More Charts of Doom

Here are four more charts, to add to the already significant pile of negative economic news, that dispel the myth of a US economic recovery. If the US has been experiencing a recovery for the last few years I would sure hate to see a recession let alone a depression.

Real Median Household Income has not increased since 2000.

Student Debt has risen dramatically and now totals a ridiculous $1.2 trillion.

Child Poverty has risen, and in the United States a staggering one third of children live in households earning less than 60% of the median income. In many so called 'First World' countries this figure is above 20%, and even in Australia it is above 10%.

Home Ownership in the United States has been declining for the last 10 years.

The Charts of Doom: More on the Coming Economic Crash

There is a great article by Michael Snyder that summarises why he believes the great crash is imminent. I agree with him. I actually searched for charts for everything that Snyder says, and he is correct. These charts tell a story that clearly illustrate that the so called "recovery" is a monumental lie.

I quote his key points as follows (and highlight my "favourite" bits):

The signs of the times are everywhere – all you have to do is open up your eyes and look at them.  When a pregnant woman first goes into labor, the birth pangs are usually fairly moderate and are not that close together.  But as the time for delivery approaches, they become much more frequent and much more intense. 

Baltic Dry Index

Economically, what we are experiencing right now are birth pangs of the coming Great Depression.  As we get closer to the crisis that is looming on the horizon, they will become even more powerful.  This week, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in 29 years.  The Baltic Dry Index also crashed during the financial collapse of 2008, but right now it is already lower than it was at any point during the last financial crisis.  (The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) measures the demand for shipping capacity versus the supply of dry bulk carriers. The demand for shipping varies with the amount of cargo that is being traded or moved in various markets).

Commodity Prices

In addition, “Dr. Copper” and other industrial commodities continue to plunge.  This almost always happens before we enter an economic downturn. 

Orders for Durable Goods

Meanwhile, as I mentioned the other day, orders for durable goods are declining.  This is also a traditional indicator that a recession is approaching.  The warning signs are there – we just have to be open to what they are telling us.

And of course there are so many more parallels between past economic downturns and what is happening right now.

Stock Market Volatility

For example, volatility has returned to the markets in a big way.  On Tuesday the Dow was down about 300 points, on Wednesday it was down another couple hundred points, and then on Thursday it was up a couple hundred points.

This is precisely how markets behave just before they crash.  When markets are calm, they tend to go up.  When markets get really choppy and start behaving erratically, that tells us that a big move down is usually coming.

Currency Implosion

At the same time, almost every major global currency is imploding.  For much more on this, see the amazing charts in this article.

In particular, I am greatly concerned about the collapse of the euro.  The Swiss would not have decoupled their currency from the euro if it was healthy.  And political events in Greece are certainly not going to help things either.  Economic conditions across Europe just continue to get worse, and the future of the eurozone itself is very much in doubt at this point.  And if the eurozone does break up, a European economic depression is almost virtually assured – at least in the short term.

Oil Crash

And I haven’t even mentioned the oil crash yet.

There is only one other time in all of history when the price of oil collapsed by more than 60 dollars, and that was just prior to the horrific financial crisis of 2008.

Since the last financial crisis, the oil industry has been a huge source for job growth in this country.  The following is an excerpt from a recent CNN article…

The oil sector has added over a half million jobs — many of them high paying — since the recession ended in June 2009. That’s 13% of all US job growth over that period.

Now energy companies and related sectors are laying off thousands. Expect that trend to continue, bears say.

But losing good jobs is just the tip of the iceberg of this oil crisis.

At this point, the price of oil has already dropped to a catastrophically low level.  The longer it stays at this level, the more damage that it is going to do.  If the price of oil stays at this level for all of 2015, we are going to have a complete and total financial nightmare on our hands…

For the first time in 18 years, oil exporters are pulling liquidity out of world markets rather than putting money in. The world is now fast approaching a world reserve currency shift. If we see 8 to 12 months at these oil prices; U.S. shale industry will be wiped out. The effect on junk bonds will cascade to the rest of the stock market and U.S. economy.

…and this time there will be nothing left to catch the falling knife before it hits the American economy right in the heart. Not the FED nor the U.S. government can stop what’s coming. Liquidity will freeze up, our credit will be downgraded, the stock market will start to collapse, and then we can expect the FED to come in and hyper-inflate the dollar. This will cause the world to finish abandoning the world reserve currency in the last rungs of trade. This will be the end of the petrodollar.

Emerging Markets Debt

As economic problems spread around the world, a number of “emerging markets” are in danger of having their debt downgraded.  And many investment funds have rules that prohibit them from holding any debt that is not “investment grade”.  Therefore, we could potentially see some of these giant funds dumping massive amounts of emerging market debt if downgrades happen.

This is a really big deal.  As a Business Insider article recently detailed, we could be talking about hundreds of billions of dollars…

Russia this week became the first of the major economies to lose its investment grade status from Standard & Poor’s, falling out off the top ratings category for credits deemed to have a low risk of default for the first time in a decade.

If Moody’s and Fitch follow, conservative investors barred from owning junk securities must sell their holdings. JPMorgan estimates this means they may ditch $6 billion in Russian government rouble and dollar debt.

Russia may have company. Almost $260 billion worth of sovereign and corporate bonds – nearly a tenth of outstanding emerging market (EM) debt – is in danger of being relegated to junk, according to David Spegel, head of emerging debt at BNP Paribas, who calls such credits “falling angels”.

Derivatives

And no article of this nature would be complete without mentioning derivatives.

I could not possibly overemphasize the danger that the 700 trillion dollar derivatives bubble poses to the global financial system.

As we enter the coming Great Depression, derivatives are going to play a starring role.  Wall Street has been pumped full of funny money by global central banks, and our financial markets have been transformed into the greatest casino in the history of the world.  When this house of cards comes crashing down, and it will, it is going to be a financial disaster unlike anything that the planet has ever seen.

Consequences of Money Printing

I really like the way that David Stockman put it the other day…

The global financial system is literally booby-trapped with accidents waiting to happen owing to six consecutive years of massive money printing by nearly every central bank in the world.

Over that span, the collective balance sheet of the major central banks has soared by nearly $11 trillion, meaning that honest price discovery has been virtually destroyed. This massive “bid” for existing financial assets based on credit confected from thin air drove long-term bond yields to rock bottom levels not seen in 600 years since the Black Plague; and pinned money market costs at zero—-for 73 months running.

What is the consequence of this drastic financial repression along the entire yield curve? The answer is bond prices which keep rising regardless of credit risk, inflation or taxes; and rampant carry trade speculation that can’t get out of its own way because  central banks have made the financial gamblers’ cost of goods—the “funding” cost of their trades—-essentially zero.

No More Monetary Firepower

Of course I am not the only one warning that a new Great Depression is coming.  For instance, just consider what British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey is saying…

British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey thinks we’ve entered an economic downturn that is “likely to be remembered in a hundred years,” and central banks won’t be able to stop it.

In his Odey Asset Management investor letter dated Dec. 31, Odey writes that the shorting opportunity “looks as great as it was in 07/09.”

“My point is that we used all our monetary firepower to avoid the first downturn in 2007-09,” [Kevin Rudd comes to mind!] he writes, “so we are really at a dangerous point to try to counter the effects of a slowing China, falling commodities and EM incomes, and the ultimate First World Effects. This is the heart of the message. If economic activity far from picks up, but falters, then there will be a painful round of debt default.”

Those in the Know

Even though most average citizens are completely oblivious to what is happening, many among the elite are heeding the warning signs and are feverishly getting prepared.  As Robert Johnson told a stunned audience at the World Economic Forum the other day, they are “buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand“.  They can see the horrifying storm forming on the horizon and they are preparing to get out while the getting is good.

It can be very frustrating to write about economics, because things in the financial world can take an extended period of time to play out.  Sadly, most people these days have extremely short attention spans.  We live in a world of iPhones, iPads, YouTube videos, Facebook updates and 48 hour news cycles.  People no longer are accustomed to thinking in long-term time frames, and if something does not happen right away we tend to get bored with it.

But the economic world is not like a game of “Angry Birds”.  Rather, it is very much like a game of chess.

And unfortunately for us, checkmate is right around the corner.

What is even more scary than Snyder's analysis, is that he doesn't even mention other indicators of declining economic activity. I can think of three big ones:

Unemployment

A real recovery generates jobs growth. We all know what unemployment is. The true unemployment figures are disastrous, especially in the United States. Even in Australia unemployment is rising.

Velocity of Money

The velocity of money is the frequency with which a single unit of currency or the total money supply turns over within the economy in a given year. This is also called the velocity of circulation. When an economy is recovering or doing well this is going up. However, right now it is declining.

Personal Savings Rate

When economies recover and grow the personal savings rate rises. This reflects a population that does not struggle from pay-check to pay-check, and it indicates an increase in general wealth. Currently, the personal savings rate is going down.

There are many other measures of economic health that can be looked at, for example the poverty rate, the food insecurity index, the income wealth gap, the distribution of property ownership, the bankruptcy rate, the percentage of full time versus casual jobs etc etc. The news on all these other fronts is bad news.

These charts do not lie. We are not living in a post recession recovery economy. The crash is coming.

Pathological Liars and Zombie Banks

It is some time now since I formed the view that President Obama is a pathological liar.

Yesterday Obama gave the "State of the Union" address to Congress, and I saw some of it on television. As I expected, it was an absolute pack of lies, and it perhaps says something of the arrogance of the governing class that they believe they can tell blatant lies and get away with it.

Remember, Obama was supposed to be the champion of the middle class and the underprivileged.

The biggest lie was that the United States has undergone an economic recovery, and that the economy is strong and to the benefit of all Americans. All lies. There has been no recovery, only bloated stock market prices caused by the Federal Reserve printing money for Wall Street (not for infrastructure or for ordinary Americans). The economy is not strong, it is on the brink of a collapse that will rival the Great Depression. All Americans have not benefited from Obama's economic policies, only the top 1%.

Here are some very sobering facts that were not mentioned in the State of the Union address:

#1 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale now earn less money than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.

#2 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale have a lower net worth than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.

#3 According to a Washington Post article published just a few days ago, more than 50 percent of the children in U.S. public schools now come from low income homes.  This is the first time that this has happened in at least 50 years.

#4 According to a Census Bureau report that was recently released, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#5 In 2008, the total number of business closures exceeded the total number of businesses being created for the first time ever, and that has continued to happen every single year since then.

#6 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”.  But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”.

#7 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”.  But in 2014, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans in that age range considered themselves to be “lower class”.

#8 Traditionally, owning a home has been one of the key indicators that you belong to the middle class.  So what does the fact that the rate of homeownership in America has been falling for seven years in a row say about the Obama years?

#9 According to a survey that was conducted last year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.

#10 After accounting for inflation, median household income in the United States is 8 percent lower than it was when the last recession started in 2007.

#11 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#12 At this point, one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “in collections“.

#13 When Barack Obama first set foot in the Oval Office, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, that number is sitting at only 59.2 percent.

#14 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 32.8 weeks.

#15 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#16 At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, the yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars.  Last year, it was more than 314 billion dollars.

#17 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is over 101 percent.

#18 The U.S. national debt is on pace to approximately double during the eight years of the Obama administration.  In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate about as much debt as it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#19 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

#20 The poverty rate in the United States has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years.  This is the first time that has happened since 1965.

#21 From 2009 through 2013, the U.S. government spent a whopping 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs.

#22 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.

#23 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had full-time jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.  But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have full-time jobs.

#24 One recent survey discovered that about 22 percent of all Americans have had to turn to a church food panty for assistance.

#25 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.

#26 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are living with only one parent are living in poverty.

#27 According to a report that was released late last year by the National Center on Family Homelessness, the number of homeless children in the United States has reached a new all-time record high of 2.5 million.

The policies of Obama and the Wall Street / Federal Reserve cronies that control him are leading to disaster. And this disaster will make all of the above statistics pale into insignificance.

There is a great quote from Mike Whitney that summarises the madness of the current American financial system:

"But can you believe it? These are the same worthless, zombie banks we bailed out just four years ago to the tune of many trillions of dollars and they’re back on the ropes again? How does that happen? And all the while the Fed has been lending them gobs of money at zero percent, loading them with trillions in reserves, pumping up their stock prices with a small ocean of free liquidity, and they still can’t hack it. They must have the shittyest business model in history. Either that, or crime doesn’t pay after all.

The fact is, the banks are dragging down the entire economy and everyone with it. You simply can’t restructure the whole system to accommodate bumbling imbeciles whose only strategy for survival is mooching off the government. Four years into the so-called recovery and bank lending is still contracting. This is ridiculous. These chiselers make their dough trading derivatives and moving loan loss provisions into the profit column to buffalo shareholders. It’s a big freaking game. We should have shut down these zombies when we had the chance. Now they’ve BECOME the government. And that’s why the economy is headed for another slump".

Unfortunately Australia is not immune. When the house of cards comes down, we will go down with it.

What is Extremism?

The following was in the news on Sunday:

"(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will invite allies to a Feb. 18 security summit in Washington to try and prevent violent extremism, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Sunday after meeting his European counterparts in Paris.

The gathering of justice and interior chiefs came as France mourned 17 victims of Islamist gunmen this week in the worst assault on its homeland security in decades.

"We will bring together all of our allies to discuss ways in which we can counteract this violent extremism that exists around the world," Holder told reporters."

When President Obama says that there will be a world forum on combating "extremism" I worry. The reason is that Obama's definition of an extremist is very different to that of most fair minded people. And this is coming from the President of a nation that has supported more brutal dictatorships and bombed more civilians than any extremist group has. Not to mention America's own track record of murdering unborn children, and the export of a vulture corporatism that pillages the third world.

Over the last several years various US government agencies and documents have described groups or viewpoints that the US Government regards as "extremist" or "potential terrorist". There are now at least 72 categories and this says a great deal about the "big brother' mentality in the US and the terrible decline in genuine American values of liberty and freedom. Below is the list and all of the categories are links to US source documents.

This list should terrify all rational and fair people because it covers a very large percentage of the population and includes just about everyone that I know and respect. The common theme is 'independent thought' and 'scepticism of government'. If this makes people an extremist or potential terrorist then our society is in real trouble. If this is what our society has become, we have more to fear from our own governments than from extremists.

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

16. Members of the American Family Association

17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”

18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol

19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform

20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition

21. Members of the Christian Action Network

22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”

23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”

24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21

25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps

26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”

27. The militia movement

28. The sovereign citizen movement

29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”

30. Anyone that “complains about bias”

31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”

32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”

33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”

34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”

35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”

36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”

37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”

38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”

39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”

40. “Militia or unorganized militia”

41. “General right-wing extremist”

42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.

43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”

44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

45. Those that are “anti-global”

46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”

47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”

48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”

49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”

50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”

53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”

54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”

55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”

56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”

57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”

58. “Rightwing extremists”

59. “Returning veterans”

60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”

61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”

62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”

63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”

64. “Anti-abortion activists”

65. Those that are against illegal immigration

66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner

67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations

68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”

69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)

71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies

72. Evangelical Christians

I regard myself as a moderate and compassionate person, and someone who reads widely and takes an interest in world affairs. I like to think I am an objective thinker, and I certainly don't derive all of my information from the mainstream media. I have highlighted above all of the categories which apply to me and apparently I am an extremist x 20! There are other categories that do not apply to me but are groups I do not have issues with, eg.  returning veterans and evangelical Christians. This is absurd. All of my friends are also extremists by these definitions, as are all of my work colleagues notwithstanding a very diverse range of opinions and belief systems in my workplace.

Ever since 911 the response of our governments has been to attack civil liberties and to turn the apparatus of the state against its own citizens. Not to mention several wars, including the invasion of a country based upon lies. We are now spied upon in multiple ways by our own government and any form of independent behaviour or thinking is suspect. The tragedy of events like the Paris murders is that governments will use the event to devise yet further ways to turn the state on its own citizens without actually doing anything significant to combat terrorism.

I find it particularly ironic that the Gadsden Flag is regarded as a sign of extremism or potential terrorism. This flag derives from 1775 and was an American Independence flag in the War of Independence against the British. The flag is bright yellow, emblazoned with a fierce rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, with thirteen rattles which symbolise the 13 colonies, and sporting the motto "Don't Tread on Me." The flag also evokes a statement made by Benjamin Franklin in 1751, when he made a reference to the rattlesnake in a satirical commentary published in his Pennsylvanis Gazette. It had been the policy of Britain to send convicted criminals to America, so Franklin suggested that they thank the British by sending rattlesnakes to England.

The flag is and has been for over 200 years a symbol of liberty and resistence to tyranny. It says everything about America today if it is now regarded as a symbol of extremism.

I - proudly - display a Gadsden Flag in my office, which has additional meaning for a lawyer who fights for client rights.

A Worthy Winner

The 2014 World Beard and Moustache Championship has announced the winner: Mr Madison Rowley. He certainly has a most impressive beard and is a worthy winner:

 

Not a hint of a pony tail.

It Didn't Take Long

It didn't take long for t-shirts like this to appear, but frankly, given Obama's lack of decisive action in relation to ebola he deserves this criticism.

American Holiday

The long weekend is a great time for a holiday, and this weekend we chose to have an American holiday. You really have the a start an American holiday from the top, with a visit to the White House. It is quite a building and I was amazed that I even recognised some people there.

I'm behind the camera alas.

After a lot of walking, you can afford to do a bit of eating. There is a Hard Rock cafe in Las Vegas, and they do have vegetarian on the menu, but I feel I have done my chickpea patty time. I saw some awesome burgers on the Hard Rock menu, but stayed small.

While at the Hard Rock cafe, I saw something that would slightly please my dear friend, except for the guitar, drumstick and INXS sign.

I wonder where we might go for our next holiday...

A True Statesman

The patience of Vladimir Putin is saving the world. As the Western economies come ever closer to collapse, the lunatics in Wall Street and Washington beat  the war drums in the United States. These lunatics are desperate for a war to hide theeir greed and failures. A recent lead editorial in The Economist attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin in such a one-sided manner that it was laughable. 

One may not be an admirer of Putin, but the West is really attempting to engage Putin in some sort of military action. Meanwhile, Putin has acted with great patience, even with the West’s continued aggression at his doorstep. It was the West that filled Poland and the Baltic States with missiles and miliary hardware with the laughable excuse that it was protection from Iranian missiles. It was the West that overthrew the Ukrainian government, not Russia. It was the West that tried to bomb Syria with false claims of a chemical weapons attack, and Putin who prevented a war then. It is the West that supported (and still is) the terrorists in Syria, out of which ISIS was spawned, and the West who is using its new creature from hell as a pretext for more bombing and murder.

There are some very intelligent people suggesting that we could be headed to a world war as a result of the West’s aggression. I don’t really want to consider that possibility because of the famous quote from Albert Einstein:

 “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

I don’t think people should take Einstein’s warning lightly. So the constant efforts by the West to stir things up on the geopolitical front are supremely dangerous to the world. If Putin was a lesser man the world may have destroyed itself already.

In such an environment, and the anniversary of 911 tomorrow, let us pray there is not another false flag attack, to be blamed on whatever group or country the lunatics in the West want to use to start another war. And another shredding of whatever civil liberties are left in the West.

Still No Answers. Still No Justice.

911 Remembered this Thursday.

Still no justice.

In the case of a murder, there is normally an extensive enquiry using the whole spectrum of forensic tools. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, there was no thorough and painstaking forensic investigation, there was a political commission of enquiry.

In the case of a murder, all of the evidence is preserved, even after the trial. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, the remains of the world trade centre were shipped off to China for disposal as fast as possible.

In the case of a murder, statements are taken from every possible witness and incorporated into the investigation. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, the 911 Commission did not hear all possible evidence, including evidence from firefighters on 9/11  that secondary explosions occurred immediately before the collapse of the twin towers, and how bombs were going off in the lobby of WTC1 as they were staging to move up the building, and how after two explosions in the lobby, a third went off and the whole lobby collapsed.

In the case of a murder, if evidence emerges after trial the case is re-opened, and if the jury or judge subsequently disclose errors and irregularities, there is a further investigation. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, even when commission members from the 911 Commission have come out and made statements which cast huge doubt on the Commission's findings, there is no further investigation.

Thirteen years later and still no proper investigation. At least more and more people are waking up.

 

Californian Drought

In 2011 I visited California, and I remember the scenery was beautiful and there were many areas of luscious forestation and agriculture. I took this photo of San Francisco bay:

Over the last year there has been a terrible drought, and the State and its economy have been devastated (even more than the general devastation of the US economy as the Federal Reserve prints money and sets up the entire nation for an apocalyptic crash). I saw these photos today that compare the 2011 that I remember with the situation today:

What has caused this drought?

The Python would say it is global warming, but he has a tendency to look at selective data, and ignore other parts of the United States where there has been increased rainfall over the same period.

ThygoCanberra would say it is a punishment for evil. A valid hypothesis, but if correct why not other equally evil areas of America. Washington DC comes to mind.

I prefer conspiracy theories. Perhaps the US government used its weather control technology to cause rainfall in the Western Pacific and to prevent rainfall on the West Coast. Why? Because the rain carried radioactivity from Fukushima. Maybe. At least this theory does not involve any aliens.

American Hypocrisy and Poodles

At present I am disgusted by the American actions in the Ukraine, and by our own Prime Minister's cheap and nasty commentary. The worst kind of leader is one who is unpopular (like Abbott) and uses a tragedy to try and appear tough.

The destruction of flight MH17 was terrible, but the cause has not yet been determined and already the American warmongers (who will do anything to hide their dire economic problems and increasingly fragile fiat currency) are framing Russia. American poodles like Abbott are chirping away in the background. Personally I suspect the flight was shot down by Ukrainian fighters, after Ukrainian air traffic control directed MH17 off its normal course right into the middle of a war zone.

EVEN IF it was the case that MH17 was shot down by Russian backed separatists, there are four things that the Americans (and Abbott) ignore. First, the shooting down would have been a terrible accident and not deliberate. Second, the United States itself backs 'separatists' in Syria who deliberately murder and have murdered thousands of civilians, including genocide against Christians. The complete hypocrisy of the Americans is nauseating. Third, the Ukrainian crisis was started not by the Russians but by America which backed the undemocratic overthrow of the previous government and the installation of a regime which appears to be a coalition between fascists and IMF loving billionaires. Fourth, the Ukraine is literally next door to Russia. What would America think if Russia was meddling in Canada and supporting an anti-American regime in Canada?

Where is President Obama and Prime Minister Abbott when it comes to the destruction of Christianity in Syria and Iraq? Why is Mr Abbott not on TV deploring the beheading of little girls in Syria just because they are Christian? Why has Mr Abbott condemned Russia for arming and backing seperatists but not condemned America for doing exactly the same in Syria?

Why Don't We Have Politicians Like this in Australia

I don't know whether this letter is a fake, or even an April Fool's day joke, however (notwithstanding my personal views about 911) it actually summarises the true situation in Syria and the complete hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the United States' support for anti Christian terrorists.

Senator Black is a hero. I notice from internet searches that he has sponsored legislation to protect military chaplains from censorship if they want to make public Christian prayers, and to protect Christian prayers in schools.

In 1998, Senator Black tried to pass a law to require doctors give anaesthetic to foetuses before late-term abortions and in February 2001 he called emergency contraception "baby pesticide". In late 2002 and early 2003, Black opposed erecting a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Thomas at the Tredegar Iron Works to commemorate Lincoln's visit to Richmond on April 4, 1865, 10 days before his assassination. Black said, "Putting a statue to [Lincoln] there is sort of like putting the Confederate flag at the Lincoln Memorial."

In July 2003, Black proposed legislation that would prevent unmarried and gay couples from applying for low-interest home mortgages, saying that the state was "spending $90 million to subsidize sodomy and adultery. I just don’t understand why we are taking money away [from worthwhile programs] and supporting a radical homosexual agenda." Also in 2003, he handed out plastic foetuses to fellow delegates before votes on abortion issues, and he also once remarked that abortion was "a greater evil than segregation or slavery". In 2004, he said with regard to Virginia's sodomy law: "If I'm the last person on the face of this Earth to vote against legalizing sodomy, I'll do it."

We don't have any politicians like this in Australia.

If at first you don't succeed...

I am at the end of a long journey. Many times I despaired, but then, on my dog walks a new strategy presented itself and I would try again, only to fail again. Twice I walked a way and promised not to try again, but both times I came back with a "What if" in my mind. Last night, I was crowned in laurels. Blood soaked and radioactive, but victory against the odds.

The journey began in February when between filling our resumes, I started up Darkest Hour and played as  Nazi Germany. I thought it would be a quick game as I had won the game a few times on the previous version, but I was in for a shock. For something different, I decided to focus on a Germany enmoured of naval power. I started in 1933 and built a fleet of aircraft carriers. By 1939, I had a small elite army and a big fleet. I wiped out Poland in normal time, but then came crashing halt in France. Unlike history, the French did not waste their time in the interwar years, but had built up a large army and causualties mounted. No problem, I thought, so I sailed my fleet out to out flank the French. It worked well and the army advanced again, but I had taken my eye off the fleet. Suddenly I found it engaged against the combined navy of the United Kingdom and France. It the end, I had two damaged carriers left of my fleet of 6, and my armies were being pushed back. So, I did what Hitler couldn't, I reset the game back to 1933.

This time the army got much more emphasis, and I had a smaller carrier fleet. Unfortunately, by early 1939 I ran out of my manpower reserve and had to mobilise. Mobilising in peace time is very expensive, and you cop a nasty disaffection rating from your people. Strikes in the factory, production in disarray, I had to reset again.

In the third attempt, I got the balance right and was rewarded with swift victories in Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Norway. Further I cut a good deal with Yugoslavia and Spain and brought them in. That meant I could take out Gibraltar. I then unleased my carrier fleet on the Atlantic and destroyed the British convoys. By avoiding naval battle, I kept the fleet intact and the British impoverished. I invaded USSR on schedule and wiped captured the Ukraine and occupied Poland quickly. Then I died. The USSR had a higher production than me by 20% before I invaded. They got a massive hit, perhaps from the Americans, and my spies told me their production was more than twice mine. My casualties mounted. Then an American carrier fleet wiped mine out, and I reset.

In the fourth and fifth attempts I tried to really build up my production before the war started, so I could match the Russians. I even tried invading Turkey to outflank the Middle East and start with a salient in Armenia to try to outflank the Russians. No joy.

At this point it occured to me that it might be a good idea to ignore the Russians for as long as possible. So around the 6th attempt (16 march according to my save games) went south and south east. I took out Iraq, Persia, India and all of Africa. This left me with oil and resources to spare, a starved England, but still not within coo-ee of Russian production yet. I settled down to a technology strategy, and built elite armour and air force and equiped every infantry division with a brigade of support artilery or armoured cars. I also began to research Nuclear Power with intent. By 1944, I was dealing well with the US and English incursions and strategic bombers when the USSR ruined the party and attacked. Without the element of surprise, I could not destroy their forward armies. When Romania and Hungary surrendered, I saw the writing on the wall and reset again.

At this point, I gave up for the first time. The game was biased! On a train trip homeI read up on other's tactics. They suggested that an invasion of England has possible through a "bug". While all their beaches are well defended, their isolated ports are not. So I reset and made sure that after France fell, I had a paratrooper division ready in Antwerp. I dropped it on the Hull and raced in with my transports. I got three corp ashore when a concerted British counterattack destroyed most of my transports. My main fleet was intact, but the transports were gone!

The next few resets I tried different fleet compositions. The best was a few carriers and a swarm of destroyers to screen. So around the 9th attempt, I had England out of the war, but Russia was still a cliff face. I then read another article the advocated a massive factory building program starting in 1933 and finishing after the 1936 Olympics. That meant that I could have industrial parity with USSR and make up the rest on tactics.

The eleventh attempt looked promising, but I failed to properly garrison the USSR front. They launched a surprise attack in Winter 1940 while I was occupied in South Africa, and again causualites mounted and I was losing.

So attempt 12. I started on the 14th of April my time or March 1933 game time. Massive factory building increased my initial production of 135 to 240. With the Anschluss of Austria, partition of Czechoslovak Republic and invasion of Poland, along with some good policy, the became 360 (top right corner).

France fell quickly and I moved on to Britain. My production was now nearing 600 but the soviets were massing.

 

This time Spain wanted no part of me, so I invaded their country to take out Gibraltar. (Canada had taken on the mantle of the United Kingdom at this point.)

 

The quiet USSR frontier looked like a WW1 Map:

 

All the while, I was invading darkest Africa. It was November 1941 (or 20 April my time).

 

My fleet and submarines were patrolling the Atlantic to stop reinforcements:

 

And Erwin Rommel was having a rumble in the jungle:

 

I waited until May 1943 before taking on the USSR. My production was nearly 600:

 

Their's was a hundred less and still to spike:

 

But I had a lot of armour and and surprise. By June 1943 I was in Stalingrad, Leningrad and approaching Moscow:

 

The Soviet production was collapsing along with army and they surrendered two months later:

 

In 1944, I began to think about USA. Although my production was now a healthy 490 raised to 680 by good policy, theirs was 590 in peace time. It jumped to 800 when I declared war. Then I was very impressed to find that the Italians had snuck an invasion force into Newfoundland, so I raced over with my army. However, on the second crossing, I lost most of my transports so a clever Canadian counterattack. Fortunately, I had enough to force Canada out of the war. A few years later I had rebuilt the fleet and got a large fully mechanised force over.

 

I tried my hand in 1947 and crashed into a massive game bug. My convoys would not supply an Italian holding. The automated convoy builder had created a massive convoy between Caen and Exeter (in England), and thought that was good enough. Within a day of fighting, my forces were unsupplied and within a week retreating everywhere.

Rather than resetting, I quit and went back to the save game. (Well, it was a bug. Just don't mention the bug above that gave me Britain.) I found that one of my conquests had granted me French Guyana, so over the next 18 months I ferried my entire army there. I then began another rumble in the jungle and worked my way up to Mexico. (Crazy game. Each country took no action until I declared war on it, so I only fought one at the time.) By late 1948 I was on the Mexican border, fully supplied and ready for fun.

 

What's more, I had all turbojet bombers, which was cool!

 

Bt winter that year, USA surrendered, although it was a tough fight and I took surpising casualties. That just left Australia and New Zealand, but at this point it was over. What is more, I had two nukes.

 

So I tried to Hiroshima approach. I asked politely for a surrender and was told no. I then nuked Sydney and Auckland and asked again. (Hey, this is the Nazis. They don't have a conscience.) The stupid game said no again, so I had to sail an invasion force all the way to Nouvelle Caledonie. (I am unsure again how I got that.) I then had to fight a one sided battle across both islands. To my surprise I found the remains of the UK fleet in Melbourne, so we had a big naval battle to finish. I lost a few carriers, but I had them coming our my ears at that point of the game so did not care.

Then I expected a screen to pop up saying you win, but no. Nepal was holding out. I begged the British Raj (they went neutral when Britain fell), but  they refused me passage. I had ICBM at this point with Hydrogen Bombs, so I launched those and hit another bug. ICBM do not fly over neutral countries. I told the game I was the Nazis and didn't care about other's neutrality, but it told me it did not care either - neutral was neutral - and if I didn't like it, I could guess what to do. So I launched a final invasion of India to get at Nepal. As soon as I declared war, I heard four big explosions as four ICBM hit Nepal. I had forgotten about them and as soon as India was no longer neutral, they launched. Well, you can imagine the rest. Armour across India finishing with a final rumble in the jungles of Burma. And an enormous sense of accomplishment (and not bad value for a $10 computer game).

 

Pale blue india shows that I gifted that to Bulgaria to administer

 

USA split into the Northern states, Confederacy, Texas and California after the surrender.

 

Australia with a boat people problem.

So now I can finally rest, or do I need to go back a try without the paradrop in Hull bug?

Oh, and a final summation. Praise God Hitler did not have a retry and stuffed his one shot!

Solving the Puzzle of the Box

What is in the box?

I think I have figured this out. The box includes documents relating to alien disclosure, which will probably occur in 2014. This also explains one of the reasons for the previous Holy Father's sudden resignation (the upcoming events known to the inner circle in the Vatican were all too dramatic and too difficult for a person of his age and experience) and it may explain why one has a sense with the new Holy Father that he is restrained and waiting for something.

Where is the evidence, you ask. The evidence is out there, in lots of little crumbs, and is complicated and too much for one post. But I will disclose some of the crumbs now, and more later.

Exhibit 1

Franklin D. Roosevelt, US President, 4 March 1933-12 April 1945. Memorandum to the Chief of Staff for the Army dated 27 February 1942.

 

Exhibit 2

George C. Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff, 1 September 1939 - 18 November 1945, US Secretary of State 21 January 1947 - 20 January 1949 and US Secretary of Defence 21 September 1950 - 12 September 1951. Memorandum to the President  dated 5 March 1942.

Exhibit 3

Dwight D. Eisenhower, US Chief of Staff of the Army 19 November 1945 - 6 February 1948, Supreme Allied Commander Europe 2 April 1951 - 30 May 1952 and US President 20 January 1953 - 20 January 1961. Memorandum to Col. Ireland regarding Cardinal Spellman, 30 June 1947.

 

 Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, Apostolic Vicar for the US Armed Forces, 1939-1967.

 

 

Exhibit 4

John F. Kennedy, US President 20 January 1961 - 22 November 1963. Memorandum to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency dated 12 November 1963.

 

 

Exhibit 5

 The Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), Mount Graham International Observatory, Arizona, USA.

From Catholic.net, May 2008

Vatican astronomer’s take on extraterrestials.

by Edward Pentin

VATICAN CITY — Extraterrestrials: Do they exist?

The head of the Vatican Observatory thinks there’s a good chance they do, and that their existence would be in keeping with the faith.

In a May 14 interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano May 14, headlined “The Extraterrestrial Is My Brother,” astronomer Jesuit Father José Gabriel Funes said that according to his “scientific judgment,” the existence of extraterrestrials is a “possibility.”

“Astronomers contend that the universe is made up of a hundred billion galaxies, each of which is composed of hundreds of billions of stars,” he said. “Many of these, or almost all of them, could have planets. [So] how can you exclude that life has developed somewhere else?”

The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, and has its headquarters at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo just outside Rome. Its main research telescopes, however, are located at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Father Funes, who took over as head of the observatory in 2006, denied that the existence of other intelligent life-forms would contradict Christian belief.

“As there exist many creatures on earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God,” he said. “This doesn’t contradict our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God. To say it as St. Francis [of Assisi], if we consider some earthly creatures as ‘brother’ and ‘sister,’ why couldn’t we also talk of an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? He would also belong to creation.”

The Argentine Jesuit explained that scientists studying the question of extraterrestrial life have made much progress in recent years, and will soon be able to identify if other planets have the conditions necessary for life. He added that, in theory, forms of life could also exist in parts of the universe without oxygen and hydrogen.

When asked how aliens could be redeemed, Father Funes referred to the Gospel parable of the lost sheep. Aliens, he speculated, could already be redeemed because they could have remained in full friendship with God, while the human race “could be precisely the lost sheep, the sinners that need the shepherd.”

But what if they were sinners like us? Father Funes replied that just as Jesus is believed to have come to save mankind, so he was sure that they, “in some way, would have the chance to enjoy God’s mercy.”

Father Funes’ comments to L’Osservatore Romano do not represent an official Vatican statement but remain merely his personal views. However, the fact they were published in the Vatican newspaper signifies support of the wider Church for the acceptability of his position regarding the possible existence of intelligent aliens.

Exhibit 6

His Holiness Pope Francis, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, 13 March 2013 and continuing, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church 19 April 2005 - 28 February 2013. Vatican Consecration on 5 July 2013.

On 5 July 2013 Pope Francis, in the company of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, consecrated the Vatican City State to St Michael the Archangel and St Joseph. The Holy Father blessed a statue of St Michael and addressed those present:

"In the Vatican Gardens there are several works of art. But this, which has now been added, takes on particular importance, in its location as well as the meaning it expresses. In fact it is not just celebratory work but an invitation to reflection and prayer, that fits well into the Year of Faith. Michael—which means “Who is like God?”—is the champion of the primacy of God, of His transcendence and power. Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from his enemies, above all by the enemy par excellence, the devil. And St. Michael wins because in him, there is He God who acts. This sculpture reminds us then that evil is overcome, the accuser is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ. Though the devil always tries to disfigure the face of the Archangel and that of humanity, God is stronger, it is His victory and His salvation that is offered to all men. We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life, we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak, their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him.

We also consecrate Vatican City State in St. Joseph, guardian of Jesus, the guardian of the Holy Family. May his presence make us stronger and more courageous in making space for God in our lives to always defeat evil with good. We ask Him to protect, take care of us, so that a life of grace grows stronger in each of us every day".

Exhibit 7 (Not Verified)

VISUALLY CONFIRMED: Enormous Craft Detected on Moon

Monday, 20 January 2014 11:58

January 18, 2014 -- (TRN http://www.TurnerRadioNetwork.com ) -- At least one enormous object of unknown origin has been visually verified as having landed on our moon. As a result, on Wednesday, January 15, three Terrier-Orion rockets blasted off within a span of 20 seconds from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. EST (0600 to 1000 GMT) on hush-hush missions for the Department of Defense (DoD). TRN has obtained photos of the unknown spacecraft and has an audio interview with an outside consultant from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) who confirms that for almost two years the U.S. government used the McDonald Observatory in Texas to track the approach of two of these enormous objects. A year ago, in January 2013, the objects had gotten to 200,000 miles past Mars when they suddenly vanished. Realizing these two craft were approaching earth and might not be visible to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) depending upon where they went, the Government reactivated the previously cancelled Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) to be launched to the moon on September 6, 2013. It took almost 100 days for LADEE to be placed into proper lunar orbit because NASA utilized gravity instead of rocket fuel to achieve this. By December, 2013, both the LADEE and the LROC found at least one of the two enormous objects had landed on the moon, in a crater the size of the City of Chicago. In 2012, the U.S. confidentially shared information about the inbound "objects" with other governments.  Shortly thereafter to the surprise of many,  China announced it intended to land on the moon and launched its Chang e-3 in December.  That launch took place and China became only the third nation to make a successful soft-landing on the moon with its Chang e-3 lunar lander.  Upon landing, the Chang e-3 deployed a rover called YUTU. The U.S. has been in contact with China to see if it is possible to have its Chang 'e-3 moon lander or its "YUTU" rover travel this far to obtain more information.  No word if China will assist.

Stay Tuned.

Although there are few certainties in these dramatic times, it is certain that governments will not be entirely truthful when it comes to anything to do with aliens. But it is also certain that St Michael protects the Church and Christ has already won the victory.