no sunglasses for new wordpress site
July 10, 2008 by judasnooseThis looks like it could be interesting!
The news and commentary site:
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/
has launched a wordpress site:
Shadow Government Statistics Predicts Hyperinflation
July 7, 2008 by judasnooseHYPERINFLATION SPECIAL REPORTIssue Number 41
April 8, 2008
__________
Inflationary Recession Is in Place
Banking Solvency Crisis Has Opened First Phase of Monetary Inflation
Hyperinflationary Depression Remains Likely As Early As 2010
__________
Overview
The U.S. economy is in an intensifying inflationary recession that eventually will evolve into a hyperinflationary great depression. Hyperinflation could be experienced as early as 2010, if not before, and likely no more than a decade down the road. The U.S. government and Federal Reserve already have committed the system to this course through the easy politics of a bottomless pocketbook, the servicing of big-moneyed special interests, and gross mismanagement.
The Dilemma of Parents Educating Children in Developing Nations
July 6, 2008 by judasnoosehttp://hsudarren.wordpress.com linked to an interesting dilemma:
The dilemma of Chinese, Indian parents
Dr Hsu Dar Ren | Apr 9, 07 4:20pmMany Malaysian parents, mainly the non-bumiputeras, have a dilemma regarding their children’s education and future. I just met a friend who has this to tell me. He is an engineer earning a decent living but not really rich. He has two children, and he is grateful that he has only two. The eldest is a son who has just finished his studies in engineering in Australia. The second one is a daughter who has just gone to Australia to study business management.
His dilemma is this. He had no choice but to send his son overseas in order to provide him with a good education and at the same time to broaden his perspective. He could have asked his son to study locally but the problem was that his son might not be given the course of his choice since majority of places for medicine and engineering courses are reserved for bumiputera students.
My friend had to work very hard and had to be very thrifty in order to save to send his children overseas. And he is now near retirement age. He wants his son to come back Malaysia to work but he fears that his son may not get a good job and the prospect of promotions may be limited.
So he asked me what to do. I told him this is the dilemma faced by many, many Chinese and Indian Malaysian parents. Who doesn’t want their children to be around them? But at the same time, if the children don’t good job prospects here, what would the parents do?
They would want the children to have the best chances and do something that they are happy with. And that means letting their children work overseas where the employment prospects are better, and where work satisfaction and upward mobility also better.
I asked my friend, ‘Why don’t you join your son Down Under?’ He answered that he loves Malaysia, he was born and bred here, his friends and relatives are all here, and his business is also here. He would feel out of place and it would not be easy for a middle-aged man to start his network and friends all over again in a foreign country.
What can we do about this? When a citizen’s child studies overseas, we lose precious foreign exchange and this is no small sum as an overseas education runs into hundreds of thousands of ringgit for each student. Over the years, how many Malaysians have gone overseas to study? One hundred thousand? Half a million? One million? I don’t have the figure. But Malaysian used to be the biggest group of foreign students in Australia, the UK, etc. How much money was lost?
And how many of these did not come back? I have so many classmates working as consultants in the UK, Singapore and Australia that I have lost count. This is ‘brain drain’ and ‘brain loss’. Human capital is now recognised as the most important asset in this flattening world. Many of these who stay abroad become very famous scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, etc. How much ‘brain’ was lost? No one can quantify that.
Who knows, Malaysia would have become a First World country by now if we had all these brains realising their potential locally. Everyone, both bumi and non-bumi, would have benefitted more by now. How about the human cost? How many families were separated? How many parents died a lonely death because their children were overseas?
The lists go on and the dilemma is getting more acute. We should in fact be more farsighted. Intake for local tertiary education should be based on merit, with maybe a small proportion reserved for socially-handicapped people. For those studying overseas, try to lure them back, place them in GLCs such as Petronas, TNB, Telekom and government departments and let their promotion be based on merit.
That way, these companies can be much more successful, the country be more prosperous and there will be that much more job prospects. In turn, the economic cake grows bigger and we then have a bigger capacity to offer affirmative action for the less-advantaged groups. By being farsighted, we will be rewarded with every ethnic group getting a bigger share of the economy.
Excessive Secrecy Keeps UFO reporters busy
July 6, 2008 by judasnooseOpening NASA’s X Files: The Kecksburg Incident
June 16th, 2008
Author Leonard David
Call it NASA’s X files if you must, but investigative reporter, Leslie Kean, is hot on the trail of what in the world (or out of it) took place in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in December 1965.It took the winning of a lawsuit against NASA in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but now the investigator has her hands on a load of files that may — or may not — offer new clues about the Kecksburg incident.
For years, Kean has been seeking documents about the purported crash of an unknown object in that locale over forty years ago. Witnesses described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, some sort of a controlled landing, followed by a military recovery of a spacecraft-like object. As reported by local radio and newspapers, U.S. military personnel cordoned off the area, investigated the site, and left without ever providing a full report of the incident - other than to dismiss is as a meteor.
Since the settlement of the lawsuit in October, Kean has been following the steps laid out in the settlement agreement. Both sides needed extensions at various times due to the volume of work selecting which files to pull, and then for NASA to conduct the search, the investigative journalist explained to me.
Helping to open this case, Kean has been working with the Coalition for Freedom of Information.
In her on-going research campaign, Kean culled through 689 detailed pages of file-inventory lists.
The documents just arrived over last weekend, Kean told me, “so I haven’t yet had a chance to go through them…and don’t yet know what I’ll find.”
NASA searched 297 boxes of files, Kean said via email. A sampling of a few of the more interesting files from these boxes, which she requested — and which could shed light on one or more of the many facets of the Kecksburg event — gives a flavor of what the files contain.
The data haul includes files on Navy and NASA Recovery Operations - Trajectory and Orbits Panel; Russian Vehicle and Launch - 1962-1965; Department of Defense (DOD)-NASA relationships; Recovery Sites - NASA/DOD FY 65 Facilities; and a series of files on orbital debris and fragments.
“Even if not specific to Kecksburg, they will very likely inform us about interesting aspects of NASA’s space program related to the retrieval of unidentified objects during this time period,” Kean said.
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid/
The secrecy culture has gone mad. NASA is still keeping secrets from more than four decades ago. All such records could have been put in a public archive, for everyone to read.
Satanic Democrat Rape Scandal
July 5, 2008 by judasnooseHere are the accused:
They appeared to be standard New Age hippies, selling hand-made incense and the like, with newsletters like the following from the soon-to-be-expired Google cache:
Reconsidering Christmas
December 20, 2007 by dianapalmer
Even though most of us are aware that Jesus was not actually born on Dec. 25, it is still a day — or season — for considering Christ’s life and teachings. But instead of a search within ourselves for ways we can become more Christlike, many people try to outdo each other in how much money they can spend on gifts and decorations.What if instead of spending outrageous amounts on those who already have enough material possessions that you instead donate more money to charity in the name of your intended recipient? Truly consider those who are the “least among us.” Volunteer at a shelter or food kitchen and serve meals to the homeless. Provide food to animal shelters. Visit nursing homes and befriend those who no longer have family around them. Be a mentor for at-risk youth in your community. Champion a cause that is important to you. Do these things not only at Christmas but all year long.
When a child starts thinking about what gifts he/she wants at Christmas, encourage that child to pick out a gift for an underprivileged child. Consider doing a yearly cleanout of all gently used toys and clothes and donating them to area shelters and other charitable services.
In the United States we live in a culture that promotes spending over spirituality. Challenge yourself to shun the stores and shopping malls and instead return to a true celebration of Christ’s life and teachings. Spend time at Christmas — and throughout the year — in quiet meditation, considering how you can live the life that Christ taught us to live.
Think of that baby in the manger as your soul waiting to grow, to be nourished and fed. Your best gift to Christ is to live your life’s true purpose and to truly love and nurture each other.
Tags: charity, Christ, Christmas, meditation, shelter, spirituality, volunteer
…
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And then they were accused of raping people and holding hostages for occult purposes:
July 4, 2008 — Stefan Fobes
Durham Democratic Party Official accused in rituals
June 30, 2008Anne Blythe / Raleigh News & Observer
Durham — Allegations that a local Democratic official and her husband were involved in satanic rituals that included shackling people to beds, caging them and depriving them of food and water have horrified county party leaders.
Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting.
Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for an incident in January and another in May.
The two made an appearance in court Monday morning after spending the weekend in the Durham County jail.
Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney, urged Judge Nancy Gordon to increase Johnson’s bond to $500,000 from the $270,000 set by a magistrate. “Part of the allegations are that satanic worship is part of this case,” McCullough said.
Gordon kept Johnson’s bond at $270,000. Craig’s bond remained at $500,000. Each was ordered to stay away from the accusers. Craig has been charged with beating a man with a cane and a cable cord and assaulting a woman with a wooden cane and raping her.
McCullough would not release details of the allegations, but he added, “I don’t want to leave the impression this is a widespread thing.”
Jeremy Collins, president of the Durham Young Democrats, has known Johnson for several years. After following the Duke lacrosse case and seeing the phony gang-rape charges dismantled and dismissed, Collins said he would reserve judgment until the facts of this case were revealed.
“If it’s true then it’s extremely unfortunate and a shock to all of us,” Collins said.
During her time as a party official, Johnson was interested in trying to attract more young Democrats and get them involved in the political process, acquaintances say.
Floyd McKissick, a state senator and a Democrat from Durham, said Monday he had been told Johnson had resigned her posts with the party. He, too, reserved judgment.
“I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted,” McKissick said. “You never would have suspected allegations that she would have had any participation in these rituals.”
Johnson and Craig, along with Diana Palmer, first vice chairwoman for the local Democrats, are partners in a company called Indigo Dawn.
The Graying of the Great Powers
July 2, 2008 by judasnooseMajor Findings: The Geopolitical Implications
The population and GDP of the developed world will steadily shrink as a share of the
world’s total. In tandem, the global influence of the developed world will likely decline.
The population and GDP of the United States will steadily expand as a share of the
developed world’s total. In tandem, the influence of the United States in the developed
world will likely rise.
Most nations in sub-Saharan Africa and some nations in the Arab world and non-
Arab Muslim Asia will possess large ongoing youth bulges that could render many of
them chronically unstable until at least the 2030s.
Many nations in North Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and the
former Soviet bloc—including China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan—are now
experiencing a rapid or extreme demographic transition that could push them toward
civil collapse, or (in reaction) toward “neo-authoritarianism.”
Ethnic and religious conflict will continue to be a growing security challenge both in the
developing and developed world.
Throughout the world, the 2020s will likely emerge as a decade of maximum
geopolitical danger.
The aging developed countries will face chronic shortages in young-adult manpower—
posing challenges both for their economies and their security forces.
An aging developed world may lose its reputation for innovation and boldness—and
struggle to remain culturally attractive and politically relevant to younger societies.
Assault of the poor as commercial entertainment
July 2, 2008 by judasnooseAnd still others are coming up with more practical outlets to exploit China’s new cadre of unstable young bachelors. Two years ago in Nanjing, Jiangsu’s capital, businessman Wu Gang opened the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in a cheap hotel near the bank of the Yangtze River. The bar featured staples of Chinese entertainment like big-screen karaoke and plates of sunflower seeds but also a central catwalk where, for 100 yuan ($15) per minute, customers paid to assault the waiters, single young migrants from poorer cities to the north. If a customer preferred, his victim would dress in drag. Men “are under too much pressure,” Wu explained to me one day, as the waiters high-kicked Pepsi bottles in the storeroom. “They need a way to release it.”
From the comments on the same page:
Back in 1998 when I was teaching in Shanghai at a key High School, I mentioned this disparity between boys and girls, saying in my slow and careful English that there were 110 boys for every 100 girls. I asked one boy student what he intended to do about it, hoping to elicit that he would work hard, study hard, and be a good man in order to attract a girl in the future. Instead he simply told me that he would kill 10 men. Honest to God true story.
http://www.tnr.com/story.html?id=06d65840-0997-482e-a84d-b09b61a7b0e5&p=2
A good but flawed analysis of patriarchy, polygamy, and monogamy
July 1, 2008 by judasnooseSome patriarchal societies developed monogamy; others developed polygamy. Both types of patriarchy differ from primitive promiscuity, which incidentally seems to have been more popular in warmer climates.
These reservations aside, one can overlook some of the flaws of “The Garbage Generation,” a book about why patriarchy of some kind is necessary to civilization.
http://www.fisheaters.com/garbagegeneration.html
The Code of Hammurabi [continues Dr. Lerner] marks the beginning of the institutionalization of the patriarchal family as an aspect of state power. It reflects a class society in which women’s status depended on the male family head’s social status and property. The wife of an impoverished burgher could by a change of his status, without her volition or action, be turned from a respectable woman into a debt slave or a prostitute. On the other hand, a married woman’s sexual behavior, such as adultery or an unmarried woman’s loss of chastity, could declass her in a way in which no man could be declassed by his sexual activity.
Her status depended upon his status. Therefore she was motivated to make him achieve high status. And the success of the system in generating male overachievers who create wealth, social stability and progress–all beneficial to women–proves the arrangement to be desirable. Women would not have accepted it unless its benefits were greater than those offered by matriarchy. The wife of an impoverished burgher could have been de-classed by her husband’s behavior, but she chose to be his wife because through marriage her status and income were more likely to be raised than lowered. This is the way the patriarchal system works, and it benefits everyone. It gives men motivation, makes them productive and thus helps their wives and children. It puts sex to work as a motivator, focusing on long-term (family) arrangements rather than on short term sexuality–promiscuity, the first law of matriarchy. “Society asks so little of women,” says Betty Friedan. But that little must include the chastity and loyalty which makes patriarchal fatherhood and legitimate children possible.
It would be interesting to work out the differences with (e.g.) Chinese and Hindu royal polygamy. Possibly polygamy (limited to the very rich) is a survival from transitional times between matriarchy and patriarchy.
Kevin Phillips offers six parallels between declining empires
June 29, 2008 by judasnooseFrom Wash Post
one can argue that imperial Spain, maritime Holland and industrial Britain shared a half-dozen vulnerabilities as they peaked and declined: a sense of things no longer being on the right track, intolerant or missionary religion, military or imperial overreach, economic polarization, the rise of finance (displacing industry) and excessive debt. So too for today’s United States.
Before we amplify the contemporary U.S. parallels, the skeptic can point out how doomsayers in each nation, while eventually correct, were also premature. In Britain, for example, doubters fretted about becoming another Holland as early as the 1860s, and apprehension surged again in the 1890s, based on the industrial muscle of such rivals as Germany and the United States. By the 1940s, those predictions had come true, but in practical terms, the critics of the 1860s and 1890s were too early.
Premature fears have also dogged the United States. The decades after the 1968 election were marked by waves of a new national apprehension: that U.S. post-World War II global hegemony was in danger. The first, in 1968-72, involved a toxic mix of global trade and currency crises and the breakdown of the U.S. foreign policy consensus over Southeast Asia. Books emerged with titles such as “Retreat From Empire?” and “The End of the American Era.” More national malaise followed Watergate and the fall of Saigon. Stage three came in the late 1980s, when a resurgent Japan seemed to be challenging U.S. preeminence in manufacturing and possibly even finance. In 1991, Democratic presidential aspirant Paul Tsongas observed that “the Cold War is over. . . . Germany and Japan won.” Well, not quite.
In 2008, we can mark another perilous decade: the tech mania of 1997-2000, morphing into a bubble and market crash; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; imperial hubris and the Bush administration’s bungled 2003 invasion of Iraq. These were followed by OPEC’s abandoning its $22-$28 price range for oil, with the cost per barrel rising over five years to more than $100; the collapse of global respect for the United States over the Iraq war; the imploding U.S. housing market and debt bubble; and the almost 50 percent decline of the U.S. dollar against the euro since 2002. Small wonder a global financial crisis is in the air.
Here, then, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950 was for Britain. This may well be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense — four decades of premature jitters segueing into unhappy reality.
Let’s just highlight the six:
Vizzini knows macroeconomics
June 27, 2008 by judasnoosehttp://macro-man.blogspot.com/2008/06/vizzini-takes-charge-of-fed.html
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Vizzini takes charge of the Fed
There was a remarkable development at the start of the Federal Open Market Committee’s deliberations last night which somehow managed to stay out of the financial press. Fortunately, Macro Man has a mole in Washington who’s filled him in on what went down.Shockingly, Ben Bernanke and the rest of the committee have abdicated responsibility for determining monetary policy this month. Fortunately, the policy vacuum has been filled by an incomparable intellect: Vizzini, the Sicilian of Princess Bride fame. Macro Man’s mole has provided him with a verbatim transcript of yesterday’s policy deliberation after a black-cloaked stranger walked into the Federal Reserve conference room:
Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish the economy dead, by all means, keep moving forward.
Dread Pirate Inflation: Let me explain–
V: There is nothing to explain. You are trying to kill the consumer that I have rightfully supported.
DPI: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?
V: There will be no arrangement, and you’re killing the consumer.
DPI: Well if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.
V: I’m afraid so. I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my brains.
DPI: You’re that smart?
V: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Bernanke, Greenspan, Volcker?
DPI: Yes.
V: Morons.
DPI: Really. [pause] In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.
V: For the economy? [DPI nods] To the death? [Pirate nods] I accept.
DPI: Good. Inhale this. [DPI pulls out a small vial and uncorks it.]
V: I smell a viscous, tarry substance.
DPI: What you smell is called petroleum. It powers the global economy, as well as the US consumer. And despite a drop in US vehicle miles traveled, its price continues to rise.
V: Hmmmm.
DPI: [Turns away from Vizzini, then turns back and places two pieces of paper on the table.] All right. Which is the appropriate monetary policy statement? The battle of wits has begun. You must choose whether to turn hawkish in the face of high and rising headline inflation, or to remain dovish in the face of significant consumer distress. It ends when you have made your decision, and we find out who is right….and who is dead.
V: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of problem that will respond well to a tightening of domestic monetary policy that will not kill the consumer? Now, an endogenous inflation problem will respond to reduced demand and a slackening of labour markets, so I can clearly not choose the dovish policy in front of me. But only a great fool would think that US consumer demand is driving the price of oil. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the hawkish policy in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.
DPI: You’ve made your decision then?
V: Not remotely. Because oil comes from the GCC and Russia, as everyone knows, and the GCC and Russia are entirely peopled by currency piss-takers who would be bailed out of their piss-taking by tighter US monetary policy, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of you.
DPI: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
V: WAIT TILL I GET GOING! Where was I?
DPI: The oil producers.
V: Yes, the oil producers. You must have suspected I would have known petroleum’s origin, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.
DPI: You’re just stalling now.
V: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my jawboning, which means you’re exceptionally strong, so you could trust in your ability to overcome a moderate policy tightening, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of you. But you’ve also bested my econometric models, which means that you’ve studied, and in studying you must have learned that the sacrifice ratio has risen, so you would have put the suboptimal policy as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the policy in front of me.
DPI: You’re trying to trick me into giving away something.
V: IT HAS WORKED! YOU’VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHAT THE OPTIMAL POLICY IS!
DPI: Then make your choice.
V: I will, and I choose– holy cow, how bad is that confidence data? [Vizzini points at the chart below. Inflation turns and looks.]
DPI: What? Where?
V: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. [Vizzini smirks.]
DPI: What’s so funny?
V: I’ll tell you in a minute. First, let’s announce policy. I’ll use this statement in front of me.
DPI: You chose the wrong policy.
V: You only think I chose wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched policies when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never offer more than one policy choice to a two-handed economist! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha–
[Vizzini stops suddenly, as the US consumer falls dead to the ground.]
Vizzini: Who are you?
Dread Pirate Inflation: I am no one to be trifled with. That is all you ever need know.
Vizzini: And to think, all that time the suboptimal policy was in front of you.
Dread Pirate Inflation: They were both suboptimal. I’ve spent the last few years getting ready to bugger the Western consumer.
