HR 393 IH: Universal National Service Act of 2007
January 30th, 2007Ahh, the loving Democrats are at it again…
Via: Library of Congress:
Universal National Service Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)
HR 393 IH
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 393
To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make permanent the favorable treatment afforded combat pay under the earned income tax credit, and for other purposes.
U.S. Urges Scientists to Block Out Sun
January 30th, 2007Via: Sydney Morning Herald:
THE US wants the world’s scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.
It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be “important insurance” against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday).
The US has also attempted to steer the UN report, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), away from conclusions that would support a new worldwide climate treaty based on binding targets to reduce emissions. It has demanded a draft of the report be changed to emphasise the benefits of voluntary agreements and to include criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, which the US opposes.
The Winner: Los Angeles
January 29th, 2007Of the ten least affordable areas in the U.S., California has seven of them! And then there’s good ‘ole Los Angeles, festering away at the very top.
My sister, Heather, happens to be a real estate agent. If you’re looking to get off the sinking ship in Southern California, and want to work with a trustworthy agent, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with her.
I tried to do that business a few years ago, and it’s so filthy. But if you have had to deal with real estate transactions, you already know this. (I barely lasted three weeks in the office and just stopped showing up when my fight or flight mechanisms started to kick in.) Heather is very honest and has high morals. I don’t know how she’s managing to stay in that thing…
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: I have no reciprocal financial arrangement with Heather. She doesn’t even know I’ve written this. She doesn’t read Cryptogon.
Via: housingtracker.net:
Real estate markets are local entities, so the issues of affordability and valuation should be looked at with local data in mind. With the goal of providing measures for local residents to use to evaluate the current state of the real estate market in their metropolitan area, four measurements are provided for each city below. These measures are the percentage of median family income going towards the mortgage payment of a median priced single family home (assuming a 30 year fixed-rate loan with a 20% downpayment), the mortgage payment to median rent ratio (for a 3 bedroom rental home), the median single family home price to median family income ratio and the median single family home price to median rent ratio.
To the Military Readers…
January 29th, 2007I can see what you have been searching for. If you have something to say about “that” incident, my PGP key is here. NOTE: Do not use your escrowed key to contact me. Generate a new key and contact me from a machine and an Internet connection that cannot be associated with you in any way.
You should also know that Cryptogon has been blocked on all but a handful of U.S. Military and Government systems. Watch your back, because the spooks at SAIC are watching you (and me).
Suddenly Nukes Are the New Black
January 29th, 2007I guess the sheep need to be lobotomized before the slaughter.
Via: New York Post:
WHAT’S that on the horizon? It’s a mushroom cloud -something we haven’t seen this often on TV since the Cold War.
But this season, mushroom clouds are back as TV taps into our worst fears – namely, terrorist attacks with nuclear weapons – and makes them real.
X-Ray Cameras ‘Plan for Lampposts’
January 29th, 2007How do you top the security cameras to watch the speed cameras story?
Do you really want to know?
Via: Telegraph:
Airport-style x-ray cameras which see through clothes, could be installed on street lampposts in a bid to combat terrorism, it was claimed last night.
The measure was suggested in a memo sent last week to one of Tony Blair’s working groups at the Cabinet Office, the Sun newspaper reported. The move comes amid growing concern about Britain’s “surveillance society”.
The Home Office memo, to the Prime Minister’s working group on security, crime and justice, reportedly said: “Street furniture could routinely house detection systems that would indicate the likely presence of a gun, for example.'”
The Government is increasingly finding new ways of using “street furniture” for security.
“Architectural security improvements have been designed carefully on the basis of specific architectural advice to improve security measures in a widespread way,” the Cabinet Office admitted last week.
Last night both the Cabinet Office and the Home Office refused to comment on the memo.
China’s Energy Sinkhole
January 29th, 2007Via: Economist:
Now there really is a giant sucking sound—not one made by the flight of jobs, but by China ferociously hoovering up commodities and raw materials. Although it accounts for roughly 4% of global GDP (measured at market exchange rates), China consumes 30% of the world’s supply of minerals and other raw materials. This time around, the world has not only heard the sucking sound, but has also felt its effects, as the prices of commodities such as iron ore, copper and zinc have soared, doubling or tripling in just a couple of years.
How has China suddenly developed such a big appetite? The economy has been growing at a dizzying rate, recently by double digits. Much of this growth is driven by fixed-asset investment, which now accounts for more than 50% of GDP a year—a higher proportion than that of any other country at any time in history. This relentless capacity for expansion has created an insatiable demand for raw materials.
China also wastes a lot. Take energy consumption. China required 4.3 times as much energy as America in 2005 to produce one unit of GDP, up from 3.4 times in 2002. It can be argued that much of China’s new investment has not yet reached optimal efficiency. That may be true, but it does not explain why things are getting worse: China consumed 15% more energy per unit of GDP in 2005 than it did in 2002. India, also a rapidly expanding economy, consumes only 61% as much energy as China per unit of GDP.
China’s wasteful growth has brought joy to commodity producers and their bankers and shareholders worldwide. With rising profitability and stock prices, they have been happily expanding mining operations and acquiring or merging with rivals. But there are reasons to believe that the surge in commodity prices worldwide has run out of steam.
There is strong evidence that the current cycle of China’s investment-led growth has peaked. A clear sign of overheating is the increase in accounts receivable. Although sales appear robust, Chinese firms are beginning to find it difficult to get paid in cash, either because their buyers cannot turn over their own stocks fast enough or because they have trouble borrowing money to finance their purchases.
Priming the Pump for a Major Motion Picture on New Energy
January 28th, 2007To suggest that there isn’t easily enough energy available from the oceans, the sun and the wind is ridiculous. Of course, plentiful clean energy would probably lead to cascading resource scarcity in other areas… [Cryptogon reader Cherenkov accurately expanded this one sentence caveat in a comment. Sometimes I expand points in comments, but forget that many people might not be following comments. For the record, I did this re: resource scarcity vs. plentiful energy at the bottom of this comment.]
But this would be an interesting documentary in any event!
I’ve dreamed of making this film myself, believe it or not. I even wrote out a little outline/treatment, and made a list of people I’d like to visit for interviews. (The ‘secret’ project I started, but abandoned due to life circumstances, was about killer robots. The energy doc would have been the next one.) But since I’m obviously not in a position to make this happen on my own, I kicked in a few bucks to help these guys make it happen.
If you think most movies are crap, here’s your chance to help get an interesting one made!
Via: PESN:
What if there were a high-interest feature film about the many feasible New Energy technologies, presented with the level of production skill demonstrated in recent blockbusters like Al Gore’s award-winning movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car, or What the Bleep do We Know?
That is what the New Energy Movement and its sister organization, the New Energy Congress are intent on accomplishing — in time to make New Energy a buzz word in the campaigns leading up to the 2008 U.S. election.
The film will showcase a myriad of presently available, often little-appreciated renewable energy technologies that could eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels. And they can provide electricity for our homes and businesses, or power for our vehicles at comparable, or even lower prices than what we now pay. It will also look at technologies that are in process of emerging, as well as others that look very promising, which could provide clean, reliable and safe energy at prices far below what we now pay.
Not only do these technologies provide a solid answer to the human-caused problems of global warming, but they could introduce a much-needed revolution in the social fabric of the planet, reducing poverty, increasing quality of life worldwide, and defusing political tensions.
The purpose of this feature documentary will be to present these compelling solutions in both a deeply impacting and entertaining way, so that the level of awareness about them can increase, speeding their acceptance and implementation — a process that otherwise would take much longer.
IRAQ CRASH KILLED KEY U.S. OFFICERS
January 28th, 2007In the wake of U.S. Soldiers Killed by English Speaking “Insurgents†Who Were Armed with American Made Weapons and Driving Black SUVs, I decided to take a closer look at other recent U.S. military deaths in Iraq.
What I found was astonishing.
I didn’t know a helicopter could carry so much brass. Among the dead in this single incident were:
Two colonels – Including the top U.S. Army surgeon in Iraq
One lieutenant colonel
One major
One captain
What the hell is going on over there? Isn’t there some standard operating procedure that would prevent so many officers from flying in a single helicopter over a combat zone?
The full text of this AP story follows.
Via: Los Angeles Times/AP:
Iraq crash killed key U.S. officers
The copter went down last weekend. A missile strike is suspected.
From the Associated Press
January 26, 2007
BAGHDAD — Two colonels, a lieutenant colonel and two command sergeants major were among the 12 U.S. soldiers killed last weekend in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter northeast of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.
It appeared to be the largest number of key officers and command sergeants killed in a single incident since the Iraq war started nearly four years ago.
The helicopter went down Saturday in Diyala province, one of the volatile regions in the Iraq conflict.
The Army has said the cause of the crash is under investigation. But a Pentagon official has said debris indicates the helicopter was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Ten of the dead were members of the National Guard, making the crash the deadliest single combat incident for the Guard since at least the Korean War, said Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman.
A Pentagon statement Wednesday said the victims included Col. Brian D. Allgood, 46, the top Army surgeon in Iraq, and Col. Paul M. Kelly, 45, assigned to the Joint Force Headquarters of the Virginia Army National Guard in Blackstone, Va.
Also killed were Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn L. Gabbard, assigned to the Iowa National Guard, and Command Sgt. Maj. Roger W. Haller of the Maryland National Guard.
Command sergeant major is one of the Army’s highest enlisted ranks.
The other victims were Lt. Col. David C. Canegata of the Virgin Islands National Guard; Maj. Michael V. Taylor of the Arkansas National Guard; Capt. Sean E. Lyerly of the Texas National Guard; 1st Sgt. William T. Warren of the Arkansas National Guard; Staff Sgt. Darryl D. Booker of the Virginia National Guard; Sgt. 1st Class John Brown of the Arkansas National Guard; Staff Sgt. Floyd E. Lake of the Virgin Islands National Guard; and Cpl. Victor Langarica of the 86th Signal Battalion, Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.
Raw Milk and Lifting the Veil that has Been Pulled Over Our Eyes
January 28th, 2007As all of you know, I find the “expert” opinions on medicine, energy, economics and several other areas to be riddled with bullshit.
I have found that experimentation always trumps theory. No number of people with PhDs, paid trolls or “peer reviewed” journals are going to convince me that something that works for me isn’t working for me.
The war against raw milk is very interesting and illustrative; it sums up the political and economic situation that has the world in a death grip.
WARNING: Contents may destroy your current perception of reality.
The “authorities” will tell you that raw milk is a profoundly dangerous substance that can only be rendered “safe” for human consumption by pasteurization. It is illegal to sell raw milk in most “advanced economies.”
This is bullshit.
How do I know it’s bullshit? Was it by reading sites like Real Milk and the material published by the Weston A. Price Foundation?
No. That’s not how I know that the pseudo-scientific quackery of the corrupt authorities is bullshit.
And what about the sinus congestion I’ve experienced—my entire life—that accompanied the consumption of pasteurized/homogenized dairy products?
With the whole, unpasteurized milk, these symptoms have been completely eliminated.
Anyone who tries to tell me that this isn’t happening is a dangerous liar. Anyone who tries to tell me that this isn’t happening is a fraud. Any organization that advocates the position that whole raw milk from pasture raised animals is dangerous has no legitimacy and must be outed as as a criminal front. My wife and I are living, breathing proof that what is being said about raw milk by the “authorities” is a lie. I encourage you to look into the complex of issues surrounding raw milk, and prepare for a hard lesson in the politics and economics of unchecked fascism.
Then make raw milk a part of your life.
The truth behind raw milk punches a hole in official reality that is big enough to free your entire consciousness. If so many lies are being told and enforced by people with guns about something as simple as milk, logically, we must conclude that much of what we think we know is dead wrong.
Examine all assumptions. Accept no dogma from ANYONE. You will know the validity of a thing, or not, by the results you get.
Related: The Untold Story of Milk
